No Teeth Allowed

Well I am successfully on my way to renewing my pasaporte (that's espanol, by the way). I have the application. I even have the photos. Now there's a story. So I go to the courthouse here, go through the metal detector thing -- kind of reminiscent of the airport, but it has less people. Oh, and I don't get frisked for being a "secondary female". Anyway, they look at my passport upstairs. Did you know I have an official passport? Mine is burgundy. How cool is that? I will be trading burgundy for blue, though, as I am no longer travelling on "official business" as I once was when my dad was civil service. Darn. I wonder if it's more of a hassle to get through customs with a blue one? I guess I'll find out. Anyway, so they told me to come back with the things I need. The only thing I didn't have at the time was my photo. So I went straight over to FedEx/Kinko's (they recommended this because they said sometimes CVS and Walgreens don't take them well enough and they are therefore unusable). I got my pictures in mere minutes. But check this out. The dude tells me I'm not allowed to show my teeth in my smile! Is this a lie? It doesn't matter now, as I have already complied with the ridiculous maybe-rule (it has yet to be verified, so he might have just been handing me a line). Let me just say that, compared with my new picture, Stefanie is right -- I do look like a model in the old picture. But only in comparison to the new one. It is horrible! I couldn't show my teeth in my smile! I look like a total dork! And that will plague me for the whole 10 years I have my passport! Oh well. As long as I get one, and as long as they let me into the countries into which I wish to go, I don't care. Trust me, I don't look like a threat in my photo. I look like a dweeb. So, once I had my pictures, my next step was to fill out the application. I totally could have had it done in time. But there were two things I didn't remember, and if I don't find out soon where my mom was born (what city), I won't be able to turn it in on Friday. But they told me it should take about 4 weeks. So yay. And I'm seriously hoping it only costs $100 since that's what I've been planning on. Amber said hers cost her over $200. And since she needed to get hers expedited at the end, which cost her an extra $100, she says hers cost her a total of over $300. I really don't want to pay that much.

Oh, in other trip news... I informed my dad that I have already started making a list of where I want to go. He told me, "Well, you make your list. But I have to go to Boquete to check on that land for a couple of days." So, I'm thinking I have a driver's license now. And I'm old enough to drive the rental car (ah..... the perks of being old are few and far between. And they aren't even very exciting perks. But hey -- you take what you can get.), so I'm thinking I could just drop him off and leave :). (Okay, totally kidding here -- where would I go? We'd be about 6 hours away from anything I know, since we only went to Boquete and Volcan once when I lived there, and I was all of 12 -- around the time of my last passport, in fact). So anyway, perhaps my dad will humor me and let me accomplish at least the majority of the many items on my list. Good grief, I hope this all works out. Because I am totally psyched about it now.

I went and walked again at Shelby Park with some other Strive for Fivers. Annie was there this time. There were still only 5 of us, but we enjoyed it. Fact: Women in groups of 2 or more, even if they are strangers, can always have fabulous conversation. Translation: women can talk... a lot. Fact: I am a woman. Conclusion: I can talk... a lot. I spent the evening working on shool stuff (believe it or not). I didn't get very far on the literature review re-do, but I have found a few things. Yay. Of course, I will have to pay my $6.00 library fine in order to check out anything. Yes, you read that right. The librarian has a $6.00 library fine. And here's the kicker, it was so unintentional. Okay, I checked out 5 bound periodicals in an honest attempt to find material for that lit review. I found nothing in the 2 I looked in. Oh, and the bound periodicals can only be checked out by graduate students. And then, only for 5 days apparently. I thought I had a week. So, I had looked in 2 of them, found nothing, and returned them quickly. The other 3 really enjoyed the excitement of riding around in my back seat, so I figured I'd let them have their cheap thrills. Until last Wednesday when I thought they were due. So I dropped them in the box on the way in that morning. I got to my desk and had an over-due notice in my email! They were 2 days overdue!! What?!? I hadn't even had them a week by that point! But whatever. And why don't they send an overdue notice (if it's electronic) the DAY they are due, rather than wait? I mean, I've gotten reminder emails before for books. Why not these? Anyway, so I was like, "Well, it's okay. They are already in there and I'll just owe a little bit." Well, so I get to my desk Thursday and find an email announcing my fine. $6.00. Can you believe that? Bound periodicals are $1.00 per day per periodical??? Good grief. What a rip-off. I still haven't paid it. Perhaps I will be forced to. Or perhaps I can just use the book I need to use and skim it and annotate it while in class tonight... Hmmm... Beats paying the $6.00 at the moment. I will have to eventually, of course. They won't let me graduate otherwise. I still can't believe that though. $6.00. Yeesh. Such drama. Anyway, I did finish my abstract last night for our poster session. So all my group work is now pretty much done. Yippee!

And finally... I don't really know how my mind works. It's a mystery even to me. But I was on my way to work, and I hit a red light. I was in the left-turn lane. I hoped to get a green arrow. I did not. So I said to myself, "I wonder why I never get the green arrow at this light?" And then the phrase "Follow the yellow brick road!" popped into my head. Not from The Wizard of Oz. Although I know that is where it originated. This was from this old cartoon called "The Mad Scientist." Brad used to laugh at that part. I tried to find a sample of the cartoon on youtube, but was not successful. Anyway, I'm not sure why a green arrow led to a yellow brick road in my mind. But it did. I'm so random.