( Jun. 21st, 2007 04:00 pm)
Sixty-seven in organic! FTW! And Chris passed, so now we're just hoping Andrea did as well.
( Jun. 19th, 2007 02:30 pm)
Wow, haven't posted in a while - life has been busy, and I still have no internet at home. Summer classes are over, although I don't know what my marks are yet - currently terrified I failed orgo, which is a distinct possibility because the final was what makes or breaks the grade, and I don't have the mark back yet. 77% in the lab, which is...well, not amazing, but not terrible either. I got rather trashed Friday night on coolers and a bunch of Jello shots, and ended up being very sick soon after, which was not my most glamorous moment. But Rayman for the Wii is lots of fun, and I had a great time up until the point where I got very sick, so in the end it was alright. And lastly, our D&D party looks to be short bus-special (I'm the halfling rogue. And the tank), and proving I have no sense of self-preservation, accepted a ride to work from a rich young woman in a black SUV who saw me running to the bus stop only to be ten seconds too late.

...I live a strange and sometimes wonderful life.

And a brief game story that I think people will still find funny even if they weren't there: Shadowrun has a contacts system for people the characters who have established relationships with, business or otherwise. Nick, Almighty GM 1, plays all the contacts and other NPCs, and is very good about giving them distinct personalities. Shiver, who hits on anything female, has a contact who's a stripper named Josie. He calls her for a favor, and much flirting ensues. Which leads to me and and Aaron trying not start laughing hysterically because it's not actually a hot female striper and a good-looking guy having this conversation, it's two nerdy 20-something guys.
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( Jun. 7th, 2007 12:28 pm)
My mp3 player bit the dust Monday night, after a year and a half of faithful service. My best guess is a massive harddrive failure, but it's out of warranty and would cost me $50 just to have Dell tell me what's wrong with it. I'm pretty upset about it, more than I probably should be about a piece of of electronics, but man, I took that thing everywhere. And I didn't think to bring a CD player with me, so all I have is a Walkman that's a genuine artifact of the 80s, and four cassettes, three of which one of my coworkers and me found in a big case someone had dumped in the dumpster at work (some of the other stuff was pretty hilarious), and the last of which is probably a third-gen copy of stuff from the early 90s. My mom is hopefully going to sell me my brother's old mp3 player, which she bought off of him so he could buy a new one, though.

This week has largely kind of blown, actually, which makes me very glad tomorrow is Friday, and I'm going away for the weekend.

Also, I am still desperately short people's phone numbers - I went through my old address book on my phone, but most of those are over a year old, and I know a ton of you have new numbers now. So even if you think I have it, or have posted it somewhere - e-mail it to me anyway.
( Jun. 3rd, 2007 06:59 pm)
Was going out clubbing after working an eight and a half hour closing shift a good idea? Maybe not. Was is hella fun? Yes.

Last night was Malfunction's Prom event, which means there were decorations, lots of people in fancy clothes, and ridiculously good music - I dressed up and went stag, spent most of the three and a half hours I was there dancing. I didn't bring a camera, but a lot of other people did, so if there are photos uploaded, I'll try and link 'em. The only downpoint was having to flag a taxi at 4am after waiting fourty-five minutes only to realize that the nightbus had probably stopped running. Argh.

I have a day off today, which thus far has mostly been spent sleeping in and futzing around on the internet. I finished DDS1, have very little to say about the ending other than it's totally 'Haha, now you suckers have to buy the second game' (thus _why_ I have little to say), and Angel looks like a bitchy gay man to me. I think it's the combination of the hair and the jacket. Will probably start DDS2 tonight, as it's that or chem studying. Hopefully going to get a cell phone tomorrow, although Canadian rate plans
( Jun. 1st, 2007 05:45 pm)
Two things - one, I managed to pull off an epic, epic save in lab yesterday morning after making an exceptionally stupid mistake and accidently dumping half of my synthesized compound on the bench. 70% yield in the end, and almost spot-on purity. And two, the massive number of hours I spent studying for today's midterm paid off, and I ended up with an 88%, which would have been even better if I hadn't made one or two stupid mistakes. I'm going to have to put more hours in for the final, but I'm feeling a lot better now. Yana and I were supposed to hang today, but she hasn't come online at all, so I'll probably just head home and play DDS1 some or something.

