So, it’s been a long time since I did any tinkering with A Tinker’s Cart. I figured that given that the work I do is so internet-intensive, I really ought to learn about webpages in general. And what better way but to TINKER!

I mean, I’ve just never been a textbook kind of person. I just tinker. Ok, ok… more like I holler for help… then I tinker.

So after yesterday’s failed attempt to tinker, after which I hollered for help, I’m back again. I’ve got the pages option set up now but have no content.

Being an archive-fanatic, of course I went straight for the CD upon which I burned off the materials from the previous faces of A Tinker’s Cart.

‘Course, that’s when I realized that what I had was from 2003, before Moveable Type and Word Press, back when I was trying out the monkey-method of making a webpage copying-and-pasting HTML from other sites and replacing content.

Bottom-line, it’s now 2008, more than five years later, and A Tinker’s Cart hasn’t progressed very much from my own efforts. Any progress has been because Steve did it for me.

So now, I’m going to update old content, get it up under A Poet’s Corner, Writer’s Block, and see what I can do about tinkering with WordPress.

Just wait until you see the mess I make! *evil cackle*

So, it’s been a while since I blogged.  Guess I’ll start this up again.  Actually, I’d planned to spend part of tonight tinkering with WordPress and learning how to use it.

That’s right, use it beyond the basic blogging tool provided.  Use it beyond hollering for my buddy, the dude who fixes a hefty number of my computer problems, to “fix” it so that it does what I want it to do.  Use it in ways that I actually LEARN how to fiddle with webpage making by reading FAQs and instructions provided by WordPress.

I confess.  I’m a retard.  I got through to the part where the instructions said that I had to change the file permissions so that I could edit the file and then I broke down.

Yep.  I wrote a “help me!!” email to my buddy.

I can already see this entire learning process being a nicely bundled catastrophe, complete with migraine headaches for the dude who fixes my computer problems.

In the meantime, I ended up writing this blog post.

On a side note, I still haven’t seen those photos from my friend’s wedding back in June.  I need to go bum photos off people who had cameras.

This afternoon (actually, yesterday afternoon) my buddy, Jenny, got married.  The lucky guy who managed to snag her is Peter.  If I get my hands on any photos from today (err… yesterday) I’ll post them.  And believe me, I think Jenny’s used up her quota of once-a-year-esther-photos for her entire life.

I mean, I know weddings = photos.  And I love wedding photos.  BUT… not with me in them.  And definitely not in the copious quantities that were taken today.  Good grief, I close my eyes and still see the after-image burn of the flash of cameras.

In the meantime, I do have photos from Thursday’s bridal shower which I’ll post next while I wait for my hair to dry.

That’s another thing… I don’t think that I’ve ever had so many bobby pins simultaneously in my hair.  Once I finally pulled out all of them from my elaborate coiffure, I counted sixty.  SIXTY bobby pins.  No wonder the pile of hair on the top of my head seemed so poofy!  It wasn’t just my hair and what seemed like an entire can of hairspray and glitter glue.  Those sixty bobby pins went a long way in increasing the volume and weight on the top of my head.

And all that glitter sprayed into my hair…  My hair was really pretty - especially with that can of hair spray to prevent the hairdo from falling apart (as if sixty bobby pins couldn’t do the job).  Needless to say, I hate the crunchy feeling that hairspray leaves, so I washed my hair at quarter to 1 am and now I’m waiting for my hair to dry.

Ah, that reminds me.  Because I am cosmetics-retarded, I also had a make-up artist do my face.  Let’s just say, I must not have the right cleaning agent because I still have smears of whatever it is she used as an eyeliner… or maybe it’s the mascara that’s making me look like a dazed raccoon.

OK, I’m about ready to fall asleep, so I guess that’s my cue to go upload the bridal shower photos.

So, what was a BIG BONUS for baby brother turned into a WEE BONUS - err… I mean, a WII BONUS.  That’s right, the boy frittered away the bonus on a Wii.  Why?  To play Guitar Hero.  Hello!  Is dental school not keeping him busy enough?

