laceblade | Entries tagged with weather

My vacation was longer than I'd expected, due to the blizzard that shut down the bus system for two days.

My city has done a great job clearing the main roads, but a lot of the side streets are complete shitshows of rutted ice and snow, with ice platforms two inches thick making things bumpy to drive on & treacherous to walk on. I still see cars getting stuck on ice patches when trying to go uphill.

The sidewalks are worse. In some places, they are bone dry and clear, but in others, people have not shoveled at all since the blizzard (now two weeks ago), and the snow's been packed down. Lots only have narrow pass-throughs, and lots of people haven't tended to their sidewalk corners at all. For example, the sidewalk corner I enter just after a busy street on my way to the bus stop every morning is a small mountain of snow.
Last night when returning from spending New Year's Eve with two of our friends, a drunk guy with no coat on said to me and my boyfriend, "Catch me if I fall!" as he scrambled up while we were scrambling down, lol.

I'm actually looking forward to returning to work tomorrow.
I've consumed a fair amount of media these last two weeks, and seen family and friends, and those parts have been lovely.
I like structure & routines, though, so I'll be glad to go back to work, at least for the first day!

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/614188.html

Wisconsin typically has a late date for "last-frost," so I haven't planted anything yet, with the exception of micro-greens.

I planted these in a fit of rage last Thursday, loosely following this blog post as a guide.
My containers were plastic ~5x5" take-out containers from the hospital cafeteria I frequent while at work. I cut each clamshell in half, and used the top-half to catch water.
I created 5 holes in each bottom by repeatedly shoving a nail through them.
Filled the holey half of the container with dirt after setting it into the "water collection" half. Attempted to evenly distribute the entire seed packet on the dirt, and then sprinkled dirt on top of the seeds.

I used two different types of lettuce/greens seed, one entire packet in each one. I had bought the seeds on sale at Farm & Fleet.
The packet of Japanese greens had 1g of seeds. These looked kind of sparse when fully grown.
The packet of lettuce had 3g of seeds. These filled the entire container until it looked overflowing when fully grown.
I watered the trays every day, and set them in front of my sunny window/door.
I saw tiny sprouts beginning on Monday. I harvested for the first time Thursday morning, although I probably could have done so on Wednesday.

This was a great thing for me to do as a beginner because the effort was minimal, and the gratification was almost instant.
If you're impatient to start growing things and live somewhere with a late last-frost date like me, I recommend them!

I ate some on a half-sandwich today, and I'm sure they'd go fine in a salad. Unsure what else a person would use microgreens for.
Our co-op sells sprouts year-round, which I have bought & eaten in the past. I think they cost about $4, although I can't remember. Assuming a packet of seeds would cost $2 at the upper-end, growing these myself saves me $2 from the store.
I guess it would make the most sense to start one container, and then start a second container a week later, when you begin harvesting from the first container. Then, the supply would be endless! Of course, if you tire of foods easily, that might not be recommended.

Other plant progress:
It's been unseasonably warm here this past week. Each afternoon, it gets up around 80 degrees.
I've begun the process of "hardening off" the potted plants I already own: a spider plant, African violet, a weak-looking but stubborn ivy, and some Irish moss.
It's too cold to set the plants out in the mornings (~45 degrees), but I set them out as soon as I get home from work, and leave them in 75-degree weather for 3-4 hours. The spider plant especially seems to like this, and I think I'm having some success in reviving the African violet. I've been trying to be better about watering them. It's easier to remember since the sprouts have to be watered each day.

Etc.
I have no furniture for my deck, so for now these relatively small plants just get set on the floor of the balcony.
What do you guys set your plants on outside? Plastic furniture? Tables, or some kind of shelves? Where do you buy them? What are they made out of?

I'd like something to set plants on indoors, too. Right now the microgreens/etc. just get set on the floor in front of my window/door. I'd prefer them on some kind of shelf so that it's easier to clean (vacuum up spilled dirt granules). I've had my eye out for such a shelf for a while now, but haven't found one (except for the one I found three years ago, which holds my linens in the bathroom ever since I moved into this apartment).

