Girly Post

I'm a big fan of the Lancome products. I'm also on a budget these days. However, sometimes you just have to spend $50 on an ounce of face cream. Well, okay, you don't have to. You can watch your face fall apart in the dry weather while cheap products do nothing to save it.

I choose to spend the money. HydraZen is awesome, and totally worth it. I'd love to buy the Absolue, but that's twice as much, so let's not get crazy here. You can buy the HydraZen and get samples of the Absolue...plus free gifts and maybe a little bottle of the Hypnose perfume (my favorite scent, btw)...and then you better leave before you buy all the eyeshadows, because as you know Lancome eyeshadow is awesome.

Anyway, I escaped spending only $79.80. It's an investment. An investment in my face not falling apart. And in not having to wear Obsession for a couple months.

Forced to Conform

I made my first PowerPoint presentation. It was required by one of my teachers, so I did it.

Happy now?
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I parked next to a car today that had dollar bills in plain sight within. So naturally, I broke the window and took the money.

Okay, maybe not. But I daresay someone else will. Leaving money out in view is just dumb.
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It is a law of nature that if I use hairspray, it will rain. Which should give you some indication of how often I use hairspray. It's a special occasion kind of product for me these days. Not like the 80s, when I was partially responsible for that hole in the ozone layer thing.

But hey, if it wasn't for global warming, it'd be snowing instead of raining right now, so I'm good with it. 60 degree weather all week, can you believe it? We go back to reality in a couple days...high of 28 forecasted for Thursday.

Side Effect of Education

My Forensics class has made the CSI shows hysterically funny.

I don't know what use the knowledge will be beyond that, but it's been a very interesting course.

My Thoughts Exactly

And I thought I was the only one...

"Whether it's never finding the time to search for a cure for cancer, dedicating my life to abandoning the idea of helping those less fortunate so that I might instead watch The Game Show Network, or pushing aside the urge to start a family in order to spend time at the local bar, I take solace in knowing that I was meant to not follow through on something remarkable."

Heh. Indeed.

Funny Math

There are three student managers at work. I am one of them. I asked to have my hours cut during the school week at the beginning of the semester. During Thanksgiving, I gave up two of my shifts because the other two managers wanted more hours. Both of them are anxious to make some extra green to offset their current car issues and looming holiday expenses.

My car has no current issues (knock wood) and my Christmas shopping is largely finished. I also have enough saved to pay for the next two months' expenses. So I'm not hurting for the cash right now.

My boss knows I don't need the money, because I told him so when explaining why I was letting the other girls work my shifts and spending almost a week in Des Moines. My boss also knows the other girls need the money, because they told him so when begging for extra hours over the break.

So last week (during the break) he made the new schedule for the extended holiday hours. Both of the other girls lost some weekday hours. Neither is happy about it. I gained almost 4 weekday hours. I am not happy about it. I don't mind working, but these are the two weeks before finals, and if I was shaving hours down before so I could get my studying done, well...you do the math.

I choose to believe my boss is not retarded (because he's a great guy), and that this scheduling issue is just because I am such a valuable employee. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Food Coma: The Day After

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving, full of food and family. I did a good deal of work on the meal and was therefore excused from doing dishes, so it was a good day as far as I'm concerned. ;-)

We ate early (2ish) because the niece and nephew were supposed to be going with their mom for dinner. She was going to pick them up at 5 p.m. They were still at my parents' house when I left it at 10:30 this morning. She's awesome.

This morning I had to run to a couple stores for my mother. Nothing like Kohl's in the wee hours of the Friday morning after Thanksgiving. I did bypass the 2-hour checkout line, however. If you buy jewelry, you can check out there. Hell, yes, I'll buy some jewelry to cut the wait to 15 minutes. I'm glad not everyone caught onto that loophole.

I was back at my parents' house by 7 a.m., and went back to bed for a couple hours. Now I am back in the I.C. and getting mentally prepared to work in half an hour.

Bleh, work.

Yay, Murderers and Racists!

OJ and Kramer have pushed that stupid Italian wedding off the front page. I can not tell you how annoyed I am with the TV Guide channel. I've had to mute it all weekend just to be able to stand it long enough to see what else is on television.

The only way I could give less of a crap about that wedding is if I was dead. Seriously. Do. Not. Care.

Something is Wrong Here

I am reading a webpage in Spanish. About genetic identification techniques. And I think I am getting the gist of it.

