It's about quarter to three in the morning, and I am not even entertaining the notion of sleeping just yet. My sleep patterns have been all weird lately, and I think I've been sleeping too much, anyway, so I don't feel terribly bad about this.
I miss my computer. I should have it back early next week, I believe. That's still far too long of a wait, in my opinion, but it will be happy and healthy upon its return, so I suppose I can put up with a few more days of using Peter's. It's a perfectly good machine, but, understandably, he uses it for schoolwork, leaving me with little to do around the flat. I actually bought a book the other day, which I've almost finished. It's called Chasing Harry Winston, and it's by the same author who wrote The Devil Wears Prada. It's kind of a beach read, chick lit sort of thing. The characters are all insufferable, of course, and they weigh 95 pounds each despite the copious amounts of alcohol they consume. I bought it because I wanted an easy read--I was getting tired of Borges and essays. I actually went to the store hoping to buy the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books, but I couldn't find them. I wonder if they're sold in Britain, and, if so, if they're called the Sisterhood of the Traveling Trousers, or possibly the Traveling Jeans. I'm not sure what I'll do after I finish Chasing Harry Winston. There's always my Bescherelle...
I am still in a kind of limbo here in London. Basically, I had the good old fashioned plan of "Go to London --> ????? --> Profit!" and I think I'm stuck on step two. I've been looking at job postings, but I haven't applied to any yet. I hate job hunting. I wish there was some sort of Job Fairy that would magically appear and tell me that I start Monday. It doesn't have to be my dream job, just one that's tolerable and pays the bills. I'm certain such a job exists even though everybody and their dog seems terrified of the Credit Crunch over here. I actually kind of wish that newspapers would shut up about it already. I have no debt, no assets, no investments, and I'm not concerned about job security. In other words, I am outside the realm of people affected by the Credit Crunch. All I need is 900 pounds per month for the next five or six months. Hell, I could probably live off of 800 if I was careful. Unfortunately, the British media doesn't really seem to care, so it continues to publish stories about record losses for businesses and ways to celeb watch on the cheap.
Also, baby carrots in England require to be washed, peeled and trimmed. To me, that just totally defeats the purpose of baby carrots.
1/29/2009
1/17/2009
20 Things About MeMeMe
I was tagged by Sheryl to do this a while ago, so I thought that I'd actually, you know, do it.
“Here are the rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 20 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end choose 20 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.”
1. MySpace scares me. Just... because.
2. I can cook, but I'm not terribly fond of doing so. I much prefer food that can be eaten as-is.
3. On Monday, I'm going to walk into the Canadian Embassy and ask for a job. I have no idea how successful I will be.
4. It was a life goal of mine to never be arrested so that my fingerprints/DNA/etc. would never go "on file." Then I applied for my UK visa and they had to take my fingerprints, so I'm now considering a life of crime.
5. I eat a lot of foods with my hands if it's an option. It's just so much easier to pick things up and tear or bite then than it is to deal with cutlery.For instance, I'm currently eating lamb chops with my hands so that I don't have to fuss with cutting around the fat.
6. I'm almost deaf in my left ear because I had a disease called cholesteatoma when I was a teenager. At Peter's suggestion, I am elaborating on this point to mention that I had a hole drilled through my skull for the first surgery to remove the cholesteatoma cyst. It hurt, so they gave me morphine.
7. I have a partially eidetic memory. Not that I've ever heard of somebody with a completely eidetic memory, but mine's not good enough to go around calling it eidetic without the "partially" attached to it. My father and my brother (and I assume my sister, as well) also have eidetic memories. Peter calls mine my "crazy prodigious memory."
8. I am learning little bits and pieces of advanced economic theory from Peter. It makes me want to read more Dickens. And then it makes me want to not read Dickens.
9. I have an astigmatism that my contact lenses can't fix. I've tried several brands of torric lenses to no avail, so my optometrist and I eventually decided that I would just get glasses to wear over my contacts, since I only really needed the astigmatism correction for reading and looking at screens.
10. Despite living in England, I don't much care for going to the pub. It doesn't stop my brother from suggesting it, though. He likes it, and I feel like a wet blanket for not wanting to.
11. I want to be a conductor. Of wind bands, preferably, rather than choirs. And definitely not of electrical currents. Silly Peter, suggesting silly things.
12. I don't blink when I play Rock Band. Or when I look at any screen, really. I'm too focused on watching. After every song in Rock Band, I close my eyes tight and rub them to make up for their lack of hydration.
13. Despite the fact that I have online pseudonyms, like etoile du nord and Blayllis, I rarely am referred to by them. Instead, people just call me Janita, or 'Nita.
