Hey, it actually ended up being a great day! In the mail I got presents from Becca and Devan and money from a bunch of family! Becca got me the coolest scarf in the world (you think I'm kidding but I'm not) and Devan sent me a bunch of goodies on a CDR and a deck of FFVIII cards which I love to pieces. ;_; <3 I feel loved! It took me ten hours of work and self-distraction but I got my paper done for tomorrow and it seems to be pretty good. Now it's bedtime! MANNA TOMORROW :D

I am having an awful day so far, but I took more Joan pictures and that makes me happy. Pic 1, pic 2, pic 3.

It's been... er... a lot of days since I really posted but instead of recapping I'll just move on. I have a new modem, I'm 20 years old now, Thanksgiving was yummy if not a little stressful, and Manna is coming to visit me this weekend and I can't waaaait!

Since my modem is completely crapping out on me I'll just say that I'm alive and hopefully I'll have a new modem soon...

And just for the record I do know that that should have said "shown up." My god, why am I still awake!

I was naughty and stayed home from my Drawing and Painting classes, but it's not like anyone else would have showed up anyway. Just kinda spent the day goofing off. Den and I rented American Beauty since he'd never seen it and I hadn't seen it in a while. God, that movie. T_T My mom will be here in ten hours and I still need to a) sleep, b) pack and c) clean the house. ^_^ Whoops.

Far more important than my trip to the High (which was awesome), my good friend Charlie mailed me with some advice that I think everyone can benefit from:
"I just made the huge mistake of trying to work out to Ultra Relax. If you're ever tempted to try the same, DON'T DO IT! I can't feel my arms..."

Aaaaaaaaugh I got no sleep last night because the goddamn cat spent all night biting my arms and face, peeing on my bed and meowing outside my door when I shut her out! Matt is very proud of "his" kitten which he's never around to see, so I am leaving him a note to keep his ass in this house for a couple nights (he practically lives at Chris's) so he can deal with her for a while, because I'm exhausted-- this has been going on for a while. I will never ever have children. Thank god I'm gay.

@_@ We left at 10 and got back at 8! Talk about an excursion. We drove to Atlanta and hit Discover Mills and the Mall of Georgia, and it was my first time going to both places, so it was pretty cool. I don't really respect what popular fashion these days represents, but it's kind of fun to dip into it once in a while. I got two t-shirts for $5 each at the Gap and a $10 sweater at Banana Republic. My philosophy is becoming "they can charge whatever they want originally, so long as they have a big clearance section." I used to despise stores like the Gap, but now I find that's where I want to shop most. I'm kind of growing tired of my wardrobe; a lot of the shirts I really liked a couple weeks ago are seeming silly to me now. It might have something to do with my birthday SIX DAYS AWAY but I really don't know. Actually I do know, but I can save that for another post.

Okay there's been this apple on my desk for about three days and I'm gonna eat it now. You can't die from apple poisoning, right? o.o
The highlight of the day was my accidentally deleting my 40-hour-saved-right-before-the-final-boss FFIX game. ^_^ That was real fun. Actually no!! o_o The highlight of the day was finding out that dad found a car for me and made a deposit on it, so soon I will have my own car and OH GOD I CAN'T WAIT. I'll get to drive! And visit people! And get groceries when I need them! Tomorrow I'm going shopping in Atlanta with Matt and Chris and their friend Angel and Sunday I'm going back to Atlanta with Den to see an exhibit on Winslow Homer at the High Museum! It's gonna be a busy weekend. o_o;

We got out of Drawing early, and I found out from an email from Den at the last minute about a lecture at the New Media Institute downtown concerning the role of new technology in art. Right up my alley! I hauled my ass downtown and got there just in time. The lecturing artist is a teacher in the school and I didn't care much for her work, but it's always nice to go and listen to established artists. Someday it will be me giving lectures and drawing crowds with my accomplishments, and I wonder what I'll sound like then. I wonder if I'll still blush when I talk in front of groups. -_-;
Matt and I trekked to Best Buy so I could get a cable I need for my PlayStation, but they didn't have it. They did have a new Madonna CD I hadn't heard of, though-- a greatest hits collection vol. 2-- so I got that instead. The commentary in the booklet is pretty funny, so I don't feel shafted for paying for a CD of songs that I mostly already own. Apparently Britney Spears has a new CD, too, with snazzy song titles like "Not A Girl, but Not Quite A Woman." Which is pretty funny, because at a glance I could've sworn she's well into puberty...
EIGHT DAYS UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY

Right now I have hat hair and a bowl of hot fluffy beef ramen.
The critiques went well! My painting isn't done, so there wasn't a lot to be said about it, but people really dug my drawing. I was very happy. And I finished White Noise and I spent all afternoon doing nothing at all and I'll be damned if it wasn't fun!

