Journal Entries
8/06 - more test scoring
8/05 - spending big money
7/30 - work lunch club
7/21 - flexible spending accounts
6/5 - digital cameras
6/4 - new ideas from vacation
6/3 - Denver
5/28 - thinking about time off
4/11 - weird learning
3/16 - film festival
3/10 - quitting my class
3/09 - too much stuff
3/05 - shifts in perspective
3/04 - knowledge of extremes
2/29 - mass CPR training
2/25 - social pariahs
2/24 - experiencing art
2/23 - movies, mostly
2/13 - the presentation
2/09 - changing your life
2/08 - last day of test scoring
January Journal Archives

Quotes
8/06 - Little-kid weight-loss program

Thoughts
2/25 - American colonization strategies

Movies
Amateur
The Fast Runner
50 First Dates
High Fidelity
Saved!
Movie Archives

Site of the Living Deb

Friday, August 6, 2004

I'm changing my mind about scoring teacher certification tests. Fortunately, I wrote down my reasons for wanting to quit. Normally reviewing reasons like these is enough to remind me that something was a good decision (such as not going out with an old boyfriend or not running after an old career ideas). However, in this case, my reasons aren't looking so great.

1) I felt my math skills were not up to par. Well, my math could definitely be better, but I was, in fact, able to do the job before. Also my colleagues poo-pood this notion when I told them. Also I'm remembering to bring my calculus and statistics books with me most of the time, so I can look up anything I don't remember. Like all those pesky formulas.

2) I felt I was too busy and needed to cut some activities out of my life. Well, it's true I'm too busy. The latest evidence of that is that results from my latest blood test show that I have plenty of thyroid hormone (hypothyroidism runs in my family and will hit me sooner or later), which means the reason I'm tired much of the time is from not sleeping enough.

But it's hard to see that cutting out this activity would help much. In fact, I look forward to days when I'm scoring because I get to get up late (it starts later than my day job and is a very quick commute) and I don't have to make my lunch. Even if I go to my day job afterwards, I still get all the free time on the bus to read during, so I do actually have more free time.

That's not quite the right comparison, though, because this is happening during vacation time. What I really should be doing is comparing this to what I would normally be doing on vacation. I'm not sure what that would be, though. I did go to the South by Southwest movie festival this past spring, but I learned that I don't really need to take the whole day off to see most of the movies--just taking the afternoons off would be fine. And because I just started getting three extra days of vacation last year, I can still score lots of tests and do SXSW and still go on vacations.

3) The pay wasn't increasing as fast as at my day job. Basically I only make about $60 per day most of the time. One plan was to figure out a better way to cash in my vacation time, but I haven't done that yet. So in the meantime, this makes more money than, say, sleeping in. Since we are finishing up more quickly than in the olden days, and since I have a car again, I could just go back to work. So that makes the earnings-per-vacation-hour better than when I didn't quite have time to go back to work. And although $60 per day doesn't sound like much, the money could add up to enough to pay off my house a year sooner.

Quote of the Day: Little-Kid Weight-Loss Program: "Eat everything you want. Run everywhere you go." I heard this from Richard Fowler; don't know who said it first.

Thursday, August 5, 2004

Robin found this great deal to go to Las Vegas, but while we were deciding, the deal disappeared. So then he was just playing around and found a great deal in London. So we will be taking a trip to London this October.

Since London is expensive, I'd always thought that if I visited England, I would stay elsewhere and maybe make a few day trips into London. But now we feel we should take advantage of our good deal and spend the whole week in London. I've become a big fan of making only very short trips from a home base during this sort of vacation, so we don't spend the whole time traveling.

So, I'm trying to decide what to do. The more I read, the more I get overwhelmed by how much stuff is there. Also, the more I read, the more I wonder how great this place can really be. I mean it's just a city, right? This isn't some place I've always dreamed about or anything, so I'm not quite sure where to start.

Still, I think we've got enough good ideas to get us through. Here is my current list of things I'd like to do.

• Visit a pub.
• Visit at least one garden. Since I seem to like "English gardens," maybe I should visit some gardens in England?
• Eat fish and chips.
• Eat Indian food (but not chicken vindaloo which I learned from "Red Dwarf" is probably too spicy for me)
• Walk around pretty areas, such as up and down the Thames. Try to remember not to accidentally call it the Seine or any other exotic-sounding, not-pronounced-how-it-looks river-through-a-big-foreign-city name.
• Visit a grocery store. See what's cheap there but expensive here and get some of that. Try interesting new things. (In Germany we found chocolate eggs with snap-together toys inside. In Switzerland we found chocolate mousse in a spray-can (tastes like chocolate whipped cream) and chocolate-chip granola breakfast cereal. Mmm.)
• Buy a dictionary. Yes, I do speak English. But I keep reading books written in England and watching movies made in England, and they keep using words in ways I don't understand. So, I know that England will have British-English dictionaries.
• Visit a thrift store.
• Look at umbrellas, raincoats, shoes, and wool things.
• Go to at least one park. (I think we'll be walking through Hyde Park several times, because our hotel is on the NE corner of that park.)
• Go to at least one museum. Robin has about five museums he wants to go to. We won't have time for everything. We won't even have time for say, just going to The British Museum, even if we went there every day we were in London. Robin tells me it's bigger than the Louvre. Unimaginable.
• Check out several museum shops. Apparently London is like Las Vegas (huh?) in that the museum gift shops are really, really nice. (Except that in Las Vegas we just skipped the tiny, expensive museums and hung out in the gift shops; in London, there are huge, free museums.)
• Visit the Globe Theatre (replica).
• See at least one play. There are supposed to be all kinds of plays, often very good, and often very affordable (compared to New York, probably).
• Eat at a sandwich shop.
• Visit a bakery. Having high tea used to be on my list, but I found out it's expensive, and I might not have fancy enough clothes. But I still want to taste some of those sugary goodies. Mmm, biscuits that are really cookies.
• Look at Buckingham Palace and some of the cool bridges and other famous old buildings. (Don't pay to go in; don't try to catch the changing of the guard.)
• I really, really want to try to meet some people. Maybe it's just that I want to talk to people who have cool accents. I'm not so great at taking initiative. I've heard that in some places (pubs?), you have to sit with strangers because the tables are big and the places are crowded. That sounds like good fun.
• Hang around with Robin. I suppose that means doing things Robin wants to do. So I'm guessing I may visit Harrods and other big department stores. I may go into a lot of bookshops. I may go into more museums than I otherwise would. I'll probably be riding a red double-decker bus. I will look at The Eye and contemplate riding in it.

That's way too many things to do. Which is good. In Las Vegas, we started to run out of good things to do.

This trip was the last straw--I went out and bought a very fancy new digital camera. I hate dealing with security with film, begging people to not put the film through the machines, and waiting around for them to peer into each and every film canister. I paid extra for zoom, like always, because I use zoom on almost everything. But this time I also paid extra for quick picture taking (rare on a digital camera). And I also paid extra for the ability to make up to a 30-second sound recording attached to a picture. Taking notes! So you don't forget what it's a picture of! (Actually, because I will forget.) Added bonuses are that you can take pictures rapid-fire--good for action shots. And it has a really good lens and screen, and above-average automatic processing. And you can rotate the lens so you can aim the camera at things higher than your head (or at your head) and still see to frame them. And it's tiny--you don't have to be a giant to fit this in your pocket.

Well, the trip and the camera pretty much take up my big spending money for the year. Awesome though.

Friday, July 30, 2004

Today I went to the first meeting of the Campus Compadres where the philosophy is that some of these work meetings might be a lot more fun if only we didn't have do the meeting stuff. The idea is to have a standing lunch meeting every other Friday for anyone who can make it. This way you get to see people around campus who you don't work with, or don't work with anymore, and you get to find out all kinds of fascinating things about other people's jobs. And lunches.

