Froggie’s Lilypad

Very seldom do I talk about my opinion on politics other than to reiterate my “Leave me the hell alone” party platform. It’s even rarer for me to discuss my opinions on foreign policy. However, this article about unrest and the impending Beijing Olympics has my knickers in a bunch.

Now, I’m not going to go into a Gere-esque rant about freeing Tibet. Other people are capable of doing that much better than I ever could (because I’m completely ignorant of the issues surrounding that cause). I am, however, going to go into a rant about my annoyance at our goverment’s retardedly hypocritical policies with regards to Communist regimes.

I don’t know why it bugs me as much as it does, but I’m sick of China getting a free pass while we impose strict embargoes on Cuba and boycott the Moscow Olympics. Why are we so in love with the Chinese government? Why is THAT Communist regime ok, when other Communist regimes ellicit nothing but contempt from us?

I don’t understand it and would love for someone to explain it to me… if that’s even possible.

There are very few stories in the news that actually, physically make me cry. I thought I had become desensitized to that sort of sensationalism. However, this is the most disgusting and heartbreaking thing I have ever read, and I should never have read it at work because I had to excuse myself to the restroom to cry about it.

Revenge is usually a dish best served cold, but I wouldn’t be opposed to showing these people the same hospitality they showed their housemate and her children.

I’ve mentioned this before (scroll down a bit and you’ll find it - yes, I’m that lazy), but it continues to be true: the more that goes on, the less I have to talk about.

My life has been thrust into overdrive lately. Not in a bad way, mind you, in several very good ways. Work is going swimmingly well. I’ve developed my interpersonal relation skillz (meaning, I’m making new friends and am being a better friend to the ones I already had). School is kicking my ass, but even that’s not too bad. Therapy… well, I could use some improvement there, but that’s what therapy’s for, right?

Basically, it’s all good. There are funny or amusing things happening here and there, but I’m so busy doing those funny or amusing things that I don’t have time to blog them. And when I do finally have time to blog, I find that all those funny or amusing things seem OFN (even though they’re not to you).

Also? I sort of don’t want to bother coming up with new clever blog names for the new people in my life. Again, yes, I’m that lazy.

Yes, I know - I’m a bad blogger. Life’s totally been getting in the way of my blogging and at the end of a long day, I’ve just not been up to even coming anywhere near my computer.

Surprisingly enough, a lot has been happening, though not all blog-worthy. Here’s the quick bits version to get you all up to date:

Continue Reading »

Though I’m not white, I can embarrassingly relate to several of these things. My mom sent me the link to this site and it is hilarious and worthy of ending up on my blogroll.

I know that there are many in this world that believe that the iPhone - as well as all Apple products - is evil. Personally, my history with Apple is a mixed bag. I usually grew annoyed at the limitation of the Mac computers in my high school computer lab (especially since I had a PC at home that made “quickly printing a report” nearly impossible - mind you, this is before cross-platform PDFs and email). On the other hand, I love my iPod.

When the iPhone first came out, I thought it was the biggest waste of everything known to man.

Until, of course, I played with one.  That’s when the coveting began.

Since that day sometime last year when a friend allowed me to tinker around with their iPhone, I have been secretly pining for one of my own. Especially since I HATED my phone. Also, I hated my cell-provider because it seemed like no matter what I did, things with my phone would continue to just screw up (like the inability to send a txt message to ANYONE at any time EVER - even after I sprung for the “unlimited txt/pic/vid message” option). Sure, I’d get credit for my difficulties and lack of txt ability - but what I really wanted to do was be able to txt people. And not be blamed by the company’s tech-support for my inability to send a text message or receive one in a timely manner.

So yes, my contract with the evil peeps was up and, dammit, I wanted an iPhone. The expensive one with the bigger hard drive. And a case. Because, dammit, I wanted one.

I thought I was going to be hit with buyer’s remorse as the guilt of spending THAT MUCH MONEY on a fluff-nothing phone would overwhelm my ability to enjoy it. Alas, it was not so. I immediately forgot all about the fact that I spent [mumble mumble] dollars on this thing. I immediately began actually REMEMBERING to take my phone with me everywhere (something that I often forgot to do because, more often than not, taking my phone with me was a exercise in futility due to bad signals and lots of dropped calls). I’ve been actually USING my phone - which, again, used to be an exercise in futility.

But, of course, more than everything else, I LOVE my iPhone; it is simply the coolest freakin’ thing ever. I mean, sure, some would  say that it’s just a glorified iPod, but I beg to differ. It checks my email and delivers it like a text message, which is invaluable for dealing with Ombudsman issues. It stores text messages as conversations, so I can see what a person’s responding to easily. It is easy as pie to navigate through the menus - something my previous phone didn’t do so well - and if there’s something buried in a menu, I can easily set it to show up on my front screen. In short, it’s AWESOME and I don’t care if this makes me markedly less 1337 for loving something from Apple.

Just don’t go thinking I’m gonna run out and buy me a MacBook. A girl’s gotta have some limits.

TPO is sick, and I should be giving him lots of sympathy and hugs and whatnot. Instead, I am annoyed at him for two reasons:

#1 - he got me sick, too. This wouldn’t be so bad were it not for reason #2.

#2 - When he came to bed last night, I said “there’s some Nyquil in the bathroom. You should take some.” Instead of manning up and taking some, he wimped out and said “noooo - I don’t like the way it tastes.” So, instead of either of us sleeping, we both got to stay awake all night while he coughed up a lungs.

To make matters worse, he admitted this morning that he probably should have taken the Nyquil after all. Ughhh.

Next time, I won’t give him an option. I’ll force-feed him if I have to because inventing ways to stay awake while I’m at work is just not fun.

Today I took my Humanities CLEP - the one that gives me course credit for both Introductory Literature and Intro to Humanties (and, as I’ve mentioned, both of them are requirements for my major). I got a 72.

I needed a 50 to pass and the max score is 80.

I should be jumping up and down doing the happy dance, but I’m far too stunned to do that. I mean - I literally thought I had completely failed this test. At the end of every CLEP test, there’s a screen that pops up and asks if you want to reveal your score. There’s all kinds of warnings on that screen that remind you that if you reveal your score and the score happens to be bad, you will not be able to re-take the test again for another 6 months.

I almost decided not to reveal my score. I almost clicked “no” and just walk away with my head hung low. In fact, I was almost in tears about how bad I thought I had done.

At the last minute - after deciding that I wanted to know what I got so I could know how much I needed to improve over the next 6 months - I decided to click yes.

My lord, I’m glad I did!!!

That test was HARD. It was 140 brain-bending questions on everything from film to architecture to literature to drama to art to poetry to religion and back again. I was asked questions ranging from Charlie Chaplin to Coleridge and from Shakespear to Salvador Dali. And that was just the people I knew - there were gads of people I’d never heard of before.

So yes, I’m shocked - because out of 140 questions, I probably guessed on at LEAST half (and possibly up to three quarters - I lost count). Granted, they were educated guesses, but guesses nonetheless.

It just seems to me that someone who guessed on up to 75% of the questions on a test should not get such a high score.

Not that I’m complaining.

I don’t know how this could be, but now that there is MORE actually happening in my life, I find myself with less to talk about. Weird.

Also weird: TPO has taken to renting Veronica Mars from Netflix. It was one of his netflix recommendations and he put it on his queue. I originally thought he would watch one episode, realize it was complete crap and decide to cancel further episodes from plaguing our mailbox. How wrong I was. He not only loudly proclaimed his love for the show, but he’s now well into the second season and eagerly awaiting is next disc.

I am dismayed to say the least. How bad is it? Paris Hilton was a guest star on the second show. That should speak volumes about the show’s quality.

Oh, how I wish I hadn’t balked so much at Stargate: Atlantis. That was pure heaven compared to this garbage.

I took my second CLEP today AND PASSED… which means that I now officially have 3 college courses under my belt: one elective and two of my general ed requirements. WOOT!!!

I have three more tests I want to take, which will end up giving me credit for 5 of my major requirements and one more elective. With this class coming up in February, that will give me enough credits to count myself as a college Sophomore in under 8 weeks. I know this isn’t much - a 32 year old undergrad isn’t necessarily something to be proud of, but I am immensely jazzed at how much I’m able to knock out just with tests and interim courses through the University.

I’d post more, but there’s not a lot else going on other than work and studying for the CLEPs. My life has been reduced to boring nothingness - but I genuinely feel more productive than I’ve felt in years.