I think I may know what I want to do for the rest of my life. It's something that could put all of my "expertise" to good use. Chemistry. Computer science. Artsy-fartsy stuff.

I want to go into the movie business.

Nothing to do with acting in them, of course. I've known for quite a long time that acting in the movies isn't for me. I like theater well enough, but I think I would prefer sticking with volunteer theater, and not try to make a career out of it. We can't turn all of our hobbies into our dream jobs, y'know.

But I love movies. Further, I love OLD movies. But almost all of the films made in the first half of the 20th century were made on degradable film. Flammable stuff. Prone to destruction, if not stored in the proper conditions, which many people back in the day simply did not do. There's been a recent demand for the preservation and restoration of films, boosted by people such as Spielberg and Scorcese. And with the onslaught of HDTV and Blu-Ray and kick-ass graphics and all that, we've more or less become used to crystal-clear pictures and high-quality film.

So why not? I think I really want to look into the possibility of a career in restoring or preserving old films. I want to save the talkies. (And if I do launch myself into this career, I already have a pet project in mind: hunting down the bits clipped from old Marx Brothers movies, particularly from Horse Feathers and Animal Crackers. My bias, let me show you it.)

It worries me that I can send an e-mail to my advisor and get an e-mail back within hours, even when he's absolutely swamped with work because it's the last week to drop a class and he's under the gun because of it; but an e-mail I sent to my Chemistry professor Friday morning about missing class and when can I retake the quiz? can go unanswered until even now.

If I wasn't kicking ass in that class, I would drop the course without a second thought. I'm sick of it.

In other news, coffee is God. And, goddammit, I left my coffee mug in class. Again. I am off my game this morning.

Trust me on this one.

Probably one of the best things about me getting bumped down into a community college (apart from actually enjoying the bulk of my schoolwork) is browsing the paper one day to find that my feller's favorite TV icon, Anthony Bourdain, is coming to the school to have a talk, a Q&A session, and an autographing session. Tickets were also ridiculously free to students (!), so I grabbed my good buddy who doesn't even know who Anthony Bourdain is and we got us a pair of tickets.

The talk was last night. We expected to only have a few hours together before the show, since I had class until 3 and the show started at 7, but due to a well-timed migraine, our day began sometime around 11. It wasn't that exciting a day, but it began around 11. I recovered with plenty of time to spare for the talk, we had dinner, and we took off.

The first thing he said when he came onstage? "Thank you for having me, and I'm very sorry that Bobby Flay could not make it. I know I was looking forward to it." It set the tone for a fun evening. He talked about his travels, his code (more or less), who gets sick on the trips and on what (its always the continental breakfast at the hotel never get the continental breakfast at the hotel), why he dislikes vegetarians, and how he managed to sneak Rachel Ray and the number 666 into the same picture. It was awesome.

Note to self: Start watching Anthony Bourdain's shows.

During the Q&A session, it was revealed that Rachel Ray actually comes from my area. When Bourdain heard this, he cringed, replaying his comments from earlier in his head. After all, he said that he had taken a distinct pleasure in watching Ray's neck slowly disappear, and had basically invited us to search carefully for the aforementioned picture. But after the audience had died down from the pleasure of watching Bourdain cringe, Tony just smiled and said, "Your finest export?"

Unfortunately, I still say that the sound people had stolen the show. Tony's first mic did not work at all (not that it mattered tony is loud enough on his own), so sound came up and took the mic away. After some more conversation where Tony outlined how this whole shebang started, sound came up with a new mic, a handheld one. This mic did not work, and Tony shut it off and set it aside. After a bit more on his New Yorker stint, sound came up a third time with a brand new mic. The audience laughed every time they saw the sound guy coming towards the stage, and even Tony went silent as he watched him. Bit of a bust as far as the sound went? Sure, but his appearance was always greeted jovially, and he can be one of the few people to say that he stole the show from Tony.

