Home home on the range!

Well, I'm home for the weekend. I found out from my mom that my Grandpa Bourke is going to remarry this summer. Apparently this has been planned for awhile and the only reason I now know is because I answered the phone when her brother called to discuss hotel rooms. It'll be in Yosemite. He's been living with the lady for the last 20 years or something. No one knows why he now decided to marry her, but it doesn't really matter.

My parents' house is a disaster right now. They're preparing to get the carpets redone. The floor in the laundry room and computer room has sunk 3 inches or so since it was put in. My dad has to level that sucker out. We really don't need 3 inch holes around the walls of the room that connect it to the outside! We've been doing rough patch jobs for awhile, but it's time to do it properly. They're afraid that it might settle more, but that this needs to be done eventually anyways. They might as well do it now and redo it more later if needed.

I managed to leave my DS back in Chico. So not really sure what I'll do to keep myself busy. Maybe study. Or try to anyways. I hope everyone has a nice weekend!

Blocked

I've started getting spam again. So turning off the thing that lets you post without putting your name. Sorry to those few of you who occasionally comment but don't have blogger accounts!

Today's Adventure

So I get to work and my boss tells me 'Come see this cool set of data!' I go over there and he has an old gateway computer on his desk. There's some sort of confidential information on it that we've been given access to, but cannot remove from the computer. Catch, battery is completely dead and they didn't leave a cord. We have 2 hours until they come pick up the laptop and we can't even turn it on. Did I mention that the laptop is an old gateway? We call RadioShack, they don't have any adapters that are 19 Volts. My boss keeps calling different electronic stores, my idea is to call User Services on campus. I call them, they don't find my request at all strange. They call back in 10 minutes and say they found one. I went and picked it up, and weee! The laptop worked! Then I spent the next 2.5 hours making sure numbers matched. I am SO tired of watching numbers. But I'm proud of my way of figuring out the solution to a problem.

Oh, and the toilet is broken. It just keeps running. Thankfully the drain is working fine, but the thing that tells it to stop dumping water in is even more broken. And I've TOLD my roommate to call. He swears he has... and that was a month ago. It's getting worse. Thankfully we don't pay for water. I'm not sure if my roommate has called or not, but I might end up calling tomorrow if I can get the number from him. This is getting silly. They are bad at fixing broken things, but this is getting stupid.

Oh, and the sun came out after work today. Now there aren't any clouds. Where did they go?

Monday Night's Group Presentation Results

Here is how the content was uneven: M's work was the most general and also it was drawn from one website. L's had a similar problem, although the pictures and examples were fine. T's and Jaenelle's, on the other hand, used multiple sources and graphics. I'm glad we all saw the deep wierdness of tourism in Dubai, but I felt that I had to point out that it was a reversal of our theme--nothing wrong with that, but it needed to be said, and perhaps discussed. Jaenelle's was the most put together and coherent, since the title Motivations to Leave reflected only a little of what R presented.

So mine was the best! Wooo! I changed the names of course. Put my name to Jaenelle and just used the first letter of everyone else's. I left the professor's typos in though (who the heck doesn't spell check their emails before sending them?). I told them that they weren't doing what they should have been and that they needed more real research. I said that they needed to make the US look bad and not stray off topic and say anything good about tourism. M was the bossy one that upset me so much. Of course they're probably all grumbling that it was someone else's fault that they were assigned material to research and couldn't find much about it. They just didn't look well enough! I told them that the professor was looking for proof of real research and they didn't listen. Granted I only told them once. It is their choice to listen or not and evaluate what I said as logical or not. But this makes me happy.

I'm going to spend the rest of today reading and maybe start on my paper for my political science class. On Thursday I have a study meeting at 9am. I might just hang out in the library most of the day studying for my two quizzes that day. Just grab something little for lunch and leave it at that. I should be done early on Thursday due to exams. Hopefully I can get out of Chico by 3:30pm.

No work today!

Well, after today the week will be half over. I'm glad I don't have to work today. This morning I'm going to work on typing up this study guide that we're going to go over in class and read more of this book. But I'm talking to David instead of being productive. ;) Life is nice!

My presentation yesterday went relatively well. My group just sat there and read off of the screen for their parts, which will probably get me a lower grade. I don't like group projects because no matter how many times you tell someone what the requirements are, they'll do what they want and then it hurts you. Their laziness or ineptness affects me. That just isn't cool.

Evil Time Gnomes

Well, I got a lot done this weekend. I'm past page 750 in the book that I wanted to finish. I guess it's something. I got my presentation for class tomorrow night mostly put together. I'm almost done with laundry. I made taco pie for lunch.

