Adopt an elephant!

Okay, not really. Though it would be cool.

I'm referring to this article: Population: the elephant in the room

This is the main reason why, at this current stage of life, I would choose adoption over having a kid of my own. Too many people, not enough families for kids already on this planet.

Also, the nine months of pregnancy kinda scares me, because I am a wimp.

Helloooo from New York

After a 15 hour plane ride, a 3 hour delay due to air traffic among other things, and a $10 taxi ride that got jacked up to $24 that led to my mum calling the police, I'm back in the US.

On the East Coast, that is. At 4am.

And it seems that I have missed an exciting/terrifying event back on the West Coast. Glad to see everyone's okay though.

In other news, I failed my driving test back in Hong Kong. I had just done my 3-point turn and parallel parking, and was going down a steep narrow road when two trucks sort of loomed up in front of me.

Cue momentary panic, minute swerve and gentle bumping of the curb.

Yeah, that pretty much killed it for me.
I was really nervous though, especially when it turned out that my test was going to be 30 minutes earlier than stated just because everyone else had gone ahead of time.

So I'll most likely retake the test in LA. Not the best location, but I don't have much choice.

Politics, politics

After this week, I'm thoroughly sick of politics. Which makes me kind of glad I'm not majoring in Political Science. (Not that IR is much better, really....)

I'm shadowing a legislator right now, and while it's good to watch the councils and see how things go on, it gets depressing with each subsequent visit. It is also rather boring...I've only managed to stay thoroughly awake for one meeting so far.

It's like:

blahblahblah technical terms blahblah semantics blahblahbalh not doing their job....

All of a sudden, one legislator starts talking about the "tiger with no teeth" and pulls out, yup, a rather large papier mache model of a tiger with no teeth. And brandishes it to make his point.

Today, I went to a meeting on levying plastic bags, and the people there spent FIVE minutes trying to define a "plastic shopping bag". People, it's not that hard. Although when one guy pulled out a plastic folder as an ambiguous example, everyone sitting in the public viewing area dissolved into giggles.

I keep my thoughts written down in a notebook in order to stay awake, and I probably will get into trouble if I post too many of them, but they go along the lines of:

Woo angry politicians. This oughta be fun.
Did he just pull out a theatre prop? (tiger head)
Rah, rah, rah...goddamn semantics.
...And one wonders why these meetings are so long....
Gah! [expletives] It's a [expletive] plastic shopping bag! No, not a plastic folder like the one you're holding up, you [expletive]! Get to the point!

So next week, I'm transferring to the other office, where I might actually be able to do something practical.

---

In other news, I'm learning how to drive. Drive manual, no less. Yes, the streets are no longer safe. (Although I can do a very slow 3 point turn after 2 lessons, haha.)