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whappy happy nea land! |
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My own spot to rant about my day.
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wFriday, August 30, 2002 |
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I'm so dragging today. Not the I partied all last night and am too hung over to move dragging, but the its been a long week and I'm tired dragging. This weekend is going to be pretty packed, too. I'm tutoring twice, going to HB to pick up the title to my car and the bathing suits we left last weekend, are having dinner with my dad Sunday, and are planning on test driving and buying a new car for me inbetween. Currently, we're down to five cars: the Honda Accord (current winner), Toyota Corolla, KIA Spectra, VW Jetta, and PT Cruiser. Add to that relaxing time, gym, and the possiblity of dim sum Sunday morning, and things are looking pretty crazy. I'm very happy that our office is closing at one today, so at least I can get started on all this early. Just need to make it through the day . . . bleh.
posted by
nea at 11:20 AM
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wThursday, August 29, 2002 |
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My head has just been a mess recently. I don't know if I've been staring at the screen too much, or not getting enough sleep, or not drinking enough water, or what, but I get headaches almost every day. They're not too bad, but enough that I can't function full speed. I'm sick of taking Advil every single day. Stupid headaches. Stupid computer.
I think I realized why more and more people have health problems. Back in the olden times, people did different chores based on the time of year, and were often up and moving. Intricate jobs, like weaving, were only done in the winter, and not for a long enough period for people to get some sort of repetitive stress disorder. There was no TV or computer monitor to stare at. Now, everyone does the same job every single day. No wonder people pull muscles, and get eyestrain, and have all sorts of other health problems. Maybe we'd be better off if everyone traded jobs every season.
posted by
nea at 9:47 AM
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wTuesday, August 27, 2002 |
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Damn blogger. Why do I not start in a text file, so that I don't lose all my thoughts.
Abbreviated version of what I just wrote:
Slept bad. Real bad. Slept in and came to work late. Feel good now. Had nice lunch outside.
Stupid blogger. argh.
posted by
nea at 1:19 PM
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wMonday, August 26, 2002 |
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Being at the beach on Saturday felt so good. The hot sand burning our feet, the ice cold water cooling them off, jumping up into the waves . . . . I was happy. The water was pretty dirty but whatever. What was a little wierd is that Dave and I were the only ones who went in the water completely. Most of our friends, if they went in at all, went knee deep at best. I thought the whole point of the beach was getting wet, but I guess not. They missed out--Dave and Greg and I saw a handful of fish swimming really near the shore. Greg was also busy for awhile catching sand crabs, which is something he and I did all the time as kids with our siblings. There was a TON of food which was quite tasty. Dave and I both got sunburnt (surprise), Dave rather badly from playing football with his shirt off for almost two hours. Silly Dave. Mine was mostly on my shoulders, and on my chest where my old suit used to cover but my new suit doesn't Neither of us blistered though, which is good. Yesterday we spent most of the day hanging around the apartment slathering on aloe vera. I love aloe vera.
posted by
nea at 9:40 AM
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Silly show I would love to see: Puppetry of the Penis. Supposedly it's two guys twisting their penises into different shapes. Man, do you have to be drunk to start doing that.
posted by
nea at 9:35 AM
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I'm so happy that it's Friday! I used to think that every day could be just as fun as the weekend, but now that I work full time and have a lousy commute, I realize how great weekends are. They're more or less the only time I see my friends ( which really sucks) and get to sleep in. woo-hoo!
Tonight Dave and I are having a couple people over for dinner. Of course this means Dave is going to be the creative cooking king, and our kitchen, which is prefectly clean right now, will look like a cajun storm blew through it by tonight. Tomorrow we're going to HB for a beach party! I get to go home! I get to go to the beach! Dave doesn't like the beach so we NEVER go and it makes me sad. I like the smell and feel of warm sand and cold surf. It's the only place I'll play tackle football, because it doesn't hurt to fall in the sand. It should totally be a fun day.
posted by
nea at 8:42 AM
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wThursday, August 22, 2002 |
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Today is going to be a long and totally unproductive day for me. I had thirty minutes of work this morning. Yep, that's it. And everything is done for my accounts--nothing to follow up on, nothing I'm saving for later. Done. I spent the rest of the morning reading. Yes, it's a great way to spend a morning, but I would really rather be at home tending Dave (who is sick) and getting the house clean for our dinner guests tomorrow night. I thought about taking a sick day but Dave said no, as I only have two left for the year. C'est la vie. This afternoon I'm going to try and find people to help, so that I can be productive for someone. Dave is coming over the hill to meet me for dinner, since Aaron and Zac (the kids I tutor) have football practice until late. Which brings me to the other unproductive part of my day.
