Place your bets

Ok, I currently have 261 posts. (That's after being on blogger since August, or, less than four months.) So this is 262. How long do you all think it'll take for me to get to 300? Think I can do it by Jan 1? I think I can.

Dude, I really want to get this calendar. Last week when I spent those lots of hours at Borders with Cathy, just looking around at stuff randomly (I highly recommend it, by the way. Nothing like wasting time with a good friend in a bookstore!), we browsed the calendars for a little while, and I saw that one and it was a little exciting, I'll admit. I'm a definite word-ophile (and I know there's a real word for that, which you would think I would know...), and man it's just awesome, that calendar. Of course, I tend not to do too well with the whatever-a-day calendars. I have quite a few accumulated over the years that are still full after like May or so. I think it has something to do with the fact that I haven't been in one residence for a full year since high school (not that it was that long ago, but yeah). Or maybe it's just because I'm lazy. haha. Anyway.

I just flipped to Leno, and they're doing the filler that they have between the monologue and the guests. It's this guy going to different people's houses and making movies or something. I don't know, really, since I missed the beginning of it. But he went to some girl's apartment, and was asking about her portfolio (for jobs, I guess?), and he said he'd help her make one, so then they go to this "commercial" for this girl aimed at potential employers (obviously not a real video thing, of course), and the voice over was saying that she's good at integrating, marketing, and communicating, and it showed her at her laptop and for a brief second you could see that she was on, of all things, facebook. It made me laugh. Most people probably wouldn't notice that though, as a lot of people don't know what facebook is or looks like. And their lives are much sadder for it, I'm sure. haha.


So I'm working this Friday, from 4:30 to 10:30. (Stupid extended mall hours. Blech.) Wasn't originally scheduled to, but picked it up because the person who originally had it kind of got let go. And I figured, money's good. And it's not really terrible, working then. But I'm also scheduled to work next Friday, from 5:30 to 10:30. I just very much dislike the idea of having to work two Friday nights in a row until 10 both times. Could be worse I guess. I think it's partly to do with the fact that next Friday they're playing Rudolph and then Frosty the Snowman. I'm pretty sure we have both on tape somewhere (could be interesting trying to find them, though), but it's just always so much easier to watch things when they're on TV for some reason. Oh well. Hopefully I won't have to work the Friday after that, unless it's during the day. I'm hoping that I'll be able to have more day shifts once I get done with school on the 12th. I'm also very much concerned that I'm going to have to work Christmas Eve. Aside from the fact that it would just suck having to work then, it's a Sunday, and I'm going to have to go to Mass both for Sunday and again for Christmas, unless we buck our trend of the past...many many years and actually go to Christmas Mass on Christmas. I don't know, it just wouldn't be the same if we did that. I'm hoping that I might be able to use a little pull to get Christmas Eve off because he made me work early the day after Thanksgiving. But I'd still bet good money that I'll end up getting screwed and have to work it sometime anyway. Argh. How much I wish I worked at a place that was closed on Sundays. Currently wondering if I should bite the bullet and put in my two weeks in enough time that I wouldn't be working on New Years/New Years Eve. Hm.....But hey, back to the now, at least I'm not working this Sunday, which is when the BCS bowl picks are! I'm sure there won't be any big surprises (we'll probably be in the Sugar), but it'll be interesting to see who we'll be playing!

I think my Christmas present this year from my parents might end up being them coming for Junior Parents Weekend. I'm wondering if it's worth it. I mean, I want them to come and all, and it's not like I really want them to buy me anything for Christmas, but I don't know. I just have a feeling that I'd be kind of sad if they didn't, since as far as I know pretty much everyone's parents come. But I don't know. It's a big hassle for them, not to mention more money than I want them to spend, and I don't know. All that just for a couple days? Of course, it is a couple days at ND, and that's pretty frikkin awesome, but still. I don't know. I guess I'll just let them do what they want and leave it at that.

Tomorrow is apparently "Stay Home because you're Well Day." How fun it would be to do that (and, really, I could get away with doing it for English, but seeing as how that's our last English class of the year--with the exception of Tuesday when all we have to do is turn in our papers, I guess I'll be good and go), but I guess I'll just say I did it a day early since I didn't go to philo today. Horrible person that makes me, I know, but man. First, I didn't feel like driving in the snow, as it was rather quite slippery around town, and UCCS is lovely enough to be on top of this hill that I can only imagine is not fun to drive up or down when it's icy. Second, it was philosophy. A class that bothers me anyway because it's just so pointless and aimless sometimes. Third, I knew that there would probably be like ten people who actually would bother to show up, since lots haven't been bothering even on nice days. So I just didn't go. So shoot me. Oh well.

I have finally, and for the first time, seen Gone with the Wind. Well, the first half anyway. I think we're going to watch the second half tomorrow night. It's very exciting. Ok that was at least a little sarcastic. But it's not bad. And I guess it is one of those movies that people might tend to look at you funny if you haven't seen. Anyway. It's making me want to read this series, four books, that I read a couple times back in high school, set in the south somewhere during the Civil War. Quite enjoyable books.

Almost there. Almost.

Stupid

UCCS is stupid. My first chance for a snow day in two years, and they fail. I mean, even D-11 is closed today! Come on UCCS, get it together. You live on top of a stupid hill, don't you realize how hard it is to get there when it's snowy and slippery? Psh.

I'm still holding out hope that my prof, who lives in Denver (where I think it was supposed to be worse), will cancel class. Because I sure don't feel like sitting through 2:40 of that class today...but it's not looking good for Susie. Alas.

Conglomeration

When I got to work yesterday, I realized that one of the cracks in the skin on my knuckle (resulting from verrrry dry skin there thanks in part to obsessive hand washing made worse this month by pink eye--which, I am happy to report, seems to have left me for good now, knock on wood--as well as generally having dry skin there due to eczema, I think) had bled a little bit and dried on the knuckle. So soon after getting to work, I went to the back, rinsed it, and got a bandaid from the first aid kit. It's amazing how happy the right bandaid can make me. This particular one was one of the fabric kind (the best bandaid material, in my opinion), and had a little bit of the sticky even along the sides of the cloth part, so it stuck all the way around. It just sat on my knuckles so well and didn't aggravate me as some bandaids are wont to do, particularly when they don't bend with whatever area they're on. I remember a few summers back when I was working at Velcon, I got a paper cut on my palm kind of between my thumb and pointer finger. It was rather painful, but in the Velcon first aid kit they have tons of different kinds of bandaids--including this one kind that had the cushion part the same as normal ones, but then the sticky part was reallllly long on one side, so that it wrapped from one side of my hand across the palm to the other side. Stayed on really well. Made me really happy. It's amazing how one little bandaid can do that for me. This one little piece of material can make a cut feel so much better, simply because it manages to protect it on the surface. Sorry. I guess moral of the story is, Susie likes bandaids.

Egg nog in coffee is amazing. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. I wonder if I should try the new egg nog latte at Starbucks...I'm just not sure. Guess I might as well though.

Dad and I picked out our Christmas tree yesterday. (Did I tell you all that I referred to it as a holiday tree the other day? No, maybe I said "holiday decorations". Either way, it was weird. Just like yesterday when I was watching a rerun of Friends and they were talking about "holiday cards." Hadn't ever noticed that before, but it just sounds weird. Alliterations--such as Christmas cards--rock.) I had noticed, randomly, a stand that said "Boy Scout Christmas Trees" next to the mall when I was driving home Sunday night, and happened to mention it to Dad who decided we should check it out. So we met up there yesterday after I got off of work, and they were quite nice trees. I think we got a good one. It is a tad small, but as Dad reminded me--and he's very excited about this--we have Grandpop's Christmas village train set thing now, brought home this summer, so we went with a slightly shorter tree so that it would fit on top of the stand. Although, I'm really not convinced it's any smaller than last year's, which everyone else seemed fine with. So anyway. Good stuff. And now it's one of the best times of the year, when every time I go out into the garage I'm bombarded in a wonderful way with the Christmas tree smell, since we keep it out in the garage in a bucket of water until we're ready to put it up. Which I'm guessing won't be until at least Advent starts this Sunday. But I don't really know for sure. Either way, it's one of the greatest smells of the year. Mmm...

So this morning, at least an hour before I had to be awake, my phone rings. I got up to see who it was, but when I didn't recognize the number I didn't answer it, as I am a major call screener. Especially in the morning. Phone only rang like three times, then stopped, but then they called back and left a message this time. After a few minutes of deliberating, I decided to listen to it in case it was important. Turns out it was some guy calling about an ad he had seen for a mortgage telemarketer or something, and how he's all experienced and whatnot in telemarketing (or mortgaging or something), and here's his number, blah blah. So I just deleted it. Not too much later, phone rings again. Same number. Left a message again. I must have listened to it. Basically the same, word for word, as the first one. Delete. And one more time this guy called. Left yet another message, again almost word for word the same. I was a little annoyed at this guy for calling four times in less than an hour, interrupting my sleep, and leaving three almost exactly the same messages. Seriously. Who does that? Anyway. Then during history my phone rings (on silent, but vibrate), I check and it's some number I don't recognize. They didn't leave a message. And after history I went to Mass, during which my phone rang again, this time just saying it was a private number. It was so weird, because I rarely get calls on my phone, and pretty much never six in three hours. I don't know if the second two were related to the first, but it was weird enough to prompt me to look in the classifieds from today to see if there was a "mortgage telemarketing" ad, and indeed there is. I was worried (maybe not worried, but something) that my number had been put there on accident, typo or something, but when I found the ad, I saw that the number is quite similar to my cell number, but whereas there are three 8s in my number, the one in the ad had a six where one of my eights is. If you look quickly, I can see how it'd look like an 8, but geez. This guy called four times. He must have checked the number in the ad more than once, you would think. I don't know. Anyway. It was annoying. Creepy, for a minute, thinking maybe my number was in an ad by mistake. Ok so there's my non-interesting story for the day. One of many, I guess.

Pickles are so good.

Next week, we're not having history class since it'd be mostly pointless, as apparently at UCCS teachers aren't allowed to introduce new things in that last week before finals, and we're not having a final in that class--just a thought paper, for which we've already written rough drafts. So instead of class, we're all required to meet with her for fifteen minutes some time during the week to talk about the papers. we got our drafts back today, and apparently--this is something I just found out today, and I'm assuming it's because she didn't mention it before, but I could have just forgotten--we're supposed to have another draft based on the comments she wrote on our first drafts. On the one hand that kind of sucks, because that means I have to revise my paper twice, and I have to do it for next week when next week is already going to suck a little bit thanks to the English paper due Tuesday and the philo paper due Wednesday. Oh well. But yeah, the revising thing isn't fun. I've just never been one of those people. I like to sit down, write the paper, and be done with it. Perhaps it doesn't result in the very best paper I could write, but I've done fairly well with it thus far I think. And then there's the fact that there seem to be not very many comments on my first draft. Just a few things here and there that I have to tweak. I even got a "Good job, Susie!" at the end of the draft. Now, obviously this is not a bad thing at all, but sometimes it just feels like such a complete waste of time to sit down and go through a whole paper just to edit a sentence here, maybe parts of a paragraph there. And to do it twice? Of course, I guess that would depend on what she says when I meet with her, with regard to what I did with the second draft. Oh well. It'll be fine. And at least there isn't a whole lot to tweak, so I really don't need to stress about it that much next week. I should, however, stress about the other two things sooner than later. Especially since the Latin quiz we were going to have this Thursday was pushed to next Tuesday, as I was kind of expecting. So that's just one more thing to do for next week. But that's ok. It's all good.

I thought of more Christmas movies. Rudolph (how could I forget that one???), Love Actually (less a Christmas movie than the others, but I've been waiting and wanting to watch it for awhile now), and today I decided I want to rent White Christmas sometime this month. I've only seen it once or twice, really, but man you can't beat Bing Crosby. gotta love that voice.

I find this funny. Apparently, Britney Spears has been buddying up to Paris Hilton lately, who Britney "looks up" to. and she's been "inspired" by Paris, hence her incredibly slutty looking outfits of late. Ok, to be fair I've only seen like three outfits she's been wearing while with Paris, but still. There was the skirt that might as well have been underwear, the dress that barely managed to cover half of her boobs (vertically), and just other stuff I don't think anyone should be wearing. Man. Paris Hilton is one of the last people on earth I would want someone trying to emulate. Man. And she's the mom of two kids. I can't imagine that they're going to have a wonderful life. Aside from, perhaps, whatever material things they might want.

So there's a movie coming out soon, called The Holiday, with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. Looks cute, definitely a chick flick, and I think I'd want to see it. Jude Law (who is also in it) was on Conan tonight, and they showed a clip from him in the movie. It was apparently after a night of a lot of drinking between him and Cameron's character, and she was trying to remember if they had sex or not. Of course, for some inexplicable reason, she couldn't bring herself actually to say "did we have sex," she had to use an elaborate form of hand flinging and stuttering noises. Which I just don't understand. Anyway, the end result was that they hadn't, to which she responded "Thank God" and then, as if worried she would insult him, she backtracked and said something like "well, not thank God, but...thank God" and it seemed to be played off that it was a bad thing she was relieved she hadn't had drunken sex she didn't remember with this guy she barely knew. And it is just so bizarre to me. I mean, what's so bad about being thankful for that? I know that in today's culture it's almost to the point where it's weird when people don't have sex after like a week or something, but still. I know, I'm making too much of this, but I'm seriously disappointed that almost every movie I want to see, ever, has stuff that makes sex such a casual thing. It makes me not want to watch them as much. Call me uptight, whatever, I still hate it.

I need to go to sleep. Here's hoping we'll get lots of snow tonight so I won't have to go to philo tomorrow! (Ha, good luck with that Susie.)

Stealing from Myspace again

1] What is your middle name?
Lee. Not even spelled the cool way.

[2] What color is your mailbox?
Um.........black? Red? no clue at the moment actually.

[3] Are you available?
For a booty call, always. haha.

[4] Have you ever hit a deer?
No, but I almost got hit by a deer last week. Outside of my car. hehe.

[5] Do you have to drive over a bridge to get home?
Not really...

[6] Who checks the mail in your house.
Usually whoever gets home first. At school though, I used to be practically the only one who ever checked the mail. I like mail. Unless it's from Citibank, because those are always just annoying.

[7] Do you have a small driveway?
I think it's pretty normal-sized.

[8] Do you know anyone with the same ringtone as you?
Not like personally, but I'm sure there are many with the same ringtone as me. Which reminds me. I think I might want to splurge and buy myself a Christmas ringtone. But I probably won't.

[9] What do you do first in the morning?
Wake up. haha. Turn off my alarm and then take a shower, usually.

[10] What brand is your printer?
Lexmark? That's the one I use when I'm at school anyway (I think). Not sure what the family one is.

[11] Do you enjoy fighting with people?
Ick, no. Well, not usually.

[12] Is your hair naturally straight or curly?
I think technically it's wavy to curly, but the way I dry it usually it just ends up mostly straight. And then the straightener takes care of the rest.

[13] Who was your kindergarten teacher?
My mom.

[14] Are you taller than your mother?
Everyone in my family is. Except for Jason. hehe.

[15] Do you have a favorite word?
I'm sure I do. Several, in fact. Can't think of any off the top of my head right now though.

[16] Are you God?
Nope. Unless perhaps you ask the cat. haha.

[17] Do you enjoy writing in colored pens?
Indeed I do.

[18] Does anything hurt on your body right now?
At this moment? ...don't think so.

[19] Do you often cry during a movie?
I wouldn't say often. Definitely more so lately than before, though.

[20] Do you hate your life?
Nope.

[21] Do you get mad easily?
I get frustrated easily sometimes, especially when I drive. But it doesn't usually stay with me very long if it's just that.

[22] Do you smoke?
No

[23] What is your biggest pet peeve?
Lately, I think I'd say that it's people who take forever to accelerate up to the speed limit after a red light. Either that or people who just refuse even to go the speed limit and just had to get in front of me. Stupid people.

[24] Do any of your friends have kids?
Acquaintances, yes, but I don't think any of my really close friends do. However, I could be wrong and forgetting about someone because I have a horrible memory. Oh, and my sister does, but she's my sister.

[25] Who called you last
That I actually talked to? My dad. That called me? Some random people calling me because they thought my number was in an employment ad (when, in reality, one of the 8s in my number was a 6 in the ad). Especially this one stupid guy.

[26] How many years older than you are you willing to date?
I don't know, I think I'd feel awkward with someone more than like five years older than me. But seeing as how I've never tried it, I guess I can't rule it out.

[27] Do you have any friends?
My mom says I'm special.

[28] Do you have any mean friends?
I have some mean ones. And some nice ones. But I'm mean too so it works out.

[29] what was your last text
Not sure. And my phone is currently out of battery so I can't check. But I'm sure it wasn't interesting.

[30] Have you ever liked someone who all your friends couldn't stand?
Probably, but they probably didn't know I liked him. haha. Sneaky...

[31] Have you ever felt like driving off a cliff?
I don't think so, but I have felt like ramming into the back of the car in front of me.

[32] Do you itch your ears?
I scratch them if they itch...

[33] What brand are the pant/jeans you're wearing right now?
St Johns Bay, courtesy of JCPenney

[34] How tall are you?
5'10"

[35] What is on your feet?
socks.

[36] Do you want to have kids?
yeah

[36] What is the brightest color you're wearing?
Does white count? If not, then...I do have a tiny bit of yellow on my shirt. Luckily it's supposed to be there, and it's not a stain or something.

[37] Who is your best friend?
Oh, I have several I think. Wouldn't pick just one.

[38] Do you like your dad?
That I do. Which I'm glad about.

[39] Do you have any TV shows on DVD?
I personally own the first seasons of American Dreams and Full House, and would like to own later seasons as well. (not entirely possible with American Dreams, as that's the only season currently out, and probably that will ever be out. sadly.)

[40] Are you wearing make up?
Actually, no. I discovered, with all the pink eye fun of the past month, that I don't burn people's eyes if I don't wear makeup! At least, not that anyone's told me yet. :-)

[41] Do you have a tattoo?
nuh-uh

[42] Do you know how to draw?
I can probably draw a bath, or perhaps the curtains (Amelia Bedelia, anyone?), but as for being artistic, not so much.

