Interesting.  The other day I added some more links to blogs and they never showed up on my page.  Now I have to hunt them down again.  Sigh.
Here's my link for today: Blacks for Bush It's some funny stuff.

My new car is hot
everglade metallic green
I drive a RAV4!

My car died en route
Alternator is caput
No more money for me

So, as I was walking around campus today I noticed a meeting of one of the Asian student groups and I remembered something an acquaintance of mine said.

I had asked which of the schools her daughter was applying to and she mentioned a few and expressed her worry that her daughter would not be able to get in because "there were so many Asians being admitted." It stunned me at the time, but I didn't say anything. I didn't want to start a fight. What I should have said is that maybe fewer Asians would apply because there were so many white people.

Our school is some 30% Asian. That statistic is not broken up into Japanese/Korean/Pan-Asian and so on - just a bucket of "Asian". There are about 10% Hispanic, less than 1% Native American and somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% African American. So lets add that up, shall we? If you count 4% for "other" and mixed race students, we still have caucasian as the dominant race on campus.

If you look at the admissions statistics 100% of all admissions had a GPA of 3.0 and higher. 100% of all admissions scored 1130 or higher on the SAT. The biggest factor in admissions were the essay, the test scores and the GPA. Following that were volunteer work and extracurricular activities.

So how could my friend think her daughter wasn't going to get in just because there were "so many" Asians applying? Because she is holding on to the stereotypical views of the 70s and 80s? Shouldn't she be looking at the admissions statistics and seeing that her daughter was competitive? Or was she worried that her daughter would be at an institution that catered to an Asian population - sushi and anime only? :roll: She should be happy that her daughter could possibly get some diversity in the people she knows - it will help her in the workforce if she doesn't come in with all sorts of preconceived notions.

I picked my college based on the ethnic diversity. When I saw large groups of Black, Hispanic, White and Asian students all over campus, intermingling and getting along, I knew it was the place for me.

Prejudice just makes me so angry. Why do people say such stupid things? Why is someone "Asian" when they are viewed as competition and "American" when they pay taxes, or vote or give to charity?

I have to learn to be more vocal when these comments are mentioned. I'm usually just so stunned I can't think of anything to say. But I can't just sit idly by any longer. I must be part of the solution.

So, I'm back from my trip.  It was fun.  My friend and I ended up in a fantastic suite.  The sweet suite.  We each had a bedroom and they were connected by a living area with a bar, televisions (2), DVD player and 2 additional bathrooms.  It was the good life.  We went dancing and had a great time.

Slightly more disturbing is my week-long love affair with champagne.  We bought a bottle for the room and I had 2 or three glasses but it wasn't very good and we ended up throwing half of it out when we left.  Thursday we had a going away party at work and there was champagne.  It was nasty as well, but palatable when you mixed it with punch.  Yes, I got drunk at work.  Bad! Bad! Bad! When you start mixing champagne with punch, all you really taste is the punch.  We were outdoors, it was hot and I was really thirsty.  Don't aske me why I didn't just have punch - something about an open champagne bottle just seems to scream at me.  Anyway, I had to get a ride home.  That's a first for me.

Last night I went to a party at my friend's house.  It was just a few of us getting together and I thought a nice bottle of champagne would fit the bill among so many of us.  Unfortunately, except for one glass, I polished off the bottle.  Luckily we were doing a lot of dancing so I didn't get drunk.

But this is a disturbing trend in the last week.  Think I better go dry for awhile and try to figure out why I'm doing what I'm doing. I think I've drunk more this week than I have all year!  With the propensity for alcholism and addiction in my family, it's not wise for me to tango so closely with dynamite.

I'm off for another weekend away!  This one at my friend's house.  No booze!  Just girl talk and movies and junk food!

I've been missing a few days here and there with posting which is probably why I've been really stressed these last few weeks.  I've mentioned before that things will circulate 'round and 'round my brain until I give them an outlet and then they are released.

So here I am for the...what? Third time in 24 hours?  Geesh.  I'm supposed to be packing.  No, I'm not a procrastinator!  What makes you think that?