Ahh well, he’s making good grades, or so he says, so I suppose I can’t complain.

I’m sure that I’ve written about this topic before, but to continue in the form of an update of sorts… I’ve always thought that I’d sing alto parts - contralto even. I mean, my speaking voice is low and somewhat gravelly.

After about a month of voice lessons I was consistently hitting the B-flat below soprano C, and occasionally soprano C in warm-up exercises. Last Thursday, after thirteen lessons (a little over three months), I hit the F above soprano C in warm-up exercises. Admittedly, the tone quality was AWFUL - squeaky and weak - but hit the note, I did.

To put this in perspective, when people hear the words “high F” the character The Queen of the Night from Mozart’s Opera, The Magic Flute, comes to mind. Not many people can sing high F consistently and I’m not holding my breath in expectation that I can.

So here’s a summary of how I found out that my voice could produce high F.
Me: *singing staccato arpeggios*
Teacher: *playing the piano*
Me (thinking): err… this is getting kind of high
Teacher: *continues playing higher*
Me (thinking): huh… my voice sounds really gross
Teacher: keep going…
Me (thinking): eww, that note was really funky
Teacher: try one more…
Me (squeaking out one more set of arpeggios)
Teacher: ok, how did that feel?
Me: Umm… the last few notes were gross
Teacher: don’t worry about that. How did it feel? Were you straining to sing the last few notes or did they come pretty easily?
Me: uh… I didn’t strain to push the notes out, but they sounded really nasty, and that last note was like a quarter-step flat. gross.
Teacher: but you didn’t push hard to sing the top note right?
Me: umm… no, I don’t think so.
Teacher: do you know what note that was?
Me: *shrugs*
Teacher: that was a high F.
Me (thinking): ooohhh… QUEEN OF THE NIGHT! I wanna be the Queen of the Night!
Me (thinking): heh… I know exactly what my brother would say if I told him. “That’s perfect for you! You’re so evil that you’d be a great Queen of the Night,” or some similar comment.

I found this site which has very interesting photos of sopranos who have played the role of the Queen of the Night. She does look decidedly evil, doesn’t she?

So two take aways from this:
1. Apparently my voice is adjusting itself to accommodate my secret desire to sing the two Queen of the Night arias,
2. Even though I have a really low speaking voice, apparently I have a very high singing voice.

Actually, I kind of wonder what kind of voice classification I would fall into. As I previously said, I’d always thought that I’d be an alto or even a contralto, but I have to wonder if my voice teacher is trying to train my voice into a coloratura soprano. Not that I’m complaining or anything. I absolutely ADORE the Queen of the Night’s two arias and would love to sing them. The only hitch is that my voice is not dramatic - at least, it hasn’t shown any power thus far (well, except that when I use chest voice I do get a pretty powerful, rich timbre).

So, to help my parents support my baby brother, I cover daily living expenses (excluding housing, tuition, books, etc) for him. Every other week, a flat amount is cut from the amount deposited in my checking account and is diverted to his account. This amount is about 17.5% of my bi-monthly paycheck. Today, I got my first bonus (for last year’s work). ‘Course the same flat amount is cut from my bonus and diverted to his account. This cut from my bonus is about 25.3% the total bonus amount.

Mind you, my deal with my baby brother is that he gets money every other week and he’s supposed to budget his spending. Per my regular pay timing, he would have gotten a deposit last week. If he looks at his checking account any time soon and sees today’s deposit, he’ll probably be thinking, “SCORE! It’s raining money!” My bet is that he won’t bother calling me to ask what is up with the money; he’ll accept it and quietly cackle to himself, “Yes, yes, yes! Money!”

I have to admit it. I never got into the whole Nana craze. And I probably won’t ever get into it, even though I like shoujo manga.

But, I discovered OLIVIA who the sings the role of Reira in the anime version of Nana. The clarity of her voice is something I’m dying to achieve. But so far I’m lucky if I get enough resonance in the head to loosen up some sinus congestion. I really like her Starless Night which was used as the second ending of the Nana anime. Wish is nice, as well.

Of course, there’s Yuna Ito who played and sang as Reira in the Nana live action movies. Her Endless Story is really popular.

The connection? I like the singers who sang as Reira. Notice how I have nothing to say about the singers who sang the title roles? mmm… guess it’s because I’m not that into Nakashima Mika or Anna Tsuchiya who sang as Nana in the live action movies and the anime respectively.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned in a prior post, but since the thought struck me again, I might as well type it in… for the girl who couldn’t stand listening to female voices, sopranos especially, I’ve been finding a lot of female voices that I like, sopranos especially…

Ok, so they weren’t really events as opposed to epiphanies.

Fine, they weren’t really epiphanies, either.

They were epiphanies on a lesser scale… kind of like “whoa” moments.

What happened? First, voice lessons. People who have heard me speak know that I have a very low voice, kind of scratchy at times, so it’s kind of hard to imagine me singing anything above an alto. I mean, come on, I’ve always laughingly said that I should sing tenor lines (ok, not so laughingly as I do sing tenor parts).

Then I started voice lessons. I’ve had six lessons since the first one on December 11th. Last week I could hit a B-flat below soprano-C (the C two octaves above middle-C) but it was hit or miss. I couldn’t get my voice to go past the B-flat. From what I’ve read, to be an operatic soprano, I’d have to be able to hit soprano-C at a minimum (’course that’s only what I read from one source so I could be totally wrong). So I figured that I was probably a mezzo or something (yep… no longer singing men’s parts…).

This past week though… will wonders never cease… I hit a C/C-sharp in warm-up exercises. Yep, that’s right, the girl who sang tenor…ahem… alto… can now hit soprano-C. BUT… that’s all in warm-up exercises. One of the songs that my teacher is having me sing, “My Lord and Master” from The King and I, ends with an A-flat, F, and G, which are BELOW soprano-C, but I have trouble with for some reason. In fact, try as I might, I can’t seem to sing them without going FLAT. BOOOO… ah, well, we’ll see what this next week brings.

The second “whoa” moment occurred as I was leaving a boba place. There was a group of teenagers strolling right in front of me. One girl turns around and says, “I thought it was (enter name of one of their friends) behind you! Instead it was this lady. hahaha… oops.” It took me a few seconds to realize that by “this lady” she meant me.

Now, I spend a lot of time with people my parents’ generation, so I’ve gotten used to being considered “young” but sometimes I forget that from a young person’s perspective, I’m actually OLD. Although, considering that I’ve been ma’am-ed since I was eighteen, called “ai-yi” since I was twenty, called “Mrs. Ko” by the checkers and baggers at Safeway, I really shouldn’t be having a “whoa” moment. But I did. As my twenty-ninth birthday creeps closer and I step one more day closer to thirty, it’s kind of interesting to note (to myself) that I don’t really shudder at the thought of turning thirty. Forty, on the other hand…

But just wait until my thirty-ninth birthday rolls around and I’m closer to forty. Betcha that my reaction will be “forty? *shrug*”

Ok, figured that since I’m here, I might as well blog about today’s unfortunate encounter with my new cell phone. The story is very simple.
1. I need to make a call.
2. I know to tap the phone symbol on the phone’s screen.
3. The phone obediently goes into phone mode.
4. I tap in the phone number.
5. I tried to place the call.
6. The icon I tapped took me to the list of recently made calls.
7. I tap the close icon and return to the phone mode screen.
8. The phone has erased the phone number I’d previously tapped in.
9. I re-tap the phone number.
10. I tap another icon.
11. The phone does nothing.
12. I tap the “menu” option.
13. There is no option to place the call.
14. I tap the “contacts” option.
15. The phone brings up my directory.
16. Repeat Steps 7-15 a few more times.
17. Then the light dawns on me: I can’t place a phone call without entering the person’s phone number in the contacts directory.
18. Having done that, I place my call.

