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I'm wearing black and gray in mourning
Nov. 3rd, 2004 02:35 pmThis country is going to hell, and I'm going to mourn the loss of the wonderful nation that is the United Sates. Goodbye!
*cough* No, not really, but blech, sometimes I can't believe the elections here. Maybe I'll just convert to Socialism or something. Move to Cuba! Haha... No, kidding. I'm in shock, really, but... whatever. Maybe with some dumb luck we'll pull off an impeachment a'la Clinton's last few years, or a'la Governor Gray Davis. *grin* (And we could get that amendment to the Constitution so that Schwarzie can run for President! HAH. HAH. HAH!)
In other news, I stayed here (at the Collabatory) until 11pm last night. CLOSING. -_-; Yes, I know I'm a procrastinator, the Queen of Bullshit Artists, and many other things, but yeouch. Thank goodness Scott was good enough to wait around for me (he got out of class around 7:45, which is pretty early for him), because otherwise I would have had to walk home. No way Grandpa would have stayed up that late to wait for me to call him.
I was working on my speech for today, the informative one on the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. I finally finished the outline, but I was lacking a 2nd book source (required: 2 books, 3 journals, and as many others as necessary or desired). I came up with the idea to search my personal collection, or at worst, the bibliography in the Black Hat book I'd used as my first book source, but then inspiration (and luck!) struck me this morning.
For one, SBC discovered the problem behind my home Internet, and I think it's working again (for real). Something about water flooding their underground cables, and now they had to redirect the lines or pump out the water or something. Anyway, I managed to go to Amazon.com and find a spam-related book, "The Anti-Spam Toolikit." This book also happened to have an excerpt, which I used. I used my scanner to uce OCR, and turn my previously-printed pages into editable text on the newly-installed MSOffice 2002. I redid the Works Cited Page and Page 3 of my outline, and tah-dah! All done! ^_^
Of course, today, I was paranoid because despite the extra hour and a half I'd allotted myself, I didn't finish copying my outline to index cards so I could actually MAKE my speech. And I didn't think to make a copy of my outline to work off of INSTEAD of index cards, simply because my rationale is that index cards are smaller and less obtrusive. Well, as it all turned out, I didn't have to go anyway. Friday, I'll be the first one to go, and obviously, with the extra time, I'll revise my index cards and practice as much as I can.
I also completed my Mortgage Project to the best of my ability; questions 14 and 15 confused me because they were asking "what if you paid an additional $100/$200 toward your principal each month? how would that affect your payments, how long it takes you to pay, etc." I tried several ways of inserting that value into the formula P(1 + r/n)nt = pymt (1 + r/n)nt -1
r/n
But I don't think I did it correctly, because I keep getting monthly payments that are only a few cents off (that is, HIGHER, when it should be LOWER) than my original monthly payment. Therefore, the time (30 yr. fixed loan rate @ 7.25%) wouldn't change, right? Are there any math experts in the house who'd care to help me with this one?
Well, aside from that, we started on Central Asia in Geography today... Mr. Davidson was "in mourning" just like me, wearing navy and blue. We're all bummed about Kerry losing this one, but... well, who knows? Bush knows about his criticizers, so maybe he'll try and shape up to do better than they (read: we the people) expect of him. We missed Kerry's concession speech, though. Wonder what that was like? CNN.com, here I come!
Journalism-- we ended working on TV, and we'll move onto Film on Friday. My 2nd Media Notebook entry (2-2) is due the 17th, and the whole notebook, bundled with the first one, is due on the 22nd. That doesn't give me much time to revise my 2-1 entry, though I will be waiting until we get the TV topic list before writing 2-2. My fallback in case none of the TV ones interest me (which seems doubtful, but knowing Ms. Henry's lists...) is the magazine muckraking one.
And now onto the juicy stuff.
(1) It's a good thing when you can see and accept flaws in the one you love, right? Well, Scott's actually been kind of annoying the past few days. The thing that sticks out in my mind (and you know me, I have a penchant for remembering pointless things, holding grudges, etc.) is last night. As we left the library, we checked the electoral college votes, as were a pair of girls at a computer terminal next to us. Since we were all looking at different sites, we all got different numbers, and I commented on the differing numbers. Despite the fact that I barely spoke above "library level" and that the library was closing anyway (therefore, no students studying and requiring the absolute peace and quiet), Scott was all "Mer, SSH!" -_- I just walked out of the library without him. I was tempted to snap at him when he finally caught up with me, but then I remembered how red-rimmed his eyes were, how tired he looked even BEFORE he'd agreed to stick around with me in the library while I slaved away at something I should have done a week ago, and that he'd fallen asleep in his earlier class. Again, that wonderful self-doubt. I kept my mouth shut and decided I had no right to be upset. He could have been more polite and understanding, but...
