Friday Was Good

It's about quarter past two in the morning, but my sleeping patterns lately have been such that I am not tired right now. In fact, I'm rather bored. I am looking forward to tomorrow, when I have the house to myself for a large part of the day, and can therefore get things done. For some reason I have it in my head that it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and that makes me want to spend some time playing the piano, perhaps in between loads of laundry.

Friday was as excellent a day as I had hoped. I loved the X-Files movie. I can see how some people might be annoyed at the fact that it wasn't epic, but I'm glad that they focused more on the characters and their relationship and their future. It was kind of a way of fixing what the last two seasons of the show did. They didn't bring anybody back to life or kill off anybody who had been in the series. In fact, they didn't really retcon anything. Obviously, things happened between the last scene of the series and the start of the movie (most notably that Mulder and Scully allowed the world to know they weren't dead), but nothing actually changed. I still haven't forgiven Chris Carter for killing off the Lone Gunmen, though.

Seeing people Friday night was most enjoyable. It made me think that Peter and I really need to get working on planning our going-away party. I'm thinking that Saturday, September 6 would be a good day for it. Peter and I also have to look at flights. And I'm going to stop thinking about this now because it's stressing me out.

We stole an idea from Dave and Sheryl and did a beer tasting on Friday night. The idea was to see which beers we actually liked in a blind taste test. The winner was a Dutch beer I'd never heard of. Stella came in second. They were all lagers, apparently, and I'm not a huge fan of lighter beers to start with, so I was kind of meh about most of them. It kind of bugged me that we were tasting beers I'd never heard of, rather than tasting more common beers to test our possible prejudices. A lot of the beer choices were dictated by what was available in singles, apparently, as well as keeping all the beers similar so that we couldn't guess which was which. To me, it kind of missed the point. It was still fun though.

Sean mentioned on Friday night that he wanted to try making beef wellington before going back to the states (because this way his parents could pay for it), and so on Tuesday he, Peter, Jeremy and possibly Eric and John are going to go to Sean's house and make beef wellington, puff pastry from scratch and all. I think they're crazy, but whatever makes them happy. As my mom pointed out, they could be going hunting instead.

In other news, my dog has Cushing's disease. I'm not entirely sure what all of the implications of that are, but my mom has decided that, despite not going for the surgery, Farley should start taking meds for it. I agree. He is currently asleep over by my bookcase, unaware of the odd name of the ailment that we had originally called "old age." And now he's barking in his sleep. ^_^

Tonight vs. Tomorrow

The packing continues. Yesterday, I managed to get all of my DVDs into a CD binder that I asked Peter to buy me for my birthday. Amazingly enough, they all fit in, including all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls and all nine seasons of X-Files. There's even a fair amount of space left. This makes bringing my DVDs much easier, since the binder isn't much bigger than a shoe box. The cases are still in piles on my floor, though. ^_^

Speaking of X-Files, the second movie comes out tomrrow and I just bought two tickets to the 1:10 showing at South Common. Please allow a brief moment for me to be excited: *squee!* I don't know who's going with me, though I suspect the answer is Peter because he's not working, whereas Joyce is and Jenilee is out of town. All three of them have said that they'll come with me, but the 1:10 show is the only one I can go to without having to rush to dinner immediately after.

There is Thai food tomorrow night. Jeremy will be in attendance, as will Eric and Jo, hopefully. I haven't seen Eric and Jeremy in a long time. The usual suspects will also be in attendance, which is good, since I still have Pri's coat from when she left it at Peter's place on Canada Day.

All in all, tomorrow is looking to be a very good day. Right now, however, I am bored. I'm avoiding playing WoW because I just sent this guy I play with an e-mail, and I'm waiting for him to discover it. He makes lots of (amusing) "inappropriate" remarks, and at one point I emoted that I was imitating the fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally. He'd never heard of it. I explained, and he decided that I should make a video of myself imitating this scene. I told him I would, and so I sent him an e-mail with a link to the clip from the movie on YouTube, but claiming in the e-mail that it's my own video. This way he gets the initial shock of "She actually did it?!" but then it's a fake-out. With Jenilee out of town, this guy has said that I now have the job of entertaining him until Sunday. *facepalm*

Actually, I'm in the mood to watch a movie, but they're all in the binder, and I don't want to disturb the harmony of the newly stored discs. Feel free to think I'm crazy and/or give the computer screen a weird look.

Summer Afternoon

It is a warm and sunny day. It is also my mother's birthday. My aunt and Kathy are over. They're currently talking about chairs. And how chairs aren't big enough. I'm not participating in the conversation. Earlier, they were trying to figure out what to do during retirement. Gardening was dismissed as being too much work. Ladies' clubs were endorsed. Golf was deemed good, of course, but not really any more beneficial the more you add to the amount you play when working. Or something. The birthday cake is very tasty.

