This will be my 22nd birthday. I will be driving some kids in my youth group to a christian camping holiday called Soul Survivor. I probably won't make a big deal of this birthday.

Happy 22nd birthday to you, ChrisMDP. For me it's also a no big deal special day. Here in Leuven, we have marktrock these days, a big crowd has come to see all these music groups. The weather is far too beautifull today, it's rather hot.

Today I realised people here on everything are pretty afraid of 'nothing'. They fear the totally absence of sense and nobody ever bothered to talk about Nietsche.

The sad news were a lot of car accidents here in Belgium ..

It's monday again. That dreaded day because it means we have another week of working coming up.

Good thing though that I like what I do for a living, and besides, tuesday is a holiday here in Belgium. :)

Curious what today will bring. Which reminds me, I still have to write a mail with a list of pros and cons of Red Hat and Debian. It's supposed to be an objective statement of what I would choose and why. We try to settle on 1 standard Linux distribution here at mind. Of course, my favourite is Debian, but I agree we have to choose the distribution that is best suited to our needs and cuurent/future set of competences. Urgh, I really start to sound like a manager...

I'll keep you posted!

---

Hah, what a night! Seems that 2 of our fellows didn't send in their mail on RedHat vs Debian in time, so we can't go forward with phase 2 just now.

Did spend most of the evening in pubs - Marktrock was just too crowded - and had a jolly good time. Though I'm a bit afraid of what tomorrow might bring, headaches perhaps? Let's hope not! :) Eitherway, tomorrow is today, now, so I guess I'd better catch some sleep... ;)

I've actually had a lot of fun most of this weekend. There have, as always been ups and downs, but, with friends like these, who needs tabloids?

Friday was okay ... we had a bit of trouble finding ganga - seems that everyone here is going dry. Sadness ... None the less, I was cool with it. Unfortunately, my roommate was NOT. I love her, but the girl is seriously psychologically addicted to weed. Understandable, considering her past (she just kicked coke and crank by herself two years ago AND she's had some horrible shit happen to her that she's never dealt with), but still not too pretty.

It also did not help that her boyfriend has been out of town for the last two weeks. She broke down Friday, crying that she doesn't feel like she connects with anyone here except him anymore, and she feels really lonely.

I WANT to try to help her, but I have to remember that, if we aren't really good friends anymore, it's on her shoulders. She's the one who moved in with me and then ignored me for six months, who ditched me at EVERY OPPORTUNITY for her boyfriend. And I'm supposed to be her best friend, except for her boyfriend ... which is scary for her.

Anyway, she ended up ok and her boyfriend came back the next day, so that was good (and not good) for her.

Last night, we went out to a rave about 35 miles away. I really don't dig the candy raver scene (and, at every rave, there is a candy raver scene), but I love the music and I like the vibe of raves. Unlike rock or punk shows, pretty much everyone there is in a good (even euphoric) mood. They're just there to dance and have fun. I like that.

Raves kind of remind me of being a kid again. There aren't as many issues as we have to deal with as adults, there isn't the anger.

I needed that rave, that break, the release of dancing for four hours without stopping. Thank God for the party people ...

With a prolonged groan, the bridge dies, her final protest reverberating in the valley like the report of an old cannon.

Around me, my world is transformed into rubble and rain, dust and darkness. I clutch to a section of tumbling concrete, and onto this one stone I project my anger and wounded love. This bridge... her cracks and spots are each an empty promise, and each pebble carries the smirking face of betrayal.

"She is dying as well," rings my heart, flattered that its own destruction was worth such sacrifice. If I was indeed sold, why not obtain some sense of satisfaction from the high price? There is no lack of honor in the words "We make this final journey together."

Laughing, the tumbling pieces shriek, "Ah, but I will be built again!" and every trace of that which once held me high instantly crumbles to dust, becoming part of the air itself. Even held firmly in my hands, my slab of concrete disintegrates into a fine mist.

