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whappy happy nea land! |
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My own spot to rant about my day.
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wFriday, December 28, 2001 |
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Finally, blogger has decided to come back up.
I feel like Christmas kinda went around me rather than my actually being a part of everything. I will tell more about this later. I am alive and my living room is full of paper and boxes and gifts. woo hoo!
posted by
nea at 9:01 AM
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wFriday, December 21, 2001 |
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Lord of the Rings is good. Getting out of 4 1/2 hours of work to see it for free in an IMAX is awsome. Yeah CGI!
posted by
nea at 9:24 AM
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wWednesday, December 19, 2001 |
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We had a very interesting potluck at my work today. It was "foods from around the world" where you brought in stuff from your culture. So I made Swedish rice pudding. I know, real exciting stuff. What I thought was interesting, though, was that even though many people in our department speak Spanish natively, none of them that brought stuff are Mexican. Instead we had Cuban, and South-Western, and Salvadorian . . . just a whole random mix. The food was nifty, but I was allergic to something and got all messed up. I turned this lovely shade of bright red and, because I don't want to use my last half of a sick day for the year, I spent the afternoon moving real slow and not doing much. It sucked. I also had to cancel tutoring this girl who has a math test tomorrow. I felt bad, but knew I couldn't drive that far without puking. Instead I came home, took Advil, and crashed until Dave came home from the movies.
Tomorrow I get to see Lord of the Rings with my company for free! I was wondering if we would since, after all, it is our client and a big one. Plus, we get to go to the new big movie theater near Howard Hughes. I am excited. Time off of work, even though word is hectic and I'm a little behind, is all good to me.
posted by
nea at 9:51 PM
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Still going. I hope some of you are entertained by this. I think it's one step off from all those forwards you got when you first had an e-mail account.
Which Evil Criminal are You?
posted by
nea at 9:37 PM
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wTuesday, December 18, 2001 |
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I swear these things get wierder and wierder. I don't understand this one at all:
 | If I were a Dead Russian Composer, I would be Sergei Rakhmaninov. I lived in the early Twentieth Century and was well known for my compositional, conducting, and piano skills, yet I am melancholy despite this talent. My famous works include my nearly-impossible piano concerti. Who would you be? Dead Russian Composer Personality Test |
posted by
nea at 9:16 AM
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wMonday, December 17, 2001 |
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Just a quick hello to all. I am tired. I had what should not feel like a long weekend, but does.
Friday night Dave and I went to a little gathering at Neil's. Got to talk to Diana for the first time in who knows how long, who reminded me that I really need to get it together about bridesmaid dresses. Why my dress was easier than theirs, I don't even know. Also got to try a couple new concotions and AIM with a bunch of people. I know, I'm sad, I AIM at parties.
Saturday was tutoring and hella shopping. Poor Dave got to be more or less my package holder. I did get almost everything done though, which makes me happy.
Sunday I spent most of the day working, which sucked. But overtime is good for nea's wallet, so I will live. Afterwards Dave and I got it together and went to my dad's for Hanukkah. It was crazy! Lots of kids and people, plus two dogs. But then one of the dogs bit one of the kids (it really was the boy's fault) and the owners of the dog felt horrible and left. That kinda put a damper on things, and slowly people left. The party only went like 3 hours, which is strangely short. I had a good time but felt very lost among everyone. I kept starting conversations with people, but then they would stop because both of us would run out of things to say. Very wierd.
posted by
nea at 8:44 AM
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wThursday, December 13, 2001 |
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Happy Santa Lucia Day everyone!
The lay-offs continue. There have been like 6 or 7 in my office, and as many or more in Chicago and NY. I think it is very lame to get rid of people when we are already understaffed. Year-end accounting, yuck. I'm happy that my job is secure, crappy as it is, because looking for a new job during the holidays is no fun.
posted by
nea at 10:37 AM
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wWednesday, December 12, 2001 |
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I think I must be crazy to end up as a Salvador Dali print and a banana.
When there are other people living in your house, the dynamics change. With Weston in the house, I totally feel like Goldilocks. Dave and Weston are totally the two papa bears, towering over me (Dave is like 6'1" and Weston is probably 6'3", while I am a whopping 5'4") and very into food. I come home from work and they have Italian ices. Then we go to C&O's, where we get these enormous platters of food. Then Dave wants to go get boba! I convinced him out of it since by then I was ready to explode. The other thing is that Dave and I are not so used to others in our house. This morning, I had to find and use my bathrobe. Dave couldn't check his morning mail because all the computers are in the guest room. But it is always nice to have company and change is good.
posted by
nea at 2:06 PM
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wTuesday, December 11, 2001 |
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My company started doing lay-offs yesterday, mostly of middle management. This is after two weeks ago the president of all the US offices came out and said that there were no lay-offs planned, and that we were fortunate enough to not have to eliminate any jobs. haha. And they wonder why morale is down and people are leaving the company. I think a lot of people, including myself, are annoyed at being lied to. I know my job is safe though, which is good, cuz it's not like I'd get severance pay or anything.
One of Dave's friends, Weston (who quite possibly reads this) is coming to visit us today, and staying until Friday. So all weekend was a big fat cleaning frenzy, since our apartment was really disgusting. Like cobwebs and mounds of dust and boxes all over the floor disgusting. But now it is pretty and clean, which makes me happy. I like to live in a place where the tabletops sparkle and the sheets are clean and crisp. It just doesn't happen very often, due to time constraints and the fact that I have better things to do.
We also put up our lovely fake tree, a Walmart special from Dave. Dave is allergic to pine. It looks pretty though, with the four generations of ornaments that are on it. Why do I already have all this old stuff? Should my parents still be sticking it on their tree, you may be thinking? Well, my dad was given most of my great-grandmother's ornaments when my parents got divorced. Since my stepmother is Jewish, my dad didn't really need Christmas stuff anymore. When I moved into my first apartment, I realized my dad had all this stuff just sitting in the attic of this house he rents out, and got it from him. A lot of it is pretty neat: satin thread wrapped bulbs, elves and angels made from this wierd painted paper, and a old tree topper with red bells on it. There is no way I could find any of this in stores. I'm glad I get to have a tree that looks like a family effort, rather than one topped with just a couple boxes of K-Mart bulbs or something.
posted by
nea at 9:28 AM
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wThursday, December 06, 2001 |
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In the way of cheap entertainment:
Strawberry: 30/100 Pear: 40/100 Banana: 80/100 Tomato: 10/100 Lemon: 0/100
Take the What Fruit Are You? test by  webkin and aaronr!
I have started getting into Christmas shopping. Actually, I have been helping Dave pick presents and keep to his budget, which has been going really well so far. Yeah nea! As for my own shopping, well, I have two presents bought. Now, for those of you who know the size of my ridiculous family, two presents is not even the tip of the iceberg. But I will get there . . .
posted by
nea at 9:48 AM
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wWednesday, December 05, 2001 |
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My access at work is increasing! haha, terror strikes among the billing department! No, really, I just was given access to quite a few new things. This will make my life much easier (no more bothering people with "Can you print out . . " or "I need you to look up . . " Soon I will also have access to the same programs for our NY, Chicago, and SF office.
posted by
nea at 12:55 PM
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wTuesday, December 04, 2001 |
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I am kinda depressed today, because I have no time. My lunch break has been stolen by Christmas party planning. My dinner with Dave has been taken by more tutoring. Tomorrow I am working overtime, Friday I am working overtime . . . there are times where I debate if the extra money is worth it. I really feel like I can' t keep up with life or cleaning the apartment or anything when my life is like this. To add to all this, my POP mail is dead cuz @home went bankrupt. So if anyone has sent any e-mails to me in the past four days, they are gone. I can not get them. And don't try sending them again, cuz two of my e-mails forward to the dead one. It's bad enough my computer died a few weeks ago. Now my e-mails dies. I am not happy with technology right now.
posted by
nea at 10:42 AM
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wMonday, December 03, 2001 |
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Life has been pretty random. It was totally a weekend of "stuff." As in "What are you doing this weekend?" "Stuff." Went to one Christmas party, one APhiO banquet, one dim sum, one movie, one time to the gym, two loads of laundry, two meals at home . . .
The Christmas party was another defining moment in how my job sucks. We went to Dave's party, which was at this pretty good Italian restaurant. Everyone was allowed to bring one guest, and we were allowed to order whatever off the menu. This meant hella appetizers, soup, salad, main course, bottles of wine, dessert, whatever. At the end of the night, the owner of the company and his wife picked up the tab. Everyone was happy, full, and felt that the party went well. Also, it was nice to see everyone (I see these people like twice-thrice a year) and you could tell that Dave and his coworkers liked the chance to meet outside of work and just hang out.
My company is having a bowling party during working hours. No spouses or guests. Instead of fine Italian dining, we will be having pizza and getting drink coupons, probably each good for one beer. yuck. As Dave said, it feels more like those class parties you had in school than the sort of party a large company should be having. This makes me sad. Though I do like bowling . . .
Dave, Greg, Quyen, and I went and saw Life As a House yesterday. I realize that my plugging New Line Cinema is kinda lame, since they're my biggest client and all, but I really liked the movie. The characters were a bit strange, but the plot was great and the dialogue was pretty good too. Go see. I can tell I don't go to the movies often though--I had no clue a matinee was $7. I remember it being $4! Man, I'm getting old.
posted by
nea at 10:53 AM
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wWednesday, November 28, 2001 |
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I've decided a day-by-day post of what was a rather uneventful trip would probably bore the 5 people (I'm more popular than dave!) who read this, but a lot of people have been asking me what the mood is in NY. Which makes sense to me--all of us were affected by 9/11, but people in NYC on a much stronger level.
Ground zero is still smoldering. Not just a little ash and an occasional whif of smoke. You can see the smoke from New Jersey. The area around ground zero still smells funny. As someone from LA, I know that the World Trade Center should be on the horizon, but I couldn't place it in the New York skyline if I tried. However, to Dave, his mother, and the other people I was with, there was this gaping hole. And, just to spite them, in place of the two tall buildings is this spire of black smoke.
People have gotten more friendly. Our taxi cab drivers both spoke english, used their turn signals, and only scared me once. This is a miracle. When we went to register at Macys (and yes I know they're going to be nice since we're in essence buying hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise) all the service people were friendly. It was easy to just turn and ask questions, since no one had that lame, sophmoric attitude you so often get in retail centers. I wasn't even pushed off the sidewalk during the whole trip! Very impressive stuff.
It is still a time of mourning in NY. Every firehouse has black and blue banners up, and the number of tributes and memorials in enormous. The train station, some subway stops, every government building, along the fence that separates off ground zero from the rest of the world . . . flowers, drawings, cards, and pictures. Intermixed there was usually color photos and descriptions of those who died or are presumed dead. I can understand how many, during this holiday season, are going to walk by those tributes and feel a moment of pain for those who are gone.
posted by
nea at 9:00 AM
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wSunday, November 25, 2001 |
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I'm back!
In case you've been oblivious to the past few weeks blogs, I was in NJ/NY all week for Thanksgiving. We stayed with Dave's mom in Woodbridge, but roamed all over the place. Went into the city twice, once to register for presents (hee hee scanner gun) and do random stuff, and once to have Thanksgiving dinner at Dave's cousin Greg's apartment in Manhattan. Let me mention now that Greg makes $36 million a year. I have no clue what he does with all this money, but 2.5 million went into a two-bedroom apartment in Gramercy Park, not far from Union Square. The place is not especially huge, but has a lot of awesome features in it. These include a large flat-screen TV mounted above the fireplace, an outdoor patio that had been landscaped, and a glass-wall kitchen with a Tuscan-style brick mosaic floor. I was impressed.
All in all, the week was good. It felt nice to be away from work, act as tourists, and hang with Dave. Oh yeah, and have the two most spoiled cats on earth sleep on me.
I know this is a brief and pathetic recounting of my week, I will try and get around to more tomorrow, since I have a feeling I didn't miss much at work.
posted by
nea at 9:00 PM
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wFriday, November 16, 2001 |
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I had a mildly depressing moment this morning.
I ran into the president of my company while waiting for the elevators in our parking structure this morning. We started having nice small talk: how we're both going on vacation next week, where I'm going, life in New York, etc. We get off the parking elevators and start walking down the hall of the building. My building has two towers, East and West, and I happen to work in the East Tower. So, when we reach the corner, he ends the conversation and walks ahead of me. I just think he's busy until he looks back and goes, "Oh, you're heading this way too?"
Me, "Yes."
Him, "Where do you work?"
Me, "Carat."
He looks at me TOTALLY embarrassed. I mean, here's the president of an office with less than 150 employees, and he doesn't even recognize me! He felt pretty bad, and asked how long I had worked there, hoping that I had not worked there long and he could cover himself. When I told him I had worked there six, seven months, he still felt pretty bad. I tried to make it better but there's not much you can do in that situation. So I'm debating on whether to think the whole thing is funny (I'm sure I will in a day or two) or to be depressed. I feel so unimportant! ARGH!!!!! On the other hand, I did introduce myself and made a good impression, so it's not all bad.
I'M GOING TO NEW YORK TOMORROW! YEAH!
posted by
nea at 9:52 AM
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wThursday, November 15, 2001 |
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I'm going to New York on Saturday!
Last night I started being excited. I've known for months I was going and yes, have kept the plane tickets we bought before September 11th. Dave and I are going because his whole family is out there, and neither of us have been back since we got engaged. And, oh yeah, it's Thanksgiving. Greg totally cracked me up last night since I keep forgetting Thanksgiving is next week too. The holiday seems like such a sidenote to the whole trip.
During this trip, I know I'm totally going to be the paraded-around fiance who will have to answer tough questions (I've been practicing) like "What do you do?" (my job is hard to explain) and "When are you two going to have children?" (at this point I explain one of the few plans in my life: marriage, house, then kids. Time period flexible, but order not.) We also get to go to Macy's in Harrold's Square and register for presents! Yeah bar code scanner gun! I wonder what Dave's forehead will come up as. haha We are probably also going to see a number of Dave's friends, and finally go to this mythical place called Redbank. About every four to six months, as we are discussing NJ and Dave's life before college, he asks, "Did I ever take you to Redbank?" or "Remember that cafe in Redbank?" to which I always answer "No." This needs to be fixed since Dave has been asking for almost five years now.
Last night was Chi chapter's 70th anniversary, so Ray and Greg came up to speak. It was an interesting meeting, since Greg was stuck in traffic and we had to keep stalling. So we did skits, had more people talk, drew out discussions of events, and finally got into a big circle and talked about memorable experiences this term. But luckily a lot of people didn't notice the stalling. And when Greg showed up, all was well. It's interesting to see your close friends get turned into legends. When I pledged, Greg was just this guy who happened to be part of the founding class and tried to help out and be a good active. After Greg graduated, he became a line in the history of Chi rather than an active that everyone knew. And now, when he comes out to stuff with us and meets new pledges, it's totally "Wow, it's Greg Barnes Founding President!" I used to think that was hella cool, but now I realize that it must be hard to connect with people when they're automatically putting you above them. Life is odd.
posted by
nea at 10:51 AM
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wTuesday, November 13, 2001 |
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It's nine a.m. and I need a nap.
posted by
nea at 8:56 AM
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wMonday, November 12, 2001 |
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A wedding
Yesterday we went to a very nice wedding. It's a little strange, going to weddings right now, cuz Dave and I get a lot of "You're next!" and "Are you guys looking around for ideas?" We do check out weddings to see if there's anything we'd like for our own, and yesterday there totally wasn't anything that called to us. For instance, people had been recommending to me to pick a fabric for the bridesmaids and have them make their own dresses. This is what Gayle, yesterday's bride, did. Skipping the fact that she picked a really ugly fabric, the dresses were yucky. Most of them were not made very well. You'd think that a custom made dress would fit, but two of the girls had dresses that did not fit them correctly at all. So we will be buying pre-made dresses, thank you. Also, the flowers and wedding style were totally not us, and the cake was kinda yucky tasting. For favors they did the bubble, CD, and customized choclate bar thing. Lots of stuff to take home. I kinda wished that our CD, which doubled as a place card, had my first name spelled correctly and Dave's last name on it. It's kinda cheesy to misspell a guest's name. However, the wedding was really pretty. It totally matched the tastes of the bride and groom, with tables named after football teams and pale colored roses everywhere. Everything was a pretty cream color (I'm more of a white person, but anyway) with a cream cake, cream roses, cream dress, cream tuxedo vests on the groom and ringbearer, etc.
Mini-rant: I understand that my cousin didn't have my address, or my name, written down. Fine. But it would have taken a whole one call to get it. Instead, Dave and I were put on my dad's invitiation, although I've never lived with my dad. My invite to the bridal shower was on my stepmother's invitation. Even the thank you card for the shower gift was sent to my dad's. How cheesy! Dave and I promised that when Gayle and Danny are invited to our wedding, we will not send the invitation to her mother's house.
Dave spent most of the wedding being sick. This was added to by my ridiculous cousin Bryna, who loves to share everything she can about her breasts and breast feeding. This was a no kids wedding, and Bryna refused to leave her 5-week-old baby with a babysister, but decided she had to come to the wedding. After some discussion, it was decided that Bryna and her husband, Jeff, could take turns watching the baby in the bridal suite of the adjoining hotel. I thought this was hella lame, but whatever. So Bryna pretty much makes her husband stay in the room, and also has her mother and sister running back and forth. Dave and I were so annoyed with her. Then, she's sitting next to Dave, and starts talking about her breasts. Such lovely topics as leaking, beast size, feeding times, etc. Now, the rest of the family is used to this, if a bit grossed out, from when Bryna had her first child four years ago. Dave had no clue. I felt so bad for him.
Best line of the day:
Jenny, the maid of honor, who is Gayle's sister and a friend of Danny's sister, was giving a toast and telling about her times with Gayle and Danny. "I remember this one really special moment, when I came out of Wendy's room, and there was Danny. He looked deep into my eyes and said "Hey." I said "What's up?" We had several of these moments over the years."
posted by
nea at 9:48 AM
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wFriday, November 09, 2001 |
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I am feeling MUCH better. Dave is now sick though, and is attempting to get through his final teaching session of the week up north before coming down here and collapsing. I think tomorrow I may have a dead Dave. Poor thing.
posted by
nea at 8:43 AM
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wThursday, November 08, 2001 |
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Blogger is insanely slow today. Must be server issues.
I'm realizing that I made a lot of good friends my first year in college. I talked to a number of them last night (just had a big old AIM party going on Dave's computer). It's nice to have interesting conversations with people. Especially Ted. Did I mention Ted is a walnut? Dave is a hazelnut, AKA a filbert. If anyone else would like to be posted with their nut, let me know.
posted by
nea at 9:08 AM
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wWednesday, November 07, 2001 |
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I have discovered that I am very infectious.
This morning, I was the only one coughing and blowing their nose in my area. This afternoon, my supervisor has gone home sick, another of the supervisors is also feeling sick, and everytime I cough I can hear the echo as someone else also hacks up mucus. It is just lovely in here. The good side, though, is that most people will be out sick while I am here getting better, which means I can chill and still be ahead of everyone.
Sidenote: You know that your job is too easy when you are gone for two days and it takes an hour to get through all the back up.
moose!
posted by
nea at 3:22 PM
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It has been a few days since I blogged. This is because my week has been mostly crap.
I am sick. Sunday, this was yucky sore throat. By the time I got out of bed Monday (notice that I do not say "woke up") my cold was full blown. Snot running everywhere, coughing, can't breathe, sore, nasty sick. Not puking sick, which was nice, for once. So I missed work Monday and Tuesday. I am here today, but taking it REAL easy cuz I don't feel good. And my right nostril is bleeding from being blown so much (probably due to going through a box of tissue in two days). Physically I am a mess.
My computer at home is dead. The hard drive is corrupted. Can't even reformat, though I posed the idea to Dave that he might be able to turn the thing into a Linux box. The one good thing is we were able to get the computer to boot in DOS, and slowly pull out, one 1.44 meg floppy disk at a time, almost 50 megs of pictures, word files, and internet favorites. It isn't like I lost everything. However, I now need to go through the process of convincing my dad to buy me a new computer as a Hannukah/Christmas/Birthday present. I hope I hope I hope I hope.
My pets at home are also having a bad week. One of our cats, Bear, got hit by a car Friday night. It looks like he's going to be okay, with just a nasty concussion and a broken tooth. We think he might have brain damage or something though, cuz he doesn't recognize his twin brother, Spike. This makes Spike sad. Also, my dog, a 12 year old mutt named Chip, has been at the vet since Saturday. I'm not going to go into all that happened to him, because it's gross and involves maggots, but he's not doing so good. Poor doggy!
And to make my life complete, Dave has left town for the rest of the week, leaving me with a messy apartment and a rotting chicken in the fridge. Yum!
posted by
nea at 9:26 AM
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wFriday, November 02, 2001 |
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I've realized I am not the only one, by far, that thinks being a biller isn't a very worthwhile job. One of the people in my group left the company Wednesday. Now, I can understand not completely cleaning out your cubicle when you leave a job, especially if the next person is going to pick up your accounts and such. But why do people leave their personal stuff? My ex-coworker left her silver letter opener, a bunch of outdated training materials she had used, phone lists of friends, metal gift boxes with her supplies in them . . it just doesn't make sense to me. Even though I don't really care, either, I would at least have the common decency to make my workspace a place the next person could come into without hours upon hours of sorting through crap. It shows more than just a lack of respect for the job (which I understand) but a lack of respect for our supervisor, who is going to have to clean up what she can, and the other employees who will have to sort through bits and pieces in order to get their job done.
posted by
nea at 1:08 PM
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wThursday, November 01, 2001 |
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After yesterday's craziness, I realize how boring my cubicle looks. White walls, grey postboard, white paper on grey postboard. I need color! Maybe I will ask our office manager to put up (we're not allowed to touch the walls with such horrible things as nails) a scarf on the wall behind my computer. I think I might also need another plant. One that likes to grow all over the place.
posted by
nea at 11:28 AM
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nea is disappointed with America
So yesterday was Halloween. A time that is normally about trick-or-treating and dressing up and getting a lot of candy. But this year September 11th paranoia seems to have taken away a lot from that. I was stunned by the overreactions I heard and read yesterday. About half of my coworkers refused to let their kids go trick-or-treating. I asked one why, and she replied that it wasn't safe to get candy anymore. Now, I may be missing something, but have candy factories been shutting down due to Anthrax? Has there been any reports of poisoned food? Possibly reports of huge groups of Afghanistans moving into my coworkers' neighborhoods? No. Was there are news reports telling people not to trick-or-treat? No. Maybe a few reminding of razors and such, but that's the usual for Halloween. I just think this is crazy. As a kid, the fun for me was going from house to house, getting candy and seeing other costumes. And now that fun seems to be taken away from a lot of kids.
Also, I just read something from Christina's blog that I think is almost as bad. Her mom refused to hand out candy or open the door last night. Now, unless there were midget terrorists going around in costume last night, which seems awful silly, I think this was overreacting. There have been no attacks on individual homes in the US.
On the other hand, I was glad that at least a few people realized the "don't go to the mall on Halloween" e-mail was a hoax. I saw a number of reports about trick-or-treating in malls. I'm glad that at least some kids (those who were allowed) were able to get their yearly candy fix in.
posted by
nea at 9:43 AM
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wWednesday, October 31, 2001 |
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Candle wax in an office doesn't smell right.
posted by
nea at 9:56 AM
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I'm very entertained with myself. I have my gypsy den all set up at work. Almost no one decorated their cubicle, and those who did are no where close to this craziness. I have sheet, quilts, afghans, scarves, candles, bottles, a "crystal ball" (AKA an upside-down goldfish bowl), pillows, and beads all combined into this craziness. My cubicle is near the main entrance to our office, so everyone is coming in and checking it out. It's fun. Plus the lack of space gives me an excuse to not do much work today. hee hee It's crazy what I do when Dave is out of town. Once I have pictures (of course my camera's batteries are dead) I will post them up somewhere. I decided to skip pumpkin carving this year, cuz it's no fun to carve a pumpkin alone and I won't be home tonight for trick-or-treaters. Instead, I will be playing with APhiO. woo-hoo!
As a side note, I'm becoming really good at reading palms. I've been doing a bunch of research online and gave a few people what they considered accurate readings today. This is good. I could use another useless talent.
posted by
nea at 9:53 AM
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wTuesday, October 30, 2001 |
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Today was hard. I had my first florist appointment today. I actually had to go in there and say, "No roses and nothing scented, my fiance's family is allergic." Of course the florist's favorite flower is lilac, which Dave's mother is deathly allergic to. She was totally going through all these pictures saying "This is no good, this won't work, we can't do this." I felt bad. I like all the flowers and want all this stuff and no one has pictures to show me. I have this feeling that no matter who I pick the flowers will be a surprise. I want to be able to see what I'm getting!!!!! argh.
I decided I have nothing much better to do tomorrow, so I'm going to attempt to win my company's cubicle decorating contest. I am going to be "Madame Olga, Useless Fortune Teller" with such lines as "You will meet someone this week" or "I see you work in advertising" (I work at an advertising firm.) My whole cubicle is going to be covered in blankets and sheets and pillows and scarves (hey, I'm improvising) which yes, I do plan on taking pictures of. This should be fun. Telling fortunes will also give me something to do, since I never have a whole lot to do at work. yeah!
posted by
nea at 7:46 PM
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wMonday, October 29, 2001 |
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I am happy. I have 224 megs of memory now, instead of 64. I would have a lot more if my dad's friend, Deni, (who is nuts in a depressing kind of way, but more on that later) could read and use common sense. I am still very grateful, but I worry sometimes. By the laws of Deni, I have 256+256+32 in my computer. Yes, I have an odd machine with three expansion slots. By the laws of the computer, I have 128+64+32. Guess who can read, the computer or Deni?
posted by
nea at 10:48 PM
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My comment section is finally working, after a switch from blogback to reblogger. The problem of the comment link being anywhere but where I wanted it to be is also resolved. So comment away, I would love to hear your responses!
posted by
nea at 4:05 PM
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I feel like I haven't woken up yet today. My eyes still have that slighty blurry, need to rub the sleep out of feeling. My head, as usual recently, hurts. It kinda feels like that just got up from a nap painful grogginess, but it doesn't go away.
I've been trying to figure out the source of this round of headaches. I think it may be too much time staring at a monitor, especially since my head hurts most when I've been websurfing all day. Dave thinks it's stress, especially about the wedding. This makes sense, figuring I keep having nightmares that the wedding is the next day, or the next weekend, and all that has been done is the stuff we are currently up to. It's very odd to wake up and convince myself that the wedding is MONTHS away, and we don't have to worry about things like favors and invitations and how the girls are wearing their hair. Yet the dreams continue. sigh.
I've been trying to find creative things to do at work instead of helping my coworkers. Any suggestions?
posted by
nea at 3:44 PM
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wFriday, October 26, 2001 |
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Another dream vignette, this one from last night:
I run into my exboyfriend, Brandon. We decide to go to this apartment, and hang out in his bedroom. (no, this is not going that way) We start talking and he tells me he's a computer programmer and that he knows all these languages. Now, this doesn't sound very strange to all of you who don't know the boy, but Bren is not very smart. Like he never was able to pass pre-algebra and took PE all four years of high school, instead of the required two, in order to get the A's and boost his GPA. So, in my dream, I'm like "Wow, you're actually know more than me about something?"
Brandon (which shocked look): "You don't know how to program?"
Me: "Not like you do."
End of dream. I'm not sure if for some reason I'm having feelings of geek inadequacy, which is scary, or if I'm subconsciously hoping that Brandon got himself into something besides doing theatre lighting for the community college back in HB.
posted by
nea at 3:54 PM
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I got to treat Ted like meat last night. I encourage you all to do the same, it's fun!
posted by
nea at 11:06 AM
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I have been having really vivid dreams recently, to the point where I felt like writing about them. Here's one:
Two nights ago, I had a typical post-September 11th nightmare. Dave and I had these three middle eastern looking roomates that we didn't know very well. They all seemed like nice normal guys though. Then, suddenly, one comes out of their bedroom, states his name like he's in an AA meeting (Hi, I'm Andy, and . . .) and tells us the funky remote in his hand is going to set off a bomb in our apartment. Dave and I and some other woman start convincing him not too, and then suddenly I ask "How long until the bomb goes off?"
He answers, "Two minutes."
So, of course we run out of the building, knocking on doors and pulling people out of the apartments. We get across the street and our apartment goes off in this ball of fire. Other buildings catch and we're watching this big inferno. My dreams skips to about two days later, when our building is just all steel beams (waking up I realized it looked a lot like the construction site on the next block) and Dave and I go to inspect it. The only wierd part is that the garage is okay. And, in my dream, I believe the firemen moved all our cars to the front of the gate to try and save them. Except they didn't open the gate. So every car in the garage are smashed up against the gate and each other. We try my car and it runs but is all smashed in the back and won't move.
End of dream. If I ever get my comments working you guys can post analysis.
posted by
nea at 9:40 AM
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wThursday, October 25, 2001 |
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So for once I got some recognition from my department. We had a meeting yesterday, and during it I got the total pat on the back and here have an envelope manuever. My co-worker, La Tanya (AKA La Tijera La Brea La Cienega, but that's another story) got one too, and after the meeting we both looked. Hoped for cash (my job does not pay very well) but got two tickets to Sea World. Shamu, here we come!
Oh, in a random attempt to improve my English, which is totally going down hill due to a combination of not talking to anyone all day and attempting to learn French, I'm trying to only use grammatically correct writing on here. This will be hard, and may be really annoying for people who are used to a more casual writing style. However, I need to keep acting like a smart, educated college graduate and with my job that is quite hard.
posted by
nea at 11:49 AM
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wTuesday, October 23, 2001 |
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Tales of the Obsessive-Compulsive
When I get really bored at work and am sick of being online, I usually start cleaning. I create a nice, neat desk with all the old papers in the recycling bin, all the pens in the pen drawer, everything on my desk dusted, etc. Some people would consider this behavior to be anal, but I think it is nice to have a clean and orderly cubicle. Today the boredom has stretched out much too far. In my desk is now a box of large paper clips. This in itself is not very interesting. But in said box the paper clips are lined up, all perpendicular to the width of the box, in alternating rows of wide part up and wide part down. The rows are perfectly lined up on top of each other, and there are five rows in all.
This worries me.
posted by
nea at 4:09 PM
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um, if anyone can get my comment link to be after the time of each post instead of at the end of the day, let me know. this is the best i've gotten after some SERIOUS messups to the page, the worst being when the posting space was only allowing 6 characters. help!
posted by
nea at 10:16 AM
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another day at work with not much to do. it's kinda funny, last month i bitched about having so many invoices (my file cabinet was totally full) but at least i was busy. for this month i have maybe a third as many (less than one drawer in file cabinet full) and work is so easy. and boring. i need something interesting to do!
as many of you probably read, saturday we went bridesmaid dress shopping. poor pao pao. my sister was just throwing her in and out of the sample dresses. so many dresses. ones with little straps, no straps, one piece, two pieces, beads, halters . . . what cracks me up is that diana probably tired on more bridesmaid dresses than i did wedding dresses. i went through maybe 20, said "ok, i like this one." and that was that. on the other hand, i have four girls who have to pick one dress they like. and one of them is my sister. this may take awhile.
posted by
nea at 9:58 AM
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wFriday, October 19, 2001 |
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lalalala, cleaning up code, lalalala.
i didn't realize how much crap was sitting in my template until i started cleaning out stuff. "hi, i'm going to make an empty table on the right side of the page!" whatever, it's not like i could have made this from scratch so i'm grateful. i just don't understand useless code. it's kinda like those special hidden features in programs, like the flight simulator in excel. why take up the space?
posted by
nea at 11:59 AM
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does anyone else find the irony in this?
posted by
nea at 11:41 AM
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neil has been bugging me to blog, so here's a story of my crappy night last night.
if you don't already know, dave and i have both been sick all week. and yesterday dave was nasty sick. like puking, snot everywhere, hasn't shaved in four days sick. so i come home from work, make sure dave is still alive, and just sit with him for awhile. by like 6:30, i start getting hungry.
me "dave, i'm hungry. what do you want for dinner?"
dave "i don't know. i'm not hungry. just make yourself dinner."
this goes on for awhile and finally i decide that dave really isn't hungry and doesn't want dinner. he keeps stating that he's fine, don't worry, blah blah blah. so i go look in the kitchen to check out my options. i hate cooking for just myself. it's a total waste of time, since it's just as easy to cook for two or four people as it is for one. so i give up.
me "i'm going to burger king at 7."
dave "you want me to come?"
me "yeah."
now dave, who has been totally saying that he's not hungry and doesn't want dinner and all this, decides he wants taco bell. i'm thinking, "and why are we not cooking dinner since you're suddenly hungry?" normally i would say too bad, i'm going to burger king and you can walk the three blocks to taco bell, but i decide to be nice. even though the only reason i was going out was to get dinner for myself cuz dave wasn't hungry, i decide i'll be all nice and take dave to taco bell and buy him dinner. so, in order to compensate for the total inconvience (though not really) we go to taco bell first so his food can get cold and not mine.
we get food, we pay, i hand dave food. fine. i notice dave is trying to put my wallet in my purse, as well as hold his food and balance a large drink. now, remember dave is sick and on drugs. i ask him to be careful, if he needs help. of course he thinks he had a handle on the situation. this lasts for a whole 30 seconds.
"boom! oh fuck!" the extra large rasberry iced tea hits the floor of my car, on its side, and spills EVERYTHING. was this unexpected? no. was i really pissed off but couldn't yell at dave cuz he's sick? yes.
my food ended up being cold anyway, and now my car stinks of putrid sweet rasberries. life sucks.
posted by
nea at 9:23 AM
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wThursday, October 11, 2001 |
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have time, but realized that my poem "kill my buyer, kill my buyer" (in the spirit of Mr. Robinson's "Kill My Landlord") might not be the best thing to be writing at work. hopefully i'll get to it next time i'm online.
25 hours until we leave for vegas!!!
posted by
nea at 3:24 PM
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today's rant is lots of little thoughts.
39 pledges last night! it's like gamma class all over again. i'm so proud.
ted, it's not your fat tracker. and you may be single, but i'm getting married. much much worse.
my skirt is too big and falling off. i find this funny since i haven't actually lost any weight, just a whopping 1.1% of my body fat.
if i have time later i will be writing a poem about my frustration with the buyers here at Carat.
posted by
nea at 10:10 AM
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wWednesday, October 10, 2001 |
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my mom called me yesterday to let me know she'd found my blog. this made me realize how much this thing is like a public diary.
on a separate note, last night made me realize how much of an APhiO nerd i am. diana was writing this thing on friendship for the pledge manual, and calls me asking if i can remember a quote in one of the ceremonies. no, i don't have the things memorized, though i probably should by now. it was worse. i said "oh, hold on a minute" and found my personal copy of the ritual handbook. yes, that's right, i keep handy copies of the bylaws and rituals. yes, this is sad. at least now i can use the excuse of being an advisor to cover my otherwise embarrassingly geeky dedication. ;)
posted by
nea at 9:13 AM
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wMonday, October 08, 2001 |
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oh yeah, last night also reminded me of one of Peter's Laws: When in doubt, think!
posted by
nea at 10:04 AM
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I feel like I'm starting to become body obsessed. Part of this, I'm sure, is due to the fat rant that Dave and I had last night. You can read more about that here. And part of it is due to the upcoming wedding, which is no longer that forever year and a half away, but that gotta get things done seven months away. But I'm starting to get sick of it.
I miss drinking seven fruity sweet drinks in a night and not worrying about the calories in the fruit juice or liquor. Now, I totally have nights where I don't drink cuz I don't want the calories. Neil and Greg would be shocked.
I miss thinking that I eat pretty normally. I never ate horribly. I hate cream soup and sauces, I don't like fried chicken, and I have never been a fast food or junk food junkie. But I've come to realize that not eating horribly just isn't enough. I totally lay awake at night thinking of the crap that was hiding in my dinner or portion control. This drives me nuts. And dammit, take away my meat and give me back my carbs!
Now, I am not overly concerned about taking this too far. I'm just plain not that girly, and can't imagine spending hours on clothes, hair, makeup, diet pills, or any of that stuff. I find people who worry about whether their lips will look fuller wearing the Apple Pink or the Apple Rose lipstick silly. And I'm not worried about becoming anorexic or bulimic. I get way too drained after about an hour and a half of working out, and I know damm well what it is like to have sore throat and no voice from puking (I could post an explaination, but I think the number 21 is enough). But with the wedding I am starting to have way too many things to freak out about, and my body really doesn't need to be one of them.
posted by
nea at 10:01 AM
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wFriday, October 05, 2001 |
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more code fixing . . .
posted by
nea at 4:09 PM
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rush week always seems to be a time of reflection for me. what's changed in my life over the past term, how old i'm getting, how things change.
i'm realizing that i don't fit in with college students nearly as well anymore. conversation with mary last week:
me: "Hey, the new Ralphs is open!"
mary: "Where?"
me: "It's in the old Macy's building."
mary: "Macy's? We have a Macy's?"
At this point I realize that the Macy's was closed over two years ago and first and second year students were never here when it was open. Same for Papa's Pizza, which used to be my favorite, and a time when there was no boba in Westwood.
Info nite on Wednesday was another one of those moments. Dave is talking to a prospective pledge and asks her how she heard about APhiO. She mentions her older brother was in APhiO. Upon questioning, we find out this is the infamous John Chen (infamous only because founding class used to talk about him all the time and I never met the boy). When I pledged, he had just graduated. But to hear her talk, it sounds like it was years and years ago. Oh wait--that was years and years ago.
I feel old.
posted by
nea at 4:06 PM
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you know it's a slow day when your coworker starts advertising that she will be whistling a 20 minute song beginning at 4:15 pm. fellow whistlers are encouraged to join in.
posted by
nea at 3:57 PM
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wTuesday, October 02, 2001 |
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note: i'm sorry if the post below sounds totally egotistical. it's not meant to be.
so i had this discussion with both dave and ted the other night about my job, and life in general. i've slowly woken up to the fact that there are average and dumb people in the world. not like mentally disabled, but just plain not smart. i still can't believe i was sheltered to this fact.
let me try and explain how this happened. from kindergarten on, i have been in GATE (G&T, gifted, honors, AP, whatever) classes. furthermore, i'm used to being at the top of my classes. at my elementary school, which was the "gifted" school in our district, i literally did not talk to anyone who was not in the GATE program. almost all my friends, both in school and out, were in honors. by high school, the few other friends i had were on teams with me, where we would talk about the sport and intelligence didn't matter. the rest of my friends that weren't in honors i didn't really talk to anymore. i never figured out why that happened until now, either. i always considered the people getting low Bs and Cs in my classes as the "normal" ones. . . oh my god was i wrong! you'd think that i would have figured this out sooner. i mean, how can you make it 22 years old and not really realize what the average person's intelligence level is?
after high school i went to UCLA. i was exposed to huge new groups of people. i met people who were happy with Cs and partied all the time and did things i thought were really stupid. i met people who were handicapped and mentally disabled, who needed a lot of help in their studies. i also met people who were complete geniuses and could run theoretical circles around me. at UCLA, i felt pretty average. i got mostly B+s, partied a little, and had friends in many different majors. i totally thought that the students and professors at UCLA represented the people out in the real world. once again, i was wrong.
but now i work full-time. and, to be honest, this is not a job for smart people. i mean, you need to have a basic grasp of the computer programs (though the last girl they hired came into the job computer illiterate) and some organizational skills, but that's it. and people in my job find it challenging! fulfilling! a life-long career! at first this just plain seemed insane to me that these women (it's almost all women in my department) were content in their positions. i thought that i must be either surrounded by people looking for easy and boring jobs, or ones that had mental defficiencies and really couldn't do anything more challenging. i was wrong on this as well.
i've realized that these aren't deranged, lazy, or dumb people around me. they're average. totally average people in average jobs. this scares me still, but it's true. i've also realized that i am smarter than women three times my age that have way more life experience than i do, and am probably brighter than most of the workers in this office. i now the whole three of you reading this are probably going "well, duh nea" but i really didn't know before now. this is going to take me a long time to get over, but i hope that someone out there understands how hard this concept is to grasp for me.
posted by
nea at 9:22 AM
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wSunday, September 30, 2001 |
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i got rid of the drunk oompta style dog! woo-hoo!!!!!
i know, i know, this is probably not impressive to any of you reading this. nor the color change. to me this is an accomplishment. i managed to change the colors and get rid of the image without killing the code. very proud of myself right now.
posted by
nea at 8:34 PM
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we have wedding rings. woo-hoo! dave gets his first diamond. i'd like to thank robbins bros for being totally nice to us. i'm totally impressed that a chain has that kind of service. they're custom making dave's ring, and charging us a whole $45 to do so. oh no. hahaha. we also got my wedding band. no, there are no diamonds in it. like i needed anymore or something. i already have the sun on my finger. so this makes both of us happy. another thing to check off the ever growing list of stuff to do.
posted by
nea at 8:14 PM
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wSaturday, September 29, 2001 |
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someday i'll figure out how to get rid of this blue background (though i did kill the paws) and the dog. it looks like something oompta made while drunk.
posted by
nea at 11:33 PM
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i went out to dinner with the family this evening to celebrate my dad's birthday, along with my stepmother, her mother, dave, and my two sisters. it facinates me that we can all go to the same place and have totally different dinner experiences. tonight, three of us ordered the same thing. although none of them came out hot, mine was plenty warm and was quite tasty. my stepmom's was lukewarm and too spicy. dave's was "below room temperature," his meat was burned and chewy, and his rice was greasy. so neither of them liked dinner at all, and i was totally happy. now dave's sick (part of why he is in bed and i'm up blogging, though we all know dave can't stay out late) and i'm perfectly fine. so odd.
our place smells. tomorrow is domestic bitchery, incense, and put limes down the garbage disposal day. woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 11:14 PM
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haha, slowly getting things fixed. at least i got rid of the sad "put e-mail here" type links. sorry, i have a clue about computers and programming and all, but am generally pretty pathetic. most of my problems end in "honey? my computer's broken. come fix." in fact, i recently managed to delete all my mp3s. duh. what's sadder is that i'm like the technical wizard in my department at work, and spent most of last week designing a webpage (should be up end of this week: www.thebigyarn.com) for one of my dad's friends. i guess it could be worse. i could be my mother:
"Linnea, why does everything I save stay on the screen?"
"Mom, have you been hitting save or save as wallpaper?"
"Oh, is there a difference?"
posted by
nea at 2:27 PM
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ok, today is fix the template day. probably not the smartest idea after a long night of clubbing, where my brain is not all here. but i try. ;)
posted by
nea at 2:18 PM
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wFriday, September 28, 2001 |
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so all i have been doing during my free time at work is reading everyone's blogs. time to kill more time! besides, i like the idea of the internet being the start of transparent thought (thanks Eric). though, it is a little wierd. does it count as having a social life if i put up my thoughts and my friends comment on them, and vice-versa? are we conversing and having a relationship that way? hmmmm. . . .
posted by
nea at 2:51 PM
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