May the Yuletide be Gay

Ah Christmas, my favorite time of year. Come December, I torment those near and dear to me with incessant carols and (some say) premature holiday cheer. Spending Christmas in Denver was lovely: cookies were baked, the tree was bejeweled, the Grinch was (re)watched. The weather gods even surprised me with the proverbial White Christmas, giving Denver denizens a clean cover of snow to alternately delight (children, sappy people, me) and torment (drivers, people whose duty it is to shovel driveways, me). In between eating, reading, sleeping, and playing Bingo with the high school crew, I even managed an afternoon of frolicking in the white stuff with my little brother. See pictures for proof of familial happiness.

But all good things (read: excessive leisure time) must come to an end, and I find myself back in damp and dreary DC just in time to ring in the New Year with awesome friends. I couldn't be happier to be back home. (That's right - I had the realization flying back into National that home is no longer the house I grew up in, it's the community I make for myself, wherever that may be. And at the moment, the District seems pretty damn homey, with friends new and less new to welcome me back.)

Since tomorrow is January, it's high time for me to bid goodbye to the "most wonderful time of the year" for year another twelve months, and get on with my life. But before I abandon the holiday spirit, I'm leaving you with a gift courtesy of my brother and YouTube (since what is Christmas about in this country if NOT the presents?!). I can't seem to figure out exactly how this video relates to Christmas, other than a character who happens to be named Santa Claus. After all, there's no push for material consumption, no pretty ornaments, and certainly no baby Jesus. Instead, there seems to be an epic battle of the "Agwars" spearheaded by a laser-ax-toting "Great Woodsman" against some troll things. Oh, and Santa owns a puma. Go figure.

Enjoy, and if you can find any seasonal message encrypted in this bizarre sequence, by all means let me know. Merry Christmas!!!!

I Put Papaya There

Yup, yup. Workin' on New Year's Eve. This is awesome -- nobody is here except for me and a handful of random secretaries. And since the bosses are gone, I'd say the saying "when the cat's away, the mouse will play" certainly applies.

In my case, it means re-watching favorites on YouTube and catching up on world news. There's a lot I could say about this gem of a video (i.e. how awesome it is to have a multicolored dance sequence on a misty mountainside, or how problematic it is that I enjoy watching videos that are only funny because of their non-Western foreignness), but I'd prefer to let the clip speak for itself...

Another Year Wiser?

I celebrated my 23rd birthday this week, and for maybe the first time in my life, didn't think twice about it. Usually, I recall meaningful events of the previous year, freak myself out a little thinking about how old/unaccomplished I am, then get a jump on writing New Year's Resolutions to commit to for my ongoing process of self-betterment. This year, I made french toast for the family, read for a couple of hours, went to see a mediocre play, and avoided eating chocolate for fear of further aggravating a cold sore that's already the size of Louisiana.

What a truly exciting life I lead.

My own mother actually made fun of me for being such a homebody, but I'm at peace with that fact. I've given up on the possibility of ever celebrating my birthday with friends. In late December, people are usually out of town, skiing, or with their own families, and being quite family-oriented myself, I'm OK with that. Last year, after realizing that my 21st had involved me flying 30 hours, having one glass of wine, and then passing out on my couch completely jet-lagged, I was determined to do the "traditional" party thing for the big 2-2. I roped about 20 friends into committing to a night of bar-hopping, and then watched helplessly as a blizzard rolled in that morning, trapping me in the house for three days with my family. So much for a wild party.

It seems quite clear to me that God does not wish for me to celebrate the day of my birth in any way other than at home, sober and in my pajamas. S'cool. Who needs big parties when you have, uh, nifty-ass hobbies like knitting and fiddling to prove how cool you are? Damn straight.

Anyway, thanks for all of you who wished me a happy birthday. It means a lot to hear from all the wonderful people I know, whether I met you a few weeks ago or have known you since middle school, whether you live near me in DC or are spread to the far-flung corners of the globe. I'm continually impressed by the caliber of thoughtfulness and intelligence you all possess, and by the amazing things you are all doing with your youthful energies. Big hugs to all!! (**Awwwwwww**)

Whatever, it's my birthday. I can be sappy if I want to.

And the Winner Is....

True to seasonal fashion, it's once again appropriate to play that all-American pastime: creating lists that document the BEST THINGS OF THE YEAR!!

I think our culture likes doing this every December because it's one way to see how life has moved forward; when summarizing the best, worst, and weirdest events, we prove to ourselves once again that we have made progress over the previous year. (Whether or not we have made any positive advancements is an entirely different question...)

Let's set aside commentary on "normal" compilations like "Top 10 Songs of 2007." You can find those in any magazine, written by any wannabe DJ, and frankly, they're all equally boring. Better is the Oxford English Dictionary's Word of the Year. This year's winner? Locavore, as in a person who eats seasonally-available foods, buys locally-grown ingredients, and shuns the addition of preservatives and carbon emissions that are necessitated when food is flown to the eater from thousands of miles away. Having just finished the thought-provoking Omnivore's Dilemma, and having pledged myself to attempt to be a locavore in so far as my meager budget will allow, I am quite pleased that this word made it in vogue.

(However, outside the tree-hugging community, it seems that not everyone was enthralled about this choice. One disgruntled reader posted a NY Times blog commentary that was a pointed critique of the OED's choice. It reads: "What about vajayjay? Didn’t you folks just do an article on that gem of a word? I mean come on. Who doesn’t love vajayjay?")

He makes quite a compelling case, but the do-gooder in me still says supporting the emerging local-foods movement was a pretty damn good pick, particularly for 2007, year of the Bali climate change talks, PowerShift, and Al Gore's well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize. As long as we are interested in commemorating each passing year by noting its most positive achievements, in hopes of passing those trends on to future generations, or at least continuing them in 2008, this pick by the OED seems like a very fitting tribute to an enviro-conscious year.