I'm annoyed that my apartment complex landlord people are painting the floors of the balconies. Right now they're unfinished/unpainted, well-weathered wood. They're painting the wood a burgundy color. Won't this attract a lot of heat??

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/563404.html

Today is April 28th, and it is freaking snowing. Giant, fat flakes of snow. Coating my car, roofs of houses, and entire lawns. What the hell, Wisconsin. What the hell.

In other news.....I go to get that endoscopy done in a manner of minutes. If my mind is altered by the sedative drugs, I promise to try and blog.

Yesterday, I burned my way through 8 volumes of manga. I hope I can be equally productive today. I don't think I've ever read them this quickly before.

So I have been doing more than just reading manga, watching anime, and watching Buffy/Angel, I promise. I just decided to catch up on stuff I had finished a while ago. I think all that's left at the moment is to write about the end of Elfen Lied (it got better, sort of) and how Code Geass is going (awesomely!).

Friday night, I went to The City (a bar) with co-workers to celebrate one of their birthdays. I only had two drinks, but the strawberry martini was hella high alcohol content, I think. I danced, I said snarky things, and I was vigilant against creepy bastards, on behalf of my friends. This means that it was a typical bar night, I suppose, but in honor of my friend, we kept playing Michael Jackson songs (they had a digital juke box) and totally busting it out in our corner of the bar. Amazing! I hadn't thought that I was very inebriated, until Chad drove me, Antoine, and a friend home (best roommate EVER!), and I tried to get out of the car. Holy crap! Getting out of the car was difficult. I didn't fall or anything, but it was more like, "Foot. Lift it. Move it. Put weight on it." Probably the most amusing part of the night was someone accusing me of being drunk, me saying, "I am not drunk, damn it!" and immediately afterward, Antoine bumping my hip with his (he was dancing), and me almost falling over.

On Saturday, Chad, Antoine and I went grocery shopping a day earlier than usual, because we knew that the weather would be bad today. Antoine and I ate dinner at Rising Sons Deli (Really, really good! And I think it's very nicely decorated in there.), and I went to Anime Club. By the time I got to Club, I was pretty damn tired from the night before, and sitting in a dark room reading subtitles didn't help too much. Still, the shows were good last night (or at least, as good as Elfen Lied gets!).

After Anime Club, though, was the most fun evening I've had in a while. I considered staying home because I was tired, but decided to go join my friends from Bleak House (the book publishing company where I interned this summer) to celebrate my former boss's birthday. They had already eaten dinner and cake together, but I joined them for some sledding at Sanitarium Hill, way on Madison's north side. The view from the top of the hill was great - you could see the entire city! Also, the building is supposedly haunted because it was originally a tuberculosis sanatorium, where people went to die. It was such a creepy building! Made of brick with large windows, and french doors on the ground floor. It's pretty much exactly how I imagined the various buildings to look on the high school campus that my characters attend in my ghost hunting story. This page has some black and white photographs.

After sledding (the hill was so huge! It's been a long time since I had fun that way), we tromped through the woods, originally behind the sanatorium. Then, we decided to go to a fort that two of the others had been to. We drove out to the Mendota Mental Hospital (holy barbed wire, batman!) and walked out to a place called Governor's Island, and sat on rocks where Frank Lloyd Wright had allegedly built a house that sank into the lake. My socks were full of snow, as were my jeans, but it felt good to spend so much time outside, and not just walking to work or class.

The way home was mostly good, except that towards the end, the falling rain was freezing on the roads. Despite traveling at a low speed, I almost fishtailed right into a parked car. Within a block of my house, my car could not make it up a relatively shallow hill. I had to put it in reverse and let it slide downhill (Thank you, driving instructor! I never believed you when you said that straight-backing would come in handy some day!) and went around the block, going at it from a different angle. This hill was even more mild, and my car still almost didn't make it. It's on the street now, probably completely covered in a shell of ice. The buses stopped running at 8:30am this morning. I am supposed to lector at 9pm mass this evening, but unless the snow makes it easier to drive (doubtful!), I will probably have to call in. I hate having to shirk responsibilities, but hopefully people will understand my not-wanting-to-die.

Anyway, I am glad that I bought food yesterday. Today will be spent washing laundry, doing some schoolwork, cleaning, and watching some DVDs. And hey, you never know - maybe blogging about anime again. Are my posts becoming too spammy? I feel like I haven't been this prolific since high school.

Holy shit. Yesterday was heinous. I was up at the ass-crack of dawn to go to a liturgy meeting, which I ended up missing because my bus was late (due to the snow). I made it on time for Ash Wednesday mass, though, and received a bold marking of ash that remained with me throughout the day, despite my forehead encountering copious amounts of snow. I think that at least one foot of snow dropped yesterday.

After mass was Ballroom dancing, which was mostly good, except when I sucked. More snow had accumulated when I walked to work, but once I got there, life was more weird. Most of the staffers had left, and there was nothing to do. Eventually, Chad called me and suggested I leave work early because buses and cars were getting stuck on the roads everywhere. A co-worker and I left together. Noting how many people were at the bus stops, and that buses were stuck on the Square, making it impossible for any more to get through, we settled for walking home. That is a 2-mile walk for me. Luckily, when we were 1/3 of the way to my place, I saw a bus on campus and sprinted for it. Pressed between people who were uncomfortably close to me, I stood while it surfed through many inches of snow.

madisonwi is full of stories about the weather, so I won't go into too much detail about stuck cars, although I will say that I have a deep hatred for people smart enough to own cross-country skis.

A brief reprieve for dinner, then an hour spent plowing and salting our driveway and sidewalks and unearthing the cars so that we could move them to the proper side of the street (yay, snow emergency!). By the time we were done, with all of the walking and snow-moving I did, my legs were shaking. AWESOME.

To make matters even more awesome, our kitchen sink is clogged. Chad and I spent about 40 minutes using a plunger on both sides of the sink and unscrewing pipes underneath it to see if we could get the clog out. We did not get the clog out, although I did get soaked in putrid water.

By the time I got up to my room to do homework and job-finding stuff, I fell asleep without washing my face, let alone taking a shower. So at least part of today will suck, because I have nothing done. I guess it depends on how well I can fake it in my smaller classes.

I am sick of everything, but most especially, I am sick of never having enough time for myself and the thing I need to do to have my life in order.

Wow, what a cheerful morning. I shouldn't be so down - I was doing things that needed to be done yesterday. I can't control the weather, and I can't control when things break, either. Today will be better because I will make it be better.

If any ho-bag in any of my classes who lives in an on-campus apartment complains about having to walk to class today, I think I might leap up in the middle of lecture and punch them in the face.

Weather
OMG. Okay. So, I will not complain about the cold. Yesterday, it was like, 45 (I refer to all of my degrees in Fahrenheit, I know Americans are stupid, I am sorry, the end) degrees outside. I even walked all the way home from campus, and it was nice.

Today started out nice, and it's been plummeting ever since. But, like I said, I have a few Canadians on my LJ friends list who have been experiencing -50 degrees. WTF IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? Holy crap.

To make matters worse, either my car's battery or alternator is dead, as the interior lights faded and the "volt" light was on. I had just gone to fill the car up with gas so that I could still start it, and picked up some salt for the sidewalk. :( I just hope that I can get it figured out. I park my car on the street, and when there's snow, I need to move it every day.

This stuff with the car is just....shit I don't want to deal with.

