a lexicographical blender of madness

photos!

2006-09-15T22:43:00.000-06:00

Today my family and I went and took portraits. It was honestly, an absolute blast from start to finish. We took all these pictures and the photographer made us say all this goofy crap and we laughed. Then we got to see them all and choose our favorites. Unfortunately, we did not choose the ones I loved the most. This maybe because how much I laughed was in direct proportion to how screwed up my smile was. I have this tendency to show my gums when I smile, maybe a leftover of having braces and headgear and blablabla. To compound this, I also smile more on side of my face. The result is you get to see all my gums and it looks like I have a lazy eye when I'm laughing/smiling a lot. So in basically every picture we took, my smile looked ridiculous to some extent. We wound up retaking some with me not smiling so much. How goofy is that?

But the best part is we get a full set of proofs. If I can get my hands on them, I will share with you my best of most terrible smiles. I know at least one person out there who can appreciate the worst of pictures and seriously consider them the greatest.

tidbits of boredom

2006-09-15T12:41:00.000-06:00

The less people comment on my blog, the more I begin to feel like it is my personal journal which is safe from all eyes. Or at least the eyes of anyone who cares. It's just me and my laptop, which begrudgingly turns on only after I bribe it with the prospect of maybe only using it for another year. Assuming it doesn't start a fire in my room or anything.

I'm reading chapters from my book on communication, and I came across something that's super relevant to me - mind reading and perception checking.

Mind reading is when you assume you understand what another person is thinking and feeling. Say my roommate starts acting cranky. My thought process might go like this: um.. Is he upset because I want a ride somewhere? Is it because of all this traffic? Maybe I'm doing something to annoy him and I just don't know. Maybe I should just sit here and shrink into this car seat until we get home.

The problem is that I'm never doing more than just guessing. I impose my perspectives on him instead of figuring out what's really going on.

The solution to this, simple as it sounds, is perception checking. By running my guesses by him and finding out what he has to say, a lot of confusion and misunderstanding can be avoided. The main thing to remember is that when going through this process, I have to come off as tentative instead of being dogmatic or accusatory. It starts with me stating an observation; 'you seem cranky.' Then I can see if he agrees; 'Do you feel cranky right now?' Then I can try and work out what's up; 'Is there a reason why? Maybe this crazy traffic or maybe you're tired?' The hard part is trying to keep him from having to be defensive. Then I get to hear what I want; 'Well I was up at 6:30am and I just want to get home and relax already.' And that's it.

The thing is, everyone loves to mind read but when it comes to checking perceptions, we all get scared. We're afraid to be wrong and we don't want to seem crazy for even noticing what we do sometimes. Also, it's real hard to bring up observations without them coming off as accusations. The coolest part about this is it is something that I've learned to do on my own, just recently, but before I read it in this book. Now I feel like a totally awesome communicator.

And that means maybe I can get married and not go insane because me and ant are both fans of perception checking. I never feel afraid to point out when he's spacey or not listening or sleepy.

For a second here, I thought this topic would be boring my audience... Then I remembered-- I don't have one! /but let's just check. Is this boring you, person out there who has nothing better to do than read this?

Let me recommend something slightly more interesting. The following sentence is grammatically correct:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

How awesome is that? Does anyone get it? I can post the explanation if anyone so desires.

ick

2006-09-14T22:15:00.000-06:00

I'm back in Littleton now, taking advantage of how close my family lives to me. Why? Because I'm sickly like the old lady on the bus who coughs all over everyone. But let's back up

Two nights ago, my throat started hurting and I coughed all over. I felt completely unmotivated and did absolutely no homework. Preston suggested that it was because I haven't been smoking lately. Something about my lungs finally getting a chance to get rid of all the crap in them, and that being why I'm all coughy.

The next day, my throat was swole but I was ok otherwise. Supertired but I figured that was a result of lack of sleep. Around 1530, I crashed out , only to wake up a couple hours later in a ball of cold sweat. Blaming it on my usage of a comforter when it's 80 degrees out, I went back to sleep again. Around 1830, I called home and told my parents and they said maybe they'd come fetch me. After my dearest of roomies brought home a thermometer and it told me I was at 101, my mom agreed that coming home was the best for all.

