Alaska's at it again ...

So here's the problem ... I'm Alaskan ... and I hate to diss Alaska, but the State Board of Game has once again made another deplorable decision to shoot wolves in an attempt to control the wolf population just before Caribou birthing in the Aleutian Arc! What's the justification for shooting the wolves? So that "HUMAN HUNTERS HAVE MORE CARIBOU TO SHOOT"! This is so embarrassing for an Alaskan to hear ... it really is. Ya'll can checkout the article yourselves, it's called, "Board of Game Plays More Games: Alaska Finds New Excuse to Kill Wolves". How can people justify killing wolves who NATURALLY hunt Caribou and who have nothing but their teeth, claws and legs to hunt the caribou with? They can't even come close to competing with humans who have camouflage and guns! It's really unfair and to top it all off the State Board of Game wants to kill wolves from the air. They can't even get down and dirty with the wolves they have to FLY?!?! Talk about an extremely unfair advantage!!!! It doesn't even give the wolves the opportunity to hide and flee. I'm really disgusted by this information. Alaska has been killing wolves from helicopters, roughly, for the last 10 years. They've been stopped a couple of times from these genocides but they continue to try and kill more every year out of pure greed. 60% of Alaskans are already OVERWEIGHT!!! I think we can afford to share some of the food with the wolves!!!! People make no sense to me and then we want to wonder why we have greenhouse effects, global warming, species of animals that are going extinct, etc ... it's coz we're sooooo greedy that we kill off anything that competes with us in any capacity for the same resources because we feel that we are so vastly superior! If we took away our clothes, guns and weapons and pitted ourselves against these animals with just what GOD naturally gave us ... we would LOSE!!!! Not by a little bit ... but get so thoroughly throttled that we would have to reconsider our rank in the food chain! We'd probably end up somewhere near the bottom! I hope that the Alaskan State Board of Game is not allowed to kill the wolves down in the Aleutian Arcs. There's really absolutely no justification for it. We can all share.

No Malice!

My girls from Cali came to visit me this weekend! Actually, we all USED to live in california and we all (roughly) moved out to the "East Coast area"* (term used loosely! *^_^*). All for different reasons; Shaunte moved to Illinois for Medical School. Mosa moved to Baltimore for the Teaching Fellows Program and I moved to New York City for a promotion from a job. Who could have known? Anyways, the girls arrived around 9pm on saturday night (they drove up from Baltimore! Shaunte flew into Baltimore friday night). We had some quick Thai food for dinner, which was very yummy might I add, and we had pre-gamed before hitting the social scene. Pre-game? Ok for all you grannies who DON'T know what that actually means ... it just means that we stopped at the liquor store around the corner from my house to pick up some booze and mixers and drank pre-going out so that we already had a great buzz and to prevent ourselves from spending excessively at the bar! Yeah, we're cheapos! So what? Shaunte's a poor, starving student, Mosa's a teacher, and I'm a lowly paralegal ... we aren't living the high life ... BACK OFF!!!! LOL ... anyways, so in the picture above (from front to back: Mosa, Me, Shaunte), we headed out to No Malice Palace and partied with some friends! This place has been seeing lots of my hard earned dough yo! Next weekend (3/15) is also Leesh's birthday bash and I'll be back at No Malice!! hahahahahah It's a great thing that I really like the place and Matt (the bouncer) is a great friend of my boyfriend. Well they're like extended family! So Matt and I are friends as well! He's the best! I miss my girls already ... Mosa left on monday and Shaunte just left today ... and I have to go back to work tomorrow! Most boooooooos! Yuck! I really was enjoying just doing nothing and hanging out with friends! No wonder some women, also known as, gold-diggers have figured out that hanging out with friends while spending someone else's money is the best method. Maybe I should follow in their footsteps? Hahahaha just kidding! THere's nothing more gratifying than knowing that you earned your own keep that you don't have to depend on ANYONE to do things for you. Anyways ... back to the grind ... see ya tomorrow! *^_~*

Lotsa Laughs - Panda Style

"christine_miller said...
I have to say that I felt really bad for your experience but my husband and I were reading it and laughing hysterically..of course it didn't help that I was already hysterical from watching the "sneezing panda" video on youtube. I hope your back is better. I will say that I saw a chiropractor for a while after my car accident and he was legit and did a good job. So there are some good chiropractors...just not at the clinic you went to. :)"

Seems to be the consensus! People generally laugh at the situation and it was VERY comical in many ways ... post-experience though, might I add! For those who DON'T know what everyone's laughing about, it's about my post properly named"Holiday Pain". It was a terrifying and altogether hilarious experience that I, personally, DO NOT care to experience again (funny as it is to laugh at now). *^_^* What I want to really know though is ... what is this Sneezing Panda video on YouTube? YouTube has become SUCH a phenomenon! It's unreal!






But for all of you who are truly curious about this Panda ... I thought I would upload the video for your viewing pleasure! Enjoy!

