O.M.G. I feel like Kate on Lost but Without the abs

O.M.G. This is getting creepier and creepier. So, not only did R. Chang write me back, but so did this girl named Stacy who apparently found this huge blog dedicated to R. Chang called Who Is RChang and he has crazy things that surround him. (check my blog comments to see) and also, I think this is the same guy who my brother ran into in the mountains in Taiwan, because he wrote me back an email yesterday as follows:

Hello Ms. Lee,

I have checked other schools, but I feel that Pace University will fit my needs to perfection. Well, I figured that psychology would be a good program to go into so if you could give me any information about how to get started that will be rocktastic....haha....do you get it Ms. Lee? Rocktastic is like fantastic......haha.....all the rocks think I am a riot too. No, I did not go on any rock tours lately, but I did go on a hiking tour in the mountains of Taiwan. It was very beautiful and I did get to see some lovely rocks. Well, look forward to hearing back from you. Ronald "the rock" Chang.

Dear Avid Readers, if you know of anything that can lead to the explanation of this mysterious R. Chang, please let me know through comments. It is just the weirdest thing ever...

Asian Rock Lover

Dear Avid Readers, this is going to be one LONG, CRAZY, UNBELIEVABLE post. As the following events are absolutely real.

So, a few weeks back I started a new job as Assistant Director of Graduate Admissions. As part of my job I answer emails from students on a daily basis. Some students come in with amazingly great questions, some students ask important questions but that can be found with minimal research and then there are the students that just ask the dumbest questions that don't deserve an answer. But it is very rare, indeed, that someone would write an email that literally seems out from left field.

Below, I am going to outline the happenings of the craziest coincidence EVER. The other day I was reading through my work emails and found one titled

"Asian Senstation thehottieasiansenstation@gmail.com" it read:

9/7/2008

Hello Ms. Lee,
I want to be accepted into Pace University. I feel that I am qualified because I know every rock on planet Earth as well as the outer space world. I am so good with rocks people have called me Mr. Rock. This is why I should be accepted into Pace. Hope to hear your response. Good day, Mr. Ronald "the rock" Chang.

I thought it was funny and a joke and showed my co-workers but we all agred that in order to be politically correct, in case "the Rock" was serious I should write back. So, on 9/7/08 I wrote:

Dear Mr. Chang,

thank you for your interest in Pace University. I would be more than happy to discuss the different opportunities offered here at Pace if I were to know what program you were interested in.

Immediately the next day I heard back

9/8/2008

Hello Ms. Lee,
If you have a program about Rock study I would be more than qualified. Probably more so than the professor. I really hope you have a program in rock study, but if not then I think I will excel in psychology for many reasons. As I have become more familiar with rocks my feelings have become attached also. I try to understand and feel what each rock is feeling and I believe they respect me and care about me because I do this. I feel that the rocks trust me and look to me with guidance as I try to show them the light. I think this is the same aspect with humans. Rocks and humans are the same and since I know everything about rocks it will be easy to know everything about humans. So, when can I start school? Thank you, Ronald "the rock" Chang

Now, after reading this I was like, okay this is totally a joke and I decided to ignore Mr. Rock and move on with my life. I stored these emails away in the same file as the lyrics to all Weird Al Yankovich songs (which is in the far nether regions of my brain) and continued on with life. Well, a few days later I received a third email as follows

9/11/2008

Hello Ms. Lee,
I have not heard back from you and was wondering about any possible rock scholarships available. Maybe a $10,000 dollar scholarship for a student who excels in naming various rocks on the spot. Or even maybe a scholarship to a student who the rocks trust with their lives. I am that person. Rocks trust me and are willing to sacrifice their lives for me; that is how much these rocks love me. So, if you could tell me about the scholarships available I would greatly appreciate that. Since I have been spending most of my time with rocks (taking care of them, cleaning them, talking to them, etc) I have not been getting any income in so a scholarship would be nice. Please email me back and let me know. Thank you, Ronald "the rock" Chang.

