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Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Been a long time since I've posted anything. Mostly due to Live Journal being pretty empty these days. Have to redo all my colors since Live Journal defaulted allot of my customizations, and keeps insisting I switch to S2, but I like not having some premade design. I'm also not liking all the ads I got to get through just to log in.
Would update, but I think anyone who reads this (or used to) already knows about getting married, and going to Amsterdam/London over the summer. Can't think of any particular funny/interesting stories to tell about Europe, outside of our mega blue collar bus driver when we took a tour bus to Stonehenge and Bath. He was telling the tour guide some story on the way back to London, and I can't remember what exactly the story was about, but the words pub,fish and chips appeared in it way too many times not to be cliche, especially with his raspy laugh turning into an even raspier cough. Our tour guide must be from the same area the actor who plays Snape in Harry Potter is from, because he sounded just like him. Which was pretty funny getting a mini history lesson from that voice, as well as him explaining how he's on a diet.
In other news the job hunt is going better than it did the first round, but still trying to find that spot between between being optimistic and not getting my hopes up so much I get all depressed when I don't get something.
Speaking of weird job stuff though, this happened to me back in early spring I think, but it was really strange. I got this thing in the mail from the Association of Professional Women, which I mistook for The Association of Women in Communication, which I found through UMBC around when I graduated after the career adviser said I should look into associations for job hunting. The Women in Communication site had a little job postings section that I used from time to time, but I never actually became a full member with dues and stuff, which were only like 50 some dollars for new grads, and maybe 100 for everyone else, just because I wasn't sold on the benefits of membership and the all illusive networking.
Anyways, I fill out the mailer thinking it's Communications Association and figure I might as well get some info out of them since they had some good job postings in the past. A week or two later I get a weird number calling my cell phone, but since I'm at work and it's not someone I know I ignore it. Shortly after the same number calls my work line asking for me and my co worker transfers it to my desk. They say their from the Association for Professional Women and they want to do an "interview" to see if I'm a good candidate for "sponsorship". They ask me some bullshit questions about my current job and I give the lamest shortest answers and they act like I just told them how to solve world hunger, and go on about how I'm the perfect candidate.
Now it gets to the part where they started wanting money. They start off saying that for a modest fee of $750 I can become a full member, have access to all these networking events, and have some spotlight section on their website to feature me. I told them that there was no way I could spend that much, so they expressed how sorry they were that I couldn't get all the awesome benefits of this package, and gave me the option of having some like partial membership for $500, which I again refused. Lucky for me they just happened to have another package for like $300. This continued for awhile with some serious coercion until they got down to $75. At this point I put them on hold because clearly this is not legit, and I want to look them up online. Pretty much immediately I realized it's not the Communications Association I used in the past, it's some mega scam that just had the same color scheme as the other association, that even treats it's employees so bad they have designated restroom break times. I get back on the phone with the woman and say there's no way I can afford this. I can tell at this point she's annoyed, and tells me they'll send me some free pamphlet and quickly hangs up. Never got a pamphlet.
A little scary I got played into this, but mostly just feel bad for all the people who did fall for it and ended up wasting all their money when they were already pretty desperate for a job.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
[mood|  Guilty]
Or maybe it did... Very glad to see that yesterday's snow turned out to be a bust.
Inspired by Hutch to make a valentines run down since I haven't posted in awhile. Went to dinner at this upscale creole/cajun place in DC on Friday since Fridays are more fun to go out on than Sundays. Braved the metro despite the red line (the one we were on) having a minor accident earlier than day :P. The DC streets/sidewalks still had allot of snow piles which I was kinda surprised to see, saw a woman pushing a stroller come to a giant snow patch at a crosswalk, no idea how she got around it. She probably didn't power through it like I wanted her to. The food was really good, who knew jambalaya could be a topping. I wish I had ordered one of Ryan's drinks, it sounded a little intimidating with mixing absinthe and whiskey but it was really tasty. Baha it was a little awkward because the waiter did the whole absinthe sugar spoon thing at the table and it took awhile. I'm definitely more of a "leave the bottle" customer.
