It's 1:15am here and already I have received news that makes my day complete. One month ago, my very close friend Susie (not her real name) collapsed while doing Honours work in a cancer research lab. She was rushed to hospital and underwent a CT scan. What they found was that she had a brain tumour.

Now this is bad enough in itself. However, this was an additional problem on top of the other problems that Susie has experienced in the past three years that I have known her. These include: being date raped, sisters being annorexic, dad has terminal stomach cancer, missed out on tranferring to Vet Science at uni by 0.01%, her family farm being totally destroyed by floods, having no money (and I mean *no* money), having a nasal passage problem that caused breathing problems. Frankly I think most people would be unable to survive the torrent of problems that Susie has suffered.

As of 12.45am, I have just found out that Susie underwent a MRI scan and the results are: the brain tumour is benign and it's not big enough to be a worry at this point. Susie has to take medication to prevent the seizures, but that is it - this beats having to have brain surgery to remove the tumour. On top of this, Susie got accepted to Vet for 2001!!

This news doesn't have much to do with E2 directly, but I am so happy for Susie that I needed an outlet to express it. Jumping around shouting in mutal happiness gets tiring after a while! Way to go Susie!!!

From now on its just the name of the person of whom received the flower:
Name: Oscar Rios Ortis
Born: July 29, 1958
Death: March 7, 1959

* = Something that happened that I didn't mind but still leaves butterflies and pain in my stomach.

Today I got to class late, yet again. Spanish 2, the professor speaks nothing but spanish. I am clueless. He asked me questions and I stared at him with a blank expression.

American Heritage: if taking 6 pages of notes where the professor is just talking the whole time without stops is fun for you, then you would have loved today.

U.S. Government, maybe the only class I really like. The teacher makes it fun with his kooky attitude and silly pants.
*A girl sat next to me that smelled just like another girl I used to know. I felt as though I could turn to look at her and she'd be there. But I turned and she wasn't. Oh how I miss that girl...

I had a meeting with my advisor at 12:10.
* I saw a friend from along the way, she gave me the "mask" eyes (where they circle their eyes with their hands) and I said, "Hey." She was off to a meeting herself and I had to sadly decline. Oh how I wanted to go.......but couldn't.

My advisor advised me to see someone else, so I did. I got help from 3 different advisors and finished. I walked off to get my transcripts...

* On the way out of the door I spotted my ex girlfriend. My heart went thumping away and I tried to do something else. I badly wanted to talk to her. I ended up right behind her and kicked her. Not a hard kick, I just kicked her backpack. She shrieked, "HEY R.J.!" and pushed me off the sidewalk. :P She always does fun things like that. We talked for a little while: she went down a different path. As we parted she yelled, "Call me!" I sighed, damn her...

I got my transcript and went to class, my professor is from Russia. I understand her quite well but I took no notes, I was advised to drop that class. Afterwards we talked and she told me that I did not even need to be wasting my money and time on her class, she said that I should be in Calculus. But I don't want to be, so I think I'll take pre-calculus.

* On the way to work from Math class I was talking to a friend of mine that I had for Spanish when the first friend that passed me passed me again. I gave her the "hey!" look and she didn't care and walked past. All I've thought of the rest of the day is that, and am still thinking of now...

Work was dumb, I started up again with 7th and 8th graders. God help me.

I get home to an email from my ex girlfriend, it involved knowing something about someone I like that I don't know. I hate this, it has been one of my worst days, and yet it still continues....

Everything Snapshot

Time: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 00:20:00 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_ssl/2.4.10 OpenSSL/0.9.4 mod_perl/1.21_03-dev

Number of nodes: 807246 (897 new since January 23, 2001 [868.1 wa7])
Number of users: 24218 (91 new since January 23, 2001 [94.5 wa7])
Number of links: 3306968 (13299 new since January 23, 2001 [11348.5 wa7])
Number of writeups: 447523 (422 new since January 23, 2001 [441.4 wa7])
Number of cools: 58006 (179 new since January 23, 2001 [176.8 wa7])
Number of votes: 1849213 (8908 new since January 23, 2001 [7899.9 wa7])
Number of hits: 30907509 (148079 new since January 23, 2001 [143175.5 wa7])

