woohoo!

drawing on my scant html knowledge (thank you gateway), i read through the template code and figured out how to make lists for links on the side! see? see? aren't they pretty?

it's the first thing i've written in html in a very long time. you can't blame me for being just a little proud of myself.

yay links! yay friday! off to see the wizard.

all things considered

LOG rollin'
I went to the LOG tournament in Burlington last weekend. Fun and frustrating. We only had 12, but that didn't keep the Ambush veterans from playing pretty much savage (well, with 8 or 9) for two of our five games. I understand they were close games, but it was a laid-back tournament - the championship game was decided by rosham so teams could play new opponents! The more I think about it, the more I really wish they had let me play more. I find that I can never really conjure up the same level of intensity in practice as I can in tournaments, and I didn't get to experience more than 5 points TOTAL of the high-intensity games we played this weekend. I think it would have been so good for me to play against great players on very good teams. How else am I supposed to find motivation to get better?

In any case, it's a very humbling (and new!) experience being a rookie. I realized that I didn't have to earn my stripes on NYPD because we were shorthanded my first season and I could throw forehand. So, of course, I get pissy when I get called in for two points in the first half and ZERO in the second. All this time, I thought I was better than that, that I could play on this team like it was mine. But I'm not. Not yet, anyway.

Truth seein'
Yesterday morning, Rox and I had a meeting with two representatives of the Legacy Foundation, which was established to be responsible for the money gained from the tobacco settlement. One of their major initiatives is the truth campaign, which began in 1999. The "truth guru" gave us a presentation about the campaign strategy and left us some fun souvenirs. I was impressed by the truth ads when they came out, and as she went on with her presentation I became more and more wowed by the logic behind the ads. I'm always happy to see older people understand the way that young people live and think - as opposed to the attitude that says, "teenagers are too melodramatic and just need discipline by a firm hand to keep them in line." The core idea is one of "brand replacement," where the campaign fights against the cigarette brands by making itself a competitor in the products-i-can-use-to-define-my-identity market. It's a very new idea to have a brand that doesn't have a product behind it, but if you think about it, it makes total sense when in the mind of the consumer the brand is 100x more important than the thing it actually represents.

I was the youngest person in the room (of course), and the only one who had been in the target audience of the truth campaign when it was actually ongoing, so I found myself laughing and nodding as she was explaining the marketing strategy. It felt weird to have been read so well by people who didn't know me at all.

Apparently, truth has a "crew" that goes on tour during the summer to spread the word. It's something I'll keep in mind for the future, perhaps the summer before I start school again. It'd be fun.

Car parkin'
Yesterday as Dave and I were walking back from East River Park, we saw a guy in a station wagon (and his embarrassed wife) squeeze his car into a parking space that was at most 5 inches longer than the car itself. We caught him just as he was starting his parking job and got to watch til the very end. There was a blue minivan behind the space and a silver sedan of some sort in front of it. The parker would go backwards, nudge the minivan back about a foot, move forwards, nudge the sedan up about a foot (into the car in front of it!), then move backwards again, over and over. It took him maybe 12 moves to get into the space, all the while bumping into the two cars around him. When he finished he had about 2 inches of space in the front and NO space - touching the van - in the back.

He and his wife got out and she proceeded to look at both ends of the car shaking her head. The whole time, we had been watching and laughing, trying to figure out whether he would actually get into the space or give up and move on (though getting out would probably at that point have been more difficult than getting in!). The wife looked over at us sheepishly, at which point Dave said, "that's the best parking job I've ever seen. Wow." I don't think she knew what to say to that.

I just felt bad for the cars on either side of that crazy station wagon. They'll have to do the same thing to get out of their spaces, but I doubt either will be as determined as the station wagon fool. As we were walking away, the only thing I could think - cliche as it is - was, "only in New York."


 

Sensitive souls.

In the NY Observer, women complain about men being too sensitive.

Well.

I'll have to think about this one later.

Thank you Fark.

Browsing fark exposed me to some interesting (for lack of a better word) stories today. I was going to comment, but they mostly just speak for themselves.
 
"Supersize Me" antichrist Don Gorske eats his 20,000th Big Mac. You should see a picture of this guy - he could fit into my jeans.
 
