1. Order :: of Moose
2. Mortician :: ’s assistant
3. Determine :: the nature of…
4. Ignore :: everything
5. Guy :: girl
6. Crush :: on you
7. Garlic :: yum!
8. Wacky :: girl
9. Parent :: education
10. Burning :: desire

popularity: 18%

I think you’ll like this site: customize.org

popularity: 13%

No, not like the Catholic Church kind… And not my usual Starbucks, ice cream, pizza delivery, an hour of television without multitasking….

My fist indulgence last night was to walk home from work. That was nice. I promptly set about to write the paper that’s due today, and managed to finish it in an hour. So I rewarded myself with dinner. Then I did the rest of my homework (caught up through today, actually, with the exception of 15 minutes of reading to do tonight), so I indulged in the shower that I’d missed taking before work. I also did two loads of laundry. I would have rewarded myself for that as well, but I was getting tired, so instead of cleaning, I went to bed.

Thrilling stuff, I know.

popularity: 15%

If you want to know some details about my super-cool new work computer, here are some things to dazzle you:

• Intel Core2 Duo
• 112 GB Hard Drive
• DVD/CD-RW drive
• Headphone port miraculously on the front of the machine (not connected solely to the CD drive)
• It’s a Lenovo ThinkCenter, if that means anything to anyone. I’ve never heard of it before.
• My new keyboard is still squeaky. Just the space bar. But, as you can imagine, I hit that key a lot. In this blog entry so far, over 70 times.
• The CD-burning software is so much nicer than my last machine. It’s amazing how seamless it is.

I found some of this out when I was trying to decide if I would install (not exactly legally) Flash or not (or, more precisely, how long I should wait to do so). So I checked to see how the hard drive looked. Oh yeah, no problem whatsoever. I will not feel guilty about adding that. I will, however, cry if this computer dies on me.

popularity: 16%

It was so beautiful this morning when I left my house that I was severely tempted to not go to work. Staying home and re-potting the plants I bought last weekend (that’s right, last weekend, not this weekend), airing out the house, vacuuming up dog hair (have I mentioned I don’t own the dog? it doesn’t seem to matter to her owner), doing homework, and ideally napping (no, all those things can’t happen in the time allotted, but I was dreaming)… all seemed like a good idea to me. But instead, I went to class. And, as a compromise, I walked from class to work instead of taking the bus. If I eat appropriately for the rest of the workday, I might even walk home.

But, I do have to write a paper tonight. And do laundry that I didn’t do last week. And there’s a whole bunch of stuff on the “should” list that I probably won’t get to this week. Bummer. I would also like to catch up on sleep (even though that’s not actually how that works), but I don’t foresee that happening either.

Had an awesome time at ’s on Saturday. finally got to meet , who was in a great mood. got some good pictures. And we got wedding music figured out on Sunday, and got the larger chunk of our registry taken care of. And I did lots of homework. Between the two books I’m reading for two different classes (one on being a slave in 19th century America, and one about growing up a black boy in apartheid Africa in the 1950s), I’m getting a little confused about the details of each situation - they both suck, is basically how that gets summed up. I would love to think that similar situations no longer exist in this world, but that is not the case. That is very sad.

I was just asked if I had time tomorrow to work on another PowerPoint presentation tomorrow. By the same person that I did one for last week, the one that I nearly cried over on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with an excuse.

I am strongly encouraging everyone to skip out of work early and enjoy the outside world. I can’t, but maybe you can!

Oh, and if anyone wanted to know, loved the drawing I made of my wedding dress, which has made me almost-deliriously happy today.

popularity: 34%

1. Found :: Lost and
2. Male :: Female
3. Spoken :: Word
4. Life :: Night
5. Tonight :: Not
6. Fingernail :: Hangnail
7. True :: False
8. Give up :: Everything
9. Shining :: Example
10. Everywhere :: you go…

popularity: 13%

Last night I did homework from 6:30-12:30, and I didn’t even get my paper written (I did do the research for it, however, and decided that I wasn’t in the mood to write it, and it’s not due until Tuesday, so it’s all good). I didn’t get laundry done either. And there’s a growing pile of papers near my chair/window that is gonna be declared a hazard zone soon.

