How do you feel today?

[Seareach]

Sorry to hear you've been going through a rough trot, Jen.

And hope everyone else feeling low finds some good vibes soon.


I'm pfffffffffffffffffftttttttttt.

I'm doing the champix thing to give up smoking which is messing with my mind and making my emotions feel blunt but heh...a means towards an end I suppose...and I can probably live with feeling blunted at the moment.

Had my first full on vivid trippy dream on the stuff last night. I went to see Lucimay. She was moving out of her apartment (whose walls she'd painted bright purple). I have no idea what that means.

Anyway, yeah...

[aliantha]

If she's painted her walls bright purple, she's not gonna get her deposit back, that's for sure. Hang in there on the Champix, Sea!

Bus was late and Metro was gonna be all screwed up, so I drove in to work yesterday. When I got to work, I found out they do indeed want me to work late tonight -- so I get to drive in again. $36 for parking in two days, down the drain....

[Cameraman Jenn]

Ugh, that's expensive parking. I'm annoyed when it costs me $6.60 for the Bart and I end up having to pay an extra two bucks for a bus every so often.

Sea, what Ali said, hang in there, we are all rooting for you!

Today was an ok day. Work was long and full of tasks. I got most of my list done with a promise from Edward to finish the final bit of one for me in the morning in exchange for counting registers out at the end of the night. He hates that chore. I discovered that a section had not been redone since june of 2009 and it was all wrong so I fixed that as an added chore on my list. I had to build a table to display all the clearance backpacks from the stuff I was taking down and I was getting frustrated with trying to make it look neat when I had a brilliant stroke of brain power and took the metal vertical desk file supporters off the shelf and used them to sit the backpacks in so they would stand upright. I think it looked great. At one point in the day I said something over the walkie that made Ed mention that I hadn't done any cheers in a while so I laughed and said, "I am polishing my stewardess routine about walkie procedure and promised to deliver that one later. Kierre came on the walkie and started doing my "chain your ladder" cheer and said he missed that one. I told him he should be glad because me NOT saying meant that they were doing it right and that I was proud of them because the message must have sunk in. He laughed and said it sure had with him but he liked hearing it anyway because he really likes hearing me cheer and that was his favorite so far so I gave it to them.

[Sorus]

Still no answers, and after harassing people until they started making stuff up, it turns out that the new manager is leaving next week, and everything is up in the air again.

I just want some stability in my life. >.<

[aliantha]

Jenn -- $18/day for parking would be a bargain in your neck of the woods. Still, yeah, it sucks -- the bus/train combo costs me something like $8/day. Truth to tell, I don't even know how much it costs anymore. Metro has tinkered with their fares so many times lately that I just swipe the card on the target and keep an eye on the balance to make sure I don't have to load more money on it....

[lucimay]

sorus, jenn, ali, sea,

HUGS AND SHiT

[aliantha]

Back atcha, luci!

[Cameraman Jenn]

Ok, so I seriously got my street mojo back. I was yammering with my BART boyfriend when he said, "Oh, gotta go kick someone out." so we walked to my exit anyway and he says to this older black guy who was dressed like and kinda looked like he should be playing jazz in a club, "Earl, you know what the boys in blue keep telling you, you can't hang out in here by the machines trying to scam people." Earl said something along the lines of not being able to blame a man for trying. So we get on the escalator and Ron looks back at Earl just as he steps on and says, "You dropped some money." So Earl gets all panicked as he's going up and looks back and doesn't see anything and then looks confused. Ron says, "I was just kidding you." Earl starts laughing and says, "I'm really starting to like you despite you always kicking me out your station." I said, "Well, he is a nice guy with a good sense of humor and he has to kick you out because it's his job, it's not personal." Earl agrees with me. We get to the top and Ron and I chat a bit more and I light a cig and Earl buys one off me insisting on giving me fifty cents for it. So then I leave and Earl sort of falls into step with me and we start chatting because Earl overheard part of my conversation with Ron and telling him about the attack, (Ron's been on vacation for a week so he didn't know). Anyway we talk about the streets and Earl tells me a bit about growing up in NYC and then about two blocks later he asks me if I get high and I tell him no and he asks if I'm lying and I say No, never touched crack and never will. He says he can respect that so anyway, another block or so later and we come to the central dealer hangout and some of the boys hail Earl and ask who his friend is, meaning me. He tells them nobody they need to meet or mess with. I laugh. He tells me this is his stop so I say, "You take care of yourself and don't let that shit get the best of you, Earl, Goodnight." and he says, "I like you, you are nice with a tough edge, you be careful out here, Jenn." I say I will and we shake hands and he goes off to talk to the dealers and I headed the rest of the way home. It was kinda surreal. Thing is, he didn't seem like a hardcore partier. He was quite eloquent and seemed to be educated, clean, snappily dressed and not in the least bit crazy. So many different people in the world.

Thanks for the hugs and shit Lucimay.

