This is awesome.

I'd highly recommend looking through the site...this article happened to be one of the first things I stumbled onto. I love the idea of the Native American wedding down at the bottom!! That's so beautiful.

Gahhhh...more marriage stuff. :p

Justy and I watched the 1975 edition of Zorro this evening. It was...well ...worth the $4.77 I spent on it. Barely. I think the best part was when Z-man was rolling barrels down a passageway, then to escape stuck himself into one and rolled himself past the guards. That's money, baby. :)

Exercise today: 20 minutes weight training

Save the Boobies

Jen is doing an awesome thing, something which I couldn't commit to this year. Please, help support her Save the Boobies campaign. Also, if you had committed to donating money for me to do that walk, I urge you to please donate the equivelent to her. That's my public service announcement for the day.

I love summer but...

I really really really really hate shaving my legs. >:( But I like how they look and feel afterwards. This mini-rant brought to you by the razorburn I'm currently enjoying on my right shin.

I looked into a gym near my house today. The things that I would really like from a gym are, in no particular order:

1) POPAT training.
2) Heavy bags and other boxing equipment.
3) Many weight stations.
4) Many treadmills/bikes/stair climbers/rowing machines.
5) Both very early and very late hours. 24 hours would be ideal.
6) Within walking/biking distance from my place of residence (currently Port Moody/Coquitlam)
7) Adrian Paul/Duncan MacLeod to own it. ;)
8) Personal trainers.
9) Pool
10) Frequent classes (yoga, self defense, weight training, running, circuit training etc.)

This one has 3, 4, 5, 6 and sometimes 8. I've given up on 7, and until I live in Vancouver, I probably won't get 24 hour service. I'm thinking about buying a 10 visit punch card for $60. A month is $43, so if I go 7 times in a month it's worth getting a monthly thing. I'm going to hold off for now, at least until I look around a bit more. Does anyone go to any gyms that they would recommend?

Self Esteem up? Or down?

I think I might audition for Canadian Idol next time the auditions roll into town, just for the hell of it. :) I mean, I have to be better than SOME of those people, right? Anyway, I've never actually watched the show, and I've watched one episode of American Idol so I have no idea what to expect or anything like that. I'm trying to think of a song. Anyone have any suggestions, stick 'em in the comments.

Exercise today: 2 hours karate

Aren't kids cute? :p

*a lock of hair falls down into my face while I'm tutoring*
Her: Aren't you going to put that behind your ear?
Me: I don't know. I kind of like it. Why, doesn't it look good?
Her: *silence*
Me: Or does it look goofy?
Her: Goofy.
Me: Ok, I'll just be taking fashion advice from a nine year old, then.
Her: *giggles*

Oogh.

Is there anything more nerve wracking than going out to meet people you've never met before? I mean, I'm sure there is, but still. :p

Awwwwww...

Who would have thought that two drugstore toothbrushes would mean so much and be such a romantic gift? :)

Exercise yesterday: 1 hour Ultimate, learning some workout stuff from C/M

I have trouble thinking of titles which actually mean anything to the body of the post, so I'm just going to make this the longest title that I've ever had on here, and it will be much longer than the post that I have planned.

Went and saw Chronicles of Riddick with C/M yesterday and I really enjoyed it. :) Organic tomato soup is in my microwave waiting for me, and I'm still annoyed that I had to spend all that money on my overdue fines.

*sniffle*

I heard the song "Dust in the Wind" today at work just before I left. It was the song used in a montage of "Aww, they were so happy together and loved each other so much, but then she died" clips during a recent TV show that C/M and I watched. I didn't even LIKE the character who died, but it started making me all sad. :( How pathetic is that? :P I feel this need to work out now.

My student is late again. I was supposed to get him half an hour early today, so almost twenty minutes ago, then I'd be able to surprise C/M by getting to his house half an hour before he was expecting me. How very annoying.

Such a girly girl.

My best friend has asked me to be the Maid of Honour, henceforth to be referred to as the MOH, at her wedding in May. :) We'd decided a million years ago that we were going to be each other's MOHs and she's getting dragged to the altar first. I hate organizing stuff like this, so luckily she's all over the whole thing. I still have to arrange the shower and stuff like that. Bleah. But I guess I can deal with that. I'm palming off any arrangements for my own wedding (in like... thirty years) on my own MOH. Tee hee.

So imagine my shock when I look at the time and realize that I've been checking out bridal links and stuff like that for the last two hours...and enjoying myself. The heat is definitely getting to me. :)

Sidenote

I got to be my own 2000th visitor today. :D

*pant, wheeze*

Yeesh. It's still stupid hot. I'm waiting for my student now, and saw something which amuses me on my way here. There's this guy who has an asphalt driveway, at the end of which he has placed three ice cream buckets, presumably in order to prevent people from using his driveway to turn around in. I thought at first that it was because the asphalt was fresh, but it's been more than a month and the ice cream buckets are there nearly every time I drive past. The amusing thing is that his driveway isn't in a spot that ANYONE would want to turn around in, and so he replaces these buckets every time he drives in and out of his driveway. Ok, that is all.

Exercise today: nothing yet

Money-ish post.

I don't think I've ever really gotten the "idea" of libraries. I blame the upbringing I received in a capitalist environment, where the concept of "mine" is fully ingrained by the time a kid is...oh, I dunno...two? (And it's only that old because that's the time that they can verbalize it.) Once a book is in my house after I picked it up from an institution (not just borrowing it from a friend) I have this issue with returning it. Plus, I think I'm ADD, or OCD or INSANE or one of those other acronyms and so I have problems with due dates.

Anyway, I went up to school today (I don't do this often since I mostly do distance ed) to borrow some books from the university library. Luckily, a couple of weeks ago I'd checked to see what my usury fines were since I knew there were some. This meant that I got to have my stroke in private, rather than at the reference desk. So after dropping my $141.00 (about ten books, each two or so weeks late, $1/day), there goes my MP3 player I was hoping to purchase. :p

Tonight I got to officially babysit (getting paid, while the parents are out of the house) for the first time in ages. It was adorable. Two little girls aged almost 4 and 5 1/2 I love kids so much, 'specially when I get to give them back. :) They're really good kids and they've got a good foundation. When I came in they were watching a copy of their dad's original animated Spiderman on VHS, and we played Duplo! Which is like Lego, but bigger for little fingers. I got to do the niftiest bedtime story ever...less because of my amazing story skills but because the 5 year old has a MagnaDraw type thing and I drew the story as we created it. I felt totally like Mr. Rogers or Mr. Dressup. Except female. And not on TV. And younger. And...ok, well I guess I didn't really feel that much like them, except I got to draw my story! And I'm all stoked about that. :)

Here's the story synopsis. Collaborative effort. :) (She decided that the horse was why the princess was sad.)
The beautiful princess is sad because she lost her horse. (sketch of princess and horse and trees) So she goes into the woods to find the horse, but finds an old witch instead. (Oooh...witch in the trees.) And the witch knows where the horse is, but to get the horse, the witch makes her kiss a frog! (closeup of the frog and princess...much "EWW!!" ensues from the little one.) So the princess kisses the frog ("I know what happens! He turns into a PRINCE!!") And the frog turns into a prince and the old witch turns into a beautiful young witch because they were BOTH under a spell. (There's the horse and the princess is feeding him a sugar cube) And the princess got her horse back and they lived happily...well, you know the rest.

I'm feeling less "off". I think I've traced most of the recent stuff back to the Highlander episode we watched the other day. I'll blog about that another time methinks.


Exercise today: 1/4 "Crunch", some weightlifting with C/M, ten or so good pushups. DAMN YOU PUSHUPS!!!

