Author: etoiline

VOTE

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Please get out and vote today. It is your right as an American, and you CAN affect the way the country is run. Please take advantage of this opportunity to make your desires heard.
And if you care about Progress and Improving the Quality of Life, you’ll give serious consideration to voting for Claire McCaskill and supporting Amendments 2 and 3 with a YES vote. Missourians, this is important. Wouldn’t you rather open the door to hope instead of slamming the door on progress?

frustrated

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I can’t believe I lost another hat. Where the hell did it go?
I also can’t believe a) I managed to hit a curb and blow out a tire on a section of road I’ve driven hundreds of times and b) how damn much it costs to replace a tire.
And I still have to write a freaking biochem paper.
GRRR. ARGH.

A week to go…

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One week until Halloween and… November. When that crazy writing thing goes on, you know…
Check this out: Wired 14.11: Very Short Stories. A bunch of famous people wrote 6-word stories, and some of them are very good.
Like…
I’m dead. I’ve missed you. Kiss … ?
– Neil Gaiman
Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
– Alan Moore
It cost too much, staying human.
– Bruce Sterling
There are lots more. You should take a look.
Oh, and Happy Legolas Day. Check the archives if you’re lost.

Go Cards!

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The Cardinals are going to the World Series! Sweet! Funny parallel of two years ago…Game 7 was last night, and I had a biochem test. I remember in 2004, I had a similar night of testing for organic chem, and hoping that the Cards would have a better night than I had…let’s just hope they don’t get swept in the series! Go Cards!

Paraskevidekatriaphobia

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In honor of everyone’s least favorite day (the title means fear of Friday the 13th), here’s a list of phobias that might just crack you up. If you have one of these, I’m very sorry, but some of them are absolutely hilarious. From MSN.
Chromophobia–fear of colors. (How do they watch tv?)
Papaphobia–fear of the pope. (Guess they’re not Catholic.)
Scorodophobia–fear of garlic.
Pteronophobia–fear of being tickled with feathers. (LOL, in the middle of the lab)
Ranidaphobia–fear of frogs.
Philematophobia–fear of kissing.
Aulophobia–fear of flutes.
Ostraconophobia–fear of shellfish.
Graphophobia–fear of handwriting. (um, did they type before they wrote?)
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia–fear of long words (seriously).
Blennophobia–fear of slime.
Gerontophobia–fear of old people.
Peladophobia–fear of bald people.
Geropeladophobia–fear of old, bald people.
Phobophobia–fear of developing a fear.
Then there was the woman on the Tyra Banks show who was afraid of Styrofoam, and in order to overcome it, the producers buried a diamond necklace inside a large armoire filled with packing peanuts. She wouldn’t go near it for the first five minutes of the show. And of course, when she finally did open the door to start looking, all of them gushed out over her. She did eventually find the necklace, but I don’t know if she was cured…
May your day be spectacularly lucky despite any phobias. Go Cards!

creaky

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It doesn’t seem quite fair that I should be sore after doing something altruistic, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t so. Last Saturday I helped lay laminate flooring in a bedroom of one of the Habitat for Humanity houses, and I bet you can guess how happy my knees were with that…but I know how to do it, at least a full-floating floor type, and I can use a jigsaw and a miter saw and I watched as someone else used a table saw…oh, and I can still hammer with the best of them. But my knees, and my back, and my inner thighs are saying, why didn’t you have kneepads?
At least I feel accomplished. If creaky.
And I am absurdly excited that NaNo starts in a month. Why can’t I get excited about other things the way I do about writing?
And I’m still waiting on the med school app. I’ve delivered forms to all my recommenders, so here’s hoping they have something nice to say. Keep those fingers crossed.
Anyone with ideas on how to write a journal review paper?

tech support

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So yesterday we finally got hi-speed internet for the apartment. Joy. But it certainly wasn’t without its hassles.
First, we ordered it last week and never got a tracking number for the modem. Since our service was confirmed to be activated yesterday, I started looking at my account over the weekend to see if I could find out what was wrong. I finally realized monday night that for some reason the shipping address, which I’m pretty sure I specified as being the same as the billing address, only had our apartment number and not the street address. I called AT&T tuesday to see what could be done, and see if they had a tracking number for me. Lo and behold it was wrong there too, and of course they had already shipped it (which is good, I suppose, but don’t you think someone would have noticed that it had no street number?)

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