Saturday - Spanish Day

During the rare moments when I have some down time at work, I read La Nacion, the Costa Rican newspaper, to try and practice my Spanish. It's fun reading the paper cause I learn some great (and sometimes pretty random) vocab words. Here's the latest batch:

amenazas - threats

apaciguar - to pacify

aportar - to contribute

astucia - shrewdness, craftiness

cargo - post;position;office

dechado - paragon

desarrollo - development

portavoz - spokesperson

respaldar - to support; back

tasa - rate

PS. Most of these came from an article about Iran - except I think tasa came from a little blurb about swine flu (gripe porcina).

That's What She Said

I just became a fan of "that's what she said" on facebook, and most of the stuff people write on that page is not that original. Maybe it's just because it's past my bedtime, but this one really cracked me up:

Where I work we attach pens to large fake flowers so people stop walking off with them. So this one guy was writing with one and this huge flower was moving around and he said, "Man, I just can't get used this thing flopping around in my face." I had to bite my fist from telling the customer TWSS.

I can't really express how tired I am right now! I don't know how anyone can work a full time job! At all of my engineering jobs I would spend probably at least a third of the day either surfing the web, BSing with someone, or just staring off into space. Of course I felt bad for doing this, but I could just never make myself code for 8 hours. Or rarely ever. Maybe if there was a very huge and very near deadline.

But in my new job, I actually have work that needs to get done in 'real time', i.e. someone is standing in front of me or on the phone with me, asking questions, etc. It is not 'hard' work but it's just non-stop. The last time I worked that much was back at McDonalds - over 10 years ago! I am fascinated by what a different kind of tired this is. Also, I have no idea how anyone can keep a clean house, cook dinner, and have any kind of a social life while working full time.

Working hard for my money

Whew, today was my second day of work and it is tiring!! I am working full time now at Seattle Language Academy, and of course at the same time the wedding-planning stuff is ramping up.

It's pretty fun being a receptionist. In many ways I think I make a decent one, since I am friendly and of course I am not afraid of computers. (err... at least as long as I'm not doing anything that involves making a symlink. I did successfully troubleshoot printer problems today, so that was good!)

But, I might have one small issue. Today someone brought a container of cookies (Snickerdoodles, YUM) to a meeting, and afterward they left the cookies at reception. Now most secretaries would leave the cookies out for everyone to enjoy. I, on the other hand, gave one to the Japanese teacher because she happened to be right there, and then I ate all the rest of the except for maybe 2. Oops! But hey, it was 4pm and I was hungry! Whilst unemployed, I have gotten in this habit of having many small meals a day which is harder for me to do now.

It's really strange being the person that helps people... it's sort of like being on the other side of the looking glass. Since my old McDonald's days, I haven't had a job where I helped people. Unless you count the one time that I showed Pascal* how to write a for loop in Perl. (In fact, speaking of McDonalds, you could argue that giving someone a 1000 calorie 'value' meal isn't exactly 'helping' them, but hey let's not get into semantics here.)

I am not sure how it's going to go now that I don't have several hours a day to surf the web. I'm already not playing scramble, which is sad, and I may even have to cut back on FarmTown. On the other hand, I'm getting paid. Trade-offs! :)

*It's a funny story about Pascal - suffice it to say that he didn't stay in our lab for long, so I'm not sure how much my sage Perl wisdom impacted his life. But I felt helpful for a few minutes, which was cool.

Sierra Club Meetings

When you are funemployed (hat tip to Alex for introducing me to the word funemployment), you can accept just about any invitation that comes your way. At least as long as it involves your time and not money.

So, I got invited to come to some Sierra Club political candidate interviews, and I said "why not?" I sat in on all 4 interviews with the 4 democratic candidates for King County Executive to see who, if anyone, will get the endorsement from Sierra Club. I should add that the one Republican candidate did not respond to Sierra Club about interviewing, they didn't purposely snub her or anything.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "what's King County Executive?" and I am not so sure I can really answer that. My best guess is that it's sort of like being the mayor of a county. I understand that it is considered one of the most powerful positions in the state (underneath governor, I suppose), but suffice it to say I don't know a ton about politics.