Of Chick Flicks

I generally like to say that I dislike romantic comedies, or as NNY puts it, "The feel good movie(s) of the year." It's not even so much that I dislike them, but I prefer other movies...to give you an idea of what I look for, the first thing I ask is "Do things blow up, and is the leading lady naked in it?" However, Candyman has been working to expand my cinematic horizons with various DVDs that he's picked up over the years. Generally, his instincts as to what I'd be interested in are pretty much bang on. However, there have been times when I just don't like what most people would. Not his fault...I just have a slightly abnormal "movie enjoyment" gene or something. Grease is a great example of that. I really and truly did not like that movie at all. Tonight was another example. I'd heard so many great things about When Harry Met Sally and I was really disappointed. There were definitely some good one liners, but that was about it. I think the problem was that I really didn't like the characters and couldn't get past the first couple of minutes. Meh. Whatever.

Part of that was probably that I've really been "off" the last couple of weeks. I've been kind of depressed, but not in a really active way. More in a "I can't bring myself to do anything" apathetic kind of way. It really sucks. :p Watched an episode of Highlander tonight with C/M, and part of the plot might have triggered all of this as well as the fact that I was trying to do pushups to learn how to do them properly. I have a lot of problems with pushups. I've never really had much upper body strength and I was getting really frustrated with my limitations, bringing myself to the brink of tears a couple of times.

I didn't go to karate Saturday. I had several reasons: my knee hurt, I was sleeping and slept through the alarm, I felt a cold coming on...etc. I feel really pathetic as well as angry with myself, and kind of a failure because of it. I can't put the spilled milk back though, so it just means that I need to work really hard this week, training myself and trying to make up for missing the class.

Goals and priorities for this week...

Monday: 1) do 1 hour of exercise after tutoring in the morning and before going to the university to 2) pick up books to start working on papers.
Tuesday: 1) work 2) work on paper
Wednesday: 1) do 1 hour of exercise after tutoring in the morning and before 2) work
Thursday: 1) work on papers before 2) Ultimate
Friday: 1) do a little light exercise to stretch out after tutoring in the morning, 2) work on papers for a little while
Saturday: 1) work on papers before 2) karate.

I need a structured exercise program as well. Does anyone have any ideas? I will be doing a 1/2 hour of karate for every section of exercise, I need to be running and I need to work on upper body strength. I'm thinking mix it up ie: weight training and karate on every other day, then run and karate on the alternates.

And no, I won't push myself so far that I get injured. If I actually make it through a full hour of exercise, I'll be fairly surprised. :(


Exercise today: About 35 "good" pushups

Ye gods, it's hot for spring

Today's the last day of spring, Father's Day and my brother's 20th birthday. Is hot. I don't really have too much to say.

I was at a really great party Friday night. :) Head over to wellipsis for a very apt description of it. I'll wait.

Welcome back. :) Anyway, I've got to go head out to pick up my brother's bday present. Later all.

*grumble*

My sidebar isn't showing up on this computer, which means no blogroll.

My student hasn't shown up. Between that and the other cancellations, I'm out $75 this week.

My knee is starting to ache a little. (And NO, I didn't exercise today...listening to my boyfriend...)

Woo!

Well, I finished that paper yesterday morning at 0500. I'd like to throw a big thank you out, first to Candyman who came out above and beyond the call of boyfriend duty at 0100 to supply me with a Coke slurpee (the only thing that kills my stomach cramps) and Montery Jack Chicken Taquitos from 7-11, then stayed up until 0500 with me proofreading, and encouraging and making sure that I really understood what I was writing about until 0500. This is the day after he finished his final...so he is done with school for the semester. THEN!!! After I finished and he made sure that I had all the pieces (which I actually didn't...but hey, it looked like the walls were bulging and I was seeing hallucinating spiders out of the corner of my eyes) he then drove it up to the university to hand it in so that I could get an extra hour of sleep before I had to get up to work at 930 for 10.

Thank you also to Jeff for your ideas for inclusion/exclusion. I appreciate it and will be calling on you for my upcoming paper on staples theory. :)

Soooooo...I got my first paper back. :) 9/10. That's an A. *big huge grin* I reread it when I got it mailed back to me, and I'm kind of going "I sort of remember writing that. Damn...that's a brilliant point. Where'd I get that from...no reference. OH! *I* came up with that!!"


Anyway, I'm taking this weekend mostly off from schoolwork. I don't have any assignments due until July 16, and I'm not working this weekend, so I'm going to take a breather. Monday, I'll be at the university starting my research.

*beats head against keyboard*

One more page. Or so. I don't even care if it's any good or not anymore. I just want the bulk of words. This is the 10 for $1.00 ramen that we eat because we can't afford No Name Macaroni and Cheez. Zero nutritional (educational) value, but at least it's SOMETHING to eat (hand in). Frack.

*hyperventilating*

I. Cannot. Do. This. Paper.

I am completely unable to do this. I have a raging headache, impending cramps and I am so tired and hot that I just want to sink into the basement and sleep until tomorrow night. I worked today and I have to work tomorrow, so despite the due time of 430, I lost two days that I should have been able to work on it.

I have NEVER just sat and looked at a blank screen like this before. Never. If anyone has any ideas...here's what I have. This is a cry for help people!!

"Describe the evolution of the relationship existing between capitalism and democracy in wester liberal democracies. Why is this an "uneasy relationship"?

OUTLINE:
Introduction-quick overview...write it last
Para 2-definition of capitalism
Para 3-definition of democracy
Para 4-definition of a liberal democracy
Para 5-the evolution of the relationship between Cap and Democ
Para 6-why it's an "uneasy relationship".
Conclusion-repeat the intro, but in a different way.

Invitations

I haven't actually checked my Gmail account yet...but since everyone else seems to get three of them, I think I have three Gmail invitations to give away. Anyone want one?

Exercise today: Nothing again. Bad Karin! Bad! (Actually I'm working on schoolwork, so I'm allowed)

Yum.

Annie's Macaroni and Cheese is the STUFF!

Exercise yesterday: nothing. Bad Karin! Bad!

*bibble bibble bibble*

Ok. So if I finish my midterm studying tonight, finish writing all my definitions and do some note taking for my essay tomorrow, write my midterm tomorrow night, go to work and tutor Wednesday and Thursday, write my essay Wednesday night and do my essay proposal on my break at work, then mail that sucker in on Thursday, I'll be good until July. *takes a deep breath and dives in*

Exercise yesterday: 1 "Crunch" (1/2 km or so hike at an average of 40 degree incline. Ouch.)

Oooh. Boooooks...

Has anyone ever ordered anything from the Amazon.ca Marketplace site? There's a store there offering tons of books I want for a penny each. So before I plunk down my $0.14 for the books I want, I need some questions answered.

1) They're coming from the States, so would I have to pay duty on the penny or on the suggested value of each book?
2) I think the shipping would be $6.50 or something per item. That sound about right for anyone who's checked it out?
3) Will I have extra, weird charges?

That's all. Thank you. :) (I mean...it's not like I've actually got the TIME to read. :p)

Exercise today: At the track-9 laps (35 minutes) total. 1.5 miles timed=17 minutes walking/jogging

Gotta focus...gotta focus...OOH! SHINY!!!

Things to do today

-Eat a healthy breakfast and lunch
-Do five sets of chapter review questions for midterm on Tuesday
-Finish writing eight short answer definitions for take home midterm due Thursday
-Start and finish 4-5 page paper for take home midterm due Thursday, of which I know nothing of the topics.
-Run 1.5 miles at the track to practice for the scary police physical.

