Audience Once, Couch Forever

It would be a waste, at least in my opinion, to live on the southern part of the west coast, be a tv fan, and not at least attempt to go to a show (provided that show has live audiences).  While I'm not her biggest fan, I've enjoyed the episodes I got to watch of Ellen, so my friend, her friend, and I set out to claim our standby spot in the audience on the last day of February.

Aw, yeah!

Having gotten up very early and traveled a little over an hour, we were the first in our line at the stand-by check-in at 8:20 am.  A woman came out about every hour to check in people, so while we were confident to be in front of anyone showing up between 8:20 and 9:10, we had no idea how many people had gotten there before us.

We didn't need to be back for the taping until 1pm, so we killed time by running errands and working at a coffee shop.  We got lunch at Poquito Mas in Burbank before returning to the parking garage to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And fill out a form asking us about how Ellen's impacted our lives, what our favorite part of the show was, and if we were competitive about anything with anyone (look for that in a future show, I guess that's a bit they'll do).

And wait.

Then they started calling numbers!

My Number

...at number 1.

The first 180 people were those with guaranteed spots, meaning they either A) had showed up for a standby, but didn't get to be in the audience, and were instead allowed to watch from a sideroom and then given a guaranteed spot for a future taping or B) knew someone who worked for the show.

Just when I thought we had 90 more people to line up, they skipped to 250! Very soon we were lined up, walked across the street like geeselings to the studio, and waited in a line to be security searched.  Then we got to wait on a bench, than walk through some more lines, and then FINALLY got to go into the set, where we happened to grab 3 of the last 15 seats.

The view from the nose-bleed section.

We were allowed to take picture for about five minutes, then had to put belongings under the seat.  Then cue hypeman, who rallied us all to dance contests, sing-a-longs, and neighbor bonding before the show started.  I'm not sure how typical this is, but I thought hypeguy would work us for about ten minutes and then we'd start the show; instead what happened was we danced for half an hour before Ellen even came out!  Then we danced when she went throught the audience (to the song Thrift Shop*, a new favorite of mine and my friends'), we danced on every commercial break, and when Bonnie Raitt performed.

My favorite guest stars were Mark Wahlberg and Sean Combs, the former seeming a bit grumpy but the latter being hilarious.  I highly recommend watching it, but the best parts are around 10:20 until the end : Mark and Sean on Ellen.

I came out of the experience with an increased appreciation for the behind and between the scenes people, a greater like of P. Diddy, and a good cardio work out.  But I think I'll just opt for the couch in the future.

Except for The Price is Right...but that's an adventure for another day.

Insert Witty and Cummulative Title Here, or, Some Thoughts on Queso and Snails

There are a great many pluses living on West Coast, and SoCal in particular.  It barely rains (to be continued later), you're close to both tourist attractions and places only "locals" know (some really cool ones my friends have found), and you've got mountains and beaches.

But the one thing the West Coast ain't got is queso.

Now of course I was expecting the Mexican food to be different here, hopefully in a more authentic and better way, and it has.  But to open a menu and see salsas, quacamole, and a variety of other appetizer options but no queso is just disheartening. I found queso listed on a menu once, ordered it, and was saddened to see it was just melted cheddar (not the white cheese I had been searching this coast for).

I know I could go to a store, pick out the right white cheeses and just make my own queso.  But it's just not the same as sitting in a restaurant and quietly gorging yourself on chips and lactose before your full meal arrives, challenging you to make room for it too.

Guess that doesn't sound very west coast, though, does it?
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Back home, when it rains for hours and hours, you can find worms all over sidewalks that are next to decently large grassy areas (on a rural college campus, that's every sidewalk).  I was told or possibly assumed that all the rain made the soil too moist and the worms had to come up to the surface for some air, as if they were drowning.

Apparently, the composition of the soil here is drier and worms don't even bother living in it. So what comes out when it rains?

Snails.  Snails (and slugs, the temporarily homeless snail) are on the sidewalks, the parking lot, sometimes the walls of the outside of my apartment complex.  They aren't particularly more attractive or less attractive than worms, but they are definitely more guilt inducing.

While I try to be considerate of other living things, you can't watch out for them all.  Especially when they are all over your sidewalks.  At least with worms, if you stepped on one you would never know it and you could maintain a blissful ignorance and continue with your day.

But snails have that hard shell that you only hear crunching under your shoe when it's too late, when you've already destroyed their home and probably pushing tiny, jagged pieces of it into their squishy little bodies.  You look down after and you feel even worse.

