10 Things I Hate About You

Ok, maybe not 10 things, and definitely not about you.

I hate student loans. But now after talking to their customer service on the phone, I can breathe easier for a couple months.

Check out this article about cities' brainpower. Ann Arbor ranks number one in the country. But what really makes this article great is one of the comments at the bottom: "If we're so smart, why do we need so much help to cross a road?". The reason this comment is great is because Ann Arbor just recently passed an ordinance that requires all vehicles to stop for a pedestrian in or approaching a crosswalk. I think this is ridiculous and potentially more dangerous than before (so many times one car has stopped and the person began walking only to have another car zoom past; personally, I'd rather wait for a clearing in traffic or cross at a stoplight). I hate this new ordinance because it is so just a ploy for the city to earn more money from tickets. If they actually cared about pedestrian safety, they would put lights at these certain crosswalks on high speed roads that could be activated by the pedestrian. But no, they just want their idiot cops to make them more money. AND this makes the already arrogant pedestrians even more arrogant. Anyway, GREAT comment.

We now hate Kroger less than we used to. A couple weeks ago, we went into the store for some bread. Right when you walk in, there is a Starbucks, and I saw some cake pops sitting in a plastic container on the table where you pick up your finished drink. I was surprised because they were large and whole, and I didn't expect them to actually be samples. But they were and we each had one (and then came back for another one each). Nidhal actually loved them. He was skeptical at first, but I told him they'd be good. I had never actually had cake pops from Starbucks, but I've had cake balls at Christmas and so I know how delicious such things can be. Anyway, that was technically Starbucks and not Kroger. After enjoying our cake pop, we walked around to the bread section and then the meat section to check out the fish. Nidhal saw smoke or steam or something, and we walked over for a closer look. It turns out there were multiple burgers on a grill. We hadn't even said a word about it when a guy behind the counter came over and asked if we wanted to try the burger. Of course we did. He cut one of the burgers into fourths and gave us each a fourth, and it was wonderful. And this is an incredibly long paragraph about our nice trip to Kroger.

I hate the way people value one set of lives over another set of lives. So a guy kills a cop. What about the man working at the gas station that he also killed? Or the person on the street? If a "regular" person is killed, it gets little to no attention. If a cop is killed, it's all you hear about. Does his life have more worth than mine or yours? No, it doesn't. A cop was killed. How tragic. Now move on.

Also, I hate ignorance. We saw a stamp at the post office this week for the Muslim holiday called Eid. When we got home, I did an internet search about it (I was curious) and I found out that they've been doing it since 2001 and that there is an email going around saying that the stamp supports terrorism and other such nonsense. First of all, not all Muslims/Arabs are terrorists. In fact, very few are. Do all Christians bomb abortion clinics? Are all white males serial killers? Are all white men from Michigan going to help blow up a federal building? Or are all mathematicians who studied at U of M going to become unabombers? Are all Jews greedy and hook-nosed? Are all black men in America in a gang? I'm so sick of religious and racial stereotypes. Grow a brain, people.

My life's not perfect, but I think it's pretty great. I have a great house in a great area and a wonderful husband. I've gotten to travel around the world, visiting seven percent of the countries. I was able to attend one of the top twenty universities in the world and then get a Master's degree. Sometimes life seems hard and unfair, and then I realize that I wouldn't change anything.

On a side note, Nidhal just saw a huge deer with large antlers. Too bad he didn't see one like this when he was hunting. The deer was literally three feet from our front steps.