Non timebo mala....

Did some more work on grad school application today. I've finished up the application for San Jose State, or at least it will be finished once the mail goes out tomorrow morning. And the other applications are as done as they can be until I hear back from my professors about letters of recommendation. I've gotten one "yes" so far; hopefully more with be forthcoming.

I need some 8x11 envelopes as well. Good thing we're going to the store tomorrow.

I'm still really tired, too.

We had a really great kind of appetizer thing this evening, veggies and crackers and cheese. We had broccoli and cucumber that my mom and I grew in the garden, and some carrots (not from the garden). And we had this really great aged gouda the we ordered from igourmet, which is amazing. I had some gouda that we bought at the store, and it had no flavour, none whatsoever. It was like eating cheese-textured air. But oh man, the stuff we ordered was so good. Mmmmmmm.

Filling out grad school applications is waaaaay more exhausting than I thought it would be. Worked on them on and off for about...seven hours today, and am still not all done. Still waiting to hear back from my professors about whether they will write me letters of recommendation, so I can put their names on the application form and say that they'll be writing me letters. And asking for letters or recommendation when I'm in a completely different state did (still does) feel really awkward. Hopefully it'll be okay, though.

And gods bless the University of Hawaii and their ridiculously simple application process. Seriously. It has been a beacon of sanity among the Kent State and University of Pittsburgh application, which are a bit ridiculous, especially Kent State. I think they don't even bother to read it. If you can submit it successfully, you're in.

I'm also applying to San Jose State University, which almost rivals University of Hawaii for ease of application. Going there would be really awesome, since I love the program and it is miiiiles cheaper than the other ones. Unfortunately, due to massive budget cuts, their not accepting new students, except for select programs of which ML(I)S is one! I was so bummed when I saw "not accepting applications" but you keep reading and it says "except for certain programs such as engineering, librarianship, and occupational therapy." Go me!

I am ridiculously tired, though. Way more than is necessary. And I'm not even done.

I just joined Twitter for Misha Collins.


I want a t-shirt that says that.

I swear to God, I'm just not going to sleep again. I hate hearing "It...is...alive..." or references to zombies or the living dead when I get up. Fine, I sleep late, but you know what, I'm up later than you guys, too. I don't say anything when you go to bed at 10 or 11, so don't say anything when I get up at 12 or 1. It's not like I'm lazy. I get up when I have to go to work, other than that, what do you care? Seriously, enough with the snide comments.

My stomach hates me. I will spend today watching Wilde and Doctor Who (and maybe Torchwood, who knows) and drinking Gatorade. Woot.

Wow, I suck at getting these posted, don't I? The answer is yes. Just a select few right now, and very little text, because it is....4:30 in the morning and I need bed. More tomorrow. I promise. Oh, um, click on pictures for a better view.


( Ray Bradbury. 'Nuff said. )


( Happy Gareth is happy. )


( The true ComicCon experience. )


( With Special Guest Star... )


( The scrawny little man who owns my soul. )


( Larry, Moe, and Curly. )

In about 7 hours, I will be meeting John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd!! There will be autograhps! And photos!! Whee!!!

So after 8 hours traveling and about 29 without sleep, here I am in San Diego for ComicCon!!! I'm staying at St. Christopher's International Hostel. I am sooooooo glad I didn't cancel my reservation, because the person I was supposed to be staying with totally shafted me, and lodging is impossible to find in this city right now.

Anyway! Happy time! Because tomorrow I will get to see John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd!!! And many other people too, including more people from TW and DW, but those are the ones I am really excited about!!

There will be pictures (I went and got a digital camera specifically for this) and squee later on, but right now I just want to sleep. Preview night is tonight, and registration opens at three, and I will try to be down at the convention center by then. I want to get in a nap before then.

I suck in the way where I accidentally put my mp3 player (which I have had less than three months to begin with) through the wash. The day before I will spend four hours on planes. Plus an hour layover. Go me.

Dear brain,

Please, please, please knock it off with the bizarre dreams. Or I will be forced to poke you with a q-tip. Or perform a self-lobotomy.

This is part of the reason why I hate sleep.

In San Antonio. The flight was fine. I decided to take a taxi from the airport to the hostel, rather than subject myself and fellow passengers to me and my two suitcases and my huge camping backpack on an unfamiliar bus system. I've never taken a taxi before. I have to admit, I was a little freaked when the door locks went down; this is what comes of reading The Bone Collector. But thankfully, I was not hideously murdered.

