You Make Me Laugh

I started grad school last fall and had class on Tuesday and Thursday. Then in the spring I had class on Wednesday but I would always get voicemails on Tuesday and Thursday from people saying "Oh, you must be in class now." (wrong day) I got that all semester. I just started my summer class and it's on Mondays. Yesterday I got 2 messages saying "Oh, it's Wednesday, you must be in class." These are the same people that couldn't remember I had class on Wednesday all last semester. Cracks me up. So maybe in the fall, you'll all think I have class on Monday. :) Thanks for the chuckle!

Road Rage

Bad drivers with road rage really irritate me. I was driving to work in the left lane of the freeway, behind someone going REALLY slow. If you want to drive 45 mph on the freeway, fine, just do it in the right lane. So after flashing my lights and hoping she would get over, I passed her on the right (thanks for making me break the rules of the road lady!). When I passed, I just couldn't resist giving a light honk and gesturing that she should get over a lane. This may sound mean, but I promise it was not done in a mean way. Well, I guess this made her angry because she became a crazy, road raging, idiot. She tailed me for a few miles until I got off the freeway at the exit for my work. The whole time she was flailing around in the car and making gestures (not nice ones) and yelling. I wonder if she's aware that I can't hear her in my car. It's ironic that in all her fury, she actually did exactly what I was hoping for and got out of the left lane. But I just can't understand people that do something wrong and then get mad at the person that points it out. It just doesn't make any sense.

In the News

Here's another article on my company in the news. It's an article about our Halo room. Where Xbox Meets Lunchbox Have I mentioned how great this place is???

Louis CK at the Improv

Tonight we went to the Improv and saw Louis CK. He had a show on HBO for awhile called Lucky Louie. It was a great show but got cancelled. If you have a chance, Netflix it. It's really funny but you do have to enjoy the more dry, sarcastic kind of humor. The show was hilarious- even the opening guys were pretty funny. We had great seats since we bought our tickets last January and the seating is based on when you buy the tix. Really funny stuff- I had that painful cheeks feeling from laughing too much throughout the show. :)

My New Friend James

In order to get allergy drops instead of allergy shots, I had to get a blood test for my allergies. As I've mentioned, I'm needle phobic so the idea of having blood drawn is not pleasant. And it's been a REALLY long time since I've had blood drawn so I've had time to build up the idea of the trauma involved with needles. I finally psyched myself up to go get the blood drawn- I bailed on the first appointment. I am SO good at finding reasons not to go. :)

I got to the doctor's office and the nurses promptly told me I have no veins. Fabulous. So I guess they just decided to go for it with no knowledge of where the veins are. They stuck me with the needle and then just start wiggling it around under my skin, searching for the vein. What is wrong with these people? I told them I was phobic, but I guess they thought contributing to my reasons for being phobic would be a good idea. After the arm didn't work, they tried the vein in my hand and did the same wiggling technique (FYI- wiggling a needle around under your skin in your hand HURTS). Is that what they call it in nursing school- the wiggling technique? Or were these people actually competent at one point in their careers?

After torturing me with the wiggling needles, they finally sent me to the lab to get a professional to do the job. You'd think they would have done that originally since they couldn't find the veins. Just a thought. Anyway, I explained the situation to the lab and they got their "best guy" who does babies and people with hard to find veins. The guy, James, was really nice and careful and got it on the first try. (I think I developed an immediate crush.) I must have thanked him about a hundred times. So basically all blood work in my future will be done by James.

