Broo

I’m 90% certain that I’m sick. Work today was tough, I feel like shit, I’m cold, I’m going to bed before 10pm. If I feel as I expect to feel in the morning, I’m not going to school. Seven and a half hours of school on the second day of sickness is not smart. And I don’t want to get my friends and other people at school sick. So it’s probably best if I stay home. Unfortunately, all three classes take attendance tomorrow. And I do enjoy Restoration and CanLit. So that’s too bad. If I do stay home, I hope to start and finish my assignment for Dods. It’s a bold goal, but I think I might be able to do it. At least the term paper part. The scrapbook part is fun and easy. Thanks to Jake, I’ve decided to go with a tumblr to compile it and send the link to Dods with my paper. So that should be interesting.

I enjoy peppermint tea.

A large handful of my coworkers were sick today or away from work for health reasons. It was ridiculous.

Ugh I feel so sick >.<

Dad replaced his laptop. Wewt.

I found twelve articles for Dods’ paper.

I still don’t know what to write about specifically for Canadian Lit or Restoration Lit. Women, but what? I’ll have to think on it.

I picked up Final Fantasy XIII today. No time to play it… but I have it. So that’s nice. It can join my pile of games. If I have time tomorrow, I can play some more Valkyria and continue my baby steps to finishing that game. Whee.

There’s some pretty orchestral music coming from the TV. Mom is watching the end of Lost.  D’aw.

I added the final version of Murder at Sunset in its own page found at the top navigation bar. Mainly because Christina wanted to read it and this was the easiest way. But, y’know, if you want to read it too, there it is.

I is tired. I sleeps nao.

Twin Waterfalls of Tears

So I was going to work on my precis today. But my “article” is actually a book. So I have to wait until I go to school, find a random chapter in the book, then photocopy it. Or something. So there went that plan. Then I was like, I’m gonna do my term paper/scrapbook for Dods. But I was unsure about topic selection, so I emailed her early this afternoon and still haven’t heard back from her. So I didn’t do that, either. So what’d I do instead? Why, I played Valkyria Chronicles. And it felt good. It was nice to play games again. And I just absolutely love how I can pick that game up and put it down just like that. Awesome. I just got to a really suspenseful part, though. It’s gonna suck not playing it again for a long time.

I’ve felt strangely tired all day today. I don’t much care for it.

Not really ready for another week of school… but it must be done. Including this week, there are only five left. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’ve kind of started the countdown. But not because I’m excited for grad. But because the last week is my busiest and I’m excited at the prospect of no classes. Even finals aren’t daunting.

I really like tilting my head sideways and watching the cursor go as I type. It stops blinking. It’s just a little bar that keeps moving right. Until you stop typing to think about something. Or you stumble ’cause you make a mistake. Maybe I’m finding this way too interesting.

Must remember to pick up FFXIII on Tuesday before work. Must also remember to get a request form for monies for the returns Dad’s done on my account at work -.- Stupid system. Really stupid system.

I still have no idea what I work. Technically, there was no schedule written for today on. Denise and I just guessed that she worked today and I didn’t, ’cause that’s the way it always is. And I’m assuming I work Tuesday, again, ’cause that’s the way it always is. And I’m assuming I work Saturday and Sunday next weekend ’cause Denise is out of town that weekend and requested it off. I hope Sandi’s written the schedule by Tuesday, ’cause I like knowing these things for sure.

If I do work this Sunday, then I’m apparently helping Adam through the English portion of his GED book ’cause he sucks at English. Eight hours of GED English… well. It’s only high school English… that should be a cakewalk compared to what I have to do now, right?

“You’ll be old and miserable.”

Work with Kevin today. Excellent times followed. Laughed pretty darn hard. Spent a lot of our shift trying to think of movies in which Nicolas Cage was a lead role and didn’t cry. Then discussed Gladiator. So many good conversations, I couldn’t begin to recount them all <3

Dad decided to install a new doorknob/deadbolt at like.. 5pm. Which meant it was dark before he finished, which means that our basement quickly hit three degrees. Definitely not what I wanted to come home to. So I’m still sitting here in my Lordco fleece and knitted armwarmers ’cause it’s still fricking freezing down here.

I thought about starting some homework when I got home from work tonight, but the cold and my tiredness killed all the motivation I had.

The kids came over yesterday and we watched Dr. Horrible. So Danny could finally see it all. It was super. Then we watched The Room. A blaring success! It was as horrible as we anticipated. Pretty much 99 minutes of laughing. I strongly recommend for people who want to have an excellent laugh.

-intermission as I run to Timmy’s with Sarika-

Kback.

Anywho, last night was excellent.

Tomorrow’s a homework day, I s’pose. I’m super excited to sleep in.

Sarika brought me a little baggy of tea bags yesterday :) I will get to try them out tomorrow. I’m excited. Excited to discover some awesome tea.

I don’t feel so good about that assignment I turned in to Eggy. I have this nagging fear that I did it all either wrongly or… substandardly at best. I am truly afraid. So, while I wished it was worth more as I was writing it because of all the effort that went into writing it, I’m kind of glad it’s only worth 20% because I’m afraid of my mark. I’ll just have to do a better job on the term paper. Speaking of which, I’m one assignment away from being able to start on my term papers.

Dagung…

Is apparently how my name was originally spelled. Or, Dawn, at any rate.

I am officially finished my annotation assignment for Restoration Lit. It took me two days of solid work to get all the annotations done and it equated to twelve pages of introduction and annotations and five pages of references. I have never had that many references before, ever. Goodness me. It felt good to delete the assignment from my To Do List sticky sitting on my desktop. I also feel much less stressed. Although, I’m stressed about what he’ll think about. I really didn’t know what he was expecting from us – the two examples he gave us were pretty isolate examples and I went into way more detail sometimes. And I used the OED for 26 out of my 31 annotations. However, I added on secondary article support to most of those, so the OED was only there to help me get a basic understanding of what it was, while other articles helped me elaborate, but I still had to cite that I used the OED. Ah well. I guess I’ll find out in a million years whenever he finally marks them all.

I’m taking tomorrow off from school work. I deserve a micro-break. When I get home I’m gonna relax for a bit before people start coming over. After tomorrow, it’s right to work on my scrapbook + term paper for Dods. I’m still unsure of what I’m going to do it on, but I’ll have a gander at the textbook and figure it out. If I’m not in the mood to do it on Sunday, I also have the option of working on my precis, ’cause that’s due four days after Dods’ assignment. So I could do that and get it out of the way so that I only have to work on Hugo’s paper imminently afterward. Ta, ta, planning how I’m going to get all of my assignments done is probably super boring to readers. Too bad.

The nice thing about being so busy is that it’s distracting me from grad. Which is nice, ’cause I hate thinking about it, but bad, ’cause I should think about it. Bleh.

I gotta do my taxes sometime in the next month.

Been switching off between Imogen Heap and Breaking Benjamin lately. I’m a cool kid.

Today was very nice. Nice and warm (~13C). I’m enjoying the warmer-but-not-too-warm weather. It’s my favorite. I love the transition seasons <3

Mum bought me a new shirt toady. It is turquoise and really super comfortable. :3

My tea hunt is still on… it’s kind of unsuccessful so far. D’oooo.

I am proud of Sarika for working so hard on her annotations. This is me sending endorphins from Dagung to you, Sarik.

I have half-planned a really kickass tattoo design involving Fenrir, Skoll and Hati. I just need to figure out positioning and, y’know… learn to draw and/or manipulate existing pictures ;-; Such is life.

