So, I'm sick. Not really sick, but sick enough for the whole experience to be decidedly unpleasant. I was blowing my nose all through anime club on Friday, which must have annoyed the fuck out of everyone else, but there wasn't much I could do. No way I was going to miss anime club due to some dinky cold. If I can go to school (which I did) and to work (which I'm going to today) then there's no way that I'm not going to anime club.

I'm drinking loads of echinacea tea, which is supposed to bolster my immune system. Even if it doesn't work, it at least guarantees that I'm staying hydrated.

I've been thinking about books. Mainly, my tendency to beat myself up if I don't think that I'm reading fast enough, and the pressure I put on myself to read every book to the end and not allow myself to start a new book until I'm finished with the previous one. The whole thing is, well, kind of stupid. I feel like I have to live up to other people's expectations... except they're expectations that other people don't have. The only putting pressure on me is me. And why? What does it matter if I read when and what I want to read? Other people probably don't even notice what I'm reading from day to day, and if they do, I doubt they care how long it takes me to finish it.

So, I'm not reading Constantine's Sword right now, because I wasn't enjoying it. I may pick it up again later, or I may not. So there.

I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle last night, because I wanted to. It's a freaking brilliant book, by the way. I recommend it.

Wow, for once I may actually be taking step in the right direction, emotionally. How often do I manage that? (Answer: Not very often.)

Just how much of a procrastinator am I? So much that I'm even late in wishing myself a happy birthday. Happy birthday me!

It was a really fun birthday, for all I was dreading it. I got lots of a presents. (Seriously, I was spoiled this year. I think my mom feels guilty that my father isn't around to celebrate my birthday.) Plus, my mom, my brother, and I went out to a really nice restaurant. The food was so good. It was a little embarrassing, but, man, you would have thought that I was orgasming right there in the restaurant. It was really yummy. (Lobster ravioli with tiger shrimp, sushi grade ahi tuna with tempura sea scallops, and three different kinds of crème brûlée.) Also, I had my first legal drink! I don't remember what it was called, but it was good. (I do remember what was in it: champagne, blackberry syrup, and a twist of lemon.)

I'm back to slacking off regarding my school work. Two weeks of studying hard, then it's back to bad habits. But my life is moving forward in other ways. I signed up to start volunteering at Left Hand Books, a not for profit, volunteer staffed, radical bookstore. I'm really excited. It will give me experience with books, which will be helpful when I want to start grad school/my career as a librarian. Not only that, but I'll around people who can relate to me. See, I care. I care about the environment, racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, the oppression of developing nations by the American empire, the erosion of civil rights in the US, political prisoners being tortured, attacks on science by the religious right, blatantly false sexual education being taught in our schools, and more. I care a whole hell of a lot. This sounds like bragging, but it's just a fact. And I don't know many people who care on the same level. But at Left Hand Books, I'll be able to find plenty.

I keep meaning to do an article post, but politics are depressing me so much. I should at least do my "John McCain is a homophobic, sexist, hypocritical, warmonger, and no one should vote for him; also Sarah Palin is sexist, horribly homophobic, hypocritical, blatant liar, and no one should vote for her either" post.

So, yeah, that's me right now. Oh, here's a meme from andmydog:

When you see this, post a Douglas Adams quote in your journal.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

Your incredibly amusing link of the day: safenow.org: What to Do in an Emergency This website has helpful tips for what to do in the event of a terrorist attack, using bizarre, actual government signs.

Had a doctor's appointment today. I got a referral for a gynecologist, a new birth control prescription. I may actually be about to make progress on the endometriosis issue. (The endometriosis issue, by the way, is whether or not I have it.)

I'm a bit frustrated, because I really don't feel like I have any good options. Every possible solution has a "but" after it. I was really interested in depo provera. It's one injection that regulates your periods for three months. This would take care of my problem with birth control pills, which is always forgetting to take them. However, depo provera increases the risk of osteoporosis. I get so little calcium that I don't dare increase my chances. I really just want a damn hysterectomy, but the trouble is finding someone willing to do it. "But you won't be able to BABIEZ" is the spoken or unspoken objection. I don't want kids, but good luck trying to convince people of that. As if I needed reminding that female bodies are too often seen as little more than incubators. Luckily, my physician is cool.

When grocery shopping and spent too much money on stuff I don't need. In my defense, garlic stuffed olives! Mm, garlic stuffed olives. You either understand or you don't, I think.

Really good news: My notebook was not lost at all! Yay! As it turns out, I didn't bring it to school that day after all. I am a dumb ass, but a happy one.

Other good news: I had a second interview at Blockbuster, and I think it went well.

Bad news: I may have failed a Spanish test. That's what I get for hardly studying at all. (I'm not sure you could actually call it "studying," really.)

Other bad news: School is not yet over. There is much homeworks, and finals are coming up. BLEH!


....Further bulletins as events warrant!

Finals are going to kill me. Man, this whole semester has just sucked. Almost all my classes are just loathsome. Even classes that should be interesting (Gender, Race, and Class in a Global Context) have been dull.

Being stressed, overwhelmed with finals, and considerably sleep deprived means that I completely forget about the deadline for submitting prompts to springkink. So, that really sucks. I mean, yes, I can submit prompts next round, but I ask you to stop bringing up logical points.

I'm considering applying for the job that ryosato just left at Time Warp Comics. The main evidence for this being a bad idea is that she left because she was seriously unhappy there. Plus, I'm nervous about working during school. (Most people can manage it. I am far more incompetent than most people.) On the other hand, if I want to be accepted into a Library Science grad program, it would help to have some experience with the printed word, and I've had no luck getting jobs at libraries or bookstores.

Blah.

Nothing interesting going on here.

In today's Big News, I cooked! Since moving I've just had stuff from boxes. Because I am under the delusional impression that you people actually care what I had for dinner, I am going to give you the recipe (with helpful comments by me).

( Chili Relleno Bake )

And there you have it! A simple, tasty vegetarian dish.

So, I didn't get the bookstore job. I didn't really expect to anyway. There were a dozen people more qualified than me, after all. But it was only after hearing how incredibly awesome working at Boulder Bookstore would be (30% discount! You get to borrow books!) that I realized how much my job sucks.

My job sucks.

Yesterday was a terrible day. No, terrible isn't the word. There is no word in my vocabulary to describe yesterday, and I have a fairly extensive vocabulary.

The first thing I had to do was discuss Stuff with my step-mom and relatives. There's going to be a public memorial for my dad. A very public memorial. They're planning on 500 people attending. My dad did not know 500 people!

Now, the people who know me will know that I have problems with social anxiety. It's also been getting steadily worse. I have difficulty eating in restaurants these days. Not only that, but I grieve very privately. Trying to grieve in front of five hundred people would send me into a serious anxiety attack. But they keep pushing me.

My mother, who is excellent at delivering reality checks as long as they don't involve her, pointed out what's probably going on. They're doing what they want, and they want me to want it too, so that they can feel good about themselves. They're doing something that they know I don't want, but they want me to agree so they don't have to feel guilty. My mother's advice: "Fuck 'em." I don't think I'll quite say that, but I like the spirit.

After I get back to my mom's, I discover that my mom's husband has turned my computer, WHILE I WAS DOWNLOADING SOMETHING. The computer was in use. He went into my room and messed with my stuff. My computer gets seriously confused when downloads are interrupted. My computer confuses easily, actually. I'm still trying to get the anime episode I was downloading to download now.

When I'm explaining my fury to my brother, he decides he has to get on his high horse, and tell me that he's sure that my mom's husband "thought he was doing the right thing." When I point out that it was actually "the fucking stupid thing," he gets huffy and tells me that he's just trying to give me "another point of view."

This would only be mildly irritating, except for the fact that my brother is always whining to me about how mean everyone is to him. "Mom is mad at me because I'm not doing my homework! She's so unreasonable!" Whenever he gets like this, I just nod my head and make vague noises of agreement, even though I usually think that he's being a moron.

