Ben Casnocha on immigration as an antidote to world poverty. Great argument, also includes a link to this graphic on the current process of obtaining American citizenship.

Thanksgiving

Another good Thanksgiving this year. Plenty of turkey and holiday pies and I ended up playing about 30 rounds of hide and seek with my little cousins. I forget how much fun it is to play with kids. They are so grateful for the attention, and it was really refreshing not to talk or think about grown-up stuff for awhile.

I was thinking this morning about how much I have to be thankful for -- family, friends, health, a job, an abundance of food, living in a community that is safe despite a war that rages on across the border just a few miles away. I get caught up in my little day-to-day stresses sometimes but the truth is I have nothing to complain about.

- Interesting profile of Sonia Sotomayor in the latest issue of Latina magazine. According to Latina, Sotomayor is a Supreme Court justice who "makes tasty salads and hooks up a mean churrasco with a tangy lemon marinade."

- Hair tip from Zac Efron: "Shower before you go to bed, and then sleep on your wet hair. Towel-dry it. In the morning, it's all messed up naturally. If you have that messed-up thing going when you wake up, it's more willing to stay that way. That's Zac's hair tip."

Warning: this doesn't work for girls with long hair.

- My mom bought a Dyson and I can't think of another time I've been so impressed by a machine. It's lovely and amazing. This takes my vacuuming hobby to another level.

- My teeth finally don't hurt as bad today. And I'm off the all-liquid diet.

- I'm starting a new job tomorrow. But you'll have to e-mail me if you want to know what it is.

Wisdom teeth gone

I had my wisdom teeth extracted today. I've put off doing it for years, but I couldn't ignore them any longer. One was jutting crooked into my lower left molar, causing my front teeth to crowd in an unsightly way. I do not want to be known as that woman with bad teeth. And then I was horrified when about two weeks ago I noticed my upper left wisdom tooth breaking through the gumline. Something I've always wondered -- how are teeth programmed to come up or fall out? Why at age 27 is there an urgent need for these teeth to appear? It's like an invasion.

Anyway, I went in at 7:45 and the surgery took about an hour. I got an IV with anesthesia so I don't remember anything about it. I remember the dentist putting in the IV then asking me, "Do you feel anything right now?" And I said no. And he said, "You will very soon." Then nothing. I don't remember nodding off or feeling woozy then going to sleep or anything like that. The next thing I remember is waking up and leaving the dentist chair. It was like getting up from a good night's sleep. I thought it was strange that I felt so fully awake and not detached or disoriented after being so soundly asleep.

My mom drove me home, where I promptly lay down on the couch and slept for a few hours longer. So I guess I wasn't as awake as I thought. The lower half of my face was numb for about eight hours after I got home and I had to keep changing gauze pads out of my mouth to soak up the blood.

But really, the pain hasn't been bad even after the numbness wore off. I took some Motrin, that helps. My jaw feels like it's bruised in places and I can feel large gaps in my gums where the teeth were removed.

I think the worst part of all this will be not eating the foods I'm used to eating. Yesterday I ate a spicy chicken burrito just because I knew I wouldn't be able to for a while. Some staples of my diet like salad, fruits, gum and crunchy cereal will be out for another couple of weeks *sigh*. I like to eat and yogurt and pudding for dinner just don't do it for me. I can move on to soups and noodles tomorrow, according to the dentist. Whoo, exciting. I'll be very glad when my jaw and teeth function normally again.

Moby writes about insomnia:
"insomnia is so odd, as it's so self-destructive, but yet solely the product of the self. it's only the self. the self at war with itself. the brain deciding it somehow knows best, even though it's crippled by delusion."

It has been another intense week in which every day I get home from work and don't have the will to do anything besides watch a few hours of TV. I am now a fan of Castle, Top Chef, and Project Runway and a sort-of fan of Dancing with the Stars. I also watched Jay Leno's show a couple times this week. I don't think it's as funny as it was in late night but I still like it better than Conan's.

I feel a little guilty about my TV habit. I like to think of myself as the sort of person who would rather read than watch TV in her off-hours. I have the best intentions of doing work for my Spanish lessons after work. And blogging, of course. But somehow none of those things happens on a weeknight as a numbness of mind sets in.

Has work turned my non-working self into a zombie? I guess that's what weekends are for, to snap out of the work-TV haze.

Sunrise

It's a rare day that I'm actually out of bed to watch the sun rise.

- Forget violent video games, I think piñatas at kids' birthday parties are really able to bring out children's violent tendencies. I just watched one particularly brutal beating where the kids went about ten rounds before the thing was finally torn apart. The youngest kids in line were three years old! But I'm not so PC that if I had kids I wouldn't allow them to have one.

- Last night I watched the season 3 finale of "Mad Men" on DV-R. Of course it was amazing and reminded me why I watch the show, for its un-nostalgic portrayal of the '60s. Here's an interview with the show's creator where he talks about the finale. I was close to tears by the closing song. That, my friends, is art.

Technological genius

This whole week there wasn't a dial tone on any of the phones in the house. I finally called the cable company on my cell yesterday to find out what the problem was with the digital phone line. After getting through the voice recognition answering system and not one but two customer service representatives, we finally got to the bottom of the problem: the line was plugged into the wrong phone jack on the back of the modem. Nothing mechanically wrong with the line, it was merely plugged into Line 2 instead of Line 1, which I inadvertently switched when I unplugged the modem and then plugged everything back in. If I had thought about the problem for more than a minute I probably could have figured out the answer. D'oh.

I bet it gets pretty annoying to answer dumb calls like that all day. But in fairness, I think it's an easy mistake to make based on the design of the modem. The Line 1 jack is actually below the Line 2 jack. This problem is probably right there on their FAQs list.

I just hope there weren't any important calls I missed during the week. Fortunately, the "land line" isn't the number I typically give out for important stuff.

Love when they play moody British rock on the radio in the mornings: