Ramblings of...

...books. I finished my most recent book today: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I thought it was pretty darn excellent. Overall, I'd recommend Neil Gaiman for a good read. But if you liked the movie Stardust, for the love of all things holy, don't read the book. Normally, I'd never say that. But I absolutely love the movie. And I like Neil Gaiman. So I decided to read the book. I have never been so sad and let down over a book in my life. If they had never made the movie, I would probably have thought the book was okay. Back to Anansi Boys. I'd definitely recommend it. Other than that, most of the other books I've read recently are Sophie Kinsella books. I totally blame Vix on this one. They have become an absolute guilty pleasure.

...school. So it starts Thursday (technically), but I have a four hour program meeting on Wednesday. I'm so nervous. Like the type of nervous you have when you have date with someone you really, really like, and you're excited about it because you like the person, but you're scared witless because you're pretty sure you'll do something, and they'll hate you. Like that. Except with a school. How weird. I got my textbooks the other day, and realized, all through undergrad, I never really appreciated what a real textbook looks and feels like. Just one (yes, there are more for the class) of my anatomy and physiology books is like 3 inches thick and could be used to hunt lions. I started reading another one of my textbooks the other day - yes, I'm that excited that I'm actually reading the stuff before school starts. I know, what a dork! But I've come to the conclusion that at least, the anatomy and physiology class is going to hunt me down and devour me. But it should be fun...ha!

...me. It's not so much any more, but every now and then, I still get the impression that people that know me still categorize me as the girl that got married. That is my major accomplishment in life. I feel that this is wrong. Not just because I feel like it underscores my achievements and worth as an individual and a woman, but also because I feel like it cheapens marriage. Marriage is not an "achievement," like the little medals you got in school for the read-a-thon, or something you unlock on Xbox live. I get the impression that people see getting married as a medal, and then it's something that you can point to on your mantle and brag about. It's more like a book or a piece of artwork. You start it, at the beginning, and you continue to work on it until the end. It's a personal piece of artwork, not one that you finish quickly to show off to everyone. And it doesn't come with guarantees and sunshine and happiness; that's part of the work you have to put into it to get closer to finish the painting. Otherwise it'll never be done. Like, just because you're married doesn't mean you'll actually eat together more than once a week. But life goes on. And it's fine, because you work it out.

Okay, enough of me pretending to be smart!

Ignorance. I has it.

Okay, I'm not going to try to spout infinite wisdom on immigration or anything, but let's get one thing straight and stop pretending. Racism IS a large part of the problem. And I can say this surely because I've been on the receiving end of it, as well as my mom and my dad. Apparently, people are more likely assume that you're an Mexican, most likely illegal, if you work in the service industry. Which is racist to begin with. I don't get as much of it as my dad does, since I live in like the liberal capital of the south. I'm not normally disrespectful of old people no matter what, but I can say that the most of it can be summed up by what this old, white-trash, prick said to my dad one time when he was at his shift at the gas station: "We need more [Mexicans] like you" because my dad can speak English well and his job requires him respectful to assholes like this guy.

It takes a special kind of ignorant to make a statement like that.

Hola!

Yes, I know that I'm missing the upside-down exclamation point at the beginning of the name of my post, but I don't know how to make one of those, so there. It's been so long since I've updated! Time's flying all of a sudden, and I don't know why.

We went to a wedding of our two friends this last weekend. It was fun, and we got to see all of our friends (basically trivia people and a few others). And I got introduced to an amazing drink: vodka-soda with a splash of orange juice. Gross, you may think, but 'tis my favorite. Let me tell you, weddings are so much more fun when they're not yours :-D

So, I've been cleaning today and doing things while I have some spare time. Went to get the oil changed and waited at the place for an hour (they originally said 2 hours). I couldn't go anywhere because we have one car, :-P , that was getting it's oil changed and tires rotated. But I sat outside against the building in the shade, reading, and it was actually very, very nice. It was funny, because when I went inside to pay and get the car key, the guys were making fun of me saying, "You already finished all the chapters?" I like them here better than the other place we used to go. The other place was more expensive, and they were supposed to check the fluids, and *surprise, surprise* not even a week later our brake light came on because the brake fluid was low.

As far as the cleaning goes, I've been packing up winter clothes and such and putting them away to make room in the closet. Rasha's been prancing around after me. This little dog LOVES to travel. Any time I start packing anything, she gets all excited because she thinks she's going somewhere (even if I'm just cleaning or unpacking). She loves riding in the car. She even like the car wash. She was a little nervous when it started at first, but then she got really interested in what was happening outside the car.

I just finished reading an article on Sarah Palin - these really entertain my brain. Anyone with half a brain and a TV or YouTube can tell that nothing intelligent has probably ever come out of that woman's mouth. My brain like to concoct situations where a person like her, even dumber and more belligerent than W, got a hold of the country and totally ran it into the ground. Then it likes to think on questions like, "when things get absolutely horrible in the States, and people try sneaking into Canada, will they (the Canadians) start talking about building a military fence to 'keep the crazy Americans out'"? :-D Now imagine that situation Canadian Bacon style. Hilarious.

Hmm... I keep forgetting to eat lunch, then end up eating really late, so when I look at the clock, I panic when I see 3:40! Well I guess it's time to go finish cleaning and packing for Greenville.

:-)

Yay Arizona!

Of all the negative things that everyone saying about Arizona's recent law-passing spree (the clear violation of civil rights against anyone of not white skin tone, flashbacks to the days of slavery and the stars that Jews were made to wear by the Nazis, etc.), I have something positive to say:

...At least, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have someone else to bash besides South Carolina :-D

Mad Post-Zombie-Apocalypse Skillz

So it's been an interesting week (or so). Mostly just life as normal - busy, busy.

