Feminine, or feminist?

I was just reading a blog entry about what it means to be a Catholic woman, and something that was mentioned about femininsts made me think. This isn't like a deep thought or anything, but isn't it interesting that, as understood by many people, the definition of feminist basically takes out any traditional understanding of what being feminine constitutes. Feminists are loud, abrasive, dress in pantsuits and like men as much as possible, maybe have boy-short haircuts, simply try to take out any feminine attributes when at all possible, things like that. Things that don't necessarily mean someone isn't feminine if they have any of those attributes, but when put all together just take the feminine out of feminists. And isn't that weird? These women (and no, not all "feminists" are bad, but I'm talking here about those stereotypical ones, the ones who gave us all our general understanding of what a feminist is) who fought so hard for "women's rights" (or should it be womyn's rights?) are the ones who probably get upset if you infer to them that they aren't exactly the same as men, if you let them in on the secret that women should embrace their feminine qualities instead of squashing them down in an attempt to make one gender and one gender only, or perhaps just get rid of men altogether. It's just interesting that, to me anyway, two words which differ only in their last two letters can have such drastically different connotations in today's society. They should be synonymous. Or at least more similar than they are.

Eh I don't know.

Geography Meme

1. A Place You've Visited and Your Favorite Thing there.
   La Jolla, CA, and the little piece of beach where all the seals were congregated.
   


2. A Country You'd Like to Visit and Why
   Italy and Ireland (or Scotland). Italy because Rome and the Pope and all that other good stuff are there, and Ireland (or Scotland) because...come on! Who doesn't love those accents, and those beautiful landscapes? Man. I guess I can't pick just one country.
   


3. A Place From History You'd Like to Visit and Why
   Colonial America, I guess we'll say Massachusetts, and I'd like to visit it because I'm fascinated with that area in that time period. That and out west, the frontier, maybe when it was just Native Americans living here, because I'd love to see what everything looked like before we started paving and building and ugly-fying, or just when it was beginning to be settled, because I also enjoy learning about that stuff.
   


4. A Place You Know a Lot About
   Um...Notre Dame.
   


5. A Place You'd Like to Learn More About
   Russia. Particularly around late 1800s, early-mid 1900s.
   


6. A Fictional Place You'd Like to Visit
   I've seen this answer a few places where I've seen this meme, and I must agree: Middle Earth, particularly the Shire. That, or Green Gables/Avonlea, but I think that might be a real place? I guess I could say Anne's Avonlea, since I know she's not a real person even if the place itself is real. Which I'm not sure it is. I don't really know anything.
   

Tis great

I love the feeling once a headache has finally gone away. It's just so great and makes everything seem at least a bit of a degree better.

My first real DMV experience

So, obviously I've been to the DMV before. But it was with one of my parents both times (getting permit and getting license...so I guess technically that'd make it three times), and...it was five or more years ago. Anyway. So I just got back from getting my license renewed. Because I'm now 21 and I get a horizontal license instead of the vertical one I've had for the last five years. I was slightly concerned about going, because we've all heard the horror stories. Well, I left around 10:30 (an hour later than I wanted to, but I slept later than I planned because of my headache and whatnot) and when I pull up to the building, and the parking lot looks hopping, so I was still a little worried I'd be there for awhile. I walked in, and there was a place to get a number, but it said it was for license plates and stuff, and to get a blue number for license renewals and whatnot. I forget what made me look over, but off to the side was the place for licenses. And, lucky me, there were only like two people over there. So I went and got one of those numbers and sat down. They were on number 14, and I had 16. So I didn't have to wait long at all, and it was pretty great. Everyone who was there was there for license plates and whatnot I guess. So yeah. When he called my number, I went over, had to tell him all the stuff they ask you (SSN, address, weight, height, etc), I had to go to the ATM they had to get cash as they only take cash or check and I (thought I) had neither. (As it turns out, I do have my checkbook but it's in a different pocket than the one I checked. Oh well.) So I wasted $1.75 using the ATM, but now I know the balance in my ND account, which I've been wondering about. And then I had to take the little vision test, no biggie, sign the thing, get my fingerprint taken or whatnot, and then the picture. So now I have a piece of paper that I better not lose as it's my license for the next 30 days, or until I get my license in the mail. Hopefully the picture doesn't suck.

So that was my fun DMV experience. I'd definitely do it again. haha. But yeah, in and out in like 30 minutes. Not too shabby. (I almost had a bad experience with my car though, as it's been leaking antifreeze lately, and on...Sunday? Monday? Saturday? I think Saturday...the light came on that said "low coolant" so Dad put some in, and then a few days later we realized it's leaking, and today when I got in the car and turned it on it once again said Low Coolant, so I called Dad and he was trying to tell me over the phone how to fill it up, but unfortunately I'm a weakling and couldn't get the thing open that I needed to get open. So I just took Peter's truck, which was interesting. Not bad, just...interesting. My poor car. It's getting old. If I do drive it up to school, which I'm hoping to do...although I just realized, I wonder if I'll be able to, like with getting a permit and stuff up there for parking...eh I'm sure I can--but if I do drive it up, it needs some work done beforehand. It would really suck to break down in the middle of Nebraska all by myself. Ick. My poor car.)

What?????

Dude. I just learned something I NEVER WOULD HAVE KNOWN had I not just looked at the Colorado Driver's Handbook. Did you know that bumping or ramming another vehicle is unacceptable aggressive driving behavior? (haha I just spelled it behaviour.) This is crazy talk!

Simplify it, already!

We just got done watching The Lake House. It was a pretty good movie, I suppose, although I have a hard time watching many movies lately without making fun of lots of it. Cynic that I am. Cynic. Is that how it's spelled? Doesn't look right. Anyway. But as far as crossing time period movies go, Frequency is much better. Plus, both Jim Caviezel and even Dennis Quaid are significantly better than Keanu Reeves. In acting, looks, etc. (Yeah, Dennis Quaid is kind of old, ish, not really old old, but yeah, but he's still better looking than Keanu Reeves. Plus I can't take Keanu seriously. Oh well.) So, not very far into the movie (and kind of knowing basically what happens in it, and correctly guessing most of the basics of what else happens in it) I thought of something that, were I in Sandra Bullock's position in that movie, I would have done ASAP. Why the heck didn't she just google the guy to find out where he was in her time? Or anything about him? Would have saved a whole heck of a lot of trouble. Geez. Come on, we live in the age of computers. Take advantage of it! Sigh. Oh well. Lots of that movie didn't seem to make logical sense (even within the unrealistic constraints of the story itself, namely conversing between different time periods). I mean, if you're going to deal with time travel, you have to keep things consistent, and this movie doesn't exactly do that as well as I would like. I'd go into more detail, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone. Because, I mean, it's such a blow-you-away-did-not-see-that-coming ending! Anyway though. But all those inconsistencies would be moot if she had just looked him up in the first place! man. She clearly did not grow up with computers. Probably would have occured to her if she had. And then the movie could have been over in like half an hour. Maybe make it a full hour just for kicks. They could have had a better ending with the extra time (I wasn't a huge fan of the ending. Not the outcome, necessarily, just the way they did the ending. But I guess that's just because of who I am). But the whole thing could have been a whole lot simpler with a little bit of product placement. Go Google, the source of all life's information. And at the end, they could say "And we owe it all to Google." (haha, or like in Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, when Diana changes Anne's story so that the characters mention Rollings Reliable baking powder or whatever it is, they say "We will never use any baking powder but Rollings Reliable." Dude, that's just about the greatest movie ever. Well, not just the sequel, but the two together. I should watch it sometime again. I love it. Love love love it. It's just so great! But, oh yeah, I wasn't talking about that movie. hehe.) Man, it's a shocker people don't have me doing screenplays. I'd rock. (yeah right.)

My English teacher sometimes irritates me. I mean, he's ok I guess, but the way he talks is just so...aggravating. He is very hesistant getting out some of the things he's trying to say, and he like stutters with stuff (but I don't think it's like...the kind of stutter that people work hard to try to fix...I don't know. hard to explain. Or maybe I'm just a bitch). Anyway. Sometimes it just really distracts me, and all I can think is "stop rambling about this, spit out what you're trying to say, and let us move on!" Ah, oh well. S'all good.

I'm feeling weird right now. Physically. I had a slight headache when I got home from classes today, so I took some excedrin (or as I like to call it, The Pill of Magic. Ok, I actually haven't ever called it that in my life, or anything similar to that). But now, I have the headache again (I think it went away for at least awhile...it hasn't been bad at all so maybe I just ignored it), but I also feel kind of...I don't know, weak. Maybe I'm just tired. Hopefully a good night's sleep will help me. I'm sure it will. That, and then actually having the weekend off. ahhhhh.

Ok, so now I'm really impatient for it to get cold. I have these cute sweaters and cold-weather stuff now, and I really want to get to wear them! Sigh. But that's ok. But yeah, I wanted it to be cold before this, and now I want it to get cold even more. Alas, looks like the coldest it'll get in the next 10 days (as if those are very accurate) is maybe low 60s. Oh well. One of these days, the cold weather will hit. Ah, who am I kidding, this is Colorado. It'll be cold for a few days some point soon maybe, but then it'll go back to being 60s. And then, despite the fact that people have been saying this might be a bad winter, weather-wise (which to Susie means GREAT!), all the snow will wait until after I leave and then it'll dump like three feet on the city. And South Bend will get none in the year 2007. At all. Hm. Conspiracy? I think so.

So, have you all noticed how ridiculously much I use parentheses? Perhaps that's why sometimes I run into problems when writing real things like papers for class and whatnot. I'm pretty sure using parentheses is somewhat frowned upon by most teachers. As far as I know. So I get by with what I can by using dashes. Which, really, is there a big difference between inserting dashes in the middle of a statement or putting a parenthesied statement in the middle of a sentence? I just don't know.

I don't like names that can be used for either sex. I much prefer it to be, you hear a name and you know what gender the person is before seeing that person.

You know, there's quite a few new TV shows this season that I might like to see at least once, but I'm glad I keep missing them, pilots and whatnot, because I really don't need to get hooked to more TV shows. LOST starts next week, and that's pretty exciting, so I'll just stick with being hooked on that one and not care about any others. Well, maybe ER, but I don't know. I saw the season premier, and I saw how they wrapped up things from that episode on tonight's episode, so I might be good with ER now and not really want to watch it anymore.

Well, I should get to bed soon. And I mean that, and I have every intention of actually doing that tonight. I'm planning on heading down to the DMV tomorrow at around 9:30. If it looks ridiculously crowded, I'll either stay and wait it out, or I'll leave and plan to come back Wednesday morning, which is apparently pretty much their least busy day generally. Unlike Fridays, one of their most busy days. I'd just really prefer not to have to sit there for two hours. But Wednesday is the last day I can get it done, as that's the day it officially expires...Anyway. We'll see what happens tomorrow. Good night!

Mmm...Cocoa butter

It's official. I can't see/listen to/watch Aaron Neville and take him seriously. (but can anyone, really?) SNL has seen to that. (and it's also official that I've now got football on the brain, as i keep wanting to type NFL instead of SNL. Weird.) They had a few skits with him like last year in which...Horatio Sanz? Keenan Thompson? played him, and he mentioned rubbing cocoa butter on his arms. I specifically remember one with him, I think it was around the Superbowl or something, and it was just funny. So yeah. Anyway. He was on Leno tonight, and that's why I thought of that. Incidentally, I'll probably be watching little to no SNL this year, definitely less than I did last year--and that's not really saying much, I guess, because it hasn't been that funny for awhile. But I read last week that some of the best people who are on the show are no longer on it. And there weren't that many good people. But Tina Fey is gone, as I've known for awhile, because she has that new show. And apparently Rachel Dratch is gone too, as she's on that show as well. I didn't know about her. And then Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz, and I think someone else apparently just weren't asked to come back, or something like that. Those two guys are funny. And Rachel Dratch is funny sometimes too, and Tina Fey had the best part of the show that was left, Weekend Update (although it wasn't nearly as good last year without Jimmy Fallon). So anyway. Yeah, like anyone cares about this. hehe.

Ok, so we were waiting at Katies today (that would be our chiropractor in case you weren't aware) and she always has a radio on, I think it's always playing 92.9 (which used to be oldies but has within the last year or so changed to just "Colorado's favorite hits" or some crap like that, so they basically play some oldies and then up to like 80s, maybe early 90s stuff. Which is just stupid. They should stick to the oldies). Today, as they were reading the news or weather or something like that, they read off the sponsor of that news or weather break (you know what I'm talking about, right?). Well, to my surprise and annoyance, the sponsor was whoever's pushing Referendum I of the upcoming election here in Colorado. For those of you not in Colorado (or who don't pay attention to voting stuff), I'll fill you in. Referendum I has a little phrase attached to it, for easy remembering I guess. "It's not about marriage--it's about basic legal rights" or some crap like that. Basically it's trying to get the thing passed so same-sex couples can get the rights that spouses get, so yeah it's the domestic partnership thing. Obviously I'm not terribly pro-this referendum. I'd rather not have my tax dollars pay toward supporting something that I do not support. Anyway. I was simply not particularly happy to hear something I'm against be pushed on a radio station I occasionally listen to. (Not that the station necessarily is endorsing it, but yeah.) Anyway. There's my rant.

Yesterday in Latin my teacher told us that this weekend the Philharmonic (gosh I love them) is doing Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the chorale, and if we go she'll give us some extra credit. Which is funny because I had just started thinking this week about how I want to go to the philharmonic sometime. So who knows, maybe I'll go this weekend. That'd be awesome. She also told us that we could get discounted tickets with our student IDs. I didn't see anything about that on their website (or at the ticketmaster site when you go there to buy tickets, but then I guess they'd need to see the ID to prove you're a student or whatever...I'm not sure), but even if there's not, I could get nosebleed section tickets for $12. I'd sure love to go. I mean, come on, it's Beethoven, it's singing in Latin, it's the freaking philharmonic! What's not to love? We'll see though.

Today was the first time really that I've ever wished I had a camera phone. I walked out of Columbine Hall where my philo class is, and the door I walk out of immediately greets you with this gorgeous view of Pikes Peak, with Garden of the Gods in there and some of the pretty foothills around that area. And you're up on a hill so it's a completely unobstructed view. Absolutely gorgeous. And especially today. There's still snow on Pikes Peak and the surrounding mountains, those high enough to have at least a little bit of snow anyway, and today at the moment I stepped out there were clouds over the mountains--but the sun was managing to peek through ever so slightly, which caused lots of those little sunrays to shower the mountain, kind of. Anyway. There's no way I can adequately describe it here, but suffice it to say that it was breathtaking. I even called Mom to tell her to go look, as she's just a couple miles away and also has a nice view of Pikes Peak. It was just lovely though. And I wished I had a camera to capture it. I know, however, that a camera phone definitely wouldn't have done it justice in the slightest, but, you know, it might have been something anyway. Ah well. I suppose it'll just have to live in my mind now.

Let's see, what else... Ah yes. Today, my prof brought in a few prayer books of various faiths to pass around and whatnot. One of them, called something like "The Prayer of Man," he introduced by saying that it's a book whose title needs to be updated, or changed or something like that. And then once he told us the title, he was like "so obviously they need to change that so it's not sexist" or something along those lines. He's done this before, always adding "and women" or whatever the appropriate female title is in the context, when the original thing obviously only mentions "men" or whatever male title it is. It just bothers me when people do this. Maybe it's partially because some people feel the need to do it in Mass, when, while referring to God, people decide to take out "him" or "he" or "his" and replace it with "God" or "God's" so that songs have been revamped and now sound annoyingly clunky, and some people change it while other stick with what the GIRM says which makes the congregation sound confused and disunitied (is disunitied a word? Maybe it should be disunited). Anyway. It's just stupid. I'm a girl, and I really really don't mind when people use "man" or "men" or "mankind" when referring to humans in general. Every other language does the same thing. French, Spanish, Latin, they all use the masculine form when there's more than one gender being talked about, or when talking about a bunch of people, or anything like that. Argh. Sorry. Ok, end of second rant.

I was unfortunate enough to have the TV on NBC today when the Tyra Banks show came on. Know what the topic was? Losing your virginity. And there was apparently someone on who wanted to lose hers, and the show was going to "help her" or something. I didn't watch it, so I don't really know what happened, but...yeah. Weird. Eh, I suppose it's what we've become. She mentioned a statistic at the beginning of the show, before I turned it off, that 50 years ago some high percentage (I forget exactly what, but I'd venture to guess it was above 60%) of married couples were virgins when they got married. Today? 8%. It's unbelievable. Well, I guess it's believable, but man is it sad. I mean, I wonder if there's a single character on TV these days who would commit to saving sex for marriage only. And keeping it there. I can't think of any off the top of my head, at all. Quite the opposite, actually. Characters encourage each other to have sex early, and have sex often, and if people don't they get ridiculed. Crazy crazy world in which we live.

I went to Kohl's with Mom tonight. Wasn't really planning on buying anything, but of course I ended up getting a few things. But they're really really cute! A skirt, two turtleneck sleeveless shirts (which are long and will make for good undershirts, under too-low shirts, or under blouses, etc), a sweatercoat (which I am in love with!), a pink sweater (very cute and very soft), and a button down (or up, depending on which way you start) black sweater thing. Other than that black sweater, everything else was either pink or brown...hm. Guess I've hit my quota of blue and purple, and now it's time for more pink and throw in some brown. Anyway. My mom is way too indulging. But she bought stuff too so I didn't feel as bad. And probably wouldn't have gotten as much had she not been getting stuff. My parents spoil me. And I will continue to let them. hehe. I have the best parents. And not because they spoil me, but because they rock. And they put up with my craptacular moods. Wonderful people, those parents.

Hm...I just remembered that I have a Latin test tomorrow. Not to mention some history reading I'm supposed to do at some point, and...hm well no real worries about English. I so do not take that class seriously. But that's ok. (ahhh, the joys of sparknotes. But I do plan on finishing that book. I just don't think I will by tomorrow.)

Can you believe it's already almost the weekend? This week seems to have gone by fast. Man, my perceptions of weeks are just so messed up now. I mean, Tuesdays might as well be Mondays because they're the first day of the week that I have class. Thursdays are kind of like Fridays, but I work both Mondays and Fridays so those days are just...weird, Fridays often feeling like Saturdays. And then Saturdays and Sundays don't always feel like real weekends if I have to work one or both. Anyway. This weekend I have both days off, which is awesome and lovely. Know what else? It's already almost October! All of a sudden, the leaves seem to have burst into various colors of red and yellow and orange. There've been some trees that have been changing for a few weeks now, and those seemed to have jumped the gun, but now that I think about it, they really weren't jumping the gun. My perception was just off a bit, not really thinking about how late in the year (or the month, both work) it really was.

Well. I guess I should get to work. Tomorrow night will be great. At least, I hope it will. Mom and I went and rented The Lake House after we went to Kohls tonight, so we'll watch that tomorrow night I think. And I won't have to worry about working all day Friday, because I only have to work 6-9:30 Friday night! And maybe (everyone get ready to laugh...) I'll get to bed at a decent hour! I think I'm going to try to get to the DMV on Friday at like 9:30 or so (anyone have any good suggestions as to a less busy time to go to the DMV? Someone told me to go right when the open, but someone else told me not to go in that first burst, but to go instead at like 10 or so. Assuming it opens at 8. There is a consensus that lunchtime is a terrible time to go, and I agree). So, if you see me online after like 11 or something tomorrow night, yell at me and tell me to GET TO BED. As I kind of wish I could do right now, but which is probably still maybe a couple hours away. Although, I'll have time between English and Latin to study, and it's really not terribly difficult this time, and I just have to get the workbook stuff done. But as long as we do at least a portion of the sections for each chapter, she's happy. That still has to be done though. (But, and be proud of me, I did one of the two chapters already! Let me tell you, I can be quite productive while sitting in my car. Especially when classical music is involved.)

TTFN--Ta Ta For Now!

I do not like Barbara Wawa

Yet I'm watching a 20/20 special she's hosting. Why? Because she's interviewing Terri Irwin. She's being annoying and so very very fake in it, but I'm still watching it. I like Terri. Not Barbara.

Oh well.

Today sucks

Ugh, I had to go to another Foy appointment today, which was of course just a complete waste of the better part of an hour. I was late because I had to put a bunch of crap into the crockpot this morning before I left, so we'll have dinner tonight, and then once I got there he was of course on the phone or something so as usual I had to wait at least five minutes (which is typical of when I go there, if not on the lesser side of the amounts I generally have to wait for him) before he came over to me, and he checked me to see that, yes, as has been the case for the past hundred thousand visits, my #50 top invisalign doesn't fit well on my teeth still, and he made me put the top retainer in to see that yes, it still does not fit on my teeth at all either, and then he told me simply to keep doing what I've been doing (putting the stupid retainer on, trying to force it on little by little, everyday) and to come back in two weeks and if it's still not on they'll have to make some type of retainer deal in the office for which I'll have to pay $150. It's just such a freaking pain in the ass. And I'm pissed off right now. And probably blew a couple gallons of gas on my way there and back with my jackrabbit starts because I was pissed.

And the last place I want to go right now (or in like twenty minutes) is to class for the better part of three hours. No, the last place I'd really want to go is work, which luckily I don't have to do tonight.


Ugh.

Something good better happen today.

Dude...chills all over

I know that most people who read this don't care, and those who read this who do care probably saw the game live on TV (sigh...), but here's a great 8.5ish minute recap of the whole game, most of the big plays and whatnot. It's so freaking awesome. (And clearly made by an ND lover, but then, why would an MSU person make a highlight video of that game? ha.)


Man I wish I had a copy of the whole game. Stupid stupid ABC. (Although, one of the ABC commenters...commentators? whatever, did say with about 8 minutes to go in the 4th quarter, "And that's why you're MSU" after MSU fumbled I think, and we recovered. Which is pretty hilarious when you think about it, for him to say that on national TV. Of course, it's most definitely not untrue, but yeah.)

Ew ew ew

I was just sitting here on the couch, innocently looking at blogs and whatever else I waste my time with on the Internet, when a spider comes a-crawlin' on my sweatshirt (which luckily is not on me, but on the little cupholder doohicky next to me--we have one of those couches where the two end seats have the recliners, and the back of the middle seat can come down so there's a little table there. Most of the time it's down, as the middle seat isn't terribly comfortable due to the pull-out drawer (like there's any other kind?) that's underneath it, instead of just cushion. Plus we rarely need that many seats in here). It wasn't really a particularly big or nasty looking one, but all spiders are cringe-inducing for me. I had to move fast and get a tissue as it was crawling at a fairly quick speed, so I jumped off the couch, grabbed a tissue, and came back in time to kill it before it got away to where I couldn't see it. So now it's dead. And I'm not sorry. (Ok, maybe I feel a little bad with every bug I kill, but......they're just so gross!)

Know what else are gross? Feet. Ugh. I just happened to see a picture that was a pretty landscape picture, but unfortunately there was a pair of feet at the bottom of the picture. Uncovered feet. I just can't look at that. It's gross. Feet are gross. Ew.

Hey, guess what? Notre Dame won an amazing game on Saturday night! haha. I think someone's finally put at least a highlight video on youtube, so at least that's something. (Hey, tomorrow night at like 9pm eastern, ESPN classic is showing the game, if anyone would care to be a doll and tape it for me...hehe.)

I just heard Starbucks is raising the price of their coffee 5 cents a cup. What a rip. I guess it's a good thing I never go there...even though I do have a $20 gift card...stupid UCCS, all they have is like "Seattle's Best" or something like that. What the heck? I don't have a gift card to Seattle's Best! What are they thinking???

I miss Notre Dame. So very very very much. Man. Every day. More than I ever would have expected. Which, I know, just means that I'm blocking out less pleasant things about it, and hyping up the good things about it, but...I miss it. And I know, there's still all those things that will for sure be present next semester that I disliked last semester (missing things here and whatnot), but...I miss it. And hey, there, I can get Starbucks kind of for free! But anyway. There are things that I'm sure won't be as good as I'm hoping, but I just can't imagine doing anything else now. I miss it. And it's not just the football thing. At least, I don't think it is. (I hope it's not.) Not that that's not a factor, or at least a consideration, but yeah. Anyway. There ya go.

I need to listen to more classical music. Today, when sitting in my car between English and Latin, instead of switching constantly between stations, I put it on the classical station. (Actually, I think one of the reasons I've never done this before is because it wasn't one of my quick buttons, the pre-set ones. But yesterday, when I was trying to leave for work, my car decided to be mean to me and it wouldn't start. Didn't even turn over or anything like that. It's done this before, at least once, but it was in the summer like three years ago. I called Dad, he was going to come home so I could take his car and I'd be late. So I called work, told him I'd be late and why, and then a few minutes later decided to try the car again. I had a feeling it'd work, because that's kind of what happened last time. It did, so Dad just met me at the mall and he took my car, and went to get it checked out. Of course they didn't find anything, as I didn't think they would, but yeah. So then later he was looking at my cigarette lighter, as it hasn't been working for awhile (and the only reason I know that is because the car phone chargers I've tried haven't worked, which annoyed me at the time). Anyway, the end result was that it ended up resetting all my radio settings. No biggie, I just reset them this morning on the way to class--and in order, going up in number. Anyway, the point of this is that previously, I had five stations I would switch between, and six settings. The sixth setting I very rarely listened to. So today I decided to put the classical station on there instead. So the classical station is now on my car radio preset buttons. And thus we go back to my story from today.) So I put it on the classical station, and they were playing a bunch of Gershwin which was awesome. It was just so much more relaxing, and I could focus on the homework I was doing so much better. So I think I'll definitely be doing that much more now. Last year, if I was listening to music while doing homework, it usually had to be classical or at least movies scores because it's always easier and better to listen to music without words when doing homework. Anyway. That's my boring story. Just thought I'd share. You know, I've been wanting to get those Most Relaxing Classical CDs for quite awhile now, and yet haven't. Maybe I should do that one of these days. Too bad stupid Best Buy doesn't have them. Psh. guess I'll just have to blow that gift card on more movies. :-) Oh yeah, and of course Josh Turner. Which I also have yet to get. I suck. Oh well.

Man do I miss going to daily Mass. I suppose I could wake up early and go to the 8am Holy Apostles, but...I don't know. It feels so cramped in the tiny side chapel they do it in. Not very spiritual. And I know, it shouldn't matter where or how, just that I receive the Eucharist and whatnot, but...eh. I miss going to St. Mary's. (Well, we all know what I really miss for Mass, but, you know, gotta make do and all that.) I suppose if I was really ambitious, I could even get up ridiculously early (as in, usually only 3ish hours after I normally go to bed) and go to the Y with my parents, and then be up and ready to go to Mass at 8, and kill two birds with one stone in the morning, and inevitably start to feel better inside and out in more way than one...but that would require me going to bed at like...9 or something. Or only getting 6 hours and going to bed at like 11, and then probably being tired...argh. I wish I was better at doing what I know I should do.

Well, seeing as how I'm clearly not going to do homework tonight (all I really have to do for tomorrow is read some from that philo book, but I know I won't really as it seems to have little to no bearing on what we do in class, which I know is stupid because what's the point of being in the class if I'm not doing the reading, and I'm sure it'll catch up to me at some point later on, but then, do I really care?), I should go to bed soon. Asleep by 1? We'll see. Tis possible. Perhaps I'll even manage to get some reading in! (Non-fun, school-related reading though. Stupid internet. I should really spend about a billion times less time on the internet and do some reading instead, and then maybe I'd actually get around to reading all those books I've been "meaning to read" forever. Like Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, and even Harry Potter. But I've finally admitted something to myself recently--a major problem of mine, and a reason I get so little done, like, ever, is that I hate being disconnected from anything, or possibly missing out on something. So I've convinced myself that if I keep myself glued to the internet all the time, I won't miss anything. Except for that little thing called...REAL LIFE. Sigh.) Anyway.

Aaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnddddddddd.........................done.

Um...ugh

Today is certainly not going to be fun. But who knows, it could turn out to be a good day. That'd be nice.

Either way though, not fun.

Christmas!

I have a Foy appointment on Wednesday. Which means that it's been 6 weeks since my last one (even though I was supposed to go four weeks ago, since I have yet to make that stupid retainer fit on my stupid teeth...but I kept forgetting to call, and just...yeah. Oh well. My bad). Anyway, the point of this is that the last four weeks have gone by surprisingly quickly, looking back. (I say last four weeks because I was supposed to go in, technically, four weeks ago.) And the fact that those four weeks have gone by relatively quickly makes me happy. I can't wait till November, and then I can't wait until Thanksgiving. Because as we all know, Thanksgiving starts the Christmas season! (yeah, yeah, the "secular" Christmas season, as the real Christmas season doesn't really start until...what is it, after Advent or Christmas eve?) I am so ready for Christmas. Everything keeps making me think of it. The snow on the mountain, the relatively cool weather we've been having (even though now the next five days will be in the 60s or 70s. Oh well), wearing sweaters, etc. Man I can't wait. I can't wait until KKLI is FULL of Christmas songs! Dude it's the greatest thing. I hope they stop doing the all-70s weekends during December. For a long while now, every weekend starting on Friday night they've done all-70s weekends. They used to do it just on like holiday weekends (like Memorial Day weekend, or 4th of July weekend, etc). But yeah now it's all the time. Dad loves it, but I hope that at least while they're playing Christmas songs all day every day, they stop the 70s thing. Unless they're 70s Christmas songs. Hehe. (When's that Band-Aid "Heal the World" or whatever song from? dude that song rocks in its weirdness. "There won't be snow in Africa this christmastime." So let's give them money. Or something. I don't know. haha. I love Christmas music. But not enough to listen to it all year, just so you all know. No worries about that. I like to keep it special, so I just listen to it from Thanksgiving on. Thanksgiving is a great holiday. Doesn't get enough mention, I think, because it's always overshadowed by Christmas. Santa will apparently be coming to Chapel Hills Mall on Nov. 18, which is the Saturday before Thanksgiving. No idea when they'll start playing Christmas music. At least in Wilsons they apparently don't start until after Thanksgiving, so that's good. But yeah. It's almost October, which means almost Christmas stuff in some stores.)

All righty. No idea why I just decided to talk about that. It just struck me. I'm so excited. Oh yeah, so I think my point was going to be that the last four weeks have gone by quickly, looking back, so hopefully the next four and the four after that will be relatively quick as well. I guess it helps that I practically live the week for every Saturday. I don't know what I'll do the week before Saturday the 14th, because ND doesn't play that week! Aaaaaah!

I think I need to get a little better in living in the moment...I've never been very good at that.

Cats are funny

Sometimes, when Blackie's trying to do something which she knows we (or at least I) don't want her to do, like trying to sit on my lap (or laptop) or something, she'll first go for it with regular movements. But then, after being pushed away, she'll try again. This time, though, she'll go all slow-like, moving one paw at a time, as slow as she can manage. As if I won't notice that she's moving until she's actually sitting on me or my laptop. It's just so funny. Annoying how persistent she is, but it is hard not to laugh at it. Hehe.

It's 11pm

And I may just go to bed soon. (I also may not. Who can ever tell.)

Here's what I know for sure. I have a 2 page history thing to write for Tuesday. I meant to do it tonight but it once again slipped my mind. I also have to read at least a little more of the next book we're looking at for English, also by Tuesday. I'm less worried about that one though. And I should do some Latin, workbook and whatnot, as we have another test Thursday, but first and foremost I have to do that history thing. I wish I could make myself care more...but then, do I really wish that? Nah.

I'm tired. Tomorrow's another 8 hour day at work, but then I don't work again until Friday, and then it's only 6-close. So I'll probably be going down to the DMV on Friday. No, I shouldn't say probably. I HAVE to do it, and I have to do it by next...Wednesday, I think, which is when my licence expires. So...I best not procrastinate that one for too long.

Um...yeah. So yeah, tomorrow at work is kind of do or die. I'm telling my manager about Peter's graduation at the end of October, so either he'll say I can get the time off, or I'll have to let him know that that week will be my last week. I can't miss his graduation. If I can't see him then, I don't know when I'll see him again. He'll be home for a couple weeks in Jan or Feb-ish, but chances are I won't be here. As I'm sure I've mentioned all this before. So anyway. I'm not sure what all's going to happen, with anything, but we'll start seeing tomorrow.

Dude

I'm still so pumped. Man I hope youtube or something has at least some clips from this game. Specifically the second half. That's all that matters. Man. All I saw was the last three minutes and they were AMAZING. Dude. I'm still so pumped. And man am I wishing I was back at school right now. I'd totally go and meet the team as they get dropped off from the bus taking them back to school. If ever there were a time to go show our support, tonight'd be a great one. But alas, I will have to support them from afar for now.

but man, I canNOT wait to get back there in November! It will be sweet! Even if we are just playing North Carolina, who isn't really a team. (sorry, perhaps that's a bit mean. They're a team, but they're not a team we should have to struggle against. So, hey, guaranteed win!) Man. Just so great. Awesome. As many have said tonight, this is why Weis is not Willingham. Leading up to today there've been all these comparisons. Willingham went 11-4 his first 15 games. (So did Devine, but no one mentions that.) Weis went 11-4 his first games. Willingham's 16th game (against MSU)? He lost. Weis's 16th (also against MSU)? He won. In an amazing way. Sure, blowout wins are always nice, but a win is a win, and scoring 19 unanswered points in less than a quarter's worth of time is pretty unbelievably amazing. Had this game with that score happened under Willingham, there's no way the team would have rallied to win like they did. Heck, I remember games from freshmen year, we got behind and we simply stayed behind. No rallying whatsoever. Not so under Weis. We rallied against MSU last year. Even tied it up, went into overtime. Of course, we ended up losing that one, but still. (And, as I agreed with one person's comment I read tonight, I was almost happy that we didn't get that extra point there towards the end. I hate overtime. I want just to win it. Of course, I suppose overtime is better than a loss. At that point though, I just knew we had to win. I just knew it.)

Oh yeah. Troy Smith, OSU's quarterback, now the top Heisman candidate, was 12 of 22 for 115 yards and two interceptions. Brady? 20 of 36 for 316 yards, one interception, and five TD passes. (Not sure how many TD passes Troy Smith had, but it was less than 5. Oh, I just read that it's 1.) And Smith was against PSU, a team we more or less manhandled two weeks ago. And of course, Smith once again showed why he's the Heisman frontrunner. I mean, look at those numbers! But who's comparing, right? Brady just needs to keep doing what he's good at, keep being the Brady Quinn from the second half tonight, and he'll get what he deserves. At least, let's hope he does. But the next 7 games should be pretty good for his stats. USC will be the real, final test. Obviously. Since it's the last game of the regular season. But yeah. Anyway.

I did figure something out. Something I had speculated on earlier, and why I felt confident we would win (albeit, before I started learning the score and whatnot--but that's not to say I ever, EVER gave up hope and faith in my team). What's consistent about the three games we've won so far? I have missed part or all of them. Georgia Tech, I missed most of the first half I think, because I was at the reception for Steve's wedding. We started playing better once I got back to the hotel room and turned on the TV. PSU, I just completely missed (and then watched later, of course) and, well, we all know what happened there. Michigan, I watched every minute from beginning to end. Unfortunately. And MSU, I missed all but a bit of the last quarter. (And I'd like to point out that the first of those last three amazing touchdowns occurred just a minute or two after I got out of work and was driving home. And I heard it happen, as I was talking to Mom on the phone and she had the radio on loud enough that I could hear the announcer start to yell "Samardzija to the 20...the 10...Touchdown Irish!" Or whatever it was that he said. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.) So...I don't want to say that I should start intentionally missing the games, but man I'm almost tempted to do so. I doubt I will, however. I'll be home for most of the remaining games, I think, so I doubt I'd be able to stop myself from watching.

Oh, hahaha, I just read this post (on an ND football message board I go to a lot), and some guy was talking about how he got a call early in the game from his boss who is apparently a USC fan, so he was ragging on ND. The guy said he recognized the caller ID so he didn't answer, but after the game called said boss back and basically gave him a taste of his own medicine, with a moral of don't call your employee to rag on their team until the game is over. This particularly makes me laugh because tonight at work, right after Brady was picked off and they ran it into a TD to make it 24-7, Michael called me (at work, where I had to be while he got to watch the freaking game) to tell me how bad it looked. He was rooting for MSU because he went there for a year. Well, I felt it was only appropriate to call him back after it was over to gloat. And gloat I did. It was sweeeet.

Sorry. Man am I wound up. And tomorrow, instead of being able to bask in the celebratory mood of campus with my fellow students, I must go to work. Ah, well, such is life and the decisions we make.

The Irish won, and that's plenty good for me for now.

YEAH BABY!!!!!

OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so as you may know, Notre Dame was playing at MSU tonight. It was a very scary game, because if we lost, man you could pretty much write us off. Us losing would not be a good thing. Ever, but especially tonight. Before I left for work, I made Mom promise to text me with updates every so often. She had to listen to the game on the radio. The updates I was getting weren't good. ND losing 14-0, then 17-0, then like 24-7, then eventually 31-21, and by the time I left it was 37-21 I think. Yeah. And it was still going on, with 9 minutes left in the 4th quarter. As I was talking to Mom on the phone driving home, we scored. Then Julie called me, so I hung up with Mom, and had a fun conversation with Julie and Bethany (and Caitlin and Katherine said hi). It was fun. And while I was talking to them, we scored again. Missed the extra point. Oh, and missed the 2-point conversion with the TD when I was talking to Mom. So at that point it was 37-33, MSU still winning. I rushed to get home (well, not really, I did follow the speed limit, and was especially aware of it as I had seen a few cops on the way home). As I was walking in the door, Mom called again, to tell me we had intercepted and ran it back for another TD!!! And then I guess we got the extra point, since the score was 40-37. So I just barely missed seeing that (oh, they had put the ND game on ABC after the USC game was over, when there were about 4 or 5 minutes left in the ND game). So then MSU had the ball, and all they needed was to get in field goal range and then get the field goal to tie it up. It looked like they might get there, after an interception by Zibby was called back because of a facebook penalty (arggggh. Apparently they called back a Zibby TD in the 3rd after a punt return, he got it and ran it back which I don't think he's done yet this year, but they called it back because of some penalty or another. Stupid refs). But then, oh then, Stanton (MSU's QB) threw a pass, it got tipped by one of our players, bounced off that same player I think or something, and I don't know it was all a jumble, but in the end one of the play, the MSU intended receiver was on the ground, one of our guys was on top of him, and the ball was in the arms of OUR GUY!!! It hadn't touched the ground. It touched a couple guys, but we got it! And then there were 24 seconds left, so that's the game because the play clock goes up to 25 seconds (so we could like line up and wait 24 seconds before snapping the ball and then the game'd be over). WE WON!!!!!! We scored 19 freaking points in like 9 minutes! How amazing is that??? And dude, I've never seen a turnover like that. And the last play of the game. Dude. DUDE. The whole time at work, once I got that first text message with a foreboding message, I was saying in my head "please God please God please God" over and over and over. And after I got off the phone with Julie and Mom, I was saying it out loud in my car the whole way home. And I was greeted with that awesome interception TD! And in the car I kept thinking, man it's a long shot, but there have been some amazing comebacks in football. (And then the voice in my head said, yeah, but what are the chances that'll happen this time?) Well, the Irish sure showed me. I love the Irish. (And no, I'm not saying I wouldn't love them had they lost, but dude. They're AWESOME!) And yeah, everyone always says in great comeback games that the losing team had a meltdown. Well, I don't care. The Irish rock, and that's all there is to it. (And, mean as it is to say because we've all been there, I couldn't help but laugh with glee and mirth when they showed the faces of the MSU crowd. Classic. And did you notice? No flag-planting from our team. Apparently MSU had four guys standing "guard" over some S that's in the middle of their field. As if we would stoop to their level. No, our guys were too busy celebrating with the ND fans and singing the Alma Mater. Just as it should be.)

(Oh, and I know what I said about ESPN yesterday or whatever, and it still holds true, but it's fun to go to the website and see the top headline "Feels Dame Good!" with a lovely picture of Samardzija leaping in the air, or looking like he's about to land actually, with the ball of course, and an MSU player behind him. How great. And man, it does feel dame good. haha. I feel like an idiot saying that. haha.)


WOOHOOOO!!!!!! ND@MSU, 40-37

Funny joke

Robert wakes up with a huge hangover after attending his company's Christmas Party. Robert is not normally a drinker, but the drinks didn't taste like alcohol at all. He didn't even remember how he got home from the party. As bad as he was feeling, he wondered if he did something wrong. Robert had to force himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a couple of aspirin next to a glass of water on the side table. And, next to them, a single red rose!

Robert sits up and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed.

He looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean. So is the rest of the house. He takes the aspirin, and cringes when he sees a huge black eye staring back at him in the bathroom mirror. Then he notices a note hanging on the corner of the mirror, written in red with little hearts on it,and a kiss mark in lipstick from his wife: "Honey, breakfast is on the stove. I left early to go get groceries to make you your favorite dinner tonight. I love you, darling! Love, Nancy."

He stumbles to the kitchen and, sure enough, there is hot breakfast, steaming hot coffee, and the morning newspaper. His son is also at the table, eating his breakfast. Robert asks, "Son, what happened last night?"

"Well," said Robert, "you came home after 3 a.m., drunk and out of your mind. You fell over the coffee table and broke it. Then you puked in the hallway, and got that black eye when you ran into the door."

Confused he asked his son, "So, why is everything in such perfect order, so clean, I have a rose, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me?"

His son replies, "Oh THAT! Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed, "Leave me alone, lady, I'm married!"

Broken Coffee Table $39.99
Hot Breakfast $ 4.20
Two Aspirin $ .38
Saying the right thing, at the right time . . . Priceless.

Why do I do it?

Occasionally, I go to espn.com to see if there's anything new about ND on there (and occasionally I look for other interesting tidbits as well). ESPN isn't exactly ND-friendly. Especially after last week. They can sing our praises all they want when we look like we're doing well, but God forbid we lose a game, and then we become even worse than Washington. Washington, who I think won 2 games last season. But oooh, apparently they might win a whole FOUR this season! Under the can-do-no-wrong Willingham. (That article, by the way, finds it necessary to mention both ND's loss last week, as well as the fact that it was under Weis, which of course means that Weis is a horrible terrible no-good very bad coach. So anyway, the front page of ESPN right now is titled "Living on a Prayer" and has a picture of our boys kneeling in the endzone (I'm guessing from last week, but could be any time) as they do before all games. And an explanation of the article that says how on this game this week rides all our hopes for a BCS bid, etc. Stupid ESPN. They'll jump all over the ND bandwagon, but the minute things look bad, off they go again because we're not allowed to lose.

I love you, Irish, even if you do lose tomorrow.

Retail? No thanks

I am not the type of person who really should be working retail. At least, not if the store wants me to help with improving sales or anything. I am NOT a salesperson. That's all there is to it. I can sit there and run a register like a pro, as long as I don't have to deal with customer service. But man, I cannot imagine doing retail as like a long-term career thing. No way.

Of course, that said, I can't really think of a career I'd really like. Nothing I can really picture myself in. Which makes me think that for the forseeable future, or until I get married to a rich (Catholic) guy, chances are I'll be doing retail. Because what else is there? I'm not terribly good at anything. Eh. Oh well. See, this is why engineering majors have it made. Their career path is obvious. (Not to mention, engineers have like the highest salary right after college.) I can't go and be, like, a professional...theologian. Or historian. (Did I mention I'm thinking about possibly minoring in history? Not sure though.) I'll figure it out someday.


And on an unrelated note (but I'm watching it right now), Calista Flockhart does not know what Legos are. Or Erector Sets. And she made fun of Jay Leno for not knowing what Ugg boots are (Ugg boots suck by the way). How weird. Who doesn't know what Legos are? Perhaps I'm just swayed by the fact that my older brother was obsessed with Legos for most of his (and thus my) childhood. But still.

Things that make me happy

• Dad turning on the fire last night (he re-lit the pilot light. We have a gas fireplace).
• Clouds and rain much of the day today, and then some snow tonight!
• Realizing that I'll get home when I get home, so there's no point in getting mad at people because they don't know how to drive (well, no point in getting mad to an extent anyway).
• Impending fall/winter weather.
• Free Coldstone tonight! (thanks to joining the birthday club thing at Coldstone online).
• Jason, the cutest nephew a girl could have.
• My wonderful family.
• Letting go of things.
• Getting to the point where I'm so fed up with the stupid sales goals at work (and co-workers who hog sales despite being well above their weekly goal, when I'm still way behind mine) that I just don't care anymore.
• Yummalicious pork chops that Dad made yesterday.
• The fact that every day that passes is one day closer to October, which means one day closer to November, and then December.
• Um....that's it for now I guess.

Winter's a-comin

Yeah, so it wasn't entirely "winterish" today. But man was it nice. It started raining late last night, before I went to bed, and I heard it raining and being really really windy throughout the night and this morning before I got out of bed. Didn't really rain for most of the day, but it was deliciously cool and mostly cloudy all day. Quite lovely. AND Pikes Peak is gorgeously covered in snow. Well, not COVERED covered I guess, but pretty well covered. Especially considering yesterday there was very little visible snow on it. So anyway. It was quite beautiful. And that snow will probably be there now for the next six, seven, eight months at least. Unless it starts to warm up freakishly (which is always possible). But I think over the next few days the mountains are supposed to get up to 20 inches of snow. So yeah. We might even get some here, apparently, but I wouldn't be any money on it. The high on Saturday is only like 54 though, which is awesome.

And I am ridiculously excited that tomorrow I only have to work 1-5. I haven't had a Friday night off in like...weeks and weeks and weeks. Other than the one where I was in New Hampshire, which I don't count (especially since I'm sure I would have had to work that night had I been home).

Hm. I have more homework to do this weekend than I'd like, but oh well. I probably won't do most of it anyway. Aside from history (and that's not saying a whole lot) most of my classes are kind of a joke. Which, I know, that statement will come back to bite me in the butt sooner or later, but...so far it's true. Not that I'm complaining, in the slightest.

Apparently some guys (seniors, I think) who left Saturday's game early wrote a letter to the editor in The Observer trying to defend leaving early when the team's getting a major crushing. Something about how ND football is all about winning, and how losing like we were is going against "tradition," and how we (students, mostly, I guess) shouldn't continue to cheer and "jig" and dance and make it look like we're ok with such a less than wonderful performance. They compared it to bringing home a report card with all Fs and how our parents wouldn't celebrate and dance around after seeing it. These guys are pretty much idiots. ND football is not all about winning. Football is about winning and losing, but still supporting the team no matter what. They stay until the end, they come over and lift their helmets to the students, sing the Alma Mater with the students, even when they lose. It's been said by a number of recruits that seeing pretty much the entire student body still there after the game, after pretty much a blowout which ND was on the negative end of, made those recruits see what a different place ND is. Darius Walker apparently was at ND as a recruit when we played FSU in '03, a game that we apparently lost 37-0. He later said that seeing the student body still there afterwards is one of the main reasons he committed to coming to ND. A recruit who just committed to ND this week, who was at the game on Saturday, said the same thing about the student body. We aren't a school where the team, after a huge loss, will turn to the stands and see empty seats. We stay. Heck, I wasn't even there but I refused to turn off the TV until it was all over. It's not all about us winning. It's about staying there and supporting classmates, friends, future fellow alums. All that stuff. Anyway.

Bedtime soon I think.

Sorry, but...

This picture just made me laugh. (That's from that infamous Oklahoma-Oregon game I was talking about earlier this week, a picture of the ball recovery from that onside kick thing, you know, where the refs decided that Oregon had recovered the ball. Look for the ball in that picture. Green uniforms=Oregon, white uniforms=Oklahoma. And then laugh with incredulity at how refs could be so stupid. Or completely biased, take your pick.)

And now I think I'm done talking about that game. I just had to share with you all, in case perhaps it might make you laugh too. Laughter is good.

Damn ABC

So, apparently KRDO's website had it wrong, and now I am completely shut out of being able to watch even a tape of Saturday night's game (thanks also in part to the fact that we don't have cable, which really I'm not terribly upset about). Man, why do I have to live in the like 21% of the country that doesn't get the GOOD game? There's still a possibility I can get someone with cable to tape the game for me (apparently it'll be on some ESPN channel, not sure which one), and then if the end result is favorable, I'll get said tape and watch it. But I've had a few hours to resign myself to the fact that chances are I won't be able to see the game this week.

And I gotta say, that doesn't make me terribly happy. (But, I know, there are worse things that could happen.)

Just one of those days

I let things get to me too much. Like people who don't know how to drive. (Argh. LEARN HOW already.) By the time I got home from class today, I was just pissed. Couldn't tell you why. I had sat through 2 hours and 40 minutes of a freezing room, and when we had a break and I decided to get a cup of coffee to warm me up (and wake me up), I go down there to find that they were only taking cash, and all I had was a card. And then driving home people were just stupid, as usual. But I was surprised at how much it all got to me. And then when I was rushing in the half hour I was home, trying to get something to eat, I got really ridiculously mad to a stupid degree at Dad when I found out he ate the extra burger from last night (I told him I wanted two when he asked how many, but my plan was to eat one last night and then one today for lunch or something, but I guess I never did say that and I just assumed it'd still have my name on it--figuratively of course). And then I had to drive again to go to work, and deal with a very slow night which wasn't going terribly for me, sales-wise, until a guy came back and returned a laptop bag I had sold him last week sometime. That screwed up my sales for the week a bit. And at one point my manager decided to point out the fact that I'm the only one who hasn't sold any leather care yet this week, to which I reminded him that I've had a total of two--2--sales all week. (And then he said that the other sales associate has only had five transactions this week, and she's sold leather care for three of them. What the hell? That's not my fault.) It's not like I haven't tried (both times). I ask everyone if they want leather care. Most times people say no, or that they already have some. Is that my fault? Gar. Leave me alone, it's not like I'm not freaking trying. And...ugh. Not sure if I should go into it here, but there's a work-thing (scheduling) that's really stressing me out right now. It'll work out one way or another, but it's stressing me out. And I found out that not this Sunday, but next, Oct 1, I have to work 8 hours. I wasn't scheduled for that Sunday (we typically get every other one off), but we have to switch the store around AGAIN (seems like the stupid corporate people or whoever has us do that like every two weeks. It's such a freaking waste of time. Seriously), and the other sales associate who is working that Sunday can't work until 10:30, which is when I'm scheduled until, because she's under 18 and the next day is a school day and apparently under 18 year olds can only work until 9 when it's a school day the next day. So she's still working that Sunday, but I am too (and I have to come in half an hour before her). Now, this does suck, but it's not totally terrible--until I realized that that would mean I had to work three Sundays in a row. But then I checked the schedules, and no, actually it's 4 weeks in a row because I'm scheduled the two Sundays after the 1st for some reason. And that doesn't make me happy. But I can't complain about it because I'm already feeling a bit on eggshells because I didn't tell my manager until last week about being gone the first weekend in Nov, and he wasn't too happy about that, and there's another thing too, but...yeah that's the thing that's stressing me out that no one wants to hear about.

So long story short, I got myself far too worked up at work tonight. And it all just sucks. Especially because I had such a good morning, and then it all just went downhill. I woke up feeling fairly good, partially because this morning my parents didn't open my door, as they normally do so Kebbie can come into my room after she eats as she likes to do. Opening the door for Kebbie, however, also leaves it open for more intrusive guests, specifically Blakie, who I wouldn't mind sharing my bed with but she insists on coming over to me and practically laying on my head, which I'm less than thrilled with. Whenever she does that it wakes me up several times and just pisses me off, so Mom said they'd leave the door closed this morning, and it seems to have worked well. (I do feel bad for getting so frustrated with Blakie, as she kind of has no one to put up with her like Cathy used to, but...I like my sleep...) So when I did wake up this morning, it was more easily than I have other mornings that had been more interrupted. And then I listened to the last half of Julie and Bethany's (Caitlin didn't seem to be there this morning) radio show (WVFI, Voice of the Fighting Irish) which was fun, and then I took Kebbie for a walk as Mom suggested I try to start to do in the mornings--a good idea, for sure--and Cathy came over with Jason shortly after I got back, so that was fun as always. After they left I took a shower and headed out to class, and yeah. Class really wasn't bad, really, I don't know what happened to me. Anyway.

