there's nothing to do here

in the arab world, eid is celebrated for three days. you visit family, you have big meals, you celebrate. here in america, we can barely find enough things to do for one day, let alone three. to celebrate eid yesterday, i went out to breakfast with my sister's family and her in-laws. i then ran a few errands, went home for a couple of hours, and went to class. i know you're jealous.

class was actually a lot better than i was expecting. the professor is pretty awesome and it's a writing intensive course, which i usually do pretty well in. it's classes like these where the super IT-y people usually get into trouble, because while they can build you a computer in three point seven seconds, they have no idea how to effectively explain what they did in words, especially not written. so i'm hoping i can end my master's career on a good note since i do in fact know the basics of grammar, something not as common as you would think in this field. can you believe that this might be the last class you ever hear me whine about on this blog ever? that is, if i don't get into a phd program which i'm thinking is pretty likely (the not getting in).

anyway, one cool thing about the professor is that he works in the private sector. every other professor i have had in this program in every other class has worked for the government. so we were basically just getting our minds stuffed with public sector work stories and tips and experiences. i had almost forgotten that the government is not the only one that uses computer forensics. it opened a few more potential options for me that i had been not seeing before.

like most other professors, this one enjoys telling stories of things he's seen and done in the field. (the cool thing about him is that he only tells the interesting ones. do you know how many stories i've had to listen to that ended with the professor either laughing or smugly smiling while the rest of us were listening to the serenading crickets?) so he was telling us about his mentor and the importance of using analogies to explain things to non-computer folk and how impressive this guy was at thinking up what to say and delivering it. "plus," he added, "he had a british accent. and everything just sounds smarter when said in a british accent... at least in america." and isn't that just so true? i think there are few places where the american accent makes someone automatically seem smarter and more sophisticated. it's kind of unfair when you think about it.

*Hospital Beds - Cold War Kids

you disappoint me

today is just one of those days where looking at me will get you blacklisted and talking to me should make you fear for your life. you know the kind? i'm trying to read to pass the time until i can eat, but the characters are all annoying me too much.

anyway, it occurred to me that after a couple of posts talking about hurricane irene and the end of the world, i should probably mention how very anticlimactic irene turned out to be. at least for the area i was in. there was some rain, yes, but nothing too bad. we had a little wind, but we've had a lot worse. i couldn't even hear it howling outside, something i actually really like. the electricity didn't flicker, let alone go off. i had phone, internet, and tv up until i went to bed. early. i woke up the next morning to blue skies and sun. there weren't even any puddles outside (at least, nothing i could see from my window). all in all, i was a bit disappointed.

don't get me wrong, i'm thankful that there wasn't any damage for us to deal with, but i was gearing up for a good old storm. i wanted pounding rain and howling winds. i wanted power outages and candlelight. one of my favorite childhood memories happened when i was in fourth grade. we were living in california at the time and it was in the middle of el nino. we had a bad storm and were powerless for what i remember to be the better part of a day, but of course time seemed longer to my nine year old self. it might have just been a few hours. it was during ramadan and my dad cooked the food to break our fast in our fireplace. i remember playing charades by candlelight in my pajamas and how the house seemed different when viewed by flashlight. it was exciting, though we didn't really do anything too out of the ordinary that day. since then i have loved power outages. they bring with them the bittersweet nostalgia that tells of better days.

so to be told that we were having the biggest hurricane in the history of the world and to stock up on food and get ready for loss of power, ending up with a little rain and wind was pretty disappointing.

*Passive - A Perfect Circle

breathe in for luck, breathe in so deep

you're waiting for me to say those three little words you've said so many times before. you're waiting for kisses that don't just come in the dark of night and leave an aftertaste of guilt in your mouth. you're waiting for me to stop twisting out of your embraces like i would shackles and chains. you're waiting for my teeth to stop biting and snarling long enough to smile. you're waiting for me to settle down and grow up.

well honey, you better exhale.

you're waiting for me to cross the finish line. you're waiting for parties in my honor and statues erected to celebrate the success that is me. you're waiting for me to make you proud. you're waiting for the day that my name is common on a stranger's lips. you're waiting for it to stop being used as a synonym for apathy and the death of promise.

well honey, you better exhale.

you're waiting for me to save the world. you're waiting for the red cape and blue tights to be pulled out of the grasp of the skeletons in my closet. you're waiting for me to spread my wings and shoulder the weight of the world. you're waiting for me to live up to your expectations. you're turning blue in the face because you swear i have what it takes,

and honey, you better exhale.

*Hands Down - Dashboard Confessional

it's so incredible that you're so rude

dear irene,

when you said you were going to visit, we, like any good hosts, immediately got ready for your arrival. we stocked up on food and water, we brought in patio chairs for extra seating, and we made sure we had flashlights and candles in case you are afraid of the dark. we've been stood up by hurricanes a lot in the past - they promise that they're coming and then send a rainstorm to make their excuses for them - but you seemed pretty sure, so we believed. you haven't even come yet and you're already the center of attention and the topic of every conversation. your visit is all anyone can talk about.

you'd think, what with the way we're all getting ready to greet you, that you'd be a bit more considerate. i mean, i get that you might knock out electricity, turn lawn chairs into missiles, and cause some serious property damage. it's all part of your shtick, and i'm okay with that. if you didn't go above and beyond, you might as well just call yourself a little black rain cloud. i get that. i'm talking about something else entirely.

this morning i signed into amazon to actually buy the things that i put in my cart two days ago to think about. and you know what i noticed? everything in my cart is suddenly a lot more expensive than it was yesterday. one thing went from twenty five to forty one dollars. i know prices in amazon are constantly fluctuating, but it's usually a few cents this way or that. i haven't seen jumps like this happen literally overnight. there's no real proof that this is your fault, but you're the one variable in a long stream of constants. so you know what? i'm gonna go ahead and blame you.

after everything we've done for you, everything we've agreed to put up with, all the money that we spent to make sure your stay here went smoothly, trying to bankrupt us is not polite. remember your manners, ma'am. i hate to say it, but if i knew you were going to act like this, i might have said we would be out of town this weekend. and then you could have just sat home alone in the middle of the ocean wondering why no one liked you. and if you decide to get offended and not show up, well, i think i'd be okay with that.

yours truly,
sarah

*Chow Down - The Lion King

lesson learned and the wheels keep turning

it seems like the only thing on anyone's mind anymore is hurricane irene. everyone and their mother is either getting ready for her arrival or telling other people how to get ready for her arrival. so to give you all a break from the hurricane talk, let's discuss something else. namely, college and what you learn in it.

so i was watching reality bites yesterday. i love this movie, and i think the last time i watched it was in high school or something. anyway, it starts out with the main characters graduating and then hanging out on a rooftop celebrating their graduation. one character, vickie, gets really drunk, but can still recite her social security number. troy mentions how impressive that is and she says that the only thing she really learned in college was her social security number. and i have to completely agree with her.

before starting college, i couldn't tell you my social security number to save my life. then after writing it on application after application, after needing it for forms and paperwork during the entire four years i was studying, it just stuck. i could tell you my social security number if i was bitten by a bear and bleeding out. nothing else i learned during college will stick with me as well or as long as that will. i mean, sure, i learned a lot in all of my classes, but most of it was forgotten as soon as i was tested on it. what i didn't forget will either fade with time or become obsolete in a few years. but not my social security number.

think about it. what else did you learn in college? they should make it their slogan or something: go to college; learn your ssn.

in other news, i went to borders today to take advantage of their going out of business sale and got a bunch of books that i've been meaning to read forever. you know those books that were recommended to you but you never actually read because you were too busy reading the books you chose first? yeah those. and they were all ridiculously cheap. it's kinda sad, though, seeing crowds of people swarming around the store and knowing that if half of these people bought books from there before, they might not be going out of business.

*The World We Live In - The Killers

fill their heads with rumors of impending doom, it must be true

hurricanes and earthquakes and floods, oh my.

with the natural disasters coming at us like a swarm of mosquitos by a lake on the first day of summer, it's hard to deny the cold hard facts: the world is ending. you can close your eyes, shove your fingers in your ears, and sing yankee doodle at the top of your lungs all you want, but it doesn't change anything. we're witnessing the final act in this play of life. the curtain is getting ready to close and the actors are thinking about where to go for dinner after the final bow is made and the last of the make up wiped off. that's it, people, it's all done.

you know who i blame? nasa. or whoever it was that took away pluto's claim to planetship. it was five years ago yesterday that pluto was demoted from planet to orbiting space rock, and it's obvious that earth has not been taking the demotion too well. were there floods and earthquakes destroying countries every time you blinked when pluto was a planet? no. were there wars breaking out like acne on a teenager (not my best metaphor, but just go with it)? no. were there award shows where twilight beat harry potter in every category? definitely not.

there are sharks swimming in streets, people revolting over spilled milk, and lady gaga is getting more famous as you read this. and don't forget about the mass animal suicides earlier this year. i mean, now they're not such a mystery; they were just getting a head start on all of this.

now, if you're like me, then you really haven't accomplished anything worthwhile in your life, and any chances you might have had are never gonna reach you what with none of us existing in a few weeks time. so leave the fame and notoriety to disney stars, justin bieber, and stephenie meyer and spend your last few days doing something really worthwhile. when hurricane irene hits us this weekend, i, for one, will have no regrets about wasted time. for example, yesterday while watching doug, skeeter mentioned that one of the important things he learned as a bluff scout was how to keep your cereal crunchy, even in milk. i think spending the last days of my life trying to figure this out would be a great use of my time.

what are you going to do while the world falls to pieces around you?

