The GirlAlive Blog

Okay, so I'm unemployed.  I've been unemployed a lot before and I've always gotten through it okay.  It's mostly the same being unemployed in Scotland, but there are a few differences.

1. Health insurance is not a problem.  I can still go to the doctor and I can still get my prescriptions dirt cheap.  I got a whole years' worth of birth control for the equivalent of $11.

2. No one thinks that it is a bad thing that I'm unemployed.  Most of the people here are somehow living off the government.  They get housing allowances and disability payments for papercuts and it seems like most of them are on some kind of unemployment or welfare.  I think that this is because the taxes here have gotten so high that people reached their breaking point, and they do whatever they can to get some of their money back.  But it does not work for me because I am an immigrant.  I can't get any government money, and neither can my husband because I am an immigrant.  In America, when I was poor my friends and family helped me out.  Here, no one offers to help because they all assume that we'll just get in line for some government money.

3. They call resumes "CV's" for some reason.  

4. People think that I am overqualified because I have a college degree.  They don't realize that everyone in the US has a college degree.  They didn't fight in Vietnam, so they didn't have the educational inflation that happened when everyone went to college to avoid the draft.  In the US, I worked with a janitor with a doctorate and a data entry clerk with a master's degree.   I just have a history degree.  That qualifies me to work at McDonald's.

In a lot of ways, being unemployed is the same as back home.

1. Daytime tv is still bad here.  I watch Mythbusters at noon and then go upstairs and play on the computer and watch old tapes of Mystery Science Theater.

2. Being poor sucks.  My husband and I are trying to get into Costco as guests so we can stock up on rice and baked beans.  We can afford most of our bills.  As long as we don't eat.

3. I'm still really bored.

4. I still have occasional panic attacks about running out of money and losing our house and getting deported.  Okay, so back in the US I had to worry about moving back in with my parents instead of being deported.  Other than that, it's the same.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

P.S. If you want to help me out, buy some t-shirts and crap. 

Posted by Alana at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't know how many times you've heard this, but I've heard this far too many times:

"Follow which ever one you wish, just don't push anyone into believing as you do."

The problem of this statement isn't the statement itself, but what inevitably follows, which is some story about how some Christian was telling them how they should be a Christian. Why is this a problem? Because it shows a very basic lack of understanding of Christianity.

As a Christian, my belief system has two parts that these people find offensive. First of all, there is a belief in absolute truth. What is true is true. What is false is false. There is no such thing as "true for you but not for me". Something is either true or it isn't. So telling a Christian to treat your lack of belief as truth, or your beliefs that conflict with Christianity as truth is telling that Christian to stop practicing their religion. You are not going to get a Christian to say, "That's fine for you and I'm sure that you'll find your way to heaven." That is against our religion. And a non-Christian expecting me to follow that line of thinking is really just trying to force their lack of religion on me. Forcing their belief system on the Christians.

The other complaint that non-Christians always level against Christians is that they're trying to "convert" everyone. In most cases that I've seen where that charge is leveled against a Christian, what they really mean is that the Christian stands up for what they believe and won't just agree with their lack of conviction. In cases where the Christian really is evangelizing, they are doing it because that is part of our religion. The Bible tells us to tell the world about the truth of Jesus. So telling a Christian not to try to tell anyone else what they believe is really just telling them to stop being a Christian. It's the same as saying, "Go ahead and practice Islam, but just don't do any praying to Allah," or "You're free to practice Buddhism, as long as you don't meditate."

No one can ever "force" someone into believing anything. No Christian on earth has ever made someone else become a Christian. It's impossible. Christianity is a belief system, and a spiritual state. No person can cause spiritual change or belief in another person. So accusations of "forcing" a religion on someone else are always just a situation where a non-Christian is trying to make a Christian stop practicing their religion. And the really funny part is that the non-Christians never notice their own hypocracy. Whenever they tell a Christian to stop "pushing people into believing as they do", they themselves are trying to push the Christians into believing as they do. They are guilty of the very thing they accuse the Christians of.

And by the way, you can believe whatever you want. But believing whatever you want won't get you into heaven. Only Jesus can do that. I know that it is true, not because I'm better than you or because I'm smarter than you or any crap like that. I know that Jesus is the true way to heaven the same way that I know that I love my family. It's not something I can explain. It just is. I know that for a non-Christian it isn't like that. It isn't that simple. And I can't make it that simple for you. I just wish you could see Christianity from our side sometime. We aren't trying to hurt you or force you into something bad. We just want to give you the chance to have the peace and understanding that we've experienced. I love God, and I wish you could see Him the way I do because I'm sure you'd love Him too.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I've got three Terry Pratchett books that were given to me by my friend who I have referred to as the Poopsmith.  Now my husband has been cleaning his old room (I'll explain in a bit) and keeps piling all the Terry Pratchett books that he finds on my bedside table to read.  So I keep getting to read funny books for free because men keep giving them to me.

My husband has been cleaning because we live in his parents' old room now (he bought the house from his parents) and his sister is going to be moving into his old room.  I would complain more about his sister moving in, but frankly, the timing is really good.  I'm almost out of money and they rent they'll be paying will help cover food, which is what I've been paying for out of my savings.  

I'm hoping to get a job I applied for.  It's the same kind of work I did in the US, but the other end of it.  What I mean is I used to process insurance claims which were covered in medical codes.  This job is to be the person who records all the codes.  Not for insurance here, but for medical records and such.  I could totally do it, and it would be great pay and benefits.

I've also been thinking about my husband's lack of a nickname in my blog.  At first I thought about calling him Homestar, but that's my guinea pig's name so it could be confusing.  I have finally decided to call him Larry (which is totally not his real name).  My brother calls me Bob and when I married Larry he said that he needed a name to call him that would go with Bob.  So he settled on Larry, in honor of Veggietales.  So I'll use that name.  Also, Larry insisted that I not call him "Fluffy", which was another option mentioned.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have just set up new world headquarters for girlalive.com.  I used to do all my work from my laptop, in the living room.  But my husband's sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law are moving in with us while they find a new apartment.  Because of that, I didn't want to be spending so much time in the common areas of the house, so I got my laptop and a desk moved upstairs into my new office space, which happens to be the corner of my bedroom.

That is my new office.  I have a desk and a chair, and I can entertain visitors and clients, as long as they don't mind sitting on the bed.  As you can see, I even have a lovely Homer Simpson mug that my husband got me for my birthday.  And since this picture was taken, I have added a thermos, for extra tea with fewer trips to the kitchen.

I need to go to bed because I told my husband I'd go to bed as soon as I finished a bunch of new food reviews, but that was about 2 hours ago and I need to eventually get some sleep.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, I finally got my British food thing up and running on my web site.  It's pretty good so far.  Most people rip on British food, saying that it is all bland or deep fried.  It is very similar to the food I ate in the US, and isn't all bland or deep fried any more than all American food is hamburgers and pizza. 

