I know I should be posting more about Fifty Shades because I want to get it over with, but I have to re-read it at this point and make notes. I was making notes while I was reading at first, but then I had to give up because it was really breaking my concentration, so now I'm making posthumous notes on a second read. I'm not sure if my future posts will be as good because I'll have more information now, and it won't be as "real" as my previous posts, but I think I can get it funnier.
I interviewed a cat sitter last night. Chekhov consented to let the lady pet his ears and his cheeks, but watch the chin, woman. We aren't that closely acquainted yet. My bird loved her, though. Mostly because she spent her first ten minutes admiring him and saying how cute his face is. My bird is a sucker. I also predict that Chekhov will absolutely love this woman by the third day, if not before.
I read a really interesting article a week ago about children who present with psychopathic tendencies and the psychiatrists who are trying to intervene before these kids grow up to ruin people's lives. It was very thought-provoking, and it followed one family in particular who had three sons, and the eldest was the one with the presumed psychopathy. The reporter's observations were really chilling, like, the boy would get upset with his younger brother (who idolized him) about something, maybe a taken toy or taking the elder's game off of pause and affecting his score, etc., and the cold, calculating manner that the eldest would use in order to exact his revenge.
You think of kids as being more impulsive and less patient when it comes to retaliation, but this young seven-year-old boy bid his time and exacted his punishments in such a way as to try and deflect everyone from thinking he was taking revenge from the earlier infraction. When he realized that the reporter wasn't buying his act, he simply said, "As you see, I don't like my brother very much."
The worst part of the article, though, was in the comments section, when people actually started judging the parents for having more children after this one. I didn't get that. And people were liking their comments! As if it's any of their business! But it made me feel bad, because I thought that once about a family. They had six biological children, and all six had some sort of disability, including four with autism which is a statistical anomaly (Read: bullshit). My first thought was, "Munchhausen by Proxy" (probably correct) and my second thought was, "After the second, they really should have stopped. That's just wrong." Was my thought right? It feels right. It still does. That doesn't MAKE it right, but it still feels right. But I can't think that about the other parents. They have a child who will more than likely bring them heartache later in life, unless this early prevention works of course, and they deserve two kids who might actually make them happy. But what about the kids? They have to deal with an abusive older brother. How much can he hurt them? How much will their lives change because of this kid? And yet, at the end of the day, it's the parent's decision to have more.
Speaking of narcissists, my dad drunk dialed me the other day and then proceeded to tell me everything my brother has been doing since about October of last year, and no matter how much I tried to explain to him that I've actually seen and talked to my brother regularly since that time and know exactly what he's been up to, my dad just kept talking at me and telling me what was going on which was ridiculous. I mean, he called me while I was vising my brother at Christmas, and he kept getting upset that the baby was "talking" while he was trying to talk to me, so he had to know that I'd be aware of what my brother is doing! Sometimes, I get really mad at my mom for having children with him, and sometimes I get mad at God for allowing it to happen.
Anyway, that brings me to my trip that I'm about to take in a month (!!!!!!!). I have booked the plane and the rooms, now I just need to find us a car. It's my niece's first birthday! I can't wait.
Showing posts with label first world problems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first world problems. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Chapter By Chapter Synopsis: Fifty Shades of Grey: chapters 6-10
Chapter Six
In the Greymobile, Ana is all upset that Christian is saying nothing about their kiss. This is more than likely because the kiss just happened and there’s nothing really to talk about. Ana starts getting really irrational about how Christian is driving so perfectly and not talking and I’m like, what does she want him to do? Pull down her panties and start giving her a handy while they drive? He’s driving a car. Leave him alone.
The silence is soon broken by Christian taking a bunch of phone calls on speaker just to show how important he is. One of those people is his brother Emmett…er...Elliott, who apparently went home with Kate the night before. Elliott is a pretty nice guy, proving that Christian’s problems stem from sociopathy rather than his upbringing. Ana gets sort of jealous about how free and easy Kate and Elliott are with each other, and Christian’s like, “I’m not going to kiss you again unless it’s premeditated” and Ana is fine with that instead of wanting to run away.
