posted 2004/08/31 at 23:39
I didn't even go get the new Björk album today. I just feel so out of it that I'm ... I feel totally fucked over right now. I wish I had a better way of putting it, but ... yeah.
Oh, and happy birthday, J.
posted at 00:47
Ugh. You know, I heard Ralph Nader was going to be on Larry King Live during the midnight airing, but I sure as hell don't see him. Instead I'm getting stuck with "highlights" of the GOP speeches that have caused me to raise more middle fingers at my TV screen in forty-five minutes than I care to count. Yeah, that's right, only Republicans care about 09.11 and can truly call themselves Americans. You hypocritical fucks.
Of course, if this were a smart and sensible world, Media Play would have done another of their "midnight madness" deals so I could have gone over there, picked up Björk's new album and been home listening to it now instead of waiting for Nader on CNN. (The ironic thing being that I'll be voting for David Cobb, not Nader, but anytime there's a real progressive on television I kind of have to stop and take notice.)
I got home from the arcade at about 2115, showered and had dinner and did all of that stuff, but somehow it's this late and I still haven't finished my homework for tomorrow. There's not even that much to do, but I just feel lousy. At least now I think I'm starting to get a handle on my classes and what I'll be able to do in each of them.
But that discussion will have to wait until later. These assignments aren't going to get done by themselves ...
posted 2004/08/30 at 01:59
New on Backwash: "The Mother of All Protests". A look ahead at what I hope will come of all the hubbub in New York City this coming week, along with a bit of an anecdote about Dubya's recent visit to my neck of the woods.
As you no doubt noticed, this is my first Backwash column in several weeks, and to be honest I'm having a lot of questions about whether or not I want to continue there. As with most of my other Web efforts, I'm getting mightily discouraged by the lack of feedback my writing is generating. That's especially difficult for me to deal with on Backwash, since the family of writers there guarantees a built-in audience for my work, and on seemingly everyone else's columns there's always at least a handful of responses from other columnists. That's not the case with my work there, though, and if I'm not generating discussion with my work there, then why should I keep up with it?
posted 2004/08/28 at 23:31
Happy birthday, L. We need to chat more. (I know, I'm never on AIM these days, but that's because I've been on Yahoo! Messenger trying to get hold of someone.)
posted 2004/08/27 at 23:49
It's pretty much resolved now that Rowan isn't coming back. I know I'm going to have a huge crying jag over this; I just don't know when.
As for my first week of graduate school, well, to be honest everything I've got to do seems a bit overwhelming. I just keep telling myself that, now more than ever, school is a job for me, so I've got to get this stuff done. Maybe I'll have to cut down on my DDR or something like that, but I have to get this degree; that'll be my real ticket out of here and into a meaningful life.
Yesterday was the first time since 2002.11.07 that I attended a Spectrum meeting while not being the one in charge. The new President and Vice President are going to do a great job with the group, I'm sure of that, but redefining my own role in the organization is proving difficult. It used to be that as President of the group, everyone had to interact with me in some form or another, so socializing wasn't a problem; now that I'm off on the sidelines, I'm going to have to make the move in terms of talking with people and stuff, and that's something I've always been horrible at.
posted 2004/08/24 at 23:23
Hi. I'm a graduate student and an employee of the University of Toledo now. Aren't you all proud? I didn't think so.
I've been to all my classes now, and I have to say that I'm more than a bit intimidated at what I have ahead of me. And I still have to get my assistantship duties established at a meeting tomorrow afternoon. At least now I have my own office up in University Hall (the main building on campus) so I know I'll always have a place to be alone.
I also got a chance to see my counselor today for the first time in three months. We spoke about how my summer went and all the various things I'm going through. (Except for the situation with C., which is something I don't know if I can go into any detail with.) With any luck I'll be able to meet with one of my friends later this week and figure out how to deal with the Rowan situation. Yeah, that's still getting my a bit teary-eyed just to think about.
Tonight we had our first Spectrum Coffee of the new year, keeping it only to previous members so we all can catch up with each other now, and spend more time talking to the new members on Thursday. It was good to see everyone again, but it's more than a bit awkward to be part of the group without being President. I'll get used to it, though. I hope.
I guess that gets me to something that happened earlier today. I had to go shopping before I hit campus, and as I'm driving to the mall I get behind this car with a Dubya '04 bumper sticker. Nothing too out of the ordinary about that, but when we were stopped at a red light I was able to make out what the other bumper sticker said: "Marriage is One Man and One Woman -- So Says God." Yeah, that had me fuming for a bit, but then I looked down at the license plate frame. What did it say?
"I <3 MY HORSE"
posted 2004/08/20 at 23:49
My birthday e-mail to C. bounced because her account had been terminated. And that was the only way I had of getting hold of her.
Is there anything worth living for anymore?
posted at 15:34
Happy birthday, C. Please be safe and be well.
posted 2004/08/19 at 20:12
Rowan still hasn't come back. It's been nearly a week now, and we've had a couple of thunderstorms in that time and Rowan always comes in for shelter during a storm. The folks go out searching for her every night, but there comes a point where you have to wonder if it's of any use. Two weeks passed between the fire and when we first saw Rowan again, so we're trying to hold out that long. Still, I can't help but worry, and wonder if I'll ever see Rowan again, and how I won't have a chance to say goodbye to her. At least I had that chance with Alex before he was put to sleep.
Especially now that my parents' business is here in the house, I'm keenly aware of how the folks are living their lives, and how in spite of the situation with Rowan, everyone's going about their business, doing work, watching TV, having fun. My stomach is so twisted I can barely eat or DDR; I've been driving to Wildwood every day and just sitting and reading, hoping the fresh air will do so good. What I've been reading is Frankenstein, and its ruminations on how we move on after personal loss probably aren't what I need to be reading right now. Unfortunately, "My Pet Goat" isn't exactly MA material.
Speaking of that, the thesis defence went okay on Tuesday, I guess. Grad school classes start on Monday, and I've went to campus each of the past few days to take care of funding paperwork; all that's left to do now is some employment paperwork tomorrow. Yep, a real job, and one that's being financed, at least in part, by tax dollars. Hopefully it won't be the last.
So yeah, I guess this is the last Thursday night I have to myself for a while; starting next week, I get to relearn what it's like to be at a Spectrum meeting and not be the one in charge. I was only part of Spectrum for around a year, then I ran the place for nearly eighteen months, and now ... well, now I just hope I can readjust in a healthy way.
Rowan, come home soon. Please.
posted 2004/08/16 at 21:51
Still no sign of Rowan. I was going to DDR at home today, but my stomach's in such knots right now I'm worried that I'll puke something up if I bounce around too much. Maybe I'll try later tonight, I don't know.
What I do know is that I'll finally be defending my Honours Thesis tomorrow afternoon, right after I get done with grad school orientation. Granted, I feel like crap right now, but I can't put this off any longer. So a week from today it's the start of my master's degree pursuit. Weather.com says there'll be scattered thunderstorms that day with a high of 74. I say whoop-di-fucking-doo.
posted 2004/08/15 at 23:08
Back when my personal site was on GlassCity Internet's personal Webspace, I had a little space for the cats in my life. Guess that's something I should have kept up here.
When Rowan first came into our life, she was hanging around the house and had only half a tail; the other half had clearly been cut off. Several weeks later, someone found my sister's maniac ex-husband stalking around our property with a knife, so we assume he cut Rowan's tail off. We took Rowan in, intending to give her to my maternal grandparents.
Actually, our maternal grandparents had taken our second cat, Tinkerbell, several years before that. My maternal grandfather, who we always called "Grumpy", had never liked cats, but he sure took a liking to Tinkerbell. Tinkerbell lived a long, healthy life, but it wasn't long after she was put to sleep that Grumpy passed away. I never thought that was just a simple coincidence.
After the fire at our house, it took us two weeks to find Rowan; she had been hanging around the neighbourhood, away from everyone. We decided to let her live on the property while we were at the hotel, because she seemed to feel more comfortable with that. (Until it got too cold, then she lived in my parents' office.) Since my father was usually the one to come here every day to check on the reconstruction of the house after work, he brought Rowan her food and water, and although my father had always hated cats (which is why we parted ways with Tinkerbell in the first place), he really bonded with Rowan, and ever since we moved back here, they've been nearly inseparable.
Friday morning, my sister went out to get the mail and Rowan slipped out. She didn't come back that evening, and she hasn't come back since. My family's canvassed the neighbourhood several times looking for her, but they've had no luck. And with my father overworking himself and getting more and more out of shape, all I can think about is what happened to Grumpy after Tinkerbell passed away.
I think I'm going to be sick.
posted 2004/08/12 at 23:10
When I finally got cable back a few months ago, I obviously wasn't too happy to learn about how Fuji TV couldn't license all the incidental music used in the original tapings of Iron Chef, resulting in overdubs in key parts of the episodes that wiped out a lot of Kaga's dialogue (I love Kaga's voice). But I'm watching the French battles for the first time, and guess where most of the "new" incidental music has been coming from? The Oh My Goddess!: the Movie soundtrack. That actually makes up for the lack of Kaga's voice. I approve.
posted at 19:49
In my video game discussion yesterday, I failed to mention that one of the things I was going to do this summer was to pick up Final Fantasy XI for PS2, but I've yet to do so. Really, as many good things as I've heard about it, I just don't think that the MMORPG experience can create the same lush storytelling that a pre-scripted RPG can. It also doesn't help that I heard all the horror stories about people losing their lives to MMORPGs before I ever tried one, and so I've been trying to avoid them. And in all honesty, I don't think Square should have made the game part of the "official" Final Fantasy lineage; in the past, games which deviated significantly from the FF template were assigned out-of-sequence titles like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest; why not make this new title "Final Fantasy Online" or something along those lines?
