I'm finding it hard to update this thing because I'm actually talking to people now - and I don't really want to rehash everything that I've already discussed in person. I can also blame facebook and twitter, but they're mostly for very concise blatherings or posting things I find interesting. Poor neglected lj. It's amazing I've lasted this long on here.

It's my sister's birthday today. She's just been promoted to lieutenant in her security outfit, and so won't be moving up with or near me in the near future. Her animals are rather naughty and messy, so I really don't mind their absence, but I was looking forward to having her closer than she has been in quite some time. But after this year, my own whereabouts is going to be somewhat sketchy, so it's fine in the long run.

It's Thanksgiving weekend up here in Canada. That means, because of my schedule this term, that I have five days off. Despite many ideas and plans to get reading and writing done, people keep inviting me out for dinners and movies, so I shall forgo attempts to get ahead in school and have fun. (As if I'd really have done any real work anyway - if I hadn't been going anywhere, I would have likely read my book that has nothing to do with school at all or watched multiple movies of my own.)

I've volunteered to write some articles for a few campus magazines and newsletters - one for huron and one for main campus, so that should keep me busy - as if keeping up with my seminar and other classes wasn't busy enough. Movie-related writings for the most part, though I'm also putting together a book column about vampire books and stories - a kind of 'don't stop with Twilight' sort of thing.

And that's all I have to say. Must head out the door soon to play delivery person around the university. ta!

Okay, this whole money thing is stupid right now and I returned all the books I bought from the bookstore except for two. I can either find what I need to read in other editions, in the library, or I can order/buy them as I need to later in the term. Right now I need money for gas.

School is three weeks in and, with the exception of my surprisingly good Uncanny seminar, it all sucks and I'm counting the weeks until the end of the term. I usually don't start doing that until after Thanksgiving, but it's just that bad. Only ten weeks, which means only ten classes because all of mine are only once a week. That is very good to think about. Next term is going to be so great, even if a few of the classes are terrible, it'll be fantastic in comparison to my stupid classes right now. Of course, my religious studies class is okay, too, but it's a full year class and I don't count it since it won't be done in December.

I just finished watching the full dvd collection of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Great stuff until that last season, which was truly terrible and didn't even seem like the same show. I haven't seen a lot of these episodes since the last time I watched them all when I first 'discovered' the Pythons way back in high school. Now it's onto the movies if I find some blocks of time.

Andrea was over today and we played God of War, which has been giving me trouble ever since Kratos first fell into Hades. I just could not get up those rotating columns covered in those blades of death. But I finally did it today and Andrea finished off Ares and yeah, can move on to GoW II or something else that will suck up my life. So don't do the gamer mentality and I'm fine with that. You can't make me lose myself completely! I have comic books and movies for that.

I checked out alibris again to see if I could get my textbooks through them rather than the university bookstore, and before shipping it came out to a savings of about $130. After shipping though, it turns out I'd only save about $10 and they wouldn't arrive for about two weeks. So I'm going to the bookstore today to get my seminar's books. I'm not getting the 16th Century textbook - between all my other norton anthologies I probably have the different readings. My other classes have not listed the books yet, so I won't have to spend my sparse monies just yet. And the religious studies book can just wait for now.

It's raining a lot today, so I'm thinking I'll wear my lovely huron hat. Very important to announce that. The rain will not get me today!

There's a seriously big and oddly fascinating spider that has built her web right outside my bedroom window. As long as she stays outside, we will be fine. And I have no deal with centipedes or other creepies - they really have to stop invading my space, especially in the wee hours of the morning.

I started the day by messing some more with my schedule. I'm pretty sure that since classes start tomorrow the adding/dropping/swapping all shuts down, so I had to get it all figured out and finalized today. I think I'm happier now with my schedule. I was taking way too many Lit classes for my liking, and I finally pared it down to just my two seminars and two other English. This is the fewest number of Lit courses I've taken since first year. My other classes are spread evenly between comic books and SF-TV, and a couple of religious studies ones to balance it all out. And there's a Chinese Fiction one in there, too. I lost out on the Hollywood and Rome class that sounded so very interesting and also had to drop the one and only film class that I managed to find. But I'm thinking that it'll be okay once I get going. And with this new schedule, I somehow have managed to get both Thursdays and Fridays free for the whole year - this could be good or bad in the long run, but at least I can't be unnecessarily distracted by the tv.

And speaking of television - I watched the season opener of The Shield today. So worth the wait and so very good. The most shocking bit for me was Ronnie's behavior - he was the one member of the strike team that I had hopes for, so it's a shame to see him go down Vic's road. Really I'm just happy to have the boys back again, good, bad or otherwise - too bad it's the last season. With the Wire that ended a few months ago and this one on the way out, the cop shows that are still around just don't compare. I also watched the first episode of True Blood today - already it's better than Moonlight ever was, and I wish I could see more of it right now and not have to wait so long for the next episode. And now it's time to catch up on some Burn Notice. Yeah, it's good I don't watch tv, ha.

