Maybe I've been here before / I know this room, I've walked this floor Having a good visit home.
Busy though, so I apologize to everyone I haven't contacted about getting together, etc. Went to Sbbn's wedding today... it was great, but all I have to say is this: Hallelujah by Rufus Wainwright is not a wedding song. I'm just sayin.
Anyway. Must eat food. And stuff. Going to Memphis tomorrow, Home wednesday.
Back at work full time, starting today. Yay for work!
Finished my First Year Project Paper last night at about 7pm. Also finished my stats final, and ran the exams I need to grade through the scantron machine. Double yay for being done!
Played more lotr online... not sure if I like it or not, but I can't stop playing. :-)
Fixin to start playing in a d20 future campaign. Have almost zero workable character ideas. If you have any ideas of dynamic female hero-type people I can model after, by all means let me know. Out of the running already: Lara Croft (already done), Tank Girl, and Ameila Peabody (couldn't seem to figure out how to port her from 1900's to the 2100's), and Grace Hopper (because, alas, computer scientists aren't heroes). I am severly lacking in inspiration.
Someone asked me on Friday if I could live anywhere, where would I live? I shocked an entire table of people by saying I'd live in north central Mississippi. Apparently, this is weird, as no one actually wants to live in Mississippi.
I miss Abner's chicken, and lots of otehr back home food, but I'll be back in the south somewhere around the 25th of this month... in Memphis for a couple of days, Maybe Thursday evening through Sunday morningish, then in Huntsville part of Sunday, all of Monday, and maybe part/all of Tuesday. Yay for travelling!
I had to learn the hard way... Um. So yeah, Bob the Builder. But now, make that a midget pr0n version of Bob the Builder. (Someone warned me that this existed, and I didn't believe them. I had to see it for myself, which was probably dumb, and has probably scarred Chad for life).
Anyway. Had a great night tonight. Ate dinner (ribs and chicken) with David and Nichole, went to see Night at the Museum, almost ate donuts, and now I'm killing itme on the internet, proving to myself that mankind truely has descended to a point where people find a reason to post pictures of midgets wearing bob the builder hats and posing in um, very interesting positions. I'm just saying, I didn't think we'd fallen quite that far yet... but I was wrong. The intarweb is a strange and scary place. And on that note (and before I see anything else scary or wrong), I'm going to bed.
It's funny what you know and still go on pretending With no good evidence you'll ever see that happy ending
Christmas in Huntsville So... made it to Huntsville. Had christmas with the cousins. Fixin' to get some sleep, then tomorrow have christmas with the parents/siblings, eat yummy breakfast (biscuits and gravy, and Robbie is cooking the gravy... mmmm), eating yummy lunch (grilled cheese, cooked by Mandie), and eating yummy dinner (ham, which will claim to be cooked by mom but will relaly be cooked by a joint effort of the entire family, minus mom, who will boil some water or something). Have you noticed a theme here? :-)
Should be relatively free on the 28th, 29th, and 30th (although we're taking family pictures sometime in there, and we still have christmas with one grandmother to schedule). Leaving on the 31st.
While we pray to the god of the lesser things... I talked to my mom last night... which is always interesting. Apparently, Chad and I have caused a stir with the relatives (that is to say, my dad's relatives) by not planning to be in Huntsville on December 25th. So now, the whole world (which is to say, the Glasscocks, the Jacksons, and the Cambpells) is in an uproar, and Christmas is in the process of being moved. To some unknown time. I have an equation for this...
(5 Glasscocks + 5 Jacksons + 2 Campbells + 2 Hammons) = (10 fulltime jobs + 4 part time jobs + 3 full time students + 1 business owner + 5 sets of in-laws) = impossible to find a time when we can all be together.
My mother seesm to think I really have my life in order, too, which is funny... I guess she just sees her little girl, grown-up, married, owning a house and going to school somewhere that no normal person can afford (hell, I can barely afford it, and I'm not paying tution). And I see... I don't know. Someone who's still wondering how she got a license to be a "grown-up" in the first place... I mean, who really thought that was a good idea? Someday, someone will figure out that I'm really a little kid running around pretending to be a grown-up... and they will revoke my grown-up card. And then where will I be?
I guess talking to my mother makes me introspective or something... who knows.
So I finished my final paper for I/O at like, 11:30 or so last night. Yay for meeting deadlines (by the skin of my teeth, but still). And now I have to go turn it in... this is the last week of class. Yay! (or something).
