Dear Bay Area Drivers:

I've been living in the Bay Area for almost two years now and my critique of you is still the same: YOU SUCK AT DRIVING!!!

Being from Los Angeles, I take pride in knowing what a true grid-lock really is.  Let me tell you what it is not: what people in the Bay call traffic. The only reason that traffic is created in the Bay is because drivers SUCK!! I have never had more road-rage then living up here. Thus here are some of my critiques as to why drivers suck and some tips on how to get better at driving:

1. If you are scared of driving on the freeway, then there is a simple solution: DON'T!
2. Furthermore, if you are scared of driving, take public transportation because in reality, you're just putting other people in danger with your awful driving.
3. I understand leaving a one car-distance in front of you for safety reasons, I do not understand leaving a five car-distance in front of you when you can clearly avoid traffic.
4. The left-most lane is NOT for driving under the speed limit. It is generally understood that if you are in the left-most lane, you should be going faster. So, please don't go 45mph in that lane when the speed limit is 65mph (no joke).
5. Referring to the prior, if you are going anywhere under 60mph, please, expect me to be riding your ass and honking.
6. If a light is green, that means go (doesn't happen frequently, but it happens enough for me to write about it).
7. OH! and also, a car on the side of the road is not enough of a reason to rubberneck. It's just ONE car! If three cars had rolled over and were on fire, that would be an excuse to rubberneck...other than that, no reason.

Seriously, road-rage might be an understatement for what I experience during "rush-hour" in the Bay. Granted my experiences are mainly in the East Bay, but I have driven around and it's the same thing everywhere. Other friends living in the Bay whom are also Angelinos agree with me on these. And if there are any I am missing, please do feel free to add.

These are my grievances. My outlet. Because screaming about this in my car can only give me enough closure.

On letter writing...

  A few months ago, in my desperate attempts to drag myself out of my own misery from working in the teaching fellowship, I decided I was going to start writing letters. It has always been my belief that the now ancient art of letter writing is a much better system of communication than the myriad of technology that now controls us. Now, when I say that letter writing is a "better system" by that I mean that it feels a lot more personalized and less disconnected. There's something romantic about taking your time to craft a hand-written letter rather than limit yourself to 40 or so characters of incorrect grammar and abbreviations. So, I started writing letters to two of my close friends. One of them is currently a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay. The other friend,  is a college roommate whom I need to reconnect with that lives in New York. I also wrote one letter to my college Chaplain - to which I received a reply that was as wonderful as she is. In any event....
   I was writing back to my friend in Paraguay today and it felt so great to take pen to paper. Sigh...as I wrote I just felt a great deal of satisfaction in carefully crafting my sentences. Although my letter was admittingly disjointed, I simply loved how each letter became a word. I was finally using my intelligence and eloquence that I so long thought I had lost. (Okay, so that was exaggerating, but seriously, it felt good). For a long time I've thought about bringing back what now seems like an ancient art, but my feeling is that not many share my sentiments. Sure, my friend in the Peace Corps likes it because she sometimes has limited access to internet and my New Yorker friend and I are just old souls who were born in the wrong decade, but who else has the time to write a letter when the convenience of email exists?
   I have long sought to exile myself from uber technological things (says the one writing the blog) for the sake of my "old soul." For years I have declined an interest in text messaging and whenever I post my "updates" to facebook, I make sure that my grammar is somewhat impeccable - no abbreviations and much less using numbers for letters, ugh. BUT! I simply cannot escape it. Google has a wonderfully free thing called "Google Voice" which, yes, allows me to text for free. So, once in a while I take advantage of it and text message my brother or my boyfriend. Nonetheless, my quest is to communicate more frequently through hand-written letters. It would be awkward to hand-write a letter to my brother since I call him often and he lives rather close, but to my friends across the country, I should definitely make a better attempt to do what I say I love to do.

Hi Again!

   So, once upon a time, I used to email all my loved ones each semester of college; updating them on the classes I took, what my future plans were, any adventures I embarked upon, and general information about my life. I haven't done that in an almost two years. Sorry. The truth is, I've had such an awful past two years, that talking about it just made me feel more craptastic (an adjective I came up with to describe my senior year of college - and my first year out). However! That is all long and gone today...sort of. In a nutshell...

   My senior year was filled with family drama, educational dissatisfaction (as well as disappointment), and the stressful thought of "wholly shit, now I actually have to find a job!" For about a year, I grappled with the idea of law school. I was going to be the best worker's comp lawyer who would find the humanity in the f*ed up system that is Worker's Compensation in the state of California. But, I wasn't ready to take the LSAT, much less apply to law school while going through all the other emotional stuff.  Then, I started to convince myself that I was going to be the coolest teacher there ever was. I have been inspired by so many educators, I thought: "It's my turn to give back." So applied for TFA and was rejected. No problem though; there was another teaching fellowship I could apply to. --In fact there's a joke that CS fellows are all TFA rejects--- Two days before I graduated, I got a call from this fellowship that I had gotten the position. I was stoked!!! I had a job that would give me time to study for the LSAT or the GRE and apply to law/graduate school. PAH-HA! YEAH RIGHT! This teaching fellowship devoured any sorry description I called a life. Don't get me wrong, I learned A LOT!!! But, the fellowship WAS my life. It was sad. Anyway, blah blah blah, I loved my students, was pretty good at my job, but I hated everything else. I can rant about this experience a ton, but I will fast forward to today... I quit the teaching fellowship and am now working at an alehouse as a hostess. Yup, that's right. I have an education worth $250,000 and haven't used it a goddamn day since May 2010. Sweet, right?

   Well, the bittersweet news is that I'm not the only one. Since 2008, a lot of bright college grads have been in the same situation. NO, this is not a "the economy sucks" blog. This is just a "I feel like writing and keeping in touch with people and expressing myself" blog. Point is, even though I'm not explicitly using my education, I'm happy. I have a run-of-the-mill job, where I work with really fun people, where my "doing a great job" is noticed and rewarded, where I actually have time to have a life, and I'm in love. Sure, I'm stressed about taking the GRE in 7 days and having to apply to competitive grad schools by December, but all of that is a lot more balanced these days. Which is something I've been working hard to do; that is, the whole: keeping a balance in life-thing.

   Perhaps this will be a better medium for my desire to keep in touch or perhaps it will revive my long lost dream of becoming an investigative political journalist who traveled the world in search of reporting the truth. We shall see...