So I get to go through the living hell of San Antonio International Hostel instead. Seriously, every other hostel I have stayed in has been wonderful; perhaps I just got my hopes up too much. Because this one is shit. My room is on the third floor, which is not actually a floor it is the attic and I think used to be servants' quarters when this was an actual house, judging by the narrowness of the staircase. And it has no insulation or ventilation, because it's like 80 billion degrees up there. It has one of those window unit AC things, which I switched on, and then retreated to cooler parts of the house. Like outside, which is the only place I can get internet. Of course, I cannot charge my laptop while I'm on the porch, so it's something of a tossup. I'll chill here until my comouter dies. And then go inside and do something like watch Torchwood at top volume, because I am apparently the only person in the place except for the owner/manager/WTF, so why did I get stuck in the attic?

Ah, well, hopefully for only one day. I am going to check out rooms tomorrow.

From 5ft_c_l_i

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well let's see.


1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.


( My list )

I'm at 32. Could be worse.

(What happened to 99 and 100? And how is Mark Twain not on here anywhere?)

So, I went ahead and booked a ticket to San Antonio. For next Monday. I don't officially have a place to live in San Antonio, yet, but I will at least be there, which is a step in the right direction. Apartment hunting has been SHIT, so I decided to just look for rooms instead, and have been having much better luck with that. I have a few possibilities lined up, and although they aren't as close to the city as I would like, beggars cannot be choosers.

The road trip was AMAZING, for those of who haven't heard, and I will hopefully be making a post (or probably several) on that soon.

I'M GOING TO BE PUBLISHED!!!!!!!

So, I had to defend my thesis this morning. It's an analysis of Blakean themes in Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, if you were curious. And Jim, a member of my thesis committee, is an editor for The ALAN Review, a magazine on YA fiction. And he wants me to work with Mark, the head of my thesis committee, to polish it up and publish it in the fall issue, as part of a series on scholarly analysis of YA books.

Holy shit, you guys!! I almost started crying right there. I just...wow! This is fucking amazing! GLEE!!!

Finals are all over. I had five of them in less than three days. This is not recommended. I also went to go see The Golden Compass on Friday night. It was awesome, and there will probably be a more thorough post about it later.

I have arrived safely in Ohio, where they have decent things like cold and snow and people who will do my laundry. Tonight, I am going to go to sleep and not have to worry about getting up in the morning at all. It will be quite a novel experience. :D

So, what's been going on with me lately?

I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert on Saturday. floyd and I went, actually. It was not really what I was expecting. Pretty much all I know of their music is their rock/orchestral versions of Christmas songs, including their completely kick ass version of "Carol of the Bells" that they did with Metallica. But they didn't do that. They didn't do a lot of stuff of theirs that I was expecting to hear. What they did do was intersperse the music with some very after-school special story about The True Meaning of Christmas (tm) that was sanctimonious and annoying and that I really could have done without. But the music was good at least.

I still feel like I never really got a grip on the semester, but it's almost over, so thank gods for that. Hopefully next semester will be better.

They had the annual giant used book sale on campus last week, and of course I bought a ridiculous number of books for very little money. I don't feel like typing up a whole list right now, but maybe later. Rest assured, they are awesome.

Also, it is Thanksgiving weekend, and I have the apartment to myself. Which I actually really enjoy. I hope to get some work done on my final papers on project, but my main plan for the weekend is a Doctor Who marathon. I've only seen most of the episodes once, especially the ones from series three, and I think that needs to rectified.

Um, the Suns are doing awesome. We're 9-2 for the season right now, and playing the second part of a two-game series against Sacramento tonight. Also rain_dances came up with an awesome basketball drinking game that I'm thinking of playing during the game tonight. It could be awesome...

So, even with the one class dropped, I still feel like I'm having a hard time of it this semester. I just have absolutely no motivation whatsoever. Even for the classes I actually like, I don't have a problem with the reading, but I don't want to do anything else, no papers or discussion boards or anything like that. Even for the big final papers I have coming due in the next few weeks, I just don't care. Admittedly, it's not close enough yet for the last minute panic to set it, but usually I have an idea for them or something by now. And I have a paper due a week from today, and still have no idea what I'm going to write it on. Sigh.

I (well, we, to be more accurate) have spent pretty much the entire weekend cleaning house. I hate doing it, but it does need to be done occasionally. And not just the cleaning kind of cleaning, the kind where you go through all your stuff and clear out what you don't want/need anymore. So I do have some sense of accomplishment for the weekend. Although I now have this weird rash thing on my hands and left arm that I'm hoping is from some sort of cleaning supplies, because otherwise I have no idea.

On happier news, sports! ASU won, Ohio State lost. To an unranked team, go Illinois! That puts ASU back to number eight, and Ohio State down to number seven. On the other hand, I am kind of pissed on behalf of Hawaii, because they are undefeated and still only number 16. Poor Hawaii. But basketball! Basketball is back! The Suns are back! Oh, my boys, I've missed you. We're doing pretty well so far, 5-2, which is respectable. A lot of people were upset because we had some rather bad losses, but I for one would rather get them over with early in the season and finish up well. And we definitely started off better than we did last season. I'm just so glad to have basketball back on, and to see my team doing well. We really seem to be meshing the new players well with the rest of the team, and the old players are continuing to just be fantastic. Seriously, Leandro Barbosa had 39 points last game! That's a career high for him. I'm glad he's doing so well, he's really improved so much over the last few seasons. :D :D :D

So, last night we had a sleepover. Me and RaeAnn and Floyd. We pushed all the furniture in the living room back and spread blankets out on the floor and watched movies and had pizza and popcorn and Mountain Dew. The rule for the movies was that we each had to pick something that the other two hadn't seen. We ended up watching UHF, Billy Elliot, and Transformers. Seriously Transformers was awesome; I can't believe I hadn't seen it before. Unfortunately, though, we were up until about six in the morning, and I have work and 10 (that's where I am now.) Thank gods for Almond Joy Dutch Freezes from Dutch Bros., the coffee shop by my house. Seriously, they have become one of my reasons for living. I'm still really tired, though.

I really want to watch Doctor Who; I have for awhile. Not any episodes in particular, really, just the show in general. You know what. Screw homework. When I get home, I am just going to curl up in my chair and waste my afternoon watching TV on my computer. I'm too tired to do homework anyway. :P

So, I decided in the interest of my sanity and well-being and whatnot, to drop one of my classes. I dropped The Artist's Self. Even though Susser is awesome and I love him, I really wasn't getting anything out of that class. I didn't hate it, and trust me, I have hated classes before. I just didn't care. So hopefully my life will be a bit easier and less stressful now. Hopefully.

So, what's been going on with me lately? Mostly, school has been kicking my ass in a horrible way. I'm not doing poorly, really, it just seems like I'm always busy and always overwhelmed with stuff. It's odd, because last semester I took 21 hours and did fine, and this semester I'm only doing 16 and having so many issues. I am taking two 400 level classes and three 300 level classes, so that might have something to do with it. I'm just basically trying to stay on top of things until the semester is over. We're halfway done now, so hopefully I can keep things up.

The working two jobs thing probably doesn't help a lot.

Basically just a drive by post to let people know I'm not dead. Just really busy and stressed. *sigh*

On a more positive note, the Red Sox won the World Series, ASU football is undefeated, basketball season starts soon, there is a new season of SPN, and it's Halloween tomorrow.

So, a few days ago, stellastars mentioned that she was going to have a very busy day, and wanted something happy to think about to keep her occupied. I mentioned I had a whole bunch of macros and things that I had made and never posted, but that I would, so she could be distracted. Of course, I didn't, because this is me and I am terrible about things like that. But I am doing it now.

I'm not sure whether or not these actually qualify as macros; they're mostly just pictures with captions. And few without captions. Mostly John Barrowman, because he really does lend himself so well to things like this. And some of John and Scott, because they are some of the most adorable things ever. Pictures of John Barrowman screencapped by me from YouTube, so apologies for the poor quality. Pictures of John and Scott from ohnotheydidnt.


( 15 images under the cut. I'm not sure what LJ did with the sizes on some of them.... )

You know those days when you just wake up and know, somehow just know, that the entire day is going to be made of suck?

Today is one of those days.

So, I got tagged by tru_faith_lost Need to do something to distract me at work.

The meme:
1. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
2. Tag seven people to do the same.
3. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag whoever wants to do it.

