nekokoban

It is the start of a new quarter, the year is a third over, and while I am not beating myself up over failures, I am not extraordinarily happy with here I have flubbed and could have done better and etc etc. THERE ARE THINGS I COULD AND SHOULD DO TO IMPROVE MY LIFE AND MYSELF! So I am going to make this list and hope it works out for me. :|a

But first, things I did accomplish in the past three months:

* I have a regular column now over at Royal Archivist! It is pretty neat to be over there, and I would recommend folks giving things a look-over if/when they can. I will have an actual guidebook thingy coming from them in a couple of months, kyaa kyaa.
* lovesexgrave isssssss officially started. :D
* bb_shousetsu -- Shadow Stranger [Ladies' Night]
* imaginarybeasts -- The Dream's End [Dreams]

I ALSO COMPLETED SPRINGKINK, ugh, I meant to post them to my journal proper last month. I guess it will just have to happen in April, or else not at all. 8|a

But now: goals!

- Seriously try to be in bed by midnight/midnight-thirty during the week. I can definitely tell how letting myself slip to a 1 am bedtime has affected my general mood/creativity/etc. EVEN IF I AM HAVING FUN OR WHATEVER, I really need to start enforcing this. It'll let me get up earlier in the morning too, and be less hateful of the wooooorld by the time I get home from work.

- On the flipside: Get up no later than 10:30 on the weekends. If possible I would like to go for 9:30, but who knows how late I will stay up when I allow myself a late bedtime on Friday/Saturday. :|a

- Be better about frivolous money things. It is super-easy to want to just not cook and go out, but I want to be better about things--I want to stick to the budget I have drawn up, and in this way be more responsible about my spendings and thus feasibly shore up my emergency savings till I hit my goal. If/when I hit that, then I can reevaluate how silly I want to be about stuff. Until then, I should make my emergency savings a priority.

- Start walking home from work. At least on Fridays, when I am less :V BUT MY PRECIOUS FREETIME! and as the weather starts getting nicer. Once it stops raining pretty much every Friday, that would be nice.

- Write daily. I let this slide also more than I should, which is terrible, because writing brings me a lot more joy than prrrrretty much any of my other hobbies, though I am missing having an active fandom that I could and would participate in the ficwriting culture of. Debating some of my older fandoms, because I still love those, but they're either deadish or terrifying to me, so again: hotly debating. I should just go back to randomly posting fic here and maybe someday people will find me and be happy. :B Original and fanfic both, though I haven't decided if I want to do like, a WORDCOUNT GOAL or a TIME SPENT GOAL just yet.

-- wrt the above point, the theme list for 500themes. I don't think I will officially sign up, because I am balls at crossposting (as the springkink stuff has proven), but I do want to try doing this. Maybe a theme a day. :|a Current plans are to just go back and forth between D.Gray-Man, di[e]ce, Pandora Hearts, and 07-Ghost for these themes. Idk if I should actually post them, though, because an update a day might get gratuitous when it's every day for over a year. :|a If people have a strong opinion they should yell at me.

Because things are more true once they're said aloud. :|a

( CUT FOR NATTERY FINANCIAL TALK, NO SPECIFIC AMOUNTS MENTIONED )

Also I know I have been loltastically fail at updating about my writing progress, but IT PROGRESSES. I AM MAKING MY WORDCOUNT, if only barely, b-but I've hit a point where life is like HELLO, LET ME TOUCH YOU and I'm like AHHHH WHERE DID YOU COME FROM! so. :B I'm starting to have ideas again, and I probably owe halcyonjazz birthday fic I GUESS, so hopefully will be posting again soon. I'M SORRY TO ALL OF YOU WHO FRIENDED ME FOR FIC AND FOUND ME TO BE AN EXTREMELY BORING PERSON.

I.

I just.

...

I just taught someone how to save resized pictures to their desktop. After they had somehow managed to download and install a trial version of Photoshop.

W-what.

FRIDAY:

- Finished White Knight and will now join the "Why isn't the next book out yet?" club of Jim Butcher fans. The last scene in the book sort of made EVERYTHING WORTH IT, though seriously, people! Why is there not more bookverse love? The TV series did not have Mister, Thomas, or Mouse -- seriously. The other downside is that I now have nothing to read on my afternoon commute. SADNESS.