[12:33am]

I forgot to mention that Dods passed around a magazine today with photographic recording of a man who was half buried in to the ground and being stoned to death by Islamic insurgents for committing adultery. It was the single most disturbing thing I have ever seen and it actually made me sick. I can handle blood and gore with the best of them in movies and stuff. Even newscasts when they’re showing accidents and stuff. But if it’s violence as the result of actual malicious intent, I can’t take it. If I know someone inflicted the harm on the person intentionally, it disturbs me and I can’t get past it. I was working on my annotations when I saw it and I couldn’t go back to focusing on them, I was so disturbed. The following page had a picture of an American Iraqi War vet who lost 40% of his brain due to a roadside grenade. I couldn’t handle seeing that, either. It wasn’t gory or anything, his head had healed, except that half of it was missing and his mother was hugging him/holding him up. That had almost the same effect as the man being killed.

Anyway… I can’t stand seeing the result of malicious intent. It hurts me too much. :<

The moment I said it…

I worked way too long on my introduction to The London Cuckolds. It was only supposed to be about 800-900 words, which is really nothing in the grand scheme of things – only three pages. But I found it pretty difficult to summarize such a huge play in so little words while throwing in little bits of analysis. I didn’t talk much about the actual time period or how the play was received by audiences. I mentioned it, but didn’t go into detail. I didn’t want to do additional research for something I wouldn’t have enough room to talk about. So hopefully he thinks it’s good enough… It came out to be about 983 words. I am so nervous about my writing lately… I know I normally say everything I write sucks, but lately I’m feeling it more than usual. And it’s silly because the marks I’m getting back for it don’t reflect this feeling I have, so I don’t know why I continue to feel it? Ah well.

I’ve decided that I’m going to start drinking tea. I just need to find a tea that I will enjoy. So far, I know I don’t like green tea. I just can’t. It’s bitter and there isn’t much that will make it better. I’m going to try some apple cinnamon tea from Timmy’s tomorrow. It sure sounds delicious. I guess I never said the reason for my switch to tea: it’s just better for me. I mean, better than drinking French vanilla. Yes, French vanilla is delicious, but it’s not something I should be drinking every other day. It’s not healthy and it’s an empty 250 calories. Whereas tea is none. Unless I get it with milk. In which case, a medium tea is 14 calories. OH MY. So anyway. I do it because I would like to find a tea that I like, as well as I would like to be healthier. I’ve also stopped getting cream cheese on my bagels, when I get bagels at school. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but baby steps are steps in the right direction, at least. This way, I can be healthier without giving up delicious things.

I might have to pick up a short shift on Thursday at work because Tiffany was in a car accident (poor her <333). Ironically, she was on her way to the hospital when she was rear ended, twice. She was going to get some tests done about her heart. So… I guess they were almost there at least? Sucks that it had to happen the day after (or two days after?) her birthday, though!

Whoa! My cursor has disappeared! If I go away from this window, I won’t be able to find it again. It’s like I’m PHANTOM TYPING.

Not looking forward to a long day tomorrow. I shouldn’t complain. Sarika’s is longer.

I’ve had to stay up too late working on this introduction for Restoration Lit… I guess I won’t be exercising tomorrow morning. I won’t get enough sleep if I get up early to bike. -sigh- It’s not like I’m not trying to exercise… it’s just that school is getting in the way and making it so damn difficult. I’m always staying up to work on assignments. And it’s not even that I’m leaving them for the last minute, I’m not. I’m working on them ahead of time. It’s just they take so long to finish. Garble.

The car has a new tire (to replace the mangled one), some new cables, new power steering fluid, new oil, new spark plugs, a cleaned filter… the baby purrs like a kitten. Gawrsh, Camry, I missed you <3 all it needs now is for the clock to get fixed, the wiring for the signal to get fixed (though we don’t know how to do this yet) and new shocks (which are super expensive so that probably won’t be happening any time soon). Other than that, though, she runs great. Sooo smooooth.

Three days until bad movie night!

