Lianhua.nu

FinAid Pessimism

Ugh. I hate how everyone in the world is making loads of positive progress in their Financial Aid processes… except me. I’m officially $60,000 in the hole, and counting.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for everyone who can afford to go to school or to return to school… It’s just really frustrating to think that if I had gone to pretty much any other school in the country, I’d be maybe $10k in debt. But no, I had to go to Sarah Lawrence.

And what has it gotten me, honestly? Sure, I’m getting an education, but it’s pretty much a useless education. I’ll get a degree in “Liberal Arts.” What kind of job is that going to get me?

Gah, I’ve really shot myself in the foot on this one… Now I have to figure out exactly what I can do to save the other foot.

But not tonight. Just this short outcry tonight, and that’s all. It’s 1am and I have to work at 10:30a again. Two more days until my “weekend.”
Not that work is the worst part of my life, or even necessarily a bad part of it at all. It’s just so damn hot without air conditioning in that place.

Seriously. What’s the deal with LA weather?

And do any of you have any ideas of what I should write about in the next blog? Please, my activeness may depend on it!

Blue Mondays

Another girls’ night out last night, yay. Kelly and Sarah came over and we went to Victoria’s Secret (where we all bought 5 undies for $25), Bath & Body Works, Coffee Bean (where Sarah got a drink) and Lollicup (where Kelly and I got lavender milk tea with boba, yum).
Theeeen… the real fun started. We all came back to the house for a minute, said hi to Sean, and then went to Hollywood to go to Blue Mondays. We got there, Kelly and Sarah had a drink each, we were hanging outside, all was great… and then the power went out.
But not just in the club. The power went out in most of Hollywood, because so many people were running air conditioners, and so many clubs/restaurants/etc had their signs lit up (Hollywood = mini Vegas at night).
Along Hollywood Blvd, one of the only things that was lit up was a little Palm Reader’s shop… so we decided to go for it.
I went first, and my reading was, well… general, but pretty accurate. I wanted the reader to say something — anything — about Sean, but she didn’t say anything about my love life other than touching on a past breakup from at least 2-4 years ago (depending on which one she was talking about).
Sarah went next, and hers was pretty much the same — general, fairly accurate, and pretty positive. Sweet, no big deal.
Then Kelly went in. She was in the shop for a longer time than Sarah or I, but we didn’t think much of it. When she came out, though, she was freaked out. The palm reader said a bunch of things about how someone was trying to harm her by talking about her behind her back, and that it was “destroying her aura.” The reader seemed pretty serious about it, and kept saying that she wanted to help Kelly, that she wanted to pray for her, light a candle for her, cleanse her aura, etc. Kelly was a little tipsy, to say the least, so it freaked her out quite a bit — she was pretty upset.
So we drove back towards home (we all live in the Marina del Rey/Mar Vista area) and decided to go to IHOP for some comfort food, where we sat and talked and just generally had a great girl talk.
I think Kelly’s feeling better (I haven’t talked to her yet today)… but it was still kind of weird.
Anyway, I’m probably leaving out a bunch of important/entertaining details about the evening… but oh well. We’re going back next week because they gave us free passes due to the power outage. So maybe I’ll have more to talk about then?

Alrighty. Now the moment you’ve all been waiting for…
Yesterday, my dear Amber suggested that I blog about my opinions on PROSTITUTION. So here goes nothing.

Although I, myself, cannot see myself ever prostituting myself for various reasons, I think the act should be legalized. What people want to do with their own bodies should be their own business, and if they want to get paid or pay someone for it, why shouldn’t we let them? As long as there is consent, sex is legal. If there is consent and a mutual agreement of terms and payment, why shouldn’t prostitution be legal?
There should, of course, be a limit — everything in moderation and all that. Prostitutes should have to be licensed, like doctors or lawyers, and they should be required by law to have drug screenings and STD/HIV tests on a regular basis, lest their license be null and void. To receive the license in the first place, they should have to complete an exam, much like the written exam for a driver’s license, which should quiz them on things like STDs, birth control, condom use, legal definitions of rape, etc. And there should be protection for them, from an agency or something of the like, so they won’t have to risk going out on street corners.
Like I said, it’s not the choice for me, but I don’t see why it should be forbidden from someone who wants it to be their life choice. Women (and men) can make a fairly good living from it, I expect, and with the help of the government and/or private agencies, they could be safe about it as well.