Um.... yeah. interesting image from PostSecret, sums up my thought on lots of things.
And the lyrics (or portions of them) from the song I took my title from.... one my mind since the wind has been blowing like crazy (cold wind, too.... brrrr).
It looks a lot like givin' up Peace we bring is a bitter cup Set our bodies down like offerings While we pray to the god of lesser things
If the wind should shake this house apart The cradle hits the ground with a broken heart Will we say we never knew a thing? While we pray to the god of the lesser things
Ash to ash and dust to dust Steel on steel or rain to rust What mortal breath blood money brings Forth from the altar of the lesser things ~ Jars of Clay
Blah. So we're leaving for Huntsville tonight, after I get home from work. We might stop partway and spend the night somewhere, but not sure. We threw enough stuff in the suitcase last night to last us the weekend... And Chad's supposed to be calling the neighbor to see if she can watch the animals.
Ran to Huntsville for like, 30-something hours. Saw my sister graduate. And came home. (Also saw David and Nichole for like, 20 minutes... the only thing we chose to do all weekend) :)
Then spent a Saturday at Sixflags (while trying not to die of the worst head cold evar). Had an ok time, ate a corn dog (yay for corn dogs), and some cotton candy (but not as much as I wanted).
Friday, I'm going to a conference on Human Factors at Rice. The nSaturday we're going to Memphis, and we'll be ther until sometime Monday.
Rediscovered facebook. it is teh awesome. Found lots of old high school friends (and middle school friends, and elementary school friends)... having a good time messaging back and forth with them. Also re-connected with some college friends (or at least let them know I was still alive). Peer pressured Chad into being on facebook... working on some other people. :-)
I need more sleep, as usual, and more hours in the day.
Chad and I finally got our Thanksgiving planning done a couple weeks ago. Now we're trying to get the Christmas planning done... which is amazingly complicated. And made more amazingly complicated by the fact that we have to move at some point during the holidays. And we have to at least start looking for a place to live. And Chad has to be here for some finite amount of time to prepare a conference paper.
Crazy.
So the plans, thus far, look like this: For Christmas, we will be in Huntsville for a couple of days either before or after Christmas, no idea which. And we'll be in Memphis for a couple of days including Christmas day and Christmas Eve night. We'll be in Houston probably right after graduation, for like, two days. And we'll officially leave for Houston... sometime. Maybe before or after Chad's conference thingy, but I'm not (exactly) sure when that is.
We'l be in Starkville this coming weekend, and Memphis (for a ball game) the next weekend... Then Thankgiving, which I'm not even going to talk about.
I survived the beginning of the week. No more (extensive) homework due this week. CSI, here I come (if the next disc actually comes today). *sings and dances* Whoooooo are you... doot doo, doot doo... *stops singing*
I really shouldn't sing in class.
In other news, my trip home this weekend was pretty cool even if all the cool people I know in Huntsville skipped town. Like an anniversary is a good reason to go out of town. Really. But I digress. Chad and I hung out with my mom at work (and got hassled by the rest of the staff about not having kids yet). And we kept my brother up way too late when he had to work the next day (two night in a row). And we went to the Mall, and Best Buy, and Krystals (all places we must go when we visit Huntsville). And we played Risk 2210 (Chad won). And we discussed random money schemes with my Dad. But we did not watch the Reduced Shakespeare Company's Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged), or Asterix and Obelix vs. Caeser. And we did not do homework. Which bit us (me) in the butt yesterday and today.
heh. I love Christmas break. No more spending my break rushing to drive siblings and parents to work at awful hours of the morning (and then go to work myself)... no, this year I stay up all night playing videogames... and sleep all day. Very very nice. I haven't had time to really play video games since.... before midterms. *sigh*.
And now the moment you have all been waiting for (or not)... my thoughts on Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Actually, I like it. Which is good, since i went through Hell, two Wal-marts and a Best Buy to get it (I am begining to think that hell and Wal-mart resemble each other somewhat...). But I digress. The new combat system.... is ok. I like it, I manage to kick butt with it (most of the time). I guess they couldn't manage the exploding menu thing from the first one on the GBA. But they worked the card system into the plot very nicely. The plot is also very cool, at least as far as I've gotten in it (I'm between the 10th and 11th floors, there are 13). And rumor has it that once I beat the game as Sora I can play the Riku part of the game (which is different than Sora's game). This makes me happy. As far as time spent... it's about an hour a floor for the lower floors, about an hour and a half for the upper floors so far, and about 15 minutes for the Winnie the Pooh floor. I think I've spent about 12 hours on my ten floors. All in all, I think the game is success (but not sure how well everyone else liked it... Chad hates the card system).
In other news, Chad and I are in Huntsville for another couple of days. We're leaving the 23rd or 24th. And we'll be going to Memphis for a week or so, then home... For school to start :-) (I have to finish Kingdome Hearts before then).
Anyway, gotta run now... need to like, visit with my family or something. :-)
Plans have changed, yet again. We will be extending our tour of Huntsville this week in order to replace / do repairs on parts of Chad's Intrepid's cooling system. Which failed today, though not spectacularly (like, nothing acutally blew up or melted, thank goodness). Car + repairs = -$$$. Sucks. But, it might not be too much, we hope, if the problem is what we think it is, which it might not be.
So. No spiffy cool setting up Linux boxes or rearranging the apartment for me tomorrow. Chillin in Huntsville. Not at the Holiday Inn, either. *sigh*. So, if you happen to be in Huntsville and are bored, call/e-mail and we might can hook something up. If you're in Starkville and you're bored... sorry? I'll be back in a few days :-)
On to local news: there are some cool new things apearing in Starkville this year... among them Lowes (where the old Wal-mart was... they leveled it... left Penny's and Kroger there, though)... and Zaxby's Chicken (which I might could convince Chad to try, although I'm sure it won't replace Abner's). And Mississippi has new driver's licenses. They are green. And I have one, with my new name and everything. And... um... that's about everything going on in the world of Starkville. School starts the 18th, which should be cool and all... I still need a job, but I might have something lined up the the ERC (engineering research center, not the teacher thing) :-) We'll see. I should know by the time school starts.
Chad's rejoining the band this year, which means a couple of cool things and a couple of "eh" things (but over all cool)... I get to go on the band trips and stuff, as it is mean to seperate married people and such... I've been offered some work down at the band hall if I really need it... I have an excuse to go to all the games (now if I have time....)... and we're spending Thanksgiving Day in Oxford. But... that doubles for a good excuse not to spend it with either family, and for me to cook a turkey and lots of other food on Wednesday. Yay!
Honeymoon. It was great. We spent a couple days in New Orleans, and ate lots of cool places... walked down Burbon Street a few times... hung out and enjoyed the creepyness of the town... and needed about another month to do everything we wanted to. I have pictures, and since I've got some down time, they may make it online pretty soon... we'll see. Then we got on a boat (read: ship), and had a great time there, too. We boarded at like, 1pm, and started eating, and finished eating about 9am the day we had to get off the boat. We ate a wonderful five course meal every night, shared a bottle of champange with our table the last night, ate breakfast and lunch at least twice every day, and drank so much diet coke and sprite it's a wonder we didn't float away. We spent a day in Cozumel, Mexico, which was awesome. We went snorkeling (cool), and scuba diving (really awesome!). Scuba diving pictures may be online, too, if I can get my new super spiffy scanner (bought with Best Buy gift cards from my Aunt Dorinne and the NASAexplores team) set up and scan them... then we went shopping, and brought home two bottle of Kahlua, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a huge block of Cadbury chocolate, various souvenier things for our siblings, color change nail polish (it really does change color in the sunlight, too!), shot glasses for Chad's collection, and a stone pig for mine. The alcohol was really the best deal, which is why Chad agreed to bring it home. :-) All in all, we had a wonderful time. And we were exhausted by the time we got back (because we weren't allowed to bring out LiveWire on the boat!), except we ended up driving up to Southaven, as they were still heming and hawing about painting the apartment. I think it's all done now, though...
And I have been drinking lots and lots of LiveWire, due to the four boxes of it in the office :-) Unfortunately, it's in the office in Starkville... and I'm not. No LiveWire for me. *sigh*
Anyway. I guess since I'm here for another day, I should go socialize with my family or something. ;-)
Ok... back in huntsville, cooling my heels in town, trying to get wedding stuff done. Yeah.
