| Halloween Horoscope for Sagittarius |
Halloween is your time to be flirtatious, sexy, and hot hot hot! You love to tempt people into evil, even if it's just for one night. Costume suggestions: A sexy devil or a dark fairy Signature Halloween candy: Anything spiked with booze |
In the last few days of domestic violence awareness month, Womansplace set up a table at Wal-Mart to let people know of their services. One of their volunteers couldn't make it, so they asked me to table 11-4 this past Sunday, and I said yes. I wasn't really sure what to expect. I'd never done anything like this. We had a small pamphlet listing some of the legal services Womansplace provides, but of course there are many other things we do, which we would tell anyone who was interested. 11-2 there was another volunteer with me, but for the last 2 hours I was there alone.
It was really an amazing experience. Several women stopped by who had been victims of domestic violence but were now free, they thanked us for getting the word out about domestic violence and the help that was available. A few of them shared their stories. One woman came by and showed me her PFA (Protection From Abuse) document, which she was about to serve to her husband that afternoon - but she needed a police escort to do it because she was afaid to go home. Another woman stopped by to pick up a brochure for a friend who needed a shelter; another man needed help for his sister. Many people said their neighbor or friend was in abusive relationship. Some blamed the women for not leaving. Towards the end, a woman stopped by smiling, and told me that she had been one of the driving forces in the formation of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women with NOW right after she left her abusive marriage in the '70s.
A few men passed by with their wives and jokingly said "what about violence against men? this one over here (pointing to his wive) is really a menace!" haha. i know they were trying to be funny, but I don't know how appropriate that kind of humor is. 95% of victims of domestic violence are women. Besides, one man stopped and seriously asked for help - his wife was actually violent and he didn't know what to do - he was afraid to defend himself lest he be considered an abuser, but he was afraid she'd really hurt him. He took our pamphlet and went to sit down with his friends - not before he grabbed a Wal-Mart flyer and put our pamphlet inside it though.
I'm really glad I volunteered yesterday.
for whatever these short quizzes are worth (which isn't a whole lot):
Your Political Profile |
| Overall: 15% Conservative, 85% Liberal |
| Social Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal |
| Personal Responsibility: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal |
| Fiscal Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal |
| Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal |
| Defense and Crime: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal |
I don't know, but it's not here.
The lonely days came and went. Some furniture has been built. And I violently dug out my winter coats. I *love* my blue pea-coat. Most of my warm shirts/nice sweaters are still entombed somewhere. (Is "entombed" a word?)
Alex and I finally made it out to the Scion dealer last night. I felt so dumb. We'd looked at all the stuff online, looked at the car, and then we really had nothing to ask the guy or to say to him. There were a few awkward silences. He kept asking if we had any questions but I felt like saying "what should we be asking?"
Anyways, the Scion is a nice car. They didn't have any automatics on the lot (kind of odd), so if we were to get the car from them, it'd take 2-3 weeks till we had it.
I got another rental upgrade from Enterprise yesterday. They didn't have any "compact" cars on hand, so they gave me a Jeep Liberty. I hated it. It was way too high and large. And most importantly, the brake pedal was very weirdly placed... it was much closer than the gas pedal. I had to move my foot pretty far to switch pedals. That's a very bad design, what if you need to break in an emergency?? You can totally hurt yourself trying to find that pedal. I returned it this morning eventhough I had reserved it for an extra day.
I've also been looking at portable GPS navigation devices for the car. They look so cool and useful! Driving in Pittsburgh is crazy! None of the streets are labeled, they aren't straight, and in the downtown area, only buses are allowed to make left turns.
Today started out slow, like the rest of the week, but then things really picked up! Due to some complicated regulations, we had to push up our deadline for all the Pitt paperwork, so instead of submitting a single copy of our application next friday, we have to submit 26 copies of our application by tomorrow noon. We found this out around 4pm today and I had to leave by 5 to be in McKeesport by 6. Sorry if that's all a bit vague, NDA and all that.
I had my last official domestic violence class today for Womansplace. I'm not officially certified yet, since I've missed 6 out of the 10 classes (5 because of my Soc class on Mondays, and one due to Yom Kippur). I'll have to make it up with home study and quizzes. I hope I can start volunteering before I finish though.
Then it was back home and more work. And I'll be going in by 7am tomorrow so that we get everything done by noon. Yikes!
I'm tempted to go to Conservative services tomorrow instead of Chabad services. But since it's Sukkot, I'm not sure if I should. I don't know if they do Hallel and all the extra stuff.
I also wrote some comments about a Koach e-zine article, and the editor asked me if I wanted to write articles for them! I have to think about that... I've never really written in that sort of capacity before. It might be fun. I'm not officially a "Koach" member, although I'm not sure whether that matters, or how one becomes a member. I'll sleep on it.
Work, class, leisheiv ba sukkah, this and that. Unexpected sounds are still frightening. I'm exhausted.
