P.S. Boo!!

I told my brother I had been thinking about being an airplane for halloween. I wasn't, but he was a boat. There's your Coast Guard right there folks.

November = Novel

Tomorrow is November 1st, the first day of National Novel Writing Month! In case you missed the announcement, I am one of the crazies who have committed to the goal of writing a 50,000 word novel between tomorrow and November 30th. Impossible? There are thousands of people who have done it. Though I signed up on a whim, (Okay, I admit I've been thinking about it since last year) I have gotten pretty psyched. I am definitely intimidated by the challenge, but I've spent some quality time thinking about a plot and characters to spend the month creating. Other than that, I don't have a whole lot of extra preparation. With the econ paper, my house cleaning, and Season 3 of "24" finished as of this weekend (it was quite the weekend, let me tell you), I guess I'm ready. I can't tell you what this project is likely to do to my sanity or my blog but since I have to write 1667 words a day (average) to meet the 50,000 word goal its safe to say I will be on my computer a lot. I could use some cheerleaders, for sure, so please stay tuned!!

The following is a rough (I repeat: ROUGH) summary of the first 2/3rds of my story. I thought about posting the whole thing, but I don't want to give away the ending! Please tell me how interesting it sounds and how you want to read more, more, MORE! ;) Even if you don't really mean it (and I'm only sort of joking there). This is probably all you're going to get of the novel until its finished, so enjoy it (if that's possible. If not, I'm sorry!). Last note: there are character sketches that I'm not including here, but in case you can't guess: Jenna's the main-est main character, a white chick in Japan. Kumai and Sachiko are retired Japanese hikers. Ren is a young Japanese hiker. That's all you get.

Jenna sets off to hike all of Japan’s 100 famous mountains in the months she has remaining before returning to the States. Starting from her former host family’s home in Kobe she hikes north towards the Northern Alps. She hits bad weather in Kamikochi and finds herself only three-fourths of the way up Yarigatake when the cold rain hits. She’s exhausted and freezing but must make it to the top by night time. When she finally makes it she’s depressed, frustrated and on the verge of hypothermia. Out of sincere worry for her condition, Kumai offers to move into her tent for the night.

Jenna feels better in the morning and a day spent hiking with Kumai and his wife, Sachiko convinces her to continue her trek. Jenna and Kumai quickly find themselves mutually attracted and when they meet for a “final” drink in the restaurant of Kumai’s hotel, Jenna ends up sleeping with Kumai. When Sachiko realizes what has happened she’s appalled but takes several days to approach her husband. Jenna and Kumai’s relationship becomes tense- Jenna likes Kumai a lot but feels guilty for having an affair. Kumai primarily expects the relationship to be over quickly but then finds he respects Jenna and enjoys her company more than previous women he’s had affairs with. They try to part ways but Kumai changes his mind and decides to hike the same trail as Jenna. Jenna is slower and therefore is forced to continue hiking behind Kumai and Sachiko. She is torn between her attraction for Kumai, her embarrassment for her behavior, and desire to focus more on hiking and less on people she probably won’t see again once she returns home.

She begins spending more and more time with Ren, a Japanese hiker her age. Finally Kumai and his wife head back to Matsumoto and Jenna and he say a decisive “goodbye”. Ren and Jenna continue to hike together as a team....

What will happen? Stay tuned to find out! (ok, I'm a cheesy dork, apologies).

Eyeball strain

Ok. It's 12:06 and I just finished 5 and a half of the most painfully traumatic crap writing in my life. I will have to deal with the graphs tomorrow. This paper is so terrible I'm nauseated. Honestly.. I call it a done deal, it can't get any worse. Thanks for your support, I promise to never mention it again if you'll all do me the same favor. (Hides head in utter embarassment).

Oh my head

Twenty minutes until Saturday and I'm at the top of page five (requirement: six to eight pages) with no graphs yet and I'm midway through point 5 of 7 in my newly improved outline (thank you Tom and Brook). This may end up long, but I really don't neccessarily want that, I just want it to be done.

Ahem

It's been about 2 hours. I've finished my laundry, talked to Tom (currently in Jakarta) and Brook (Virginia), found some funny websites, and eaten some grapes. Progress: one paragraph copy and pasted from earlier attempt at paper plus a few really bad new sentences.

It's now 10:30pm. That's getting dangerously close to my "usual" bedtime and I need to get up at the crack of dawn to spend my Saturday playing "Halloween Party" with the school kids (it's in my contract). Must get serious now.

Not yet

It's been about 10 minutes since my last post. All I've done is played Pacman. I now vow to get cracking.

TGIF, Kinda

If any of you out there ever doubted that can coffee is crap, stop. It really is crap. I just bought some as a "treat" for getting my arse out the door and my laundry into the machine (the coin laundry is a block away). I am on day seven of cold #1 for this season and will be spending the rest of my lovely Friday evening at home with my econ paper and laptop for company. I must, I must, I MUST complete this mission tonight or I truly will self-destruct. I start noveling on Tuesday so there is No Room For Failure.

My next post will be to tell you all that I've finished. Ten-four, out.

More Yama(s)*

I finally got more pictures of our Kamikochi/Yarigatake hike from Tom. Here they are for your viewing pleasure!! The first is me going UP the very tippy-top of Yarigatake. I am very, very happy not to have my pack on my back for the first time in 10 hours or so. The second is the two of us on The Top. The third is the next morning, me at my tea break as Tom has just finished climbing the peak for the second time (no thank you!!). All of the photos are here.






*(Inside Joke Explanation): When I was home, my parents had just welcomed a new exchange student from Chile, where they apparently have many llamas. In her totally cute and accurate Spanish accent, Belen pronounces "llama" with the LL sound as a Y (they do that in Spanish, I know 'cuz I studied it back in the day). So- Belen was telling us about all the "yamas" in Chile. Well, (and here's where you get the cross-cultural inside joke explained) here in Japan, "yama" is the word for mountain. Which of course, is what I assumed she was talking about. It was good for a giggle then, anyhow.

A Loss

My grandpa passed away yesterday and I'm kind of at a loss for feeling. Obviously, I'm really sad. I miss him because I'm always missing him... being on the other side of the world does that. But I'm missing him on a new level for the simple reason that he's gone and I can't see him one last time or say goodbye. I've known this was coming but it was still a surprise. He's been pretty miserable, both physically and emotionally for years and I know he would have wished for the end sooner rather than later. But I still mourn our loss of his company and presence even though it has lingered away to not much as he's withdrawn from the world. I am sad for my dad, who has lost both his parents. I'm so, so sad that Grandpa was alone.

I am relieved because I am sure he is relieved. But I will continue to miss him and wish people didn't have to get sick or grow old.

I miss my grandpa.

The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

Okay, let's just get the bad and ugly out in the open to start with: The following is the e-mail I just sent to my mom. I am just as depressed as the e-mail makes it sound so feel free to use that comment button and cheer me on/up.

Is it okay if I give up on this course? I know, it seems totally childish. But when I think about it more, grades are supposed to measure how well you succeeded at learning the material. I don't feel like I've learned enough to write my paper or to take the final, therefore I probably should fail. I would rather fail than continue to put myself through the continued misery of trying to write this paper on something about which I completely and utterly lack understanding. I am only two and a half garbled pages in and it has taken me the amount of time and effort of several very complete. lengthy and successful college papers (on several different topics). I just simply cannot do this and I feel like I am going to lose my mind. I am already losing sleep over it and tonight I just burst into tears trying to get the facts to line up (and failing). I don't know if I can take more of this. It makes it worse to know that I am doing this for possibly no reason at all... i.e I more than likely don't even NEED this credit for ANYthing. On one hand, I know I'm being irrational, but on the other... at one point is it healthy to just throw in the damn towel?

In misery, j

So that you don't think I'm permanantly down in the dumps, here's the other side. The following snippet comes from a wonderful article written by a Rabbi and brought to my attention by my brother and his "friend" Sarah. It really touched a tender spot for me as I wade through all my disorganized and incomplete feelings and theories regarding what I want to do with the rest of my life. After reading this, I am somewhat reassured. I may not have reached a conclusion regarding my Next Step or that scary "Career" word, but for now, I am doing something that fulfills me. And I just really love, (and when I use that word I truly mean it) the kids I work with. They have taught me so much without even figuring out when to correctly say "please" and "thank you". It may seem corny but even on my most terrible Thursdays the kids make me laugh and feel thankful for finding this opportunity.