14. Despite the fact that there are very many things that I would like to study, I'm not going anywhere near school again for at least a couple of years. 19 years is enough for now.
15. I enjoy dramaturgy. I glibly say that it is a dramaturge's job to be right. There has been a variety of responses to this statement.
16. I brought my Bescherelle with me to England. I have an inexplicable fondness for it. Plus, it could be useful if I get a job where I need to use a lot of French.
17. I bit my nails until I was 14, at which point I discovered that long fingernails drive me crazy. Now I just keep them short.
18. I hate writing lesson plans. This isn't the biggest reason I had for deciding not to teach, but it's certainly near the top of the list. I didn't write lesson plans for a large chunk of my APT. My mentor teacher said he might have been worried if he didn't feel that I knew what I was doing.
19. My favourite food is yougurt. Mmmm.
20. There are 2079 songs on my iPod. This is meagre, I know, but I haven't bought CDs in a long time.
I'm not tagging anybody because Peter needs his computer back and thinking of people to tag would take a while. If you want to do this, then please do! =)
“Here are the rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 20 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end choose 20 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.”
1. MySpace scares me. Just... because.
2. I can cook, but I'm not terribly fond of doing so. I much prefer food that can be eaten as-is.
3. On Monday, I'm going to walk into the Canadian Embassy and ask for a job. I have no idea how successful I will be.
4. It was a life goal of mine to never be arrested so that my fingerprints/DNA/etc. would never go "on file." Then I applied for my UK visa and they had to take my fingerprints, so I'm now considering a life of crime.
5. I eat a lot of foods with my hands if it's an option. It's just so much easier to pick things up and tear or bite then than it is to deal with cutlery.For instance, I'm currently eating lamb chops with my hands so that I don't have to fuss with cutting around the fat.
6. I'm almost deaf in my left ear because I had a disease called cholesteatoma when I was a teenager. At Peter's suggestion, I am elaborating on this point to mention that I had a hole drilled through my skull for the first surgery to remove the cholesteatoma cyst. It hurt, so they gave me morphine.
7. I have a partially eidetic memory. Not that I've ever heard of somebody with a completely eidetic memory, but mine's not good enough to go around calling it eidetic without the "partially" attached to it. My father and my brother (and I assume my sister, as well) also have eidetic memories. Peter calls mine my "crazy prodigious memory."
8. I am learning little bits and pieces of advanced economic theory from Peter. It makes me want to read more Dickens. And then it makes me want to not read Dickens.
9. I have an astigmatism that my contact lenses can't fix. I've tried several brands of torric lenses to no avail, so my optometrist and I eventually decided that I would just get glasses to wear over my contacts, since I only really needed the astigmatism correction for reading and looking at screens.
10. Despite living in England, I don't much care for going to the pub. It doesn't stop my brother from suggesting it, though. He likes it, and I feel like a wet blanket for not wanting to.
11. I want to be a conductor. Of wind bands, preferably, rather than choirs. And definitely not of electrical currents. Silly Peter, suggesting silly things.
12. I don't blink when I play Rock Band. Or when I look at any screen, really. I'm too focused on watching. After every song in Rock Band, I close my eyes tight and rub them to make up for their lack of hydration.
13. Despite the fact that I have online pseudonyms, like etoile du nord and Blayllis, I rarely am referred to by them. Instead, people just call me Janita, or 'Nita.
14. Despite the fact that there are very many things that I would like to study, I'm not going anywhere near school again for at least a couple of years. 19 years is enough for now.
15. I enjoy dramaturgy. I glibly say that it is a dramaturge's job to be right. There has been a variety of responses to this statement.
16. I brought my Bescherelle with me to England. I have an inexplicable fondness for it. Plus, it could be useful if I get a job where I need to use a lot of French.
17. I bit my nails until I was 14, at which point I discovered that long fingernails drive me crazy. Now I just keep them short.
18. I hate writing lesson plans. This isn't the biggest reason I had for deciding not to teach, but it's certainly near the top of the list. I didn't write lesson plans for a large chunk of my APT. My mentor teacher said he might have been worried if he didn't feel that I knew what I was doing.
19. My favourite food is yougurt. Mmmm.
20. There are 2079 songs on my iPod. This is meagre, I know, but I haven't bought CDs in a long time.
I'm not tagging anybody because Peter needs his computer back and thinking of people to tag would take a while. If you want to do this, then please do! =)
1/14/2009
Hunger and Procrastination
It is one o'clock in the afternoon, and I'm hungry, but I don't know what to have for lunch. I seem to be hopeless without HUB mall nearby. Pasticcio from La Pasta actually sounds damn good right now. Or a tuna melt from Bar Tecca. Mmm...
