Put a sock in it!

Illinois senator Barack Obama won a huge victory in South Carolina last week. He received an overwhelming majority of votes in the Democratic primary election: 55% compared with Hillary Clinton’s 24%. In response to Obama’s win, former President Bill Clinton dismissed him, comparing his win to the wins in 1984 and 1988 of Jesse Jackson, who went on to lose the Democratic nomination. What is Bill trying to say here? That Obama only won in South Carolina because of his race? And does he seriously believe that these kinds of racially charged comments will help Hillary’s campaign?

What Bill is actually doing is harming the Democrats’ chances of uniting, and turning off potential independent voters from voting for a Democrat. Republicans can seize this conflict and portray their party as the only “race-sensitive” party, which any intelligent voter should know is bullshit, but it still has the potential to threaten Democrats’ credibility among minority groups. The Clinton campaign needs to put a muzzle on the former president (whom I have always admired) before he damages the Democratic party even further. This is also the man who, along with his wife, supported Obama in the beginning of his senatorial career.

As this campaign has gone on (and on and on and on….), I have found myself switching my alliance from Hillary to Obama, something that I didn’t expect. I thought that Senator Obama had too little experience (something else that Bill is currently criticizing) to be a credible candidate for president. But now, I have felt inspired by a politician for the first time in my life. Caroline Kennedy, who, along with her uncle Senator Ted Kennedy, was right when she compared Barack Obama to her late father, President John F. Kennedy. JFK inspired an entire generation of Americans, and when I listen to Obama speak, I feel excited, even moved. Even my father, who had dismissed Obama as “un-presidential” only 6 weeks ago, has become one of his supporters. As a woman, I would love to see a woman become president of the United States, but the rest of me supports Obama wholeheartedly. I am thoroughly disappointed in the way the Clinton campaign has conducted itself, and I can’t see myself voting for Hillary in the upcoming primary. I am now a completely “decided” voter. Vote Obama in ‘08!

Money is burning a hole in my pocket!

At the beginning of every semester, I receive a huge check from the financial aid office. This money is meant to be used for bills, food, rent, and other expenses. For the most part, I budget carefully (after ordering about 25 pizzas) and my money lasts all semester, especially since my parents pay for my rent. But I always splurge at least once on something for myself. Once, it was a new Coach bag (which I got half-off since I was an employee at the Alderwood store), and another time it was a new cell phone. But this time, after dropping a huge amount on bills, I feel like I want to be as conservative as possible. I had thought that I would buy my boyfriend an iPod for his 30th birthday, which is this Friday, but he told me that he doesn’t want one. So, now I can’t decide what to buy for myself, and I need help! Here are my choices:

1. A handbag from Crystalyn Kae. She is a local designer, and happens to be married to an old friend of my boyfriend’s. She designs all-vegan bags, meaning that she does not use any animal products. They are sold in high-end boutiques around the country. I like the Soirée Drawstring and the Monarch Hobo. Price: $150-$210

2. A new cell phone from AT&T. I’ve had my Samsung for about a year, and I’m honestly just sick of it. I love their new slider phones. I especially like this one. I would have to pay full retail, though, as I am not due for an upgrade until this fall. Price $200-$280

3. A veritable shopping spree at IKEA. I want a new dresser, a new coffee table, and new end tables for the living room. My boyfriend would probably help me pay for this, and we could really use some new furniture. Price: half of $300

4. Random large orders from Amazon.com (for books…I’ve already ordered a bit), Anthropologie (for home stuff…again, I’ve already ordered some dishes), or Newegg.com (for some tech-y things…my boyfriend got his gorgeous new Samsung 22-inch widescreen monitor from them). Price: anything up to $100

Please help me decide! You can leave me a comment with your suggestions. Help me spend my money!

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Just for fun

I don’t have anything substantial to post, so here’s an awesomely cute picture of my awesomely cute nephew, Benjamin. Enjoy!

So stressed…

I’m not going to go into any specifics about what’s going on, but things have become really bad for me and my boyfriend in the last few days. Something has happened which is threatening our ability to attend school, and it feels like we’re returning to an awful time that we thought we had left behind. We’re trying to fix it, but there’s no guarantee that we can. In fact, I don’t think we can. I’m really scared and angry at the same time. I’m trying to stay positive, but I have no control over the outcome of the situation. I feel helpless and it’s like our lives have suddenly spun out of control.

