Paula's mistake on American Idol LOL

Read this article about what happened on American Idol last night. It's hilarious. I burst out laughing at work. Now we know that the judges already judge before they even see the performance! Paula must be drunk or high. Go back and watch the shows of when they were traveling the United States judging contestants and you can definitely tell when she was high. I bet Paula, Randy, and Simon already pick their favorites in the very beginning and then just say whatever they want to say about the performances without even really giving the contestants a chance.

Austrian tragedy of captivity and incest

73 year old Josef Fritzl kept his daughter, Elisabeth, captive for 24 years in secret cellars in his basement where they had seven children. His wife and he adopted three of the children as babies and the rest were left in the basement with their mother. They lived in a windowless bedroom with a narrow hallway connecting it to the bathroom, the television their only glimpse of the outside world.

Fritzl’s secret unfurled when one of the imprisoned children, 19 year old Kerstin, became seriously ill. Fritzl sent her to the hospital where she lay in a coma. Authorities used the television to plead for her mother’s help and Fritzl agreed to let Elisabeth go see Kerstin. Authorities caught them in the hospital parking lot.

Fritzl’s wife, Rosemarie, and their other six children, said that they had no idea that Fritzl had help Elisabeth captive ever since she was 18 years old. He told them that Elisabeth had run away to join a secret cult and then had abandoned her three children.

Elisabeth told officials that he had sexually abused her ever since she was 11 years old.

People described Fritzl as being authoritative and iron-handed.

Austria is still recovering from this shock and also an earlier case of captivity, where Natascha Kampusch had been kidnapped on her way to school and then imprisoned in a windowless cellar for 8 years, until she escaped in 2006.

Isn’t this horrible? Elisabeth suffered for 24 years! I find it hard to believe that Rosemarie, the wife of Fritzl and Elisabeth’s mother, did not suspect anything. First of all, he’d been abusing Elisabeth ever since she was 11. Second of all, when Elisabeth “disappeared,” how come Rosemarie never searched for her? Even if she believed that Elisabeth had joined a secret cult, Rosemarie should have searched for her to bring her back or to make sure she was okay.

I wonder if Fritzl did anything to his other children?

Kaavya Vishwanathan and plagiarism/lying

While thinking about what questions to ask during my interview with Coffee House Press, I started thinking about plagiarism. (Don’t ask me how my brain works). There’s been so much news about the book publishing industry and plagiarism that I’ve especially noticed in the past three years. Going on right now is J. K. Rowling’s case with “The Harry Potter Lexicon,” a dictionary of Harry Potter written by his fan club.

In the past three years, there’s been:

- James Frey and “A Million Little Pieces,” his memoir about his problems with drug addictions and alcoholism.

- Misha Defonseca and her memoir about being raised by wolves as a Jewish child after her parents were murdered during WW II.

- Margaret Seltzer and her memoir about joining the Bloods gang and living in the ghetto.

- Ishmael Beah and his memoir about being a child soldier in Sierra Leone.

- Kaavya Vishwanath and “How Opal Metha Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,” her novel that plagiarized the works of Meg Cabot, Sophie Kinsella, and Salman Rushdie.

All these authors made huge headlines because they made tons of money and their books were bestsellers. Kaavya Vishwanath was the one who touched (or poked) me the most. She was a Harvard graduate for one thing. She was Ivy League! And she got a huge sum for her book and a contract for forthcoming books and a movie deal with Dream Works. Her’s was the success I was dreaming of. All this at the age of nineteen! I was so jealous. And then disaster. Her writing career was over.

Which I realize now that I need to stop envying other people and work on my own damn stories. These people are making up stories about the life I’m living! Publishers are vying to publish books about hard lives, poverty the ghetto, etc. I need to sit my butt down and pound out my stories which are TRUE.

All college students should be required to do internships

All college students should be required to do internships. If I could start over, I would work unpaid internships as a freshman and sophomore. Then I would apply for paid internships as a junior or senior. If I needed money, then I would work a part-time job while I did the internships. Working at an internship will ultimately help students in the long run compared to working at a job that has no relation to their major.

When I graduated with a B. A. in English, I really felt lost in looking for jobs and trying to pin down what career I wanted. If I had done more internships, I would have known more about what direction I wanted to go in. I applied for jobs ranging from sales to human resources and never got past the interview because I didn't know anything about the careers.

All college seniors should be required to attend a seminar given by the career resources center of their college where they can work on their resumes and interviewing. I had trouble making it to the career resources center at Metropolitan State University because it didn't have evening hours or weekend hours. The couple times I did go in to look for internships, I didn't receive much help. Or maybe I just didn't know the right questions to ask. I should have come straight out and said, "Help me. I'm lost."

No more polycarbonate bottles and cans of soda for me!

I’m sure all you readers own at least one plastic bottle made of polycarbonate. I own two that I bought last year in my goal to become fit (which I am implementing this summer). Plastic bottles made of polycarbonate were popular because they were clear and nearly unbreakable. I wanted them because I saw everybody else carrying them.

The Canadian government is planning to declare that the chemical, bisphenol-A or BPA, is toxic due to studies showing that low doses of this chemical caused rats to develop tumors, urinary tract problems, and early puberty. This chemical is what makes polycarbonate.

