This has been a weird two weeks. Truly it has.

My girlfriend of nearly a year broke up with me Sunday night. She said she'd found someone else and that she and this guy had been "together" for around two weeks.

I was more than a little upset.

I was hurt, yes, but for some reason it didn't REALLY hurt. Maybe it's because I fell out of love with her myself. She changed nearly a month ago. (I think this is when she met the "new guy") She just stopped caring about me. She got distant and then everything happened.

What's really funny is that someone else was starting to come into my life. We started talking nearly 5 months ago. A friend of a friend. We just clicked but we didn't really do anything besides that. She knew I was taken by another girl and didn't want to move in on me.

Everyday last week she called me. Every night. We'd talk for an hour or more each night. Maybe in some way I was cheating on the girl I was seeing, but I never said anything about seeing this girl. She was really concerned about me because I was getting depressed with my (now ex) girlfriend. She just spoke how much she wished she could help and said she wish she could be here with me.

Well she and I have been talking non stop since my ex and I broke up. She apparently likes me a lot. She asked me out to an event, if I wanted to go, even this soon after my break up. She said she'd like me to go with her.

I couldn't say no.

Now I'm falling for her, forgetting about my ex, and can't wait to talk to her again.

Everything happens for a reason. Even if we don't understand how or why.

P.S. I just had to write this out. With everything going on, I needed to just see my thoughts in words. I know it's a GTKY.

I almost died today.

Of course I am exaggerating a tad, but then again hyperboles are in fashion.

School is over, and the students naturally rush out to leave as soon as possible. A few minutes later, the principal suddenly makes an announcement, "Code Red! Code Red! This is NOT a drill! Everyone get back to their classrooms and shut the doors now!". I was hanging back after class to talk with the teacher, and there were about ten of us left in the room.

Everyone gets pretty scared, and we all run to huddle under our desks. The teacher barricades the door while we hear the sounds of rushing students outside trying to find a room to go to. At first everyone is scared of course, and there is a creepy kind of silence. After a while nothing seems to happen, and so we are all bored at this point. Unfortunately the teacher decided that a game of hearts was not allowed, so we were forced to whisper about our imminent deaths.

After about an hour and a half, we got the all clear, and were finally told what had happened. Apparently some man had stolen a car, and was being chased by the police, when he ditched it by our school. He ran out and was fleeing when he dropped the sawed-off shotgun he was carrying. The police called the school and told them to institute a lockdown. Still, the police managed to catch the criminal, and all was well.

Upon returning to my car, I found a mysterious handprint had been placed upon it.

I always amazes me just how inept the media can be in its coverage of science related news stories. There seems to be a complete lack of fact checking and assuming things based on what the journalist thinks they remember from high school physics.

Now, I'm particulary interested in astronomy and feel that I have a godd grasp of the basic facts surrounding this area of science. But it amazes me sometimes (actually most of the time) some of the errors that they make.

My case and point is a news story that was on TV tonight here on New Zealand on TV3. It was centred on the major solar flare that the was released by the Sun a couple of days ago. The whole thing was going surprisingly well, with an interview with a guy from the Auckland Observatory. But then they ruined the whole story by saying:

These images were taken by the SOHO satellite. This sits about one million kilometres from Earth, about halfway to the Sun

I just cringed. Any amateur astronomer will be able to tell you that the Sun is in fact 150 million kilometres from Earth.

Now come on. Are you trying to tell me that this piece of imformation was that hard to find on the internet. To prove this I typed "distance Sun" into Google and the first result was http://sparky.rice.edu/~hartigan/nsci111/assignments/wk9assign.html. The fourth item on a list of data about the Solar System was this:
Distance to the Sun: 1.5 x 10^8 km.

Now I understand that scientific notation may be a bit hard for your standard Auto-Cutie to understand, but why just assume that 1 million kilometres is halfway to the Sun? My only idea is that they may have been confused by diagrams that show where SOHO is and plot the other Lagrangian points. These would be drawn purposely not to scale.

But anyway enough ranting. How can this problem be fixed. Well maybe the news media could do some fact checking. The internet is a wonderful source of information (everything2 springs to mind for some strange reason). Of course there is alot of misinformation as well (everything2 springs to mind for some strange reason), so what they need is to ring somebody. Run through the story before it is broadcast or goes to print. There is never more than one story a week so it wouldn't be that hard of a job.

I hate relationships!!!...*sob*

I have been with my girlfriend for nearly a year (12 months on Nov. 16th) and I loved her always. But lately things have been going wierd.

A couple of months ago we decided to be polygamous because we live a great distance away from eachother and only get to be together once in a while. The lengths of time vary, but the last on was for 2 and-a-half months, so it seemed like a good idea. But after a youth conference last weekend things started to change.