I wanted to write something interesting and cool, rather than just how my day went. But I can't think of anything. I'll leave you with this thought to ponder though...

How the HECK does my room manage to trash itself in less than 24 hours? I swear little gnomes must do it while I sleep. The same ones that steal socks. I think they also steal time. I never have enough time to get anything done. I sit down to study and before I know it, several hours have passed and I haven't gotten much more done. Bleh!

Nothing Much Happening.

I had a nice day. I was tired and a bit grumpy, but I took a nap after work and everything was magically better. Oh, and my roommate's WoW game crashed, so we had pizza for dinner. It was quite yummy. An extra large pizza, garlic bread, a salad, and two 2 liter bottles of soda for 20 dollars (10 each). It was quite good.

This weekend I will study lots. I will. No, I mean it this time! REALLY!

Why I hate group work

I'm working on a group project for my gender class (which doesn't actually have much to do with gender). My group is a bunch of dorks. I managed to piss off one of the girls enough that she shut up and let us get some work done. Anytime anyone had any ideas she'd say they weren't good and try to get us back to her dumb ideas. She was ordering everyone around and telling everyone what they were going to do. I offered to just let her do the whole project if she really knew best how to do it. I also started answering 'yes mam' every time she told me to do something. No one nominated her leader.

I've also had my main areas for my report taken away and given to someone else. This makes the second time. I don't feel like having all my research tossed out, so I'll probably just take credit for the information that I collected because it's stupid to make me do everyone else's research because they're too lazy to do it themselves. Not that I have much say in anything. I hate group projects. I always end up with someone who isn't even old enough to drink thinking that they're boss of the world. It's annoying. AND I have to meet with them one more time before we do our presentation.

I guess that's life.

Oh, and my mom came by for less than an hour today. She drove an hour and a half here and an hour and a half home to spend less than an hour here. She of course turned down my invite to lunch despite the fact that I had everything ready for it. She was in such a hurry to get home and help my dad put things into boxes that she couldn't possibly stay another 5 minutes. Sometimes my mom's ideas of rational are a bit confusing. I wish my mom wanted to spend as much time with me as I do with her. And I didn't even ask her to come down, she came down because of GradFest which I could have handled just as well on my own. I am thankful that she wrote the check for my cap and gown rental and my graduation announcements/invitations. The cap and gown rental were expensive.

Good Mood :)

I'm in a good mood today. Not really sure why I'm in such a good mood, but I am. I stayed a bit late at work, the internet went down WHILE I was talking to David during my lunch break, and I got yelled at by some sorority girls in a red sports car. Despite all of that I'm in an excellent mood. I will probably be in a good mood at the end of class today too. Ballroom dancing is always fun. The hours are horrible, but the class is fun.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to clean up my apartment and study before my mom gets here. Then we're going to go to GradFest where she'll hopefully help me pay for graduation supplies. Then my mom will go home and I'll go to class. After class I'll frantically do research until 6:30 when I have a group meeting. After that I'll come home, shower, then sleep. What a fun day I have planned for tomorrow?

Lunchtime Report

I got a nice compliment from my insane professor today. After a full length lecture of him calling on the international students and making them explain their religious and cultural views and how different they are from the Judeo-Christian views we got back our journals. We turned our journals in before break. I had spent forever retyping my notes to be sure that it was as accurate as possible and as nice as possible. He held my journal up in front of the whole class and said that I was one of the view who understood the assignment. He went on and on about how great I was. I hated it really. It's nice to know that my journal was the best in the class, but I know that the only reason my journal looks so good is because I basically wrote my papers at school. Normally there is no record of my thought process for papers because I write them at a computer. If I want to rearrange things or plan things out, I drag sentences around. I wrote my papers during class so I had to do a bit more planning if I didn't want to spend forever writing and rewriting things out. I had mind-maps and other sketches and outlines for where I wanted the paper to go. And I put those things into the journal. That is why mine was the best.

He also said I was definitely ready for graduate school. Now I wish the people in Uppsala would magically hear him and agree with him! All I can do is that the people at Uppsala University think I'm a genius too! Hopefully for more real reasons than my insane professor though.

I might put another entry in after work today, we'll see.

I QUIT! (for Tuesday mornings)

Well, I've decided that working 14 hours a week is a bit too much when also going to school 17 hours a week. I was also spending almost 4 hours a week just traveling back and forth between school and work and home. I made the trip either to school or to work 11 times. I always leave home about 20 minutes before school or work starts. That doesn't include time to get home again, but I don't have to plan for as much time there since if I'm a bit late getting home it doesn't matter and classes often get out a few minutes early. I also spend at least 20 minutes a day getting ready to go to school/work. So that's another almost 2 hours. All of that and it doesn't even include the time I need to do homework! I also have cooking, shopping, cleaning, eating and all of the normal things people have to do. I admit to being curious how normal people manage to work 40 hours a week without going insane. It must be the lack of homework. I've got to admit though, working 8-5 really KILLS your day.

