Stressed

Busy week, every week. I haven't had a day off from life's crazy juggle ever since my car has been temporarily fixed. Sometimes I wonder if I'm taking on more load than I can actually handle. No breather this week either. I have the usual eight to five job with the ever stressful juvenile court school bill that we've been trying to get Arnold to sign for the past three years, classes in between, tutoring elementary kids, showing up to help my parents out with their messy and active household and business, more birthday parties this weekend, yell at one of my sisters, schedule time to have lunch/dinner with an old high school buddy, take my youngest sister to her appointments, the list goes on. AND I have another oral test in my Chinese language class and more obligations to my volunteering work this week?! ARGH!! This never ends.

Weekly Rant

I'm having a hard time in my Mandarin class. Listening and speaking is pretty easy, but writing and memorizing the characters is a struggle for me. My professor is pretty anal on how the characters are written. My Chinese name is Tai Fa Li (we got to choose it ourselves) and I have to write that on all my papers that is turned in. I notice that she has been marking off a quarter of a point when a stroke isn't long enough or in the right place on how I write my name.

UrghhhhH!!!!!

Since when does my name have to be correctly written anyway? I can't believe she's been marking off points for that. I guess I have to spend more time carefully writing out my Chinese name before turning in my paper from now on. I understand that she wants me to learn the different order of the strokes, but come on, it's only my name! It's not even my real birth name! She should just correct my strokes rather than take away points. What she should be paying attention to would be the assignment that she assigned. But I guess that's just how life is. She's getting paid the big bucks to be anal. -__-

Lonely Repulican

As I was heading into work this morning, I heard via NPR that a lonesome Republican in Congress voted for the major health care reform. I was a bit shocked to hear that a Republican was going against his party to vote on a much needed health care reform bill ignoring that fact that he has no colleagues in congress. As soon as I was dropped off at work, I rushed into the office and turned on my t.v. Just as I hoped, this had to be big enough news to hit CNN, MSNBC, or maybe even FOX (shudders). Sure enough, the story was big in the political arena on CNN. The lonesome Republican turned out to be no other than Louisiana Representative Anh Joseph Cao. Once I received the news, I was not surprised. Last summer, when Congressman Cao was running for the vacant seat that former Representative William Jefferson was occupying, I did a little snooping around on the internet on this devout Catholic lawyer. I became intrigued by Congressman Cao because he’s an immigrant from Vietnam. It’s extremely rare for someone who’s a descendant from the South Asian region to become involve in politics, especially reaching as high as Congress. K, I’m done explaining my reasons for researching him. What’s more shocking was how he won the election in a democratic state populated heavily with African American residents. This just goes to show that voters will give their vote to who they know will represent those best – this is exactly what happened. One of maybe some of you reading this, might not even understand what that means. So here was a devout Catholic Republican who immigrated from Vietnam at the age of 8 years old who won the Congress seat by beating out eight others who was running for the same vacant seat, including William Jefferson, who was, at the time, being investigated on bribery charges. This just goes to show that there will be citizens who will look past political parties and vote for someone who will stand to diligently represent them. Fast forward today, despite his party affiliation, he decided to vote for the health care bill because he knew that many, many of his constituents are uninsured. Now that’s standing up for the people who trusted him by voting him into office. This is a noble, selfless act, even if it may isolate him from making friends among fellow republicans in congress. As of late, many politicians are forgetting what their job entails - i.e. standing up for your district.

"Cao called his vote a matter of conscience. "Twenty percent of the people in my district are uninsured and we have tremendous health care issues in the district,'' Cao said after the vote, as reported by the Times-Picayune."

Click here for the whole article on stumbleupon if you’re interested in reading the full article. But then again, many of you are just glazing over my words and don't give a damn about what I have say unless it's about drama in my life or what I did over the weekend or what Mermaid and I are planning for this week, because this isn't in your "field of interest." Here's an advice, try becoming more friendly and understanding to issues rather than negatively bringing it down. Open your mind once in awhile. Try it, it won't kill you to try.

The Morning After

Philliam and I threw a Halloween party on Friday the 30th. Today is Sunday, November 1. We've officially finished cleaning and his house looks great! Well, we finished cleaning on Halloween but this morning we did another thorough cleaning throughout the house. It was exhausting. No pictures until I upload. I have a test this week. But here's a dialogue between me and him during our back breaking cleaning session on Saturday morning. Me: Babe, I need a scooper for the debris I piled up. Him: Sure, just give me a minute. *Philliam leaves the master bedroom and comes back after 4 minutes* Him: Here you go. *hands me a ripped up wheaties box* Me: Huh??? o_O He put some thought into making it because it has a nifty handle that scoops up the debris just fine. I guess I should be proud that he's following my footsteps in trying not to feed evil consumerism and being an environmentalist. Or is he is just being lazy? If you're wondering, I did use that Wheaties dust pan box until I no longer had anymore use for it. I'm thinking about either: making him a dust pan from items I have lying around, buying him an organic one (pricey), pay a visit to my local thrift shop, or go the Target way (because sometimes it's alright to be a hypocrite).

Weekly Rant

There have been many instances where rape goes unreported because often the women feels as if she put herself in that dangerous situation and blames herself, therefore she felt that it would be wrong to report such a monstrous act. How about another incident where a women is too scared to say no to her rapist and "plays along" thus making her a victim of violence? Seriously, when does this type of thinking end? Sometimes I wonder if I am guilty of such thoughts.

Last Thursday

I don't remember crying that much this yea