Ok I'm done now. Sorry. Really sorry. Oh well.

Designer babies=not a good thing

A recent study apparently found that 42 percent of clinics that offer sex selection in embryos do it simply for preference for one sex or another. For non-medical reasons. I mean, throwing aside the fact that invitro is wrong to begin with, people discarding embryos simply because they're one sex or another is ridiculous. Hello, do people not know what's been going on in China for years? Yeah, I guess there's the argument that if people are allowed to decide it'll even itself out between different people, but still. It's not a good path we're going down with this. What happens when something changes during the pregnancy, when what they thought was a boy turns out to be a girl? Are they just going to decide to abort the baby because "he's" actually a "she", or vice versa? One of the doctors quoted in the article says that they're "performing a much desired service," and that it's "making people happy." Uh...okkkk...See, this is what's wrong with the mindset that people should have kids just to "make them happy." Kids aren't another thing to acquire to help fulfill your desires, to make you happy. Sure, kids are supposed to make people happy. But they're gifts from God. They aren't for us to pick and choose just the right one like we pick and choose cars or houses. It's just no good trying to take more and more control over that which we really shouldn't have control over, specifically and especially our children. What happens when we finally can pick everything about our kids before they're born--athleticism, hair color, height--and then they decide to go a completely different way in their lives. Do we disown them? Do we decide we don't love them because they're not what we "wanted," not what we ordered? Because that's what it is. Ordering your kids. And it's stupid and so wrong.

I'm in a blogging mood

Five things meme


Five things in my freezer:

1. Frozen meals
   
2. Various flavors of ice cream
   
3. Frozen pizzas
   
4. Ice
5. HUUUUGE pork chops
   

Five things in my closet:

1. A trunk of crap that I'm keeping for sentimental reasons
   
2. Clothes I don't really wear anymore...
   
3. A clothes basket with dolls and doll clothes
   
4. A few covered bins of stuffed animals
   
5. A lot of random crap I should really clean out
   

Five things in my car:

1. My Eva Cassidy CD
2. Empty bags
   
3. Blue tissue paper (not sure why...)
   
4. Employee handbook/safety book from Hobby Lobby
   
5. My powder compact
   

Five interesting things in my backpack:
(Not sure if these are "interesting," but oh well)

1. A notebook from at least one of my classes
   
2. Hand moisturizer
   
3. Some pens
4. Planner
   
5. My water bottle
   

Sigh.

It's approximately 61 degrees outside right now, and I'm freezing. I feel like I've been freezing all day, first in my stupid philo class where the room is like 20 degrees cooler than outside, then at stupid work where I tend to be cold a lot, and now here.

I'm cold. :-(

If they know what's good for them...

So, tonight at work my manager tells me that he checked and in Pueblo, where he was when he checked, the listing was for the USC game to play on ABC there this Saturday night. (He told me this at a time when I thought I seemed less than happy, but maybe I just thought I was letting it show and really I was hiding it better than I thought. But if it did show, man why would he go and tell me that when I was already upset?) So anyway, I just checked it now. ABCsports finally updated their coverage map thing for the games this weekend, and indeed it does say that our area is the USC game. But I went and checked the local ABC station's programming guide online, and it still says ND-MSU. And then I went and checked TVguide.com, and it says ND-MSU for here for Saturday night. So I just have no idea. But man they freaking better show ND. USC sucks. No one wants to watch that. I'll be quite pissed and depressed if they show that one instead of ND. The only think that will make it any better is if USC loses. Because I hate them.

Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh uh huh uh huh

I had a thought the other day. And yes, it hurt quite a lot. (haha.) This is really stupid, it's not even post-worthy, but you know. Any excuse not to do homework. So I was driving the other day, and somehow the thought of passing a cop came into my mind. Perhaps I was going faster than I felt I should have been, and worried one would be clocking right there before I got a chance to slow down to a reasonable speed. No I think it was that I thought I saw a cop clocking. I think that was it, and I instinctively hit the brake pedal (didn't slam it, but at least tapped it) even though I wasn't going fast enough to get pulled over. As far as I know, anyway, since I have yet to be pulled over for going 5 over (knock on wood) even when passing a cop as I was going that fast. Anyway I was thinking about how I probably pass tons of clocking cops all the time and never even realize it, mostly because I don't tend to worry about them since generally I don't go more than 5 over. And if I realize that I'm getting close to 10 over, I slow down. But those times I do see the cops, just because it's something we're all trained to do over the years it seems, I hit the brake pedal. As I was thinking about this, I realized that that's just how it is with me and spiders. (yeah, I told you this was stupid.) There are probably hundreds that pass by me all the time that I simply don't see, and I don't need to see because generally you stay out of their way, they'll stay away from you. But those unfortunate few that I do see? I immediately overreact and kill them. Hm so this whole thing made more sense in my head. Oh well.

We finally got our Air Force tickets today. I'm quite thrilled; it looks like the seats are EXCELLENT. There's three or four sections going up the stadium, and our seats are in the first section (closest to the field), and the side-to-side section we're in is not the middle section, but the next one over. So still close to the middle of the field. It's excellent and exciting, and I'm happy. Of course. :-P

Latin was basically cancelled today. I walked in, and one of the older students was sitting at the teacher desk and we all signed in, got our tests, corresponding sections of the workbook we turned in, and our gradesheets thus far, and then I guess I really could have left, but I felt weird just leaving so I stayed to go over the test with everyone. But the thing is, I got a 106% on it, and only missed half a point on the whole thing (I put an a with a macron over it where it should have been an o with a macron)--and then got three extra credit points. So really it was a waste of a half hour for me to sit there listening to a specific girl who just wanted to go over the whole thing, but who then had to have things repeated because she "wasn't paying attention" or "was distracted." I should have just left. Oh well. Still got home over an hour sooner than I normally would on a Tuesday. And I got a great score on that test, to even out my less than great score on the first one, and I have an A+ in the class thus far (after a whole four grades).

Eva Cassidy's version of "Fields of Gold" is wonderfully beautiful.

Yar

Ahoy mateys, it be talk like a pirate day. So...I be hopin ye all be doin that...

Haha college football refs suck

(a too-long post in which I complain about how dumb/biased college football refs are)

You've heard me complain about the officiating thus far in ND's three games. However, that terrible officiating hasn't (yet) blatantly cost us a game. Not so the case in Saturday's Oregon-OU game. I'm sure you've all heard at least mention of it. And if not, you really need more football in your life. But basically, there were apparently two terrible calls in that game that both went against the visitor OU, in a non-conference game at Oregon using their Pac-10 refs. The first isn't what people are as much up in arms about, and that is a pass interference call I guess against OU that helped Oregon score, even though the call was wrong because the pass in question had been tipped by the (allegedly) offending OU player, which is a legal thing to do. At least I think that's what that call was about. But the big deal was later in the game, with a minute left, and Oregon decided to do an on-side kick, which means that their team can possibly recover the ball, but it has to travel at least 10 yards before one of the team's players can touch it. Well, the kick went off, and before it had gone 10 yards, an Oregon player hit it with his hand, and the result was a huge pile of guys jumping on top of the ball, trying to get it for their team. (Apparently, and a wonderful youtube clip of it shows this, the ball ended up being picked up by an OU player after it had gotten away from the huge pile of guys, so that OU physically had the ball, but somehow people thought that Oregon had recovered the ball which I just don't understand in the slightest. But even this is beside the point.) So the refs initially called it as Oregon's ball because it looked like they had recovered it, although again I'm confused as to how this is since OU apparently was physically in possession of the ball in question. But then the play was reviewed, and the commentators and whatnot showed the kick and resulting kafuffle like five times at least, and everyone is in agreeance that Oregon CLEARLY touched the ball before it had gone 10 yards and thus the ball would automatically go to OU. However, after a few minutes of deliberation (perhaps deliberating how they can screw over the non-Pac10 team in favor of the at that point still losing Pac-10 team), the ref comes on the field and says something like "There is conclusive video evidence that the ball was touched by a receiving team player, which makes the ball live." Huh? I'm really confused as to how Oregon had the ball when it was recovered by OU. But I'm also really confused how a REFEREE doesn't see/realize that a ball cannot be touched by a kicking team player before it goes 10 yards, as that ball clearly was. It's all just ridiculous. That call resulted in Oregon going on to get a touchdown and beating OU 34-33.

So what's the point of this boring post? The college football ref situation is the dumbest thing in the world. Refs all belong to a conference, are paid by that conference, and the better the conference does the better it is for them. So of course they're going to want the teams in their conferences to do better. There are far too many examples of blatant favoring by refs in games for the situation to continue as it is. I don't understand why there aren't simply NCAA refs. No conferences (for the refs), nothing like that. Maybe, as I've heard suggested, refs can belong to a region (north east, midwest, southwest, etc), but how teams in their region do does not affect them in any way. It seems very ridiculous that this has gone on as long as it has. (And as an independent team, Notre Dame doesn't even get to benefit from lopsided officiating. Not that that would make it better.) I don't know. I'm sure nothing will change, but man it should. The Oregon-OU game definitely showed that. I mean, it's always possible that refs are just getting dumber and dumber (come on, you're paid to know the rules of the game, and you can't see that the ball didn't even go 10 freaking yards? You call pass interference when it's clearly not? --that happened to us at the Michigan game too, Zibby was called for pass interference when he should have gotten something more like personal foul, which would have changed something there...although I forget what at the moment...). But sometimes it seems that they're just too dumb in favor of one team or another. I don't know.

(And to be fair--wow I just spelled that "fare"--the refs from that game did end up being given given a one-game suspension or something like that. I guess it's something, but still. Doesn't really make up for a loss on the OU team's season.)

Ok I'm done now.

Come on, Leno. Not you!

Leno's on right now, his monologue, and he was talking about the Pope thing, that whole blown out of proportion crap that's going on. (For the record, the Pope has nothing to apologize for--and as far as I know, all he's apologized for is "the reaction" to what he said, which was simply quoting someone from like the 14th century. And then the stupid media comes in and says that he "slammed" Islam, and now Islam people are calling for the Pope's head, and it's all just ridiculous. But I digress.) Leno says, "What I want to know is, when is the Pope going to apologize for Notre Dame's performance against Michigan?"


UGH.


It's a new week. We just all have to remember that. And Charlie Weis is awesome, just because he's 0-3 in big games (as pointed out by my manager tonight) doesn't mean anything about his coaching. It's not his fault all he has to work with is the recruits from Ty. Or lack thereof...I love my team and all, and there's some great players on there, but it's true that we just don't have the depth necessary in some positions to win those big games.

But the point is, I sure didn't expect to have to be reminded about Saturday while watching Jay Leno, of all things. (and it took me a minute to figure out what it had to do with the Pope, until I remembered that ND is pretty much *the* Catholic university, the best well-known as such in America probably, and I really have no idea about the rest of the world. But it took me a minute to realize that that's the connection he was making. Not sure why. But anyway.)

Football and Fall

I watched at least part of three NFL games today (and the last minute 15 or so of a fourth). Me. The girl who used to hate Sundays because the boys in the family insisted on watching football All. Day. Long. Man, what has ND done to me? Anyway. Started out by watching the Eagles/Giants game. I was rooting for the Giants because, as I discussed last week, I decided to like Eli Manning. At least more than Peyton Manning and the Colts. Since I wanted to root for someone, I decided to root for the Giants. Anyway. Most of the game it looked like they were going to lose. I think they were down by like 17 by the time the 4th quarter came around. Or maybe towards the end of the 3rd. Don't exactly remember. All I know is, they managed to tie it up and make it go to overtime, then after a couple of possessions back and forth, they had a sweet TD catch for the win, 30-24. It was a very exciting game. And I was happy that the team I decided to root for actually won!

Then we switched it over to the Bronco game, which had been going on, started around when the other one went into overtime. Ended up missing a good chunk of the 1st half, but we didn't really miss anything. That game went into overtime too, but it was FAR less exciting. The score going into overtime was 6-6, with both teams having got two field goals. Broncos got the ball first, drove it down, one guy almost broke through to make an amazing long yardage run to a TD but he got caught, and they ended up getting a field goal to win. But they won, and I generally root for the Broncos to win. Except when they play the Patriots, as I think they are next week. Aw man and I have to work next Sunday, so I'll probably miss it if it's on here. Oh well. after the Bronco game they cut to the NE/Jets game, where Patriots were up like 24-17. I think that ended up being the final score. They won, is all I know. So that's also good. Then tonight, we watched a movie (The Thin Red Line--not as good as I was expecting, but not necessarily bad either), and there was still some of the 4th quarter left of the Sunday Night game when we turned it off. It was...um...someone...Oh, the Redskins at Cowboys. Weird. Cannot remember who. I mostly just wanted to watch because Fasano (tight end, rookie from ND) is a starter, and Julius Jones (graduated from ND in 2004, a good running back) is also a starter, both for Cowboys. So I was rooting for them, and they won. I think it was like 27-10. So yeah. Every team I decided to root for today won. I guess it's God's way of making yesterday up to me. Haha. I know, I know, completely stupid thing to say.

And, apparently the Red Sox beat the Yankees twice today. Red Sox kind of self-destructed in recent weeks, so they're out of playoff contention, but still, any win against the Yankees is a good thing. Two is even better.

I went for a short walk tonight with Kebbie and my parents. It's been chilly all day today, and now I'm sure it's in the 40s, probably low-to-mid. It's just lovely though. Fall is just around the corner, with winter coming too. I can't wait. I happened to stumble across some pictures today of a completely snow-covered Pikes Peak, and man there's nothing else that can match that for making me yearn for winter. Gorgeous. So anyway. Glad to be leaving the hot dog days of summer behind for another year, and welcoming the nice bitingly cold days of winter.

Ahhhhh

My faith in Colorado Springs is restored. Not that it ever left...or whatever...

I, as a last resort for tonight, went to our local ABC affiliate's website and clicked on their programming and clicked on next Saturday starting at 6pm, and right there, it says "ABC College Football: Notre Dame at Michigan."

I am ecstatically happy right now. Well, as much as I can be without being able to see it live. But I'll take what I can get.

Yea or nay?

Have you all seen some of those stupid commercials for new video games, the ones that are like "previews" but...they're for video games? They're so dumb. But that could be partly my intense dislike for the majority of all video games spekaing.

Know what's ridiculous? In three games, 10 total holding calls against Notre Dame, and a total of 0 against any of the teams we've played. (Zero in our games. I'm sure they've had other holds called against them in other games they've played, because holds happen all the time and usually holding penalties kind of cancel each other out during the game.) Not to mention all these other rather ridiculous and just plain weird calls that ND's been penalized for in the last three games--three games that have used Big 10 officials (Big 10 people don't tend to like Notre Dame, possibly partially because we haven't joined them). AND the fact that some of those hold calls against us were rather suspect (after looking at replays, and even the commentators saying so). Now, I'm not going to say that yesterday's outcome would have been affected much had the officiating not been so one-sided, because we pretty much screwed that game up ourselves. Maybe it wouldn't have been quite so terrible a loss, but a loss for sure. BUT, the thing is, it's crap. The officiating is not good. I mean, refs just suck. That's a given, for college or pro. I have no idea why, but refs suck. However, FIVE hold penalties against us yesterday and NONE for Michigan? That's more than a little ridiculous. Refs are paid by their conference, so of course they're going to want us to be knocked out of contention in favor of their conference's teams. Anyway. I know everyone always whines that their team was unfairly bashed by the refs in this game or that game, but seriously, 10 holds on us vs zero on our opponents? Not cool, Big 10 refs. Not cool. I hope something changes with this situation (although someone mentioned that now that we're basically out of national title contention, we shouldn't have to worry so much about biased officiating against MSU which is also Big 10. I guess we'll see).

So the MSU game is Saturday night, starting at 6 here. I unfortunately have to work 5:30-9:30 Saturday night, which normally would be fine, but that "normally" is when we have normal day games. So unfortunately I'm going to have to tape this game as well. Oh well. Now, the thing is, it's on ABC but it's not nation-wide. Like half the country, or at least the west coast (and I'm not sure if we're included in that) is going to get the USC-whoever they're playing game. I think it's USC. Some California team. I'm worried that we'll get that game instead of the ND game. If I were home, I could possibly watch it online somewhere (apparently there are places to go to watch it online), but obviously I can't tape it from online. So...I just hope hope hope it's on here so I can at least tape it. Otherwise I'll be sad. Although, I guess at the very worst, depending on how long it goes, I might be able to catch the very end of it...maybe...Let's just hope it's on ABC here, and then I'll be at least somewhat happier.

Edit: crap. This isn't looking good. It's USC @ Arizona. Both closer in proximity than ND or MSU. Well, at least one is closer than ND or MSU. But...but...ND is so much better! Man I hope hope hope hope hope hope hope hope hope hope hope hope they have the ND game on. Stupid ABC. They better, if they know what's good for them. I have no idea how to figure out if they will though. I went to abcsports.com, and they have a college football coverage map, but it's for yesterday's games. I don't care about yesterday's games! Sigh.

Not going my way

This is stupid, but for the past few years at least the local ABC channel has played reruns of ER on Saturday and Sunday nights at 11pm. Well, I noticed tonight that Entertainment Tonight is on. So I checked the tv listings page I go to, and I checked tonight, tomorrow night, and next Saturday and Sunday as well, and I guess they bumped the syndicated ERs for ET and Access Hollywood (which is on Sunday nights). I'm not too thrilled about that. Oh well though, I guess. Just one more reason for me to stop watching TV or something.

Hm. I just went to the front page of the ND website, and there's a link thing that says "Senior to be contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionare." That show is still on?

