Is That London Calling?

Climate Control

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 06:46:32 -0500

Well, my orientation with the rest of my group starts today. My fabulous mother and I have just finished a ten day tour of England’s worst Wi-Fi spots. We started in a lovely inn in the quaint town…

Is this connected to my Tumblr?

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 19:46:13 -0500

Is this connected to my Tumblr?:

So today I was talking to my friends and narcissisticly I brought up my blog. With the scorn of a thousand Perez Hilton’s they looked at me and said “You use Blogger? Why aren’t you using Tumblr?”
I…

"Travel is glamorous only in retrospect."

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:54:22 -0500

““Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.””

- Paul Theroux

Out in the Woods

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 11:46:00 -0500

I am just going to write a quick theoretical list of the ten things I think I will miss most when I move to London (which is going to happen in 6 days).

1. Toaster Scramblers (with either sausage or bacon)
2. Netflix
3. Hulu
4. Driving a car
5. Squegieeing a car
6. Bacon (In England they have bastardized the greatest culinary invention of all time and refer to it as ‘Irish Bacon’)
7. Hulu
8. Cheap Texting
9. Having Money
10. Bacon

I will recreate this list in about a month to see what I will actually miss.

Goodbye Wisdom, Hello Drugs.

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:48:00 -0500

So, over the summer I was told that I needed to have my wisdom teeth removed. With the enthusiasm of anyone confronted with having large teeth pulled out of their head I made an appointment to have the surgery done over thanksgiving.
When the end of November came, I drive home from University, and prepared for the extraction. My mother and I bought all manners of mushy food. Ice Cream, mashed potato’s, and Jello all stocked our fridge. I was prepared…like any solider going in for battle, I would not be afraid. This was the right of passage that any western world youngster must go through. It is so common to have a conversation about the pain of wisdom teeth removal at a table, that I was excited to finally have something to contribute to the conversation.
The Monday morning I was scheduled for the surgery, I got up, ready for the fight (and the anesthesia). After waking up at 7:00 AM, taking a shower, and getting dressed, my mother came into my room and told me to go to bed. I was pissed. Doctor’s should not get sick. Really, it should be illegal. Why can’t doctors be exempt from getting sick? Patients work hard to schedule surgery and then you get sick!!! It’s not fair!!
Needless to say, I was rather furious, as I was already awake and would no be able to go back to sleep, so instead I spent the day sulking. My mother talked to the secretary and she suggested that we make an appointment for my surgery for the next Saturday. This was not an option as I was supposed to be driving back to school on the Sunday.
So we convinced them to let us have an appointment for the next day, Tuesday at 11 AM.
That Monday evening, I decided to stay up late. With wisdom teeth surgery you are required to fast for 6 hours beforehand, so I wanted to wake up at 10 and no earlier to make the fasting a bit easier. I watched Avatar which, by the way, is not as good without 3-D. At 3 AM I went to bed with hopes of having gaping holes in my jaw in 8 hours.
At 7 AM I woke up to the most annoying tune in the world, my ring tone. I looked at the area code and groaned, it was definitely going to be the dentist. For a moment, I debated whether or not to pick up… If I didn’t pick up maybe I’d walk in later and they would have to perform the surgery anyway because I was there… Obviously this is not a fool proof plan, but after 4 hours of sleep and being rudely awaken by my ring tone, it seemed plausible.
Of course in the end I picked up my phone. “Hello, is this Rachel?”
Groan
“We are very sorry to tell you this but the doctor is still sick.”
Groan
“Would you like to reschedule your appointment?”
“Just a second.” I was worried about yelling at the poor receptionist over the phone, so I decided to ask for help. Scowling, I walked into my mother’s office and passed her the phone. From my look she realized what was wrong and talked to the receptionist.
At this point I plopped down on the stairs. Disheartened, I felt like I had been thwarted and did not like it. In my head, my wisdom tooth struggles were similar to that of Sigorney Weaver’s character in Avatar. I know, that she probably had a little bit of a bigger problem, but our frustration made me think of us as kindred spirits. She had battled bureaucracy, and I was battling the rhino virus. I imagine that Natalie Portman will play me when they make a move out of my struggles.
At least I’m not melodramatic.
So my mother had a conversation with the receptionist and explained that, no, I could not get my teeth out on Saturday as I was driving back to University the next day. So we scheduled the surgery for 5 days before Christmas.
If we fast forward ahead to present time, aka, 2 days before Christmas, I have experienced the surgery and only came up with two movie plots to explain the suffering I went through.