It's been a very busy August for once, with people visiting and moving and having too many animals in the house and unpacking. I've registered for all my classes and I have a good schedule I think, though there are still too many English ones. Not much I can do to remedy that. I've been to Toronto and back for the wondrous Fan Expo a few weekends ago - that was fantastic and made me overlook my missing out on the SDCC this year (next year, you will be mine!). I've seen a bunch of movies, some good, some not so much. And I had my birthday and for the two days that people made me celebrate for, it was grand. I even got a Darth Vader cake (not shaped like the great Dark Lord, but with a picture drawn in icing on the top - excellent and quite tasty, made by my awesome friend Andrea). So August is over, it's Labor Day today, and classes start up this coming Thursday (oh, and the last season of The Shield starts tomorrow - watch!). I have very mixed feelings about this last year of school - it will give me something to fill up my days, but I'm not too happy about having to do yet another year of this. Just one more though. It'll be fine. And August, though I wasn't around here much, was very decent overall and went by too quickly.

Hey, thanks ragecarnuu for my birthday cupcake!

* Kate arrived in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Got to sleep at around 5am and then we went shopping because my place was sorely lacking for regular food. I also booked the Uhaul for the move.

* Yesterday - picked up the Uhaul an hour late because my alarm didn't go off. Booked it for eight hours, we were done in six. Am very very very sore with lots of lovely bruises.

* Moved everything from the storage box into here. The place is a wreck of out of place furniture and many many boxes. Shall start unpacking today - the books more than anything first since they take up the most room in their current state.

* I bought a couch on Wednesday! It's a European futon - not too big, but very nice and it gives Kate a place to sleep. (she's just using the mattress right now since the rest is in pieces in a giant box that's buried in the living room)

* Rib-Fest sometime today, probably for dinner. Haven't been to Rib-Fest for a very long time, so we shall bring Kate's giant dog and go have some tasty barbecued meat. And then perhaps go see Batman.

* Battery's running down on the computer, and I don't feel like finding the cord, so that's it for now.

* Happy August!

I have been lapse in this journal thing. It has been very dull of late and so I've been using twitter and facebook more just to write sentence-long updates or look at various youtube postings. Been watching movies with friends, going for drives, going to movies, talking on the phone. Repeat that a few thousand times and that's pretty much all I've been doing. LJ re-upped my paid account without telling me, so it's good for another year.

Kate went through Hurricane Dolly and instead of it hitting Brownsville like was projected, it pretty much sat atop of Harlingen and pummeled them for the day. Where she works has many busted windows and serious damage. Her house made it through but there's no power and therefore no water (it's a well-electric pump system). She's been living at the hospital. Power may not be back for a week and she's leaving to come up here on Monday. I am so glad I wasn't visiting her right now, but I wish that she had been able to come see me a week earlier so that she could have missed out on all this mess herself.

I've seen a bunch of movies lately, eagerly awaiting a bunch more, and don't feel like writing about any of them. Along with many many other people, I watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog when it was available - typical Joss Whedon, which means it was horribly brilliant. Loved it more for the wannabe evil genius factor, and NPH is just about the coolest guy around right now. I went around with Freeze-Ray and On the Rise in my head for a few days and can't wait for the dvd to come out.

I also finished the whole register thing for classes this September. I got most of what I wanted, including the Arthur seminar. Didn't get a few of the MIT classes that looked interesting, but it's okay since I found a 'Reading Popular Culture' English class that sounds vaguely intriguing. Not eager for my last year, but it's something to do. And hey, not sure I mentioned it here, but I got a $1000 scholarship that I was very happy about.

Think I shall watch a movie while eating my very yummy microwave Chinese dinner. One about the end of the sun with Cillian Murphy - Sunshine is its name.

Happy Fourth of July!

Not that it was apparent on my lj that I'm using sparingly these days, but I was offline for a couple days. I returned the portable internet modem and set up an appointment for the regular high-speed to be connected with a wireless modem so I could be anywhere in this grandly sized apartment with my lovely laptop. The guy came today just after 11am, hooked it all up and left, and then I noticed that it was definitely not a wireless. So I called and was told it was never on the work order, so I had to disassemble it myself and exchange it at an authorized store. Sigh. But hopefully it's the last thing to do, so I went and did it. No problem in the exchange - got it home and set up and it still wouldn't work. Fiddled with it and its various settings until it did work (the user guide instructions were pretty useless). And now I'm typing away in the bedroom a good 20-40 feet away from the modem. Yay! And I did it all by myself.

Nothing much else going on these days. Reading and watching movies and driving around - this shall be my life for the next two months. But Kate will be here in 26 days or so and the parents will be here soon after that.

The kitties love it here. Lots of room to run and lots of window space to peer out of. There have been many squirrels and raccoons and robins to watch and they're loving their first views of southern ontario wildlife as it runs by.

* I didn't sleep well at all last night. The brain was going too fast and wouldn't slow down, which brought on some raging insomnia. Plus there were cat fights every two-three hours (not Merry & Pippin, but Pippin and random cats that have started to linger outside my windows).