This way, none of my other roommates would get sick, and since my family is super paranoid about ze germies, they wouldn't either. And here I am, lounging about, letting them keep me quarantined.

"More gatorade?"

"Yes please, mama. Could you bring it to me since I'm not allowed to open the fridge?"

If I even look at the food, it'll all have my icky virus. No cleaning for me, don't touch anything. Just sit in your room and sleep sleep sleep. I want to say I hate this. (It'd be a lie.)

It'll suck when I get sick in Guam and can't go home and be taken care of. (does that count as ending a sentence with a preposition?)

Who will make me ramen when my head is filled with mash potatoes and my muscles aren't working? What if my Ant is out to sea? GASP! Will I finally learn how to take care of myself?

One way to find out, right? Right. And now, more NyQuil (Big N little y Big FUCKING Q!) and off to beddy with me.

exciting and different information

2006-09-13T00:35:00.000-06:00

After having not posted for months on end, it's suddenly harder than I thought to get back into it. I'm sitting here all night. The internet is here and I have free ability to get to this site. But I don't. It's on the list of things that I've been avoiding doing, along with my Japanese homework, my modern lit reading and laundry and cutting up celery into snacky bits for class.

But what I'm really, truly excited about is my latest acquisition: a longboard!
here is what the public has to say (most of these are actual responses from messengers)

joe: no, I won't try it

sarah: I am now in fearful awe of your new activity

sarah: that is total sweet nut though

ben: don't break anything

ben: I have no friends with long boards that haven't seriously injured themselves

preston: damnit, now I'll have to get a board so I can ride with you

max: now you can say you know how to ride, without it being a double entendre

dad: must be nice to live the life of riley (read: I want one damnit!)

My first night out, Preston and I got kicked out of a parking garage. I now understand the boarder's plight of looking for cool places to ride. Especially those boarders who have minimal experience and prefer to ride on smooth, new concrete.

anyway.

I thought I'd been on top of my graduation crap. Kept up on which classes I needed to take, how to get credit for major and core requirements at once, blah blah blah. I forgot that I still need 120 total. So imagine my surprise at my advisement appt when this lady is all, well your core is done, and you only need two more classes for your major,... BUT you need 16 hours to reach 120. '16!' I wanted to scream. I've never taken more than 14 in my life, and that was hard enough. I was entirely looking forward to having an easy spring semester so I could spend more time doing weddingy/moving to guam related stuff.

Here are my options, neither of which seems to be any better.
1) take Japanese 4210 for credit, then take 13 credits in the spring
2) make this semester easy, then take a crapload of easy classes in the spring, like bongos and dance and linguistics practicums.

I hate how stressed out I'm getting over this. But man the end of the tunnel is close and that's nice.

That's a nice sequeway into the only other thing I think about. Anthony left Guam yesterday, on that goddamned submarine. A few days ago he told me it'd be about three weeks. As it turns out, it'll be two months. For reference, the longest he's been out in one go is about 3 weeks. So this sucks bad for all parties involved, but theoretically, I'll be able to email him. He probably won't be able to write me back much and I'll have no idea whether he even gets half of my emails, but it's better than nothing. And the silver lining to this cloud? He finishes deployment a month earlier, getting back to Honolulu in November instead of December. I probably still won't see him til January but at least we can talk a whole lot more, right?

I'm tired. But there are comics on my door and this room is starting to feel more and more like mine.

I'd also like to say that spiral bound graph paper is the only way to take notes for classes.

wow long time

2006-08-29T14:51:00.000-06:00

I haven't been here in so long. Once I left my laptop charger in Omaha, my online presence dropped to nothing. Email and accounts were my only concern and I left my blog for dead. Somehow I don't really like posting anywhere but my own laptop. It's unreasonable but I'm allowed such silly things.