Node to user ratio: 33.332 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.097 links per node
Link to user ratio: 136.550 links per user
Link to writeup ratio: 7.389 links per writeup
Votes to cools ratio: 31.880 votes per cool
Cools to user ratio: 2.395 cools per user
Hits to user ratio: 1276.221 hits per user

New Nodes: [Cats = Hoovercraft] [If I should die] [December] [William Shakespeare] [dubbed commercials] [Rune] [Wings] [That kinda Star Trek emergency power/battle stations lighting sorta thing] [how to use an elevator] [fullerene] [Semitic] [I don't understand Vegetarians.] [Curtis JN-4] [Video games I wish they'd invent] [Wal-Mart]

Users Online (56): [dem bones] [JeffMagnus] [The Custodian] [N-Wing] [hramyaegr] [Quizro] [novalis] [ToasterLeavings] [mcc] [m_turner] [Gorgonzola] [Kit Lo] [Cletus the Foetus] [proj2501] [FelonyMPulse] [Jeeves] [wh00t] [ccunning] [Infinite Burn] [Katyana] [jasonm] [Aresds] [Gritchka] [Belli] [Aighearach] [FordPrefect] [Bozyo] [WyldWynd] [cureobsession] [Pakaran] [Withnail] [Jennifer] [winged] [MacArthur Parker] [Roland] [blukens] [Baron_Saturday] [barmaid] [brutha] [Kefabi] [AmadeusTheKitten] [Phssthpok] [akf2000] [Sirius] [Halspal] [disarmed42] [PeterPan] [sparkleface] [eponymous] [pvb] [spamcracker] [MaskedBabbler] [Fquist] [krsi] [Nanosecond] [umquam]

JeffMagnus node count: 4089 (0 new since January 23, 2001)
JeffMagnus experience: 11870 (157 more since January 23, 2001)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.903 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.507% (Via alternate method: 0.914%)*
JeffMagnus node of the day: Lithium

Note: The Everything Snapshot daylog will return as soon as I work out one that is more pleasant for members of the Everything Whino sect.

03:03

Yay! Got GNOME panel to work almost painlessly. =)

Almost.

It still involves using gnome-sm, which is pretty silly considering the fact that Window Maker already handles session pretty well.

Now, each time I login, I need to:

  1. Open GNOME control center,
  2. Go to startup programs, and
  3. Give the "WindowMaker-managed" programs "trash" status.

I think it'd be pretty nice to have a command-line tool that would do this - grep the managed program from ps output, and then just gnome-sm-manage --style=trash $pid. This style of script could be run from GNOME "non-session-aware startup programs".

It uses CORBA, right? Any idea if gnome-sm can be manipulated to do this?

Hmmmhmmm... yesterday I noded about some stuff, but I didn't felt like making a daylog because I woke up at near 14:15 or so. =( Maybe tomorrow will be more eventful...

Good night, E2...

13:38

Morning! Or afternoon, rather!

This is not fun. I finally got to sleep after 7 o'clock or something. You know, my day rhythm is getting rather confusing.

And how did I get to sleep? Chose one cable channel from TV. As soon as the first infomercial appeared, I got more tired and tired and... zzzzzzz....

Well, time to see what the Usenet has to offer.

15:50

Three posted articles. Only three. Strange. And nothing interesting in Slashdot and K5 either =)

Looks like I'll need to have another Wild Mad Noding Spree this night...

21:26

nighthowl:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/gnus$ grep "Message-Id" *
Bus error

To quote the ThinkGeek banner ad: WTF?

Okay, that was later fixed by upgrading grep =)

23:15

Sorry, no Wild Mad Noding Spree afterall tonight... Sorry, sorry sorry... ::WWWWolf goes to sulk in the corner::


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded yesterday / today by y.t.: Dream Log: January 23, 2001 Obligatory Nonsensical Answer / (today) Compose Finnish keyboard layout ô¿ô

I took a good look at myself today. I have evolved into a system engineer (read: sys admin) who is carrying two cell phones and a pager. My company believes in maximizing mobile coverage. Yikes. However, they don't mind me using the phone for personal calls, since there are so many minutes in the combined plans. But, I still like my job. Heck, I never have to complain about no phone calls.