I'm just hoping that my British food reviews won't offend my husband.  He loves most of the food here, but I find a large portion of it weird.  I don't like the dried fruit-based desserts, and I don't particularly like haggis.  He might have a tendency to take the food reviews personally, because he's very proud of his Scottishness.  But the truth is, for every British food I don't like (fruit cake and organ meat), there are dozens of other British foods I love (tikka masala, jaffa cakes, mushy peas, and English cucumbers).

Not that I'm going to stop looking for American foods.  I miss Jif and Velveeta.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been working for the last few days on a new web project.  My husband and I were discussing ways to increase traffic, thereby selling more t-shirts and making more money.  We decided I need to do a wacky stunt.  But I'm not telling you any more until I get some more content ready on my new project.  But I will tell you that there is food involved.  And also some things I barely consider food.

I think I've also finally worked out the issues with this blog.  It's annoying, but I do have a work-around for it.  I need to update 3 different things to get the blog to update.  Grr.

Ooo!  I also found out that CostCo has American peanut butter!  Some of our friends have offered to bring us there.  It isn't Jif, but it is Skippy, which is almost as good.  I guess they also have some other American stuff like maple syrup.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This blog thingy is really annoying me today.  I'm having technical issues.  When I make a new entry, it shows up in the archive page, but doesn't show up on the main page.  I have been having issues getting it to work, but I think I can maybe work around it.  But I can't get it to post the new stuff *and* show the advertisement for my shirt shop at the same time.  Grr. 

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, so I was holding Spike again.  I found a small drop of what appeared to be blood on my sweatshirt, and since I was pretty sure I wasn't bleeding, I got concerned about Spike.  As I was trying to check him out, he got freaked out and ran into my hood again.  Then onto the top of my head.  Then down my back and into my sleeve.  I had to take the sweatshirt off to get him out.  I'm still not sure where the blood came from.  His feet all look fine and all the front and rear orifices seemed fine.  I have no idea.  But I'm pretty sure that little rodent is going to drive me insane.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was just holding my guinea pig, Spike.  When I pick a guinea pig to hold, I have to decide whether I'm looking for a cozy guinea pig or some excitement.  Spike is excitement.  He's quite a spaz.  I usually wear a hooded sweatshirt when I play with the guinea pigs because I'm allergic to them, so it keeps their fur off my skin.  Spike likes to sit on my shoulder.  One of the times that he made a mad dash for my shoulder, he instead launched himself into the hood of my sweatshirt.  So I went looking for my husband to help me fish the guinea pig out of my hood.  He was in the bathroom, so he couldn't help.  I got the little weasel out, but got a rash and some scratches on my neck from the sharp little nails.

This is pretty much a normal day with Spike.  He's a little furry retard, but he is fun.  And today he didn't try to eat my engagement ring or poop on me, so that was nice.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you look at the old entries here, you'll notice that all of them were uploaded on the same day.  I used to keep my online diary at diaryland.com, but I have decided that new in 2006, I'm keeping them on my own domain with a blogging thingy I got from Yahoo.

So all the old entries are here, and they're all still over at diaryland.  But entries for 2006 and later will all just be written here.    Look, there are smileys here!   That's pretty spiffy.

 Alana

Posted by Alana at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 3:19 p.m. - 2005-12-27

Happy birthday to me.

Yesterday I gave my guinea pigs a bath. I started with Spike because that gets the hard one out of the way.

I put him in the tub, inside his little crate. The water started flowing in and he started drinking it. Then as it got higher, he looked confused, then afraid. His face had a look that said, "It's getting kinda high. Is it supposed to do that? What's going on?" But he didn't really freak out until I poured a cupful of water over his back. Then he learned that when properly motivated, he can launch himself completely out of the crate. I shampooed him with baby shampoo and then rinsed him, the whole time, trying to hold him down and keep him from hurting himself. He bit me several times quite hard, but no skin broken.

After I dried Spike, it was Homestar's turn (we've been mostly calling him Homer because he loves watching tv). I put Homer in the crate and started the water. He freaked out immediately, running in circles as if to say, "It's the end of the world! We're all going to die!" But I was able to hold him still and clean him pretty uneventfully.

They both kind of hate me now. But that's okay.

Today is my birthday. My whole house smells like mole chicken, which is cooking in the crockpot.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 12:26 p.m. - 2005-12-22

So if you hang out at my main web site at all, you may have noticed that I'm more, um, "forward" than ever with begging for money and selling stuff. There's a reason.

First of all, in the last two years, I've moved from Seattle to Minnesota and from Minnesota to Scotland. I've had to visit Scotland once and pay for 2 weddings. My husband had to fly to Minnesota twice. I had to pay obscene amounts of money to get a visa and to ship all my stuff. Bottom line is, I'm all kinds of broke.

Stuff is more expensive here in the UK, and I don't have a job. And due to the fact that I'm an immigrant, we can't get any government kind of help.

For the moment we've been mostly paying the bills and I've been draining my savings to buy food. I had a job interview that was very promising yesterday. I'm hoping to get it. It's a low-level slave kind of job, but it looks kind of fun, and it isn't typing numbers in a box.

In the meantime, I'm trying to scrape together a little extra cash by selling crap on the internet. I've sold some shirts and magnets and stickers and stuff. I also published my cookbook, which has brought in a few dollars (literally).

I just wish that this whole "making a life together" thing was easier. Right now we don't have phone service, and there's a good chance the electricity could go out for part of today. (The electricity here is on a retarded system where you buy little cards to buy enough electricity for a week or so. If the money on your little electricity box runs out, the electricity goes off until you stick in another stupid little card. It's a deeply idiotic system.)

Anyway, I'm off to drain the savings on the makings of a nice Christmas dinner. We're going to have a nice Christmas if I have to start selling plasma to do it.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 8:50 a.m. - 2005-12-16

Yesterday I figured out why Penicuik doesn't quite feel like home.

I grew up in Duluth. It is on Lake Superior. Anytime you go any distance in Duluth, there is The Lake. After college, I lived in Seattle. Seattle is right on Puget Sound. Whenever I left my apartment and looked down the hill, there was Puget Sound. Now here in Penicuik, I'm land-locked.

Don't get me wrong. Penicuik is lovely. We're surrounded by rolling hills and fields full of fluffy white sheep. But to me, it feels foreign. And not just because it is a foreign country. I'd have the same feeling in central Illinois, Iowa, or Colorado. I am used to living next to large bodies of water. When I'm not, I feel disoriented. When you have an enourmous lake or bay or sea next to your town, you always know right where you are. When I'm land-locked, it just feels wrong.

I figured this out because yesterday Husband and I had to go to Musselburgh in order to apply for my national insurance number. Musselburgh and the nearby Edinburgh neighborhood of Portobello are both on the south shore of the mouth of the Forth River. It feels like home. The sea reminds me of Lake Superior.

For now, I am pretty much stuck in Penicuik. But maybe after I have a good job we will be able to afford a place in Musselburgh or Portobello. If I lived there, Scotland would feel a lot more like home to me.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:05 p.m. - 2005-12-05

Okay, so I finally got some pictures of my new guinea pigs. The pictures aren't great, but that's cause my camera is still not cooperating and so my husband used his cell phone.

