22!

Birthday celebration started last night with an awesome steak dinner cooked by John. :-D

Damn the concept of addictions!

A couple years ago, I traded one addiction for another. FIRST for dance. Well, now I'm at BAE full time & am keeping my toes wet with FIRST there with my old team. Every time I go to a meeting to give a closer-to-student-than-the-other-mentors perspective, I feel the old addiction drawing me in.

I'm so afraid of what January brings. I don't know if these addicitons can co-exist. Oh, and I'd forgotten just how good Dew was...

TMI...
Well, I'm starting to figure me out some. Now I need to figure out what I want vs. what I need.

I also heard a lot of interesting things the my friend experienced that I always thought of as bullshit. Now she's got me thinking. Damn her for that. :-P

Everyone thinks this way, ya?
I really need to figure myself out.

...if I only gave myself the time... *sigh*

Changing the look.
I didn't tell anyone I was getting anything done. I hadn't realized that I would've been changing it so much when I started my day.

The planned part of the change was getting my hair cut & highlighted. Highlighting isn't anything new, it'd just been quite a long time since I'd last gotten it done. The not quite as planned part (of the haircut) was getting my hair layered. I didn't totally know what I was going for when I went in, but luckily Kim is awesome & knows how my hair work & made it look good. :)

The unplanned part...

Well, my hair was done a bunch earlier than expected. There was a sale at Kohl's where for every $50 you spent, you got a $10 gift certificate for the following week. Well, the combo made me go to Kohl's for quite a while. Started off at the jewelry counter & bought my first ever girly (non-sports) watch. I also got some necklaces & rings & earrings. (Bling bling!) When I signed up for my Kohl's credit card (extra 10% off for the whole day!), I asked about the sale that mom had told me about, so she gave me 2 of the gift certificates even though I'd only spent enough for one.

Then there were clothes. I bought a lot of them. I prolly shouldn't have bought a bunch of them, but that's 'cause I didn't pay close enough attention to which stuff was on sale & which wasn't. Ah well, I got some cute stuff.

AND all those gift certificates! :-D

What better is there to do on a Friday night?
If it's me cleaning my room, then there's a whole lot of things that are better.

But really, I was glad to have cleaned my room. There was a dance that night, but I was really glad that Allie didn't really feel like dancing. Y'know, since I'd really needed a break the night before.

I didn't really intend to clean my room when I decided not to go dancing, it just sorta happened. I took all my clothes out of my drawers & put them all where I actually wanted them. I even had a movie on in the background; it's rare that I get anything done more than tooling around online when the TV is on.

The things I do for my sister...
I really could've used a break from everything. Instead, I brought Allie dancing 'cause she made honor roll.

In the end, I was glad I went. A lot of the cool dancers were there. Near the end of the night, Anne decided that doing a jam would be fun.

HONOR ROLL!
Not me! Allie! That means that she gets to come out dancing one school night a week with me!

Of course, I didn't find out about honor roll until I was already at dance & she didn't get to take advantage of it right away.

Congrats on honor roll!

Extension, Compression & Boiler Plates, Oh My!
Mario Robeau Jr. is absolutely amazing. He makes west coast swing seem so simple.

You've got 7 basic things & you just stick stuff in the middle to get "complex" moves. Your connection is always extension or compression. You can get 28 different moves with one variation between the boiler plates & distance traveled.

Such a complex dance made so simple.

Like, holy shit.

F-O-U-R-T-E-E-N! (14)
HAPPYBIRTHDAYTOMYSISTERALLIE!

I got a non comical card for once. "Blah blah blah, celebrate your terrific-ness..." - but I added (on the dance floor) --> & put $6 in the back of the card.

A: Six bucks?
K: What's that for?
A: For dance?
K: For when?
A: Tonight?!
K: We're leaving in 12 minutes, unless you want to stay home & play with your new stereo instead...

And off we went to the Arlington Elks. We birthday jammed Allie to Jewel's Intuition & she totally rocked the house. She did cool stuff to all the bump bump bump's in the song & did an awesome job following everyone. She even danced with Anne & Lynne where Anne led the both of them at the same time.

My sister is wicked cool AND 14! :-D

Crazy Baby Shower Action!
Well, not really crazy, but there was a baby shower. It was for Lisa, from work, who I work on Women in Technology with. It was an okay evening. I was by far the youngest & didn't know too many people.

When we arrived at her house, she was upstairs sleeping. We got to be really quiet & decorate her dining room. She was wicked surprised & kept being such throughout the evening. There were a bunch of snacks, good lasagna, silly games & A TON of presents. It took a good 2+ hours to open everything. The only thing they didn't get was Vaseline, baby laundry detergent & a laundry bag to prevent infant socks from getting eaten in the wash.

It was a long night, but Lisa had an awesome evening. Oh yeah, her house is amazing...