Things which have so far distracted or otherwise caught my attention tempting me to abandon the things which I need to do today

-Blogging the things I need to do and things which have distracted me
-Apricots
-Purple sparkly nail polish
-Cutting my nails
-Cleaning my room
-Laundry
-Hairspray and the possibilities it presents
-Webcomics
-Bideeogemu (videogame)
-Work calling me to take a shift for today
-Weights
-Going out and exercising before working on my papers
-The garden
-Reading my weblog
-Reading one of the books I picked up at the Criminal Justice institute's library for $1 each.
-Tweaking my template
-ICQ/MSN (Luckily there's hardly anyone awake and online at 0930 on a Sunday)

Exercise yesterday: 2 hours karate, some exercises C/M taught me
Exercise a couple days ago that I forgot to write down: 1 hour lifting 5 lb weights while watching "Finding Nemo"

*smile*

It's like a great big present when I look at my blogroll and see that a bunch of people have updated and I can peer once again into the lives of others...at least as far as they post online.

My knee still feels really good despite the pounding I gave it last night at Ulti.

Hoo...busy...

Played Ulti tonight. I feel not too bad now. I felt like death when I got home. I was sore and freezing, but I feel like I played not-completely-lame. Scored two points and we won both our games. All in all, it was pretty good. Oh, except for the whole "we have three girls so there's no breaks" thing. :) But that's ok. A couple more weeks of that and I'll look damned good in a bikini. :) I rewarded myself when I got home with hot chocolate and marshmallows, salt/vinegar chips and a hot bath.

Oh, and my knee and my previously sprained ankle are pretty much the only parts of my body which don't hurt.

Things are moving forward on the police thing. I'm going to a meeting on Saturday for it and I've started training a little for the POPAT. Yup. I've already had some requests from people who want to borrow my handcuffs when I get them...so I'll be starting a waiting list. Bribes will be accepted. (Gee, wonder if that's against regulations... Nahh... ;) )

I teach tomorrow morning, so I'll quickly update my schedule and then crash like the exhausted chiqua that I am.

Exercise today: 2 1/2 hours of Ultimate

Yay!

I tested my knee out a little this afternoon, and the results are as follows. Zero pain. Zero swelling. I'm very out of shape however. Please note the return of the exercise portion of the blog.

Exercise today: 15 minutes walking/running (about 1-2 km)

Command decision

I woke up this morning around 0500, after finally falling asleep around 0300 with an upset stomach (both when I went to bed and when I woke up) so I tried to doze off again. Finally I called in sick to work due to lack of sleep and excess of stomach acid, went to do my early morning teaching, came home and slept until 2. I feel much better. I will now work on my take home midterm after I finish eating, then teach, then do stuff with Meesh. Then work on my midterm some more. :p Bleah. School.

Ooh! Forgot...

I got to visit Drew and NNY as well. :)

Fun yesterday, fun the day before, not so fun today.

Day before yesterday (Monday) evening was fun. C/M took me out for "date night". :) It started out with DQ ice cream, then off to the movies to catch "13 Going On 30" starring Jennifer Garner *siiiiiiigh* :) Much good. Thank you sweetie!

This evening was a great dinner with Justy. I'm not feeling really good right now, nothing to do with the food...more to do with the wild and crazy anime (Spirited Away) and bright flashing colours I think. Bleah. Anyway, I need to go to bed, tutoring tomorrow.

Whoa.

Just...whoa. Good for those parents says I.

Yipes.

A little overwhelmed, it's still good! It's still good!

At the risk of sounding totally mushy, I'd like to send out a big kiss to my boy. He knows why. :)

Quickie update:

My knee=happy. I was tutoring the other day and bent over and heard a CRACKPOPSNAPCRUNCH. I froze and just thought "Holy shit. That sounded like it should have really hurt." I flexed it several times experimentally and there was neither pain, stiffness or residual cracking. This was Friday afternoon, and it is now back to normal except for being a little stiff when I first wake up.

My skirt=really fricking gorgeous. I love it. As well as my mesh top. I went to the mall with Candyman today and it was funny to have people look weirdly at me. I haven't worn strange-ish Goth-like clothing since high school/first year university and so that amuses me.

My hair=gorgeous. Dark dark dark purple/black. It will have very obviously purple streaks in it in the next couple days/a week.

School=eep. I'm actually pretty well on track, but still feeling kind of freaked out about the whole thing. I think I've got everything under control.

I've actually got some news though. I'm planning on applying for a police department in the next couple of weeks. LOL. This also amuses me. I've had most people I've told tell me that they can't picture me as a cop. Well, I wanted to be a high school teacher so it's not really THAT much of a stretch? Right? Hello? :) Erm, yeah.

Curiosity

So, who reads my blog? Now that I've got comments back up, answer the following question in the comments...if you want to...I mean, don't feel like you need to, but I'm wondering who's out there.

When you change your template, or someone whose blog you read frequently changes their template do you get kind of confused? Like when someone changes their voice mail message?

Hokay.

Knee still hurts...but not as bad. Comments are back up (hopefully. :/). I bought new shoes yesterday. I dyed my hair yesterday. I am almost finished my paper.

I'm having a good day. Everything is spiralling out of control much slower than normal. :)

Bound to be some bugs

Well, I haven't enabled my comments yet. I have to go eat something, so I'll do that soon. I like my pretty new template. :) Thank you Blogger. :)

My knee still hurts. It's not swollen, so that's good. Um...that's about it.

Now I eat, finish paper, install MS Office, dye my hair and sleep.

The verdict is...

"You've definitely done something to yourself." Um, thanks? Glad I went to the doctor's...

My knee was worse this morning. Tentative diagnosis is a strained or (hopefully not) a sprained side knee ligament. (Not posterier or anterior...what's "right" in that context?)

Treatment involves staying off it, RICEing (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) it and an Advil four times daily to keep the swelling down, plus some quadracept exercises. And no Ultimate or karate for at least a week.

Exercise today: Nothing dammit. :(

OW! DAMMIT!

I screwed up my knee today. >:( I wasn't even doing anything fun, unless I was going out and playing Ultimate in my sleep last night. It hurts and it's a little swollen, so I've been icing it and resting it. I came home from work a couple hours early because I was really sore. Hopefully it will be better for Thursday. :(

Man, I feel like a woman...

This is my 400th post! Woo! So I'll do a quick rant about being female. :)

Last month kind of sucked. I ran out of a whole bunch of stuff all at once. Here's a quick breakdown of the masses of crap I had to buy, mostly due to being female.

Pads, tampons, Midol and Advil=$39
Cramp perscription=$23
Birth control pills (three months worth)=$56
Hair dye control shampoo/conditioner=$9
Hair dye=$9 (discretionary purchase...I'm shouldn't be allowed to bitch about this one. :) )
White sports bra=$27
Being a woman=priceless (And trust me, my Visa truly thanks me for my time. :p )

I don't really notice the cost of all this junk when I buy one or two things at a time. Jeepers.

Exercise today: running around plant stores

Hmm..

Interesting development...today I found out about karate's stance on cross developing with different martial arts. Basically, it's "check with sensei first" which I understand completely. Unless someone mentions it to me on Saturday (not too likely...we're doing a big demonstration) I'll go to kickboxing next week, since I told them I'd be there, and then I'm going to drop it. It very adversely affected my Ultimate this week (though that could have been partly due to the occasional torrential downpours) and there are many good points brought up against cross training with kickboxing. Also, as Candyman points out, I don't exactly have a plethora of time these days.

Oops. Spoke too soon.

Last night, in terms of muscles, sucked ass. Yesterday wasn't too bad, since I was standing and walking around at work most of the day, but as soon as I sat down in my car, all my muscles went "MUHHAHAHA!!! Now we freeze!" and *cachunk* there they went. Ouch.