The feller and I bailed on the autograph session, since the line stretched to infinity and beyond, and the feller was fine with just the memory and the ticket, so I took him on a brief tour of the campus, instead, outlining some of the finer points of campus, such as Lang Pond, a huge puddle just outside of Lang Hall; the ass side of Hamster Hall, and how Amstuz became Hamster to begin with (it wasnt an official change i just dont like pronouncing amstuz so i call it hamster); and a building that I've never been inside. After pointing at the sidewalk and saying, "Okay, beyond this sidewalk is the basement of the lie-barry, where there's a buttload of computers and people pretend to study," I was dubbed the "best tour guide ever."

We then grabbed some free food from the campus center and went on our merry way.

The best thing that I can drag away from this experience? Anthony Bourdain is an absolute pleasure. His insights are keen, his bluntness is entertaining, and he's one guy I was more than happy to spend an evening with.

But most importantly, he has beautiful legs.

I've fallen in love with Terry Jones all over again, just for his narration of this bit. And for the jacket.

But, to give this post less more substance, I think somebody tried to April Fools my mother back in March.

Storytime!

This was after everybody had gone to bed. I was sitting downstairs watching TV (Dexter, if you were curious), and mum's phone rings. It's a private number and past midnight, so I have no idea who the hell could be calling. I pick it up, assuming that either something had gone wrong at the office mum works at (it IS assembly season, and my dad had only come home a few hours prior, and I was tried, so it made sense) somebody had the wrong number.

Which it was, don't get me wrong. But it was the most amusing wrong number ever.

I pick up the phone with a timid, "Hello?" I'm greeted with the person on the other line yelling. Not at me. Yelling at the person just off the phoneline. While he's screaming, "I'm on the fuckin' phone!" and all sorts of other obscenities, I'm still timidly "hello?"-ing on my end. This act gets old after a while, and just as I'm in the middle of, "I think you have the wrong number," the guy hangs up, having not even addressed me once during the entire phone call.

I'm confused, but I go back to my program, assuming, "Yeah, wrong number. It won't happen again." The phone rings again thirty seconds later. I'm mildly annoyed, but I get back up and check the caller ID, and it's a private number again. I roll my eyes and pick up.

It's the same guy, except instead of yelling to the guy who ISN'T on the phone that he's on the phone, he says, "Yo yo, whassup?" His greeting goes on, perhaps with a few sprinklings of 'homey' thrown in, as well as a few fucks for good measure, but I can't be too sure, as I wasn't listening too well. But I did catch the reason he was calling: "I'm lookin' for the bubbler."

"No," I tell him flatly, "you have the wrong number."

Just as I finish this, he hangs up on me. And he doesn't call back. Which is good, as he's already awakened my insomniac mother who probably didn't get much more sleep that night. She wasn't happy that her phone woke her up thanks to some idiot who dialed the wrong number twice, and neither was I. But in retrospect, it's at least blog-worthy.

Not as good a story as my one volunteer firefighter-friend, who investigated the cause of a hotel bathroom fire and found that it was caused by a 21 year old stereotypical black man who claimed that a dragon made him do it. But at least I'm not stinking the place up with emo like I usually do.

Spring Break is over and done with for me. I got to hang out with my sister, my surrogate sister, and my feller, and I got absolutely NO work done. It was glorious. My Psychology work got done, which is good. But the Team Leader and I don't know where the other guy stands, since when we rescheduled the group meeting at the lie-barry, I never managed to get in contact with him about it. His phone was out of service, and apparently, he didn't check his e-mail. So I need to get back into contact with him about the last bits of his paper, because getting his bit of paper out of him could mean the difference between our group getting the professor's crit on our paper before we hand it in, or us handing it in without even knowing if this paper is what the professor is looking for.

But, why bother whining about it? I just need to shoot him an e-mail, which I will do tomorrow. If I don't get an answer from him, I'll give him a call on Thursday and ask him about this stuff. Meanwhile, I should send an e-mail to the Professor and ask when, exactly, he wants our preliminary paper. Just to err on the side of caution.

