Articles from: 2012

Coming home late from work last night I popped two asprin and went to bed early hoping to be able to get up early for my flight tomorrow … which I suppose I did since I got up at 1 and wasn’t able to fall back asleep.  I could try to sleep on the plane but that never really worked too well before and I was hoping I could spend that time watching a movie, playing a game, or attempting some crosswords which I’ve saved up (productive stuff).  I’ve been having these nagging pangs of nostalgia and coupled with late nights at work I suppose I have a lot on my mind.  Actually none of the work stuff is really bothersome, although it is exhausting.  When I first started working here I wanted to try to achieve a good work life balance which I noticed some people had a hard time achieving and I can slowly see myself becoming one of those people. The other day I was talking to my coworker about Things I’d Love to Ask the Presidential Candidates That Wouldn’t At All Be Useful like “How would you counsel someone who has social anxiety?” and “What does a carburetor do?” just to see what they’d say.  Maybe I could ask when the last time they felt nostalgia.  I get the impression that nostalgia is supposed to be sentimental thoughts about the happy past, but for me it colors things so happy that I feel sad that I can’t go back to them.  I guess that’s why I like time travel movies so much. In case anyone is wondering, a carburetor is the thing in the car that mixes fuel and air which in turn controls the speed of the engine, unlike what my coworker Sean said which was something that berates cars (har har).

I’m headed out to DC tomorrow for the Society of Actuaries’ Associate Professionalism Course, the last step (hopefully) to getting my first set of credentials as an actuary.  I’ve noticed whenever I travel I tend to clean up right before I leave so everything from my bedroom to my cubicle at work to my rental car is spotless.  I’m not sure why I do this.  Maybe, to give a last good impression in case I die during my trip.  “That Theo guy was so clean…”  Maybe I should lay out my guitar and some artwork and bake some cookies and have some 50 pound dumbbells laying around, and have all my DP textbooks open and so they’ll be really impressed.  “What a productive guy . . . and those biceps!  Who knew…”  I guess it’s nice to come back to a clean room and a clean desk so maybe that’s it, but I come back to those things on a daily basis and I don’t clean my room all the time so… hmm.  Maybe I just do it to make it easier for the next guy to live in my room, car, desk if I don’t come back. The reason for my rental car is that I got into a big car accident last Monday.  I think my car is totaled, but thankfully no one was hurt.  I’m not sure what my next car is going to be, but definitely not a red Camero as my coworker suggested.  I tend to like hatchbacks and wagons, so I was contemplating the cheap Kia Soul, but I’ll probably just go for another Fit.  Maybe white this time.

I worked out twice today: once at the gym downstairs at work with the barbell and once making this lentil curry.  The amount of mixing and chopping I had to do to make this concoction was a little more than I anticipated (peeling 8 cloves of garlic took me forever).  I guess at the supermarket I decided to just double the recipe so now I have two gallons of this stuff left over to tide me over for the rest of the year.  Since it’s in the 90s inside with the a/c off to save money, maybe I can close my eyes and pretend I’m in India.  Hmm, now I’m kinda wondering how long I can go eating this stuff but they say everything is tasty when you’re hungry. My roommate is pretty good at cooking and he can just throw tasty things together on a whim.  I wish I could do that but for now I’m stuck following a recipe (when it says to grate 3 inches of garlic root, I have to get a ruler just to be sure… ).  And it called for orange sweet potatoes… isn’t that just yams?  There were some items like chard I had to look up to know what they were.  I guess I’m a food noob.

My model is leaving for the bay area!  Her last day at work is this Friday, but we were able to take a few more photos of this weeks theme, straw hats. Straw hats seem to be popular at the office to protect the face.  I remember when I was in middle school I used to lie on the carpet at home and expose my legs to the sunlight coming in through the windows hoping they would become more tan and attractive.  Not quite sure what I was thinking back then.  Anyway, I was able to get a few shots of my other fellow actuaries too, who seemed good sports about having their photo taken. With her leaving, it looks like I might have to find some other hobby — I don’t think I’ll find someone as enthusiastic about dressing up and posing.  It was a fun little thing to look forward to, and I learned what kitten heels are.

Phew!  Was at the office until 11 last night and I’ll have to go in a bit to work and hopefully get in some studying.  Here’s the last of my “lace” photos:

I’m really tempted to submit one of these awkward gems:

Awkward Fashion Photos! A million dollar idea! And I have so many of these…

Some data wasn’t ready yesterday so tonight might be a long night.  I went to bed a little late yesterday too, around 2.  Some people in my small group like to stay up late talking.  When I was younger my dad had people over for dinner and they would stay up long hours talking and I couldn’t imagine why they’d just sit there talking when they could be playing video games or something.  I mean they’re just sitting there!  How fun could that be?  My ten year old brain couldn’t quite wrap itself around the idea that talking and hanging out with adults could be remotely fun. Back then, taking photos of women’s clothing would probably fall in that same category…

I’ve been working on a hedgehog painting at home (with Cookie occasionally keeping me company).  I guess I’m always a few years behind the times because I just started using Spotify to listen to music while I work and listening to random cover songs (my favorite kind of music lately) like Boyce Avenue / Kira Grannis’ Fast Car and Vitamin String Quartet’s Breakeven.  It saves me the trouble of having to scour youtube to find music but I get the impression it really wants you to post on Facebook what you’re listening to and send your friends links to songs, which I inadvertently did.  I mean, who posts links to songs (like to Sam Tsui’s How to Love)?!? This week’s street style subject is lace.  Vashti is finding this inspiring and promises other outfits later this week.

I’m starting to get a lot faster at taking these Street Style photographs.  Or maybe I’m just becoming more indifferent about my camera settings.  I can’t really tell.

I just woke up to an erie dream where I had just finished my five year stint as an undercover agent posing as a steward on an airplane (we just caught the bad guy) and as I was saying goodbye to a particular stewardess she wrapped her arms around my leg and I said “there, there, one day you’ll be saying goodbye too” after which severe nostalgia over all our non-existent times together dropped to my stomach and I woke with the lights on.  I thought it was quite the bizarre feeling since I’ll probably never see this mystery stewardess in a dream again. What’s weird is that afterwards I started thinking people I’ll probably never see again, and even people I do see on a regular basis, and I started to miss certain old memories of them.  But I guess you don’t miss them right away.  Like today, my friend Vincent and I watched the documentary Wordplay together in the living room before church (and even managed to figure out most of the crafty long answers to the Sunday puzzle; spolier) and I definitely don’t miss that time now but give it a few years and who knows.

Kinda tough getting the collar to be more conspicuous.  I’m glad that Vashti is enthusiastic about doing this.  I don’t think I could ever wear a bow tie (but if the theme of the week is ever Uninteresting Polo, I’ll be all over that).

My photo made the New York Times! I kinda liked my other submissions more, though:   I have exactly 0 spring scarves so I’m glad my coworker, Vashti, was into this.  I think I took way more photos than necessary.  My current method of photography is spray and pray.