Anyway, he actually apologized, which probably surprised me more than it should have. We walked to his car and went home, but before I left the car, Scott more than made up for pissing me off by giving me the most incredible kiss I have ever had. Seriously. You know those sappy kisses I write about? Or hell, pick a romance novel, any romance novel. Those breath-stealing, face-flushing, eye-dilating kisses? Yeah, like that. He was the one that said "Wow, I'm feeling a bit lightheaded," and trust me, it had nothing to do with him being tired or having eaten bad lasagna.
*sways* Sometimes it's good when my life is a bit dramatic and soap-opera like, right?
(2) Look at my icon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nanowrimo has begun, and, bad girl that I am, I haven't really started. Well, I didn't on Day 1 or 2, so I planned to make up for it today by writing 5,001 words, which is the average word count by Day 3. The thing is, I sort of lost inspiration for the story I was writing and how I was going to go about writing it. I gave it a shot anyway, and here's what I've got so far-- 1,008 words of "Soul Half." Tell me what you think, whether I should change POVs, go into more detail, etc.
( Soul Half )
Option #2 is to try my other idea-- which, like Soul Half, is based off something I initially wanted to turn into a manga. It's called "I'm Listening," and is a suspense-thriller, I'd say. Which would be somewhat new for me, but at least I have some material to work with already.
Option #3 is to take that story I have partially done on FictionPress.com and completely revamp it. It's called "Wandering Spirit," and is (currently) about a girl named Fuyuu Mitama... and well, since it's only 740 words long (!) you can read the teaser for it here...
( I've wandered for so long... )
And the fourth option would be to let someone CHALLENGE me, because I always seem to respond to those well. A challenge would have to be fairly loose (that is, no established characters), but things like:
-events, circumstances
-settings (time and place)
-genre (romance, suspense, horror, etc.)
I could always go to SeventhSanctum.com and challenge myself, but somehow that wouldn't seem as "fun" or "fulfilling." Maybe if a bunch of people gave me various things to work with, I could try and write my NaNo based off that? If that were the case, I would accept VAGUE character descriptions, actions, etc. As long as the challenger wouldn't later scream copyright violation.
And, just to add to the fun and joy... I think I'm pretty much done here. I ate part of my lunch, but Scott said he was stuck in the lab for an hour... and it's been over 2 and a half. -_- I don't think he's coming. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure he's stuck in class. And me? I just want to go home and kick back. Maybe write my notecards, hope for inspiration for NaNoWriMo, and maybe with some dumb luck, TALK to people. That'd be nice. I could also get some webpages and skins and stuff done.
Geh, I need a laptop.
(Holy mother of Shiva. My new favorite song just came on the Windows Media RADIO! I think today's turning out okay after all!) *dances* (When I get enough footage, I AM SO MAKING THIS INTO A S/T AMV!!)
*cough* No, not really, but blech, sometimes I can't believe the elections here. Maybe I'll just convert to Socialism or something. Move to Cuba! Haha... No, kidding. I'm in shock, really, but... whatever. Maybe with some dumb luck we'll pull off an impeachment a'la Clinton's last few years, or a'la Governor Gray Davis. *grin* (And we could get that amendment to the Constitution so that Schwarzie can run for President! HAH. HAH. HAH!)
In other news, I stayed here (at the Collabatory) until 11pm last night. CLOSING. -_-; Yes, I know I'm a procrastinator, the Queen of Bullshit Artists, and many other things, but yeouch. Thank goodness Scott was good enough to wait around for me (he got out of class around 7:45, which is pretty early for him), because otherwise I would have had to walk home. No way Grandpa would have stayed up that late to wait for me to call him.
I was working on my speech for today, the informative one on the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. I finally finished the outline, but I was lacking a 2nd book source (required: 2 books, 3 journals, and as many others as necessary or desired). I came up with the idea to search my personal collection, or at worst, the bibliography in the Black Hat book I'd used as my first book source, but then inspiration (and luck!) struck me this morning.
For one, SBC discovered the problem behind my home Internet, and I think it's working again (for real). Something about water flooding their underground cables, and now they had to redirect the lines or pump out the water or something. Anyway, I managed to go to Amazon.com and find a spam-related book, "The Anti-Spam Toolikit." This book also happened to have an excerpt, which I used. I used my scanner to uce OCR, and turn my previously-printed pages into editable text on the newly-installed MSOffice 2002. I redid the Works Cited Page and Page 3 of my outline, and tah-dah! All done! ^_^
Of course, today, I was paranoid because despite the extra hour and a half I'd allotted myself, I didn't finish copying my outline to index cards so I could actually MAKE my speech. And I didn't think to make a copy of my outline to work off of INSTEAD of index cards, simply because my rationale is that index cards are smaller and less obtrusive. Well, as it all turned out, I didn't have to go anyway. Friday, I'll be the first one to go, and obviously, with the extra time, I'll revise my index cards and practice as much as I can.