Anyways, the whole point of this is that I no longer plan to work on Tuesday mornings. It'll give me 2 less hours of pay, but close to 3 more hours of free time when you take out the trip to work and home again and the extra preparation time and time to get back into doing schoolwork. And since if I work 9-11 I don't get any homework done between 11:15 when I get home and 12:10 when I leave for class... I probably acquire an extra half hour or something in there too. Maybe this will make me less stressed?

I really need to learn to get used to stress though since I'm sure I'll have more in the fall if I get into the masters program. I'll then be doing Swedish classes in the evening if I can and working whenever else I have free time. I'm sure I can get my nice 20 sek an hour job back if I really want to abuse myself in that way. Sometimes I could make close to 30 sek/hour if I worked Friday nights and got lots of tips (10 hour shift). Only real benefit to that type of job is that I can get the hours I want (as long as they are open) and they feed me. A 5 hour lunch shift usually results in 100 SEK and 40 SEK of lunch and all the chips/fruit/sodas I can consume while working. Just requires me to not want to do anything from 11-4 or whatever the hours were. Job also doesn't require that I speak Swedish very well. ;) En lunch was about all that was required.

Identity

There are two things in my memory that stand out today. One of them is from my political science class. The professor asked the class who had ever earned their money by physical labor. A large number of the hands in the room went up. Mine didn't. I hate physical labor. The closest thing to physical labor I've ever done has been baby sitting or dusting my parents' house for change as a child. He called on a few people to talk about what they had done. The first guy he called on worked as a farm laborer in the Salinas area. His parents still do it. Things like this always make me feel good that America does provide a lot of chances to be upwardly mobile in class. You can be born a simple immigrant farm laborer and still end up in a nice university. I guess in a way I hadn't ever thought that there were people like that in my classes. They would be in some of my easier classes, but by the time they're in upper division courses you don't notice them. I'm sure they've always been there, I just haven't noticed. I feel like a snob. I feel like a privledged elite, and I've never considered my family to be that well off.

The second event that stands out came about when I was complaining to one of my classmates about my roommate never helping me clean. I explained how we had thought about hiring cleaners, but it was too expensive. One of the girls in the class asked me how much they wanted, I told her 90 dollars for my small little apartment. She said that she was sure her boyfriends' mother could do it much cheaper and she would ask. She said that she used to clean houses for money, but that it was really too much work. I agreed with her. But two events in one day made me realize that I'm a spoiled little girl.

I sit here in an apartment that my mom pays the rent for, eating food that my parents give me money to buy, drive a car that my parents own and pay the insurance on, and going to school that my parents pay for. I think I would feel weird hiring a classmate to do cleaning for me, but as long as it's her boyfriend's mom who does it... it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe I need a reality check? Then again, I consider cleaning in the same category as plumbing. I might be able to do it, but it takes me a long time and I'm not good at it. It's a skilled job in a sense to be able to do it quickly and well.

Am I a bad person?

Food is expensive!

3 packages of Rotini Pasta (1 pound each) - 1 dollar each
1 package of garlic mashed potatoes - 1 dollar
2 package of salloped potatoes - 1 dollar each
1 package of buttery herb mashed potatoes - a dollar
2 packages of potatoes au gratin - a dollar each
3 light bulbs - 6 dollars total
Monterey jack cheese -8 dollars
taco cheese - 8 dollars
toilet paper - 6 dollars
ground beef
stir fry beef
heavy whipping cream - 4 dollars
chips - 3.50
tater tots - 2.50
brussel sprouts
hotdogs - 4 dollars
Eggs - 1 dollar
Asparagus
broccoli
pain killers - 7 dollars
sour cream - 2.50
onion
baby carrots - 2 dollars
English cucumber - 2 dollars
sliced mushrooms - 2.50
red bell pepper

All of that added up to more than 75 dollars! And I bought almost everything that was on sale. No one item is really that expensive... but it adds up. But notice! Lots of veggies there! It's a healthy list. The only thing I've opened so far is the bag of chips though!

New Bar Regulations

Right now this town has the oddest bar regulations. During certain drinking holidays the newer bars have to close at a certain hour and during other holidays they can't open sooner than another hour. The ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control or something) is really strict on the bars and places that sell alcohol too. I have a solution that should please almost everyone!

