It’s an odd program, actually. It’s called MA in the Humanities and basically you’re free to take whatever classes you like. I’m planning to later apply for a PhD in literature, which is why most of my classes are literature-based. But the Community College class is for practical purposes - I’m not quite sure about the PhD things, plus even if I did apply, I’d have a gap year in which I’d have to be doing something. My F-1 visa allows me to do work for one year after I’ve completed the program, but only if it’s somehow connected to my MA degree. Since I have a lot of teaching experience, I figured working at a community college might be a viable option.
I’ve wasted literally hours on YouTube, unable to fall asleep. And I have bellydancing at 9 tomorrow. I wish those classes were more frequent - once a week is not enough. LiLi, I am in awe. I am contemplating taking proper lessons because the one at the school gym is a beginner’s class and simply repeats itself after each quarter. Although at this stage I think I could use a bit of repetition.
I never really got into WoW. Someone told me Diablo3 is coming out. I was a rather avid Diablo2 player. Don’t think starting a new computer game when I have a thesis to complete is a good idea, though.
Pugs, I’m sure Mom isn’t as clear with SiL and Middlebro as with me, but also that Middlebro knows perfectly well how to read the “unclearness”. And I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d heard something like:
Mom: “well, you see, I’m feeling real low and I really don’t want to slid down into depression, so” SiL: “oh, of course! Here, let me write you a prescription!” Mom (thinking): ‘do I kill her, or better not? I don’t really want to go to jail, better not’
Anyway, just glad not to be in the middle, specially since SiL managed to piss me off to my highest a year ago and I’ve wanted to bitchslap her into the next continent since (please do not ever ask someone to be your son’s godmother and then tell her you don’t want her in your life at all the day before the baptism). I’m probably being a bad person but I can’t care.
Ali, isn’t it lovely when you get stabbed through the wallet? I hope you do find a good car.
I’ve got WoW BC preordered and it’s been sent, it’s supposed to be here tomorrow. I’m going to make a draenei (is it me or they’re the alliance’s tauren? horns, hooves, and the males have a bad case of shoulderitis… even the racial philosophies are somewhat similar “we were just doing our thing and then this war came along”), but not a shammy; right now the alliance has more low level shammies than night elf strippers. The upshot to not having it yet: my two high-level toons are being able to mine, herb, and work rep individually with barely any competition. The downshot, I doooon’t think I’ll be getting those Sunken Temple runs I need any time soon
The weather’s awful over here today, high winds and rain are forecast and already it’s causing problems. All the mainline trains are running to a 50mph speed limit because of the winds so the train I got on from home which usually completes the journey in London at 10:02 was scheduled not to arrive until at least 11:30 - bet there are some unhappy commuters on that one. I get off after two stops to catch another train (another two stops) out to the campus. That train was delayed because of a fallen tree on the line, and all of the mainline services going north towards Liverpool and Manchester are suspended because of flooding. I’m looking forward to the journey home…
Last night was fun, we went to the pub…plenty beerverages were consumed. They had Enville Ale, Mr Arnold’s Malt Whiskey Ale, Thin Ice, Abbot Ale and Flo Jangles “Saints and Sinners”. Almost too much temptation! Beer was drunk, fun was had, and another night passed.
Today I’ve already had an exciting meeting about databases which is hopefully going to be productive. I had a database that I use a lot which is constructed in such a way that only the Systems Team can write new reports for it. I need a series of reports that are stupidly easy to write, but I can’t do them myself so I had to petition the Systems Manager for help from one of his minions, then have a meeting with said minion to explain what I want, where the database is housed and what I want the reports to do. Ho hum.
LiLi - I hurt just reading about your class. I did a bellydancing class some time ago and soon realised that I just don’t have the co-ordination for it. Haze, I hope you find another dance class so you can also make the rest of us jealous!