Again, I ignored it, but then on 9/15/2008 I decided to catch up on all my blogs of friends and family and started reading through. Some people had updated many-a-happenings in their life which I was glad to read about, and others have not updated in days, weeks, months which I was very un-glad to not read about. But what was craziest is when I got to Dear Avid Little Brothers blog and his latest blog entry: The Weirdest Guy Ever if you read it will knock your socks off.

Now, I am not prone to superstition nor do I really get super spooked out by coincidence. I usually embrace coincidence with love and acceptance, but due to the weirdness of this rock guy I am totally freakiing out. What makes it worse is that I just finished watching Heroes season 1 & 2 and sort of wonder if this rock guy has super powers but becuase he is such a freak of nature that we are all just ignorning and missing out on his special skills to speak and understand rocks. Should I give him a chance or write him off as a Crazy McCrazerson?

Tropic Thunder

Dear Avid Readers, now that I have gotten off my political soapbox, let's go back to what the Daily Grind is all about...the things that happen daily that makes it grindful....errr something like that. So for my birthday, I received a wonderful gift from My Avid brother and sister-in-law in the form of free movie tickets. Usually when I get free movie tickets I like to spend it one movies that I typically reserve to watch "On-Demand" or "Net Flix". For example, I use it on movies like: Superbad, Don't Mess with the Zohan, or Baby's Mama. But for movies like The Secret Lives of Others, Lust Caution, or Notes on a Scandal I happily give them my $12 for the show. Anyways, so I had some free movie tickets and was told by an Avid Reader to go and watch Tropic Thunder.

Now, for those of you who may have seen it maybe you do or don't feel the same way I do but the following viewpoints are held my Yours Truly alone and do not represent the feelings or opions of the dear avid readers, blogspot, or Miramax Films!

This movie was triple O.C. (aggressively out of control) I saw Jack Black suck blood from a bat's face, Robert Downey Junior portray a fake black man, and a whole bunch of Vietnamese speak a weird combination of Mandarin/Jibberish. I couldn't tell if the Producers were too lazy to find out what language was actually spoken in Vietnam or if they thought it would be funnier if these Vietnamese spoke Mandarin. Either way there were parts of this movie that I did NOT get at all.

On the other hand, there were parts of this movie that I thought were unbelievable. I mean a balding, over-weight Tom Cruise rapping and breaking it down made my entire Sunday night, knowing that Jennifer Love Hewitt had enough humor and wit to do a cameo in the movie was another highlight. Lastly, seeing the little adopted boy fly off of Ben Stiller's back was probalby the funniest thing in the entire movie.

With that being said, dear avid readers, this is a movie that if you MUST see I definitely say that you watch it at home with the convenience of a couch and/or a bed, if you can not get through it!

A Few Good Points-as in Sarah Palin a.k.a. Amy Winehouse

Dear Avid Readers I am going to do something today that may shock or surprise you. I am gonna get agressive today and cover something I rarely cover on The Daily Grind and that is Politics. Despite the fact that I have already been pretty mesmorized with this election, McCain goes and ups the ante by calling in Palin as his running mate to make less time in my life for The Real World and more time devoted to Meet the Press, and This week with George Stephanopoulos. And as hard as it is for me to miss anything on MTV, I really have put a temporary hold on True Life to focus on helping Obama/Biden win this election. First and foremost, I am holding a fundraiser for Obama and for those who are Dear Avid Readers and Obama/Biden supporters who want to take this idea and run with it...please, do so.

1. B.A.R.F.O. Beer Drive (Buy A Round For Obama)

You can speak to your location "democratic" neighborhood bar and ask them if they will work with you. Bars may either donate a dollar for every beer you buy in which it will go to Obama or you can hand out tickets for buy one get one free chip. I mean you may run this fundraiser however you want to and give the earnings to the campaign. Oh and did I mention and get totally drunk as well! You will feel emtionally fantastic the next morning even if you are physically a wreck!2. My good friend Miss S has created an awesome Obama t-shirt that looks like the picture above and if you want to buy a shirt and not only be a walking supporter for Obama but all earnings also is donated to campaing efforts you can click on the link and support Obama and keep warm all at once.

