Kitten

gaminequeen @ 2003-04-22T17:26:00

2003-04-22T21:27:11Z

Ah, strange to be in here.

Thought it would be Common Courtesy to give everyone the announcement.

Do I dare?

I do.

I'm shandygaff.

Round and round we go. Come with?

gaminequeen @ 2003-02-06T13:24:00

2003-02-06T18:25:22Z

I'm so far out of the loop now that I don't think I can ever get back in.

It made me sad, and then I realized I don't care.

Nothing to see here, move on, move on....

Visit

2003-02-03T21:58:03Z

Hey

I'm going to be in the Asheville, NC area visiting my parents from March 7-17! Mmmm warm weather, pretty mountains.... warm weather... warm weather....

Don't some of you live in that area?

I was going to be staying right IN Asheville, but just last week my parents moved to some small town 30 miles away. Damn. Now I can't walk around and amuse myself during the day. Instead I'll be apartment-sitting.... fun.

I suppose I could wander around in the wilderness, but that might not be such a good idea alone in a place I've never been before.... and I still can't seem to grok the concept of dangerous insects and animals. Maine and New Hampshire have spoiled me for all other wildernesses.

SWEEEEEEEEET

2003-01-28T21:42:12Z

Dude, we're getting a Dell.

No seriously. We just ordered one online.

Separation Anxiety

2003-01-26T17:04:20Z

One more day left!!! Four hours left, actually... assuming I can get the last of my requirements in before then. It's going to be close.

But basically, I'm back... kinda. Not so into the lj thing though. I think I have enough to do at luminaery.com for the moment. When I'm done getting up to date there, I might make my reappearance at lj. Or not. Who can tell. I feel so disassociated now.

gaminequeen @ 2003-01-22T07:13:00

2003-01-22T12:12:48Z

Temperature -2 °F / -19 °C
Windchill -18 °F / -28 °C

Yeah.

P.S.

2003-01-15T00:15:03Z

Someone at school today said I remind her of Avril. Can someone explain what this means to me? I know she's a singer and she did that skater boy song but that's about as far as my knowledge extends. I don't really follow the pop scene all that well.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2003-01-15T00:11:32Z

An actual update!

Two weeks of school left. Finally helped Nana move into the trailer last weekend. PMSing right now with raging acne outbreak to prove it, and got extremely upset when I realized that the lunch I bought with my dwindling dollars and then couldnt finish because we only have 1/2 hour for lunch so I saved for supper tonight... anyways I was really upset tonight when I got home and realized that I left it at school. No, I didn't leave it in the school fridge, THAT is what a normal person would do. I actually REMEMBERED to bring it out front where we set our stuff while we wait in line to clock out. THEN I forgot it. So it is sitting on a manicure table and I'll probably get in trouble for leaving it out there and it has my name written in BIG LETTERS right on top of it so there's no mistaking who the idiot is. So not only did I waste money and good food (and I mean GOOD... this stuff was REALLY GOOD FOOD) but I also might get in trouble and I feel stupid and frustrated for being so FORGETFUL yet again. GRRR! Stupid hormones. If this happened a week earlier or later I probably wouldn't feel nearly as bad, though I always do hate wasting good food and money. Instead my stupid woman body and stupid woman brain are going all spazoid on me and I feel like crying over some damn fried haddock and a cheesecake brownie. The stupid estrogen levels make me bitch more too, and I hate being a whiner. But I sound like a whiner when I say that. Damn wimmin! Damn all the wimmin that ever was!

I don't even know whats happening with Luminaery.com. I thought it could handle my absence but things seem to be limping. Did I say this already? I can't remember. I am always doing at least 5 different things at the same time recently and I get extra confused. The PMS doesn't help. Ok I'm sorry, I'll shut up about the Ee-pay Em-way Ess-way. (I am of the w-vowel dialect of Pig Latin).

Whatever. I don't talk to any of you anymore. I hope no one has taken offense to this. I have enough to worry about right now. Whatever.

Oh and

2002-12-28T16:39:51Z

Oh, and I realize now that that entry was rather unhappy-sounding. I actually am in very good spirits at the moment, if only because I'm not feverish for the first time in days and finally have full control of my stomach. Who wouldn't be happy, with that?!