After much thought, I decided that I wanted to monogamous again for a number of reasons: 1) While we agreed that sex (normal) would be reserved for eachother, we never really clarified whether oral sex would be included in this, and after much talking she declared that she felt that we should be allowed to do this with other people, unless I had a particularly good reason for not wanting this. I had none save the fact that I wasn't comfortable with it, but this seemed to make no difference. 2) I liked it when I never thought about other potential relationships, and I don't like thinking about the boundaries of the non-"main" relationship. 3) I love her and would rather spend every living minute of my day with her if I was going to die tommorow, wrather than spend the rest of my life without her and live forever. While I liked the ability to date other people at first, I came to realize that I really didn't care to after awhile and I prefered to focus on what I saw as the one important relationship. Apparently she doesn't feel this way. You can begin to see how I feel.

The problem is that every time I try to bring it up, she has to go for one reason or another. All are possibly legitimate reasons, but at the same time they are all exceptionally convenient. I love her as much as anyone can, but above all else I can't help but feel as though she's cheating on me or hiding something from me. Particularly when, in our conversation the two following things were said:

Me: "..but I just get scared that you might be cheating, especially after 3 of my friends who had long distance relationships broke them off because of that. I'm just nervous of cheating..."

Her: "But that's what being polygamous is for..."

While I normally trust her, lately I've began to get fearful, and this did nothing to boost my confidence. It's just become this nagging, gnawing doubt at the back of my mind, and what scares me is not the doubt itself, but rather the fact that every time I get it, I can put it down, but every time I talk to her, the feelings of doubt and something being hidden, return. I'm not an untrusting person- quite the opposite, but my gut doesn't usually betray me. Also when we were together at the conference last weekend, she was behaving very erraticaly and when I pointed it out, she claimed that I was doing that very thing. She also seemed to over-react to things that she is normally very understanding about, and she was flirting with everybody- No Joke. At least that's the way it seemed to me.

I did the only thing that I could think of- I wrote a massive (I mean like 60k in text massive) e-mail to her. My whole huge e-mail was my attempt to save our relationship, and when it got deleted, I just kind of gave up and got really angry and really depressed and cried alot, and drove my mother and father away. I wrote things like "I'm tired of being scared, and wondering what I don't know about, and being paranoid, and while I don't think you're doing anything, this nagging doubt keeps coming back. I love you and I don't wan't to flip out, but I know that I will if you are cheating on me, so...." I just couldn't deal with it. I felt like some greater power was trying to force us apart...

I do acknowledge that I might have been a little over protective at the con, but what scared me was the atmosphere of the ability for anything to happen. I like to have some control over my life, but at con it felt like I had none whatsoever. I'm scared and I feel like we're going to breakup, which is the last thing I want to do now. I just don't like the way my life is going right now, and on top of my 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. or 1:00 a.m. schedule, this is more than I can handle right now. I know, at least, that people won't tell me that I'm over-reacting, or that I'm being stupid here. They'll just downvote me to noder-hell. Thanks for reading, if not necessarily caring E2.

I'll stop this bitching and get back to my factual noding. For future reference- I will only use the daylogs in times of crisis or other things like this. Thanks again E2...

       I...

                      ..will...

                                                           ..Die...

                                                                                  ..Alone...

Today I read manga for the first time!

It all started when I found a comic I hadn't seen before. It was there one the table in our living room. "Oh well, what has she spent our last $3 on now...” The name was Manga Mania. At first I was very sceptical, since I had no experience with manga what so ever. I picked it up and opened the first page. The first thing I read was: "If this is the first thing you read, you have done the mistake most newcomers does. In Japan they read from right to left, which means that if you continue reading from this end, you will start at the end of the story."

I flipped the magazine over, and became even more sceptical. I started reading and from the very first page I was stuck with the magazine. I spent the next hour reading, and when I was finished I said to myself: "These guys did the impossible; they made a comic magazine better than pondus!” After that I phoned the company who distribute them and purchased a 12-month subscription for Manga Mania.

The University of Memphis is frequented by Gideons that hand out Bibles to students as they walk to class. I usually give a smile, a "no thank-you" and walk on. What would I do with a small Bible of the New Testament? Usually I end up throwing them in a drawer somewhere and that drawer is getting full. And I think there is something scarily sac religious about throwing away a Bible, so I always decline. Usually the Gideons are polite and brush me off as some headed to hell whore that they shouldn't worry with. Fine with me. I couldn't care less. Today however, I was not so lucky.

Gideon (that's going to be his name) said to me, after I declined, "Child, my fellow brothers and I do not want to see your soul damned to hell for all eternity. Please take this Bible." I smiled and said, "That's impossible b/c there is no such thing as hell." Gideon looked at me as if I had just ran over his mother with a John Deere tractor. I wished him a good day and made my way to class.

