Craziness At The Hair Salon

Anyone who knows anything about black culture in America (or who has seen Barber Shop or Beauty
Shop) knows that the buildings in which folks get their hair done is always full of shenanigans.



 The last time I was at the beauty shop, something unexpectedly ridiculous happened. Well maybe it was expected.

I'm sitting in the chair getting my locs twisted.

This isn't me, but that's what we all looked like in the shop.

There was a woman there getting her hair dyed. She was under the dryer when a young man walks in and hands her a piece of paper. She looks at it.

"What the hell?" she asks.

"The cops gave it to me," he replies calmly.

"They gave this to you?! I got a ticket?! Why didn't you stop them?"

"I was just sitting there and they gave it to me. Do you want it?"

"Nah, take that shit and go back to the car. Damn, boy, why you let me get a ticket?!?!"

After he walks out the shop, she turns toward all of us and says, "why let me get a damn ticket? Him and his cousin sitting in the car and they gon' let me get a ticket. And the boy run track!"

We all began cracking up. Things quickly turned back to discussion of my wedding and the wedding of another one of the stylists who's getting married the same day as me (yay wedding twins).

Shortly after that, no more than 20 minutes, the young man comes back into the shop. This time, he's accompanied by the cops.

"What's going on?" the woman asks.

"Is this young man with you?" asks the cops.

"What did he do now?" asks the woman.

"I didn't do nothing. They just wanted to tell you how to not get another ticket," responds the boy.

"Wait, you brought them in here because I was about to get another ticket? Why didn't you tell me that the first time?"

You could see how mad she was getting. The cops then explained she was parked in a zone that was no parking from 4p-6p (dumb Chicago laws) and she had to move her car or she could get tickets every 15 min until 6 pm.

She hopped out her seat and went to go move her car. The cops and the boy walked out before her. Before she left, she turned back to say, "I thought he was in trouble. I was about to tell those cops he wasn't with me. Lol, good thing I asked questions first!"

We again cracked up laughing. Ah good times. Even though I'm at the shop for hours once a month, the entertainment value is certainly there, even without me keeping my nose stuck in my Kindle. It's like reality tv but less megalomania.

Computer Issues and Other Issues

Before, I was quite sure that I was over PCs and ready to move on to the Mac and Apple products I have previously described as evil. To me, they are now the lesser of two evils. I wasn't able to use my computer the last couple of days because my computer wouldn't load. I had to post from my Blackberry. Anyone who lives in the wild 100s in Chicago who uses Sprint will tell you that was no easy task.


I wasn't able to spell check or anything. But I have returned to a point on my computer, somewhere in the past where it could actually boot up. I don't know where that point was, nothing seems to be missing... yet. But I hope to avoid such issues when I get a MacBook. That day will be here before the end of the year, hopefully. That explains why I didn't put up a post about Dancing With The Stars today.


Also, I was sick. I hate getting sick and I keep getting sick. I'm blaming my parents house and the fact that it's always cold here. Chicago is still in the 40s. WTF! It's the end of April, I don't understand. And while all the technology I know and love is either reliably or surprisingly, F-ing up, my Kindle decided to get in on the fun.


True to form, my warranty has passed and now the fun begins. There's some sort of electromagnetic disturbance on the screen. I'm hoping I can take it into Best Buy and they can fix it. If not, I'll have to depend on Amazon to fix it without demanding I purchase a new one. From what I've read on the website, resetting the screen is a relatively easy fix that shouldn't even require my warranty, but we shall see.


The point to the ranty post? Back up your shit! I have an external hard drive that I protect like it is offspring. On it, I have every vital everything for both my laptop and my Kindle. So it would take a crazy miracle and my laptop, Kindle, external hard drive, and BlackBerry would all have to fail at once for me to lose everything. If there was a fire, I wouldn't grab everything. Just the external hard drive.


There's one more point, get your own place where you control the temperature. I swear if I'm gone from this house for more than a week, I come back and immediately get sick. Chicago is literally making me sick. I can't wait until my life is on to the next phase. And despite the rage I'm sure this post conveys, I'm actually in a great mood. No one I wanted to stay got kicked off DWTS, and I finally figured out the perfect drug combo to make getting sick bearable if it's going to keep happening.

Back In Chicago

I drove toward Chicago Wednesday around noon, and made a two hour stop in East St. Louis to hang out a bit with Lion and then I was on the road. When I finally got on the road, I felt good. I wasn't too tired to drive. I hate driving tired. I spent half the drive on the phone with Easy and half the drive listening to Michael Jackson music on my Kindle.


I love that I can listen to music on my Kindle in my car. I just play it the same way I'd play an iPod. Yay for technology. Anyway, I was hoping to get back in time to catch American Idol on television live, but then Michelle asked if we could hang out tonight. I hadn't hung out with my girls in Chicago in what felt like forever, so I was willing to forgo watching American Idol live just to hang out with them.


But luckily, Camille was still at the library studying. So I got to watch American Idol, America's Next Top Model, and Chopped All Stars before it was time to head out. Camille, Michelle, two of our other friends, and I headed out to Hooters to get some chicken wings. We had a very good time while we were out. Laughing and joking and catching up. I feel very lucky to have a great group of women to hang out with.