Elliot tells Kate, “Laters, baby,” and you need to remember this because it will be in the book about ten thousand more times.
So, Ana and Christian have a date set, and it involves strapping Ana into a helicopter harness. Christian enjoys strapping her in, and then starts making comments about how she’s always biting her lower lip, and he wants to be the one to bite it, etc.
Basically, he wants her to control a nervous tick of hers because it drives him crazy, and he apparently has no self-control. Well, this is actually okay since Ana apparently doesn’t either.
Is the lip-biting thing a nod to how Kristin Stewart “acts” in Twilight? She’s all lip biting and twitchy and looks like she’s going to throw up every few minutes, which is somehow even more annoying than Bella Swan, so I’m just curious about this lip biting thing.
Ana asks if they’re going to make love, and Christian’s all, “I don’t make love. I fuck. Hard.” And he’s not going to do anything until she understands what she’s getting into.
I have this in my notes: “Oh, who am I kidding. i don't care how kinky the author wants things to get, if there's anything other than missionary in here, i'll eat my hat.”
Chapter Seven
Christian takes Ana to his playroom. She says, “The walls are dark burgundy giving a womb-like effect to the room.” Eh. Yeah. So sexy. Eugh. Jeez.
So, when I first read through this, I thought he had figured out that she was a virgin, seeing as how he knew everything about her from her clothing size to her address to her taste in books, but apparently he hadn’t figured it out yet, so I was really incredulous during this scene. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just have sex with her regularly a few times just to get her acclimated, and then introduce the other stuff, so I found this whole scene really disconcerting.
Ana, to her credit, asks some good questions about the whole thing, and she wants to know what she gets out of being a sub. She gets him, of course.
So, I’m not an expert at D/s. It’s not really a lifestyle I’m into, but I have known others who are into it. Some who have even kept subs in collars and whatnot. It’s an interesting lifestyle, but it’s not usually combined with sex. D/s is usually a fulfilling activity in its own right, and it’s not unusual for people who participate in the lifestyle to go for months at a time without having actual sex. I will say this again: Christian is into kink, not BDSM. He likes sex. Rough sex. He likes to spank and punish and order someone around, but at the end of the day, he likes sex. It’s what he’s after. The spanking and the ordering around is not enough for him.
He also wants to not really have much of a relationship with his sub. This again would be against BDSM guidelines. Doms and subs need to be able to trust each other implicitly, and you don’t get that sort of relationship from spending a few hours in a playroom on the weekends. If you are a sub, then your Dom has complete control over you unless you tell him/her to stop. If you don’t trust them to stop when you tell them to, then you cannot trust them. If you are a Dom, you need to trust your sub to tell you when to stop. When you don’t trust that other person, people get hurt. People who are in these relationships usually know more about each other than couples who have been together for fifty years.
Anyway, eventually Ana informs Christian that she’s a virgin and he freaks out quite a bit because he’s all about control, and this was something he hadn’t foreseen. I will admit that his reaction is mildly adorable. He’s like, “We need to get you de-virginized STAT!” Of course, he’s pissed that she didn’t tell him about it. What was she supposed to do? When was she supposed to tell him? When they first met? I don’t get this guy. He makes no sense.
Chapter eight
They have sex. Geez. About time. Afterwards, he goes all sad sparkley vampire and plays a song on the piano.
Chapter Nine
Ana wakes up, turns on her music, and starts dancing around the kitchen. Of course Mr. Creepy comes to watch and order her around, but that’s what he does.
Ana finally calls Kate, which is about twelve hours later than she said she’d call her. I’m totally disappointed in Kate for not calling the cops. Really, Kate, this is what friends do.
Okay, before I say this next part, I just want to be honest about the fact that I haven’t read much about this book before I actually read it. I did know that it was supposedly about BDSM, and that it was based on Twilight, which isn’t much of a stretch of the imagination, really. But I didn’t know which direction the book was going in (see above, re: my thinking Christian had to know Ana was a virgin). But this was my thought process:
This book is about BDSM (supposedly).
It’s based on Twilight.
Twitards are all about fantasy and making men who seem perfect but are really deeply sociopathic.
