MILES to GO || before I sleep

What a weekend! Part of me doesn't think it should end yet. It wasn't exactly exciting, but there was certainly a lot going on. For starters, I finally got inducted into the NSCS (National Society of Collegiate Scholars) after about two years of actually being a member, and nearly a semester of being an officer... I'm really happy! Not only have I made friends and expanded my network, but I've gotten the opportunity to travel, meet new people, and be challenged in lots of ways. Even the little projects I undertake (like my current one, creating a postcard for the upcoming Hunger Banquet on 11/27) teach me a lot about preparedness and reading the fine print!

I was especially thrilled that Mom and Jill came out to the induction... yes, MOM from San Francisco. Dad didn't come, and there was all that drama revolving around that, but as per usual, when he called tonight, he didn't mention the ceremony at all (other than "so what's up with you lately?") and didn't mention his not coming. I'm a bit disappointed, but working is a good reason not to be able to go to places 500 miles away even if it is a once-in-a-lifetime event for your only daughter and all that jazz.

After the induction, I hung out at Jill's and had a delicious dinner of pasta and carrot cake, played "Cooking Mama" for the first time with some of my second cousins (my god, Wii games are tough... you really have to have arm strength for some of those!), and played around with their soon-to-be-fixed puppy, a Chihuahua mix named Rocky.

The next morning, Jill dropped Mom off at the house and we (along with Baba and Grandpa, of course) went to brunch at Abe's. We tried to go to Brent's, but it was a 30-45 minute wait for just 4 people, and it was already after 11 a.m. by then. :( Though the service at Abe's left a lot to be desired, the food was pretty good. Mom got the grand tour of the house when we got back, and then we headed back to Jill's so she could get ready to take the Van Nuys Flyaway bus back to LAX.

I'm thinking of trying to do that for my flight from LAX to SEA-TAC, since it's so much cheaper than a shuttle, but I'll need a way of getting from here to the Flyaway. Maybe I can ask Jill to drop me off? A taxi would be too much money, and the bus would force me to transfer (not fun with luggage) and wake up soooo early... X_X

So there's that to do, along with trying to help Baba & Grandpa figure out a way to get from here to the Westin LAX, where they'll be staying (courtesy of Mom) before their flight to SEA-TAC.

I've also got to buckle down on my project for 371. I bought two new books on video games today-- I mean serious research books. I'm just glad they were in-stock at Borders! I didn't want to have to wait to special order anything, and I already checked the school library's (pitiful) stock of books in that category...

Speaking of school, the University Student Union's website is lacking something critical: a map. Somehow last week I'd found one when I was working on the Hunger Banquet postcard, but it was a PDF file, and I deleted the original. I didn't properly optimize it for a high-res postcard though, so when I tried to find it again, every possible search came up nil. Even the maps I did find are hopelessly outdated. -_-; So I need to get the names of TWO measly rooms I don't remember off-hand, and then I can submit the postcard for printing.

I also noticed that the Golden Key (International Honour Society)'s website is also lacking-- despite many states being classified into "regions," I failed to find anything that indicated which states are in which regions. Finally, a UCLA site gave me a clue: CA is in Region 9, along with Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Texas. So I guess that means "Southwestern" states. I joined the new myGK, which is semi-social networking-- it's pretty easy to use. It'll be nice when both it and the new NSCS.org websites get up and running.

Speaking of NSCS again, my postcard that I worked on so laboriously is in the running for the official NSCS holiday postcard! I'm up against some pretty beautiful designs (the kind that make you go "Now why didn't I think of that!?"... I had another one of those moments today at Borders when I spotted their cute polar bear-and-fairy pair for their new ads... so cute!), but I was in the top 5 when I last checked! I told all the members at the induction to vote for me, so hopefully that'll swing some more votes my way. :)

I've also registered for my classes for next semester. They are:
* SCENE Magazine (FINALLY!)
* Women and Leisure (online!)
* Advanced Narrative Writing
* Pop Culture (not with the professor I wanted, but supposedly a really good one)
* Writing About Literature

I'm still hoping to get an internship (gotta get my rec letter back from Mel for the Washington Internship Institute, due by the 16th!), but it might end up being a summer internship, and depending on where it is and whom it's sponsored by, it might not count for Journalism credit. If that doesn't work out, I've applied to be a copy editor at the Sundial. It's only one unit, and copy editors don't have to meet in the early mornings twice a week like the other editors do. (I'm more of a correction-editor than an assignment-editor, anyway.) So we'll see how that works out. Even if it can't count for Journalism credit, part of me is hoping to get the Target internship, because it sounds fun, good experience, and of course, pays really well.

