323.cholo.jr

Home stretch

School is back in session, which means campus is once again awash with cardinal, gold, Trojan emblems, and various Greek symbols in neon colours. Lines for food are at least 20 people deep at peak hours. Cruisers are whizzing by, their operators distracted by their smartphones or other people.

Fight on.

Being back on campus makes me dizzy. I had been working here all summer, gone for 20 days to volunteer with Pisco Sin Fronteras in Peru, now back to finish my final semester while my future in LA hangs in the balance.

I often told myself that my degree from this prestigious institution should help set me up to pursue my California dream: get sponsorship upon graduation. But I think that would be truer if I were pursuing something more corporate, if I cared about money, or titles, and meeting “the right people”.

I mean, I still have goals. I want to work with a non-profit once I graduate. One that is within bike distance from my house, caters to the Gen Y demographic. I don’t think having a USC diploma will hurt at all in achieving these goals, but I don’t think it’s the key to this door. For now, I have to hustle with volunteering, interning and building experience at my campus job, and then see if it will have all panned out in 3ish months, which I know will be over before I write this sentence. Terrifying.

Of course, if I get desperate, I will be open to more flexibility. But this is my reminder to myself NOT to settle for the following:
-working in production
-working outside of LA
-selling your soul
-taking a job with business attire
-taking a job that requires driving
-inflexible schedules
-no challenges/not making a difference

…I’m sure there is more, but I do gotta give myself a little bit of a chance, and these ones are the biggest deal-breakers. I hope I can stick to my guns, and not follow the cookie-cutter path that I envision the rest of my peers are following.

I’m pretty serious about living my youth in LA

which can be as long as I want. 

But I feel like once I get even remotely close to accepting adulthood, I’m gonna take a PADI course and hit some Pacific Islands to teach SCUBA diving.

This is why I don’t make future plans.

My American first time

I’ve sort of tried it before, but not sure if these times counted. Drawn out, then over before I knew it. But to make it official—to have the real experience, I had to pay for this one. Well, it was paying for it that made it real to me. And when time is money, it was just in and out. Wham bam. No time wasted anymore. But does that make it the better way?

I was raised in a system that was a little more tender. Somewhat of a buildup with an equally substantial payoff.

With Ontario’s provincial health care, I could make an appointment within the week and when time came, I may hang around for 5-15 minutes till I was seen. I’d have a thorough chat with my doctor about I was there, what I needed, the standard light in eye and stethoscope thing. And then maybe a prescription, or suggestions for alternative treatment.
Without an appointment, my walk-ins could take a half an hour to an hour and a half and 3 different waiting rooms. But once I saw the doctor, the same amount of patience and care was issued.

In the States, my first experiences were a lot like the one just previously mentioned even if I had made an appointment well in advance. Granted, these were at my university’s health center where admittance only requires a valid student card, or at the free sexual health clinics (what, I have to pay $75 up front for someone to touch me down there to make sure I’m clear for cervical cancer?!) where I have to sign off that I’m too poor or otherwise at risk to receive these services. And while I have found the Women’s Clinic on the West Side to be a much more pleasant time, I’ve still been subjected to hours and hours and waiting rooms and waiting rooms at Planned Parenthood, providing me with quality viewing like Judge Joe Brown and Divorce Court and Judge Mathis and Swift Mathis. Perhaps it does make the patients more comfortable, as I don’t doubt that these portrayals are unlike what they’ve dealt with every other month. But if I were going in for an abortion, it would definitely reaffirm my choice for doing it.

Free health care in the States. You get what you pay for.

So when I gotta pay, I expect the first experience. But wait— I gotta pay upfront?

So despite having insurance, I still had to pay copay upfront, and during my 10 minute wait, I tried to strategize how I could get the most bang for my buck: What prescriptions could I ask for? What blood tests could I run? Should I get referrals for other doctors? What kinds?! I wanted this to take at least a half an hour, to compensate for me waking up wayyy too early to account for how much time I thought I would be waiting and getting shuffled around.
But no. Straight to business. Yes, I accomplished pretty much all of these goals, but in half the time. I felt rushed. That was it?
After 15 minutes, I got a prescription refillable for the next 6 months, my doctor was done with me and ready to push me onto another clinic for the blood tests, and referred me to two other specialists that I’d need permission from my insurance company to see. Since I had allotted so much time to waiting, I had enough to get the bloodwork before work, which was fine. But waiting a week or so for permission to see another doctor in the same health network is a concept that still baffles me.