Soldiers who go to war without emotional preparation for killing other human beings come home a little fucked up. Yeah, no shit.
 
By "dangling," they really mean hanging. Like from hooks. Like in their shoulders. HOOKS IN THEIR SHOULDERS. What the hell is wrong with Florida? I have no idea how I survived.
 
By "girly," he was only calling them weak! What's wrong with that? I'm waiting for him to pull out "Who is your daddy and what does he do."
 
Sigh. I give up.
 
 

For the purpose of science.

I've decided to conduct a social experiment. I have a new online persona. World, meet Sally.
 
Hi, my name is Sally Hansen. I'm a 23-year-old female from New York working in a health field. I am 5'5" with brown eyes and brown hair. I would describe my body type as slender. I have never been married and I have no children. I drink occasionally and do not smoke. I am spiritual but not religious.
 
My political philosophy is Conservative. I believe that all human life is sacred; that marriage should remain a sacred institution between one man and one woman; and that the homosexual lifestyle is immoral. I think prayer should be permitted in public schools and that less government is generally better for society. When administered justly, the state has the right to impose capital punishment. However, I am not sure whether every law abiding citizen has the right to bear arms, as my grandfather was shot by a handgun and I am not convinced that the presence of the gun didn't bear some of the responsibility.
 
I am looking for a long-term relationship with someone less than 50 miles from my current location.
 
Do I sound like someone you'd like to meet? Go ahead and find my profile on conservativematch.com. It's free to sign up, and you'll get to meet people like Richard-6687, who is "just an old-fashioned guy who doesn't think that people should change with the times, especially when the 'times' are becoming increasingly liberal and anti-Christian." He "look[s] back to the Cross and to the Bible in order to keep [himself] on the RIGHT track in this perverse and immoral world." Richard, by the way is looking for a "nice Proverbs 31 woman."
 
Or you could meet Brinton-5489, who is orthodox in his Catholic faith and is "interested in studying and defending the tradition of the Church, Western Civilization and American culture." He is looking for a woman who "enjoys being a woman and its feminine expressions, who appreciates the differences between men and women, [and] who respects a man for being a man..." Brinton here believes that homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, and abortion are immoral (and should be illegal).
 
 
I wonder how much fun catholicmatch.com would be?

Personality test # 281639872346

20 Questions to a Better Personality


Wackiness: 54/100
Rationality: 60/100
Constructiveness: 66/100
Leadership: 56/100

You are a WRCL--Wacky Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you a golden god. People gravitate to you, and you make them feel good. You are smart, charismatic, and interesting. You may be too sensitive to others reactions, especially criticism. Your self-opinion and mood depends greatly on those around you.

You think fast and have a smart mouth, is a hoot to your friends and razorwire to your enemies. You hold a grudge like a brass ring. You crackle.

Although you have a leader's personality, you often choose not to lead, as leaders stray too far from their audience. You probably weren't very popular in high school--the joke's on them!

You may be a rock star.

Bush sucks, yo.

From today's Times: "Mr. Bush's advisers, in discussing the president's remarks [on supporting a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage], said the president was seeking to come across as opposing gay marriage but not as anti-gay."


...


...


Am I the only one who doesn't understand how this is possible?

If marriage is a secular institution, and so within the realm of what the Constitution can and cannot regulate, then there is no argument for restricting the rights of homosexuals and not heterosexuals. If marriage is a religious union of a man and a woman, then why is the Constitution being used to defend it? That's the Church's job, not the government's.

Well, that didn't come out quite as well as I would have liked, which is typical. I need some help here. If you can give, in 200 words or less, a more eloquent account of why this is ridiculous, there's a nice shiny quarter with your name on it.

Oooh, shiny.

Dream, bad-ish.

I had a very strange dream last night. I wish I remembered more of the details. I think I was in a mall, or maybe a library, with a group of people that I knew in the dream but didn't recognize in real life. At some point - I'm sure this made sense in the dream, but I can't remember how it came about - one of the girls I was with became suddenly very evil, possessed maybe. She had magical powers. I think we all did. Anyway, we had to do clever spells and run away from her. There was something about crossing a line that was made by throwing a green cloth over a row of black chairs, the kind that used to be in the EC rooms before the new furniture. We escaped, but then another girl from our group became evil. People were turning bad in succession! We kept winning, though, at least as much as I can remember.

