Waaaaambulance

Adventures below 32F!

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:01:25 GMT

It rained in Ridgecrest on Monday. On Tuesday, as I walked to work, I saw the puddle and thought "Eww. Even puddles look disgusting in Ridgecrest", and it was true, for this puddle had some sort of milky film over it, like a pot of water used to cook noodles had sat out overnight.

AT 8am I re-emerged with a couple co-workers to get a snack from the cafeteria. I remarked upon my disgusting puddle, and looking at it closer, what do I find? IT IS AN ICE PUDDLE. I promptly stomped on it, did a little dance, and chipped up a shard to chuck at someone. ICE, BITCHES! I GOTS IT! My co-workers tell me the puddle on the asphalt is called 'Black Ice" and I will not like it anymore when I slip and fall on it.

By Wednesday, the puddles were almost gone, and Thursday there was nothing left to stomp. But Friday, Friday, I woke up and it was cold. It obviously has been quite cold this week, but today, it was cold and wet. And there was ice in the backyard. I took a picture of it.

Mike and I and go up the 178 past Isabella Lake. There was snow! I took a picture of it. Well, there was lots of grey drizzly rain and fog. Crazy thick fog. Then there was snow.

Then some more seriously thick fog in which we have to slow to a crawl because visibility is so low. And over a hill the fog disperses!

Somewhere around this photo is when we hit a patch of black ice coming around a bend and lose traction, resulting in us going over the embankment.

We were still going so slow at that point that it was just a series of very disconcerting fishtails and a slow motion, "No, no, no, no, no, no, nooo, arrrrrg."
It felt like a very slow version of the loop on a small, frictionless, roller coaster. With some disconcerting noises of the windshield being crushed in, and watching the roof deform above us.

Go go dome shaped roof! Your sturdy architecture really came through for us!

Photobucket seems to think that I like this photo so much, I might be interested in purchasing a personalized mug. I find myself quite tempted...Its been about 7 hours since it happened, can I still blame my interest in this mug on shock?

Damn you, co-workers! This is all because you were jealous of how delighted I was with my ice puddle!

TAKE THAT POSTAL SYSTEM!

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:27:18 GMT

I came home ridiculously late last night in order to attend a meeting in Oxnard today. At my parents house, I found that my father brought back my stuffed manatee, Thundercow, back from Taiwan. I also had a mysterious package.

Upon closer inspection, I find that THIS IS THE PACKAGE I SENT MYSELF FROM SYRIA!
The date stamp? 08.11.08 Translation: Nov 11 2008

This package has taken over a full year to arrive. I have no idea where it's been, it looks like its been used as a stool for several months. It is as if the world felt bad about the last couple of weeks, and is trying to make amends with small tokens of affection!

I haven't opened the package yet, I want a camera to document my moment of triumph. I'm not even that certain what I had sent in the package anymore. Although, I know that I will soon be sporting one super awesome abeya...

DAHAHAHHAAHHAHA!

I hate being a grownup

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:14:26 GMT

This is my triumphant return to LJ!
It is mostly to complain.

I am informed by the new dentist I visited, that of my NINE teeth that need fillings, and that my insurance only covers 80% of the cost of silver fillings. They estimated my out-of-pocket costs to be ~ $600. In an ordinary adult human mouth, one could expect 32 teeth. In a Vicki mouth, only 24 teeth can be found, on the basis that I am missing 8 due to enormous teeth in an unsuitable mouth! What does this mean? This means that FOR EVERY 3 TEETH I OWN, ONE OF THEM HAS TEH ROT! 37%, actually.
This makes Vicki unhappy.

The new eye doctor I visit has informed me that my perscription has gone up in my left eye, significantly. Also, he has found an anomaly in that same eye that is non-correctable. There is nothing they can do, but now that I know about it I can fret about it more. Then I was informed that my insurance covers lenses and frames, unfortunately, the lenses I needed are DIFFERENT THAN THOSE NORMAL PEOPLE HAVE. Therefore, I must needs to pay extra.
Ridgecrest doctors conspire to make me feel like a freak.

I'm beginning to think this health insurance thing is a scam cooked up by the health industry. When I didn't have insurance I never had this many problems. In fact, I had no problems. To date, I have had one cavity in my life, and it was in a tooth that fell out when I was 9. I have always had poor vision, but I dont remember having to pay this much WITH insurance. Also, I have developed a skin condition. I am afraid of seeing a dermatologist, because I am sure it will cost me much monies. I'm just not sure if I want to know what else is wrong with me now.

I woke up on Saturday morning to discover that someone has backed INTO my car, and the front fender is punched in and the paint is cracked up into little jutting sheets. This is particularly galling, because I park in the apartment complex. This means that for someone to have backed into my car at that angle, they'd have had to ALSO be parked in my apartment complex. We have 5 apartments here. No one left a note. I am seriously pissed. I don't want to antagonize my neighbors and I have no proof.

Lastly, my sleeping thing has officially become a work issue. I am to see a sleep doctor. Sleep clinics will not take me without a recommendation from a doctor. I lost my last recommendation. I cannot find a single doctor in Ridgecrest that is seeing new patients. Additionally, the closest sleep clinic is ~2 hours away, so why don't I go see the one in Ventura instead. I will have to use up all of my leave saved up to see a doctor who will tell me that I have a problem and send me to another doctor who will need to see me another couple of times, at least. All of these doctors will be out of town, and I will have to see them by taking time off of work, and each of them on a separate day.

My recent job application required me to FedEx 3 sheets of paper to HR. The FedEx in town was closed by the time I could send it out. I had to drive 90 miles away for the next closest one open on Sat. It cost me $14. If i wanted it delivered on Monday it was $36. WHY IS FEDEX STILL IN BUSINESS? MOST RIDICULOUS PRICE SCALE EVER.

P.S. I stepped on a particularly painful burr. The burrs here have one huge spike, so that they always land pointing up. It was like stepping on a tack. A tack may be less painful, because the spine is thicker than a tack.