Part 1: Put all the bars/restaurants/clubs that have strong party scenes on the same street. A one way street would be nice, with no cars on it. Any bars/clubs/etc that aren't located on this street, they can put whatever regulations on that they feel like.

Part 2: Make it so that there is no parking anywhere near the street at nights. This should encourage people to have a friend or a taxi drop them off rather than driving. Taxis are so cheap in this town that to have a taxi pick us up downtown, drive us to my friend's place, drop her off, then drive to my place and drop me off... came to less than 8 dollars total. We split it and gave him a tip, so it is very reasonably priced even for students.

Part 3: Put the bouncer/ID checker at the start of the street. The only way to get onto the street at nights is to be over 21. Now the bars can put money into bouncers inside the bar rather than sitting outside checking lots of ID's. One ID checker for 10 bars rather than 10 ID checkers.

Part 4: No allowing anyone to leave the street unless a taxi or a friend is there to pick them up if they can't pass a breath test. Since it's illegal to walk around town drunk, they can catch the people right away. This should also cut down on crime against drunks and cut down on some of the rapes against drunk girls. If they need to pay for someone to take a taxi home, take their ID or something else of value so that they'll have to come back and pay like a 20 dollar fee plus whatever their taxi ride was. Perhaps more to discourage that type of behavior and encourage their friends to cover for them.

That's the main bit of my plan. Other bits include perhaps keeping a medical personal on the scene for any problems and maybe a police officer on Friday/Saturday nights. All the bars on the street can have the fees for those guys included in their rent. That way the costs on our behavior is passed off to the customers like it should be. Perhaps even include rentable party rooms where you can bring your own alcohol and have kegs and whatever. Everyone who would walk in would be over 21 so there would be less problems. Let people drink on that street and bring their own booze onto the street (but not into the bars). Let them drink in 'public' there and whatever else. This should keep the drunks contained while still allowed businesses to make money and people to drink themselves silly. If bars want to locate elsewhere for cheaper rent/drinks then the city can put whatever restrictions on them that they want.

I just think that this town's idea of closing bars at 10pm on major holidays is stupid. Let people do what they want, just watch over them while they do and try to keep them safe and keep them from hurting others.

Clothing Sizes

Whoever decided that all women fit into set sizes such as 0, 1, 3, 5 must have been dilusional. Not to mention the fact that the sizes from one brand to another have nothing in common. The only similarity is that lower numbers mean a smaller size. A 1 in one brand can be 8 inches too long, another brand too short, and in another brand I can't get it past my knees. I wish they'd sell women's jeans by length and waist like they do guys. And let's not even get into styles. Jeans come in either 'Street-walker' or 'Mom' style. I want jeans that have a slight flare to them, are form-fitting (go stretch!), that have a waistline that isn't at my belly button nor below my butt crack, and with a length that I'm not tripping over and doesn't show my socks when I sit down.

I guess I'm picky. Although some poor dad was there with a 14 year old trying to find jeans. He reached the same conclusions I did. I wonder if jeans are made better in Sweden. After discovering that /I/ couldn't get jeans of the proper length up over my hips, I'm reminded yet again why so many girls have eating disorders. If, at 105 pounds (48 kilos) I can't fit into clothes... I wonder how girls with more normal body shapes do.

I came home with two pairs of pants though. I nice pair of slacks that is too long (I'm hoping my mom can hem them) and a pair of jeans I got in a trade-in. I also bought 3 new t-shirts that don't show my stomach and 5 cute new pairs of undies. Maybe I can go longer between laundry loads now.

Tomorrow I want to work 8-2:30 so that I'll have time to take a nap. Then maybe I'll have the energy to go to the bars tomorrow. It'll be one of the biggest drinking nights, St. Patty's day, on a Friday night! Weee! Which means I'm pretty much required to go out. Not allowed to hide in my room.

The world is a strange place sometimes.

While doing my semi-daily search of news sites I came across THIS article. Both the woman and the boy need some serious counseling. I find it funny that she's not allowed to contact her husband (yes, they're married!) until he turns 17. Imagine being told you can't contact your husband. Freaky.

In more normal news. I had a nice day today. The boss took us out to lunch at a Mexican restaurant. It was weird. I had almost the same thing as everyone else, but I was the only one still hungry after eating. My co-workers laughed at me. Hmph. I stayed at work like 20 minutes extra today, so I'll take that off of tomorrow's time. I'm thinking about going in at 8:30 or so. That way I can be done with work a bit before 2. I /really/ need to go to the mall and return some jeans and maybe buy some new clothes. I'm having to do laundry WAY too often.

I FINALLY found time to do laundry today. The last load is in the dryer now. The first load is already folded.

I also have a headache. I'd like it to go away so I can get some homework done. Maybe I'll eat dinner tonight if I start feeling better. I have leftovers in the fridge that need eating. I've expanded. I have leftovers in the fridge at work too.

My Spring Break Slowly Drifts Away

Well, Tuesday is pretty much over. I worked 7 hours today. 4 days of my break have passed me by. I wish I could say I had accomplished a ton during these days, but I can't. I have another 5 days to go though! During the second half of my break hopefully I'll get a whole bunch done.

Tonight I have simple goals. Take a shower, do laundry, run the dishwasher. And sit here and whimper because there is thunder. Looks like I made it home from work just in time. Oh, and maybe get some school work done. It'd be really nice to read another 100 or 200 pages of my big book. Realistically I might take it a bit easy though. My mind is a bit melted after doing 7 hours of work.

I think I could get to like the adult world of real work... as long as I didn't have to come home and do schoolwork afterwards! The big problem of working all day... I'm completely exhausted. I feel like taking a nap but if I do, then I'll not sleep tonight.

Nice weekend

I had a wonderfully relaxing weekend filled with yummy food. I'm back at my own apartment now, it's very empty. There was only one car in the parking lot when I pulled in. Usually I have to fight for a spot and today it was empty. I guess it's because everyone who didn't go home for the week is at work. Tomorrow I'll be at work too, but I'll leave my car here still. I'm not quite lazy enough to take the car rather than a 10-15 minute bike ride.

I stole a half of a bag of chips from my mom's cupboard. *crunch* They're quite yummy.

My goals for this week involve working 25 hours over the next 4 days and getting lots of homework done. Maybe I'll take a nice nap today or something else equally nice. It's my one day off this week.

Conversation with my Dad

I had a long talk with my dad today. I feel like I made some progress into what I want to do with myself and what I don't want to do. I was telling my dad what I figured I'd end up doing in the future and my dad gave me a lot of suggestions. In the process of describing to my dad what I do and don't want to do, I've figured it out myself a bit. That's just cool!

I don't want to be a manager. I don't want to have to order people around or try to get them to do what I want them to do. I don't want to be stuck in a corporate ladder trying to claw my way to the top. At the same time I don't want to be in that corporate system really. I want to be an expert at what I do and be able to work independently. I want to be someone that people come to and say 'hey, we need this done, how long will it take you?' And when they need things done they go 'Do you have time to do this?' instead of 'Do this now.' That type of job where I'm working on my own just getting stuff done would be the type of job I could telecommute with too. Then it wouldn't matter where in the world I was working or what language I spoke. That would be nice.

My dad told me he'd never be surprised if I ended up being the one to earn most of the money in a family. I could see myself doing that in a way. I just need to find someone who wants to pay me lots to sit at a computer and get stuff done. Any offers? I'm quite good at research in goggle! Really!

Anyways, it's nice being home.

And my parents are going to get all new carpet and vinyl throughout the house. It'll actually look presentable when David comes this summer! Weee!

Tired

Well... it looks like we won't be able to get a cleaning service. :( They want 90 dollars a month just to do the most basic cleaning job. I could get someone cheaper, but they wouldn't be worker friendly. This place is licensed, insured, bonded, and provides workmen's comp. But it's still too expensive for me. So I settled for yelling at my roommate for 15 minutes. He was really too silly to even understand why I was mad. It took awhile for it to sink in. I think I was quite rational and he seemed really embarrassed and promises to work harder. We'll see if this sticks.

Besides that, I'm tired. I did a normal Thursday. Studied, cleaned, went to class, made dinner, etc.

If you want a real blog entry, you're out of luck. I'm going to bed and it's only 8:30.

Health center

I decided that this situation was not good and dragged myself to the heath center instead of class this morning. It was a good thing I did. Turns out that I'm so dehydrated that they actually considered sticking an IV drip into me. I was there about 10-15 minutes before they opened. That got me a good spot in the queue. I was the only one in line who refused to stand once inside. I sat on the floor and slid myself along as the line moved. Within 30 minutes of their front doors opening, I was seeing a doctor. A nurse saw me within 10-15 minutes. I listed off my problems, she added a few more that I had forgotten, she told me I was a very sick little girl. *laugh* I could have told her that. They took my blood pressure three times when I told them I was a bit dizzy. They were going to do it another time, they decided they had already proved what they needed to and weren't going to make me do it standing up too. Just sitting up did what they wanted.

The doctor was so nice, she told me what was going on and just let me lie down for a bit. She wanted to give me some stronger medicine, but they didn't have it. So she gave me the next step down. If I have a problem, she gave me her phone number so she could call the prescription into a real pharmacy if I still had problems. I seem to be doing ok though, I think. She also gave me some medicine that makes me REALLY sleepy but makes me stop feeling sick all the time. I can't drive. Roomie is going to have orders to fetch food. Oh, and since I wasn't feeling great and couldn't go to the store and buy some Gatorade... she gave me two bottles free from what they have on hand.

I've been sleeping for the last 3.5 hours now. Besides feeling sleepy I'm feeling a lot better. I still think I'll have to skip ballroom dancing tonight. I do have a doctor's note though. If I'm not feeling much much better by tomorrow, I'm supposed to call and she'll have me come in and sit there with an IV. I really hope I don't need that.

See, proof that I wasn't just whining about being sick. Oh, and she said to give up on drinking water for a bit if it isn't staying inside my tummy.

Weee! My roommate is awake, on his way to the grocery store. He'll buy me food (chicken broth, more gatorade, ginger ale, and saltine crackers)!

I think I'll start my own religion....

My religion will involve the belief that everyone else's god(s) are yours, just with different faces. Therefore you should be nice to everyone, even those who don't believe in a god, because (s)he loves them anyways. You can have your choice of the name for the god(s). Choose one already in use somewhere or make up your own name. I'm going to encourage the use of Jaenelle.

The belief system involves being happy and not hurting others. No one should ever be killed, abused, bombed, blown up, not-aborted in the name of this religion. This religion believes you should sit in a nice green garden somewhere, with flowers. Unless you happen to have allergies, then sitting inside, in a wood-floored room with wooden furniture and perhaps some statues made out of stuff that you aren't allergic to. The requirement is that you're happy and peaceful.

You will always treat others like they are better than you. You should take a few moments out of each day to smile at people, compliment them with something they did well (Is that a new dress? I love it!), and help them with anything they might need help with. You won't try to convert people to your religion by standing anywhere and handing them things or by telling them that your religion is better. Their religion is just a different, more violent form of your religion. If they ask, happily tell them, but no pushing. There are enough pushy religions. (Ok, I got ambushed by some bible giving out guy on school campus again.)

This religion WILL preach happiness and nonviolence for hours and hours and hours at anyone who even thinks about doing something violent or hating towards another person in the name of the religion. I mean, if they're doing bad something in the religion's name, they're obviously a confused member and need to be set straight. Heck, I think I'll decide not to name the religion so that it can never be used for any evil purposes. It's hard to do something in the name of a religion which doesn't have a name. Although if it is ever named, I'm leaning towards Jaenelleism.

Edit: Something in here should be written about being divinely rewarded for taking long naps.

Btw, just because I write two posts in a day doesn't get anyone out of commenting on the post below this one. I expect two comments from each and every one of you. I went through the effort of writing two blog posts. I also just created my own religion! I deserve comments!

Btw, bring me food. I'm too dizzy to stand and I have this odd feeling that maybe I should eat.

Happy News

Well, I'm still sick, but feeling a lot better. I stayed home from work today. It wasn't worth the extra 2 hours of work. Turns out it was good that I didn't go. Just walking up the stairs (1 floor!) at the library made me feel very ill.

The good news though is that both of my exams/quizzes for Thursday were moved until after spring break. One of them is two weeks after and the other is the first day back. Still better to not have them this week. This leaves me with only one class to focus on for the rest of the week. My political science class. I've gotten the majority of the work I need to turn in printed. I really need to hole punch the thing and put it into a note book of some sort. Took forever to type up all the notes for the past few weeks. The thing I still want to get done is to get a finished copy of my 2nd paper done. I've gotten a rough draft turned in, but I wasn't happy with it. So I'd like to get it updated before I start on my next paper this coming week. Perhaps I'll work on it some tonight if I'm feeling better.

And on Thursday after school (4:30) the cleaners are going to come and give us an estimate for the costs of cleaning the apartment. If the price is affordable, they should come by in two weeks. Oh, and the toilet is starting to not work. Takes two flushes to accomplish anything. I guess that last bit isn't happy. But most of the rest of this is!

Happiness is a Cleaning Service

After spending all weekend alternating between cleaning and nagging my roommate to clean I've decided a cleaning service might be nice. My roommate agrees with me. So I called a place to come and do an estimate. I think I'd rather just pay someone 25 dollars a month to come in and clean (with my roommate paying the other half).

In other news, I'm sick. :( I emailed in sick to my night class tonight, but the professor is being really difficult and giving me a massive assignment as punishment for not showing up. Writing two papers and some other stuff. I might see if I can drag myself there anyways. In an hour after I've slept for a bit I might be feeling a bit better. I hope so. I'll go sit in class, look miserable, and generally be annoying. Make her rethink that punishment policy. I hope she catches the flu from me.

