GAH how is my life so stressful even though I don't have school anymore?  I am never again doing the whole "working til 8pm twice a week" thing.  At least I finally have time to be online again now.  And see friends.  And, I dunno, breathe.

Recent highlights of my life:

• Went skiing a week ago.  Skied in woods.  Went on jumps.  Was pretty awesome at going on jumps; not so awesome at landing.
• Jailbroke (jailbreaked?) my iphone.  Now have Doctor Who skin on it because I am a NERD.
• Let a cute coworker use my laptop to download something.  Forgot I had multiple tabs of PORN open.  Embarrassing porn.  Like, slash fanfiction porn.  With a title that had something to do with jerking off at work.
• Got Guitar Hero World Tour.  Am rocking the drums.
• Playing D&D again.  Like I said, I'm a nerd.  I'm proudly making my coworkers roll Will saves to not slap me in the face.  (Although maybe my character likes it...)

....I think that's about it, other than work and stress.  Most of my life has been work and stress recently.

Oh, and I fucking hate Valentine's day.  But if you know me at all, you could probably guess that.  I didn't even like it the one Valentine's Day that I wasn't single (and yes, that only happened once).  Couples do not need their own day.  Every fucking day is couples' day.  Singles need a day.  I like how it's done in Russia, where you have Women's day and all the men in your life give you something small, just like a couple pieces of candy or something, and then there's Men's day and you buy a round for your guy friends.  That is how it should be.

Oh well, I have plans to watch movies and crochet and eat heart-shaped pizzas with one of my single friends.  And at least Sunday there will be cheap chocolate.  That almost makes up for it.  Almost.

Still doing well on the no-internet-addiction, but it's quickly being replaced by a movie and video games addiction.  Sigh.

Still being pretty sick off-and-on and ridiculously busy.  I'm going to ask if I can cut down the amount of nights I work til 8pm to one instead of two.  Hopefully, if I can do that I should be less busy once I get these next couple apps out.  Let's just hope I don't get sick again.

Have been playing the piano in the practice room at MATC!  It makes me happy.  But the high G and higher E stick, which makes several songs hard to play.

Applications to teach in Russia are coming along.  I'm also thinking about applying for a grant to go study dialects in England.  Because that would just be ridiculously awesome.  Mmm... pretty accents and good television.

So today we had an Adventure of sorts.  A couple days ago, after I finished a shower and the tub drained, some water burbled up into the sink from its drain and would not go back down.  It smelled vaguely of sulfur.  The toilet likewise would not drain.  The problem resolved itself by morning and we didn't think much more of it.

Then, this morning, water burbled up from the sink and tub drains and the toilet ran over.  It was clearly sewage-y water (from the smell, there was not stuff in it or anything, thank god).  We called the plumber, who couldn't come over until 2.

The plumber arrived; he was pretty cool.  He said we were the smartest people he'd dealt with for awhile, because my roommate'd thought to turn off the water and all that stuff.  He asked to be shown down to the basement so he could check on some pipes.  Turns out that the pipes in question were completely fucking destroyed.  Not burst from cold or anything, but he said it looked like they'd been attacked by a drunk with a chainsaw or something.  He asked if we'd heard any noises recently.  I told him that I heard noises all the time.  He said it would have been a big noise, and likely recently, like late at night, and I said I hadn't heard anything like that but that I am a deep sleeper.

The plumber went back to the basement and worked on it some more after he called MPM and let them know what was up.  Then we hear a crash and him screaming "HOLY RUNNING FUCK!" very loudly.  He came running back up.  Apparently, there are huge, mean-ass mother fuckers of raccoons down there.  These raccoons have likely been slowly destroying our pipes, causing our stuff to drain slowly and our heat to not work well, which have been two ongoing problems since we moved in.  They have likely been the source of all the strange noises I kept hearing at night, since my bed is right by a heat vent which goes directly down to the basement.

So, our toilet/bath/sink are now fixed enoug to mostly work, but we have to be careful until everything's properly fixed in the basement.  A lot of pipes need to be completely replaced.  And I don't even know if the two raccoons are still down there.  Also, our heat doesn't work at all right now.  Joy of joys.

Why, oh why, do I always develop celebrity crushes on the actors who play the villain?  Or to be more precise, fucking insane, completely psychotic villains?  

In related news, I heartily recommend everything that John Simm is in ever, especially the episodes of Doctor Who where he is the Master, and the British version of Life on Mars, where he is not the villain but amazingly spectacular anyway.

"I like it when you use my name..."

ETA: Also, Moroccan mint green tea is freaking amazing.

So, I'm really looking forward to Sabbat tomorrow, mostly because I haven't been able to go to one in forever due to being blind one month, then spending all of my free time on my research project for two.  (Man, it is so good to have free time again, especially free time that I don't have to feel guilty about taking.)  But I'm also excited because I am doing a sewing project to make myself a corset-y type top out of vinyl!  It is a bitch and a half to work with, especially since my machine can't handle it so I have to do it all by hand, but I am proud of how it has turned out thus far.  I'm also making some yarn falls, which I'm looking forward to working on.  (However, I was unable to find cyber goggles, or any sort of suitable goggles at all, which is sad.  I should have ordered them online, but now it is too late.  Sad.)

Pictures when I'm done!

Ok, so it appears that my "ghost" may in fact be some sort of small animal inside my walls.  Somehow it is able to access the carpet and tug, which my sleep-addled brain interprets as the sheets being tugged.  I determined this when it happened while I was lying in bed completely awake, so I guess my insomnia is good for something.

...but that is way more boring, so I am sticking with the ghost-boy story.  I told my theory to my roommate and he was just like, "Dude, you really need to get a boyfriend."

In other news: it looks like I will be spending a month in Colorado this summer taking a CELTA course.  Which will be cool, since I can see my Robin.  But other than that, there is not a whole lot there, so I do not get why my mother is all "Colorado!  That's so neat!"  As far as I am concerned, the only thing there is good about Colorado (besides the aforementioned Robin) is skiing, which I am not even sure how good it is in the summer, and is probably hella expensive there.  I guess people like mountains, but I do not get them.  Perhaps because I am from Illinois.  Also, I am starting to try speaking completely in Standard American English (which will be helpful when teaching English), and even though I'm already close, it is really hard for me to make the difference between caught and cot, and to remember to say Illinois instead of Ellinois, etc.

Also, started class at MATC today.  It's pretty cool.  Kind of annoyingly slow though, because we had to learn some computer basics before we could start. (ie, how to use notepad.  I, on the other hand, am going to be pretentious and use vim.  Besides, syntax highlighting helps a bunch.)

Plan for tonight: bit of shopping, write in my journal in a coffee house, go home, call parents about loaning me money for a TEFL course, put a heating pad on my achy neck and curl up with a good book and my rat.  And maybe some peach tea.

Sometimes, life is awesome.

I think there may be a ghost in my room.  Not a scary one.  A nice one.  I have decided to name him Jonathan.  I can hear him rolling over in the night and occasionally he tugs at my sheets.

I fear I may be going insane.

Patient, but easily bored.  You know... that actually describes me pretty well.

First, the one that sums up this weekend in its entirety: "BOURBON. FIX IT WITH BOURBON." (to which my drunk co-worker added: "cuifally," which apparently was meant to say "carefully.")

Several of the other good quotes to come from the LAN party involved the game xevil, which everyone should play. It's free, it's easy, it fits on a fucking floppy disk. These were mostly in the vein of "HOW DO I TAKE DRUGS?" and "I can't climb the ladder; I smoked too much crack!" as well as something about a flying invisible chainsaw. I don't really remember; I was drunk.  It was a great evening.  (I also made a new friend who said she would make me a cross-stitch that says "Don't make me straight-up choke a bitch!")

The best one (and by "best" I mean "most awkward") came from when my mother was here earlier yesterday, and she was helping me move shit out of my room so I could put together my new furniture. She gave me a Motherly Look and said "Um, that's quite a large picture of S. you have on your wall there." I gave her my own Look and said, "I don't have a picture of S. on my wall." She pointed to the picture in question.  I blinked and said, "Mom, that's PUSHKIN."

The kicker is that whether or not you claim that they look anything alike (beyond being dark haired and funny-looking yet inexplicably attractive to girls named me), is that it is quite clearly a painting.  Well, a reproduction of one, in any case.  I do not know why I would have a freaking painting of any of my friends.

Status on research paper: Two more transcriptions down, 6 to go.  Anyone want to go out drinking Friday or Saturday when I get it done?

• Ironed out all the stupid insurance troubles.  Should be good now.
• About 75% of my Christmas shopping.
• Signed up for a course at MATC, so if I don't get a job I can stay at the one I have now.
• Completely embarrassed myself by talking about how pretty our Greek waiter was when he was standing right behind me.  (To be fair though, he was really fucking gorgeous.)
• Bought a real people bed, as well as a night stand and a thingy to match the other thingy I have at home.  So now I have a matched bedroom set, kinda.

Did not accomplish:

• Any work on my research. :(
• Visiting my friend at his store, although this might be for the better as he is terrified that my mother is going to murder him or something and I would feel bad if she actually did.

Just random things that bother me more than they probably should.

