It's 1:15am here and already I have received news that makes my day complete. One month ago, my very close friend Susie (not her real name) collapsed while doing Honours work in a cancer research lab. She was rushed to hospital and underwent a CT scan. What they found was that she had a brain tumour.

Now this is bad enough in itself. However, this was an additional problem on top of the other problems that Susie has experienced in the past three years that I have known her. These include: being date raped, sisters being annorexic, dad has terminal stomach cancer, missed out on tranferring to Vet Science at uni by 0.01%, her family farm being totally destroyed by floods, having no money (and I mean *no* money), having a nasal passage problem that caused breathing problems. Frankly I think most people would be unable to survive the torrent of problems that Susie has suffered.

As of 12.45am, I have just found out that Susie underwent a MRI scan and the results are: the brain tumour is benign and it's not big enough to be a worry at this point. Susie has to take medication to prevent the seizures, but that is it - this beats having to have brain surgery to remove the tumour. On top of this, Susie got accepted to Vet for 2001!!

This news doesn't have much to do with E2 directly, but I am so happy for Susie that I needed an outlet to express it. Jumping around shouting in mutal happiness gets tiring after a while! Way to go Susie!!!

From now on its just the name of the person of whom received the flower:
Name: Oscar Rios Ortis
Born: July 29, 1958
Death: March 7, 1959

^* = Something that happened that I didn't mind but still leaves butterflies and pain in my stomach.

Today I got to class late, yet again. Spanish 2, the professor speaks nothing but spanish. I am clueless. He asked me questions and I stared at him with a blank expression.

American Heritage: if taking 6 pages of notes where the professor is just talking the whole time without stops is fun for you, then you would have loved today.

U.S. Government, maybe the only class I really like. The teacher makes it fun with his kooky attitude and silly pants.
^*A girl sat next to me that smelled just like another girl I used to know. I felt as though I could turn to look at her and she'd be there. But I turned and she wasn't. Oh how I miss that girl...

I had a meeting with my advisor at 12:10.
^* I saw a friend from along the way, she gave me the "mask" eyes (where they circle their eyes with their hands) and I said, "Hey." She was off to a meeting herself and I had to sadly decline. Oh how I wanted to go.......but couldn't.

My advisor advised me to see someone else, so I did. I got help from 3 different advisors and finished. I walked off to get my transcripts...

^* On the way out of the door I spotted my ex girlfriend. My heart went thumping away and I tried to do something else. I badly wanted to talk to her. I ended up right behind her and kicked her. Not a hard kick, I just kicked her backpack. She shrieked, "HEY R.J.!" and pushed me off the sidewalk. :P She always does fun things like that. We talked for a little while: she went down a different path. As we parted she yelled, "Call me!" I sighed, damn her...

I got my transcript and went to class, my professor is from Russia. I understand her quite well but I took no notes, I was advised to drop that class. Afterwards we talked and she told me that I did not even need to be wasting my money and time on her class, she said that I should be in Calculus. But I don't want to be, so I think I'll take pre-calculus.

^* On the way to work from Math class I was talking to a friend of mine that I had for Spanish when the first friend that passed me passed me again. I gave her the "hey!" look and she didn't care and walked past. All I've thought of the rest of the day is that, and am still thinking of now...

Work was dumb, I started up again with 7th and 8th graders. God help me.

I get home to an email from my ex girlfriend, it involved knowing something about someone I like that I don't know. I hate this, it has been one of my worst days, and yet it still continues....

