online JOURNAL

29 December 03
I had a wonderful five days off work for Christmas. I relaxed, did stuff around the house, and spent time with family and friends. Frederick and I went to my parents' for Christmas, but we didn't get Xmas dinner because Mom made a big brunch and no one was hungry come dinnertime. My favourite cousin Paul is in town from Ottawa for the holidays and it's always nice to see him (he wants to move to SF...can someone please give him a job and/or a greencard?), and my very good friend Shelly and her husband took us out to dinner as they came through town during their drive home to Portland.

Partway through the long weekend I had a strange feeling - I had neither work nor school to occupy my time, and therefore I felt like I had nothing to do. I'm not quite sure why I felt that way since I had spent several days baking, cleaning and attempting to organize the house. I guess I'm so used to being busy that I am a little unused to having "free" time.

Sixteen more hours at work, then I'm free! Come Friday at 5:00 pm, I will be happily unemployed. I'm getting a little nervous about the lack of income, but something tells me the imminent innundation of schoolwork will quickly cancel that out.

16 December 03
Eight more days of work. How am I going to make it? If the days were dragging before, they've since turned glacial. I am desperately seeking diversions.

I gave notice here via email at about 8:30 yesterday morning. As of 10:30 this morning I hadn't heard a peep of acknowledgement out of my manager. We crossed paths in the hall a short time after that and she was pretty much forced to say something, "Sorry to see you leave, yadda yadda," otherwise I'm not sure when she would have said anything.

A funny story related to this: two of my cow-orkers just gave notice as well, one on Friday and another yesterday.

Not so funny story related to this: they gave verbal notice and the aforementioned manager is trying to screw them out of working through the end of the year, meaning that not only would they not get paid for the holidays, their health insurance and other benefits would end before they began their new jobs in January. (Note: learn from others' mistakes; do everything in writing; stand firm.)

All this confirms I did the right thing by leaving this gawdforsaken hellhole. Worst. Job. Ever.

15 December 03
When a person has a cancer which eats away at them and begins to deprive them of enjoying life, it is excised. So, with that in mind, the first thing I did when I got to work this morning was to give notice. My last day of work will be January 2.

I am SOFA KING HAPPY.

Since my daytime schedule will be opening up, this gives me the opportunity to go back to school full-time. Next semester I will be taking 11 units - Anatomy, Chemistry and Political Science - plus a half-unit First Aid & CPR class to renew my certification. And since I now have the ability to go to school full-time, I have also changed my educational goal from an A.S. to a B.S., and will transfer from SF City College to SF State University once I've completed my general ed requirements. (As it turns out, it takes almost as many units to earn an A.S. in nursing as it does a B.S., so why not take a few extra classes and get a more advanced degree?)

I am happy. I am excited. But I'm also a little bit scared. I've got a big goal in front of me, and I've just really committed myself to it. (Not that I wasn't committed before, but now it just seems different.) *Whew* Wish me luck!

14 December 03
As I have mentioned, I've been giving a lot of thought to my job as of late. Over the past few months it has been affecting me more and more deeply. I'm generally a pleasant, friendly person, but recently I've caught myself slipping into the cold, apathetic shell I wore for too long in the past.

I've put up walls while at work in order to protect myself from a job I do not like. I'd leave the office for lunch, for instance, when someone would happen to ask me directions or attempt to make pleasant conversation, and my first thought would be to snarl and wonder, "Why the fuck are you talking to me?!" But instead I would pause, respond to them in an appropriate manner, and smile. When I smiled I felt so completely different, like the walls around me had ceased to exist. Or rather, smiling made me realize that I had put the walls up, and they were keeping me from enjoying my life.

If a job can have that much of a negative effect on my happiness, then something is wrong. Something needs to change. And it will, tomorrow.

12 December 03
Hrm, my plans for Xmas dinner seem to have been thwarted. I cannot find anyplace that sells reindeer.

Ditmer's in Mtn. View hasn't been carrying it since the Chernobyl accident (they have a Northern European supplier). Local places get it from Canada and have difficultly importing it. And online places have too great of a minimum order.

Oh well.

9 December 03
This is funny, I've never been so excited about a political election before. I walked out of the house this morning to see a "Matt Gonzalez - Vote Today" on the front gate. I grabbed it and had it displayed on my bike as I drove to work; now it's here in the office where everyone who walks in can see it. As I drove to work this morning, I passed at least three intersections where Matt supporters were standing and waving signs. They seemed to get quite a few honks of acknowledgement. It made my stomach do that little flip of excitement.

Matt really seems to have the people behind him. Let's just hope they all show up at the polls today.