Here is a picture of Homestar:

Here is a picture of Spike:

Here is a picture of Homestar and Spike:

Aren't they just the cutest things ever in the whole world?

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 7:20 p.m. - 2005-12-04

Okay, so we got our new guinea pigs, but it didn't entirely go as planned.

We got to the pet shop and they only had male guinea pigs. But they are very young and they've known each other since birth, so it will probably be okay to keep 2 males together. We hope.

We got 2 guinea pigs. One is smooth-haired black with a white spot behind his head and 2 white feet. He is named Spike. (My husband named him after the black Gremlin with the white tuft of hair in the movie "Gremlins".) Our other guinea pig is mottled black and tan with one little rosette on his head (cause he's a crested breed). I named him Homestar Runner. Homestar for short. Although we've been also calling him Homer sometimes because he seems to like watching tv.

We got the odd couple of guinea pigs. Spike is a hyperactive little spaz. He's smaller than Homestar, and always the first to try eating anything. Especially the newspaper lining the cage. Homestar is a little neurotic. For the first 6 hours or so after we got him, he wouldn't move. Even if we poked him. He just sat there playing dead, due to the shock of the bus ride home and everything. But now he's moving around more and eating and everything. He is still much calmer and quieter than Spike. Spike is a constant living soundtrack of squeaking. I've only heard Homestar make noise once or twice. So they are opposite in many ways.

One thing they have in common is that they're both adorable. They also both like eating carrots, dandelions and their own poo.

I'll post a few pictures once I get the pictures off my camera and onto my computer (I don't have the right cable, and my memory card reader is still in a box which isn't being shipped here until later this week).

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 10:43 p.m. - 2005-12-02

Hello.

There are 2 reasons that I'm all hyper today.

First of all, my book got published today. I can legally hold the title of "Cookbook Author" now. How weird is that? Anyway, it's for sale at my store, http://www.girlalive.com/tshirts/. It's pretty exciting.

Then the other reason I'm all excited is that my husband and I will be going to the pet store tomorrow to buy some guinea pigs. I don't know what they will look like, but I know they will be cute. And they will be female. Because we do not want any breeding, and 2 boys will just fight all the time. Boys are like that.

Getting some guinea pigs makes all the wounds from cutting and stapling the chicken wire for the cage worth it. I've still got scratches all over my arms and hands. But now there is a cage, where formerly there was just a coffee table, a toilet seat, and a roll of chicken wire.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 4:51 p.m. - 2005-11-28

My husband and I are preparing for the arrival of hopefully 2 new additions to our family. No, I am not pregnant. We're getting guinea pigs.

I have never owned a dog and I am allergic to cats. Plus, they seem to require a lot of attention and walking and crap-scooping and stuff like that. I like pets that don't tie you down so much. Plus, guinea pigs are just so darned cute.

We looked into every available type of cage. The most popular guinea pig cages are made of cubes and coroplast. They're very nice, but we couldn't find cubes or coroplast here in the UK. So we got creative.

First we flipped our coffee table upside down and measured the inside dimensions. It is just the right size for a plastic underbed storage bin, which we purchased at Home Base. The only problem was that it was a little short on one end. The legs of the coffee table will be the uprights we attach the wire to in order to make a cage.

We needed a way to block the short end so that the guinea pigs could not climb over the bin and get stuck between the plastic bin and the cage wires. So I was looking around the house and found an old tiolet seat. The lid was exactly the size of the cage. So we cut one edge flat and attached some legs to make a little platform to cover the hole.

So our guinea pigs' cage is made from a coffee table and a toilet seat. I hope that the guinea pigs like it. And I hope that they don't think it smells like butt.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 1:20 a.m. - 2005-11-23

Hmm.

I forgot that I updated my time zone on Diaryland. So it accurately shows that I'm starting this entry at 1:20 a.m.

This is the second night in a row that I can't sleep. I gave up pretending to sleep and changing positions every 5 minutes and just came downstairs. No sense keeping Husband awake.

I don't know why I'm not sleeping. I'm tired and yawning all day and yet as soon as I lay in bed, I'm anything but tired. I don't have anything specific on my mind. My brain just won't shut up. A thousand ideas of things I could/should be doing flood my head and I can't sleep.

In the past 2 sleepless nights I've accomplished a lot. I've figured out how to make a cake that looks like a guinea pig. I've figured out how to program a macro related to a cookbook I'm writing. I've pondered all of my career options. I've written a 3-minute stand-up routine about my husband's eyebrows. I just haven't figured out what I need to do to get some sleep.

I thought that maybe writing a diary entry would clear some of this crap out of my head and I'd be able to sleep. I'm not sure it worked. In any case, I should go back to bed because it's really cold in here. The heat isn't turned on at night, so the only warm place is under the covers.

Dang. I have to pee. The toilet is going to be freezing.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 5:49 p.m. - 2005-11-04

I've been watching the show "The F Word" which is a show by the evil and foul-mouthed chef from "Hell's Kitchen", Gordon Ramsay. In the show, he is saying that he has started a campaign to "get women back in the kitchen."

A lot of people in the UK are up in arms, assuming that he is campaigning to keep women barefoot and pregnant and domestic, like the 50's. But I do not believe that is his intent at all. I believe that he has seen that in entering the workplace and relying on packaged food and fast food, women have given up a great deal of independence.

Women of the last few generations have seen cooking, sewing and other "home" kind of arts as symbols of women being "kept" by men and being dependent on them. However, by giving up cooking, women have in fact become more dependent on men. After all, men are the chefs in the restaurants and the packaged food factories.

Women have put themselves in the position of being completely dependent on men for their very survival. If you are a woman who has not learned to cook, you are in the shameful position of not being able to live without a man feeding you.

I'm with Gordon Ramsay. Women need to get back into the kitchen and show that they really are independent. Make good and healthy food for your family! And if you're single, prove that you care about yourself, and make good and decent food for yourself! Stop eating things prepared by pimply teenagers in fast food places! You don't need them to survive. You just need a few skills and some confidence.

Take a class at the local community college, or just start reading cookbooks and watching cooking shows on tv. You can't be a strong, independent woman if you can't even feed yourself.

*stepping off soapbox*

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry  1:33 p.m. - 2005-11-03

The bed broke again. Just one slat, so we're just going to repair it instead of venturing back to Ikea. We've started just calling Ikea "the bad place".

We got partial satellite tv hooked up. Just the basic channels and doumentary channels. I just wish we could get the Food Network from the US. I miss Alton Brown.

I keep fiddling with the look of this page, but I'm too lazy to do any real design and just keep slightly modifying the pre-built templates. I think this is better than that yellow one I had before.

I need to go write a grocery list. Husband did a lovely job cleaning the kitchen last night, so now I just need something to cook in there...

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 1:20 p.m. - 2005-10-31

Okay, first of all, the whole story with my bed.

