Thursday, March 12, 2009

Library Scout

I've often considered posting about the hall monitors at my school's library. No, I don't know what the official job title is, but that's essentially what they are. Only thing is, I don't always know what to say about them. I've seen three of them. Two look to be in their late 20's, the third is some indeterminable age that qualifies for AARP. Poor guys sit at a desk most of the day. Yes, that's it. They sit at a desk, near the entrance, facing the detectors that alert all 300 (completely arbitrary number) students in the library to anyone that tries to take a book out that they didn't check out. Or the detectors will go off if ... I don't know why else they go off. Maybe they're attracted to students' cell phones.

But I digress. These hall monitors go around and make sure you're not doing bad things on the computer. Things like Facebook (which will close automatically). Or Twitter. Or eating Starburst, or talking on your cell. But that's not the only time I've seen them. They occasionally patrol the quiet study areas. For what? I have no idea. But I did once have one walk up to me and ask me ... to make sure I put my trash in the trashcan when I was done and leaving. Umm, I know these guys have no idea who I am or what my personal feelings are on food wrappers, but still, throwing away the wrapper from your Nature Valley bar should be a no-brainer. But maybe I give the general populace too much credit.

Today I saw one of the hall monitors going around the computer lab (the shortest one). Now, these guys always look cranky, but this one looked even crankier than usual. And he looked like he was bobbing his head, the same way a chicken might do while walking. I think I figured it out: he was looking to see if we'd stashed food or drink (both big no-no's) by our feet. Poor guy must have been hungry.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

I've Been Tagged

Okay, so I got tagged for this about 3 weeks ago. Been busy, but I also thought I might wait until my birthday to do this, since your number of random factoids depends on your age. Now is close enough to my birthday, so it'll have to do.

1) Tolkien's birthday is a holiday. Best celebrated by watching the LotR movies (special extended edition), eating pizza, and dressing in costume.

2) One of my best friends has her birthday the day before mine. We've had two joint birthday parties.

3) In 8th grade above best friend and I were the top readers in our English class. We got the prizes for the first semester, and second semester the prizes had to go to the third and fourth readers, because my friend and I were still numbers one and two.

4) I have four Elven names that another friend and I made for me. I use all of them, in one form or another, for my internet stuffs.

5) This blog has nothing to do with my Elven names.

6) I have been on the Dean's List every semester so far in my college career. Getting the letter in the mail isn't even a surprise anymore (although it's still nice to have).

7) Most of the time I'm at my computer, I either sit with my legs folded under me, or with my feet up by the monitor.

8) Roughly once a week I have to reteach my dad how to access his email. He has 5 separate email accounts.

9) I enjoy painting rooms. Paint smells don't bug me that much, either, although I do seem to get my words mixed up more when I've been around the fumes too much.

10) I have a pair of pants I wear every time I paint a room. They have several colors on them now, and I plan on expanding the collection on them.

11) MLA was the first formatted writing system I used. I used it for 5 years and got to a point where I could pretty much do works cited by memory.'

12) I now have to use APA writing system for my major/career, and I hated it. It's alright now, but I get the works cited process mixed up, because I still have remnants of MLA hanging out in my brain.

13) I have several fiction works I've started throughout the years. I've never yet finished one.

14) I share my brain with several other people. I started off sharing it with only 3 other people, but the number has grown throughout the years. Sometimes my thoughts get mixed up because someone else is hogging the system.

15) I take naps in my car. When my car is parked in a parking spot somewhere.

16) I try to never buy anything for full price.

17) I spend an ungodly number of hours playing with a 3D art program on my computer.

18) I have been known to dream in Spanish and ASL.

19) When I read things, or hear someone talking, I tend to try to translate it into ASL.

20) I sign along with songs in the car. It's really hard to sign Country music sometimes.

21) I don't have an iPod. I play music on YouTube.

22) I hate Daylight Savings Time. I need sunlight to help me move in the morning. Furthermore, DST is the wrong time. We now spend 2/3 of our year on the wrong time, too.