I thought it was the perfect opportunity to invite my sister and some faculty and staff I used to work with in Zoology. My sister couldn't make it to this first meeting, since it was the busiest day of the year at her office (where today is the biggest deadline of the year). One faculty member also RSVP'd that he already did lunch with an old friend every Friday, so wouldn't ever be making it. From everyone else I heard nothing.

Still, there were plenty of interesting folks, and we went around the room introducing ourselves, which was much more fun than when the same thing happens at meetings, because everyone was being silly. The organizer said he felt like he was throwing himself a birthday party, wondering if anyone would show up at first. One person was talking about some work issue she was thinking about while taking her shower this morning, and someone else snorted, "Too much information!" As if knowing that someone was naked in the bathroom was creeping her out. Several of my favorite silly people from meetings were there.

We got three big tables full of people, so I think this is an idea that's going to stick.

Wednesday, Juy 21, 2004

Does your company offer health care flexible spending accounts? Then get ready for fun and adventure (well, what goes for such in my life). These accounts are part tax breaks on health care spending and part gambling.

The tax break part is that you don't have to pay income taxes or FICA taxes on money you spend on (unreimbursed) health care expenses. Woo hoo! Free money from Uncle Sam!

The gambling part is that you have to guess ahead of time how much these expenditures will be for a whole year. The appropriate fraction of that amount is deducted from each of your paychecks for the next year. Then, whenever you make healthcare payments or purchases, you request a reimbursement from that account, until the yearly amount is gone, or the end of the year arrives, whichever comes first. If you guess too low, you have to pay for the extra with after-tax money. If you guess too high, you lose the extra money in your account at the end of the year. This is where experience with those card games with the goal of bidding the exact right number of tricks could come in handy.

(Where does your lost money go? Not the IRS, like I would have guessed, but your company. Your company must spend it fairly on the employees; usually they use it to help cover the administrative costs of running this program. The amount they save on paying their share of your FICA taxes also helps.)

Some reasons you might not want to participate:

• Too boring - The whole thing seems too complicated or time-consuming. Try reading this and see if you still think that.
• Expenses are too low - If your usual out-of-pocket health care expenses would not add up to the minimum deduction allowed by your company, it might be better not to participate.
• Expenses are too high - If you know your expenses are going to exceed 7.5% of your income, you might be tempted to take a deduction on your 1040 income tax form instead. Any expenses paid from this account cannot be itemized. However, with this plan you get to deduct FICA as well as income taxes, and you do it on all the money you set aside, not just the amount above 7.5% of your income, so that's better. And any amount you spend beyond what is reimbursed from this can, if that amount exceeds 7.5% of your income, still be partly deducted on your 1040.
• Bad with paperwork - If you would always forget to file claims, save receipts, etc., this may not be a good plan for you. However, knowing that filing a claim would bring you a monetary reimbursement may be more motivating for you than the usual paperwork you forget about. If your company offers a debit card, you'd only have to throw your receipts in a file you could keep track of.
• Want to maximize Social Security benefits - Participating in this program reduces your income not only for tax purposes, but also for Social Security purposes. When the Social Security administration calculates your 30 highest salaries, this one will be a bit lower. Probably the difference in your retirement income would be very small. But if you are worried, you can always take the amount that would have gone toward taxes, and put them in some kind of savings account, maybe even a retirement savings account. This will probably give you a much larger return, and may also give you more flexibility on how to spend the money. If you are barely making enough to make the minimum quarterly amount to qualify for Social Security, then that might be a good reason to stay out.
• Too much of a gambler - If you would be guessing way too high and then forfeiting too much at the end, then it would be better not to play. But guessing high means shrinking your paycheck, so maybe it's not such a temptation after all.

Here are some reasons you might want to participate:

• Tax savings - You are good with money and can tell you would save money.
• Forced doctor visits - Contribute the amount for all the doctor visits you should be doing (annual physical, dental appointments, eye exam, mammogram). Now you have to go, or that money is wasted.
• Forced prioritizing - Having the money deducted from your paycheck means you at least have that much money available for health care, even if you ordinarily live paycheck to paycheck. Now health care has to be a priority because that money can no longer be spend on anything else.
• Christmas bonus - If you don't file your claims until the end of the year, then your reimbursement feels like big winnings.
• Free loans - Once the plan period starts, you have access to all the money (because you are forced to make contributions from each paycheck). So, if all your expenses come at the beginning of the year, you can file a claim right away; it's like you get a free loan of that money. Not only that, if you quit before you have paid in the amount for which you've gotten reimbursed, you never have to repay that loan. That's right, the company eats the loss. (Because of that, companies often set a low maximum contribution to protect themselves.) Of course, if you quit before you've spent as much as you set aside, then you are losing the money.

First, lets look at the risks. Let's start with the assumption that you're in the 15% tax bracket, you pay 7.65% of your income to FICA, you have no state income tax, and you've decided to have $1000 deducted for the year. Because this is deducted before taxes are taken out, your take home pay is reduced by only $773.50 [= $1000 * (100% - 15% - 7.65%) = $1000 * (1 - 0.2265)] over the year.

• Let's say you've guessed perfectly and spent exactly $1000 in out-of-pocket expenses. You save $226.50 or over 22% of what you would have spent. Awesome job! But highly unlikely.
• Let's say you've guessed too low, and actual expenditures came out to $2000. You've spent the $773.50 you set aside, plus an extra $1000 in after tax money for a total of $1773.50. Your total savings is over 11%. You would have paid $2000 if you hadn't been in the program. But you would have spent only $1546 if you had guessed perfectly.
• Let's say you've guessed too high, and actual expenditures came out to $500. You've still lost $773.50 from your paychecks to pay for only $500 in services. You have lost over 35% of the money you've set aside. If you had guessed perfectly, you would have paid only $386.75. So sad.
• Let's say you've guessed only a little too high; actual expenditures came out to $900. You've got $100 in your account that you will lose. You are crying in your soup. Still, you've paid only $773.50 for $900 worth of service, a savings of over 16%.

If you draw a graph of your savings versus your actual expenditures for a given guess, you can see that as you spend more than you guess, your savings drop off slowly (and never go to zero), but as you spend less, your savings drop off quickly (and can go negative). So, it's generally better to err on the side of setting aside too little.

Next you need to evaluate your risk comfort zone. Here are some approaches to participating, from most to least conservative:

• Stick toe in water - Contribute the minimum allowed by your plan (for mine it's $15/month), even though you know you will spend more, and see what happens. During the year you can find out things like how easy it really is to get reimbursed, how good you are at remembering to send in reimbursement forms or hanging on to receipts, how good you are at remembering what you can get reimbursed for, and how much various things cost. Then use that information to make a better decision next year.
• Cover maintenance costs - If you are paying medicines you take regularly or treatments you receive regularly, you could estimate those and contribute that amount. Cover only those expenses you are absolutely sure you will incur.
• Cover maintenance costs and anticipate other costs - You may be able to anticipate some costs that don't occur annually for you such as your ten-year tetanus booster or your first mammogram.
• Hedge your bets - Cover maintenance and other costs, plus a package of services you could add near the end of the year if you hadn't yet used all the money (see next section).
• Take bigger risks for possible bigger gains - If you have a bunch of kids, you might assume that at least something extra will come up each year. If you have the data, look at how much you've spent each year, and if you always spend more than maintenance costs, just guess that you will again. In other words, assume that you will incur some unpredictable expenses. If you do, you'll have some of the money you'll need, tax-free. If not, well, that's good news too.

Given what you can guess about your expenditures and what you know about the risks and your risk tolerance, select a figure. Look at the list of expenses your company covers and mark the ones that will or may apply to you. (According to IRS guidelines, more expenditures can be covered than you might guess: doctor visits and hospitalization expenses of course, but also dentist visits, eye exams, transportation costs to and from your doctor, co-pays, deductibles, acupuncture, some over-the-counter medicines, prescriptions including birth control, glasses, contact lenses, contact lens solution, and aspirin. Not insurance premiums, toothpaste, vitamin pills, or gym membership, though. Some things are not covered unless your doctor prescribes it, such as sunscreen and weight-loss programs. Note that companies do not have to allow reimbursement for all the items allowed by the IRS guidelines, although most do. So be sure to look carefully at the information provided by your company.)

Then try to guess how much these will cost--look at what you've paid in the past, check the benefits of your insurance in the next year. There are calculators to help you figure out how much you will spend, providing that you already know how much you will spend--you enter the figures for each type of expense, they add them up for you. (Actually, they do serve a function in reminding you how many things qualify.)

At the end of the year, you may find that you have more money leftover than you think you will be spending, or you may find that you have spent all the money, but have more expenses. As with most tax strategies, you may be able to move expenses that should occur near the end of the plan year either before the deadline, if you still have money, or after the deadline, if it is all spent. Obviously, you do not want to take too long to take care of urgent health issues. It hurts longer and probably costs more, too.

About 20% of people participating in this plan have money leftover at the end of the year. If this is about to happen to you, there are various strategies for using up the money at the end. Warning: stocking up on more of something than you could possibly use in a year is against the rules.

• Kevin McCormally of Kiplinger.com recommends that you "consider having your teeth cleaned, buying a new pair of glasses, going ahead with that laser eye surgery or buying prescription drugs you'll need soon. Also if your plan has implemented the recent IRS decision to allow flex plan money to be spent on nonprescription drugs, you have a new way to spend your money and qualify for reimbursement from the account." Note that if you wait too long, you may have difficulty making an appointment, especially with several other people thinking the same way.
• But Sarah Max of CNN says "before you scramble to spend your FSA money on laser surgery or a massage, make sure you have claimed all the eligible expenses you've already incurred. If you haven't been saving receipts, you might ask your physician, dentist or pharmacist for a tally of the co-payments you've paid this year. Your insurance company also should have a record of deductibles and other costs it did not cover. Finally, don't forget the cost of transportation to and from your doctor's office � that will get you 13 cents a mile." She also recommends a trip to the optemtrist ("perhaps the most popular way of emptying out your flexible spending account"), stocking up on prescription drugs, visiting the dentist, paying ahead for orthodontia, and starting treatment for things you've been putting off.

Like any game, there are rules in the fine print that would be good to know before selecting an amount.

First, as in all financial savings plans, don't forget to look at not only how to get your money into the plan, but also how to get it back out. How do you request reimbursement? You'll probably need to fill out and send a claim form (my company has a toll-free fax number) with proof of purchase and perhaps proof of medical need. Is your account credited the same day? Do you receive a check later? Your company may also provide a debit card, allowing the amount to be withdrawn from your account to pay the bill in the first place (mine charges an annual fee for this card).

What kind of documentation is required? That depends on what kind of expense you are having reimbursed. Basically they need to know that it's an appropriate medical expense, it's for a qualifying person, and you incurred the expense during the plan year.

• Health care visits: According to PayFlex, "if you have insurance coverage, you must send the claim to your health (medical, dental or vision) insurance plan first. The insurance carrier will process the claim and provide an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) statement to you showing the amount paid and what you owe. The EOB can be submitted with your flex claim form. If you are covered by an HMO type plan or do not have insurance, ask your care provider for an itemized statement that includes their name/address, patient name, date of service, a description of the service or supply, and the cost."
• Prescriptions: PayFlex says, "The pharmacy receipt (not the cash register receipt), often times called a �script�, that includes the pharmacy name, patient name, date the prescription was filled, the name of the drug, and dollar amount should be submitted with your claim. Another easy way to submit prescription expenses is to ask your pharmacy to print a listing of all your prescription purchases for a given time period for each family member and submit with your claim form. Many pharmacies now allow customers to set up accounts online at their website so they can print a list of their prescriptions." A prescription alone is not good enough; you need proof that you actually bought the medicine.
• Over-the-counter medicines: According to Sarah Max at CNN, "Some items, such as cold medicine, are clearly medical in nature, in which case a receipt with the date, amount and name of the item is probably all you need to get reimbursed . . . . But with dual-purpose items, such as vitamins or sun screen, you'll [also] need a note from your doctor with a diagnosis and a recommendation."
• Travel expenses: Receipts from parking fees and tolls, plus your computation of mileage, which you then multiply by $0.12 per mile (for 2004; subject to change).

Saturday, June 5, 2004

Robin got a fancy digital camera. First he brought it to Dave and Lyn's party where he played with it and got advice. Then he brought it to Tam's and Mosch's where he read the manual several more times and got more help. And he took hundreds of pictures.

Tam also has a digital camera, and Mosch also took hundreds of pictures. I learned that with hundreds of pictures, you can get an effect similar to having a movie camera without the tedium associated with bad home movies. You just don't get the same sense of what the week was like with my mere forty-five pictures. Not that I've gotten them developed yet.

In the olden days, I knew I preferred a film camera over a digital camera because I could get double prints and give away half (even to low-tech people) and because I like to put the prints in scrapbooks with running commentary. I enjoy taking down these scrapbooks; reading them is like re-living my vacation (only quicker and cheaper). It's still expensive to print digital photos.*

But now that I've spent a week with digital cameras and I'm trying to decide which rolls of film to get double prints from, I can't help realizing that most of my friends don't even want to be encumbered with my prints. For example, my parents would probably rather look through a Las Vegas album I made than get a pile of pictures in the mail to add to their stack of stuff. Of all my backlog of undeveloped film, I think I'll only get doubles of my Denver pictures.

And the whole idea of having prints is starting to feel clunky, old-fashioned, quaint. Several of my friends share their photos on their web pages. Another option is to burn pictures on discs to mail or to store an extra copy for yourself. Is it so much harder to look at a screen than a scrapbook? On the one hand, it does seem foolish, even arrogant, to rely on a lifetime supply of electricity and internet access. But to fear a collapse of the infrastructure does seem a bit melodramatic. I'm starting to feel like some old person afraid to step into the new world. I don't want to be like my grandmother when she refused to get a computer and play with e-mail and the internet, even though she already was an accomplished typist (the hardest part).

And today I touched the digital camera. Robin is replacing the sink, and I'm documenting the process. I have to say I love the instant gratification. (Even though my pictures mostly weren't that great.) And I like not having to go and pay for developing. And I have a web page anyway--I really am just the sort of person who should have a digital camera. Robin says there are affordable small durable digital cameras with zoom. Of course, I'm not going to do anything rash. Nor do I have to: I get to use Robin's camera if I'm very, very careful.

* No it's not. Tam says, "if you upload your digital photos to Shutterfly.com (or another similar place, like Ofoto), you can get prints for ~ 0.22 - 0.29 cents each (depending on how many, whether you prepay, etc.).... An even cooler thing about Shutterfly is that they automatically print the filename AND the date the picture was taken on the back of the prints."

Friday, June 4, 2004

One nice thing about vacations is that you get to try out a different lifestyle for a while. But then you tend to come home and forget all about it, reverting comfortably to your old ways. Quick, before it's too late, I'd like to document some things.

Cool things about Tam's and Mosch's place:

• Tam and Mosch
• interesting and nice pets
• space
• cleanliness, neatness, and knowing where stuff is
• soft carpet
• yummy, healthy foods coming out of the kitchen (thanks, Mosch and Robin!)
• good books
• comfy couches
• big bedrooms and closets
• comfy beds
• nice views
• hand lotion at every sink
• washer and dryer
• big TV
• reminder notes, wisely placed

Cool things about our place:

• us
• lots of colors
• lots of character
• good books, movies, and music
• good tools
• facial tissues in every room
• big living room for dancing
• good sound system
• office supplies in every room

Ideas I want to steal:

• clean enough for company
• comfy for house guests
• kitchen scale
• bathroom scale hanging on wall
• hand lotion at every sink

Thursday, June 3, 2004

Tam is trying to convince all her friends to move to Denver. She does this by inviting them up for visits and being a completely amazing hostess. I remember the following good reasons she and Mosch showed me for moving to Denver the first time I was there:

• They have a yummy fifties diner.
• There's a huge public library with awesome sales section.
• There's a nice art museum (actually, I'm not generally a fan of art museums).
• There's a beautiful downtown area to walk around in.
• Tam and Mosch had a totally cool funky old apartment.
• There's all kinds of interesting architecture, including my favorite Austin stuff, Chicago stuff, and hints of my favorite Colorado stuff.
• There's snowy mountains within easy driving distance.
• They have beautiful fall colors.

This time Tam admitted that Denver doesn't have the greatest restaurants (at least they're not good at Mexican food) and that at her totally cool funky old apartment, she had to pay $130/month for parking. (And I whine about the annual $324 fee for a guaranteed spot in a garage at UT--or $108 for rights to roam the other lots, hoping for a spot.)

So she and Mosch have moved to an apartment complex twenty minutes from downtown with no visible character. But they do each have their own big bedroom, decorated in my favorite style (bookshelves, full of books). And there's a rooftop kitty play land. And a great view. And, I assume, free parking. So, she's further from work, but they're closer to the mountains. Here are some more reasons I learned about to move to Denver:

• The foothills look like the basin at Big Bend.
• The foothills have prairie dogs and bunnies in them.
• They also have mountains.
• They also have red rocks.
• Boulder is friendly for bicyclists, just like the best towns I've seen in Europe.
• Denver has no traffic.
• The commute to downtown is 22 minutes, at any time of any day.

If anything runs me out of Austin, it will be the traffic. (Although, the plan to add extra toll roads and light rail may actually help. And maybe what they're about to build at the old airport will be so cool that I won't need to travel much anyway. We'll see.)

I won't talk about what great hosts Tam and Mosch are, because it's unbelievable. Let's just say that if they invite you for a visit, and you're not the kind of person who can't stand to be away from home, then go. They really do want you there. Try not to give them all colds like I did, though.

Friday, May 28, 2004

I've decided I'd like to take a break from my job. This is something I never really thought I'd be able to do, but I've decided that I think I could do it, so I'm going to start seriously thinking of what I would be doing during that time.

This decision is inspired partly by my friend Dave who decided to take a year of "early retirement." Then he decided he'd like even more time off, but meanwhile is working a short but fun and lucrative contract job. It's also inspired by my friend Lyn who decided to do her postdoc someplace cool and ended up in Switzerland, and then Dave got permission to do his job from there. Also, Dave and Lyn have decided to take off for three months and go to Europe without having to do any job at all. My decision is also inspired by my friend Patricia, who routinely travels to all kinds of interesting places whenever she's between jobs. The travelling is more important than the jobs, or maybe the jobs are important so she can save up to travel.

The security freak in me is letting me do this because of some things I realized about my eight months away from the university working at a state job. I took that job because it sounded fun, paid more, and I wouldn't lose retirement because service from either system can be transferred to the other. After running screaming back to the university, I realized that transferring my state time to the university system wouldn't be necessary. That's because every year that one works six or more months at the university officially counts as a year toward the retirement system. And because I missed four months in one fiscal year and four months in the next, I didn't lose any credit at all. So all the money in my state retirement fund is extra, and I can cash it out and use it as I wish. (Although I didn't lose service for retirement purposes, I did lose it for longevity raise purposes. So every three years I wait an eight extra months before getting an extra $20. Also I'll have to wait an extra eight months to get my fifteen-year certificate and lapel pin.)

So, my plan is to work for six or more months into a fiscal year (September through February), take off for the rest of the year (or maybe just the summer), and then start job hunting at the beginning of the next year, and hope I find a job in six months. Risky, I know.

But I won't do this until I figure out what I am going to do with the time. If I take off without a plan, then it will feel like early retirement where I just have fun all day, and then going back to work will be just a huge drag. And I don't want to have a plan like "write a book," which I may or may not complete. I'm thinking of something that will enhance my career--some kind of teaching or writing thing--or some kind of fun job, or some kind of job in a fun place, or some kind of adventure. So, maybe a writing workshop. Or working as part of an experimental math teaching program over the summer. Or doing some kind of online educational development internship. Or teaching ski lessons in South America. (Not that I really know how to ski very well. Or speak Spanish or Portuguese very well.) Or working on a cruise ship. (Although I have been known to get seasick.) Or working in a national park. Or working on some extremely lucrative short-term job. Or working some entry-level job in a fabulous company with an even better retirement system. I'm still vague on this part of the plan, but as of today, I'm thinking about it.

Journal entry of the day - Pie and Crap by Bad Hair Days (5/10/2004) - This is how a recipe should be (except for no picture). "Cool completely on a wire rack if you don�t want berry juice leaking all over the place. Of course, if you do it this way you won�t get warm strawberry goodness and there will be no reason to buy ice cream. It�s all a question of how close to the edge you like to live your life." Also, I even enjoy reading about her new computer thingy. "The Mini is also not available anywhere in the free world and Amazon has the 15-gig iPod on sale for only $35 more than the stupid Mini! That�s like three bucks per extra gig!"

Sunday, April 11, 2004

I've learned a number of weird things in the past week or so.

One thing I've learned is that if one of your friends looks a little different, but you can't put your finger on why, and if he can't remember things you've talked about or how to order the usual at the usual lunch place, he might not really be your friend. Even if you're not in "Star Trek." And even though he passed the Star Trekian test of still being able to help you with your calculus. He might actually be the twin brother of your friend. And that strangely pale guy with dreads that this guy brought along with him? That might be your friend in a really good wig. (More details are available.)

I also learned that in some situations, the best way to make a film production more efficient is for both assistant directors to quit on the same day. This works when the assistant directors feel that the director is abusing the actors with his inefficiency. If the actors quit, that would sink the film. If the crew quit, that would make things worse. You can't have just one assistant quit because that might be interpreted as one assistant being overly sensitive. But when both assistants quit, then the director gets the point--and the added bonus of having to do all the extra work himself.

And buying a car can be much easier than I ever thought. You could just mention to your mechanic that your next car is going to be one of his favorite makes, and when he asks you if you are in the market now, like this weekend, you say yes. And then he calls this dealer he works with, and the dealer has one of the cars on your list, and your mechanic does a thorough inspection of the car for free, because he and the dealer have an agreement where the mechanic inspects and repairs all the dealer's cars. No begging the owner to work with Lemon Busters. No explaining to dealers, "actually, the amount I can afford each month is $0, with a $3000 down payment." And no waiting in line at state offices, because the dealer takes care of tax, title, and license. (I don't have the car yet; something might still fall through. But maybe it really will be that easy.)

And I am able to find a new error every time I look at my tax return. Week after week. I was going to wait to file it until I came up with the same numbers twice in a row, but time is up. You wouldn't think someone with my income could rack up such complexities, but yes, I do have that power.

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

This year I got a South by Southwest Film Festival pass for the first time. Which means that for fifty bucks I get to watch all the movies I want for the whole week. I'm taking off Wednesday through Friday this week, and I've already seen six movies (not counting the one I watched at my sister's house yesterday).

