Maledicte

• After talking to some people, looking at some schools and thinking about it, I've officially decided to withdraw from St. John's at the end of this semester. I've decided that it's not worth making myself suffer through half the program and making myself miserable just for the half that I like. So, I've filled out my withdrawal form, and I have to make a trek through all the administrative offices to get them to say that I don't have any outstanding balances or what have you, and then... I will officially not go to this school anymore.

• Since the part of the program that I like can pretty much be done in a Classics program, that's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at a bunch of schools in California (land of fair weather and mostly no snow) that are cheaper than St. John's and Lang. And have good Classics programs, of course. I might look into getting some sort of Creative Writing minor, but I'm not sure I want to focus on my writing in a college. I prefer to do that in specialized workshops around the country (which I swear, one day I will actually apply to them).

• Since it's too late to apply for the coming Fall semester anywhere, I'll be taking the next 6 months off at minimum. It's possible I could find a place to start for the 2012 Spring semester, but it's entirely possible that I will wait until the 2012 Fall semester to actually start somewhere, which would give me the most amount of time to work and make/save money. Since I have cats, I'd like to be able to live off of whatever campus I end up at, and saving money through a year would allow me to have a cushion of savings for rent somewhere.

• Still looking for a car. School officially ends on May 19, and I would really love to have a car by then. Or soon after then. (Found a couple good ones on Craigslist, and I am going to ovary up and call them tonight.)

• I am planning on selling most of my Japanese manga on eBay this summer. Because I have a bunch of it that has been sitting in boxes for years that I am never going to get back into or ever going to be able to read and I can make some extra $$$ off of it. If anyone has any experience with selling on eBay, please let me know. I am kind of clueless. I have an account, have registered as a seller and have hooked my Pay Pal up to it, but between now and when I sort through all my manga in a couple weeks and start taking pictures, I kind of need to know what I'm supposed to do? Idk. (Possibly I will sell some of my books to a used bookstore, too. Because why not. I have too many of them that I've never read and am probably never going to.)

• Have to decide which of my next... four tattoos I want to get once school ends. Fleur-de-lys tramp stamp, celtic pentacle on my hip, "Steal Your Heart" on my... ankle?, or "Keep Calm and Carry On" on my... wrist? If I felt like sticking a poll in here, I would. Maybe another time. Just tell me in comments if you have an opinion. :)

Whoops, class time.

• Had my last real class today. Still have one last seminar Thursday night, but that doesn't count as a class. Had my don rag and it went well: my tutors all said good things about me. Seminar and Language tutors said that I was a leader in their classes. :">

• I'm going to be staying here in Santa Fe this break because we can't really afford vacations for me right now. And same with the car. I might see about practicing on my mom's car more over break and maybe I'll be able to get my license with that and use it when she's in NYC. That's kind of the most practical option, no matter how much I don't want to drive a car with a stick shift. Still, being able to go dancing and go to parties and got to movies when I want and go meet friends when I want would be nice. So maybe this is a thing I should do.

• Even though it wasn't on the list, I think I've decided which netbook I want: the Dell Inspiron Mini. (Maybe there are multiple models of this? I dunno. But that's the basic one.) I know Dell has a pretty good customer service (because I know someone who had a Dell and frequently busted it up) which is a definite upside. Also it seems to be a pretty good product, on the higher end of the cheap netbooks, but still reasonably priced. So. Hopefully this is something it's reasonable to ask for for my birthday.

• Speaking of which, I will be 22 in a week. Not a big deal, really. It's kind of a weird age to be. Nothing special happens. Nothing special will happen for a long time, unless you count 25. I so frequently don't feel like an adult because I am surrounded by people so much younger—and in my opinion—so much more immature than me. I frequently feel like I am being dragged down to their level of maturity, too. Which annoys me. I've sort of been distancing myself from most of the people at my school lately, partially because I want to focus on doing my work and partially because being around some of these people is depressing and makes me uncomfortable.

• Speaking of birthdays (and thus holidays, sort of): my wishlist is here if you want to get me something. Please feel free to leave a link to yours and I will see if there's something I can give you!

