commotiocordis

So. Found my wallet with my school ID and gym card and such tossed in a box like I'd hoped. This is good. The house looks awesome. Also good. Ianto!cat warming up to me. Good as well. I can find my way out of the house and to school by myself (right, then right, then left), which is también bueno, porque no se las calles en la ciudad de Springfield para nada.

Things that are not good.
1. I’m out of money. Paid rent, bought my lab text for a class, bought socks and salad dressing, and that’s all my cash. Scholarship money doesn’t come in until sometime in September. I’ve got my debit card, but there’s only. . . idk, less than $100 accessible (I think minimum balance is $25 or something), and I’m very, very reluctant to dip into that for anything less than dire, dire emergencies. Plus, some of the things I still have to buy include goggles for my lab classes and gloves for one of them (which I’d already gotten and had sitting on top of one of my boxes of stuff to take down here that was sitting in the front room, but I think Mom thought it was a mistake that I was taking them and took them out on a trip to load stuff into the car), and at least for the former I’m hoping to buy a used set from the chemistry department (they sold them last year) for $5, and I highly doubt they take debit cards. Oh, and possibly my poetry (blarg) teacher’s book—the biggest bullshit ever. It’s a mix of literary forms and is therefore less than 1/3 poetry. I’m begging off having it tomorrow because she just added it to the bookstore requirements in the last week, which is unfair, since I did most of my book shopping 3ish weeks ago.

2. None of my clothes fit. Dreaded, but understandable, as Stupid Metabolism Fail has continued. But I’ve still got them all down here, and not enough hangers (something else I need to buy), so my room looks horrid with boxes and such. I did not think enough about how hard getting dressed for school was going to be when I have all of 5 pants/skirts/shorts that fit, only three of which I’m positive I packed. Plus, it’s so fucking impossible to go buy clothes without wanting to, you know, kill myself when I see the sizes. (I know I’m a whiner about this and plenty of people can go “you think you’ve got it bad”, but when you’re used to yourself in one way and then a few months later you’re 40 pounds heavier, it’s a bitch.) My making my own skirts needs to be worked on more, because then there will be no size tags, XD.

3. I’m in the computer lab at the moment because my 1pm organic lab isn’t meeting because it’s the first day of school, but por supuesto, my 4pm biomol int lab is for only 15 minutes or so. I thought about just asking if I could come to the 1pm meeting of my 4pm one, just for today, so I could get out of here, but if we got seats and lab partners and such it would be awkward to come to the next one at the right time.


And the major one.

5!!!!!. After exactly a month grace period where the bizarre computer screen fritzing stopped, last night it started up again. Began slowly, just blue jaggy lines at the bottom of the screen, spread throughout the whole thing (though you could see the background beneath it), then went to the whole screen covered with thick colored lines/blocks, but when I left it alone, it’d resolve for a bit before starting back up again. It finally decided to cooperate last night, and I turned it off and went to sleep eventually. Started it back up this morning in organic chemistry to take notes and it did the same thing, but then went to the grey of it being backlit but with a totally black screen, then went totally black. Rebooted a bazillion times, gave up. Two hours later, tried it again in biomolecular interactions (sort of biochem, I think, hereby known as “biomol int”) and it booted right up with a good screen and everything. Random. Made the mistake of letting it go to screen saver (I was running out of battery and wanted to let the screen turn off so it wouldn’t die), and when the screensaver popped up, so did the blue fritzy lines, and then it went black. That was 2.5 hours ago, and the periodic rebooting I’m doing as I sit by a desktop in the computer lab hasn’t helped.

So. Last ditch, I check out the Toshiba website again, hoping that there’s some kind of magic fix that’s been posted since the last time I looked around to try to fix it. Happen to check the warranty thing, and lo and behold, it didn’t expire in May (right around when it died the first time) like I’d thought. It expires tomorrow.

Natch, the closest warranty repair center is 3 hours back to St. Louis. At this point, I’m mentally calculating time and such to see if I can get out of my last class and drive there before they close. (Answer: probably not. Plus, seriously, I’ve been here for what, not yet 48 hours?) Shipping it to the Toshiba depot won’t work either, as that obviously takes time, but I call them up (thankfully looking like a dork on the campus phone outside the computer lab rather than on my cell as I was on hold for 90% of the 25+ minute call) hoping I can plead my case and have them start a repair ticket for me today that will work under warranty even though it expires tomorrow, and lo and behold that’s exactly how it works. They’re shipping me a box, I’ve got to call UPS and get it picked up (maybe just find a UPS store and drop it off?), and it’s 7-10 day turnaround (hopefully days days and not business days).

