No, Really, I Am an American

But I still want my damn work permit, like now.

Rich has been strongly encouraging me to get in touch with the MP for Croydon South and explaining my work permit situation to someone who might be able to push the application through a little faster than it seems to be going. I kinda, what’s the word…balked(?) at the idea — contact a government official dude about my work permit? Aren’t I supposed to go through someone else first? In my head, it was like contacting the President of the United States about it, you know, ‘cuz I have the incurable crazy. I understand Rich’s point in that this is kinda what these government people are there for, but it just kinda sat with me funny.

Instead, I e-mailed the school people I’ve been in contact with and said that I don’t know what else to do to really speed this process along and that it has been suggested to me that I contact the MP.

I was very happy to receive a reply not long after sending the initial e-mail telling me that I don’t have anything to worry about and that this situation does not reflect badly on me; it’s just part of the process and in the event that I get to England late, they’ll bring me up to speed.

I was incredibly relieved! I still want my gorram work permit, but I’m glad that the Head Teacher and the principal are all kinds of not hating me to start out with. That’s always a plus.

I have half a cold, or I’m fighting a cold, or I finally have allergies, but it feels like a cold. Anyway, so far it’s at the “just finished crying” stage/feeling. It’s an odd feeling to have, but also kind of a funny one. Not funny “ha ha” so much as funny “huh”. The change in weather also made my nose bleed. At least I wasn’t in public this time, but it did happen while I was in the shower. I’m gonna sound all morbid and creepifyin’, and more than a little gross, but it was kinda interesting watching the little drops of blood mixing into the water. It made me think of writing a story or something. And at least this way I didn’t have to use tissue.

I know, I know, I’m a ginormous freak.

This post brought to you by Lockheed.

I thought I would give this a shot and try to write a post from Lockheed. It’s hard to say how I feel about him so far cuz I haven’t played around with him and thus haven’t figured out all his charms. I did find the polishing cloth, though, so that’s pretty shiny. It turns out Jon Snow has one too. Those Mac people sure want you to take care of your stuff. I guess for the amount of money people spend on the products, it makes sense.

So far I have few complaints about either of my Mac purchases. (Is it still Apple Mac, or just straight up Apple? I mean, it’s a MacBook, but the Apple store. Huh.) My only thing against Lockheed so far is that there’s no “select all” and it’s kinda hard to move the cursor where ya want it when typing. I seem to be doing a pretty decent job right now though. It isn’t as smooth as it would be if I had a real keyboard, but not bad considering. The next thing you know I’ll be on Twitter. (I would link, but I haven’t figured out if I can or how to do that yet on this thing. I think it involves the browser slidey thing, but one thing at a time.)

Yay Lockheed!

So here I sit.

At my desk.

With my shiny new computer.

I don’t know how I feel about it yet, but so far, it smells new. Not exactly “new car smell”, but you know, new. When I was taking it out of the box, I thought I should keep it the hell away from Grant for some time, at least until I figure it out for myself. I absolutely envisioned him taking things apart and the like.

There are some things I didn’t know about Macs. For example, they really need to spell things out for people, and some part of me finds that just sad. There’s this one page in the user manual that goes over proper typing posture and how to hold your hands over the keyboard and stuff. I couldn’t help but think, “Really? You need to have a diagram for that?”

I also got an iPod Touch with my MacBook. I went to buy the new computer tonight since I knew my parents would be taking their walk at Woodfield (I still cringe at this fact) and Jason thought it was funny that we were all going. I told him I was buying a MacBook. He told me that if I didn’t want the iPod Touch, I should sell it to him. He also said I ought to go with the upgraded 16GB instead of the regular 8GB. I told him I’d think about it. (Heh, boys and their toys…)

When we got to the store, I showed my dad the stuff I was looking at. First the iPod Touch, then the MacBook. He did the math on the 16GB and proclaimed it a pretty good deal, so regardless of if I keep the iPod Touch, I went ahead and got that one anyway. (What do you want from me? I’m Asian! I desperately seek my family’s approval!)

