I floss daily...

And so should you. It's great for stopping cavities, getting rid of bad breath, and even using as a cat toy. However, you should never floss while driving. Flossing takes two hands, and so does driving. I guess you could drive with one hand but that doesn't stop the fact that flossing takes two hands.

True story: I sat behind some idiot this morning in downtown Berkeley who thought it was acceptable to floss his teeth in his car. No joke. And he wasn't paying attention to the light so he made us sit behind him. Eek.

P.S. This has nothing to do with flossing. It's abnormally hot this week. I am dying due to broken AC in my car. I travel a lot. I feel sorry for anyone who has to ride in my car w/o AC. It's miserable.

Shoes: A Documentary

One of the hardest things for me to do is throw out cute shoes. However, this particular pair was especially difficult due to their superior cuteness. They looked like gladiator sandals and matched with just about any outfit I could conjure up. But their short time in my life had to come to an end due to their superior crappiness. The left heel had to be glued on repeatedly, and the right front would peel off every time I tripped over nothing. I took the liberty of documenting this sad event in my life in order to share it with my friends (and in search for some sympathy).
I was trying really hard to look sad. If you look closely, you can see tears forming under my eyes. Yeah, I'm that good at fake crying...come to think of it, I'm really good at real crying as well.
Now take a moment to feast your eyes on how lovely these sandals are. They are a great color and were actually somewhat comfy for walking in. I spent a day at Marine World with them, so they've done their fair share of walking. The sandal on the right is scuffed at the top. If you peeled it back, you could see lots of glue remains from my many times gluing it back together.
Just in case you feel the need to go retrieve them for me, this is the dump you'd head to. Thanks guys, you're such great friends for sifting through pounds of trash to find the shoes I regrettably threw out!

These are not my shoes, but since we're on the subject, I'd say these are comatose. My friend's dog feasted on these one drunken night. Obviously, you can't glue that back together. However, these are at the Reno dump. Go fetch...

Mastercard moment

Advantage: $55.99

Cat litter refill: $12.49

Cat cardboard scratcher: $7.99

Braking hard due to some idiot on the road and subsequently spilling 30lbs of cat litter in the back seat of your car: priceless

What a freaking mess!!!

Wow what a wake up call...

I am pretty sure I just got smacked in the face. That was one hell of a rush of emotions...woah.

I really needed to get that out...

R.I.P. Spinner

Today marks the day when my beautiful beta fish, Spinner, has passed on. I'm sure it was from a heart attack induced by Echo trying to eat him almost daily. Surprised he lasted this long, actually. And mad props to myself; this fish lasted 2 months longer than the last one (omega the beta for those who didn't know). He was 13 months old. What a fantastic fish. He was so pretty with his blue and red scales. That's why I picked him.

Now the hard part--flushing him down the toilet. I couldn't bring myself to do it with the last one. It just seems too awful to do, although I think it would be worse to throw him in the trash. And worse yet to just leave him to decompose in the tank. I'm getting queasy thinking about this. Yuck.

RIP SPINNER!!!

Why I want to write a Tandem Story...

So basically this was sent to me from my friend Lisa and in my expert opinion it is the funniest "chain" email I have ever read in my entire life. I only wish I could have taken credit for participating in the hilarity...

Tandem story assignment from a professor at CU Boulder

Here's a prime example of 'Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus' offered by an English professor from the University of Colorado for an actual assignment.

The professor told his class one day: 'Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph & send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph & then add another paragraph to the story & send it back, also sending another copy to me. Repeating this process until you both agree a conclusion has been reached. There is to be NO talking outside of class and anything you wish to say MUST be said in the email.'

The following was actually turned in by two of his English students:

THE STORY: (first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first Jennifer couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all cost, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocation, & if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

(second paragraph by Gary )
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Jennifer with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. 'A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,' he said into his transgalactic communicator. 'Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far...' But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere & blasted a hole through his shop's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat & across the cockpit.

(Rebecca)
He bumped his head & died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for physically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. 'Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War & Space Travel', Jennifer read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her & bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly & carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful thinks around her. 'Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?' she pondered wistfully.

( Gary )
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anudrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aeros Peace Disarmament Treaty through the Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anudrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam , felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Jennifer.

(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.

( Gary )
Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. 'Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of FUCKING TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I'm such an air-headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels!!!'

(Rebecca)
Asshole!

( Gary )
Bitch!!

(Rebecca)
FUCK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!

( Gary )
In your dreams, Ho. Go drink some tea.

(Teacher)
A+ - I really liked this one.

Yeah, so basically that is the most amazing thing I have ever read...

Today just keeps getting better...

