Elephant in North America

Can't write much, I'm stressing out over the current workload and the realization that the semester ends in just a couple of weeks. But, thought I'd share this picture with you.

Who said elephants aren't native to North America? =)



Today's Random Word:

Thaumaturgy (noun) The performance of magic or miracles.

Queer Babies

I don't mean to use "queer" in the slang term to mean homosexual. I mean "queer" as in weird. Babies are scary even if they're normal (in my opinion) because they're just... I don't know... they're just scary! When they're not "normal", then they're even scarier.

In this photo released by the Loyola University Health System, Rumaisa Rahman, is seen next to a hand a few weeks after she was born at the Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill. Rumaisa, whose parents came from Hyderabad, India, weighed 8.6 ounces (243.80 grams) when she was delivered Sept. 19. She is believed to be the smallest baby in the world ever to survive. (AP Photo/Loyola University Health System, HO)


Nine-month-old Milagros Cerron is carried by a doctor at the hospital in Lima, on February 1, 2005. The Peruvian baby dubbed the 'Little Mermaid' because she was born with a rare condition in which her legs are fused, will have surgery this month to try to separate them, doctors said (Pilar Olivares/Reuters).


A woman in northeastern Brazil, Francisca Ramos dos Santos, 38, gave birth to what one doctor called a "giant baby," a boy weighing 16.7 pounds.


A nurse holds an Egyptian baby named Manar Maged in a hospital in the city of Banha, 25 miles, north of Cairo Feb. 18, 2005. Egyptian doctors said they removed the second head from the girl, who was suffering from the rare birth defects in an operation on Saturday. (Reuters)


Xuan Minh, 3, looks out from his bed at the Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Min city on Friday March 25, 2005, suffering from what is believed to be the effects of the jungle defoliant Agent Orange, used heavily in the region by the U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War. Vietnam celebrated the end of hostilities on April 30, 2005, marking 30 years since war in Vietnam ended. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)


A doctor inspects a 59-day-old baby boy who was born with three arms, at a hospital in Shanghai, in east China Monday, May 29, 2006. Doctors are checking the boys physical condition before deciding whether to remove his third arm. (AP Photo)


Charikot, Dolakha, March 29 - The birth of a bizarre-looking baby in Charikot, the headquarters of Dolakha district, on Wednesday, drew a huge number of onlookers to witness the astonishing sight. The neck-less baby with its head almost totally sunk into the upper part of the body and with extraordinarily large eyeballs literally popping out of the eye-sockets, was born to Nir Bahadur Karki and Suntali Karki at the Gaurishnkar Hospital in Charikot. The bizarre baby, however, died after half an hour of its birth, Suntali, the mother, informed. It was taken to the hospital after its death.


Mother Sushma holds her daughter Lali at their residence in Saini Sunpura, 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of New Delhi, India, Tuesday, April 8, 2008. The baby with two faces, two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes was born on March 11 in a northern Indian village, where she is doing well and is being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, her father said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

Olfactory Overload

Today's entry is just a funny picture.

Crazies

I've done something I'm really not proud of recently. Since I wanted to study abroad so badly, I'd been working anywhere from 11 to 15 hours a day so that I'd have enough money to pay for my tuition, rent, and food. Alright, so... my boyfriend, Paul, has some money. It's a pretty significant amount, let's say, so he offered me financial help. I didn't want it. I refused it multiple times and it just didn't seem right, especially since I've been financially independent since I was 18. But, as a "gift" he sent me a check to supplement my potential tuition and, after much debate, I flipped a coin. The coin was tails, which mean I accepted the loan. And I say it's a loan because I will pay the money back, with interest if it isn't within this year. I just hate the idea of being financially dependent again, though this is tuition money we're talking about. I'm still not proud of borrowing money, being the equalist that I am. Still, the coin flip has made many other important decisions in my life and it hasn't led me to regret anything yet. I know. Call me crazy if you want or sarcastically say that I am so totally mature and grown up for using a coin flip to make important 50-50 decisions in life; but hey, it's just the way I do things.

Well, anyway, not too long after I accepted this loan, I got a phone call from Paul at 5:30a.m.

Me: Hello?
Paul: Where are you?
Me: Uh, at home, in bed, sleeping. Or was until you called. Why?
Paul: Who's with you?
Me: My roommate is probably sleeping in the room across the hall. Why? What's wrong?
Paul: Ok. Kerstin, I can't talk to you for about a week because you were so bad in my dream.
Me: Um... ok...

So Paul, if you're reading this, my friends think you might be a little crazy. That makes us both a little crazy, doesn't it? No hard feelings. Seriously though, don't you think that a tiny bit irrational? Oh, and if you stumble across this entry, please, I hope you're over this "dream" that you had and you can tell me about it afterwards, ok? I'm really curious. How can I have been "bad" in your dream, to the point where you can't talk to me in real life for a week? Sorry, I'm just a blunt and blatantly honest person so I hope you don't mind that I told this to some people. If you're in New York, my friends may tease you about it. Ok, my friends will tease you about it. Oh, and going off the blatantly honest and blunt thing - when I say I'm really curious about it, I mean really curious (a.k.a. you WILL tell me). Sorry, I also had a few drinks after work. I hope you don't mind ;) I'll see you in a couple weeks. I hope you'll talk to me then!

Today's Random Picture:
Barack Obama... and his long-lost twin brother! No, just kidding. It's Barack Obama (L) and Ilham Anas (L) who is his Indonesian lookalike. I guess we all have lookalikes somewhere in this world.

Zoning Issues

My apartment landlord is apparently creating a deck/balcony for someone who's going to move in a few floor above us. The person living directly below the construction site got annoyed and reported the repairs to the city zoning authorities, requesting to see if my landlord had gotten a permit, which of course, he had. Nonetheless, there was a mix-up as to which floor the construction was going on and this morning, as I was getting out of the shower to get ready for work, someone rang the bell. Confused as to who would possibly bother someone at 8a.m. in the morning, I went to the door to find two city zoning officials asking me about the zoning issues that had been reported and how they wanted to see the repairs that was going on. Not being a morning person, I was thoroughly confused and said there was no construction going on in my apartment and the only "repairs" we had done were for the heating since it broke down during inclement winter we'd had in New York that winter.

They wanted to come in to check... as if I wouldn't know if there was construction going on where there was a deck/balcony being built. Still in my towel, I had to excuse myself and shut the door to get dressed. Afterward, they came in and realized they had had a mix-up with the apartment numbers, apologized, and left. Jeez, what a way to start the day. Oh, today I flipped a coin and I decided to accept Paul's "present" and go to Sofia for his best friend's wedding. I'll be quitting my job at the restaurant... I still need another job if I want to pay rent, though... I'll worry about that a little later.

Today's Random Picture:
The "North-South" divide simplified: