I am abrasive, some people really hate me, but there may be a group of other tight knit assholes and bitches that I can hang out with and get me. Everybody else? Fuck ‘em.
After getting back from the faire, the folks wanted to pick up some computer stuff for a build G and rat are working on (they rebuild friends' computers for fun and no profit) so we went to the new Frys in Plano-grand opening. A full half aisle in their DVD section was stuffed with anime and even some manga. Picked up the next Petshop of Horrors manga there for a buck less than the bookstores. They had Fake manga on the shelves! At one point I sat down and scribbled some fic notes because it was taking them so long to decide what new motherboard to get for this woman's PC.
Coming back from the faire, we drove through downtown and figured out where the hotel is for a-kon next weekend. rat keeps trying to convince me to take the rail, especially since it stops right outside the hotel. I keep insisting I will drive and park. One, I don't trust Dallas public transport, or should I say, the people who ride it. Of course, him being MALE, he doesn't get it. Two, if I see something I want, I can purchase it and take it to the car instead of hauling it around all day. Plus, I can leave and come back and not pay again that day, convenient if I want to go someplace less expensive to eat.
My back was killing me almost all day for some reason so I left rat at the folks' house to play computer whiz and I drove his car home and crawled into bed with the new manga and the latest Gravi doujin (very sweet) I got in the mail today. Ate the rest of rat's Cheetos in bed - that's what he gets for letting me be home alone. *evil cackle* Passed out soon after.
Last weekend of Scarborough and it will be a three-day affair because of Memorial Day.
We are going out early this morning to see the beginning of the Invitational Joust Tournament. My mother is hitching a ride so she can check on the status of her necklace at our favorite jewelers.
The typical jousting schedule has three performances a day, 11am, 2pm and 6pm. For the tournament, I think they will be tilting the whole time and skip the games they usually do for the regular shows. I wonder how many jousters from other states and Canada will show up this year?
We will also go out on Monday, late, for the last joust, so we can see who ends up being the winner. And it is the last day of the faire so the people we don't say goodbye to today will be talked to then. Yeah, we still know quite a few people out there, mostly crofters but also some cast and stage performers.
I am hoping Sunday will be my creative day. I am also hoping I will be able to get some time in today and Monday, but no guarantees. I will need to sleep at one point. I hate having no thyroid...
So I don't know how long I will be out here. Being here means not working on writing and art but I will be checking in periodically to see what's up. And I will be scanning in the progress of 'Afterglow' so anyone interested can see I am still working on it.
I am around, still feel like shit, but I could not NOT miss another day of work. I forced a salad down last night, trying the fiber angle.
This morning I felt like I was carrying around a baseball in my gut and the feeling has continued to remain sitting in my lap.
I had to cancel four classes this morning (which means calling up and printing the stats of each class, get the contact info for every single student, email every single student with the cancellation info and all the numbers they may need for refunds, registration, etc., call those students without email addresses and either leave messages on machines or with people or actually talk to the student, send the info to our division office and the continuing ed dept so they can do the actual cancellation) and build some syllabus webpages for instructors who, for some reason, don't know basic html, so I MISSED out on one of the new Remix collections. *snarl*
I kept reminding myself before I went to work and I should have sent myself a voice mail about it. When I got to the office, it was a madhouse of things to do so I did not think about the auctions until two hours after they ended, damnit.
I got the first one though, and have asked the seller to look for another copy of the second one for me. Since the seller is in Japan, I am crossing my fingers. The second one has a tasty Eiri cover.
Other crazy shit happened today. It's a typical week before classes begin and the mayhem will not end until after the first few weeks of school have occurred. And, of course, even though I sent emails weeks ago, only now are some of the people I asked to do things are getting around to doing it, assuming I have the fucking time to do a week's worth of heavy work in one 7.5 hour day...
When I left the office tonight, the main boss was in the process of cancelling more classes. I went back to my office, got my computer going again then forwarded her my form letter emails so she would not have to type up all that crap for each and every student. I think she was having to cancel another three to four classes. Eep!
I need to get off this thing and go do something creative. Either that or go bite something... rat is over helping the folks with a computer problem so I am sitting here, needing to do something to get rid of some of this inner energy, even though I am bent over at the waist because it feels better to do that.
Or maybe retrieve that frozen Frosty from the freezer and huddle in a corner with a spoon. Yeah, that sounds soothing.
Countdown before the next semester - this is the last week of peace and quiet at the office before we begin dealing with the kiddos again. Lots of work to do so you will not see me popping out as much during the day to get a quick break from the madness.
Numbers are not too good - one of the ESOL instructors who frequents our area to check email from students because his classes are down the hall wondered if the gas prices has killed a lot of the English as a Second Language classes because the students just cannot afford to drive to school this semester. Gas is now up to $2 a gallon around here. Sounds like a valid reason. The boss is watching the numbers closely. We will probably be cancelling classes pretty soon but we don't know what the magic body count number will be this time, the number that will ax the class.
Been writing on a fic daily, for those wondering why this place has been quiet. I have been posting more at the creative blog.
We didn't make it to Scarborough yesterday. We were both sitting in front of our computers, I looked at the time and realized we would not make it out at time we planned so we just didn't go out at all. We ended up being potatos in front of the computer all day except for the few hours we spent having dinner and concentrating on some time-shifted video (Andromeda, Enterprise).
Had no nap so was pooped by the end of the day.
Worked on:
the beta
the story I am trying to finish
the beginning of the muse meet archive website
a substandard oekaki of Shiyuuichi
Stolen from everyone:
> WARNING
bakayaro_onna is radioactive. Wear protective clothing at all times.
Another week is over and I feel drained, as usual.
I need to figure out what I am going to post for this week's update at the website. Gotta get those a/u Gravi images up soon so I can enter them in powergoddess's Summer Lovin' contest at The Vault (http://www.templeofthegoddess.com/files/contests.html).
We will go to Scarborough (http://www.scarboroughrenfest.com/) one day this weekend. Memorial Day weekend will be the last weekend and the Full Combat Joust Competition, where jousters from all around the US and Canada meet and compete for a prize.
My digestive tract finally decided to feel better an hour after I took a dose of colloidal silver last night. Forgot to take it this morning and by the time I got to work I felt bad again. I think I will go take some more after I get off the computer.
I hate writing at this computer. I am used to being able to lie down and working.
I have started one of the books on forgiveness therapy. It's a quick read.
The beta hangs over my head, slowly getting done.
Maybe I will wait until later this weekend to do the update. I am dead-ass tired. Bed for some serious sleep sounds good now.
So I pop out to eBay and right in front of my eyes, with eight minutes to spare and no bids is the laptop. It was kismet.
New/old laptop stats (both refurbished):
Old: IBM Thinkpad 600, Pentium I 133, 64mb ram (I think), 1gig hard drive
New: Dell Latitude CPxH 500, Pentium III 500, 128mb ram, 6gig hard drive
Old: DVD player included
New: DVD player included
Old: had to purchase external A drive separately, which plugs into separate port
New: external A drive included which can be swapped for DVD drive
Old: 56k modem (never used)
New: 56k modem
Old: USB port and AC adaptor
New: USB port and AC adaptor
Old: dead battery
New: says battery will hold charge
Old: Win98 installed with no license and no restore CD or any other software
New: Win98se installed with license and restore CD
Old: very light - about five pounds
New: says it is lightweight...
Old: $349, not including all the extras needed like external A drive nor software backups
New: $439, includes extras and software restore CD
I hated putting it on a credit card but I did not know if I had the extra funds (emergency money) in the checking account to do it this month. I have to keep my checking account well-padded because of past bank and credit card company screw-ups. The most recent screw-up was a few months ago, when the credit card company mis-read the check which said $300, and thought it was for $3000. Good thing I keep that account padded and caught the error on the next month's statement.
The craptop is being crappy on me, giving me weird error messages as I boot up. Takes me four to six times to get the thing to boot up correctly. No more working on writing at lunch now and I know I will not get much work done at the regular computer either because of all the distractions in the TV/computer room.
Tonight's distractions were the season finale of Smallville (really don't care for the show much anymore but watched it anyway since rat still watches) and the series finale of Angel.
Yes, I was able to get all the fics off of it, thankfully. I had to zip each folder separately and move them a little at a time to the A drive disk.