And these women are the type of women I can grow with. We were definitely having a good time, and we were discussing what our friendship would be like as we aged. We were talking about trading in nights out at Hooters for dinner parties. If that was mentioned a few years ago, I'm sure the conversation wouldn't have ended so well, but it was an idea everyone was open to, at least in theory. So it's good to know as I get older and have different preferences, I won't have to replace my friends with more age-appropriate ones.


After we ate, we headed to Gloria's house to hang out with her. She couldn't come out with us because she has a two year old son and can't make spontaneous plans like that. But we brought her chicken and we hung out and caught up.


The whole time I was out, I was texting Easy back and forth. We even made plans to try and get our friends to all hang out together to celebrate St. Patrick's day up on the north side of Chicago. I think it will be fun, and I'm definitely interested to see how our friends will all get along. I'm extra interested in seeing if the pairings I thought my work between his guys and my girls will be cool. I hope our plans don't fall through. But as long as I'm spending time with Easy and my girls, I know it will be fun.


I definitely love that Easy is a solutions guy. I talked about feeling like I wasn't paying as much attention to various parts of my life that I should, and he comes up with a plan to combine them. So I get to hang out with my girls, spend time with him, and get to know his friends better. And I thought he was a terrible multi-tasker, haha.

More About Computer Viruses, And The Craziness They Lead To

I wrote a post recently lamenting my woes with a particularly nasty computer virus. Now, every time a program loads slower than expected, I freak out. I wonder if some remnant of the virus remains, waiting to crash my entire system. I can't afford the Geek Squad right now. It's just wearing me down, these terrible thoughts.


In the midst of these paranoid thoughts, I had another "terrible" thought. I began considering how much easier my life would be if I had a Mac. I've gone on rants about how Mac/Apple is the devil and how I'll never partake of their products on a large level with the exception of the iPod. But is that stubborn stance really helping me?


Since I've been looking back over facts about myself I've simply accepted to be true, I have opened floodgates. Now every accepted opinion, every trusted worldview, is up for debate. Am I really that committed to Microsoft? Mac laptops tend to be lighter in weight, and they definitely don't have the crappy computer-killing viruses that Microsoft attracts.


I know plenty of people who use Macs. They are as anti-Microsoft and I am/was anti-Macs. And all I'm saying is maybe they have a point. Possibly, I could load up a computer and have it work immediately. Possibly, I could stop trying to search out what does and does not cause nasty computer viruses.


But then I'd have to learn how the Mac desktop screen actually works. That's the hardest part. I never bothered to learn and was therefore crippled by inability every time I sat at a public computer only to learn that it ran Windows...but the weird Mac version of Windows.


I'm not saying my next laptop will be something other than a Dell or HP with the latest Windows operating system. I am saying that I'm finally considering the possibility. I can't embrace most changes and be so stuck in my ways for this one thing. Especially when the one thing could be ultimately counter-productive.


See, that computer virus is making me think crazy thoughts? Someone help me, I'm considering a Mac. Next, I'll be talking about an iPad. I need my Kindle now...

A Nasty Computer Virus

I was trying to catch up on all my back episodes of How I Met Your Mother. The summer after college, my obsession with seeing every episode of every season of a show started. It's the fault of Sex and the City. And my obsession has been centered on How I Met Your Mother for the last couple of days.

And so I've been watching. I've figured out ways to game megavideo.com so they don't make me wait for 30 min after every 72 minutes of viewing. But along the way, I also managed to pick up a nasty computer virus. I think I know what did it. Some random episode in Season 2 didn't have a megavideo link. So I tried another link that I'd never heard of before.

This link opened up about three windows on my computer. After sending an angry glance towards my adware blocker tab, I closed the windows and didn't give it another thought. That was Wednesday night. Sometime Thursday evening, I noticed something was off with computer. It started with a virus scan from a virus scanning program I had no memory of installing.

30 minutes later, I had already stopped the scan, and I did so because it looked off. The scan window looked suspiciously friendly. Seriously, it looked like an Easter card. And then these windows started popping up to tell me that some program.exe or another couldn't start because of a virus. They had the [x] in the upper right hand corner, but the button didn't work. But even though I stopped the scan, I was noticing other hinky things.

I pulled up my task manager to try and close the virus and I couldn't do it. The program didn't show up on my task list or process list. Now I was freaking out and worried that there was a horrible virus on my computer. Then I decided to let the virus scan run to see what the issue was. BIG MISTAKE.

At least 15 different issues popped up and different screens and different processes. This program told me that my computer was basically fucked and my only solution was to upgrade to the full program and debug my computer. That's when I noticed the bottom of the window that said it was a trial version of the program.

While other windows are coming up telling me that I have all these different processes that won't work. Then it hit me, I never downloaded this virus scanner. I never downloaded this virus scan. So I turned off my computer and thanked God I had an alternative to figure out a solution.