School is up and running again and I have much excitement for most of my classes. Morphology, the process of figuring out the smallest units of meaning, is an area of linguistics that I enjoy almost as much as phonetics. Combine this with syntax, the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences, and you've got one hell of a class. It'll keep me busy for sure. Morphemes (smallest unit of meaning) can be a word or even less. For example, raspberry seems like a compound, but rasp doesn't represent the kind of berry it is. The entire word 'raspberry' is a morpheme. We are going to work through this whole process for data sets from languages I've never heard of. If anyone recalls the random dead and moribund languages on my arty box, some of them are in the booklet.

Syntax talks about why

colorless green dreams sleep furiously

is a grammatical sentence, which provides proof that language isn't a list of words and sentences in your mind that you pull out, but instead an abstract set of rules which you apply to an abstract lexicon of morphemes.

IS ANYONE STILL AWAKE?!

I know, I know; boring as shit. I can't control what I'm fascinated by. I want to go to sleep now but I have class. 'Mountain People and Places' for upper division writing. Ugh.

2006-07-16T20:44:00.000-06:00

A couple months ago, my dad told me his nephew was moving in permanently to the house, I was annoyed. I've fought a lot with feeling like I've been replaced by his philipina wife's daughter, so hearing that now he's got another one really bothered me.

I met this kid the night I got here, and it hasn't bothered me since. He's 9 years old and reminds me very much of my little brother. I feel like a celebrity, fielding millions of questions a day about the most innane and unimportant things. "Do you take a shower today?" (his english still needs work.) "Will you change your clothes?" "Where is your internet?" "What can I call you?" (I told him to call me frederick, because I liked his name so much. I've also been teaching him all the kid jokes, like that one about something on your shirt, then slapping you. It's good stuff, I don't get tired of it. And he's got the biggest eyes and ears. The better to call him monkey-boy with.

The best part is he calls my dad 'Uncle Rob' but when he really gets to talkin, it shortens to 'unklob' and when dad doesn't respond, it becomes a verbal barrage and I crack up every time. He really brightens up the house with his youthful unawareness and naivety. I can't get over how much fun it is to mess with him.

In related news, my stepsister's attitude is finally calming down. (This may be related to the 'pull a knife on dad' incident.) Last night, we went out to a club and tomorrow we're going shopping. We stay up late talking and drinking and suddenly she's not so bad. Life parallels bring the most opposite of people together, it turns out.

In conclusion, Nebraska's 50% humidity and 104 degree weather is tolerable in the right company.

update

2006-07-13T22:47:00.000-06:00

WHOOO new posts! To what do I owe this occasion? I'm down in Littleton, basically waiting for my parents to drive me to Omaha, NE so I can hang out with my dad for a bit. So much has been going on, it's silly.

For starters, the house bit is in motion. The lease is signed, the moving has begun. The last step is finding a 5th roommate, which we are attempting with a craig's list ad. Blogetta says she mostly avoids that site for whatever reason. I don't actually understand it but it's cool. By August 1st, I will be living in a different house that will be bustling with people and I have no idea what'll happen. It'll be like watching my own real world happen. Except if I'm miserable, I can't really leave or whatever.

Also, no more summer classes for me! WHOO HOO that's awesome. I can spend my sweltering July days packing with intermittent dives into the pool. Much better than going to class, I'd say.

In other news, my navy baby will be back (in Hawai'i) in 5 months. 1/6th down, hell yeah. I'd be more excited if I even knew where he was. Which I don't. Haven't heard anything from him in almost 3 weeks. I send shit, it gets sent to the boat, but I get no replies. and I don't know what that means. Mostly I try not to worry about it.

well, my laundry calls and I must answer if I want to sleep at all tonight. ja ne, minnasan~

YARDIBLARRR!!!

2006-06-23T12:25:00.000-06:00

my class is 60% over. but my real cause for celebration...

