In Flux

"Mom, you'll never believe what I had to do when I went to the United States!"

2009-12-03T20:30:00.001+09:00

It has been ages since I've blogged. I know this. You know this. If right now you're saying, "No, Marianna. I do not know this." Look at the blog below this one, friend- it has been over a year.

Why have I neglected this blog for so long? It basically comes down to three things:

1)Lack of inspiration/blogworthy events

2)Being busy with other things

3)Laziness

Now, each one of these things contributes on some level to my own personal lack of blogs. However, I think the main issue is reason number one.

I feel very strongly about this. And I'll tell you why.

But first, let me remind you of how long it has been since I blogged: 1 year, 3 months, and 3 weeks. I have gone from Frequent Blogger to Occasional Blogger to Blogger-Who-Hasn't-Blogged-In-A-Long-Time-And-Really-Needs-To-Get-Her-Act-Together, and finally, to Former Blogger.

However, there's a chance I may return to Occasional Blogger status. I am currently working with an international student exchange program and I supervise university students who come to the US to work during their summer break. And now we have come full circle - reason number one: blogworthy events.

Today, I came across a scene so blogworthy, I was inspired - nay - compelled to blog about it. Let me explain.

There are currently 15 students living in a 3400 sq. ft., 5 br house here in town. They have all moved in over the last two weeks. There have been some heating issues at the house, so they have been using radiators along with the furnace. The house also has two wood stoves. Today, someone brought by some firewood for them to use. I had spoken with the landlord about the heating and some other issues, and I went over to the house to meet him at around 4:30 this afternoon.

When I walked into the house, I saw one of the students standing next to the wood stove in the living room. He had work gloves on, but no shirt. There was a nice fire burning in the fireplace, which you could see clearly, as the door had been taken off and was lying on the hearth. Also on the hearth, were a couple chunks of wood, a large butcher knife, a cardboard box containing small kindling-esque pieces of wood, and tiny bits of wood covering everything on the hearth and the carpet in front of it. Are you picturing it? It was ridicularious!*

Me: Uhh.. what happened to the stove?

Student:We started a fire.

Me:Is there something wrong with the door?

Student:I took it off.

Me:Can you put it back on?

Student:Yes, but then the heat can't come out.

I'm not kidding- that was the conversation. And here is the explanation for the comic scene I stumbled upon:

- The students wanted to start a fire, but they didn't have any kindling. Nor did they have an axe. Hence the butcher knife.

- However, carrying in a bunch of firewood and hacking it up with a butcher knife is a good way to get splinters. Hence the gloves.

- As you can imagine, without the door on the stove, that fire was burning pretty hot. Hence the shirtlessness.

I'm still not really sure why they chose to butcher the wood inside the house, rather than outside. I'm also not clear on why they thought you had to take the stove door off in order to let the heat out. But in a way, the rest of it makes sense. Doesn't make it any less funny, though.

*ridiculous and hilarious. Yes, I did just make that up.

Kids' Camp

2008-08-12T23:55:00.004+09:00

Well, it's that time of the week again. For those of you who remember, or have just been paying attention, seven weeks ago I decided to start video blogging. Every week. On Tuesday. And I've been very good about it.

However, I am currently teaching extra classes, yesterday and today we had testing - which meant even more work (11 hrs total each day), and I was gone all weekend at a summer camp.

Summer camp would have been a great opportunity to take videos, right? And I thought I took a few, but I think that a couple of them may have accidentally been deleted (alternatively, I may have just imagined them). Consequently, here it is 11:00 pm on Tuesday night and all I have to share with you is one rather pathetic excuse for a video clip. In the spirit of consistency, I'm going to upload it anyway and supplement it with a few pictures and a blog about the camp, ok?

So here it is, the camp report.

Camp was great. I'm really glad I went, even though I didn't know anyone before Friday. Two weeks ago, I saw a notice in the bulletin saying that they were looking for volunteers for Vacation Sunday School for the weekend of Aug 8-10. I assumed that it was VBS and they just needed someone for a few hours during the day. I tried to talk to someone after church, but nobody was available. So I tried again after church last Sunday. This time I was able to talk to one of the children's church leaders and later, the children's pastor. At this point I found out that it was a children's camp. The leader that I talked with was very excited that I was volunteering and said that they needed more volunteers. They were heading out on Friday morning, but he said I could carpool with some other people who weren't able to make it Friday night.

So after work on Friday, I met up with some other volunteers and headed out to the camp. By the time we got there, it was nearly 11:00 and most people had gone to bed. I was fortunate enough to be sharing a room with three other women, rather than a room full of kids. Don't get me wrong, I love kids. But after teaching all week and having extra classes, then spending the weekend at a kids' camp - it was nice to at least get a break at night!

I had a group of 6 six kids - 3 boys and 3 girls. But most of the time, we combined our group with another group. A lot of the kids were friends and a few of them could be a bit difficult, so it was easier for Misol (the other counselor) and I to combine the groups. Here we all are!:

On Saturday, we went on some waterslides. We only had about an hour, though, so I decided that it was not worth the effort for just an hour and I wasn't going to participate- I'd just go alone. But when we got there, I saw that these were not your typical waterslides. Behold:
It appeared to be astroturf with hoses spraying it down. After a bunch of people went down, they told us that you really don't get all that wet - just a sprinkle on the legs - but it was a lot of fun. So Misol and I caved. Naturally, just as we were about to go down, tons of water started spraying everywhere. We got wet.

It was fun, though. I'm glad we went.

Kids' camp in Korea was a lot like kid's camp in the states. We had Bible stories:

In this picture, the kids were acting out the story of Jesus coming to see Mary and Martha after Lazarus died. The kid lying down isn't just taking a nap - he's supposed to be Lazarus.

We had crafts and games:

Our group won the games on Saturday night, which meant they got all the snacks they wanted. You can see that they were pretty happy about that.

We even had a campfire. Alas, there were no smores to be had, but this kid seemed to be enjoying the fire anyway.

We also lit candles to symbolize a commitment to share Jesus with our friends. This is where my ever-so-brief video comes in:

Campfire from Marianna Willey on Vimeo.

Like I said, I'm really glad I went. I haven't really been involved in my church since coming to Korea. I didn't know anyone before this weekend and I basically just go to church and leave right after the service. But helping out at kids' camp showed me how much I miss being involved and now I know some people, too! It was also a good opportunity to spend more time hanging out with Koreans. Including me, there were only three foreigners at the camp this weekend. I have a few Korean friends, but I spend most of my time hanging out with foreigners. So it was nice to get to know more Koreans.

I said that kids' camp here was a lot like kids' camp back home, but one thing that was a lot different was the food. Although I like Korean food, after eating kimchi and rice with every meal for two days, I was happy to come home and have a salad for dinner and breakfast food for breakfast the next morning.

So that's it for today, folks. I'll do my best to have a better video for you next week!

Burgers of Mass Destruction

2008-08-07T00:00:00.001+09:00

This is one of my favorite things about teaching. The kids are hilarious. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Galbi

2008-08-05T22:00:00.000+09:00

Galbi (갈비) is one of the best things in Korea.

Really.

Watch the video.

Intro to Galbi 101 from Marianna Willey on Vimeo.

Wanna try some? All you have to do is come visit me, and we'll go enjoy some hot, tasty 갈비 on me. That's right, I'm offering to buy you dinner! How can you pass that up?

So, who's first?

Eeewww...

2008-08-03T01:45:00.003+09:00

Monsoon season is here.

Before coming here, I was somewhat nervous about what the summer in South Korea would be like. I had heard that summers in Korea were very hot and very humid. Summer is my favorite season. I love the hot weather, the beach, sunglasses, flip flops, the beach, iced coffee, barbecues, and I even kind of like the beach. But I CAN"T STAND humidity. Actually, it's okay if it's at the beach. Because, well, it's the beach.. With all of that water, humidity is inevitable, but the breeze totally makes it okay. And anyway, it's the beach... so.. yeah. Did I mention that I like the beach?

It actually hasn't been as hot here as I thought it would be. But humidity? GROSS. It tends to hover around 90-100%. And as much as I love the rain (shhh.. don't tell), I do NOT like the rain when it is 85 degrees out. Today I was walking around in shorts, a tank top, and flip flops... in the rain... carrying an umbrella. So of course, my feet are getting wet, I am in immediate danger of eating pavement (flip flops are not built for traction - at least not the $4 (actually ￦4,000) flip flops that you buy at - you guessed it - the beach), and my arms are getting wet because the rain can't follow the rules and keeps sneaking under the umbrella. So I have that nice, cozy, cold, wet, sticky, hot feeling. It's great. I'm a really big fan. Not.

But I can deal with all of this. My A/C works well and I'm quite comfy in my little home. I ought to be - my utilities cost me $100 bucks more last month than they did the month before - I can only attribute this to the A/C.

So what's my real issue? Clearly I'm not a fan of humidity. Or monsoon season. But I've just stated that I can deal, so what's the point?

Cockroaches. I CAN'T DEAL WITH COCKROACHES. Seriously. I can deal with a lot of things, but I am TERRIFIED of cockroaches. I'm not kidding. I realize that the extent of my fear may be a bit irrational. Although cockroaches are gross, they probably won't kill me.* Also, I am much bigger than them and if I could overcome my fear, I would have a fighting chance of killing one. But my attempts at being logical are not helping. I live in constant fear that I will discover one in my apartment. Just writing this is giving me the heebie jeebies and I want to climb up on something where I know I'm safe. I don't like spiders, bees, or most other bugs and creepy crawly things but I can deal with them. If there's nobody else around to do it for me, I'll kill the nasty little things. But I'm afraid if I ever find a cockroach in my apartment, I'll be more inclined to just move out. I don't know how much longer I can talk about this, or I won't be able to sleep tonight. I'm totally serious here, guys. You know me, I've held snakes before, caught lizards, pet a tarantula once (this wasn't a pet tarantula, it was one a friend found in Mexico - admittedly, petting it was ill-advised), killed many spiders and bees, but I don't do cockroaches.

I'm scared because I feel like there isn't much I can do to protect myself. I know there are precautions I can take that will help, but I can't really prevent cockroaches from getting in my place. It's like when everyone around you gets sick, you think it might be a good idea to take vitamins, and get plenty of rest, and eat healthfully. And it is a good idea. And maybe it will keep you from getting sick, but there's no guarantee. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO GUARANTEE THAT YOU WON'T GET SICK.

Part of what has me so paranoid is that last week, there were a few cockroach sightings at work. One of them was at my desk. Fortunately, I wasn't sitting at my desk at the time. But my friend Emma (who sits next to me) said that a cockroach was running around on my desk and hers. Then they discovered that it had LAID EGGS UNDER MY KEYBOARD. Yeah. Really. Suffice it to say that I cleaned my entire desk area (fortunately, someone else cleaned up the eggs and cockroach remains first) and for the rest of the day, whenever I was at my desk, I was sitting with my legs crossed in my chair and my iPod turned up to drown out the fear.

Writing this at night was not a good idea. Now I need to go to sleep but I'm too creeped out. Maybe if I clean my living room (which is also my summer bedroom - the A/C is in the living room) while watching some TV, I'll be able to sleep in an hour. If I have roach dreams tonight, I'm going to be VERY unhappy.

* According to this website, "Cockroaches can carry pathogens that cause asthma, allergies, abscesses, boils, bubonic plague, diarrhea, dysentery, gastroenteritis, intestinal infections, leprosy, lesions, typhoid fever, urinary tract infections and more."

Science Class

2008-07-29T22:00:00.001+09:00

As I mentioned in my last blog, we're currently in the middle of intensives.

What are intensives?

I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you...

In Korea, the school system is year-round. There is a one month break in January and a one month break in August (actually late-July to late-August). So during the school break, kids take extra classes. That's right - for vacation, they spend more time at academies.

I'm not sure if I've really explained this before, but I teach English at an academy. There are academies for all kinds of subjects - my students have mentioned Math, Science, and TaeKwonDo as some of the academies they attend. I think most of my students attend at least 2 academies. They do this in the evening, after spending a full day at school. Where I work, the kids are there for almost 3 hours, 2-3 times per week. Kids here study hardcore. They have school on Saturday, too!

Anyway, back to intensives. They're a lot different from our regular classes and a lot more laid-back. I'm teaching two science classes and two literature classes. Anyone who knows me very well knows that I hate science and love lit. So my reaction was a bit like this, "Ugh....Yay!"

But actually, I don't mind the science class. I guess when I really think about it, it's mostly chemistry that I hate.

So anyway, we did an experiment in one of my classes last week. I thought it was worthy of a video. What do you think?

Science Class from Marianna Willey on Vimeo.

In case you're wondering, I do usually keep a bit more order in my classes, but there are only 4 students and like I said, it's intensives. These poor kids are on vacation, for heaven's sake.

One other little note, did you notice the cute kid playing the part of class clown? He's one of my favorites, even though he acts up. Anyway, I made him cry yesterday. Yep. Way to go, me.

Get Down

2008-07-22T22:15:00.002+09:00

Work lately has been NUTS. We haven't gotten a replacement for a teacher who left three weeks ago, so a few of us (ahem... me) have had to pick up an extra class. Then last week, we had two teachers sick on Monday, one on Tuesday and Wednesday, and one teacher left for vacation on Wednesday. I taught an extra class every day except Friday. Yuck. We have another teacher leaving in a couple of weeks and two more teachers have vacation next month. All I can say is that they better get us a couple of new teachers soon!

On top of this, I have essays coming out of my ears. They're all between 300-600 words and Definitely Not Fun Times to grade. Then yesterday, intensives started. This means that I teach an extra 2-1/2 hours per day. So right now, I'm teaching about 6-1/2 to 8 hours per day - which wouldn't actually be that bad if it weren't for all of the prep work.

But anyway, with all of the craziness last week, there just weren't enough teachers to cover all of the extra classes, so we ended up having to combine some of them. One of my friends had to teach one of these combined classes and was determined to make it fun.

Behold the results:

D.O.W.N. from Marianna Willey on Vimeo.

Neighborhood Tour

2008-07-15T23:59:00.000+09:00

Today's video clip is a tour of my neighborhood. Please be forewarned that I am not a professional cinematographer and anyone susceptible to motion sickness might be better off skipping this week's video clip.

.

Coffee in Korea - Episode 1

2008-07-08T23:59:00.001+09:00

Coffee.

It is a wondrous thing.

Naturally, in moving to Korea, one concern at the forefront of my mind was, "How will I get my hands on some decent brew?"

Fortunately, I have found some great coffee here.

I have also found some crap coffee.

Join me, on my quest for the bean in Korea.

It may be a bumpy ride, but we are sure to be rewarded in the end. If we are lucky, we might even find a nice cup of medium-bodied South American coffee with mild acidity and cocoa undertones. Or perhaps a rich African coffee with citrus notes?

.

Still Getting Back into Blogging

2008-07-01T23:45:00.005+09:00

K, let's try this again.

I'm not sure what else I was going to talk about in that last "to be continued" post. Besides teaching and running, the rest of my life is pretty standard. I buy groceries, clean my house, take out the garbage, pay my bills, watch movies, hang out with friends - pretty normal stuff, right?

But then again, because I'm living in Korea, this "normal stuff" can be slightly different from what you're used to. So here's my latest idea. I'm going to blog a video every Tuesday. These videos will contain bits of my normal, everyday life as a foreigner in Korea. Any thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Feel free to leave a comment with your two cents worth!

And without further ado, today's theme is...

Eating Out.. Korean Style - Part 1

Video Credits:
Starring: Marianna Willey
Filming and Narration: Veronica Navarro
Random Side Comments: Walter Demesa and Brittany Maxey

Getting Back into Blogging

2008-06-11T03:00:00.001+09:00

Ok, so, I was absent for a while, due to lack of internet connection. Then I got wired, managed a grand total of 3 posts, and went AWOL again.

I'm not going to say that I didn't have the time to blog. We all have 24 hrs per day, and how we spend those hours is up to us. Ouch. I'm not gonna dwell on that right now. I'll save that for post-blog.

Anyway, I definitely haven't been bored recently. Want to know what I have been up to?

Running - I've been running recently. I started running as a way to exercise without having to pay for a gym membership. I've always run on a treadmill because I am very goal-oriented. Knowing how far and how fast I am running and being able to measure my progress every time I exercise motivates me.

But there is a river just a few minutes walk from where I live, with a path running alongside it. The section that I run even has the kilometers marked out on the ground for you, and it is about 3.5k long.

Let me tell you, I don't think I could have asked for a more conducive atmosphere in which to run.
It is beautiful.
I usually run after work (around 10pm), so the sun has set, it's starting to cool off, and there are streetlights illuminating the path and the river. Even at 10 and 11 at night, there are generally quite a few people, young and old, out walking, biking, rollerblading, and running. The path features a basketball court at one point, and exercise machines at another. These are fully taken advantage of.

So, anyway, I discovered that I can run a whole lot farther than I thought I could. On the treadmill, I would never run below a certain speed and I was always very aware of how far I had run. Running by the river has allowed me to focus on running at a pace that is comfortable and distract myself with the scenery and my own personal soundtrack (read: iPod Cardio Mix). So now I'm planning to run a 10k (6.2miles) with a few friends in about 3 weeks. My personal goal for the race is 1 hr 5 min. I've only run 10k once so far, and it took me several minutes longer than that. But honestly, it still surprises me that I can even run for an hour without stopping. That's something I never thought I could do. So even if I don't make my goal, I'm happy.

Teaching - Duh, It's kind of my job. But at my institute, the terms run in 3 month sessions. My first term started the day after I got here and just ended last month. The next term started last week. And it has been quite a switch for me. I had 7 classes last term and 4 of them were practically the lowest level our school teaches. Each lesson has a story, and for this level the story went something like, "The frog is hot. He stands under a tree. He is still hot! He lays on the grass. He is still hot! He jumps in the pond. Now he is cool." The stories are a little longer, but you get the idea. This term, my classes are way more advanced. In fact, I am teaching a debate class. At this point you may be saying, "What? Debate? I thought you were teaching English. Do you even know how to teach debate?"

No. I don't. Never even took a debate class. Yet this week, my debate class and I are discussing the KORUS FTA. That's the free trade agreement between the US and South Korea. Thinking back on the weeks prior to my arrival in South Korea, it's funny that one of the questions I was asked the most was, "How will you teach them English if you don't speak Korean?"

Instinctively, people assume that if you are teaching a person English, that person doesn't speak English. Makes sense, right? The thing that people fail to consider is that there are levels of fluency and teaching English as a second language is not necessarily rudimentary. A few of the words that came up in my debate class last week were charlatan, proliferation, vitriolic, and sycophancy. I had to look up sycophancy. And I'm the teacher. Ahem.

Other things - There were some other things that I wanted to mention, but it's 3 am. So rather than rushing through them, I'm going to refer to them here as "other things" and hopefully elaborate tomorrow.

It's barely May!

2008-05-04T04:30:00.002+09:00

I'm going to melt.

Two or three months from now, I won't show up to work. My boss will call me to find out why. I won't answer. My coworkers will become concerned, because that just isn't like me. So someone will come to my place to check on me. When no one answers the door, they will break in. They will call my name and look for me, but all they will see is a puddle. I will have gone the way of Frosty the Snowman. The sun was hot that day.

We're only three days into May, and it was 82 degrees today. With about 75% humidity. Well, during the middle of the day, anyway. It's 100% humidity right now, but fortunately, it's cooled off to about 60 degrees. My apartment is equipped with air conditioning - such as it is. I try not to use the A/C more than necessary, and it's amazing to me how hot it gets in my apartment if I don't. I haven't turned on the heat since I got here at the beginning of March. It was cold then. But I'm on the 5th floor of an 8 floor building and I guess my apartment absorbs enough heat from the surrounding apartments that I don't actually have to turn the heat on. Back then, the temperature gauge in my living room typically read 22-23ºC (72-74ºF) - a little warm, but I would have felt foolish using the air conditioning when it was so cold outside. So I opened my windows. But then I discovered that if I left my windows open at night, my living room floor would be covered with tiny little bugs the next day. Ewww. So now I only open it in the mornings.

Average no-A/C temperature in my apartment has risen over the last few weeks - as you might imagine. It's been hovering around 26ºC (about 79ºF) for the last couple of weeks, but as of today, it's hovering around 27ºC (about 81ºF). So that's fun. I generally just turn the A/C on when I'm really hot and shut it off when I'm comfortable. It's amazing how fast the temperature rises again, though. Especially when it's already warmer inside than it is outside. I usually turn the A/C off at around 25ºC (about 77ºF), but even at night, it doesn't take long for the temperature to shoot back up.

I'm also mildly concerned about the functionality of my A/C. My system is one of those little one-room jobbies that is mounted on my wall. My concern is that although the display may tell me that we're shooting for a temperature of 18ºC, the air coming out of the machine is only slightly colder than room temperature. So I'm wondering - if it gets up to 90ºF in my apartment, and I turn on the AC - will I have 88ºF air "cooling" the room? Hmm.. maybe I should make some inquiries.

P.S. I realize that the listing of temperatures and going back and forth between different units of measurement may seem a bit excessive and ridiculous. But everything is listed in Celsius here and I (as well as most of you) need to convert the temperatures to Fahrenheit in order to have a better grasp on their significance. So why didn't I just simplify things and omit the Celsius temperatures? For the sake of accuracy - I'm a little OCD. In order to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, you must multiply by 9/5 and add 32. So 26ºC (which I translated to "about 79ºF" above), is actually 78.8ºF. So if I round the temperature in Fahrenheit and don't give you the Celsius temperature with it, it seems inaccurate to me. Yes, I do know how ridiculous this sounds. But I admitted that I'm OCD, so back off.

Straight hair

2008-04-29T02:00:00.000+09:00

Just over a week ago, Saturday before last, I got my hair permed straight.

This is something I've thought about doing for a few years, but I was always afraid to actually try it. I had heard negative stories about people having their hair ruined, or having to spend an hour on their hair every day before they could dare go out in public, etc, etc.

But I went to get my hair trimmed a couple of weeks ago and therein lie the catalyst which caused me to finally take the plunge.

The hair salon I went to was great. It looked really upscale - I was impressed just sitting in the waiting room.
They served cappuccinos, smoothies, and other assorted beverages.
The traditional pre-haircut-shampoo included a scalp massage.

But when the time came to actually cut my hair, I was simultaneously amused and annoyed.
I said that I just wanted a trim.
As the stylist began working on my hair, he commented that my hair was really curly. He seemed a bit mystified at how curly my hair was and noted that the texture was unusual - he said that it seemed like permed hair. I thought this was kind of funny and chalked it up to the fact that I was in Asia. I figured the guy had never actually seen naturally curly hair.

But then he asked me if I had a straightener, I replied that I didn't.

His response?

"Oh, you should get one."

"You need one."

I had been thinking about asking him to blow it out straight for me - I frequently do this when I get a trim. But I didn't. I didn't have to. He just straightened it. Because how else would I wear it?

He also asked me if I had thought about straightening it. I told him that I had, and asked him how much it cost. He wasn't sure how to say the amount in English, so he told me in Korean. I was still working on figuring out the counting system and thought he had said it was $150 (actually, 150,000 KRW). But my friend told me that she had heard that you could get a perm in Korea for $30, so I started wondering if he had been saying that it was $15. That seemed ridiculously cheap to me, but it's always surprising how prices vary in foreign countries.*

So I started thinking that at that price, I would go back the following Saturday and get my hair permed. But when I got to work, I told a friend how much they said it would cost, and she confirmed that it was $150 :(

So I was sad. Because at that point, I had gotten all excited about getting it straightened.

But then she said that there was a place I could go in Seoul to get it done for cheap. And she was thinking of getting her hair cut the following weekend. So we went together!

This is my friend Emma (actually, her name is Min Jong, but Emma is her English name - I use both names :) ) She took me to this salon to get my hair straightened. It cost under $40!

I haven't had too many pictures of myself taken in the last week, and consequently don't have a lot of pics of me with straight hair - but a few of us went out after work on Wednesday, and I have some photos from that. I don't know what everyone else's reasons were for going out, but I was celebrating my recent acquisition of internet. And by "recent," I mean it was connected that day while I was at work, and I went home to internet for the first time.

Not the best shot ever, but you can see my straight hair, and that's the point, right?

I like this shot (except for the fact that Jess is a bit distracted) because I'm eating french fries with chopsticks. Only in Korea, right? But here's a random fun fact: Koreans eat rice with a spoon, not chopsticks.

So that's it for now. Expect more pics of me with straight hair in the future.

Because there will be more pics of me.

And my hair is straight now.

* I typically spend $4-$5 on dinner out, but it costs me $2 for a quart of milk

We interrupt this silence to bring you -an update!

2008-04-28T01:30:00.002+09:00

I HAVE INTERNET! HOORAY! I got it on Wednesday, at which point I made the comment that I felt like I had just won the lottery. I realize that seems a little bit ridiculous, but I think the last time I lived without internet (at home - I did still have access at work) for 6 weeks, was when it didn’t exist. Unless you count the time a few years ago when I spent 2 weeks hiking in Spain, 2 weeks traveling in Morocco, a week in London, then a week in Ireland. But I was traveling - plus there was a day in Madrid and a week in London where I had internet access at the place where I was staying. So, yeah...

Ok, so now I feel like a spoiled brat.

Umm.. I’m just really happy and thankful to have internet at home. I realize that there are millions of people in the world that have much bigger things to worry about and home internet access isn’t actually vital for life - but I’m happy to have it. K?

So anyway, I’ve been pretty busy with work, but Wednesday and Thursday nights I stayed up way too late taking advantage of my internet access. I had lofty ambitions for what I would do within the first 24 hours of gaining home internet access: Skype every single one of my friends, post 27 blogs, catch up on all of the news for the last 6 weeks from my 3 favorite online news sources, etc.

So what did I do?

Randomly surfed the net. Tried to find an online tv schedule for South Korea. Researched training schedules for runners.

Hey - that last thing at least seems beneficial, right? But the week before last I ran 6 days out of 7. Haven’t run since I got internet... ouch.

Then Friday night, I came home and went to bed soon after. It was a long week, and my school had an all-day workshop thingy on Saturday. But Saturday morning (yesterday), I woke up with a fever and a stomachache, so I slept pretty much all day - didn’t even use the internet. Then today, I slept about half the day and am feeling 100% better now. I guess it was just a 24-hr bug.

Speaking of being sick, this is the second time I’ve had a stomach bug since I’ve been here, in addition to the worst cold ever, which lasted about 3 weeks (I actually think that I got a second cold about a week after I got the first one - I had felt like I was starting to get better, then BOOM - it hit me. I actually went to the doctor. This was the first time in my life that I went to the doctor for what I believed to be a cold). Anyway, hopefully now that I’ve adjusted to living here, I won’t keep getting sick.

But I digress. Repeatedly.

I’ve managed to catch up on some of my blog reading and decided that it was way past time I blogged.
The problem with going 6 weeks without blogging - especially during the course of something eventful, like..oh... moving to a foreign country - is that it’s difficult to know where to start.

Consequently, I decided to just jump on in there and ramble.

I think I'm going to shoot for a basic overview of what my life is like in the ROK (Republic of Korea - not to be confused with North Korea). If you want to know more about any particular aspect, just leave a comment.

The teaching is going pretty well. It was a bit nerve-wracking the first couple of days. I taught my first class the day after I got here. I had less than 2 hours of training and wasn't even able to observe a class before I started teaching. By the end of the week, though, I was pretty comfortable with it. The curriculum requires very minimal preparation - so that helps. I work with about a dozen other foreign teachers and a dozen Korean teachers. Out of the foreign teachers, one is Australian, two are Brits, and the rest are about evenly divided between Canucks and Yanks. They're all pretty cool.

My apartment is pretty cool, too. It's very small, but I do actually have a bedroom, so that's nice. Most teacher apartments are studios. The commute isn't bad, either. I just have to cross the street :) My church is a bit farther away, though. I have to cross the street, then turn right and cross the street again. It's a really cool church, though, so I don't mind going the extra distance. It's called Global English Ministry, and they have English services every Sunday morning. I like the worship, too - we sang Days of Elijah a couple of weeks ago, though - that threw me for a loop. Anyone who was in MC from '99-'00 knows what I'm talking about....

The food is awesome, too. I like it a lot more than I thought I would - not that I thought I would dislike it, but I was a little afraid of kimchi and wasn't sure what to expect from the rest of Korean cuisine. It's good stuff. Me likey. There's about a bazillion types of kimchi, I like some of them, but some are downright weird. My favorites are kimbap, bibimbap, and jajangmyeon. Oh! And curry. Curry donkasu.

I have so much more to say - it's probably going to be a while until I get you up to speed after 6 weeks of silence. But it's 1:30 am here and I want to go for a run tomorrow morning before work. I've been running by a river about 10 minutes from my house. There's a path alongside it which even has the distance in kilometers marked on the ground. I've been talking with a couple of friends about running a 10k in a month or so. Fun times.

But anyway, that's pretty much my life in a nutshell.

Oh - and a week ago, I got my hair permed straight.

Ahhh, before I go, let me leave you with one food pic:

curry donkasu - pork cutlets with curry sauce and riceYummy

The Korea Report, Part 1

2008-03-15T05:00:00.000+09:00

I'm here! Yay!

Yeah, so, I've actually been here for almost 2 weeks, but hey.

I was supposed to be getting internet access at my apartment by the end of the first week, but I guess procedures just changed. Like, within the last week or something. So now, I have to have my ARC (Alien Registration Card) before they will let me sign up for internet access. But once I do, it's going to cost me $15 PER MONTH. No people - we're not talking dial-up. We're talking high speed internet. I wasn't planning on getting cable while I'm here, but then I found out it will set me back a mere $5/month. So how could I turn it down?

The sad thing is that it will take me another 3 weeks until I actually get internet and cable at home, so the blogs may be pretty infrequent until then.

So that's my excuse for keeping you in suspense for so long. Now here's my story, from the beginning.

On May 7, 1980, a wondrous thing occurred...

Just kidding, we won't go back that far. Hows about we start with the flight?

The baggage limitations said that I could check 2 bags of 50 lbs each. So one of my bags was 51 lbs and the other was about 68. I knew this ahead of time because I have a handy little bag weigher thingy. But I figured - I'm moving to another country for a year and it would be prohibitively expensive to ship stuff, so I'll just hope that they don't charge me to much if my bags were overweight.

They charged me $25. Score!

Then they gave me an aisle seat in the exit row. Double score!

So I got on the plane, settled in, and wasted time sleeping. I say "wasted time" because I later found out that they had personal movie players with a huge selection of movies, and I only had a chance to watch 2 before the plane landed.

My plane got in a little early, and I collected my bags and got through customs in about 45 minutes. Then I met up with a dude holding a sign with my name on it, and he took me to my apartment. He told me he didn't speak much English, then he called the director of my school and spoke with him for a minute. Then the director told me that the driver would drop me off at my apartment and the next day, one of the teachers from my school would come by my apartment at 12:30 to take me to school.

It was about an hour drive to my apartment, so we got there by about 7:30 pm. Not bad. He basically helped me take my bags up to my apartment, showed me how to unlock my door (with a code, not a key), shoved my bags into the entryway and hightailed it out of there. By this point I was starting to get hungry, but I hadn’t wanted to take up any of my packing space with food. Fortunately, the person who lived there before me left a bottle of orange juice in the fridge. Unfortunately, that was all I had to last me until Monday afternoon. I thought about trying to go out and get some food, but I didn’t even have any cash. So I drank some orange juice, spent a couple of hours unpacking my things and collapsed into bed at around 10:00.

Much to my surprise, I slept straight through until about 7:00 am! I have never adjusted to a time change that quickly before! So I spent some more time unpacking, drank some more orange juice, and got ready for work. At about 1:00, I started wondering if someone was really coming. I was starting to get tired, too, so I thought I would just lie down on my bed and rest while I waited for someone to show up.

My doorbell rang at about 2:00. One of the directors and another new teacher were there waiting for me. Joe didn’t actually work at our branch, he was just bringing us to the school. Veronica also flew in Sunday night.

So Joe took us to work, which was conveniently located across the street. Then we got a crash course in teaching so that we could start that day.

So much for getting a week of training.

Speaking of teaching, I have a class in about 10 minutes, so I guess this is the point where I leave you hanging...

I'm off!

2008-03-01T15:15:00.001+09:00

AAAHHHH! I'm so excited, scared, nervous, happy, anxious, sleepy, crazy, (insert emotion here) - basically I'm just a big ball of nerves and emotions. I can't believe I'm really moving to Korea tomorrow/today (it's past midnight, but I haven't gone to bed yet).

I'm basically done packing. But I grossly miscalculated how much stuff I had. I can't tell you how gross my miscalculation was.
It was Seriously Gross.

The plan was to pack all of my clothes, shoes (please don't ask me how many pairs of shoes I have), and other necessities, then fit in books and movies as I had room. I have a ton of books that I haven't read yet and it's always nice to have a few favorite movies.

Suffice it to say that I am grateful to know that there are good places to find English books in Seoul and I can buy movies on iTunes.

I found myself pulling articles of clothing out of my bags left and right - if I wasn't positive I would wear it more than a handful of times, it came out of the suitcase. It seems a shame to leave all of this perfectly decent clothing behind, but I suppose it will be as if I had new clothing when I return a year from now.

Now I'm just hoping that I won't have to pay too much because my bags are over the weight limit. I was blessed enough to get my visa in Seattle yesterday, so I didn't have to make an extra trip today, after all. Who knows? Maybe they will just waive the extra charges tomorrow... or better yet, bump me up to first class :) Then my bags would be within the weight limits.

I'm going to sign off for now - I've got to figure out what to do with all of the stuff I'm leaving behind!

Annyonghi kaysayo!

Woot woot!

2008-02-28T12:30:00.001+09:00

Oh yeah, baby! I've got my plane tickets and I'm flying out on Saturday!

Somehow it doesn't seem real until the flight is booked.
Would you believe that I just got the tickets this evening?
And that's only because I wouldn't stop harassing the recruiter to book them.
He kept telling me, "Oh, it's no problem, there are plenty of seats. We've got time." In fact, I think those are exactly the words he said to me over the phone last night.

