Moving update
Now Playing: "I Need a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler on "The Very Best of"
Topic: Apartment
Done: desk drawers, closet (sans fax) bathroom, bookshelf, bedside table.

Still to go: desk, walls, misc items, downstairs.

Tomorrow should be fun. Not.

Now to go sleep in my new apartment on a sleeping bag because my bedding stuff is currently buried under boxes and stuff.

Rat Update
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: "What Makes You Different (Make" by Backstreet Boys on "Black And Blue (Japanese Retai"
Topic: Apartment
Unfortunately, they are not dead. I was really hoping that I would be able to say "Two corpses. Everything's fine." *le sigh*

Kathryn and her mom talked with Sarah in the leasing office and also the Health Department as well. So they'll be sending Clark (the pest control company) to our apartment and apparently, Clark has been here every day this week. Anybody else think Valencia has a serious problem in these 10 apartments?

She got it to the point of where we have been offered a new apartment, number 142. So it's still across the street from most of the complex, just streetside. In terms of quietness, nothing will change for me and Kathryn because our rooms will still be above the car port. Julie however, would now be looking out over the street. Kathryn said she would be taking it no matter what. Julie and I want to take it but it depends on if we have a dead line for the move our not. Because if we're given a deadline, we're not doing it, especially mid-quarter. We also wanted some more details, like if it's a remodeled apartment or not (we have issues with cupboard space as it is), if we're going to be required to do our "move out cleaning" on this apartment AND the new one or if they'll be scrubbing to clean up after the rats, if they'll be providing some muscle for the move (my bookcase is heavy, I remember lugging it upstairs), and if we'll be given some sort of discount for moving mid-year. But mainly it's if we can do a gradual move or not.


I definitely think Julie should do it as she'll be school for another 2 years. I, on the other, will be leaving in 6 months anyway. I suppose it would be a good precursor or whatever the word I'm looking for is, because it would get some of my stuff that I'm not really using all packed up and I could transport it to my parents and then have them move it to Vegas with everything else versus doing it like every other weekend in the summer.

*sigh* I'll be calling my parents tomorrow and talking it over with them before I go down south. If I'm going to be moving, I might as well send some crap down now.

Rat Romp
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: "Me & You" by Alexia on "Dance Hits '96"
Topic: Apartment
Last night I was up late helping Kathryn chase rats out of her room. Yes, rats. Plural. As in two.

Apparently there's a hole for the pipes for the heater/gas thingy in her closet and that's where they were coming in from. Long story short, her room is in complete disarray, with her stuff spread out in the common area, on her bed and on her desk and the rats are now back in the wall. One went in through the kitchen somehow despite us attempting to guide it out by blocking off the kitchen and under the fridge and stove and blocking off the living room. The other went through the hole in the closet.

We got the one that went into the kitchen out of her room by playing hockey with it and the brooms. I managed to fling into our shelves in the kitchen. That part was fun.

The other one hid under her bed for a while, most likely where we found it later: in her bottom mattress. These guys are sneaky little fuckers.

Anyway, we temporarily plugged the hole with tin foil, left our little blockade up and have the bean bag blocking the stairs. I'm having breakfast on campus as to not disturb the blockade too much.

Insult to injury
Topic: Apartment
As I'm going downstairs there's a bunch of crap in the living room and on the stairs. Apparently a rat is in Kathryn's closet.

Overall, I'd say this day turned out neutral leaning towards bad
Now Playing: For once, I'm in my room and music is not playing
The good (in order of occurance):
-rat dead in a trap outside apartment. I hope it was the one living in our walls.
-Work still quiet. I did leave late today but mainly because I didn't look at the time prior to asking Terri my question so I decided to do what she recommended and then go.
-Discovered that threatening my body with Anthropology reading gets results.
-Due to working with partners during Sports Conditioning today, I didn't get nearly as winded.
-Drank 3 bottles of water and no soda. *nurses 4th bottle of water*
-Got free pizza
-New microwave!
-I'll be taking a pain killer with sleep aid tonight

