http://www.FlashiPods4free.com/index.php?ref=29652

create an account and do one of the free trials? If three people do this I can replace my shuffle, and if five, I can get an actual ipod.

It's impossible, to blog at 11 pm. It's better to blog at 6, or 6:30, when all have gone home. And there is some time to be quiet and unwind right in the office. By the time you have gone out for a drink and then gotten home, it is 11, and you have to just get ready for bed and go to sleep so you can wake up tomorrow. The time to do it would be while still at the office. And yet in the past few weeks, I haven't. Dared, I suppose. But what would be so bad about it, I ask myself again. I mean, really. I am far too strict with myself, and it's far too easy to set me off into a precautionary mode.

The reason, then, that I haven't posted, is that I feel I cannot post about work. Which is a small part of my life, considering the hours actually spent there. But in some ways is a big part of my life because it's the most perplexing / incomprehensible. And what does one write about except the things one is trying to understand. But I feel I can't work them out here, and perhaps rightly. And yet if I don't get that out of the way, nothing else will come out. I think I just needed an adjustment phase, really. Since it was a few weeks ago, at the beginning of the month, conveniently for my memory, that I started to go on Th and F. And now, I think, after a few weeks, it has settled into my schedule a bit. Though, of course, in another week my schedule will change. And by the time I settle into that the class will be over. And then I will have nothing. And have to adjust to the nothing. While knowing that perhaps I will have something. That I shall be obligated to take, to avoid compunction. Who uses that word? Me, just me.

I wonder if I would like the smooth, even-toned skin that people seem to get from using Asian cleansers. I am not sure what they are, but the few times I've asked people who have skin like that, they're always using something from Korea or Japan. They'll say it's something my dad got me in Hong Kong.

But, the skin tone that comes from it, tends to be this ethereal look that is inauthentic. I am ethnic and perhaps I should stay true to that, rather than acquire bleached skin.

I should just go home; it's not like I'm going to get anything done here. Go home, shower, watch the last episode of Survivor.

Never tell people about your plans. They always advise something else. I suppose it won't be the end of the world if I don't stick to my resolution. It will be just like so many other resolutions. But this one, I thought, was good for me.

And anyway, Valentine's Day is the one holiday that I can never really accept half-baked. The point that it might have turned out "okay" is moot. I have done the "date someone, anyone" thing a few times, actually. I am breaking that habit. Or trying. I thought about taking a trip somewhere. Prague, Montreal, England. But I had no one to go with, and going alone might have just killed me.

So. Just now, I purchased a bus ticket to Boston, to leave on Tuesday and come back Thursday, with Valentine's Day exactly in the middle. I am not staying through Friday, because that may be too much time to spend with my sister. Baby steps, baby steps. Plus, I got this 50% off thing from Greyhound that wasn't available on Friday, as far as I could tell. I just have to fill out a survey and make sure I get the bus number. And some other number that I don't even know what it is. Which would make my thirty bucks fifteen, round trip. Plus the 12.50 RTX to and from New York.

So now, at least, I have a V-day plan. Not one that I feel spectacular about. But, at least I have a plan. The plan is running away. Ideally it would have been to some place where they don't have Valentine's Day. But Boston it is. I like having plans. Part of what is horrible is not the holiday itself but the days leading up to the holiday knowing you have no plans. Even if something materializes at the last minute and makes the day okay, the preceding days were still not.

Writing Workshop is like, you are immediately expected to produce a sizeable project, even in a beginner class. You bring it in- if it even exists it's a miracle- and then you get a humongous pile of critique all at once. You don't know what to do next, you feel overwhelmed, there is no sequence, there is just a pile of critique. You never touch it again, or if you do, you try to do too much at once, and everything falls apart. Then in several weeks it's your turn to go through the same thing again. You wonder why you can never finish anything.

All I can do is hope my problems go away. Brace myself, finish the ten questions of the day, and then try to recover. It just really isn't enough time. I could be doing this full time, this mass of documents that's being treated as small change. But hell if I know how to convert from contractor to full time. I don't even know if I would want to. Waking up at 7 am to get to the train station, then sitting there all day, and listening to them loop through the same inane conversation- I could very well go nuts. Of course, sitting here, day after day, without health care, I could die. Or worse, bankrupt my parents first, with the hospital bill if I get in an accident or contract some illness, and then die, of misery, depression, sadness, disappointment.

She pointed to a chart on the wall- a map of the tables with some lines and territories. She had heard this before. And yet they weren't using the system. She explained that when it was busier they would forget who had already ordered drinks or needed the bill, etc., but that she would tell them later. I didn't realize til after I left that she thought of my complaint as a problem on the part of the staff- that they were forgetting whether I had already ordered. Which they were, collectively, because no particular person was assigned to my table, and they would just ask randomly as they walked by, according to what they guessed. It was not the fault of the wait staff, but of the fact that they had absolutely no system or organization. I regretted talking to her about it once I realized that she would probably just tell her lowly paid staff to work harder, when really it was the fault of her non-management. And that of the two "partners" whom I had never seen and in the many times I walked by and glanced in the window.

So anyway I told her that the waiters were disorganized and that the way things were run now, it was impossible for any of them to tell what was going on. "Thank you for the suggestion," she said cheerily. She waved me off. It was clear that she wasn't really going to follow it. I was like, it's not a suggestion. This is the way people expect restaurants to be run. I myself was quite annoyed at having all these waiters running around, none of whom were really mine. I kind of couldn't stand it. I mean, there's something really disruptive and unpeaceful about it; you can't relax because these nervous Asians are hurrying around, being very industrious, but very annoying, because you are trying to think. At least in my case that is what I am trying to do; the other patrons are trying to dine. I can only imagine how they feel, as I am probably the least picky when it comes to service. I am sure others have tried to mention it to her and it just isn't getting through. It's embarrassing. I am embarrassed for them all as Asians.

Asians don't dine out that much. My family hardly ever does, except on holidays. Like Christmas and Thanksgiving. Which is of course not what you are "supposed" to do, on these days when you are supposed to be having a home-cooked meal. Anyway. I dine out often enough to know the basics, but not enough to be a really familiar diner. But I am not opening a restaurant. Why would you open a restaurant if you don't even eat out at restaurants often enough to know how a wait staff works?

So I am trying not to care but I still do, if not because I care about them, which I try not to, but from self-interest (the struggle of my adult life, a matter of survival in an individualist society). Mitsuba is a nice place to sit, or would be if only the wait staff were appropriate. Then again, maybe I can get them to serve me the way I want, to respect my space, and not worry about the others. Sigh. Because right now there's still too many people at lunch. I mean, it's the grand opening and 10% off, and so people are going there in droves and there's no room for me. That's part of the reason why I didn't go back sooner. It was always so crowded and I am a lone diner. Yeah. So there's just one week left in their grand opening and I haven't tasted all the things I wanted to. Whatever. I will just waste more money next month, I guess. I don't think I would have been able to dine alone that often, anyway. It is probably better also because I could not afford it anyway.

In a Parthian shot, I said pleasantly, "please fix it." But still, I was upset, and continue to be, because I think it will not be fixed. I think the time to tell them would have been early on, and now that they have had a successful month, even if their business decreases, they will think it is only due to the fact that the initial buzz has worn off, and not because their service is infuriating.

I am annoyed with myself, of course, for not having the talent to convince her of it. I'm very incapable of everything these days; I can feel my abilities waning in everything. Especially when it comes to talking to people or dealing with things, I feel myself getting unhealthier, it all plummeting. And I am generally despondent these days for that reason. I sense that there was a time when I would have been more convincing; when I would have hit the note at perfect pitch. And when my timing would have been right on; instead I delayed for weeks. Everything is off.