i've got a head that tells me stupid things to do

so ive been sitting, giving myself a massive headache, and trying to work on the stupid website my group is making for the stupid real estate agent for the stupid senior design class. or, more accurately, i'm trying to work on the website while my worthless group members send emails asking 'what are we supposed to do for next class?' and then don't reply when i answer and do absolutely nothing because they are just colossal wastes of space. grr. and after struggling with the convoluted code of her already crap website and trying to transfer the stuff to our site for two hours it still looks like crap. and i dont have the programs i need because joe decided to die and i had to erase eveything. and i dont know how to make a nice dropdown menu without flash, which i dont have. and dreamweaver (the trial version that took me forever to download because adobe sucks, hates the site so much that it refuses to respond when i work on it. and i forgot most of the javascript and php i learned over a year ago because i learn for tests. and my professor thinks we're web designers and expects the world from us (read: me). and the client is obnoxious and hates us and has effectively ignored the past three emails i sent her which i know she got because she replied to one with a pointless message from the company that hosts her current website and a snarky comment. and i dont know how to do what we're supposed to show the professor tomorrow because she said she doesnt want it done the only way i knew how to do it. and the fact that im a security concentration and have taken a grand total of two classes that may possibly give me a teeny bit of help in this project just hasnt occurred to her. even though we've told her a zillion times because "four great minds working together can certainly figure it out." um.. theres only one mind and it is so far from great that great isnt even in the same solar system. and of course my group doesnt care because only the team captain has to get up in front of the class and show that we've done absolutely nothing. only the team captain has to be embarrassed and only the team captain has to get lectured. and guess who the team captain is? exactly. and it wouldnt be so bad if the other groups werent double the size of ours, cooperative, and diverse in their concentrations so not only do they know how to do stuff, but they actually do it! gah.

and i only have 8 songs in my iTunes right now because of the whole reformatting thing and my ipod is dead so i cant even listen to music.

tell me again, why did i go into IT? what could have possibly been going through my head when i thought "major in computer crap? that's a great idea!" sometimes, my stupidity astounds me.

*Tin Man - Animal Kingdom

hello world, this is me.

last semester for class we had to take the myers-briggs test (the personality quiz). we filled in pages of those little bubble answering sheets, sent our answers off to be analyzed, and then spent an entire class period doing activities and getting our results. this was back when my senior design class was fun. anyways, my result was the INTP (Introversion, iNtuition, Thinking, Perception).

i recently came across this site on another blog that had profiles of the different personality types. mine was scarily accurate... about most things. here are parts that i felt described me best:

INTP- The Wizard <- cool name. right??

"As children, INTPs are inwardly focused, often enjoying their own thoughts more than the company of others. They are full of questions, sometimes voiced, most often not."

i was so quiet as a kid that they seriously thought i was mentally challenged. it wasnt until halfway through first grade that they realized that i wasnt.

"It is the process, the quest, that has been most interesting to them. Once they have found the answer, they do not often share it because the answer is obvious, and documenting the obvious is redundant. This attitude includes a tendency not to response or speak up in groups, because the INTP feels that what he or she was going to say seems so obvious that no one would want to hear it."

that first sentence is me in a nutshell.

"They like being the architect of a plan, because of the scheming and thinking involved, far more than being the implementer of that plan. Implementation tends to be drudgery."

this kind of goes along with the previous statement, and is why i can never seem to finish anything.

"INTP's tend not to be writers."

this broke my heart. i know you're not supposed to let these things define you and blah blah blah, but this makes perfect sense. :(

"They prefer to work quietly, without interruption, and often alone."

uh... duh.

"If left to his or her own devices the INTP mate will retreat into the world of books and emerge only when physical needs become imperative."

this one made me laugh. i think ive already gotten there since college. apparently high school didnt "leave me to my own devices" as much.

"As a parent, the INTP is devoted; they enjoy children, and are serious about their upbringing. The home of an INTP parent is usually calm, low-key in discipline, but well run and ordered."

not yet a parent, but judging from my brothers and most little kids in general... i can see this.

the whole thing was a pretty interesting read...

