Gracie's little sister. Isn't she precious?
That's right. I've finally given in to that coy seductress, Apple and bought myself a shiny new Macbook. Since I'm out and about at Willamette more than I ever was at Whitworth and I"m considering moving off campus next year, I decided that a laptop was a good investment. I knew I wanted an Apple because they have a great reputation for durability and not having scary error messages and stuff. Also, I figured if I had a PC and a Mac, it'd be like being bilingual, except with computers.
My new friend is named for Lucie Manette, the main female protagonist from my favorite book (Get it? It's a Macbook) A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. I only realized after I picked the name Lucie that it went so well with Gracie. Lucie is set to arrive by the end of next week. Yay! I'll post pictures after she's gotten here and we've spent a little quality time.
So I'm really poor now, but at least I'm an excited poor person.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Now is the Summer of My Unemployment
After taking a little breather (about a week or so) following the end of school, I dutifully jumped into the job market with high hopes and a stack of resumes. After a week of running around filling out applications After dreading the thought of working retail again, I missed my first interview at GAP Outlet after somebody went to work with the car keys in their pocket. I took this mishap as a divine clue that this position was not for me. Less than an hour after missing the interview I got a call on an ad I had put out seeking a nannying position. After leaving one message the woman called again that night before I even had a chance to call her back. We made an appointment to meet at the family's home in Sandy a couple days later.
The meeting went quite well. The family was nice and seemed interested in calling me. The mom said she wanted to discuss things with her husband further, then she'd call me back the next week to finalize things.
A week passes: I hear nothing. I try calling her back: nothing. Slightly disappointed, I pick up another batch of job applications and begin filling them out. The very next day I finally get a call from the mom saying that she'd lost my phone number and would I still be interested in the position?
I started work that Thursday and things went well. The two boys were sweet and pretty well-behaved. By the following Friday I was feeling good about my new job. That Sunday I got a call saying I wouldn't need to come on Monday because there'd be relatives visiting, and since I get Tuesdays off, they'd see me Wednesday. Tuesday night I got another call (which I missed) saying I should call back because something needed to be discussed before work tomorrow. In spite of the late hour I received the call, I called back, getting the voice mail. "Guess if it's that important they'll call tomorrow morning before I come."
The next morning as I was getting ready, my phone rang and I had a bad feeling... Turns out the family was afraid their kids were getting too attached to me and would be upset by me leaving in two months. They felt bad about how many nannies their kids had had and decided to replace me with a family friends who could work more permanently. I did a "wonderful" job though.
After taking a day to breathe, I jumped into the job job market again. In the two days following my dismissal I had as many interviews, the second of which seemed the most promising: I'd be working for a car dealership part-time, the man I'd be working for liked and wanted to hire me right away, and he didn't mind at all that I'd have to leave in what was now less than two months. It seemed perfect.
After a little phone tag I went back to the office to fill out paperwork for a background check. A week later the results of the check were back, but not good. Although my background was perfectly clean, HR didn't want to go to the expense of hiring someone for such a short time. That was Monday.
This week I"m doing a little tutoring, but I've basically given up on the job thing. Even if hired by the end of this week I'd only have a little over month to work. I'm thinking about doing odd jobs and maybe volunteering somewhere to keep myself busy.
Man, I've never been so ready for school to start in my life.
The meeting went quite well. The family was nice and seemed interested in calling me. The mom said she wanted to discuss things with her husband further, then she'd call me back the next week to finalize things.
A week passes: I hear nothing. I try calling her back: nothing. Slightly disappointed, I pick up another batch of job applications and begin filling them out. The very next day I finally get a call from the mom saying that she'd lost my phone number and would I still be interested in the position?
I started work that Thursday and things went well. The two boys were sweet and pretty well-behaved. By the following Friday I was feeling good about my new job. That Sunday I got a call saying I wouldn't need to come on Monday because there'd be relatives visiting, and since I get Tuesdays off, they'd see me Wednesday. Tuesday night I got another call (which I missed) saying I should call back because something needed to be discussed before work tomorrow. In spite of the late hour I received the call, I called back, getting the voice mail. "Guess if it's that important they'll call tomorrow morning before I come."
The next morning as I was getting ready, my phone rang and I had a bad feeling... Turns out the family was afraid their kids were getting too attached to me and would be upset by me leaving in two months. They felt bad about how many nannies their kids had had and decided to replace me with a family friends who could work more permanently. I did a "wonderful" job though.
After taking a day to breathe, I jumped into the job job market again. In the two days following my dismissal I had as many interviews, the second of which seemed the most promising: I'd be working for a car dealership part-time, the man I'd be working for liked and wanted to hire me right away, and he didn't mind at all that I'd have to leave in what was now less than two months. It seemed perfect.
After a little phone tag I went back to the office to fill out paperwork for a background check. A week later the results of the check were back, but not good. Although my background was perfectly clean, HR didn't want to go to the expense of hiring someone for such a short time. That was Monday.
This week I"m doing a little tutoring, but I've basically given up on the job thing. Even if hired by the end of this week I'd only have a little over month to work. I'm thinking about doing odd jobs and maybe volunteering somewhere to keep myself busy.
Man, I've never been so ready for school to start in my life.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
I've been waiting on officially announcing this for a while, just because I wanted things to be more definite before I went to the trouble of trying to explain this to people. Here's the story:
A little over three months ago I was basking in the glory that was three weeks without homework (aka, Christmas Break). Suddenly, fun on December 25th turned to apprehension on January 6th. I did not want to go back to school. I don't think I've ever been so upset about going to school or felt almost physical pain in leaving people I care about behind. I realized something: I would not be able to do this for three and a half more years. Not while maintaining my sanity anyway.
And so began the frenzy of activity associated with applying to transfer to a different school and applying for scholarships to cover the cost.
I applied to Western Oregon University, Corban College, and Willamette University. After hurriedly completing my applications in three weeks, I visited Corban over Jan Term Break. I would receive acceptance letters from all of these school throughout March, but two of them would be basically off my list by that time anyway. After considering the disadvantages of going to school out in the boonies and receiving no scholarships or financial aid from the institution, WOU was off my list. After visiting Corban and learning of their strict co-gender visitation rules (members of the opposite sex are only allowed in each other's dorm rooms once day a month) and recognizing the lower academic standards of the school, that was out. So Willamette it is, apparently. Beautiful, expensive, academically challenging, diverse, expensive Willamette. They have great programs in everything I'm interested in. Their music program is even bigger and better than Whitworth's, even though Willamette is smaller! City bus passes are included in tuition, Salem is much closer to Portland than Spokane, and the weather probably won't include so much of this God-forsaken snow most of the time.
Of course, a lot of you probably know the other appeal of Willamette: Jared Nishikawa. Yes, boyfriend goes to school there. At Willamette, the likelihood I will see my boyfriend more than once a month is pretty high. I'll be able to have a normal dating relationship with him instead of one strained by distance. Yeah, Willamette is more expensive, but to be honest our relationship is a lot more important to me than money. I'd rather spend more time being poor while paying off school loans than more time being miserable being away from him. School and relationships are stressful enough without adding that extra baggage of being 404 miles away. Boyfriend and I talked and both agreed upon this. I've spent lots of time thinking, worrying, and praying and can't help but come to conclusion that Willamette is the best place for me now. So, paperwork has been filed and deposits have been made. After May 17th (my last day of finals) I will no longer be a student of Whitworth College, but of Willamette University.
Friends at Whitworth: I hope you won't begrudge me for abandoning you. Whitworth is a great school, I really believe that. It's been a good place for me to be this year, but now I have to be somewhere else. I love you all and hope someone will catch a virgin pine cone for me.
Friends Everywhere: I'm not sure if you'll all agree with my decision or understand, but either way I hope you'll support my decision to do what's best for myself. For those of you living or going to school closer to Salem, maybe this will give me the chance to see you more! I also love all of you and hope you'll keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I go through this rather complicated and stressful transfer process.