So, when I was waking up, but still half-asleep, I was dreaming that one of the evil people had put a spell on my bookcase. So the bookcase was leaning and groaning and sliding forward from the wall toward my bed, presumably to tip over and fall on me and kill me. I think my eyes were actually open, that I was looking at the bookcase, and I'm almost positive I was talking in my sleep. I may have been muttering some incantation to the bookshelf, to make it stop advancing, or maybe I was just telling myself to run through the green line.

When I have dreams like this - when I'm half-awake but still inside the dream, and I want to go back to sleep but don't want to dream that anymore - I have to tell myself to think of something good, like the park, or a particular nonthreatening person, but something that won't then be incorporated into the dream I want to stop having. It worked, and I got to sleep fairly peacefully until my alarm started blaring maybe half an hour later.

July 5, En route.

Yesterday was ridiculous.

I got off the train at about 12:20, ran out of the train station, and found a cab. A Polish guy who had been friendly in the Krakow platform was walking out behind me, and in Polish instructed the cabbie that I had 25 minutes til my flight, and the cabbie proceeded to fly through the Warsaw streets. I got to the airport at 12:39 by his clock. I ran into the terminal, looking for an Air France agent and hoping that there would be some way to hold the flight or get me on it. Instead, I found lots and lots of army men directing people out of the main terminal, blocking off access to half the space - the half including the Air France ticket office. Apparently, some jackass had left their bright blue bag in the middle of the terminal, and in these times that is a major security threat. That meant that I had to stand in the terminal and watch my flight information on the monitor go from "boarding" to "gate closed" to "departed." At that point, there was absolutely nothing to do but wait and hope there would be another flight that day.

The bomb squad came, and after about an hour and a half of walking in and out of the room and taking X-rays at various angles (with a very cool mini-X-Ray machine), this guy in full body armor cut open the bag and pulled the bag owner's belongings onto the floor. Once it was obvious that the only things in the bag were clothes and underwear, and maybe a cell phone, the space was opened up and I made it to the ticket office. There, it became clear that my ticket had actually been issued by Delta and not Air France, so the very kind Air France agent called the Delta office, and after quite a lot of holding, she told me that absolutely all of the spaces to any of the NYC airports were booked, oversold even. The earliest flight I could get on was early the next morning, and I'd have to pay a reissuing fee and the difference between that ticket and the one I already held. (Thankfully, the difference was only about $40, but the transfer fee was a painful $200. Thank you, Visa.) So, I reserved a seat on a flight out of Warsaw at 7:05am this morning, with a connecting flight to JFK, arriving at 1pm.

God, I was such a mess. I don't know why I was as upset as I was - it probably had a lot to do with the embarrassment of knowing that the entire chain of events could have been completely avoided if I'd just thought to ask the receptionist at the hostel to look over the train schedule for me, or if I'd just gotten up 10 minutes earlier. I guess it doesn't really feel like it's possible to be in this kind of situation until it actually happens. I'm frankly surprised that, with the number of times I've flown in my life, this hasn't happened before. Hopefully it'll never, ever happen again.

Anyway.

So I didn't have anywhere to stay in Warsaw, and I was being directed up and down and up again by airport people who didn't really know where the hostel information was. Finally I found the tourist information booth, and I picked up a pamphlet for the Nathan's Villa Hostel in Warsaw, the sister hostel of the place I stayed in Krakow. I called them, they had a vacancy, but the girl I talked to was new and didn't know directions from the airport. I checked my bag at the airport and called back in 10 minutes. I spoke to someone more familiar with the area, then got on the bus and went into the city center. It was about a 20 minute walk to the hostel, during which I decided to (1) make the best of the situation and enjoy my extra night in Poland, and (2) go to bed ass-early and get to the airport at least an hour and a half before the flight. So, after a shower and an e-mail checking (during which I still couldn't upload my posts, so this'll all have to be done on Wednesday when I get back to work) I walked down one of the main streets, intending to find some food and see a movie. I got waylaid by the food, though, and didn't quite make it to the theater. I went to an Irish pub (in Poland?) and had a steak and a pint and played a round of darts with the bartender, who beat me by an embarrassing amount. The pub had the interesting feature of giving out a guinness cap to anyone who drank three pints. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen in my case (I only had half of the one I ordered), but making nice with the bartender meant I walked out with a hat anyway. Jess would have really liked this place - good steak (very rare), good beer, and lots of space to sit down in big groups.

