In Limbo

I talked to Jarrod about this the other night, but I am not happy with the present state I am in right now. Problem is, I'm not quite sure how to really change it.

I feel like I'm in limbo, I'm waiting. I feel like I'm a piece of luggage on an endless flight that doesn't quite know where to land yet. My life feels like it's on hold or something.

A. I'm waiting to find a full-time job. While my part-time position has been just fine, and I am very grateful that I have it, I still need and want to find something full-time, in my degree field. But this one is probably the hardest one to change, as there is not a whole lot of opportunities out there just yet and I can't just force someone to hire me.

B. I'm waiting to move out. This one will only happen after I acquire A.

C. I'm waiting to move on in life with Jarrod. It's all very exciting to think about what's to come, but again, at the moment I'm just waiting.

D. I'm waiting for Jarrod to be out of school and come home. I doubt C is happening before this one, so I'll just have to sit tight. Furthermore, I'm waiting for some of my other friends to graduate and come back home.

E. I'm waiting to feel better again. Now that I have a slightly new-found motivation to exercise, I'm anxious to feel better again. I'm ready to not feel tired after climbing a couple flights of stairs, I'm ready to be able to catch a cold and not have it knock me over for a couple days (I'll put up with one day, that's all, haha), I'm ready to have more tolerance for things. But, as we all know, one of the biggest evils of exercise is that you see little to no benefit in the beginning and it sucks majorly, so it makes you want to quit. Well, this time I don't think I really can afford to.

I was thinking about this earlier: while theatre in high school was awesome for me because it gave me something to do and a good group of friends, when I decided to drop dance classes in Junior year was probably one of the worst things I could have done health-wise; I quit ballet, pointe, jazz, and tap cold turkey and didn't find any new activities. I've been without exercise for over 5 years now, and I need to quit thinking I can go without it, buck up, and just do it. My lungs will thank me for it later, I'm sure. So I am on the long trek forward to gain back some tolerance and hopefully see lots of improvement. I read a story of a girl with CF once who was like me, started exercising when she was in her mid 20's, and now runs marathons. I hope I can get to a point similar to that.

So yeah. Lots of waiting. And E is about the only part of this I have major control over. The rest is either just going to unfold with time or is completely out of my hands. I have a feeling that I'm either going to look back on this year or two years of my life and either I will find that I did a lot of growing and changing or that it was a complete waste of time. Right now, I'm feeling like it's a waste of time. Who likes to wait?

Just another "wimp-ification" of America

I just found an article. It ticks me off. You can find the original article here.

Apparently doctors want hot dogs and other typically-kid foods redesigned to reduce the risk of choking. Other choking hazards mentioned included hard candies, nuts, peanut butter, and grapes. The whole thing seems just stupid to me. First of all I, and many other kids like me, have survived my childhood with no damage due to choking on stuff. And that was all before the choking hazard warnings, laws, and regulations we have now. Secondly, once again, where are the parents in this thing? Is anyone really that stupid to feed these things to their children? (Yes, Jamie, yes there is.)

If you wanna give your child a hot dog, here's a novel idea: cut it up! Same with grapes. Or another thought: wait till they're a little older and can handle more solid foods. I mean, why does someone have to tell us these things?! If you give someone a piece of food bigger than they can handle, they might choke. It's not rocket science.

Oh, and I like how the article calls for a "mandatory system . . . to label foods with appropriate warnings according to their choking risk, to conduct detailed surveillance and investigate food-related choking incidents, and to warn the public about emerging food-related choking hazards."

Emerging food-related chocking hazard? As far as I remember, grapes have been on the menu since ancient Greece. And I'd bet that the Greecians had a couple babies choke now and then too. So... how is this emerging? And to think that someone, somewhere is actually going to dedicate money to studying this just infuriates me. I have a real problem with people who conduct dumb, unneeded studies of things. As a person who has a disease that currently has no cure, I can't stand to see this money going to waste on these sorts of things. Yes, I know some children die of choking hazards, but I am going to guess it's not that many. And maybe if we started forcing parents to have so sense about parenting, the number might go down. I can think of 50 better things to research than if a hot dog needs to be redesigned so a child can eat it. (Speaking of which, how would someone redesign the hot dog? It's been this way for so long, it seems downright appaling to think of a hot dog being shaped like a hamburger or something. Elgh!)

Not your old cookies

Thanks to Print Magazine on Twitter, I was introduced to: Helvetica cookie cutters.

Being a design/type nerd, I think these are pretty cute. If I ever brought them to a party, I doubt anyone would really get the significance, but if it was a party with designers I assume the effect would be a little different. Move over old letter cookies, we have TYPEFACES for our letters! Haha!

You can see what I'm talking about here.

An appropriate quote

I've got a little 'situation' going on right now, as I'll call it, and a little quote keeps popping in my head that is highly appropriate right now:

"If you're good at something never do it for free..."—Joker, from The Dark Knight

No Meat Today. Don't forget!

Merry Lent everyone!

Today is Ash Wednesday, and our first day during the season of Lent sans-meat. Sometimes it seems hard to come up with something to eat, unless you're a true vegetarian, so in honor of the day, I thought I would offer some suggestions :-). Add some of your own too if I missed them!

Grilled Cheese Sandwich  •  Egg Sandwich  •  Tuna Salad Sandwich  •  Peanut Butter Sandwich  •  PBJ  •  Waffles  •  Pancakes  •  Cheese Omelet  •  Scrambled Eggs and Hash Browns  •  Eggs Benedict  •  Eggs in general  •  French Toast  •  Cereal  •  Bagels  •  Toast  •  Vegetable Soup  •  Clam Chowder  •  Any "Cream of" Soup (minus the Cream of Chicken, haha)  •  Broccoli Cheddar Soup  •  Tomato Soup  •  Tomato Basil Bisque  •  Macaroni and Cheese  •  Buttered Pasta  •  Jamie Pasta (I might share my special recipe with you)  •  Fettuccini Alfredo  •  Spaghetti and Marinara sauce  •  Cheese Ravioli  •  Cheese Tortilini  •  Pasta con Broccoli with no chicken  •  Mashed Potatoes with Corn on top (not my favorite, but some people dig it)  •  Veggie Fried Rice  •  Shrimp Fried Rice  •  Fish Sticks  •  Shrimp  •  Seafood in general  •  Cheese Quesadilla  •  Veggie Fajitas  •  Fish Tacos  •  Nachos  •  Chips and queso/salsa  •  Cheese Fries  •  Salad  •  Tofu  •  Mozzerella Sticks  •  Bosco Sticks  •  Cheese Pizza  •  Pizza with any vegetable topping  •  Fruit

(I apologize if I made you hungry...)

I totally answered the phone at work like a Canadian today. I don't know where it came from and it wasn't intentional, but I was did not sound like I was from the midwest. I think I threw the caller off, too, because there was a bit of a pause before "Hi, I'd like to speak with..." Whoops!

Why oh why? (In textspeak: YOY?)

Today is day one of my new hours at work. So far so good.

My facebook finally changed over today. I knew it was coming because I was talking to my friend Paul the other day and he mentioned it, so I was sort of anxiously waiting for it to finally change over. And it did a few mintues ago. And I mean 'a few minutes ago' because about ten minutes before, I had closed out of the tab and it was still the [now] old version.

It's nothing drastic this time, which is nice. But I still must ask: why in the world do the developers there feel the need to change their damn site so much? I have never ever, in the history of my entire web browsing career, seen a site do an overhaul of their layout as often as FB. Granted, I wouldn't consider today's an overhaul, but even so, no site makes all these little changes as often. I truly don't understand it. It's not the like the new design improves functionality or speed or anything essential to make sure the site doesn't crash or the server isn't overloaded. The changes are always purely cosmetic, so to say. Sure, being a designer I care about the design and feel of a site, but their near-obsessive habit of changing things up is more of a nuisance.

Now that I've joined Twitter, I find it interesting how much facebook has been made to look like Twitter. You have your feed/home, you post your status/tweet, all of the profile pictures are square icons (all of those done by Twitter first,) and now with the new redesign, your Home and Profile links have been moved to the right. Wait... that's just like Twitter too! What's the deal?

Having been with the site (facebook) since nearly day 1 (I believe I joined about a year after it began) I have watched how the site has progressed and changed. And it has changed A LOT. Remember back in the day, when there was no "feed" and all of your updates (pokes, messages, friend requests) were in the middle column on your home page? Then they completely went nuts, added the feed (which creeped everyone out at first), moved all of your updates to the side panel, and took your profile info off of the main page and initiated the use of the tabs. Next, I remember the addition of applications, which some people went nuts with. It was bad design at first, because of all the tiny icons for every stinking application you added being located under you picture. And some people had, like, 90 of those dumb things! You would have to scroll down to infiity just to post on their wall. Then the Status was introduced, which also freaked people out at first. And then they had another overhaul and redid the entire site again, and everyone hated it. Much hatred. And then there was the chat, which was full of bugs at first and sucked. It's gotten better, though.