That’s all I can say right now.

Edit on 1-15-08: Amazingly, everything worked out perfectly. The crisis is over! Life can return to normal now. I’m so relieved, I’m almost beyond words.

I’ve been honored!

I’ve been given this award by Michelle (thanks Michelle!) and I’d like to pass it along to a few people who write amazing blogs:

Kell at Life gets in the way

Nici at Somewhere in the distance

Sarah at Suggestions for a bookworm

Karen at The Reading Journal

So, as a recipient of this very prestigious award, I am supposed to list 7 weird or random things about myself. These will most likely all be random, because I’m not interesting enough to be weird:

1. I am absolutely, positively addicted to pizza! My favorite it pepperoni with extra sauce from Papa John’s. I would order it right now, except that they closed 3 minutes ago.

2. Other than pizza, I hardly like any other foods. I’m very picky, not only with taste, but with consistency and texture. For example, I won’t eat any sauce that is chunky. Even my spaghetti sauce has to be pureed first.

3. I am in love with the city of Paris. I love its romance and its style, and if I could be from any country other than America, I would want to be a stylish French girl from Paris. I’m also obsessed with fashion, and everyone knows that the best designers are French! (read: Chanel)

4. I’m a very political person, which I most likely inherited from my dad. I’m a bleeding-heart liberal, on the verge of becoming a Socialist because I’m in favor of universal healthcare. I experience uncontrollable anger at homophobes and racists, so if you are one, don’t get in my way!

5. I am one of those weird people who can’t decide whether they want to live in the country or in the city. Half of my brain would live to live in a luxury condo overlooking Puget Sound, with a gourmet kitchen (even though I don’t cook and can’t eat chunky food) and big windows with sweeping views of the city and the Sound. The other half wants to live in a tiny cottage on a lake, surrounded by a garden and with no neighbors close by, where I can read all day long.

6. I am completely intolerant of other people’s noise, which is why living in the aforementioned luxury condo might be a bad idea. I live in a townhouse now, and I experience that same homophobe-hating anger when the kid next door decides that it’s a great game to pound on the wall repeatedly at 11:00 at night.

7. I’m really a very generous, nice, friendly person, despite my hatred of homophobes and disrespectful neighbors.

Thanks again to Michelle for giving me this award! It was hard to compose this list of weird things, but it was fun. I hope you all had fun reading it!

New semester, new beginning

Today was the first day of the spring semester at WSU. It’s always crazy as my boyfriend and I anxiously await our dramatic financial aid deposits to show up in our bank accounts, so that we can then order our books right away, hoping all the time that they will arrive before the end of the week, so that we can do our first assignments. That was us this morning, at 6 am. We were logging into our accounts every half hour, hoping to see a $4,000 deposit. When our money finally arrived, we ordered our books and paid the bills (cable, power, car insurance, credit cards) that had piled up during the month of December. Once that was done, we fell asleep, not awaking until 4 pm. When we got up, it was finally time for school. We logged into our classes and read the instructors’ start-of-term announcements. I composed all of my introductory posts, and responded to other people. I think that my classes this semester are going to be much more lively than last term’s were. Everyone seems friendly, nervous, and excited. My boyfriend and I are taking two classes together, so this will be the first time we’ll be interacting with each other in a classroom setting. Here is my schedule this semester:

English 402: Technical and Professional Writing. This class will focus on developing the skills necessary to compose business-related documents, such as grant proposals and professional correspondence.

History 275: Intro to East Asian Culture. This survey class explores the cultural history of China and Japan, with some foray into the histories of Korea and Vietnam.

History 444: The Renaissance. This class obviously focuses on the history of The Renaissance in Europe. I’m excited about this class because two of the major assignments are book reviews!

That’s it. Well, wish me luck! I’m going to need it!

A general update (it’s a long one!)