What's good food for recovering stomachs? I managed yesterday with two meals of cream of rice, and about 8 oyster crackers (you know, the little hexagonal saltines). I'm really hungry now but I tremble in fear when I think of throwing up anymore. I swear, by the end there was nothing left to throw up but my own anus, which would have then rendered me inside-out. Which might have been kind of a neat party trick.

gaminequeen @ 2002-12-28T11:18:00

2002-12-28T16:22:35Z

This past week, in brief:

*Panic attack and nervous breakdown
*Private counseling from school director
*Parents arrive from Asheville, NC
*I get sick on the same day
*I am delirious through the holidays
*I miss two days of school
*I spend all Thursday night emptying my stomach into the toilet and crying to God to just kill me, dont go to sleep until 8 AM
*Parents go back home
*I finally get better the day after they leave.

Well, that's my past week and a half. How are you?

Interweave

2002-12-22T01:25:28Z

As always, life moves on without me. Internet life is strange in that it allows you to form connections with people you've actually never met. Because you have never met them, these people can more easily present what they want you to see and hide what they dont, and you can do the same with them. Not only that, but if you completely disappear from the internet, you are not missed as deeply or meaningfully as if you disappeared from their, er, real lives.

Maybe I'm being a cynic... I don't really like to think of myself as one. But I've always kept a practical mind about the internet. I value many friendships I've made here. But I don't pretend they are the same as a REAL LIFE friendship. How can they be, when you can't hold a person's hand, hug them when they cry, look them in the eye and tell them how much they mean to you. We have a long evolutionary history, and 98% of it has been spent in small social groups where we all knew eachother and were mostly related. How can we imagine to overcome evolution all at once? You need that real-life touch.

I love the internet for research. That's how the social aspect first drew me in: a chance to debate and learn more about people and views in a time where I didn't have access to such real-life debate.

Anyways, I'm just rambling. Some people get very defensive about their internet relationships, so I'm not even sure why I'm saying all this because I always get hell for it. I don't mean to personally offend anyone. Maybe all you need is internet socialization. It's very important, I agree. You can't meet people in real life the way you do online. But I need REAL people, and unfortunately most of you I cannot see in real life (but Aimee we still must go camping!!!!)

Every time I leave here for some time, I realize just how much else there is going on and how much people on here dont really need me. Even the people that claim to be close are just too busy with REAL life to much notice my absence, I think, and that's as it should be.

Sara, I got your card!! Thanks so much hon, it is goh-geous!!!! Aimee, there is an Aimee in my nail tech class! Here I was thinking your parents were the only ones with that spelling. Can you email me your address again so I can send you some things, because I am hopelessly inept and have lost it again.

I'm going to go find something for supper now before my stomach knots into something I can't untie. Happy holidays everyone!

I'm Still Alive

2002-12-14T15:23:04Z

Wow, it's weird using the internet only on weekends.

I could use it at Marc's house when I get home from school, but I know the lure and I know that I wouldn't be able to use it just for 30 minutes at a time. Damn you internet and your seductive siren's call.

So, I successfully made it through my first week of school. The class is nine women, almost all of them over 30, married, with children. The two that aren't over 30 are still married.

I have eased into my usual role as the 'little whacky cheerful one'. I don't try, it just happens. I think I clinched it when we did pedicures for the first time and I spontaneously broke into the Happy Toe Dance.

With a test a day, it's been harrowing but not as bad as I expected. The stressful part is next week: we are set loose on actual customers. After only one week of school, can you believe it? I feel sorry for the clients because none of us have any fucking clue what we're doing. I'm trying very hard not to be terrified. I miss my mala. I remember I didn't use to stress as easily when I had beads and a prayer.

I'm back at Nana's now for the weekend. I am trying not to think about Monday at all and just remember that there are eight other girls who are going to be going out there for the first time too, and they're all as nervous as me (we've made jokes about keeping a puke bucket handy, and I'm pretty sure Yvette is going to have a stroke the first day).

The weekend should be for relaxing, but unfortunately I have too much to do. So instead I have to work work work all weekend! I need to get a few venuseffect panels done, I feel terrible I missed this week's. I have to work on luminaery.com because it really does need some work. I have to make some more products for the store. I have to add content to the front page. I have to make more christmas presents.

Augh!

Thank Cheesus for The Two Towers. I don't know how I'd make it through the week without that to look forward to on Wednesday.

Well I must check email. Cheers!

There Is No I In Teamwork

2002-12-08T18:55:35Z

*Is not pleased*

But then, when has my being pleased ever been important? It isn't, really.

