Droid!

I got a Droid yesterday! And I'm super excited about it. I'd been wanting to get an iPhone but kept putting it off and off and just never got around to it. But then the Droid came out and I was talked into it. Verizon works better on campus than AT&T anyways, and I like how customizable the phone is. I've spent way too much time already using it and tweaking it and whatnot, and I'm sure there's a lot of tweak time in my future as well.

Now the REAL question is what to name it. Names I'm considering:

• R2D2 - for obvious reasons


• Lal - Data's daughter. I'm a bit hesitant to name it after someone that didn't "live" for more than a week, but I've always been a bit of a fan of the


• C3PO - but he whines a lot


• IG88 - but do I want to name my phone after an assassin?


• something else I haven't thought of?

Job Search (and do I even need one?)

I hate writing cover letters.

No, like, I REALLY hate it.

Though it's a bit early for me to be making firm decisions on what I'm doing next year, I'm kind of taking a shot at something that I don't think I have much of a chance of getting, and it requires a cover letter. I can usually do relatively well with the 'meat' of the letter - why they should hire me. But the intro and closing paragraphs are a STRUGGLE.

Now assuming this opportunity doesn't pan out, I don't really know what I'm doing next year. Part of me doesn't think I'm quite ready to give up being a Resident Director - I really love my job, my students, my staff, and the school I work at. I'm relatively sure that my last year at this school will be my last year as an RD, and probably my last year in a live-in position, and I don't know if I'm quite ready to give that up yet. Even as I go through the year I tuck little notes away to myself "for next year" - that I should do this or that or tweak certain things. And I'm really loving this year and what I'm able to do now that I'm 3 years into the job. I'm loving the theme community I run, and I feel like I'm really starting to get a hang of my building board.

But at the same time, I don't want to stay, but then be completely over this job by October of next year, and then be an ineffective supervisor or halfhearted coworker. I don't think that would happen, but I don't really know for sure. At this school, most RDs don't stay in the position for four years - last year we had someone stay for a fourth year and he left in December, to a new position across the country. From talking to my cohort it looks like a lot of them are planning on staying a fourth year, partly because of the economy and partly because they just love the jobs. I think I'm the only one that's seriously considering leaving the school. But I don't know if I'm ready to give up being an RD.

And now I'm repeating myself.

Part of me would definitely like to move back to Texas to be closer to family. And have a house. A REAL HOUSE! Or at least an apartment with more than one room, as Will and I are getting tired of tripping all over each other. Maybe a full-sized fridge, and a washing machine? And satellite TV for Will! Wouldn't that be nice? Is it completely pathetic the sorts of things that I get excited about?

But I love my job, and my students and my staff and the university. I don't know if I'm ready to give up being an RD!

In January is when they ask for our letters of intent for work, so I really need to decide by then. So I have another couple of months to do some soul searching. Oh, and talk about it with Will, since he's kind of an important part to this decision making as well. Hopefully by then I'll have a better idea of what's best, not only for Will and me, but also for my career and the next steps and growing up or whatever all that being a responsible adult jazz is all about. And hopefully by then, I'll have a better idea of whether or not I'm ready to give up being an RD.

Hunger Banquet and Oxfam

Last night I went to an Oxfam Hunger Banquet that was held on campus. Oxfam is a confederation of 14 organizations that work in over 70 countries to fight poverty. The Hunger Banquet is an event that happens with the intention of teaching people about the unequal distribution of food resources around the world.

Basically, the way that it works is that when people enter they draw a ticket that has an income class, as well as name and information of a person somewhere on the planet. The income levels are high, middle, and low, and the descriptions briefly talk about themselves, their families, and their financial situation. I was middle income, and had the following card:

I am Deng

I live in Vietnam on a very small farm. During times of drought I must survive on loans from local moneylenders who charge 30 to 40 percent interest per month.