Walking back to the metro there was this bum in crutches that was staring us down pretty hard at a crosswalk. Eventually he asked for our leftovers, which I felt bad saying no to but there literally was caviar in there, I would have given it to him had it been a cheaper meal and had he toned down the whole stab stare a notch. Riding back there were these three little girls riding with their moms' and they were REALLY excited to be on the Metro and even more excited to be standing on it. They seemed to be really entertained by waiting until the last second to hold on to the bar before the train started to move. I totally was expecting one of them to fall, but that didn't happen. Coming back to the apartment we saw an orange stray cat lying down in front of the door to an empty apartment. It limped off down the sidewalk before I could give it some of my leftover flounder which was a little sad since there was so much snow on the ground. Really don't see any stray cats around where we live, as opposed to Catonsville where you couldn't walk down a street without seeing a cat outside.
Came back home and saw the weird Peter Pan part of the Olympics opening ceremony which was pretty funny, and somehow not as intimidating as hundreds of Chinese drummers.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
[mood|  Sleepy]
Boring complaint post about the power going out:
Last night was unpleasant to say the least. We were out yesterday afternoon getting lunch and getting some shopping done, but when we got back around 5 we noticed the power was out, except for some stuff in the kitchen. The microwave could turn on but it was really quiet and slow, and the coffee maker's digital clock was still working. So after a bit of time and a call to the neighbor we realized there was no way we blew a fuse, and started playing the waiting game for the power to come back on. Our living room is pretty drafty so even with our coats on it was still too cold for comfort, thankfully the bedroom was a little better.
It got too late for cooking dinner to be an option, so we went to Royal Mile and tried to wait out the outage. Unfortunately it didn't work and we came back to a freezing dark apartment, and the temperature outside was going to hit 16 degrees. There wasn't much to do besides grab every blanket and warm comfy piece of clothing we had and try to find warmth, drink, and eventually go to sleep.
The power came on around 4:30am only to go off 5 minutes later. It came on again around 5:45 but the apartment didn't have nearly enough time to heat up before we had to leave for work. It really felt like getting dressed outside. Hoping it will still be on and the heat will have filled the apartment when we get back. Can honestly say I will never complain about the drafty living room being cold again after last night.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
[mood|  Predatory]
Okay, I've ranted about this before, but this is like the 10th piece of unwanted food sitting on my desk in my short time working here. I didn't even have a chance to refuse the doughnut, it was just placed there. I already bring some sort of breakfast with me to work every day, usually yogurt/fruit or some oatmeal, I do NOT need a cream filled doughnut AND McDonald's breakfast on top of that. Okay I admit the McDonald's breakfast is really hard to pass up, but I control myself and only take it every other time it shows up in the office kitchen, and usually get the least heart stopping of them all, the Egg McMuffin.
I know this is a pretty needless rant, because you know, I don't have to eat it. I just feel bad when someone is like "HEY I brought you a doughnut!" "Wow, Thanks. :trashes it once they leave the room:" And it's not like I didn't try to pawn it off on someone else, but everyone is already stuffing their face with McDonald's so it's a hard sell. And everything that people put on my desk I find unappetizing, doughnut from the press area, cake, candy, some weird sweet bagel, non Auntie Ann's pretzel. Always reminds me of a Seinfeld quote when Elaine freaks out over there being too much office cake that people make you feel bad for if you don't want any:
"What? What is nice? Trying to fill the void in your life with flour and sugar and egg and vanilla? I mean, we are all unhappy. Do we have to be fat, too!?"
Friday, November 27, 2009
[mood|  Sore]
Thanksgiving was all right for me, outside of the migraine that decided to show up right before I started eating dinner round one at Ryan's aunt's house. Usually I'm pretty good at muscling through them, but this one made me incredibly nauseous so I had pretty much no appetite. Managed to make it through dinner without having to get sick, phew. Although, I always find it incredibly awkward when your at someone's house and all the women start cleaning after dinner, and you just have no idea what to do because everyone is grabbing stuff off the table and you have to like frantically find something to clean up to feel like you helped. There just seems to be some unwritten rule on the matter once you're an adult woman and I'm never quite sure how to go about it. Didn't feel real bad about not really helping this time since I felt awful. Had Ryan drop me off at my parents' house before he went with his cousin to go see their grandparents in Mt. Airy (his step grandfather was too sick to make it to his aunt's house), where I lied down in the dark until I felt well enough to handle lights and clashing food smells.
At my house for Thanksgiving round two it was just my parents, Jenna, and my dad's friend and his girlfriend. This time I was able to eat more, but didn't really have an appetite so there was no Thanksgiving gorge fest for me. At least I got plenty of leftovers to enjoy, including some homemade banana cheesecake.
