They had a Harry Potter movie marathon over the weekend and I got really interested in the books again after watching the movies, so I read The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince last night. JK Rowling is a brilliant plot writer. I love all the story lines are being tied up.

I watched an interview she did on some BBC program where she said she cried after she wrote one chapter, and I think she cried about Snapes dying. I think it's obvious that Snapes has to die. I think RAB has to be Sirius Black's brother. I mean why bother to mention the man twice and not have him show up somewhere. I'm speculating that Sirius comes back from the dead with his brother and they both help Harry to defeat Valdemort, but then they both go back to where ever they came from. They could even come back with Dumbledore, who went out without much of a fight, like Obewon Kanobi in Star Wars.

JK Rowling said that the colour of Harry's eyes and the fact that he has his mother's eyes is an important plot point. My speculation is that Voldemort will either make Harry look like him or make himself look like Harry, and that the only way to tell them apart and kill one of them would be by the eye colour.

I don't like to think of Harry dying, but after The Order of the Phoenix I was getting the feeling that he might. There's too much talk about dying nobly for one cause and going into a fight with your eyes open. But he might not, I just got a feeling that he might have to die to make his character arc make sense.

I'm also thinking that Hermoine and Ron might die to protect Harry, which would be just like his parents. There are paralells between Hermoine and Ron's relationship and his parents. Ron is a pure blood just like Harry's father, and Hermoine is muggle born like Harry's mother. Harry's mother hated Harry's father when they first met, but got together their last year at school. I think before Hermoine and Ron die that they will get together and realize they love each other.

Poor Harry Potter. I hope this Ron/Hermoine scenario doesn't true but Harry seems to have a lot of anger and revenge feelings about this parents' murder right now, which is making him very dark. I can't help but think of Luke Skywalker who had to give up his anger and hatred before he became a full Jedi. One way for a person to give up their anger is to reexperience the tragedy which caused the anger, only under different circumstances. Maybe Harry has to live through his family, because Ron and Hermoine are his chosen family, dying again to realize the futility of revenge and anger.

I can see Harry becoming Headmaster at Hogwarts, and him marrying Ginny, who would be like Minerva McGonagall. There are some nice parallels there. I read somewhere that Dumbledore was too isolated. Dumbledore told Harry that witches and wizards do not understand the mystery of the human heart, which explains their seeming cruelty. Even Harry's own father was quite cruel when he was a teenager. But love changed him, and for the change to be complete in the witch and wizard worlds, there has to be a leader who has both the wizard/witch gifts and the gift of a human heart which can love and make unexplainable sacrifices.

Wizards and witches really hates muggles, but what if witches and wizards helped muggles with their issues. It's odd that muggles and witches and wizards live in such parallel existence with each other, when it would be much better for the world if they could somehow work together.

It's what people are saying the "revolution" is all about; that there is a spiritual awakening going on with the countdown to 2012. People are realizing their true potential, their true powers which they have learn to use because things are supposedly going to come completely apart at 2012.

I'm at the Alameda County Fair watching Peter Noonan and Herman's Hermits with my friend K. I'm sure my real mom loved this band.
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There's a line in the movie "Queen of the Damned", where Lestat says something like - in LA which feeds on the beauty of youth I didn't eve cause a ripple.

I'm at a seminar at the Beverly Garland hotel in North Hollywood, and I think I finally get the differences between LA and San Francisco. Nothing causes a ripple in LA. It's too big, there are too many people, and everyone who lines here is too jaded and too cynical to care.

San Francisco is for all its big city talk is still a small town. I don't think in Los Angeles it would make the front page of the LA Times if the mayor was accused of doing cocaine.

Los Angeles' jadedness is calling me, just like NYC's anonymity called to me in high school. I like that LA is warm and I love that if I lived here I could disappear and do my own thing and not draw too much attention to myself. I can't really disappear in SF; I've lived there for too long and I'm always running into people I know.
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I'm sitting in the sun on the sand at Santa Monica state beach. It's warm and my brother and I are watching my neice frolicking in the ocean. I love southern Cali! It's nice and warm here.
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I just saw the movie "DOA - Dead on Arrival", and it was actually quite good. Good if you like pretty girls who can fight like boys, which I absolutely love. But boys will love it too as all the girls were pretty much half naked while they where fighting. The plot was shaky, but I've been subject to much worse. And in a kung fu action movie, who cares about plot because it's all about the fighting and the fighting was excellent.
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A view from my balcony at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel - a rainbow over Waikiki beach one rainy morning. This was the only rainbow I saw on my trip. I saw three rainbows on the first day when I was on Kauai last January

Another view from my balcony at the Royal Hawaiian hotel - Waikiki beach in the morning with Diamond Head in the background. Notice how they are already people in the water and surfers already surfing.

Speaking of Van Morrison, I saw Van Morrison at a Bob Dylan concert I went to years ago. Dylan asked him to join him on stage for a couple of numbers. Van Morrison's daughter joined the stage as well.

I would love to see Bob Dylan and his son Jakob Dylan (The Wallflowers) play on stage together. Bob Dylan is cool and such an icon! Bob Dylan's music has been playing in my house since I was a baby, so when I saw him I flashed back to my early years like to about age 5. I think I was cognizant of his music at age 5. That was weird. My mother taught me how to sing "Blowing in the wind" when I was little.

I was going to do some yoga tonight, so I'll guess I'll put on my Police cds and listen to them in honour of their concert. Wikipedia is so bad! We looked up The Police Reunion tour and got the set list and checked out the stage. My friend K is upset that Sting's son's band is the warm up band. When she saw the Rolling Stones in concert (another free ticket), Van Morrison was the warm-up band.

I think it's rock and roll nepotism at its best. Why not be the warm-up band for your dad's band? When a dad owns a business, the offspring take over when dad retires. Who says the same thing can't happen in a pop band?

My friend K is going to the Police Reunion concert tonight. I am so jealous! A friend called saying her other friend cancelled and asked my friend K if she wanted to go. It's all last minute, as my friend K only heard about the free ticket today. She's always going to concerts at the last minute. That kind of stuff never happens to me.

We both have the Police boxed cd set, and my friend K is a HUGE Sting fan. She has seen Sting in concert by himself before, but not when he was with The Police. My Police connection is that they played at my college before I attended, so I thought the school would get a ton of good bands coming through and playing. NOT! Nobody famous or on the way to being famous played during my four years there. Heck, I saw more famous bands playing for free at Justin Herman Plaza (like Live, Radiohead, Kansas) than I ever did at my school. What a rip!

She said the tickets are in the nose bleed seats, like probably Mt. Davis, which swings and shakes when it's really windy. But who cares! It's The Police! I want to hear "Roxanne", "Don't stand so close to me","Tea in the Sahara", "King of Pain", and "Every little thing she does is magic" live.

It's a beautiful day in San Francisco, although still a little breezy downtown.

I went for a walk in Golden Gate after work yesterday and most of the roses were in full bloom. I love roses so much. I'm sure people think I'm a nut case because I go around and smell all the different roses to find out which ones have smells. Not all roses have a smell, but when you find one that does it is so heavenly. Whenever I sniff a scented rose, it feelsl like I am stealing the rose's soul somehow. Of course the analogy would work better if after I sniffed a rose, it instantly died and all the petals fell off. Fortunately that hasn't happened yet, and even a scented rose that's half dead still gives out a great scent.

There's also this giant purple sculpture of half a head in the park, past the museums and the rose garden. The title of the sculpture is called "The Dreamer" and it was supposedly installed in May and is supposed to stay up till November. Good luck I say, as the poor artist left a sign saying that if there is graffiti on the statue he has to paint it over and doesn't get reimbursed. The next time I go to the park, I'll take a picture. And no, my blackberry does not have a camera. It's a big deal to me having to deal with the keyboard and a camera would kill me.

Did I mention I loved having my Henry, The Earl of Blackbery with me in Hawaii? I loved being able to check my personal email accounts and to be able to send emails without my laptop. I was so bad, and didn't once go near a computer. If I had to look something up, I used my blackberry. I didn't even check work email which is a first for me, although I'm not sure I could have done it from a public computer.

I finally had the chance the download the pictures from the camera, and I saw that I accidentally erased some of the photos. I was starting to suspect that instead of copying pictures to the memory card, I was actually deleting them. And sure enought that's what I did. When I put the card in the new card reader I bought, there were no images. The pictures I was taking were already being stored in the memory card, and I didn't have to copy the pics to the card. I had no idea I would be taking over 170 pictures. This is what happens I have a device that I hardly ever use, and then decide to use for a critical event. It's a big screw-up and I'm the stupid one to blame. I'm so mad at myself right now.

What I really should have done was put the 1 gig memory card in the camera. Had I done that, I wouln't have had to erase any pictures. Oh well, live and learn. I had such good pictures of Mount Haleakala, and now they're gone. Most of pics I took of my relatives at my cousin's wedding are gone. Damn! That was so dumb! I should have listened to my intuition and put the 1 gig memory card in. There were other people taking pictures at my cousin's wedding so hopefully they will send their pictures to me.

I'm really upset about erasing the Mount Haleakala pictures. I had so many photos of the silversword plant, which is a plant that only grows in volcanic ash. It was so other-worldly looking.