The paperwork snafu at UT apparently is resolved now, because I was able to register for classes yesterday. I still have to figure out when I'll need to meet for my research assistant duties, plus I need to schedule counseling and office hours up in the Spectrum office. I guess all of that kind of makes up for only having three courses this semester, huh? And I still don't know what's up with my Honours Thesis; one of my advisors called me yesterday, but the second is still AWOL so I have no clue when I'll be doing my defence. As long as I can still go to classes a week from Monday, though, I'm cool.
posted 2004/08/10 at 14:41
I wanted to write here these past couple of days, but stuff kept coming up. Really, for the past six months or so I feel like I've been neglecting the .org too much: not blogging here, not contributing anything to the other sections, taking that long hiatus from Backwash ... I guess things just kept happening, and while this site is a priority for me, it isn't that high of a priority. I do wish I kept up here more regularly, though. And when I do post here, I'd like to be able to say more than just a paragraph or so about things.
So while we're on the subject of the recent past, this year I've made a slew of Media Play runs that I've never bothered to report on here. The worst part is that I've got so many video games now, and I can't bring myself to play any of them. Seriously, I picked up stuff like Metroid Prime and The Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker and all sorts of other stuff, and I've barely even touched my video games all this summer. (I don't think I can count DDR because whereas I play other video games primarily to have fun, DDR is primarily a fat-burning tool for me at this point.) There's all this stuff that could be so new to me, that I could have such fun with, but I can't bring myself to do it. Most of the video games I've bought in the past six months, I'm not sure I've even touched them. On top of that, if I have motivation to do any video gaming right now, it's to try to squeeze in another go-around with Final Fantasy VII before the summer is over.
This past Saturday I picked up the new Tori Amos DVD, Welcome to Sunny Florida, which I've yet to watch (where the hell is all my time going these days?), but the previous Media Play trip was more important. See, one of the requirements of me getting my MA in English Lit at UT is to pass a test on thirty-three books/plays/collections of poetry. As in, sit down and all thirty-three are open game. Yeah. And since most of my undergraduate lit classes were in poetry, most of these books are either stuff I've never read before or read so long ago I've pretty much forgotten them, I've got an awful lot of reading to do. I don't have to worry about the test for another year or so (I only need to pass it once before I graduate), but I picked up ten books at Media Play (with a triple points Replay coupon, of course) so I might start soon.
And really, the rest of break here might be good for that. To my surprise, we've had another mild summer by Toledo standards, and for the rest of the week we're only going to have highs in the low-to-mid 70s. It sounds like good weather to go to Wildwood with my water bottle, a book or two, and just read the day away.
Of course, this all assumes I'm even still going to grad school. I finished my Honours Thesis a week and a half ago and turned it in, but I've yet to hear back from my advisors about scheduling a defence of it. This in spite of me sending e-mails, leaving voicemails, and even dropping a note off on campus this past weekend trying to figure out what's going on with that. On top of that, I still have a hold on my account because of some paperwork snafu with my financial aid. I'm supposed to be starting classes in less than two weeks here, but I'm not so sure I'll be doing that at this point. Ugh.
Wow. Hopefully that makes up for a few days of missed blogging there.
posted 2004/08/07 at 10:55
Okay, I think I've got my schedule back around here; the past couple of days I've gotten up in the morning without any problems, wentto bed at a decent hour and gotten a decent night's sleep. So with any luck, this pattern will continue, although I guess I'm disappointed in having to be so responsible and all. I mean, back before I started going to UT, I just could not run on a 24-hour-a-day clock; I was going more on 25 or 26 hours in a day, and things worked out well for me like that, except for all the complaining my father did. (This is similar to what Charlie wrote about recently in Tanya's LiveJournal.) But of course going to school meant resonsibilites that forced me to go to a twenty-four-hour-a-day schedule, and I adapted, although I still long for the days when I could sleep through the day and stay up all night doing stuff. (Although now that this stuff includes DDR, I need some hours during the day.)
I'm supposed to be starting grad school in a couple of weeks here. Like I've mentioned repeatedly in the past, though, I didn't finish my Honours Thesis from Spring semester right away, so that was going to be a monkey in the wrench. I finally got that finished over a week ago, though, and I sent it to my advisors, at which point we were supposed to schedule a time for me to defend the thesis. It's been over a week now, though, and neither of them has gotten back to me; I've even tried leaving voicemail, and still I've got nothing. This is starting to worry me, so I may try visiting their offices here in short order.
Oh, and Ariel and Andreas: Congratulations on your marriage today!
posted 2004/08/05 at 19:11
Uh, hi. I've been up for the past twenty-four hours. I know I shouldn't write here when I'm this sleep-deprived, as past experience has taught me, but I hadn't updated here in a while and just wanted to let you know I'm still alive. So, yeah. Hi.
posted 2004/08/03 at 05:15
New on Backwash: "The Trudge to November". A look back at last week's convention and all the bullshit from both parties, and my own personal little call to action. As uncomfortable as I am giving myself credit for anything, this may be the best politically-themed piece I've ever written, at least for Backwash. Go give it a look.
And yes, my schedule is still messed up beyond belief. More on that later.
posted 2004/08/01 at 23:06
Um ... wow. I just woke up here.
Crap. Um, let me talk with you all a little later here ...
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