{rheality.check}

Ok so I remember back when Tina Fey did her little sketch on SNL supporting Hillary how everyone just flew at her about her snarky comment about how “Women today feel perfectly free to vote for whoever Oprah tells them to”. (If you want to know where that came from just google Tina Fey Bitch is the New Black). Well, folks here it is from the New York Times, there are economists who have done a study that approximate Obama received a million or so votes because of Oprah’s influence. Check out the Times article if you’re interested. I just think it’s interesting to finally have Oprah’s influence quantified, she is truly remarkable to have that much influence on the country. And while people may argue about how these economists got their evidence, I don’t question the validity of it. Perhaps it is only anecdotal reference but I have far too many friends/acquaintances/colleagues/family members who do take her opinion very seriously to underestimate it’s significance. While I do not read her magazine or watch her show I am well aware that she does hold a significant amount of power to sway public opinion. Far more than any politician I would imagine.

So today one of my coworkers asked me if I had met anyone recently? And not in that have you met new people, I know you’re new in town kindof way but in that wink, wink, nudge, nudge have you *met* someone kindof way. Quite frankly, I’m fine with you sharing as much of your personal life as you want to with me, I don’t particularly care. But asking me questions about my personal life at work strikes me as a little odd and hugely inappropriate. It’s like crossing all sorts of boundaries. I don’t mind answering if I just sent a notification to the team that I’m going on vacation, I mean you’ve kinda opened yourself up to questions when you tell people you’re out of the office. But just random questions coming from nowhere does strike me as just being intrusive and bordering on offensive. Ok, maybe not offensive but definitely creates an awkward feel. Oy. Sometimes I just don’t know what to do, I will probably just end up trying to pretend like that conversation never happened. But it’s not like this is the first time we’ve had an awkward interaction. *sigh* The joys of managing work interaction.

This is a bit random but it’s something I noticed yesterday. I had always been a bit jealous of people that seem to just have this little internal jukebox. For some reason, I’ve always had a good number of friends that are always bopping along to some song or other without the help of any headphones or anything. And just yesterday I noticed myself bopping along at work and on the train, somehow (and perhaps it’s due to the fact that I take so much public transportation that I’m always bopping along to my ipod) I no longer need real music. There’s continually some sort of song just playing in my head and sometimes I can’t recognize it but most of the time it’s like I have my own little database of music. It’s royally bizarre but in a good way. Going back to bopping along to my internal jukebox at work.

I just love the olympics. The athletes are just so incredible. I wish I had even half as much talent as they do.

Unfortunately the American women’s gymnasts have been having a horrible day. It’s been rather sad to watch, there was this one mishap (at this point I forget which one was the initial one) that just lead to almost every member of the team making some serious mistakes. I believe there were about 3 members that stepped out of bounds on floor and at least 2 that fell from the uneven bars. What I found was most tragic was this stunning performance on the uneven bars that was marred by a slip just as the girl was switching bars. And it had been so capturing up until that point, it’s always so hard to watch.

On a slightly different note there is this amazing woman, Oksana Chusovitina, who is 33!! and competing for Germany. They were doing a piece on her because she used to live in Uzbekistan and her son had leukemia, so she had reached out to a friend in Germany who managed to get her moved out there so her son could get treatment. And this woman is competing in her FIFTH olympics. Maybe I’m out of the loop but I’m pretty certain that that is unheard of for gymnasts, especially women. The sheer amount of skill and fitness it takes to compete against all those little 16-year olds, I just can’t believe it. She is seriously amazing, definitely a great role model/icon.

Imagine my surprise when I open up my favorite section of the Thursday paper to discover that band-aids are the new hot accessories and mascara has started vibrating. What will they think of next. I mean I can sort of understand the desire to get the sympathy vote via the bandaids but to make up an injury just to accessorize does seem a bit much for me. Not to mention the idea of vibrating mascara baffles me. Perhaps I’m not looking at the benefits closely enough but I’d imagine you’d have to be a good deal more careful with your daily make-up routine in order to use something like that. And I have to wonder who has the time in this modern fast paced world to spend extra time in the morning before work. But perhaps this is catering to a different sort of clientele.

This is my dilemma. I really don’t have time enough in the day for both activities but I took my first bike ride down to work today and I was a little slower than public transportation but I also didn’t have to wait for a bus or train, which was awesome. I’m a little precocious on my bike since I haven’t ridden in ages and well let’s face it driving around in downtown feels like someone’s going to run you over all the time. Thankfully that is only approx 5-10mins (depending on lights and cars trying to take me out) out of my 40ish-min trip down. Actually it may be faster than public transportation come to think of it… I think it’s just the taking out the bike, locking it up that takes up all the rest of the time to make it relatively equal.

