OMG 10.10!!!!

When I found out that Ubuntu 10.10: Maverick Meerkat was released TWO DAYS AGO instead of the usual end-of-the-month rush, I flipped.

I’m excited. SUPER EXCITED OMG.

WHY didn’t I find out on Sunday? Now I have to wait until the weekend to install it because it takes forever and I need to buy an external hard drive to back up all my files. ARGH.

I really, really, really hope 10.10 is going to be better than 10.04. For six months, my computer has booted without a startup screen. It makes me sad not to see the Ubuntu logo :(

EDIT (3 1/2 hours later): After backing up all my files, I decided to wait at least a month before I upgrade, so that I don’t repeat what happened with 10.04. Otherwise I might wipe the system and reinstall 9.10, because those were the good days.

You can feel it in the air

My room is incredibly clean right now.

It was incredibly messy this morning.

It’s safe to say I procrastinated for about seven hours today, which is NOT good because it’s now 8pm on a Sunday night, and I have two hours to do calculus, rewrite an essay, and read twelve pages of government, because I get up early for a zero period.

I screwed myself over today.

HOWEVER. I’ve been restless all day. I think it’s because the Santa Ana winds are coming in this week. I can feel it in my blood. And it was hot and dry this morning. Ever since I read Joan Didion’s “The Santa Ana” I’ve been suspicious of the winds.

Hot weather also makes me restless and I can never settle down to do any work.

So…I should probably do homework now.

I wish I was rich

I’m in the market for a new suit for speech and debate. Last year I wore business casual, but this year my coach informed me that I need to go all the way and wear a formal suit if I want to be serious. And I do want to be serious.

I’ve been looking online at suits and suit separates, at JC Penney, Macy’s, Kohl’s…the major department stores. Suit separates sell for about $50-80 each. However, I don’t like the fit on the models. I’m petite, and all those petite models are definitely much, much taller than I am. I don’t want to drown in structured shoulders and lapels and fabric–I need to be heard! Deliver my speeches and be done with it!

The major department stores have some affordable suits, but I”m still a cheapskate. I complained at today’s practice that suits are expensive. Additionally, women’s suits look good on only so many people, and I have a feeling I need to search extensively.

In response to my cheapskate outburst, a male member of the team informed me that “it’s an investment.” And I took it  to heart. Because it is–I’ll have those moments in life where I”ll need a suit, and I don’t want to be caught unawares without one.

With this reminder in mind, I set out and looked at some higher-end retailers…and oh my galoshes, I nearly had a heart attack when I looked at those prices. They were very good-looking clothes, too! And so professional! And the quality must be far beyond what I get for cheap at Kohl’s (where I purchase most of my clothing because they send me coupons in the newspaper–I ended up only paying $10 for a bra and heels to wear at prom during Mother’s Day sales, clearance on the shoes, and a $10-off-$20-purchase coupon)!

I wish I was rich. Then I could buy expensive clothes without cringing inside. After all, I paid less for my laptop than for what some of these suits cost. And why pay so much for clothing when I could buy an external hard drive, as I’ve been meaning to do for about a year now?

Oh, summer

It’s been well over a month since my last blog post, and what do I have to show for it?

Not much. But yet, a lot.

I logged the 65th hour of my Girl Scout Gold Award on July 31. Twice a week in the month of July, I led creative writing workshops for kids at the local library. It was an amazing experience and I met some cool people, though I don’t know if we’ll keep in touch (different schools, etc…I’ve exchanged a couple of emails with one, but she hasn’t responded to the last one). The Tuesdays and Fridays at the library took up my whole day, as I had to do a couple of hours of prep, creating worksheets, and setting up before the actual classes themselves. For the month, though, I logged about 40 hours. Now all I have to do is the final paperwork.

The day after I finished my Gold Award, I drove up to the mountains for cross country running camp. To be blunt: I rocked those hills. Altitude and hills are my strengths. After a week of running up and down hills, we had a race. And I came in fourth for the girls. I made varsity. Let’s put this in perspective: when I was a little baby freshman, fourteen years old, I wasn’t anything. I came in around the 20-23rd spots on the team. Bottom JV, w00t. Sophomore year, middle of the team until I got sick and went back to the bottom. Junior year, I made the top bracket and the highest position I held was 8th until I succumbed to the swine flu the night before a race. Now I’m a big strong senior, it’s my fourth season, and I can chug up those hills like there’s no tomorrow. I’ve worked my butt off and made it up to the big kids’ domain. Now, all I have to do is NOT GET SICK this year (which will be difficult as my school is forcing me into a zero period, making me lose an hour of sleep a night, and with 180 days in the school year is a solid week of sleep that I won’t have, and with less sleep comes a lowered immune system).

So I’ve done my Gold Award and made varsity cross country. Besides that, though, I’ve been playing a lot of The Sims 2. And I bought an expansion pack a month ago. My justification for so much play time is that I’m going to hide the game disc from myself once school starts. But it’s sacrificed a writing project I started last year and wanted to revive. And all I want to do when I come home from cross country practice is sit and play the Sims 2.

…you know, writing that out made me realize how much it’s controlling my life. Forget the legacy challenge, forget the expansion pack…I need to quit cold turkey again. Maybe let myself play once a month.

Excuse me. I’m going to go hide my game now.

Edit: It’s now under my bed.While there’s not much underneath my bed and I know where it is, it will require more effort than it’s worth to crawl on my hands and knees, eventually dropping down to my belly and wriggling between the bed frame and the floor, to retrieve the disks.

The problem with streaming music online…

…is that I accidentally close the window ALL THE TIME.

It’s done

The first draft of my first screenplay is now complete at 81 pages! It needs some polishing and additional scenes, of course, but it’s DONE! And now I can move on to a new big writing project that I’m excited about.

I feel kind of sad because it was based on Romeo and Juliet, so the ending is a bit…tragic. And the sadness is due to the extreme gravity of the situation.

But yay! It’s done!

Music Slump

I NEED NEW MUSIC.

It doesn’t help that I have no iTunes monies =( But it’s driving me crazy. I want to buy songs from Alex Day’s new album and Paper Tongues’s album and Beast’s album and a bunch of heavy metal and songs I’ve been streaming but want to listen to when I’m not on the Internet.

Do you think Target will let me pay for an i’Tunes gift card using a Target gift card?

I think I’m going to break down and spend all of my next paycheck on new music, because I can only listen to the same songs for so long. And I can’t listen to half my library because half my library has songs about love, and I’m avoiding songs about love. Which is also why I’ve been avoiding my current writing project, because that’s kind of about love because it’s a high school version of Romeo and Juliet, and though there aren’t any actual declarations of love, I can’t bring myself to finish it off even though I’m ALMOST DONE.

Talking: an art that few master

I babble way too much.

I always want people to see what I’m talking about from my point of view, so I always go into a back story before I tell the reason I do something or the reason that something happened.

But sometimes, short is sweet. Babbling can hurt a person more than a simple “Hey, just so you know…I’m not romantically interested in you.”

Trying to explain to someone can sometimes have the opposite effect of the one you’re going for, and so that’s why tomorrow I’m going to tell this person in as few words as possible but in the nicest way I can. And then run to my car and go home.

See, now I want to give the back story of this, too, but this is the Internet and what you post is free-for-all, and there are some things that you just can’t explain without looking like a jerk.

The Power of Medication

It is amazing how drugs/medication can make one feel so much better.

I spent the morning watching YouTube. Then I dragged myself to the grocery store to buy soup and some fruit juice, ready to begin the process of downing as much vitamin C as possible to make myself feel better. Watched two and a half episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD as I failed to get through the soup, and then turned off the TV and fell asleep for two hours.

When I woke up, I felt like crap. I could barely stand without feeling fatigued. My mom had come home from work while I was sleeping, and at this point she took my temperature and got 101.4 degrees Fahrenheit¹ so I took some Tylenol² and went back to sleep for about an hour.

When I woke up that time, I felt much, much better. As in, I wanted to eat food and didn’t want to fall where I was standing. I can stare at a screen again (I’m on the computer; I must be a lot better, heh). There’s no way I would have felt this way if I hadn’t taken the Tylenol, which amazes me how much I/we rely on drugs to get through the day.

Now let’s hope that the three hours of sleep I got in the middle of the day doesn’t screw with sleeping tonight…

Edit: I don’t even remember posting already today. I thought I wrote the post about being sick last night.

—

<sub>1. 38.6 Celsius for you metric users
2. acetaminophen</sub>

Summer’s here and the time is right…

…to get sick.

What the heck? It’s summer! Cross country is starting in a week! Why can’t I go out and enjoy myself?

Though I suppose I could still enjoy myself curled up in bed with the laptop. As I’m doing right now.

Also, it’s been a week since the one-year anniversary of this blog. So…congratulations to me? This’ll be my 68th post, which averages out to more than one a week, which isn’t accurate, but we’ll go with that.