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Below are the 17 most recent journal entries.

	2006.01.18  04.20 No Mas. This journal is closing. Chances are if you needed to know, you've been friended by the new one. If you haven't, I don't mind being asked how to get there. Mood: calm

	2004.10.12  19.32 Way-laid by my schedule No music today--I lost my headphones. Sad day, huh? Sorry there haven't been any major updates recently. I haven't had much to report on. For further clarification (since a friend asked me): Patty, the girl who made a fool out of herself, did so by doing the following: As a member of the Japanese language department, which is, like, 5 strong on a good day, Patty and I run into each other frequently. When Etsuko announced the Japan Festival, I figured it would be just another part of life that Patty should ingratiate herself with the rest of the group and I should be forced to spend time with her rude ass. She, however, must have believed that I had died over the weekend or something and would thus miss a chance to hang out with the other members of my dept. Either way, she wasn't expecting me to go. I rode with Charlie, the coolest guy that studies Japanese that I know (who isn't Jim, of course, 'cause Jim's pretty cool) and Patty rode with just about everyone else in the dept. They all arrived earlier than we did, since Etsuko had to work and Charlie wanted to sleep in. In fact, by the time we got there, Patty and the others were pretty much tired of being there and looking for a ride home. Jim, on the other hand, had managed to get a nice job volunteering and didn't want to go. I was talking to Etsuko and Jim when Patty, annoyed that she hadn't really bothered to make friends or even smile at people while she was there, came over and interrupted our conversation to complain to Jim that she didn't know anyone there and was therefore going home. Jim looked confused since Patty was standing in a small nimbus of students from our dept., and pointed to me. "You know this girl, though, right?" Patty looked straight through me and said, "Who?" Jim, slightly more puzzled, pointed to me again and said, "Her." Patty proceeded to look through me again and say, "Who? Where?" Now, as those of you who are reading this know, I'm not exactly the type who could turn sideways and disappear. For this reason, Jim was really freaking confused and pointed again, stating clearly, "This girl here. You know her, right?" To which Patty replied, "Oh. Yeah, I know her," and turned on her heel and walked away. Oh, and I've been written out of the third play in the fall series, which is absolutely awesome. Seriously. It was a non-speaking role, anyway, and I'm pleased that it's one less thing I have to worry about doing right. On another note, I had to write a 10-minute play that I need to be critiqued desperately. I think the writing is crap, but most people just tell me it's awesome. Be as mean as you like, but please, please read ( this. ) Thanks! Mood: busy Music: The Sesame Street theme playing as someone's ringtone

	2004.10.07  12.31 But for feasting and blarney and fun at the fair there's none to compare... Dude. It's been, like, a month since I last went to the Fest and I already can't wait until this weekend, when I MAY be going. I have no idea how I'm going to cope when it comes time for me to go to Japan... Sorry there's been no update for a while. My life suddenly picked up (STOPkiss went into production, and then The Oresteia entered the shops) and the next thing I knew, I was digging around in my schedule for time to eat and sleep, much less read, do homework, and surf the web. So what's been happening lately? I've been working on my Senior Theatre Perf., which will debut probably Fall 2006 or Spring 2007. So far, I'm about halfway done with the prep work, with no clear end in sight. I've also been trying to make sure I'm keeping in touch with friends and forcing myself to make time to read and relax after the hell that was the past week. I went to the Japan Festival last weekend and this girl I really don't like--I mean, I'm okay and can be civil to her, but she's a raging bitch to me--decided to make an ass of herself in front of other people. On the plus side, I got to hang out with Charlie. On the negative side again, I'm feeling a bit left out since almost all of my friends seem to have other people they'd rather hang out with than me and I'm, like, the last choice. I'm planning on helping my friend Ali make a bodice. She's really excited, and it'll be good practice before I make mine, ne? Other than that, there's nothing really going on... OH! And I almost forgot: I am a hybrid of: Indie Girl Academic Girl Click on the pictures below to read more: Take the 'What Kind of Girl Are You?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com Mood: busy Music: Brendan Nolan - Tandragee (I so need to just buy his CD...)