Here is my problem: That's fine if you have beliefs. Way to go. Do what you want. But don't threaten me because I see things differently than you do.

And I don't believe in Heaven or Hell. I see them as fucked up scare tactics to keep good Christians in line. Be good and go to church everyday and you will go to heaven. God will then love you and welcome you into this paradise called Heaven. Be naughty and have premarital sex and drink in excess and you can rot in hell. God hates you wants to see you suffer. Does no one else see the holes in this logic?

And what really pisses me off about this whole thing, is that people are very scared to talk about religion. If you tell everyone that you don't believe in Heaven or Hell you are automatically an atheist and you are to be feared. And the people that are damning you are good little Christians but only on Sundays. These people think they are somehow above you b/c they take their place on the pew once a week. Okay?

I used to go to church 3 times a week when I was a child. Why? Because I was forced to. When I was 16, my father told me that since I was old enough to drive I was old enough to decided whether or not I wanted to go to church. I never went again after that. I was always bored and I went for the wrong reasons anyway. I was also confused as to why it mattered if I was there or not b/c my father would fall asleep during the service anyway and I would just sit there and or write notes to my friends or write little stories. I didn't and still don't see the point in going if you aren't paying attention. It wasn't until recently, I found out why.

I was this past Easter, and my mother attempted to call and wake me up telling me to get up, I needed to go to church. It was Easter Sunday. Why? I asked. I haven't gone in years, why all of a sudden today? This was her response: "Well Sue's daughters always come on Easter Sunday. Do you know how this makes me look?" OH! I got it now. It isn't about anyone dying on the cross to save us from our sins, it's about how it looks to your friends. I gotcha. I then said, "It's good to know that I am going for the right reasons." I then hung up the phone and went back to sleep. Thanks mom for making me see the light.

My phone's ringing. Why are you ringing? Oh, it's you, alarm, thank you, I'm awake. What time is it? 8 o'clock... too early when it's a holiday, and you don't get enough sleep as it is.

My phone's ringing. Again. Why do you ring now, phone? I accept the call. The familiar three-tones rit my eardrum and I realise who Private Number is - my girlfriend. Always one to prank me, especially after sending a text message. That must mean I've missed one somewhere...

Oh, hell

My message inbox is full. Figures; I have a habit of saving every even slightly important text I get, only deleting it to make space for one in even greater favour. Normally if I had received a new message, it would simply pop up and say "No space for new messages". This is not the text that is greeting me.

My phone's ringing. Please don't hang up, please don't hang up. A response! You're unwell? I can't come over? Sorry to hear that. Get well soon.

Well, that screws up my day. And it's only 9:30...

You know, I already expected that my ever-empathetic employer was going to have me work on my birthday. To add insult to their apathy, however, they've scheduled me to be there til 3:30AM (which is way, way off from my schedule template). Feh.

Today is apparently Employee Appreciation Day. I'm not sure if this is a nationwide thing, or just a Postal Service or federal government thing. Anyway, in honor of this sacred event, they bought a hundred or so dollars worth of pizza. Wow, I really feel appreciated now. (Of course, I have the day off today anyway, so I don't get any. I just know about it because the supervisors were announcing it once every half-hour for the entire seven hours I was there yesterday.)

I had a spontaneous nosebleed near the end of my shift. This is actually worrying me a bit; it's at least the second time in the last week or so that I've had a nosebleed for no apparent reason. I raced by two supervisors, saying I would be idle for a few minutes, "for obvious reasons". Apparently, they weren't so obvious to everyone, as one of them stopped me and asked why. The fact that I had blood smeared on my hands and face wasn't a big enough clue, I guess.

I felt really woozy afterward. Strange, because I don't think I really lost that much blood. It also reminded me of that episode of the short-lived Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert is the only employee eligible to give blood for the drive, so they take all of his to meet the quota ("Driving without blood is surprisingly difficult!"). So I'm sitting at a terminal with blood on my hands, giggling to myself for no apparent (to anybody else) reason. I'm sure that looked good.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm reading Douglas Amy's Real Choices / New Voices. It sounds like an exceptionally bad Lifetime special or something, but it's really an argument for instituting a proportional representation electoral system in the U.S. (and, presumably, in the other nations that still use single-member plurality systems - or in the case of Australia, single-member majority). Frankly, it hasn't yet told me anything I don't already know, but we'll see. I also checked out Miller's Community, Market and State (which deals with market socialism) and a book by one of my professors, Richard Dagger, called Civic Virtues (which is, I believe, an argument for communitarianism). No, I'm not reading that to "score points" with my prof, I don't even plan on him knowing I'm reading it.

And I apparently have two days to send my gift for E2 Secret Santa 2003 before I'm considered a deadbeat. Whoops. I've had the stuff together for over a week now, I've just been lazy about getting it sent out. Tomorrow.