If you're reading this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged. If you don't give a care, don't bother. :P

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

My Very own Rhino-thingy

A woman I highly respect has been known to say that we get sick during the winter not because there's more bugs running around, or because we're particularly weaker during the colder months. It's because we sit around inside all day, doing nothing, and that makes our immune systems weak/deficient. Which would explain why, as I sat at my computer during all my break, I was perfectly fine, but after two weeks back at school I caught a cold. Yes, that perfectly explains it. Got the sore throat on Monday afternoon, and got the sniffles while at school yesterday.

Last night I actually helped prepare my brother for some cosplay. Of course, he wouldn't call it cosplay, but that's essentially what it was. About a year ago, he became Link for the "blast from the past" dress-up day, and I made an extremely complicated piece for him: Link's sock hat. IT was so great, it even acted like the real thing. So today he was allowed to wear whatever, as long as it was red or pink, and so he became Link, albeit wearing the Goron tunic. Enter need for a new sock hat. The one last night took me less than 30 minutes, and that was with being dozed, dazed, and having a cold. I even got up early this morning so I could paint the Triforce on his hand, but he wasn't ready at the moment I got up, so I told him to call me when he was ready. I never heard his call, although he told me he called just a minute after I'd talked to him, and he called me four times. So I guess my score is 1 win, 1 fail. 50% isn't bad.

As I sit here not-working on my discussion, I thought this would be an opportune moment to get the pages for the website I'm supposed to be in charge of to be updated. Finished making up one of the picture pages, and the server is being wonky again. Not for any particular reason, I don't think, it just is doing that because it can. For once, it's not my fault!

I'm going to go take a shower now and hope the steam clears me out before I crash in bed.

Monday, February 9, 2009

The Dead Zone

Ever have those days where you seem to exist on two planes? On one, I'm just me, and I can do things, like think, and write, and my karate techniques. On another plane, my brain is swimming in my research stuffs, and I think it's drowning. In case you're wondering, the sensation of a drowning brain is not fun. Different from drowning lungs. Seriously, this is one of the biggest things of my life up to this point, and I feel like I've never before had so much work to do. Probably because I never before have had so much work to do.

I'm so glad we have all this rain. It makes me happy. Wind with the rain, though, is giving me a headache, and I started developing a sore throat tonight. My [anti-old] tea isn't helping, either, even though I put in honey. It has managed to make me sleepy, though.

Have my first test of the semester tomorrow. It's in my geology class (natural disasters). I'm nowhere close to worried. It's such a lovely feeling. Everything is directly from the notes, I've been taking good notes, and I already know this material. Yay for should be easy class. I need it this semester, that's for sure. Is it pathetic that I'm still geeking out about plate tectonics, four years after graduating from high school?

Friday, February 6, 2009

Who Stole my Cheese?

No, I'm not talking about the book.

In case you don't know already, you should: I like cheese. Cheese is awesome on a level that cannot be comprehended unless you understand. A week ago Monday, Dad asked me to pick up more Velveeta. Luckily for me, I couldn't find any, so I brought home some of my favorite cheese instead. Two blocks. Before the end of the week, Dad thought we were out of the cheese, so he had my brother get more. This left us with almost three blocks of cheese. Today, a beautiful rainy day, I wanted grilled cheese. I found that all the cheese is gone. I know it wasn't my brother, because he was on a fast from Monday evening to Thursday evening (don't ask). Dad was supposed to get more cheese today. I haven't yet looked to see if he got something acceptable, or if he picked up some atrocity. Either way, he will pay for eating all my cheese.

In other news, I saw something interesting on Failblog the other day. Babynames.com reports an interesting name possibility, a name that would work for either a boy or a girl. Espn. Or, more accurately, ESPN. Like the sports network. A name that would work for a boy or a girl. Yep. Want to know what else? Enola is a good name for a girl, too, apparently. It's "alone" spelled backwards. I hope nobody actually burdens their baby girl with that.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Cultural Diversity Fail

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is titled "Social Pluralism." Sounds exciting, yes? It's through the Social Work department, and I'm taking it for my cultural diversity requirement. Apparently Eastern Europe isn't culturally diverse enough, doesn't matter how many people have no clue that Czechoslovakia (no, that's not what it's called now) was rather kinda sorta important to the start of something like WWII.

So here I am taking a class about how we should all be friends (which is what true diversity is about, I'm sure), and we were given almost no time to do an observation of someone that's of a different culture/whatnot. Which basically means I'm supposed to interview/observe a not-me, someone who is not female, early 20's, White, Republican, and Christian. Does that read like a personals add to anyone else? Take a guess who I interviewed. My dad. Yep, I searched high and low for someone to interview (prof said we could interview our dads, though, so it works :P ). He's not in his early 20's, and he's not female, so it works.

And now, some general nonsenseness for amusement (according to my Jr./Sr. Bible teacher, "amuse" means "a- muse," as in against the muses, or against anything that will encourage art, music, poetry, drama, etc.) :

funny pictures of dogs with captions
see more puppies

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Terrible Tuesdays

I know I must have said it before, but Mondays aren't bad for me. Mondays are just after Sunday, so they still tend to be good. And I get to see Sensei.

Tuesdays, on the other hand, are long days (especially when I don't get to go to karate on Tuesday nights, angry face). I'm always hungry. I get sleepy during class (today was my first day of the semester getting drowsy in class, yay me!). I feel the results of whatever I did at karate on Monday, like Tenno Kata, Son Don Gi, pushups, crazy crunches, or ... say ... thwacking my knee with a bokken.

Tuesday I find out assignments are due on Thursday. Tuesday my email gets flooded with messages from all sorts of people: "Please share class notes, because I'm deathly ill." "Please join our organization, because we know you're awesome, even though you've told us already you don't have time for us." "Please put pictures up on the website." Tuesday the servers for said website randomly don't work.

Tuesday my mentor asks me to bring in my (continuous process) literature review for him to look over again the next day. Tuesday my mentor holds me in his office until 8 minutes before my class, even if I have to walk to class and really have to go to the bathroom. Tuesday I find out my brother is randomly doing a 60-hour fast (no worries - less reason for me to cook this week).

Yes, Tuesdays are fun.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Nerdoholics

Today was Tolkienfest. I'm trying to count back to think of how many times we've done this now, and I'm pretty sure this was the 5th year. That's absolutely amazing, no?

Know what else is amazing? I know I don't have the extended version of Fellowship, and yet I always put it off until right before. Why? Who knows. I guess I forget, get caught up in other stuff. Oh, and nowhere in the east-ish part of San Diego County has the extended version of Fellowship for rent. Just in case you were wondering. One of my friends has the limited edition (theatrical or extended version, and only on 3 discs instead of 4!), and if I hadn't already been sure I'd love her forever, I'd love her forever. Now I just love her more forever, for she saved my hide.

Took Inka to the vet yesterday. Yep, roughly once a year she has something that needs to be taken care of, aside from general check-ups and vaccinations (no, she hasn't had that yet, either). I had lots of errands to run yesterday, between getting a tb skintest read, trying to find Fellowship, and Inka's appointment. As I expected, the vet's office was running late. She went to the dojo with me, was very well behaved, and got more treats on that day than she had ever gotten before on one single day of her life. I'll stop in tomorrow to make sure it doesn't smell too much of dog in there, vacuum, aerate a little, things like that.

My day today essentially started last night when I got home from the dojo. I tore down the Christmas tree, by myself. Picked up the dining room table, by myself. Made my lemon bars (which are absolutely demanded for Tolkienfest, I get flogged if I even consider not having them there). Got everything ready to go in storage again. Washed dishes. Cleaned counters. Got phonecalls from my brother as his return time last night got pushed back later and later. Went to bed at almost 1, got up a bit after 6:30. Put away clean dishes, washed more dishes. Put Christmas stuff in storage. Vacuumed where the tree had been. Took care of Inka's owies (why she had to go to the vet's). And then I was able to get into my dress, just in time to start Fellowship at 8, even though no one was here yet. When I tried to put my hair up today, my brother hopped into the shower. All of this for roughly 12 hours of sitting around and doing nothing.

But everything went well today, even if it was a little small. We ordered the exact right amount of pizza this time. We had lots of people that had to leave early, so with a smaller crowd it got quieter towards the end and my sleepiness caught up with me a little. I'm off to bed soon, seeing as how I have a headache from little sleep, lots of caffeine, and being all out of my preventative medication for my migraines. Tomorrow ... I get to jump back into working on my applications, whee. I hate these stupid statements of purpose.