I also completed my Mortgage Project to the best of my ability; questions 14 and 15 confused me because they were asking "what if you paid an additional $100/$200 toward your principal each month? how would that affect your payments, how long it takes you to pay, etc." I tried several ways of inserting that value into the formula P(1 + r/n)nt = pymt (1 + r/n)nt -1
r/n
But I don't think I did it correctly, because I keep getting monthly payments that are only a few cents off (that is, HIGHER, when it should be LOWER) than my original monthly payment. Therefore, the time (30 yr. fixed loan rate @ 7.25%) wouldn't change, right? Are there any math experts in the house who'd care to help me with this one?
Well, aside from that, we started on Central Asia in Geography today... Mr. Davidson was "in mourning" just like me, wearing navy and blue. We're all bummed about Kerry losing this one, but... well, who knows? Bush knows about his criticizers, so maybe he'll try and shape up to do better than they (read: we the people) expect of him. We missed Kerry's concession speech, though. Wonder what that was like? CNN.com, here I come!
Journalism-- we ended working on TV, and we'll move onto Film on Friday. My 2nd Media Notebook entry (2-2) is due the 17th, and the whole notebook, bundled with the first one, is due on the 22nd. That doesn't give me much time to revise my 2-1 entry, though I will be waiting until we get the TV topic list before writing 2-2. My fallback in case none of the TV ones interest me (which seems doubtful, but knowing Ms. Henry's lists...) is the magazine muckraking one.
And now onto the juicy stuff.
(1) It's a good thing when you can see and accept flaws in the one you love, right? Well, Scott's actually been kind of annoying the past few days. The thing that sticks out in my mind (and you know me, I have a penchant for remembering pointless things, holding grudges, etc.) is last night. As we left the library, we checked the electoral college votes, as were a pair of girls at a computer terminal next to us. Since we were all looking at different sites, we all got different numbers, and I commented on the differing numbers. Despite the fact that I barely spoke above "library level" and that the library was closing anyway (therefore, no students studying and requiring the absolute peace and quiet), Scott was all "Mer, SSH!" -_- I just walked out of the library without him. I was tempted to snap at him when he finally caught up with me, but then I remembered how red-rimmed his eyes were, how tired he looked even BEFORE he'd agreed to stick around with me in the library while I slaved away at something I should have done a week ago, and that he'd fallen asleep in his earlier class. Again, that wonderful self-doubt. I kept my mouth shut and decided I had no right to be upset. He could have been more polite and understanding, but...
Anyway, he actually apologized, which probably surprised me more than it should have. We walked to his car and went home, but before I left the car, Scott more than made up for pissing me off by giving me the most incredible kiss I have ever had. Seriously. You know those sappy kisses I write about? Or hell, pick a romance novel, any romance novel. Those breath-stealing, face-flushing, eye-dilating kisses? Yeah, like that. He was the one that said "Wow, I'm feeling a bit lightheaded," and trust me, it had nothing to do with him being tired or having eaten bad lasagna.
*sways* Sometimes it's good when my life is a bit dramatic and soap-opera like, right?
(2) Look at my icon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nanowrimo has begun, and, bad girl that I am, I haven't really started. Well, I didn't on Day 1 or 2, so I planned to make up for it today by writing 5,001 words, which is the average word count by Day 3. The thing is, I sort of lost inspiration for the story I was writing and how I was going to go about writing it. I gave it a shot anyway, and here's what I've got so far-- 1,008 words of "Soul Half." Tell me what you think, whether I should change POVs, go into more detail, etc.
( Soul Half )
Option #2 is to try my other idea-- which, like Soul Half, is based off something I initially wanted to turn into a manga. It's called "I'm Listening," and is a suspense-thriller, I'd say. Which would be somewhat new for me, but at least I have some material to work with already.
Option #3 is to take that story I have partially done on FictionPress.com and completely revamp it. It's called "Wandering Spirit," and is (currently) about a girl named Fuyuu Mitama... and well, since it's only 740 words long (!) you can read the teaser for it here...
( I've wandered for so long... )
And the fourth option would be to let someone CHALLENGE me, because I always seem to respond to those well. A challenge would have to be fairly loose (that is, no established characters), but things like:
-events, circumstances
-settings (time and place)
-genre (romance, suspense, horror, etc.)
I could always go to SeventhSanctum.com and challenge myself, but somehow that wouldn't seem as "fun" or "fulfilling." Maybe if a bunch of people gave me various things to work with, I could try and write my NaNo based off that? If that were the case, I would accept VAGUE character descriptions, actions, etc. As long as the challenger wouldn't later scream copyright violation.
And, just to add to the fun and joy... I think I'm pretty much done here. I ate part of my lunch, but Scott said he was stuck in the lab for an hour... and it's been over 2 and a half. -_- I don't think he's coming. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure he's stuck in class. And me? I just want to go home and kick back. Maybe write my notecards, hope for inspiration for NaNoWriMo, and maybe with some dumb luck, TALK to people. That'd be nice. I could also get some webpages and skins and stuff done.
Geh, I need a laptop.
(Holy mother of Shiva. My new favorite song just came on the Windows Media RADIO! I think today's turning out okay after all!) *dances* (When I get enough footage, I AM SO MAKING THIS INTO A S/T AMV!!)