Anyway.  Here's what is dancing 'round the ole cerebellum tonight.  Have a friend.  Let's call him Sonny.  We're buds.  We talk every now and then.  See each other at church.  Group outings.  I always call him my "go-to" guy because he always follows up on whatever I ask him to do.  Call so-and-so, talk to this person, make sure he gets connected.  He's awesome at it too.  He's the guy who's there to help you move, even when he can only spare an hour.  It's all good, right? 

Well, lately whenever he sees me he touches me.  Not a grope or anything that would get him arrested in a preschool or anything....Well, you judge.  Last week we saw each other at church and I hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks so I didn't think it was weird when he stopped dead in his tracks, backed up and gave me the big hug.  Not the its-good-to-see-you hug you always expect in church because its the thing we Christians do (The Christian 1/4 hug - only one quarter of your bodies actually touch!) but the full on hug with the squeeze.  Nice.

Cut to later in the day.  I'm at church again - yeah, twice in one day.  NOT a normal occurence.  There was a different speaker that night.  Along comes Sonny!  Earlier, neither of us thought we were going to make it to the evening service so that was definitely a fluke.  Another hug.  Not as gripping as the first one, but he didn't hug anyone else.  I kind of wasn't expecting it, so I didn't fall into it like I usually do.

Four days later.  No huggie, no touchie.  I wasn't really on the alert then, so I wasn't thinking it was weird or anything.  Then all of a sudden (I was talking to someone else at the time, and come to think of it, so was he!) he hauls off and tackles me.  Shoulders down, arms around the waist, but not with enough power to knock me over.  Still it was kind of like being at recess in fourth grade when Kevin McCormack knocked me over because he "liked" me.

Now, it can't be because he thinks I'm one of the guys.  I am the girliest of girly girls.  Even with my sarcastic sense of humor, no one has mistaken me for one of the boys - not since puberty, anyway.

I'm trying to think back to see if he'd always done this and I just never noticed.  I don't think so.  I have noticed that he's not really a hugger. He doesn't really ever initiate a hug. 

Should I respond?  Should I follow the leader and see where it goes? Or am I seeing more into this than I should?

So I just returned from teaching my class.  It went well - 5 students.  I found out the reason why people didn't sign up was because they thought it was wrong for the store to even be open today.  That it was a slap in the face of the memory of all the people who lost their lives three years ago.

And yes, it was a horrible tragedy and yes I mourn the senseless loss of life but I am alive and I want to celebrate that today by doing the things that bring me joy.

I want to celebrate my cousin, who worked in the second tower that was hit.  She was a few minutes late to work because her son was kind of cranky in daycare so she stayed a few extra minutes with him.  She was in the lobby of the second tower when the first was hit - she hadn't even made it as far as the elevator.  She turned around and went back to the daycare center - she was out of the building when the second tower was hit.  She was able to help the teachers in evacuating all the children and contacting the parents.  I celebrate her life.

I read about a guy who was late to work because he stopped at the drugstore - don't know if that's true, but I celebrate his life, too.  I know when I'm late to work, I wrestle with things like should I stop for gas or can I make it with the little bit I have.... I wonder how much he thought about before making the decision to go into the drugstore.  I celebrate the fact that he did.

News reports say that the towers were not as full as they should have been.  I celebrate that as well.

I celebrate the fact that the most heinous attack in our history was not enough to dampen our spirit.  I celebrate our resilience and our optimism.

I celebrate the friend of another cousin who lost his life in one of the towers.  I celebrate that my cousin returned to the states one more time to play at the funeral and to see his mother and grandchildren.  He died a few months later. An unfortunate set of circumstances led to a reconciliation.  I have to be happy for that.

Most of all I celebrate the lives of the police and firefighters who made the ultimate sacrifice to save others.  Somehow, I think their biggest regret would be not being able to save more. 

There are those who tell us that the best life is a safe one. Take no risks, seek no adventure, make no ripples.  But that is not the life God intends for us.  We are to be on the edge, loving each breath and living each moment.  No one ever says, "Oh, I'm so glad I played it safe!" on their death beds.