Alone I fall. In this seemingly perpetual state of change, my mind remains static, clinging to a solitary thought: fear of that change. The waters below silently wait for me, as tempestous as the storm itself, and as indecipherable as a monolithic wall.

The churning waves, moved to fury by the hurricane's howling winds, seem a tapestry of black and white, no more transparent than the soil and clay I molded as a child.

But now, I am the clay. I feel the sting of the crests of the waves. The sea's outstretched arms are eager to mold me.

Or to pull me down.

Yesterday | Dizzy->Day_Logs() | Tomorrow

---

I didn't have much sleep as I am still in pain from my ear infection. It's unfair that I have to wait until Thursday before I can see my doctor and get referred to specialist. Seeing a specialist doctor can be a problem here in the UK; unless you mention you have private health cover the doctor will be reluctant to add you to the NHS' vast wating lists. Free health care is good, but can take too long...

The weather has matched my mood today; it is overcast and slightly drizzly without actually raining. There's no real chance of rain - it's just a dreary Monday.

I couldn't face walking all the way to work today so I caught a bus for half of the trip. The bus driver gave me an uninterested and annoyed look when I asked for a destination that wasn't in the town centre. I'm sorry, did I make you think for a second?

The bus passed a man my age standing at a road junction. He was wearing roller skates and had a haunted, disgusted, harried and angry look on his craggy face. I wonder what the story behind him is?

I have surrendered to the surreal unreality of Mondays

I hate myself for being productive, for giving in and being a good corporate bunny, for not standing my ground and doing what I want.

Mental Note: Sex is not Love

...and my mind has emptied itself:
it becomes too much to think sometimes and my head goes into this state of shutdown.
'it is now safe to turn off your mind'. like with windows this doesn't work often, but when it does it's a nice comfort.

today was monday. the first day of another school week. ack, i'm institutionalized and it's bloody frightening. at least i know it's not healthy to become comfortable with the scheduled life, or at least know that there's got to be something more out there in the wide world. i'm stuck in limbo; somewhere between wanting to finally leave school, and having utter fear of starting over.

so many people complain that they are looking for themselves. well, i've got the opposite anxiety. i'm scared of losing myself. i define myself according to the people in my life, and when i sense i am growing apart from them, i think that i'm going to forget who i am.

Morning.

11:13

I realized that the VideoScape3D format that Blender can export really is as easy or even easier to use than what I remembered. Dammit, I think I'll code that loader someday.

I decided that I'll use C++ this time. I haven't written C++ proggies for ages. Java rocks.

So hmm, some problems:

• The Stroustrup's book is kind of thick one, and introduces cool and wonderfully hard to get concepts I've never read of. (My first C++ book was from pre-ANSI era, and didn't even mention the String class that would have spared my nerves a lot...)
• BeOpen.com's oo-browser: Sounds cool, but the damn thing won't load. It installed fine from Debian package, and XEmacs loads it at the startup as expected, but when I say M-x oo-browser, XEmacs goes "huh?" =(

12:47

Oh ghod, what did I write last night to Usenet? Well, I quote:

<william-gibson>Pure flim flam flied to the Use/Net in enormous bursts of data as even distribution on all wavelengths of spectrum, like the white noise of untuned TV channel that decoded from the video card input socket of Lankinen's cyberdeck.</william-gibson>

Dunno, that's my general "feel" of the writing style of "Neuromancer", and that's an awkward translation of the original that was in Finnish.

I don't know. I still don't exactly know what the book was really about. I've got to read it 4th time someday. Gibson wrote in stream of consciousness-related style at the times, generating wonderful imagery. Just don't force me to make completely rational sense out of it. God I'm stupid.

For you Gibson lovers there: Actually, it's a translation of a text that appeared in a computer joke book - a parody called "Wiljam Gibbon: Neuronmancer".

13:33

(Damn, the university workstation clocks still say silly times like 15:32... I wonder if oulu.fi has a haywire NTP server somewhere?)