When I got here, the matress on my husband's bed was worn out and just a mess. So I demanded that we use our wedding money for a new mattress.

We went to Ikea, and found that the mattress we wanted wasn't in stock. So we put it off, deciding to come back a few days later.

A few days later, we went back and bought the mattress. It was delivered and it didn't fit the bed frame. It was too big. But it was the size we wanted, so we went back to Ikea and bought a new bedframe.

We got the frame delivered and went to put it together and couldn't find any screws or bolts. So Husband went back to Ikea and picked up a bag of screws. We put the whole bed together, which took 2 hours. And then we found the bag of screws in the bottom of the box.

The slats we got with the bed were not the type we were used to. Typical Ikea slats are just pieces of pine attached together with fabric and staples. These were curved pieces of plywood that we had to insert into little rubber doohickeys. I mention this because the first night in the new bed, at 4am, Husband's side of the bed collapsed. The slats fell off the side ledge and the rubber doohickey broke, leaving Husband's butt on the floor.

So the next night, Husband went back to Ikea (trip number 5) and got the old-style pine slats. Which is about 35 pounds of wood. So Husband had to carry this lumberyard home on the bus, in the rain. By the time he got home, he was cold and wet and very tired.

But we finally got our bed put together. And it is my favorite size. UK sizes, it is king size, which is queen size by American standards.

Today I went to the doctor to get my prescriptions. I got 2 month's worth of Paxil (the UK equivalent) and had to pay for it straight out, since there is no health insurance here. I was a bit scared about having to pay for it because that much Paxil in the US would cost about $150 if I had to pay for it without insurance. Here, it cost the equivalent of $11.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Diaryland entry 8:37 p.m. - 2005-10-25

I'm still in Scotland. I guess since I live here, that kind of thing is going to get redundant. I got my computer running, which was important. My husband has some kind of crazy European keyboard (not even a standard British one) that has the quotation marks in the wrong place and it disturbs me. Granted, I'm still using my laptop, so the space bar is still causing me some issues.

We don't have satellite tv hooked up because we don't have the money at the moment. Without satellite channels, British tv sucks. I like some of the shows like Eggheads and QI and we get some cool stuff on the travel channel sometimes, but mostly it's very dull.

Today I went out and bought food. Theoretically food for me and my husband. But I have suddenly become territorial about snack foods and purchased items I knew he didn't like. Then I ate them before he got home from work anyway, so it didn't matter. My lunch was salted rice cakes (yes, the ones that are like styrofoam - I like them) and tomatoes.

Being married kind of sucks so far. A lot of the suckage is related to our bed. The bed here when I arrived was a double bed with a horribly bad old mattress. I demanded a new matress. So we bought one. When we brought it home, it was too big for the bed frame. So then we had to buy a new bedframe too. It isn't getting here until tomorrow.

For the first couple weeks, the horrible flat old matress was twisting my spine and making my ass hurt. Then with the ill-fitting new mattress, my husband keeps rolling over to my side of the bed and sleeping pressed right up against me. I can't sleep like that. It's too hot and I need SPACE. So I haven't slept at all for two nights, except an hour or two after he leaves for work.

I should come up with a nickname for the husband so that I don't have to use his real name. What should I call him? I called one of my friends "Poopsmith", so I can't use that (appropriate as it is on occasion). I don't know. I'll get back to that later. For now I'll just call him "husband".

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 4:00 p.m. - 2005-10-16

Hello.

I'm in Scotland. I've moved here because this is where my husband lives. I like Scotland, but I am not sure I'll ever feel like I belong here.

I don't understand paying for a tv license. It's like they put a gun to your head and make you support PBS.

I don't understand the British need to make a cutesey nickname for everything. They are too lazy to say the entire word "vegetable", so they shorten it to "veg". Then they decide that isn't cutesey enough, so they come up with some rhyming slang and call it "uncle reg". Which is no shorter or easier than calling it by its proper name in the first place.

There is no Velveeta. There is no root beer. This is very wrong. How am I supposed to make my favorite nacho dip without Velveeta and RoTel?

I guess I should go and see if my husband is awake. Jet lag is a bitch.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry  9:31 a.m. - 2005-09-30

I'm bored.

I'm down to my last 2 days of work and I've lost the ability to care about my job. I get all this crap from all these people who want to get paid for stuff. Like I care.

In a perfect world I would have quit my job yesterday and spent today watching a Firefly marathon in preparation for going to see Serenity tonight.

I don't really have anything to say. Just wanted to ramble a bit. I guess I need to get back to work.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 2:20 p.m. - 2005-09-28

I had a thing on here a while ago about a thing in the closed captioning on my tv. You can read it here. (link does not work since moving to a new server)

My friend Sara ran the statement from that through the "Lost in Translation" thing discussed in the Babeled Bard thing in the Books page of my web site. Here are the hilarious results.

Original English Text:
I really did want to shave it but I couldn't because of the staples.

Translated to French:
Je vraiment ai voulu le raser mais je ne pourrais pas en raison des
agrafes.

Translated back to English:
I really wanted to shave it but I could not because of fasten.

Translated to German:
Ich wollte wirklich es rasieren, aber ich könnte nicht wegen mich
befestigen.

Translated back to English:
I wanted to really shave it, but I could not fasten because of me.

Translated to Italian:
Ho desiderato realmente raderlo, ma non potrei fissarsi a causa di me.

Translated back to English:
I have wished really to shave it, but I could not fix because of me.

Translated to Portuguese:
Eu desejei realmente raspá-lo, mas eu não poderia reparar por causa
de mim.

Translated back to English:
I really desired to scrape it, but I could not repair because of me.

Translated to Spanish:
Realmente deseé rasparlo, pero no podría reparar debido a mí.

Translated back to English:
I really wished to scrape it, but it could not repair due to me.

Yep. It still makes no sense.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:36 a.m. - 2005-09-27

I'm getting closer and closer to my wedding. It's about a week and a half away. So I'm now taking care of all the stupid last minute crap. I'm not good at details.

Last night I went to a fancy-pants salon in Superior to do a practice run on my hair for the wedding. So I'm there, almost straight from work in my Poor Old Lu t-shirt and jeans. She did my hair with more hairspray than I've used in the last 15 years and a pile of hairpins that would guarantee that my head would never get through airport security.

After it was all done, I went home to have dinner and watch tv and work on the wedding flowers. The whole time, with a fancified head and a tiara. Actually, not the whole time. Just long enough to unnerve my parents.

Then I took the pins out and that was even more fun. Once they were all out, my hair was sticking out in all directions like an anime character. I felt like my mouth shouldn't be matching up with my words.

Meanwhile, I was finishing up the wedding flowers. It was a pain, but I'm glad I'm using fake flowers. Real flowers have to be done at the last minute, and I'm not into that. Especially after spending several hours de-thorning roses for my brother's wedding last year.