Annoyed & tired turned into an overall good night.
I got to dance around 5:45 like I was supposed to for the NESD dance team. The ride from work to Arlington Elks was horrible. I had apparently gotten lucky the week before with the traffic ordeal. Annoyed.

NESD dance team practice starts & Bill starts reviewing, in detail, the same stuff we worked on the week before. More annoyed. Then people ask questions about stuff Bill had been explaining for the previous 10 minutes or stuff totally unrelated to the routine that had been mentioned before. Even more annoyed. At the end of practice, we barely got 8 beats past where we ended the week before. So annoyed that I got tired.

I ate my turkey dinner (yum) & had a drink with Wendy. I didn't so much want to do the group lesson & took a nap on the couch-like thing in the bathroom. It ended up being a good thing that I took a nap.

The dance starts. Brian, Macy & Willow showed up (yay fun people) & I had some neat dances. Marc came & I had a handful of great dances with him. DJ Jon played some great music. I think that & all the cool dances I had made the night good in the end.

I didn't remember how awesome nothing was.
I did absolutely nothing productive after work. Stina went to see a Red Sox game, so I didn't get to hang out with her & got to do nothing. I screwed around online & checked my online e-mail accounts. THAT WAS ALL I DID. It was so great.

Though exhausted, quite informative.
Both day & night - it was awesome. Jordan & Tatiana during the day, Anne at night.

THE DAY:
J&T's workshops were cool. For some of them, I expected them to cover more than they got to (especially FBI), but I guess I can't have everything. The best part of those workshops was the critique session. I got to dance with Slick Mike for his critique & Brian for mine. Slick Mike was a great warmup, smooth song. I'd expected a not as smooth song for my critique since it was used for a couple critiques, but in the end, I was glad I got the smooth song.

Smooth songs make it so I can control my crazy dancing. I had good contrast of keeping quiet unless I wanted to bring something out in the music. Even though J&T said they were going to critique basics (not musical interpretation), Tatiana said she loved my musical interpretation (Jordan agreed) & repeated what I had done that she liked. Then they got to what I need to work on. Jordan was going to go first, but he lost his thought so Tatiana went first. She stole his critique. Between the two of them, it wasn't anything I hadn't heard before: take smaller steps & push off the back foot instead of gripping the ground ahead of me and pulling.

THE NIGHT:
I was pretty exhausted from the day; I probably should have gone home, but I decided to dance some more. I tried to go from the workshops to Ivanna's house for dinner, but it took a lot longer to get on the road than expected. We ended up meeting at Saugus Elks 'cause she had a private scheduled with Bill. She was absolutely wonderful & brought me the dinner she'd cooked & some wine (that I didn't like). The food was great & we ended up talking for quite a while about a bunch of random stuff. It was quite a while 'cause Bill didn't show up until a lot later on.

With being exhausted & a lot of my favorite dancers not being there, I thought it was going to be a waste of a night. Luckily, I got talking with Anne about my dancing. I danced with her to show her my anchors from Hazel&Tybaldt, Sarah Vann Drake & Robert Cordoba. She couldn't believe that I could just whip them out on command. When I'd talked to her & Jen Lyons previously, she thought I was confused about all the information I'd been getting from everyone. No longer did she think that; now she thinks that I need to find my dance.

I was running real high on life after talking with Anne, but I was feeling rather tired & wasn't having any spectacular dances. Just as I had been thinking of leaving, a bunch of my favorite dancers showed up. I ended up staying until normal ending time to keep on dancing. I slept rather well that night & was quite satisfied with the weekend.

Ever wish you could rewind life?
I had been trying to leave dance 'cause I wanted to go before I got too tired. I started talking to Anne ('cause I'd finally gotten to dance with her) about where I should go with my dancing. Jen Lyons also came over for the conversation. They decided that I wasn't allowed to take any more privates without knowing what I wanted to work on. If I don't know what I want, I'll just get more basics that are different.

Now, I know there's more to work on beyond basics (I'm not nearly as good as the big dogs), but I didn't know what that was - I'm too new to the dance still. They tag teamed saying what things I should work on, and I thought it made sense.

Near the end of the night, I was finally close to leaving & David asked why I was still there - I'd said goodbye to him quite a while before. My response was that people wouldn't shut up. I didn't mean for it to come across that negatively, especially in front of Jen, 'cause I really liked my talk with Anne & Jen. I just hope she didn't take it as badly as I presented it.

I wish I could have hit rewind & not used shut up in that conversation & shown that I appreciated what they told me.

I was gonna...
Blog. Yep, on my way home from work, I decided I was going to catch up on my blog'n. Well, I was at work from 9a until 9p today. I stuffed face & collapsed on my futon. Sleep will happen soon. That was a lot of time at work. All on the computer. What he heck am I doing here right now?

The joys of spam.