Don’t — Smash

Lorena Gale’s Je me Souviens picks you up, spins you around, and drops you down again into a new world where you’ll see things you’ve never seen, hear things you’ve never heard, and be someone you never were. An independent black woman growing up in Canada, Lorena will walk you through what it’s like to be unacceptable in her own country – in both of its national languages. Her unique style of writing cuts to the bone with its clear and poignant message that yes, she is black and yes, she does speak French and yes, she’s here to stay. Her story will leave you thirsty for more in a way that no other feisty monologue can.

The assignment was to write a summary for Je me Souviens that you could put on the back of the book. She just wanted to know if we read the book or not. I got a 10/10. Honestly, I don’t think that this proved that I read the book very well at all (I did, in fact, read it, it had just been a really long time since I had). I think maybe she just liked how colorful it was? She seems to like flowery writing when it’s appropriate. I tried to write it in a way that reflected how she delivered the monologue in the book. I guess it worked? Man, reading it over again is embarrassing. I’m so embarrassing.

Cam and I did our presentation today. Went alright. Hugo looked like he was falling asleep for most of it. I’m hoping it’s just ’cause he was tired and not ’cause we were dreadfully boring.

Canadian Lit was fun today. :) there was music involved and Lisa was being silly. I like her class lots.

Apparently Sandi was gushing to my dad about me today when he was buying some stuff at Lordco. I wasn’t aware I was so well-liked. JC called me “Our little Dawn” when he figured out Dad was my dad. Oh those guys. So silly. Speaking of, I have to work tomorrow. Sigh.

I started and finished The London Cuckolds today. I highlighted possible annotation terms and phrases as I read to make my life easier tomorrow and the following days. The play was pretty funny and I understood pretty much all of it, so that bodes well. I just hope I don’t forget too much of it by tomorrow so I can get the summary written before it starts slipping from my mind. I hope to get the assignment done by Wednesday night, but I’unno if it’ll happen. Either way, it has to be done by Thursday. Hurp!

I’m curious to know what I got on my scene analysis for that class, but I probably won’t get it back for a while. I think I did an okay job on it – there was more summary, I think, than I would’ve liked, but I didn’t know how else to proceed into my analysis without it. Hopefully he’s cool with it. Last time I was in Eggy’s class, I wasn’t the best writer. I like to think I’ve improved.

I looked into that Master of Management program that they’ve been advertising at school for undergrads who aren’t management students. I don’t qualify. My average isn’t high enough and I haven’t taken the required management courses (which doesn’t make sense ’cause if you’re not a management student, you don’t have those courses anyway?). Either way, my average isn’t high enough. Story of my life.

I can start reading books for pleasure in the mornings when I exercise and on the bus if I so wish it now. I’m pretty excited. I still have plays and textbook readings, but it’s enough that I think I can handle it during my evenings and on weekends. Here’s to hoping I can plow through some books.

I’m on an Imogen Heap boat lately.

Today was drive-with-the-windows-down weather. I love that kind of weather. As I said earlier today to Cam, driving with the windows down brings me a kind of satisfaction that no man could ever bring. Oh, me.

The Dumbing Down of Love

Last hockey game was on today. USA vs Canada for the gold. Canada won. :) We’ve officially set the record for the most gold medals won by any country during the Winter Olympics, as well as the most golds won by a host country. The game was super intense and went into overtime. It was awesome. I didn’t get to watch most of the closing ceremony. I saw O’hara, Michael J. Fox, Michael Bublé and the flying moose and beavers, Nickelback, Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morissette during dinner.

Cam and I spent a good five to six hours working on our Indigenous Medicine presentation. It’s about hueseros (bonesetters). /omfg (if only this were MSN). This is also the reason I didn’t see most of the closing ceremonies and such.

Every time I look left, I see A Game of Thrones sitting there on the table and I want to pick it up and read it. Alas, my next reading project is The London Cuckolds, for our annotation assignment is due on Friday. Hopefully I can get it read by Tuesday and have a couple of solid days to work on it.

