I refuse. Budget Rental Car.

I refuse to talk about Charlie Sheen.  I want to so bad, but I'm not going to give him anymore publicity.  Even on a blog with five followers.

I really am pissed at Budget Rental Cars.  I don't know why people can't have good customer service.  I left something in the car we rented and I called like four times as soon as I noticed and I got the run around the whole time.  Finally, last night (that's the day after we dropped the car off at noon), they FINALLY went and checked the car.  Really?  You went and physically checked 24 hours after I called the first time? I think we called a total of 8 times and only got somebody who wanted to help us one time.  They said they'd call back in 20 minutes three times and never did.  And now, the binder I left in the car is gone.

Back from DC

I got back yesterday from DC, near where I used to live, actually.  It was odd to see my old house with the trees way overgrown.  I guess not overgrown, but grown more than when I lived there.  


My man was donating stem cells; that was the reason we were there.  My boyfriend donated stem cells to a lady with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  We don't really know who she was, not that it matters.  I'm sure he would have given them to anybody.  But what wasn't really clear was how crappy it was going to make him feel.  He was really hurting all week.  Can you believe it though?  His unit asked him if it was "mandatory" that he go and do this for somebody.  Ugh.  When he told me that, I wanted to kick his collective unit in the head.  Granted, his chaplain apparently got teary-eyed when he told him about it.  At least somebody understands the sacrifice he was making.  I'm sure that my man would have rather not felt like complete crap for a week, and then probably two weeks from now.  Lots of drugs and hormones. 


I also got to spend some time with my best friend from kindergarten.  That's right, from 1988.  We've literally known each other for 22 years.  Probably closer to 23.  Maybe it is 23... Eh.  When we were kids we wrote stories.  That's what they were called: "the stories."  And I think I lost one of them.  Oh Budget Rent a Car. You suck so bad.  Now, normally, I wouldn't blame them.  I left something in the car.  I'm the idiot.  However, they've been giving me the run around.  What the heck?  We called four times last night.  I mean, really, they should have been able to find it, it was on the back seat.  But it was my fault.  As punishment, my best friend informed me I'd have to rewrite it.  If only!  So, I will instead write on the new story I've been dreaming about.  I do someday want to be a writer.  I have had this one story in my mind a long time, maybe it will finally come to fruition.  


I think I'm going to read some more Rumi.  I've heard that Rumi makes you a better writer.  He, back in the 13th century, wrote some intense stuff down.  I have come across so many awesome quotes in his poetry, and I've only been reading it for a day or so.  I am so a fan.  This is one called "The Road Home":

An ant hurries along a threshing floor

with its wheat grain, moving between huge stacks
of wheat, not knowing the abundance
all around. It thinks one grain
is all there is to love.

So we choose a tiny seed to be devoted to.
This body, one path, or one teacher.
Look wider and farther.

The essence of every human being can see,
and what that essence-eye takes in,
the being becomes. Saturn. Solomon!

The ocean pours through a jar,
and you might say it swims inside
the fish! This mystery gives peace to
your longing and makes the road home home.

I love the last bit. I don't always interpret poetry right.  But Rumi isn't really around to ask what he meant for sure.  I know the world he lived in was not like it is today.  I mean, most people died early they had to walk everywhere or, I don't know, ride a camel maybe in this case.  

Camels are huge, by the way.

Feeling... nothing :)

I recently found out that my first real boyfriend knocked some girl, with twins no less!

I thought, back in the day, that I'd always have feelings for this guy. Weren't we all so naive when we were kids? I thought that he was the man for me up until about college timeframe. We were together in 8th grade, though kept in close contact up until mid-college. I think we went completely different ways at some point. That sounds kind of bad, but it's not really meant to be. I don't like to think that I'm better than him in some way, we're just different.

But when I read the note about the twins, I didn't feel anything, no jealousy, no regret. Just nothing. It's been like that for some time, with exes. I guess it's part of being satisfied with the relationship I'm in so much so that I don't even care about past loves. Good feeling really. Moving forward with him, leaving these others behind... yeah! :)

Reading reading reading....

I kind of wonder why I hadn't read this one yet. The movie was on and I figured I needed to get going on that... I know it's been sitting on my shelf for a while. Funny enough, a lot of the analysis of this book is wrong, according to most people who have read it.

Seeing the movie and having been in the Army, you ask yourself, who the hell had the WORST combat tactics ever. I would have never gotten that close to any of those bugs. Why would they not just firebomb the entire planet? It doesn't make sense. Kind of makes me mad. Oh well, it is just a movie. LOL

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein




I figured it's about time.



View all my reviews

It's funny how that works.

I recently opened up the most recent copy of Harvard Business Review which I finally have a subscription to (don't have to steal dad's :) ), and funny enough, there's an blurb about exactly what I was talking about on the 12th.   I was even referring to CNN.com, but not by name.  I kind of was getting sick of reading... well, it's best served by an example.  I'm sure it won't take me long to find one....


Here's a comment from an article titled: 1 killed, 57 injured in Iraqi Kurdish protest
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is the worst dictator I have ever seen in my life, we can say worse than Saddam regime.


Seriously?  A party can't be a dictator.  A person is a dictator.


Then you have another article about Wolves, here is a brilliant comment... I can't even figure out how this fit into any semblance of discussion.  I think they're talking about furries, people who dress in animal costumes to live out fantasies... whatever they may be.  I can't make this stuff up.


Good! About time that governor learned how bad those furries really are. A bunch of children stalkers in their dog and wolf costumes, how perverted can you be?! I say kill the wolves and the people who pretend to be them so they can touch children bits while they get hugs!


Why do people even comment on this? It's really pointless.