I'm still sore today, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. :p Well, Ultimate ought to loosen all those muscles up, especially since we'll be playing in the cold, and we'll probably be short a couple of girls. *eeps!*

Ok, starting essay now. Then going to the University to try and pick up information for teaching certificates, then to NNY's place to drool over the Drew as she drools on me.

*tentative stretch*

Cool, I'm not in agony from kickboxing. :)

This is all kind of random thoughts from early in the morning. Please don't take it personally.

I just want to reiterate a few things about my diet... Number one, it is not an "I can't eat (carbs, protein, sugar, milk, etc.)" kind of diet. It's more of an "I'm exercising like crazy, so I should be fueling my body with the correct amount and type of energy that I'm outputting". Secondly, I've been feeling physically much better than I have in AGES, probably partly due to the fact that I'm not eating like crap all the time. Thirdly, it has been pointed out to me that my feeling crappy is probably not due to eating sugar/caffiene/whatever.

To that I say that I probably shouldn't be eating junk and if I feel sick when I eat it, yay. One more reason to not eat it, even if it's not the junk food's fault. However, I'm noticing the pattern that when I eat certain things, I feel yucky. Kind of like when I'm exhausted I feel yucky, or when I ride in cars with certain people who hit the brakes too fast because they're following too close to the car in front of them *cough dad cough*, or when I read in a car/bus/skytrain I know that makes me feel nauseated. Therefore, I try to minimize doing what makes me feel bad. In this case, it's kind of like getting stung with a bee. Maybe it was the bee sting that caused an allergic reaction, or maybe it was the air you were breathing, or some random attack in your brain, but you can try to avoid bee stings and so you do.

Ow. Ouch. Ooh...owie.

I'm having some trouble with this whole "typing" thing right now. I was emailing back and forth with the Master of a local kickboxing school for the last day or two and I went down there to chat with him. Tonight happened to be the time that the white belt class met, so I got to join in. Oh. My. Goddess. I hurt. I hurt very much. There was so much cardio stuff. I have a two week free pass, so I'll be heading down there twice next week and once the week after. I don't know if I'll be joining or not, but it was a great workout and an extremely fun experience. This ought to counteract the sleeping I did this afternoon and let me actually fall asleep tonight. With any luck I also sweated out the Coke that I drank this afternoon. I had it and started feeling really crappy...I've been pretty much cutting refined sugar out of my diet for the last two weeks or so, minus the Coke slurpee that I had when I had cramps, and I didn't sleep that night either. It has to be the sugar, because I've been drinking Diet Coke with no issues. I don't drink coffee or tea, so I don't get caffiene from that either. Now I go to the shower. And to bed.

Exercise today: 1 hour of hard cardio kickboxing

Yay.

*yawning, walks out of the house and starts driving down the road to tutor* BAM!! EIGHTEEN THOUSAND SIGNS LITTER THE GREENWAYS! FIFTY POUNDS OF PLASTIC FOR EVERY SQUARE METRE OF ROADSPACE!! *Karin curls up in a ball and starts whimpering*

Oh look. An election. *groan*

I support Bimkin's suggestion that one vote for the folks who have the least amount of "fecal advertising material" on the sides of the road.

(/political annoyance hatred rant)

ARGH!

Has anyone else noticed how Blogspot hosted blogs are not working about a third of the time you surf to them?! This is particularly problematic to those of us who use a Blogspot hosted blog and use it as their start page to get from their blogroll and back, then...I don't know...link to... say... comics? Or something like that?

It's a little frustrating.

I shouldn't take naps during the day.

I only meant to be asleep until noon, but I just got up...and it's past three. Heh...uh. Whoops. Fun looking link! I wonder if there's anything like this near Vancouver. It's set in Atlanta, Georgia. *pout*

Monty Python

Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who!


What Monty Python Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME TONIGHT WAS THE SEASON FINALE OF ALIAS?!

And it's on hiatus until January. *cry* Yikes. I need my Jennifer Garner fix already. Please Goddess, don't tell me I'll be reduced to renting the seasons of Party of Five that she's in.

Exercise today: 20 minutes karate, 1/2 hour crunches and weight lifting while watching Alias.

I hate school.

whyohwhyohwhyohwhy did I decide this would be a good idea?! The sun is out and it's my day off. I had the choice of going to Vancouver Island with my parents or going to the States with Candyman, and I'm stuck here doing chapter review questions. Oh, for a laptop. :p

Exercise today: nothing yet. I need to kick ass today, I'm really restless.

People are fricking idiots.

Has anyone else heard of this sex bracelet fad? What a bunch of morons people can be. I did a google on it, and it shows up as a party game for adults. Well, you know what?! Adults play STRIP POKER with cards! That means that CHILDREN SHOULD NOT PLAY SOLITARE, even on the computer because it will make them WANT TO TAKE THEIR CLOTHES OFF! Holy fsck. Seriously, I have trouble contemplating the sheer idiocy of people who think that their 9 year old child is planning to have sex based on the fact that s/he's wearing a bracelet. [edit: here's another site with a bunch of comments on the bottom.]

On kind of a cool note, we have those at work...I think I'll pick some up for myself. ;) Y'know. Since I'm an adult and all.

So many things happened yesterday.

Yesterday should have been the day from hell, but it wasn't actually that bad. I taught first thing in the morning, did the craft store, taught another two hours and then went to Vancouver to take a private lesson for karate. I got moving at 0700 and wasn't finished until 2100. All this was on less than two hours of sleep. Ye gods. I had twenty minutes in between my first teaching and going to the craft store and I was so fried that I stood in front of the telephone book with tears streaming down my face whimpering "I don't know what number to call" several times before my mother sent me to lie down until I had to leave. Things could ONLY get better from there. :) They did. :) I had the supervisor that I really like at work...she insists on people taking their breaks, at the right time and for the right length and will only call you back if the situation is uber desperate.

Teaching went well. I discovered this morning that I'm going to be getting more than $900 for the month. Um...holy crap? There goes my credit card debt. *poof* Here comes my savings account *cha-ching* I am pleased.

My lesson yesterday went spectacularly well. I could feel myself improving pretty much every three minutes. I don't think I've EVER been this excited about learning something. I'm really looking forward to today's dojo workout. It's hard to describe. I practiced a lot last week and this has really helped me to kick everything into a higher gear. I'm pretty happy about that.

Last night I got to hang out with Candyman, Jeff and his lady friend. I'm not going to go into much detail, but a really nice time was had by all, and I managed to behave myself while she was there.

So that's about it right now. How was YOUR day?

Exercise yesterday: 1 hour karate lesson

Wow.

Oh, do I ever want to go to this. Anyone want to go to California for a weekend?!

Exercise today: 2 hours Ultimate

Busybusybusybusy

Ok, I'm going to the book store now. Things I need to do today: homework, laundry, putting away laundry, picking up paint from work, painting sign for karate, phoning Visa about some money they owe me, Ultimate, practice karate. Things I want to do today: put up garden arch, do some writing, hang out with CM, gardening stuff. There's probably a few more things in there as well. :p

I think I need to sleep now.

Saw Shrek 2 with Kittens tonight. That was fun. :) We're spending more time together, or chatting. This is very good. I'm going to bed now. I taught this morning and am very tired. :p

Addenendum

All is good. CM came over so I could be angst-y to him in person rather than on the phone. And the moral of the story is...don't leave stuff in the refridgerator. Oh, wait. That's wrong. (for the one person who will get the reference...)

Nope, the moral is "don't take Karin lingerie shopping when she's angst-y or else nothing will get bought". However, money doesn't need to be spent and the potential buyer still gets to see nekkidness. (An aside: with all of the hits for "gragh" I've been getting, I wonder if nekkid and various other not real words will get hits as well... hmmm...)

Oooh...

My head has been spinning for the last couple of days. :( I slept a LOT this weekend, which made me figure I was probably sick. Turns out it's PROBABLY just allergies. First time I've ever really had seasonal allergies, so I'm hoping that's all it is and it'll clear up in the next little while. Waiting for CM to call me, so I'm sort of doing laundry and cleaning and stuff.

*ring ring*

After 20 minutes of me whining to him, I finally realized how pathetic I sounded and got off the phone. *grumble* Not doing anything with him today. :( We're both doing stuff. *double grumble* I want to go buy some stripper platform boots, but I'm currently broke-ish. Gah. Bringing in groceries. :p

Ooh. Purdy.

You're Brigitte Bardot!


What Classic Pin-Up Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Whoops.

For whoever added me to their ICQ, I accidentally closed it. Your ICQ number starts with 22. Um, yeah. Resend...I'll add you this time. :p

Exercise today: Working in the garden for 1 hour, including cutting the grass with a push power mower.

Gah.

I am living. In the middle. Of a fricking soap opera. Ye flipping gods. A least it's interesting...

Exercise yesterday: 1 hour karate

What a car's for

Tomorrow Justy and I are going to do model rocket related stuff. I'll have to get my launch box out of my car, where it has been since about July of last year. This is why my car is a mess...it's a holding place for all my hobbies. I've got about twenty pounds of soap which is ready to be made into bars and pretty coloured shapes; that's been in there since at least December. I pulled out various articles of clothing...some of which had been in there since I BOUGHT the car, back in June. Currently I'm wearing a pair of jeans I found in there that had been missing since Valentine's.

Exercise today: I was laaaazy. And I enjoyed it. Except for the whole "I think I'm getting sick" part. :(

Quarter-life Crisis

The words below are not mine...they came to me in an email...but I know some of you out there who are going through exactly what is articulated below. I was...and I quit everything and went out to sort my shit out on the other side of the world.

What are YOU going to do about it....

They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realising that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realising that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognise is that they are realising that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job...and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realising that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realise that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't.

One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realise that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person.

One nightstands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.

You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision.

You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself...and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realise is that everyone reading this relates to it.

We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

Send this to your twenty-something friends...maybe it will help someone feel like they aren't alone in their state of confusion...

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Skirts and Ravioli

I'm back in civilization. It's so good to be someplace where we have cable, internet and a working DVD player. :) Yup, Meesh and I were really roughing it...our TV didn't have a remote control!

We went down and the border guards took our can of ravioli...luckily he was really nice about it, apologizing for the stupidity of it. It had beef in it, so for those who are keeping abreast of the "mad cow" situation, that was some fallout. Weird.

A good time was had by all. Meesh and I built a fire and I toasted marshmallows; I think I still have some goo under my ring. It still feels sticky. Presumably nothing was left behind, the weather was gorgeous and I wanna go BAAAACK!!

We went into Bellingham for a bit and I picked up a really cute skirt and a shirt from Hot Topic. We only got lost once each on the way there and back, but we made it. I had to leave my skirt at the trailer because we were down less than 24 hours. :(

That's about it for now. Fun was had. I'll be going back again, probably during the week again. Keep an eye on the side schedule for times and if some people want to try and coordinate with me, we'll see what we can do.

Exercise yesterday: Tossed the disc around, short nature walk, stretching and run through my kata, 1 hour Ultimate

Exercise the day before: 45 minute walk down at the Ranch.

Camping

I'm going down to the States for the night with Meesh; we should be back around 3 pm PST tomorrow afternoon, in time for me to get to Ultimate. I woke up at 0823 this morning without the alarm...because I forgot to turn it on, and I was supposed to be teaching at 0745. Eep. And I don't have kid's phone number, so I'm kind of hooped. Well, I'll see them and apologize Friday. On the plus side, I made Rice Krispy squares, went for a walk and did some schoolwork, all before noon...not bad considering that normally I'm not awake until around noon...ish. Closer to one on many days.

I want to go to the bookstore today for a couple hours, but I'm very tired. I think I'll shower, pack for tonight and Ultimate tomorrow, eat something, then do some reading. If I don't make it to the bookstore today I've got time on Friday.

Exercise today: 35 minute walk up and down hills with the maternal unit.

Visiting

Today I got to see one of my best friends whom I haven't seen since before Christmas, unless you count two days ago when we accidentally ran into each other at the mall but we both had to get going and we were going to try to see a movie, but didn't get a chance to. *gasp for breath* So we hung out for a bit tonight and went for a long walk, which was quite a feat, since there's no flat parts where I live. It was nice though. We're going to try and get together once a week to do active stuff.

Exercise today: the below mentioned karate plus 45 minute walk up and down hills.

Meh.

I should write a better review of Van Helsing. Here it goes...

Overall, I found it to be a really terrific movie. The opening sequence made it worth the price of admission (more so since I didn't pay, but even if I had, it would have been enough) and it just got better from there in. The storyline seemed tight, the fight scenes were great, the costuming was phenomenal (I have a weakness for a woman in a corset, loose shirt and tight pants. Very pirate...). I found some of the CGI to be a little weak...there were some issues with the characters looking too...slippery, especially when there was wall climbing involved. I had the same problem with Spiderman, a movie I love and own, so it's not really a big issue. I enjoyed the way they treated Frankenstein's monster...it was very close to the way he is in the original book and very unlike the way he is portrayed in other movies. The Brides were amazingly well done, and extremely hot. Their costuming was just r0xx0r, and so were their br...brain power...yeah. ;) I didn't find Dracula to be sexy enough...I have a thing for vampires, so I like them to have serious sex appeal, but there was one scene where as CM puts it, he suddenly turns on the charm (and the Dom nature... :D ) and is suddenly much sexier.

Ooh. I haven't mentioned Hugh Jackman at all yet, have I? Well, I don't want to get in trouble, so I'll remove most of the vowels in a big secret code. ;)

-h m- f-ck-ng De-ty. N- sh-rt...n- sh-rt! V-ry am-z-ngly s-xy! Kiss-ng sc-ne w-s l-ke "Sh- g-ts P--D f-r th-t!!" N--d t- g-t m- s-m- h-t A-str-li-n ph-t-s. dr-ol. M-ch dr-ol-ng -nsu-s.

Ok. I think that was good. :)

Also, Kate Beckinsale has changed position with Nicole Kidman in my "all time favourite actresses" list. It was funny...I could not remember Nicole Kidman's name last night, I was so knocked out by Kate's performance. Candyman had to remind me... :/

New favourite actress list- Jennifer Garner, Kate Beckinsale, Nicole Kidman

Exercise today: 1/2 hour karate

Really quick notes:

Saw "Man on Fire" the other day. The movie is good. The book is better. Read the book first.

Saw "Van Helsing" today. The movie is VERY good. The women are beautiful. Watch the movie. Then read the comic.

The End.

Exercise today: some karate

Ugh

Taught early...worked craft store. Sleeping now. Bookstore good.

Exercise yesterday: 10 minutes karate

Welcome...

...to the person who searched me out using "shintokukai blog" :) Glad you could make it.

Hmph. *pout*

While there are certainly things more annoying, there is currently nothing which is more annoying than having really cool news and not having anyone home to hear it. Well, it's a good thing I have a voice on the internet, isn't it? :)

Everyone's always told me that I should work in a bookstore, or own a used bookstore or variations of the same theme. So today I went to my current favourite used bookstore and the owner had roughly eighty bazillion boxes of books that people had brought in, so I offered to help him out. :) I'll be going in tomorrow for a couple of hours. *happy* Note to self: remember to bring allergy medication...there's about 38,000 books in that store, and probably a bit of dust.

Exercise today: 2 hours karate

Yes! Media!

My mom told me yesterday that my parents were going to buy me a printer to do school stuff with. Woo! So she and I were at Costco today and saw a printer. And we bought it. Well, she bought it. :) It's a HP PSC 1350 if that means anything to anyone. And if it doesn't, well there's the link for y'all.

It's nice. Printer/scanner/copier with a spot to plug the memory card for a digital camera into it. If I had a digital camera. Actually, I have a memory card somewhere that's around. I'll see if I can use it to get some of those photos off of it.

Blog Problems

This has been an issue a couple of times. Has anyone else ever gotten in trouble for something that you've written in your blog/LJ?

Thoughtful post (!!)

As usual, on a night that I should be going to bed early, I decided to post. Actually, it was more of an "I need to post" but in a good way. I don't know how long this is going to be. :) The lyrics this evening are from Aerosmith's "Amazing". Warning: strange internal workings are occurring in this one.

I kept the right ones out
And let the wrong ones in
Had an angel of mercy to see me
Through all my sins

There were times in my life
When I was going insane
Trying to walk through the pain

Despite coming from a good, relatively stable home with no abuse or other domestic problems including drug and alcohol abuse, I have had many issues. Maybe it's just that I'm too dramatic, or too naive, or something else that is simply a habit, or else it's something biological or chemical like depression, ADD, etc. ad nauseum. Simply put there's not really any good ways to determine what it is. Of course, there's also those who feel that these "biological or chemical" problems are simply lack of character or things that can easily be changed. I'm not going to judge one way or another...I don't really have the research, and well...this isn't really about that.

I've been struggling for a long time to "fit in" or to at least appear to and forget about my general alienation from the rest of my friends, people who I know through work, school or other activities. I felt that I was missing out on things. I would do things to try and gain attention...nothing major... trying to be special in some way. That was always the rub. I always felt that I needed something to distinguish me from the crowd. It didn't matter that people would tell me that I was special or that there was something different about me. I needed lots of independent confirmation to boost my self esteem. I'm sure I was truly a pain in the ass a lot of the time. :p

When I lost my grip
And I hit the floor
Yeah, I thought I could leave
But couldn't get out the door
I was so sick and tired
Of living a lie
I was wishing that I would die

I've definitely had death wishes before. I used to cut myself, until I promised someone very special to me that I wouldn't. Even though I'm not in touch with him anymore, I've kept my promise although it's been very difficult for me. I don't think that there was ever a serious suicide attempt, but the pain used to release pressure for me. In lieu of cutting myself, I used other methods to hurt myself. Again, this sometimes made me feel that I was special in some way, that by doing this I was grounding myself in reality again. I know that doesn't really make sense...sorry. :( Even recently, I would lie in bed hating myself and willing myself to die overnight. Or I would drive really fast at night, tempting myself to just go over the railing.

It's difficult to try and get help for something like that. Eating disorders are recognized, but vacuous death wishes seem to be less serious, especially when I looked at them. They are not seen as immediately dangerous, which I suppose is technically true, but they are very damaging to a person's self esteem and the rest of their life.

It's amazing
With the blink of an eye
You finally see the light
It's amazing
When the moment arrives
That you know you'll be all right
It's amazing
And I'm saying a prayer
For the desperate hearts tonight

So I don't know if I'm ever going to be completely "cured" of this, or even if I want to. While it really and truly sucks to be in "the depths of despair" as Anne of Green Gables puts it, it is so absolutely fucking unbelieveably GOOD to be out of it. It's like that moment in the "Wizard of Oz" where it goes from black and white to Technicolor. Suddenly everything seems good. Suddenly there is a purpose to life.

How high can you fly with broken wings?
Life's a journey, not a destination
And I just can't tell just what tomorrow will bring
You have to learn to crawl
Before you learn to walk

So this is what I'm doing now. I'm crawling, but I've got a journey in mind. C/M once told me that I seem to believe that life is a spiritual journey. I tend to agree with his assessment. I'm starting to find...myself? Inner peace? The meaning of life? I don't necessarily know if it's real, but it makes me happy, and if it makes me happy, it can't be that bad. ;)

In other, lighter news:
1) Today (May 6) is the two year anniversary of the day that C/M, NNY and myself met.
2) Our first Ultimate game of the season was this evening. Overall, we played quite well, winning both of our games. Yours truly played the best I've ever felt that I've played before, scoring one point and making a spectacular 89 point landing out of bounds. I'm especially happy about the way that I played because I'd felt earlier today that I was badly out of shape and was not impressed at all with the way I'd trained in the winter.
3) Wendy's salads are REALLY good.
4) Babies are really amazing and cool and I'll blog that another time, I'm sure. :)

Exercise today: 2 hours of Ultimate

Fear the babby

I'm going to spend the night at no name yet's house watching Drew tonight. She and her partner will still be there, but hopefully they'll be sleeping. I'm calling myself the "midnight to five am shift".

Fear.

Then tomorrow, if we're awake, NNY and I will go to Movies for Mommies. :) Then Ultimate. I'll get to learn if I can play Ultimate while asleep on my feet. I'm wearing my snazzy new Gaia jersey. I am da sexy.

Exercise today: couple times through my kata while waiting for my student.

My whole post is the following...

Exercise today: 20 minutes "S Factor", 10 minutes weight training, 17 minutes karate practice. Grand total=47 minutes of actually making myself move on my own.

Woo and hoo. :)

I wonder...

C/M pointed out that with the post about all those referrers, I probably increased the odds of people finding their way to my site while looking for "gragh paper". Let's see what other search terms I can use to artificially inflate my search engine odds.

dooce
justin timberlake naked
breast enhanced celebrities
i want to find true love or sex
nude celebrity pic
how do they get the flowing caramel into the caramilk bar
gragh paper
calorie count atkins south beach diet lose weight fast
earn money at home
food sex
weird kleenex stories

I'll cross them out if/when they get searched.

Thank goodness!

This will come as a welcome find to many men, I'm sure. (/sarcasm)

Tee hee...

Another one!

Oi. I feel useless. Why do I have a flamethrower when I have a large dragon as a sidekick? Although, I like the idea of a Mallet of DOOOOM!!!!

Generate your Anime Style by Jena-su
Name:
Hair:	Never stays the same style/colour for long.
Clothes:	Little by way of actual clothes, but lots and LOTS of really cool accessories.
Powers:	Dragon taming
Special Features:	Bunny ears and tail
Sidekick:	Large dragon.
Attitude:	Extremely smart, very quiet.
Weapon:	Flamethrower
Created with the ORIGINAL MemeGen!

Generate your Anime Style by Jena-su
Name:
Hair:	Rediculously long, usualy tied up in ribbons.
Clothes:	Little by way of actual clothes, but lots and LOTS of really cool accessories.
Powers:	Fire magic
Special Features:	Fox ears and tail
Sidekick:	Small dragon.
Attitude:	Very quiet and reserverd, extremely shy.
Weapon:	Mallet of DOOM
Created with the ORIGINAL MemeGen!

A quiz

Haven't done one of these in a while. I got it from C/M's cousin's site.