This is why I like to work alone. No one else will bow to my superior knowledge. *snort* Other people create too many factors, and everyone has their own interests that throw various wrenches in the works. Teamwork is overrated, really. The bible even says so. See what Moses had to put up with? No respect, I tell you.

I want to do everything myself. Too bad I'm not 40 people with 80 hands. Or too bad time weren't more elastic.

I want to be an army of one. I want to ask the Japanese: is it worth it?

Aimee

2002-12-06T13:40:39Z

Aimee I must be remembering the community password wrong because it isnt letting me log in... email it to me or PM me or something? And why exactly am I taking over the community, come to think of it... I'm on livejournal 90% less than you are and just had to get rid of one of my own communities because of it!! lol

PS I'm sending you the money order for Luminaery and your christmas presents Monday (if all goes well).

Alternate Universe

2002-12-06T12:58:34Z

It's so wrong that so much of the country got so much snow and ice and such, and we got none. *points and laughs* Welcome to Backwards Universe.

Oh wait... I probably shouldn't laugh at that, since people died....

Japanese

2002-12-04T00:59:03Z

I started learning Japanese! The tapes say Learn in 6 weeks, but in three weeks I have to take it back to the library and in one week I start classes so I'm not sure about that.

I will say this though: Japanese makes a lot more sense than english, and sounds nicer. But the forms of address are a bit confusing, of course. A cleaner language too. No room for muttering or lazyness. In english, 'father' and 'faaather' both mean father. In Japanese, it would mean 'father' and 'pincushion', or 'mexican omlette', or something.

Fahoo Forays and Dahoo Dorays

2002-12-02T22:10:18Z

I have stuck in my head: the Welcome Christmas song that the whos sing.

Dreams

2002-12-02T13:36:09Z

Sleeping

I had a dream involving you, a bookstore, a bed, and a lot of pillows.

A few nights ago I dreamt that the vampires were after people with green eyes. You were one of the vampires. You were all after Marc so I diverted you so he could get away. We all ended up at a fancy restaurant and then I woke up.

I dreamt the night after that my nostrils collapsed. That one was kind of scary.

Waking

I START SCHOOL IN EXACTLY ONE WEEK!!! *unnerved* Marc and I had hoped to stay someplace in Bangor or Brewer but we can't find anyplace cheap enough :( Looks like he's going to have to drive me all the way up there everyday. I still am not sure how I'll get home on the nights he works. Hm.

Oh, right.

2002-12-02T03:22:13Z

NOW I remember why I liked PAID livejournal. It's not because of the cool layout you can customize and make yourself, or the shorter url, or even the extra icons.

IT'S BECAUSE IT DOESNT FUCKING WORK IF YOU DON'T PAY.

Or maybe I just have incredibly, unbelievably, improbably, statistically-impossible bad luck.

Bitch Season

2002-11-30T16:13:07Z

What is it about the holiday season that turns certain people into complete bitches (yes, bitch is a non-gender-specific term in my book)? They get so easily pissed-off and just your very existance can be bothersome to at least someone. You can do no right by these people. If you stand off to the side of an aisle, that's the side they want to push their cart through. If they are standing smack in the middle of the aisle and you want to go through, you are rude and inconveniencing them. If you ask too politely you aren't being assertive enough. If you ask too loudly you are rude. If you laugh you are an obnoxious young person. If you smile at their kids you are a pedophile. If you smile at them you are creepy, and they avoid your gaze. If you pause at anything you are too slow and holding everyone else up. If you are too fast you are too rushed and think what you are doing is more important than everyone else. If you are cheerful you are annoying. Everyone has some problem with you.

I understand it's a stressful time of year, but how does a calendar decide that this is the time of the year that it's ok for you to take out your frustrations on everyone else? Like the days leading up to Christmas give everyone an excuse to act like assholes. I'm confused as to how exactly this honors Christ....

I don't think we've progressed much since the Inquisition. Christmas season is some sort of mob mentality holiday.

Quick Holiday Well-wishings

2002-11-28T01:49:08Z

I'm off to make my Maple Cider Punch for tomorrow. I get to holiday with MARC'S RELATIVES!!! They are the coolest family ever. I mean, mine is cool, but none of us live in the same state so we hardly ever get together. And there really isn't THAT many of us. Going to holidays with Marc's family always makes me feel like a travel journalist/anthropologist uncovering the secrets of some large hidden Amazonian tribe. Except the the tribe is in Maine, not the Amazon, which is scary enough.