The question now is, do I spend money to service the thing or do I consider purchasing a new laptop or another refurbished one on eBay? I only need a laptop to write on - no internet, no multimedia/graphics, no large files.
Have to go to a financial advisor meeting tonight. We already have one but rat is checking this person out to see if he can do better.
*sigh* I hate these kinds of meetings. I don't want to be there. I want to be home. rat handles the main finances and I take care of my own little bucket of not much.
I think I will take one of my notebooks and if I get an inspiration I will have something to write on.
Mom's Day at Scarborough went well, though it wore me out to shreds. I am tired of being tired.
The jousters gave my mother a Mother's Day gift from the lists. One of the squires presented it to my mother during the 2pm joust and told her to go to the Dragon's Nest (our favorite jewelers) to get it mounted. The gift was a small hinged egg box and we were told we would probably need pliers to open the box. After the joust, we walked over to the booth and J opened the box to reveal what we had heard rattling inside.
Those lovely jousters had given my mother a large, beautifully pale, teardrop-shaped amethyst! We were all pretty stunned by the gift! The jousters consider my mother their mother at this faire, which is sweet of them. The lady jouster, K, finds my mother's total acceptance and enthusiasm of her choice of a living completely different from her own mother, which has endeared my mother to the whole group.
After picking out what to do with the lovely stone - it will be made into a necklace with a delicate 'cage' to hold the stone and a Celtic bale (sp?) to accent the shape - we got K a rose and went to the back area of the arena to thank them. We got a chance to sit around with our friends for a nice chat about lots of different things then let them go to prep for the final joust show at 6pm, which we watched as well.
The faire closed at 7pm so we left right after the joust and went to our favorite Mexican restaurant in Waxahatchie proper, Ninos. It's one of the places I actually eat hot sauce. It is served warm and it tastes like it has a meat base to it, distinctive and tasty.
Mom enjoyed her day as she always does, which was the whole point.
I was digging through my office mail, throwing things away and came across a link rat had sent me back in 2001. I checked out the site, found this and thought about our earlier small pupils discussion:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=anime The most obvious link then between a Disney and anime character is the big expressive eyes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that anime eyes are a holdover from Disney. Possibly even more so than other cultures, for the Japanese the eyes are the windows to the soul. When you watch your next anime piece, check out the difference between 'good' and 'evil' characters. Good characters have the large eyes that can convey sensitivty and emotion while the badguys are often portrayed as being soulless. Other times, the badguys will have large eyes and very small pupils, the idea being that not enough light has reached their souls. Anime is just trying to do the same thing as every other artistic medium: move you. We as humans respond readily to the language and expression conveyed through the eyes. It is an automatic reaction.
Okay, I am back for a while. Only hope everything remains okay when I turn it back on tomorrow morning.
Way to go, Massachusetts!
We went to the ren faire yesterday to return "Kill Bill" to our jouster friends and to give them a copy of Saiyuki "Requiem" and the first translated manga so they would have an idea of who the boys were without me having to write up a term paper.
We also met up with our best friends, their too-smart kid in tow, who hates the faire so he kept his nose buried in some portable video game.
We didn't stay too long, just about three hours, then we all travelled back to Dallas for dinner at Dixie House. I was feeling the effects of too much standing around in my lower back so we went on home and I crashed and slept from 7:30pm to 10pm, waking up just in time for some dubbed anime on CN.
Today I pretty much stayed in bed, sleeping a hell of a lot (I keep thinking I am trying to fend off something), reading some SF, and using the craptop for working a little on both the beta (in the final stages, Talon!), and on the two fics calling me the most, concentrating on one in particular. Lots of little details are popping up, demanding they be put in the correct order so the story flows correctly.
rat says I like to set up a 'constraint' in my tale-telling - for example, hiding the identify of the narrator, or, in this latest work, having zero dialogue. rat says, in good writing, the 'constraint' should be sufficiently painless so the reader will not mind it, or may not even notice it. I don't think I can live up to that comment...
My reward was a trip to Borders, where I got Fake 7 (in its shrink-wrapped for my protection cellophane) and Saiyuki 2.
Fake 7... some yummy images. Not close to any of my hard yaoi doujin, but still nice. I am truly used to HARD yaoi images. I love the beds in the series, so long, so big, and all those giant pillows!
