Raaaaaah

Guh.

2007-05-19T22:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm all graduated now.

I hate it when people don't listen.
I hate it when someone isn't having fun and no one else actively makes an effort to change that.
I hate vertigo.
I hate it when people show up to the party late.
I hate it when the bf drinks excessively, because he loses the ability to think about his actions or others' feelings, particularly mine.
I hate how "soon" apparently translates to 2+ hours.
I hate seeing pictures taken after I left, because everyone was having fun without me.
I hate that I couldn't get to sleep or sleep in.
I hate that my parents are twofaced and put on an act in public.
I hate that, still, no one seems to understand why I hate my squeaky, rattling ceiling fan.
I hate how nothing was purchased for me to eat - not even cereal... I think I'm supposed to gnaw on my arm or something.
I hate 56k
I hate how far away I am.
I hate that I can't get a hug right now.

I hate that I don't know where I'm going, what I'm doing, and when it's happening, and that it feels like everything is falling apart. This. Isn't. Right.

And all of Ruby Falls was singing along

2007-05-16T19:19:00.000-05:00

I first started going to Music in the Zoo concerts in 2002. I had wanted to go previously, but never did for some reason. In '02, Great Big Sea was playing, and I dragged a couple friends. It was amazing. Not only is it a small venue, but it holds sentimental value, as it was the stage where I graduated from high school. It was crazy/awesome thinking, "hey, I once stood where Alan Doyle is standing right now." Not to mention that it was only a 15-minute drive from my parents' house. Can't beat that.

A year later, Guster took the same stage. Fucking amazing show.

A couple days ago, I got an email from my mom, letting me know that Guster is playing TWO shows at the zoo in July. Then I got an email from the Guster newsletter list thingy today that mentioned it. And who's opening?

Ben Kweller.

Holy crap! I bought my tickets today before it went any crazier. Second night, ninth row, on the right side, but not too far off of center. And this is the presale, folks.

In other news, I started thinking of other job ideas today. Maybe retail store-level work is the thing for me right now. I started looking at management positions at Barnes and Noble and such, but then I jumped back and considered commission sales at a cell phone retailer. A sales class was required for my major, so it would apply, kinda. It looks like it starts at $8-10/hr base, plus whatever commission you make. And I'd be looking at full time, so that could end up around $1600/month. And potential room for advancement. Hell, it's a job where my initial application is with a resume. That's a sign of higher maturity right there.

But first, I need to get my room packed. Holy crap.

sigh

2007-05-15T15:27:00.001-05:00

GAH.

Okay.

I'm currently at work and bored. I've been here since noon with nothing to do except knit and surf the internet. I somehow got vertigo again, so I'd love to lay down, but there's nothing to do here while laying down except sleep, and I kinda can't do that. Looking at intricate things (read: knitting or computer type) with the yellow walls in the background make it worse, I swear.

Anyway, I took some of this time to start looking at jobs and apartments. Again. Allow me to complain about both.

I knew before that I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life, and now that's becoming hugely more evident. Just from searching around Monster and the college's job listing, my top two ideas right now are
(a) an all-encompassing marketing/advertising/PR job for a guy running a couple small businesses
(b) becoming a manager for a smoothie shop
The problems? Working for that guy would involve an hour-long drive south of Minneapolis every day - and that's not counting traffic. And the smoothie shop is pretty much exactly the business I want to get out of right now, since making ice cream got kinda old at the end. Hell, I just want to get out of food service in general, just because of my susceptibility to colds and such.
A lot of the places looking to hire marketing-type people want someone to be in charge of something. I don't want that right now. I want to brainstorm ideas as a team and decide from there if I like that career. And all that's available for writing also requests knowledge of like, medical software. Eep.

And then there's the apartment search. That gets a big WTF from me. I was snooping at 2-bedrooms today, in case I decide to room with my neighbor, and holy crap expensive. Not to mention that most of these apartment search websites suck. I just want to browse, not sign my name and address and phone number and email and first-few-born away. And if they do let me in anonymously, they'll provide me with apartments in all kinds of nearby suburbs when I just requested Minneapolis.
I also made sure to look at places that allowed pets. Those that do understandably want a deposit. $100/total seems crazy enough, even though it is refundable. One place wanted $100 nonrefundable plus $300/pet, not listing if the $300 is refundable or not. I'll keep looking, thanks.

Overall, I just want to figure things out. I don't want to look at ten different job categories and think, "oh, that could be interesting." I want to look at one category and think, "That's what I want to do." Maybe it will limit me, but at least I'd have a lifeview thought out.

Wake up.

2007-05-14T17:25:00.001-05:00

I think this whole leaving thing finally hit me.

Last night, the bf and I were making characters for role playing with his friends back home. All day, I had been kinda thinking about how I feel like time is running out: I want to spend time with him, I want to hang out with my friends, I want to start actively searching for a job, and I need to clean my room and pack. It all caught up with me during character making time, and I couldn't hold the tears back. I'm really gonna miss these people.

On what may be a related note, I've been having some fucked up dreams lately.

Okay, so I know that a death dream signifies a change within yourself, that a part of yourself is "dead." But what does it mean when the deceased are random babies, and your dad and uncles want your help burying them to get rid of evidence? Or when a random pastor and some of his church buddies go skating on railroad tracks during a thunderstorm and start on fire?

What about when the ink of your new tattoo gets smeared away, or when an old acquaintance tries to get you to cheat on your bf with him and gets pissed when you refuse? Or when your efforts to earn a spot on the baseball team suddenly become efforts to thwart a drumming robber by throwing oreos at him?

Gah. So confused.

But, I've found out in the past few days that I'll probably have a place to live eventually. The bf's sister and her bf started tossing around an idea of the four of us renting a house together, and one of my neighbors will probably be taking an internship in Minneapolis and looking for an apartment/roommate. I don't know which offer I'll take, but at least I have options.

But for now? Back to getting my room organized.

On blathering

2007-05-10T09:52:00.001-05:00

Today's the last day of classes. I have a paper due today, then I have to finish my final report for this class (both only need minor revisions), then I'm dooooone.

But first, I need to write this blog entry.

One of my goals with keeping this blog was to improve my writing. I wanted to improve at elaboration (the fine art of not rambling while not being too concise) and brainstorming topics. Did I accomplish that? Eh.

In my main writing class last semester, we were given only one or two writing prompts, and I'd just sit down and write like crazy. This semester, I have a different teacher, so obviously there's a new writing-prompt-style I had to adjust to. We always got between two and four prompts - seven for this last paper - and it's become more of a challenge to think of good topics. You'd think that with seven different writing prompts, I'd be able to think of something. Apparently not.

Sure, I'll still think of good ideas... for a paper that's maybe a page or two. The current requirement is five to seven pages. Yikes.

One of the prompts for this assignment was to "write the paper you've wanted to write all semester." Or, in other words, "write whatever the hell you want." At the last minute I ended up rambling about how I've changed a lot in the past year; how I miss certain aspects of myself/my life, but at the same time, I'm excited about the changes. It kinda fell into the rant/rave prompt, it kinda fell into the "what have you learned about yourself" prompt, but mostly it just fell into "write whatever you want."

It's a completely different writing style than what I'm used to. All my papers this semester have employed humor. I'm jealous of everyone else and their eloquent writing, and I've wanted to try it all semester. I'm okay with humor, but I don't want to be known just for that. I even wrote a bit about this in my paper. This time, there's maybe a couple lines that'll make people chuckle; the rest of it is all holycrapemotion. And right now, I feel pretty good about it.

...Um, I guess I went on a tangent of sorts. Oh well, that's okay. But I'm at work right now, and someone's bound to walk in at any minute, so I should post this now.

We could be heroes

2007-05-06T18:23:00.000-05:00

The following is an accurate depiction of what my room currently looks like.

It was already kind of a sty, but then I got sick. I hate living in this room right now. Not to mention that I move out in less than two weeks. I should probably start cleaning so I can have an easier time packing.

My goal this year is to have almost everything packed by next Thursday. Then I can spend Friday at graduation and at post-graduation celebrating, and not have to worry about staying up all night Friday packing before driving Saturday morning. We'll see if that actually happens.

I finally got to see Moulin Rouge last night. Why did it take me this long? It was pretty much amazing. The musical interpretations and medleys were wonderful, and the filming style was uniquely done. I obtained a copy of Roxanne after the movie, and I've been listening to it almost nonstop.

Okay, I should go do homework now.

Free day, literally

2007-05-05T14:19:00.000-05:00

I was supposed to work 12-4 today. I got sent home before I could even clock in.

While I was wandering around at Target after that, I realized that this is another motivation for me to get a real job (read: get the hell out of the food service industry). Being sick at work sucks inandof itself, because you're feeling miserable and you're spreading germs to lots of people. It's easier to spread germs in food service. Even if I'm not contagious anymore, I'm still coughing. And that looks bad. Not to mention that I'm losing out on a lot of hours because of it. Tomorrow I might make a sign that says "I lost my voice" and pin it to my apron, because pushing my voice seems to make me cough more. I need to save my voice anyway, since it sounds like shit and I have to present this blog project thingy to the class in two days. Yikes.

But the good news is, even if it doesn't feel like it in the middle of a coughing fit, I am getting better. My cough sounds different every day, and I'm not doing it as frequently. I'm getting there.

Apparently Steve Page is on Facebook now. This is a personal profile, as opposed to a band profile on Myspace. Do I add him? He's advertising it, but it still feels a bit odd to me. *shrug*

Since I have the afternoon off now, I suppose I should like, do homework or do laundry or clean my room. Or maybe nap.

Less than three!

2007-05-04T14:07:00.000-05:00

The bf and I turn a year old today. Yay :)

There's something I miss. I realized it last night, when I chose to boycott turning on my computer to instead watch some crappy Hilary Duff movie (shush). I miss that giddy feeling I had right at the beginning. The butterflies in my stomach. I mean, I still feel a little giddy when I haven't seen him for a little while, but it's not quite the same feeling. It's hard to describe. A more mature giddiness? I dunno. But either way, in the end, I like/prefer having someone I feel comfortable around. Not like that getting to know you stage, where Hilary Duff didn't know the guy well enough to know that he was potentially kind of a manslut.

Although I'd like to say that the main point of this post was to use the term "manslut," it really wasn't.

(a side rant)

2007-05-02T18:46:00.001-05:00

iTunes kinda disappoints me on a couple levels.

First. I bought a $15 card, because that's how I budget and treat myself. I'm not sure what I was treating myself for this time. Anyway, I punched in the activation code, and I got a "this code is invalid" message. After a frustrated email to tech support, it turned out I was misreading the B's as 8's. Um, shouldn't there be a way to print these things more clearly so this problem doesn't happen as often?

Second. The "Just For You" thingy is a cool concept, but honestly, it was better in beta. Currently, it keeps recommending the same things over and over, doesn't remember what I've previously set as already owned or not liked, and is recommending songs I've already purchased from them. Why can I set "already own" or "don't like" labels for entire albums, but not for individual songs?

Third. I wanted some Moulin Rouge songs. I can only get them if I buy the whole album. I don't want the whole fucking album. Wasn't part of the point of iTunes (and other online music stores) to allow people to legally obtain copies of single songs without having to purchase the entire album? And if it's the record company disallowing single song sales, not the store, then the store should put a note on the sales page that states this. That way, everyone's frustrated comments can be shifted to the correct outlet, and maybe dumb people will stop giving the album poor ratings simply because they only wanted to buy one song. (Or at least not in such vast quantities.)