Here's the article: What God Made Us Good At - Newsweek Society - MSNBC.com:

"God's shadow falls across our wounded world through an infinity of differently blessed lives; each shadow bearing equally the holiness of the Creator, but each shadow bearing a unique shape meant to be discovered and used to find happiness, fix the world and please God.
God gives each of us unique blessings and thus unique destinies. That is what it means to say we are all made in the image of God or to say that we all stood at Sinai. And we are all standing at Sinai right here and right now. God is looking at you, just you, to ask you, ?Did you discover what I made you good at? Are you working at what you love? And are you helping those who have not yet discovered the shape of their spiritual shadow to do what I made them good at doing?
If you can feel in your soul that you are standing at Sinai amid the peals of thunder and lightening and at the foot of the smoking mountain and in the midst of the assembled people, and there, which is also here, and then, which is also now, that God is actually speaking to you, just you, to teach you the secrets of life. God is speaking to you, just you, to lead you to the place of green pastures and still waters where you need not be afraid. God is speaking to you, just you, to teach you how every day your blessings exceed your burdens. God is speaking to you, just you, to tell you that life is too short not to do what you love."

Whining

I'm actually making progress on my final paper for my Macro class, albeit extraordinarily painfully slow progress. Seriously, after procrastinating for weeks, I wrote one paragraph on Monday. Then I sat and stared at it last night (zero progress). As of this evening, I'm up to two pages but only if I include a graph that will be there but isn't created yet (that's probably stretching, huh). Why is this so hard?? It's not even like what I have is good. It's all crap and I can't even get that much down on paper so I can just get this the heck off my mind. I am SO sick of this course, the topic, just everything that has to do with this permanent guilt trip I've had since setting down the "long distance education" road. As wonderful as the idea sounds on paper, it is driving me mad in reality. Really, truly. And I still have a final exam. Someone just shoot me.

I have to go to bed so I can deal with the Thursday gang with my smiley face tomorrow. oi!

Twist and Shake

Yikes! We just had another earthquake. This time, be reassured that I remembered to go to my FRONT door. I even thought to crack it. I've heard that in a really strong one sometimes your door can get stuck shut, so I stood there with it open. It was only a 3 in Tokyo this time, but it was really, really long- perhaps a minute or more. It felt really strange for the building to just keep wiggling for so long.

Now I feel prepared to face another Thursday. Wish me luck!

Yee-haw!!

Brook took this picture. It cracked me up so I thought I share. He caught this lawn tractor race (click on it to look closer!) in hicksville Virginia, USA at the Wine & Hot Air Balloon Festival (two things I'm still unconvinced belong together...). When I asked what city... he said Longbranch which was more of a historical site and that the closest city was (he kids you not) Berryville. Awesome!

Me

I have a handful of soon-to-be new aquaintences (fellow Tokyo Nanowrimo-ers) who need to find me in an exceptionally crowded area so here's what I look like (granted, with a hat). If you page through my photos (see the link on the left) there are more, but this is pretty much me.

Elmer's Glue & Halloween

I just spent the last twenty minutes or so building this Oh-so-scary (on several levels) skeleton from pasta. When I was looking for ideas for a Halloween themed craft to do with the kids this week, I thought this would be kinda fun. I'm sure it will be... but I didn't realize how hard it is to glue pasta! Elmer's takes a loooong time to solidify. The only glue we have is the new fangled glitter/colored glues (much like what we tried to create ourselves by cutting up and adding magic markers to the original white stuff back in 4th grade. Elmer must've heard). Anyway, because of this, I think the kids are going to be way more excited about using the glue than making the skeletons!!

This is what mine looks like.
Thank god for all those art classes, eh? I'm also feeling mighty blessed (to the point of silliness) that this is the extent of my prep work for tomorrow's classes. I also can look forward to building spiders out of bananas, crackers, and "Pocky" for legs during this week's snack times. This is the reward of dealing with Thursdays of terror (see below).

Wow, just this minute there was a pretty strong earthquake. After riding out the first few wiggles I got up and slid across my floor to my veranda (why I never go out the FRONT door where I could escape via stairs is beyond me and my gut instincts I guess) and watched my plants, powerlines, and neighbor's laundry sway. It was big enough that my glass sliding doors were rattling. That always gets my heart pounding. I was relieved to see the ojiisan (old guy) next door poke his head out his front door (he's Japanese- well trained on escape!), I wasn't the only one concerned enough to get up on a gray Sunday afternoon. I checked the TV after we stopped moving and sure enough, it registered a 4 on the Japanese scale. Giddyap!

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thanks ms. frizzle!