How much attention are two kids going to pay when they have had 8 hours of football practice every day this week. Eight! No other high school sport spends eight hours a day, five days a week, practicing. On Tuesday, when I went to tutor Aaron, he was kinda tired and out of it. He hadn't done his homework and told me honestly he didn't have time to do the usual amount I give him. I'm sure tonight either he or his brother will be asleep when I get there, and I'll have to wake them up to tutor. I don't think that this is a good way of getting extra enrichment. In fact, I think it's pretty silly that I'm going to try and teach to two tired boys who don't need to listen to what I'm saying because their grades are not directly affected. argh. On the other hand, today is installment two of my summer pay for doing SAT tutoring. Yay $250!
posted by
nea at 11:33 AM
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wWednesday, August 21, 2002 |
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Again, I have run out of things to do. But, for once, I'm not totally bored out of my mind and running for the elevators at 5 pm to save me from this stupidity of daily work. Instead, my eyes have finally adjusted to reading online for a couple of hours straight. I'm currently reading The Count of Monte Cristo, which is an extremely long and complicated novel. It's great. I look like I'm busy doing something, as the text is just plain black on white, like a long important document. At the same time, I've been really productive for my group. I created a biller training guide, which our company has long since needed. I've been conducting training, and my accounts are more or less in perfect order. It's sad--I look like this exemplary employee when really I'm spending half the day with my nose in a book. Life is good.
Yesterday I had a period of two hours between work and tutoring that I needed to kill, so I went to the mall. I'm such a girl. I needed new black flats and a new bathing suit though, so it all worked out. Dave had no clue how much women's bathing suits can cost. He was thinking thirty, maybe thrity-five bucks. I had to instruct him that would probably be about right if I bought no-name bikinis on sale. But, as seeing me in a bikini would be rather scary, I do the one-piece thing instead. And ones with some sort of good lining or underwire so my chest doesn't look like it's trying to merge with my stomach. Why would you make a bathing suit with no built-in bra type thing? Why do women want to go around looking so hideous? Whatever. I have never understood most bathing suit makers, who pick patterns and styles that make utterly no sense. Yesterday I tried on one suit that fit well except the butt was about four sizes to big and the sides came halfway down my thighs. No, it was not a boycut suit. It was a badly made one. Another had teeny tiny shoulder straps that more or less went around my arm, and would fall at a moments notice. Although this might be great for flashers and topless bathers, it made no sense to me. Amazingly enough, I found something that fit. I hate bathing suit shopping.
posted by
nea at 11:33 AM
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wSaturday, August 17, 2002 |
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The fun of garage sales.
Part of getting married after you've already set up a household is that you end up having a lot of old stuff that you don't need anymore. Dave and I had a ton of random crap, mostly kitchen stuff, and so we had a garage sale at my mom's house this morning. I've been around when my mom held a sale or two, but I was a lot younger and have never actually had one myself. We were told garage sales in HB start early, and started pulling out stuff and setting up signs around 6:45 am. Immediately we had the first of the two groups that showed up predominately throughout the day: the middle-aged or elder white collector. He immediately bought a chipped but collectible plate cast off from my mom's ebay collection. The group was the mexican man, usually accompanied by his family. One group was looking for stuff they collect, or just stuff they wanted, and were more or less willing to pay the price asked. The other looked for stuff to resell at the college swapmeet, was aggressive, offered ridiculously low prices, and stole a couple things. Can you guess which group is which? There were a lot of nice people though, and it was kinda fun to watch what people bought. Things I thought would go first took forever, and some of the stuff we thought for sure would sell (like an entire set of full-sized sheets, plus comforter and bed ruffle, for $3), didn't. Our big sale was a silverware set, plus plastic tray, for $6. At about 1:30 pm, when all the good stuff was gone and we were sick of being out there, we piled up the stuff and put out big "FREE" signs. Things still left at 5 pm: one styrofoam cooler from Omaha Steaks, a few books, and a 286 computer that doesn't work. We did good though--for selling off old stuff we didn't want we made around $90. Since most of our sales were fifty cents or a dollar, I think we did good.
It's tiring being out and aware all day. I took a nap from 3 to about 4:30, and am still a little groggy. Tomorrow we go test drive cars and buy new bathing suits. woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 9:26 PM
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wWednesday, August 14, 2002 |
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Another happening yesterday that I find quite funny- Dave received an e-mail that his website is part of the top 1000 gay websites. He has a banner to post on his site. I'm so proud.
posted by
nea at 8:41 AM
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Yesterday was just totally mentally draining. I found out about my raise, tried to get rid of the piles of other people's stuff on my desk, went through a company-wide meeting (in which no one raised a scene, which surprised me), conducted training, tutored, and told the family of the kid I tutor that, no, I won't be tutoring next year. By the time I got home I just needed food and to space out. Didn't really see Dave much--I was just too tired. But today I'm fine again, and ready for another really busy day. Today's print out 4000 pages day! woo-hoo!