2 December 03
I've just changed my political affiliation to the Green Party.

This is a big deal to me. I've always hated politics and never wanted to be bothered with them. I didn't even begin to vote until I was in my mid-twenties; I registered when Clinton was running for president so I could help oust the Republicans from office. Part of what frustrates me about politics is that is takes so much effort to get anything done. I never had the time or energy to lobby for the issues I felt were important, so I ignored it all, hoping it would go away. (It didn't.) Then one day something clicked and I realized that by simply voting I *am* making my voice heard. And switching to a party which better reflects my personal values is the next logical step in that process.

I read up on the issues and positions taken by both the Green and the Libertarian parties. They both support things which I feel are crucial to my well being, particularly the preservation of civil liberties and personal freedoms. But I chose the Green party because it puts a special emphasis on ecology and the environment - one of my major concerns.

Now I'm looking forward to San Francisco finally putting a good mayor in office.

1 December 03
It's the Monday after a long holiday weekend, and that makes it even more difficult to be sitting here at work. I don't want to be here, and I keep getting distracted from actual work, despite the ever-growing piles of it on my desk.

Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to my job. I am overqualified for and unchallenged by this job, but took it because after several months of looking I was unable to get any bites on another tech position. (And frankly, a boring job that pays the bills is better than no job and no money.) Moving from IT to a clerical job has been an extremely difficult transition for me to make, and I'm still having difficulty accepting it. I've been here almost a year and a half now, and within that time I've experienced just about every emotion between "I am smart, and capable of so much more than this!", to "If I'm working at such a crappy job then I must be worthless". In fact, I am starting to get such a negative attitude that I am starting to wonder if I'll ever be happy about another job in the future.

I don't like the way this job makes me feel or the negative attitude it has rekindled in me. I don't like the fact that I am grumpy and unpleasant regarding anything work-related. I don't like being embarrassed about my job or working with people I do not care for (although that's a subject for a post of its own).

For the time being, I get through my days by telling myself I won't be here forever, and once I'm out of school the job situation will be much better.

29 November 03
One of the things I love about being a grown up: being able to eat a slice of pecan-pumpkin pie for breakfast!

Yesterday was Frederick's birthday. I spent the day painting, and then making him a big turkey dinner. We bought a 20 lb. turkey for the two of us because we wanted to make sure to have a lot of leftovers.

Today I am finishing painting the computer room. I figure it's the one room in the house where we can take some chances, so I'm painting it in shades of purple - three walls and the ceiling are light lavender (almost white), one wall is a medium muted purple, and the trim is a dark grape. It looks pretty good!

I need to put a second coat on the last wall, then paint the trim around the two doors, and then the doors themselves. I am hoping to have everything finished today so we can then put the desks and bookshelves back into place. But right now it may be time for me to go eat a turkey sammich.

24 November 03
Sign #n that you work for a lame-ass company:

Invitations for the department Christmas party are sent via Evite under the name "Dr. Seuss". A follow-up email is sent to employees telling them that the Evite was not spam, and giving an Evite URL where they can go to see the invitation. The amount of spam I receive at my work address increases because Evite now has that address.

19 November 03
I went to the gym today for the first time in 6+ months (yay me!) and paged through a discarded Cosmopolitan magazine to while the time as I was ellipticalling away. I don't know if Cosmo has gone through any changes since I last looked at one, but man, I have nothing in common with their target audience. I don't look like the people in the pictures, I don't care if some celebrity I've never heard of is wearing a "don't", and after seeing some of the "true confessions" sent in by readers, geezus I'm glad those people are not my friends. If the attitudes described in the confessions are typical of their audience, then their audience are a bunch of untrustworthy, self-centered, deceiving, egotistical idiots.

No wonder I hate people. They suck.

18 November 03
A mushroom is not a vegetable. It is not even in the plant kingdom. It is a fungus.

An artichoke is a thistle. Can a thistle be a vegetable, or are they mutually exclusive? Do non-vegetables contain nutrients, i.e. phytochemicals, or are they simply a celluose-based fiber?

*looks down at the artichoke in her lunch*

What *is* it?

11 November 03
Cats are odd little beasts. Kisa is a little strange, even for a cat. As with most typical felines, she follows me around the house, always wanting to be near me (unless, of course, it's during those 18-20 hours a day where she just *has* to get her beauty sleep). Just now she jumped on the desk and attempted to walk between me and the keyboard & monitor since they were stealing my attention from her. When we're in bed, or sitting on the couch covered with a blanket, Kisa will walk up to the edge of the blanket and patiently wait until it is lifted so that she can crawl underneath. She plays with her toy mice, but often when you're not looking because that might spoil her carefully crafted staid image; I know this because the rug in the living room is often askew in the morning, and the mice scattered about.

But the strangest thing about Kisa is her masochistic streak. She loves to be spanked. Sometimes when petting her I will start to pat her firmly on her back, at the base of her tail. I'll pat harder and harder until my hand begins to get sore. And all the while she just stands there, mrrowing, with a funny look of enjoyment on her face.

She's an odd little cat, I tell you.

30 October 03
This is me procrastinating on homework.

I have a 4-5 page report to write (it should be an easy one, though), a couple of chapters of tedious reading and note-taking, and three take-home quizzes to do before Tuesday. I should get started.

*procrastinate*

I got back my mid-term scores yesterday - "A"s in both Sociology and Women's Health, yay! I was a little worried about the Sociology class, simply because I've been so busy these last few months and I wasn't sure I was dedicating enough time to my studies, so I was happy to see I had done well.

Next semester's schedule comes out on Tuesday, and I'm going to try to get in to both Anatomy and Chemistry. (The former I'm really excited about, especially since we should be doing cadaveric dissections; the latter is a bit intimidating, with all its required memorization.) If I get into both, I will *really* not have any free time, eek.

Tomorrow night is Halloween party night. I still have 24 hours in which to come up with a costume!

29 October 03
Yay, I'm home! Frederick was waiting for me as I got off the plane last night, and I felt my heart beat a little harder as soon as I saw him. I had a good vacation and managed to go an entire week without caffeine. (Granted, I've kept my caffeine addiction level low, but still, it's been oh-so-many years since I've gone without.)

I don't go back to work until tomorrow, but I have so many things I want to get done today - unpacking, laundry, shower, schoolwork, drop off film, class tonight. I've just spent the last couple of hours catching up on mail and reading journals, so I'd better get started if I'm going to get anything done today. Holiday pictures and details are forthcoming!

19 October 03
Mmm, it's been a much-needed lazy Sunday. It's been a long time since I've had a full day of relaxation, and I think it has done me good. We didn't wake up until Noon, then after eating breakfast I spent some time packing, and then doing a bunch of reading for school, with a little nap thrown in there somewhere.

I have a feeling today's laziness may have been brought on in part by the very generous bartender at New Wave City last night. It was the first time either Frederick or I had been to a club in a year (since I last spun at the DNA) and I had a great time. We saw many wonderful friends with whom we talked for hours, and Frederick had the unfortunate honour of hearing me display my extensive but useless knowledge of song lyrics. Somewhere around 3 or 3:30 we started losing steam and grabbed a cab home.

Last night had me wondering why I don't go out more often. I am usually pretty busy with school and really do look forward to staying home when I can doing things (or doing nothing) around the house, but going out one night a month or so shouldn't be such a big deal, especially when we get to spend time with so many friends.

Heh, I had conversations with a couple of different people last night about how, despite our best efforts to the contrary, we seem to be getting old. Years ago in our clubbing heydays we thought we'd never stop going out regularly, but yet, we have. Although I don't know if I attribute it so much to getting "old" as I do to "been there, done that". I guess I've moved on from thinking there was nothing else to do besides go to clubs; in retrospect, that was such a narrow point of view. But along those lines, I remember being nervous about meeting new people who did not have similar tastes in music because I thought we would have nothing in common, and I wouldn't be able hold a conversation with them. Hrmph.

Tomorrow evening I leave for Belize! A week of scuba diving, mayan ruins, jungle exploring and rum drinking, yay!

10 October 03
Yesterday I turned in the keys at my old apartment. I am now officially, completely moved.

I spent last weekend cleaning the place. Two coats of primer and one coat of "apartment white" later, you can no longer see the black paint or the glow-in-the-dark stars that once covered my bedroom ceiling. And the work paid off - during my final walk-through, the landlord didn't even look at the ceiling. She declared the place "clean", which means I should get my entire deposit back. Yay!

Now that moving is over with, I'm hoping I can relax a bit. This will be the first weekend since August where I will be home and don't have to go pack/move/clean/whatever. And now maybe I can begin spending some time with friends again. Because I've been so busy, I haven't really had time to do anything fun. And I've missed several birthdays and other notable events, for which I profusely apologize.

In retrospect, that's one way I've really changed over the past decade. From '94 to '97 or so I was constantly going out. I'd go to clubs 3, 4, 5 or more nights a week, and when I wasn't DJing or dancing, I'd go out and spend time with friends. I got so little sleep that I was always getting sick and I rarely spent any time at home.

Today, sleep takes precedence. I used to think I'd have to attend every event lest something happen and I miss it. Now I know that no matter what I do, I'll never be able to do *everything*, so instead I pick and choose my events carefully. I give priority to things which will either help me grow as a person, or which will enhance my friendships. And of course, I still do the fun things. And you know what? I'm happier this way :)