Ugh.

I have a job. I do. I just don’t know when my first day on that job will be. I was initially told that I was going to start on February 1st. Then that date got pushed back to a possible 6th start. Yesterday, I was informed that all of the paper work was in order and was being passed(mailed rather) down the line. The person I was speaking to on the phone said as soon as that was all taken care of, then I could start. But she didn’t give me a date. All she said was that she would give me a call and let me know.

Ugh

Oh, the title of the post is referring to what used to be a high school on USC’s campus. At least that was what I was told once. The school was of course called University High School. It closed down a long, long time ago.

The reason why I can’t bite beef jerky anymore.

If you know me just a little bit, you should know how I feel about man’s best friend and why. I never really wrote about it on this blog, and I sorta wish that I had. It would have made this blog a bit more interesting, I think. For those of you who have no idea how I feel about dogs and why – here is a one sentence explanation why.

I worked at Bermex for 8 months as a meter reader, and every day a dog tried to eat/kill me.

When I tell people I willingly ate dog in China, people tend to think I am crazy, sick, or both, but it never stops them from asking how dogs tastes. When dog was placed on my dinner plate in China, all I could think was, “Revenge! It is mine!!”

I’m not exaggerating. And if for some reason you think I am, stop what you are doing, find out who handles gas and/or electric meter reading in your area, apply, get hired, and if you last one month – I’ll applaud you. What? Did you think I was going to give you a prize or something.

Anyway, I digress. This post is supposed to be about China and a dog. This story is short, but sweet.

One night, in Shenyang, Phil and I were walking back to our apartment from a restaurant where we had just had dinner. It was still very cold at this time. A lot of the snow and ice from the worst winter storm in 50 years was still piled in places. It made walking a bit hazardous. On several occasions, I nearly busted my white American ass.

While we were walking, we noticed a little dog was following not to far behind us. This is not a to uncommon occurrence in China. Dogs walk around like they are people all the time – even looking both ways before they cross the street. Sounds strange, but I’ve seen them do it. It wasn’t any special kind of breed. It looked like a mutt to me.

The little dog followed us several blocks down the street until we got to the entrance to our apartment. Of all the places we lived in China, this place had the fanciest entrance – a revolving door. Such luxury, huh? Hehe. When we got to this door, I looked back at the little dog, and told him goodbye. I often talk to animals, even though they can’t understand me. Phil thinks I am nuts. He stopped behind us and watched as we stepped in and pushed the door.

I kid you not, as soon as the next available space got back to him, he stepped in and followed us into the lobby. I looked down at him and said, “Your not supposed to be in here. Get back outside.”

Our fancy revolving door looked a little like this, except that it wasn’t all swirly like that.

The dog looked at me, barked once or twice, and sat down. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I felt partially responsible that he was sitting in the lobby. I did speak to him, after all. The “security guard” didn’t seem to mind that a dog was chilling in his lobby. Thinking about it now, he may have been taking a nap.

I tried coaxing the dog outside, but he wasn’t budging. If the market right next to the apartment hadn’t been closed, I would have tempted him with something tasty. Nothing I did worked. The dog just continued to look up at me. If possible, I would say he had a confused look on his face.

A few minutes later, a man pushed his way through the revolving door. The man looked over at us and said something in Chinese, probably, “Come along little doggy.” The immediately perked and started following through the lobby. The guy opened the door to the security office and the dog followed in right after him.

I guess the dog knew where he was going after all. He was just waiting for his owner to show up.

Phil and I laughed all the way up to our unlucky 14th floor. You really had to be there to see it.

I finally finished my cross-stitching project,

and I found the perfect kitty to model it for you.

My evil kitty, Morgan is sporting the cross-stitched

Cookie Monster that I made for my new Nephew, Seth.

You have absolutely no idea how hard it was to get this one picture of her. She was hissing and growling at me the entire time. After I got this one half decent picture, she laid down and would not get back up. She sprouted horns and a pitch fork and told me to go to hell. Don’t let that innocent looking face fool you. She’s the freaking devil.

But I love my little furry devil, anyway. And she still loves me even though I made her wear Cookie Monster around her neck so that I could write something for my blog. I know because she told me so.

I speak fluent Cat, if you didn’t know. 🙂

Horrah! I haven’t been this happy since I found out I had a job.

According to Yahoo! Movies, one of my favorite horror movie franchises is coming back to the silver screen. I know, I know, horror movies haven’t been up to par lately, but this could be the one that gets the ball rolling in the right direction. Well, I can at least dream, right? And even if isn’t Oscar worthy, you better believe that I’ll still be the first in line the day that it is released – whenever that may be. The stupid writer’s strike has to stop first. If it doesn’t come to an end soon, Freddy may have to jump into reality again, and do something about it. That would actually be an interesting story line. I’d watch it. Heh. Closing my eyes, I can see a room full of poor writer’s penning masterpieces as Freddy sharpens his blades, threatening to cut them if their pens aren’t moving productively.

Hopefully, they’ll use my all time favorite song in the new film. I intend to have a Freddy Krueger mobile made for my children(ha ha, what children) that plays it. In case you don’t know what I am talking about, it goes like this . . .

One, two, Freddy’s coming for you.

Three, four, better lock your door.

Five, six, grab your crucifix.

Seven, eight, gonna stay up late.

Nine, ten, never sleep again.

And because I’ll never have another reason to post it, I am going to include a paper I wrote in one of my favorite university classes. You don’t have to read it, but you may enjoy reading about Wes Craven and his wonderful creation, Freddy Krueger. I’ve got a much longer, in depth, essay that covers many of Craven’s films, but I’ll save it for later. It’s something like 11 pages long. This one came from a film journal I had to keep during the semester and is only 3 pages.

Gabrielle Cook
FILM Z566H
Professor Cooke
January 22, 2003

Every City Has an Elm Street

As a child, my two older brothers found great pleasure in terrorizing me. Against my will, they would place me in front of our dilapidated television as the newest horror film flickered on the screen. They bound my hands and pried my frightened eyes open as I cried in fear of the scenes developing on the screen. They were very mean brothers. I am uncertain of how many movies they forced me to watch but one stands out in my memory like no other. It was “A Nightmare on Elm Street” that gave birth to my fascination of the horror genre. As scared as I was – a part of me fell in love with fear.

Overall, the basic idea behind “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is not completely extraordinary. Wes Craven, the writer and director of the film, took the common fear of nightmares and made a visual version to enthrall his audience. It is the simple nature that the film originates from that produces its frightening aspect. It is easy to relate to the film’s idea because we all have or have had nightmares at some point in our lives. To make the character seem more real and scary, Craven gave his villain a name, a reason to kill, and a weapon that would forever be linked with his creation. The memory of the Freddy Krueger wearing his tattered red and green sweater, his dingy brown hat, and of course his famous bladed gloves still resonate through my mind.

The opening of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” has always been fascinating and interesting for me to watch. The majority of the screen is black except for a small square in the middle of the screen. The small rectangular box is like a window. The audience is being given a chance to peak through for a few short moments and view Freddy Krueger building his razor sharp blades of death. Krueger does not speak but he can be heard laughing evilly and breathing heavily. He takes his time making his blades for his gloves. They have to be just right in order to slice and dice his victims. As he tries the glove on for size, it becomes another extension of his being. Freddy Krueger would not be the feared villain that he is without them.

Throughout the course of the movie the ingenious children’s song is repeated. “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four, better lock the door. Five, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, better stay up late. Nine, ten, never sleep again,” Krueger’s previous child victims sing. It is such a creepy ditty and tends to linger in your mind as if it comes from your own childhood. The song is not played more often than it should though. It is found in the scenes where it is most fitting. I like how Craven incorporated the original child victims of Krueger. They seem to bring a different dimension to the film. The children are the main reason for the song. It was a song created by the children to keep Freddy away. Obviously, like most other childhood songs, it did not work very well. Krueger’s first victims appear in Krueger’s next potential victims’ dreams and pass on the song. The song runs in circles and almost seems that it will not die until Krueger is permanently dead himself.

The scene that stands out most in my mind is the first death in the film. Two young teenage lovers, Tina and Rod, have just finished making up after a small quarrel they had earlier in the day. All seems well in their world, now that they have forgiven one another, but they have no idea what is about to come lurking into their dreams and rudely sabotage their reality. Shortly after falling asleep next to Rod in her mother’s bed – Tina awakens to what she thinks is real life. There is an unusual tapping sound at her window. She investigates thinking there is someone outside her window, but only finds Freddy Krueger haunting her backyard. Tina fights with all her might, but falls dead on Krueger’s bladed gloves. In reality, she never left the room. Rod awakens to Tina screaming for help under the sheets. Within moments Tina is being slung around the room and up against the walls as blood gushes from her chest. She spins on the ceiling for a few moments and then falls dead into a pool of blood on the bed. It is a marvelous scene made by the use of cameras, the angles they can produce and of course, the art of rotating rooms.