* I went to see The Incredible Hulk, and incredible it was. Enjoyed it very much and in addition to all the other general awesomeness, there was much !Hulk!Smash! to go around. Marvel Studios is doing some great stuff, and I like the way they're able to link their movies together - makes something like an Avengers flick that much more likely.

* I have internet - it's a portable modem thingie from Rogers that works on a wireless wave from wherever. It plugs into the wall and into your computer and there's no cables or anything else to deal with. I just need to set up a router and I'm good to go with my laptop anywhere in my seemingly quite large place, but since it's stationary for the moment until I get some more furniture, I can hold off on the router right now. The only problem is that I lose the signal when I close the window - not good for when winter arrives.

* Got much of my schedule worked out yesterday - need to wait to enroll in the MIT classes I'd like to take since priority's given to the actual MIT students first and us lowly non-MIT people after. Also need to call about the King Arthur seminar - they're saying I don't have the right prereq's, and that's just ridiculous, so I'll get that straightened out soon. There's no way I'm not taking that one.

* It's been cold up here lately. And it's not just me being unadjusted to this weather - there's about a sixty degree difference between here and Yuma and that's just weird. It's the first day of summer - it was warmer today, but not by a whole lot. I'm really not complaining because the heat's just around the corner and it's the gross sticky kind of heat that I've managed to avoid for the last ten years. I'm just saying it's weird that it's so very cool.

Okay, I'm here. I've been here since Thursday night. I'm going mad with technical difficulties at the moment and will be online intermittently until I get my internet going, hopefully very soon. The drive was good, the Canadian border was no problem at all (I don't think the guy even looked at me before he wished me a nice day), and my apartment is very nice and roomy. Even roomier than it should be since I don't have any furniture or bookshelves or my desk in there yet. It's very quiet and echo-ie and I've been doing nothing but watch episodes of the Death Note anime (very awesome by the way). It's been boring and quiet until I drive anywhere, and then it's a major drive because I'm on the opposite end of the city than what I was before. Anyway, off I go to fight with the internet people some more.

I'm feeling a bit cold up here. I'm not sure if it's just me or if it's actually chilly, but I'm not complaining. It was 114 in Yuma yesterday. (I must say that if I had the choice, I'd still rather be there. But the coolness of here just feels kind of nice right now.)

I got my car back! The repairs cost more than what I paid for my first car way back when, but it's running better than it has in more than a year. It's a very happy red beast again, and I'm a very happy driver. Going for a drive later on some favorite roads. (The guy told me to drive the hell out of it this weekend, so I'm just following orders. He was very awesome by the way, opening the shop just for me and getting the tires and everything else taken care of to ensure I could get out of here on time.)

I have an apartment, for sure for sure as of yesterday. I obviously haven't seen it in person, but I have seen a few photos and the floor plan and it looks very nice. And it has hardwood floors! And a kitchen! Am very excited to finally have my own place.

I'm without a car at the moment and feel quite weird, what with my slightly unhealthy attachment to the red beast and all. There are major things wrong with it and I've been told it's lucky I made it down here at all, but it'll all be fixed, hopefully be the end of today and I'll be able to leave on Monday. Otherwise it'll be Monday before I can even pick it up and the departure will be pushed back to Tuesday, and that makes my arrival back to Canada very close to that homeland security date stamped on that wretched visa-paper. But all will be well, including the beast, and I'll be a happy driver again very soon.

Nothing much else to report right now. I'm afraid I have too much stuff again to fit in the car, with the kitties having to fit in there as well. I'll figure it out. I just may not have room for myself, but I'll steer from the rooftop. If the mythbusters can figure out how to remote drive a car, it can't be that hard to set up.

* Spent the day in El Centro, California doing data entry and going cross eyed in the process. I am not cut out for cubicle/office work.

* There were a couple of earthquakes though that shook the walls. I thought it was just a door slamming shut, but nope, 'twas the earth doing a little dance.

* Everything's so screwy right now, I decided not to even bother fighting for an extension. I'm leaving for London this coming Monday and hopefully will not be homeless when I arrive. It's going to be a very long summer.

* I've run out of movies to watch at the theatre - saw Indy, Speed Racer, Caspian, Sex and the City and everything else I wanted to see. All that's left are some wretched rom-coms and a horror thing that I just don't care about. Need something new to watch!

* Figured out a tentative and potential schedule of classes for next year - am very disappointed that there will be no comic book, no vampire, and no SF film classes because none of the above is being offered. But there is a 4th year second-term seminar all about King Arthur, so that almost (almost) makes up for it.

* Am reading 'Salem's Lot right now. Never read it before and I got the loveliest edition from the sci-fi book club, so I have no excuse. Kind of a slow burn, but definitely readable. (To tell the truth, this is my first King novel, though I've always loved reading his essays and entertainment columns.)

The last week while I was at Kate's place, we were dealing with her kitty, George, who got very sick very suddenly. She's been losing weight for quite a while, over the last year actually, and dropped down to about 4 lbs. She was pretty much skin and bones, quite literally. So we took her to the vet and it turns out she has a thyroid problem - got meds and that was that. Then she stopped eating and moving around a week later. Took her to the vet again - she had lost another half-pound and was running a fever. I was so scared she was going to die, but the vet put her on antibiotics and she's already put on a full pound. Hopefully this is it now, but that was a anxious day.