I went to the lair of the BOFHs, and shivered. Almost grovelled before them, but these divine beings apparently didn't care of my lack of etiquette. So now I have my password again... 1.2 megs of mail to read... Sheesh! Well, most of it was from mailing lists and spammers anyway.

21:06

In introduced a friend of mine to the wonders of Usenet. =)

I tested how well this new machine rips paranoidly and how fast it encodes Ogg/Vorbis. All I can say: DAMN FAST. I mean, this CD drive actually rips data and doesn't read same spot 2000 times (quite an improvement over my previous nominally-ATAPI drive), and, duh, 600 MHz processors tend to be pretty fast with number crunching... =) Just that there ought to be a Pentium-optimized binary for vorbize in Debian. I mean, who encodes Ogg/Vorbis with anything less than Pentium? How long will it take to encode a normal-sized tune with a 486? =)

---

Other day logs o' mine...

prev daylog next daylog

Monday. It's funny how much that means to almost everyone except for us 6 million here in Israel. For almost all of you, Sunday is the day to look forward to, and Monday is dreaded. Here Monday means squat. Then again, everyone I know hates working. I love it. I just got my first gig in ages. My drummer friend called me, and we are playing on Wednesday. It's been almost a year, I think. It totally sucks being a musician, and a jazz musician at that. Even the best players in Israel are having a hard time making ends meet.

A friend of mine went to a Mike Stern concert in New York, and he said that Stern carried his own equipment, as did his musicians. How low is that? When silly boy bands make millions, and don't even sing on stage, (yes, newsflash: it's all lip-synching). All they do is practice their childish dance routines and prance around, pretending to sing, while people like Mike Stern have to carry their amps to night clubs. How unfair is that? And I'm hoping to make it out there.

I think I'd better stick to Computer Science. Then again, what am I crying about? I got a gig. That's what I practiced so hard all these years for. That's what I live for. I think I'll go and practice my bass, if you'll excuse me.

15:07 EET

Well, this is a real textbook monday.
My eyes feel really strained, and keeping them on a monitor is not a very pleasant feeling. Once again I fought with network problems for an hour or so, and furthermore I'm even suffering from a case of noder's block!
ARGH!
Actually, noder's block might not be the correct term.. I have plenty of stuff to write about, but with my eyes and all I just can't put myself to create anything other than a day log entry. At least I can let out this monday irritation for your reading pleasure! :)

I found a great pine tree tutorial by Dave Jerrard. By building on it, the most difficult modelling job in my Big LightWave Project™ might become a lot easier. Which is nice, since I realized the other day that 3.5 months is not that much. Why? Because I do most of the modelling on weekends, and there's a limited amount of them left before the "deadline". That's why I've started working on the project with full speed now.

Today was the first day for my little sister Riikka in her new school. Since she has developed slowly, she has been on special classes. And because the funds for everything involving studying are always extremely low in Finland, they are quitting those classes in several schools and putting them into a new one. The new school is closer to where we live, but she still isn't that happy about the sudden change, being thrown into a crowd of mostly unknown kids. Hopefully herteachers are good and she'll make some newfriends among her new classmates.

Ok, I'll get out of the office soon. It's the last chance in a while to get a cheap double-cheeseburger at Carrols, so I'll stop by there. Mmmmm, fattening.


16:54 EET

Starting work for Doppler shift rate 0.086880, FFT length 131072
Nice, my home PC hasn't crashed since I left to work. I really need to get a new processor fan, since it's started to malfunction quite badly, causing the crashes when the processor is in heavy use. It's not like a new fan would cost that much, but there never seems to be time to visit the store and get one.

My sister didn't complain much about the schoolday, so it can't be awful. I'm not sure wether my decision to work for another year before enrolling (or attempting to) to an university was smart or not, but I plan to enjoy the calm workdays while I can. :)

The mango tree in my back yard has been quite fruitful this year. At one point we had over 50 ripe mangos in the fridge. Randoms friends would stop by just to get out of the heat and chow down on a juicy mango.

Sometimes I'd see a mango as it dropped, but in walking over to where the mango was all I'd find were rotting mangos, the ones the bugs got to before we could. Just another phantom mango, I'd think as I carried all the fresh ones I gathered inside.

Today, I solved the phantom mango mystery. I walked outside this morning and noticed one of the last mangos in the tree was moving . I walked over to the tree to get a closer look. A squirrel was eating the mango, hanging upside-down, its back claws clutching the branch above the mango, nibbling on the mango as it hung.

waking up with the sun. i am the only one in the house who has opened eyes to take in a morning that shouldn't be missed but seems so unimportant to many. others have already wandered off to designated places, but i've this feeling, well, i know that they did not get up simply because they could and it seemed like such a beautiful idea to me as i layed there staring at my ceiling. and it is.

you broke another mirror, you're turning into something you are not ~ high and dry

last night. i wonder if you realize how much it helped me to talk to you. it's kind of odd to think you're the only one i could open up to, though i could have spilled thought'y matter to him.. for some reason my brain just wouldn't let me. i feel better today, even though things still aren't quite sorted out. solutions seem plausible, things seem not so terrible. life falls into place. stars have slipped away but the sun is there and it's a new day, and it might rain. i'd love some rain.

last night.. again. i talked to the monkey boy, and we discussed monopoly matters in relation to life in general. kind of funny how that conversation went, but it was memorable, at least to me, though i was exhausted and i think he probably was, too.

skin feels so strange in the morning, but.. well, mine feels softer and i want to cuddle myself when i'm all warm and sleepy. sometimes i do, sort of curl up and be close to me, but it would be dreamier if you were there holding me. the cool air from the fan is slowly taking away the post sleep dreamy world and replacing it with a bright, clear, crisp sort of day. even though the sky isn't so bright, at all, aside from the sun that refuses to stay completely hidden behind parting clouds.

i had an odd dream.

Thank God today Allison is in town, that means we'll be drinkin' heavily and sleepin' hard. One of my few true friends Allison Deen is in town visiting her family and this week, this is nothin' but good. No one can get me drunker an happier than she can. So I'll probably be feeling like ass tomorrow, so if my day log tomorrow is incoherent, you'll know why.

Last night I had a good time, my parents threw a party. Don't scoff friends, of all the parties I've been to, nothing compares to a party at my folks house. Dad will spend hours on the grill, makin' BBQ, and mom will start makin' drinks, and continue to do so until everyone is drunk as hell.

It may not show, but despite what I've been through the last couple of weeks, I'm doing pretty damn good.

I played Rhapsody all morning. I also moved into my new home office. While playing with pics, I realized that about 52 weeks ago, I cut off 2 feet of my hair.. Rapunzel, I was not.. but damn I miss my hair.. I put pix of the before and after in my livejournal (http://vixi.livejournal.com). Then I messed around with my livejournal colors.. I also started a filing cabinet in my new office.. I guess 50 stacks of importent papers that I almost threw away scared me enough..

(more later)

5:25pm

sometimes i feel really lonely.. just racked by my own personal demons.. my friends are there.. but i dont want to bring them down.. shrinks are paid good money to hear my woes, worries, fears, conclusions..

i keep retreating into my own locked away world.. i have this lifeline.. my friends.. to the outside world.. i keep things like this.. and other projects where i bare my soul.. but its a selfish act.. it's for me.. i need to let the world know i still feel.. and what i am feeling.. as true as i can express it in this medium.. "don't hate me for stupid stuff.. hate me for my selfishness.. my insecurities.. my flaws"

i wanna let it out.. but i'm so scared no one is listening.. someone to tell me if i am right, wrong, silly, naive. stupid.. someone who will tell me the truth.. not what i want to hear.. not something to just hurt me

i feel guilty and petty.. i have people who i believe when they say "you can talk to me".. but i dont.. because part of me fears they will just write it off.. or they are just saying that.. i believe they are genuine.. yet that inner fear is a really hard thing to knock..