“A Nightmare on Elm Street” has many key moments that make it such a great film. I believe that Craven did not spend too much time on any given aspect. Each segment was tended to long enough. It is difficult to find a movie that seems to flow so well and evenly throughout the entire film. Craven somehow even managed to stray from over kill. In the film, only four souls perished. All of them died in interesting, horrific ways but were not completely unbelievable. To the coroner, they were all just terrible accidents. Freddy Krueger would not have wanted it to be perceived any other way.

Hello all, this is Phil. The creator of this luxurious web page that is called something long. I’m here for a short post just to explain what I actually do. As you may know from Gabe, I’m in the computer business as a web developer. Countless words and phrases could attempt to explain the scientific and complicated algorithms that form the conglomerate that is my job, but I think this animated gif will explain more simply. A picture is worth a 1000… as they say…

People always say that once you’ve been offered a job, and you’ve accepted it, a half a dozen more will be laid at your feet.  Since being offered the job at USC(University of South Carolina) on Friday, I have been offered two different DSS(Department of Social Services) positions.

One was a Human Services Specialist in the food stamps department and the other was also a Human Services Specialist working in the Adult Protective Services department.  The one in the food stamps department only offered $20,248 a year.  I probably only would have taken that one if there were no other offers at the time.  The one in the ADS department was offering $28,000, a fairly nice sum of cash, but I don’t know how much I would have enjoyed old people with dementia trying to fight me.  I am all about helping people, but I don’t know how long I would have been able to do that.

USC hasn’t gotten my background check back in yet.  That should be coming in in the next fews days.  Once they get it, they will give me a definite start date.  I’ll be curious to hear whether or not I got the Blue Cross Blue Shields job.  I don’t really want it, I just want to find out what the salary is for the position.  They didn’t tell me in the interview and it wasn’t listed on their site either.

Well, I better get back to my cross stitching. I want to have this done before I start working. I’ll try thinking of another interesting China story.

I’M SO EXCITED, AND I JUST CAN’T HIDE IT!!!

I’M ABOUT TO LOSE CONTROL, AND I THINK I LIKE IT!!

Are you sitting down? Well, if you aren’t, plop your butt on a chair or a couch or something that has a surface. Float if you can. I don’t care.

I’ve been wanting to say this for a very, very, very long time, and today, I finally can.

I’VE GOT A JOB!!!

Go ahead, read the last sentence again, just in case you missed the key words. That’s right, I’ve got a job, and the best part is that it is the one job I really wanted. I can now shout from the roof tops that I am now an employee of the University of South Carolina as a Human Resources Specialist. That is of course, God willing, that my SLED background check comes back clean. There is no reason that is shouldn’t, but my friend Shaun said that a long time ago he got arrested and told the cops he was me. Since I know that was him just being funny, I know that come February 1st or 4th, I won’t be sleeping in like I’ve become accustomed to. Instead, I will be in pretty business attire, trying my hand in the employment office.

I’m so excited, I really am. When I got the call,I knew it was the University calling because my caller ID gave me the prefix of 777. I closed my eyes and said, “Please, God, let this be good news.”

The woman, who is soon to be my supervisor, I think, didn’t come right out and say that I had the job, so I thought it was going to be bad news. I couldn’t read her voice at all. And then those magical words filled my ears. “We would like to offer you the position.” I probably sounded way too excited. “Are you serious?!” I said. She informed me that she was, and I started screaming internally and jumping silently up and down on my couch.

When I closed my phone, I literally screamed, and then I cried, and then I screamed some more. And then I reopened my phone and started calling every human being I knew.

I’ll close this in saying thank you to all of those who wished me well. I really appreciate it. Now, I can start writing my own version of “The Office”. 🙂

Because this story comes from the very beginning of my China adventure, it is a bit fuzzy and a little hard to put into words. It was however, one of the funnier things that happened to me in China, and I will probably never forget it. Just in case this memory falls into the murky depths of my mind and I can’t ever retrieve it, I’m going to put it in to print.

Probably sometime in early September 2006

One night, in Fuyang, a group of us, Phil, Tim, Vanessa, Mayia, and myself, decided to peruse the streets to see what the city had to offer us after eating a dinner of noodles. We decided to start with the street that runs parallel to the Fuchun River. It is a pretty street to walk at night with all the lights of the businesses. In the months to come, we would walk this street often. It was the street that we would take to get to Champion Pizza(千尊比萨), one of our favorite western-like restaurants near the apartment, or to find a bar if the day called for a stiff drink.