[43] Who is your hero?
Um...I don't really have one, I don't think.

[44] Who did you last IM?
Orange Katherine. Aka the Ponge. :-)

[45] Do you work a lot of hours?
In reality, not really.

[46] What do you do when you are stressed out?
I don't know. Watch TV?

[47] Who was the last person that called you?
I'm pretty sure we already had this conversation like twenty questions up...

[48] Is there anything you regret?
Definitely.

[49] Do you know where your family name originated from?
Germany

[50] Is there an animal that creeps you out?
Dogs. haha just kidding. Um...I don't know...well, those hairless chihuahua dogs (you know, the ones that keep winning the World's Ugliest Dog title) are pretty creepy looking...

At least Christmas makes me happy

Firstly, I would like to point out that anything (well, give or take--I still don't like USC, and I still love Brady, etc) I wrote yesterday should be very much taken with a grain of salt. (What the heck does that phrase even mean?) So...yeah.

Driving home from work tonight, it was quite obvious that lots of people had been busy over this long weekend putting up Christmas lights. Lots of houses have them now, a lot more than the last time I drove home when it was dark. Whenever that was... Speaking of Christmas, I'm starting to get into it. Perhaps it's because I finally heard that loveliest of Christmas songs, the Band-Aid "feed the world" song or whatever it's called. Can't think of the title, but it's got great lyrics, and so touching. You know, like telling us about how there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime, because they're poor in Africa. And then I've also heard the song, and I can't sing it in my head at the moment because I've got BandAid filling up my head, but the one that says "christmas comes this time each year." I'm thinking it's Beatles, or possibly Beach Boys, or maybe Elton John. I don't think it's Elton john though. Eh whatever. Christmas songs are funny sometimes. Oh know what's really weird? The Christmas album we have to play at work sucks, first of all--it's got some good songs, and remakes of some good songs which is ok-ish with some exceptions, and then it's got some really crappy ones that make me forget it's supposed to be a Christmas album, and it's like they're just thrown in there to make sure that there's enough modern crap on the album. But anyway, one of the crappy remakes is a version of Santa Baby (and I swear, in the 8 hours I was at work today, I heard at least three but possibly four versions of Santa Baby from that one album. What the heck?) and it's sung by a guy. This just seems wrong to me. Isn't the whole point of Santa Baby to be flirting with Santa to get all this girly stereotypical stuff? Why on EARTH would a guy remake that song? I suppose I could be wrong, and it could be a girl who just sounds like a guy, but I really doubt it. I just so very much do not understand that one. One more Christmas music complaint and then I'll be done--two songs that at least KKLI likes to play at Christmas include "Last Christmas" ("I gave you my heart but the very next day you gave it away", that one) and...man I know there's another one, one that has like nothing to do with Christmas whatsoever but they mention Christmas at some point. They like to play those two at Christmas, yet they also play them the rest of the year as well. There's also a good chance I may be thinking of the same song. Either way, the point stands. They're crappy songs as Christmas songs and as regular songs. So there.

Dude I want to hear Eagle's Please Come Home for Christmas. LOVE that song! (Just thought of it because I went to check kkli's homepage to see their last 10 played songs, and also looked at their top ten played songs--interestingly, the first six are regular songs, and the last four are Christmas ones. I guess in a few days it'll all be Christmas songs, I'm assuming? Anyway, that one is on the list of the top 10 played.) I also want to watch Home Alone, which has that song in it (not sure if it's that version, but yeah). Christmas movies I need to watch in the next month or so (can you believe it's already almost December? Crazy!): Home Alone, possibly Home Alone 2, Miracle on 34th Street, Charlie Brown Christmas (of course), It's a Wonderful Life (of course!), A Christmas Story, ...man I'm blanking. I know there's more. Oh, Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol, haha that movie of Disney character Christmas vignettes (like with Mickey and the tree with the Chipmunks, the one with Santa Claus and his elves making toys, and then delivering them, that weird one with the couple ice skating and then the girl almost dies but then she doesn't, etc), Mickey's Christmas Carol, um...yeah all of them. I feel like I'm forgetting an important one. But you get the idea.

Work was bizarre today. I went in at 11 (was a little late because lately we've been having Fr Paul, or whoever, give the homily and then they'll have someone come up and talk for a few minutes about donating your time or money or bone marrow or something--all worthy causes, of course, but it kind of rubs me the wrong way when the homily is used like that sometimes, and then after Mass but before the final blessing we of course had announcements, which included two people coming up to give their individual announcements for stuff, and blah blah blah, yeah), and Hank came in at one and Michael left at one because he was feeling crappy (he was scheduled till five, but he's the manager so he kind of switches his hours sometimes as long as there's another manager working. Plus he was feeling crappy so no one will fault him for that). The rest of the day was the weird part. It was fairly busy, I'd say, I think we ended with over $2000 for the day despite at least $300 of returns, although even that still didn't make our goal for the day. We'd be really slow for awhile, and then like ten people would come in the store all at once. Not fun. And on top of that, we had all this weird stuff happen that neither of us really knew how to take care of. Ended up having to void three transactions and redo them, and in the whole rest of the time I've been working there I've only been around for one void. Anyway. I don't really know how to do a lot of that type of stuff, being just a sales associate, and Hank's only been working like two weeks and so hasn't encountered a lot yet. So anyway. It was interesting. I think we managed ok, but yeah. A little, or a lot, stressful. And then we had a couple come in like 45 minutes before we were going to close, and the woman tried on seriously like 30 jackets it seemed. And we kept having to check to see if we had this one in a medium, that one in a large, etc. They did end up buying two coats and a belt, which was good for me, but here's how they did it. First I was just going to ring it all up together. Logical, right? They'd get 3 $25 gift cards for the two jackets, since we give out one for every $125 right now. But then they told us they wanted to use the gift cards to pay for the jackets, but you can't use them on the same transaction. So we rang up the more expensive jacket, which was $2 off from them getting two gift cards, so they bought a $3 thing of extra picture windows for your wallet, or whatever they are. Rang that up. was going to ring up the second jacket, but they had started to look at belts, so I waited. Rang those two up together, gave them one more gift card since that purchase was eligible as well, used the first two on the second transaction, and was done. Come to find out, the guy wanted to use the third gift card on the belt. So we voided that second transaction, rang up the second coat, used the first two gift cards, gave him the third, finished that one, did the third transaction just with the belt, used the gift card, and finally was done. Ugh. Wouldn't have been nearly as annoying if they hadn't just finished looking when we should have been closing. So we didn't start ringing them up until 7. And then closing took awhile because we had to figure out what the heck we had done all day, and we were confused because there was less cash in the drawer than we're supposed to start each day with, but there must have been a return paid in cash or something so we were short. But we had exactly what the computer said we had, so that wasn't a problem. The only problem is how little change we have right now if people do pay in cash. Want lots of ones, anyone? Sigh. We didn't even get out of the store until 7:30. Which is when I should have been getting home, had it not been a ridiculously crazy day. Oh, and apparently in addition to the girl that got let go on Friday, another girl who hadn't even worked a day decided she didn't want to work here. I didn't know this until today. So yeah. Looks like I'll be getting more hours than I anticipated.

It is easy to spend 3 hours in a bookstore. Without even buying anything. And you can find out interesting things, like cool forgotten English words, and that I have a "conventional" personality type which means I should be in a job where I do things like paperwork. Boring stuff. Yet--I kind of agree. Either way, bookstores rule.

Patriots won. Obviously I didn't get to see it, but I'm quite glad they won. Kind of figured they would, since it's generally worked out that when a team I really care about loses, another team I'd root for will win. Or vice versa. Ok, maybe not every week, but more or less. Anyway. And I'm interested to watch the Broncos game next week (and I can! of course, in part because it's the night game) and see how Jay Cutler does. Really ambivalent about the Broncos in general, but I feel bad for Plummer. But at the same time, that's the way it goes sometimes, so it'll be interesting to see if Cutler's better. Seems to have worked well in the Cowboys, taking the veteran out and putting in a rookie (or just a non-starter or whatever).

I feel like I'm on the cusp of something. I don't like being on cusps. I much prefer being on one side or the other. Who knows what is on that other side?

Too many things still up in the air. I have a feeling, rational or not, that I won't know about housing for like three weeks at least. Boy do I hope I'm wrong (and that it's much less than that), but who knows. I'm also concerned that something else is going to go wrong between now and January regarding ND. Like I'll find out that I didn't do this or that, and as a result have screwed myself over. I just want to get back there and make it all work again and pretend this whole semester really didn't happen. More or less. But the pessimist in me thinks there'll be things I'll be regretting for awhile as a result of this semester. And I know, I know, who knows what my mindset would be, who I would be, had I not done this, but yeah.

I just want it all to work out. Pretty pointless worrying about it right now, as there's literally nothing I can do about any of it, as far as I can tell (aside from continually badgering the housing people, and people in charge of whatever else is still up in the air), other than pray of course. But I can't help but let worry come through every once in awhile. (and people who read this get to hear about it the most. Lucky you.)

Man I'm tired. I should go to bed. Two more weeks to go. Of school, I mean. And then I'll be able to sleep in the days I don't have to work. Haven't really slept in in awhile. Well, I guess I did Monday, or possibly Tuesday, forget which. Oh wait I had class Tuesday (and little sleep Monday night). So that'd be Monday. I wish I went to bed earlier most nights. So why don't I? Because I'm an idiot. Oh well. Maybe one of these days I'll grow up and out of the staying up late thing. It better be by next semester, as I'll be having 8:30 classes once again. And--what?!?!?--classes 4 days a week. Including Mondays and Fridays. Ah well. For now, it's time to go to sleeeeep.

On another note.

The guy who plays Ben (that's his name, right? The leader of the Others on LOST?) is just creepy. I'm watching one of the weekend syndicated reruns of Without a Trace, and he plays like a principal. And he's creepy. And as it turns out, looks like he's one of the bad guys in this episode. Can't imagine him playing anything other than a creepy bad guy.

Work was so slow today. I guess the whole company was down yesterday, basically. Not surprising, considering the lack of any doorbusters or sales or anything, combined with the higher prices compared to last year. Oh well. Beyond that, one of our sales associates was terminated yesterday for telling some random guy looking at a jacket that she'd give him her employee discount, because she thought we were supposed to do "anything for a sale." As a result, I'm picking up six more hours Friday. Don't want to, but couldn't pass up the opportunity for an extra...what's 7 times 6? 42? dollars. Whatever. In addition, today I discovered that the coupons, of which we (employees) all received five, I had in my "mailbox" yesterday were gone. They're for us to use next Sunday and Monday, for 40% off. Friends and family weekend, so we can give the extra four to friends and family and they get 40% off too. One time use only. But anyway, so they were in my folder thing yesterday, I remember, and now they're gone. And I know I didn't take them when I went home yesterday. So that's pretty crappy. So is having to work 8 hours tomorrow. But life goes on.

At least this week is fairly easy homework wise (if I decide to ignore the two large-ish papers I have due next Tuesday and Wednesday). I think I have a Latin test on Thursday which at this point I couldn't care less about right now, and Wednesday I think we're supposed to give like a summary of what our papers are about (the ones due next Wednesday), and the only reason that's a problem is because the teacher for that class has once again failed to do what he told us to do; namely, last Wednesday he told us he'd have responses to our abstracts back to us by about a week ago. I emailed him earlier this week to see what was going on with that, and he finally responded today by saying he's getting around to them, basically, and to email him back if I don't hear from him again in 48 hours. So, had he gotten back to us when he said he would, I would have had more time at least to figure out some sort of basic outline and whatnot much easier than the current situation. Because, while I don't forsee any problems with my topic, who knows. He might tell me to find something else. And now I can only hope that he continues with what he's been doing all semester, and not getting around to doing in class what he had told us we would be doing in each class. Seriously. It's ridiculous, and I could not be happier we only have two more left. It'd be really awesome if, the day the paper is due, we don't really have class. Not entirely hopeful on that, but who knows.

Two more weeks. Just two more weeks, and all you'll have to listen to is me complain about work. Not work and school.

For now, bed. I'm so beat. Being depressed does that...

A little later

I keep thinking that, if only I were a better person, God might have listened to my constant pleas throughout the entire game (literally) and gave us some sort of miracle comeback. If only I weren't so petty, weren't so mean, weren't so...ungrateful. Things might have turned out better. Yeah, I know that I'm not being entirely rational, but I don't care. ND deserved so much better tonight. Although, that's not to say that there weren't numerous faults by many on the ND side. Coaches, players, me. Ha. Man. Man.

Here's all I can think right now. One: I desperately miss Notre Dame. I can't wait to get back. Two: I can only hope now that I could only get one of two things--a place on campus again next semester, or ND winning tonight--and for whatever reason, God's giving me the first. Man, I better get a spot on campus. Not that God owes me, but man...I can't help but feel like that. Ridiculous as it is, I know. Like I said (or perhaps didn't, but it's true), I'm not exactly rational right now. Three: It better snow this week. And hopefully quite a bit in this next month.

Only thing about the game that made me laugh, pretty much, was a line after SC scored one of their last TDs: "The road to Glendale is paved with Trojans." It was so irritating listening to those announcers all game, but man that was a beauty. And not for the reason it was meant. I mean, objectively it's funny no matter how you look at it, but it's also funny because it really kind of doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you think about it. Had it been us going up yet one more score, maybe it would have. I don't know.

I almost wish I were prone to getting drunk. Or at least drinking alcohol in general. Or liking beer. Might make tonight better. Although, probably wouldn't make tomorrow very good, and I'm sure it'll be bad enough as it is.

I'm going to miss Brady and Samardjiza so very much next year. And Landri and Abiamiri. And man do I hope Carlson comes back. Who knows though. Next year's team could surprise us all, but at this point most are expecting like 7-5, 8-4. Not great. But that's what happens when you have 8 (give or take) guys who will be seniors next year, and not many more current sophs, which leaves a LOT of very inexperienced players. We can only hope that we can get recruiting back to...well, at least better than it has been. But it's hard to overturn years of crappy coaching and trying to run the ND name into the ground. I just hope Weis is up to it (and I really think he is).

I'm sorry. I know, it's just a football game. But I'm allowed to be sad. Honestly, it wouldn't be as bad if this hadn't been Brady's (and all the other seniors, etc) last chance against USC, and last regular-season game. He's my college QB. Next year will just be so weird.

Tomorrow's another day, I guess. We'll all survive and move on.

That's that

Well.

All I can say is, I feel so unbelievably bad for Brady. No one can say that he isn't a good QB. He played his heart out tonight. I can't believe how many dropped passes our receivers and whatnot had tonight. Seriously. Because the Heisman has become a joke, he won't win. But he'll get what he deserves come draft time, as no one can argue he doesn't deserve to be the first draft pick. Now, we just have to hope he doesn't get stuck in a vacuum of talent in a team like the Raiders or Detroit. Poor Brady. I love him. He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to go 0-4 against SC. It's like lots of people have said--it's amazing we made it as far as we did with the talent (or lack thereof) Brady has around him. Screw whichever announcer said that we can thank Ty for having 5 potential first round draft picks. It's Ty's fault we have very few good players. And next year will be even worse, with like 8 juniors (who will be seniors next year). And, it must be said, Ty didn't even recruit Brady. He was recruiting Ndukwe, who played with Brady in high school, and when Ndukwe went up to visit ND, he and his dad convinced Brady to come too. And now here we are. Ndukwe and his dad recruited Brady, not Ty. Gar.

God this sucks. I know, it's just a football game, but...it's not. And it's not for those players either, especially the seniors. Man we could have used Carlson tonight. And we could have used Rhema, who dropped a few passes that would have resulted in 1st downs and touchdowns.

So painful. Poor Brady. Seriously. What an awesome guy he is.

Excuse me while I go cry. More for Brady than anything. (Brady and a few other players.)

I'm obsessed, not rational.

I wish that Sunday's NFL night game was Pats-Bears. Apparently at the time that NBC picked the night game, Colts-Eagles looked good because Colts were still undefeated and Eagles still had McNabb. Not so anymore, on either count. Now the Pats-Bears game is the big game this Sunday. If it were Sunday night I'd be able to watch as I'll be home around 7:30 from work, but since it's in the afternoon I'll miss the whole thing. And that makes me sad. Particularly because Patriot games aren't always aired here. Oh well. I'll survive.

The more important game is tomorrow night, anyway, and I made sure not to be working tomorrow night. I am soooooooooo nervous and excited for it. I really think it'll be a great game, and I really think the Irish will do things a lot of people aren't expecting (like, give USC a run for their money, and then some). I mean, I think our guys know that there's very little, if any, chance of making it to the NC. This game, for them, is their NC. A win over our biggest rival would, I think, be almost as satisfying as a win in the NC. Not quite, but close. We haven't beat them since 2001. Then came three 31 point losses in a row, and then last year. These guys want this. I am so excited. Very nervous, too, but I won't believe them capable of losing tomorrow until the clock winds down to zero. At which point we won't be losing. Hey, I never said I was rational or logical about ND football. No one thinks we can win.

Which is exactly why we will.

(And also why tomorrow will be SOOOOOO long until the game!)

A few things

Firstly, I think I want to get a greatest hits of The Police. Like this one or something. They rock.

I want to see For Your Consideration.

I found my retainer. Similar to the windows media thing, it was stupid on my part that I didn't find it sooner. It was in a place that I kept thinking I should check, but instead of checking I dismissed because "Oh, it won't be there." Ok I'll just tell you. It was in my laundry basket, which has clean clothes that I haven't put away, even though they've been there far longer than they should. I'm just too lazy to do anything with them. Resulting in wrinkled clothes, well, a few anyway. I only found it today because I couldn't find a shirt I wanted to wear. (And yes, the bobbie pins were with it, as was my Lord of the Rings book which I realized yesterday in all my searching for the retainer that I didn't know where it was either. I suck. Oh well.)