Tea is being made, and Kathy has just left. I like tea. I am bored. Well, actually, I am sleepy. We had lunch (Subway) out on the balcony, and my seat wasn't in the shade and there was wine. It's been a couple of hours since then, but they have been uneventful hours. *yawn*

Now we're discussing my cousin who has cut herself off from the family. This is making me sad. Bed is sounding better and better.

Blah?

I am very bored. So very bored that I was searching random words on Urban Dictionary. I searched the word "blah," and, between the third and fourth definitions, there was an ad. It was an ad that, to my immensely bored brain, was highly amusing. I mean, really, why would you put this advertisement on a page containing glib, sardonic definitions of the word "blah?"

Behold:



This makes me laugh. :-) Yet, sadly, I am still bored. :-(

My Life in Piles, Boxes and Envelopes

I just did some organizing/tidying, and now there are little piles of things all over my floor. Over by the stand-up mirror is a pile of things to be thrown out. A little ways away from that is my IPT/APT stuff. On the other side of the bed is a series of little piles of books; these are the books I have decided to take with me to England. I now need to figure out what to do with them until I leave. The reason I started this organizing/tidying spree in the first place is that my bookshelf was overstocked, so now it looks pretty good. I also tried to clear off some of the clutter that lives on top of my dresser, but I don't know if it's possible to actually get rid of all of it. It's one of those clutter piles that reproduces when you're not looking. It may also have roots down into my dresser. Actually, thinking about it, I suspect it eats my socks. Bad clutter.

Anyway, there's also a pile of storage boxes next to the piles of books. I'd put those away, but they live on top of the storage box I was putting stuff into, and I'm not sure that I'm done that just yet. I love my storage boxes. They are white and snazzy and very handy for avoiding putting things into piles. I also love my manila envelopes. They keep everything in order, are easy to label, and stuff doesn't fall out of them so easily like with file folders.

I'm debating which, if any, of my DVDs to take to England with me. They'll play on my computer, so I'll still be able to watch them. I'm not taking any of my CDs with me, of course, but I don't have any of my DVDs on my computer. It's such a pain in the ass converting the files that I'm not going to bother. I don't even have the software on this computer, come to think of it--when my old computer died, I didn't bother replacing it. I may wind up taking just the discs of some of my DVDs to save space. The problem, then, is deciding which to take. I asked for the Gilmore Girls complete series on DVD for my birthday, and that's a lot of DVDs, but I'd feel bad leaving them all here without getting a chance to watch them. Then again, there's no guarantee I'll get that as a gift, so... *shrug*

Also, in my organizing/tidying today, I realized that I have no papers pertaining to my employment at A&B Sound. I know I got a pay stub every two weeks, but I can't remember what the hell I did with them. I have all of my pay stubs from Old Navy. Hell, I even have them from when I worked at IGA in high school. No A&B, though. (No Motherhood, either, but they only ever paid me through special direct deposit, so I expected that.)

Wow. I just realized that I have only had six paying jobs in my life. That doesn't count various music-related gigs, but it does count tutoring Math in junior high school. And the campground. And the longest I was at any of them was... eight or nine months? Granted, I've been going to school and living at home, but it seems like I should have more than that under my belt.
My current job search has yet to be fruitful, but I'm certain I'll get something eventually.

I have a scrape on my elbow that was bleeding earlier this evening and is now sore. I actually would have quite liked to watch the fall that gave it to me from somebody else's perspective. I was wearing slippers and got the piping around the toe caught on the top stair at Peter's place and tripped. The reason I landed on my elbow and not my hands is that I was carrying two lattes at the time. This was the day after Canada Day, when Peter was hung over. I was bringing him coffee, and I wound up with a large portion of it all over my arms and the floor. It took me a while to notice that I was bleeding because I thought my elbow was just sticky from the coffee. Neither of the glasses broke or fell over, though. Small victories.

I should go to sleep now. I stayed up to finish organizing/tidying because the maids come tomorrow, and they can't vaccuum a floor covered in stuff, and while I still have that problem, it's much better now, so I'm going to get some rest and move the rest of the stuff out of the way once it's not 2am and I can actually make a bit of noise without waking my parents up. (If I can hear them snore while I'm in my bedroom, they can most likely hear me moving stuff around.)

Stupidly enough, I seem to have misplaced my pyjamas...