Princess, my mum's kitty, just got a highly malignant cancerous tumor removed, so it's just not good for the kitties overall these days. But she's doing better now as well, though in a lot of pain - with a six-inch incision down her torso, pain is probably expected. There's always a chance the cancer will come back, but she's doing fine right now and she's never once acted sick or gone off her food or anything. Which is probably why it took so long to notice there was a growth.

Merry and Pippin are both fine and very happy to see me, though Merry's a little butterball instead of the tiny runt I left behind.

I forgot to mention yesterday - I got pulled over by a very nice super trooper in Junction, Texas, apparently for speeding. It's 80mph up there, and I'm usually very careful about my speed in that section because it is so much higher than most other limits. He must have got me on one of the few sections where I sped up a little before catching myself again. I was going 84, so yeah, they're really watching for anyone, though there were still a lot of people passing me like I was standing still. Ah well. I apologized because I didn't even realize I was speeding - it was a big surprise when he flipped the lights on behind me. He gave me a warning and that was that. (It was exactly three years ago that I got pulled over in Texas for speeding as well - got a warning that time, too.) They should put the Texas troopers on the border - much easier to deal with.

The border issue - I had a major problem crossing this time. There were a bunch of new border guys there, and I think they were doing everything exactly as they had been trained and were giving everyone a hard time. Whatever. Apparently I had too much stuff in my car, so I got hauled into the homeland security building and they looked through my car. They thought it looked like I was moving and there was no way I could prove I wasn't - silly me, I didn't bring my mail with me in the car - so they issued me a travel visa of some kind that's good for five weeks. If at the end of that time I'm not back across the Canadian border, I'll be a fugitive from homeland security. All this puts some serious crimps in my summer plans, especially since I don't actually have an apartment in London any longer. We are looking into getting the visa extended until August, and I'll find out tomorrow what my chances are, so think good thoughts please. I really don't want to live here, but I'd like to stay just a few months beyond the middle of June. I hope it goes as well as I've been assured it should. The immigration guy down here didn't understand why the border guys gave it to me at all, so I'm taking that as a good sign.

Saw Indy - it was exceedingly silly, fun in some parts, and the plot made little sense. But it was Indiana Jones and it was okay. I'm thinking about Speed Racer this afternoon perhaps - probably will go tomorrow though, after the immigration consultation thing.

I am in Yuma again. It is abnormally chilly for the desert at this time of year; I was afraid I'd be sweltering with the unbearable heat, but it's been in the nice and cool range of 78 to 82 for the last two days. It's supposed to heat up to normal hot temps in a few days - I'll enjoy this while I can. I arrived early yesterday morning after driving for 23 hours straight - I don't know how many more times I can do that. I was starting to really regret my decision to push it through when I got to Tucson, and by then I was too close to Yuma to stop. But I am here and utterly drained, but catching up on sleep. It's so very nice to see my kitties again, and they haven't been letting me out of their sight for long.

I saw Prince Caspian yesterday and am probably going to see Indy tomorrow if I get up early enough. I'm not going later in the day because it's still the holiday weekend and I don't want to be squished like a sardine with everyone else not at work or school. I also still want to see Speed Racer, but since no one else is going to that one, I can pretty much pick any time I want. It was great to see Death Note with Kate before I left Harlingen - the theater was completely packed, mostly with very squeally high school students, but I still loved seeing that one in the theater. It was dubbed into English though, which was kind of annoying. I definitely prefer subtitles for foreign flicks and the dialogue audio was off somehow and seemed piercingly loud to my overly sensitive ears. Kate did not like Death Note much - she had moral objections to its message, but I think it was mostly the audience's cheering when Light started to kill the FBI agents and not just criminals that she had problems with. She said, 'I can see why you like it,' though I'm not sure if she was being complimentary or not.

I read Wanted today, the comic by Mark Millar that's coming out as a movie sometime next month. I'm very curious about the movie and what they're going to take from the comic - from what I've seen so far, there's not much in the movie that resembles anything from the book. All that stuff about the league of supervillains and the eliminating of all the various superheroes seems to have been dropped; plus, the characters of Wesley and Fox look exactly like Eminem and Halle Berry in the comic - it'll be hopefully interesting to see what James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie bring. I really want it to be good; the comic was such a violent frenzy of swearing and shooting and killing (there was no 'curving the bullet' stuff though), it would be hard to keep it all in there and get a proper R rating. I heard Millar was happy with it, so that's all that matters.

There were many books and movies waiting for me here, so I shall have much to keep me occupied in the coming days. And I ordered a bunch from the science fiction book club today - so much for cutting down on my book addiction. I'm doomed. So I shall go read more of Wit's End, a sort of contemporary SF book about writing, pop culture, fandom, and fanatical followers who take over the world of a fiction. I think. Anyway, it's interesting so far.

Except for that bad fever I had back in October I haven't been sick all year, not even a cold. It's caught up with me. Have had a sore throat the last two days and today I ache so very much. No fever or nausea yet, but tomorrow I'll probably wish I was dead.

Very awesome storm last night. It tore down half the tree branches from around Kate's house and blinded me when I opened my eyes to see what was going on, but it was nice to listen to at four this morning. Though there was a tense moment when the power flickered - much too hot to be without power. I've had the a/c off all day today and all the windows open - it's just lovely out probably because of the storm.

I've been watching a lot of movies and not reading very much, though I got some comics on the computer today that I made my way through. Must finish at least one of the five books that I have on the go. But I'm feeling so wretched, I think I'll just go watch some Eddie Izzard and make some coffee. I'm leaving for Yuma on Wednesday - they're doing a two-night showing of Death Note in the movie theatre here, so we're going to go see that on Tuesday and I'll leave the next morning.

Okay, I'm here in the very bottom of Texas and it is very hot. How hot? Well, it's hard for me to really tell, but for a poor Canadian like me this is a major shock to the system. And Kate tends not to use her a/c, but I talked her into it. She's at work right now and I passed out on the bed - travel fatigue and also just the tremendous warmth was too much to take - I've never felt so sick without actually being ill. It's supposed to be like this all weekend. I wish I had more to say, but I'm just not feeling great right now. The house is slowly cooling off and I should make some coffee. Will write more later....

Kate's laptop is very nice. Mine won't connect to her broadband modem, but that's okay. I'll survive on this vaio thingie. Just have to remember not to change anything.

- re-up US cell phone minutes
- change address with UWO
- clean out fridge
- get rest of junk into storage container (not much left, really)
- pack and load up car with Yuma junk
- buy coffee - very important
- vacuum scary floor
- laundry! and dishes! (probably should do dishes first to get them into storage, too)
- drop last few things off at goldmourn's
- oil change
- book to Huron
- watch movie that must be returned tomorrow morning


Happy Cinco de Mayo! (I'm glad I'm not down south just yet!)

* Almost finished moving today. Took three trips, each time filled the car so full that if anything shifted I was afraid I might die.

* Saw Iron Man. Was bloody fantastic. Go see it, soon - 'nuff said. (But stay until after the credits - I badly want to spoil this ending, but I won't. It's so worth it - at least for me.)

* Place is looking empty, overly bright yellow, smaller than it did when it was filled with my stuff, and extremely messy. Will get the last few things into storage tomorrow, load up the car with stuff to take to Yuma, and then clean clean clean. Just vacuuming though, and maybe a once-over on the floor.

* Am still in serious pain, find it brutal to walk around, and have more bruises on more places than ever before.

* One-point-five days til departure. Can't wait to be on the road again.

I've moved how many times in the past? And I've definitely held my own and done an equal amount of work as anyone else with every move. I have to say that this is the toughest and most draining move I've ever done. And it's just into friggin storage. I've honestly never been in so much pain just from carrying stuff - I've definitely hurt myself in various ways over the years that have been equivalent, but not just from moving. I think it's the living in the basement thing and going up stairs over and over and over again - I've never moved from an underground dwelling before and it was just brutal. I'm covered in so many bruises everywhere and I cut my arm pretty badly on my filing cabinet (of all things) and yeah, just not good. But almost all done - though there's still a surprisingly large pile of stuff in the middle of my floor that I'm honestly contemplating whether I actually need it or not. Everything does fit in the storage box, and there's more room for the few things that I'll be taking over tomorrow. Not doing anything today. Too much pain and the storage place is closed for the day anyway. (It was fun driving the U-Haul - gave me a sense of power and superiority that felt wonderful!)

I have to thank Andrea, my lovely and wonderful friend, for all her help. Wouldn't and couldn't have done it without her, and I'll never be able to give enough thanks for that.

I thought my place was a wreck before the big stuff was out of here. Ha. It's such a mess and all the remaining stuff is just piled in the middle - the hamster somewhere in the middle of it all. I cleaned him yesterday, so he'll be good for a few days, lost in the midst of stuff. I have my big desktop computer all disassembled and in pieces on the floor, the tv disconnected from the cable and the vcr and dvd disconnected from everything, so all I have is my laptop to watch things with. I'm keeping the internet until Tuesday morning and I'll unhook the modem and return it before I take off that day. I refuse to cut myself off before then.

Today was Free Comic Book Day, so a friend (Katrina!) and I went around downtown London in the rain looking for wild comic books. Strangely enough, it was nice to walk around a lot and limber myself up after the badness and pain of yesterday. Didn't get quite the massive haul that I did on the last comic crawl, but I did get quite a few free books plus others that I paid for and a very cool Darth Vader figure to match my Boba Fett one that I got a while back. I saw Superman walking around in a bunch of different stores - his costume was great and his hair was perfect, right down to the cowlick curl down his forehead. So yeah, more things to take back to Yuma now - none of this is going into storage, of course, because I want to read it all now!

But today I think I shall watch some movies that people have lent me that I must return before I leave on Tuesday. Sounds good and relaxing and hopefully pain-free.

PS - I got up the courage really early this year to look at my grades and they're all A's, even in Film, so woohoo and all that. Am very happy and now don't have to worry about Lit reading or assignments until September.

Seriously, this is the best prompt ever. Hmmm.... There have been many times over this past year where I'd love to smash various things... a crowbar would make things much more interesting. My English text books would be first and foremost, but they wouldn't smash that well. They'd rip up into bits and then I'd end up setting them on fire. Then there's this whole bloody house that I'd just like to tear up as a final going away. The walls, the tiny window, the pretentious "Tuscany Room" where I store my all-weather tires that I never use anymore. I wish I had something that I could go all Office-Space-crazy with, but my electronic stuff is all awesome and causes no problems. All my frustrations come from human interference. And I really don't think I should smash the people I know with a crowbar.

* Got the storage box all reserved and waiting for me. Decent price too.

* Still lacking in boxes that are the right size to fill with books and won't cause major hernia or spinal distress.

* About to reserve the Uhaul thing - looking forward to this because every other move there's always been my dad or my sister along who have driven the thing. My turn! Edit: All reserved and good to go. Will find out later where exactly the truck will be to pick up.

* Going to go load up the bigger boxes I have now with kitchen and linen stuff. Should get most of the rest done today. Must get the rest done today.

* Sidenote for London: Traffic is very stupid and no one should go anywhere.

It's Tuesday, right? I'm so screwed up with the days right now, not having to get up for school and finally being done with exams. I plan to leave London in a week - Kate's grad thing is on the 10th, so that'll give me time enough to get down there.

What I need to do between now and then is pack and pack and pack some more. This isn't a normal summer departure for me - need to not only pack the stuff I'll be taking down to the desert for the summer, but pack everything else and move it into a box for three months. It's the books and movies that make up the bulk of my junk, so I'm going to try to get all that done today. And maybe do some more weeding while I'm at it.

I bought books yesterday - what else is a Lit student who's sick of reading and school supposed to do when exams are over but buy and read more books? I'm sick, I know it. I got a couple light YA books about superpowers, ESP and evil geniuses and one called Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Seemed a good way to wrap up a year of BibLit. And I checked my bank account yesterday and it was at a grand number of $0. Yeah, probably should not have gone to the bookstore. Oh well.

Maybe I'll listen to more of the Earthsea audiobooks when I'm packing today - they are very good and though I'm not used to the whole listening to books thing, I'll be able to do two things at once and both read and pack. Harlen Ellison reads the first book and he's a bit strange, but I like his matter-of-fact voice. He sounds like some crusty old guy from down the road, reading a book he just picked off the shelf - no artifice at all, which is nice. I'm hoping LeGuin gets me into some fantasy stuff again - been kind of neglectful for a long time now, preferring my vampires, my nihilism, and the hard-SF stuff that I've never been into before this year. I miss my fantasy books.

I saw Hamlet tonight/last night at Stratford. It was amazingly fantastic, I loved every second of it, I think they did the whole frelling play (I have to check my copy to see if they skipped scenes, but I don't think so), and everyone should go check it out sometime this season while it's playing - regardless of distance! I have much much more to say, but I'm going to sleep now. Study session(s) tomorrow for the Jacobean Drama exam on Monday.

I found out where the exam is tonight, so that's one worry down. It also appears that they've opened up all the parking over at King's so I won't even have to pay for the privilege of writing my exam. Very nice. Huron's still making all visitors pay their $10 or the regular rate for the metered lot - greedy misers, the lot. Not that I have to pay because of my parking card, but still, if King's can open up their parking for everyone, then Huron and everyone else should do the same. I went and got $20 in loonies for nothing - gives me change for coffee, I guess.

I am jumping at shadows these days. Too many gigantic spiders keep crawling out from who-knows-where and everything that I see out of the corner of my eye is making me freak out. It is nice out, but I don't remember this many arachnids tormenting me last spring.

Watched Shinobi last night when I wasn't studying for tonight's exam. Loved it so very much, so much that I have to watch it again and also try to figure out how to not return it to its rightful owner. I've seen too many people say it's a combo of X-Men and Romeo and Juliet, so I won't repeat it (see how I got around that - haha), but it is very good and damn it all, very tear-jerk-ish, but I guess in a good way. Wasn't mushy for the sake of mushiness. Great fights and yeah, I just loved it beginning to end.

Must read more stories for the exam tonight! Time to step away from the computer.

Okay, not that it's been an issue, but I am still alive, writing exams, and losing more of myself to that interweb entity that is facebook. The flixster application is much too much fun, and I've been adding all my various movie reviews and taking countless trivia quizzes. Speaking of movies, I saw The Forbidden Kingdom with Andrea yesterday and it was so much fun - very silly and not at all complex, but just a purely entertaining great time. I didn't know what it was before going in - someone else drew my attention to it a few weeks ago - but as soon as I saw Jackie Chan and Jet Li both in some kind of strange kung fu fantasy, that's pretty much all I needed to know. Did not disappoint in the slightest, for me anyway.