Very IN-ter-esting

There are several ways people end up reading this website. I assume that most of you are here because you are one of my small group of family and friends who, after three plus years of reading, are either too patient to tell me to shut up or too busy to go to Borders (and I love you all). Others get here from the very few links on other Japan related websites. The seemingly more popular way to get to this site is to find it via a search engine like yahoo or google. This way is pretty fun for me too, because I can track the searches and some of them are downright hilarious. Two of the more recent searches that brought up my website (WHY?!) are "want to meet Japanese lady" and my personal favorite "pee in hand".

what?!

Oh Cool.

We all survived another Thursday. Thanks to a couple of absences and a bit more preparation on the parts of us "adults", we came out ahead. Not by a lot, but we squeezed on through. We had 7 kids stay through lunch too, so it was a hectic morning. It's one thing when you are going through song, dance, and snack time with them... it's another entirely when you have to help several of the little buggers eat a satisfactory amount of their lunches without spilling, minimizing the damage when (not if) they do, and make sure they stay seated until they finish... WHILE trying to get a satisfactory amount of your own lunch down before you have to go run around again. I just don't have enough arms! But like I said, (sigh) we did come out relatively unscathed today and "M" chan from last week only bit two people, only one of which was another child (the other was a teacher) so I guess it's safe to say we are all improving.

I'm really begining to look forward to my Nano novel. Very roughly (because that's all I've got), I am planning to write about a foreign, American woman (ahem! cough!) who takes on Japan's 100 famous mountain circuit. I've climbed 8 or 9 of them (and Fuji twice), but it's a whole big deal for mountaineers/hikers here. After some helpful brainstorming with my faithful editor (Mom), I'm dreaming up all the challenges of hiking but also the time she spends traveling between mountains- the youth hostels, kind old aunties in the inns, taking the local trains, etc. etc. And of course, she'll meet all kinds of crazy hikers out there. Though I still don't have it all planned out and have a serious lack of characters, I am still getting excited about working on it come November. I even went out and bought some maps so I can get an overview of the terrain. I am toying with the idea of posting chapters on the web as I finish them. If I did it would probably be a password-protected site so not just anyone can read my drivel. :) I'll keep you posted.

Cheers!

When I grow up

Thank goodness for three day weekends! Tomorrow is "Sports Day", a national holiday. After over a month of considering how to spend this weekend (Taipei, Hakuba hiking, 3 day running trip with 120 others... and so on), I'm spending it doing virtually nothing. And it feels ex-cell-ent. Truly nice to not have to go anywhere for once. Hiking would have been great except the weather is total crap, so no regrets. Yesterday was nice and quiet, Tom and I did another training run around the palace, up to 9 miles this time! We spent the afternoon feeding our "24" addiction (we're zooming through season 3 on dvd but season 4 is already out here!). Then we watched the movies "Secret Window" and "Supersize Me". Both were pretty good. We laughed at "Supersize Me" and I was pretty nauseated... lots of information there (for those who have somehow missed it the the guy goes on a 30 day 3xday McDonalds diet with unpredictably horrendous results. Documentary).

Then I read this... on a different blog: Teachers-preschool, kindergarten, elementary, middle, and secondary:

"Currently, many school districts have difficulty hiring qualified teachers in some subject areas: mathematics, science (especially chemistry and physics), bilingual education, and foreign languages. Qualified vocational teachers, at both the middle school and secondary school levels, also are currently in demand in a variety of fields. Specialties that have an adequate number of qualified teachers include general elementary education, physical education, and social studies. Teachers who are geographically mobile and who obtain licensure in more than one subject should have a distinct advantage in finding a job. Increasing enrollments of minorities, coupled with a shortage of minority teachers, should cause efforts to recruit minority teachers to intensify. Also, the number of non-English-speaking students has grown dramatically, creating demand for bilingual teachers and for those who teach English as a second language. "

I kind of imagined that this was probably the way it is, but it was eye-opening to see it in print from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Guess I need to seriously considering either continuing to teach English or perhaps teaching Japanese because it becomes more and more obvious that teaching elementary or my original goal of middle school social studies is looking a bit bleak. We shall see, I guess. I hope to be back in the states getting my certification next year and probably need to make my mind up before that!!.

Wrecked

Like a train wreck. Imagine 12 two-foot tall Japanese toddlers as the train racing full speed into a brick wall. This morning that brick wall was, unfortunately, three other teachers and myself. Ouch. Lately our Thursday mix of kids has just been a riot... in the negative, New Orleans sense of the word. As in not pretty at all and only funny because if you don't laugh you'd cry. Two moments linger as I sit safely locked in my apartment waiting for my pizza ("they can't get me in here! Ha! Ha! Ha! twitch, twitch...).