So I went back to the hostel and went upstairs to the TV room, where LOTR-Fellowship was playing on the little TV. I had forgotten what a good movie that was, and I was the only person (!) in the room who had actually read the book. The movie ended just in time for the Euro Soccer finals, Portugal v. Greece. I watched the first half and then went to bed, instructing the receptionist to give me a 4:30am wake-up poke, since there aren't any phones in the room.

Having wake-up instructions written down on a non-sticky post-it note to get up at an ungodly hour of the morning to make a flight that I'd just missed made me very paranoid, and I kept waking up pretty much every hour (this happened in Krakow, too). I didn't have a clock in my room, so when people walked into the room (it slept 6) I kept asking what time it was, and when I woke up with no one around I got out of bed and checked the time on the computer outside, and took that opportunity to remind the girl to wake me up, please. I felt like a freak, being so worried, but there was no way I could afford to miss another flight, mentally or financially. Anyway, I got woken up on time, called a taxi, and made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. And now, here I am, on the second leg of the trip and about 4 hours away from JFK.

I can't wait to get home.

July 4, Krakow.

I'm going to miss my flight home.

I'd like to think that I'm the kind to stay calm in the face of impending doom when I can't do anything to change it. I'd like to think that I'd tactfully accept my fate, and change what things I could when I could. Apparently, I'm not quite that stoic. If I spoke enough Polish to throw a proper hissy fit, I think I would have, and demanded that they produce an 8:35 train like their schedule says. Unfortunately, if I spoke Polish, I probably wouldn't be in this situation, because I'm sure it clearly says on said train schedule that the 8:35 train doesn't run on Sundays. And so, here we are.

In a nutshell: My flight leaves from Warsaw at 12:45, from the airport. My train gets into Warsaw at 12:20, at the train station, which is at least 20 minutes away from the airport (but probably more, even on Sunday). Of course, if I'd just had the sense to ask the girl at the reception desk of the hostel to double-check the train schedule yesterday, I would have made sure to catch the 7:35 train, which I ended up missing by about 4 minutes.

Thanks to having my flight booked through work, I had an emergency travel agent I could call. She gave me the number for the Air France office in Poland, and I called them intending to ask to be put on stand-by for the next flight (and the next flight to NYC too, since my connection time is only 45 minutes). Of course, no one answers the Air France office phone. So I have no idea what my chances are for getting on a flight home today, or, more importantly, how much that flight is going to cost me. And, of course, since (1) this is completely my fault, and (2) the ccause of my missing my flight has nothing to do with work, I'm totally on my own in terms of paying my way home, even though OSI paid for my initial ticket. Just what I need.

I didn't sleep much, so I'm tired and I want to go to bed. I didn't have a towel, so I'm dirty and want to take a shower. I miss my friends and I'm homesick, so I just want to go home. I can't even call anyone in the US because of the time difference - it's 3AM over there.

Boo hoo hoo.

July 3, Krakow.

The more time I spend in Krakow, the more I love it. It's definitely a touristy town, but such a good touristy town. I decided to spend the day in the main square and go to the Jewish quarter this evening for dinner. It gets light so early and stays light so long that it's making it difficult to judge what time it is, and I've learned not to take for granted that the sun is in the east or west - it's usually pretty far north. This morning I kept waking up and thinking it was noon because there was so much light, but it was more like 6 or 7 am. I've been out and about since around 11 (it's 1:30 now).

So far, the coolest things I've seen are the street performers. There were two women playing classical music, one on violin and one on cello, right outside the Wawel castle (which is beautiful, by the way). There was a guy in the street playing water glasses - he was great! It made me wish I'd brought a small tape recorder to go along with my camera. There was a traditional band playing in the main square. The best were these terrible, terrible breakdancers right outside St. Mary's cathedral. They were so bad! One guy would go into the circle, hop around a bit, do an unbalanced handstand, and leave. The rest of the guys would clap to the beat, but they were totally off-rhythm and couldn't keep time with each other. After being in Union Square in NYC for most of last summer, these guys just made me laugh, but I do admire their courage, I guess.