• This sort of means that I haven't been making friends, though. Well, I made some. And about half the people that I am actually good friends with are leaving and not coming back next semester. That makes this all sort of hard, too.

• Wow. Did not mean for this to be depressing. It started on such a good note!

• I've decided that it might be time to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And possibly The Chronicles of Narnia books. (Unfortunately, my copies of both are still in NJ with my exboyfriend's family because they were missed when my stuff was shipped back to me. Hopefully I will get these back, though. Particularly because my copy of LotR is a 50th Anniversary Edition and my omnibus of the CoN is autographed by most of the cast of second movie. :>)

• Over this break I also want to: start knitting a sweater, start sewing a quilt, bake lots using my new mixer, translate some part of the Christian Scriptures from Greek to English for fun, writing one fic a week, and probably butt-tons of RPing. We'll see how I manage all this. (Possibly also I will be rereading some of my favorite Nora Roberts trilogies.)

• This is your last chance to sign up for a holiday card. I will be sending these out probably on the 17th. So if you want a card, leave your address there so I can send you one!

• I went to the gym today! I feel pretty good about this. I finally got some sports bras and some clothes I can work out in, got a locker at the gym, brought some shower stuff, did it all. (And also totally forgot a towel. Luckily they had some that they let us use.) I rode the stationary bike for 25 minutes on the second hardest resistance. 5 miles, bitches! And then I took a long satisfying shower.

• And then my dad made me walk up the mountain instead of actually bringing me to the top. My legs hate me.

• I has a paper to write for next week. Small one, and not about anything that I don't have a pretty good grasp on, but I'm determined not to put it off. So I'll probably see if I can figure out what I want to write about tonight and see if I can get a little bit of an outline. Look! I can totally be a good student! ...she says, knowing that she has already misplaced the word list for The Bacchae. Whoops. I have to find that tonight.

• Mom and I also got some kitty eyedrops for Nyx. Her eyes seem a little bit better, actually. We'll probably still have to take her to the vet soon, but at least she might not have an eye infection. But zomg. It's like Nyx sleeps all day just so that she can get hyper at 9:30pm. I know this is a cat thing. But she hasn't yet learned where she's allowed to be, so she keeps trying to come up on my desk and walk all over my laptop. Silly kitten.

• Speaking of Mom: she's going away til the end of the month, and while I am looking forward to having the house to myself for a little while—not that I don't love my mother dearly, I just also like having the house to myself—I have no car/driver's license to take advantage of this fact. Curses! Foiled again!

• SPEAKING OF CAR, my dad and I are going to call a bunch of people about their Craigslist ads this Friday, because we can't go see any cars until Sunday. So. Here's hoping that one of the 15 people we call about their ads will have a car that's safe and working and will pass an inspection for when I take the test. I neeeeeeed a car. If only to protect my shoulder/back. I have to carry everything around with me at school. Which always means my laptop, and sometimes means several books including my several pound giant Torah that I need for seminar. Oof. With a car I would be able to leave books in my car if I didn't need them until the end of the day. My shoulder needs it. I was looking at it when I was dressing to work out, and I was like, "Holy shit, I look a little like I've been abused." It's kind of bruised, plus the marks on my back and ribs from where my bag bangs into me. I am clearly a crazy person.

• Oof. It's gotten late. I need to actually go do the things that I need to do.

• P.S. And by the end of this post, it's no longer playing "The USS Make Shit Up"—which, if anyone knows that that is and how it relates to my icon, major props to you. Mira, you're disqualified. :P—and now it's playing "Starship Trooper". Yeah, as in, "I lost my heart to a starship trooper / Flashing lights in hyper space / Fighting for the Federation / Hand in hand we'll conquer space". My music cracks me up sometimes.

• I changed my layout! I like it, but I don't know if I will keep it for overly long. We'll see.

• I am all registered for classes this year, and this semester's tuition is paid. (Thanks, Mom!) I am excited. I am officially a sophomore! For the first time ever! And looking over the seminar reading list for this year, holy crap, we read a lot of really awesome things this year. I am SUPER EXCITED.

• My Covert Affairs fic isn't going as I hoped. This makes me sad. I might have to just keep going, and see if I can edit it into shape. I definitely won't finish it before I start school Thursday night. Sad face.