Mommy's Day

My mom was in town for the weekend and we got to play on Saturday for Mother's Day. We went out to the outlet mall and shopped for awhile, then got some sushi for dinner. I finally got to introduce her to my favorite sushi place. It was fun spending the day together. Here's a picture of me and my mommy many years ago.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

Catching Up

I haven't posted much lately because life has been chaotic. Seems like something crazy has happened every day- some good, some bad. So here's the short version of what's been happening:

The Good:
1. I found out I have a security clearance and no one ever told me! My paperwork was submitted when I worked at the State Department and apparently went through over a year ago but no one ever let me know. So that's kind of exciting.
2. Yesterday was my final exam for the Statistics class. I think I did well but mostly, I'm just really glad it's over. That professor was horrible.
3. I found an alternative for allergy shots: allergy drops! They are drops you put under your tongue and work as well or better than the shots. My friend Toby told me about them so now I'm meeting with a doctor and should be on the drops in the next couple of weeks! Yay!
4. I now have a Blackberry for work. It will be nice to be able to get email when I'm at client sites or on the metro. Guess this means I'm officially connected 24 hours a day now. Maybe I should move this one to the bad list........... :)
5. Work gets more interesting by the day. I've been pulled in to helping with final interviews for potential candidates for our company. I've always loved recruiting and interviewing so this is a good addition to my role.

The Bad:
1. My stats professor called an extra class on Monday since he failed to cover all the material in the semester and then taught an entire chapter that would be about a fourth of the exam 2 days later.
2. Izzie peed on the couch. I about had a heart attack. Thankfully, the couch is under warranty and they're sending someone out to clean it next week. If that doesn't work, I don't know what happens.
3. More bodily fluids: Michael cut one of Georgie's nails too short and it bled...... all over the condo. So now we have lots of blood to clean up. On top of that, it wouldn't stop bleeding and once it did, Georgie would lick it until it started again. So he's been in bandages for 3 days now.
4. My windshield must have been hit by a rock. I didn't see it happen but I now have a huge crack running across my windshield.
5. I drank some old milk last night with a bowl of cereal. About an hour later I was projectile vomiting in the bathroom. Good stuff.
6. I have some random pain in my jaw that won't allow me to clench my teeth on the left side. And it hurts really badly. It's been 4 days so I'm thinking I have to go to the doctor.
7. I went to the dentist and need a crown which apparently is going to cost a small fortune.

My postings have also slowed down cause I've been working more. With Steph out and the added responsibilities of writing for a proposal and interviewing, there just aren't enough hours in the day for everything. I was stressing a lot about work and not being able to get everything done. I've never had that experience before but there is just too much to possibly get done with one person. That's hard for me to accept sometimes. But Steph and all the rest of the management team is very supportive and completely understands how much is on my plate so that helps to relieve the stress. I'm so impressed by the real belief in work/life balance at my job. Lots of companies talk about it but this one seems to actually mean it.

Help the Puppies!

Here's your chance to do a good deed for the day, everyday:

The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily to meet their quota for getting free food donated to abused and neglected animals. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on the box "fund food for animals". It doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to the shelter in exchange for advertising. Please click on the link below, go click the button, and tell people you know!
Animal Rescue Site

Triumph!?!?

Apparently I missed a very interesting class on my birthday. I refused to go to class on my birthday because I refused to be miserable on my birthday. But I've got my inside sources that keep me posted on all the gossip. :) So I got an earful about how the professor spent the majority of the class ranting because he found out about my complaint letter. He doesn't know my name, but he knows that the complaint was filed by a female Operations Research student. So uh, that limits it down to about 3 of us in the class. There were other complaints but that is the one he knows about, I guess because my complaint was more formal than some of the others. Anyway, he spent the class yelling about the complaint, directing all of his anger at the other two female OR students. Very professional. He also spent time discussing how he is leaving the university to go into industry. Why? Because the caliber of students has obviously decreased. So it's our fault that he's incompetent. Again, we come back to my disgust with people who refuse to take responsibility for their actions.

I felt it was my responsibility to let the department know what happened. So I sent an email to the OR Chair as well as the Dean. I wanted to make sure they knew that there will likely be 3 of us that will be retaliated against in our grades. The next day, I got a call saying that the professor would not be teaching the class, at least this week and maybe not for the rest of the semester. My first response was a mixture of shock and happiness. It was such a good feeling to know that this type of behavior will not be tolerated and that the school had taken action to ensure a positive educational experience for their students.

