I am going out with someone now.

Well almost. I've been out with her once and it was fandabbydozy, and I did almost everything right. Ok, so I have no idea if that's true, but it seemed to go coolio.

We were out from 1:30pm to 6:10pm, had lunch, did coffee and went to a gallery. I'm not saying any more though because I've probably already jinxed the whole thing.

---

Update: Evidently I did because it ended pretty quickly (another two 6 hour dates - too much, too soon?). Bah. I am now trying to reverse the situation. Wish me luck.

Update 2: I have failed. Curse those pesky kids.

This all happened 'yesterday', but this is the current daylog - so be it.
PS Never tell anybody I used the word fandabbydozy.

I woke up at six this morning, curled in a ball in the middle of my bed, tears leaking from my eyes. I had been dreaming about having rocks piled on my stomach, the same as that guy from The Crucible. No one was trying to get me to say I was a witch though. As the dream faded away in intensity, I realized my stomach still hurt like a bitch. Made an emergency sprint to the bathroom and made it just in time.

I hate cramps.

Stayed home from school. I really would rather have gone, if it meant avoiding the pain. I wish I were anything but female. My dad stayed home today as well (my entire family was sick from one thing or another), and kept asking me what was wrong. What was I supposed to say? Dad, I’m having my period right now. I don’t think so. I can barely talk to him about simple, every day things.

I felt better around one o’clock. Cut up some pumpernickel bread with whipped cream cheese, managed to hold that down. Things were looking up. I got dressed, brushed my hair, put my contacts in, filled out some more scholarship applications for next year. By then it was time to head on over to Hope.

I went straight to Graves Hall, since it’s the only place I know how to get to on campus. I had the man behind the desk sign some stuff, and he sent me with the other secretary on over to Maas something-or-other. She brought me straight to the front of the line, where I registered with the computer for French 342, Wednesdays and Fridays from 3:00 to 4:20pm. Another semester of hell, I’m sure. What a way to end my senior year.

I decided to brave traffic once more and get a car wash on my way home. The line was horrendous, but thankfully a nice man in a blue car with a white hanging thing on the rearview mirror let me go in front of him. I was behind a green Land Rover, who was denied access to the car wash and forced to sit through some vile swearing from the attendant accepting everyone’s money. He looked like such a nice old man – I didn’t know such words could be spewed from such wrinkled lips.

I got one of those Ultimate washes that cost nine bucks. Listened to my music too loud while waiting in line, then watched in amazement as the sudsy water and soapy sponge things surrounded my car. I will always have fun getting my car professionally washed.

As I was pulling out into the parking lot after having my car dried by huge metal tubes, and was rudely cut off by a silver neon. I only shook my head and put my sunglasses back on. As I was driving home, I noticed the nice man in the blue car with the white hanging thing on the mirror was still behind me. I sped up, just to see if he would too. He did. I was going 60mph down Lakewood, and he was still right behind me. I turned. He turned. I turned again. He kept going. So it was all good once again.

I cut up a cardboard box and created a new box from the pieces and several scraps of foam-core poster board I had found behind the dining room cabinet. It was something to do. I then decided to finish my painting of the fighting spoons, but I didn’t get it done. But I think I’ll line the new cardboard and foam-core poster board box with red velvet and put my painting in it. I’ll have to cut it into several pieces so it’ll fit, but that’s fine. By the time I’m finished with this realistic project, I’m sure I’ll be well past level 6 and capable of posting a picture of it on my home node. Keep your eyes open.

to ailie: all my understanding. Are you sure you are not me ? Anyway ...

In a garret, sunnily

I am now placidly installed in my new apartment, in the Tlalpan area of Pandemonium Central.
This is part of a 5 apartment minicomplex, that includes a cat and parking space I have no use for (I don't have a car, nay, I don't even have a driving license, what's more, I cannot drive). I have many windows, the place is quiet. Since this is a rooftop apartment, I could string out the shortwave antenna wire; I can now marvel at Voice of the Andes, WWV, the BBC and several fanatic Christian preachers from Tennessee.
The breakup with my ex-SO went smoothly enough, but why do I kid myself ? It is still in progress. There will be many waverings, bouts with angst and late night calls. And I will have it easier, clearly.

Back to the grind

Today work at the Irritating Lump Company restarted, sort of ... Slackery abounded, and I whiled the day away. Well, I had a sort of productive moment in the morning, but it did not last really long. I saw Miss Nice and my good buddy mibarra, a real hacker.
The Caveman, my arch-nemesis, is muttering that he wants to reduce Internet use and access throughout the company. He started grumbling about ICQ, and then brilliantly observed "¿Are we sure that everybody needs email in here ?". My take is that the 'net should be used more not less. But he is a caveman, and a lover of paper and things written in quintiplicate (I am not exaggerating).

Happy things

Napster works again for me. Joy. And I noticed a lot of real music. Searches for Jordi Savall, Lully and Ivano Fossati returned screenfuls of stuff.
I am reading Midnight's Children, which is dense and tasty stuff, not unlike a good curry.
I cooked a half kilogram of dried beans, which means that I am now condemened to eating beans for days - no complain.

Var the Stick by Piers Anthony is a piece of crap. Oooops, I am not being a very good literary criticist, am I ?. OK, let me rephrase that: in the words of Ortega y Gasset, as later confirmed by Tzvetan Todorov, literarature requires a suspension of disbelief that, as the bulgarian critic underlined, should be confined to one element in the narration.
The "novel" I mentioned (notice the insulting quotes) requires a suspension of good-taste. The protagonist is like Forrest Gump, but less charming: Forrest Dump.
The characters appear to have been whittled from the stick mentioned in the title. The book ends in the most melodramatic, sticky, obvious way.
In other words, it is a piece of crap !.

Nodes and noodles

I noded Nubia, which seemed a really necessary node to me. Now, if only someone explained to me WTF is the deal with the nubians joke. It must be one of those mysterious ineffable cultural USA things that will forever baffle (ineffable/baffle, notice the lovely concinnitas) me.
I also noded some obscure photography thing. That one, my friend, is a nodemine.

stone age -oO*Oo- bronze age

I ran out of the library in tears. The local chapel bell was ringing, as I ran through the alley. It was noon, and what I had just lost could never be replaced. I had told myself that I wouldn't let it happen again. I told myself I wouldn't give in anymore. I lied to myself. He was who I wanted. I asked him if he loved me. He said yes, but I knew he would never marry me. I had this gut feeling he was a bachelor for life, so I could never fully have him. I asked him if he would ever marry me. He said no.

"Meanie! Why not?"

I dunno.

I had flown to New York a couple of months back to meet him. I had met him online, and wanted him to be mine for so long. I was his girlfriend, or so I thought I was. He didn't even know my last name, nor my nick for everything2, but I didn't care. He was different, and he showed me affection. I told him I wasn't going to waste my time if he didn't think we were going anywhere, or if our love wasn't growing. Better to end it now then later, I thought. I guess I was just bluffing. I didn't want to end things. I wanted him to say, "You're being silly, you will forever be my Zozo." Instead he let go.

It's hard not being around you, you know...
"hehe..I've never seen that as a problem."

I do. I can't sleep sometimes. When I'm awake it's easy to distract myself with computers and homework and things, but when I'm lying in bed I always start thinking about how I miss you...

At this point how I wanted him to tell me he wanted to stay with me. To let me know that I wasn't wasting my time. I wanted him to tell me he loved me. I wanted him to fight for me, to not let me go.

I don't want to just forget you.
"has to be a gradual thing ay"

What does?
"forgetting?"

I mean, I don't wanna say "good bye" forever.

