School Sucks

As you may or may not know, in addition to working for a living, I’m also in school. Sort of. I’ve been working on a bachelors degree part time for a long time; I’m finished all my classes, but still have a graduating project to do.

There are only so many steps associated with this process.

Step 1 – Pick a topic

Step 2 – Write a proposal and have it accepted

Step 3 – Carry out project

Step 4 – Write report and have it accepted

Step 5 – Graduate

But every step, takes way longer than it has to.

Six months later, we agreed on a topic. I started writing the proposal and it took 8 months (and 6 submissions) to get any feedback from my professor; when I finally did, it wasn’t exactly how I anticipated it.

So I did. And then…

So I did. And then…

I’ve actively been stuck in Step 1 and Step 2 for over two years. I’m beyond frustrated, which is why I have writer’s block and why you get a rant instead of a post. You’re welcome.

Independence Day

Several years ago my mother told me that the reason I’m single is because I’m too independent; she said that I don’t need a man, that there isn’t anything I need or want in my life that I can’t get myself. Naturally, I disputed it, but she had a retort for everything I threw out there.

Naturally, I dismissed it, but since then I’ve wondered if she’s right. Maybe independence isn’t a desirable trait; maybe I need to be more dependent. But then I started thinking about the alternative.

Take my stepmother, for instance; my dad does everything for her. Her responsibilities in life consist solely of cooking dinner and cleaning the house; dad works, pays the bills and even takes her shopping.

It’s to the point where if anything were to happen and my dad wasn’t around anymore, I’m pretty sure she would not be able to function in the world.

This. Happened. I could not make eye contact with the cashier while she handed back one of the twenties as change.

All things considered, I don’t think my problem is a bad thing. Besides, I’ve also realized that I can’t do everything myself; I do need help. Take that, Mom. 

In September 2012, I bought a new TV. When I got it home, I took my old one off the TV stand, plopped it down on the floor and set up my new one.

Fast forward to September 2013:

It was still sitting there for a few reasons. First, I’m lazy. Second, I’m weak. Third, I have a bad back. All these reasons made it so that I literally couldn’t pick it up, get it into my car and bring it to the recycling depot.

Fast forward to last month:

I did, however, make some progress; I asked a neighbour friend of mine if he’d be willing to help me get it out of my house. Fortunately, he said yes; unfortunately, it took him 3 weeks to make it happen. He was apologetic but I told him that it was a drop in the bucket compared to how long it took me to even ask for help.

Fast forward to yesterday: he came over and took it to the recycling depot with me.

21 months later, I finally have two square feet of floor space back.

Practical jokes really aren’t that practical

There are three of us at work that share an office; one of us may or may not get picked on much more than the others. I could reminisce for hours about the shenanigans that go on on a daily basis. It’s really quite fun.

I was talking with one of my officemates the other day about practical jokes. Throughout the duration of our conversation an instance started slowly coming to my mind. It was rolling out of the fog; the fog of suppressed memories, of course.

I was just promoted to supervisor; I was still in the awkward transition stage. So much so, one of my friends said to me “Heather, you really seem out of your element. Don’t worry – you can do this!”. Which was both reassuring and also troubling since everyone could see that I was obviously struggling.

Not long after, another “friend” came to talk to me.

I got back to work and forgot about it. I ended up going into the lab to talk to someone; I was trying to tie up a loose end before I left to go to school.

I finished my tasks, got cleaned and packed up and left for school. I got to school and was waiting for the class to start.

That’s when it all came flooding back. I was so weirded out I didn’t pick up on the obvious queues: the awkward pat on the back; the people snickering in the lab.

I wouldn’t survive in the wild

I live in a basement suite. It’s bitterly cold in winter. It’s blissfully cold in summer, but that’s a-ways away, so I’m going to focus on what I’m going through now instead.