	2004.09.09  21.44 The Day is Nearly Done... I know, I know. I promised an update. For some reason, though, I'm having a pretty awful case of writers' block and can't really think of anything worth writing about. I did, however, come to one kind of surprising realization as to why I seem so easygoing to others: No matter how badly someone pisses me off or how much they deserve my hatred, I will never hate them to the extent and with the cruel viciousness with which I hate myself. No matter how many times you fuck me over, I will still be civil to you because you aren't as bad to me as I am. I'm not exactly sure anyone else here understands exactly what I mean by this. I just know that if I weren't such a horrible person to myself, I'd take it out on a lot more people than I do. I'm at least ten times more likely to dwell on something stupid I've done than to just forget it. I also tend to force myself to think of events in the day that went poorly in my favor, just so I can "learn what not to do," fuck all if it was actually my fault or something I could control or even knew when I was doing it. Oh, and I got a letter from Kim, which is awesome. Nyankomatsuri stationary and all that. My first kanji lesson went well, too, which rocked hard. Whoo! Mood: contemplative Music: "Old Ned" ~ Brendan Nolan

	2004.09.09  19.42 The Sweetest Hours That E'er I've Spent... School fucking sucks. Have you ever had a day in which you just felt so freaking inept: the days you keep stubbing your toes despite pointedly avoiding corners; you study for four hours before class only to discover you've read all of the wrong chapters; you take an extra trip out of your way to secure the perfect birthday present for a party only to arrive home and find a voice mail that says you've missed it. Yesterday was just one of those days. Y'know, the ones that make you want to find a dark corner and cry until it stops hurting. I'm definitely off of my back-to-school high now, I guess. On the plus side, I did get an awesome part in the fall show (The Oresteia, for those of you in KC who want to see me). Actually, since we're doing all three plays in the trilogy, I've got three parts, but it's the second one that kicks major ass. One of my upperclassmen told me I must be pretty good if I could get the part, so I'm really happy. By the way: I doubt you're reading this, but RWG? You rock like a hard thing. There'll be an update following this one about what happened today. I just wanted to whine at all of you about how much yesterday sucked :$ My angst tastes like... Black Licorice Find your angst's flavor Mood: crushed Music: "Green Grow the Rashes O" ~ Brendan Nolan

	2004.09.06  07.50 The Shoulders of Freaks First off, let me begin by saying that Ali has the best taste in music EVER. The school year has really begun to fall into step for me, which is cool. My big problem, however, is the level at which I'm taking theatre classes. I'm taking classes that are just a bit too deep for me (Junior level, while I'm a Sophomore), and two at the same time and all that jazz. I'm not having too many problems yet, but I just can't help but feel like I'll be overwhelmed once the "back to school" period wears off. I'll have to see how it goes, I guess. I wasn't able to find a ride to KC RenFest last weekend, so I'm sad. I probably missed everybody :( On the plus side, I managed to find a couple more people who are willing to go from school, so I may be able to go later. I still have to do the repairs to my garb, though. I'm currently working on a rug, which is pretty cool. It's a braided rug made out of '70s fabrics, but it actually looks really neat. I think it'll be really cute when it's finished. I've got a hellish shift at work tonight (6-11 pm). Now, all of you with full-time jobs are going, "Hey, I work more than that in one given day!" Remember that the later I stay out, the more my roommate will bitch about me. I just found out that my roommate doesn't approve of my staying up to do my homework. She's one of those hermit types, so she stays in all day and never goes to visit anyone. I, on the other hand, couldn't live if I had to stay in my room all day. I understand that she's got early classes and all, but for God's sake, if I hear her whining one more time about how late I stay up (which is actually reasonable for a college kid--1:00 am), I may do grevious bodily harm to something. Ugh. She seemed pretty cool from our e-mails over the summer, and she lived on the same hall as all of my friends from last year, but when we got here she suddenly turned into a dorm-room-hugging hermit. I've never seen her outside of the room--not even at the cafeteria--and I can't really say I've met anyone on campus who would call her their friend. Now, again, this wouldn't bother me if she didn't carry herself with the attitude that I shouldn't have friends either. It's not even like I'm staying out of the room at all hours of the night; I'm rarely out past 12:00. It's also not like I don't just use the lamp to do my homework, and she shouldn't expect me to forfeit any semblance of a social life just so she can get her full 14 hours of sleep. Blegh. Well, after all of that ranting, I'm pretty much done. I'll try to post again tomorrow, since I know after I hit "post" on this one, I'll remember something I wanted to talk about. 'Til then! Mood: bitchy Music: "Shoulders of Freaks" ~ Henry Phillips

	2004.08.29  13.24 School's Out Forever! Or, um, not. Actually, school's just about to swing into super-duper warp drive. This post is going to be very short since I'm standing up in the Union typing this. I can't WAIT until the library opens, and I'm waiting with bated breath until I manage to get my own comp. I ran into a bunch of the exchange students today. I couldn't quite catch their names since they're still in that "My English sucks so bad it creates a vacuum" mode (and probably will be for at least another month. BTW, that's not how *I* feel, but they're always so terribly nervous). There are so many from Asia this year! There are three Korean girls (I met one of them today and she was so sweet!), three Japanese girls (I haven't really seen them yet), and...DUN DUN DUN! A Japanese boy. Yeah. Jewell's never done that before, as far as I know. I think his name is Ollie, but I'm not sure. He's very cute, though, and I'm sure he's going to be a trip. Meg is going to FREAK OUT when she meets him, and I'm never going to hear the end of "Ollie this" and "Ollie that". At least I'll probably agree with her! He just graduated high school, too, so unlike all of the other exchange students, he's NOT older than me by a few years. I also got to chat for a while with Etsuko-san (my prof.). My instincts about her were SO right! She's wonderful, and not to knock Naomi-san (who was wonderful, too), she's terrifically friendly. I brought up my plan for an independent study to her, and she totally agreed with me that it's something I need to do. I may even drop by later this afternoon and chat with her before heading over to the Language Department Meet-and-Greet. Well, that's pretty much it. Expect entries to become even fewer and further between from now on, as if that were possible! Mood: bouncy Music: None, really, which is why I have such a sucky title

	2004.08.27  07.27 Come away, O human child... So. No updates in a while because I am a hopeless, hopeless slacker. I don't know how I ever managed to into college, and honestly don't know how I managed to make it through the first year... Today I move back out to Liberty, the town of oh-so-closeness to the city that I can never get to due to lack of transportation. We're down to one week until KC RenFest, and I'm kind of excited about both school and the Faire. Well, of course I'm excited about the Faire, but school? I figure it's just a fluke and I'll get over it and come to my senses the first time I flub my tenses in Japanese or work my first 12-hr. Monday. I stayed up last night getting all of my things together and packing. It really sucked, but I'm super proud of myself for having cut down from near a million bags and boxes of stuff last year to about three bags (one of which is garb, which I won't mix with anything because even after washing two or three times it has a woodsy scent (probably because I don't use fabric softener--ruins the wrinkle effect) that my roommate last year mistook for mold--she was SUCH a city kid she had never even been camping!)), my laundry bag, my laundry basket, and one box of miscellaneous things like pencils and odd ends. I ended up doing a ton of laundry, but all of my stuff will smell nice when I get there, I guess. In other random news from my life, I've almost decided on the Japanese name I want to use to open a bank account when I do my overseas study: Eiko. It's traditional, simple to pronounce, similar to my name, and most importantly: not a gajillion miles long when written. I had also better do my quick repairs to my bodice this week during what little off-time I'll have. I should probably get ahold of Allie, too, and maybe tell my roommate that I'm coming in today. She might like that.

