6.19.2003 ||>
So I'm going to do those last four reviews of Buffy any day now. And then I'll do the last 18 reviews of Angel any month now. :) Angel reviewing has always been a problem for me though because they all seem to run together into one big thing. I don't know if this makes any sense. But it does to me. So right now, on this site (you know... [dot com]), I have a new book review in my articles section to appease everyone with. Just got finished with The Mammoth Hunters and had to write about it. Priyatna apetit as we say in Russian.
Anyway, I'm checking out of the hotel I've been living in for a month on Sunday, so that's my last day, and thus the end of all my freaky hotel stories. But before this happens, let me entertain the world with one more.
So some friends and I were out at the topjons having a beer or two again, because a fellow volunteer was going to America for a wedding and we were waiting up with him since his flight was at 2:00 am. And have I mentioned the classifications of Uzbek beer? Because some of it is slightly scary. The scariest one being called Pulsar. It's make in Samarkand and it tastes ok and is cheap, which is why it's the drink of choice. See, we all hate vodka by now and the wine and champagne gives most of us too many gastro-intestinal problems to justfy the price. So we mostly stick to the beer, which seems to go over better. But Pulsar is weird. It has this strange effect on all of us, all in different ways. It cause severe gas in most of us, other gastro-intestinal issues (especially in me) and in some people neurological weirdness. Like a friend of mine drank a bottle one night and the next day his middle finger began to twitch uncontrollably. Limbs fall asleep easier, it's really odd stuff. But the other night, it was making us really, really emotional too. At one point, I was crying, another guy was crying and another one was like "I hate everyone, everyone hates me, screw the world." We were all feeling very odd to say the least. So we sit up until 2:30 and have this huge emotional event.
Then everyone shuffles off except this one friend (the "I hate the world" one) who stayed the night before and I got in trouble over. Well, he wanted to crash again, and I didn't have a problem with this, but the last time, I was bitched out and told to notify the hotel desk. So I notified the guy at the desk and he was like, "I need to see his passport." So we gave him our PC identification and my friend tried to make sure that Peace Corps wouldn't be charged for his overnight stay. The guy said he had to charge if he had the information, so it was like a catch-22 of sorts which pissed us off. So we talk to the guy for 5 minutes and convince him not to charge. But he still wants a $5 bribe ("It's not for me, it's for the guard, because he will talk" - yeah right) from us to let him stay the night. So my friend has $2 and I go upstairs to get $3, but we're a little pissed, and so I say to the guy when I give him the money:
"Here is my 3,000 soum. Before you give it to the guard, please let him know that this is all the money I have for tomorrow's dinner. So please let him know that because he has taken my money, I will not eat tomorrow because he has my dinner."
And the guy was like: "Uhhhh."
But what I didn't know was that when I went up to my room to get the money, my friend tried to talk to the doorman and the doorman said, "Look, I am a man, I understand these things. But the guard will tell anyway. But I am a man, so I understand." and the waiter was winking. How presumptuous! Especially because nothing could, would or should ever happen!
Anyway, we go upstairs and after I am in my pjs and my friend is in (his, separate) bed, we hear a knock. As I was thinking what now?!? I open the door and there is the guard. He hands me back the money and says he doesn't need it. We thought this was cool and I thanked him and closed the door hopped into my bed and just after I turn off the light, the phone rings. Here is that conversation:
me:Hello? (impatiently)
the doorman: Hello Sepra, (they always use my name!) I just want to let you know, we gave you back your money, but two things. Your friend can not eat breakfast here.
me: That's fine. And?
the doorman: Try not to make too much noise.
me: (very pissed and tired) Ok, I promise to be very quiet for the two hours I have left to sleep.
Which, I had to get up at 5:50 for work and it was 3:30 by now. I was so pissed. So I slept for two hours, got up and I was seriously on a different planet I was so tired. I ate, and I walked my friend to the metro where we both left to go to work. We were laughing at last night and he was filling me in on the wierd "I'm a man, so I understand" b.s. and we discussed the weird emotive effect of the Pulsar on us. We blame it for the oddity of the whole evening.
Anyway, so I think that will be the last crazed thing that happens there. I hope so at least.
surfing: curse the stars
song in my head: ben harper - my own two hands
Score one for feminism.
Okay, this is going to be a very technical thing that some people will just not get, so please bear with me while I share my two webby victories of the week.
Victory the first: my conquest of the font tag. I shouldn't even be admitting to it, because I feel so stupid that it took me how many years to figure this puppy out, but I was getting really frustrated with making tables in HTML because to make them look good, I had to use font tags for every freaking cell which is annoying to say the least when you're doing a million cells all by hand on notepad. Plus, the file sizes for the webpages were annoyingly big because of the extra taggage on the page. I kept trying to use CSS to no effect because while it would format outside the table, it wouldn't go in the table where I needed it. So it just occured to me like two days ago to put a font command inside the table tag and it would do it. Like:
< table style="font-size: x-small;" >< tr >< td >< /td >< /tr >< /table > instead of:
< table >< tr >< td >< font >< /font >< /td >< /tr >< /table >
Yes, it's taken me this long. But I'm not an idiot any longer, promise! I feel like a revolution has taken place where my workload for this volunteer website has just decreased 200%. I was so happy I did a little dance.
Victory the second: Today I was working at the summer school and it's at a Lycee that has computers (it's pretty rich). Well, one teacher there is working with the students on HTML web-design work. They have Dreamweaver, Photoshop, the works. How they afforded it all is beyond me, maybe a charitable donation or a grant, I don't know. Anyway, my new site mate who works at the Lycee told them that I do web-design work and know HTML. Being men, and especially Uzbek men, they were very sceptical, like "psh, she's a girl, how can she know this stuff!?!" They didn't believe him, but they sort of started to ask me questions anyway to prove him wrong. So here's a basic gist of the conversation:
Them: "So, uh, what program do you use?"
Me: "Well, I know Dreamweaver, but right now all I have is notepad to work on for the Peace Corps Volunteer website."
Them: "Wait. So you write the HTML?"
Me: "That's right. By hand mostly, but I also get some code off the internet, like DHTML tricks and CSS commands. It's just easier that way because some browsers don't support JavaScript and you have to make sure it's compatable with different computers."
Them: "Uh...." (a pause as the light dawns and then....) "Oh my goodness! Do you want to see our website?! Maybe you would like to help us or teach us?! How did you learn HTML anyway?!"
Me: "By myself, through a book and a lot of practice. I use Dreamweaver to make things faster, but I like to control my own HTML. I also use Photoshop for my graphics, so I know that too."
Them: (a big pause while they assimilate all this, then a sudden rush to show me everything they've ever done on the internet, begging for my approval.)
I think it's good though, because my biggest problem with boys (and some girls) is that computers and the internet are stereotypically a boys domain or whatever. So even in the States I sometimes get boys who know less than me about web design or computers get this "let me help you with that, little lady" attitude when I am perfectly capable, or girls who are like, "that's nice and all, but wouldn't a boy be better to fix this?" when I am better than the next available guy. (which is the worst for me since I am so embarassed for my gender at that point.) So in this overly male-dominated culture, here I am, proof that girls can do these things and do them better than the guys around her. And it's such a good, because it means that they won't turn into these macho bastards like the majority of the men around here. So I say: feminism, yay!
surfing: e-grrl.org
song in my head: lamya - empires
