cindy's world

I just watched a news story about a local 10 year old boy attending college.
He is AMAZINGLY cute. His mom’s a Chinese immigrant with a masters degree in Business and his dad’s white, a college professor.
It’s already rough that the UCs have increased their fees something like 84% since 2000, but imagine having to pay that 8 years earlier than planned. Of course that saves you more $ in the long run.
They asked him where he wants to do his grad school education, and he said he’s considering Harvard, MIT, and Cal Tech among others. When they asked him what his preference is, he said, “The one that offers me the best scholarship.” He is SO Chinese.

And now the news is telling me that porn industry actresses make $15K to $20K a month. Dude. If I’m not a child prodigy (haha, waaaay too late for that) and not doing porn, I guess I’m just doomed to be a mediocre blogger writing about dental visits.

Today is a vewwwwy special day. Today, someone close to me is going to get a lot of attention, especially if I can help it. Today, my maid of honor Vicky turns…thirty-two!! That means another year of her support, friendship, sisterhood under MY belt. Yup. Happy birthday, Vicky!!! I can’t be home to help her celebrate it, but she’s out of town on a mandatory work trip anyway. Poor Vicky.

*popping champagne cork*
I have a bottle of Rose Champagne for you when you get home, VICKY!!! YAAAYYY!!!

Tuesday evening, I popped in at my instructor’s new bartending class and gave him a CD-ROM on which I’d burned his edited manual. He handed me two salt and sugar margarita rimmers, one for me and the other for Gym Trainee. Since I happened to walk in just as the class went on break, we had time to chat for a bit. He asked me how the bartending competition went and which students showed up, and then he asked where I’m looking to apply for bartending jobs. I told him I wasn’t sure yet, it depended on where we’re moving to. He said that after we settle down into our new home, to contact him and he’ll help me out on the job hunt, as in, he knows people, nudge nudge. NICE!

I also had a lengthy conversation with childhood dentist pal Andy (bridesmaid Sandy’s brother), who said he knows about the overpriced dentist office I’d gone to and that he has a patient who walked into his office with a $11K dental plan from the overpriced office, and pricing the exact same dental work item for item, in Andy’s office (which doesn’t even take insurance), the same plan came out to be about $4K. Now that’s just ridiculous! He then explained to me how doctors’ offices which are under HMO insurance plans find ways to charge patients as much out-of-pocket as possible and to turn out as many patients as quickly as possible, in order to make money because the insurance doesn’t pay doctors enough to cover the actual cost of the patient. So many doctors will sell the patient unnecessary and expensive upgrades, especially upgrades and services not covered by insurance so they can charge whatever they want for it (i.e. the $1275 porcelain filling). He said you see the aggressive upselling most commonly from Asian and Persian dentists. Well, the dentist I saw is Vietnamese and her partner is Persian, what a coincidence. As for my undescended wisdom tooth sitting in my sinus cavity? He said he wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole and can’t believe this dentist tried to talk me into oral surgery to dig it out. Andy told me to pick up my x-rays from the overpriced dentist’s office, come see him in his office, and he’ll price his services affordably even without insurance. I told him I can change my insurance to a PPO for next year, so he’s going to check me to see what needs to be done now and what can wait until I get out of my current dental HMO. I picked up my x-rays Wednesday morning (the dental office receptionist was professional about it and didn’t give me any problems) and have an appointment to see Andy next week. Yay!

But just barely. (Figuratively speaking, of course.) I’m not ready or able yet to write about the crapola that happened to me yesterday, so I just thought I’d drop a hello to my readers and say that yes, I’m still here, and yes, I’ll be blogging at some point in the future.

I got some life updates about several people recently. They’re not where you’d expect them to be, not even where they themselves expected to be, and yet everyone’s working out and happy. But maybe we all fought it at one point just cuz it’s not what we’d imagined our futures to be like, or to be with.

I think sometimes when you try to force round pegs into square holes, you waste precious time overly focused/obsessed with this impossible task when really, the square pegs are RIGHT THERE if you’d just drop the round peg-leg gimp and look around.

I received a book recommendation via email this morning. Law Clerk buddy Adam thought that I ought to read mystery novel “Mandarin Plaid” by S.J. Rozan, saying that the heroine detective is “a short cute modern ethnically burdened tae kwan do throwing brilliant clueless hot tempered Cantonese chick who thinks she looks like a peasant. It didn’t make me think of you, I swear.” I wrote back asking for his literary opinion on the book and author, and in his response he wrote “It’s entertaining sometimes to watch a cute young hot-tempered fast-talking overanalyzing Asian female fly off the handle.”

Talk about mastering back-handed compliments. But I’m sure he was just referring to the heroine character of the book. =P

MOH Vicky and I came across this small store that sells Japanese stuff. Cute stuff, like cartoon videos and colorful Japanese snacks and trinkets. I was musing at the video/DVD section and the older saleslady (whom I assumed was the owner) said that if I liked those, I should check THESE out. Then she went in the back and returned with some anime porn, and they were all on a special with a large discount. So I was all excited to see anime porn, especially really cute anime, and I left the store with a bag of anime porn DVDs and a few snacks for $29.09! What a deal! As we were walking away, MOH Vicky and I shared a bag of multi-colored puffy snacks, like Pops! cereal (man, I haven’t had those for awhile!) that looks like those long Cheetos Puffs, and she laughed at me and said I shouldn’t be buying porn cuz I’m about to be married. Why?! Am I not allowed to have porn if I’m married? Then it makes even more sense to stock up now while I’m in my last months of singledom, right? But she couldn’t bring down my mood, as we walked and chatted, I was looking extremely forward to getting home and seeing what these anime porn videos are all about. I had high hopes for them.

But I never made it home. I woke up instead. Bummer.