There's an 8GB Creative Zen Micro MP3 player on sale tomorrow at Circuit City for like $130. That's exactly the MP3 player I've wanted, but at a cheaper price than I've seen (obviously). When I first saw it in the ad this morning, I got a little bit excited. But then after thinking about it, because I suppose I could ask for it for Christmas, I realized that I really don't want it. I mean, I do kind of want an MP3 player, and one with that many GBs, but...I don't know. My desire for one has definitely waned. I really don't think I'd use it that often. I might, I don't really know, but yeah. So I think I'm going to pass on even asking my dad to attempt to get it tomorrow morning. (He is going to Circuit City early in the morning because we need a new computer, so he could try.) There are two things there that I do want though, if he can get them--a 1GB memory card for my camera for a whopping 4 bucks (regularly like $60), and a 1GB flash drive thing for like $3. Also regularly $60. I don't know how fast those are gonna go, but that'd be pretty nice to get. And for ridiculously cheap prices. I mean, I think they're rebates, but yeah. So. We'll see. I think he's going to attempt to get them, but you never know. People get crazy the day after Thanksgiving. In years past, I have gone out with my sister and stuff early in the morning, so I am kind of sad that I'll miss out on that tradition this year, but honestly I'm also kind of glad that I have an excuse not to go. But, haha, there is one store I'd like to go to their doorbuster (but it's while I'm working, obviously), because they're doing 25% off everything--and I doubt it'll be crazy. It's Michaels. I saw the ad this morning, and said something like "Aw, man" because I couldn't go, and Tom laughed at me and said that's the first time he's ever heard of anyone looking at a Michaels ad and being sad they couldn't go to the sale. Or something like that. Anyway. It was partially because I just went there yesterday and bought some yarn, but yeah. If I wasn't working, I might go and just stock up on some yarn, but I don't know if I'd want to do that because I don't really have plans for anything (besides what I'm currently working on) so I wouldn't know how much of anything to get. But anyway.

Which brings me to my next point. I soo sooooo hope that people are more focused on electronics and good sales and stuff tomorrow morning, and not leather. There's no reason for them to come to our store at 6 in the morning, really. We're not doing door busters, we're not even having a sale tomorrow. Just a thing we've been doing all week, which is get a $25 gift card when you spend $125. So I'm hoping it won't be crazy. At least not initially. If it gets a little busy later on in the day, like maybe 8 or 9, I'll be much more ok with that. Because before 9am, it's just me and Brenda. At 9, Hank comes in, and at 10:30, Michael comes in. So yeah. If me and Brenda can survive those first three hours, we'll be ok I think. Although, there's another factor that could make tomorrow really suck, but hopefully it won't be bad. Anyway.

I think I'm going to aim for waking up at like 4 tomorrow. Which pretty much sucks. Oh well.

Today was a good day. Even though we did all miss Peter. Maybe next year we can all be together again. Who knows.

Ah, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving + turkey tryptophan stuff (ok I have no idea how to spell it and am too lazy to look it up right now) + 2 wine coolers during dinner = one very happy, loosey-goosey Susie. hehe

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Susie: 1. Windows Media: 0.

So, I'm pretty sure I've written on here about how I couldn't get my Windows Media to play stuff related to the Internet. I got fed up with it tonight and just wanted to FIX IT ALREADY! So I was looking around on the options section of the player, and eventually found something that said "Connect to the Internet." And for some inexplicable reason, it wasn't clicked. So at some point in the last two months somewhere, it somehow got unclicked, because I wasn't having this problem two or less months ago. Anyway. So I clicked it, and...it works! I feel a little stupid for not figuring it out sooner, but hey, it's working now and that's what matters. yay!

Now I'm hoping that my luck of tonight will carry over in another way. I realized last night that I have absolutely no idea where my invisalign retainer is. You know, the thing that I haven't been able to fit on my teeth for awhile. I had an appointment today, though, so having it would be a good thing. After looking last night, and again this morning, I just gave up and went to Foy's, where he told me this thing to do that he assured me would make it fit (basically putting it in my mouth and biting down on it for an hour. Sounds fun, no?). Seeing that I was skeptical (as I am), he told me to come back in a week with the retainer and he'd show me or something. Although, it's not like I don't understand what he means. Anyway. So I really just want to find it and try this apparently magic trick and get it to fit before next week so I don't have to go back. Well, for at least another few weeks anyway. However, despite turning my room upside down, as well as the bathroom, as well as any other logical place I would think it might be, I cannot for the life of me find the stupid thing. It's really frustrating. But then I also discovered another thing missing while doing my search in the bathroom. I had a thing of bobbie pins that still had quite a number of pins on it, and I just noticed that it's gone. And I have no idea where that could be either. And I don't know when the last time I saw it is. Same with the retainer. I think I've seen it since like going to ND, but I honestly don't know for sure. And the fact that the bobbie pins are gone too is really head scratching. If it was just the retainer, that's one thing. But yeah. I don't know. I really really dislike when I can't find things. Really messes with me. So this is really messing with me. And reminding me just how annoying it is that I lost my silver heart ring thingy during the...UCLA game? (While watching it at home. Which makes far less sense. It was on the couch, and then...it disappeared. And I really miss it and wish I could find it.) I very very much dislike this. I guess it's not the end of the world if I don't find my retainer, but it'll bug me for a long time I think. (And the bobbie pins I really don't care about since I do have others, it's just the fact that they're missing in the first place.) Argh. I have absolutely no idea what could have happened to it. No, you know what, I'm almost 100% certain I saw it in my suitcase after we got back from ND. Where the heck could it have gone? Sigh. Perhaps I'll find it randomly tomorrow. St. Anthony's pretty amazing, and I've been praying that little St. Anthony prayer all day...we'll see.

In other news, I want to wear mascara and stuff tomorrow. And as I'm pretty sure I mentioned two weeks ago, I bought new mascara and eyeliner once my pink eye was healed (oh, if only), and wore it just one day. Because the next day I had a feeling the pink eye was coming back. But to be honest, I was suspecting it even the day I wore it. But chose to ignore it. So now, I'm faced with a dilemma. Pay another 10 bucks or so to buy new mascara and eyeliner (once again...stupid makeup), or wear the stuff I got and risk the chance of getting pink eye. Again. I don't really want to pay another ten bucks, but...argh. Although, let's think about this. Say I be cheap, and go for the possibly infected stuff. I get pink eye again (along with the distinction of being what I'm sure is one of a very few people who have gotten pink eye three times in a one month time span). I have a little bit of those drops left, but I'm not sure if it'd be enough for another three/four times a day five days in a row treatment, which might mean another trip to the doctor (to get another prescription for it), along with the new stuff, and those two together would probably cost more than it would to buy new mascara etc. Whatever. I'm so tempted just to use it though. The stuff I wore that one day. Oh well.

I think my glasses need to be adjusted slightly. When I wear them, they're not even. Like, one eye is slightly lower than the other, which is more than a little bit annoying sometimes. I really think my ears must be uneven. Glasses never sit right. So I guess the solution, with my real glasses anyway (as opposed to sun glasses) is to go to my eye doctor. Which Mom's been bugging me to do for awhile anyway, as I was technically supposed to go this summer. Guess I should make an appointment soon.

Today was such a good day, for no real reason. Woke up, looked for my retainer, went to Foy's, sat around, looked for my retainer, went to Chipotle!, played Guitar Hero with Tom, went to Starbucks and Michaels with Cathy, etc. Looked through an ND stuff catalog, which is always fun because they have some really weird stuff. Like a kid's shirt that has Oscar the Grouch's face, with "Notre Dame" above it. I don't really know what that means. And then there's always the old favorite, the gold brick signed by former QB Tony Rice. I mean...what? Who would buy a gold brick? I dunno. Anyway. Fun stuff. I want to get a door knocker that has ND on it, but our door has a little window right where a knocker normally would go. So what I think we should do is get two, one for either side of the window, and then our door could have a pair of knockers! haha. Get it? ok sorry. I was in a very hyper and easily amused state when I was looking through that catalogue, so I thought it was funny. Wait, is it catalog or catalogue? Anyway.

Last night, out of nowhere, I wanted to watch Dino-Riders. Anyone heard of that? It's pretty sweet. I don't know if it was just this movie we have, or like a series or something, but yeah. Circa 1980s cartoons. Awesome stuff. And I'm not really sure if I'm serious. Ok apparently it was a TV series. If you haven't, you should definitely try to watch it. After looking around at stuff for a minute, I think what we have on tape is the first episode. I want to find it.

Um, so apparently almost four out of every ten babies (37%) born in 2005 were born to unmarried parents. And, surprisingly or not, the highest increase lately has been in women in their 20s. Teen pregnancies are apparently declining somewhat. But yeah. Man. Fifty years from now, maybe the majority of babies born will be to unmarried parents. Wouldn't surprise me. Oh, just by chance I read an article that said last year in France, 59% of babies were born out-of-wedlock. Guess I don't have to wait fifty years.

It really needs to snow soon. It won't feel like Christmas season until the temperature drops, at least, if it continues to refuse to snow. I don't think I'd ever be able to live in a warm-weather place. I would hate it. Now, North Dakota or Montana? Definitely.

I just heard this, about the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes wedding. Must be a cool priest. And apparently, according to a comment someone left in the blog I was reading where I heard about this in the first place, Andrea Bocelli, who was at the wedding, didn't sing during the ceremony because he's Catholic. He did sing at the reception, but yeah. Interesting. I don't know if that's true or not, but still interesting.

So, the current poll up at espn's homepage is "Which game are you most looking forward to watching over the Thanksgiving weekend?" They include: Broncos at Chiefs, LSU at Arkansas, Notre Dame at USC, and Bears at Patriots. 62%, of a lot of people, have ND at USC. Second is Bears at Patriots (which I wish I could watch, but no, I have to work 9 freaking hours on Sunday), with 18%. Really matters not at all, but it still makes me a little happy.

Bad idea: starting a knitting project after 10pm. Especially if you're me and can't stop easily once you start.

I need to go to sleep. ahh!!!

Interesting day

Today's been interesting. Sleep pattern/schedule was slightly set off kilter thanks to the paper thing, but could have been worse. Had some interesting dreams, involving things like ND football (and for some reason particularly Landri, which is weird. Although perhaps not because I was reading a thread about him last night I think, or yesterday at some point, and there were some funny comments in there), as well as...hm now I don't remember. Just really random stuff that was in my head when I went to sleep. They weren't like regular dreams either, like stories or whatnot, they were just kind of like...I don't know. The football related ones were more or less thinking about the game this weekend, and wondering if there's any chance we might still make the national championship. Anyway. It was weird.

School was fairly normal, although I kept feeling kind of deja vu-y in some classes. Got out of history early enough to make it to Mass and then go to confession. Always nice. Confession is wonderful. And I must say, I greatly enjoy confessionals that include an act of contrition somewhere you can see it. For some reason I can never remember it. Anyway. English was a pain, of course, and involved my teacher seeming to criticize, in a roundabout deflecting way, people whose upbringing and values cause them not to want to read books that contain harsh, offensive language and situations. Said he feels bad because it "restricts" those people. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes constantly while he was on this little attempt (which took like half an hour) to justify almost any literature out there that some may consider offensive. And apparently, if a book is written really well and by a great author who's "critically acclaimed" and whatnot, it excuses the use of offensive language and offensive...other stuff. Rather irritating. Why is it that the books that tend to be deemed "classics" are always depressing and whatnot? Anyway. We got our most recent essay exams back at the end of class, and he brought my grade down a little (I still got a B, which is fine) because, according to him, I didn't answer the question well enough. Which would be fine, except the question was "Do you agree with this thing". I won't go into the whole what it's about, but it was a "do you agree" question. How can you say I answered it wrong because I didn't go into the other side too, even though it wouldn't have fit or made sense with how I answered the question. I don't know. I'm not entirely a fan of this guy, in case you didn't know. Eventually I got out of that class though, and then called Lauren and talked to her for awhile before Latin. In Latin we listened to Latin music, because apparently she hadn't planned on us doing anything today anyway. I would have preferred to know this and then been able just to stay home, but what are you gonna do. At least we did get to listen to one Gregorian chant, the Our Father, and it made me smell incense just hearing it. Latin church music and incense just go hand in hand.

Went over to Kaleena's tonight, as did Kristina, and we had fun. Of course. I almost got attacked by a deer when I got to Kaleena's house though. It was so scary. I was walking up the sidewalk thingy to get to her front door (it goes along her house and then turns to get to the door, if that makes any sense), and all of a sudden this deer that had been laying down and thus I didn't notice stood up. And stared at me. And it was an old-looking buck. I couldn't keep going on the path because it would have put me right in front of the deer, and probably less than a foot away from it. And I wasn't about to do that. So I just started backing up slowly, and luckily the deer kind of just stayed where it was, and I called Kaleena and asked her if I could come in the back of her house. So she came and unlocked that door, and I managed to avoid getting attacked by a deer. Apparently it's been hanging around their house lately, and it's pretty slow, but still. I wasn't about to make it feel threatened. I'm pretty sure a deer could take me down quite easily, even an old one. So that was my exciting story of the day.

And now, time for sleep. Mmmmmmm sleep. And tomorrow? CHIPOTLE BABY!!! Dude, I am so excited. It's been far too long, my Chipotle love. Mmm. Night night!

Post #4

In taking a...mental roadblock-induced break, I found out something. Next May, three huge movies come out (and, interestingly, all three are the third installments in their respective movie franchises). They include Spiderman 3, Shrek 3 (which I just found out comes out in May), and Pirates 3. I'm quite excited about the first and third of those three, and slightly less so about Shrek. But then the fun doesn't stop there. In July, the next Harry Potter comes out (along with, apparently, Transformers and the Simpsons movies. Neither of which I'm terribly excited about, even though I like the Simpsons. I don't know what the movie's about, and I don't know if I like the idea of the Simpsons in a movie format). Needless to say, I'm very excited about all of this. I'd say I'm most excited about Pirates, followed very closely by Harry Potter and then Spiderman (although, I'm very excited about all three). Shrek should be good, even though Justin Timberlake is in it, but nothing's as good as the first Shrek, I think. That was just an amazing movie.

ok, back to the paper I go. Sigh. Stupid paper. Can't wait til tomorrow night. Simply because I can basically not worry about school for about five days or so, since pretty much all I have left is a thought paper in contemporary religions due...a week and a half after break's over (and for which he has yet to reply to my abstract, despite the fact he said he'd get back to us by like this past Saturday...suppose it's time to email him about it), and then the final draft of this thought paper I'm currently writing which is due somewhere around the 12th, an English essay thingy due the 5th, and a Latin final on the 12th or so. Oh, and I guess there's one more Latin test in there too. So yeah. Basically just one major thing in each class left, and some littler things for Latin. Not too bad. Although it does kind of suck that I have an English essay thing due a day before my cont. rel. thought paper...guess I can't put them both off. But anyway. The point is, after tomorrow the rest of this week will be grand. Oh yeah, except for the whole working Friday, Saturday, and forever Sunday. Sigh.

Post #3

I was reading this thing my teacher gave us about "How to write a thought paper," which worked well when I followed the instructions set forth by the "How to write a book review" a couple weeks ago, and it is helpful. Except for one thing: It starts under the assumption that our teacher gave us a question which we have to answer. In my case, though, our teacher didn't give us a question. Not only do we have to figure out an answer to argue (definitely not hard to do, really), but we have to figure out a question to answer as well. And that's the tough part. I mean, I have one, but I really have no idea if it's any good at all. Basically this whole thing's kind of a piece of crap. And I really don't care. Because, while we do get a grade for the rough draft, the rough and final together are 30% of our grade, and I would assume that the final is worth more (perhaps like 20% to the 10% of the rough draft. Just guessing), and if I'm going to make mistakes (and I'm sure I will), this is the time to do it. I'm thinking, though, that it's way too broad this time around. Guess she'll hopefully let me know and possibly give me some pointers...

But man this would be so much easier if she gave us the question. Oh well, what are you gonna do?


I've decided that I really don't want anything this year for Christmas. I mean, sure, there's some DVDs I would like to have (Anne of Green Gables, to name one), a few books too (Catholic Woman's Daily Devotional, Helena by Evelyn Waugh), but I don't know. I feel so cluttered as it is. Of course, this might be in part because my room's a RIDICULOUS mess, but that's in part because of all the crap I've accumulated in my packrat life. And then there's the fact that I don't feel like I have the right to ask for people to buy me stuff when I know none of us are really rolling in the dough right now. Except perhaps Peter, although I have no idea if he's blowing all the money he makes or not. And I think we are doing a secret santa this year between the five kids, which makes it better, but yeah. I don't know. I guess I feel especially bad expecting my parents to get me anything. They don't owe me. They're paying so much toward my education, something that I hope I can repay them someday but really don't know if I can. (Unless the chance to see their daughter graduate from Notre Dame counts as repayment. Which it doesn't.) I don't know. And it's all starting to seem a little ridiculous to me. I mean, Christmas is Jesus' birthday. Yet we spend so much more time focusing on presents presents PRESENTS for ourselves and everyone on our lists than we do focusing on the whole reason we celebrate anything. Regardless of what the stupid secular society wants you to believe. All I want is to spend some good time with my wonderful family. This Christmas will be a really fun one, I think. Jason will be almost 22 months old, so we'll have lots of fun getting to watch him enjoy the presents we get him. I'd much rather people spend money on him than me, because, well, it's more fun to watch a 21 month old play with toys you get him than it is to watch a 21 year old watch a movie. Or read a book. Anyway. Yeah.

What's that? I have a paper to finish? huh.

Post #2

For Your Consideration is playing at Tinseltown! (Starting Wednesday, anyway.) I'm so excited to see it! I was worried it might not be playing here, for some reason. Yay!

First post of the "I have a paper to write" night.

Can't wait until tomorrow at, oh, 11am. The rest of the day will feel like an annoying waste of my time, but at least I won't have to do anything other than sit there in class. It'll be sooo tempting to skip Latin tomorrow, but I don't think I will. But man. Wednesday will be sweet. Foy appointment in the morning, which sucks because what's the point? Still the same frustrating situation. (Have I mentioned here that when I'm wearing my invisalign on the top and I sneeze, I have to make sure to keep my mouth closed as much as possible or else my invisalign will go flying? Kind of like how you see dentures leaving mouths in comedies and cartoons and whatnot. I'm serious, too.) Oh well. After that stupidness is over, I'm meeting with Cathy and we might get some Starbucks, might get some Chipotle or Wendys, and she's going to pick out some yarn with which I'm going to make her a scarf. Which I suppose means I should figure out how much I'll need for that...hm...