Actual Words a Friend Used to Describe My Sense of Humor:

1. Awkward
2. Horrible


In the same sentence.

And they say misogyny doesn't exist...

Ah yes, misogyny is alive and well in our country. Check out this handy little tool crafted especially for the holiday/election season: the Hillary Clinton Nutcracker.

Look, she has scary steel jaws between her legs, a very masculine-looking pantsuit, and a cropped haircut!! She probably doesn't even know how to bake cookies with all the nuts she's able to crush.

Presumably she's meant to be "crushing" her cheatin', lyin', pants-unzippin' husband, but that's not where her maniacal takeover ends. Oh no -- rich, white, land-owning men everywhere, be warned!! Hillary is on the loose and her support in the polls means the beginning of a new feminazi agenda, where Woman, freed from her domestic yolk, is taking on the patriarchal powers that be. I'm reminded of Pat Robertson's wise comment that "Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." Indeed, Hillary's "assertiveness" (read: "bitchiness" in a feminine context) is truly the #1 threat to this country's national security. Well, after illegal aliens, crazy-man Ahmadinejad, and them terrorists, that is.

In other words, our country is so scared of a woman having a decent chance to actually win the highest elected office that we resort to mocking her by calling her a ball-buster. That's just pathetic. If you don't like Hillary, fine, but let it be on her ideas and merit, and not the fact that she happens to be a powerful, rather well-spoken woman. I'll admit there may be a lot of "nuts" in government who ought to be crushed, but this whole idea just rubs me the wrong way.

P.S. Don't get me started on the anti-gay quips on the promotional website... ("Sure worked well on the pecans for my fruitcakes.” -Al Gore) Next on Krystyna's Blog: Homophobia: Alive and Well.

Now Down to Business...

OK, be forewarned: this is going to be a serious post, and maybe a little preachy. I'm in a very introspective phase of life at the moment (winter tends to do that to me), and have been spending quite a lot of time thinking about systems and how I/we/Americans/an active citizenry/young people fit(s) into them, what we can do to change them. The holiday season, with its connotations of material acquisition and capitalist-promoted nostalgia, seems to be quite a relevant time to situate myself in some of the broader issues being played out all around us. More importantly, it's been a time for me to re-evaluate my own role in perpetuating/ending/opting out of these systems. (For fear of getting "too Pomona," I'll leave that train of thought at that. I don't really have any answers to these problems anyway. They're just on my mind and bear mentioning.)

A few brief thoughts (maybe prompts for conversations to be continued with you, I hope?...):

- Tomorrow (December 5), is the day the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case of Boumediene v. Bush, the next phase of rulings on the status of habeas corpus in this country. They will debate whether the ago-old precept held that people have the right to contest their detentions in court, and to demand the government that holds them imprisoned show at least some evidence of why they are being detained, applies to "enemy combatants," non-US citizens who are for whatever reason swept up in the dragnet of the War on Terror. (For an easy to understand background on why habeas corpus protects every citizen's freedom, check out Habeas Schmabeas , a story from This American Life that prompted me to write my senior thesis on Guantanamo Bay.) Fingers crossed that the Court decides that it JUST ISN'T OK to strip anyone's right to protest their imprisonment, regardless of their nationality or citizenship. While the old system of laws on wartime are certainly going to have to be re-examined in the context of modern terrorist warfare (the blurring of boundaries between war and peace, military and civilian, where "battlefield" can be as far as Afghanistan, or as near as the Chicago airport), this is just not a right that can be waived on command. To relinquish it (the requirement that the government provide evidence for taking away a person's freedom) for anyone -- even potential foreign terrorists -- would be giving the state an enormous degree of power.

- Tomorrow is also the day that the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will present to the United Nations a case against some top officials in the Sudanese government for their involvement in the ongoing genocide in Darfur. The evidence is remarkably clear that the killing janjaweed militias are funded, organized, and supported by the government in Khartoum. Clearly, this is something that needs to be protested, stopped, and punished. I'm not exactly sure how to be involved in this as a citizen so removed from the powers that be, but my first reaction has been to look into the (hopefully not too cliched) letter-writing campaigns that exist, particularly as regards targeted divestment in Sudan.

While frustrated by feeling small and insignificant against massive systems of power, I, like so many others, keep coming back to the idea of an active population of citizens speaking out to correct injustices as a way to keep power in check; indeed, this idea is fundamental to our notion of democratic governance. At the same time, it seems SO INSIGNIFICANT to merely write letters, hold demonstrations, and pass out flyers -- but it seems like it's the only option we've got for the moment. I'll keep searching myself for a better solution to "effect change," but really, as it stands, I'm grateful that others have opened up even these meager channels of protest (kudos to some of my activist friends for doing the dirty work).

I'm challenged by something that Barack Obama said, which I think is both troubling and true: that where we put our "time, energy, and money" is the "true test of what we value... regardless of what we like to tell ourselves." Troubling because I need to continually push myself to live up to that, to fight against an inertia of enjoying the status quo. Praying that I can somehow find a means of leaving (some portion of) the world a better place because I have lived in it.

And on that cheery note... happy December!!

Back on the Wagon

I'm BACK!! See?? Updating my blog!!

New posts! Drama! Intrigue! Humor! Relevance! Poignant quips! Exclamation points!!!!!!!!

So never fear, keep reading, and sleep better knowing that Krystyna is once again connected to your life via this strange online medium.

In Limbo

I realize I've been ignoring this blog lately. Not that things haven't been happening in my life. On the contrary, life has been complicated, in both good and bad ways. I'm not really sure what to write about it all just yet, and I don't have the sense that anything can be summed up in one nice, clean anecdote (but it's always so nice when that works out), so I'm going to ignore the blog for just a little while more until something truly post-worthy comes along. (Never fear, the Wamboldts together around the holidays is sure to produce at least one memorable story...)