The first took place between one of our newer students, "M"-chan and I. During free play time (better known as "free for all" or "mass chaos") this morning she and I were playing with the plastic food. M-chan picked up a long stick of french bread (you know, the ones that are long enough to be short baseball bats?) and without pausing, used it to smack me square in the forehead. I looked up at her (I was sitting, she was looming above me in her 2-year old authority pose) and feigned injured shock. She looked at me and chirped "Naite ne!", the polite command for "cry". I looked puzzled (since the kids aren't supposed to know we speak Japanese) and she quickly and clearly translated for her so obviously slow and stupid foreign teacher, "CRY!". What could I do? I cried. Without missing a beat, she happily bowed at her waist and cheerfully added a "gomen-nasai!" ("I'm sorry"). After I finished laughing, we practiced the English.

Moment number two was thankfully Erik's (not that I didn't have others). At some point after lunchtime, Erik was feeling a bit whipped by the hitting, struggling, and throwing objects and started to say to me that today was feeling awfully violent. As he was speaking and I was trying to listen to him, I could simultaneously see "T"-kun (pictured above) rushing up behind him weilding an orange, plastic bowling pin as (what else?) a baseball bat. I managed to eek out a "Behind you!" right before T-kun took a swipe at the back of Erik's knee (his height). Timing is everything....

I'll spare you the story behind the kick to the chest, pulled earring, pinched nipple, and strained butt muscle I am suffering from today. To look at the positive, I quote my not so new anymore colleague Erik, "At least it isn't boring.... owie".

Enough Already!

I'm about to attempt to achieve 8 full hours of sleep for the third night in a row. I emphasize the "attempt" and not the "achieve" because the last TWO nights in a row I have been deeply, agonizingly, and painfully disturbed by a horrible little insect. That's right.. the mosquito. I suspect that there are actually several mosquitos enjoying my adorable but screen-lacking apartment at this very moment. Mosquitos haven't really bugged me (ha!) since my days of summer camp in Minnesota. HOW-ever. This week I've been pushed to the edge. Again, the last TWO nights in a row I have been jolted awake more-than-once by the ever so frustrating and urgent buzz circling my ear. Last night I rolled over and found myself not only suddenly awake and itchy but also stuck in the middle of a oh-too-catchy tune we're using at school this week. I was miserably entrenched in the verse that has to do with fruit. Let me ask you: would you rather be carried away by mosquitos in your sleep or unable to escape a Jamaican fruit song for pre-schoolers while awake at 3:00am. That's about where I was WAY too early this morning. And now I'm exhausted but literally JUST heard another of the little buggers (ha! again) and can't believe they're getting so brave as to start flying at me while I'm still verticle.

I'm really not exaggerating- my pillowcase has blood on it where I must have managed to kill one in my sleep. I have scratchy red bites every-where: my shoulders, my chest, one on the top of my right foot and another on the bottom, between my toes and fingers, even In My EAR!!!

So that's it. Enough is enough. I vow to stay up until I hunt every last one down (don't ask me how but I will dammit) and smooosh it so I can get a good night's sleep.

Rowllll!!

Tokyo Gomi

I know, not exactly a pretty image to have on the top of my page. This, my friends, is what Tokyo garbage (gomi) looks like. I specify Tokyo as opposed to "Japanese" because even in the inaka (countryside), our nit-picky garbage ladies still piled it in a big heap. None of that here noooooo-no. Not only do we all need to have our garbage in matching clear Tokyo Municiple Garbage Bags (can you imagine the city hall back home demanding you buy their garbage bags and not allowing the garbage trucks to pick up the stuff in the black Hefty bags?!), but they are also always stacked evenly and neatly. Ok, not every corner is like this but it is prevelant enough that I need to be pretty careful where I dump mine. The bags on my block get picked up so early in the morning that I'm left sneaking down the street for a different pile to which I can add my bag. Last week the guy who must be in charge of the gomi for the building next door actually yelled down the street as I tried to add mine to his pile! Oh the Horror! Yes, before I allowed myself to upset I giggled that if all he has in his life is that garbage pile then, well.... Whatever You Say Mister. I then walked the next half a block to this pretty pile pictured above. Got to love it or it would drive you completely nutty!