And there have been a lot of little updates along the way too. They dropped all the rounded corners on everything, thank goodness. Ever noticed how the button to post your status went from "Post" to "Share"? Seems like a much more friendly invitation *in soft floaty voice*: 'Here Jamie, share your thoughts with everyone.' And how it became "Connections" and not "Friends" when viewing your entire list? I guess they realized, in reality, most people aren't 'friends' with all of "Friends" on facebook.

Anyways. I'm kind of liking Twitter, now that I'm there. I will see if I stick with it, but for now it's like a shiny new toy and I'm enjoying it. It's got some good things going for it (which facebook might pick up at some point too, haha.) I like that you can customize your page a little, but not to the degree of a MySpace where most pages look tacky. The design is all very clean, it's not cluttered like facebook is, and there are no ads (hence: cleaner.)

And I like that I can follow Sesame Street. (Seriously, someone acts like they're posting as the characters, and it's awesome. Grover's posts crack me up!)

The end of the week, full of movies

If you didn't know it, I have Netflix. I love my Netflix. If you have Netflix too, we should be pals on there. Zip me an email about it.

Anyhoo, yesterday I watched Taken. I really liked it. It's not too often that a thriller/suspense/action movie does not go over the top on the action, but I felt that this one had the right amount. However, I did think the car chase when he is leaving in the Jeep Cherokee, pursued by the mobsters who own the brothel, was a tad drawn out. But overall this one is very good.

Being the person I am, though, I did find an issue with a couple of things script-wise. First of all, I realize that divorce can sometimes be a very unpleasant thing, and the former couple does not get along, but I felt the writing for Bryan and his former wife was a little over-the-top. A little too 'let's-make-this-really-obvious-they-can't-stand-each-other-and-he-is-the-victim-here' kind of thing. Secondly, I thought the girls' characters were really wreckless and... dense. Maybe I am that weird of a person, but are girls really like that? I am posing that as a question, truly; someone tell me if that's how things are with teens these days or no. But I was kind of taken (ba-dum-ching!) aback by how careless they were: they're in a strange place, they meet a guy, and completely trust him? And want to have sex with him, just because they're in Paris and "you might as well lose it sometime, why not in Paris."? If that's really the way teens are these days, heaven help the world. I'm not naive to think no one is like this, but the writing for them seemed like it was trying too hard to portray them as just your 'typical', silly, nonsensical (okay, downright stupid) teenage girls.

Second movie I finished today was Dor. I really like this one too. It was not your typical Bollywood film, which was kind of refreshing. It's good to know that not all that comes out of Bollywood is singing and dancing to the tenth degree, even though I enjoy it. Yes, this had it's songs and minimal dancing, but it was not the typical. I know foreign movies aren't everyone's thing, so I almost wish there would be an adaptation/replication of this one in America. The story is of two women. They both are married and both have to say goodbye to their husbands, for work I believe. Well, turns out the husbands are roommates, and one is killed and the living one is accused of his murder. He is then sentenced to death, but per Saudi law, he may be pardoned if the widow agrees to sign a paper saying he is pardoned. So, the wife of the accused sets out on a hopeless journey to get the permission from the widow.

It was such a great story, I really loved it. The music was quite nice, and I don't mean the songs they sang (though those were just fine too) but the instrumental songs played in the background. They were quite lovely, and incorporated a little of India tradition (think tabla and sitar) with classical tones from the West I felt. The only down side to the movie was that before the menu, there was about ten minutes of ads from Eros that you could not skip. Oh my gosh, they were so cheesy, haha, and kind of made me laugh. (But I realized how much I've been trained by American TV, because the ads seemed really long; a few were a minute long, another was about five minutes. Being used to thirty-second ads it was really difficult to sit through them and stay interested.)

Haiti

My heart goes out to those in Haiti. It looks so devestating down there.

I must admit, at first I didn't care. It just seemed like another natural disaster in some poor country. And then when we (the USA) said we were pledging ump-teen millions or billions of dollars of aid, I thought "We don't HAVE any money! How does this work?" But then I started looking at some pictures coming out of Haiti, and then I was interested.

There have been reports of looters also. On the surface, this sounds terrible. Why does it always have to be that any time something horrible happens, all the crooks come out in everyone and start stealing all they can? But then I really got thinking about it: if there was one bottle of water left in a store, and your family was starving, possibly dying, and you didn't know where else you would get water, what would you do? I am not condoning stealing something, but I think at that point when you are so desperate to help your family or yourself, your instinct and will to live kicks in and you are going to do whatever you have to. Just something I've been pondering.

On another note, don't you feel like an ass when you turn down people who ask for your donations to Haiti? I do. But, I already donated to another charity, so I already contributed a little even though they don't know it.

YES!

Thank you to Yahoo! News for bringing this up on my homepage.