The day my final exams end! Finally, the end of six years of medical school! No more undergraduate exams again ... ever! ... Assuming I pass, of course.

Odds are roughly even that most of what I currently know about medicine will vanish in a haze of alcohol not long after ...


Update: November 3rd, 2000

Day log:
Woke up at 0600, Australian Eastern Standard Time. Watched a bit of news on the TV while having breakfast which consisted of a couple of Kellogg's breakfast bars and some coffee. Took a ride from a classmate to Westmead Hospital in Western Sydney where I had my exam. We arrived at 0710, early.

My turn for the exams was not until 0900.

Short cases
I had my short cases to do first and one of my examiners was none other than Prof. N Talley (author of several famous books on clinical examination and related subjects) - the other examiner was Dr. N Wilcken. My first case was a lady in her 60s where I was asked to examine her cardiovascular system. My findings were that she had a prosthetic heart valve and a pacemaker in her. This was gleaned from the plasticky heart sounds over the apex of her heart and the scars on her chest - she had a large midline sternotomy scar and a smaller scar over her left shoulder. I hope that there were actually no murmurs to be heard (I didn't hear any).

My second short case was a man in his 50s and I was asked to examine his legs from a neurological point of view. The examiners told me to skip testing for gait and posture. There were no fasciculations or muscle wasting or any ulcers. Muscle tone was spastic on both legs, with perhaps more spasticity on the left side. Power was normal (5/5) in all areas except for dorsiflexion of the left foot (power 3/5). Reflexes were abnormally brisk in both legs and there was a (possibly) positive Babinski reflex in both feet. At this point I asked for permission to test coordination and sensation but I was stopped and asked what I had found so far. I deduced that there was some upper motor neurone damage to both legs and some lower motor neurone damage to the muscles causing dorsiflexion of the left foot. When prodded, I suggested that there might be damage to the common peroneal nerve supplying that area. (I'll go check this tonight)

I had time for a third short case, where most people had only two. This was another man in his 50s who had a distended abdomen. He also had a nasogastric tube in place, an intravenous line in his arm and a subcutaneous line in his right thigh. I was asked to carefully examine his abdomen as he had some abdominal tenderness. I found a vague mass in the center of his abdomen and another mass in his abdominal wall in his left iliac fossa. Before I could examine further, time was up. The two examiners told me I had done reasonably well.

Long case
(some points obfuscated to protect identity) I started a one hour session with my patient for my long case, a woman in her late 60s who was born in Sudan and had come to Australia about 30 years ago. She had massive splenomegaly, which had been extensively investigated and was still of unknown cause (i.e. it was idiopathic) - kala azar came to mind as she came from Africa. This big spleen was causing her mechanical trouble, giving rise to recurrent episodes of reflux and abdominal pain which were complicated by a story of night sweats and weight loss (I thought of lymphoma and leukaemias). She also had a history of several episodes of faints, to which she attributed some carotid artery stenosis (left 40% stenosed, right negligible stenosis) she had. She also had poor eyesight, with macular degeneration diagnosed in 1985 and cataracts.

In her past medical history, she had a history of ureteric stones removed from her right side, tonsils taken out as a child, rheumatoid arthritis in several joints (not seriously affecting function though), had never been pregnant and an unremarkable O&G history. She also had never had epileptic seizures, hypertension, asthma, ulcers or any bowel changes.

She had never been married, had no children, lives by herself in a flat on the second story of a building to which she has no problems going up and down from and is independent in the activities of daily living. She survives on welfare, having retired from working as a health worker several years ago. She has a brother and nieces and nephews who visit her often. She has never smoked, drunk alcohol or used illegal drugs.

She is currently on aspirin, ranitidine (Zantac) and vitamin B12 tablets. She is apparently allergic to several drugs (which I can't remember offhand) to which she develops shortness of breath on ingestion.

She has no family history of note - her parents both lived to past 90 and all her brothers and sisters are still alive. One sister has diabetes but she is uncertain what type it is.

