monkey nonsense

since graduating from college, i feel like i’ve been walking around aimlessly with no real goals in life.  sure, having a crappy first job didn’t help (oh boy, i really want to work hard at mouse clicking so i can move up to become head mouse clicker… yea, not real motivation), but even now with a much, much better job… i still feel like i accomplish nothing every day.  i go to work, i come home, i eat, i goof off, i sleep.  and then i repeat.  it’s a nice feeling to accomplish something at work, but then outside of work, i feel like i don’t do anything with my time.  granted, it’s lots of fun to goof off and to sleep a lot.

i tried to pick up hobbies/learn stuff – harmonica, guitar, knitting, snowboarding, nerdy computer stuff, cooking.  none have really stuck.  what do you guys do with all your time?

it’s 2:30am in the morning and i’m sitting on my bed eating cookies (yes, eating cookies in bed!!)

my roommate made these awesome, AWESOME chocolate chip (even some white chocolate chips!) walnut cookies that are soooo moist it’s like they just came out of the oven (‘cept they’re cool temperature-wise). with apologizes to my sister’s baking of aunt dora’s chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, these are BY FAR the best cookies i’ve ever had. i could just eat a plateful of these cookies and not get sick! OR need milk! i’m not a big milk and chocolate chip cookie eater… perhaps it’s the lactose-intolerance talking. that’s why… “moisture is the essence of wetness”… er, i mean moisture is KEY. that’s why these cookies trump aunt dora’s cookies (which tend to be harder because of the oatmeal).

i gotta say… i’ve had incredibly good luck with cookie baking roommates. first julie’s molasses cookies and now talida’s chocolate chip walnut cookies.

in mr. milne’s science class in 7th grade, we took some career learning tests or something or rather. i remember learning that i was a haptic learning? (apparently, they don’t use that term anymore… it’s kinesthetic or something or rather now) more importantly, the career test told me that my interests were aligned with science/engineering.

how wrong they were. it told me that my top three professions were agricultural engineer, architect, and scientist. first off… scientist?! it doesn’t even specify what type of science i should go into! secondly, none of them really were what i was interested in… in fact, they still aren’t that interesting to me. that test was way off.

but perhaps the most beneficial thing i learned from that career test was about the career of air traffic controller! the test also gave you this huge all-inclusive list of all careers known to mankind (or just a lot) and information about what was needed to get into that career. i remember scanning the list of careers which did not require college (i know, i know… even at that young of an age, i was already so ambitious!) there weren’t many careers that didn’t require college but one of them stood out…

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER!!

for the next 4 years, i was obsessed with air traffic controlling. granted, for a long time, i thought it was those guys who wear the headphones on the runway waving little flags… but still! i was really interested in becoming an air traffic controller! i even found a computer game where you could pretend to be an air traffic controller and help planes to land and take off.

it was after playing that game that i realized i probably couldn’t be an air traffic controller (apparently, i sent 2 planes to the same altitude and had them nearly hit each other… the game simulated accident reports. later on, another plane ran out of gas circling the airport as i attended to other planes first. dude, it’s hard to juggle so many planes at once!), but some times i wonder if i wasted $198391895819819 on college, when i could’ve been an air traffic controller (or head cashier at k-mart…)

then today… i read this article … $105,820 !!!!!!!

i so should’ve become an air traffic controller!!

in 1997-1998, during my sophomore year of high school, i first heard of el nino.

i remember liking the sound of the words el nino.  i had no idea what el nino did (supposedly a milder winter!  but i don’t even remember what that was like… i’m going to say it was mild because i recall having slurpees during drivers ed which i took over winter break that year.  anyhoo…) i used to write el nino everywhere!  in particular, every time we had a test in parsons’ bio class and she brought out the dividers to divide the tables, i remember writing “el nino!” somewhere on the dividers.  i think someone told me senior year when they took another parsons class, they saw all these el ninos! still around.

well, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration just announced he’s back!

so happy el nino!

washington post had a headline today that made me scratch my head… can you spot it?

religiosity?!?  is that even a word?!  i mean, i can certainly guess at what the word means, but i’ve never heard of such a word!
dictionary.com has a definition for it… but m-w.com doesn’t!  have you ever heard of it?

ever since i was a kid, i’ve had a problem with breathing while sleeping. if i lie too level on the bed, my nose will start to stuff up and i can’t breathe.

when i was a kid, i used to stack all my stuffed animals (sorry george) on top of my pillow to elevate my head more. i tried vicks vapor run… no good. those vicks sticks that smell so strong… just temporary relief. my parents even took me to a doctor during one particularly annoying stretch of not being able to breathe. the doctor recommended some nasal spray… that didn’t work.

over the years, i’ve gotten used to tossing and turning at night to breathe… that seems to help (someone also told me something like if you’re sleeping on your left, it’s likely the left nostril is the blocked one and if you simply flip to the other side, that the nostril will clear up (and vice versa)? eh… some times it works). i also some times sleep with my mouth open so i can breathe through it, tho that dries my mouth and throat a lot. then there’s always sitting up. i think my breathing problem is the reason why i actually will sit up in the middle of the night and sometimes, because i’m half a sleep, end up changing the direction of my head.

in any case, yesterday night, while at CVS picking up some other stuff, i saw breathe right! they’re these band-aid like strips you put on the nose and it’s supposed to clear the nasal passages.  they’re supposed to help with snoring, sinus, and allergies.  i remember wanting to get them for my dad (a big snorer) but then thought perhaps they might help my own sleeping problems!

they did!!!!

i love breathe right! (or the CVS equivalent!) anyone else with nose sleeping problems, i highly recommend it! i wonder if it helps with snoring… i’ll try on my dad