On the one hand, I experienced incredible efficiency. But on the other hand, it felt cheap and easy. Well, not quite cheap in the upfront pay sense. And not quite easy in the insurance verification pre-referral sense. So I guess hard and fast is a little more accurate. And that’s how I like most things, so I’m not even sure if I’m complaining anymore.

Just had a tutoring session with a 4th grader interrupted so he could take a call on his blackberry

24 hours in Vegas

Note to self: Never drive to Vegas on the Friday of a long weekend. In the middle of a rainstorm. It takes twice as long to get there, and the ride just makes you miserable. And the exorbitant room rates in the shittiest of rooms do little to make it better.

On the one hand, I won the gas money for the trip off a penny.

On the other hand, I failed at my life goal to never see snow ever again.

Was it worth it?

It was an experience, I guess.

Domino effect

Today I spent the eve in bed in a euphoric haze. The afternoon under the sun, on the beach. Midday napping. The morning, breakfast delivered to me. Last night, Sunday Funday. And yesterday afternoon, running around OC getting my tire replaced.

This probably wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t lock my bike to the neighbour’s fence, aggravating them to pop my tire, forcing me to drive my car to school and blow out that tire.

Talk about lemonade. Definitely made the flat tires worthwhile.

Deflated | Pumped

Jesus I had a bipolar day.

It started off on the shitty side of things. My ride to work, my cute little bike Kiki was abused by some neighbor punk kids. My rear tire was flat (inner tube punctured) which could have been a coincidence. But when I discovered my front tire had been released (thank goodness they were too dumb to realize they could steal it), I knew it was personal.

I have had 2 bikes stolen before and couldn’t tell which was worse: a random attack where something is taken from you, or a targeted attack where your property is vandalized.

I wanted to trust that nothing would happen when I locked my bike to the fence in between our house, despite the “not a bike rack” chalk writing on the post. I know the fence is not a bike rack. Many things are not bike racks, and still they are great for locking bikes to.

If they didn’t want me to lock it there, they could have tried making a clearer sign that said “no bikes”, or how about being civil, knocking on our door and telling us not to do that please. Fucking kids. Fucking punk coward dicks.

So I had to drive to work today.

This led to me getting a flat tire on my car when I hit the curb trying to park. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?! A flat bike tire AND a flat car tire! What shitty luck!

I was reeling, but then I decided to take things into my own hands and show them that they couldn’t keep me down. No, I didn’t deface their property as much as I wanted to. Instead of shutting down which is my natural instinct of a coping mechanism, I manned up and fixed my tires myself. Sort of. I was smart enough to move the car from my sloping driveway to the flatter street and was able to crank up the carjack. I did need Bryan’s help to remove the hubcap, and I don’t think he even knew how he did it. And then I got the tire iron and was able to remove one of the bolts by jumping on it. But my neighbour (weird, right?) saw me struggle and finished the rest of the job for me.

So, I didn’t know how to feel about my neighbours anymore. I know the adults in the household probably wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Does his generosity forgive the children’s assholic prank?

Once that was taken care of, I figured it would be a good opportunity to learn how to patch a leak in my bike’s inner tube. It’s not very hard, but as much as I tried, I think a lot of damage was done to it so I had to go to the bike store. BUT at least I learned how, for future reference, and maybe one day I can use that knowledge to impress a fellow cyclist babe. But in the meanwhile, I resorted to going to the bike store. Which was great because all the employees were hot, and it somewhat redeemed the fact that I had today shit on me. I only spent maybe 10 minutes max in the store, but my eyes were pleased.

So that’s me making lemonade. Spiked lemonade, at that. Ooh, wait I am not too fond of sharp-sounding words. Lemonade from lemons, indeed.

And to top it off, in non-tire-related news: I got a phone interview to be a team leader for a volunteer tourism organization! He had speak with 3 other people, but told me I was definitely a front-runner with my education and experience. THIS IS HUGE! I have always wanted a foot in the door with this, and this can definitely be my chance. PLUS, I can write my thesis paper about it and actually be able to apply my research! A dorky point, but a valid one nonetheless!

All in all, it takes too much energy to get bummed about all this shit that happened, and while I will expend some of that energy, I like restoring it by looking at the brighter side of things and just knowing I’m above these fuckers. So what if I keep my bike in the house, that doesn’t mean they won. I fixed my bike, no problem, learned some new things and ogled at some babely cyclists in the meanwhile. I can handle that.

Tomorrow is a new day. And happening in 2 minutes. I have hopes it will be better!