So you know spring is here.

I would hope it’s that obvious.

And you know what that means?

The dating season gets kicked into high gear.

It’s funny because I haven’t really been active with dating in the past 4 months. I’m so not into it (yet I still talk about it). It’s just fun talking about, and I hear so much around work. Even though 90 percent of the people that I work with are all in relationships, and the 10 percent of us…well, we share our stories.

I think everyone at work pretty much knows that I’ve tried online dating…and it’s not something I wanted to share with everyone. Just my boss and this guy, who I’m gonna name Flirtaholic. It’s quite fitting. Really. Flirtaholic and I get on quite well. I totally get where he’s coming from when he talks about his dating woes. Ever since Flirtaholic knew that I tried online dating, the whole building knows. And this is me going *yikes!* I’m just glad it’s not such a taboo thing anymore.

I’m a rather quiet person at work; I keep to myself. I do my work, I talk to a couple of people…and I go home to do my thing. For some reason I’ve been getting involved at work now. I joined softball last summer; it’s quite fun, but we’re not even close to good. And I even was on the holiday party committee last December. Plus I go to happy hours with them every now and then. And now everyone knows a little about my dating life*.

Now, Flirtaholic will talk to me about his dating adventures. They’re hilarious. Apparently, a lot of his friends (mostly, girls) try to set him up. He ran into one of his friends the other day, and she emailed him the next day and said that she knew someone that she’d like to set him up with because she thought they’d get along rather well. But she didn’t know the girl all too well. This made Flirtaholic ask, “why would you want to set me up with someone that you didn’t know too well?” The girl said, “Ah i just thought you’d get along, that’s all.” (And you know what that means, “Oh they’re both single, they’d be perfect together…*rolling eyes*). So she sent him a picture of the girl. Flirtaholic showed me the picture. When I saw the picture, I was like “HUH?! NO way!”

Don’t get me wrong, she was a beautiful girl, but in no way was she anywhere near his type!

Yes, it was based on her looks–she was really a beautiful girl. But I know Flirtaholic’s type, and he likes certain girls. And his past 3 exes all fell into one category. (No, I’m not going to say what category because it’s completely besides the point). Flirtaholic was like “What? What would make her think I’d want to date her?” And she knew his last two exes. So he told her nope. I thought the whole situation was hilarious mainly because I can see where she was coming from, thinking they’d get along.

Flirtaholic is truly a people person. He’s the first person that every new person who comes to work at my company that everyone meets on their first day of work. I’m not JOKING! He really is. So I see where the girl’s coming from. But when it comes to dating, he likes a particular type, and I don’t hold it against him. It just fits his personality. I love to hear about his dating adventures…but he’s told me them all. It’s getting old… and I don’t blame him.

Dating does get old. It really does. Those 90% who are in relationships where I work at, all envy us. And we envy them. Everyone always believes that the grass is greener on the other side.

*That scares me….mind you, this blogging about my dating is completely different.

Metro and Zipcar are working together to offer $25 in free driving if you sign up for both a new Metro SmarTrip card and a new Zipcar membership. Read the accompanying press release for more information.

It’s a great marketing idea to promote increased use of Metro and Zipcar and reduce dependence on privately-owned automobiles in the District.

I’ve been a member of Zipcar for the last nine months and I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. I don’t own a car; all that hassle of auto maintenance, repair, gas, insurance, and parking are all gone with a simple $25 yearly membership fee (you’re automatically insured). Isn’t that just mindboggling in itself?

Then you pay $8.75 or more a hour for using a car. This system is effective because:

• You won’t waste time just driving around. You’ll get what needs to be done and return the car within the time you’ve reserved it for.
• You don’t pay for gas.
• You don’t pay for gas.
• You don’t pay for gas.

I’ve never once seriously wished I had a car when living in DC. It’s nice when I get to borrow a friend’s car for this and that, but when I listen to their parking fees, car inspection and registration, gas pumpin’, and auto repair horror stories, I always remind myself it’s so much better to not own a car at all. And if I need one…okay, Zipcar ready!

If you live and work in convenient areas within the District, and commute using public transportation or a bike, just join Zipcar for God’s sake. Get rid of your car already.

I am a huge fan of Wilde, Salinger, Nabokov, Coetzee, Woodard, Tolkien, Conan Doyle, Steinem, Thoreau, Yeats…to name just a few (authors, for those of you who unfortunately don’t know). I try to go for variety, but if the book leaves me thinking, then I know I’ve made a good choice. I’m usually too busy but there are some weeks where I can easily read dozens of books…non-stop. Even though I have a bad habit of buying new books from Borders or Barnes & Noble, I do love discovering hidden jewels in second-hand shops. And I’m sure others do, too. But like me, they should have the luxury of “choice”.

Since not too many books can be read more than once, your books probably are gathering dust at this very moment. [Side note: Has anybody noticed the dwindling quality of coming-out authors these days? Argh. Another post to be never written someday]. Why don’t you donate your old books through DC Learns? Through your generosity, others can escape too. To me, that’s the very beauty of living- the ability to imagine. And let authors do it for you, too.

Who are your favorite authors? Why?

Word at work has gotten around that I have tried online dating. It’s funny because a lot of people are skeptical about it. I admit I am at times. Considering I haven’t really done much dating at all in the past few months. I just have issues…but that’s another story

Anyway, so one of the girls “MissPeppy” wanted to know if I could try to find someone that she’s currently dating on the online dating site. I told her that the only way she could do that is by doing a general search, unless you knew his screen name (which is rare).

So she did a general search and actually found him. Now here’s the problem. MissPeppy and this guy have been dating for 3 weeks. On Sunday afternoon, he told her that he only wanted to date her. With that said, MissPeppy thought they were boyfriend and girlfriend. However, she found his profile online, and it said he’d been active within 24 hours.

Not a good thing.

Monday morning, I open my email, and she wants my advice. I don’t exactly have advice for this kind of situation. But she goes to find his profile online and shows it to me…and he’s online right at that moment. MissPeppy isn’t exactly the happiest person on the planet.

This is where it’s confusing. When a guy tells a girl that he only wants to date her, why would he be on a dating site all day checking out other girls’ profiles?

If a guy genuinely likes a girl, or vice versa, they wouldn’t be online checking other people’s profiles. That’s my 2 cents.

What’s the deal, a guy says something, and does completely something different? And she thought he was a genuinely nice guy. She says she’ll ask him straight up what the deal is.

What’s your take on what he said and what he did?

I read Sunday’s NYT Op-Ed titled “A Poverty of the Mind” with great interest and like many other culture-related articles I read, I often consider the deaf analogy.

The piece discusses not only the “tragic disconnection of millions of black youths from the American mainstream” but also, the “failure of social scientists to adequately explain the problem, and their inability to come up with any effective strategy to deal with it.”

The deaf analogy made me think about the progress our social scientists are making in improving the livelihoods of deaf people. For example, Chomsky and other linguistic researchers have proved that the bombardment of ASL to deaf infants before the age of three enables full access to language and cognitive development. Otherwise, a parent beats a dead horse.

I really want to believe that influential organizations like NAD, AGB and the American Society of Deaf Children are armed with this linguistic research and more - and are maybe even evangelizing its findings as part of their missions. And in this increasingly hostile day and age, I believe that the advancement of this knowledge will require an unprecedented collaboration of everyone - deaf, hard-of-hearing, hearing, signers and non-signers.

However, what I fear is this:

Given the prevalence of audism in the world - given the default desire for physical and social normalcy on the part of hearing parents of deaf children, our legislatures can easily be lobbied, politicked and convinced by the wrong factions or coalitions.

The two key questions for me become:

• How do we strategically defeat legislative audism?
• How do we trailblaze delivery of current linguistic research to the parents of newborn deaf children and their doctors?

This week, we are all George Mason fans.

I’m not even going to try and insert my own summary of this Cinderella story; the sports columnists across the media are doing such a wonderful job of that.

I’ve never liked March Madness before. I hate how it takes over my television with meaningless acronyms (LSU? Nova?) and statistics (what’s goaltending?). I didn’t even bat an eye to Syracuse’s win a few years ago (but as an resident adviser, I certainly didn’t like the firecrackers going off on my floor lounge).