Recent accomplishments:
- Finished a sweater(-ish?) thing that I started a while ago and promptly forgot about.
- Confessed my love for refashioning old things and thrift stores. Chuck just realized that he has nicer clothes now that we shop at thrift stores, and he gets hand me downs from my brothers.
- Started planning my trip to SC while Chuck's living it up in Florida. Seems like I'll be in Cola on the first, making a side trip to Charleston to see Kay (or maybe meeting half way?) on Sunday, then in G'ville until Wednesday morning.
- Realized that April is nearly over, and I'm still confused about where March went.
- Need to sit down and review algebra so I can take my math test next week (hopefully).
- Found a new allergy medicine that is like magic :-D My old one just can't stand up to the pollen here. Finally had to change (I was stubbornly clinging to "I'm fiiiiine") after I had to call in sick to the hospital on Thursday. I'm pretty sure having their volunteers look like they have the plague isn't exactly what they're after.
- Realized that I need to be more up to date on local politics (I would've gone to the rallies if I had known about them ahead of time). The Georgia government was seriously thinking about cutting the Arts Council as part of budget cuts. The Arts Council provides much of the funding for pretty much all the arts in GA. They had a rally at the capitol building this Monday that I would've loved to go to :-( The governor's fiscal plan cuts 2/3 of the Georgia Arts Council's funding, which effectively destroys the Arts Council. Without the Arts Council, Georgia doesn't have another agency that would qualify for the National Endowment for the Arts, so we would lose that funding as well. And that would effectively make Georgia the only state (including territories) without a state arts council. Also, it would effectively raise the unemployment rate SIGNIFICANTLY from the all-time high we're at now (10.6%). In that case, we can't even comfort ourselves by saying, "Well, there's always Alabama."
- Another political rally I wish I had gone to was last night. This dilemma actually made national news. MARTA currently is the 9th largest transit system in the country, and of those, is the only one that doesn't get state aid. They run solely off of fares and a penny sales tax in two counties (of the 28 in the Metro Atlanta area). And of that sales tax, it is ILLEGAL for them to use 50% of that revenue for day-to-day cost. They HAVE to use it on new things. So basically they're asking the state for money (like everyone else), and are pretty sure they aren't going to get it, but what they'd really like is for that law to be rewritten so they can use their money for their operating costs. If the state decides to do nothing, MARTA will have to cut a THIRD of it's service, raise fares (again), and lay off up to 1,500 of it's 5000 employees. Can you imagine what would happen to Atlanta if 30% of the trains and buses were stopped? We've already got like the second worse commute in the country (at least LA's got us there) - and you're just going to put that many more cars on the roads? Not to mention that about half the people that ride MARTA have no other form of transportation available. The state of Georgia has always had it in for MARTA (and Atlanta) - I think they're being even more pissy now with all the liberal things that have happened at the federal level lately. Oh, and proof - they're working on other legislation which will basically let individual areas (districts) tax for transit systems - and they specifically, by name, said these funds cannot go to MARTA.

Basically Georgia's doing it's best to make sure we (as a state) continue to spiral downwards economically. But we can handle it - because we've recently started categorizing our skills in terms of how useful they'd be after a zombie apocalypse. And we've started honing our skills to prepare for such an event. We'll be prepared for when Georgia becomes the ass end of the U.S. and then eventually the country gets so tired of us, they'll just boot us out :-P Or maybe they'll just send in special forces to take out the great governor Sonny Perdue.

-------------------------------------------------

Update after talking to Chuck's mom: apparently Perdue snuck in (without telling ANYONE) a merit-based pay for teachers in his budget without telling anyone after the state legislature voted against this last year. Merit-based pay is basically saying, well we'll pay you, but only equivalent to the progress we think that your students have made. Naturally, this has the teachers up in arms (especially Chuck's mom - can you imagine getting paid on the "progress" the government thinks your special needs students have made?) And one thing EVERY politician in Georgia should learn: DON'T PISS OFF THE TEACHERS. They're the only reason that Perdue got voted in (when his predecessor was asked why GA schools are the rear-end of the country's school systems, he said "Oh, it's the teachers' fault." Ironically, GA has some of the most politically active teachers in the country). So, I hope Perdue is ready to go down in flames.

Also, the State Senate voted to restore some of the money that the House approved to cut from the Arts Council. So the Arts Council lives, but barely - it still got over half it's budget cut.

Innovative :-D

Scrolling through the inter-webs, I came across this during lunch today. The Royal Shakespeare Company is "performing" a modernized version of Romeo & Juliet via Twitter over then next five weeks. I thought it was a cool idea. The article that I read that I found out about it from had some people going on about what a travesty this is and such. Get over it - it's art and creativity. One of the biggest things about creativity is trying new things. So whatever - those are probably the same type of people that would have told Van Gogh to get his eyes adjusted and would have tried to tell Seurat that you can't paint using dots. And they probably would have told Picasso that people don't have that many corners.

Hah, anyway, here's the link to the main page. Check it out :-)
http://www.suchtweetsorrow.com/

Atlanta is YELLOW

So...the trees are horny. Extremely so here, apparently. There is a yellow haze in the air. A blanket of yellow covering anything and everything outside. The horizon looks yellow unless you look straight up from where you are standing. Also, we think the the pollen count chart is broken. Here's how it works. It counts the number of pollen particles in a cubic meter of air over a 24 hour period.

Here's the ratings:
0-30 = Low
31-60 = Moderate
61-120 = High
120+ = Extremely High

.........Today's pollen count in Atlanta is 5733.

X_X I think we broke their rating system.