Gripe of the moment: The entire world is on an Atkin's Diet kick.... low (or no) carb, high protien.... which is ok, I guess, for most people. But. As one of the apparently five people in the world *not* on the atkin's Diet.... enough. I am sick of eating out and being asked if I want to low carb alternative to my food, or whatever. Alcohol is even low carb now.... Bacardi and Diet Coke? I mean really. It is great that there are lots more low carb alternatives out there... I just am tired of them being in my face all the time. I want to be able to eat a bowl of pasta at a resteraunt without feeling guilty because it itn't labeled "smart eating" (like the 16-oz steak). Blah.
Anyway. Better now. If I can survive a week at home, I'll be doing great! :-)
Interesting. Blogger looks much different than it did this morning... maybe it's cause I'm on a mac. but I doubt it. I think they changed something and didn't tell me. hmph.
Anyway. So.... About life since the blog went down.
I am still not entirely well... but, as of yet, the docotrs aren't going to do anything about it. I go see the surgeon on the 8th (Monday), but he probably won't do anything either. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to think good thoughts and concentrate on getting better, all while maintaining a decent gpa and getting 8-10 hours of sleep a night. Ha. Ha. Ha.
So I'm doing ok grade wise this semester... I'm a little behind, but catching up fast... I haven't missed a due date for anything yet *knocks on desk* And I got 100 on both my first quiz of the year, and my first programming assignment (the Python one)... which makes me very happy.
Having Chad in town is really nice... not that we see that much more of each other :-) His work schedule and my class schedule are at odds at the moment... but it's all good. It's interesting adjusting to having him back...
Dad is doing his last (we hope) round of chemo this week... we'll know by the end of this week or next week whether its working, and what they want to do next.
Underworld comes out in a couple weeks... I'm psyched about that :-) Chad's happy because there's a movie I actually want to go see... I'm happy becase it's all about vampires and stuff... everybody's happy.
I think I'm going on an interesting outing this weekend... minus Chad, who will prolly go home to Memphis. I also have to go home sometime this weekend (like, saturday or Sunday) so I'm home for my appt. on Monday. This will also entail missing all of my classes Monday... but may allow me to vote in Tuesday's election, like, not by absentee. That would be fun. Unless they decide to cut me open or something, I should be back for class on Tuesday (I don't have class until 11)... which is good, because Dr. Clifford will hate me forever if I miss class. And we don't want our teachers to hate us.
anyway.... I must run and do homework. Some more. For like, forever. Or at least until 7 or so... then I get to go to Wesley. And after Wesley.... more homework. Yay.
Dude... I have missed so many good quotes by not having my blog up. you have no idea. *sigh* I'll have to see if I can catch up. Today's quote:
Ok, Starkville peoples.... is this worth a weekend in Huntsville? (Look especially at the 1st Baptist/Golden Rule stage). Lemme know if we should plan for a road trip....
No, I’m not dead… I’m home for break, which is close, I suppose. So here’s a rundown of what’s going on in my life:
Family wise, I guess everything is ok. My Granny is home from the hospital… but it looks like we’re going to have to hire someone to watch her… Aunt Dorinne can’t do it all the time, and Granny has no awareness of the fact that she can’t just get up and do things, like walk without a walker, or go downstairs. We’re still trying to figure out what we’re going to do for Christmas Eve at her house… I know we’re eating dinner, but I have a feeling it won’t be the 4-6 hours thing it usually is.
Personally… life is ok. I’m working, trying to juggle my work hours with my family life and Chad time (sounds suspiciously like the real world, huh?). Work is nice… I have a cushy government job, which means I’ve worked two and a half days this weeks so far, and two days of that were spent in meetings and Christmas parties. And now I’m blogging. Yay for me! Chad is coming to visit sometime Christmas day… not sure what time yet, but hopefully by 2 or so, to be in time for dinner. And Presents…. I got Chad the coolest thing… at least, I think it’s cool… I hope he does.
School… Well, school actually got a lot more interesting in the last few days. Weird, but interesting. So here’s how everything played out: I was really upset over this whole circuits thing… went to Nosser’s office, I bawled all over the place, nothing happened with my grade, he couldn’t do anything. So he calmed me down and reminded me that God is still in control… and told me to drop all my courses that depended on Circuits and sign up for half ECE and half CS courses for next semester. So I did. And I stressed a lot. But I looked more into CS, and learned what cool courses I can take if I go that route (AI, Computer Forensics, Software Engineering, stuff like that). I looked at taking 4+ semesters of straight hardware courses in a department that is known for failing students… or 3 semesters of programming courses in a department that is at least somewhat more cordial. And I decided that the CS route wouldn’t be that bad, I would enjoy it more, and I would get out on time.