The Bad (in order of occurance):
-Computer is still doing this funky thing where instead of waking up from sleep when I hit the space bar, it just turns off. *lets the pointing and laughing from Windows users die down* I cleared some junk off to make more memory available for Disk Doctor last night and ran it a few times from a CD and also optimized. Re-ran Disk Doctor while I was at school.
-Forgot my deck of cards (to work on H shuffles), so went home after work.
-Checked on Disk Doctor only to find that it is still encountering errors. I'm thinking this is due to the Disk Doctor on the CD is old. I ran Disk Doctor from my harddrive to fix the files that the CD version couldn't fix than ran the CD again but skipped the files. Managed to get through an otherwise full scan without errors but did have major problems. It said it fixed them though. Boot from harddrive and problem still exists. Upgraded system to 10.3.7 then booted from CD again and sat through an entire scan. Booted from harddrive, and left for school again.
-During partner hopping in Sports Conditioning, I fell down both times we went backwards when hopping on my right foot. The first time I fell I landed on my back strangely and it still hurts despite some advil. The second time I fell, I guess I managed to fall on my padded butt because that didn't hurt as much.
-Worked on Analysis homework for about 4.5 hours and the end result was 2/3 of one problem. I know the answer to that last third but at the moment I just can't prove it. Didn't manage to get any other work done except for like a page of Anthropology reading
-Bought some M&Ms and chips from Math Lounge. Also bought cinna twists from Backstage and got free pizza
-Computer still not acting right. Currently running a virus scan as well. I'll be asking Dad for his latest CD of Norton to borrow and see if that can fix at the least the problems I've been having with Norton version OS 9 and scanning the computer.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch Law & Order.

I passed! I passed!
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: "The Lover After Me" by Savage Garden on "Affirmation"
Topic: School
I got this e-mail from my English professor I had last quarter:

Amanda:

I graded the WPEs this weekend. Yours was one of the essays I read, and,
like the other reader (all tests are read twice), I gave your essay a
passing score. Knowing something of what your struggles have been and
what this passing grade means to you, I wanted to offer you my
congratulations, and wishes that the rest of your time at Poly be happier.

--Dr. Cushing

Oh, I am so happy I passed!

Mini Golf
Now Playing: "What's Your Flava" by Various Artists on "Dance Hits"
Topic: Math Club
Tonight was Math Club mini golf at Boomers. There were eight of us: Ian, Kevin, Randy, Rena, Dave, Nick, Joe and myself. We ended up splitting into two groups: Ian, Kevin, Randy and Rena on course 1, Dave, Nick, Joe and me on course 2. We had a good time. Course 2 has a lot more of those decorative ones with the pipes than course 1 I noticed. We had some interesting hits. Like my hole-in-one. It was on a hole in which you had an uphill, then a flat area with the hole, and then a downhill. I was actually trying to aim my ball to the side so it would bounce in the square flat area. Well, it did bounce but it bounced into the hole. I was the only hole-in-one in our group. The other interesting hit was Joe's into the lake. We were on a hole involving a pipe but for whatever, when Joe's went through the pipe, the ball did roll down but rather stayed in this little crevice right in front of the pipe. So in order to hit it out, Joe tilted the club so it would hit the ball up a bit. Unfortunately, Joe hit a bit harder than she meant too and she sent the ball flying over the fence into the bumper boat lake. Fortunately, I had picked up two extra balls at an earlier hole in which balls got stuck in the pipe the ball went down if you hit it up the middle ramp. So I gave her one of the balls and we continued to play. In the end, Dave kicked our butts with a score of 51 but Nick wasn't that far behind with 56, then me with 61 and Joe with 67. Randy won in the other group with a score of 54.

After golfing, we went to In 'N Out for food. I just had fries and a coke since I had a burger as a late lunch. So we ate and we talked and then we left. I managed to make it back to SLO without being pulled over this time. I did find it kind of funny that there was a sign on the freeway just before hitting SLO saying "Mardi Gras cancelled/DUI check pts in SLO." I did have to go through said check point to get home though. The two or three cars in front of me got waved through and I got stopped. The officer just asked if we had any alcohol or if we had any in the car. He was satisfied with my answers of no and we continued on our way. I went into Nick and Joe's and let them finish listening to the Wicked soundtrack. I also explained the whole play to them.

On my way back home (all of two blocks), I did see quite a few people roaming about. I was going to stop at the market and get cereal but after seeing how many people hanging around outside I decided tomorrow during the day would be a much better time to go.

Cameras
Now Playing: "Tiesto-one long track" by Tiesto on "Tiesto"
Topic: Random Rant
You know what I find odd? People are always surprised that I don't have a digital camera or whenever I tell people I have film they go "Oh" like I'm so far behind the times or can't believe that someone would use a non-digital camera. I thought one of the benefits of having a digital camera was so you could share the pictures more easily through e-mail or uploading. Yet of all my family and friends who have digital cameras, I'm the only one who actually shares pictures. The only one who uploads all her picutres to a site. I bring this up because people were asking the people with digital cameras to send them copies or upload it to a site or something. And then I told someone that I needed to change the film and she went "Oh." Or here's another instance: Steve, took pictures on the camping trip in September and at Halloween and I have yet to see those pictures. And yet people always groan when I insist that the picture be taken with my camera too. I would like to have the memory too, thankyouverymuch, because I know that despite promises to send a copy, you never will. But anyway, I find it odd that the person without the digital camera is the person you can rely on to share the pictures digitally.