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:31:39 GMT

Happy birthday Lisa! I WILL call you! Soon... very soon...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvIm6Z3DMIo

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:13:15 GMT

The entire month of August was non-stop.

So I now officially live in Ridgecrest. In theory, t is so that I can go to work. But since I'm still waiting on the security clearances it is still only in theory. I have so many people who are my boss but legally have no authority over me, even THEY don't know how many bosses I have, nor who ranks the other in importance. I asked my official supervisor today what I was supposed to be doing, even she doesn't know.

Day 1: fill out paperwork, drive back to SB
Day 2: attend meeting in Camarillo with EVERY SINGLE MAJOR DIVISION HEAD, no reason given.
Day 3: learn data analysis in Oxnard, return drive to Ridgecrest
Day 4: mill
Day 5: projected milling

Driving from the coast back to Ridgecrest, it was jacket weather all day, at night when I got back I needed the A/C.
Uncool, uncool.

Only one thing has saved this week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvIm6Z3DMIo

PSA

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:47:30 GMT

Nicole! I called your cell phone because your house phone machine gives me the gibblies! I thought your birthday was today, when in reality its the 16th, but in my defense I thought today was the 14th, so in reality. I'm really only 2 days off. I'll call again :D

I spend the last two weeks in constant company. It was great! I got to see all sorts of people that I never get to see anymore and hang out and have super fun awesome times. Afterwards, I spent two days not speaking to humans. Sometimes, I just need some alone time to sit limply and stare at a screen. What did I do, you ask?

http://graphjam.com
http://thereifixedit.com/
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/
http://www.postcardsfromyomomma.com

I believe I have some great ones from my very own mum stored away in an archive somewhere, I'll have to pull them out and post one...

EDIT: http://mymomisafob.com/
OMG! ALL HER EMAILS CAN GO HERE!

Subject: Reasons to Call Dad, from 1987
Sunday is father's day. Call your dad and say something nice. He saved your life when you were choking around 1987. Thats the only reason I can come up with right now. Other than a “Thanks for the random fertilization and DNA shit".

Mom: Hey, can you get me some more Marshall Tucker Band music off your Lemon Line?
Me: It’s called limewire, mom.
Mom: Whatever. I just know it’s citrusy and provides free music.
Me: Well, technically it’s not free, its illegal.
Mom: There you go again, ruining all my fun.

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:52:54 GMT

In the greatest belatedly discovered tragedy ever, I am missing all the photos from 10/12 - 10/20. This including the period where I wandered SE Turkey, COMPLETELY ON MY OWN, encountering NO OTHER FOREIGNERS, so that there is no possibility of ever tracking down someone who had accidentally taken a photo of me on say, Mt Nemrut (of the fallen heads) and frozen determination to stay till sunset, the enthusiastic girls in the shop in which I bought my coat, the man who beckoned me into his shop to try out marzipan and refused to let me pay for the pair of socks I wished to buy; or Şanlıurfa the traditional conservative city where I stayed with the sweetest little old Kurdish lady who took me to a local hammam with her, had a conversation with the most well spoken/mannered 12 year old boy who learned over 3 languages entirely from tourists, was dressed up by scarf sellers in the bazzar, bought tiny amounts of laundry detergent, posed with newly wed couples and fed sacred carp, shared pomagranates with a tiny wizened little doorstep lady.

A single awful shot over the battlements on a wall in Diyarbakir, the Kurdish stronghold that was bombed two days after I left; one crooked personality-less photo of Hasankeyf, the beautiful tiny town slated to be flooded by the Ilisu Dam where I ate fish from the Tigris in the dark. None from the random dolmus trips I townhopped on trying to get to Mardin and the little nowhere towns in between where I was invited to a wedding, took photos with bus folk, all the staff from a gas station, and a little old lady who gave me a sprig of basil.

None of Harran (one of several of the "oldest continuously inhabited town"'s in the history of civilization. Only three horrible photos remain of Gaziantep none of which include the most gorgeous mosaic museum in the world, the nutsellers and their determination to serve us softdrinks, and a hilarious encounter with a three little boys, their bicycle and a giant sloping hill.

Actually I hit my first traveler in a week in Hasankeyf, so there might be some hope of begging some of their photos from their collection if I can find them again. But none of them will be MY photos that /I/ took. Or of the people that /I/ met and chat with/drank tea/ ate desserts/were randomly asked to pose with. This ranks in one of the top ten failures in my life.

10/12/08-10/20/08 search results on all three drives = a grand total of 8 photos. And it took me over 8 months to realize they were missing. I am absolutely furious with myself.

And it begins with scattered attacks....

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:40:50 GMT

I came back from DC! The Fallout map has the subway system pretty down, and the Mall museums in about the right sort of positioning, but lied terribly to me about the Lincoln memorial...or maybe its the futuristic projection of river movement...

I browse news today, what do I get?

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/metairie_man_says_stranger_che.html
I KNEW IT WAS COMING!!

Also, in news today:

Yes, its available at your local bookstore.

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:33:06 GMT

I have chickens! They are growing in feathers, but are still mostly fuzzy little fluff balls. Their first night, I got up no less than 3 times to check their heat lamp. If this is what being responsible for human babies is like it is good that I don't encounter them often. The saving grace for my peepers are that they're damnably adorable, and are mostly content and quiet. I hear this is not true of human infants.

Now my time is divided between monitoring them and building them a solid coop so they don't get eaten like my last chicken. This is what I get for living behind a nature preserve. In the creation of this coop, I have discovered that theoretical drafting knowledge does me no good, and my garden does not come in "flat surface". If it weren't for the level, maybe it wouldn't have been that much of an issue, but now there is a level, and it bothers me. It bothers me a lot.

My mother has been demanding that I rid her house of my precious belongings. She wrote me an eviction notice and taped it to my computer. It reads:

MM would like to remind both of you
(even I know you don't like to be reminded)

that we need to learn "取 & 舍" these two words in our life.

取 (qu, 3rd tone) : to take
舍 (she, 3rd tone) : to give

So, check our shed and garage, and clean up your stuff
in a year (your dead line is 12-31-2010). Otherwise,
I will give to Salvation army.