On examination, she was alert, orientated and cooperative. She had a pulse of 80 beats/minute of regular rhythm, was afebrile and had a blood pressure of 130/80mmHg (a postural drop was not looked for ... darn). She was not clubbed and had no peripheral signs (of infective endocarditis or chronic liver disease or anything else). On examination of her abdomen, she had a massive spleen enlarged up to the level of her umbilicus and a scar in her left flank consistent with her operation. There were no other abnormalities in her abdomen - her liver span was normal, bowel sounds were present, there was no abdominal aortic aneurysm, there was no bruit audible over the aorta and there was no shifting dullness.

Examining her haemopoietic system, I noted that there were no palpable lymph nodes in her inguinal area, her axillae or in her supraclavicular area.

Moving on to her eyes, she had a visual acuity of less than 6/60 in both eyes unaided and, with glasses, a visual acuity of 6/38 in her right eye and 6/24 in her left eye. Fundoscopy was largely normal - I thought (or might have imagined) some pigmentary changes in her macula consistent with her macular degeneration. Visual fields were normal. Other cranial nerves were normal as well.

There were no abnormalities found in her respiratory system or her cardiovascular system.

Neurological tests of her upper and lower limbs were normal as well.

I had a LONG wait of almost an hour between the end of my time with this patient and when I had to present to my two long case examiners, Prof. J Wiley and Prof. J Fletcher.

When I finally did present, after mentioning all the findings above, they asked me about the causes of splenomegaly. I started by mentioning kala-azar since my patient was from Africa - they seemed happy that I did so. I went on to mention acute and chronic infections but ruled out acute infections and told them chronic infections such as tuberculosis and malaria were unlikely in a patient candidate for medical student exams. Then I mentioned haematological malignancies such as leukaemia and lymphomas and went on to rare things such as sarcoidosis and amyloidosis and connective tissue diseases and metabolic disorders. I forgot to mention myeloproliferative diseases such as myelofibrosis ... a point to which they reminded me (ohwell).

We then discussed her falls. I had to come up with a list of other causes for her falls other than the transient ischaemic attacks that I thought were the principle problem. I came up with vaso-vagal attacks and cardiac arrhythmias and cardiac outflow obstruction. We talked a little more about fainting episodes and how her being put on Adalat some time ago would make her more prone to fainting if TIAs were the actual cause of her faiting episodes. I countered that her fainting episodes began in June and that her Adalat was only started in October ... but we did talk about how giving a antihypertensive drug to someone who had impaired brain perfusion is not going to help the situation much.

In the end we ended with them asking me about the signs of chronic liver disease. I could come up with fingernail changes, purpura, spider naevi, fetor hepaticus, hepatosplenomegaly, signs of portal hypertension (including caput medusae) and ascites. I think they were happy enough.

They took about two minutes to discuss things and brought me back in. All in all, they said I did well but that I should sound more confident. I did tell them that it was difficult not being nervous in a viva exam with live examiners where the culmination of six years study came to a head in one setting.


I think I passed. Yay!!!


It's all over!!

As I write this, it's still November 2, 2000. But tomorrow is November 3, 2000, and it's the day on which I mark the 26th anniversary of my arrival here in existence. For the last few years, my birthday hasn't had a lot of meaning, which I suppose must be fairly standard for these mid-20-something years.

But for whatever reason, this one's got a bit more weight to it. It might be the fact that this is the Beginning of the Second Twenty-Five Years, an arguable end of youth and irresponsibility. It might be the fact that I surrendered to the stereotypical twentysomething slacker life-choice and moved home with my mother a few months ago. It might be the fact that unemployment, being single, and being surrounded by friends with similar dilemmas and situations has all contributed to a big angst-ridden clusterfuck that I'm keeping in check through pure willpower and studious ignorance.

It might be the fact that I just don't feel things as strongly as I once did. My high school girlfriend asked me last week if I thought I could muster up the same kind of passion and romantic spirit I had eight years ago. I said I hoped someday, but not now. Not now.

Birthdays equal mortality after a certain age, I'm sure. I don't know if 26 is that age for me; I just know that I'm too young to be worried about nebulous bullshit like the future, my career path, my whiny existential dread, and the party my friends and my mom are throwing for me tomorrow. "Quit crying about it and do something." I want to do something worthwhile.

