Boiled at a Different Degree

Happy Fourth.

Since graduating, I spent a little while wallowing while trying to figure out the whole having to find a new job thing. This may have been aided slightly by my totally totaling my brother's car during a freak June rainstorm. I'm okay, he has a new, better car, but it was very dramatic and stressful. Eventually, I landed bass ackwards in a weird temp job that is many hours and lots of ambiguity. It's only fourty hours a week, but the commute was upwards of an hour and a half which made everything very tired all the time. 

Today we spent an hour sitting on our lawn eating ice cream and listening to explosions. It was nice. Hopefully we'll get more use out of our lawn (we got free sod, installed it ourselves in like 8 hours the week after graduation) as our neighbors are loud, annoying and numerous. They insist on congregating on their driveway which abuts our fence and yelling their heads off. I'm not sure what the polite way to ask them to go to their own backyard is, so we have said nothing as of yet. 

I may actually resume posting (I know, promises, promises) now that I'm out of school.

I just got my desktop back from a year in exile and when I loaded Chrome all my tabs were the last cached version of the page that I'd visited. It was funny to see what I was up to back then. Heh. Of course, the return of my desktop is merely enabling me to scratch the WoW itch I had building up for so long. 

Spent the day cleaning, or as my roomie calls it 'organizing'. Apparently there is some difference in definition there that makes me look like a loonie hell bent on making everything much messier... The sister unit helped us out and things are looking... better. Still more work to do, mostly building this effing bookcase from Target with really non-helpful instructions. Once that is up, we can start moving the books from the wall lining towers that are currently adorning the living room. Yay! Tomorrow much vacuuming will be done, if I can manage to not suck up so much dust I die. 

So, basically, my Halloween is therefore inherently spooky, just by virtue of all the cleaning I have yet to do. :P 

I'm really enjoying the advent of Autumn, despite the fact that it heralds the start of 'wear every item in your wardrobe' mode of dress. Maybe this time I'll buy myself some great thin and warm as the fires of the inferno flannels. Because, I like being comfy, and I like being warm. Summer is harder, because while in winter you can add clothes until you look like you're related to the Pillsbury Dough Boy or a Marshmallow, there's only so much clothing you can get away with NOT wearing when it's super hot.

Went and saw Zombieland this weekend, and I think that I will definitely be seeing that one again. It's sort of like Tremors, with Zombies. Speaking of things that have added zombies, I have read both Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as well as Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. There's part of my brain that thinks I should have more of a purist leaning, but at the same time... that would be pretty hypocritical given the crazy fanfiction I've read. There's not a lot of integrity you can claim when you've read as many crazy crossovers as I have.

This semester I'm taking five classes, three of which that are crazy intensely difficult, and two of which are sort of not as hard. Of course, they haven't made us do any quizzes or tests in those two, so there's time for me to be completely losing my mind with that. Meanwhile, Osteology and Archaeology of the Far East and the Ancient Maya have been freaking killing me with quizzes. Osteology is a rather difficult class, but I do love it. I pretty much live in the lab whenever there's a chance to be there and I'm not too sick and tired to be usefully occupied. Meanwhile, the teacher is totally awesome. He is one of those people that has the appearance of total confidence in his abilities, without being unproductively arrogant. We've finally gained enough familiarity with the cranial vault structures to attempt assessments of sex, age at death and geographical affinities. Very exciting.

What's new with you all flist?

Today was busy, but for once not in the crazy running to meet an ever changing finish line with no end in sight kind of way. Instead we got to run down to the tea shop and get a nice long talk with scones and teeny sandwiches and pop into Anthropologie for a looksie which resulted in me actually purchasing a top, which looks great. After, we took advantage of being down here for the weekend and stopped at the Target nearby. We don't really have one close to home so it is always an epic trip when we finally manage to get down to one. EPIC. Picked up some storage stuff and some dishtowels, the dishtowels being extraordinarily exciting when you've run out of  them due to various unforseen dishtowel tragedies. First the vacuum birthday gift excitement, now the dishtowels... my life is so thrilling I put James Bond to shame. I was all dressed up for going out to tea of course as was roomie and so the trip, which took a bit and included much walking around the massive Tar-jay was also an excercise in how well we could handle our fancy shoes in the endurance portion of the day. We got the chance to do fun student things like free laundry and more laundry. Roomie went with the fam to see the movie about the rodent spy abominations. I couldn't bring myself to go, as I have a minor fear of rodents in general and whatever those freaky googley eyed things in the movie were in specific. Ugh. After the epic shopping trip there was dinner and then some general falderal around the house, which was much more easily accomplished once I was wearing sweats and not the heels of shopping doom. I still love them all three inches of patent leather peep toe heels.