• Assholes that come into stores/repair centers/whatever and feel like if they are obnoxious enough, they'll get what they want.  And management that does, in fact, end up giving in.
• For that matter, assholes who bring in their computer to be fixed and then get pissy because I can't fix it in ten minutes and they have to go somewhere.  Would you expect a doctor's visit to take ten minutes?  It *might*, but you don't generally expect it to.   You definitely don't start insinuating that the doctor doesn't know what the hell they're doing because they can't figure out what's wrong that quickly.
• Me being a stupid girl, again.  However, I have figuratively bitchslapped myself, and decided I'm just going to do what I want to do and not worry about how other people might take it.  (Seriously, how stupid is it of me to not look up friends if I fortuitously happen to be in the area completely by happenstance, just because I saw them recently?  Because they might think I like them too much?  That is stupid.)
• The voicemail on my iphone seems to have a limited pitch range.  I've gotten a couple voicemails from friends with extremely deep voices and I can't figure out what the hell they're saying.  It could also just be that they both happen to mumble a lot on voicemail or something, though.  But if you have a very low voice and ever call me and leave a message, I may not understand it.
• If my roommate asks me what is wrong when I am completely fine and just reading, or something similarly innocuous, one more time, and then does not believe that I'm fine, I am going to scream.  As far as roommate problems go, it's minor, but like I said, it's something that bothers me more than it should.

And also some things that are awesome right now: going down to Chicago with my Mom and sister tomorrow, getting a real, big people bed (I've been sleeping on a twin mattress on the floor for the last four months) at the land of Swedish furniture, Pandora radio (although there needs to be an option to be like, "I fuckin' hate Coldplay, do not play me any more Coldplay"), snow.  Oh! And randomly coming across videos on youtube of a friend of mine from when he was in a band and said band toured, 5 years ago-- it was really surreal, but cool.

oh christ, i've been doing some work and i just realized that by the end of the semester (ie, two weeks and some change) i need to process 10 more ~30 minute audio files (only two of which I've started), run some statistics, and write 20 more pages or so.

when all of this is done i am getting blitzed out of my mind.

It will make you look like a straight up "ho." 

Chicago was amazing.  Life is amazing.  I have definitely decided that I am going to start applying for some jobs in Chicago (I will still apply to jobs in Madison as well).  I was able to see everyone I wanted to see (minus one person who was kind of hung over the whole weekend), and I got to eat Greek food and sweet potato fries at Clarke's and Armenian food, which is pretty much just like Georgian food, which I miss immensely.  (Seriously, why hasn't Georgian food caught on in the States yet?  It's amazing.)  And I had mini-adventures, like helping out projecting/running concessions at a classic film showing, and getting hit on by weird crazy old men.  And going on the El (I <3 the El) and getting stuck in a turnstile (I also <3 the word "turnstile") and having to swipe my card like three times.  And all of my worries were for naught; I really should just learn to relax and let things happen and not spend a whole bunch of time being anxious about stupid stuff.  And I went to the Museum of Science & Industry and saw all the trains! (Yay trains!)  And sat in an old cable car!  

Can you tell I am excited?

I would like to share some quotes from the weekend that I found amusing:

S. [comes home, everyone is grinning stupidly] "What's going on?  You guys look like you all got trashed last night and fucked each other or something."
His gf: "Yeah, we didn't exactly get trashed..."

S's partner @ store, to employee: "I bet when you signed up for this job you didn't think you'd be fucking one boss while the other beat up two women at the same time in the next room over."

Dean of camp: "Yeah, I had two cats, and [her partner] had two cats, so now we have four..."
Me: "It's like the Brady bunch!"
Dean: "Yeah, the lesbian Brady bunch.  Lots of cats."

Keeping with my prediction that November == awesome, I present to you a short (drastically incomplete) list of things that are right with the world:

1. This beautiful weather.  I know it's going to get cold soon, but dammit, that doesn't mean I'm not going to enjoy one more day of skirt-weather.
2.  Getting on top of the job application thing.  I think I'll have an application in by Friday, and I'm sure I'll feel immensely better immediately.  Seriously, this whole job thing has been an albatross around my neck for months.
3. This weekend I get to puppy-sit, which involves me having a house to myself with Direct TV, free food, two really cute puppies, and I get 60 bucks for it. 
4.  I will have a bunch of time this weekend to power through some data for my research, and I've finished my script that semi-automates the work.  Once I get that done, along with some job apps in, I will be able to stop being a hermit.
5.  I got moved from doing the satellite service desk 3.5 days a week to only 2.  I get to fix computers the other times, hurrah!! 
6.  The only drawback about that is it messes with my writing goals a bit.  So I'm just going to say my goal is to write over the course of the whole month the amount that I would if I kept to my original goal, so about 16,000 words.  I'm doing well so far!
7.  Last but certainly not least, Barack Obama.  YES WE FUCKING CAN.  (Also, my phone spell-checker now recognizes the word "Obama," but lj does not yet.)  I am actually proud of my country for the first time I can think of.  It melts my icy little heart and brings tears to my eyes.  How many elections do people end up dancing in the streets after the winner is announced??