Tonight, Angela hosted her very first fund raising party, and it was a huge success! We had about 20 people show up and give generously to Angie’s cause.
We had a ton of food, great desserts, and my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies were a big hit! Even my sister, Tina Fey, requested some to take home.
Angie also set up a silent auction of donated jewelry pieces, and she got $100 in donations from that activity alone! The rest ($350) came from the guests’ incredible generosity in putting in more than the minimum donation ($10) indicated.
It was just a great time. In attendance were Tori Amos, Charlotte, Erin, Tina Fey, Ethel, and some other friends who don’t have names yet 😛 I was so grateful to all for coming, and for opening themselves to give like that.
I also made some new friends! Bonus! 🙂
Great night. Now I just sleep. Zzzzz…
ina
PS: Total collected was $501!!!! which put Angela over her 50% mark!!!
No TV doesn’t mean "a little bit of TV," and there is a reason for that!
Last night I got home at 6pm, and I accomplished tons of things: made dinner for me and my husband, did the dishes, did 2 loads of laundry (inc folding and putting away), baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for tonight’s Spa Night (to benefit Angela’s Triathlon fund), cleaned up the kitchen, went through coupon books (for which I did not find much use), and went to bed at 11pm.
My dreadful confession: I did watch the equivalent of 2.5hrs of TV as well. The Office was on, and Brian wanted to finish watching the episode of Psych we had started watching over the weekend.
I felt VERY guilty afterwards. I wanted to turn it off and do some more non-TV tasks, but it kept drawing me in!!! It’s an evil force! In all truthfulness, I was dead scared that if I turned it off I’d have to face the reality that I had to go to work the next morning. Yeah, I’m pretty damaged.
My hyper awareness of TV time also made me realize one thing: my subconscious ultimate goal in the evenings is to do enough stuff fast so I can go watch TV. Can you believe this? It’s like my body doesn’t feel like it got a chance to rest until it is sitting in front of that mind-numbing box. But, in reality, TV doesn’t relax me, it just presses the Fast Forward button on my life, and suddenly it is 11pm, and I feel as tired and drained as I did when I first sat down. How messed up is that?
I think I should say No to TV during the weekdays, and just catch up on my shows on weekends. I really do feel more relaxed when I go to bed after not watching TV or being on the computer, because it really feels like time goes by slower, and I have all that time to unwind. It helps me get up in the mornings and be more productive at work, too!
I’ve rambled long enough. I think you get the idea 🙂 I’ll leave you with a quote from Psych:
Lassiter: … the infamous J.T. Waring. Gus: Who’s that? Shawn: Come on, Gus, it’s the guy who wrote all the Harry Potter books. Gus: That’s J.K. Rowling, Shawn!
Ha! Sometimes those guys manage to remind me why I watch the show 🙂
… but not so much this time 😀 I can’t wait to move on and leave my previous role behind me.
I’ve been having my last meetings with the people I work with this week, and I’ve said my goodbyes with a big smile on my face 🙂 To those I enjoyed working with, I’m grateful for their friendship, and I know this won’t be our last time talking. To those I did not enjoy working with, all I can say is I hope our paths never cross again!
Oh, parting is such sweet sorrow. Emphasis on the SWEET 🙂
The scariest part of starting a new job is that you don’t know what you don’t know. I feel like I should know the ins and outs of every process, who manages it and how long it takes the teams to go through them. But I don’t! I’m getting thrown into meetings and documents and acronyms, and I have no clue!!!
One thing is for sure, though: once I learn the ropes, there will be nobody who can do this better. I’m just really good like that. Whatever I do, I become a total expert freak about. I got that to look forward to.
I got my MTEL scores on Friday. The unofficial score reporting website says the scores are available starting at 5pm, but they were ready during the day.
The website and the email will tell you exactly the same information, so don’t expect one to be more detailed than the other.
It will just tell you whether you passed or not, pretty much. The minimum passing score is a curved 240 out of 300.
I think the reason they don’t give scores beyond 240 is so that employers don’t use them as SAT scores. After all, a better teacher is not necessarily the one that got the better score.
While I agree with that reasoning 100%, it sort of killed my competitive spirit to not know my ACTUAL score.
You do get more detailed explanation of your performance in the official scores in the mail. In summary, apparently my summarizing skills suck! But the MTEL graders agree that I kick ass at writing quick short essays. Nice 🙂
I got home at 8:30pm last night, after a pick-up run at Bertucci’s, of course. I was pleasantly surprised to find the house almost just as I had left it! So I went to bed at 10pm in total peacefulness.
I woke up at 5am and was ready for work at 6am, so I spent the next 20 min tidying up, and now the house is exactly as I had left it! Oh, blissful home life.
It’s really amazing what an organized and neat abode can do for your whole outlook.
I don’t really believe that "things happen for a reason." This phrase implies that if something had not happened a certain unexpected way, you’d miss out on something better. So, if things DO go according to plan, does that mean that you missed out on better opportunities? Do you really think your life would be better right now if your plans had derailed along the way? I don’t think you believe that, either.
What I do believe in is "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." If something fails to go according to plan, something wonderful could STILL happen (although nothing beats the wonderfulness of a plan executed to the tee, but that’s just me).
Why am I talking about this? Because I just got handed a big lemon: I missed my flight. I did everything right: I got up at 5am, I made it to the airport at 6, I made it to the gate at 6:20, over an hour before my 7:35 flight. I heard the attendant at my gate say that the Boston flight was right on schedule and we might even board early. I listened to NPR and blogged until my sister, Monica Geller, called me at 6:50, and I talked to her until 7:25 or so. I was wondering what was wrong with my flight, but nobody had moved around me and there were no announcements coming from the booth. I assumed the flight was delayed.
At 8am, I finally had the common sense to ask the person sitting next to me "Excuse me, are you going to Boston?" the response stopped me in my tracks: "No, I’m going to Orlando." I got up in a flash and went up to the counter. There had been a gate change, which I had failed to notice, and I had missed my flight.
This is NOT the first time I travel and this had NEVER happened to me in my life! My eyes welled up with tears of utter frustration and anger at myself for not thinking of double checking my gate while I waited to board. So I’m stuck at the airport until 11:40am CST, connecting in Ohio, and landing in Boston at 6:45pm EST. Compare to my original flight, non-stop, arriving in Boston at 11:00am EST.
So what possible lemonade could I squeeze out of this completely frustrating and enfuriating situation? None that I could think of!!! I sat down and called the leader of my 4pm meeting ask him to reschedule. We had never met before, and he turned out to be a very friendly person. We ended up talking for 30 minutes straight! He’s lived in Spain and Venezuela and he even threw some Venezuelaisms at me, like "epa chama! Vamos a comernos unas cachapas!" I was stunned! He even lived close to where I used to live. By his stories and timeframes, I place him in his mid-fourties. It was a great surprise, and I am absolutely positive that we would have not had the chance to get to know each other this way had my plans gone without a glitch.
So there you have it: you can’t just DECIDE to make lemonade with the lemons. Life also has to provide the juicer.
I had a very exciting meeting yesterday. Yes, "exciting." Can you believe it? Is that a total oxymoron, or what?
The meeting was with the clients for a project I’m taking over in my new role. They are located in Brazil, and were visiting the mother ship just like I was. We thought it would be good to meet face to face, and it totally paid off.
I felt like they were my brothers, and I wanted to help them. Now, I don’t speak Portuguese, but after having that meeting I can’t WAIT to dive into Rosetta Stone and learning it. I want to jump into their peojects with both feet and make them happy as fast as I possibly can.
I would even be excited to travel to Brazil to learn more about their infrastructure. Isn’t that something?
You might think there is no right way to decline an invitation, whatever it may be for. But there absolutely is.
I love my friends, but I am surrounded by people who just don’t know how to let people down easy. Here’s a lesson for my dearest friends to better themselves one rejection at a time.
If someone is inviting you somewhere it’s probably because they actually want you to be there. So when you respond with a dry rejection, or don’t respond at all, it makes the requestor feel like crap. They feel guilty for having tried to intrude in your plans, or they feel like you simply did not want to go and you didn’t even care enough to come up with a decent excuse. Either way, it’s just not a nice feeling.
So what is the right way, you say? EASY! Just ADD something kind! Take a look at the difference:
🙁 Not Nice: I already have other plans. 🙂 Nice: Oh this sounds like so much fun! I’m so sorry that I already committed to something else, but definitely let me know for next time!
🙁 Not Nice: I can’t make it. Go without me. 🙂 Nice: Oh man, I have this really important meeting in the morning and I totally need to prepare that night. Why don’t you guys go ahead without me, and we can try again for later this month. What a bummer!
🙁 Not Nice: (No response) 🙂 Nice: I’m so sorry it took me so long to get back to you, things are crazy busy right now and I don’t even have time to write this note! Sorry that I can’t make your party, though, sounds like fun! I’ll fill you in later, we’ll talk soon when things get easier!
Signing off now with a public announcement to think about others’ feelings, guys. That’s what separates us from savages.
My husband, Brian, and I are completely opposite people. This really works in our favor most of the time because we can provide each other with a completely different perspective on pretty much anything. Whenever I am about to do something totally impulsive and harsh, I ask him for feedback and he helps me soften my blows. And I love him for that.
Too bad I can’t take him with me on business trips…
There’s this woman at work that if I didn’t see ever again, it would be too soon. She and I were working on a very difficult and totally physically and emotionally draining project 3 years ago. She came to me to give me advice and said that I was taking on too much work, and I should ease up and delegate. I remember being outwardly appreciative of the feedback, but thinking that she was stepping over her bounds trying to "coach" someone who is not her subordinate. But "whatever," I thought. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. The next day, she calls me and tells me that she has decided to dump all her responsibilities on me, and I would be the new leader of her area. This hit me like a pile of bricks. She was caving in under the pressure of the project, and decided (without any authority from the leaders) that she would just hand over all her work to me. That was the first time I ever said "No" to her, and it dawned on me what she meant about taking on so much work and saying "Yes" all the time. Ever since then I have wanted nothing to do with such a two-faced monster. She killed every ounce of trust I still had in her, and I began to avoid her whenever we were in the same room together from that point forward. I’d try to be cordial, but I can’t fake for long periods of time, so I’d always run the other way.
Well, God works in mysterious ways. Turns out that my new role is to take over her current projects, so we’ll have to work together in the transition. I went over to the mother ship for a couple of days and was very much looking forward to getting the transition over with in an hour.
Unfortunately for me, I can’t help my heart from showing on my sleeve, and she can’t ignore social cues that the other person (me) is giving off. So in our meeting, she asked what was wrong. I turned to her and asked her "Do you really want to have this conversation?" and she said yes. So, I let it all out. I even cried and bawled, and my eyes remained puffy for the rest of the day and into the night. Her first reaction was to laugh and make it sound like she "felt bad" for me for having held this grudge for 3 years. I called her on the laughing about this, regretted ever bringing anything up and asked her to get back to the transition presentation. She wouldn’t, for better or for worse. She stayed on the topic and apologized profusely multiple times for causing this kind of aggravation on me. Afterwards, my guard fell a bit, and I thanked her for letting me get it out in the open. I washed my face, and we decided to continue the transition on Monday.
I did honestly feel better after I let it all out, and I thought that maybe I’d feel even better about working with her on the transition the next day, but I don’t feel good. I still have no trust in her whatsoever, and I still hate her whiny high-pitched voice, and I can still see the smirk on her face when she said she "felt so bad" for me.
So what did we learn? Any political-correctness book (or my husband, or my parents, or my boss, or the Big Kahuna) would have told me that I handled it poorly, that I should have addressed it professionally, that I shouldn’t have blown up like that. But that was the most raw and real conversation I will ever have with anybody at work, and although I know I "should have" handled it better, I somehow don’t regret telling her off one bit. What’s the consequence? That I might have damaged the relationship forever? Well, it was already damaged, so it’s not like I could have made things so much worse.
I just hope to leave this behind me and just get the transition over with as quickly as possible.
I have this great blog idea that I just don’t have the time to write. I’d really like to write a blog called "I (heart) Norwood," (my town) and write everything about living in Norwood. Post pictures from my walks, comment on the local news (I’ll have to start getting the local newspaper), and recommend places to eat, drink and workout. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Tori Amos got this gift for christmas: the Biggest Loser weight loss kit. It comes with a journal, recipes, a workout CD, tape measurer, and a calorie-counting notebook. She didn’t think she’d ever do the program, so she gave it to me. Not that I am fat or anything, she just thinks I’m very organized and would count calories (which I’ve done in the past, so I can see where she got that idea).
Upon closer inspection of the kit last night, I ran into this tid-bit of information, and I didn’t feel like just sitting on it Here it goes:
There are foods that induce hunger, and basically work against you in your quest to lose weight. These foods have been stripped out of all fiber, so your body takes no time to process them and turn them into sugar. So you get a high, and burn it quickly, making you crash. You also finish with more hunger/cravings for the same type of food. Hence, an addiction is born. Here are some examples of it:
White breads
White pasta
White potatoes
Pastries
Donuts
Cinnabons
Soft Pretzels
Cookies
I know it’s obvious that these things are not good for you, I just didn’t know that they actually worked against you. When you diet, why would you make things HARDER for yourself? It’s plenty hard already!
It was pure bliss. My days felt like they were twice as long, and I got twice as much done. It made me feel so good to finally get rid of that rusty soap dispenser and clean the built-in dispenser that still had the previous owners’ soap in it, so we could finally start using it. It felt great to clean the bathroom sink, wash and put away all my laundry, reorganize the kitchen cabinets so we could start using them in a SMART way and stop cluttering the countertops with crap that didn’t fit in the cabinets. I also got to tidy up the whole house. I got all of this done, plus had brunch with 2 friends, and even went to the mall with Tori Amos to buy jeans at NY & CO for just $7.99!!! I also had a great time on Friday at Enrique Montoya’s bday celebration at Club Cafe in Boston. It was just a wonderful weekend all around.
I recommend turning off the TV and the computer to anyone who will try it, and watch things happen 🙂
Right now I’m at the gate about to start boarding for the Midwest to visit my company’s mothership. Just going for 1.5 days, and coming back to hang out with Erin, who will be visiting in Boston this week – yay!
Ugh… I hate business trips. Especially when I have a now-tidy home and a big and warm and cuddly husband I’d rather spend time with. Wish me luck. Deep breaths.
This is the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. Brian found this way on top of the master bedroom’s closet. It belonged to the previous owners. The parents must have hid it and told the kids they sent it to the North Pole. How cute is this???
Dear Santa, Thank you for the gifts last year. Love, The X family
That’s a club that I believe would teach real life skills to kids: how to give presentations in the real world. You have no idea how many college graduates, and even working MBA students, have NO IDEA how to give a good presentation. It makes me cringe, like nails on a blackboard, when I see grown ups reading from slides, holding onto notecards, and memorizing speeches. I can’t stand it!!!
There we go. We’ve got 2 clubs so far 🙂 Although I’d probably finnd a more attractive name for the club than just Corporate Presentations. Any ideas? Think of something sexy
Many schools don’t have a programming course where kids can develop their coding skills. If I became a teacher, I would SO start a Programming Club for kids who are interested.
I started programming in high school my senior year with Pascal. It was MAGICAL. Love at first sight. [I was going to say "at first site," but Pascal is not a website programming tool… So my little punn wouldn’t have worked] I loved how much like a game it was! I’d love to pass on that love to kids who want to be there and feel it, too.
I’d probably start with Java, so they can learn about APIs. I don’t know exactly what are the goals of a club… Are we supposed to have a final project, or presentation, or anything like that? I don’t know, I’m sure it will come to me.
I love trigonometry. It’s so logical and rule-driven. I can’t do proofs or any other math that requires creative solutions, but give me a set of rules, and I can do any exercise. I guess that’s why I loved programming so much. It was like a game where they give you all the rules in the beginning. There’s just no way to fail when you know the rules
If I were teaching trigonometry, I would love to stress exactly where the concepts come from. Like the fact that all the sine and cosine values are nothing but the Y and X coordinates, respectively, in a circle of radius 1.
I would also show them this nifty little chart to figure out the sin, cos, and tan of the notable angles:
(chart)
That’s the only way I remember the actual values. It’s not by heart, it’s just by writing out this table and just calculating from there.
I’d love to teach trig, if I do end up teaching Math.
This is how a conversation with my sister went recently:
ina: I’m sick and tired of this bullshit Monica: (laughs) ina: I just don’t want to do this anymore. Somethings has got to change! Monica: Weren’t you working on becoming a teacher? ina: Yeah, but the subject matter test won’t be until May, which means that I won’t get the scores until July, which means that I won’t get my license until September, and by then it will be too late to apply for jobs for the fall. Monica: Well, I don’t know how things work over there, but here in Texas you can apply for jobs before getting your license. That’s how I was able to get a job so quickly when I moved up here. ina: I do know for a fact that I could apply for jobs without a license…… Monica: So what’s stopping you? ina: … ina: I’m so scaaaared!
Throughout the conversation I came to understand that I was actively trying to come up with excuses to not switch careers in a few months. I can’t say I know for sure WHY I’m stopping myself. I guess I am not comfortable leaving my job yet because I’m starting out in a new role, and I like the people I’ll be working for, and I certainly don’t want to let them down. Besides that, which sounds like illogical loyalty, I also wonder whether the new job will be better than my last, and I won’t really be giving it a fair try if I am trying to find another job in the meantime.