Fourth. Listen to a song in its entirety before putting it in one of those iTunes Essentials playlists. For example, Death Cab For Cutie's song I Will Follow You Into the Dark, while aww-inducing, is about the death of a loved one, even if it is pondering a death way off in the future. And Rufus Wainwright's The Tower of Learning does include the aww line "I saw it in your eyes, what I was looking for," but later it also says "with one glance you smashed it with your eyes ... one blink and then my heart wasn't there no more." These are good examples of songs that should NOT be included in a playlist of indie-rock wedding songs.

I'm not completely frustrated with iTunes, though. I still love how I can buy [most] songs individually, and the new option to complete an album you've already purchased part of is awesome (I'll definitely be taking advantage of it). iTunes Essentials are overall a great way to discover new music. And the aforementioned Indie Wedding playlist included a Queen cover of the Wedding March, which was fucking awesome.

[end rant]

On independence, part 2

2007-05-02T18:15:00.001-05:00

Hi, I appear to enjoy abandoning my blog for a few days at a time...

I've been sick. Last night was probably the worst. It involved hacking, cramps, puking, and near-seizures, as well as a "comf up here pls?" text message to the bf. All while attempting to absorb every bit of Nyquil except the Ny. Hence why I thought it would be a nice idea to ditch class again today, and not move until I felt I was ready to do so.

I miraculously forced myself out of bed in time for the last day of choir, though, where everyone decided it would be a good idea to ambush - I mean, grouphug - the departing officers. I was in the middle. I hacked on everyone. I can't say I didn't warn them. But on a serious note, that was probably the first moment that it all started to hit me. That this is the end. That I'm not coming back (except to visit once in a while). That, with a few exceptions, I may never see these awesome people again. Like, I consciously know that graduation is coming, but this is the first time I've unconsciously realized it.

I got a little tear in my eye at that moment. But then again, I think I've been overly emotional today anyway - before I dragged myself out of bed, I was watching the sappy wedding/baby shows that are normally on at that time of day.

That may be another sign that I'm ready to get out of here. Okay, I'll admit, I normally get a little teary at the appropriate moments of these shows. It felt different today, though. Like maybe I'm ready to move on to more grownup aspects of life. I don't know if I want to get married ASAP (even though my choir director seems to think we should) and I'm not yet sure if I want to be a mom (I wish I had siblings so I could be an aunt, so I could have the pleasure of spoiling and loving small children without any of the responsibility - a trial run, if you will), but it's still that whole grownup stage of life I'm reaching for.

Which, once again, reminds me of the neighbors. I had to ask them to quiet down the other night. Although I ended up ditching class on Monday, I was still hoping I could make it, and wanted to get as much sleep as possible. They, of course, were in an open room chatting at 11:30. This time, I stepped out and said - in the politest way possible when sick and tired - that I needed as much sleep as I could get and if they could quiet down a bit I would really appreciate it. One girl (out of two or three) quickly apologized - I'm not sure if she meant it - and one just glared at me. Didn't even make eye contact. To their credit, they did quiet down, though.
The next night, they were at it again. I shuffled around in my pajamas for a bit, hoping they'd get the message, but I had to resort to a slight slam of my door followed by a loud shift of the lock. They shut up fast. Probably think I'm a bitch, too, but whatever. Like I hadn't just spoken to them the night before.

It's people like this who need to grow up (I don't mean that to sound nearly as harsh as it probably does). I got to thinking, and realized that there are approximately three levels of maturity in college:
1) Being fully aware that you're still a kid
2) Falsely thinking that you're grown up
3) Actual maturity
#1 is very short-lived: when you move away from home for the first time, but visit all the time because of homesickness and the realization that you still kinda need your parents. #2 is where most people - including the neighbors in question - are at, and is the most irritating stage. In their cases, I don't get it. This is their first time away from home, and I can only guess they elected to live on the 21+ floor to be near mature people. And then they don't talk to many other people, they don't seem very accepting (or willing to be so), and the most current pictures of themselves on their doors feature letter jackets, braces, and considerably different looks. I feel like they have a fear of the now and possibly the future. What is there to fear?

Maybe they fear me (or people like me). I've grown up. It's okay to be mature while still being apprehensive about finishing school and moving on to the real world. But I've hit that point, and there's no turning back.

On independence, part 1

2007-04-29T19:20:00.000-05:00

Over at my project proposal, I said I would write some posts about various types of personal progress this semester. That sentence was probably too wordy, and the previous post probably falls into that category. (By the way, I've received nothing but compliments on it so far. Not "oh look, you have star tattoos too, that's cool I guess" or "hey, that's neat... what's it mean?" compliments, but "dude, that is the SHIT!" compliments. It's pretty nifty, so thanks to everyone so far.)

This year's been tons different compared to my past four years in college. Here's a list to get things started:

First steady relationship
First semester(s) with less than 15 credits
First time not relying on parents for tuition/med costs
First offcampus job in collegetown
First time carrying more than one job at once

I think having a steady boyfriend has been alternately one of the best and worst things to happen to me. Before, I would get all my homework/other tasks done on time because I'd be sitting in my room all the time, so I'd do everything out of sheer boredom half the time. Now, I have no idea how I once kept up with a full class load. I'm only taking two classes right now (not counting choir) and I feel swamped sometimes. Let's use this class as an example (novel idea). I'll mention this stuff more in a forthcoming entry, but I could've done a better job. I could've strived to write more often, searching around the internet for interesting links or paying more attention to the little things going on around me. I could've looked at more blogs (outside of class blogs, although I don't want to exclude them). And so on.

But I spent a lot of time hanging out with him, even if this "hanging out" meant that I stared at his TV while he did homework. Through this relationship, I realized that I'm actually a very needy person, emotionally. I need to have someone who's always there for me. I don't think I felt that - on nowhere near the same level, anyway - with any of my friends in the past, and that might be why my emotions have gone wonky this year. I finally feel comfortable letting everything out in front of someone. Maybe this "new me" is the true me?

"Bad" stuff aside, this relationship is truly the best thing that's happened to me. Like I said, I feel comfortable. It's been said that love hurts (by practically everyone since 1960, apparently), and it does at times, but it's a hurt I don't want to lose. We'll have been together a year this coming Friday, and I wouldn't have traded this year for anything.

More later, but for now, I have to go buy tissues before I snot all over my room. Ew. In the meantime, check this picture out, cause it's like the funniest thing ever.

"So, does this mean you're gonna grow now?"

2007-04-28T19:48:00.000-05:00

I got a new tattoo yesterday. I probably should've waited until I wasn't sick, but too late now.

I wanted to pay some sort of homage to oldskool gaming, ie. Mario. Mario Bros 3 is just about the coolest game ever. Most tattoos I've seen from that game, though, are of the 1up mushroom. No offense to anyone who gets a 1up mushroom, but I wanted something different.

And then there's this whole year. It's been a tough year for me, emotionally, and I wanted to symbolize all the people and things that have helped me through everything. The 1up mushroom gives you another chance at life. The super mushroom, on the other hand, helps you out along the way. Perfect.

So, say hello to the back of my left calf:

On the bonnie, bonnie banks

2007-04-27T12:03:00.000-05:00

Post-choir tour illness is fun. I have almost no voice and I'm at work. Awesome.

Tour started off on the wrong foot. We had to sing at a church service here in town, and in between our sets, there was a guest speaker instead of the regular pastor. Now, this church is semiangry Baptist to begin with (no intention of bashing Baptists there, though), but this guy was angry. He started with a business spiel about all the tapes/books/etc he was selling and the sermon he was giving at some other church that night (he wanted us to be free in worshiping the lord, but we all "needed to attend" the sermon). Then he led a prayer asking the lord to "quiet all the crying children so their parents can listen." Then he referred to abortion as "slaughtering babies" and named it as the cause of the Virginia Tech massacre. Then he said it's our fault we feel angry at our parents/bosses/etc. Then he said that women have no ambition and made some comment about bringing the apples home.

And this went on for 53 minutes.

I'm quite pissed. And not just because I'm agnostic; there are some devout Christians in the group who were pissed. He had the potential for a good message: if we bind together and pray/worship, we can start good vibes in this town, which will spread elsewhere, which will put an end to the world's bad stuff. Hell, being agnostic doesn't even have anything to do with it, because the way he went about presenting this "message" was so angry it wasn't even Christian.

Anyway.

Morale just sunk throughout the rest of tour. I finally got on the intercom en route and gave a couple pep talks. Needless to say, I ended up conducting the entire half-hour medley, and confidence went through the roof. I guess I just had an epiphany or something while bored on stage that morning. I realized that if I want morale to improve, I can't sit around and bitch with everyone else. I have to take action. If everyone feels like giving up, or like the director's giving up on us... I'm not giving up. I got a pretty big cheer on the bus for that line. And then we started a half-hour jokeoff that made us feel a whooooole lot better.

Otherwise, the usual fun aspects of tour were indeed fun. I made some new friends, I stayed up late one night (even though I felt like puking the next morning because of it), and I got to spend time with some of my favorite people. I miss that aspect of tour, but aside from that, I'm glad it's over.

I also brought along a bunch of knitting stuff, thinking I'd be knitting on every bus trip. I brought my expensive hat yarn, the cotton I'd purchased a while back for socks, and the bag I've been working on** periodically. I didn't get much done. I was able to cast on enough stitches for the hat, and discover that it wouldn't be long enough to work on the circular needle I'd purchased for it. Grr. Oh well, at least I know how to knit with double-pointed needles.

**scroll down to bottom of post to see the correct picture

Aaaand... I think I'm caught up. "Caught up," meaning, caught up to the current time, not caught up to the number of posts I'm supposed to have right now. Blah. I'll have to work on this a lot this weekend.

Yikes.

2007-04-19T13:39:00.000-05:00

ArghIhavenotime.

I just finished a paper that's due in 20min.
I'm falling behind on my blogging.
I don't have my choir music memorized.
I need to unravel yarn.

I was bad when I put choir posters up around town. I stopped at the craft store downtown, with intentions of only buying one set of needles so I could make socks while on tour. I left with two sets of needles, and a hank of green yarn that will become a hat. I could have just looped the hank around my feet and rewound it into a ball, but I was dumb, thought socks!, and started trying to split the yarn in half. Grr. It's getting close, but I still have three tangled piles of yarn. Hopefully I can at least finish untangling before the show tonight.

Yeah, it's opening night. I'm not too nervous, as our light cues are pretty easy this year. We decided to do a formal dress theme for the show, though; it was the guys' idea, and now I have to shave my legs so I can wear a skirt, those bastards.

I'm more nervous about the music. We leave for tour on Sunday. There's a part of one song that we didn't go over until today. Yeah. We're all gonna flub words, and it's gonna suck. Whee.

And that leaves blogging. Well, I've only been in my room for a couple hours each day, which involves eating (to stave off the vertigo) and yarning (so I have something to do on tour), so yeah. I'll try to blog at least once more in the next couple days...

Hi, it's me. Again.

2007-04-15T19:40:00.000-05:00

Today ='ed panic.

I was scheduled to work all afternoon with two n00bs. I was worried how well that would go over. They handled it pretty well, though. I still received a barrage of questions, but that was to be expected.

I had to call the boss four times though. All during busy times.
1) the register said "drawer open" and we couldn't do anything, and I couldn't find the manager's key with which to restart the register
2) nevermind, the register magically fixed itself
3) a guy from the coffee shop came over wondering if we could loan him a box or three of straws
4) the gift card machine stopped working
And call 5) was to tech support so I could fix the damn machine, all for a lady who said she'd wait through a five-minute call but then took her $20 and went awol halfway through, all while continuing to field such queries as "what kind of ice cream do I use to make _______" and "we're out of pineapple."

I deserve a raise, bitches.

I have a paper due Thursday, and I'm kinda torn on what to write about. There are four options:
1) Transgression (read: breaking a law or crossing a boundary)
2) Work (a specific moment)
3) Define a mood
4) Something you've always wanted to do but didn't/couldn't/haven't
#3 would be really hard for me to write about, and I didn't have any decent ideas for #4. That leaves #1 and #2. I've already written about work for this class, so I'd rather not do it again. My only decent idea for #1, though, was when the bf and I were bickering in an elevator in downtown Minneapolis over the summer, and his friend said "why are mommy and daddy fighting?", causing a ganger with a gun to glare at us. I don't think I could write for four pages about that. We had to write minipapers this past week, however, and the first topic I chose fit #2 perfectly. It detailed a phone conversation I had at work, and it's a funny-slash-wtf story. The only problem is that it wasn't even finished before I realized that it was twice as long as it needed to be for that assignment. So, maybe I'll write about that. At least I saved what I had written for the last assignment, so I can just flesh out what I already have.

Or maybe I could find a way for the transgression story to work. I could use all sorts of examples to show how much we bicker, and throw some moral in at the end. I don't know what the chances are of that plan coming out to 4+ pages, but it might be worth a shot.

I need a nap

2007-04-12T09:45:00.001-05:00

Aaaaaaargh.

End of the year stress is setting in.

I can always tell the exact moment when it hits. It's the first night that I have trouble getting to sleep because the choir music and the choreography are running through my head.

That was last night.

It's worse this year, though. I'm more responsible for what the group learns. I helped come up with the choreography, and I'm helping to teach it. We still have 2.5 movements of our medley to learn choreography for. We don't have any of our music memorized. And we have four scheduled rehearsals left until we go on tour.

Maybe I'm freaking out because the group had problems paying attention on Tuesday, and I'm worried that they'll keep doing it. Maybe it's because our director wants me to schedule all these extra rehearsals and doesn't understand why I can't attend any of them. Maybe it's because I feel that level of responsibility for the group's progress (especially since we're being listed as directors or something in the program), and I'm upset that I can't be there to help outside of the regularly scheduled rehearsals. Maybe it's because the director keeps saying that certain days are ours to teach choreography, and then she spends 20min working on something else, throwing me into panic mode and thus making it hard for me to teach.

Also, tech rehearsals for the dance show start on Monday (which is one of the reasons I can't be at extra choir rehearsals), and I have yet to find a job. I might not even look until after tour. If I get my name out there now, and someone wants me to drive down for an interview in these next couple weeks, I'm going to be so upset with myself for losing a good opportunity. Maybe I'm missing that good opportunity by pausing my search, but if I'm going to miss it, I'd rather not be aware that it existed in the first place.

So, here's what needs to be done - collectively - in the next week or so.

Learn choreography for 2.5 movements of the medley. And go over what we have already learned at least a few more times.
Learn a song. Yes, there's a part of one that we haven't even gone over yet.
Memorize all music.
Get tour posters up around campus/town.
Figure out if we're doing the spotlighter's dance at the show.
Learn it if we are.
But first, figure out who the hell our fourth spotlighter is going to be.
Fall behind on blogging, and panic because I once again cannot think of a good topic for a paper.

Holy crap. But I should stop whining and do homework.

Noise

2007-04-10T23:47:00.000-05:00

oh. my. god.

2+ of my neighbors are currently having a chatfest in the hall. Keep in mind that quiet hours started at 11pm, and when I came back to my room shortly after 11 all their doors either said "sleeping" or "studying." And now they're in the hallway giggling in such a way that they sound like monkeys.

...Okay, one of my neighbors/their friends just came down the hall, reminded them of one of our neighbor's/my friend's early work schedule ("don't make her come down here!"), and essentially told them to cram it in a friendly tone. Thank you, friendly neighbor.

These girls who are always in the hallway giggling like monkeys... I don't know. They're nice girls, don't get me wrong (well, one doesn't really acknowledge me at all, so I could actually be wrong). But something about them bothers me. Maybe it is the chatting/giggling. Maybe it's the times of the chatting/giggling (after quiet hours, or at 9am on a day I get to sleep in). Maybe it's the fact that my messy room is surrounded by obsessively neat rooms. Maybe it's the fact that they have tons of pictures on their doors of themselves with friends... high school friends... when they were still in high school. I'm really not sure.

They're quiet now, so at least I can go to sleep. But I don't want to have to pull out the TMBG Plan** again, nor do I feel I should have to write "sleeping" on my door in an attempt to gain respect.

**A few years ago, I was surrounded by noisy partiers. One day, they wanted to listen to rap music - loud rap music - in the room across from mine. I wanted to have my door open to air the room out, but the music was loud enough to rattle the walls. So, I turned on They Might Be Giants' "Don't Let's Start" and cranked the volume up all the way. Within thirty seconds my neighbor's door slammed shut and the music was turned down. TMBG for the win.

So, now that it's quiet? I shall crash.

Just so you know.

2007-04-10T20:03:00.000-05:00

I will eat your face.

Everything in this post is related, I promise.

2007-04-10T11:37:00.000-05:00

Apparently some guy dreamed about a phone number, texted it, and now he's married to the girl behind said phone number. That's adorable. I like how things like that can still happen even though so many people are like, afraid to leave their house. Not to mention that as kids we're all taught not to talk to strangers. I realize the importance of learning the difference between good stranger and bad stranger, but if we just didn't talk to strangers, how would we ever meet people? :)

Case in point: I wouldn't have met the bf if I couldn't talk to strangers.

He's pretty stressed right now, and understandably so. Getting assignments in on time + finishing portfolio + finishing final project + finding an internship while simultaneously trying to tell them that the portfolio they want to see isn't done yet. I hope everything works out and he feels better soon. We tend to reflect each others' moods, so I'm currently feeling pretty stressed about finishing up as well.

I got my resume finished and uploaded to the school's server yesterday. I have yet to really start searching for jobs, though, because I got distracted and began searching for apartments/roommates. (I should probably find a job first so I know how much money I have to play with, y'know?) I found a few sites that are kind of along the lines of eHarmony et. al., except for finding roommates. And they all appear to suck. They fall into one of three categories:
1) Free and crappy (i.e. not updated)
2) Free, but unless you pay your listing will fall to the bottom of the stack
3) Free, but all you can do with that is set up a profile and send messages; if you want to read messages sent to you, you have to pay $6 for a three-day trial or $20 for a month
Yeah. The website mentioned in the 3rd option did seem pretty decent, though. So since it's free to start, I might go with that one, and put a note in my profile to email me at my hotmail address (written in name[at]site[dot]com format, of course) and use a specific subject line. If I end up not liking the service, hey, it was free, and any spam I do get will stay out of my gmail account. Or maybe I'll just make an "I need a roommate!" group on facebook.

Also, I stopped at Deb last night in search of black pants that actually fit me (read: are meant to fit at the hips, not the waist). I didn't check the plus size side, but on the "regular" size side, those bastards didn't have anything above a size 7. I'm a size 11. Yeah. 11 isn't even borderline plus size (I think 15 or 17 is), so it'd be awesome if a store carried a variety of pants in every size, plskthx. However, I did find a black suit coat for $20, so I was sure to nab that. Hooray for finding job interview clothes.

*skims back on last few entries*

Oh, yes. On Thursday I finally went to a free help session in the accounting department and got my taxes done. I was hoping it'd be an actual help session where they teach me how to do the paperwork, but instead, they use e-file and basically do all the work for you. That's nice, I suppose, but knowing how to do my own taxes would be a nice skill to have. But, either way, it's done now. I'll be getting like $500 eventually. Most of which will be going towards new clothes. I should start watching What Not To Wear for ideas.

But, before I graduate, I should probably go do my homework.

Crash

2007-04-08T15:37:00.000-05:00

I finally got to see this movie last night. I've put it on my list for the past two Christmases, and didn't get it until I exchanged a duplicate copy of Kids in the Hall Season 4 (I also scored Robot Chicken Season 1 out of that deal). I didn't really know much about it, except for three things:
1) Racial issues out the wazoo
2) Kind of a fucked up plot
3) Heard nothing but good things about it

It was surprisingly good. My brain was hurting in the beginning because of all the hatred**, and I thought the whole thing would just end up annoying me. But overall, it made me think about the actions of myself and others. I'm not a racist, but just the fact that all these issues were raised really grabbed me.
**although nowhere near as bad as it hurt during the entirety of I Heart Huckabees

The movie ended up being great for a few reasons:

Very simply written. It wasn't dumbed down; it was fucking real.
You had to care about all the characters, even if they spent much of their time onscreen acting like ignorant dipshits. Everyone learned some kind of lesson in the end.
The kid and the cape were adorable.
They did a great job utilizing a large cast - everyone was connected in a Six Degrees of [insert character here] way.
I'd mention the effectiveness of which characters were offed or saved, but I don't want to give anything away.
The ending tied everything/everyone together nicely. And ironically.

So, yes. Go watch it.

Afterwards we watched The Prestige. I knew nothing about it, and I wasn't expecting it to be about magicians. It was harder for me to follow, partly because my brain was rattled by Crash, but it was still pretty decent. Also, I am still the queen of knowing when a song during the end credits was done by Thom Yorke and/or Radiohead. (It wasn't Bowie, even though he was in the movie!)

Today I saw TMNT. It was okay. I think I was partially let down because of the good movies from last night, but at the same time, I had to remind myself that TMNT isn't as intelligent a movie subject as racial issues or historical magicians. I'd recommend waiting until DVD on this one. The animation was done really well (on the non-humans, anyway) and the plot was okay, but most of its appeal was -- holy crap, a dog was just chasing a pickup down the road -- the appeal was nostalgia. There was a kid in the theater who was maybe a bit older than I was when the teachers would finish lessons early and let us all sit in the hallway watching the original TMNT cartoons before the buses came, and we'd all sing along to the theme song. Which reminds me - they didn't play the theme song during the movie! They did play Black Betty while Raph was fighting some little monster, though, so that was kinda cool.

Now to do actual work.

Open Letter

2007-04-05T09:19:00.000-05:00

Dear blog,

I am sorry I have been neglecting you as of late. I realize this is a personal blog, but there are things going on in my life that I feel are too personal to discuss in a public setting like this. There is something I'd like to celebrate, but it's only a rumored event thus far, so I'll wait until something actually happens before I talk about it.

So, for now, I guess I will do little updates.

I ended up discarding my teacher's advice and changing the topic of my last paper. I decided to profile my parents and how I was treated growing up. It was kind of therapeutic to get it all out.

We're singing Beauty School Dropout in choir. We started discussing how to cheese the piece up, i.e. pink hair, curlers, etc. I joked that I could knit a pink wig (I'm serious, here's the link). I think I'm being expected to make it now.

