Convert to islam, repent later

I was going to title this post "Too boring to blog" But then I stumbled upon this movie quote and like it better.

It's been a year since I joined the Navy, and it's amazing how much and how little has happened since then. All in all it's been an adventure, but my day-to-day life is pretty routine and boring.

The hardest thing has been learning Arabic. I've always considered myself a linguist; interested in language for the sake of language. But boy am I in love with Japanese. Even while I'm sitting in class taking notes in arabic, I'm still daydreaming in Japanese two years after graduating college and saying good-bye to that language. Sigh.

It's not the I hate arabic. I'm just not in love with it. But I'm trying really really hard.

I've even started to read a few english-language blogs about living in various middle eastern countries, and I've dipped into reading non-fiction books about Iraq. (It's hard to get into though, since they are all political/ War related. )

I've ordered a few arabic-related books from amazon too, not wanting to rely totally on the base library, so maybe I'll post about those when they come in the mail ^^;;

Anyway, just wanted to poke the blog and commemorate/commiserate a little.

اشوفك بعدين

Watching stuff

Dear Blog,

As suspected, popcorn from the small bag does not taste as good as popcorn from the large tub. Despite knowing full well that the popcorn comes from the same place, I continue to strongly believe this. Saw Cowboys and Aliens today and had sub-par popcorn from a small bag. Hmmmm. Loved the movie though. Everything about it just made me want to smile and dance with glee!

There was this REALLY COOL looking trailer for a new cop show called Prime Suspects that played in the theatre. I can't describe to you how awesome this trailer looked, and I spent hours trying to find it on-line afterwards, but all I could find were these other trailers that were basically just bits and pieces from the show, and I was really disappointed. Really? Another cop show where the whole first season is a winey emo rhapsody about the glass ceiling? Aren't we past that yet? Snore. It doesn't bother me that you can't turn on the TV without finding YET ANOTHER cop-show with all female leads, but do they have to try so hard? Do people actually find this kind of soap-boxing to be good entertainment? I couldn't see a single spark of awesome in any of the trailers I saw on-line, and that makes me sad.

uber

What makes me more sad is true blood. I recently went on a true blood rampage and watched the first 3 seasons (off itunes) and now I'm DESPERATELY looking for a way to watch season 4. Season 4 is airing right now on HBO, and there are NO on-line viewing options for people who don't have cable. There aren't even any decent illegal options, which is depressing, and I have a sinking suspicion that itunes wont get season 4 until the DVD release. :( I don't want to shell out $50 bucks a month and commit to a 2-year contract just so that I can stream true blood Via the new 'online' options that you can get with your cable subscription, because seriously? That's a bit much. But what else am I supposed to do? Grr. I hate this >.<

I remember when hulu was awesome and had a whole bunch of stuff worth watching. What happened to that?

San Fran weekend

Dear blog. Hi!!

Wow, I don't post here nearly as much as I thought I would. And I'm so super busy these days! Half of my to-do list never gets check off, and I'm not really keeping in touch with my out-of-state friends and family very well either :/ Meh.

This past weekend, BFF Tabby's parents were in town. Yay! Her parents are awesome, and she let me tag along with them. We ate at california pizza kitchen which I love, and I got them all to play Munchkin with me... it's an awesome game and the rules themselves aren't exactly complicated.... there are just so many different directions the game can go and it gets confusing teaching it to new people while trying to brush up on the rules at the same time >.< Still it was fun. Saturday we drove up to San Francisco .... Pros : It was a lovely scenic trip. I was definitely delightedly to see so much of the pretty scenery.... Cons : Me and cars don't get along and I was motion sick for a large portion of the ride both ways. I don't really mind the discomfort, to me it's worth it, but I hate being such a downer, you know?