ATT:Dear,
I am Mr Phillip Nnanna, Bank Manager of
Orient Bank of Nigeria, Lagos Branch. I have urgent and
very confidential business proposition for you. On June
6, 1999, an American Oil consultant/contractor with the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Barry
Kelly made a numbered time (Fixed) Deposit for twelve
calendar months, valued at US$25,000,000.00 (Twenty-
five Million Dollars) in my branch. Upon maturity, I
sent a routine notification to his forwarding address
but got no reply. After a month, we sent a reminder and
finally we discovered from his contract employers, the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that Mr. Barry
Kelly died from an automobile accident. On further
investigation, I found out that he died without making
a WILL, and all attempts to trace his next of kin was
fruitless. I therefore made further investigation and
discovered that Mr. Barry Kelly did not declare any kin
or relations in all his official documents, including
his Bank Deposit paperwork in my Bank. This sum of
US$25,000,000.00 is still sitting in my Bank and the
interest is being rolled over with the principal sum at
the end of each year. No one will ever come forward to
claim it. According to Nigerian Law, at the expiration
of 5 (five) years, the money will revert to the
ownership of the Nigerian Government if nobody applies
to claim the fund. Consequently, my proposal is that I
will like you as a foriegner to stand in as the next of
kin to Mr. Barry Kelly so that the fruits of this old
man's labor will not get into the hands of some corrupt
government officials. This is simple, I will like you
to provide immediately your full names and address so
that the Attorney will prepare the necessary documents
and affidavits which will put you in place as the next
of kin. We shall employ the service of two Attorneys for
drafting and notarization of the WILL and
to obtain the necessary documents and letter of
probate/administration in your favor for the transfer.
A bank account in any part of the world which you will
provide will then facilitate the transfer of this money
to you as the beneficiary/next of kin. The money will
be paid into your account for us to share in the ratio
of 60% for me and 40% for you. There is no risk at all
as all the paperwork for this transaction will be done
by the Attorney and my position as the Branch Manager
guarantees the successful execution of this
transaction. If you are interested, please reply
immediately via the private email address below. Upon
your response, I shall then provide you with more
details and relevant documents that will help you
understand the transaction. Please observe utmost
confidentiality, and rest assured that this transaction
would be most profitable for both of u! s because
Ishall require your assistance to invest my share in your
country.Awaiting your urgent reply via my
email:phillipnnanna@uboot.com
Thanks and regards.
Mr. Phillip Nnanna.

Not So Annoying Club Challenge Tryouts.
Anne did things better than Bill did - a Jack&Jill format. Only thing was that Marcus was the only leader who wanted to do it. So, the tryout was kind of like a birthday jam: Missy, Macy, Steph & I all took turns dancing with Marcus. The representatives were chosen by the audience cheering. I took 2nd to Missy where the cheer levels were really too close to call.

Since I didn't "win", I went around asking dancers that I respected about what they thought of my dances. I got some good things to work on. Bob told me that he just favored Missy & has liked her dancing for a long time - she didn't do a lot better than me in his eyes. Brian, on the other hand, really thought that I should've won. I'm a very solid dancer & nobody can get me off my center. He didn't see any reason for Missy to win.

Too bad he wants to buy a house instead of doing a routine with me. *sigh*

...by the way, I wasn't disappointed with this club challenge tryout, in case you couldn't tell.

Annoying Club Challenge Tryouts.
I thought that the cool thing about the club challenge would be that I wouldn't need my own partner to try to represent. Wrong. Bill decided that you needed to have a partner picked out before dancing - not a Jack&Jill format. I already have the problem of not having found a strictly partner - now I get smacked again for it?! I asked everyone in the joint - they were either already representing another club, too high of a level or didn't compete. I almost got to do it with Marcus, but he wanted to give his strictly partner a chance first. I mean, I didn't expect to beat Bob & Lynne with Marcus, but I expected to have done better than his strictly partner.

I should stop pointing fingers & complaining so I can move on with my life. I was still annoyed, though.

What do you get when you search for Tootsie Rool Midgees on Google?
Apparently, lesbian porn sites. I don't know this first hand, I heard this from my mom. Yeah, that was an interesting conversation... ;-)

Y'know, you don't always have to be productive...
We had finally gotten back to Marc's place & I ended up taking a nap on his couch 'cause I'd barely slept in the car the night before. I chilled there for a while after waking up & just talked with Marc about random things. I was complaining that when I went home, I wouldn't be doing anything more than screwing around. He told me that I didn't always have to be productive. I've never really thought about that before.

I ended up leaving his place 'cause I decided that I wasn't going dancing that night (after 2 nights of great dancing & crap rides home, I didn't want to risk it again) & got home early enough to watch Dance Fever. Unproductive but relaxing evening. It was a good switch.