Speaking of completely nutty... I must be because I've signed up to write a novel in a month. Yes, just seeing it there in type reminds me of my insanity. Unless I get even more loony by November I will be attempting to complete a 50,000 word novel during National Novel Writing Month. You can join me (please? someone? anyone?), too! They thankfully don't need to be good and you aren't required to show it to anyone else, so... I figure I'm up to the challenge. You are all hearby recruited to hold me accountable for this daring personal mission. You may poke, push, and harass me through the entire month until I finish. More when it gets rolling, I am sure (blogging as procrastination coming up in one month!).

Looking for a Hero...

Ok this is pretty low, but I'm pretty fed up with my macro-econ homework and can't get ahold of my MBA boyfriend/emeregency tutor. So. Anyone care to show off their genius (or just show that you "get it")? I've got only the most tenuous grasp on this stuff but I'm *this* close to being finished with the course (well close minus a term paper and final). I just read the last chapter, one on "Macroeconomic Policy Challenges" and here's where I'm stuck:

Q4 You have been hired to draw up an economic plan that will maximize the chance that the President will be re-elected. (ha! on so many levels).
a) What are the macroeconomic stabilization policy elements in that plan?
b) What do you have to make the economy do in an election year?
c) What policy actions would help the President achieve re-election?

My problem: What is the difference between a and c? My answer for a is (don't laugh!): "The president needs to have a plan for long term economic growth. This might include investment in human capital, technological capital and plans to increase national saving. To support these goals, the president could introduce such initiatives as improving schools or programs to retrain adults, creating incentives for technological research and development, and the creation of new government spending and taxing policies.", but I'm not sure if this is on the right track or it is actually the answer for c. My answer for b is a succint: "The economy needs to be in an expansion before an election for the president to win". Without having read my textbook (and that actually might be a benefit) anyone got any guidance?

Brook has been known to quote me on his websites, so now I'm going to start stealing from his. He wrote this very clever survey-to-end-all-surveys and it totally cracked me up. Here is is in its entirety... please use the comments link to share your oh-so-witty answers. You don't have to answer them all... just pick one and let us know The Truth, ok? I'm sure Brook will be touched. ;) (and dude... you can thank me later for ignoring some of the other pictures I have of you!).




Yeah, you know those surveys that you always get... either by email or after reading someone's bulletins or whatever... well I decided that I wanted to create my own. The others suck and have no heart. No crap. I wrote this, it was my work, and it may have been inspired by many things, but I did not copy any of it... so yes, this is MY idiocy, this is MY wording, and I really care to see how you answer it. Or don't, it is just kinda a waste of time, but it might be fun, you never know.... I know I'll probably laugh at your answers at least once! Feel free to completely make up your answers... Give it a rip. You never know...this may be the first of a few... we'll see what kind of response I get.

1. What's the worst middle name you've ever heard of (make one up if your answer is William)

2. Have you ever actually paid any credance to a fortune cookie? If so what did it say and was the cookie stale?

3. If you had enough money that you could live totally comfortably regardless of your profession (not rich necessarily) what would you do for a job (I'm looking for an actual job here... not "save the world" and yes for some reason you have to work even though you have enough money)?

4. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being a whole lot more than 9), how much do you think your parents have influenced your life? Did they forbid you to eat sugary cereals like fruity pebbles or count chocula? They had to do something weird... right? Spill it.

5. Compared with real comentators and news broadcasters of old (see Walter Cronkite for an example), exactly how much does today's news broadcasting/journalism suck? (Your choices are : a lot, very much so, a metric butt-ton or an english butt-ton)

6. Is it really possible that Vanna has spent her entire career just turning (or now touching) squares that light up? If not, what do you think she'd rather have done with her life :) (any answer here works, as long as it doesn't involve Pat in any way)

7. What possible reason would Bob Barker have to be so jazzed about spaying and neudering my pets? You tell me... was it a bad childhood experience or did his grandmother own a hundred cats?

8. Enough of tv stuff, why do you think its against the rules for people who sell pillows to tear those tags off? What do they have to hide? Where do the undercover pillow police hide in order to catch tag-rippers redhanded or is there another way to enforce this important law?

9. Name a stupid thing you like to do... pop bubble wrap, scratch off the silvery substance on every scratcher/coupon etc, run over traffic cones... what?

10. Name the goofy-est thing you've ever done in public. Think hard, this one better be good otherwise your credibility is shot.

Bonus question:
Come up with a good question. Make it absurd. Stupid even. Offer answer choices that don't even make sense. Don't spell anything right and please don't worry about the grammer. Then actually answer it. And don't forget to really give up the details. That's how I'll know whether you've answered it correctly.