I got home late on the Saturday and worked all of Sunday so I was exhausted (see the blog about cleaning). That Monday morning I prepared to leave for the dentist. I had not gone through the same preparations, like getting mashed food or telling people that I would be incapacitated for several days. I think I didn’t prepare because I was so terrified that the appointment would be canceled again.
However, it all went as planned. My mother drove me to the dentist and all I remember before the surgery is being taken to the small little room, and looking up at the number 55 on a piece of machinery. They gave me oxygen and stuck me with anesthesia.
I woke up in a ‘recovery room.’ It looked quite like the nurses office at my middle school. I always though that anesthesia would leave you drowsy and unaware of pain, but no such luck. Although I don’t remember it, apparently my first coherent sentence was a verbal assault against the nurse who asked me how I was doing. After giving her a look that would make a grown man cry, I asked her where the vicodin I had been promised was. The doctor then came in and asked “how’s my drunk patient?” Apparently I wasn’t that groggy, because I responded, “not drunk, drugged. Where are my drugs?” My mother, who was sitting next to me must have been so proud.
At the same time as the doctor came in, I also began to bleed- out of my nose. This was not something I was expecting, and I don’t think he was expecting it either because he responded ‘oh dear,’ which did not inspire much hope. Taking me out of the recovery room and back to the surgery room he used a metal prong thing to stick a wad on cotton up my nose. It was as comfortable as it sounds. On top of that, the Novocain had started to wear off and I could feel pain in my jaw. After taking the wad of cotton out of my nostril, the doctor let me leave. I sat in the car with gauze in my mouth, the a distinct lack of Novocain, and my fingers clamped over the bridge of my nose.
By the time we got home I was sobbing. All I had wanted was Vicodin and the doctor had prescribed me Percocet, Vicodin’s much more boring and less addictive cousin. My mother sat me down in the lazy boy at our house and promised to be back within an hour to give me the drugs that she was picking up for CVS.
During that hour I discovered several things. Firstly: I will not do well under torture. Every minute without the drugs felt like an hour and there was nothing that took my mind off of it. Secondly: I hate ice. My poor grandmother was instructed to put icepack on my face every half hour, and I did not enjoy it. In case you haven’t realized by now, when I don’t like something, I turn into a demon. I think there have been sightings of horns coming out of my head when I am feeling particularly defiant. So my lovely grandmother had to fight me every half hour to get an ice pack (that was for my own benefit) over my face. Thirdly: My dream of having to sit in a comfy chair all day is easier said then done. It really does get monotonous and I was disappointed with my reaction. I always thought that I’d fit in perfectly well with the people in the movie ‘Wall-e’ because of my koala-like personality.
After the hour was over, my mother brought be back the Percocet. Luckily the drug was effective and made me forget about the pain in my jaw. The only side effects: Drowsiness, nausea, and an inability to write for three days.

This is dedicated to my Mother and our road trips

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:00:00 -0500

I love squeegees. You know those tools at the gas station that sit in water? You have to mop a sponge over the windshield. As you perform this action, all the dirt and muck left on the glass starts to slide off. At this point in the process, I get very excited. My favorite part is coming up…the squeegee part. You need to lay the rubber layer flat on the glass and wipe away all the water. The most important thing to remember is to squeegee from the top to the bottom. If you do this all the dirty mucky water gets drained off and you are left with a spick and span windshield. Not only is this a fun tool, but it helps make glass clean. I hope to create a poem about my love of squeegees some time soon.

Also, a low priority goal I have in life is to require that everybody squeegee their windshields, both back and front, every time they fill up their car with gas.

Google needs a new app.

