In celebration of my 3 months of service at my job, and in honor of the fact that they let me take vacation after 3 months of service, Martin and I spent the entire week of Thanksgiving in Hong Kong. Awesome.

UAL flies directly there from Chicago on a big 747. I absolutely love this feature they offer on their audio at United where you can listen to air traffic control and if you know your flight number (as you always should) you can hear them say "cleared for take-off on Runway..." It's really cool. Or have I just become an airline nerd, finally and completely? The greatest thing is that ATC (air traffic control) calls the big planes "heavy" so I was just thrilled to hear them say "United 828 Heavy cleared for landing" on our trip home. But I digress, as usual.

Hong Kong is a huge crowded city and nothing really like I expected. Almsot everything is in English and despite it technically being a part of Big China now, anything and everything is for sale in a capitalism run amok environment. It is truly amazing. We did the touristy things of taking the Peak Tram and seeing the world's largest bronze buddha at the Po Lin Monastery. We also rode on a red-sailed junk boat across Victoria Harbor for the Spectacular Spectacular Lights Show on our last night in town.

We went high class on this trip staying here. Pretty fancy. They gave us fresh fruit on our first night and then we had turn down service each night. Chi chi.

I think Martin would have lived on dim sum for the entire trip and it was indeed yummy! We also tried Peking duck, and some sort of crispy chicken served with the head. My cousin said that maybe it was so we would know what we were eating. Good guess.

We bought a lot of stuff, probably should have bought more, it was all so cheap. This is the first time we ever checked baggage on an international flight. That's how much stuff we brought back!

Movies I watched on my flights:
Inside Man (Everyone said this was really good. I just found it confusing but forgivable since there was Clive Owen and diamonds involved)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (again and again...Stellan Skarsgaard!)
A Praire Home Companion ( I love Garrison Keillor's voice, but I kept falling asleep and there was Lindsay Lohan and something about an angel)
Cars (Is there a movie that Owen Wilson isn't in????)
Lady in The Water (actually pretty good and I think Shaymalan's acting is improving)
Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby (gay NASCAR, I love it!!!!)

More later...

Tuesday marked my 3rd month at what my former co-workers have referred to as SAOU (Suck-Ass Online University). While I somewhat agree with them and the fact that we only have 3 people in a department that could use 6-8 people and the fact that the job does not allow me to be mobile unless I'm walking to the restroom, it's not that bad. I think that I've had enough library jobs to realize that things could be much much worse. A lot of people come out of library school filled with semantics and ideals and theories that they want to spout just like their professors in school did. They have unrealistic ideals and do not realize that the library profession, if it is anything, is unpredictable. That doesn't just mean in regards to questions we are asked or challenges that buck the reference interview everyday, I'm talking about environment. I've worked at big traditional reference desks, I've worked with psycho public library administrators, I've worked in a library where I and another woman were the only two people there. Each library I've worked in has been different and all seemed to be a lot worse when I was working there. I think most jobs seem like the last straw until you move on and realize that it wasn't so bad. Mostof my former co-workers might disagree about SAOU and since I've only been here 3 months I probably don't have the cred that allows me to say it's not that bad. But so far this company has great insurance benefits, took us to Dave & Busters for a team building event, sent us to a motivational speaker and had a chocolate fountain for an employee appreciation event. I also am able to look at a natural pond with waterfowl and a cute little wooden bridge from my cubicle.

So basically at this here job I'm allowed to take vacation after three months (in your face stupid old job where they tried to convince me that nowhere would let you have vacation before six months). Tomorrow Martin and I are leaving on our "get out of the country" Thanksgiving vacation. While I know that both of our families would love to see us, we are just not ready to start paying for airline tickets - which would be the only way to get to them this Turkey season. As my brilliant friend H. pointed out: if it's too difficult to get there then it's not really a holiday. I couldn't agree more.

For those of you curious enough to ask, "Hey, exactly where are you going?" We are going here. And staying here.