( Bet you didn't know... )

All righty, I'm tagging stellastars, blankmeridian, sherlock1_98, sholmes87, kyasurin, magic_at_mungos, and lindsey_grrl

So, here we are again. Semester started on Monday. I don't have any class on Monday (I nicely arranged my schedule so I only have classes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday), but that was the official first day of class. And even though I do have a four day weekend, I work every day except every other Saturday, so I'm definitely keeping busy.

So, the classes I'm taking:

(  My classes, let me show you them )

So, that's what I'm doing this semester. I think it'll be a good one.

Um, yeah, mostly just posting this because I tried to show sholmes87 over YM and it didn't work.

Also, it is made of awesome. And very funny. To me.

( Cut for dorkage, squee, and video )

So, over the past week (maybe even past few days) I have fallen hard and fast into Torchwood fandom. Also Doctor Who, but it's Torchwood that's taking over my brain at the moment. I haven't been in much of a fic mood lately, unfortunately, but I decided I needed to get in some more practice with my photo editing software. So there are icons. Lots of icons. Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Number: 47 icons behind the cut
Characters/Pairings: Jack, other Jack, Ianto, Owen, Jack/Jack, Jack/Ianto, Jack/person of your choice, Ianto/Stopwatch
A/N: All icons made using screencaps taken by me. All editing done by me. Feel free to take them, EXCEPT number 45, which was specially made for stellastars. If you want it, ask her first. Please credit and comment if you're taking. Feel free to alter icons if you see fit, and make them your own, but please credit me for bases.
Credits: Text on number 3 from Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling. Text on number 5 from "A Nightingale Sang in Berekely Square," by Eric Maschwitz and Manning Sherwin. The lyrics I use are the altered lyrics used in the show. Text on number 11 from "Dancing with Myself" by Billy Idol. Text on number 13 from Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino. Text on number 44 from "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman. Text on number 47 from the Supernatural episode "Salvation," by Eric Kripke and Sera Gamble.

( ICONSES!! )

A very, very happy birthday to _emeraldgreen. May it be filled with presents and cake and boys in eyeliner.

So, yesterday we had this completely awesome rain storm and the power went out. And so we played MadLibs, which is what we do when the power goes out. But these were not any MadLibs, oh no. These were SPN MadLibs, which basically means any word we came up with had to relate to SPN in some way. It didn't have to be directly, you just had to be able to back it up if it wasn't obvious. Anyway, I decided I would post them for your general enjoyment. Some are general SPN, and some are character specific.

( Hilarity lies within )

Finished DH. Took me about nine hours. Remained spoiler free until I got my grubby little hands on it. Traumatized some twelve year old boy at the opening party with my Remus/Sirius shirt, and subsequently ending up trading insults with him in a very twelve-year old like manner. Tired now. Post about Important Stuff later. Goodnight/morning.

Man, I know it seems like I've done nothing but bitch since getting back to the States, but seriously.

The paycheck that was not waiting for me when I got back, that I had to ask them to reissue? Still not here. I went back to the HR office today, telling them that it had been 10 business days and I would like my money, thankyouverymuch. Apparently, the state has not even released said check. There is no telling when this will happen.

The check I was supposed to get Monday, for all the work I've done since I got back (over 100 hours, if you're counting) is likewise nowhere to be found. It was not delivered to the desk where I work, nor was it in either of the HR buildings. I have been told to check at the library, which doesn't really make sense, since it's my secondary job; I have fewer hours there and have been working at the desk for much longer. But it is a possibility. I have also been told to check at Best, the desk I work at during the regular school year. Which doesn't make nearly as much sense, since as far as I know Best is closed for the summer. I don't even think there's anyone there right now.

To make things even better, I got this bitch of a headache Sunday night. I mean, I get migraines, so I'm pretty used to nasty headaches, but this was different. It was incredibly intense, and focused behind and above my right eye. I was nauseous, but there was none of the sensitivity to light or sound that goes with a migraine. The pain was also more intense, much sharper. And none of my regular medicine worked, not even the stuff I take for migraines. I had to resort to the Endocet they gave me as a painkiller when I had surgery.

I took Monday and yesterday off from the library, but still feel like shit. The nausea and the intense pain is gone, but I've had a pretty much constant headache since then, and I'm tired, just so fucking drained, and I have done little the past few days but sleep and hang around the house reading. I've still had to work at the desk, because you kind of have to unless you can get coverage, which is hard to do on short notice. But I really do not want to go back to the library right now. I just want to sleep. A lot. But I doubt I can really justify taking more time off.