So I started watching Samantha Who? and I gotta say, I find it very entertaining.
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Archive for August, 2008
I finally got my work permit information! (Whew!)
Now all I have to do is jump one or two more hoops, and I should make it to England by the start of term. If everything else is with me, I will have an appointment at the consulate by next Wednesday and leave next weekend.
On the bright side to all of this, I’ll be in town for the season premiere of a few of our TV shows. On the “dammit!” side of this, I’m missing the Global induction and the in-service training for the school. (It kinda seems like the downside is most unfortunate…)
Everything is happening a week later than I’d like, but at least now I have a better idea of when I’ll be leaving.
But I still want my damn work permit, like now.
Rich has been strongly encouraging me to get in touch with the MP for Croydon South and explaining my work permit situation to someone who might be able to push the application through a little faster than it seems to be going. I kinda, what’s the word…balked(?) at the idea — contact a government official dude about my work permit? Aren’t I supposed to go through someone else first? In my head, it was like contacting the President of the United States about it, you know, ‘cuz I have the incurable crazy. I understand Rich’s point in that this is kinda what these government people are there for, but it just kinda sat with me funny.
Instead, I e-mailed the school people I’ve been in contact with and said that I don’t know what else to do to really speed this process along and that it has been suggested to me that I contact the MP.
I was very happy to receive a reply not long after sending the initial e-mail telling me that I don’t have anything to worry about and that this situation does not reflect badly on me; it’s just part of the process and in the event that I get to England late, they’ll bring me up to speed.
I was incredibly relieved! I still want my gorram work permit, but I’m glad that the Head Teacher and the principal are all kinds of not hating me to start out with. That’s always a plus.
So this past weekend wasn’t anything like I expected.
On Friday, Melany and Denise came over to have dinner with me before I left for England. Even though I have no idea when I’ll be leaving and for all I know they just came out to play, it was still great seeing them. I’m glad we stayed in touch, and as far as my friendship with Melany is concerned, I’m glad Aaron was wrong. (That reminds me, I totally have to e-mail him.) And to think, she and I became friends because a pencil sharpener fell on me.
Usually when the three of us get together, we go to Friday’s for whatever meal it is we gather for. This time around, I had a brilliant plan. I think this was the first time we were able to gather for dinner (it’s usually lunch) and knowing that it would be a Friday night at like prime dinner hour, I proposed getting Portillo’s and coming back to my house instead. That way we’d save a little money and we wouldn’t have to worry about being in an incredibly crowded restaurant. Also, it was a decision made long before gathering, so that saved us from spending valuable hang-out time trying to decide what to eat.
One of the thing that amuses me to no end when the three of us get together is the fact that we always end up talking about our soaps. I used to watch General Hospital during the summers and then when I was in college, I fell into Pine Valley; Melany and Denise watch both respectively. Although, none of us have really watched our soaps with as much enthusiasm as we did back in college, but it’s still nice to rage about something no one else in the group can really savvy.
It was a nice visit that ended too soon. Then again, I’m used to staying up and playing until the wee hours of the morning.
Thereafter, I ended up being kidnapped by the Holtzmans and taken to the Settlement for some board games. And by board games, I mean Peanuts, which I’m trying to get better at playing. I think I got out of the negatives after a while, but it was like for a score of +1.
Saturday was exciting for me ‘cuz my mom and I had Lou Malnati’s for lunch. I know we had Lou’s for dinner a few weeks ago, but still, my family eating anything other than Asian food is incredibly impressive to me.
That evening, I finally got to see Bottle Shock — oddly enough it was playing at AMC 30. I think Bert, Toni, Mike, and I were the only ones in the theater under the age of 30. The movie was all right, there were things about it that kinda bugged me, but I was still way happy to have seen it. And come on, Eliza Dushku was in it! And she wasn’t trying to kill anyone and she wasn’t being chased by mountain men; now if only I could see frickin’ Nobel Son I’ll be good to go.
There was gonna be bowling after that, but I eventually backed out. For one thing, I don’t really do bowling so much and the only reason I went with the Slices gang on New Year’s Eve was because I was all kinds of lonely and needed to be around people.
I ended up at the Halfway House after the movie. Jamie, Lynny, Dee and her husband John Paul were actually in Schaumburg and I haven’t seen any of them in a while. There had been a time back in the day when they were The Group. I can’t recall exactly what it was we used to do, but we definitely got together a lot. I mostly remember going over to Jamie’s house or Kris’s place when he used to live on Beech.
John Paul is a big board game fan, like goes to conventions kind of fan. He brought over a box full of games to try. Unfortunately for me, I missed out on the newer games; I don’t remember the name of the game I walked in on, but it involved a court, and I think wenches were mentioned. Mark apparently really liked the game. By the time I joined in the fun and games, we played Ticket to Ride with the expansion and the most destination cards rule, Fluxx, and Citadels. We decided that it would be awesome if Dee and John Paul moved back to Illinois, not only ‘cuz it’d be nice to have them home, but also ‘cuz their collection of games is like the Settlement and Grant’s stuff combined. (The box was only a portion of the games they had.)
Sunday was a day full of computers. Mark was kind enough to help me make Jon Snow into Jean-Luc III. (Oh, I just thought of another name I coulda gone with “Trey” — I vaguely remember that being a nickname for people who are “the Third”. For the record, Jon Snow is so much better.) We also had an impromptu dinner which was quite freaking awesome, but really, when am I not happy eating at the Halfway House. Well…there was that one time Mark said the gnocci resembled something incredibly unappetizing, but other than that, everything else has always been awesome. (I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat gnocci again…)
So yeah, this weekend wasn’t quite what I expected, but it was still a good weekend. And at the rate things are going, it was more like my penultimate weekend at home.