BDSM makes sense in that context, HOWEVER—
There is no way that this story would have been popular if it was about actual BDSM AND SO
The book must be about Ana finding out what happened with Christian earlier in his life that led him to this path and must THEREFORE
Find a way to cure Christian of his BDSM preoccupation.
Note from the future: You are so good, baby. Laters.
I’m really sorry. Really, I am. I’m slightly disappointed that it turned out to be this way. But these are my notes:
“christian says he never had vanilla sex before, which makes me wonder if he jumped in only doing bdsm, which is sort of like trying to build a highrise without a foundation.
well, this book wouldn't be very popular if it was actually about kinky sex, so maybe ana is supposed to teach christian how to do vanilla.”
I do think it’s nice that Christian tells Ana that she’s beautiful and compliments her and whatnot. It really is a good thing to tell the girl you’re sleeping with that she’s pretty.
I have issues with Ana performing her first BJ perfectly, and that she’s done it in a full bathtub as well. I’ll admit that I started skimming once the sex got graphic, but this is a bit unbelievable. People need help with this kind of stuff, so either she’s been practicing on her own, or she’s a miracle worker because he gives her an A.
Christian really wants her to sign the contract. I would think that if he really had her sexual well-being at heart, he’d want her to have more experience. Oh, but he owns her virginity. Retch. Whatever.
His mom comes over and Christian wants Ana to meet her. I hope we learn why he’s so messed up.
Chapter Ten
His mom wears neutrals because of course she does. She seems like a pretty decent lady, though, and she seems to be pleased that Ana is there.
After Mom goes away, Ana answers her phone thinking it must be Kate, and it’s Jose.
Okay, so the night that Christian came to the bar to “rescue” Ana, he found Jose pawing at her and trying to kiss her, and Christian has hated Jose ever since. And now he’s all pissed off that Ana is talking to Jose, and Ana wants to know why, and it’s because she’s Christian’s, not Jose’s, and…yeah. Way to set feminism back three hundred years. Does Jose need to give him a goat and three chickens to make up for it?
Christian says that Ana wanting to discuss their relationship is defiant on her part. So is wanting to have friends and a social life and all that other stuff that Christian thinks she shouldn’t have because she’s “his” and he doesn’t need those things.
Okay, so one of the things that makes a lot of sense is that Christian wanted Ana to sign a nondisclosure agreement. I get this. Could you imagine if Bill Gates was into BDSM? Heck, could you imagine if Jared from Subway was into BDSM? The tabloids would have a field day. But Ana needs to talk to Kate. Not about the bondage, but just about the sex. Christian isn’t into this. He thinks Ana should ask him all of her sex questions. Yeah. This is how he is. So, finally, he’s like, “Be discreet.” She will.
He drives her home, and I have this in my notes: “he is obsessed with her eating. is this a thing in the twilight fandom? is it because of the first book when edward was all over bella to eat and drink her coke after she almost got raped? is this their gauge at how much a guy likes you? i am glad i don't know, but sort of wish i did.”
I don’t get the eating thing. He lords over Ana until she is too nervous to eat, and then she can’t eat, and he lords over her for not eating.
Ladies (and gentlemen…), if this is what your relationship is like, you need to get out of it. This is not an equitable relationship. I feel like I need to stress this over and over again. This is not a good relationship. If a guy (or girl) makes you feel badly about yourself, you need to walk away from them. It will be hard, but you have to do it.
Okay, so Ana and Kate talk about sex and all that, and then Jose calls and accuses Ana of liking Christian because of his money. This goes over as well as you think it would. We can’t like Jose of course. If we liked Jose, we might think that he’d be better for Ana, and if we thought someone would be better for Ana, then we'd think Christian wasn't right for her. It's this sort of logical fallacy that keeps us going in this story. "Well, who else can she be with?" because her being single is out of the question. Don't forget: if she doesn't snatch up Christian, she'll be a crazy cat lady in her thirties and she'll never be loved by anyone!
Later, Ana is able to eat without Christian nagging her. Big surprise! He’d better stay away from the Souplantation. I was there over the weekend, and someone had three huge pieces of bread on a plate in the busboy station. It was pretty shameful. I mean, it's a buffet. You take one piece of bread, and if you want more, you go back for more. How hard is this? But they had to take three pieces and only eat a half of one. There are starving children in Africa!