I googled the title of the program on my BlackBerry and my Kindle and the third item down had the word "scam" in it. I went to Yahoo answers to find out how to fix the problem. The solution was to download another program that was a malware remover. I googled that program and again the word "scam" popped up. But luckily, this time, it was talking about the scam this program could fix. And the download was free.

So I loaded my computer back up, saw that this virus scam thing had eaten my internet and the first change I had to make, fixing my internet options and proxy server, wasn't able to be fixed. I re-loaded the computer in safe mode and fixed that issue.

I downloaded the program, ran the scan, and suddenly, everything was all better. I re-started the computer in regular mode and crossed my fingers. As soon as it loaded back up, everything was better again and I started writing this blog post.

The moral of the story? 1. Have multiple ways to access the internet. Thank God for my Blackberry and my Kindle.   2. Don't assume your memory is faulty. That's why God made Google.   3. Everything that they charge you for, there is probably a way to get the free download version of it too.   4. Don't click random links, stick with megavideo.com!

Weekly Goals Accomplished? Part Eight

There are fourteen goals in total This covers the week 1/2-1/8 (Sun-Sat).

Family Member Goal: I'm supposed to reach out to a family member I haven't talked to or spent time with in the last month.
Accomplished?: Yup. Nothing too huge, just saying a quick hello on the phone.

Career Goal: Fill out at least 50 job applications.
Accomplished?: Yes, I think I made this, although I didn't keep count. It's just the hours I spent online, it had to add up to at least 50.

Career Goal: Do research on grad schools, and on how to acquire a clinic/scholarship program/homeless shelter.
Accomplished?: I did some follow up on the clinic. By-passing the info about filing forms with the IRS etc. to start planning the logistics of the clinic is a huge step for me.

Career Goal: Have an updated resume by the 10th of this month.
Accomplished?: Yes, this got done, but it doesn't count for this week since I didn't finish it til after the 8th.

Hobbies (Piano Playing) Goal: Spend at least one hour practicing the piano and/or studying music theory.
Accomplished?: Nope. I haven't been anywhere near my keyboard this past week.

Hobbies (Reading) Goal: Read at least one book in the last week.
Accomplished?: Nope. Those Charles Dickens books are slow reading... And I spend a lot of time on my Kindle playing games. I blame my hairdresser for letting me know they have games on the Kindle.

Hobbies (Writing) Goal: Work on novel at least once in the last two weeks.
Accomplished?: Technically yes, since I did it the week before last.

Hobbies (Gardening) Goal: Work on indoor garden plan at least once in the last week.
Accomplished?: Nope, but I'm certainly feeling the urge to get to work on this goal. I would've loved to have some fresh herbs to put into the turkey burgers I made today.

Hobbies (Yoga) Goal: Go to three yoga classes.
Accomplished?: Nope. I really should do better; it's just so cold outside.

Hobbies (Cooking) Goal: Make one new and one old recipe.
Accomplished?: Yes, I accomplished this one.

Hobbies (Cooking) Goal: Write down the recipe for everything I've made in the last week.
Accomplished?: I haven't done this. But I will do it next week.

Hobbies (Travelling) Goal: Leave Chicago once a week, leave Illinois once a month, leave the Midwest once a season, and leave USA once a year.
Accomplished?: Bowling on Friday and shopping during the week got me out of Chicago. Hadn't left Illinois yet, but I will this week. I've got til March to get out of the Midwest, and I've got til October to get out of the country.

Hobbies (Bowling) Goal: Improve league bowling average and lower handicap.
Accomplished?: Well, my average went up to 100, but my handicap didn't lower. I'll take that as a goal accomplished because that extra pin of handicap was useful to help my team win all three games of league bowling on Friday.

Hobbies (New Things) Goal: Try something brand new.
Accomplished?: All those crafts I've been making are certainly brand new. I'm feeling quite creative this past week.

I got 9 of my goals completed this week. That is pretty good, more than half. Still a work in progress. If I ever get all fourteen, I may just have a small heart attack.

Weekly Goals Accomplished? Part Two

A couple days ago, I wrote about setting these weekly goals for myself to take a more proactive stance on building the life I want for myself. But since I started this late in the week, this first week only goes from Thursday to Saturday. There are fourteen goals in total. Let's see how I did!

Family Member Goal: I'm supposed to reach out to a family member I haven't talked to or spent time with in the last month.
Accomplished?: I texted my younger cousin who is a freshman in college. She's super busy all the time, but I reached out to her. She responded, but it was the most delayed text ever, so I was glad to even hear from her.

Career Goal: Fill out at least 50 job applications
Accomplished?: I didn't fill out anywhere close to 50, but hopefully I will do better next week.

Career Goal: Do research on grad schools, and on how to acquire a clinic/scholarship program/homeless shelter
Accomplished?: I did some research on how to acquire a clinic. Very little. I need to do better.

Career Goal: Have an updated resume by the 10th of this month.
Accomplished?: I didn't finish it by Saturday, But I will get it done next week.

Hobbies (Piano Playing) Goal: Spend at least one hour practicing the piano and/or studying music theory.
Accomplished?: I didn't touch the keyboard, but I had a very busy couple of days.

Hobbies (Reading) Goal: Read at least one book in the last week.
Accomplished?: I didn't read a book, but I read some more of Great Expectations on my Kindle.

Hobbies (Writing) Goal: Work on novel at least once in the last two weeks.
Accomplished?: I didn't work on the novel, but I have another week before I officially didn't reach this goal.

Hobbies (Gardening) Goal: Work on indoor garden plan at least once in the last week.
Accomplished?: Nope, sorry.

Hobbies (Yoga) Goal: Go to five yoga classes.
Accomplished?: Not accomplished. That would've been crazy to do in only three days. I only went to 2 classes.

Hobbies (Cooking) Goal: Make one new and one old recipe.
Accomplished?: I didn't cook anything between Thursday and Saturday.

Hobbies (Cooking) Goal: Write down the recipe for everything I've made in the last week.
Accomplished?: I still haven't made my recipe template.

Hobbies (Travelling) Goal: Leave Chicago once a week, leave Illinois once a month, leave the Midwest once a season, and leave USA once a year.
Accomplished?: I did leave Chicago. We went to Crestwood, IL to see the movie. The rest I'm still working on.

Hobbies (Bowling) Goal: Improve league bowling average and lower handicap.
Accomplished?: My average really did improve and my handicap went down. And what's more, my team won all three of our league games. We kicked their asses!

Hobbies (New Things) Goal: Try something brand new.
Accomplished?: I accomplished this one! When we went to Grand Lux, my appetizer and meal were brand new to me. I'd never tried Philly cheesesteak spring rolls and they were delicious! And whatever salad that was I ordered was good too!

Okay, 5 out of 14. I will do better. And next week, I'll actually have 7 days so hopefully I will improve!

Weekly Goals Accomplished? Part One

If you read all those pages I recently added to my blog, you'll see that I've typed out concrete ideas I have for building the life I want. There are things I've decided I want to proactively seek out. I think it will be fun to make that extra step. And there's always that warm fuzzy feeling I get when I'm making real strides towards accomplishing a goal.

I'm thinking if I post this every Sunday or so, I'll be able to look back on the last week to see if I did what I was supposed to do. For the first post, I'll be looking at only Thursday to Saturday. But before I get into that, I'll just lay out the goals.

For my family, I'm setting a goal to reach out to a family member I haven't talked to or spent time with in a month. I can't make them have time for me, but I can do my part at least and reach out.

For my career, I'm setting a goal to fill out at least 50 job applications a week. That number may change over time. Also, I'd like to have spent part of one day doing research on my ultimate career goals and on my grad school search.

For my hobbies, I've got quite a number of goals, and I'm going to write them all out here. Bear with me.

For piano playing, I'd like to spend at least one hour each week practicing the piano and studying music theory.

For reading, I'd like to read at least one new book in a week. I've read waaaay more books than that in one week, but I sometimes go weeks without finishing a book, so that's now the goal.

For writing, I'd like to work on my novel at least once every two weeks. I want to do some character development, plot planning, or maybe even writing. With constant progress, maybe I'll stay in touch with the characters and really get some stuff done.

For gardening, I'm going to put together a plan to start a indoor garden. I think spending time doing that research or acquiring the tools I need to make it happen once a week will be a good start.

For yoga, the goal will be to get my butt to that yoga studio five times a week. That will mean making extra efforts to change my schedule and motivate myself.

For cooking, I'd like to make one dish I've made before, make one new dish, and write down the recipes for everything I make, with the exception of bowls of cold cereal.

For travelling, I want to leave the city once a week, the state once a month, the Midwest once a season, and the country once a year.

For bowling, I'd like to improve my average and lower my handicap every week.

And as far as trying new things, I have to do at least one brand new thing a week. It doesn't have to be huge, but it has to be new.

I know I've made a tall order for myself. I've made fourteen goals That's a lot to do every single week. Maybe I'll give up in two weeks. But for now, I'm excited to try!

Enough About My Life aka An Escape From Reality

This post is not going to be some discussion of my views of myself of my life or whatever. No, it's time to take a break from that. Why am I taking a break from that today? Because I do what I want. And also, it's better this way. No one wants to read my rambling stream of consciousness about not yet having a job or being frustrated about a guy or lamenting that my friends are so busy or yet another post about how much I love my Kindle or yoga (which I totally do by the way).


But this is not about me. At least not today. This is about fall network television. Ever since I moved back home, I'm finding lots of things to love about my parents' DVR. It's not Comcast ONDemand, but it does have it's benefits. I'm seeing the depth of those benefits these past two weeks. CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc. have all had their season premiers of the shows, new and old, that I've been dying to see.

I love my summer cable programming (I loooove yooou Psych and Leverage and White Collarrrrrrr!!!!!), but there's something to be said about the drama of new fall programming. It lacks some of the whimsy of the summer, but the characters are more like the people you'd run into on the street, not just someone so awesome you wish they existed in real life (I'm looking at you Sean and Gus, you too Hardison and Parker).