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 01:41:00 -0500

I am exhausted. Today I had to write two essays and study for a test. But I did none of that because I was busy fiddling with my blog and flickr accounts. I was trying to convince the two to link to each other, and while I was somewhat able to do it, I think that the internet is in need of a new Google application… drum-roll please… Google Thought!
As my generation has come to realize, Google knows everything about each and every one of us. It knows where we live, what food we like, what our friends think of us, how we think, even what porn we watch. Google just knows everything. So with this is mind- I think that they should come out of the P.C. closet and create an application which, with one flick of a button, customizes every account you have on the internet to your personality matched settings. It’s brilliant. We know that Google probably knows all passwords, so, with the users permission they can just hack into everyone’s accounts and switch the privacy settings to match the person’s personality, which is determined through the millions of searches the person has done over the past decade. My inner lazy person is so proud right now. If she was willing to get off the imaginary couch in my mind she would give me a hug.
What is a lack of privacy for something so important as convenience?

Just a side note:
Dear Google,
I understand that I just made fun of you, but please don’t make all the searches I do for the rest of time unhelpful. My poking fun at your overwhelming presence is all done in love. It’s not like I can really say I’m not part of the system- this blog is powered by my Google account!
Rachel

Hampsters

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 01:01:00 -0500

I am sitting in my house, in my hometown, in the kitchen. Next to me are two hamsters. To be precise, they are dwarf hamsters. My best friend, who we will call Cher, and I got them a week ago when we decided to have a happy-liver-Friday. Because it is almost impossible to enjoy happy-liver-Fridays on campus, we went to Petsmart to try and find puppies. Of course, given the fact that is was 9 PM on a Weekend, there were none. As we wandered the slightly rancid aisles, we happened on the rodent housing. Like every sucker before us, we gazed at the adorable miniature hamsters sitting contently in their habitat. After about an hour of debate, we deiced to both chip in and get a cute and adorable hamster. As the clerk took us behind the housing to get a proper look at the animals, we got out first taste of what these ‘cute’ animals are like.
The unwitting woman opened the cage like I am sure she had on many other occasion before. She tried to catch one of the cute hamsters by reaching her hand in, but he escaped quickly. Sighing, she grabbed one of the plastic igloo’s that serve as a den and scooped up the little guy in it. For a moment, everything seemed fine, then, as if he was a kamikaze solider, the dwarf hamster flung himself out of the igloo and unknowingly fell 4 feet to the ground. When I think about it, I might have even heard him scream “Freedom!” He landed on the ground on his back… Cher and I looked at each other in horror. Our attempt to be kind and give a hamster a home had ended in rodent suicide… Then, we saw movement. As the clerk went to go pick him up, he flipped himself over and ran. If we hadn’t been in an enclosed room, I think he might have made it to Alaska.
I thought he was fabulous! He had spunk and obviously hated the pet shop. But my friend was not impressed, so we got the other hamster out. He was mellow, and sat in the igloo starring up at us like we were his only hope in like. Cher loved him. But I thought the other one was funnier. As we debated this subject, we looked into the cage and saw the two rodents curled up together like best friends.
“Who were we,” we reasoned “to break up best friends?”
After several more debates we decided to get the two buddies, but not before I checked to see if we could return them for a full rebate.
In the past week we have discovered several things about these furry little creatures and their commercial housing. Not only is the “Silent Wheel” possibly the loudest and most irritating sound in the world, but hamsters like to run anywhere between 6 to 12 miles a night, so with two hamsters, that’s 24 miles of noisy wheel a night. So why not remove the wheel at night and let them run during the day time? I just read several articles explaining that by not letting the furry little lightning bolts run at night, you will kill them.
The sentence long summary of this blog goes something like this: Because we chose not to drink on a Friday night in college, my best friend and I acquired two maniac hamsters that like to play from the hours of dusk to dawn, effectively ruining our sleep cycle and making our room smell like ammonia.
Oh, and did I mention that both of them bite and don’t like to be touched or held?

Stand up for America... Intelligently.