I still need to do my taxes. And my laundry. And finish my resume. And figure out what I'm cooking on Sunday. And find motivation to do it all. Blah.

brr

2007-04-02T18:22:00.000-05:00

It snowed! And it's freezing! And we're under a winter storm watch! WTF!

Last night, as the bf was coming upstairs, he was cornered by a couple of his neighbors. One was drunk, the other was sober. Apparently the following conversation took place:
drunk: *whispers loudly* "where are you going?"
bf: *points up*
drunk: *whispers loudly* "why?"
sober: "because his girlfriend lives up there."
drunk: *whispers loudly* "...why?"
bf: "because she has nice cans."

Goddamn, my boyfriend's an asshole. :P

I was worried about graduation. I didn't get my grad plans turned in until this semester, and I was afraid it all wasn't going to go through in time. I was down by records the other day and happened to gleam the grad list for my name, so the fact that it was there was a good sign. But then today, I received my acceptance letter in the mail. I'm graduating!

I also stopped by career services and had my "resume" checked, which was pretty helpful. I was planning on snooping around on Monster tonight during the Twins game, but then I remembered that I have a paper due tomorrow. Shit. I didn't even really get the draft done last week. I ended up kinda dwindling off, then writing down a bunch of questions I had for whoever read it during class. They gave some really good feedback, which helped me clarify what I was doing a bit better, but I'm still confused on the whole thing. That probably makes sense to no one except me. Point is, the topic is frustrating me. I like the idea of it, but once I got into it, I found it tough to write about. I want to change... but to what topic?

...Meh. Off to rack my brain for ideas.

I did it!

2007-03-29T18:25:00.000-06:00

I finally got to try out the clarifications I received from the designer of that skull scarf. And look!

It ended up being incredibly freaking easy. See, there's a stitch called a "yarn over," and then there's wrapping your yarn around the needle and pretending it's a stitch. I tried the wrapping method, and it looked really fucked up, so I ripped the whole thing apart and started over, wanting to somehow try the technical yarn over stitch when I should've known damn well that wasn't going to work over bound off stitches. [/jargon] But apparently I needed to do the pseudo-stitch method and realize that it was just going to look fucked up for now. See, once I finish it's going to be dunked in water and soap and magically turned into a felt-like fabric. Okay, the process is a bit more complicated than that (and I'm kinda nervous about how it's going to work in the dorms). But either way, I'll be able to cut all those yarnies going across the nose and eye holes, and it'll look pretty, and I'll be able to give it to the bf.

*jumps around*

I've also been working on those fingerless gloves a wee bit. I finally finished the resized left glove, except for the thumb.

Right now I need to go be productive for a while, though. The bf's been talking about how this week and next week are the prime hiring times, and it reminded me that I still don't have a resume. At all. I would love to get a real job straight out of college. So, off to work on that.

But first, watch Barenaked Ladies sing a song in a bathroom.

What?

2007-03-27T09:23:00.000-06:00

I'm currently blogging for the following reasons:
1) I haven't done so in five days
2) I'm at work
3) I need to get myself into a writing mindset

You see, I have a 3-6pg paper due today, on one of three topics:
1) profile of someone
2) an event that affected your generation
3) your writing style
I had no idea what to do. Option #3 was out, because that was designed more for creative writing majors who need to do that for their senior project. My initial thought was to profile the bf, because he's crazy and that would lead to some good stories. But what specifically to write about? I thought about writing about a past "relationship," but I wrote about that for a class last semester, so I didn't want to do it again. Then I had the idea to profile my iTunes library, but that's not a living thing. I thought about knitting, but the only way I could tie that in is if I profiled myself, which I didn't really want to do. Then I considered writing about discovering a band, but that might cross into the obsession topic from our last paper. Then the bf suggested I write about one of my medical conditions and how it can be a pain in the ass. He offered me a paper he had written about ADHD as an example. Ding! It's frustrating dealing with his ADHD sometimes. So, I have a topic, I just need to figure out exactly how to write it (ie. lots of little stories vs. one detailed story). I have two pages down so far, so at least I have something. And it starts with the quote "get happy pants mushroom wheel." Yup.

On Thursday I took the bf out to the Chinese restaurant downtown for yummy delicious overfilling dinner. There's a Ben Franklin next door, so I decided to stop in and pet the yarn. They had the book Stitch and Bitch; I have a couple friends who own it and suggested it to me, so I picked it up. They have a pattern for a hat on straight needles! Patterns aside, it's a wonderful book. I already knew a lot of the basics, so a good chunk of the book was clarifying what I had kinda figured out on my own. And! it teaches how to fix mistakes! I am all about that. They also have SnB Nation, which is all patterns. I might have to check that one out too.

I realized that this is turning more into a knitting blog than just the all-encompassing personal blog I proposed to create this semester. And I don't even get much time to knit. Wha? I am enjoying this whole knitting thing though. I'd like to have a knitting blog, but I don't have the audience for it. I'm thinking of tracking down some other knitblogs and saying hi.

I also realized that I haven't actually finished much. I initially thought that the only thing I've finished was the dice bag (which looks like it's shaped better now that I have more dice weighing it down), but then I realized that I've also finished that ear warmer headband thing, although it ended up being really wide and looked dumb on me. I think I screwed up somewhere, too, because in the middle I somehow had one more stitch on my needle than I'd started with. I'd love to remake it, but with the number of rows reduced so it's not as wide. (I promised pictures of that one too... I should follow through on that.) I've also finished a glove, even though I'm redoing it. I have four projects going right now, though. That's the point I'm trying to make. I need to finish something.

Also on the knitting front: I ended up emailing the designer of the skull scarf I was so frustrated with. I got an email back within a couple days. Real nice, helpful lady. I still need a chance to sit down and try out what she said, though.

...Okay. I need to work some more on this paper. Since it's just the first draft I don't need to have anything real solid, but it needs to be a whole lot better than what I already have.

K2tog, yo

2007-03-22T08:30:00.000-06:00

The past few nights, I've been having dreams about knitting. Intricate knitting. And then I wake up with a full bladder.

This is irritating for a few reasons:
1) I hate waking up in the middle of the night. If I'm not going to get a full night's sleep, I at least want to sleep straight through.
2) Even if I have to get up and use the bathroom at 5am, I have to use it again when I actually get up at 7:30.
3) Why the correlation?

*changes topics*

I worked with Cold Stoner 4 Life yesterday. She's said that she plans to start looking for another job, but whatever, the name stays. Anyway. She tried conning me into working today.
her: "Grr, I don't want to be here. Want to work tomorrow?"
me: "What time?"
her: "My shift." (The day shift)
me: "Uh, I have class and my other job."
her: *pouts and walks away*
Um, ok? Just because I work day shifts on the weekend doesn't mean I can do it during the week. Remember, I'm busting my ass to finish college here. I should also note that she called at the beginning of spring break (the night we got back from Canada), said she needed someone to cover a couple hours, and couldn't remember if I was going out of town. I'm regularly scheduled for the same shifts every weekend. If I'm suddenly not on the schedule, that would typically mean that I asked for days off, right?

I should also also note that my boss wanted me to let her know when my last day would be, like, now. So I put in a note for a day in mid-May and left for spring break. CS4L then went poking through the boss' inbox, read the note as that same day in mid-March, and did the following:
a) panicked ("she quit but she was still scheduled! how are we going to cover her shifts?")
b) took my name off the contact list
c) convinced everyone else that I wasn't coming back
d) re-read the note a couple days later and saw that it actually said May
The mistake is kind of funny, but at the same time, I'm thinking of telling the boss. Here's another ordered list:
a) An employee shouldn't be snooping through a boss' messages, even if the bosses are out of town and also related to said employee.
b) I realize that I scribble sometimes, but seriously, it's not bad enough that you can't decipher between "March" and "May."
c) Thanks for changing paperwork and spreading rumors, bitch.

Heh. CS4L sounds like a robot name. I should go do my homework that's due at 2pm.

Combining topics! Woo!

2007-03-20T15:28:00.000-06:00

Heh. I heart Toothpaste for Dinner.

I can't decide what I think about my latest scissor-happy endeavor. Everyone says I can pull off short hair - I was surprised, I didn't think I could - but that's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about the uneven cutting. There's a spot in back that ended up shorter than the rest, and I'm really self-conscious about it. I'm afraid to cut everything to match it, for fear that it'll look even worse and that the bf will intervene and take my scissors away. But apparently, everyone says that the short spot wouldn't be noticeable if I didn't point it out, so I guess that makes me feel a little better.

On a completely different note:
I returned from spring break to receive some pretty bad news. A good friend of mine learned a couple weeks ago that her dad had prostate cancer, and she's heading down for his surgery later this week. But the most recent news was that her mom went to the doctor, was initially diagnosed with pneumonia, but now has a very good chance of being diagnosed with lung cancer. They're finding out for sure sometime today. Keep her and her parents in your thoughts (or prayers, if you do that), ok?

Hi.

2007-03-19T17:47:00.000-06:00

I never did get around to pre-typing entries like I said I would. The only real time I had at my computer was when I was transferring music files over, since I wasn't home much. So, I will now do a bulleted list outlining what I did each day over break. And, for your reading ease, I have finally looked up how to properly do a bulleted list in HTML. Maybe I'll actually remember it this time.

Last Friday

Winnipeg!
Crossing the border post-passport requirement was quite easy. The man asked questions like where we were going, why we're going there, where are we staying, who's car is this, any drugs on board, etc. All without asking for passports. Or leaving the building. Apparently he said "eh" twice. I didn't notice.
Once we got a couple towns in - St-Pierre or something - all the road signs had two copies, one in English and the other in French. Thoughts on this topic below.
The lady at our hotel's desk had a really thick French accent and a bit of a language barrier. She asked how my [relatively common] first name is spelled, then tried spelling it with a P instead of a B; but I have a long Polish last name that, although it is pronounced exactly how it's spelled, everyone gets tripped up over. I usually tell people they pronounced it right when it was a bit off. But seriously, this lady pronounced my name clearer than I pronounce it sometimes. I think it was the clearest thing I heard her say. It was kinda cool.
After fighting with rush hour traffic, a crappily-printed map, bright sun + wet roads + no sunglasses + lack of visor on driver's side, and figuring out how to pay for parking, we had dinner at Elephant and Castle, an awesome British pub that the bf recommended. I had the Union Jack chicken (a chicken sandwich with Guinness BBQ sauce), a long island (it was my first time not being carded!), and we split a Bailey's cheesecake. OMG yum. The only bad thing was that - possibly due to being drunk without realizing it - I dropped a piece of cheesecake, covered in chocolate sauce, on my scarf. It's still brown and crusty in spots. I have no idea how to get the stain out.
Walked around downtown a bit. Found ketchup-flavored potato chips at the discount store. Stopped by a game/toy store, where I bought a stuffed Snuffy. We found a basket of Giant Microbes; the bf bought Black Death and spent the rest of the trip annoying us with a song that would the be theme to the Black Death's very own sitcom. Ivory, on the other hand, didn't buy anything, and spent the rest of the trip saying "I wish I would've gotten AIDS."
Saw Volver at Cinematheque, a small indie theatre. It started with a preview of Curse of the Golden Flower, which had both the same director and lead actress as Raise the Red Lantern, which I really enjoyed. I'll have to try to see Curse sometime. Anyway, I really enjoyed Volver. I recommend checking it out once it hits the States. Ivory wrote a review, and I agree with her, except that I speak very little Spanish, I'm not familiar with Almodovar's work, and I don't see plot twists as easily as others do. I also thought it was weird that Penelope Cruz' character always had perfect clothes/hair/makeup while her co-actresses had very simple looks. I still recommend it though.