Got to get back to work. Only 4 and a half more days of soul-crushing claims processing.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

diaryland entry 9:17 a.m. - 2005-09-16

I hate the customer service people where I work. They can't read. They can't tell an O from a zero. They never know what they're talking about. They can't spell anything to save their lives. Some can barely speak English. I've seen sentances in the claim notes like "Her is a MD," and "Family don't got no other insurance." And I've cleaned up the spelling in those.

Here is a short list of the spelling mistakes I've seen in the last month that I've been working on resub claims.

The first in each line is what they wrote. The second is what I think they meant. (Excuse the formatting. I'm too lazy to make a table.)

reinburst______reimbursed
upply____________apply
your____________you're
were____________we're
do__________due
Airleins_______Airlines
rpeorcess_____reprocess
parody____________parity
shoe____________show
reporcess_____reprocess
patinet ________patient
reoconsider _____reconsider
deneid __________denied
aith ____________auth
chares ____________charges
piad ___________paid
que __________ queue
cue __________ queue
excess __________ access
folliwing ______following
calid __________ valid
clam ____________ claim
hre is a md ____she is an md
becasue _______because
socnce __________ since
erquired __________required
clauimds _______claims
claism _________claims
uopdated _________updated
RPEORCESS _________reprocess
claom _________ claim
Claism ________ claim
timly _________ timely
noone __________no one
thnak __________ thank
calim __________ claim
paymeny_________ payment
thansk _________thanks
cliams ___________claims

I never knew there were so many ways to screw up the word "claim".

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 12:30 p.m. - 2005-09-15

Today is September 15th. Is that the Ides of September, or is that just a March thing?

Anyway, I have about 12 1/2 more days of work before I quit and leave the country. I've put down a deposit on a mover. I've got most of the wedding stuff done. I just haven't actually figured out the ceremony part. Buying dresses and picking hairstyles is easy. Working out what music to have in the ceremony is a big giant pain.

I wish I could quit my job today. It makes my stomach hurt and makes me hate psychiatrists even more than I already did.

Back to processing claims and telling the providers and the customer service people that they are stupid. Cause they are.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 10:22 p.m. - 2005-08-11

Reason Number 37 To Hate Living In a Small Midwestern Town

A car rolled over on the freeway and hit a concrete overpass and 2 people were killed.

In an average city, that would be a minor news item on the day it happened and nothing more would be said. Not in Duluth. In Duluth, that story has been a top news item FOR A MONTH!!!! First they had to talk to all the family and friends. Then the pastor of the church they attended. Then the family again. Then full media coverage of the funeral. I swear, the death of the pope and the London bombings combined didn't get as much air time as this one stinking car crash.

It seems really insensitive of me, but I'm sick of hearing about it. I felt bad for the family the first 2 days. After a month of this story, I just want to scream, "I get it! They're dead! Let's move on to a real news story now!"

Tonight they weredoing a news story about how this horrible tragedy could cause a rise in suicide rates in the area. First of all, there is no evidence of that. And if there are more suicides, maybe those people killed themselves not because of the car crash, but because the media coverage of it was a constant reminder that they live in a stinking hellhole of Midwestern suburbia, where something as mundane as a car accident can be top news for a month.

Have I mentioned that I hate this city?

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 10:23 a.m. - 2005-07-22

Okay, so it is about 2 weeks after the first bombing in the London subways and a day after the second, more pathetic, bombing.

Any intelligent person would know that the London police are probably jumpy about people bombing the subways by now. Any intelligent person with nothing to hide would stop when the police are chasing them in the subway.

So anyone who is all mad about the guy who was shot running from police in the subway has to step back for a moment and realize that if you think the police were wrong, you're as stupid as the guy who got shot running from cops in the subway. He died of stupidity. Even if he was innocent, it is just darwinism in action.

I have to get back to work. As you were.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:20 a.m. - 2005-07-11

Okay, so I'm a little anal-retentive, but I'm getting really annoyed with the complete lack of English education.

I can forgive a typo here and there. Clumsy fingers happen to anyone. But one of the managers in my office has spelled "apply" as "upply" for an entire week. When writing about more than one queue, she keeps writing "queue's" instead of "queues".

Why do we give people high school diplomas when they can't even write in their native language? Please notice that I didn't write "in they're native language" or "in there native language". There are correct and incorrect words to use in a given context, and they are not that hard to learn.

Your = something belonging to you
You're = contraction of "you are"
Ur = not a word in English

There = in that location
Their = belonging to them
They're = contraction of "they are"

Hear = comprehend sound
Here = in this place

Bare = naked
Bear = carry a heavy load, or a large furry animal

Its = belonging to it
It's = contraction of "it is"

My break is done now. (Break = a fracture or dysfunction, or a momentary pause; Brake = a device for stopping a car.) I'd better get back to work.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:47 a.m. - 2005-06-29

Okay, so I got a new tattoo the other day. I'm not going to show you right now because it is crusty and flaking. It looks kind of like a molting lizard at the moment.

I went into the tattoo place (Anchor's End Tattoos in Duluth) and showed them a picture of 2 thistles and a quote in Hebrew. But I told them that I wanted them to do something cool with it. So the artist did. After making minor changes here and there in the design, he got to work.

I sat in the chair and he jabbed me with a thousand needles. Cause that's what a tattoo is like. It's not horrible pain. Just like an hour and a half rug burn. So I weas just sitting there chatting with him and looking around the room and amusing myself within my own head.

Meanwhile, in the room next door there was a constant stream of piercing customers. Mostly college students up in Duluth for the weekend. None of the girls asked about whether it was going to hurt because most of them already had things pierced. Plus, anyone smart knows that a big needle jammed through your flesh will involve a certain amount of pain. But all the guys asked how much it was going to hurt. Since I wasn't reacting at all to the needles in my arm, the piercer just pointed over to me and said, "It won't hurt half as much as what Josh is doing to her."

So anyway, now I have my third tattoo. The artist was good and the place was clean and nice. They also didn't overcharge me. The new tattoo covers most of my upper arm and it only cost $150, and that was for about 2 hours of work, between the design and the actual tattooing. Quite a steal. At the last place I went it was $60 for a 20 minute tattoo with no design work involved.

Anyway, my break is over. I need to get back to processing claims.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 2:06 p.m. - 2005-05-12

Long distance relationships suck. I just wanted to make that clear. I don't recommend them. If you have a choice between a guy in your neighborhood and a guy in the other side of the world, most of the time you should pick the guy next door. I didn't.

This is not to say that I regret marrying my husband. Not for a moment. I love him and I can't wait to finally be able to share a time zone with him. But in the meantime, this married-from-a-distance thing is torturously painful.

Last weekend was mother's day. So I had to do a church banquet on Friday, and then I had to go to a service and a half at church on sunday. So I had to talk to old friends I haven't seen in a while, and I had to rehash how horrible it is to be away from my husband in about 3.8 million conversations. So by Sunday night I was sick to death of people. I wanted to hide in my room and never talk to anyone who is not my husband again.

