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!! ^^

Happy 2013!

As of Tuesday, vacation time will be officially over with the start of the new semester. I got my grades back for last semester: all A's!! Yay!! I am very happy with this. Hopefully I can keep this trend up for another few years.

It was a really long and wonderful vacation. Jesi came home from school for three weeks and we had an awesome time hanging out and being nerds together. It was fun. We went shopping, watched movies, ate treats, and did all the dorky fun things we like to do when we are together.

On Christmas, Jesi and I decided we were going to surprise our parents with a fabulous stuffed french toast casserole. It... didn't work out. So we had danishes instead. Jesi got an iPhone for Christmas (yay!). Just in time, too, because her old phone had just died, like, Christmas Eve. We made her work for it, though. All of us have iPhones already, so we put some of her little stocking gifts inside the boxes from our phones, wrapped them, and placed them strategically in her stocking. She'd get excited, open the box, and it would be gum or nail polish. Mom had opened a bag of cookies, put the phone (inside of a ziplock bag) in the bag, and then used tacky glue to put the bag back together. Jesi didn't realize it until Mom asked if she could have some of the cookies and then, when Jesi opened the bag, she found the cookies. It was great.

We can't just give gifts, you see. They need to be all tricky.

I got a fabulous present, as well. Dad taped a bunch of pictures of New York all over a cookies tin and on the inside was a word puzzle spelling out "New York" and a Southwest Airlines gift card (not a real one, though... it was just for show). They are paying for my New York tickets for this summer! Yaaaaaayyy!!! I'm so excited!! I've been talking to a student who went on the trip last year and she has only good things to say about it. I'm stoked! Get ready for a jillion pictures this summer. ^^

After Christmas, I was in charge of a freezer sale at work, which went great and bumped our numbers up for December pretty well (we made over $3000 in sales which is pretty dang good for us). Jesi and I went to see "The Hobbit" with some friends, which was REALLY GOOD. I love Martin Freeman. He makes an adorable Bilbo.

The Sunday after Christmas we headed to Seaside and stayed over for New Years. Nothing really special. It's not a big night for us usually. Jesi and I watched a movie and cheered at midnight. Yay 2013! 

Jesi's last few days at home were fairly uneventful. We did get a chance to use our gift cards from Christmas (JC Penny shopping spree!!) and ate dinner at Benihana's the night before she left for Utah. I'll miss my Chicky, but I know she loves school, and I'm doing pretty good with my own stuff right now as well, so we should be good until April when she comes home. ^^

I also bought a new computer. His name is Wesley and he's a Google Chromebook. I've discovered this last semester that having a computer on campus is really useful. Typing notes makes them easier to read, professors post power points/study guides online, etc. My old laptop was great, but starting to die. It was also crazy heavy. The Chromebook weighs about 2.5lbs and is very small. It's not a PC or a Mac so it doesn't run the same way as other computers I'm used to, but it does what I need it to do and it only cost $250 so the price was right.

And that's all for now. I'll be starting up school this week (2 classes this term), and I'm really looking forward to getting more into my major.

Wish me luck!!

First term of graduate school: COMPLETE

Right now, I am sitting in a computer lab on campus with a little over four hours to go until my last class of the semester; my first semester of graduate school. Sometimes it's strange to think that I'm getting a masters. And that a PHD, while not really on my mind right now, isn't that crazy of a posibility to think about.

After my first semester back in school, I'm feeling pretty good. I think I've gotten back into the swing of studying, homework, and test taking. Next semester will be the true test. I know that Winter semester was always hardest for me in undergrad and I'm a little worried about the statistics and research class I have to take next semester. I think Dad's excited, though. First time he'll really be able to help me with homework since early high school. :)

Next semester I only have two classes to go to, so I'll probably get some more hours at work, which will be good for my hungry bank account. Most of the other people in my program will be taking an effective teaching course, complete with a 200 hour student teaching experience out in the schools. However, I was able to talk with my program head and they are able to count my student teaching from my undergrad for this requirement. Yay! I just have to make up the four credits I'll miss from the class by taking two other classes at some other point in the program. They still have to be graduate courses, so no fun, easy dance classes or something like that. It will probably be some kind of elective course or an extra class with one of the other cohorts. Either way, it will be a fun switch up.

After the class tonight is over, a few of us from class are going out for a few drinks to celebrate surviving our first term as graduate students! Party! Not really... but a time to speculate about grades, next term, and toast to a bright future. Then the semester is over! Yay! All I need to worry about for the next few weeks is work, getting the house cleaned and ready, and playing with my baby sister when she gets here next Saturday (yay!!!). Looking forward to all that.

Not much else is going on right now. Just school, work, school, and work. Occasionally I'll watch tv before bed or take a break from homework and clean the kitchen (that REALLY needs to be done...).

To one term down! Ten more to go! :)

Creepers of the world: LEAVE ME ALONE!!!

What is it with creepy old guys? Why must they be so creepy? And why do they need to find me? First there was the Creepy Shoe Guy that kissed me on the cheek when I was shopping with Tara. Then there was the Creepy Subway Romeo who tried getting me to go eat with him even though we had maybe three sentences of shared language between us (what did he hope to accomplish on this date? Creeper...).

Well, now we can add Creepy Max Man to that list.