This is the first time I'm really traveling alone - I've been on planes alone, and stayed in cities alone, but always en route to a destination where I knew people and had a comfortable place to stay. Traveling here, even for only a day, by myself has made me pick up the traveling itch... I wish I didn't have to come back, that I could just take my backpack and explore the rest of Eastern Europe. It makes me wish I spoke more languages - just a few words, a few numbers, make even complicated things possible to communicate.

I'm tired of writing, and hungry. I think it's time for lunch.

Coming home Sunday!

July 2, Krakow.

Yesterday we had another day of meetings, and then I decided to take the afternoon off and hung around my room to recharge. Later in the evening, Dzhamilya (from Kazakhstan, at the meeting) and I went to the mall because she had to buy her mom a dress. After we got back from shopping, the two of us went to Roxana's room and hung out for a while. I guess a point of meetings like this is to establish relationships with people. I think I was pretty successful with that this trip, and I'll have another chance in September to see if I remember everyone's names.

Today we packed and checked out, left our luggage in the hotel, and Rox, Judith, and I went to Warsaw proper. The thing about Warsaw is that it was almost totally destroyed in WWII - really, if you see pictures, there were just shells of buildings, and at least every other structure was totally flattened. After the war, Poland decided to rebuild Warsaw in the old style, rebuilding the apartments and stores using old photos and paintings as a guide. So, when you walk down the city center and go into the squares, they look so real, and so old. But knowing that they were all totally destroyed, that it's almost a fake reclaiming of the past, makes looking at the buildings so sad. Judith bought a postcard with pictures of the same building in 1945 and now - it's amazing, and depressing.

I took the train to Krakow, which is about a 2-1/2 ride. It's really, really difficult to feel comfortable with your plans when you don't speak the language. The only reason I knew where to go for the train was because the guy who sold me the ticket was kind enough to write it down. I didn't know that there were assigned seats on the train (it was a REAL train, not a wimpy New Jersey transit one. Now I can say I've actually been on a train!) Then, I thought Krakow was the last (only) stop on the train, but in fact it was the FIRST stop, so I was totally unprepared when the train stopped, and I didn't know how long it was going to sit in the station for, and I was terrified that I'd make it to the doors just in time to see them close and miss my stop. Fortunately, the train sat there for a while and I got off in time. And then, I kept getting accosted by people trying to sell me hostel reservations, but I already had one paid for, so instead I had to ask them to show me the way to this one. They directed me to the "representative" (I don't know what else to call him) from my hostel, and he was very nice - he showed me where the suitcase lockers were, and gave me a map and easy directions.

It was about a 15 minute walk from the train station, and in those 15 minutes I completely fell in love with Krakow. The city itself is so old, and I was walking through the scenic city center (the train station and the hostel are on opposite sides). But the people are so young... I think I only saw three or four people over 40 years old. It seems like it's got a culture all its own, and I wish I were staying here longer so that I could really experience it. Having only one real day to explore means I have to pick between things I want to see, so tomorrow I'll probably stick around Krakow itself instead of going to the Wielika salt mines like I'd planned - it's great in the pictures, but it's a five-or-so hour excursion, and I'd rather stay in the area instead of wasting the travel time.

June 30, Warsaw.

It's amazing how being verbally isolated from everyone around you can make you feel like you're on another planet. Today, after the meeting, I walked down to the Big Store (eerily reminiscent of Wal-Mart) to browse around and find some munchies. I get looked at by New York men often enough, but here it felt like everyone was staring at me because I was _different_. It's strange to walk around and feel so alone, and pretty helpless. I was looking for the cracker aisle, so I could have a vehicle for my Brie cheese, but all I could find were cookies! I wandered around the entire store looking for some hard flour-based salty thing, and the closest to cracker I found was something like Melba toast. I tried to ask people, but I guess I choose poorly, because three out of three didn't speak enough English to understand what I was looking for. I walked back determined to find Krzysztof (our host) tomorrow to ask him how to say the numbers 1-10, half, please, thank you, excuse me, sorry, and I don't speak Polish. Those seem like the essentials. Maybe Where is the bathroom would come in handy too.

