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illusions shattered,
emotions scattered.
better learn what was wrong,
and do it right.
Now.
Sigh. Wish me luck on the orgo lab midterm tonight. And if any of you could find a way for OS 10.3.8 to let an OS 9.2 application use my Epson Stylus CX4600, do let me know.
I shouldn't have wasted those days
And afternoons and mornings
I threw them all away
I could cry. I won't since I'm pretty tired and crying takes up energy; besides, it's a little childish. Anyway, I've tried pretty hard to not have anything scheduled at work for the week of spring break, but I found out yesterday that something had. No biggie. I come in a day. Not like I'm going anywhere. I just wanted some time off. But unless something magical happens I probably won't get to take that week off at all, since it's right in the middle of grant time and we need results. If I get anything it will probably be just a few days. And here I was thinking that I'd have the entire week to study for orgo, no distractions. Hah. Well, that's my luck. I just really need a vacation. I took a few days off for Christmas and New Years, and Thanksgiving, of course, but the last major time off I had was in June of last year. I have a bunch of vacation days to use. Just got to find a time when I can use them, which isn't always easy. Ah well. Here's hoping.
why is it that even though it's a five page paper, it seems just as hard to write as a twenty page?
why is it that they don't give you the connecting cable for a printer anymore? What about those of us who donated the printer back home to the 'rents and therefore had neither printer nor cable? Boo.
Why is it that simple pieces of audio accessories keep breaking on me? Today I pulled off my headphones and the one earpiece just broke off. wtf? Not even at a break point. Boo. So I guess I'll be getting some more of those tonight.
Note to self: Pick up issue 190 of Empire, which has what promises to be a massive Kingdom of Heaven overview. Whee!
Yes indeedy, here's the first entry with the new iBook. Egad, it's late, so shouldn't really be doing this. Everything seems to be in its proper place, but for the fonts I had installed...I'll probably have to search them out again. Oh well. If that's the only thing that's wrong with a new comp I won't complain! Busy busy day tomorrow. Er, later today. Best get some sleep or I'll be napping while I'm isolating...trust me, that would be a bad thing.
Well, I'm back...Now Leo can putter around here and procrastinate all she likes.
And now for the Way to Have a Stressful Weekend; or the Way to Make All Emotions Related to Money Flash Across Your Face in an Instant; or How to Feel Wonderful About a New Purchase But Dread the New Number on Your Bank Account.
So, last friday night (after seeing Constantine all by my lonesome, which wasn't a bad movie, as far as that genre of movies goes...) I was working on the part of my orgo lab that was due the next day. (Boo saturday lab.
) I realized that I had to print it out (which, really, I discovered, I didn't have to, but it made more sense to have it printed out) and not having a printer at the apartment, ran over to work and printed it out (and faffed about, of course). Now, I left the computer on as I normally would, as it has a nice Phantom of the Opera screensaver which works as it should. The monitor has been flickering a little bit, but it always goes away. I fully intended to get a new computer soon...I realize I've been saying this for quite some time now, but the flickering really got to me. So it wasn't quite a surprise when I came back and the screen was dark. Not dark like the computer was sleeping...so dark it was like the brightness had been turned way down.
And of course there was no way to bring it back to normal. The video card or tube or whatever finally said to hell with this, fuck y'all AND this popsicle stand, and is kaput. Of course, to fix something like this, especially on a computer as old as the one I had (which I was sort of proud of...an original clamshell Blueberry iBook, the first of its kind) is heinously expensive and not worth it. So, I have now *paid for* a new iBook, but don't have it yet, since the nice people at the Galleria Apple Store (thank goodness there's an Apple Store at the galleria...used to be the only one in town was out in West County, where everything is hard to get to and mucho expensive) are supposedly transferring the goods from the old iBook to the new. Hope they could do it ok. I bet it makes things a little hard when you can't see the screen. Too bad there was no deal for getting an iPod and the computer...there was one at the beginning of the school year, but of course, my trusty little computer was *working* then...I did get a printer, though. You could either get a printer for free or an all-in-one scanner/copier/printer/card reader (for the day in the sometime future when I have a digital camera) for $30. I got the all-in-one, since I've always wanted a scanner. Go me. Man, my bank account is hurting. I had to transfer money from savings. At least I know I'll get a nice tax refund this year, it would have been nice had the computer waited until then to putz out on me, but I guess I'll get a new bike when I get that refund instead. And here's hoping that there's nothing wrong with a two year old return like there was last year.