On a separate note, Dave's company decided to switch to T-mobile so I'm getting a new cell phone this week. I'm not happy about it but really don't have a choice in the matter. I'll be sending out my new number soon.
posted by
nea at 8:34 AM
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wTuesday, August 13, 2002 |
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Today my supervisor and I finally got to talk about my raise. My job hunt is over--I got a 25% raise!!!!! It's going to be on this Thursday's paycheck!!!!! I'm really excited! Yay nea!
posted by
nea at 8:47 AM
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wMonday, August 12, 2002 |
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My week is going to go by so slowly. I have about two hours of work a day to do, max. Today I did have one work highlight. It has really bothered me that the person in charge of making any changes in our scanning system, as well as doing administration for it, had no clue how it worked on the user end. So we spent two hours going through the whole thing, and all the different ways in which we use the system. Besides feeling like I've been helpful to the department, it was nice to train someone that had a clue. I didn't have to explain over and over the difference between the red box on the verify page and the red box on the image (answer: no difference. They are looking at the exact same thing, and one box is just the blown up version of the other) and the box in which you type your info. This is easy to me. This was easy to him. This is not easy to the rest of the department. Does this surprise me? No, just makes me realize how important an education is.
Nothing to do here between now and five except sit and websurf. I need to do more job applications tonight.
posted by
nea at 3:36 PM
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Yay good and productive weekend!
I had Friday off, which always makes me happy, so I went to help in my stepmother's class again. I feel a little bad for them. LAUSD implemented a new reading program, in which everyone reads the same book at the same pace. There are a ton of worksheets to do, and a lot of having to sit in their seats and pay attention. The problem is that the work is too hard for most of them, but too easy for about three of them. All in all, the whole class just can't stay with the program so there ends up being a lot of just telling the kids the answers.
Saturday Dave and I spent the day in a cleaning frenzy so it would look all pretty when people came over that evening. My dad came by to help us put up two paintings that we received as wedding gifts. They're these watercolor prints that are just totally awesome, and one of them has become the focal point of our living room. The other one is in our bedroom, a bit off to the side because neither of us like the idea of having a huge painting hanging over our heads as we sleep. I didn't really realize how messy our place had become until we started cleaning. It was really messy. It wasn't really dirty, as we had done a thorough cleaning for Jamie's visit, but just a lot of odds and ends massed into piles, especially in the dining room.
After much work and a short nap, our friends started arriving so that we could all head out to the Hollywood Bowl for a picnic and music from Lord of the Rings. I lied to everyone about the time, which is good because we got moving about 45 minutes later than scheduled. Actually, we got moving right about when I thought we would, but whatever. There were still plenty of picnic tables and we had the right amount of time to eat, drink, and be merry before the concert.
It's funny, Dave and I grew up with typical white people potlucks. BBQ, coleslaw, potato salad, pasta salad, watermelon, etc. Saturday was totally an asian-american potluck--fried rice, korean sushi rolls, pastas from Ralph's, ribs, El Pollo Loco chicken, quiche, and all sorts of other good stuff. We had WAY too much food for nine people, which was great, because this means Dave and I had lots of leftovers. Actually, we still have leftovers. The only part that sucked is that we put all the leftovers in our picnic basket, which Dave had to lug up and down the big hill around the bowl. That thing was heavy. Poor Dave.
The concert was really good. I haven't heard an orchestra in a long time, and I don't think I've ever gotten to listen to one accompanied by two choirs. They played some stuff from Harry Potter, which I really liked except for Dave giggling that one of the instruments looked and sounded like a farting bedpost. Kinda ruined the piece for me. The stuff for LOTR was great. The choir had to sing quite a bit of the music in elvish, which I'm sure took a while to learn. We were a little far back to see much (forgot the binoculars) but the acoustics where we were sitting were great. I love going to the bowl. The whole atmosphere is just so nice, sitting up in the hills, being outside listening to music. The audience was kinda entertaining too. There were some hardcore Tolkien fans dressed in full garb as Hobbits or Norse worshipers or whatnot. Cool stuff.
A night we'll have to repeat again.
posted by
nea at 10:06 AM
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wThursday, August 08, 2002 |
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People farting in time to the music is really gross.
posted by
nea at 8:32 AM
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wWednesday, August 07, 2002 |
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Sorry, I actually have work at work so I'm doing silly crap at home.
