dangerblog

One More Week

Next Tuesday I have my French final and I turn in my portfolio for art containing all the projects from this semester as well as the final project.  I think I'm going to do okay with a little bit of studying for French, but I'm going to have to do some work this week to get ready for art. 

Last Thursday our giant self-portraits were due.  Mine turned out really well, so I will definitely be posting a picture of it as soon as I can figure out how to get my computer to recognize my camera.  Again.  Stupid technology.  Anyway, I got the golf clap in art this week, symbolizing a success, and my teacher had very little negative to say about my self-portrait.  Yay!  I was kind of sad that the course was ending after my last two projects went over so well.  I keep having this nagging voice in the back of my head that is telling me to sign up for another art class in the fall.  We'll see.  If I make anything less than a B with all the effort I have put into this class, I am done with art classes.  Done, I say.

In addition to constantly working night and day on art projects, I've been obsessing over some other stuff as well.  I'm going to buy a house around here this summer, so I want to start looking some time next month.  I have some credit card debt (Bad Jen.  Really, I must stop shopping.) and I also don't have a whole lot in the way of savings, so I am obsessively watching each and every dollar that passes in and out of my account.  I have this crazy Excel budget and I can't stop rearranging things so that I work down my debt faster or whatever.  I have to keep changing strategies and I also keep having to reduce my savings expectations, because I so very rarely actually meet my budget for the week.

One things that constantly pushes me over is groceries.  Food is the other thing that I have been obsessing over lately.  I read the Fat Fallacy over Christmas, and was really impressed by the message in that book (which, ironically, is to stop obsessing over food.)  I've been on a mission to cut out soft drinks and all other processed foods.  I am eating worlds better than I used to.  I'm actually getting in at least 5-6 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.  Which is impressive since I've avoided them (at least vegetables) my whole life.  I make my own salad dressings and I started drinking coffee.  I'm a huge grocery snob anyway, but now that I'm on this all natural food diet and everything is magnified. 

My eating plan got thrown a curve last week when Salon had a couple articles talking about all the mercury in fish.  For the past month, I had been eating tuna fish for lunch at least 3 days a week and having fish for dinner some nights on top of that.  There's this little printable chart that you can look at to see how much fish you can eat without putting yourself at risk for having too much mercury in your system, and it's not much.  I've had to drop back to just 2 or 3 nights a week, and that's sad.  Fish is supposed to be good for you.

Now that I'm not going to be in class 2 days a week, my grocery bill is going to be even higher.  Usually, when I come in at 10pm, I decide I am too tired to eat, so I just go to bed without dinner.  Now I've got to add two nights to the roster.  I love to cook, and I have tons of recipe books, but I'm not sure what I'm going to be eating all those nights.  I guess I'm going to have to start making some casseroles or something.

Anyway, one more week of the current art-driven madness, and then I will move on to something else I can obsess over.

A Little Rest and Relaxation

Yesterday, after I slept a little late and spent half the day grocery
shopping, I sat down to finish all my french homework. All the
assignments, all the computer-based tests, and all the labs. I finished
up about 2 in the morning and I seriously felt like a huge weight had
been lifted off my shoulders. I was so excited and hyper that I cleaned
my apartment. Right then.

So today, even though I have yet to get started on my art project for
the week, I thought I deserved a little rest and relaxation, so I
decided to go to the pool (which is where I am now). It's 74 degrees
here and not a cloud in the sky, so the pool is swamped and there are
even kids swimming. I forgot how incredibly boring the whole laying out
in the sun is. I tried to bring magazines, but I don't want to wear
sunglasses, so it's too hard to read. So instead of reading, I'm
killing my eyes by typing in this entry into my tiny sidekick.

The only thing keeping me here is the fact that I am the whitest white
girl on the planet and am desperately in need of color. The children in
the pool with their absolutely incessant wave-making and splashing is
annoying me. The college-aged girls with their 6 pack abs drinking beer
are annoying me (who knew there were this many skinny girls left in the
world?). The lack of clouds is even annoying me because I am hot as
hell and yet, I can't bring myself to get into the pool/wave machine.

So much for the relaxation part. The rest part seems to be checking out
though, so at least that's something.

A Better Day For Once

This morning I didn't think today was going to be all that great.  I woke up on time but I felt like I had barely gotten any rest (and let's face it, months of six hours of sleep or less really do add up on you).  I yawned all the way to work.  Shortly after I got to work I discovered that I had posted last night's Dangergirl entry into DeLush.  I panicked and deleted it immediately, so yesterday will remain The Lost Blog Entry.  I don't remember what it was about, but I was immensely stressed out.

After all that, my day started improving.  I turned up my headphones on the XM really, really loud because my coworkers were talking a lot and distracting me and I retreated into my own little world where I actually get work done.   I easily accomplished three days of work today.  I'm going to have to try that whole ignoring everyone at work thing more often.

But it gets even better.  I went to French class and actually answered correctly everytime she called on me.  That never happens.  Never.  I'd gotten used to hearing things like, "I've never heard of that past participle before."  (She's very nice really, but comments like that do make me want to crawl under my desk.  I'd be more upset if everyone else got things right consistently.)

The crown jewel of my day was that I got my grade for the art project I wasted an entire weekend working on.  A+!!!!  Oh yeah, baby.  Suddenly, I am all about staying up till all hours this weekend and probably most of next week working on our next assignment (a 22 x 30 self portrait in graphite).

Also this weekend, I will madly be working on all of the French homework assignments I have not yet completed.  And all the labs.  And the computer based training.  I have my work cut out for me.  But only one more week of classes.  That alone is cause for celebration.

Vegas Finally (and Everything Else That I Have Been Up To and Not Blogging About)

Well, last I wrote I was packing for Vegas and then...I dropped off the face of the earth. 

Vegas was pretty fun, but I don't think it's going to stay on the list of places that L and I will go on vacation.  We went there because L's friend was getting married.  I asked her about the wedding (who was coming, what her husband-to-be -- number 3 -- was like, etc) on the plane, and that's when I learned what I was truly in for.  L's friend found her new husband on the Internet, playing Quake 3.  All of the guests are also rabid players of Quake.  They'd all met before through tournaments, but everyone pretty much lives across the country.  I was kind of afraid the wedding was going to be like going to a little mini DragonCon.  Suddenly, I thought, maybe I didn't really need 5 pairs of pink shoes.  Perhaps the dresses I brought to wear out would be a little over the top.  Check, check, and check.

The first night, L and I got to our room, got spiffed up, and went over to Bally's to meet the nerd brigade (who surprisingly enough, were not actually computer nerds by trade.  Most of them had pretty normal jobs.)  We finally decided to go to one of the little casinos on the strip that had lower minimum hands, although L and I had no desire to gamble so much.  So what this really amounted to was that we went to a crappier casino and drank expensive but not very good drinks.  In fact, I asked for a Stoli and cranberry.  No Stoli, just house vodka or Smirnoff.  Hmm.  How bout a Crown and Ginger.  No Crown. (!!!)  I finally settled on a 7 and 7, which was a lot of 7up and not so much of the good stuff.  We didn't stay out super late, which was fine since L and I both worked all day anyway.

Saturday we had planned to go lay by the pool all day, but it barely got above 70 and the pool at New York New York was mostly in the shade all day.  So we layed around and watched movies on TBS all day and then finally got ready for the wedding at the Viva Las Vegas wedding chapel in their lovely garden filled with plastic plants.  Sadly, Elvis did not officiate.  I was sorely disappointed.   However, we did get to ride in the limo to and from the wedding, and that was definitely a plus.  As you can imagine, the ceremony was lightening quick.  After the ceremony, we all had dinner together.  This was when I probably should have learned everyone's name, but all I know is that I was sitting between two guys named Fatman and Killer Joe.  After dinner, we cabbed it to some of the older hotels, the highlight of which was the Stardust, where we saw the only Elvis impersonator I've ever seen in Vegas.  That was probably the highlight of our trip, watching him swivel his hips and watching all of the elderly women in the audience swoon.

Sunday, things picked up a lot, because L and I spent the day shopping and hanging out by ourselves...the vacation part actually began.   I bought a ton of new stuff to review for DeLush, and that alone made my day.  That night, we dressed up and went over to MGM Grand, where they have this awesome bar called Centrifuge and had some lovely champagne.  The bar staff would get up on the bar and do these incredible choreographed routines every now again.  Very impressive.  We tried to go out clubbing at some other places, but ended the evening back at the Centrifuge.

Finally, Monday we shopped before we had to get on our plane at 10:45 at night.  I was seated beside a woman with a cranky toddler (normally, this would make me really cranky as well, but I totally felt for the kid when we were delayed 2 hours because one of the passengers had the flu.)  L was seated next to the fidgetiest person on earth, which completely prevented her from sleeping on the flight.  I got a couple hours maybe.

Ever since I got back, everything has been a blur.  I was assigned the art project FROM HELL last Tuesday night, which I spent the majority of our absolutely beautiful weekend cooped up inside working on.  (I did lay out in the sun for an hour on Saturday, with no sunscreen because I am a very silly, silly girl, and got kind of sunburned.) 

Yesterday I started my new job.  I had to attend orientation for the morning, which was a pretty nice way to start.  My team took me and the other new hires out to lunch and I ordered a magnificent dessert for the first time in ages.  And I got a sweet new monster size cube.  I'm still working on my old assignment for the next month or two, but I really am looking forward to moving on to my next assignment now that I have my cool new digs.

Okay, phew.  Fairly caught up now.  I can resume blogging now that I've caught up some.