My response was, "Yes, I understand. But I would like to know when I'm flying out..." So he finally gave in and called the travel agent to book my flight. Lo and behold, there weren't any seats available for Friday night.
Hmmm...maybe it would have been wise to book the tickets more than four days in advance? So he said he would book them for Saturday. He told me that he would book them the next day (today) and send me the itinerary.

And he did! I fly out Saturday afternoon. They've booked me nonstop to Seoul (flying time is just under 12 hours), so I will arrive Sunday evening.

Yes, I know. Saturday afternoon + 12 hours does not Sunday evening make.
But Seoul is 17 hours ahead of PST, so we're talking Saturday afternoon + 12 hours + 17 hours. AKA Sunday evening.
Kinda trippy.
It'll be cool on the way back, though. I'll leave Seoul, fly for 12 hours, and get to Seattle 5 hours before I left.
hehehe

I'm going to get back to packing - I'm actually way ahead of the game and may not end up scrambling around the night before, hurling things haphazardly into suitcases.

Hmm..that'd be nice.

Tomorrow I'm going up to Seattle for my visa interview.
They'd better accept me, cuz hey - I've got plane tickets.
It seems to be more of a formality than anything else. I just have to try my best to not act crazy, and they should give me a nice shiny little stamp in my passport.

Of course, the shiny little stamp takes 24 hours to process, so unless I can sweet-talk the interviewing officer into speeding things up and returning my visa'd passport to me tomorrow, I'll be schlepping back up to Seattle on Friday to retrieve my little blue book.

Including the trip to the airport, that would make three trips to Seattle in as many days. For anyone who hasn't noticed the price of gas recently - it ain't cheap.
Here's hoping I can charm the folks at the Korean consulate...

I know that I have been woefully remiss in my blogging lately.
I would apologize, but it's my blog - I do what I want.
Also, I haven't seen you folk commenting recently, so... yeah.

There seems to be something about coming home that sucks the blogginess right out of me.
Call it catching up with family and friends.
Call it slow internet access.
Call it laziness.
Call it what you will.
But I can tell you right now, that new adventures breed blogginess.

Well, new adventures and comments.

So the new adventure are coming, now it's up to you, citizens of Townsville! Comment away and watch the blogs of new adventures pour in like...
like...
blogs...

Errr... right...

Onward!!

Book rate

2007-12-11T11:30:00.000+09:00

I just mailed 37 pounds of books to myself for the low, low price of $14.

Woot woot.

It was kind of funny - I put my name and my parents' address as the mailing address, but when I got to the post office, they said that it had to have a return address. So I wrote my name and my current address as the return address.

I literally mailed the books to myself.

Baggage claim

2007-12-07T11:30:00.000+09:00

I've got new luggage.

I'm very excited.

It's actually a little bit ridiculous how excited I am.

Over the past couple of months I have made several online purchases, including (but not limited to) a new digital camera, a memory card for said digital camera, books, and clothing. I always track my packages online and eagerly await their arrival.

But my new 3-piece luggage set was scheduled to arrive yesterday. Typically, this would cause me to compulsively refresh my browser to look for status updates any time I walk by my laptop. Yesterday, however, I was also checking the garage every fifteen minutes or so to see if the goods had been dropped off. Naturally, and in accordance with the Principle of the Watched Kettle,* there was an "exception" that occurred with my shipment. Shortly after 7:00 last night, I refreshed my browser to find out what had gone wrong (I checked delivery hours earlier in the day and discovered that they ended at 7:00). When I saw that my shipment status had changed from "Scheduled for 10/5" to "Exception," I screamed, "I MAKE NO EXCEPTIONS!!!"

This, however, had no apparent effect.

The only details I had were that due to circumstances beyond the control of UPS, my shipment had been delayed and rescheduled. As of 1:30 today, I still had no news as to what the problem was or if my big box of happiness would even arrive today.

So I broke down and called UPS.

Evidently, the UPS truck bearing my precious cargo got stuck in the middle of an icy road and had to be towed.** But it would be delivered today.

And delivered it was.

YAY.

Did I mention that my luggage is very cool? It's a shimmery metallic brown and the material is ballistic nylon. So if, during the course of my travels, I find myself in the middle of a gunfight, all I have to do is duck behind my suitcase.

But that's not all - the ballistic nylon is coated with Teflon. So in the absence of a gunfight, I can make scrambled eggs.

*As it turns out, just as the watched kettle never boils, the watched driveway never produces a UPS truck.
**It's still not clear how the truck got stuck in the middle of an icy road. The side of an icy road? Sure. A ditch? I buy that. The middle? Ummm..no. But whatev.

Jerk face

2007-12-04T16:00:00.000+09:00

I can't believe how close I am to leaving. I'm so excited for the future, but I'm also starting to pay more attention to all of things I'll miss. And by "things," I mostly mean "people." I have just one Sunday left at Liquid. I'm going to miss my church and my church family the most.

I'm not a big fan of Jersey. It won't be hard to say goodbye to the bad drivers, traffic, bad drivers, ridiculous highways which redefine the purpose of a U-turn, and bad drivers.* In case my opinion of New Jersey drivers isn't clear, check out this blog.

But I have some great friends out here and I will miss them a lot.

I know I'm going to miss the family that I work for, too. But it's still work. So for now, I'm just excited to be done with it.

And then sometimes I feel guilty for being ecstatic that I only have 9 days of work left.

Nikki made this for me at school today in "Writer's Workshop."

When she first found out that I was leaving, she seemed to handle it really well.

I was quite surprised, and thought that maybe she wasn't as attached to me as I thought she was. It was a relief, though, to think that she wouldn't really be that upset to see me go and she was adapting to the fact that she would have a new nanny.

I think it had more to do with her grasp of time and how soon I would be leaving.

I read this today and felt like I'd been punched in the gut. I'm a big jerk.

*I always thought that U-turns were maneuvers utilized by drivers who have discovered that they are going the wrong way. Not so in New Jersey - on some highways, one can only get to most businesses if they are heading in the right direction - thus necessitating U-turns.

Ouch

2007-12-02T10:00:00.000+09:00

I got my score breakdown for the Foreign Service Officer Test. The passing score was 154. And my score was....

151.6

From what I can tell, if I had gotten one more right answer, I would have passed.

But that's just for the multiple choice. As I mentioned before, I froze on the essay portion, so I'm pretty sure I would have failed anyway.

While it's painful to have missed it by such a small amount, it's also encouraging. As I mentioned before, only about 15% of test-takers pass.
I've got 10 more months to study before I can test again and I think my own personal odds will be pretty good.

Also, please forgive the delayed continuation of the Blog-o-Rama. I promise to finish it!

Blog-o-Rama

2007-11-28T15:00:00.000+09:00

Lately, I have been blogging regularly. However, I have still managed to accumulate a backload of blogs-I-want-to-post.* I'm going to attempt to post these blogs and simultaneously empty my backlog in one sitting,** wish me luck.***

First of all, I HAVE to post about The Office Convention.****

It was very cool.

I was expecting it to be a geek convention, full of nerds. While it was, by definition, a geek convention. There were a lot of cool people there. Namely, THE CAST. I HIGH-FIVED AT LEAST HALF A DOZEN OF THEM.

The whole town of Scranton, PA got in on the action. In fact, a funeral home even participated!

As has been my tradition over the last several months, I slept in late that Saturday(October 27). Unfortunately, this included hitting the snooze bar and sleeping a couple hours past my alarm. Which, consequently, resulted in me arriving late to the Cast Q&A.

Luckily, I didn't really miss any of the Q&A. I just didn't have a very good vantage point. It was cool to see the actors as themselves, rather than their characters. Andy isn't an idiot, Angela isn't mean, Kevin sounds nothing like his character, and Stanley smiles. Some of my favorite parts of the Q&A were when Andy (Ed Helms) had to sing his response. There were several of these. Some of them practically required an answer in the form of a song, for example, one question was, "Can you finish this sentence, 'Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that...?" To which, Andy/Ed's resposne was, of course, "football cream!"****** He was a good sport, and over the course of the Q&A sang, "Take a Chance on Me," and "Rainbow Connection." Very entertaining.

After the Q&A, there was a Look-Alike Contest. There were some great costumes. This vending machine, complete with "Dwight K. Schrute" nameplate, was clever and original.

Even from the back, you can tell that this couple is a good Jim & Pam. If I recall correctly, they both won.

Jim:

Dwight: The guy at the mike did a pretty good Dwight impersonation. Can you tell from the photo?

Angela: Look closely, there's a dead ringer.

Cast members/contest judges:

Meredith:

Mose. Again - look for the candidate with the edge:

The Look-Alike contest was followed by a Scrantones concert. The Scrantones is the band that plays the show's theme song. But this concert also featured cast members! Yay!

Meredith started out the post-contest-concert by ROCKING THE HOUSE:

Then Meredith and Creed rocked together:

And Creed waled on the guitar:

Some chick sang a song called, "My heart belongs to Stanley":

Ed Helms sang a few different songs, including "Werewolves of Scranton."

Melora Hardin (aka Jan) can actually sing quite well and has an album out.

Darrell rocked out with Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy"

Kevin sang Roxanne.

Oscar gave the people some love. Incidentally, note how close these people are to the stage. I was there. I was that close to the stage. You know all these pictures that I've posted? My zoom is not that great - that's just how close I was. As I mentioned earlier, I high-fived quite a few of the cast members. This is because I was right next to the stage. A minute later, Oscar moves to his left and that is me high-fiving him. Oh yeah.

Then the whole gang came out on the stage to close the show with the theme song.

It was a little bit surreal being in such close proximity to actors that I watch on TV every week. It's still a little bit weird to see them on TV, now that I've seen them in person. Am I starstruck? I don't know. I realize they're ordinary people. But this was the first time that I've actually seen stars up close in person.

It was cool, too, to see how amazed they seem to be at the whole "The Office" phenomenon. They all seemed very grateful to the fans and excited to be a part of it.

So, I guess I'm going to have to pause the Blog-o-Rama. It's now 1:00 am. Oops. To be continued...

*These are blogs that I plan to post, take pictures for, promise to post, mentally compose, and/or dream up during a moment of inspiration.
**By "one sitting," I mean "one period of time in which I surf the web, watch TV, buy stuff online, balance my finances, and sit."
***I don't believe in luck. I believe in providence and the will of God. I also believe that there is such a thing as coincidence. But it's more convenient to say,"wish me luck." Is it awful to say that I believe in convenience?
****If nothing else, for the sake of Victoria, my (according to comments) only faithful reader.***** I love you, Victoria.
*****Yes, other readers, I know you are out there. I'm attempting to goad you into leaving comments. Soon I will be in Korea and will rely on comments for sustenance (in addition to food, naturally). Victoria, I still love you.
******If you don't get this joke, go watch The Office. There really isn't much point in continuing to read this blog.

Fasten your safety belts!

2007-11-19T04:15:00.000+09:00

I love change. I love adventure and discovery and learning new things. I love moving.

Almost two months ago, I made the decision to move to South Korea for a year to teach English. But while I've spent some time researching, planning, and making arrangements, most of my energy has been devoted to gritting my teeth and making it through another day at work.

I've finally made it out of that stage of my journey and I am SO EXCITED!!! The coming months are going to be great! I feel like I've been waiting in a really long line at a rollercoaster, but now I'm getting on.

Based on my own past experiences, tentative plans, and a little help from some expat resources - this is my outline of the stages of my journey:

Stage 1:The Gritting-My-Teeth-and-Counting-the-Days Stage

This was the first stage. It's pretty much self-explantory. And over. Yay! I can tell that it's over because I'm pretty much in a constant state of excitement for my upcoming adventure. Even on bad days, I don't have to give myself a pep talk and remind myself that I'm leaving soon. My departure day is so close, that I just shrug my shoulders and go back to reading about Korea.

Stage 2:The Packing-Up-and-Making-Preparations Stage

November 17-December 14: My last 4 weeks.

Practically speaking, my main focus for the next month will be making sure I have everything packed up and all necessary plans in place. I have already gone through a lot of my stuff, throwing things away and organizing. Over the next two weeks, I hope to have most of it packed up.* I have an interview this week with the recruiters who will help me find a job in Korea. I'm reading books about Korea and books about moving overseas. I'm going to start studying Korean.

Mentally and emotionally speaking: I'M EXCITED! This month will go so fast, I just have to hang on! It will definitely be stressful at times - but still EXCITING!

Stage 3:The Visiting-DC Stage

December 14-18

FUN TIMES!

Stage 4:The Home-for-the-Holidays Stage

December 18-January 1

This stage will mainly consist of sleeping, hanging out with the fam, hanging out with friends, playing canasta, watching movies, cooking, baking, and all things fun.

Stage 5:The Back-in-NJ Stage

January 1-14

This stage may not occur, in which case, Stage 6 will just start 2 weeks earlier. Hopefully I will know for soon in the next week.

I may be coming back to work for a week and a half to train the next nanny. If I do, I will be staying with a friend for a few days to hang out after I'm done.

Stage 6:The Yes-I'm-Really-Moving-to-South-Korea Stage

January 14-February 15ish

This is me packing up, finalizing plans, getting plane tickets, and going!

Stage 7:The Hello-Korea! Stage

February 15ish-April 15ish

My first weeks in Korea will be full of excitement and wonder as I discover many new things and adjust to everyday life. I'll find certain foods and customs about Korea that I really like. I'll make some friends and find a church.

Stage 8:Culture Shock

I'm guessing this will hit around mid-April. Not sure how long it will last. I'll probably be tempted to hole myself up in my apartment and do nothing. I'll be homesick. I may ask myself and others why in the world I ever decided to come to Korea. I may question my sanity and accuse myself of being masochistic. It won't be fun, but I'll live through it.

Stage 9:The I-Live-in-Korea Stage

After successfully dealing with culture shock, I'll get back to life. I'll do more exploring, learn more Korean, make more friends, and more of a good time will be had. Not sure what will happen after this.

So you can see that the next 5 months or so are going to be chock full of adventure and excitement. Yay! I'm in a state of euphoria right now :) And I'm going to see Dane Cook at Madison Square Garden tonight!**

*To be completely honest, this goes against my nature and really isn't very likely. But I'm optimistic anyway!
**Hmmm..I forgot to insert the Madison Square Garden Stage...

I failed the test

2007-11-16T01:00:00.000+09:00

I'm not really surprised. A little sad and disappointed, but not surprised. I knew that my essay was incredibly short. I spent so much time studying for the rest of the test and totally neglected the essay portion. I planned to write some practice essays, but ultimately decided that it wasn't important because I can write well. But I don't write quickly and the essay was timed.

At this point, I don't actually know if that is where I failed. I've requested a breakdown of my scores and I will let you know when I know more.

It's really not that big of a deal that I failed. I mean, it is, but it isn't.

On the one hand, I spent the better part of a year studying for this test and I really, really, REALLY, want this job.

On the other hand, I am fully aware of my odds - which are not good.

There are a lot of positive things about me failing this test. The next few months will probably be a bit stressful (but exciting!), and if I had passed this test, it would actually just add to the stress.

I'm moving on December 14th. I'm packing up all of my stuff and going to DC with my family (minus my dad) for a few days, then the fam is going to help me get all my junk back home. There is a possibility that I will not be coming back here for a week and a half in January, as we originally planned. If that's the case, then I will be training the new nanny during my last week here. That will mean that I have to have my stuff all packed up a week earlier, and I will be living out of my suitcase for the last week here. If I had passed this test, I would be taking the Oral Assessment on December 17th in DC, which would mean that I would be trying to prepare for that at the same time!

Also, I have to make a one year commitment to teach English in Korea. I've been a little concerned about what would happen if I managed to pass everything the first time around. I didn't feel good about committing to a year if I wasn't confident that I would stay the whole year. But I can now confidently make that commitment.

Lots of people take these tests for years before being hired. I feel like just taking the test has been a learning experience and I'll be better prepared to take it next year.

So, as much as I wanted to pass this test, in some ways, it is a relief that I failed. I'll try again next September...in Seoul, South Korea!

Your world. Your America. Your opportunity to make a difference.

2007-11-15T10:00:00.000+09:00

"The United States is facing unprecedented challenges requiring the expert knowledge and vision of individuals like you. This is why there has never been a better time to transform your professional skills, education, cultural background and unique perspectives into a high-profile career working overseas.

You have the ability to affect global change and impact people's lives. You've taken the first step in becoming an agent of change and we'd like to encourage you to register for, and schedule your seat, for the upcoming December 1-8 testing window.

Become a U.S. Diplomat.

If not now, when?"

This is the email that appeared in my inbox 30 minutes ago. Despite the fact that I know I will be emailed a link to see my test results and the Oral Assessment dates are December 17-20, for a full two seconds, I thought that this was my notification that I had passed the test.

It was not.

Rather, it is an invitation to take the FSOT. Although I took it in September, I somehow managed to get myself on a list to receive this notification.

This is torture.

Why don't they just give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice in it?

Wanderlust

2007-11-14T15:30:00.000+09:00

As of today, I am officially one month away from my next move. The plan is to move home at Christmas, then come back for a week and a half after Christmas to train the next nanny. That, however, may change, and I may end up training her before I leave for Christmas, which would result in me going to Korea in January rather than February - but that all remains to be seen.*

At any rate, my time in New Jersey is quickly coming to a close.