Well, then I went to class. The Chair of the Statistics Department was there to teach the class. First off, he gave a GREAT class. It was thorough, moved at a good pace, and he was able to explain things and answer questions. It's the way I would have expected this class to run from the beginning. The problem now is that he's teaching things assuming that we understand all of the topics in the previous chapters. But we haven't really been taught that. I took notes but have a ton of big question marks down the side of my notes where I was lost.

I left the class feeling entirely overwhelmed. The final is in 2 weeks and we're flying through material, including things that involve math from calculus 2 and 3. If we had been doing this since the beginning of the semester, I would have refreshed myself on the topics. But now there are 2 weeks. I can't reteach myself calc 2 and 3 as well as an entire semester of statistics in that time. And we have no idea what to expect on the final now. If the final is written as it should be for this course, I fully expect to fail.

I'm not sure what to do now. If I email the department, I'm complaining about their solution, even though I've been begging for a solution. So I just feel like a complainer. But at the same time, I don't think they fully understand how bad the class was with the old professor. I really think it's something you had to experience in order to understand. So I'm just kind of lost and overwhelmed now.

Most Adorable Puppy Ever

I have no story with this. I just have the cutest puppy in the whole world!

Taking over for Stephanie

I was naively hopeful that when my boss went on maternity leave, I wouldn't really be taking over ALL of her responsibilities. I was very very wrong to hope for such things. I suppose it doesn't help that her boss, our COO, is also out this entire month. So the projects seem to be turning to me for everything. We have one project that requires a little more handholding than others and I swear I hear from them at least 10 times a day, asking me to review something or help with something or give advice on something. I don't mind the responsibility or helping, in fact I'm really enjoying the role. The only problem is that we're also supposed to be preparing to go to CMMI Level 3 in the fall and I haven't even had a second to think about it since my boss left. I worked 14 hours today, all on one project. Just to clarify, I am not a project person; I'm a corporate person that is supposed to be aiding the projects with quality. So I'm wearing a lot of hats right now. I'm definitely getting involved in a lot of interesting project activities which I like, but it also gets a little frustrating sometimes knowing all of the other things I should be doing but don't have time for. Sometimes I just want to tell some of the project members to think things through a little more before punting to me for help. There are times when I feel like they create a very rough draft of something, assuming I will take the time to fix all of the gaps, without considering the fact that I might have my own tasks to do too. So that can get a little frustrating. At the same time, it is so interesting to see all the aspects of the project and to be able to help in such a big way.

Americone Dream

First, if you don't watch The Colbert Report, you should. It's on Comedy Central after the Daily Show (which you should also be watching). Ben & Jerry's just made an ice cream for Colbert, called Americone Dream. I'm not usually a big fan of Ben & Jerry's because many of their ice creams are chocolate based, and I'm more of a vanilla kinda girl. But I had to try Americone Dream- it's vanilla ice cream with pieces of chocolate covered waffle cone and caramel swirl. Yum! Go buy it!

George Carlin

Tonight we went to see George Carlin at the Warner Theater. I was torn about going to the Warner after all the problems I had with those tickets before. But we already had the tickets. One thing I will say I'm a little happy about- the Warner doesn't seem to be booking a lot of good shows, which I feel is at least a little deserved after their mis-handling of the BACI Management situation.

Anyway, we went to see Carlin tonight. The verdict has always been out on Carlin for me as to whether I like his style of comedy or not. Some of it just seems rude for the sake of being rude. For instance, he did a couple of jokes that were very derogatory towards women. Then he later stated that he feels women haven't been treated right and haven't truly achieved equality even though they deserve it. But to me, that statement is nullified after you've told a joke where you call a woman the c word or refer to gang banging. I don't think you get to go back and cover that with a blanket statement that women deserve more than they're getting. It's hypocritical and perpetuates the poor treatment of women. To be clear, I have no problem with making fun of traits that women stereotypically have. The same goes for men, race, religion, etc. But just using derogatory language with no substance seems like an excuse to use the language, as opposed to an attempt to be funny. It struck me as low class.

