Recruiter Vs. My Mom: Round 1

As some of you may know I intend on joining the U.S. Navy as a commissioned officer.

So my recruiter came to the house today to have me sign some paperwork. And she met my mother. If ever I needed motivation for suicide... ha ha ha... ha ha ha kidding!

...

Now For those of you who have met my mother, you know she is sometimes not so good with "the people." Especially the people she thinks may be conservative. So firstly, instead of knowing how to address Chief Juliet Snell, NCC Navy Recruiter NRD New England, she called her "girlfriend." As in "girlfriend! What are all those buttons for?" (by buttons she was referring to Chief Snell's 12 Naval Medals, including a distinguished service ribbon, a good conduct ribbon, a global war on terrorism medal, and a humanitarian service medal for her work during both Katrina and some flooding somewhere. That's 12 not including duplicates. 20 years of service and my mom calls her "girlfriend."

Oh and my mom tries to get Chief Snell to let my mother wear her hat. Which I just have to say was ENTIRELY DISTRACTING while I'm signing paperwork. So distracting in fact, that I misspelled MY OWN NAME. TWICE. Yeah, devastated.

Enjoy my pathetic life! I can only hope the Navy takes pity on me by making me an officer candidate after putting me through so much paperwork. I mean, I have a recommendation from a United Nations Ambassador. My application does kind of kick ass.

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

My Reading List

Today I will talking about my reading list of books mostly because it is piled up on my desk and is in my way. Since I kind of hate reading fiction, and haven't been reading the books piled up next to my bed on my desk, talking about it will push me into actually reading the books.

They are:
Catch-22, which I am 48 pages into. I already know what the Catch-22 IS and therefore don't need to read anymore of this book. But I don't want to skip to another book until I'm done with this one. So it's first on my list.
Out of Africa
The Power Broker
Watership Down
Cinematic Royalty and Dark Hollywood Nights, which was written by a friend of mine from H.S.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
The Master and Margarita... I've read the first 100 pages of this and I got um... distracted that summer... but it's been three years and I'm going to try it again.

I would also like to add that ANX has decided to SUCK today and is down to $0.11, which I am not happy about. I am going to hold, and maybe this whole thing will turn around. OR I will lose my investment capital as it decreases to zero... you know, whatever. Learning experience. Thing of it is, at $0.11 I'm surprised people aren't buying in like mad. Especially because they're getting their act together on that de-listing thing.

Yeah I know. I'm going to lose all my money. But it's cool. It was only a couple thousand shares. I should keep talking about it, now it's at $0.1187! Go fancy interactive blog go!

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

Letting Go of the Lobster

This past Memorial Day weekend my mother decided to have lavish lobster dinner (because the lobster was 6.99 a pound, not THAT lavish).

In order to combat sentiments of omnivore hypocrisy, I felt that it was necessary for me to kill my own meal. After boiling the water, I took my lobster out of the bag, and really struggled with putting it in the pot. I had a conversation with the lobster about it being quick and painless and him joining his long lost lobster love in lobster heaven.

After the lobster tried to claw me, only then did I feel his death was justified as "revenge." I stared into his little lobster eyes and counted to three and dunked him in head first, hopefully to his instant death.

How to cook a lobster:
1. buy lobster
2. boil big pot of water
3. put lobster in head first to minimize lobster pain
4. cook 9 minutes per pound
5. eat lobster with butter and side dishes like baked potato, corn on the cob or salad for you healthy people.

I ended up not even eating him, I ate the other lobster. I couldn't eat my lobster, because of the guilt associated with his death.

This experience has in no way hardened me enough to join the armed forces. Just to be clear I am not planning on killing anything else to prepare myself for the marines, it simply makes me think maybe I'm too wimpy.

I did however run five miles on Monday, and felt very motivated by the idea of being a reservist while doing so. In the past few week's I've been going between 3.5 and 4.5 miles and never did 5, so it was really exciting to reach that mark.

In regards to this reservist plan, other things like the Peace Corps, and my top secret "Plan A" (ooooh a blog with mystery!), are still in motion so I plan to talk to a recruiter and see what my options are, but I'm not signing up before I know the results of the other options.

We should end this with something upbeat and funny. *fake fart noise* Too juvenile?

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya