CTHB

Friday night, I went to class from 7 to midnight, then hopped out to grab food with some of my classmates at El Puerto Escondido, all the while playing phone tag with Drew, who had come up to LA for a party and was looking for a place to stay for the night. Normally, I'd have my car, but I didn't because it was making strange scraping noises from the front driver's side wheel well; my friend Bridget was able to give me a ride to and from class, though. That worked out really well; it was the first time I ever rode in a convertible. Didn't get home until about 2 and shortly before Drew showed up, fortunately.

Saturday, I took the car to Acura of Glendale to get it checked out. Turned out that a clip for the fender cover was missing--it probably jostled loose when I ran over that tire detritus on the way to Vegas for the Serenity screening--and the fender cover was hanging low enough to scrape against the tire when it was turned all the way to the right. They fixed that free of charge. Since my car was already in their shop and it was overdue for maintenance, I had that checked out too. Turns out the previous owner had never done the 90k maintenance, so I had them take care of that (timing belt, tensioners, water pump) and part of the 105k maintenance that was also overdue (all the fluids and filters, but not the plugs).

Side Note: when buying a used car, you should factor in the maintenance schedule and the cost of the major maintenance around 90-120k as that can cost a decent chunk of money.

With the car in the shop for maintenance, I was really not going to have access to it for the better part of the day. Luckily, Drew was willing to ferry me around. We grabbed some breakfast, hit Tower Records, stopped at home for a bit to sleep sine neither of us had more than 4 hours the night before, and then went over to Cristelle's for her Introduction to the Landmark Forum.

Cristelle was leading and had asked for a room captain. I wasn't really prepared to do it, but once the car situation was settled I accepted the offer and jumped in. Both Drew and I were thankful for the experience as it was fun and inspiring. I love listening to Cristelle when she has something to say (and she always does), even when she's panicking.

So, out of context, that last paragraph probably sounds odd. I'm currently in the Introduction Leaders Program at Landmark Education and part of the curriculum is about delivering the "Introduction," which is basically a personalised presentation with an exercise that gives a sense of what gets done in the Landmark Forum and information about what it's like to participate in the Landmark Forum.

That's the mundane part of the class. The really cool part of the class is actually what I have to do to be able to deliver the Introduction. Because a lot of what goes into the presentation is personal, you can't fake it. Consequently, a good part of the program is about cleaning up the messes you've made in your life so that you can speak from a position of integrity and power. That is mighty cool.

So, uh, that was Saturday afternoon. Picked up the car after that, flirted with the dealership's receptionist, then hopped out for maki at Ichiban and then a showing of Episode III. (Episode III commentary in a separate post.) It was a pretty packed Saturday.

Sunday, grabbed a quick brunch with Drew at El Atacor, a Mexican place near my house, then headed out to do homework with classmates from the ILP. Ended up hanging around and talking about life more than doing homework, but it was all good. Had my colleague Newton over for an Introduction at my place in the afternoon and then proceeded to nap and play WoW for the rest of the evening.

Monday was work, Mien Shiang (Taoist face reading) class, and then dinner with Patrician (the instructor), Veronique and Dee (classmates) afterwards.

Tuesday was more work and oddly enough Monday and Tuesday were both really intense days at work where I barely stopped to shovel food in my face. Tuesday night I was in Burbank at an event and then I had to make a run out to the airport to move my roommate's car. Two hours of driving home to get the keys, driving to the airport, driving his car to the long term lot from the short term lot (using my just-received parking chit so I wouldn't have to pay for additional parking), taking the shuttle back to the airport, and retrieving my own car and paying the maxed out parking chit that my roommate got in the morning.

Can't say I'm not enjoying these "interesting times." If nothing else, all the activity has my energy levels up and I feel like I'm on fire. The down side is my diet is terrible since I'm doing a lot of food on the go. Figure I'll work on developing something workable in that arena next.