Crappy, crappy game. From the second play on. That attempted throw on like the last possession we had where Brady played, and the ball just fell out of his hand before he even started to throw it, what the heck was that? Hm. Well, there goes his Heisman, and the National Championship. Oh well. No pressure now, right? We should play excellently now. We freaking better. Ugh. Just...not a pretty game. About as bad as it could get. Looking back, I can barely believe we even got three TDs. Ha, and I thought that the missed extra point after Michigan's second TD would affect the game at all. Yeah, right. Well, now we move on. It's just sad because this year was our best chance in quite awhile to get a National Championship. Next year we're going to have so many new players, it's highly unlikely. Although, you never know. But yeah. You know, I didn't cry after the USC game. At least we looked respectable in that game. We looked like a top 10 team. We were a top 10 team. Today, not so much. And a little while after the game, I started wanting to cry about it. I didn't, though, but I wanted to. But the truth of the matter is, there's still a lot about this team that's left over from Ty's unfortunate reign. Yeah, I know I'm looking for excuses, but it is true. His recruits, his coaching imprints left on the players, etc. I still have faith in Charlie. And, despite his less than stellar performance, I do still believe in Brady Quinn. Not all the horribleness of today fell on him. That first interception? Great throw to Carlson, who just let it get through his hands. Not Brady's fault. A lot of the incomplete passes? Thrown right to receivers who then simply dropped/missed them. Again, not entirely Brady's fault. I don't know. Eh whatever. It's just football, I know, but when you put so much energy into something, you can't just let it roll right off of you when something disappointing happens to it. (Hence why it's much easier just not to really invest much in any sporting team, but it's a bit too late for that now.)

I bought Eva Cassidy's CD "Songbird" today. She has such a lovely voice. A bit of a soothing balm on my less than happy self.

September's half over. Crazy. Hopefully, before we know it, snow will be here. Along with November. I wouldn't mind skipping over the rest of September and October and just heading straight to, oh, the first weekend of November. Not at all.

Well, I guess my bed calls.

Yeah, it's just football.

But still. Man. It sure is depressing.

Ugh.

There's absolutely nothing else to say. Besides possibly a few choice words I refuse to say.

Ugh.

Who'd a thunk it?

14 hours, folks. Sawweeeeet. I am rather excited for this game. But then, it's ND. Of course I'm excited for it. Have I mentioned that if (when?) we win this game, we'll once again regain (or...possibly for the first time, I'm not sure) the all-time winningest percentage. Over the team we're playing tomorrow. Michigan Sucks. So that's pretty cool. Good stuff.

I had a surprisingly wonderful day at work today. I know, crazy, right? Well it started not so good, with me almost running out of gas (stalling, at one point) just like a mile or so away from the mall. I knew I needed gas, but I figured I had enough to get to the gas station that's right across the street from the mall. I should have just gotten it at one of the places on Austin Bluffs and Academy, but hindsight's 20/20, right? Since the prices are going down and whatnot, and I wasn't going to get the cheapest price available at the moment, I was only going to get like a few gallons anyway. But anyway as it turns out, I was driving up Union (a hilly road, which I worried might kick my butt today), the very last stretch of Union--the very last uphill stretch on my way to work too--just a bit before the light where I turn left. My car started to putter a bit, and I couldn't really accelerate much, and for a second I thought I was going to die ("I" being my car, of course) right there, just a mile or two from more gas. Actually, as it turns out, and as I had forgotten at that moment that there's a gas station right at that intersection where I was turning left. But I didn't remember that until I had made it over to the left turn lane, and the gas station was on the right side of Union. So yeah, I had pulled off to the side, onto a right turn lane to a little street, but then my car got a second wind and I managed to get to that intersection, and had to stop for the red light. And my car stalled, and I didn't really notice until I got the green arrow. I kept trying to turn it on again, but I had a brain fart and for a second I forgot that you can't turn the car on when it's in drive (or, when it's not in park). I thought it was over at that point. And then I remembered, put my car in park, and it thankfully turned on. I kind of coasted down Briargate, and made it to that gas station, and I was all good again with a couple more gallons. But that was certainly interesting.

So I got to work, still a little shakey from it all, and was greeted by a birthday card signed from the people at work, along with a little Wilsons Leather gift card! There's a purse I've had my eye on for awhile, so I was supposed to use it finally to get the purse. Which is currently on sale a bit, but only until Monday, so by the time I come into work again on Monday it won't be on sale anymore. So I--get this--actually committed to getting it, and now it's mine! I had to pay $12 out of my own pocket, after the discount and gift card and whatnot, but yeah. It's exciting. And then I had fairly good sales most of the night. Figured I'd end about $60 short of my goal for the week, which I was happy enough about because I had made over $1000 for the week and was very close to goal. It was like 8:40 by that point, and then Michael made a sale that was over $500 (this guy bought three jackets, and all of them expensive ones too!)--which put him way ahead of me, even though before that I had almost caught up to him again (apparently up until yesterday I was the highest seller for the week). Anyway. So we figured we were all done. But then like ten minutes to close, a couple walks in and end up buying three jackets too! Not as expensive ones as the other guy, but dude I didn't care, it was over $400! And it was my sale. So anyway. We finished the night on a GREAT note, both got way over our goals for the week, and neither of us have to work again until Monday. So we were both pretty pumped.

Hm. I bet that sounds far less exciting as you're all reading it than it was to me. Eh. I'll take what I can get in the excitement department.

Know what else is exciting?

Notre Dame football!!! GO IRISH!!!!!!!!!!! BEAT WOLVERINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Plus, Tom's coming down tomorrow, and Cathy and Jason (and hopefully Bobby) are coming over, hopefully they'll be here to watch the game but even if not it's great. Peter will be missed, but hopefully he'll call sometime this weekend. Every time he's called pretty much I've been at work. He surprised me greatly last week by sending me a birthday card. Did not expect that. I really need to write him (I know, I'm such a horrible sister, I haven't even written him yet! What the heck is wrong with me?).

Welp, time to go do something else.

One more thing tonight

I discovered that the clock on blogger is about 6 minutes ahead of the real time. This really irritates me. Not sure why, as if I really want to I can manually change the timestamp, but still. I don't know how to change it either. Normally things just go by the clock on the computer, or so I thought. Oh well. It really doesn't matter much either way.

Apparently Reggie Bush and his family took $100,000 worth of stuff from...an agent? someone, while he was at USC. Which is very much against NCAA rules, and which could possibly cost him a Heisman and USC the 2004 National Championship. But seeing as how it's USC, and Reggie Bush, the chances of that really happening are probably very slim. Not that they don't deserve it. Psh. Stupid USC.

Well, I'm 21

I'm 21. Hasn't really sunk in. I guess because, really, it doesn't change a whole lot. Other than now I can officially reveal my tendency towards drinking alcohol every chance I get. Haha. just kidding. But it's weird. I mean, I'm older than pretty much all of my friends, but yeah. When you're living it, it doesn't seem like the age it is. If that makes any sense. But then when you stop and think about it, all of a sudden it's like, ok I'm 21. I'm definitely not a teenager anymore. I'm getting close to graduating (kind of). I have NO idea what I'm doing. I best start getting it together. My sister was married and pregnant by the time she turned 21. Clearly, I'm not my sister, but still. It's so weird to think about. 21 used to seem old. And now, not so much. But at the same time, it's not exactly young anymore. I don't know. I guess turning 21 makes it start to be real, that I'm not going to be under the nice little shelter of my parents or school or anything like that forever.

But I still have the better part of two years. No freaking out yet. I'm 21! (And I think I'll have to wait until the Nov 4 weekend really to celebrate the whole 21 thing, when we celebrate Julie's 21st--at which point Katherine will also be 21...that night might be fun...) Guess I should live it up while I can. hehe.

Thanks, people

I just want to say thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday today. It's always great to be remembered (even if it is just because Facebook reminded you. Hey, I do it too, it's a great feature!). I have some wonderful people in my life.

Hm, I wonder...

I wonder where I'll be a year from now, on my 22nd birthday. not so much like physically where I'll be (hopefully, with any luck, it'll be at drummer's circle, but that's assuming there's a home game on my birthday weekend again. Aw, damn, I just looked it up and it's at Michigan on the 15th next year. Sigh. Oh well), but like...in my life, where I'll be. It's pretty much impossible to know. Obviously. But it's kind of fun to think about.

Where there's rain...

Sometimes there's rainbows. I got a rainbow on my birthday. We noticed it as we were waiting for a table at Texas Roadhouse. It was there, then dimmed very much, and then brightened again--and a double even showed up. Pretty cool. Not everyone gets to see a rainbow on their birthday (as Mom pointed out).

How long until Christmas?

I hope we have a great, snowy December this year. Man that'd be great. I love Christmas. I can't wait until it gets here. (But that doesn't mean that I'm going to start listening to Christmas music and putting up Christmas decorations in October. Or even right after Halloween. No, I'll save it all until Thanksgiving, just as it should be. Unless you're one of those people who's strong enough to actually do advent more like we're supposed to, and hold off on all Christmas-related stuff until after Advent ends, or until Christmas Eve, or something like that. I just can't do that.)

In case I didn't mention...

I had my first legal alcoholic drink tonight. Yeah I did mention this already. Oh well. I just need to get my new ID one of these days. Apparently there's a DMV just a little bit south of my house, on Powers, that I didn't know about until today. Maybe one of these days I'll try to make it down there. Gotta do it before...Oct. 11, I think. Hm.

Just one thought

I have a great, amazing, spectacular family.

I wish I was better to them.

I think I want to skip Friday

Most people enjoy Fridays. Most people can't wait for Fridays. I'd feel the same if I didn't have to work again tomorrow. Sigh. The thought of another 8 hours standing around that store and not getting home until almost 9:30...doesn't exactly thrill me. However, it's money. And I'd rather work tomorrow than today or Saturday. Not that I would have to work today, as it's Thursday and my school schedule doesn't let me work Tuesdays or Thursdays, but yeah. It is much better to have to work tomorrow than Saturday. You know what I think a part of it is, though? It's the fact that for the entire time I'm stuck in that store, I have no window to the outside. I stare at the same storefront across the way all day long, and I can't even look outside. I wish we had a window (one that looked to the mountains, maybe, instead of the hallway). Oh well. This won't be going on forever. Probably at most, just another...ugh...three months. Well. At least I have a job.

Weird memory

The other day I remembered something I used to do when I was little. I hated it when my parents left us with babysitters. Well, it was more the part once we went to bed. I'm sure I was much more annoying than I remember, but I was really bad about it I think. I just remember this one instance. I of course was scared, too scared to go to sleep (I scared myself easily--still do, sometimes), so I came downstairs for whatever reason. But I didn't want my babysitters to know that I was out of bed, I guess because I didn't want to get in trouble or something, so I kind of just snuck around. They must have heard me, because eventually they called my parents to say that they heard something in the house. I probably freaked them out. I just remember sitting in the dark living room, hiding behind the couch or some other piece of furnature, just wanting my parents to come home. I don't know if I did that kind of thing more than that one time (if I had to guess I'd say I probably did), but I just remember that one in particular.

No idea why I thought of that the other day, but I did, and thought I'd share. Because I feel like it. And it's my birthday for another 25 minutes.

Rain, rain, don't go away

Last night, I heard that the high today was going to be 80. I'll admit to being slightly sad at that, because as we all know I'm a bad-weather girl. I figured it'd be sunny all day too. Well, sometime during lunch, it started raining. Just a little bit, but some nonetheless. By the time I got out of English, it looked like it had been raining fairly hard for awhile. While that meant having to walk down to my car in the rain and get a bit wet, I wasn't about to complain. Twas lovely. I love the rain. I remember last year on my birthday was rainy too, I think. (And incidentally, apparently all this week has been rather cloudy and rainy--most people's idea of miserable weather--up at Notre Dame. Perhaps it's a mid-September thing every year.) Eventually the sun did come back out, but at least I got a little taste of rain for my birthday.

The Triumph of the Cross

I am fortunate enough to have been born on the feast of the Triumph of the Cross. It's very cool. I used to dislike the fact that I wasn't born on the feast day of a saint (although, I'm sure there is a saint whose feast day is Sept. 14)--especially since I don't share my name with any saints either, unless you want to say Susanna is close enough to Susan to count (which I don't believe). But recently, as I've come to learn and understand more about it, I think it's pretty darn cool that that's my birthday. There is one thing I wish I did today. I really really wish I could have made it to Mass today. It's days like this that I really miss the accessibility of the Basilica. Or even just being on a Catholic campus where there are multiple opportunities for Mass every day. As it is now, the only time I could have made it to Mass (without missing at least half of it) was this morning at 8, or earlier depending on the church, but 8 at Holy Apostles. And I knew I wasn't going to make it up for that. I really wish my history class ended just like five minutes earlier, maybe ten, and then I could make it to St Mary's in time for their 12:10. Oh well.

In case you can't tell...

I'm attempting to squeeze in 21 posts in the next...hour and ten minutes. Well, more like 10 by now, but yeah. Anyway. Perhaps I should post something of substance in one of these...we'll see. But yeah. I kind of started to do this, so now I just have to finish. You know me.

Oh I need to share this. The first song on the radio this morning when I turned on my car? Josh Turner, "Would You Go With Me." Nice little birthday treat there.

Mmm...Chipotle

I went and got Chipotle for lunch. I really didn't feel like sitting alone in my car for the hour and 30 minutes I have between history and English, so I called Mom to see if I could go bother her for a little while. There's a Chipotle right by her work (which is like 5 minutes or so east of campus), so it worked out pretty well. I hadn't had Chipotle for awhile. And, in an attempt perhaps to make it a bit less...horrible (it's not the healthiest food in the world), I only ate like half of it. So yeah. and it was really nice to spend a little time with Mom. She's fun. I like Mom. And Dad's fun too. But sadly his work is too far away for me to go hang out for a little while between classes. Anyway. Good stuff.

Heck yes

Man, do I miss it. But dude, it rocks. (And for the record, it helps to think that I'm not the only ND student missing out on all those awesome home games and whatnot--I know plenty of people who are studying abroad, and thus obviously can't go to the games. At least I get to go to two of them!)

Two years ago (as in, my freshman year), the "student-released" T-shirt that some Sorin guys do (every year? I know last year was something like Trojans break or something, for the USC game) was one that said Muck Fichigan, a blue shirt with yellow lettering (like Michigan colors--the USC one was maroon (marroon? neither look right) with gold lettering). It was the first home game, a big game (which we WON!), and a lot of people bought the shirts. Anyway. Obviously I didn't get one because I don't like one of the words that's being spoonerized there, but all of a sudden I wish I had one right now. hehe. Dude it's going to be a great game. It's a dangerous game, at least it could be, but I have faith in my Irish that we can pull it out. I mean, come on, we've got Brady the Dreamboat on our team! Not to mention Zibby, the Shark, D-Walk, Ndukwe, Rhema, Ronald Talley, and all the rest of them. Like...there's just so many great guys on the team! Anyway. It should be a great game. Can't wait for it to be here.

A birthday gift to me?

Perhaps tonight, as a birthday gift to myself, I'll go to bed at a decent hour tonight. For some reason, the past few nights I've been staying up ridiculously late, even for me. And really for no reason. As a result I've been exhausted and feeling run-down. It's time to stop that cycle, I think. No, I know.

I got carded...

But it's my birthday, so it was without fear that I handed over my ID, and shortly later got handed a lovely frozen strawberry banana margarita. Good stuff. And the guy must have seen that today's my birthday, as towards the end of our meal he came over with the other people to sing one of those birthday songs to me. And give me a chocolate cake/brownie deal. Good stuff.


And this is my 100th post on this blog. Just in case anyone was keeping track. Oh and, dude, weird thing. My first post on here (aside from those random two from April) was exactly a month ago. So I've posted almost 100 times in a month. I guess that averages to about 3 a day? I guess a little more than that. Anyway.

It's my birthday, yos

That is all.

A fun present

I came close to oversleeping this morning. I turned my alarm off when it went on, and knew I should get up, and then next thing I know my sister's calling my cell and it's almost 40 minutes later. Luckily I had set my alarm for kind of early this morning, so the time it was when I did get out of bed was fine. But if it wasn't for her calling me, who knows when I would have gotten out of bed. Wouldn't have been a very good start to my birthday, that's for sure. So, thanks Cathy!

Froggy!

I just saw this thing about someone who found a (live) frog in a prepackaged bag of lettuce. It's up in the air as to whether it's a fake photo (photoshopped, or the frog put in there and then the bag resealed, etc) or not, but it made me remember something from my childhood. Years and years ago, I entered a coloring contest at some kids' toy store (possibly educational toys?) in the mall or something. I ended up winning, and the prize was some tadpoles. I was quite excited. Well, they sent them to me in the mail, and when we got them, they were dead. So they sent me some more. Same story. I seem to remember getting like at least three batches of dead tadpoles. It was quite sad. I think they ended up just giving up. I was disappointed; I wanted my frogs! But it was not to be. And I survived.

KGO*

I am very good at making a big deal out of small, teeny things.






*KGO=Keen Grasp of the Obvious (and for anyone who had Hokanson as their English teacher in high school, how's that blast from the past?)

Happy birthday to me!

Well, it's officially my 21st birthday. Sweet, I guess. I plan on having a girly (aka yummy) alcoholic drink tonight at dinner. Just because I can, I guess.