The conversation soon went dead. We were no longer together. I didn't care that he was hundereds of miles away. I didn't see it as a problem. I wanted to love him. I wanted to feel loved. It felt good when we were together. Maybe I was being selfish, and I didn't deserve him. All I know is the he truly made me happy...

I know I am 18, and probably shouldn't be rushing. I should take things slow. I don't really want to. I want to be attached. I want to commit already. I want to know someone will always love me. I want to be reassured that I won't be lonely. I want someone that can tell me that. I don't really care to be labeled "married". I wouldn't mind being single, but I do want someone. I want someone to hold at nights. I still like Nathan. I wanted him to be the one I wake up and see every morning, and now he's gone.

12:32 EST

Oh. My. God.

What a day. The first day of school was a madhouse, as it always is. After an uneventful staff meeting, we tackled the crowd of students lining up in the lobby. Most of the problems were quite ordinary, but complicated by a number of things. One disturbed woman, who kept tearing up forms on the counter, made her ordinary problem extraordinary with her attitude. The computer systems that contain student records (There are two: an older one with a relatively primitive interface, and a poorly designed newer one with annoying and useless features that no one can figure out, thus we all use both.) went down intermittently, first one, then the other, and they’d go up and down during the course of a single conversation with a student.

This semester’s crop of University Experience students seem promising. They were quiet, as they always are in the beginning, and there was one flamboyant but endearing loudmouth, as there always is. At first there were about 10-12 students, but then they stated trickling in one by one for the next half hour. We’ll see how many of them end up in my class, and how many we’ll have to shuffle off to other sections. A large percentage of them are transfer students, so that means I’ll have to monkey with the course to gear it more towards their interests and needs. Hell, I still have to schedule all of the damn semester anyway. I’m such a slacker

Got into the Aristophanes class but I found out it’s Wednesday and not Tuesday, which necessitated much stressful rearranging of my schedule and appointments for the week. I’m an idiot.

Had lunch with a friend of mine and caught up on the juicy gossip regarding a couple we know in the process of splitting up. Sad, to be sure, but inevitable because they probably shouldn’t have been married in the first place, and the inherent differences are only exacerbated by their immaturity and inability to communicate with each other. Unfortunately, there’s a small child involved, which is most likely the reason they haven’t divorced ages ago.

Spent about 40 minutes in traffic because I had a craving for a Filet O’Fish sandwich and went to the wrong (as far as local traffic flow goes) McDonalds. Skipped Boston Public and Ally McBeal to play racquetball with a friend. It was fun, and God knows I need the exercise with this desk job I’ve got now.

Now I’m home, unwinding and putting off badly needed sleep. Right now, I’m tracking down some plagiarized nodes here. Remember kids: Write Your Own Stuff. You can’t escape the Plagiarism Police.

Notes to self

• in the future, when retiling kitchen floor, clean up the excess glue with mineral spirits IMMEDIATELY. If you wait until the glue has cured, you'll have to scour it down on your hands and knees for four hours.
• People with herniated discs should not drive the three hours from Binghamton, NY to New Brunswick, NJ without stopping along the way for a rest.
• Inhaling mineral spirits leads to migraine.

For my own future reference, today the new backup schedule takes effect:

Time        Host     Action
3:00        xmiso    Outback archives Outlook 2000, Favorites
3:10        voxel    mysqldump > threee_database.txt.gz
3:12 weekly voxel    tar > voxelbk.tar.gz
3:35        xmiso    retrieve three_database.txt.gz and voxelbk.tar.gz from voxel via FTP
4-7         xmiso    Compaq Online Backup performed

My first day back to school with my new dreadlocks

My dreads were put in again last friday, a harrowing 6 hour process involving perming, backcombing, waxing, and many lather, rinse, repeats. I like they way they are, they're nice and fat and thick. However, until my hair starts growing and the dreads start laying down, I have a Sideshow Bob/Yahoo Serious/Sonic the Hedgehog/Don King thing going on. Life goes on.

Seeing as I had already had them for the entire weekend, I was used to having them, and more or less forgot about my new "radical" change (I don't get it. I had dreads last month...people are stupid). The people that mattered made the right comments, and the less desireables made their typical responses.

In toto today, this is what I heard:
• People singing One Love
• "Hey! It's Bob Marley!"
• "Wow! You look just like Sideshow Bob/Yahoo Serious/Sonic the Hedgehog/Don King!" - ad infinitum
• lots of gawks and giggles
• "What did you do that for? You look like freak. (sic)"
• "Can I touch it?"

By far, the best response I got was from my History teacher. The conversation went something like this:

Him: Ahh, are you planning a trip to the carribean?
Me: Nope.
Him: Well, do you atleast have something good to smoke?
Me: Sorry, not on me.

Crazy hippie guy. Hippies make the best teachers.

Let's see... pretty uneventful day at the place with florescent lights and desks.

I realized one of my old friends is turning into a druggie/white trash kid. He resolved to quit pot this year, lasted about five days reefer free. If I recall correctly that's a sign of addiction. Trying to quit and failing, I mean. I might get him a subscription to High Times when his birthday rolls around, that or a bong. Would that be so wrong?

My friend (an other one) has taken out a bounty on my poor little head. All because of one little picture. Yeah, the same one that think's i'm a raging homosexual if you recall from, I think, the 5th. He's going to rip my leg off and beat me to death with it once he sees what I just sent him.

Puts pinkee to corner of mouth, laughs.

Me must... sleep... _{zzz.... zzz...}

Well, I still can't believe that it's 2001. Its been eight days now, nearly nine, and still, every time I see the number 2001, I get a weird feeling of disbelief. Its as if my mind is fighting with a strange number that pop culture has somehow told me should be significant. My mind is almost making it significant, and this feeling is very strange for me. I'm not one to get excited about such things; even holidays are usually just another day for me, nothing special. I have to put my own meaning to things like Christmas, because my literal mind doesn't let the spiritual, supernatural stuff get in the way.

2001. Two thousand and one. Such an odd combination of characters. Something is fighting to be different; I see the symbol as I've seen so many times before, in movies and so on, but putting the knowledge that 2001 now represents the current year is very strange. It's just a number.

I didn't experience this when 2000 rolled around. Just for 2001. Apparently the shift from a one and three nines to a two and three zeros didn't flip any switches, but add one, and weird things start to happen...

(This is actually written about January 8, 2001, but I already had a day log for that day.)

I had to go back to school today after a horrible winter break. I was sick for most of it and I lost Jesse (Him, my ex) forever to His own ignorance, so I would say it wasn't that great. I actually was not in that bad of a mood today, surprisingly, because I've been feeling depressed lately. But I got through all my classes successfully and I didn't have much homework to do for them.

The low point of my day is when I was walking to my calculus class to get help during lunch. I knew He would cross my path, but I would not go out of my way to avoid Him. Sure enough I saw Him, and He walked by me with His ex (the girlfriend that made my life hell for so long). We looked at each other, but I tried not to. When I was a little past Him, He muttered "bitch", which was obviously meant for me. It just made me so sad that at one point we were all each other had, and now we were reduced to muttering obscenities to each other in passing.

I have journalism with Him, and I did my calculus homework the entire time so I would not have to look at Him. It hurt so bad, I was so sad that I could not speak. I had to leave school because I could not be there any longer, not with Him within the same vicinity as me. He stared me down at one point, every time He did something His ex was with Him. She has too great an influence on him, they will probably be back together in a matter of days.

Once sadly, but now luckily, that is no longer my concern.

YES! YES! YES!

I got a call from the guy who assigns the directors for the fencing matches in my county, and I'm penciled in for a match at Oyster Bay on Thursday. What's more, I get PAID~! Eighty-eight dollars per competition I referee!! A truly good day.

Add onto that the fact that I saw a good friend I haven't seen in a few years and talked about old times with him over dinner, and I am truly...

...CONTENT!

Somebody promised solemnly that he will get up before me today and make me breakfast to set me up for the day. The very same somebody who snored peacefully through his alarm and turned to the other side, burrowing under the covers, when I turned the light on.

I'm getting perilously tired of these little broken promises.

Heinous in Germany - 09 Jan 2001

Upon waking, I washed some clothes in the sink, and decided to take a shower in the scary bathroom. I panicked. There were no towels. Finally, I discovered the towels. I hope they were clean. One was pink, and the other was blue. I wondered if the pink one was for girls and the blue one for boys, but I used them both. The pink towel was really too small.

I decided to leave for the office, as I was very scared of the possibility that I would have to eat fruhstuck in the hotel. I managed to avoid the fruhstuck, and struck out for the office. Daniel had told me the previous night to simply take three left turns and I should find the office. I didn't. I wandered around lost for a good deal of time, really wanting fruhstuck. I considered going back to the "hotel" and eating fruhstuck there, and starting over. I tried to call the SuSE office from a payphone, but they didn't seem to know where I was either. Eventually, I found the office.

When I got to the office, Edith helped me to find the cantina. I now completely understand Josh's quandry with the kaffe machine. I figured out which spout to use in much the same manner. (This is referring to some writing by my co-worker Josh about his trip to the German office. He couldn't figure out which spout to use on the coffee machine in the cantina. He tried to get some help from a nice German lady, who seemed intent on explaining the types of coffee, but not wich spout. He finally just pushed a button, and she rushed to shove his cup under the appropriate spout.)

---

I am beginning to wonder if I need some special kind of proxy[ here. I can't seem to connect to slashdot for the life of me. (Insert growling noise here.) Ah, Olaf just informed me of the proxy.

---

I had already written some things here, but somehow lost all of my changes. I ended up going to a nice lunch with Marc Ruehrschneck, Stefan Fent, and Michael Radziej. These are a bunch of guys who had been in my company's office in Oakland at one time or another. I ran into Michael first, as I was sitting outside typing up the previous section of this node. (God bless power adaptors and the airport network.) He hollered "Leah!" and was very happy to see me. I found out that he was mostly happy because he was planning to send a package to Oakland, and now that I was there, he didn't need to worry about the custom's forms. I take it that I get to be the Post Office ;-) As we were talking, Marc came up, as we had planned to go to lunch. We ended up stopping by and picking up Stefan as well. We dropped in to see Bernhard Hölcker, but he did not come to lunch with us. I had some nice bier and chile con carne at something like a "Porno Cafe." (There is this deli next to a big porno warehouse in Oakland that we eat at all of the time. It is horrible, but we are regulars there for some reason. We call it the Porno Deli.) It was pretty good actually.

Later I also met Daniel Bischof (yet another person whom I knew from Oakland). We talked for a while. He gave me his number so I can go have some bier with him some evening. By the time I get back, I will be a raving alcoholic. Seems I have promised to go have bier with half of the company.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I spent some time translating a few PPC SDB articles and some other stuff. I ended up having a nice dinner at McDonald's. Don't ask me why.

When I got back to my hotel, I was trying to read a little bit, but it was very cold. I then discovered something that made me feel very stupid. The radiator's had little dials on the sides of them that you could use to make them get warm. I know it sounds strange, but I had not noticed them before. I noticed I am getting some kind of infection in one of my fingers. Probably from a hangnail that I had. I tried to draw out some of the infection with some toothpaste (I know it sounds strange, but it works.) I decided to go to the Apotheke and get some antibiotic cream in the morning.