Everything Day Logs
Yesterday | Tomorrow

Everything Snapshot

Time: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 01:48:04 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: 739692 (273 new since November 2, 2000)
Number of users: 20172 (29 new since November 2, 2000)
Number of links: 2447340 (3872 new since November 2, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.669 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 3.309 links per node
Link to user ratio: 121.324 links per user

New Nodes: [We're Gonna Groove] [Shot? So Quick, So Clean An Ending?] [VoiceStream] [Love Vs. Lust] [The new "woman"] [What is Stalingrad called now?] [Secret Tower] [Second Nameless Tower] [First Nameless Tower] [Peter Tower] [Beklemishev Tower] [Shiva] [Torqued] [St.Konstantin and Helena Tower] [Alarm Tower]

Users Online (52): [dem bones] [dannye] [knifegirl] [JeffMagnus] [Uberfetus] [hatless] [dragoon] [tftv256] [anotherone] [ToasterLeavings] [junkpile] [achan] [ioctl] [nocodeforparanoia] [liha] [Katyana] [Mojo Jojo] [spacklequeen] [srkorn] [masukomi] [Cletus the Foetus] [Zanth] [Haystack] [lagrange] [Randofu] [evan927] [gahachino] [Infinity] [flyingroc] [jesdynf] [Impartial] [BugDozer] [jt] [Nafal] [jasonm] [Jim71] [Deadbolt] [Rainfire] [sparkleface] [Strawberry milk] [Antisonic] [cilice] [xeniot] [Ryouga] [NYCadAdept] [zorrak] [Erynn] [chaos2] [Rentasmo] [jmeddle] [Millennium] [ghettoblaster]

JeffMagnus node count: 4035 (2 new since November 2, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience: 9663 (15 more since November 2, 2000)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.395 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.546%
JeffMagnus node of the day: Microsoft

I have just declared my major of Television and Radio for the Bachelor of the Arts degree of television production. I wanted to do Computer Science work years ago, but I'm not a good hacker. I don't have the hacker ethic of programming. Instead, I'm planning to port my computer know-how for video editing and adding a bit of art in my life through the same.

Next year, I'll be registering for classes on photography, ballroom dancing (again!), video editing, more of the rest of the TV & Radio department, and the mandatory composition-writing course. I'm going to make my PC ready for the video editing work, but I don't think I'll be able to use it alongside the Power Macintosh G4 units in the campus (fully armed with dual monitors and lots of Firewire-connected video equipment!).

Oh to only have to work for five hours, and to node like the wind during that time! I was surprised to see the lack of Led Zeppelin lyrics on E2 and noded Coda - I figured it was the least likely album to already have been started, and I was correct in my assumption. I have been a Zeppelin fan since I first figured out my parents' turntable at age 12. While I noded, I chatted some with my bro in the catbox, and talked on the phone with my youngest sister in Michigan. She'll be arriving to visit tomorrow, yippee!

Considered updating terrible seething gimletchops but updated Lee Stories with The $20,000 Boyfriend instead. Node what you know, you know.

Let's see... what happened today.

Tomorrow is Friday, thank god. Not that the week is really that hard, but more people are around on the weekends. This weekend my Canadian is in town, yay!

13 days til surgery.

11:12

Damn, will I ever learn to wake up in finite time??? =)

Today I "woke up" at nine or so. Fired up the HTCPCP-incompliant k0ff33 m8kR. Fell asleep again. Woke up at 11 or so. I'll never learn to go to sleep early enough...

Today's stuff: I got to start the Java stuff finally (will be piece of cake to implement, though), I'll also see if I'd be able to see some movies.

14:51

<plug type="blatatant">

Please go and sign a petition for preserving Deja as it is, because it was once the greatest Usenet news archive and, I hope, it really should be that in the future...

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/dejanews/

Why? It's part of Usenet history. Heck, in part, it has the Usenet history. "Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it..."

</plug>

15:03

Checked out what the "updated" excercise page says. Good news.

The excercise topic: "Text menus."

  • No need to implement terminal control and key reading (not part of Java library, would require native methods). I can drop one class hierarchy from the model (Terminal and its subclasses.)
  • Fixed maximum size of the menus is 10 entries. No need to implement a linked list structure either, and there's no need for a strange UML interreference thing either...

