Too many blogs

I've been away awhile (since June, apparently), and I haven't been up to too much of late. I've been meeting with professors at OSU about the PhD that I would like to embark upon with some success, and I have been getting ready for Dragon*con which is Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, GA.

I have too many blogs that I'm trying to maintain, so I need to figure out the theme of each one so that I can keep posting without dropping one blog for another.

Once I have that figured out, I'll let you know.

Anyway, if you happen to be attending Dragon*con, look me up! At least one of the days I'm there, I'm going to be a pirate, and I plan on being corseted at least one other day there. You'll just have to guess which one is me out of the tens of thousands of people who will be there. It's our first time going, so I'm planning on having a lot of fun.

Well, hopefully I won't be a stranger to this blog for much longer.

Peace out, y'all!

K. C. at August 24, 2007 7:40 PM | 0 comments

Wow...that took awhile

I disappeared from the internet for awhile. For some reason, I got away from my blogs, Social Networking accounts, and anything that would keep people in-the-loop on me and it's been very difficult to get back into the swing of things.

It was too easy to stop, but it's hard to start up again.

So what's happened in the mean time? I decided that I wanted to make Bento box lunches for my husband and myself, so I went crazy on eBay and bought a bunch of items (bento boxes, egg shapers, side dish containers) and I'm only just now starting to use them (I was missing the band for my box so I didn't get to use it for awhile). I've also decided that I want to seriously pursue a PhD in Comparitive Studies in a study of strong female characters in comics, and I made the first steps in that endeavor (which I will [hopefully] write about soon), but it's a competitive department to get into, so I'm going to need a lot of help [wish me luck!]. I've bought a brand new mp3 player (the Sansa e250r) and went through hell getting a 2G micro-SD card on eBay and ended up with two of them (long, stupid story). I had a great time at Marcon flying virtually solo this year (my friend was turning 18 this year and wanted to have a party, but has said that he wants to go next year) & I got some great anime DVDs and my husband bought a kimono for himself believe it or not! Sure, there are some things that need to be improved, but I had a great time & even the dance was awesome.

I got to spend time playing with my young cousin on Saturday, my friend L's sister is getting married this Saturday (I went to her shower last month & it was very nice), and my husband and I are trying to get up to the Cleveland area to visit his mother in the hospital where she's just had hip replacement surgery (I'm not sure, but I think this is her second replacement). I'm supposed to be getting baptized on July 1 (it was supposed to be two weeks ago, but L's younger sister [who is also getting the "public bath"] couldn't be there because her older sister was graduating from college at noon that day) & we are joining the church along with two of my husband's students (but only two of us are getting baptized).

What sucks about not being online for awhile is that I missed the invitation to L's graduation party via Facebook (he graduated from high school the day before his sister's collegiate graduation) and ended up not going...but I was sick anyway, so it ended up being a wash anyway out. I also have been out of touch with friends; the maid-of-honor from my wedding six years ago found me on MySpace...but I was offline at the time she sent the message. I got on about two weeks ago, and I haven't been back since.

I've got to get myself in gear while I'm still at this job. I can't keep up my focus, and this is frustrating. If I get into the PhD program, I'm going to have to get money from somewhere...but I really want to do this and I'm willing to commit to this.

Oh, and for those who wondered, I came in 5th in the Talent Show at work. Considering that I raised my money based on my talent and not office politics, I think I did very well.

I wonder if the show will ever end up on YouTube....

And before I forget, I started learning Japanese letters, because I want to include Japanese manga in my studies. I've learned 15 of the hiragana and katakana letters so far & I have a goal of learning all 45 by the end of July.

It's a lot to read, but it's an update. Sorry I've been gone so long, but I'm back...for now anyway ;-)

今のさようなら (Goodbye for now)....

K. C. at June 19, 2007 7:21 PM | 0 comments

Well, at least I did my best

I managed to not completely fail at the talent show yesterday. I sang Eye is On the Sparrow and I got a great applause from the audience, but I was no match for the singer who sang Black Horse and a Cherry Tree which was something the audience got into more than what I did. I did my best, but I think everyone brought their 'A' game yesterday & we were all entertaining. I'm probably not going to win, but if I lose to the Soggy Bottom Boys, I can't be upset (because they were hilarious!). There is going to be a DVD of the show for sale, and I'm going to have to pick one up because my mom wanted to at least hear my performance, and the money goes to a good cause.

I managed to do one of the things I love in front of the company & all I could do was my best. If it's not good enough to win, so be it. But I am getting a lot of support from my department [I may not have gotten the most bills after the show yesterday, but I had larger denominations!], and we're more the renegades of the organization who play by our own rules...which is part of the challenge for me in the competition. The buckets for donations are in the main building, and we are in the annex of a building across the campus. Fortunately, one of the admins here put together a bucket for me in our building. My only worry is that the money won't get submitted in time before they tally the votes and announce the winner on Friday...but I can find out when the money has to be in & that would take care of that concern.

The coolest thing about the show is that I managed to drum up enough interest that people from my department caught the show and are campaigning for me! I sent out an e-mail on Monday & I talked to a few co-workers about the show. Several people gave me their donations and at least three people actually saw the show [it was simulcast from the auditorium to a t.v. in the atrium], and it led up to me coming in this morning to see that someone wrote on the poster for the show for people to vote for me, and I got a mention in today's all-staff meeting. The VP who oversees this department mentioned the April birthdays and mentioned that I was the very talented [k.c.], and I got positive responses from the people who attended the show. I don't expect to get much more money after this, but the goal for the show was to raise $3,000 from all of the acts and they (the show's producers) have raised $500 as of the end of the show yesterday. I've volunteered to spend 1/2 an hour in the main building tomorrow to try and drum up interest during the raffle ticket sales, so I hope I don't do poorly at that.

I haven't been on most of my social networking sites in more than a week, so I'm going to (hopefully) log on tonight without staying up too late.

K. C. at April 25, 2007 3:56 PM | 0 comments

Another year older...

It's official; this is the first day of the last year I can say that I am in my late twenties.

Man, I feel old today.

I've gotten some birthday wishes via e-mail, text message, and MySpace comments. I realized how comfortable I really am with technology and communication when I was as happy to hear from someone via e-mail as I would be if they called me up and I heard them say 'Happy Birthday'. It's nice to know that people are thinking of me, even if most of the e-mails were from mail-bots in forums.

I dressed up for work today (most people in my department wear jeans) & I did so mostly to avoid having to change into something nicer when I get home. After work, I'm going to get a call from my mom and then my husband and I are going to the dealership for a new-car-owners event where we can learn how to do various diy maintenance on our Hyundai. We can only stay for 45 minutes because I have choir rehearsal (which is supposed to be a short one) and then we have dinner reservations at 9:20 at the Melting Pot. This will be our first time there since they've closed their first location on High Street and moved to Easton Town Center. I hope the food's still as good as it used to be.

Anyway, I've got a project to finish and a song to memorize for the talent show we're having at work as an Operation Feed fundraiser [I really hope I don't screw this up...even though I know in my heart of hearts that I won't raise the most money and, therefore, will not win, but it's for a good cause] before my exhaustion catches up with me and I pass out somewhere.

Hope you all have a blessed day. I feel bad for writing about my birthday in the wake of the VT shooting tragedy, so I'm going to take some time to reflect on those who were affected and hope that this never happens again.


K. C. at April 19, 2007 6:51 PM | 0 comments

Money

They say that the love of money is the root of all evil. Well, the lack thereof is the primary cause of a great deal of stress that brings out the most dangerous of habits in me. I finally did our taxes last night...and I can't get over knowing that we owe money to both the federal and state governments. If it weren't for me still being in school for part of last year, we would owe far more than the $300 we currently owe because I wouldn't have been able to take the Lifetime Tuition Credit that shaved off over $400 from our tax bill. It's partially my fault that things are so f---ed up; when I started at my internship, I took two exceptions because my husband wasn't working at the time. What I failed to do was correct that once he was gainfully employed, so I have far less withheld from my paycheck than I should. If I had changed that, we would've probably broken even this year with the tuition credit. The state tax issue is that we already owed the State $87 from some past debts that my husband rang up and never took care of (which resulted in last year's refund being swallowed whole), so we have another $48 we owe the state. And I just paid down the balance on my two store credit cards, we don't have a lot of money but I'm still going to have to come up with all of this cash for the government, and I'm already having nightmares about next year's taxes when we have to deal with capitol gaines tax because of the mutual fund we were given this year to help us buy a new car (which keeps getting scratched, dented and mangled every time my husband drives it). It left me in such a state that I had to sacrifice sleep by playing a stupid computer game to keep me from going into the kitchen to do some serious harm to myself.