Clearly I have gone insane.
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In another life, I posted about certain things that students tend to Google. Occasionally I get an e-mail from a student demanding to know what else I know about certain things. I say "demanding" because there is no "please" involved in the correspondence, nor a specific question.

Seeing something along the lines of, "What else do you know about Moses?" is not rare. Well, actually, it is rare, because I didn't misspell any of those words. "Wot else do u know about Moses?" is more like it.

Moses is a pretty broad subject.

I am not going to write an essay about Moses. I am not going to respond to the e-mail with a request for clarification. In fact, I am not going to respond at all.
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Last week I tattled on a couple of classmates for the first time in my academic career. Apparently they thought the test was a group effort, and when the two of them together couldn't figure something out, one of them looked at my paper and reported back to the other.

I suggested to the professor that we sit every-other-desk from now on, and the best part is...said professor wasn't surprised that it was a problem. Way to be proactive, jackass.

For the Love of God

*WHY* must it be so difficult to enroll in a World History course at this school?!
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So it is totally almost Thanksgiving Break! Are you psyched? I'm psyched!

Je t'adore

The guy on the left. It's so rare to see a picture of him not making a goofball face. Yay, sincere smile!

The guy on the right, while entertaining in his own way, is not really my type.
;-)

More Important Things

You know, a person who homewrecks a man from his pregnant girlfriend, promises to love and honor and whatnot til death does them part, hurriedly gets pregnant twice to match his former girlfriend's hold on him, then text messages him to let him know she was lying about the til death do them part bit...is not an angel.

No matter how thin or pretty she is.

And I am officially sick of them both. Something else (besides a wedding in Rome this week, because I honestly could not care any less about "TomKat") needs to push them off the front pages of the websites.
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Most of my Christmas shopping is done. When I go home for Thanksgiving, I will take the gifts with me, wrap them, and leave them under the tree that I will probably have to put up before I come back here.

Just when I got the hang of putting up my parents' old ginormous tree (we do fake trees), Mom had to buy a new one. So we'll see how that goes.
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Tuesdays are normally my day of getting a lot of schoolwork done, but yesterday I got nothing done. Well...that's not entirely true. I cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and my car. I sorted all the Christmas presents out to see what I have left to do. I got the next month's birthday gifts in order, and I did the shopping.

But I didn't do any schoolwork or studying. Not good. Now I'm behind. Ta.

Double Ungood Weekend

So. How was your weekend? Do anything fun? If so, keep it to yourself.

I worked. I worked 22 hours. I didn't get any homework or studying done, save for the reading of two chapters for history.

Now I must get caught back up with my schoolwork, preferably before this weekend, because Thanksgiving week I need to spend making effing PowerPoint presentations (some of you will remember I hate PP) for two different projects. Plus I will have a final exam on Monday after Thanksgiving, so I will need to study for that. And then there is that whole family-togetherness thing that I want to participate in at some point.

What I'm trying to say is, I will be a little busy through December 14.

Okay, now you can tell me about your weekend. Make me jealous.

Veterans' Day

To all military veterans and those currently in the service alike: THANK YOU!

I beg forgiveness for not posting a Thank You earlier, but I've been working since yesterday. (Well, I did have a break, but that involved personal hygiene and sleep and little else.)

Transportation

I have a visual aid for this post...

(Click to supahsize)
Taking a picture from the backside of the building may seem to be an odd choice, but I wanted to make sure you see the road in front and the white stone building across the way. This is Calvin Hall, which I am always inexplicably calling "Gilbert Hall" by mistake. (There is a Gilmore Hall nearby, but Gilbert Hall seems to be of my own creation. But I digress.)

Calvin Hall, built in 1885, used to be where that white building across the way now stands. As you can see, Calvin Hall is not a small building. In 1905 it was moved 105 feet across the street. They moved it at a rate of about 2 feet per day, using horses. The best part is, they kept holding classes in the building while it was being moved. You could probably never do that in today's OSHA world, but it sounds pretty cool.

This is a red brick building that used to stand amongst several red brick buildings on the Pentacrest...and it is the oldest surviving university building other than the Old Capitol. Now the Pentacrest has just four buildings besides the Old Cap, and they are all limestone like the one you see across the street.

Thus concludes today's historical architecture lecture. Next time, Schaeffer Hall.
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Shank has apparently left for vacation, and from what I can piece together from the text messages he sent while I was in class, he has thus far spent all his time drinking $10 draughts of Bud Light in the airport bar.
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You know what's awesome about going to a big university? I don't have to pay NBA prices for the privilege of watching felons play basketball. Just thought I'd throw that out there.
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And finally, Governor Vilsack has declared his presidential candidacy. I give his chances somewhere around the proverbial snowball's in Hell, but it's exciting news in this state.