My class diagram will become smaller, and same will happen to the program and implementation pressures... =)

Plus, I have a lot of time - deadline is in May 2001 or so...

18:49

Okay, I'm just cutting and pasting from Advogato, but I don't feel like making a more complicated explanation here...

1, 2, 3... ... 9, 10. Phew. I'm feeling better. Or not.

::sighs:: I'll never become a good coder!

I'm declaring the status of Schedulist (http://www.saunalahti.fi/~wwwwolf/code/util/schedulist.html) officially Hopeless™. Why? Well, excuse for unacceptable language: I have no ****ng idea what is wrong!

If you think you can bang some Clue to my thick head, PLEASE help. This program is driving me nuts.

But beware: The original script is actually a lot more complicated than this, it uses insane syntax to do really funky HTML tables. I'm actually proud of that, in a rather pervert way. =) The new version is mostly "cut and paste from original and put some variable names there that actually make sense - and interpolating variable names is verboten!" The code should work at least to some extent. It just doesn't!

On the "This may actually even work"® side, I'm... (not that) proud... to present some POP3-related scriptlets. Those are available at my utilities page.

20:23

::WWWWolf sinks to the corner::

(Dammit, I can't code myself out of a paper bag... All I can make is a big bunch of scriptlets that do trivial things. I'm like those robots: I can only "go left", "go right" and "build car". And everyone can make a car???)

21:01

Hax0red some web stuff once again. Looks like I can't make a simple web-interface-DynDNS updater to work afterall...

I can't believe it - they're showing Die Hard with Vengeance in TV. Again...

22:39

::WWWWolf sighs deep::

Nothing.


Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: scriptlet
Updated:

back | days | forth

I shouldn't be in work today; so many things that really I don't want to deal with.

*sigh*

This is the problem with reflecting a portion of your life into a daylog; when things are going wrong and you know that those involved will be reading this, you are reluctant to put down what you really think is happening.

I thought that I had let a male friend into my life, I thought that we would be good friends, that we would have a laugh together. But he wanted more than that, things I wasn't prepared to give or offer. I tried to clear the air yesterday, but failed miserably. So now several people think that I am false, a pretender.

I just want to crawl into bed and eat a lot of chocolate. :-(

16:00 GMT

oh dear, engineers are such babies!

Engineer A joins a week before engineer B leaves. B is solely responsible for a huge chunk of our project and A is taking over that chunk of code. Therefore B teaches A all about the code, sitting at his PC editing away and fixing bugs while he is there. Sometime during the week B returns to his PC and edits code as well, fixing a different set of bugs. Now, because I am away ill and then on holiday, the source control server has been abandoned cos no one can get clearcase to work. So the different sets of code changes exist solely on each machine... Now, of course, it's life and death urgent that those changes are merged together this instant. And who's the project administrator? me Who has to spend ages merging individual files together? ME I am now feeling moderately homicidal at the two developers and the project leader who let them act such fools with our production code...

Blech

ICQ now works through HTTPS and will tunnel through our firewall. I found this out, got it to work. I tell ant the leaving guy, and he only tells the whole f*cking department about it. Now everyone and their dog is connecting madly, tripping off the icq server's connection limits from a single machine (i.e. all the requests are coming from our firewall) bastards All I wanna do is talk to my beloved!

We're interviewing at work for a Network Engineer, to take the heat off our poor overworked Network Administrator. One person to support 150 people, 75 of whom are developers is not good.

I get involved because I oversee the network, amongst my other roles.

This was the first time I've been the interviewer, it was weird being on the other side of the table. I tried so hard to prompt information from the applicant but to no avail. Never lie on your CV/resume.

His CV said

  • "I have configured and supported TCP/IP and DHCP servers"
    I asked "How did you configure the DHCP servers?"
    "Ummm I didn't, I set the TCP/IP settings to DHCP."
  • "I have supported web servers"
    I asked "What does it mean if you can ping a server but you get no response from a browser?"
    "Ummm TCP/IP settings are wrong"
  • "I configured and administered backups"
    I asked "What tape drives where you using?"
    "Umm I never saw the machine, I just checked the log files"

Great. "NEXT!"

14:21

Only a few hours until the madness begins. I still have to figure out a way to slip out of the office early without pissing off the boss. Normally that would be easy, but I left really early yesterday for my doctor's appointment.
... which went fine, btw. It's not melanoma or anything similar, just a nasty-looking (but quite harmless) infection. I just got to remember to apply some salve to the red thing for a few days.

Ok, I'm off. See you on sunday if I survive.

I suppose my day started last night, as it is oft to do.

Lately I have been having peculiar sleeping problems and I don't know why. There's something very irregular about the way it's happening now. I've been plagued with a mental overactivity all my life which means I lose a lot of sleep just to thinking, but there's something unnatural about this insomnia. It just doesn't feel right. I am extremely tired, realize I have to be up early in the morning, but still awake until 5 am at the least. And it's been happening two nights in a row... which has equaled about 6 hours of sleep in a 48 hour period.

I awoke late this morning though, the body, once committed to that gentle night can't seem to bring itself out of it, and I noticed (awakening) that nobody else was home. A day off work (the first in 4 days) I chose to make the most of it.

That's right, I stripped naked and played my guitar with unparalleled whimsy and volume like never before. Soon, I donned a neutral black attire and admired a new pair of shoes I had just bought. A quick read of a book in the Aeneid and I (clad in a treated leather greaser-style jacket) braved the outside world and attended a video store, renting Peter Greenaway's tribute(?) to Fellini... 8&1/2 women.

Later in the evening, feeling my inherent fatigue, I took a moment to lay down in my bedroom and re-arranged my CD collection into biographical order. Dinner, some Chai Tea (in bags, not the concentrate Latte they have these days) and I watched the movie. My eyes are hurting now, and I think I will sleep... and listen to... The Magnetic Fields...

Carpe Diem Compadres.

I didn't exercise last night. Instead, I got really really baked and took a long bath. There's something very pleasant about soaking in hot water while stoned. Very relaxing.

Tonight is my date! I'm so excited, I really don't have any interest in working. I just want the work day to be over with so I can get up to Johnson and pick her up. She's light enough, too. I could pick her up and swing her around and around if I wanted to.

We don't exactly have plans, but I'm not worried about that. I figure we'll just drive to Burlington and get food and wing it from there.

Ye Gods, that's a long daylog up there!
So anyways... what's new....I now have >100 writeups, putting me in triple digit land! YAY!
I woke up this morning feeling like shit, it sucks... I've been bombarded by political advertising, mostly for bush.
I'm going to vote for nader. I've made up my mind. Where's the little button I can push to turn off all the ads? This is insane.
Now, I know that everyone says a vote for nader is a vote for bush.
NO, a vote for nader is a vote for nader...fscking hell, what's wrong with you people? where's your sense of logic!? hehehe...
No, really... the reason i vote for nader is so that, even at the cost of living under bush for 4 years, the greens will break the 5% mark nationally, and that will turn a LOT of heads. I do it so as the Green Party lives on, so they build steam. I'm young, I've got money, at least enough that I can pay for food, and above all, no matter what president tells me to do what, I'm happy. If my happiness comes at the cost of breaking a new law, well.... it wouldnt be the first time, and untill I'm ever in trouble for pursueing my own happiness at cost to no one else (ok, if killing ppl made me happy, I still wouldnt do it, ok?) then I'll still do it..yeah!

Had a conversation about that whole "pi is everything" today, reminding me of my The *REAL* pi node... apprently some people didnt like it :\
speaking of nodes, here's a few to get ya started:

Those are my past 24 hour nodes, minus the lyrics I noded for The Devil's Bris
Ok, off to start my day.
one last note: chickenpox are getting MUCH better, thanks to all the ppl concerned :)
-doug

Went home sick after performing a Schumann lied for my IB Music class. I was just so exhausted after that terrible Halloween party that was held for the Senior class last night. I can't believe I paid $10 to be bombarded by terrible music and be bored from seven to ten PM. Oh well.