Over the past several months (3 to be exact) I have rediscovered audiobooks for my commuting pleasure. At first I was worried since I had been spoiled by listening to Bill Bryson's lovely In a Sunburned Country back in April and had enjoyed it tremendously. His lilting voice, half British-half American was wonderful. And then after rediscovering audiobooks I was surprised taht not all audiobooks are created equal. I started with Lost & Found by Carol Parkhusrt. While the satricial story of a reality race game show (ala The Amazing Race) was interesting, I found the voice reading the story to be unbelievable. Even more unbelievable is that this woman had voiced many many many audiobooks. I moved on after finishing it to the dismal and monotone styling of a read by the author choice, The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank. I think I was probably the only person who did not like her first book, The Girl's guide to Hunting and Fishing. So I listened and almost turned it off, the droning sound of the author-cum-voice artist. It was painful to listen to and I began to think that maybe Bill Bryson is the only one that gets it. The only one that knows how to paint a good story with his voice. Ninjagirl recommended that I give a doorstop of a novel called Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell . It is about 26 CDs long, around 32 hours long and is absolutely marvelous. I knew that I would never carry such a huge book around with me on a plane and I honestly think that the CD holder is smaller than the book, though not by much. I'm happy to say that my hopeless feeling toward audiobooks has been erased.

So I happen to have an inordinate amount fo free time at work this week. (Shhh...don't tell, but I'm spending most of it writing in paragraphs, something I wasn't allowed to do at my previous place of imprisonment.) Last night I wrote up a hypothetical 5 day itinerary to Israel for a trip we may be taking in 2 weeks or in 4 months. Who knows! it's the excitement of non-rev travel!

This past weekend we flew to Pennsylvania to visit with B&E - and the babee. (if you say it like Elaine Benes from "Seinfeld" you get the idea).We also ate Chick-fil-a. I love that chicken!!!
The babee is very cute and probably 50% quieter than any child of mine will ever be.

This morning on my way to work a squirrel almost bought it on Rt. 31. He was caught in the middle of the road where there is sort of a turn lane and he was just running back and forth as cars (including mine) raced by on each side. Eventually he made it across. But it was one of those terrifying moments when you just know something horrible will happen and you look in your rearview window anyway. Nothing sad for the squirrel family of Rt. 31 this morning.

After discovering that my friend nijagirl (who uses yet another alias on her own blog) was having the typical angst over the eternal question of "why don't you have a boyfriend," I have invented the three question life cycle of girl.

*Why don't you grow up?
*Why aren't you married/have a boyfriend?
*When are you going to have a baby?

That's it. After years of women's liberation and feminism, liberal parents who touted breast-feeding and snugglies and sending their daughters to college still ask these same questions. For some reason this still bothers me even though I've checked two of these off my list. I'm just thrilled that I have a substantial amount of girlfriends who never want kids and some of them don't even want to get married. I have a feeling that my own children will have a lot of cool women figures to admire.

On another interesting note, we had a bomb threat at work today. We all spent about 1 1/2 hours sitting on the grassy knolls in the parking lot. Unfortunately, there were no bomb sniffing dogs or robotic bomb thingies.

In case I wasn't clear enough with my last post... I am doing the National Novel Writing Month. The weird word count thing on the left side of this here blog (under the map) gives you my word count and a little line showing how far I've yet to go.

Martin & I plan to spend our L.L. Bean gift certificates this weekend. Wish us luck!

We had about 30 trick or treaters. We have a ton of Sweettarts left.
today begins National Novel Writing Month! If anyone is participating let me know!

We watched two episodes of The Amazing Race last night. I am now caught up to spoiler that my mother so graciously provided when they were here. Last night I did not dream of Phil or being eliminated from the race.

I was also thrilled to find Jenna Fischer commenting on some E! show about "Even Scarier Movie Moments." I have not seen any of these horror movies except "The Grudge" which I only love because it's in Japan. And well, Bill Pullman. But anyway, it was nice to see Jenna in another outlet besides Pam Beasley.