As my first post as a 21 year old (ignoring the fact that I wasn't technically born for another 7 hours 21 years ago), I'm going to tell you about a funny thing that happened at Walmart tonight. I had gone with Mom so I could pick out the kind of cake I wanted her to make for my birthday, and we were in that aisle looking at the flavors. One caught my eye. (I'm sure this won't be as funny to anyone reading this as it was to me in the store.) I was reading the different flavors, and there was one called "Tres Leches." Well, I saw it really fast, and I started to say "Tree Leeches" and then I stopped myself and thought, hm that doesn't sound right. And then I realized what it said, and Mom and I had a good laugh at my momentary stupidity. haha. Tree leeches. Sounds yummy, no?

Hm...should I do like I did last year and try to make 21 posts today? Shouldn't be too hard.

Soon and very soon

Just a few more hours till my birthday! For whatever it's worth...

Luckily I don't have much to do tonight. Well, to be honest, I have more than I'm wanting to admit, but that's ok. All I have (really) to do is Latin. We have another quiz tomorrow, which means I have to study stuff, and I also have to get the workbook stuff done. Which I'm sure will take more time than I want to believe. Oh well. I should do some history stuff, but let's face it, I'm clearly not going to. At least I have most of this weekend off. I have to work 8 hours again on Friday, but then I have Saturday off, and Sunday I think I'll have to go in at 6pm, after we close, for a meeting. But that'll just be an hour, so it's not too terrible. I'm just thrilled I have Saturday off.

I learned something new today. We were talking about different ways to pray in my contemporary religions class today, like different things you do while praying (like physical things, or...props, for a lack of a better term), and toward the end of the suggestions people were throwing out, some girl behind me raised her hand and said "I think Catholics do something after they pray, like this, I'm not sure what it's called" and then she must have showed whatever it was she meant, and then my teacher said "Yeah, crossing themselves" and he started to write down "crossing" and then was like "Oh, actually it's called the sign of the cross." The whole thing just...almost stunned me, for two reasons--one much more so than another. The first was that there are actually people out there who don't know what the sign of the cross is, or what it's called. I know there are plenty who don't do it, but I thought most people at least...know what it is. The other thing was that she specifically said Catholics. I guess I've heard before that mostly only Catholics do the sign of the cross, but I didn't really know it was true. That's weird to me as well. But not as weird as people not knowing what it is. (And yes, I clearly know that this means I've led a sheltered Westernized life--although, apparently the westernized part doesn't even matter because I'm pretty sure I'm not more westernized than that girl, unless she happens to be some non-western religion, which I suppose is possible...But still. Eh I don't know. I was surprised last week in Latin when a few girls in my class said they'd never heard of the word "puerile" or even "virile." I can understand the first much more than the second, but still.)

Hm so I'm thinking about just going and buying the newer Josh Turner CD, instead of waiting to get it from the library to listen to it first to make sure I want to buy it. I quickly fell in love with the two songs I know, and I'm 17 in the wait list, not 5 as I for some reason thought the other day. I don't want to wait that long. Today on the way home, I heard one of the two on one station, and then when it was over I switched to the other country station and--lo and behold!--the other one was on that station! Halfway through, but still. Made me happy. So one of these days, possibly tomorrow night sometime? I'll go over to Best Buy, return those Harry Potter DVDs, and use part of the return to buy that CD. It could be a happy birthday to Me!

Hm...maybe I should go do Latin...eesh.

I'm learning Latin!

I just had this funny realization. I happened to see a play off the phrase "habemus papam" and I thought about that original phrase, and all of a sudden I realized I understand what is says! Now, obviously, I've known what it means, but after a couple weeks and learning the basics of Latin, I understand it! The -mus, the -am, all that stuff. Well, I guess really it's just those two things, since it's only two words, but whatever. Stupid, but it's kinda cool.

There's a magic

You know what I got a hankering to see today? Priests on campus. It's always so cool being at ND and seeing priests wandering around randomly. I have a feeling I won't be seeing many priests at UCCS this semester...hehe. oh well.

One of the Josh Turner CDs (the older one) became available on hold for me today at the library. I had just happened to check the ppld.org website to see if this other thing that's been on hold was still there, as it's been there for a few days and I keep forgetting to go get it. It turns out it's still there, and I saw that the CD was there too, so I got excited as I've been waiting for that for like...two whole days now! (I was very happy because today on the way to school, I heard "Would You Go With Me" on the radio--although I turned it to that station when the song was about half over, sadly. And then I was sitting in my car between history and English, doing some Latin, flipping stations pretty much every song, and lo and behold I heard that song again, but again it was halfway over already. Like the exact spot I had heard it from earlier in the day.) Anyway. I've only listened to two songs so far, but so far I like it a lot. Unfortunately, this CD isn't the one with the two songs of his that I know (and quite enjoy), but I'll get that one from the library eventually. I'm 5th in line. Anyway though.

Stupidest name for a TV show I've heard recently: "Men in Trees." I don't know. Just sounds stupid to me. Edit: Ok, so I guess they kind of just explained it. (I'm watching it right now. Or more, it's just on, and I'm half paying attention to it.) It still seems stupid.

Hm so apparently there's a recently passed law that forces people who get their new licenses at 21 when they expire to re-take the paper test. As I will be having to do this soon, I'm slightly concerned. Sure, I passed it easily when I took it the first time. But that was 5 years ago, and I had a book to study from. Knowing me, I have that somewhere in my room still, but I'm not about to go searching through all my (many) piles of crap just to find that. But man, that would suck to go get my license renewed after having five years with a perfect record (as far as records are concerned) and not get to get my new license just because I can't remember exactly how many feet behind a firetruck you're supposed to stay. I mean, I think I know the "rules" pretty well, but you never know. eh. No point in worrying about it. I do have to figure out when I'm going to go do that though...it'd be nice to have some time off during a weekday when I could go. I don't really know how long to expect it to take, so I don't know that I would want to risk going before a class or before work or something. Who knows. Maybe I'll have next Friday off (wouldn't THAT be a surprise) and I can do it then.

Speaking of driving though, I decided that my guardian angel was working hard for me today. On the way to school this morning, I passed three cops. One was on Carefree between Murray and...the next light after Murray, whatever little street that is, in a school zone. I wasn't speeding, and I noticed the cop right as I was slowing down to get to the 20mph that the flashing light indicated, and I was going exactly 20 by the time I passed that invisible threshold between the regular speed limit and the school zone speed limit, so I was fine there. And then, on Austin Bluffs between Union and whatever that last light is after Academy and before Union, I saw a motorcycle cop had someone pulled over. I especially noticed it when the idiot in front of me slowed down to below the speed limit (which just is stupid. A cop is not going to pull you over for being at or, HORRORS!, even a few over the speed limit. Plus he was busy with someone else. Argh). So there was that cop. And then like five seconds later, not very much farther down the road, was another motorcycle cop with someone else pulled over. Twas quite bizarre. But I didn't care, I was going the speed limit, I was fine. So that was the driving to school story. Then after all my classes, I had just turned onto Austin Bluffs again from the campus parking lot, and hadn't gone more than like .1mile when I noticed like five cars ahead of me and in the left lane (I was in the right lane), this one car swerved some all of a sudden, weirder than when someone normally swerves, and then a few seconds later this other car went really fast from the right lane over the curb and onto a little grassy area by the road. I'm not quite sure how it all happened, but three cars had crashed into each other just slightly in front of me. It looked like one rear-ended another (the one I had seen swerve all of a sudden had rear-ended a truck), and then somewhere in there the car that zoomed off the road must have hit the side or something of one of those other two. I don't know. All I know is I barely missed it. Kind of. And then on my way to the library, I passed another accident. It was just so weird today. And I feel like I was pretty lucky.

Tomorrow's Wednesday. That means one class, although it's a 2 hour 40 minute long one, and Katies. And nothing else. And that makes me pretty happy. It's also my last day that I can drink illegally. How sad. haha.

Yeah, it's late, and no, I'm not doing homework like I should

I was just looking on ndnation.com (yeah, yeah, I'm addicted to anything ND-football related), and someone made a post saying that an interesting aspect of the upcoming Michigan game is that it's the first time an opponent gets a "second look" at the team under Weis, and that Weis gets another shot at the opponent. Now, that's all true and good and whatever, but what made me laugh out loud was a post in reply to the original. The title (which you have to click on to read the post) is "Another interesting aspect of this match-up", and the rest of the post is simply: Michigan sucks. And it's just oh-so-funny. Or maybe it's that it's getting late and I should get to bed. Either way, it's true.

Some days

At work today, I kept thinking I wanted to watch a movie when I got home. But it had to be a happy movie--when I thought about maybe watching Ninja Turtles (hey, it's entertaining) I decided it might not be a good idea given the less than stable state I was in, because I thought I might end up crying during the part where they're all being sad over Splinter being gone. (Actually, it'd be hilarious if that did make me cry--that would put me in a category possibly worse than my mom!)

I should watch Rudy sometime. I haven't seen it in over a year. Hokey, over-dramatized, and occasionally fabricated though it may be, it's a great movie. And it's a lot more interesting to watch once you recognize where all the scenes are taking place.

Speaking of ND/ND football (sort of), the Michigan game this Saturday should be quite interesting. It could be a deal breaker. Or, it could solidify what many of us firmly believe already. Either way, it better be good. There's a thread in one of the message boards I go to (the Catholic one) that's titled something along the lines of "Why everyone should hate Michigan." And as of the last time I was on that board, most of the people agreed. Made me happy. Even if people don't like the Irish (crazy people), most can agree to root for them against Michigan, because no one likes Michigan except Michigan itself. At least, no truly self-respecting person should like Michigan. haha. Although, oddly, I think I've seen more people wearing Michigan hats walking around the mall than people wearing ND stuff. Maybe people who live in Colorado just generally are not the best at picking teams to follow. Except for me, of course. Ok, I'm done now.

Work today was one of the better days I've had there. Two firsts happened for me--I made goal (and even exceeded it by almost $30!), and not just for today but for the whole week thus far. As long as I can make $500 on Friday (which probably won't happen), I'll finish at or ahead of goal for the first time. But even if I don't make it, I'm sure I'll be closer to it than I have since I started. The other first was that we didn't have a deposit tonight. Really doesn't mean a whole lot, but it did allow us to get out of there a few minutes earlier, and I didn't have to follow Mandy to the bank or anything. I was busy most of today too. We had lots of boxes of shipment come in, so it took awhile to get them all unpacked, unwrapped, sensored, and figure out where to put them. Most ended up in the back for now as we have a small store and it's pretty much filled at the moment, without room for even new stuff. We also had to do transfers out of our store, so we had to find the stuff that was being sent out and de-sensor them and whatnot. So I didn't have a whole lot of standing around today, for which I was glad. And I made goal, which was even nicer. (Of course, when my goal for today was in the $200 range, $355 to catch up for the week, it's not terribly hard to get it, although today being Monday and it being quite rainy apparently for most of my shift, there weren't a whole lot of people in the mall.) Anyway though. That was my day.

Hm. Apparently tomorrow, which also means that apparently I have to go to classes...not too cool. It just all feels so weird. And last week was such a weird week. I don't know. It's all crazy. I just want it to be...Thursday after 6:10 (oooh, possibly earlier as we have another quiz in Latin on Thursday, and if it's as easy as this last one, and if she gives us at least 20 minutes to do it, I can probably be out of class before 6:10...), and then Friday night. After 9. Hm. Oh well.

Time to go.

9/11

What can you say about today? There's nothing I can say that hasn't been said hundreds of time today. I don't even want to try to say anything. I really wanted to avoid thinking about this today. However, unless I kept the TV, radio, and Internet off all day (as well as staying away from newspapers and, well, people in general), it was going to be pretty impossible to avoid it altogether. I was ok until driving to work, with the radio on. (Earlier in the day I had been selective as to what websites I went to, and instead of watching anything real on TV I put a movie in.) Every time a song ended and someone started talking, it was about 9/11. And it seemed like a lot of the songs were sad, or at least "somber." And it didn't take long for it to get to me, and I was once again fighting back tears for it all.

It's such a horrible thing that happened. All those lives lost. Any life lost is a terrible thing. That day was terrible. Obviously. I was a sophomore, four days away from turning 16, and it really affected me. My mom came to pick me up on her way home from work during my lunch. I'm pretty sure I missed next to nothing in the classes I skipped that day. To date, the entry I wrote (with a pen, no less) in my real journal that day is the longest I've ever written. The next day at lunch, one of my friends (with whom I haven't spoken since, well, more or less not too much after this incident--we sort of just drifted apart) asked me what was wrong with me, why I was so sad. I told her it was because of what had just happened, and she looked at me like I had two heads since I didn't personally know anyone who had died that day. As if I'm only allowed to show grief, to mourn, if I'm personally connected to whatever it is I'm sad about. Hearing all the stories of people who had died, thinking about the grief their families must have gone through, it really affected me. For a long time. And right now, I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above the water, like a kid in a pool who barely knows how to doggy-paddle. And I know that if I let in all those feelings from 9/11 again, it could very well sink me. So I'm doing my best not to let them in. But that doesn't stop me from praying for all those families who have no choice but to face what happened that day, every day.

I quite agree

Singin in the Rain is the best musical. I rather like this list of movies. I haven't seen all of them, but I've seen...I think about 10 of them. Perhaps I should try and make it my goal to see them all.

Witty titles take too much brainpower

Right now, I keep thinking about something and it gets me far excited than I'd like to admit. And that is the fact that last night, I started watching the 4th Harry Potter, and I'll probably watch the rest (or at least some more) tonight. I can't believe I'm this excited about watching Harry Potter. But hey, I'll take what I can get.

It's been a week. How weird.

Yesterday's ND game was fantabulous. I keep remembering different plays and whatnot, and just the whole thing was great. I didn't mention the fake punt that ND did I think in the 4th (3rd?) quarter, and almost got a TD off of it. Well, I think they did get a TD, but not in that one play. It was SAWEEET. As was the rest of the game. Man, I can't believe I'm missing out on all that. Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry. But yeah. Can't wait til November. It'll come soon enough. And I get to see two games in a row, so that's pretty cool. And one of them's Air Force. I don't really follow Air Force, but I do like them. I mean, I'll root for them in most games, as long as they're not playing us. But yeah. Anyhoo. Broncos lost at St. Louis today. They did not look terribly impressive. Lots of turnovers. Good thing I'm not much of a Bronco fan. (Like Air Force, I'll root for them--and was today--but it really doesn't affect me if they lose.) However, Patriots were down for awhile against Buffalo, but then managed to tie it up, and then got a safety and ended up winning 19-17. So that's cool. I do like the Patriots, and always root for them. And then there was that majorly hyped Sunday night game, Peyton Manning and the Colts at Eli Manning and the Giants. We didn't watch much of that game, but did see the last few minutes, and it was pretty close. Colts ended up winning. I decided to root for the Giants because Eli's cuter than Peyton, and I seem to remember not liking the Colts last season. Can't remember why, other than maybe because they beat the Patriots or something. Anyway. It definitely feels fall-y, watching NFL and all that. The music just reminds me of fall Sundays when all that would be on was football.

Football season is here, ladies and gentlemen, and I likes it. (And somewhere on the space-time continuum, my younger self screams in horror.)

Apparently it's been rainy the last few days. And apparently it rained today as well. Seems that I will never again get to see rain, because every time it rains I'm at that lovely windowless teeny store known as the Chapel Hills Mall Wilsons Leather. Guess that would happen, since generally it doesn't rain until the afternoon, and I'm always working in the afternoon. Sigh. oh well. maybe one of these days I'll see rain again. (and truth be told, I am over-dramatizing. I know, out of the ordinary for me, huh? But it has rained later at night recently, and I have stood out on the porch with my parents and Kebbie watching it, because you can't really beat sitting outside on a lovely porch swing with the rain falling down.) Rain is cool. And soon enough, it'll be turning to snow. All right, maybe that's not entirely true. It'll probably be at least another good month before a snowflake is seen (aside from in the mountains, as there's already snow on Pikes Peak again). Sooner if we're lucky. Or, if I'm lucky anyway. There's a chance this could be a wet/snowy winter. That'd be sweet. White Christmas! Yeah, very unlikely, but hey it's gotta happen sometime, right?

Yesterday at work, there were quite a few people walking around the mall. Wow that was a terribly written sentence. But anyway, I noticed a LOT of pregnant women. Working at the mall, there's not a shift that I don't see at least one or two pregnant women walking by, but yesterday, man, I must have seen at least 20, and probably lots more than that. It seemed like quite a few more than usual. It's always great to see, too. And today, a family came in, parents and seven kids. It was wonderful. And all the kids seemed normal. Imagine that. Having lots of kids, yet...they're not any worse off or more neglected than kids with one or two or no siblings. Anyway. The world is full of life, and it's beautiful.

And as for me? I'm going to bed. Or, at least to go lay in bed and read or something. Another lovely 8 hour afternoon/night shift tomorrow. Ugh. Could be worse though.

It's 2am I must be...hyper?

So here's a few thoughts from today. Or, the last 24ish hours anyway.

Last night, I "discovered" a singer I decided I very much quite enjoy. I've heard him on the radio before, a song or two, but didn't know who it was. And then in one of my classes last week someone mentioned him when my teacher asked us for examples of singers who incorporate religion into their songs. His name is Josh Turner, and not only does he have a good voice, he has good songs (as in, good lyrics, nothing bad or anything--even Plugged In likes him mostly!), and he's not too hard on the eyes either. I watched two of his music videos online last night, and one of them had a few somewhat (but not really, by comparison to most other music videos) steamy scenes. Not even steamy. but anyway, it's him and a girl, but since he's married and a strong Christian he said he wouldn't have felt comfortable doing those scenes with anyone but his wife. So his wife's in the music video. I just think that's cool. Anyway. I put his two CDs on hold at the library, so I'll check them out before I go and spend money. (Or I could do like some people I know and just burn them onto my computer from the library copy. But I feel weird doing that.)

Apparently they had Steve Irwin's private funeral today. I still get really sad when I think about the whole thing, but I've finally had like more than two full days without crying, so I don't let myself dwell on it too much. Just like I'm not going to let myself dwell on the anniversary of 9/11 on Monday. I just can't deal with it. But both are still very very sad to think about. Hence why distractions (such as awesome ND football games) are great things.

I just realized tonight that I only have two more days to read the entirety of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I guess I'm not too terribly concerned because I've read it before. I had to read it in 8th grade, and again as summer reading (such a stupid invention) before 9th grade. So, to be honest, I didn't really re-read it that summer, but yeah. However, 8th grade was awhile ago. Almost 7 years. Dang. (I say almost 7 because we read it at the end of the year. Not that it's important.) But it's not that complicated of a book, so I should be able to skim it pretty well.

I have to work again tomorrow. However, wonderfully for me it's only 4 hours. And really, it's only 3.5 because the last half hour is mostly spent closing the register, driving to the bank (assuming there's a deposit--as in someone paid cash or check--which I'm sure there will be because I would never get lucky enough not to have to worry about a deposit; my luck usually consists of us having no deposit until the last half hour when someone comes in and pays with a check. which is, for some reason, more annoying than having a cash deposit), and then driving home. And I'll be home by 6:30. Which is wonderful. I wish we had cable tonight, because apparently Larry King Live is doing some tribute thing to Steve Irwin. I know, I really don't need to see it--it's better for me, I have to admit, to remove myself from that stuff so I can kind of forget about it easier, but I never do that--but I want to. But, I won't be able to. Unless it gets put on YouTube or something. (or unless possibly someone with cable reads this before it's on--9pm eastern which I guess would be 8pm here? Does CNN do its shows like that, like network TV does?--and tapes it for me, in which case I would be eternally grateful...) I think that tomorrow night I'll be watching Funny Face, which Mom got from Blockbuster today because I told her yesterday that I wanted to watch an Audrey Hepburn movie, and she had been planning to get a movie this weekend. So that'll be good.

My birthday's Thursday. Just so you all know. (Not that I'm reminding you so you'll get me something, but last year I got lots of Facebook wall messages and it made me so happy! But then, if you're on facebook, it'll remind you that it's my birthday. I don't have to worry about that .Haha. ok. sorry.)

So, I'm quite enjoying using blogger. The biggest reason? I can put links in my posts without them being these huge full links that I had in lj. I might have been able to do the embedded link thing there, but I never figured it out. And I just like it. It makes things look so much better than having this huge long link in a post. And thus, as you may have noticed, I now have lots more links in my posts. Hehe. Hey, I like it. I don't care if you all do.

I'm wearing my brown skirt tomorrow. That'll make me happy too. I quite enjoy that skirt. Of course, it's probably rather wrinkled since I took it last weekend and haven't ironed it since...but that's ok. Good stuff.

I should get to bed. I think we're going to the 9:30 Mass tomorrow, and it's after 2 now. Hm...oh well. I'm getting a lot more sleep this semester so far than probably since junior year, at least. The wonderfulness of having my earliest class be at 10:50, and that only being twice a week. Most days, as long as I'm up by 9 I'm fine, and the days I don't have to be anywhere until 1:00 or even 1:40, I can even sleep in until 11 if I really want to. It's pretty great for this night owl. But tomorrow I obviously have to be up earlier than any of those times. So. Bedtime.

Heck yes

Well, no worries. Sure, the score says 41-17, but really it's more like 41-3. PSU's only two touchdowns came at the very end of the game (the first wasn't until there was only 5:50 left in the 4th), against our second string. Yeah, they still count, but still. Anyway. Go Irish! It was a great game. Today really sucked at work. Not only did I have to miss the game, but my sales weren't wonderfully great (I did get a good sale right towards the end which basically doubled mine for the day, but yeah) so that made it drag too, and it just went by SO SLOWLY. And all I wanted was to be at home watching the game. (Ok, to be honest, what I really wanted was to be at ND watching the game, but yeah.) Finally, FINALLY, we could go home. And home I went. (After, ok I'll admit, going to Walmart to see how much the Harry Potter movies were there, and they were more than $10 cheaper, so I got it, and I'll return the Best Buy ones. Yeah I'm an idiot. Whatever.) And I turned on the game, and my parents were great about not giving anything away. Man it was such a great game. One of my favorite plays was the PSU fumble that Zibby recovered and returned for a TD. So sweet. There were many great plays. Our defense was great. I love Brady Quinn (who doesn't?). I love it all. I almost started crying when the coverage started. Sigh. The new tradition that Charlie Weis started, having the team stay over by the students to sing the fight song and the alma mater, is very awesome. And kudos to NBC for staying with coverage to show that (although they probably only did that because they wanted to talk to some players, and so they had to wait). Anyway. MMM good stuff. I CANNOT wait until I get to go out there in November.

Um...what else was I going to say? Hm....I don't remember. Man that was such a good game. oh yeah! So last night at the pep rally, Charlie said that they'd be handing out green Irish rally towels at the game today. I saw this on NDNation.com, someone mentioned it, and I asked Julie if she'd possibly try to get me one, because it'd be cool. Well, awesome that she is, she managed to snag me one! I'm excited about that. Man. i wish I was there. Sigh. Oh well. It's all good. It's all good. I wore my The Shirt today at work. Of course, I wore it under a black long sleeve shirt as we're not allowed to wear shirts with writing or logos or something on them. But I wanted to wear it. So wear it I did. good stuff.

I wonder where we'll be in the polls this week. Probably 3rd. Texas lost to OSU, and Texas was #2. So maybe we'll pass them or something. But, they did lose to the #1 team, so...we'll see. It really doesn't matter too much, does it? We're balanced. Man, it really amuses me that NBC always announces at the beginning of coverage (or some time during it) that it's a "sell-out crowd in South Bend" or something along those lines. We're always sold out. They usually follow it with a "for the 182nd [or whatever] time." Just seems ridiculous. Now, if we werent' sold out, that'd be something to mention.

Man, ND football is like a drug. A wonderful, exhilarating, amazing drug.

Life ain't always beautiful, but it's a beautiful ride

Today, I got to wear my rosary bracelet for the first time in quite awhile without it being broken or slightly messed up. I mean, the cross and medal have been on there less than wonderfully for months and months now, and then since camping in June they've been on even less wonderfully, and thus I haven't worn it much at all since then. So it's finally repaired, and those things are on there to stay. For awhile anyway. Hopefully. It was quite lovely to have it back in working order again.

After work, I had planned to go to Best Buy to buy, finally, at least one of the Harry Potter DVDs. I needed a little pickmeup, and I've been wanting to watch one for so long now, so I figured I'd just go do it. So after work, I drove across the street to the Best Buy by the mall, and looked for Harry Potter. Individually, they were like $15, and then they had a 4-pack, all the special editions, 8 disks, for $60. So I decided just to get that. Although, now I'm thinking maybe I should see how much it is at Walmart because I have a feeling it's cheaper there...but probably by like a few bucks at most or something...hm. Man I'm such a tightwad. Technically, I only paid like $8 for it anyway, because I had about $60 left on that giftcard. And if I got it at Walmart, where I have only like $45 left on the gift card, I'd probably have to pay more of my own money. But then...Best Buy has a better selection, and last time I checked Walmart there were some movies I wanted that I didn't see there...argh I frustrate myself. Always trying to find the best possible deal, and in the process letting everything pass me by. Whatever. I bought Harry Potter things today. It's a milestone.

Conan just said "toin coss" instead of "coin toss" and he stopped to correct himself, but it took me a minute to figure out what he had said wrong. I knew what he meant. How weird. Hahaha man he is so tall. Or, so much taller than most people he's ever next to.

Sales-wise I had an ok day today. My goal was like $400-something, and I almost got that, but then I was still around $200 short from Monday. So I'm still around $200 short, but I'm over $1000 for the week. I don't think I've ever had that much in sales for a week. Not that I remember anyway. And that's after only two days of working. 16 hours total, of course, but yeah. Anyway. Tomorrow I have to do it all again, but with an even higher goal. I haven't had good experiences with sales on Saturdays. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. But if not, who cares? I know I keep talking about it, but it's more that I just have a better day at work when I get closer to my goal, and that's why I care at all.

Have you seen those new Gap ads? The ones for the (not altogether terribly attractive, in my opinion) "skinny black pants" with Audrey Hepburn? Well, when I got to work today I was surprised by a new window set at Gap, right across the wing from us. Their middle window has shots of Audrey Hepburn dancing from that ad. Anyway, after looking at it for awhile, I realized I wanted to watch an Audrey Hepburn movie. Unfortunately I have none in my possession. Perhaps we'll rent one this weekend.

Last night, I heard Paris Hilton had been arrested for drunk driving. She claimed to have only had one margarita, last I heard. Now, I'm no alcohol expert, but is it really possible to get legally drunk (.08 or whatever the limit is) on one margarita? Oh, and ugh, I just heard (ok, so I'm watching stupid TV, Access Hollywood, because...well...I don't know) that Brad Pitt said he and Angelina Jolie won't get married until "everyone in the country who wants to get married is legally able" or something like that. Stupid Hollywood liberals.

Ok, sorry to bring this up yet again, but I found this today. It's just a compilation of a bunch of cartoons (news cartoons...or whatever they're called) from cartoonists across the country, giving tribute to Steve Irwin. Many of them play on the "crocodile tears" term, but they're nice. Anyway.

Wanna see a smart bird? This bird has learned to use cars to get nutshells open. It's pretty cool, actually.

I hate fashion rules. I think the not wearing brown and black together is the dumbest thing. And the white after labor day. Do people still "enforce" that? It's stupid.

Hm.

In which I break character

...and talk about my love of shoes. But specific ones.

As you might remember, my first purchase at Wilsons after being hired was a pair of tan clogs. My first pair of clogs ever. I enjoyed them so much that a few weeks later, when I noticed there were still pairs of brown and black in my size, I bought them as well. Now, I'm the type of person who tends to have one pair of shoes that I wear pretty much exclusively, with a few other pairs for various different occassions (usually like some type of sandals, and then obviously nicer shoes). In the past, it's usually been just a pair of tennis shoes that I wear all the time. Well, since buying those clogs, I've pretty much only ever wore those. I wore my tennis shoes once that I specifically remember, but the clogs just rock. And I have three different pairs of them, so it's that much nicer. I'm sure this wouldn't have happened as much as it has if I were allowed to wear tennis shoes at work (although now I wouldn't be able to anyway, because now it's no jeans and thus tennis shoes would of course be out too), but it's great. Clogs rule.

And now I'm done talking about shoes.

Uh...what?

So, apparently VeggieTales is going to be shown on NBC Saturday mornings now. Or soon. Sometime. However, they're going to take out all that icky religious stuff. Now, I'm not a VeggieTales fan. In fact, the only exposure to that show that I've ever had (aside from accidentally hearing a few songs, songs which I very much dislike to hear now) it seeing the big-screen movie that came out a few years back. What was that, like sophomore year of high school...no, probably junior year. Anyway. Back then. And I wasn't terribly impressed. HOWEVER, for kids it's a good show. With good messages. Yes, religious messages. It seems stupid to take out what seems to be the heart of a show just to avoid any hint of religiousness whatsoever. Stupid NBC.

Ever since the watermelon

Well guys, I think the cloud may be lifting ever so slightly. Last night I pretty much got as low as I could feel. I'm sure no one wants to hear the details, but there were quite a bit of tears involved, not a whole lot of sleep, lack of concentration, and even some throwing up. It was not fun. Especially because I was attempting to write an English paper during it all. (Of course, that just compounded everything else and surely didn't help at all.) In the past two or three days, I've cried more times than I care to remember. And though this seems silly to me, it was almost always brought on by something about Steve Irwin. I don't know what it is, but something about his death really really hit me hard. And I feel like...an idiot or something for reacting like I am, but that's the way it is. I think a lot of it is thinking about his kids, his family. I can't even imagine how hard that would be, and man you just have to feel so bad for them. He was so passionate and exuberant, it's just hard to imagine him gone just like that, and as a result of something so rare and unlikely. Anyway. That coupled with a few other things have just been making me a complete wreck this week. Especially considering how rather messed up I've been the past few weeks too. Aaannnnyway, today was more or less an extension of last night, until I got home from Latin. Mom had suggested earlier in the day that we play a game tonight, as that's always a fun thing to do and we haven't in awhile. So Dad went downstairs to find a box of games he had brought home from Grandpop's this summer, and my parents decided we should play Pachisi, which I had never played before. Apparently it's one of the more normal games that was in that box. So we played, and while I lost (psh, Dad sabotaged me), it was fun and a very nice distraction for me. With the exception of this past weekend, which was kind of a separation from reality, it feels like it's been so long since I've done anything fun. Which is itself contributing to my overall feeling of crappiness lately. And playing tonight kept my mind occupied and distracted from thinking about that which automatically makes me sad once again. So anyway. I really needed that tonight. I have great parents.

Wow, Jay Leno just somewhat roundabout-ly criticized Jessica Simpson's less than modest choice of dress--and her choice of jewelry. Kind of. She's on his show wearing a black dress that of course shows more than plenty of cleavage, and she has a large-ish cross necklace hanging there in the middle of it all. He said "You know, I see that cross, but I'm thinking impure thoughts"--of course said in like a joking manner like he does, but it's true. A very valid point, and even if he did say it like that, it's nice to hear someone say it at all. You wanna wear uber-revealing clothing? Fine. But don't hide behind that cross or pretend you velieve in it if you're going to wear it hanging between your boobs for everyone to see. "Oh, I'm such a good Christian, here, look at my boobs!" Ok, I know, I guess lots of people just wear crosses as fashion statements without giving any thought as to what it represents, but Jessica at least used to tout her Christian beliefs and whatnot. Eh whatever.

I thought I had something else to say. I guess not so much. So I guess...bye for now.

Edit: A few minutes ago, I heard Colt upstairs and what sounded like her thudding onto the floor from Tom's old bed. Not too much longer after that, I hear this muffled meow-like sound, but like a series of them. After a minute, I look over and Colt walks into the family room, meowing with this small stuffed animal in her mouth. She put it down, looked at me and meowed again, and jumped up onto my lap. It was so funny. Every once in awhile we'll find a little stuffed animal at the bottom of the stairs, or on one of the floors somewhere, just randomly, and we know it's her because she's done that ever since she was a kitten. It was just so funny. I have no idea why she was meowing like that though. Man she's so cute.

I don't care

I turned in an English essay today. I have a feeling it's not very good, especially because I wasn't in class the day he discussed it so there easily could be something I was or was not supposed to do that I didn't know about, and there for didn't or did do. I'm prepared to get this essay back with something along the lines of a C grade. And I don't care.

I have to take a Latin test later today. It's nothing major, just the first test over the basics which for the most part I think I have understood fairly well so far. I've studied some for it, but I can barely make myself really sit down and study because I don't care.

There's very little reason for me to even attempt to do well this semester because these classes, in the end, most likely will have just been a simple sidetrack on my journey to a Notre Dame degree, something that won't end up showing up anywhere that it matters. Sure, I'll at least give it a half-hearted attempt; after all, I'm pretty much incapable of giving anything less than that, but I can't promise anything more than that.

And especially right now, when I am finding it hard really to care about almost anything, because it hurts too much. Caring about things hurts. Letting that caring and hurt in just opens something inside of me that I think I'd much rather stay closed, because I don't like what it makes me become when it is open. It's too hard. I don't want to do it anymore.

Best dressed, by far

Everyone knows about my huge crush on Conan O'Brien. If for nothing else, I love him so much for his choice of dress every night. Of course, he probably doesn't really choose it so much as someone tells him what to wear, but that's not important. He wears it, and that's what matters. For example, tonight he's wearing a grey-ish/light brown-ish suit, with a pastel-y purple shirt, and a slanted striped tie that has orange, brown, white, maybe black stripes on it. Freakin awesome. Plus, he's hilarious.

Stupid facebook

Ok, now I'll admit that honestly, I don't care too much one way or the other about the "new and improved" facebook stuff. Everyone seems to be very much against it, but I'm fairly neutral. The only thing is, now every time someone changes their relationship status from "single" to "in a relationship," it's right there for me to see, right on my home page. And it's not like I'm honestly looking for a boyfriend right now (that may come as a surprise to some, but it's true--one of these days, but not with where I am at this moment), but I really hate being reminded that it seems like everyone is in or getting in a relationship. I suppose there's also a fair number breaking up, but...yeah. Eh. I'd just rather not have any of it right there right in my face.

One more week

In one week and...8.5 hours or so, I will officially turn 21. (The 8.5 hours takes into account the fact that I was born at 9:19 am, which is 7:19 mountain time, so yeah.) Not being one who's terribly inclined to drink, and especially not to pay for it, I honestly don't particularly care. I almost couldn't care less that my birthday is even coming up, regardless of the age I'm turning. I mean, honestly, what's the point of a birthday? It's kind of weird when you think about it. Eh. Maybe I'll be more excited as it gets closer.

Don't know what you miss until it's gone

Sunday night, doing a search for "Steve Irwin" on imdb resulted in the first result being Charlie Sheen (I guess he has an "Irwin" somewhere in his name), followed by a Steve Irwin I and Steve Irwin II--the last one being the Crocodile Hunter. Then by yesterday, Steve Irwin II had moved above Steve Irwin I. Now, it's the first result you get. Everyone misses him. He lived his life with so much passion, doing exactly what he loved to do. How many people get to say that? How many people do that? No wonder he is so very admired. By most, anyway. Including me.

