The Week in Thought

Just some news, and some things that have occupied my thoughts over the past week or so.
Be prepared for some non-politically-correct stuff, as well as some downright politically-wrong stuff.

The news:
My employer's payroll department had, for some still unknown reason, set my paycheck to be taxed by both VA and MD for several months during 2007. Further, when requested to send a corrected W-2, they processed that in a really wonky way, and made things even more confusing. Thus, we had to go to a tax preparer to figure things out (normally we do our own taxes). I didn't feel it was fair to have to pay nearly $200 because of the HR department's screw-up so I requested that the company pay for it. Finally, today, I got a call saying that they will pay for it. Yay!

The thoughts (all instigated through conversations with co-workers):
One co-worker of mine refuses to believe that I do not believe in one of the "major" religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.). Her grasp of English is limited enough that I do not feel that I can sufficiently explain my beliefs without causing myself physical harm (from banging my head against the wall). So, we talked about Jesus.
I have read very little of the Bible. Does it say what did Jesus did after his resurrection? We know he was a carpenter -- did he open a tool store? Start up a contracting firm? Seems to me that he sort of faded into obscurity -- like the once-stars who appear on VH1's "Where are They Now?"

Another co-worker told me he had a failsafe way of recognizing Chinese people. This intrigued me, so I asked him to demonstrate it. During the demonstration, it seemed to me that he was identifying everyone of Asian descent as Chinese, so I asked him how he was sure that they were not, in fact, Vietnamese, or Korean, or so on. He retracted his original statement, and said that he could identify Asian Americans. Again, I challenged him, in that some of the people might not be Americans. Ultimately, he conceded that he could not determine whether they were American or not. So it turns out that he has the astounding power to differentiate among Asian, Black, and White people.
I followed up on this by asking him how he classifies himself. He said that he felt that he was "African American." We discussed that label, taking into consideration non-black African people who could ultimately become Americans. He said that the label depends on individual ancestry -- so I asked if I could be a European American, since my ancestors all came from Europe. He said that I could not, but could not come up with a reason. I told him I was being discriminated against because I could not be called a European American, yet he allowed Asian Americans and African Americans.

Yet another co-worker of mine has not been to the store for a few weeks because she badly burned her hand at home. She is recuperating, and thankfully her injury was not so bad that she had to have skin grafts or anything, but it got me thinking: do people who get skin grafted from other areas of the body (such as the buttocks) feel awkward when shaking someone's hand, knowing that their butt skin is what's making contact?