What else would I do on a Saturday night?
Dance, of course, right? Well, that's the way it started. I met Brian & Marc at Marc's place so we could carpool down to middle-of-nowhere CT for a dance hosted by Corey & Erin for Jason & Katie where John & Anne would be doing their routine - got that? :-P Anyway, we got there for the dance, it wasn't a huge turn out, but I had a lot of fun. Lots of good dances with lots of people.

The ride home was another story. On the way back to the highway, we ran over some boulders that some "cool" kids decided to put in the middle of the road & blew out the right two tires of Marc's car about 24 hours after the last time I was sitting on the side of the road. So 2-3 hours later, we were finally on the road in the tow truck to bring it far away 'cause there wasn't going to be anywhere in middle-of-nowhere CT open on Sunday that had service. We finally Marc's car to a place that would have service in the morning & got dropped off at a hotel. No vacancy. And nobody else would have any vacancy either 'cause it was race weekend (I have no clue what race it was). We walked around for a bit & ended up sleeping in Marc's car for the night & being there for when the place opened. The steel rims had been dented like crazy & one couldn't even be banged out. We ended up going out to breakfast when one got banged out & stuff.

Yeah, a ride that was supposed to take 1.5 hours ended up taking 12. Two nights in a row of awesome dancing & crap rides home.

Not so voluntary naps on the ride home.
No, I didn't fall asleep at the wheel - I'd stopped at a rest stop as I was feeling close to head jerking action. Soon after the rest stop, my alternator died. I called home & it was an hour before dad came & picked Allie & me up. We napped while we were waiting. Dad ended up getting a new alternator & fixing it for me before I needed to leave the next day. We were at least in NH before it decided to go...

Jack & Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water.
I brought Allie with me to Larry & Heidi's dance 'cause it was the last local J&J comp to get into the finals. She competed in the beginner level with John H. & took 4th out of 5. I was sooo proud of her!

I competed at the intermediate level. I took 4th out of 13 or so with Bob. We had a lot of really fun & awesome dances. We had to dance around 5 times 'cause the judges were having so much of a problem deciding who was the best. I got mad props from the judges about my dances. I don't remember what my marks were 'cause it was so long ago.

So yeah, fun night of dancing & a bunch of dances with Marc so he could try to make up some new toys.

Amazing what a piece of paper can be worth.
I paid off one of my loans - all in one payment. So, multi-thousand multi-hundred dollar payment. On my check, I started writing the dollar amount out the same size I normally write my checks. My writing got progressively smaller the farther to the right I went. It was really depressing, but at least I got rid of my unsubsidized stafford. *sigh*

It's all relative.
Y'know, I don't really remember what I was going to write about for this title. I know it was about dance, but that's about all I've got. My B.

"Wow, the rain isn't sticking to the windshield..."
Sure, rain doesn't usually stick to windshields anyway. This time was different. It had been raining pretty well on the ride to Arlington Elks - a bit under an hour ride. I didn't really need to use my wipers at all. The raindrops decided that they wanted to be on their way & didn't bother me at all. Allie & I found it quite funny. Well, maybe that was more 'cause I said the rain wasn't sticking...

The neverending work day.
Since I'd called in sick to work last Monday, I worked forever on Wednesday. I even came in an hour late due to exhaustion from dancing so late the previous night. I got in around 9:00, didn't really take a long lunch & left at 8:30. I only left 'cause Eric told me to. I wasn't exhausted or hungry, I could've stayed a lot longer. Just when it was getting to be near the end of the work day, the stuff I was working on started working & I was figuring it out. I logged 11.1 hours. It was crazy.

Is there such a thing as perfect?
Last Tuesday, I brought my sister Allie (grr that Bonnie ended up feeling sick) & Dee, a WPI intern from work, to Bill's WCS class in Arlington. The two of them did really, really well, I was very proud of them. I danced with them quite a bit throughout the night. Dee even had guts enough to ask other people to dance with her a ton. She told me there were a few times where she dragged Allie to some people & asked them to dance with her. Yay for Dee. :-)

On top of the fun dances with them, I had a gijillion awesome dances with people. Sooo many of the guys that I consider to be really good dancers were there & I danced with all of them. I was having so much fun that I lost track of time & we ended up staying until the very end. But yeah, it prolly wasn't a perfect night of dancing, but it was pretty darn good. Lots of amazing dances with amazing dancers. I didn't want the night to end. I wish there were more nights where my favorite dancers all showed up in one place for dancing.

Sick is a relative term.
Monday, not yesterday, the day after I got back from the reunion, I called in sick. I really was well enough to go in to work, but I was quite exhausted from the weekend. I also thought about going in late even though I'd called in sick. Then I got a really bad headache & layed down in the dark & ended up falling asleep.

When I'd gone into work the next day, the guys busted on me that I took a sick day so I could sleep in. So, it's pretty much true, but the drive did suck a lot of energy out of me. I didn't even get anything productive done around my room at all like I'd originally hoped. Ah well, c'est la vie.

