Down the Rabbit Hole with the Semi-Evil Squirrel

a long night spent with your most obvious weakness*

0905 hrs:
At work (of course). I can barely keep my eyes open today. I stayed up too late last night. I found out around 10:30pm last night that I have been granted an interview for the JET Program. While I am excited, I am also nervous. What if I just don't measure up to the competition? I know that there are probably a lot of really smart and savvy people vying for a position - I'm not so sure I can compete. Well, I'll try to look at it this way: at least if I don't get the position, I will FINALLY get to visit Chicago.

(Part of my apprehension is that even after I interview, I won't know until April whether or not I have "won" a position in the program. More waiting. This is really a test of patience. I wonder how many people get fed up with the waiting and drop from the program?)

After the (surprisingly small amount of) excitement died down, I started getting ready for bed, so I wasn't even in my bed until after 11pm. And after that, I couldn't help but read more of Dear Mr. Henshaw. Ended up finishing it, but that really put me past my bedtime. I just can't help myself when it comes to reading before bed - no matter how tired I am.

Picked up the 2 developed rolls of film from West yesterday after work. The Holga pictures didn't turn out so well - in fact, only about 3 turned out OK and the others were as if I hadn't exposed them at all. *sigh* The roll of color 35mm that I took at the Como Conservatory turned out alright, though, so when I get home tonight, I will make sure to upload some of those to my photobucket site and then link it here in case anyone is interested in taking a peak.

1438 hrs:
Best laugh all day. I wonder if they'll start doing research on the psychological effects of excessive butt and thigh fat on women due to hormones and help women to reduce it. I can think of many women who would love that.

Just another instance of men sniveling and acting pathetic when they have to deal with a fraction of what women have been dealing with for a century or more. Plus, I see moobs (the good, the bad and the ugly) every day in the U.S. - what's the big deal? While it is true that I don't find most moobs to be attractive, I'm not about to shun someone for them. Geez....

I know it may seem insensitive to laugh about this, but I just can't bring myself to feel bad for these men (except maybe the ones cause by prostrate cancer). Lots of people are born with worse - get plastic surgery, or just deal with it.

Also, why do the British drop their prepositions? "Get down the gym." That sentence doesn't make sense. Where's the "to"? How lazy is that? I thought dropping consonants was bad - the British drop entire words that actually help a sentence have meaning. 0_o

*Taking Back Sunday - Make Damn Sure

Labels: JET program, link blogging, newbery medal books, work

i would only be a liar if i told you that

0850 hrs:
I'm mostly back to normal. Had a good chat with Nailz last night about the noisy upstairs neighbors. I've determined that there are two big contributing factors to the times when I feel that the noise from upstairs is too much to take. The first thing is that the noise disrupts my train of thought. Feeling as if I cannot complete one thought makes it hard for me to complete a logical thought to calm myself down and not get super angry. The second is that the evenings where it affects me the most tend to be nights where I don't have a goal for the night or a project to concentrate on. SO - I'm taking action. I'm going to make sure that every evening I have a project or two to concentrate on. I think having a goal or mission every night will not only help me tune out the noise, but also allow me to feel productive.

So that is that. Back to the every day ho-hum blogs about work and random things. :D

Today, I received an email from a cow-orker and it had an emoticon (if you could call it that) that I'd never seen (or thought of) before. It is complex, but very cute. Check it out!

{=0)~

How cute is that? As a girl, I must squeal with delight.

1408 hrs:
Today, my office had a cookie exchange. The basic concept is that there is a period of time during which people sign up to bring in cookies. At the end of the sign up period, everyone who signed up makes a 1/2 dozen cookies per person that signed up, plus brings in 1 extra dozen for everyone who didn't sign up. SO - 12 people in our office signed up, so I had to bring in 7 dozen cookies today to share - BUT, I also get to take home 1/2 dozen of everyone else's cookies - so 6 dozen cookies for home consumption. Pretty cool, eh? I have been eating cookies all day and am feeling completely stuffed and sleepy. Oh green tea - please save me from the afternoon sleepies!

