Felocity

The World's Fire

There's a flickering light in the window tonight but a silence in the room. The rain dabs softly into the dirt marring the earth's own snow.…

There's something nice about 7:30 am when you are actually awake to enjoy it. I don't mean alarm clock awake, and I don't mean early to do homework awake either. I refer to instead when you actually naturally woke up to face the day. That sort of awake. LAst night I told everyone BRB since my back was really hurting, and so I laid out on the floor to stretch it out. I then passed out on the floor until morning. I think Raul jacked the heater up again in the apartment since it didn't get cold in the house last night.

Backpedaling over the last few days, the Monday presentations in Yee's class were nothing short of a joke. We had to read one section to present, another and form 10 questions, then go back, revise our presentation to incorporate the questions another group created, present it, and then halfway through the presentations, Yee realizes that through this method, entire sections of the book are being skipped over because some groups just walked up front and just answered the questions without explaining anything. So, he has decided to change the presentation format. How is he changing it? Nobody knows. Why is he changing all this to begin with? Something tells me it is tied to all the complaints he got at the halfway mark that fell along the lines of "this class sucks, because you really aren't teaching us anything". I don't know if this is possible, but I honestly feel like I am doing more work and learning less. Such is the mark of a required class I suppose. After Yee's class was two more hours of work, and then coming home to do piles of HW and get things ready for my Java class. I got to talk to Liz, and while chatting online with people, I realized my homework was actually doing itself! I saw a lot of things I thought I needed to do that were already done! Makes life easier. :) Eventually I fell asleep, and awoke for yesterday.…

I spent my lunch break finishing the CMYK color separated copies of Insights, the Title V newsletter at ASAP. I never thought my experience from Yearbook would be useful. Fixing, editing, and tagging a 4 page newsletter in 4 hours, without any kind of technical direction is more an indication of experience than anything else. There is always something about a deadline that gets you working. Thankfully, this wasn't something like 4:30 in the yearbook room using chairs as a bed because you couldn't sit in front of the computer anymore. (Although those memories of late night color deadlines are pleasant looking back.)

My day started at 9:00 or so, as the ringing of my phone shook me up out of my bed. I honestly can't remember what time I flicked off the XBox and crawled into bed. For that matter, I don't even remember turning off the XBox in the first place. I do remember it was slowly becoming dawn, because I grumbled to myself about morning coming too quickly. Anyway, the call was from Jake according to my voicemail, and the Kiosks were down. I was dressed and out the door within five minutes of hearing the message, pausing long enough to change away messages. By the time I got there, someone had figured out that the computers were not plugged in to the network. Of course you can't access the database over the network when you are not connected to the network! I took some time to clean and set up a computer, and by 10:00 it was time for Insights.…

She dreams her dreams in Technicolor

I want to put the above in a song, but I lack the lyrical talent to do such things. I was about to crawl up into bed, and decided to jot down a few thoughts for my own sake. First off, I need to find a copy of LOtR extended edition that I can watch. I have really wanted to see it, and currently lack the funds to go get it myself. Money is a bit on the tight side right now, and I figure I will just scrape by. This month, I have been operating on $265 less than I should have been. This makes things such as food and gas serious expenses. I am trying to plan out the next two weeks so that everything will work out as far as money goes. I should be able to make it, as next week I head home Wed. where food is (more or less) free, and I can get key things such as condiments and dinner ideas. Maybe I can even locate a cheap crock pot, since it doesn't look like Jake will be getting his up here within the next 6 years. As far as remaining money, I figure I have about two tanks of gas and four meals left, or some balance in between. Since I only have to gas up once on the way home usually, and am at 3/4 right now, things will work out pretty well. I have things here around the apartment for food, and so the meals can be saved for SC this weekend.…

Well, after tossing and turning, I gave up on sleep for now. Hopefully I will either A) get tired, or B) get lost in Morrowind until dawn. Anyway, Thursday was really busy since I spent most of the day at work. We got our new laprops, which meant it was time to label, serial, store, and otherwise set them all up. I was quite involved with this, and ended up working through my dinner hour (erk!) on them. I didn't have any evening appointments, so I took to playing the original Final Fantasy on my Pocket PC. I have been having quite a few appointments lately for ASP, which is a very nice thing. To understand why this is nice, one must understand that I am a programmer at heart, and I love problem solving. I also like tinkering to get stuff to work just right. I can't say the same about Java, but as far as procedural things such as ASP, PERL, C++, etc, I can manage pretty well. I'm pretty sure over the next few weeks I will have Java down to the point where I can actually grasp what is going on and be able to understand other people's code and stuff.

Friday I will be in extra early to ASAP since I somehow ended up doing the editing and publication prep. for Insights, the Title 5 newsletter, which is due to the publisher as soon as possible. Of coruse, I can't really edit what I don't have, or I would be doing that instead of this entry. I do get paid for it though, so it's nice to be able to say the many years of Yearbook are actually being put to use. After that it's lunch somewhere with the tech staff, and then my block of work until 5. According to the schedule I am blocked solid for the three afternoon appointment hours I have, so I have to have everything done by 2 pm. After work, it will be back to putting my nose to the Java grindstone until either Jake/Eric rips me away for dinner or I give up on the code for the day, whichever comes first. There is also a high chance that something like SD3 might distract me, but I figure that goes without saying. ^^…

Okay, that was a high-powered weekend and I think Sunday night my body kicked into a special "recover for school" mode that had me asleep at my computer by about 11. Between HP, Escaflowne, SAMO, Lupin III, and more, I think my body finally spoke up on the whole "you need sleep thing".

Sunday started out with me waking up way too early. I didn't have to be up in SC until about 1 or so, so to pass time and shake off the exhaustion, I settled in for some Morrowind. Then the XBox froze, so I settled in on the Internet. After reaching the end of the Internet, I got a message from Matt, and he invited me to go hook up with him and Janel at Saturn Cafe. With a game plan set, I jumped in the shower, finished some work, and got a half hour late start (oops!), and made my way up to SC. Once there, I met up with Matt and Janel, waited for them to finish their food, and then Matt and I ran to Hollywood to get Short Cuts for his CW club. Along the way, he and I talked about some stuff and it had me silently lost in thought when I stumbled into SAMO. Have you ever noticed that 5 minutes behind quickly becomes 10, then 20, and then before you know it half an hour? (You can guess how late we were...lol) SAMO went well, although I noticed I kept spacing out back into thought, especially during Bubblegum Crisis. Honestly I felt horrible about letting any kind of thoughts run through my head like the ones that did, so I violently shoved them aside and jumped on the faith in others bandwagon. I put all my faith in trust in her. I couldn't even tell you why, except that I believe in her. Later that evening I voiced my concerns I had set aside, simply because I felt it best to tell her what was on my mind earlier.…

I never realized that every other week, Laundryday inserted itself right after Friday. I think it comes out of necessity, and occasionally inserts itself before Monday as well, although that seems less infrequent. Rumor has it, Homeworkday and Laundryday trade places, although there is no scientific proof to back any of it up.

It's past noon, the power flicked out at my house, my computer is sleeping, and I am at Gretchen's doing laundry for the wonderful price known as 0. I got to sleep in, the sunlight waking me at seven, the temperature (courtesy of Raul jacking the thermostat up) at 10, necessity finally at 11. Needless to say, it was a bit of a fitful sleep. When I got back this morning from SC around 3:30, the house was actually empty. Eric was gone, Raul was gone, and I wasn't sure if Jake was or not, but his door was shut which meant he either was gone or already fast asleep. Being as quiet as possible, in my drowsy state, I kicked off shoes and pants and crawled into bed. I seem to do that a lot when I get home in the 2+ am hour. I suppose it is because I don't see much point in getting "ready for bed" when you will be up in a matter of hours anyway.…

public class HeuserR_prob3 extends JApplet { brain fried; work boring; so bored;

public void init() { fried = new brain(); boring = new work(); bored = new so(); } }…

People amuse me.

They are funny in the way they stress, laughable are they in misplaced misery. It's only what TRL told them to be sad about. God forbid real life happen. They gossip behind your back talk about you to fit in with their friends; becuase they know nothing else? Natural never was the nature of our species.…

I hate money. I hate the fact that things cost money, and that money is the solution for everything apparently. I hate the fact I am working 10+ hours a week for ICC and getting paid 300 for the semester (for those that lack mad math skills, this would be $1.87 an hour). I hate the fact I am going in to talk to Marc today to cut away my lunch hours to replace them with work hours at ASAP. I hate the fact that my parking ticket, plus my rent, is going to leave me with exactly $3.07 in my account for the next two weeks. I hate the fact I can't really ask my parents for money, and I hate the helpless feeling that hits you at 1:45 on a Monday afternoon when you realize that on a financial level, the next weeks are going to suck.

Wow, okay. I have assembled my countless notes of the 31st into one complete entry. There were a lot of 1-2 sentence blurbs simply to help me detail the night. Without these who knows what I would remember or forget from the night. I don't blame the alcohol, I simply blame the fact there was so much going on. Before I dive headlong into the entry of entry-goodness, I want to first provide some background on this wonderful time of year.

First off, October has always marked the start of a new year for me. Partially because for me, this is the month I actually do complete another year of existence. It is also because this marks the turning point in the northern hemisphere towards a death and rebirth of things. Things begin with sleep, awaken, then flourish; much like paths we walk in our lives. It just feels to me more like the natural order. I guess because that one shred of optimism feels we start with nothing, not end with nothing. Anyway, for me October and November have always been really special months. Traditionally, on Halloween, I would simply stay at home and watch TV with the family, handing candy to the kids and playing games. Once my brother and I were too old to trick or treat, Halloween became a chance for our family to have one of those "Family Moments". It reminded me of the nights we would all play dice games, Life, or other board games. For the longest time, Halloween has been something special. This is the first time I planned to actively do things with friends.…