**You have only one shelf in the garage for
your personal stuff"

Tks for your cooperation
MM

Well, actually Dec 2010 isn't in one year, but I'm not going to point that out now that she's put it in writing. No matter though, she believes by issuing me a deadline 12-31-2010, it means that I need to start getting rid of stuff now. As in immediately. Okay, I admit, I have a lot of stuff, and much of it probably looks like junk. Not everyone sees the inherent usefulness of foamcore and gundam toys, but mostly her demands are pretty outrageous.

She believes I should dump all my textbooks. All of them. I checked, and none of my books have any monetary value as the publishers happily released new editions over every single one, and I paid an average of $80 bucks a pop for those things. They're great as reference, I paid through the nose for them, and I'm sure the moment I get rid of one, I'll need it within the week. This means nothing to the woman who just recently discarded my father's books from college, his awesomely 60s graphing calculator, and all of my warm scarves.

The worst part is that her passion for getting rid of my things extends beyond just textbooks and includes any bound material, all of my book collection is in terrible danger. I need to get a job and move. Both for my sanity, and for the preservation of my precious belongings. Also, I think I need to start thinking of getting rid of some of my stuff.

Quote of the week:
"I'm kind of afraid that when the chickens will stop laying eggs, and my mom will get rid of them because all they'll do is eat and poop"
"Well, she puts up with you doesn't she?"

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:05:14 GMT

While in Taipei, my cousin let me try out Fallout 3. Sadly, my video card wasn't good enough to play it on my computer, so I could only read post-apocalyptic fiction as a substitute. Oh, and watch Sarah Connor Chronicles. But I continued to distantly dream of it for the last 2 months. And now?! NOW I OWN MY OWN COPY! GRAARRR!! Mike gave it to me, unaware of what it would do to me.

When my thumbs grow sore, I retreat to scour my ludicrous stack of post-apocalyptic fiction. When doing neither of those things, I go online to make sure my stack of reading material doesn't run low. My criteria for "post-apocalyptia" has never been particularly narrow, unlike my tastes in other sub-genre. Therefore, I don't care if the scenarios are caused by plague, nuclear disaster, natural disaster, zombies, or etc; it matters not that whether the characters are distant descendants of survivors, cyro-sleep survivors who awake thousands of years later, survivalists who toughed it out, ordinary Joes who were saved by some random chance and were confused when they came out and everyone was gone, dead, crazy, trying to eat/kill them, a combination of all of the above.

I have perhaps developed a complex. There is a terrible disconnect between my own little den of PA, and the rest of the world. I was driving out to pick up wonton skins for my parents this afternoon. I thought it was a step in the right direction. Wontons can be made and frozen, and as long as we still have power, they can be stored. Also, I should find and learn to operate a ham radio, and guns... But the type of stockpiling to do depends on the scenario we should face*. My reorganization of priorties has not come to the point of actually acting on my impuses, but it really doesn't help your average unemployed college graduate living at her parents house deal with day to day problems. My parents do not find my heightened awareness of the transient fragility of our society pertinent to my future.

All of this and more can be visually presented by my unfinished masterpiece! Obsession! Thy nature is cross-referencing.

Resident Evil 5 is coming out soon. I will be too terrified to play it. Every word of this paragraph is true.

*I make light of this, but sometimes at night, I am filled with a terrible fear of not knowing.

Side note: Sarah, read Stewart followed by McCarthy to see where that conversation was coming from

Egpyt: Part 1

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:37:30 GMT

So, for a country that had began as the highlight of my trip and was was roundly cut down by every traveler I encountered, I found Egypt to be overal, as good or better than I expected. I must admit, I was quite disheartened to hear from others about Egypt, such that fantastically low expectations may have something to do with how positively I viewed the country. This is not to say that I loved Egypt. I would go back to Syria or Jordan in a heartbeat. If offered a free ticket to Egypt, I would probably consider it first.

The country is amazing. More than any other country, Egypt had marvels just piled up in heaps. Other things found piled in heaps are: refuse peppered with goats (who really do eat anything), and package tourists (who will eat nothing not carefully prepared by their chef from France). I skipped the Sinai penninsula after Dahab, there was just nothing that struck me as unique. In my opinion, a mountain is a mountain, no matter who once stood on it and looked at Israel.
So I hauled my ass out of the mini beach paradise that is Dahab, and made my way to Aswan, the last major city before crossing into Sudan. Aswan is gifted with two museums. The Nubian Museum, a massive and impressive tribute to everything Nubian. Egypt : France as Nubia : Egypt. In the 1830s, Egypt gifted the French king with one of the matching Ramses II obelisks from Luxor temple; in return, France sent them a clock thats never worked. In the 60s, Egypt built the Aswan dam, flooding Nubia, followed by the High Dam which flooded pretty much the rest of Nubia; In 1997, they opened the Nubian museum. I doubt it made the Nubians feel all that much better though. UNESCO mounted a 50+ country emergency rescue of the treasures of the area proposed to be covered by Lake Nasser, and much of their work is documented in the museum. The star of the show is Abu Simbel. Two temples built into a mountain II, lovingly and meticulously cut up and reassembled up and inland, they angled the temples to catch light at the same angle, and even constructed a mountain to look like the original. Knowing the original and relatively recent history of the temples at Abu Simbel made the visit to the actual site even more impressive as there is no sign at all, that Ramses II hadn't commissioned their construction there 3000 some years ago.

A few weeks prior to my arrival to Egypt, there was a kidnapping near the border, and so, where there was once a possibility of slipping onto local transport unnoticed, the tourist police were on high alert, and I was obliged to sit in a minibus with other tourists. To join up with several dozen big busses, which then were escorted by police convoy the whole trip south. Beginning at 3:30 am. This meant that in the limited and (in my opinion) far too brief time given to see the Great Temple and the Temple of Nefertari, the entire day's worth of tourists poured onto the site at the same time. I can only assume that the rest of the day, the place was empty. This is where I truly began to loathe tourists. Here is part of the list I made of actions that garner hate points.