The End?

Yo! So I finally replied to my "past haunt". First, I want to thank all of my closest friends and confidantes; Shaunte, Jamie & Kieran for all of your love, support, and advice through this tragic adversity. It took a lot of time for me to come up with what I really wanted to say and to make that verbalized. I apologize for all of you who had to sit through my psychobabble as I tried to make sense of my thoughts and put them in order. You guys are the BEST!!!! That's what I love you guys! But alas ... here's what the final production read;

"Hi, how are you doing? I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you but I had some thinking of my own to do. First off, let me say that I really do appreciate your writing to me. It means a lot to me that you came back and apologized so many years after the fact. Additionally, I want you to know that I have definitely forgiven you and that I don't hold/harbor anything against you. I ended our friendship because I felt like you didn't respect me and that hurt me deeply. I felt I couldn't continue to engage in an emotionally abusive friendship any longer.
I'm glad that you decided to open up and let me know how you feel. Thanks! Out of curiosity, what prompted you to write the letter? Hope you're doing well."

I know it started off well put together and then towards the middle and the end ... I feel, personally, that it started to get choppy. Hahaha LOL. Ahhhhhh .... wonder why it was so difficult for me to really write that short email. It's a strange feeling especially for someone like me, who's soooo overly prolific with words! I was actually told by a friend of mine (Yeah! I'm talking about you Hamilton! I'ma call you out on this! BTW, he has an awesome blog too! Check it out! http://www.zerogstudios.com/blog) that I have A LOT of anger! LOL ... shocking ... but perhaps he's reading something I'm not? LOL, well other than finding out what Brian's* response is to this email ... I can say this chapter of my life is pretty much closed. The End. Or is it?

"-isms"

Time for another Sherry-ism ... I didn't even realize it was an "ism" until Robert was laughing and bringing up the fact that I had said ... let me preface by saying that we were studying and trying to complete a quantitative practice question for the GMAT and we had no clue how to do it ... and when I finished reading the question aloud ... I was more vexed than ever, to which I promptly answered ...

"Well, F@#$* you ... I don't know!" (This is me speaking to the GMAT study guide)

Ahhhh ... yet another.

Past Haunts

Ok, so I thought that I could just keep it to myself but alas no ... it was not to be. I'm going to give a pretext/backgrounder before I launch into my tirade and hopefully it won't be too boring. My very first boyfriend, Brian* (*name has been changed to protect privacy), in college and I dated for a grand total of 4 months. 4 months? You ask. Yes, 4 months. At the start of the 4th month, I went home for Christmas break for 3 weeks and he took it upon himself to cheat on me with another girl attending our University. When I came back from break I promptly noticed the difference in him and he even had the audacity to bring the "other" girl over to meet me at his apartment. I can't believe he was surprised when we started talking and found out that we were both dating the SAME guy. Isn't the first cardinal rule of cheating that you should NOT bring the 2 girls around eachother?! Maybe he was banking on "hiding in plain sight". Clearly, it didn't work. Anyways, I broke up with him and he continued to date the "other" girl who shall be remembered as "bowling pin". If you hadn't noticed, I have the tendency to nickname people I don't like with characters or inanimate objects that they tend to resemble in my opinion. So post-breakup I didn't speak to him for roughly 6 months. But he was my bestfriend's roommate so eventually at some point we started talking again. I was OK with being friends with him so long as he didn't bring "bowling pin" around me. It was a few years later and he came over to hang out at my place in Westminster and he had broken up with "bowling pin" at this point and he wanted to play with my violin. Well, if you know me, you know that I treasure my violin greatly! It's my heart and soul, because I love music, I love to sing, play instruments, dance, etc. I love things that are musically artistic. Well, he was playing with the violin and in short, ended up dropping my violin despite my desperate warnings to "please be careful!" with the violin. Now, of course when the violin hit the floor, it felt like someone had knocked the breath out of me. I was, naturally, quite angry with him and ended up raising my voice at him. But because I raised my voice at him he had the audacity to be upset with ME even though he dropped MY violin! So then we didn't speak again for a weeks while I stewed, this is strike 2, by the way, for him.

The 3rd strike against him was when I went out to visit him in Palm Springs, CA. I drove several hours to hang out with him and when I got there HE decided that HE should drive MY car that just made the trek out to his place. Not only did he drive my car around, he used MY car with me in it, to run errands for HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND!!!! Then when he was getting in the car he slammed the door. I was highly affronted at this point and could no longer hold my tongue and lashed out in protest! I asked him to not slam my car door to which he replied that he had not done so. But it's MY car and I felt that he had slammed my door so what he should have done was explain that he felt he hadn't slammed my car door but that he recognized that I had felt he had so he was sorry for that and all would have solved. But no, he was determined that he had not slammed my car door and that he was not sorry for it, as a matter of fact he proceeded to slam my door again as he was getting out of the car. I promptly, at that point, made up my mind that he clearly did not respect ME as he did not respect my things as an extension of me.