As I wait (somewhat impatiently) for my FSOT results, my thoughts remain in South Korea. For, as I've mentioned before, becoming a US diplomat is my dream, teaching English in Korea is my plan.

For me, one of the hardest things about moving to Spain was moving back. Culture shock wasn't too much of a problem. It was expected and planned for. Reverse culture shock, however, came from out of the blue and blindsided me.

I've been doing a lot of research (read:surfing the web) for my adventure in Korea, and as I was reading some forums (fori?) this evening, I came across a thread on reverse culture shock. As I read posts, a wave of memories washed over me. Memories of getting the urge to request movie tickets or order at a restaurant in Spanish, for example. More notably, Koreans and Spaniards appear to have something in common which is difficult for Americans to adapt to.**

Two words.

Personal space.

It's okay to run right into someone and not even acknowledge it.

I recall performing a sociological experiment in my neighborhood in Madrid. Bearing in mind that it has been more than two years since I moved back to the States from Madrid and my skills of estimation are rudimentary at best, I would estimate that Calle de las Delicias was at least 20 feet wide.**

A couple of times, I played chicken walking down that street.

I got tired of being the one to always move out of the way and wondered, if I didn't move, would the other person move to avoid running into me?

Yes, Madrid is crowded. But I lived out in the sticks (no, I'm lying. But it makes a clever pun off my metro stop).

However, even in a crowded city, there are bound to be times when you find yourself in an uncrowded situation. At certain times of the day, my neighborhood was definitively uncrowded. These were the times when I spontaneously chose to perform my sociological experiment (read:play chicken). When walking down a 20-ft-wide sidewalk, if there is only one person coming from the opposite direction, but they are directly in your path - will they move to avoid you? The answer is "No."

I'm not kidding. I ran into people this way. But only a couple of times, because I get annoyed running into people so I resumed dodging Spaniards.

This is not to say that I did not learn how to adapt to the culture. I felt a bit guilty one day when I pushed my way onto the bus (in typical Spanish fashion) and encouraged Kelly to push in with me, only for her backpack to get caught in the doors. I didn't feel guilty for too long, though, because the picture was pretty funny and that made up for it.

But back to my point (I really did have one): As I sit here and think about what was, for me, the most difficult aspect of my overseas experience, the only thing I feel is a desire to go abroad again, to have a new experience.

And I wonder, will I ever be content to remain in one place? Is Wanderlust terminal?

*That's basically all I know at this point; hopefully I will know more soon. I plan to go to Korea roughly one month after moving back to Washington.
**Arggh.. Grammar rules have changed and I know that it is now acceptable for me to leave a prepostion dangling, but it still hurts a little.
**That is, the sidewalk on the northern side of the street (if my sense of direction serves me correctly).

Cruel Tricks

2007-11-10T13:30:00.000+09:00

I got home about an hour ago. When I walked in my room, I saw that I had a couple of new emails.

One of them was from the US Department of State.

Eyes fixed on my computer screen, I dropped my things on the floor and quickly sat down at my desk. My heart was in my mouth as I continued to read the screen.

Subject: Foreign Service Officer Test...

I gulped, and clicked on the email.

It was a list of overseas locations that will be administering the test in December.

False alarm.

And the verdict is...

2007-11-09T11:15:00.000+09:00

Wait longer.

Someone from the FSOT Program Office said that the test results should be out early next week.

I sure hope so.

Coffee or tea?

2007-11-08T00:00:00.000+09:00

Recent studies have revealed that individual beverage choices may actually be indicators of character.

Fancy Man Enjoys Tea

I Am a Rockstar Chapter 2: In which evidence of my rockstardom is provided.

2007-11-06T13:30:00.000+09:00

Hey! I just realized that I never wrote this chapter. Oops!

In Chapter 1, I mentioned that if I pass the Foreign Service Officer Test, I can take the Foreign Service Oral Assessment in DC in December. However, I knew that I might not get my test results until early December and it would be tricky to plan a trip to DC during the holiday season with 3 weeks notice.

I discussed possible scenarios with my mom and she suggested that the two of us plan on spending a few days in DC in December. That way, if I pass the test, I can take the Oral Assessment while I'm in DC. But if not - neither one of us has ever been to DC, why not see the sights?

Well, one thing led to another, and Jessica, Jonathan, and Julianna decided to join us!

We tried to get my dad to join us, but he had a valid argument. If we were all in DC and noone was back at the ranch, then everything would fall apart when we segued with, "Meanwhile, back at the ranch."*

At any rate, this is where my rockstardom comes in -

I spent about two hours working out the logistics of the trip and booking all of our tickets (getting excellent ticket fares for all of us, I might add).

This is what we (mostly I)** worked out:

Friday afternoon, December 14th, I'm renting a car and picking up my mom and Jonathan at EWR (Newark International Airport), who will be flying in from Seattle.
Then we're driving five hours to DC (mini road trip - woot woot).
On our way to our hotel, we'll swing by DCA (Ronald Reagan Washington National) and pick up Jessica, who will be flying in from Tulsa.
The next morning, we'll pick up Julianna at BWI (Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport).

Then we'll all rock DC, like only the Willeys can.

On Tuesday, we'll all fly back to Seattle on the same flights (no I'm not getting carried away with pluralization - we have a layover).

I had five browsers open and I booked these flights as close to simultaneously as possible. I also selected seats for all of us, so that we're sitting together (and I get the window - shhhhhh...don't tell).

That's why I'm a rockstar.

I suppose I could have just said, "I'm a travel agent." But that's not as glamorous.

So now you know.

And knowing is half the battle.

Added bonus: By renting a car, then flying back to Seattle with four relatives, I have also effectively solved the "How-in-the-world-do-I-get-all-of-my-accumulated-belongings-home" dilemma: I simply throw all my junk in the car, then sneak it into suitcases when people aren't looking. Jackpot.

*I hope he wins the lottery while we're gone.
**What?! I'm the rockstar!

South Korea's Got Seoul!

2007-11-04T15:04:00.001+09:00

Ahhh!! I'm so excited to go to Korea!

Incidentally, no, I have not heard back from State regarding test results. But even if I pass the test, I'm really not banking on being hired as an FSO in the next year.

But, interestingly enough, I happen to live nextdoor to a couple who spent four years in Korea. They have a little girl that is a year younger than the little girl that I take care of, so we see each other at the bus stop almost every day. I've gotten to know the mom a little bit.

When I told her I was going to Korea, she told me that she had lived there for four years and she had plenty of books that I could borrow. She gave them to me at the bus stop last week.

Cool, right?

Between this Bag 'O Books and the Amazon shipment* I got this week, it's Book-a-Palooza at Chez Marianna. Maybe I'm getting old, but spending my Saturday reading books was fun (I also had a date - does that help my case?). I was so excited about all of the books, that I piled them up on my bed and took turns reading a couple chapters out of each of them.

In other news, remember the opossum that graced our garage last winter? He has been replaced.

Now, I don't know all of the specifics. It could be that he found greener pastures (darker garages?), or maybe there were roommate conflicts (roommates can be catty...) All I know is that I haven't seen the opossum since last winter, but there have recently been multiple sightings of a raccoon.

That's right, a raccoon.

I'm going to be honest, here, I don't feel that he's going to be a good roommate. He's clearly just after the food.

But whatever. It's not my decision.

At any rate, I've decided to call him Bandit - between those black eye masks he's always wearing and the fact that he's always sneaking food, I thought it was appropriate.

Staring contest, you and me, right now...

*"Realities of Foreign Service Life," Volumes 1 & 2; "Bush Hat, Black Tie"; "The Expert Expat"

It's Official

2007-11-03T14:15:00.000+09:00

Well, Friday is officially over. I have officially not heard from the State Department. Therefore, I am officially still waiting to find out whether or not I passed the Foreign Service Officer Test.

And now, I am officially going to bed.

THIS JUST IN!

2007-11-02T08:15:00.000+09:00

A RELIABLE SOURCE TOLD ME THAT THE TEST RESULTS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE OUT THIS WEEK. AS IN TOMORROW! I CAN'T STOP SHOUTING! AHHHHHHH!!!

I'M FREAKING OUT!!!

2007-11-01T06:45:00.000+09:00

There are a ton of pictures I need to post and things I need to blog about, but right now I'm freaking out because I just heard that the FSOT results will be emailed out within two weeks! AAAAHHHHHH!!!!! And a couple people have said that their references have gotten calls about them. It's so close! I'm pretty sure I failed, but I really have no way of knowing. So right now I'm just trying to hang on to the tiny bit of hope I have left and remember to breathe.

Ain't No Party Like a Scranton Party

2007-10-25T07:15:00.000+09:00

Scranton, PA is a mere 90 miles from where I live. How can I not go?

*Edit*10/25 - This was going to be a comment in response to Victoria's comment, but I decided it fit better as a blog addendum.

Yes! I'm going! I started to reconsider because I couldn't find anybody to go with me. But Jonathan persuaded me that it was worth going to alone.
Then I started to reconsider again because I checked out the website and it looked like it might not be as nerdy as I thought (part of the draw is the people watching)* and I wasn't really sure what I would do. But I did a little more looking around and found a couple of options,** and your (Victoria's) comment persuaded me that I can't miss the opportunity when I'm so close!*** Plus, what's this hangup that I have about going places alone? I don't have a problem moving to a new country by myself, but I need to have a friend go with me for a day trip? Weird. Time to get over that.

P.S. According to the website, pretty much all of the cast (except the big four: Michael, Dwight, Jim, and Pam) will be there. That should be pretty cool.

*Part of me wants to go because I'm a nerd and part of me wants to go to see people that are even nerdier than me (i.e. those who will come dressed up like their favorite characters and can quote entire episodes).
**I'm going to go to the Cast Q&A and the Character Look-alike Contest. I may see the Office Olympics Awards, too.
***Hmmm...it seems that I am easily persuaded.

I've got tickets

2007-10-24T10:00:00.000+09:00

Sunday, November 18th, 10:30 pm.

Madison Square Garden, New York City.

Dane Cook.

Rough Around the Edges tour.

Oh yeah.

To anyone who has ever wondered what it would look like if you combined Dane Cook with Halo 2 - this is for you:

*Warning* - Video contains profanity.

For Jess

2007-10-17T14:00:00.000+09:00

One more Family Guy clip - this reminded me of you, Jess!

K, I really need to finish the episode and go to bed.

Stewie is the best

2007-10-17T13:45:00.000+09:00

I'm watching this week's episode of Family Guy online.
For the first time.
And I paused it just so I could post this clip.

There's a classic Stewie scene in the episode and I was sure that I could find it on YouTube.

I was right.

So I paused the episode, not because I was distracted or found something better to do, but because I instantly loved the scene and wanted to share it.
It is Stewie at his best: sarcastic, patronizing, and sardonic.

This is the reason why Stewie is the best Family Guy character.

Enjoy. (Btw, the other character is supposed to be Colin Farrell)

Now I've got to get back to the episode.

Incidentally, this is the reason why I only sleep about 5 hours/night during the week. By "this," I don't necessarily mean Family Guy. Any one of a number of distractions can hold my attention before 1 am. After 1 am, I start feeling guilty for not being in bed and it has to be fairly captivating to hold my attention. Not extremely captivating, just fairly. Or on live TV (rather than DVD or internet), and consequently, not necessarily accessible when I want it to be.
My alarm goes off at 6:00.

Therefore, as it is now 12:45, I shall bid you adieu and get back to the episode.

Countdown

2007-10-16T20:45:00.000+09:00

In my last post, I mentioned that when I quit my job, I gave 11-1/2 weeks notice. Well, when I did so, it occurred to me that it was a bit early to start a countdown and I should wait a while. That was a Wednesday. By Friday, I knew that I had exactly 11 weeks left.

My time out here has gone by quickly from day one; this is due in part to the fact that I work a lot of hours. Over the last few months, work has grown busier and more complicated, making the time go by even faster. But there was a part of me that was afraid that now that I had given notice, my last weeks would drag by. Factor this in with my excitement for what's ahead, and a countdown was inevitable.

At some point last week (on a particularly bad day), I created a countdown calendar on my lappy, replete with fractions and all. Which is why, I can now say that I am 1/4 of the way there.

I Am a Rockstar Chapter 1: In which nothing is said about being a rockstar

2007-10-15T22:45:00.000+09:00

K, here's my exciting news:

I quit my job.

However, in my line of work, "giving notice" does not mean two weeks. More like eight. But because my boss was worried that she couldn't get someone to start right before the holidays and I'm such a nice person (no comments from the peanut gallery, please), I gave 11-1/2 weeks notice.

I can sense you doing rapid mathematical calculations in your head and realizing that this means it took me 2-1/2 weeks to share my news with you, my faithful readers.

But don't look at it that way - I'm letting you know nine weeks in advance! Wow! Don't you feel privileged?!...

Technically, though, I have more than 9 weeks left. In 9 weeks, I start my Christmas vacation. I'll have 2-1/2 weeks off, then I come back for 1-1/2 weeks to train the next person. But I'm calling it 9 weeks for a few reasons:

1. Nine weeks is easier to digest than thirteen weeks*, or in a word - sanity.

2. I'll only be working eight days in January. Following a 2-1/2 week vacation and preceding...the end of my job...it will go quickly and should be easy.

3. I'm moving home at Christmas; so I'll be packing a bag to come back out here in January. This lends to the notion that I'm really quitting in December. Rather than taking a trip home for Christmas before coming back to work, I'll be moving home for Christmas and taking a trip back out here for work. See the difference?

One of my weeks at Christmas is unpaid time off, but the rest is vacation. So I'll be paid for my last 3 weeks here, but only working half of it. Cool, right? I think so.

Then I'm back in the good old Northwest for a month. I'm not going to work, either. For a whole month. I'm pretty excited about it. But I hope I don't go crazy. I don't think I will. I should have plenty to keep me busy. Between catching up with friends and family, getting rid of as much of my stuff as I can part with (it's tough to be a nomad and a packrat at the same time - not practical), and preparing to move to South Korea, I shouldn't get bored.

That's right, I said I'm moving to South Korea. Seoul, to be specific. I'm hoping to go in mid-February, right after the Lunar New Year. This has led to all kinds of ideas for a new blog name. Here are my favorites:

"Life through my eyes: your window into Seoul"

"For those about to ROK,** we Seoul-ute you."

Too cheesy? Any other ideas?

I'm sure that some of you are wondering what happened to my dreams of becoming a US diplomat. Oh, they're still firmly in place. But they're also still dreams and I have to have a backup plan. To be honest, I'm not very optimistic about the exam I took last month. I'll find out how I did sometime over the next few weeks, but I'm not holding my breath (mostly because that would be stupid - holding one's breath for a few weeks could not end well).

However, if I do pass, I will be invited to take the oral assessment. I could take that in DC in December and I would find out at the end of the day how I did.

Were I to pass the written exam and pass the oral assessment with a high score, there would be a good chance of getting hired within the next few months. In this case, I would not go to Korea. In any other case, it is off to Korea for me!

If anybody*** wants to come with me, let me know soon and we can probably be roommates and get jobs at the same school! All that is required is that you have a passport from an English-speaking country, a Bachelor's Degree in any major, and the ability/willingness to commit to a year.

Stay tuned for Chapter 2, in which I reveal details of my secret life as a rockstar.

*If you recognize that I actually have 13 weeks left, that means I gave 15-1/2 weeks notice! Wow! I'm a really nice person!

**ROK = Republic of Korea aka South Korea. All the cool kids use this abbreviation. Admittedly, the phrase doesn't make sense if you understand what ROK means, but I still think it's mildly clever...

***By "anybody," I don't really mean anybody. For example, if you randomly stumbled onto this blog and we've never met, this doesn't include you. Sorry.

9 1/2 weeks left! or I am a rockstar (Preface)

2007-10-11T13:30:00.000+09:00

That's right. It says "preface." This is not a real post. I tricked you.

I really, really want to write a whole post right now. I'm happy and excited and I want to share my news with you. But I'm also exhausted and I really should get to bed. I've slept a total of about 9 hours in the last two nights and if I went to sleep right now, I would get about 6 hours of sleep tonight. But as it is, I will probably be up another hour. Were I to take the time to actually blog right now, it would be even later by the time I went to sleep. See the dilemma?

So for now, I'll just share one little factoid, to whet your appetite:

I am a rockstar.

Genius

2007-10-08T13:30:00.000+09:00

Apparently, NBC created this music video back in February. How is it possible that I've only just discovered it? Am I the only one?

Why am I driving an SUV?

2007-10-04T12:30:00.000+09:00

If you recall, I was in an accident three months ago.
We're finally getting the Explorer fixed.
Ridiculous?
A bit.
But I still have two dislocated ribs that the chiropractor has not yet been able to set.
That's even more ridiculous. And more painful.

But I digress.

While the Explorer is in the shop, I'm driving a Durango. Personally, I am against gas-guzzling vehicles. The Durango is even worse than the Explorer. I think it gets about 11 miles/gallon. But the idea is that SUV's are safer. Naturally, the safety of the children is of the utmost importance.

So I drive an SUV.

Ironically, I noticed this warning label on the visor.

Mmm..that's comforting. I sure am glad I'm driving an SUV.

Wait. Why am I driving an SUV?