Last Saturday

Tim Horton's for breakfast. They have baked goods that are delicious for a fast food chain, and weird but delicious menu items like hot smoothies. Why isn't this chain in the States beating the shit out of Krispy Kreme?
Then a stop at The Forks market. Food downstairs, shops upstairs, an ice skating rink outside, and designated areas for buskers. There was an awesome accordion player there while we ate. I left with a smoothie, a skein of blue hemp, and a toy from a chocolate ball:
Maybe it was just the gas station we stopped at, but learning how to pump gas in Canada was weird. You have to preset a dollar amount, or something. I'm sure there was a way to fill the whole tank, but I couldn't figure it out.

Final Canada thoughts

The double-language thing was kinda weird. Like, if English is what's predominantly spoken in the province, shouldn't the French speakers at least know enough English to get around? And wouldn't it save money by not having to make two copies of every road sign, or save space for recipes on food products, or etc.? But on the other hand, it's kinda cool to see two different communities living in the same area like that. I suppose I should be used to it, being from the Minneapolis area and seeing a whole menagerie of non-English speakers, but it's cool that Canada acknowledges that both communities exist and is appreciative of them all.
Canada seems much friendlier than the States, and I'm not talking about the people in this case. Let's say you're driving through a construction zone. In the States, you see a sign that says "end road work". In Canada, you see signs that say "end construction zone, thank-you". Another example: on buses in Minneapolis, there is a sign that says "yield to buses, MN statute [insert number here]". In Canada, the sign is a picture of a car yielding to a bus, and only says "thank-you" and "merci". Would people in the States be friendlier if the road signs were more respectful?
In Minnesota, you constantly see license plates from different areas, namely Wisconsin, North Dakota, Manitoba, and Ontario, depending on where you are. I didn't see a single non-Manitoba plate the whole time we were there (although apparently we drove by a Saskatchewan plate, and we ran into a group of American girls looking for good bars). I dunno, I thought it was weird.
In retrospect, it'd be cool if gas pumps in the States had that amount selecting option, so you wouldn't accidentally pump $10.01 when you only wanted $10. But only if there was an easy way to select the "fill up my whole tank plzkthx" option.

Last Sunday

Got up at the asscrack of dawn. Drove to the cities, not remembering much of the trip. Got home just in time to leave again and...
...go to alcohol sales responsibility training at the 'dome. Paid training. It'll only cover like, a tank of gas, but still.

Last Monday

SLEPT IN
Sold my guitar for $57. It's not that I didn't like it, I've just moved on to other interests and I could use some extra money. I then went out and bought a laptop bag, two sets of knitting needles, and five skeins of yarn.
Transferred files and knit (see pics below).

Tuesday

Geek day with the bf and co. I bought five six-sided dice, and then we gamed with my new character in tow.
The Rifts game is kind of weird to me, since I'm used to sitting in or playing games like D&D and Heroes Unlimited, which can be described as slightly more cutesy than Rifts. Rifts is all futuristic, and you need a ton of armor, none of which looked overly appealing to me. My character's a psi-druid, though, so I'm playing a psychic with an affinity with animals/nature, and that's pretty cool. Hopefully the game will get more interesting as I play more, and hopefully I won't get tired and cranky as early as I did.
Before I got tired, I was working on a couple knitting projects when I wasn't throwing dice or petting cats. The bf wanted me to knit a skull scarf for him, and I started it. Here's what I have done so far:

That gap in stitches is supposed to be the bottom of the nose hole. Those four stitches are bound off. Now, the next row in the pattern is telling me to do three yarn overs at that spot. I know how to do the stitch, but if I don't have any stitches on the needle in the first place, then what the hell do I do? Especially since the picture at the bottom of the pattern page shows strands of yarn going straight across the hole. If anyone has any advice, comments would be appreciated. You don't have to be a Blogger member to comment on here anymore. Yep.

Wednesday

Hung out with the bf again.
Went to a yarn boutique. I loved it; he was bored. I wish the yarn wasn't so expensive though.
Went to lunch/dinner at a Thai restaurant by his house. Thai food is very similar to Chinese, but is just different enough that I'm not a huge fan. Their cream cheese wontons have onions in them. That's not right, yo. Thai iced tea is amazing, though.
A friend of the bf's came over and played video games for a while. I knit, then took over the PS2 and played Katamari Damacy. I got pissed off at it and almost threw the controller at the tv. Yeah, I went back to knitting.

Thursday

Made plans to hang out with the bf again. Got pissed when he didn't understand what I thought were simple directions and he got lost in St. Paul, causing a 20min trip to take over an hour. He took me to KFC and I got a Famous Bowl. I felt a little better.
Met up with his sister and her bf. We ended up getting Viet food - which I wasn't overly thrilled about, since we just had Asian food the day before - and bubble tea.
Went to buy booze. Got pissed when the bf interrupted me to talk to his sister. I didn't talk to him much for the rest of the night, except when I was too drunk to care.
I finished one glove though:

I tried increasing the size of the thumb hole to fit my toe thumbs, but it turns out that not only did I not have to, the size difference made the whole glove sit differently on my hand. I wish the thumb and finger openings were longer, and I should've bound my stitches off in a looser style. So, I started over.

Friday

Day to myself. Sleep in, avoid people, not buy anything. It helped my mood a bit.
Spent the whole day transferring files like crazy, so I wouldn't have to bring my old comp back to school or leave files behind.

Saturday

Watched the bf get a tattoo. I wanted one too. I'm jealous. But first I need to get my tax refund, which requires actually getting my taxes done. Yeah.
Went to his friends' apartment to drink. I got comfortably drunk and watched some of the guys play a zombie killing video game. Some of the others played drinking games and got horrendously drunk. One guy was imitating either a T-rex or a zombie. He was puking half an hour later. I was that drunk once. I don't see the point in doing it again.
I also scored a couple knitting needles from one of the girls. I guess someone had given them to her, but she already had those sizes, so she passed them on to me.

Sunday

Had brunch with the bf's mom and stepdad. The food was okay, but hey, free meal. Then they gave me a few giant skeins of blue yarn and a few crochet hooks, leftover from an afghan his late wife didn't finish before she passed away. I don't know what I'm going to do with it all... maybe make a really long scarf.
Drove back.
Cut my hair again. It's now really short in the back, with no length difference on the top.

Today

Holy shit, I need to get stuff done.

blech

2007-03-11T20:26:00.000-06:00

Gah. I hate being at home. 56k sucks, and the bf doesn't have a reliable connection either so we can't talk much. AOL seems to hate this website, so it doesn't look like I'll be updating much this week. I'll type entries on my laptop and paste them all in when I get a chance. I'd rather not do that, as it ruins the now-factor that blogs have, but it's either that or post a little bit about everything all in one post at the end of break. If I have to choose, I prefer the first option.

Watch for posts about:
--Canada
--my dumb co-workers
--alcohol sales training
--home: the cold, the uncomfortable seating, and how much I hate it
--and other random adventures

Ooh.

2007-03-09T00:25:00.000-06:00

Free internet at the hotel! Do I dare bring my laptop?

Eh, probably not. We plan on using the hotel solely for sleeping, and I'd rather not risk it getting stolen. Or have to deal with it in customs.

We'll be out of here by noon tomorrow, and I probably won't update again until Sunday afternoon at the earliest. I'm not looking forward to learning to drive with speed limit signs measured in kilometers. I should probably sleep now.

Yahooligans

2007-03-08T18:41:00.000-06:00

I love playing Spot the 'Duh' Study on Yahoo News. I hadn't seen a good one for a while, until today's gem - stress makes teens break out!

*sigh*

Back to looking for cheap hotels...

Canadia

2007-03-07T23:31:00.000-06:00

I don't know what my fascination is with Canada.

I think it started when I became a Barenaked Ladies fan. The year was 2002. I was graduating from high school, and just then discovering what kind of music I truly enjoyed. (I listened to metal and other assorted hard rock varieties before that.) Not only was it musically awesome, the lyrics were incredibly clever and witty. Never before had I heard music that spoke to me quite like BNL's did, and, needless to say, I became slightly obsessed. The band originated from the Toronto area, and the members are very proud to be Canadian. I thought that was awesome, and that all Canadians were as awesome as BNL. Therefore, I wanted - needed - to visit Toronto sometime. Or just anywhere in Canada. My friends used to joke that they needed to find me a hot Canadian man, back in my single freshman days.

Maybe part of it is the proximity. I can hop in the car right now and be at the border in two hours. Yet, I have never been to Canada. I traveled a bit in high school. I've been to bumfuck middle-of-nowhere rainforesty areas of Costa Rica and Mexico. Areas that the average person isn't privileged enough to go anywhere near. And I've never been to Canada.

I've seen Canada, even. One of my friends is from a border town, and in the times she's brought me up for the weekend, we've driven along one of the main roads through town and she had to say "those trees over there? They're Canadian." But we always had some excuse for not going: the weather sucked, our other plans didn't allow us time, Rainy River is really nothing spectacular. Some of us wanted to plan a few-day trip to Toronto over spring break in like, 2004, that never got off the ground. I've been so close, yet so far.

This year is different. I've grown up, and although I still love the band, I am no longer obsessed. My friends and I either have jobs or a lot more homework (or both). Even so, the bf was insistent that we were all going to road trip up to Winnipeg some weekend before the new year's passport requirement. That also never happened, mostly since no one had time. But this time, I was able to get the weekend off of work, as was the aforementioned friend. Another friend was able to tweak her schedule, and the bf's schedule is open. So, we decided we're going up to Winnipeg on Friday night.

I'm going to Canada. And this time, it's for real. I'm far too excited.

I WILL not get frustrated with this.

2007-03-07T12:58:00.000-06:00

Part of the reason I decided to do a personal blog for my class project was to help improve my writing. In addition, I wanted to improve the way I look at daily life. My goal was to blog at least four times a week - for a class goal, anyway; my personal goal was to blog daily.

I'm having trouble finding things to write about.

I know I have plenty to write about. It's just a matter of three things:
1) convincing myself that the little things are important enough to write about
2) finding ways to flesh out my writing
3) forcing myself to sit down and write when one of my many ideas are floating around in my head

I'm gonna push myself to work towards those things in the coming weeks. But for now, I must go shower, since I decided to skip choir and laze around today.

Well, that didn't last long.

2007-03-05T12:57:00.000-06:00

I just got called into work for tonight, so no full day off for me yet. Dammit!

Am I awake?

2007-03-05T10:49:00.000-06:00

(title courtesy of a They Might Be Giants song)

Last week, the only class I had to go to was choir. However, this is the first day where I don't have to do anything else because I only had one class. In fact, it's the first day in which I haven't had to go to class or work - and could sleep in without an alarm - since January 18.

So what time do I wake up? 8:40, 9:34, 10:02, and 10:04**.

**Yes, I thought I dozed off for at least a half hour that last time. I was kinda disappointed to discover it was only two minutes.

So, grr to being stuck in a routine of waking up earlier (although I suppose it's nice in ways), and grr to the dorm's heating system, because one cannot shut both the vents and the window and get a full night's sleep without boiling (on a similar note, one cannot then open the window to cool the room without having one's mouse-controlling hand nearly fall off from freezing).