Everything Snapshot

Time: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 00:20:00 GMT
Everything server: Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) Debian/GNU mod_ssl/2.4.10 OpenSSL/0.9.4 mod_perl/1.21_03-dev

Number of nodes: 807246 (897 new since January 23, 2001 [868.1 wa7])
Number of users: 24218 (91 new since January 23, 2001 [94.5 wa7])
Number of links: 3306968 (13299 new since January 23, 2001 [11348.5 wa7])
Number of writeups: 447523 (422 new since January 23, 2001 [441.4 wa7])
Number of cools: 58006 (179 new since January 23, 2001 [176.8 wa7])
Number of votes: 1849213 (8908 new since January 23, 2001 [7899.9 wa7])
Number of hits: 30907509 (148079 new since January 23, 2001 [143175.5 wa7])

Node to user ratio: 33.332 nodes per user
Link to node ratio: 4.097 links per node
Link to user ratio: 136.550 links per user
Link to writeup ratio: 7.389 links per writeup
Votes to cools ratio: 31.880 votes per cool
Cools to user ratio: 2.395 cools per user
Hits to user ratio: 1276.221 hits per user

New Nodes: [Cats = Hoovercraft] [If I should die] [December] [William Shakespeare] [dubbed commercials] [Rune] [Wings] [That kinda Star Trek emergency power/battle stations lighting sorta thing] [how to use an elevator] [fullerene] [Semitic] [I don't understand Vegetarians.] [Curtis JN-4] [Video games I wish they'd invent] [Wal-Mart]

Users Online (56): [dem bones] [JeffMagnus] [The Custodian] [N-Wing] [hramyaegr] [Quizro] [novalis] [ToasterLeavings] [mcc] [m_turner] [Gorgonzola] [Kit Lo] [Cletus the Foetus] [proj2501] [FelonyMPulse] [Jeeves] [wh00t] [ccunning] [Infinite Burn] [Katyana] [jasonm] [Aresds] [Gritchka] [Belli] [Aighearach] [FordPrefect] [Bozyo] [WyldWynd] [cureobsession] [Pakaran] [Withnail] [Jennifer] [winged] [MacArthur Parker] [Roland] [blukens] [Baron_Saturday] [barmaid] [brutha] [Kefabi] [AmadeusTheKitten] [Phssthpok] [akf2000] [Sirius] [Halspal] [disarmed42] [PeterPan] [sparkleface] [eponymous] [pvb] [spamcracker] [MaskedBabbler] [Fquist] [krsi] [Nanosecond] [umquam]

JeffMagnus node count: 4089 (0 new since January 23, 2001)
JeffMagnus experience: 11870 (157 more since January 23, 2001)
JeffMagnus experience to node ratio: 2.903 XP per node
JeffMagnus nodeshare: 0.507% (Via alternate method: 0.914%)^*
JeffMagnus node of the day: Lithium

Note: The Everything Snapshot daylog will return as soon as I work out one that is more pleasant for members of the Everything Whino sect.

03:03

Yay! Got GNOME panel to work almost painlessly. =)

Almost.

It still involves using gnome-sm, which is pretty silly considering the fact that Window Maker already handles session pretty well.

Now, each time I login, I need to:

1. Open GNOME control center,
2. Go to startup programs, and
3. Give the "WindowMaker-managed" programs "trash" status.

I think it'd be pretty nice to have a command-line tool that would do this - grep the managed program from ps output, and then just gnome-sm-manage --style=trash $pid. This style of script could be run from GNOME "non-session-aware startup programs".

It uses CORBA, right? Any idea if gnome-sm can be manipulated to do this?

Hmmmhmmm... yesterday I noded about some stuff, but I didn't felt like making a daylog because I woke up at near 14:15 or so. =( Maybe tomorrow will be more eventful...

Good night, E2...

13:38

Morning! Or afternoon, rather!

This is not fun. I finally got to sleep after 7 o'clock or something. You know, my day rhythm is getting rather confusing.

And how did I get to sleep? Chose one cable channel from TV. As soon as the first infomercial appeared, I got more tired and tired and... zzzzzzz....

Well, time to see what the Usenet has to offer.

15:50

Three posted articles. Only three. Strange. And nothing interesting in Slashdot and K5 either =)

Looks like I'll need to have another Wild Mad Noding Spree this night...

