¡Si, se puede!

"Thank you for calling the Arizona travel advisory hotline. If you're planning a trip to Arizona, beware of an important travel warning: an overly stringent law on immigration has made it difficult for anyone who looks even remotely suspicious, resulting in detainment." -Mock Arizona Travel Advisory Hotline

"I could see you joining the Peace Corps." -My wonderful cousin (love you, Kari!)

Aseem: It's a crisis!
Me: What's a crisis?
Tim: Yo momma!

Greetings, greetings, fellow stargazers! My apologies that it's been a while since my last post. I was quite busy being eaten alive by junior finals, and then I was even more busy doing nothing. Simply, I have no excuse. So, I figure it's high time I return to the blogosphere.

The Top 5 Things That Have Happened Recently (in no specific order)

1.) I returned to my volunteer job last week in the poorer part of Bellevue. In related news, my rate of Spanish use sharply increased that day.

2.) Forgetting the last time I watched a horror/thriller series on YouTube, I spent two days watching MarbleHornets' Slenderman series, i.e., "Let's take everything this girl is scared of, and make it into the Blair Witch Project for YouTube"

3.) Tony Awards! Catherine Zeta-Jones needs to learn how to sing "Send in the Clowns".

4.) Pilates, dance, voice, math... I thought summer was meant to be a break from learning!

5.) The commencement of the Summer Film Extravaganza with my mom... basically, everything that until now has been deemed "Too Old" for me to see (Annie Hall, Amelie, etc.)

Moving on!

How's the Esperanto coming?

Oh, yeah, that...

*clears throat*

That's kind of part of the point of the blog, isn't it? Uh... yeah!

*shifts awkwardly*

Don't worry, I haven't been wasting too much of my time! I have officially started learning some of the International Language. The website I'm using (en.lernu.net) has many, many different methods of studying Esperanto, so it's a little overwhelming, but I am learning some things, which is nice. I've already learned the essential survival phrase for any language: "I don't understand!" (in this case, "Mi no comprenas!"). Also, the classic "Hello, what's your name, how are you" conversation. Pretty straightforward stuff. I actually really liked the particular method they used to teach these phrases, so I might pursue that further.

To practice, from now on, I think I'll head my posts with a little status update, so I can teach myself some new adjectives. Some basic, extremely useful ones:

lace (LAHTseh)- tired
sufiĉe bone (sooFEEcheh BOHneh)- OK
bone (BOHneh)- good/well
malbone (mahlBOHneh)- bad
tre bone (TREH BOHneh)- very well

By the way...

Sorry if I'm not sounding terribly witty/intelligent tonight. It's been a long week, and I'm really lace. I should drink more water...

Out of curiosity, what's with the quotes at the top of the post?

Ah, hm, okay... this is not a popular opinion, but... I think people are being waaaaay too hard on illegal immigrants. And I'm really, really tired of hearing people saying things like "They're takin' our jobs!" because, you know what, they're not really taking jobs that any sane citizen would want. Farm labor? Long hours, triple-digit temperatures, lower-than-minimum wages. If that's your idea of a good job, more power to you, but honestly, it's one of the most brutal and yet essential jobs out there. Who's going to harvest our fresh fruits and veggies? Given these conditions, only the most desperate will step up to that plate. And if you're desperate enough to take a job in which you risk literally working yourself to death, you're probably desperate enough to cross the border illegally to get there.

Look, what really needs to happen, really really really needs to happen, is a loosening and stream-lining of the immigration system here. It can take months and thousands of dollars for a person to legally move to the US, and any small technical error (and there are many possibilities) can delay the process. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous and unnecessary. We really need to make the system less convoluted, less pricey, and less contradictory (one person says to send a photocopy, has to be a photo copy, of a document, only for the recipient to say that it's illegal to photocopy that document... what?).

There's my two cents on the issue...

You ARE tired, aren't you?

Heck yeah, woman. I'm so tired, I'm going to bed before 11 PM... willingly.

Goodnight, my someones!

P.S. Kari, you've inspired me. I might actually look into joining the Peace Corps someday.
P.P.S. According to Glenn Beck, the Peace Corps is not unlike the SS in Nazi Germany.
P.P.P.S. Then again, Glenn Beck has Nazi Tourette's.