Also, my job makes my wrists sore.

2007-03-04T18:27:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so. About that. (The second goal, which should've possibly been the first goal because it comes first chronologically, but whatever.)

Originally I was thinking that, in the summer following graduation, I would continue working at the Metrodome, plus pick up a second job to work mornings/days. This way, I could have one last chance to be a "kid" before getting a real job, while still saving up an asston of money for an apartment or whatnot. If the opportunity to get an awesome real job came along right away after graduation, I'd consider taking it, but otherwise, it'd be one last summer of crappy customer service.

But then I was at work yesterday. I work with a 21-year-old girl who doesn't go to school (although she wants to go to dental school eventually) and works at Cold Stone full time (or, as close to full time as you can get with Cold Stone, which isn't anywhere near 40hrs/wk, especially this time of year). I worked with her yesterday. I found myself wondering how she gets to know all these customers and their "usual" orders, and then it hit me: she's at the store at least five days a week. One could almost say she lives there, in an odd metaphorical way. She's earning $6.something an hour, and has no room for advancement (unless the boss decides, for some dumb reason, to make her a supervisor, which still doesn't mean much in the end since the job is more about working together with everyone than who has status and seniority over whom).

Cold Stone is her life. I don't want it to be mine.

I keep envisioning myself working for MPR or something. It would be awesome to have a set salary instead of a shitty hourly wage. I would love to work forty hours a week, not twelve hours on the weekends. Hell, I don't even want weekends. Perhaps I'll keep working at the 'dome - and/or the Xcel, once baseball season is done - on weekends for a while, just to help save money. At least there's room for advancement there. If I do well enough as a stand manager, I can get promoted to a deck supervisor. I don't know if I want to be a deck, but still, the option's there.

But to deck or not to deck is beside the point for two reasons:
1) a position hasn't opened up and/or I haven't been offered the promotion
2) decks are typically expected to be at every game, which I won't have time for since I WILL be getting a real job after graduation!

Yes-sir-ree. Granted, this requires constructing a resume from scratch, and perhaps actually figuring out where the Career Services department is on campus, but I can do it.

New goals: complete resume - at least a draft - over spring break. Get it looked at/corrected in the following week. Start sending it out in April. Accept awesome, non-customer-service job offer in May. And begin knitting the wavy scarf tonight.

Goal setting

2007-03-03T23:42:00.000-06:00

This blogging daily thing is getting frustrating. I keep thinking of topics to write about, but then I always get distracted and don't post when I should, and then multiple topics pile up and I feel like I have to write a little bit about all of them. That wasn't my goal with this blogging project. I wanted to challenge myself to write as much as possible about a single topic. Overviews and summaries would, for the most part, not fly. By allowing myself to slack, I'm really not living up to my challenge, and that kinda disappoints me.

That being said, I'm almost done with the headband ear warmer thing. I just have to sew on a button or bead or something. That'll be tomorrow after work. Hopefully I can have pictures and thoughts on my knitting progress posted by Monday. (Goal #1.)

I also had some thoughts about my future (read: jobs) today that will surely continue tomorrow, so unless something major happens, I plan to post about that after work tomorrow. (Goal #2.)

I'm too tired to come up with any more coherent thoughts. In closing, the boyfriend says "don't you wish those hookers were hot like me." Yeah, I don't understand him either.

White

2007-03-01T10:03:00.000-06:00

Well, NOW they put us under a winter storm warning. Y'know, once the skies actually open up and start dumping snow. "Hey, it looks bad in that area too. Maybe we should've put them under a watch?"

WTF, Weather Service. WTF.

Happiness Pie

2007-02-28T21:23:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, all I want is to fall into a routine. I want a set work schedule with a class schedule that doesn't vary by day. I want to know weeks ahead of time if I'm available at a certain time. I want to be able to wake up, without trouble, at the same time every morning... or so I thought. I don't have class this week. Blogs is on hiatus, and my writing teacher is out of town. I have choir and work, and that's it. Today I didn't have to wake up until 10:30am. Last night I went to bed, exhausted, after midnight. I woke up on my own at 7:30am. The hell?

So, perhaps I should amend this. I want a routine, but at the same time, I want the freedom to allow myself to sleep in when I'm able to. Hell, I just want a day to sleep in without an alarm and not have to go anywhere. Monday will be the first day since winter break. If anyone wants me to work, they can hump a goat.

Speaking of work, I think much of the reason behind my mood swings was actually being at the truck stop. It was too negative of an environment. It's good to be out of a place where everyone backstabs each other constantly, and focus on workplaces where it's more like a family (the Cold Stone crew is going bowling next month!).

I've been noticeably happier in the past week and a half, and it feels great. For example, not only was I much more willing to pose for pictures with the snowgnome last night, I was making faces that, as of late, I normally only do when I'm drunk.

I also read something I really enjoyed. One of my friends is Catholic, and her pastor made a suggestion to briefly acknowledge distractions rather than hate them. One of the examples she gave was that if you're trying to pray and you're distracted by a dog walking by outside, you should take a moment to thank God for animals. Agnosticism is almost on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Catholicism, but I still found that to be a beautiful thought.

...and then the bf just IM'd me with a random statement: "I don't like it when the puppy starts on fire." Heh, appropriate?

Questioning

2007-02-27T20:07:00.000-06:00

So how is it that this town has a normal weather forecast of maybe a few inches of snow, while the town less than 15 minutes east of here is under a winter storm warning for 10-14" of snow? Seriously, shouldn't we at least be under a watch?

Also, why won't Windows Vista let me win at Mahjong or Solitare?

I helped build a snowgnome earlier. Pictures to possibly come later.

American Idiot

2007-02-26T17:42:00.000-06:00

A couple summers ago, some of my high school friends and I were hanging out at St. Olaf when we got bored-slash-hungry and decided to go to Perkins. The nearest Perkins was 15 minutes away in Faribault. We ate, then dinked around in Walmart for a couple hours. Afterwards, we tore around the parking lot listening to Green Day's song Jesus of Suburbia, and Joe ended up taking a corner so sharp that the side of his car dragged on the ground.

A week later, we got bored again and went back to Faribault. Perkins, Walmart, Jesus of Suburbia. This time, we were unable to shift out of first gear and we found ourselves at a Holiday at 3:30am, with Joe on the phone with his [angry] father and some random guy offering to drive us back to Olaf. The car ended up being dead, and we decided that Jesus of Suburbia was a cursed song and should never ever be played in a vehicle ever again. (Later that year, Leigh was listening to Jesus of Suburbia when a garbage truck backed into her car. No damage, but we decided it probably wasn't a coincidence. She was pretty freaked out by the whole thing.)

Right now, I'm back to importing all my CD's into my laptop. I just came across that album, and contemplated not uploading it for fear of my laptop exploding or something.

Is that sad?

But, if it does explode, at least I have the extended warranty.

Mostly knitting.

2007-02-26T15:36:00.000-06:00

Holy wow, I haven't posted in a while. But, for my project for this class, I decided to keep a personal blog, so I better get blogging.

Saturdays are normally a gaming night. I took advantage of having the laptop and brought it down to my friend's room, internet cable and all. Before we got started I was snooping around on Knitty, seeing if the new e-issue had been posted yet. It hadn't, but for some reason I swore I had never seen half these patterns before, and thus stumbled upon the Calorimetry pattern. Holy adorable! And, it's perfect for me. I have a 10g steel hoop in my ear that gets cold this time of year, and that makes my ear turn red and feel like burning, and that's probably not safe. I like hats and all, but they always mess up my hair and I'm stuck wearing one the whole day. Plus, it would work perfectly with the blue/green/gold/etc. self-striping yarn I had laying around.

So, I made everyone wait an extra few minutes while I ran upstairs to get my knitting supplies. This was hell to get started. Over the past two days, I've ended up ripping out all my stitches and starting from scratch a grand total of four times. Maybe five, I can't remember. At first it was because I lost a handle on a stitch and got frustrated, but the last two times, I realized I was casting on and purling incorrectly. Now I'm a few rows in, and now that I know what I'm doing it's going a lot quicker. My stitches are a little loose in the first row or two, but I'm not ripping it all apart again. It's not fun casting on 120 stitches.

I think I'm going to start a list of projects from that website that I want to work on. In approximate order from easiest to most challenging:
--Unbiased bag: in progress, but on hold for the headband
--Calorimetry headband: in progress
--legwarmers: why not?
--Wavy scarf: fun!
--skull scarf: the boyfriend wants it
--Pedicure socks: I don't do pedicures, but I like wearing flipflops; plus it looks like a good pattern for learning circular knitting
--fingerless gloves: just about the easiest gloves to knit
--Knucks: rock on.

And now here's some completely unrelated links I've been saving up:
--Five Questions interview. Memo to Steve Page? You're awesome.
--Cold Stone Extreme! Make sure you watch the finale. I am so learning how to do this shit. Entertainment = tips. I like tips.
--Cold Stone Extreme, second installment.
--Stuff on My Cat meets Zelda. Ha!

In more unrelated news, it's nice to wake up in my loft, look out my window, and see only white. It's nice it finally snowed, even if cleaning off my car and parking lot slush made me late to work two days in a row. I'm gonna go back to knitting now.

squee

2007-02-20T19:55:00.000-06:00

1) After some freaking out regarding its whereabouts, I have my computer! It's spiffy. My only real complaint so far is that all my usual programs (Firefox, iTunes, Trillian) aren't really upgraded for Vista use yet, not to mention the adjustment that normally happens when one switches from a desktop to a laptop (or just changes keyboards).

2) I got my hair chopped off. It's shorter than it's ever been before. Like, note my profile pic. Put that haircut, proportionally, on a 23-year-old. It's shorter than that by a wee bit. I love it.

3) So, yay.

I can't wait...

2007-02-19T15:20:00.000-06:00

The computer I wanted wasn't in stock. Dammit. But it was on sale for $850! It shall arrive in the mail tomorrow, and I shall be quite happy then.

I realized last night that I have a lot to be proud of myself for. Aside from an extra $236 from my student loan, I paid for that computer. Myself. I worked my ass off and saved up enough to comfortably dish out $850, plus an additional $300 for antivirus, a cordless mouse, and a kickass service plan. And at this time tomorrow, I will be able to reap the benefits of this.

I've been in a pretty good mood today. Lately I haven't been so sure of myself - particularly Saturday night, when I didn't get to sleep until 3am because my random bout of crying turned into a fairly severe asthma attack - but today, I'm great. I don't have to work today. I have time to relax. I have time to do some homework and clean to make room for the new addition. I have time to listen to how nicely System of a Down segues into Nickel Creek. This is awesome.

Am I?

2007-02-18T22:55:00.000-06:00

In other news...

On Facebook I'm friends with, of all people, one of my teachers-slash-theater directors from high school. He recently posted his status as "dreading tech weekend." I wrote on his wall that I missed tech weekends. He wrote back, simply calling me a "crazy masochist."

Heh.

Five

2007-02-18T19:23:00.000-06:00

Hello, blog. Five days. It's been a while.