Because of the DVR, I've been able to watch all the shows I want to watch, without having to use the internet the next day. For instance, Monday night brings How I Met Your Mother, Dancing With The Stars, House, and 90210. I can watch two and record two. I've done this Sunday through Thursday and I love it! I usually don't catch up on all the shows til Saturday late afternoon, but the days of having to choose are over!

What about the cable shows that have new fall programming too? Well, I don't watch most of the reality shows, MTV is evil, but I do notice that cable shows have re-runs. Waaay more re-runs that network television. I watched the final battle of Chopped Champions at 1:00 am last night. I wasn't stressed about catching it at 8 pm or 9 pm or whatever time it came on.

Watching Brandy and Maksim argue, or Naomi deal with the aftermath of her lies and her attack, or Tyra sussing out America's Next Top Model makes my evenings pass with joy. I never had much going on in the evenings before besides studying. It's just nice, at least this fall, to take advantage of all my free time and really delve deeply into someone else's life.

Lots of Things Are Making Me Happy Right Now

I'm going to attribute my current happiness to a number of things:

1. Yoga

It's still totally awesome! I'm very excited to be going again today. I am pleasantly surprised that my mom is down to still continue classes this week even though she didn't see all that psyched about it last week. Her and my dad are also joining weight watchers which makes me glad because I've become increasingly concerned about their health. They're getting up in age, and I told them, I was putting them in a home if they had serious health problems when they got old enough to need to be taken care off, particularly if those health problems were self-induced because of bad habits in their younger years. But hopefully that won't matter anymore because every one's exercising and putting more thought into how they feed themselves. Happy day!

2. Jane Austen
I'm more than halfway through her published books I've downloaded to my beloved Kindle. I'm on Northanger Abbey right now. This one appears more commentary than anything else, but it is still quite enjoyable if I skip the passages that describe novels of that era. I've been enjoying all her books and I'm just happy I've found a number of books by a single author that I can't put down. It's been a while since that happened. I feel like it's the official cutoff of my embracing a love of reading again.

3. Church
All the activities I'm doing in church seem to be netting some real results. I don't talk about it in detail a lot on this blog, so I won't go into all of it now. But just know that I am getting a huge sense of accomplishment in this area and that's making me happy.

4. Men
I am experiencing far less man drama than I'd ever thought possible without buying eight cats and giving up. Just as I could expect from myself, I am over my desire to stay in contact with Easy. Well, not exactly. But I'm over it enough to stick with that plan. He contacted me over the weekend (probably because he was in town), and I didn't respond. I've been coming up with every reason in the book for it and I'll continue to do that because I'm over guys who just aren't that into me.

5. Corrected Perceptions
I recently wrote that someone told me I was not who I seemed. Turns out, this person was drawing extra conclusions from the things I said about me etc. So after a discussion about assumptions and a clarification of a few things, including I only say what I mean, nothing less and nothing more, it was cleared up. I believe there is no longer that thought that I'm not who I say I am, there is just a shock that I'm not who this person thought I was. And I"m okay with that. It happens.

So, for today, I'm just going to continue applying for jobs I hope to get, look forward to my endorphin rush, and check out the weight watchers website to see what my parents are up to.

Finally Reading Jane Austen

I've mentioned a few times on this blog how much I love my Kindle. If it had a penis, I'd be dating it. It has never disappointed me. And because the Kindle is from Amazon, I get super awesome prices for most books, less than nook and e-reader users pay buying their books from Barnes and Noble and from Sony. But I digress.

I got a lot of classic books for free.ninety-nine on my Kindle. I think I bought about one hundred of them all in one day. Some are books I read children's versions of around age 9-11. Others are books I'd been meaning to read, but never got around to.

A perfect example of this are Jane Austen's novels. I love some of the movies that are based on them. I love Bridget Jones' Diary based on Pride and Prejudice, for example. But the people I know who truly love Jane Austen's novels are not my kind of people. I went to see Becoming Jane or whatever that movie was called that had Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy (who is one sexy ass white boy) in it. I liked the movie, but left the theater feeling I couldn't possibly like the books that woman wrote.

I was sitting in the hairdresser's chair last month getting my locks tightened and feeling incredibly bored. I decide to pull up Sense and Sensibility. I figured it'd be good to start with the first published, even though not the first written, of her books. Can I just say that I was immediately hooked? I loved it!

I've since read Pride and Prejudice and also Mansfield Park. I'm working now on Emma. I find myself actually surprised by the twists in the stories. I find myself identifying with the characters in the books. The heroines are dealt the most realistic happy endings that I was rooting for the entirety of the book. The villains or villain-types are also dealt with as if karma itself were writing their ending.

If you've ever thought about reading Jane Austen, but didn't for whatever reason. Get over yourself and pick up a copy, you probably will not regret it.

The Things That Make Me Happy Right Now

1. I'm in my church's bowling league. The team I'm on is filled with people I've known for years and genuinely like and whose company I enjoy. Bowling is something I've always wanted to do consistently, so I'm glad that at least for now, I can count it as an official hobby. Also, I know for sure I have something to do Friday nights. The league bowls every Friday (not including holidays) for 35 weeks.