	2004.08.19  04.10 It's the Little Things That Get You OMGWTFBBQ!!1!one! My computer freaked out and had a spaz attack, taking itself out of commission for almost a week. Blegh. Y'know, I never really noticed exactly what kind of stranglehold on my life until it was just suddenly...not there for a week. So school starts just over a week from now, but I'll be moving back to KC in exactly one week. It's going to be strange--the downside of making friends with mostly members of your own department and foreign exchange students is that if you're in the foreign language department, at any given time about 1/3-1/4 of your friends is studying in another country at any given point and another 1/3-1/4 aren't coming back to school the next year, and then 1/3-1/4 are graduating, so every year is kind of like starting Freshman over again. Kimi sent me a really cute card in response for the one I made for her. The school couldn't wait, um, two weeks for me to come get it, so they forwarded it to me. Ironically, it came in the same day my mom's car broke down, so I didn't get it for another two days as the car was in the shop and it was in the car. Anyway, it's really really cute, and I'd scan it but my scanner is craptacular. I may take it to school with me and see if I can use the one in Curry Lab to show all of you how Kimi's art is better than mine ^-^''''' Right now, I'm listening to the ultimate ode to caffeine: "Stress" by Jim's Big Ego. Every time I hear this song I remember how much I love it, 'cause it's SO my life. With lines like, "Everybody's out to get me but I feel alright--Everybody's thinkin' 'bout me!" and a ten-second rant about sharks and sand fleas and other banes of the beach, all set to a nifty jazz theme, it's, like, the coolest song ever. So, KCFest is coming up. Whoo! I'm so excited! And I have money since people kind of remembered that, hey, yeah, I had a birthday in May, and that's awesome, I guess. I was kind of down at the time, since I felt like the living incarnation of Molly Ringwald in "Sixteen Candles," with the notable exception that I DON'T have a sister that was getting married on my birthday. Like, seriously? The only person on the PLANET that told me to have a happy birthday was my dad, who called from Hong Kong. Oh, well. So people have begun to remember and I got a much-belated b-day gift in the mail and I was happy, since it's more money to spend at KC. Whoo! Well, that's all that's going on in my life. You can now turn off my whining rambles and return to your regularly scheduled f-list. Mood: cynical Music: "Stress" ~ Jim's Big Ego

	2004.08.10  04.13 Life in Mono As per usual, nothing major going on today. I may go to the mall on Wednesday, which will be, like, the highlight of my summer. Classes begin in twenty days. This entry is actually little more than a reminder to myself that for the next season of the GSLRF, I'm going to play Marie-Elise again, but with a new twist that I may actually be able to pull off: playing the ingenue. Now for ( the lengthy explaination you don't care about. ) ...After all, don't all men secretly want both the Madonna and the whore?

	2004.08.07  05.32 Glaring Dream This is pretty much my requisite "quiz" entry, since nothing could have possibly happened between my last entry and now. ( Getting to know you ) ( How Brit am I? ) ( Female Fantasy Archetype Quiz ) ( The Tarot Quiz-thing ) ( My Japanese Name? ) On an unrelated note, I had NO IDEA I knew so many people online. W00t. If you've been suddenly added to my f-list but don't remember me, don't worry--you know me, even if you don't remember me. And likewise if you haven't but everyone else on your f-list has, it's probably because I have the attention span of a 5-year-old child and that makes meeting people... ...Ooh! Shiny! Mood: quixotic Music: "Super Drive" ~ Tomokazu Seki ~ Gravitation

	2004.08.06  13.48 Hello Another Day As usual, nothing really major is going on. I'm getting more and more wound up about school, since so much stuff is happening the first week of school that my brain will probably explode. And then I'll polish off the week by begging a ride to KC, so at least I'll have a reward for working through it all. Last Friday, I went out to Kansas City to make sure I was all registered and ready to go. Neither my primary advisor nor my secondary advisor were there, but the department chair of my primary major was, so she decided to help me and sneak me into a few classes that I need but would have become hard to get to because of my year abroad. ( My whining about my classes ) After taking care of all of my school stuff I went over to visit my friend Kim, who lives in the area and will be going to Japan this school year. She and I get along great and I'm really sad that I won't be able to go to her going away party. I spent the night at her house and we stayed up until about 3:30 just chatting about stuff. This year's going to be weird without her, but I'm sure Jim-senpai will be a bit relieved. I always freaked him out by talking about her: "キミ先輩は何処ですか？”("Kimi (my upperclassman) is where?" or "Have you seen Kimi?") which he would always interpret, "君先輩は何処ですか？”("You (my darling), (my upperclassman) is where?" or "Darling, where is my upperclassman?" or "Darling, have you seen my upperclassman?") I made her a pretty card as a going away present and gave it to her while I was in town, so she made me something and I can't wait to see it ^-^ But I don't know my own box number... Well, aside from school stuff, that's all that's going on. I'm just wondering if Patty is going to make it to Kimi's party... Mood: bored Music: Hello Another Day ~ The Brilliant Green