Ice Cold

Britney supposedly broke up with Fed-Ex via text message.

No word if Bush did the same to Rumsfeld.

At least divorce by text messaging is more personal than divorce by fax. I think.

Before Sleep Comes

I must say that this is the first election night in several years when I haven't felt like throwing up. We'll see how it goes in two years. But I am disappointed with Wisconsin...
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For my 16th birthday, I told a friend of mine that I wanted a box of Legos. She gave me a big ol' box at school, and I carted it around with me all day because it didn't fit in my locker. Most people thought I was weird, but I never much cared what other people thought. That box of Legos is still at my parents' house, for the niece and nephew. And me when I visit.

The kids like it when I make big towers and castles...sadly, they like to have me make things for them more than they like to make things themselves. This is a trend I am working on reversing, because they need to be more creative. (We also need to work on their picking-up-the-Legos-skills, because Mom and Dad have a policy that they throw away Legos left lying on the floor...the depletion is dismaying.)

Anywho, I've been thinking I should get another box for myself. You may think I'm odd, but I'm not the only one.

Goodnight.

eMail

I have two majors (and am considering adding a new minor to the mix). One of my majors is my major major. The other, just something I'm throwing in there to look more important on resumes. Basically.

The major I don't care so much about, I keep getting e-mails to be more active in the student organization. And when I say "keep getting", I mean it's a nearly-hourly thing. It's really driving me crazy, but I can't get off the mailing list without (a) looking like an ass, and (b) losing out on the rare e-mail that is actually useful.

In other e-mail news, we got a mass-mailing from a very high official in the university system. And said official wrote in all lower-case. How does a high-ranking educational official and high-ranking corporate officer (said official is both) think that is a good idea? I expect casual e-mails to be like that, not an e-mail sent to 35,000 people. If a secretary wrote it, said secretary is incompetent.
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The minor I am thinking about is Classics. Since I am taking Latin anyway, it would only be two more classes. But one of them would be taught in Latin--books, papers, etc. (!) That might involve more thinking than I would care for.
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Britney Spears filed for divorce. I really thought those crazy kids would last (a little longer)...they seemed well-suited to one another. And what a bad week for Kevin...documented here.
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Did you vote?

Five Year Plan

Five years ago, life was framed in the short-term because life was potentially very short. Now we can look to longer-term goals in how we want our world to be shaped.

Your goals may not be my goals, but we all have the chance to show the government and the world what we want from our futures.

Vote.

Seriously, I Want to Know

Dear Coach Ferentz,

WTF?!

Sincerely,

Me

***SUNDAY UPDATE:

Dear Coach Smith,

Same question.

Sincerely,

Me

Army Quality Increasing

The former s-i-l was finally booted from the military. One can only hope the discharge was dishonorable. I'd hate to think that someone who enlists and then spends her time trying to get injured so she can collect disability for the rest of her life would be rewarded with veterans benefits. Plus she's "engaged" to half the guys at the German base, which won't be good for morale when they either find out about it or she actually marries one of them. The girl is a cancer.

I will never as long as I live be able to figure out the attraction to her. She is not pretty or even cute, and she is a colossal bitch. She can't even change a diaper without whining that the guy isn't doing enough to help her, so it's not like she has some mad maternal skillz of any sort. She doesn't know how to turn on a vacuum or use a dustrag. She won't work. Her only attribute is that she is thin. That's her pride, too, that a week after giving birth she can fit into her pre-maternity clothes. Which means her children are underweight, by the way, but at least she isn't fat.

The funniest thing I ever heard in my life was when she said she was a strong woman.

Strong women don't need to produce children to get an income (child support). Strong women work and take care of themselves and their children. Strong women don't threaten to take men's children away when they don't get their own way about every petty bullshit issue. Strong women don't pawn their children off at every opportunity. Strong women aren't visited by social workers every week because they don't know how to be a mother. Strong women don't get engaged to random bozos who haven't even met their kids yet. Strong women aren't selfish little bitches who don't care who they have to hurt as long as they themselves and they alone get what they want. Strong women don't file for every possible public assistance dime they can get instead of getting a job. Strong women actually do something besides spread their legs. Because strong women don't need a constant stream of men to take care of them.

So good for you, Army, unloading the dead weight.