Flashing paintings +2
Touching reliefs +5
Flashing paintings and paying the guards baksheesh +50
Touching pained reliefs +50
Sitting on the foot of Ramses while your snotty children climb on him Ramses +100
According to what I gathered at Abu Simbel, many tourists in Egypt seem to think that the world goes to such lengths as to carefully preserve structural integrity while carefully slicing monuments out of mountains to preserve them for posterity as a giant jungle gym. But its okay! Because they didn't know! So to make up for their overfamiliar handling of archeological treasurs, in most cases, these tourists readily professed complete ignorance at what exactly they were gawping at. The best illustration of this is a conversation I overheard on the bus after the visit

"So what did you think of it?"
"I liked it! It was nice!"
"I didn't think that much of it. History isn't really our thing"
Lady, why, of all places, did you come to Egypt?

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:30:34 GMT

On the afternoon of the 22nd, I was in Dahab, 18.5 hours later I was in Luxor. A swing around town and 5 hours more on a train and I arrived in Aswan Nov 23, 10pm. TRIUMPH! MWAHAHAHAHA

Prior to my arrival to Aswan I had spent 4 days in the middle of Wadi Rum, a desert preserve on the lower inland part of Jordan. I slept outside on a series of seat mats, and stared at the stars all night until the moon rose and blotted out the rest of the sky with its light. The desert is absolutely silent at night, and after a while, my ears begin to fill the silence in with made up noises in an attempt to break up the silence. It was amazing, the only bad part was that since we were staying at a camp empty of all other people, it was also pretty empty of water. I had red sand everywhere, and no water to shower.

Where the desert is completely silent at night, the day is completely different. Swarms of flies appear out of nowhere and descend like a plague upon anything that may provide moisture. Humans are a particular favorite. I began to long for a full face veil. Irritatingly enough, the only place where the flies DIDN't follow anyone, was the toilets. That's just not right. The flies were so thick on...just about everything, the only thing to do was to give up. I would spill water onto my pants to try to get the flies to stop landing on my face. They were like a blanket of flies. It was terrible. When eating lunch and holding lunch conversation with Ana, I would punctuate each sentence with an expletive. "So if I HAD to see Gallipoli on my way out of Istanbul, I'm actually glad that I went with a tour. MOTHERFUCKERS!"

Following my 4 day desert adventure was my full day microbus adventure through all the towns that had infrequent bus connections. By the time we finally arrived in Madaba, all we wanted was a shower and to sleep. My foolish decision to see the dead sea while I was still in Jordan was how I began the long descent into a hobo existance. Salt covered hobo existance. The Dead Sea is so salty, you can't swim in it. Your entire body turns into a cork, and should you be unfortunate enough to get any of it into your eyes, a squealing blind cork. I was unfortunate. And I was wearing contacts. Prolonged agony ensued all the way back to Madaba, where attempting to take a shower, Ana and I found that the water main project cut off the water to our place. So off to Amman we went, where I shoved my way onto the next bus to Aqaba.

In Aqaba, i was adopted by a pushy lady, and that's how I ended up living in a tent on the beach. Covered in Dead Sea salt, unwilling to salt up any more of my clothes, and without a blanket.

Internet time is over now.

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:52:39 GMT

OH BOY do I have more on Aziz and his lovely family! Loads! But I've got people waiting on me, so I'm not going to share that epic yet.

Instead, I have come to crow. I arrived at the border with possibly the worst combination of travelers possible. I held an AMERICAN passport with NO visa, and an unusual addendum of pages, the American girl with the visa was told her visa was FAKE, and the Korean girl had been REJECTED at another border. We must have been the most suspicious set of travelers that whole day. I wanted to take a photo of us like a line up all holding our passports, but they got theirs cleared around 2pm and I was to wait unil 8pm.

But I am IN Syria!! It took me 16 USD and 11 hours of waiting at the border. In return, I got a cup of tea, dinner made by the Syrian border official cook, basic Arabic lessons, and a shot of arabic coffee which I highly do not recommend. I had to hitch from the border to Aleppo because the busses had stopped running and I had NO idea where I was going to stay the night. It was all quite exciting. I lie, it was more horribly boring and later on, exhausing.

I took a photo of my Syrian visa, it will remain the pinacle of my stamp collection for many years to come.

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:12:18 GMT

Last night I took a bus out of Göreme, up to Kayseri to arrive ın Kahta at 8am. Kahta is a lıttle town that bears no partıcular dıstınctıon other than the fact that ıt ıs closest ın proxımıty to Mt Nemrut of the fallen heads, not the actual mountaın. Apparently on Sundays, people also lıke to get marrıed and race up or down the maın street honkıng theır horns. There were at least seven seperate marrage parades.

Acosted at the bus stop, I was then coerced ınto sıgnıng up for a tour. Esentıally I paıd for a shared taxi ride, but the offıcıal name was 'tour'. Scheduled to start at one, I managed to earn myself two glasses of tea, a free breakfast, use of a shower, and a promıse to help me arrange somethıng at the top of the Nemrut. I fıgured, ıf I were to come to Nemrut but once, why not see both sunset and sunrıse -- and so I thought to take the tour up, have them leave me at the top where I would spend the nıght and hıke up to see sunrıse, then hıtch a rıde back down wıth one of the sunrıse tours, or even walk to the vıllage and catch a local dolmuş back ınto town. It was a great ıdea, ıt made the best use of both tıme and money and was arranged to perfectıon.