21:26

nighthowl:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/gnus$ grep "Message-Id" *
Bus error

To quote the ThinkGeek banner ad: WTF?

Okay, that was later fixed by upgrading grep =)

23:15

Sorry, no Wild Mad Noding Spree afterall tonight... Sorry, sorry sorry... ::WWWWolf goes to sulk in the corner::

---

Other day logs o' mine...

Noded yesterday / today by y.t.: Dream Log: January 23, 2001 Obligatory Nonsensical Answer / (today) Compose Finnish keyboard layout τΏτ

I took a good look at myself today. I have evolved into a system engineer (read: sys admin) who is carrying two cell phones and a pager. My company believes in maximizing mobile coverage. Yikes. However, they don't mind me using the phone for personal calls, since there are so many minutes in the combined plans. But, I still like my job. Heck, I never have to complain about no phone calls.

I heard some good advice that I wish I had heeded with my ex. I have no idea where it came from: Never cook for, or sleep with, someone who constantly criticizes you. Heh. Criticizing ended up being the least loony of her behaviors.

On the news some guy was complaining about his breasts growing since he's been taking an anti-depressant medicine, Lustral. The warnings inside the box included this as a possibility. Watch out for those side-effects.

Sorry for rambling. It felt like a Monday today and I think it affected my brain.

i told myself, and was content with this conclusion, that if you never spoke once more to me, never felt it necessary to share your beautifully intricate thoughts with me again, that all these acts left hanging, balanced by indecision and reality until there is no where to go but to stay frozen in a snow globe of my own making... all this would not matter because what little you've given me is already so much more than i had hoped for, could ever dream i deserved.

    but you spoke,   ,...,., and words and works were so powerful, greater even that they were small, the motives behind so amazingly thoughtful so as to make up for their seemingly inferior outcomes.. and--oh, i think the world can never see what you do to me or what you could do to them if they only let you sneak around inside their mind, freely wondering as you do in mine.

simple words seem so unworthy

(,,...,.,)

i'm falling apart and

never wish to fall together unless it's with you. YOU

are the reason i write

are, to me, perfect

sjfoweiuro3u5r83urlkjaflj3kj424@^##@Q4ejqljf223498!

thoughts thoughts a mi11ion flowing thoughts and you're swirling around in them,,.,.,.,,.
please, never be a victim to your own sea of splendor.

and can you be the one to finally hold me.. ?

Excite@Home laid off 250 employees today including around 40 people from the Austin office, where I work. I dodged a bullet though and the powers that be want me to work from home on a permanent basis. I should be happy about that but I feel sick to my stomach. A lot of good people including my boss are being terminated.

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon in the pub with my workmates. I left wondering why we didn't do this more often and feeling that I really should have gotten to know these guys better.

A bit late now. Good luck guys.

I realize my problem, it's just that I want someone to, you know, give a fuck.

I retrieved a paper from last semester, which I posted today (Fighting for Meaning, if you care), which had an A on the top and said it was a "delightfully acerbic comment on both texts." Basically it means she'd totally disagree with me, but the way I wrote the paper says, "If you don't me an A for this, I just might kill you." Maybe not. I came home and fired off a rightious flame, feeling like my literary acid-words would affect/effect.

"I am secretly an important man." -- Steven Jesse Bernstein

Nodeshells created: The Nodeshell Rescue Team Must Die(t)

I had a discussion with an E2 editor yesterday which made me totally re-evaulate why I am here. I am only here because I want to be. No-one asked me to come. Shit, half the time I feel unwelcome. The editor wasn't the cause of this, BTW, at least probably consciously. He/She had the attitude that He/She typically has when I /msg Him/Her. I realize this is what I must sound like to people when I talk on the phone at my help-desk job. I feel, suddenly, very small. I was directed to examine another noders work, an exceptional person, no doubt. I wondered why I was pointed to this. Am I special? Was this a message? Did this editor see potential? Does this happen to everybody? I almost think twice before submitting this, I want him/her to read it, but I don't, either. I don't want to be misunderstood. Should I hide it all behind a pipe link, so that someone clicking on a . would have the option of creating a node/-shell with it? I dunno. Maybe the ed. got me at a bad time. Probably. Or I got them at a bad time, they're only human. I respect him/her, it's just I rarely feel like I'm getting any back at all, not just from him/her. What does it matter, it's not like anyone will read this, anyway. And you know what the worst part is?