Marc, I figured out WHY you like me so much, btw. You know, the REAL reason.

What Tool song are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
You are Schism. You are probably a sensitive individual who is very down to earth and open in relationships with others. Communication is your key to success and happiness in just about everything you do.
(stolen from thebluestar98)

I'm off to make punch! A nice Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it tomorrow! And a happy one to whatever other holiday you have coming up to those who don't!

A Bit About College

2002-11-26T17:03:24Z

"Evidence shows that it [lecturing] is the least effective way of learning because people, according to studies, usually remember 10 to 20 percent of what they heard. But college is a business and lectures are the most cost-effective way of offering the course.

"The quality of teaching at most colleges is mediocre, at best, because most colleges pressure their teachers to do research and publish articles and books. Many teachers find having to teach a distraction from their research....

"...How many students who majored in journalism, anthropology, geology, biology, zoology, mathematics, actually make a living in the field they majored in? How many college graduates are working as waiters and waitresses, carpenters, landscapers ad are burdened with huge loans to pay off?

"High schools brag about the percentage of their graduates who get accepted to college, but do not reveal the percentage who do not make it past Thanksgiving. Until recently, there were not many studies of the percentage of freshman in college who actually graduate. Recent reports show fewer than 50 percent who start actually finish. These young people end up without a degree and years of loans to pay off.

"If we measure the success of a manufacturer by the percentage of its products made well enough to be sold, shouldn't we also expect colleges to be accountable in some way?

"Certainly, if a manufacturer had a rejection rate of 50 percent of its product, it would be in trouble. For some reason, our universities and colleges are considered 'social icons' that can do no wrong. They can change tuitions seven or eight times higher than the rate of inflation and it's not questioned.

"Going to college can be a transformational experience, but it can also be disappointing educationally and financially. There is a good chance you will not get a good return on your investment. There are many excellent small colleges that are dedicated to teaching and providing remarkable educational experiences. There are also alternative learning experiences available that can provide a perspective and the time to think about the direction of your lives.

"I am not advocating against college. I'm concerned that young people are programmed and pressured to go to college without questioning its value to them. It's a huge investment and the mystique of many colleges lure students to apply for the wrong reasons. "

Amen! That's bits and pieces of a commentary written in The Ellsworth American recently by Arnold Greenberg.

One of the things that hurts me MOST, EVERY TIME, is when I run into friends of the family, teachers, parents of friends, and they ask if I am going to college (and they ALWAYS do). And when I tell them no, they always look at me with something like pity and disappointment. And they usually say in a concerned voice, "But you're so much better than that." (Yes, they actually DO say that). As if I'm saying that I plan to live on the streets as a bum my whole life, or want to be a crack-whore.

I was aware that if I went to college when I first got out of high-school, it would be a wasted investment. I wanted to wait for a time when I can actually pay for it better and knew exactly what I wanted to study. That much money is a lot to waste on 'feeling out what I want' as some suggested. "Just go and try some things," they say. Yeah, I want to spend that much money wandering around with no purpose.

Eventually I would like to go to college. Sure, I'll be older than my peers, but who cares? If I'm going it's to learn, not to make social connections (though those are fine too). At least I'll know exactly what I want and can pay for it (though it may also come about that I never have that much money, but I hope this isnt true). It wont be money wasted.

I just want to note that I dont think going to college is money wasted, this is just MY situation. I know my own self, and my self says that me going to college right after high school would have been a very bad thing. The only thing I'll regret is the stupid questions and judgments people make about me for the decision. I don't think I'll be 'paying for my decision' in that I'll never get a 'good' job, but god knows I WILL pay for it if only because everyone else makes sure of that with their stupid judgments.

Okei, rant over. Thank you.

Now I want to grow it out again...

2002-11-25T16:35:41Z

Since a few of you can't seem to believe I've ever had anything but short hair I offer you proof.

This is me either at the end of sophomore year or beginning of junior, I can't remember. The waves make it look shorter than it is... and it got a bit longer than that before I choppped it but I can't find any photos of that.

So there.

Note

2002-11-25T00:07:28Z

Laura Bush's voice makes me think of Patti Mayonnaise from the cartoon Doug.

That is all.

Seriously....

2002-11-24T13:29:09Z

Sometimes I think that I should be more serious, that this might further my spiritual endeavors.

Then I think: The Creator must have made me silly for a reason. It's all in the master plan, man.