An open letter to the people of Los Angeles

Haven't you seen the insurance commercial with the extremely rude guy getting pissed off at everyone and the narrator says, "You don't act like this in your everyday life; why act like this in your car?" Ummm... yeah, I'd say you have NOT seen the commercial.

A couple things:

1. The world is NOT ending! IT'S CALLED RAIN!! Contrary to popular belief, the rain does not cause your brain to fail. If you calm the frick down, you can drive the same way you usually do, just add some caution and be a tad bit slower. And when I say a tad bit slower, I really mean it; no need to slow to a quarter of your normal speed!
2. Yeah, that stick coming out the left side of your steering wheel is a blinker; a turn signal if you'd prefer. USE IT!!! My personal belief is that if you don't use it, you're an inconsiderate @$$hole who has no regard for other life forms. Appropriate times to use the signal would be when you're turning or want to switch lanes. If you don't use it, I have no warning that you're coming and I'm likely to hit you or get really pissed off! Also, it's kind of THE LAW to use it!!
3. If I turn my blinker on to signal that I'm coming into your lane, it is totally unacceptable for you to speed up and honk at me. The blinker serves as a polite notice to you that I'm coming, so don't be an inconsiderate @$$hole and express your anger via your horn.
4. And that brings me to your horn. The entire purpose is to let someone know if there is impending danger. This means that it should be used to warn someone that they are about to hit you or somethings else or about 20 seconds after a light changes green if the car in front of you has not started moving. It is NOT there so you can use it to express your unending anger, hatred, and frustration. We're ALL frustrated. We're in LA. and we're driving. This means:

• Do NOT honk at the car in front of you immediately after the light changes green. That one virtue? It's called patience!!
• Do NOT honk at the cars not going because there are cars in front of them - perhaps blocking the intersection. Yeah, people block the intersection. Laying on your mother-effing horn is not going to open up a portal in space in time that will miraculously cause those cars to move so you can get through the light.
• (But come on people, at least pay attention and try not to block the intersection - especially you double-long-accordion-extended buses; you @$$holes purposely block the intersection far too often.)
• Do NOT honk at someone who pulls forward a little to far past a stop sign - guess what... they're STOPPED... probably means that, surprise, they actually SEE you and are waiting for you to pass before they drive further!!

Moral of this long-ass gripe post: BE CONSIDERATE! Realize that we're all in the same situation, and we're all trying to get somewhere, and we're all frustrated.

Jewelry

Here are a few pieces of jewelry that I made last year. The red one now belongs to my friend Kirstin. The gorgeous, iridescent pink necklace and bracelet are mine, and I love them!





P.S. It only took me about 8 posts and 2 image hosting sites to get this stupid entry posted!!

How to have a good day

I honestly can't believe that the events/lack of events of my day have left me feeling so great. First, I woke up at 4:45am to get to my client's office as early as I could/would since the accounting manager works from 6am to 2pm. At first I was totally dreading it, but once I got on the road to downtown LA, I was awake and ready to face the day.

Amazingly the client had nearly everything ready for me, and was very friendly! Pretty much everyone in their office left by 3, so when I finished up what I could without their assistance, I left at 3:45! This allowed me to get home at 4:15 and then head over to the gym before it got crowded with the after-work crowd. I had my first work out since the car accident. It wasn't bad, but I could only go for 35 minutes before I got a killer headache. Got home by 6, showered, and had a nice healthy dinner of soup and broccoli.

Now it's 7 o'clock and I feel motivated to create some jewelry and hopefully get in some reading. I've been working on reading the Kite Runner, but it's been slow going with my fatigue and laziness. I'll post some pictures of my jewelry next time I blog.

Peace & love,
J

FOUR

4 Jobs I’ve Had:
Team Lead at Jamba Juice, Shift Supervisor at Starbucks, Research Manager at a recruiting firm, Senior Auditor at an accounting firm

4 Movies I’ve Watched Over and Over:
Wild Hearts Can't be Broken, Shrek, Sixteen Candles, Old School

4 Places I Have Lived:
San Jose, Irvine, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles

4 Shows I Watch:
Grey's Anatomy, ER, The Office, October Road

4 Places I’ve Been:
Suriname, Australia, New Zealand, Seoul, Korea

4 People Who Email Me Regularly:
Dad, Papa, Amanda, Breanna

4 Favorite Things to Eat:
Filet Mignon, Mashed potatoes, Adam's Peanut Butter Fudge Cup Ripple cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, Cereal

4 Places I’d Rather Be:
with family, with friends, Hawaii, Australia

4 Things I Look Forward to this Year:
Meeting an amazing man (I totally feel like I will!), seeing the new babies of all my friends who are pregnant right now, passing my last 2 CPA exams, losing weight

Music makes life better

The Grammy's are on, and Carrie Underwood is performing, so I've been inspired to write a bit about my new favorites. In addition to getting a new iPod for Christmas, I got some iTunes giftcards, so I've been spending a lot of time on the iTunes store.

The albums I've purchased in the last few months are:

• Alicia Keys "As I Am" My favorite song is "Lesson Learned" featuring John Mayer. You should see me singing in the car when that one comes on the iPod.
  
• Colbie Caillat "Coco"
• Sara Bareilles "Little Voice" - I can't get enough of "Love Song"
  
• A Fine Frenzy "One Cell in the Sea"
• Kip Fox "Astronaut" - Kip is an old friend from college, and he has an amazing voice.
• Carrie Underwood "Some Hearts" - I know this is her first album, which was released a couple years ago, but I just decided to purchase it last week.
  
• Yael Naim - I didn't buy her album, but I may at some point in the future. She is the unique talent behind the song "New Soul," which is currently featured on Apple's MacBook Air commercial. Her other hit sing, "Far Far" was the iTunes free song of the week this week.

Unfortunately I'm going into the third week of my car being in the body shop. The rental car I'm driving doesn't have an AUX port where I can plug my iPod in, so I have only been listening to it on my speakers at work. I haven't been to the gym either since the car accident. I wanted to go this week, but I had to stay late at work every day. Then yesterday I slept in late and today I was too lazy to go. Hopefully I can fit a work out or two in this week.

I usually listen to R&B, hip-hop and rap, but as you can see lately I've been more into the folk, indie, pop, and country. I attribute my liking of pop-country music to my friends Taryn and Shannon who got me addicted to Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney back in college. And I think my love for John Mayer is what got me hooked on pop-rock-folk stuff like Colbie Callait, Sara Bareilles, and A Fine Frenzy. I couldn't get through a music post without mentioning John Mayer. The man is a musical genius. I can't wait for him to release his next album.

Peace & love.
J