Avoid abrupt maneuvers and excessive speed? HA! If I were to describe New Jersey driving, I would probably say something like, "Well, it basically consists of abrupt maneuvers and excessive speed."*

See the dilemma? Or should I say, the irony?

*And tailgating at ludicrous speeds and abandoning any sense of reason upon getting behind the wheel... *deep breath* *talking to self* "Let it go, Marianna, it's not worth it." Ummm...kind of a hot-button topic.

Indications that your child may be ready for a pet

2007-10-03T07:30:00.000+09:00

She ties a string around a bottle of water and takes it for walks.

AARRGGH!

2007-09-13T13:10:00.000+09:00

So I just noticed that in my new profile picture, it's very apparent that I have one squinty eye when I smile.

But I be a pirate, so what are ye going to do about it?

Aaaarrrgggghhh.

Dude.

2007-09-13T12:55:00.000+09:00

I am a slacker.

K, not really. Actually, I've been studying very hard. And working hard. So, yeah.

I have definitely come to the conclusion that I work too hard. Maybe I should stop working altogether. I mean, technically, I work from 5:00 to 19:30 (that's 5:00 am to 7:30 pm for those of you not in the military) every day. Sure, I'm generally sleeping for the first 90 minutes of every shift (I admit - this part of the arrangement is pretty good), but still - it's a long day. After I get the kids off to school in the morning, I typically veg (aka check email and look for a job in which I don't have to work so much)* for about an hour, then go to the gym and work out, then come home, shower, and speed-work** Frequently, I work an hour or two past the time that I am technically off. What am I doing? That's a good question. I often wonder that myself. It's amazing the amount of time that errands and kids' activities (football, guitar, soccer, and swimming - to be specific) can consume. So, yeah. I'm going to go play the lottery and win it big. Then quit my job.

Yeah, no.

I can't.

Part of my problem is that I committed to stay with my job until the end of the school year. There is a clause in my contract that allows me to give eight weeks notice and quit early, but frankly, unless there is a serious problem (more serious than me just being ready to move on), I'm not comfortable quitting early. I made a commitment. That's a big deal to me. I need to have a pretty dang good reason to leave early.***

Also, I've been seriously studying for about 9 months in order to take the FSOT. "What's the FSOT?" you ask. Well, it stands for the Foreign Service Officer Test - the first step in the process to becoming a US diplomat - and it deserves its own separate post.

But I don't have the time right now.

So let me just say that I took the test last Saturday and I think I did okay. Maybe better than okay, maybe worse. It's hard to say. About 45% of me thinks I passed, and 55% of me thinks I failed.**** Now I get to wait 3 months to find out what State thinks.

The idea here is to become a US diplomat and work abroad (a different country every 2-3 years - yahoooooooo!) in a US Embassy or Consulate. But in the event that I fail the test, I must wait a year before I may attempt it again. Consequently, I have decided that in the event that I discover that I have, in fact, failed the test, I shall secure a postion teaching English in South Korea for a year (because trying to get a job teaching English in North Korea would just be silly...).

So, here I am.

If I pass this test, I take the Oral Assessment in December. If I pass that, the odds are fairly decent that I will be hired in the next several months. So at this point, it's not really a good idea for me to commit to a year at another job anyway. If I take a job teaching English in Korea (that's South Korea - not North...), it will require a one-year commitment.

Rumor has it that test results may be out in as little as 6 weeks. I'm crossing my fingers. And you can rest assured that, no matter how negligent I have been in matters related to my blog, if I find out that I have passed the FSOT, you (my family, friends, and society in general) will be the first to know. Ah, yes. I shall shout it from the rooftops (in other words - post it from my blogspot).

But I'm taking off tomorrow afternoon for Christin's wedding this weekend. So for now, I've got to pack. And finish up some work. It's almost more work to take a day off, than it is to work. Rather annoying, really. Just one more reason I should quit working. And take a cue from the cricket. I mean, he had so much fun playing music while the ant was working the whole time - and it all payed off in the end, right? So why not?

*This is only partly true. I'm thinking of spending a year teaching English in Korea, so I surf some Korean ESL job boards and blogs of ESL teachers in Korea - I'm not looking for another job in the US. Hey - I surf. That's cool. Never thought of myself as the surfer-type.
**Kind of like speed-walking, only completely different. Basically, I run around frantically, trying to get everything done. I think that sometimes I look like a chicken with its head cut off, and thus, scare the kids.
***For example, receiving an invitation to go to Washington(DC - not the state) and join the Foreign Service.
****Sure, these aren't great percentages - but statistically speaking, I only had a 15% chance of passing, anyway. So, if 45% of me thinks I passed, that's still an accomplishment. And I can always take the test again next year.

Sabbatical

2007-08-08T21:45:00.000+09:00

WOW. It has been nearly a month since I blogged last. And I was doing so well!

I've decided that I was on a spontaneous Sabbatical. Not only does that sound like I had a legitimate excuse instead of just being lazy, but it uses alliteration. So, you know, it's cool.

I promise to post again soon and let you know what I've been up to. But for now, watch this. It's funny. Even if it is British...

VideoJug: How To Give A Great Man To Man Hug

The new $10?

2007-07-12T05:15:00.000+09:00

Hmmm...could be an improvement...

Car wreck

2007-07-07T03:45:00.000+09:00

On Monday, I was in a car accident. It was not my fault. I was just driving up the GSP, minding my own business, thinking about the Starbucks that awaited me 2 miles up the road.

See? That's me, in the right lane. I look innocent, right?

As we passed the exit, the woman driving the car in the center lane must have realized that we were passing her exit. Rather than take the next exit and have to turn around, she decided to cut across the right lane and try to make the exit. Unfortunately for both of us, I was in the right lane.

At 65 miles/hr, pretty much all I could do was slam on the breaks and scream. So I did.

The front driver's side corner of my car connected with the back end of her car on the passenger's side. Her back windshield shattered, spraying glass all over the front of my car. She spun out and did a 360, coming to a stop in the grass between the exit and the highway. I pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and turned off my car.

It was scary.

Neither one of us were seriously injured, but we both got whiplash. I went to the chiropractor the next day and he said that my neck is pretty messed up and I have several ribs out of place.

I was planning to inject some humor in this blog - but it looks like all you get in that respect are my kindergarten-level drawing abilities. It's still a little too fresh in my mind.

All mimsy were the borogoves, and the momeraths outgrabe

2007-06-30T12:45:00.000+09:00

There is a shopping center I frequent which is about 15 minutes from my house. Actually, I generally just go to the grocery store there. Occasionally I may stop in at the CVS or Staples, but I go to the grocery store at least twice a week.

I was there today.

As I pulled into a parking spot, I noticed something new.

Starbucks!!
I almost swallowed my gum.

I rarely go to Starbucks anymore, because the closest one is 30 minutes away. But this new one is very conveniently located.

"Oh frabjous day, calooh, calay!" I chortled in my joy.*

I wasn't thirsty, but I went in and bought an Iced Coffee, anyway.
I asked if it was Terrazza. They said it was.
I asked when the store opened. They said today.
No wonder I hadn't noticed it before.

*Not sure what Jabberwocky has to do with this post, but I was an odd kid and had a penchant for memorizing poems from the age of 8 or 9. They still sneak up on me from time to time. So, um... yeah. Beware the Jabberwock, my son.

A weekend of firsts*

2007-06-28T22:30:00.000+09:00

Okay, so there were really only two firsts. But still - they were milestones!

On Sunday, I had brunch with some friends. It was my first time at IHOP. Momentous, no? I was advised to order the chocolate chip pancakes. So I did. They were tasty.

Did you know that at IHOP, the floors are slanted, so everyone tilts just a little?

Unfortunately, the other milestone wasn't quite so much fun. I got my first ticket. On the way to church. Boo hoo :( I got a ticket for running a red light. Why did I run the red light? I DON'T KNOW. Momentary lapse of judgment. Stop asking.

Okay, the truth is, I lack patience.**

I was just cruising along, minding my own business, obeying all of the traffic laws.
Every traffic sign I saw, I said, "Ok, sign!"***
Then the light ahead of me turned green. There weren't too many cars between me and the light, so there wasn't really a question of whether or not I was going to make it through before it turned red.
Until the car just in front of me started slowing down.
A lot.
For no apparent reason.
As the light turned yellow, I realized that I just might not make it through. Then the car in front of me practically stopped, so I decided to drive around. That's when the light turned red. That's also when I noticed the cop car sitting at a red light on the other side of the intersection.

Sad story, right? Thus ends my ticket-free driving record - 11 years with a license and no tickets! Oh well, whaddaya gonna do?

*Ooops - just realized I forgot to post this! It's actually from 3 1/2 weeks ago!
**Not really, I actually possess vast quantities of patience. I'm just way too humble to tell you that myself.
***Yes, I did steal that line from Dane Cook. It's funny. You wanna fight about it?

Kids are hilarious

2007-06-21T11:30:00.000+09:00

Anyone who has spent much time with kids, knows that they are good for a laugh. That's the real reason that I like to keep them around.

In talking to Jill (a 7-yr-old) yesterday, I made a crack about New Jersey not really being any better than Old Jersey. Of course, she didn't get it. But because I spend so much time by myself or with little kids, half the time I make jokes purely for my own amusement (sad, but true), so that was okay. Somehow, my witty pun (or pathetic attempt at a joke, depending on one's perspective) turned into a discussion about where we (as in, "we Americans") first came from.

"Well, we came from England," I said.

Jill looked at me incredulously, "We did?"

"Yes," I responded. "Well, you didn't," I quickly added, "you came from Italy and Ireland."*

"I did?" Jill stared at me, wide-eyed.

"Well, not you, really. You've lived here your whole life," I corrected. "Your ancestors did."

Scowling, Jill replied, "No! My aunts, not my aunt-cestors!"

Laughing, I looked up and noticed that Jill was deep in thought. Turning to me, she repeated, "My aunts! What? Did you think they were like aunt-sisters?"

*The kids often talk about their two great-aunts - they're very close to them. While the kids are probably mostly Italian, I've been told on more than a few occasions about one of their great-aunts, who is half-Italian, half-Irish.

Re(strain)ing from exercise

2007-06-20T01:45:00.000+09:00

ARRRGGGHHHH!!! No, I'm not being a pirate. I'm trying to express the frustration I'm feeling, but wasn't sure how to put it in print.

I finally started working out consistently again. I've run a couple of miles several times a week for the last couple of weeks. When I get out of the habit of exercising, it's hard to get back in it. And it has been a while since I got out of it.

I've been trying to motivate myself to start working out again for a long time now, so it's been feeling great to be doing it again. Once I get started, it's not too hard to motivate myself. I don't run very fast or for very long, but my plan was to build up my endurance and speed for a couple of weeks, then join a gym and start doing other things, too.

Last Tuesday, I started warming up to run, and my ankle started hurting. I was a little worried. But I took a couple of days off, then started running again and everything was fine.

But I think that yesterday, I pulled a muscle. The ironic thing is that I ran a couple of miles in the morning and I felt great. It was later, when I was walking to the bus stop to meet Jill that I felt a sudden pain in my calf. I was walking quickly and uphill, so I guess that's how I pulled it. But I wasn't really sure if I had pulled it at that point. It just hurt. Then is started hurting more. And more. You get the idea.

I still wasn't sure what was wrong with it this morning, so I thought that maybe it would be a good idea to run a little and see if it helped to exercise it. I was wrong. It was a bad idea. I'm pretty sure it's a pull. Now I'm frustrated because I think it takes about a week to heal. That's going to throw off my momentum! What am I supposed to do for exercise between now and then? Not to mention the fact that I have a tango class tonight! What if I can't get back into running after it heals? AAAAHHHH!!!

A tasty snack with Captain Jack

2007-06-15T09:30:00.000+09:00

There are few things that I will refuse to eat. In fact, I can only recall two things of which I have turned down the opportunity to sample:

bull penis (Córdoba, Spain)

(with french fries, naturally)

and sheep head (Marrakech, Morocco).

Not only do I try just about anything, but I like (or at least, do not dislike) most things, too. It’s a matter of pride for me. I love spinach, mushrooms, and I even like brussels sprouts. Not only that, but I might even admit to liking morcilla, as long as we don’t mention what it actually is.

But there are a few things I would rather not eat. I don’t like sweet & sour sauce, pickles, relish, or olives. Never have.

Naturally, as the whole matter is an issue of pride, I do my best to try these things from time to time. However, the frequency with which I try these things is directly proportional to the frequency with which I find them on my plate. Makes sense, right? If they’re there, I figure I might as well give them a shot and see if anything has changed. Consequently, I have eaten a lot of olives without actually liking them. Growing up, I was the only one who didn’t like black olives. Every time we ordered pizza, there were olives. I picked them off. At Thanksgiving, I was the only kid not getting olives from the hors d’oeuvres table, then sticking them on the end of my fingers so I could have cool olive fingers.

Then I went to Spain. Spaniards love olives. I think it may be illegal for them to dislike olives. A Spaniard not liking olives would be tantamount to a Brit not liking tea (though I have actually met one such Brit - at least, she claimed she was English - she was probably lying).

In the US, I had somehow gathered the impression that a black olive was sort of a precursor to the green olive. In other words, if you like black olives, you should try green olives - you might like them, too. But if you don’t even like black olives, you won’t like green olives - there’s no point in even trying them.

But I tried them anyway.
Many times.
I always tried them if they were on my plate, and I always disliked them.
Until one day...

I was having lunch with M2 in Granada. We were getting the Menú del Día at a restaurant that was located right next to a big plaza. I can still see it in my mind’s eye. I ate a green olive. And I liked it. It was pretty amazing. I tried to communicate the magic of the moment to Matt, but I don’t think he quite understood. Anyway, I didn’t just start liking olives from then on. There may have been a few in the following years that I liked, but I didn’t just start eating any old olive. It wasn’t long after that apperception that I returned to the US. So my encounters with olives were drastically reduced in number and I all but forgot that magical moment in Granada. Until one day…

A couple of months ago, my boss brought home some jalapeño stuffed olives.

I tried one.

I liked it.

I ate more.

I started picking them up regularly at the grocery store and my boss and I have both been enjoying them.

Now I am in the habit of eating Melba Snacks with Laughing Cow spreadable cheese and sliced jalapeño stuffed olives. Yum.

A couple of weeks ago, the grocery store was out of the jalapeño stuffed olives. So that evening, I made my little snack with regular olives, and I still really liked it! That’s how I know I’ve truly turned a corner here.

But I still don’t like black olives.

Goldfish cake

2007-06-07T11:00:00.000+09:00

Don't worry - it's not what you're thinking.

I didn't bake a cake with goldfish in it.

For those of you who have witnessed me experimenting in the kitchen (adding Bailey's Irish Cream to mushroom fish, or White Cheddar Cheez-Itz to stir fry, for example*...), I'm sure you were a little nervous to read on after seeing the title. But actually, I just baked a regular cake and frosted it, then I let Jill** decorate it. Her school was having a bake sale/cake decorating contest and she decided to decorate her entry as a goldfish bowl. I am always impressed with her creativity! Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the final product. But the picture below shows how much she did the first day before she started getting tired and frustrated, at which point I sent her to bed and told her she could finish it the next day.*** Not bad for a 6-yr-old, huh?

*True stories. If you don't believe me, ask Victoria, Julianna, Jessica, or my mom.
**If you recall, this is the pseudonym that I had given in an earlier post to the 6-yr-old girl (7 tomorrow!) that I take care of.
***Yes, she does frequently tell me that I'm mean. I don't care. It's either send her to bed or put up with whining. There isn't really a choice to be made here.

While we're on the topic of Star Wars...

2007-05-31T12:00:00.000+09:00

MANAMANA!!

Chad Vader

2007-05-30T01:45:00.000+09:00

I really don't know how to intro this video clip. It's the first of 8 episodes telling the story of Darth Vader's brother, Chad.

It speaks for itself.

Rated PG.

To see the rest of the episodes, go here. I've only seen the first two, but Episode 2 is even better.

Guess what I'm driving...

2007-05-25T11:15:00.000+09:00

My boss needed to switch cars for the day. I don't mind too much.

Note the lack of a key - the car has a push-button ignition.

I may need to pull a Ferris Bueller so the mileage isn't too high...

The Relativity of Time

2007-05-25T00:45:00.000+09:00

It has been a loooooong week. I technically work just over 70 hours/week, but that's just technically speaking. My work day starts at 5:15 am and ends at 7:30 pm. However, I don't even get up until 6:30. Then the kids are off to school by 8:30 and don't get home until 3:15. While they're at school, I do laundry, grocery shopping and other errands. But I usually have some time to myself, too.

It still makes for long days, but the break that I have in the morning while they're at school is definitely good for my sanity. Even if I spend the whole morning running errands, the fact that I don't have a couple of kids in tow makes it feel like a break.

Naturally, whenever the kids' schedule changes, so does mine. I now understand why my mom would get frustrated when we had lots of time off from school (then again, halfway through she decided to homeschool us...). Fortunately, the kids have all-day summer camp during the summer. But I am not particularly looking forward to the last week of June, where they will be off for the entire week and it will be up to me to keep them occupied.

Anyway, the 6-yr-old had her tonsils out last Thursday. She has been doing very well, considering the circumstances. But not only have I had her all day every day this week, but her discomfort has meant that she's been whiny and clingy, as well. Yesterday, I felt like anytime I walked out of the room, she would either follow me or call me to come back because she suddenly "needed something." Add to this the fact that I worked until 10:00 last night instead of 7:30.

She has definitely been improving, though, and she has been anxious to get back to school. So, we were both excited that she was going to go for half a day today. I let her sleep until she woke up on her own, then took her to school at around 11. I kind of felt like someone just busted open the prison gates and I was breathing fresh air for the first time in a very long time. That sounds kind of mean - I really do like her, this week has just been a little much.

But now I've finally got a few hours during the day without the kids and I spent a portion of this coveted time blogging. That was silly. I've got a bunch of errands to run and 3 1/2 hours! Yikes! I'm looking forward to it, though. It's 80 degrees out and I'm going to go drive around with the windows rolled down.

Yes, the worst is definitely over. The kids have an early dismissal tomorrow, then I'm taking them to meet their dad and I'll be off work by about 1:00, making my 3-day weekend more like 3 1/2 days. *contented sigh* I think I've earned it.

Dichotomist dilemmas

2007-05-23T14:30:00.000+09:00

I have long considered myself to be a strange dichotomy of a tomboy and a girly-girl.*

As long as I can remember, I have loved climbing trees. But at the same time, although I love my church here in NJ and the fact that casual dress on Sundays makes the average Joe feel more welcome, a part of me is frustrated at the missed opportunity to dress up.

I like construction work, but love to get my nails done.

I enjoy working hard, getting dirty, and working up a sweat - but I like to get dressed up and wear make-up and jewelry.

I think that hanging sheetrock is fun, but so is making cookies.

I have had a few jobs where the ratio of men to women was around 50:1 (mainly because of the physical labor aspect). In fact, in one such job, my friends called me "the Proverbial Man."** But in community college, I stuck out a bit because I tended to wear skirts and dress up more than the average girl.***

Thus, wouldn't it seem natural that I would enjoy gardening? It is frequently viewed as a feminine art (especially if you're talking about flower gardens), but it involves dirt and the outdoors. However, when it comes to plants, I have always admitted that I have a brown thumb. I either drown plants, or they die of thirst. I don't know what it is. When I moved out here, there was a potted plant in my room that was supposed to be very hardy and not easy to kill. It may have lasted a couple of months. And that's probably just because the woman who cleans every week watered it. I think it's funny that sometimes people say that being able to keep a plant alive is a good precursor to raising a child. A child, I can keep alive; a plant, not so much. I can probably attribute a lot of it to ignorance. How do you know how often to water a plant? How much water do you give it? I don't know the answers to these questions, and apparently, I don't do too well at guessing. A baby is easier to figure out - you just feed them until they stop crying.

At any rate, when my boss asked me a couple of months ago if I wanted to get flowers for the deck, I told her that I consider myself to have a brown thumb, but I could give it a shot. Unfortunately, she took me at my word.

So naturally, I took care of all of my other tasks first, and saved this one for last. Finally, when I didn't feel like I could wait any longer, I went to the local nursery (again with the plant-baby analogy - doesn't work for me, people).

I wandered among the plants for a good fifteen minutes before I called my mom for help.**** Half an hour later, I left with several plants, some potting soil, some peat moss (which I had always thought was green - evidence of my ignorance), a pair of gloves, and optimistic thoughts.

They look innocent, don't they?

So I gathered all of my materials and laid them out on a garbage sack on the deck.

But as I walked back out on the deck with the bag of potting soil, I noticed that the flowers were just sitting there - staring me down.

Fortunately, I knew what to do in this sort of a situation. I put on some beats. And some good beats, at that.

Then I planted the flowers. As of today, they have survived two weeks since the day I planted them. Time will tell if they can last the summer.

*For lack of a better term - does anyone know of a better term? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

**The story goes: I was fast and good at my job, so they would have called me "the Man," but clearly, I was not a man. Hence, "the Proverbial Man." Admittedly, a portion of this can be attributed to a fiercely competitive streak, which I always thought I hid well - but apparently not...

***Granted, this was in a small town where everyone dressed the same and I had just moved back from the NYC metro area where I had felt liberated to express myself.

****I have come to the conclusion that one never gives up calling one's mom and asking for help.

Holy smokes!*

2007-05-16T12:30:00.000+09:00

Why is it that when I have the most to blog about, I blog the least? I have a few blogs in mind and I've even got pictures! I'm not going to take the time now, though.

So, stay tuned.

For now, I'll just leave you with this interesting/unsurprising tidbit from The Economist. A market research group compared annual cigarette consumption in 120 countries in 2006.

Together, these countries account for over 95% of global consumption.

Spain is #6.

*Maybe that should be "unholy smokes"...

Meine Geburtstag

2007-05-10T12:30:00.000+09:00

Thank you, everyone, for all of the birthday wishes! I had a great birthday on Monday. After spending my last birthday in Odegaard (the huge UW undergrad library) working on my thesis - anything would have been an improvement! But it was really a good day.

I went out to lunch with my girls (behind me is Christin, next to me is Jayme, and behind her is Tomina - we're all nannies and we go to the same church) - we had "Moroccan" food. The food was good, but it wasn't really similar to anything I actually ate in Morocco... I was really hoping for some tagine. But I did get chocolate cake with peanut butter cups, so I'm not complaining!!

Later, I got more cake and way too many presents from my boss. Then I met up with my girls again! This time, a couple of my dance friends were able to come, too.

Annie is the one in the back corner, and Bea is in front.

I had more cake.

Then, Tomina and I tied the knot*.

All in all, it was a good day.

*Seriously, though, it looks like we're tying a knot, right? Now we know where the expression comes from...

Happy trails to me!

2007-05-07T12:45:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I went hiking for the first time since I hiked the Camino de Santiago two years ago. It was Fun Times.

The hike was about eight miles long and took around five hours to hike, so it was shorter than the shortest hike I did on the Camino. But it felt just right.

Hiking brought back many memories from my adventures on the Camino de Santiago two years ago. And as I was enjoying the hike and the scenery, I began to ask myself if I would ever consider hiking the Camino de Santiago again. Well, the influence of the exhilirating fresh air, the chorus of birds, and the surrounding beauty, combined forces to gently persuade me that, just maybe, I would.

But while I mentally formulated plans for my next hike through the North of Spain, I began to grow tired. As I struggled uphill, my legs began to burn and my lungs cried out for more oxygen. I started feeling that telltale rub that indicates a burgeoning blister.

And I changed my mind.

I remembered why it took me two years to get around to hiking again.

The fact that I started out on the hike yesterday feeling healthy and whole did a lot for my enjoyment of the hike. This happy circumstance was only true for the first two days of my eleven-day hike along the Camino de Santiago. On the subsequent days, I mostly just felt tired and in pain.

I'm not saying that I regret going - quite the contrary! I enjoyed the time that I spent with my fellow peregrinos, and it was a one-of-a-kind experience. We saw some amazing scenery and a side of Spain that I had not seen before. Not to mention the fact that it was rewarding to see what I was capable of.

That said, I think in the future I will most likely stick to one-day hikes. I greatly appreciated the fact that I was not completely exhausted by the end of the day and I was able to come home, shower, and sleep in my own bed. I definitely plan to hike more this summer - but not necessarily for eleven days at a time.

The next DC Talk?

2007-05-05T00:30:00.000+09:00

Hot new band Aardvark Arsenal is taking the world by storm.
Making its debut on MySpace, Aardvark Arsenal brings energetic beats, clever lyrics, and most importantly - a clear message. Also, the singer is hot.

MacGyver in País Vasco

2007-05-04T12:45:00.000+09:00

Warning: This clip is dubbed in Spanish.
Apparently, one of MacGyver's great exploits was rescuing an American from a Basque guerrilla camp. I'm curious as to where the writers got their background information...

You're only as old as you feel...

2007-04-30T12:45:00.000+09:00

I went to David's Bridal yesterday with my friend Christin. She's getting married in September and I'm going to be one of her bridesmaids, so I needed to try on dresses in order to find my size. Since she had already picked out a style, it only took us a couple of minutes.

As we were on our way out, I spied a dress with what I thought was a ridiculous/cool-looking(I wasn't sure which - it could have gone either way) skirt, so naturally, I decided to try it on. One thing led to another, and before we knew it, we found ourselves orchestrating an impromptu photo shoot. Hilarity ensued. Well, Christin and I thought it was funny, anyway.

The first round of photos was, naturally, bridesmaid dresses. I decided that I actually liked the skirt. I did think it was funny, though, that the skirt could stand up on its own without anyone wearing it. Clothes aren't supposed to do that.

Next we tried on prom dresses. Yikes. Christin decided that I looked like ocean waves and she looked like a jellyfish. Side note: she is not hiking up her dress in the picture - that's how it was designed. At this point, a saleswoman asked us if we were trying dresses on for a Sweet Sixteen party - no joke. Christin told her we were and she asked which one of us was turning sixteen!
As we laughed about it once the woman was out of earshot, Christin commented on the fact that the woman thought we were sixteen, and here we were, almost thirty! As soon as she said that, I felt very immature. You see, I don't think of myself as being almost thirty. I'm in my twenties. People in their twenties can do things like this, and although it's silly and a little immature, it's okay. But somehow it changes if I think of myself as being almost thirty. Somehow it doesn't seem acceptable to do this sort of thing at thirty. Lucky for me, I don't really care.

So we proceeded to the final stage of the photo shoot: the quinceañera dresses. These were just plain scary. When I looked at the tags and saw that they were almost $200, I commented that anyone who tried to buy one of these dresses should be slapped in the face.

A Series of Tubes

2007-04-27T01:00:00.000+09:00

This is Funny Stuff. I'm sure that most of you are familiar with Senator Ted Stevens, but if the phrase "the internet is a series of tubes" doesn't mean anything to you - check this out before you watch the video clip.

Mind-bottling

2007-04-16T13:00:00.000+09:00

I watched Blades of Glory today. It was hysterical. My favorite line is when Jon Heder complains that everyone is laughing at him. Will Ferrell replies, "Everyone laughed at Louis Armstrong when he said he was going to go to the moon, but now he's up there laughing at them."

Are you having a laugh?

2007-04-15T03:00:00.000+09:00

I just found out that Ricky Gervais is going to be at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, May 19. But none of my friends out here are fans :( Anybody want to fly out to NY for the weekend and see the show with me?

I always knew I was a nerd

2007-04-05T22:00:00.000+09:00

I think I got my first clue when I was in 5th grade - I often went to the library and read during recess instead of playing outside...

Pure Nerd
91 % Nerd, 47% Geek, 13% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations!

Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in any of the following:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Professional Wrestling

Love & Sexuality

America/Politics

Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

April Fool's Day

2007-04-04T09:45:00.000+09:00

I totally forgot about April Fool's Day this year. I thought about it a couple of times in late March, but on April 1st, I totally forgot. Didn't play a single trick. So, since I don't have anything good to write about, or any good pictures to post, I thought I would just post this picture from April Fool's Day two years ago. It is still a classic.

Different kinds of pain

2007-03-30T11:30:00.000+09:00

Ok, so to finish filling you in on snowboarding - it was so much fun!! I'm really glad I went. I just wish I could have gone more this winter. But I was in a ridiculous amount of pain for the next two days, every muscle in my body was sore and it hurt to move. I knew I would be sore, but it was still surprising. I mean, how did I work my triceps? Then on Tuesday, my neck started hurting. By Tuesday night I was in so much pain that I took 4 ibuprofen and slept on an icepack. Wednesday morning I went to the chiropractor and he took a couple of X-rays then did that stereotypical twist-the-head-really-fast-and-hear-the-neck-crack-a-million-times chiropractic move. It was weird. It helped, though, and I went back on Friday and that helped even more. But my neck is still a little sore. I probably should have gone in again already, but I'm cheap.

Last week would have been a rough week even without the pain, so it certainly didn't help things! My boss had a business trip from Tuesday to Friday, so I had the kids for 4 days straight. And they had half-days! Aaaah!! They did not make things easy on me either. Suffice it to say, I could not wait until Friday. I convinced my friend Jayme (also a nanny) to come dancing with me, then we sat talking at my house until about 4 in the morning! But here's the most shocking part - I then slept until 6:45 pm the next day!!! Unbelievable, right? I usually don't sleep much during the week and sleep in late on Saturday - but this was ridiculous. I think I must have slept so much because I didn't get any extra sleep the weekend before - not to mention the fact that the kids wore me out.

Saturday night (basically right after I woke up), I went over to Jayme's house for a party. It was fun and provided a much-needed release after the week I'd had.

Jayme, me, Christin
Sorry there aren't more pictures. I left my camera on the table and told everyone to feel free to take pictures with it. They didn't.

That is all.

Fright night

2007-03-30T10:30:00.000+09:00

OH MY GOODNESS - I ALMOST DIED. I just went out to the garage to get a can of soda. But little did I know, I was not the only one entering the garage. Just as I reached to open the refrigerator door, I looked up and saw Walter - FIVE FEET AWAY FROM ME!! He had just come through the cat door and was poised at the entrance to the cat condo. I froze, my heart racing. And Walter? Well, he just played opossum. It took me a full minute to calm down enough to actually move. We both stood there, our gazes locked, frantically scrambling for an exit strategy. Finally, I decided that since the refrigerator door opened towards me, I could stand behind it as I opened it, then reach over the door to get my soda. Then I would high-tail it out of there. As I slowly opened the door, Walter dashed into the condo. I snatched a can of Icy Cold Carbonated Goodness and quickly made my escape. This is the first time I've seen Walter since I posted about him the first time. Obviously, I didn't really run him down as I threatened to. But now - I may have to send out a posse.

There's a chance that I'm crazy

2007-03-22T13:30:00.000+09:00

Last Friday night, I didn't end up going to bed until 2:30 in the morning. I just didn't feel like going to sleep before then. I usually average about 5-6 hours of sleep per night during the week, because I like to stay up late and have to get up early. So by Friday, I'm tired. And it's not that I wasn't tired last Friday, it's just that it seems so wrong to go to bed early on a Friday, even though I'm getting up early the next day. So, I stayed up late and got 4 hours of sleep before spending the day snowboarding. Wheeeeee!!

I got up on Saturday totally pumped (ninja style) - I couldn't wait to show off my totally awesome skillz (and by "show off my totally awesome skillz," I mean "learn the basics of snowboarding"). My friend Christin and I had been planning to go snowboarding all winter. Neither one of us knew how, so we were planning on taking lessons together. However, between our busy schedules and NJ's crappy snow season - this was the first time we actually managed to go.

Anyway, I met up with Christin and we headed up to Mountain Creek, where we met up with her fiancé, Brian. He already knows how to snowboard, so he took off on his own while we headed over to our lessons. Brian and Christin could only stay for 3-4 hours because they had other plans. But not me. I had no other plans for the day and I wanted to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could. Eight hours, two lessons, and countless wipeouts later, I decided to pack it in. I actually excused myself from the last lesson about 15 minutes early (the lessons are 1:45 long), because I was ready to collapse. It didn't seem to bother the instructor, though, he still asked for my phone number...

Anyway, I got home around 7:00, showered, ate some dinner, and left the house by about 8:15. Because although I had been snowboarding all day, I couldn't go a weekend without dancing!* I didn't have quite as much fun dancing as I usually do, because by this point, my muscles were not happy with me. It was still fun, though, and I was home by 1:00. So I managed to get about 9 hours of sleep before I had to get up for church on Sunday.

I have so much more to post, but it will have to wait until another day. I'm tired.

Christin recorded this with her phone - you can see the point at which I realize she's recording. Bear in mind, I had only been snowboarding for about 2 hours when this video was taken. I was happy if I made it to the bottom of the hill without falling down!

*Over the last couple of months, I have gotten back into dancing - ballroom, latin, swing, etc. I usually go Friday and Saturday nights, but due to the weather last weekend, the Friday dance was cancelled.

1,105 words

2007-03-19T11:59:00.000+09:00

Ok, so I'm really trying to blog more consistently. I've had a few good runs where I've posted three times within a week, but then it's another month before I post again. So, although I don't have time right now to tell you what has been keeping me busy for the last couple of months (or even the details of this weekend), in the spirit of frequent-blogging, I'm posting a picture that was taken yesterday. I should be able to post more details in the next couple of days. Until then, why not try to guess what I was thinking when this picture was taken?

Hot ice and wondrous strange snow...

2007-03-17T12:45:00.000+09:00

It was 80 degrees on Wednesday. It was incredible. I was ecstatic. I enjoy winter, but it has been so much colder here than what I'm used to. Over the last several weeks, it has frequently been in the teens - add the wind-chill factor, and it's even worse. So, I have been eagerly anticipating Spring's arrival. However, 80 degrees in the middle of March was more than I ever would have hoped for. Then yesterday, the high was 62 and it rained. That was still okay, though. It didn’t rain until late afternoon, and after all, it is only March, right?

But today - today it snowed. A lot. School was cancelled (which is annoying in and of itself). They are predicting 8-14 inches of snow for the area. I would guess that we've already gotten about 6 inches. Which causes me to say...

This. Is. Ridiculous.*

I always thought that weather in the Northwest was erratic and bizarre, but it is NOTHING compared to this. It was a new experience for me, and consequently, my sentiments about the whole situation went through an interesting progression.

