farewell o ye' 04

yeah, just had a bad martini and an even worse bourbon, but i feel it is worth to recap my life in 2004, i found myself turned around 360 degrees plus 540 degrees at the end of the year from the beginning of the year ... the unpredicted events:
-ending of the most serious relationship I've ever been in
-getting my dream job
-working full time AND going to graduate school
-buying my first home and thus fulfilling my second dream--to become a DC resident
-for someone never owning a tv, actually ending up with a semi-free LCD HDTV hanging on my wall ("came with the condo")
Predicted events (sort of)
-getting into graduate school and actually becoming a student, although part-time instead of full-time as originally envisioned

The New Year's resolutions for 2004 that didn't make it:
-competing at the US Taekwondo National Championship (I did clean out VA State Championships---beating the heavyweight of the state and the 'mature' women's division, reigning female lightweight--okay so I actually had no one in my division to contest me)

due to new job with stricter hour requirements I just wasn't able to dedicate the time to train to warrant spending all the money on going to Nationals ... also USTU had a massive scandal and the US Olympic Committee tookover its governance ... making this year's Championships somewhat of a sham ... anyone could compete whether or not they placed in the State or Regional tournaments

Well since I got my dream job I guess I can put that dream of being an Olympic Taekwondo athlete out of my head for now :) although I guess 24 is too old to be an Olympic athlete

-travelling South of the Equator ... thought I might've at least gone to S. America, but alas, having dreams come true means giving up others for the time being (lack of funds and attractive bonus offer for starting sooner at said dream job)

I think my other resolution was going to graduate school, which I did, but I think I made it so that wasn't a resolution ... more like a requirement

Other interesting things that happened in 2004 that was unexpected:

-Bush actually getting a second term
-Rumsfield actually staying Secretary of Defense
-Involuntary celibacy after Memorial Day weekend
-Actually biking in DC streets with out getting killed
-actually had hair-brained things come true -- like my scheme to get my new job to help pay for graduate school, buy a condo with the possibility of selling it to pay off future graduate student loans ... and uh I won't mention the other parts of my financial plans :) still working on those :)
-having the only exercise I do after moving to dc be rockclimbing/sportclimbing
-not doing Taekwondo after moving to DC
Bugh, the above two aren't very interesting, well before it's the last day of 2004, I bid you adieu, until a few hours at least


Oh yeah, who actually thought that Sharon would outlive Arafat????!!!!!! Who???????!!!!!! Aren't those two supposed to die together in some calamitous battle!!!!!?????

freeze or blow up?

the travails of a new homeowner ... before going on my 3 week winter dc hiatus, I turned my water heater down (which also heats my home), unknowingly turned it off, and returned to cool showers, ... after trying many many many times to get it to turn on via instructions about pilot lights etc, ignoring the other big orange sticker on the heater warning of massive explosions ... i am .... frrrreeeeezzzziiiiiing ... chchchchchcchchchhc .... must think warm thoughts ...... mmmm

NYE ... so what am i doing? the perfect anti-DC thing ... slumber party ... i never knew winter break could bring out the 4th grader in me :) ... I'm so excited!!!

plastics and poison

while heating my lunch in the office kitchen, I caught sight of one of those 'public service announcements' people like to put up, telling me some cancer researcher at John Hopkins University warns of dangerous carcinogens leaching into food heated in plastic, whether in tupperware or plastic wrap covering ... the letter suggested using corningware or glass ... after doing a google search i started wondering about ploys marketers use for particular industries ... i remember a long time ago, my first bf's mother telling me she always stored food in glass because she was weary of poisons from plastics ... was the warning from glass producers? or is it a complete hoax? or is it true? another secret marriage between the gov't and a political campaign-profitable industry? ahhh another washingtonian urban ponderment (yes I think I made that word up--but its my blog so I can do that!!!)

dc nites

the things i love about dc (all happened today):

a) going to Home Depot to select paint color for my condo and checking to see if they had contract painters at the service desk, I run into a Reverand Marianne who tells me to call her for a good reasonably priced painter who painted her home and is a contract painter for the government

b) calling one of my neighborhood girlfriends to find out she has invited me (earlier on e-mail before I had a chance to check it) to Woolly Mammoth's production of "Our Lady of 121st Street" at the Kennedy Center ... ah ... no more getting through the beltway to get to my favorite activities

why am i blogging when i have an arabic language proficiency test tomorrow morning at 7:45 AM? why????

oh yes, and the hallway outside my home smells like the sea salt baked salmon and bengali style potato mash that i cooked this evening in lieu of working out ... stress relief all the same :)

brain absent

heyla, this is going to be one of those entries for anyone who was interested in what I was up to this past weekend ... even though I'm not Christian and my family is far from Christian ... I mean lets put it this way, 'gathering of ex-Bangladeshi Young Communist Party athiests' pretty much sums up my mom's side of the family ... I decided after not being able to watch even the first 15 mins of the extended edition of "Return of the King" and then there was my paltry supper of improvised pizza (crackers, with fancy marsala pasta sauce, and hardened fake aged provolone) ... I called up my aunt in the burbs and thus found myself in NOVA for the rest of weekend, enjoying curries and smelling like them too ... I don't think i was really cognizant at work ... also i think my two weeks of living on per diem (do I save the money or do I go for the filet mignon? hahah ... FILET MIGNON!) erupted on my body with the proverbial last straw of eating lot of curry this past weekend ... now off for Thai food!

oh yeah, last night I saw "Phantom of the Opera," I was really excited because of the its cult following (and having satisfactory experiences with 'Heather's' and Donnie Darko I thought this was a good thing) ... and I kinda of left the theater like 'whaaa?' Why would she ever think to choose a disfigured murderous monster over handsome rich childhood sweetheart? Whaaa?

naked in n.o.

not me ... this guy in the airport concourse ... like it was the most perfectly normal thing to do at 4:15 AM (yes that is correct, the dreadful hour of 0400) ... he wasn't completely naked, wearing plaid boxers, chilling with his ankle propped over his knee, looking around and sitting in his seat at the main fountain ... meanwhile this guy in a tough metal studded biker jacket starts hollerin', couldn't tell if it was a Southern accent or a British one (tell you how sleep fogged my brain was ... embarassing tidbit, stood in line for a 1/2 hour at the Delta mile long check in when my flight was actually through AirTran) "Where's security!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you see what my problem is!!!!!!!!!!!! That guy is my problem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Phew I guess no openness about nudity there. Meanwhile the naked guy starts rummaging through the garbage can next to him, can't tell if he's drunk or just insane, and some other airport user plies him away. The guy in the biker jacket keeps hollering for security, he makes most of the scene, everyone else just looks on with amusement, who knows what the day before Christmas could bring. Finally security comes, the naked guy gives an indignant holler, rather incomprehensible while he gets handcuffed and escorted out ... weird ... told you i'd have a story and it's even true.

otherwise glad to be back in dc, though i did a good job of making sure the garbage got thrown out before I left for three weeks, but apparently I forgot to do the dishes so I got a not so pleasant surprise.

n.o. chill

freakin cold in new orleans!!!! try 37 degrees w/out windchill compared to dc's nice 57 ... well i'll be back tomorrow in my favorite city ... i should do better things than write about the weather in this blog :) I promise next time i'll write a story ...

n.o. quickie

at an internet cafe in the vieux carre aka French Quarter ... (hope I got that right) ... another day left of this family vacation. Last night was fun, saw old timers creating the jazz that new orleans is known for at preservation hall, although a tourist attraction, the best tourist trap I've found myself in.

passion

martini's are the passion ... I can already tell, this is going to be a blog I'll regret, but hey, I already promised myself I wasn't going to write anything incriminating or do anything that results in the potential loss of job and be 'woe is me' about my love life .... but yes, martini's are the passion, i don't mean foofoo martinis like the shokalade martini or the sour apple martini or even the cosmo martini, I mean the freakin' real James Bond martini, stirred not shaken, gin ... beefeater no less, vermouth, with the olives ... yes ... some have asked me, "do you have chest hair?"