I’ve lived here for several years and since I don’t have control over the heat, I purchased a shitty heater a few years ago. Since I purchased a shitty heater, it didn’t heat very well and I was really afraid of it burning my house down. Even when in the presence of a responsible adult. Or, at the very least, me.

Back in December, I bought an un-shitty heater. I reveled in the warmth. I looked forward to returning to my house because I knew it would warm up soon after turning my new heater on. Or it would already be warm, if I inadvertently left it on that morning. I became so used to the magic of heat, that I forgot what it was like to be cold.

The other night, after having a few (dozen) wobbly pops, I was sleeping (it off) but was over-heating so much that I opened my window a crack so I didn’t sweat through my bed.

A few days later, I came home from work, turned the knob on my heater and it didn’t turn on. I’ve been devastated ever since. I didn’t realize I’d become so spoiled, but it turns out that I’ve become the biggest pussy on the face of the planet because it’s not even that cold now (a balmy 8`C; 46F).

The first night I went to bed, in my cold house, and tried to sleep, in my cold bed, my feet were so frozen it took almost an hour of breathing into my blanket to warm up enough to fall asleep. I was convinced I left my window open from my drunken slumber several night’s prior. Alas, no. I was just that cold.

Since then, every morning, I lie in bed as long as possible just so I don’t have to expose my body to the cold air. I immediately jump in the shower and as soon as I get out, I jump back into bed. I dress in record time and sometimes, pre-heat my clothes in my bed with me so that they’re warm when I put them on. Sometimes I dress under my blankets so that my skin never feels anything but warm air and warm clothes.

And as I type this, I have blankets on my lap (and up to my chest) and have decided that a Snuggie isn’t such a bad thing. Because my arms are fricken freezing!

I don’t have the creative juice (a.k.a. blood flow to the brain) to come up with picture ideas, let alone draw them.

But, I do have 90 days to return the heater AND I still have the receipt, so I’ll be taking that bad boy back for an exchange.

It's a wonder I've lived as long as I have...

I acknowledge the fact that I haven't posted lately. Mostly because I've been spending a bunch of time trying to get this URL business straightened out. Behind the scenes stuff that means nothing to you guys, but everything to me.

It's not yet straightened out. Which may be partially because I can't do what I want to do, but it also may be that I can't do what I want to do because I'm borderline retarded.

Seriously. I think it's beginning to become a bit of a problem. The other day I was walking to my car; I was deep in thought about the convoluted directions I gave Gorm in order to get to my house and trying to figure out a strategy to beat him there.

A woman was crossing the street and walking towards me; I started crossing the street and as I stepped out in front of a parked car the horn honked. I gasped audibly and may or may not have brought my hand up to my chest with a scared look on my face.

The woman burst out laughing and asked if she'd "scared the shit" out of me. I sheepishly replied with a shaky "Yeah..." followed by nervous laughter. She apologized for being so intimidating and we went our separate ways.

Down the road, as I was getting into my car, I pictured what it must have looked like to spectators. I also considered that I obviously don't have ninja-like reflexes.

Maybe I'll look into self defense classes. And hide-your-feelings-classes. And stop-being-a-retard-classes. I've got a lot of learning ahead of me. First up, I gotta figure out where these classes are offered. I might need help on this one, guys.

Where's Waldo?

I keep swearing to myself that I will write a post that does not involve dancing. It's hard because it's all I think about lately. That's why I haven't posted anything. So, I'm left with writing about random things that have happened to me lately. I know how much you love those.

I got a new camera. I'm really fricken pleased with it, even though I haven't had much of a chance to really test it out. I'm waiting on a case before I start taking it out of the house. With this new camera, I've been reminded about how much there is to know about photography and how I don't know about any of it. Oh well, such is life, good-a-time as any to start learning.

I recently bought a new top that looks good... until I start moving. Then the neck line starts moving up until the part that's supposed to cover my boobs is choking me. I decided that I was going to fix this problem by adding in an elastic band to try and prevent the upward migration. Three hours later, I was reminded that I'm not very good at sewing. Luckily, I'm very good at undoing sewing, so I'm left with the top as it was when I bought it... well, with a few thousand extra holes of course.

I had my brother over today; we went out for lunch and spent several hours catching up. Which was really nice; it's been awhile since we've been able to do that. The first thing he does when he walked in the door was say "I have something for you" and then he dropped three packages of 'ResoraLAX' onto my coffee table 'just in case'. Um. Thanks.

I'm not that into Christmas decorating, but decided to go all out** this year, since I was having people over for dinner. It's almost February and my decorations are still up. In my defense, I'm not turning them on anymore.

Several months ago, I gave myself a goal to write 600 word posts, four days a week. I went full-on-strong for the first six weeks or so and since then have petered out. I no longer count words and don't post nearly four times a week. So in an effort to not drop the ball, I'm changing my goal post to twice a week and however many words I want.

This will hopefully limit the amount of posts like this one that I put up. Fear not, they will still exist. I'm not changing my personality after all. It might be a good idea to post consistently on certain days, but it also might lead to giant failure on my part, again. So, let's say I'm going to post on Sundays and Wednesdays and if I don't, I'll do it some other day, I swear.

I think that's about all I got for this random post. I'm sure I could come up with something else to say, but it wouldn't be nearly as interesting as writing about cameras, clothes or constipation medication.

Until next time... See ya folks!

 

**"All out" includes a 3ft Christmas tree, two sets of lights, a stocking and a Santa hat.

The tea in the UK is far superior

So I took part in the Warrior Dash a while back. (A real post pertaining to this will show up, I swear!) One of the perks of doing the warrior dash is you get a super cool Viking hat. A girl from work was unnecessarily excited about my hat and wanted me to bring it in. I did.

As I was standing there holding it, EliseArt looks up and says "Is that a tea cozy?". I scoffed and assured her that it was not a tea cozy. Yeesh. But that got me to thinking... I drink tea all the time. I use a tea pot.

My current tea cozy is a makeshift set up consisting of tea towels and oven mitts. Kinda ghetto. I'd been meaning to test out the hat, but the idea kinda fell to the wayside and I forgot until one day I was wrapping my tea pot in layers of ghetto-ness. I recalled the conversation (that's kinda what I do) and got super excited. I had to calm myself down because normally when I get super excited, things end badly for me. I calmly walked to the hat, all the while thinking "It's not going to fit anyway".

But it did fit. Perfectly, in fact. Now I'm not longer ghetto and tea drinkers everywhere will totally be jealous of my awesome tea cozy.

It's unreal. And it keeps my tea piping hot!

Big thanks to EliseArt for giving me the idea, even if you weren't serious about it!

Bored stiff

I'm home sick. Not 'homesick', but I'm at home. Sick. This is the second day in a row. Yesterday was a blur, I spent the entire day drifting in and out of unconsciousness. Today is better but remaining upright is a difficult feat and my attention span lasts minutes at best. I just realized that I made a cup of tea about 2 hours ago. It's sitting directly beside me and I didn't realize it was there until just now. I'm glad I didn't go into work today - any work that I 'completed' would have had to be redone. By the looks of it anyway.

The good news is that my headache has subsided to a dull roar, I've been conscious for nearly 3 hours, I feel as though only a small child is sitting on my chest preventing me from breathing, instead of the sumo wrestler that was there yesterday and earlier today. Things are looking up - I'm starting to feel better.  The bad news is that I'm bored out of my skull. I've read my book, read blogs, watched movies and stared at the ceiling above my bed. And it's barely the afternoon.