In interesting news, my dad sent me a message with the excitement that's going on at his office. It was the cat's response to another cat. Chased it up a tree and sat at the bottom under a bush in the rain for a long time. This set of messages was like 15 messages followed by 3 photos. My dad's office life.

I wish it was still Friday evening!

Well, 5 more days of school until I get a week off. I'm ready for spring break now. Today I cleaned. My roommate is amazingly good at finding excuses to be gone while cleaning is going on. He got up around 4.30pm or so. At that point I was piling stuff outside the door to his room. I made him put his camera back in its box. He then started putting on shoes, I asked him where he was going. I had already told him he wasn't going to go play WoW because he had promised me multiple times to help with the cleaning and it's now Sunday evening. This was fun.

Me: Where are you going?
Roomie: To go get papertowels; we're out.
Me: I bought 8 rolls today. There's one in the kitchen.
Roomie: Oh, well what I really wanted was newspaper to clean the windows.
Me: Here's two whole newspapers. Do you want more? I have an entire bag waiting for recycling.
Roomie: Hmmm.

Now here is where I did something stupid.

Me: This light fixture that's been sitting on the microwave for 6 months, any chance you could put it back where it belongs?
Roomie: Isn't it broken or something?
Me: No, you took it off because you didn't like it. You wanted to put glass into it or something.
Roomie: Oh! I'll go do that!

Then he was gone. He has a nice list of things to do when he gets back. I've done more than my share. He can vacuum, mop, clean the kitchen sink, the bathroom mirror, the toilet, and the microwave where his food exploded. That seems reasonable to me. I just spent the last few days trying to locate the living room from under his junk.

Oh, and I got some schoolwork done too.

Progress towards weekend goals.

Well... I didn't get a lot done today. I did rest a lot. It was much needed I'm sure. I have my room spotless. Every time I leave and walk back in it feels so good. I think living in such a messy environment has been stressing me out some. I have my door to my room shut. I can almost pretend that the whole apartment is clean. Hopefully by tomorrow it will be. I'm tired of living with so much clutter everywhere! I want open space! I tripped over one of my roommate's 7 pairs of shoes that are sitting in the living room when trying to make dinner. I half cleaned the bathroom. The counters are clean, the sinks are clean, and I attempted to make the tub look white through excessive amounts of bleach. The tub still looks disgusting, but at least now I know nothing is living in there for sure. I haven't been able to get the smell of bleach off of my hands, I've resorted to trying to bury the smell under this scented lotion stuff. I'm not sure which is worse... the bleach smell or the smell of bleach mingling with very strong pink scented lotion.

I've managed to break my headphones even more. Tomorrow I MUST go buy a new pair. No more waiting allowed!

In terms of school work I've almost finished typing up my political science notes. I've read all the articles for my economics paper, and started writing. I'm ending up with very short responses to the questions so I might try to find a way to be more detailed. Either that or I'll decide I don't care that much and just go for what makes sense to me. I plan to do some of the reading I need for my gender class tonight too. Or tomorrow morning.

So for tomorrow!
1. Buy headphones (do this first before the stores get crowded, but after 10 when Best Buy opens)
2. Write out answers to the gender questions for Monday. (maybe, otherwise deal with it during Break)
3. Write Economics Paper!
4. Clean the apartment, force roommate to help if possible.

Weekend Goals

For some reason I feel that if I make a formal list of what I want to do here, that it will magically get done. So here goes!

1. Write my Economics paper. (Due Tuesday)
2. Rewrite my Political Science Paper (Monday)
3. Study for my other Economics test (Thursday)
4. Type my Political Science journal (Friday)
5. Do the reading for my Gender class and answer the questions (Monday)
6. Clean my apartment (ASAP - roommate actually said he would help)
7. Get lots and lots of sleep and rest!

There we go, my goals for the weekend. Now to see if I manage to actually accomplish half of them.

In other news, I've decided that something in my diet or stress level is not right. I was bored during a meeting today and realized that each my nails has a large indent in it near the base. Where the new nail is growing in much thinner than the old nail. On each and every nail. Maybe I was stressed out or not eating properly or something. It's pretty close to the base, so probably something I've done to myself in the last few weeks. I'm guessing school related stress. Although I'm going to be sure that I take my vitamins really regularly for awhile.

Ok. That's my life in a nutshell. (or a blog post)

So how is everyone else doing? :P

An Art Exhibit about Islam and an Interesting Conversation

Well, it was a pretty average Thursday. I decided during my 12:30 Economics class that I was suffering from a rare disease known as lack-a-chinese-food-itis. My second class was special in that when I arrived there was neither a professor nor were there any students. Which is strange because the professor teaches in that classroom right before and many of the students are in both classes. No class! Weee. I went home. I told my roommate about my weird disease. He decided that he needed to leave the apartment sometime today so he went to fetch the food. It took him 50 minutes and meanwhile I was hungry.