Then I got a flood of e-mails from Hamaker saying that due to a misprint on the syllabus, I actually have a C in the course. Which means I could, with some schedule tweaking, still go engineering. But the question now becomes this: is the word engineer (it’s not even a title) worth 3+ semesters of hell in the ECE department, taking courses I don’t particularly like from professors that don’t want to be there? What does it mean to be and “engineer” as opposed to a “scientist”? Am I copping out by taking the CS route?
My life is suddenly more complicated. I hate complicated.
Chad said he would make my decisions if I made his…. So I told him he was coming to State *grin* But he didn’t make my decision yet…
school is finally over. But somehow, I'm still behind. Blah. Ok, so this was my week last week:
Monday: I have no clue what I did, but I think it involved finals. Two, If I'm not mistaken. Oh yeah, i attempted to start packing and cleaning... and I have a vauge rememberance of being extremely busy, but i have no clue exactly why. hmmm.... Oh yeah, I went to Wal-mart, too.
Tuesday: Spent the morning coooking spagetti sauce. took a karate final (made an A) :-) Went to William's, made lasagna with the spagetti sauce i had made that morning (Yep, that's me... June Cleaver). Ate dinner, hung out with William, watched office space, stayed out late.
Wednesday: Took a final, and then packed and cleaned until I was (literally) sick. Went to dinner with Ian and ELisa, watched Ocean's 11. Went to bed. Elisa ran a red light :-)
Thursday: Got up early, Mom and mandie picked me up at school. We loaded all my crap into the van, went to lunch at Oby's, did some shopping, and headed home. As soon as I got home, turned around and left again to go to a baby shower for one of mom's friends.
Friday: Got up, organized dad's dvd collection. Woke the kids up, started unpacking my stuff out of the van, into the living room (because my sister took over my half of everything... the room, the closet, the dresser. grr). Mom and I went shopping... Then I did some laundry (after I dug my way into the laundry room... I swear, no one does it while I'm gone). Then it was time to get ready for Robbie's Varsity Banquet. So I showered, dressed, and we left for the banquet. Brag time: Rob completed his manuel and four electives... about 2 1/2 years work... all this year. :-) I ran into Joseph Bearden... Hadn't seen him in ages. College seems to have done him good... he doens't seem nearly as shy and frail as he used to. anyway... we had a good chat. Everyone told me I looked good, and how much they had missed me, and asked me how school was, yada yada. And I didn't even have to make a speech :-)
Saturday: More shopping, more laundry, and more Awards banquet. This time it was Mandie's Junior Varsity Banquet. Brag time: Mandie finished the requirements for her Meritorious Award this year... That means she's completed more than six years worth of handbooks. :-) Nothing terribly interesting happened that night...
Sunday: Mother's Day. Went to church, went to dinner with Mom and Granny and Grandmother, smiled till my face hurt. Came home, cleaned out closets, did *more* laundry, moved a second dresser into my room, so i would have a place to put my clothes... folded laundry while watching Fifth Element... contemplated hammering things into the wall, decided to go to be bed instead.
Today: Got up early for work... had to put water in the radiator of dad's car... it leaks. Again. grr. Had to stop by the hospital and pick up my lisence plate, which dad forgot to put on the car. Parked in the tower, only to find out that I couldn't get out without a validation or an employee badge... couldn't find daddy... had to go upstairs and get mom, who was just getting off a 12 hour shift and was pretty tried and a little short tempered... so she helped me get a screwdriver from dad's office, and let me out of the tower... but not before yelling at me and dad (when he showed up) for awhile. So I finally made it out, got to work, got caught up with what's happening here. My cube is in the back corner of the office now (yes, I still have a cube) and it's really quiet. They may move me again in a couple of days. And I htink someone took my stapler. :-) I've been working on a reading list all day long. Hopefully I'll finish the reasearch part of it tomorrow, and can start formatting and coding it.
FYI -- I'm putting a link to William's blog on my page for my benifit... but his page requires a user name and password. If you really want to read his blog, you can e-mail him and ask him for access. :-)
And on that note, I'm going to get back to work. Or something like that.
Oh yeah, for those enquiring minds: I actually did manage to pass everything this semester. Even my evil physics class. :-) Yay for me.
This is my brain..... in part, at least.