	2004.07.27  10.56 The anchor's aweigh and the sails are all set... Sometimes in my life I've felt as though there's a momentous adventure before me, but that I'm the only one prepared for it. I always over-prepare for anything, and I'm always planning it out as much as a full year before it happens, but it seems like the people around me are waiting until a few days before the journey to even begin. It's frustrating, knowing that all of these things have to get done and that no one is helping. I guess my problem is that I don't like to let myself get too comfortable in one place for fear of complacency. In my life, I hope I'm never completely happy with where I am and will always be striving to make it better. I just know that had I been born before I was, I would have been one of the people who, tired with the monotony of life at home, ran away to sea. The problem with being the type of person to do that is that the generations before mine have learned enough from their experiences in such situations to make sure that none are available to us. In my observations of other members of my generation, I've noticed something similar in them. There's never been a cause that we can throw ourselves at, no great disturbances in the suburban quality of our lives that brings us to the edge of humanity the way generations before us have had. We've got no visceral experiences left to us, no wars left to fight, nowhere to put the vast amounts of energy that young people have. I've often wondered why so many members of my generation want to become expatriots, and I think that this feeling is part of the answer; The American Dream, as it were, is the concept that we should all strive to become suburban, complacent, safe. Children are taught that in their individuality there is a sort of divine monotony--i.e., if everyone's special, no one is really special at all. We claim to be the most unique country in the world, encouraging differences in our people, but all of our people rebel into the same social groups and conform to the norms of these social groups. For example, someone who uses sports to release pent-up tension and aggression is very finely tuned into the typical athelete, while someone who prefers to ponder his or her problems is pushed away from such activities, both by the newly formed stereotype and by society itself that wants to put this new person into a different group. Have you ever noticed that all of the people in a particular "sub-culture" look or behave similarly? There is, of course, the obvious adjustments by each person to conform to the norms of the group, but if our culture were a culture that truly approved of diversities, each person would be different and there would be no need for cliques at all. That's why I like cultures such as the Japanese: in their uniformity, they encourage the most unique juxstaposition between what the culture looks like and what it is. For example, in a culture like ours that encourages a single religion with "notable exceptions" for certain other, acceptable religions, religion has become a high factor in discrimination and identification of who belongs in which groups. However, in Japan, where religion is not emphasized, you'll never find a group like the KKK, and Nazis would never find a foothold in the country (yes, the Japanese were involved with the Nazis in WWII, but in all actuality, it was likely more a siezed opportunity to take back a bit of land taken from them). Also, in encouraging all groups to bear the same marks of identity, the sub-cultures of Japan become more independant--Punks here are marked on the outside with piercings and such, but punks in Japan cannot be discriminated against because of such visual cues and thus children in Japan are allowed to join whichever sub-culture they feel like without being scolded the way children in America are when their parents feel that they are joining the "wrong" sub-culture. I couldn't even begin to name all of my friends whose parents are terrified to let them buy clothing in black. One friend told me that her mother wouldn't let her buy black eyeliner for Prom because she was afraid she would become "goth". For a sub-culture that has done nothing negative to our culture, this sub-culture is highly feared and hated. It's highly marked and highly ruled, to the point that it becomes more of a fashion statement than a set of beliefs. Black clothes? Black eyeliner? You must be goth! Add a beret and you've become a beatnik! The hypocrisy of American society is disgusting. We fight Muslim cultures' rights to enforce a visual uniformity in its people, while our culture subtly enforces a visual distinction between sub-groups. We are confused by things such as sumptuary laws in the Renaissance because we think that as people, we should be allowed to wear whatever we want, but we deny that without such laws in place in our own culture, people will buy themselves into the poorhouse just to own the distinguishing marks that label them a part of a certain group. It's enough to make anyone want to run away to sea.