They’re telling me to backup my important stuff, as well. I wanted to hold on to my hard drive, you know, just in case, but the guy said that they’d do some tuneup thing too. It worries me a bit—sure, I have problems with Firefox lately I figured I’d take it), and I’m not even sure how I’m going to be able to do that since I can’t see anything to do that. I tried to plug it in to the monitors on the computers here, but no such luck as they’ve got some freaky-arsed digital plug that doesn’t fit.

That’s the suckmost sucky part of it. And why I’d never sent it off to get fixed during the summer like the idiot I am. I didn’t want to be computerless for 10 days. (Plus, I did very, very little during the summer since I slept straight through normal business hours 9 days out of 10 and mostly couldn’t bring myself to leave the house. Fail, I know.) If only I’d done it then, though, because I’ve got note taking things all set up and homework to do and tests to study for (yeah, quiz in biomol int sometime this week) and one of my textbooks is actually on the computer. Also, we have no TV hooked up yet (DVD player, yes, actual broadcast TV no) and as far as I’m aware, not even an ETA on that, so boredom central.

I kind of still want to cry, I’m so frustrated. School and being in a new place and all is stressful enough without my computer dying on me.



ETA: This is what I mean by blue lines fritzing: ( (picture) )
You can see my icons on my desktop underneath a bit on the left. That’s last night, when it would resolve on its own and then do it again, rinse and repeat.
Then it went to. . . idk, think of a shirt with different sized vertical blocks of color. Sometimes it looks like this:
( (another picture) )
Not my computer, obviously, but similar display. It jumps around between being thin lines like that and ones thick enough that only maybe 6-10 of them fit. Of course, now it’s completely black, not even the grey of it still being backlit but with no display.


Also? The bluefritzing picture was taken with my new phone (demonstration purposes being why I didn't resize it like I did with the rest). Pretty good for a $60 (with $30 of minutes included, so more like $30) Net-10 thing, huh? They fixed a lot of my issues with the last one, like actually being able to connect it to a computer (only can access the micro SD card--not included, natch, but I pulled the one from my MP3 player that I kept audiofics on--and it can only take ones up to 2gb, but you can transfer pictures to the card fairly easily and then get to them on the computer) and taking custom ringtones. (Doctor Who theme FTW. I keep getting people to call me to test it and just not picking up so as to LOLOL.) Still can't get to the internet, just the Net-10 website, and it still charges you eight bazillion dollars to even do that when you accidentally hit the button, but you can lock the browser feature so you've got to type the code to open it, so that's saved me quite a few minutes, LOL.
(It is this one: )

Playing around with makeup like a little kid, LOL. I do it so rarely that I can never get it to work out how I want to without hours of messing with it on the day of. I always notice that my eyes look better the day after, though, so for a while now I've figured I'll do eyeliner and stuff now and sleep in it (I'll prolly go blind or something, but it's not like it's a more than twice a year thing) and it'll look decent with only a little touch up the day after.

Nail polish fail, though. The nail painting thing I do maybe twice a year also (more in the elementary years, less lately), and I bought some new black tonight (because that's usually one of the few I wear). The brush is def. in line for the worst engineering ever contest. You dip it and the paint doesn't funnel down to the brush, but hangs out on the stick and drips on your hand. Twice. But the polish is amazing, so even though I wiped it off immediately, there are still black streaks on my left palm and right pinky. Must find remover before we leave (in like 5 hours max). Also because I fail at application of nail polish (see above re: makeup), and it's all over my fingers anyway.

But, the recent upswing of nail polishing (it started with just once, but then that polish didn't chip away cleanly, so I just had Kaci redo it, and then I was Bellatrix, so she did it again because it fit, and then I was bored in her room waiting for a game to load, and then they were plain for a while until just now) and chewing gum being on sale at the grocery store means that just like this time last year when I'd had the gum transplant and was afraid to bite my nails in case I'd stick a finger in the wrong way and rip the thing off, I've actually got some nailage. That only lasted a couple of weeks into the school year last year (and I'd started probably two weeks later), so we'll see.

Something I found while Wikipedia jumping (looking up the type of cat that bleakone might be getting:

Myiasis (pronounced /ˈmaɪəsɨs/ or /maɪˈaɪəsɨs/) is an animal or human disease caused by parasitic dipterous fly larvae feeding on the host's necrotic or living tissue.