I'm considering making my RP journal simply for fanfiction. I want to post some of my Marx Brothers stuff here. Heck, a lightly slashy fanfic I made for the Silver Screen Fanfiction Community over at LJ not only got me a positive review, but a new friend! There are a few things in that story that I want to change around, but I'm proud of that thing. And I'd like to show off my parody fic when it gets finished. And I want a place to post my Indiana Jones/Marx Brothers fanfic. And the beat just goes on and on! And it's not just Marx Brothers stuff, either! I mean, I've got to get into other fandoms sooner or later, right?

Speaking of LJ-related communities, I didn't get my homework done. I got caught up in an Easter Egg hunt. Stupid Easter Egg hunt.

And here's your drunk update, plus or minus the possibility of sobriety. I'm working on it, though. After a hot cocoa spiked with Irish Cream at the feller's house, I've got me a Killian's Irish Red at me side, and it's working at me quite well.

I'm feeling warm right now, and I'm kicking back to a Marx Brothers movie. Nothing too fancy; A Night In Casablanca. I would rank this one up with Horse Feathers and Cocoanuts, maybe just below A Day At The Races. I may be biased because this movie has my favorite Chico Marx piano solo, but who cares? I like it well enough. At any rate, yes. The only way tonight could be better was if I were watching a Sci-Fi original movie. Those things are hysterical when you're drunk.

The day was really, really good. I felt bad for calling into my Psych group meeting late only to break the news to the one person who made it that neither I nor my other group member could make it, but I got over it eventually. I called up my feller and hooked up with him. Shortly after he called, my parents called up to announce that we were on our own for dinner (work was swamped that night and they had already eaten), so my sister got the brilliant idea of lugging my brother, my feller, myself, and herself down to Panera Bread for dinner. My feller and my sister haven't seen too much of each other, and they hit it off smashingly. I couldn't have been more excited.

My feller's day hadn't been all that great up to that point, however. Apparently, (time out a chico scene heh those two are so adorable i love em) his name had not only been put on a paper, but he had also been given the task of presenting the topic of the paper to basically everybody in the industry that he is involved in... only they never bothered to tell him. He found out through the grapevine. He was not happy in the least, but his day seemed to perk up starting from dinner, onwards. We ended it on a positive note. Very happy about that.

So now, all that's left is to get in touch with my good friend, home for the week. And maybe to work on that Psychology paper a bit more. But that last one is a bit iffy.

Hee! Swordfight with Harpo! I love this bit!

*whistle* Been a while. Then again, not too much to write about these days. Nothing in fandom, and life is good.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the advent of my headache. I've had a headache for two years now (and before you ask yes ive seen a doctor about it its the most common question im asked when i talk about this goddamn thing), and it's been slightly ridiculous. I celebrated yesterday by calling my boyfriend, who had food poisoning, and going to bed around 8:30, because my head was throbbing. It just seemed appropriate. And I had cake for breakfast. Mmmmmm.

And today is St. Patrick's Day. The perfect day to figure out that the only green thing I have to wear no longer fits I'm wearing a green scapular, if only because it's the only green thing I have on me. I can only assume that it's all because my favorite color is red, and if I put more green into my wardrobe, my clothing drawer would resemble a Christmas drawer. It makes perfect sense. I mean, PER. FECT. Only, not.

I'll try to get some booze in me for later and make an update then, just to compare my typing ability. I'm apparently a babbler when I'm drunk, and I talk with my hands a lot, but I fail to see the difference between drunk and sober me. I always babble, and I always talk with my hands. I guess the more I drink, the more my quirks are noticeable. Heh.

I wanted to kill a select few in my Chemistry class yesterday. In fact, I still kind of want to kill them, but maybe only LIGHTLY kill them. Good mood and all that. Well... significantly better mood, anyway. ( Drama behind the cut. )

So, for the people who understandably don't want to slog through what went under the cut, my test was moved from Friday to home to Wednesday, just hours before my Programming midterm, and I was livid, to put it mildly.