We find out that Christian Grey was taken under the wing of a much older Dom while he was in high school, and Ana (and pretty much everyone else in the world) considers this to be sexual abuse. Again, I have this as my note before I read the rest of the book: “I wonder if he would look at it that way? Since I predict that this book will be about making Grey less kinky and more normal, I guess we have to deal with his angst later.”
I am sooo good. Really.
Our last thought before the end of the chapter is Ana thinking she’d never know about BDSM if she didn’t know Christian. I actually want to know how she’s never known about it before. I knew about it by the time I was….fourteen? I think? Grow up, little girl.
Laters, baby. More to come.
In the Greymobile, Ana is all upset that Christian is saying nothing about their kiss. This is more than likely because the kiss just happened and there’s nothing really to talk about. Ana starts getting really irrational about how Christian is driving so perfectly and not talking and I’m like, what does she want him to do? Pull down her panties and start giving her a handy while they drive? He’s driving a car. Leave him alone.
The silence is soon broken by Christian taking a bunch of phone calls on speaker just to show how important he is. One of those people is his brother Emmett…er...Elliott, who apparently went home with Kate the night before. Elliott is a pretty nice guy, proving that Christian’s problems stem from sociopathy rather than his upbringing. Ana gets sort of jealous about how free and easy Kate and Elliott are with each other, and Christian’s like, “I’m not going to kiss you again unless it’s premeditated” and Ana is fine with that instead of wanting to run away.
Elliot tells Kate, “Laters, baby,” and you need to remember this because it will be in the book about ten thousand more times.
So, Ana and Christian have a date set, and it involves strapping Ana into a helicopter harness. Christian enjoys strapping her in, and then starts making comments about how she’s always biting her lower lip, and he wants to be the one to bite it, etc.
Basically, he wants her to control a nervous tick of hers because it drives him crazy, and he apparently has no self-control. Well, this is actually okay since Ana apparently doesn’t either.
Is the lip-biting thing a nod to how Kristin Stewart “acts” in Twilight? She’s all lip biting and twitchy and looks like she’s going to throw up every few minutes, which is somehow even more annoying than Bella Swan, so I’m just curious about this lip biting thing.
Ana asks if they’re going to make love, and Christian’s all, “I don’t make love. I fuck. Hard.” And he’s not going to do anything until she understands what she’s getting into.
I have this in my notes: “Oh, who am I kidding. i don't care how kinky the author wants things to get, if there's anything other than missionary in here, i'll eat my hat.”
Chapter Seven
Christian takes Ana to his playroom. She says, “The walls are dark burgundy giving a womb-like effect to the room.” Eh. Yeah. So sexy. Eugh. Jeez.
 |
| who's a cute widdwe ewephant? Who? You are! You are! |
So, when I first read through this, I thought he had figured out that she was a virgin, seeing as how he knew everything about her from her clothing size to her address to her taste in books, but apparently he hadn’t figured it out yet, so I was really incredulous during this scene. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just have sex with her regularly a few times just to get her acclimated, and then introduce the other stuff, so I found this whole scene really disconcerting.
Ana, to her credit, asks some good questions about the whole thing, and she wants to know what she gets out of being a sub. She gets him, of course.
 |
| All aboard the Bingley express |
So, I’m not an expert at D/s. It’s not really a lifestyle I’m into, but I have known others who are into it. Some who have even kept subs in collars and whatnot. It’s an interesting lifestyle, but it’s not usually combined with sex. D/s is usually a fulfilling activity in its own right, and it’s not unusual for people who participate in the lifestyle to go for months at a time without having actual sex. I will say this again: Christian is into kink, not BDSM. He likes sex. Rough sex. He likes to spank and punish and order someone around, but at the end of the day, he likes sex. It’s what he’s after. The spanking and the ordering around is not enough for him.
He also wants to not really have much of a relationship with his sub. This again would be against BDSM guidelines. Doms and subs need to be able to trust each other implicitly, and you don’t get that sort of relationship from spending a few hours in a playroom on the weekends. If you are a sub, then your Dom has complete control over you unless you tell him/her to stop. If you don’t trust them to stop when you tell them to, then you cannot trust them. If you are a Dom, you need to trust your sub to tell you when to stop. When you don’t trust that other person, people get hurt. People who are in these relationships usually know more about each other than couples who have been together for fifty years.
Anyway, eventually Ana informs Christian that she’s a virgin and he freaks out quite a bit because he’s all about control, and this was something he hadn’t foreseen. I will admit that his reaction is mildly adorable. He’s like, “We need to get you de-virginized STAT!” Of course, he’s pissed that she didn’t tell him about it. What was she supposed to do? When was she supposed to tell him? When they first met? I don’t get this guy. He makes no sense.
Chapter eight
They have sex. Geez. About time. Afterwards, he goes all sad sparkley vampire and plays a song on the piano.
 |
| The only time it's acceptable for a man to brood while playing piano. Hi, Johnny. |
Chapter Nine
Ana wakes up, turns on her music, and starts dancing around the kitchen. Of course Mr. Creepy comes to watch and order her around, but that’s what he does.
Ana finally calls Kate, which is about twelve hours later than she said she’d call her. I’m totally disappointed in Kate for not calling the cops. Really, Kate, this is what friends do.
Okay, before I say this next part, I just want to be honest about the fact that I haven’t read much about this book before I actually read it. I did know that it was supposedly about BDSM, and that it was based on Twilight, which isn’t much of a stretch of the imagination, really. But I didn’t know which direction the book was going in (see above, re: my thinking Christian had to know Ana was a virgin). But this was my thought process:
This book is about BDSM (supposedly).
It’s based on Twilight.
Twitards are all about fantasy and making men who seem perfect but are really deeply sociopathic.
BDSM makes sense in that context, HOWEVER—
There is no way that this story would have been popular if it was about actual BDSM AND SO
The book must be about Ana finding out what happened with Christian earlier in his life that led him to this path and must THEREFORE
Find a way to cure Christian of his BDSM preoccupation.
Note from the future: You are so good, baby. Laters.
I’m really sorry. Really, I am. I’m slightly disappointed that it turned out to be this way. But these are my notes:
“christian says he never had vanilla sex before, which makes me wonder if he jumped in only doing bdsm, which is sort of like trying to build a highrise without a foundation.
well, this book wouldn't be very popular if it was actually about kinky sex, so maybe ana is supposed to teach christian how to do vanilla.”
I do think it’s nice that Christian tells Ana that she’s beautiful and compliments her and whatnot. It really is a good thing to tell the girl you’re sleeping with that she’s pretty.
I have issues with Ana performing her first BJ perfectly, and that she’s done it in a full bathtub as well. I’ll admit that I started skimming once the sex got graphic, but this is a bit unbelievable. People need help with this kind of stuff, so either she’s been practicing on her own, or she’s a miracle worker because he gives her an A.
Christian really wants her to sign the contract. I would think that if he really had her sexual well-being at heart, he’d want her to have more experience. Oh, but he owns her virginity. Retch. Whatever.
His mom comes over and Christian wants Ana to meet her. I hope we learn why he’s so messed up.
Chapter Ten
His mom wears neutrals because of course she does. She seems like a pretty decent lady, though, and she seems to be pleased that Ana is there.
After Mom goes away, Ana answers her phone thinking it must be Kate, and it’s Jose.
Okay, so the night that Christian came to the bar to “rescue” Ana, he found Jose pawing at her and trying to kiss her, and Christian has hated Jose ever since. And now he’s all pissed off that Ana is talking to Jose, and Ana wants to know why, and it’s because she’s Christian’s, not Jose’s, and…yeah. Way to set feminism back three hundred years. Does Jose need to give him a goat and three chickens to make up for it?
Christian says that Ana wanting to discuss their relationship is defiant on her part. So is wanting to have friends and a social life and all that other stuff that Christian thinks she shouldn’t have because she’s “his” and he doesn’t need those things.
