Positive_space's Xanga

Used/New Car Dealer Stories?

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 04:21:36 GMT

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!!

Monday, November 07, 2005

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 02:35:08 GMT

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

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 04:49:02 GMT

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.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Mon, 09 May 2005 06:50:39 GMT

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.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Wed, 06 Apr 2005 06:17:07 GMT

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 :)

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:55:41 GMT

Floral Prints

Ergh, it's happened again. I'm serious, the floral blazer was gonna be MY thing this spring. I've been watching for the perfect one to show up on ebay but now check out the anthropologie, jcrew, and banana websites--they've caught on -_-

Here are other ones that kind of embody my vision for that perfect spring blazer:

A funky green button: the one-button thing is starting to jive w/ me, but the color is a bit darker than I'd like for spring

Creme floral paisley really nicely designed: this was just sad...I bid 4 times and it went for <$10, a third cheaper than all the others of its kind right now; it's probably the best one I've seen so far...slapping myself for not bidding first.

Splash of small flowers : charming, but the background color is still too...jarring to give off that lightness of spring

the RL one is stylistically tasteful and also prissy enough but its just too darn expensive. My ideal would be no more than $30 total for outerwear.

Thing is, once it becomes mainstream...it's just no fun anymore. Look what happened to the pink fringe boucle peacoat--it was HOT and then it died. My intuition is that the floral print phase will be short-lived too, maybe the floral cardigan might find its way from Granny's closet this season but I bet once it hits and people start seeing it all over the place it won't be long before we're all SICK of florals and up for clean, simplistic lines or something else.

Some other things I'm thinking will be hitting the stores soon:

*Olive and sage. Probably a post-florals relief. My second choice was a pale, earthy olive jacket but its been hard to find.

*Increased emphasis on accessories. The brooch is still going strong, there's diversification from the big-flower brooch. Outfits may rely on 1-2 pieces of really flamboyant/delicate accessories to complete the look.

Anyway, this is stupid, I should be studying for finals :P

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Wed, 09 Mar 2005 18:24:27 GMT

The Next Batch of Interview Reports

Johns Hopkins CPA:

This was an OK interview, nothing went wrong but I can't say it was a sparkling impression sort of meeting either. I don't think they'll rank me that high, but then, I didn't rank them up there either. The big boss was really easy going, but kept asking me if I had any questions for him. So that was the whole interview. I didn't realize until it was almost done that maybe he was giving me the ball so I can talk about myself via questions I have for him and answers he would give? Whatever. Anyway, I was mostly racking my brains for intelligent questions to ask such that it'll make me seem informed, inquisitive, and not-a-dumbass. The meeting with the CFO and Director of Contract Services went pretty well--between the two of them they had questions for me and I had questions for them so it wasn't too hard. What I liked about this place was the nice office and the people seemed pretty nice. What I was iffy about were the mandatory meetings I heard about via the current resident. I tend to dislike stuff where you have to show up just to make someone or some group look good. And the people present at the meetings were described as deans and presidents all over the system, really esteemed people. That makes me kind of stressed just thinking about it. I'll have to figure out how to represent my organization in front of them and how to schmooze. It's just more pressure since there's a lot more responsibility behind each maneuver. If anything that goes wrong, it's not just "Omg, what a bumbling idiot we have here" but its "Omg, what were the CPA thinking when they hired this bumbling idiot?!" I'm fine if bumbling idiot I'll be; nothing more, nothing less -_-

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 04:35:15 GMT

The Pinnacle of Americanized Chinese Food (ACF, cheesy acronym I know)

I went to Hunan Manor in Columbia for lunch this Sunday and it was the BEST greasy, palate-tingling Americanized Chinese food ever!

Don't get me wrong, I love real Chinese food too, but to find a place that serves up "authentic" ACF...

Greasiness: what can I say, it sure was that. And I could tell it's some kind of meat-grease too, since it was oh so fragrant in that Chinese-restaurant way.

Presentation: sprigs of parsley and delicately sliced carrots on a toothpick! Their plates were Japanese-style and square-shaped too. Note: having nice plates is the best thing you can do as a restauranteur.

Smell: so important and they did a good job. The pig oil and msg probably helped too, but it came and we raved nose-first.

Taste: YUM, the flavor was SO there. I can't tell you how disappointing it is when you smell good food and find out the taste doesn't cut it. But the texture of the crispy eggplant was just right. The cantonese noodles were bland but still saturated with sauce to give the noodles a curious consistency. The house shrimp was marinated w/ ginger and peppers and doused with vineger to give it a tartness.

Service: waiter was patient and attentive, we couldn't figure out the name of a dish and he caught what we were discussing and offered to help. He brought the appetizer quickly and all 3 dishes came out at once pretty soon after. Very good in light of the fancyness of the place and the volume of customers.

The only rivals to this place in my books have been Panda in College Park (for a small biz, they served up some decent ACF for us terps!) and a few other places in Rockville, MD (Old Szechuan, New China Kitchen) Fortune 88 in Laurel (kind of on the shabby-looking side but I like how no one knows about this place that serves good food), Mandarin Garden in Laurel.

Friday, March 04, 2005

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 04:43:09 GMT

A Public Health Issue

Coverage of behavioral health (BH) services--yes or no?

Arguments for:

-some BH diagnoses (refer to the dsm-iv for the whole slew) seem to be supported by clinical studies that show a clinical basis for the pathology, i.e. depression, bipolar, schizophrenia

-if the above is held as unquestionable, then the next logical argument would be that if other clinical medical conditions (cancer, heart, lung, etc conditions) are covered under a health plan, why should BH be treated differently?

-BH disorders often involve long patient stays and follow-up visits to ensure the patient is complying with prescribed treatment or advice, or in some cases, to ensure the patient from harming him or herself.

-BH disorders exert a toll on the economy, workforce, and individuals (low productivity, low employee satisfaction>suboptimal performance, high absence rate, cost of turnovers/replacements, emotional opportunity cost, quality of life opportunity cost, etc). There is a number somewhere, and I recall it's in the millions, of wasted dollars incurred due to BH disorders in the workforce.

Arguments against:

-BH disorders may have some clinical basis, but what about any emotional high or low? If you're extraordinarily happy, your serotonin levels must be up, if you're down, they go down. Does BH truly stand-alone as a medical concern, or is there a heavy psychological/social issue intermixed? Why are they depressed--will treatment (drugs, professional therapist, etc) really attack the core of the problem?

When someone is depressed, it seems to me they basically lose all hope and see zero meaning in living. Just playing around with their physiological functioning can change things on the surface and make it look better and feel better...but is feeling better going to solve what their problem was, or is it kind of, just my opinion, helping them to better escape their negative emotions?

-Given the premise of the above, would it be fair to devote resources that could be otherwise used by patients with "real" clinical illnesses to these BH patients?

-Inpatient stays and follow-up care exacts a lot of cost; even if only 2% of the pie, one individual may sap benefits from the pool if given enough time to drag it out. From a monetary point of view, BH is inefficient.

-Is it effective then? The problem with BH is also that some disorders take time to show outcomes. Depression appears to show positive outcomes; however, again, if most of these results from taking drugs I wonder at the true benefit or if the provider has simply found a good way to bring in some revenue at the cost of the employer or payer agency, assuming fee for service.

-the copayments and restrictions are higher right now for BH patients. However, some groups protest that this is unfair and BH should be treated exactly the same as other medical conditions. This really kind of wraps back to the first core issue of: how much of BH is the responsibility of the healthcare system? Is our healthcare system enough to fix BH problems, or should we also be mobilizing social services and pastoral affiliations (to willing BH patients) in accordance, if not primarily?

So it struck me how close this issue sort of parellels the issue of how much the indigent populations are the responsibility of the healthcare system.

And it also reminds me of a separate issue: for all the tree-huggers out there, how much is caring for the environment and endangered species a duty of the government; for all the special groups that lobby for those poor people on welfare--what will they do if the government decides there simply isn't enough for everyone's pet issues if we want to keep having healthcare and education?

Will those who love being the squeaky wheel step out to organize and donate out of their own pockets to fund the environmental cleanup? Isn't it every citizen's responsibility to chip in, if not by taxes, by a door to door collection perhaps where the rich can be targeted :P? Will those who act like social guardians adopt poor children into their homes and take in the homeless if push comes to shove? It seems to make a lot more sense to ask for funds if scores of these activists and politicians are already awash with homeless people in their houses and it would then be more obvious how appropriated funds could concretely and immediately make a difference.