Excedrin is evil, very, very evil. I had 3 tests today, so I figured some caffeine wouldn't hurt, 3 excedrin made almost 200mg of caffeine, but I forgot about all the other drugs in them. Basically my hands and arms went totally numb, and the caffeine made me shake like a crack fiend. My friends were like "you're a moron." I was, I could barely write my own name on our English test, but the caffeine helped my mind focus incredibly well. I actually was alert and attentive in Music Lit, aced my History test and went to lunch. Went to Chemistry, took my test there, which I did well on all but one question.

Afterwords I went to Algebra 2, my teacher was pissed at me just because the asshole behind me kept asking me questions. In sociology, we had a substitute teacher and watched a hilarious old video on Making Friends. Ramsey and I need to get our hands on that and bastardize it, not that it needs much bastardization. Though it did turn out that I might get a detention for cutting the end of Soc yesterday, it was no big deal. At the end of the class, Mr. Ash, the director of technology walks in, and tells me that the district is going to hire me, $5.15/hr 1-1.5h/day 4days/week, but still that's about $20 a week after uncle sam takes his share for doing little work, and I'd be staying after helping him anyways.

My brother on the bus today is sitting next to a kid who was rolling a joint. His friend asks him if he has any weed on him and he says no. I talk to him about it after we get off, but it turns out that he's all anti-drug. Too bad, I figured he wasn't really so uptight when our parents aren't around. This weekend I've got a huge english project to do, clothes to wash and maybe fun to have.

Doing this on and off, daylogging, that is... I guess my life is boring, but well, I've got to live with it.

This morning I found out about the lucid dreaming nodes, and I have decided to try that, so I'll follow their advice. One of those is that one must remember his day bottom up, so that will be the structure of my daylog.

Chatted a while with people on ICQ, after meeting on the way home a girl I hadn't seen in a long time (check my secret unrequited love node), and had a nice chat about cinema... curiously she had enjoyed The Exorcist (she's a bit of a 'high-brow' cinephile) and we discussed a bit of American Psycho (we both got the impression that the deeds were all imaginary, which everyone else around didn't get). I was fresh out of a really boring class of Software Engineering, which wiped the interest sparkled in the previous Computer Security class (criptography). I also found out something I share with Prince Charles and noded it, but it must be awful as it has been downvoted heavily.

The lucid dreaming nodes were very interesting, so I'm checking out the methods explained there, to see if it works.

Ciao!

Today

It's finally friday. MrFurious sighs with relief. This has been one hell of a fucked up week. I'm no longer talking to her. She can go to hell. Whatever.

Just had my massage. Feels good. The only problem was the fact that it was done by a guy. I dont particularly care. But there's a new girl or something and i was looking forward to talking to her. Eh, shrug. I'll wait.

Kasparov lost his chess title. Heh. I'm sorta wondering if human talent approaches infinity as time approaches infinity. I mean look at all the world records. Within a few years the get beatten. I wanna see the next Tiger Woods though. That's gonna be impressive.

Not going out tonight. My friends going to a swing night. I don't feel up to it. Gonna sit at home, install RedHat 7.0 and jerk off. Hopefully nobody is gonna be home by that time. (Or at least not awake). Anyhow gotta have lunch and get back to work. Shell scripting is fun.

Welcome to Orange Answer Phone. You have one new message and one saved message. Main menu. To listen to your messages, press 1.

martin presses 1

New message. Recieved today, at 11.54 am.

*chime*.. hello? i am mika(?). you don't know me, but we need to meet. you are the only man i can speak to who understands me. maybe i can help you too, ok? please meet me a-

To listen to the message again, press 1...

Any suggestions as to what the hell this means would be greatly appreciated.


Later, in the beer bar, I let Aileen listen to the message. She got one too - it was part of Nokia Game, apparently..

I'm having a pretty solid day here... it's scary what a good mood getting a haircut can put you in.

I'm trying to set up a computer camera generously given to me by Mitchevious, but I unfortunantly cannot find any drivers to support it. No NetMeeting for me today...

I'm trying to get some quality noding in before I go to Chicago for my grandma's 70th birthday celebration. We bought her a computer, and I'll be setting it up. Maybe I'll be able to do some noding from her house, who knows?

And thank heavens, I won't be going to the oral surgeon anymore. Today was my last appointment, and I was given a plastic syringe to flush out the holes with warm water so they'll fill in again eventually. I'm so glad all my friends are getting to see what I'm going through... probably scares the hell out of them.