I was also in pain yesterday and could not study for neither my Programming midterm nor my Chemistry test, so I effectively wasted a whole day with more on the line than what should have been.

So, come today, I left the house in a daze, the sound of Taps playing somewhere in the distance. I was certain that the day was going to kill me. Horrible weather, two tests on the longest day of the week, and I had missed out on breakfast because I couldn't find my pills. (I've got too many pills to keep track of. And I realize that sounds bad. Why else do you think I wrote it?)

On the way over to school, there was a rainbow. It would apparently bring good luck. Hey, even if today had enough suck in it to pull a golf ball through a garden hose, at least I saw something pretty. The first thing that happens in any of my classes? I get information about the big history paper that'll count as a huge chunk of my grade in my history class.

... That was supposed to be a good thing, though. Oddly enough, I'm really excited about all of this. Once he went through everything, two topics jumped into my head, and the professor okayed the two of them, and even went on to say that he thought the one topic that I was leaning a bit more heavily towards was the better of the two topics. As far as I'm concerned, this is going to be awesome.

Of course, now it's raining again and I'm stranded at school, hungry, tired, and constantly forgetting what the gas constant is. But at least Taps stopped playing.

So. Not only was I tagged by min_sora, but I was also tagged by omarandjohnny for this meme thing. That means I'm twice as obliged to do this thing. And, for kicks, I will be twice as generous with the meme.

a) List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself Twice as generous means that's I'm listing off 14 quirks! You lucky dogs!
b) Tag seven people to do the same I dislike tagging, so I'll just tag whoever wants to do this thing.
c) Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it" Oh, for fuck's sake.

( 14 quirks on a dead men's chest, all for the price of 7! Buy one, get one free! )

Consider yourself tagged: carden, joplin, havelocke, yayforjae, jamestown, rubyfruit_pixie, _plethora_
And don't blame me: Blame the fact that this meme didn't let me get away with not tagging anybody. Seriously. I feared for the life of my first born for a second.

Last night, there was a big snowstorm that hit my town. I got snowed in with my boyfriend and failed at making breakfast the next morning. It was the best way to start off the month, like, ever. (it wasn't too hard a fail i made one batch of eggs as if there was only going to be one person eating them and they were slightly undercooked the second batch turned out quite well but clearly I need a lot more practice in the kitchen area)

Of course, the only real reason I'm updating is just to say this: Whenever I see somebody say something like this, it makes me want to get a Pit Bull just out of spite. What it is that they say, "Hate the dog, not the breed"? I mean, I've never even seen a Pit Bull in real life, but if I were on my own, I would get one just out of spite. And I would name it Chico. Because it's an unstated rule (which will be stated by the end of this sentence) that my first dog is going to be named Chico.

That is all.

I have a crick in my back. It hurts when I move a lot. It also hurts when I breathe too deeply, which really sucks. Stupid crick.

Also, after viewing an episode of the Twilight Zone, I am convinced that the devil is a little man with a crooked cigar and a big smile who does wonders for the newspaper company. He also looks exactly like Burgess Meredith and overacts like hell. (cause this is the song that goes like this yes it is yes it is) Oh, 'Printer's Devil,' you've completely changed the image of the devil for me. No more red man with horns and a tail for me, nosiree bob!

This means I'm downloading the entirety of Season 4 of the 'Twilight Zone' just to get my hands on that damn episode. I would have specified how much of the file I wanted, but my downloading client doesn't let me specify. (heck the only mac-centric bittorent client that lets you specify which bits of the downloading file that you want is azureus and im too stupid to get a decent handle on that one) I'll watch the other episodes eventually, sure, but 'Printer's Devil' is most likely the only one that will stick around.

I'm also downloading the entirety of Season 2 of the radio series 'Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel.' It contains the only two episodes that aren't up on the Internet Archives, and I'm kind of in love with this series. It's a remake of the radio series that Groucho and Chico Marx made back in 1932. The show is produced by the BBC and is an absolute riot. And I'm missing two episodes. *flails* Only 40% to go!