Anthony's in japan! yay! and he's gonna meet up w/my most awesome　アニキ！that makes me really happy. i'd been kind of worried that my brother was holding against me the fact that he only found out about my little engagement thing because of my parents. i never actually told him. should i even be worried about that? i'm such a paranoid person sometimes. anyway the point is i get to talk to anthony and he can call me for free, albeit only at ungodly hours of the morning. i'm so happy to talk to him though, so i make it work. i get so silly and lovey dovey mushy with him. this fuels my daydreams of a year from nowish. which helps me forget that i'm still 180 days out.

moving right along

i had so much fun going out w/crystal and sarah and various other friendlies. at first they wouldn't let me in w/my temporary license and i was annoyed and tired. but, i went home, got my passport and i was golden. i paid for no drinks, which is cause to be proud. congratulations for sarah for escaping with her $20 as well. i thank those who funded my inebriation through long beaches and redbull/vodkas. i love dancing while holding drinks. i love when my friends get all sexy hot for bars. the hotter your friends look, the hotter you look. unless you wear dingy old clothes that are more suitable for park picnics maybe. but whatever, i still can dance and have a blast.

sarr says that wherever crystal goes, she is surrounded by a cloud of fun. ナルホド　だね！
crystal is going to rome in 5 hours! i hope the morning wasn't too rough on her.

that about wraps up my latest of newsy news.

beastie gear is gonna be the in thing this summer, yaal jus wait and see.

aced my astronomy test, sweet!

2006-06-16T12:31:00.000-06:00

so... who wants to go on a weekend road trip to holyoke, colorado to visit a very cool person? it's about 4 hours out, but it'd totally be worth it for the homecooked breakfast and such*!

* pronounced sa.tch' with a glottoral stop between the u and the t. hehe

yay for summer classes

2006-06-13T12:45:00.000-06:00

I love astronomy! But what I love even more is that over a week into the class, when things should be getting difficult, it's getting easier. Today we learned all about light. I wrote an entire paper about particle wave duality last year, and I helped ssaarrRR put up an entire art show (twice) about absorption and emission lines in spectra. I'm not actually sure how to phrase it, but everyone reading this knows what I'm talking about. I had to hold my tongue through most of class because everyone else was having such a hard time with it all. That makes me feel smart. And by smart, I mean I spend a lot of time learning things from astronomy inclined friends I have.

Also, the pool is open at my complex! Oh the joys of water being kept in large warm quantities for my splashing pleasures. And of new swim suits which I can wear while being splashy and silly. And of trying to make rafts with shoe parts. I'm looking forward to another season of rescuing bugs that appear dead but aren't really.

Sunday, a friend and I found a dragon fly that we took for dead but rescued so we could keep it as an artifact. After letting it dry in the sun though, we noticed that it was indeed breathing and clinging to the leaves we carried it on. Unfortunately before anyone else got to see it, it took off in the wind. Very, very cool though. I've never seen a real dragonfly so close and alive before.

In other news, my anchor clanker is out to sea as of yesterday for 6 months. I have a handy dandy widget that tells me how long till he gets back. hopefully, it won't take long. It's all downnhill after this, and the next thing i know, ill be married and all that. Crazy huh! I'm still not quite over it...

welcome back, to a dearest friend of friends, Preston! Although he's not actually here in the b town yet. But soon enough, hopefully.

And house news is continuing to unfold. Looks like I'll be moving in a month or so, and I'll be living by myself in this 5 bedroom house for a couple weeks. Saweet! Yaal don't know how excited I am about this coming year.

30 days from now, I'll be in a new, freakin cool house
182 days from now, my baby gets back
250~ days from now, you'll all be getting fanciful invitations from me
330~ days from now, I'll be graduating
354 days from now, I'll be gettin' hitched
370 days from now, I'll be in guam!

but since when did I start planning things so far in advance....

finaaalllyy

2006-06-04T22:48:00.000-06:00

so the internet at my apt has yet to be resolved although i did call and complain which turned into the tech guy trying to keep me on the phone for whatever reason. this included sharing info about other apt renters, which i'm pretty sure is illegal. but whatever. i'm chilling at my friend of friend's apt and we're phone conferencing w/don who just got a job in japan. congratulations!

let's see.. news worht metioning.... i picked a date for wedding of joy - june 2, 2007! save the date yaal!

also, my dearest anchor clanker just got back in town which is like +10 hp for me until he leaves again in a week. for six months. damnit. but i guess i should think about how i won't have to do it ever again and how it'll be worth it, right. right? RIGHT?? i need support here. i'm not as strong as everyone (including me) thinks i am.

in other news, jobby type hobbies are hard to acquire when you're looking for a job that pays more than $9 for something that doesn't suck. i got spoiled by those big gold buses. did i mention i got fired? cuz i did. on my 21st birthday. old news though so let us not talk about such things.

sorry nothing exciting here like blogo's pool keg stands. but let's start working on elitches adventures.

this week anyone? next week? keep your specs peeled for coke cans w/ads for cheap admissions. and laser tag? let me know what yaal wanna do cuz i miss the big social events.

but since my semester break is over (it was this weekend, i had a final friday), i gotta crash. next semester starts tomorrow bright and early. yay for astronomy!