I'm going to go pack now though... My goal this week is not to be a node whore.

wake up, go to work at 7:30. take two new plants for the office -- more sempervivums, my office faces southeast and those guys love the sunlight. offsite lunch and meeting at 11:00, but it's an hour away so i leave at 10:00. leave the meeting at 2:00, back to the office at 3:00. my computer is broken. go home at 3:15.

on the way home i realize i didn't put the bong away this morning and i have a handy-man due to check my place out today. oops. when i got in the apartment i saw nothing which indicated whether the handy-man had been there or not. ten minutes later, a knock. it's the handy-man. just in time. it's a good thing the computer didn't work.

i have no idea what to do this weekend. i feel like crawling under my electric blanket and sleeping for 48 hours. no food. no water. no bathroom breaks. just uninterripted sleep. but the sleep fairy isn't good to me. when i am alone in my house at night i just can't find sleep. i'm so exhausted. my muscles are tired. when i walk, i feel hot pins and needles poking my thighs just above my knees and the back of my calves just below.

on a lighter note, my job has taken an interesting turn. i am exited about it. the lunch meeting was relaxing, lunch served at my boss's house out by the mountains. it was not chilly so we ate outside.

i pruned my miniature roses down quite severely, but am assured by my horitcultural encyclopedia that this is the correct thing to do for vigorous busy growth. i also learned that they will flourish under regular fluorescent lights -- since the light by the window is very direct, i am going to move the mini's to a new pot and place them under the cabinet so they can bask in the fluorescent glow. i had thought about buying a gro-lite to put into the fixture, but -- i want to grow more succulents and since the roses do well with what's there, i won't bother.
Why does it seem like "Another day another virus to clean up", around here lately? We've been hit by 4 variations of the "I love you!" virus and the kak.hta virus today.

Isn't this a little odd? Should one small networked business be this susceptible to viruses?

Well there has been a lot of rain falling the past few days around here and as I passed the per hard rain quota of wrecks and pileups on the way to work I never imagined that my own mother would be one of them. Generally a good driver I was shocked when she told me yesterday that her car had been hit by some fool who was not paying attention to where he was going, ran a red light and destroyed the car the my folks were going to give to my grandmother this christmas. As it turns out she's ok, but still shook up.

She told me this right after her and I had an arguement where I hung up on her. Why do I do things like that sometimes?

well today has been quite the quality day. i got a job, (at a toy store mind you, what job could be better than that?) i took a long ass ride on my bike, i feel tired, but better than ever. I talked to my girlfriend and we're gonna watch the sunrise tomorrow monrning, and life is good.

I woke up this morning late for work. I think I turned my alarm off in my sleep, but I can't be sure. There wasn't much traffic as I drove to work. I guess that leaving an hour later than usual really does make a difference.

The sky was the color of newspaper this morning. That familiar whitish grey hanging above my head made me feel a little melancholy. I wanted to stay home and mope, or go do something typically melodramatic, like walking through a graveyard, then stopping to write poetry. I just didn't feel like going to work. But, I did.

such a good girl. always doing what I'm supposed to.

I played more of Roller Coaster Tycoon last night. It was great fun. I love that silly little game. I love building roller coasters and planting trees and making the little park visitors barf with joy when they ride my rides.

My boyfriend is making me dinner tonight. He rocks. I hope that we have a good weekend together. No bickering, no whining, no fighting. I hope so. Lots of snuggling would be good too.

The weekend will be full of music. I'm going to the symphony on Saturday, to see Nina Gordon on Sunday, and probably CD shopping somewhere inbetween.

Weekends rule.

Nodes That I Wrote Recently:
none worth mentioning

CD’s I’ve Listened To Today:
Movingshadow 99.1 compilation
Covenant - Sequencer
Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville
Garbage - Version 2.0
Trip to the Andes compilation
DJ Icey - Essential Mix

Today’s Horoscope on my Calendar (Aries) - You can be a power broker in business and high finance as Mars aligns with Pluto. Don't let others boss you around. The Ram has to take the lead in order to feel happy. No second best or runner-up status. Persevere.

...TERROR!...HORROR!...

