Wow, I am way late with posting this but Dommiegirllovie challenged us to get to know another Xangan that we may have not known before. I was paired up with Shattermysilence who was a Xangan that I definitely did not know before so in order to get to know her, I asked her a few questions. Here are the questions and her answers:

1. Okay, you’re on a deserted island, what three albums do you load on your ipod to keep you entertained?

Oh gosh. Only three?
Worse Than a Fairy Tale – Drop Dead, Gorgeous
The Fame – Lady GaGa
Hooray For Boobies – Bloodhound Gang

Haah. None of those go together.

2. Where do you see yourself in ten years?

In ten years, I’ll have uncovered the lost city of Atlantis and will be well on my way to becoming a full-fledge space pirate. Hopefully, I’ll be at least to Saturn by then.

3. If you could be any Disney princess, who would you be?

Not really a princess, but I’m a big Esmeralda fan.

4. Name the five books that have been most influential for you?

Hmm…
The Great Gatsby is definitely up there.
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy woot woot)
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
Portraits of His Children (okay, it’s a collection of short stories by George R.R. Martin, but close enough)
Aaand lastly… Andersen’s Fairy Tales.

5. If you could pick five people (dead or alive) to have over for dinner, who would you choose?

Okay. Michio Kaku, Adam Lazzara, Nelson Mandela, Alexander the Great (Genghis Khan would probably impale me), and Nikola Tesla. Not Stephen Hawking, though. I think he’s a d-bag.

Okay, she likes The Great Gatsby. She’s okay by me. Go visit!

This has been such a busy week and will prove to be a busy weekend:

The Rundown:

- School has been sucking. For one of the classes that I’m taking this summer, we have to write a group paper. This may be more difficult than a group project. It may be even more difficult for me because I’m sort of a perfectionist when it comes to writing papers. No one wants to do any work and I just want to ask them why the heck they decided to go to grad school then, something that is supposed to be more difficult than undergrad. So I’ve been dealing with that.

- Last night, the Architect took me to the Nats vs. my Red Sox game down at Nationals Stadium. We had awesome seats but unfortunately my Sox did not do so well but we had fun. I could definitely see going to more games. I went to college in Baltimore and loved going to Camden Yards. It made it nice that the Orioles are an American League team, which equals more games against the Sox!

- Tonight, we’re going to Artomatic, an annual art show here in DC. The show moves to different buildings each year. There is all sorts of art and music there. I’ve gone for the past two years and it’s a blast.Yay!

- Tomorrow means a cookout in the afternoon with some of my hometown friends at one of the pretty state parks. Tomorrow night, we’re going to Iz Drasti’s parents house to see her and McAwesome since they’re home from the ATL.

- Sunday, is B’s birthday so we’ll be with the fam. My “Twin Cousin” (we’re only about 6 months apart) is coming home for a long weekend from CO for a wedding but he’ll be able to spend Sunday with us. I haven’t seen him since January!

Mmm, political scandals. Delicious. So by now, you’ve all heard about the Mark Sanford scandal. To me, this is almost the most hilarious political scandal EVAR. Mr. Family Values goes to Argentina, trips and his nether regions happen to bump into some Argentine lady’s nether regions (mmm, irony). All while Mr. Family Values writes letters that had to have been inspired by those books in which Fabio-like men grace the cover. Oh, also, he quotes the Bible while writing said letters. Somehow I don’t think those two things really equate

 To top it off, Mr. Family Values goes to Argentina under the guise of hiking the Appalachian Trail (hey, they both start with “a”; close enough). Mr. Family Values also decides to not tell anyone where exactly he’s going, which was understandable because he was trying to be sneaky-sneaky but it must be pointed out that people kind of start missing governors when they disappear for a few days (no matter how scummy).

There is something really awesome about watching people get caught for something that they are totally against. Hurray for schadenfreude!

On a serious note, it’s always been my policy to not do things that I will be embarrassed or mad about if I get caught doing them. I think there are many people out there who have that same philosophy. The Republican Party goes on and on about their principles and moral compasses and all of this stuff that they apparently don’t really believe in. Principles are mere words unless you actually choose to practice what you preach. The American People are not stupid and will catch onto whatever you are trying to get away with. When you get caught doing something that the public frowns down upon and you have said in the past that you also frown upon it as well, it just makes you look really stupid.

(Oh, if you want to read another good post on this matter, go read christao408’s post)

Life on the red line hasn’t quite returned to normal. The Metro is actually able to run the entire length of the red line now but Metro itself still seems to be dealing with major issues. This morning, I got on the train a little earlier than normal. I wanted to get in early. The train I was on had mechanical issues (major issues as in no power for the electric train; not good) right after leaving the station. We sat on the train for about 25 minutes before being pushed back into the station. I then got on another super crowded train. I finally got to work about two hours after leaving my apartment (usually it takes me just over an hour).

It kind of scares the schiesse out of me that the train accident on Monday kind of looks like it was due to safety issues with the train. The NTSB told Metro back in the 90’s that they needed to phase out these 1000 series trains (the kind that crashed into the parked train). The NTSB came out with this suggestion after a 1996 incident when a train overshot the platform at the end of the red line. Now in 2009, this 1000 series car still accounts for 25% of the entire Metro fleet!!! Removing these trains right away from the fleet would cripple the system and folks, Metro doesn’t need any help. It’s doing a great job of crippling itself right now.

Metro’s complaint for years has been that it doesn’t have enough money. I don’t see how this can be. Riding fees keep going up and up.  I must pay $9.00 round trip each and every day to ride Metro. I have to pay an additional $4.50 to park in Metro’s parking garage. Times that amount of money by the amount of people that ride Metro and they have to be making a ton of money. The system is old (Metro came out of LBJ’s Great Society Plan actually) and it’s a big system so obviously upkeep is going to be difficult and expensive but its necessary. Hundreds and hundreds of people ride Metro every single day.

Okay, so now the likes of Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) want to throw tons and tons of money at Metro without having Metro carefully plan how that money will be spent. Congress is very good at spending money but the unfortunate thing is that when you throw money down a black hole, you often don’t see a return on it. I think that there needs to be a lot more oversight on the Metro system as a whole. Money itself will not change the infrastructure and I truly believe that Metro’s issues are infrastructure related and not simply limited to broken circuits and old train cars…

Maybe more money needs to be spent but Congress should make every effort in order for the money to be spent smartly.

I learned the meaning of the sentiment “home is where the heart is” very early in life. Before the age of 4, I had lived in four states: Colorado, Texas, Illinois, and Maryland. I blame this for the reason my accent is so messed up. Generally I’ve been told I sound Midwestern. If I’m tired, I sound a little more Southern. Some of my words are pronounced more like a northerner. But I digress, I remember all of these moves except for the initial move from Colorado to Texas. We’ve moved several places since then but all of the places have been in Maryland

Getting used to a new house and making new friends became a norm at a very young age. It’s amazing how flexible children can be when it comes to that sort of thing. Moving was never traumatizing for myself or my sisters. I always had my family around me. They made the place feel like home. I would say that my childhood was less of a physical place and more of a feeling.

I think the fact that we moved so much really helped me be at ease in new environments. You truly can make home be anywhere you want it to be. I’m glad I learned that lesson so early on.  

Yesterday, I got on the Metro to go home at about 4:30pm. I quickly grew frustrated when the Metro was slow and eventually my train was forced to unload all of its passengers at Dupont Circle. I called the Architect who was still at work to see if he wanted to have dinner in the city. He agreed. I went to Starbucks and got a cup of iced coffee and went to sit in the circle near the fountain.