Summary of the above: I STILL haven’t figured out how to use this phone. I can proudly say that I can now answer phone calls. It only took someone to tell me how to use my own phone. I’ve even read the flipping manual for this phone (something I normally don’t have to do). No go. Seriously… I love gadgets (though they don’t like me so they die upon seeing me) but can’t they be made more intuitive? HUGE LETTERED “CALL” and “END” would be helpful.

Given all that I’ve been through (my, doesn’t that sound dramatic?)… as a spectator, it’s little wonder that I finally dreamed about weddings. Two of my closest guy friends (from college) are married. Same with another guy friend (from law school, but that’s not terribly surprising considering that half my law school class was married or about to be married). One of my closest law school girl friends got married soon after the law school graduation. One of my oldest friends (from high school) got married in December. And my best girl friend (from college) was just proposed to late in December.

Let me break it down in percentages: 55% of my closest friends are currently married; 11% is engaged to be married; 33% are single or unknown.

So yeah, now about the dream. It was pretty crazy (typical of my dreams). First scene was in this mission-style sanctuary. For some reason there were rows of banquet tables arranged down the length of the sanctuary instead of pews running across the width. For some reason one of my cousins on my mother’s side was the MC. Which is weird for a couple reasons: 1. We’re all Christian, which means all our marriages are officiated by an ordained pastor; 2. The wedding was for a cousin on my father’s side. Neither cousins have met. Go figure.

At the row of tables I was sitting at, were a bunch of people in suits and J. Crew style dresses. This does make a bit of sense because I’ve somehow turned into a total J. Crew girl. A hefty portion of my clothes are from J. Crew and I really like the design of J. Crew dresses in particular. Heck, the dresses I wore to the last two weddings I attended (my cousin-the-MC’s and my high school friend’s) were J. Crew dresses.

At any rate, at the head of the table, closest to the stage where my cousin-the-MC stood behind a lectern, were six or seven girls (including another cousin on my mother’s side.) So, my cousin-the-MC has his assistants hand out envelopes to these girls. Then, one by one, six or seven guys came up to the stage and my cousin-the-MC called out each of the girls’ names. You can imagine what happened next. Each of the guys proposed to the girls. I don’t remember what was up with the envelopes.

While all this is going on, I’m thinking, “Wait… isn’t this supposed to be my cousin’s wedding? Err… why am I sitting here at a banquet table when I’m supposed to be her bridesmaid?” It was this really ODD feeling. I mean, HELLO… when do people do this proposal thing for other people as part of their own wedding ceremony? So, yeah, then my cousin-the-MC announces, “That concludes that segment of the wedding program.” (yeah, yeah, yeah… really weird). It was as if it was standard practice at weddings to do the segment for attendees to propose to their significant others in the presence of everyone.

Then my cousin-the-bride does the whole bridal procession. Except, I-the-bridesmaid was still sitting at the banquet table watching (dude, I guess I’m really lazy or something). Suddenly, she’s married (somehow the whole wedding ceremony was over just like that) and it’s the banquet. Except it wasn’t really the traditional asian-style dinner banquet that follows an afternoon wedding. It was suddenly the next morning and we were all at this CAMP.

Hello… CAMP!? Admittedly, it was one of those dorm/cabin type camps, so we weren’t in tents and under the stars, but, but, but… it was a wedding! So, it was the morning after the wedding and we were back in the mission-style sanctuary. Except that instead of the long banquet tables there were large round tables and open seating. And even weirder, there was a bar. A bar in the SANCTUARY in a CAMP…

And my dream decided that it wasn’t weird enough, so it tossed in the feeling of urgency. The idea being that we had to clear out of the camp as soon as possible because unidentified bad guys were going to be coming soon. The wedding guests morphed into kids, students actually, whom I and someone else had to herd to safety. Toss in the thought that we had to pack lunches to take with us while we escaped and something about hard-boiled eggs.

So off we go, and suddenly we’re at this old, rickety, wooden-plank and rope bridge that we’re supposed to cross.

And then my alarm went off.

I’m interpreting this to mean that I should stay single the rest of my life. I mean, what if I pass on this crazy-dream tendency on to kids. Or worse, drive the hubby crazy by telling him all about these crazy dreams I have.