no hon, rather than spend $7 bucks on two drinks to get the feeling, I would rather spend $10-12 on that perfect party, with six olives please? ... okay methinks I should retire for the evening :)

drunken phone call 1

okay the story behind the drunken phone call (from anonymous drunken campaign friend):

We lost the election. 90 votes. Got extremely drunk and swam in the ocean at midnight. Very cold. This was all before I called you. Sorry. I can't tell if your inflection was annoyance or bemused. Hopefully a little bit of both.

Was calling all the west coast people, and then realized I hadn't talked to you in a while. A since you were in FL, it would be ok. Different time zones. Anyway, I highly reccommend night swimming on a freezing cold day. It would be funny if FL got snow while you were there.

thankfully although its unseasonably cool in Tampa, its not snowing ... a lot people on my way to work notice i was wearing sandals despite by sweater and fleece ... 60 degrees with sun in Tampa in December is comparatively nice!

i'm thinking people will read what i write if i put in stuff they write

armageddon

check out this article ... about the end of the world no less ...

>>>>>So there you have it. The apocalypse is the locomotive of capitalism, the inspiration for revolutionary socialism, the bedrock of America's manifest destiny and the undeclared religion of all those pseudo-rationalists who, like The Economist, champion the progress of liberal democracy. Perhaps, deep down, there is something inside everyone which yearns for the New Jerusalem, a place where, as a beautiful bit of Revelation puts it:

God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.

Yes, perhaps. But, to be sure, not everyone agrees that salvation, when it comes, will appear clothed in a shiny silver spacesuit. <<<<<<<<<<<<<

i wonder how these people live? but then you know i'm one of those self described 'spiritual but not religious' people who sometimes fall inbetween the lines of atheism and agnosticism ... don't ask me to explain my beliefs because well I put a lot of thought into it and now I've come to conclusions but forgot the premise

tomorrow I'm going to the second city of carnal sin: 'nu awlins' although what to do with mom and sister? seems a lot of the activities are either morbid or involve imbibing.

veer away

because of weird flippy floppy weather Tampa, ie: the weekend I arrived here it was about 50 degrees on Saturday but during the week it was a balmy 80 degrees, and now this week there was a windchill of 27 degrees! ... I've done a lot of shopping ... I thought i would be adequately packed with my camisole tops and knee high linen skirts ... well some of those items got shipped off back to DC ... along with other goods I procured at the outlet shopping mall

so shipping, went to the post office at the airport and looked through the doors to see a line snaking through the Tampa headquarters 3 ft deep and everyone seeming to hold three or five boxes. So I went to FedEx ... three day shipping for a 40 lb box for $33, pricey, and even though it would've given me a good excuse to buy more luggage, I can't bear the thought of travelling with extra bags when connecting flights ...

yeah not a very exciting story, but one ironic bit of news: Bush gives Tenet the Medal of Freedom

mornings

getting to work before sunrise is not fun, especially when I've hit the snooze button about five times and wake up the time I was supposed to leave ... i don't like to think i'm not a morning person but I would rather wake up when the sun is up, not try to be awake when its still dark ... also doesn't help when boys who have been imbibing alcohol wake me up at 1 AM on a weeknight ... when i get to wake up at 5:30 Am the next day!

the not so perky side of being a govee ...