Ok I got a little side-tracked there. But here is the real dilemma. I subscribe to “The Times” as the good little informed person that I’m supposed to be (at least so says my uncle who is ridiculously biased and been a subscriber of the Times since the 60′s). Now I haven’t always been a fan of the newspaper. In fact, I don’t particularly care for any other newspapers but after subscribing for a little over a year when I was living in CT I got quite attached to reading the Times every week day and at least a good bit on the weekends. Now that I’ve moved to Chicago I have found some problems with this. For one, I don’t have time to read on the weekends because I’m in grad school and my weekends are devoted to a little soccer and a lot of studying and maybe a couple of hours to see some friends if I’m lucky. Just last weekend I decided I wanted to make a healthy change in my life. With my crazy schedule it’s difficult for me to find the time to work out during the week. But then I thought to myself if I get a bike and just bike around town (and luckily Chicago is a hugely bike-friendly city, yay!) then I’ll get my exercise and cut out the irritating waiting for public transportation deal and it’ll be perfect! While I was thinking about this I totally forgot that I will also be cutting out my down-time of reading the paper while on the bus/train. So now I don’t know what to do. I know that I definitely don’t have time to read the paper during the week should I bike to work. But I’m hesitant to give up my subscription altogether.

I suppose I may try suspending my subscription for a little while and see how I feel about that. Oh how I wish there were more hours in the day. Maybe if I just leave early for work and get to work early I can take half an hour to unwind with the paper afte

I know this is only one story. About only one child. But it is simply heartbreaking. This war has caused so much pain for so many people. When will it end?

The End of Rakan’s War

I am sharing this because I think it is important that people read these stories. That people can understand the heartbreak that this war is causing and then maybe there can be hope for an end.

Perhaps I’m a little jaded, maybe I’m just a bitch (for lack of a better word) or something but I just don’t understand this whole Obama mania. Especially in my favourite columnist. I happen to be a huge fan of Maureen Dowd, now this might just stem from the fact that I loathe “Dubya” and she has written some incredibly funny op-eds mocking him.  But I have to say I have been sorely disappointed with her columns of late. It could be that I am a Hillary fan and am still disappointed that she didn’t get the nomination.  But really what is the appeal? I just don’t see it. I also don’t understand why everyone in the media just falls all over this guy. Quite frankly I don’ t think he’s all that qualified. I don’t think he speaks *that* well (no, I’m not saying he speaks poorly, I just don’t have that fall all over him reaction that seems to be the recent trend). And I’m not a huge fan of his dog-whistle tactics that were used in the primaries. I guess the title of my post is a little misleading, I don’t really care what is with Obama mania, I just really wish we could all get over it. Especially my columnists, I just want them to go back to mocking all politicians equally. Is that really too much to ask for?

Really, who knew? I was just reading this morning about how coffee can be good for you, in numerous ways. Now I quit drinking coffee several years ago… it was a bit unintentional but I discovered chai. And while I know that there is a drastic difference between (what I call) “coffee-house chai” and real chai, I still tend to prefer either of those to any kind of coffee.  Also to be honest, while I did tolerate regular american coffee for several years I have always preferred the espresso kind. I guess my favorite coffee would have to be a latte. Come to think of it I remember hearing something about how a smidgen of espresso a day is good for you, sortof like that one glass of red wine a day thing. Perhaps I should pick up drinking coffee again. Just something to think about.

So yeah, one could say this is a horrible movie but I have to say that this is a really great movie if you just want something dumb and funny to watch. Now finding this movie is a funny story for me, my best friend Evelyn and I happen to like Lindsey Lohan (or at least did at the time it came out) and we both love sappy romantic comedies. Now at this point we lived about 2 hours apart but decided on a Tuesday or Wednesday night that we would drive an hour to meet in the middle and catch the movie because we needed a mid-week pick-me-up. I’m sure you’re all thinking, really a bad Lindsey Lohan movie is a good pick-me-up and more than that you drove an hour out of your way in the middle of the week to see a movie. Crazy but true. So after the movie I saw it on sale at one of those Blockbuster 4 for $20 specials and I picked it up and for the first time since I bought it, I decided to watch it again. And I have to say it was just what I needed. A great movie to put on in the background to doing my homework (being back in school helps with needing those mindless and funny films). So I recommend that if you are looking for an entertaining movie but you and don’t have very high expectations this one just might pleasantly surprise you. (Not to mention I love the music, I was super excited about discovering McFly after that movie!)