:(
When I called my dad to consult him about what might be wrong with my car, he asked me for the millionth time if I was applying to any graduate schools. He's not mean about it, but it's just....every time I talk to him, he asks if I'm applying to grad school or law school. And it's nice that my dad thinks I'm smart, and I know I'm one of the luckiest people alive to have parents willing to pay for more school. I know I don't want to go to grad school (unless I get some job where they're like, "Hey, go to grad school and we'll pay you more monies," and I would say something like, "HOKAI.").
The question of law school is one I consider, quite frequently. I love my Constitutional Law class. I remember loving my Criminal Law & Justice class. Being an English major is a good thing in law school (yes, it is good for something). And it's not like I have any idea WTF to do with myself anyway. But that's just the thing - I've watched Chad and I know what it takes to get yourself through law school - killing yourself to get shit done, etc.

Mostly, I just feel disgusted with myself. I am worth a lot more than a person who has no goals, aspirations, talent, or passion. I haven't dragged myself through so much shit only to fumble it now. And yet, there is no palatable option. Nothing is appealing.

The Org Fair
The semesterly Student Org Fair was yesterday, and it sucked. We fill half a table with DVD cases, manga, and figurines of anime characters. Two Club-members were there with me, so I wasn't alone (yay!). We hand out fliers with our website and meeting-time information, and I get to talk to people and tell them about Anime Club. Also, while we do have some curious people ("My brother is obsessed with this stuff....can you explain what it is??"), for the most part, we don't have to do much in the way of attention-grabbing. You are either excited by Evangelion robots acting out a death scene on a table surrounded by Japanese candy, or you are not.

But what sucked is that I usually have at least 2 pages full of names and e-mail addresses of new people to contact. This semester, I have less than ten. I have tried to do a lot for this Club, and it's getting to the point where I don't even know what to do any more. Sometimes, I feel like I'm a bad president, even though I know that stuff like this is beyond my control. :/

TV
I have no notes on the last few episodes I've watched of Angel. They've been filler-y, but the good news is that the filler is so much better than season 1 filler.

( As for Buffy! )

Also, Giuliani = pwned

PSA
Before anyone else has a hernia, I should probably make it known that the Supposed Religious Zealot who left dickish comments in my blog that caused Ryan and I to spew fire is, in fact, Chad. As I'm sure you can surmise, Chad is extremely repentant for his actions, which were not meant to provoke a reaction in any way. He does not find the situation hilarious in any way.

An update on me
I handed in my genocide paper Friday morning before going to work about an hour and a half late. I feel like it's a terrible paper, but I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that standards are slightly lower in a Poli Sci class (as opposed to an English one). Still, if I was grading it, I'd definitely give myself a C. :/

Life got a lot better once I handed it in, though, life instantly improved.

Friday night, my boss had a holiday party at his house, so I brought Antoine to come party with all my co-workers. Alcohol was consumed (but not by me - I am a responsible driver!), discussions were had, revelations made, etc. We also did a secret santa at work. I made an extensive list of cheap things I would appreciate, so as to make myself the easiest person-to-buy-for EVAR. I received some Burt's Bees chap stick and some nice, argyle socks from GAP. PWN.

I was hella tired, though, from being up so late Thursday working on my paper. On Saturday, I relaxed and watched some Buffy, and then went to Anime Club, and then hung out with Antoine. Sunday, we ordered Chinese food for lunch with Chad and watched the Packer game. Thus far, it's been class and work this week. I'm really glad that I took off of work next week for finals. I'll have time to study and square all of my shit away before the break begins.

Kristen gave me the coolest Christmas present ever. It's 5 DVDs worth of Ghost Stories, or rather, investigating awesome places like the Tower of London.

I really need to start buying presents. ;_;

Bitches.
Chad and I have been shoveling and plowing snow like none other. We were out last Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Apparently, it wasn't enough for the woman who knocked on our door yesterday and told Louise that she was going to call the city about the atrocious state of our sidewalks (which, I might add, were much better than many of our neighbors, and certainly better than the shit I have to walk on all over campus!). So, Chad and I spent over an hour outside again, mostly chipping at the ice left at the corner from the plow. I wanted to write smartass messages for this woman with ice, but was persuaded by Chad that this was not advisable. Of course, to bless our hard work, the sky opened up last night and continued throughout the day, so Chad plowed again, but luckily I was able to get home and help scrape and shovel, and get my car moved to the proper side of the street before the sun set.

