more complaints about corporate debauchery to follow. please do not continue to read this if you don't want to hear my bitchfest. so, as you know, i work for an environmental nonprofit organization. while we get federal appropriations to feed our conservation grants, none of the federal money is allowed to be used as operations for the foundation. hence, all of our funding (or lack thereof) must come from private sources. this translates into a rather small salary for me. i can survive on it, yes, but literally half of my paycheck goes towards rent and bills. this has already been a problem, because other people in the foundation do not have to deal with the cost of living out in san francisco. i make the same amount as they do, but their costs are far lower.

so, at today's project meeting, the lovely executive director of the foundation announces that health insurance rates have skyrocketed (about a 40% increase). i had known that this was coming, since my mom's recent raise was minimal because most of the "raise" amount went to insurance cost increases. however, in the DC office of my foundation, they are working to create a cheaper HMO option for their staff. out in the regional offices, we get screwed because they're not going to look into HMO options for us. so not only do we pay more in general out here for housing, bills, etc., now we have to pay more for our health benefits. there's something extremely wrong with an organization not providing equal benefits to all of its employees because of where we are situated. more and more am i hating the bureaucracy of pseudo-governmental disfunction, and nonprofit pay scales. i need to find a corporate job with private money where i can be assured that i'll have equal benefits to everyone else doing the same job i'm doing.

evidently my place in the star wars universe is becoming immortalized. about a year ago, my friend pabs (who works for lucasfilm and freelances for the star wars magazine) decided that he was going to use my name as part of a story. he loves my name, and when he needed to write a story about the species called the chiss, he incorporated my name into the story. the chiss home planet is called csilla, the capital city is called csaplar, and one of the four ruling families is called csapla. nothing doing, the article was published with the correct spelling intact. i thought that would be the end of it, but no... in the latest addition to the series of star wars novels, luke and han visit the chiss on planet csilla and interact with the csapla ruling family. this book is more widely distributed than the magazine, and has higher readership... i'll be interested to see if anyone i know picks up on it. too funny... there is supposedly going to be a star wars universe map coming out, as well, and my planet will be on it. i'll be needing to acquire a copy, and i'll label my planet with "you are here." hee!

had a really great (albeit tiring) weekend... i helped out with the lead the way conference sponsored by the girl scouts of santa clara county, acting as an adult chaperone. it was a great group of girls, it's a fun and well-organized event, and the chaperone crew was awesome to work with. we had some late nights and early mornings, but it was a good weekend. i met some new exciting people that i hope to continue contact with, as well as seeing some old friends i hadn't seen in years. good times, good times.

R.I.P. members of the columbia space shuttle, february 2, 2003.