2006-05-10T20:52:00.000-06:00

so i still cant get into blogger when i'm at my apt. which is shit. absolute crap. but i'm tired of that place anyway. moreso i'm tired of the new management charging me $5 for a new mail key and never being around when i want to give them money. and the way they turn around and stick shit on my door about how i need to pay them. blargh. so i'll move into my friend's place in june, and everyone else will move in in july hopefuly. august. so good news yay.

moving right along, folks--i got fired. yup the best job ever has the crappiest excuse for a management system ever. and they did it on my bday because they wanted to solidify the impression that they just suck balls. jerks. i'll chew on you, jerkies! with my molars and my saliva, i will break you down and destroy you.

in other news, my debt to the honorific lender benny is almost restored. hopefully i'll find a new job by next week, if only something that'll pay me enough to get by.

sarr took me out last night for my first bar-related adventure. and it was awesome. we drank and danced and sang karaoke and i was a happy happy girl. even if it was a full on blizzard for the evening. fucking weather, man, holy crap. you couldn't tell yesterday morning, or this morning that last night was cold and wet enough to produce snow enough to cover cars. wacky yo.

you'd think i woulda come up w/more things to say in the lapses between posts but no. i got nothin.

１００回のポスト！

2006-04-26T20:40:00.000-06:00

so... for whatever reason, my laptop won't let me make new posts. if anyone has any suggestions on that, let somebody know aight? in other news, hawai'i is old news but was fun as always. last saturday was my last late night of the semester, and it was a total blast. music, dancing, drunk kids, hell yeah. don't know if i've said this before but work isn't work when my friends show up. it's hanging out and asking questions and jus kinda of dealing w/people who apparently want on and off the bus. it's weird, i have this fan club of people who know my name and treat me like their savior, here to deliver them (to the hill). wild, huh. makes me kind of uncomfortable.

finals are coming but thankfully i only have one or two. the others are take home, which makes me real happy.

in other news, something exciting happens in a couple weeks. a lot of exciting things are happening but this one particular thing is something that will happen once and only once. and for this auspicious occasion, much celebration is expected and will carry on for days. in order to prevent this festival from being tainted, i will not name the holiday, but those who know already know. so let's do it up right yaal!

2006-04-20T13:34:00.000-06:00

so long time no post yeah yeah ok. sorry. life is busy and my computer was in the shop. also, i was in lala-land for the past week and it just seems like when i'm surrounded by warm water and hot sun, i really want nothing to do with computers. it was like being in paradise for a week, i was so happy. i wanted to play in the water more but what with it being rainy season, the wind and clouds were a deterent to me and my love for hot hot heat. and the band hot hot heat. but more so there's no weather i enjoy more than the warmth.

Blah Blah Blah, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah anchor clanker, blah blah buff bus, blah blah japanese, blah blah living, blah blah 4/2o, blah blah blah blah blah.

happy postings!\

2006-03-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

today i feel good. much better than at the end of yesterday. it was amanda's 21st so there was much partying. and i wore a pink strapless dress and white shoes that make me much taller while simultaneously wrapping around my legs. and in this ridiculous outfit, i did an unknown number of shots of tequilla and beerbongs. and i was having a blast! first time i drank with sar, as opposed to the usual result of me picking her up drunk. not that that isn't fun. cuz it is. but drinking with friends is a lot more fun than i remember. and real friends REAL FRIENDS don't make me feel embarassed when i have to ask for trashcans. last time i urled, it was miserable. i had to be helped into the shower by this girl i had hooked up with the day before and was dressed in clothes that didn't fit. my friends, during most of this, were in a back bedroom having some kind of multi person sexual adventure. ugh. but not REAL ULTIMATE HOMIES! this special breed of coolness lets people drive really nicely and walk me to my door, following my bumblebee path to make sure i dont get lost along the way.

anyway the point is i have now earned a reputation as a good driver. the transportation manager sent out an email that a lady from UCAR (think NCAR table mesa, think badass research) sent to him, complimenting the drivers sent to drive a group visiting from all over the world. how freakin cool is that?!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello:

I work at UCAR and arranged to have a 44 passenger vehicle transport our guests during our meeting time frame of 3/22 - 3/25. This email serves as a letter of appreciation for
the following drivers: Charlie G., Grant and Denise. Our meeting guests
let me know that the drivers were responsible, punctual and drove safely.

I can't emphasize enough how much I appreciate their efforts!

Thank you very much for such great service!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
i am a happy busdriver.

2006-03-14T23:02:00.000-07:00

i'm avoiding hw right now. i know someone who would tell me to stop wasting time and to get my shit done. pfff. whatever. i can't focus. not sure if it's cuz i don't care or cuz i'm tired or what. i just can't get this crazy linguistics shit done. i'm spending my time trying to figure out what happens if i don't turn it in. i'm not about to stay up all night doing this assignment. blah. i'm talking online to this guy i dated in hs, if i could even call it that. it's a whole lot more fun than breaking words into their syllabic structures and using the sonority hierarchy to decide where stress falls. blah.

2006-03-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

i like waking up early to sun pouring into my room. today it was not sun, though. just frigid air since i turn the heat off at night. 77$ utilities bills are not cool, folks. so i layed in bed wishing i had a remote control to turn the heat on before i had to get out of bed. alas, no such luck, so i grudgingly rolled out of bed and into house shoes and a hoodie. even my flip flap isn't moving, because there is no sun reaching boulder today.

one of my best friends from high school is coming up though, and that's exciting.

also, who's up for lazer quest this weekend?!! let me know, so we can make it happen!

2006-03-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

it's snowing(!). i want to be excited about it because i love watching it come down. but really, i want it to be summer. i miss those hot days where i could wake up and jump in the pool to start my day.

today i drove to denver in a 40' 44 passenger bus. it's called a 'super transit'. the hardest bus to drive, it's also one of the warmest. i had the exact same bus last saturday and i had to get it towed because , unbeknownst to me, a heater hose fell off and it overheated. it was a 15min repair. had i known what to do, i could have saved the company about $75, but it was already pouring smoke by the time i realized it.

anyway--

looking at my control panel i feel like a pilot of sorts and i suppose that i am. i'm called an 'operator' not a 'driver' because not only do i drive but i do all kinds of other things that people don't realize. i fling doors open and turn heat on and use a counterintuitive air brake system like a freakin' pro. and at my fingertips are a million switches and buttons and levers that help me stay in control.

my favorite one is a really tiny lever. it's black and has a metal 'roto-grip' label on it. it is by far the most awesome of all the bus functions. rotogrip is like instant snow tires, the only issue being you have to flip the switch before you hit areas w/o traction. above both wheels are mechanical arms that have little wheels. on each wheel is strips of chain . when i flip the switch, these arms swing down and the little wheel rolls along the rear wheels of the bus and these chunks of chain go flinging around and around underneath the tires. ta-da~ instant traction when you need it!

is this not badass?

so honestly, i've never had a good reason to use the roto-grip. in fact, the only time i've turned it on was when it wasn't even snowing. it was more of an accident than anything. but still, the concept is freakin' cool.

in other news:
fatty fat fat the wobbly fish is alive and well. i'm thinking he just prefers breathing air to water
my anchor clanker made it to washington state aok and get this: he's a driver too (hehe)
the secretary bought me a pie and now they have promised me the "best brownies i've ever laid lips to"
everyone's dropping japanese 4 it seems, except me and sarah cuz we're hardcore like that

and that about does it for me. now to snooze a bit before movies, maybe warm up or somethin'.

2006-03-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

i can't get over how little work i actually do for my job. yesterday i was supposed to drive a dinky bus down to denver for repairs and another driver would pick me up in a hybrid. when i got to the office, to pick up the bus, chaos was happening. some lady's reservation was lost and they had me go drive her group from arapahoe and 20th to norlin. the time they waited for me, they could've walked. but they were old and some were a bit crotchety. (crotchitty?) so i drove them, then drove to denver with ben as my navigator/dj.

we stopped off at chickfila on the way back ( i love getting paid to eat), then got back to boulder with enough time to turn around and go get a bus and park it on campus.

the first round of indoor soccer tournament was tonight, and we played the team that is all of the outdoor refs. 4-1 was the final. harly carp they were quick as shit. i thought i was playing bad but really i think they were just that good. ben said so anyway. ben took a ball to the face and bled all over the court and his penny. so he kept it cuz that's not sanitary to let someone else where a penny w/his blood on it.

i went straight from the game to work, drove them back down the hill and went to the store with ben after he picked me up from base.

i came home w/tampico and fruity pebbles. then, i found myself curious. oh so curious about putting tampico in cereal instead of milk. this was ben's response:

"You need to find out if Tampico and Fruity Pebbles is a binary star, or if they're just two freaking different stars thrown together.

What you do is, take little bit and try it. And if it's good, you do it, and if not, you toss it out and go back to eating cereal and drinking Tampico. Separately. In two completely separate spheres of existence."

so i tried it, and it was indeed a no go. never again cuz the tampico is too tangy.

this post takes the place of my doing japanese homework before class.

2006-02-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

friday my eyelid was kind of hurting. saturday, it was somewhat swole and hurt all day. sunday i woke up and it was definitely more swollen and painful and red. it's a sty (read:eyelid pimple). so i hotpack it to help it clear up and come to a head so it can drain. ew, right? today, monday, i wake up and i can't open my eye. i thought 'maybe it popped overnight. that'd be cool'. i went to look in the mirror, had to rinse all the crap off my eye so i could open it. i immediately realize it wasn't what i'd hoped. my eye was crapped shut but also my entire eyelid is swollen now. i can barely open it. i have to go to the clinic looking like a battered girlfriend and then convince them that i'm not. the only thing i'm excited about is a pass they'll give me since i'll probably miss my japanese exam. anyway

next item of business: filters. my fish hates them, so i turned mine off. he seems much happier and wiggleful now.

also, got an ipod. didn't think i'd be able to afford it, but hey i'm not questioning things.

last thing i gotta mention -- a river of fabric on my ceiling for everyone's viewing and touching pleasure. pictures to come.

i must go now, so i can go get my eyeball fixed.

2006-02-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

hell yes. it's 20:35 and i have 14 hours to finish a paper and get 10 hours of sleep. so really, four hours. and for the last four, i've been doing all kinds of things. cooking rice pilaf, german choco cake, cleaning dishes and watching cheddar wiggle. cheddar the fish not the cheese. although he is called cheeze sometimes too. wally. archaeopteryx. ogomekuchan. also he is known as wiggleberry finnegan! yes folks, that's right--i have a new fish! and man is he cool. he's really round, a jolly fantail goldfish. his tiny maneuvering fins are overwhelmed by the weight of his superfluous amount of tail. so he can't swim, but man does he try. and the result is -- much wiggleings. all day. everytime i look at him. i bought him so i wouldn't have to be alone writing papers about movies. which is what i will now do. just as soon as i finish this post. yep, i'm going.

gonna sign off messengers. gonna close windows. gonna sit here and finish this paper. right now.

just gotta click publish, grab some cake and work.

seriously this time. ..