[Cameraman Jenn]

Ok, so today I got fabulous news. I have been bitching about all the stored crap in receiving for months then over a week ago I took down the old "teacher appreciation" packs from 2008 and 2009 from storage and was intending to throw them out to make room for the 2010 leftovers and Tina stopped me and it kinda set me off and I raged a bit about the stupidity of keeping this obvious crap and how receiving was never going to get organized if I am not allowed to get rid of anything. That was Monday. Our DM was in yesterday and did his audit. Today when I get to work I find out that he ordered me a dumpster, a huge dumpster and gave me permission to get rid of pretty much everything I want and then some. AND just when I thought it couldn't get better, Tina put on the schedule, JENN plain clothes, receiving only per order of Tina for not one but two whole shifts! That means nobody is allowed to bother me while I am doing my project. AND just when I thought that was ice cream on the cake she added whipped cream and maraschino cherries and hot fudge by adding extra people to the schedule so that I could have help from stockers! Just to clarify my pretty much carte blanc permission, I am even allowed to throw out the pallet of brand new never been touched shelving if I so desire. I don't even have to transfer it out. I almost can't believe it. You guys have NO IDEA how much easier my work life is going to be once I get that clusterf--- area cleaned and organized. Of course it's going to seriously cut down on the stash places for crap that my co-workers use to hide unfinished stuff from the boss but too bad, so sad... MUH UH AH AH AH!!!! I'm going to bring my camera in and take before and after pictures. Seriously, after bitching for months about this I finally get my way and it feels GREAT!!!!

[danlo]

Right on Jennster! Me loves a good purge!

Well, I've got to get to the school in 40 minutes and then get ready to show Ponyo for movie night at 6--but this fluish crap that's been nagging at me is commanding me to take a 1/2 hour nap...so let the narcolepsy begin!

[balon!]

and then get ready to show Ponyo for movie night at 6--

Ponyo is amazing! Who're you showing it for?
That movie made me feel like a little kid again, it's magic for sure.

[aliantha]

Musta been PTA movie night....

Got off early yesterday (thanks to working late on Tuesday). Walked about 25 blocks (ran an errand up 18th Street, then walked to the National Gallery East Building, then around the building, then back to Navy Memorial Metro -- hmm, that might be closer to 30 blocks). Got home, made dinner, and fell into bed for nearly 12 hours. The cat woke me up. I suppose she was worried, lol.

Anyway, I went to the National Gallery to see a show of Arcimboldo's paintings. Entertaining stuff. He created faces out of various natural things. Water, for instance, is made of sea creatures; Winter is a dead tree branch with some fungi and evergreens. I'd read about him in a history of Rudolf II's reign a couple of months ago; Rudolf was his patron, as was Rudolf's father before him.

Today, I'm gonna try a yoga class at the local yoga studio. I'll let you know if I survive. It's been quite awhile since I last did yoga...

[Auleliel]

Today I'm playing at a wedding. Should be fun.

[Cameraman Jenn]

Day one of purge the receiving area has been done. I feel great about how much I got done. I am a tired camper though, especially on the heels of moving almost all of my apartment contents yesterday. By the end of the week I should look like Arnold in his youth....

[aliantha]

Moving sucks.

Found out last night that a RL friend is going to be on a reality show on Oprah's new network. She's going to be the "guest therapist" (filling in on one episode for the regular therapist) for an episode of a show about women in prison who are turning around their lives, or not. She actually is a therapist, and she works with (among other clients) inmates at the Indianapolis jail, which is kind of how they found her. How cool, huh? I might have to get cable just to see her on TV....

[Auleliel]

Today, I am excited about tomorrow.

[variol son]

Ooer - what happens tomorrow?

I'm a little stressed - they just had another aftershock at home, this one 5.0. There have now been more than 1800 aftershocks of 2.0 or stronger in the month and a half since the actual 7.1 earthquake on 4 September.

Apparently the building where I usually work was still shaking 20 minutes later, and electricity and telephone services are out in large parts of the city.

/sigh

I want to go home.

[Menolly]

awww, vs.
Only a few more weeks, right?
hang in there.

I think the excitement regarding tomorrow has to do with the publication release of a certain fantasy book here in the states.
...maybe.

Right now, I'm a bit frustrated with the college application process for Beorn.

At least Beorn got the UF application in before the November 1st deadline, just. But while searching the test sites to send his various test scores, I realize we never received the scores for his second take of the ACT, which he took back in October, 2009. Apparently, his high school never received them either. So I had to spend $70 out of pocket to have scores sent to us, his high school, and the five schools of his choice, even though they are now available online and they should have been sent when he took the exams last year.

We need to get them on his transcripts though. His first take, in June of the same year, had a composite score of 32. The second take a few months later at the start of his junior year was way better: a composite score of 35, with a perfect 36 on the science portion.

Then, I contacted AP to request those scores be sent, and found out although the APs are administered by The College Board, where his information is correct for the SAT and the SAT II Subject tests, the APs had his birth date as two years earlier, and no record of his social security number at all.

So, getting all of that corrected before sending the scores to the schools is now in the works...

[Orlion]

Yeah...applying for college sucks...I don't plan on doing it again anytime soon.

The good thing is that, in my experience, most of the stress is in the intial set-up phase. After that, it's smooth sailing. You just gotta make sure you fill out certain forms every...single...year....

[dANdeLION]

Today I'm playing at a wedding. Should be fun.

Do you play piano?