My eye

So I think I have pink eye or something. Yesterday I attributed my mediocre American Idol Karaoke Revolution performance to blurry vision, and when I was taking my contacts out last night, I realized that my right eye was bloodshot and pink. I had trouble sleeping last night because my eye hurt, and all day today it's been watering incessantly. I went to Target and got some homeopathic pink eye drops, so I hope they work. It sucks because I can't see very well with my glasses and my eye is in pain and I look like I'm crying. Since the beginning of the school year/the start of my new job, I've been feeling more under the weather and have been afflicted with the weirdest crap-- it's gotta be my constant exposure to little kid germs, middle school kid germs, and grown-up germs. This better come to a stop soon, though, or I'm seriously going to reconsider becoming a teacher...

Hmmm....

I currently have $8.37 in my checking account. That's not cool. Not cool at all.

Exhausted

School and work and life is exhausting.

This is how I know...

...that I'm a loser. Both Netflix and WaMu are temporarily unavailable for their weekly scheduled maintenance. That's what I get for trying to update my queue and check my bank statement at 11:30 on a Saturday night. I'm lame.

It's snow-time!

So, apparently it's supposed to snow again tonight, and then melt late tomorrow morning. All this snow and ice makes me feel like Seattle actually does have more than one season...

Wacky weather

2006 concluded with record rainfall for the month of November, a snowstorm, and a memorable windstorm that knocked out power in the greater Seattle area for days (weeks in some places). And 2007 is off to a bang with a treacherous icestorm. Our governor has declared two states of emergency, and kids have missed more school around here than they have in over a decade, which they might not even have to make up this year if the school districts are granted waivers. Otherwise kids will be going to school until July.

And then there's lucky old me, who keeps getting out of school and/or work for various weather-related catastrophes. Missing school is always awesome, no matter how old you are. Missing work is pretty cool too, although it'd be even better if I still got paid for my hours missed...

Very scary dream

You know when you're sleeping at a strange place and you have really bizarre dreams? Well, the other night I was baby-sitting for a little girl and I spent the night at her house. I was kind of in this weird intermediary stage of sleep throughout the whole night, and I kept having those dreams about normal, everyday-type stuff where you really feel like you're awake-- you know, like you've overslept and you're running late, those kind of dreams. Anyway, I was drifting in and out of my quasi-slumber when I had this completely terrifying dream that there was a dark figure standing over me, strangling me in my sleep, and I awoke to his hands around my neck, choking me as I gasped for air. It was so disturbing that needless to say the remainder of my night I bounced in and out of a very restless sleep.

Crime scene?

My apartment building's storage room is terrifying. It's a large, dark room in the basement of the building that smells like must and wet cardboard. The main sprinkler valve is in this room, and the ceilings are so low there's this perpetual optical illusion that you're going to bash your head on the maze of pipes above, even though I personally still have a few measly inches of clearance before taking a blow to the top of my noggin. There are rows and rows of storage units about the size of a refrigerator constructed from what looks like leftover boxes from tenants moving in and out and the rusty, metal gridlocked door of a prison cell. The dying, fluorescent lights illuminate only pockets of the labyrinth of storage units, and upon stepping into the storage room, you're forced to endure the omnipresent fear that you might find yourself suddenly and without warning enveloped in complete and utter darkness if the minutes on the energy-conscious timer for the lights run out. The exit sign in the corner of the room glows ominous, offering more of a foreboding feeling instead of a sense of relief, and though I have been too fearful to further explore that part of the storage room, I am yet to be convinced that the exit sign does, in fact, lead to a viable escape route.

If R.L. Stine is still writing crappy teen horror fiction, then this storage room offers the perfect setting for an attempted murder/kidnapping/stalker-confrontation scene of a Fear Street book. Maybe I'll send him my description.

Donkey Lips

I was flipping through the channels tonight and I came across a god-awful Lifetime movie with Donkey Lips in it. Wait-- that was redundant, wasn't it?

I'm a glutton

I can't stop eating Christmas cookies. I can't stop eating dinner. I can't stop eating in general. I swear, every time I go home I gain at least five pounds because food is so good and so abundant-- and I'm not the one cooking it. It's funny because I'm one of those people who typically has an inordinate amount of self-control. But when it comes to food and eating, it's a different story entirely. Some of the time it's perfectly legitimate that I have a big appetite, which I am (obviously) more than happy to indulge. But most of the time, I just eat. Honestly, I'm surprised I can even run at all. I guess if people didn't unnecessarily stuff themselves during the holidays, than there'd be no reason for New Year's resolutions.

So much time, so little to do

This is the longest break from work/school I've had since...well, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure since when. Having time off is great, and I'm actually not doing too bad in terms of my big "to do" list. I rearranged my bedroom, finished watching Melrose Place, worked on my story, and am almost done with season two of The Office (which wasn't even on my list, so I think I should get bonus points). I've read a little, run a little, but mostly, I've been watching inordinate amounts of TV and eating Christmas cookies. I finished my Christmas shopping, including filling my cat's stocking with goodies (kitty treats, a toy, and a new collar). Of course, Hector's been having enough fun as it is tearing bows off presents under our tree and eating curling ribbon.

Blackout in Seattle

The recent windstorm in western Washington brought one of the biggest power outages ever. As a result, the place I work at STILL doesn't have power, so I didn't have to work today! The upside: I didn't have to work today; the downside: no money (which I especially need right now for the holidays).