I was surprised to find out that it was very interesting to watch these interviews. The candidates were all very intelligent, and had all taken time to provide thoughtful answers to Sierra Club's questionnaire. (BTW this is something I didn't know - Sierra Club sends them a bunch of questions well before the interview, and the candidates send back their answers. So in some sense, the interview doesn't really need to happen. But of course it's a chance for the Sierra Club members to probe further and just to get a feel for the candidate.)

It was actually a difficult decision for Sierra Club because all four guys have a good record on environmental issues, and have all received S.C. endorsements at some point or another in their political careers.

In my opinion, one of the four stood out as being the most 'hard-core' environmentalist of them all. Most of the others were pro-environment but more pragmatic. Now it seems to me that the hard-core enviromentalist fits best with what Sierra Club stands for. However, they also want to take into consideration who is most likely to win, and who would be most effective once in office.

Now I'm over-simplifying, but let me pose this question to you. Let's just say that you are the Sierra Club and you have candidate A, who is a tree-hugging hippie (but also has been successful enough in politics to have a viable campaign for King County Exec) and candidate B who has a good but not amazing track record on eco-stuff, but is more of a smooth-talking politician who you think is more likely to get stuff done in office. Which would you endorse, or would you endorse both (potentially splitting the environmental vote) or neither (abstaining from exercising your organizational power)?

More Farmtown Vocab

For anyone who would like to learn some more agrarian Spanish:


leña - firewood
pulgar - thumb
taburete - stool
lirio - iris
clavel - carnation
guisantes - peas
valla - fence

Quick Unix Shout-out

I know I have complained MANY times on this blog about unix. And I would still not admit that I miss it.

But, every once in a while I want to delete the rest of a line, and I accidentally type ctrl+k. So.... I guess I miss emacs? A tiny bit? Yikes.

In other news from the land of unemployment, I am getting busier and busier volunteering with Seattle Language Academy and Sierra Club. Soon I will no longer be able to get a job because I am completely booked up! But I did apply for another one today.... with a travel agency! You can see the job here but that link will probably expire soon since it's on craigslist.

Seattle Street Food and People

Street Food

Yesterday I finally, finally got around to eating at Skillet. I have walked past it the past couple Thursdays and there was always a huge line, so this time I left myself tons of time. I waited about 20 minutes for my food, but it was worth it. I had duck confit and it was so good.

Now, due to some amazingly crafty websurfing, I have just discovered another mobile food station that is near my home and sounds yummy. Maximus-minimus. Or in layman's terms, pulled pork sandwiches. How delicious is that going to be?!?!

Street People

In other news, I finally figured out why many Seattlites don't like the sun. We've had an unbelievable run of good weather lately, and as I started heading towards Fremont yesterday (to go to Skillet and then volunteer at SLA), I was thinking to myself that I couldn't believe how nice it was. Then, I had to talk to a street canvaser. (I just tell them I have no money, which is mostly true. I'm just leaving off the assumed prepositional phrase "for you" at the end.) Then, I ran into another one. And another. Save the children, save the trees, whatever. They allllll come out of the woodwork.

Today - slightly overcast with a cold breeze. No canvasers. My brain is already learning the pattern. Soon it too will be conditioned to fear the sun.

Farm Town is Awesome

When I was in Costa Rica, my facebook interface automatically switched to Spanish. At some point after I'd been there for weeks, facebook randomly popped up a screen asking me which language I would like my interface in.

I decided to leave it in Spanish, because it's kind of fun and I learn a new word from time to time, and since then I have been enjoying it and I haven't investigated how to put it back.

Playing FarmTown is one of the best apps for learning new words, because the entire thing is in Spanish, including the little mini-dialogs that you have with the other farmers (granjeros). Here's a few fun words that I have learned:

cosechar - harvest
ardilla - squirrel
ciruelo - plum tree
trigo - wheat
espantapajaros - scarecrow
manguera - hose
regar - to water
apurado - in a hurry
la maleza - weeds