2. I'm reading lots of books on my Kindle. Because I have a Kindle, and not an e-Reader or nook, I'm able to get books for Amazon's dirt cheap prices. How dirt cheap? Free.ninety.nine (thanks Kanye for making that bullshit term part of my vocabulary). I finally decided I'm going to force myself to read Jane Austen's novels, in the order they were published, not written. They are considered classics, and I feel I should be able to say I've read them. Most of the people I know who love Jane Austen are not the kind of people I look at and think, boy I'm just like them. So, I figured I'd have to force myself through it, like with the Scarlett Letter. The Scarlett Letter, which I'm still not done reading, is written in impossible language, and kind of dull considering the subject matter. But Sense and Sensibility is simply fantastic! I'm really enjoying reading it and can't wait to move on to the next one. I am, of course, assuming the next one will be even better. Seriously, who would've though Willoughby would have an illegitimate child!

3. Thinking about the end of next May. In my mind, by that time, I will have a job, have saved some money, and will be looking at apartments with Michelle. She graduates from college int he beginning of May. I figure that month will be spent apartment hunting. We'll want to live close to where ever we work, but not to far from the church. The church is a good point to aim for because both our families, and a good number of our friends live near our church. We talk about living together occasionally and that makes me happy because it references a time in the future when I can freely assume things will be better. For instance, we'll be driving down the street in her car or mine and we'll see a For Rent sign. We always have a critique. They include: Nope, I can't do window air conditioning, I need central air. Hey, I like that place... soooo many windows! Oh hell no, there's no way I'd want to live on this busy ass street. It just makes me happy to focus on the future while putting in the work today to get there.

4. Talking to Easy. While he gets settled into life in St. Louis and all that brings, he still reaches out to me. When all my concerns about the inevitable Cancer/Libra crash and burn arise, he tamps them down. I don't think he realizes how much I like him. That's probably because I haven't told him I've lost me desire to date other people. I also haven't told him I want to continue to be involved with him even though he's in another state. In spite of all this, we still have been talking so frequently. I think today is the first day I haven't spoken to him since it was completely settled that he didn't get the job in Chicago that might've prevented him having to move. I didn't want to bother him on a Friday. It was his first Friday in town. I figured he'd either be catching up on missed sleep from the week or getting ready to go out and enjoy the city night life. I imagine he probably thought to not bother me on a Friday. His assumption was probably that I might have a date. Well, if he ever lets me know he likes my plan of us being rebels and making our own rules, I'll gladly fill him in on all he doesn't yet know. But until then, I'll just enjoy the times we talk. Because he's so funny, and sweet, and he makes me feel beautiful inside and out. Those are all very happy feelings indeed.

Working On My Hobbies Wednesday: Being A Tourist In My Own City

***I have some hobbies I'd like to get better acquainted with. I have some hobbies I'm interested in taking up. This day's post is dedicated to the adventure of developing hobbies so I stay a well-rounded person. What hobbies do you engage in?***

Chicago is one of the greatest cities in the world! There is so much to see and do. A lot of residents of this city don't see it all. They just stay in their neighborhood, content to do the same things over and over again. I've never been that way. If I had to stay in one place all the time, I'd lose my mind. My perfect world would have a combination of trying new things mixed with repeating old favorites a hundred times.

One of my favorite things to do in this city is go to movies and concerts. There is this thing called Movies in the Park that happens once a week all summer. It was one of my favorite things to do, but due to budget cuts, they aren't doing it this year. So indoor movies only this summer.

But concerts are still available. Those are indoors and outdoors. My favorite music is R&B and Neo Soul, so I get to go to all types of venues to see my artists perform. Tuesday night, my mother and I went to see Jill Scott & Maxwell at the United Center. It was such an awesome concert.

My mother and I waited too long to get our tickets. These two singers are very popular and so the only tickets left were in the nosebleed seats. We arrive at our destination for the concert and notice how tiny Jill Scott looks.

Just then, we get a call from a family friend who had tickets down on the first floor. We didn't even know she was going to the concert. She had to leave for a family emergency and offered to let us sit in her seat. We were like, "fuck yeah!" (well, we were more like, "sure, thanks!", but that's what I was thinking).

We enjoyed the next two and half hours of concert 50 feet from the stage. It was so exciting. The music was great, the crowd was great. There was a tall, dark, and handsome man next to me with whom I flirted all night. It was such a good time. I have seen Jill Scott in concert several times over the last 5 years and saw Maxwell last year with Top. This is the first time in a long while I went to a concert without her, and I missed her. My mother and I still had fun though. Top is going to the same concert when Jill and Maxwell go to NYC, and she's taking College Guy. I'll talk about that in an upcoming Tip Top Tuesday post.

What concerts have you been to lately?

I Really Love My Kindle

So, I made the mistake of leaving my lights on in my car. Of course the battery went dead. I did this two days after getting the battery replaced because it was old and I left the lights on and the battery went dead, lol. In my defense, my car used to make a noise if I turned the car off and the lights were still on. But, my car has some electrical issues (I flipped it over the first weekend after I bought it, long story that ends with why I'm so close to Bad now) that isn't worth being fixed for the money it costs. I don't always remember.