I had a minor scare last night - server went down, as did the server for my webhost's main page - turns out a fiber optic line in the data center got cut accidently during some construction. So no harm done in the end.
( May. 30th, 2007 03:18 pm)
I was hoping that the people doing evaluations for fall academic standing wouldn't look at my stuff too closely - if they only counted the credits I earned here, I should have first year standing, and if they looked at both here and transfer, by number, I should have third-year standing. Both of which have way less shitty registration dates than second-year standing (bottom of the barrel, pretty much). But no. Second year standing, which means I'm only above the other second years who did worse than me. Which means if I want to take Japanese, I'm going to have to either go and cry on someone's desk, or turn on the hardcore BSing and convince them that I'm 1) going to double major in Arts, and 2) really need Japanese for this. For this second option, I'm going to enlist Chris's help, as he has mastered the Arts talent of total BS. At least I won't be diving for the few seats in orgo lab.

In good news, I think I may actually do alright on this Friday's chem midterm. Andrea and I got some impromptu tutoring from one of the older gamers who's an orgo grad student (I think? Maybe 4th year) for about four hours last night - I think he was ashamed to be associated with people doing so badly in orgo. And then one of the other older gamers gave us a ride home because it was after midnight at this point >.> So I'm working on problem sets right now while Andrea naps - I had a can of Rockstar earlier, and bought another one for three hours from now when Shadowrun starts, so I'm pretty awake.
( May. 29th, 2007 08:43 pm)
Freakiest mold we've found growing on anything at work: neon pink-orange mold on a big jicama root.

Work and classes are pretty much same old, same old. I've been talked into joining yet another tabletop game when classes end - D&D 3.5, run by one of the Shadowrun/Earthdawn guys. Apparently the guy breathes D&D, so should be good stuff. There's also a really interesting looking game running Monday night in the club - Fireborn - but I really don't need to be in four different tabletop games, I think, as much as I've discovered I like the tabletop dynamic a lot more than online dynamic when there's a good GM running the show (ie, Shadowrun/Earthdawn GM, who is awesome).

Dodgy internet at home has turned into non-existant internet, so I've been spending a lot of time on-campus - good thirteen hours yesterday. But people were here, and Chris and I got a whole bunch of Chem stuff done. While I'm not a club exec, I also seem to be getting involved in a lot of the exec brainstorming/decision processes because the people I've been hanging out with are the new crop of execs. There's some fun stuff being planned, if it all gets pulled off, as well as some handy stuff like finally bleaching and mopping the floor of our office.
( May. 25th, 2007 02:37 pm)
So, I saw PotC 3 last night with one of the Shadowrun/Earthdawn guys, as most of my other friends out here already had massive groups of people to go with. And it was pretty sweet, aside from the fact the movie theatre seats were incredibly uncomfortable (which probably explains why the 8pm showing still had lots of seats left). But yes, definately better than the second one (closure yay!).
Now, spoilers! )
( May. 23rd, 2007 04:25 pm)
Mostly posted for my own reference, although I dunno, someone out there may be interested XD; Backstory and whatnot for my character, Lucia.

History )
Appeareance/personality )
The rest of the team )

More normal things to come...uh. Eventually. The internet's been down all week and I've been working, so free time = non-existant.
( May. 20th, 2007 12:41 am)
While getting drunk and watching Alien may sound like a good idea, it isn't. Mostly because nothing seems quite as suspenseful when you're tipsy, and if you're like me, you end up nearly falling asleep in the last ten minutes.

I wanted to go out to Malfunction tonight but by the time I got off work, I was about to crash, so I decided that as much as I wanted to dance, I'd have been unhappy and wanting to leave after being there all of an hour. Sanctuary long weekend party is tomorrow night, but I'm working closing, so that's not going to happen. Boss as also put me on for 12-8 next Wednesday, which is going to be something of an issue because I have class until 12, and then Shadowrun at 6:30. And I'm finally settling into the game mechanics and the party we've got going. Gah. Going to talk to him tomorrow, I think.