3. Also, as Yours Truly is truly lucky and have friends all over this world I am hoping you convince all your fellow ex-patriots to at least go to www.barackobama.com and

A. Register to vote

B. Submit an absentee ballot

C. Change your name/address

D. Find the nearest polling station to your house

E. Find information on early voting

All these things can be done on the Obama website and will save you time and energy on voting day so you don't get stressed and run out of time to actually vote

4. My biggest fear is that those who are Obama supporters may say and support Obama for the entire year leading up to the big day, but when the day comes for them to actually go to the voting polls they don't (aka Paris Hilton who went on Rock the Vote ((yes I watch a lot of MTV)) but wasn't even registered) also, I work at a University and albeit I love my students, at the end of the day I have heard excuses from oversleeping, having mean professors who give them "random pop quizzes", afraid to get fired as excuses for not going out to vote. These little pumpkins forget (or have no idea) that there is this little law that allows them to go and vote without being fired and that the polls are open nearly the ENTIRE day and that the meanest

of Professors would be less mean if they saw these students care about the election and missed a pop-quiz to vote. On the other hand, McCain/Palin supporters WILL show up on election, WILL cast their votes and it WILL be scary if that happens.

5. Lastly, there are tons of Obama staff who are holding voter registration throughout America to help people get registered way before the date (for example I will volunteer at the Jason Mraz eerrr I mean Jason mmmmm-yummy concerct) to get concert goers to register to vote. The more you get done before voting makes voting day so much easier for you to go to!

So that's really it. There was this great article in the New York Times yesterday regarding Sarah Palin, in fact, as the Boy and I were reading the Sunday paper together we got to this phrase (Sarah Palin's visceral political views) and although I have read visceral a million times and even saw it on my GRE's when I took them many moons ago, I couldn't really and truly comprehend what the NYTimes were trying to convey in the message so I went to dicitonary.com and it ended up being funnier than I thought which made me happy to see that the NYTimes writer had such a sharp wit about him...but dictionary.com defines Palin's visceral views as being:

"proceeding from instinct rather than intellect"

and how true it is!

Hilarious

Dear Avid Readers I almost spit up my coffee this morning whilst reading something that is all at once hilarious and frightening. This post is truly dedicated to Avid Reader M.L. of Madison Wisconsin. As some of you may know Yours Truly is one of the biggest fans of Facebook. In fact, a major portion of my work day revolves around making sure that none of my friends lives are missed by scrolling the daily updates via Facebook. Well, this morning, being a slow Thursday, I decided to go on and look at all the comments that have been made. and in order to protect those involved I have blocked off specific names and pictures.

Anyways, I was on Facebook this morning and my name caught my attention for 2 of my mutual friends were writing each other. Person 1 (above) writes this to Person 2 (below)....[please note that all words in parenthesis are haved been changed from its original format to protect those involved]

"(PERSON 1) of the Iowa City (ONES)? Awesome. How are you? (YOUR MAN)? Wisconsin? I hope our paths cross again soon. Maybe when (YOURS TRULY) gets married................? Right."Well I was laughing because I love when mutual friends find each other and become friends and then we can all one day hang out. It's sort of a fantasy of mine that I can connect everyone I know and they all love each other because they love me and we can all be b.f.f.'s so I was loving that P1 and P2 were writing each other and on Facebook and are buddies until I read P2's response

"Ha! Yes, it's (PERSON 1) of the Iowa City (ONES). That's awesome. (THE HUSBAND) and I are well and yes, in Madison. It would be very fun to hang out again and definitely when (YOURS TRULY) gets married! That is going to be a killer bachelorette party! Hope you are fantastic!"

It was when I read this that Yours Truly went from giddy to frightened. The reason being. I am now absolutely fearful of the pressure the day of my bachelorette party will bring.