In other news, last night I finished reading A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck. It was a really good book and made me laugh on a good many occasions. My only (very slight) criticism is that it ends very suddenly and things are wrapped up so simply that I felt a bit cheated; as if I deserved at least 1 more page of wrap-up. But yes, still good. Now, I have to dig in my stack of Newberry Medal and Honor books to see what I will be reading before bed tonight. :)

PLAYLIST:
iTunes CD - volume 2
Mostly the new Singles from The Decemberists and then other random songs from my
iTunes account
NEWS - Color

Labels: newbery medal books, playlists, work

you try to play it cool like you just don't care, but soon i'll be playing in your underwear

1155 hrs:
*laughs* I am in a good mood today. There are so many things I want to write about, but there are too many and they are spinning around in my head at too fast a pace to catch each one.

Currently, I am listening to Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song" album. I would just like to state for the record (and also to warn my poor roommate) that on Saturday or Sunday I will be baking Christmas cookies for the office cookie exchange and I WILL be listening to every Christmas album I own on repeat. I will also most likely be singing along loudly in the fashion of my mother when she bakes Christmas cookies. There are times where I am so obviously my mother's daughter. :D

Did I ever mention that I read Bridge to Terabithia a couple of weeks ago? Well, I did - and it still is sticking with me, even though I am reading A Year Down Yonder right now. I am working my way through the stack of Newberry Medal and Newberry Honor winners that I have next to my bed. I'm not doing the best, but considering I read manga frequently and am also slowly reading Importing Diversity (an anthropology study of Japan's JET Program), I think I'm doing pretty well. I just get so distracted that I can't really read just one book at a time. :)

Well, time for lunch. Will probably write again in the afternoon, so I'll wait to post this for now.

1411 hrs:
I am positively falling asleep at my desk. Sad thing is, one minute I'm going through the database I help to maintain and fixing records and feel perfectly awake, the next minute I'm nodding and my left pinky has been hitting CTRL repeatedly. *sigh*

One of the dangers of database maintenance is falling asleep. It does get pretty boring. Earlier today I spent a little bit of time (in order to wake up) surfing these links:

I'm pretty sure, most men would not like it if the girl they were about to sleep with pulled one of these out. Of course, it is in centimeters, so it might be ok for those conversionally challenged...

I liked the commentary that went with this picture. Ron Weasley would have fainted dead away at the sight of that.

Do I need to even say what my thoughts were when I saw this? Any thoughts originating from the gutter would be pretty right on.

How awesome is this?

I find it interesting that if you look closely at this picture, behind the people running you can see people who have fallen. That must be just as dangerous as being run over by a horse... Yikes...

And lastly, this interests me greatly. It is most interesting when people go missing, seemingly without a trace...

Labels: domesticity, link blogging, music, newbery medal books, sleepy, work

there's a tough word on your crossword, there's a bed bug nipping your finger

Today is a dark day. It has been cloudy and raining/sleeting all day. It is only 4:30pm now and it feels almost like nighttime.

I played hooky from work today. Though today was a floating holiday and I could have taken the day off some other time, I called it in. I haven't been feeling the best, so I just stayed in bed this morning. I slept until 11:30am, meaning that I got roughly 12 hours of sleep last night. I could go to sleep now, too. I think the seasonal change is rough on my sleep cycle.

I went to lunch with my sister and niece to see them off on their trip back home and then ran a few errands. I took advantage of a sale on fleece at JoAnn Fabrics and bought 4 yards to make a reversible poncho-like top to keep at the office for cold days. I think I will probably make a lap-sized blanket too. The office is kept at such cold temperatures!

Lately, I have been finally getting around to reading the pile of Newbery Medal books that my mother sent me years ago. The first one I read was The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman which won the Newbery Medal in 1987. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Next, I read Sounder by William H Armstrong which won the Newbery Medal in 1970. Sounder was very, very good. The story is simple, but very touching. It is hard to read sometimes because of the racism that is presented in it. I know that it accurately portrays racism in the mid 19th century, but it is still hard to read. It is difficult to think of people being treated so cruelly...

Today, I'm starting Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, the winner of the 1978 Newbery Medal. I read this one when I was younger, but don't remember much about it, so I am looking forward to reading it again. I also read other Katherine Paterson books when I was younger such as The Great Gilly Hopkins and Jacob Have I Loved (which always made my heart ache...).

Well, think that is about it. My head is hurting something fierce right now, so think I should take something and lay down for a bit.

Oh - and remember to thank a Veteran today! I know that they will say "You're welcome."

Labels: newbery medal books, playing hooky