I heard some good advice that I wish I had heeded with my ex. I have no idea where it came from: Never cook for, or sleep with, someone who constantly criticizes you. Heh. Criticizing ended up being the least loony of her behaviors.

On the news some guy was complaining about his breasts growing since he's been taking an anti-depressant medicine, Lustral. The warnings inside the box included this as a possibility. Watch out for those side-effects.

Sorry for rambling. It felt like a Monday today and I think it affected my brain.

i told myself, and was content with this conclusion, that if you never spoke once more to me, never felt it necessary to share your beautifully intricate thoughts with me again, that all these acts left hanging, balanced by indecision and reality until there is no where to go but to stay frozen in a snow globe of my own making... all this would not matter because what little you've given me is already so much more than i had hoped for, could ever dream i deserved.

    but you spoke,   ,...,., and words and works were so powerful, greater even that they were small, the motives behind so amazingly thoughtful so as to make up for their seemingly inferior outcomes.. and--oh, i think the world can never see what you do to me or what you could do to them if they only let you sneak around inside their mind, freely wondering as you do in mine.

simple words seem so unworthy

(,,...,.,)

i'm falling apart and

never wish to fall together unless it's with you. YOU

  • are the reason i write
  • are, to me, perfect
  • sjfoweiuro3u5r83urlkjaflj3kj424@^##@Q4ejqljf223498!

  • thoughts thoughts a mi11ion flowing thoughts and you're swirling around in them,,.,.,.,,.
    please, never be a victim to your own sea of splendor.


    and can you be the one to finally hold me.. ?

    Excite@Home laid off 250 employees today including around 40 people from the Austin office, where I work. I dodged a bullet though and the powers that be want me to work from home on a permanent basis. I should be happy about that but I feel sick to my stomach. A lot of good people including my boss are being terminated.

    I spent a good chunk of the afternoon in the pub with my workmates. I left wondering why we didn't do this more often and feeling that I really should have gotten to know these guys better.

    A bit late now. Good luck guys.

    I realize my problem, it's just that I want someone to, you know, give a fuck.

    I retrieved a paper from last semester, which I posted today (Fighting for Meaning, if you care), which had an A on the top and said it was a "delightfully acerbic comment on both texts." Basically it means she'd totally disagree with me, but the way I wrote the paper says, "If you don't me an A for this, I just might kill you." Maybe not. I came home and fired off a rightious flame, feeling like my literary acid-words would affect/effect.

    "I am secretly an important man." -- Steven Jesse Bernstein

    Nodeshells created: The Nodeshell Rescue Team Must Die(t)

    I had a discussion with an E2 editor yesterday which made me totally re-evaulate why I am here. I am only here because I want to be. No-one asked me to come. Shit, half the time I feel unwelcome. The editor wasn't the cause of this, BTW, at least probably consciously. He/She had the attitude that He/She typically has when I /msg Him/Her. I realize this is what I must sound like to people when I talk on the phone at my help-desk job. I feel, suddenly, very small. I was directed to examine another noders work, an exceptional person, no doubt. I wondered why I was pointed to this. Am I special? Was this a message? Did this editor see potential? Does this happen to everybody? I almost think twice before submitting this, I want him/her to read it, but I don't, either. I don't want to be misunderstood. Should I hide it all behind a pipe link, so that someone clicking on a . would have the option of creating a node/-shell with it? I dunno. Maybe the ed. got me at a bad time. Probably. Or I got them at a bad time, they're only human. I respect him/her, it's just I rarely feel like I'm getting any back at all, not just from him/her. What does it matter, it's not like anyone will read this, anyway. And you know what the worst part is?

    Even if it does happen, I don't think it will help.

    I will never be one to wield hunger against humanity. --SJB

    I've been reading Henry James' Midnight Song by Carol de Chellis Hill and there's this scene where Henry James is wondering what it'd be like to be written about. He, in the story, thinks it'd be nice if a book were written about his work. I empathize. I just want someone to read it, acknowledge reading it. And you know what the worst part is?