Friday we got word that things are moving again with the school budget issues, not far, not fast but hopefully we still will have the werewithall to get through it all. They posted the new schedules and by August much of the limbo-tastic tomfoollery will be resolved. *knock on wood* We're moving furniture around the apartment again, trying to come up with workable solutions for such a small space and two stress bunny students and the small dog bent on driving them nuts as the other dogs incite him to eternally bark his poor little heart out. This has moved things around quite a bit, which I'm liking so far, though I'll like it better once the storage issues are resolved. Yay Target! <3 One set of neighbors has been moving out and that has not been helping the yipping dilemma especially given how riled up all the other dogs are.

Meanwhile, this weekend has been not very good for sleeping? Gonna go give it the old college try...

We got a Sprinkles sort of close by and now we are having a minor coming of the cupcake-opolis. And I now know that I adore Red Velvet cake and I have a small minor tiny speck of understanding for that Armadillo Groom cake from "Steel Magnolias" you know the one? Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we managed to turn in papers for one of our online classes relatively quickly, quite the feat given just how little actual sleep has been happening (gosh darn mental rodeo clowns). Brains need to be quiet sometimes yeah? I think that if my paper had been a game of crazy disconnected American Government themed SAT word Scrabble, I would have won. A lot. I do not know what my damage is that when I'm completely exhausted I revert to language so completely complicated. Just now I wanted to use some fuzzy fancy schmancy word there! It's a disease! And the worst part is that once I started in on the long words for the paper, I couldn't stop. I sort of wanted to stop, I mean there's no real added value in making it harder to read...though it may have been a subconscious streak of vindictiveness against the regime of confusion that we labour under for this class. Also, the book... I've read more exciting descriptions of paint peeling. For the last reading assignment terrible British accents were necessary to fool the brains into listening and accepting the information. The worst part is that it is mostly duh stuff. But, because of the way the teacher has structured the quizzes and assignments, careful reading of the text is absolutely necessary, because the questions are sort of weaving treacherously in and out of logical sense like *insert cautionary reckless celebrity here* in traffic. Also, I worried that I was using too much of the phrasing of the book and the eventual foray into wiki-oogle to answer the questions precisely as she wants them (complete with current sources). As the paper continued, my word choice got more and more Rube Goldbergian, in the struggle to avoid even the appearance of plagiarism. A teacher once told me that a sure fire way to find a cheater is when the voice and word choices don't match within the text of the paper, which contributed to the irrational way in which I clung to the idiotic overly verbose manner in which I could not stop writing. How many times do you really need to use the word "necessitated" in one paper? Frankly, I did not have the time to rewrite it with a less confusing writing style, so I just stuck to the crazy complicated Family Circle Method*tm to get to my points. I did learn something that I hadn't known before, which is that under the Articles of Confederation.... Canada was totally invited to join up whenever they wanted. So that would have been a way different country had they taken us up on it. It has been a super long week. I've been working on the most boring filing job I have had to do in a dog's age (thanks part time availability! *kiss kiss*) and spending time being stressed and sleepless. I interviewed for a work-study on Monday. I didn't hear back, so I'll just assume that the third interview was not the charm and move on to looking for something else. Then this boring obvio assignment on stuff I've known for a looong time. No wonder politicians are crooks... at least it makes the process of government somewhat interesting! Meh, that's perhaps unfair to crooks. And to the government. Really I mostly blame the book.

On Saturday mornings I generally resemble in some small way some poor befuddled denizen of the wild, what with my fuzzy hair, smudged eye makeup, and the curious skittish demeanor exhibited as I emerge from the protracted hibernation induced by 'oh thank you sweet fluffy cupcake king, it is the weekend' euphoria. Despite this slight resemblance, I am not the type of girl to be all like down and dirty with the, um down and dirty critters. So, upon a victory walk to the Bell of the Taco... (mmm celebration post homework tacos, is anything sweeter?) we encountered a big fat raccoon. It apparently is living in the storm drains. From a cohabitation save the planet and all the animals stand point it is fascinating that they've figured out how to coexist with humans. But I saw "Over the Hedge". I wonder what is down there? I mean is it a nice comfy raccoon pad, complete with digital cable and killer wifi? Is the raccoon poaching wireless? Has he seen the ninja cat video on youtube? Fortunately we had DasGoob with us and he's tall.. so yeah. He protected our ankles from rabid, youtube watching raccoons.... then I realised that they are in the storm drains, using them as little raccoon roads, they could follow us and we would never know! So teaandauguries  though that it was following me... so I'm looking forward to the dreams filled with shadow society shinobi raccoons stalking me through the storm drains. I wonder if they know Michaelangelo and his friends? Do they order pizza down there? Hmm... I'm gonna go check the back door lock again. I hope the ninja turtles know about your creepy habits raccoon!

