I'm just like a pill.

Given that I am enrolled in five MBA classes, what is the probability that I currently have unsatiable alcohol needs?

Well, I'll tell you, since I'm learning so much in my statistics class.

If we represent classes as "C" and my alcoholic needs as "AN", we can therefore express the above probability as: P(AN | C)

Which is essentially what I'm doing. Sober. (unfortunately)

Between the two statistics papers due today, a big economics quiz on Tuesday, a marketing quiz on Tuesday and the fact that I feel behind in statistics and haven't even cracked open my organizational behavior books, I'm slightly panicked.

Which is why I've chosen to take a break and do a little googling and blogging. Hey, why get stressed out when you can just procrastinate and avoid? Since I've already googled many of the people in the Gang of 100, I thought I'd google myself, under the name The Lady V.

To my sheer and utter delight, here's one of the descriptions I found:

Since its introduction, Lady V has been taking the country by storm!

Nice, huh? Just keep reading. It gets better:

The perfect female “pleasure pill” has been created and you don't even need a prescription. Lady V is the world's first pleasure pill scientifically designed for women. Lady V is an all-natural proprietary herbal blend of prosexual nutrients from around the world synergistically blended to naturally stimulate neurotransmitter endorphin signals. This magical combination increases targeted blood flow, unleashes natural stimulators for maximum stimulation, triggering pleasure responses quickly. Lady V is safe, natural and doctor-recommended. Since its introduction Lady V has been taking the world by storm! From Malibu to Miami women are enjoying the most intense pleasure of their lives!

Aw man, that freakin' ROCKS! I'm a pleasure pill! I am a blend of pro-sexual nutrients. Hear me roar! Who needs an MBA anyway? Ima startin' the "new sexual revolution"! There's even a picture. I love the Internet. Even if I'm at The Duck, freezing my ass off, struggling with statistics and economics homework, panicking about my workload, and suffering from sobriety, I now have the energy to keep plowing ahead.

Anonymity

There's a song in the musical "Chicago" titled Mr. Cellophane. For those of you who aren't Great White Way buffs or Richard Gere fans, it's sung by the oft-ignored husband of a 1920s celebutante. In the song, he basically whines about and bemoans his inconsequential, undistinguished self.

I always hated that song. I hated the way he victimized himself, the passive attitude with which he sings it, and (as a woman who loves the spotlight) I hated the way he'd fade into the background and let everyone else walk all over him.

But I'm starting to change my mind. There can be something truly precious about anonymity and I believe that we all value a certain degree of obscurity for ourselves. In my marketing class today, I just learned that the Experion credit agency has information on 99% of the population in the United States. And not just their credit score -- they have scores upon scores of marketing data on you, like your purchasing habits and spending patterns, what magazines you subscribe to, what Web sites you visit. That means there is only one percent of the U.S. population that has managed to keep their lives private! One measly, little percent. This is disturbing, folks! Not that I've made any purchases I'm not willing to 'fess up to, but I find it rather unsettling that some credit or marketing firm knows that much about me!

Still, I admit that I'm a fairly open person. I might even be known to overshare after consuming a few drinks. But I value my anonymity. I want to respond to Craigslist postings without the recipient knowing my real name or what I do. I want to shop at Trader Joe's without Whole Foods finding out about the affair. Blogs do that. They let you share without identification (SWI, if you will). And it means that thanks to code names, I can SWI about my friends, Craigslist postings, my ex-boyfriends, the Gang of 100, etc.

Speaking of the Gang of 100, I feel like I should devote more blog estate to certain members. Mostly because only a handful of them know about this blog and I can be shamelessy honest in this venue. But also because these people and school have consumed my life and they entertain me. Some more SWI is definitely on the docket. Every member is free game, but of course, will have codenames, since I ought to protect their anonmity to the same extent that I protect my own.

Let's start with a guy I'll call The Sourdough. Nah...I'll save that for another night...