    Even if it does happen, I don't think it will help.

    Why is it when I feel so intensly emotional that my guitar playing sucks so thoroughly? Every time I play it I want to smash it to splinters. I listened to the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack, and found myself in the empty state I felt after watching the film.

    I'm getting heartburn a lot lately.

    These are all personal problems, but I don't know where else to sort them out. I have as many friends here at school IRL as I have middle fingers. I don't want to bother them. One wouldn't understand, the other has his girlfriend to spend time with. I actually think I have three, but it's weird 'cuz I can't talk to him about myself. I feel like I'm wasting his time. Behold, people who spill their guts on the Internet, but can't talk to a friend about simple problems.

    I have a cup that says Professional Smartass on the side. I don't feel very smart. I feel really fuckin' idiotic.

    "If you're looking for advice? Mine is seek professional help." -- Dr. Fraiser Crane, or however you spell it.

    All of that amounts to this: I don't know why I'm here. Try to expand the word "here" as far as you care to.

    I had to go to the oncologist today.

    For those of you still wondering, an oncologist is a cancer specialist. At an oncologist's office, there are invariably lots of old people doing chemotherapy and looking, in general, scared and tired and lonely.

    Needless to say, I felt like the turd in the punchbowl being young and strapping and scared and tired and lonely.

    An old lady I was sitting next to saw me perusing my counterpoint book and writing an exercise in four-part fifth species. After about three minutes, she said "No."

    I turned to her. "Huh?"

    "You can't do that."

    "Do what?"

    "That melody in the alto there. You can't use a cambiata in half notes."

    Needless to say, I was floored. This woman was so ancient looking, strapped to three machines and a walker, and yet, here she was, calling me on counterpoint mistakes. After checking the work, I saw she was right.

    "What would you do there?"

    "I'd put it down and get to writing real music. Life's too short for counterpoint. You know it, so get on with it and compose."

    I asked my oncologist who she was. She'd sung opera in the late 30's and 40's and then got lost in the war.

    Some days hold lessons you can't learn from a book.
    Today... nothing significant. I'm just ill. But I'm always ill so it doesn't really matter. At least I don't have to go get my mandatory education. I guess I'm going to have one of the vacant reflective moments whille writing this log. Its what always happens, why stop now?

    I started corresponding with a former suicidal gothis chick, and she seems to enjoy my nonsensical rambling, so I'm happy that I can help someone else enjoy their life a little more. Yeah its one of those wierd things where I derive deep pleasure from making people happy. After I sent her an e-mail last night I went out on the roof to reflect and enjoy the surroundings. A cloudy Finnish nightime can really be beautiful as the clouds turn red, from reflected light.

    I also helped one one of my less mathematically inclined friends with his Math homework. This was after I had cooked myself dinner, because my parents were at parent-teacher conferences. My teachers didn't have anything bad to say, 'cept that I'm lazy.

    so now I'm here and I'm ill. I suppose its a good time to brush up on my reading. I'm about a third of the way through this one book, and I'd like to get past halfway today, but who knows. At least my I finished my english essay yesterday and it's due tomorrow.

    Things are going well.

    I graduated yesterday.

    UNIVERSITY of PORTSMOUTH


    Andrew David Reynolds

    has been awarded the degree of

    Bachelor of Science in

    COMPUTER SCIENCE


    with FIRST CLASS HONOURS
    having followed a programme of study approved by Academic Council

    18 October 2000


    Having graduated, my friends, my wife and myself went drinking. It was cool to see people from my year that I havn't seen for months. One is working for Railtrack. Scary thought.

    This morning I work up feeling fine. Then I moved my head. This was a bad move, and one which I am still regretting. It became apparent that, while I did still have a brain in my skull, it

    1. wasn't mine
    2. was a little too large.
    3. wasn't working properly
    I survived the drive to work, and cheered myself up by ordering a large breakfast. Toast, fried egg, 2 bacon rashers, 2 sausages, beans, hash brown. Hmmmm. Lovely.

    Now I have to attempt a normal days work. I'm drinking as much water as I can. Wish me luck.