defaming the hair cuttery

excerpt from IM conversation

Anonymous Hair Cuttery Victim Friend: hehe i don't care
Anonymous Hair Cuttery Victim Friend: u can write how your friend is freakin about a shitzu hair cut
Anonymous Hair Cuttery Victim Friend: that she got from hair cuttery and paid $15 for
Anonymous Hair Cuttery Victim Friend: ppl pay the extra moneyS
Me: okay
Anonymous Hair Cuttery Victim Friend: unless u're a guy who gets a buzz cutS
Anonymous Hair Cuttery Victim Friend: every mo
Anonymous Hair Cuttery Victim Friend: then go to a professional

naz in 'glade' 

one semester done

i have semi completed my first semester as a grad student!!!! whooohoooo! Of course haven't gotten my grades yet ... I suppose I should actually send in my final exam ... I'm am very looking forward to a brief life until Spring semester starts ... and my immediate goal is to enjoy Sex & The City on TBS (yeah got on the bandwagon too late, but this is from someone who lived in a house that didn't get cable--and basic cable at that--until three years ago!) and my first non-fiction read in several months: Olivia Jones and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding ... falling in love with Osama? After reading the Edge of Reason, which almost put me past the edge of reason into nutty neurosis I am very happy with the way the plot is going ... chicki evening it is

I'm not going to just yet start on the read, today will probably be my most blogging to date ... so more on Tampa: Saturday I went to Busch Gardens, had endless fun whistling at pretty tropical birds and riding roller coasters half-full on Sunday I biked the Pinellas trail for about 10 miles, which is good for me considering the only biking I've done recently is up and down Mass. Ave, exhilarating and stupid considering I was doing it in the dark during rush hour ...

Saw a couple movies: Closer; which I liked because apparently the auditorium was packed with couples who didn't read the reviews and thought it was going to be a cutsie romantic flick ... I admit to a perverse satisfaction as I saw them leave clutching their beloved, whispering 'the trailer was soooo misleading' (suppressed evil cackle from the girl sitting in front row center in the 2nd Tier) ... it's good to find movies about love that make the single girl happy ...

and for any of you wilting after a love gone bad, heartily recommend the Bitter Single Guy:

tantalizing excerpt: "In sex, in relationships, in love and in life: your brain is not your friend"

Also, "Ocean's 12" ... fun, cute I'm already jaded by Washington Post reviews about how it was pretty much big shot Hollywood actors acting like themselves ... although it's always a pleasure to see George Clooney on-screen ....

What else is of interest to note in Tampa that I did? Ooh Fort deSoto Park on Sunday ... too cold to swim or layout, but the walk on the beach was nice followed by the fried claims and chips in basket watching the buoys drift ...

The weekend before, I drove all over the Tampa Bay area, until I had to fill up my tank, and then continued driving. I find that I enjoy traveling by myself ... boy after this blog everyone will think I'm a misanthrope ... but I also find I sightsee and wander until I exhaust myself ...

I think this is a good place to voice my unpopular opinions:

-like why does every girl think Brad Pitt is hot? He looks kinda like a canine to me.

per diem

being a govee has its perks ... I'm in Tampa, its sunny, and its not what you think ... the wind chill makes it feel like 40 degrees and my Weatherbug is telling me its 55 outside ... Life in Tampa surrounds the malls, every other block has a strip joint ... never been to a strip joint ... these strip joints are typically very close to everything. Makes me curious, one person told me that Tampa was the birthplace of Hooters and many other chains ... oh yes and going back to govee perks ...

I'm on per diem, about $43 a day regardless if a spend it or not on food. So I love food and I love new restaurants, but after saving my lunches and breakfasts (filching them from the hotel breakfast buffet) I've been splurging on three course meals practically every night ... oh the riot in my stomach ... I realize restaurant food, particularly swanky restaurant food was not meant to be eaten every day. My stomach has expanded up to my thorax, and even though the cool temperatures give me a good reason not to sun bathe, I believe I'll be shipping my swimsuit back with my finals study materials and wearing what ever baggy clothes I have ...

Inaugural

so why???? I'm jealous, absolutely jealous that other people have blogs and i don't. It's sad, but I figure it's so nice to read my friend's blogs and sometime I just feel like I have a lot to say ... that maybe somebody will find it interesting that a squirrel was barking at me from a tree on my way home.

Also probably the most compelling reason is that I have a ECON final in 15 minutes and I am PROCRASTINATING :)