Trivializing the Momentous and Complicating the Obvious

What I did today: got up at 8:00, went to work. Got off at 1, came home. Watched Anastasia with Christi while waiting around for my dad to get around to working on the budget with me --- which never came to pass, btw, but hey. Took a shower. Had class at 5. Got off at 6:15. Stopped to get dinner on the way home. Got home at 7:00. Dropped food off at home, went back out to look for Renae, who had gone to look for the dog 20 minutes ago and wasn't back yet. Couldn't find them, so I came home and ate, intending to go look for them again once I had eaten --- was the first thing I had eaten all day, btw, except for my morning tea. 7:30, call from Trevor to tell us he has successfully picked up our mother from work (he left around 6:30), and oh yeah, he has Renae and the dog with him. Duh.

So they get home and we all watch Prison Break together. It was very interesting tonight, but whatever. Afterwards, Nicole and Christi want to go to Walmart to get some snacks (Christi and Trevor) and a book that was supposedly released today (Nicole). We end up going to three different stores, none of them has the book Nicole wants, but we do get some snacks. It's 10:00 by the time we get home. Now it's time for me to do my homework, which is due tomorrow at 8:00 am, only now Renae has put on one of those obnoxious wedding shows she loves so much. I ask her if we can put on something more mellow so I can do my homework. She says no. We argue some, but she says it'll be over at 10:30 anyway, so I reluctantly relent. 10:30 comes around, I've answered two fricking homework questions, and the show's still not over. She tells me I can go to my room to do my homework, which she knows is ridiculous, because of the mess in there. Then Nicole tells me it's my turn to do the dishes.

Pfft.

I snap at her (almost justifiably, since she was in the kitchen, and I was in the living room) that there's no way I'm going to have time, and she'll just have to deal with it. She says I'll have to do it tomorrow, then, and thinking over my schedule for tomorrow, which is kind of similar to today's, only with more school in it, I say I won't have time tomorrow, either. To which Renae replies that, "It's not our fault you [meaning me] can't prioritize your time better."

*stare*

Now I'm angry and hurt, so I tell her that, since she only works five hours a day, she has no room to talk. I then try, with many sips of Dr Pepper, to concentrate on my homework, but I'm too upset, so I end up gathering my things and going to my room, after all. I think she heard me crying, because the TV's off now and I can hear them talking about me. They know I'm online, so I guess they figure I'm just a drama queen with no real complaints, but whatever. I needed something to take my mind off the argument so I could concentrate, but nothing's working. And now I have a headache from grinding my teeth and crying. I'm just sick of being expected to do everything around here.

I haven't updated in awhile. *guilt*

It's finals week. Blah blah blah, cram cram cram. Really not worried or stressed, just busy. I am a little perplexed over my persuasive speech which is due on Tuesday and counts both as a speech and as a final (actual finals were cancelled due to Hurricane Wilma). I don't know what I'm going to do it on. No religion, no politics, per the professor's instructions. What else is there to persuade about? As said in Fiddler on the Roof, everything's political.

Meh, I'm just worried because I don't have strong opinions about many things that are not Absolutely Trivial. I did way better than expected on my first speech, though, so I guess I'll get by. And hey, after Tuesday, it's over. *g*

In other news, I seem to be losing weight. I pigged out yesterday and am still 2 pounds lighter than I was last week. I guess working retail really works for my metabolism. Is okay with me, since surgery seems to be a no-go at this point. Only way to get it done, it seems, is to raise $30K by ourselves.

Guess it's time to get these braces off.

Saw Walk the Line last night. Was very good. Johnny + June = OTP OMG.

I'm depressed. I now have even less money than I did when I complained about having no money the other day. Also, Tropical Storm Gamma (!!) is now threatening South Florida, and may come just in time to wreck my favorite holiday. And my car is still incapacitated.

The mechanic was supposed to come today to fix it, but nope. Couldn't do it.

On the upside, at least I don't have to write a paper for two weeks, thanks to the holiday.

Got our electricity back yesterday. Was riding home from school when my dad noticed the house lights on our block were on. Began to get excited, but not too excited, as is possible to hook house up to generator. Got nearer to our house and noticed the front doors to our house and the house next door were still open, so began to be disappointed. But our neighbor was out on his lawn and he saw us and smiled (I'd never seen him so happy) and said, "Hey, lights back!" And then Nicole appeared in the doorway, waving her arms and jumping around. And we giggled. And there was much rejoicing.

So now all that's left to do is replace my modem.

Spent $90 today on a puny little schoolbook. Am kind of depressed about that.

Well, no sooner did I log off after posting my last entry, but our phone line went out. Argh!

But it's back now. Yay!

Still don't have power, though.

Have been very bored the last few days, though this time the aftermath has been considerably better than other hurricanes I've been through. Mostly due to the cooler weather (the hurricane actually brought in a cold front this time; was very weird. I think it came in with the eye.) but also because of our brand spanking new generator. Which, btw, we are now sharing with both of our next door neighbors, since the family on the left of us have an autistic child who cannot live without TV. Or maybe it's his parents who need it to keep him busy. *shrug* Either way.

The only thing I had to keep myself occupied was my Netflix, which was the first three discs of the first season of 24. Which has been surprisingly good. Wasn't sure if I could deal with The Antichrist* as the lead character, but I've really been enjoying it. Was very tiresome to have to charge up the battery every two hours, though. On the other hand, it made it easier to make the discs last three or four days.

More details to come later, as we all have to make do with the laptop at the moment.

* "The Antichrist" in this case obviously refers to Kiefer Sutherland. We gave him this nickname because he was the bad guy in so many movies we've seen. Of course, this makes Donald Sutherland the Father of the Antichrist.

Why did I have to get into this show now, of all times? Why??? At least with Freaks & Geeks I didn't discover the show until long after it had been cancelled.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/30/DDGP7EVFHB1.DTL

I'm still a little bitter over Joan of Arcadia's cancellation, but at least I could recognize that show's quality had gone down considerably. But Arrested Development is brilliant!

Why are people so stupid? *grump*

I can just hope the writer of this article is wrong. After all, FOX *did* pick up the show for a third season despite horrible ratings. And DVD sales are up. But I have a bad feeling about it. :(

Was told today that they're going to cut my hours at work. Crap.

I'm off to write something sad and angsty.

My computer's still in the shop. More on that later.

In the meantime, I'm at my parents' computer in their bedroom. My dad decided to take a nap and turned on some religious programming to sleep to. So now behind me I have some woman singing very badly....horribly....she's just awful. Seriously, it's like a bad audition on American Idol, only this woman is actually supposed to be good. Her voice is a whine, her phrasing is horrible, and she's consistently flat on her notes. It's torture.

So I'm going to go call the computer place and see if my computer's ready yet. I'm dying here!

UPDATE: *big sigh of relief* Well, I finally have my computer back. (I know, it wasn't even 48 hours. I'm addicted. I get it.) I took it in yesterday to have the modem replaced, and they said they'd do it right away and to come back tomorrow (which would be today) to pick it up. So I went back today, but they hadn't tested it yet. So they plugged it in and everything, but when they tried to connect to the internet, it booted the computer. Naturally, I freaked out.

They told me to go home and they'd fix it. Bah. So I went home and waited two hours before calling them. They said they'd call back in 20 minutes. 40 minutes later, I called again, and they said it was ready. Humbug.

But now it's home, so all is good. And Nicole brought it to my attention that they had mistaken a 3 in our phone number for a 5, so maybe they tried to call and just had the wrong number. But I'm still rather cheesed off about the whole thing.

So we're going on Saturday to look at some used money pits, I mean cars. Oh gosh. I can't wait. [/sarcasm]

I'm bored and I'm grumpy. None of my usual "activities" appeal to me at the moment, and nothing's happening for me to watch.

I was up very late last night trying to find lyrics for the Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute. Finally found them and was satisfied. Then I got caught up reading the lyrics to Elisabeth -- naturally, since it happened to come up on my computer, I had to sing along, especially for Die Schatten Werden Langer and Boote in der Nacht, and it's kind of silly to sing along if you don't understand the words. So yeah. Anyway, now I really want to learn German.

So everything was going along swimmingly as far as school, doctor's appointments, and work. I had all my ducks in a row, so to speak, then it was time to implement the most important part of my plan: learning to drive.

So I said to my dad, as he was heading out the door, "Want me to drive you?"

And he said "Sure! Oh, but wait, you'll have to drive the van. The car seat won't move up, so you'd have to sit on the edge or else not be able to reach the pedals."

And everything went up in smoke. For one: I am not prepared to drive a huge tank of a van that has curtains covering the back windows. I can barely drive in reverse as it is.

For two: now that the car is disabled, at least as far as I'm concerned, I'll have to get my own. Sure, I have money saved up to be able to afford a used car. But how am I supposed to afford insurance on my salary?

Even if I did learn to drive with the van, I wouldn't be able to use it to take the drivers' test. It probably wouldn't be able to fit into the DMV parking lot. Harrumph.

Bummer.