It figures. The one day when I didn't want my book to come in, it came in. It would have made fantastic reading had the weather for the 14th been as bad as the 13th, and I wouldn't have been able to spend the day with my feller, but the weather was just fine, the streets were clear, and I did, indeed, spend the day with my feller. I just kept the book in my tote bag the entire day, and why not? I liked showing it off to my feller, and it was the best thing to carry around his card.

I didn't get him any chocolate or some other gift, so I felt a little bit cheap, but I made him a hell of a card. It was a rubber stamped card, embellished with gel pens and such. There were lots of rubber stamped bits, so I did crude cut and paste jobs and applied the cut-outs where needed, then slapped the damn thing onto a bit of paper that folded over and wrote some sentimental words on the inside of it. As simple as it sounds, I estimate I spent about four hours on the damn thing, and this isn't an exaggeration. I sat through A Hard Day's Night, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and perhaps the last half hour (at most) of Mirrormask. Just coloring and cutting and pasting and wasting fancy double-sided tape and doubting my own artistic merits and getting mad at the card and agonizing over the damn thing until it was finished, and then agonized over it some more for good measure.

None of this escaped Mike. When he saw the card, his eyes went wide, and he stared at it for a good, long while. Then he turned to me and said, "You made this?"

"More or less," I said. "The thing was just a stamp, really, but I did the coloring and the cut-out bits. I even still have some gel pen on my hands from it." Then, I proudly displayed my gel penned hand, which was less a sign of my hardship and labor, and more a sign of me getting tired of testing the gel pen on paper and deciding to test it on a new canvas.

He said the card was elegantly beautiful, and that went right to my ego, believe you me. Then I passed him the ticket to the Anthony Bourdain thing, which he already knew about, but I figured I'd give him the ticket and the newspaper clipping so he knew for a fact that I wasn't pulling his leg (and im sure the thought never crossed his mind for an instant but its the thought that counts right). He appreciated that quite a bit.

Mike also got me stuff: a huge, heart-shaped box of chocolates and one of the sweetest cards that I have ever read. I kind of really love that kid, what can I say?

It was a simple day, otherwise, but I had the best time. We spent the day together, listening to music, going for a nice, hour-long walk, and having dinner at Quiznos, because I hadn't eaten all day (i forgot is it my fault i forgot to eat) and figured something fast would be preferable to waiting an hour for a seat at an expensive restaurant, only to wait another hour for the food to come out. Not the Valentine's Day to make movies out of, but I think I prefer it this way.

And after almost falling asleep on Mike later in the evening, and yawning incessantly in the car (ill bet hearing excuse me every time i yawned drove mike up the wall eventually), I got home around 11:00, dead tired, but I still found enough energy to finish that book on Chico Marx. And I find it sad that the end of the book made me tear up more than any romantic or sentimental thing Mike had said all day. I feel a little guilty about that. Stupid Chico.

I bit the bullet and got myself a DA account. Right now, all that's up there is a bit of profile information and a picture of cheese that will most likely head for Scraps once I upload something more substantial, but the account's there, if anybody's interested in giving it a look. Although why you'd want to look at a piece of cheese is beyond me. You can't even comment on it; I disabled them, and will probably do so for the rest of my uploads to the site, just because. But, hey, if you like cheese, who am I to stop you?

Right here: EmmanuelRavelli. Is anybody shocked that I named this after a Chico Marx character?

And that's about all that this post is about. Good night... and God bless.

Still no sign of the book I purchased, but it's only been just over a week since I ordered the thing, so I need to stop being impatient. I'm a little jumpy, though. I haven't been this excited about mail since I was little and my relatives used to send birthday cards and ten dollar bills through the mail. All I'm hoping for right now is that it doesn't come on February 14, because I'll be tempted to drop all of the plans I have with my boyfriend and just sit and read my book all day.

I'm officially a bona fide college student at the community college; I've forgotten to do my first assignment. I made a big deal at home about not forgetting my Chem textbook, and I went and forgot it. The lie-barry has the textbook, but I also forgot my permit AND my student ID, so I can't borrow the damn thing. None of my friends take Chem, either, so I'm pretty much screwed as far as this assignment goes. It'll probably happen again before the semester is over, but hopefully, it won't be in the same class. (It'll have to be, though, won't it? Chemistry's the only class where I have to turn in written work, and at the rate I'm going in Programming, it'll be physically impossible for me to miss an assignment.)

I have no class on Wednesday or Thursday. Wednesday, my time will be spent cleaning my room, doing my Chemistry homework ahead of time (not the homework I missed, obviously, since the teacher doesn't take late homeworks), and finishing my book on Hunter Thompson. Assuming nothing interesting is on TV and I get distracted by the Internet. Thursday, I'll be spending most of my time with my feller, so it'll be a wholly unproductive day. And a splendid time is guaranteed for all.

Lists, lists, lists. Conveniently cut, for your friends lists' sakes.

( The Good. )

( The Bad. )

( The Ugly. )

And now, for something completely different: blacklight tattoos.


(Maybe I should have put this one under a cut?)

No, no, this isn't mine. I found this (and more tattoos like this) when I found myself bored and searching Google images for interesting things. Needless to say, I find this pretty interesting. It's the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. It's probably "old meme" by now (i found a blog dated back in 2004 talking about blacklight tattoos how ancient is that eh), but these look pretty amazing, I have to say. I almost want one. Damn my skittishness about tattoos in general, I think I want one of these things.

Well. Back full-time. My posts should be picking up slowly, but surely. Expect them to come on Mondays or Thursdays. I... can't say why.

Got myself a new laptop. It's a MacBook. A basic one, so it's not the ZOMG THAT IS A HUGE PIECE OF HARDWARE RIGHT THERE thing or the ZOMG YOU SHOVED THAT THING INTO A MANILLA ENVELOPE one. It's the HEY YOU HAVE A... A WHITE KEYBOARD sort of deal. A little mad that they didn't have an anti-glare screen option for the MacBooks (only for the MacBook Pros), but really, I shouldn't complain. A new, bitching sweet laptop. Better yet, my own space, so I don't have to take up room on my parents' computer whenever I want to check my e-mail, and I don't have to feel guilty about writing little tidbits of nothing. And I got a red, plastic case for it, and Red is my favorite color. So, yeah, no right to complain, me.

Classes are going all right. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not going into the Chemistry field, but I seem to be kicking butt at my Programming thing. Imagine, the one class I thought would be the most troublesome, and I'm ahead of the game! I've got the first three projects done. The first one was due today (and finished about two weeks ago; easy stuff, just had to fix seven errors in a hella short code), the second one isn't due until next week, and the third one isn't due for three weeks. So, what this means is that I don't have to worry about handing in another project until the end of February. Go me!

That's not to say that Chemistry is being a bitch to me. I'm pulling 80's in the class so far, and I just took my first test today, which I think went pretty all right. It went easier than my last homework assignment, which I thought was kind of funny. Now, if only I could start to tolerate lab... that would mean I'd have to get good at significant figures. Stupid significant figures. My weirdest class is History. Stuttering professor, remember. And I never know when to take notes in that class. One minute, he's talking about cuneiform, and the next, he's off on a tangent about bombing Iran. What a weird, weird, weird class.

I'm going back to the old college on Friday to see the old theater troupe perform a series of plays. Three in one night. My boyfriend made reservations last night, and I'm excited about it, really. I miss those guys! Crazy, crazy guys! Apparently, there's been a lot of drama going down, too. I'm kind of sad that I missed it, but at the same time... thank God I got out of there, even if it wasn't up to me.

( Long overdue update. It's a long one, so hold onto your butts. )

I want to thank everybody again for your sweet comments yesterday. Virtual hugs, sharing stories, well-wishes... it means a lot to me. You guys are the best!