*Losing Touch - The Killers

and i just wanna get mugged at knife point, to get cut enough to wake me up

as i'm sure most of you know, the virginia/dc area had a pretty big earthquake yesterday (a 5.8). i've felt a couple of earthquakes in my life, both here and in california, but nowhere near the scale of this one. i was sitting in my apartment on the third floor going my turn on facebook scrabble games with my sister while my husband played crash racing on the playstation when everything started shaking. i was woken up yesterday by our neighbors downstairs who were getting new carpet put in and felt that in order to do that they should bang around and generally make as much noise as humanly possible. so when the shaking first started i just assumed it was from them. when it turned into a real things-falling-down-walls-vibrating-oh-look-my-chair's-moving sort of thing, i kinda figured what it was. so i sat in my chair, waited a bit for the shaking to go down to vibrating, said, "huh. that was cool," and finished playing my turn.

when i closed out of the games, statuses were of course talking of nothing but the earthquake. everyone was saying how scared they were, how they thought they were going to die, how their life flashed before their eyes. the only thing i felt during the earthquake was a slight annoyance that the harry potter plaque i made in high school had fallen down and i would have to go check if it was cracked again. (laziness at its finest, people.) and suddenly i was so incredibly jealous of these people. most of you probably weren't reading my blog back then, but i remember once wishing for a near death experience to kind of wake me up, if you will. i needed something drastic to happen to pull me out of my perpetual apathy. two years or so later, and i still feel that i could use a jolt that only fearing for my life can give me to really get my act together. after talking to my mom, mother-in-law, and grandma (thank god for voip phones when cell reception is down and you have worried mothers) my jealousy for lack of a better word just increased because here they were scared and worried when two of them are on the other side of the world right now and none of them felt the earthquake. if just hearing/reading about it could scare them enough, why couldn't experiencing it shake me at all?

i started thinking, and you know, i don't think i have ever actually been afraid for my life. i have been in countless almost accidents (my sister can be a crazy driver), a couple of accidents (nothing actually really bad to anyone but the car/bus), i've spent a night on the kitchen floor too sick to get up because all of the tylenol in my system i overdosed on, i ride on planes at least twice a year and haven't worn my seat belt on them since i was ten, my school has had bomb threats, i've had creepy people follow me to my car, and countless other things have happened that might make a normal person a little scared for his/her life... but me? nothing. i mean, sure, i'm terrified of death. i think besides failure and not measuring up it's the thing i'm most scared of. but i have never been terrified for my life, and i kind of want to be. i want to suddenly appreciate this thing that i have always taken for granted. i want to be forced to recognize that it is something precious. i want to be pulled out of this black hole of apathy and depression and realize that there's something worth living for, even if it's just life itself.

but i don't. i let opportunities for near death experiences pass me by. i let chances of fear turn into afterthoughts. i let the apathy win out every. single. time.

*This Week the Trend - Relient K

and i've been guessin', but i coulda been guessin' wrong

a lot of people i know fall victim to the hypochondria that can so easily arise when you look at sites like webmd. a stuffy nose can suddenly be a symptom of meningitis instead of just the common cold. a stomach ache is a form of cancer, and a sore throat a sure sign that they have only days to live. i barely ever look at medical sites. i hardly give any sickness i might have a second thought. i try my best to just ignore any symptoms i may have until they go away. unless i have a cold, then i fill myself with alka seltzer plus because that is a miracle medicine.

but moving on, yesterday i did what i had sworn never to do. i caved and looked at webmd and emedicine and all the rest of those, and oh my god i was far sicker than i had originally thought. i did not just have cramps anymore, i was going to need to head to my doctor immediately and get prepped for surgery. a surgery that was sure to leave me paralyzed on half of my body which would surely lead to other diseases. this was not just a migraine that i had gotten and ignored millions of times over the past few years. (except for that time when i got prescription medicine from the doctor and my throat closed up the first time i took it and i could barely breathe and the migraine didn't go away. that was fun.) this was a tumor that they would not be able to remove without making me brain dead. that is, if i didn't die of a heart attack first which was what the pain in my jaw meant i was heading for. what was the point of going to a doctor, anyway, when i was sure not to make it to the end of this month. 