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted. Christmas has come and gone, and we’ve entered 2008. As holidays go, ours were…interesting. It all started with a voicemail message that my boyfriend received about a week before Christmas. His mother, who seriously has the maturity level of a 15 year-old girl, announced that she had gotten together with her loser, pot-smoking ex-boyfriend. Not only had she gotten back together with him, but he was living at her place. She advised her son not to come over for Christmas. You see, three years ago, my boyfriend’s mother had come crying to him, telling him that this guy was abusing her, spending all her money on drugs, and smoking pot in front of his then 13 year-old sister. She had thrown him out of the house, but now she was penniless and had no food. My boyfriend flew over to her house and bought her food and fixed the cars that her boyfriend had broken. Then, on Christmas Day, this guy showed up at the house, welcomed and invited by his mom. My boyfriend felt used and betrayed, and they all got in a huge fight. It ended with a complete break in the relationship, and my boyfriend didn’t see his mom for about 18 months.

When he finally felt comfortable seeing her again, long after she had broken up with this loser, he told her that if she ever got back together with him, he would cut her off again. He told her that if we had children, she would never see them. So, when he got this call, he was understandably upset. She basically chose this guy over her own son, a son that has gone out of his way to help her his entire life. He called her back, and when she didn’t pick up, he said that I was pregnant and told her to have a nice life. Of course, that isn’t true, and he regretted it right away, but it was a knee jerk reaction. We just didn’t expect the fallout that has occurred.

We spent Christmas with my family, and we actually had a good time. Two days later, we received a card from his mom. We thought it was just a Christmas card, but it was actually a “congrats on being pregnant” card. We were amazed that she believed what he said, considering his tone and the fact that no one even called us back to confirm that it was true. Anyway, when I got my very first pregnancy congratulations card because of a fake pregnancy (not a good feeling), I convinced my boyfriend to e-mail his mother and confess that it was untrue. He did, but also said that if he was being manipulative, it was only in response to her years of manipulation. We thought that was the end of the whole affair. It wasn’t.

On New Year’s Eve, my boyfriend got an e-mail from his brother, in which he launched an all-out personal attack on him. He wrote that the entire family thought he was insane (seriously) and that what he did was the most evil thing imaginable. He was incredibly mean, while also telling him that he should come back to the family. This is the whole reason he left in the first place! Why in hell would he want to continue to be around these mean-spirited people, who think that he’s just crazy? My boyfriend responded, and didn’t attack back, but got very sarcastic with him. At this point, it was about 1 a.m….2008 was one hour old, and we were spending it forming a response to this unexpected, pathetic, and yet devastating attack. I finally went to sleep at 5 a.m., but an hour later, my boyfriend woke me up saying that his brother had responded. This second e-mail was just as hateful as the first. My boyfriend typed out a long response, but didn’t send it. He was emotionally drained at this point and asked me to call my parents.

My boyfriend deeply respects my parents, especially my dad. My parents think of him as a son and are anxiously awaiting the day we finally announce that we are getting married. My family is my boyfriend’s best support system. So, I called my dad (my boyfriend was too emotional) just to get some advice about how to handle this. This is what my dad had to say: his brother is jealous (true – he always has been), his mother is immature (obvious), and the best way to handle this is to ignore it. Eventually, they’ll lose steam and stop their attacks. This is the course we are taking. We have both put filters on our e-mail accounts to block any messages from his brother and his mom. We won’t respond to the last attack. And soon, my boyfriend’s pain will ease and he’ll find support in those around him who really love him, like my parents, my brothers, and even my nephew who knows him as “Uncle”.

We spend New Year’s Day (well, after our 4-hour nap in the afternoon) and the day after at my parents’ house. They made sure that my boyfriend knew that they not only supported him, but thought that he was really just a fantastic person. Since then, we’ve tried to put it out of our minds and concentrate on the fact that school is starting again this coming Monday. We’ll soon be in the midst of books, papers, and tests, and my boyfriend won’t have the time, or even the inclination, to dwell on his miserable family. We just don’t have the time for their drama.

So, that’s what’s been happening in my life. I’m sure that none of you envy it! School starts in just a few days, and soon I’ll be back to complaining about my teachers and my homework. It will honestly be a relief to get out of our heads and to have a purpose to each day. I hope that 2008 proves to be better than that first day was.