i'll paint the stars

Whew, it's been a crazy day so far and it's only (already?) 10.

The guys are here to do the countertops, yay! I WILL HAVE FLAT SURFACES IN THE KITCHEN AGAIN~ Sink and dishwasher will definitely be completed tomorrow. I also spent quite a while on the phone with my aunt this morning, who was very helpful and supportive about job searching and suggested looking into things like freelance writing, looking for job postings for technical writing, communications, and PR, because companies always need people to write up things for them and that might be much more enjoyable than doing straight scientific research. I agree with this assessment, because I would much rather spend my life writing than just about anything else. So at least that's a good place to start! I will still be looking into (and probably applying for) some of those planetarium jobs, but at least this is somewhere else to start looking, which is very helpful and much better than sitting around and bemoaning the fact that I don't know what I want to do, right? XD

Haha, it's like a roller coaster ride, geez. Life, what are you.

And hey, I even found a prompt or two over at capkink I might feel like filling. Yay?

All right, now I have to go keep an eye out for the landscaping guy and waylay him until Mom gets here to tell him what she wants done. Gee, it's almost like I actually own a house... except I don't. XD

Okay, but FTW, the guy installing the countertops totally recognized that the vanity plate on my car is from DS9. That is awesome. 8D

Oooooookay. Clearly it's pointless to promise updates, isn't it. You know it's all lies by now.

BUT I am really alive, and I will say that I would like to actually update my journal, you know, more often than I have been (which is to say, not at all, so if I do it at all in the future clearly it will be an improvement XD). Of course, life continutes to be crazy, but I'm beginning to think there's really no end in sight, so what's the point in waiting for one, right?

SO. Starting with recent events (and then I will throw up another post in a while with older stuff that I actually did write up, because no one cares about things a month old)... well, there aren't many recent events. Which is good, right? I am currently back in AZ and will actually be here (I THINK) until December when we go back to Florida so I can actually walk across a stage with my advisor. I find this somewhat funny considering I got my actual diploma in the mail yesterday (HAH! THEY CAN'T TAKE IT BACK NOW!), but hey, I won't turn down a chance to go back to Disneyworld.

In the meantime, I'm still feeling burned out, but now I think it's starting to turn into laziness and/or apathy and that's no good. I have actually been scouting some jobs, but no luck yet - I admit, though, that I really just got started on that this week. Though, do you know you have to have a Master's in Library Science just to work at the Public Library here? What is that? I'm smart! I can shelve books! I can even look things up on a computer! Boooo. So my current dilemma is, do I find a part-time job (you know, Starbucks or retail or whatever) and let that float me along until I find a full-time, actual-paying job so I can move out, or do I just keep looking for that full-time job? I probably should do the former; the Starbucks kiosk in the Safeway a couple miles away is hiring, which probably beats driving half an hour to the first "real" Starbucks store even if they were hiring (and I'm not sure they are). I suppose I can put in an application and see what happens...?

In the meantime, though, I am really, really trying to get my writing vibe back - it always seems to come back when I'm on the highway and by the time I get home I don't feel like opening up the word processor anymore. It's funny - I don't want to write but I do want to write. Go figure, self. But I would like to start getting some writing done - preferably original, so I can submit articles and stories and maybe start getting paid for that sort of thing. Though really, at this point I'll take fanfic, if only because it'll get said elusive writing vibe back.

Hell, maybe I'll just try and be more consistent with updating LJ, that might help too, right? Plus, I miss you guys!

You know, didn't I promise to update more now that I'd defended, or something like that?

Yeah... well. XD I'm trying. So, let's see... This week has actually been rather busy. Actually, last week was also rather busy, as my sister and my grandmother came down to visit and we went to Hollywood Studios and Epcot and Islands of Adventure and bought fabric and I made Jennie Aayla's top (which will hopefully only require a little adjustment of her own). And while at JoAnn's I saw all this fabulous fabric I could use for Dany, which makes me really excited to make that costume as well, for whenever I get to wear it.

Then this past week was filled with editing my thesis to make all the margins right and Tuesday I had to do some outreach that involved Starlab presentations and putting together Galileoscopes, which I am so very good at by now. ;D I've also been doing a little more packing and just trying to get rid of stuff in general - I cleaned out my fabric and tried to get rid of anything that wasn't big enough to be useful, and I've mostly cleaned out all the costumes I don't plan to ever wear again. The current moving plan is to mail a bunch of stuff to my mom and then tow the rest of it behind my car with a U-Haul trailer, which it appears I can get for a week for about $400. This is much cheaper than moving it via pod, and also likely much cheaper than storing things here and flying back to rent a truck and drive across the country again, so I'm hopeful that it will indeed work out the way I want it to. This plan, however, results in me selling every bit of furniture I don't want, which means really everything except the coffee table, the kitchen table, maybe one of the bookshelves, and ideally my futon, though I can get rid of that if I have to as well. But it was going to be thousands of dollars to have a pod moved across the country, and I don't have thousands of dollars worth of furniture. So this seemed more economical in the end? Which I am all about, as I just received my last paycheck this past Friday and am officially unemployed, yay.

We also went to go see Transformers 3 last week, which was... interesting. I don't know that I have any strong opinions on it at all, but I have to say watching them tear up Chicago was fun. XD I'm still sad I missed the filming by a couple of days when I went home way back when or I so would've gone downtown to watch! I do have to complain that it ruined some really good fanfic ideas with more canon, but such is the way of things, I suppose.

And in the meantime, Amat has been horribly slow, which is a little strange but I think it's vacation time for most people, so I can understand that. It's probably for the better, because it means I'm getting a little bit of writing done, because I'd really like to write more. However, even though I have plenty of ideas, I'm feeling sort of lazy, which is not cool. But I figure if I just keep plugging away at things a little bit at a time, that's still better than not writing at all, right? I just need to do it and get back into the swing of things, because I definitely haven't written anything in quite some time now, and that definitely needs to be fixed!

Okay, I've probably rambled at you all enough, back to puttering away my Saturday night, yay!

My phone gave me a giant scare this morning when it fell out of my pocket as I got into work (well, okay, that's not new - it falls out of my pocket on occasion). But this time, suddenly it decided it had no SIM card. ONOES WUT? Thankfully, Googling the issue (don't you love that Googling is a word?) suggested that said SIM card had probably just been jostled out of place - okay, that was my original thought, but where was the darn thing? Aren't SIM cards usually inside the phone, like, take-off-the-back-cover inside? You can't take the back cover off an iPhone! (Well, you as in I can't, I'm sure Apple can.) Turns out it's on the top of the iPhone - who knew? So after poking the little supposed SIM card a bit, lo! My phone decided that yes, it did have a SIM card, thankyouverymuch. Disaster, averted!

Really, I am so ready for this week to be over - thankfully, it just about is! I guess the weekend doesn't really count - Saturday is the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire and Sunday is D&D/THE SUPERBOWL, so I imagine I'll spend a good chunk of it out and not dong work, but that's what weekends are for anyway, I guess. Next week I am ready to get started doing things that I really should have been doing this week, but given that this week was mostly made of fail, they'll get done next week. At least I'm geared up?

Of course, next week is TESTMAGEDDON: PART 1. I have... four, wait, five tests to proctor, two of which I still have to print out, and I'm also giving a short talk in Vicki's class about my research. I'm also up for Public Night next week (I got today off, though I think it ended up being clouded out anyway), so I guess it'll be a busy week after all. Ah well.

In the meantime, I have been CLEANING (when I can), and have rearranged my bedroom closet and hope to have done the same with my dresser... eventually. I really have too many clothes, and I should start getting rid of some because I am going to have to move in about half a year. It's never too early to start spring cleaning, let's say? I think this thesis is going to result in a lot of cleaning for me, because I would love to turn it into fanfic (the thesis procrastiatnion, that is) - or even "real" fic! - but somehow I am feeling a little uninspired, writing wise. It's not for lack of ideas, actually - in fact, I have a ton. I just don't feel like working on them. I am hoping this will pass, because if it doesn't soon... I guess maybe I'll try forcing myself to write a bit each day. That'd be a good start, I think? I could really use the extra cash from selling some words!

All right, I think I'm going to go and do the dishes, speaking of cleaning. Or just clean off my kitchen table. That's a project that will never be done!

... This entry brought to you by CAPSLOCK, apparently. Happy Friday, what's left of it!

... Oh gosh how did it get to be AFTER ONE already? (Hm, it might have had something to do with the two tests I had to proctor today, now that I think about it...)

ANYWAY. As promised: The WIP Meme! Stolen from februaryfour~

( Post a single sentence or more from each WIP you have, or from as many WIPs as you want. Provide no context/explanations. )

Clearly I am making up for my complete lack of posting most of this month by posting MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY, YAY~

Firstly, I believe I will finally be moving my writing stuff! I'll be moving it from exlibris_tenisu over to antipositional; I've wanted to make a community vs. a writing journal for a long time now, and apparently my method of randomly looking up chess strategies as names has come through again! I'll make an announcement both here and exlibris_tenisu when I officially move, and everything already over there will stay. I'll just be archiving the old stuff and putting all new stuff in the comm from now on, I believe.

Secondly, I WOULD DO THIS if it did not coincide with being RIGHT AFTER DRAGON*CON. And okay, I'm already going to the concert on the 8th. But still. ;; I so would've done that.

Finally... I am thinking of just paying the stupid extra $10 for 70 more userpics. Because I am always complaining about lack of icon space. I know I could totally fill it up. Hrm~

... HEY WAIT the guy who does the music for The Mentalist also had a hand in The Pacific soundrack? That's just too great.

Anyway. I did not get any sewing done this weekend, but I did do a little writing - I managed to get a little more of the next chapter of my PJO story done! - and I'm trying to work on that Pacific fic now. I mean, I know exactly what's going to happen, I have half the lines written in my head, but just... getting them out has been slow going. Probably because I keep getting distracted. Either that or it's that problem I have where it's already written in my head, and it seems like way too much work to actually write it down. I need to stop doing that, seriously. >>

Okay, off to go attempt to work on that until about 2, when I am going to attempt to force myself to bed because I think I have to get up at, like, 6:30 or something. Maybe 7. 7 sounds better.

For all my friends who are PJO fans:

Speculation tiem! You take a demigod (any half-blood, basically), and you grant them immortality. Do they bleed red still, or gold ichor? I was under the impression that ichor was the blood of the gods only, but I'm curious to hear what you guys think.

D: Thoughts?


Also, I am not dead, I swear! Some kind of real update... eventually. Really. XD

Woo, OCTOPUS LAYOUT FTW! I figured it was time for a change. XD Even changed the page names, why not? Camp Rock didn't quite go with the underwater theme. :D;;;

I have decided I need more Dr. Horrible icons. Perhaps I will actually make some of my own. I wanted to scan in a couple pages of the comic, anyway. Also, probably some more Star Trek movie icons. Because they are SHINY. Yes. :D;

Anyway, the point of this entry was really to squee because I'm a semifinalist in one of the writing contests I entered and forgot about way back in October! :D Here's hoping! I think they'll actually announce the results fairly soon; that would be nifty~ :D Not that the prize is a whole lot or anything, but still! Just seeing the title of my entry up on their page is kind of awesome. ::dork::

... Yeah, that's it. :x Sorry.