I've been married for a month yesterday. And I haven't seen my husband for 3 weeks. I hate people for reminding me of how much I miss my husband. I hate my job because it's so boring I have 8 hours a day to think about how much I miss him. And I'm mad at my husband for being so inconsiderate about where he was born. I recommend long-distance marriage as much as I recommend gallstones.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 2:00 p.m. - 2005-05-03

Hi everybody!

I got a new computer, and I'm as excited as, well, as excited as a geek with a new computer. It is a notebook computer, which means that I can now check my email while sitting on the toilet. But I would not want to.

The only problem with the new computer so far is that I am not used to typing on this wee small keyboard, and I keep missing the space bar and squishingallmywordstogether.

Oh, also, one of my favorite science teachers from high school, Mr. Sorensen, was just named the Minnesota teacher of the year. So that is very nice for Mr. Sorensen. And for his wife and kids, and even his tapeworm.

That's about it. I need to go to bed because it has been a long day.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 10:36 p.m. - 2005-04-19

Hello.

I have not been working for the last two weeks. That is just one of the reasons that those weeks have been good.

My fiance came to visit me. He met and survived my family and even my previously mentioned friend who we will call Poopsmith.

Then about a week ago I got married. It wasn't the "real" wedding in a church with flowers and everything. But I'm legally married to my now former fiance. Former because he is now my husband.

We had a honeymoon and we did some shopping and we saw "Sin City" and we went to the Spam museum. But then he had to go back to Scotland. Now I am sad because my husband is in on his way back to Scotland, and I am not. And to make it even worse, I have to go back to work tomorrow.

I had 2 fun weeks of being with my husband and not processing any claims, and now I have to go back to processing claims and not seeing my husband for another 6 months. Grr. *pout*

Time to go to bed and try to wake up tomorrow like normal. Normal sucks.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry  9:57 a.m. - 2005-04-04

Hello.

I don't want to be at work today. I still have a cold. But that's nothing compared to being really really hyper. You see, my fiance is coming to visit me tomorrow! I have not seen him since October, so I am very excited. But I have to work half the day tomorrow and the whole day after that. Which makes me want to say "Grr" a lot.

I'm also all excited because in just a week and a few hours, I will be getting married! I feel like I should not be processing insurance claims. I should be doing all kinds of girly things like getting a manicure and a bikini wax. Well, maybe not the bikini wax. That sounds ouchy.

I must get back to the claim processing. Grr.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Grr.

Posted by Alana at 08:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:44 a.m. - 2005-03-31

My fiance gave me his cold. You might not think that that is a strange thing, but it is. He lives 6 time zones away from me. We have not seen each other in about 6 months. But he somehow managed to give me a cold. He has had a bad head cold all week, and I woke up with the same bad head cold today. And he is the only person I know who has a cold.

I think that if he has special magical long-distance transmitting powers like that, he should not be wasting them by giving me sinus congestion. He should be beaming himself here every weekend, so we could see each other and not spend a fortune on airplane tickets. But no. He just makes my head hurt and makes me tonsils swell up instead.

I love him like crazy and I'm gonna marry him in about a week and a half. But man, this cold thing just isn't funny.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry  9:42 a.m. - 2005-03-28

So. It's Monday again. It seems like there are more of them than just the standard one per week.

I'm tempted to start counting the hours until my vacation time starts. After today, I'll only have 6.5 days of work left. I've got half a day of vacation next tuesday, and then the real vacation begins on Thursday.

I have my engagement party on the 9th. But I have other plans for that day too. After the party (which is a very adult early dinner affair) my fiance and I shall try to sneak off to an event called the Geek Prom. It is a prom for geeks who never got invited to a real prom. I think we qualify. I never dated in high school, I met my fiance on the internet, and I have been to a Star Trek convention. My fiance did date in high school, but I think that is cancelled out on the geek scale by all the role-playing games and Babylon 5 conventions.

Now I don't just have to worry about what to wear for my wedding (which is alarmingly in only 2 weeks now). I also have to figure out what to wear for the prom. Maybe I'll need to re-watch Napoleon Dynamite for inspiration.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Diaryland entry 2:08 p.m. - 2005-03-21

This morning I realized that I have lived far too many scenes from "Office Space."

A few years ago I was working as an HTML coder and tester at an internet company. The whole company was about 8 people. Then they hired a receptionist. They ended up hiring this really freaky guy who had a habit of standing in front of peoples' desks and just staring, not saying anything. Anyway, he got fired for being too Office Space-ish the day he sent an email to the entire company demanding to know where his stapler was.

Then there's my current job. Every time I make a mistake it's like that bit about the TPS reports. First the QA person sends me an email saying I screwed up and I should fix it. (Which is fine; that's her job.) Then the girl who thinks she's the boss (but is not the actual boss because my actual boss is really not such a bad person) emails me to tell me that I screwed up. Then she tells my trainer, who emails me to say that she heard I was having a problem with whatever I screwed up on. So if I have one momentary brain fart, I can expect to hear about it from at least 3 different people, none of whom are actually in charge of me.

Today they decided that to take care of the "problem" of old claims, they'd run a report of all the claims over 10 days old and have us do them. The problem is that all of them had just been put in the work queues yesterday, and by the time they handed out the reports, all the claims had already been done in the normal course of work. So they complain that not enough claims are getting done, and the solution is to take me off of claims processing for an hour so that I can look up a bunch of claims that have already been done.

While they're at it, why don't they call a 3-hour meeting to discuss why we've fallen behind in our work?

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:29 a.m. - 2005-03-17

There are a variety of beverage options at work. But I don't understand the bottled water.

For $1.00, I can get a bottle of chocolate milk. Someone grew, roasted and processed cocoa beans into cocoa powder, and someone else grew sugar cane or sugar beets and refined it into sugar. Then in another country, someone squeezed a cow and pasturized and homogonized the milk, separating the cream out to make 1% milk. And then they blended in the cocoa and sugar. And I can get all this for a dollar.

For $1.25 I can get pop. Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Root Beer and sometimes even Orange Crush. A factory produced artificial flavoring from chemicals and natural ingredients. Someone either grew and processed sugar, or made artificial sweetener. They blended this with filtered and carbonated water. And I can get all this for $1.25.

Then there's the bottled water. For $1.25, someone filtered some water and stuck it in a bottle. It's not even spring water. It's one of the brands where it's basically tap water from the bottling plant. They didn't bother to flavor it, sweeten it, or even carbonate it, yet they want the same amount of money as they charge for an equal amount of root beer! For less money, I could be drinking milk. For that price, it comes out to about $8 a gallon, for tap water. It comes out of the faucet for free, but they want me to pay $1.25 for it. People are complaining about gasoline being over $2 a gallon, but they're paying $1.25 for a bottle of tap water. I've seen them do it.

I don't understand people. And I know water is supposed to be good for you, but dammit, I can't do it. Not for $1.25 a bottle. I'll be drinking root beer, pepsi, and chocolate milk at work.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry  12:17 p.m. - 2005-03-11

I just finished lunch, and there was a wee blue speck in my hamburger. I know that the cafeteria buys pre-formed hamburgers, so it is not their fault. Something blue ended up inside my burger at the meat factory. It makes me glad that all the hamburgers are cooked well done. Alton Brown insists that well-done beef has no flavor. But I like the wee blue specks and other foreign objects to be fully sanitized by heat before I eat them.

