I'm reading Dear Prudence, which is kind of an awesome advice column on Slate. One of the letters this week is from a woman who is getting married, and is allergic to chocolate, so will be having a white cake for her wedding. Her future-MIL and SILs are throwing a hissy, because they want chocolate. They have even threatened to boycott the wedding if the cake is not chocolate. They are obviously fucktards, but that is not the point of the post. In reading the comments, some people are like "Who was a chocolate cake at a wedding?" What's wrong with these people? Are they that married to tradition? Chocolate is far superior, and barring any incidents like an allergic fiance, I will be having chocolate at my wedding. If my guests have a problem with it, they can suck it.

Irritating Things in My Life

Julianne Hough (dancer on Dancing with the Stars, aspiring country singer) is 20 years old. She has joined the ranks of celebrities that date people that are way too old for them. Her boyfriend is 29. That's a big difference when you're that young. Also, following the rules of "Half+7," the oldest she could go with out it being sketchy is 26, and that's pushing it. Perhaps I'm a big prude when it comes to these things, but that's like a grad student dating an undergrad. Ew.

I spent an hour trying to figure out my prescription drug coverage today. First, I went to the United Healthcare website. They made me create an account. Then I tried to see what drugs were listed under which tier (there's a three tier system of co-pays). I was directed to the Medco website (mail-in pharmacy), which made me create another account. To sign up, they requested a nine-digit member number, which was supposedly on my card somewhere or it was my SSN. There was no nine-digit number on the card, so I tried my SSN. That didn't work, so I tried every number on the card, none of which worked. Then I called customer service, which was closed for the day. That was fine, since it was 9:30 PM. I used the self-service menu, which gave me a phone number for the drug company, which I called. It was a different number from the first one, but somehow ended up directing me to the exact same menu I had just listened to telling me to call that number. I found another number to call in the information packet, and at that point I got to talk to a real, live person. He was very nice and set up an account for me. However, he kept calling me Mrs. Mahler. While I get that he was trying to be polite, he really shouldn't assume I'm a)married, or b)if I were married I would take my husband's name. He also called me Mrs. Paterno once, which was ridiculous. After all this, I found that every single long-term prescription that I have taken (nose spray, etc.) falls under the $30 co-pay and not the $10 one. I also found out that I should order my drugs online through the mail-in pharmacy, because it's cheaper.

After the whole ordeal, I still never got the information I was looking for. I'm trying to figure out if IUDs are covered by insurance, and nowhere could I find this information. Sigh...

High School Reunion

I went to my 5 year high school reunion today. While I was there, I figured out why my friendships have shifted since then. The people that I was close with in high school I am no longer close with, and people who I was friends with but not superclose with I'm much closer to now. This is because the ones I used to be friends with have no intellectual curiosity. They are content with the knowledge they have and have no desire to learn more. I don't understand that.

I'm going to congratulate myself and say, "Yay, Rachel!" I did better this quarter than in the fall, and I raised my GPA (and passed my classes). I'm so close to keeping my money I can taste it. Here's to more improvement.

And now, a rant.

[redacted].

I thought better of it. I'm pissed, though.

The Perfect Storm

This week is going to be a perfect storm of suck. I have two midterms, one Tuesday and one Thursday. I have tutoring center Wednesday night, so studying for Thursday is going to be severely impeded. Thursday is also Valentine's Day, a holiday I hate more than any other. I HATE Valentine's Day. It sucks when you're single and is stressful when you're not. Does anyone like it? I also I have to teach Thursday and it's supposed to rain. Sucks for my students, because I'm going to be cranky.

I'm itchy right now. Stupid grass allergies. It's a bendadryl tonight for sure.

In case you were wondering, Bring it On: All or Nothing is not a good movie. I watched it the other night, and it was horrible. That's one of the problems with Netflix. I'll put anything in my queue, just because I can. Currently I have Hypercube. Coming is She's the Man. Quality films, I know.

Right now I'm listening to my Jimmy Eat World collection. I'll go to sleep before I finish it (I have a total of 3.7 hours on my computer), but I haven't done that in a while. I love them. Some of it is just so sexy. There's angst, anger, sex, happiness. Ok. Emo (although the new stuff is less emo). I also listened to all of my Something Corporate earlier. I was wallowing. I always have iTunes on shuffle, so that I don't have to listen to albums in order. I think that makes it better.

Last night my room was so cold so tonight I'm wearing flannel. And now to bed.

Note to self: don't drink an entire bottle of wine (well, 2.5 glasses plus half a bottle) again. Even if you are preparing for your birthday. Perhaps you are not meant to drink to excess anymore. Blah. Yes I am writing this drunk. No, you can't really tell. Yay spelling and grammar! Or perhaps you can, because this is going to be rambling.

I watched An Inconvenient Truth the other night, and it was really good. I also watched Serenity, and that was really good as well. But back to Friday. If you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth, you should. It makes me want to really put in the effort to reduce my carbon footprint. Sometimes I think I should be more involved in politics to do something and change things rather than be a physicist. I really hope that things change in November. I hope beyond hope that a democrat will win the presidency. I don't really care which one. I still need to decide who I want to vote for in the primary. I think if I don't vote for Kucinich I'll probably vote for Hillary. I still love the Clintons, and there's something about Obama that rubs me the wrong way. I don't know what it is. Part of me wants to be contrarian and get Hillary in the White House after Iowa. I don't think she could win the general election, however. No matter what, though, I'm ready for a change.

Also, while watching the movie, Al Gore talked about growing up on a tobacco farm. It made me wonder who thought smoking would be a good idea. How did the thought process work? "I wonder what will happen if I light these leaves on fire and inhale the smoke?" It's fascinating.

ARG

A girl I went to high school with has started her own business as a teen counselor/advice guru/whatever. It's all self-proclaimed anyway. We were in the same group of friends, but had a falling out in 7th grade and I refused to suck up to her so our relationship was never very close afterward. I think her blog is ridiculous and that parents who buy into her crap are stupid, but up until now she hasn't actually done anything that could be construed as harmful. This week, however, she decided to hand out medical advice on celiac disease, which she apparently has. I call bullshit on this, having known her for 6 years and never hearing her complain about feeling sick. If she truly did, I'm sure I would have heard about how she was sick all the time. This is the girl who had a wheelchair after having bunion surgery so she could get around school. Why she couldn't use crutches I don't know. Also, I think she's a pathological liar. She has no qualifications to even suggest this to people. Last I checked, a BA in Chinese and International Relations did in no way qualify one to practice medicine. I'm closer to having a doctorate than she will ever be, and mine will be a PhD in physics. Also, both my parents are doctors. Perhaps I should go into the field of giving bullshit advice, medical or otherwise. I'm sure I'd be 100 times better at it than she is.

She also makes a huge deal about smoking pot. She has many a blog post of letting parents know the signs their children are smoking, and also how she knows how bad it can be because she had many friends in high school that "ruined" their lives by smoking up. From what I remember, she used to regale us with stories of how badass her friends outside of Marlborough were because of all the crazy shit they did. She seemed almost proud. I do like how there are always comments along the lines of "You're a dumbass. Smoking pot isn't bad for you, etc."

Misc.

I passed all my classes! Yay! Money...we'll see.

Last night I went to the Brian Setzer Concert with Rachele. Melissa was there! I've missed her so. She brings out my "bad girl" side. I posed on cars, and with backlot props at Universal. I have pictures with Bruce the shark from Jaws and the Delorean from Back to the Future. She also told me one of the best stories ever. It was awesome. We didn't get to do our signature sexy pose with the piano, as seen below, however: