I always manage to get a window seat. I feel less hemmed in if I have a window to look through. The best views are in the lower altitudes, below the cloudy ceiling. Even better are the views in the evening over a large city. When I flew back in this evening, L.A. looked like a rhinestone studded blanket. Each light was a shimmering golden beacon woven into a filmy gauze draped over the darkened countryside.
Plane rides aren't all fun and games though. I'm still recovering from whatever disease I caught last week so my ears were all stopped up. It was annoying (and painful) when I tried all sorts of things to get my ears to adjust to the changing cabin pressure when ascending and descending. And when I was comfortable, I found it difficult to sleep because people were busy trying to outdo the plane engines in wailing power. Some grown-ups are worse than babies.
Yes, I'm talking about those notorious airplane passengers. I couldn't get any sleep at all when I was flying to the east coast because a woman sitting directly behind me kept jabbering away for over four hours straight. I got to hear her talking about her college-bound daughter, her ex-husband, bar mitzvahs, and a bunch of other things I didn't really want to know about. When I flew back west today, a pair of ditzy blonde graduate students sat in front of me bouncing in their seats while they gossiped about breakups, boyfriends, and wedding invitations. These people were loud. I could care less about their lives. I just want to get some sleep.
Sure, some people would argue with me that they're only being assertive--that I should be admiring instead of resentful. But I think they're loud and obnoxious by drawing unneccessary attention to themselves. Assertiveness does not require loudness.
Then again, perhaps I'm a grumpy old prune who doesn't know how to have fun. Wait a minute. I'm not old. I'm tired though. And I wish some people would just shut up.
I could justify my score by saying that I've mostly lived in areas populated by Caucasians and that even within a ethnic group there is great genetic diversity--but in reality I'm just lame. I can tell the difference between Asians (heck, I'm an Asian myself so there really is no excuse), but I've never really thought about particular features being associated to a particular group. I'd rather have people know me for me and not as some "Asian girl". In fact, I feel rather uncomfortable when people want to identify me by ethnic group. I'd rather be identified by nationality (i.e. your passport country) than by some ethnic identity which I don't have much of an affinity for in the first place. I don't feel so bad though; other Asians have done rather poorly on this test too.