A little after this, I went to work. Worst. Day. Of work. EVER. It was all right for most of the day, but when it came time for co-worker D to leave at 6:30, I realized that she hadn't finished her work, and that meant that I was going to have to do it. The floors are supposed to mopped and swept by six, and I hadn't even done that. But the real problem was that between 6:30 and 7:00 a scourge of customers came. I was busier in that half hour than I had been all day. I couldn't even wash dishes. So, I was rushing around, trying to get everything done. I was mopping...and the mop broke. I could have killed someone.

The very last straw came at the very end. I was covering the deli salads in the case with butcher paper, when I slipped in puddle of water and fell into the Ambrosia. It was at that point that I began to cry.

I'm afraid what my supervisors are going to say to me when I come into work tomorrow.

When I come home, I'm told that I didn't get the bookstore job, then I discover that my computer won't turn on. I did figure out how to turn it on eventually. For some reason it won't turn on when it's on AC power, but if I unplug it, it will turn on. I can then plug it back in, and it will run on AC power. Go figure.

...In good news, I just got my amazon.com order! Sandman: Endless Nights, Sandman: King of Dreams, and Lucifer: Children and Monsters. Oh, Western comics, am I slowly being sucked into to you? (Surely not!)

(This post contains 110% of your daily exclamation points requirement.)

Wow! Instead of reading my boring fandom ramblings...you get to read my boring real life ramblings! Lucky you.

I've been job hunting. And there's good news! Safeway called me back and scheduled an interview. I wish I could be more excited about this. Job! Money! ....Safeway. Oh well, crappy jobs must come first.

I just received a rejection letter from Kohl's though. Damn.

I'd like to work at the Paper Doll, which is a high end knick-knack shop. It's in downtown Boulder, so getting there would be no problem, and it would be a quiet place to work. (I much prefer quiet.) My chances of getting a job there aren't very good though. Places like that can afford to be picky.

Veleda's very, very short list of jobs:

Boulder County Youth Corps- Spent a summer cleaning parking lots and digging ditches in the hot sun. Not fun.

Helped my uncle organize his office and clean up his house. Fun, if only because we got to talk and sometimes went out to lunch.

Environment Colorado- Stood in the street all day in the hot sun and asked people to give the organization money. Not fun. Got fired after a week for not bringing in enough donations. Screw the bastards.

Helped a friend of my step-mom's make drums. All I did was wrap cloth around metal rims, but it took a while to learn. Stressful, because I was so afraid of doing it wrong, but sort of fun.

Oh, here's something I should have told you folks: I got into the University of Colorado! No more hour and half commute to Denver, thank the goddess. Fulfilling the basic requirement classes may be hell though. I'm not sure how much of my Metro stuff will transfer.

Edit: Oh, final grades are in.

English Composition: A
Intro to Environmental Science: A
Intro to Women's Studies: B

Damn it, if I had extended any effort into WS, I could have gotten straight A's for once in my life.

In case anyone wasn't already aware, Jerry Falwell just died.

One the very basic "someone has just died" level, I'm a bit saddened. (Trust me, I'm more surprised that anyone at the fact.) One the other hand, I'm fully prepared to go into a rousing chorus of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead."

In other news, my menstrual pain has finally been killed by Vicodin. I'm shocked that it hurts so much. It's normally never this agonizing on the third day.

I want a hysterectomy.

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Social Nerd   You're interested in things such as politics, psychology, child care, and peace. I wouldn't go so far as to call you a hippie, but some of you may be tree-huggers. You're the type of people who are interested in bettering the world. You're possible the least nerdy of them all; unless you participate in other activies that paled your nerdiness compared to your involvement in social activities. Whatever the case, we could still use more of you around. ^_^
Literature Nerd
Drama Nerd
Anime Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Musician
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

I have sooo much homework due today. Have I started? Oh, come now, you know me better than that.

The very sad news: My kitty died. We had to put her to sleep. She had been going downhill for months and stopped eating and drinking last Thursday.