I'm sitting on my balcony which overlooks Waikiki beach at the Royal Hawaiian hotel. It's the pink hotel on Waikiki strip that's been here forever. It's amazingly beautiful! I would love to honeymoon here. The bathroom towels are pink, including the bathrobe.
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On a break from touring in the car, and eating rice and shoyu ahi poke in the parking lot of Star Market in the Honokawai Marketplace. Oh yeah, I'm washing it down with passion orange guava (pog) juice and chocolate covered macadamia nuts.
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My tropical drink came with a backscratcher. How funny is that. It tastes like on on maitai. My first sunset in Maui in years. The weather here is so balmy.
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Everytime I fly off my home island of Kauai it makes me teary-eyed, like the first time I left for college and I knew I was not coming back for on on long time. I think I will always feel sad I'm not a local island girl anymore. Which is so weird because I've been wanting to get off the rock ever since I was little.
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It's very hot on Maui, much hotter than on Kauai where we were for the last couple of days. My friend thinks there are more bugs on Maui than on Kauai. I think they just sprayed more bug spray at the Sheraton on Kauai. Hawaii as I remember was always full of bugs.
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At the Kaanapali Beach Hotel on Maui drinking maitais and listening to some cheesey hotel band singing hawaiian cocktail songs. We're waiting for the hula show, which is supposed to start soon. I haven't been to Maui since I was on on kid and the place looks so unfamiliar.
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I'm watching "Heroes" and I love the show, but honestly it has gotten so boring! I hate Silar! These people with all their powers and they can't kill him, what gives! I feel like it's such boirng and stupid Hollywood tv melodrama. UGH! It's like watching a scary movie and the dummies go and check out the spooky place.

The show started out so intelligently written and I feel like it's devolving into some mushy bad tv show. Kill Silar now and get it over with! I know there has to be a villian but Silar is just stupidly evil. He's not even fun evil, like Hannibal Lechter, he's just plain stupid icky evil. How boring!

I was getting my nails done tonight, and I heard a woman say her boyfriend was coming back tonight from a nine month tour of duty in Afghanistan and she was getting her nails done because of him.

It's interesting to me that in my isolated world reality pops in once in awhile n the oddest of ways.

That woman was getting flowers painted on her big toe, so I decided to do the same thing. My big toes look so cute with the flowers painted on them. It looks so feminine and sweet. The painted flowers makes my feet look so cute!

Speaking of photos from my $100 camera .... From a recent trip to Point Lobos.

The things you learn when you thoroughly read your camera manual. So I think the reason my photos haven't come out so well, was because I had the resolution set too low. It's a $100 Vivicam 3750 camera and it was a gift, so I can't complain.

I've now set the resolution to 3.1 mega pixels, even though my web search tells me that 4.0 pixel pictures are now the standard, so hopefully my pics will come out better. I can't compete with my cousin's $500 camera, but then again I don't think I would spend that much money on a camera. And despite my camera's cheap price, I did win a prize in my department's photo contest. It's never about the camera, it's about what the photographer sees. But it is great to have a camera that can take good pictures.

I'm going to Hawaii in a couple of days, and I was trying to figure out what do for a camera. My cousin gave me a camera a couple of years ago, but the camera didn't hold many photos. I'm not bringing my laptop, and I was trying to figure out how I was going to download the photos. I was even contemplating bringing my old camera on the trip because I still have couple of film rolls left.

So I'm reading the digital camera manual and the camera can take mem0ry cards. I check out the memory card area, and I must have forgotten I had one, but I have an 128MB SD memory card. I can store photos on the memory card! DUH! I feel like such a camera dummy. I have no memory of putting the memory card in there, but it's there and if I take 3 pixel shots I think I can store around 200 photos. I'm going to have buy an SD card reader when I get home, but when I checked prices I found they weren't that expensive.

I like the digital camera because it's small and it was free, but I miss the resolution of my Fuji camera. I took some great photos with that camera. Some of the photos are sooo good, people have told me to frame them. But the Fuji camera is heavy and not good for travel. I think I still want to keep it and take photos, but for travel the digital camera is the best.

The Musings of The Right Honourable Henry, Earl Blackberry who lives in sinful digital bliss with the Elfgirl in the City

I'm living with a new woman now, who at least had the decency to purchase a brown leather home/case for me. I was getting rather tired of having my body mangled by the things she keeps in that Coach purse of hers. In god's honest truth, those nasty pens of hers were doing all they could to scratch and terrorize me. At least I now have a home that is befitting of someone of my station, and a protectant from the horrors of whatever environment I'm deposited in.

My former owner never quite understood me. He returned me as soon as he could, preferring that nasty old Palm Treo. He was such a plebe! My new living mate understands me perfectly and loves the fact that I deliver her personal email to her instantly; I know she loves me. She can hear me too, and was able to pick up that I wanted a name and that my name is Henry.

All in all, I think I've come into a very good situation. I sit in my leather home most of the time, where I can rest because it turns me off automatically. Of course, I still deliver mail but at least I do it in a restful state. I really wish however, she would download some better themes for me. They must have better themes on the RIM website. I deserve to have the very best theme there is because I'm worth it.

The one thing I'm dreading is the migration of the HanDbase database to my memory. The data has been sitting on a Palm Tungsten E. I detest the Palm Family! They are such pretenders to the smartphone/PDA kingdom. They promise instant email delivery, but EXCUSE ME! It's not real time. They deliver mail at 15 minute intervals, and in what dictionary does every 15 minutes mean "real time". Really, the nerve of those Palm press people. But I like my owner's expression of "whatever". Whatever is right. She picked me and not a Palm to be her companion.

My stay so far with the Elfgirl in the City has been delightful! And she's even letting me post on her blog so I can have a voice out there in cyberspace. She has been most kind! I am looking forward to all of our adventures together.

An interesting read on french history and the new president they elected.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/federa.../?id=110010049

Can Sarkozy Save France?

A reform-minded politician is the next president. Now what?

BY MICHEL GURFINKEL, Wednesday, May 9, 2007

French elections can be as entertaining as Russian roulette. Twelve years ago, in early 1995, it was taken for granted that Edouard Balladur, a conservative prime minister, would succeed the outgoing Socialist president François Mitterrand without further ado. The left was then a spent force. So, evidently, was Jacques Chirac, another conservative Gaullist and a former prime minister (and unsuccessful contender for the presidency). But then a satiric TV show, "Les Guignols de l'Info" ("The News Puppets"), started featuring Chirac as a French-style Forrest Gump who would answer questions on any topic, political or economic, with the phrase "Eat apples." In April 1995, Jacques "Apple" Chirac won out over both Mr. Balladur and the socialist candidate Lionel Jospin.

Two years later, Mr. Chirac called a new parliamentary election, not in order to solve a crisis between the executive and the legislature but simply to suit his political convenience. This, though allowed under the constitution, had never been done before, and the public did not like it. His parliamentary majority was ousted and replaced by the socialists. Mr. Jospin now became prime minister and remained in place for five years.

The next presidential election, in 2002, was even more sensational. Bidding for a second seven-year term, Mr. Chirac was challenged again by Jospin, who this time looked sure to win. But then France's two-ballot system came into play. In the first round, a plethora of left-wing candidates pulled so many votes away from Mr. Jospin that he was reduced to the third position, behind Mr. Chirac and the far-right agitator Jean-Marie Le Pen, and was ejected from the race. On the second ballot, some 80% of the voters backed Mr. Chirac over Mr. Le Pen. Mr. Chirac was foolish enough to believe they had elected him.

And now we have the elections of 2007. First the presidential election, with its first ballot on April 22 followed by a runoff between the two top vote-getters this past Sunday, in which the maverick conservative Nicolas Sarkozy beat Socialist Royal; then the National Assembly elections in June.

Two years ago, everyone would have sworn that the presidential winner would be Mr. Sarkozy, France's minister of the interior. Then his fortunes declined sharply, while those of another star--and another maverick--were rising: Ms. Royal, governor of Poitou-Charentes in western France. Early this year, Mr. Sarkozy made a strong comeback, and Ms. Royal fell from grace. At that point a third candidate, Fransois Bayrou, a nice, decent, articulate, overambitious centrist, unexpectedly entered the picture, effectively challenging both Ms. Royal and Mr. Sarkozy. Complicating matters still further was the perennial candidacy of Ms. Le Pen.

Now that Mr. Sarkozy has won, what does it all mean? Common wisdom--in America at least--is that the French are and will always remain an utterly fickle people, as individuals and as a nation. This may be true--up to a point. My own belief is that the vagaries of the French vote tell us a great deal about the profound uncertainties the country is now facing.

Books about "national decline" and the "growing national crisis" have been best sellers in France for at least the past four years. The first and still the most trenchant was "La France qui tombe" ("Falling France," 2003), by Nicolas Baverez, a lawyer and a graduate of the immensely prestigious Ecole nationale d'administration (National School of Public Administration, or ENA). The same year saw the publication of "Le Grand Gaspillage" ("The Great Waste") by the distinguished Sorbonne historian Jacques Marseille, followed by the same author's "La Guerre des Deux France" ("The War of the Two Frances," 2004) and more recently "Les Bons Chiffres pour ne pas voter nul en 2007" ("The Right Figures for a Sensible Vote in 2007").