So I think I am more comfortable staying put for now. I will get my license this year, and I will start looking at jobs when the time is right. I am just very scared of a change like this, and I want to make sure I do it right. No rushing.
So here’s a game to get kids to know how algebraic signs work:
Give each student a card with a plus (+) or a minus (-) sign on it, and give them a blank card. The first person in each row passes their card to the one behind, and that kid will have to figure out which sign is the result of the combination of the one they got and they one they had. Write the answer on the blank card, and pass on that answer card. The game continues until the last person in the row has the final outcome of the signs.
Then we’ll review and see on the board what the answer actually was. The winning row gets points.
I think there are more games where this one came from 🙂
This morning I didn’t have to iron, which gave me back 10 minutes of my time before I had to leave to catch the train.
I went downstairs and just lied on my new couch to rest my brain a little I got a shiver throughout my body, and acknowleged that I did not want to go into work today. My immediate next thought was: what would be different if I were teaching?
"I’d already be at work," I thought. Yup, teaching means getting up wicked early. It also means leaving work early. Would that make up for it?
What would I do with my early departures? I’d like to think I’d make teacher friends and we could hang out together afterwards, but considering the median age of school teachers, that is unlikely.
Would I look forward to going to work? Do I have enough fun ideas to get me by?
Then I started daydreaming about an idea I had for an algebra class (see next post). Sooner than I hoped, came the time to get up and catch my train.
I’m a pretty organized person. When I have meetings, I save the meeting notes into their particular folder for that project in a folder called “Minutes & Notes.” However, sometimes I create lists of things to do on a Notepad, and when the end of the day comes, I need to save it SOMEWHERE where I’ll remember to open it and take it up the next day. Well, that last part never happens, but I do save it somewhere. That’s my desktop.
Many times, though, the name “TO DO.txt” is already taken by another file, so I have to come up with better names, like “OPEN THIS NOW” or “YOU NEED TO DO THIS.” Sometimes I’m just running late for my train and I don’t have time to come up with a creative name for every single one of my notes before I shut down my computer. Therefore, things like these happen 🙂
I need a better naming convention
Thought that was a funny one. Enjoy your desk jobs today.
About a year ago I took an international business class with a teacher who had spend a considerable amount of time in Japan and China on business. One time, he gave us a whole presentation on the customs of doing business over there, and reminded us that if we were moving to Asia, we should remember that Chinese people do eat Chinese food every single day, so we should make sure we know what we are getting ourselves into.
Ever since that night, every time I went into class I got this UNCONTROLLABLE craving for Chinese food and I made sure to get it every night when I got out of class.
Well, it’s been a year, and my college STILL gives me Chinese food cravings.
After I read John Kreiss’s posting on Why I want to be a teacher, I started thinking of what he said about MBA classes being engaging. I’m getting my MBA right now (will be done in August, thank goodness), and the classes are engaging because they are discussion-style. There is some lecturing in there, but there is usually a case students have to read beforehand and discuss with the rest of the class.
Would this approach work with middle school or high school kids? I don’t think I would be able to capture their attention for a whole hour without stopping… I thought that maybe I could do something like that: assign a reading and have them discuss it. If they didn’t read it, send them out to the office. That seems to do the trick for them to catch on that they have to do the reading. I could assign 1-pagers, so that they can even read it on the way to school (nothing like what we get in business school which can take multiple hours of reading). But I like this idea.
If I end up teaching math, there isn’t much discussion, right? … still, I don’t think I could just lecture. I’d probably assign exercises and have them come up to the board to resolve. If they didn’t do the homework, you guessed it, they’ll be going to the office.
I don’t know if I’m allowed to use that technique… I just think it’s important to set the boundaries from the start, so they know what is OK and what is not OK. If they don’t do the exercises they will not learn. If they do not learn, they will not get a good grade and I will not have done my job.
I think this is the day when I posted the least number of blogs. Even when I was on vacation I still blogged! Anyways, I’ll give you some highlights:
I went to the gym at lunch today. I jogged 10 minutes straight! This is HUGE for me. I never thought I’d be able to jog 2 minutes straight, let alone 10 consecutive ones!!! I was so proud of myself. I have the feeling I could have gone longer… but without anybody there to push me, I counted my losses and stopped at 10. Bad, huh?
I had to work from home today so that I wouldn’t be a zombie at work. I had class last night until 9:30pm, then had a meeting with my counterpart in Asia at 10:30, and didn’t get out until 11:30pm. I was exhausted. There was no way I was getting up at the crack of dawn.
I hate working from home. It’s hard to find food in my empty fridge. Ended up having a hot dog in whole-wheat bread and some baked beans at like 2:45pm. For dinner: PB&J. Sigh… I wish I had a cook who fed me every day.
I am a compulsive blogger. I have to type out whatever is on my mind at any point in time. But right now my mind is just… Blank. I actually did not have an urgent impulse to blog, like I usually do, but then thought that I should be an equal opportunity blogger. Why should my Blank state be left undocumented?
I just had a meeting about my transition that went as well as could be expected, and I just have nothing to say about it. It’s like when you reach terminal velocity, or the water in the glass you just put down becomes perfectly still, or when you have cried all the tears you had in you: there’s nowhere else to go. The inertia has ran out, and you need an external impulse to change course. That’s how my brain feels right now.
I’m very busy at work this week while I transition my current job to someone else. I seriously CANNOT wait until the transition is over and I start leading my own projects. I’m also busy at school. We have a big paper due tomorrow, and I am scrambling to get my part done. I’m tired. I’m sick and tired.
I’m also bitter because I’m being a big baby about my friendships situation. Why can’t I be cool calm and collected like adults are supposed to be? I make so much drama in my head. I do this to myself.
I don’t watch The Bachelor. I guess it’s mostly because the guys they ‘showcase’ are never my type. I like the geeky, sweet and shy ones like my husband. But they always have some pretty boy player with the muscles, and way too much willingness to kiss 25 girls on the first date.
I am a firm believer in 1-to-1 connections, and everything else is just ‘wanting to get some.’ Meaning, the guy MUST have one girl he can’t stop thinking about, and the rest are just nice to have.
Well, somehow my husband and I turned on the TV to last night’s The Bachelor Special “The Women Talk,” and could not turn away. They had all the girls talk about their experiences on the show. In the end, they had the guy come out and talk about his experience. By the way, my sister Monica Geller is totally in love with this Jake man.
If there’s one thing I learned on this Special is that people either have no idea what the word “love” means and what true love feels like, or they are all masochistic suckers who fell in love with some guy who’s been playing ALL of them… PUBLICLY…
A few comments:
That girl Gia apparently thought she had him wrapped around her little finger, and he sent her home anyway. He said it was the right thing to do, which is a nice way to say “I was just not that into you”
That girl Ally was 100% right: if what they felt for each other was real, THE SHOW WOULDN’T HAVE MATTERED. But he let her go, and moved on to another girl who would stay. What does that tell you about his level of commitment?
Both Ally and Jake said the same “I thought he’d fly his plane to California and come after me” and “I thought she’d jump out of the limo at the last minute and choose me over her job,” respectively, but NONE of them did that. Why do we always wait for the other to bend first? Does that sound like true love to you?
Again on Ally: when the host asked her if she would have chosen differently, notice how she made a pause. I was totally with her: she said she would choose love over job… but she knew this wasn’t the guy for her, and she couldn’t say “no, I still would have done the same,” instead she answered more broadly: she would choose love over work… in the future… if she had the choice… with someone else entirely… but not with him. She’s probably the smartest of the bunch.
That girl, Elizabeth was it? Who said no kissing until she’s the one… I didn’t see her interview or her clip (that’s when we turned on the TV), but I thought that was a nice attempt at ethics on a dating show, where the guy IS expecting to get action from everyone. I think she had the right mindset, but in the totally wrong setting and totally out of character. She even admitted to not hold out like that in real life. Just not the best place to make that statement… and it was just not believable.
That girl Roslin (sp?) was a total whack job. It is OBVIOUS she was having a relationship with the producer, and continuing to deny it does NOTHING for her image. People just hate a liar and they can smell it from a million miles away. What a big difference would it have made if she had just come on and said “Yes, your producer and I met and started a relationship on the show. It just happened, and we are both sorry about how the entire situation unraveled. We do apologize for putting the show and the other girls in the house in such an awkward position. We are still in a relationship, and I met his father, and we are very happy. I really wish all of you and Jake the best.” I should be in PR. My heart was with the host, he was LOSING it with her.
I guess that’s enough of my two cents about a show I don’t even watch. I’ll be watching the finale next week for sure, though!
I’m not one of those people that give money to the homeless, like Brian is. I’m not one of those people that give $5 or $10 in the collect at Church, like my mother does. I’m just not a money giver when it comes to charities.
In fact, I’m very selfish when it comes to giving. I need to get something out of it. If I give money to a charity raffle, I have to like the prizes. When I volunteered at hospitals, I was getting experience in a hospital environment. When I volunteered at the suicide hotline, I was satisfying an itch I had to help people who were depressed, like I was. When I volunteered to help Sweet Dee and Charlotte with their financial situation, I did it because I love spreadsheets.
In short, I am a selfish charitable giver. But I do have a very soft side for my friends.
The latest charity I’ve been helping with is Angela’s Triathlon fund raiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I donated to her cause (a mere $30 – 1% of her goal), but I’m helping her plan events that hopefully will bring a lot more in. What do I get out of it? I get to use my time for something that means something to my friend, who has given me countless hours of her patient ears to listen to all my complaints and whines.
My friendships do mean a lot to me, and if one of my friends needs something that I can provide, I’m there 100% no matter what. And that’s why I’m putting all my love to Angela’s fund raising.
So when I see that my own friends scurry away when they are asked to help out, I feel hurt that the eagerness to help is not reciprocated.
Maybe people don’t like to spend money on charities (me being Exhibit 1), but isn’t it a common trait we all share to want to help a friend?
I’ve been thinking about career-changing into teaching all day. Today I outed myself to one of my coworkers, and his reaction was “you know they don’t make any money, right?” Yes, I know, but I’ll take a drop of their job satisfaction any day. That seemed to shut him up, but I was left feeling like he had lost all respect for me.
So it has begun: the corporate shame spiral that it is to leave a job you are totally qualified for, you make a lot of money doing, and where you might have a future (albeit unwanted), all for another job that you might (or might not) “enjoy” better.
I have this notebook that I got at a Barnes & Noble back in 2003, in which I rant and vent, and it’s not out of blank pages yet. One of the first things I did with that book was to write a list of things I wanted to do in life. You know what one of those things was?
Not be afraid to quit my job to follow my dreams
The thing is that I don’t know what my dreams are anymore. Is it to become a teacher? Well, maybe not a lifelong hardcore full-blown DREAM, but maybe something I want to try before I just die in the same old job not having changed a thing in my life.
Can you blame me for that?
ina
PS: For the record, I am fully aware that all this “lack of respect” is coming from within me. I’ve got to come to terms with my own decision.
I was standing in front of the mirror in the ladies room at the office, and that thought crossed my mind: why isn’t there a couch in here? Don’t they know that some women need to get away from the craziness and just sit and think for a while?
I had my formal interview for the new role today. I didn’t know they were actual interviews until the first one had started, so I winged them (they were back-to-back), and I did pretty well! In fact, I rocked them. I am totally comfortable talking about my development needs, and I know exactly what I want to gain from this role. I also know exactly what scares me about the change, and what questions to ask each interviewer. I pride myself in knowing how to turn the tables so that interviewers feel like they are just having a conversation with a friend, and, sometimes, even make them feel like they are the ones who are being interviewed. I’m just that good.
But as soon as I hung up the phone, reality sunk in again: this is not the career I want, and I’m just dying a little bit inside every moment that passes by.
Again, there is no use in complaining if I don’t take action to make a change. Maybe I should get back on the horse and sub again. I really should at least master that art and make more connections in the school system.
So nervous about work. So anxious about school. Today was NOT a good day.
Blackberry Curve
One of the things that I really did not expect to find out there was the astounding penetration of Blackberries. You see, for some reason “texting” is not as widely used as the Blackberry Messenger (through users’ PIN codes) is. In consequence: if you don’t have a Blackberry, you are out of the loop.
My cousins basically sold me on the idea of getting one… literally. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought they were selling the devices themselves! They even let me play with theirs while I was there to get used to the feel for it, and to really experience this PIN phenomenon.
The difference between using PINs and texting is that (1) you pay for texting, while PINing is free, (2) you can have chats with whole groups of people, which you can’t do with texting, and (3) you can PIN to international Blackberry users (text, pictures, movies) for free, while nobody can figure out how to text internationally.
All of these reasons were enough for me. My sister Tina Fey and my father have Blackberries, and they chat with my cousins and aunts and uncles every single day. I want to be in the loop! Now my husband Brian can’t wait for me to get it so I can be in touch with my family. He doesn’t even want to wait for me to get my new-every-two with Verizon (May 2011): he’s trying to come up with the money to get me one right now!
As I mentioned on an earlier post, I decided not to take the March 6th Subject Matter MTEL because I’d have no time to study. The deadline to sign up for the May test is at the end of March (see all the dates on the MTEL website), so I’ve been busy with other stuff in the meantime. See more at inanutshelll.com.
But yesterday my spirits were lifted by the simple presence of my sister-in-law. She’s a first grade teacher, and she really inspires me. She loves her job and her kids, and such confidence makes me want to have her job.
I should probably start studying for that Math MTEL…
ina
PS: The scores for the Communication & Literacy MTEL will be posted this Friday!
I woke up so discouraged from everything… again. I did have breakfast, so my sugar levels should be fine. Can’t blame it on that this time.
I just really don’t want to go to work today. But if I stayed home I’d probably be even more miserable. So which is it? What do I want?
I finished watching Yes Man (2008) this morning, by the way. It doesn’t deserve more review than I’ve already given it, but just thought I’d mention, for the nth time, that I can’t wait to finish the MBA so I can have my time back. Next week it will be March, and we can say I only have 6 more months of it! It’s like being in October 2009 and saying it will be March in 6 months… wait, October was a really long time ago… ok, this analogy didn’t help at all. 6 months is a really long time… But it’s less than a year! 🙂
Man, I need new goals… I need to spice up my life… this is not living.
ina
PS: I learned a new HTML tag while writing this entry. <sup> will format the text as superscript. Nifty.
http://www.graphicmania.net/free-amazing-twitter-icons/I don’t follow many people on Twitter, and recently I went through a timeline clean-up, so I have even fewer people I follow. Now, the question is: do they know that I’ve stopped following them? Why can’t I stop thinking about it?
I unfollowed for one reason or another. Sometimes friends post things about themselves that I’m not that interested in, or on the flip side they don’t post enough information about themselves for me to really feel like this is a proper medium to keep in touch. So now that they are not there, I’m supposed to feel relief, right? Wrong! They are still in my head asking me "Why did you unfollow me?" "Are we not friends anymore?" "Should I stop following you, too?"
The answers: I unfollowed you because I just didn’t want to read you anymore, we are still friends (if our friendship has issues, it’s probably not rooted on this particular event), and yes, you can stop following me if you would like. This is America!
This is a test. I opened Word 2007 to start working on the paper I have to write (which I have been procrastinating from doing all day), and I saw there was a New Blog document option… this is my attempt at blogging with it. Let’s see how it goes.
This is a test to see if it accepts HTML, or if it sends it as text:
<font color=#ff80c0><b>ina</b></font>
Post-Test Assessment:
Eh, it’s the same as emailing the blog, except that Word does handle inserting pictures.
At the same time, I only email blogs if I’m on my phone… if I’m at my computer, I won’t use Word, I’ll just come straight to the website.
Survey Says: Useless feature.
I am not an artistic person, but sometimes I get inspired, and I just go with it.
I took a walk in my town today. The following are things that caught my eye, and I couldn’t help but whipping out my cellphone and taking a picture of them. Most of these are from a lake that has a small dam, off which a creek flows. You’ll need this information to understand the very first picture name 🙂
This is my art gallery for today. Enjoy the beauty of the photos, and have some fun analyzing the artist’s intentions and meaning of the names.
ina
The Dam CreekRockyCold and Icy BeachWalking on WaterGrim RetirementHopeSelf-Portrait
You should know that Brian is an excessively good tipper. Whenever we go to a restaurant, he asks me how much to leave for tip (which I do quickly in my head by moving the comma two spaces and multiplying by 2), and then proceeds to add a full dollar or two to whatever amount I tell him. Sometimes this results in disproportionately large tips.
We were out having dinner at Chili’s and he liked how we were served. Uh Oh. SO he decided to leave a 30% tip. I fought it, by God, I really did, but to no avail.
After dinner and a movie, we stopped by the Friendly’s on Route 1 for some ice cream. Our waiter, Eric, was a superstar. He was hilarious, and made us laugh more than once. I even saw how he was charming up a group of old ladies a couple of tables away. He was awesome! So…
ina: he’s a charmer! We should leave him a big tip. hubby: (imitating me) "Ooh, he deserves 21%! Let’s go crazy" ina: you gave 30% to that other woman, who wasn’t even that good! So he deserves that! hubby: the check was $8.00! (imitating me again) "Ooh, let’s give him $2.50!"
I burst out a laugh so loud and so sudden that I startled the old ladies, who turned to look at me. Then I accidentally knocked over my glass of ice water, and the waiter looked up. I signaled him that I had it under control, still laughing at Brian’s clever come-back, and proceeded to pick up my mess.