I know that there are more important things in life than money, but it's hard to not get more than stressed out when you feel it's your fault that things happened this way. I should've looked harder for a full-time job, we have to cut back on our food expenses and eat at home more, and I shouldn't have taken on this volunteer effort at the Historical Society when I have my girlfriends coming in out of town and the house is still a mess. I even found a dead mouse [the remnant of a problem we had months ago that we had to resolve ourselves] while I was cleaning at 3 a.m., which I immediately screamed, threw it to the floor, and ran out of the room. I've messed up my singing voice and I have a charity event/talent show that I'm supposed to sing for this month.


It's gotten to the point where I can't sit up straight anymore because I've let so many things weigh me down like an overladen beast of burden. I don't know how I'm going to get through the day.

K. C. at April 10, 2007 4:16 PM | 0 comments

Daffodils & Headaches

I now have some daffodils sitting on my desk that would've otherwise perished in the cold snap that is currently hitting us, and it's something that is bringing a little cheer today. It can't get rid of this stupid headache I've had for the past two or three days [it's hard to keep track of when the last one ends and the next one begins], but they look nice and I hope the pictures I took of them will come out okay. I just think it's funny that you can see my sad attempts at kanji on the whiteboard in the background, but I liked the way it fit with the whole scene so I'm not going to edit them out.

Now the next question is: will I take on this week's theme? I hope to, but there are no guarantees that I'll have time this week. I have a rehearsal tonight because my church and a nearby Presbyterian church are joining their choirs for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services. I haven't wanted to do these services (or the choir at all, for that matter) because...I don't really know why unfortunately. I think my choir director is the nicest, sweetest person in the world who is overcoming a lot to be with us, but she's the only director we've had that has driven me to want to quit the choir. Even the one that I thought hated me only galvanized me to do better to prove him wrong. I don't know if it's because she's from Texas [I've had a rough time will all of my Texas girlfriends for no apparent reason] or if it's because she's under-utilizing me in favor of her "hired hands" from the college, but I have issues and need to pin them down before I can address them and move forward.

I don't like "get over it" simply because it's a dismissive way of telling someone that their feelings aren't valid and, therefore, they need to suppress them.

Anyway, I'm still at work, so I need to be doing just that. I hope I can overcome this headache or this rehearsal is going to be a nightmare.

K. C. at April 04, 2007 7:23 PM | 0 comments

Trying to do more

I've set up a blog on Blogger (it's been added to my list of links up top), but I don't really like it as much as I like eBloggy. I use it to post things that are random (and won't get me fired) that I may not post here. I'll probably abandon it entirely eventually.

Speaking of things that may get me arrested, I had an "altercation" with a pedestrian on Saturday that turned into a real nightmare. I was driving to Pochi Tea Station to meet my husband when I pulled up to a stop sign on a one-way street. I was at an intersection with another one-way street and a car had pulled up to the stopsign to my left. I saw that he was still stopping, so I proceeded to continue on my way when I saw two people dart out into the street towards my car. I hesitated for a brief moment, then decided that I was in the right and kept on driving. Well, one of these drunken idiots thought it would be a brilliant idea to hit the trunk of my car in frustration. I was already in a monumentally bad mood, so I slammed on my breaks and threw the car into (what I thought was) reverse. Instead, I had thrown it into park and revved my engine in frustration. The car on the other street managed to get past me, so after I calmed down enough to see that I wasn't moving, I jammed the car into reverse and tried to run the guy over (who was yelling profanities at me because I didn't let some moron at a corner with no crosswalk walk in front of my car). I then put the car in drive once more and tried to hit him as he was standing on the corner (he had crossed my street as well as the other one at the intersection, so he went from being to my right and nearer to Neil he was to my left and closer to High Street). I wasn't willing to jump the curb with my car, but I did yell at him to call the cops before I finally drove off.

Once I got to Pochi, I proceeded to tell my husband and a few of his friends that if the cops came looking for me, they would be justified in getting me. I was more worried that they would get me for driving around with my plates on when I hadn't taken care of transferring the plates (my temporary tags were only good until the 11th, but the BMV wouldn't be open again until Monday, so I was still in the legal right to have them on my car [I looked it up], but could've gotten in serious trouble on Monday if pulled over)

Is what I did stupid? Ultimately, yes. Cooler heads should've prevailed and not backed up to try to hit the person, and then try to hit them again. I don't feel, however, that I should've stopped to let them run across the street. It was dark, they were both dressed in black, and they waited until I was moving the car to try to run and cross the street.

I really need to avoid driving while enraged. Good things do not result from one who can't stay calm while on the road with the thoughtless & reckless.

K. C. at March 15, 2007 4:07 AM | 0 comments