Okay, so one of the things that makes a lot of sense is that Christian wanted Ana to sign a nondisclosure agreement. I get this. Could you imagine if Bill Gates was into BDSM? Heck, could you imagine if Jared from Subway was into BDSM? The tabloids would have a field day. But Ana needs to talk to Kate. Not about the bondage, but just about the sex. Christian isn’t into this. He thinks Ana should ask him all of her sex questions. Yeah. This is how he is. So, finally, he’s like, “Be discreet.” She will.
He drives her home, and I have this in my notes: “he is obsessed with her eating. is this a thing in the twilight fandom? is it because of the first book when edward was all over bella to eat and drink her coke after she almost got raped? is this their gauge at how much a guy likes you? i am glad i don't know, but sort of wish i did.”
I don’t get the eating thing. He lords over Ana until she is too nervous to eat, and then she can’t eat, and he lords over her for not eating.
Ladies (and gentlemen…), if this is what your relationship is like, you need to get out of it. This is not an equitable relationship. I feel like I need to stress this over and over again. This is not a good relationship. If a guy (or girl) makes you feel badly about yourself, you need to walk away from them. It will be hard, but you have to do it.
Okay, so Ana and Kate talk about sex and all that, and then Jose calls and accuses Ana of liking Christian because of his money. This goes over as well as you think it would. We can’t like Jose of course. If we liked Jose, we might think that he’d be better for Ana, and if we thought someone would be better for Ana, then we'd think Christian wasn't right for her. It's this sort of logical fallacy that keeps us going in this story. "Well, who else can she be with?" because her being single is out of the question. Don't forget: if she doesn't snatch up Christian, she'll be a crazy cat lady in her thirties and she'll never be loved by anyone!
Later, Ana is able to eat without Christian nagging her. Big surprise! He’d better stay away from the Souplantation. I was there over the weekend, and someone had three huge pieces of bread on a plate in the busboy station. It was pretty shameful. I mean, it's a buffet. You take one piece of bread, and if you want more, you go back for more. How hard is this? But they had to take three pieces and only eat a half of one. There are starving children in Africa!
We find out that Christian Grey was taken under the wing of a much older Dom while he was in high school, and Ana (and pretty much everyone else in the world) considers this to be sexual abuse. Again, I have this as my note before I read the rest of the book: “I wonder if he would look at it that way? Since I predict that this book will be about making Grey less kinky and more normal, I guess we have to deal with his angst later.”
I am sooo good. Really.
Our last thought before the end of the chapter is Ana thinking she’d never know about BDSM if she didn’t know Christian. I actually want to know how she’s never known about it before. I knew about it by the time I was….fourteen? I think? Grow up, little girl.
Laters, baby. More to come.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
And now it's summer
I took my final on Monday, and my lab final the week before. I don't have school tonight or for the rest of the summer. I'm taking an online course for American History, which I'm pretty burned that I have to take.
Well, it's my fault. I had filled out this form of all the classes I needed to take for the university, and I also had to fill in any prerequisites or classes that needed to be taken to graduate Community College. World History fulfilled my "arts and humanities" requirement, and there were two classes. History of the World Part I, and History of the World Part II: Hitler on Ice. (My teacher actually said that at one point, and I was so tempted to say, "We're at now now. Everything that is happening now is happening now." "But what about then?" "We passed then." "When?" "Just now." "When can we go back to then?" "Soon." but it never happened.) (Did I ever mention that he looked like Harrison Ford and always wore a three-piece suit and a fedora? I miss that class.) (Where was I?) (Oh, right, I took both classes.) Only I didn't have to take both classes. I needed to take American History (X) instead of History of the World Part II: Hitler on Ice.
It's not that I don't care about the history of America. I do. I've learned about it all my life. Besides, World History included America, so why couldn't I just go with that?
Oh, no dice, said my counselor. It's a requirement.
And so, I am taking American History now in the summer semester just to get rid of it. Plus, it'll give me something to do so I don't get all caught up in my usual summer depression. And I still have my kick-punch class to look forward to.
Oh, and Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore has been sent to my Kindle! It's been on there since April 30th, but I've been busy getting through the fourth Green Rider book, so I haven't noticed until just now. I'm almost done, and it's not disappointing me so far.
Naturally, I still have the Cat Stevens song stuck in my head. But that's okay.