I have three more exams to write, two of which are not a big deal and the third that shouldn't be too bad if I study at all. The time where I need to move all this stuff into storage is quickly approaching and look at the girl who hasn't packed a damn thing. Yep. That would be me. But I have edited my bookshelves quite a bit - I'd say a good third of my books are in a pile on the floor to be gotten rid of. I'm so not interested in selling or trading them in - I'll likely just put them in a box and drop them off at huron. Or the goodwill.

I got me some kick-ass speakers yesterday - we gots the surround sound now - but I won't be enjoying it until August in my new place, wherever that might be. It's staying nicely packed away in its original box for easy transport, just like the DVR that I got for Christmas. I will someday get to play with these new toys sometime, but it's just easier and less distracting for me if I leave them as they are.

Just to brag once more (I've been ticking off various classmates the more I talk about it), the last two exams I wrote were so very great. I wrote a good 10 pages single-spaced for each - and this is in my tiny chicken-scrawl. All the essays and even the short-answer stuff came together so well, which is good because it was in these two classes that I was starting to slip and was disappointing my prof who, though a very tough guy to talk to and rather angry all the time, is my favorite teacher, so I didn't want to slip any further. Now it's just film, fantasy lit, and Jacobean drama left.

Oh yes. I'm going to see Hamlet in Stratford in less than a week. I went kind of nuts with Beowulf this term, but if anyone thought my Beowulf obsession was rather intense, it's nothing compared to my love for the melancholy man of inaction. I've never seen Hamlet live and since moving back here, I knew it would be silly to see it anywhere except Stratford - if I'm going to see it live, it's going to be there. I can't wait. I knew I'd be going sometime during this season to see it (and probably Romeo and Juliet, too), but I thought it would be in September or October, not April. What a great way to end the term. (It'll be hard to disappoint me and as long as their Horatio is great, I'll be happy.)

George's Chocolate Chip Cookies
Submitted by: Renee Mercer
Rated: 5 out of 5 by 8 members Yields: 42 servings

"These are great for freezing and can be reheated in the microwave. Enjoy."

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups butter
2 cups packed brown sugar
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups rolled oats 4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup milk chocolate chips
3 cups dark chocolate chips
12 (1 ounce) squares German
sweet chocolate, chopped

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. Combine butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. In a blender or food processor, process the oats until finely chopped. Then, in separate bowl, combine chopped oatmeal, flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Gradually add the chopped milk chocolate chips and whole chocolate chips.
3. Roll dough into golf ball size balls. Press with fork. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes. Do not overbake. When they come out of the oven, the cookies will be soft. Place a chocolate chunk in the center.


originally posted here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Georges-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies/Detail.aspx

I'd say I missed my mind, but that's not very original - besides, I don't really miss being completely sane. Of real tangible things, there was this silver ring covered in thunderbirds (the cooler name for woodpeckers - they looked nothing like that on the ring though) that I lost when I was playing in a playground way back when I was 8 or so. I never did find it and it was so devastating. I have a favorite ring now, a plain silver band that Kate gave me that I wear on my index finger - it's even getting too big now and it slipped off once just recently when I was getting out of the car, and that brought me right back to my desperate searching for this lost thunderbird ring. That old ring probably wouldn't fit at all now, but it was my one and only adornment at the time all those years ago. I hope sometimes that some other kid found it sometime and liked it as much as I did, but it's probably still there under a whole lot of gravel and dust.

For the last.... 9 weeks or so, there's been some kind of major meteorological disturbance every Tuesday night for my Fantasy Lit class. My prof has been getting progressively loopier and more paranoid about God's (or Nature's or whatever's) opinion of the class - truly, it's been kind of fun watching the degeneration of my various instructors. It's reassuringly good to know that they're starting to lose it as well as the term comes to a close. He predicted a tornado for the last night of class, which is just in a few hours. It's warm, bright and sunny today, but there are thunder storms rolling in tonight.... so, he might not be far off. Poor guy. If a tornado does descend, I think we'll both lose our minds completely, laugh uncontrollably, and be unable to react to anything else. It's been such a good class - this Fantasy Lit and my SF/fantasy-adaptation film class have been my favorites this term by a long shot. The other classes can just go away any time they want (and look at that, all the other ones are the Huron classes, bah). I have to finish my paper for the fantasy class now though - it's due tonight and I have three paragraphs left to write.

I don't know if my whole super-immune system comment of the wee hours of the morning is coming back to curse me or what, but I feel wretched today. Likely related to the lack of sleep. I did pass out for a few hours after I got home from class, but it hasn't really made me feel much better.

Thank you, Andrea, for the coffee that was waiting so nicely when I walked into BibLit! I even won with the roll-up-the-rim-to-win thing, so I'll see if I can get the free coffee tonight in Fantasy Lit.