*Hello World - Belle Perez

i tell you it's alright

i just got out of class. here's what happened:

out of a class of twenty something, we usually have about fifteen people show up. at the start of class today there was only around nine. by the end of class there were sixteen, so i'm not sure how many people exactly did the homework. this story only takes the original nine into consideration.

a couple of my friends walk in before class starts. one said that he only noticed the assignment this morning. the other didnt even know about the assignment until we started talking about it.

we sat down and the professor started the lecture. great, i thought, he forgot about the homework. it's a good thing i didnt actually waste my time doing it.

ten minutes into the lecture, he pauses, scrunches his face to make it look like he's trying to remember something, and goes, "i almost forgot. did you all submit the homework?"

there were some mumbled replies, shifting in chairs, and the incessant clicking of a pen.

"okay, show of hands. who did the homework?"

one kid raises his hand and the rest of us proceed to glare daggers at him.

"why didnt the rest of you do it?"

"uh you posted it a little late," says the resident attitude giver.

"but there was still plenty of time to get it done before 12 today. he managed to do it," he says gesturing towards the guy who had the decency to look embarrassed for his nerdiness instead of smug.

yes, well, the rest of us have better things to do with our lives. we also like to sleep so we dont end up looking like him who can barely pass as human. plus, we have enough dignity so we dont leap up the minute you say jump.

none of this is said out loud. by some unspoken agreement we all just stare politely at the professor, watching as he waits for an answer that he slowly realizes will never come. he looks around, clears his throat a couple of times, and says, "okay, well, let's take a look at it." he opens up blackboard and reads the directions of the homework out loud. "these arent very clear," he says. "length of answers shouldnt be a focus - some your answers will probably be more than three paragraphs. and you should really use more than one case study to answer these for comparisons. oh, and you have to have opinions on everything in the case studies so that you're not just summarizing them. and make sure to cite your sources using apa format. you can take until the beginning of next class to turn it in to blackboard, i'll change the deadline."

so on the one hand, there was really no penalty for my refusal to do his work. on the other, it just got more complicated.

*It's Alright - 311

this is where i have to draw the line

so my professor ends class last week with, "check your emails and blackboard because i'll be sending out the homework assignments to one of those." this was on monday. i checked monday night, tuesday morning, tuesday afternoon, tuesday night (i check my mail obsessively) and on until today. to be honest, i forgot he told us he would be sending out a homework somewhere around tuesday afternoon, but i was still checking my stuff. tonight, at 9:37 pm he posts a new assignment. we have to find and read a case study about the migration from IPv4 to IPv6 and answer these questions about it. there are four questions. each (according to the instructions) needs three paragraph answers. this is due tomorrow before class.

um... no.

if you cant post the homework until the day before it's due, well then, i can't do it.

my life does not revolve around your class. i have homework for my other class tomorrow that i have to do tonight (by homework i mean getting IT current events and by tonight i mean tomorrow morning, but it amounts to the same thing).

so you know what mr. i-think-because-i'm-a-professor-i-can-do-whatever-i-want-and-it's-okay, i wont do your homework. i refuse.

*I Refuse - Aaliyah

i find it kind of funny, i find it kind of sad

gloomy. my mood, not the weather. actually, the weather, too.

*Mad World - Michael Andrews

even in blue ink you are black and white

i wrote with a blue pen a few days ago, something i havent really done since high school. college burns my pens, leaving charred ink only suitable for taking notes and doodling in the margins - devoid of creativity, inspiration, and color. and the blue ink made me happy, because i had always preferred it, but i had forgotten. forgotten that black on white may be what i use virtually every day, but blue ink flowing out from the real pen i grasp between my real fingers will always be my favorite.

and i felt sorry for my brothers that they will never have to write an essay in neat, blue handwriting - overwhelmed by the sheer length that you have to write. they will never have documented evidence of every mistake they wrote, every time the pen scratched through the hearts of misworded phrases and misspelled words, killing them, but keeping their body right there on the page. Putting them to rest under piles of whiteout cant delete them from existence. you cant back space blue ink.

and this times new roman generation will never truly appreciate the beauty behind a perfectly scripted letter. microsoft has stolen from them the satisfaction of dotting their i's and crossing their t's. and while some thoughts do well in the strict regime of one inch margins and double spacing, others need the freedom to be scrawled diagonally across a sheet of lined paper, defying the lines. handwriting gives thoughts the personalities and souls they need to live.

i wrote this last night before i went to sleep. apparently being tired makes me passionate about ink. :/

*Everything is Black and White, Even if it's Written in Blue Ink - Elijah Wyman

dress me up, make it tight, i'm your dolly

guess what we did in class today (a major guy class about information warfare by the way)?? whatever you're guessing you're probably wrong. unless you said play with barbies in which case you hit it straight on the nose. yup, barbies. jealous? you should be.

we had a barbie beauty pageant that ended in complete chaos. the pageant was taped and should be up on youtube pretty soon where you can go and see the fun for yourself.

why were we playing with barbies, you may ask?? it was part of our class project of course. the class is divided into groups which are each a made up country/organization. we have a wiki where we write a bunch of stuff and then do stuff in class like trade and make treaties and have barbie beauty pageants. my group is the RATS. we're the anarchists/terrorists that caused the chaos at the pageant. we had a rogue contestant that kidnapped another contestant with the help of the assistant and a security guard that were also on our side. then we said there was a bomb in the crown and escaped. yeah, we're awesome.

last week, the countries all dressed up their contestants. watching groups of guys choosing out evening wear and dressing barbie dolls was hilarious.

after playing barbies, normal more mundane school work is just unbearable (no, my limited attention span for 600 page articles on business theory have nothing to do with anything. it's ll the barbies).

on a completely unrelated note, i had a dream about this person that i havent seen or spoken to since i graduated high school forever ago. so i send a facebook message this morning, not expecting any reply and i get home and have a reply in my inbox. i was shocked, to say the least, and really happy for some reason (though that could just have been the high from the huge taco bell cup of root beer i drank).

*Barbie Girl - Aqua

this is the story of a girl and a boy

my professor found out that we were majorly behind schedule today. so he promised us that he would stick to the lectures and not get off topic with any more of his stories from now on, or at least until we're back on track. stupid promise if i do say so myself. of course, this means my attention in class completely shuts off because business classes really hold no appeal for me whatsoever. oh, and because i know you're just dying to know, it turns out the class is managing in a global economy. so yeah, i'm pretty proud of how close i was.

so because i now have nothing interesting to listen to for three whole hours, and because writing snippets of nonsense and random song lyrics while pretending to take notes can only amuse me for so long, i started to combine my two favorite things to do: people watching and writing stories and started a story about two kids in my class. and because i know how you all have nothing better to do with your time (why else would you be reading my blog?) i have decided to share this story with you. exciting i know. some of it will be actual events, some will be changed a little, and some will be completely pulled out of thin air... and you'll probably be able to tell which is which, but if you cant, i'm not telling. it will continue from now until the end of the semester unless i get bored halfway through which is very possible, probably even probable.

anyways, today you meet the characters. next week, you read part one of someteen parts.

Almond Boy: (when i think of a name, i'll let you know. i know them and so you may know them too. since i'll be making up a bunch of stuff about them, i didnt think it would be fair to leave their real names.) constantly dressed in his camouflage army uniform, cap on over his shaved head, tall and built with the long muscles of a jungle cat, he's pretty hard to miss. he carries a small notebook with him that he claims is an extension of his brain - the memory holding part. he spends classes staring with glassy eyes at the professor trying to keep his mind on the lecture and eating snacks he pulls out of the convenience store he must be hiding in his backpack. he does all the readings in class the day of the quiz and has his entire future mapped out and laminated.

Doodle Girl: (i hate choosing character names, hopefully i'll think up some, though.) with mousy brown hair always pulled back into a ponytail or a messy bun, she thinks polo shirts and jeans are to fashion what the light bulb was to technology: one of the greatest contributions ever. she spends her classes creating art with her ball point pen, but absorbs every word the professor says. she does the reading ahead of time and writes the dates of all assignments, tests, and quizzes in her organizer at the beginning of the semester. she makes lifelong friends after a ten minute conversation and believes true love is only true in stories.