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:06:00 -0500

One of my favorite classes is focused on the Modern History of South Asia. To my surprise I am not very interested in the class subject. What I do love is the open forum discussions about current affairs that sometimes carry through an entire class period. For a blissful 75 minutes, no one is on Facebook, no one is texting, no one is worried about the work that they did not do for their next class.
Today someone brought up the riot that happened in London. For those of you who don’t know, the students protested outside of Tory headquarters against a rise in tuition for University. The protest got out of hand and some of the crowd turned violent, leading to injuries and a possible attempted murder.
Our professor asked us why we thought that riots and exaggerated protests were not as common in the United States. There were a lot of explanations by students, like that Americans are too apathetic, that there is too much trust in the institution, that no one can protest anymore without being labeled an extremest, and that we just can’t organize anything important because we are such a large nation. That discussion transitioned into how Americans are now so squeamish that we do not talk about politics and religion. The problem is not only that we do not do it, it is that we do not know how to do it.
For anyone who has ever traveled internationally, it becomes quickly apparent that political discourse discussions are a critical part of society for the much of the rest of the world. When confronted with this highly intellectual type of conversation, many Americans are stunned and can’t voice their opinions quickly enough to be heard. This problem makes us seem like absolute idiots. Ignorant of our surroundings and out place in the world. When viewed in this light, we seem to have no self-awareness in the global perspective.
I am a citizen of the United States and of the United Kingdom, and I love my mother country, but I have so much love and faith for my fellow Americans. We are smart. We are innovate. And as proved but that last decade, we are resilient!
Our country was build on ideas dreamed up by men who sat in tea shops and had political discourse conversations, to try and figure out how they could improve their situations. I dream of an America, where it is not taboo to mention who you voted for and where I can say my political orientation without getting mean look or comment. If you disagree with my position, do not insult it- REASON WITH IT! Use logic, history, and critical thinking to your advantage and fight me. Hopefully I can live up to my own ideals and fight back.

Motivation

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 15:47:00 -0500

I have plans to travel to three continents within the next 20 months. The tentative countries are England, China, then South Africa. While I try to sound brave and excited when I tell people, the truth is that I an nervous and I can’t help but wonder if I am making a mistake by leaving everything I know for so long. I guess the logical question, after hearing my trepidation, is to ask “Why am I going?”

I live my life in a safe and orderly fashion. I drive (mostly) within the speed limit. I drink, but not excessively. Every now and then I smoke, but always in moderation. I don’t have random hook-ups and I don’t really date. I am simply not a rule breaker by nature. ‘Sticking it to the man’ seems pointless as we depend so greatly on the man which popular culture tells us to fight. From what I’ve experienced so far, those are the some of the methods that my generation uses to shake up their lives. But I don’t want to break rules. It simply is not appealing to me, and I hate that I feel like I need to justify that.

My life at the moment feels claustrophobic and confined by cultural and generational norms. I want something that will let me breathe and take my breath away. I want an exciting live, filled with natural colors and new sights and new people and new ideas. I am afraid of the two years, but I am not afraid of the distance, I am afraid that it won’t be breath-taking. I am afraid that the gain will not out weigh the bad, like not seeing my mother and sister for long periods of time, and not seeing my friends, and missing out on key moments with my peers. What if I come back and realize that I made a mistake? What if it was stupid and wistful to think that I could do something different and dangerous, and not loose anything.

If I believed in a God, now would be the time to pray. But I don’t think I really do, so instead, I will just have to work my ass off to have the time of my life.