Back to the point, my car does an interesting thing when the battery goes dead. After I get a jump, the radio won't turn on. The car's computer or whatever needs to be reset. Well, I haven't gotten around to going to the Honda dealership to get it fixed. So, I have no clock, no radio, no CD, no iPod. I love music, a lot. And I defnitely need to listen to music when I'm driving. When I went home this weekend, I of course drove to Chicago. I left something important here in Rockford, so I had to drive back here Saturday morning when I left PT's house, and then of course drove back to Chicago. Then I drove back to Rockford on Sunday. That's hours upon hours of driving. I would've been up a creek without a paddle were it not for my Kindle.

It has an experimental MP3 player!!! Oh yeah! So, I was jamming to MidSummer's Night Dream (Maxwell), Essential Michael Jackson, Gems (Patti Labelle), and some more music. I was so happy I had that music on my Kindle that I take everywhere with me. I would have been so sad to do all that driving in silence. My Kindle altered the fate of my whole weekend. I'm not exaggerating, I'm so serious.

I really should get my radio re-programmed or whatever. But it's nice to know that it's not the end of the world if I have to take a road trip.

Visiting Home for Easter Weekend

I'm going home to visit my parents (and PT) tomorrow. I'm actually kind of excited. Last school year, I went home 2, maybe 3, times each month. This year, not so much. I just haven't had the time. They keep us pretty busy. This is a very good weekend to go home. It's Easter after all. My family, very Baptist, makes a pretty big deal out of holidays. Easter is a good time. We have our traditional foods (some sort of lamb, always green beans, pound cake, and macaroni and cheese). They're not really traditional, it's the just the tradition my family follows, lol. And my mom is always in such good spirits because she's coming down off her high of indulgence once Lent ends. It appears to be a happy weekend coming up.

The other thing I'm looking forward to is the SNMA Conference. SNMA stands for Student National Medical Association. It is an organization derived from the NMA which was started by African-Americans as a response to being denied membership to AMA (good old American history). It still exists to promote the enrollment and matriculation of African-Americans to and through medical school. It also provides a sense of comraderie. I'm not sure how many people are aware of these statistics, but unless you go to Howard or Morehouse, you're likely to be one of only one or two black people in your class. But anyway, the national conference is this week end/weekend and it's in Chicago! Which is super awesome seeing as how I'm headed there to visit my family. It'll be a great chance to reconnect with my friends who attend other universities.

PT asked me if I had Good Friday off (I don't). I'm hoping if he asked, that means he'll be available for us to spend some time together. Check out my other blog about my love life for more details on that.

And of course, the issue I always face when heading home is making time to study. This is where my lovely wonderful Kindle comes in. I no longer have to lug a laptop and several texts home when I go. I now just have my laptop and my Kindle. It allows me access to hundreds of pages of notes at my fingertips. Seriously, if you are looking to get an e-book reader, do it! Just like cell phones, computers, and every other awesome technology, it will change on you in two years. It's okay and that's actually a good thing because (if you're not Apple), the next cool invention will be cheaper.

Here's a random thought: my mother still calls my old bedroom my bedroom. I haven't lived with my parents since July 2003. But it's still my room? I wonder how many other 20-something people have to deal with their parents having weird things they still hold onto.

Kindle DX Wireless Reading Device

This device is amazing!!! I spent a lot of time researching e-book readers before I purchased one.

This is what you'll see if you check out the amazon.com page for the Kindle DX:
Beautiful Large Display: 9.7" diagonal e-ink screen reads like real paper; boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and sharp images
Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines
Books In Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered wirelessly in less than 60 seconds; no PC required
3G Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle DX; no monthly fees, no annual contracts, and no hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots
Global Coverage: Enjoy 3G wireless coverage at home or abroad in over 100 countries.
Carry Your Library: Holds up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents
Longer Battery Life: Now read for up to 1 week on a single charge with wireless on, a significant improvement from the previous battery life of 4 days
Built-In PDF Reader: Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go
Auto-Rotating Screen: Display auto-rotates from portrait to landscape as you turn the device so you can view full-width maps, graphs, tables, and Web pages
Read-to-Me: With the text-to-speech feature, Kindle DX can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book's rights holder made the feature unavailable
Large Selection: Over 450,000 books and the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read, including 101 of 112 New York Times® Best Sellers, plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs. For non-U.S. customers, content availability and pricing will vary.
Out-of-Copyright, Pre-1923 Books: Over 1.8 million free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books are available to read on Kindle, including titles such as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, and Treasure Island.
Low Book Prices: New York Times® Best Sellers and new releases from $9.99. When traveling abroad, you can download books wirelessly from the Kindle Store or your Archived Items. U.S. customers will be charged a fee of $1.99 for international downloads.
Free Book Samples: Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy

Of course, before one purchases an e-reader, more reseach needs to be done. I compared the Kindle DX with the Kindle 2, the Sony e-book reader (the one with the color touchscreen at the bottom), and the Barnes & Noble nook. But this is not a comparison, it's a review of the Kindle DX.