The rest of the show was pretty good. He had some funny bits about politics and religion that I actually found very funny. But overall, it was just kinda slow. I don't know if it's because he's getting older, but I left feeling like the show was only ok. I feel like I've seen some better acts from unknown names at the Improv.

Beautiful Day

It is beautiful outside today. I worked until about midnight last night so I decided to take advantage of that to enjoy the weather this morning and start work a little late. Georgie and I went walking- about 3 1/2 miles. I had to drug up first of course- claritin and my prescription nasal spray. The allergies are still bad but I wasn't willing to miss out on this great weather. We had a great time, although I could definitely feel my lungs getting tight. I used my inhaler when we got back though and I feel mostly ok now. We're supposed to have great weather all weekend.

Izzie had her follow up vet appointment this afternoon for her ear infection. All is well! She's always going to have ear issues but hopefully if we clean her ears weekly, she won't get more infections.

Baby Brendan

Long day. I wasn't supposed to be at work again until next Tuesday because I have client sites to visit, etc. But then when I got home yesterday I realized I left my power cord to my laptop at work. I never do stuff like that. I checked everything before I left the office because I needed certain documents for the next few days and wanted to make sure I didn't forget anything. I must have been so involved thinking about the paperwork I needed that somehow I just left the cord sitting on my desk. This morning I started trying to pull files I would need off my laptop to work from my home computer but without access to our network, it was going to be really difficult to feel productive. So I ended up changing my schedule and going into the office.

The great part: I got to meet baby Brendan! Brendan is Stephanie's new baby. (Steph is my boss.) She came into the office with him and he is sooooo cute! I don't know if I've ever been around a baby this young. My friends that have had babies have always been out of state so by the time I meet them, they're a lot bigger/older. He was so tiny and soooo adorable. Somehow I thought he would be more fragile. Plus, seeing her pregnant for so long and seeing him actually kick her stomach last week (so cool) made me feel a connection to the little guy. When my other friends have had kids it's sort of an abstract idea- like, I know they're pregnant but it isn't real to me since I don't see them pregnant, if that makes any sense. I think this might have been one of the first times I thought it might be cool to have one of these little guys at some point. (No time soon!)

Virginia Tech Shootings

The Virginia Tech shootings are a tragedy. The whole situation is so sad. I wish the media would step back though. They're like pitbulls attacking, eager to blame everyone for the shooting except the shooter. I'm a big supporter of reviewing an incident after the fact and determining what could have been done better. But the media is doing everything they can to blame the police for not taking better action, the school for not having a better plan in place or shutting down classes sooner, etc. How about this: Some asshole kid shot and killed 31 other people. It's his fault. Period. The police and school did what they thought was best at the time. Hindsight is always 20/20 and there's always something that could have been done better. But to put blame on the people who were trying to protect the students and do what was in their best interest is sick and wrong.

The media will do anything for a story and it literally makes me sick. I refused to watch the news covereage after it happened yesterday. I started watching for a few minutes and all they did was harass the police and school officials and repeat the same 2 facts over and over again. I think at that point, watching any further is just participating in a heightened level of gossip. You gain no more facts about what happened, are no more knowledgeable about the situation, and therefore it is a useless waste of media covereage.

Regardless though, none of that really matters. The vengeful nature of the media and hate for the kid that did the shooting don't matter. Revenge won't bring these kids back to life. It makes me sad that the only thing being talked about is who we can blame. What we should be talking about is how horrible this loss of life is. Young lives were taken for no reason. Can you imagine being one of those parents? And they can't even turn on the tv because every station is covering the "story". It's so sad. My heart literally aches for the victims and their families.