Mi familia. (31Jul03 - 03Aug03)
The annual family reunion for dad's side has come and gone once again, the weekend before this past. It was really great to see everyone. I mean, the screaming 5 & 8 year old cousins got on my nerves a bit when my uncle was playing, err, terrorizing them, but it was all in good fun. I wish that I could've spent more time there with everyone. I was saddened that my cousin (who I always want to call uncle) couldn't make it with his family. His wife is over in Turkey, maybe?

Maybe sometime in the near-ish future I'll be able to take a full week off & spend a lot of time with that part of the family like everyone else does. We'll see. I'm rackin' up vacation time every day I'm at work.

Spy Kids 3D.
It was actually a pretty good movie. We got 3D glasses thingies, though they bothered my head when I had them on for a while. We went to see it 'cause of my cousins, 5 & 8 year old boys. The good thing about being off the diet was that I could have a ton of popcorn. :-D

The special effects were pretty neat, and I enjoyed the movie up until the end where it got cheezy. The credits were funny 'cause they showed a bunch of bloopers. It included the main character doing something with people dressed in all green like the background & falling over. Cute & funny movie. :-)

I quit.
I'd been on the Atkin's diet for a while. I lost some weight. When I got to NY with Bon, I quit the diet. I talked with mom about it. We decided that I didn't really need to be on it. A lot of the reason I'd started the diet was to get her going on it. She was talking herself out of it before she even started, therefore I helped her along.

Those cheese balls were great. And I made up for my lack of carbs when we had brie & garlic with italian bread for dinner one night. :-)

The Pain & Suffering.
A lot that I won't elaborate on in here. That lot of it has to do with being housebound and not being able to dance at my own will.

The other lot is that I've gone out running. Well, by running, I mean jogging; jogging at the speed of a power walk. I did a mile yesterday and one today. It's better than no physical activity, right? Tell all the muscles in my body that, eh?

I can't wait until I'm not housebound any longer & the next night I get to dance...

Not quite so housebound.
So, unexpectedly, Bonnie didn't put up a fight with me. I asked her if she'd go dancing with me and do the beginner lesson. Originally, I was going to bring her Tuesday, but it's the last one of the month, thereby the most advanced. Since I wanted to bring her when the 'rents weren't around, I brought her to Longfellow Saturday night.

We got there just on time for the beginner lesson. She didn't seem like she wanted to be there at first, but then Sue Cath complimented her quite a bit since it was her first night & she was doing really, really well. Bonnie even did some of the styling things, not just the basics.

She thinks that the dance is crazy. She also thinks that I am as well, but they don't call me Crazy Kate for nothin'. I danced with her quite a bit. She reminded me of me when I was screwing around with the lead to the music; she just kind of stood there waiting for me to really start leading again with her arm extended.

Oh yeah, and she hates me. All 'cause I asked a bunch of my (really good leader) friends to dance with her so she'd have more (a better) experience than just dancing with me. Every time someone came to ask her to dance, she'd refuse & tell me that she hated me. I wouldn't let her say no & after a bit of a play fight, she gave in and danced with them.

Michelle & Marc were great. She got along rather well with them. She laughed along with Michelle quite a bit, which was good. And then there was Marc. He picked on her quite a bit, quite entertaining from my side of things. He mocked her by making comments that weren't too far off from what she would have been complaining about.

All in all, a good night. She even slept for part of the ride home. She's willing to do it again sometime & won't even mind if Allie comes along as well. I might even get to bring her out Tuesday night, though that depends on how tired I am from work.

Housebound.
Mom & Dad & Allie leave for NY tomorrow morning. Bonnie & I aren't headed out until Thursday after camp / work. We're going out there for the family reunion. In the past, I've been the only one that hasn't gone out for the whole week. Well, Bonnie's got Driver's Ed that she can't miss so she's stayin' here with me. Since that's the case, I can't be out the whole time. I only get to dance if I can talk her into coming with me. The rest of the time, I'm home in the evenings. So, if anyone wants to come visit me at my house & chill, that'd be great.

BAE SYSTEMS Theory #1
The cafeteria is kept a lot colder than many employees find comfortable over the summer at the NCA facility. This is due to the massive number of employees at the location. If every 1st shift employee were to take their lunch at the regular time, there would not be enough seats to accommodate everyone. A side effect of this cafeteria setting is so employees do not take a longer lunch break than the company desires. The cold drives employees back to the comfort of their desks.

If you would believe it, there used to be a time where I wasn't addicted to any of my computers. I think those days have long past, and I regret it. I would leave away messages up all the time, and I would be out and about visiting people or talking on the phone. Heck, even just spending time for me without letting anyone know where I was or how to find me. Hmm, thinking about it now, that might've been when I was at school & barely spent any time in my room and did my work away from computers. I still had the damned leash of a cell phone with me, though.

