A cunning plan!

In the not all that remote future I will be out there, looking for employment. I've decided on a very clever course of action, should someone be foolish enough to not be dazzled by my considerable charm and decide to actually reject me:

Dear ......,

Thank you for your letter rejecting my application for employment with your firm.

I have received rejections from an unusually large number of well qualified organizations. With such a varied and promising spectrum of rejections from which to select, it is impossible for me to consider them all. After careful deliberation, then, and because a number of firms have found me more unsuitable, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your rejection.

Despite your company’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet with my requirements at this time. As a result, I will be starting employment with your firm on the first of the month.

Circumstances change and one can never know when new demands for rejection arise. Accordingly, I will keep your letter on file in case my requirements for rejection change.

Please do not regard this letter as a criticism of your qualifications in attempting to refuse me employment. I wish you the best of luck in rejecting future candidates.

Sincerely,

Choochoo

All you need to know

Me, myself and I.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’m going to leave the exciting world of the 20-something and become a 30. I know that this is supposed to be either a big deal or something that depresses the hell out of you, but I can’t say I’ve had many feelings directed towards it. It’s going to be a regular sort of family-thing, nothing that I need to think deep thoughts about. That is, until mention of a potential birthday activity came up.

Stripaerobics.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for exercise and family togetherness. I have no problem with stripaerobics. I understand it's all the rage. However, if I’m going to watch the mums and the step-sibling wiggle around, burlesque style I will have to develop a second personality call Joe and become a homosexual trucker in Alaska.

So… tomorrow is my birthday. Wish me luck.

Writing in water

When former astronaut Neil Armstrong returned from space, he said that “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”

There are moments in life when we realize that something leaves us, most likely to never return. We’ll never again be able to restore some day or period of our life. Memories only stay in the confines of our minds, where they’re inevitable altered into something they never were or maybe fade away altogether. That particular epiphany can make you feel a bit like you’re staring at Earth from outer space.

So I have come to two conclusions, as a result of this philosophising:

1) Living is a bit like writing in water.

2) Blogging is a bit like farting in space.

Today I bring you.. english mysteries

Why is it that when we transport something by car, it's called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it's called cargo?

Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists?

In what other language do thay call the third hand on the clock the second hand?

In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?

Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall?

Why is it called a TV set when you get only one?

Why - in this crazy language - can your nose run and your feet smell?

Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane:

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume?

A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings.

But fingers don't fing and grocers don't groce.

If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth?

If the teacher taught, why isn't it also true that the preacher praught?

If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why are shameless and shameful behavior the same?

English is a language in which you can turn a light on and you can turn a light off and you can turn a light out, but you can't turn a light in

In which the sun comes up and goes down, but prices go up and come down.

In which your nose can simultaneously burn up and burn down and your car can slow up and slow down, in which you can fill in a form by filling out a form and in which your alarm clock goes off by going on.

English is a crazy language. What is it that when the sun or the moon or the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible?; and why when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I shall end it?

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet-engines

My thesis was officially finished and handed in for evaluation by my thesis advisor a few days ago and I am one step closer to being a real, live grown-up with a real, live masters degree. One small step for man-kind, one giant leap for Choochoo.

On second thought, I’m so surrounded (buried) in boxes, I probably can’t even manage a small skip right now, let alone a leap, giant or otherwise.

In a few short weeks I’ll officially be a molecular biologist. Who’d have thunk it. No, seriously. I nearly flunked science in high school. I think the only reason why I didn’t was because my teacher felt sorry for me.

But I digress. Not that digressing isn’t something that happens a lot around here, and you should all be well used to this by now.

But I digress again.

When I was a kid, I was ambitious on the verge of insanity. For my sixth birthday, the only thing I really wanted was a briefcase. I was bottle-fed episodes of LA Law, I dreamt of becoming a lawyer, just like the ones on TV, and I kept that idea right up until the time came for me to start applying for colleges. That was when it finally occurred to me that an urge to wear power suits and carry a briefcase probably wasn’t the best basis for a career choice.

