(warning: particularly old content) I don't ask for it to make sense RSS feed

3/31/05

Must... catch ride on... the sleep ferry...

I keep on missing my goddamn window of being able to go to sleep and then end up being up until past 2 am before I get tired enough to sleep again. I think I need more wind-down time, but to work that in I'd have to make a bunch of other changes I don't want to... sigh.

I'm so ridiculously tempted to fall asleep as I am, turned around wrongways on my bed, on top of the covers and still fully clothed; I'm terrified if I move I'll wake up too much. Blah.

3/30/05

I lose. To exhaustion. I don't know what did it, exactly, but something the last two days just seems to have utterly kicked the shit out of my energy level. I think I'm going to try to go to sleep before I get any more depressed than I already am... too much hopeless thinking about jobs for me, today.

3/29/05

I will try to write something about today, tomorrow, as I've finally crested that awful stressywiredness hump and feel as if I might have a window though which to slip away from the insomnia demon.

3/28/05

A thought that has been brewing and not scribbled out yet... Some time ago, I came under some fire for coming across in /tht/ as self-centered and whiny. I'm somewhat amused, for is that not exactly what this sort of outlet is for? I allow myself this one place to muse and complain for my purposes, not someone else's; I rant and bitch here to vent my own steam, not edify someone else. Material of external import only appears here when I'm in the mood (or, I suppose, when I'm stranded overseas with no one to talk to). If you want to hear me talk about my views on politics or Web standards or Japanese society or science fiction, buy me a beer or some coffee and I'll talk your ear off. But my bar for what appears in this forum is just that: mine... it is then by definition self-centered. I never set out to have /tht/ be any more than a diary, and I happen to think that it's not my damn fault if you think my diary is boring.

So, in totally Jen-centered news, I'm thinking to drop my Japanese class.

It's a hard thing to contemplate; it near makes me sick. Let's run through the pros and cons, however, shall we? The class...

  • Pro: would keep up my Japanese in general
  • Pro: would keep up my spoken Japanese in particular
  • Con: is taught by a prof who I've never enjoyed classes with
  • Con: is based on a syllabus I have absolutely no enthusiasm and even outright dislike for
  • Con: conflicts with a internet-based research methods graduate course I desperately want to take
  • Con: is full of snobby heritage students who I either will or already do loathe
  • Con: occupies a time slot that won't allow me to join friends for lunch

Given that I can discipline myself back into reading Japanese and watching Japanese news, keeping up my Japanese in general is not a huge flag in favor of the class. So I'm left with a single "pro" and a host of "cons," all of which, I know from experience, will cause me (or have already caused me in the first day) to hate the course utterly. The "amusing" part is that I knew all of these things before class today, and indeed, I knew them back when I first registered for classes a few months back. But back when I was hoping that I'd be going to Japan in July, I was completely willing to overlook everything that I knew would suck about the class in the name of having my Japanese be that much better before I left. Now, all I see is a course that will frustrate me and irritate me and stress me out and tempt me to skip constantly. Not exactly a recipe for success. To some extent, it's just my roiling frustration about not being able to go to Japan that's causing me to reject the idea of the class, and I know that. On the other hand, it's to an equal extent an issue of my sanity and stress level.

I'll wait until later in the week to actually drop the class and add the internet research course in its place, but I really doubt that I'll change my mind. In seven years, I've never ruled against a Japanese class (the one time I nearly did, I dropped but continued attending all quarter anyway)... I suppose it's about time.

3/27/05

I lost another earring today. I'm not sure what exactly is going on; I hadn't lost more than one earring in years and years and years, but suddenly I've started losing them right and left. Four in the past six months! I did recover one, the first lost, but the others are more than likely never to be seen again. ARGH.

3/26/05

My feet and back hurt. All in a good cause; my first paycheck for a while that I've not had to immediately devote to bills bills bills, Kelly needed clothes for a conference, I've been in a bad mood... obviously, going shopping was necessary. Lunch was had and clothes were bought and things were good, except for the back hurty part.

3/25/05

ARGH.

3/23/05

Good day today, and I've got stuff in the works that should go live tonight, which will be fun. Slight changes, but changes! Bullet points... High point of the evening so far has been meeting Monika's new kitties, which were adorable, albeit slightly a bit more than my allergies could handle when I've been off my allergy meds for near a week. I miss my cats. I am overly ridiculously poor at the moment.

3/21/05

I am holy omg sleepy. Two nights in a row of very little sleep, hooray. Lead training got off to a decent start today, my little bro is making me proud, and my tickets to get to Ireland for the conference in July are all settled (thank goodness). Conference registration. Must do that tomorrow. For now, must sleep.

3/19/05

Well well well, aren't we cranky this morning. The weekend that I've been looking forward to for weeks, the weekend where I would not have to worry about school and could just enjoy myself, is going to suck. That's great. That's AWESOME. I'm so thrilled, and even construction starting at first light on a Saturday morning just makes everyting better.

I really just don't see any reason to even get out of bed.

I feel better. It's amazing what coffee and Mexican food do for my mood. And watching TV. Watching TV was key. Jeff's interested in buying a place permanently and just letting me pay him rent, and I think Monika got cats, the lucky girl. okay Life is apparently goodish. Who would have known, given my morning?

I am up at 4:00 am and crying. I just sent a letter that I could barely type through my tears and that I'm not 100% certain will ever be read. All I ask is that having sent it, I am allowed to stop trying to compose it in my head only to start sobbing. My eyes are tired, my face, tight with salt. The wind has been blowing fiercely since I finished reading my book, twenty minutes or so ago; it rattles the windowpanes every now and again and I fancy I can hear rain lashing against the glass, reflecting my mood and intensifying it.

Perhaps I will try, again, to sleep.

3/17/05

In a morning that I'm sure was ironic to some degree, I first nearly forgot that I had a Japanese final (seriously. I almost didn't go.), and then rocked through it in less than an hour. Take THAT, Japanese!

Seriously, though, I'm feeling very weirdly ambivalent about the whole JET rejection thing. On the one hand, I'm incredibly bummed, as I have a doomsday sort of "I'm never going to go" feeling now, and I have to start thinking about job and living situation, and this just proves I don't interview for shit, which stresses out the job part. Ick. On the other hand, I don't have to leave Seattle, which, bluntly, is awesome. I don't think nearly anyone I know quite knows what it feels like to prepare to leave their home for a foreign country for an extended period of time, with the possible exception of Brandon. It's scary as fuck and now I don't have to do it!

3/16/05

The letter came today. No JET program for me. Time to start job and apartment hunting, I guess.

At least the waiting and wondering are over.

3/15/05

I'm sad to realize just now that I let Pi Day slide by utterly without notice.

Of course, I'm rather sad in general tonight. I was doing fine today until a chance mention of my (sadly erstwhile) cats had me blinking away tears this afternoon; I held on all day after that until the drive home, and now I'm just feeling utterly destroyed. So many losses, so very many losses, and I believe it to be all in a greater cause, but that just doesn't ease the goddamn hurt. I'm only human after all, despite all my brave facings to the contrary.

If only I had a movie I could watch without memories, or a book I could read without concentration, or a shoulder to bury my face into without needing to say a word. But I don't, and so I scream out my unhappiness to all the Internet, because there's nothing in this empty, empty room to console me.

3/14/05

Project of DOOM handed in (dancing). I've still got a Japanese final, but pfft, whatever. That shit is merely a formality. On the other hand, I appear to have inadvertently over-scheduled myself for my week of finals-week freedom; gaming tomorrow night, seeing Monika on Wednesday night and then late dinner with the-cousin-I-never-see (and somewhere in those two days I should slot some time for Japanese final review... maybe), thought I'd cook dinner for Kelly and maybe Monika on Thursday before I remembered I'd promised Andrew some St. Paddy's fun (drunken cooking?) and thus boom, the week is done and over with. Whoops. See people on Friday, maybe-shopping on the weekend... some free time will emerge somewhere in hthere. I hope. My floor desperately needs to be vacuumed, if nothing else.

One final and one quarter now stand between me and graduation. It boggles the goddamn mind.

3/13/05

Long time, no talky. That's what happens around final project time. It would also be why I'm wired and feverishly working at 1 am on a Sunday night. But that's not what I am here to bitch about (because it'd take too long! The bitching would never cease!). No, I am popping online tonight to ask: What the hell happened to the Internet today? Did it break? My unique IPs for the day sank to 317 (normally I hover at around 1500 on weekdays and 1300 on weekends), my Google searches dropped to 27 from their normal range of 120+, and I logged basically no searches from other engines. I can't decide if I think that logging on zoggins totally barfed or if no one used the Internet today.