Porkchop was my kitty. I was supposed to worry about finding an apartment that would allow pets; I was supposed to gripe about putting up with her obnoxious behavior for another few years.

I want my kitty.

Last sunday, I was given no choice but to buy new jeans. Every last pair I owned had at least one hole right below the back pocket. I didn't want people seeing my butt, so of to the store I went.

I wear guys' clothing, but my body is fairly average for a female, so finding clothes can be difficult. I went to the boys section first. I found stuff that did indeed fit but, dear god, I hate young people's fashion. Every single was made to look used and worn. Why would I pay $30 for ripped, faded, stained jeans? The jeans I owned then were ripped, faded, and stained. That's why I was buying new ones!

Despite this aggravation, I picked three pairs that looked the most like new, and decided to go by some new socks. I love socks with cute, fuzzy animals on them. They're all I wear. The problem is that they're getting harder to find. Instead I saw socks that made my blood boil. You may wonder how in the world socks could make me so angry. How about socks with stick figure little girls on them with so called "witty" phrases such as "Thank god I'm not ugly" (because surely nothing could be worse than not conforming to our culture's current standards of beauty), or, the very worst one, "I'm too pretty to do math." Excuse me?! What kind of message is that to send to young girls!? (Because, after all, these socks are not marketed toward college students with a soft spot for cute and fuzzy things, they're marketed towards young girls.) I thought "math is hard" Barbie was dead. Apparently she has simply risen again, more powerful than before.

Anyway, I did find some socks that actually had cute, fuzzy animals on them. I took the clothes to the service desk, and put them on hold, because my mother agreed to pay for them, but she wasn't particularly interested in shopping with me. I ended walking back from the store, since the bus wasn't going to be coming for another 50 minutes, and the walk is only about a mile. As soon as I got back home, my mom and I got back in the car, and drove straight back to the store. Perhaps I should have just called her on a pay phone.

It was actually lucky for me that she came along, because she took me to the young men's section, and we found jeans that actually looked new. What a shock. I also got two new long sleeved shirts, as I'd been saying all winter that I needed more, but I'd never bothered to go out and get any. Plus they were five bucks.

So, that was my shopping adventure.

I'm feeling very sleepy. Surprisingly, this time it's not because I'm staying up all night. (I got eleven and a half hours of sleep last night.) This time, it's because of the pain medication. Yep, I'm getting my period. For those of you who have just tuned in, my periods are a miserable business. The pain leaves me whimpering, crying, and writhing on the floor. I usually throw up at least once, though my record is nine times in one day. I really got lucky today though, because I took Vicoden as soon as I could, so there was only 45 minutes of pain, and it stopped before it got to the throwing up part. The pills have worn off a bit, but it's still not very bad.

I have very little appetite lately. I'm eating, but only because I think I should eat. I've had a small bowl of oatmeal and two rolls today. I didn't want the oatmeal, and had to choke it down. I only ate it because I knew it would be a bad idea to take Vicoden on an empty stomach. I'm not sure if I should be worried about the loss of appetite. It's probably just stress.

I got my Japanese history paper back. That's the one I turned in late. I got a low B. I had four points taken off for lateness. The rest were taken because he didn't like the I cited my sources. Seriously, he took of an entire letter grade for that. It's not that I cited them incorrectly, he just wanted me to do it differently. WTF?


Fandom meme: Summarize 10 of your fandoms in one sentence, then see who on your friend's list can guess each fandom.

1. These days, all the cool kids live in the internet.

2. In the end, it's all about the pink bunny.

3. Don't make me turn this dragon around!

4. Is that phallic subtext on your campus, or are you just happy to see me?

5. Screw gender norms, we have money!

6. Life sucks, then you die; things pick up from there.

7. Killing bad, psychology good.

8. Engrish, pigs, and seppuku--sounds like a party!

9. Forget magic, my real power is fighting in this miniskirt and these heels.

10. The truth is, I really took the job for the sword and the robes.

1. When you finally fall into bed at 4:30, exhausted, and you find that your room is to cold to sleep in, so yo just shiver violently until your limbs ache from the tension.