It started out talking a little bit about the distribution of wealth and resources around the world - the distribution of tickets at the event mirrored the distribution worldwide. 15% of the people had 'high income' tickets, and were seated at tables with white tablecloths. In the real world, those of us who fall into the 15% consume approximately 70% of the world's grain - mostly through grain-fed meats. They were served 3 course meals, with water and ice tea, salad, pasta, and dessert.

25% of us were 'middle income' and were seated in chairs around the edges. Most people in the world who are considered middle-income have no property, and education is not that common. We were given water in a cooler and got to eat rice and beans from a buffet line (those of us at the end got mostly rice, because the people in the front ate most of the beans.)

Everyone else (approximately 60% of the group) represented the 'low income' group, and sat on the floor. They were given a few large trays of rice, some brown water, and cups as their only utensils.

As they talked about the different groups what blew my mind was what was considered 'high' and 'middle' income. Worldwide, anyone who makes over $9,000 a year is considered high income. I'd always considered my family more or less middle class as I was growing up, but on the worldwide scale, we were ridiculously high income.

Middle income is anyone from $9,000 a year down to $900 a year. $900! I made more than that as a counselor at Texlake! I knew that the distribution of wealth and resources was out of whack, but I didn't realize that someone who made $1000 would be considered pretty solidly middle income. It kind of blows your mind.

Did you know a child dies every 2.9 seconds due to hunger? How many seconds have passed since you've started reading this? And that women living in poor countries are 250 times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than women in rich countries? TWO HUNDRED FIFTY TIMES. It's kind of ridiculous.

One of the things that I really liked about tonight was that it was more than just "this is what's going on in the world" - there was also information for action. Representatives from local organizations that fight hunger such as the LA Foodbank were there to talk about how they need help. They gave information on the "Feed the Hungry" that happens on campus every Tuesday afternoon where you can come make sandwiches and then go deliver them. And entry to the event was a $2 donation that goes straight to Oxfam.

So... yeah. That was my evening. And now that I'm done with my preaching, I'll leave a little video for someone else to do a brief 1:08 of proselytizing and then be done!

TeeVee

Will and I watch a lot of television. Well, if I were being fair, I'd say that I watch a lot of television, and Will sits around while I'm doing it. I don't know why I'm such a tv watcher - I think part of it may be that I consider myself an observer of the human condition, and tv allows me to observe without really participating.

But it's probably not that deep.

There are something like 50 shows on our Tivo Season Pass, and I'm not even exaggerating. (In fact, I just checked, and it's actually 62.) Also, a lot of it is junk. I will totally admit to having The Girls Next Door and Real World Road Rules Challenge. I feel the need to note, however, that the former is one of the shows on my list where Will has stated that "he's okay if I watch while he's around." I mean, he doesn't actually like it or anything, but if I like it and want to watch it when he's around, he's not going to complain. He will complain, however, if I watch 18 Kids and Counting or The View. Those are strictly for times when he's not around.

Luckily, one of the places where our interests converge is Sci Fi. When we grew up we both watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, and when we got married, we got ourselves a joint birthday present that was the complete series, and watched the whole thing. It was deliciously nerdy.

We also were really big Stargate: SG-1 fans, though neither of us really got into Atlantis past the first season. Our plan is to DVD them at some point now that the show is over. We've just decided to give Stargate: Universe a shot, since that's new, and we now have a hole in our Friday nights since BSG is over. (Dancing robots?! Really? REALLY?!) Will was a big fan of the book that Flash Forward was based on, and we think that show has promise, though Will's losing interest quicker than I am.

And our most recent foray is V, which we just watched last night. This one also has a lot of promise, and you kind of have to give a show that has two Firefly alums a shot, right?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Will and I are nerds. So it's lucky we ended up together, or else his wife would all "ew" and my husband would be all "aren't guys supposed to be the ones that like this?"

Though sometimes Will rolls his eyes at me when I talk about my May the Fourth Star Wars parties, so maybe we're not compeletely matched.

Bouchon

Authors note: After I read this I realized how pretentious I sound. Apologies in advance.