But first, I must finish this paper for which I care very little. Mostly because it's the rough draft, and partially because I somehow managed to get a 100%--as in, highest grade possible--on our book review. And here's the thing...and don't tell anyone...I didn't even read the whole book. But, hey, IB definitely was good for something.

Ok opinions please. I wrote housing at ND last week. Asked them when I'd hear about next semester. Found out it won't be until December, which sucks. I'm really impatient, and I really want to know, obviously. I want to email them and ask where on the waitlist I am (and make sure I am on the waitlist. No clue why I wouldn't be, but you know me, I'm good at being paranoid). I don't want to be an annoying pest though (but then, there is the whole "squeaky wheel gets the grease thing, although I don't think that's entirely applicable here because if they really do go by the list, then I'm on the list where I'm on it and I doubt they'd move me just because I keep emailing them). So I don't know. I'm praying so much every day that I somehow manage to get on campus somewhere. Obviously preferably Cavanaugh, but at this point I can't be picky. No matter how hard I pray, though, I just feel like it's not good enough, or I'm not good enough for God to listen, or something like that. Maybe I should go to Confession sometime this week, since I havent' been since the very beginning of September, and then maybe I'll feel more...worthy to ask God for something. I should do that tomorrow after history, go down to St. Mary's and wait for Mass to get over and then go to confession. Heck, maybe I'll catch a break and she'll let us out early enough for me to get there in time for Mass, otherwise I'll get there when they're like...already to Consecration or somewhere around there. It'd be nice to go to Mass. I hope she does that.

Before I go attempt to be productive again, I feel it is my duty to share this with you all. This guy does recap videos of all the ND games, and he has links where you can even download the whole game to your computer. But this one is the Army recap, and it. is. awesome. Go watch it. It totally rocks. Dude. (Sorry, just had to throw that word in there.)

Request to all

Ok. Very few people read this, that I know of anyway, but I'm going to put this out there regardless of how many people read it. Recently (and of course lots of times before recently), I've been in the company of people who receive phone calls on their cells, and they answer it and proceed to have at least a few minute long conversation with whoever. (Occasionally, the person I'm with will call someone and then have a conversation.) Yeah, sometimes it can't be avoided, but it just irks me when I'm with someone and have to listen to one side of a conversation that has nothing to do with me. Perhaps that sounds selfish, but it's annoying. If there's some business that you absolutely have to deal with, do it as quickly as possible and don't go on and on about stuff. It's particularly annoying if I'm in the car with someone who's doing this. (And in case you're reading this and this has happened recently with me, I'm not saying I hate you or anything, I'm just taking the passive aggressive path and telling people indirectly that it really bugs me when it happens. I've never mentioned it or complained about it to anyone, so no one would know that it bugs me, but now you do if you read this.) I really try not to talk unnecessarily long on the phone when I'm with other people, and if say I'm in a room with someone, I leave the room if possible. I don't know. I'm aware that sometimes things come up, and sometimes it's unavoidable, but yeah. Cell phones seem to have affected some manners and awareness of others. (How many times do you hear of people who had an annoying dinner at a restaurant because the guy the next table over talked loudly on his cell the whole time?)

Ok, I'm done soapboxing now.

Feeling random...and pessimistic

Know what's amusing, in an...ironic sort of way? "Holiday" commercials where there's a couple in a house decorated with CHRISTMAS decorations and whatnot, and a Christmas tree, and then they hand each other wrapped presents and say to each other "Happy holidays!" Seriously. Who gives a significant other a present and says "Happy holidays" even though they're clearly celebrating Christmas. Just like Best Buy commercials, Best Buy who refuses to say anything but happy holidays this year, yet their commercials (which of course only mention "holiday") feature things like Christmas trees and other Christmas decorations. Just so very stupid.

Today has just been overall frustrating. I'm probably PMSing which doesn't help. Anything. Ever. But anyway. To begin with, Mass was a little frustrating. I probably made it a bigger deal than it should have been, but sometimes I just long so very much for a Mass that is by the book, as it should be, and doesn't have all these "neat" little innovations to make people feel more special and included and whatnot. Not that they shouldn't, but that's not really the point of Mass. I mean. I don't know. I don't like Mass to be messed with. I just tend to get frustrated with Holy Apostles fairly easily I think. Days like this make me long for the Basilica so very very much. But then, what will I do when I graduate? I suppose there's a chance I might...I don't know, live somewhere that's not Colorado Springs after I graduate, who knows. You know, I really am curious to see how many people would come to a Mass that's sung in Latin primarily, compared to a regular one we have at Holy Apostles. I don't know.

And of course the weather this week is going to be annoyingly hot and sunny. I realize we won't be getting much snow, as usual, but is a little bit of cold weather too much to ask for? I haven't even broken out my winter coat yet. I've worn a scarf once this whole fall, and it was when I was at ND. I want to live in the Colorado that people think of when they hear Colorado--the one that's cold and snowy all the time. Where is that Colorado?

Broncos lost tonight. I'm almost glad they did because whenever I'm less than happy with my manager, who's in love with them, I tend to hope for the Broncos to lose. And after he called me tonight, while I was working on VMU (changing the stupid store around yet again, only it was mostly doing price changes, and most of those were changing it from a "now" price to a dollar higher "sale" price. and the prices are these stupid stickers we have to put on the tags, and they don't stay on, and they're so irritating to deal with) just to tell me that the BCS rankings hadn't changed (which I had found out at about 2 this afternoon) and said something about him having to rub it in (or perhaps I misheard him, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what he said), I really don't feel bad for being happy the Broncos lost. haha how do you like that run on sentence? See, that's why parentheses rock. Unless you're trying to read this jibberish. Anyway though. When I got home, my mom was like "You should call him and say, "Hey I just wanted to let you know, the Broncos lost."" It would have been funny.

Indy lost to Dallas. That made me happy too. I generally root for Dallas, if only because Julius Jones and Anthony Fasano are both on the team. And Fasano had a great catch today too! I think they said it was his longest of the season. That was cool.

So yeah, no one moved in the BCS. It's kind of ridiculous, especially because basically it means that yesterday's "BIGGEST GAME OF THE CENTURY EVER" was, more or less, pointless. OSU won, but chances are now that they'll have to play Michigan again in order to win the NC. And yet, all Michigan has to do is beat them once to get it, whereas OSU has to beat Michigan twice. What's really ridiculous is that Arkansas somehow managed to jump us in two polls. Even though they won by only two touchdowns to some team with the same record as Army, and it wasn't nearly as decisive as our win. I guess people speculate it has to do with Rutgers losing, and how some people had them ahead of Arkansas but behind us or something last week, so when they lost Arkansas got more votes and got a bigger boost from it than we did. Which I still think is crap, but whatever. So now, this week instead of being very very excited about some very good chances to get into the NC like we were last week, it looks like the door has all but slammed shut once more. (Which my manager also had to point out, that they're saying USC will need a big win against us to get in, but apparently there's no chance for us. Thanks, Michael, for letting me know yet again something of which I'm quite aware, and also quite upset about.)

Today's just been sucky.

Tomorrow I have to write at least 6-8 pages for a rough draft of a history paper that we have to turn in on Tuesday. (We have to turn in the rough draft on Tuesday. In case you were confused.) That should be interesting...especially concidering I'm still not entirely sure what I'm writing about...and yet I can't make myself care enough to try harder...hm. Oh well. The rough won't count for nearly as much as the final, and I guess that's why I'm not trying harder.

Things just seem disappointing right now. I guess Tom's only going to be able to come down like Wednesday night to Thursday night because he has to work Friday morning or something, so that's disappointing. Would have been nice to be able to see him longer. He might have stayed a little bit longer if we had the NFL network, as the Broncos game on Thanksgiving night is going to be shown only on that station. Alas. And then the rest of the weekend after Thanksgiving will be spent working. Not entirely, of course, but plenty. Man it's all just stressing me out. I have to work 7 freaking hours the day after Thanksgiving. I'm going to go crazy. Unless, of course, we get lucky and very few people show up. I don't care if the store's sales are down. It's their own freaking fault for raising prices even higher than the already stupid prices, which people aren't paying to begin with so why would they pay even higher ones? And we're not doing any early bird sales (thank God), or even any sales at all that day. Just an offer, $25 gift card with purchase of $125 or more. And that's starting tomorrow. But still. 7 hours that day is going to kill me. Especially since it starts at 5 freaking 30 in the morning. And then I have to work Saturday morning, and then that stupid stupid stupid 9 hour shift on Sunday. 9 hours. Why? And then that's all I have all week next week. 9 hours. Why do we have so many sales associates if we're only getting 9 hours a week? That's $63 for the week. Before all the taxes they take out. I know, I complain about the hours I have and then complain I don't have enough, but that's because money's stressing me out ridiculously right now too. And having 9 hours in one day is so much worse than having 9 hours spread out over like two days. 9 hours in a row sucks. Heck, 7 hours in a row on the day after Thanksgiving sucks. The fact that I only get $7 an hour (which, if I'm still there after Jan 1, will be a whole 15 cents higher than minimum wage) sucks. It all sucks. Everything's stressing me out.

It seems like nothing's going right at the moment, and I hate that. I hate the fact that I don't know where I'll be living next semester. I hate the fact that I don't know how I'm getting myself and all my crap back to school. I hate the fact that my life feels like a ridiculous mess right now, and I don't know what I can do about it. Other than the obvious "change my attitude" stuff, which I really don't want to hear right now. Sometimes things just suck. I'm sick of some things here, more so than I would have expected. I'm sick of the fact that I complain so much when I know that things could really be so much worse. But I can't help it. I don't know what's wrong with me lately. Or right now. I really really just wish I knew where I was living next semester. I think that's bothering me more than I realize. I need to know what's going on. I hate having unknowns in my life, even though that's pretty much all life is.

I wish...I don't know what I wish. I just do. No, you know what I really wish? I wish that I suddenly somehow managed to get a million dollars from somewhere. Yeah, wouldn't solve everything, but it'd sure take the pressure off of a lot of current stresses in my life. But, like that'll ever happen. I just don't get it. It seems like I haven't made any money at all since this summer. Including this summer. I guess I did buy a camera, and I think I paid for my plane tickets to Steve's wedding and ND and stuff, but still. Have I spent so much the past few months that I only have $600 in my bank account? If I'm lucky? I thought I was generally a pretty frugal person. I just don't get it. Like, I think if I work for another month or so, I should be ok for next semester...for tuition or something anyway, if I have maybe $800 in the bank. Man I would absolutely love to go to whatever bowl game we're in. I think if, by some miracle, we made it to the national championship, I would do whatever it takes to go. Seriously. I'd like to say that about any bowl game, because this team this year is just so special and wonderful, but I have to be realistic. And I don't like that.

Man, I just feel so...beat. And I'm not even sure what I feel beat by. Just...things. It sucks. I hope things get better. And, again, I know that I could be a lot more worse off. I know that. But sometimes I just have to feel what I'm feeling. Even if it is pathetic and ridiculous and makes me sound like a spoiled whiny brat. But in the interest of not sounding like an even bigger one, I think that's enough for tonight. No more.

What I really need is a Chipotle burrito. That's the answer to all life's problems. But--oh wait--it costs money. And I already feel like a horrible person because I spent money last night to see a movie (Stranger than Fiction, which was really good) and then get something to eat at Village Inn. Terrible, bad Susie. And how's this for bad--I even felt bad for tithing at church this morning. How ridiculous is that? Stupid too. Ok now I'm really done.

Tear...

Well, the Irish beat the Black Knights 41-9. Really should have been 41-3, but the stupid Army coach called a timeout with 15 seconds left, then the QB got sacked for a big loss or something like that, and they called another timeout with like 5 seconds left. Ridiculous. Just to get one lousy TD in there. They ended up getting it, making it 9 points, but it was just stupid. They couldn't just let the clock run out and let the ND seniors have their moment, in their last home game. Whatever. And stupid stupid NBC with their crappy numerous annoying commercial breaks, their horrible announcers who like to point out stuff that "should have been" penalties against the Irish--but never do it the other way around, who are idiotic and don't know what they're talking about, and who look freaky. And then after the game, they actually cut to a commercial in the middle of the Alma Mater. The last time the seniors are going to do that at home, and they cut to a freaking commercial. And they don't even show the whole postgame celebration, with the senior's run around the stadium, etc. Luckily the nbcsports online thing does a postgame thing, and they showed it, and I'm glad because it was awesome. After they all made their lap around, Charlie hugged each one and looked a little misty-eyed (and so was I), and then Rhema and Brady went over to the student section again and started a "Beat SC!" chant which was awesome, and Brady even went and stood on the little wall thing in front of the student section to lead the cheer. Would have been right in front of where I'd be if I was there (I think...). Man. I wish I had been there. They were in the green jerseys too! The lovely gorgeous ones! Which means we broke the curse, which is a good thing. Man. Will always feel a little bit of regret I wasn't at that game, but that's life sometimes. At least I got to see it. Unfortunately Brady's pass completions without an interception streak was broken in the first quarter, but that's ok. Worse things have happened. He's still amazing. And also unfortunately, the OSU-Michigan game is close. We really need a Michigan win or an OSU blowout. OSU is winning right now, but only by 4. Still at least a quarter to play, I think, oh man no there's less than 10 minutes left in the 4th. Sigh. Not looking good for our national championship chances. Oh well. All we can do is beat USC and hope for the best. Man do our seniors deserve a national championship. So very much.

It's been a great run so far, seniors. No one can thank you all enough.

Because I'm putting off things I should be doing

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?

Hey! My eye's almost looking normal!

2. How much cash do you have on you?

I think I'd be exaggerating if I said forty cents. And that'd mostly be pennies.

3. What word rhymes with "DOOR"

More

4. Favorite Planet:

I might have said Pluto, but alas, that would now be incorrect. So I'll go with that one I know best, good ol' Earth.

5. Who is the 4th person on the missed call list on your cell phone?

Orange Katherine. So designated in my phone due to the number of Katherines I know. Plus it's fun.

6. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone?

I'm not a fun ringtone girl. I'd love to have "All Glory, Laud, and Honor" as my ringtone though, but I'm too cheap to shell out the $2 to get it. Thus I'm stuck with the programmed ones, which don't even include any Christmas tones anymore. Which is stupid.

7. What shirt are you wearing?

My green ND hoodie. And something underneath, but I don't remember what.

8. Do you "label" yourself?

Probably

9. Name the brand of shoes you are currently wearing?

uh...socks. But more often than not in the past few months, it's been "Wilsons Leather." Heck yes clogs!

10. Bright or dark room?

Preferably on the darker side, usually. Right now? The room I'm in is average to dark.

11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?

uh...I kinda just found this perusing random blogs...

12. What does your watch look like?

It looks like the band is black, and the face has a gold color trim, and it probably looks like the cheap $6 Walmart watch that it is.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night?

I wish I could say sleeping, but honest, probably nothing interesting or productive at all.

14. What did your last text message you received on your cell phone say?

"They come out yet?"

15. Where is your nearest 7-11?

Honestly don't know. Rarely step foot in a 7-11. But I don't think there's any terribly close.

16. What's a word you say a lot?

Dude. Especially when I'm excited about something.

17. Who told you s/he loved you last?

Probably a parent. If not, then my sister. I think my mom though.

18. Last furry thing you touched?

Chicken, the huge blob we call our cat.

19. How many drugs have you done in the last three days?

Excluding vitamins, none. Not even excedrin. Which of course means I'll get a headache tomorrow, I'm sure.

20. How many rolls of film do you need developed?

uh...I do need to transfer some pictures from my camera to my laptop...

21. Favorite age you have been so far?

Age is just a number.

22. Your worst enemy?

Probably me.

23. What is your current desktop picture?

Um, it's pretty sweet, it's a picture of Brady Quinn that I took right after a TD (I think it was a pass he threw, and not just a run) at the North Carolina game a couple weeks ago. A pretty good pic if I do say so myself.

24. What was the last thing you said to someone?

Honestly have no idea. Goodnight?

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly what would it be?

Man I would do a lot of things for a million bucks right now, I think. K maybe not, but it'd sure be sweet to have.

26. Do you like someone?

I like lots of people. And animals.

27. The last song you listened to?

I actually have a classical station playing on my laptop right now. Couldn't tell you the song if you twisted my arm.

28. What time of day were you born?

Morning. 9:19 am (eastern time. hehe)

29. What is your favorite number?

14

30. Where did you live in 1987?

Lowell, MA.

31. Are you jealous of anyone?

Sometimes.

32. Is anyone jealous of you?

Can't imagine why they would be.

33. Where were you when 9/11 happened?

In school. Being forcibly sheltered from it all by my stupid principle, who thought it not important that we should know what was going on outside the walls of our classrooms. And then I got to go home at lunch and watch the rest of it unfold.

34. What do you do when vending machines steal your money?

I rarely use vending machines. But I'd probably kick myself for wasting money on the junk food that's in them.

35. Do you consider yourself kind?

Nowhere near as much as I'd like to be.

36. If you had to get a tattoo where would it be?

If I had to, I wouldn't. Or maybe I'd get a blue dot on my shoulder, which is how the earth looks from heaven. (Oh, Friends.)

37. If you could be fluent in any other language what would it be?

Latin. Totally. :-)

38. Would you move for the person you loved?

I suppose, but I can't promise I'd be happy, depending on where it was.

39. Are you touchy feely?

Honestly, I'm not sure.

40. What's your life motto?

I don't know. haha. But seriously, I don't think I really have one.

41. Name three things you have on at all times?

underwear, a hair band, and (excluding when I'm sleeping) my promise ring.

42. What is your favorite city/town?

Colorado Springs, although my intense love for it is being crushed by all these stupid developments ruining whatever open space is left. Notre Dame, IN is a pretty freaking sweet "town," too. (Hey, it has its own zip. It's a town. It's like the Vatican!)

43. What was the last thing you paid for with cash?

A bowl of chicken noodle soup at Chick-Fil-A on Monday. It's pretty awesome soup.

44. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it?

A couple months ago, thank yous for birthday stuff and whatnot.

45. Can you change the oil on a car?

Theoretically. I think I've been shown how to do it, but I'm not entirely sure I remember.

46. Your first love: What is the last thing you heard about him/her?

um...I'll get back to you.

7. How far back do you know about your ancestry?

Not very. A few generations on my dad's side. Not sure how far back on my mom's.

48. The last time you dressed fancy, what did you wear and why did you dress fancy?

The last really fancy thing was probably my cousin's wedding in September. Fancy enough, anyway.

49. Does anything hurt on your body right now?

Right at this moment? No. Although my eyes are starting to get the "Why the heck aren't you in bed???" sting.

50. Have you been burned by love?

No, something for which I am often quite thankful.

Life outside the bubble?

So, obviously I haven't lived my whole life under the ND bubble, and obviously it's been awhile (FARRRR) too long since I've been back under it, but man sometimes I can't help but be surprised at the people I encounter in "the real world." Namely, those I work with. I'd assume they're a pretty good mix of people who are really out there. And man. Ok, I'm about to become rather judgmental I think. But I would first like to say that I'm not trying to insinuate that these people are horrible people, by ANY means at all. But geez. Out of the...I guess 9 that are currently employed, and one who doesn't work there anymore, at least 4 see nothing wrong with living with someone before even being engaged, one probably doesn't but I don't really know so I shouldn't assume, two I've barely met so I don't know, and two I think are less than favorable towards it. One of whom is definitely the oldest of all the employees. I don't know. The things I hear them say are just out of my comprehension sometimes. Like, I know it's how lots of people feel and think, but...man. (And for the record, I realize there are lots of these people at Notre Dame as well, I just choose to ignore it most of the time.) I don't know. It's just bizarre to me how casually people talk about moving in together before they'd even consider just getting engaged. How the pattern has become date on and off, perhaps eventually become exclusive, eventually move in together, and maybe after awhile get engaged and get married. And then, of course, after getting married there's the "Oh, we're not kid people, we're not going to have any." At that point it's just like, that is just so sad. I heard someone say this today at work, and I just balked at it. Not outwardly, of course, but man. It just seems so empty to me. I know, some people can't have kids, and that's different. And some people just don't want kids. So, sorry to say, they shouldn't get married.

Ok sorry. It'd just be nice to know that there's at least one or two people out there in the general public who kinda think things like marriage and sex and whatnot are sacred, and not things to be taken lightly like they're nothing. Because that's what they've turned into. People saying they might get a "paper marriage" just to get more money and better housing, but screw the actual marriage part. Or the opposite--people saying they don't need a "piece of paper" to tell them they're married, and that it's between them and God, screw the rest of the world. People going through divorces after what seem like hasty marriages, and then putting their children in the middle just to get back at the other person. It's just all so sad and discouraging sometimes. Hard not to wonder what kind of world the next few generations are going to be in once they grow up. Will people even bother with the "hassle" of getting married at all? Will those who actually do get married be severely outnumbered by those who don't need a long-term commitment, or a serious relationship, or a "piece of paper?" Who knows what it'll be like.

Susie's blog 2: the awesomest sequel ever!!!

So, I went and rented Newsies from Blockbuster. Hey, it's a good movie ok? Anyway, there were like four previews before the menu, and I had to push the next chapter button for each one. Out of them, three were sequels to Disney movies. Cinderella 2, Hunchback of Notre Dame 2, and "The Animated Sequel" to 101 Dalmations. Even though they already had 102 Dalmations. I know they're all fairly old movies, but still. It was kind of funny to see that Disney "needs" to make money so much that they'll sell out any story just to make some dumb sequel. Although I couldn't decide if they just looked sooo much cornier than the originals because the originals hold a nostalgic value to them for me, since I watched them as a kid, and thus I overlook their corny-ness or if these sequels really are just that much dumber. I'm gonna go for the second choice.

School things

I have almost decided just to forget about doing the overload thing, and instead taking my free Tuesday and almost free Thursday and working shifts those days, and instead of having to worry about 6 classes, only having to worry about 5 (one of which should be cake. Mmm cake). And then if I have to, if they don't let like my history and English class, or history and philo class, count as "summer classes", I'll just suck it up and take two classes this summer. (I want them to take history because I'm rocking that class. Although...I do have a thing coming up due Tuesday that might kind of mess that up a bit, but I definitely can't complain thus far. We just got our book reviews back yesterday, and I was sure I wasn't going to do well on it, and I ended up somehow getting 100%! That was definitely a surprise.) But I think it will result in a much less stressful semester for me. And, let's face it, the less stress I have, the better.

The only thing I'm still concerned about is housing. But that will be the case until I hear from them again. And I might have to wait almost a month for that, which really sucks. I don't know what I'll do if I have to find a place off campus. I don't even want to think about it. I just keep praying that somehow I'll get a place somewhere on campus. But I don't know how interested God is in hearing my prayers lately...I'll keep trying though.

I really want to go to the March for Life in January. Apparently the long trip (over the weekend) is only $75 now, it was $90. I'd love to do that, except for the fact I probably won't really know anyone, but also because it would require me missing the first Friday of my classes, as well as the first Monday. The short trip would still require me missing Monday classes, and it's $50. I don't know. Last year I didn't go because I didn't want to miss classes, and I did kind of regret it. I guess I'll just think on it for a little while.

Let's turn religion into a democracy!

Apparently, ABC's morning show has a poll about whether Catholic priests should be allowed to marry. Today, I found this statement by the Catholic League president Bill Donohue. It's actually pretty funny, to me anyway. Basically saying, if they're going to have a poll where everyone can vote their feelings on what the Catholic Church should do, why not one for everyone to vote about what the Jewish religion should allow, or Muslims. But of course we all know they would never criticize what Jewish or Muslims do (or don't do) for their religion, because that's not the "cool" thing to do. But Catholics? Let's get 'em! (Ok, perhaps that's a tad exaggeration, but still.)


Completely unrelated, they just showed clips from last night/this morning with people lined up to get the new Playstation 3. People who had been in line for days. That alone seems kind of ridiculous to me, as one of the very few things I can imagine waiting in line for days for is perhaps a chance to see the Pope in person (or, perhaps, something to do with Irish football...). But then they showed this other place, where people were asked to make a line against the wall of the store, and this huge fight broke out and people were being pushed to the ground and trampled on and it was crazy. It's a freaking video game system, people. It's mind-boggling how greedy and terrible things like that can make people. Like I remember seeing a news story a year or two ago, when some place was selling laptops of some kind for like $50, and people were going crazy trying to be one of the ones who got a laptop. Ridiculous. I guess I just don't understand because I tend to hold off getting anything technology related until it's more or less old news, and therefore usually cheaper. But I guess that's just me.

Stream of consciousness: turning positives into negatives

Elijah Wood is on Conan right now.

He seriously looks like a photoshopped-to-be-smaller person compared to Conan. Especially his head. Kinda very much funny.

Christopher Guest was on Letterman. I rarely if ever watch Letterman, but I had heard he was going to be on for For Your Consideration, so I wanted to watch. And watch I did. And I laughed. And fun times were had by all. Oh, and on Leno, before the guests, he had something called "Dealing with the Public" or something, and it was these ridiculous (but apparently real) 911 calls. They were HILARIOUS!!! Seriously like, do people actually do this? They were so ridiculous that it's hard to believe they're actually real. Like one person called because he wanted someone to help him get ice off of his windshield, as he did not have an ice scraper. The lady told him just to put the defroster on and wait awhile, if he didn't have anything with a sharp edge. And he was like "So are you going to help me or not?" And she said she was trying to help by giving him suggestions, and then he replied with something along the lines of "Ok. Later." and hung up. And then there was the lady who called in because she was watching a movie, and one guy was beating another one with a bat. In the movie. I can't see how anyone can actually do that and be serious, not be prank calling or something. Man. It was so funny to listen to though.

I was reading something today, written by an assistant professor somewhere, and this person at least twice in the little paragraph I was reading misused apostrophes (ed: I just knew I would mess up something, since I'm complaining about someone else messing stuff up. Maybe I just thought parentheses because I'm in love with them). I think the first thing was just turning an its into an it's, but I could be wrong, it could be something else that was more grating. Because while its and it's is annoying to read when they get confused, it's not that big a deal. But then the person wrote "you're" instead of "your" and that is just not something I would think an assistant professor should do. Ok, it was a comment or something on a blog, and people tend to slack off a bit in their grammar (if they have any to begin with) when they're writing things online, but still.

Did I tell you that in at least two of my classes, more like two and a half, I feel like I'm completely wasting my time? Most definitely in English, as my teacher likes to ramble about things that really don't seem to matter much in reference to the book we're currently discussing, and he also tends to be at least five or ten minutes late every time which only really gets annoying when he tries to hold us a little later just to make up for that time we wasted while he was off doing something else. And it's really hard when English is sandwiched between two breaks which come after and before two other classes that I don't mind as much, therefore making me just want to go home for like four hours instead of sitting in my car, then going to English, then sitting in my car again, and then going to Latin. But anyway. So there's that one. And then my Wednesday class, comparative religions, is just ugh. The fact that it's 2 hours and 40 minutes doesn't play in its favor (but at least it's only once a week), and I'm ok with going at the beginning. But then I sit through this lecture, wondering what the heck I'm supposed to be learning, and then we get a ten minute break and seriously like half the class just leaves. That class is a joke to everyone. From what I hear people saying like before class starts and whatnot, they all agree that it's a big disappointment and no one knows what we're supposed to be learning, no one even knows the point of anything. So after the mass exodus, we eventually start class again, and it's another hour or so of a "what the heck are you trying to say" lecture. This week was particularly bad. After half the class left, and our ten minutes of break had ended and everyone who was going to had come back, we sat there for another twenty minutes at least waiting for him to figure out what to spend the rest of the time on. A few weeks ago he had told us to bring our second textbook to the next class, as we'd start discussing it. Well, we didn't get to it (no surprise there). So he told us to bring it this week. And yet, he hadn't prepared anything for it. So he eventually gave us the option of one of three lectures on different faith traditions, that we probably wouldn't have heard had he not been unprepared yesterday. I just wanted to go home, and I really wished I had just left at break like those other people. I felt like I just got punished by wasting an hour and a half of my time on stuff that he claimed would surprise us but which, far as I could tell, was nothing new to me. It was like the history of Christianity, and I've heard pretty much everything he mentioned. Ugh. Oh well. We only have two more classes (of that one), which does mean that spending money on that second textbook was probably a waste as I'll be surprised if we actually manage to discuss it at all. Next time we'll finish up something, I think, and then we have to do these stupid presentations on our thought papers. I have no idea what we're doing the last class, since we're turning in our papers that day and then...? Eh whatever. Stupid class. Oh well. Over soon enough. And the half class would be Latin sometimes. But it's not as bad as the other two, plus it's actually something interesting and I'm actually learning. Which is a good thing, I think, considering it's a class which tends to imply learning.

Saw Kristina tonight for the first time in awhile. It was nice. And I got a $5 gift card to Panera because I got the answer to a very stupid joke. (What's the ratio of a pumpkin's circumference to its diameter? Think about it. Perhaps I'll post the answer tomorrow.)

Registered this morning. Mostly went ok, aside from almost freaking out when my PIN wasn't going through. Got that figured out though, and got 5 of the 6 classes I wanted to sign up for. The 6th needs department approval, apparently, which I hadn't noticed until I tried to sign up for it. Plus it won't let me sign up for any more than one more credit until I get override approval. So I sent an email to the department about the class, and I guess I'll call the Arts and Letters office tomorrow about the overload thing, since they haven't responded to the email I sent a few days ago. I swear, ND administration people suck at returning emails. It's quite frustrating, to say the least. I really wish I didn't feel the need to sign up for another class. As it is right now, I have 4 classes in a row from 8:30-1 on MW, then a break, then another class 1:55-2:45. Friday is similar, with a break after the 8:30 class and then not another break until I get done at 1:40. But Tuesdays I have nothing, and Thursdays I just have Latin at 11. So I could work like two shifts in a row on Tuesdays, then do one like Thursday afternoon or something, and another maybe on the weekend or maybe a weeknight or something. Gar. Stupid no credit this semester, stupid no credit for IB, stupid me. I don't want to take 6 classes. I really don't. But I also don't want to have to take summer classes either. I'll be 6 credits short if I take 17 credits each of the next three semesters. Man, if only I could get two of the classes this semester to count. Dad seems to think I might be able to. I'm going to try, once I get back to school, but I'm not counting on it. I guess if I just take 17 credits, taking two classes this summer won't kill me...hm...Eh I'll figure it out.

I work 1:30-5:30 tomorrow. Not too bad. But I must hit the sack soon. Sleep is good.

hm.

Apparently I won't hear about housing for next semester until December sometime. Which kinda sucks. I can only hope and pray that it works out for the best, and that somehow I'm high enough on the waitlist that I can still manage to get into a room SOMEWHERE on campus.

I register in less than 12 hours. More like 10 by now. I think most things are worked out right now, assuming classes don't get filled between now and then. I'm not terribly concerned about most of them. But right now I'm trying to decide between taking the Music and World Religions class and taking a class on Tolkien, Lewis (as in CS), and relating them to like the middle ages. I do like the topic of the second one, but the two reviews on the ndtoday teacher eval section for that teacher are not very kind. But, granted, it's only two people. The other one, the music one, doesn't have a teacher listed as of right now, so I can't rely on that. Both are at the same time, so it's one or the other. The thing about the Tolkien one (which has The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Lord of the Rings as require readings--a swing in its favor) is that I'm also taking another class on the middle ages in general. (What can I say, I was scrolling through the subjects to see if any subject might have good classes, and one is Medieval Institute. And the class I'm definitely taking, "The World of the Middle Ages", interests me.) So if I took the Tolkien one instead of the music one, I might end up having two very similar classes. Which may or may not be a bad thing. The Tolkien one definitely sounds more interesting than the music class, but I don't know. Guess I'll have to figure it out between now and tomorrow morning when I wake up...

Something weird is going on with my windows media player. Up until recently, it's been working fine. But lately, whenever I try to watch like a video or something on a website that's windows media player, it just doesn't go. And if I click on a link that brings up regular windows media player, where normally it would play the song or the video as normal, now it says something about how it can't play it. So today, when I couldn't listen to WVFI when Bethany, Caitlin, and Julie were doing their show, I downloaded version 10 in case I didn't have that one. But even after it downloaded, it still didn't work. So I don't know what the heck is going on with it. All I know is it's annoying.

Well I gotta get to bed.

Schedule stress

I just went to nbc's website to see who was the musical guest on Leno tonight, so I clicked on the "shows" section which brings up all their shows and you just click on the one you want. Anyway, I happened to notice a few show names as I was trying to find Leno, and one of them was Pale Force. I've mentioned that here before, it's a cartoon thing that Jim Gaffigan started with him and Conan (well, I don't think Conan's really "in" it, just his name and kind of his likeness...) and he showed an episode whenever he'd be on Conan. And then recently it got its own section on the nbc website. But I didn't realize that it was part of their "shows" and when I saw that just now, it made me laugh a little bit. It's so funny.

So, some things aren't coming together for next semester as well as I'd like. Namely the fact that I don't know if I'll be able to take Latin next semester. Apparently at ND the beginning Latin I class goes through the first 20 chapters, whereas my class at UCCS is only going through the first 15, so I'd be behind if I took Latin II next semester. So then I wouldn't mind taking Latin I again at ND, but the annoying thing is it's a four day class (as are all the foreign languages, I think, at least the beginning levels), and the "extra" day (which is either on Tuesday or Thursday, I forget which in this case) falls at exactly the same time as another class I wanted to take next semester. Actually, it starts at the same time as this other class, but goes a little bit less time than the other one (since the other one is just a Tue/Thur class and therefore each class is an hour 15 minutes). And that one class I want to take is the only class I would have on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So if I take Latin I, I would have to find another class to take because that extra day would make me miss just a little more than half of the other class once a week. Which obviously wouldn't work, unfortunately. Sigh. Of all the times for the fourth day of Latin to be, it has to start at the same time as the one T/Th class I want to take. So now I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I really want to keep going in Latin (or in this case, ...start over?), but I don't know. I guess technically if I did take Latin I again, I might be able to fit yet another class in, because I'd be getting those four credits easily since I've already learned all the stuff. And then I wouldn't be as far behind in the needed credit thing. The Latin person at ND who I've been talking to about this did say that if I feel I can handle starting at Latin II, I probably can do that, and I guess I could probably do those other five chapters over Christmas break or something...I'm just not sure. ugh. Any ideas? (Preferably soon...I register Thursday morning...)

K I may have figured out some possible solutions, found some classes that seem like they could be interesting, and also apparently the one T/Th class I had wanted to take is now at a different time. So I might still could take it. My MWF are kinda gonna suck though, as if I get into everything I want, I'll have four classes in a row, from 8:30-1pm. And then possibly a fifth from 1:55-2:45. But then I'll only have one on Tuesdays, and two on Thursdays...hm. Guess I won't be slacking off much next semester...I'm such a slacker. I could do so much better than I do, be so much more productive and therefore less stressed. I just don't. Perhaps next semester I'll try that. And if I survive taking 19 credits next semester, maybe I won't worry about summer classes and I'll just do the 19 credits each of the next three semesters that I need to graduate. Doesn't sound like it'd make for a very fun senior year though. I don't know. Maybe I can take 19 this coming semester, take 8 or whatever this summer, and then only have to do 15 each semester my senior year. Which is easy. But apparently 19 is an overload, which requires permission, and I'm not sure how to do that, or if I can register for all the classes I want before I get it. I just sent an email to see, so I'll just have to wait and see what comes of that. I guess the worst thing that'll happen is I'll only get to take 16 credits this semester, possibly 17 if I can take a guitar class or something for one credit (question--should I take guitar, or should I take violin and kind of...start over, or start again, or something?), then take the 8 this summer. Eh I don't know. And I'm getting too tired to think about this stuff anymore.

Susie must sleep now.

Jerseys

We just watched Rudy (hey give me a break, I haven't watched it since the Friday before last year's first home game, and I'm going through ND withdrawal, and it's always a great movie to watch), and I noticed that at that scene where Roland Steele comes into Coach Devine's office and tells him to play Rudy in his place, and then puts his jersey on the desk (a scene which didn't really happen, but hey it's Hollywood), his name was on the back of the jersey. Most people (I hope) know that Notre Dame is one of a few places where the player's names are not on the back of their jerseys. Which I quite prefer. Anyway. So I was wondering if that was accurate for that time, or if they just put the names on the backs for the movie. This led to me attempting for awhile to find out when ND stopped putting names on the jerseys and whatnot. (A picture of the real Rudy and team at the end of the movie showed that they did definitely have names on the backs at that time.) Ended up finding this page, which coincidentally is from a blog that I check a couple times a week (which I suppose isn't all that surprising, considering what the blog is about). It's quite a good summary of the ND uniform under each of the major coach eras and whatnot. Come to find out, names on the back of jerseys was used a couple times under Ara (looks like just for two bowl games), and then when Dan Devine came in, he put the names on the backs in almost if not all games. Faust after him kept the names, but after that they were taken off and haven't gone back.

That entry also has a little section on green jerseys used since the time when they were the normal home game color (which apparently ended like a few years before Ara). Since then, they've been used 7 (now 8) times in major games starting in 1977. Interestingly, 4 of those now 8 have been against USC. Anyway. The first four times they were used, we won. The last four, we lost. Sigh. And the last one was the first time they were used against USC where we lost. Those green jerseys we used last year were amazing. They looked sooo awesome. That was just such an exciting start to that intense game. We had seen them warming up in the regular blue, and then they went back in to the locker room, and then when they came back out, I saw them over by the tunnel before they had officially started running out, and I got soooo excited and started jumping around and yelling saying "Green jerseys! They're wearing green jerseys!" and it was great. I would love to see those jerseys again sometime. Unfortunately they're cursed. For now. I don't think that's the last we'll see of them though.

Good stuff. Oh, and Rudy is so much more fun to watch when things make a lot more sense, when you recognize a lot more, when things are familiar to you. Kinda like watching a movie taped in your own home or something. Except perhaps a little less creepy. Oh, and the ND songs that were in the movie definitely should have been on the soundtrack. Perhaps there were copyright issues or something, but it would have been so much cooler if those songs were on there. I mean, it's a great soundtrack anyway, but still. Oh well. Lovely stuff.

Things that make me happy...

when my eye is being a pain in the butt:

• Cold, potentially snow-flurry weather. (edit: a couple hours later, it's of course cloudless and sunny once again, but still quite windy. Nothing good about that.)
  
• Watching Annie because it's just such a great movie.
• The fact that Christmas season starts soon!
• Thanksgiving being next week which means only one day of class, and only having to work next Sunday, Friday, and Saturday--of course the Friday shift is the crappy one, from 5:30-11:30 in the morning.
• Thanksgiving meaning being able to play Guitar Hero with my brother, who is kindly planning on bringing it down with him.
• My wonderful parents.
• Being able, finally, to watch Love Actually soon. Man I've been wanting to watch it for months.
• Getting next Saturday night off so I can watch the ND-USC game!!!
• The fact that kkli.com has a "countdown to Christmas", but it says there's 90 days left until Christmas. I'm thinking that's not quite right, but it's funny.
• Other happy things I'm not at liberty to discuss right now.
  

Eyes. Who needs 'em?

Ok first of all, whoever left that last comment about the BCS stuff, I'm aware that a lot of things still have to happen for ND to get a shot at the championship. But I have to believe that Florida will finally lose, as it should have this past weekend (or a number of other games previously). I also have to believe that Rutgers will lose to WVU, and that Arkansas will lose to Florida (or...LSU? Either LSU or FSU. I forget which one they still have to play). But anyway. We just have to win out, and that's all we can do. Preferably big. Especially against Army, but also kind of especially against USC. I'm still hopeful though. Will be til the very end.

Now, other things. I most definitely have conjunctivitis again. Woke up this morning and there was no denying it. So I reluctantly removed my contacts, put in eye drops, and once again donned my glasses. Sigh. Here's my dilemma. I'm currently only putting the eye drops in the one eye, as the other seems fine. (Lucky for me I still have stuff left over from last time. A whole...week ago that I stopped using it.) I don't really want to put the eye drops in the currently healthy eye, because there have been times I've accidentally touched the dropper thing to my eye a little bit, and so I don't want to infect the one eye if it's not going to get conjunctivitis. Dad thinks I should just put it in both, though, and the medicine will keep the other from getting it. Now, tomorrow I may wake up and this will be a moot point, but for now I'm conflicted. Man, I just feel like I'm going to have pink eye forever. Today wasn't very fun. The one eye really did hurt, like it was a little sore or achy or whatever, which then kind of made me have a little headache right around that area of my brain, and it just sucked. And now it's more like my eye feels ridiculously dry, and is starting to feel sore again. Perhaps a sign that bedtime should be soon. But geez, seriously, it's a little disheartening. I was just starting to feel normal again, something I haven't felt in over two weeks. Which I guess isnt' that long in the big picture, but it feels like it's been forever. And man I just cannot believe I got this again. Who the heck gets conjunctivitis twice in two weeks? I guess the more logical thing would be I never quite got rid of it...? I just don't know. I'm a little creeped out now, worrying that everything I touch might have remnants of conjunctivitis bacteria stuff and that's how I got it again and that's how I'll keep getting it, forever. Until I burn everything I've touched in the last two or three weeks. Since I still have no idea how I got it, really. I would assume something when we visited Peter at Ft Sill, because apparently pink eye sure makes the rounds in boot camp. But I have no idea, really. All I know is it sucks. I'm sure it'll be fine in a couple days, or at least feel a lot better (not to mention looking tons better) in the next day or two, but right now it sure sucks.

It sucks so much that it's driving me to go to bed now. I just don't want to be awake and feel this anymore.

Sweet!!!

There's a new trailer out for Spider-Man 3. Man it looks great. Can't wait to see it. The first two very much rocked, and there's no reason to think the third won't as well. Comes out May 4th, apparently, which means a midnight showing on opening day is in order, as that falls smack in the middle of reading days before finals. Perfect timing. My friends better want to go see it. I'll make them if they don't want to. haha.

I like it when things start to come together

I just saw a commercial, admittedly quite stupid, but there was one redeeming quality about it. It was for a moisturizer, and the catch line thingy was something like "...so instead of looking into his eyes, you can fall into his arms" or something, and the girl and guy were like laying there in bed, and he's all stroking her arm and face and whatnot. Because she has such nice soft skin, you see. But anyway, the way they did it it was his left hand that was highlighted, and he was wearing a wedding ring. Commercial is still stupid and whatnot, and really it's a stupid observation, but it's at least nice to imply that they're married. Yeah, yeah, I'm an idiot.

More interestingly (eh who am I kidding, my life is no one's idea of "interesting"), I'm still trying to decide if I have pink eye again. And I keep wanting to call it red eye. This time the possible culprit is my left eye, which was far less worse last time (really the whole thing last time was only bad one day, the day before I went to the doctor, and that was my right eye). I'm leaning on the side of I do have it, but very very very mildly. So I'm pretending that I don't until I'm fully convinced it's bad. Partially because I just put in contacts again for the first time, a new pair, on Saturday. But I didn't wear eye makeup today (I did yesterday though, new stuff I had bought in case my older stuff had been all infected-like, which now is probably six of one, half dozen of the other), and probably won't for at least another few days. I haven't really much lately anyway. Gar it's just frustrating. I mean, who gets red eye--woops, pink eye--twice within a couple of weeks? Especially, as mom said, someone as germophobic as me? No one else in my family got it (knock on wood) when I had it, except Jason I think who had it a few days after I got it, and I get it twice? So I don't know. Like I said, I'm not convinced either way, that it is or isn't conjunctivitis. However, I'm erring on the side of caution and making sure not to touch my eye if possible, washing my hands a lot (as if that's any different for normal me), probably not wearing makeup, etc. You know, the past few weeks I've worn makeup fewer days the past few weeks than like ever since I started wearing makeup, pretty much. And here's the lovely thing--I'm getting to the point where I almost just don't care. Which is nice. But still. I'm sick of feeling like my eyes are the enemy, or deadly if I touch them, or anything like that. Sigh. Oh well.

I love seeing ND game highlights on local news. Fun stuff. And, dude, the sports section today had three full pages almost about the game yesterday and stuff. Front page of the regular sports section had a lovely picture of Samardzija's first TD, with "NOT MUCH OF A FIGHT" in huge letters above it, and then the beginnings of two articles (oh, and there was a huge picture of the team lifting their helmets after the game yesterday on the very front page, with "Wild Blue Flounder" above it, and the score), and then in the second section of the sports, there were the two full pages about the game and all, including one article about Quinn that included a lovely color picture of him from yesterday. Anyway. Fun stuff. Oh, and one of the sports writers had an article about the game, and he was pretty pissed at the Falcons for losing, and for seeming not to care much that they lost and how they lost. It was a little crazy. But that's ok. Oh, and every Sunday night the local NBC station has a half hour show with Fisher DeBerry about that weekend's Air Force game. I don't normally watch because I just don't care that much, but I am tonight because I do care. haha. Anyway. And now, we're #5 in the BCS, just as we should be. 1 and 2 are obviously OSU and Michigan, then it's USC, Florida, and us. Rutgers and Arkansas are behind us. So here's how it's gonna go down. USC has to win this weekend against Cal. Well, they don't have to, obviously, it's not like the world will stop spinning on its axis or anything. But hopefully they will. And either OSU or Michigan will lose this weekend. Hm I wonder what would happen if they ended up tying? Very rarely happens nowadays. That would be weird, and screw everything up, because then they'd be headed to the NC for a rematch for sure. But anyway. If USC wins, they'll take the #2 spot. We'll win against Army this weekend, and either stay #5 or maybe move up a spot or something. Probably depends on how the OSU-Michigan game plays out. (A close game will result in the loser probably not moving down much, a blowout will be better for us. Preferably a blowout on the side of Michigan, as OSU losing is generally probably better for us.) And then our game against USC will be hyped like last year's, as it will potentially be like a semi-final playoff game (with OSU-Michigan being the other one), and the winner of each of those potentially going to the NC. Well, the winner of the one definitely will. Not necessarily the winner of ours. But who knows. Should be quite an interesting few weeks...
Edited to add: Charlie Weis rocks. I saw a clip of the presser after the game (after having heard about this in articles about the game), and one of the things he was asked about was if he had heard results of other games that went on yesterday. He said his son told him how Florida almost lost, and that someone else had lost or something, and then someone said "And Cal lost" to which Charlie replied, "Aww" kind of sarcastically, and kind of laughed. It's hilarious.

NFL was decidedly a letdown today. Broncos won, barely and ugly, at Raiders, but I honestly didn't really care who won. Patriots lost at home to the Jets, which is pretty crappy. Giants lost at home to the Bears, and for some reason this season I've been rooting for the Giants. (But don't tell my dad--he's a New York team hater.) So I don't know. Nothing compares to ND football, and that's just the way it is. NFL games are so much less exciting--seems like there's a lot less at stake in each particular game. You lose a game or two in college, you're screwed for any hopes of a national championship, pretty much. But then in NFL, you take like the Steelers, who up until today were 2-6 or 8 or something. They won today (which was a good thing to come out of today's games, of the teams I care anything about), which apparently keeps alive their hopes of making the playoffs. It's just weird. I'm so much more used to the way college goes, so I tend to prefer it. (That's not to say, however, that I don't think playoffs should be started in college football. I'm really not sure, actually.) Anyway. Whatever. Go Irish. Oh, and I must say that I'll have to start rooting for whatever team gets Brady in the draft next season. Luckily there's no teams I really hate, so I don't care where he goes that much as long as it's not somewhere that his career will just flounder before it even begins. I really hope he does amazingly in the NFL. And all the rest of them. Man, it just seems so wrong to split them up. Like splitting up a litter of puppies. haha. But seriously. sigh. That's the tough thing about being a college football fan. You only get a few years with the players before they're off somewhere else, as opposed to NFL where people stay with one team for years. In some cases. Oh well.

Money sucks. Lately I've seriously been considering going out and finally buying a lottery ticket (something I've never done, even when I turned 18 and officially could--for the record I didn't buy cigarettes or porn either, and don't ever plan to, by the way) in the very very off chance I might win. Because I for some reason think that somehow it'll make my life a whole lot better. I know, I know, money can't do that, and money doesn't buy happiness. But it sure can buy a little bit of peace of mind, for a little while at least. Get some bills paid off, have some spending money for fun things (like, oh I don't know, going to a possible bowl game, going to Rome, going to a Josh Groban concert), things that I have no hope of doing short of something like winning the lottery. Or getting myself a sugar daddy. Hmm...perhaps I should look into that one. But yeah. I'm trying to curb my spending, but I don't think it's working. I mean, I don't think I'm blowing money on frivolous buys or anything like that, but I did recently buy a new camera for myself, and more recently finally bought myself a black leather jacket ($60 after my discount, which is a pretty good price for a fairly nice leather jacket but still, it's money). It's just so frustrating when it feels like every single penny I earn goes to something like loans or money I owe Dad or anything but fun stuff. I haven't gone to see a movie in the theater in months, and I really really want to, but I was thinking about it tonight and realized that I don't know if I can even afford to spend the like $8 it costs to go see a movie. And that really depressed me. I know, I'm complaining about not being able to have more fun with my money and there are far worse things in the world, but it still sucks. Especially when I feel like I'm not doing enough, and I should somehow be earning more, and I should just be working every waking hour I'm not at school or something. I am so sick of feeling like I can't afford ANYTHING. Including school. Sick of it. Stressing me out so much. Maybe I should just drop the rest of my classes this semester and work instead. Of course, I doubt I'd be able to get very many more hours than what I'm getting now. For a lousy $7 an hour. Which will, in a month and a half, be only 15 cents more than minimum wage in Colorado. Lucky I'm already leaving pretty much by then, or else I'd say screw it.

Man, I was all in a good mood thinking about ND and then stupid money got in my head and now I'm down. Money sure does suck. But no matter what anyone says, the ridiculous price tag associated with a degree from Notre Dame is so worth it. (Especially if you manage good financial aid...) Argh. Sometimes I feel like nothing's going to work out. I'll be soooo glad to get back to school and have all these things that are currently up in the air...down on the ground. I hate hate hate having things up in the air. And so may things are, and there's very little I can do about it. Ugh. And I especially hate being in a bad mood about this stuff. I just wish it would all come together and be settled already. Especially the housing thing. Aside from money worries, the housing thing is what's bothering me the most right now. And I probably won't know anything about it until after Thanksgiving at the earliest. I don't even want to think about what I'll do if I can't get back on campus. Ugh.

Yeah, yeah, that's enough out of me I think.

My love affair only deepens

Today was the ND-Air Force game. Nowhere near as cool as being at ND for an ND game, of course, but hey you gotta take what you can get. Plus it combined two of my favorite places: Colorado Springs and Notre Dame. That doesn't happen a lot. So it was a good day. We left at like 9:30 and got to the stadium at like 10, or the parking lot right outside the stadium at least. Expected it to be crowded and trafficky, but it really wasn't at all, surprisingly. Guess we missed it all. So we sat in the ND alumni club tent thingy they had, with food and drinks and whatnot, and it was a good time. Rather chilly, but it's all good. Eventually it started to get more crowded, and we walked around some but just around that area where the tailgate was. They even had a smaller tent set up as the "ND Bookstore" which was amusing. The line to buy stuff was ridiculous. Out the tent, and once you got in it it went all the way around. We went in to check out the stuff a little before we headed into the stadium, and it was like jerseys and shirts hung up around the outside, and then four folding tables set up in the middle with a bunch of random stuff. And bins of beanie hats and gloves. (Did I mention it was cold?) Might have been more organized and whatnot earlier in the day, but by that time it was quite disheveled. So we just kind of checked out some of the stuff for a little while, went to the van to sit/warm up/take a quick nap (if you're my dad or brother), then we headed into the stadium.

Our seats were awesome. 5 rows back, 35 yard line. Kinda hard to see where some of the plays were and whatnot, but for the most part you can't complain about that. Right behind the players which is always fun. And the game rocked too. I mean, our first drive was like what, two plays--two pass plays--and a TD. Less than a minute. We scored 3TDs in the first quarter. Held Air Force to a field goal only in the entire first half (thanks in part to a blocked field goal attempt that we returned for a TD, which was sweet). Second half was decidedly less spectacular, as we gave up two TDs (now that I say that, two TDs doesn't sound that terrible), and didn't score as much as we would have liked. Man, we were all wishing for one more TD for Brady. 5 TD passes would have been awesome. Surprisingly, or not, he only passed 19 times the entire game. He was 14 for 19 though, which isn't shabby, especially since four of those were TDs. We got two extra points blocked, and missed a third which was disappointing, but oh well. I mean, no one ever thought the game was in doubt, I think, from the very beginning. But it was a little less than great when our defense was out there pretty much the entire second quarter because we just couldn't stop them. Luckily for the most part we could right at the very end, but geez, I don't think we stopped them on a 3rd down the entire game. That aspect definitely was not impressive to say the least. Defense just wasn't great. But again, there really wasn't any doubt at all. It's just that if you're up 33-3, it's a little disenheartening then to end up 39-17. But oh well. We won, and for the most part it was a great game.