I am hosting a super secret movie night on Friday. I suppose the movie is not so super secret to half of the people coming, but I promise it will be good times. I’m super excited. :) Gives me something to look forward to.

Jake Gigglyhall

I have decided to start a new bloggy project starting March 1st. It is not really exciting to anyone, but y’know, I thought I’d share. Since I’ve gone so long without blogging, I’ve decided to write a blog every day when humanly possible. I hope to never skip more than two days. I plan to write blogs every day, no matter how boring, short, or uninformative they are. Even if it’s just writing down what the weather is like and summarizing quickly what I did that day. Of course, I’ll try to write longer, normal entries as well, but when I can’t or am not in the mood or there’s not much to say, I’ll write the tiny ones. Yep.

It’s been a super long time: I got my computer dual-screening finally. School is school. I am both ahead and behind in various classes. All of my midterms are now over. I got about 90% on Hugo’s midterm (super easy) and I have no idea how I did on Dods’ midterm. No idea at all. I got 70% on Christine’s midterm, but I’d say that’s pretty good for not doing any of the readings. None of them. I did it purely on lecture and guesswork. Go me.

The Olympics are going swimmingly.

I just got hugely distracted from typing this entry by stupid, stupid, STUPID The Room. I forgot all about that movie and how desperately I wish to see it.

I bought a new purse yesterday. I love it <3 it’s much lighter than my last one and it’s cloth. Lined with denim so it’ll be tough and last. Love love it. Sarika got one too. ‘Cause we’re twintwins.

I also bought Monster by A. Lee Martinez. It looks funny and makes me laugh. Someday, I’ll get to read it.

I was going to be awesome and do a nice big update, but I’m super scatterbrained and ADD tonight, so this is all you get. :P

We can’t stop-ah, we’re gonna celebrate.

I’d say that not much has been happening. But that would be a lie.

I ended up finally telling Dad about the computer and I wasn’t met with all that much hostility. Actually, he started helping me figure out what things I should look for and what things I didn’t need, etc. At the end, he asked why I wanted to get this now. Which was what I was afraid of. I explained myself and he did the same thing as mom- why not wait until later for sales and stuff, etc. Anyway, I had decided on the Futureshop PC that I linked in this post. However, I mentioned what I was getting to Gary and he was vehemently against me buying it from Futureshop and said that I should keep shopping around, suggesting a place called Price is Right Computers. So, being the awesome kid he is, he acted as a middleman for me and emailed Brad (one of the guys who runs the place) with information on what I wanted and stuff. Long story short, PIRC was able to build me an excellent computer for the same price as Futureshop. I told Dad about it in passing before he left town for Edmonton and he seemed kind of agitated about it. I don’t know why. I think he was secretly annoyed that I wasn’t doing things the way that he wanted me to do them, but he’s just going to have to deal with it. I ended up getting a computer from PIRC (specs can be found here if you’re interested). I picked it up yesterday and Tyler and Sarika came with me. Tyler helped me set it up (because he’s a super trooper) and did all the heavy lifting and stuff (:P) and we got it up and running. Hilariously, we thought we had everything plugged in and ready to go and Tyler wanted me to hit the power button and was super giddy about it. So I hit the button… and nothing happened. Apparently he forgot to hit the power switch at the back. :P We booted ‘er up and she is beautiful. Her name is Iona, or “Nana”, since every computer has to have an endearing pet name. I haven’t done much with it so far, just put all my files and junk onto it. Oh, I also got a 23″ Samsung 2ms SyncMaster monitor. It, too, is beautiful. I love love love that the screen is matte and not that shiny crap that my laptop and some other monitors are made of (I think my dad’s is that super shiny stuff). I am most certainly not used to how large it is yet. I feel like maximizing a window is just overkill. Well, except Firefox. Which is probably why this paragraph seems way smaller than it will when I post it. WOOPS. SORRY FOR THE WALL OF TEXT.

