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Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #441

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Anne: Hope everyone in the US had a good 3 day weekend. I decided to take Tuesday and Wednesday off, as these were the last two days of school, and I'd figured that it was my last chance for some quiet, alone time during the day. Well...best laid plans... The hubby came home early (at 11am) because due to the Monday holiday, there wasn't much to do since nothing was being delivered on Tuesday. And then on Tuesday, the almost 7 year old wanted to be off school early after the classroom party. Sigh...so...I ended up spending most of my "alone" days...NOT alone. I'm now looking for a short business trip as a way to get some alone time... If I can't get any alone time...let's just do the opposite! In case anyone ever wonders what some nearly 50 year olds do... We go dancing! Besides that, my drama draught continues.  So what did I end up doing was watching something that I never started in 2020, the General's Lady . For some reason, the scenes from this pa

Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #440

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Anne: Happy Tuesday Drama Lovers! I missed last week's post, not so much because I had a lot to do, but because I am in a drama slump. I was hoping something would catch my interest this week, but that didn't happen. It is difficult to explain why. I have a lot that I've started, but nothing that is captivating enough to continue. Instead, what I'm been watching is the variety show Keep Running . Bai Lu and Charlie Zhou are cracking me up!  So...as I buried myself in variety shows and random crime documentaries on Netflix, I don't really have a lot to update. Oh No! Here Comes Trouble But I did finish this last week, and it was VERY satisfying. This show is quite good. Not my swoony type of show, nor is it filled with romance. But it is an interesting concept, interesting story line, and a good ending with no cliff hanger, but still gives a lot of room for season 2.  We find out that Pu Yi Yong finally realized the entire interaction with his dad on the bus, had a l

Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #439

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Anne: Happy Tuesday Everyone! Well...I am still battling the slug invasion. Although they are certainly much smaller than over a month ago. And due to a potential family of wild bunnies that may be living under our little garage apartment, or somewhere else in the yard, we haven't sprayed the outside of the house, so now I also have tree roaches taking short vacations across my floor. Sigh...at some point I'll figure out how to get enough money to rebuild the house. But, enough of my problems with my uninvited visitors, let's get on with the discussion of the shows that I've managed to watch these last two weeks. The Ingenious One Another show that is right up my alley. A bit of mystery, adventure, a dash of romance, and a game of wits that starts from the very first episode. Surprisingly, there are some unexpected funny moments, and I was very surprised to see third prince (Liu Guan Lin) play the swordsman, Jin Biao. He's a great character who takes a fixed price t

Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #438

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Anne: Happy Tuesday all drama lovers with too much stuff to do to watch all the dramas that they have in queue. I thought I start today by telling a story about a particular friend of mine, who has the most particular luck I have ever met. For as long as I've known her, ever since she was a technician in my academic research lab, she has had the oddest luck of attracting, let's just say, "exciting" events wherever she goes. Her time as an nurse on the floor, her shift would inevitably encounter a drive by shooting, a multicar accident, the life flight would be activated, and overall general chaos may ensue. Hence, her colleagues started calling her the black cloud. Even on her recent vacation to Europe, she encountered a medical emergency on the plane. She was so tried that she was taking a nap, but then her aunt started poking her in the ribs. "Hey, someone is asking for a EMT." Without opening her eyes, she said, "I'm not an EMT." Next, her m

Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #437

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Anne: Happy Tuesday everyone! Now, before I get to the most existing week in my drama year, I want to share a little of the 6 year old's art work. Last Friday, there was no school, so I promised to take him to one of those painting places. They have classes for kids of all ages on certain day time hours. Of course, you can imagine that it was a difficult task getting kids to follow any sort of directions. Much more so when it's just one person giving instructions for 4 different pictures. So, in spite of the slight chaos of about 10 kids of various ages, and a 3 year old who dipped both her hands in paint while also eating a cupcake, the little boy managed to do an okay job on his giraffe.  The outline was provided by the professionals, and everything else, was the 6 year old's attempt to copying the example. It's not the most well spaced picture, but it is still kind of cute.  And now for the most exciting week in my drama year! You all know exactly what I'm talkin

Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #436

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Anne: It is only the start of April and I've been battling a particular pest inside my little shack that most readers will probably go, huh? Ever since last year, I've been having an interesting issue with an invasion, that normally happens in the spring time. Last year, they were much on the bigger side, this year, they are smaller. Maybe I got rid of all their grandparents or something. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that this is an invasion. Every day, since, probably, February of this year, I have slugs appearing in my bathroom and parts of the kitchen.  Now, when I say I live in a shack. It isn't far from the truth. It's an apartment that my husband converted (20 years ago) from a garage that was built in the 1930s. Everything is on pier and beam, and the entire structure is slowly sinking. (Before anyone feels too sorry for us, don't worry, it's rent free and we are scraping the structure to do a custom built in a year or so.)  Now...about the inv

Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #435

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Anne: And the craziness has not ended! These last two weeks have pretty much took away my much needed sleep. I would never have thought that my job would involve me rushing documents with quality at 3am Saturday morning to take care of lot release issues. At this point, I might as well find a job where I am expected to take care of these things. Maybe I'll get paid more...well...probably not as the industry is contracting. Besides my lack of sleep, there is also a work issue that has been bothering me for weeks. Although today, I'm wondering if I am an idiot because I haven't been in lab for so long that I've forgotten how to do stuff. Sigh...at this rate. One of my younger team members will forbid me from getting anywhere near lab instruments in case I mess something up. Ah... how ridiculous is it that I am now at the end of this point in life! It's almost like me being on the other side of the parent/child abyss. Now I'm rolling my eyes inside my head at the &

Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #434

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Anne: Hello Everyone! I survived jury duty and again did not get picked. Now, despite the usual voir dire (which for some reason in Texas, decided to put a very Southern accent to these French words), I met a woman who was the juror immediately in front of me that exemplified the 7 degrees of separation hypothesis. Now, I have no idea what her name is, because by the time I remembered to ask her after a bathroom break, she had already left the building. Let me set the stage...I met a woman who was probably only a few years older than me, who emigrated from Taiwan to the same little city in south Texas, whose parents also had a restaurant in the same little town, and we both ended up in Houston with consecutive juror numbers. Why is this epic? It is because in this little town... there were probably only <10 far east Asian families. I really wanted to ask her what part of Taiwan she came from because I would have been floored if we came from the same town. Oh well... a mystery I will

Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #433

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Anne: Hello Everyone! Happy Thursday and then some. I'd spent the last week trying to figure out why we have a invention project for a first grader. Now, I thought that this would be more of an imagination exercise rather than them expecting an actual protype. Nope...I was wrong. He has a presentation and need a semi working protype. Not only that, they had to search the US patent office to see if something similar was already patented. We only got through the first 10 patents...out of a search that yielded >10,000 patent applications. I really think that these project are more of a parent/child co-project than a student project, at least not for a six year old. However, I don't know enough about mechanics to make a personal automatic seed planter. I know just enough to know that I cannot make a functional prototype. So...I guess he will just need to settle for one that "looks" like what he intended, without any moving parts. I am making him do most of the work, in

Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #432

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Anne: Hello Everyone! Another two weeks have passed and I think I have finally climbed out far enough from the never ending hole of work, and I see a sliver of light. So exciting! I can now start getting through things that I've been putting off for...over a year. I'm not there just yet, but I am SO CLOSE! Here's something that is kind of funny. The 6 year old needed a hair cut. His bangs were falling "into" his eyes. He was complaining about it. I figured, get these bangs cut above his eye brows, and that'll give him a few months before the hair ends start to stab his eye balls again. Well...he was already making a face at the hair cut place when he looked in the mirror. And when he was taking his shower where I was washing his hair, he put on this very large frown and said that he didn't want to go to school with this hair cut. He wanted to stay home until it mostly grew back. Take a wild guess why he didn't like his hair cut...Because his eyebrows w