Anthony Would Be So Proud

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More Online Quizzes to Clog My Time

I found this one on Mumbles' journal, which I just found (see sidebar) today by looking through Erin's friends on livejournal. In any case, this is kind of wacky because it's sort of accurate. I don't want to say how much, just so you can't make too much fun of me. So without further ado, my quiz results:

Ryan, your hemispheric dominance is equally divided between left and right brain, while you show a moderate preference for auditory versus visual learning, signs of a balanced and flexible person.

Your balance gives you the enviable capacity to be verbal and literate while retaining a certain "flair" and individuality. You are logical and compliant but only to a degree. You are organized without being compulsive, goal-directed without being driven, and a "thinking" individual without being excessively so.

The one problem you might have is that your learning might not be as efficient as you would like. At times you will work from the specific to the general, while at other times you'll work from the general to the specific. Sometimes you will be logical in your approach while at other times random. Since you cannot always control the choice, you may experience frustrations not normally felt by persons with a more defined and directed learning style.

You may also minimally experience conflicts associated with auditory processing. You will be systematic and sequential in your processing of information, you will most often focus on a single dimension of the problem or material, and you will be more reflective, i.e., "taking the data in" as opposed to "devouring" it.

Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself - and of others - while maintaining an "openness" which is redeeming. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity is not in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, the more obvious and the more functional.

Time Again for Happy Harry the Hannukah Bush/Christmas Tree

It's either that or the fact that last night I finally ventured out to see my first movie since the Thanksgiving marathon: Harry Potter. If you haven't yet done so, the Harry Potter series is practically required reading. And two hours after you've started the books, which you will now have invariably finished reading (I assure you, they are THAT addictive), you MUST go see this movie. Yeah, yeah, the first three were fun and PG-rated and all, but the latest installment actually stands alone as a GOOD MOVIE and not just a visual treat for fans of the books. The child actors they hired are actually starting to ACT, and director Mike Newell makes the whole adventure POP with dread, melancholy, and fair share of wit.

You'll notice (if you've been watching the previous movies) that the outlook for Hogwarts has changed, but I believe Newell's vision is more accurate to the book. I prefer Richard Harris' more kindly version to Michael Gambon's Dumbledore, but you can't have everything, now can you? All in all, I really liked this movie. So on the Netflix scale, I give the movie 4 out of 5 stars.

In other news, my coworkers are looking for mention of their names in my Blog, which is highly amusing to say the least. I guess when you work with a group of professional computer geeks, as I lovingly refer to all high-tech employees, they are going to sniff out any mention of you on the internet. So, Mo, Bill, this mention is for you.

Slightly more important on my list of things to discuss is the fact that I have been quite remiss in blogging lately. Much of that has to do with the fact that I am studying for the GRE and writing grad school applications at the same time. That and coddling Anthony (and his not quite yet formulated flu) seems to zap up all my free time.

Oh sure, there's been ice skating at the Sculpture garden and mad attempts to see Derek's band, but for the most part I've been a homebody with no particular attachment to my Blog lately. I suppose you will just have to forgive me or hate me forever. Totally up to you.

And that, my friends, is all I have to say about that.

On a high note, my 5-year college reunion is happening in May. I've been dreading this and looking forward to it. Part of the dread is due to the hope that the alumni association never really finds me so they can't send me requests for donations (damn you and your money-leeching!), but I've also never been all that good at revisiting the past. As my mom can tell you, I only visit my hometown once a year, and that's only because she lives there (and because it's happy turkey day, which, as you all know, is my favorite holiday of the year - although mom, if you don't get your act together and start serving up my regular homemade fixin's, I'm a-gonna stop that tradition)!

The upside of getting older is that the college reunion gives my friends yet another excuse to make a special effort to hang out with one another. Las Vegas was only the beginning, baby.

And on That Day We Gave Thanks

Thanksgiving
Originally uploaded by Pookah.

Thanksgiving…was…interesting.

Let me preface that by reminding you all that I go home every Thanksgiving, without fail. It is my absolute favorite holiday. Any holiday created solely for the purpose of hanging out and eating all day is okay in my book.

This Thanksgiving started out the same as any other. I flew home, my family picked me up, and the next day there were piles of turkey.

However, this year, the entire meal was on order from Shaw’s. We spooned food items out of plastic containers into aluminum pans to reheat and serve. There was turkey, ham, broccoli au gratin (that da’ Momma managed to burn to the pan), squash, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls and lumpy cranberry sauce (knowing how much I love the cranberry sauce in the shape of the Ocean Spray can, da’ Momma also purchased some of that for me). There were even two apple pies. It sounds like a lot of traditional food, but without the same love that enters into all my recipes, it wasn’t the most outstanding dinner I’ve ever consumed.

Auntie Thomas brought the stuffed artichokes (mine are better!), Uncle Dana the edible pies, and Ilana and Scott brought the appetizers (roasted nuts, scallops wrapped in bacon that existed for all of ten seconds before Preyasha and Dan inhaled them, veggies and hippie dip, and chestnuts). I think I actually ate so little that this was the first Thanksgiving I ever survived without feeling the need to fend off a tryptophan nap.

Honestly, the best food was the leftover food. I fried up the potatoes in butter, made ham and pepper eggs, and da’ Momma used the bones and leftover gravy to make a really tasty tortellini soup. What we didn’t eat we bagged for Anthony.

Yes, my friends, Anthony spent Thanksgiving alone. Because of work, he couldn’t leave town, so he ended his Thanksgiving eve watching football with some friends of his AT WORK. I still can’t believe he went into work on his night off, even if it was the kind of holiday you aren’t supposed to spend alone.

Anyway. Dan showed up for all of ten minutes this year, much like he does every year despite all his promises not to come. He threatened me with a sleepover at his house, which usually means he intends to get me so drunk that I can’t find my way off the barstool, but somehow that never happened and those ten minutes were all we saw of him last weekend.

My partner in crime, Christy, was also supposed to see me while I was home, but guess what?! She just recently found out that she’s pregnant…AGAIN. After swearing up and down that she never wanted to have another child after Sarol, Christy has gone and surprised us all. Sarol says the new baby will be a girl, and that they should name her Sarol, too. Christy tells me that when she asked how she and Matt would differentiate the two if they named the new baby Sarol, Sarol said, “When you want me, you call for Sarol. When you want her, you call her name twice.” Oh, that Sarol! She’s in for quite a different ride, I tell you.

So, after the day full of family, I saw no one. Instead, I spent a whole day at the movie theatre and then another whole day shopping with da’ Momma. Since Anthony doesn’t like what he terms “chick flicks,” we rented Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Fever Pitch, and then I went to see Walk the Line, Pride and Prejudice, and In Her Shoes. My absolute favorite: Pride and Prejudice. What can I say? I’m a diehard Jane Austen fan. And eighteenth century Georgian repression is just so HOT! The second in line had to be Traveling Pants. The rest were just dressing – they were good, but I’m not in love with them.

After spending so little money during the trip, I lost my head when we went to Target and Michael’s. I ended up purchasing so much that I had to borrow a piece of luggage from da’ Momma and could barely pick it up! I even had to check it on the plane. Ugh.

All in all, it was a nice weekend, what with the first snow of the season and all, but every time I’m away from home (i.e. DC – for the time being), I am constantly thinking of all the things I COULD be doing, instead of enjoying the fact that there is nothing to do. I am happy to be home, but already I am tired and wishing I had caught up on more sleep so I could get these applications (Peace Corps, grad school) together, find a martial arts studio and start going back to the gym, and all the little chores in between, like laundry and cleaning the bathroom.

Ah well, another Thanksgiving bites the dust.

Proof That I Won't Open My Eyes for Anything

26th Birthday
Originally uploaded by Pookah.

This is our attempt to look pretty for the camera at Marcel's on my birthday. We fail miserably, but the effort is clearly visible.

I think what is most clear is that I have finished eating and am about to commence the post-meal ecstatic napping.

Who’s the Prettiest Girl at My Party?

Eric So Pretty
Originally uploaded by Pookah.

So I basically failed to write anything timely about my birthday and it’s been two weeks – I guess it’s time to break the proverbial seal and let you all know what I’m sure you are guessing at this point: my birthday was ruined by my inability to get a job with the Foreign Service.