My graduate program is mostly made up of night classes. Yeah... it's annoying. I don't particularly enjoy having class from 4 to 9:30 at night, three days a week. Yuck! It's a good thing I like all my classes. My second and final class Monday nights is probably the best (the professor is HILARIOUS).

But, having classes at night has one particular draw back: taking the max (light rail) home at night. There's usually a fair amount of people out and about when I get out of class and onto the max. But it's still dark and, therefore, scary.

Last night, this Monday, I was standing waiting for the max at Pioneer Square when this old guy dressed like a 19 year old skate-boarder (honestly?) approached a woman who was eating out of a bag of chips. He tells her, "You know, you shouldn't eat carbs after 7."

Really? Do you know her? Is her eating chips at 9:30 any of your freaking business, man-child?

Apparently she felt the same way and laughed in his face. "F**k you! Does it LOOK like I f*****g care?!" And walked away. He was rather put out that she didn't immediately throw herself to her knees and worship his advice giving self. With all that, I was rather on edge, keeping an eye on him.

On edge as I was, I was NOT happy to see an old guy going around asking for money from everyone. UGH. Now, part of me feels bad and WANTS to give people money or food or something. But, you know what? My safety comes first and I prefer to have more control on situations where I am doing work for the homeless. Sorry if that doesn't seem perfectly Christlike, but I think it is needed in this world.

Anyways. So the guy is going around and I'm running through all the verbal self defense stuff that I've gone through with my sister's Taekwondo teacher and with my dad and I'm mildly freaking out inside but making sure my face is stony and my posture strong. BUTREALLYI'MFREAKINGOUT.

Finally he comes up to me and already he TOTALLY invades my little personal bubble with how close he is to me. He asks for money, I back up and tell him I don't carry any cash. Then he looks at me and says I look like I need a hug and he steps a little closer.

This is the point when beggar man became Creepy Max Man.

I put up my hands and say, "No," pretty dang clearly, making sure to keep eye contact though every instinct in me is wanting to look at the ground. But Creepy Max Man keeps talking and makes like he's going to move forward again so I hold my hands up more and say, loudly this time, "YOU NEED TO GO NOW."

Got a few stares and the look on the guy's face was pretty priceless. But he nodded, looked at the ground, and said, "Okay," before moving on to the couple a few feet away from me. I watched until he had talked to all the people and moved past Starbucks and then I pulled out my phone and texted my sister something like "HOLY CRAP!! I JUST TOTALLY USED VERBAL SELF DEFENSE AND I'M FREAKING OUT!!! DX"

My hands had stopped shaking by the time the max pulled up and I was done berating myself for shaking from such a minor encounter. I mean, Creepy Max Man probably wouldn't have done anything even if I HAD let him hug me. But I didn't know that. And I didn't know him. If you know me at all, you know I'm just a little big of a feminist (har har) and I could go on about the female public body etc but I won't. All you need to know is that you don't get to touch me if I don't want you to. END OF STORY.

Now, this story could have gone a bit differently if, say, this man had asked me for a hug:

Mmmm... Yes, Mr. Hemsworth. I DO need a hug.

 I mean... LOOK AT THOSE ARMS!!!

 Okay... one more.

I'm so OOOOOLLLDDD!!!!

Another birthday, another year closer to being OOOOLLLLDDD.

I do have to say that it's odd being 26, now, and having a mother who is "30." And, like my mom did before her "30th" birthday, I decided to do a list of things to do before my next big birthday, my "30 before I'm 30" list.

(it should be noted here that I hate balloons and all birthday wishes should be kept balloon free)
And here it is! 30 things that I want to do before I'm 30:

1. Graduate from the Portland State School Counseling graduate program
2. Sell a piece of my artwork
3. Go on a trip with my sister
4. Read the unabridged version of "Les Miserables"
5. Move out of my parents' house
6. Decorate a room the way that I really want to
7. Make something for my future home
8. Shoot a gun (that one actually scares me...)
9. Get a "real" job
10. Learn a new skill
11. Paint a piece of furniture
12. Have a theme party (perhaps "Nightmare Before Christmas"?)
13. Make and send holiday cards
14. Organize a recipe binder of things I can cook well
15. Take sister photos
16. Get a family portrait
17. Cosplay
18. Watch "Gone With the Wind" in one sitting
19. Practice my language skills (Spanish? Korean?)
20. Put fun color in my hair
21. Create a filing system for important documents
22. Take a fun class
23. Learn to sing Korean karaoke
24. Bake GOOD cookies (all by myself!!)
25. Write a letter to my future self
26. Go back to Korea (hopefully with a job there, but I'll settle for a vacation)
27. Tour Portland Shanghai Tunnels
28. Go to New York
29. Buy a car
30. Learn a new song on the piano

In several of my classes, we've talked about the importance of effort leading to success: teaching students that effort leads to success helps them take control of their life and see that success is not an innately born trait of the academically smart. Rather, success can often be the result of a choice to work hard, put in the time and effort needed to reach a goal. Part of this would be getting students to set their own goals and work towards them. This is something I also want to model for my students: continually setting goals and working towards attaining them.


Some of the things are life milestones (moving out), others more fun and silly (learning to sing Korean Karaoke), but all of the things on this list are things that I want to be able to accomplish before I turn 30 years old. Making and attaining goals is something I hope to continue to do throughout my entire life.

Wish me luck!!