Plans
Although I just want to watch more Angel (especially after watching an episode over dinner!), I will now read for class and watch "Sicko" for extra credit in my women's studies class. Hopefully, there are not sad stories in it, although I'm thinking there will be. My hormones have gotten the better of me today. I've already cried twice, for absurd reasons both times. I don't need to do it again!

Also, I am running out of Kleenex.

Current Music: Shadow of Love - Olivia inspi' Reira (Trapnest) (from the NANA anime)

The last 15 hours or so have been exhausting. Anime Club was nice enough. Lovely Complex had some really good episodes, we played Apples to Apples, and Black Lagoon was ridiculously good (and disturbing). People in the Alt.Room watched some Fullmetal Alchemist, and had a pile of games as well.

After that, I went to a couple of bars with my co-workers, to celebrate a friend's birthday. I was pretty tired the whole time, having gotten up early and just watched four hours' worth of anime. Large bars that are packed are creepy. I don't like them. I looked like hell, and I'm not just being all, "I will say that I looked like crap so that you can reassure me of how beautiful I am!" I was dressed for the walk home, so I had a long-sleeved shirt and a hooded sweatshirt on, carrying a bulky coat, and a backpack. My hair was frizzed out, so I had it pulled into a low ponytail, which can make me look pretty masculine. Whatever. Still, when I'm sitting down with a beer and happen to catch the glance of any guy I don't know, I'm met with creepy-as-fuck up-and-down eye movement and a slow smile. How do these guys score with girls? They're not interesting or flirty. It seems like they'll bang anything that moves, which is about the least-attractive thing ever. I understand we all have sex drives, but good God.

After scoring a free beer from a friend, I hung around for a while, and then bundled up and set out for home. The bus schedule really sucks on the weekends. The only buses that run after 11pm are the campus ones, and they are irregular. I didn't want to stand around just hoping, so I walked. It's 2 miles from where I started to my house, and all of the sidewalks and streets were just piles of snow with a layer of wet ice on top. Every time I put weight on a foot, the foot slid about 4 inches, making it really tiring. I talked to Antoine on my phone for the first half of the walk, and then when I got by his house, he came outside and carried my backpack and held my hand for the whole rest of the way to my house. Antoine is the nicest boyfriend ever! I like him! Everyone should appreciate him.

At least I felt better than some of the people we saw outside.... The female half of a drunk couple on the other side of the road fell down on the sidewalk curb, and started hitting her boyfriend when he tried to help her out, and they threw snow at each other. The scariest person I came across was a girl bundled in a coat, scarf, and wearing a backpack, lying on her side in a parking lot just kind of flailing, yelling, "HEATHER!" The bottom kind of dropped out of my stomach as I was like, WTF, should I call the cops or just try to help her up? Then, a girl in a sweatsuit came running across the footbridge that spans Campus Drive and consoled the fallen girl, helping her stand up, and draping her arm across her back so that she could walk. College students are so WTF. Also, alcoholics. I wouldn't be surprised at all if at least 50% of us were seriously alcoholics.

This morning, the snow had turned to a heavy slush. Louise, her boyfriend, and I used shovels and a snow plow to clear the sidewalk and the driveway of the mess. My car had been on the street, and was surrounded by snow. By gunning it forward and backwards a few times, I almost got it free, but then it got pretty hopelessly stuck between piles of sludge. Lots of rubber was burnt trying to get it free, and we were prepared to shovel it out somehow, when a man and his daughter in a truck came by, and offered to use a rope to pull us free. People are so nice! Now my car is on the other side of the street, looking much more car-like, and less like a trapped animal.