I reflected upon a few things that are strange to me about Nuremberg . . no one asks me for money on the street. In short, I don't think I have seen a single homeless person. I don't know why, but it doesn't feel like a city with homeless people. If just one person would come up to me and try to bum a cigarette, I think I would feel better. Hell, I might give him the entire pack. Also, I have noticed that Germany seems to be very insistant on having the most modern telephones of anywhere that I have ever been (except for maybe Switzerland). Everyone has those really nice cordless phones that look more like cell phones to me. All of the payphones require prepaid Telefonkartes to operate. It is a mystery to me where one is to acquire such a karte, but Marc was so kind as to let me use his for the time being.

[ Dream Log ]

14:38

Okay, so, technically I'm supposed to be attending a lecture right now. I am not. I just slept a bit too long. (Sometimes I thing E2 is going to make me suffer.)

Today's greatest thing was that I'm ahead one step in trying to figure out how to see more dreams. I had one dream today (will be noded later), and I think I had that because the TV wasn't on.

Last night I watched Blazing Saddles.

More to be done today, Now, onward to the Usenet...

20:08

Whoa, night falls soon =)

I now remember why I got the process-table module for Perl... Need to hack the YiffCam software to use that creatively. =)

Cool discoveries: Gnus can migrate! Cool!

22:18

TV: pictures of lunar eclipse from north Finland... moon is red.

Strangest thing that happened today: Coffee stains formed yin-yang pattern on the bottom of cup.

Hacked my webcam a bit further, as described above. It now uses the process table module to search for command lines that match certain regexp, by default, "xawtv|gnometv|wmtv", and gives different error message if a) grab fails and b) such program is running.

---

Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: Dream Log: January 9, 2001

When I wrote my first daylog, I think I mentioned that I wouldn't start the practice of writing daylogs. Well, I lied. I've written a bunch now, and discovered that they're fun! Please /msg me if you think I'm boring and should shut up. Seriously. I need to be told that sometimes.

Today I was a guinea pig in a Psychology experiment here at school. I got a call yesterday evening from a nice girl in the Psych Dept. who asked if I wanted to continue helping with experiments. I had only done one last semester, and it was kind of neat, so I said "sure!" So then she asked me if I had a history of epilepsy, to which I said "no," and then she asked if I ever went into convulsions while watching Pokemon, to which I said "Pokewhat?!?" No, I'm kidding...

I arrived at 11am, and told the experiment would last 45 minutes to an hour, and I'd get paid six bucks. Decent. I had to sit at a computer, and look at groups of letter flashing at me. Each time, one of the letters would change, and I had to hit the space-bar to stop the flashing, and identify the changing letter. This took about a second each time, and lasted about 40 minutes until I was finished. Note - the letters were white on black background. So currently, my eyes hurt like a bitch, but I've got six bucks to buy lunch with, so I'm not complaining.

Also today, bought a bunch of textbooks from the school bookstore. Here's how it totalled up, and I still have 4 more to buy I think (these were just the cheap ones I could afford right now):

Philosophy 243 Course Notes ........................................ $21.35
Catholicism at the Dawn of the 3rd Millennium ........... $30.95
St. Augustine's Confessions ........................................... $12.99
Ondaatje's In The Skin of a Lion ..................................... $18.95
Woolf's To The Lighthouse .............................................. $ 3.95
Behn's Oroonoko ............................................................... $11.99
Contemporary Political Issues ........................................ $40.95
Judgement in Managerial Decision Making ................. $47.95
GRAND TOTAL (with tax)................................................ $202.32

Hmm... that six bucks doesn't seem so great anymore for some reason.

GUI, GUI, GUI!

Must think about GUIs, dream about GUIs, live and breathe GUIs.
I can't believe how much work I'm getting now, and how much I need to be involved! Last year, I was bored out of my mind and I wanted to quit if my situation at that time continued into the new year. Now there are so many things to think about, so much to do, and seemingly not enough time to do it in. How I can take some time to compose this day log is surprising!

Well, it seems as though that the company does indeed need me. Our product units are in dire shape in terms of GUI design. Their usability are horrendously complex. It's no wonder three days are needed to train people to operate our products.