1) My last day at the truck stop was on Friday. Not only that, it also happened to be a close-early-day due to remodeling. Hells yes. The only drawback was that the floor to the back room was being retiled, so I couldn't get back there to have the satisfaction of punching out for the last time. Oh, and when I was dusting products I accidentally knocked over a bottle of Aqua Velva, which went sploosh onto my pants, which left me smelling like minty old man for the rest of the night. No offense intended to Aqua Velva users. I just can't stand the smell and the flammable nature.

2) We once again have Reese's Pieces at Cold Stone (although it's probably temporary). I was reminded of Katie's Reese's pronunciation guide-slash-rant when several people ordered "Reesies" this weekend, but I seriously twitched when a girl ordered "Reesies Piecies." WTF! Mispronouncing "Reese's;" I can understand that to an extent, since it's a name of a person. But "Pieces"? That's clearly an actual word!
I was able to spread some friendly education, though (I hope). As much as I wanted to start screaming a sermon at people, instead observe the following examples of excellent customer service:
--"Um... I'll get Reesies Piecies and a brownie." "Ree-SAYS Pee-SAYS and a brownie, coming right up!"
--"Um... I'll get Reesies..." "Ree-SAYS peanut butter cups or Ree-SAYS Pieces?" "Ree-SAYS peanut butter cups."

3) Earlier this week, my computer decided to restart itself twice within a 24-hour period, and the buzzing noise continues to irritate me. Assuming what I want is in stock, I'll be buying a new one tomorrow after class. And then once I get everything transferred, I can finally take it out back and pull an Office Space on it. It's a fitting sentence for a machine that doesn't like to run more than two programs at once.

4) Boy on a Stick and White Ninja had wonderful Valentine's Day comics.

5) I really need to start on my hall council projects and wiki homework.

Small world

2007-02-13T12:52:00.000-06:00

My high school is on Wikipedia. And apparently George Lucas' minions visited to study and record stuff during my senior year. What rock was I living under? Alternatively, what did GL have against Green House to make him avoid it like ebola?
In a related story, since when was our mascot officially the dolphin?

I miss that school. I miss alternative learning, being a hippie, ultimate frisbee, the lack of cliques, and traveling to warm places during the winter.

Way to be, hypocrite

2007-02-12T11:23:00.000-06:00

My mom's been pestering me lately about how I have some form that she needs for tax purposes. A form that I don't have. She starts screaming at me (via email) about how I don't respond to emails in a timely fashion, because it takes all of two minutes, and then gets pissed off at me for having an attitude when I explain that (a) I work over forty hours a week and barely have time to do my homework and (b) I don't have this form. It kinda reminds me of when I was a kid and she would start screaming at me. I would yell back so I could actually be heard, and then I would get DON'T YOU DARE RAISE YOUR VOICE AT ME!! screamed in my face.

More and more, I've been getting the feeling that I no longer have a place to call home. I graduate May 18, and I get kicked out of the dorms less that 24 hours later. I've been offered shelter at the bf's house, but he'll be moving all his crap home from the dorm then too, and even without the boxed clutter there's probably not enough space for a futon.

When most people hear about my issues in getting along with my parents (which is a very long story I won't get into now), they hear my side of the story before taking my side and offering support. This year, Christmas Eve was held at my aunt and uncle's house. I was the first one to get there. My aunt brought up some of this stuff, described how my mom was bitching about it, said she felt like it would be a great topic to avoid that night, and offered me a place to stay if I needed it. And this is without hearing my side of the story. They have a big house in a residential area and don't have any kids or pets, aside from one of the guest bedrooms being filled with stuffed Elmos. I might have to take them up on this offer until I can find a place of my own.

[insert pause here]

I just looked up their phone number on whitepages.com. I'll think about it.

-Downer

2007-02-10T10:52:00.000-06:00

Last night I met the crew at Brigids after work. This was one of those weekends where I just needed to get drunk, as I don't drink very often. I had one of my sudden, severe mood swings right as I got there. After some arguing (on my part, anyway) about who was driving, I got a Long Island. Downed it. Tried to tune out the loud drunk guy who kept sitting at our table. And I felt better. Dizzy as all hell, but emotionally better.

So, depression + depressant = happy. Yay alcohol. Heh.

Blogging Blogs v3.0

2007-02-08T23:59:00.000-06:00

Blog #3: t shirt surgery

I've been over on the Livejournal side for a while now, before coming to Blogger for this class. LJ has communities that members can join and post to. There are communities for everything, from hobbies to music to TV. This is a community where people can post pictures of new things they've made out of old t-shirts and comment on each other's work. And it's a pretty popular community - almost 16,000 members.

Technicalities...

Filter, notebook, journal/blog?: Mostly blog, as the entries are short and consist of images and short descriptions. However, the community's userinfo page becomes part-filter by providing a list of links to websites and other LJ communities on similar topics (tutorials, stencilling, selling creations, etc).

Genre: Hobby. While some of the members sew to sell their work, all members sew for fun. It could also be classified as a personal blog, as each post showcases a personal project that shows each... person's... personality. Did I use "person" too much in that sentence? Did I totally stretch that description? Probably to both.

Purpose: Self-expression, mostly, as the point of the community is to post pictures of your work to receive feedback. A secondary purpose could be providing info, as some members will intertwine suggestions into their posts (example: saying that a material is hard to work with) or show a very basic step-by-step process of their work (this is a nifty example of a more-than-basic tutorial).

On LJ, the userinfo page is used to define your blog/journal/whatever you want to call it. Communities also use this page to set the rules for posting - stay on topic, be nice, that sort of thing. Since t-shirt surgery has many many members, the rules are also reposted on the blog's main page. This could make the blog and its moderators seem stuffy, but at the same time, I still see people blatantly breaking the rules on a semi-regular basis - and I've been watching this blog occasionally (and wishing I could sew like that) for a year or so - so posting the rules multiple times is almost necessary.

My favorite thing about this community is seeing everyone's creativity and wide range of personalities. There are some shirts posted that I don't like (although they are sewn very well), others that I want to steal and keep for my very own, and many where I find myself thinking something like "if that shirt was a different color and had a different band I would so wear that." And that is awesome.

The end.

Blogging Blogs v2.0

2007-02-08T23:30:00.000-06:00

Blog #2: Guster's Road Journal

Guster hits the road, and percussionist Brian, aka Thundergod, posts about the craziness. I chose this partly because Guster is another one of my favorite bands, but also for the context of this assignment - with only one author and a tighter focus, it serves as a good contrast to the multi-author, anything-goes BNLblog. Brian also posts to the studio journal during times of recording, and singer/guitarist Ryan used to keep the Guslog.

A note about this blog: in order to get the post archive links (and/or the crazy site header... yay flash sites) to work, you'll have to start on the main page and either click on "road journal" or click on the archives directly. Also, you may have to click the swirly lookin' thing with the red balloon in the bottom right corner (and watch a snake come on the screen, and hear something about "mothafuckin snakes on a mothafuckin plane" with "guster" dubbed over it) in order for it to scroll down and show the whole entry. Or maybe that was just my computer/browser being idiots as usual. *shrug* At least I gave a helpful heads up though.

Technical stuff...

Filter, notebook, blog/journal?: Bloooogg. The entries are all about what happens to the band on tour, so there isn't much link posting or introspectiveness going on.

Genre: Music-slash-travel. The blog is kept for somewhat professional purposes, but the writing is definitely personal in style.

Purpose: Of the three listed on the assignment sheet? Reputation building. Like BNL, Guster is made up of some pretty down-to-earth guys, and the writing shows that. The website overall gets the fans involved, from fan art submissions to the whack-a-Ryan game in the header (go on, give it a try). Another purpose would be to show all the places they've been. Instead of just saying "we played in [insert town here] last night and the crowd was fun," Brian talks about what else they did during their time in that city. Example: the last time they were in Minneapolis. Rather than mention the show, Brian talks about how they went to a karaoke bar and got their tour manager to sing one of their songs. This practice not only shows fans cool places in different towns, it helps promote said cool places in general.

Other random mention: use of pictures. Brian lugs his camera everywhere. As opposed to BNL, who just have one picture at the top of their blog and change it on occasion, Brian takes pictures of seemingly mundane things and incorporates them into the post. See the Minneapolis link as an example, again. Who takes pictures of a karaoke screen? Brian Rosenworcel does, dammit.

Another random mention: guest blogger. The most recent post was written by a guy named Jeremy who won Guster's Scooter For a Day contest (Scooter is their drum tech) and got to go on BNL's recent Ships and Dip cruise (on which Guster was a guest band). Okay, I suppose this ties in with the part about the band getting the fans involved, but still, it's worth mentioning.

There isn't really a definition of the blog made by Brian or the band. But, like BNL, they include silliness to show that they have a sense of humor and the blog style is offbeat. Case in point: whack-a-Ryan. You're definitely not going to be reading a "we played here, it was fun" blog when the website header contains a whack-a-bandmember game.

Look for a completely different blog for my third installment.

Blogging Blogs

2007-02-08T22:40:00.000-06:00

So, we're supposed to link to other blogs.

Blog #1: bnlblog.com

Barenaked Ladies keep a blog! All five members, plus their drum tech Tiny and security dude-slash-tour manager Fin, post to it on occasion (some more than others). For a while, due to an inside joke started on the blog, there were even posts by drummer Tyler's alter ego, Stewart, although they appeared to be written not by Tyler, but by singer Steve.

The technical overview...

Filter, notebook, or journal?: Throw all three into a bowl and stir. I'd say it's less of a filter than the other two, because when someone posts a link, they tend to give their opinion. (Exception to the rule. A bit of opinion is given, but I think it could be a slight challenge to find it if you don't know the band members' personalities.)
Entries vary in length and cover a wide range of topics, depending partially on who's posting. Although they will all post about touring and album work (aka what one might assume a band's blog would be about), Steve is most likely to post links and discuss books and politics, while guitarist Ed can be found posting about video games and his family. Bassist Jim likes to post about environmental issues, and Tyler talks about drums and uses his sarcastic sense of humor. I really enjoy multi-instrumentalist Kevin's writing (although he hardly ever blogs, grr), which mixes a poetic style with dorky humor.

Genre: Overall, I think I'd have to say personal. It covers such a wide range of genres - music, political, tech, personal, borderline professional - and everyone posts about what they want. So... yeah.

Purpose: Self-expression, giving info, and reputation building are all listed on the assignment sheet, and all are covered with this blog. The band members post about what they want, they provide links and information, and all of this helps promote themselves as a group of non-egotistical normal guys. They also have a Q&A section for fans/readers, which helps further build reputation by reaching out to the public. I had a comment to Steve answered once - I suggested he listen to the Current while he was in Minneapolis promoting his solo album, and he responded that he listened, loved it, and wished there was a station like that in their native Toronto - and let me tell you, it's pretty damn cool to be able to interact with one of your favorite bands like that. Mainly, their purpose is just to connect - to provide fans with an inside look at their lives, their jobs, and their interests.

So now I'm supposed to discuss other stuff about the blog. Hmm, I already seem to have done that. I guess I could add that BNL puts a picture at the top of their blog. Something from tour or the studio, the band being random, something completely random. Image archives are here. Yes, I am aware that they don't seem to know how to crop images as to avoid stretching. But that's okay, they're still cool.

The assignment sheet also says

...bloggers often state their purposes in their description, or a colophon, or on the sidebar. Then you can consider how the blogger is fulfilling the stated purpose in some of the postings.