I guess it's time to take a shower to warm up and make myself much less disgusting, eat something good for lunch, and use yesterday's library-work to write this damn paper. I'm not worried about this one (although it and tomorrow's stupid discussion presentation will take me all day), but the genocide paper I have due on Thursday is supposed to be 8-10 pages, and that is scary. I'm going to be comparing the Trail of Tears to Armenia, but I have yet to acquire....any sources, whatsoever. ;_;

It's so hard to work when I have Buffy and Angel lying around, along with so much manga. And such a messy room. Seriously, I can barely stand being in here, :(

Current Music: Red Fraction - MELL (Black Lagoon OP)

Am at Memorial Library right now, where it is very warm. The sky opened up this morning while I was taking my shower, and has been dumping piles of snow ever since. I don't know what the deal is, but the city of Madison does a really shitty job of plowing streets. And by that, I mean they could improve by bothering to do it at all.

I was convinced by Louise (roommate) that I shouldn't drive my car to campus - she got stuck on a road and had to let the car drift in reverse because her car couldn't make it up a moderate hill. Soooooo, I took the bus. Made an outline and a thesis for my women's studies paper.

Now I have to trudge across Library Mall to Humanities for Anime Club, and hope that the guys with the laptop will make it there!

Mostly, I'm worried about how I'll be getting home. A co-worker wanted to go to a couple of nearby (to campus) bars to celebrate her 21st birthday, but the buses don't really run that much past midnight or 1am. I'm hoping that the outing either gets canceled, or that Antoine is crazy enough to walk there, and then walk with me as far as his house, :) I did pack long underwear in the event that the buses stop running (that happened once last year), and I am still on campus.

I am glad that I didn't drive, though....the roads looked pretty crappy on my way here, and I can only imagine how bad it will be (....is? I've been holed up here for a couple of hours) once the falling snow turns to rain, and freezes over.

It's starting to be lovely outside. I've been warned that this won't last very long, but Sunday and today I wore flip-flop sandals all day log, and it was heavenly. I hate wearing socks. The fruit stand is back out on Library Mall, and that's good enough for me. There will be skirt-wearing tomorrow.

Sadly, I never have enough time in a day. I should have been asleep 90 minutes ago, so I won't have much time to write about all of the good things that have happened lately. On Saturday, Steph, Gordon, and I made an elaborate meal of artichoke dip, fruit salsa, and spinach calzones. I took many pictures, which will be uploaded somewhere eventually. Probably Facebook. Sunday evening, Antoine's friend Andrew the Pirate invited us over with some other friends for a huge, whole turkey, along with sourdough bread made from scratch by Antoine's roommate, two pies (pumpkin and pecan) made by Andrew, and various other delicious types of food.

I do want to mention this, though. Today, I managed to watch (with Chad and Kristy, who is visiting us while on her Spring Break) Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" film, and I thought it was brilliant. The film has received a lot of crap for Antoinette being "flighty" (hello, she is a 14-year-old girl when she is sent off to France!).
I found the movie to be pretty accurate in terms of history, at least in terms of the random people, as well as Marie Antoinette's personal habits. I've spent a lot of time watching the anime Rose of Versailles, in which Marie Antoinette is a main character; I feel like this helped me followed the film a little bit better, which is a tad bit disjointed in its narrative structure. Everything is in order, but the transitions from one topic to the next is usually abrupt. Also, characters are not quite as thoroughly introduced here as they are in the 1979 anime series, :)
The movie has also received a lot of crap for its choice of modern music, as opposed to period music. I thought the music fit in perfectly with the mood of the film.
This film is fucking gorgeous, and I feel like I could watch it once a week for the rest of my life.
Still, I feel like not many people would enjoy it. I can't put my finger on why.

The last couple of days have been lovely, and I feel like that it's because of my ability to let go of my negative feelings and stress, and just relax. My friend Heather is going to come and visit me on Wednesday and stay the night, and I am excited about this. I wish I had more time during the week, though - I get off of work at 5:00 Wednesday and need to wake up again at 6:00 Thursday to go to work again. Oh well.

I need a Marie Antoinette icon.