• The cat I'm fostering—Hank Henry, who I've already started calling Hanky Panky because it cracks me up—is the sweetest thing ever. I slept really badly last night, but he slept with me all night and every time I woke up he was there ready to accept pettings. It was adorable. I am glad to offer him a house for the year.

• The adoption people haven't called me back about the kitten. D: You'd think, for a company that wants to adopt out the surplus of animals they have, they would make a greater effort to call people when they call about adopting. I am thinking about names, but I am not settling on anything until a) we know if she's coming home with us, and b) until I can see her and see which one fits best. She is ADORABLE though.

ETA: My mom just heard from them and is going to go fill out adoption papers in the morning!

• I need to get my license and a car. Having my father drive me to work every day is one thing, but having him drive me to back and forth to school—and I'm not in middle school anymore—is totally unacceptable. Going to have to deal with this asap.

• Guys, my first class is tomorrow night. I'm already prepared, but I am still nervous. And I want there to be a party on Saturday that I can go to so I won't feel sad that I missed all the excitement for the whole week of registration. Because I am sad that I haven't met any new freshmen, and haven't seen most of my friends.

• Alas, no car for me. Or, not that car. It had a thing wrong with it that would take too much to fix. So now I keep looking. On the upside, I have an appointment to take the road test on Aug. 9th. So. Hopefully there is still a car in my future. At least there is probably driving in my future.

• Also, no phone today. Verizon tricked my mom into thinking that I was eligible for an upgrade, but it was this weird early upgrade thing where you pay not quite as much as buying the phone outright, but if I just wait a month—til Aug. 22—I can get the expensive blackberry for free. So, we shall wait. *taps foot impatiently* I will look forward to not having a touch screen. I am way bothered by it now.

• My tattoo is all itchy, but I know if I scratch it it's going to hurt—or at least tingle and ache. And I have a feeling that one of the things they forgot to tell me was not to pick at it when it peels. But it's making me fidgety. And it itches! I keep almost scratching and then remembering not to. I won't always remember, damn it.

• I was looking at ads for kittens on Craigslist. Even though I am not getting a kitten at any point in the foreseeable future. Kitten. Wants.

• Um. I would like things in my life to stop not going my way. I mean, I don't expect everything to go my way, but I'd like a couple things to go better than they have been. And no one seems to have useful advice on what to do, including myself. Pretty much the only useful things is today's Twitter horoscope and a random twitter from a new friend. Otherwise.... so much mental flailing.

• TATTOO. OWS. Actually, it stopped hurting like... 10 minutes after it was done. And it wasn't totally unbearable while I was getting it either. The weirdest part was when the guy was right over the bone, and it made my bone vibrate. Weird and uncomfortable. Still, I AM VERY HAPPY. Picture of my ankle coming as soon as I take the bandage off. (Which is to say, probably tomorrow because though it'll come off tonight, I am tired.) Guys, I have a tattoo. Ehehehe. :>

• I have absinthe lollipops! They have been added to my collection of alcohol flavored lollipops—so far I have Irish Creme and White Russian, and now Absinthe. :) Isn't that awesome? For those interested, I highly recommend heading over to Lollyphile. It's awesome.

• Tonight was a lot of fun, and then it was almost disappointing but it started to look up, and then it was disappointing again but with hope for later in the week. That's... quite a lot of ups and downs for a few short hours. Still, looking forward to the beginning of my week.

• I'm trying to maneuver my dad into taking me to see the car tomorrow. Can't buy it tomorrow, but we can check it out and get some first impressions and tell the guy something like, "If the mechanic checks it out and says it's good, we'll take it." I'm crossing my fingers and toes. I've started having distracting daydreams about having a car of my own. I swear I stared off into space for a good 15 minutes today at one point.

• My dad and I finished the 6th season of The West Wing tonight. Don't know how long it will take us to watch the last season, but jeez. Jeeeeez.

• There was a polar bear in my dream last night, and today my dad told me about the pizzly bears. Also, there was a black bear in my front yard last night, which scared the crap—which was almost just typoed to "carp"—out of me. Whooo boy. Can you tell it's time for sleep?