Click on the word. Look at the picture.

JESUS CHRIST I'M NEVER OPENING MY EYES OUTSIDE AGAIN.

And now, after somehow getting to talking animals on Wikipedia, I'm now watching Youtube vids of frolicking baby elephants. Yay.

Evangelical pastor Rick Warren, whose participation drew criticism from liberals and gay rights groups, directly invoked Jesus as expected in his invocation, but did so personally.

"I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life," he prayed.

He also quoted from the most important prayer in Judaism, the Sh'ma, when he said, "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is One," and he called God "the compassionate and merciful one," a phrase from Muslim devotion.
Inaugural prayers aim for a more diverse America - Yahoo! News

Color me surprised. And impressed. The whole "who changed my life" bit felt pretty much like a late-night televangelism testimony session, but the rest (as well as Obama's shoutout to the secularists in his speech) was neat.

And then we get to Roberts. Way to fail, sir. Now we don't actually have a president, as according to Article II of the Constitution and all, he's got to say those 35 words (that are in there in quotation marks, so I think even though he got them all in but out of order, it doesn't count) before taking office. Which he didn't.

Plus, "So help you God?" Not in there. What if he didn't want to say that part? I mean, no reason that he wouldn't, really, but putting that in there as a requirement in the oath sets precedent. Especially since Roberts will probably be doing the next, idk, 8 inaugurations since he's all of 53--now we've just injected a religion requirement into a Constitutionally required element of taking the Presidential office.


Back here in podunkville, fail that after finally finishing the 8 page review exercise for chemistry that every other lab section gets to turn in next week, but my teacher's an ass, I not only have psychology homework to finish (1 page on Dorothea Dix; totally easy but I keep trying to make it harder somehow because idk, using the first hit on Google just seems wrong) and chem lab prep still to do (that's going to be during lunch, because I'm already falling asleep), during the open hour that I thought I'd be able to use to throw the psych paper together I've got a meeting with the guy running the lab I'm supposed to be researching in this semester to go over what's going to be my project for the semester. And I have no ideas. None. I pulled up a couple of pages to read some about what work's already being done in those fields (that's the problem--all of my ideas don't have to do with this DNA repair stuff; I dig much more macro things than that).

And in microbiology news (my 8am class tomorrow), I think I've already "missed" that twice. I swear the guy takes attendance at 7:55 or something, because I was late twice already (of the three class periods we've had so far, major fail; it's almost exactly the opposite corner of the campus from me and it's been so damn cold and windy that riding my bike and walking take the same length of slow) but only maybe 7 minutes the first time and no more than 3 the second, but I don't remember having attendance taken either time. But it happened on the first day, and it's mentioned in the syllabus that though it's not for points, if you've got <4 misses he takes that into account when putting together final grades, so to have lost half of that grace period of 4 in the first week is really pissing me off.

I really, really need another Dr. Pepper as I'm thirsty as hell, but Chelsea moved her bed over near the door more, so I'm reluctant to get up and open it and trek out and back, etc. And I've only got one cold can left, and only 6 I think overall (and I bought the cans rather than my normal 2-liters in the first place because I could just grab one in the mornings, not to drink them while in bed). Plus, I'm thinking about going to sleep now and getting up at 6 or something to finish this Dix thing and try to read over some lab stuff because I'll just be able to take my Ritalin early and let that help keep me up, as opposed to how I'm obviously not able to take it now or risk never going to sleep tonight (and crashing 6-8 hours from now, putting it smack in the middle of my classes).

Another note, because procrastination is my thing. Michelle Obama's dress at the balls? Not a fan. The skirt was white and sparkly and pretty, but the bodice frankly looked like somebody had taken a roll of toilet paper and wrapped it around her chest and over one shoulder a bunch of times.

Giving people presents for their anniversaries. Odd, no? I mean, when we're talking a friend of a couple giving them this gift. And for only a 6-month dating anniversary, which doesn't even count as that much of a real thing, IMO (though I don't deny that that's probably a while in the world of datage, I don't have much to base that on/compare it to, so idk).

This is the conversation topic that I overheard on the way to lunch. Someone had done such a thing, presumably, because another friend in the group who were congregated more or less in my way as I attempted to gather my things stated that now she felt bad that she hadn't and was now going to have to go get them something belatedly.