Since I got my new computer at work, I’ve been busy, busy, busy. I think I’m mostly set up the way I want to be, though. I managed to bring over the extensions I wanted for Firefox, and sync my bookmarks, which was the last step. I’m back in business!

Can I get an extra day in my week or weekend somehow? Or a few hours to sleep? is in town this weekend, so I get to see on Saturday, and I hope and I will have time otherwise to go take a walk outside, since the weather is supposed to be so nice. But I also have a chunk of homework, and it’s that point in the semester where slacking, even a day or two, really can’t happen. There’s too much to do and very little time left, so no getting behind schedule now. I also need to find the time to re-design the website that I was already paid for, and and I need to put a website out their for our upcoming nuptials and register and…. You get the idea. I will be quite happy when the semester is over - I may be too exhausted to celebrate, but I’ll have happy dreams.

The wonderment word of the day? Connubial. It’s a Jane Austen-esque word. I’ve been reading (well, not this week) Mr Darcy Takes a Wife, which is about 400% more racy than I expected it to be. Good, nonetheless. Anyways, connubial is used a lot.

popularity: 26%

I have just been in a fantastic day today. I finally got my computer at work. It is very spiffy. I even got a new keyboard and mouse, which is nice. I’ve got Office 2003, and the newest Dreamweaver, some other stuff that would bore you. I spent most of the morning getting it set up correctly (you know, settings in Word, shortcuts in the right places, correct screen resolution, blah blah blah). And then I’ve just been a busy little bee, working away (happily) this afternoon.

Unfortunately, now I have to go home and work my tail off to try to get my homework done, and there’s a lot of it. Boo. Oh well. is in town this weekend, so and I will be going up to ’s house on Saturday to play with (oh yeah, and see ) for a while.

In case anyone was interested… I wore a dress to work today. I know! Shocking. It’s red and sleeveless and OK, not short, but above the knee. It’s cute. And, here’s the kicker, my stockings have a seam up the back. It elicited an immediate comment from my co-worker. But, you see, they’ve been filming a commercial in my building for the last three days and they’ve had to turn off the fans, so our office has been unbelievably hot. I figured I’d wear the sleeveless dress while I could, since in the middle of summer our office temperature warrants wool sweaters.

Oh, and now I understand exactly how overjoyed was when she got her flash drive. Mine arrived yesterday and I’m very happy about that.

Had a nice dinner out with last night - Tanpopo, which is always good, even if I get the exact same thing every time. Then she picked up her dress at my house and we went our separate ways, both having schoolwork to complete.

Hope everyone has an awesome night!

popularity: 27%

My computer should be here soon. The guy is installing software on it as we speak, so I think sometime tomorrow morning or afternoon, I’ll be back in business. Finally!

popularity: 13%

There is no crying at work, there is no crying at work.

I won’t get it to it, but suffice it to say that I’ve only been here for an hour, and via an email just sent… the last hour of work has been totally worthless. WTF? I am experiencing what does when she gets really mad… a desire to cry. It’s quite the frustrating reaction.

Livid. There’s an appropriate word to explain my emotional state right now. And the real problem? It’s because of my director (and her frustratingly annoying secretary), whom I normally like. You know, the director of our entire branch. So not exactly someone I can walk around b*tching about.

popularity: 13%

Stuck in my head right now? “I hate the world today…” Know what song that’s from? One that I don’t particularly care for and haven’t ever wanted to own, but it seems appropriate today. It’s “B*tch” by Meredith something or other. I can’t exactly look that up at work.

Anyways, computer problems still abound at work. I’m back on the laptop, and I have printer access now, which is something new. But everything in general is frustrating when it’s not your machine. I’m stuck without the programs I need and forced to use inferior and irritating programs (cough cough Internet Explorer cough cough). So I’m pleasant. Plus, there’s a meeting tomorrow that seemingly everyone forgot about (including myself), so there were a lot of last-minute requests for documents to be prepared, photocopied, etc.

And it grates on me every time a co-worker comes by and says, “Still no computer yet?”

Here’s a happy thing from last night, though. I was reading my Real Simple magazine that arrived yesterday, an article on preventing osteoporosis (basically the numerous things you should do to protect and build bone density). They had it broken down by decades, starting with things to do in your 20’s. What made me happy was to read the first item under things to do in your 30’s. (I’m paraphrasing here…) “When you’re pregnant, make sure to take prenatal vitamins.” How nice for the expectation to be put out there that 30’s are a perfectly good time to have kids, in this time of my life when many of my friends have had babies or are having babies, and all of them are under 30. I don’t feel the tick-tock of the biological clock, but I am aware that 30 is just around the corner and that other people have expectations that they occasionally try to impose on me. (It doesn’t often work well, but it sure does frustrate me to no end.)

I slept like crap last night. I couldn’t fall asleep, and then just when I did, started to paw at the back of my neck, which awoke me enough to realize that I hadn’t actually been asleep. I looked at the clock - 2:30. No fun. I should do alright on the quiz tonight in class though. I studied.

Wanna place bets on the idea of me forgetting that we have a meeting tomorrow morning and missing my 7:45 bus?

popularity: 32%

called me this afternoon to report that she and her husband had a baby girl this morning at 6 am. Sounds like the delivery was a breeze (not painless, but a fairly easy delivery). Her name is Rachel Ann, and her parents, though biased, think that she’s very smart. Very exciting.

popularity: 13%

Turns out that I haven’t deeply offended IT somehow. After taking a look at my old computer and what I do with it, they decided I needed a super-spiffy one, so it didn’t come in when the other 30 new ones did. Many people have asked the question, “who authorized that?” No one knows. Also, no ETA on the new computer.

IE has crashed on me three times today. Why do I even bother? I can’t seem to download files through IE on this computer. It let me get the sample quiz for tomorrow night’s class, but not the two lectures for my morning class.

For the meeting this Wednesday, my co-worker sent me the minutes this morning and said, “I want to get them out this afternoon.” So, I prepped them for her (trying to not blow a gasket at the grammatical errors she continues to make), dropped them off at her desk, and she said, “wow, that was fast.” Um… isn’t that what you asked for? And now I’m waiting for her to approve them, and it’s been quite a while. I am not the holdup here.

Another co-worker emailed me and asked for a report we have to be put into large-print. No problem, except… it’s in Adobe Acrobat, so I can export the text, but there are about three pages of tables which don’t export well. Maybe if I had my computer I could do some reverse engineering, but not with only Adobe Reader.

Someone in our field wants an org chart of their entire area, all staff, which is not something we do. I’ve got org charts for Admin, but not the field. I hate doing org charts, but I do it because I’m told to.

People keep coming by and asking when my co-worker (whose desk I’m using) is coming back, surprised that he’s not returned yet. He’s had a sign up in his cube for the past three months (that’s right behind my head, clearly visible to all who walk by) that says he’s coming back tomorrow (it also has the note “plan accordingly,” which is just fabulous, because no one did). I might hurt the next person who asks. Or who comments about my lack of computer.

The throwing-myself-on-the-floor-kicking-and-screaming may commence soon. I can feel it coming. It may be unavoidable. Maybe I’ll just make up a big banner and post it in my cube: “I hate this.” That would effectively communicate what I want.

But, shortly I will take myself to the Minute Clinic in the Skyway where I will get some antibiotics (because the cranberry tea is only relieving my symptoms and not actually fixing me, sadly), and that won’t put me in a better mood, but my body won’t be broken anymore then. And in a few days my tummy will be right as rain.

I feel like a four-year-old, but this work situation is becoming unbearable to me. I have no patience left, either for it or for the people who keep talking to me about it. My displeasure has been clear to everyone who’s passed by.

THIS SUCKS.

Oh - my weekend was good. I got my homework done, bought some pretty flowers and yummy herbs at Gertens, went for a walk with , relaxed a bit, etc. And after I’ve left work tonight, I will not be in such a crappy mood. It’s just these unbearable 9 hours of the day that I’m here.

popularity: 19%

Aside from the fact that I STILL HAVE NO COMPUTER!!!, the firewall at work has now decided that Google Documents is evil and I can’t access them. “Peer to Peer” it says. Well, yes, that’s kinda the point. But I wasn’t going to do anything evil with a spreadsheet, I promise.