And then one about Knees bearing the weight of obesity:


Duh, Get in shape America!!!!Save billions in health care costs.
Exercize more, eat less, eat healthy.


If you're going to comment for all the world to see, can you at least pay heed to your spell check?  And please, write in complete sentences.  I really get annoyed at people's laziness.


And here is another brilliant comment from the same article:


You know this article is missing one important factor, and that is, that there are relatively few doctors in this country who will do surgery on the morbidly obese. Yes, they will give bariatric surgery to those between 300 and 350 pounds, but not more than that. So what these stupid doctors are saying is that they need their obese paitients to lose weight to have surgery to lose more weight. If they could lose weight they would not need the surgery to begin with! I see it every day in my job and I feel so bad for all of them. Doctors are jerks.


Because they're jerks? That's quite a broad claim to make about somewhere around 400,000 individuals. I don't doubt that some are stupid since there are in fact stupid people everywhere, in every profession.  I heart ad hominem.  Although I ask myself if this individual is in that 350+ pound category since she (her name is apparently lilgtogirl, so I'm assuming here...) says "If they could lose the weight..." like she might have experience dealing with these difficulties. It just seems too personal.


Anyway, the bottom line of Clay Shirky's blurb (Cleaning up Online Conversation) about what he wants to do in the next year is pretty much summed up by the quote in blue from his little article. "In the 1990s putting up a forum that allowed anyone to say anything seemed like a good idea. It wasn't."  This is very true.  So very true.  Not everybody needs to open their mouths.  The first amendment wasn't created so you could spout off your ignorance.  Or, at least, nobody cares to hear it and it makes you look like an idiot... so you might as well shut your pie hole. Just sayin'.  I hope that when I say stupid things people tell me I'm wrong.  Or at least give me a look like "you are dumb" so I know.  Just so I know.  Haha...

Some people shouldn't be trusted to have children

There are countless examples.  I wish more people would use birth control.

It's not the first time Obama has faced ire from the right when it comes to childhood nutrition. Sarah Palin told Ingraham last fall that "the first lady cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat."


Sometimes I think there should be a parenthood test, if you don't meet a certain standard, you shouldn't be able to reproduce.  These issues bring to mind one of my friends from middle school telling me about her time as a social worker in NYC.  One mother in one of the programs was smoking while pregnant.  Please.  Although, the government can't be the one to monitor these sorts of things and tell people what to do.  It should come from a culture change, stemming from education.   

Comments on News Articles, blogs etc.

One of the most abnoxious things to me are some of the off the wall comments on news websites.

The most likely to respond, similar to a survey, are those that are either really happy or really pissed off.  The actual information and comments is not really a good indication of how things are actually going or what people actually think.  Similarly, this goes for blogs as well.  Those that are the most pissed or most excited or happy or whatever are going to write about it.  If its just "blah" nobody is going to waste the time commenting on it, unless you're a history book person or just documenting events with no opinion whatsoever.  But then still, what gets reported on, even in a documented fashion, is still likely to be stuff that whatever news agency thinks people want to read about.  I don't see how a news agency's website is really the right place for people to get up on their soap boxes.  I think that's what blogs are usually for... right? Haha...

I also, since I'm headed to law school next year, have been reading a lot about reasons not to go.  There are a myriad of reasons listed, some evidence points to blogs of disgruntled graduates finding a job market lacking.  I do sometimes wonder what kind of expectation management they've been doing.  Contrary to, it seems, these recent graduates' opinion, they're glorified college graduates.  Most students to graduate law school are just that, college graduates with a little extra--a professional degree.  But these students, despite their LSAT scores and GPAs that made them promising law students, they don't really have a whole lot to offer the job market in general.  Sure, there are some exceptions, and there are some even differing exceptions where a student graduates from law school prepared to get a post-school job (though proving this to potential employers takes considerable effort on the part of that student I think).  I have learned a couple of things, having worked for a couple of years in a rather demanding job.  One is that college doesn't prepare you to work.  It gives you a tool box full of nifty tools, but doesn't really tell you even how to use them or teach you the creativity to use other tools en lieu of tools you might not yet have.  Creativity is something not taught in school, neither are people skills, the ability to communicate effectively with others.  I just had a conversation with my mother yesterday about a situation at her former job.  A guy that worked with her was so difficult to work with, that he kept getting moved from job to job.  Regardless of how smart the guy was, he was pretty much useless to everybody because of his, well mostly, lack of tact when dealing with people. There was always a general consensus with my friends in the Army: we'd prefer a Soldier that was easy to work with and that could effectively communicate over one that couldn't.  You can't teach people skills, but most other things you can work with.

This isn't to say that experience guarantees success.  I watched a guy that screamed "Joe" (a guy that looks like a Soldier and has the mannerisms of a Soldier... even the hair cut) when I was at the Law School fair in Atlanta and I cringed when I heard him talking.  The military does a couple of things... but teaching you to communicate with civilians is not one of them.  If you can't take a step back and remember who you are and what you're doing then you need to just stop and take a breather.

Will I still go to law school? Yes.  My main reason is I want the legal education that comes with it.  However, am I this disillusioned to realize that the job market might be hard on me when I get out? No, I'm not.  I'm hoping nepotism (you do what you can to get your foot in the door, that's just the way it is!) might get me a little, and if not I'll take what I can get.  I never had dreams of being a Law and Order type of attorney; I've always been more fascinated by some of the philosophy.  I hope that when I get out my successes as an Army Officer will add an extra polish onto what I have to offer.  I'll just make sure I follow my dad's three H's: Humbleness, sense of Humor and Hardworking.  I think that these really are the keys to success.