To whıle away the waıtıng hours, I trotted back out to the otogar to see my busıng optıons and attempt to fınd gloves. On my way I attempted to buy one paır of brıght turquıose socks wıth geometrıcal shapes and was ınstead gıven them; attempted to fınd a small package of laundry detergent and was gıven a seat and pıeces of lokum; and sucessfully bought a tunık -- whıch ıs a thın coat that ıs about mıd-thıgh length and wıll hopefully help me get past the border. Upon entry to the store ın whıch I fınally bought my tunık, I drew shop gırls to me lıke a magnet. They spoke a lıttle more Englısh than I spoke Turkısh, but wıth great use of hand wavıng, map poıntıng, and charades we had a great tıme. We took photos together, whıch I promısed to send --and they provıded me wıth one address that ıs dıffıcult to read, and one emaıl whıch ıs wrong no matter how I type ıt. We managed to spend over two hours conversıng ın our own respectıve languages and drınkıng more tea culmınatıng ın one of the gırls gıvıng me her bracelet. To be honest, Esra actually gave me Suzanne's bracelet, but I only had one gıft to gıve ın return, and ıt went to Esra. Had I known the Turkısh were so prone to gıft gıvıng I would have pıcked up more trınkets ın Thaıland. Now I sport two bracelets, when I don't actually lıke bracelets. But the poınt ıs that I met some really sweet gırls who thought I totally made theır day. They even ınvıted me for lunch wıth them whıch I had to turn down due to my tour, but I promısed to return the next day.

By the tıme I returned to the offıce, I was to fınd myself delayed for the duratıon of a perfect lost lunch opportunıty, and pıled ınto a car that had only a wındshıeld, a drıvers sıde wındow and a passenger wındow. The backseat had blank metal to look at, ıt was quıte dısapoıntıng. So the long tour wrapped around the mountaın, hıttıng some poınts of upper mesopotamıa near Mt Nemrut that were unfortunately not terrıbly ımpressıve. Mt Nemrut was constructed by a sılly kıng who demanded that gıant stone sculptures of hımself and hıs 'ancestors' (partıcularly esteemed gods), be eıther contructed upon, or dragged up to the hıghest poınt ın the entıre regıon. A cobbled stone terrace path was to wınd ıts way up the mountaın untıl the path would splıt so that one set would sıt on an East facıng terrace, and another set to face West. In between, the lucky people of thıs kıngdom got to pıle up an 50m artıfıcıal mountaın out of fıst sızed rocks -- presumably where the bodıes of the kıng and favored famıly lıe. I bag on hım now, but Antiochus certaınly knew how to go all out. The statues contınue to sıt where they were placed, the Eastern bodıes ın better shape than the West. And whıle the heads on both sıdes have both toppled, the Western heads have held up better and theır bodıes weathered worse. I dare anyone else's face to be both that massıve and look that good, some 2000 years later.

My orıgınal plan to stay at the summıt contınued untıl 7pm when the sun was just about settıng, and I could no longer feel eıther hands or ears. Then there was that conversatıon wıth a man from Swıtzerland who merrıly told me that ıt regularly went down to 0 to -5 C. I was almost resıgned to trundle on back down to Kahta, or to prepare for a long nıght of cold and to hell wıth beıng up to see dawn when I managed to meet a very nıce man from Gazı Antep, who was vısıtıng wıth hıs famıly (hıs wıfe and baby gave me a cucumber) and was headıng back to the cıty that nıght -- he offered me a rıde. Then another man who owned a guesthouse ın Urfa overheard, and told me he was headıng back down wıth the small tour he had brought up to see Nemrut, he told me to swıng by hıs guesthouse ıf I ever got to the cıty. I dıd hım one better, I ended up travelıng wıth hım and hıs group all the way back to Urfa -- whıch ıs both on my way to Mardın, and my last major stop ın Turkey before I try to cross the Syrıan border.

More on Azız and hıs lovely famıly later. If anythıng, the Kurds are even kınder people than the Turks. Thıs ıs dıffıcult to say though, sınce apparently half of the people I have met ın Turkey (ıncludıng just about everyone ın Istanbul's Sultanahmet) ıs Kurdısh --thıs ıs what the Kurds tell me, at least. Suffıce to say ıt must be somethıng ın the water. Turk or Kurd -- thıs ınfectıon of nıce ıs reportedly to contınue wıdespread throughout the entıre mesopotamıan area.

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:42:14 GMT

My phone is being a bitch. And I think its totally unfair, since I actually had to buy this phone in Thailand so I could use one at all. The fact that its presenting an ominous "SIM card registration failed" message doesn't bode well. I think I have spent over two solid days in total trying to fix phones in various places and my track record is 0 success. I hate cell phones.

I almost died yesterday, which was absolutely terrifying for about 7 minutes. I managed to wander down a "shortcut" goat path to Uçhisar castle in sandals, and found myself stranded on a 2 foot ledge about 25 feet below where I needed to be. The newly sandy path continued at a 60 degree incline and tilted outwards, towards an estimated 15 seconds of picturesque free fall into some interesting rocks in the valley below. I literally clawed my way up the embarkment above it, hauling on scrub brush and trying to find rocks to brace against. It was utterly awful. Afterwards, I trembled triumphantly for a few minutes at the base of the castle I had yet to actually ascend. Then, proper footware wearing Alan arrived up the longer probably equally perioulous side path, (he's that black dot at the bottom) and we paid admission to go into the "castle" to further risk my life. It was a very nice view, but the fact that it had a couple of falling fatalities in the past year wasn't exactly reassuring after my wheezingly desperate shrubbery climb.

I grow tired of resizing pictures using Office Picture Manager, so here is a final photo of me having a snicker while hiking through Love Valley. I almost died there too, courtesy of sandy paths and shitty treads, but the thought of that sort of demise was too ignoble, so I don't wish to recall it.

Accordingly, today I went into town and bought a pair of actual shoes. I plan on going to see Mt. Nemrut, but I don't plan to die there, either.

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:08:04 GMT

My timing is superb. In waiting for the Syrian Embassy, I managed to be stuck in Istanbul a total of six days. Six cold dreary days coming directly from a region in which I just spent 3 months at 30+C. I wore every item I had with me simultaneously, but not soon enough, for I had already caught a cold. With a city the size and grandeur of Istanbul, six days are nothing. The problem lies in that I flew in on Thursday night, spent three days splurging money on museums and monuments, to find Mondays are the national off-day, and Tuesday is Bairam (the end of Ramadan). All public transport was booked solid, (Bairam is like having Christmas day for the next 5-7 days) and the only way to escape the city was to book a package tour departing on Weds.