And to continue all the amazing things that are happening today, I found out I am approved to be a substitute teacher for the upcoming school year!!! AWESOME!!!! No more boredom. WAHOO!!!!!!!

I am really looking forward for tonight's SF experience...

The squeeky wheel gets the greese

I know how many times we've heard this expression but there is so much truth to it. This morning I managed to get myself enrolled into pharmacology at SMC just by asking! It was awesome, and now I have every single class I need in order to be on my way to applying for school this fall! So my recommendation to all of you who are too scared to ask is...

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!

I think this is allowed...

I realized tonight on a late drive home after watching the women's gymnastics all around (go Nastia!!!) that I am really proud of myself. This epiphany came while listening to John Mayer's "Gravity", which really has nothing to do with the epiphany itself. I've worked really hard to become who I am today, and I wouldn't change anything that I've been through or done because I really like the person I've become, and all those so-called "mistakes" made me this way. I have great goals to strive toward and my dreams are actually turning into reality. What more could I ask for?

Teenage motto=no regrets

And I'd say that this motto has worked quite well for me into young adulthood (and in approaching the quarter century mark...)

Learning from the best

Amazingly enough my mother and Debbie (our family friend) still have it in them, even at 50+. The mothers', my sister, Nicole (Debbie's daughter) and I went out for a nice Italian meal last night at Aldo's in LG, and we had this crappy female waitress. When our dinner arrived, we somehow got a waiter switch to this cuteish younger guy. He was flirting with Debbie so much. After she took her first bite of food (and complimented it on how good it was), he started to take her plate while asking if she was finished. Then the flirt war started. My mom asked him if he spoke Italian, and he said yes, so she followed up with what part of Italy was he from? He answered "Mexico City"...hahahahahaha. I guess the point of this story is he bought our table a round of shots. Seriously? My mother and Debbie were so entertaining that he bought us shots. Wow, I have not seen that happening with people who are not in their twenties.

The shot was gross, though...

I'm too sexy for my scrubs...

Check these babies out!!! Basically, I am the sexiest person ever to don such an outfit. Also, I have become a huge advocate for bringing scrubs into our everyday lives (and not just in health professions). Reasons why are as follows:


1. Cheap! The whole outfit was <$25. I can usually only get one piece of an outfit for less than $25 (if I want it to be stylish...I'm really good at finding ugly bargains). And I get a discount for being a student. One more reason to stay in school, kids.


2. Baggy. No wedgies from too tight trendy pants. Lots of room to hide my food baby after a huge meal. Hides my small boobs and big butt (hmm, maybe this makes them better for teenagers, no more revealing clothing!)


3. Sizes run from XS-XXL, so everyone can find something that fits them. However, if you have short legs (like me) then you have to get the small petite version, or even the small short version or else you will trip all over the place. See, they have petite and short lengths to suite all sizes.


I hope I have made my point that we should all wear these sexy beasts on our next club outing. Maybe I can convince Lisa to let me wear these as her maid of honor. Yeah right!


Exciting news!!! I drew my first phlebotomy patient last night and it was SUCCESSFUL! I am so excited about the whole process and I feel very good about my impending career switch. I'm heading in the right direction! Yippie!!!!!!!! Tonight I go to an admissions presentation in SF for one of the schools I'm applying to this fall. Yay for nursing!

my mother is sooooo not pc...

Between my sister, Nicole, and my mother, we played a riveting game of charades tonight. Julie was the best inventor of her own topics (i.e. garden spider) while my mom was the funniest. First off, she expected us to get earthquake from a series of what looked like body convulsions. Secondly, she gets up, motions for 4 words, and then let's us know she is referring to the fourth word of her four word topic. Yeah, imagine our surprise when she pointed at her crotch. We all started cracking up beyond belief, and we were no closer to guessing what she meant, except for a few lewd ideas. It turns our her T.V. show was "Leave it to Beaver". Oh mother. The most classic thing was that Julie had no idea what Beaver was referring to. Hahahahahaha. Game nights with the family + Nicole are AWESOME!!!

P.S. I made a bomb chocolate cake. It is no longer with us. :(

Remind me again why I dislike musicals turned to movies...

My mother and I saw Mamma Mia this morning and I actually enjoyed it. Usually I refuse to see musical movies unless I've seen the musical on stage. The reason I never watch musical movies is that I prefer an actual musical. You know, in a theater with real human beings singing their <3's out? Ever been to one of those? Yeah, they're awesome, and when they are turned into movies, THEY SUCK!!! I would much rather watch the actual musical.