I like this Harry SO much more than that Potter prat. XD

- Sculpey party! By which I mean everyone else made sculpey figures for their D&D campaign and I played Odin Sphere in the background and cursed as Velvet kept dying.

SATURDAY:

- The great laylah and maho_kiwi move! Despite my noodley arms and everything, I like to think I was more help than hindrance. XD Also, Ren has grown GIANT. The last time I saw him, he was a squeaky little kitten I could pick up in a hand; now I have to use both arms. What. We also managed to avoid most of the morning game traffic, but then kind of ran RIGHT SMACK INTO IT in the afternoon. XD

- More Odin Sphere! I beat Velvet's chapter, and ... man. Velvet. Your life super-sucks, doesn't it. Your relationship with your grandfather is not okay. And Ingway? YOU'RE NOT OKAY EITHER.

- Made lip service to cleaning! Um. I need to get drawers that will fit under my bed, I think. There's no room for a dresser.

PEE ESS ROOMMATE THINGIT: WE NEED MORE BOOKSHELVES LIKE, YESTERDAY.

SUNDAY:

- More cleaning! Sorta. Well. I've got a bunch of dishes to do and a few last boxes to move and some trash to take out, but! There's tonight!

- Experiment with oven-drying tomatoes! It worked out pretty well, though I think I need to learn to slice them thinner. The meatiest pieces didn't so much dry as get kind of shrivelly and juicy, which is okay too, but -- I wanted dried tomatoes. :\ Obviously, this just means I need to try again with the tomatoes I have left. I WILL NOT LET THEM GO TO MOLD THIS TIME. [fistshake]

- More Odin Sphere. (What.) Started the replay, this time with the dub voices. Super-condensed summary:

1. I think Mercedes' and Gwendolyn's voices should've been switched. They're both good, but they seemed better-suited for each other.
2. The extras (the fairies, the elves, the random valkyries and berserkers) are actually really good.
3. Gosh, Gwendolyn's Bluebird of Misery is actually really snide in the dub. "Neener neener, I'm a phantom and you can't hurt meee~"
4. YURI LOWENTHAL = BETTER THAN ALL OF YOU. Though apparently the vaguely English accent is a "princely" affectation for him. I'm sorry, I can't help but hearing a younger, puppier Prince of Persia in Cornelius. That's okay, though, it's really cute. I like Cornelius; he's a good boy. He tries hard! And has a magic sword.
5. Oswald = about 500000000000000000000000x more hilarious in the dub. Maybe it's the way English stresses things verses Japanese, but his Japanese voice pulled off "tortured quiet" in a way that actually worked, even as I mocked him tremendously. But then came his dub voice, and -- oh my god. Oh my god. Oswald's dub angst is HILARIOUS; it's so deep and serious and STRESS on the SYLlable to show my TORture. \o/

And now it's Monday. [sadface]

On the other hand, they finally posted chapter 4-5 of Koisuru Boukun. GOSH, that chapter was oddly sweet for all its hilarity, I'm satisifed. :D

It's kind of nice to know you're necessary, the hell. XD; I dragged myself home from lab and was greeted by miss_arel telling me my bosses (both of them, even!) had called several times asking for me. So I called and it was such a simple problem, but after about twenty minutes trying to explain to my poor boss how to do it, I gave up and told him to e-mail me the file, I'd fix it myself. _o_ I mean, I could've gone in, signed on for a little bit of extra time, but ... like I said, I'd just gotten home and I didn't wanna go anyyyyyywhere else. |D And then the OTHER place called, and from the sounds of it, the project I was scheduled to be working for is being pushed back a few weeks BUT, my contract says I start on May 15th, and by-golly, I'm going in on May 15th. :p

(On the other hand, the HR lady I've been in contact with was really nice; she said I could work on odd jobs and such around the place, get a feel for the business, which I think'll be a good thing♥ Yay being somewhat grown-up! --speaking of which, maho_kiwi, if the Team Shop hasn't called you by the end of today, let me know and I'll bug them about it when I go in tomorrow.)

Lab was somewhere teetering on a disasterous failure, since our numbers were all over the scale and I have OMG TEST on Monday that just may kill me dead -- I'll be at the party on Saturday, but I won't guarentee I'll be social the whole time x_x -- but I'm home and I am BAREFOOT and I have doujinshi coming to me in the mail, so I'm going to make myself some DINNER and just. Not worry about things tonight. |D

Except the studying, but that's sort of without saying, haha.

1. Flogging Molly kicks all sorts of ass. I have enjoyed other bands, and I love other bands -- but there is something about Flogging Molly's music that makes me just downright happy and WIRES me like caffeine IV to the brain. They are incredibly fun to watch live, because they exaggerate and make fun of themselves and others and worship Guiness and it's just wonderfully energetic. Even though we had to leave early to catch the bus, they played most of my favorites, including (and this makes me squee the most) "Devil's Dance Floor," which was totally the first song of theirs I ever heard and I still love it to pieces. PIECES DO YOU HEAR ME.

Of all the bands whose CDs I keep saying "I'll buy someday when I have money," Flogging Molly is the only one whose CDs I buy immediately upon finding, monetary status bedamned. XD

But the place was one of the most grouchiest places I have ever been to in Seattle. o_o I got frisked (because you know, small Asian girl in a big coat = so threatening!), ordered to throw away my leftovers (which I'd understand more if they served food but dude, they're located right next to Pike's Place Market and don't serve food) sniped at when I said I wanted to buy a coke ("well, we have Pepsi products, is that good enough for you?") and bellowed at when I stood on the steps for maybe thirty seconds trying to see the way to the exit.

The show was definitely worth it! But if it's at the Showbox again ... ehh, maybe not. >_>

2. Tech support? Sucks ass. I do sympathize that it's a lousy job, and one of my good friends is working a tech support job (hi, shadawyn!), but ... dude. When I am asking you this one question, please stop trying to explain all the steps to me. If I tell you "I know this much, is it that you do [A, B, C]?" please don't go on about steps "4, 5, 6."

Also, getting snide when I demonstrate that I am, in fact, a woman who KNOWS MORE ABOUT COMPUTERS THAN JUST POINTING AND CLICKING is not a way to win you points. Just because I am a girl who can use a computer does not mean I'm a threat to your masculinity. I promise.

3. My Biochemistry professor is EVIL. Both of them! However, based on some confusing wording about an e-mail he sent out about grades, I ... believe that the minimum I need is 66% of 85% of 400 total points to go on to the next class in the series. (I.e., the lowest percentage you need to get the "perfect" 4.0 is apparently about 85%. He says that you need about 2/3 of that to get the minimum grade needed to go on. I ... am above that by, like, 4%. GO FIGHT FANTASTIC! I need to keep this up. XO) I actually ended up skipping my quiz section today because ... well, we don't get that much done during those periods to begin with, though watch, TODAY will be the day he went over something that the prof won't during lecture. _o_ It happens. I'll harass classmate E for details tomorrow.

4. Holy lost in translation, Batman! I thought that 華 could be translated as "flower," but apparently I am WRONG WRONG WRONG. Would someone who knows better than me please to enlighten my foolish self?

5. ... mnahmnah.

EDIT 6. I still cannot listen to Hakkai's image song from the Saiyuuki movie without busting a rib laughing. It's a good thing no one else is in the office right now, because I swear, I am giggling like a fiend. XD PORN MUSIC AHOY, BAY-BEE.

I woke up this morning to snow on the ground (!!), but now it's warm enough that I can wander out on the porch to get the mail with bare feet and only one sweater; how does that work?

(Also, apparently getting in the papasan chair is an invitation for the cat to sit on me. Today, I discovered that his body, excluding head and tail, is about as long as my trunk, from collar to pelvis. And he wasn't even fully stretched out, whut.)

I woke up with snow on the ground and this vague thought about how at least in my experience, everyone seems to have some minor degree of trainwreck syndrome -- we always like to look/read/whatever things that normally repel us, or annoy us, or anything, even if it's only to laugh and shake your head. (Granted, some people may have the moral fiber and superiority to NOT do so. ... I am not one of them, by the way.) Myself, I'm getting sort of better at that, but I think sometimes I'm like a little kid with a scab; if I find something that is almost polar opposite to what I interpret something [I'm only relating this to fandom matters, because when it comes to personal beliefs/mantras/whatnot, I feel what I feel and it's not something I share with many people, period], I can't help but pick at it, just a little. Where does it COME from? Why does it HAPPEN? Why does someone break up two established-canon pairings (marriages, even!) to create a new one, and then complain that others have no basis in canon and "make no sense"?

Why are people so damn weird?

(But not as weird as the cat, who snores so loudly I can hear him over my music. Which is turned up, since my laptop speakers are crrrrrap.)

I woke up this morning to snow on the ground and thought it was the coolest thing ever, because hey, yeah, all you guys on the east coast can laaaaaaugh all you want; I grew up in the middle of Texas, where temperatures below forty degrees are something of a myth, and snow is something that happened only once in fifteen years, and even then it was gone within a half-hour or so.

I woke up and then I had to go to class and had no less than three people remind me it was Valentine's day, and only one of them was a housemate. Considering today is my shortest day (no work and only one class, and I was out of there by 10 when it started at 9:30, because of a test), that is pretty impressive, I think. o_oa ( DEAR WORLD, IT IS STILL A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER. Not so much complaining about the single thing, more of the spontaneous thing. )

I need chicken recipies that make good leftovers. D: Poor student = doesn't want to pay cafeteria prices for lunch. It's also criminally beautiful outside right now, and I HAVE TO STUDY FOR TEST FRIDAY ARGH. D:

So my intent to tackle the DMV hit a snag in the form of they aren't open on Mondays haha. 8D On the plus side, they ARE open on Saturdays, so I'll probably just wake up early and go before they close up. (I find something highly ironic in the fact that, in the process of attempting to get a Washington's Drivers License, I'll be bus-hopping instead.)

I think my life must have hit a horrendously boring point recently; I go to work (and oh! how I hate tech support, though it's sort of cool that my boss trusts me enough to complain around me), I come home and screw around on the computer, and shoot the breeze with housemates whenever they're around and we're in the same room. This sometimes turns out well, as I think we actually have convinced rivendellrose to dress her cat up as a pumpkin this Halloween. October's going to be an interesting month. I turn 22 in less than a month hahaha WHAT THE HELL. O__O

Winding up for the new school year, and ... damn, I'm already a senior. o___oa I have no idea where I want to go from here, only that I do want to go to grad school -- and I want to take a year off, first, even though I love being in school, and once I get used to the scheduling again, I think a part of me even loves the stresses and ups and downs of it all. What can I say, this is a longterm abusive relationship or something. I want to -- not so much settle as just take a year off, work, see how things treat me during that time.

I think I like the life of a twenty-something not-quite bohemian a lot. I just need to find some job that'll let me take care of myself, and try to decide where I want to focus my studies. Suddenly, the past three years of taking all the grunt courses seems worth it -- I'm finally free to take some "fun" courses to fill up the elective graduation requirements. HAH. (There's a class, randomly, on hieroglyphics, but I think it conflicts with the ONE class I am still REQUIRED to take; however, I could even try Human Sexuality or another English class, or whatever! I've got time!)

The downside is that my parents are (I think) beginning a low-grade panic over it as well; I've been told I HAVE TO KNOW where I'm going and what I'm doing at least six months before graduation -- which means I have about a month to have my next year's plan laid out. I'm not sure if they're expecting me to have some guarentee or other that I'll be employed when I graduate (which -- and anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong -- but six months in advance for a student, that's not really that feasible, is it?), or WHAT, but ... it's kind of worrisome! :D I don't even know what's going to happen when this lease runs out. My friends in Austin are all scattered and around, so I think I would want to stay in Seattle, where everyone is gathered in a group and return to, but beyond that, it's a total blank.

Maybe I should move to Canada. Think they'd take me? 8D

Really, I just want to be happy. When I was younger, and I got asked the inevitable what do you want to be when you grow up? I had a dozen answers -- an actor! some four-legged fuzzy beastie! a writer! filthy rich! -- and now, I think I would just settle for being happy. I want the time to write, the time to see my friends, and the money to live in the style I'm accustomed to (given that I'm living the frugal college student life, that shouldn't be too hard XD) -- and I mean, what else could I ask for?

Eh, the world is full of strange things. People are strange too. Sometimes fascinatingly so, sometimes heartbreakingly -- but strange, nevertheless.

OH MY GOD I WORK IN SILENT HILL.

...

