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| Does anyone know of a good travel agent?
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| I passed!I've been away from xanga for awhile. I've either had to prepare for my QP or 'Qualifying Paper' (to advance to candidancy, which means all I have to do now is write a dissertation), or I was stressing about it. I found out this past friday that I passed!!!  For three years, I've been busting my butt (or being lazy about it), and finally I'm finished with most of the 'hoop-jumping'.
I'm having a wonderful year: I got engaged, passed my QP, some of my friends had some incredible things happen to them, I have loyal/fun/caring friends, my parents are healthy, I'm getting married to an incredible person, and I'm living more comfortably with the ambiguity and uncertainty of life and God.
Now, I just need to shed all the 'ice-cream' pounds that I gained during this stressful quarter. 
Love you all. Hopefully, I'll be able to spend some time with you during the summer.
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The music I listened to while writing my QP: Girltalk, other Mashups, Arcade Fire, Sufjan, Ceu, Soulive, The Bad Plus
The TV shows I watched so that I could get my mind off of the Stoics and fall asleep: Heroes and Battlestar Gallactica
Movies: tons... I was in a Akira Kurosawa for awhile, Korean movies ('memories of murder', kim ki duk films), and many more.
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| She said, "Yes"!
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| My Ipod historyI've had a few ipods since they came out. I still own two. I first bought the 5G Ipod 2000 and something, and it was wonderful, but then the 5G soon became too small to accommodate my voracious appetite for ripping my cds, my friends' cds, and then Napster-ing. Apple soon had the 20G model come out, so I got that and sold my 5G to a buddy. I enjoyed the 20G for awhile, but this too was not big enough; I was downloading stuff far faster than my Ipod could handle!
Then came the thief in the night. Someone broke into my car and stole everything in it. I was parked at a friend's house and when I came out, everything in my car, including my groceries, library books and Ipod 20G, were stolen. This was very unfortunate, but since I try to look positively at situations, I thought, "Well, I can get the Ipod 40G that just came out!" So I did. It was expensive, but it's an essential.
I had heard that I should get it at Bestbuy with the extended warranty. I did. The warranty was $39.99 for four years. I thought to myself, "I'm lazy, but I'm not FOUR-years-lazy! I'm sure I'll take it in, complain about something small and get an exchange for whatever new model Ipod will be around during that time." This was two and half years ago.
I finally got my lazy butt to go to Bestbuy and complain about the lack of battery life, and from the testimony of several people, I heard that the store would exchange my Ipod for a current comparable model. What friends failed to tell me (and I didn't read the fine print) is that an item has to be returned for the same problem four times before they issue an exchange. This is where the story gets a bit frustrating. I gave my Ipod to the "Geek Squad" at Bestbuy late December last year. It took them a month when they gave me a call to pick it up! I go in, wait in line, and they show me the Ipod and the service report, which failed to mention a battery replacement; but rather they changed the Harddrive. Rina and I complained. And they said they would take it back to the service center to get it re-checked. Jesus, the manager, also promised it would come back in a week. But Jesus' notion of time is different than ours.
Another month passes by, and I finally get a call. I was in SB at the time, so I finally got to go in this past weekend. Rina and I see the service report only to notice that they had replaced the harddrive again without changing the battery! I was thinking, "My goodness, I have to return this thing again another two times before I get an exchange!" So while I was ruminating how I was going to return my 40G another two times given the mere 16-18 months I had left on my warranty, Rina took over.
Although Rina is demure and easy-going, when there is injustice, righteous anger comes out! I enjoyed the show and thought to myself, "that's my girl!" The "Geek" kept going around in circles, and Rina went in a straight line while I tried to look serious and unsatisfied--touching my glasses, looking up in disbelief, and sighing in slight frustration.
Then we found his weakness; he was transforming from a we-can't-do-anything-about-it attitude towards what-can-I-do stutter. And in a twinkle of an eye, without trumpets shouting, came the enrapturing words, "We'll give you the exchange."
I touched my glasses, looked at the Geek and said, "Is it possible to get two nanos and accessories instead?" "Oh, no," he replied, "We can only exchange product for product. But I'll give you the 80G Ipod Video, and throw in a new 3 year warranty."
I thought it was fair. I'll see Jesus in another 2 and half years.
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