10:37 AM EST -- Sudden rememberance

Lemme tell you how this started. I woke up a little late and was slow getting ready, so I kinda left about 10-20 minutes late for class. Miraculously, I was on Squirrel Road (The last road before turning into Oakland University, at least where I drive) in record time. I'd only be about 5 minutes or so late for Physics.

That's around the time my normally wandering mind came across a small thought chain. See, last night was spent, as usual, doodling in my math notebook during class. I do this. Anyhoo, the chain went more or less like:

  • "Hm, I should scan off that doodle I did and show it to my friend."
  • "I really should've scanned it earlier."
  • "Why didn't I scan it earlier?"
  • "Probably because I never took my math n..."

My mind instantly stopped flat on this thought. After about a 45 minute record-time drive to class, on the final stretch, I realized I still had my math stuff in my bag. I never unloaded.

Realizing that BOTH my Physics class AND my German class would be pointless without the respective books and the collective notebook, I decided to take a chance and try to rifle back home AND back to class, with my German book (missing Physics), in an even BETTER record time.

The scary part was that I made it.

10:14 PM EST -- They hate me

Just yesterday, I heard my dad discussing various charges on his credit card. A few were trips to resturaunts that I didn't recall. I asked him if they always waited until I was slaving away at work before they went out to eat. He said no.

Tonight, I came back home after slaving away at work. The way things worked out, there wasn't enough time to get me any dinner before I headed out the door in the first place.

Walking back in, I saw a pizza box patiently waiting to go outside to the garbage cans. "Papa Romano's BIG", it said on it. This was good, I figured; after sustaining myself on leftover Halloween candy at work (The stuff that's been in that box of leftovers/rejects since last week), maybe it would be good to get some "real" food in me, such as leftover pizza.

I look in the fridge. Nothing. Not a single slice left over. From a BIG pizza. (I don't mean LARGE, I mean BIG... this box was pretty huge) Not one single fucking slice. Not one. They ate the whole damn thing and didn't even bother to save me any.

See if I save my brother any slices when he's not here. (Mind, I ALONE have the ability to eat an entire large pizza)

11:40 PM EST -- Invasion

Oh, lookie here. Someone attempted to install Napster on my Windoze box, but linked to the G: drive.

Now, the Windoze box's mappings are simple: A: (floppy), C: (hard drive), D: (zip drive), E: (main CD-ROM), F: (CD-RW), Q: (network mapping to spot), and R: (network mapping to fido). No G drive.

Interrogating my brother, I concluded it wasn't him; he'd put it on my C: drive, not a network link. And he'd use spot instead, anyhoo. My only conclusion would be the only other person in the family who uses Napster (I proudly use Scour, thankee much), my dad.

And he gets angry when my bro installs things on spot...

1:30 AM EST -- Not my line

Ah... at least the recordings of Thursday's Whose Line Is It Anyway? episodes worked right. I feel better now.

My Day

Woke up at 6:00AM EST. Got ready went to school and had a generally bad day. Lazy Libraians once again were late to school. Couldn't get on E2 for long. In homeroom I did my science homework. In Geometry we had the third test in a row and I didn't remember a thing. Then came Health, forgot to do the stupid Current Event crap and lost 5 points.(New teacher is an asshole.) In science my teacher forgot to mention that there would be three labs due by the end of class, moron. In art I learned how to draw beviled letters. I had to think of a word to draw so i picked STRATEGERY(stra-tee-ger-ree). I then went to spanish and had a class full of my teacher just yelling at the kids who have taken that class for 3 years and still haven't passed because they don't do work. Lunch was small agian. (I have to remember BIG PORTIONS.) In english the teacher decided to have us work in our vocab books. Nobody had their vocab books. In non-western cultures we had to watch the movies we made about enthiocentrism. My movie was embarrasingas hell. Then after school I missed the bus because I had to go get Information for Indoor Track. Got home from school around 5:00PM EST and ate about 4 slices of pizza and went to a LAN party at 7:30PM EST(actually all the comps were already there) and kicked everyones ass. Left LAN party at 10:00PM EST and ate two more slices of pizza when i came home. Watched New York Friars Club Roast of Robert Reiner (really funny). And fell asleep in the basement.

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