Will and I are foodies-in-training. Will would probably say that we actually are foodies, but I'm going to keep us in the "in training" category for the time being. We did eat at Iggys over the summer when we were in Singapore, which was ranked the 45th best restaurant in the world in 2009, so there's that. We are also big fans of Tom Collichio's Craft (though I did get really sad when pasty chef Catherine Schimenti left - to the point that I found out her name so that I could see if she was working somewhere else, because I REALLY miss the Peanut Butter Cup dessert she made), and have gone to Gordon Ramsay at The London West Hollywood a couple of times. The one time we went to Mario Batali's Osteria Mozza we were less than impressed, but we loved Brandon and Moye's wedding reception at Christophe Émé's Michelin-starred Ortolan (we were with them at their initial visit to the restaurant, a year prior to them getting married). Michelin-starred Joe's is another favorite of ours (though we haven't been there in a while - Will, let's change that), and I'm pretty sure I got a glimpse of heaven when we had a 12 course meal at Providience (which currently has TWO Michelin stars). Guys, one of the first courses were these upscale jello shots with liquor INSIDE the jello. And a cheese course! It doesn't GET better than that.

Have I dropped enough big names yet? (The self-conscious part of me wants to point out that we've had 2 1/2 years to do this tour of foodie LA.)

One time, when we were at Gordon Ramsay at The London West Hollywood there was a couple next to us who were probably new to this fancy eating thing (I can understand that, having once been a newbie myself) and I heard one quietly ask the other "Where's the salt and pepper?" I rolled my eyes and whispered to Will "Did you hear them? They're looking for the salt and the pepper!" Because, seriously, you you don't season your food. Your food came the way Gordon Ramsay wanted you to eat it, so eat it that way! And then I was immediately mortified at myself for being such a food snob.

I don't know how these things happen! Just 3 years ago I was irritated that Will took me to Spago when I really just wanted an In-n-Out burger. The last time I was home I was talking about one of my friends about all these nice restaurants we were eating at and she reminded me that before I'd moved out here I SWORE up and down that I didn't understand eating fancy food. I mean, it's only in your system for what, 24 hours? Why not just have a good burger? Oh, how things change.

ANYWAYS. One of the things we've said we want to do is go up to norCal for norCaly-type stuff, but also, The French Laundry. I mean, Thomas Keller's restaurant is pretty well known even among non-foodies, moreso than Per Se, even though in recent years that one has become more popular among some foodies. So when we found out that Thomas Keller was bringing a restaurant to LA, we were crazy excited.

Bouchon is opening the 18th, and after some persistent phone calls, Moye managed to get us a reservation for the 29th. I know it won't be the same as The French Laundry or Per Se (the latter of which Brandon and Moye actually went to when they were in NYC earlier this year), but I'm still really excited to go.

I don't know when I became such a food snob, but I think I'm okay with it.

Oh! And since this is an LA thing, I can even say that this post goes along with the original theme of this blog! Sweet!

Exercise

So you know how this summer was supposed to be "The Summer Of Fitness"?

Yeah, didn't happen.

I guess I just have to figure out what exercise I enjoy enough, or at least get enough out of, that I'm able to overcome the dread that I have every time it's time for me to go do it.

The month or so before I went to Australia my junior year of college I was living at home, since school in Australia goes March-November, as their summer is flipped from the US's. While I was living at home, my mom made me go to Jazzercise with her regularly, which I originally hated her for, but then, in spite of myself, ended up actually enjoying a bit. Which begs the question:

Is Jazzercise the only kind of exercise I will ever enjoy?

At one point I looked up nearby Jazzercise places, and one of them had a picture of women all excited to be doing Jazzercise.

Old women.

Not old like you, mom. Like, really old. Maybe in their 70s.

Am I too young for the only kind of exercise I will ever enjoy?

I suppose I should look at other options. There are exercise classes here on campus that I could look at. Each semester they also have the Try-Athalon, where you (and a buddy or two, if you want) have 3 weeks to do the equivalent to an Iron Man. I mean, between Will and I, we can totally swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles in 3 weeks. Right?