Here is the summary of my trip -- Gallipoli, where I was token ethnicity as the only non Kiwi or Ozzie for miles; Troy, tourist trap with a campy wood horse I didn't want to visit anyway; and Pergamum -- where they didn't take me to the place I wanted to go most (the Asclepion). I was delivered to Selçuk wıth a vague sort of dissapointment and a throat clogged with phlem. But free! Finally free!

Ephesus was amazing, I hiked up with an Ozzie who halfway up managed to hich us a ride with...a taxi. And partway down managed to hitch us a ride with...an empty tour bus. Of all the vehicles that could possibly have offered us a ride, these were the two that picked us up. All the people I've met in Turkey are amazingly friendly. They go out of their way to help you, I had a man go completely out of his way to show me where the tram was. Unfortunately with guys, consensus is that it is difficult to decide if they are genuinely trying to make a friend, or if they are hitting on you. Its a very subtle macking -- I really don't like it. At least with the obvious you can brush it off or drop boyfriend references, or friends you need to meet up with RIGHT NOW, but I honestly can't differentiate between someone being friendly or trying to pick me up. And it makes me sad, because theres nothing more insulting than that sort of a misunderstanding (on their part), or more awkward and uncomfortable (on mine). Adriana and I couldn't figure out where some of the guys were getting their ideas until our doormmate told us that she was going to visit her boyfriend's family but not his mother (because thats another more serious meeting). Boyfriend status freshly bestowed the day before, the boy in question newly met on her arrival a week ago -- and her departure in another week. Question solved.

After Selcuk, I was determined to go to Bodrum. Bodrum is home to one of the best underwater archelogy museums in the world. Also, it lives in a castle. You just don't miss that sort of shit. Bodrum lies about 3 hours south of Selcuk and after half an hour of schmoozy tea drinking and pleading poverty, I managed to get a slightly lower price for a return ticket. At the station early that morning I waited for that bus with another lady who frankly I was a little afraid to approach. So opening my big mouth was probably the best thing I've done since I left the US. She thought I was asking her where the bathroom was. Bodrum <--> bathroom, add an accent and you can see where the confusion could set in. Her name was Ebru (which I heard as April, so we're even), and of all things, she was a volunteer at the archelogy institute. And a former English teacher. Her boyfriend was meeting her at the station, and in the end, she invited me to come along with them to Gümüşlük. This was not in my museum plan, but she convinced me to go with them, and after running a few errands (in which I got to see the archelogy institute and talk to real! live! underwater archelogists!), we were on our way to Gümüşlük -- a little village by the sea which is bizarrely flat, incredibly clear, and shallow enough to walk to a little island in the middle of the inlet. Her boyfriend Aytakin bought us seabass for lunch, and refused to let me pay for it, and then Ebru bought me a bracelet "to remember her by". The nicest people I ever met. I can't imagine any other place or person who would pick a complete stranger up from a bus stop and show them around town, paying for things the entire way.

They set me on a Dolmus back to Bodrum so I could catch the museum, but by the time I got there, it was almost 4 and I was afraid the museum closed at 5. So I stayed another day. With my bag sitting in a single room in Selcuk facing a little TV. I wandered about the city until late, and I texted Ebru offering to treat her to lunch if she was back in Bodrum tomorrow since I had decided to stay an extra day. She immediately called back to ask why, and we went out for dinner where she pulled out my story, then offered to let me stay at her place at the institute since she was going to stay with Aytakin. So an entire day of ridiculous generosity from a complete stranger and then she gave me her key and let me stay in her room, hiding from archeologists. The next day I stealthed out of the institute, and into the museum (which is free for ISIC holders!) which housed an amazing collection of schtuff found at the bottom of the sea. And now my umbrella because I lost it there.

Theres museums with a lot of stuff, but aren't interesting at all, and then there museums with average stuff with good setups and explanations. The Museum of Underwater Archelogy managed to have both amazing artifacts and an excellent layout. Explanatory panels, organization, lighting, small scale and full scale replicas... Panels on how they found it, how they excavated, how they thinks the ships were packed, where they were going...this is the sort of museum that you'd insist on coming to every week when you were a kid. Sadly my poor timing meant that I missed the two best exhibits as they only open T-F, but its still one of the best museums I've been to in years. One of their halls has a model of an open ship halved lengthwise to see the cargo holds, and below it, a blue lit replica of the ocean floor as the wreak was found. Complete with little hanging fish and the occasional crab.

On my way back, the bus broke down, about 15 minutes away from my stop. Had anyone spoken English, I could have taken a Dolmus, or even walked back. As it was, I waited for three hours. Bus was fail.

Newest shit list member : crusaders.
Even today, the fifth wonder of the world can still be seen in parts of the wall at St. Peter's. I bet Mausolus is proud.
No one steals priceless artifacts or building material quite like crusaders.

Recent members of note: Tanners
Melting marble into lime to treat shoe leather is totaly un-cool. (on the other hand, someone out there could concievably brag "With every step, I tread on the faces of fallen gods")

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:57:02 GMT

I not only didn't have to sleep at the Doha airport, Qatar Air actually put me up in a swanky hotel! Upon arrival to the airport (again), I find that they have FREE internet. Even though it automatically logs out every 10 minutes.

The uniforms for the airport people are amazing. Of course you have the generic airport dresscode, but the majority of customs officials and others whose function I have not yet determined, do not. The men wear full length white robes, matching white sandals, and the headdress, while the women look like black clad versions of the blue opera singer from the 5th element. They have their hair covered in a scarf, so their heads even have the height and the down trailing fabric, they are all quite lovely. I'd take a photo, but I don't know how that'd go. Seems like you're allowed to change your headcloth, but most of them just go with the assigned black or white. The robes are embellished with the badges and tags that most airport employees wear, with their mysterious stripes, and stars and symbols of office, so it all looks quite spiffy. Some of the ladies in a shop wear their suit jacket over their robes, and abadged beret set jauntily on top of their headscarfs. Its amazingly charming, too.