BNL puts what I guess you could call a description in the header of the page. Hit refresh, and you get a new description. None of these really have anything to do with the blog, but instead showcase the band's sense of humo[u]r. Morgan, don't say you didn't ask for it:

--blog-erific
--got blog?
--I smell blog!
--if I had a million bloggers.
--feverishly fun.
--you found us! our apologies.
--for people who want to know.
--monotonously droll.
--0% value - guaranteed!
--the last stop on the internet.
--all things idiotic.
--may cause projectile flatulence.
--did you hear about the plastic surgeon who hung himself?

So, yes. BNLblog gets a big thumbs up from me. Go visit.

Two more of these things to come. Wahoo.

Fuzzy

2007-02-06T23:42:00.000-06:00

Over winter break, I got bored and started teaching myself how to knit. Here's pictures of the first thing I made...

I had a bunch of that annoying fun fur left over from when I dressed up as Red Fraggle a couple Halloweens ago, so I knit up a rectangle of sorts, sewed it together, and wove some black string in.

It's a dice bag! I'm a geek and bought my first set of dice over break, and I needed somewhere happy to store them. I have never seen anyone else with a knit dice bag, much less one this annoying. The bag came out kinda lopsided, but whatever. I'm learning; sue me.

It also serves to irritate people, which is quite awesome.

And, here's a teaser of what I'm currently working on (a bag that will probably need more than two skeins of $4 yarn):

I also used the f-word three times

2007-02-06T09:48:00.000-06:00

I just finished writing a paper for my Advanced Writing class that ends with the sentence "I am a better person today simply because I am a fast food whore."

That is all.

Free... almost

2007-02-06T00:27:00.000-06:00

I put in my two weeks tonight. I'm currently way too tired to be excited. However, when I was walking back up front after taping the note to the office door, I could feel myself beaming more than I ever have in that place. And my coworker noticed the beam and knew damn well what that note was about. And was jealous. Heh.
Anyway, I decided to play it nice for now. The note I put in tonight talked about my busy schedule and emotional issues (read: it's my fault). I'll be putting in another note on my last day, detailing why it's not just my fault, before merrily skipping away.
Oh! and I talked to my boss at Cold Stone about it. I was planning on telling her I was going to put in my two weeks then ask for another day or two each week. I told her about the two weeks, but before I could say anything else she said she'd be adding hours soon and that she'd probably be able to work me in for an extra day or two. Sweet. My bosses there rock.

This will be good for me. I'll have more time to devote to homework. More time to hang out with friends. More time to knit and make jewelry. More time to watch TV and movies (with my Monday nights free, I'll be able to watch Heroes again!). More time for me.

Apparently the heat went out in this building earlier. No wonder my room's freezing. Luckily my bed is lofted, and is therefore always toasty. I'm gonna go sleep there for nowhere near as much time as I need.

As promised: Rebecca Blood review

2007-02-04T19:55:00.000-06:00

We're supposed to review the first three chapters of Rebecca Blood's book "The Weblog Handbook." So, here goes.

...Wait. "Rebecca" and "weblog" both aren't recognized by Firefox's spellchecker? Uh, okay. Anyway.

Chapter 1 defined the differences between types of online journal thingys (blogs, notebooks, and filters), and went on to describe different roles blogs play in the vast internet landscape. Personally, this chapter didn't really grab my interest. I've had a blog of some kind since I was 16, so I basically already knew that blogs show different points of view and encourage online participation. I've also taken all kinds of media classes, and therefore also know that blogs "promote media literacy" (to borrow from the chapter's sub-headline) and are NOT a form of journalism. Interesting information, but it's difficult for me to sit down and read a chapter full of stuff I already know.

To go out of order, chapter 3 talked about starting a blog, and also didn't really hold my interest. But like I said, I've been doing this for quite a while, so this chapter contained even more no-brainers. This chapter was designed more for people who have never blogged before... perhaps, in the context of the class, it would work better to read this chapter first? I know a bunch of my classmates have never blogged before and are still trying to fully wrap their brains around the concept; but at the same time, this chapter focuses more on posting for the first time, which we, as a class, did on our own a week and a half ago.

Chapter 2, on the other hand, held my interest much more (and not just because it was shorter). My expectations for this book were to teach me how to be a better blog writer as opposed to a blog understanderer (yes, that's a word now), and this chapter started hitting on the writing aspect. The information in this chapter was still very easy for me to grasp; it's no-brainer information that I didn't know. If that made sense. Probably not.
I did enjoy the self-awareness section, though. Quote time (p.29):

A blogger who complains weekly that she is tired of her job will begin, eventually, to enumerate the particular circumstances that make her so miserable. Writing the same thing over and over, she will confront the problems she is not addressing and will be moved to make a change.

Story of my life, yo. Story of my life. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the middle of a whiny blog entry, had an epiphany about the topic at hand, and ended the entry on a completely different note than I intended.

To summarize: the chapters lead to a 2/3 majority vote that the book is kind of a disappointment so far. I hate to say that, though, because the two chapters I didn't really like were chock full of great information. So I'm not saying it's a bad book, by any means; I'm just blaming my disappointment on the fact that I'm ahead of the class' collective blogging curve. I'm hoping the rest of the book will, overall, fit my expectations of it.

PS: the "3177" tag is for classwork. Yay university class codes. Watch for a non-classwork update soonish.

oops

2007-02-01T23:40:00.000-06:00

I seem to have fallen a bit behind in the reading for this class already. Shite. I'm working on it, I swear. I'll have some sort of commentary up either tomorrow or Sunday.

In other news, today I meandered over to the rec and worked out for the first time in forever (aka sophomore year). Man, did that feel good. I think I'm gonna go there a few times a week now. Assuming I have time, anyway.

Oh! and I checked out my finances earlier. I'll probably wait until my next round of paychecks in two weeks, but with my loan money coming in I should have enough money leftover to buy a new computer. I will have a spiffy piece of technology sooner than I was expecting! I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it. Woah no no no no.

...

Um. I need to crash.

I pay attention to the news on occasion...

2007-02-01T11:22:00.000-06:00

Apparently one of the marketing fellas from Aqua Teen Hunger Force was arrested for putting up little light-up signs that caused Boston to go into terrorism freakout mode.

In this installment of People Are Idiots, we have... ATHF vs. Boston!

ATHF: As the Current's music blog points out, the point of marketing is to gain attention. However, I've been through all the marketing and advertising classes, and the public relations geek in me liked this blog that a Current reader linked to (which includes a video of the lights). Take a peek at the list of things ATHF could have done to make the campaign run more smoothly. Y'know, all the things someone in charge of marketing SHOULD be thinking of before implementing a campaign. Permits and contacts and interaction, oh my!

Boston: Seriously, people. They look like fucking Lite Brites**. I understand we're living in a post-9/11 world, but come on, take a couple deep breaths here.

**Lite Brite description TM one of the awesomely brilliant Current blog readers

Sigh. I need to back away from the idiots for a while. Luckily I have to go to choir now.

Stress-B-Gone

2007-02-01T10:20:00.000-06:00

I wish I had more time to blog. I didn't get to blog (or get today's homework done) yesterday because I worked again.

I've made up my mind that I'm quitting that job. I've tossed the idea around quite seriously for a month or two, but I'm for sure now. I'm working over 40 hours a week between my three jobs; granted, I'm only taking seven credits, but when you factor in my depression/anxiety issues, that equals stress up the wazoo. I can't deal with the stress anymore. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of dealing with coworkers who do nothing but backstab each other. I'm sick of having a boss who (a) thinks she's the exception to every rule and (b) refuses to hire anyone when we're insanely short staffed (and this is after she put an ad in the classifieds looking for applications).

I can't quit yet, though. I need to be a geek and type up a solidly written letter of resignation. Must... finish... homework... first...

"Blog" is a fun word to say

2007-01-30T11:20:00.000-06:00

Food poisoning! Woo! Okay, I don't know if that's what I got, because the boyfriend came down with similar symptoms after I borrowed his garbage can last night. Either way, yuck.

Windows Vista is released today, though. *sigh* if only my computer wasn't five years old and had more than 128mb RAM (yes, those still exist). I found a Yahoo tech blog entry about the whole thing, and although it contained no information I didn't already know, this made me giggle:

Windows XP's dog slow built-in search is so pathetic it's a joke, and not just because of the little yellow dog that's there to "help you" find your files.

Hah! I hate that damn dog. Almost as much as that paperclip from Word.

And OH MY GOD Talespin is on! I haven't seen this show in ages.

Because we were told to make a link in class

2007-01-29T10:17:00.000-06:00

I need this shirt.

brrrrr

2007-01-28T20:41:00.000-06:00

It's cold outside. What do YOU do?
a) stay at home
b) indulge in coffee and other warm beverages
c) flock to Cold Stone and eat ice cream

If you are like most people in this town this weekend, you chose option c. No kidding. I don't get it either. Does everyone like playing word association or something? "Man it's cold outside... hey, Cold Stone has the word 'cold' in it, let's go there!"

Today I kept myself [relatively] sane by heckling customers. However, by phrasing these comments like "it's COLD out, how are we this busy??" and directing them more towards my coworker, everyone in line laughed and thought I was talking about every single customer except him or her, and thus, I got away with it. I love being clever.

Mystery!

2007-01-27T16:32:00.000-06:00

I don't know if you believe in this kind of thing or not, but hear me out.

I've worked evenings at a gas station since October, and have sensed some creepy things in that time. Most of the time I'll just hear one of the bathroom doors close, when I clearly did not see the door in question open and there is no one anywhere near the store. Once I was cleaning a shelf and felt a cold breeze come up behind my left shoulder, and when I turned around the only person I saw was my coworker giving me a "you're kinda crazy" look from the other side of the store.

And then I worked last night. I was on bathroom cleaning duty. Most of my coworkers will prop the door open while cleaning, but I find it's easier to shut and lock the door. I don't know, I guess I like avoiding people sometimes. Anyway, I was in the women's room and wiping the counter down when I heard the door handle jiggle, followed by a knock. I called "just a minute!" as best as I could through my impending laryngitis as the handle jiggled one last time.
Upon exiting the bathroom, my coworker asked what I had yelled. I repeated myself, explaining that someone had knocked on the door. He looked at me as if I had grown antlers and said that no one had been in the store.

Um. That's kinda creepy.

Later he started telling me about how he's heard the door-closing sounds before too, in addition to various creaking noises that can be likened to someone walking on stairs (of which the store has exactly zero), and that it all gets creepier the later you're in the store (i.e. when it was still open 24 hours). We spent the rest of the shift pointing out every time we heard the door close, and we both heard it every time.
He's not the only one who's confessed this to me, either. Everyone's heard it. One of the openers even claims to feel like someone's standing over her shoulder in the morning.

I'm curious about this spirit now. No one's ever felt threatened by it, just creeped out. From now on I should take note of this stuff. Like, what time does the door closing start? I did an insanely quick Yahoo search and came up empty, although I did discover that another gas station in town sells E85. Nifty.

(And yes, I'm entirely aware that it's possible this guy was playing a prank. But with everyone noticing the same things, I have to be skeptical.)

Cats.

2007-01-26T11:14:00.000-06:00

Lookit the link!

stuffonmycat.com

I spent like, two hours looking at this site last night. I suppose that's what I get for looking ahead in the blog class' textbook, though.

Yup.

2007-01-26T10:27:00.000-06:00

So, I'm blogging in class. Heh.

...and I have no idea what to write about right now.

Awesome.