Haven't finished Saiyuki 2 because I fell asleep for a while.
Fought a headache (that woke me up at 4am this morning) most of the day. It's pretty quiet now, just a slightly throbbing pain in the back of my neck.
Slept a lot.
Read some articles about the possibility of aliens actually existing and the debates otherwise in Analog.
Started a pencil drawing. Drew an oekaki for the community.
No beta, no writing, no fanfic reading.
I think I will go back to bed soon.
Taking mom out to Scarborough tomorrow for Mother's Day and will meet our best friends there. I will need all the energy I can get since it will be a long day.
I am tired of being tired, and the weekend is going to be a busy one. I just want to crawl back into bed, sleep, and maybe transcribe some more story stuff.
Today is the Advisory Committee meeting, where we meet with members of industry to get feedback on the state of the multimedia field and ask them questions about what the dept. should be teaching. It really helps ME to go to these twice-a-year meetings because it gives me information I can pass on to students about the health of the industry. I wasn't able to go last semester because I was team-teaching three basic Flash classes for junior-high students during the time of the meeting. I would have MUCH preferred going to the meeting, and not just because I utterly ABHOR Flash. I abhor children too.
The day before yesterday, my main boss decided we should give the members a little thank you gift, so she got some stuff from our promo dept. and brought some other stuff in. Yesterday I filled up purple mugs with candy, a little duck fuzzy thing and a nice pen. I looped the bottle opener/keychain through the purple wire I used to tied off the green cellophane. The wire was just sticking out so I curled the ends around a pencil so it had a slinky look. *snicker* That art degree comes in handy! I wish I had known about this earlier and I would have brought in some of my fancy-edged scissors to cut the cellophane. Next year, the boss wants to give some of the nice promo polo shirts. I agree.
Got an email yesterday, stating the final draft of the Fall schedule was due today, if possible, early Monday morning at the very latest. We have NO idea where we will find the time today to get it done, since the Advisory Committee meeting takes up about three hours of the day already. I have a lot of juggling to do this morning beforehand.
Talon, I haven't forgotten the beta. It is VERY intense and I can only read a little bit at a time every evening before having to put it down. I WILL get it done, but my timeframe has had to move some. This is NOT a Chibi Tale! It is well-written but very disturbing...
Off to get ready for work.
I really hate it when I go to bed early, actually fall asleep immediately, and wake up feeling like shit. My eyes are all itchy/swollen and my nose is all clogged up, giving me a headache. Something must have blown through last night.
I think I will take the craptop to work today so I can begin transcribing some of the scribble notes I have been working on lately.
Ugh. Mother's Day is this weekend and without looking at the calendar we promised to meet with our best friends this weekend some time ago, the first weekend after my class. Need to call them and see what's happening with them at their end because I know they did not look at the calendar either. Since Ed's dad died recently I suspect he will need to be with his mom at one point this weekend.
Mother's Day is always spent at Scarborough Faire since my mother loves it so. The jousters have adopted her as their mom so they make the day special for her during the jousts by waving more than usual and sometimes presenting her with little favors and such.
And I feel like hammered dog fuck because I am still so tired. I just hope I don't catch a summer cold or something else because my resistance is down. The entire office usually gets sick after each semester is over. It's like we finally have the time TO get sick.
Doesn't help matters I am going to dealing with pms this weekend either. The hormones have helped keep the killer headaches down to a dull roar but now, instead of having to stay in bed for the first 24 hours because of cramps, headache and general crappiness, the hormones 'allow' me to feel crappy and lethargic the entire time.
I think I need to read some Gravi fic before I get ready for work...
Suitable for 15 years or older. Films in this category can be about anything, say 'fuck' a lot, probably get to see all sorts of guns and shooting, but no open heart surgery with a knife. Most 'R' rated films in America fit into this category.
Examples: Alien, The Sixth Sense
I am so boring. I probably lost a lot of rating because of my allergies to alcohol and drugs.
rat said to me when I walked in: Free at last! Free at last! Thank the Lord! Free at last!