So some comments about the movie:

~Pierce Brosnan should stick to James Bond. His voice sounds like, well, I can't even come up with a metaphor that would do his awful voice justice. It was terrible and I laughed out loud in the theater during his solos. And his face while he sings is contorted into a ridiculous smile/constipated look. Barf. James Bond=way sexier.

~I want Sophie's hair (and character name). Maybe if I have a little girl I will name her that. Soooooo cute! Below is a pix of her hair in the movie:

My Mom explained what I'd have to do to get her hair. Basically, my hair is too short right now (duh, have you seen it lately?) and in order to give it a body wave, it needs to be about 7 inches longer. Who knows if I can actually hold out that long? Maybe I can put a poster of her in my room to remind me of what my hair could be if it was only so much longer? Naw, that's creepy.

~Yeah, I think ABBA has pretty catchy music, but I wouldn't be caught dead listening to their CD. Plus it sounds so good when the characters sing it (minus Mr. Brosnan, as I stated earlier) that I'd have a hard time getting used to the real voices of ABBA.

~Meryl Streep is the shiz. End of story.

On another note, my baby cat has TAPE WORMS!!! That's nasty, especially when you see the little rice pieces coming out of his cute lil butt. Gross. The deworming begins today. If you have a cat, don't let him eat fleas. Or make sure you give the poor thing advantage more often than I do to kill off the host of these disgusting vile creatures. Ewwwwwww!

I guess I am the lucky one...

I found out today that the Fiz (Fziomed, the company I used to work for) laid off 12 more people (in addition to the 7 that were laid off with me). Apparently, the panel meeting on July 15th did not go as well as planned and they have about 6 more months of work to do before they can get FDA approved. Sadly, the company will run out of money in September, so they had to get rid of people. C.R., my dear lab rat friend, was one of them, as was the VP of research and development (that was a shocker b/c my old boss was not laid off and he was lower on the chain than Dick was).

Obviously, I was very upset to lose my job (who wouldn't be). However, I am glad where the job loss put me because I am actually pursuing my dream with full force right now. And when I evaluate whether I would have preferred to be laid off today or 3 months ago, I can say with 100% confidence that I am glad it happened in April. Hopefully I'll never go through that again, and neither will anyone I love because IT SUCKS!!!

Something my boss told me after I was laid off (he did not do it, Dick did) was that I was one of the lucky ones to get out now and not be forced to hang around until the bitter end. Funny how old guys are usually right. Thanks Sam! You're the best :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE!!!!

See above :)

The dry spell has ended

Hahahaha, back to blogging. I know you missed me.

Since it's been so long since I've updated, I have a few things to share.

1. New embarrassing moment: Was walking to get a newspaper for my mother with JS. After putting the coins in I pressed the open button but could not get a newspaper b/c it wouldn't open. After tyring again, my brilliant JS discovered that I was hitting the coin return. Needless to say, I rolled around on the concrete for about two minutes in shear embarrassment. Thank God for engineers.

2. This decoration to the left is maybe the coolest accidental thing I've ever seen. What on earth is that, I hear you say. Oh, just a decorative flower made from used artichoke leaves (and by used, I guess I mean eaten). Ok, I lied a little. It wasn't entirely on accident because I pointed it out to JS (the artist) after about a quarter of the piece was finished, but still...it's freaking cool looking!!! Who says math geeks are not creative? Just kidding JS :)

3. Echo took over Gabie's bed while Gabie was out of town. He was so cute while he was rolling around on it, making squeaking noises (I had no idea cats squeak) and purring.

Yeah, he's a bit small for that size bed, but he certainly thinks he's bigger than he actually is. FATTY.

4. Cutest kid ever. Can you believe this is her camera face? I almost died from cuteness overload. Her name is Maia (and don't quote me on the spelling) and she's one of three adorable kids belonging to my best friend's older sister.

5. Onto a more serious note, I have fully accomplished all I possibly can for nursing school applications as of now. Go me.

6. Summer school's out for summer (almost)!

7. FYI, I will never dress up as Donkey Kong. Period.

I <3 Jiffy Lube

Now I have not always felt this way, mind you, but today's Jiffy Lube experience was quite possibly the most amazing experience I have ever had when servicing my car. From now on, I will send all my business (within reason) to the Jiffy Lube on the corner of Mary and El Camino Real in Sunnyvale, CA. I arrived to this location at 10am to a very short line of cars (meaning only me) and a friendly greeting from a young man. He told me there was coffee and magazines inside and they would be meeting with me shortly to discuss my coche. When I was called a few minutes later (by a woman, mind you), she informed me of the additional stuff I should have done (I think it's called a coolant flush) and then told me my air filter could probably wait another 3,000 miles. That's a first, I thought, since every time I go anywhere I feel like the man who's helping me is trying to swindle me out of my money for every little lame ass thing that could or could not be done on my car. I also had 2 coupons to use on my oil change and random other servicing. And she told me my windshield wipers were torn but I could wait until the rainy season to fix those. Seriously? No nagging sales person trying to get me to spend more money at their location!!!