In lighter news, my cat tried on my bra today.

Bad day

I know I shouldn't really complain, because everyone has bad days and people tend to have much worse days than mine, but yesterday I was in such a foul mood. Hector knocked my glass of water off my nightstand, I stepped in a big puddle, and Comcast sent me a cheap Christmas card-- and Michael's cheating on Jane (Melrose Place, but still, it's emotionally taxing). But today has been much better. Cassie and I have been baking Christmas cookies all day, and our apartment smells like chocolate and peanut butter. Yum!

Making progress...

OK, well I'm not quite as lazy as I thought. I guess I'm still on my super-energy post-final high. I actually completely cleaned and rearranged my bedroom immediately following my last post, and, in addition, ran five and a half miles and watched several episodes of Melrose, so I guess I'm not doing too bad. But I'll crash pretty soon, I'm sure of that. On Monday Cassie and I are headed to Portland for some good ol' tax-free Christmas shopping! Oh, and today we took Hector to see Santa Claus at Petsmart. I even bought him a kitty stocking, too. I just couldn't resist-- it's our first Christmas together, so I've gotta make it special.

I'm done!

I'm officially done with fall quarter! The final exam was a piece of cake, so no worries there. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with myself these next few blissful weeks of no school and minimal work. Here are some of the things on my list (besides all the obvious holiday-related things):
1) Clean and rearrange my bedroom-- it'll be a good project to keep me busy and put up a pretense that I'm being productive
2) Work on my story
3) Finish watching the first season of Melrose Place
4) Possibly re-watch the first season of Veronica Mars
5) Run five times a week
6) Finish reading The Historian (which I highly recommend)
7) Lose five pounds (one final attempt before the real resolutions)
8) Create my teaching placement profile and work on my resume (double yuck)

In reality, the only things I'll probably actually accomplish off this list are the ones that involve watching TV. But hey, at least it's a start.

The end is near...

The end of school, that is. Tomorrow is my last day. We're having a "group oral final," which is pretty much the fakest (is that a word?) test I'll ever take. Basically we were given a sheet of questions and had to watch a 20-minute eighth grade social studies lesson to analyze it for various teaching stuff. Each group of students (4 to a group) has to privately meet with our two professors and they'll randomly ask each of us a couple questions off the sheet. It's supposed to be a cooperative learning activity, which means that we "sink or swim" together. What a nice mentality. I'm not too worried, though, if only because I've reached the point where I don't care anymore and nothing else will fit in my brain. On the plus side, I don't feel like total crap anymore and I wasn't sick with what I thought I had, so I guess that's comforting. Anyway, there's too much fun stuff coming up with the holidays and everything to not be feeling well.

The Shield of Invincibility is weakening...

As depressing as this is to admit, I fear that I am no longer as "unbreakable" as I'd originally thought. I've been feeling pretty under the weather for awhile now, which really sucks for several reasons: 1) I NEVER get sick. I've never missed a day of work for any job ever, and pretty much from eighth grade on I've had perfect attendance in school (including college, where the only time I missed three days of class was when I went down to LA to my brother's graduation). Of course, this is not necessarily something to be proud of, because it probably reflects my obsessive personality more than it does my invicibility, but in all honesty I really am a pretty healthy girl. 2) I hate feeling 75%. It's like, I'm not sick enough to have a legitimate excuse not to do things, but I feel like crap. I can deal with brief, intense physical pain more than I can deal with feeling semi-crappy for weeks. 3) I hate going to the doctor. I don't go to the doctor often enough to even have a regular physician, and I always feel like they're going to think I'm exaggerating my problem or am going to label me a hypochondriac because I'm a fan of self-diagnosis. That being said, I'm not deathly ill or anything, but I know that when I, a girl who's capable of eating twice her body weight in food, lose my appetite, something's gotta be up.

Frozen shut

After finally deciding to venture outside this afternoon in the frigid 26 degree Seattle air, I headed to my car to hop in and drive to Greenlake to go for a little winter run. Much to my dismay, I found that my car doors were frozen shut-- at nearly one o'clock in the afternoon! I eventually pried the passenger door open (with a genuine fear of breaking the handle off), and was able to let my car warm up for a little while I scraped layers of ice off of my windshield. The funny thing was, none of the other cars around me had snow on them-- I guess they hadn't been parked there for 24 hours like I had. Anyway, notwithstanding frozen car doors, today was perfect. There was absolutely no traffic because of all the school closures, and hardly anyone was at Greenlake. It's so strange seeing a little bit of snow on the ground and the sun shining-- both are incredibly rare sights in Seattle.

Snow!!!

There is snow on the streets of Seattle!

iPod Nano + Nike+= Awesome

This mathematical equation looks deceivingly complicated, but allow me to take a few minutes to plug (no pun intended) my latest and greatest tech toy (compliments of Nick). The Nike+ is possibly one of the coolest and most ingenious inventions ever. There's a small sensor that goes on your shoe, and a receiver that hooks into your iPod. The Nike+ measures the distance you run, calories burned, and pace you're running at. It stores your workout info and then automatically uploads it to the Nike+ website, where you can create goals for yourself and track your progress. It's the best running tool I've ever used. Of course, it sucks that my treadmill is busted, and that it's been pouring nonstop for the past 22 days (no exaggeration), but screw it, I don't care. I've been running outside in the freezing cold pouring rain all for the love of Nike+. And it feels pretty damn good.