The Special People Club

My goodness. I'm watching/listening to the White House Correspondent's Dinner on CSPAN online, and GOOD LORD Stephen Colbert is on FIRE! The nervous laughter in the room is unbelievable. He's being pointed and critical and completely biting. He's saying all sorts of things that need to be said, both regarding the Bush Administration and the complacent reporting of the last few years. He's saying what every liberal has been DYING to say to someone in power. It's unbelievable. These things are usually good-natured ribbing, like some sort of Dean Martin roast from the 70's. But Colbert is actually saying things that are too based in truth to be funny to the audience. He is king. Long live Stephen Colbert!

Since I don't do much anymore except study and work, I've found my blogs are turning into daily/weekly/semi-monthly updates rather than actual posts about subjects. Sorry. I promise to be more interesting after exams. In fact, by next weekend I'll have my travels to write about, so maybe you'll get one entry that's not a day of the week soon! But for today, it's just a bit of an update on things. Had school yesterday. It was review stuff, plus some info on the next few terms. I've been keeping a tally, and it is official...at least once in every weekend of classes, someone says something really negative about George Bush to substantiate the worst-case scenario of something we're discussing. Sometimes it's the lecturer, sometimes it's a student contribution. It is never me, although you can imagine that I usually want to second the statement. I don't. Mostly because I don't think a public forum like this is the place to do it. If som...

Time for a quick update: My partially severed thumb has healed nicely, and though still a bit sore it looks like I just ripped the nail, rather than cleavered it. My hair is freaky long by Mindy standards. I can put it in a pony-tail. It's longer than Ace's on American Idol. My mom and dad sent me peeps for Easter, a few of which I enjoyed at home before taking them into the office. You'd think I'd brought in chocolate covered ants. Brits had no idea. Of course, they sell marshmallows year round here as candy, and they don't even make them into shapes. I've noticed that British people seem to have more kids than people in the states. I'd say three - four is common here, in all social classes. Seems odd. I treated myself to two new uke song books. One is full of Christmas carols to prepare for the holidays, and the other is called, "60's Uke-In," and I've already been working on When I'm Sixty Four and Build Me Up, Buttercup . Jam ...

What a week. Had to write an Accounting WAC this week. (WAC stands for "Written Analysis of Case.") My task was compute key performance ratios from the annual statements of Ryanair and easyJet and decide which was a better midterm investment. Accounting has been a difficult subject for me. In theory, I should be fine at this. I have always been a math person, and I am good at questioning and analyzing. But I'm so not used to doing things like this. Let's just say it's been a struggle. So I spent a lot of time on it. Others on my team did the ratios, and I then did them on my own to check my work. (I did fine.) I read the annual reports and pulled all sorts of interesting info out of them. Basically, the Ryanair CEO is an aggressive guy who's out there pissing people off and making enemies and doing anything to make a buck. (As anyone who's flown Ryanair will tell you.) The easyJet CEO is new...he did a turn-around for the RAC recently, and now he...

Today there is an albino pigeon on the roof next door. It feels like this should be lucky or something. I think I'll make a wish, just in case.

When I got to work on Monday, I had an email telling me that I had a presentation to do in Paris on Wednesday. Cool, I thought! Paris! I haven't been to Paris in years! I tried to connect with my colleague who owns the account all day Monday, but to no avail. No problem, I thought. Tuesday I saw her in the hall in the AM, and we promised to speak. I started making my slides, putting together the presentation, and by 8 PM we were set. I was crazy hungry, and so when I got home I immediately started work on my chicken and bok choy soup. I had gone to Ikea on Monday and bought a better knife. Wasn't used to using it. You can guess the rest....cleavering the bok choy I cleavered my left thumb something horrible. I had a gusher coming out...it was horrible. Positively grisly with the red coating of blood all over my hand. Ran upstairs and got things under control. I'd sliced through my nail and part of my thumb, but there was no way to stitch this thing...it was mostly nailb...

My friend Brad arrived Shortly after my last post. Hooray! A new guest! He brought me pickles, Surstromming , and berry snus . The pickles were great. We went to Scotland So Brad could see the UK. It rained. Constantly. We took my Audi Through the hills, along the coast. The drive was lovely. Glaswegians chew gum and spit it on the sidewalk. They're full of gum dots. I like museums But Brad is not keen on them. We walked. In the rain. We had a Guinness At the longest bar in town. And we had snus, too. We walked. In the rain. Brad peed in a dark alley Whilst I talked to Tim. I wanted chinese. Brad ate prawn crackers and lived. No hives or choking. The rain didn’t stop. We saw the country by car. It was a bummer. The hotel desk clerk Told us to try a curry. Brad plugged the loo there. Brad liked all the sheep But did not “help them over The fence”, as they say. Once Brad left, school called. I wrote three major papers In three short d...