I have to tell you that I am getting really tired of the following common movie themes: 1) making fun of people, 2) making the moves on other people's spouses, 3) jumping to conclusions about your friends. On the other hand, I have also learned a valuable lesson: Don't confuse the documentaries with the narratives. Yes, I already knew this from the whole "War of the Worlds" incident, but I went directly from "A League of Ordinary Gentlemen," a documentary about professional bowling, to "Mail-Order Bride," a fictional documentary, and got confused. It would have seemed a lot funnier had I known that the people were being stupid and horrible only for the humor value.

Best movie so far: "Saved!" This movie will open nationally, but probably not in many theatres because people are afraid that it's a Christian-bashing movie. Actually, it's only tangentially about Christianity, being set in a Christian high school. It's your basic coming-of-age movie where the characters deal with universal issues such whether to tell parents what the parents don't want to hear, how to deal with the fact that things aren't always black and white, and how hard it is to tell whether you are just rationalizing that what you want to do is actually the right thing to do. The director said the target audience is teenage girls, and there's plenty of teenager innuendo humor, but it's all deadpan, so you have to be paying attention. Which you may not be doing, because it's easy to get sucked into the stories of things going awry in serious ways despite one's best efforts. You know you want to see how Jesus might recommend premarital sex (Jena Malone), how to tap dance in a wheelchair (Macauley Calkin), and how to divert attention when necessary with a born-again episode (Eva Amurri).

P.S. I was really tempted to copy this born-again episode during the tasteless portion of the religious portion of a memorial service I recently attended. You know, the part where the pastor consoles the mourners with the good news that the recently departed is in heaven, and that you will get to see him there, but then reminds you that this is only if you have taken Jesus into your heart. Fortunately, I am a nice person, so I not only did not manufacture a born-again episode, but I also stifled my giggles.

Journal entry of the day - Guidelines for People Using the Grocery Store Self Checkout Line in Front of Me by Sour Bob - Half rant, half newbie FAQ. Warning: crude, filthy, and violent. But also funny, cathartic, and educational. "What you do not want to do here is either a) take the thing out of the bag (the machine hates that) or b) hit "Enter Store Code." Didn't I tell you about the [ahem] "Enter Store Code" button? You don't [ahem] work here, [ahem]. You touch that button even one more time and I'm going to grab that bag of Sun Chips off the impulse buy rack and I'm going to shove it so far up your [ahem], you'll be able to name the flavor."

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

I'm quitting my class. If I were actually taking the class, and it would be on my student record and counting toward my degree, I would hang in there and it would be fine. But as I am overextended, I'm going to blow it off.

I felt we didn't have enough information to do the first assignment, but it looked like that wouldn't be a problem in the future. For the first assignment, I just basically wrote that I did not know enough to be able to do a good job, but I could do a lame job and I could discuss additional interesting related issues.

But now I'm having trouble with all three of the next assigments. One is to join an online discussion, which would be fun, but only members of the class have access, so I would have to go through a lot of trouble to get on the list. Even though the prof collected our e-mail addresses and things the first day and knows I want to be on the list. The second assignment is two write a dialog between someone from France and someone from England around 1800 about the two countries' "Indian" policies up to that date. Again, this could be quite fun, throwing in British-sounding phrases for the one and a French accent for the other, and where the reader slowly, as the dialog goes along, figures out how these two know each other. But the information we have is very broad, general; there's no meat. I'd have to do extra research to get the good stories. The real problem, though, is with the third assigment: choosing a paper topic. I have no clue. What we have learned so far has not inspired me to want to go into greater depth on any topic that could be adequately covered in only ten pages. Bleh.

The problem is that I want the readings to be a book like Guns, Germs, and Steel, only about what strategies worked for Native American. I had thought none of them worked, but the instructor says that economic assimilation was the key. What he means is that the only profitable thing the French figured out was fur trading, and the French had never even heard of beavers before arriving in America, so they felt stuck trading with the locals. There was a large swath of folks on the continent all speaking the same language, so once the French learned that language and adapted the native canoes which were better for river travel than anything they had at the time, they could go up and down the river, trading. The French even discouraged missionaries because missionaries felt they couldn't do their work without forcing the converts into agriculture, which would have been at odds with fur trading. So that's pretty amazing. Whereas in other areas, colonists found gold or other resources which they already knew how to get at more efficiently than the natives, or things like tobacco, which they learned to produce more efficiently. Taking over tribute systems already in place was promising, but the more settled folks were even more susceptible to disease than the others, living in higher densities as they were.

Oh, and did I mention the whole class is depressing and gives me nightmares?

Tuesday, March 9, 2004

[My apologies for uploading the next four entries the same day. I didn't actually write everything the date it says, like I should have. But I was writing to my brother and decided why write everything twice? I'm making him a copy of this to go with the rest of his letter. So you can thank my brother for the following four entries.]

Today I helped someone who is moving from a big house to a small two-bedroom apartment to sort through his things. His house is not only big but extremely well designed with oodles and oodles of storage space. There are shelves on every wall in the house that doesn't already have built-in cabinets, desks, etc. Did I mention the two-car garage? The attic?

The guy is taking the necessary paring down very well. Although he wants all his fishing books, for example, he's willing to take only two-thirds of his fly-tying equipment, only the archery books that are historical, maybe ten percent of his tools, etc.

I find the whole thing very traumatic, because I imagine myself in his place. You collect so many things over the years. He's giving up most of his pipe collection, since he can't smoke. Most of his knife collection. All the tiny model cars he's made, some of papier mache.

But then he's also been finding things he didn't know he had or still had. Things he really could have used. And many things have been stored so long that they are no longer in good shape. Books can get mildewy and brittle. Cans can explode.

Part of me wanted to go home and throw out virtually everything. Follow the advice in Don Aslett's Clutter's Last Stand, which has many stories about how having too much stuff can affect your life adversely. Just hang on to a few things that I use repeatedly and that I love so much that I will enjoy taking it out and lovingly cleaning it every week, like stereotypical teenaged boys with new cars. Keep only the best books and movies, that I re-read or re-watch and lend out regularly. Only the clothes I wear every week, in each kind of weather, or choose first for special occasions. Only my favorite wall hangings.

But then we get into the problem of hobbies. I have many, many hobbies. Fortunately, I am not one of those people who gets all imaginable equipment for every hobby. Still, I have more hobbies than I can participate in during a single year. For example, if I got rid of everything I haven't used in the past year, that would mean getting rid of my sewing machine, a couple of boxes of fabric, and some patterns; my cleats (ultimate frisbee); most of my cookbooks; most of my sheet music and maybe my guitar; most of my gardening tools and supplies (all but the shovel); my tent, sleeping bags, camping lantern, buddy-burner-making materials, and hiking boots; my roller skates and roller blades; most of my reference books; and who knows what else? But I don't like not doing these hobbies; I just don't have time!

Still, perhaps there are a few things I can admit I will probably never use again. Perhaps a few movies, books, and games. A few shirts and an old coat. Things that are broken, things that have been replaced.

But what about things like those clothes I have that I never wear because they collect too much lint in the washer? I expect to own a drier someday, and that will take care of the lint problem. Then there's that huge pile of stuff I'm saving in case Robin and I split up one day. But I even have trouble with pathetic items like a home-made trebuchet, broken into splinters. (No, I don't have it anymore.) And what about my rock collection, which I leave out hoping that some kid will ooh and ah over it, so I can give it away. I believe I've only ever had a total of three kids in my house.

One of my biggest problems is getting rid of things that someone would like. How can I connect those things with happy owners? For books, I found out that my library can usually find a way to use them. The ones that they don't want, they put out to sell for cheap. The ones that don't sell, they put out on the free table. And most things get taken: almost everything except tattered old books and sets of encyclopedias and National Geographic. I guess resale shops, thrift shops, and various charities are good for clothing, toys, and household goods. Habitat for Humanity takes home improvement stuff. Still, I have a lot of bags of books sitting at my house, and it took me several weeks even to return a bad purchase to the store. Apparently I have issues.

I'm remembering what my grandmother's apartment looked like after she died. Everything was in place except one plate with some crumbs on it, a knife, and a glass. It was truly amazing. If I had died that day instead of her, it would have been a nightmare going through my stuff. Just out of pure politeness, I should do something.

Friday, March 5, 2004

My writing circle is meeting again this Saturday. This meeting's homework was this:

Shifts in Perspective: Write about a past family gathering, the most embarrassing thing that ever happened in your high school, the best (or worst) teacher you ever had, the time you learned to do something important (swim, ride a bike, use a computer), or the biggest event you ever attended. Write the story in as much detail as possible, explaining what you saw, what you did, and how you felt. Then rewrite the same story from the perspective of someone else - a relative, a fellow student, another participant, a passer-by, etc.

I haven't actually done the homework yet. I've found that when I think of an event that's important to me, then when I get to another's perspective, I can only think of stereotypes. Well, Mom probably thinks X because she's the mom. My best friend probably thought Y because she's my best friend. But of course people have more than one role. And that's part of what I love about so many good fiction books is how you get more than one perspective on things sometimes.

But I suck at that. I enjoy writing my own perspective on happenings in the world, drawing out multiple aspects of a situation, perhaps. But actually thinking up multiple aspects of fictional events or characters is not something I've done. Which is why I write nonfiction. Except that I'm good at thinking up hypotheses, which by definition may or may not be fictional, so maybe I've got it in me somewhere.

Thursday, March 4, 2004

A friend of mine was telling me about his latest experiences in Citizen Police Academy, a twelve-week program teaching about the Austin Police Department. This meeting was very intense; they simulated being in a situation where they would have to decide whether or not to shoot someone. There are all kinds of tiers of interaction; of course shooting is a last resort. And then you aim to kill and keep shooting until there is no longer a threat. To understand why, they got to watch a recording made automatically from a police car of a traffic stop. It seemed like a routine stop, and the police officer told the driver he was going to be let off with a warning after a routine weapon search. Well, the trunk held drugs and the driver held a weapon with which the driver began shooting the officer. Even after the driver had been shot five times, he was still ready to shoot the officer if the officer stood up again.

So, during the exercise, some people got to find out they have bad aim. Some people got to see they had bad judgment, shooting at anything that moved, and plenty of things that didn't. Some found they were too reluctant to do any shooting at all, even after the situation had escalated to the point where there was no better choice.

Valuable information, but traumatic. It surprised me because certain kinds of psychology experiments are no longer allowed because of this sort of psychic trauma. For example, subjects in Stanley Milgram's experiment on obedience learned that they would do horrible things to other people just because an authority figure asked them to. These were people in an experiment, told to please continue the experiment, not people who were in fear for their own safety or anything like that. The experimenter was trying to understand how something like the Holocaust could have happened. But now this kind of experiment is considered unethical.

Of course this kind of self-knowledge is good to learn in a relatively safe environment. Then maybe you'll do better in a real-life situation. I don't think I've learned anything like this. Well, I have learned how I behave in emergencies, based on one experience with an impending hurricane on a camping trip and one experience with a fire. In an emergency situation, people have many different possible reactions such as taking control of the situation, freezing and becoming useless, or running around panicking and making everything worse. What I do is stand around trying to think, which doesn't work for me (hmm, I wonder which blanket would be best to ruin by throwing it over the fire), but then if a take-charge type comes along, I can do what they say or follow their example. I don't think this particular knowledge helps me do better in real-life situations, though. Maybe it would make me ask for advice instead of standing around trying to think of what to do myself?

One kind of knowledge of extremes does help me in real life, though. You know how when you're injured, you're supposed to rest long enough to heal, but then start using the injured part. If you don't rest long enough, you can re-injure yourself, and if you rest too long, it takes longer than necessary to heal. Based on incidents of worsening my injuries, I have concluded that when I err, I tend to err toward the macho side. So now, when I can't decide whether I should rest more, I know the answer is yes, I should.

Sunday, February 29, 2004

I went to something Saturday called "Mass CPR Training." I thought it sounded interesting. Maybe exciting. Maybe a disorganized madhouse. But the cost was reduced, and it included lunch, and a t-shirt, and the book, and other little things. Plus one of my bosses said he'd pay for it. Then he also gave us comp time. Which I later found out was really overtime for me which means I get six hours of comp time for the four-hour class (time and a half, you know).

So, yes, I went. And it was very well done. First I went to an auditorium with one or two hundred other people. (Mostly female; that was weird. By "mostly," I mean over 90%.) We listened to a lecture (with little movies) for two hours from someone who deals with emergencies in her career, so she had that first-hand knowledge in addition to the required training.

Then they broke us up into groups of four or so, with a manikin for each pair of students. Then we practiced responses for choking on conscious and unconscious victims as well as first aid for other people who aren't breathing and people without circulation.

A few things have changed since I last took CPR. I used to take it every year. But I realized that was about twenty years ago. Right around when most of my classmates were being born. My mom had told me they quit teaching two-person CPR. For those who don't know, they used to teach a version where one person did the chest thrusts and a different person did the breathing, timing the breaths so that they occurred every five thrusts, between the thrusts. Apparently this wasn't working well in the field, so now they just teach one-person CPR.

They also teach it using these weird plastic face shields. They look a lot like those plastic bags you are supposed to keep babies' heads out of, but there is some sort of valve that you carefully position over the victim's mouth. This way you don't have to catch any diseases from any liquid contact.

They also don't teach back blows for choking victims. If the person is conscious, you just do the Heimlich maneuver. Otherwise, you do something that looks quite a lot like CPR, with the same 15-thrusts-per-2-breathing-attempts rhythm.

I also don't remember them stressing that you should look around when you come across an emergency situation before just running up to someone who needs help. There may be electrical hazards, fire hazards. If you notice several unconscious folks, they may have been breathing something you don't want to breathe. I remember them stressing it in lifesaving not to risk your own life trying to rescue someone else, but I don't remember it in CPR.

Overall, it was very well done, and I definitely learned it pretty well even with the mass quantities of people. It was put on by the American Red Cross Club of UT. What I'm guessing happens is that all the members get training in the fall, and then get training on how to do training. So then in the spring, there is a big pile of them ready to train an even bigger pile of us. Did I mention they had a morning, afternoon, and evening CPR session in addition to some other Red Cross courses?

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Journal entry of the day - Calender Girl on l.y.p. - About the trauma of selecting a calendar. "I know it's been awhile since I updated, but I've been totally busy. Insanely busy. For instance, a few or four or whatever Saturdays ago, I went out and bought a 2004 calendar."

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

I went to a meeting today where I heard some gossip about people around the campus where I work. I don't know most of the people. But one of the people I do know apparently is not well-liked or well-respected or something. "What? She's attending those meetings?" As if she is not good enough to be representing us or something. And yet I find her to be hard-working, good at the part of her job that I know about, and fun to talk to. She has a reputation among people I know as being bothersome, but that's because she is always looking for ways to make things work better. Which sometimes requires us to do more work.

This has happened before at work. That guy I greatly respected because he taught so many students at all levels and even from different schools and also did cool, important-sounding research? Turns out he's a sexist pig who treats women as inferiors and can't keep from looking at their bosoms. (Apparently my bosom is too small to attract attention.) That guy who seems so nice and does all kinds of interesting things like fly helicopters? Turns out he's a boring lecturer. The one professor who always writes neatly and clearly, so she never even needed any editing suggestions from me? Turns out she's hated in the classroom. The one who raves and raves about the one time he needed my typing skills? Asocial divorcee. Also, I had a professor who was pretty bad for one of my graduate classes but who won a teaching award for his undergraduate class.