Scuba in the Face of Adversity

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:11:00 -0500

About a year ago I started thinking about going to South Africa to study abroad. South Africa has some really amazing things to offer the brave traveler like wine tours, safari’s, and the best BBQ’s in the world. But there was a tourist attraction that excited me more then the rest. The Great White Shark.
I should probably preface this by saying that I never saw Jaws. From the age of 5 to 15 I was sure that I would become a marine biologist so that I could work with dolphins *cough* at sea world *cough*. For those of you who don’t know, South Africa is the capital of the Great White, and you can cage dive commercially. While cage diving, you could just snorkel… but lets face it, scuba will give you a lot more immersion- which if you can’t tell is my favorite type of learning.
So I signed up for Scuba in awe and anticipation of the amazing adventure it would be to learn the secrets of the almost mystical sport.
Those 7 weeks of Thursday evening classes from 6:30 to 9:30 PM were pretty tough. It was cold and we would fiddle around in a dirty and crowed pool for two hours. Aside from the revolting reality which is finding out what is at the bottom of an indoor pool, the class was not unbearable. I took scuba with one of my friends who is known for her blatant assertions and good humor. We always did our best to find the humor in swimming with 70 pounds of added weight on our person and making sure not to get too overwhelmed by the possible side effects of scuba diving… Like lung over expansion, the bends, or arterial gas embolisms. Our instructors were very patient and helpful, but we always had problems with the gear or the process of SCUBA. Week after week we would try to figure out why the damn fins didn’t fit on Regina’s foot or why my Buoyancy Control *the vest that inflates* was too big. It did not help that when it came time to try out dry-suits, Regina and I discovered that the ‘perfect’ dry-suit cuts of the circulation to your head and hands by way of nifty elastic bands. But we did not fret, because the practical exam, known as the open water dives, were apparently very fun.
These open water dives were supposed to take place in a picturesque lake out in the country. We had been warned that the lake had a reputation for being slightly chilly, but that it would not be an issue due to the magnificent dry suits that the scuba company would provide for us during the open water exam.
When the weekend came for this two-day adventure we were excited about going into the lake and becoming officially certified for life. We had called and double and triple checked that we had the right times and that they had our suit size. Then everything went to hell.
We started by putting the wrong address into the GPS, and drove around for two hours trying to find the lake, then freaking out because we thought they would make us reschedule it. The good news is that they did even realize we were late… The bad news is that they acted like we had ALL the time in the world. Our instructor was a ripe 80 years old and took his time explaining to us that today we would be practicing the basic skills that we had all learned in class, but that it would be in two groups.
When I went to get my dry-suit, the man in charge said that they did not have my size suit, and he gave me a garment four sizes too small for me. I spent 30 minutes trying to get my calves to fit into the damn suit, and then had to enlist three people to try and help me shimmy my bulky hips into the suit. The suit would not budge past my thighs, so the man looked me up and down, and reluctantly gave me a larger size.
This larger size did fit over my calves, but my hips still would not squeeze in.
By this time my frustration was overwhelming my other emotions… I wanted to sit in a corner and cry. They finally gave my the suit that I had used in the pool. The catch was that someone had just worn it and it was rather wet. Regina described the entire situation as “It was like they were surprised we were there.” I am not the type to bitch about bad service. Everyone had off days on the job and it is especially hard to work training people. But when you pay as much as the company made us pay, and then they are so badly coordinated that there is hardly acknowledgment of your presence, it is so frustrating.
But everything was alright because we got our suits right? Wrong. We got out to the water and they made us put our gear on before we got into the water… and not just before, 30 minutes before. So we are standing there, immobilized by constricting wet suits and 70 odd pounds of gear. As I looked forward (as turning your head is not possible once zipped into the dry-suit) I saw our instructor just beginning to get his gear on.
Finally the moment came: getting in the water. Excitement blasted away the disappointment of the past few hours as I imagined being able to finally dive in an open area. But the excitement did not last long. Regina had been having problems getting her flippers on, but the co-instructor had told her that is was not a problem. After much pushing and shoving on my part, the flippers still would not go on. It was like the submarine version of Cinderella, but instead of a prince, we had a grouchy middle age man who had no interest in putting on the damn flippers. He went by us several times, looked down and said “that doesn’t look good.” Then walked away without helping. His only job was to help make our dive possible… not even enjoyable! All he had to do was make sure we were functional enough to dive, and he didn’t even do that.
The primary instructor came over and told Regina that she would have to come back on another weekend- but that was unacceptable. Don’t they know that we have lives! We have work! Don’t they know how expensive it is to drive to bumble-fuck no-where! In a very brave and Regine-like manner (as I normally cower at the idea of challenging people) Regine explained that she was doing that damn dive and getting that damn certificate if they had to drag her out to the middle of the damn lake and breathe for her. So they did.
They literally dragged her out to the middle of the lake, sunk her to the bottom, left her there for a while, then dragged her back up. It was like they didn’t know that you are supposed to ascend and descend slowly, except it was their company that taught us that.
My dive was a little better. At least I got to swim out to the middle of the lake. We did a quick tour of a small portion of the lake, and then went back to the shore. Now would be a good time to explain that they had over-booked saturday, so they had to take us out in two groups. But instead of taking one group out, doing a tour of the lake, doing skill, then bringing the second group in, they did the following:
1. Put group one in the water
2. Put group two in the water
3. Take group one through the lake
4. Leave group one at the shoreline in the 40 degree water while it snowed to take out group two
5. Repeat step 4 but put group two at the shoreline and take group one into the deep again.
6. Repeat step 4.
7. Let us all continue to freeze our toes off as our suits leaked and it snowed.
did I mention #7? seriously. They left us in the water when then sensible thing to do would have been to put one group in the water- do the required divers- let them leave, and then take out group two. It’s like they wanted us to get hypothermia so we could know what it felt like. Well, mission accomplished. It’s been a day and my toes are still slightly tingly.
There was more after that- but it was mostly waiting for grampa scuba to sign our logs. At least we were in a dry building.
Anyway, talking about the experience has tired me out. If you had any sense you just read the opening paragraph then these final ones. The three sentence version of my scuba open water dive goes something like this. Today I took my part one of my scuba final to achieve my long-term goal of diving with great whites. The instructors did not care and left us in hypothermia conditions because they weren’t paying attention to how many people had been signed up for the day. We all had a miserable time, and only about half the people came back the second day.