Sensei was just a little surprised to see me tonight, saying Continuing Ed students did not need to take the final. My brain went: What? WHAT???? You mean I went through this stress and I didn't need to do so? Immediately I settled down and knew I really DID need to take the final, for my own good. I needed to see what I have retained this semester.
Thankfully, the particle sentences were the easier sentences, as was the eigo to nihongo translations. And the sentences where we had to provide both the masu and n+desu forms of the verbs were ones I actually remembered, even when in past tense.
Sensei was nice to us. Words we did not know/remember she told us to write in English. I did fumble some of the translations but I think I put the words in the right places, even if I used English.
One thing I did screw up was using (w)o instead of ni with the motion verb 'to return'.
I got an A+ on my oral quiz (sensei graded them while we took the final) and it looks like I got some of the particle section right from her grading it in front of me at one point while I was talking to her. She said she wanted to give it back to me so I could study from it but she could not complete it before I left. I told her to just mail it to me intercampus, since I DID work on campus too.
At one point while I was noshing on a rice ball one of the students had brought in for everyone (yum! I want to learn how to make them!), sensei came over and was talking to me about seeing my first semester sensei (Maurice) and how they talked about how hard I study even though I was Continuing Ed. They probably talked about my acute test anxiety as well.
Anyway, I probably passed by the skin of my teeth.
Owari desu yo!
So now, the very first item on my list is to betaread the first chapter of Talon's new story. I promised you, sweetie, and I have already started!
And I will be getting back to all things Gravitation as well!
FYI: Before I left for the final tonight I watched ep 13 of Gravitation.
I walked out to the kitchen to eat lunch. The sight of the potato skins almost made me rolf. Good thing I saved half of a small Wendy's Frosty from last night. It's all I can take right now.
Had nightmares last night. Nothing with actual Japanese in it, like that dream I had last year with giant katakana chasing me. Mostly rat-being-bad-to-me dreams, something he definitely is NOT. It's insecurity dreams, which is related to the final.
Going to have to leave early to find a photocopier. Realized I need to make a copy of the oral quiz answers to keep in my folder for future reference. At least when I am ancient I can show myself I was able to do that kind of thing at one time in my life.
Was looking at one of rat's girlie mags in his bathroom. Yeah, he has them lying about. I have books on gay sex and yaoi doujinshi in my bathroom. Turnabouts fair play. Found a photo pose of two girls I think might use as reference for one of the next pieces for me to draw. Another snuggly kind of piece. Imagine that.
If I am really lucky, I will make around a 60 on the final. With the oral exam I will be handing in tonight (only 60% of it has to be right to make an A) I just might pass the class. If I don't pass, I don't get the CE certificate. It does not affect my CUM GPA. Good thing; I haven't made a credit grade less than an "A" for the past eight years.
I took off today because I know if I was at work I would be freaking out and be completely useless. Well, more useless than usual.
My stomach is not being nice. I have eaten breakfast and it is not settling well. I will eat lunch about 2pm and not eat anything else until after the final, around 7:30pm. I don't need to lose my lunch during the final.
Going to wash my hair now, then do some study until I get a headache.
I study, I get a headache, I take drugs, I go to sleep, I wake up.
Repeat ad nauseum.
The current study method is not working because I am not retaining anything. I have decided to pretty much give up on the particle sheet and make uneducated guesses. The sheet has almost 40 sections, some with multiple sentences.
The translation sheet is a bugger. I am going to have to figure out how to study with it, but I definitely cannot memorize almost 40 sentences to be translated from English to Japanese and stay sane.
Thanks: --> to Lia, my sensei, who has inspired me to draw again. I
wouldn't be doing this without your support, Domo Arigato!
--> to Talon, for sending me her fabulous fics, inspiring me with her writing to draw my first
illustration for a story and actually liking what I drew.
--> to Dasia, for her words of encouragement when drawing her original chara.
--> to Joules, a wonderful epic fic writer, for liking my art enough to want to post them with Talon's
and her own stories.
--> to Lutra, the other half of the epic team, for being so supportive.
--> to Jacque' & Becca Raddittzu, we met on eBay as bidder and sellers and now we are face-to-face
friends. You showed us the real DBZ with your fansubs. It's all your fault the house is full of
doujinshi! *LOL*
:: welcome to bakayaro onna's mindless ramblings, rants & raves :: 