A little over three months ago I was basking in the glory that was three weeks without homework (aka, Christmas Break). Suddenly, fun on December 25th turned to apprehension on January 6th. I did not want to go back to school. I don't think I've ever been so upset about going to school or felt almost physical pain in leaving people I care about behind. I realized something: I would not be able to do this for three and a half more years. Not while maintaining my sanity anyway.
And so began the frenzy of activity associated with applying to transfer to a different school and applying for scholarships to cover the cost.
I applied to Western Oregon University, Corban College, and Willamette University. After hurriedly completing my applications in three weeks, I visited Corban over Jan Term Break. I would receive acceptance letters from all of these school throughout March, but two of them would be basically off my list by that time anyway. After considering the disadvantages of going to school out in the boonies and receiving no scholarships or financial aid from the institution, WOU was off my list. After visiting Corban and learning of their strict co-gender visitation rules (members of the opposite sex are only allowed in each other's dorm rooms once day a month) and recognizing the lower academic standards of the school, that was out. So Willamette it is, apparently. Beautiful, expensive, academically challenging, diverse, expensive Willamette. They have great programs in everything I'm interested in. Their music program is even bigger and better than Whitworth's, even though Willamette is smaller! City bus passes are included in tuition, Salem is much closer to Portland than Spokane, and the weather probably won't include so much of this God-forsaken snow most of the time.
Of course, a lot of you probably know the other appeal of Willamette: Jared Nishikawa. Yes, boyfriend goes to school there. At Willamette, the likelihood I will see my boyfriend more than once a month is pretty high. I'll be able to have a normal dating relationship with him instead of one strained by distance. Yeah, Willamette is more expensive, but to be honest our relationship is a lot more important to me than money. I'd rather spend more time being poor while paying off school loans than more time being miserable being away from him. School and relationships are stressful enough without adding that extra baggage of being 404 miles away. Boyfriend and I talked and both agreed upon this. I've spent lots of time thinking, worrying, and praying and can't help but come to conclusion that Willamette is the best place for me now. So, paperwork has been filed and deposits have been made. After May 17th (my last day of finals) I will no longer be a student of Whitworth College, but of Willamette University.
Friends at Whitworth: I hope you won't begrudge me for abandoning you. Whitworth is a great school, I really believe that. It's been a good place for me to be this year, but now I have to be somewhere else. I love you all and hope someone will catch a virgin pine cone for me.
Friends Everywhere: I'm not sure if you'll all agree with my decision or understand, but either way I hope you'll support my decision to do what's best for myself. For those of you living or going to school closer to Salem, maybe this will give me the chance to see you more! I also love all of you and hope you'll keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I go through this rather complicated and stressful transfer process.
Never Fear!
I will be making a real, substantial post soon. I know what I'm going to write about, I'm just waiting for the proper time. Patience!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
I Stole This from Kaitlin
http://kevan.org/johari?name=Pynsey
Do iiiiiiiiiit!
Pweeze?
Edit:
http://kevan.org/nohari?name=Pynsey
This one too!
Do iiiiiiiiiit!
Pweeze?
Edit:
http://kevan.org/nohari?name=Pynsey
This one too!
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
Entre les Trous de la Memoire
Two years ago today I innocently left my house at an obscene hour (for a Saturday) to go on a field trip for extra credit in AP US History. Having only been allowed to drive other people I wasn't related to for one week, I was slightly apprehensive as I drove to pick up the classmate who needed a ride and was to keep me company as I was afraid to ride the MAX alone. Now, add to this the fact that this person was a guy I barely knew from class and I wasn't 100% sure how to get to his house and you begin to understand my nervousness. As soon as he got in the car there was some terrible rap song playing on the radio about which I was mortified, causing me to hastily change the station to classical. *awkward silence*
We finally got to the MAX station and had to stand and wait for the train for a while in the freezing cold. We made awkward chit-chat for a while, commenting on the amusing names of stores at Gresham Station ("Men's Wearhouse", "Dress Barn") until it was time to get on the MAX. We rode for a while and slooooowly eased into casual conversation, discussing the huge papers we'd be writing in Beaman's class and pondering why the only phrase not translated into Spanish on the MAX was "The doors are closing." We missed our stop, got lost a couple times, and were really early for the field trip. We had to wait around for a while until our teacher and the only other student who would join us that day showed up.