I have begun sending out resumes. woo-hoo! Nothing back except automated responses and one rejection. No worries though. It's not like I'm unemployed. Those of you who want to get me a job, please let me know.
posted by
nea at 10:31 PM
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Another day of nothing to do. For some reason, though, I don't really mind. I've kinda accepted that I'm in a job that isn't right for me, and that to fight it just makes me frustrated and gives me headaches.
Last night we had dinner with a bunch of friends at Asahi Ramen on Sawtelle. I had never been there before, and when I think of ramen I always have Top Ramen come to mind. This tasted nothing like that. I had ramen with pork, bean sprouts, egg, and pickled bamboo. I really liked the bamboo. I have to find that stuff somewhere. It was also totally cheap--$4.75 for this big bowl of stuff. Yay cheap tasty food!
Afterwards we went for boba and hung out for awhile. I had coconut milk boba, which was REALLY tasty. I think I have a new favorite flavor. I got to see Quyen's Cancun pictures, which were really pretty, and talk with Judy and HT about France. They had a very different experience than Dave and I, but it was interesting to compare stories. We're such world travelers. hee hee. Our group also decided to share Oliver stories with his new girlfriend, Diana. Poor girl had no clue what she was getting. Poor Oli. It seems like every time we get together we tell stories about him. Someday we'll find another person to mess with.
Tonight I tutor SATs. I already planned out our schedule for this evening, so it should go by pretty quickly. Hopefully I won't bore the hell out of Aaron. I know that he's not so happy about having to do anything intellectual during the summer. Too bad. Once I get home, Dave is cooking dinner for us and then I start launching resumes on the SF Valley. woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 11:59 AM
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wMonday, August 05, 2002 |
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Dave and I had a very nice, kinda antisocial weekend. No one was around, so we just hung out, got errands done, and spent a nice Saturday night in Glendale and Old Town Pasadena. I like Old Town. Yesterday we decided our exercise should be swimming and amking peach-vanilla ice cream. Yay hand-crank ice cream maker! Yay tasty ice cream! My arms are a little sore from all the cranking, but not too bad.
I like the new pharmacist at Rite-Aid. Instead of one month of drugs she gave me a three pack! She charged me as if I only bought one month/one refill, so I have two months of free drugs. I'm excited.
Today, as usual, I have very little to do. I did have some work, but it took a lot less time than expected and now I'm out of stuff to do for the day. I think tomorrow night (I won't get back until late tonight because my 6 pm dinner is now at 7:30. argh) begins the great resume send out. I need a new job!
posted by
nea at 1:51 PM
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wSaturday, August 03, 2002 |
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On Friday, since I had the day off, I went to help out at my stepmom's second grade classroom. She has, according to her and the other teachers, the slowest class of the bunch. There are four kids that are repeating the grade. They are the most social class I have ever seen! Thirty seconds of silence was a complete miracle. They're good kids, but just really busy and unfocused. One lesson yesterday was "Learn to address an envelope." Since at least half the kids in the class didn't know their own address (this really worries both myself and my stepmom. What if they get lost?) we wrote them down on scraps of paper. The whole excercise was write your name and address in the top corner of the paper, write the address of the person next to you in the center of the paper, and draw a stamp in the top right corner. We had a big example on the board. Want to guess how many of the kids could do this on their own? One! woo-hoo, one student! We had kids do anything and everything but what the directions were. At least they could all make stamps . . . . and they have to get through a rather strict reading program this year. Poor Cheryl. Every day her voice is just gone from constantly talking to and controling the kids. It's kinda crazy. All in all it was a good day though. One kid cried twice and another got a bloody nose. Nothing horrible. Cheryl said it was one of the best days they've had.
posted by
nea at 12:07 PM
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wThursday, August 01, 2002 |
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Happy Birthday to Dave!
Yesterday I decided to call in sick. This was after my hellish commute on Wednesday. In case you didn't hear, an accident involving a drunk driver and a fuel tanker and some other random cars occured at like 2:30 pm in the afternoon. Normally this would cause some back up, but at that hour not be so big a deal. Problem was a 15,000 gallon fuel spill that completely fucked up traffic so that EVERY road in Santa Monica and West LA was jammed. Completely. Like get out of your car and play poker completely. I had a late start, at 5:45, since I went to do a couple errands and buy some of Dave's birthday presents. Traffic was utterly horrible. There was just nowhere to go. Even the little streets with stop signs on every corner that no one ever uses were stopped. I finally got home at 8:15, cried out and exhausted from my journey. After that, plus a lack of sleep, a lack of work, and a need to do stuff around the house, I decided I just couldn't go to work yesterday.
I feel much better now.
posted by
nea at 9:39 AM
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