the pressures from the outside sources are really hard.. but bearable.. but when im like this.. i just constantly shrink more and more.. my stregnth fading fast.. i need to get away.. but to where.. inside myself some more.. i think anyone would agree that won't make things better.. i hate this.. i know i am strong.. yet i feel so weak.. of course when i need to be strong the most.. ive made it through a lot worse with ease.. i think part of whats draining me is the slow toll its all taking.. no quick downward spiral.. also.. when ive been strong in the past.. anything in the past.. i was a lot more resillient.. age has slowed me down in that aspect.. i am a lot more cautious.. because i know i don't bounce back like i used to.. god i sound 50..

f this.. i need to kick my own ass.. blah blahjkdwhfkwjehfwoei2pqlkdlds

8:00pm

I had a bad spaz attack earlier.. fucking neuroses.. but OPHIE RULES.. I can not stress this enough.. she is amazing.. and i really do owe her so much.. just for being her.. nevermind for being there for me.. I am much better now.. yay.. yayayayay!

This is the first time in recent memory that I was glad the weekend ended. One of my best friends got married this weekend and I was in the wedding. We went to high school together so naturally there were a lot of people from high school at the wedding. It was at the point where it seemed like a damn reunion. Then I was told that this girl I went to high school with has had a crush on me since high school (I'm in my third year of college) and apparently she still has this crush on me. Of course, I wasn't told this until I had already invited her to a party later this week. Anyway, I'm glad the weekend is over so now I can hang out at work and node until my keyboard bursts into flames.

WOO HOO!!!! it's my birthday as well!

it was a fun weekend. got off work late on friday, head down to virginia to see the man. it's been a long week so we decide to have a quiet evening at home. we go to the grocery store and grab some veggies and meat to grill, get some wine, grab some movies and head back to the homefront. the man cooks for me. :) i love it. mostly it's because i am a desperately horrible cook, though.

saturday we slept until two, then headed out towards a local battlefield and wandered around for several hours. at the top of this hill there was the remnants of a stone foundation. a sign informed us that this was the home and land of a freed slave. when the confederate soldiers passed through his property on their way to fight the north, they left the home untouched. the home was ransacked and destroyed by the nothern soldiers when they came through after the battle. that must have been a big bummer. the land was gorgeous, great views of beautiful farmland on all sides. the house (well the foundation that was left of it anyway) was tucked in among a few trees. to have been freed from a life time of slavery and to have managed to own such property... it was his home, his hard earned home. earned in a way that no one today can possibly relate to. and to have it destroyed... by the side supposedly fighting FOR you. damn.

the battlefield kinda creeped me out. the cannons are there... several lines facing each other (interestingly, most of the cannons in the southern line were manufactured in boston in 1861). this is where the southern troops rallied behind Stonewall Jackson. the battle of first manassas.

warfare like that is dead, and it is unfortunate. when combat is man on man... your enemy less than a mile from you... you must truly believe in your cause in order to fight for it. today's warfare, accomplished from afar, takes all emotion away from the act of killing. you don't see the enemy when you fire a guided missile at him from many hundreds of miles away. there isn't any question as to "do i believe in this cause enough to kill the man standing over there?" there isn't such a sense of personal danger which would lead a man to question his feelings about the cause. today, we fight the wars we are told to fight and are absolved from personal guilt by never having to make eye contact with those we are trying to kill.

but anyway. enough of that. we wandered for quite a time. the day was absolutely gorgeous. that evening we (he) cooked up a huge pot of chili. yum.

sunday afternoon i headed back to my place and cleaned.

now it's monday morning and i'm back at work.

more later...

monday afternoon

long day at work. another round of the new developers playing the blame-peg-game. i don't know if it's because i am a girl or if they view me as a newcomer to the department (though i've been developing for almost two years and at the company for four). since i've taken over the process of compiling and building the software, anytime there is a problem with the final product their first instinct is to say i did the build wrong. they don't seem to understand that i can look at every piece of code they checked in. i can see when and what. but each time i do a build i brace myself for the inevitable. i am confident of my abilities, so it doesn't bother me too much. and i like the title my boss has given me. source code bitch. i like the fact that my boss is congratulating me for being assertive in showing the developers that the issue is within their code and not within my build process. i was initially worried i was going to get my ass chewed by the big-boss-man for talking back to his staff. things are cool, though.

There's nothing I like more at 8.30 on a Monday morning - having staggered into work bleary eyed after a late night playing Tennis on the Dreamcast and smoking dope - than an impromptu motivational meeting with the M.D.

Fellow noders, imagine my delight when that very configuration of events occurred this morning.

I sat down at my desk hoping to wake gently with a cup of coffee while checking my XP. I was to be gravely disappointed.

Having been told that there would be a meeting that the M.D. would "sit in on" everyone in the room became nervous - dashing around almost tripping over their own feet in their haste to cover their backs.

I heard a couple of my superiors discussing the provision of donuts and coffee. This immediately aroused my suspicions - clearly some kind of carrot, which would undoubtedly be offset by a particularly large and malodorous stick.

I work for a large "Blue Chip" company, and if the Team (hey, remember guys, There's no "I" in Team) isn't performing, we are often gathered together to have our ears filled with sick corporate management speak.

I learned this morning that as a team we have failed to achieve our target of spending 33.3% of our working day thinking outside the box and 12.6% of our total energy expended in life looking at the bigger picture.
Our going live with the planning of solutions via the pooling together of ideas has also been somewhat of a disappointment.

The crowning glory of this motivational tactic was that the the big cheese did indeed provide donuts and coffee - and then used the opportunity of our mouths being full to tell us how much we suck.

-"Here, have a donut"

-"Oh, thanks"

-"Come on, everyone get a donut"

-"Ooh, okay, lovely"

-"Look at you useless fuckers, sitting there stuffing your faces with donuts, and drinking coffee. You make me sick…"

I smirked my way through most of this.

It was noticed.

Factgirl's fact of the day:

At any given time there are at least 50,000 items in Interpol's Stolen Works of Art Database.
Italy, France and the Czech Republic are the countries with the most art theft.
Paintings and sculptures account for 50% of all art stolen.
Rembrandt is the artist with works most likely to be stolen.

Most recent missing: 
     Chairs, candlesticks and banners from a church in England
     Two 20th century colorful sculptures from Germany

Most recent recovered:
     "The Gateway" a 1951 Lowry painting stolen and found in London
     A 15th century Icon of Saint Boris and Saint Gleb - stolen in Russia, recovered in Germany

-It's a fact

scource: Interpol FAQ

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---

Saturday I became very impressed by Red Hat's ability to recognize the fact that I installed a new Voodoo 3 into my machine, set up X, and send me on my merry old way. MAD PROPS, Red Hat!

Stayed in that night, farted around the apartment while the roommate and our mutual friends were out.

Yesterday, got up, had a day, had a headache, had perhaps one of my most cared-for experiences happen to me. After watching Sweet and Lowdown with her, I was nearly immobilized by a bad headache. I said to her, "i really don't feel well, and just want to lie down...." Rather than take that as a clue to leave, she insisted on putting me to bed and falling asleep next to me. Sometime during the night, she left (due to the obligation of work, amongst other things). But she cared enough to lay with me while I was hurting. Wow.

Since I finally sucked it up and decided to see a professional for these recurring headaches (read: 6-7 days a week), I figured that I should keep a log of what happened, to see if there's any behavioural patterns. Here's for yesterday:

sunday aug 13 2000
----
eaten:
	11ish am: slice pizza/water
	milk throughout day
	430pm: chicken breast, salad, baked potato, water, 1 glass white wine, chips/salsa
	930pm: chips/salsa, milk, stouffer's cheese pizza

headache started around 10pm, BAD by 1145.

behaviour:
	video games in the morning, approx 930-11am
	computer usage, reading, etc throughout rest of day
	driving to chicago, 230pm
	hanging with julie/tom, 315pm-715ish
	home 740ish
	quick computer use, a little video games
	she got there 815ish, drove to store
	shopping, went to blockbuster
	felt it coming round 940, ate some food
	started movie round 10:10
 	bed around 12, not feeling good at all.  lights hurt my eyes, although i could think clearly.

treatment:
	took 1 excedrin at approx 10:45.

theories:
	watching movie?  late side-effect of wine?  laying on the couch (head not elevated)?

I guess you never know what you're going to get out of life... looks like I get headaches.

Monday, Crappy Monday

I’m writing this early since I need a break from the shite.

Taking Friday off was a bad idea I guess. I needed the time off, but I have so much work to do now. I had 14 voice mails from customers, 44 new requests for help, and 22 requests “in progress”. Ugh. What a big mess. I’ve been diligently working my way through it, as I do not want to leave a big mess for someone else. The fact of the matter is that if I don’t get some help or the new person doesn’t get some help, we’re going to have a big fucking mess and a bunch of angry customers.

Speaking of my replacement, nobody wants to commit to anything, so I’m at T minus 4 days left, and nobody to replace me yet. I have to train them or something. They are talking about opening the position up to the general public. Uh.. OK. They need someone a week from today, but they are going to open up the hiring to everyone in Portland. That makes TOTAL sense. This is one of the many reasons why I want to leave. They don’t know their heads from a hole in the ground.

My doctor put me on Wellbutrin to try for my depression. I’m not sure if its helping, but it is making me feel weird. When it takes effect, I feel like my forehead is numb. It makes me feel stoned for about 30 minutes, then it mellows out. Today it has made me super hyper. I feel like I’m talking a mile a minute and my sentences aren’t coming out right since I’m talking so fast. My thoughts are moving at the speed of light. Its almost like I’m on the verge of a panic attack, but my heart isn’t racing. I can’t sit still. I want to go outside and run around. I don’t feel depressed at the moment, but yesterday I felt sluggish and didn’t want to leave the house or take a shower. I watched TV and played Icewind Dale all day.

My doctor was competent, but his bedside manner was definitely lacking. I vaguely got the impression that he thought I was a fat cow. When he asked if I had a boyfriend, he made some odd comment about lesbians. Hrm. Well, he seems to know what he’s doing at least. He had me go to the hospital to get a blood test to make sure my depression isn’t thyroid related.

I haven’t heard about the job at my dad’s office yet, but I might hear from them tomorrow. I guess we’ll see. I sent all my info to the other company, but heard nothing from them. Two of my old friends from OSU are hiring for their IT departments at the moment, so I might have some contacts there. I hope so.

So, I’m going to attempt to get back to work although I can’t concentrate. I am so ready to be done with this job.

Nodes That I Wrote Today:
none

CD’s I’ve Listened To Today:
Depeche Mode – Ultra
Magnolia soundtrack
Various Artists – Trip to the Andes
Tricky – Maxinquaye

Today’s Horoscope on my Calendar - Trying too hard to make things happen your way is a no-no. A Venus-Pluto face-off can materialize as romantic downturns and financial black holes. Think of ways to improve the life of your community under Aquarius moon.

I need somebody to shove...

Everything Day Logs
Yesterday | Tomorrow

Everything Snapshot

Time: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 23:58:21 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 651624 (1405 new since August 13, 2000)
Number of users: 17898 (42 new since August 13, 2000)
Number of links: 2976364 (24671 new since August 13, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.408 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.568 links per node
Link to user ratio: 166.296 links per user

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JeffMagnus node count: 4027 (1 new since August 13, 2000)
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JeffMagnus node of the day: Windows Error Lookup Guide

This morning, I went to the bank to take out $1,700 for the college tuition. When I went to the bursar's office, the clerk who was supposed to take my money gave me back my check. I asked "why?," and the clerk said the bill is paid for by financial aid. I also got the latest copy of the tuition bill, which says I have to pay "$0.00"

Okay... I have wasted $8.00 for a cashier's check, and I have to put the rest back into the bank... I think my plans for upgrading my computer is going to be fine...

Four days left until the weekend.

Unfortunately, today has been quite an exercise in patience ... I have been deprived of coffee all day.
Other than the feeling that my eyelids weigh four times as much as usual, my typing is becoming increasingly slower, and my head is pounding harder and harder, threatening to explode.

It's about time to go home to the barking Pit Bulls and screaming children that live behind me. (The screaming children are not a result of the barking Pit Bulls, btw.)

Ahh, I can't complain, really. The day is cooling off and the sun will be setting soon.

Four days left until the weekend.

Patience is a difficult lesson. But, apparently, it is the one I need to learn right now. I've been talking to friends about what's going on in my life right now and they all say the same thing, that I need to just step back and wait. And, I know they're right but it's not what I want to hear. I want to get pissed at him for not talking. For not giving me what I need (hmm self centered much?). This after I essentially knock him out with a heavy duty emotional punch that plow over a tank.

I think it is safe to say that I rocked his world, and not in the fun sense. So, I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, since he hasn't been mean or avoiding me since my revelations. I will not push because I know he's having a hard time dealing with this. But, I think it might just be possible to be patient without being inactive. And, that's why this is here. To let him know that I am concerned about what's going on in his head, and that I do want to hear from him, but that he can take some time to deal with this if he needs to. And, in the meantime, I will try not to loose it. I will try to think positively. Because the alternative would be a bad thing.

---

Last night: stress dreams. Today trying not to fall asleep, and or keep my cool, at my desk. Tomorrow: probable repeat of today. Uggg.

I thought I'd give the day log thing a shot for my first time.

Today I installed Litestep onto my computer that has Win 9x (even 3.1 I suspect, though I haven't seen the folder on my drive anywhere, go figure). I spent most of my day slacking, and I considered noding some things, but then I quickly realized I had noder's block. I was very proud with my Litestep theme once I configured the Step.rc file properly (which I have managed to fail doing so many times in the past). And found that it looks nothing good at all on a 15" monitor with 800x600 resolution. Besides that, I was angry that there was no support for jpeg wallpaper and that I had to convert all my wallpaper files to crummy bitmap.

Because I believed I would have a heart attack if I became any more disorientated, I avoided my Linux machine all day. No need for those kind of problems.

And then there was this whole thing with the five book reports I'm expected to have ready for school on Thursday. I hate summer reading. I hate A.P. U.S. History. Whoever created this class was looking for trouble. Plus every time I turned on the television, I kept seeing the psychic ad with the woman with the fake Jamaican accent. I realized that if you listen really closely, her accent sounds more Scotish than Jamaican at some points.

And putting up with my stepbrother's irritating laugh that he has developed over the summer. It sounds like the infamous Nelson (The Simpsons) laugh ("ha-HA") mixed with Chandler's (Friends) work laugh. Of course this is just a trivial part of spending the summer confined inside my bedroom. God, I can't wait until I go to college.

Hey. I got a job last Monday. I had a high return on my resumes, and got a super job that pays decently and is interesting AND uses my background. I'll get paid to learn Japanese, and get to travel to China and Japan later this year. In the meantime I get to arrange cultural rather than generic tours to Asia. So, anyone who needs airfare to Asia, cool tours there, and/or hotels there, we're the place. 1-800-880-ASIA! And here I thought I was going to be stuck being a receptionist. ^_^ I'm happy. The 9 to 5 thing sorta bites, but at least I'm on the close side of San Francisco (south of the Embarcadero BART station, on Spear street). I feel all grown-up and stuff. Thanks for the good thoughts, everyone!

I celebrated my first (in recent memory) Incompetence Day with a glorious show of idiocy.

I also discovered that I'm too cheap to pay nine bucks for an alternator belt ... I'd rather put up with the shimmying noise.