I was forced to check in my backpack for the first time, and now I feel naked. I'm also terrified that my bag won't be there when I arrive. I think that one time the airlines lost Bill's luggage really made an impact on me. But at least he was meticulous in keeping reciepts and having travel insurance. I begin to regret my impetuousness, at last.

I'm having a great time ALMOST reading Arabic. SO CLOSE...I'm bound to forget it all by the time I get out of Turkey though >_<

Where did this come from?

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 07:10:24 GMT

I sent my flight itinerary to my parents a few days ago complete with times dates and transfers. A general summary of it should look like this TPE--BKK--DOHA--IST; CAI--BAH--BKK--TPE--LAX.

The following is recent correspondance with my sister. Slight editorial changes,

"Mom says you're going to Nigeria.....
Really?
How's the back? Try using aloe vera gel."

"What the? I sent mom my itinerary. And nowhere on that ticket, does it suggest I'm going to Nigeria! Its on the WEST coast of Africa. WAY off course. Where does she get these things?
I'm flakey but good, can't see it too well, but I'm pretty sure it looks like I've got a skin disease."

[at this point I'm pretty sure my mother dreams up this stuff, then convinces herself that its true]

"HAHAHA! I was like, "Mom, are you sure? Nigeria? The AFRICAN country of NIGERIA?" And she was like, "Yes! Yes! Nigeria! she's going to Nigeria! i have no idea why!"
[neither do i -_-]
Haha you're a leper. i'm going to tell Kong Kong [our cousin] that you need to be taken to the ji zheng shi [emergency room], and then sent to a leper colony in Japan.
I hear the leper colonies in Japan are really cool and then I could come visit you! It'd be a party!"

Current status: Mother convinced I'm going to Nigeria. Sister wishes I were a leper so she could come chill in Japan. And people ask me why I don't want to go home...

Taking votes: Should I go to Nigeria to support my mother's prophesy? If I contract leprosy should I NOT go to Japan to thwart my sister?

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:21:33 GMT

I'm molting.

I went snorkling in the islands off of Koh Chang and got a full body sunburn. I, having been born with skin that pigments instead of redenning, relatively rarely burn. This statement was "never burn" up until the beginning of high school when I suddenly stopped going outside, at least in comparison the adventurous summers of my youth.

By the time I was done with the amazing snorkling trip, from the back of my neck to my ankles, excepting my yellow ass, I was one sheet of painful, bright red. And now? Now I get to pick bits of skin off the reachable areas of my back. I've burned before, I've even peeled before, what I haven't experienced, is peeling off an intact two cm strip of my own skin before.

Oh skin, with all your glorious properties of keeping bacteria out and all my many visceral bits in. I wish I had never been able to hold you in my hand like a snake molt.

Sometimes if I get a nice chunk, I put it on my cousin. He doesn't appreciate it, but its my own brand of revenge for the fact that I can't distinguish truth from lie coming from him. Especially since there's a 50% chance that he's lying to me at any given moment. I wouldn't ever want to play poker with him. Even if I knew how.

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:20:31 GMT

The typhoon finally moved on, and Malaysia decided to resume flights. Seeing a chance to cut costs, it took all the displaced passengers of the last two days, and crammed them on one plane. Instead of the two flights they have to LAX they usually offer, this time it was only one. That is if you were lucky enough to actually get your call through to reservations. Mike had to get his mother in the US to do it, as a 3 hour attempt on our part got nothing but irritating beeping. Thank you, Autumn Moon Festival - typhoon - weekend.

My mom took this opportunity to send me an email about expecting the unexpected and planning for the worst. I was prepared to get another lecture about how I should come home early, but instead the point of that email was, and I quote: "That is what I have been kept telling Tessa and you, don't wait till the last minite to finish your homework. "

Else a typhoon might cancel school for two days?

I think I might one day actually assemble my mother's emails into a book. I'd call it "My Crazy Mom", but then she might sneak read it and get offended like that one time she read that letter from Robyn.

World Media Insists All of Thailand On Fire, All Thais Dead

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 06:52:52 GMT

Stranded in a provincial town for the past weekend, Mike and I have been unable to determine exactly what is going on. All we know is that we were on one of the last trains out of Bangkok, and actually, our train didn't get out at all. We were instead packed onto another train headed very slowly north. They piled all the passengers from our train onto an already filled other train -- and all of this done in Thai. Some very nice ladies on our car gesticulated to me that we could bundle our backpacks next time and sit them in some sort of cargo car (thats what i got from it at least) and had everyone else move their luggage aside to make room for our packs. They even squeezed me into a seat -- thats 3 people in a 2 person seat. Clarification, a 2 person THAILAND seat. Unlike most trains, this train was going extra slow, so as to catch no breeze at all. And so, it was a 2.5 hour sauna on wheels. With people constantly trolling up and down the packed isles selling beverages and sticky rice.

The places we're around dont have papers in English, and we seem to be bumping into more than our fair share of alarmists or folk who are afraid FOR us (if we faint down there it looks really bad for Thailand is my guess). If this is my last post, it probably means I should have been more worried.

http://www.notthenation.com/pages/news/getnews.php?id=577

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:38:34 GMT

Wow. I haven't posted for a while.

We got internet at the dorms, but its rather all around shitty and until Thursday this week, I was spending quality time with the Taiwanese vet students downstairs. Their stint at the institute only ran till the end of the month and so they all just moved out and scattered across the whole of Taiwan. It made me sad, as I had grown very attached to them. ESPECIALLY JJ! Who is comprised of 90% awesome and 10% awful jokes. This month has been busy, and though I can't load the photos to prove it, other people with faster, more stable internets have, and from terrible angles.

I find myself growing more Asian each day. My English skills have degraded with vocabulary taking the hardest hit, closely followed by a steadily growing stinginess -- I consider 120NT for dinner pricey ($3 USD). I can no longer knowingly stand for a photo without automatically putting up my fingers in a V. In return, I've gained a relatively high proficiency in UFO catcher machines, can name all the important organs in a baby duckling (in Chinese), and can regularly wear pants and still consider 30C relatively cool. Also, mosquitoes now find me less palatable.