We had only been walking for a few minutes when a woman stepped out of one of the bars lining the street. The situation seemed normal at first, but that quickly changed. Almost immediately, she recognized that we weren’t Chinese(not very difficult when there are only 8 or so westerners in a city of 600,000 Chinese) and started running toward us full speed.

It took us a minute to figure out what in the world she was shaking in the air all crazy like as she approached us. Finally, our eyes were able to focus and discovered it was a bundle of roses in her hand. She started in on this spiel that none of us could understand verbally, but her motions were pretty obvious. She wanted us to buy one of her roses really, really bad.

We were very polite and told her we didn’t want one(in Chinese) and then turned to continue on our way. She followed after us as though she had not heard a single word we had just said. After about a block, we realized this woman meant business, and that she wasn’t going to let us get away. We stopped and tried explaining again that we didn’t want the flower(again in Chinese – several times). She persisted. She even tried to put one of the flowers in Phil’s hand. He pushed it back toward her. She pushed back. We attempted to walk away again, this time a little faster, but she continued to follow us.

At this point, we were all laughing hysterically, at least Vanessa, Mayia, and I were. My eyes were even beginning to water. Just so you know, it takes a lot to make me laugh, and even more to make me laugh so hard that tears stream down my face. This was just about one of the funniest things I had ever seen. It’s funny now, just thinking about it, but maybe this is one of those instances where you have to be there to truly understand just how funny something was.

We ran, yes ran, a little ways, and the woman ran after us. Finally, Tim stopped and walked over to her and took one of the roses out of her hand. I thought he was just going to buy one to make her leave us alone – I doubt they were very expensive. Instead, he told her one more time(again in Chinese) that he did not want the flower and placed it on the ground in front of her. Tim turned and started walking toward us. We had made our way down the street by this point, but could still see what was going on.

The woman got very quiet for a second, looked down at the flower, and then bent down to pick it up. As though nothing had just happened, she added the flower to her bundle and started pleading with Tim to buy one again. I was like, “Wow, this woman has some determination!” The tears of laughter were really coming down at this point.

And that is when we decided we just had to run, really run, to get away from the crazy flower lady. Down the street we ran – one block, two block – and she still kept coming after us! I just could not believe it. Finally, somewhere around the third block, the woman stopped. We ran another block or so before we stopped ourselves just in case she caught her breath and decided to come after us some more.

When we finally felt the woman was really gone, we started walking and enjoying the lights and the river view. We laughed the rest of the night and told the story to the rest of our western friends when got home. We made sure to take a different route home, just in case we ran into the crazy flower lady again.

In case you are wondering, the locals had a good laugh as well. They of course knew what the woman was saying, and we could only assume. And that is the story of the crazy flower lady. I hope you enjoyed it.

One of these days, this update has to end.

Early this morning, I had an interview with another DSS location, this time for the position of an Adult Protection Services worker. The interview went fairly well and the pay isn’t bad. I could definitely live on $28,000 a year. I had to sign yet another SLED background check form. By the time I get a job, SLED is going to know me on a first name basis. They also wanted to get fingerprints, but the woman that does that sort of thing wasn’t there.  I’ll have to go back to have that done.  Before they can even offer me a job, they have to get the results back on the background and my fingerprints.

Well, I guess I passed my writing test because tomorrow, I have an interview with Blue Cross Blue Shields for the position of Instructional Writer I.  I was a little nervous when I got the call because the woman on the phone was a bit hesitant when she began talking to me.  I thought she was trying to figure out the best way to tell me that I failed and that I could retake the test in six months if I wished, but she was only double checking whom I would be interviewing with and where.  At this point, I have no idea what the salary for the position is or when they expect to fill it.  I’m just psyched that I have the opportunity to interview for the position.  I mean, I don’t know many other jobs that I qualify for out there that are directly related to my degree in English.  I just hope they don’t expect me to have a lot of professional writing experience.  I can write all day on just about anything, but my writing has never been my bread and butter.  I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.  I’ll be interested in what they have to say.

Hopefully, I’ll hear from USC this week and the news will be good.  I’ve got every finger, toe, and hair crossed.   If there is a psychic reading this post, can you please leave a comment telling me how all this is going to work out?  Thanks!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17yBGdWHJRY[/youtube]
Well, as promised, I cooked my fudge cookies this past weekend and had Phil film me. This is my first attempt at a “cooking show”, so bare with me and don’t laugh too hard. All the thanks goes to Phil. He filmed and edited the entire thing. I hope you enjoy watching it. Oh, and even though the cookies look like little piles of poo, they taste like anything but. Heh. Now get in your kitchen and try making it for yourself! I will try to think of something else to cook for you guys soon.