Thank You Neil Gaiman

Without you I would not know that the galaxy tastes of raspberries and smells of rum. My life is now complete.

Musings on My Inadequacies as an English Major

About three months ago I decided to take the plunge. I decided I was going to go back to school. Let's put this in some context. I graduated almost five years ago with a degree in Marketing. Why, you may ask, do I want to go back to school for an English degree of all things? The thing is: I really really hated my major by the time second semester of Senior year rolled around. At that point it was too late to change: I'd declared my intent to graduate, I'd rubbed it in my brother's face that I was graduating the same time as him and he was two years older than me. So there I was. Just graduated with no idea what I really wanted to do. I started working in food service and was so good at my job that I seriously considered restaurant management as a career path; however, I get way too stressed out for that to work for me. Back to square one.

Square one just happened to be my original life plan: to be a writer. In all honesty, an English degree is not really going to make me more qualified to do be an author, but I like to have some sort of plan. And I love school. (Right now, in fact, I am happily pretending that I'm an undergrad again hanging out on the top floor of the library not doing homework, just like I used to do) So I enrolled in a 300-level lit course. No big deal, right? I've taken 300-level courses before, how hard can it be?

Apparently, a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I have spent the better part of two days working on my take-home midterm which boils down to two mini-papers about two pages apiece. And I think I've made some really intelligent and good points. But man. I do not know how to write papers anymore. My prose has gotten extremely lazy in the last five years and I feel like I sound like an idiot. Which I'm sure I don't. But maybe I do.

Am I really cut out for this?

If I don't get a good grade in this class I think it might destroy me.

Things

I was in a car accident a week ago. That was fun. And by fun I mean not fun at all. It was about 4:15 in the morning (because that's the insanely early time that I have to go to work) and it was icy. Well, I was getting ready to pull off the interstate, hit a patch of ice and tried for about a quarter mile to gain control of my car. End result: spun around across all five lanes of traffic and slammed the back end into the median. I was incredibly lucky for two reasons. 1) I was not going that fast and 2) because it was so early there were no other cars around and so I didn't hit anyone else in the process. My car was totaled and I had some pretty unpleasant whiplash and back spasms for the next several days. Did I mention that this wasn't fun?

I dyed my hair again. It's basically the same color as before but since it had faded so much there is a huge difference.

I start class tomorrow. I have books and e-mail and tomorrow I will have an ID (they told me I had to wait 24-hours for my name change to go into effect in the ID system). I have a rough plan of what I want to do about my education. I have goals!

I got a second job. At [redacted]. I've worked it out with Bread Co to maintain a 30-plus hour week but only work four days so that I can work here one day and one evening a week. It'll be nice to have a job I enjoy again. I have hung out here probably five times in the last week, it is just that cool.

That's pretty much it.

Belated Thanksgiving Related Silliness

We make pie. Kirsten plays with iMovie. Here are the results.

Just a comment

While I am in general very pleased with the way the election went I want to just say how disappointed I am in the county for defeating Proposition M. I find it incredibly selfish of many county residents who have said they didn't want to vote for it because they didn't want to have to pay for a service that they don't use. Some of their other reasonings were that Metro is mismanaged and the shouldn't need the extra money (I don't know about this because I haven't done the research).

Here's a plan to keep Metro afloat. Just cut off all bus routes west of I-170 (they can keep the metrolink service to the airport) and just let the people over there rot without their public transportation.

Since when did St Louis stop being an actual city? Real cities have public transportation. Hell, even Vancouver has a decent bus system. This is just sad.

Reasons for current state of inebriation:

1. Soulard Oktoberfest
2. Karaoke
3. Really large beers

Oh jeez.

New Music

Well. New to me anyway.

A few years ago I was in the car with my friend and former coworker Josh and we listened to this band called Cornershop and, even though I liked it, I hadn't really thought about since then. Well, a few months ago I spent a ridiculous amount of time in Slackers (for the St Louis challenged, its a used music/video game/random store) and saw their album When I Was Born for the 7th Time. I didn't buy it because I wasn't sure it was the same one I listened to before and because I just don't buy music without a little bit of research. Last Friday I was up super early and was tooling around on the internet before I had to go to the bus stop and decided "What the hey?" might as well broaden my musical horizons.

So long boring story. But I really kind of like it. It's a weird mix of Indian music, hip-hop elements, pop and general funkiness. Plus the last song is Norwegian Wood (in Hindi).

Life

So. I haven't really written anything of substance in ages. Life goes on. Work sucks big time. But I have proven how invaluable I am to them and unexpectedly got a raise before I should have. Unfortunately, I still have to work opens four or five times a week which is draining on my personal relationships not to mention my health. In the past few months I have been applying for new jobs but for whatever reason have only managed to get one interview. It went really well but its for a part-time only position that would be paying the same amount (or slightly less) than what I'm making now and I'm not sure I can afford to take it if I do get it.

Oh well.

I finally have my weekends to myself which has been nice. Brian and I went to the Soulard farmer's market a couple weeks ago. It was a gorgeous day and we got some really good stuff that we used to make gumbo.

I dyed my hair. I'm a brunette now which I am loving.

Rory and Kate moved away to Oregon last month and although I didn't see them that often when they did live here (damn my crappy schedule!), I'm really missing them but I've been putting off buying plane tickets to go out there and visit them (and also my parents) because I don't know if I can really afford it and I'm waiting to here about this job and if I get it I probably won't be able to take time off. Sigh.

This post is kind of a downer so I'm goint to end it here.

Ow.

I am sunburned.

Again.

Damn you pale skin!

A Movie I Love

So this movie has been out for more than a year now but I just can't get enough of Stardust. Sure its not the greatest piece of cinematic art but I could literally watch it over and over. In fact I'm watching the end of it right now.

Sigh. It makes me happy.