Anyway. Things are awesome on the computer front. Unfortunately, I am now very, very poor.

I completely reformatted Iser (my laptop). Through a series of unfortunate events, my Microsoft Office stopped working halfway through this week and in an attempt to fix it, I made it permanently unfixable :P so it was just easier to reformat it. It needed a reformat anyway. From now on, it will have only Firefox, MSN, and Office on it. It’s now totally a school/friend’s house computer. Hopefully this will help it run a little faster, too.

I’ve finished all my books for Canadian Lit except for De Niro’s Game. I’m about halfway through that one. I like it so far and I hope to finish it sometime soon… I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to, but I definitely want it finished by the end of reading break. I also want to finish the scene analysis and annotation assignment for Restoration Comedy and the Precis assignment for Canadian Lit. It would be nice if I could finish my annotated bibliography for Verbal Arts this week, but between other assignments, work, appointments, and down time with friends, I don’t think there’s going to be time. but if I can get those first three assignments done, that would be most excellent. Then I’ll have two weeks to finish the annotated bibliography when I get back from reading break, which is way more than enough time. :] Unfortunately, none of this relieves all the pressure… term papers and my project for Dods’ class are still looming over me and making me really nervous. I just hope I can manage my time better than last term. Phew. School.

I’m loving having Sundays off this term. It is most certainly making things easier. I’m hoping it will pay off in March.

I need to figure out what to do with my 19″ LG that I had before. I want to keep it, of course. I would be dual screening with it right now, except that I can’t find enough room on the table for both monitors. Also, the power cord that came with my computer is really short. So we gave the Samsung power cord to the PC and gave the LG’s power cord to the Samsung so they could be plugged in… so now the LG is stuck with a really short power cord that can’t reach the outlet as it stands right now. So maybe when I move out, I can put it to better use. I’m hoping Dad doesn’t freak out over the new monitor :/ I’m most worried about that. I can see it all now; “you already had a monitor, why did you need a new one? Blah blah blah?”

Ah well.  Who cares. I’m still happy about it. :3

Going to Wolfman with Sarika, Mom and Lee tonight and Mom, Lee and I are gonna try, once again, to go to Avatar 3D tomorrow. Then, right after (assuming we get in), I’m going to Caleb’s house for a games night. Because we’re all super awesome and like to play games on Valentine’s Day. Even though everyone there isn’t actually single. It’s too bad I won’t be able to really play games very well ’cause of my thumb.

Speaking of my ailments, my thumb is getting better. Slowly, but it is. I don’t wear my brace when I’m at home ’cause I’m not really doing anything strenuous. Mostly just for work and school ’cause I don’t want to accidentally stretch out the ligament again. My elbow is almost 100% again. I can fully straighten it, it just feels a little uncomfortable when I do. Never thought that would take a week to heal. My toe is still acting strange, but again, it still doesn’t bother me unless I try to crack/curl it. That itchy rash thing that I thought was shingles seems to have died down. It’s no longer itchy and it’s slowly fading. It’s no longer bright red, but that dark reddish-brown that injuries turn when they’re healing. That tendon thing in my ankle has stopped flaring up, so I think whatever I did to it has healed. I’m slowly bouncing back to being human again. :)

My dad is in Edmonton for an RV show and it would appear that someone has stolen his laptop :( It was before the show started, so it was either another vendor that stole it (bastards!), or someone snuck by security and nabbed it (probably what happened). Apparently security has always been a little bit of an issue, even though there’s lots of it. Anyway, that really sucks, because he just bought that laptop in December. =[

Well, I think it’s about time I end this freakishly monstrous update. Sorry! (except not ’cause if you made it this far, it’s your own fault)

Coff

Just to top things off, last night, the outside tendon around my left ankle either stretched or flipped. Thought it was fine this morning, but every once in a while, completely randomly, it will burst into pain.

Fuck this.