I hate doing this

Guys, I'm going through a bit of a tough time right now (in case you didn't know). In reality, I know that it's nothing and that my problems are so incredibly insignificant, but sometimes it's hard being rational. I just could use some prayers, much as I tend to dislike asking for prayers. Especially when I know that really, by comparison to a lot of people, I have it pretty good. But there it is.

Slow news day?

One of the main headlines on cnn.com right now is this article, about the new facebook look and how pretty much everyone on facebook hates it. It really really amuses me that that is one of the top stories right now, because...who cares? It's just funny.

Sleeping cats are cute

Colt's laying on the chair by the family room window, which she does quite often, and it's right in my line of sight from where I'm sitting. It's so fun to watch her curl into various cat positions. Not sure why, but it's amusing watching some of the ways she manages to contort her body into something that is apparently comfortable to her.

So, the ND game on Saturday is at 3:30 eastern, which means 1:30 here, which means I won't get to see any of it before I leave for work. Kinda sucks, in part because it also means that once I get home, I can't get online for the next three or so hours afterward because if I do I'll surely find out the outcome in some way or another. I mean, I guess it doesn't really matter if I do, but I'd much rather watch and be surprised. Sigh. Oh well. (I could try to get online and contain myself to a select few websites, but you never know where something will pop up randomly about a game, or when someone will put up an away message and reflexively I'll check it and it'll be there.)

I decided to do a search on Facebook to see how many groups there are now about Steve Irwin, and man there are tons. According to the thing, there's more than 500 groups (if a search has more than 500 results, it just says 500+) already. And it seems like a good majority of them are like "RIP Steve Irwin" and "Steve Irwin Memorial" and "The stinger that killed Steve Irwin went straight through my heart" and groups like that. It's interesting. (And can you tell that I have homework I should be doing, as evidenced by the amount of time I'm spending on Facebook today?) Apparently there's now a lot of anger at stingrays (and the new facebook features). Sigh.

I don't even know.

Mourning

Leno just played a little montage of clips from when Steve Irwin was on his show, various times. I hadn't cried yet as a result of this whole thing, but that one did it. I knew it was only a matter of time. And now is the time. I don't know why this is affecting me so much. I happened to see a little clip of his daughter when she was three, saying she was going to be just like her daddy when she grew up. I feel so very very bad for her and her little brother. I can't even imagine that. And Steve's wife. It's just...it's so sad. It's tragic. It's so sad.

Maybe I should move to Norway

According to this page, one of the few places in the world (that they have specifics on anyway) where the guys are taller than me is Norway. Most other places, the average height is at or even below my height. Oh, the Dinaric Alps is even better. Of course, I've never heard of that place until just now, but I have heard of Croatia, Slovenia, and other places that apparently make up the Dinaric Alps. but anyway. But yeah, those two places are the only two on the chart where the average height of the males is 6' or higher. Which is really bizarre to me, because 6' seems fairly short. Ok, not short, but definitely not tall. Growing up with a dad who's 6'6, and then a brother who ends up just a tad below that, will definitely mess with your perspective on what's tall and what's not.

The boy loves his VCR

When we got back from the wedding this weekend, it was evident that Jason had been here. Cathy watched the house, fed the pets, etc while we were gone, so it's not like this was a surprise. The only thing was, the remotes (we have one for the TV, one for the VCR, and one for the DVD player) were on the floor, not in their usual spot. And the DVD remote was missing. Which presents somewhat of a problem when attempting to watch a DVD, because you can't put on subtitles (as is necessary for my slightly going deaf father), and all that other stuff that's nice to use a remote for. Anyway. So we couldnt' find it. Looked all over the family room, etc, no sign of it. I figured Jason must have gotten hold of it (he loves remotes) and put it somewhere. So just a few minutes ago, Dad and I gave it another go. I just looked in a few places and gave up for now, and then all of a sudden Dad, who was over by the pile of videos Jason has pulled out of our cabinet where we keep videos, and where the TV, VCR, and DVD players are on top of, said "Jason probably put it somewhere" in the way that sounded like he had found it. (He kind of repeated something I had said.) I looked over, and he was pulling something out of the VCR. Jason had put the DVD remote in the VCR. Like, where you put videos. It's just too funny. He always loves playing with the VCR, especially if there's a video in there to eject and push back in, etc. Anyway. It's just so funny. That boy.

Two big stories of the day

If you're a college student (or, I guess high schoolers can use it now too), you've probably heard of/are on facebook.com. Well, as of today, they're all changed. It's really weird now. Talk about upping the stalker factor. Now it shows you who of your friends have done specifically what with their profiles recently (in addition to telling you just who updated profiles, generically), and if you look at someone's profile, it shows you everything they've changed recently. It's weird. And as everyone is saying, very creepy and turning into a stalker's dream. hehe. Fun stuff. Apparently though, now the worry is that soon you'll be able to see who has looked at your profile. Which completely negates the whole point of facebook, in a way, because what's the fun if you can't anonymously look up that hot guy in your English class? But yeah, it's the topic of conversation among college students. As Julie pointed out, it's that and the Crocodile Hunter. Us college students have a lot of important issues facing us lately. (Ok, one of those is really insignificant, and one is really sad, but still.)

Tis odd.

Phones aren't cool

You know, when I'm home and the phone rings, 9 times out of 10 I don't answer it. If I'm home alone, I'll get up to check it every time (although for the life of me I don't know why), but every time I look at the caller ID and let it finish ringing. Except in those rare instances where I recognize the number, and know it'll be for me, or at least someone I might be willing to talk to. But generally, I just don't answer the phone. (A lot of the phone calls we get are for Marriage Encounter, since my parents do the registering for the ME weekends, and we also get a lot of telemarketer calls. Which are just annoying.) What baffles me, though, is the fact that despite my track record for actually answering the phone, I still get up to check it Every. Single. Time. Why would I do that? If someone's calling for me, and I don't answer that phone, generally they'll call my cell which I try to keep on or around me most of the time. It's just weird to me that I always get up to check it.

I'm clearly being productive today

If I were going to live in a cartoon strip world, I'd want it to be Rose is Rose.

I love ya, tomorrow

Tomorrow, I don't have to go to work. I don't have to go to school. All I have to do is...write an English essay, study for a Latin test, and other various homework-related things. But that's far more acceptable than having to go to work.

I can't get over the Steve Irwin thing. It's so weird. It's not like I was a huge fan of his or anything, but...I don't know. At least I know I'm not the only one feeling like this though. Kristina surprised me today by stopping in the store right as I was about to go on lunch, and she was on break as well. So that was really nice. But while we were eating, I mentioned it, asked if she had heard about it, and she said she had and was really sad about it too. Same kind of feeling as me, not really able to explain it either. So yeah. I don't know. Apparently though I'm good at hiding it, because Brenda mentioned towards the end of our shifts tonight that I seemed more enthusiastic than usual today. Surprising because I felt anything but, not only sad but also inexplicably tired. I guess when I'm at work I try to pretend to be happy and excited and stuff. But yeah. I know I'll get over this, it's just still really sad and shocking right now. But yeah, I'm definitely not the only one feeling this way. It's so bizarre, and I can't explain it. And a part of me keeps thinking that I shouldn't really feel sad, I didn't know him, I didn't have any connection to him, so why should I let this affect me at all? Almost like, what right do I have to feel sad,

Hm. Well in an attempt to distract myself, a fun highlight of my night at work. I had noticed guys walking by in Air Force uniform all day, at least a few with what I assumed to be their parents, and figured it was some special parent weekend or something. Well, toward the end of the night, two people came in, a guy and a girl, and were looking at jackets. Eventually they got one, and I figured out that it was a guy and his mom, who was buying him the jacket for his birthday. (That last part I didn't figure out so much as they outright said it.) At first I thought it was his sister or something, because she didn't look that much older than him. Anyway. Brenda asked him if he was at the Air Force Academy, and he said he's a senior there. I'm not sure how she figured out that he was, but he was probably wearing something that I missed. Anyway. Hm I forgot the point of this...Oh yeah, so long story short, he was pretty cute, and that's always fun. Of course, he noticed and pointed out the little ink stain I have on my white 3/4 length sleeved button up shirt (as Mom pointed out earlier today, I am in need of a new nice white shirt, apparently, since mine's old and getting dingy and all that. and has a little ink stain on it). Eh, it happens. So anyway that was fun. It's always fun seeing hot boys, isn't it?

I need to go to bed. I must not have slept very well last night, if my exhaustion during most of today is any indicator. Tomorrow I should try to get up reasonably early, because I have an English essay to write (and I would so very much love myself if I could get a good chunk of it done tomorrow, instead of leaving it all to Wednesday night), and there's the Latin stuff too, and I should maybe look at starting a history thing I have to write (but it's not due until Sept 26 so...yeah probably not). And I for sure have to write my next journal entry for philo, and email that to my prof. I'd like to do that sooner than later (latest being before class on Wednesday). Make myself look like slightly less of a slacker, I guess. But it's not like it's all that hard to do. Last week, I wasn't sure if it had to be one page double spaced or single spaced, so just to be sure I wrote most of a page single spaced and then double spaced it, so it was almost two pages. I figured that'd be good either way. But as it turns out, it's only one page double spaced (at least), so that's plenty simple to do.

Anyway. I should get to bed. Goodbye.

RIP, Crocodile Hunter

I just saw something, and it's quite depressing. Steve Irwin died. (That would be the Crocodile Hunter, in case you don't know.) Here's an article, and here's another one. (And man is Wikipedia fast.) It just kind of seemed like he was invincible or something, after all the close calls he's had. Apparently he was killed today by a stingray while filming some underwater documentary about stingrays. I saw someone's away message that said, well, basically the title of this post I guess, with a link. I was hoping it was something else, I don't know what, but something else. Or maybe something like a sickness he had that no one (publicly) knew about. I don't really know why that would be better, but somehow it just would be less...shocking I guess. Not for the rest of the world, but for his family at least. Or, man, you'd think that it'd only be appropriate for a crocodile finally to get him. That'd be a little like this thing I saw on 20/20 a few weeks back, about some guy who spent at least half the year up in Alaska just living with a bunch of (grizzly?) bears, trying to show that they weren't as bad as people thing if you only treat them as they should be treated. Well, after doing that for I think like 16 years or something, a bear killed him, ate him, etc. Seems kind of like a betrayal of sorts. I'm getting off-topic though. I hate hearing about stuff like this. It's one thing when it's an actor who's in his 80s or 90s or something, and it's not really all that much of a surprise when he dies. But when it's someone young, with young kids, who's still well in the spotlight and everything...it's just such a shock. Now I'm not going to be able to sleep. This just has shaken me. Like that bear story I saw whenever that was. Harsh realities of life, I guess. His poor family...I'm sure they'll need a lot of prayers in the coming few weeks.

Up, down, all around

I need to go to bed. Soon. This weekend, nice as it may have been, was not good with regards to getting enough sleep. Sure, I snagged 20 minutes here, maybe an hour there, while traveling Thursday, Friday, and today, but those intermittent amounts of sleep don't make up for the nights without enough sleep that I had this weekend. Oh well. Take the good with the bad. Unfortunately, unlike most people, I don't get to relax tomorrow, and I have to go to work. And not just the regular 1-9:30 (which means we leave at 9), but 1-10. Unless we manage to get the stuff we need to switch around switched before we close. Which is clearly the better option. It really sucks though. I mean, having to go in from 1-close tomorrow would suck, but having to switch the stuff is just so annoying and such a waste of time. And with my luck tomorrow, the one day we actually have something to do and thus make time go by a little more quickly, we'll be busy and will end up having to stay late. And then every other freaking time I'm there we don't have anything to do, and we have no customers. Sigh. As my dad once again reminded me today, it's money, which I do need, so...yeah. It still sucks though. Wouldn't be quite as bad if it were like open to 6 or something like that, same number of hours but I'd have the whole night to myself. As it is, I feel like I can't do much because it's just awkward and annoying to have the day start at 1, and then have to go until late, and...ugh. Ok sorry.

Anyway. You know who's amazing? My memere. She was married to a firefighter--not an easy life by any means--and raised 7 kids, all of whom got married and none of whom have gotten divorced, she has 24 grandkids, and 19 great-grandchildren. A 20th is due within the next month or so. She's been through the death of her second-born, years and years ago, as well as my pepere's battle with cancer and then his death, and any number of things in the 50-odd years in between those two (and since). She's lived through wars and all sorts of societal changes. She's 86. Think about how different the world was in 1920 compared to now. Can you imagine living through all of that? She's told me stories about how she and her friends used to go to the movies for a dime, and it'd be like two movies and a newsreel or something like that. She's getting old, yeah, but she's still so amazing. I'm so glad for every chance I get to spend time with her, like I did this weekend--even if it was only a very short while.

And now to switch gears completely, once again. I am sick to death of airplanes. I've been on WAYYY too many in the last two years. Before college, I used to be excited about going on a plane. Since then I've been on 10 round trips, which means over 20 different planes since at least some of them had layovers. When we finally landed in Denver today, after traveling 15 hours (and there'd be another hour and a halfish of traveling before getting HOME), I just didn't want to be on another plane for a long time. But of course, I'll be on another one in two months (like...exactly two months). I'd say a Notre Dame home game is worth it though. But anyway. Stupid planes. The landing into Denver was particularly unsatisfactory. I mean, the actual touching down of the plane was pretty good, but the descent was terrible. Not sure why. I sure was feeling it though. (And not in a good way.) If only trains were faster...or if only someone had created an instant teleportation device. Hey, if Steve Urkel can do it, why can't the rest of us? I will say this though. On the return flights today, I discovered how nice emergency exit row seats are. There's nothing like having enough leg room to cross your legs. And the flight from La Guardia to St. Louis was the emptiest I've seen a flight in quite some time. Very weird. That plane had two exit rows, and on one side the rows were 3 seats each, the other had 2 seats. We got seats so that we were on the 3 seat side, and Mom and Dad got aisles, one right in front of the other, and Tom and I got windows in those same rows. No one between us (or even on the other side of the aisle from us). Very nice. The other plane, St. Louis to Denver, was very small. Just one seat per row on one side, two seats per row on the other. Not quite as comfortable, but there was still leg room in the exit row, so that was nice. But anyway.

As I'm sure you're all aware by now, Notre Dame beat Georgia Tech. Brady Quinn most definitely helped with his QB sneak thing to get the first touchdown, as well as a first down on a 4th and 1 later in the game. And D-Walk looked good too. Oh, and Rhema, who spent most of last season injured, and who some people questioned if he'd be back up to good shape, looked quite good to me. Yeah, the game wasn't altogether impressive. But one game does not a season make. (Although, one game can break a season...) This week, home opener against Penn State. Should be good. How I wish I was there. But at least through the magic of TV, I can still see the whole thing (although more than half I'll have to tape and watch later, since of course I have to work all freaking day again on Saturday).

Back to normal now, I guess.

Yerp

I'm trying to figure out how I feel right now, but man I sure can't. Oh well. Tonight was fun. Even though I tend to feel like a bit of an outsider with my extended family (and of course I do, since A--I'm younger than pretty much all of my cousins on that side, well, all of them, and B--we live far away and thus don't get to spend much time with them which could help make the age thing more or less obsolete, but since we are far away it doesn't make it obsolete). I wish I didn't so much, but oh well. It was still fun.

And now it's halftime of the ND-Georgia Tech game, and they finally scored right at the end of the half (yeah Brady Quinn!!!), so now it's 10-7 Georgia Tech. Sigh. I still believe in my Irish, of course. They still have a half to pull it out. No worries.

Go Irish!!!

Oh man, tonight will be so sweet. I hope I can watch at least some of the game. Man. I love ND football. So very very very very very very very very very very much. I just hope they don't fall flat on their faces tonight (that bowl game's still in people's memory...). They'll be great though. Brady Quinn will be amazing, and then he'll get the Heisman in December because he rocks. As does the whole team. And Charlie Weis. Oh, Charlie Weis.

(contented) sigh...

Sigh

I miss Notre Dame. I really really do. But there's nothing I can do about it now (except complain), so I guess I should just be happy that now I know for sure. At least being here (as in, not at home) makes it a little easier because (I think) I'd be here either way, Notre Dame or not.

But still...Sigh.

Sorry. I complained all last semester (although, I don't think I really complained a whole lot on here...but I'm sure I did), and now I'll be complaining all this semester for the opposite reason...sigh. I'm sorry. But I promise, next semester hopefully I'll have figured stuff out and gotten in a better place, so complaining about where I am (or where I'm not) won't happen much. Hopefully. I'll do my best. So there.

Watch the ND game tomorrow!!! WATCH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (especially if I can't. watch it for me.)


GO IRISH! BEAT JACKETS!

Quick update

Well, I'm here. Yesterday was Denver to Chicago to La Guardia and then New Jersey, and today was New Jersey all the way up to New Hampshire. Fun times. But yeah, it's been really really great, honestly. I love seeing my family. And as crowded and all as it is, I love visiting the east coast. Perhaps because it's kind of like...my roots or whatever. Anyway. Good stuff. Wedding is tomorrow, and should be nice. (And for those of you keeping track, the ND-Georgia Tech game is tomorrow night. 8pm eastern. Quite fun times. Go Irish!)

I'm currently on buyed time right now ($8 for 24 hour worth of wireless here at the internet). And other people want to use my laptop. So, until later, have a good weekend!