I surrendered my baby to the techs Saturday night. Tammy the saleslady (who was quite nice and gave me lots of discounts, as far as that goes) said they would try to get to it as soon as they could, maybe Sunday. Unfortunately no. My mother called yesterday to check if there had been a new addition to the family. Then she pointed out, "See how good a grandmother I would be?" Mmmr. I'm working on it. I'm a little peeved because I realized that instead of the work number, they have the number of the apartment and therefore if they *do* call I won't know it until I get home, most likely after class because it's a pain to try to leave early before class, especially with Luigi the Italian back and quite ready to do lots of experiments. Alas. And if I can, I'll head over to the 'rents and get gas at the 'cheap' Shell station, and see if I can find the *ahem* cd's of things that I saved from the last OS X computer I had. Unless, of course, anyone wants to contribute to the 'Get Jen Word and Photoshop for OS X' fund.
(Side note: I'm quite happy to have OS 10.3.x, which is collectively known as 'Panther.' Yes, I know I'm a little silly. Sue me. I have a favorite animal.)
Hopefully when I write next, I can say it's from my lovely little friend, which is thoughtfully pre-installed with a wireless card, so I can surf at the library without wires! Whee!
Hot damn! You actually read all that? wow.
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I finally upgraded MT to version 3.15. Hopefully with the increased functionality of Blacklist 2.0 I can get a handle on this crazy spam. We'll see.
I brought back the 'ask me anything feature...has a snazzy little layout, it was, how you say, a quickie. I kill me with my little J-C reference. Check out the link at the top of the entries and ask a question! Perhaps I'll have an answer for you
So I changed my windshield wipers this weekend, which was a big deal for me, even though they're very easy to change. It took me a while, of course, because while they tell you how to put them on (which is, indeed, easy) they don't tell you how to take the old blades off, and looking in the manual was no help. So yay for fiddling around with machinery and making it work. And I've never seen my windshield so clean. It was definitely time for some new ones, as there were two cracks in the driver's side blade (right where you look through the glass, natch) and the passenger side blade decided to come completely out of the casing and had started to scratch the windshield. Not a pleasant experience to have metal screeching across glass. So unlike the bike, I can go to Target and buy replacement blades (thanks for clueing me into that, Kate) and install myself and fix things! Yay for cheaper.
I went climbing with Doug from Friendster
on Friday night. It was a weird experience, not that I didn't like it, just that it's a little odd to meet someone for the first time at a climbing gym. And unfortunately I didn't ever make it to the top...after three tries I could barely grip anything, much less pull myself up a wall. That's a little disappointing, being that I used to be in pretty good shape (I swear, forces are conspiring against me getting back in shape, namely winter and voracious squirrels) but I did make it about halfway. It's a very weird feeling to not be able to fist your hands. Doug's a nice guy, a chemical engineer for a company in town. I felt kind of bad because he had to do all the work...since I wasn't 'certified' to belay he had to use an autobelayer to climb, which isn't as good as another person. Perhaps one of these days I'll be able to do that...we'll see. I'd like to go again, Doug knows what he's doing (he's very tall, though, so it makes it a lot easier for him to climb!) but I don't know when that will be.
Kate and I were talking about things to do before we die, and I have to admit, I really want to get out and do more outdoorsy stuff. I really want to do whitewater rafting again, gallop on a horse, that sort of thing. One of these days, I swear. I'm not going to be like the people Richard Gere's character talks about in 'Shall We Dance' ...the ones that don't change, that don't go and do the things they talk about in their will (he's a lawyer of whatever type writes wills). Just gotta get out there and do it.
and since for some reason I couldn't upload it yesterday (silly site downtime)...
So, Happy Valentine's Day! Kate and I had very good dinner-n-a-movie-or-two last night in our Anti-Valentine's Day celebrations, and it was good. It would have been nice had it not rained all day and thus quashed our hopes of going ice skating (which I WILL do this winter! I swear!) but we had a good time anyway and did lots of chatting. Yay. Good luck on your test, Kate. And Daddy, I love you. Happy birthday, again. I'm so happy you made us crab rangoon
( whee! Kingdom of Heaven international trailer! )
And onto the true story of the squirrel-eaten bike...