We visited the California Academy of Sciences Museum, which was pretty awesome. (my arabic teacher mocked me when I told her that's what I did on my weekend, but I don't care, museums are cool. ) There was a pretty awesome rainforest exhibit that, among other things, but the weather here in Monterey into perspective. My favorite exhibit was the living roof..... I just think the whole concept is freaking cool, and if I ever have the money to build my own house I'm totally building one with a roof like that ^_^

After the museum we went to the Japanese tea garden across the street and I got to drink tea and eat little miniature rice balls. I also bought a pretty - but over priced - Japanese style tea cup. (the tall cylinder kind, not the short little tea cup kind. )

I couldn't help myself! I miss Japanese soooo much.

Don't get me wrong, arabic is an awesome language, and I'm pretty sure I'll get a huge kick out of it once we move on to the more advanced grammar (right now pretty much all we're doing is learning massive amounts of vocab, which is a necessary but boring step in language learning. )

But there is definitely some culture-shock going on with me right now, and I miss Japan :( sigh.

Anyway. The weekend was pretty awesome. Tabby's mom brought several bags of grandma Utz' kettle chips, which are my FAVORITE thing ever - and not sold anywhere here in CA. AND Tabby got her car, which means we are freeeeeeee.

We can go anywhere we want anytime! To prove it we even went an a mini shopping spree today after class. We went shopping on a TUSEDAY. BAHAHAHAHA...... ahaha.

Also, not sure if I mentioned this before, but I joined choir. o.0;; It's frustrating bc everyone else seems to know what they are doing and I feel like a complete idiot trying to sing with my voice cracking and not being able to read sheet music ect, but in theory I like singing....and nobody is outright laughing at me and telling me I'm a lost cause.... so I'm going to slog through it for awhile.

I'm reading a couple of books right now (three at once. hehe. ADD much?) And I'm almost done with all of Charmed, so.... You might get a media rant out of me soonish :)

'cheers

THEO

Yay me...

Dear blog,

I'm up and dressed, I've showered and eaten. I've even done my homework and gone to the library. So why do I feel so guilty?

MEH.

Dear diary,

I am sitting at my desk knitting and watching Grey's Anatomy. I'm knitting even though I told myself that I would finish my HW today so that I wouldn't have to think about it during the rest of my four day 'holiday'. I'm 50 words into this 150 word self-introduction I'm supposed to be writing in arabic, and it's not as if I can't think of anything to say or that I don't have the right vocab to say it, because I do. It's just that I'm so not into it right now. I'm tired and I just want to rest and not think about anything.

This week was rough. I broke my TV fast and stayed up until at least 1am every night on netflix, and obviously I couldn't focus in class. I gave myself caffeine poisoning by drinking five cups of coffee before lunch, so then I had to switch to soda this week and it really isn't the same thing at all. I'm finally losing all ability to eat the food at the kiosk, and now just the sight of it makes me want to throw up. So yes, I'm enjoying my long weekend and knitting and not writing arabic essays.

On friday night Tabby and I went to California Pizza kitchen. We've started this thing where we are going to try every pizza on the menu, and since this past Friday makes our 3rd such visit, I feel the time is right to finally blog about it.

Our first pizza was the BBQ Chicken Pizza, and it was amazing. I must admit I was a little skeptical, after all I've always thought that BBQ sauce on pizza was an abomination before god, but it was amazing. After that we had The Greek. I picked it mostly because it said 'feta cheese' on the menu and I love feta cheese, plus I was kinda craving salad and this pizza had fresh tomatoes and cucumbers that were put on it AFTER it was cooked. It was soooo good. The cheese, the combination of the hot pizza and the cold veggies, and the combination of the soft crust and the crunchy cucumber. It was so so good. Of course, it was also drizzled with greek yogurt which I'm not really a fan of, but on this pizza it worked.

And this friday we had the chipotle chicken. Mildly spicy, with beans and salsa that left your tongue numb.... it was SO good.

Of course, as much as I like the pizza, there are other good things there too. For instance when we went on friday, the first thing we noticed was that the menu had been changed. I ordered a shrimp appetizer that was crunchy and spicy and brand new.

I also am testing out the drinks menu but thats a completely different story. When Tabby ordered dessert the waitress asked if I wanted a second drink, I hesitated for a split second and decided that instead of a second mojito, what I really wanted was an irish coffee. OMG. Was that ever the right decision. I felt GREAT after that. Went home and the next morning I did two loads of laundry, saw how gray and foggy it was outside, and decided to go back to bed. I made flash cards and watched TV in bed all day.

Today, Tabby and I went out. We walked all over, we walked down franklin street, we shopped in cannery row and got ice cream at fishermen's wharf. We sat on the beach, stuck our feet in the icy cold water, and found super cheap flip flops at wallgreens. Then, after months of deliberation, I walked into a music store and put a deposit down on a violin. It's a little more expensive than the ones that I was looking at on-line, and I'm not 100% sure that it's better, but I liked the store. It had a nice vibe, and Brian was super friendly. Buying it from the store felt right, it means I have a place to go if I need repairs or have questions, and they do violin lessons on sundays. They have multiple violin teachers. How great is that? They had to order my violin because they didn't have adult sized ones in stock, but I'm super excited, and I've been walking around in the sun all day and I'm tired, and stiff, and so yes, I'm not doing my homework. All I want to do is sit here and watch TV and knit, and you know what? I can't even bring myself to feel guilty about it.

The violin question

I have been talking about learning how to play the violin for a few years now. I can't really stop obsessing over it, and a few weeks ago when I asked the nice lady at Hobson about it, that all got even worse. She said yes, the hobson did have a violin for people to play. I've been excited and nervous ever since. I ordered books on-line and I've been listening diligently to the suzuki book 1 CD. I must admit I've been a little scared to actually take the next step - to actually pick up the violin would be opening myself up to failure, while talk doesn't let you down. I went to the hobson today though, and guess what I found out? They do have a violin, but it's broken. It only has two strings and I got the impression from the employee I talked to that it's condition was old news, and would last indefinitely. I mentioned that I'd never put new strings on a violin before, but asked if it would be OK for me to give it a try if I brought some in, and he said sure. So it seems like my options are :

wait for the violin to be fixed

buy strings and attempt to fix it myself (scary)

give up for now/buy my own violin.

Not sure what I'm gonna do. But I didn't want to waste the trip up there, so I spent two hours playing the suzuki songs on the piano. Might as well work on my sight-reading, right?

A day in the life

The other day was pretty crazy, so crazy that I think I will share it with you. No, not everyday is this crazy, but yes, DLI is hardcore.

0500 : wake up, roll over and try to go back to sleep

0515 : realize that room-mate is already in shower. Jump out of bed and dress hurriedly.

0600 : clean room, check over HW one last time to make sure everything is filled in.

0630 : Muster on the grinder. Endure uniform inspection and try to memorize the passdown. Today is the command run, muster for the run is at 1600. People with 7th hour should bring their PT gear to class and change there. Curses. I have 7th hour.

0700 : go back to room, shove PT gear and shoes into back pack.

0715 : grab an undersized bacon biscuit from the kiosk. Snag an apple pastry and some milk to put in the coffee.

0745 : After making coffee, eating breakfast at the desk in the class room, and taking attendance, turn in everyones homework.

0755-1545 : Class. Ten minute breaks at the end of every hour plus a 1 hour lunch break from 12-1300. Eat lunch in classroom in order to read kindle during break.

1545 : pack up and change into PT gear in the head. Muster on grinder.

1620 : Forward march! the 2 mile 'ish' run goes up the hill, around the hill, past the PFC, past 833, back down the hill and ends up where we started. We take up a whole lane, and it's amusing to jog past all the cars that have been stopped so that we can all pass. We are one huge mass of mustard yellow and navy blue, singing chants that we know only half the words to at the top of our lungs and keeping - for the most part - in step.

At this point I lose track of time. All I know is pain and exhaustion. Left over sub is in my fridge. Eat. Read. Rest.

1730 : Deck clean up.

Then it's homework, more reading, and bed. Room-mate goes to bed at 2100 and I follow an hour later.