And then Eric, Ben and Nicole conspired to make me have a good time anyway. We ate at Woo Lae Oak in Pentagon City, barely survived Ben’s driving back to Cleveland Park, and then settled our derrières on bar stools at the old Park Bench Bar (is it still the same name?), just a skip, hop and a jump away from Ben’s and Eric’s apartments. All of my favorite moments are as follows (in Andrew’s OCD fashion):
1) The three-minute video I took of Eric, Ben and Nicole belting out Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” while I provide the – ahem! – “musical” background;
2) Chatting up the bartender, Mark, to earn several free rounds of shots, his pawning of me off on some guy he barely knows (who, by the way, leaned in, told me, “You smell so good,” in the creepiest way ever – I think he took lessons from Tony Soprano), and a big old hug at the end of the evening;
3) Anthony, Nicole and I not only choosing the girl, but also offering to hit on her for Ben who was less than pleased with the whole scenario (I think he was three seconds away from crying but we eventually lost interest);
4) The conversation from the morning after, whereby the drunken lout who we let stay on our futon, a.k.a. lost puppy JJ, not only claimed to have no link to the destroyed plant and the trail of leaves and dirt from the futon to the bathroom, but he also asked Anthony, “You still have company? Did you tap that?” after spending the entire evening telling Anthony how hot I am (thanks by the way – and I can’t believe you didn’t notice we are DATING!).

Then there was day 2 of my birthday weekend, which was spent in bed until noon and then out to a geriatric early dinner at one of DC’s finest dining establishments, Marcel’s. I was in absolute ecstasy throughout the entire meal. I can’t even begin to describe how happy fine food makes me. Let’s just say that Anthony was highly amused at my little moans of dining happiness.

The pièce de résistance was clearly on Sunday. Three hours of my birthday weekend’s Sunday afternoon were spent attempting to get an old bed out of my apartment and into Jeff’s latest Metro-area abode. What did Nicole, Jeff, Anthony and I learn from the experience? “The Metro is NOT [our] personal vehicle.” Or at least that is what the Metro employee told us as we tried to pass the double-wide mattress through the turnstile.

Oddly enough, I actually thought the Metro was to be used as a personal vehicle, for several hundreds of thousands of people who use it to get to work, go shopping, or visit friends every day. Hmmph, how could I be so wrong?

In any case, I completely forgot to grab my camera and get any incriminating photos of the looks on people’s faces as we walked the mattress two blocks from our apartment to the U Street Metro. Nor do I have any photos of Jeff, Nicole and I struggling to carry the damn thing, or of Anthony getting sick of our slow pace and taking the mattress away from us and single-handedly carrying it three blocks.

The good news is that our apartment is now free of one extra bed. Jeff’s SPECIAL FRIEND, Liz, was kind enough to interrupt her afternoon of dropping off linens for friends and delivering sofas to stop by and pick up a bed for Jeff. What a sweet, sweet, sweet girl, right Jeff?

Weird and Disturbing

Did you know that there was a woman set on fire in France for refusing a marriage proposal? Or that a woman in Myanmar has been under house arrest for nearly 10 of the past 16 years for promoting democracy in her country? (Clearly the human rights movement hasn't moved as far ahead as we would like to believe.)

Sometimes I just can't believe what I read in the newspaper. And here in the U.S. we're just worried about the rising price of gas (which, might I add, I am totally in favor of - we need some motivation to start pouring our money into public transportation).

Here are the articles, as printed in today's edition of Express, the Washington Post publication that is handed out at the Metro every weekday:

Hundreds Protest Attack on Teen Who Refused Proposal

Several hundred people marched in silence Sunday to protest violence against women in France's rough suburbs after a teenage girl was set on fire for turning down a man's marriage proposal. Chahrazad Belayni, a French 18-year-old of Moroccan origin, has been hospitalized with burns covering 60 percent of her body since a male acquaintance doused her with gasoline and set her ablaze Nov. 13. Police were searching for her attacker.

Pro-Democracy Leader Remains Held in Myanmar

Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi appeared to remain under house arrest following Sunday's expiration of a previous detention order, with police paying her a brief visit and government security around her home tightened.

Officials from the country's secretive military regime could not be reached to confirm the action, and a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party was only willing to say that he had no news of a change in her status.

Suu Kyi has spent 10 of the last 16 years in detention, mostly under house arrest.

She was last taken into custody on May 30, 2003 after her motorcade was attacked by a pro-junta mob as she was making a political tour of northern Myanmar. She was held first by the military, and later transferred to house arrest after undergoing an operation in Yangon.

The ruling junta took power in 1988 after suppressing mass pro-democracy protests. It held a general election in 1990, but refused to recognize the results after a landslide victory by Suu Kyi's party.

I simply can't fathom what it is like to live in either of these environments and my heart goes out to these people.