I'm sort of baffled by the concept of it. I've never written (and sent) a fan letter to anyone. I almost posted my peculiar ode to Gus' eyebrows... but no. I mean, what can one say? What should one say to these people that only by the visibility of the work that they do, do they earn our admiration. The able performing of their duties gives them access to praise and critique from every Joe Schmoe with a LAN line or just some cut up old newspapers, glue and an ax to grind. I mean, I don't know about you but in what other professions do you get a random evaluation/declaration of adoration/hatred/women's panties/death threats... all in the standard course of doing your job? Here are some examples of what I think this might look like.

Dear Mr. Falafel Vendor,

The way you sold me that Gyro and recommended the Tahini sauce, was just so totally like totally awesome. You and I should get married! I want to have your spicy Greek babies!!!!

XOXO

or

HOTTY MaiLMAN!1!

SQUEe!! U maek me happay when I has mails. Inclosed u will find a srprise. and Luv. U+Me=4evah
luv yr #1 FAN

or

Retard,

Stop breathing, you waste of hot air, the way that you collated my copies for the presentation was an abomination of the highest order. What kind of retard uses sans serif on a presentation for the Japanese, clearly you have no brain. Kinkos used to be good, before you cocked it up.

DIAF

or

Dear School Lunchlady,

My daughter is dying of mylittleponyitis cabbagepatchetus a rare degenerative disease that begins to manifest in early childhood with an over fondness for pigtails. Her very dearest wish is to spend the day with you, lunchlady. She so admires and respects you and it would make these few short months we have left with her more bearable.

c/o Make a Wish Foundation

Meanwhile, I'm still on the first draft of my fan letter.

Finals are over, I managed an A in Chem... miracles happen. :P

I have a ton of other food related stuff to post to eastnearwestabout, but I'm going to wait until I emerge victorious from the haze of finals, which are over soon (hallelujah).  Instead I'm just going to say, that even I think the food I make when I'm tired is weird. This morning I made myself a scrambled egg, but I added a splash of cream, a dash of cinnamon, some mozerella, and applesauce. It tasted liked delicious apple bake. But still, weird no?

Anyone else think so too? 

What is the weirdest thing you've ever found yourself fixing to eat?

Finished up my test this morning. It was easier than I expected. Though I avoided a couple of questions merely to preserve what sanity I have left. I got done early, which is great. I wish I'd brought my homework from Comm to finish up. Instead I posted to eastnearwestand figured out how to add a poll to my entry. I know! It's like super special awesome! Oh! I should add one to this post too! Poll happy girl on a rampage!

[Poll #1179136]

 Today was a delicious day. First off: Cupcakes at Bible Study! Yum. Vanilla with white frosting, simple and delicious. Then for lunch we had bruschetta... roasted tomatoes, mozzarella on a bed of crispy toast with pesto and super thin sliced salami. It was delightful. For a snack later we had roasted beets tossed with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and feta cheese. It was my very first time eating beets. They were sooo good. I don't know what I was thinking they'd taste like, but they were way yummy. Tonight we're planning on having roasted veggies (potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, tofu) and something else. We haven't gotten past drooling over the veggies to be honest. Maybe tomorrow we'll have tuna with olive oil and beans with sea salt and pepper... (Last night we had spicy shrimp, mashed potatoes and peas). I need a food icon... Roomie and I are on the lookout for yummy and healthy recipes that are super easy and quick to fix. Brain food is of the good, being as we are both approaching finals. Found a few delicious looking recipes on Epicurious. The only difficulty between us is the ratio of meat to veggies. :P And our budget. It is easier to eat crap when you're poor and short on free neurons, but we're trying to fix that.

This month, no bus pass. So I'll be walking to school. Upside, exercise. Downside, getting up earlier and sweating. Upside, better for the environment. Downside, if my deodorant is insufficient to the task of preventing me from being a smelly mess after walking, my immediate local environment gets worse. (Yuck!) 