In any case, I'm leaving to go back to England tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. More than anything, I'm looking forward to getting a job. Even sitting around here with no job is kind of blah. I know a guy who has no job, lives with his parents, is in his late 20s and is flat broke, and I have no idea how he does it. He says he likes it, too. He confuses me. And now I'm hoping he doesn't read this entry. He wouldn't be offended by it, but he would make a joke about blonde female Canadians. >.<
I'm trying to think of something to write about that isn't either a to do list or vaguely angsty ramblings about how I'm going to miss my dog. Maybe if I have a to do list pressing enough that I'm considering writing it in my blog, I should stop blogging and go do things that are on said list. But I'm hungry, and I don't know what I want to eat (chicken parmesan!), and since I can't get work done while I'm hungry, and I can't eat until I know what I want, I'll just have to sit here an procrastinate until I come up with something to eat. Yep, that's totally sound logic.
My mom's laptop, which I'm using because mine's dead, has Office 2000 on it. This is because my mom "borrowed" a copy from work. For some reason, she doesn't want the "borrowed" copies of Office 2003 or 2007 that I have. Now, I prefer 2003 to 2007 in a lot of ways, but I don't know how somebody can use 2000. It need copious amounts of updating so that it can read 2007 documents. But, oh, well. My mom doesn't really use this computer for much other than e-mail and card games. She can't even watch YouTube videos in Firefox. Some people just have small, sad lives.
Ok, now that I'm done being ironic, I'm going to go find food.
In any case, I'm leaving to go back to England tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. More than anything, I'm looking forward to getting a job. Even sitting around here with no job is kind of blah. I know a guy who has no job, lives with his parents, is in his late 20s and is flat broke, and I have no idea how he does it. He says he likes it, too. He confuses me. And now I'm hoping he doesn't read this entry. He wouldn't be offended by it, but he would make a joke about blonde female Canadians. >.<
I'm trying to think of something to write about that isn't either a to do list or vaguely angsty ramblings about how I'm going to miss my dog. Maybe if I have a to do list pressing enough that I'm considering writing it in my blog, I should stop blogging and go do things that are on said list. But I'm hungry, and I don't know what I want to eat (chicken parmesan!), and since I can't get work done while I'm hungry, and I can't eat until I know what I want, I'll just have to sit here an procrastinate until I come up with something to eat. Yep, that's totally sound logic.
My mom's laptop, which I'm using because mine's dead, has Office 2000 on it. This is because my mom "borrowed" a copy from work. For some reason, she doesn't want the "borrowed" copies of Office 2003 or 2007 that I have. Now, I prefer 2003 to 2007 in a lot of ways, but I don't know how somebody can use 2000. It need copious amounts of updating so that it can read 2007 documents. But, oh, well. My mom doesn't really use this computer for much other than e-mail and card games. She can't even watch YouTube videos in Firefox. Some people just have small, sad lives.
Ok, now that I'm done being ironic, I'm going to go find food.
1/08/2009
In Which I Complain
It is one in the morning. I am using my parents' computer. I have been running tests on mine all evening, trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with it. It keeps crashing, and the tests are telling me there's something wrong with the memory, but that's not helpful. I called tech support yesterday, and they told me to run more tests. I think I've run damn near every test I can on the drivers/diagnostics CD, the system restore/repair CD, and the startup repair menu thing. The most helpful thing I've been told is to call tech support. My computer's still under warranty (because it's only nine bloody months old!), but I leave for England a week from tomorrow, so I don't exactly want to be sending it out for repairs right now. Using my parents' computer involved sitting in an unpleasant chair that forces me to be abnormally far away from the monitor. It also forces me to be at a desk, as opposed to being able to curl up on the couch or in bed, like my laptop has allowed me to become accustomed to. When I decided to write this blog post, I was sitting in said unpleasant chair, turning semi-circles back and forth, listening to the way the noises of the hard drive tower changed as I spun. It was decidedly less pleasant than being in bed doing something fun with my laptop...
Also, I am sick with a nasty cold. Today is day seven. The nasal congestion is more or less the same as it started out, but the dry cough is getting worse. I'm considering seeing a doctor tomorrow to make sure that it hasn't morphed into something worse. The entire upper half of my body hurts from coughing. I'm waiting for the cold medicine I took a minute ago to kick in before I go to bed, because attempting to lay down and breath calmly is a considerable challenge without medication right now. I'm probably keeping my parents awake with my coughing--I have been for the past couple of nights. I've been scratching my throat and chest so much that the skin is getting irritated. Peter wondered if the scratching actually helped, since the itch is on the inside, but it does, at least a little. I'm not entirely certain how it does, though.
Speaking of Peter, he leaves the day after tomorrow. Chris leaves tomorrow. I leave a week from tomorrow, but I already mentioned that. And now I'm giving up and going to bed, regardless of how I'm breathing.
Also, I am sick with a nasty cold. Today is day seven. The nasal congestion is more or less the same as it started out, but the dry cough is getting worse. I'm considering seeing a doctor tomorrow to make sure that it hasn't morphed into something worse. The entire upper half of my body hurts from coughing. I'm waiting for the cold medicine I took a minute ago to kick in before I go to bed, because attempting to lay down and breath calmly is a considerable challenge without medication right now. I'm probably keeping my parents awake with my coughing--I have been for the past couple of nights. I've been scratching my throat and chest so much that the skin is getting irritated. Peter wondered if the scratching actually helped, since the itch is on the inside, but it does, at least a little. I'm not entirely certain how it does, though.
Speaking of Peter, he leaves the day after tomorrow. Chris leaves tomorrow. I leave a week from tomorrow, but I already mentioned that. And now I'm giving up and going to bed, regardless of how I'm breathing.
1/01/2009
Happy New Year!
It's not quite 8am on January 1st, 2009. No, I'm not still awake. Rather, I woke up almost an hour ago because a cold was preventing me from breathing properly. I think I was snoring. It was making me dream that I couldn't talk properly. I seem to have been very prone to colds since returning to Canada. A pile of used Kleenex is slowly but steadily accumulating next to me. Blah.
It's still dark, as is typical for this hour at this time of year in this part of the world. If it wasn't for the plethora of clocks telling me it's 8am, I would have guessed it was a few hours earlier. I guess I haven't been getting up early enough this winter to really remember what time it gets light out. I can't say that I really mind that, personally. ^_^
New Year's Eve was good. Peter, Jenilee, and this guy Jenilee's started seeing were all over at my place. We watched Ratatouille and played Trivial Pursuit. I actually won Trivial Pursuit. I was rather surprised. Jenilee brought over cookies (and brownies that didn't turn out so well), and between those and the spinach dip I bought (and the pizza), I ate waaaaay too much. The pizza had a lot of cheese on it, which I think made me more full than I expected pizza to.
I'm not making any New Year's Resolutions, even though there are a few I could. I could resolve to get a job, but that's something that's going to happen anyway. And I don't want to think about it right now. I hate job hunting with a passion. I could resolve to be more diligent with taking my medication on time, but that's like resolving to worry more. I could resolve to get into better shape, but I don't know if human beings are physiologically/psychologically capable of taking that resolution seriously.
As for the whole deal of 2008 in review, it was good. Finishing school (finally) was nice. Moving to London has been an experience. Nothing much else happened.
Yeesh. My mom just opened the front door, and I could feel the rush of cold air all the way down here in the basement. It's freezing out there. I think that's my cue to go back to bed, even if it is starting to get light out.
It's still dark, as is typical for this hour at this time of year in this part of the world. If it wasn't for the plethora of clocks telling me it's 8am, I would have guessed it was a few hours earlier. I guess I haven't been getting up early enough this winter to really remember what time it gets light out. I can't say that I really mind that, personally. ^_^
New Year's Eve was good. Peter, Jenilee, and this guy Jenilee's started seeing were all over at my place. We watched Ratatouille and played Trivial Pursuit. I actually won Trivial Pursuit. I was rather surprised. Jenilee brought over cookies (and brownies that didn't turn out so well), and between those and the spinach dip I bought (and the pizza), I ate waaaaay too much. The pizza had a lot of cheese on it, which I think made me more full than I expected pizza to.
I'm not making any New Year's Resolutions, even though there are a few I could. I could resolve to get a job, but that's something that's going to happen anyway. And I don't want to think about it right now. I hate job hunting with a passion. I could resolve to be more diligent with taking my medication on time, but that's like resolving to worry more. I could resolve to get into better shape, but I don't know if human beings are physiologically/psychologically capable of taking that resolution seriously.
As for the whole deal of 2008 in review, it was good. Finishing school (finally) was nice. Moving to London has been an experience. Nothing much else happened.
Yeesh. My mom just opened the front door, and I could feel the rush of cold air all the way down here in the basement. It's freezing out there. I think that's my cue to go back to bed, even if it is starting to get light out.
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