Painting

I woke up Saturday morning with the drive to do house projects and start finishing up this place. I've done a lot of painting and hanging pictures and stuff but the final touches have never happened. I think it's time. The stripes I did in the bedroom have bothered me since I originally painted them. There was more orange than I intended and it really popped out at you when you walk in the bedroom. But not in a good way. I felt like it overwhelmed the room. I've asked everyone that has come over for their honest opinion and everyone has said it's good as it is. But it's one of those things where I can't tell if they're being honest cause I'm sure no one really wants to insult my painting. This is where being socially proper and all that is a bad thing. So I finally decided to repaint. There's much less orange now and I like it SO much better. Here's pics of the before and after.

Before (with lotsa orange). After (with a lot less orange).











After the wall, I decided to redo the bathroom. It's just been plain and white so far. So I painted it a beige color, got new, super soft, bath mats, and a new brown, cloth, shower curtain. Oh, and new shower curtain hooks. It's like a peaceful little oasis now instead of the ucky white boring bathroom. FYI- it's really hard to take a picture in our bathroom because the counter and cabinets curve.

At about 3am I decided maybe it was a good stopping time for my projects. I realized I hadn't sat down for about 15 hours other than maybe one 30 minute break. I tend to do that when I do projects and then all of a sudden I realize my entire body is exhausted.



This morning, we cleaned up and moved some furniture around in the bedroom. We now have a chair and ottoman by the window in the bedroom which is really nice (I'm in it now). So now this part of the house is done! Yay! I don't want to leave these rooms- they're so cozy. :)

Puppy Toys

We got new puppy toys today. We found these long dog shaped toys with squeakies in them. The pups are suckers for a good squeaky. Here's some pics of the pups with their new toys. They had so much fun.
As with all toys, the pups eventually decided that the squeaky is evil and must be destroyed. They tear them out and then continue to play with the remaining pelt of the stuffed toy.
This is the aftermath of a good long play. Notice, Georgie and Izzie still have one of toys with them on the couch as they pass out.

Self Help Books

We went to the bookstore tonight and I was browsing through the management section to see if there was anything good. A coworker recommended a book she is reading so I thought I'd check it out. Well, the self help section is nearby and I couldn't help but browse some of the titles. I will preface what I'm about to say by stating that I do understand some types of self help books. For instance, I think it's appropriate to have helpful information that people who are going through real life struggles can relate to and that will help them cope and heal. So I am not referring to books on abuse, depression, illness, etc.

That said, I can't understand the value of the majority of self help books. Books like "Happiness Now", I don't get. Seriously, I'm not making up that title. It makes me sad that people really think they need to read a book to tell them how to be happy. Especially since happiness is so subjective. These days everyone thinks they have some big issue. It's almost like they want one. Why not be happy about the fact that your biggest problem is not being 100% happy and feeling like you need to read a book on how to be happy? I mean, really. Nothing that bad has happened to you if that's what you're reading.

This whole concept goes along with the growing tendency for people to look outside of themselves for self-worth and fulfillment. People like to talk about the number of friends they have and how many plans they have and I just don't get it. People seem to think that by filling their lives with things, whether material items, a bunch of plans, or lots of people, they are more fulfilled and "happier". Or if they follow some set of instructions in a book, they will miraculously be happier. I wish people would dump the self help books and just consider what really makes them happy. People need to look inside themselves more and find comfort in who they are. And if they can't be happy just being themselves, then they should think about what changes they need to make to become the kind of person they want to be. You don't need a book for that.

Exam Grades

We finally got our tests back tonight (3 weeks after the midterm). I'm happy to report I got an A, despite all his bad test writing. Because so many people did badly he's going to curve the test but he won't tell us what the curved grades are. Apparently, that's "his business and we don't need to know". Now, I did well so I don't care all that much. But if I was one of those people who got, say, a 10%, I think I'd want to know what position I was in going into the final. Like, is there a chance for passing the course? One of the girls I talk with in class needed a regrade because he took off for the same thing twice and he took her paper and wouldn't give it back. It was crazy. She also showed him a section where she had multiplied two numbers together and he marked off for the numbers being in a different order than he would have put them. Uh, basic principle of multiplication- you can switch the numbers around. Idiot. 4 more classes til it's over........... oh yeah, I'm counting.