(no subject)
Alas, it is Tuesday. Only Tuesday. As in, I still have three full days of work this week to endure, plus 90% of today. *sobs*
Can I gleefully violate my vow to not take any ATO this week? Taking a half-day sounds good. No...I should stay. Maybe I can take a few hours off Friday or something. Blah.
God, I don't even have things to ramble about today. And I can't just go read, because I'm burning through Shadow of Man really fast. Granted, it has lots of pictures, but it's fascinating. So, it's going insanely fast. D'oh. Of course, I still have the gigantic Jane Goodall biography to read through, so it's not as though I'm in danger of running out of reading material for the week.
I'd love to send a copy of the book to little Ms. Hibblette. Good god, some of the things she's been saying in that Polygamy thread in OT... For starters, you can tell she knows jack shit about human evolution and primate social groups. Second, her comments about "tribes" and "tribal" this and that! Someone should tell her that anthropology kind of outgrew the whole noble savage ideology a few decades ago, hmm? If I was from a non-western society, I would be horribly offended by some of her comments. It seems like her general philosophy is "Only primatives practice polygamy, dear." Shal got in a good comeback after her stupid "polygamy with multiple wives can never work because women are catty" comment. Teehee. Yeah, paint all women with one brush, huh?
Anyway. Maybe tonight when it's even slower, I can go play on the loan thingy for the credit union. Still haven't quite figured out how it works with no pre-set password...but oh well. If they do one of those give-you-an-approved-loan-amount-certificate-thingy deals, I guess I'll have to start bugging the parents to take me to a few car dealerships on the weekend. The tough part is going to both rely on Dad to do the test driving for me, but not let him pressure me into getting any particular car. He comes from one of those old-fashioned families where the man makes all the decisions, which doesn't work well with the rather independent and stubborn nature of every single woman on Mom's side. I know how much I want to spend, I have a general idea of what kind of car I want, and I know some places to go and some to avoid. He's not moving me from any of that. (He's going to try to talk me into a more expensive car. I know he is. Ain't gonna happen, buddy.)
I'm still tossing around the idea of taking a roadtrip sometime in the fall. Before the weather gets nasty, of course. That would give me a few months to settle in to driving. I guess it's kind of a self-validation that "yes, I really can drive". I wouldn't want to do a terribly long trip, of course. And definitely not west. Newbie driver + mountains = bad things.
I keep trying to convince my stupid parents that there's interesting stuff they could go see for not much money and not much hassle for a vacation this summer. Tulsa's not far away, and if memory serves, there's a big Native American art museum there. Mom would love that. Dad would be bored, but then, Dad doesn't have much in the way of hobbies. Especially since he can't bowl or golf anymore due to his shoulder.
One nice thing is that I've already got a plan for what to get Dad for his birthday. Same thing we bought him for Christmas: Southwest gift card, to help pay to visit his aunt out in Utah. (Actually, I think one more gift card should pay for the whole plane ticket there.) He doesn't have much family left, so (much as aunt Bobbie annoys me with her politics and such) he should go visit them when he can. And she always makes plans to come back here in summer, and then always backs out. Which is just mean. (I think it's less to do with physical limitations and more to do with grandstanding and power manipulation and displays. Which is a mean thing to say about family, but she wasn't raised in KS by the working-class side of the family. She was raised by her aunt, and then married (and divorced) her way up the financial ladder.)
Y'know, that's one thing with Mom that I just never picked up on: her love of history. Me, I get bored by history stuff in about two seconds flat. Don't get me wrong, some museums can be interesting. But as far as watching documentaries and reading history books? Ugh. And the whole fascination with Native American history? Yeah. Don't get it. My interest in that part of history is pretty much confined to the story of Osceola. (Heh. Remember in fifth grade the whole American history section where we had to do research and build some sort of model or display? I'm still convinced I could've made that Seminole-house-on-stilts-thing-whose-name-I've-now-completely-forgotten really awesome with about another week to work on it and some slightly better materials. Yes, of course the other kids' stuff looked better. They were building teepees. How hard is it to make a 6" tall teepee?!)
That reminds me of one of the dumber arguments I've gotten into at work: how to pronounce Osceola. Apparently people in Missouri and Arkansas can't pronounce it correctly. Or, at least, not the ones I work with. They also wanted to argue with me about where the name came from. *headdesk*
Jesus. It's finally almost time for my first break. I can't believe I've only been here for two hours...