I am just so glad that people are actually listening to me and what I have to say, and that the awareness of user centered design has reached nearly everyone in our division here in Toronto.

Subtitle of the Day: More Trivia That is Taking Up Valuable Real Estate in My Brain

I haven't noded in so long that I've forgotten all my pidgin HTML, so bear with me.

I got my hand on the Beatles' number one's CD. It was, of course, spectacular, but, being the easily distractable, hyper- attention deficit disorder individual that I am, I was attracted to the shiny, colorful images inside the CD booklet. Mostly they show album covers of the various singles ensconsed therein. Most of the covers are in English, but ever now and then you see something about "Les Beatles" or some scribblings in Chinese. What really got me going was the Spanish album covers. For some reason, seeing those famous Liverpudlians, in their string ties and floppy hair, grinning out from an album cover proudly emblazoned with "Los Beatles" and " Submarino Amarillo," made me laugh my ass off.

Yay! I finally learned how to pipe link!

What the hell's wrong with me? I should have been at work by 8:30 this morning, but I was playing Counter-strike and recording a mix tape until nearly 10. Well, I got away with it, at least. No one noticed me gone, but my work ethic is severely shaken. I love my company, though. Even if they did notice, I'd just have to say, "Oh, I'm working late today," and that'd be fine. I'm still going nuts at far as my ex-girlfriend concerns(See stealing a girlfriend for more details). It gets hard to concentrate sometimes, mostly because I'm thinking of her and how badly I screwed up. I'm sure a lot of you know how I feel regarding that. Funding went through for my certification training. I'm gonna be an OCP in a few months, and then I'll probably be too short of time to do much noding. Maybe if I just give up sleep altogether, I can write a few more nodes per day. We'll see.

Wow. I've never had such good experience with the RMV as I did today. I don't think anyone has had this good an expereince.

Story background. My lease on "my" car ran out after 3 years. The lease was from Chase. I sent the paperwork to Chase at the last minute, they prossesed it and I got back all the paperwork I needed.

As usual I procrastenated in going down to the RMV and getting the title changed. And I finally did it today. Well a few days ago I went to the RMV and I was told I needed to get the RMV-1 form from my insurance. Oh well.

So I head down to my insurance company's office in Watertown, get the paperwork done and head on over to the RMV. The RMV happens to be in Watertown mall, one block away :). Well I go in and receive my customer service number, B119. I look up and they're serving B118. Again -> :). I sit down for 60 seconds and my number comes up. The girl behind the counter goes thru my papers. Goes thru the computer. Everything looks good. Then she reaches down under the desk and pullsout new plates for the car. Again -> :). I thought I would have to wait a few days for new one. But no, she just hands them to me. And I'm done!

All that in under 30 minutes!

... and oh yeah, I asked and was told I can return the old plates anytime.

:)

One small hitch is that, the sales tax was charged to my credit card even tho Chase had provided a check for the tax. I did not realize what it was for either. The check is made out to the RMV so I will need to contact Chase and have something arranged. The check was for $460, I was charged $551. Chase has been good so far so I'm not worried about it.

Despite all this I feel uncomfortable. I am somewhat spoiled. I tend to procrastinate with deadlines and usually things turn out just fine. I don't like it. It's placed myself in a false sense of security and comfort. It's going to bite me in the ass one of these days. I'm usually not past deadlines but usually before the deadline. Not giving room for errors and change of plans. So far so good tho. And I can't let it go on like this.

6:37pm

I'm at work. A bit anxious about tonight. It's pool night and I'll be seeing Sara there. I guess I should be able to find out tonight what degree of interest she has in me. As I've been thinking about it, I've been beginning to think she's just interested in being friends. I really wish I could talk to someone about it, but I'm waiting for one of my friends to bring up the subject, since they have been unusually quiet about it. I've been interpreting this as a bad sign. I've assumed that this means they've all talked about it and are avoiding the topic because they don't want to burst my bubble. I don't know.. Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Today about 10 people got laid off at work. This has never happened here before. I guess the effect from the drop in the stock market has finally hit here. I'm in a secure position, but I feel bad for those who had to be let go. Most of them haven't had any work to do in a month anyway.