1. He CHEATED on me!
2. He DROPPED my violin!
3. He SLAMMED my car door and wouldn't respect my wishes!

YYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRR OOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUTTTT!!!!!!!!!!! I decided that I couldn't be friends with someone who absolutely had no regard for my feelings. He had wronged me too often, too many times. I feel like I'm a very forgiving person, but I also felt that I was not about to sit around and take this sort of abuse from a so-called "friend". I drove away from Palm Springs that day angrily and set in my mind, that I would never speak to him again. I even deleted his number from my phone, as I sped home. I never looked back. This was March 2006.

~FAST FORWARD 2 YEARS LATER, NOW LIVING IN NYC~

On February 8th, 2008 I receive a letter from Brian*, it reads:

"Hello… you know, I’ve been wanting to write you this e-mail since the beginning of the year and sometimes because I get too busy and some others because I just can’t find the right words to tell you this… I just haven’t gotten myself to write this. Well finally here I am. I honestly don’t know how to begin… we haven’t talked in such a long time … that it feels weird writing you a message. You know I have never been too big on words specially when it come to apologizing but here I am trying to do just that.. (doesn’t this feel weird) well.. honestly I don’t know what you think about the way things ended the last time we talked. Ever since it happened I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly happened that day and I still can’t figure it out. I know I’ve hurt you in the past and I know that this letter might not mean too much to you but I honestly want to apologize for everything I’ve done to you. Even the littlest things or maybe the big things that seemed little to me but obviously were very important for you. You’re going to find a lot of mistakes (grammatically) on this letter but I honestly don’t want to proofread it. I want it to come from the heart and not have to make any changes because something “doesn’t sound good” Well, pretty much I just want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way things got between us, for the way I sometimes treated you, for the way things ended but mostly I’m sorry for not being the good friend you wanted me to be. I know you have moved on and honestly and truthfully I’m not expecting a reply. I just wanted you to know how I feel. Take care of yourself Sherry."

I've long since forgotten Brian* and how he had wronged me. I've found Christ since then and accepted him into my life as my LORD and SAVIOR. One of the tenets that a Christian is bound to do is to forgive and forget. To love those who love you and love those who have wronged you equally. Can you imagine my surprise when I received THIS email?! Shock doesn't begin to describe how I felt. I'm now happily in a relationship, with a man who I genuinely enjoy being around; who has not cheated on me nor disrespected me. It was strange to receive this email and even stranger when I realized that I could not bring myself to share this with my current boyfriend. I also realized that while I wanted to reply and say something to Brian*, no words could be found. No words, still, have been found. What do you say to someone who has caused you so much pain and suffering and is now writing you a letter of apology for all the wrongs he has ever committed against you? It's like finally receiving closure, but not at the same time, if that's possible. I've sent out distress calls to my most trusted friends and hopefully they'll help me come up with a game plan, but if you're reading this and you have a suggestion, I would be welcome to it. If you got a story to share, send it to me and I'll post it too! Let's babble about life together!

Made Up Pressure (MUP)

MUP!!!!! I have MUP!!!! Goodness, so I was asked by my cousin who is getting married on May 30th (yay!) to do her makeup for the wedding! Yowza! Now, she initially asked me to do both her hair and makeup!!!!! Yikes! I politely redirected her towards my other faaaabulooouuuuus (said while singing it) cousin Teresa for hair! Now, I'm not saying that I'm not any good at doing hair, but Teresa is better! Point blank. I'm not even going to LIE about this! Teresa's hair ALWAYS looks fantastic! Me? I think I've perfected the "chic-messy-yet-really-sexy-just-rolled-outta-bed" look. But I also think that's because most of the time, I did just roll outta bed and was too lazy to do my hair! LOL! I can't even remember the last time I took a brush to my hair, scary thought. Anyways, that's double pressure, hair AND makeup?! I even suggested that she should look into hiring a professional makeup artist; to which she politely retorted with a "well I really like the way you do your makeup and I want my family to take an active part in my wedding. It's important to me that my family is an integral part of my wedding". That wasn't verbatim but you get the point, 'nuff said, I'm doing her makeup.
Now, most of you probably don't know that this is NOT the first time I've done makeup for a wedding before, so why am I nervous then? Well, b/c it's my cousin's wedding. It's family. Not to mention, she's the first in the family (of us 5 cousins who grew up in AK) to get married. I don't think I need to say that this is a big ordeal ... wait, I just did. Anyways, so I asked her to send me a couple photo shots of herself sans makeup and then some ideas of what she wanted to look like. She agreed, to date ... she has not sent a single photo nor makeup idea. I know it's Feb. 19th today and her wedding isn't until May 30th .... but i'm already stressing! Sheesh! What do you call the person who isn't the bride but is having a bridezilla moment? Hahahahahahaha