Meanwhile, still studying for Trig midterm. I hope I have hair left after.

Gave a speech today (well yesterday at this point) for my Communications class. It was an experience I shan't soon forget. Which is good. Since at some point I am sure there will be a test. Probably not on what I learned, though. We gave our speeches sans teacher in small groups of people, in our group's case 7, though only 5 of us were prepared to give our speeches. We were instructed to keep our speeches to 10 minutes including 3 minute rebuttals. Sounds nice right? If done right, our group could have shaved 30 minutes off of class time. Ha! Not likely (apparently)... Instead we were treated to more loca than I've been privileged to witness in quite some time. Loca (who normally has been, while a trifle emotional, fairly stable seeming) had apparently lost her mind today, due perhaps to her dire thoughts regarding the obvious "Earthquake Weather". I don't know.

We are gathering our wits and speeches up, preparing to decide who among us is to approach the front and give our speech when she preempts us and, grabbing a book from her bag, which seems rather large proceeds to try and teach us about 'The Trail of Tears'. While ordinarily, I would applaud the decision to boldly forge new trails of bullshit in the face of scholastic endeavors, she was sadly missing the mark completely, and about to burst into tears at the plight of the Native Americans. We kindly informed her that should she desire to make up an argument, we had no objection as long as she did it after we finished our already prepared speeches, thus in our minds giving her time she seemed to desperately needed to yanno, pull one together. She then argued over whether we were supposed to even be giving speeches. Between myself and another student, we managed to get her seated and mildly apologetic. At first. She may or may not have interrupted my speech, I was too preoccupied giving it that I probably wouldn't have noticed a bomb go off, but once the rebuttal started it was sort of cuckoo unleashed! She did not understand the concept of a) rebuttal and b)anything we were doing...

The next speech was on water, and like a bucket of water on a propane stove, the flames of crazy just got brighter and hotter for Loca as she interrupted to ask about Nephrology, and to offer weird little comments. Well the lady giving the speech is sort of blunt and rapidly was losing patience and told her it wasn't the time for comments. By this point the looks of confusion and genuine WTF were being passed from person to person like cheese fries at the Outback, fast and loaded with bacon... hmm maybe without the bacon, but basically there were a lot of them. I had to shush Loca a couple times. By the end of this speech Loca was losing it further, deteriorating into challenging the existence of Nephrology as a field of medicine and loud decrying of smoking as a cancer causing killer, claiming she had 'seen the bodies'! No one was sure what cigarettes had to do with water, at all. We again requested she either provide a genuine rebuttal or butt out and again for a time we had some peace. Then she started complaining about the next speech and its length, and afterwards decried the stereotyping of illegal immigrants claiming 'They ALWAYS blame it on the Mexicans, Phillipinos drive too!' This was actually almost on topic, since the speaker was proposing drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. Of course that was until she equated indicator markings designating immigration status on a drivers license were tantamount to the tattoos given to concentration camp victims...

I think that Loca did every single thing our teacher had asked us NOT to do...Next came a fairly uneventful speech on cell phone usage and then the final speech. As soon as the poor girl's proposition had fallen from her lips, Loca was on her and decided to challenge her topic, yelling out 'You already did this one for your informative!' Meanwhile, it wasn't... and also, how unnerving is it to try and give a speech to a group of people you don't really know that well, all the while being heckled by a mentally unstable girl, answer: very. The shushing count was getting outrageous, as I continually tried to steer things away from the rocks, wondering if I was going to have to attempt to remove her bodily...not that I would have had a shortage of volunteers at that point. She continued to make comments the entire time the girl was talking, despite repeatedly being shushed. At the end of the speech, arguing mental parity for people that are anorexic, Loca butts in... again. This time talking about how Miss Britain was a size sixteen and she was beautiful! An ironic statement considering the entire speech was about helping people that are too skinny to get treatment to deal with their disorder and yanno, gain and maintain a healthy weight?

Since we were being peer graded, I collected the papers, Loca gave everyone an A+, while loudly equating us with preschoolers (they let her teach children! AAAAAAH) and I carefully separated out hers from ours, because I'm not sure what crazy translates into in point value. Did I mention that before class she'd been grumbling about pfizer and their clear guilt in human atrocities during the Holocaust, this being the only way they could know so much about humans? And something I didn't catch about Castro and bioengineering...
The teacher was told about the disruptions... and we all finally got to leave.

It just goes to show, that when someone assumes you are 19, when you are 25... they obviously must be crazy, clearly I look 30.