It's just one snail though, right? Sure, on a normal sunny day when a random snail decided it needed a little adventure, sure, maybe.  But not the 20 snail carcasses lining your path to the front door or to the P.O. Box or to the garage that label you and your fellow apartment dwellers as weapons of mass destruction and insecticide*.

I try my best to look out for them, but even someone else's abandoned carnage still pinches my conscience.

The Wine, The Whiskey, and The Ten

Moving to California, I knew there was going to be a lot of wine. A lot of grapes, a lot of vineyards, and a lot of long lists at restaurants.  My first alcoholic drink was wine in Italy, served with multi-coursed meals, so I had a soft spot on my tongue for wine.  I hadn't had much of a variety in my undergrad experience, and most of those decisions were determined by price.  So I was looking forward to the plethora of wines available in my new home.

What I wasn't expecting was the whiskey list on the drink menu to be just as long.

Before my enlightenment, I was under the impression that there were three types of whiskey: bourbon, malt, and mixed. Oh foolish, foolish child. Suddenly there was not only a list of whiskeys at the bar, but they were separated by more types than I could imagine - wheat, corn, rye, malt, rye malt, bourbon, blended, light, and spirited. And that was the breakdown of the American whiskies.*

Why are there so many types of whiskey? Because it's made up of essentially three things: barley, hot water, and yeast.  Sound familiar? It's because they're the same ingredients in beer, simply distilled for higher alcohol content and stored for years in oak to balance flavor and give coloring.** We owe so much more to the Scots***, but whiskey still may be the greatest.

I have tried a couple at a few bars, but most of my enlightenment has come from Crown Royal.  I'll work on expanding my network on both wine and whiskey fronts in the coming year. (In other words, to be continued...)

P.S. - THERE'S LIQUOR IN THE GROCERIES STORES...just had to get that one out of the way too.
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Almost immediately after moving to California, I noticed something strange: people were quite formal with their highways.

Back home, people would say Interstate 95, or 95 North/ 95 South.  Suddenly, it didn't matter as much which way you were going on the highway, as long as you referred to it as "The 10".  And it just sounds silly.  I'm sure it's not the only "10", although yes the only one in California and most likely the only interstate one.  But even the within-state highways get a nice formal "the" in front.

It's made me wonder what other things can be made formal...The Chick-fil-a. The Mount Baldy. The California.  Pretty much anything...still sounds silly.

On the other hand, the metered highways does in fact improve traffic - sure, it gets slow sometimes, but until L.A.ians sit in D.C. traffic, they got nothing to complain about.

Plus there's no annual inspections - which I thought I would never appreciate, but the idea that you simply drive your car until something goes wrong without a maintanence test is all of a sudden quite terrifying.

And although my motorcycle license is still on my bucket list, I will not be getting it in California.  The thing I'm most scared of (and really only scared of) driving here is seeing a motorcyclist, speeding down the line separating the HOV and fast lane, get sideswiped by a car chaning lanes - my heart leaps every time they pass.

In Russia, Can Opens You!, Or, How I Became More Ambidextrous For a Fortnight

I'm going to be playing catch-up here, but I WILL be back on track soon.  For now, the story of my recent injury, an aspect of my past month:

Once upon a time, there was a very crappy manual can-opener.  It lived in an apartment with three young, intelligent, beautiful women, all of whom were quite capable of preparing meals, even those with ingredients from cans.  One night, the conniving can-opener went merrily around the edge of a tuna can, seemingly separating the lid from the rest of the can.  But upon further inspection, the can-opener had left the lid and the can connected at three points, almost perfectly spread out around the can edge.

That's when the brave narrator stepped in. She tried to retrace the connected spots, to no avail.  She tried to leverage the can open with a knife, but that only resulted in nervous looks from her roommate.  Finally, she used the strongest tool she had in the situation: her right hand.

And as the can ripped open, a bit of tuna flying out in victory, so did her hand and a bit of blood (respectively). They say in the crucial moments of one's life, time slows, nearly stopping.  That's not how this was.

After applying pressure to the major wound and tending to a minor one, I, sacrificing third person for less confusion and annoyance's sake, quickly found myself in the local Urgent Care with my roommate.  Since I have yet to visit any medical centers in California, I knew I would have to fill out a lot of forms but hadn't really put that together with my injury.  Thankfully, my roommate did the information, but I still had to give my signature six times.  With my left hand, I took about 30 seconds on each signature, which for most things is not a significant amount of time; but for signing my name, it was forever.