I may complain about the leash of the cell phone, but when I forget it, I feel really lost. Not so much 'cause I can't receive calls, but 'cause I'm left without all those phone numbers beyond what I've memorized, and there's always the chance of getting into an accident or lost of some form. I use the phone as my address book, really.

Back to my original rant. I'm back to using my computers quite a bit. Downloading mp3's like it's going out of style, chatting with friends over AIM, cruising various message boards, playing Yahoo! Canasta, sending emails every now and then. Granted, I really love catching up with friends I haven't talked to in a while (namely, Daniel), but a lot of the time I sit with my laptop for hours doing nothing productive besides burning my lap. I haven't even figured out why my wireless connection doesn't like to be recognized by the other computers on the network.

I want to get back to the times where I'm not addicted to the computer. I don't want to be checking my email to get nothing but junk every 5 minutes. I don't want to waste hours playing canasta, as fun as it is. I don't want to have pointless conversations with people that don't go too deep.

I've got a ton of pictures I took while I was in London that I'd like to do something with. Print them. Photo-album them. Webpage them. Something of the sort.

I'd like to make a webpage that's my own domain (www.crazykate.net) that's mainly devoted to my dancing stuff, linked to personal stuff about me. I want to learn how to do HTML or XML or something of the sort to make the page look like non-sucky-@$$.

When I was in London (hey, that's one of the places where I barely used computers!), I got back into reading books. Mind you, I really should've been out seeing London instead of reading, but that's beside the point. I've sorta gotten back into reading since graduation. I read Neil Gaiman's American Gods & Harry Potter (you be quiet JT), but beyond that, I've only started reading another book that I can't remember where I left it.

I also started doing a cross stitch bookmark thingy. Haven't touched it lately.

My room's a mess. It needs to get clean.

Sure, I dance, that's not on the computer, but not enough.

And beyond all that, I like more guys than I know what to do with right now & have no idea what any of them think of me. *pouts*

Last night, I went to Tequila's with some of my dance friends. Good times were had. Ivanna & went to the restaurant part of the place and sat at the bar. She ordered her drink and her dinner, and our bartender came back to say that "people under 18 can't sit at the bar." I laughed and tossed my ID at her and she couldn't believe that I was over 18. Then I ordered a drink with her telling me that I couldn't drink. So I tossed my ID again and she couldn't believe it even more that I was 21. I finally got my drink after I'd gotten carded 2 times by the same person within 2 minutes. The guy bartender couldn't believe I was 21 and served me a pineapple to prove I was 21. I found out after the fact that it was saturated in fermented tequila. Um, yuck. It was absolutely disgusting. Lou & Jon came in a while after and was served a pineapple. Lou & Jon each had a bite and decided they weren't going to finish it. Lou finished it off after I mentioned that I finished mine all by myself. The rest of the night was doing line dancing & a couple west coast swings. Fun times.

I'm starting work on Monday. I can't wait. I've been sooo completely bored during the day procrastinating cleaning my room. I'm just not looking forward to having to be at work by 8am.

The Monday after 4th of July, I'm going on a diet with mom & Allie. Hopefully it'll work.

The problem with drinking caffeinated soda as I'm leaving dance with an hour drive home is that it doesn't kick in until I get home, which totally defeats the purpose of my drinking caffeine in the first place! *sigh* I can't win.

Well, in that case I can't.

Tonight, I WIN!! I got digits!!

I got back from London on May 3rd. I graduated from WPI with a BS in EE on May 17th. I start work at BAE Systems on June 30th. It's June 4th -- I've been back for a month now.

What have I done in that month? Not a whole lot of anything.

I finished up details at WPI before graduation. Chilled in W at the very deserted WPI with James quite a bit and caught up with other people over various meals out. In the time of hanging out with James, he got me hooked on Adventures of Lolo on the NES emulator I hijacked from him. I saw Matrix: Reloaded and Finding Nemo in W.

And, of course, I've been dancing. At least every other night. It's been really neato seeing all the people I hadn't seen in the 2 months I was in London. I had a lesson with Anne that went pretty well. Soonish after, I had a lesson with Erik that was wicked awesome. That was the day after the crazy workshops Erik & Laura held at the day Jen was hosting. I crashed at her place that night and stayed up crazy late socializing and stuff. The weekend made me quite sore, crazy amounts of dancing.

My wrist has been bothering me for the past 2.5 weeks. I'm not sure what caused it. I saw an occupational therapist today. She says it shows some symptoms of tendonitis. I've gotta ice it and do exercises. I think I'm getting a splint made for me on Friday. I'm still allowed to dance, I've just gotta take it easy.

Outside of W and dance, I haven't been too productive. I closed a bank account and opened a new one so I could consolidate my $$ into a single bank. ... I visited the doctor / OT. ... I organized some of my clothes in my drawers. ... I can't think of anything else, really.