2006-02-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

first off, i am not afraid of ant's family. i think the problem is, when i go to bed, if my head isn't completely clear, i dream about whatever's on my mind. and mostly, when i'm in my bed that suddenly feels so empty w/o him in it, ant's on my mind. and it all just goes nutty from there. no real explanation

moving right along, winter has finally made it. it came stumbling in like it got caught up a bar, going 'sorry i'm late! lemme make it up to ya!'. winter, the original party crasher. winter, with its crappy greeley smell and its frigid air. blowing snow into the sanctity of my bus because the doors won't close all the way.

and onto new business

i'm going to hawai'i in april! (cartwheels.) in about 58 days, i will be flying out to hawai'i to see my honeykins for a week. side note, after this i most likely won't see him again until january. but i'm not thinking about that so much as i am the part where i get to go visit for a while. not sure how i'll make school work around that, but it's totally worth it.

all in all, this weekend is going ok. cold as shit but won't be here for much longer. word on the street is we'll see forties by tuesday/wednesday.

2006-02-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

i'm doing a lab for my sound systems class. the sound bites for the words i'm cutting up look like crazy energy wave pirannhas. i have no idea how to capture and post pics. sorry.
and carp shaped guilt

2006-02-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

i woke up from another weird weird dream this morning. weird enough that i didn't even want to go back to sleep. this was aided by the fact that the dreary light coming in made me think there'd be a white wonderland waiting outside. i'm trying to figure out what my problem is that i have these strange dreams, and here is my prognosis. i don't think i'm stressing about the marriage thing but i am. enough that every dream i remember involves post-marriage unhappiness.

last night's dream had me in my van with all of ant's family. without even asking, his mom and mal get in the front seats. i go to sit in the middle, but there's no room there either. i wind up sitting all the way in back, where there aren't seats at all. and i sit there. ant sees me, doesn't say or do anything and i just sit there. i watch his family argue and talk and drive and we wind up at chataqua (the lastest place i've thought of for big day)

everything is kind of ok for a while, i'm playing some weird game that resembles lacross. i go looking for him, i want him to play with me. i basically get blown off like those lyer people at the umc. suddenly, i realize that it's dark and ant and his family are gone gone gone. and i wake up.

no point really, to these dreams. or to my rambling about them. but i keep having dreams like this. the other day, i dreamt that less than a year after we got married, i had a kid. and he kept trying to feed it things that everyone knows babies can't eat. like chips, and other chunky foodstuffs. and i was just unhappy. completely unhappy. and i knew it. i looked at this kid and thought, this is not at all what i want.

i guess i have to wait a year and some chunk to see if i'm just being silly paranoid or what. suck. i need more distraction in my life. either that or i can just pass out drunk everynight and not dream of anything. or maybe not. i don't know a whole lot, is what i'm realizing. i thought i had a pretty good grasp of the world surrounding but um.. i think i was grossly mistaken.

right now i can't decide if i should keep typing. nobody reading will want to read much further than this, if you all are even reading still at this point. i could take up the argument that it's my blog and i can rant about whatever. another time maybe.

2006-02-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

friday at work, a couple friends of mine showed up just to ride around. it was a lot of fun. there was laughing and drinking and smoking ( i only did the laughing), and i was happy. it might have been the first time i worked all the way through the friday night shift--usually i leave early. then ben showed up and it was a straight up party. when i was going off shift, i traded buses with the other driver since it was -8 outside and his heat didn't work. and his bus had a 3" gap above the door that just poured in cold air. so i got on his bus, which was packed with partyers, and told them to get off. this is when i found out they know my name

no denise, they said. no don't go, you're cool denise. a good driver she is, said the guy who gave me $2 last week. i told them i'd be on the late night next saturday and collected 8 keystone light cans off the floor and threw them at the windshield of the other bus which made me giggle. nothing makes you feel badass like having these kids pleading with you to drive all night. no, wait, i take that back.

nothing makes you feel badass like driving to a high security plane hanger, and being directed by guys with orange flashy airplane landing sticks. they had me park on their landing pad, and gave me and the other driver a tour of the building, leaving us in the library to hang out and wait. i worked 5 hours that day, and drove for about 1.5 hours. this combination also furthers the badassness.

also, underground celebrity. i like it when i'm sitting in class and somebody is trying to discreetly point at me and i hear something about 'buff bus'... that's cool as hell. please, everybody, don't rush me. don't crowd me all at once with stories of your great times on my bus. no i don't remember that night, but you do and that's swell. so many people have random adventures with me and i don't even realize most of the time.

anyway i started this post a long time ago and forgot where i was going with it. so i stop here