I think we're going to give it a shot. And actually do it this year, rather than just say we're going to do it and then fail to darken the door of the gym for the entire time that the Try-Athalon is happening.

So we're going to do it.

For reals.

Stop rolling your eyes.

My blog

When I told Will I was joining NaBloPoMo, after he checked to make sure I wasn't having a stroke or something, since saying that outloud sounds pretty odd, his next question was "who reads that blog anways?" Well, according to Google Reader there are 6 people using GR on it. My guess is that I have myself, Will, Mom, Dad, and Dani, which makes me wonder who the 6th person is. Unless it's myself, but under my old gmail address before I switched from my maiden name to my married name.

My LJ was totally public for a really long time, and then it went mostly-private and now I don't use it at all (just ignore the fact that it says it was recently updated - that's an automated thingie). Part of it is that I know I ought to watch what I say in case some student I work with or potential future supervisor or someone else comes across it. My facebook is pretty guarded for the same reason - I occasionally have to unlink myself in pictures or delete the posts of friends or random JCers that I think may be inappropriate. So part of it is the question of what I need to do in order to keep it job-friendly, especially since sometimes I think that things that are job-friendly don't appear to be in hindsight. I tried the whole 365 Recipies thing since food is generally generic enough to not be troublesome, but that failed miserably. My hope is that, at one point, possibly years from now, there will be 365 recipes on it.

I've considered snarky book reviews, like BSC Revisited or Sheep Are In. But then I need the time to both read a book AND review it. Food obviously loses my interest. I can't write about entertaining student stories (or, at least, I can't publicly post them) because of FERPA and privacy and whatnot. And my life in general isn't all that entertaining, though Will and I are trying to work on living it up a bit while we're living in SoCal, since we don't know how much longer we'll live here.

So my guess is that this blog will be a bit of a combination of everything. Some cooking, when I get around to it. Snarky reviews of books (and, apparently, movies based on Disney television shows). A dash of work, when appropriate. And a smattering of my life, when it's been entertaining enough to merit it.

NaBloPoMo

So I am nowhere near the writer to consider doing NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month, where people try to write a 50,000 novel in the month of November. Nor do I particularly have the desire to. However, I've been doing this blogging/journaling/whatnot thing on and off since 2000 when I discovered livejournal as a wee little freshman in college. And lately it's been more off than on. One of the blogs that I follow said that they'd be participating in NaBloPoMo which is a totally ridiculous shorthand name for National Blog Posting Month. Ridiculous name aside, I'm going to give this thingie a shot.

I don't know that I really have enough to say to post every day for the month of November, and this may prove a bit difficult on my busier weeks or weekends, and when I'm out of town, but I'll give it a shot anyways. So, let's see if this lasts a day, a week, or I actually make it through the month!

The Lizzie McGuire Movie

So I've been sick for the past few days and after watching countless episodes of Charmed (which apparently I watch now) and playing hours upon hours of Farmville on facebook (come be my neighbor!) I've started watching movies we have around the house.

It started with The Thomas Crowne Affair, which is always fun. Then Will went off to watch some deeply disturbing movie that he didn't invite me to because he knew I'd probably never recover from, and I decided to go the opposite route and watch Center Stage. Which is always a fun dance feel-good movie. Then I discovered that I also own The Baby-sitters Club movie, which, who knew? Also, did you know that they have episodes of the tv-show on YouTube? Now I know what I'll be watching tomorrow!

I'm currently watching The Lizzie McGuire Movie, which I also didn't realize I had. This movie? Is kind of ridiculous.