Both Messrs. Baverez and Marseille can be described as moderately conservative free-marketeers; both write columns for Le Point, the right-of-center weekly of news and opinion. Two other declinists come from a very different background. Michel Godet, a professor of industrial economy, was originally close to the Christian left but over time developed a robust critique of French industrial and social policy. His 2003 book "Le Choc de 2006" ("The Shock of 2006") pointed to the exorbitant price the country was paying for its extensive welfare state, a thesis elaborated this year in "Le Courage du bon sens" ("The Courage of Common Sense"). Claude Allègre, a geologist of repute, served as a minister in Mr. Jospin's government, where he tried and failed to reform the French educational system. Subsequently he became one of the country's best columnists, first at L'Express, the left-of-center weekly, and then at Le Point.

A fifth should be mentioned: Louis Chauvel, a young sociologist at the Institut de sciences politiques de Paris (Paris Institute for Political Science, or "SciencesPo," as everybody calls it), who has produced a short, dry assessment of the collapse of the French middle class, "Les Classes Moyennes à la dérive" ("The Middle Class Adrift"). Like Messrs. Godet and Allègre, Mr. Chauvel was seen initially as a man of the left, and is still supposed to be close to that orientation--which makes his indictment all the more notable.

To understand where these various authors are coming from, it helps to bear in mind the bedrock fact that France is one of the founding nations of Europe--that is to say, one of its oldest nation-states. Since the Great Revolution of 1789, since Napoleon, it has been a modern, secular society. In the 19th and 20th centuries it grew into a world leader in science, technology, finance, culture, art and literature. It conquered and then emancipated a large colonial empire. And it took a decisive role in the formation of what is set to become a 21st-century superpower, the European Union.

Very few countries can lay claim to such a glorious destiny, or to a more stable national identity. To be endowed with a special destiny and identity is, in itself, a political blessing. But what if that glory is challenged, and the national identity eroding? What if the actual stuff France is made of--its shared culture, its assurance of a common heritage--is disintegrating?

It has happened before. The early decades of the 20th century were a time when France, suddenly mired in a demographic and economic slowdown, seemed to hover between national pride and national despair. This culminated in the full-fledged disaster of 1940, when France was crushed by Germany and subjected to nationwide occupation. Fortunately, Germany was crushed in turn by the Anglo-Saxon powers and Soviet Russia, and France was allowed to recover. And so it did, with a vengeance. >From the 1950s through the 1970s, there was much talk in the world of a Japanese miracle, a German miracle, even an Italian miracle. France was a fourth and no less impressive miracle. National independence and national influence were restored, demographics improved, the economy boomed once more. France felt like France again.

Despite warning signs, like the simultaneous rise of Mr. Le Pen's National Front on the far right and of various Trotskyite and other radical groups on the far left, this newfound optimism lasted for two more decades. Since the mid-1990s, however, it has become untenable. Drawing from the works of our four or five whistleblowers and others, we can reliably paint the following portrait of France today.

Demographic Upheaval

Before the 1789 revolution and the Napoleonic wars, France, a very rich agricultural country, was the most populous state in Europe, with 27 million inhabitants. Right after the defeat at Waterloo, the birthrate started to decline, and by the last third of the 19th century had fallen close to zero. From 1800 to 1900, the French population increased by only 30%, whereas all other European nations experienced a growth rate ranging from 100% to 300% or even 400%. (Although differing on the reasons, most present-day demographers believe that France was one or two generations "ahead" of a cyclical population bust that ultimately affected the entire Western world.)

France was dwarfed by its neighbors--a leading factor in its defeat at the hands of Germany in 1870 and its desperate quest thereafter for anti-German alliances with Russia, with England, with the United States, with the small Central and Eastern European States, with anyone. Hence, too, its second and more humiliating defeat in 1940.

After 1945, the country made a startling demographic comeback. This could be attributed in part to another cyclical phenomenon known as the postwar baby boom--whereby, after the carnage of World War II, all combatant nations started to produce an average of three to four children per family. In France, additional factors were also at play, including immigration from other European countries or from overseas colonies. All in all, the French population grew by 25% in the 15 years between 1945 and 1960, leading Michel Debré, General de Gaulle's first prime minister, to draw up plans for a "100-million-person France" by the year 2000.

It did not materialize. By the late 1960s, France had swung, just like all other largely Caucasian nations, from baby boom to an even more drastic baby bust. The overall birthrate fell below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. Thanks to the generous natalist incentives of the French welfare state, and to the much higher degree of immigration from overseas countries with very high birthrates, the decline was not as pronounced as in other European countries; nevertheless, by 2007 France's population stood at only 63 million. According to the U.N., it is likely to be no higher than that in 2050.

True, most other European populations are also forecast to decline sharply; by these standards, stasis may sound like good news. But the French population as a whole is aging: in 2005, almost one-fourth of the population was above 60, while citizens between the ages of 20 and 59--i.e., those whose labor supports the rest of the population, either directly or indirectly--amounted to just 50%. Then, too, immigration, which is sustaining the French population, is at the same time gradually displacing the native French community. But that brings us to the next element of the picture.

Immigration Shock

Six million legal immigrants, 90% of them from the Islamic lands of the southern Mediterranean or from sub-Saharan Africa, have entered France over the past 30 years. The rate of entry is accelerating, and so is the rate of naturalization: 150,000 new citizens yearly since 1999. For its part, illegal immigration seems to be keeping pace--at a rate, according to some sources, of 100,000 to 200,000 every year. Most of these illegals stay, and are eventually granted immigrant rights. Moreover, any child born on French soil, whether of French or immigrant or illegal alien parents, is given French citizenship.

The immigrant and postimmigrant community is estimated today at more than 15 million. It is much younger than the native French population, and it tends to have a much higher birthrate. In all likelihood, then, its share of the population will rise dramatically over the next two decades, to the point where the 63 million people forecast for France in 2050 may inhabit a southern-Mediterranean, African, Islamic country that also happens to include native French enclaves. The trend is magnified still further by the growing sense of identification between the immigrant community and the five million nonwhite French natives living either in the overseas "departments" of the West Indies and Réunion Island or in France proper, many of whom are also converting to Islam.

The 2002 presidential election was the first in which immigrants and postimmigrants showed their muscle: when the anti-immigrant Mr. Le Pen was defeated by Mr. Chirac in the second round, thousands celebrated in France's major cities while waving the flags of their countries of origin, especially Algeria and Morocco. This year's election campaign highlighted even more dramatic changes. Every single political party, including that of Mr. Le Pen, wooed immigrant and postimmigrant voters, now a sizable chunk of the electorate. All the candidates surrounded themselves with immigrant aides, and in televised meetings of candidates with panels of ordinary citizens, immigrants, postimmigrants, and nonwhite native French were routinely overrepresented. Political leaders are quite candid about the leverage these "neo-French" will exert, and are entitled to exert, on the nation's future.

Social Chaos

Classic French society--the one that lasted from the revolution to the end of the 20th century, that is on display in the pages of the great French novelists, and that features in the work of the great film-makers from Renoir to Truffaut, from Chabrol to Sautet--was based first and foremost on strong nuclear families. As designed by Napoleon's civil code, divorce was allowed in principle but very difficult to obtain in practice; legitimate children, although strictly equal among themselves, were favored over natural ones; fathers wielded greater authority than mothers.

French society rested also on a pervasive but highly respected state apparatus that included the military forces and the civil service as well as the school system, the universities, and a whole array of state-run industries and workshops; on the franc, a gold-related currency; on special arrangements in religious matters according to which a secular government and a large freethinking minority coexisted with a nominally Catholic majority and other faiths; on a very substantial class of small farmers, and an even more substantial urban working class with a distinct socialist or communist subculture; on the predominance of Paris, the "city of lights"; and finally on a broad and vitally important middle class, comprising (in the words of Louis Chauvel) "senior civil servants, academics, engineers, entrepreneurs and tradesmen, executives and bureaucrats, craftsmen and shopkeepers," all sharing a common education and a common culture and committed to the maintenance of the national heritage.

Naturally, there were constant changes and adjustments; but these, until recently, were brought about in a piecemeal and cosmetic fashion. While the modern French polity was proverbially unstable--14 constitutions, three royal dynasties, five republics, and some 50 revolutionary crises from the storming of the Bastille in 1789 to the suburban riots of 2005--French society itself was remarkably stable. Just to give one stunning example: the baccalauréat, the test that monitors access to French universities, and the concours des Grandes Ecoles, the highly selective exams by which a slim elite is filtered into the top superuniversities, were suspended only once, during the German conquest of France in June 1940. Four years later, they were conducted as usual amid the no less feverish liberation of the country by the Allies.

All that is now gone.

The main contributing factor is probably the disintegration of the family. The divorce rate has grown from 12% in 1970 to almost 40% in 2005; 20% of all French couples are unwed; one-third of all mothers are living alone; 40% of all children are born to unmarried parents. Indeed, the "recombined family" has become the French sociological and ethical norm, the result of successive unions and separations in which children wander from home to home under arrangements of "shared parental authority" and must learn to get along with a host of similarly forlorn children produced by the companions of their biological parents. In order to keep up with the trend, the civil code itself has been revised--thus accelerating the process. Full equality has been introduced between fathers and mothers, between legitimate and natural children, between married and unmarried couples; although same-sex marriages are still not legal, same-sex civil unions are.