Probably not well surmised, but a late night babble of mine :)

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 21:12:48 GMT

The Match

No, I haven't joined a dating service, lol. My 2-year program has a residency the which we call "the match". We pick and rank 6 workplaces, interview with each, they rank us, and we're matched for the next 11 months.

So the choices this year are a variety of consulting companies (kpmg, pwc, navigant, booz allen, etc), hospitals (hopkins, bayview, howard county, lifebridge, etc), and miscellaneous (clinical practice association, advisory board, ncqa, etc).

I've picked the following:

1. Wilmer Eye Institute

2. JHU Hospital, Dept of Surgery

3. Bayview Medical Center

4. JH Health System, Dept of Strategic Planning & Mktg Research

5. JHMI, CPA

6. Howard County General Hospital

Some of you may wonder why the HECK I didn't go for the big 5 consulting companies when there's almost a guarantee of getting the job. 1) I'd rather not have my life revolve around work 2) location issues 3) if I'll somehow end up in consulting, there's no need for it to be NOW.

So I'm writing this to sort of track my progress with interviews, and my impressions from them.

JHH SPMR (2/21/05): Felt welcomed from the start; the security desk lady was so nice and friendly to every person--where did they find someone so cool? :P The first guy I interviewed seemed to be laid back but wise; he seemed impressed with my weird stories about badminton club and stuff and how I like Mondays. He finished by asking me about Taiwan, mentioning that his wife was Taiwanese (sort of caught me off guard since he wasn't Asian). I said she was very pretty and he thanked me.The second guy was kind of quirky and for half an hour he talked non-stop and at the 30 minute mark he pulled out a sheet of like 20 questions and proceeded down for the rest of the hour. It was funny though and he was easy for me to talk and open up to; perhaps owing to his quirkiness. He did ask me what I care for aside from work and I talked about being involved in church and worshipping God and apparently he himself was Christian too. Interesting, because I thought it was considered "taboo" to mention your faith in a professional setting and was just thinking "uh oh" when the words left my mouth hehe.

Wilmer (3/3/05): First off, my outfit was amazingly uncomfortable today! I was nervous about this one since they had 2 sessions, one with 4 people at once in a group and one with the big boss afterwards. My classmate had told me it was ok though so that relieved some anxiety. I did present in a sort of nervous, quiet state at first, my voice constricted (they kept offering me cookies and something to drink). But the group one was not too bad since part of the time they started going off among themselves and all I had to do was be a good listener, look attentive, and ask questions. I also told them the badminton story; I should have also told them the more random stuff I did while I had the audience -_-. Gosh it's all in the way you "frame" what you say though; and for mama's sake, smile, smile and smile until your face breaks. It was actually pretty cool interviewing with the big boss--he was a rare breed; the introverted people-person. I bet he's an ISTJ too. I told him about how I leased an apartment and went through about 6 individual tenants/roommates in college and he seemed interested in knowing the best kind of tenants to accept. I told him, partly in jest, to pick a person with few friends, a bland life, and clean personal habits (i.e. your typical PhD student). In jest, I say, in jest :P I was also set up with a question that caused me to talk about my faith in Christ, being saved in college, and my desire to make that source of love the core of my life upon which everything else stems from. Again, as I blabbed, my mind was like "uhm, are you crazy?" but he smiled and mentioned that I uttered a word few people bring up--stewardship, which happened to be his personal motto running across a screensaver on his computer. He mentioned that right after the first interview, some of the first interviewers had already spoke well of me. A positive sign? :P I asked some questions that got him to talk alot about some recent accomplishments. Overall, it was not as stressful as I thought it would be. I was just stressed because my back was killing me (I was hanging toward the front part of each chair I sat in and tried to sit low enough so that I was eye level with each person...it just feels weird if you're looking DOWN at your interviewer you know). Just meeting the big boss was pretty inspirational--he was reserved and quiet but at the same time he had a warm, accepting aura. I also got through this interview without having to put on some fakeness that I used during my mock interview to convince my program director I was fine (he complained that my voice was too soft and my manner too contained and told me if I did that I wouldn't match!).

It was also very encouraging so far that I've been sort of squeezed to mention my faith in Christ a few times already (in my grad school application essay, in my interviews so far) and each time I've done in the face of otherwise reasonable advice, in trepidation, or in a state of "omg, what am I saying" but each time God has shielded me from potential "persecution" in the form of rejection.