Umm, what? I mean, I understand people within the couple giving each other gifts. And perhaps relatives; my parents are hitting the big 25 years in May, and that means I prolly have to get them something (though more often in our family, the other parent chooses/buys/finances the gift with "help" from the chitlins), and I know that we got my maternal grandparents something (bought into a big screen TV, methinks, with several other of Mum's siblings) when they hit 50 years a bit ago (actually, 5 years ago--a group of overzealous aunts and uncles have begun to plan the 55th party for this summer, last I heard, which the remaining aunts and uncles aren't so much looking forward to as not as that means having to buy a more expensive present for the anniversary on top of traveling somewhere for the party, since nobody's in the same geographical region anymore).

But friends buying other friends anniversary gifts? This seems stupid. Is this the custom now? Have I just been missing out because most of my friends don't date? A 6-month dating anniversary, while probably a big thing to the couple, seems to deserve a pat on the back and a "Congratulations" more than a gift from everyone else.

In other news. I was up late last night because I was in a Spring-y mood. I was looking for bright and fun and Springish clothing--prolly inspired by the fact that I hit up Goodwill yesterday afternoon and tried on a couple of Spring/Summer-y dresses just because they were there and in my size and pretty (one that was striped pastel blue and green, and floor-length with a good amount of slink but still not overly formal; the other was green paisley/ivy/floral patterns on a white, spaghetti-strap halter that hit just above the knees). I really wanted an excuse to buy the first one--I was seriously considering getting it to wear to church on Easter like you do when you're little, but I didn't have enough money neither on me nor to justify buying a dress (though it was only like $5) that I would only wear once.

But yes. Lunch just ended, so postus interruptus yet again. Fail.

I had spent most of the evening re-reading La Dama del Alba for the Spanish test over it today, so I got to the gym really late, so I got back really late (pushing midnight, actually, after I stopped at the grocery store because I’ve got coupons that are pushing the expiration date but then turned it into a worthless trip when I decided not to buy anything yesterday since it’s $10 off of $50 day today and I can make the parentals use the coupons for veggies and such and lump it in with enough other things to get the extra discount) , and then I messed around trying on clothes, and then I made dinner, and then I messed around with more clothes. And watched Canterbury’s Law. While painting my nails to matchish the shirt I decided on (the “hippy on acid” shirt). Which was hard, because I fail at nail painting simply because I don’t think I’d need my toes to count the number of times I’ve done it since. . . elementary school. Plus, the nail-biting makes it harder still, because you’re all like “Oh, but this is not nail but rather finger.” But they’re this shiny pastel blue color that has purple glimmery bits that you see when it hits the light. With a purple failstripe (I spent so long trying to make them even sized, but the purple nail polish was that gooey kind of old that makes it impossible to do anything but gunk it on) down each thumb for fun. Makes me smile, anyway.

But then I look at the clock and realize that I’ve managed to just totally lose track of time because it’s 3:30 or so in the morning and I’ve still got to clean up stuff from dinner and the popcorn I made after eating dinner (hard to reach into a bag of popcorn with wet nails, btw). So I didn’t hit bed until a good 4am. Which hurt me in English today, because we were just reading an pseudo-epic poem aloud, thus not very engaging, thus sleep provoking. And now I’m just bored, because my econ quiz took all of 3 minutes (literally—and then the next person didn’t finish for another 7 minutes or so, which freaked me out a bit in that “did I skip a page?” kind of way) and now we’re doing nothing (they’ve turned on one of the college basketball games, and as basketball is one of those sports that I care absolutely nothing for, as with collegiate sports in general, the all-but-three in the class male population’s enthusiasm is extremely annoying), and as I have nothing after this, there’s no purpose in my being here and not being home eating my last grapefruit and getting ready for nappage goodness.

I really want that grapefruit now. The econ teacher’s got popcorn out that she said we could have, but it’s that kind that comes in a bag like a bag of chips and is fake!greasycheesybuttery and not worth the calories, so I’m not hitting that.

They’re shouting about the basketball game again. *le sigh*

Got the big bits of my AII project done, finally. LOL, naturally, the morning they're due. There are some questions on the personality survey bits that I left blank, because I was a bit uncomfortable answering them, so I'll have to ask the teacher if I've got to have them all answered or not. I think I've got until the end of the hour to finish it, so if she says yes, I can bs something for that. I would have done it already but I was trying to keep this thing honest, since it's actually supposed to be all introspective and helping me, and the selective honesty I applied to most questions ("What are some reasons that you may not have performed as well as you could have in school" being one of those) wouldn't really cut it. Things like the worst times of my life, etc. And ones that I just couldn't come up with an answer for, like the best times of my life one.

