Posts (page 2)

Big deal - I am becoming a citizen tomorrow morning!! I had my citizenship interview today, and after many "no, I am not a habitual drunkard," and "no, I have never solicited prostitution," and "no, I am in no way associated with the Communist Party in ANY COUNTRY," it looks like I passed!

To check my knowledge of English, I had to read "They go so well together" and write "Today we went to the store." I kept writing "store" as "crack house" but in the end the nice lady let me pass anyway.

The whole process is mildly absurd, from the very beginning. Lots of bureaucracy, of course. Lots of confusing directions and strangely-worded questions (Have you ever committed a crime for which you were not caught?)
In the interview, apart from asking you the same questions that are on the application to check if you have a "good character" and "values", I got asked the following:
How many stars are there on the flag?
What do the stars represent?
Who is the head of the executive branch?
Who is the current vice-president?
What is the most important right granted by the Constitution?
In which month do we vote for the president?

Weird, right? Especially the stars - do you think I would be a bad citizen if I didn't know the symbolism? To be honest, the US flag is much less interesting than many others. It's full of boring numbers. If you don't believe me that other flags are way more interesting, read about the Sri Lankan Flag or the South Korean one.

Anyway, so the final step in the naturalization process is taking the citizenship oath. It's sort of a big deal. I used to have a problem with the "I agree to bear arms on behalf of the Untied States" part and have let it go. Now I have serious issues with the fact that the oath ends with "so help me God." I think it's detrimental to rely on help from a non-existent being, don't you? But then, maybe, if I fail at any of my oath statements, I can say, God didn't help me? If one of our fundamental rights is the freedom of religion, that includes not being part of any religion, why am I, as a non-affiliated, non-religious person, required to acknowledge the existence of God? And please don't tell me about TRADITION. Not all traditions deserve to be respected.

Each word of the oath has to be said for it to be valid. In a room of 1,500 people taking the oath I may get away with mouthing something else, like "so help me Mom" or "so halp meowed cat" but there are only going to be 10 or so of us tomorrow (or so I hear).

Well, whatever. We all know I'll say the words.

How convenient that I started throwing up about an hour into my six-hour flight from Portland to Honolulu. What a friggin brilliant idea that my body had to make sure I lost those two extra pounds on my belly and was prepped for the beach. Today was the first meal since the flight two days ago that I have been able to hold down. Well, it's been half an hour now since breakfast, so we'll see. The other meals came up a lot sooner, so I'm crossing my fingers that this horrible stomach virus has chilled out. Because not being able to drink water in this very hot and humid city is going to kill me. The humiliation of nearly-public vomiting could also kill me.

Anyway, other than the vomiting-all-the-time thing, it's been a sweet couple of days, and a couple more to go. I am at a hotel at Kaimana beach, which is very mellow and laid-back. If I crave noise, smellier water, and more interesting people-watching, Waikiki is just a few minutes of walking up the beach walk. I probably should not go there today in case the memory of throwing up for the twentieth time in two hours will make me throw up.

When I was leaving Portland, I remember there were exactly three nice days in the past four months that were not rainy and windy. Three. At the airport the thermostat read 44 as I was walking in, and it was, of course, it was rainy, cold, and windy. I left my puffy winter jacket in my boyfriend's car, packed a swimsuit, flops, and some light clothes in my carry-on, just in case my luggage got lost, and boarded the plane with crossed fingers that I was not hallucinating and the forecast for Honolulu was, in fact, mid-eighties and sunny.

Landing was euphoric. The view of Oahu was gorgeous from up high. The ocean! The ships at Pearl Harbor! The craters! The greeeeeeeeeeen greeeeeeeeen hills! Oh my.
Upon arrival in the built-on-acid airport (Wiki-Wiki bus, anybody??), another euphoria - this time of THE HEAT. It's HOT HERE. AND HUMID. AND THERE IS AN OCEAN. AND PALM TREES. OH MY GOD. And the sun is shining. This is all I need to remember what it's like to have happy weather. Sun and warmth.

After two days in paradise, I am ready to stay.

Well, some may say Honolulu is not really Hawaii, especially not the Waikiki area. Tis true. But on my first ever visit to the islands, on this very nice expenses-paid work trip, I do not need to discover the real Hawaii. All I need is to re-center, remember that the work I have comes with great perks like this, get an envy-inducing tan at the lovely beach, and hang out with some sea turtles at the reef.

Over and out, I'll be near that palm tree in my bikini eating a papaya if you need me.

Productive things I did this weekend:
--taxes (mostly expletives follow so use your imagination)
--volunteered at a cat shelter and helped adopt four wonderful kitties

Unproductive things I did this weekend:
--played "rise of nations" for a really really ridiculous amount of time (and couldn't understand why newly created citizens wouldn't go to work at the nearest mine or woodcutting camp and instead hang out and yawn?!)
--got lost driving and sat in traffic
--slept A LOT
--watched "Enchanted"
--had a migraine
--stared at the wall
--read gossip blogs

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I am so fed up with my boss. What the fuck, dude.