I'm hungry but lack the motivation and skill set to make food happen. I'm thirsty but my tea is cold and my water glass is empty. I would have to get out of bed and carry two glasses to the kitchen AND then carry them back. Seems like a lot of work. I'm in the middle of doing laundry. I started a load on Sunday night when I was still in denial of being sick. I finished drying it Monday morning when I thought I was going to work and decided that pants were probably a good idea. Now, I have one load on my bedroom floor and another load, presumably, still in the dryer. I heard the upstairs lady talking about laundry to her daughter yesterday. My lack of progress may or may not have been the subject of the conversation, but given how sick I am and how shitty at laundry she is, I don't care. I'll get pants when I want to get pants. Dammit. So there.

I told myself today that I would spend the day upright, so that when I go back to work tomorrow I'm not a miserable mass of a person. I've spent approximately 8 minutes upright today. And then back to bed I went. I'm really glad for this laptop that I bought... if it wasn't for this little beast, I wouldn't have been able to watch movies yesterday. Which ones? Well, I had a Marky Mark Marathon. Why? Well, he's an astounding actor, for one. For two, he's super hot and I might have slightly more than an unhealthy crush on him. I watched "Shooter" first, because he spends a lot of time with his shirt off. Next, I watched "Rock Star" because he spends a lot of time wearing leather pants and a leather jacket with not much else. I actually really like Rock Star. It's got Jennifer Aniston in it, playing pretty much the same girl that she always does, but it's a good story.

I just remembered about my tea. I think this may have been the most random string of words that I've ever put together in one post. Sick, laundry, tea, Marky Mark, and tea again. I'm not sure if I should post this monstrosity. Maybe I should draw some pictures too. That would make it more fun.

I just had a burst of energy. I got up and microwaved my tea and filled up my water glass. I also realized that I have fruit in the fridge and fruit is easy to eat (as in: put in bowl, wash, eat). But now I'm sitting down with half a pound of cherries, which is the first bits of solid food I've had since Sunday. This probably won't end well. I've also propped myself upright using pillows. That's progress, right?

Twitter has also become my best friend. You're only allowed 140 characters per post, which doesn't seem like much, but with my newly inherited short attention span, it really helps me from creating things like this (^). I would need like 75 twitter posts to make this happen. It would probably be infinitely more ... .... ... I actually forgot what I wanted to write. It's just gone. That thought lasted less than 30 seconds in this brain. God help me.

Coherent!! Infinitely more coherent. How ironic.

I don't think I want to start calling twitter posts 'tweets' I know that's what all the cool kids call it, but I feel like it's kinda like Starbucks; I simply just do not want to get the lingo down. It's a culture I'm not sure if I'm into.  Surely it would be easier than calling them twitter posts, but I'm not sure I care. I might feel differently in half an hour.

Anyway, I'm going to call this post complete. A complete mess, but complete regardless. Please don't lose any respect for me (there wasn't much there in the first place, right?!). :)

Why did you go camping in your storage room?

I came to the realization a while back that I am, quite possibly, the worst blogger ever. Not only because I can go weeks without posting and then try to make up for it by posting multiple times a week and/or day, but also because if you read the self-help books on how to blog, I'm doing it all wrong. Also, I insult my audience (you fuckers).

I knew all along that I wasn't doing this blogging thing right and in the beginning I didn't really care, but the more I do it, the more I realize that if I'm going to do it, I might as well do it right. I try to live my life by not doing things half-assed and yet here I am, the half-assed blogging queen.

In the past few months I've tried to pull up my socks and be better and I think I have been, but there are still a number of areas where I fail miserably.

Things bloggers do to get readers:

Tell their friends/family about the blog and follow up to make sure they're reading. I have many people in my life that do not know that I blog at all. People that I would be slightly embarrassed to admit this to. And the people that I have told, I typically don't follow up with them.

Promote their blog on their social networks. To this day, I have not had a facebook update relating to my blog. I have set up a facebook page, but I didn't advertise that on my personal profile either. I don't know what's wrong with me. Honestly.

Comment on other people's blogs. Up until a couple of months ago I was more of the "long time listener, first time caller" kind of internet user. I've since come to terms with it and have started leaving comments on ramdon people's blogs. Because, you know what, if I'm reading it, I might as well tell them what I think about it.  After all, I'm just another ramdon person on the internet!

Have a catchy name that people will remember. Okay, I just made that one up. I just wanted to accomplish another one of these points. But seriously, I think it makes sense, that way people that don't know you are able to remember the name.

Categorize & tag items in the posts so search engines find you. I went the first 6 months of blogging under "uncategorized" because I didn't know how to make categories, or what they were used for. I've since learned a bit about these things and now have a ba-zillion categories to choose from. I still don't know how to 'tag' though.

Post/handout advertisements so people in real life see them. Seriously? Do some people make business cards and hand them out to the people in front of them in the Starbucks lineup? I'm not sure I can do that. I'll consider this one once I've whored myself out to all my family and friends.

I'm sure there's about a million other tips & tidbits, but that would require me doing research and I don't feel like it. That's how good of a blogger I am. Oh boy. Good thing I've already started trying to be better. Yeesh. I suppose now I just gotta try harder.

I just remembered another point:

Ask your friends/family/readers to tell their friends/family/readers. Okay guys - this one is on you... get at 'er!! :)

On another note, a real human being liked one of my posts today (you know, as opposed to a spam-bot). My first real post under my first real name... Coincidence? I think not.

There were boats!

I have a few recent driving stories that I would like to share. Mostly because they're so ramdon that they will likely never come up in conversation. 

The first one occurred roughly 10 days ago. It was a Friday - I left work early to go out to the passport office to hand in my application. After battling rush hour traffic (twice) and the passport office, I was having a pretty good time as I was making my way back to work.  At one point the one lane road opened up to two lanes, I got into the new lane and stopped at the red light beside the truck I was just behind. I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, it was the passenger in the truck rolling his window down. I looked over, he looked at me and said "You wanna race?", I laughed and said "Yeah, let's do this!" I eyed his truck (a truck that has an engine the size of my car) and said "I have a feeling you might have a bit more power than I do". He smiled and said "Maybe" with a wink.

The light went green and we were off. I accelerated slowly because I didn't actually want to race someone through a park zone in the middle of the day. Even with the slow start, I was a considerable distance ahead of them.  The next block was another red light. They pulled up beside me and the guy said "We weren't ready. Let's try again". I said "Okay, ready, one, two, three" and we were off again because the light had gone green at some point during my countdown. Again, slow start; I was ahead of them, but not by much.  As I'm chuckling at our pathetic excuse for a street race I see traffic ahead and realize that the lane I'm in is backed up for the next two blocks and the lane they're in is totally clear. I couldn't help but laugh when I had to gun it  so I could cut in front of them and avoid traffic. I was happy they were laughing too.

The next incident isn't quite as wow-that-made-my-day as the last. This one happened 2 days ago; I was driving through a parking lot. A car on my left put its reverse lights on just as the front of my car was behind them. By the time my driver's door got behind them, they had almost backed out right into me. It was close. I wasn't able to swerve or go faster because there was a lot of other things going on in front and to the right of me. I could only hope they would stop. They did. I breathed a sigh of relief and continued on my way. A couple of store-lengths later, I'd reached my destination and parked. As I did so, the car that almost hit me was driving past. The driver looked angry, fingered me emphatically and told me to learn how to drive. I was flabbergasted. He was the one that almost backed up into me. What the hell did I do? (Other than have the right of way). I fingered him back, told him to fuck off and went and bought samosas.

Today I was driving home and the hill up to my place was flooded with skateboarders. I see one without a board walking weird; at first I thought it was cuz he was wearing kneepads but then he started sporadically clapping. I was confused. But then it dawned on me... oh... he hurt himself. As I get to the top of the hill he  just came down, two of his buddies were at the top, presumably waiting for their turn. Just as I'm pulling up to the intersection, one of them turned to the other and said something about "that shit really looks like it fucking hurt".  The kid who said it sheepishly made eye contact with me as I stopped at the 4way stop. I don't know if it's cuz I'm a girl, or because I'm old, but he was clearly ashamed of having made the comment. His friend said "How about you wait for cars to pass before you say shit like that", just as I'm clearing the intersection. I burst out laughing and the boys turned around smiling.