It is still snowing. It is March 11th. It has been switching between sub-zero temperatures and snowstorms since December. Kinda getting bored of the gray and white landscape. And the cold. And the puffy insulated coats. And the snow boots. And the eczema making me look like a diseased freak.

On the brighter side, at least it is Friday.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 2:11 p.m. - 2005-03-09

The worst "creative" spelling of the name "Crystal" is "Krystle". I've seen this spelling twice, and both times that I've seen it, my mind doesn't correspond it to the name Crystal. It corresponds it to the word "gristle". So if you want to name your child Crystal, do her a favor and spell it Crystal. Then people will think of pretty shiny things. When you name her Krystle, people like me will invariably think of the disgusting mass of inedible connective tissue left behind after someone eats a steak.

Today I found out that the chocolate milk in the vending machines at work only costs a dollar. And you can see the expiration dates through the glass, so you know you won't be getting a bottle of chocolate flavored cottage cheese. I'll be drinking chocolate milk a lot more from now on.

I'm supposed to be doing 32 claims per hour. Today I've been doing 21. This sucks. I'm not trying to be slow either. It's just one of those days. Grr.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 10:07 a.m. - 2005-03-09

I have a notebook in by backpack that I use for writing down funny or useful stuff that I think of during the day when I'm working. It works much better than stealing sticky notes and losing them in the bottom of my bag. Somehow my notebook manages to acquire a new brown stain (probably from old coffee in my coffee cup) every day. Nothing else in my bag seems to be effected. But there are new brown stains on my notebook every time I pick it up. The top edge is getting kind of crunchy.

Here are some things I wrote in my notebook.

Things That Make Me Laugh No Matter How Mature I Pretend To Be

- That one video of a monkey picking its butt, sniffing its finger, and then falling off a log.

- People named Dick.

- When I see the name Timmy on a claim and immediately think of Timmy from South Park.

- Chinese restaurant menus, when they list chicken balls.

- Chinese restaurant menus, when they list Poo Poo.

- Jokes about uranus.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

originally on diaryland 2:15 p.m. - 2005-03-07

Ways to Make My Job More Fun

1. Give everyone a nickname. Like strippers.

2. When you leave your cube, you enter an armed paintball conflict. Everyone would be carrying paintball guns and dressing in cubicle camoflage.

3. During meetings, play "duck duck goose" around the conference table.

4. Naked Fridays.

5. Instead of numerical diagnosis codes, use little cartoon pictures depicting every diagnosis.

6. Put sword swallowers and jugglers in the lobby.

7. Give each team a mascot by making the bosses wear big furry animal suits.

8. A puppy in every cubicle.

9. Cabana boys to bring us cold beverages.

10. A morphine drip.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

originally on diaryland 1:50 p.m. - 2005-03-05

Okay, so I was just watching some tv (a horrible reality fashion show thing) and I had the closed captioning on because my dad is mostly deaf, and the closed captioning is always on. There was a shot segueing from inside one building to inside another, and it was just a basic establishing shot. And suddenly in the middle of this silent establishing shot, the captioning says, "I really did want to shave it but I couldn't because of the staples." What?!?!? There was no one in either scene talking about shaving or staples. In fact, I never remember either topic coming up in the entire show. But there it was.

I really did want to shave it but I couldn't because of the staples.

Yup.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally on diaryland  6:51 p.m. - 2005-03-03

At work I saw the worst name ever. There was a psychiatrist named Richard Odor. But you can call him Dr. Dick Odor.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally on diaryland 9:42 a.m. - 2005-03-03

Okay, so my dad was driving me to work this morning in the usual way. Well, usual except for the duck in the back seat that wouldn't shut up. (But that's another story. And he was mostly muffled by the jacket and tote bag my dad packed on top of him.) Anyway, we went by the gas station across the street from where I work, and the sign in front said, "Denver Omelets $1.49". Why is the gas station selling omelets? I very much doubt that they have a French omelet chef in the back making them. And any thought about what a gas station omelet might be like beyond that is just plain horrifying. It just sounds like an invitation to salmonella.

So then I got to work, and there's an email from my boss saying that they're going to be hiring more people for our department and asking if any of us had any referrals to give. Did she really think I'd inflict this job on any of my friends? I tried to think of anyone I hate enough to recommend. But my boss already works here.

Last night I was talking to my friend (let's come up with a nickname for him on the fly so I don't have to use his real name) who we will call Poopsmith. We were discussing excuses I could give to my boss for my lack of productivity since the overtime was initiated. (The real reason is that the compressed nerves in arm can only handle 8 hours of work per day before the pain becomes so excruciating all I can do is stare at the wall.) But the best excuses I came up with when discussing the issue with Poopsmith were:
1. I have gone crazy from the syphillis.
2. I have the leprosy and if I type any faster my fingers will come clean off.

Last night I was pondering the possibility of getting revenge on my boss by poisoning her coffee (just enough to give her the runs). Maybe the gas station omelet is the answer. "Look boss lady! I have bought you some breakfast!"

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Originally on diaryland  12:27 p.m. - 2005-03-02

I'm stuck at work again. Now they've decided to extend our mandatory overtime for two more weeks, and increase it to 10 hours per week. I'm seriously considering dropping my id card on my boss' desk and walking out. This is sweatshop labor. Mandatory overtime should be illegal.

Not only does the mandatory overtime suck like Paris Hilton, but it isn't doing any good. On an average 8 hour day, I process about 275 claims. My record was 366 claims, and that was in a 7 hour day because I left early for a doctors appointment. Yesterday when I worked for 9 1/2 hours, I did 243. I hate working. My primary motivation to do work is the fact that I get to leave. The earlier I leave, the harder I work. So now they're paying me more money (about $25 a day more) to sit in this box and process fewer claims than I would in a regular day.

Oops. My lunch hour ended 5 minutes ago. Watch me not care.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland 12:17 p.m. - 2005-03-01

If America is supposed to be a capitalist country, why is there so much communism in the workplace?

I work for a large company, we'll just call Untied Health Care. I work in a claims processing team of about 35 people. We have a quota. We have to process 32 claims per hour. If we're consistently lower than that, we get fired. But what reward is there for working above that? None.

If I put in long days and process 40 or 50 claims per hour (which I could do), it doesn't really put much of a dent in the 30,000 or so claims that come in each week. And most of my co-workers can't do more than 32 an hour. If the "team" falls behind, they institute mandatory overtime. Mind you, I was never behind. I was doing more than my share. But we all have to work insanely long hours, regardless of our performance during those hours.

So if you work hard and do your best, you're still punished for the slacking of your co-workers. Which leads those of us who are capable of quality work completely unmotivated to do any more than the same slow pace as the rest of the team. If we're going to be punished regardless of performance, we might as well put in no more than a minimal effort.