Oh yeah, except a few things. Air Force apparently tends to be a little...iffy on their tackles, and tend to go for the knees or something like that. As a result, we had at least four people injured during the game, including Morton for a little while at least (it was towards the end, I'm not sure if he went back in), Lambert which wasn't good, but then I saw him behind the sideline kind of practice jogging so I think he's ok, someone else who I'm failing to remember right now, and most importantly, John Carlson. It was early in the game, some point after he had gotten a TD (I think that was his only reception of the game) and in the first quarter. He didn't go back in. Got a full leg brace on, and then after halftime, I didn't see him come out with the team, but then a little while later I noticed him back on the sideline wearing sweats and stuff, talking to Brady, and walking without bending that leg, so the brace was still on. And apparently the speculation is he won't be back in for the rest of the season. At least, not for Army or USC. But boy oh boy do I hope that's not true. He's my favorite player this year. I was so sad when he got injured. I hope it's not as bad as they're thinking. Sigh.

The other less than great part about the game was the not being with a bunch of students aspect. There were other students there, I know, because I saw a guy at the ND tailgate thing who I recognized and eventually figured out was in my Spanish class last year, and I saw a few other people I know are students. But everyone was spread out (although we were mostly surrounded by ND fans where we were), and as a result I felt like I couldn't yell or anything when we were on defense. It wasn't very loud when we were, even though I know there was a very large number of ND fans at the game. I hated how quiet it was when we were on defense. oh well. And I missed having the band there. Too bad our band doesn't travel to all the games. But all in all it was still ok. Just bizarre. I'd never been to an away game before. Definitely nowhere near as cool as home games. Obviously.

Some other amazingly good things happened for us today as well on the football front. #3 Louisville lost on Thursday, which will put them below us (or it better, anyway), #4 Texas lost tonight to unranked KSU, and #5 Auburn lost to unranked Georgia. Or, I think it was Georgia. Either way they lost to an unranked team. And #8 Cal lost to unranked Arizona. #6 Florida almost lost, and dude if they had lost that would have been AMAZING. If only Southern Carolina hadn't missed an extra point earlier in the game, it would have been tied, or if they hadn't had their field goal attempt at the very end of the game blocked, they would have won. Sigh. But even still, we should be in like the top 5 tomorrow. Although I wouldn't be surprised if we're not, considering how pollsters like to rank us lower than we deserve. But four teams ahead of us lost, and we are currently #9, so logically... Anyway. What this all boils down to is that, basically, we still have a fighting chance. (We are the fighting Irish, after all!) Lost of things still to happen, but we're not out of this yet. And I'm getting a little bit excited. But worried even to say that. But dude. Eeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Man I'm so glad I got to see the team in person one last time at least. still really wish I could be at the game next week, but today was good enough I suppose. Man I love them so much. I'm gonna miss so many of them next year! (As are we all, I think.)

And tomorrow, I get another day in which I can sit and watch NFL all day without interruptions from work or anything. Always lovely. But first, I need to go to bed and then get up and go to Mass. Which unfortunately is not at the Basilica, alas...Soon though. Soon.

I'm so excited

...I'm so excited...I'm so...so...scared!!!
haha

I totally just said this to Tom almost word for word, but I'm putting it here too. I generally really hate commercials, but I tend to enjoy MasterCard commericals very much. They're just so...great. Like the one a couple years ago, when the Red Sox went to the World Series, and it was like "What would you give to see the Red Sox win the World Series" or something like that. It was awesome. And then they won and that was awesome too. But not really what I'm talking about now. So we just saw a MasterCard commercial, and it's a holiday-themed one that I remember from last year, but I like it enough that I'm not mad that it's on already. It's a cartoon, with people going into a house, and at the end it's all "A full house: priceless". Great stuff. MasterCard commercials rock. Plus they're voiced by the guy who plays the son in Big Fish, which is a pretty great movie.

So, dude, today in the mall I saw tons of people wearing ND related stuff. It was awesome and I smiled (or hid a smile) every time. I saw no less than four girls wearing ND jerseys, and possibly at least one boy too, and I think every jersey was a different one. There was a Walker (or, #3) white jersey, and Brady (#10) home jersey--but it was like a stupid version of it, short and tight and whatnot on some older girl, what I in my mind thought of as the slutty version of the jersey, and a McKnight (#5) of...either home or away, I forget, and...another one, and then the
green #10, from like last year USC, which was on some boy. Anyway. Twas quite exciting. On my way to work, I had just turned onto Briargate from Union, and that road goes west and once I get past this one turn, I have a great view of the mountains and Air Force Academy and all out there. Anyway, right as that came into my view, I saw a small plane flying over the Academy and a parachuter falling from it. Must have been practicing for tomorrow. Or not, but I like to pretend. Dude I'm so excited. We're aiming to leave around 9 or so tomorrow morning, and then yeah. Should be fun. Did I mention I'm excited?

I'm a little slightly concerned my left eye might be conjunctivited again. Held off on putting in my contacts today, just in case. I'll wait and see how it looks tomorrow, if it looks like I might have it again or not. I hope hope hope not, but I'm preparing for the worst. Sigh. Twould suck, but worse things have happened.

I just remembered tonight that Christopher Guest has a new movie coming out soon. I have no idea when or if it'll come out here, but I'm excited.

K I'm tired and have to wake up early (haha) tomorrow. Go Irish!!!

80s music and other amusements

According to some face recognition thing you can run online, in one of my pictures I look 78% like Ali Landry. Yeah I definitely don't think I look like her at all. Hm, and another one is 90% like Angelina Jolie. Weird. 71% Katherine Heigl. Guess I don't look the same in any of my pictures. 76% Anne Hathaway. I like her.

How on earth do people find Borat amusing? Ugh. He was on SNL a couple weeks ago, just in the opening skit, and most definitely wasn't funny. Not sure that I cracked a smile at all. And now he's on Leno, and instead of being funny it's like listening to nails on a chalkboard. So I'm not listening to it anymore.

Man, I hadn't checked this one message board in like a week, and dude there's so many good links that I missed! Like this one, which involves penguins and that's always cool. It's cool. Try it. And this one, which is a weird music video for an awesome song. The 80s were sweet. Too bad I was too young to realize it at the time. Seriously though, awesome music. haha. And amazing music videos. Great great stuff. (And for the record, I can't tell whether I'm being sarcastic on that or not. Obviously, they're fun to laugh at, but they really are pretty cool too. The songs and the videos.) Dude here's another one. Not only is this song amazing (seriously), but dude, talk about some hot guys there. haha. Might be kidding with that one. Love the glasses. Man there's so many good songs. Youtube is freaking amazing. And the Men at Work music video to Down Under is really...weird. But kinda amusing. Ok very amusing. As is the whole thing.

Today in Latin, my teacher mentioned this immersion course she had taken back in like '85 or around there, in Rome. A priest, Reginald Foster, does this course every summer I guess. For free. Of course, you have to pay to live in Rome for 6 or 8 weeks, and pay for travel and other expenses and whatnot, but dude. How awesome would that be? When my teacher started talking about it, before she mentioned the name, it sounded familiar, and I wondered if it was this guy who I had heard about who spoke at ND either at the beginning of this semester or the end of last semester. I heard about it on some blog, probably Amy Welborn, but I either didn't go or I couldn't (because I wasn't there, if it was this year). But I would have liked to. Anyway. I was going to ask my teacher what his name was, and then she said it before I had a chance to ask, and it definitely sounded like the name I remembered. So I got a little bit excited, but only inwardly as I don't show emotion sometimes. Man I would absolutely love to be able to do that. So I added it, in my mind, to the list of things I would do if I won a million dollars. I don't remember if I mentioned this on here, but a few weeks ago at work me and Brenda discussed what we'd do with a million. I said I would: Tithe, take out the taxes of course, buy a (sensible--like $20,000 at most) new car, give like $100,000 at least to my parents, set aside enough to pay off student loans and whatnot, take a trip to Italy and Rome, and...not sure if there was anything else really. Maybe buy some frivolous stuff. But we decided I'd have somewhere around $500,000 left to put in the bank after those things. So now that's what I'd do with some of that $500,000. Take the immersion Latin course. Oh, and pay for my whole family to go on a trip for a certain upcoming event. Yeah. Anyway. Latin totally rules, people. Pretty much the best language ever. And it's so cool being able to understand some Latin, and loving it. It's like being in some special club that only really cool people are in. Because, you know, cool people like Latin. It's a fact.

Note to Blockbuster: Get Sister Act 2 in your store! I've been wanting to see it recently (partially because the choir at Mass on Sunday sang a song during offertory that they sing in the movie, and possibly partially also because Maggie Smith, aka Prof. McGonagall, is in it and she's pretty cool, and I watched the Harry Potter movies last week so I was thinking about it), so decided to go rent it tonight. Get to Blockbuster, find Sister Act, but there's no Sister Act 2. Not like someone had rented it out, but it wasn't there at all. They just don't have it. stupid. Luckily their online store does, so we put it on the queue. I'm excited for it to get here. But anyway, I rented Sister Act tonight instead, and it was quite amusing. I prefer the second one, but the first is certainly entertaining. I don't know if I've seen it on video, like unedited (not on TV), and it was fun. Anyway though. I still want to see Sister Act 2 again.

I was sitting in my car between classes today, listening to the classical station (unfortunately there's no exclusively 80s music station. That'd be saweeet), and they played John Williams' Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back. I happen to love John Williams, and I was realizing how funny it is that I don't feel that I can say he's my favorite composer. Like, I set him apart from say Beethoven or Mozart or Bach or those guys, just because he's contemporary now. But he's a composer just as much as they were. Just because he writes amazing stuff for movies doesn't make him any less good. I mean, I listen to the Imperial March and it makes me want to watch Star Wars. And I'm not even that big a Star Wars fan. Although, truth be told, I think I might be more of one than I admit, even to myself. But still. I love his stuff. Like, all of it. Plus, dude, he wrote the Olympics theme song. I LOVE that song! Seriously. Amazing. And the Harry Potter theme. He wrote that. and lots of other amazing movie soundtracks. Grrreeat stuff.

Still haven't written about this past weekend. Eh probably never will get around to it. Gist (jist?): Lots of fun. Great friends. Good times. Awesome football. Of course. Lots of fun to experience with my parents. Even if I didn't actually sit with them during the game. Good good stuff. Slept on a futon two nights in a row, and it wasn't uncomfortable at all, somehow! Coughing was annoying when trying to sleep, but that's always true. Very weird to be on campus as a visitor and not a student. Quite weird. Didn't like that too much atall. Went to a bar for the first time. Drank a whole beer for the first time (and only because someone bought it for me and I felt bad turning it down). It was made better by the next drink, a Malibu or something like that. Nice and fruity and girly. Even better, it was free! Had some strange feelings about the whole situation, which made me question whether this is who I am or whether I'm some other girl I've just supressed all these years. Haha. weird. Basilica is lovely. I miss it so very very much. And the incense they use. I have quite a craving to smell incense. My church doesn't seem to like it, except on very few occasions and only for like a minute. Psh to that. Anyway. Goood times. Except it made me realize just how much I could kick myself for not being there all this semester. Seriously, what was I thinking? I know what I was thinking, but I really wish I hadn't been thinking it. sigh. Such is life. But now I'm just so worried I've screwed myself over by that one decision. Wasted $3000 this semester on classes that I probably can't get to count, which sets me behind in my graduating plans (I now need 19 credits in the next three semesters to graduate on time. Doable, but not preferable). So I might have to pay more so I can take summer classes and make up for some of it. And beyond that, there's the whole room situation, as now I don't know if I'll even be able to get back onto campus, let alone Cavanaugh. And if I do, it'll be with some random people which doesn't make me too happy. Sigh. I miss our quad from last year. Great room. I mean, anything's better than being off campus (I think), I just hope I can get back into Cavanaugh. Praying. And at the same time, I know that there's absolutely nothing I can do about it right now, so it's in God's hands, and he'll put me where I'm supposed to go. I hope. Who knows what'll happen. But beyond those two things, and granted they're not exactly small things, I just can't wait to get back to school. Even if I did miss most of the home games. Hey, so did all those people who went abroad, so at least I'm not the only one. And maybe next year I can manage at least one away game to make up for it. And possibly a bowl game this year. Yeah, wishful thinking (the me going to a bowl game, not the us going to a bowl game). I guess that can go on my "What I'd do with a million dollars" list too. Especially since the predictions I've heard has us going to the BCS game in New Orleans (speaking of which, at the beginning of the semester I heard about a fall break service trip that you could go on, it was to New Orleans to help with the rebuilding and whatnot. I would have loved to go had I been at school this semester. Oh well). Which would be a tad more expensive than, say, the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, since Tempe is at least a reasonable driveable distance. But anyway. Oh and that reminds me. I want to drive back to campus, as it'd make things easier (such as transporting all my crap back up there), but I currently have no one to drive with, and would rather not go by myself (nor would my parents prefer me to go by myself), so I have to see somehow if there's anyone who has yet to buy tickets/make arrangements. Unlikely, yes, but who knows.

Hm ok so there's a rather shortened version of what I wanted to say about this past weekend. It was lovely, but much too short. Alas.

Oh yeah. Yesterday, the high here was 78. Tied the record. Denver had a new record at 80 degrees, and Pueblo had a new record at 85 degrees. Come on, weather, it's getting toward mid-November. Get your act together, and get some cold air in here already! And would it kill you to throw in a little snow?

I must to bed now. Don't you love how I write ridiculously long entries about nothing in particular? It amuses me.

My most favoritest subject

Ah, football. Louisville lost to Rutgers tonight, in a battle of undefeateds. This is generally good for us (ND) because Louisville was #3 in the polls. So now they should drop behind us, and Rutgers probably won't jump us (although it's possible I suppose, but I don't really see how that logically could happen. But since when have the pollsters been logical?). So it's pretty much a good outcome for us. And our very very slim NC chances.

One thing I'm very very very much going to miss the fact that I can't be there is the Army game next weekend. It's the last home game for many of our awesome players--Zibby, Rhema, Samardzija, of course Brady, oh Brady, probably Carlson (I think he has another year of eligibility but with how great he's been doing this season he'll probably enter the draft this year instead of coming back. Sadly), etc. I wish wish wish I could be there for that one. Sigh. Alas, we make our choices, and then must live with them. At least ND is lucky enough to have nationally televised games every week. Speaking of which, Saturday's game is the first game since like '92 or something like that, a long long time, where a Notre Dame game isn't nationally televised. Or like non-cable televised or something. Not a major market. Anyway. Terribly glad I'll be able to see the game in person, otherwise I'd have to find me somewhere to go. No fun.

Speaking of this Saturday, clearly this is a big game for Air Force. And Colorado Springs and whatnot. Every single day this week in the sports section, the Gazette (our local newspaper) has had at least two articles relating to ND and the game. Seems like it's usually one specifically about ND, the other about the Falcons playing ND. I mean, Tuesday's sports section has a huuuge picture of Brady Quinn, Samardzija, and Rhem, with the headline "IRISH AIR FORCE: Falcons' secondary faces challenge" underneath. They don't have pictures of Falcons players. They have Irish players. And yesterday they had an article about Charlie Weis, and something else about the Falcons playing the Irish, and today it was about Brady Quinn, and another about the Falcons playing the Irish. Tis sweet, it is. Every day they highlight some major game in the series between the two (they've played 26 times so far). Man I'm so excited. Should be a good game. Although, the pessimist in me is worried that a few things could happen that would be less than great, not the least of which is of course us losing. But I believe in my team, and they'll be great! Apparently it gets CRRRAZZZZY trying to get into the Academy when ND plays (last time in 2002, someone Peter knows left at least a few hours before kickoff, and they still missed kickoff. And it normally, on a good day, takes about half an hour to get from like my house to the front gate of the academy. So yeah. We're going to the tailgate the Colo Spgs/Denver alumni clubs are hosting, and we're planning on trying to get there around like 10 or something. And then hang around for awhile. And then afterward they're holding a post-game tailgate thing, because it's apparently also crazy to get out. So yeah. Should be fun.

Gosh I love football.

Just shut up already

There's a new facebook group someone made that's called something along the lines of "The Biggest Protest In Colorado" trying to get all these people together to protest the fact more people voted against referendum I than voted for it. And some of the messages on the wall include things like how it's bigotry not to vote in favor of it, and how people voted against it just because they're homophobes, etc, and blah di blah di blah. So they're protesting to try and get it overturned or something. Trying to get national news and whatnot to cover it. Ok, now I understand that they're upset it didn't pass, but geez, democrats/liberals got a lot of stuff in this election. Which meant we didn't have to be subjected to all those democrats whining about how the voting machines are all corrupt and untrustworthy and how the voting system in this country doesn't work. Like we had to hear over and over last time. Or I guess two years ago. Whatever. But my point is, you don't hear the republicans complaining about that stuff. We lost a lot of seats, and that's just the way it is. People voted, and that's what happened. Having a huge annoying protest just because you're upset at the way the majority of people voted just seems dumb. But yeah, I know, if the tables were turned, whatever. And I know, I happen to be happy with the outcome of at least that one issue, so I think a protest is stupid anyway. Those people won't be happy until they've managed to make sure that nothing in this world can be considered wrong or shameful. Except, perhaps, the terrible, horrible sin of believing in a religion and having values and--horror of horrors!--morals.

Third time's the charm?

All righty, I'm going to make a real post tonight. So here we go. The stuff I've been wanting to say the past few days and haven't gotten around to.

I've seen at least two houses already with Christmas lights, decorations, etc on them. Ridiculous. Not to mention that OHare was all decked out when we were there on Sunday (and Monday), but I don't remember if they were on Friday. But either way. And the mall has at least some strings of white blinking lights, if not more decorations elsewhere (that's just what I can see from Wilsons). But at least neither the airport nor the mall are playing Christmas music yet. We'll see if that's still the case in a week or so. Oh, and there's already Christmas-themed commercials out, which isn't terrible I guess, I know it takes money to make commercials and they probably wouldn't be worth as much if they can't play them for at least like two months or so, but there's one I've seen that's wishing people a happy holiday season. And it's one of those more local, cheapy ones (I think), and I'm not ok with that. It's simply too early to wish people a happy holiday season. That's just ridiculous. You wish people that like...in the holiday season. And it's not yet. Stupid people. Does no one care about Thanksgiving anymore? It's like, oh Halloween is over (or for some people, September is over), better get out the Christmas stuff! Huh? There's another holiday between Halloween and Christmas? Psh that's a lie. I don't know, maybe it's just not an interesting holiday for most people. I mean, it is a day set aside to give thanks for things we have. But perhaps lots of people now balk at the idea of having to give thanks to someone or something other than themselves. It's like, hey I worked hard to get this stuff, everything I have is rightfully mine, why should I have to give thanks? For most people now it's just a day in which to overeat, perhaps see family, and watch football. Eh whatever.