Thank you, Michael Jackson

Obama ANYBODY '08, really. Well, almost anybody. I used to think it will be a hard decision choosing between two very intelligent, powerful, and altogether wonderful candidates like Clinton and Obama. The more I hear Hilary talk, and the more whining emails I receive from her campaign that continue to jump from one Obama-bashing claim to another, I am beginning to think I don't even want to see her as a VP. She's been very big on how Obama is outspending her by millions in each state. But. But, Hillary, when you were outspending HIM with your PERSONAL money, didn't you say "money doesn't win votes"?

Anyway, Obama is in Portland and I feel like it's sunny and warm even though it's pretty dreary and will rain in about thirty seconds. What a genius speaker. What good ideas. So full of truthiness.

And, damn. What a perfect running mate Richardson would make. Or, well, Stephen Colbert would be okay, too.

WATCH THIS VIDEO

For anybody who is into blogs, this video is obligatory. If you don't watch it, somebody hack into your email and send porn to everybody in your address book, the space bar will start sticking, and you will have to connect to the web using dial-up aol FOREVER.

My boss is currently on a long flight to Tokyo, and then Seoul, and then HK, and then back to Tokyo. Work stuff. Heaven. Two weeks of pure work bliss. Not because I hate my boss, but because the micromanaging and increasing OCD kinda started to get on my nerves. He cleaned his office to shining spotlessness before he left, and it's the most organized I've ever seen it. This is so like my mom. My mom will clean the entire house before leaving for any sort of trip or vacation. She will not only do the 'regular' clean, like washing the floors and vacuuming, but will break out all sort of random projects like sorting out the storage boxes in the garage or going through her closet. I love her.
The thing is, my boss (I'm kinda sick of calling him the boss so let's just call my boss Mr. M) probably forgot something. If this were me leaving, my office would be in a state of disaster, but I would walk out with everything I need.

Switching gears, today is the last day to glaze in ceramics. I'm not terribly excited to be near the finish line for the term, because glazing ruins about a third of my pots. We did a wood fire over the weekend, and despite our best efforts we didn't get up to temperature by a few hundred degrees. So, results overall were not stunning. What was even less stunning is that two of my pots were damaged during unloading, and no apology note was left. I'm betting on a bitchy woman or a stoned dude.

If any pots come out pretty, there are going to be pictures. If not, I'll pretend I can't upload them or something.

P.S. - http://www.kiefferceramics.com/

is aspartame, and Snapple. I got a migraine from one of your 'juice drinks' because the "low calorie" sign was hidden on the label. Once a bought a lipton iced tea, having missed the 'diet' in tiny letters, and proceeded to have a two-day migraine. Yesterday, I drank a Snapple, and boom, three minutes later I was out. I'm still kinda out. And I'm kinda thinking about burning down Snapple's headquarters for being evil fucking assholes. 

Hey, so I'm a little concerned here. My wrist appears! to be broken. By appears I mean there is all the proof but for the x-rays which come in tomorrow. It certainly hurts like a bitch. And given that it's been broken three times before, and that I spent six hours throwing last weekend, I'm not very surprised. And by throwing I mean as in clay on the wheel, not as in big rocks at stupid people (which I would enjoy as much as any sort of throwing).

Anyway, I was taking it easy until I went to the doctor, who was young and very much in like with himself, and very fancily told me about how after one damages the wrist joint there is all sort of "degeneration" and I'll basically have this problem forever and he's sorry to tell me, but basically I can never have my wrist back and he is "sorry he had to tell me this". Dude, it's not cancer. I'm not dying. Why are you so smug? He did a lot of examination mumbling things "to himself" like "yeah, yeah, there is definitely damage here... hmmm that's not good...". I wanted to slap him and tell him he is definitely not getting laid otherwise he wouldn't feel superior telling me bad news. Only people that don't get laid do this shit.

And it does suck, of course, I'm not saying it's all kittens and sunshine, because it means pottery is out of the question for some time, which really does upset me a lot. Pottery is my happy place. On the other hand, maybe it's a break I should take advantage of and sign up for Arabic and Math instead, which I've been meaning to do for some time. My hand is in a brace right now, and I already realize how much more uncomfortable I'm going to be with a full cast. I can barely type (pain), it's impossible to use the mouse with my right hand (pain, brace in the way), I can't turn faucets or even bottle caps, it's hard to drive, washing dishes is a bigger pain in the butt, I can't scratch my left side, etc etc. But, having done this three times before in a much less mature stage of my life I think I can handle it just fine this time around. (if I can't the next post is going to be super whiny)