Lastly and not leastly, I've gotten addicted to a new semi-crack-worthy pairing-- this time from Star Ocean 3: Till The End of Time. Anyone like some Albel Nox x Nel Zelpher? Because yeah, for some reason I really started to like them together, and now I've started reading fic for them and I joined their fanlisting. :P Gah, and I have yet to build the Sailor V x Kaitou Ace fanlisting! I gotta get on that...

Weekend Birthdays That I Would Miss If I Didn't Post This:
Happy Birthday Katia and Will!


;_; I may have done badly on my Geography midterm. I had another Attack of the Killer Headache and was basically sleeping for 14+ hours. I don't know how I manage it and still wake up "normal" (ish). I should have studied during that time, but with the half-hour or so that I stayed awake long enough to study, plus the half-hour from this morning, it wasn't nearly enough. ;_; Remembering all this stuff about landforms and weather patterns is hard! I hope I at least get a B. ^^;

It's all been done before... - An excellent (if amusing and occasionally graphic) list of all the tropes, kinks, and clichés found in fanfiction. Just when you think it HASN'T been done before... oh, it has. And to great effect. So sorry. Pick another letter of the alphabet, please.

( Ones that rang true for Yu-Gi-Oh as I skimmed the list )

^^ I want an LJ-hoodie for my birthday. :P

( Icon meme ganked from Stef )

So I'm a dweeb. I joined 4husorting and now I'm letting people dissect my character and determine if I'm a Ravendor, a Slytherpuff, or some other bizarre combination thereof of the houses. So far, people seem to think I'm a Gryffinpuff! Sad thing is, I thought each of the 6 house combinations would have one of the four main houses in the "first" position:
Huffle(puff)
Gryffin(dor)
Raven(claw)
Slyth(erin)

But the houses are as follows:
Ravendor (Ravenclaw + Gryffindor)
Gryffinpuff (Gryffindor + Hufflepuff)
Ravenpuff (Ravenclaw + Hufflepuff)
Slytherclaw (Slytherin + Ravenclaw)
Slytherpuff (Slytherin + Hufflepuff)
Slytheriffin (Slytherin + Gryffindor)

So as you can see, Ravenclaw has 2 houses (which is okay), Slytherin has 3 (hey!) Gryffindor has one (one shrot), and Hufflepuff has NONE! Not that I don't like the names or anything, but...

Slytheriffin should be changed to Gryfferin or something. And if you wanted to be fair, each house would get 1 name, and two major houses (for the sake of the HP verse, we'll say Gryffindor and Slytherin) would have an additional 2:
* Ravenpuff (Ravenclaw main - Ravenclaw + Hufflepuff)
* Gryffinpuff (Gryffindor main - Gryffindor + Hufflepuff)
* Slytherclaw (Slytherin main - Slytherin + Ravenclaw)
* Hufflerin (Hufflepuff main - Hufflepuff + Slytherin, though admittedly Slytherpuff sounds cooler)
* Slytheriffin (Slytherin main - Slytherin + Gryffindor)
* Gryffinclaw (Gryffindor main - Gryffindor + Ravenclaw)

Hee.

Anyway, so I manged to transfer almost ALL of my files to my laptop -teh yay! But alas, I still can't get LimeWire or iTunes to work, and I don't know why! I'm praying for the Device & Drivers CD, and maybe I can afford to splurge on a 1 GB Memory Card... the question is $159 from Dell Direct, or possibly more expensive for a name brand? BestBuy.com didn't even carry cards for my laptop!

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day! ARGH!

It be Joe's birthday! Happy birthday, matey! (I would do the giant text rainbow color thing, but I'm at school, so I don't have the prog. that does that.)

Also, I was thinking (completely randomly) to make some HBP banners that say (all sophisticated-like) "JKR sunk my 'ship. But I'm still writing. That's the power of my OTP/OT3/whatever." Anyone want?

And finally, because I love having an excuse OTHER than fanfiction to annoy rhapsody_dragon I propose this question to her and all of you on my FL, because I love getting opinions and arguing/debating, or just learning about fresh perspectives...

What do you think of shock advertising? By shock advertising, I mean things like the United Colors of Benetton using the picture of a man dying of AIDS on his deathbed, and sticking their logo in the corner. I mean the same company using the nude torso of a male model and stamping his forearm with a Holocaust-like tattoo reading "HIV positive." What do ads like these do to you, make you think about the company advertising, the magazine/newspaper they appear in, the photographer, or the models/people pictured? Why? Is anyone justified using shock advertising, and if so, for what reasons? (For example, does donating to a charity for AIDS relief justify using the image described above for an ad for clothing?)

See the first image here: http://webquiz.ilrn.com/books/levc04q/levc04.06.01.02.png

Time to go to mythology class (Mr. Adams calls it My-thologee)!