I've sent in my letter of appeal. I spoke to my adviser about what to put into the letter, and asked him to read over it before I sent it in. He seemed to think it was a good letter (heck, he told me not to change a thing, so I guess it was pretty good), so I sent the letter into the required office. It's out of my hands now, so I don't have to worry about this again until the 3rd. In the meantime, I'd quite like some tea.

The hoe in my foot doesn't look as gross as it used to, but that's because I'm keeping a sock on it at all times, so I don't have to look at it. I'm sure it's doing fine, though. It doesn't hurt to walk on anymore, so that's a step in the right direction. (... No pun intended.)

Might as well relax for the rest of the day. Last day of the year, you know, so what's the point in spending it moping around, ya?

Blargh.

Christmas went well. Got a lot of really neat loot, a lot of things that were on my list, and a lot of things that weren't put were awesome, anyway. I got nothing Marx Brothers related, which kind of surprised me, but I shouldn't be TOO surprised, really. I've only jumped on the Marxism bandwagon a few months ago, and I try to keep talk of what I'm excessively fond of out of my everyday conversation (and I daresay I'm getting better at it), so... meh. There's always Amazon or Deep Discount. Besides, I finally got a tablet. Who the hell am I to complain about what I did and didn't get after a kick-ass gift like that? AND I got a pony! Granted, it was a stuffed animal that used to be a unicorn, and my parents cut the horn off of it before they wrapped it and they made it a euncuh-orn, but that only adds to how awesome my pony is.

It gets a bit depressing past this point, so you can skip the rest of the post if you're in a good mood.

Post-Christmas went not as well. After coming back from a rather fun Christmas party at my grandparent's place and having a relaxing evening with my family, our cat, Tigger, started yowling something fierce. The parents took him to the emergency animal clinic. I wasn't too worried, because this was the first time the cat had gotten sick, so I figured he'd be coming back eventually. But he didn't come back. He had developed a blood clot due to a bad heart (which we never knew he had. You learn something new everyday, I guess.), and his back legs were almost completely paralyzed. There wasn't even the option, "You can do this, this, and this to try to save him." It was, "Your cat has this. We have to put him down." Best damn cat I ever had, and he gets sick, rushed away, and put down in less than two hours.

Within the next 24 hours, I checked my e-mail and found a letter from the school. It said, in a few more words and with less snark, "You kind of really suck at college. The school board is going to meet to see if we still want you at our college, despite your total suckitude. Write us a letter and tell us why we shouldn't kick you out because of your suckitude." Granted, I was expecting this letter. I know I suck at college. But it came at one hell of a time. And this is it. No interviews. No meetings. No nothing beyond one letter, and it will help these good people decide whether or not I'm fit to stay at college. It's a scary thought.

I really, really want to see my friends, my boyfriend, whoever right now. But I'm also miserably sick. I've got a nose like a fountain right now. It's kind of gross. I've been sniffling and coughing and hocking loogies for a few days now, and when I get sick, I get miserable. And when I get sick, I'm also highly contagious, so I've been keeping my friends and my sweetie at arms length until I get better. I have to, and it sucks, because what I need now, more than anything, is a hug from somebody outside the house.

And the most recent addition to my sad state of affairs? I have a tendency to pick at things. Thread, hangnails, scabs, whatever, I can't help it. And last night, I ended up picking at a dry callus on the bottom of my foot. A lot. End result: an open sore on the bottom of my foot (which I fondly refer to as "the hole"), with no gauze and no band-aids in the house to patch it up with. So now, it hurts to walk, since there's a hole in the bottom of my foot. Score two points for me!

... So, I'm kind of not in a good mood right now. So far, this vacation blows. I want to go back to school. Hell, I want to be able to go back to school, in the very least.

On a lighter note, Duck Soup was playing on HBO earlier today, and I tuned in just as Chicolini locked Firefly in the bathroom to try to get the secret war plans from Mrs. Teasdale. Which means I got to watch the Mirror Scene. Hell yeah, Mirror Scene!