But this year, like so many other things that makes DC what it is, I was infected with the exuberance surrounding Georgetown and GMU’s entry in the Sweet Sixteen. I watched the nailbiting finale between GMU and Wichita State. And on a dusty 9-inch television on the floor of my parents’ gutted-out living room, I held my breath as Connecticut made a desperate, Hail Mary pass at the basket only to miss.

DC has a way of making me appreciate quintessentially American institutions that I never got around to liking before. March Madness is one of them, and I’m proud to say that I was conquered. Go Mason!

Insert your thoughts, jovial comments, or rants below.

This morning, I’m riding the metro, and reading the express paper along with everyone else.

I come across the article called, Major Angst. But the article wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be about.

The basis of this article is about some kids who are in high school and feel bored with their education. They want more core classes because they already know what they want to be when they grow up.

I don’t know about you, but when I was 15, I had a couple of dreams. Although I still wasn’t sure. When I was 17, I was freaking out. I didn’t want to go to college, mainly because it’d mean I’d have to pick a major.

What do you mean I have to determine what I want to do for the rest of my life at 17 years old?! How am I supposed to know that?! The kids in the article, they know exactly what they want to be when they grow up. The 15 year old girl wants to be an engineer. and the 17 year old boy wants to design video games. Good for you! As for the rest of the kids, they might just want to be kids, and play sports after school, and join their friends at the mall or movies, or even go to youth or work part time.

Yeah, so Florida education might come up with a plan where students could “major” in humanities, English, communications, math, science, history, social studies, arts, foreign language, and vocational skills. Oh this is beginning to feel a lot like college. My theory, they just want to grow up a little too quickly.

Can you imagine picking a major when you’re just 14 years old. I know I can’t. I could barely pick a major when I went to college. I even ended up changing my field of study 3 years into my major. (Lucky for me, it didn’t affect my graduation date). Besides, don’t these kids know, you’ll probably change careers 7 times in your life time. So why not take this time at age 15 and 17, and just be a teenager for once? Drive your parents crazy.

Hey you — yes, you — I’m talking to you! I bet you’ve always wanted a neat little calendar to keep track of things in your life. And I bet you’ve wanted to share it or portions of it with family and friends? Look no further — 30Boxes is here!

30 Boxes is a very nifty calendar that allows you to add things simply by typing them in. For example, if I have lunch with my sister next friday, I simply type in the top “lunch with sister next friday at 1pm” and it puts a calendar entry for me! You can also add the conventional way by going to the day and clicking Add.

The neat part is you can add your friends calendars to yours and view them all together in one place. You can even add DeafDC or other RSS sources to your calendar and see new entries as they pop up.

On top of all this, you can set reminders for your events and tag them with “keywords” like on Gmail. You can share calendar items with certain keywords to certain people. Heck, you can even create RSS feeds with certain keywords and publish it.

If you’ve ever wanted a calendar on the internet, check out 30 Boxes!

I hope there isn’t anyone out there that still believes human-driven climate change is a myth. Please read this important article from the Post on changing conditions in the far north.

It has been widely said that climate change would be most felt in the polar regions.

“In the Russian northernmost territory of Chukotka, the Inuit have drilled wells for water because there is so little snow to melt. Reykjavik, Iceland, had its warmest February in 41 years…In Pangnirtung [Canada], residents were startled by thunder, rain showers and a temperature of 48 degrees in February, a time when their world normally is locked and silent at minus-20 degrees.”

As the pace of climate change quickens (or is it simply that it’s progressed to the point where we now can feel its effects?), I’m left feeling unsure what to do. Keep on recycling?

So from March 28-30, JEOPARDY! is letting fans try out for the show by taking an online test. PAH!

At last, something to do with a game show that’s actually accessible!

Granted, if selected based on your test score, you still have to go in for an audition and screen test. I know I’ve heard of other deafies trying and being blocked from even a chance to get on these game shows, even, specifically, JEOPARDY!.

But duuude! I want some of that money. I’d much rather be told I can’t be on the show because my life story anecdotes are too boring or because the camera doesn’t love me than just because they can’t figure out what to do with me because I’m deaf.

I’m gonna see if I can take the test. But I’m not very optimistic.

Funnily enough, the FAQs page on the online test has this on it:

“JEOPARDY! is proud of its long-standing reputation of openness to applicants with disabilities.”

Stupidness for $200, please, Alex.