Today, my boss finally brought in the digital camera, so I can, you know, DO THE OTHER HALF OF MY JOB and take pictures of all the merchandise that has to go up on the website. Since he had a lunch appointment, he handed me a bunch of sweatshirts and T-shirts and the like, and told me there was a bodyform in the basement, so I could go down and take pictures there.

So Coworker #2 gets the keys for me and leads me downstairs. The stairs are long and wide and cement, and the walls are all whitewashed, but with patches where the original coatings flaked off. A single naked lightbulb lights the stairwell, and then downstairs the front part has fluroescent lights, and the back is all dark.

"Kinda looks like something out of a horror game," I say.

"Oh?" says Coworker #2. "Here, you gotta see the back."

He takes me around to the back and points to this one random little room -- it looks like something you'd keep, you know, a water heater in or something. From the ceiling, there dangle these little rusty round hoops.

"They look like handcuffs, don't they? :D :D :D"
"..."
"Have fun! If you need me, just scream♥"
"........."

At least the floors were clean and there were no rust patches on the wall. But because of where I was, I kept hearing all the water-gurgly noises that come from the pipes, which always sound weird (it happens at school, in the anime club room, too) -- but kind of get amplified times eight when you're by yourself and stuffing shirts on this headless-armless-legless mannequin. And from the back part (where I didn't go after Coworker #2 left), there kept being all these rattly grindy sounds, which I could possibly have just imagined but HAY.

Yeah, and when the phone rang? Without warning? (Because what the hell, they actually have a working phone downstairs.) I WAS VERY PROUD OF MYSELF FOR NOT SCREAMING.

I told my boss about this. He told me that the mannequin was actually the guy who'd worked there before me. 8D

... maybe I should start taking one of the golf clubs down there with me, the next time I go to take pictures ...

ETA: Maybe I LIVE there, too. The baby next door just made the most gawdawful wailing screech, that sounded like maybe they were torturing and killing a banshee.

On top of the freaktastic laughter I heard a few nights ago, wow. :D SPECIAL WORLD.

Cleaning my room is like an archaelogical expedition. There are layers upon layers of things, some of which I don't even remember having, but hey! Sometimes I find really old things that I'd given up for lost, or random little treasures that usually end up with it suddenly being two hours later and I'm sitting in the middle of my room and haven't put anything else away.

TOP TEN LIST OF DISCOVERIES:

10. The almost-full thingy of hand lotion that I thought I'd lost and was pissed about (it was kind of expensive! but it had just fallen behind my desk)
9. A dollar and assorted cents. HEY! I'M RICH!
8. Speaking of the above, my actual loose change Sobe bottle! No really, I'm rich! I have something like $11 in there, STFU.
7. Clothes! I actually have CLOTHES. And, like, apparently clothes that people don't remember ever seeing me wear (though I know I have), so they're like new! Score. XD
6. Blank CDs liek whooooooooooa, man.
5. GetBackers v29! HOORAY I CAN FINALLY READ IT! I bought it during the school year and put it away "somewhere safe" so I wouldn't be distracted during my finals and ... promptly lost it.
4. Hair ties! More hair ties are always good, because dude, my hair is always in serious need of SOME kind of restraint. @_x
3. More books than I seriously thought I HAD, up here -- not just the manga, but regular novels and books and such. (My two copies of Inferno, too, happiness!) Oh god, I need another bookshelf. But that leads me to --
2. MORE SPACE. Suddenly, with some of the clutter off the floor and put away, I realize my room's not as tiny as I sometimes felt it was. XD

AND THE NUMBER ONE THING I DISCOVERED ...

1. My carpet. OMG. I HAVE A CARPET. IT'S ALL FUZZY AND KIND OF TAUPE-COLORED, LIKE ALL THE OTHER CARPETING IN THE HOUSE.

Also, according to some art books on anatomy out there, the penis does not exist (which is to say that it's an anatomy artbook for artists, but all the male nudes were, um. Not-so-artistically blipped out -- it's not even pixellation, it's just ... blank! kind of like Alan Rickman in Dogma, though apparently scarier). From this, rivendellrose and I determined that possibly these penii are like unicorns -- people claim to have seen them, but are they real? ARE THEY REALLY?

The world may never know!

(I'm in, like, that hysterical stage between tired and not-tired, where every damn thing is funny. Ahahahaha I need dinner.)