I can now play a few songs on Medium for drums without failing!! 
I have half a cold, or I’m fighting a cold, or I finally have allergies, but it feels like a cold. Anyway, so far it’s at the “just finished crying” stage/feeling. It’s an odd feeling to have, but also kind of a funny one. Not funny “ha ha” so much as funny “huh”. The change in weather also made my nose bleed. At least I wasn’t in public this time, but it did happen while I was in the shower. I’m gonna sound all morbid and creepifyin’, and more than a little gross, but it was kinda interesting watching the little drops of blood mixing into the water. It made me think of writing a story or something. And at least this way I didn’t have to use tissue.
I know, I know, I’m a ginormous freak.
This post brought to you by Lockheed.
Ok. So this kinda sucks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to still be able to play and stuff here, but knowing that I have to be in England at the very latest by next Monday is kinda frustrating. (I got another e-mail from the Head Teacher sayin’ it was imperative that I be there for the institute week starting Sept. 1. I’d really like to be there Friday, but it doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen.)
So yeah, maybe this week is my last week home. At the rate things are going, who knows when I’ll really be leaving. ‘Tis most frustrating.
(This post is not from Lockheed.)
So I started reading Felicia Day’s blog recently and today I noticed on her Last.FM thing that “Still Alive” has recently been played.
She swims alone, climbs trees, rescues servants…
I mean, she’s involved in the Jossverse, she geeks out, and she might get her head cut off by House…how cool is that?!
Yeah, I heart Felicia Day. I wouldn’t want to groom her, but if I ever had the chance to meet her at a geek convention (ComicCon if I ever make it, or something like Wizard World Chicago), I would strongly consider actually standing in line instead of just walking by and marveling from afar. (Like we did when Jay and Silent Bob were there at Wizard World Chicago 2004.)
I thought I would give this a shot and try to write a post from Lockheed. It’s hard to say how I feel about him so far cuz I haven’t played around with him and thus haven’t figured out all his charms. I did find the polishing cloth, though, so that’s pretty shiny. It turns out Jon Snow has one too. Those Mac people sure want you to take care of your stuff. I guess for the amount of money people spend on the products, it makes sense.
So far I have few complaints about either of my Mac purchases. (Is it still Apple Mac, or just straight up Apple? I mean, it’s a MacBook, but the Apple store. Huh.) My only thing against Lockheed so far is that there’s no “select all” and it’s kinda hard to move the cursor where ya want it when typing. I seem to be doing a pretty decent job right now though. It isn’t as smooth as it would be if I had a real keyboard, but not bad considering. The next thing you know I’ll be on Twitter. (I would link, but I haven’t figured out if I can or how to do that yet on this thing. I think it involves the browser slidey thing, but one thing at a time.)
Yay Lockheed!
Then I could stop the world.
I have “Laundry Day” stuck in my head. (Yes, I am aware that technically it is “With my freeze ray I will stop the world”.) It seems to be a very Whedon musical week for me. First Once More with Feeling and again with Dr. Horrible.
I tried to write about my shopping spree Tuesday, but it just kept coming out lame. For those of you who don’t know, I really hate shopping. It’s almost up there with going to a bar. But, last week Al gave me and Mike these fancy Express cards she got in the mail so it kinda forced me into going. I grumbled quite a bit, threatened to punch Toni in the throat, but ended up buying five items of clothing to take with me to England. (Not all at Express — two pairs of pants from Express, a shirt from Banana Republic, and a shirt and a cardigan from the Gap Outlet store in Huntley. ‘Twas most triumphant.)
Speaking of which, I heard back from the Head Teacher and she sent me the curriculum. I have to say, I’m not overly looking forward to Dracula or Frankenstein but at least I’ve read both of those. Er, well, mostly read. (I have to remember to e-mail Sarah about those Frankenstein lessons we made…and by we I mean she…) The Head Teacher hasn’t made up the class lists yet or something or another, but she did send me a scheme of work for a poetry unit that she said I’d be teaching. I guess this will at least give me poetry experience.
Still no word on the work permit, though. It’s funny ‘cuz I’m supposed to be in London on the 29th of August. Won’t this be fun. (Dope her.)
I’ve also been playing quite a bit of scramble lately; I wish I could say I’m improving, but that’d be a lie. Now I seem to be concentrating more on finding the six-letter words or some such that I miss out on the really easy ones.
So it seems that this guy will be Jon Snow. It seems to suit him. I’ve named the iPod Touch Albert, but now I kinda want to change it to Lockheed. Sure he’s not purple or a dragon, but I think it would be suitable. Now if I could only figure out how to change the name…
“Laundry day/see you there/under things/tumbling”
Sorry. It was in my head again. Where was I? Oh right. The Mac stuff. So far, I’m having fun with ‘em. Jon Snow doesn’t seem to heat up as much as John does. Although, there might be a chance that will change once John’s memories get transferred onto the Mac. You know, just to spite me and stuff.
One of the things that gets me about the Mac stuff is that I’ll probably have to invest in some kind of case thing for Albert Lockheed. On the bright side, Agador Sparticus, I mean Albert Lockheed fits on Persephone.
I know I should be packing or thinking about packing or something related to packing, but I’m totally not. Again, nothing is final to me until I have the work permit stuff all squared away. Then I’ll probably be racing around like an even crazier person. I also seem to pack things better at night anyway — less distractions for me and the like.
You know, this would be a perfect time for me to sort through that box of books I have in the basement. Will I actually do it? We’ll see. Hey, look! Sharks!