So Lizzie graduates from the eighth grade (which, am I the only one who went to a school that didn't have an actual graduation for the 8th grade? The first time I got to wear those fashionable gowns and flat caps was when I finished high school) and then went on a school trip to Rome, with her bff Gordo (who has a crush on her, but she doesn't know it) and her archenemy Kate (who she ends up rooming with, of course). As with most 13 year olds who go on school trips to Rome, it turns out she looks EXACTLY like a Italian signer that's one half of a famous duo, except Lizzie's a blonde and Isabella's a brunette. She meets Paulo, who's all "Hi strange American girl who has never heard of me, let's go around Italy alone together." And Lizzie's all "Sure!" Because she is an idiot. She hops on his little motorcycle thing and goes through the streets of Italy, with a strange boy, basically unsupervised. What are these people thinking? This is a REALLY BAD IDEA. Anyways, Isabella's MIA for some reason I didn't catch, but they're supposed to perform at the The International Music Video Awards so Paulo convinces her to perform with him, saying she can lip sync and they'll play a track in the background.

As a side note, I fail to understand why, if Isabella is such a HUGE musician that she's presenting at the The International Music Video Awards, why no one has told Lizzie that she looks like her. I mean, they may live in middle America, but these people sing English songs, so I don't know why there's not one person who hasn't seen a picture of her before and was like "Hey, Lizzie, here's your double, but with brown hair."

So anyways, Paulo and Lizziebella go around town, because apparently they have lots of free time that they don't need to spend learning the choreography for the awards show, and pose for pictures and sign stuff. At one point, when she's signing some guy's arm she writes Liz, then realizes she's supposed to be Isabella, not Lizzie, and then scratches it out and writes Isabella. Why are these people so stupid? That's totally obvious. I mean, she dyed her hair AND she forgot her name in the same week? Something is up, guys.

They spend an afternoon on the choreography for the show, because apparently that's all they need, and Paulo teaches her that when you lip sync you should sing also, because it looks more real, and the volume on your mike is down anyways. While they're out doing that, the teacher decides to go check on Lizzie and realizes she's not there, and then Gordo said it was all a ruse so that HE could sneak out, and the principal in charge of the trip, instead of being all "Um, that makes no sense, because she's not here, but you are," is all "I KNEW you were trouble!" and sends Gordo home.

Apparently when you send a 13 year old boy home from Rome it consists of buying him a ticket and dropping him off at the gate, without ensuring that he actually gets on the plane. Because, sure enough, he doesn't, because he runs into Isabella who tells him Paulo is trouble - he always lip syncs, but he's not going to put the track for Lizziebella this time, so she will singing for real, sound horrible, and ruin her career. But they find Lizzie in the NICK of time at the concert, and Isabella uses her own voice to cover for Lizzie, and turns down Paulo's track, so the world hears his voice.

And damn is it bad.

How is Paulo SUCH a bad singer? (see 1:15) Like, I could get that he's not amazing or whatever, but this boy sounds like a 13 year old whose voice is in the middle of cracking. It's really, really bad. How did he become a singer in the first place? Of course he gets found out, and then Isabella convinces Lizzie, who as far as I remember has never had any singing training in the series (and I'd know, because I watched this show regularly when I was in college) to sing onstage, sans track, in front of thousands. And sounds good. What? I mean, I get it, Hillary Duff needed to boost her singing career, but can we have a little setup or realism here? Also, Paulo should have probably found out whether or not Lizzie's voice was good, because since she's apparently amazing his plan wouldn't have worked anyways, since Lizzie can actually sing.

After the performance they go back to the hotel, and Lizzie's parents (who flew all the way to Rome because they missed her, which, WHAT? and then managed to get to the performance in the NICK of time and see it) tell her she's grounded for the rest of the summer and she kisses Gordo on top of the hotel looking over Rome. And then there are fireworks, which I'm not sure if they're meant to be metaphorical or if that was just really good timing for the kiss. Aaaaaand, credits.

This movie is completely ridiculous. And I own it. And will watch it again. Go figure.

Discoveries in LA

Yesterday on our way to dinner with some friends at Umamai Burger (omg, I love this place) Will and I passed through the Byzantine Latino Quarter. I didn't know such a place even existed!

And it smelled really good.

We have decided that we ought to explore later, during the day.