Despite the somber nature of our field trip (The US internment of Japanese Americans during WWII), after the awkwardness dissipated, we had so much fun. I'll never forget that day: February 19, 2005. The day we field-trippers wanted to feel cool and Japanese by adopting the last name of our only Japanese group member for the day, making it the first time I would write my name as Lynsey Nishikawa. These days I realize that it will be many years before I write that for the last time.
Life has definitely been an adventure since then, and like every good adventure story there have been periods of fun, exhaustion, anger, elation, fear, excitement, sadness, and of course romance. Sometimes it feels like everything is working against us and things will never go right, but then I realizing that if something isn't worth fighting for, it isn't worth having, and Jared Nishikawa is definitely worth having.
This is what I wrote here (on this very blog!) two years ago. It's listed as February 18th, but only because I started writing the entry the day before and finished it on the 19th.
Do you remember when we first met? I sure do
It was some time in early September
You were lazy about it, you made me wait around
I was so crazy about you, I didn't mind
- Jack Johnson, "Do You Remember"
We finally got to the MAX station and had to stand and wait for the train for a while in the freezing cold. We made awkward chit-chat for a while, commenting on the amusing names of stores at Gresham Station ("Men's Wearhouse", "Dress Barn") until it was time to get on the MAX. We rode for a while and slooooowly eased into casual conversation, discussing the huge papers we'd be writing in Beaman's class and pondering why the only phrase not translated into Spanish on the MAX was "The doors are closing." We missed our stop, got lost a couple times, and were really early for the field trip. We had to wait around for a while until our teacher and the only other student who would join us that day showed up.
Despite the somber nature of our field trip (The US internment of Japanese Americans during WWII), after the awkwardness dissipated, we had so much fun. I'll never forget that day: February 19, 2005. The day we field-trippers wanted to feel cool and Japanese by adopting the last name of our only Japanese group member for the day, making it the first time I would write my name as Lynsey Nishikawa. These days I realize that it will be many years before I write that for the last time.
Life has definitely been an adventure since then, and like every good adventure story there have been periods of fun, exhaustion, anger, elation, fear, excitement, sadness, and of course romance. Sometimes it feels like everything is working against us and things will never go right, but then I realizing that if something isn't worth fighting for, it isn't worth having, and Jared Nishikawa is definitely worth having.
This is what I wrote here (on this very blog!) two years ago. It's listed as February 18th, but only because I started writing the entry the day before and finished it on the 19th.
And now, the most recently (as in this very morning), I went on a very fun/sad field trip. All of the students in Mr. Beaman's history classes (including AP U.S. History and the regular history classes) were invited to a field trip at the Portland Expo Center commemorating the internment of West Coast Japanese-American's by the U.S. Government. Since we were all to meet at the Expo Center MAX stop at 10:00 A.M., I went online to figured out how long it would take to ride the MAX from Gresham Station to our destination. Sadly, it turned out we had to leave early....like...by 8:30 in the morning. Since I was giving the intrepid Jared Nishikawa a ride to the MAX in exchange for super karate-awesome protection against MAX psychos, this meant I had to leave the house before 8:00 in the morning on a Saturday. But aside from this unfortunate reality, good times were had by all. We only got lost twice-ish, and had fun making fun of the name of the store "Dress Barn", pondering the real meaning of the word "mart", and trying to figure out why every announcement over the MAX intercom was repeated in Spanish except "the doors are closing" (I decided it's because the Tri-Met secretly hates Spanish-speaking MAX patrons and wants them to be crushed by the MAX doors when they least expect it.) So, though the only people who actually showed up to the trip were myself, Jared, Courtney Hucke, and Mr. Beaman (Sad isn't it? ), good times were had by all.
- http://nobodyhome.blogspot.com, Feb 19, 2005
Do you remember when we first met? I sure do
It was some time in early September
You were lazy about it, you made me wait around
I was so crazy about you, I didn't mind
- Jack Johnson, "Do You Remember"
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