Software is expensive.

I had a problem with the computer. It would not access wireless.
My programmer friend said he'd take a look at it. Only fix we could find was re-installing vista. I hate vista, so why not buy Windows 7?
That's what I did.
Except I first tried to buy it online and THOUGHT I cancelled the order, but when I got my computer back and checked my email I found out that the order went through! Loverly, and their return policy is very complex. I don't yet know if they'll let me return it, so there's $150 down the drain.
He took everything I wanted off the computer, wiped it, and then put my desired items back on.
Well, except for Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point, Photoshop, and any other software I had to install beforehand. Crap, didn't think about that.
Thankfully, I know a website that allows students and educators to get a VERY good deal on software. Word, Excel, Power Point, Access, Outlook, and Publisher for $99. With their warranty program and rush shipping (I have to proof read a paper by Jan 4), it came out to $139, the same cost as the Windows 7 software I DIDN'T but did order. I hope they accept a screen shot of my class schedule as proof of enrollment. Now to find our Photoshop disk.
At least I have my photos and documents. I just can't see the documents yet.

I must be insane

I am breaking one of my personal school-time rules and getting a dog.
You will all meet Penny shortly.

Merry Christmas!

I realize that technically Christmas has been over for about two hours, but I hope you all had a merry Christmas (or a happy one, whatever). My family and I had a very relaxing (for the most part), laid back day at home with just us, followed by a viewing of Sherlock Holmes, which I liked very much.
My best gift hands down was my power drill and circular saw with a bunch of drill bits. I know I sound like such a guy every Christmas, last year it was tinsnips. However, I have noticed quite a few times this year when a drill would have been nice (like when I had to wait two weeks for my uncle to hang up my wall desk because I didn't have one) and now if I have the odd desire to build something, I can! I've moved to a house with a garage from my apartment, so I could really and truly build something. Hello, creative outlet! I told my mom how I felt rather masculine and she said "No! You are a liberated woman! Independent!" To which I sang "W-O-M-A-N!"
I can be totally feminine and totally competent at a non-traditional female role (such as working with power tools). Why is it I am just now realizing this considering I was raised in an egalitarian home?

Home at last...

...and quarantined in my room because my allergies have already caused my right eye to swell up (always my right eye...) and my face to itch all over. Kapu and Bob get a bath TOMORROW!
Also partly because my family has passed an undefined illness around for the past couple weeks.
Welcome home, Kate!

Oh sticky tack, we used to be friends...

Sticky tack stains sheetrock. I guess I forgot that when I used it to hang all but three things on my walls. I've tried using DAWN to get it off but now I have blue dawn spots on my walls. I've heard of using a cornstarch paste to take it off, so I will try that next, but I may just have to end up painting over it.
Dumb apartment. Dumb sticky tack. Dumb sheetrock.
Hmph.
If anyone has a suggestion please let me know! This apartment didn't have a security deposit so they'll just charge me afterwards for anything they have to do and I'm afraid of them taking advantage of me!

I'm done.

It's done. I did it. I made it.
Now I have to pack, move, and clean. Then I get to go home.

Just hold on until Saturday

I have an exam tomorrow, a final paper due midnight Thursday, a lit review due Friday and a final that same day and time. Then I am done with my first semester of graduate school. I just have to buckle down.
Then, I get to move out of my apartment and into a house and set it up (I have to be completely out by noon on the 18th), then a graduation party, then HOME! Then Christmas! Then a reception for some friends who got married (Two hours away and on January 1st, no less!). Then I don't have class until January 20th. Likely the longest winter break I've ever had.
I have so much to do, and I'm really worried it won't be finished in time, but at the same time I keep reminding myself that for good or ill it will all be over by Saturday.

My favorite book

I read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens every year (at least I try very hard to!). I got an early start because I only have snippets of time to read during the semester. I am so thankful that this book was free on the iPhone, else I would have to look everywhere to dredge up a copy (I left mine at home!).
I forget throughout the course of the year just how brilliantly written this is. Yes, the plot is amazing as well, but I gather new nuances into Scrooge's character every year, new imagery (Ghost of Christmas Past...I hardly knew ye!), new insight into this beloved (and over-told) story.
I have parts of this book memorized. Not large parts, but lines nonetheless. I think this is due in part to my childhood (well...not so much childhood as lifelong) obsesion with A Muppet Christmas Carol, to my knowledge the most faithful adaptation of the story, down to Belle (as her husband in another scene calls her) leaving Scrooge. So many stage renditions I've seen give her an angry disposition, some extreme passion, sobbing, yelling. Dickens paints the picture of a woman who is tired, so very tired, of sitting by watching her beloved change, to watch his gaze turn from her to a golden idol. He describes her as "looking mildly, but with steadiness upon him" she is decided. She is not jealous, she is not angry, she is tired. And she knows what must be done.
The next scene shows her approximately seven years before the fateful Christmas Ebenezer goes on his journey through the past, present and future (her husband describes Marley as close to death and earlier in the book Scrooge explains his partner died seven years ago that very Christmas Eve night). The room is so full of children running around causing mischeif, and her daughter is the very picture of what a father would hope to have. She is so very happy, and without Scrooge. This, not the memory of being lonely in the schoolhouse, not the memory of seeing his dearly departed sister nor the memory of his loss of Belle, seeing this is what causes Scrooge to be overcome, seeing how happy he could have been is what causes him to physically struggle with the ghost the ghost of HIS past (symbolism? imagery? both???) and put the cap upon his head in an attempt to drown out the light.

"He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.
" ' Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!'
"In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head."

I love this book. Give it a revisit this season if you have a mind to.

**Edit**
While searching for some information about the life of Dickens as he wrote this book (in six weeks, no less) I came across his original manuscript as archived and annotated by the New York Times. I love seeing the way authors change their works over time! It gives me hope that my book will not be as abysmal as it currently appears!

Paparrazi...papa, paparrazi...

Today I was walking through the quad wearing my gloves, trench coat, and a scarf over my ears and around my neck because it was what we in Texas call "cold." I'm sure my Canadian readers (all two of them) will laugh at my gear for 45 F weather, but in my defense it was windy and I suffer from raynaud's phenomenon.
Anyway, whilst walking across the quad, with my coat flapping in the wind that was blasting right at me, I happened to notice a woman stop about twelve feet away from me, pull out a disposable camera, and snap a picture of me. I was definitely making a "what the heck, lady" face when the flash popped. Then the guy she was with nudged her along and they walked off.

Why? Why randomly snap my picture? Surely it couldn't have been a very flattering one. And could you at least have the decency to be sneaky about it?

This town is so weird...