I went to the fruit section and got some kiwis (3) and green apple (1). Then I went on my cracker hunt. As I was walking around in my giant circles, I happened to pass the fruit/veggie section again, and noticed that there was a clerk sitting in the middle of it surrounded by scales. People were lining up, putting their bags on the scales, and having the clerk stick price tags on them. I didn't understand how I had missed it the first time - I guess I never thought of that method of buying produce, so I didn't think about it. Anyway, I walked up and got in line, and when I held up my kiwi bag to put on the scale, the clerk shook her head and said something in Polish. I was so startled that I just turned around and left, and for some reason I figured that you only had to weigh vegetables ahead of time. So I wandered around some more and found my Melba toast and got in the cashier line, and just as it was becoming my turn I realized that that line of thought didn't make any sense at all, and that probably the kiwis were sold by piece rather than by weight, but that didn't let me draw any conclusions about the apple. So, to avoid the embarrassment of having the cashier try to explain - in Polish - why I couldn't pay for the apple, just in case I went back to the produce section and got back in the weighing line. I put my apple on the scale, and sure enough, she printed out a sticky and put it on the bag. Satisfied, I took my produce and cheese and toast back to the cashier and paid. I didn't even fumble with the coins!

The experience reminded me of one time I was in UFM (excuse me, Morton Williams University Supermarket). I was buying lettuce or something, and two girls about my age asked me about the apples in broken English (they spoke Russian). They didn't know whether the price listed was per piece or by weight (weight), and then they didn't know what the kilogram equivalent of one pound was (2.2 lbs = 1 kg), and then they weren't sure where they had to weigh the fruit they wanted (the cashier will do it for you). I helped as much as I could, and since I had just booked my ticket to stay here in Poland for two extra days - alone - I hoped my goodwill would lead to good karma over in the Eastern Bloc. I don't think it has, so far, though one guy was very helpful in locating the cheese.

June 29, Warsaw.

Can I just say: Polish TV is very strange. We get 11 channels in the hotel, and since I'm pretty much on my own for the evening, I've been laying around channel surfing. There was one game-show-like program where this dude had to identify famous people from photographs and give some sort of description about them (I suppose it was a description anyway, I couldn't really tell). Another program was like a variety show of sorts. These two guys - one playing an instrument like a recorder and another playing a violin - made very strange noises and jumped around a lot. There's also a Russian movie that is both subtitled in Polish and dubbed, but the same guy does all the dubbing with no inflection whatsoever, even for the female voices.

The game show is actually a lot different than my initial impression. It seems like Made (on MTV) except the contestants don't have as long and they get tested at the end. And if they pass whatever the game show test is of their abilities, they get some sort of reward - the first guy got a car. The funny thing is that, during the rite of passage part, the contestant's family is on the stage watching the test. So, there are all these dramatic cuts from the task to the expectant faces of the family members. It's called "Chiwila Prawdy." If I had internet in this room, I'd look that up on a translator and see what it really means.

Polish seems like it'd be really difficult to pick up just by living here. There isn't a lot of break between the words, so everything just kind of flows together, and there are a lot of sounds that I'm not used to hearing, and though they use the English (what's it's proper name?) alphabet, they pronounce letters differently.

I'm sleepy. Maybe I'll go to bed soon, even though it's still light out - I guess I didn't realize how far north we are.

Note to self: read Peter Singer.

A snippet of an interview (found via A&LDaily):

Singer: What you could say, and what I do argue in the book, is that [George W. Bush] doesn't have as much concern for the lives of Iraqis as he does for the lives of Americans, or even frozen American embryos; I think that's certainly true, but in that I think he's simply focusing elsewhere, not looking at that and saying 'how can I justify my support for human life against what I do in Iraq'; he rather takes a view that's relatively widely held - he simply says we didn't intend these deaths, so therefore they somehow don't count.
Interviewer: Yes, you sometimes get a sense they're somehow less fatal, those deaths.
Singer: Yes that's right; the people are sort of less dead.

I disagree. I think the thought process - if you could track it through the subconscious or wherever it comes from - isn't that the deaths are less real. Rather, people living in remote and unfortunate parts of the planet seem somehow more removed from the real world, our world, and less able to communicate suffering in a way that we can understand it. No one argues that it's not different to see someone dead on television and to see them die in front of you. The people that suffer away from us: they're just less alive.