*Ballad of a Girl and Boy - Graduates

i ignore it and it ignores me too

i have a quiz in exactly three hours and fourteen minutes. i have no idea what it's on, but im guessing it has something to do with marketing in the global economy because that's what class it's for. actually, i'm pretty sure that's the class. it might not be marketing. or global economy. it's some business class, i know that at least. and the book was the most expensive one this semester and i cant bring myself to look beyond the front cover. i havent even looked at the back cover. the professor drops the lowest quiz grade though (i think) so i'm pretty sure i'll be okay. and if not, oh well. i have more important classes to worry about procrastinating in. like ones in which a real world business is depending on my nonexistent technological skills to save the business... or just improve it. and i'm happy to say we are only like a week behind our professor's schedule (and three months ahead of ours).

back to the msom class. it's not really my fault that i have no idea what the class is about because, really, my professor does nothing but tell anecdotes for three hours straight. we're still on the first week's lecture even though we're now in week what? four? three? i'm not sure, but it's not one.

he's a cool guy though. he knows twelve languages fluently which makes me totally jealous. these include english, arabic, spanish, french, chinese, mandarin, japanese, korean, and i think german. and he like knows them knows them not four years of high school and you leave knowing how to say "hello, my name is sarah" knows them. and in the first class he referenced dorian grey which made him super cool in my eyes (he said he's a lot older than he looks because he has a picture of himself at home that ages instead of him just like his friend dorian. only a few people got it). and he's traveled everywhere in the world practically.

do you know that in japanese the verb is the very last word in the sentence? so you have to listen to the entire sentence to find out what's going on. according to him, this is why japanese people have so little regrets. they rarely do anything spontaneous. they think everything through before they jump into anything. the action is always the very last thing. in arabic, the verb is usually the first word in the sentence. i wonder what that says about arabs?

another thing we learned from him: never give a clock to anyone in china as a present. it's the most disrespectful thing you could do. the word clock means the end or something so giving one is tantamount to wishing the gift-receiver dead. watches are okay though... for guys. giving a woman a watch has something to do with prostitution and also shouldnt be done.

i dont want to study. *sigh* maybe if i ignore the fact that i have a quiz, it'll go away? i think it's worth a try.

*Failure by Design - Brand New

there aint no reason things are this way. it's how they've always been and they intend to stay.

so eid was actually a lot better than i expected. which totally supports my theory that when you expect something of something it likes to prove you wrong to make you seem like an idiot. you think you have way too much homework to ever get done in a century? ten minutes later it will practically do itself and you're left looking like a major drama queen. you think you're going to have a really bad day? it'll be a really good day at the least and you'll end up looking like a whiny brat. think you're going to completely bomb a presentation because you prepared for it for a grand total of three and a half minutes? you'll do better than the ones who practiced and seem like you were fishing for compliments. get the picture?? and don't go telling me that it's because you have really low expectations so when it turns out not to be the end of the world it seems great. it's a conspiracy.

what was i saying? oh yeah, eid.

so we woke up early and went to pray. came back home and then went to ihop with my family and my sister's family and her inlaws and husband's uncle and his family and aunt and grandmother. we eventually got kicked out of ihop for staying too long after we finished eating and we went back home. only to leave again for the mall where we took my brothers to watch cloudy with a chance of meatballs in 3d (remember how i really wanted to see it?). my sister wasnt too impressed with it but i thought it was good. we hung out at the mall for a while before going back home when my parents picked up my grandmother from the train station (she's visiting from connecticut). we were home for half an hour before we went out for an eid bbq (not very surprising) with the whole ihop crew. and now we're home and im hyper and tired at the same time.

and tomorrow is school again which feels weird cause today feels like vacation. and my first class feels especially weird because i went the first week, didnt have it the second week for labor day, i skipped the third week, so it's been a while.

oh, and while i have you here, help me decide. i need a new ipod and cant make up my mind between the ipod classic or the ipod nano. which one?