Even if it does happen, I don't think it will help.

I will never be one to wield hunger against humanity. --SJB

I've been reading Henry James' Midnight Song by Carol de Chellis Hill and there's this scene where Henry James is wondering what it'd be like to be written about. He, in the story, thinks it'd be nice if a book were written about his work. I empathize. I just want someone to read it, acknowledge reading it. And you know what the worst part is?

Even if it does happen, I don't think it will help.

Why is it when I feel so intensly emotional that my guitar playing sucks so thoroughly? Every time I play it I want to smash it to splinters. I listened to the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack, and found myself in the empty state I felt after watching the film.

I'm getting heartburn a lot lately.

These are all personal problems, but I don't know where else to sort them out. I have as many friends here at school IRL as I have middle fingers. I don't want to bother them. One wouldn't understand, the other has his girlfriend to spend time with. I actually think I have three, but it's weird 'cuz I can't talk to him about myself. I feel like I'm wasting his time. Behold, people who spill their guts on the Internet, but can't talk to a friend about simple problems.

I have a cup that says Professional Smartass on the side. I don't feel very smart. I feel really fuckin' idiotic.

"If you're looking for advice? Mine is seek professional help." -- Dr. Fraiser Crane, or however you spell it.

All of that amounts to this: I don't know why I'm here. Try to expand the word "here" as far as you care to.

Still fighting the good fight against cynicism...

I don't know, it's very difficult to keep your ethics straight when you feel like you are continually surrounded by manipulative ambitious-types, and it seems as though my school is full of them. You know, moral relativist types. Maybe it's just my isolated experience, but I just feel that the level of cynicism here is rather offputting.

The worst feeling comes about when you feel like those types of people might be right in some fundamental fashion - they, after all, are the ones with all the money, all the sex, all the immediate reflections of success out there - and that you, because you're not that cynical, not as interested in these transparent carrots, are in no position to compete with them. And that this is a very bad thing, because there's nobody out there who disagrees with it.

I'm not exactly sure how I fell across my peculiar ethics and values, but either they are too rigid or too eclectic, because it is very, very rare that I find somebody whom I respect wholly in a fundamental way. Maybe I'm just too much of a stickler to my (irrational?) ideals to permit myself to be casual about ethics (and I don't even have a set religion, that's the weirdest thing), but I'm beginning to wonder.

It's also difficult to be around those types of people when you want to be open and honest and generally kindhearted to people (not that, by any stretch of the imagination, I always am) and you feel like the pressure on you is to be more distant from people, more Machievellian, and less concerned with other people and their emotions. And that people who are honest and kindhearted are the ones that are taken advantage of. I mean, how much of this is just being whiny (and just a part of growing up), and how much is true? Frustrating.

I had to go to the oncologist today.

For those of you still wondering, an oncologist is a cancer specialist. At an oncologist's office, there are invariably lots of old people doing chemotherapy and looking, in general, scared and tired and lonely.

Needless to say, I felt like the turd in the punchbowl being young and strapping and scared and tired and lonely.

An old lady I was sitting next to saw me perusing my counterpoint book and writing an exercise in four-part fifth species. After about three minutes, she said "No."

I turned to her. "Huh?"

"You can't do that."

"Do what?"

"That melody in the alto there. You can't use a cambiata in half notes."

Needless to say, I was floored. This woman was so ancient looking, strapped to three machines and a walker, and yet, here she was, calling me on counterpoint mistakes. After checking the work, I saw she was right.

"What would you do there?"