So, I don't know what to think. Are my social perception skills nonexistent? Do I see the best in people to such an extreme that I can't see their bad sides? (That can't be it. Otherwise how can I hate that one landlady whose evil is so subtle that she thinks she's good?) Or probably it's just that people are good in some ways and bad in others and we all see them from different perspectives.

But here's another consideration. If I go around liking people who are disliked, disrespected, sexist piggish, boring, and asocial, what does that say about me? Am I to be avoided as well, by all those who notice this? Or am I a magnet for the socially inept? Or am I to be tapped as a liaison between the judgmental and the judged? That's actually one of my job duties, to act as a liaison between users and programmers. (Both are judgmental and judged.) I kind of like that role, but only because I like both the users and the programmers.

This all reminds me of a story I love, so now you have to listen to it. It concerns a friend of a friend who was working temp jobs. At one place she worked, she had for a boss a man who was well known for being difficult to work with. He was known to drive employees to tears. The turnover in his office was so fast, he didn't even know the temp's name. "Laura? Jane? Jennifer?" he would call. My friend-of-a-friend would not respond, because he did not call her name. He had to get up and talk to her at her desk. At one point he requested, "I hope there's not going to be a lot of crying around here." And she responded the way you usually have to fantasize in retrospect: "I can't promise there won't be any crying. But I can promise it won't be from me." Oh, yeah.

Thought of the day: My professor said Europeans used three basic strategies toward Native Americans while colonizing the Americas. I'd always lumped them into one category in my head: terrible. But maybe they were terrible because they were all colonizing in order to make more money. Still there were three different strategies, and although attributed to different European nationalities, they may have been based more on what they found than who they were.

One strategy was to cooperate with natives. This is theorized to have happened when the resources were more important than labor or land. This strategy is attributed to the French who, when they came to America, found their best chance for profits coming from fur trading, once they built a market for furs in England. Coercion would not have worked, I suspect because the natives rather than the Europeans were expert at producing furs.

One strategy was to interact with natives, but treating them as inferiors. This is theorized to have happened when labor was more important than land or other resources. This strategy was attributed to the Spaniards, who depended on slave or indentured labor for tasks such as gold mining. They also tapped into indigenous hierarchies to collect tribute.

One strategy was just to push natives away, theorized to happened when land was more important than labor or other resources. This strategy is attributed to the English. They focused on tobacco farming, which was hard on land, for their profits. They would set boundaries, defining "pales" beyond which all Native Americans must stay. Of course these boundaries moved further and further west until they reached the western coast. (The phrase "beyond the pale" comes from this word and means "outside this zone of exclusion.")

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Last night I went to a college performance of various pieces composed by UT students. There was some piano music, some plays, and some movies. The piano music seemed good, and was amazingly played. I don't know how people get their fingers to do that, even though I have a piano in my house and can impress some people myself. People who do not play the piano at all. But I also remembered that I don't really enjoy music unless it is "accessible," and I'm sure that writing accessible music is so very uncool.

The plays I found to be even more inaccessible. Really, poetry I didn't understand with modern dance accompaniament.

One movie reminded me that I want to make movies with cheap special effects, because she had great ones. She had the kind where you "see the brush strokes" or, in this case, the wires moving the pieces around. I remembered that when I do this, I will need to leave some time for the audience to laugh at the special effects before I rush into advancing the plot with them.

The other movie sounded like it was going to be boring, something about two guys in a laundramat being confused over who owned some pair of pants. But actually it was hilarious with no-brush-stroke cheap special effects. And this reminded me that you don't really have to make movies about exotic subjects you don't know to have a good movie.

Afterward they had a reception with fruit and sweets. Mmm.

Journal entry of the day: no, Elvis is not in the king cake, by jette - Learn about king cakes. "Little did I know that the king cake was going to suffer from Attack of the White Goopy Icing."

Monday, February 23, 2004

I attended another meeting of my writer's circle this weekend. Four new people appeared, so we had nine in all. We spent so much time talking about our homework that we barely got around to any writing exercises, but it was good. Our homework had been to write a synopsis or outline of a book we might write, if we were to write a book. I talked about my cookbook idea. We all ended up talking about various projects we had and what our problems were with our projects. It was fun. I also learned that, at least according to the two people who mentioned having this happen to them, having your characters come to life is a pain in the neck. They start doing things you don't expect, which I think is cool, but which makes it harder for you to get things to happen that you want to happen.

Afterwards, I checked out "The Fast Runner" from our library. It is a tale about love, jealousy, running for your life, and dealing with crime, set in another culture. During the first half of the movie, my main thoughts were, "What is going on?" and then "I guess when the life expectancy is low, you have a culture full of teenagers." The characters were always making fun of each other, crying, and getting into fights. But then I was wanting to look away every time they ate, because they mainly ate meat, and I was grossed out, which is also pathetic, so who am I to judge? The second half of the movie I was drawn into figuring out what plans the characters were concocting for each other while they went around acting as though they were no longer angry with each other. There was plenty of scary drama, but I didn't enjoy the movie enough to want to watch it again.

Last night I saw "50 First Dates," which I enjoyed. All the reviews say that most of the acting sucks, the plot holes are huge, and the jokes are crude: not my kind of movie. So, I have to conclude that it was the psychology major in me taking over that made me like the movie. What if there really was a condition like that, where you forget everything overnight? How could someone be that person's friend? As in "Memento," her friends find lying to be a tempting coping strategy. One good thing is that the movie doesn't cheat and have her miraculously heal at the end; the characters work to find a good way to be with her. They show us three different strategies, which I quite enjoyed. And the best solution still involved daily trauma, so it helps keep things in perspective for those of us who don't have to deal with daily trauma. So although this is supposed to be some kind of fluffy-headed romance movie, I was crying my eyes out. But also laughing. There were lots of funny bits. And about half the funny bits were from the character played by Rob Schneider, who virtually every other reviewer agrees is playing an unfunny, vulgar character in a racist, one-dimensional way, so you can never trust a review from me again.

I watched "High Fidelity" again last night. If you like reading on-line journals, you'll probably like listening to the main character express himself to the camera. I enjoy watching a character learn some life lesson. One of his was that he was fearing commitments in order to keep himself flexible, but of course you want the flexibility so that when something good comes up, you can make a commitment to it. Of course other people err in the other direction. Jack Black steals the show with lines like, "There's no way your daughter could like that record. [Unless,] oh, is she in a coma?" It's too bad that the characters would mostly be unlikeable in real life. But then again, they have these extreme traits that I can't help sympathizing with. Like the guy who's rearranging his album collection, no, not by date, and definitely not alphabetically, but autobiographically. A crazy you-should-get-a-life activity, but then also awesomely ambitious in a way.

Journal entry of the day: My Deep Dark Soul, by Desert Agave - When self-doubt is funny. "My friend Kat gave me a cactus the day before my birthday, and said it reminded her of me because it is 'prickly on the outside, but really very beautiful and intricate when you take a moment to examine it closer.' Was that a compliment, or did it mean 'You have a good heart even though you are a judgmental bitch?'"

Friday, February 13, 2004

My frugality presentation went well. About 30-35 people showed, which was at or above the expected value of 139 participants / 5 sessions = 28. I said most of what I hoped I'd say, people participated in all the empty spots I left for participation, and no one made fun of my thrift-shop clothes. Maybe because I made Robin dress me that morning.

I talked about both strategies that sound rational and strategies that deal with people's irrationalities or strange emotions. My favorite story was from a co-worker who says she shops for the thrill of it, the excitement of getting lots of cool things. She has found a way to do this without spending a lot of money. She goes to Target and walks up and down every aisle. Whenever she sees something she likes, she puts it in her basket. It feels good to have a basket full of lovely things. But she's also constantly evaluating how much she wants the item. Sometimes the thrill of an item completely evaporates only a few aisles later. Sometimes she still has too many things at the end of her tour of the store, so she prioritizes. As she brings the things back to where she got them, the extra time often helps her cool off on extra items as well. Now she can often leave the store with only one item, or even nothing, but she's still gotten the satisfaction and thrill of amassing cool stuff.

After the presentation, several people said they had wanted to come to my session or had heard it was good and asked me for the handouts, so now I've given out a total of 42. Then another co-worker asked if I would do an encore presentation for the folks in her work group. At first I was thinking, "Bleh! But I'm done!" But then I said yes. Later she asked how much time I needed. I said I could shrink it down. She said, "How about fifteen minutes?" Well, I could do a completely different presentation in 1/5 the time of my first one. But I said yes.

Part of me was thinking, why did I do this if I dread presentations? Then I remembered that it was all part of my plan to do extra job duties that I actually liked, especially in areas where I get exposure to other people who might think up ways I can use skills I like and invite me to do that or something. That whole networking thing.

Then I also remembered that of course people don't have to stay away from tasks they aren't good at. Sometimes they can just get better at them. I think my dislike for doing presentations is based on my relative lack of skill in interacting with groups of people. I actually did great working with groups of people in summer camp. So even though focussing on your strengths is usually more productive, improving certain weaknesses can also make a big difference. And as my co-worker pointed out, this is a relatively small, intimate group.

So then I thought I do enjoy people coming up to me and talking about frugality issues. And it's easier for me to shrink a paper (and probably a presentation) than to expand it, so now I'm glad I said yes.

In yesterday's mail, I got a letter from my brother. He volunteered to make me a Valentine's Day card to give my boyfriend, and I said that would be great. So the card came yesterday, and he decided to make me two cards: one mushy and one sleek and modern. They are both cool. My brother liked the mushy one so much that he wished he could sign it to give to me, but he wanted to save it so I could give it to Robin. The envelope containing the letter (and cards) was also decorated, as usual. This time it was a really cool castle at the top of a steep mountain.

Monday, February 9, 2004

This weekend Robin got his copy of the Hal Hartley movie "Amateur" and we watched it again. It's another one of those where a guy wakes up with amnesia and has to figure stuff out. As in "The Bourne Identity," he discovers he has some unusual skills. Other characters include a porn actress trying to change her life, an ex-nun trying to get into the porn-writing industry, an accountant trying to get away from bad guys, and bad guys. It's not really about porn or even about bad guys, it's more about changing your life, like the amnesiac thriller "Regarding Henry."

In an extra, the director said that the movie was about how you can never escape your past, even if you don't remember it. In the movie, the character gets treated differently than most people by those who do remember him, which certainly makes things difficult. But I don't want to agree with the director here.

We are all aware of the difference between deciding you want to make a change in your life and actually doing it. It's not so easy to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce your debt, etc. I think there can be many steps, the first of which do not result in anything seeming different. For example, some steps toward stopping shoplifting might be:

1. decide to stop
2. shoplift again anyway, then remember later that you had decided to stop
3. shoplift, then remember as soon as you get home that you had decided to stop
4. shoplift, then remember while walking out the door
5. remember, while picking up the item, that you were going to stop, but take it anyway
6. remember, while picking up the item, that you were going to stop, and put it back
7. remember before even picking up the item
8. no longer think in terms of shoplifting

In this example, the first five steps do not result in a reduction of criminal activity, but I would argue that progress is being made. And once the person has stopped stealing, then I agree with Hal Hartley that there are still consequences that make this person different from someone who has never stolen. Someone could notice evidence after the fact. Or an old criminal record can make job hunting difficult. Or the person may no longer be allowed in certain stores where But I think that with time, the ex-thief's life can become more and more like a non-thief's life as the person lives longer and longer without stealing.

So, if you think that change just isn't worth it, that you can't get away from your past, I'd like to say that it might get easier.

Sunday, February 8, 2004

Robin tells me I have avid readers. Hi, Sally, Tam, and Mosch! My apologies for not updating for over a week.

So, I've kicked out the first loser in the priority competition. Wednesday was my last day to score teacher certification exam essay questions. Probably.

It was a nice day. The problem was a good one, with the easier bits first, the more complicated bits later, so only rarely did I have to re-calculate everything to evaluate the whole problem. And it was one of the states where most people actually make passing scores, so there was plenty of internal "woo hoo!" and "you go!" instead of "oh no!" and "ouch, what happened to your brain?"

Lunch was great, as always. Even without the spicy seafood bisque, which I wouldn't like, there was still the great chef salad, with actual dark green lettuce, and which I loaded with mostly turkey and some ham, mostly swiss and some cheddar, ranch dressing. Then the usual fabulous dessert, this time a choice between chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin. I chose the oatmeal. Not exactly healthy, especially since I chose another oatmeal cookie instead of a white roll, but I could have made worse decisions.

Lunch conversation was great. People talked about cruises. Over half the nine people there had been on cruises. I learned that cruises of the Caribbean from Houston are quite affordable for Austinites. The money actually covers quite a bit: food, lodging, and all kinds of activities. You pay an extra tip at the end, and you can pay for things like island tours, but those are cheaper if you book them yourself. And since you sleep on the boat, there are no additional hotel expenses. And if there's a hurricane or something, they just take you someplace else cool. I had gotten the impression that they slipped in lots of other fees once you got on board.

Someone said they have all kinds of things you wouldn't think of on board. Like a morgue. You could have three or four people die on a cruise and not even know it unless they had been assigned to your dinner table. Someone said that once there was a terrorist threat that if the ship landed on one of the islands they would blow it up. As you might guess, the powers that be chose to skip that island, announcing that the waters were too "choppy."

Since most of the regulars were there, I went ahead and announced that it was probably my last day to work there. People asked why--it's nice to feel wanted. I explained that my math wasn't up to par. "No, no, if you weren't good, we wouldn't invite you back." That I was getting very busy lately. And that the pay just wasn't keeping up. And in fact, they kept us for only 4.75 hours which means $57. And to get that I took a vacation day at a job where I now earn about $128 per day. So, I can no longer really tell myself that I'm "cashing in" a vacation day like in the olden days when I worked an extra hour scoring, vacationing from a job where I earned only $80 per day.

Since I'm still carless, I had to get creative on the commute. Robin dropped me off on his way to work. I sat outside reading my last Elizabeth George book, Playing for Ashes. She's an excellent writer, but I'm feeling jerked around, like when I was watching "Twin Peaks" on TV. In this book, suddenly Lynley had no social skills, and Helen was a complete ditz with almost no redeeming qualities. On the other hand, Havers actually made a friend! And Lynley got to see her new place. Hah! But then of course other characters were in situations where they could not make any good decisions; no matter what they did, people got horribly, horribly hurt. Bleh, I've had it with her! It's like Lemony Snicket's children's "unfortunate series of events" books, only not pretending to be exaggerating. Robin says he still wants to read more. I'm hoping he reads me all the good bits and tells me the plots.

Since the place is only about three miles from home, I decided to walk it. Did you know there is such a thing as no-pedestrian signs? I walked under a bridge, and there two of them were, with pictures of guys walking, and the red circle and slash mark through them. Well, okay, but it's too late. I'm already there. I'm supposed to stop walking and, uh, hitch a ride? After that there was a nice bridge with a separate sidewalk on each side. Unfortunately, at the low point of the bridge, the water was two inches deep after all the rain that morning. Well, it was an adventure. And I got in my exercise for the day. And then I threw my muddy pants in the laundry with some other lights.

Tuesday is my big presentation. I'm almost ready. I could be ready in time. I just have to make sure that this relief that it's still possible doesn't keep me from being motivated enough to actually do what I need to do.