On the bright side, we went back on Sunday, it went a lot quicker, and I am now scuba certified. Time to sleep and dream about sharks… Oh shit, I have a 9 AM class that I need to read for… I guess I’ll just day-dream of sharks tomorrow.

Life or Something Like It

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:53:08 -0400

When I was about 14 I saw the movie “Life or Something Like It.” The movie stars Angelina Jolie who plays the character Lanie Kerrigan, a Seattle based Anchor/ Journalist and in her words “A TV personality.” She is told by the character “Prophet Jack,” played by Tony Shalhoub, that she is going to die in a week. The movie goes into detail about that following week and the important growth she makes when it come to “What Really Matters” in her life. At 14 I was enthralled by the romance and drama of the movie. Last night I watched it with some friends who were seeing it for the first time. While the movie played, they all watched with the same wonder I had the first time I saw it… Wondering if Lacie would live or die and whether fate was real or imaginary.

Watching it for the first time in many years I saw something that I had not noticed 5 years ago. When Lacie is about to have a live interview with the renounced TV personality Deborah Connors (played by Stockard Channing) the producer comes up to her says that he has her list of questions she is supposed to ask. Lacie responds that she has her own set of questions that she wrote. The producer insists that she take the generic questions because “Deborah Connors doesn’t answer any questions that she doesn’t already know.”

In true Hollywood form, Lacie bravely does what journalists are supposed to do, and goes off book, asking Deborah if the success and fame that she has achieved was worth the personal sacrifices.

On live camera, Deborah looses her composure on camera, cries, then straitens up and bravely tells Lanie that she shouldn’t sacrifice her happiness for the approval of other people as the only person that she should need to please is herself. This heartwarming sentimental moment is shattered when the camera turns off and Ms. Connors shows her fury of being put on the spot and insists that she wants Lacie out of the job.

That scene just about sums up my fury with the state of the worlds current journalism. Journalism is supposed to check it’s subjects. When the subject is just a celebrity talking about Botox the stakes are not that high, but what about when the stakes are raised?

How many times do you think Politicians have given journalists the questions to ask? How many times have CEO’s or War Lords used journalists as a medium to lie to the public? As they have high stakes in their success, it is no surprise that a interviewee would try to direct the conversation, but it is up to journalists to pry the truth out of the subject, whether the interviewee likes it or not.

I am not saying that all journalism is corrupt, what I am saying is that journalism needs to be more vigilant and consistent in forcing their interviewee’s to tell the truth. When researching this topic I found an interesting article explaining how to interview politicians:

I think the article highlights some very important points, but honestly, why is the information coming from the internet? There should be requirements about knowing those skills before you can call yourself a journalist. The public should be informed as to who created the questions for the interview. I know that it is asking a lot of the media, but you shouldn’t be going into reporting if you only want the fame. You should be inquisitive and resilient and not willing to side-step the truth for anything.