Ryan and I also FINALLY revealed wedding plans to our families. June, 26 2010 in Maine at his grandfather's cabin on the lake for the ceremony, and then afterwards take everyone there to dinner someplace in Bar Harbor or Bangor, leave for the honeymoon, and then have a cookout for everyone probably at my parent's house some time later in the summer. Feels very relieving to know what we're going to do. Gotta see if work will give me a second week of unpaid vacation for the honeymoon. Really would like a second week because we would like to go to Europe from Maine, but a week just does not seem like nearly enough time to experience another country, especially for my first time.
Happy Black Friday Everyone!
Monday, October 26, 2009
[mood|  Busy]
Alright we went to see the kittens yesterday, SOOOO CUTE, and it was a little unfortunate that the one available male was already reserved, but we decided on one of the 3 females. She'll still be a fairly big cat at 10-12 lbs, so I think she'll work out with Ruckus. Going to go back pick her up on Saturday. Can't wait to get pictures of her being all tiny compared to him. So now we need names! Want to keep it french since it's a french breed, but not like something you would name your kid like "Beth the cat." All suggestions appreciated!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Somehow with there only being 19 Chartreux breeders in North America, leading to months long waiting lists to get one, I found a breeder in Fulton who has a litter that's going to be ready to leave home on the 31st, and only one of their 6 kittens have been reserved. Going to look at the one available male they have on Sunday and then give a deposit if we decide we want him, which we probably will. I am curious to see how ruckus is going to react to a kitten, he was always really unaffected by the neighbors' cats in catonsville, even when the one came up and hissed/swatted at him through the screen door. So I'm not really worried about fights, only thing I am worried about is if Ruckus' past litter box issues arise again, or if the new kitten has some issue. Although I'm pretty doubtful it will, and after dealing with Ruckus, we pretty much know all the ins and outs of getting a cat to use the litter box.
Picture of the litter we're going to go see
Monday, September 14, 2009
[mood|  dirty]
So finally moved into the silver spring apartment, and no longer living in a wood panel hovel in catonsville, where shirts are optional, 40s are plentiful, and it's the forth of July every night. Pretty much everything is moved into the apartment except a few little things. The bulk of the furniture was moved in last weekend and the sofa bed and love seat this weekend with help from Casey and Mike. Borrowed my parents Hummer for most of the move, and pretty glad to be driving a normal car again where the Canyonaro song isn't on a loop in my head.
Now just to deal with the annoyances of moving and constantly setting something up. Kinda like last night where after an entire day of moving, we got back to the apartment around 10pm only to realize we didn't have any shower curtain rings and couldn't shower. Ruckus is slowly slowly accepting the new apartment, but it's pretty funny to watch him be so scared of nothing considering how big he is these days.
The apartment is pretty nice, but it is old and has it's quirks. Kinda like it's painted entirely blue, outside of the bathrooms and kitchen (we are allowed to paint if we ever get sick of that). And the half bath is entirely covered (door and all) with this weird marble patterned wallpaper that somewhat matches the counter, so with the door closed, you're pretty engulfed in it. Not to mention the lovely 80s mirror shelf in the dinning area. But hey it beats the "fireplace" the old apartment had. But very excited for everyone to see it and be able to come over and hang out again now that we have space for more than 2 people.
WOOOO GOODBYE BALTIMORE.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
[mood|  full]
When going to a popular chain restaurant one of the things that you always risk is sitting next to the jumbo person who is quite large in size and really really enjoys the food they're eating. This happened in text book form today at Red Robin. Just before our food came out, a very large woman was seated right next to us. At first I thought, "Ugh, extremely large person sitting alone next to me, about to eat waaay more calories than they should consume, depressing." Shortly after she was joined by her even larger husband (I'm guessing).
The first damn thing he said was, "They haven't brought out the bottomless pit steak fries." (To my defense we were sitting at the long half booth half seat deal so they were pretty close). It only snowballed from there. I just knew they were going to order some diet drink, and he asked the waitress for a diet sprite, which I only know a very small handful of restaurants that carry it, but whatever not too weird. His wife tries to get a side salad instead of fries, which probably wasn't going to do much with the tower of onion rings and the burger, but ultimately the waitress isn't able to do. The guy orders sirloin sliders, but asks the waitress a few questions that leads to the waitress explaining that they are sirloin, not ground beef, in addition to changing the crispy onions to caramelized onions, and switching the cheese.