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Moderate
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	High
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Moderate
Histrionic:	High
Narcissistic:	Moderate
Avoidant:	Moderate
Dependent:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Moderate
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! --

April referrers to my site

the once and future king synapses
knitting a toque
slurpee recipe coke
gragh paper
how do you keep synapses firing
synapses
gragh paper
Karin (imood)
shintokukai (CNN) x 2
rona "paint sale" (google)
jewellery ndp svend robinson (google)
shintokukai (google)
payless boots blog (google)
5th element/sarah brightman (yahoo)
gragh paper (MSN)
circle gragh (yahoo)
"wiped away all your tears" (AOL)
do the right thing movie synapses (yahoo)
sluggy lyrics "fire and rain" (google)
gragh of alcohol drinking (google-sokning)
"when you cried i wiiped away all your tears" (google)
payless sneakers blog (google)
pics fishlets (google)
shintokukai (google)
kiki dog coquitlam (metacrawler)
"in flander's fields the poppies blow" (google)
centerpieces in fishbowls (msn)
i rape my bride wedding nite (yahoo)
finding nemo/synapses (yahoo)
shintokukai (google)
"i held your hand through all those years" (google)
"when you cried i wiped away all your tears" (google)

I like how people find me via the Evanenecence song, which I didn't transcribe completely correctly. I also enjoy the "gragh" paper. It's pronounced "graff" and spelled "graph" people. It's also funny that words I make up get searched for (fishlets). And whoever wanted that "i rape my bride wedding nite", first, learn how to spell. Second...um...yeah. Weird. Odder that I got the hit.

Purchases

I got an extra hundred dollars on my paycheque this week, so after paying off some of the stuff that I needed to for this time period I went to the mall. :) I actually was very restrained. I bought a white sports bra that I have needed for some time, some white knee socks to go with my Mary Jane shoes (black strappy dress shoes with a slight heel and closed toes) and a cute tan skirt for $5. All in all, I wound up spending less than fifty bucks, including lunch. That's pretty good for me...I have had some serious spending issues in the recent past. So, my only impulse purchase was the tan skirt, even though I hadn't planned on picking up the socks today. White knee socks are at Sears for $4.99 if anyone's interested.

Exercise today: two hours of karate

Working on goals...

...is both harder and easier than I thought it would be. When I created my list of daily goals, it helped bring into focus the parts of my life which I wanted to improve. And, it turns out that I want to improve a wide range of things from body, mind and spirit. This makes me happy. I think I may have set the bar too high for myself at first though. Knowing that I need to write for two hours, and knowing that I need to exercise for an hour makes me kind of overwhelmed, which doesn't let me get started. Baby steps...baby steps...

Exercise today: 2 hours of Ultimate practice

Things I learned today about babies.

Today and went to visit No Name Yet and her brand new daughter, Drew. And so I figured that I would write down some things that I learned. I've taken care of babies before, but never any that are 12 days old (!!).

1) Drew is very tiny.
2) Tiny babies have HUGE SCREAMS when being changed.
3) Babies smell really nice. (Actually, I knew that, but I got reminded.)
4) Drew is really very tiny.
5) Babies can sleep through phones, game shows, dogs yapping and sneezes.
6) New moms can also sleep through phones, game shows, dogs yapping and sneezes.
7) SHE'S SO LITTLE!! Every part is so tiny!
8) Baby hiccups are really cute...at least for the first little while.
9) When you're resting a sleeping infant on your stomach, they will jump when your stomach gurgles.
10) My God, she's so little!

I suck

Well, I got an hour of writing done this morning. I guess that's ok considering that I worked for eight hours today.

Got another student. :) I'll be starting with him on Wednesday.

And I made a bunch of flower barrettes from silk flowers I bought at work. They're pretty. :)

Ok, that's it. I'm going to bed. I teach way too fricking early tomorrow.

Oh, and it's Kittens's birthday in two days. I have part of her present already. :) This is good. Maybe I'll take her out for dinner.

Um...huh?

From MSN

"The Week in Pictures: A cat bath, Gaza strife & other striking images"
The picture is a white cat looking kind of pissed off at being all soapy.

Does anyone else think that maybe pictures of a cat bath aren't exactly in the same league as pictures of "Gaza strife"? Although, having never tried to give a cat a bath...maybe it IS in the same league. Cats can give nasty scratches...

BBQ

Going to Meesh's barbeque tonight. While I check email and stuff, my amazing boyfriend is making me a chicken club sandwich. :D Me likes.

I dyed my hair this afternoon. For some reason the last two times I've done that I've gone to karate that day...kind of a bad thing when one wears a white uniform and is getting chucked onto a pale yellow, absorbant floor. :/ I can't really tell that I did it...I think it just refreshed the burgandy that it was before. I'll have to look at it again tomorrow after my shower.

Two weeks ago I had the distinct honour of watching one of the brown belts in our class test for her black belt. It was really amazing, especially watching some of the kata (pre-arranged routines of moves) that I know. It was kind of like "Hey...I can do that one. But...slower...and much much worse." It goes to show how much can be accomplished when one sets their mind to it. In that vein, I present to you my goals...

1) Daily exercise of one hour or more...1/2 hour of that to be karate.
2) Daily writing of two hours per day. Blogging here doesn't count.
3) Daily affirmation that I can kick ass in whatever I choose.
4) Daily meditation of 15 minutes or so.
5) Daily spiritual communion. (best way I can describe it.)

Wow. Ok...I'm not going to have a lot of time for much other than these goals... :/ Good thing I'm really excited about them. And it actually does give me lots of time...I find that I can do 3-5 all at once. And I'm counting essays and notes for school towards the writing.

Exercise today: 1 1/2 hours of karate

Chemicals

Going to go ingest some chemicals (the Pill), stick some on my arm (hair dye allergy test) and swish some in my mouth (Crest Whitestrips...the peroxide doesn't want to stay on my teeth. :p). Ahhh...isn't it good that I eat organic fruits and vegetables?

Actually, I don't but it's funnier if I pretend for this instance that I do.

Incidentally, having never gotten my hair dyed professionally, do they do an allergy test? Why is it so important that we do one? I'd think that the stuff we get in the drug store is MUCH weaker than the stuff that hairdressers are allowed to use. Anyone know? I'd like to not need to worry about remembering to swab my arm with junk that will stain the sheets burgandy or orange.

Workin'

Insert pithy saying about raining and pouring here.

I met my first student this morning...I'll be teaching him three mornings a week, then I'm meeting my second student tonight. I need to do the whole "impress the parent" thing like crazy though. Apparently our talk on the phone left her with the impression that I'm "childish". Lovely. I mean, I AM childish...just not while tutoring. :p So yeah. I'll be leaving in about an hour...this is after working for six hours today and getting up early two days in a row. I'm kind of tired.

Got my schedule for the craft store today. Honestly, I was expecting to be let go because I told them I couldn't work any night shifts and I couldn't do Saturdays, but I wound up getting 30+ hours next week! Gaahh!! Not that I'm complaining...but I'm really surprised!

And I found $20 on the floor today. That's the second time in a month. :D This pleases me.

Exercise yesterday: 2 hours of Ultimate practice and a 20 minute walk

New taste sensation

Baked potato with salsa and sour cream.

Movie Review

I laughed.

I cried.

It moved me. It made me think about the perils of modern society and the bonds of family and friendship, as well as those bonds which transcend mere friendship and the families that we create by choosing our friends.

The movie? The Punisher. Yeah...weird, I know. I'm totally not joking about any of it either. I really did cry. :p I must be PMS'ing or something. But anyway. Go see it. It's very good.

11 hours? Fsck that.

Title refers to amount of hours I've been scheduled for this week. I got twelve hours last week. This can't go on...I've got bills. So, I have a second job. :) I did tutoring last year for about two years, and took a break from it for a while. Now, however I am "back in the fold" and have gotten two students. Woo! That's $25/hour and 20/half hour, three times a week each. (I'm not sure if ANY of that makes sense. :p)

In other news...I really should have checked my "gauge" (how many stitches to an inch of knitting) with No Name Yet's baby blanket (the major project that I alluded to a couple months ago...if anyone remembers...) Suddenly this so-called "baby blanket" has expanded. I didn't realize it until a couple days ago, but it's definitely more in the "grown-up blanket" category. A small one, but a grown-up blanket none the less. :) It's getting close to being finished...ish... :)

Exercise yesterday: 200 crunches

Best. Quote. Ever.