Why didn't you just do a scribble, like most people do their normal signature?  I'm not 100% sure, but I can come up with about 3 reasons: 1) My mom's signature was always legible, so I assumed that was the norm, 2) scribbles seem much easier to get away with as far as forging goes (light paranoia from my father) and 3) I just hate how ugly scribbles look.  When you're trying to get ink to come out of a pen, sure; when you're trying to give permission for someone to take your money/not let you sue them/allow them to sue you, you might want to look like you passed first grade.

The wait was short and I was invited back by a younger nurse-version of George Lopez.  While I wasn't externally worried or upset, his sarcastic banter kept me distracted from the new view into the my hand's skin and tissue organization, which I greatly appreciated.  As I got my four stitches (first in my life), the doctor talked about how she had seen grown men cry (from the shots of local anesthesia) while children don't even flinch.  I was in the no flinching camp, thank you very much...although there may have been some light left hand clenching.

Leaving with some lightly-padded, but still badass-looking bandage I went in search of prescription drugs.  Oddly enough the trip to Walgreen's took longer than the UC trip, which was almost an issue as the anesthesia started to wear off towards the end of the wait.

In the following weeks I experienced some fun stitches adventures, such as writing, showering, and generally wanting to use my hand as a normal hand (who knew!).

The shower was the first obstacle.  The next morning, after successfully wrapping my hand it plastic bag to keep it dry and hopping in the shower, I realized how un-one-hand-friendly soap/shampoo containers are.  After a few slippery drops, I managed to open the lid by holding the bottle between my legs. Then I thought: "How the hell am I gonna measure this?"  Without another option I flipped the shampoo bottle up over my head.  Since my hair was already soaked, it was hard to tell how much was pouring: the bottle didn't feel lighter, and it was already halfway empty when I opened it, so maybe it's still traveling down the bottle?

After rinsing ten ounces of shampoo out of my hair, the shower got significantly easier.  Drying my left arm was a bit of a challenge, but I was foolishly confident that the most difficult task was over.

In class, I quickly found taking notes left-handed was not a viable option.  The cut was across my pinky's knuckle (palm side),  so the bandage reached from the center of my palm around the back of my hand.  Holding my pen like a chopstick, I could slowly take notes; but the bandage was like a small blanket on my hand, and my palm began to sweat, which undid the tape part of the bandage.  Over the next few days there was a war between that bandage and I involving most tapes except duct.  I surrendered in letting it flap open as I wrote or typed, but insisted on its placement otherwise.

In the first week, I couldn't open my hand completely, and  then when I could, I couldn't place pressure on it (all the push-ups I might've maybe gotten around to...).  It also very easily bummed into things and there was a slight pus incident - but I tried my best to focus on the re-full-use of my hand again, and the badass scar for which I would make up a better story.

When I went back into the UC after the appropriate number of days to have the stitches removed, I was told that I would have to wait four-five more days due to the sensitive nature of the area (this was after I waited two hours and paid a $40 co-pay).  

Those number of days later I got my nail clippers, lighter, and tweezers and took them out myself.  The end of the cut had come back together, but deepest part was still open, as the cut entered at an angle.  Today there's a small scab in the center of pink new layers of skin.  Still hurts if I smack something though.

And that, kids, is the time I caught a ninja star thrown at me by Chuck Norris.

No Good Deed Bends that Way, Or, How I Learned to Not Mail Overnight or Practice Bikram Yoga

Last week I decided to send a friend something for his birthday, and surprisingly I planned ahead. Not only that, but I followed through with those plans, and 40 minutes before my 9 AM class I set out to FedEx with a fresh cake, book, and card, ready to take on the day.

Now, I consider myself a fairly lucky person.  The only thing about it is my luck seems to operate under Murphy's Law*, which on one hand means when I'm unintentionally unprepared, things tend to turn out okay or better.  However this also means that when I'm prepared or overprepared, life gets interesting.

First off, and most time-killing, I was sent to the wrong address.  The street number and name were all correct, only the town wasn't.  I live on this northern sliver of a section of one town, that is  about .5 miles east of the next town and .1 miles west of another.  And apparently the different organizers of these tightly packed communities decided they like each other so much they would use some of the same street names**.  And so, I drove in the completely wrong direction, into a neighborhood that has yet to establish a FedEx.

