I am so fucking STRESSED. Nothing is ever simple. I have to go have my schedule changed tomorrow so I can fit that French class at Hope College in. Unfortunately, it's only offered at one o'clock in the afternoon, M W F, which falls directly between seventh and eighth hours on Mondays, and takes away my entire eighth hour the rest of the week. So that means no Physics. Not that I'm too heartbroken over not taking it, but I would like to have a fourth science credit on my transcript before heading off to college for good. Will I even get into college? I was quite disappointed with my ACT score from the summer. I know most any college would accept it, yet I know I can do better. But I can retake that any time. Still need to find the time to take the SAT maybe, if needed. Have to apply for a million scholarships. Have to fill out a pile of applications. Essays to write, people to call. My GPA is sinking lower and lower every year. I got my first C last year in FST (functions, statistics and trig). I'm down to a 3.85! I remember when I got straight A's without question, Little Miss Perfect 4.0. I guess those days are over with. Sometimes I just want to scream until my hair falls out with the frustration of everything being so hard. Why can't I just calm down?

It would be nice to know how to properly relax. Instead I find myself getting wound up over everything. Wound up because I have virtually nothing to do at work at the moment (ironic that this should be stressful). Wound up because my girlfriend is pissed off for some arbitrary reason that probably doesn't have anything to do with me. Wound up because I can barely find half an hour outside of work to sit down at home and just read in peace.

This has been the tone of my week. But things are looking up, for it is friday, and I can sleep in tomorrow. I probably won't though, because after many months of waiting I finally get my car this evening. I haven't driven in 18 months so it will be quite an interesting experience initially.

I wondered for a moment today why the hell I spend so much money on music. That thought passed quite quickly though. Now I can't wait to get home and listen to my new Badly Drawn Boy album.

Oooh, there's a positive review of my band's 7" on a webzine.. That's brightened my day considerably.

Factgirl's fact of the day:

The Guzman Prize is an award to the first person to make contact with beings from another planet (except Mars of course, that would be way too easy). The prize has been available since 1901 - and still has never been claimed - good luck to all you SETI@homers.

-it's a fact!

Exams for University courses done, must choose courses for fall, good god let me die, must mentally prepare to call this girl I know who continues to ignore me even though I'm part of her circle of friends and thus unignorable.

Today started out routine. Mom said she would be offline in a minute or two for about 4 hours. Then we left to go pick up my girlfriend, so NBD. Dropped by the village to check the PO Box. Both my mom and I were expecting stuff, my thinkgeek order isn't there, and her little box thingy isn't in. However, My free shirt from Cisco came in. It's an advertisement for their DSL equip, but its free. They only had XL though, hope it will fit after i have to wash it.

Fast Forward to later that afternoon, i made my girlfriend watch Forest Gump, because i think everyone should have to see that movie once in their life. I should have strapped her to a chair, just so i could say i did it, but whatever. Then we sat around mildly bored for awhile, ate food twice in the time she was here.

She gave me a devine backrub when my shoulders/blades died on me! I layed on the couch face down (should have been on the floor, but whatever), and she straddled me to rub my back. Ahhh. Finished up the night cuddling on the floor.

I haven't slept since my entry yesterday (and thanks for all the fish, folks!)

I thought I'd be noding like a mofo today, really honing my cone.

Change in plans when my roomie walks in and finally lets me start reading the new Harry Potter. He's been reading it ... s l o w l y ... since it came out, when, in 1968? People who read only on the stairmaster piss me off ... frown-ee face

I think I'm supposed to be looking for a job, or something.

Yesterday | Dizzy->Day_Logs() | Tomorrow

---

9:15 BST

Ouch

A friend of mine has broken his leg in a cycling race. It seems that he has sustained the same kind of injury I had several years ago: a compound fracture of his lower leg.

I really hope that this isn't true - This kind of injury, if not properly treated, can prevent you walking for months.

Door Etiquette

You and another person are on opposite sides of a door. The door opens towards them; the handle is on their side of the door. They are "first" to the door, but they are carrying a bag and several folders. If you push open the door, they will have to step back and push closely past you - possibly touching you as you are off balance holding the door open.

What's the best way to handle that?

10:35 BST

This is the first time I've been sitting at my desk for more than 10 minutes for over 2 weeks. It seems strange to have the time to hack some perl and java servlets.

I have been watching the show, Big Brother recently. (We have it over here in the UK now too.) In fact, I have not missed much of it in the last 3 weeks. Yesterday was really exciting.