I'm annoyed that the one oldies station left anywhere near Colorado Springs generally comes in static-y and crappy, if at all. It's because it's in Pueblo. Why did they get rid of the one in Colorado Springs? It makes me quite sad. I like oldies. :-(

I'm quite sick of wearing my glasses. The past few days especially. It's been less bad than I had been expecting last week when I first started wearing them, but getting worse the last few days. I've been taking them off when I don't really need them, even though it means everything's blurry and I can't really see anything all that well. It keeps me from getting a headache, or helps relieve a headache I might have (why wearing glasses gives me a headache and contacts don't, I'm not sure. But maybe contacts do too and I just don't realize that's what it is. Who knows). But lately, the worst thing about the glasses is the bridge of my nose. I have this weird thing with my nose, and like I really can't stand having anything really close to it, because it just irritates it or whatever. So the past couple of days, that area has been just very irritated by the glasses sitting on my nose all day. Very much bothersome. And then there's the fact that I dislike not being able to see fine in my whole area of vision, as I can when I have contacts in. It's always weird when I put contacts back in after wearing glasses for more than like a day, or even when I just take off the glasses, because my eyes want to see a difference in how well I can see in different parts of my vision, like they don't want to see as well in the area that isn't covered by glasses when they're on. My brain just wants to process things like I'm still wearing glasses, and it's weird, and I don't like it. So I'll be a happy camper once I can put those contacts back in. Which I think I'll do like tomorrow or Friday. I was supposed to do the drops for 5 days, wait 2 more, and then I could put them in, which would put us at today, but I missed some eye drop time what with the whole missing the flight and all on Sunday, so I did the drops until yesterday. Anyway though.

Earlier today I went to abcnews.com, because Josh Groban had been on Good Morning America today (his CD came out yesterday! I have to get it sometime now) and I forgot about it and I wanted to see if they had a video of it or anything (they didn't, at that time anyway). On the front page of abcnews.com, they had a rotating thing of five top stories. Four of them were election-related, or possibly one might have been Donald Rumsfeld but I just kinda put that in the same category. The fifth though? Britney Spears filing for divorce. Was that honestly the fifth most important news story this morning? And is anyone seriously surprised about it? Sad as that may be. Oh, and accompanying that (or somewhere on the website) was a link to this article about how stupid Reese Witherspoon was not to have done a prenup when she married Ryan Philippe. First of all, it's horrible to condemn someone for having faith enough in a marriage that they don't sign a prenup. Secondly, I'm pretty sure she really wasn't any more famous than Ryan at that point anyway, so what'd be the point? But man, that article made me mad. Saying people who don't do prenups are idiots, given the high divorce rate. Especially for women who make more money than their husbands. It's just dumb. And you know, people are so stupid with money. Even if you have to give half of the millions upon millions you've earned during your marriage, that still leaves you with more money than most people would know what to do with. That's not really the point, of course, but geez. People thinking it's horrible and sucks so much that a QB has to take a pay cut from $9 mil to $3 mil because his team isn't sure he's healthy enough to be playing, and he wants to play, or something like that. Yeah, that's a big pay cut, but seriously. $3 mil for a season is a lot of money. More money than anyone really needs. Eh I don't know. But back to the point. Britney Spears is getting divorced, no surprise there, and Reese Witherspoon is apparently an idiot because she didn't sign a prenup. The horror! (Oh, and mucho kudos to Britney Spears for having an apparently iron-clad prenup. She's clearly much smarter than Reese Witherspoon.)

People passed the raising the minimum wage thing. So stupid. Although, apparently it means that were I at Wilsons next year (perhaps starting in January I guess), I'd get a raise to $7.75 instead of the $7 I'm getting now. I actually was wondering about that when I read that the new minimum wage would be $6.85 or around there, which is barely less than what I make now. It'd be stupid if I didn't get a raise after that. Hence part of the reason why raising the minimum wage is stupid, in the long run.

I like football.

I know it's stupid, but I kind of want to see the third Santa Clause movie that's coming out. Looks entertaining. And get this--it doesn't have lots of gore, or violence, or obscenities, or sex, etc. Unlike, say, Saw III, which apparently can be called not gory. (When asked what it could be described as, certain people I was discussing this with said "A normal movie." Huh? Ok, I know I didn't see it, but dude, I know that most normal people would call it gory.) Or Borat, which some people claim is hilarious, but which I know I would be sitting through disgusted and most certainly not amused. Anyway.

Hm, alas I have written quite a bit, but I have yet to get to what I really want to write about. Perhaps that should go in another entry anyway. We'll just chalk this one up to boring, random thoughts I've been having, and leave it at that. My bed may be calling soon. Mmm bed.

Speaking of cookies...

It's official. I am a terrible cook. I can't even make cookies now, apparently. I tried tonight, and they just didn't come out well. I don't know what exactly it is, but yeah. I mean, they're not terrible or anything, just not...picture-perfect or anywhere close. Oh well.

Dangit. I fell asleep before I got to write the rest of what I wanted to. Guess it's a hint I should go to bed. Like two hours ago.

Election 2006

Well, seems to be pretty depressing overall. Close to home, I think the house representative I voted for won, so that's good, but then for governor, stupid Bill Ritter won. Democrat. I don't know how excited I was about Bob Beauprez, but I was more excited about him than Ritter. So that's fairly depressing. I wish we could just keep Bill Owens. He's been the governor for as long as I remember (8 years, before which I didn't pay attention at all really), and I like him for the most part. Sigh. But at least it looks like the Marriage Amendment (making marriage defined as between one man and one woman) will pass, and Referendum I, the same sex benefits thing, won't. But I don't know how definite those are yet. And the other marriage things around the country look like they'll go the right way as well, in addition to the stem cell thing in Missouri. So that's good. But the abortion ban in South Dakota probably won't stay, apparently because they didn't put a provision for rape and incest (which I don't think they should do, necessarily, but you have to take these things in steps and going completely cold turkey is too much for a lot of people, hence why it's now not passing). And the really bad news is that it looks like the dems have control of the house or something for the first time in awhile now. Definitely not cool. And Rick Santorum lost his seat in Pennsylvania, which is sad because he's completely Catholic, totally pro-life, pro-family, all that. All the good ones seem to have lost today. Not good. But also not entirely unexpected either. Just like I wouldn't be terribly surprised if a democrat won in two years for the presidency. But anyway. That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes, I guess.

Not feeling very positive...

First: Who thinks that 73 degrees in November is great weather? November is supposed to be cooler. Maybe not as cold as I'd like it, but seriously, not 73 freaking degrees. Stupid Colorado mild winters.

Those NyQuil/DayQuil commercials are crap. If you have a cold that's causing you to cough, you're going to cough regardless of what medicine you take. At least, that's what I think. Stupid NyQuil. I'm so sick of coughing. Especially at night when I'm trying to get to sleep.

sleep. something I won't be getting tonight.

Work was stupid today. Oh yeah, guess I have to backtrack first. So i was at ND all weekend, which was lovely. Although...well I'm not there yet. I'll get there in a minute. We left campus (we being my parents and I) at like a little after 3:30 yesterday afternoon, for a 6:15 flight (plus gaining an hour on our way to Ohare). Hit horrible traffic on our way, a ridiculous amount, and we ended up getting to the airport (including after dropping off our rental car) at like 5:45 or so. Too late to check our bags and get to our flight. So that sucked. There was one more flight to Denver that night, so we went and sat there and were on the standby list, but didn't make it. It was so aggravating too because the lady called out "Final call for boarding" two times or so and then right at the last minute like five or six people, all together I think, showed up and got on. And then after that there was only one or two seats on the flight, and we had decided it was all or nothing. So we got the nothing, and went to a hotel that American gave us a voucher for (not free, just like reduced rate or something)--I think it was a Hyatt, and it was large and nice but I wasn't terribly impressed for such a high-priced hotel. Got to watch most of the Patriots-Colts game, which obviously did not end in a way that made me happy, but as it was the only game I watched on TV this weekend, and the only NFL game I saw period, I was happy enough. I'm so addicted to football. Anyway.

So we woke up at like 5:30 this morning (Chicago time) to get the shuttle at 6 so we would be at the airport with plenty of time and whatnot, and we were first on the standby list (and I think that when we checked in there were already like 5 or 6 open seats, whereas last night when we left the airport there was only one seat for sure at that time). If for some reason we didn't get that flight, we had gotten tickets last night for the 10:55 am flight, so we'd for sure have that one at least. But as it turns out we did get on the first flight this morning, and we got our bags really quickly once in Denver (they had gone on the flight we tried to get on standby for last night--which meant we didn't really have anything last night in the way of a change of clothes or toilettries, etc. Luckily hotels now give you free crappy toothbrushes and toothpaste if you request it, normally). I wasn't in a good mood last night or today, but it wasn't really the not getting home when planned thing. I mean, it was partially that, sure, but I didn't care all that much. I was pissed, but because of something else. Not pissed, just not happy. Anyway though. I did have to call work this morning, as I had called last night to see when I was working this week, and of course today I was scheduled 11-7:30 which is a weird and unusual shift, at least since I've been working there. And we got on our way back to the Springs today at like...10:15 or so. Obviously I wasn't going to make it to work by 11. So I called, and it was the MT working this morning, and she said she didn't have a problem with it, so I just told her I'd be in by 1 since I wasn't sure.

We got home, I took a shower (as I really needed one), got ready, went to work. Got there around 12:50. She (the MT) told me Michael had called a little before that and she told him what happened with me, and he said he was coming in around 1 to talk to me. So he did, and when he talked to me, it was to tell me I was being written up--but get this. He was going to do it even before today. Apparently because of last Wednesday, when I had to call in because I was sick (felt like crap, and most definitely didn't want to go infect everyone else with pink eye). And of course today just added to it. Darn me and my inability to magically produce a seat on a full airplane so that I can get to work on time. It was that, and there was also some mention of "excessive requests for time off" or something. Which I personally find ridiculous because if it's excessive, then why the heck did he just tell me no at any point? (Which would have caused me to like quit or something, but I don't know that he knows that.) He told me he was doing it because he didn't want to be accused of favoritism, apparently prompted by his letting go a seasonal employee that was just hired who called off her first three days. Whatever. I honestly don't care all that much, because I don't care about that job all that much, but it just kind of annoys me that I'm being made to look bad because of things mostly beyond my control. Just to cover his own butt. I don't know. And then he asked me if I wanted to stay until 9 to make up the hours I missed (of course I thought "no" but didn't say that). I asked him if he wanted me to, and he said yes because there was lots to do. Of course, since he tends to underestimate how much we can get done in general (sometimes I think he thinks he's the only one who can really do anything around there), this ended up meaning that there were three of us sitting around with nothing to do for a couple hours at least. Whatever. And I got my paystub from last Friday, and of course it was low, as expected. Just definitely doesn't feel worth it all, but what else can I do? Besides win the lottery, of course. Ugh. Maybe I'll have to call in sick again sometime and they'll fire me. Oh, and I'm going to have to work 5:30-2 the day after Thanksgiving. That's 5:30 am.

And now I have this book review thingy I have to get done, which I'm sure will take me a ridiculous amount of time. And I know, I can't blame that on anyone else but myself (although if I hadn't had to stay for the extra hour and a half tonight, I could have had that much extra time). And apparently I'm supposed to think of a question to ask this prof who's coming back to our history class tomorrow who's pretending to be Frederick Jackson Turner, and I have absolutely no idea what to ask him. I've never ever been good at thinking of questions to ask people, or ask about readings, etc. Don't know why, but that part of my critical thinking whatever just never quite developed like some other people I guess. It's something that's hurt me on more than one occasion, I think. Oh well. Tomorrow's not going to be fun. At least after history I can basically zonk out. English will just require me sitting there listening to him talk about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Latin is...well, Latin.

I will hopefully talk more about this weekend, the good part of this weekend, perhaps tomorrow, but for now I really have to get this done and hopefully get some sleep tonight. I woke up at 4:30 here time this morning, and would rather not be awake for 24 hours straight (not including the dozings-off I did in the plane and the car, etc). Of course, even if I did go to sleep right now, I'm sure my lovely cough would keep me up for at least an hour. But at least it wouldn't have Dad's snoring to compete with to see which can keep me up/wake me up the most.

Ugh.

And the sun comes out

I guess a more appropriate title for me would be, and the clouds appear. Either way, I'm feeling so much better today than any day since like Saturday. Although I wasn't emotionally miserable Saturday, just physically sub-par. To say the least. Anyway.

Woke up, and my eyes weren't crusted shut! That's always a good start. Better than yesterday anyway. They were a little, but not much. Mostly the bottom. Anyway. Oh, and woke up after being in bed for a good ten hours or so, too. Niiice. Took a shower, got ready for class, etc. Went to history which was fairly amusing, with some potential good things happening for me (and the rest of the class) regarding due dates coming up for some assignments. After class went to the doctor's to pick up the stupid note I had to get for work since the doc told me yesterday I probably shouldn't go to work last night, and then when I called work to tell Michael he said I needed to get a doctor's note "for documentation". Forgot if I mentioned that yesterday or not. So I picked that up, and I guess I'll just bring it in when next I go to work? Although, I'll have to call on Sunday to see since I have absolutely no idea when my next day to work is, since as of Sunday there was yet to be a schedule for next week. So yeah. Anyway, came back here, didn't do much, did some Latin though, and eventually headed off to Latin class, which was fine I suppose. We got our tests back from Tuesday, and as expected I performed not excellently. I only got a 97%, and that was with some extra credit. My worst performance on a Latin test since the first one we took. haha. I'm not too worried, and that was expected. I just wasn't up to it on Tuesday. But so yeah. Oh well. Came home once that class finished.

Oh yeah, something exciting happened before I left for Latin. UPS came, and--as expected--they brought my camera! The one I bought for $80 off of ebay last week, and paid a crapload to get it here by today. So I'm pretty excited. Although, they didn't send a battery with it (it's used, but barely I think, but there still should have been a battery in there), and after I noticed that (which wasn't right away since my broken camera uses the same type of rechargeable battery so I popped that one in when I first tried out the new one) I went back to check the listing on ebay, and it did in fact say it came with a battery, so I sent the seller a message saying "give me my battery please." In a few more words than that. But anyway. It's cool though. And I'm happy with it.

Health-wise, things have been good today, more or less. The eyes are looking fairly normal for once although they are very tired all the time, the nose is looking red and very chapped (soooo attractive), the throat is usually pretty good, but the cough most certainly sucks. It's gotten to the point where it's made my lower back be very much in pain. Luckily I'm going to Katie's tomorrow (for the first time in like two or three weeks), so hopefully that'll help some. Because man, it hurts. But overall I'm feeling much improved. So I'm excited.

Aaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnddddddddddddddd.............................
Tomorrow we go to Notre Dame!!! I'm soooo very very excited. I think a few of my lovely wonderful friends will be picking me up tomorrow night from the hotel my parents are staying at, so I'll be able to go to Drummers circle and all that fun stuff, and see more people, and then go to the game and everything on Saturday, and man I'm just so excited.

So I should go do stuff to get ready for that, and then go to bed soon. Tonight's the first night all week, I think, that I've been up late enough to see Conan and Leno and all that. Oh, I guess I was up pretty late Monday night, but I was doing homework so I wasn't watching TV.

Oh yeah wanted to say one more thing. I watched LOST last night, after having missed last week (and I never did get around to watching it online), and then I didn't remember it was on last night until about 15 minutes in. And even then I was only half-watching, and am still totally confused about a lot of it, but all I know for sure is in the end, they killed off Eko. He was like my favorite character. It's quite sad. oh well.

Oh and I've been meaning to say this all week too. My mom rocks. She put up with my whining and still got me stuff when I was feeling crappy (she made me soup and tea on Saturday, she helped me put my sheets back on my bed like Sunday or something, she's helped me out this week and didn't disown me, etc), and she's just awesome. I love her. And my dad's great too, and he really helped me out with my car yesterday and stuff, and he's just awesome. And I feel bad because today he was feeling really not well. And I don't want him to feel crappy while we're at ND. That'd just be sad.

Ok, time to go! Go Irish!

Scratch that

Everything I said earlier today, yeah so not true. I've only continued to feel worse as the day progressed. I'm sorry to keep complaining (and man, my parents--especially my mom--are complete saints to be putting up with me the past few days), but...ughhhhh. I mean seriously. I don't get sick very often, and usually it's just a little cold, a little runny nose, some coughing, but nothing horrible. But man this thing is just kicking my butt. Throw in pink eye to make my eyes less than what they should be, plus forcing me to wear glasses that I'm convinced give me a headache, and it sure doesn't make for a fun or happy Susie. To say the LEAST.

I suppose there's no real point in me updating this thing, as the only thing I can manage to think about is horrible I feel.

In the morning

Things almost always look better in the morning. Well, aside from the fact that when I'm sick (and sometimes when I'm not) my throat always hurts more in the morning than later on. Well, almost always. And also aside from the fact that when I woke up this morning, I couldn't see--but that was expected, thanks to the lovely pink eye I have that caused my eyes to be crusted shut (yummy, huh?). But I'm feeling better today than I did last night, both physically and emotionally. My eye isn't bothering me nearly as much as it had been last night, and now I have eye drops to make it clear up soon. I have to do it for five days, and then wait another two days, and then I can put contacts in again. Hopefully it doesn't look all gross and red for all five days. And hopefully the other eye doesn't get it worse. It has it a little bit now, but with any luck it won't get any worse than it is now. That'd be nice.

My nose is still running annoyingly, and I still have an annoying cough (one which kept me from getting to sleep when I wanted to last night, but since I had gone to bed at 10, I wasn't overly concerned. I still got probably around 9 hours last night, which is lovely), and my throat is bothering me a tad--perhaps a little bit more than it did yesterday, but I'm not sure. Overall, though, I'm feeling a lot better. Which is nice.