[Name Withheld]*

Ode to [Name Withheld]:

Oh, [name withheld], how you terrify me.

If I had a Boggart, it would look like you.

If I were choking to death on a grape, and you were the only person who could give me the Heimlich maneuver, I would die pacing back and forth in front of your office working up the courage to go in.

No, I wouldn't.

I would die at my desk crafting a meticulously polite email asking you if you wouldn't possibly mind saving my life if you had a spare moment and if it wasn't too much of a bother.

And I cited your paper in my thesis.

Riddikulus.

*Because it would be not professional to use his name in a blog post.  Also, I'm afraid if I type it three times, he might magically appear.  Like Beetlejuice. 

An Abomination Worthy of a Blog Post

No, little Tiger.  You have to earn the right to put your shoes on like that.

I was flipping through the channels, and I saw a listing on PBS Kids for something called "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood," and I thought, is that...?  No...they wouldn't. 

But they did.  They made a cheap animated spin-off of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."  Is nothing sacred anymore?  There is nothing antiquated or obsolete about the original live-action show; this is clearly just an attempt to squeeze more money out of a dead childhood icon.

Why can't people leave well enough alone?

How to Ride "The Bus" Like a Hawaiian*

*I use the term "Hawaiian" to mean "lifelong resident of Hawaii," regardless of ancestral origin.

1. Don't give up your seat for anyone.  Not the woman who is obviously struggling to carry an extremely heavy shopping bag.  Not the thousand-year-old Chinese lady.  Not even the blind guy who just got on.
2. Sit in the aisle seat.  Put all of your stuff in the window seat next to you, or better yet, just flaunt its emptiness to all of the people standing who aren't going to attempt to climb over your legs.
3. Stuff too heavy?  Just set it down in the aisle, no problem!
4. Take a load off.  Put your feet up on the seat across from you.  You've had a long day; you deserve it.
5. Be the first person off the bus as soon as it stops, because it's totally a race.  Get up and move to the door even while the bus is still moving.  Make other people stand up and let go of the railings to let you through.  It's okay, it's Hawaii, so obviously everyone surfs and therefore has a great sense of balance.
6. Finally, and most importantly, ride with "Aloha."  That means no matter how much any of the above-mentioned things piss you off, you just smile and deal with it.

Sigh.  Well, it's still cheaper than a car.

6:30 PM

I hate this time of day.

Everyone I could talk to is asleep.  Or should be asleep.

If they aren't asleep, any conversation that could be had would involve me feeling guilty for keeping them up so late, and them insisting that they'd be up anyway, and me not believing them.

Or the conversation would swerve dangerously close to "heartfelt feelings talk" territory.

As a matter of fact, the conversation would only be happening today for one of us.

For them, it's already tomorrow.

But for me, it's still today.  And I still have to do the stairs.

I've got to ignore the temptation of the green robots somehow.

What Should I Call Forensic Anthropology?

When My FORDISC Results Confirm My Race Assessment:

Yet Another List

But this one is relevant!  I'm back on the PhD application train (third time is the charm, right?) and have finally made a list of schools.  I'm not going to bore you blog readers with my entire thought process behind choosing these schools, because really, you don't care (and I'm not going to make my hardcore "pro/con" lists until some of these places actually accept me).  But maybe you do care about the various locations wherein I may find myself next Fall (or at least I'd like to think you do).  So here they are, in alphabetical order, with their pros and cons (and I've only actually been to three of these places, so some of them I'm just making up).

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD)

• Pro:  It's only an hour away from Washington, D.C., Laura Taylor, and Cafe Rio.
• Con:  I'll probably get shot.

Boston University School of Medicine (Boston, MA)

• Pros:  I can navigate the place blindfolded; most of the people I like are there; it's just freaking amazing; UBurger.
• Cons:  I would have said things are expensive, but that was before I moved to the Island of the Six-Dollar Box of Cereal (that's actually what "Oahu" means in Hawaiian).  I got nothing; Boston is absolute perfection.

University of Missouri (Columbia, MO)

• Pro:  Living in Missouri might be kind of cool.
• Con:  Living in Missouri might be kind of lame.

The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH)

• Pro:  It's only a three-hour drive from my parents' house.
• Con:  It's only a three-hour drive from my parents' house.

Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI)

• Pro:  There's a really good Greek Pizza place in East Lansing.
• Con:  The really good Greek Pizza place is pretty much the only thing East Lansing has going for it.

University of Connecticut Health Center (Farmington, CT)

• Pros:  It's New England (i.e. practically Boston); I can pretend I'm friends with the Gilmore Girls.
• Cons:  I have never heard of Farmington, Connecticut before.  And probably neither has anybody else.  

Penn State Hershey (Hershey, PA)

• Pro:  Chocolate.
• Con:  Hershey's Chocolate.

University of Pretoria (Pretoria, South Africa)

• Pros:  How cool would it be to say that I got to live in South Africa?
• Cons:  I will probably get shot more often than I would living in Baltimore.

If anybody has actually been to these places and would like to chip in useful living advice, please comment!

It's a Monday kind of day.

Today is one of those days when I'm far too realistic about all of my goals.  Not about achieving them so much as my motivation for them.  Every little "project" is just some temporary distraction from the fact that I hate it here, and serves no real purpose.

Learn to make Haupia pie?  Why?  So I can eat it by myself when I'm feeling terribly miserable for one reason or another?

Re-learn German?  Let's face it, I'm never going to go to Europe, no matter how much I talk about it.  I'm not that kind of Alexandra.

Climbing all of the stairs in my building to get in excellent shape?  Okay, exercise is good for the ticker, to be sure.  But why do I care what my butt looks like?  So I look cute in a swimsuit when I go to the beach with all of my friends?

I haven't given up hope on the ukulele.  I did fork out $5 for the chord chart, after all.