Not really sure what else to write about right now. I'm feeling too anxious to let my mind wander much. I'll certianly have more to add later tonight after the pool event.

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12:30pm

Well, my impression after tonight is that we're headed toward the "let's just be friends" situation. She hugged me when I showed up and when I left, but it seemed more like a short friendly hug than a "i've missed you because I'm interested in you" type of hug. We were at different pool tables, and she looked over at me a few times. She smiled once when I looked at her for a slightly longer-than-usual time. When I hung around her table, she didn't really come over and hang out by me like she did last week. Oh well. I'm not going to stick my neck out any further. If she's interested, the ball's in her court now. I want an obvious sign if I'm going to go any further.

I've been thinking about other things too the past few days. She mentioned a few days ago that she is getting together with a guy this weekend to go hang out, and she repeatedly mentioned how busy she is going to be and how she has big plans. All of my friends have suddenly been suspiciously quiet about asking about her. I think I'm being left in the dark. I don't know who I should ask what's going on (if anything). Sometimes I wonder if she just wanted to find a way to see a movie and go to the circus for free. She doesn't seem like the type of person who would do that though.

Now that I think about it, she totally ignored me at the circus. Sometimes I wonder if this one guy is a factor in the situation. He is a member of our pool group, and he was in a very unusually distracted and detached mood when we all got together to go to the circus. He knew that I just took Sara to a movie, and he seen her holding the rose I gave her. I wonder if he is interested in Sara, and she knows this, and was perhaps avoiding being too close with me because she didn't want to further worsen his negative mood. I asked CR about why he was acting that way and got a very vauge answer. This same person was talking with her quite a bit tonight.

To try to find a positive angle on this, I'll say that it's possible that she just doesn't want to be too close with me while this other guy is around, but that's just my recently acquired optimism trying to gain an edge over my pessimism. However, right now my pessimism is winning the fight.

I was frustrated when I left the pool hall, leaving before nearly everyone else. I quickly drove back to my apartment, got in my gym clothes and went to the gym, to have probably the most intense workout i've done so far. I burned 780 calories in one hour, and spent the second hour on the weights. I'm going to be sore tomorrow. Right now, I don't care.

I have school tomorrow. I must sleep. It should be interesting to come back to this and find out how accurate my assumptions are. I can only hope they're wrong.

Yay, classes have begun at PSU

My Japanese professor handed out these student surveys on the first day of class. They asked generic stuff about one's background in the Japanese language. The last question asked "Is there anything else we should know about you?". I thought a while about this one, my answer "I have an absurd fondness for pie and baked confections", was not exactly the smartest, but I hope somthing humorous can brighten someone's day at least

My Macro Economics prof read us the riot act in class. He spent the entire hour and ten minutes going over his syllabus like he was eating a plate of sushi. Each dagblasted point of detail he picked out and exhastivly explained, then moved on to the next one. The whole damn hour. Even the mandatory verbatim blurb on 'Academic Integrity'.

My Differential Equations teacher is cute. Not hot or sexy, but a serious cutie. She came into class wearing a pink trench coat! ( I was looking for the sanrio patch on it). And her clothes were strangely color coordinated as well, black and white striped shirt, black pants.

Still can't afford to buy books, perhaps I should turn back to prostitution while it's not too late

good day

work was fruitul. the man sent me a cactus garden (i love getting plants/flowers) at the office). came home, walked the dog, vacuumed, steam cleaned, sat down and relaxed. man calls. i miss him. a lot. smoke some. drink some wine. finish my mosaic. chill. daylog. get ready for warm, fuzzy sleep.