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Eggrolls

Okay, so why haven't we figured out a way to standardize, or perhaps even define, what exactly an eggroll is? Some places will put egg in it. Others will have chicken or some other kind of meat. And vegetarian doesn't always mean just vegetables because some vegetarians eat eggs or chicken. So if you want a truly vegetarian eggroll, at some places you have to order a spring roll. But some places have spring rolls with meat. And then I was at a Japanese festival yesterday and was at a booth waiting to order and saw that their menu just said "eggrolls" so I asked if it's possible to get vegetarian eggrolls. She told me that all their eggrolls are vegetarian. HOW in the world was I supposed to know that?? Then why didn't they just put "vegetarian eggrolls" on the menu??

All of this mental effort......for an eggroll.

Results

So we hear all the time how we should enjoy the "journey" of getting toward a goal, rather than just the "destination." That's how you learn, grow, have fun, and really be content. The cliches get old don't they? Well, guess that's why they're called cliches: stop and smell the roses, or, the joy is in the journey, enjoy the ride because the view once you get there doesn't last too long, yada yada yada.

Yeah, I believe the joy's in the journey. But right now I'd rather be going 120 mph rather than 35.

Songs

Ever notice how it's the first 2/3 of a song that is the most fun to listen to? I mean, after most of the song is over, I want to change the radio station, or change the CD track. I mean think about it, the beginning has a catchy beat to get you to start listening, and the stanzas have good lyrics. But after that, once it's just down to the chorus being repeated over and over, WHY would anyone want to listen? And some just go on and on and on and on and on and it's like "all right aleady, I GET it! her body is a wonderland, blah, blah, blah."

So at the recording studio, they should just abruptly stop the recording after 2/3 of the song has been recorded. Or the DJs on the radio station should just stop the music at that point. Wouldn't that be nice?

But guess we can't always have what we want. I would also like a remote to be able to stop those annoying, flaky, flighty and nosy people from talking to me. It's like "STOP and I'm going to move on with my day, have a nice life."

Who am I?

That's the classic question that everyone asks himself or herself isn't it? Who am I? What am I doing here? What is the meaning of life? I mean, we're trying to find the answer to these questions yet most people haven't yet figured out how to leave a phone message answering my original question so as to avoid phone tag. But that's another issue.

As a kid I remember a friend saying "I told my mom that my toe is me, and she said it's not me." (Yet again, children attempting to answer such metaphysical questions even when they haven't yet figured out how to follow directions. Sorry, again I digress.) And you always hear the same sayings over and over again (which start to get old): "Your body isn't you, it's what's inside that defines who you are." or "What's on the inside is what matters." As an adult I started to understand how my job does not define who I am, but just something I do to earn a living.

But now I have a professor who says, "Your ideas are not you. Or your interpretations when counseling clients are not you." Well hell, those things came from INSIDE me, didn't they?

So who the hell am I? Cuz I'm not my toe, not my body, not my job, and now my bubble's been burst and I find out I'm not my ideas. Well, we're made up of atoms that are mostly space, so guess I'm a buncha nothin'.

Partner

Okay, so now it's the "in" thing to call your spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend your "partner?" Not "boyfriend" or "wife" or "husband?" On the one hand I think it's great because it doesn't alienate homosexuals and it gets away from the implication of gender stereotypes. After all, these significant others are partners in life.

That's great, but sometimes it makes it harder for me to tell if someone's gay or not.

Research

So I'm part of this research project: providing parenting classes for families going through divorce and testing the effectiveness of the program. I'm going to be co-facilitating the classes with a colleague. I have the phone numbers of the people who have signed up and we are supposed to contact them, do the initial interview, and get to know their situations before the actual group starts. Many of these people do not return my phone calls, and another stood me up last night; I was waiting at HER house to do the interview, mind you.

Our supervisors say to keep calling, that these people are very very busy and we need to leave many many messages before we can hook up with them. Well fuck, you know, I'm really really busy too. And if you think about it, this effort doesn't make sense. So we're creating classes to help people cope with divorce, and we need to test how well the classes work. But in order to test how well they work, we need participants. But the participants aren't really showing an interest. So we're doing all this work to improve a program for which there is no demand?

Don't get me wrong, being in the social work area, of course I advocate education and preventative interventions. But with this experience I can't help but think of a fridge magnet a friend of mind has which says "Why solve a problem when you can spend time researching it instead?"

Cheese

Why do people like cheese? It tastes good? And I mean so many people eat it without anything, like crackers. I can't stand cheese but I can at least comprehend eating cheese and crackers. But cheese without crackers? That's just mushy crap, I'm sorry. And today, this woman sitting next to me in class takes out this BLOCK of cheese and eats the whole thing. With the smell and look of it I thought I was going to vomit. So people eat that...then why don't they just take out a container of sour cream and eat it all up with a spoon?

So yes, I do believe there are rules about eating, and another is that celery should not be eaten raw. It needs to at least have peanut butter with it. I have a friend who eats raw celery without anything on it and not only that, she pulls off strands and eats them, like how you'd eat string cheese. So then why doesn't she just eat dental floss?

Boyfriends

I've been in just one exclusive dating relationship, in which we actually referred to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. The others either never turned into anything serious, or weren't exclusive. However, I've still only really dated one guy at a time, so after the break-ups, I referred to them as boyfriends (or rather, ex-boyfriends). It's easier that way than saying long explanations like "the guy I was seeing at the time" or "the guy I dated off and on for 8 months."

Makes sense. Kind of like how there was officially no World War I until there was a World War II.