The Max

I was once the smelly person on the max.

I was on the train to school after finishing at work, and I kept smelling something sour. My immediate though was, "Ugh, who's the wine-o?" I looked around, trying to figure out who smelled like cheap wine. I forgot about the smell until I got off to switch lines when I smelled it again. I looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the smell. It was only once I smelled it again on the second train that I realized it was me, that I smelled like the white cooking wine from work.

I was the smelly person on the max. The rest of the day I kept getting wind of the smell of cooking wine, inwardly wincing and hoping that other people didn't notice, though, really, I don't know how they couldn't.

This story brings me to the point of today's post: my love-hate relationship with the max. For the most part, I love being able to take the max to school. I don't like driving (especially freeways at night) and parking at school costs about the same as taking the max anyways. It's also nice to have the 40 odd minutes on the train to do a quick review of my text book (not as often as you'd think) or to sit and just listen to my ipod and relax (most often). I was once even given a free ticket by a lady who had purchased her ticket before finding out that her friend was able to come and pick her up. How nice!

However, there are some things about the max that really make me wish driving was my most favorite thing in the world and I drove to and from school every day.

And because I love lists so very much, here is a list of things that I dislike about riding the max:

1) Odorous Individuals
Yes, I was once the smelly person on the max. And I understand that sometimes you just smell and then you ride the max. I feel no ill will towards the smelly. but I still do not take pleasure in their smell.

2) Garbage
People are gross. They leave coffee cups, bags of lunch garbage, cigarette butts, all sorts of trash all over the place. It's not the norm, but you would think with garbage cans at each and every freaking stop, people wouldn't feel so hard pressed to throw their garbage away in an actual bin rather than setting it on a seat on the max.

3) Space Hogs
Also known as inconsiderate jerk faces. When the max is busy, these people will sit on the outside seat and put their bag on the seat next to the window so unless you expressly ask them to move their crap, you are left without a seat.
Jerks.

4) MUSIC
For me, this is THE most annoying thing about riding the max. Talking on your phone? Annoying, but whatever. Listening to music with headphones but I can still hear it? Frustrating, but I don't dislike you or even think you inconsiderate. But play your music on your phone speakers so you don't have to wear headphones because, I don't know, you just couldn't bother? There are no words to describe your rudeness. What are you even thinking as you do this? That you want to help entertain us by playing your annoying music? That you might get paid somehow for helping advertise the artist's music? Because pretty much all you are doing is annoying the hell out of me and most of the other passengers around you.

And then coming up afterwards and telling me to cheer up and "give you a smile" because you thought I look sad (true story)? Nope. Just, no.

Now that I have that off my chest, I'm off to take the max to class. It will probably pass uneventfully and I will most likely have a nice trip. But you never know. ;)

Happy Singles Awareness Day!!

Happy Singles Awareness Day!

Or, as some people like to call it, Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day has never really been a big holiday for me (and not just because I'm single forever... shut up), but I usually make some kind of Valentine for my parents and sister. And for my class when I was little and they did Valentine's Day exchanges at school. The main thing I like about Valentine's Day is the colors. Pink, of course, is my favorite color (though I fought to deny that fact for a long time), and being able to clashingly pair it with all shades of red is really fun.

For this Valentine's Day, I made three Valentine's. One got sent off to my sister earlier this week and featured a cute little robot. I couldn't for the life of me think of what to do for my parents for the longest time. Cards, of course, but I needed a gift of some kind for them, as well. I wanted to make something, but I didn't know WHAT.

After thinking about it FOREVER, I finally decided to make them healthy little snack boxes!!

It was a lot of fun to make. I got these cute little strawberry shaped lunch boxes when I was in Korea, each with two levels. I filled one level with veggies one with fruits!

On the bottom level, I put yellow peppers, celery, and radishes cut out like little hearts. I also made a ranch veggie dip out of low fat Greek yogurt. It's really yummy and has fewer calories than sour cream.

On top, I put sliced strawberries, kiwis, and blueberries. And a little animal shaped pick to eat with.

 

Of course, no Valentine would be complete without the card. So, I drew them little cards to match the animal sticks in their little snack boxes. Dad got a cute little panda.

 Mom got an adorable bunny.

Each got a little not so healthy treat as well with their gifts. Dad got red vines (it's traditional) and I found this cute little ice cream thing for Mom when I was at Uwajimaya the other day. You mix up some frosting and decorate mini ice cream cones. Well, I think it's frosting. It might not be edible... but it was sitting up front by the candies... so I assume it's food. If it was in Korean I could at least read it and look things up. I know nothing about Japanese so I don't even know where to start.
 

Oh well. I got one for myself to play with as well, so we'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll take pictures and tell you. Maybe I won't. Depends on how much time I want to spend avoiding this evil paper of death for my assessment class.

Ease on down the road...

Can I say how much I love that it's Michael Jackson and Diana Ross in this? I used to love "The Wiz." What can I say? My taste has always gone for the cheesy.

Anyways... the whole point of that title choice is just that life keeps on going and going and going and doesn't slow down after landmarks.

Like midterms of DOOM.

I had a midterm yesterday for my Assessment in Counseling class and I was SUPER stressed about it this week. I spent most of my free time this last week at my computer going through my notes and getting them all condensed and studied. Woof! I got super tired of trying to remember the difference between the different types of reliability. I'm glad I studied so much, though, because the test got into some REAL specific details, some of which I'm not sure if I remembered or not (such as the difference between standard error of difference and standard error of estimate). We'll find out next week how I did. Crossing fingers!

Then, right after we finished the exam, we talked about the specifics of our assessment research paper. We have to examine three different test manuals and decide if they would work for our demographic (I'm not sure how specific we are supposed to get for our demographic... he just has us listed out by track: rehabilitation, marriage and family, etc. I'm on the school counseling track.). We have to keep the manuals in the library so I'll have to write a great deal of my paper on campus. Joy. We'll see what days work best for getting into the library for me.

Other than school, not much else is going on as far as immediate activities. I HAVE been busy making plans for my New York trip this summer. Woo hoo!! I am ridiculously excited about the trip. My friend Maggie and I will be going a few days early and staying a few days after the class itself to do some extra things while we are there. The class is on Multicultural Counseling. We'll be going to the different burrows and talking with leaders of different cultural communities, going through museums, eating tasty foods, seeing some presentations and a Broadway show. I'm really looking forward to the experience. I think I will get a lot more out of this experience than just taking the regular classroom option.

Also, my boss has a friend in the show that the group plans on seeing together: Cindy Lauper's "Kinky Boots." It looks really fun and I'm super excited to look for her friend on the stage. I plan on going to see a few shows by myself as well, buying last minute student tickets.

I'm freaking out excited, people.

And that's the update on Jen. There will probably be more exciting pictures and stuff once I start helping Mom move into the craft room, getting my new room all set up, and then Hawaii and New York this Summer. Yes!!

Loves and hugs, peoples!! ^^