Yesterday evening, while Mr. W and I were having dinner with my parents at their house, Mr. W out of nowhere said, “Did you tell your parents you’re going back to school?”

Me: >:O !!!

I KNOW I’d told him that I can’t even tell my parents I’m taking bartending classes because the thought of me getting a 2nd job, and as a BARTENDER of all things, would… well, I don’t know what it would make them do. But it wouldn’t be pretty sunshine, roses and butterflies.

So I glared at him and said, “NO. I didn’t.” And tried to leave it at that, but my mom started asking.
“You’re going back to school? For another degree?”
I said quickly, “No, it’s just like jujitsu where I’m going to a college that teaches things but I’m not working toward a degree.” Good call on the “jujitsu” cuz I think they misunderstood me, thinking I’m just retaking jujitsu.
My dad asked, “Do you get units or credit?”
I said, “No, I can apply under the college directly and get units if I want another degree, but since I’m not, this isn’t graded and it’s just for fun.”
Dad said, “Oh, so you just learn for yourself,” and nodded approvingly. He’s all about enriching your mind and obeying your thirst for knowledge.
I said yes, told them I’m attending a course just for fun one day a week with my coworker, and segued into a story about how Vanessa was enrolled in jujitsu as a student of the college and wasn’t aware of it, so she found out later on that she was graded whereas I’m not a student of the college, so I wasn’t graded. The subject ended.

*whew*.
*glaring at the W*

You guys know my maid of honor, Vicky, right? She called me and told me a story so traumatic for her but so funny for me that I told her she needs a blog. Since she doesn’t have one and doesn’t want to start one, she typed out the story and emailed it to me so that she could make a guest appearance on my blog. So here it is. Main characters are Vicky, her boyfriend Glenn, and her dog, a medium-sized breed of hunting dog called a viszla, Ares:
~ * ~
There is a giant grassy piece of property with grazing cows on it about 2 miles away from where I live. Ares has been really restless in the house so Glenn and I took him to the massive field yesterday. It looked really nice and serene from afar; rolling green hills, a winding dirt path, and the occasional small herd of cows. I imagined myself as Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music.

Ares bolted past us and I grabbed onto his collar. I immediately felt a slimy goo all over my hand. I got him to sit down and took a good look at what he did. He was covered in fresh, green, slimy cow poop! He rolled in it so much that it covered his left eye and it found its way into his ear canal. He was covered in it. The entire left side of his body was one big poopy mess. All I saw was a yellow-greenish slime of chewed blades of grass. I thought I was going to throw up. Glenn tried to consol me [by reminding me that cows are vegetarian and] saying, “It’s alright; it’s just mushed up grass!” I didn’t care. This green slime digested through four cow stomachs and exited from a cow’s butt. Nothing could make this okay.

Why do dogs do this? Is Ares just really retarded or is this something most dogs would do?
~ * ~
“Green slime that digested through four cow stomachs and exited from a cow’s butt”!! HAHAHA, she kills me. That’s what you get for naming a dog after the Greek god of savage warfare. By the way, this is mostly an indoor dog who cuddles with her in bed in the mornings…

I’ve been surfing on the ‘net all morning. First I checked my email and read through the many strings from my Association board, discussing fun stuff like the consequences of not paying your monthly dues. Then, I looked at an email from a discount traveling site advertising cheap last minute getaways. That led to my thinking, “I’d always wanted to visit Prince Edward Island. I’m gonna look that up.” I’m an “Anne of Green Gables” fan — the novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery, not the TV show. I’d always wanted to live a week in the beautiful lush landscaping described in the books, doing things the “old-fashioned” way, running through country paths scented with wild hibiscus and lavender to visit my best friend who would live at the gabled cottage next door. Next door being, an acre over. How different from the houses and neighborhoods we’d been looking in lately. I’d announced before that I’d be heartbroken if Prince Edward Island has been taken over by technology and developed, and now resembles New York or Los Angeles. So, today, I finally found out.

Prince Edward Island’s official online site says that the central northern part of the island, now named “Anne’s Land” as it is the setting of Anne’s story, remains largely unchanged from how it was described by Ms. Montgomery. 2008 happens to be the 100th anniversary of the year “Anne of Green Gables” was first published, and the Island is doing a huge celebration. How charming!

2008 also happens to be the year we’re poor.

I downloaded the “Anne’s Land” section of the site’s free guidebook, and looked through it wistfully. All morning, aside from a couple of blog posts, this has been what I was doing. Mr. W has been at the gym for hours, I’m stranded at his house until he comes back, and all I’d described above was researched/done on his laptop. In the middle of the laptop’s screen, very quick lines flash by. It’s barely perceptible, but you do see red flickers if the background happens to be dark. What these flickers are, are short sentences written and run in a program that Mr. W recently purchased. They’re designed to be “read” by your subconscious as you work on your computer, and your conscious doesn’t pick them up, but the subconscious “programs” you. Remember that old scandal about Coca-cola and popcorn ads that used to flash invisibly in-between movie frames to get people to buy more Coke and popcorn, then got banned because the government ruled it was unethical and illegal to “mind control” people for financial gain? I don’t know how to turn the program off, but I’m also not sure what all the lines say, so right now I may be programmed to do something horrible. Knowing Mr. W, it’s probably stuff like “You will be 12% body fat.” “You are comfortable with your finances.” “You will be wealthy.” But it could also be, “You want to give everything to your fiance.” “You will say ‘yes’ to everything he asks.” “You feel your horniness increasing.” Cuz I mean, he KNEW he was going to leave me stranded for HOURS with nothing to do while he was at the gym, and the laptop is just sitting here, glowing at me in the room. Hours of fun brainwashing.

If I start to do things that are out of character or not in my best interest, and Mr. W appears to be exponentially happier, then you guys know what has happened to me.