I'll take a morning like today any day
Now Playing: "Extraordinary" by Liz Phair on "Liz Phair"
Topic: Work
Today at work it was so dead it was so wonderful. I came in and there weren't any voicemails. I check the Remedy queue and there was nothing to work on except for possible user notification for a guy in Iraq so wasn't really sure about that one. I checked e-mail and there were only 3 messages: 2 delivery failures, 1 auto-reply from Tonia. During my hour and a half, there was one phone call and two wireless requests which came at the same time just before I got off. When I talked to Bridget later at the gym, she said that apparently it stayed dead today. She said she went in around 3 to check her e-mail and the people there said it had also been dead. The deadness allowed me to update the UNIX FAQ that Terri asked me to do last week.

Now if it can only be that dead tomorrow afternoon....

Well, I can no longer say never
Mood:  surprised
Now Playing: "October" by Evanescence on "NoAlbum"
Topic: Apartment
I went to put my watch on the bathroom counter and noticed something different. Julie's side was clean. Not all of it, just her half of the middle section. It was clean. I hadn't cleaned it. Which means she must have. I was wondering what she was doing for soo long in the bathroom last night. So now it's been once. Once that I've seen evidence of either roommate take any sort of cleaning product to any surface that didn't just have raw chicken on it.

Yosemite and Other Math Club Ramblings
Mood:  blue
Now Playing: "Here Comes The Flood" by Peter Gabriel on "Felicity"
Topic: Math Club
I found out on Thrusday from Eddie that some people were talking about not going anymore. So I sent out an e-mail saying that I heard a rumor of it and asked that if anyone was having second thoughts to please let me know. Tami replied that she was having second thoughts. Rena talked me Friday about her having second thoughts, not feeling welcome and the whole co-ed tent thing. I just got an e-mail from Dave saying he had to drop out due to midterms. That leaves 11 people, only 9 of which are, to my knowledge, committed to going. I guess I should actually drop that to 8 since even I don't want to go. Not only do I not want to go, I don't want the trip to happen. I mean deep, deep, deep down inside, I want more people to drop out. Enough to make me cancel the trip. Is that horrible of me? I mean, I'm a logical person and logically, Math Club should not take this trip. Quick math computations:
Starting balance for Spring: ~$1700
- ~$380 for jerseys: $1320
+ $908 from yard sale, car wash and booksale: $2228
- $1222.5 for sweatshirts and shirts: $1005.5
-~$140 for pies for Open House: $865.5
+ ~$500 from Open House: $1365.5
- ~$30 for SLO Brew event*: $1335.5
- $38 for mini golf event*: $1297.5
+ $250 from car wash*: $1547.5
- ~$60 for social*: $1487.5
-~$70 for drive-in event*: $1417.5
+ ~$400 from banquet ticket sales*: $1817.5
- ~$1000 for Yosemite trip*: $817.5
- ~$500 for our part of Banquet cateering*: 317.5
-~$50 for end of year BBQ*: $267.5
Okay, I had actually forgotten about money from ticket sales before I started going through it. But everything with an * is actually an unknown amount. I mean, I could be grossly over estimating how much we'll be depositing from Open House. Or with the rising gas prices, underestimating the cost of Yosemite. I mean there are a lot of factors here. But basically, the club will be left with very little money to work with for next year unless we again win the Pepsi Grant. I mean, I started at around $800 for this year and money is tight for us. Imagine how it will be for the next President. The only reason we took an end of the year trip two years ago was because there was an excess of funds. We could afford it then. We could just barely afford it last year (without the Pepsi Grant, I would have had only $300 some odd dollars to work with at the start of this year). And we can barely afford it this year. So logically speaking, we shouldn't take an end of the year trip. Something like an end of the year trip should be something more like a reward for some good fundraising, not a guarnteed event we start planning during the first few weeks of Fall quarter. I think it would be a better idea to try to make sure the Math Club becomes financially stable so it can have regular events and an annual end of the year Banquet. I mean, Rebecca was right about one thing last year: giving out scholorships and awards during UU hour in casual clothes over cookies sucks. It should be more of a ceremony to honor those receiving something. But it would suck more if we introduce this idea and then not be able to afford to make it an actual annual thing. As far as I can tell, there won't be a 3rd annual banquet.

All of Math Club has just become one huge headache. Previous years I looked forward to all things Math Club. Now I look at it as something I just have to do. A chore. Don't get me wrong, I still have fun at the events; Game Night was a blast. It's just the planning and making sure we can afford to do it and all that stuff. And my...my...I dunno, presence? Influence? Prestige? I can't find the word I'm looking for. No one has said it to my face, but I know there are quite a few people who feel that I'm a lousy President. Hell, I'm one of them. But I don't know how to make it better. It's too late now, but if only I knew what I did wrong aside from not being the overly ambitious and outgoing Rebecca.

When Rena talked to me, she said she felt like her ideas and values weren't being accepted. I'm not really sure how to put it since these are her feelings but that's about the best I can do to summerize. I guess I seemed not open to ideas. I thought I was being open to feasable ideas but I guess not. I absolutely had no intention of making anyone feel unwelcome and I feel terrible for making anyone feel that way.

You know how sometimes people ask "If you could change anything in your past, what would it be" or "Knowing what you know now, what in your life would you have done differently?" You know, something like that? Before this year, I had two things: 1) Running against Kate Cowen for Echad N'siah and 2) Leaving that one BBG event in anger which led to me going out with Chris. Perhaps had I run against Kate for N'siah and won, I would have been better prepared for this year or would have convinced myself to never be President of anything ever again. Or perhaps if I had lost (I like to think that that would have been unlikely), I wouldn't have had the delision that I could do this. But now I would amend my answer to those questions to include #3: becoming Math Club President. As in not doing it. But I do believe #1 and #3 to be intimately related. Actually, I might even back it up further to include not being a Math major. Really have to hate epiphanies for coming months, or even years later than when they could have been useful.

Club E-mails
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: "superxero1" by Linkin Park on "NoAlbum"
Topic: Random Rant
Do I send out messages about Math Club to people who don't care about Math Club? Yes. But they are Math majors so at least it's fucking relevant. I don't send out the e-mails to every math class. Not only would it be an huge hassle just to type all those up, but for most of 100-level classes (and there are a lot of them), the people in there aren't Math majors and therefore don't give a flying fuck what the Math Club is up to.

This one person from the Industrial Technology Club keeps e-mailing every IT class (all less than 20 of them) about doing things for Open House for the IT club. Plastics is a fucking general education class which means that at least half the people in the class don't give a damn about the IT Club and most certainitly don't want to help with Open House. So after like the third e-mail from this person I replied asking why I was getting the e-mails. She (at least I think it's a she) replied saying that they e-mail all the IT classes and that she can't just take one person off of her list. After receiving yet another e-mail from her, I again replied and suggested that she get a club account, gave a link for the form and make an alias of all the people who give a damn. Except I said it slightly nicer. But I did imply that her e-mails were spam to those in the plastics class for GE credit. I'm tempted to include her on the next couple Math Club e-mails just to give her a taste of her own medicine. What I should have said at the end was "If you are planning on responding, don't bother. I put a filter to just delete all of these irrelevant e-mails from you." I also should have brought up the fact that by e-mail just the classes, she's not necessarily reaching all the IT majors. I mean what if they're not taking an IT class this quarter? Then they would be "missing out" on all the IT Club dealings.

My point being that while we are both annoying people with all of our e-mails about club activities, at least I'm e-mailing relevant people. She could at least have the decency to do that.

The weekend thus far
Now Playing: "I Turn To You" by All-4-One on "Space Jam"
Friday
Hillel was having a video scavenger hunt and I said "those are always fun, I'll go!" And I did have fun. First there were some getting to know each other games and then we were put into teams and off we went. My team was Felicia, Rena and this alumni Ava. I did the majority of the filming. Our six tasks were to find some nail polish (because we couldn't spend any money) and give a guy a manicure, ask someone out with a cheesy line, sing our favorite Hanukkah song for a minute in a store downtown, pump a stranger's gas and talk to them the whole time, have a "bum" sing a Christmas carol and dance for a dollar, and find items that make up a bannana split. The guy for our manicure was so weird. I swear he was already high/stoned and then was trying to sniff the nail polish fumes. The condition of asking a guy out with a cheesy line was that you didn't stop until he said "fine." The poor guy Rena was trying to ask out...she and the rest of us were trying to make him say fine by rhyming it and it took him a few minutes to get it. We went into some random store downtown to sing our Hanukkah song and filled out some business class survey for the girl working there's friend in exchange for letting us sing. The woman who's gas we ended up pumping ended up being from Calabasas so Rena and I got so excited and we totally were able to talk to her for the whole time. She and her friend also wanted dinner recommendations so that worked out really well. And then there was the "bum" thing. One group got to the only "bums" downtown and had them do it. By the time our group go there, they, and this other guy with them who was denied doing the carol by the previous group because he wasn't a "bum", were pissed that we turned their situation into a game. We left but came back a few minutes later and said that we agreed with them and asked if we could get his opinion on tape for the organizers. Then there was the banana split thing. It wasn't made clear that were suppose to bring all those ingredients back and not just get them on film so none of the groups had those. We found out why when we got back and there was ice cream for us. Fortunately they had some items there already so we did have a special treat. The event was a lot of fun. It restored my faith in Hillel events.

Saturday
I spent a few hours cleaning up downstairs in preparation for Game Night. Both Kathryn and Julie saw me cleaning. When Julie saw me she said "Oh wow, you're cleaning? Thanks!" I had to bite my tounge from saying "No problem." She then promised to "clean next." I'd like to note that that's what she said the past two or three times I've cleaned up the place and she hasn't done anything. Kathryn did clean up a bit by doing most of her dishes (finally!) and clearing the hallway to the bathroom and her room. Nothing like having company to get your roommates to clean up. Well when inspection time comes I'm going to just sit back, relax and say "have fun." Anyway, after the cleaning I went and got a new light bulb for our lamp in the living room, had dinner and then people started to arrive. By 7:30 it was just me, Tyler, Kevin, Randy and Rena. By 8:30 we had doubled that with the arrival of Victor, Ian, Hagan, Nick, Joe, Eddie and his roommates Dave and Kevin G. We started out with Ultimate Outburst that Randy brought and just kept adding people to teams as they arrived. Ultimate was fun in that you played 3 different kinds of rounds: regular, "Reverseburt" and Challenge. Lost of fun. Then we split a bit with some people in the kitchen playing "Give me the brain" and the rest of us playing Taboo. We agreed to play to 25 and we ended up being tied at 25. And then it was my turn but no pressure ;-). I ended up getting 4, whoo! So then it was Eddie's turn and he had to get four to tie and five to win but no pressure. He only ended up getting two. Then we played Uno with a few Reverse wars between Ian and Eddie. Ian ended up kicking our butts. By that point it was 10:30 or so and the party started to break up. After Kevin, Ian, Randy and Rena took off, there was something about a bet to be paid off by Dave to Eddie involving drinking so I offered my 10 month old tequila. But apparently that didn't satisfy the bet completely so they were going to go over to their friend's house and get 151 and drink that. I went too. So Dave took his shot of 151 and me and Ricky, the friend, had some sweet and sour with the midori that I gave them. I didn't finish mine, it started to give me some heartburn. We watched some TV but then I started to crash so they took me home. Such a fun night!

Today
Well I'm very sleepy right now (hey my alarm just went off =P) because of the birds in the nest outside my window. But the plans for today are to work on (and, if a miracle occurs, finish) my senior project and Number Theory homework. Also to clean my side of the bathroom and vacuum my room. We'll see how much actually gets done.

Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: "Feel It" by The Tamperer (Featuring Maya) on "Ultimate Dance Party 1999"
Topic: Random Rant
Don't get me wrong, birds are my favorite animals. But when they build a nest right outside my window and then make an on and off racket from 7am-8am on a night where I didn't crawl into bed until 1:30am doesn't make me very happy. Especially when said racket at first sounded like rat squeakings. x_x

Woes
Now Playing: "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Aretha Franklin on "Felicity"
Topic: Random Rant
Let's start with roommates. Yesterday morning I wasn't quick enough to make the early bus so since Game Night will be here, I decided to start cleaning. Naturally I didn't have enough time to finish the main counter so I just left everything as it was. I guess I was sort of hoping that one of them might pick up where I left off. Nope. I asked if it was going to be okay to have Game Night here last night. I was kind of hoping Kathrine would do some of her dishes. Nope. In fact, the other side of the sink was full when I came home. I asked if she had had company for dinner because there were four plates in the sink. "No, I was cleaning out my room and needed to soak them." *palmforehead* She promised that she would do them tonight. Them being the plates I think. We'll see what greets me when I go down tomorrow. I plan on making the place presentable all day Saturday. Yes. All. Day. Because I suspect that's how long it will take.

Alright, moving on to my sleeping woes. My sleeping habits haven't gone back to normal. I still wake up between 3 and 4:30 (once even at 5) no matter what time I go to sleep. The only exception has been when I used the sleep aid and last night. Although last night I went to bed later than usual. And even as I write this my eyes are droopy. Have been for the past, oh 40 minutes or so. I've been talking with Bridget on AIM so that has kept me awake. It's really not the getting tired earlier than usual that's been bothering me, it's been the waking up in the middle of the night. That rarely happened before. And when it did, it was because I had to go to the bathroom. I checked both of my new medications and neither of them has any side effects dealing with sleep. Maybe it's some weird interaction with the other meds. *le sigh*

Hillel video scavenger hunt tomorrow. One of the few events I can actually attend of the few they have besides Shabbat. Hopefully that will be fun. The last one I did with them 2 years ago was fun but nearly as much fun as the one I did freshman year with Honors. Ah, the good old days of the Honors Club. Shame that it died, really. If I had the time and wasn't graduating I'd try to resurrect it but someone else has already failed miserably at that. Speaking of clubs, I could go into a Math Club rant but as I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open, it'll have to wait.

Fundraising
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: "Don't Think Of Me" by Dido on "No Angel"
I just received an e-mail from this guy John asking if the Math Club is interested in selling his company's card, the Connections Card, as a fundraiser for our club. He said that he saw we were having car wash this past weekend and that we "were in need of a way to raise money" so he decided to e-mail me about this card.

To which I wanted to respond: "If you wanted to help us raise money you would have gotten your fucking car washed!"

*Ahem* Anyway, we had the first day of the book sale today and we made $146. Go us! The past two quarters we've made at least $300 so we're already half way there. Hopefully the rest of the week will be equally successful.

Friday, Yesterday and Today
Now Playing: "Cruel" by Letters to Cleo on "NoAlbum"
I just hung up with a donation collector person for the police. That was weird.

Anyway, the past three days. Friday during school was pretty normal. Friday evening I went to the baseball game with Leigh, Steve and Ilsa. It was okay. Not the most fun I've had but it wasn't torture. We did get to make fun of Steve though for not bringing a jacket. At times, I was covering his hands and parts of his arm with mine or he used my scarf and beanie to do so. It was pretty cold out by the time the game ended. Cal Poly ended up winning 9-2. One of those runs CSUN scored was our pitcher's fault. Something about stopping in the middle of his pitch or something like that. It gave the batter a walk while the bases were loaded.

Yesterday was the Math Club's car wash. It wasn't nearly as hot and sunny as we would have liked but we did well. We made $266. That was thanks to some really nice people who gave us $10 and $20 (or in one case $40 but that was from a professor for his Hummer). Actually, I think only one person gave us our minimum of $3 and that was a member. Everyone else gave at least $5. The downside was that it started to get overcast and thus chilly around 3 or so. We ended up packing up around 4:30. So I came home and warmed up and had dinner. Then Nick calls and asks if I would be interested in playing Risk. I said yes. Nick, Joe, Andre, Beth and I started the game around 8:30 or so. We played the Godstorm version. Andre was eliminated by the end of the first epoch. I was eliminated in the fourth, Beth in the fifth. So it ended up being a battle between Nick and Joe with Joe almost certain to win. She had all of the territories except like 4. I'm not sure how it ended because I left around 12:30 when I started to fall asleep. Came home, changed the clocks and went to bed.

Today I slept in. Then I went and saw Sin City with Leigh and Steve. It was...interesting. A piece of art but a bit too graphic for my tastes. I dunno. Interesting is the only word I can really use to describe it. Picked up my pictures on the way home which I'll be uploading shortly. Talked with Kathryn and Julie for a bit then had dinner. I don't care what that Budget Gourmet box said, it was not lasagna. The Lean Gourmet lasagna...that's lasagna, but they didn't have it =(.

Time to upload pictures, straighten up the room and say I'm going to do my Number Theory except not.

Mmm, drugs
Now Playing: "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Pat Benatar on "NoAlbum"
Topic: Personal
Thankfully that pain killer with sleep aid helped me not wake up in the middle of the night. I still woke up three times before I wanted to but they were reasonable. The first was in response to my alarm I forgot to turn off. I quickly corrected that and changed one of them to 8. The second time was around 6:45 because my body was confused because it was a weekday. The third time was in response to the alarm on my watch telling me to leave for the bus. But no random waking up between 3 and 4:30 like I have been for the four nights previously. Depending on when I start to get ready for bed, I might take it again as I'm still sore as heck but a bit better.

On tap for today I have laundry and then senior project, senior project, senior project. Now that I have a grade for the course, I should probably finish earning it, yes?