This little blog of mine....which will make more sense over at my actual blog
Yeah, I know, the color scheme sucks. But I wanted my new banner up, and I think that I can get Antoine to help me pick better colors tomorrow evening. The characters in the banner are from Honey & Clover, one of my most favorite anime series (or series of anything, for that matter) of all time. I highly recommend it if you have ever fallen in love, ever had friends, or have ever had feelings of any kind. Even if you've never watched anime before, I think you would like Honey & Clover.

In other blog news, after my blog reached over 97,000 hits, I remembered that FastCounter sent me an email saying that their hit counters would no longer be free. I've used them for over 4 years! (I had someone else before that) Does anyone know of a free hit counter service I can use, and enter in a starting number? I'd probably put in 97,000 as the starting number, even though I know I had a few hundred more than that. In the grand scheme of life, hits on a web page aren't very significant, but they are a status symbol for webmasters and bloggers. And I was very much looking forward to reaching 100,000 if only for bragging rights.

Sludge
Getting to class in the aftermath of the weekend's blizzard (and the continual accumulation that's been going on all day, and is forecasted to continue throughout the week) wouldn't be so bad if both the city and the university didn't suck so much at plowing. The sidewalks and footpaths on campus were terrible today. I literally had to jump across two feet of water to make it from Park Street to the sidewalk. I nearly lost my footing on icy patches at least 9 times, and I'm surprised I didn't fall and get my pants soaked with disgusting, dirty slush/water. I'm sure that that will happen tomorrow when I have my dress pants on to work at the Capitol. I haven't quite decided how to engineer my footgear yet, but I think that in order to catch the bus after work (I would prefer *not* to walk down State Street in the slush), I'll have to wear my brown leather shoe-boots with my black dress pants. Awesome.

At least work will be interesting tomorrow. I think that the Senate is set to discuss extending bar-time in Wisconsin due to a much early turning-clocks-forward federal Daylight Savings mandate (I think that's how the clock is turned? Not sure. It supposedly saves energy.).

Preemptive Woe
Speaking of work, I should go to sleep seeing as I need to get up at 6:00am and should have been asleep at 10:00pm.....but first! I am really afraid for this Sunday's episode of Battlestar Galactica. Rumors have been flying around for months that my favorite character is going to get killed off, but I refuse to believe it, and I think it's a ruse. We've been promised that one of the main characters will die (and one is a Cylon, and one will find Earth, blahblahblah), and I think *my* character is a red herring. They can't kill my character! I will be inconsolable if they do.

Current Music: A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture - Felix Mendelssohn (Featured in episode 19 of Princess Tutu, which also featured characters from the Shakespeare play of the same title! Have I mentioned that I love this anime?)

I guess that this Friday is just turning into a time-out, which is fine by me. Today's exam is over with, and even though I have another one due Sunday at midnight, and a paper due Monday, I think I can afford one day of rest. Time seems like it has a lot more potential when I have less of it.

I knew that having a job would make life suck a little bit more. And I should be really happy because I'm so lucky - I love my job, and I'm able to get novel-reading done for class while I'm there. But. The waking up at 6:00 am Tuesdays and Thursdays? Is kind of cramping my style. Just losing that 12.5 hours per week also cramps the style a little bit. And by the time I go to the Cardinal on Thursday evenings to edit the Almanac page, I feel like I could just sweep my arm through the air and kill people with sheer force of will.

But the Shakespeare exam is over now (holy crap, I forgot how horrible those are! diiiiiiiiie), and my room is actually clean (not just clear of clutter, but CLEAN), and I watched last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy (Holy crap, it's actually been good the last 3 weeks! Except for Izzie's irrational hatred of Callie....if they could just explain where that's coming from, that'd be great. But the ending was so sweet!), and tonight I get to see Antoine, and yes.

Wisconsin is expecting some hellish weather this weekend, so I think it's good that I didn't go home. But people are talking about either 1) 10 inches of snow, 2) freezing rain that will make the power go out, 3) rain that will flood streets. I'm all for...NONE OF THE ABOVE. I think it's snowing right now.

Anyway. Time to work on my paper so that when I'm slothful for the rest of the night, I don't feel *so* terrible about it.