Upon figuring out the correct address and cursing the Maps App or address from the website (wasn't really sure where the mistranslation occurred), I quickly drove to FedEx, sacrificing a bit of my car's underbumper*** on a too-lately-spotted dip in the road.  By now the morning drizzle had augmented to a dull downpour, but I managed to swiftly and gracefully make it into FedEx.

At the counter I was told that legally they are not allowed to package food and I would have to do it myself at a separate counter (challenge accepted).  First, I had to be given the correct size box.  Interestingly, my pan dimensions must have increased by half an inch in the course of baking, and I was told that it was just slightly (I cannot express how slightly) too big for their small box sizes.  So the 13x9" pan would have to go in a 17x17x7" box.

So after assembling the box with help from a wily tape dispenser and a counter not kind to the vertically challenged, I was faced with the decades-old problem of "How much bubble wrap is too much?" The answer is no such thing, but I used all of a 30 or 50 foot roll next to the counter, sealed up the overcompensating package, and returned to the first counter to wait for the associate who had been amusingly watching me struggle the past ten minutes.

Now, I knew the bubble wrap was about $12, the box around $3, there would be tax, and of course some hefty fee for priority overnight ninja mail to make sure the cake didn't spoil.  The associate rang it up and mumbled my total as she reached for something under the counter.
"I'm sorry - what was that again?" I thought I had heard 73-something, which was okay, up there but not insane.
The associate stood back up. "$173.17"
I'm hoping I wasn't frozen in shock too long, before looking at the clock, seeing I had 8 minutes to get to class across town, and making the conclusion it was not worth figuring out what the ultimate mailing-priority-cost efficiency was.

I passed my credit card over, rushed out the door and made it only 10 minutes late to class. I then proceeded to stalk-track my package the next 24 hours, partly to make sure I got my money's worth, but also secretly hoping that they were delayed and I could score even a partial refund.

And that is how I learned to never ship 4 lbs across country overnight.
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I have a few friends from home that have accused me of getting "west coast" on them - you know, eating farmer's market over fried chicken****, trying alternative forms of exercise (such as hiking regularly), and generally being more active and healthy. And while yes, there have been a few healthy lifestyle changes I've picked up, I may have overdone it with bikram yoga.

Bikram yoga (which I have accidentally called Brickman, Birkham, among other pianist-sounding names) is a certain series of fairly static yoga poses performed while in a very hot room.  The particular studio my roommates, roommate's friend, and I tried had 90 minutes sessions at about 100 degrees. I had planned to work out Friday anyway, and I thought changing up my routine would be a good thing. Foolish mortal.

Imagine a brightly-lit, carpeted sauna, packed with people of a variety of age in a variety of clothes-coverage; an annoyingly-serene auctioneer in only a short towel raffles off stretch instructions while sitting cross-legged on a baby lifeguard stand.  Two adjacent full-wall mirrors allow one to see just how red and sweaty you are in comparison to your fellow hellmates, at least the ones that are still standing.  Your thoughts proceed down a path that you feel many have paved before you...'this isn't so bad'...'a bit difficult, but I'm not that flexible'...'it's not so much the poses as the heat'...'this is almost like meditating, only very uncomfortable'...'"breathe threw your nose" sure easy for you to say, mouth-breather'...'do my eyelids have sweat glands? I feel like I'm visually drowning'...'don't look at the clock, don't look at the clock'...'what is time, anyway? or pain? or heat?'...'nope this is what hell is like, has to be'...'okay one look at the clock - 80 minutes left?!'...

To add to this unique experience, I forgot to bring water, but was rescued halfway through by my nearby gracious roommate.  I also laid my yoga mat and towel down right in front of the heater, a fact I failed to note until about 5 minutes into the some of the 90 longest minutes of my young life.

Dehydrated, gross, and body on fire, we emerged from the depths of bikram to a sweet cool drizzle.  To be fair, I didn't completely hate it - in fact I had wanted to go back on Monday, but a joyous trip to urgent care nipped that in the bud.  But that's for another post.

My Fifth Class

As usual, I start writing something and never finish. However I hope to remedy that by making this blog my unofficial fifth class for the semester - every Sunday I'll have a new post up (no promises on time however, and I'm going by PST).

And I know I will eventually miss a Sunday and end up posting later in the week.  But that's the benefits of being your own professor!

On another note, for future reference I asterisk things I want to tangent about on the second page of my posts, so if you're curious as to what I'm curious about be sure to click "Read more" at the bottom of each post.*

I'll have a new post up by Sunday about my most recent adventures at FedEx and Bikram Yoga!

"If you're not scared, you're not taking a chance...