Well, it's my fault. I had filled out this form of all the classes I needed to take for the university, and I also had to fill in any prerequisites or classes that needed to be taken to graduate Community College. World History fulfilled my "arts and humanities" requirement, and there were two classes. History of the World Part I, and History of the World Part II: Hitler on Ice. (My teacher actually said that at one point, and I was so tempted to say, "We're at now now. Everything that is happening now is happening now." "But what about then?" "We passed then." "When?" "Just now." "When can we go back to then?" "Soon." but it never happened.) (Did I ever mention that he looked like Harrison Ford and always wore a three-piece suit and a fedora? I miss that class.) (Where was I?) (Oh, right, I took both classes.) Only I didn't have to take both classes. I needed to take American History (X) instead of History of the World Part II: Hitler on Ice.
It's not that I don't care about the history of America. I do. I've learned about it all my life. Besides, World History included America, so why couldn't I just go with that?
Oh, no dice, said my counselor. It's a requirement.
And so, I am taking American History now in the summer semester just to get rid of it. Plus, it'll give me something to do so I don't get all caught up in my usual summer depression. And I still have my kick-punch class to look forward to.
Oh, and Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore has been sent to my Kindle! It's been on there since April 30th, but I've been busy getting through the fourth Green Rider book, so I haven't noticed until just now. I'm almost done, and it's not disappointing me so far.
Naturally, I still have the Cat Stevens song stuck in my head. But that's okay.
Friday, May 11, 2012
And another semester ends...
In Community College, each semester is like a whole school year. You do a lot of concentrated learning in a very short amount of time, and you get sort of the same feeling of sadness/happiness that you used to get at the end of a primary school year.
But before I break out the Alice Cooper, I just want to reflect on what a great semester this was.
Firstly, my teacher was totally weird, and not in a "mad scientist Vincent Price" kind of way, but in a "Is he a student or a teacher?" kind of way. I'm serious, the first day I walked in, I saw him fiddling with the lights and almost told him to stop because only teachers could do that. I also had to learn to choose with caution which blouses to wear on lab days because he was so socially inept, he hadn't yet learned how to look down a woman's shirt without getting caught. I usually wear a camisole under my shirts anyway, but the look on his face when I'd catch him was priceless. The funny thing is that I think he also admired my intellect because when I would explain about something to my lab partners, he would stand close, and then when I was done, he'd say, "Wow, you are really learning this."
(I have HUGE breasts, so I'm used to both women and men looking down my blouse, and yeah it should bother me, but I think I've gotten to the point where it's just anatomy and I don't care any more. I mean, I seriously look down women's blouses myself, and have been prone to check out a man's butt a time or twenty, I think the trick is to do it with subtletey.)
(I mean, if you want to know how magnificent my rack is, I almost caused an accident once when I was at a strip mall and opened my hoodie to show my friend my new tankini top. It's there. You can't not look. The best thing to do is look and get it out of your system.)
Secondly, I loved lab. I read a blog the other day where someone was talking about how they were glad they never had to dissect anything, and I was like, "ooohhhh...but...but..."
The only thing we dissected was fruit in this class, but we did look at real skeletons that bothered a few people (both the males and the females).
I feel like I'm finally moving on to the stuff that will actually pertain to my major. I mean, math pertained to my major, but only in a roundabout way. This is my first actual science class, and I am so glad that this is what I have to look forward to the next two years. It is so fun to me, and challenging. I think I've finally arrived.
Now if I can just get accepted to the first school of my choice.
But before I break out the Alice Cooper, I just want to reflect on what a great semester this was.
Firstly, my teacher was totally weird, and not in a "mad scientist Vincent Price" kind of way, but in a "Is he a student or a teacher?" kind of way. I'm serious, the first day I walked in, I saw him fiddling with the lights and almost told him to stop because only teachers could do that. I also had to learn to choose with caution which blouses to wear on lab days because he was so socially inept, he hadn't yet learned how to look down a woman's shirt without getting caught. I usually wear a camisole under my shirts anyway, but the look on his face when I'd catch him was priceless. The funny thing is that I think he also admired my intellect because when I would explain about something to my lab partners, he would stand close, and then when I was done, he'd say, "Wow, you are really learning this."