I managed to get a lot of studying and schoolwork done though. I ordered the books I need for another class, met with a professor, and worked on rewriting a paper. I also spoke to David.

This evening I went to an art exhibit as required by my Monday night, slightly less than insane professor. (Because the truly insane label is saved for my screaming professor of course.) Mostly I think we had to go because the lady who was running it is her friend. I got there and was told by my professor to go get a glass of wine. I did. It was quite nice up until I put a hole in the side of my plastic glass. I figured that meant I'd had enough. The art exhibit was about women from the American culture trying on the Islamic veil and giving their opinions on it. Quite interesting, but very obviously designed to be positive because that is what the art exhibit was about. The interesting thing that I came home from the exhibit thinking about wasn't the art exhibit but a discussion I had with a girl from my class who was there. She was saying that more than anything she wanted to go to Australia and study. She said she couldn't though because she was married. I hadn't realized that marriage was such a major limitation and pointed out that she could probably take him with her. She told me that he didn't want to go and she had to stay where he would be happy. What about her happiness? Did that not matter? Would he not put up with her being gone for a few weeks or a semester to do something that she really wanted to do? Would he not consider doing something for her that she really wanted to do. I asked her what she would be doing for a living and her response was that she would just find a job wherever her husband wanted to live at. I wonder if it ever occurred to her that perhaps he could make a few sacrifices too. All of this and she is a year younger than me. It was quite an interesting conversation and one of the most interesting things is that two years ago it would not have bothered me as it now does. I would have just accepted it and probably said something about planning the same someday, doing as my mother did, and putting my life choices behind that of a man's. Now I find that future scary.

Sweden has corrupted me. I no longer feel like a normal girl. It's weird.

Continuing the Wait

I actually got this email back in mid January. I just felt the desire to post it today. It's just another thing to wait for. Although this one is only two months away.

Dear Applicant,

We have received your application package concerning Master Programmes at
Uppsala University.

Questions concerning your application cannot be answered by the Admissions
Office nor by the Department during the admissions process due to the
heavy workload in processing all the applications.

Notification of admission will be sent out in early May.

Yours sincerely,

The Admissions Office of Uppsala University

Feminist stuff

Somehow I don't like a lot of the branches of feminism. Why should I hate men? Women have oppressed other women in the past as well. Should I hate women too? I'd like to believe that the majority of guys, freed from society's belief that they must be REAL MEN would be decent human beings and not make messes for women to clean up. Perhaps being a real man needs a new definition.

I'm a feminist as long as feminism is about equal pay for equal work, equal job chances for equally skilled people, sharing the housework, letting my husband have time home with the kids, paying my own meals, and working just as much as any guy does if I want him to do the same amount of housework. And meanwhile since I open doors for guys, they can damn well open doors for me.

No political party or movement should be based on the idea of violence or hatred towards another group of humans. Although Luigi has my full support in his war against blood lust and perversion. ;) (Check out the 2nd movie on Fahle's blog... it is in English.)

Food

Today I went shopping. I bought about 30 dollars worth of stuff. It wasn't bad consider that I got quite a lot. I was mostly only buying things that were on sale. The exception was some broccoli. I felt this odd urge for something green and somewhat healthy. My prize item is about a half pound of stir-fry beef. It's pre-cut and was only like 2.50. I'll gladly pay more to not have to cut it myself! I can just take off the plastic and dump it into the pan. I'm going to steam some of the broccoli and throw that together with the beef into a simply asian mix. The mix is asian noodles, some sauce, and some sesame seeds to put on top. It should be quite good and should give me enough for more than one meal.

I'm doing a major laundry day right now. Towels, lights, darks, and maybe sheets if I'm not feeling too tired. At about an hour a load it's 5 hours to do laundry and I'd REALLY like to have clean and dry sheets before bed. If they have to wait until Thursday, so be it. Actually.... I'm pretty sure I have a second set of sheets around here somewhere I could always put on instead. My problem is that I don't actually have enough pillow cases! I only have 6 and 4 pillows. So two of my pillows would be caseless! Probably not the end of the world though.

Oh. And I will start studying for my Friday exam sometime tonight. I also want to start reading the copy of War and remembrance I checked out from the library. And start on my paper. And type up my journal that's due next week. And do my research for my Gender class presentation. And create another draft of my paper that I turned in last week. And maybe sleep sometime. Realistically I'll probably just start studying for Friday's exam while making dinner and play my DS before bed.