There was another big spider sitting on my bedroom floor when I got home this afternoon. I squashed it with a book (I don't want to say which one) and am now trying to get up the courage to clean it off. Ick. I'm all for spring and the warmer weather and am even okay with the rain to wash away the disgusting piles of brown snow, but the spiders need to stay out of the lair. Honestly, though I'm rather horribly and severely arachnophobic, I do have a live and let live attitude toward the creepy crawlies (except for the cockroaches who all must die), just so long as they stay out of my place. The second they come into my domain, they forfeit the right to life.

And on that note, back I go to the book for tomorrow night's class, "A Long Long Way." It's strange going from so much Fantasy Lit to reading something very realistic and based in WWI. But so far it's very readable - I'm just waiting for the inevitable nightmare to start. It's just been male bonding and soldier jokes up til now and I know it's not going to last.

I know it's April Fool's, but when the radio station appears to have gone back in time about five years or so, it's a bit disconcerting. They even got the talk team from that previous morning show to do their banter and the news and everything today. Oh, it's the team from over on "FreshFm," the station across the hall. What. a. good. joke.

(I did finally get to sleep, but four hours ain't much better than the three I had from the day before. And a massive spider crawled out from somewhere just as I was getting up. I know I'm a big wuss when it comes to spiders, but when I can see it clearly in the pre-dawn light without my glasses on as it's crawling around on the floor, it's not too small. It's going to be such a good day.)

It's like 50 degrees outside and I can't sleep. I'm not sure if the two go together or what - all I know is I was falling asleep in random places earlier in the day and now can't sleep at all when I actually want to. And I know that last night was around 32-33 overnight, and now it's quite a bit warmer, so that could be why it's a bit hard to settle down.

I got the second-last essay-project done and turned in today, this one for my film class. It was so much fun to put together, though I'm not sure I did everything I could or should have. But it was fun, and right now that's all I care about. One more essay to go, due next Tuesday. And then it's onto the exams and then moving and then back to my desert, though I'm not so eager to leave right now. I am looking forward to Kate's grad and seeing her new awesome place. Mostly I'm looking forward to not being a nervous stressed out psychotic wreck all the time, at least until this starts all over again in September.

When was the last time the insomnia struck? Ahhh... almost exactly a month ago. I'll have to see if there's a pattern.

I think the writer's block prompt for yesterday was stupid - what's your favorite thing about being sick? There's nothing I like about being sick! The only nice thing that I ever liked about being sick was when I was a lot younger and mum was somewhere nearby to bring me soup and ice cream and ginger ale and just take care of me like mums should. Otherwise it just sucks to be sick. Though it is nice to pretend from time to time and just take a day off for doing nothing or watching movies. Having been a very sick child in the past with a seriously awful immune system, I'm enjoying my super-immunity now very much and I like that I don't get ill that often. Other than that fever I had in October, I can't remember the last time I came down with anything. Even with all this stress that has completely wiped out most of my appetite and screwed up my eating habits to the point where I walk down certain aisles and feel nauseated, I haven't stressed myself into illness of any kind. Knock on wood and all that.

Tomorrow is going to suck if I don't get to sleep soon. I'll try to read for a bit I guess.

Ah, so today is earth day. So it didn't matter that I had my lights turned out yesterday - it only counts today after all. I'm so turned around this week - I wasn't sure what day was what most of the time, missed classes all over the place, lived on Chinese and coffee and pizza. But it's Saturday now, at least I'm sure of that. A day for movies and comics and South Park. And maybe some biscotti.

* Horoscope of today: "You've been pushing yourself way too hard. You need to take a break today for your own good!" .... Yeah, like I needed my horoscope to tell me that.

* I got the third essay of the week done today - it was due yesterday, but a day late isn't too bad. I just couldn't get it done yesterday - it wasn't writer's block, but I hit a wall with the writing and couldn't even pick up my pen. But it's done now and there's two left over the next two weeks.

* I went on a comic-crawl with a friend yesterday and it was awesome and a little inundating. In recent years I've only been going about once a year to my favorite shop in Phoenix and only keeping up with 30 Days of Night. I did get the most recent 30 Days trade yesterday, but also picked up a few Ultimate Spidey, Powers, Dracula, Storm, and Hard Boiled, all big tpbs that I've been missing out on since I moved up here. And it was nice to walk around downtown in some pseudo-spring-like weather - before yet another stupid snowstorm hit last night.

* Grubstreet, the literary magazine thing that Huron puts out, is available now. I think I may have at least one story in there, so I'm eager to get my hands on a copy.

* I saw "Run Fat Boy Run" today with Andrea - we both finished our essays and it was good to go see something very funny and very brainless - not that it was stupid, but it's definitely not something you have to think hard about. And now The Matrix is on - this movie has definitely grown on me over the years; I thought it was the stupidest thing ever when I first saw it.

* You know it's end-of-term-essay-season when my place starts to look disturbingly like a frat-house. Pizza boxes and all. After I get my paper done for Monday, I'll see what I can do about straightening up. Not that I'll need to do much since very soon after that I'll be packing up all this stuff and putting it into storage.

* My stack of pizza boxes isn't as bad as Jon and Garfield's though:


* That's it. I'm never good at this point-form catch-up thing - I always say too much.