Instant ramen noodle soup drives me crazy: 

False advertisement. Deceit. Swindling. Call it what you want, but the image of the perfect, appetizing bowl of noodle soup displayed on a typical instant ramen package is far from my reality. 

Every time I decide to make instant ramen, not only does my supposedly “gourmet” dish consist of eggshells, but by the time I’m done cooking, the soup seems to vanish into thin air.

Even after painstakingly measuring the right amount of water, by the time I’ve turned off the stove, I’m left with nothing but a pot of soggy noodles and sad, over-boiled bok choy. 

To make matters worse, chunks of noodles stick to the pot like hot glue, and I’m left struggling to scrape them out.

 Please, if you have magical cooking abilities, teach me your ways. I’d love to have a nice spicy broth to drink with my instant noodles the next time around.

A bold request: 

“On Behalf of the Superintendent…”

Ah, bolded words. Must be important.

But isn’t the point of bolding to place emphasis on keywords? Where’s the emphasis, then, if the entire email — all 950 words of it — is bolded? 

I stop reading after the salutation. I get it, these emails from the district are important — so immensely, unduly, awfully important that every single word just has to be bolded.

Every. Single. Word.

Really, I refuse to abuse my already-nearsighted eyes by condemning them to read these earth-shatteringly important emails.

So, I shall be so bold as to ask the district: stop.

Stationery can be downright painful to use:

Pondering how to approach the first problem of my homework, I press the tip of my pencil against the paper. It snaps, leaving a small, grey smudge, and scattering lead bits across the page. Wincing, I flip the pencil to use the eraser.

The eraser does nothing. As I rub furiously, the smudge worsens and the paper tears. 

I scrunch it up into a ball to throw it away — or at least, I attempt to. My hands slide cleanly across the edge, as sharp as a knife, rewarding me with a red slash on my hand, the wound beading out blood droplets.

I stand up to find a bandage and sigh in exasperation. Yet another battle for dominance lost against stationery.

100-word rant: Why is the weather so bipolar?

Before moving to California, I was always told “you’ll get rain occasionally, but it’s usually a lovely warm day.” 

Hate to break it to people, but after suffering through a record-breaking heat wave, 10,849 lightning bolts overnight and raging firestorms, I’m not so sure that “mild and pleasant days” is an accurate descriptor of this year’s weather. 

I honestly can’t imagine being a TV weatherman. Every time he memorizes his spiel and stands up to speak, he probably gets interrupted immediately:

“Sorry Frank, but scratch the clear skies. Turns out there’s actually a thunderstorm brewing. Give me a second, I’m getting some new info … Oh, make that two thunderstorms! And throw in a mention of the deteriorating air quality.”

Come on, how hard is it for the weather to make up its mind?