I left him a 100% tip. We had the best time we’ve ever had at a Friendly’s. If that’s not worth $8 of entertainment, I don’t know what is.
Here’s me asking you to reward your waiters, especially if you had a better-than-average time 🙂
Brian was on a roll today. He was making me laugh so hard, that I started to feel like we don’t spend enough time together! 🙂
We were being lazy bums this morning, liying on the couch watching the curling olympics and just trying to figure out the rules of the game. Then a question came to mind that I seriously did not know the answer to:
ina: hunny, you know the olympic torch? You know, for the inauguration of the games? Where do they bring it from? hubby: I don’t know… Greece? ina: Really? Every time? Wouldn’t it make more sense to bring it from the previous host city? hubby: I really don’t know the answer to that.. ina: come on, hunny, give me something. Just make it up. hubby: They bring it from America.
I laughed so hard. He definitely made my morning 🙂
This post made me take action on something for myself, and it couldn’t have come on a better day at a better time. I hope you will find it as enlightening and encouraging as I did.
I just got off the phone with my father (no, that’s not what the philosopher said, but I need to give you the background first); he was dreading going into work. For the past year or so he has been working as a consultant, and commuting from home to the office by plane every week. This is quite strenuous for a man who built his whole life, did all the right things, then lost his retirement fund through no fault of his own, and now is facing the need to make money to survive in his golden years.
He confided in me that things at work have gotten tough. He’s at odds with his boss, and apparently they have had very sour exchanges. It’s simply not a pleasant environment to fly to every week, and to be away from your wife and family for. I told him I was also dissatisfied, and so was my sister Monica Geller at the moment. As he always does, he went ahead and reminded me of something my uncle said once. As the story goes, my aunt was complaining about the fact that she had to get up at 5am, then go to work and deal with issues, frustrating people and unbearable situations, and how she was fed up with it. My uncle, in his limited, yet surprising, wisdom, responded “that’s what we call WORK.” Ever since then, my father has called him a philosopher. Granted, my uncle is not from Andalucía, but they are all from Spain on my mother’s side, and my father just gets a kick out of the misnomer. My father quotes my uncle every time I complain about work (which is really annoying… but so true).
In conclusion, WORK is supposed to be WORK. It’s not meant to be fun. If it was fun, it would be called FUN. “I’m going to have FUN today, and have the time of my life!” << that's not exactly how must of us would describe our jobs, is it? Ohh, but we so wish we did.
I had lunch with my friend Angela a couple of days ago, and she told me she was running a Triathlon (3.1 mile run, 10 mile bike ride, 1/4 mile swim in the ocean) in June.
I thought it was extremely ambitious of her to embark in such a long and difficult journey. I’ve never set out to get fit to run a marathon or anything like that. I’ve always thought “that’s for fit people” or “that’s for runners” or any other excuse not to do it. My favorite excuse right now is “I’m too busy.” Thing is, Angela is not one of those super fit people who run marathons every year.
Still, at first I didn’t think this was SO unique. After all, I know other people who have signed up for Cancer walks (Charlotte’s sister), half-marathons (Erin), or full marathons (my next door neighbor, Fred). I always think “that’s nice of them” and I might donate some money to their cause, if I feel generous. To each their own, right?
I thought that way until she told me the most remarkable detail: she can’t swim. For the life of her, she does not trust herself in water depths where she can’t reach the bottom. She went on her first training session, and ended up crying of frustration after freaking out when her chin was underwater at 4’6″ depth. She went into the locker room, composed herself, and came back out. She’s doing a little better now, although she recognizes she has a long way to go before she is comfortable swimming a quarter of a mile out in the open sea.
This story almost brought a tear to my eye. She told me that, as it turns out, not only fit people join these events. She has seen overweight people training for it. These are usually people with a strong desire to support the cure of the disease they are representing. It’s not just fitness, it’s not just generosity, and it’s not just people with too much time on their hands. These are people who want to make a difference.
I donated what I could to Angela’s race (proceeds go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society). She has a goal of $3000, and after my donation she’s at $160, out of which she put in more than half. If you want to encourage her to go on, you can go to her page and click on the DONATE NOW link. She also has a blog to chronicle her journey, which I’ve added to my blogroll.
No, it’s not notches on my bedpost, it’s my books.
Every time I read a book cover to cover, I put a little star sticker on the spine of the book, and put it up on my bookshelf.
I didn’t read much growing up. It wasn’t until I came to the US for a year in high school that I started to take reading more seriously. Not that we didn’t have books to read when I was in Venezuela, I was just not into them. I’d read a little bit, and it would be enough to pass the test. I also remember not reading books at ALL and getting to the test completely clueless as to what the heck they were asking me about.
The first book I read back-to-back, that I remember, was The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. Maybe it was the excitement I felt from actually finishing a book in English, but I fell in love with that book, and I wondered if I would get the same feeling of accomplishment no matter which book I read. The second book I finished cover to cover was A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. Again: I LOVED it. I love the rush of finishing a book. I love the rush of knowing there are 30 pages left and I could be done in the same sitting.
Last June I got hooked on the Twilight Series, by Stephenie Meyer. Each book is more than 500 pages long, and I managed to read all 4 of them in just 6 weeks. I think those are my biggest trophies to date.
I once rented a book from the library, which Erin suggested to me, called Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story. I read it in less than a week, and returned it. Ever since then, I have felt this void in my bookshelf. Like there is a book-shaped whole in it, and a star sticker left unused. I’m seriously considering buying the book (I buy them used and cheap), just so that I can put a sticker on it and fill that void. Without it, it’s as if my reading it had never happened, and I just can’t live with that. It’s the same feeling Dexter has about his blood slides. I can TOTALLY relate.
This morning I turned on the TV to the movie Yes Man (2008) with Jim Carrey. I’d been wanting to see it, so I set it up to record tomorrow and I’ll review it later (if it deserves it). I only watched about 15 min of it (BTW, I love Zooey Deschanel), and I, OF COURSE, started reflecting on my own life.
I used to be a Yes Woman. I really really believed that every opportunity was golden, and it would open up doors to new and better ones. I had the “why not?” attitude. I followed a very wise advise I got from a little life book: "Show up." That’s how I ended up always taking even a little bit of action in all my bold ideas. But ever since I started the MBA (3 years ago, as one of my "Yeses"), I have not felt very "Yesy." In fact, I’ve felt like saying “No” most of the time. It even made it into my new year’s resolutions list for 2009: to start saying No, so that I don’t overextend myself with commitments and feel so overwhelmed all the time.
I want to be a Yes woman again… but I can’t do it while I still have classes at night, and so much on my schedule. I think Yesdom is for people who have the time and some money to spend. I used to be one of those people…
Well, August will come soon enough, and the MBA will be over. I’ll get my time back and fill it with any kind of stuff. I guess we’ll have to see what’s next for this temporary No Woman.
Caracas Airport on Sunday, February 14th, Valentine’s Day. We left my grandmother’s apartment at 5:30am and made it to the airport at 6am o’clock. Not too shabby. Didn’t run into any traffic, but had to be super careful on the highway: due to the rationing of electricity, the lights on the highway get shut off at night (when are they on, then?). Like my mother says: if you can drive in Caracas, you can drive anywhere!
My flight was scheduled to depart at 11:10am, while Brian’s was at 8:52am. I promised I’d be with him all the way until he boarded.
First we dropped Brian off at the Delta counter. They were using the Air France counters, as well as their own, to check in passengers. It reminded me of that Boy Meets World episode where Shawn Hunter wanted to run away to Europe, so he naturally headed for the bus station (lol), and bought a ticket to Paris, TX. “Oh, I thought TX meant Tax!” 😀 Good memories.
The Delta line moved quickly. Then I went to the American Airlines counter. The line was about twice as long, and it took me all of 50 minutes to get through the line. Can you believe this? They only had 2 out of 5 booths open checking passports and ID. After 40 minutes, Brian had to go to make his flight. I was able to catch up with him at his gate, though. I guess that’s it for our Valentine’s Day together 🙁
I don’t really have a lot of beef with the airport itself. It has tons of shopping in the (only) terminal, and a great food court, plus Duty Free shops. It even has a “Venezuelan Chocolates” store where you can buy last-minute delights. Each gate has a flat screen TV where they advertise Venezuela tourism, play funny videos and play music videos… no sound, though. I would rather they played CNN myself, but I guess if “playing the news” translates into showing the government channel’s propaganda, then I’ll stick with the soundless music videos, thank you very much.
The beef I do have here is the completely unnecessary, redundant and pain in the ass that is going through all the checkpoints from the moment you get to the airport until you get on the plane. Allow me to describe:
6:10am: Got in line at American Airlines counter 6:55am: AA worker checked my passport and ID before leaving me at the computerless booth to go to the actual counter to confirm my reservation (since I had an eTicket). She came back and gave me a printed itinerary. 7:05am: I approached the counter. No bags to check (Brian will arrive in Boston earlier, so he checked it instead). SO glad I wasn’t the one to do it: behind the AA worker was a pile of bags for the next flight out. 50 bags, all checked, but apparently not going anywhere any time soon. Lastly, I paid the difference in exit taxes (taxes went up since I bought the ticket a month ago), and got my boarding passes. Stapled to one of them was a bar code that proved I had paid the taxes. 7:10am: Stood aside with my mother to fill out the customs form. Glad a man passed by offering us a pen. Called my aunt to say goodbye. Said my goodbyes to my mother and grandmother. 7:20am: First checkpoint: a turnstile activated by scanning the bar code from the tax receipt. 7:24am: Second checkpoint: National-Guard operated X-ray for luggage. They had me open my bag to explain the heavy metal base of my blowdryer stand. Yes, I travel with it: it packs nicely and I can’t seem to be able to live without it. Don’t judge! They let it through. 7:30am: Third checkpoint: airport operated X-ray for luggage. This post is located no more than 15 ft from the secoind checkpoint. One would think they’d spot the redundancy, right? They have me open my bag again to explain the base of the blowdryer stand. This guy was more rigid. “Why didn’t you check it?” “Because I have lost things I’ve checked before, and the stand doesn’t work without the base.” He said never to carry it on again, since it’s a potentially harmful object, and let me through. 7:35am: Fourth checkpoint: Customs. Hand over the exit form and show passport to get it stamped out. Sit and wait at the gate (and walk from one end of the terminal to the other to see how long it takes). 10:35am: Fifth checkpoint: at the gate, run my carry-on luggage through a THIRD X-ray check. They did not ask me to open it this time. Go through a personal metal detector AND get a full pat-down. 10:45am: Sitting on the plane!
I swear, it’s almost as if they didn’t want you to leave the country, isn’t it?
The flight crew had to go through the metal detector and X-rays at the gate as well, and you could tell they were completely annoyed. I overheard one tell another, about the checkpoint, “I thought you were kidding!” — I hear you, blondie, we all wished they were.
ina
PS: In case you were wondering, it took 10 minutes to run the lenght of the entire international terminal. Not much of a workout, but it’s good to know 🙂
If I didn’t scare you off with my Crime in Venezuela post, and you do get the opportunity to visit Caracas, you should add El Hatillo to your list of places to visit (as well as La Colonia Tovar, and any beach town).
El Hatillo is a village that prides itself in preserving a typical colonial façade with a colorful twist. The houses are all painted different colors, and you feel like you just landed in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Just one look around and you’ll feel delighted by the restaurant options: fondue at La Ballesta, churros at Don Churro, original milkshakes at Baty’s (based on national and international snacks and candy bars!), and even Chinese food! Whatever you decide todo, make sure to have a chicha in the little stand on the corner (yummy sweet milk-like mixture with ice and cinnamon on top).
What’s nice about this town is that, even though it’s a tourist-oriented place, it is also in a real area of town inside a heavily populated residential area. Caraqueños go there to hang out and have churros all the time, so you are essentially crashing the residents’ hang-out spot. In fact, I used to live nearby, and it’s my favorite place in the city.
Besides the little shops in the town, and the iconic and humongous Hannsi store (THE Venezuelan souvenir mecca), you’ll also find a full blown mall just down the street called Paseo El Hatillo. It has many national and international brands, as well as places to grab a snack, and a food court if you’re in a rush.
El Hatillo
I have some video of our visit — hope to put it together and post soon. Stay tuned!
So I didn’t go to the gym today. Why, do you ask? Because when I got home my driveway was covered in 4 inches of snow. Even if I had wanted to go to the gym, I would have had to drive over the snow, pressing it into ice against the pavement, and just made it harder for myself to remove it later on. And seriously, was I really going to shovel when I got home? I don’t think so. So, in lieu of going to the gym, I shoveled the driveway… broke a good sweat, too!
Tonight’s workout
Brian bought us chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner from the grocery store, and got me a dozen roses for our missed ♥ Valentine’s Day ♥ 🙂 He prepared dinner and served it while I finished the shoveling.
Valentine’s Day Roses
I love equality in gender roles. I think that one of the important aspects of our marriage is the fact that we just do whatever it takes, whether it is shoveling the driveway or making dinner, in order to live. We don’t stick to a role (he doesn’t *always* do the dishes, and I don’t *always* do the laundry), and we help the other out whenever things need to get done. That’s what 50-50 means. We basically removed the anxiety and frustration of waiting for the other to do a job, and we just both do every job. It works like a charm, and we both feel appreciated and helped. I ♥ my Brian.
I’m getting a new role in my current company! It’s been in the works for a little while, but it’s official now! I’m working hard core to transition my stuff to the next person in line, and I’ll be starting with a new team in March!
It feels great, to do something totally different for a change 🙂 It’s the same feeling I used to get when a new school year began: new crisp notebooks, all new school supplies, maybe a new backpack, and the eagerness to do better this time around!
They played Ricky Gervais’s movie The Invention of Lying (2009) on the flight back from Caracas. It wasn’t as good as I expected it to be, but something stuck with me: the "true" world was so devastatingly unhappy.
Leave aside the Biblical references, and the obvious explanation for people to have something to believe in, therefore the worshipping of a god, and just look at the contrast between a happy and an unhappy existence.
If everybody said what was on their minds, would we all be miserable? We could all relate to the "true" statements in the movie: homes are nothing but sad places where old people are abandoned by their loved ones, we do think the person we are out on a date with is a total loser, we do think about what our kids would look like were we to marry an unattractive person (although not as much as Anna, played by Jennifer Garner, seemed to have), and we do feel happy when someone lies to our face, because they are saying exactly what we want to hear. That little lie can make your day and give you hope that things will be fine.
I don’t believe that humans are so pessimistic, though. In that sense, I disagree with the premise of the movie. I think that we all have our optimistic and our pessimistic side, and if we all set out to say exactly what was on our minds, we would evolve into beings that balance out the good and the bad. We would probably speak our minds a lot more than we do nowadays to say the good things. We are just so used to putting on a front, that we think our true selves must be pessimistic, miserable and hateful monsters. But that’s not so.
The monster inside of me tells me every day that I’m not good enough, that I hate my job and I’m too much of a chicken to do anything about it, that I’m short and fat, that I’m a bad friend, that I will never be happy. If I only listened to the monster, I would be even more depressed than those people in the movie. But what keeps me going is the energetic and optimistic side of me, who tells me how good a life I have made for myself, how smart I am, how generous I am, how pretty and so NOT fat I am, and what a great wife, sister and daughter I am.
Studies show that we listen to negative feedback much more intently than we do positive. This is not because we only see ourselves negatively, on the contrary, it is because we DO believe the positive, and may think that anything that’s not news doesn’t count as feedback. Let me tell you right now: if we did not have an equally strong positive side, we would have all given up on life years ago.
So maybe it’s time to give your positive side a voice. Stop drowning it. Kick the monster’s ass for 60 seconds, and ask yourself: what is my positive side telling me about myself to balance out the negative?
Here I am… On the train on my way to work. I got a billion things to catch up with when I get in, not the least of them being the 983 unread emails I discovered while taking a peek at my work account last night. I’m just happy that my counterpart in Asia decided to respond to my meeting request for last night with a "New Time Proposed" reply. Nice. I love canceled meetings.
I did manage to get the house in order and most of the laundry done yesterday. I didn’t write mt paper due today yet, though. I figured one victory per day was ambitious enough. I’ll write it tonight. Quick papers are my specialty.
It was snowing this morning when I left. It was quite nice. The flakes were all fluffy and welcoming.
It’s Snowing on my Commute
Then got on the train and I got this little bastard drawn on the back of the seat in front of me. Staring at me in the face. I KNOW I have to get back on my diet, little Ninja man.
The Diet Ninja
Have a good day everyone.
ina
PS: More Venezuela posts to come. Still got more to cover. Stay tuned.
One of the things I miss the most about Venezuela is the food. I love breakfast and lunch and miss the quality of the final product and the care that goes into every bite. So here you have it: a whole entry dedicated to my favorite topic: Food. And yes, my diet went down the drain for a week, so sue me.
First, let me remind you (or inform you) that lunch is the big meal in Venezuela, not dinner. You will see this trend throughout this post.
Breakfast at my grandmother’s consisted of arepas with white cheese and ham. Arepas are a “bread substitute” made of corn flour and water, and are commonly eaten stuffed with cheese, eggs, beef, or anything you can think of depending on the time of day you have them. They can be as wide or as fat as you want. Venezuelan style arepas are round, about 1.5 inches thick, and about 4 inches wide. They are commonly made on a stovetop grill, but they can also be deep fried (arepas dulces). My grandmother’s maid made Andes style arepas for us, which are like 5 inches in diameter, and just under an inch thick. Still good for stuffing, though.
Arepa with white cheese and ham
The very first day Brian and I were here this week, which was Sunday, we met my uncle, aunts and cousins at Santiago’s rabbit hole. This is a restaurant owned by a man named Santiago who serves the most delicious rabbit, fried peppers, steamed potatoes and salad. To close the rabbit ceremonies, get the quesillo for dessert! The place doesn’t appear to have a sign at all, and the actual name of the restaurant is a complete mystery. This is a hole-in-the-wall in the outskirts of the city in Filas de Mariche. It has been there for over 25 years and people hear about it by word of mouth. You can email me or comment here if you would like their phone number. They are only open on weekends, and they only take reservations ahead of time (so they know how many rabbits to cook).
The meal is spectacular, and the restaurant’s rustic and open atmosphere makes you forget about the fact that you are eating Bugs Bunny’s cousins. My husband Brian, who is the pickiest eater in the world, even had seconds of the peppers and rabbit. It is truly the best place to come and have a good time. And if you’re lucky, you might persuade Santiago to play the acordeon for you and the other patrons! He graced us with his stylings on sunday to sing “Hoy es tu día” and “happy birthday” to one of my cousins.
Potatoes, Salad and RabbitFried PeppersQuesillo
Monday, after my mother and I went downtown, we got home close to 3pm and had lunch made by my grandmother. She made gratinated ziti with a corn and bechamel sauce. I love this very simple meal, yet I keep forgetting to jot down the recipe. I’ll share it with you when I get it! Brian just had ziti with homemade tomato sauce (his favorite fast meal). I think my grandmother and Marie, Brian’s mother, should face off in a cooking challenge some day. That’s something I’d watch for sure! 🙂 Sorry I didn’t take a picture of it 🙁 Maybe next time 🙂
On Tuesday we headed for my favorite restaurant in all of Caracas: Jardin des Crêpes in Las Mercedes, a trendy area where you will find the best restaurants in all cuisines. I always beg my mother to bring me here. We start with crunchy bread and an orange spread which looks like Cheez Whiz but tastes nothing like it. It doesn’t even have cheese in it! Apparently it’s a bell pepper mixture with garlic and mayonaise, although I cannot confirm this conjecture. Whatever it is, it’s delicious, and they’ll bring it to you without you even asking.
Toasty bread with garlicky spread
I got the Tenderloin Carpaccio to start, and in my eagerness to taste this delicious dish, I forgot to take a picture of it. Take my word for it: best I’ve ever had.
As main course, I usually get the corn crêpe. It’s corn in bechamel sauce wrapped in a crêpe with gratinated cheese on top. I love it every time. They changed their menu to include Guayanés cheese in it, but you can ask for it without.
Corn Crêpe
My mother and grandmother went for the spinach crêpe, while my aunt went for the mushroom. I can’t say how they were, but they looked yummy.
Spinach CrêpeMushroom Crêpe
And of course, my ever-so-safe husband went for the steak and fries, which was amazing as well.
Steak and Fries with Pepper Sauce on the side
To close the ceremonies, my mother and I usually share a Comédie Francaise, which is a crêpe topped with coconut ice cream, whipped cream and chocolate syrup. It’s to die for. I think it’s better shared! Unfortunately, they did not have coconut ice cream, which broke our concentration a bit. We ended up ordering the nutella and dulce de leche crêpes. Sorry I got carried away and forgot to take a picture BEFORE we devoured it. Hope you still get the feel for it.
Dulce de Leche Crêpe
Something else deserves its own paragraph, and that is, again, the QUALITY of the food here. We don’t have many chains, which means that all meals are made from scratch. None of that frozen ready-to-microwave crap. They truly care about the ingredients. One way I love to remind myself of this is by ordering fruit punch wherever I go. Do not expect the radioactive color of Hi-C fruit punch. In fact, do not ever expect this drink to taste the same ANYWHERE you go. They make it for you to order with whatever fruits they have on hand. Try it out, and you’ll know what I mean! At the Jardin, mine tasted a little on the passion-fruity side.
House Fruit Punch
On Wednesday we headed out to La Colonia Tovar. This is a German colony that was established in 1843 northwest of Caracas, up and down the mountain. It’s a great spot to visit as a tourist. The weather is usually cold, which gives you the feeling of being in a foreign land (much different from the heat of the city). Up there you will find great restaurants, cozy hotels, and tons of things to do: shopping, strawberry picking, tours of the rainforest (get startled by men in monkey suits and see a real walking tree), horseback riding, go-karts, target shooting, or just set up some tables outside and play board games. In my family we love to play Rummy Kub.
We didn’t have much time to hang out, but we did take a few pictures and had lunch at the Bergland Hotel. I couldn’t tell you exactly where this hotel is located, but I’m sure you could ask the locals.
The Bergland Hotel
Now, listen to me: THE ONE REASON TO GO TO LA COLONIA TOVAR TO EAT, IS TO HAVE THE CREMA DE AJOPORRO. It’s a soup based on a vegetable that to this day I cannot translate (can someone help me with that?). You can get it at ANY restaurant at La Colonia Tovar. We went to the Bergland because it’s simply the best. I had the pork tenderloin in mushroom sauce, and my family had some version of pork. My aunt got the trout and my grandmother had the turkey, and they all looked amazing. You will not have a better meal anywhere! Now, I’m no food critic or connoceaur in any way, so please pardon my lack of description of every dish… they look AWESOME but I have no idea what the actual names were. Each name was like 3 lines long!
Crema de AjoporroPork Chop with Cheese and Mushroom saucePork Chop with Mushroom sauceSmoked Pork Chop with FriesTHE TroutTHE Turkey
Everyone got the house natural strawberry juice to drink, while I, of course, got the fruit punch. It tasted a lot of strawberries. Not surprising, considering we were in strawberry land! Yummy.
House Fruit Punch
On Thursday we ate at home. My grandmother made a truly typical Venezuelan dish for us, called Pabellón. This dish consists of 4 main ingredients, which are served separately: seasoned shredded beef (carne mechada), white rice, seasoned black beans (best if served with crumbled white cheese on top), and fried plantains (tajadas). This is just what I needed to feel I had really been in Caracas. My grandmother bragged about the special way she seasons the black beans, with wine and some other spices you wouldn’t expect to find in there. Even Brian had seconds. After I had mine, I finished off the few bites he had left on his plate. I like to eat it by making the “perfect bite” every time, meaning that every bite has a little bit of everything in it. I was just sorry my grandmother didn’t have bigger forks.
Pabellón
In case you hadn’t noticed, if I had my choice of soda, I always picked Uvita Hit (grape soda, “Hit” brand). It is NOTHING like Grape Fanta in the US. I miss it. Funny thing is that Hit is owned by Coke.
On Friday we just went to the food court at the Paseo El Hatillo mall. I’ll post a separate blog about El Hatillo, but it doesn’t hurt to tell you that I had a ham and sun dried tomatoes panini on oregano bread, while Brian had a burger with fries. Not the best meal of the week, but it did the trick in our rush.
Ham and Sun Dried Tomato Sandwich
Saturday, our last day, we had cheese empanadas for breakfast from the local stand in Río Chico (beach town), and grilled cheeseburgers made by my cousins at the beach house. Typical beach foods for when you’re on vacation. We also got shredded beef (carne mechada) and ground beef (carne molida) empanadas. It still makes me laugh: my cousin Lara Croft had ordered a couple of the ground beef for herself, but since all the empanadas look the same from the outside, and they were not labeled, she had to eat whatever she bit into first. Eventually, my other cousins found her empanadas and proceeded to eat them while she cursed them out. Oh, great times 🙂
Cheese Empanada
This morning I had breakfast at the airport. They have a very Venezuelan spot in the food court inside the terminal, called El Budare. They have all kinds of stuffing for arepas, and all kinds of cheeses for cachapas. Cachapas are oversized corn pancakes. You can have them plain with just butter, or put cheese inside and fold it like an omelette. I recommend “queso de mano” which is tough to find in the US, but you might get lucky in latino markets.
El Budare at the AirportCachapa with Cheese
I guess that’s it for food. If you have a Venezuelan restaurant in your area, I completely recommend you head out there as soon as possible and try our typical dishes. You will wonder how it is that you had missed out on it your whole life!
In Boston, you can head out to Orinoco’s Restaurant in either of their two locations in the South End and Brookline.
I just went through immigration/customs in Dallas. There is nothing more terrifying to a foreigner than to go through immigration at the airport. Depending on who you get, you might be treated like the nice person you are, or the criminal they assume you might be.
Usually they take your information and ask you questions to try to trip you up. Before I had a greencard, I had a work visa provided by my employer. Questions at immigration ranged from “where do you work” to “how far is your work from where you live?” — just to see if you got your story straight. I was so nervous when I answered, that I was always surprised they never took me to the little room for questioning (as it has happened to other people I know).
This was my first time traveling as a greencard holder (aka Permanent Resident), so I got to get on the short line! The foreigners line was a mile long! Nice. This is how it went with the officer:
ina: (handing over passport, greencard and driver’s license) Hello Officer: (takes my documents and starts scanning) Hello, how are you today? ina: Good Officer: How did you get your greencard? ina: Through my husband Officer: Where does he work?… or is he a citizen? ina: He’s a citizen Officer: How did you meet your husband? ina: College. 7 years ago, now. Officer: Fair enough. How long was your stay in Venezuela this time? ina: One week Officer: (handing over my documents) Thanks, have a good flight.
And that was it. I was nervous as hell that he would notice the different last names in my greencard versus the passport, but he didn’t say anything about it.
(singing tune from West Side Story) Tini nini ninAmerica… tini nini ninAmerica!
Good to be home. I got a few more blogs to post and it might take me all week to get to all of them, but stay tuned!
Every time I tell someone that I am from Venezuela, I get “Ooh, the land of the beauties” or some variation of that. I am often proud to be from a country that is known for its beautiful women, until I realize that I don’t really consider myself one of them, and I just get depressed 🙂 nah, I’m kidding, I’m a little more secure than that, but I do feel that Venezuelan women are in a whole separate league that I can’t even scratch the surface of.
I just can’t express how beautiful these women are. I have several cousins who have the perfect smile, the perfect body, the perfect sexappeal, and they stun me every single day.
Last Tuesday I went to observe the pole dancing class that my cousin Lara Croft had been attending for about a month at that point. Turns out that my other distant cousin, Jessica Rabbit, is also in the class. I was in such awe at their sensuality, that I could not bring myself to record a fun video, as I had planned. I feared that I would have to give my blog an R rating if I posted it. That’s how sexy it was. My jaw had dropped to the floor, where it stayed for the durationg of the class.
When I talk about beauty I’m not even talking about height and slenderness, since my family’s average height is 5’2″; it’s the face, the features, the sense of fashion, the total awareness of their own bodies and their own radiance. There is just no other place on Earth where you will find this many gorgeous women per square foot.
Now, it is true what they say about this being a beauty-obsessed society. Getting a boob job is now the most common sweet fifteen present parents give their now grown daughters. I am totally against going under the knife for the sake of aesthetics. And yet, if you eliminated all women who did resort to surgery, you would still not surpass the exquisite quality and splendor of the Venezuelan woman.
I’d like to remind you that you can click on any picture to enlarge it!
Last Monday my mother took me downtown to run some errands. I firmly believe she was intentionally trying to deceive me! She said she had to go run one errand, and it turned into a BILLION of them! We got home close to 3pm. My poor husband was at home starving to death wondering where the heck we were!
The first problem was that I was in PAIN. The night before I had hit my foot against the love seat SO hard I ended up limping. Sorry for the lack of pedicure, but I don’t think you’d understand the pain I was in until you see this in a more graphic way:
Ow Ow Ow
So, as you can see, a billion errands was not in my plans!
Anyways, we drove out to Altamira, where my mother used to work, and parked in her usual parking garage. She gave up her keys, and admitted being unsure about parking there at first. The main reason was that it’s not really a full valet service: the customers pick out their keys from the keys box on their own, and go searching for their car when they are ready to leave. She asked her then-boss whether it was safe (anybody could come in and pick out any keys and drive off). Her boss responded “yes, that could happen… but mostly people just take their own cars.” Oh well, I guess it’s all a game of convenience versus security trade-offs.
Plaza Altamira
From Altamira we took the subway to Bellas Artes.
Metro Map (Subway)
Our first stop was Parque Central (translation: “Central Park”). It’s not really a park, it’s just what we call Caracas’s version of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. They stand tall in the center of Caracas, and unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of it (only video — which will come later), so I took this picture off the internet:
On our way into the building, my mother pointed out an organic garden that President Chávez had had put in so that foreigners staying in nearby hotels would think that we plant vegetables everywhere in the city, regardless of urbanism in the area. Pff. It thought it was funny, and took a picture of it:
Vegetable garden in the middle of the city
We went to the office on the first floor where my mother was to run her errand. The little office had quite the line. It seems like you can’t get anything done online, or over the phone, or even in advance. Public services are the most annoying thing about living here. My mother, who now lives in the US, has been here for almost 3 weeks, and every day she has had to stand in line to get something done. This is what it looked like:
Public office – customer service
Oh, and yes, you are looking at it right: this is not the inside of an office, this is the hallway in the building.
While I waited around (yes, like those people on the left) for my mother to go through the requirement checking, waiting, entering and exiting the mysterious door, I took a couple of pictures of my surroundings. I thought you would appreciate a look for what it looked like outside the building from the inside.
View from Parque Central, first floor
Let me know if that gif animation is too fast for you. I could post the pictures separately.
Anyways, afterwards we took the subway to the Teatros station for yet another government paperwork errand.
The Metro (Subway)
I do have to say that the subway was not bad. My mother says that when she was here in October, the subway had no air conditioning, and it took 15 min to depart each station. It was not worth it to hop on it. It seems to be functioning fine now.
My mother had to go check if a letter was ready for her to pick up. We got there at 11:03am. They said they were not servicing that type of requests for the day (as of 11am), and we should come back tomorrow at 8:30am. My mother really tried to get them to make an exception (it was 11:03am!!!) but they wouldn’t budge. She’d have to come back.
This is where my mother had to go pick up her papers. As you can see for the line forming outside, Venezuelan agencies do not seem to be big fans of indoor offices…
Office for Attention to Pension Recipients
We did get some good shots of Plaza Caracas. The bust you see is Simon Bolívar, liberator of 5 Latin American countries from the control of Spain (Venezuela, Bolivia, Equator, Panama and Colombia), and the country’s pride and joy. Our currency is even named after him (The Bolívar, code VEB).
Plaza CaracasPlaza CaracasPlaza Caracas
Right there, just beyond the bust, you can see the headquarters of the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE – National Electoral Council). That’s the institution that organizes elections, counts and verifies all votes.
CNE
We went back on the subway, this time headed for Parque Carabobo station.
Men playing chess in front of Parque Carabobo subway station.
As soon as we got out of the station, we passed something like 5 people who were saying “selling/buying gold, dollars, euros” repeatedly.
After running my mother’s errand, she asked me if I wanted to see Plaza Bolívar and Congress. I said sure — would be nice to get some pix to bring to my loyal readers 😉 (see? I’m thinking of YOU ;)). So we went.
I tried my hardest to be as inconspicuous as possible. I didn’t want to draw much attention to myself, so I kept my videos and picture-taking to the minimum. I thought you would appreciate this one, though. It’s a Wendy’s that was put into a colonial-style building. I thought it was a funny mix of styles:
Wendy’s in Colonial Times
Here are some shots we took of the area. I did take a 360-degree video of Plaza Bolívar. Stay tuned for that. Sorry I can’t name all the buildings below. My mother probably could.
Palacio de las Academias (Palace of the Academies)Palacio de las Academias (Palace of the Academies)Let me get back to you on this one…Congress
Now, here’s the interesting bit about this trip to Plaza Bolívar: the day before, President Chávez had expropriated all the buildings surrounding the plaza. He did it in the most unbelievable way: he stood outside during his radio/TV address and started pointing at buildings asking “what’s in that building?” and someone would answer “that’s some businesses,” and the President would say “Expropriate that. What is in that other building?” “it’s a jewelry store” “Expropriate that one too. What’s over there?” and so on. You can read the full story here, and see the video of this here. The order was made effective immediately, and the documents were drafted 2 hours later.
Two things are of note. Number one, there is a constitutional process through which the government could expropriate private property. The conditions are very explicit: there must be a trial where the government must demonstrate the need for the land for public service, and they must reach a settlement agreement with the owner. Once the owner has been paid, the government may take over the property. President Chávez has completely ignored the law and simply decided to take possession of property that does not belong to him without due process.
Number two, as it turns out, some of those buildings are currently owned by state universities. This means that the buildings are ALREADY owned by the State, and it is legally and technically impossible for the government to try to expropriate itself. However, it appears as though Chávez is more interested in evicting businesses off the premises than he is in any kind of premeditated research and analysis of his actions, let alone measurement of consequences.
My mother and I had totally forgotten that this had happened just the day before, and we found ourselves in the most undesirable part of town on a very important day. People had started to gather around Building La Francia, one of the expropriated buildings, out of curiosity, out of support or out of protest. La Francia is a LANDMARK of Caracas. It holds the best jewelry stores all in one building. My parents always go us our milestone items from there (baby bracelet, baptism chain and cross, and our sweet fifteen ring). It really hurts to see the President leave a trail of devastation of our democracy in his path.