	2004.07.17  19.29 Lost at School Last night I had the strangest dream. I took place in a school-type building that I somehow knew was a college. I've never seen a college like it before, but I've had dreams about going to school there. It actually resembles the same high school I used to have dreams about when I was worried about moving from a tiny high school to a much larger one. Anyway, for some reason I was in a group of people helping a Japanese man redecorate his garden, which was much more of a courtyard in the center of the house than in the backyard. I was working very closely with a small group and we were planting giant, hundred-year old trees (I think they were pine, but they had no sticky resin) by pulling them up from the back of the garden, where there was a steep hill that led down to a creek, and pushing them into the ground at the top. We didn't dig holes for them or anything--just pushed them in like thumbtacks. I don't understand how, because they were HUGE. Most of that is really just the "understood backstory" that you get in dreams sometimes. The dream actually started two trees from completion. The group I was working with helped me put in the last tree of the day at exactly the right place and then we sat around for about a minute just talking. There was a cute guy in the group...well, maybe not "cute" per se, but though I don't remember his face and never got a name, I had that "understood" feeling in the dream that I liked him. Bizarrely--since absolutely nobody I like ever likes me, too--he seemed to reciprocate, or at least liked to be shyly flirtatious. The whole group of us began to chat about what the Japanese man (he never gets a name, either) thought about the garden, and how strange the design was. The next day in the dream, I was on my way to the Japanese man's house, which was strangely in the middle of campus, straight from class. I had three notebooks with me, all either black with burgundy letters or vice-versa (I really don't remember). I couldn't take the notebooks back to my room, so I was looking for a place to put them. As I passed a study-type room, the guy was in there, sitting at a round table not unlike the one found in the Theatre Department office at my real college. The whole room had the same feel to it as that real room, so I ducked in to say hi. We talked about something for a few minutes and then left to go to work. I decided to leave my notebooks on the table (actually, much like what I do at theatre when I'm coming straight from class to the theater). He and I walked down to the garden. In the garden, we planted the very last tree. It had been giving us problems before, but I don't remember why. We talked about it falling over after having been pushed into the ground and crushing picnickers. The final design was very strange--it looked a bit like a stage, with trees acting like the various levels of curtains. The trees were also staggered to give the effect that the garden was larger--i.e.- the smallest trees were at the very back and the trees moved in a trapezoidal line as they got larger and larger. There was really no need for the design--the place was really enormous. After planting the last tree, we were talking about the crushed picnickers when the Japanese guy came by and examined the job. He liked it and told us all we could go home. On the way out, I was talking to the other guy and got distracted from getting my books. We were walking in a group of people, but when I went back to get the books, he was the only one who came with me. I figured the books would be easy to find, since it hadn't taken me long to get to the room, but when we opened the door we found a blank, hospital-like hallway. I've dreamed about this hallway before in my "college" dreams, and even in the dream I knew it was supposed to be across campus (in those dreams, I was looking for one of my classes, but couldn't find my way out of the hallway, which leads to the P.E. rooms and bathrooms and nothing more, apparently). Still, the guy didn't seem disturbed by the hallway's presence, so I decided that maybe this was where it was supposed to be. We wandered around the hallway, ducking into doors left and right, passing through the oddly-styled girls' locker room, which actually more resembled a public restroom that happened to have showers instead of toilets in some of its stalls. In other dreams, this area is always bustling with activity, and I can never get a stall because of the amount of people--though why I'd want one is beyond me, since in all of the dreams, this area is so far off the beaten path that the janitors don't come here and the entire place is disgusting. However, in this dream the hall and locker rooms and bathrooms were completely abandoned. They were marginally cleaner than in my other dreams, but I was more concerned with my notebooks than the state of the bathrooms. We left the girls' locker room and ended up in the boys' bathroom, somehow. The guy decided that we were lost and suddenly wondered if the security guards were going to lock us in the building (??? I think this stems from the fact that at the college I go to, the security guards always promptly lock the doors at the same time every night). He decided to leave a note for them, should they come down this way. He wanted to leave it over the toilet ( a strategic place to hang posters), but changed his mind and leaves it on the front of a stall door. It said something about us being lost and please don't lock us in. Then I woke up. Bizarre dream, huh? I don't think I ever ended up getting my notebooks back, but hopefully it means I'll meet a nice guy in theatre this year, what with all of the references to it. Sadly, other than the dream, nothing interesting happened today. I need to go to the library and get more books--I'm eyeing one on corset history. I've been getting more and more interested in them since I was flipping through the channels and saw part of a special on cleavage--the IWG was featured, and they said things like, "Usually [lacing a corset] is a job for two wenches, or one really good rogue," and "With the right corset, I can create cleavage on a twelve-year-old boy." I'm seriously considering making one for myself, but I'd like to ask Stacy and Jen and Andrea for recommendations and help, first. Whoo! for expensive garb. .::shifty eyes::. Mood: awake