I've been meaning to take pictures of the apt and work with a real camera, but I just can't get my act together. So here's a temporary solution: camera-phone. I have one! They're not the greatest quality but it's something.
I've been thinking about my hair recently. It's getting to that hard to handle "in-between" stage.
I can't decide if I should grow it out again:
or keep it my signature shoulder-length:
One thing I know, it will never be this short again:
Looking back at it, the short hair wasn't *that* bad, but I just didn't feel like myself. And the long hair makes me look tired and worn out... but for some reason I'm really tempted to grow it long again. I think I've learned a lot about how to handle my hair in the last year, and I think I could do a better job of taking care of long hair. Then again, it might bug me to no end.
Opinions?
Does your body ever incorporate its physical needs into your dreams to alert you to things, like for example, you have to go to the bathroom?
I was having another of my highly entertaining and imaginative dreams last night:
People found out they were being abducted by aliens for scientific experiments. In fact, they were being abducted by 2 different groups of aliens, one group from Mars, and another from far outside our solar system. How did they find out? Well, the aliens told us. Each sent us a little note saying "i will be taking people Mondays" and the other "Tuesday and Thursday." So at first we were outraged that there were 2 groups of aliens doing this. We thought that if we notified each group of aliens about the other, they would stop their experiments - mostly because they would realize that their test results are probably inaccurate since the same subject population is being used for 2 different studies. So we wrote up such notes and carried them in our pockets hoping that when the aliens abduct someone, they will read the note. Then suddenly we realized that this revelation might not make the aliens stop experimenting, but might just lead them to destroy the planet. So things were getting a little tense. Somehow, I was on a train with a bunch of people (escaping the aliens? I don't remember) and while we're discussing the possible reprecussions of telling the aliens the truth, my dream self realized I had to use the bathroom. As I'm in the train bathroom, my conscious mind is thinking - am I really peeing? So I wake up, afraid I'd just peed in my sleep. Luckily, I hadn't, but I did have to go to the real bathroom very badly. I chose not to continue that dream when I got back... it was getting a little too frightening.
The day started out by sending Alex off to Boston :(
This was followed by some more work on my "opinion paper" for my sociology class. The last article I picked sounded more interesting than it turned out to be "Examining family rituals." The other 2 articles were “Go Ahead, Kiss Your Cousin. Heck, Marry Her If You Want To.” and “No Wedding? No Ring? No Problem.”
Then I went to the ATM to make a deposit and finally get some cash. It is so great to have an ATM card with a locally available machine that doesn't charge you $5 for taking out a $20.
Following my windfall, I headed over to Chabad to help build the Succah. That was a lot of fun! Scratchy, pine-needles-poking-at-you, dirt-flying-in-your-eye fun! I mean it though, I really enjoyed myself. A Rabbi looks weird in jeans. The foundation had already been built, and a bunch of people drove out in the morning to cut down some schach (covering for the Succah, consisting of pine branches). So the rest of the day was spent sorting the various sizes of the branches and then finally putting them up on the roof. It'll be great to go eat in the Succah, knowing I helped build it.
All scratched up and covered in flecks of dirt, I went over to the ghetto Tasty Eagle (aka Giant Eagle) to get some supplies for my lonely week - mostly fish fillets, milk and cereal. I also picked up some eggs, as an accessory to my Bacos! Haha! I had heard that Bacos (fake bacon bits) were great with eggs, so I made an omelet for dinner. It was pretty good. I had planned to do some laundry, but it was more important that I wash various branch bits out of my hair. Also, every time I blow my nose, little black specs come out... I can't imagine how much dirt I inhaled during my 3 hours of schach sorting.
The day ended with some more sociology reading and editing my essay. And now I'm off to bed.
Alex just left to go to Boston for the week. That leaves me free to roam the very large apartment by myself. A little sad and scary, but I have always wanted to live alone. I've met a lot of nice people here, but they're still at the "acquintance" stage, so I don't really have anyone to hang out with. :( To add to it all, Alex is staying with Tara. I wish I was staying with Tara.
off I go... roaming...
Alex and I are still ordering out a lot because it's hard to cook when you're not settled in to the kitchen/dining room. I usually pick up the food, and I usually wear the same thing - my blue or brown PJ pants with a zipup hoodie.
A few nights ago as I was coming back with the food and walking past the security guard, he says to me "One of these nights you'll get all dressed up to go out and I probably won't recognize you."
I think he just called me frumpy. What do you reply to that? So I smiled and said "probably not." How odd. He's also one of those guards who keeps asking you to share the food. Once, I offered it to him, so he admitted that he's a diabetic and can't actually take it anyways. But since that incident, he still keeps asking for food.
Another time, I asked him whether he was there to protect the students or the shops on the first floor. He replied "I'm here to protect the public in general from the students." Ok. Thanks.
In other news - Alex and I made it to IKEA on Sunday and our furniture is on its way!! YAY!
