Used/New Car Dealer Stories?

Anyone have experience buying an used/new car around Maryland? Please share. I'm particularly interested in used cars but am interested in new car dealers that made a stellar impression as well.

I'm thinking about getting a car of my own soon. The ideal car for me is used but LOOKS new in all respects, reliable/warranteed, classy (not trendy), comes from a straightforward/hassle-free dealer/owner, and on top of all that comes with a great deal. Example: a Lexus 2001 w/ <50 mi that a grandma got as a gift, then decided she wanted to trade it in for a Volvo and is cutting her losses by selling it cheap.

I dread buying something "big" like a car, finding out I got ripped off, and not being able to undo the decision. So please share your experiences/reviews if you have any, and let me know of places to avoid too w/ shady dealers. Thanks!!

New Blog

Hi readers, I've changed my xanga screenname. If you are interested in subscribing, please shoot me a brief email at ywu24@jhmi.edu, so that I will remember to add you onto my new subscriptions page, thanks!

Hope you enjoyed this blog as much as I did :)

Yimei

Conversations

I have something to say about conversations. I love it when someone changes the tempo of the talk.

Somewhere, this book advised to adjust your speech flow to your audience. Meaning--if someone talks a certain way, mimic them subtlely in style and cadence.

What tends to happen, I notice, is that they imitate you back unknowingly in timing, and you start overlapping one another and beginning sentences by erupting into each other's sentences.

But then here and there, I meet a few who will carry long pauses in their conversations. It may be unnerving at first (especially to someone like me, who tends to associate silences with unproductivity of some sort), but gradually, this gives way to a peaceful reflection between sentences. I need not busy myself in filling in silences because the silence is given and it's not an empty one. Unlike ones that follow the annoyed wrinkle of a forehead, these silences are simply commas--a thoughtful finger to the chin.

The Underdog

I babysat again, last Friday. One incident made me think and pause in reflection.

We took the kids to a park nearby and some of them took over the swings. One of the little girls was so excited about something called an "underdog" and the kids kept asking someone to "do an underdog for me!!!" Puzzled, I asked the father of one of the other kids what was an underdog. He gave his daughter a few pushes on the swing and when she flew forward, he followed behind and pushed her even higher as he ducked below her seat and ran out.

Hope, the little girl I was pushing, begged for an underdog as the other little girls were getting them.

Me: "ok, ok, let's try this" [started to push her]

Her: "that's not an underdog...!"

Me: "yea, don't worry, it's coming...." [pushing faster, looking frantically around for Candice, who was tending the little boys nearby]

Her: "when are you going to do it?!"

Me: "Soon!! It's coming, be patient...!!" [trying to stall for time while motioning to Candice to come over]

Me: "Ok I'll try this..." [big push, I run forward, shriek, and barely pat her butt, my hair is all disheveled]

Her: "That was not an underdog...! <giggles>" [looks envying at the other kids who are getting underdogs from their dad]

Me: "HEY CANDICE!!! CAN YOU COME HELP ME?!? [I beg her to come do this underdog thing, and she did it effortlessly]

So I feel kind of embarassed, to say the least. What was my problem??!

First of all, eye-hand-feet coordination isn't my ace and I was so afraid that I might either #1) accidentally push her off the swing or, #2) mess up and have the swing hit me in the head and either break my nose, gouge out my eyeballs, or knock out my teeth.

Second of all, the liability of #1 filled me with dread. The last thing I wanted was for every finger in the world to be pointed at my face, aimed in vicious scrutiny and blame for causing a kid to get hurt.

With these two things, it's fair to say that there's fear and pragmatism in my response. These are two things I've been dealing with for awhile, not just in the setting of babysitting, but in other contexts. In fact, whenever fear creeps in, I seem to give over to those pragmatic instincts. Notice also a tendency to think of the worst possible scenarios all happening at once, like a apocalypse or something. Must get over these because there is a greater purpose, and I can't afford to be hindered by such things. The underdog is only child's play.

Babysitting

I know I've mentioned my limited experience in babysitting before but just let me recap before the latest episode: 

The first time I babysat in my life was for my brother and his friend when they were in 6th grade (I was in 8th grade) and we ended up taking turns catapulting off the second floor onto a pile of pillows.

The second time was 5 years later when I was given nursery duty one Sunday. Having had little interaction with young children for so long, I was unsure of how to act. With trepidation I went in and eyed the room of toddlers. The brother who was helping me seemed more at ease than I. I just did whatever the kids wanted and kept monitoring their actions in case they were going to hurt themselves...it was kind of nervewracking. One mom asked me about a red flushed spot on her kid's face and I almost broke into a cold sweat thinking she thought I did something to her kid.

Last week I followed Edwina to Sam & Sarah's to accompany her while she babysat Joshua. I was there for 30 minutes so I thought, might as well try my hand at this. The kid is so darned cute. I didn't know what to say to him. Like I just don't know what to say to kids; it's like chances are they're not going to understand half of what I say anyway, so why bother? I feel weird asking gooey things like "what is this?" and not have him know it and be left hanging. It's like you're being dissed. I tried to ask the right questions, ones easy enough so that he can either say yes or no to or something simple. Yep. But it was getting better; at least he looked at me and said my name...it's adorable.

On Sunday, a babysitter hurt her arm so I was asked if I could take over. Oddly enough, I said yes without hesitation because I've been considering if I should babysit more. I want to get to know the kids in our church and be a part of loving them to Christ; I need to get over my silly anxiety of associating with little kids. Don't ask me why--I have NO idea why but I stiffen up by instinct--it's like a Cruella Deville complex or something.

It was a weird experience but kind of fun and somewhat of a "breakthrough" event for me. Going into it, I had thought it would only be 2 kids from Missio Dei and I could just sit and study. But Edwina and I were in charge of about 12 kids.  There were some random moments, just for my own memory bytes I'll freeverse it:

stick your head in the toilet; maids and the princess; are you a girly girl? Are you cool? ("No.") Do you think you're cool? ("No.");Your nails are so long and you wear pink! Ew!;kungfu demo; limbo with big candy cane; bitten hard by one kid who did it on purpose; kids streamed outside and we had to get them back in 4 times; puppet show with screaming bedlam; successful handling of cleanup with the 3 year olds.

My observations are that the 2-3 year olds seem most docile and quiet; when I told them to go back, they were the first to follow and they usually say yes to everything. The 5 year olds get feistier but are easy to entertain and tease; somewhat harder to handle as a group due to peer influences. The grade schooler girls are all right and growing up, kind of cheeky--strange since I remembered being so dark and melodramatic when I was their age. The little boys older than 5 were immersed in the world of gameboy...kind of a strange spectacle since they were QUIETER than the 5 year old girls that whole entire time.

Edwina said I did well considering I was extremely hyper and nervous before we started; periodically making hyperventilating noises. I guess I wasn't helpless and did do some bossing around when it came down to it. I was relieved that they listened and obeyed for the most part.

So I survived babysitting for the 4th time in my life! And I didn't even know we get paid too, so I earned some pocket money :)