And I just remembered another one... I was driving past one of those chipper trucks... you know the landscaping trucks that tow around a chipper? Just as I'm approaching the truck one of the landscapers was on the driver's side making sure everything was secure; he went around the back to check on the passenger side and also get out of my way. As I'm approaching the truck, he's at the back, walking towards the other side.Suddenly, he stopped and turned towards me; at the last second crouched down and did this big "Ta-DA!" production complete with jazz hands and then stood back up and went to go check the other side of the truck. I burst out laughing because it was so unexpected and looked fricken hilarious. A second later, I see him peeking out from behind his truck with a giant smile on his face. I'm not sure which one of us made the others day more.

Quick poll, please

I think I've mentioned on here before how much I like polls. For those of you that don't know, I really like polls. So I'm asking that you take part in this super quick poll for me. All 5 of you.

The title of this poll is: Titles - The Poll.

The subject of this poll is: Titles.

As you may have noticed the titles of my posts are somewhat... obscure.

Do you think my titles should:

a) Continue to be ramdon

~OR~

b) Actually represent what the post is about

Your input would be greatly appreciated!

So much for friends

I got pestered today saying that I hadn't kept up with my 'responsibilities', so here I am, posting this out of spite. Enjoy!

I have this friend at work, Gorm, he is, hands down, the most random person I've ever met. In a good way, but random as hell.

He initiates conversations with sentences like "what if instead of your hair growing out of your scalp, it grew out of your face? And what kind of hairstyles would you be able to do?". Or "Imagine if your hair grew inside of your head instead of out and then it came out of your nose and you could floss your nose with your hair... how would you style it?"

Yep. Random.

So, one day, he calls me random. In fact, he says that I'm more random than him. And I've only included 2 examples... We've been working together for 3 years!!!! I may be "ramdon", but regardless.

So anyway, you may not know this about me, but I'm a big fan of polls. If there's ever a reason to poll someone on some *cough* random *cough* subject, I will do it! So he called me random and I decided to poll people on it. But no, I couldn't just poll people like normal (i.e. everybody that is within a 5 metre radius at any given moment), no, I have to follow his polling rules. So I start to accept the conditions, but then I realize that he's already skewing the polls to tip in his favour, by only allowing certain people to be polled. So not fair.

So, behind his back, I start polling people. And as expected, I get the results I want. Feeling confident, I return to our workstation and start telling him that I will accept his conditions, knowing full well, that the people I've already secretly polled will be returning and will poll in my favour.

But he throws a curve ball. He suggests this other guy, that I hadn't pre-polled, that I'm actually really, really good friends with. So, cocky as hell, I accept yet another condition because I'm pretty damn sure that this other guy (the best work friend I have) will poll in my favour.

So, here he comes and I pose the question. He looks at me, he looks at Gorm and considers it. I'm feeling self-conscious, I didn't think he'd have to think about it. And he really seems to be thinking about it. Dammit.

And then he says, well, Heather, since you're a girl and I find girls confusing, I give you a 6 out of 10. I'm still totally optimistic, thinking that there are 4 other numbers that are higher than six, I've totally got this one in the bag... he's so gonna say 10... He looks at my opponent, considers the number and says... four.

FOUR?!!?

I completely flip my lid. I mean, I totally wasn't expecting that. I practically had my victory dance all planned out. Dammit. So I flip out saying, how can you think that?! While Gorm does his victory dance. And sure, my "friend" reasons with me and we debate back and forth, but in the end I stormed out of there. And to this day, one year later, it still comes up.

FOUR?!!??! WTF???!!!!????