Wow, an Actual Update!
Nov. 21st, 2006 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthWell, I noticed that I haven't actual updated seriously since the end of October, so I thought that I'd post a sort of general state of things with some highlights from the last few weeks.
Generally speaking, November hasn't been as busy as October was, thank god! I've been doing a bit of school work and work work and the like, but I've also been chilling out a bit. I've managed to do a bit of reading (though I've only been in the mood of cheesy romantic smut, so I haven't gotten to some of the other reading in my queue...), and I've played a rather large amount of Final Fantasy XII. FFXII is totally awesome, by the by, I highly recommend it to all who have any interest in RPG's. I so totally dig Balthier!
School has been going fairly well. I've actually gotten some A's to counter balance the A-'s and worse I was getting in the beginning of the semester. This makes me happy, and is building my confidence, which is good. That said, I have senioritis really bad - I'm really having trouble making myself do anything when it comes to school. Like, I have a term paper research thing due in a week that I haven't even started at all - I don't even fully have a topic yet. For me, that's pretty bad. ;)
In terms of future schooling, I've been thinking a lot about where to go. I've done a lot of reading on the various schools, and received info packets in the mail from three of them.
-The one in Pennsylvania is $24,000 a year. This is far too expensive.
-The one in Oregon looks alright.
-All the others - except the one in Boston - are state schools. Some how, I'm not all that interested in spending another number of years pissed off about paying out of state tuition, and I have no interest in taking a year off to get residency in a new place.
The end result of these musings is that I'm leaning increasingly towards (read: I have almost decided that this is my course of action) only applying to the school in Boston. While I'm reluctant to put all of my eggs in one basket, there is something to be said for enthusiasm and eagerness. I wonder if they'll balance out? Anyway, even if I don't get in, I will move to Boston and take workshops at the school - it seems like this is the best way to ensure that I get in the following year.
Partly, I'm considering this course because of my grandfather. Poppop is 88, and will be turning 89 in April. He's starting to have memory problems and he's having more trouble living on his own, but he really doesn't want to leave his home in New Hampshire, and we certainly don't want to make him go if he doesn't want to. My uncle would be willing to help out, but he's a tenured professor in Texas, and so Pop would have to move there. Ultimately, I suspect that that is what will happen. But before then, mom and I were talking and I said that I would be willing to move closer to Pop to help out. If I were in Boston (or near Boston) it'd be about three hours to Pop's (according to Map Quest), which means that I could go up frequently, certainly for weekends, and that I could get there fairly quickly in case of an emergency. It's not ideal, but I'm not prepared to give up my life entirely unless he really needs daily care.
Anyway, the end of the semester is looking fairly busy. I have two papers for L587 (each about 12 pages), two papers for H601 (each about 8 pages), and a paper and a final exam in L516 (the paper about 15 pages). I need to get to work! I hope to have two of those papers done before the end of Thanksgiving break. I think this is fairly reasonable goal. :)
Work - both works - are going well. It looks like I'll be writing another grant soon - a 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant (this is a pretty big one, one that's been offered multiple times before; mom has won like 3 of them before or something). We also have a lot of other work to do, so I think things are going to get busy. Preservation type work is also going well. I'm confirmed for 20 hours in the new semester, and I've learned a lot of the different low level treatments. I'm going to get to do higher level stuff (like rebinding!) soon, so I'm kind of excited.
Life over all has been pretty hood. I spent a chunk of the month kind of down, but I think I've managed to largely get over that, mostly by getting more sleep and finding some activities to distract me from the things that are making me down. :) This makes me happy, I hate being depressed, it's annoying and self defeating! Grr!
The diet has been going slowly. Frequent weekend social things have meant that I keep gaining a pound on the weekend and then losing it again during the week. So I'm not gaining weight - great when you consider just what I've been eating! - but I'm not losing any either. It's slowly getting frustrating.
I've really been glad to play FFXII, though, it's been a bit of a life saver.
Getting ready for the Widescreen chronicle has been fun. I'm enjoying getting to reorganize all the paper work, starting a new XP book, and generally helping set up things. People seem fairly excited about things, too, which is nice. I can't wait for the game this weekend!
Aberrant has been going pretty well too. We've converted to GURPs, and even though this didn't actually help my character as much as I hoped it would, I'm still totally awesome. God are backgrounds expensive to convert!!
Guess there isn't much gaming news this month, now that I'm actually writing it! This is in large part due to the fact that the Changeling game hasn't happened yet, I imagine.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
schenker28 and I have successfully gone to most of the theater that we intended to, which, in truth, rather amazes me. I did think that we might have been over optimistic to schedule as much as we did.
The Drummers of Burundi were pretty cool, though not quite what I had been hoping for. The most fun part of that was probablyschenker28, moonzie and I trying to clap counterpoints while the rest of the audience was clapping to the beat.
The Crucible was quite good. I've always wanted to see it produced - I've read it twice without ever actually seeing it. I didn't like the costuming much, but the acting was quite good for the most part. It left me generally angry and pissed off at the injustices of the world - precisely, in my opinion, the sort of reaction that it should elicit.
The Pirate Queen wasn't as good as I had hoped. The music was simplistic and I thought the show was too short - everything felt hurried. The sets, costume and lighting were really nice, though. I'm hoping that if the producers do some work on it, it will improve.
Casino Royale was awesome. I highly recommend it. And I'm not a huge Bond fan, so you can trust me on this. ;)
I finally (as of last night, thanks tocloset_gnome have seen all of Firefly and Serenity. I enjoyed it a fair amount, though I didn't get nearly as in to it as all of my friends seem to be. I think this was inevitable - you can only be told that something is the most awesome thing ever so many times before you start to grow skeptical. I tried to have an open mind, and I did enjoy it. A few things in the movie bothered me (primarily Mal's personality shift) and I wish people had been able to keep info on sadness from me (wow, that was vague, go me!) because it kept me from getting emotionally involved (in both the series and the movie) but it can't be helped. I want to see the series again, I think - probably will be added to the Christmas list.
On Saturday,schenker28 and I drove to Chicago. It was a very cool day! Full of firsts.
I'd never really spent any time in Chicago. In addition to seeing the musical, we got to go to the Arts Institute of Chicago, which was a very nice museum. I got to see a lot of great Renoir's, though they didn't have the much older stuff that was to my taste. (Very few Dutch masters, no Caravaggio that I noticed, no Titian, not many drawings, that sort of thing). Also, I was very angry, Night Hawks (the famous Hopper painting, you've all seen it probably) was on loan to the Whitney, in NYC. So I can just go there, right? No! It'll be done there in mid-December. So I'm just gonna miss it. Grr. This angers me - Hopper is my mom's favorite artist, and I've grown up around prints of his, and this is like his most famous painting, so I wanted to see it. Ah well. It was still an awesome museum.
The musical, I already talked about. :)
We also ate out at two yummy restaurants - I broke the diet, because it didn't really make sense not to.
Two specific firsts are of note, though. First, I got into my first-ever fender bender. While driving to Chicago, traffic accordianed really bad and me another car had to pull off the road to keep from having a major accident. I bumped his fender when we pulled off. The damage was minimal - only paint transfer, really - but it left my heart racing for a while none the less. Then, much later (after midnight!) a cop finally noticed that my registration was expired. I got a court summons, no less, though if I get the registration renewed this week, and go to the county clerks office, I won't have any penalties at all. I found this highly amusing. I've never been pulled over by a cop before; I remember checking my speed (I was worried I was going very fast, because my speed sense was all messed up from driving on high ways all day) and thinking it amusing that I got pulled over while doing the speed limit for the first time all day. And the court summons is for my birthday. I don't know why, but I find this hilarious.
Anyway, that's stuff. Some notes on upcoming things!
I'll be spending Thanksgiving day in Columbus with my brother. Otherwise, I'll be in Bloomington for the duration.
Christmas, I will be DRIVING to NYC on the 18th. I will likely be takingschenker28 to Cincinatti at this time, and saracariad someplace else. If anyone else is going east and needs a ride, they should let me know.
On the 19th, I will be driving to Boston in the morning, and then heading to Binghamton in the evening.
On the 20th, or possible on the morning of the 21st, I will return to NYC.
On the 25th, I'll be visiting my dad in Sussex, NJ, then returning to NYC.
On the 28th, I will be driving back to Bloomington. Once again, I will happily car pool.