This is communism. This is why the government of the USSR fell. With no rewards, there is no incentive to work. How do they expect to get our best effort if we have no real reason to give it.

I think I'll just do 32 claims an hour and save my energy for more interesting things, like watching tv.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland 12:20 p.m. - 2005-02-24

It is cold outside. You would think that I wouldn't care by now because it has been cold for as long as I've lived here. But I still hate it. More than the cold, I hate the dryness. I feel like every mucus membrane in my body has become mummified. There's a crunchy noise when I blink.

When I was growing up here I always had a stuffy or runny nose and I always had horrible red bumps all over my face. All of that went away when I moved to Seattle. It turns out that I don't have seasonal allergies. It's just that humans aren't meant to live in a frozen desert tundra. And I didn't have acne. I have eczema caused by dry air.

I feel like the guy in "Big Fish". You know, how he always was swimming or in the bathtub because he said he was starting to "dry out". I envy fish.

Anyway, I've decided that northern Minnesota isn't a fit habitat for humans. This is a good place to visit if you have a corpse laying around that you need to mummify. Other than that, there is no good reason to live here.

I think I'll start counting the days until I can leave.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally Published on diaryland 12:29 p.m. - 2005-02-22

Elvis keeps following me into the bathroom at work.

This is the weirdest trend I've noticed at my job. All day while I type numbers, I listen to my mp3 player. It is strapped to my arm, hanging around my neck, or in my pocket most of the time, so I don't take it off to go to the bathroom. And every time I go to the bathroom, an Elvis song plays. I have it on random, and there are only about 3 Elvis songs on the thing. Yet every time I go into the bathroom, I hear Elvis. It's not like Elvis makes me have to pee. It can be playing anything when I walk into the bathroom. Radiohead, Sixpence None the Richer, silverchair. But by the time I leave the bathroom, it'll be playing Elvis.

It's kinda starting to freak me out. I think that the ghost of The King likes to watch me pee.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland 2:15 p.m. - 2005-02-18

Okay, so I've been processing claims all day. Like most days. I have just 2 things to say to the world right now.

1. Unless you are old and have Medicare, do not bother with secondary insurance coverage. It will cost you more than it will pay out. I promise. It's a big waste of your money and my time.

2. Stop going to non-network providers. It will cost you a fortune in the long run and make your claims pay a lot slower, and probably pay wrong. Just don't do it. I'm sure you could find a network provider that is good if you just got off your lazy butt and tried.

That's all.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland  2:07 p.m. - 2005-02-15

When did celebrities become so useless?

I remember when famous people were actors or musicians or athletes or at the very least British royalty. They had some known use and talent. We appreciated their ability to say words or sing or at least, in the case of models, stand there and look pretty. And then came Paris Hilton.

Let's take a moment to look at Paris Hilton's contribution to society. She made that one porn video. She was in "The Simple Life". So the only talents she has exhibited are in being a useless vapid whore. She hasn't done any acting. Both of her contributions were in the realm of "reality" television. So society is giving her money for being a useless vapid whore. I went to high school with countless useless vapid whores. They ended up in trailer parks or low-budget porn where they belong. How did Paris Hilton end up on the cover of every magazine?

Sure, you can blame her success on the fact that she's the daughter of a rich man. Does that really mean we as a society should care about her? I don't think so.

So for being a useless vapid whore and for lowering the value of women everywhere, I think that Paris Hilton should have her uterus revoked. She is making the real women who have brains and personalities look bad, and as a woman, I don't think she deserves to be able to call herself a woman anymore. So someone please revoke Paris Hilton's uterus before she reproduces. The last thing we need is more useless vapid whores in the world.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland 9:44 a.m. - 2005-02-14

Valentine's Day sucks.

Usually people who say that do not have spouses or boyfriends or girlfriends or whatever. I have a fiance. I'm getting married in a matter of months. But Valentine's Day still sucks.

It sucks when you have a big argument on the day before Valentine's Day, and you know that everything will be fine eventually, but you are still licking your wounds from the fight, and then just because it's February 14th you're supposed to pretend nothing happened and act all lovey. I love my fiance, but at the moment I don't feel romantic. I am not in the mood for all this Valentine's crap today. I tell him that I love him every day. Why do I have to make a big thing about it today?

So I guess if I want to celebrate properly, today is hypocracy day for me. I will tell lies and pretend that I am in the mood for hearts and flowers, when I'd really rather join up with a group of single girls having a "boys suck" party.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland 1:31 p.m. - 2005-02-11

Hi.

I'm a medical claims adjuster. I pay and deny medical claims. So most people kind of hate me. But I'd just like to say that if you're going to hate anyone, hate your employer. They're the ones who sign you up for crappy coverage.

At work, I only process mental health claims. It's nice cause I don't really have to know much. But some companies give their employees really crappy coverage. I have seen claims for people who have $2000 deductibles, and then there's a limit of 30 visits per year. So they had to pay towards the deductible for about 28 claims, 2 claims got paid at 80% and then they had to pay everything after that because they had maxed their benefits. The company HR guy who picked that health plan for his employees should be beaten badly.

But my job isn't all bad. I have seen funny things. Did you know that there is a doctor named Leif Leaf? Today I got a claim for a psychiatrist named Dr. Love. I would not go to a psychiatrist named Dr. Love.

I have a doctor's appointment later today. I hope that my doctor does not hold it against me that I am a claims adjuster.

Posted by Alana at 07:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland, 2:12 p.m. - 2005-02-09

I'd like to take a moment to sing the praises of the corporate cafeteria at my office.

Alton Brown (www.altonbrown.com) says that you shouldn't eat too much food that was prepared by people you wouldn't want to hug. I agree. I do not like to eat food prepared by surly 10th graders in fast food places. When I lived in Seattle, I could get decent food from the various food stands near my office. But it wasn't great.

I'm not saying I'd actually like to hug the people at the cafeteria in my office. In fact, given a choice, I'd rather not. But the company cafeteria, done correctly, can have a small fraction of the charm of an old diner. There is decent food at a good price, prepared by people who don't rank as family or loved ones, but who at least rank as co-workers. I think this is an advantage. They're not going to do anything weird to your food when they know that you will be seeing them face-to-face 5 days a week.

Besides that, the food in the cafeteria at my office is pretty good. They do really good hamburgers and also good mashed potatoes and french fries. And I don't even like french fries.

So if your office has a good cafeteria, take a moment to be grateful. It could be a lot worse.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:31 PM | Permalink

originally published on diaryland

12:25 p.m. - 2005-02-09

Welcome!

So I decided to add this diary thingy so that I can add short random musings without having to FTP and write code and stuff. I am good at writing code, but it is not convenient to do at work during my lunch hour cause of how it makes my brain hurt sometimes.

I'm gonna write some more stuff later, but I thought I'd just pop in and say "hi".

Hi.

Anyway, lunchtime is almost over and I haven't finished my oatmeal cookie.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)