A bit of background:
There is this guy called Nick. He is a bit too devious for the public (or the press) to like him. He has been dubbed 'Nasty' or 'Naughty' Nick because of his behaviour. Like what? Well there were rumours that he had a mobile phone (which is not allowed). He has been generally two faced, playing the other contestants off against each other and attempting to influence their nominations.

Early yesterday morning, it all came to a climax when a couple of the contestants started talking about how Nick had been suggesting that they nominate, which they didn't like. They checked his bag and found bits of paper with peoples names on. There was a confrontation the next day, and my god was it exciting. My heart was pounding. I don't feel sorry for Nick, but the tension of the situation really got to me. Anyway, he's been disqualified, and evicted from the house. This happened yesterday afternoon, although it has not yet been televised. The reasons for his disqualification are having paper and pencil in the house (not allowed), and attempting to influence nominations (definitely not allowed). It looked like he was ready to quit anyway, we'll se tonight I guess.

So, non TV news...
Yesterday I banged my head against a Java problem for a few hours. After a good fun debugging attempt, it was discovered that the AIX machine we were using was running 1.1.6. Upgrading to 1.1.8 fixed it immediately. How irritating. Similar problem was discovered on Solaris too. If you have a Solaris or AIX boxen then don't use anything before Java 1.1.8. However, don't be an upgrade weenie either.

My favorite day of the year. And that dream I keep having, driving up one way streets, then down them, missing that turn everytime, having to go all the way around again. Sometimes the street is way far ahead, other times I know we've overshot it. I think it's actually the two main streets that keep moving, not us, like a conveyor belt. And what a strange group of people in the car. It's that light blue Dodge again. I worked on one of those streets, how can I keep missing the damn turn, and she, she lives on one of them, and who the hell is driving anyway, because it just seems like all five of us are stuffed in the back seat. Anyone for Thai? I know this great joint on the left here as we're going North, but, DAMN! Missed it again....let's go get some forties....they don't usually card here.......

Happy Birthday, to a person who talks a good game, and plays an even better one. You know who you are, just don't let them hold you down and check your wallet. You'll be good for another year.

13:05 EET

Yay! The weekend is closing in!
Why the hell was I in such a bad mood yesterday? Things aren't that bad. My problems are nothing a little friday euphoria couldn't cure.
Yes, I'm feeling great today. Of course it would be even better if I actually had something to do over the weekend, but that has never stopped me from having a good time. My best friend is leaving for the Finnish fireworks championship held in Helsinki, and naturally won't take me along. Oh well. I'm used to being alone.

Damn, I really wish a certain fellow employee would stop whistling. He's a nice guy and all, but his loud and off-key whistling really annoys me. Thankfully he has cut it down in the last six months, but still.. whine.. groan...

Time to do some actual work here. I'll be back.

Today's Writeups
ARP 2600 | ARP Solina String | EQ | Equalization | Roland RE-20 Space Echo

Nodekeeping
ARP Instruments | Finland Metanode | Roland

Work:
Today should be easy.
Last week I had (literally) 19 coding projects that I was working on. Ranging from esoteric automation of database stuff to web sites to the stupid intranet. I hate working on stuff that no one gets, and the intranet is used by people that don't understand computers or the web at all.

It was paralyzing. I could never figure out what I should work on. Should I bang my head against uber-important x for three hours since I don't really know how I am going to do it, or do I spew out tasks y, z, and n, which are pointless and only going to be used once or twice? Do I work on the minor changes to finished projects or complete the ones I am working on?

I couldn't do anything, because I had too much to do.
So, my boss and project manager decided that I would only have two projects per week. One for the intranet, for my boss, and one for the web, for my project leader/management trainee. When I am done with either one, I just start on something else that they assign.

Well, I am done with both for this week, and they won't give me anything more probably until next Wednesday. Today I can just coast.

Note to young everythingians:
Being an adult is not always more fun than being a kid. Most of the time it is, but sometimes you have to do really crappy things, like yelling at your children because they are doing something that could hurt them. It breaks my heart when I make my daughter cry, but I have to to shape her into a decent person.

I had the lovely talented and vivacious little Allison over to my place last night, where I made English Muffin Pizzas for the two of us. She seemed to be impressed with my cooking skills. We bad mouthed our ex's and listened to some MP3's. A typical night for the two of us.
She also brought me an old motherboard that she came across while cleaning her house. She didn't even know she had it. It's an ATX, with an AMD K6II 350 on it, it will be perfect to be my new Linux machine.
We said goodbye at 1:25am and here it is, just a few short hours later. I'm tired, yet, in an unusually good mood. Why? It's Friday, and better than that IT'S PAYDAY!

Splendid start to this sunny friday, found some forgotten about feta cheese and hummus in the fridge and made me a really tasty sandwich for breakfast with mild peppers and marinated garlic to top it off. The coffee got just perfect and raised my expectations for a splendid day.