What an interesting night!
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: "BY_MYSLF" by Linkin Park on "Reanimation"
It started off with me trying to make dinner before going out. I put my dinner in the microwave, it went on for about 5 seconds and then *PHEP* microwave dies. So I attempted to make my dinner in the toaster oven. Yeah, not doing that again.

Then I went to pick up Gianna's friend Joanna and Leigh to take to the Christrmas Tree Burning in Grover Beach. Somone had abandoned their fire so we got lucky with that. I had brought the beach ball I got over winter break with me and after spending a good 20 minutes attempting to blow it up, I discover that it has a hole in it. So Joanna, Bridget, Leigh and I had one good romp with it before it died. Then more people and the second Christmas tree arrived. We made a couple s'mores and then burned the trees. At the same time. Yeah, that flame was HUGE! But it only last like 45 seconds. Then we refed the fire and hung around and talked and ate s'mores (okay, mainly just me) while waiting for the fire to die.

After it finally died, me, Stephanie, Myca and Gianna were going to go dancing at The Grad for 80's night but were stopping at Myca's to change first. On the way there, I was explaining to Gianna how my CD changer broke and how I had Wicked in the car and was turning it on for her but it wasn't cooperating with me. During this process, I accidentally drifted onto the shoulder and then had to jerk back thanks to Gianna paying attention. Unfortunately, one of the 400 cops on patorl this weekend saw me and pulled me over. I was so scared when I saw the lights come on. At first I thought it was for speeding except I then realized that it was one of the few times I was actually going the speed limit on the freeway. I was coming up on an off ramp and I wasn't really sure what to do so I started to pull over on the off ramp but he instructed me to get off and turn into this dirt patch. He asked if there was a reason why I was swerving and I told him I was changing the CD. He didn't believe me by saying "Oh, the old 'chaning the CD' huh?" but Gianna immediately jumped to my defense saying "Yeah, except she really was changing the CD!" He took my license and registration and asked me how old I was. I told him 21, he asked if I had anything to drink, I said no and then he had me follow his finger side to side. Then he asked to see my insurance card and told me to have my passenger change the CD the next time and gave me instructions to get back on the freeway. Thankfully, no ticket. Phew! So then Gianna and I continued onto Myca's and they got ready to go to The Grad.

It was 80's night at The Grad and this apparently attracted an older crowd. I was saying that it was the people who truly remembered the 80's. We met up with two guys who were at the bonfire, Basil and Matt (not my friend Matt but a different one. My friend Matt was lame and didn't even go to the bonfire ;-P). And then we just danced our little hearts out. Or at least I was. It's not often you actually get away with doing old school moves. And when I got stuck for moves, I just did some small kickboxing (hey, I missed my class today, give me a break). We certainly did see some interesting people. There was this one couple that was being...uh...graphic? I really can't find a single word to describe it. First I saw the woman on the stage and at one point bent over to the point where the skirt was just barely covering her and then the guy rubbed his hands along her thighs up as she came up. Then a bit later, I saw her on her knees with her head in the guy's groin. I've seen freaking and have come to accept it. But practically giving head? Not something I needed to see. Right after that they moved into a doggie style. Anyway, lots more dancing ensued. Notable moments were during "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice when the DJ said "for some reason this song just won't die." The other moment was during "Baby Got Back" when I was shaking my ass (currently looking ultra huge due to my sweater tied around it) and I was trying to get the others to do it too saying that "you have to shake your ass during this song!" Well, there was a guy sitting on the stage behind me who said "that's right! You go girl!" Or something like that. It cracked me up. We left around 1:30am.

I had a lot of fun tonight. And I would totally do 80's night at The Grad again. Gianna said that it's only the first Friday of every month. Hmm, maybe in March, yes? >=)

Mood:  surprised
Now Playing: Math Lounge background noise
Topic: Work
I think I almost died of shock this morning. Not only did someone beat me to work this morning (second time this quarter, Michelle was first on a Wednesday a few weeks ago), but it was Annie who did so. Annie, who normally walks in around 8:18, was there at work, working at 8am. I was very tempted to ask her "what are you doing in so early?" but I decided to go with the less insulting version of "what time did you get here?" Apparently she's going south this weekend and had to be dropped off on campus by someone who had an early class so she had been on campus since 7:30 but had only been at work for like 10 minutes.

I'm so glad work has finally settled down. We are finally at the point where there are no voicemails, no e-mails in our inbox and only 6 items in the queue all pending, mainly for user action. We were finally able to get around to creating a new FAQ for the Oracle Calendar system (it's been in effect for 2 weeks now), and Terri has been able to catch up on her account stuff. And I got to leave on time again! Well, I did stay for a few minutes to print out my project proposal and to talk to Matt and Leigh for a bit.