Ninja by day, student by night

move along lil ones to cynsim.com

As I wrote the title, I stopped and wondered if I was planning to have a honeymoon EVERY year, haha. In my mind, yes, I plan to have one, even if it is something simple like going somewhere with Gogu-ji and staying off the computer.

We had a great time in Seaside, Oregon, and also got to visit Cannon Beach and revisit all our old haunts (except for the Happy Clam, RIP). We also got to try out some new places, and believe me, it was worth exploring new restaurants. As luck had it, Junior and his girlfriend Corina were visiting Seaside as well, so we ended up having dinner and a bonfire on Junior’s birthday. From what they told us, Corina planned out the birthday trip for Junior, what a great girlfriend!

We met a few characters at the bonfire, which made things really hilarious because everyone seemed to be “clam digging” which is basically saying they were wandering the beach while super drunk and/or stoned. Our group wasn’t, so we had a good laugh at all their antics, and just enjoyed the ambiance of a warm fire and a beautiful ocean right in front of us.

It was a really great night, especially since we had fresh seafood earlier. I had fresh crab and Gus had fresh halibut at…I want to say Broogies, but that isn’t right. Ah it was Dooger’s! Their service was okay, the waitress forgot our salads and gave us a bit of attitude, but the fresh seafood was very good. Gus preferred Norma’s Ocean Diner and I agree on principle because my chowder was really good, with lots of chunky clam bits (and without pork to flavor it up), and his grilled halibut sandwich was really amazing. The prices were a bit better as well, and we noticed that the clam appetizer was filled all the way at Norma’s, and didn’t look dried out in comparison. The environment is definitely more casual, but we were there at lunch so it isn’t a fair comparison.

One thing I’ve noticed, especially with me working on web design/development is the state of small local websites. Dooger’s website isn’t too bad, but it could use a little help but Norma’s needs a design update, badly. I think if I was to go with social networking, I’d do updates on specials, maybe mention what’s fresh that day, etc. It doesn’t take much to give information, especially with Twitter’s API, which you can use in your website, or even a Google map so people can look up the location.

That’s just me though. Anyway, I’m back to bed, I had to get up at 3:45 am to get Gus off to an early workday, and now it’s hitting me hard.

This summer is passing by so quickly! I got an email from my professor regarding my internship/independent study and all my materials are due next week! It isn’t as bad as it sounds though, I’ve been super-busy working on various projects so I have a lot to show for my time.

For me, the end of summer classes means that I have to start preparing for fall. There’s a lot to do, and I’m really excited and a little nervous about all the potential awesomeness for my last semester.

Still, I’m in “summer” semester now, and I just realized how happy I was today. I married a great guy, had a great wedding, made some new friends, painted some kickass pictures, and learned more about web development/design.

My summer hobbies have been working on my garden with Gogu-ji, doing some paintings, learning about making quilts, and reading a ton about web technologies and design. I’ve also made a habit of trying out a new Indian recipe after I visit my in-laws, because Gogu-ji’s mom has been pretty good about teaching me something new every time, so I practice making Indian recipes. I still need a lot of practice, but I learned to roll out rotis, make parathas, make daal, Indian salad, and cha. In return, I’ve made breakfast (eggs and toast) for them and had them try my homemade salsa. I even made my first loaf of ciabatta from a no-knead bread cookbook that I got from my mom. It was good but my yeast was a little old so it didn’t rise as nicely as it should (but it had really good flavor). I’m sure my next attempt will be better, I have fresh yeast and now I know what to expect.

I’ve been slowly learning AJAX over the summer, I found a library book on it, but the code was horribly outdated and it had a ton of typos in it. Although it was troublesome, I think I learned a lot by troubleshooting the code.

I haven’t had many opportunities to take photographs, except at a few weddings, but I think I’ll make more opportunities when fall starts, it’s been too busy with work and being a newlywed.

As for the married thing…well I love being married to Gogu-ji, and I feel pretty good inside, especially with respect to being a part of his family. There are so many ways that things could go wrong but we are all being patient and kind with each other as we get accustomed to the changes.

Last weekend we had a really nice dinner at one of the relative’s house, and I got to get to know them a bit better. I was a little nervous at first because I wasn’t sure what to do, but I realize that the Punjabi lifestyle is pretty much the same as the Mexican lifestyle, where the women help each other in the kitchen. It’s actually a really good experience for me because I get to see how to set up the area for a dinner and what types of food and snacks are typically served.

Since the family is vegetarian, I got to enjoy some of my favorites, like daal, subji and paneer, rotis and bhurta. I’m not a vegetarian but Indian vegetarian dishes are really the highlight of my dining experiences. It’s also what I’m focusing my efforts on, because I have a few vegetarian friends and I would like them to feel like they can visit me without any worries. The health benefits don’t hurt either.

In any case, I’ve been so busy trying to complete my requirements for my summer internship credit, I just have to get everything signed off and dropped off to my advisor by Thursday.

Hope everyone is having a great summer

So here’s the thing, you can learn from my messy transactions and be a smart bride, or you can run along and waste time.

Ladies changing your name…buy 2 certified copies of marriage license when you turn in your marriage license, it’s fairly inexpensive, I think mine was $4 for one copy in Prosser. You want one copy to keep at home for those unforseen circumstances and a copy for immediate use.

When you have a day off go to Social Security with your certified copy and current driver’s license, they will update your social security card and mail you a copy that will come in a few weeks. No charge.

Give 24 hours or more for the update to go through the computer network, then go to the DMV. If you are like me, where I had to update my address, change my name and get my EDL (enhanced driver’s license), you will need a few things. I needed my current valid driver’s license, a bill in my name at my new address for the address update. You will need your certified copy of your marriage certificate to change your name, your current valid driver’s license (prove that you are a WA resident) and I also had my passport to show that I’m a U.S. citizen, but there are more ways to prove that, see the DMV site for a list of acceptable docs. You also need to know your social security number, but you don’t have to have the card. The DMV person needs to be able to find your SS with your new name in order for them to issue you an EDL, but they’ll give you a temporary driver’s license so make sure you get prettied up.

Now that you got that done, you can then do your passport change if you need to (that’s what the second certified copy of your marriage license is for, they have you send it in, so you don’t get it back).

I still need to update my accounts and talk to work about my name change, and I’ll update if I need anything unique when doing so.

Hope this saves you some time

So I’m just hanging out, smelling like olive oil because I’m done cleaning up around my brother’s home. In true Indian bride fashion, I got my mehndi done yesterday and all the little henna crumbs made a mess on my brother’s carpet, whoops!

It turned out beautiful, photos will be shown I’m sure.

Here I am! Just woke up, time to get this all started, I’m happy and excited, no nerves, except that I want everyone to have a good time.

So the question is, how do you know if people are coming to your wedding if there are no RSVP cards? I don’t know either, but it’s scary and cool at the same time.

Presentation Links:

Vogue Black: Racism or Inspiration

Vogue Black

Race Cube

Women’s World Quote

Internet Racism – Recent exchange among two white college students at the University of Minnesota-Duluth about an African American student.

Racialicious

Latina Magazine

Latinitas

Digital Islam

Racism_101

United Farm Workers

Additional Reading:

Story on Race and Blogging

Arizona Immigration  Law Angers Mexico

Replacing Katie Couric with a White Dude

Harvard Racist Email

Net Neutrality

Save the Internet – Civil Rights, Representation

Color-blind racial ideology

Brent – Online interactions make us behave differently then we normally would do.  Passing as other people, not portraying ourselves.  Newer generations share more than older generations.

Neil – Advantage of Smart Phones: Narrowing the Digital Divide.  Cell phones and Internet-ready smart phones are narrowing the access portion of the digital divide around the world and that is a good thing.  Really good examples on how 3rd world countries and its citizens are using phones to help others as well as themselves.  What happens if a 3rd world person loses a phone or it breaks?  What were the old methods?  Are there any cultural issues with narrowing the divide?  Are some groups having an issues with this?

Josh – Internet activism is a necessary tool  for physical activism in the real world.  Mobile phones and internet as activism tools.  Virtual communities are a tool to contribute towards activism, same with facebook.  People can group together to create events, post information.  What are some limitations for internet activism as a tool?

Dan – Virtual Communities, and its effects of virtual community on meatspace.  Learning principles of video games are enhance in online environment, and this enhance many account for an increase of the number online gaming community members.

Affinity Group principle – not based on race, gender, ethnicity is an interesting idea because most things are based on these things, could it be the neutral space that underrepresented people are looking for?  Other reason for growth are good, and how the reasons (such as access) can change who is available to become part of these affinity groups.

Lee – Cyber-activism; Youtube has revolutionized political activism and, in doing so, it has uniquely contributed to the perpetuation of hate, however inadvertently.

It seems that Lee is focusing on how Youtube perpetuates hate propaganda and how instead of being able to increase activism, it weakens it because it allows people to post hate information in video through a global venue.    How can we learn to work in facts rather than emotions when we deal with race and hate?

- Cybercrime – There are lot of ways that we can share information, allowing people to use our information for cybercrimes, as opposed to how people can steal our information in real life.  How can we solve these issues?  Privacy issues are a big deal, how does grandma keep herself safe?  Do we focus on users keeping themselves safe or is it better for the source to work on these issues, does or should the law come into it?  Also how does the law treat these types of crimes as opposed to real life threats, theft, etc.

Angel – Bridging the Digital Divide (Concepts of Games in Education).  Bridging the digital divide where students need to become actively involved in learning how to use new technologies which can be accomplished by applying the concepts of video games in education.

Access – how do we make sure everyone has access?  I didn’t see much information about that part in your presentation, that’s what I asked anyway.

Creating content – Lego League

Active problem solvers – building games RPG maker

Derek – Bridging the Gap – Mobile technology is positively affecting the digital divide by providing solutions to issues of accessibility while exposing userse to the power of virtual communities.

I think that 3rd world countries are more likely to have mobile phones rather than pcs, they are less expensive to deal with, portable, and shareable. How small can the digital divide get with this technology?

Kristen – Program Hope – Educating kids about cyberbullying. How do you get kids to care?  What if kids feel the digital divide and how to help them deal with things.