Why is Craigslist addicting??

I just responded to a personal ad on Craigslist.

It's more of a business proposition, really.

This guy says he can't seem to find a good dinner date and wants to take out a fun, intelligent girl to her choice restaurant, and pay her $400 for her time, no strings attached. So, here's my idea -- I respond, pretend to be fun and intelligent, and collect $400 and spend $50 in booze for my secret bodyguard who will be hovering around the bar. On second thought, perhaps I should stipulate that the bodyguard can't drink until after the date is over....hmmm.

Some of Gang of 100 seems to think this deal equates to prostitution. My argument is that prostitution would require sex. This is merely a $400 dinner date; it's more like an escort service. Besides, surely my conversation is worth at least $400, right?

Regardless of how this particular story ends, it makes me wonder what happened to us singles, that we can't find a good date. Are we too picky? Do we make quick judgments about people that we'd discover are unfounded, if only we had the time or patience to find out? Or is it the society or environment around us -- maybe we've been taught to be jaded and suspicious of other people. It's scary to make yourself vulnerable to someone else, don't I know it, but I'm pretty sure I'll be worse off if I refuse to take the chance again....then again, I haven't been on a date since I moved here and had to respond to a Craigslist ad to get one! arg.

Blair Thomas

I went to my first theatre show in DC! (sorry, it must be slightly lame to read about all my DC firsts). My MBA-BFF invited me to an adult puppet show. Now, before you get all judgemental, it's not like it was some nudey puppet-on-human action. It was more of an arts/experimential theatre kind of thing (if you can consider Chicagoan Blair Thomas a "new" experimential kind of guy).

Anyway, the show was beautiful. The abridged version is that it was an stage reproduction of Kakaun's 10 Bulls, a story of enlightenment and journey. It's a spiritual tale, layered with complexity and struggle, of triumph and rest and unity.

While there was a lot about the show that made me think and rethink aspects of my life, what really got me thinking was the set. Now granted, I'm a performer; I concentrate on the movement, voice and motivation of the characters on the stage. But this time around, it was the set itself that got me thinking. This show used heavily these blank, white screens on wheels - they helped shape the space on the stage; set the tone of the scene; provided a canvas upon which to paint a story. But they also moved, to obscure and reveal, to illuminate and cast shadow. They were such a part of the show that these inanimate screens, to me, were characters in the show.

And all of it made me think about the people in my life who act as these screens; who shelter me and make me vulnerable; who illuminate and cast shadow; who obscure and reveal. I guess we all have people in our lives who are enablers and who are blockers. But how do we transform those obstacles into springboards? How do we manage those people who turn life into chaos? How do we find peace in the whirlwind storm that is life?

How may a snowflake exist in a raging fire?

I'm speechless

A posting on Craigslist under "men seeking women" in Washington DC. I'm trying to decide whether to respond...hmmmm

Hot white guy looking for Asian lady - 27

---

Reply to: pers-209930884@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-09-20, 2:29PM EDT


I am that type of guy that women just fall over. I am 6 1, toned, abs and have a great head of hair. I am looking for a petite asian girl who is looking for a white guy to make her feel as she belongs. All I ask in return is that you be very submissive in the bedroom, brush your teeth regularly and trim your cooch. I will make sure u get all the materialistic things you desire and have become accoustomed to. I will not work 18 hour days like your parents to provide you they flashy things but I am white so I can make the same amount by working 9 hour days. I know liking me is just a "preference" so I hope you arent ashamed of the way you look since you arent attracted to asian men. If you are ready to be accepted, come talk to me.

Solomon's poetry

I checked three different calendars today, just to be sure. But it's true. I've only been in classes for two weeks. Yet, somehow, I feel like I've always been here and the people I've met over the past two weeks have always been a part of my life. I mean, it might have something to do with the 30-minute economics presentation last week, the 7-page statistics paper this morning, the marketing quiz on Monday, and the 5-page economics paper on Thursday. But I'd rather assume that it has something to do with what happens when you throw 100 strangers into the same journey together.

Just last night, I was hanging out with two guys from the Gang of 100 and one of them said, "I can't believe I just met you guys 3 weeks ago." True words. In just 21 days, somehow we've managed to share our lives together; many of us know about the others' aspirations and hopes, their pasts and their families, many of their strengths and weaknesses. We can already tell how to push each other's buttons and we have inside jokes. We've exchanged cell phone numbers and hang out on the weekends (which now start on Thursdays). There are people we get along with and others we'd prefer not to see outside The Duck. But we're journeying together for at least the next two years of our lives, sharing in each others' stress, joy, success and failure.

Don't get me wrong. I still miss Boston and my friends there. I still fall into in waves of loneliness and wistful thinking. But when I arrived in DC and walked into The Duck on the first day of MBA camp, there were people here who already knew me, knew about the choices I've made, who even asked about the (now) ex-boyfriend, who called me to hang out before classes even began. That's pretty darn cool. You know, one might even think that it's all been perfectly orchestrated by some higher power who happens to like me a whole lot ....

In other news, I think I'm going to die of e. coli. The New York Times tells me that the pre-packaged spinach that I bought from Trader Joe's is probably contaminated with the deadly virus. A woman has even died from e. coli of the spinach variety! It's a good thing I finally have health insurance again after four months of cautious, uninsured living. (Hopefully Mom and Dad aren't reading this). And it's also a good thing I can die with such a positive attitude. Let me explain. In Thursday's human dynamics class with a professor I'll call Gandalf, we were asked to complete an exercise where we had to rank our top five terminal and instrumental values. Out of the 30 or so students in my cohort, only three of us selected "salvation" in the top five. That got me thinking.

I mean, shouldn't eternity land somewhere near the top of people's values? Are we so caught up in our puny lives that we can't think in terms of eternity? Is it just too scary to wonder what happens after death? Are we so without hope that we don't even believe in eternity, despite the fact that we work so hard for comfortable, prosperous lives? What are we working towards if life just ends at death and everything we've worked for ceases to exist? As it's been said before, without a bigger hope, it all just seems meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

It's Over

The easy life of this MBA student is officially over. It's almost 3am and I haven't even read over my marketing case. (Good thing I have a 20 minute train ride into campus). Spent 2 hours in an accounting class and another 5 hours with my study group -- who I'll call Club5 -- going over the statistics case and working out our meeting/homework schedule over the next few months.

Also squeezed in a talk by Ken Burns at the National Press Club on the topic "9/11: From News to History." Burns says he'll likely do a documentary on 9/11 at some point -- he usually waits 20 years or so until after an event in order to gain perspective. Hearing him speak made me want to watch his works on Jazz and the Civil War.

But I don't know how I'm going to fit it into my schedule.

Asian Domination

Suri is Asian? Interesting. This might make Suri the most famous of the five Asian celebrities that Americans can name.

What a celeb news week. Paris in cuffs, Croc Hunter's tragic death, NYC Fashion Week, Katie Couric on evening news, Rosi on The View... it's not even a sweeps week!

A little Dubya, Ulster, and Rock and Roll

Ahhhh, my first real weekend in DC! And, let me tell you, I was the consummate DC-er too. Since my weekend starts on Thursdays now, I headed down to the Capitol building after classes to join an immigration rally and lend support to an Ulsterboy friend from Boston. Upon arriving at the rally, I was greeted by a plentitud of signs in Spanish (Justicia para todos! Somos America! and the like) and heard a respected Asian-American California congressman address the crowd in surprisingly decent Spanish.

Now, I am all for immigration reform -- after all, my family made it to this country on dubious papers and worked their asses off, just so I could be here, blogging about it you. But I'm saddened on two counts that the loudest voices for immigration reform are in Spanish. I'm sad because it gives the impression to the less-informed public that reform is all about Latinos (which most people read as Mexican). And I'm sad because it means all the other contributing souls who speak Chinese, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese aren't speaking loud enough or aren't being heard. I know Latinos are the largest immigrant population in the U.S., but immigration isn't just about one race or one country, folks.