First of all...let me just say to my dearest avid readers I thank you so much for not only thinking that if I were to ever have a bachelorette party that ya'll think it will be so much fun. Secondly, I love it even more that my friends are all becoming virtual friends with one another so that if the day comes it will truly be so much fun as everyone loves everyone else. But this is a lot of pressure for me. I mean I feel now like I should be reading books like...
1. The Best Bachelorette Planning Guide
2. Bachelorette Parties for Dummies
3. The ABC's to the Best Bachelorette Party Eva'
However, instead, I am reading novels like "My Horizontal Life" and although I typically do not like Chick Lit, I did decide out of the blue to read this one. And I am not peeing my pants like other have said when they read this book but it does paint a very true picture of what living in the city (although she is in LA so the types of men are very different but as far as how a lady thinks is true) is like. If any of you dear avid readers are headed to the beach soon and want something to read that takes about 1% of your brain then this is the book for you!

Introducing Mr. James Lipton!

Dear Avid Readers,
As most of you may know Yours Truly has recently started a new job at Pace University. Upon arriving here, I discovered that the show, Inside the Actor's Studio, has moved from The New School to Pace University, and during our first day of Orientation for these MFA students I got to meet none other than the infamous...duh duh duh...James Lipton.

Yes folks, that's right I met the bearded man with a huge vocabulary himself and he gave a speech to the incoming class of 2008 and I swear there were a few twitches of eyebrows in the audience as he used words I even had trouble comprehending...and we all now the extent of my vocabulary.

Last but not least Ellen Burstyn was there as well as she was a co-founder of the Actor's Studio as well. It was very interesting!

10 Hours and counting

Dear Avid Readers, I am being a little rindonkulous today because Joan is coming back in town in less than 12 hours. I am pretty stoked. He will be here for 2 weeks and I am super duper excited. Despite Mr. RK's annoying, egotistical, I-want-to-grab-his-nuts-and-rip-it-out-of-his-body-just-to-stuff-it-in-his-mouth-and-watch-him-gag-on-it attitude I am trying to not let it get the best of me and just concentrate on the fact that I am dying for Joan to get here because
1. I get to celebrate my birthday AGAIN!
2. I get to be taken out on fancy dinners cuz it's my favorite hobby
3. I have someone to talk to about Heroes, Lost and all the other shows I love to watch!

How Long is Long Enough

So I have officially been at my new job for 42 days, and I am curious, my Dear Avid Readers, if you feel that it is long enough to start getting mean. I have this one co-worker named RK (aka Mr. Ridonkulous) and he is the most annoying, angry, ugly, mean co-worker ever. Whenever I ask him a question he just oozes sarcasm. I mean I sometimes sit at work and think of mean things that I could say back to him...for example (this is the conversation that occurred today):

Me: Hi RK, Would a student who is interested in the Doctoral program need to retake the TOEFL?
RK: Do we handle the Doctoral Programs? (sarcasm, sarcasm)
ME: I guess NO???
RK: Why would I know about something we don't handle?
ME: So, we don't even answer questions about programs we don't handle
RK: Why would we? It goes to the person who handles them
ME: Well who would that be then RK?
RK: John Dory...

Now, after this conversation I sort of re-imagined it going more so like this

Me: Hi RK, Would a student who is interested in the Doctoral program need to retake the TOEFL?
RK:Do we handle the Doctoral Programs? (sarcasm, sarcasm)
ME: I don't know, do we?
RK: Why would I know about something we don't handle?
ME: Good question. I'm not sure, but if I had to guess I would say it is because you are anal rententive and you actually know the answer but just like to act like a dick vein and throb uncontrollably when being asked a question because of your alpha male ego doesn't know how to put itself in check? (smile innocently as if my question is totally legit)
RK: Give it to the person who handles it!
ME: I'll handle you!

Ok, so maybe 42 days is too soon to have conversation 2 happen but lord knows I am dying to get to the point where I can say something like that!....so Dear Avid Readers, what do you say, maybe day 62?