I tried to find a transcript...this is me trying to remember and being very tired.

Jennifer Garner on Jay Leno talking about why she could never be a CIA operative in real life: "You need to be able to keep secrets if you're in the CIA. My little sister came over to visit me on Friday night to stay for the Easter weekend. I was so excited about her getting her Easter basket. I wanted her to wait until Sunday, but as soon as she came in the door I was like "Are you going to open your Easter basket now?" If you're gonna be a CIA agent, you HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL EASTER!"

Exercise two days ago: walked about a kilometer

Haircut-type post

Today I did my hair and put on makeup before I went over to Candyman's to watch TV with him. Normally I'm not that type of person...I'll just comb my hair and stick barrettes in it, or now that it's long enough, tuck it into a ponytail. Makeup? Not a chance! Not unless I was going out somewhere special, or I got bored while cleaning my room.

I think I'm going to revise my previous ban on makeup and hair products outside of shampoo and conditioner. I looked totally hot tonight! Go me!

WOO!!

Welcome to the world, Drew Nonameyet. :) Hugs and kisses to momma, baby, dad and niece/cousin. And to the best friends who were there the whole time! And! And! Tee hee!! I'm giddy. :)

Got hockey?

Well, we had a good-ish game...mostly because I was there. :) That's all...game tomorrow night in Calgary.

Chatted with K from work today...(Hi K! He's going to try and find this site.) and he's going to get me a day pass to his kickboxing place so we can do some sparring. Muhahaha! I'm going to die. :/ Either that or I'm going to find out that I'm Jennifer Garner. Either way, it should be interesting.

Well...

...it seems there's definitely a babby on the way.

Good luck to everyone in the delivery room. And the babby who hasn't shown up yet, but I wish him/her good luck as well. :)

Maybe a baby?

I feel so inadequate...I'm out here sending love to no name yet and her partner. I wish I could do more for them. :p Oh well! When the baby's here I'll change diapers or something.

Is is real labour? We'll be finding out soon!

Uh oh.

Timestamp: Cramp just hit. I'd better go clean off my bed...I might be in it for the next 24 hours.

Exercise today: fsck that. It's the 2nd Wednesday in the month. I'm not going ANYwhere.

OHYEAHOHYEAHOHYEAH!!

I forgot to mention! I'm going to Game Five for the Canucks tomorrow night! Candyman is taking me!!! Eeeee!! You may all be wildly jealous now. :) Except those who are going so...um...yeah.

Uberproductive!

After spending most of yesterday and the day before lounging around playing free computer games, I finally overdosed yesterday. Yay!! I got some writing done yesterday...I've starting writing fiction again. Candyman has been super helpful with that...encouraging, helping me create writing exercises...etc. A couple days ago he sent me a list of topics that I could write a short story on, less than ten pages, and I have about four pages done on it. Also, last night he gave me a pad of paper, a pen, a topic and thirty minutes and I wrote (in LONGHAND) about two pages. This is fun.

Today I've got a schedule of stuff that I'm working on in my room and I'm finally getting stuff cleaned up from when I had to pull my bathroom apart. While my bathroom looks fabulous (I sometimes will wander in there to do something [brush my teeth etc.] and just stand there in awe for a few minutes) the rest of my room has all the clutter that the bathroom contained. I am planning on organizing it at some point, but I have a fairly major sugar ant infestation that goes in waves...there hadn't been any for a couple days, but there were thirty or so in another spot then. And today I found one on my bed while I was sorting clean laundry to put away. Ugh. I fed it to my Siamese fighting fish.

I'm getting rid of a bunch of underwear, socks and stockings. Does anyone have any opinions about what I could do with them? It's a big bulk of cloth that I'd prefer to not chuck in a landfill. I'm thinking about trying to find an "adult ebay" and auction some of it off. Anyone done that? Is it worth it?

Exercise yesterday: walked about 3 km

"Automatic Game Blocker"

I need something that blocks off all games between x and y o'clock. Maybe I'll actually be able to get some work/writing/knitting/exercising done. :p My AGB is also known as Candyman. :) I started playing something over at his house the other day, and he reached over and shut the window. Hmm...shutting the window. What a great idea. Now all I need to do is visit the Wizard and ask for some will power. Unfortunately it'll turn out it's all inside me already. But I want a nifty little treasure that says "Will Power" on it, dammit!!

Exercise Saturday: some karate
Exercise yesterday: walked about 4 km

Dear Customers,

An open letter to everyone who goes to a store.

Hi there! I'm Karin and I'll be your cashier for today. To make things a little more pleasant for all of us, I'd like you to read and review these simple rules. I'll be with you in just a moment.

1) Please bathe before going out in public. While your cat may like the scent of urine clinging to your clothing, the rest of us humans do not find it nearly as comforting as your feline might.

2) Unfold the bills you hand me. I do have to unfold them, and you only have to unfold one bill, whereas I have to unfold several hundred a day.

3) Please bring the items in your buggy or basket out of said buggy or basket. In the case of the buggy, I am NOT going to lean over the counter to bring every item out of it. And since you are only going to be going through one or two checkouts today YOU can take everything out of your basket. I have over three hundred customers per day. That is a lot of repetitive stress syndrome.

3b) You are allowed to help wrap up the 64 clay pots and 47 pieces of glassware. Especially if there is a line.

4) Read the fine print on the coupon. Yes, it says 1 per customer per day. Yes, it is only between 8 am and 1pm on Friday. No, I can't ring two through for you. No, shouting at me is not going to make me want to help you.

5) I am not going to remember your postal code. I don't care if it's the same one that the last person had, I get three hundred postal codes a day. Also, in between your two postal codes I rang through all your items, told you that the coupon automatically deducts from the highest priced item, told you your total, answered and transferred the phone and counted out your change. NO ONE'S SHORT TERM MEMORY HOLDS ALL THAT!

5a) Don't tell me that I'm "not as lucky as you" because I can't remember more than one postal code. I can and do remember more than one postal code, but not one I've only heard once.

5b) Don't get snippy with me because you feel that I'm "invading your privacy" when I ask you for your postal code. It's company policy and I do it so I don't get fired.

5c) Don't ask me why we're taking postal codes. We have signs up all over saying that we're doing a postal code survey. Read them. They're big. And red.

6) Don't get angry with me because something is on sale and therefore you can't use your coupon. Read the signs. They're there for a reason.

6b) Don't get angry with me because something is not on sale and the sign is in the wrong place. I am not responsible for every sign in a 3000 square foot store.

7) Don't call me by my first name unless you actually know me. It confuses me because I think that I've forgotten who you are. The name tag is so that you can complain or compliment to the manager, and so that the absent minded district manager can pretend to remember who we are.

8) Don't get pissy with me because I can't leave my cash register. I'll gladly call someone over for you, or I can point you in any direction you'd like.

9) Wait on hold for more than 30 seconds. Calling back doesn't make the person you're wanting to talk to free any faster.

10) Don't put coins or your card on the counter when I have my hand out reaching for it. Some of us don't have nails to pick up that stuff. Besides, you get upset with me when I put YOUR stuff on the counter.

10a) Don't get upset when I put your money or card back on the counter...especially when you're talking on your cell phone, or to someone else.


Thank you for following these simple rules of courtesy. Thank you for shopping with us and have a great day.

Karin