Unfortunately these expectations had to crash and burn just a few minutes later, when I decided to pump up the tires of my bike at the nearby gas station.

My mind elsewhere, still being pleased about how the day started off and still sensing the lingering garlicky taste of the sandwich, I didnīt notice that the tire got overloaded and suddenly it exploaded, going off with a BANG! right in my face. The little brown dog on the corner yelped and was led away by an angry looking owner.

From this moment on everything I attempt to do at the lab gets screwed up.

Jinxed by an exploading tire.

I FELL ASLEEP WITH MY CONTACTS IN!!!

Arrrgh.

Repeat: Arrgh.

I got lucky. I got really lucky. Things could have been much, MUCH worse. I woke up this morning and went out into the suite's common room. I wondered why everything looked so beautiful that morning, I could see everything in complete clarity. Maybe because it was a Friday. Hopped into the shower, and noticed that I could read the title of a magazine in the bin (duPont Registry). Funny, I could never read text that small before. I wondered if my eyes somehow got miraculously better overnight, but then realized the truth. I paniced. Went into the adjacent room. Sure enough, I found my contact lens bottle and container.

With the lids off

Shit.

My eyes felt fine at the time, so I wasn't sure whether or not to take out the lenses or keep them in. I had talked to a friend of mine a few weeks back who said that he had left his in for around 4 hours while sleeping, and developed a really nasty corneal ulcer, and now has to go for a few months without them. The most I've ever slept with them in was 2-3 hours. Never a full night's sleep with them in before. Never 24 hours straight. How bad were my eyes damaged?

I was afraid to take them off. I knew I had to. They came off easily, probably because the steam from the shower hydrated the contacts a bit. Now, it feels funny when I blink. My eyes are dry. My glasses are on. I'm not in a good mood. But I've done my research, and was able to do a few writeups on it. See What happens when you leave your contact lenses in for too long?.

9:42 AM EST - Well, if it weren't for the little scare I had this morning, I would have to say that this is one of the best Fridays to come rolling along in quite a long while. Yesterday's trip down to D.C. was great. The Metroliner is one of the best ways of getting around -- $178 round trip from Philly to D.C., by train. I doubt it would have costed much more to fly there. Of course, being a business trip, I didn't pay for it.

And after all was said and done, I returned with freeze-dried ice cream. Excellent.

There was a little baby fly just now was I turned the computer speaker's off and replaced them with headphones. Reaching behind the computer I need only slide my fingers across the first few holes on the soundcard to find the one I'm looking for. I like that there is this thing, this human memory. I was pondering this yesterday, as well, whilst I was working.

Walking up and down walls (across, would be a more appropriate term perhaps), I counted the studs, that is to say the wood that makes up a wall for those who are unfamiliar with the term for whatever reason. I closed my eyes and walked letting my fingers trail along the wall to feel the spaces and their ends. It seemed I could stop just before I would have walked into the wall, but it took much to trust my memory, for some reason. The first few times I opened my eyes before the wall, thinking that I'd hit it, though I was moving slowly and it wouldn't have hurt, regardless, but still.. no real trust. Is that to say, I don't trust myself? That's probably accurate.

There is absolutely nothing dreamier to me than the smells of a house being built. There is the lumber, fresh cement, dusty gravel, the insulation (but the fibre glass type, not polyurethane).. it all has a smell to it that I am in love with. This is probably because of my dad and the fact that it reminds me of my childhood. I just love walking around in a house that has no walls yet.. or even one that has rough walls in, drywall takes away from it though. I think one day that I might like to live in a house with nothing but the outside walls intact.

I don't intend to be a burden today, through whatever means, on the world as a whole. Thusly, I will trap some of my thought'y matter inside, perhaps indefinitely.

I am so infinitely tired of people reading over my shoulder.. I hate it. They stand behind me and I don't know they're there because I've headphones on and hear very little. I hate the intense invasion of privacy that results. I don't want some people to read some things, I don't want others near me at all sometimes. I wish everyone would stop sneaking up behind me and peering into pieces of my life that I don't want them to..

song in head: build me up buttercup. (why?)

So, about 900 T3s went down last night in Verizon territory. Hmm. I wonder how that happened?

The gross person isn't sitting at my desk anymore! It's amazing how loose cables can deter.

At work, there is a red fingernail at the bottom of a stairwell. It's been there for days.

Someone photographed my tattoo at DEFCON, and now I'm sort of worried about the whereabouts of said photograph. Is it pinned up in his cubicle? Is someone else going to get the same tattoo now? Maybe he's just into math. Sheesh. I worried about it at the time, but what the hell.