convinced as i was that i was dying, i knew that i had to make every day count. live them all to the fullest because there were so few of them left. i first thought of all the delicious food i had yet to eat and the restaurants i kept saying i would try but never did. (i was fasting... it's perfectly normal for the first thought to enter my head be food.) but since i couldn't eat until sundown, i pushed the thought out of my mind as quickly as i could. then i thought fleetingly of all the things i had yet to see and all the places i haven't been that i always wanted to visit. but those would all require getting dressed, and i mean, i was dying. you can't expect someone practically on their death bed to get dressed and go outside. so that was out. 

i ended up reading barrie's peter pan and playing online scrabble. i was just reading about wendy, john, and michael learning to fly - they hadn't even run away yet - when i decided that having just days to live put too much pressure on a person, and i think i'd prefer to just drop dead suddenly in the middle of eating a bowl of clam chowder with no expectations than to sit around and wait for my symptoms to kill me. and then and there i gave up my brief life as a hypochondriac. i have no idea how people can do it. 

*Mad Season - Matchbox 20

there are things in this world that i don't understand

you know what i don't understand? why people have double standards when it comes to books and say, anything else. for example, everyone is always shocked when someone confesses to rereading books, but it is perfectly acceptable to rewatch movies. "but... why would you read a book when you already know what's going to happen?" i am often asked. i already know what's going to happen in beauty and the beast, and yet i'll watch it every time abc family airs it. and for those that claim that the difference is that you can finish a movie in a couple of hours but finishing a book usually takes a couple of days, rewatching tv series takes longer and no one ever finds that weird.

also - and i know this point has been brought up a lot - why is it that knowing everything about a fictional world and dressing up like the characters is just about the dorkiest thing you can do, and yet knowing everything about, say sports, and dressing up like your favorite athlete is among the coolest. people's reply to this is usually that athletes are real, which i always found to be a lacking answer. knowing everything about celebrities - what they like and don't like, how they dress, where they eat and live and shop - well, that's toeing the line of stalkerdom isn't it? oh and fantasy football? um yeah, that's way less pathetic than world of warcraft.

in other news, i read a little princess yesterday. i grew up with the movies to this story, first the shirley temple one and then the other one when it came out. i thought i knew the story inside and out. apparently, i was wrong. if you don't want the book/movie ruined for you then i'd stop reading here. i understand changes like creating a war and whatnot because the added action makes the story translate better to screen. but do you know that in the book, the dad actually dies? i was not expecting that. one of the biggest parts of the movie (both of them) is at the end when sara discovers that her dad, who was presumed dead, is actually very much alive and they live happily ever after. in the book he dies and his friend comes looking for her. it was pretty anticlimactic considering what i kept expecting to happen.

oh, and yesterday i went into barnes and noble and all of the what to expect when you're expecting books were in the teen section. i found that ridiculous. and sad.

*One Thing Is For Sure -The Spill Canvas 

can i say that there's something wrong with this place?

the winner of the next food network star, jeff something or other, has his first show coming up, so obviously the channel is flooded with commercials about it. he's a sandwich guy and his new show is called the sandwich king. i'm sure it will be an awesome show, but i hate watching the commercial. see, jeff is one of those people that says "samwich" instead of "sandwich" and it absolutely kills me. i was slightly surprised by this because a few people close to me say samwich and while it can bug me once and a while, it doesn't annoy me anywhere near the way it does when jeff says it. maybe because it's on tv? maybe because i hear it repeatedly? i dunno... but if he ever mentions sandwiches in his show - which, being a sandwich show is pretty likely - i dunno if i could watch it.

in other news, i applied for graduation the other day and then for some reason decided to check graduation evaluation or whatever it's called when i looked at which classes i've taken and how many credits i have left. technically, it should say that i have everything completed. only, it didn't. it's a new program and is still changing, but for some reason they replace the old catalog instead of adding a new one. so when i started there was a class that was a requirement that switched to an elective and an elective that switched to a requirement. so that is missing. there is also a class that switched its course number. they were supposed to deal with this, but they didn't, so that class is missing too. my advisor said to fill out these forms and get them submitted asap to get the paperwork done before my application for graduation is processed and rejected. i try, and the person that i'm supposed to give them to is not going to be in the office until at least next week. this may not seem like a long time, but i have heard horror stories about my school's ability to process stuff close to graduation. i know of several people who had to push back their graduation. i really don't want to do that. i cannot drag out this master's degree longer than i have. i want it over with. 

*Do It Alone - Sugarcult