This entry isn't well written at all. I'm jumping all over the place, writing things out of order, likely bad grammar as well. Deal. ;-)

My lesson with Erik was absolutely amazing. He fixed a lot of the little things that I do wrong. He said that I was like a sponge 'cause I absorb information. (Darren, who taught me ballroom, used to saw I was like clay -- same idea.) Near the end of the lesson, he sorta ran out of things that were quick and easy to fix, so we just danced. I'd asked for a slower song than wicked fast and he refused -- I could trick him with correctly fixing all the little things when I was dancing to slower music, with the fast music, I couldn't trick him and he could pick on me.

I've had a lot of time of doing nothing but lounging around the house. I've been reading people's blogs and journals and things of the like quite a bit. I'm most intrigued by Jon's Journal. He's really got his head wrapped around things & I'm impressed with how he write about everything.

I don't really have my head wrapped around everything. I don't have a clue about politics. I don't pay attention to them at all. People say things and I really just go along with them. About anything. I absorb what people say about things. I really think I need to form my own beliefs about various topics. I'm not sure how to go about doing this. I think it needs to happen.

For now, I'll do nothing but dance. Work will start soon enough.

You are Cyclops!

You are attractive and strong, in a boy scout
republican sort of way. You are set firm in
your beliefs, which is not necessarily a bad
thing. But often when faced with a conflicting
opinion you become defensive and angry and
prone to conflict. You like to be a leader,
but you must acknowledge that there are some
situations which others are better fit to deal
with than yourself.


Which X-Men character are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla

...okay, attempt number 3 for writing up this post... See, I got a good way into the post, and then when I was trying to delete a whole word via ctrl+backspace, I accidentally hit alt+backspace and it deleted my whole post. Stupid freakin'... Anyway...

I'm SO pissed off right now. Both Melissa & Alex are in Paris right now. They left at some God-awful hour on Friday morning. They're not going to be back until wicked late Monday night. We've got the draft of our whole report due on Tuesday afternoon. They didn't even offer to help writeup anything they night before they left on Thursday evening. SO, where's that leave me? I get to finish it up all by myself. Granted we've been working on sub-sections and getting them critiqued as we go, but there's still a ton left and their writing sucks.

AND we brought our whole project home on Wednesday night so we could work on it at our flats on Thursday when we couldn't go work at the Tower. We spent more time than desired Thursday morning getting our writeup all set before Alex & I went to buy fabric for one of the toys we're making. When we were going to get that, Melissa was supposed to be stopping by the Tower to pick something up and then coming back to Alex's flat to use the internet to look up our bad citations so we could make them better. She decided to take a nap instead so she didn't actually get any work done. ARGH!!

So, my whole project is in my flat. I s'pose that if I get enough of my writeup done (or if I need a break from it) then I'll work on putting some of our stuff together better than it is right now. I really want their input on stuff before I do all too much. Oh well. Stupid kids...

On a happier note, Rick gave me a call tonight. :-) It'd been a while since I'd gotten to talk to him since I've been so busy working on my project and trying to see London. We talked for a bit before I cut the call short so I could make dinner for Eric & James. I'd spent the day seeing more of London with them. I like chillin' with them and seeing things. We've got a bunch of the same interests in what we want to see and visit.

I'm waiting to receive a package from home. Mom sent one to me last Saturday and supposedly it's going to take 4-12 days to get here. It's been 7 so far! Hopefully it'll come soon. :-)

Each day that goes by, the less and less I want to stay here longer than I need to. Eric's prolly gonna hate me for that. Oh well. I just want to get back home to familiar territory with my family and Rick and my friends. And my dancing. *sigh*

Only 13 to 19 more days left...

...okay, attempt number 3 for writing up this post... See, I got a good way into the post, and then when I was trying to delete a whole word via ctrl+backspace, I accidentally hit alt+backspace and it deleted my whole post. Stupid freakin'... Anyway...

I'm SO pissed off right now. Both Melissa & Alex are in Paris right now. They left at some God-awful hour on Friday morning. They're not going to be back until wicked late Monday night. We've got the draft of our whole report due on Tuesday afternoon. They didn't even offer to help writeup anything they night before they left on Thursday evening. SO, where's that leave me? I get to finish it up all by myself. Granted we've been working on sub-sections and getting them critiqued as we go, but there's still a ton left and their writing sucks.

AND we brought our whole project home on Wednesday night so we could work on it at our flats on Thursday when we couldn't go work at the Tower. We spent more time than desired Thursday morning getting our writeup all set before Alex & I went to buy fabric for one of the toys we're making. When we were going to get that, Melissa was supposed to be stopping by the Tower to pick something up and then coming back to Alex's flat to use the internet to look up our bad citations so we could make them better. She decided to take a nap instead so she didn't actually get any work done. ARGH!!

So, my whole project is in my flat. I s'pose that if I get enough of my writeup done (or if I need a break from it) then I'll work on putting some of our stuff together better than it is right now. I really want their input on stuff before I do all too much. Oh well. Stupid kids...

On a happier note, Rick gave me a call tonight. :-) It'd been a while since I'd gotten to talk to him since I've been so busy working on my project and trying to see London. We talked for a bit before I cut the call short so I could make dinner for Eric & James. I'd spent the day seeing more of London with them. I like chillin' with them and seeing things. We've got a bunch of the same interests in what we want to see and visit.

I'm waiting to receive a package from home. Mom sent one to me last Saturday and supposedly it's going to take 4-12 days to get here. It's been 7 so far! Hopefully it'll come soon. :-)

Each day that goes by, the less and less I want to stay here longer than I need to. Eric's prolly gonna hate me for that. Oh well. I just want to get back home to familiar territory with my family and Rick and my friends. And my dancing. *sigh*

Only 13 to 19 more days left...

I'm still alive. Crazy things are going on with IQP work. We're actually trying to make stuff, and stuff. So yeah, that's my story.

Outside of IQP, I haven't really done all too much. I had a lot of food at the professors' place last night 'cause they've been having IQP kids over for dinner. I ate way too much. Alex was impressed when I told him how much I had.

Tonight I'm going to see The Complete Word of God -- Abridged with Eric & James. Should be fun.

I'm not sure what's up for the weekend yet. I'm hoping to maybe go out to York and then over to Leeds to see some jousting. If not, then I think the three of us will be doing stuff just in and around London. We'll see... We'll see...

So, wow, it's been almost a week since I've done any of this internet stuff. Well, I had a day where I deleted junk mail and checked for emails I was looking for, but besides that, I've not done any internet. Don't take it personal if you didn't hear from me, nobody did.

I got a letter from Allie. I felt special. And I love the pictures I get sent from home. :-D

Friday was a fun day. I got home from work, chilled for a bit, then started drinking with Eric & Tisha over cribbage. Then I started cooking. That was entertaining 'cause I hadn't eaten in 8 hours or so. Alcohol hit me pretty hard. After eating (I made fried rice & ate with Eric & James), I went out to a club with the "party kids." I actually had fun! There was lots of fake dancing and drinks kept on getting shoved in my hands without asking. Mmm... Malibu & pineapple... But yeah, bunches of fun. I went to bed at 0500h.

Then I got up around 1000h to get ready to go to Stratford with Eric & James. We got out a bit later than expected / desired and then we just missed our train. We saw the place where Shakespeare was born & buried. We went to see The Taming of the Shrew put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was amazing!! Sunday we walked along a canal which was really neat. I took bunches of pictures of ducks. :-)

Today I used a sewing machine for a lot of hours. I was attaching lotsa Velcro to a dress. It was... fun? *shrug*

...almost time to come home, but not really. *sigh* I miss Rick and everyone else at home...

Grr, I tried posting, but it didn't like what I wrote. Now I've lost it.

Saturday I was feeling well enough to roam around the city and see stuff and take pictures of it and see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Abridged with Eric & James. James is cool, a senior, and he's not immature. And he's random, fun to talk to. Nice to get away from the alcoholics.

Sunday was laundry and grocery shopping and chillin' with Eric & James.

Yesterday I made lemon pepper chicken & potatoes, but mom told me the wrong temperature for those, so they didn't come out right. The boys still liked it though.

Project is coming along well. We're going to start making toys soon. More on that later if I make it back to an internet cafe when I'm not all frustrated with blogger.

I've gotten 2 letters from mom. One on Thursday when I came home sick from work and one again today. She also sent me pictures. Yay!

31 more days until I see the love of my life, my family, and all my friends.

Originally posted on my normal blog at 15:07:20 on the 4th April:

So, I've been feeling ill lately. Kept me home from work today and Monday. Sent me home after only an hour of being at work Thursday. It's just a cold that's not getting better after 6 days. And my normal headaches that hate me. They're worse than usual. That's been what's been keeping me home. My head has been hurting a lot more when I'm vertical instead of horizontal. Makes it quite difficult to go to work that way.

Upon mom's request, I went to visit a doctor here about it. And he pretty much told me that it's just a cold and my normal headaches from what I told him. He gave me some ammoxicillin as a preventative for getting worse & said there's nothing in my chest, throat or ears. And he gave me the UK equivalent to Tylenol as well and told me to take it 4 times a day. Hopefully it'll help.

On a lighter note, Wednesday night I went to go see Mamma Mia with Eric & the party crew. I didn't associate too much with the party crew, but went with Eric 'cause we wanted to see the show. I don't like the party crew. I don't want to get to know them or make friends with them. I'm never going to see any of them after this trip. But the show was wicked awesome. :-)

Hopefully I'll feel well enough to go see some more of London, and maybe even a show or two. 35 more days...