There was a government-supported post right outside the building, where there seemed to be a heated argument going on. My mother, who loves to hear what people on the street are saying, walked TOWARDS the noise to eavesdrop. This is what we heard someone telling other people (who appeared to be tourists): “You see, this building used to be owned by the State, then the rich people came and took it over!” We took our pictures and video and got the hell out of there!
Edificio La Francia (France Building)
We made it home and lived to tell that we were there the day after the historic and nonsensical expropriations happened. Just don’t tell my father… he’d kill us both! 🙂
Again, stay tuned for videos. I’ll be posting them after I have a chance to work on them next week when I get back home. Have a good weekend everyone!
ina
PS: Oh, and my little toe held up just fine even after all that walking. I ended up limping at the end of the day, but it’s feeling much better today 🙂 Thanks for your concern 🙂
I always had a maid growing up. Not because my family was so affluent, but because in Caracas most parents work all day, and somebody has to be at home to wait for the kids to come home from school and give them something to eat, not to mention doing laundry, cleaning and doing essential grocery shopping. Anybody with any knowledge in Latin American culture will tell you the same thing: maids are commonplace. It generates jobs, and keeps both parents working (God knows you need 2 incomes in this city to make rent). Even the smallest apartments will have a room next to the kitchen for a live-in maid.
I could tell you a billion stories about our maid. Actually, my sister Monica Geller might have some really bad ones. Without getting into too much detail, maids rule the house. They can make you feel right at home, or make you feel like you are their slave driver and therefore they give you attitude for no apparent reason. I don’t remember ever feeling “right at home,” though. I remember having good fun with our maid sometimes, but mostly I remember not feeling comfortable even walking into the house, fearful I would get a bazooka of attitude pointed at me. My sister has gone as far as describing our maid’s behavior as borderline abusive. My little sister, Tina Fey, and I don’t remember it in those terms.
The reason I bring it up now is that my grandmother has a maid. She comes a few times a week to help with cleaning and cooking, and she has helped my grandmother for many many years now. However, for some reason, this is the first time I’ve ever met her. It’s most likely because she comes on weekdays, and we always visited on weekends. Well, I had my chance to meet her on this trip.
She has been completely polite. She refers to me as “usted” (which is the formal form of “you”), and makes sure there are always enough arepas for breakfast for me. The thing is, I don’t feel very comfortable around her. Nothing really against her, I’m sure she’s a very lovely person. It just brings me back to those days when our maid would make us feel like we felt entitled or superior, and I don’t like to be made feel that way. I have felt so uncomfortable, in fact, that I don’t like looking at her in the eyes. She’s shorter than I am, and that alone makes me feel awkward (it gives an additional meaning to “looking down” on someone). I overcompensate by smiling a lot, saying “thank you” a lot and saying “please” a lot, and saying her name a lot, so she knows I don’t feel entitled.
The unintentional result of my awkwardness is that she will see an aloof and distant version of myself… hence feeding into her opinion that I feel entitled. It’s a vicious cycle, and I just don’t have a better way to explain it. I guess you just have to be in that position. Maybe if I were a better, more noble, person I would not be bothered at all. Sigh, sometimes I wish I could just get out of my head.
Maybe some day I’ll tell you some of our maid stories… that would make for a really interesting blog.
I’m going to level with you: living in Caracas is a huge safety risk. There is really no sugarcoating it. I knew this before I got here, but I can honestly say I have never been so frightened of going outside, or even being in a car outside, in my life — and I grew up here.
The first thing that hit me was Monday’s weekend violent deaths report. This is not a new thing, I remember this report coming out in the paper and being covered on the news every week, what was incredible about it was the actual statistics and the killings that were singled out. Over the weekend, 44 deaths due to gunshot wounds occurred in Caracas alone. In 2009, 48 people on average died of gunshot wound EVERY DAY in the country.
Two people were killed while watching the circus. Yes, you heard that right. They were sitting watching a show, and they were shot to death. One was an 18 year old sitting between her mother and her sister. Her mother reported that the girl simply collapsed on the floor. They thought she had fainted. Then they saw blood, and they thought she had simply hit her head when she fell. They took her outside to recover, and realized she had received a gunshot to the head.
Another news story reported the most terrifying thing I have ever heard: three armed men boarded a full bus at 6pm while it was stopped in traffic. They held the driver at gunpoint and instructed everyone to get off the bus, except for 3 girls, whom they proceeded to rape right there. This happened on Monday.
My cousin, whom we’ll call Lara Croft (because she’s gorgeous and a total badass), filled me in on the day-to-day fears. She said she couldn’t even go out dancing with her friends in her usual places: shootings had occurred in every single one of them. The only safe thing to do nowadays was to stay home and hang out with friends over a pizza.
She was also telling me how awful traffic was in the mornings (not new), and how she couldn’t even use her blackberry (to email, text, ping, or talk on the phone) because any action that may give outsiders the indication that she has a phone may attract bikers who rob cars in traffic. She mimicked a biker simply knocking on the car window, and just asking people to hand over the phones, and you HAVE to do it.
Lara’s friend’s ex-boyfriend was robbed while he was in his car. He gave them everything: the phone, he iPod, and got out of the car to hand over his truck, all to save his life. The robbers’ response was “oh, you must be a daddy’s boy and money just doesn’t hurt, huh?” right before shooting him dead.
Driving on the highway is now a billion times more dangerous with the motorcycles being allowed on the road. It used to be that motorcycles were outlawed from riding on the highway, but President Chávez got rid of that by stating that the roads belonged to all who wanted to use them. Consequence: more crime.
In the past couple of days, several motorcyclists blocked off the highway and proceeded to rob 15 cars before riding off. This same traffic jam created another opportunity farther down the highway for other motorcyclists to seize the day and rob more cars.
This is probably an obvious one, but just thought I’d let you know that stopping at stop signs or red lights at night is a total risk to your safety, so you should not stop. Just proceed with caution.
One of my friends, whom we’ll call Tori Amos (because she’s an awesome musician and she loves Tori Amos), has family in the countryside of Venezuela. She emailed me to let me know that her uncle had been kidnapped over the weekend, had a heart attack shortly after, and was left on the side of the road. I was so sorry to hear about her uncle, and so appreciative of her concern.
My grandmother has become quite depressed at the crime levels. They have never been this ludicrous.
I usually tell my friends that if they ever wanted to visit Venezuela, the best time is RIGHT NOW, because things are just getting worse down here. Traveling to touristy areas with tourist groups or agencies should be fine — they know where to go and where not to go. Trips to Canaima, La Gran Sabana, and other places in the Amazon rainforest are amazing. My cousins go there for vacation and I’m dying to go with them. Those are safe as long as you go with people who know.
The beaches in Venezuela are among the most beautiful in the world. The best place to appreciate them is in Margarita Island. Make sure to sign up with a reputable resort or travel agency and take the tours around the different areas. Tons of shopping and pristine beaches.
As for trips to the Capital City, Caracas, go with a native, or don’t at all. Even booking a hotel might be tricky: it’s not like New York City where you just find the most stars and just walk around. This place is insanely dangerous, and you should get help from someone who knows.
While I ran my errands to get my Venezuelan ID, and to accompany my mother to get government papers done, guess where my husband Brian was: safe in my grandmother’s apartment. I would never risk his life just so he could see downtown Caracas. There is WAY too much animosity towards foreigners, and the President has made sure to create as much polarization as possible. It is just simply NOT a good idea for foreigners to venture out to the city and rogue it out as if they were in Vancouver, Canada.
This is very scary and again, there is just no sugarcoating it. I wish I could tell you that I might be blowing it out of proportion and it’s really not that bad, but I’m afraid that saying this might mislead you to think that I might be exaggerating. I am not.
Having said all that, Brian and I have had a wonderful time with my family, and I have been recording a lot of video so I can show you a little bit of what Caracas is all about. Stay tuned for those!
Here’s a little taste. Sunday was a beautiful day in the city, and we caught a majestic clear view of Mount El Avila. It was absolutely breathtaking. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
Have you ever complained about the slowness and incompetence of the Department of Motor Vehicles? Well, after I tell you the hurdles I had to get over in order to renew my Venezuelan ID, you’re going to start feeling much more appreciation for your local DMV.
First off, there is a difference between an ID and a driver’s license in Venezuela. Your driver’s license looks sort of like a credit card: it has your name and license number; while your ID is the equivalent of your Social Security Card, but the ID card has your #, your full name, your picture, thumb print and your signature.
This ID, called “cédula,” has to be renewed every 10 years. Since I no longer live in Venezuela, I really don’t need to worry about renewals (not even to vote, since an expired ID will do just fine). The reason I’m here is that I got married and my name changed. I got a greencard with my new name, and all of my documents have now been changed, with the exception of my passport. The only way to change my name on my passport is to have a cédula that reflects the new name. Unfortunately, I cannot get cédula updates at the consulate within the US, so I came down and ran this errand. Hopefully this will be the last government procedure I will ever have to endure in my motherland. Any other passport changes can be made through the Consulate in Boston.
We woke up at 5am, and made it to the East Park (Parque del Este) by 6am. The park is a city landmark, and quite large in area. I remember when my grandparents used to bring us here when we were little to watch the animal cages and play some beach-ball soccer 🙂 Fun times. They even had a replica of Christopher Colombus’s ship La Santa María (which they took down when President Chávez denounced the violent Spanish conquest of Latin America – result: no more Columbus Day celebration for us). But I digress. Anyways, turns out that there are not enough offices where people can comfortably perform any type of ID updates, so there are mobile “operative blitzes” in different parts of Caracas. We came to the one in East Park.
We got here at 6am, and were the 5th in line. Those who were ahead of us got here at 5:30am. We stood and waited for a while. At 6:45am, the worker in the food stand, adjacent to the empty space where the cédula workers would be setting up shop, announced that he heard the blitz had been canceled for today, and he would confirm later. He suggested that the closest operative that might still be on was in Los Ruices (two subway stations away).
My mother recalled that last time she went there the machine had been taken away to a different location, so the Los Ruices blitz might not be a sure thing either. We decided to divide and conquer: she went on her own to stand in line in Los Ruices until we heard wether it was happening here for sure.
I kept reading my book (Darkly Dreaming Dexter – I was half way through it when I put it down last night), and just waited. At around 8am, the food stand worker let us know that it was still on. I called my mother with the news, but we decided to stay in place until it was a sure thing. I saw them set up the chairs and block off the area, and instructed my mother to head back. They finished setting up at around 9:30ish and started calling children and senior citizens up first.
While I waited, my mother got me breakfast from the food stand. I went for NATURAL FRESH-SQUEEZED orange juice, and a tequeñón (bread rolled up with cheese inside). I LOVE my orange juice here.
Tequeñón and fresh-squeezed orange juice
At around 10:45 or so, I was next in line to provide my credentials and for them to make sure I got the requirements needed for what I needed done. They pretty much refused to change my name to First and New-Last. It had to be First Old-Last “de” New-last. That’s the standard naming convention in most of Latin America. For example, if Jane Smith marries John Doe, her new name would be Jane Smith de Doe. I asked for just plain Jane Doe, but they would have none of it. Now my greencard (“Jane Doe”) will not match my new passport (“Jane Smith de Doe”), great. I just hope I don’t get beef from airlines à la Joan Rivers.
At 11:38am I was still standing in line to get my picture taken. It finally happened at 12 o’clock. We wiped the sweat off our brows at that point: we heard they usually took a break for lunch at noon.
By that time I had finished reading my book. My mother had not only come back from Los Ruices, she had also gone back home to pick up a slip she needed to get some papers at another government office. She came back, and left again to get her errand done. Then came back and sat to listen to the radio. I also finished my book – hate to kill the suspense, but LaGuerta dies at the end of the first Dexter book! That was unexpected.
While I waited in the photo line, people started to get out of control. Masses of people crossed the yellow tape and started cutting in in front of others. People started to yell at the organizers telling them what a mess this whole thing was, and the organizers decided to call the National Guard to come play line referee. Yup, they just had nothing better to do. The lady in front of me in line (who I’m convinced had cut in front of me at some point) was texting to somebody “I’m not out yet. This is a mess,” and I couldn’t agree more.
I waited for my name to be called up for the next stage: signing the document to verify my identity. I saw people who had been behind me get called. I even talked to a National Guard to please let me approach the table to ask about my stuff. At 12:20 they finally found my paperwork, and I waited for my name to be called again to receive my laminated ID card.
I was out by 12:35pm. FINALLY!
I recorded some video so you can see where the “operative” took place at the park, and so you see what a mess it was! Can you tell how many lines there are? You won’t. We couldn’t even figure that out ourselves. What you CAN see is the mile long line of people who got there late. They’ll never make it.
Something funny did happen. Every time I told an organizer I was there to change my marital status to “married,” they all asked “What the hell for?” After 6 and half hours of this ordeal, I was asking myself the same thing…
All I can say is: the DMV rocks.
ina
PS: Come back for pictures and video later — I’ll have to edit the videos when I get home next week. I took a whole 360 of the situation.
Last Saturday my husband and I braved the 20-degree weather of Boston at 5am to head to Logan Airport for our 18-hour trip to my home country, Venezuela (South America). See map:
Venezuela in South America
I got a free ticket by using my American Airlines miles, but Brian’s ticket would have cost nearly $1400 if he had traveled with me, so he went on Delta instead, flying via Atlanta, to Caracas. At 5am, at the airport, we said our goodbyes and embarked on the trip separately.
If you got good flights, you would be able to make it to Venezuela in 6 or 7 short hours, and even make it there by 2pm (I have done it before), but only American Airlines schedules can make this happen, and my award ticket did not have that itinerary as an option, so Brian and I both had a 3-5 hour layover between flights, and that’s what made it so long a trip.
As soon as I landed, at 12 noon, I found my usual travel restaurant: Chili’s. It was right outside my arriving gate! I swear, every time I walk into an airport my mouth starts salivating like Pavlov’s dog, already preparing for a Chili’s feast.
Chili's: Nectar of the traveling gods (and goddesses)
I had the chicken fajitas, and took half of it to-go. I figured I’d get hungry later, with such a long layover and all.
12:45pm. My flight to Caracas was scheduled to depart at 3:30pm. What to do with my time for 3 whole hours? Sit at the gate reading a book until it was time to sit on a plane for 5 more hours… reading a book? It was just not an option. I was already missing going to the gym, I couldn’t in full consciousness decide to sit on my bum for 8 hours straight.
On my way to my gate, I noticed that the airport had a peculiar triple-ring (closed loop) shape. I wondered how long it would take to walk the entire perimeter of the airport on foot (meaning no escalators or moving sidewalks). And so, my adventure began.
The starting point was gate D27. I’ll cut to the chase and tell you that Terminal D was my favorite. Close to my gate I started noticing the interesting artwork. This castle reminded me of the Wizard of Oz for some reason:
Castle in Terminal D
Then, just around the corner, I saw this blue “crystaly” structure. Then I REALLY started to see the reference to Oz (remember the green crystals of Emerald City?).
Musical Crystals on Terminal D
The contraption was actually a sort of human harmonica. If you walked between the layers of blue walls, you could hear sounds made by your own walking. A kid-crowd pleaser.
I don’t know how many Auntie Anne’s Pretzel stands I passed along the way, but every time I saw them I’d droooool. I LOVE their cinnamon sugar pretzels, but I didn’t have any. I had a banana and Special K crackers in my bag (I was so good, dietwise). About 2 terminals into my walk, I started taking pictures of the stands, in case you didn’t believe me when I told you about the number of these I saw along the way. I did buy a water in one of them, just to support their wonderful cinnamon-sugary cause.
Auntie Anne’s in every corner. I ♥ Texas!!
I was really enjoying my walk. Did I mention I was hauling my carry-on luggage on one hand, and carrying my left-over fajitas on the other? Remember the “no escalators” rule?
Deep breath in, and out. I took each step in a deliberate and constant rhythm. My calves were BURNING. When I got to the top, an airport worker pointed out to me that that was 84 steps. Good to know!
I enjoyed finding cool things to take pictures of. Here are some of them:
The DFW Comfort Lounge in Terminal B
Some things in life are still free!
Way to draw them in early
Just a nice shot outside the terminal
Amazing floor art. I love Terminal D!
What a smarter person would have done during a 3hr layover
When did iPods became an impulse buy?
A Dallas Chili magnet. Perfect souvenir… but at $3.99, I said No Thanks.
THE FINISH LINE
I know, The Finish Line was a bit anti-climatic, but it was a great walk and I would recommend it to anyone with a layover in a large airport! Total time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.
By the time I got back to my gate, my flight had been delayed and the gate had been changed to D16. I didn’t end up taking off until 4:30pm, which made my landing time 11pm (an hour later than scheduled). I had Chili’s fajitas left-overs in lieu of the who-knows-what’s-in-that-chicken-dinner plane food, and I think I would do it again! Quite satisfying to have had a choice in my meal.
I compared notes with Brian after our trips. His Delta flight was equipped with individual TV monitors for him to pick any movie he wanted to see, while my flight had those CRT monitors hanging from the ceiling every 9 rows or so. Made me feel like I was still living in the 1990s.
Also, his flight time was shorter over all. His flight back will get him to Boston by 5pm, while I will be arriving at 10pm. We’ll be spending Valentine’s Day apart 🙁 Boo.