A Virginian graduate school had offered me a very nice financial deal: along with my Master's classes, a job that would cover half of my tuition the first year, with the potential of a promotion the second year that would cover my tuition for that year and leave some money left over.  I was looking at a secured 50% off tuition, with the possibility of 75%.  I had the opportunity to go to a good psychology Master's program in my home state, a few hours drive from my home town, with what seemed like a lovely staff based on the half hour phone conversation I had with one of the faculty.  Probably the nicest phone call with a complete stranger I've ever had, if not the longest.

Beyond this offer, I had received a lot of "No, thank you"s.  Three, exactly, with a fourth to come long after I had made a decision.  All from some good schools, a couple of which I had at different points in my undergrad career envisioned myself attending.  But like my quirky 4 year-old self, they politely told me "Not now, maybe later."

But there was another "yes", a "yes" I'm not entirely sure I was expecting.  This "yes" came from the West Coast, which is probably why I received my acceptance e-mail before my acceptance letter.  I was very excited when I read the e-mail title: "Welcome!" When I opened the e-mail it read like this:

"Congratulations...(etc. etc.)...Thank you for your application...(etc. etc.)...Unfortunately-"

Wait. "Unfortunately"? "Unfortunately" is a term only used to reject someone in the nicest way possible (read: the least fault-accepting possible). You are technically blaming this negative outcome on "fortune" or bad luck.  Unless their was a coin flip in this decision making process, I highly doubted that. More importantly, I was curious at the seemingly contradicting e-mail.

"...we are unable to offer you a place in our Doctorate program at this time.  However..."

"However". That saving grace, "however".  Turns out they did, however, accept me into their Master's program.  I was, well, ecstatic.  This program was very unique, unlike any of the others for which I had applied.  I would be studying something only offered at two universities in the country with some of the lead researchers and published professors in the field.

But the tuition was almost four times that of the other offer, a vast majority of which I'd have to take out in loans.
But I wasn't even 100% sure what I wanted to do with this degree, let alone what would be available for me.
But it was 3,000 miles away from 99% of the people, places, and things I knew backwards and forwards.

The second I got that e-mail, I knew what I wanted.  I just wasn't sure what I needed.  

Say, for a moment, you needed a quadruped*. Particularly of the horse variety.  You are given an option of a beautiful, young, half-off Palomino (was never much of a horse girl as a kid, but if I had the money to get one now, it would be a Palomino).  This Palomino comes from good breeders who know the horse's lineage - you even know of a few people who have bought a Palomino from these breeders and they've been very, very happy.

And then someone offers you a Zebra.

Sure, the Zebra's, well, a freaking Zebra! Technically it fits the whole quadruped qualification while quadrupling the unique factor.  No one else you know has ever had a Zebra, which makes you both intrigued and anxious.  The Zebra is of course more pricey (it's has to come a lot farther than the Palomino).  You also have no idea what to do with or how to take care of a Zebra, but hey, that's what resources like zookeepers, biologists, and the Internet are for, right? Some people in your life will think you are a bit eccentric for riding a Zebra around town; but you'll also find some people who think it's downright awesome and maybe even want to give you a high-five (which you'll give them, bending down slightly from atop your Zebra).

You've wanted a Palomino for a few years now...but you never even thought it was possible to own a Zebra**.  What do you do?

I ended up accepting the West Coast offer.  And while I was so excited about all the positives, the "but"s still made me anxious.  What if I can't manage my loans?  What if I can't succeed in these courses? What if I'm unable to land a job that pertains to this degree, financially makes up for this degree, and overall makes me feel fulfilled?

What sold me was thinking what would I wonder five years from now? Would I wonder what would've happened if I went to that Virginian university?  Probably not.  But I sure as hell would wonder what would've happened if I have been just crazy enough to move to California and study what inspired me.

If there's one important thing you need to know about this blogger, it's that I adore the show How I Met Your Mother.  I stumbled upon it in its first season and have watched it since (you always seem to love the shows/movies/music you found yourself more than the ones people show you). And there's something Ted, the often-desperate, but funny, hopeless romantic in the show said once that I liked.

"I mean, if you're not scared, you're not taking a chance. And if you're not taking a chance, then, what the hell are you doing?"

Last fall I went skydiving for the first time and, somehow, that was less scary to me than the idea of attending a grad school no one I had ever met had attended (most had never heard of) and moving to California.  I guess because if messed up this leap, I'd have to actually live with the consequences.

But seriously...who doesn't want a zebra?