So, my bike is locked up on the deck behind the apartment, has been ever since I moved in, because there's not really a good place to store it inside, esp. if it's at all icky outside. Still isn't, but there might be some more room for it now that the Christmas tree has made it out of the sunroom. (The tree didn't go far...it's still sitting on the back porch, kindly being a fire hazard, as Kate pointed out, but it's a pain to get down the stairs and right now it's too wet to be carried...) Anyway, the bike sat out all last winter to no ill effect, and all last summer, and most of the fall, since I didn't get to do much biking while orgo was going on. Alas. And so on Saturday, when the weather was just too nice to stay indoors before I headed over to my parents' place for my dad's birthday, I decided to lug the thing down the stairs and bike some Forest Park. I hadn't looked at the bike in months, and what do I find? Almost every piece of plastic that was even remotely near the railing had been gnawed or eaten totally. I mean, teeth marks everywhere. They even got the zipper pulls off my seat pack. And they ate some of the stuffing out of my (relatively new) saddle. Bah.
My aunt says there is nothing good about squirrels. While I like the way they can hold their tails in the air, now I'm inclined to agree with her.
Now all the eating, while annoying, does not stop me from riding the bike. it's just a little uncomfortable to hit the shifters, because they're covered in gouges from sharp little rodent teeth. The bike makes it down the stairs, I put air in the tires, test the brakes, and head off. But when I make it to a small hill, I realized that I couldn't shift past 4 on the small gear...makes going up hills very difficult if you can't shift down. (If you shift into a higher gear is that good for hills or bad? I can never remember which one it is). It's possible that something's just stuck in the deraileur, but I can't fix it on my own, which makes me sad. I even got nice whole-hand gloves (not the fingerless biking gloves, I've got some of those) that are supposed to give some wind protection when biking in the cold so I could do a little bit more biking now.
Alas. I'll probably have to get a new bike, because with all the things I'd have to get replaced or fixed I'm not sure if it's worth it. I mean, it's a lovely green Schwinn Frontier, but it's also about 5 or six years old, and has served me faithfully since then, but it is looking a little ratty around the edges. I guess we'll see. I don't really want to buy a new bike, as the good ones are expensive, but maybe there will be a sale...
Thus ends my year, the year of the Monkey, and so begins the year of *ahem* all those other wonderful people who were born the year after me
Happy Chinese New Year. Eat a dumpling
(I realized, after I typed Leo's name that she is, in fact, a young'un, and is *not* a Rooster...but she got to it first. So now you've got me all confuzzled. Ah well. Here's a shoutout to my buddies Alex and Leo and Kate, since they're all around somewhere and will, eventually, have their year, as that is the nature of time...
Hope you're wearing your green, gold, and purple. I've got the green and purple, but not a lot of gold...too bad. Have a drink for me!
PS: I think the orgo exam went ok, I finished early. It was one of those where you worry that you finished so soon, because was it that you really did know the stuff, or you just thought you did and ended up getting it all wrong? at least other people left early as well. And I checked a couple of answers with one other girl afterwards and we had gotten the same thing...hopefully that bodes well. There was one reaction that I just could not get...I knew what it was called, but I could not for the life of me remember what it did. I put down an answer that I knew was totally wrong but I didn't want to not have anything there...ah well. That's the way it goes.
Have a good time tomorrow...and don't forget, Chinese New Year starts tomorrow!
When orgo texts try to be funny while warning you of the dangers of working with organic substances:
Like most heavy metals, thallium is highly toxic and should not be used on breakfast cereal. Wow. I would never have guessed.
there's an orgo test today. not too much more in my life other than that. well, other than the team I was semi-rooting for last night in the Super Bowl once again lost. Seems like whatever team I pick loses, except for that one year when I couldn't watch it because I was a good girl and stayed in my room to write a report or paper or somesuch stupid computer program. Then the Rams won. My grandmother thinks it's horrible that I think I might have such a power over things, which I know I don't, but it's sure the way it seems like...
so, wish me luck on the orgo test. I'll need it.
I can't wait until I can start knitting a matching scarf for my hat...perhaps I'll get it done before it starts getting truly warm around here, lol.
I can't believe it's already February. Seems like this year is flying by. Mardi Gras and Super Bowl parties this weekend, and orgo exam 1 on Monday...guess which ones I shouldn't be worrying about and which one I'm slightly freaked about. Oh yeah, and orgo lab 2. Blah. But at least we're a little closer to
for all of you who know I love Orlando, yes, I heard the news. Sure I'm happy he's single again, but honestly? If he's happy, I'm happy. If he isn't, too bad. If someone would like to fly me out to LA and personally introduce me, then YAY! otherwise...I've read the press release about five times now, and every media outlet says the same thing. Imagine having to hand out a press release when you broke up with someone. Bah.
At least next week has both Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year. Funny how once again this year the two holidays are very close to each other. Last year they were on the same day, I think...and my daddy's birthday is coming up. Wonder what I should get him?
Orgo really crufts up plans for evenings.
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