	2004.07.14  17.53 A Test Drive in the Mundane As usual, there's nothing really going on. I'm just trying to re-teach myself how to do journal entries frequently. I feel like such a slacker during the summer. I never do anything, but then again I haven't any money to do anything with. I had an appointment with a podiatrist today, but I canceled it because the last time I went to one the doctor cut into my foot and put medicine on it, but it still seems as raw today as it did two weeks ago. I figured I'd give it more time to heal before going under the scalpel again, hm? My contacts were bothering me, too, so I had to take them out and now I feel like the basic comp. nerd, sitting in my PJs typing away about nothing. I'm the Seinfeld blog! Well, that's that! Mood: geeky

	2004.07.13  21.53 Well, then... This is, um, my second post in this journal. Nothing ever happens for me--at least not in the summer--so I figure I probably shouldn't write in about things like the uber-spiffy show I watched last night or the bored things I'm doing. Nobody really wants to read that stuff, anyway. As most people who know me very well know, I'm a huge library nerd. I would actually move into the library and live there forever if they would let me (kind of like a "Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiller" thing). For now, though, I'll settle for visiting every single week and checking out dozens of books (seriously? at least four books--at 200+ pages apiece) every single time. I'd like to say I've got good instincts when it comes to books, but I can't really. With the sheer amount I read, I'm bound to get a good one or two, right? No such luck, it seems. This time alone I got seven books and can't bring myself to even crack three of them. They're the suckiest books that ever sucked. I suppose it doesn't help that I'm pretty picky about what I read. I also tend to zoom through the books I do like, so I end up finishing them far before I want to. I hope "HP and the Half-Blood Prince" comes out before I fly to Tokyo and I can convince myself not to devour it in one sitting. In other news, I'm starting to get really worried about my mom. She's got diabetes and that alone is a big problem for some people, but she just can't handle it. She keeps doing things that the doctor told her not to do (no soda, no fruit, no juice, less starch, etc.) and refuses to do what he told her to do (test your sugar, stay out of the sun, eat 4-5 small meals a day, etc.). Every day she seems to feel a little worse, and by now she seems to think it's okay to go entirely numb for a few seconds or have sharp tingling in her feet. I try and try to remind her of things her doctor said, but she tends to ignore me, or, if we're in front of people, deny that the doctor even said it at all. When we came back from visiting family in Mississippi, she brought back not only three large freezer bags full of sour plums but four sapling-sized plum trees to grow her own. She also conveniently "lost" her blood meter for the entire duration of the week-long trip. It's not like she doesn't know what will happen to her if she continues this sort of behavior--both her mother and father died of complications with their diabetes. My grandmother even passed away at the age my mother is now, and though she seems nervous about it, my mother refuses to take care of herself. When he passed away, my grandfather had already had both legs amputated above the knee. I don't think my mother realises how it would affect both my brother and I to see these things happening to her. Then again, I suppose she's never really been the sort of person to do what anyone told her: always "leap first, and learn the damned lesson for yourself." I just don't think that this is the type of lesson she needs to learn that way. In happier news, I'm hunting for a sewing machine so I can fix my faire garb. As probably (maybe?) one or two of you know, I complained almost daily of the really shoddy job that Heather, the Very Merry Seamstress, did on my bodice. Come on, say it with me: "EVERY SINGLE cap on EVERY SINGLE piece of boning came off!" The left strap even popped out of the front of the bodice. At first, I was going to give her what-for, but I finally decided that because the original transaction had taken so long and she was getting married in late June (and thus ensuring that I wouldn't get ahold of her until probably early August), I just wouldn't bother. After all, I liked the cut (adored it, really), it was just the bad craftsmanship that irked me. I could always bastardize the thing and use it as a pattern for a new one, making sure that I put in the extra steps that she skipped in order to get it done faster. The only problem--no machine. Oh, well. Once school gets going, I might be able to get one on the cheap from Nathan. And that's all that's going on in my life! Boring, huh? Mood: blah Music: King Laoghaire - Botany Bay

	2004.06.26  04.15 New Journal Well, I have a new journal. I'm still using my old one, but I decided to make this one to adapt to the newer parts of my life. I'm just not the same person I was four years ago, and my LJ needs to reflect that. Rather than removing everything from my old journal and dropping all of my friends who've been there for me for so long, I'm going to update it every now and then. I'm sure they won't be bothered at all about the different schedule in updates: I'll be trying to update this one at least weekly and I've been known to forget I even own the other one for as long as a whole year. Of course, there'll be a link to this one there. For any new readers, hi! Mood: nostalgic Music: Jug of Punch - The Dubliners and the Clancy Brothers