I then focused on the second thing on my list of obsession: forensic psychology. I’ve always had a weird fascination with the criminally insane. Not so much that I’d want to get together and drink cosmopolitans with them on a Saturday night, but I wouldn’t be opposed to prodding around inside their minds under less intimate circumstances.

The following year I went to university on a scholarship, determined to become the world’s greatest forensic psychologist. Determined right up until the point where the professor walked in on our very first lecture and said: “You will not become good psychologists if you study here.” He then continued to explain that we wouldn’t be given the option to specialize unless we chose to complete our full educations abroad and even if we wanted to become general psychologists (which I didn’t) we would still have to graduate with honors and then wait for as much as five years before we would be allowed past the first year of the study. Needless to say that was a bit of a motivation-killer. Perhaps the system has changed since then, but that was the way it was at the time.

There’s a part of me that still wants to be a criminal profiler, but I do think that viruses and such can be every bit as cool as a serial killer, in their own special way.

Oh dear, I’ve digressed again, haven’t I? I meant for this to be a post on growing up and living up to your ambitions. My point was that, although I might have fancied myself an eagle when I was a child and although I am still very much a career girl at heart, I would rather not be sucked into a jet engine.

I've learned

I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.
I've learned that no matter how much I care, some people just don't care back.
I've learned that it takes years to build up trust and only seconds to destroy it.
I've learned that it's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.
I've learned that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes, after that, you'd better know something.

I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do.
I've learned that it's not what happens to people, it's what they do about it.
I've learned that no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.
I've learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you'll see them.
I've learned that you can keep going long after you think you can't.

I've learned that heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.
I've learned that there are people, who love you dearly, but just don't know how to show it.
I've learned that sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.
I've learned that true friendship continues to grow even over the longest distance same goes for true love.
I've learned that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

I've learned that no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
I've learned that it isn't always enough to be forgive by others, sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.
I've learned that no matter how bad your heart is broken, the world doesn't stop for your grief.
I've learned that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.
I've learned that just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other and just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.

I've learned that sometimes you have to put the individual ahead of their actions.
I've learned that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.
I've learned that no matter the consequences, those who are honest with themselves get farther in life.
I've learned that your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don't even know you.
I've learned that even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help.

I've learned that writing, as well as talking, can ease emotional pains.
I've learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon.
I've learned that it's hard to determine where to draw the line between being nice and not hurting people's feelings and standing up for what you believe.
I've learned to love and be loved.
I've learned.

For Zan and Sanneh

I've spent most of the day going through sad goodbye sorta songs to do this post. But then I settled on this. If it wasn't for this song, none of us would have met in the first place.

I'm moving to Mars next week, so if you have any boxes...

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to live on a hill with grassy fields and trees and stuff. This was a big deal to me. Hills always looked sunnier and warmer than anywhere else, even in the dead of winter when everything was dark and frigid. For the past year, I have lived on a hill. I have learned something: hills are overrated.

Nobody ever builds anything of any real importance on top of a hill. Then everyone who doesn’t live on the hill would have to climb it in order to get to whatever-it-is. Let’s face it – sivil wars have started over less than that.

I also noticed something else odd… Ever since I moved up the hill, my food budget has swelled out of all proportion and no matter how much time I spent pondering this mystery, it remained just that; a mystery. Until this morning, when I suddenly experienced a brainflash.

It’s the hill.

See, whenever I need to do anything outside the house, the something that I need to do is always below the hill. So I need to go down the hill to get there, then drag my carcass back up to get here. Clearly I need more fuel in order to pull this off. Actually, things like grocery shopping makes it worse. First I need to buy food in order to eat food so that I can make it up and down the hill, but the more weight I carry, the more fuel I’m gonna need, so then I have to buy more groceries, which leads to more weight being carried and so on and so forth. It’s an evil circle, really.

Good thing I’m moving now, before I’m faced with financial ruin…

Today's theme song: