Omen

The foam on my hot chocolate tonight briefly formed a rabbit in full flight.

This either means that I will get a raise shortly or I will lose all of my belongings in a house fire. Perhaps it simply means, "tomorrow you will go out for lunch and get some delicious tacos."

I'm pretty sure it's that last one.

I Finally Watched It.

How is it that I never heard about the one redeeming virtue of the Pirates of the Caribbean 3, that Keith Richards is Johnny Depp's brother?

I'm kind of disappointed that 3 was even more terrible than 2. Really, how can that be? My time is valuable, people! Don't make three movies badly when you can simply make one well!

As the ninja says, just as there is no honor among pirates, there is apparently no honor among filmmakers.

There's also this really patriotic song about 9/11

So I'm sitting there at work. I'm cut-and-pasting stuff from excel tables into a giant database. I've been doing this for four days straight, and the end is almost in sight. I'm tired.

And my officemate has the radio on.

During the past month I've become intimately acquainted with country music, or rather, COUNTRY'S BIGGEST HITS! From what I've observed, country has about 15 hits, which they play through every two hours or so, with some non-hits mixed in for flavor. After that, they repeat the process. I've counted, and on some days I have heard the same song four times.

The point of this post is not to bash country music, because all in all, it's not that bad. There are catchy songs, and even the bad ones are somehow better than the bad songs on rock or alternative stations. Bad rock is just bad, you want to turn it off. Bad country is kind of entertaining, like MST3K- somehow, it's so bad that it's good.

The point of this post is that, I've thought about this for pretty much all day today, so I think I'm right about this, 90% of "daddy-daughter wedding dance" songs are country. Think about it, recall the various wedding receptions you've been to, and you will see that I am right. In fact, the only non-country ones I can think of would be "Sunrise, Sunset" (which would be harder for most people to do, since it's a waltz) and "Father & Daughter" by Paul Simon (which isn't really easy to dance to, either).

Here is one kind of awful one that fits the genre. This one was probably written with the express intent of it being a wedding song. They are both, from what I can gather, COUNTRY'S BIGGEST HITS!

And this is a song that is not country at all, but is fantastic, just in case you need to get the country taste out of your mouth after that. Cleanse your palate, if you will.

Not Sure if This Was a Dream or a Nightmare

After waking from a nearly 20-year coma, I find that my parents have cleaned my room, a homeless man is stalking me, and my true love leaps out of the woodwork with a bouquet made of toilet paper. Oh yeah, and my grandma takes me out for a chocolate shake. Sweet!

Life vs. Meta-life

I have some friends that are very self-aware. They know what's going on in their lives, they analyze themselves and their relationships with others, they contemplate things.

Is there something I'm not getting? Is this a personality difference? I never think about things! Is this a characteristic that everyone needs to develop for themselves, or is it just something that some people naturally do and others don't and that's ok?

I feel like I'm a good person, like I try to do the right things for the right reasons, but I don't know that I have some overarching plan or understanding I have for my life. What if I wake up one morning to find that I'm 40 and I still don't know what I'm doing with myself? I have this vague fear that this will happen and I will not even notice because I don't think about that kind of thing. Because really, on a day to day basis, all I really think about is what to eat, going to work, coming home and what I'll do with my evening.

Any ideas on how to begin thinking about oneself?

Also No Portals to Parallel Dimensions

There's this great website that has equipment information and pictures of every classroom on campus. On the info page there are various choices of things you might want in a room: stage, computer connectivity, wheelchair access, one way mirror. One way mirror? I excitedly click through the entire database, one room at a time. There are no classrooms on campus with a one way mirror.

Novel Concept

You know the interesting thing about frost? Frost is beautiful, when you ride your bike in the morning and see the grass all sparkly and white, the palm fronds all sparkly and white, windows all sparkly and white. But you know what else is sparkly and white? The crappy bus stop bench is beautiful. The decaying banana that's been on the side of the road for two weeks is all white. And the mysterious wing of some bird, all gory and mangled, has a little sparkle to it. I can't really reconcile simultaneous attraction and revulsion that these objects inspire: rather than cancel each other out, the beauty and nastiness seem to simply make each other more pronounced.

The Honeymoon Isn't Quite Over Yet

I seem to have neglected the internet of late, both in reading and writing, for which I am more sorry than I can say. I have been rather busy of late, trying to figure out this life that grown-ups have, where you get up at six and go to work at eight and then come back home after five. It's pretty tiring, huh?

While I do not miss having homework and stress and exams to worry about, I kind of miss the student life, where if you really don't want to go to class, that's cool, it's your choice and no one notices. This new stress is different: it's the stress of knowing that no matter how much sleep you got the night before, no matter how messy your apartment is, no matter how much you just want to stay home and have a mental health day, you're expected to be at work. There is work to do, and if you don't do it, there will be double the work the next day.

All complaining about the situation aside, I really do like my job. It's detail oriented and consistent, which are things that I like, and the people are friendly and fairly laid-back, which helps when I don't know everything I need to know yet. A non-student, full-time paycheck sweetens the deal, and although I'm told that what I'm making isn't very much at all, it's still about three to four times what I'm used to living on. This "small" paycheck should be able to stretch a long way, as long as I don't start acting like I'm making more money. I should be able to build up a pretty sizable (for me) savings, and maybe take a vacation (with Vacation Days!) in a year or two.