(I have HUGE breasts, so I'm used to both women and men looking down my blouse, and yeah it should bother me, but I think I've gotten to the point where it's just anatomy and I don't care any more. I mean, I seriously look down women's blouses myself, and have been prone to check out a man's butt a time or twenty, I think the trick is to do it with subtletey.)
(I mean, if you want to know how magnificent my rack is, I almost caused an accident once when I was at a strip mall and opened my hoodie to show my friend my new tankini top. It's there. You can't not look. The best thing to do is look and get it out of your system.)
Secondly, I loved lab. I read a blog the other day where someone was talking about how they were glad they never had to dissect anything, and I was like, "ooohhhh...but...but..."
The only thing we dissected was fruit in this class, but we did look at real skeletons that bothered a few people (both the males and the females).
I feel like I'm finally moving on to the stuff that will actually pertain to my major. I mean, math pertained to my major, but only in a roundabout way. This is my first actual science class, and I am so glad that this is what I have to look forward to the next two years. It is so fun to me, and challenging. I think I've finally arrived.
Now if I can just get accepted to the first school of my choice.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Freedom is just another word for nothin left to lose
You really understand what true first world problems are when you tell an ex-pat of a "third world" country that you're planning on quitting your fancy government job with tons of security in order to go to school full time and pursue a job that you don't even know if you can get within the next five years, and their reaction is shock and horror. "You have a full-time job with benefits and you're going to quit!?" she almost shrieked. "Why?!" It reminded me of Office Space when Samir was like, "I would love to have that kind of job security!" when Peter was like, "We're going to be here until we DIE!"
(Also: Samir Naga...Naghan...Nagannabehereanymore!)
(I love Office Space a little too much, but I'm okay with that.)
The thing is, I know it's stupid, and I'm actually more than likely going to cash in a tax-deferred account that I've had for the last fourteen years (it should have close to 20,000.00 on it right now, though, so I'm thinking it might just help me out...) that I should be saving for my retirement, and oh yeah, I'm giving up my current retirement benefits and it would probably be best if I just stayed here. Really. One of my coworkers even noted that I'll probably be offered a better job when I go to quit, and maybe five years ago I would have taken it. But now, what am I supposed to do? This is what I want. I'm not going to lose my retirement, I'm just not going to be paying into it any more, and yes the loss of the tax-deferred account is going to be really harsh, and I'm more than likely never going to be able to make that up again.
But to sacrifice it to do something I love and am passionate about...Why would I want to retire?
I do indeed have first-world problems. I live in the first-world, I'm not going to lie about that. I have this opportunity, why wouldn't I take it? If I have to eat food off of my plate that I'm not particularly happy about because there are starving children in Africa/China/French Indochina, then why wouldn't I go get an education for a job that I love when there are women in Africa/China/Malaysia who are never going to get this chance?
(Also: Samir Naga...Naghan...Nagannabehereanymore!)
(I love Office Space a little too much, but I'm okay with that.)
The thing is, I know it's stupid, and I'm actually more than likely going to cash in a tax-deferred account that I've had for the last fourteen years (it should have close to 20,000.00 on it right now, though, so I'm thinking it might just help me out...) that I should be saving for my retirement, and oh yeah, I'm giving up my current retirement benefits and it would probably be best if I just stayed here. Really. One of my coworkers even noted that I'll probably be offered a better job when I go to quit, and maybe five years ago I would have taken it. But now, what am I supposed to do? This is what I want. I'm not going to lose my retirement, I'm just not going to be paying into it any more, and yes the loss of the tax-deferred account is going to be really harsh, and I'm more than likely never going to be able to make that up again.
But to sacrifice it to do something I love and am passionate about...Why would I want to retire?
I do indeed have first-world problems. I live in the first-world, I'm not going to lie about that. I have this opportunity, why wouldn't I take it? If I have to eat food off of my plate that I'm not particularly happy about because there are starving children in Africa/China/French Indochina, then why wouldn't I go get an education for a job that I love when there are women in Africa/China/Malaysia who are never going to get this chance?
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