None of us knows when our time is up.  We should live zaftig lives, doing things that make the world a better place and touching the lives of those we are blessed to come in contact with.

It is right to mourn, but I don't think we can orchestrate it.  Mourning hits me suddenly, like a heavy weight and I struggle to find why at that particular place in time.  I'm not condemning the people who chose to stay home and commemorate this horrible event in our history, but I do condemn the thought that we all should mourn the same way for it to have value.  We are all different people and this event affected every American in some way.  September 11 will never be just another date on the calendar for any of us.

I have a lot to do today before I leave on retreat tomorrow morning.  I am teaching a class this afternoon and have a dinner party and a ballet to attend.  I'm thinking about skipping the party.  It's out in El Cajon and it's bound to be 100 degrees there.  Plus, if I don't do laundry I'll have to be naked at the retreat.  Haven't done laundry in about a month.

There's no news on my aunt.  They have her morphined and she's basically unconscious.  I guess it started with a stomach ache at a barbecue over the weekend.  She threw up and thought she should lay down for awhile, but my cousin took her to the ER.  It was probably a stroke of some sort that shut down her intestines?  Or, it could have been something called an abdominal aneurysm.  Either way, things don't look good.

She was out here to visit my grandmother last June and she looked great.  I hope she gets better.  She's my reading aunt - the one I share books with and we both read all the time.  She's also my grandmother's best friend.  When my grandmother lived back east they did everything together.  Is it selfish to wish that my grandmother not lose another relative and friend?

It's been to hot to keep my computer on because even though I have 21st century technology I, apparently, live in the 19th century.  My air-conditioning free apartment has been averaging about 87 degrees for the past week.  Today I hit 90. 
It is so time to move.  If I don't get that fellowship in LA this year, I've got to find a new place to live.  I couldn't even sleep last night.
But that is probably the least of my worries.  I am waiting for a call from my mother.  My aunt just underwent surgery.  Apparently she had a stroke, but we're not sure what all is going on yet.  Either the stroke killed off part of her intestine or the stroke was centered in her intestine?  I couldn't find anything online.  The prognosis does not look good.

Yes, it's official. I went down to the theater today and I humbled myself to ask for a free ticket. I wondered what they did with the tickets that people didn't pick up - wouldn't they rather fill the empty seats? Well, apparently no. They are not allowed to give away tickets even if the theater is half full (half empty if you're a pessimist). I got lucky about 2 minutes before curtain, one of the girls in the box office said her friend wasn't going to be using her ticket so did I want it? I think the walls are still resounding from my shrieking.

So, not only did I get to see The Producers again (yes, again...did I mention I was a whore?) and not only did I get to see it for free, but I got to see it front row orchestra, baby! 8) Yes, I have seen up the noses of Broadway actors!

Seriously, that was close to the stage! One girl had a run in her stocking - THAT'S how close I was. I liked the first touring cast better, but this one had its merits. I'm not sure I liked the guy playing Max though. It was like watching Jackie Mason do a Jerry Lewis routine. Still, ya can't beat it for the cost!

Last Wednesday I saw a play called Art. I think the playwrights name is Yasmin Reza. It won the Moliere award in France so I was really eager to see it - love Moliere. And this woman had spent years translating and researching Moliere and other plays. I really loved it. Cast of 3 and 90 minutes long with no intermission. But riveting. I think it may have won a Tony Award as well. I did pay to see that one.

On another note, I read a billboard on the way home that has me puzzled. Apparently this week is National Stop on Red week. Do we have to have a national week for things we're supposed to be doing anyway? Are we issuing driver's licenses to that many people who all need to be reminded on a yearly basis to stop at the red light? Next week is National Exhale Week! Don't just breathe in! Breathe out, too! To be followed by National Wipe Your Butt When You Poop week! I'm so glad my tax dollars are being put to such beneficial use! God forbid the stinky man on the corner should have someplace to sleep and shower....