Although the real kicker was after the order was taken, the guy would read off different item descriptions out loud in their entirety to his wife, and then go on to explain how he could improve upon the item. "'It's starts with jalapenos, onions, zesty pepper jack cheese, and a tomato to cool it all off it with.' I would order that if it had angry onions." This continued for awhile with more menu items, but once it was over, the conversation was at a complete lull outside of food comments.
Unfortunately we were done before I got to see their reaction to when the food came out, but I can probably imagine it was awesome. Although it does help the health guilt of eating at a place like red robin when you realize just how far you would have to go to enter morbid obesity.
After that the day was filled with buying apartment stuff, and more dreadful moving, but at least at this point we are over the worst of it and only have one more really big thing that we're going to have to move. Thank god it's a three day weekend.
Monday, August 17, 2009
[mood|  Contemplative]
Now with finally getting a job, and moving plans in progress, I can start thinking about wedding stuff again. There is still one aspect of getting married in which I have no idea what I am going to do, and that is what am I going to do with my last name? I kinda always figured I would go the hyphen route, but Willis-Khan is a pretty dreadful sounding combo. Doing the full-blown name change seems a bit old fashioned for me (no offense to anyone who plans on or went that route, to each their own), and the idea of having a different name weirds me out, and I kinda like my name. The problem with keeping Willis is everyone would still call me Mrs.Khan (already get that with some phone calls), or assume we weren't married, and I would have to do allot of correcting. It would be easier to decide to keep my name if it wasn't from my dead-beat grandfather (my great-grandmother regretted not changing my dad's last name to his mom's name), so the only people I know with my last name are my parents and my sister. It kinda feels like I'm hanging onto an empty name, but it's hard to part with how I've known myself for the past 21 years. Going to have to ponder this one out.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Bwugh officially applied to 400 jobs since January, and waiting on 3 jobs I interviewed for to answer me, annoying.
[mood|  tired]
Friday, May 8, 2009
[mood|  nostalgic]
My live journal is now 5 years old, aww.
Friday, May 1, 2009
[mood|  determined]
My dad is looking for someone to run a Xerox press at his printing company in Burtonsville. The pay is pretty decent and they are looking for someone they can train. The machine is pretty intense, it's the most expensive press Xerox makes so it would probably be a good skill if anyone wanted to get into printing. So if anyone knows anyone who is interested let me know.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
[mood|  lazy]
RAWRS, So I have applied to 300 jobs, and haven't been called in for an interview in over a month. The only possible interview I have is with the IRS for a couple of positions, but they won't be calling people to come in and interview for 6 months, and even then I'm not guaranteed an interview. Oof, decided to bite the bullet and go to some job workshop at UMBC on saturday (from 9-5 booooourns). I'm going to be extremely annoyed if it's just the same stuff they told me at the career center, which clearly has produced awesome results. I have applied to some temp stuff, but the one temp place I applied to in january hasn't had a single opening since, so I am going to contact some others.
I feel like my live journal has just become somewhere where I vent my job complaints, which I don't like. I just don't have allot of non-cat stuff to post these days. At least once I land a job I will be able to post about more varied things such as apartment hunting, wedding plans, complaining about the job I complained about hunting for, and new cat stuff since Ruckus is probably going to get a friend once we have an apartment big enough to accommodate two large cats.
**************EDIT***************
Apparently I do have an interview, but it's a crap job with crap pay, crap benefits, and a crap commute. I would just be scanning documents in McLean VA for $11 an hour, $14 if I decided not to take any benefits. Blah I will probably think about it, but that seems like setting the bar really low for a college grad.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[mood|  drained]
WOOO 200 JOBS APPLIED TO! BRING ON THE BAGS OF CONFETTI!
At lease despite my lack of a job, no one can say I haven't been trying. Bwugh, let's hope it doesn't hit 300. Probably doesn't help that for the past couple of weeks I've been focusing on Federal jobs, which will start calling in people people for interviews in about 6-8 weeks, so there will be no immediate gratification from that. At least by this point I am over the "oh my god I've failed" feeling, and have accepted that mid summer is probably a reasonable time to expect when I will actually have a job and begin working. Which does suck because it means pushing allot of stuff back, but at least I am on board with that idea now.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
[mood|  melancholy]
Is it 2010 yet?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/29104505
Apparently the American Kennel Club's breeding of pure bred dogs is just like the KKK's hate of black people (and all the other people they hate as well).
Monday, February 9, 2009
[mood|  uncomfortable]
Thursday, February 5, 2009
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