I sat down to wait for about 20 minutes, and this nice young lady asked if she could get me any water or coffee, and then introduced herself as Lauren and told me to feel free and ask her any questions I may have. Is anyone else noticing a trend here? This exceptional service is coming from mostly women. There were three working there and they were extremely nice to me. Maybe they know what it's like to be treated like an idiot at any car service place just because you're a women. Let's be honest here, I am an idiot when it comes to my car, but it was nice not to be treated like one.

Now onto the best part. When it was time to pay, I got about 20 dollars off due to my coupons AND the opportunity to have Jiffy Lube send me a $10 gas card! All I have to do is send in my receipt with their form and they'll send it to me in the mail. Seriously, could this day get any better?

Yes, it did. I went to the post office afterward and another very friendly lady offered to help me pick out the right envelope to mail off my 30-day sub permit. And there was no line.

Today rocks!

The little sis is the big 2-3

Happy Birthday to my one and only wonderful little sister. Now you know what it feels like to get old, like your arthritic big sis.

I am in the process of buying her some Brian Regan tickets (he is this excellent comedian that we both love). Because I am the most awesomest sister ever, I bought her a card and wrote that in it. Wen I was lighting the candles on the cake, I struck a match and it broke. The flaming match flew onto her birthday card and momentarily caught it on fire. Needless to say, her birthday was smoking.

It's official; I'm live-scanned and can submit my application to substitute teach. Watch out you little monsters! It'll be fun reacquainting myself with the ways of children. You never know what you're going to get.

Speaking of the above thought, I was awakened by a quacking duck this morning. It was running it's mouth for about 45 minutes. My dad came into my room this morning and I woke up (due to duck quacking). We exchanged a look, and then heard it. "Mommy, make it stop"! Alas, you never know how hilarious your neighbors little boy can be until he opens his mouth. Laughter is an excellent way to start the day.

Two Tributes: To Olive and To My Zit

Tribute #1:

Before I begin my tribute to the zit on my face, let me just say R.I.P to Olive Riley, the world's oldest blogger (at age 108).  For those of you interested, the link to her yahoo story is below.  I was shocked when I opened yahoo before blogging and that was the article I read first.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080714/wl_asia_afp/lifestyleaustraliainternetblogging

Tribute #2:

ODE TO ZIT

When I was a greasy teenager
I had more than my fair share of zits
Those who showed their faces on mine
were tastefully covered with make-up

I longed for the day
these zits would no longer pester me

I am still longing.

I was informed that at the ripe age of 24.5
I would have clear, beautiful skin
like those air-brushed models
but for real

liars.

An interesting place to find advice

Happy belated birthday Dad! I am super lame for posting yesterday and not writing that important bit of information for the world to read. Good thing I went over to your house for dinner to make up for my tragic mistake.

Today marks the second second interview I have had in my entire life. It went just fine, and I'm pretty sure they are interested in me. I made the first cut; out of 7 people, 4 were asked to return. I'm still not that interested in the position but I will take what I can get at this point.

I was talking with their COO first and he gave me some spontaneous interesting advice: be in control of your own destiny. Let's be honest here, I don't know if you can control your fate (I'm pretty sure our world is controlled by mathematics, my favorite universal language). A discovery by an old stoner friend was explained to me through the example of an equation tree, ultimately concluding that math is the root of all science, and with that statement I agree. I can't even begin to describe his idea here for fear of butchering it.

Let me play with the advice; let's say you can control your future. Then I am not controlling my future in the direction I wish to go by accepting this job (if I get it, that is). True, I will take this job if I get it (I could really use the money/benefits). But I am side-stepping my real dream.

I am conflicted. Obviously I want a job. I am bored out of my mind and spend waaaaayyyyyy tooooooooo much time on my online classes. However, I just started this phlebotomy class and I would love to have the opportunity to use this new skill in a healthcare setting. Plus I need to finish pre-reqs for nursing school. The logical decision is to take the job and slowly finish the pre-reqs, but my heart says F-it, just finish the nursing stuff so you can get into a school.

It's funny to re-read this because I am assuming I will get the job. That may not happen, and then I can just go along with my original plan: Phlebotomy class to phlebot job to finish pre-reqs to nursing apps to nursing school to nursing job. Sounds like a plan.

Is it bad that part of me doesn't want the job? Too bad things in life are NOT free :(