Can I gleefully violate my vow to not take any ATO this week? Taking a half-day sounds good. No...I should stay. Maybe I can take a few hours off Friday or something. Blah.
God, I don't even have things to ramble about today. And I can't just go read, because I'm burning through Shadow of Man really fast. Granted, it has lots of pictures, but it's fascinating. So, it's going insanely fast. D'oh. Of course, I still have the gigantic Jane Goodall biography to read through, so it's not as though I'm in danger of running out of reading material for the week.
I'd love to send a copy of the book to little Ms. Hibblette. Good god, some of the things she's been saying in that Polygamy thread in OT... For starters, you can tell she knows jack shit about human evolution and primate social groups. Second, her comments about "tribes" and "tribal" this and that! Someone should tell her that anthropology kind of outgrew the whole noble savage ideology a few decades ago, hmm? If I was from a non-western society, I would be horribly offended by some of her comments. It seems like her general philosophy is "Only primatives practice polygamy, dear." Shal got in a good comeback after her stupid "polygamy with multiple wives can never work because women are catty" comment. Teehee. Yeah, paint all women with one brush, huh?
Anyway. Maybe tonight when it's even slower, I can go play on the loan thingy for the credit union. Still haven't quite figured out how it works with no pre-set password...but oh well. If they do one of those give-you-an-approved-loan-amount-certificate-thingy deals, I guess I'll have to start bugging the parents to take me to a few car dealerships on the weekend. The tough part is going to both rely on Dad to do the test driving for me, but not let him pressure me into getting any particular car. He comes from one of those old-fashioned families where the man makes all the decisions, which doesn't work well with the rather independent and stubborn nature of every single woman on Mom's side. I know how much I want to spend, I have a general idea of what kind of car I want, and I know some places to go and some to avoid. He's not moving me from any of that. (He's going to try to talk me into a more expensive car. I know he is. Ain't gonna happen, buddy.)
I'm still tossing around the idea of taking a roadtrip sometime in the fall. Before the weather gets nasty, of course. That would give me a few months to settle in to driving. I guess it's kind of a self-validation that "yes, I really can drive". I wouldn't want to do a terribly long trip, of course. And definitely not west. Newbie driver + mountains = bad things.
I keep trying to convince my stupid parents that there's interesting stuff they could go see for not much money and not much hassle for a vacation this summer. Tulsa's not far away, and if memory serves, there's a big Native American art museum there. Mom would love that. Dad would be bored, but then, Dad doesn't have much in the way of hobbies. Especially since he can't bowl or golf anymore due to his shoulder.
One nice thing is that I've already got a plan for what to get Dad for his birthday. Same thing we bought him for Christmas: Southwest gift card, to help pay to visit his aunt out in Utah. (Actually, I think one more gift card should pay for the whole plane ticket there.) He doesn't have much family left, so (much as aunt Bobbie annoys me with her politics and such) he should go visit them when he can. And she always makes plans to come back here in summer, and then always backs out. Which is just mean. (I think it's less to do with physical limitations and more to do with grandstanding and power manipulation and displays. Which is a mean thing to say about family, but she wasn't raised in KS by the working-class side of the family. She was raised by her aunt, and then married (and divorced) her way up the financial ladder.)
Y'know, that's one thing with Mom that I just never picked up on: her love of history. Me, I get bored by history stuff in about two seconds flat. Don't get me wrong, some museums can be interesting. But as far as watching documentaries and reading history books? Ugh. And the whole fascination with Native American history? Yeah. Don't get it. My interest in that part of history is pretty much confined to the story of Osceola. (Heh. Remember in fifth grade the whole American history section where we had to do research and build some sort of model or display? I'm still convinced I could've made that Seminole-house-on-stilts-thing-whose-name-I've-now-completely-forgotten really awesome with about another week to work on it and some slightly better materials. Yes, of course the other kids' stuff looked better. They were building teepees. How hard is it to make a 6" tall teepee?!)
That reminds me of one of the dumber arguments I've gotten into at work: how to pronounce Osceola. Apparently people in Missouri and Arkansas can't pronounce it correctly. Or, at least, not the ones I work with. They also wanted to argue with me about where the name came from. *headdesk*
Jesus. It's finally almost time for my first break. I can't believe I've only been here for two hours...