*Ain't No Reason - Brett Dennen

running around like a clown on purpose

so ramadan is officially over, though ill still be fasting for the next hundred months. happy eid to all you people that celebrate it. i dont usually get too hyped over eid here. i mean, yeah i like it, but we dont usually do anything wow. i feel like it's a big family holiday and all the family is halfway across the world so it complicates things a bit. plus it doesnt seem to fit into school and life here for some reason. maybe its just me.

i cant type today. i dont know why. the first letter of almost every word is getting stuck to the end of the word before it. and i think my fingers grew three sizes too big today. the backspace button is being way overworked.

mika songs have been stuck in my head all day. or, two of them. grace kelly and we are golden to be exact. listen to them. listen to all his songs. theyre such feel good upbeat songs. the videos are awesome too. i love him.

i cant bring myself to start downloading anything past critical os updates and web browsers onto joe. while it's obnoxious not having any programs or anything, at the same time its kind of refreshing not to have the clutter.

notice how my thoughts are all disjointed and stuff? i have, but i cant seem to make them flow. i think my head is still in my book i just finished (the song is you). it was good. the author of the book is even awesomer. he's done so much. arthur phillips. google him.

*We Are Golden - Mika

what's the difference between you and me?

step one in trying to get over my aversion to having people read my stuff: put something out there that isn't proofread or polished or anything. i wrote this during class a couple of days ago and since joe is still lacking in the applications area and i hate saving writing stuff that isnt notes in notepad files, i had nowhere to put this. it was like a doodle in written words, so i know it kinda sucks. dont judge. i might get around to editing it eventually. oh, and i need a concluding sentence that sums everything up in a concise little thing, but my brain will poduce nothing. grr.

you see the cup as half-full, and i just see it as half. youre always looking for the silver lining, and while i see the lining, i also see the rest of the cloud: big, grey, and looming. you only look at the bright side of things, and i cant feign blindness to the bad.

***

you like to stand out - midnight black against the purest of whites, but i just try to blend into the greys in between. youre out in the streets dancing to the beat of your own drum while i prefer to hide behind my brick walls, my marching band lying lifeless in the corner.

***

you want to paint the sky red, but i prefer it just as it is. you want to sway the world with the power of your words, and while world peace would be nice, i've resigned myself to the idea that there's really nothing much i can do about it. if things were supposed to change, then the sun wouldn't be so stubborn about rising in the east and setting in the west.

***

you are lemon slushes on a hot summer day, the midnight release of the movie everyone's dying to see, the blanket of fresh snow turning the world into a winter wonderland. I am the tepid glass of water that quenches but doesnt satisfy, the hour long wait in line to get movie tickets, the trampled snow that no one wants to look at but still cancels school.

*What's the Difference - The Holloways

brainwash... when there aint no other way

so joe (remember him?) has been acting a little off lately - slow and unresponsive. i knew it had to be spyware, probably from that sketchy site my professor had us getting stuff from a while back. i ignored it, though, because i just couldnt be bothered to do anything at the moment since so much other stuff had been going on. bad idea. he got sick. really sick. with a virus or two or a hundred and twelve. and the stupid spyware turned him into a zombie computer that just started to shut down everytime i did something that seemed threatening to them. the doctor (microcenter dude) couldnt help him. the only thing i could do was brainwash him. completely erase his memory. and so i did. and now he has nothing on him. i even had to remind him of his and my names. and i really really dont feel like reinstalling all the crap that got deleted. itunes, office, adobe, web browsers (i have an extremely old ie right now. i dont have tabs :/), and a whole bunch of other stuff that i cant remember but probably should. all my files (okay, not all. i did save some of them on my external hard drive).

of course, ill have to stick with open office instead of microsoft (i usually have both). and the adobe suite was a colossal waste of 300 dollars cause i cant get that back. and i had a project i was working on that couldnt be backed up which was really annoying. but at least i got most of my music and all of my pictures, right?

oh, and joe is fine now. coming back from the dead agrees with him.

*Brainwash - The Band

we're one, but we're not the same

"I know plenty of well-adjusted, happy people who are half-Jewish, just like me. Or not so like. For all we have in common, we have more that differs. That's the thing about these mergers. It's a strange math, the equation differing from family to family, from child to child, the outcome wildly dissimilar each time. Even in my own family, the sum varies, the parts adding up differently." ~Devil in the Details, pg 57

this quote really stood out while i was reading. it's so true, and i can totally relate. well, not to the half-Jewish part, but i think it applies to basically half-anything.

for example, growing up, we (my sisters and i) met a lot of half-breeds like ourselves - saudi dads american moms. my mom would make friends with the moms, and we would end up hanging out with the kids (before we grew out of my mom making our friends for us, that is). when you're little, you don't really notice differences in people as much as when you're older. it's more like, you're half saudi half american and i'm half saudi half american, we're the same.

but as you grow up, you realize that the similarities usually stop right about there. i mean, sure, we all have some shared experiences or whatnot, but, as the quote said, the equation differs from family to family, from child to child. some kids are raised fully american, some fully saudi, and most fall into the greys in between. it's rare to find someone the exact same combination of saudi and american as you. even between me and my sisters who were raised exactly alike, there are differences. for example, my older sister generally prefers arabic to english music, i generally prefer english to arabic, and my younger sister listens to them both about the same. the amount of arabic that peppers our speech is different. our views on certain cultural things differ. we were raised the same, but our "parts added up differently."

that being said, this video is one of my favorite. i think every half-breed can relate (or even arabs who lived in an english speaking country and vice versa):

*One - Johnny Cash

i am captivated

did i mention a couple days ago that my books finally decided to stop touring the state and arrived at my doorstep?? well, they did.

tooly asked me if f u, penguin was worth a buy. if you liked the blog, you'll like the book. pure and simple. it basically is the blog printed and binded, but with different animals, some random facts which include "raccoons have an excellent tactile sense, which is why, whenever you try to open a tightly sealed pickle jar, a raccoon tells you in a really condescending way to hand it over," and a couple of introductions. my older sister read like three pages and thought it was hilarious. i'm glad i bought it.

catching fire was amazing. characters were still rich, plot was still captivating, cliff hanger at the end was still unbearable. it's one of those books you have to read in one sitting and whenever you get interrupted (as i was. a lot.) you feel like biting off the head of whoever/whatever caused the interruption because you just don't want to put the book down. yes, the reading level is ages 12+. and yes, scholastic said the targeted audience is grades 6-8, but it was still awesome and if you read the hunger games you have to read this. i won't spoil anything cause my sister wants to read it and is being incredibly slow about it. i just should not have read it first, though, because it was hard to get my head out of that one and into another one for a while, which is why i read penguin after it.

i am about 35 pages into devil in the details which seems like itll probably end up being good.

*Vindicated - Dashboard Confessionals

it's a good thing tears never show in the pouring rain

while searching for something in last semester's work for my capstone class, i stumbled on this drabble. i dont remember writing it and have no idea why it's in the middle of my school stuff, but here you go:

Rain is pouring down in torrents. Newly formed rivers run down the pavement, pooling into puddles. Trees form dark swaying patterns against the night sky. The only light is that of a solitary street lamp, fighting a losing battle against the darkness. Illuminating a small circle in golden light. Standing in the light is a bedraggled figure – soaked to the skin, shoulders hunched against the cold wind. Dark hair is plastered to the pale forehead. Clothes are stuck to its form, providing no relief from the wet or cold. Cheeks wet with rivers of tears and rivers of rain.

oh, and remember how i was stuck in drabble mode before and would only write drabbles?? yeah, i'm over that.

*Be Mine - Robyn

i'll be running circles around you sooner than you know

yesterday (or it mightve been the day before) i had a meeting with the dean of the volgeneau school at my university (the school IT is in). i had been chosen for a thousand dollar scholarship for my books and stuff and he was explaining why i was chosen.

"usually i choose people who are really active in the volgeneau school," he starts. "they volunteer to help out at all our events, drop in for chats during breaks, do research for professors. (i am not one of those people, but have been instructed to become one as soon as possible.) but then i saw your transcript and i thought it was just astounding (he might have said amazing) that a woman could do so well, especially in your field, so i immediately gave it to you."

umm what??

did you just say you were surprised that i was doing well in IT because i'm not a guy but hide it in a compliment?? sexist much??

i mean, you arent exactly what i envisioned when i heard dean of the it&e school, but you dont see me actually verbalising my surprise. sheesh.