LOL, just looked through the binder and I've actually got a whole bunch of questions on this article (that I thought I finished back in. . . September or so) left to go. Those'll get thrown out sometime quickly tomorrow.

At least the papers are done. I'm a little worried that because I didn't exactly fulfill all the prescribed curricula -- the job shadowing, to be specific, as the contacts there never panned out (though I've found a new lead that I may be able to hook up for next semester; too late for the project, but fine for my personal enrichment/enjoyment), as that's one of the five major parts of the second (the portfolio) half of the project. I've done a lot of medical exploring in hospital settings (the lab with my intellectual!girlcrush Lara last year, the NICU this year) that I could write up as semi-job shadowing, but the documentation form requires the supervisor to sign and describe activities and such, which I obviously never got done.

I'm at that stage where I know I should be tired and I know I need to go to bed (the undoubtedly numerous instances of odd phrasing and--hopefully fixed--typos in aforementioned writings should attest to that), but I'm some two Ritalin (because they weren't the extended release kind, thus one covered this morning and one this evening) and one giant Diet Dr. Pepper (from around 6pm, when I finally got out of the endodontist's) past sleepy. I would be all of that plus one gym trip, but I couldn't find the goshdarned keys with the passes again. IH how they always manage to get lost (though I think this time it was actually my fault, as I had them last when I went on Wednesday). I didn't really have the time to go anyway, as seen by the fact that I'm still technically not done with my AII project, plus there was nothing good on TV, but the fact that I'm lol!stress gaining weight (only a tidge--less than a pound, but it's more the fact that I stopped losing it even though I should be, my suckarse metabolism and all) as we approach the holidays and finals (both major stressors, but the former probably more than the latter, actually) and the restarting of the birth control kicking in does not happy make me.

Even though it's not really possible to do it healthily, I really want to drop 5 pounds or so before Christmas. That playing the viola for mass thing's got me up in front of the entire congregation (plus all the fakey Catholics who need to give my family their seats, LOL), and I've got this sparkly red dress (two of them that are almost exactly the same, though one's long sleeved and one short, actually) that I've worn maybe twice that I'm thinking about wearing because it's an excuse to look pretty, you know? And I want to actually look good in it. Idk if it's anywhere close to fitting, but it's pretty and sparkly and I can wear my holiday fishnets with it and I'm damn sure going to try to fit into it.

Though if it were green, it'd win. Green works so much better with my hair. I really want a nice, dark green sweater, as I have none. The one I've been wearing lately (because it fits really well and was part of that bunch of free clothes I got from the rummage sale they were cleaning out from my volleyball court) is red, and though it looks nice, my hair sort of blends in. Not blends in, but doesn't stand out and look all pretty like it does with a good forest green.

LOL, digression. If my paper on how to become an emergency department physician reads anything like this, I'm in trouble. Back to the paper/portfolio-y thing. I want to take it back this weekend and pretty it up some more, which idk if I can do, as it's technically due today. The teacher said that we could keep it over the weekend in order to prepare our presentations take two (this time to the class--meaning my friend Alyssa, plus probably the kids in there for study hall, meaning a bunch of freshmen and Katie--during the final), but I don't know if prettification is allowed. Prettification, probably, I guess, but fixification, no? I'm going to do it anyway. I had to return some of my book sources (and some I just cited from memory of pertinent memoirs and such I've read over the years, shh), so I've got literally no page numbers in my citations. Normally I'd just make them up, which I might still do, as a lot of it was general information either mentioned a few times or carried in attitude, but I'd like to at least get the chance to try and flip through and find where they referred to what I need.

I can even realize that I'm making no sense.

AHH! Spanish quiz to make up (from Monday, when I did/didn't have the medical terminology final in the morning and missed class) sometime today. Meaning the tail end of my first open hour, as I don't want to stay after and that's the only time I can catch him during the day when neither of us have class. (In fact, I was thinking about driving today so I could leave when I was done with economics and most definitely not stay after, but my temporary parking pass that I got for Monday's field trip to present my then-non-existent AII project to 5th graders ran out, meaning I'd have to park the mile or so down the road and hike in the near-freezing weather. Plus I'm getting towards being out of gasoline and have no cashy money for more. And it's prolly not a good idea to be driving too much in the slippreryish dark in less than 3.5 hours.) Meaning I've got to learn those words between now and said tail end of my open hour before Spanish. Thus cutting down on the time I've got to write answers to questions about the article I thought I finished. *headdesk* The bed is thus not happening ATM.