The Hudson’s Bay Company has removed all baby-related products from its stores and plans to remove other merchandise made from polycarbonate.

Wal-Mart Canada removed all polycarbonate merchandise from its stores and Wal-Mart USA plans to remove polycarbonate baby-related merchandise by early next year.

Now retailers are wondering what to do with soft drinks sold in aluminum or steel cans. “For the last two decades, the interiors of most cans have been coated with an epoxy resin that is made using the chemical to extend the shelf life of the contents and prevent the metal from affecting the flavors of food and drinks.”

“John M. Rost, the chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance, an industry group, said that there was no evidence that the linings expose humans to significant amounts of the chemical, a position not shared by all scientists. He added that researchers had been unable to develop an alternative lining that performs as well as the current epoxy.”

So this chemical, in LOW DOSES, causes tumors, urinary tract problems, and early puberty for rats. UGH. I am not allowing any more polycarbonate products in my household. The plastic bottles are supposed to be nearly unbreakable. I wonder how long it would take to decompose. Especially since ordinary plastic bottles take 450 years to decompose. Polycarbonate is not recyclable either.

I’m going to keep my water bottles as artwork representing the dangers of convenience, covetousness, Capitalism, and plastic. Why didn’t Thermo Fisher Scientific, the company that made the polycarbonate bottles, do these studies in the first place?

Man Found Dead in Battle Creek Park

I was shocked to read on Google News that a man was found dead on a road in Battle Creek Park. My husband and I used to go there all the time when we were dating. When I used to read mystery books and watch “Law and Order” (this is before my kids), I used to imagine finding dead bodies in the park.

It reminds of something that happened with my father. My father used to go to my older sister’s house everyday at 7 in the morning to pick up her kids for babysitting. She lived in Frogtown. One morning he saw a car stop at the corner and throw a body out onto the grassy corner at the intersection. My father continued driving because he didn’t want any trouble.

What really frightens me is what my father did, which was nothing. It’s just like all those stories you read about a violent crime happening and people just ignoring it. Like the girl who was raped on a train in India and how the people on the same train didn’t help her. Or the woman who was being knifed in the hallway and none of the apartment residents were willing to open their doors to help her.

Get to know your neighbors and the community. We need each other for safety. The less you know your neighbors, the more likely these kinds of crimes will happen. Just a “Hi” can do wonders.

I’ve also read that when you are faced with a crowd, and you need help, it’s more effective for you to single out some one to ask for help rather than addressing the whole crowd. When you single some one out, he/she would feel more obligated to help you.

Bought double stroller

Excited by my new fitness plan, I purchased the Jeep Wrangler Twin Sport All-Weather Umbrella Stroller – Fierce on Amazon.com for $99. In fact Target and Wal-Mart both sold it for $89 but they were out of stock at this time. I agonized over my decision, not wanting to waste $10. The free shipping offered by Amazon helped assuage my anguish.

Now what do I do with my old strollers? I have a Graco stroller and a cheap umbrella stroller. I could leave them outside with a “Free” sign but I worry that the neighborhood kids might mess with them. Last time I left a dresser by the side of the street and the next morning, the drawers were all over the place.

Maybe I should post them on Craigslist. I don’t want to use my address as I live in a housing complex that people might hesitate to enter. Maybe I’ll use my in-laws address.

Maybe I’ll just donate them to Savers or Goodwill, if they’ll accept them of course. The strollers have not been gently used.

New fitness plan

The weather has finally turned warm even though it’s mid-April. That’s life in Minnesota. Yesterday was a beautiful windy day to go walking around Como Lake. No mosquitoes yet so it’s the best time to enjoy nature.

My New Year’s resolution had been to become fit. Not lose weight but to be more fit. With summer comes tank tops, shorts, flip-flops and swimming suits. After four kids, I still look like I’m four months pregnant.

I got off work at 5 and reached my in-laws house at 5:45. I bundled my kids up and then we were on our way home. Mystique saw people walking around Phalen Lake. “Mommy, I want to go walking,” she said. “I want to pet the puppies.”

“But I thought you said you were hungry,” I said. She had been complaining that she was hungry earlier.

“I’m only a little hungry,” she said. Which meant she was hungry but she wanted to go have fun also. I told her that we would go home and eat and then, if there was still time, we could go walk around Como Lake.

When we got home, Mystique and Nova were fascinated by a couple fighting with each other across the parking lot. The woman was alternately screaming and hitting the man. I hustled them inside the house and then cooked stir-fried noodles with eggs and made a bottle for Baby Kayden.

It was 8 by the time we were done. Too late to go walking. We ended up watching “Hell’s Kitchen” on TV. I can’t believe there are people willing to stand such abuse. That was a huge reason why I quit my last job as an assistant manager at SuperAmerica.

How am I going to make time for us to be more active? I am determined to be fit and to keep my kids fit. What should I do?

Goals:

- Look for a cheap double stroller on Craigslist.

- Buy snacks and keep them in the van.

- Keep sneakers in the van.

- Keep additional jackets for the kids in the van.

- Keep water in the van.

Here’s looking forward to a more fit and healthy me.