*Jerk It Out - Caesars

all alone, smoking his last cigarette. i said, "where you been?"

today i was supposed to update last semester's powerpoint for my group presentation in order to show all of the progress we've made. since we've made about as much progress as (insert witty metaphor about something that makes no progress here) my goal was to make it prettier. i'm the only girl in a class of 25. i think we could all use some more pinks and purples.

instead, i read through pages of mylifeisaverage.com, which totally beats fml by the way. who wants to read a bunch of whiny pity parties anyways?? plus, practically every mlia post has to do with harry potter and ninjas... so yeah, its pretty awesome.

i also spent some time on howmanyofme.com. do you know there is one person in the US named sirius black?? it is imperative that i find this person. as soon as possible. there is also one albus dumbledore. you can find him.

*You Found Me - The Fray

these words are my diary, screaming out loud

i write this blog for myself. i mean, it's great that people read it and comments seriously make my life, but i write what i want to write, when i want to write, and how i want to write. i don't change any of that to gain popularity in the blogosphere.

that being said, when i noticed that two people stopped following my blog, my first reaction was ouch.

has my writing gotten so much worse/stupider than usual that you couldnt bear to see the updates pop up in your dashboard?? (sidenote: i hate writing the word bear. i can never remember if it's bear with me or bare with me. the english language can be so confusing.) but yeah, ouch.

moving on.

so i think i may have decided what i want to do with my life. for now. and it has nothing to do with computers or IT or anything i studied in college, though the business classes may come in handy. i think i might want to start my own publishing company. like a small one that puts out a handful of books a year. with a small group of friends/random strangers that become friends. there'll be an adjacent bookstore where we sell the books we publish and select others. no big names in our store though (no i'm not one of the people who thinks i'm too cool to read what everyone else is reading, but the random unknown authors will fit in with the atmosphere). we may barely break even, but that'll be okay. the setting will be a lot... cozier for lack of a better word than places like borders and barnes and noble. it will be nice.

*Breathe (2 am) - Anna Nalick

i'm a man without conviction. i'm a man who doesn't know.

i'm applying for grad school this weekend. or at least that was the plan. i downloaded all the forms, filled out one self-evaluation form, and am ready to call it a day. but, hey, at least i got the ball rolling. right?? right.

and there's nothing to procrastinate with because the internet is boring me, my books are busy running circles around virginia (after getting out of baltimore they have checked in an out of chantilly and dulles three times. wth), and my dad wants me to clean the house. applications are the lesser of two evils.

you would think that by this point i would know which school i'm applying to, but that just wouldn't be me. i'm still flip-flopping between AIT with a concentration in information security and assurance and compter forensics.

i need to make a decision asap... which of course means i need someone to make a decision for me.

that's where you come in.

yes, my dear blog readers i'm giving you the opportunity of a lifetime. choose my future. make the decision that may or may not change my entire life.

AIT or computer forensics?? the decision is yours.

*Karma Chameleon - Boy George

like a gunshot, like a siren

why is it that growing up, sirens used to be such a rarity?? when a fire truck/ambulance/sirening police car passed by, we - and all the other kids i knew - would press our noses to the glass and watch it pass by in awe. now, it seems like you hear sirens more than birds. and that's saying something because we have some real chatty cathys when it comes to birds in our area. maybe it was the area we lived in, maybe it was just the times, maybe i was just extremely unobservant and missed them... but i did not hear sirens every ten minutes. i didn't even hear them every week. now i understand that living across the street from a firehouse is bound to raise the number of sirens i hear, but even on the road and in school they're pretty much a daily occurrence. i miss the days when sirens and lawn motors didnt wake me up every single morning.

*Sirens - Angels and Airwaves

basketball shorts

i have this new obsession with guy's basketball shorts. i dont know why, but a sudden unexplicable love for them has taken over my life. okay, maybe not taken over my life, but i really do love them.

i was standing in the incredibly long bookstore line at mason waiting to spend $192.00 on one stupid business book. gargantuan waste of money?? i think so. anyways, i was standing in line and my glance fell upon the guys clothes section, namely the basketball shorts. and for some unfathomable reason, i really really wanted a pair. i couldnt risk getting out of the line i had been standing in for a lifetime to get them, though, but i planned on coming back.

yesterday, my sister got me a pair. and i LOVE them. they are the most comfortable amazing shorts i have ever owned. and i see myself wasting all my money on them in the next week. who needs textbooks anyways??

guys get all the cool stuff.

*Basketball Shorts - Hoobastank (yes, it's an album name. i dont care. it fits)

you had a bad day, you're taking one down

the amount of suckage that this day had could put hoover out of business.

stupid school.

and then, i was looking forward to getting home and getting my book, because yesterday afternoon it arrived in baltimore. do you know how far a drive it is from my house to baltimore?? not that far. but being the obnoxious city that it always is, they have decided not to send my book along its merry way just yet. it was scanned on arrival... twice... but nothing else. this always happens. my stuff travels around the world in a day and then gets stuck in baltimore forever. grr. i wanted my book.

stupid baltimore.

on the upside, i ate my first meal since i got back to america tonight. ive been living off of granola bars up until now :/.

*Bad Day - Daniel Powter

i had no idea where my head was at

standing at the bus stop this morning, the pw shuttle just pulls up with its dark green sign saying prince william campus in big letters (after a while you know where its going just by the color).

dude: *points to bus* is that going to prince william?

me: *looks at big sign, looks at dude, says first thing that comes into my head* no that sign means that it goes to all the campuses except pw.

dude: oh. *turns to walk away*

me: umm... i'm joking.

dude: oh. *stares at me confused*

lesson learned: hold back sarcastic comments when talking to strangers.

*I So Hate Consequences - Relient K

i'm sure you've heard it all before

since my return to america has apparently started me on a blogging frenzy, i might as well continue. here are some interesting-ish facts i dugg up:

>>remember that mom that pretended to be a teenaged guy on myspace which resulted in the suicide of a girl she knew?? she couldnt be charged for causing the girl's suicide directly, but they charged her with three misdemeanors so she wouldnt get let off completely. a judge recently dismissed her case because it was too "vague."

>>defining a slave as someone who is "forced to work, held through fraud, under threat of violence, for no pay beyond subsistence," did you know that there are more slaves in the world today than ever before in human history? 27 million!

>>proof that girls rule and boys drool, godmothers are the new godfathers of the naples' crime scene, but way cooler. not only do they "rule their crime families with steely determination, [they] also raise the kids and stir the pasta." way more than the men used to do.

>>if you live in the uk, you can be fined and jailed for holding a fake designer bag. they go against counterfeit and copywright laws, and now the producers of the bags are not the only ones to get in trouble.

>>remember in science when we used to learn about molecules?? well for the first time ever, a single molecule has been pictured close-up with an Atomic Force Microscope.

>>we've all seen people with ridiculous reactions to things, but i think this dude takes the lead. he shot his girlfriend in the neck because she gave him aids. she died.

>>i say it a lot more than i probably should, as do most people i know, but is the word 'retarded' as bad as the "n word"? these people think so. i think the fact that it's becoming so main stream might make me want to stop saying it more than anything else.

>>just more proof that kids in this society can be cruel and vicious, a 15 year old boy was killed in a school yard fight. remember when kids used to be innocent??

>>sometimes, real life has story book endings too. at least it did for this family whose daughter showed up alive and healthy 18 years after she was abducted. she's probably traumatized, and she has two kids, but at least she was able to remember who she was.

>>because technology is awesome, they've discovered that studying the way you type can be used to give early warnings of dementia. speaking of health, chewing gum can help your memory. they dont know exactly why yet, only that it does.

>>the stethoscope as a symbol for doctors is universal and timeless, or so i always thought. the medical tool is beginning to be considered obsolete and dated. kinda sad.

>>according to these 12 signs you'll live to 100, it's a surprise i made it to 21. i can sure kiss seeing a triple digit age good-bye.

>>and finally, he thinks that energy drinks are just a way to give lazy, overweight people enough energy to maybe stand to get off the couch for a couple of hours. i think i agree.

congratulations, you are now a marginally small amount more informed.

*Wonderwall - Oasis

this made me laugh yesterday. i had a 3 hour break between classes yesterday at PW and in my morning panic forgot to bring something to amuse myself with. hiding from food leaves you with only no talking areas to sit in.