Boast, Coast, Ghost, Host, Most, Post, Roast, Toast

My aunt and uncle are in town before heading off for a European cruise tomorrow, and they've come over for dinner. They're currently playing cards with my parents and my brother. I played a game, but six people around that table is crowded and I didn't feel like being quick-witted enough to deal with my family's penchant for insulting jokes.

I don't remember why, but as I was clearing the table after dinner, Peter brought up the second law of thermodynamics and mentioned that it was one of the most difficult things for him to conceptualize about physics that it isn't a *law*, but, rather, it's statistical. I asked him to explain, and after much bickering, I still don't think I get how the signs on vectors can be inverted (practically, not on paper). I don't get what factors are relevant/irrelevant and why. I told Peter there must be something missing from his explanation because, to me, moving a pop can back and forth across the counter (the example he kept using) isn't the same as unexploding a bomb and having things unburn.

Thinking about it, this discussion may have started out being about the croutons my dad had made for the caesar salad. I could be wrong, though.

Anyway, once Peter and I had nominally given up the topic, he mentioned that it perturbed him that I thought that the reason I didn't understand the concept was that the explanation was lacking. For some reason, he thought that it was highly unlikely that a perfect explanation of a concept like this would result in understanding the first time it was encountered. This seems weird to me. If it's understandable by someone of roughtly my level of intelligence (like Peter), then why wouldn't a perfect explanation allow me to understand it? It's not like I have to pay physics dues or something in order to understand it.

For some reason, Peter does not seem to be able to teach me things/I do not seem to be able to learn things from him. Considering that we both accel in similar subjects, it's remarkable how differently we think. Neither of us is at fault for our difficulties in discussing things like the statiscal nature of the second law of thermodynamics, but it is frustrating. And now I'm sleepy, so I'm going to go forget about this whole thing and go to bed.

*Blog*

So it's been about a month an a half since I've updated my blog. At first I didn't really have anything interesting to say (my Spanish class is boring, etc.), and then I didn't feel like relaying everything that had happened since my last update (Peter got me a stuffed Puppy from the Bilbao Googenheim, Vegas was great, etc.). At this point, however, I'm just blogging to unwind before I go to sleep. It's kind of nice.

I went to the dentist today. All's well, though the hygenist bumped my gum with the polisher while it was spinning and it hurt for most of the evening. There was also a small mix-up with my chart because I went to another of their locations for my last check-up/cleaning. These are the exciting things that happen at the dentist.

I also submitted my resume to a temp agency today. Hopefully I'll hear back soon. I can't imagine that I'm not at least qualified enough for them to interview. Well, I can, but I don't like to because it makes me nervous. The English/French bilingual thing always helps me look good on paper, and two undergraduate degrees can't hurt. Education is all about the paperwork, after all. ^_^

After seeing the dentist, I stopped next door and booked an appointment with the optometrist because, now that I'm no longer a student, my Blue Cross coverage under my parents' plan runs out on my brithday (which is 9 days from now). It's actually the third doctor-type appointment I have next week. I have one on Monday, one on Tuesday, and now the optometrist on Wednesday. I need new lenses in my glasses because every time my perscription has changed just a little bit I haven't bothered to change my glasses because I wear them so rarely. But now that my coverage is about to run out and I'm leaving the country soon, I figure I should get the lenses updated. Maybe I'll see if my mom will spring for new frames. I like the ones I have, but they're overwhelming on my face, and I've kind of outgrown my taste in that. Plus, they're three or four years old, so it's not like I haven't put them to good use (every morning and evening ^_^).

Peter and I were talking today about when to leave for London. We're not entirely in agreement about how necessary it is to have a place lined up before we get there. Also, he wants to leave about two weeks earlier than I'd thought, which means less time for earning money for me. It turns out that he has to be there on the 25th of September for registration, which is stupid because the earliest you can move into student housing for the term is the 28th, but that's looking like a moot point since they apparently make most offers of student housing in June and we have yet to get one. Can't win 'em all, I guess. Still, it is slightly frustrating that the PhD student they want badly enough to give a free ride and then some isn't guaranteed housing. The school does help students find private housing, Peter says, but when I talked to him earlier this evening he hadn't looked into what that help entails, exactly, so I'm still not entirely un-nervous.

Also, I have found out that the Tier 5 Youth Mobility Scheme visa comes into effect in November, which is too late for me. My brother was saying that he'd heard that it would allow employment for all 24 months of the visa's term, rather than just 12, but neither he nor I have found anything to back that up, so it's not looking like there's any disadvantage to just going on the old Working Holidaymaker's visa.

I haven't kept a journal in the past year, which is the first time since the age of 11 that that's been true. Writing this entry, it feels kind of nice to organize my thoughts and whatnot.