There’s good news and bad for ‘im indoors and his WoW gnome - he has potentially been offered a contract to start on 29th January! Ha! That’ll put a stop to that soddin’ game! Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how I feel on the day, the job’s in Wigan so it means he’ll be away from home during the week and only home at the weekend. I’m liking it already…
So, while Maggie has her morning tea, Lucretia is surfin’ cat porn?
Nawth Jawja is having some winter weather. Poor things. It’s 42 Amurrkin here and rainy, but not sleety. Rainy I can deal with. Jawja is geographically divided in to north and south by the “fall line”, which is basically where the Piedmont Mountain range ends and the coastal plains begin. I’m below the line so we’re pretty much safe from all the ick. The ick does happen once in a great while, or so I’m told, fifteen and a half years I’ve been here and no ick yet. Maybe I’ll look up some stuff on the “fall line” and educate y’all. Or maybe not. Never can tell with me.
What the heck. Here’s a brief explanation of the Geology of Georgia, including an explanation of the “fall line”. Memorize little tidbits and you’ll be the hit of the next cocktail party you attend. One can never have too much small talk.
Well, the weather gus are backpedaling on the forecast, just like they did when we go 20" of snow. :eek: Already a couple hundred of accidents. Hey it’s 2 days short of the second anniversary of the ice storm that shut down the Triangle.
cats do that. you should know that, know that you have one. (didn’t you tell us you had one already or before? I forget)
ok - I’ve taken my meds, had breakfast, read the funnies, come in here - if I get dressed now I’ll actaully be early - but we can’t have that now, can we
Tell me about it. When I cashed out of NASA, I wanted to roll over my TSP nest egg to my new 401(k), and use it to finance the downpayment and closing costs on my imminent house.
It took 4 tries to get the rollover to go, and each time it failed for some little bullshit reason like forgetting to dot a ‘t’ or cross an ‘i’. Each time they took 2 weeks to let me know that the transaction was refused.
The upshot was that the rollover finally happened a month after closing. I had to resort to using my son’s trust fund to make the closing. :mad: Even worse, the sonsabitches at the 401(k) company claim that even though I deposited $13k in that transaction, only $5k of it is vested, so I would not have been able to use it all anyway. :dubious: :rolleyes:
Taters, now I have to blame you for getting me all grumpified this morning.
TSP is the US FedGov agency that handles retirement accounts for civil servants.
A 401(k) is an account you pay into for your retirement; it differs from a pension by you making the payments and providing you the means to control how your money is invested.
A rollover is a transfer of money between retirement funds.
My experience was enough to make me serious consider going Oklahoma City on the TSP home office.
Good news on the car front. Since my parents were working on giving the extra car to charity within the next week or so they decided to make me the charity. They will be transfering the title over to me in the next couple of weeks and it will offically be mine. Its fifteen years old but it has fewer miles on it than my previous car so my hope is that I can make it work for at least a year, allowing me to save up for a decent used vehicle rather than taking whatever I find which is what I was afraid I was going to have to do. Once again I am forced to admit that despite their faults my parents are stand up folks, especially when it comes to their children.
Actually picking the car up was a bit of a chore though. After sitting in a driveway for the last few weeks of Michigan weather it was quite literally covered in a centimeter thick layer of ice. It took two pots of hot water and about 15 minutes to get into the passenger side door (driver side was a no go) to find out that the car needed a jump start, another 40 minutes and seven more pots of hot water to get the hood open to jump it, and about two hours of idling with the heat blasting to clear the windows enough to make it drivable. (Oh, and we broke two window scrapers in the process).
I played WOW for a few months back a year ago or so. I was never really able to get into it. I played my priest character up to level 30 something before I got tired of it (which is saying something, the only MassMOG I’ve played further than that was CoH).
I think Ali’s all grown up… he’s reached that point where you’re able to look at your parents and say “pchsah, could be better, could be worse, and what the heck, they’re mine.”
MindWife developed a cold completely out of the blue yesterday. I had to pick up some NyQuil Liquicaps on my way home, along with some Halls. She also wanted some Butter Rum Life Savers, but I can not for the life of me find them anymore. Where’d all the Butter Rum Life Savers go?
It did give her a chance to try out this vapourizer she bought off of eBay though. It’s a Vicks Vap-O-Matic, and I’m pretty sure that thing is older than both of us. The cursive logo on the metal label affixed with four studs looks very 60s – certainly the manual features some very 50s and 60s-style illustrations. It works though. It came with a bottle of some red Vicks vapourizer solution that turned the steam into airborn Vap-O-Rub. The bottle was pretty old, too – definitely late 70s/early 80s. I was expecting menthol and/or camphor, but this stuff contained 0.5% Oil of Cedar.
I don’t like Oil of Cedar. I couldn’t sleep with the house smelling like Oil of Cedar. I mean, at first it’s not horrible and probably isn’t so bad when you have a cold, but after a while you realize that underneath that methol-like smell is something else, something vaguely sinister-smelling that I can only describe as Grandma’s Bedroom Closet: A well-brewed combination of moth balls, potpourri, and Ben Gay. It got so that even MindWife couldn’t stand it, and she turned it off. Only then, after the smell had dissipated some, was I able to finally get to sleep.
I only hope that I don’t get the cold. I hate colds. Hate, hate, hate colds. I’ve been eating plenty of fruit, lots of vitamin C, so with any luck my immune system will be able to resist its effects. My immune system, however, has been repeatedly accused of being French – incapable of resistance. (Okay, kidding on the French part, but not the wimpiness of my immune system)
Git yerself some zinc tablets–they work better than Vitamin C.
Off to shelve books, then pay for the car (they wouldn’t let me pay until I had driven the damned thing for 2 days), and pick up Rx. Then, bliss…as in reading and not doin’ nuthin’. All afternoon.
Yay for the car, Ali! Also, you’re the only person I’ve ever met (as far as I know) who has WoWed and not been pulled in. I’m impressed.
Haze, find another class. Once you’ve started to get the basic moves down you really need to move up in technique and learn layering. Layering is fun. For a given value of fun, which equals, “You want me to do what while I do that? It’s not possible!”.
I forgot that while you’re doing Saiidi backwards walk, you’re supposed to sort of loosely jounce your shoulders up and down. Not connected to the lower movement, and your head stays steady. Yeah, right.
I have a function! I’m keeping all of you in shape. None of you have to exercise any more.
Time for tea and the contemplation of housework.
Oh, Mr. Lissar got his work review, a bonus, and a raise on Monday. w00t!
canineservant, Papa Tigs mocks my collection of orthopedic appliances. I have braces and wraps for nearly every part of the body, as well as canes, crutches, etc. But hey, when you have joints like mine, it makes sense to hold onto them!
I think I need to take bellydancing once I have my new knee; my middle needs all the work it can get. My MIL took it for years and loved it; she’s still slim and trim approaching 80, so clearly it works.
Good news about the car, and I think I know what you mean about the parental units, StringedInstrumentGuy. Mine have/had many faults, but when push comes to shove, they always came through for me. And my mom still would if I needed her to, although these days it’s more often the reverse. Overall, I’d say they ended up more in the plus than the minus column.
You know, it’s really hard to keep up with an MMP when you’re not stuck at your desk, wishing you had something to do. You people are exhausting. I might just have to go back to bed.
I’ve submitted my resume to at least five places this morning … we’ll see what comes of it. My biggest fear is that I’ll get a high-paying, uber-benefit corporate job. Not because I can’t use the money or the benefits, but because I’ll probably have to wear gasppantyhose. Hell, I haven’t even put on makeup in two weeks.
I hate job interviews, by the way. I don’t come off well in interviews. Gah.
Ok, I just spent half an hour talking about dust mops. I’ll be glad when the new shop manager is on board. Then she can spend time talking about dust mops. See, it’s a new product we’re just gettin’ geared up for. It’s gonna be a product that sells well and makes some good profit, which is good for a non-profit org cause profits assist in providing more services.
None of you have to exercise any more.