My internship is drawing to a close soon, its been quite the experience. I can't say I'll be sad to go, since most of my favorite people I'd be leaving behind, left earlier this week. I'll miss the director though, she's the most atypical Asian woman I've ever met in Taiwan. Straightforward and blunt to the point of pain, shes one tough lady. I can picture her in her youth in some sort of turf war, wielding a baseball bat. Our director gets things done, and done right. The new intern I work with is pretty nice, but she's no JJ. It's lonely going from four other interns to just one -- the good part is that the two of us get more personal attention, also, as a byproduct, I got to see the division ferrets. During their cage cleaning, they get put in a step lid trash can. Ferrets aren't too great at jumping, but the bigger ones can bump up the lid with their heads, bringing to mind the song "pop goes the weasel". I was even allowed to play with the "nice" ferrets; I'm not to handle the big ferret -- I think she has an enmity club in the department, they bear finger badges.

I cut my hair a few weeks ago and my bangs stick me in the eye at the worst moments. My philosophy is that if I'm going to wear an obvious barrette, it should be "special", unfortunately my theme barrettes are only made in one direction. In fact, all barrettes sold in Taiwan are made for the right side of the head. It wouldn't actually matter if I wanted a flower or some other symmetrical design, but if I want something that has a set orientation, like say a monkey or an airplane -- too bad, they gonna look upside down.

Today, I bought an umbrella with a whale design and paid too much money for it. I regret nothing!

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:45:28 GMT

Nicole! I belatedly wish you happiness on the day of your hatching! May your eggtooth never dull, and grubs roam plentiful in your territory.

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:25:21 GMT

Today I stabbed a pig (2 pigs, in truth). Also I discovered that normal pigs don't actually grow as tall as our special experimental pigs. For frankly, usually they don't live so long. So these pigs have the happy fortune of surviving to a significant age for the low low price of a disease or two and a few vials of blood every now that then.

AHRI is split into 4 main divisions, I am in the epi dept, the other main dept is the Swine Disease dept (again, a poor naming convention). The pig depo has jurisdiction of the animal ward, of which the epi dept occupies two rooms with their experimental pigs It makes me sad that when I come home I can't tauntingly whisper to the swine dept kids "im in ur isolation unit, harvesting blood from ur pigs"

Watching "Coffee Prince", its terrible, and wonderful. And addictive. So addictive. The worst part about it is that it shows the previous day's episode at 5pm (I get off at 5:30), and the current episode at 8pm (prime night market time), which means I'm going to miss the very exciting looking episode tomorrow. And no, I can't download it, because of ALL the places to pick an internship, I picked a government agency and they have the network blocked heavily against anything that can be downloaded. It doesn't even really matter since the actual speed of the connection is so pathetic it isn't as if I could have had any great expectations. But I'm in Taiwan...land of practically legal pirating...its...its not fair!

Its probably better this way anyway, I go outside and hang out with other interns more. If I had fast internets I would disappear from their company entirely.

Ya Lan (a Taiwanese intern) had two turtles, I say had because one of them got eaten when she set them out on the balcony for some sun. We think a heron ate it. She was very sad. That said, there are many herons here, its quite awesome.

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:05:30 GMT

I finished my first week at work! I am now a histology GOD! I can put my trophy next to my MRT god trophy.

We got back from orientation last Sunday night and were dropped off inside the main gate of the Animal Health Research Institute and there was no one else there. No one. If one of our party hadn't been there a few days ago we would have had to try the keys to every single building in the area. The dorms turned out to be really quite nice. A little small, but relatively new, and they were nice enough to provide us with all the things that we needed. The dorm is equipped for foreign visitors so little necessities like A/C, laundry detergent, and towels were generously provided. The only things we're missing is internet. We complain bitterly, but from what I hear, our lot is still tonnes better than the Taipei dorms which come fully equipped with welcoming cockroaches, sealed windows, and pay as you go a/c -- also no internet. The AHRI has promised us internet soon -- even it its only two lone cables for 5 TTT students and 8 Taiwanese veternary students to fight over.

The institute is divided into 4 main divisions and the five of us are split up between them; the two boys work in the same section together. My division's official english title is Epidemiology Department -- where we do fun things like disease diagnostics and necropsies and research (among others) BSE, rabies, avian influenza, and New Castle disease, one of which I am to pick as a primary topic. Its quite an exciting department. I have since infected eggs with LPAI, spied on the rabies lab, made slides of pig bits with the histopathology section -- one of which I am promised as a souvenir (we get to hand stain them Monday since we made noise about the automated machine being boring to watch), and encountered a real live pig.

On Friday they said two of us could go and look at the animal buildings, which are negative pressure and involve extensive changing of clothes and multiple doors. So I got to see my very first pig, who, unlike the way I imagined them, are not acutally mid to large dog sized, but instead are more like a pony. This pig, stood to at least as high as the bottom of my rib cage, was likely taller than I, if set in a vertical sitting position, and had ears of at least 6 inches. I share my newfound knowledge with you all. PIGS ARE HUGE! Apparently this sow wasn't even the biggest one they had!! HUGE!!! If I put a saddle on it, I am confident I could ride about on it, although not for very long, for pigs are apparently super smart and fierce. The vet students have taken care to tell me about how fierce pigs can be.

I had before mentioned the multiple changing of clothes, which should explain why I was barefoot and in PE clothes standing in a pair of size 13 rainboots while the girl I was with fed the pig. It does not however, explain why I felt something moving in my rainboot, and when asked, the girl very blandly confirmed that it was very likely a cockroach. Sure enough, with enough thumping my boot produced a nice fat cockroach and I was further advised to step on it. I did this with my unhappy face on. Being an isolation pig, it lived in its special isolation pig pen, and having seen the very nice P3 negative pressure lab they have at the institute, I was NOT expecting cockroaches in, well, frankly, any negative pressure rooms, much less my very own boot. Although, after thinking it through, and knowing cockroaches, I probably should have expected it. There's only one P3 lab, and this was the animal housing, therefore, even negative pressure isolation pig must endure cockroaches.

And so, Friday was the most texturally exciting day of my internship yet.

THE END