3/08/05

Moderate amount of "stuff" done. I find intensely amusing that it was completely necessary, no joke, to play Civ III for a few hours tonight, as I'd set up some scenarios that I needed to playtest a bit. Hooray for the games class!

I've not gone all happy about this yet, so I will now: The Fool made PC lead at work. And he's double majoring. And he's getting a minor. I'm so proud of him I could just die... or at least grab him up and hug him until he died.

Now, the background on this joy is long and storied, but here's the Cliff's Notes version. My little brother is just as smart as me, geeky in an utterly complementary way to my own ridiculousness, and has a hilarious sense of humor. I love him to bits. The problem? I apparently sucked all motivation away from him as we grew up, because damn. And people think I'm a slacker! He forgot to take the SATs. He forgot to turn in his college application after he finally remembered to take his SATs. He spent nearly four years after his high school graduation in an odd loop: take classes at community college for a quarter, work for a quarter, goof off for a quarter, rinse, gargle, and repeat. He was going less nowhere than some (okay, many) of our high school gamer friends, but so wasting his smarts and abilities that it physically pained me.

Fast forward to a night last spring when I'm at Big Time with Craig and Monika, and Bryce calls to let me know that he finally got his act together and would be transferring to the UW directly into the physics department (he had just completed his AS in physics... he's the only person I know to have majored in something for their associate's degree, and one of the very few people to get an AS instead of an AA), starting in the summer. Witness me screaming happily into my cell phone and then ranting ecstatically to my friends. Then skip again to Nepotism Day, where he interviewed with flying colors to join the lab staff at work (Brandon K's statement on him that day: "We are /SO/ hiring him. DUH. He's you! Except he's a guy!"). Observe him doing fabulously in his classes (at least when he's interested in the topic, natch) and impressing people right and left at work for the next several months. Jump again to a conversation on the phone a few weeks ago, where he told me he was going to be around for another two years because he'd decided to double major in geophysics and oh, by the way, had he told me he'd been working on a math minor? I thought my heart would burst. Hop again to him interviewing for PC lead two weeks ago, and getting snapped right up. He starts at Spring Break, having leapfrogged right back up where he's always belonged: as my peer and equal in all but experience (I'll always have a couple years on him, at least!).

I always maintained to everyone that once he figured his shit out, Bryce would blaze furiously into whatever he chose to do. I'm so incredibly proud to have been right.

A side note: I need to remember to talk, some other time, about how I'm living vicariously through him on the PC lead thing, and how I let my gender keep me down, lo those several years ago.

3/07/05

Blistering productivity one day, nothing the next. It's the way of things, I guess, but that doesn't mean that I'm not a tad stressed.

3/06/05

The ick has mostly gone away (I hope). The last few days have been spent as low-key as possible, to try to keep things that way. Lots of sleep, lots of lying down and watching television, lots of doing as much of nothing as I can, all in the name of keeping my system unstressed. I feel like it did me some good... on the other hand, now I have horrendous week from hell to try to get everything done. Ugh. I picked a good quarter to self-destruct, to be true, but that doesn't mean things are actually good in general.

Very much looking forward to the quarter reset.

Holy productivity, Batman. Certainly not enough to say I'm caught up or any nonsense like that, but I can at least go into my week without the heavy burden of impending doom that I've carried the last indefinite time period. But fuck me, it's 2:40 am and I should so get to sleep it's ridiculous, and so the things that I was considering speaking of shall go unwritten. My stupid whining page, my stupid rules.

3/03/05

I stayed home sick from school and work today after leaving early yesterday because I felt so crap. I'm feeling better, I suppose, but now I'm wary; last week, I thought I was better, too. It was good that I stayed home, I suppose; I was able to get several things done even while staying as non-active as possible, hopefully freeing myself up for a mad games push this weekend. (eep)

I have about four things that have been brewing in my head, but I'm really just far too tired to write them out at the moment. So instead I'll just hum contentedly about seeing Constantine tonight with Patrick and Craig, and savor my memories of dinner, and burrow into my bed and drift off to sleep.

3/01/05

Guh. Apparently stress plus too much to drink on Monday night plus still getting over sickness from last week plus slight anemia equals god damn it I'm sick again. Hooray complete fatigue and nausea. Awesome. At least in exchange, I got to spend a lovely evening curled up and watching movies. And lo, despite the sick, it was wonderful.