There was a possibility that I wouldn’t get the educator’s discount ‘cuz I’m not teaching in America, but after the guy talked to his manager, they went ahead and gave it to me anyway. If I hadn’t gotten the discount, I would have gone with another computer, even though I could afford this one and the like. I also couldn’t help but shake my head at the fact that everyone thought I was buying it as a student. (And here I thought this haircut would make me look older.)

I was feelin’ pretty excited about my new toy. The second I got home, I promptly opened the box. (I was wishin’ I knew where Faith was ‘cuz my little Buck knife wasn’t really doing much for me. I ended up havin’ to get the scissors from the drawer.)

I decided that I wanted to sprawl out, and my room is a decent size, but it’s got a lot of stuff around. It was to the basement for me!

It took me a while to suss some things out, and yeah, I even had to break out the user manual — hence the discovery of the diagram. I didn’t want to do anything too much to the computer yet; Mark is gonna help me magic stuff over from John and make this guy Jean-Luc III (I’m thinking on calling him “Jack” which is a diminutive of “John”, but since it’s white, I also considered keeping it as a “John” but make it “Jon” after Jon Snow. Or possibly something to do with House Stark since their sigil is a grey direwolf on an ice-white field. Although, there is an apple on it, so maybe Fossaway even if the colors are all wrong. Or maybe Lothor Brune since there’s a bite taken out of the apple… It’s true. I am in love with A Song of Ice and Fire.)

Pretty much I just set up the wireless and nothing else. I didn’t install the DVD things that came with it either ‘cuz I figured I’d wait until I installed Office and do all that kind of stuff at once.

I shut down the computer not long after registering it and setting up the wireless. I was proud of myself for having some kind of restraint in that I didn’t play with it all night. I did want to write this post, though, so I pulled out the computer again but half an hour ago.

My brother was home by this point, and I think he and I had the longest conversation we’ve had all year. (For the record, it was like 10 minutes.)

So yeah, after two years and eight months of mulling over whether or not to buy a Macbook, I finally did it. I feel mildly frivolous about the iPod Touch though. I mean, really, I have a perfectly good iPod in Kaylee, and the thought of carrying around makes me nervous.

But it’s so shiny!!

I guess there’s gonna be a lot of playing with toys in the near future. And here I’m supposed to be packing or thinking about packing or organizing something or another. (Hey, for the record, I separated my hanging clothes to one side of the closet to establish them as ones I’m taking with me. It turns out I have sixteen respectable tops — nineteen counting turtlenecks — that I can use for teaching! And still, I know I need more clothes. How sad is that?)

All right. I’m about to hit that Publish button making this my first post on the MacBook.

Weird.

With my possible departure date around the corner, I hijacked Mark into coming with me to look at computers. I’ve been back and forth about getting a MacBook since at least December 2006; when making a ginormous purchase like this, it takes me a while to make a decision. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s possibly just one of those things.

We went to the Apple Store and “got helped” by one of the workers there. I felt really bad for Mark ‘cuz he had to stand there and listen to information he already knew about the computer, but he was kind enough to stick it out for my benefit. Macs sure have come a long way from when I used to be a Mac-user back in 1997. Some part of me feels really stupid knowing that I’ll need to use the tutorials that come with the MacBook.

Technically, I wasn’t sold on it yet. So Mark was kind enough to bring me to Circuit City and Best Buy to look over some stuff there. We were on the lookout for lenovo ‘cuz I’d heard good things about it and Mark said they were pretty good machines. Unfortunately for us, they didn’t have ‘em at either locations we tried.

So yeah, it looks like I’m finally getting a MacBook. The benefit to it is that I get an educator’s discount AND a free-ish iPod Touch — I say “free-ish” ‘cuz I still have to purchase it, but we get a mail-in rebate thingy. I’m kinda nervous about having an iPod Touch, though. In sooth, I don’t know what I would need or use it for…and I’m also nervous about getting one ‘cuz I can see myself totally breaking it. There’s also the fear of becoming a hard-core Mac-user, you know, the annoying types of Mac-users.

There probably won’t be too many more posts using John. I find that a little weird, but then again, I am crazy.