    My first day working as an intern. It was good actually making the orders instead of waiting around like medical students do. A good sense of power.

    I saw four patients in the emergency department today. The first had a painful eye, the second had recurrent boils which she wanted investigated, the third was a doozy with flank pain that was difficult to sort out and the fourth was a woman with vaginal bleeding. Hmm ... all four turned out to be women.

    Ordered morphine for pain relief for the first time. Gave a total of 7.5mg (in 2.5mg doses) to the lady with flank pain because she was in so much pain. Also had to do a vaginal examination - the first time since my O&G term one and a half years ago -- it ended up that I could not tell whether or not the cervical os was open or not (and therefore if the miscarriage was complete or just threathened) ... ohwell, more practice needed.


    Tomorrow I'm going to be in the "Acute" section instead of today's "Subacute" section. I think I'm looking forward to it.

    i finally got a good night's sleep last night! this without marijuana or wine, and it stands to reason that those things may be the reason i don't sleep well. i deffinitely notice that when i don't smoke marijuana i have much more intense and memorable dreams. i think it's time to give these things up as a nightcap, and instead use them as infrequent intoxicants.

    i was also finally not an insufferable bitch to my Man last night. got home at about 5:15pm, cleaned a bit, and got an half-hour long head rub, which left me gelatinous and drooling in his lap. then i went to the store to buy dinner fixins, and made chicken and portobello for me, and a french bread pizza for him.

    watched bad sci-fi, then the show crossing over where John Edward talks to the dead people who are nearby. went to bed at midnight, and sleep soundly with some interesting dreams. huzzah. i feel quite refreshed today. i think bitch-mode is over, perhaps (knock on wood).

    more later when i'm done building stuff.

    First off, I've got to give proper credit to TallRoo for finally getting that peachy-keen degree. Way to go! Now you can actually *prove* you're worth more than other people :)

    Today has started out badly. I got up an hour late, and hence got into work another hour late. I was up till all hours trying to properly compile the 2.4.0 Linux kernel sources so my funky 'CompUSA' brand IDE controller card will work properly. And when It finally worked, somehow the superblock on my disk died, and e2fsck can't find it. Ouch.

    On the upside, let it be know from hither on that I am, for lack of a better phrase, a fracking genius. You heard right. I'm smart. I'm cool. And what's worse, I know it. I solved a problem today that had been plaguing me, and I solved it in a very happening way. I'm am so amazingly cool it would fluster a Vagan Snow Lizard. I am so cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month. I am so hip I have trouble seeing over my pelvis.

    Oh, yeah, two more people left my workplace for good. It's not fair. They baked me cookies!

    It's really amazing what talking can accomplish. over the weekend, to put it simply, my girlfriend fucked up. its not the kind of "fucked up" that would bring on a breakup, but rather the kind that deserves a long in-depth conversation where emotions are flying every which way. she's done a lot of crying these past few days since it happened. it happened with one of her best friends, and she was so afraid that she was going to lose both myself and her friend because of what happened. she's in boulder (an hour away), and i'm up here in ft. collins, and so most of our talking was done over the phone. when it comes to deep, important, emotional conversations PHONES SUCK!!!! of course that goes goes without saying, but still. yesterday we were talking when she got home from school and she lost it again. she broke down in tears over the phone because of how upset she could tell that i was, and how upset she was that she had hurt me like she did. she asked me if she could call me back and what time my next class was at, and so we hung up. now i thought it was because she needed to gather herself and think about the things that we had just talked about.

    About an hour later, i hear a knock on the door, i open it to find Becky standing there in tears. As upset as i was, both with her, and just in general about what happened, without even realizing it, i hugged her and told her that i loved her.