Paranoia

I've said too much already! /me looks around furtively......

Y left for two days. :(
I'm going to sleep.

Well, for those of you following the saga (hah) of my life (see my last daylog, August 10, 2000), I am still married. We talked things out that night, and I think I got through to him. I'm still not sure if it will change things though. In fact, he still did truck things on Friday and Monday. So I guess things haven't changed, but he knows how I feel and he does seem to be making more of an effort to consider me before making his own plans.

Blah! Maybe if I just ignore things again....

I am tired of being too busy at work. This has been the first chance to do some noding since the 10th, and I really only have time to do this daylog. What about my Jimmy Buffett nodes? Do they miss me? I miss them - those happy little nodes about other people and their lives. Maybe I'll sneak one in later.

Currently listening to Phat Blues Music.

I would scream you a love song, but I might make too much noise
But sometimes you can't be heard, unless you raise your voice.

---

I did manage to node a Buffett tune! Yay me!

TODAY IS MY LAST DAY OF WORK

I must use my mad NT skills to strip any trace of my existence from this machine. the secret of E2 must not be revealed.

I MOVE BACK TO MICHIGAN on SUNDAY

Freakin me out man. I don't know if the car can fit it all, but dear God, it's going to anyways!

/me HAS A SLEEPING BUDDY

Despite having "broken up" or whatever due to the whole us moving thing, we're still sleeping in the same bed for the next couple days. in a platonic sort of way... I think. err...

technically, there are over eight hours until i can go home. i have many slightly non-obligatory obligations, which don't sound too bad i guess, but those are really the worst kind. they're the worst because the fact that you have a choice but no choice which choice to choose places all the burden on you. i'm stuck at work. i hate having to pretend to be busy when there's just not a bloody thing left for me to do. they don't even need me here today. this whole week has been a joke. it's my last day, and i should be in a celebratory mood but i am not. i don't care. really. i'm finding it hard to care about anything today.

example: my back itches. i can't bear to move my hand enough to scratch it.

my boyfriend just called me, and had nothing to say. i thought, with some irritation: why did you call if you had nothing to say? did you call me out of some non-obligatory obligation? and then: why am i always an obligation?

i don't like feeling like an obligation. i don't think i fit very many places. my thought of the day is that most of the time, when i'm standing somewhere, it's just by the good graces of the other people around that i do not spontaneously combust. i had a spontaneous-combusty few minutes last night. unfortunately, it was obvious. either i'm slipping, or the people around me are just more sensitive than they used to be. or they're different people. or i'm just a pain in the ass. *laughs*

there's a quote that jen has written on a sticky note and pasted to the rolodex in this cubicle. it makes me feel better whenever i look at it.

the instant made eternity.
--robert browning

It's over.

Today's the last day of work. No big fanfare as far as I can tell. There have been a few people wishing me good luck and stuff, which is nice. Overall though, its been a slow and boring day, which is good.

It is raining outside today, and today my company had a little summer carnival outside. It was planned for a month, and of course, today happens to be the first day in about 40 days that it rains. We stood around outside waiting to dunk our bosses in the dunk tank eating hotdogs with soggy buns. I wish I had remembered my coat.

I've decided that I'm not going to do any more work today. I am going to spend the next 90 minutes sitting here with my phone off the hook enjoying my CD on headphones. Actually, I should probably go over to HR and turn in my door key and such. Not yet though. I'm going to enjoy the quiet and stillness in the corner for a while longer.

Nodes That I Wrote Today:
(last night at home) I don't know everything
(last night at home) "Evil is a real growing market"

CD's I've Listened To Today:
Tracy Chapman - self titled
Elliot Smith - XO
Depeche Mode - Ultra

Today's Horoscope on my Calendar - You hit the motherlode as the Moon enters Aries and aligns with five planets. Rams can find happiness and worldly success - thanks to hard work and good fortune. Don't slack off in your efforts. You will be rewarded.

I'll be working for somebody else, until I'm in my grave.

Everything Day Logs
Yesterday | Tomorrow

Everything Snapshot

Time: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 23:58:15 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_perl/1.21_03-dev
Number of nodes: 659418 (1468 new since August 17, 2000)
Number of users: 18110 (45 new since August 17, 2000)
Number of links: 3078390 (23265 new since August 17, 2000)

Node to user ratio: 36.412 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.668 links per node
Link to user ratio: 169.983 links per user

New Nodes: [Mr. Anderson] [Phat Ceramic] [DMan is a tool of the International Communist Party!] [Elements I.1] [The Avignon Quintet] [e-verything] [Take Ecstasy With Me] [multifunctional] [