Take Me Away!

Posted on April 25th, 2007 by gail helen.
Categories: Personal, Travel, Sponsored Posts.

So my boyfriend is going to Costa Rica next month.  I’m slightly left of furious about it for a number of passive aggressive reasons.  He was supposed to be coming here, but I guess that’s off.  AND, he didn’t even ask if I wanted to come, which was fine when I thought the purpose of the trip was to get away from everything, but then it turns out he asked his cousin to go, so I guess I’m just not cool enough.  To top it off, I have always wanted to go somewhere like Costa Rica, Cancun, Puerto Rico, one of those very tropical sorts of locations that you’re supposed to have visited before you turn 21.  Not because I’m some sort of party girl, but because I just love the idea of a tropical adventure.

I think I might decide to just get away for awhile on my own.  Vacations.net has a number of excellent vacation packages for the world traveler that just seem divine.   Even browsing the website makes me feel like I’m miles away from here . . . Barbados, Jamaica, the Caribbean as a whole  — it would simply be amazing to go a sit on a beach miles away from the Midwest.  I have some time off in August, and could definitely see using Vacations.net’s services to book an all inclusive vacation to one of their exotic locations.  Their rates are about 50% off  of what I’ve seen on other sites, so I might be able to afford it then.

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Nails

Posted on April 25th, 2007 by gail helen.
Categories: Personal, Omnia Vanitas.

Wow. I accidentally took a picture of my hand, and was actually frightened by how bizarre my nails look. They are so long!! I am not a particularly disciplined person, especially when it comes to not putting something in my mouth. Heck, I used to smoke over three packs a day! But I must say I am pretty impressed with my nails right now. No biting! Yay me! Guessing I’ll probably go home to find out that I’ve put on five pounds instead, not that I’ve been eating overly much, it just how my life works. One step forward, two back, you know? ;) Anyway, here’s a creepy pic of them for you:

Claws

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Because I’m Not A Poet . . .

Posted on April 25th, 2007 by gail helen.
Categories: Education, Current Events.

I can’t make sense of most tragedies, especially those like what happened at Virginia Tech. I still remember the spring of 1999, when I’d been out of high school for less than a year, and then the shock of seeing those images from Columbine. Watching terrified children, running from the school with their hands above their heads, all I could think was “Oh God, they look like us.” It could have been my high school — all the elements were there, right down to the look of the buildings and the lines between cliques — and I will never be sure why it wasn’t. What was the difference? Did somebody drop the ball, was it bad luck, was it just the bizarre reaction of mentally unbalanced kids to the “normal” pressures of a being a teenager? When you can look at the faces on the news and see the eyes of people you know but have never met, it is impossible to tell yourself “that wouldn’t happen here.” I know that all over this country, people just like me were asking the same questions, and finding the same lack of answers. We’re doing it again now.

But now that I am going to be a teacher, I find these events even more incomprehensible. School should be a place where students don’t have to fear anything — there should never be a time when they feel worthless, powerless, or scared — especially that they might not make it home. School should be a refuge from the world, a place of security, where all the pressures that tell us we’re nothing can’t intrude. I’m saddened that I feel the need to say something so obvious. But schools should be sacred. There should never be a reason, no matter how illogical or irrational, that a student would feel justified taking the lives of his or her classmates, and more than anything, there should never be a reason that students should fear one of their own might do such a thing. I’ll stop now — I’m rambling, which is a sure sign I don’t know what to say.

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Silver

Posted on April 25th, 2007 by gail helen.
Categories: Sponsored Posts, Money.

The idea of investing scares me. My mother, god love her, has been on my back to begin planning for my retirement. She even game me money to invest in an IRA or 401k or something for Christmas, which unfortunately got spent on paying my surprisingly high tax bill. Apparently the IRS doesn’t let you pay with smiles and good wishes . . . who knew? :) But even if I had the money, I would be terrified to put it into anything — you can actually lose money while trying to make money! I know its a simplistic view of how money works, but you get my point.

Investing in silver, however, doesn’t seem as scary as other forms of investing that don’t correlate to a physical asset. According to Monex.com, the website for America’s silver and precious metals investment leader, now is a great time to invest in silver, as the annual demand continues to exceed supply, and our above ground stockpiles of silver continue to dwindle. If you’re interested in investing in precious metals, Monex sells to investors, and provides immediate personal delivery or makes arrangements for “convenient and safe storage” at banks and depositories. I love the idea of that — my silver (which we all know I’d probably keep in the basement), polished and lovingly arranged on a table in a vault somewhere, available for me to gloat over whenever I liked. La sigh.

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