This is ridiculous. I’m sending “the look” to the entire second floor IT staff. Additionally, I’m thinking of some choice words I’d like to say to them and/or call them, if I had the chance.

I hate work today. But not as much as I will tomorrow if I still don’t have a computer, because then my co-worker will be back and I will be stuck using even more inferior computers than I am currently. I told that I was going to have to stay home “sick” one day this week if my computer didn’t arrive shortly. I might go crazy otherwise. Oh, and then I remembered last night at about 12:30 that there’s an off-site meeting on Wednesday of this week that we’re totally not prepared for because they bumped it up a week. The mailing should have gone out last Tuesday, but normally it would have to go out this Tuesday. So, basically, we’re screwed.

All around a pleasant day, no?

popularity: 13%

I found out some interesting information about my depression medication today, quite unexpectedly so. So I was on my health insurance website looking for something completely unrelated, and all my information is now online there, which is pretty cool. It even has my complete prescription history. While glancing at it (only glancing, since I knew what was on there, right?) I noticed that the generic name of my Wellbutrin was spelled incorrectly. Then I looked closer and… it wasn’t spelled incorrectly - the generic is actually different than what I thought it was. The drug in Wellbutrin is bupropion, and my generic is budeprion. You can see why, after nine months, I wouldn’t have caught this.

Curious, I do some research on the internet about this budeprion. Sure enough, it’s a generic substitute for Wellbutrin, so that’s all good. But the second result is to a community board of people wondering about the difference between the generic and the brand name, and effectiveness. Time after time, I read how people had been put on the generic and it didn’t work as well for them, often with really bad side effects (I was actually starting to feel lucky that I didn’t experience any negative side effects when I switched). Beyond the really strong side effects that some people had, which seemed to be out of the norm, the complaints fell into two categories. One, 300mg of the generic wasn’t nearly as strong as 300 of the brand name, and two, the generic doesn’t have the coating the brand name does, which seriously affects the absorption rate (causing some people to have side effects like nausea and racy feelings). That last one seems particularly troubling, since the reason I take the XL (or SR, I don’t remember which is which) is because it’s extended release.

When I switched back in the fall (because that nifty plan of the Governor’s to save us money by getting the brand names from Canada stopped including Wellbutrin, or any drugs vaguely related to mental health, that I can tell), I didn’t expect any change. We can rule out the placebo effect, because I assumed the generic would work the same and life would be dandy. It wasn’t for a few months that I realized I was more tired than I used to be. Of course, at first I chalked it up to being back in school and being more busy and so forth. But it wasn’t like that - it was more like before I was on meds, that general need to get more sleep (of course, before meds I “required” 10-12 hours of sleep, and then with them I can function on 6-7, and with the generic it feels more like 8, if that helps you understand what I mean). I finally put two and two together and realized it was more than likely the generic. No biggie - I was still doing much better than if I wasn’t taking anything, and I didn’t even toss around the idea of going in to my doctor to ask about it.

Now, however, I will be asking her about this at my annual check-up in June. (See how un-alarming this recent discovery is? If I was really, truly concerned, I suppose I’d bump up my annual and go now.) Add it to the list of things to ask her about, including the “rules” for taking the pill for maximum birth control effectiveness (having never cared before). The bummer is that while my insurance will most likely let me switch back to the brand name (with a doctor’s written note), the website won’t tell me how much the co-pay would be (it’s got this cool “calculate my co-pay” function, but it just comes up with question marks for the Wellbutrin and budeprion and bupropion. I kinda care, if the difference is big, which is possible since my generic co-pay is $15/month.

Well, now that I’ve bored you all with details you probably didn’t care at all about, I’ll let you go back to living your life. Lesson learned? If you’re prone to mis-reading words like I am, check your generic prescription label a bit more closely. If I had done that back in September, I would have figured this all out much sooner.

popularity: 14%