People should plan accordingly.
Anyway, I'm on the clock. Back to work!!
Generally speaking, November hasn't been as busy as October was, thank god! I've been doing a bit of school work and work work and the like, but I've also been chilling out a bit. I've managed to do a bit of reading (though I've only been in the mood of cheesy romantic smut, so I haven't gotten to some of the other reading in my queue...), and I've played a rather large amount of Final Fantasy XII. FFXII is totally awesome, by the by, I highly recommend it to all who have any interest in RPG's. I so totally dig Balthier!
School has been going fairly well. I've actually gotten some A's to counter balance the A-'s and worse I was getting in the beginning of the semester. This makes me happy, and is building my confidence, which is good. That said, I have senioritis really bad - I'm really having trouble making myself do anything when it comes to school. Like, I have a term paper research thing due in a week that I haven't even started at all - I don't even fully have a topic yet. For me, that's pretty bad. ;)
In terms of future schooling, I've been thinking a lot about where to go. I've done a lot of reading on the various schools, and received info packets in the mail from three of them.
-The one in Pennsylvania is $24,000 a year. This is far too expensive.
-The one in Oregon looks alright.
-All the others - except the one in Boston - are state schools. Some how, I'm not all that interested in spending another number of years pissed off about paying out of state tuition, and I have no interest in taking a year off to get residency in a new place.
The end result of these musings is that I'm leaning increasingly towards (read: I have almost decided that this is my course of action) only applying to the school in Boston. While I'm reluctant to put all of my eggs in one basket, there is something to be said for enthusiasm and eagerness. I wonder if they'll balance out? Anyway, even if I don't get in, I will move to Boston and take workshops at the school - it seems like this is the best way to ensure that I get in the following year.
Partly, I'm considering this course because of my grandfather. Poppop is 88, and will be turning 89 in April. He's starting to have memory problems and he's having more trouble living on his own, but he really doesn't want to leave his home in New Hampshire, and we certainly don't want to make him go if he doesn't want to. My uncle would be willing to help out, but he's a tenured professor in Texas, and so Pop would have to move there. Ultimately, I suspect that that is what will happen. But before then, mom and I were talking and I said that I would be willing to move closer to Pop to help out. If I were in Boston (or near Boston) it'd be about three hours to Pop's (according to Map Quest), which means that I could go up frequently, certainly for weekends, and that I could get there fairly quickly in case of an emergency. It's not ideal, but I'm not prepared to give up my life entirely unless he really needs daily care.
Anyway, the end of the semester is looking fairly busy. I have two papers for L587 (each about 12 pages), two papers for H601 (each about 8 pages), and a paper and a final exam in L516 (the paper about 15 pages). I need to get to work! I hope to have two of those papers done before the end of Thanksgiving break. I think this is fairly reasonable goal. :)
Work - both works - are going well. It looks like I'll be writing another grant soon - a 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant (this is a pretty big one, one that's been offered multiple times before; mom has won like 3 of them before or something). We also have a lot of other work to do, so I think things are going to get busy. Preservation type work is also going well. I'm confirmed for 20 hours in the new semester, and I've learned a lot of the different low level treatments. I'm going to get to do higher level stuff (like rebinding!) soon, so I'm kind of excited.
Life over all has been pretty hood. I spent a chunk of the month kind of down, but I think I've managed to largely get over that, mostly by getting more sleep and finding some activities to distract me from the things that are making me down. :) This makes me happy, I hate being depressed, it's annoying and self defeating! Grr!
The diet has been going slowly. Frequent weekend social things have meant that I keep gaining a pound on the weekend and then losing it again during the week. So I'm not gaining weight - great when you consider just what I've been eating! - but I'm not losing any either. It's slowly getting frustrating.
I've really been glad to play FFXII, though, it's been a bit of a life saver.
Getting ready for the Widescreen chronicle has been fun. I'm enjoying getting to reorganize all the paper work, starting a new XP book, and generally helping set up things. People seem fairly excited about things, too, which is nice. I can't wait for the game this weekend!
Aberrant has been going pretty well too. We've converted to GURPs, and even though this didn't actually help my character as much as I hoped it would, I'm still totally awesome. God are backgrounds expensive to convert!!