Tonight Den and I grabbed dinner and headed to UGAnime! They showed Sakura (<3 <3), Inu Yasha (cute but tepid), Boys Be (as in Boys BeWARE THIS AWFUL SHOW), and the last episode of Tenshi ni Narumon, which was pretty although Noelle's voice gave me a headache like it always does. And they showed episode 24 of Bebop, which got me all sniffly like it does every time. It's always nice watching anime for free, like its original audience gets to! Tonight was actually our (my and Den's I mean) three-month anniversary; it's startling to think a quarter of a year has already gone by! And things just keep looking up.
I have six straight hours of critiques tomorrow-- first one in Painting, and then another in Drawing. But I'm actually really looking forward to both of them! I guess since I'm doing work that I'm excited about. Today I also got my Anthro test back, and I got an A on it. That was the test that I barely studied for, if you remember. @_@ I'll never ever understand the preparation-to-performance equation for tests.
Today in Multicult Lit we started talking about White Noise, which I've decided I really dig. I'm about forty pages from the end. It's all about, like, postmodernism and the hollowing out of everything valuable in our culture and the attention we pay to the banal, and it's all ironic and funny and kind of dark and disturbing and makes me feel smug but empty. For a long while I've sort of relished the rise of throwaway pop culture and the irony of the society we live in-- like the brand new red sportscar out in front of my condo complex with a Rage Against the Machine sticker on the bumper-- and so this book is right up my alley. And I told this to my friend Luna and she said I was evil. Girls are weird. -_-

I moseyed onto campus Saturday to paint for a couple hours, despite it being a game weekend. Goddamn football. But I overheard someone say that this was our last home game, and I pray they're right. Last night Den and I saw Monsters Inc., and it's up there with Emporer's New Groove-- it's not as funny, but it might be better overall! I'm having a hard time choosing my favorite. Before it there's a great little comedic short, too. Didn't do much today besides more reading of White Noise for class... Bizarre book. Oh, and I started to think about a short story I read some time ago, wanted to read it again, and ended up finding it online. If you haven't read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, now's your chance, and it's pretty, for lack of a more refined word, awesome. Check it out. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
TWELVE DAYS UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY

I got an 85 on my Art Hist test, which isn't bad, but it's not what I thought I'd gotten. It's actually the same exact grade I got on the first test. Today was a test in Anthro; Ben patted me consolingly while I wailed to him before we started, "Why can't I bring myself to care about my impending failure?" He's a good guy. I hardly studied because of numerous distractions (read: Joan's teeth and claws), but ironically I think it'll probably be my best grade in the class so far. Tomorrow I'm going in to paint for a while and then I'm hanging out with Den. I'm so glad it's the weekend!

Jesus, what a day! Started a new big painting in Painting, started a new big drawing in Drawing, got advised for next semester at 3 and then grabbed a ribe back to campus at 7 to watch a movie called Blackrobe for class. It wasn't bad at all. I'm worried that my hair won't be long enough to cosplay Sakuma Ryuichi from Gravitation at whatever my next con is, but I'm trying! I feel like having long hair again. And winter's a good time to grow it out. But mark my words, I'm still cosplaying Bryan Fury from Tekken... somewhere... sometime...

I know what you want to do right now. You want to try out my newest creation, The Tekken 4 Personality Quiz. My results are:

# 1 Combot
# 2 Steve Fox
# 3 Lee Chaolan (Violet)
# 4 Bryan Fury
# 5 Hwoarang
# 6 Lei Wulong
# 7 Craig Marduk
# 8 Marshall Law
# 9 Paul Phoenix
# 10 Yoshimitsu
# 11 Kuma/Panda
# 12 Christie Monteiro
# 13 Julia Chang
# 14 Ling Xaioyu
# 15 Nina Williams
# 16 Kazuya Mishima
# 17 Heihachi Mishima
# 18 King
# 19 Jin Kazama

Should I be bothered that 2 of my top 5 personality matches are androids? @_@;

I had "Dowsing" by The Seeker in my head really badly all day today. It's what I heard all through Multicultural Lit instead of the professor's usual babbling, and when I tried hard enough I could even get his mouth to fit the vocals. I'm wondering if the reason I've gotten sick so often lately is because I'm simply not eating enough, and I've been trying to eat more meals on campus. And I've noticed that whenever I do eat, I eat a lot more. Like... a lot more. Today for lunch I had two chicken fillets, rice and gravy, taco casserole, steamed cauliflower, a glass of water, a glass of tea and a sugar cookie. Could be more, but that's still more than usual. Maybe I'm growing again.

...I have a sleeping kitty in my lap. <3 Yes, the Joanlove just won't die, but I promise I'll try not to babble about her so much from now on! In the meantime, though, enjoy some pictures I snapped yesterday: Joan 02, Joan 03, and my favorite, Joan 04. Awwww.
Last night Den and I went to a rather posh AIDS fundraiser type dealie at Ashford Manor, with tons of desserts (and wine for everyone legal, which was basically everyone except me), a neat jazz band... and a bunch of gambling tables! Everyone who came got $4,000 of fake chips; they had poker, blackjack, craps, you name it. Den and I played roulette for about an hour and a half straight; he went broke, but I made $5,000 just by systematically betting on reds or blacks. It makes me wonder if real gambling would be that lucrative and easy. o_o But the highlight of the night was when someone's car caught on fire! They apparently parked over one of the votive candles living the parking lot and walkway. (It was a Beamer convertible, too. Whoops!) The front of the car went up in flames, and everyone started backing up because they thought it was going to explode. In the end, they got out the flames and nobody was hurt. I bet you that guy didn't drive to a fundraiser expecting to donate his car...

I totally nailed my Art History test just now! And so I don't forget it by the time I get home: http://www.vitaminless.com/bebop. I guess even fangirls can be productive sometimes! '^_-'
Now I get to sit through Multicult Lit and then I get to go home and see my favorite kitty! <3

So like, I've missed two advising appointments for next semester, right? And I got up today at 7 to get to campus and sign up for an appointment next week because the sign-up sheet goes up at 8AM. Except I got there to discover it goes up on Monday, not Friday. I was all set to have a little breakdown except the secretary found a slot next Tuesday at 2:45 that was somehow not taken! So in the end, all is well. (I register for classes next Thursday, which is why this was so important.)
Matt spent the night at Chris's (surprise SURPRISE) so I was the one who got to spend the night keeping an eye on Joan during her first night in the house. And it went just fine! Once the lights were out she hopped on the bed, curled up atop Tare Panda and slept through the night. ;-; I love her so much. Matt is her daddy and I am her worrying, loving, always-attentive mommy.
My Art Hist test is today. I feel decently prepared, but I'm sure I could study more if I only I could muster the drive to do so...

A KITTEN A KITTEN A KITTEN AIEEEEEE She's so adorable! She slept on my neck and she purrs for me and she likes to watch the TV while I play videogames and oh jesus she's the best cat ever. Many more pictures are on the way, probably.
...I have a bag of candy corn and I'm not sharing it with anyone.

I got no studying done last night, but that's okay. After Painting bright and early at 8 I skipped my Drawing class to study. That's only the second or third time I've ever skipped class. It makes me feel so... dirty. But I moseyed to the study lounge in the student center and I actually got a good bit of studying done! I was very happy. I just had some lunch and now I'm in the lab, waiting for the bus to head home. What a nice, relaxing school-day it was... I guess the moral of the story is "Drawing sucks, skip it."
Matt is definitely going to get the cat-- which is actually a tiny black kitten with very green eyes who he's already named Joan, after Joan Crawford ("The hangers! No wire hangers!!") and Joan Armitrain. It's still at Chris's and I'm dying for him to bring it over, so I can act apathetic and aloof until he leaves, and then shower the poor creature with massive cuddle-love. It should be wonderful having a pet in the house that isn't my responcibility. And I will be damned if he tries to make me do his work, because I already made him tell me he wouldn't. Getting him to do chores or pay his utilities is like pulling teeth, and he's never home... I'm really sort of wondering how he's going to keep this thing alive.
I've been reading through this blog and trying to figure out what makes it so much more interesting than my own. Elaine seems to be more on the genuine personal-journalism bent, whereas I seem to have a thing for mindless prattle. ...At least to me. Am I wrong? Is my blog actually fun to read? Let me know.
And I'm still coming down from the high of the Bebop movie.