    She and i both did a lot of crying last night. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I cried last night. I dont usually cry, but it seems that when i do it's because of her and not always the crying that comes from sadness, much of it has been out of happyness. She and i have only known eachother for a little over 6 months now, and she has seem me cry more than anyone else i know. Last night as it got closer to when she had to leave, she told me about a song that she hears on the radio a lot that almost perfectly describes her feelings toward me. It's a song called "Hanging by a Moment" by Lifehouse. I had heard the song before, but didnt quite know exactally which song she meant. that was until she was in her car, and we were talking through her open window when she turned on the radio after not having it on for the past few days, and guess what song was playing? "Hanging By a Moment" when i heard it come on she didnt have to tell me that this was the song that she was tlaking about, i knew, and i broke down into tears. excuse the phrase, but i was sobbing like a little girl. eventhough she did what she did, and i'm still (and will be for a while) upset, i do love her. sure we have a lot to figure out between us, but i know that i DO love her (with all my heart), and that she and i are going to be just fine, if not stronger because of it.

    I drifted through today in the normal way. I'm sure no one noticed I wasn't there inside.

    I feel like there are a million things all shouting for my attention inside my head, a million ideas crying out to be heard. But all I can catch are little fragments. The rest is as good as lost in the cacophony of ideas. I need those ideas; no ideas mean no writing which means no publishing which means no money.

    Every so often today I'd realise a little idea had snuck into my head, and I had been thinking about it without even realising it. Sometimes it would be half-formed, almost a concrete, lasting entity, before my noticing it chased it away. I came home with everything rushing through my head, and nothing staying there. Images flew by so fast, giving me a quivering, shaking feeling, one that makes me feel as if I am sick or excited or both.

    I've only ever felt like that stepping into the unknown. A quaver is as best I can describe it, a quaver that vibrates through my whole body spasmodically, translating itself even into my breath and speech.

    So I'm at home and my mind is still a blank. Or still a torrent, there doesn't seem to be any difference.

    I had trouble deciding if I should put this. But, I guess here is just a good of place as any.

    Think of this as a letter. A letter to no one in particular.

    What is wrong with this picture? I am in a room full of people, on the verge of tears, and I just can't deal with it. Is this my pride or the fact that none of the people here know me, and I can't open up to anyone else right now. Except the gods. The unreal.

    My Aunt died last week. On the first day of the semester. Second week of school and I'm already behind. I don't mind it, though. I would have regretted not going to the funeral. It snowed on us at the burial. All the nieces and nephews (she had no children of her own), all huddled together in front of the family tombstone. It was so beautiful. The minister said she would have commented on the lovely winter weather we were having, and he was right. She would have.
    I'm okay with it, really. Every now and then I read something, or see something, or remember something and it hits me. Wow, she's gone. I have a lot to do to catch up, so I should stop thinking about it, and get on with it. And I guess that's how it all works, isn't it? I don't have the option, I have to move on.
    I started taking Wellbutrin today.

    I have a theory about antidepressant medications, and it is as follows :

    They turn you into a zombie.

    Now, i'm not saying that your creativity goes away, and you become a flower child dancing in fields of wildflowers. I'm not saying that you suddenly become complacent and willing to take direct orders or anything like that.

    I mean you actually turn into a brain-eating zombie. At night, when you don't realize it, you leave the house and eat other people's brains. This in turn corrects the chemical imbalance in your brain because you are suddenly getting a lot of chemicals that you needed before, but couldn't produce.

    Well, that's my theory at least. I don't have any evidence at all though, i'm too busy being depre... MUST EAT BRAINS EAT BRAINS NOW

    I am not bitter

    After three years of study at Andover, I was rejected for college admission by the following schools: MIT, Yale University,Harvard University and Brown University. I might also have been rejected by the University of Chicago, had I not withdrawn from their waiting list.

    In high school I was a national merit finalist, my SAT score was 1580 and I had gotten a grade of 4 or 5 on seven AP tests as well as coming in first in a national Spanish competition, winning the school geography competition, and being the captain and high scorer on the school's college bowl team. I also was on the wrestling and track teams and managed to read over 400 books outside of school in the three years that I was in high school. At the time, this situation made me quite furious and left me a bit perplexed. I attributed my failure to gain entrance to the aforementioned institutions to the fact that my GPA in high school was too low, coupled with the fact that there was a lot of competition in my high school with other students. - why had I bothered taking such hard courses if they just deflated my GPA and in the end kept me from getting into a good college? I could have taken easier courses, gotten high grades in all of them, and easily gone to something a lot "better" than where I am now, UMass, my "safety" school.