"I'd put it down and get to writing real music. Life's too short for counterpoint. You know it, so get on with it and compose."

I asked my oncologist who she was. She'd sung opera in the late 30's and 40's and then got lost in the war.

Some days hold lessons you can't learn from a book.

Today... nothing significant. I'm just ill. But I'm always ill so it doesn't really matter. At least I don't have to go get my mandatory education. I guess I'm going to have one of the vacant reflective moments whille writing this log. Its what always happens, why stop now?

I started corresponding with a former suicidal gothis chick, and she seems to enjoy my nonsensical rambling, so I'm happy that I can help someone else enjoy their life a little more. Yeah its one of those wierd things where I derive deep pleasure from making people happy. After I sent her an e-mail last night I went out on the roof to reflect and enjoy the surroundings. A cloudy Finnish nightime can really be beautiful as the clouds turn red, from reflected light.

I also helped one one of my less mathematically inclined friends with his Math homework. This was after I had cooked myself dinner, because my parents were at parent-teacher conferences. My teachers didn't have anything bad to say, 'cept that I'm lazy.

so now I'm here and I'm ill. I suppose its a good time to brush up on my reading. I'm about a third of the way through this one book, and I'd like to get past halfway today, but who knows. At least my I finished my english essay yesterday and it's due tomorrow.

Things are going well.

I graduated yesterday.

---

UNIVERSITY of PORTSMOUTH


Andrew David Reynolds

has been awarded the degree of

Bachelor of Science in

COMPUTER SCIENCE

with FIRST CLASS HONOURS
having followed a programme of study approved by Academic Council

18 October 2000

---

Having graduated, my friends, my wife and myself went drinking. It was cool to see people from my year that I havn't seen for months. One is working for Railtrack. Scary thought.

This morning I work up feeling fine. Then I moved my head. This was a bad move, and one which I am still regretting. It became apparent that, while I did still have a brain in my skull, it

1. wasn't mine
2. was a little too large.
3. wasn't working properly

I survived the drive to work, and cheered myself up by ordering a large breakfast. Toast, fried egg, 2 bacon rashers, 2 sausages, beans, hash brown. Hmmmm. Lovely.

Now I have to attempt a normal days work. I'm drinking as much water as I can. Wish me luck.

My first day working as an intern. It was good actually making the orders instead of waiting around like medical students do. A good sense of power.

I saw four patients in the emergency department today. The first had a painful eye, the second had recurrent boils which she wanted investigated, the third was a doozy with flank pain that was difficult to sort out and the fourth was a woman with vaginal bleeding. Hmm ... all four turned out to be women.

Ordered morphine for pain relief for the first time. Gave a total of 7.5mg (in 2.5mg doses) to the lady with flank pain because she was in so much pain. Also had to do a vaginal examination - the first time since my O&G term one and a half years ago -- it ended up that I could not tell whether or not the cervical os was open or not (and therefore if the miscarriage was complete or just threathened) ... ohwell, more practice needed.

---

Tomorrow I'm going to be in the "Acute" section instead of today's "Subacute" section. I think I'm looking forward to it.

i finally got a good night's sleep last night! this without marijuana or wine, and it stands to reason that those things may be the reason i don't sleep well. i deffinitely notice that when i don't smoke marijuana i have much more intense and memorable dreams. i think it's time to give these things up as a nightcap, and instead use them as infrequent intoxicants.

i was also finally not an insufferable bitch to my Man last night. got home at about 5:15pm, cleaned a bit, and got an half-hour long head rub, which left me gelatinous and drooling in his lap. then i went to the store to buy dinner fixins, and made chicken and portobello for me, and a french bread pizza for him.

watched bad sci-fi, then the show crossing over where John Edward talks to the dead people who are nearby. went to bed at midnight, and sleep soundly with some interesting dreams. huzzah. i feel quite refreshed today. i think bitch-mode is over, perhaps (knock on wood).

more later when i'm done building stuff.