The first thing I noticed when I turned on my Kindle DX was how sleek it looked. It felt a little heavier in my hand than I expected and cause a slight tinge of regret at not getting the smaller one. Then, I saw the font changes. I was playing around with the sizes of the fonts and the way the screen automatically turned so I could see from all four sides. I began to get giddy, this was what I signed up for after all. I began looking around the Kindle Store. There were so many books available for free. Well, they had a price, but Amazon offered savings that got the price down to $0.00. So, I downloaded about 100 books. This whole process took me about 12 minutes. That was amazing.

I bought the Kindle to help me study for school. I have lots of notes from the hundreds of lectures we have for each test. But amazon charges 99 cents for each document they covert for you. Even if you load the document on your Kindle by USB, they'll take it off using the whispernet (or whatever they're calling it these days), covert it to PDF, and load it back on your Kindle. Then they'll charge you for it. Seeing as how I have so many documents, it was just cheaper for me to get a $9.99 subscription with Adobe.com to convert the files myself. I can convert webpages, Word documents, and powerpoint files. That worked out perfectly for me.

I also like that it plays music. I loaded my music I purchased from iTunes onto my Kindle DX. But it wouldn't play. I couldn't figure out what I had done wrong, so of course I sought out Google to solve my problems. Turns out iTunes has it's music files as an MP4 format, not MP3. Those protected files are not the right format for the Kindle. But there are several programs you can download on the internet that are actually legal in order to convert the files. Now, when I pulled up my iTunes files, they were M4A format, which is not protected and thus, were able to be easily converted. I finally had music on my beloved Kindle.

Next is the search capabilities of the Kindle. Here is an example search. I can type "rainbow" using the keyboard and it shows up on the screen at the bottom. I can then choose to search my content (except the PDF files), search the Kindle Store, search the dictionary (a very extensive one) that comes with the Kindle, search Google, or search Wikipedia. It's an amazing resource, especially for me because I have to constantly look up terms while studying.

My Favorite Things about the Kindle DX: 1) Even if your place is lost in the book when you reopen it, you can choose "sync to last read page" on the menu and it will take you there. 2) If I want to listen to music, but not disturb those around me, the volume adjust a wide range, and there is a headphone jack. 3) It's so portable. I literally take my Kindle everywhere. Whenever I have down time, I have it out.
My Least Favorite Things about the Kindle DX: 1) the MP3 player is especially rudimentary. You cannot skip tracks or save your spot in the playlist if you have your Kindle off for too many days. 2) I can't adjust the font on the PDF, which make me extra glad I got the larger Kindle. 3) The extended warranty is misleading. I didn't even get it. They make it seem like by purchasing it you get three years, but you only get two. It's like paying extra for only a few more features. No thank you, this technology evolves too fast. I'll probably want a different e-reader in two years anyway.
Final Rank: 4/5 The Kindle DX is one of the most costly e-book readers available on the market right now. But darn it if that e-ink background and large memory don't more than make up for it.

Lazy Days in the Life of a Med Student

So, I've decided not to leave my house today. Not the best decision considering I have commitments to keep. So... I'll be leaving around 7 because I promised I'd be at the med building at 7 tonight for something I'm not even sure what it is. But alas, I'll be there. But with the rest of my day, I'm just studying. Lots of studying. Most people have a relaxing day and they pull out an instrument or the television remote or the book they've been meaning to read.

Me? I pulled out my Kindle to go over my Pathology notes. C'est la vie, I suppose. But, I'm glad I'll be able to get a lot done with path today. For instance, I've just sorted out all the similarities and differences between the various microcytic anemias.

I do have other things I need to do. I need to mail my grandmother's birthday card to her. I need to send in my Census 2010 reply. There's been a lot of opportunities to do both, but by the time I'm done most days, I just wanna go home, not to the post office. So, I decided to be on the lookout for the mailman in hopes that he would take my envelopes and get them mailed for me.

And of course, I have to eat. But I don't want to take the time to cook. I ordered in from Giordano's. And anyone who's from the Chicago area has hopefully partaken of the wonderfulness (yay for making up words) that comes from that pizzaria. I'm really looking forward to the stuffed pizza and antipasto salad. There'll be enough for lunch and dinner.

And of course, the man I'm seeing doesn't live in Rockford, he lives in Chicago. And he's super busy all the time. He has a very important job making a difference in the lives of one of Chicago's most vulnerable populations (when it comes to education success).

So, no romantic distarctions, no food distractions, no media distractions. Should be a productive day, if not the ideal day off for a med student.

NOTE: the Girodano's delivery guy just got here. Yay for stuffed spinach and pepperoni pizza. I had to throw on pants as to not be half naked. The pants I threw on are my "fat pants" that used to be so big on me. Now they're tight. I feel some kinda way about that... Maybe it's time to cut down on the carbs. We'll see how I feel about that the next time I want to order a pizza, cause right now, I'm eating this!