A series of other, analogous disruptions has affected every aspect of the French way of life. While the state has grown inordinately, most of its rule-making functions have all but disappeared. Everybody knows that the ultimate seat of power, in terms of laws and regulations as well as in terms of judicial recourse, is now the EU rather than the French Republic, the European Parliament and the European Commission rather than the French Parliament and the French government. State schools, once excellent, have been crippled by the combined effects of the feminization of the teacher corps and immigration. In most urban areas, school premises have been effectively consigned to teenage thugs who make a point of constantly challenging and humiliating female teachers and principals. State universities, once outstanding, have steadily deteriorated since 1968, and the superuniversities or Grandes Ecoles have faced fierce competition in the global learning market. (According to a March 2007 report, not a single French academic institution is listed among the world's 100 best universities.) Since the abolition of the draft in 1995, the state's armed might has been reduced to a largely symbolic nuclear capacity and a rather small rapid-deployment force for peacekeeping missions only. And the franc has been replaced by the euro.

As far as religion is concerned, the Catholic Church collapsed in the late 1960s and has never recovered: according to one recent poll, only 51% of the French own to being Catholic, and only 17% of these observe Catholic rituals. Evangelical Protestants are trying to fill the Christian void--there may now be twice as many evangelicals as mainstream Protestants--and the Catholic Church itself, or at least the laity, is attempting to fight back, so far without discernible success. As for the French secular religions (the freethinkers, the so-called humanistic schools of thought, the old socialist and communist subcultures), these are faring even worse.

Agriculture, industrialized and now EU-sponsored, still plays a sizable role in the French economy, but farmers have virtually vanished as a class (constituting only 3% of the working population), and whole sections of the countryside have reverted to fallow land and untended forests. The industrial working class is shrinking as well: from 38.5% of all jobs in 1974 to about 20% in 2005. Workers are deserting both the unions and the left-wing political parties. Thanks to the depredations of urban-renewal projects, historic Paris has been emptied of its traditional working- and middle-class population and turned into a yuppie theme park. Much of its unique vibrancy is gone, and other French cities have so far not been able to replace it or to compete with the so-called Eurocities of London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Zurich, Milan, Barcelona.

The French middle class, Mr. Chauvel sums up, is haunted by "a sense of impending doom." Salaries have not kept pace since the 1980s; meritocracy no longer seems to work as a vehicle of social promotion; unemployment is climbing, devastating the lives of people already deprived of a functioning family; property has become unaffordable unless one inherits; prospects of a secure retirement grow dimmer every year. The parents of today's middle class, Mr. Chauvel writes, "dramatically improved their own standards of living," but the children "know they will not enjoy a similar fate. In fact they fear they will be downgraded to an impoverished condition.

"Finally, as if all this were not bad enough, there is crime. Until the 1960s, France was largely a safe country: people like my parents would slip their keys under the doormat or just leave the door unlocked. It is now an extremely unsafe country, rife with violent assault, arson, armed robbery and murder, often savage. According to the Institute of National Statistics, the overall crime rate--the ratio of reported criminal activity to population--grew from 12% in 1960, to over 60% in 1980, to about 70% in 2000. The rise may be related to all sorts of circumstances, including economic ones. But it is incontrovertibly related to immigration. According to police sources, over 60% of the criminals and over 90% of the crime bosses operating on French soil are either foreigners, immigrants or the children of immigrants.

Bankruptcy

France is still indisputably one of the richest and most economically successful countries in the world. It has a gross domestic product of $2.2 trillion. Its per capita national income is above $30,000. In other words, it is in the same league as Japan and Germany, two much more populous countries.

Present French wealth rests in part on traditional occupations like agriculture, tourism and fashion; in the past 30 years, these have turned into high-value-added activities. It is also rooted in traditional industries and services (think of Airbus in aviation, Carrefour in mass distribution, Accor in the hotel business, Total-Elf in oil, Renault and Peugeot in the car industry, international banks like Société Générale and BNP-Paribas) as well as in high-technology fields (nuclear energy, telecom, pharmaceuticals). But more disquieting developments have been surfacing over the past two decades.

Whereas most big French companies have been profitable for years, the French GDP has been growing very slowly or not at all. What this means is that French industry and services derive the bulk of their revenue from activities overseas rather than from the domestic economy. In fact, some companies have already drawn the logical conclusion and moved out: a flagship French company like Renault is now registered in the Netherlands.

As for those remaining at home, they are not able to provide enough jobs for the present working population of approximately 30 million. And so about 9% of French residents are unemployed--roughly twice the rate in Britain, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, Japan or the United States. Among able-bodied persons under 24, the unemployment rate jumps to 22%. To top it off, over 50% of today's jobs are thought to be more "virtual" than "actual," i.e., they fail the test of rational business management. According to an index compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average number of hours "effectively" devoted to work is only 617 yearly for France, as against 801 in Britain and 865 in the United States.

How do the French cope with this? Simple: They rely on an ever-expanding welfare state that takes care of the unemployed, the poor who are beyond any prospect of a viable job, the uneconomical state-run companies, and the supernumerary petty civil servants or "public-convenience" workers. And this does not count the various handouts and incentives, usually in the form of tax rebates, bestowed by the government on companies that agree not to shut down and move elsewhere.

This aspect of the system started in 1936 with the introduction of paid holidays and official recognition of the role of trade unions. It became firmly entrenched in 1945 with the creation of Securité Sociale, an extensive program of health, retirement and family benefits. More social programs were to come in the 1950s, including large-scale public-housing works.

A guaranteed minimum wage was introduced in 1950, to be replaced in 1968 by a constantly upgraded "guaranteed-growth minimum wage." Working hours were gradually reduced, either by the constant expansion of paid vacation time (from two weeks in 1936 to five weeks in 1982) or by the downsizing of the work week to 35 from 40 hours. Retirement was made compulsory at age 65, in some cases much earlier. "Preretirement," that is, early retirement with full benefits, became a usual practice in the 1970s. Dismissals were made subject to bureaucratic review, and were frequently compensated by special benefits. Both the civil service and the state-run companies were supposed to create jobs for jobs' sake.

The state also covers education. Elementary schools and high school have been free since the days of the Third Republic; attempts in the 1960s to raise tuition fees for colleges to a meaningful level failed abjectly, as did efforts to introduce more competitive selection for college admission.

The process reached its apex in the 1982 Revenu minimum d'insertion ("minimum social-integration income")--which provides a state income to the long-term unemployed, either French or alien--and the 1999 Couverture medicale universelle ("universal medical coverage"), which gives the same group free access to the (already subsidized and low-cost) health service. All in all, the state budget now eats up 54% of the nation's GDP, while taxation absorbs 44% of real income.

As Jacques Marseille points out in "Les Bons Chiffres," France is becoming a dual country, in which the majority lives on its "guaranteed-growth minimum wage" and a not-so-fortunate minority pays the "tax on fortune." Even so, the state cannot make ends meet and has been borrowing extensively. The public debt grew from the present-day equivalent of 213 billion euros in 1978 to 454 billion in 1990. It then jumped to EU740 billion in 1995, and grew again to EU.2 trillion by the end of last year.

But what is called public debt in France is less than half of what would be listed under that heading in countries like the United States or Canada. The category does not include the retirement funds for the civil service (between EU800 billion and EU trillion), the national-health-service deficit, or various private debts (like that of Credit Lyonnais) taken over by the state. In fact, the true public debt amounts to something like EU2.7 trillion, or 130% of GDP. Mr. Marseille warns that it may double over the next 15 years. This is on the scale of the debt of the Ottoman empire in the late 19th century.

Jacques Chirac was the worst or at any rate the least effective president in the history of the Fifth Republic, the regime founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958. It was in his two terms--1995 to 2002 and 2002 to 2007--that the French crisis turned into a catastrophe.

In fairness, one must acknowledge that Mr. Chirac realized at the outset that things were deteriorating, and instructed his first prime minister, Alain Jupp, to implement several key reforms. Unfortunately, neither he nor Mr. Jupp managed to mobilize public support for the effort, or for that matter to focus on the appropriate measures. Less than a year after his election, protracted strikes and demonstrations forced him to withdraw most of his reform bills. He would never recover, and never again try in earnest to salvage the country.

If Mr. Chirac presided over a "falling France," the three main contenders in this year's presidential race were all born, so to speak, after the fall. They are younger than Mr. Chirac, by about two decades--Mr. Bayrou is 55, Royal 53, Sarkozy 52--and their colorful personal and political narratives, each in its own way, fit with the present chaotic situation. None of them would have been a feasible candidate in previous elections. But that is not to say that any of them, if elected, could be expected to stop or easily reverse France's downward curve.

Viewed against the grim backdrop of France's decline, indeed, this year's election campaign seems almost irrelevant. For that decline is related not so much to the policies of this or that national leader, past, present or prospective, as to the essential workings of the country's political system ever since the inception of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

France is nominally a democratic republic, with a popularly elected president, a bicameral Parliament (where most power lies with the lower chamber, the National Assembly), 22 regional governments and about 40,000 local councils, a constitutional court, and a more or less independent judiciary. It adheres to the original French bill of rights, issued in 1789, and other bills or declarations including the 1948 U.N. Charter of Human Rights and the two European charters of rights, the first issued by the Council of Europe in 1950 and the second promulgated by the European Community in 2000.

The reality is different. There are strange, outlandish, Pinochet-like authoritarian elements in the 1958 constitution and in the way that constitution is interpreted. The president can bypass the regular lawmaking procedures and call a referendum on any legislation or even on any constitutional change he favors. Under Article 16, he can declare a state of emergency and rule as a near-dictator for a period of months. "Domaine réservé"--"private domain"--a concept that appears nowhere in the written constitution but is nevertheless part of it, gives him almost exclusive control in matters pertaining to national defense, foreign affairs and state security. Even the right to pass a bill, that hallmark of modern democracy, has been largely withdrawn from Parliament, since government-initiated bills, dubbed "projects," have priority over parliamentary bills, known merely as "proposals.

"True enough, there are countervailing powers, most of them unintended by the redactors of the constitution. Referendums can be lost. The executive branch is weakened by latent competition between the president and the prime minister: the former may appoint the latter but may not dismiss him. Even when both belong to the same party, conflicts are frequent, and such conflict can lead to a state of dual authority (a k a "cohabitation"). France then has to resort to ridiculous measures like sending both its head of state and its head of government to international venues like the European Council or meetings of the G-7 and G-8.

But what really undermines France as a democracy is the constitution behind the constitution: that is, the role played by the nonelected state bureaucracy. As Mr. Chauvel puts it:
What used to be said of Prussia--other states have armies, but Prussia is an army that owns a state--applies to France today, with a slight difference. Other countries may have a state bureaucracy, but France is a state bureaucracy that owns a country.

Statism in France is hardly a new issue. Tocqueville devoted a book, "The Old Regime and the Revolution," to the subject. He contended that the 1789 revolution, for all its upheavals and radicalism, had ended by reinforcing rather than destroying the monarchical nature of the French state; everything still revolved around the central power and its hierarchically organized agencies. And bureaucratic statism was to play an even more pervasive role in the late 19th and especially in the 20th century.

In 1940, the Vichy regime set up some 60 "leadership schools." After the liberation of France, one of them, located in the southern Alps, became the model for the Ecole nationale d'administration, founded in 1945 by de Gaulle. Better known by its initials--ENA--the new institution was the epitome of meritocracy. Entry was subject to a competitive examination and in practice highly restricted. The curriculum was very broad: it included economics and management as well as public or administrative law. ENA students traveled a great deal, both in France and elsewhere. What was deemed essential, however, was the school's spirit: a fierce resolve to make the country great again, and a feeling that ENA graduates were not so much civil servants as the nation's mentors and guardians.

It took the ENA a decade to mature from a mere project into a full-fledged operation. By the time its graduates, soon renamed "enarchs," became numerous enough to fill up most senior positions in public administration, France seemed mired in disaster again. The Fourth Republic was a weak all-parliamentary regime, riddled with ministerial chaos and corruption and reeling from defeat in Indochina and the outbreak of war in Algeria. On the other hand, the "French miracle" was under way, thanks to developments like the baby boom, postwar economic growth, the Marshall Plan and European integration. The question was whether France could seize the moment.

De Gaulle saw to it. Living in apparent seclusion since the early 1950s at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, a hamlet in rural eastern France, he still had many loyal--even fanatical--supporters. In 1958, when part of the French military rebelled in Algeria, a frightened political class called on the old general to "rescue the republic." He obliged, but in doing so insisted on remodeling the constitution in his own way and on having it approved by referendum. The Fifth Republic was born, de Gaulle was elected president, and he stayed in charge for 10 years.

The 1958 constitution was drafted by Michel Debré, a fervent Gaullist who had also been the main architect of the ENA. No French constitution since the Second Empire so drastically enhanced the executive branch or downgraded the legislature. Even more pertinent, however, was its preferential treatment of civil servants and enarchs over elected politicians. In a complete break with the Westminster model, members of parliament had to resign before joining the executive, but administrators could be elected to parliament or be appointed as cabinet ministers without resigning from the civil service. Moreover, the moment they quit politics, they were allowed to resume their former jobs, with full social benefits.

The logic of "enarchization" was overwhelming. It has been estimated that since the 1970s, 70% of all members of Parliament have been civil servants of some sort, including university professors--almost all universities are state-run--and high-school teachers. When it comes to cabinet members, almost 90% are enarchs. Out of 17 prime ministers since 1958, six have been enarchs and another nine have been civil servants or former civil servants, former military men, or former employees of state-run companies. Among presidents, only one, Mitterrand, was a private person; the other four were essentially state servants, and two of them, Messrs. Giscard d'Estaing and Chirac, were enarchs.

What gave the civil servants even more absolute power was their control of the economy. Ever since 1936, many large companies had been gradually nationalized, from banks and insurance companies to railways and airlines, from mining companies to the steel industry, from radio, TV and media agencies to aviation and cars. The post-1958 Fifth Republic went much farther, embarking on large-scale industrial schemes that blurred most distinctions between state-run and private companies. The latter became so dependent on government contracts as to behave like de facto divisions of the former. Some government contracts were also tailored to help favored private companies against their competitors. As enarchs managed the state sector, other enarchs--or the same ones--would be "lent" to private companies in a practice known as pantouflage ("slippering").

One need not be familiar with Friedrich Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" to surmise that such comprehensive sway over a country will gradually become counterproductive, and worse. The more absolute their power, the more the enarchs have tended to run France in their own interest, while assuaging the citizenry with bribes of all sorts. One such bribe, rhetorical but no less effective for that, has taken the form of nationalistic posturing, usually directed against the United States; a favorite slogan of the enarchs is that France's mission is to uphold and protect a superior continental civilization based on the welfare state against the Anglo-Saxon model of "predatory" free-market capitalism. Structural problems--an aging population, swelling immigration, the public debt--have been ignored.

There was some resistance to the enarchic takeover, to be sure, mostly in the form of social unrest among those who were hit the hardest. There was the so-called student revolution of 1968, which rocked the Fifth Republic for a few weeks and diminished de Gaulle's personal standing, and there was a brief romance with left-wing terrorism in the early 1970s. By and large, though, statism prevailed. One reason was that it seemed to be working, and indeed to have fulfilled its primary mission of saving France. Then there were the emollient effects of the ever-expanding welfare state. Finally, under the Socialist François Mitterrand, just about every single elite or quasi-elite body in the country, including the Communists and the intellectuals, was brought into--or bought into--the system. In the ensuing decades, the only real challenge has been European integration, especially in the form of "single-market" provisions that have brought more transparency, competitiveness, and fluidity into European economic life.

So what chance, really, is there for a change in 2007? Interestingly enough, three of the four presidential front-runners as of the end of March--Messrs. Sarkozy, Bayrou, and Le Pen--were not enarchs. And Ms. Royal, though an enarch, seemed to have fallen out of touch with that milieu. Of the four, Mr. Sarkozy, openly pro-American and a (cautious) critic of the welfare state, was probably the only candidate to have given serious thought to France's necrotic condition, hinting at various constitutional reforms--from the abolition of the prime minister's office to a stronger parliament and stronger parliamentary commissions, not to mention progressive cuts in the civil service--that would bring the republic closer to the American political model. Not to be outdone by Mr. Sarkozy, Mr. Bayrou announced in early April that, if elected, he would abolish the ENA altogether.

But now that a reform-minded president has been elected, who will assist him in carrying out his declared program, when enarchs and other state servants are all there is?

Mr. Gurfinkiel is the president of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in Paris.

My blackberry wanted a name, and the name Henry came to me.

My blackberry wanted to be called - Henry, Lord Blackberry.

But later this evening, he decided he wanted "The Right Honourable" as an honourific so I had to change his name.

My blackberry's name is now "The Right Honourable Henry, Earl Blackberry".

And my blackberry's name is Henry and never Harry. Every time I hear the name Harry I think of that book I loved as a kid "Harry the Dirty Dog".

Did I mention I named my car. My german car's name is Siegfried or "Sieggie" for short.

I am blogging from my blackberry to test it out. I just voted for Blake for American idol just because he's the only boy, and I don't want an all-girl show.
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless

Wow, I haven't blogged in about a month.

I had the worst case of really bad allergies up until three weeks ago. Nothing I tried work. Finally, I had an aryuvedic treatment for my nose which involves oil going up your nasal passages. Gross as heck, but in a week my allergies cleared up.

I saw "Grindhouse" and loved it! I am going to buy the dvd when it comes out.

What else? I went up Carmel Valley to a seminar at Quail Lodge in a house hosted by someone who lives there. Her living room overlooked a lake on the golf course, but then you could see the golfers walk by. How weird! Doris Day lives in Carmel Valley above the golf course, but the woman who lives there swears she's never seen her.

I messed up my knee because I decided I wanted to look cute and walk around in my brown suede spikey heeled boots. They're not that high at 1.5 inches, but the spikiness threw my gait off and my knee hurt so bad I couldn't walk up or down the stairs without feeling pain.

I had a myofascial treatment on Thursday and acupuncture on Saturday, and the pain went away. But it's still not a 100%, so I am getting another myofascial this week. Myofascial treatment is amazing, and if you can find someone who knows what they're doing they can work miracles on your body's aches and pains.

I decided to upgrade my phone and try a Blackberry. From the time I turned it on, I could see how it can become addictive and why people started calling it "crackberry". I bought a refurbished one because I wasn't sure if I wanted to be that connected, and I'm going to see how it goes.

Of course, just when I get into Blackberries, RIM decides to announce a new one called the "curve". If I end up liking my blackberry, whom I've name Henry, then I'll probably get the new one in a few months. The blackberry ISP service is cheaper than the other internet services, and I don't know Microsoft has quite managed the "push to pda" thing like RIM.

I just finished my taxes. I got a very small refund last year. I should have renewed my business license, but I didn't. You really get some great tax breaks when you have your own business. Oh well.

I should be glad I'm even getting a refund I guess. I claim 2 on w2 form, and I still end up with a refund. But then again, I have about $1400 in charitable contributions every year. That new donation law really sucks! I guess the charities got tired of getting torn clothing. If I didn't have the charitable deductions, I'm sure I'd owe money on my taxes instead of getting a refund.

I totally hate my desktop! It is so slow. I use my laptop all the time, but I just can't get used to the idea of not having a desktop. That would be so strange. I could just buy a new desktop, but I'm always thinking why bother when I only use my laptop.

My desktop computer is still updating. This is what happens when you don't turn your computer on in months; you spend the whole night having to do all the updates. It is such a drag!

Wow, it's been over a month since I last posted. I've wanted to post but then forgot.

Not much going on really.

I saw the movie "300" and loved it. I am dying to see "Grindhouse" and "Blades of Glory".

On Easter I went to the De Young museum to see the Vivienne Westwood exhibit, and then the made the woman manning the cashier put on the Adam Ant cd so I could hear Antmusic.

I think the beginning of the exhibit would have been so much better if they were playing early 80's english punk music.

I am blogging from my desktop computer which I have not turned on in months, but have to use now to do my taxes. I still have not done my taxes. Can you believe that? I am so bad! I usually have them done by February and now it's April 10 and I still haven't done them.

I got sucked into watching "American Idol" again. A good friend is watching and kept asking me what I thought, so I had to tune in. Hate that!

I'm so glad that freak Antonella got voted off the show. I could not stand that woman mouthing off to Simon Cowell like that. The woman's voice compared to the other strong singers on the show was bad, and she sang with no heart. I think she only lasted this long is because someone put semi-nekkid pictures of her on the internet. I'm sure she put them up herself.

Heard she got offered half a million to be the spokeperson for a porno company. She'll probably take it.

In the last two weeks, there have been two earthquakes here. One just in the last half hour. At least I was at home for this one. It was interesting to see my floor lamp swinging from side to side. The first one happened at work and it was so scary because I think the buildng is built on rollers, and when the earthquake happened I felt my body swing back and forth.

My office buildng will definitely move alot if I'm at work and it's a big one. I have to remember to dive under my desk in case stuff starts falling down.

My boss nominated me for this award at work called a "Spot Bonus Award" for these webpages I designed and wrote for the programs that are worked on by me and my group. I am a web page author! The nomination has to be reviewed by a committee and it was finally approved this week.

So she gave the highest award which was $500 and when I received the check today it was so tiny! Taxes took out 42% of it! Talk about a bummer!

Okay, I guess I need to comment on the scandals regarding SF Mayor Gavin Newsome. Honestly, I don't care who the man is sleeping with. It's like his business. Someone at work said she knows someone who worked at City Hall and that people on Newsome's staff knew abou the affaire as it was going on, and were amazed that the husband didn't know. So what I find interesting is that a Newsome staffer didn't leak the news of the affaire then. Does this mean his staff is that loyal? I don't know. But because it was such public knowledge within City Hall as it was happening, I can't help but wonder why did the news leak now? Was it to cover something else up?

And the media in SF could not talk about anything else and I'm like who the hell cares! I don't. It just made me lose even more respect for the half a horse town media out here. Whatever! I so want to leave San Francisco. The politics disgust me so much! It's so darned hypocritical.

San Francisco, which is supposed to be most liberal city in the world, is having a cow because its mayor had an affaire. How hypocritical is that? The jerk supervisor from my ex-district even called for his resignation. UGH! That made me so ill!

I can't even watch or hear Cokie Robert to this day because of her stupid comments about Bubba Willie's affaire with Monica. I swear to God she sounded more like a woman scorned than a journalist. And I'm like "Honey, he's not your husband, get over it!"

In January I went to see the Anselm Kiefer exhibit at SFMOMA. I first saw his work when I took Modern Art history, so I was interested in seeing his work close up. His symbolism is so very interesting. Quaternity is my favorite piece. Check it exhibit page out - Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth.

I've been on a movie binge lately, trying to see a bunch of movies before the Oscars.

The Departed -great movie! I loved the dialogue. It was so realistic and I thought the writer was on par with Quentin Tarantino or David Mamet. I was so jealous of the writing and the story, until I found out that the story was taken from a Hong Kong movie called "Internal Affairs". I'm getting the movie from Netflix so I can what the differences are. Jack Nicholson was over the top. Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin were total scene stealers. I saw the movie in a half full SF theatre and people laughed at all the "homo" jokes. It's interesting how you can have those kind of jokes in a Scorcese movie and nobody says anything. Whatever. This movie is going on my top movie list. Somehow this movie reminded me of "LA Confidential", which is a huge fave of mine, and I wish I could figure out why.

Letters from Iwo Jima - loved this movie alot, but thought it was way too long. I looked at my watch a couple of times, which is not good. Other than the length it was quite good. It made me want to read the book the movie was based on because I think the book will be quite interesting.

Pan's Labrynth - After all the hype that this movie got, I think I was a little let down when I finally saw it. I really wanted to see more of the weird fairy tale stuff. My friend really loved it, but I'm thinking maybe I didn't really understand it. I don't know. My friend is sure I didn't get the movie. She's probably right.

The Queen - loved it because it was about an event I esperienced. Di's death was such a world event. I thought Helen Mirren was fab! She really did an amazing job of turning herself into a living famous figure.

Dream Girls - I wish I'd seen the original broadway play, so I could compare the movie to the stageplay. After Jennifer Husdon's solo, people clapped. She really did outclass Beyonce in the movie, but I don't know if that's because that part wasn't very well-written. I also saw the other woman who played Eddie Murphy's girlfriend in a bunch of plays at ACT, so it was nice to see her in a big movie.

Charlotte's Web - I had to see it, but I wasn't sure about Julia Roberts as the voice of Charlotte. All the other voices were just right. Not much else to say about the movie other than I loved seeing the story in movie form.

Notes on a Scandal - Brilliant and riveting with two amazing actors in Dame Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. I'd love to read the book because I think they are probably more juicy comments in print. I'm not sure I got all the comments because they were so Brit and alot about class, but I think I got most of the them. I loved how Judi Dench just so looked so god awfully wrinkled, because it made her character so realistic. But honestly seeing wrinkles on a woman on a huge big screen is just really, really frightening. THe boy was really cute, but I guess I don't see the attraction of illegal age boys.

So yes, I have not felt like blogging this year and I feel guilty. Right now, I am watcihng my guilty pleausre show "The Housewives of Orange County". I am so jealous of Lauri. I love her relationship with George. I wish I had a boyfriend/fiance like him. He is loving and generous, and he's not bad looking. Seriously, I don't think Lauri is not that pretty. I think she sometimes look like a skinny man in drag, but I'm sure she looks much better in person.

I'm watching the finale of "Top Chef" and I feel bad that I didn't watch the whole series, but that Padma chick really turned me off. I just read in her bio that she's written cookbooks and hosted her own show on the Food Network, but honestly listening and watching that woman was such a big, big turnoff! And those outfits .... she makes Nigella Lawson look like a puritan.

Whatever I'm sure she's there just to get guys to watch.

I just saw a car commercial and memo to guys: a Honda, any Honda is not a "chick magnet".

I'm thinking Nordstrom is going through the same financial issues as The Gap, only we don't know about it because Nordstrom is a private company. I was a loyal Nordstrom shopper for years, until I couldn't find anything in natural fibers anymore. Nordstrom started carrying polyester stylish but cheap looking clothes. Yes, they were fashionable but in a throw away fashion kind of way, not in a fashionable classic way.

Even my standby store Talbots is failing me. I can't find anything in there that I like anymore. Macy's is becoming my store of choice. Maybe bankruptcy did well for them because all of sudden, their clothes got better.

I mean, I don't think my fashion sense has changed other than I'm probably not as conservative as I used to be. I'm actually trying to be just a bit more trendy and broke down and bought a pair of DKNY Soho jeans with wide boot legs. Boot leg jeans just look better on me now than straight leg jeans and they feel fashionable. The DKNY jeans were also stretchy and I normally hate stretchy jeans, but these jeans didn't feel so polyster. In truth, I only bought them because I still can't see myself paying over $50 for a pair of jeans and these were only $48. They fit too and were so comfortable. One of these days I guess I'll have to see if a $150 pair of jeans really makes a difference.

I was in Beverly Hills over the weekend wearing my new DKNY stretchy widelegged jeans, my new brown suede boots, a brown cashmere sweater, and grey lacy camisole top topped with a vintage pearl necklace I bought at Gallery of Jewels on Union Street a few years back, and I felt fairly fashionable. Talk about strange because I've only ever felt dowdy looking ni LA, and this was the first time I've ever felt fashionable there.

I love the new jeans now because they don't sit at your waist. I've never had the kind of body, even at my thinnest, where I was narrow in the waist. I've always been straight up and down, and most jeans now sit below the waist which is so nice. I also have a short rise and could only wear certain brands, now I actually fit into most brands.

I mean at my thinnest in college, the only jeans that ever really fit me properly were mens jeans. Mens jeans fit my waist, butt and my legs back then, and women's jeans fit in the waist and were way too baggy every where else. I still remember the pair of YSL jeans I constantly wore when I was 19 years old; they were men's size 28 and were so comfortable and perfect.

The media has recently been bemoaning the fact that Gap has lost touch with its core base, and I'm like "Hello!" That was like fairly obvious a few years ago when the Gap's market share started to drop, but nobody thought to write about it back then.

You gotto love how the Gap won't even admit to the fact that they might have made a mistake.

<<"We've never veered from the core brand essence of Gap," insisted Stacy MacLean, a spokeswoman for the company. "We certainly think the brand has staying power."
On the other hand, she acknowledged that Gap made a point of going after customers ages 18 to 25, and that this strategy might not have worked out as planned. "We're re-examining our strategy, our tactics, everything," MacLean said. "We're definitely at a crossroads." >>

Ding dongs! Just admit your strategy to chase the younger crowd failed! Or maybe The Gap is taking a play out of Slick Willy's playbook and this is their version of saying "I did not have sex with that woman." Hell yes, your strategy failed and now you are on the selling block.

I think this is what The Gap was after - from the NY Times "stores like Primark are leaders in the quick-growing “fast fashion” industry, selling cheap garments that can be used and discarded without a second thought. Consumers, especially teenagers, love the concept, pioneered also by stores like H&M internationally and by Old Navy and Target in the United States, since it allows them to shift styles with speed on a low budget. " The problem is what worked for Old Navy did not work for The Gap's main stores. The NY Times observed that teenagers change their styles every six months, and The Gap just couldn't keep up.

Of course the day after I wrote that my job wasn't so bad, I had a really bad day at work. The senior VP of my division gets all freaked out because he thought I was going to program manage this vendor, yells at my director who then overreacts to the situation, and the next thing I know I am in someone's office trying to explain myself.

I was trying to fly under the radar at this crazy place, and I keep getting pulled in to weird stuff and vps throw my name about like it was garbage. I actually thought the senior vp didn't even know who the hell I was, but I guess not because he was talking about me.

I swear, people project onto me and ascribe more ambition to me than I've ever had. I just want to do my analytical work and be left one. I don't like being in the spotlight. I'd rather support people and have them take the heat and be on the front line. I like working behind the scenes. I don't need to manage or be known or get recoginition at his job.

It's not that I don't want recognition, sure I want that, but for my novels so a publisher will want to publish my books or make my script into a movie. I don't want "work recognition"! It's a huge bother and really not worth all that much effort unless you're going to use it to become a VP or something, or a director. I want to get paid and I want to leave my job at 5 pm and I don't want to deal with stupid political intrigue at work.

I feel like the universe is testing me and saying, "are you sure you want to stay at this pretty awful job, because it will get worse?" And I'm saying back, "I don't care about recognition, I want my free time, I want to be able to leave at 5 pm and not take work home, I want time to write my novels and screenplays and still be able to workout and lose weight on a daily basis. I want this job because I can do it with my eyes closed and I get paid enough to pay my bills and have a little bit left over. STOP TRYING TO TEST ME!"

Okay, it's been ages since I've been blogging and so much has happened. On January 9 I received a call from a company that I'd sent my resume to in 2005. What a hoot! They had kept it for what, two years, and now they were finally calling for an interview. Talk about flattering, and awkward too because the woman who tipped me off about the job no longer worked at the company. T worked directly for the CEO and they had a huge falling out and she quit in a huff, claiming that the CEO was trying to cheat her out of her commissions.

The CEO knew T and I were friends and even asked about her. How very weird and awkward because I'm sure he thought that T told me all kinds of horrible things about him, which was totally true. But I didn't want to let him know that. When he asked if I had talked to T in a long time, I truthfully told me I hadn't talk to her in a long tim which was actually true.

I went to a pre-interview on January 16 and decided that I did not want to work for another startup. I don't want to work 1o-12 hours a day and not having any energy and time for my novel writing. This was a big decision for me because 1) the job would have probably paid $5-10K more a year 2) I would have learned a tremendous amount and 3) I am so over my job right now. But ... it's hard to give up a job that I can do with my eyes closed, pays well and where I can leave at 5 pm and not take any work home. I am choosing my free time over a higher income, and this is something I would never have done three years ago.

It was a very tough decision because I had to give up so much of what I considered to an integral part of my work personna. Now I'm even thinking about trying to see if I can swing it with a part time job so I can have more time to write.

I was supposed to do a three-hour interview on January 24 and I told me today that due to personal reasons I did not want to continue the interview procees. Talk about strange because I know that I could have had this job if I wanted, Oh well. I suppose there is something to be said about having a job that allows me to live a more balanced life.

Then a firiend of mine saw a job advert for a job that would also sounded alright, until I realized that the job entailed sitting in 6 hour meetings every two weeks. I hate, absolutely hate meetings that go mor than two hours, so I told her thanks but no thanks.

I felt so flattered that this company was totally hot to hire me, and that has been a good feeling. But things have gotten better at work so I'm not as unhappy as I used to be.

I tried to post last night becauase it's been ages since I've written, but Blogger was not working quite right. What is up with that? But I saved what I wrote, and I will post it separately.

Happy New Years 2007! I'm at home watching the Rose Bowl. One of these days I'm going to see the Rose Bowl Parade in person so I can those beautiful floats made from flowers.

I went to a New Years Eve party which was nice and peaceful, until midnight when people were screaming "Happy New Years" all over Portrero Hills. At least there weren't any gunshots. I even drank a little champagne.

I am so bummed about going to work tomorrow. It was so relaxing to have the whole week off.

I am glad to see 2006 end, and am looking forward to a better 2007.

A very good friend of mine laughed at me when I told her I spent most of 2006 mourning breaking up with M-Square. She said "You had a crush on someone while you were supposedly dating, you lined someone up right before you broke up because you hate hard landings and then, and then three months later you were hot for MBA guy at work."

So here's the real truth.

1) Yes, I kind of had a crush on this guy at work while things were hot and heavy with M-Square. I don't know how it happened, but we were talking on the phone and we connected. Nothing happened, but I did feel bad about it. And now we're working together a ton which is great because he is so cool to work with.

2) And yes, I am one of those who believes that if things start heading south, get a "lifeboat". I never break up a relationship without a new guy in the wings. And if my intuition is working right, I line a new guy up just before a guy decides to dump me. A girl's got to have something else to think about besides the breakup of a relationship. I did kind of of have an "possible lifeboat" in the wings when things went bad with M-Square. It was too soon to do that, but old habits die hard. My lifeboat guy gave me a soft landing instead of a hard one, and it was wonderful for a few months to have it.

3) MBA guy at work just happened out of the blue. I wasn't expecting it. I went to the guy's welcome party and didn't feel connected. But when we started talking and couldn't stop, I knew the guy was a soul mate. I just don't talk for hours to a guy without us having some past life connection. And it was a good connection too because we just got along so well and there was no weirdness between us. And MBA guy at work went from May and is kind of actually still going, although it's not as intense anymore. I did talk to MBA guy before Christmas at a division party, but it was short and he apologized for not spending more time with me because he's been like totally swamped with work. I totally love MBA guy but as friend I think, and not as boyfriend material. We've been there and done that in our past ives and made it work, so we don't have to do it again. That's kind of a nice thought isn't it? I had a past life where my relationship worked so well that there wasn't any karma to carry over.

Okay, so I didn't really mourn M-Square and I'm sure the boy is not mourning our breakup either. I wanted to mourn but the fates kept sending me guys to fall in love with, so what's a girl to do?

At home today cleaning up and getting a huge pile of stuff to take to the Salvation Army for my year-end charity deduction.

I'm so psyched Barry Zito is going to stay in the SF Bay Area and play for the SF Giants. He'll have to hit the ball now, because in American League they have designated hitters for pitchers.

Watched the body of Gerald Ford pull up at the church in Palm Desert. Betty Ford looked so old. It was kind of sad because I think he was a nice guy who just happened to be President of the US at such an interesting time. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

The news channels have been speculating for hours about when Sadam Hussein is going to be hanged. How weird. I had no idea that there's a state that lets you choose between lethal injection and hanging. If the hanging is videotaped, you know it will show up on YouTube eventually. The man was a butcher like Hitler and Stalin, and I don't understand why people are making such a fuss over him. Talk about America trying to impose their moral standards on the world. In Hussein's part of the world, they execute people all the time. The same people who love multiculturalism are saying he shouldn't be executed. Isn't that hypocritical? I mean, they hate that America exports its values around the world, but I guess it's okay that we export our value of no execution. I don't get it. Multicultuarlism isn't selective.

I saw "Night at the Museum", and liked it despite the fact that the first half of the movie was just not very enjoyable for me. The Ben Stiller character is not sympathetic, and he came off almost too pathetic. But half way through the movie, it got better and I laughed. I saw the moview with about 30 kids and they didn't laugh during the first half of the movie either.

The movie has some great special effects, and it made me want to revisit the Natural History Museum in New York.

I also saw "Curse of the Golden Flower" directed by Zhang Yimou. I loved his movie "Raise the Red Lantern", and loved the spectacle of "Hero" with Jet Li.

The movie was beautiful and slow going, and ends with the typical cloying chinese song at the end. I couldn't help but think of Quentin Tarantino's movies "Kill Bill, Parts 1 and 2". Quentin Tarantino sure does know the kung fu movie genre. And yes there were lots of good fighting scenes. I saw chinese grandma types with their daughters there, which I thought was so cute. My grandma would have loved this movie, and I wish she was alive so I could take here to a theatre so we could watch the movie together.

I saw "Curse of the Golden Flower" at the Sony Metreon, which was a little strange because it's not like they show a lot of Hong Kong kung fu action flicks, but I liked that a very mainstream SF movie theatre was willing to have it there.

Who knew that if you see a movie before 12 noon at Sony Metreon theatres the cost of the ticket is $6. Talk about a bargain! After 12 noon, it goes up to $8.50 and after 6 pm, it's regular price.

Would love to see "Happy Feet", "Dream Girls" and "Children of Men", since I read the PD James book. A friend was raving about "The Departed" recently as well "The Queen".

So around 10:30 pm on my Christmas vacation, I am editing a newsletter that I have to email to my boss before the end of the year. I got way behind on my weekly industry updates and have been putting them off, but I can't put them off any longer.

What a life, huh?

I went to see the Titanic exhibit, but it wasn't cheap. The ticket cost $22 and $5 more if you wanted the audio. There were a lot of artifacts, and I did get to touch a piece of the hull of the Titanic but still. A friend recommended I go because she liked it, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you're into the Titanic.

It was only fun because of the movie, and it would have been more interesting if they had included some of the movie props and the real stuff.

But oh well. I paid for a ticket and an audio, and I'm glad I got to see it.

It's day after Christmas and I know I should be at the mall checking out the discounts on xmas decs and seeing what else is on sale, but I hate crowds!

I really am very shopped out right now. I don't think I could buy one more thing unless it was totally cheap as dirt and I absolutely had to have it.

Besides it's supposed to rain and it's too cold to be out. I am out all week from work. This is the second year I've take the off the week between christmas and New Years. I kind of like it. This year we got Christmas and the day after christmas off, so it was a short week anyway.

It's probably the best time to be in the office because it would be so quiet, but I'd rather stay at home and be lazy. I am going to try to do some movie watching this week, and hopefully if the weather gets better check out Angel Island. I've been to Angel Island a few times for parties, but I've never seen the whole island. Angel Island was the west coast version of Ellis Island in New York.

But then again, it would be nice to just hang at home and go through my stuff so I can do some year-end charity donations.

Merry Christmas everyone! Wow, I finally got some useful presents this year, which is a first for me.

I needed a new wall calendar for my bedroom and I got a big calendar and a smaller calendar for work.

I have one of those home fragrance burner things from The Body Shop, which I've been wanting for awhile now.

A friend gave me an astrocartography reading with San Francisco, London and Bombay India as the chosen places to check out. I've lived everywhere where there is a line; interesting huh? I don't think I'm supposed to be living in San Francisco, which I've known for about two years now. Check this out - Las Vegas is supposed to be a good place for me to live. I can't imagine living there because I have to live near an ocean and I don't like to gamble.

And my cousin sent me Joel Osteen's newest books. I love that man's sermons.

Speaking of pastors, Rick Warren has been on TV a ton and I really, really like him. I love his book "The Purpose Driven Life".

We had christmas pudding for dessert. We doused it with brandy and lit the baby on fire. You gotta love food that burns. We also had french brioche in the shape of loaves, which was fattening and divine, for appetizers, and I made braised chard with garlic from a recipe that was in the San Francisco Chronicle. I love chard! The recipe is definitely a keeper.

Okay, one last post. It's freezing here! I wake up every morning and my car is covered with white stuff. It's not snow, but the dew is frozen and white on my car.

I just bought a new parka from LL Bean that is wind proof, and I am very grateful for it with this freezing weather. The parka is warm, maybe too warm, but that's fine with me. The parka also has thinsulate in the body which is nice.

I decided to get rid of books I'm reading on the left side bar. It's too hard to keep up with because I read a book a week. This year however has been a bad year for reading. I thought I would increase the number of books I read this year, but I didn't.

My movie watching has also been abysmal. I hardly went to the movies this year, and now that I use Netflix insetad of Blockbuster I don't rent as many movies either. With Blockbuster I was forced to watch my movies in a week. With Netflix, my movies sit around for months on end before I watch them. There is no urgency at all for me with Netflix.

I have to decide if I should go back to Blockbuster only because I did like the serendipity of going to the store and seeing what was available. I ended up discovering many good movies this way. Netflix is good for renting movies that are hard to find, especially the classic old movies. But that's about it.

I saw the movie "Apocalypto" at the new Century theatre in Union Square that is part of the new mall with Bloomingdales. The theatre has leather seats and they were big and roomy.

I really liked "Apocalypto" and am glad I saw it on the big screen. Some of the cinematography was so beautiful. I went to the Mayan exhibit that were here last year, and it was fascinating to see how the Mayans were depicted.

I didn't think the story was a bad as the reviewers said, and I loved the violence. However if you're not into violence then I wouldn't watch it. The amount of violence kind of reminded me of a porn movie. In a good porn movie, there's like a sex scene every five minutes or less. In "Apocalypto", there's a violent scene every five minutes which was fine with me. I mean, HELLO! It was a period piece and back then life and living was hard and violent. People killed animals and ate them. They didn't go to the butcher to buy meat.

I wasn't sure about the ending, only because I think I wasn't expecting it. But it makes sense. So I don't know what is the big deal about this movie. I loved that it depicted a non-white culture, and a culture there are so few movies about.

I had two work gift exchanges this year and there were completely different experiences.

The first gift exchange I went to was "funny" gift exchange. You had to buy a funny gift up to $15. Talk about a dumb idea. The gifts were so dumb, like a farting Santa, Homer Simpson slippers, etc. $15 is a lot of money to spend on a funny gift. And it wasn't fun at all because who wanted to steal stupid gifts. I rebelled and bought a $10 Walgreens card. It's kind of funny to me because you would normally expect to get a gift card from an expensive store. It would have been more funny I suppose, if I had a McDonalds gift card but I didn't think about it until I saw the commercials on TV.

The second gift exchange was much better and the limit was still $15. The gift were really great like a mini fondu maker, a 1 gig memory stick, expensive chocolates, etc. I was in the middel of the draw and picked a bottle of wine. My bottle of wine was immediately stolen, so I opened another present and got a mini fondu maker. I was so excited, but of course as is my karma, my boss steals my fondu maker, so I stole back my bottle of wine. It's so much more fun to steal gifts if the gifts are worth stealing.

The 1 gig memory stick was stolen three times. So was the fondu maker. But thank god I was able to hold on to my wine. At the first gift exchange, I ended up with a bunch of self-help books. I was a little upset, but the books are at least ones I wanted to read but didn't want to spend the money to buy.

But it is so not fun to steal a "stupid" gift. No one wants a farting Santa!

There's too much white space on my blog, so I am going to post the picture that was desktop background for a year.

Okay, I fixed the archiving problem and now they're back. Apparently I had code that was older than two years. Whatever!

I am all shopped out, except that I have to buy one more gift to buy because a friend of mine gave me more present than I was planning to give her. I was only planning to give her an ornament, but she gave me a calendar and an ornament.

I spent way too much money this year, more than I was planning to spend. I even took back a gift because a friend told me I was giving too much. That was hard but I did it. It was just a stocking stuffer anyway and not the real gift.

Somehow my archives disappeared and now I have to figure out how to get them back.

The woman, who made my current job miserable since the first month I started, was escorted out of our building yesterday. The HR person didn’t even give her time to pack up the pictures of her children that are in her office, and an hour later the lock to her office was changed.

Life changes quickly. At noon, we were all in a staff meeting and she came but left after an hour. At around 3 pm, we were all called into the director’s office and told that she had “resigned effective as of today and if we needed to contact her about work issues, we need to go through him.” A friend who has seen this kind of thing happen before said she was terminated, otherwise why would they have escorted her out of the building like that without even time to gather her personal things.

I never liked the woman, but I felt compassion for her. They wouldn’t even let her take her kids’ pictures with her. That is cruel. The woman totally deserved it, but still.

I guess I am sucker for rock music ballads because I love the new song "Lips of an Angel" by Hinder.

I bought the whole season of Heroes from iTunes and I just found out I can't copy them. What a bummer. And who knew downloaded tv shows would cost me 5 gigs of disk space! Yikes! That's what it says on iTunes on my laptop. I should buy a DVD recorder and record the shows I want to watch instead of buying them! What a drag!

I'm probably going to catch total flak for doing this, but I declined to participate in buying a gift for the director of our group. This is the first department I've worked in where the employees buy presents for the boss instead of the boss buying gifts for the employees. In the 2.5 years I've worked at this company, I have never received a gift from my immediate boss for christmas or for my birthday.

I see other bosses giving their employees gifts in other departments, but not ours. Oh no. We, the employees who are getting paid less than the director of the group, are shelling out money to buy a gift for the director who gets paid way more than us. That is so weird. I mean, I can understand buying a gift for your boss if they're getting married or having a child, but not Christmas. That is so odd!

I'm sure my fellow employees are going to talk about me, but I don't care. I really need to get another job. This place is so strange. It's calmed down for now, so I stopped looking for a job, but I know it's just going to get bad again. I don't fit here, I never will and I keep denying it to myself because every time I start looking for a job, something happens in my life that makes me want to stay.

But this christmas gift giving to the boss is I think the last straw for me. It's always the little things for me that decide a course of action for me, never the big things. I thought with this new director things would change, but obviously they haven't. It's a new person, but the weirdness in the department still exists.