    But then I thought about what I had done.

    I asked myself, what am I interested in in life?

    After thinking about passed events, I realized that what I want to do is not necessarily a great degree or a lot of money- rather it is intellectual freedom, and the ability to pursue my own studies that I prefer. Hence, I don't want to change what I did, nor , given the opportunity, would I go back and take easier classes to get a better GPA.

    I feel like I got taken out to the shed and got beaten with an axe handle. I'm gonna shoot the person who gave me this cold. with a rubber band

    This cold has me quite laid out. I didn't go to class today, and won't go tommorrow either. Work is also out of the question. So here I sit, at home, too sick to concentrate and too awake to sleep.

    Now for the good, well better, news. I've been with UtiliCorp for 2 months now, and I don't hate it yet! Yay! As usual, there are some people who suffer from cranio-rectal inversion, but I don't have to work with them directly, and that makes life much better.

    6:41pm

    I'm still at work. I'm stuck here until 7. I feel better today, but I still didn't do much work.

    CR gave me a challenge, to remove a rubber band wrapped from my pinky finger around to my thumb, behind the knuckles, using only that hand. It took me a while, but I finally got it. Eventually everyone in the office was trying it.

    The rest of my day was equally productive. I figured out how to fold an origami cd-holder. I practiced my hiragana.

    We finished all of the basic hiragana today in Japanese class. We started doing a little bit of discussion, and I'm feeling like I'm going to have some trouble with it. I should probably study it a bit more.

    I need to get my dad a gift for his birthday on Saturday. I guess I had better order it tonight if it is to arrive by then.

    I want to get something for Sara for valentine's day, but I'm not sure what yet.

    Well, it's chinese new year, so I'm going to go pick up chinese food on my way home.

    The mercury rose to thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit today: nearly tropical for the Frozen North. I found myself with my hat off and coat open, soaking in the fresh air that doesn't hurt when it touched bare skin or lung tissue. Forecasts call for more cold, and so residents are bracing themselves once again.

    Today was anticlimactic to say the least. I got little accomplished, aside from various readings from texts and cleaning my room for the second time since I’ve been back. Up here it is too cold and not cost-affective to use salt on the roads and walkways, so sand is used instead. Now, salt works buy raising the temperature of the frozen sludge and ice on the ground, melting it and making life easier for pedestrian and motorist alike. Sand, on the other had, has no chemical properties even remotely close to NaCL. I suppose the Powers That Be reason that sand offers traction on the seemingly permanent ice underfoot, and while that may be somewhat true, it turns everything into a gritty, sloppy mess. And when I say everything I do mean everything, as the sand is tracked inside and no amount of cleaning can rid you of it fully. Have you ever tried to sleep with sand in your bed?

    I learned today a mentor of mine was killed over Christmas break: hit by a truck while walking her dog on a road not more than fifty yards from where I am currently sitting. Her husband had the body shipped to somewhere in Arizona where a team of trained technicians ever so gently hacked off her head and put it in cryogenic freeze to wait for a day when they can revive her. She was forty-seven, and a rather nice if not eccentric lady. This weekend there will be a poetry reading in her memory.
    I swear I am not making this up.

    The strange mood swings I’ve been experiencing recently are beginning to show to family and friends. I still have no idea what’s causing them, other than the bad thing that happened too long ago to really think about. I hope surrounding myself with friends will alleviate these sudden shifts. Being busy and intellectually stimulated should help as well.

    Everything is melting and coalescing into little brown pools of sludge and grit. Outside my window there’s nothing save for a small car with its emergency blinkers parked somewhere it shouldn't be. Across the hall someone is laughing loudly.

    Things I learnt in class today:

    Ah, the joys of phonetics!

    Does anyone else find it vaguely creepy when e2 stuff shows up in Google? (especially stuff you wrote yourself...)

    I just saw a film called Nu Shu. I'll write it up when I can. I should also write up the Alternative Press Expo. It was a lot of fun.

    I'm training the docents at work to use the net. Most of them are over 60, some as old as 90+. A few are already experienced computer users, but others are still new to the idea of a mouse. I like them, so it should be a fun project.

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