Killed off LA!Asher today. A little bit sad, because there was lots I wanted to do with him that didn't end up happening (he _still_ hasn't managed to get into a fist-fight with another PC), but at the same time, I'm glad I pulled out of that game.
( May. 18th, 2007 06:44 pm)
55 on the first orgo midterm. Which is passing, but most definately not my brightest moment. This means working my ass off for the midterm and final, because I need a 70 in this class.

Tonight, Alien with Yana, if she doesn't get lost/forget.
I'm working on a playlist of background music for our Shadowrun games - I was insipired by our GM, who spent about three hours yesterday afternoon making one for last night's game (he's unemployed at the moment, and has a looot of free time on his hands). I've actually got a pretty decent selection put together from my own files, but I'd love suggestions and new music. My biggest problem is that I listen to a lot of industrial, most of which a little too heavy to run Shadowrun to. 'Verse is pretty Sprawl-inspired (much as they try to deny it) although with some magic thrown in. Uploads would be loved, as care of shitty internet it's hard for me to track things down, although I'm happy with just names.

Character stuff and real life what-not to come later - I've only got twenty minutes before I need to leave if I want to actually eat lunch before work.
( May. 15th, 2007 10:08 pm)
Some discussion this evening on gender/sexual identity and fandom has given me a terribly wonderful idea for my elf Illusionist - he's a cross-dresser. It fit incredibly well with both his (ocassionally very flamboyant) personality, and the fact that he's an Illusionist - they live to seek truth, and to play with people's perceptions of it. Perceptions of gender identity would be a particularly fun place to do that. GM will probably look at me like I'm crazy when I start asking him about gender politics in Barsaive at game tomorrow night.

I do still have to figure out the best way to work him into the party that's already running, though - it's 'if brute force doesn't work, you're not using enough of it' at it's best: a troll weaponsmith, an a t'skrang (lizardman) sky-raider (like a pirate, but with flying ships). I think I can gear him towards being a little more useful in combat-situations, but I still need a reason for him to join up with the party - there's some truth he's seeking, and I really don't know what. May have to quiz other players on what the party's goals have been so far.

(And now I've got Blur's 'Girls and Boys' stuck in my head)
( May. 15th, 2007 07:50 pm)
The subject is not actually a lie - I did spend $40 today to make some chocolate chip cookies. This is because my roommate basically doesn't cook, at all. So the sum total of our cookware was a saucepan, two frying pans which had seen some better days, a small casserole dish, and a minor assortment of spatulas and wooden mixing spoons. So I spent $20 buying a cookie sheet, mixing bowl, and measuring cups and spoons, and then another $20 buying basic cooking ingredients like flour, vanilla extract, baking soda, that sort of thing. Most of these should last me through the summer, and the cookware should last a lot longer than that, so they're investments, really. I still need to buy a muffin tin, 9" cake pan (which I use for both cakes and brownies), and a springform pan to make my cheesecake of awesome. Most of these will have to wait until June when I've got some extra money, though - will see how the bank balance works out once I pay off my current debts.

I've spent the afternoon trying to study orgo, but it's hard, as this textbook is really boring, and two-thirds of it is stuff I already learned in first-year chem. Unfortunately, there's just enough new stuff that I have to at least skim it to pick it up, because I need to do well in this class, and we have a midterm Friday. I also need to look over the sections about magic in the Earthdawn book, because I've decided to go with the elf Illusionist (more on him, and my Shadowrun gal, later, I think - I've been sorting backstory for them out), and I have to give the book back to the GM tomorrow night so he can plan next week's session. All I really want to do is sit around and play DDS, though.
( May. 14th, 2007 11:17 pm)
On and off okay day - mostly I'm just tired. Five days of school and two of work, plus extra shifts on top of the school is hard, particularly as produce is fairly physically demanding - moving around all the time, hauling heavy boxes and bags. Thankfully we have no classes next Monday, care of the Victoria Day long weekend, which means I finally get a day to my self. On the upside, one week down, only five more to go, and I knew it was going to be harsh when I opted to go for classes and work at the same time. The dodgy wireless upstairs of course was out all weekend when I didn't have a chance to get on-campus, and came back up today - I'm getting a cellphone with my first paycheck next month, I think.