But seeing as America is full of contradictions anyway and I speak more Spanish than Chinese, I joined in the shouts -- "Bush, escucha! Estamos en la lucha!" Not that Congress is going to put immigration back on the ballot during an election year. God forbid a politician should risk his or her campaign by actually doing the job we elected them to do.

Mmmkay, enough with the cynicism. The rest of the weekend was filled with a tour of the White House (pssst, no more guided tours there evidently), a visit to the trendy area of Eastern Market, dinner with the Gang of 100, and a sloshy, gin-and-tonic filled evening at the new Rock 'n' Roll Hotel. [The Gang of 100 is how I'm referring to my MBA classmates. And yes, that's because there are about 100 students in the class, Sherlock.] The Rock 'n' Roll, by the way, is a great spot, although it's out of the way. I should be grateful that it's out of the way, otherwise I never would have met Matt.

Matt drives a blue Toyota Prius. And he picks people up along H St in the Atlas District and drives them to Union Station for free. That's right. For free. I don't quite understand it all, but the RNR bouncer spouted off a phone number for me, I made the executive/ginned-up decision that I should call it, and lo and behold, Matt in a blue Toyota Prius showed up. I wonder if that bouncer has a number for handsome, built, well-paid, single men with character and integrity who want to sweep me off my feet and take me out for Belgian mussels at that bistro in Eastern Market....

But back to Matt. With an Asian, an Ulsterboy, a Ghanaian, a Mormon and a Chicagoan in his car, Matt was as friendly a driver as I've ever encountered. Never one to miss an opportunity, I asked Matt if he ran his own business (which he did) and whether he might like to be on the receiving end of a marketing plan created by a group of GW business students (which he did). Who knew I could get marketing homework done on a Saturday night, while getting a free ride at 2am for me and my friends with a man I'd never met before?

I'd say my first real weekend in DC was a success.

Tea ParTAY

Ever wonder what it might look like if a bunch of preppy, New England, old-money white folks made a rap video? Now you can find out.

My favorite line: "We might be vanilla but our labs are chocolate."

Hmmm...where did I put my copy of The Official Preppy Handbook?

Shoutout to the Canadians! (and Tracy)

I had to fly all the way out to Saskatoon, Canada, for my first-ever glimpse of two men running naked through a bar and falling twice on a beer-soaked floor. Who knew?

Many thanks go out to the Canadians who really showed the Americans a good time! Last weekend, 12 Yankees headed out to the Canadian plains to celebrate the marriage of two dear friends. It was a beautiful event and made all the more special because the bride and groom are so special to me. B&R -- hope you guys are enjoying Hawaii!

We were also treated to an action-packed few days. We sold Tim's tie for $100. We danced our asses off at the only Saskatoon bar open at 1am on a Sunday. We drank 25 cent shots.

And we marveled at the calm, generous and indefatigable spirit of our friend Tracy. Now, Tracy was the maid of honor/best friend of the bride at the aforementioned wedding -- that says plenty, doesn't it? But I just want to say that if I ever manage to find a guy who wants to marry me, I want a maid of honor like Tracy. I've never known a more bighearted person in my life. You could just tell that she kept everything together -- she brought the wedding dress from America and got detained by Canadian customs officers who tried to make her pay taxes on the gown. She made sure the Yankees were taken care of with hotels, car rides, etc. She made me cry during her toast and made me laugh afterwards because she had completely forgotten to show off the actual bread toast she had made that morning for the occasion. Most importantly, she did what she could to make the weekend stress-free for the bride.

I love having people in my life who inspire me to be a better me. Not a different me, just a better one. Thanks, Tracy. You truly are a woman "of noble character."