So, in conclusion, I love American Airlines because of the miles, but there are better and cheaper ways to fly out there. I recently signed up to get miles every time I use my (regular, non-AA) credit card in any of the featured restaurants, and I’ve earned about 400 miles in the past month just by having lunch in places that are convenient to me. THAT is a nifty feature that anybody who uses a credit card (ANY card) can take advantage of. If getting free flights is more important to you than having a good flying experience, then American Airlines is the airline for you 🙂
Stay tuned for more pictures and videos of my trip. We’ve only just begun!
Sometimes I wish I had a “Blog Chip” in my brain that would capture my thoughts and clever little sentences and post them here automatically as I think them. That way I wouldn’t have to struggle so much to remember things that happened days ago to post them. It’s totally worth the effort of trying to remember though — enjoy these next posts about my trip.
I’m on the train with nothing to do but blog (which I certainly don’t mind one bit). I’d like to get out of my head for a second and blog about something else. Something I have not been obsessing over, but would be nice to open up and talk about.
… Mmmm… I thought I’d come up with something by the time I finished writing that sentence, but… *blank*. I don’t know what… After all, anything I say will be coming from inside my head… So I won’t really achieve getting out of it, huh?
Random thoughts:
The person next to me on the train has a kindle. I wish I had a kindle.
I didn’t have enough $ to pay for $4 parking fee at the station. I’ll have to pay $5 when I get back.
I’ve discovered that I am really bad at negotiating, but I have all the eagerness in the world to get better
I’m happy that Monica Geller and I get along so well now after so many years of animosity and teenage angst hanging over us
I think I might be afraid of having children without being ready, and I’m afraid of never being ready
On a more upbeat note, I declare that today will be a great day 🙂
I love it that Taylor Swift is now a Grammy winner. She’s so perfect and talented.
I wanted to get my boots fixed today, but left them at home by mistake!
I haven’t been posting everything I eat every day lately, but I wanted to assure you that I am doing great! I have been eating 3 meals a day, with a healthy snack in between if I’m hungry. I have been going to the gym 3 times a week without fail (even if I’m dead tired and starving, at least I’ll get on the treadmill for 20 minutes so I don’t skip a day). And I discovered that if I don’t have breakfast, my mood deteriorates before I even realize it, so breakfast is HUGE for my state of mind (good to know!).
I also realized that my cheapo analog scale is no better than the stupid digital one I had before, so I started weighing myself at the gym (they have the same kind that they have at doctors’ offices), and I’m proud to say that I have lost 1 pound in 1 week 🙂 I know that losing weight is not the main objective of my new diet & gym routine (controlling my anxieties is), but shedding a few pounds is a nice bonus 🙂 My goal is to lose 7 more pounds, but I’m sure my body will reach its perfect weight somewhere in between, and I’ll just have to accept the new minimal me. I just hope its lower limit is at 7 lbs from now 😛
Hope you are all doing well with your own healthy routines.
Ever since writing the Frenemies post, I have been quite uneasy. I can’t stop thinking of myself as a bad person for judging my friends, which has led me to ask myself: Why do I judge? What is it about their lives that I find so threatening to the point of having feelings about what they do or don’t do?
"El que se pica, es porque ají come" — literally translated, this expression means "If you feel the burn, it must be because you ate a hot chili pepper."* In other words, if you find offense to something someone else said, it’s probably because of your own insecurities in the matter. This is also known as a challenge of identity.
To further illustrate this point, take this example: Mary and Jimmy are talking about Joe, a common friend. Mary says that Joe is a bum for not getting a job. Jimmy, who has a great job and has worked really hard to keep it in this economy, will probably agree with Mary and think that Joe could be working harder on getting his life back together.
Now pretend that Jimmy is unemployed and hasn’t been able to find a job for a year, and it’s not for lack of trying! When Mary says that Joe is a bum for not getting a job, you might find Jimmy adopting a defensive stance: "that’s not fair! There are NO jobs out there!" — do you think that Jimmy is standing up for Joe because he’s his friend? Or is he really standing up for himself and his own identity, which has now come into question EVEN when the comment wasn’t about him?
Actually, in both cases you can see that Jimmy has a feeling about the comment, but it’s not about Joe at all. Who cares what Joe does or doesn’t do? It’s really Jimmy’s identity that is being targeted in both occasions, and that is what Jimmy is responding to. If this was really about Joe, Jimmy’s personal situation would not affect his reaction to Mary’s comment. Jimmy is just as much Joe’s friend when he has a job than when he doesn’t.
So really, when we judge our friends, we are simply looking at ourselves in the mirror.
So, what is it about my friends’ perspectives that challenge my own identity? I’d like to explore this a little more. I know it’s not them, so what is it about me that I find is being questioned?
ina
* A close equivalent English expression would be “if the shoe fits, wear it” — although maybe not quite.
It has been a rough week with virtually no down time. Monday I worked off site, went to the gym, and got home late. Tuesday and Wednesday I had class and went to bed as soon as I got home. Tonight I’ll be going straight to the gym after work and then meet up with my friend, whom we’ll call Alicia Keys, for a late dinner. Then I have to get up early tomorrow to balance some accounts for Sweet Dee before going to meet her at 10am. Then go meet Charlotte in Cambridge for our very last finance session. Then leave early to be back in Norwood for a homework session with a school buddy. Then get home and pack to leave early the next morning for my home country for a week.
I’m very much going to enjoy not doing any work whatsoever while I’m out of the country. I’ll just visit relatives, take care of some official business, and blog the heck out of myself.
My hubby Brian will be coming with me. He always gets nervous whenever we go because he doesn’t speak Spanish. And now he’s extra self-conscious because he’s gained some weight and I’m an idiot for giving him a heads up that my family might mention something about that. I know, I did not think before I spoke. I think I’m going to buy him a bathing suit anyway and leave it up to him to wear it when we go to my aunt’s pool (even though he’s asked me not to buy him one). I feel so bad to have fed his insecurity, especially because I really don’t care about his weight, I just didn’t want my family’s possible comments to catch him by surprise… maybe they won’t say anything at all, and I’m just the biggest dope ever.
Anyways, I’m looking forward to getting away. Not looking forward to a busy meeting-packed day, though. Hope you all have a nice day.
Yesterday was Groundhog Day. To some, it’s just a yearly event where the good people in Punxsutawney, PA, celebrate around a groundhog to hear its winter forecast: if the rodent sees a shadow, we’ll get 6 more weeks of winter (which it did this year). To others, it’s a day of reflection rooted in the Bill Murray 1993 movie “Groundhog Day” where the main character, Phil, gets stuck reliving the same day (Feb 2nd) day after day after day. I’m in that latter group.
What would it be like if my Groundhog Day had repeated over and over? Let’s start with what happened on Day 1:
Overslept right through my alarm and had to apply lotion and eat a banana on the train (not the most glamorous situation, take it from me)
Go to work and had several productive meetings during the day (they felt good)
Had lunch with my sister Tina Fey (it was so much fun)
Had a couple more meetings (could have done without these)
Rushed home at 5pm but train ran late, so I got home at 6:10, grabbed my left-over soup and rushed to school
Got to school at 6:40, warmed up my soup in the dinky dinky microwave for 3 minutes and it was STILL cold
Met a couple of people, and ran into some people I hadn’t seen in a while, at the grad lounge (it was crowded and loud, not pleasant overall)
Had a great class on Negotiating (very animated class — love it)
Ran into a friend from school at the end of class, and we walked to the car together. Turns out we’ll both be taking the same classes this summer and be DONE with the MBA
Got home at 10:15, got ready for bed, kissed my LOST-obsessed husband goodnight, and went to bed
Got woken up at 3am when Brian came to bed after watching all last season episodes of Lost, plus last night premiere episode.
Overall, it was a good day! I really wouldn’t have minded having that day over and over.
If that day repeated itself, I have the feeling I would still oversleep every time (awful start to the day), the meetings would go the same, the lunch with my sister would be a highlight, I’d probably opt for taking an earlier train back home so I can eat before leaving for class, the Negotiating class would be awesome, and I’d love ending the day catching up with my old friend. I might try to do a better job at convincing my husband to come to bed with me at 10pm, but I have the feeling he would have never gone for it, so I’d be doomed to be woken up at 3am for all eternity. It’s OK, though, I sleep like a rock… it wouldn’t affect me much.
What was your Groundhog Day like? What would you have changed if you could have?
Let’s face it: we don’t always love all of our friends.
If you have accumulated friends over different stages of your life, you have probably noticed that you have lost those things that used to connect you to some of them. Maybe they were your drinking buddies in college, and nowadays you would rather relax at home with a glass of wine, over braving the streets plastered until 2am every weekend. Maybe they were your best friends in high school, but you just don’t have a heck of a lot to talk about anymore. Maybe they were your wing man (or woman) when you were single, and you are just over the whole manhunting affair. Maybe you admired their life, and now you just resent them for always looking down on you. Or maybe you are just a judgmental control freak and have a hard time letting your friends lead their own lives their own way, and get frustrated when they don’t follow your advice. I’d put a check mark on that last one based on recent events.
I just went through a girlfriend quarrel with Charlotte. Things are fine now (I think), but we decided to stop doing finances together in order to get back on equal footing in our relationship. Truth was, I was being judgmental, and she started to resent me for it (and rightfully so).
This entire ordeal got me thinking about the concept of “friends.”
When I was in elementary and middle school, I had a very hard time making friends; but when I did have them, we were TIGHT. We would wait for each other at the school entrance every morning, we would spend every recess together, and then go home and talk on the phone for hours at a time. We would share our innermost feelings and deepest secrets without any regard for what the other might think, because we were one and the same. We’d spend all of our free time together, have sleepovers, and wouldn’t even consider the thought of going to a party unless they were invited, too. Now that I think of it, these friendships sound more like full blown relationships, don’t they?
I guess those are the types of friendships that made an impact in my own perception of what a friendship should be like: they should be pure and they give you completely open rights to say anything that was on your mind without fear of being judged. Unfortunately, not even those tight friendships lasted longer than a school year. Something always got in the way. I don’t keep in touch with any of those girls now, and it still hurts my soul to think back on those breakups. Maybe there is room for only one exclusive relationship in our lives at any given time, and Brian is mine: we love each other deeply, we accept each other completely, and he listens to ANYTHING I want to say without judgment. So why do I need a girlfriend? Maybe to talk about him 😛
Since Brian has filled my exclusive-friendship hole, I am afraid that all my other friends may have jumped to a secondary plane in my life. I might never get that kind of closeness out of a friendship with a girl ever again. Does this mean that I’ll never really get to know my girlfriends? Are we just pleasant acquaintances who tell each other what we want to hear for support, while really judging each other’s lives and opinions at the same time? Have we lost that sense of loyalty we had when we were little? Whatever happened to accepting without judgment?
My sister Tina Fey thinks this is all completely normal and I might be being too hard on myself. We had lunch today and pondered the reality of adult girl-on-girl friendships. She admitted to judging her friends and simply wondered how could she NOT? She couldn’t help but thinking that some of her friends were lazy, or that they didn’t seem to get their act together with any kind of assertiveness. I chuckled several nervous laughs: are we allowed to say what we really think of our friends? The point was that it might not be right or appropriate to gossip and say nasty things about our own friends, but we THINK those things anyway, and we ALL do. It was refreshing to know that other girls judge one another, too, and that does not mean that we have to stop being friends. As long as we are able to accept those differences and still enjoy spending time together, the friendship is as normal as they come. So maybe I won’t be judging myself friendless after all 🙂
To my friends: I am not perfect, and I know you are not either, but I do actually care about you, even when we do things differently. What I can offer you is a friendly ear to listen, a jovial disposition to have a good time, and an uncontrollable desire to help you find happiness. Sometimes this urge may make me appear controlling and judgmental, and I am sorry for that in advance. All I really want is for you to happy and for your dreams to come true. And when I need a shoulder to cry on, I know you will be there for me, too… even if you think the reason I’m crying about is totally stupid.
This blog contains a work confession, so this is between you and me, ok?
When I got to work today, I immediately jumped back into the activity I left off on Friday evening. Once I finished it, I moved onto the next task. I was really proud of myself that I was actually getting work done! Then, I got a ping from my boss, whom we’ll call Palmer (after the former President on 24 because my boss is a very nice African American guy who commands respect):
Palmer: Do you have the metrics for the next review? ina: you’ll have them very soon!
I had forgotten about that analysis. I can do it in about an hour, it’s really not a big deal, but I felt very overwhelmed. I was already on a roll with one task, and all of the sudden something else got piled up in my brain. So what was the next thing I did? I opened FreeCell.
Why did I do that? The more work I have, the more stressed out I should feel, and the more pressure to get it done I should feel. Then why on Earth was my first impulse to open up a solitaire card game?
That’s a story that I think EVERYONE should listen to. Don’t just read it, click on the LISTEN link.
It basically explains that the brain is remarkably weak and lacking in willpower. It gave the example of a study where a group of people were given some numbers to memorize: some people were given 2 numbers, and others were given 7 numbers. After being given them, they would just have to walk down the hall and recite the number in another room. What they didn’t know was that the experiment was really outside of those rooms.
On the way to the second room to recite the number, they passed by the study team’s snack bar. They offered them a snack as a “Thank You” for participating in the study, and they were given a choice between fruit salad and a decadent yummy chocolate cake. The results: an overwhelming majority of the people who were given 7 numbers to memorize picked the cake over the fruit.
The reason: the brain spends extra power in staying on course. When it’s busy doing something (like memorizing a long number), it gets that much weaker at fighting urges. But when it’s doing something easy (like memorizing just two numbers), it can retain control of itself and make smarter choices (like picking the fruit salad over the cake). The conclusion is that the brain is SO weak, that just memorizing 7 numbers over 2 made a big difference in will power.
That is what happened to me: I spend all day trying to stay on track. I was already on a roll and my brain was busy. When a new task came in, my brain got really really lazy and could not help itself: it’s time for FreeCell!
To my credit, I realized what was happening as soon as I opened the program, and closed it right away… then I opened Notepad and wrote this bit about it 🙂 So I guess I didn’t really succeed in battling my weakness at all.
Good luck to all of you with your weak brains, sounds like you’ll need it.
New Year’s Resolutions are what you make of them. Some people take them very seriously (that’s their to-do list for the rest of the year), and others do them just for fun (let’s see what are all the things I won’t do this year either). For me, they are an excuse to get together with friends and kick-off the year on a good note.
For the past 3 years I have hosted a “New Year’s Resolutions Party” at my house with all of my girlfriends. The very first year I went out and bought a fishbowl and filled it with colorful pieces of paper with typical resolution ideas. At the party, all the guests (only women are invited) are provided with a notepad and a pen (Heaven knows I have accumulated enough Sheraton notepads from training sessions over the years), and then the process begins. What we do is pass the bowl around, and each person reads an idea out loud. If the idea sounds appealing, the guests can write it down on their notepads and the bowl keeps moving on. What’s great about it is that these ideas spark all sorts of conversations, and you know the party is going GREAT when we even forget who has the bowl because there is so much chatter going on.
The first two years we would sit on the floor on blankets and cushions, but now that I have a marvelous sectional couch, and a futon I haven’t gotten rid of yet, we were able to sit in a square-shape and have all the food in the middle. It was really great to see friends who had never come to the party before having a great time and connecting with the other girls. I can’t get enough of the sound of my friends having a good time with some of my friends whom they never met before.
In case you were wondering, here are the ideas that made it into my list:
Spend less money on eating out
Read more books for fun
Go to Church with my next door neighbor (I’m getting a Church buddy!)
Go to Zumba class at the gym (recommended by my sister-in-law)
Continue going to the gym 3 times a week
Get my teaching license
Go to a psychic (this one might need revision)
Stick to my healthy diet
Help more people with finances (on a more professional basis)
Get a curly perm (YEAH!!! Will get one done with my sister-in-law in March!!!)
Watch less TV
Spend more time with my sister, Tina Fey
Call my mother once a week
Go in business with my sister-in-law (she’s a great crafter, I’m going to help her sell it online)
Learn from my friend how to spend as little money as possible in clothes and groceries
I wish I could think of clever names for my sisters-in-law. One is a very artsy elementary school teacher (that’s the one that I’m getting the perm done with), and the other (younger) is tall and gorgeous and a total free spirit. I think I’ll name the latter Dharma, from Dharma & Greg. But I’m having trouble with the former… I’ll think of something.
Good luck with your resolutions! I know I’ll need some with mine 🙂
I’m anxious today. Something set me off this morning and I can’t put my finger on what it was.
I was good with my meals yesterday, and I even went to the gym (despite my having been home beforehand and having felt the velvety wonderfulness that is my Apple-logo stamped couch). So I can’t exactly pinpoint any reasonable physical cause for my anxiety this morning.
I hope I get some cleaning done quickly so I can spend the rest of the day setting up for an all-girls party I’m hosting tonight.
Send me your good vibes so my mood picks up, please!
I am going to try my best at writing a response worthy of Erin’s post regarding "Unit of Erin" — how many things can you measure in units of Erin? Anything that weighs 106 pounds or a multiple of it, or the number of smiles Erin manages to put on people’s faces throughout the day.