I feel like a horrible friend right now. I just found out that my best friend from seventh grade on, practically my sister, posted in her blog about her grandmother, who is in an ICU right now clinging to life. I just found out about it — four days after it was posted.
I feel like such a shit. I don’t even know if I should call her. I don’t know what I would say. I need to call her, I know I need to… but what do I say?
I don’t know how to console. I’m terrible at it.

Horrible Blogger goes Geeky and… Piratey?

Urgh. Am I a horrible blogger? It’s been over a week since my last blog! ACK. I told myself (and everyone else) I was going to be better at this, damnit.

Anyway, enough of that self-pity. Let’s get to the good stuff, eh?

So even though I’m not by any means a very big or adamant “gamer” I bought a Nintendo DS Lite for myself a few days ago. I’d never had any kind of mini-system (or even really a regular-sized game system) when I was growing up, so I figured hey, why not? So far, I have four games for it. The New Super Mario Bros. game came with the DS Lite in a big bundle from CostCo (along with a game case, screen cleaner, extra stylus), and it’s actually kind of fun. I thought only Sean would be playing it (because I suck at Mario games, most of the time) but there are a bunch of mini-games that are… addicting, to say the least. I also bought Nintendogs, an adorable little game that lets you have a puppy and care for it, train it, etc. It was basically the whole reason I got the DS Lite — our friend Miguel had one and bought the Nintendogs game, and I got hooked just by watching him play with a little Corgi he had. So Sean and I both have puppies on there: I have a Siberian Husky named Nacho, and he has a Beagle named Olive. I also have two versions of Sims 2 — the one for Game Boy Advance (the DS Lite can run games for GBA as well as DS) and the one for DS. While I was at work one day, Sean went to EB Games to get a game for me, and wanted Sims 2 for DS. The guy at EB said that there wasn’t a Sims 2 for DS, but that he could get the one for Game Boy Advance instead… We later found out, though, when we went to Target to get Nintendogs, that there is a Sims 2 for DS… so now I have both. We were going to sell the GBA version, but… the games are actually completely different, and fun in themselves, so there’s not really any point in selling it, since we’ll both actually play it.

Stepping away from the new-found near-gamer-geekiness… (Because having Mario, Nintendogs and Sims 2 for my DS is oh-so-gamer-ific, you know.) We saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2 on Saturday night… (Beware the SPOILERS!) It was kind of a fun movie, but honestly, much too complicated of a plot. The special effects were pretty neat, but… I kept getting lost and confused. Why would a lord of the East Indian Trading Company want the heart of Davy Jones? They kept saying “to control the seas” but… what now? I realize that he’d be able to make sure the Kraken or whatever couldn’t attack his company’s ships… but that’s about it, right? I mean, I don’t know… it just seemed kind of flimsy. And then the “cliffhanger” at the end was just… annoying. The first movie was pretty much complete, all in itself. It could stand alone without any sequels and everyone would be happy. And if they’d ended the second movie maybe ten or fifteen minutes earlier (before they go to the scene with the lusty fortuneteller) the second movie could’ve done the same… but they didn’t.
I definitely liked the first PotC better than this one. For some reason, that one (full of undead pirates who are skeletons in the full moonlight) was a lot more believable than this one (full of undead pirates who are various sea creatures protecting the “devil”’s heart and summoning big squidy things). And a lot more enjoyable for me, honestly…

Soooo it’s my day off again. Sean isn’t in a very good mood, so he is staying home today… After I finish this blog I’m going to make him get up and come swimming or at least come outside for a little while. He needs some fresh air.

I’ll try to update tomorrow… but in the meantime, if you have an idea for something for me to blog about tomorrow… let me know in a comment. An opinion of mine you want to know, a question you want to ask me, a story you want me to make up… Anything! Let me know.