Until the next/more detailed/more thoughtful/funnier/all-around-better post, I'll leave you with this:

Thanks, Drew Carey!!

“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.”

Big Realization

I (finally) came to the conclusion that I want to go to grad school. Some part of me has known all my life that I would at some point have to/be expected to do get some post-grad education, but all summer and fall, I really haven't been able to even stomach that thought. Most of it, I think, was burnout at the thought of going through the rigamarole of more applications, exams, stress and general academic BS, but I think more of it was my being uncomfortable with the idea of my own privilege. I didn't (and don't) want to go on for more schooling just because I could - because I could get accepted and figure out a way of financing it, or worse, because I couldn't think of anything better to do with myself. My guilt at the idea of having too many opportunities available to me no doubt stems from the incredible experiences I've been lucky enough to have so far, from seeing so many people who aren't afforded the same opportunities to "succeed" as I am. Strikingly, it is my own privileged upbringing (due to my parents' diligence and value of higher education) that has made me resent the notion of higher education for myself, of seeing it as a personal indulgence. It's quite a perverse conclusion, if not an uncommon one.

In any case, I think grad school is indeed in my future! I came to the realization that I could actually use the extra training to do a lot more good for others and for myself, and so I'm committed and actually looking forward to the idea. Sadly, I came a little late to the party, and am too late to actually get any apps out this year, so we're looking at a fall 2009 matriculation. Sigh. Let's hope my enthusiasm can last that long... I suppose the silver lining is that it gives me a ton of time to actually prepare myself, and to do my research on programs, make myself a better candidate, etc. Any suggestions on programs/opportunities for school (or cool experiences in the meantime) are more than welcome.

Borderline Sexual Harassment = Bad.

I think I win for obvious statement of the week.

Annoying Attorney A*** is a man who is known by all the paralegals at the firm as the guy you don't want to get stuck working with. He's a little out-of-control with his OCD ("Did you double-check it? Would you check it again? I'm going to re-check that with you one more time."), and has a knack for making unreasonable demands. On one memorable occasion, he told me that my photocopying skills were sub-par because, and I quote, "the black ink isn't black enough."

However, I put up with him fairly well, if only to catalogue all his idiosyncrasies and laugh at them later, so naturally, this means that he has taken a liking to me and frequently asks me to do his bidding. Recently, though, he's made a few comments to me that I am at a complete loss to know what to do with, given their suggestive and borderline inappropriate nature. Keep in mind that we're talking about a very, VERY awkward guy, who I keep telling myself is only trying to be friendly and is inadvertently falling on the wrong side of that delicate line of what is/is not OK to tell to someone who works under you. (Maybe I'm just in denial because I don't really want to consider the implications of what it would actually entail for me if I did eventually decide that he crossed that boundary, but he's a competent attorney -- he's got to know better than to hit on me, right? Right? OK, let's really not think about that. I'll cross that bridge if it ever comes down to it, but I don't really honestly see that happening. God, I hope not.)

He remarked to me about a week ago about how my outfit looked "really good on me," which I wrote off as a compliment that went awry. Yesterday, however, he upped the ante a bit and brought creepy to a new level. I was in his office looking through pictures of the jail (which on a completely unrelated note is much less scary-looking than I had imagined), and when we got to the photos of the shower area, he busted out with this:

"Krystyna, how would you like to take a shower there? You know, with all those guys in the cellblock watching? I guess you'd have that little curtain there, but that doesn't do much. Or you could just take a bath."

I ask you all: HOW THE HELL DOES ONE RESPOND TO THAT?? Answer: By mustering a face that (hopefully) appropriately expressed my utter shock at having my superior insinuate that I would be naked in a shower... with people watching... in a jail context... It was awkward to an extreme. So yeah. Ack. I doubt this will evolve into anything other than an unfortunate pattern of semi-questionable remarks, but should it turn into anything lewder, rest assured that I will deal with it. I am, after all, surrounded by hundreds of high-profile attorneys who would no doubt jump on the chance for a juicy sexual harassment pro bono assignment. That is one bizarre perk of working at a corporate law firm where a tarnished image could turn into a huge liability.

Scruffy cats dashed out of old cargo equipment, rusted snowplows and underbrush to eat the food.

On a totally random note, this is just about the most random news article I've read in quite a while, but because I believe in sharing hilarious things, I thought I'd point out this little gem to my devoted readers (all twelve of you).

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Also, Happy Halloween!!!

Little Jaunt to New England

Alright, it's a little too depressing to keep seeing my last post after last week's crushing defeat for the Rockheads, so I think it's about time for an update, lest I keep getting reminded of my silly and optimistic enthusiasm. Ah well. There's always, uh, next year...

I had a little weekend getaway and flew up to Providence for Brown's family weekend to visit Alex. It was a mini Wamboldt-reunion, which was excellent, and I got lots of good food out of the deal. The highlight was a classic "this is why the Wamboldts can't have nice things" moment (if you aren't aware, this is a favorite game to play in my family... Every time somebody breaks something, spills something, trips, embarrasses themselves, embarrasses others, drops food, disobeys social etiquette, makes a faux pas, or generally does something that one might find awkward and hilarious, you just add it to the running list of "why the Wamboldts can't have nice things." It's definitely a little weird, but then, so is my family.). We had gone to Newport for the day, where "summer" is a verb and "salmon" is an adjective used to describe pants color, and decided to indulge in a little lifestyles of the rich and famous tourism. We went to The Breakers, the largest and most famous of the Newport mansions, owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt II, which was basically like a miniature (I use that term loosely) Versailles. It was essentially a European palace, no joke. My favorite part of the tour was that the dining room chairs weighed 70-100 pounds each (depending on whether the detachable armrests were on), and so for their dinner galas, the family would hire 40 men to literally stand behind each chair so that they could help the guests get out from the table. Incredible. Also, I forgot to mention that The Breakers was only a "summer home" for the Vanderbilts, so it got used for only about 6 weeks every summer. Again, incredible. The amount of sheer wealth and vanity that this all requires boggles my mind.

ANYWAY, I was trying to recount the "this is why the Wamboldts can't have nice things" moment. So when we were waiting in line for tickets to the Vanderbilt cottage (also fairly pricey, these dudes have a whole racket figured out, let me tell you), this elderly couple from one of the bus tours that go see every mansion in Newport offers us their extra tickets. Being total cheapskates, we gladly accept, and are all impressed at our good fortune. We go wait in line, smugly thinking that we got out of paying to see some rich people's house, and are quite pleased with ourselves until we get to the front of the line. The primly polished woman taking tickets, who looks as though she has never smiled a day in her life, looks at us, looks at the tickets, and then asks coldly, "Are these the only tickets you have?"

We sort of stumble and say yeah, at which point the woman goes inside and consults with another prissy looking woman, who also comes out and again quite coldly informs us that the tickets we are trying to use are meant for only one person. So much for trying to pawn off our free tickets, couldn't fool them. This is about the point where Alex and I begin to get the serious giggles, and start off a full-fledged family laughing fit. The fact that our family was basically being rejected at the door of a fancy-pants mansion by Newport society women was just too priceless not to make the obvious comment (see above). Shamed and scorned, we had to go actually buy some tickets and re-face the woman taking tickets, who somehow didn't remember us (you'd have thought we made enough of a scene, but no), but eventually they let the riff-raff in.

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On the topic of my career...


Mom: "You should marry rich, get introduced to the President and become friends, and then you could be appointed as ambassador to a really cool country!"

Dad: "You can become a gypsy."


These comments came at different points over the same dinner. I'm not sure if it's possible for me to simultaneously accomplish both, but dammit I'm going to try. I'd hate to let my parents down.

Glory Day for the Mile High City!!!!!

THE ROCKIES ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!!

So apparently, hell has frozen over, and the good ole' Rockheads somehow made it to the pinnacle of baseball-dom, or at least are so incredibly near to it. This is tremendously exciting news for someone who remembers going to their first few games back in 1993, and who has cheered them on for at least one home game every season since. Humor me for a second and let me just brag a little about our victory after so many years of mediocrity: the NYTimes informs me that this is only the second time that a team has ever won every game in the post season, the first being in 1976 with the Cincinnati Reds. (And yes, as memorable as that event was, I feel quite certain that this time it really is a victory for the ages, and will be remembered for generations to come. Seriously.) Admittedly, I'm no expert in the field of baseball statistics (pun intended), but this sounds like a sort of big deal to me. I mean, come on -- we just won 21 of our last 22 games!! I wish I were in Denver to join in the festivities... and by "festivities" I really mean drunken people rioting downtown.

I spent a while trying to come up with a clever title for this entry commemorating my dear Rockies' clean sweep of the playoffs, but very quickly realized that any/all would be too corny to dare post with any seriousness. However, our team's name just lends itself to such glorious puns that I just had to compile a short list of the favorites:

- ROCKtober (Var: ROCKtoberfest)
- ROCKstars
- We will, we will ROCK you
- Time to ROCK and roll
- This city's off its ROCKer

There, I warned you. Not clever.

Most of all, I'm just proud that we, a "nobody team/state," is in the spotlight. As the Times puts it, "Perhaps now fans outside of their region will get to know them." Damn straight.

Bad news for we over-analyzers...but beautiful nonetheless.

"I understand it all too well, Ivan: to want to live with your insides, your guts -- you said it beautifully, and I'm terribly glad that you want so much to live," Alyosha exclaimed. "I think that everyone should love life before everything else in the world."

"Love life more than its meaning?"

"Certainly, love it before logic, as you say, certainly before logic, and only then will [you] also understand its meaning."


- The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Mad Scientist by Circumstance, Not Choice

This must be obvious from reading my past postings, but I spend a lot of time thinking about employment: how to get it, what makes it fulfilling, whether it should define your life or merely be a part of it, what about it makes it worthwhile or worthless... I'm at a place where I'm cutting a sharp distinction between the work/life divide, although I hope down the line to somehow integrate those two facets of my life a little more. That is, like most people, I ultimately hope to find the proverbial "perfect job" which channels my skills, talents, ethics, and passion into something that changes the world for the better (and one which I enjoy doing), rather just being employed for the sake of earning money. But that lofty goal can wait for a while. Not an immediately pressing concern.

I met a guy my age about a week ago who had just moved to DC, and was telling me how it was so hard for him to land a job here. He was intelligent, witty, personable, and had just graduated from a top liberal arts college with an engineering degree, so it struck me as strange that he wasn't snapped up by some firm or another right away. (Admittedly, DC may not be the absolute best place for engineers, but there should still be some opportunities, I would imagine.) Anyway, when I asked what he ended up finding, he got extremely sheepish and told me he was just hired by a place called (creepily enough) MetalStorm Ltd. He'll be using his young and talented mind to design new forms of missiles and grenade launchers, which he knows will then be sold to the U.S. government and shipped to Iraq, where he admits that they will presumably inflict staggering damages on civilians and children, among others. I guess I can't hold it against him personally if this really is the ONLY job he can find for now, but I'm really struggling with the idea that he could accept such an appalling job even with the admission that it is, well, evil.

More than anything, I find it more than a little disillusioning (and disturbing) to find out that normal, good people can just "fall into" a profession like missile design. I mean, this really should not be one of those things that smart people just resort to because they have no better career opportunities. Yikes.

Happy Paralegal Week!!!

OK, so I'm actually a week late. Paralegal Week was LAST week, that is October 1-7, but I figure that it's alright to extend the holiday season a little and celebrate this glorious event just a bit more.

Apparently, Paralegal Week happens because BOTH the Mayor of DC and the Governor of Maryland signed proclamations to that effect. Several thoughts:
1. Proclamations still exist?!? I thought they went out of style in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation, which was, after all, a pretty bad-ass proclamation. It sort of tickles me that elected officials can still issue proclamations. I wish we could have a "royal decree" in favor of Paralegal Week, too. Maybe they do in the UK.
2. What the hell is wrong with the Governor of Virginia for NOT supporting my valuable contributions to the legal community?! I mean, come on. If both DC and Maryland support Paralegal Week, you'd think VA would want to join the bandwagon too, and reap some goodwill among the toiling masses of entry-level paralegals in the metro area (or worse: the PERMAlegals who do this as a career... shudder). Anyway, just in case you want to register your shock at the Governor of Virgina's complete callousness and utter disregard for paralegals everywhere, I have provided a link to his "contact me" page: http://www.governor.virginia.gov/AboutTheGovernor/contactGovernor.cfm
3. Just in case you still don't believe me that there are actual proclamations, I've posted one of them as proof that absurdity is alive and well. This is the one from the Mayor of DC's office, and it's really slick. See, even while lauding the "trained professionals who provide substantive legal assistance," he managed to slide in a little lefty politics about the voting rights of the District!! (The actual text cleverly reads: "Whereas, paralegals who live in Washington, DC serve the legal profession admirably, despite being denied full voting rights in Congress...") WHOAAAA there it is!! So maybe this whole proclamation thing was only an opportunity for him to promote his own political agenda, and wasn't actually about the paralegals at all!!! Oh my god. This realization is like discovering that the tooth fairy isn't real.
4. Um, don't actually contact the governor about this. OK, maybe that would be pretty funny if he started getting outraged emails over this. Haha.

So anyway, having nothing better to do for Paralegal Week, I decided to make cards for my coworkers, thanking them for their valued contributions to the firm and the legal community at large on my behalf. Then, I spent about three hours one day hand-delivering them to other offices, and chatting for a while, no doubt spreading the joy of the festivities wherever I went. As Xiaolu put it, "You are to Paralegal Week what Santa Clause is to Christmas. Minus the huge belly, of course." I can't think of a better compliment.

Laura thinks this story is scary, but it's really just funny.

I think I've been in a pretty oblivious state of mind recently. For whatever reason, I seem to be trapped in my own head more than usual, which in my case is significant. There is a lot going on right now that merits thinking seriously about - a sign of a fulfilling life - but it is getting to the point where I need to just "live" rather than continually analyze the process of living.

While on the topic of being TOTALLY oblivious to the world around me.... There's this crazy man who habitually loiters in and around the Dupont Circle metro, jacked up on maybe fifteen kinds of substance, who has this crafty little trick of riding the metro back and forth, claiming to need just enough money to get off. He wanders around yelling "One more dollar! Just one more dollar! Please people, can you give me a quarter? One quarter? I've gotta get off this train..." etc. Thing is, he ALWAYS needs "just one more dollar," and I have witnessed this little ploy several times before. Pretty clever, really. I bet if he were marginally less irritating, though, he'd get a lot more.

Anyway, last Thursday, I happened to be on his car in the metro (just my luck), and due to a lot of factors (me being tired, frustrated, hungry, and eager to get home after Arabic class, to name a few) it was just not the right time for me to be dealing with Mr. Nutcase. I consciously decided to ignore him and in order to drown out his steady banter, I turned up my iPod and started blankly out the window into the dark tunnel. (Yes, rude, I know, but then bad moods often trump civility, sad as that may be.)

After a couple of minutes lost in my own train of thought, I notice that the guy is standing RIGHT behind me, no longer chanting "a quarter? a quarter? anyone?..." but instead, something more like "Ma'am, ma'am, it's following you! That's what happens, it's gonna get you. Gonna get you, ma'am, gonna get you." He's grating my nerves at this point, so I pointedly don't turn around until, after maybe thirty seconds, I notice out of the corners of my eye that people are staring at me. Like, everyone in the train is looking at me, and since there's a crazy person behind me (which would normally command far more attention than little ole me) it dawns on me that something is up.

Finally, two people tap my shoulder, and gesture to my hand, upon which a two-inch long, bright red cockroach is perched. It's clearly been chillaxin' there for, oh, you know, long enough for people to notice. I think I pretty suavely shook it off (it landed on the next guy over, who was way more freaked out than I was), and luckily, was able to save some face and escape when the doors opened at my stop a second later (saved by the bell). How it escaped my attention that there was a COCKROACH on me for over a minute, especially when a crazyman is loudly pointing out that same fact to the ENTIRE train, is completely beyond me. But there you go. Living in my own world these days.

The Silver Lining

So after the blood donation fiasco, which I'm starting to think of as God's way of telling me not to try heroin, they wrapped my arm with a bright red gauze bandage.

When Colleen got home from work and saw it, the first thing she said was: "What, you're wearing an armband in solidarity with the Burmese?"

Sigh. If only I were that cool...

A Bloody Fiasco

Today I donated blood. I have donated blood before. It has gone smoothly.

Today was not like that.

I went to the Red Cross station at my assigned time to get my donation on, and dutifully went through all the rigamarole of checking in and giving my sexual/travel/medical history and whatnot. In the process, it is "possible" that I "may" have slightly duped the people into accepting my semi-malarial blood due to omission of details concerning several sketchy places to which I have recently traveled... (KIDDING!!! Even I am not evil enough to trick the Red Cross into accepting tainted blood... sort of.) But I pass the screening and am moved to the donation unit.

I get settled into my chair, and do my level best to remain reasonably calm during the run-up to getting jabbed in the arm. I can't decide if it's better to watch the needle go in, or to avoid looking at my arm at all costs, so I wind up doing both, twisting my head back and forth in a nervous manner while the volunteer sticks in the needle. My veins, I am told, are really small, so in order to find a serviceable one, the nurse had to apply an amount of pressure that would cripple Hercules (or that was my impression, in any case).

She stuck in the needle, and about 10 seconds later, my hand went completely numb. I informed the nurse to this fact, and she was able to reduce the pressure marginally so that the numbness became only a tingle. About thirty seconds after what we shall call "Adjustment #1" I start feeling really dizzy and weak. As someone who has fainted on more than one occasion before, I can recognize the run-up and, once again, alert the nurse. She came to adjust the pressure machine once again, flipped my chair back to a reclining position, and told her assistant to run and get my a Coke to drink for the sugar. As someone not used to being fussed over, I tried to keep a really nonchalant attitude and save a little face. This fell apart rather shortly afterwards, as you shall soon see.

So I finally get settled in my chair, and keep obediently squeezing the little rubber ball that is supposed to keep your blood moving. I relax for the next five minutes, and watch my blood fill the little bag. I thought for a while about what a generous, community-minded individual I am to go through this hassle and become fairly content, basking in my own goodwill... that is, until the nurse happens to notice that the bag isn't filling up anymore as I had imagined it was. It's actually not filling up at all.

The solution? She has to up the pressure yet again to try to make my puny little vein bleed, and, as expected, my arm goes numb. This begins a process of "increase pressure-make Krystyna's arm go numb-reduce pressure-make Krystyna's arm stop bleeding" which repeats about four or five times, each one because I am (politely and meekly) complaining.

At this point, I start getting worried that I'm not going to be able to fill the whole bag and that after all this torture, they're going to throw it away anyway. (This did not ultimately happen, thankfully, as it would have left disastrous psychological consequences and hindered me from persuing further selfless activities for fear of waste and ultimate uselessness.) Somehow, through what can only be described as a miracle, we hit a pressure equilibrium, I stay relatively un-numb, and manage to complete the pint.

The needle comes out, I wait my requisite five minutes before moving, go to the snack table, and eat about two cookies until a wave of intense dizziness hits me. The woman next to me notices my pallor and clear disorientation and flags over a different aide, who has to escort me back to the chair, where they tilt me back to a prone position, cover me with a blanket, and force me to drink water. As if I haven't already caused enough of a scene by commanding the attention of a good third of the Red Cross staff, someone notices that I look flush and then covers my face and neck with cool, wet paper towels. Keep in mind that this is in full view of about, oh, twenty or so people, many of them attorneys who work at my firm. Great.

All I could do was swallow my pride and lie there like the weakling they exposed me to be until I was ultimately given permission to move back to my old friend, the snack table. Ten long minutes later, they pronounced me to be fit to return to normal society, and I sheepishly scamper out of the room, grab a huge lunch, and hole up in my office.

My new theory is that they impose this two-month limit between donations not because that's how long it would take you to regenerate enough red blood cells, but so that you will forget about all the trauma that the effing process actually entails, and by the time the waiting period is up, will have re-convinced yourself that donating blood is a good and charitable idea and go eagerly forward to do it again.

In any case, today was truly a lesson in humility.

The Weekend Update

I usually like to theme my entries, but this weekend's activities don't seem to really align in any coherent sense. No matter, I want to share some stories anyway, so breaking convention, let's see the weekend's "Best Of," in no particular order!

- I went to fiddle lesson #2, and my teacher tells me that I'm doing really well so far; in his words, I "have a good ear" and will "definitely make a good player" (read: someday, with a lot of practice). At the moment, I can barely eke out an approximation of the theme from the Ken Burns' documentary about the Civil War, as apparently this is a good first tune to learn. I can manage any one of the 3,000 or so components of playing this danged instrument (i.e. finding the right notes, bowing in a perpendicular fashion, holding the bow correctly, keeping my arm loose...) if and ONLY if I'm focusing on that one thing. Put them all together though, and I sound... amazing. Colleen, I'm really going to test your patience for a while until I get the hang of this thing.

- After the amazing fiddle lesson, however, I definitely got lost in Northern Virginia, and spent far longer than I would have liked driving aimlessly around Fairfax County (damn them and their lack of street lighting and poor signage!!) before seeing a sign that pointed towards "Washington" and following it until I hit recognizable turf. My little "detour" took me past the White House and through a bunch of one-way streets in NW before I actually wound up at home. Needless to say, DC = not a very driver-friendly city. I feel lame to have been bested by the transportation authorities in N. VA, and I resent this feeling tremendously. The good news, however, is that I know the city well enough now to be able to drive around without a map and (ultimately) wind up where I need to be.

- Spent an entire morning hauling a futon across the city in my ZipCar for a friend. Payment included pancakes and specialty fall-themed TJ's beers, plus a chance encounter with a black and latino motorcycle rally.

- Had a ridiculously epic walk across the city on Saturday, which involved a number of excellent things. Some highlights included: eating fresh shrimp and oysters at a waterfront fish market, getting my picture with a man in a dog costume (although I'd like to imagine it was a young Drew Barrymore in her E.T. years), a geeky pilgrimage to the NPR headquarters (i.e. the mothership... haha), scavenging for seaweed in Chinatown, a contemporary art museum (more below), and, oh yes, the well-deserved Frappuccino for energy. All told, 6.04 miles and five hours of awesomeness.

- At the Hirshorn Museum (Smithsonian's contemporary/modern art collection), there were fewer bizarre pieces than I remembered from last summer, but definitely a few winners, like the seizure-inducing wall of video feed and a film of different things lighting on fire. First prize went to this dark room with a very dimly lit red wall in back. You had to hold onto a railing to walk into the room, and were expected to sit on this wooden bench in the back. However, since it was essentially pitch black and IMPOSSIBLE to see anything for the first minute or so after you enter, you basically had to make a fool out of yourself and stumble blindly forward until you hit one of the following things: the bench, the wall, or the person next to you. I managed to accomplish all three before finding a seat, whereupon I was molested by a young Japanese tourist who, in her desperate search for the bench, groped my ear and half of my face. Basically it was the funniest situation I've come across in a long time. I couldn't stop laughing, and once my eyes adjusted so that I could see the silhouettes of each newbie entering the cave, I had the luxury of mocking them just as I'm sure the people who were there before mocked me. I'm betting the artist designed it as some sort of social experiment which would force total strangers to become oddly intimate and vulnerable in a dark room, all under the pretense of modern art. End result: total hilarity.

- I had a brush with celebrity as I met the boy (drumroll please) who used to date MISS FINLAND 2006!! (No small accomplishment: she is exactly what you would imagine a Scandinavian beauty queen to look like. Go ahead, picture it. Yep, that's her.) Apparently, even dating MF06 is cause to be in the Finnish newspapers, and I was regaled with stories of how he is now a recognized personality in Finland because of their frequent appearances in the gossip rags. So if I ever make it to Helsinki, I'll be able to drop names and wow people with my cool connections. Ha.

'Nuff said. All told, it was a good weekend.

Dammit people: can't we go a WEEK without a fire alarm??

Totally sick right now of climbing down ten flights of stairs only to reach the ground floor, barely touching my hand on the door to the outside world, and then having to turn back around as the alarm turns off, leaving me in a glut of people all trying to crowd back into the elevators so we can go sit in our desks and stew for a while before the next bell inevitably rings, which I'm sure it will, probably tomorrow, if the pattern holds. (**breath**) GAHHHHH.

Worse still than unnecessarily having to battle the crowds in elevators and stairwells is that on every floor, the fire alarm bell is tuned just slightly differently than the one on the floor before. This means that you're not only hearing an irritating, ear-piercingly loud drone, you're hearing an irritating, ear-piercingly loud and increasingly OFF-KEY drone. OK, I'm done complaining now. Just had to get that off my chest.

Window-Washing

Sitting in the conference room on the 12th floor a few days ago, I noticed that there were window-washers on the high-rise next to us. There they were, about six guys rappelling down the face of the building, swinging back and forth while squeegeeing (wow, I have no idea if that's the correct word but let's roll with it) the shiny, blue-glass windows.

I got so insanely jealous of those guys, cause it looked like so much fun to just hang there, chillin', 12 stories up, sloshing soapy water onto what I imagined to be the heads of some sodden, luckless passerby. I commented to my coworker - in all seriousness - about how that would be a much more rewarding career for me, and wondered out loud how one gets into such a line of work. She laughed in my face and called me "eccentric," which, at the moment, I suppose I deserved. I guess window-washer is the sort of thing that you would really dig for about a week or so, but it, like anything else, probably also gets old after a little while.

Lo and behold, I was re-visiting a favorite webcomic today and came across this, which basically sums up my feelings about life just now:

THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER.

OH MY GOD GUESS WHO JUST WON A FREE LUNCH?!?!?????!???

I'll end the suspense now: it was ME!!! (Ha, almost fooled you.)

So, when I started this job, I scratched my head for a while mulling over what to do with the one thousand utterly useless business cards provided to me by my firm (Literally, there are 1K of them, and of no value to me for networking purposes. "Paralegal" isn't one of those titles which make people think "Oh, this person could be a valuable business contact in the future -- I better hold on to that card." But I digress.). It dawned on me one day that the best use I could put them to would be entering them in every imaginable food drawing, you know, the kind at Chipotle or Potbelly's that if picked, you would win a free sandwich or something.

Taking this on as a personal challenge, I began dropping those things, uh, like they were hot, and left my mark all over town in every imaginable eatery.

This morning, I got a call on my workphone from some guy at Ameriprize in Tyson's Corner, and had to ask him to repeat who he was because I was a little confused. It wasn't until he mentioned he was calling about a "prize drawing" that he got my attention, and not until he mentioned the restaurant "Mai Thai" that he won my undying love and affection.

Apparently, I've won a FREE lunch for myself AND my coworkers at this awesome Thai restaurant. Apparently, the catch is that they get us all there and while we're waiting for our food to come, he gives us some phony corporate bullshit spiel about "investing our assets" or something, and we laugh at him for five minutes and then snarf up our free food, courtesy of my charming cards.

So now that I've accomplished my year's goal (to make my business cards earn me free food), I don't really know what to do with myself. I need to somehow raise the bar as to what other side perks I can greedily squeeze out of corporate life. Hmmmm.... on to devising a new goal for myself.

Not to despair!!

It occurs to me that I've painted a pretty sorry picture of my life on this blog to date. I need to correct this misapprehension right here, right now: notwithstanding the crappy job, my life in DC rocks. I love it here. Seriously: life + DC + Krystyna = good. Really good. (Be wowed by my mathematical talents.)

It's been an interesting change to pass from "student mode," where your status as student defines every aspect of your life to "grown-up mode." As a student, your eating/sleeping/studying/bathing/socializing habits seem to somehow become entangled and intractably linked, and your schedule is invariably dependent on what the syllabus says that week. In "grown-up mode," however, I have discovered a little something called the work/life divide. (We can make SAT-style analogies, to the tune of work::life as disengagement::enthusiasm... or something like that.)

This means that while I may have an unsatisfying job, I more than make up for it by cultivating my personal interests. Outside of work, I truly am leading a very personally fulfilling life: I've begun Arabic lessons, have taken up the bluegrass fiddle, and am putting my kitchen to good use by cooking up a storm (fyi, last night I made a delectable chicken pipperade -- YUMMM. Seriously, if you're in the area, lemme know when I can cook dinner for you!) Most importantly, I have already garnered a wide social circle, and have tons of good friends in the District, both old and new. I actually feel let down if more than two days pass without me running into someone I know around town. Two days ago, I heard that a friend from Pomona went to Trader Joe's and was checked out (in the supermarket payment sense, not the "howyoudoin?" sense) by another old friend of mine -- turns out that within the few minutes it took to make that transaction, they had already figured out that I was a link between them. Gotta love the small-town feel of this city.

So among the old hobbies (including standards such as avid crossword-puzzling), the new ones (like deciphering Arabic script), the bar scene (happy hour is basically mandatory for any young professional in this city), the time I have to dig into good books (currently working my way through "The Brothers Karamazov"), and the ever-expanding web of awesome people with whom to surround myself, I'm digging this life. I may still need to re-balance my priorities at some point, that is, put a little more value on work, but I hate to take any emphasis away from my personal development at this point. I figure as far as a "real" career path goes, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

The Doldrums

Bertrand Russell wrote that "one of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important." No offense to you, Mr. Russell, but I'm going to have to respectfully disagree on this point.


I'd have to say that the root cause of my own impending psychological collapse is the fact that I constantly struggle to find, well, any redeeming value in my work. Having taken a crappy entry-level job out of economic necessity (I think the train of thought just before graduation went something like: I want to live in DC, DC is expensive, cool jobs are hard to find without more work experience, therefore, I must compromise a little in order to feed myself), I am now confirming in fact the belief that I once held only in theory: corporate life blows.


Holding a job description that might read something like "doing the bidding of arrogant and scatterbrained lawyers," I am alternately called to work insanely long hours during the run-up to their deadlines, or to sit aimlessly for days at a time when there is really nothing that needs to be done. Right now, I'm definitely in the doldrums. I have pretty much exhausted the excitement of the internet itself, having viewed just about every random site and watched every inane video avaliable... twice.


Don't tell me "oh, I wish I had that luxury. If only I had too little work to do!" Really, not only is it a little inherently condescending, but it's also untrue. While having free time on occasion (like at nights and on weekends) is wonderful and also quite necessary to a person's sanity, sitting around during normal work hours pondering how your nascent work skills are completely underutilized and your once-active brain going to rot is not, I should stress, a pleasant feeling. I like goofing off on occasion as much as the next person, but I also want to make a difference in the world, at least in some small way, and I'd really like to be able to put myself to use in some more-than-marginal capacity. If this requires hard work, then bring it on. I couldn't be more ready.

All Grown Up and Nowhere to Go

Humor me for a minute while I quote some lines from a musical, Avenue Q:

What do you do with a BA in English?
What is my life going to be?
Four years of college,
and plenty of knowledge
have earned me this useless degree.

I can't pay the bills yet,
'cause I have no skills yet.
The world is a big scary place.
But somehow I can't shake
the feeling I might make
a difference to the human race."

Yes, the musical is meant to highlight the innocence and naivety of those fresh-out-of-the-womb (that is, college) grads who hit the job market, panic, and start longing for the comfort of their dear alma mater. Yes, it is meant to provoke laughter on the part of all those wizened 30-somethings who watch it and think, "how young and self-absorbed they are, thinking that life comes to an end when you turn 25!" Yes, it also really, really, speaks to me.

I find that I can now relate in a very intense way to the stereotypical trials and tribulations that the musical's characters endure: that is, un- (or under-) employment, stalled love life, money woes, and of course, that pesky feeling that you still don't know what you want to be "when you grow up." Post-college malaise in its purest form.

Yes, on a purely abstract level I understand that I'm only 22, and that all this worrying about missing out on opportunities that will define my life course is wayyyyyyyyy premature. But on a gut level, I can't help it -- if I'm paying taxes and bills and working 8-hour days and contributing to an IRA plan, then dammit, I'm as grown up as I'm gonna get, and I feel almost entitled to panic a little about having my life not be as ideal as I once dreamed. But then I get a reality check, and breathe a little, and realize that everyone I know (in that post-college, pre-marriage cohort) seems to be going through EXACTLY the same thing. So I put off worrying for a little while, and instead check out the DC happy hour circuit, which it seems, unlike having a quarter-life crisis, IS an age-appropriate activity for me.

Speaking of happy hour, yesterday I got my ID checked upon entering a bar, and the guy looks at me and says he has the same birthday as I do, except in 1985. So there you have it -- I have officially had my ID checked by a guy a year younger than me. I feel perfectly entitled to feel old.

Rationale for Blogging Attempt No. 2

Alright folks. It seems that Krystyna, after long and hard deliberation, is back on the blog wagon. (Off the anti-blog wagon? Having never felt the need to admit to alcoholism, I haven't attended any meetings that would have taught me that relevant terminology concerning said "wagon.") After maintaining a small but fervent readership for my study-abroad blog, I dropped the whole endeavor after returning to the states, mostly because I thought it was unneccesarily narcissistic for me to yammer on about, well, me, but equally on the realization that the caliber of my stories plummeted once I left East Africa.

In any case, two years hence and I've decided to once again give it a go. While I do still believe that blogs are essentially platforms for one's vanity, I've started feeling that itch to be self-indulgent. Why start up the blog again? Not only is there is a gratifying feeling in knowing that people are (marginally) interested in what goes on in my life, but moreover, I'm hoping that the act of writing things down will magically transform the dullness of my quotidien routine into something lively, engaging, and readable! That's the goal, at least. We'll see if my writing skills are up to the task.

Also, I feel I owe my blogging friends the reverse favor of giving them back something to read, since I truly do enjoy the voyeurism of following their exploits online. But enough prelude -- on to the blog!!

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