I have to say that I do have units of ina that I think about often, and that is anything that measures 5 feet. Granted, I’m actually 5’1", but it’s easier to round down and measure things in terms of ina. When I am trying to eyeball how far away something is from something else, I picture myself lying on the ground and I count how many of me’s it would take to connect the two somethings together. This is true.
Now, for the more philosophical unit of ina, I wish I could say it was equivalent to the number of smiles I purposely try to get on people’s faces, like Erin does, but that would not be a fair account. Actually, you could count the number of people I piss off throughout the day instead quite easily! But that’s a bit negative, isn’t it?
On a more positive note, a unit of ina also measures bold ideas (also known as stupid, over-the-top, crazy, idealistic, irrational, unrealistic, you pick your favorite adjective). Since I haven’t quite figured out what I want to do for the rest of my life, I tend to use up 80% of my brain power every day exploring new ways to spark excitement and look forward to something new to do. These ideas can come in all shapes and sizes, and most times they are simply enjoyed while they last. One bold idea = One unit of ina.
These ideas have materialized in several ways:
Idea: Wanting to become a doctor Roots: I watched a lot of ER in 2004 Actions:
I volunteered at 3 hospitals in 3 states, while I was examining the idea of going to med school
I bought the MCAT study book (err… never opened it)
I read the books "Complications" and "How to Get into Med School"
I requested applications from the University of Washington regarding their Pharmacology program
I bought "Organic Chemistry" tapes, and studied basic chemistry on my free time
Idea: Wanting to open my own Coffee Shop Roots: I had just moved to Boston in 2006 and spent time at Cafes hanging out with friends, and thought that there was no other place I’d rather spend a full day in Actions:
Read the "How to Open a Coffee Shop" guide
Spent countless hours at a local coffee shop looking through business plans online and figuring out my own strategy to get funding
Cut out small business news articles and posted them in my cubicle at work
Applied to business school… and got in! (will graduate with an MBA in August 2010)
Idea: Wanting to move to Barcelona for a year (2007) Roots: I’ve dreamed of living in France. Barcelona is close to it, and Brian could learn Spanish Actions:
Started figuring out a way to save up for Brian’s Spanish program
Got quotes from moving companies (I’m still getting spam from them!)
Started looking for jobs
Went on forums and asked locals what life was like
Idea: Wanting to become a Teacher (2009) Roots: Sick of Corporate America after spending 6.5 years in it, looked for a change. Took a look around and I am surrounded by teachers: sister, sister-in-law, next door neighbor, mother-in-law. I like public speaking and I hear that the money sucks, but it’s a very satisfying career. Actions:
I’m on my way to meet with a local business owner, Sweet Dee (reference to "It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia"), to continue helping her with her finances and budget, on a volunteer basis. This is the story of my favorite hobby in the world.
I don’t do this for resume building, I don’t do this for network expansion, and I obviously don’t do it for money; I do it because it’s fun. There, I’ve said it: Hi, my name is Ina, and I like to budget for fun. (Hi Ina).
It all started back in 2004. I had been out on the real world for 6 months, and I noticed that my savings account never had more than $2,000 in it. At the time I was making around $1400 bi-weekly, so I had NO idea where my money was going! I decided to take advantage of the American Express consultants that came to my job site one day, and I scheduled a free consult.
At the meeting, they walked me through what it takes to budget, and how they could help me straighten my finances out. They made it very clear that the first step was to keep track of where my money went every hour of every day. But first, they would need $600 from me. That was more than 25% of my savings! So I told them I could not afford it, and they should call me in 6 months, when I have kept track of my spend and we can analyze the data more thoroughly. I even put the 6-month mark on my phone calendar. The day came and went and they never called, which was a relief because by that time I had already firgured out the secret to financial health: AWARENESS of where money goes, and automatic transfers to ensure savings.
This became one of my disciplined obsessions. I learned all I needed to know to increase my credit score and keep it high, I knew what expenses I could live without and which I needed to lower, and I started a Roth IRA account to save for retirement in addition to maximizing my 401k. I was on top of it!
Fortunately, Brian was even MORE anal about his finances than I was when we met. So we would give each other tips, but mostly I learned a lot from him. By the time we got married, out credit scores were 750+ each. We couldn’t have found a better life partner. But then came the decision: who should manage our finances once we got married?
I loved keeping track of everything, but I used homemade speadsheets, while Brian used Microsoft Money, and all of our accounts together (more than 26 in savings, checking and credit cards combined) would have made my spreadsheet too complex and unmanageable. So the answer was easy: he would take it over.
The lack of tracking left a void in my soul, until I found a friend, Charlotte, whose finances were a serious mess and who had no motivation or inclination to straighten them out, even now that she was unemployed. This was a golden opportunity to get back into it and help out a friend. It has really paid off!
Then I offered my humble services to an entrepreneur, Sweet Dee, who admittedly had no clue about her finances and could barely stay afloat. I was interviewing her for a class paper last semester, the topic came up, and I just asked if she needed help, and she said yes 🙂
And that’s the story of my very unconventional hobby. Sometimes "you just gotta do whatever makes your heart sing" (CEO of Dancing Deer bakery).
Do you have an unconventional hobby? What makes your heart sing?
There is a phrase my mother is very fond of saying: "Yo conozco mi ganado" which literally means "I know my cattle." It’s something she says when she speculates about what we, her daughters, are going to do or how we’ll react to a situation.
I have been trying to use that phrase with Brian because it always comes to mind, but he doesn’t speak Spanish, so it just sounds like a weird thing to say, and he just doesn’t get it.
Last night:
Brian: I’m too tired, I’ll do the dishes tomorrow morning ina: No you won’t! I know my cattle!
(a few minutes later)
Brian: did you set up my alarm? ina: oh no, sorry, you asked me to? I totally forgot. Brian: yeah, I knew you would. I know my cow.
Or so I think of myself… then why do I sometimes I get the impression that people just really don’t like me? I can feel it. It’s like a sixth sense. It feels like tension in the air. Like anything I say can and will be used against me. Like people are on guard in my presence.
I haven’t put my finger on the exact issue yet, but I definitely understand the feeling because I have experienced it myself: whenever I encounter a woman who is known for her "I’m right all the time" attitude more than she’s known for her kindness and humility, I become intimidated. It’s not even a reputation thing, it’s something you can tell from the way they talk to others, carry themselves, and how they talk to you the first time you meet. This is the kind of woman that will smile at you, but will not be afraid to say No and call you on anything they disagree with, no matter how insignificant it may be. So you just stay quiet and try not to get into an argument about why she doesn’t want to write her name on her "Hello My Name Is" tag because she thinks people should know her name by now. Or you try to ignore it when you help her out by pointing out that you can get multiple lines on a single cell of Excel by doing Alt+Enter as opposed to using spaces to wrap the text, and she just says "that’s nice, that’s nice" as you’re talking to try to get you to shut up and leave her alone. And you definitely don’t argue when she says she doesn’t have time to do what you asked her to do.
Is that how people see me? That inflexible? Am I so set in my own ways that people have experienced discomfort when they express a different view in my presence?
On the one hand, I recall so many times when I have listened to people talk about things I disagree with and I am polite in either not arguing or saying my point of view without offending the other person. I always think of the possibility that I may be wrong, and many times I even say those words out loud so that there is no doubt: "You are right." My husband hears this a lot, and he extends the same courtesy to me when I am right.
On the other hand, I can’t stop thinking about the feedback I have received from my immediate family. I have been told that I don’t listen and that I never accept that others could be right, especially when they are criticizing me.
Having such conflicting ideas in my head is really creating an internal crisis for me. So what am I? Open-minded and accepting of others’ differences and ideas? Or am I a close-minded won’t-touch-her-with-a-10-ft-pole nutcase that goes around the world intimidating innocent bystanders?
I hope I’m the first, but I’m open to the idea of being wrong about this. Scary thought, though.
When I went to school last night I never imagined that a little fella would be waiting for me at the library.
(click to enlarge)
What is a Milk Dud doing in the library? It’s like it knew I was coming and it wanted to say hi 🙂
My mother is fond of saying that beautiful days are a postcard from God, to show you how much He loves you and to remind you that the wonderful world He made for you is for you to enjoy and appreciate. Well, I think God was trying to cheer me up with this little postcard 🙂
For the most part I’ve been keeping this blog private. I know it’s “public” in that everyone can access it, but I have never pushed the link onto anyone I know. I don’t hide the fact that I have a blog, but I don’t want to make them feel obligated to visit, and I prefer it that way. I got my loyal readership, and nobody to please but myself 🙂
Since I’ve been talking about my blog with my sister, I decided to give her the link. After all, she is always asking me what’s up, and I have the strong feeling that she would become a loyal reader out of pure joy of reading about what is going on on my mind. I thought it would be OK to do that, after all, I haven’t said anything about her, so she shouldn’t find any offense in these writings… right?
Wrong! She was offended that she WASN’T in it! LOL! 😀 So, here it is. A blog dedicated to my older sister: Monica Geller.
Hope she enjoys her given name 🙂 I’m sure she’ll get it 🙂
Have a good day, Mon!
ina
PS: And to break the ambiguity, I have another sister who is 1 year younger than I am. We’ll name her Tina Fey (because she looks like her), and she’s the one that will be graduating in May and going back to our home country.
I have a bad habit: I pick up the phone when I don’t recognize a phone number, and I call back people who leave me voicemails or send me texts when it’s clear they meant to contact someone else. Usually they are grateful I called back, so they can try again or update their contact lists.
Having said that, I’m usually pretty good at hanging up right away if I hear a pause after I say "hello." That usually means it is an automated system calling a bunch of numbers at once, in which case I’m not interested. For some reason, I did wait this time… It was my cellphone provider.
They called to tell me that I have gone over my text messaging allowance, and it went something like this:
Verizon: We see you have gone over by 102 messages this month, an overage of $11. Let’s see what options are available to increase your plan… ina: Actually I am not interested in changing my plan at all. Verizon: But I could check out your account and figure out what happened… ina: I probably did go over, and I’ll just watch it next time. Verizon: But there may be a better plan… ina: Are those plans online? Can I read about them there? Verizon: Yes… ina: Ok, I’ll check them out with my husband when I get home and figure it out from there. Verizon: Ok, I can call you back when you are ready to… ina: (Begging) PLEASE don’t call me back. We’ll figure it out. Verizon: Thank you for using Verizon Wireless. Have a good day. ina: You, too.
I couldn’t believe they called me to shame me about my texting usage! But they have a point. The main reason I’m over is because of Twitter: I get updates from some of my friends as texts, and I always update my status by texting Twitter at 40404.
This is stupid, because we thought that by having a smartphone with email I wouldn’t need texting as much! So I found a Twitter tool online that you can use to EMAIL your updates to Twitter. Just go to twittercounter.com, and sign up for Twittermail (free). It generates a unique and secret email address for you to email your Twitter updates, and ensures that any replies will arrive in your email.
No more expensive texting! Save your financial environment: emails are free 🙂
[Warning: cheesy and “me”-focused entry ahead. Proceed at your own risk]
I’ve been writing too much about the things cluttering my mind. I think it’s time for a happy and optimistic blog.
Sometimes we forget how lucky we really are, and it takes for a situation to get worse for us to realize how good we had it before. Do we really have to experience loss to appreciate what we have?
Here are the things that are objectively great about my life, and I would rather not lose them because I appreciate them NOW:
I have a loving family where mostly everyone gets along
I have a husband who would do anything for me, and who knows I would do anything for him right back
My family is safe, in touch, and they have everything they need to survive and be happy
I have a roof over my head and food in my tummy every day
I have a brain that works perfectly fine and that has a lot of potential for more development
I can see, I can walk, I can hear, and I can feel
I am healthy
I am free to choose my own destiny and be whatever I want to be
These may sound basic, but they are priceless.
I do thank God for so many of the things I have no control over, and for helping me through life, through good and bad.
I got up with the alarm today and left the room (I’m still trying to let Brian get some sleep by not snoozing), but I was stumbling all over the place (so tired). After washing my hands, I went straight for breakfast: put a Gibb muffin in the microwave, and poured myself a huge glass of orange juice (my grandmother used to say that it seemed like I wanted to shower in OJ rather than drink it). Mental note: there’s just a little bit left, should buy more. Then grabbed the butter, a paper towel, a knife and the muffin and went downstairs to the family room with the full intention of lying back down on our brand new couch (which we waited way too much time for and spent way too much money on) while I watched some TV (House, if you must know).
I put my breakfast on an adjacent TV table, I lied down on one side of the sectional, put a couple of blankets on me (oooh warmth), started pulling the TV table closer to me, and WOOOSSHHH!!! the orange juice spilled all over the floor and on the couch. I got up, still half asleep, but rushing as fast as I could, to the laundry room, where we keep the bulk load of paper towels. I must have used a whole roll drying up the mess. I needed it dry ASAP so there would be no damage to the laminate floor (which is not supposed to get wet) or the new couch’s upholstery. I thought Brian would kill me if he found out about the spill, but then I remembered that just last week he had accidentally overheated his Mac’s power cord’s box on the couch, and now the couch has a square imprint on it with the Apple logo embossed in the center… so maybe we could just call it even.
I took the empty glass and the beach-ball sized bunch of wet paper towels up to the kitchen, and poured myself the last of the orange juice that was remaining. Mental note (revised): buy more OJ.
By the time I got back to my cozy blankets, my muffin was cold again. I gave up and ate it anyway.
So, I’m running late for work this morning. You got a problem with that?
I am feeling very conflicted right now. Here’s more or less what my train of thought has been for the past 2 days:
Finished first MTEL, yay!
I got too much going on in February, and it will be impossible to take the next MTEL on March 6th. Plus, the deadline has passed and I’d have to pay more if I wanted to do a late registration. I’ll just take the second MTEL in May
But taking it in May means I would not be able to apply for jobs in the Fall for sure
Oh, look! There’s an opening down the street for a Math Teacher for this Fall! (blood rushes, excitement builds up)
Maybe I COULD rush it and take the subject-matter MTEL in March!
But I got too much going on in February, I won’t be able to study
You see, the thing is that I don’t know if I’m going to be ready to change careers in the Fall. I got a raise coming up and I want to ride on it for a little while before giving it up. The thought of staying at my current job for another year is quite gloomy, but at the same time, I’ll be graduating in August, and I don’t know if I could handle SO much of a change all at once. Maybe I should take my raise, get my license without any rush, enjoy my holidays, keep taking MTELs until I got all the licenses I wanted, and apply for the following year.
My immediate reaction to what I just wrote is “I know that’s the right choice, but I don’t want to feel like I’m settling.” I try to tell myself that as long as I’m making progress (getting licenses), I am on the right track.
I’m so scared of this change. Am I just trying to sabotage myself by slowing down?
Does anybody remember that butter commercial? Did I just make that up?
Anywhooooo…
I got news from my boss that I’ll be getting a new role soon. YESSSS! Not that my new role is my dream job by any means, but it is a CHANGE which we welcome with open arms in these United States of ina 🙂 All I have to focus on now is the transition of my duties! Yes, I said duties.
Something else that has me giddy is that I saw an open position for a Math high school teacher down the street from my house starting in the Fall. I’m not planning on applying for it. I’m just not ready yet. Maybe next year. But just the thought of it makes the blood in my veins rush!
I’m feeling better today, as you can probably tell by now. I decided to be the best wife ever this morning and not press snooze (Brian is a very light sleeper and he’s had a rough couple of nights – my poor love). As soon as the alarm rang, I literally JUMPED out of bed and closed the door behind me. I didn’t even go back in to give him his goodbye/good morning kiss before I left (which I still feel sad about, but I hope he got some rest). Oh, the sacrifices we make for the men we love.
I had Gibb’s muffins for breakfast. Some pointers for those of you planning to make them:
I didn’t grease the muffin pans, so the muffins stuck to them. It wasn’t that bad, I was still able to pop them out with a knife. They bake much more at the bottom than at the top, so I don’t think I’d recommend greasing the pan: it might burn them too fast at the bottom.
They were not sweet and yummy. They were kind of dry and definitely needed something spread on them. I tried strawberry jelly and butter, and butter won. I LOVE the combination of sweet and salty tastes.
I toasted them a little bit before eating, but wished I had toasted them long enough so that the butter melted. Mental note for tomorrow.
Good breakfast, though! Only 80 calories per muffin. Beats McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts breakfasts any day! Mmm starting to get hungry. Time for my English muffin with PB morning snack!
ina
PS: I just noticed that the picture makes the muffins look cracked and sunk in, but they were not! Those are shadows! They rose a little bit, they did not crack at all! 🙂
Thanks to Christine, Halfawake, and Erin for your notes. You’re the best for reading and the bestest for writing back 🙂
My mood picked up in the late evening. As promised, I did get off my bum and went to the gym. The water aerobics class was hard work! I was really giving it my all. It almost ruined it for me that all the others in the class were doing it half-assed and were just facing one another chatting away while the teacher screamed the instructions over their chatter. Granted, I don’t expect everyone to be as energetic as I am, but at least pretend to have a little respect for the instructor’s time, you know?? Oh, and by the way, if anyone is looking for a place to meet and catch up with girlfriends, and you are at least 65 years of age, my water aerobics class is for you.