Are you wondering what that looked like? Would you like to take a peek? Well, then, fasten your seatbelts and allow me to take you on a magical ride through the "Thought Processes and Emotions of Marianna." Before boarding, please demonstrate that you're tall enough to ride this ride and sign the waiver assuming all risk. Also, watch out for flying debris. Thoughts tend to bounce around rapidly for no apparent reason.

And now, without further postponement or procrastination**, please permit me to present you with a pictorial portrayal of the process.

Initial Reaction: Shock and confusion. I realized the weather was going to get colder again before spring was really here, but snow? Seriously??!!

Secondary Reaction: Frustation and resentment. What a mean trick! What was the point of Wednesday? I mean, it even smelled like summer! Son of a Vondrook!

Tertiary Reaction: Acceptance and appreciation. We've had horrible conditions for snow sports all winter. But now, I can finally go snowboarding! Guess who's going snowboarding tomorrow :) Yep, that's right, I am.

Fourthiary Reaction: Reconciliation. The snow is now my friend again.

Fifthiary Reaction: Here we transition from emotions to thought processes. And their results. I thought I would try to take a picture of myself making a snow angel. The photo you see here is my third attempt. It may not be a great photo, but hey, I was taking the pictures myself using a tripod and a timer. As I said, this was my third attempt. By this point I was Pretty Freaking Cold. Every time I flopped down in the snow, it went up my back. If I didn't post this picture, it would mean that I had suffered in vain. I just hope you appreciate all I do for you. Ingrates. Hmph.
At this point, the subject was dead. Naw, I was just cold. So, I went inside, changed into some warm clothes and ate some sushi.***

End of the ride, folks. Go ahead and get off. Let me know if you liked the trip, maybe I can arrange for another one. However, if you spent the trip utilizing your barf bag, you can keep that to yourself. And now, I should go to bed. I'm getting up at 6:30 to go snowboarding!!

*I felt that it would be appropriate to appropriate the Atorian Style of Emphasis here. Props to you, Atoria, for pioneering said style. Please permit me to aid in it's propagation, for I am a proponent, and I propose that its practice will provoke its proliferation. Umm..I may have gotten a bit carried away...
**Please note that I did not say "without further alliteration," that is something I simply shall not swear to. Also, I'm a nerd.
***I did not eat the sushi to get warm. I ate it 'cuz I like it.

Strange bedfellows

2007-02-25T14:57:00.000+09:00

Ok, so I know it's been a long time since I've posted, and I promise to update you soon. This, however, is not that post.

Right now I'm just posting because I want to share this bizarre picture that I took moments ago. Apparently an opossum has befriended the 3 cats who live here. Or something.

Although you can only see one in the picture, there are three cat beds along the wall of the garage here, and when I got home, the three cats were in their beds and the opossum was in the little house-type thing. Apparently, it has figured out how to use the cat door. Ironically, I think only one of the cats has figured it out...
Anyway, the opossum was here thursday night and we were trying to figure out how to get it out of the garage. While we stood there contemplating our options, one of the cats walked up to the opossum, sniffed at it for a moment, then got in the bed next to it. It appeared to be the typical exchange between two friendly cats. Weird, right? I just hope it's not pregnant and I don't go in the garage tomorrow to discover a litter of baby opossums.

Lofty New Look

2007-01-25T14:00:00.000+09:00

Well, I thought it was time for a new look. I liked this one. Question of the day: Contrast Makes Reality - what do you make of that? My personal first instinct is Democrat vs. Republican. That is a contrast. It currently composes my reality. Of greater import: Christian vs. non-Christian. Again, definite contrast and inescapable reality. Besides this incredibly cool blog scheme, what does the phrase "Contrast Makes Reality" bring to mind? Atoria? Jess? Anyone else who is listening?

On a side note - I'm glad I don't have a loft, you never know what could get in there.

Spanish cookies

2007-01-22T14:54:00.000+09:00

Question of the day: What does it mean to "spin the Filipino"? Let me just say that unlike the typical question of the day, I do not know the answer to this. Anyone care to enlighten me? At any rate, this is a funny picture. So there are my 1,000 words for the day.

What type of alien is Mr. Spock?

2007-01-19T00:00:00.000+09:00

Once again, nearly a month has gone by since the last time I posted. I think part of the problem is that most of the time, I don't feel like I have anything to share. I spend the vast majority of my time working, and out of respect for the privacy of the family I work for, I try to avoid posting much about work. So, there you go.

However, it occurred to me that I could, at the least, post a picture now and then. I mean, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? So here's a picture from a concert I went to last week. It was cool. I believe I took this picture during the group's rendition of "Don't Fear the Reaper." Don't ask me how I animated it - that's top secret. You don't have security clearance.

* A special thanks to Victoria and Jessica for their responses to last month's trivia question. Victoria, you get the bonus points (not sure how many - you decide) for picking out the hidden quote and correctly citing it - you sleuth, you. Jessica, you are awarded 10 points for correctly naming the movie and 20 points for naming the character. But unfortunately, I have to deduct 10 points from you for demonstrating that my question was flawed. I'm the quiz master. Cut it out. I'm always right. Mr. Spock is half Vulcan, half human.

Highlights (not the magazine)

2006-12-23T11:00:00.000+09:00

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, blah blah blah, I’ll try to do better, blah blah blah. Well, now that that’s been said, let me catch you up. Life in Jersey has been eventful and uneventful all at once. Although it has its ups and downs, overall, I am definitely enjoying it. Most of all I am enjoying paying off my debts. Due to low expenses and good pay, I have been able to put a substantial amount of money towards this cause every week. It excites me to think that at this rate, it should only take me about 35 years to become debt-free, instead of the 70 years I’d been planning on! Seriously, though, I’ve discovered that student debt can be an extremely intimidating and overwhelming animal. Especially if one spends one’s college years gallivanting around Europe… But I don’t regret a minute of it. My experience was worth the crushing weight pushing down upon my chest, forcing me down into the depths of the ocean. I can hold my breath for a long time.

Exaggerated metaphors aside, I really don’t regret any of it. But I digress. Umm..I think I was trying to catch you up on my life in NJ? Ah, yes. I’ll give you the highlights:

My weeks fly by out here. I am up at 6:30 every morning* and I only take enough time to throw on some clothes and put my contacts in before starting work. Although I typically have a couple of hours free after the kids are off to school, my day doesn’t end until 7:30 at night. Recently I have been so busy with work that I haven’t had much time to myself in the morning. I enjoy my job, and this, coupled with the quantity of hours I’ve been working, results in weeks that fly by. I take it easy on the weekends, though, so it sometimes seems like my weekends are as long as my workweek. Not bad, right? It may not be the case, but if that’s what it feels like, that’s what counts, right? Of course right!**

Ok, so, that wasn’t really a highlight. It was more like a description of my everyday life. So? What are you gonna do about it? I’m 26 years old, nobody tells me what to do. WHAT?!?

Highlights. For real this time. I got a 4-day weekend because of Thanksgiving this year. Woot woot. Last year I worked on Thanksgiving, and the last time I had 4 days off in a row was before I got a job after coming back from Spain. So this was definitely a treat. I went over to Christin’s house Wednesday night, then on Thursday she and I went with Brian (her fiancé) to Connecticut to have Thanksgiving dinner with his family. We did some shopping and chillaxing on Friday and Saturday, then on Sunday, our church didn’t have a service. Instead, we had a community outreach which we called “Gas Buy Down, Prayer Fuel Up.” The church bought eleventy-billion*** gallons of gas, then sold it to the public for 99 cents/gallon. We also washed people's windshields and tires, gave out coffee, cider, juice, water, and donuts, and prayed with people who had any prayer requests. It was very cool. I must say, though, while it was an act of service we were doing for the entire community and everyone was welcome, there was a part of me that was a bit indignant at the Hummers that rolled through. Oops! Forgot to mention something. Saturday my boss called me and asked if I wanted to go to the ballet with them - they had an extra ticket! Of course I said I’d love to. After a delicious dinner in Little Italy, we sat in the 8th row at the New York City Ballet’s performance of The Nutcracker. It was Very Fun Times.

Those are the main highlights. The one that is just beginning is my Christmas vacation. I started today. Right now I am sitting in Newark (evidently pronounce “Noork”…) airport waiting to be let on a plane that was supposed to depart an hour ago : ( It’s not all bad, though. I’m posting a blog! Tonight (or at this point, maybe early tomorrow morning) when I arrive in Seattle, my parents and Jess will pick me up at the airport and we will head to Port Townsend where we’ll meet up with the rest of my family at the condo we’ll be staying at for the week. Yay! I’m so excited! Then I’ll go back to Centralia with them for a few days before I return to NJ on New Years Day. I think we’re going to board soon, though, so I’m packing up the old lappy until next time. Good night, San Francisco. You stay classy.

*By this I mean that I should be up by 6:30 every morning - my alarm starts going off at 6:15 but sometimes it is as late as 6:50 when I finally drag myself out of bed. Some things never change.

**10 points to the first person who names the movie I’m referencing. 20 points to the person who names the character.

***This number is approximate.

Ninja Day

2006-12-06T12:45:00.000+09:00

Hey guys - if you didn't celebrate the Day of the Ninja, you'd better get a life right now or some ninja might just cut your head right off. This is a picture of me that I took this morning right after I got up. I fought all day long, and even flipped out and killed a few people. Here's my story:

My alarm went off at 6:30 this morning, just like it does everyday. But as you know, this was no ordinary day. I was totally pumped. I launched myself out of bed, eager to start flipping out on people. I put on my ninja outfit, grabbed some throwing stars and my ninja sword, and headed downstairs. By the way, for those of you who don't know - although I am a ninja today, most days I am a nanny for an 11-year-old boy (who we will call Jack) and a 6-year-old girl (who we will call Jill). Jack's alarm clock is supposed to go off at 6:50 every morning. At 7:00, when I had not seen Jack and realized his alarm must not have gone off, I did a few flips up the stairs, cut down Jack's door with my sword, and totally flipped out on his alarm clock. This woke Jack up. He shot out of bed and got himself ready and off to school, crying a little bit from the sight of the slaughtered alarm clock. Once he was gone, I woke Jill up with a ninja war cry and threw my throwing stars at her feet in order to speed her up. After she ran off to school screaming, I figured out what I needed to do for the rest of the day. You see, although I was a ninja today, I still had to work. So I went to the grocery store. I was at the grocery store, just doing my shopping, when some loser left their cart in the middle of the aisle - right in my way. So I flipped out and killed everyone in the grocery store and didn't even think twice about it. Then I went to the post office to drop off some mail and there was a dog barking in the parking lot, so I flipped out and chopped everybody's heads off. Then I went home and wailed on my guitar. That's pretty much how my day went. What did you do? I'm not even going to tell the rest of the story, because I don't think you could even handle it. Ninjas are totally sweet.

The Day of the Ninja

2006-12-04T13:00:00.000+09:00

Alright people - I know I am way overdue for a post. I apologize and promise to remedy the situation soon. I have been planning a post for over a week now and I promise to let you know soon what is happening in my life. However, it has come to my attention that Tuesday, December 5th, is The Day of the Ninja. It seems to me that we should all be focusing on preparing ourselves for this day rather than pointing fingers at people who have neglected to blog, hmmm? This is the one day of the year when all of us nonjas can have Real Ultimate Power. Check out the links for ideas on ways to celebrate. At the very least, I want to see some pictures of you people in your best ninja costumes. I mean, you don't want to disrespect ninjas by not recognizing the Day of the Ninja - one of them might just flip out and kill you...

Moving

2006-10-28T19:45:00.000+09:00

Here I go, moving again. Has it really been just 4 months since my last move? I seem to remember commenting then that I was sick and tired of moving. It’s not necessarily the physical act of packing up and moving to a new place that gets to me (although that does play a part), it’s more the emotional uprooting and necessity of reestablishing oneself in a new place and building new friendships. What was wrong with the old friendships? Why must I get new ones?

The whole moving process is stressful. Although, I will say I am getting much better at it. I have a tendency to overestimate my time and abilities and wind up stressing myself out much more than is necessary. This time around, however, I took 4 days off before my move. A new record. This is not to say that I haven’t been under stress, though. While I’m not very good about mentally acknowledging or dealing with stress, my body forces me to recognize it. It’s a bit funny, really, I’ve discovered that when I get stressed out, my eyes twitch. I picked up on this last spring when I was writing my senior thesis. My eyes twitched so often, I was beginning to wonder if something was seriously wrong with them.

It seems to me that the most obvious way of dealing with stress is to relax. Makes sense, right? For instance, someone in my situation might try to get a lot of packing done, then get a lot of rest. That way, they are neither stressing because they have a lot left to do nor because they haven’t had a chance to rest.

But that’s not me. My eye was twitching like nobody’s business last night. So I opted to get a lot of packing done, and then bake a couple of loaves of apple bread. My dad gave me a big sack of apples* (in hopes that they would be returned in some other form - apple pie, for example) that one of his clients had given him. But I only used about 4 apples for the bread. So tonight I made an apple cheesecake, and an apple honey bundt cake. I realize that this may seem like an odd thing to do in the midst of a move. However, my eye hasn’t twitched at all today - so it must be working. I’ve got just about everything packed up, so I’ll probably bake some apple pie or an apple crisp tomorrow - I’ve still got half a bag of apples left.

I suppose the good thing here is that I know I’ll be in one place for at least a year and a half. I’ve moved about 4 times in the last year and a half - so this is definitely an improvement. But it’s nearly 4 in the morning right now, so I’m going to end this blog without actually closing it. I’m 26 years old - nobody tells me what to do. What?

* There ain’t nothing like Washington Apples

A warning to those mourning Vinny - this could happen to you.

2006-09-28T06:40:00.000+09:00

This is him. Vinny. Just moments before he bit the big one. As you can see, he was One Huge Freaking Spider. I killed him. I don't deny it. Before today, I had nothing against Vinny. However, when he came in my house and got in my bed, he crossed a line.

This is the second spider I've found in my bed in the last couple of weeks. I frequently make my bed in the afternoons if I go home between jobs. As I cherish my sleep and don't get up any earlier than I have to, I rarely have enough time in the morning to make my bed. And looking back on my actions today, I wonder if perhaps I shouldn't have iced Vinny. I might have been better off just breaking a few of his legs and sending him back as a message to his family and friends. But it's too late for regrets now.

I found Vinny underneath my pillow. Creepy, right? In case you're wondering, I don't normally put chapstick underneath my pillow - I placed it there so you can see how big Vinny actually was.

So to all of those mourning Vinny - this is a warning. I know at this time you are grieving - and possibly contemplating revenge. But Vinny had it coming. Let me just warn you: If you value your little spidery life - stay away from my bed.

Baking a pie

2006-09-18T08:21:00.000+09:00

I baked a pie last night. After working approximately 55-60 hours this week, the fact that I felt like making a pie when I got off work at 9:30 pm last night came as a bit of a surprise. In my family, we all eat lunch together on Sundays. As my siblings and I reached our teen years and family dinners where everyone was present became less frequent due to scheduling conflicts, my mother decided it was time to begin a new tradition. We all eat lunch together on Sundays. Period. You may bring a friend to lunch if you like, but if you aren’t there, you’d better have a doctor’s note. And if you don’t have a doctor’s note, you might as well just leave the country. So now you know the real reason why my brother and I both spent a year in Spain. We missed Sunday lunch and had to flee the country. Anyway, in times past, we have all pitched in with lunch. A couple of us would cook; those who didn’t would set the table, put the food away, wash the dishes, etc. But recently it seems that the oneness has fallen upon my mother and she is doing all the work (unless we’re barbecuing- then my dad cooks). So I’ve decided that I could at least bring dessert. I came to this conclusion several weeks ago, but if I recall correctly, I have only brought dessert once… I’m trying, though.

This is why I baked a pie last night. I’m really glad I did, too. I enjoy cooking. There is something comforting about making a pie. Rolling out the crust, carefully transferring it to the pie tin, mounding up the layers of slivered apples, cinnamon, and sugar, and topping it all with another crust. I have often said that cooking is the only artistic outlet through which I express myself. In fact, cutting a design in the top of the crust in order to allow the pie to vent is essentially the height of my artistic ability… Oh, wait. I take that back. I can draw a pretty cool-looking stick man.

When people ask me how I learned to cook, I usually say that it was a combination of my mother, cookbooks, and a lot of practice. My mom doesn't like to cook, but I always have. So I taught myself a lot. I think that one of the reasons that baking pie is comforting to me is that it is something I remember doing with my mother. I always use her recipe for pie dough (it's the best). Even last night, as I was rolling out the crust, I could remember my mom telling me not to work with the pie dough more than necessary or it would make the crust tough, and showing me how to neatly remove the excess dough from the edges of the crust.

Feast or famine

2006-08-30T06:30:00.000+09:00

When it rains, it pours, folks. I am currently blogging from Starbucks; I start work in half an hour. I signed up with T-mobile last night so that I can use the internet here before work. I did this because: 1) I'm tired of not being connected to the internet at home and accessing it from work is the next best thing. 2) Since I work for Starbucks, it only costs me half of what it costs The Average Joe. 3) I have about two hours between work at my second job and work at Starbucks, and I hate to waste time going home.

My second job? Oh yes, that's right, I haven't told you about my second job because I haven't had time. heh heh heh

I've been struggling to get enough hours at Starbucks for the last couple of months, and finally I decided maybe I should just get a second job. So, I stopped in at Thorbecke's to find out if there were any opportunities for me there. I figured that since they all know me and I worked there for almost 2 years, if they had any openings, they would hire me back. I was right. The Chehalis Thorbecke's has a little café which delivers lunch to local businesses every morning during the week. It's really nice for doctor's offices and places where they can't really get away. So the lunch run shift is from 9:30-12:30 every day. Fifteen hours a week sounded just right for me since I tend to be scheduled for about 25 hours per week at Starbucks. So we planned on me starting when I got back from New Jersey. I started last Thursday and everything is going well so far except for the fact that while I was in NJ, a bunch of people at Sbux quit. So now I'm working 40 hours a week at Sbux and 15 hours a week at Thorbecke's. Ironic, yes? If we get out of work on time, I'm home around 11:30 at night, then I leave the next morning shortly after 9:00. I hope this doesn't last long. Anyone looking for a job at Starbucks?

P.S. Clearly I am experiencing a time of feasting now, rather than famine. In more ways than one- in addition to getting free coffee at Starbucks all the time, I get a free meal every day at the restaraunt...

Jessica is a blogger!

2006-08-19T04:45:00.000+09:00

It's finally here! The moment we've all been waiting for! Jessica has a blog!

Well? What are you still doing here? Go check it out!

"Posty post post poster"*

2006-08-10T02:00:00.000+09:00

Today I'm off to find a Starbucks. The closest one is about 15 minutes away, so that's not too bad. While the motivation behind my mission may seem obvious, I actually have a few reasons for going:

1) I need some good coffee. Period. That statement needs no explanation.

2) I get a free pound of coffee per week and I haven't picked it up yet this week.

3) I need to become more familiar with the area and be able to find my way around.

4) The kids are gone at camp for over 8 hours and there really isn't that much I need to do while they're gone, so why not?

In other news, I went out with Christin night before last - it was so good to see her! It has been about 3 years since the last time I saw her. She only lives about 20-30 minutes from me, so I'm excited about that.

I guess that's it for now, I don't really have a lot to say but I figured I would post anyway.** Here's the question of the day: If the moon was made of spare ribs, would you eat it?

* Stembokas, Victoria. "Post." I'm Not Really Victoria. 9 July 2006. 9 Aug 2006.
**See Reason #4

The Bi-monthly Update

2006-08-08T08:15:00.000+09:00

Hey folks. I'm back. Yes, I know, it has been nearly 2 months since my last post. I was going to apologize, but then I glanced at my last 5 posts and took note that there is nary a comment. So I owe you nothing. Ha. Didn't see that one coming, did you?

But out of the goodness of my heart, I'm going to post anyway. My last post was just one week prior to moving back down to C-town. I moved in with Julianna for a month, which was Fun Times. However, she does not have wireless internet (gasp!), so I was forced to utilize a dinosaur that lives in her house which she passes off as a computer. Add sporadic connectivity to the above-mentioned dinosaur, and you have a recipe for blog famine.

By mid-July, Julianna needed the extra bedroom back, so I moved to a cozy nook underneath an overpass. Well, that was the plan, anyway. But then I found out that my dear friend Hannah was moving into a little 2-bedroom house and she didn't have a roommate. So I moved in with her. This has also been Fun Times. Although we don't see each other nearly enough due to our busy schedules, it's fun to have her as a roommate. However, we do not have internet access (double gasp!), so I rarely even check my email, let alone blog.

So those are my excuses for not blogging, what are your excuses for not commenting?

Right now, I am neither at Julianna's house, nor at Hannah's house, nor at that lovely spot under the overpass. I am in North Jersey (not to be confused with South Jersey - two different worlds, people).

I got here yesterday and I'll be here for a couple of weeks working as a nanny/household manager while the current one is on a trip to Europe. If everything goes well (and I believe it will), I will be moving back here in late October/early November.

So that's basically what has been going on in my life for the last couple of months. I'll probably be blogging more over the next couple of weeks.

*Hint* If you want to hear more from me - feedback helps :)

More pictures- -part 2

2006-06-08T16:00:00.000+09:00

Apparently there is a limit of how many pictures you can use in one post. So this is a continuation of the last post.
Elida and me in front of Drumheller Fountain.

Elida and me driving around in my car.

So that's it for pictures. We hung out at the UW campus for a little while, then went to the Bellevue Square Mall. On Friday I met her and Jerome (along with a friend of hers and a couple of friends of his) at Beso del Sol for some salsa dancing, but I left my camera in the car. That was a lot of fun, too. Essentially, then, much fun was had in little time - because that was all we had. Although we didn't have long together and it would have been nice to be able to spend more time with Elida, I am thankful for the time that we did have.

I realize that this post has basically just been pictures- but hey - I'm in the midst of Post-Finals-Crash - you guys should be grateful that I'm posting at all.

So in closing, it's midnight and I work at 5:30 am, so I'm closing. Bye.

More pictures

2006-06-08T15:45:00.000+09:00

Okay, people, so I'm finally posting pics of my time with Elida. Due to our schedules, we didn't get to spend a lot of time together. But she flew in on Thursday, May 18, and after touring downtown Seattle with Jerome, they picked me up near the UW campus so we could all have lunch together.

Elida! I took this picture of her right after they picked me up.
Elida and Jerome in the sushi restaurant.
Elida and me in the sushi restaurant. This is Suzzallo Library, one of the two main UW libraries, and Red Square (although it doesn't look very red and it isn't at all related to communism).
This is the quad. A couple of months ago the trees were covered with cherry blossoms. However, I don't have a picture of that.Another picture of Red Square. Still not red or communist.

The end is near

2006-06-02T05:06:00.000+09:00

I longingly await the day when I will once again embrace my long lost friend - sleep. That day is coming soon. Today is the last day of classes. On Monday I have one paper due and one exam to take, then next Saturday I graduate.

I've discovered an interesting dynamic in my sleep patterns (or should I say, lack of sleep patterns). I've always known that the less sleep I get, the more it takes to wake me up (i.e. the more alarms I need to set, the longer they will inevitably go off before they rouse me, the longer I will groggily hit the snooze bar, the higher the chance that they will not wake me up at all, etc.). However, my level of sleep deprivation has reached such a height that even on the rare occasion that I get a normal night's sleep, it takes just as much to wake me the next morning. In fact, night before last I slept an amazing 7 hours - but it was just as difficult for me to wake up as it was this morning after sleeping an hour and a half. I had been thinking that I would be able to get some extra rest this weekend, but then I realized that I'm scheduled to work a total of 24 hours over the weekend, plus I have to write a paper and study for an exam, so no luck. Looking at my schedule, I'm thinking maybe I can sleep in on Wednesday. That would be nice. If not Wednesday, it will probably be the following Monday or so. Then again, the following Thursday I'm moving, so it would be helpful to pack at some point. Oh well, after I move, I'll have three days off before I start work again. Lots of sleep will happen.

So maybe I spoke too soon, that day isn't quite as near as I thought - it's getting closer though, and the pressure is decreasing, even if I'm not getting more sleep. But for now, I'm off to my last class, then to celebrate the last day of classes by having lunch with a friend at Thai Tom's- my favorite restaurant. Mmm...I can taste it now.

3,000% - a Ridiculous Dosage of Anything

2006-05-22T09:15:00.000+09:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I like energy drinks and I've been drinking a lot of them since I started working on my thesis. I have a couple of favorites, but I also like to try new kinds all the time. Today I'm sampling the one pictured above. I bought it because it made me laugh. 3,000% the RDA of B12? That's ridiculous! What is the point of that? There is a recommended daily allowance for a reason. Approximately 96.6% of the B12 in that drink is purely superfluous. With some vitamins, it can actually be hazardous to your health to consume that much above the RDA. I don't think B12 is one of them, though... At any rate, I won't be drinking this energy drink again - it tastes like a vitamin.

Pictures

2006-05-19T05:00:00.000+09:00

I rarely take pictures anymore. The days where I would take 30 meaningless pictures without even thinking twice about it (which is, incidentally, how ninjas do most things), are long gone. However, I do take pictures when I have a good reason, such as today. ELIDA IS HERE! It's so crazy, and I'm so excited - even though this is the worst possible weekend of the year for me. I'm meeting up with her and Jerome in about an hour and a half.

Consequently, I charged up my batteries and brought my camera with me to school. And guess what - I have more pictures from my trip to Madrid. I just forgot to put them on my laptop. So here are some from my last few days there.

Ahhh, the Wonderfully Minging Casa Mingo. Matt was trying to pour sidra like the Spaniards, but most of it wound up on the floor. Bless.

This was in the Gatwick Airport. I feel very strongly that there is something inherently wrong with the entire concept. This may be a clue to the origins of the stereotype of Brits having bad teeth.

Ahh, yes. My lovely stay at the exquisite Chez Gatwick. I think I was there for about 15 hours? Luckily for me, it only felt like 15 years...

Well, there you have it, folks. A few more pictures for ya. Maybe someday I'll post daily pics again, who knows. I will definitely be posting some pics of me with my old roomie in the next few days. Hooray!

I study on campus to avoid distractions?

2006-05-17T16:15:00.000+09:00

As I have mentioned to some of you already, I've basically moved in to the library at the UW. My senior thesis is due in six days, and I still have a lot of work to do. I find that I generally get a lot more done when I study on campus because, for one thing, the library atmosphere is much more conducive to studying than my apartment is.

This is not always the case.

There is usually a low buzz of student conversation in the Odegaard library, the one I'm currently studying in. However, a few hours ago, that buzz grew to a steady hum. As I looked around to figure out what was going on, I thought I caught the word "police," then I heard the unmistakable squawk of a police radio. A group of students sitting next to me decided that one of them should go to the desk and figure out what was going on, otherwise, all hope of accomplishing anything was lost. When the messengerboy returned from his errand, I discovered that there had been a shooting on the Ave and the police were checking to see if the suspect had entered the library. He hadn't. And I wasn't scared, anyway. Things like this don't usually scare me, I stay as cool as a cucumber. Except for this one time, I was almost attacked by a squirrel...

Anyway, here's the full story.

The Way I See It

2006-05-17T12:00:00.000+09:00

For anyone who frequents Starbucks, or even just drops in once in a while, you are probably somewhat familiar with the little blurbs that now appear on the sides of the cups. They are little quotes on a wide range of topics from a wide range of people. Some of these have ignited a fair share of controversy.

It has sort of become a habit of mine to read these little quotes as I drink my caramel macchiato on my break. Generally, I find them to be overly sappy, pseudo-profound, and/or simply annoying. However, I read one recently that brought a smile to my face. I instantly sprang out of my seat and quickly got the attention of the baristas that happened to be working so that I could share this quote with them. I was truly impressed that Starbucks had finally managed to find that vital ingredient to a quote-worthy quote...sarcasm. I present to you the pièce de résistance:

The Way I See It #103

For all those parents who wonder, How do I get my kids to read? – here’s a simple, earth-shaking notion: give them a book. For gosh sakes, give them a couple books.

-- James Patterson
Author

And it's so true.

Squirrel tried to kill me

2006-05-10T12:15:00.000+09:00

No, seriously. I was kinda freaked out.

It all happened just moments ago. I was sitting outside on a bench, minding my own business, eating my dinner (which consisted of a Veggie Delite sandwich from Subway and a Diet Coke - yum). Then I saw this squirrel, just a-scampering around on the path. "He's a cute little guy," I thought to myself. Then after the guy walked by, I noticed the squirrel again. "Aww, the squirrel is cute, too," thought I, "but in a different way."*

Let me just reiterate here that I am sitting on a bench, eating a sandwich. This doesn't involve a lot of movement.

The squirrel starts coming towards me. He's getting really close. I start noticing that he isn't really that cute after all. He looks like a big, ugly rat. A big, ugly, mean, crazy rat with razor-sharp teeth. As he grins at me menacingly, I notice that he is also wielding a switchblade, which he tosses back and forth from one tiny little hand to the other.

By the time he's about 2 feet away from the bench, I'm getting kinda edgy. You see, he's a quick little dude, as squirrels generally are. And I realize that he could close that distance in less time than it would take for me to shout, "Help! Crazy squirrel!" So I start moving around to try and scare him off. He backs away a little, but as I continue to eat my sandwich, he starts closing in on me again. So I quickly finish my dinner and beat feet out of there. This is not a joke. It really happened.* I could have died.**

Tune in next week for more animal adventures at the University of Washington. What creature will I run into next? Maybe a husky? Better not be a cougar...

*Parts of this story really happened. Other parts may or may not have happened.
**This is clearly not true.

The menagerie that is the University of Washington

2006-05-09T13:00:00.000+09:00

The title of my blog, as you may have noticed, is "Marianna'a Random Ponderings." And I am really tempted to post just a whole bunch of random ponderings today. Here's me giving in to temptation.

I saw a duck about half an hour ago. I was walking to the writing center to get some advice for my senior thesis, and he was hanging out right outside of Mary Gates Hall. I came within about 6 feet of him and he didn't even look at me. How weird is that? I wonder- If I threw something at him, would he have ducked? But anyway, the duck made me think of my senior thesis. When ETA was first established, their name was almost something different. I don't remember what it was, but the acronym would have been ATA. Then they realized that "ata" is the Euskera word for duck. So they changed the first word.

I almost wrote, "But I digress," just now - then I realized - that's the point. This whole post is one big digression - Yay! What fun!

I saw a raccoon a few days ago. I was walking across campus on the way to my car the other night after studying all day. The little guy was on his way up/down (I'm not sure which) a tree right in the middle of campus! I know where the duck came from - Drumheller Fountain. It's always full of them. But what was the raccoon doing hanging out by the library? I think that's the first time I've ever seen a raccoon in real life. I came within about 12 feet of him. It was cool for me.

Thanks for the birthday wishes yesterday :D I loved the songs, comments, and messages. Whoever this "Victoria" is that keeps leaving me comments and written birthday songs - thanks. I don't exactly remember who you are, but I appreciate it anyway.

I just found out today that I share a birthday with Sigmund Freud...

Just prior to the Duck Sighting mentioned above, I spied a bird snacking on a worm. The funny thing was, he would just kind of peck at it a couple of times, then look around for a few seconds, then peck at it a couple of times, then look around for a few seconds - you get the idea. It didn't seem like a very effective way to eat a worm. If I were bird, I'd just eat him and be done with it. Actually, if I were a bird, I would change the way birds eat. Birds would drink coffee and eat candy bars.

I'm hanging out in the writing center right now, waiting for my turn.

I've basically moved in to the library now. I'm going to try to be signed in to MSN Messenger more often so I can chat with you folk. Even if my status is "Busy," you can interrupt me and we can chat for a bit :D

I'm becoming addicted to energy drinks. I like them. They're great.

I graduate in just over a month! That's mental! If anybody wants tickets to the ceremony, let me know. It's June 10 and the tickets are free, but I need to request them by May 21.

I may post some more pics soon and I may try to blog more often, but then again, it may not happen. So I'm not going to commit to anything.

I may be here pretty late tonight studying. The more I am able to write tonight and turn in tomorrow, the more I will be getting feedback on.

In light of that, I think I will close now. Gotta get back to writing!

Just in time!

2006-04-19T07:45:00.000+09:00

In my last post, I said that I was hoping to post more information about my trip in the coming week. So, for anyone who has been wondering why the post hasn't appeared yet, it may be useful to note that the phrase "the coming week" has been redefined by the Board of Definitions and Redefinitions of the English Language. It now means "the next 19 days." Therefore, this post is just in time - not late, as you might have imagined.

The trip was great; I had lots of fun hanging out with Homeskillet and Strong Sad (a.k.a. Victoria and Kelly) at their place on Holy Spirit Street. Jess and I also got to go visit Jonathan in Los Hueros (which is a.t.p.e.c. - I'm giving a whopping 50 points to whoever is the first one to figure out this acronym), and he hung out in Madrid with us as well. The trip mostly consisted of hanging out with friends and visiting the places we used to frequent, for example: Casa Mingo, el Rastro, Ricci's, etc. Jess and I both spent a substantial amount of money on clothing, I made Bailey's brownies a couple of times, and we (Victoria, Kelly, Amy, Jess, and I) watched the entire collection of "The Office" - which amounts to about 8 hours of fun... or should I say, the equivalent of the average day at the office? I also got to see Troy and Heather, Ana, Shawn, and Nicole Trabes. Plus, I got to know V & K's roommate Amy, and meet some of their other friends. It was an all-around good time. Also, Matt 3 came to town the day before I left, so we met for some wonderfully minging food at Casa Mingo. Here are some pics from the trip:

Jess, Jo, Vic, and I, at La Finca de Susana, which is a culinary school where you can get amazing food for a very reasonable price. Jonny and I on the Madrid Tour bus. Jonny "working hard" at the office.This sort of reminds me of Gareth's phone holster. "Did he make 5 calls, or six? You gotta ask yourself, do you feel lucky, punk? Well? Do you?That Uncle William sure has one big Tub O' Mayonnaise.
This place has the best mojitos in the world.

This is the most amazing chocolate in the world. Seriously.
Jonathan? Playing video games? There's a shock...