Guess there isn't much gaming news this month, now that I'm actually writing it! This is in large part due to the fact that the Changeling game hasn't happened yet, I imagine.
schenker28 and I have successfully gone to most of the theater that we intended to, which, in truth, rather amazes me. I did think that we might have been over optimistic to schedule as much as we did.The Drummers of Burundi were pretty cool, though not quite what I had been hoping for. The most fun part of that was probably
schenker28, moonzie and I trying to clap counterpoints while the rest of the audience was clapping to the beat.The Crucible was quite good. I've always wanted to see it produced - I've read it twice without ever actually seeing it. I didn't like the costuming much, but the acting was quite good for the most part. It left me generally angry and pissed off at the injustices of the world - precisely, in my opinion, the sort of reaction that it should elicit.
The Pirate Queen wasn't as good as I had hoped. The music was simplistic and I thought the show was too short - everything felt hurried. The sets, costume and lighting were really nice, though. I'm hoping that if the producers do some work on it, it will improve.
Casino Royale was awesome. I highly recommend it. And I'm not a huge Bond fan, so you can trust me on this. ;)
I finally (as of last night, thanks to
closet_gnome have seen all of Firefly and Serenity. I enjoyed it a fair amount, though I didn't get nearly as in to it as all of my friends seem to be. I think this was inevitable - you can only be told that something is the most awesome thing ever so many times before you start to grow skeptical. I tried to have an open mind, and I did enjoy it. A few things in the movie bothered me (primarily Mal's personality shift) and I wish people had been able to keep info on sadness from me (wow, that was vague, go me!) because it kept me from getting emotionally involved (in both the series and the movie) but it can't be helped. I want to see the series again, I think - probably will be added to the Christmas list.On Saturday,
schenker28 and I drove to Chicago. It was a very cool day! Full of firsts.I'd never really spent any time in Chicago. In addition to seeing the musical, we got to go to the Arts Institute of Chicago, which was a very nice museum. I got to see a lot of great Renoir's, though they didn't have the much older stuff that was to my taste. (Very few Dutch masters, no Caravaggio that I noticed, no Titian, not many drawings, that sort of thing). Also, I was very angry, Night Hawks (the famous Hopper painting, you've all seen it probably) was on loan to the Whitney, in NYC. So I can just go there, right? No! It'll be done there in mid-December. So I'm just gonna miss it. Grr. This angers me - Hopper is my mom's favorite artist, and I've grown up around prints of his, and this is like his most famous painting, so I wanted to see it. Ah well. It was still an awesome museum.
The musical, I already talked about. :)
We also ate out at two yummy restaurants - I broke the diet, because it didn't really make sense not to.
Two specific firsts are of note, though. First, I got into my first-ever fender bender. While driving to Chicago, traffic accordianed really bad and me another car had to pull off the road to keep from having a major accident. I bumped his fender when we pulled off. The damage was minimal - only paint transfer, really - but it left my heart racing for a while none the less. Then, much later (after midnight!) a cop finally noticed that my registration was expired. I got a court summons, no less, though if I get the registration renewed this week, and go to the county clerks office, I won't have any penalties at all. I found this highly amusing. I've never been pulled over by a cop before; I remember checking my speed (I was worried I was going very fast, because my speed sense was all messed up from driving on high ways all day) and thinking it amusing that I got pulled over while doing the speed limit for the first time all day. And the court summons is for my birthday. I don't know why, but I find this hilarious.
Anyway, that's stuff. Some notes on upcoming things!
I'll be spending Thanksgiving day in Columbus with my brother. Otherwise, I'll be in Bloomington for the duration.
Christmas, I will be DRIVING to NYC on the 18th. I will likely be taking
schenker28 to Cincinatti at this time, and saracariad someplace else. If anyone else is going east and needs a ride, they should let me know.On the 19th, I will be driving to Boston in the morning, and then heading to Binghamton in the evening.
On the 20th, or possible on the morning of the 21st, I will return to NYC.
On the 25th, I'll be visiting my dad in Sussex, NJ, then returning to NYC.
On the 28th, I will be driving back to Bloomington. Once again, I will happily car pool.
People should plan accordingly.
Anyway, I'm on the clock. Back to work!!