After the gym I went to the grocery store and got the ingredients for the muffins. I made them tonight and I think it was a success! I’ll have them in the morning and let you know how they tasted 🙂 By the way, when they tell you to blend the wet ingredients, please do use a blender and not the food processor that you already had so conveniently out because you used it to chop the almonds. Take it from me: it’s not worth the mess! 🙂
Lastly, I got to plan a little trip to Wahington DC for my anniversay this year 🙂 it’s probably the only place that, so far, Brian and I will travel to together where I haven’t been already. It’ll be a discovery for the both of us 🙂 What’s also neat is that our anniversary falls on Memorial Day! Who knows, maybe we’ll get a peek of an Obama speech somewhere at some point 🙂
Great end to a taxing day. Hope you are all having a good start to your week!
[Warning: Stop reading HERE if you’re in a good mood and you’d like to remain that way. This one’s a downer]
You know someone is not in the best state of mind when they tell you “I’m having one of those days.” You’re probably not going to see that phrase accompanied by a smiley face, or followed by “it’s great!” And how do you know that? Because you have been there, too. Someone asks us how we are, and we don’t want to say “sad” or “depressed” or “in desperate need of saving” because that would put too much of a burden on the kind soul who was nice enough to ask in the first place. So we just say “I’m having one of those days.”
It’s raining outside, and it’s having an immensely negative impact on my state of mind. I felt like it was raining even before I got out of bed. I had breakfast, but I was too busy to have lunch until 2:30pm. By then I was so hungry and tired and down that I couldn’t fathom the idea of cooking. I went out and got myself a cheeseless pizza with spinach and onions from Stash’s. I had 4 slices and froze the rest. Why am I telling you about every minute of my day? I don’t know. I guess I just need to put some things out into the world.
I am still planning on going to the gym today. There is an aqua aerobics class tonight, and I want to give it a shot. Even if I still feel down, I will go.
I’m so tired that my eyes just want to close.
How to define it… mmm… let’s see: I am not feeling anxious, though I might be a little depressed. I can’t say I’m depressed unless I feel like crying, and I don’t. I’m definitely down. I could blame it on last night’s dinner, but I don’t want to be such a coward. This happens sometimes, and I need to figure out the fastest way to snap out of it.
Maybe I should just focus on getting some reading done for school, going to the gym, having dinner, buying the ingredients to make Gibb’s Banana Oat Muffins, and just catching up on some sleep. I am dead tired.
It’s hard when these things hit you and you have no idea where they came from. I’m a very fortunate woman and there is no reason for me to feel down. Let’s just wait this one out and try life again tomorrow.
Alright, thanks for reading this far. I’ll hang in there.
I can’t really say that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, since I have been skipping breakfast for the past several months (minus last week). But I can say that breakfast FOOD is my FAVORITE kind of food in the world. Unfortunately, most of what I love about breakfast includes fatty fatty bready bready foods (pancakes, bacon, eggs over easy, chocolate chips, milkshakes). I probably don’t love breakfast as much as this lady over here, but I do… a LOT!
So I’ve set out to find healthy fun breakfast foods. It’s going to be hard, but I hope to expand my breakfast repertoire so I don’t dread breakfast every morning.
I found this recipe for muffins. I will make them this week and let you know how they turned out!
Ingredients
Oat Bran, 2.25 cup
Baking Powder, 3 tsp
Maple Syrup or sugar, .25 cup
Milk, nonfat, 1.25 cup
*Egg white, 2 serving
Banana, fresh, .75 cup, mashed
Almonds, .5 cup, chopped
(optional: handful of rasins or blueberries and .25 cup of shreded coconut)
Directions
Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl, blend wet ingreedinets together and mix gently with dry ingredients. Bake at 450 for 12-15 minutes for muffins or 10 minutes for muffin tops.
1 scrambled egg with mixed-in turkey breast, in 2 slices of wheat bread, a banana, orange juice, and a few bites of a chocolate fudge coconut cookie with white chocolate chunks.
Morning Snack
Lunch
Left overs of chicken and vegetable stir fry, and a pi&ntilda;a colada yogurt. Water.
Afternoon Snack
Dinner
@Uno’s Chicago Grill. Salmon, Haddock and Shrimp combo. A couple bites of broccoli, one bite of brown rice, bread stick. Water. Awful choices!.
Exercise
I made a really bad choice of dinner on Sunday night. But I was STARVING. That must have been like a BILLION calories right there. I tried not to have too much starch, but that bread stick looked so yummy I could not say no. And I’m STILL hungry. I stole a couple of bites of pizza bread with tomatoes that Brian left in his plate (no cheese). I don’t know if it’s going to make me anxious. I don’t feel anything yet… I guess we’ll have to wait a couple of hours and see. Bad ina, bad ina.
I’m dying to go upstairs and have more of that chocolate fudge coconut cookie with white chocolate chunks. I can’t stop thinking about it, but I can make myself stop. I don’t have to go to the kitchen and eat. I can go upstairs, brush my teeth, and be done with the eating for the rest of the night.
One thing that I have noticed is that I wake up really hungry in the morning, and it’s hard to come up with a fun and appetizing idea for breakfast. I LOVE breakfast, but I can’t seem to find anything fun to eat that is healthy. I’m not a fan of fruit salad, so I guess I’ll just have to keep looking.
Also, thought you should know, I weighed myself this morning (no clothes, before showering, before breakfast), and there was no change in weight. At least not any discernible change. I won’t record any change until I see a clear change of 2 pounds or more. Anything other than that is still within the margin of error.
I added a “Who’s Who” page so you guys can keep track of all the fake names that are so abundant on this blog.
I didn’t change the names of people whose blogs I read if they have not changed their names themselves.
I haven’t mentioned it on the blog yet, but I’ve decided to name my husband Brian… just because I think he looks more like a Brian than he does his real name 🙂
I’ve also decided to use funny names, so we can have some fun here 🙂 I’m particularly proud of my neighbors’ names: Fred and Ethel 🙂 I hope to have more funny names appear here 🙂
When I wrote the post about the Diet Guidelines, and wrote some things about pizza and Chinese food, I had no idea that I would be facing those challenges just a couple of days later.
On Friday my husband and I had plans to get together with my wonderful next-door neighbors, whom we will call Fred and Ethel, for a pizza night. I had been trying to figure out what I would do, since I’m not really allowing myself to have pizza because of the awful reaction I had to it last Monday. At the same time, I didn’t want to be “that” girl that has to have the salad while everybody else has delicious pizza.
Enrique suggested I got the whole-wheat crust, but Stash’s Pizza doesn’t have whole-wheat crust! (I found out in advance) So I just decided to wing it and figure it out when we got there. Turns out that Fred and Ethel sometimes have pizza without cheese. I figured it was worth a try, as long as we coupled it with a salad 😉
It was AMAZING. The pizza was DELICIOUS. I had to hold back from getting a third slice. The best part is that I did not feel anxious afterwards! So I guess we figured out the anxiety-causing ingredient in pizza: fatty fatty fatty CHEESE, and EXCESS. Stopping at 2 slices was the perfect call.
As for Chinese food, it sort of caught me by surprise. I went to my in-laws for dinner to celebrate my husband’s sister’s birthday, and they brought in LOADS of Chinese food. So, what to do?
I stuck with some maki rolls, pulled the fried skin off of ONE chicken finger, had a taste of the crunchy beef, had a little bit of white rice (one bite) and had a lot of broccoli! One thing that I shouldn’t have had so much of are these cut-outs of Pillsbury doughboy crescent rolls with caramelized onion on them (my mother in law, whom we’ll call Marie, is an AMAZING cook). I had 3 of those (each one was bite-size), and I worried I’d get nervous/anxious after I had them.
It’s been a few hours and I’m still not nervous/anxious at all! This is great!
And so I survived my first Chinese food and pizza challenge. I hope you are all doing well!
@Stash’s Pizza. 2 slices of cheeseless pizza: sauce, onions and spinach. Grilled chicken salad with no dressing. Grape tomatoes. Water.
@All Seasons Restaurant. Chinese food: a little bit of white rice, two small pieces of crunchy beef, 4 maki rolls (varied kinds), 1 skinless chicken finger, tons of broccoli. Water. Appetizer: 3 mini-crescent rolls with caramelized onion Shouldn’t have had that last thing.
Exercise
Swimming for 30 min
This is Friday’s menu in pictures! 🙂 Enjoy:
Breakfast: Wheat toast with strawberry jelly and a banana. Orange Juice.
Today I took the Communications and Literacy Reading and Writing tests. When I signed up for both tests, I selected Reading in the morning and Writing in the afternoon, so I was expecting to be at the test site for 8 hours or more. To be super prepared and not have to scramble in the morning, I planned on getting up at 6am to get to the site between 7 and 7:15am. That would give me 30 min of sitting around reading up and reviewing some stuff before the test (for which we were supposed to report to the site at 7:45am). So I packed my bag last night. This is what I took with me:
My wallet (made sure to have 2 forms of ID)
2 Number 2 pencils
Pencil sharpener (bought one on Friday — didn’t know they still even sold these)
2 mechanical pencils with refills (I brought these for the essay portions, so I wouldn’t have to worry about sharpening)
An eraser
My phone
My MP3 player (to listen to it in the break between the morning and the afternoon tests)
My printed admission ticket
My MTEL book and notebook
Then the day came. Woke up, had a quick breakfast (wheat toast with strawberry jelly and a banana with orange juice) while I listened to Taylor Swift’s new songs from the Platinum Fearless album (don’t judge!), made myself a turkey sandwich for lunch and put some crackers in a zip lock bag, then brushed my teeth, put lotion on my body and face, got dressed and was in the car to leave at 6:40am.
Turns out that they were serious when they said there was limited parking. I ended up parking in a Resident Permit Only – Violators will be towed spot. My nerves about the test dissolved as soon as I decided to turn a blind eye to my illegal parking situation. I spent the entire time worried about coming back to an empty, albeit snowy, spot. (Don’t worry, it was OK in the end — I didn’t even get a ticket!).
There was a line all the way out from the school entrance. I did not think there were going to be a million people there! I thought I would have time to read!
While we waited in line (which moved pretty quickly), I tried to make a new friend… but the girl next to me would just answer questions, didn’t ask any back. I was a bit overly friendly, so maybe I just freaked her out a little bit. Especially when I asked her which school she went to, and then told her which school I went to, and then said “I just wanted to see if you were nearby…” — yeah, kinda weird. I stopped talking at that point.
Inside, it was chaos. People getting signed in, and giving up their cellphones. Yup, they took our cellphones away at the door. The lady behind the cellphone table was a bit rough, but I just stayed quiet not to anger her.
I went up to the room and sat at the wrong desk. Yes, the desks are assigned. The proctor signed me in, checked my 2 forms of ID, and even made me put my thumb print on the test answer sheets before I realized the answer sheets had the wrong name on them. Way to be thorough! The lady even called me Elizabeth once, and I corrected her… and that still didn’t raise any concerns for her. I won’t say more about her, though, she was extremely nice, and if I ever see her on the street I’ll give her a big hug 🙂 If I pass the test, that is.
As soon as you are in the room, you can’t walk out again or open a book. So I really should have sat outside with my book for the remaining 40 minutes before the test actually began (which was 8:30am… I didn’t find this out until that moment). So I just sat there waiting patiently for the test to begin.
On a side note, they were also not kidding when they said “dress in layers.” Even though it was 30 degrees outside, the room was SO hot I had to take off my turtleneck shirt and ended up taking most of the test in a wife beater. So yes, dress in layers: assume it’s going to be AWFULLY hot, and assume it might be BRUTALLY cold.
I got the test booklets for both tests at once (Reading and Writing), which I thought was strange. The proctor read the instructions and asked if there were any questions. I asked her if there was going to be a break in between the tests for those of us who were going to be there for 8 hours. She seemed confused and said that we only had 4 hours, and we’d have to come back in the afternoon for the second test. (???) Another guy who understood my concern said that we actually had 4 hours to finish BOTH tests. This surprised me, but didn’t really worry me. The practice tests were so short that I laughed at the thought that I’d have to spend 4 hours on them.
The test began. I raced through the Reading section. It wasn’t bad at all. Mostly it asked you to read a passage and to answer:
Based on the passage, what does the underlined word most likely mean?
What is the main idea of the passage
What is the author’s opinion
Which paragraph contains most information to support the author’s main idea
It really wasn’t that bad. I finished in one hour!!! Then took a little break and continued onto the Writing section.
Most of the test was multiple choice on correcting sentences. Some typical questions were:
Which part contains an apostrophe error
Which part contains a capitalization error
Which part could be reordered for the paragraph to make more sense
Which part contains a sentence structure error
That was actually kind of fun. I read the questions first and then went searching for the mistakes.
The part I didn’t like so much was the one where you have to rewrite a sentence to replace one that has mistakes.
Then came summarizing a passage. I could have done better, but I really went a little long. I wrote exactly 150 words (the instruction said 100-150). Oh well.
Then came the essay. The one we got was to argue one side of the argument of whether teachers should get a bonus if their students perform better on standardized tests. I’m sure everyone got a different topic, but I had fun with this one. I can write long essays in no time: I’ve had a lot of practice with 30-min BS essay writing during the MBA.
I was done with the Writing section in 2.5 hours. I left the test site at 12 noon (30 min before time was up).
I feel really good about it. I hope this helped you prepare for your own experience in this test.
I’ll leave you with one thing that was hanging up in the classroom, and made me smile the entire time. I just kept thinking to myself “Is that why they call it mooning?” LOL 🙂
I’m on my way to the MTEL. I’m starting to get a little nervous about the test, but I know it will be OK. I studied during my commute all this week, but never took a practice test. Just didn’t have time.
Last night my husband and I had a pizza night with our next door neighbors (let’s call them Fred and Ethel), so I got to pick both their teacher brains about teaching. They reassured me that I will not have any free time when I change careers, contrary to popular belief. Also, that the test is going to be a breeze. Cross my fingers!
So far the hardest thing has been finding parking!!!
If you are anything like me, you tend to get in the groove of a particular fad and you become completely obsessed with it, only for it to fade away when the excitement has worn off. I have had this happen to me about my personal finances, about fitness, about certain celebrities, about my eating habits, and even about my romantic relationships.
I recall these bursts of obsessive behavior as historical proof of how disciplined I can be if I put my mind into something. Most times I can’t really decide what I will be obsessed with next, it just sort of happens. The best I can hope for is that the next fad will be a healthy or a productive one.
As you’ve read in the past few posts, the latest fad is to eat right and exercise in order to control my anxiety and depressive episodes. I have been doing great with my meals and I’m looking forward to going back to my new gym this evening. My anxiety is on “pause,” which feels amazing.
During every fad I get scared that it will go away as quickly as it came about, and I’ll go back to square 1. I wish I could tell my future self what things worked and why the fad was so fun to get stuck on.
To that end I’d like to document the meals that have made this fad a reality this time around, in hopes that when the fad fades away I’ll be able to read back and relearn what meals worked for me while I was watching what I ate. I’ll create a “Food and Diet” category to access them easily in the future.
“Diet” Guidelines:
Never eat anything you don’t like. Make the effort to find alternatives that are yummy to you.
Have breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Dinner must be finished before 8pm.
Limit consumption of white bread. Opt for wheat or whole-grain when possible.
Have a fruit with breakfast (I like bananas)
Avoid fried foods
Limit consumption of potatoes. Opt for brown rice when possible. If potatoes or white rice are inevitable, have just a little bit and complement with a salad.
Meat is OK. It’s preferred to eat meat with a side of vegetables, as opposed to potatoes or rice.
Opt for egg whites in omelettes
Hard boild eggs are OK
It’s OK to have a snack between meals. Fruit, yogurt, wheat crackers, dried fruit, light cheese (light is better than “reduced fat”), or my famous whole-grain English muffins with reduced fat peanut butter (thin layer)
No chocolate or any other junk food
Inevitable Fast Food Exposure:
If ordering pizza is inevitable, order one with whole-grain or wheat crust. It’s ok to have sauce and ham or chicken. EASY on the mozzarella, or opt for light cheese. NO pepperoni.
Chinese food is out of the picture. If a Chinese restaurant is inevitable, stick to dishes where deep-color vegetables are the main attraction.
Sushi is OK, but be conscious of the amount of rice being consumed
The best place to get your Chinese fix is a hot pot place. Opt for water instead of broth, and stick to meat and vegetables (limit noodles and rice)
I have been really good with my meals this week (except for that pizza slip on Monday night). I’ve had breakfast every day, and I have had soup and salad for lunch (yay).
Enrique told me to try to get some chicken with my salad so I have enough protein to keep me going through the day. I’ll follow that advice next time. He also suggested fish a couple of times a week. That’s going to be harder to stick to, but I’ll keep it in mind.
I had lunch with a good guy I know from school, whom we’ll call Feivel. He’s one of those guys whom I can talk to with no effort. He’s funny and keeps a conversation going without monopolizing it or talking too much about himself. He’s so sweet, nice and responsible. I could totally see the "me" from 10 years ago being willing to go out with him back then, so I must think he’s a catch. Then why doesn’t he have a girlfriend? I will try to invite him to more mingling opportunities in my circle. Heaven knows I have enough single friends for him to meet. The question is why won’t my friends see in him what I see? (they’ve met once before)
I have a theory that girls don’t like to be fixed up with your/my single guy friends for the same reason people shy away from buying a house that has been in the market for 120 days: "if nobody has snatched it by now there must be something wrong with it."
May I say that my house had been in the market for 90 days before we put an offer in, and it ended up being absolute perfection. In the same way that not all that glitters is gold, not all that’s dusty is trash.
on the spine of the book, and put it up on my bookshelf.