2. When you get woken up at 7:30, with a grand total of two hours of sleep, and have to deal with your irate father demanding to know where your step-mom is, and it's not like you have any idea.

3. Knowing that today/tomorrow is going to be more of the same.

My father's in the hospital. There's something wrong with his stomach, though I'm not entirely clear on what. He had his appendix removed and part of his colon. He was rather amusing when I visited though. All that morphine.


( But here's something that cheers me up )

Today was... a good day! I know! I'm totally shocked.

I woke up to a new chapter of ravenbell's 30_tortures fic. New fic is always a good way to start the day. And it was such a cool chapter.

I was very stressed upon arriving at school, because I had a psych exam that I was completely, utterly, and in all other ways totally unprepared for. So, I'm panicking, when the teacher comes in and announces that the copier has broken down, and the test will have to be postponed until monday.

The whole class let out a wild cheer. (Well, I didn't. I always feel that it's rude to cheer at announcements like that. I'm bizarre.) So I didn't have to worry about that.

My writing class was unusually unstressful as well.

OASOS was distinctly not fun, and I had such a strong anxiety attack that I had to leave early, but it didn't really affect my overall good mood.

I'm also cheery because I finally have a stack of books to read, though it's modest. Right now I'm reading both Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. I also have Sputnik Sweetheart, also by Murakami, and Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. I've decided that my knowledge of modern Japanese literature is sorely lacking. This must be corrected.

The only thing that could make this day any better is if I didn't have school tomorrow. Oh well.

I have made resolutions!

Resolution the first: To cut down on the amount of sugar I eat. I don't think I'm ready for forrestdweller's cold turkey approach, but I am determined to cut down.

Resolution the second: Cut down on the time I spend on the internet. I've decided to limit myself to five hours a day. (Which is significant decrease.) I often bemoan the fact that I don't read nearly enough, and that I'm ridiculously ignorant. Well, the less time I spend in front of the computer, the more time I can spend reading and learning(and maybe even do some actual studying).

I also want to work harder to get a job, and too study more often.

These are my goal! Ganbatte, Veleda! Ganbatte!

P.S. What is with this weather? The day before yesterday it was over 70 degrees, and then yesterday it snowed. I don't know if it's Colorado weather, global warming, or a mix of the two.

( Quizzy quizzy )

The Neil Gaiman signing was fantastic. He's such a cool person. He was funny and really nice to the fans. There were over 250 people there, but he said that "short of my hand falling off" everyone would get their stuff signed.

People were lined up to get there books signed in the order the were in line to get tickets. I was number eighteen. (I had to get in line four and a half hours early to get that number.) I was really glad to be such a low number. It scares me to think how long the people at the end had to wait.

I got two things signed, American Gods and Death: The High Cost of Living. The book store employee told everyone that we couldn't get our stuff personalized, which disappointed me. However, not only did Neil personalize things, he made specific comments depending on what he was signing. My copy of The High Cost of Living Has "Kris- Don't die, Neil." I was amused.

On a not so happy note, I seriously screwed up my History of Science midterm. It's ironic that this was the one I was pretty confident about. I was freaking out about my Statistics exam, which went fine, but this was a mess. I'm not broken hearted though. I'll just learn from this.

I'm worried that my computer will crash at any minute, so I'm signing off.

First of all, I know many people on my friends list follow a certain... lifestyle. For your own good I think you should go to this website and ask yourself a few hard questions. Maybe it will convince you to rethink your destructive lifestyle. Remember, I do it because I love.

Anyway, back on Earth from planet Sarcasm, I took some of the GED tests today. I'm a bit disappointed with my scores (An "A-" in both Science and LA and a "B" in Social studies.) but I did make it into the 96th percentile for S.S. and the 99th for LA and Science. One more day of tests and I'll be done with high school.

I think there was more I wanted to say, but I can't remember what it was. I'll post if I remember.