I’m sitting there reading my book and all the sudden my phone starts going crazy. My mom is calling in at about the same time I get a text message from my friend, SoMar. I answer the phone and my mom asked if I was okay. I said something like “yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” and then she asked where I was. I told her and she told me about the crash which happened on the same line that I live on (but it happened on the opposite side of the city). I had a bunch of text messages from different family members and friends by the time I got home all worried because none of them were sure about where the crash happened.

I want to also make a point to thank all the Xangans that thought about me. I had a few messages when I got home from various people and once I posted a pulse about being okay, there was an outpouring of more people making sure I was okay. I was really, really stunned! You guys are truly amazing. No, I wasn’t affected and luckily so far it doesn’t seem like anyone I knew was affected (one of my co-worker’s friends was on the train but wasn’t hurt) but it was still very scary.. We are truly a community here on Xanga and I can’t begin to tell you how much your thoughts meant to me!

Our Father’s Day proved to be quite eventful and pretty traumatic. My family was on our way to a state park to have a picnic in honor of the day. My mom, aunt, my sisters and myself were all in one car. My dad, uncle, and cousin, Electricity were all in another car. We were driving on a country road and my mom saw a cat running across the road and tried to miss it and braked hard but we were going to fast. Of  course being the car full of animal lovers that we are, we called the boys and told them to come back.  When we drove back, the cat was laying on the side of the road but was still alive. B and I got out of one car and my dad and Electricity got out of the other car. The cat obviously had a head injury and was bleeding. He wasn’t going to make it. We could tell he was a barn cat. He was mangy and dirty and had moles all over him. He died while we were watching. It was the first time that I have ever watched anything die. I hope never to have to do that again.

We were all pretty upset for the rest of the day. My mom felt horrible because she’s never hit any animal before.

Cool autumn breezes

Down the old abandoned stairwell

Something dark awaits

Nature takes ahold

Rotting, changing, renewing

Leaves nothing untouched

__________________________________________________

Of Note: These haikus were written very quickly and therefore given the name Achoo Haikus (written about as fast as one sneezes)

Of Another Note: Today we are supposed to be picnicking in a state park for Father’s Day but it’s cloudy and threatening rain. Apparently our weather has decided this spring that it wants to be like Seattle.

I don’t doodle. I never have. At this point, perhaps I am allowed to call myself a perpetual student and therefore I should have a badge for taking notes through a countless number of lectures and a countless number of presentations but if you look in my notebooks, there almost no doodles at all. This is not to say that I enjoyed ever y last second of every lecture I went to and that I gave rapt attention in each of those lectures. No, instead I would say that words are my doodles. I am a pretty good note taker, if I do say so myself but many of the notes that I take are merely to keep me awake. While doodling keeps some from dozing off in a crowded lecture hall, words are what keep my brain running.

I’ve never been particularly artistic except for my writing. I don’t draw. I don’t paint. I can knit you something but it better be square or rectangular (i.e. a scarf or a blanket) otherwise I would be completely lost. Words are my art and they say you’ve got to make do with what you are given and so I do.

I still can’t drive a stick shift. I was always too scared. You tried, though. You really did. I remember one time, we were driving out of the old neighborhood in your old gold Mazda and you began to get a little philosophical on me. It’s still one of my favorite memories with you. “Megs,” you said, “You’ve just gotta ask what the car wants to do. It’s just like when you go through the drive through at McDonald’s and they ask if you want fries with that. You’ve gotta ask if the car wants some fries where the fries are the clutch.” Interesting philosophy, yes but I like that. It’s very you.

When we were so scared about you earlier this year, I didn’t know what to do. I had thought that it was weird that you were just coming down to have lunch with me but kind of wrote it off because Mom was going to see the girls. We sat across from each other in that gaudily decorated dining room while the waiters behind us sang  Happy Birthday to another table. You said a few sentences that pretty much shattered my world. You spent the rest of the afternoon with us and it took everything in my power not to cry because I didn’t want you to see me worry. The beginning of the year was hard on us all but you are here. I am here. We are here. Life is exactly the way that it should be