Other than that, not much to report. Meant to study for my chem midterm today, but this has turned into doing lab prep work for tomorrow, reading up on hacking in the Shadowrun player's guide, and goofing around on the internet a lot. I'm going to try and take off a weekend in early June, because I am missing people lots, and am going to wind up making myself really depressed if I don't get out some. Also, I've started having dreams about restacking the strawberry display and rotating apple bins - it's a bit like playing too much DDR and seeing the arrows scroll in your vision when you close your eyes.
( May. 11th, 2007 11:41 pm)
I just finished the somewhat epic task of installing new firmware on my mp3 player, retagging a bunch of my music files, redoing playlists (I resorted my files back in December, which means all the file paths changed, which means the playlists weren't any good), and importing all of this to my mp3 player via my new version of Winamp. It was, thankfully, successfu, which means I can listen to my favorite FST ever (That Turks one I always talk about - it's good though!), and the Revolting Cocks song I've been loving on recently (although possibly not in public, as it makes me want to dance, a lot). I've got a few more playlists to redo at some point, but I did up most of my favorites.

Went for a nice little walk today, and stopped in to a discount kitchen supply store and fantasized about all the pans I'm going to buy when I have some spare cash - yeah, I know I'm insane - and then wandered up and down 10th some. Contemplating renting a movie, but it's more fun with friend and/or microwave popcorn, of which I had neither at the moment. Another day, perhaps.

In RP news, I'm quitting RR - figure it's best to leave before I end up disliking people associated with it permanently - and considering an elven illusionist for Earthdawn. Possibly a very flamboyant elven illusionist. It's actually a pretty interesting setting - I knew nothing about it going in but that it was fantasy (joined the game more because the other players are awesome and the GM is super-awesome), but I was pleasantly surprised when I read the backgound info in the massive player's guide. It's a little grittier and wilder than most Generic Fantasy settings - just enough darkness to keep it interesting without veering off into V:tM territory (apologies to the White Wolf/Vampire fans, but...it is pretty stereotypically Goth). I'd love to play a blood elf, but strongly suspect they aren't meant to be part of the elf race given for players, and have not quite managed to cur GM's favor to the extent where I could talk him into it.
( May. 10th, 2007 07:42 pm)
I totally work in the best department in the store. Why? We had a mini-BBQ randomly, so I got a free dinner of two hamburgers and some grilled onions and squash. This job is definately better than my last one.

I think I'm finally starting to settle in again, which is good - being depressed just makes me miserable, and makes nobody else want to be around me. The roommate wasn't kidding when she said she's not around much - I haven't seen her for the past two or three days. I like having the place to myself, though.

Oh, and a link to share, because I know there's a few other Divine Comedy fans who'll enjoy this - Homer/Virgil/Dante pr0n, which makes me ridiculously happy XD; Someone is selling a copy of the DMC doujin 'Bless' on ebay, which I totally want, because it's super-cute (and has Eva!), but at the same time, extra money should really be put towards seeing friends/concerts/a cellphone rather than a doujinshi which will mostly just sit on my shelf a lot.
One of the few things that can help salvage a day after only getting five hours of slee? Doing really well in orgo lab. It was recrystallizations, which I think are fun, personally. The first one took me three tries to get really good crystals out of, but the second, harder one? First try. The TA seemed impressed - he said most people can't get the purity and crystal quality I had right off. This will make work this afternoon a little more tolerable, I hope.

The five hours of sleep thing is my own fault, too....through a somewhat convoluted and not very interesting chain of events, Aaron (one of the other Shadowrun players) and I ended up heading over to our GM's house (he lives with the third Shadowrun player), around 8:30, and at that point, it was too late, and our GM was feeling too sick to run an RP that night, so we ended up playing the A Game of Thrones boardgame until around 12:15, as we lost track of time. Unfortunately, at that point, all the easy buses back to my place had stopped running, just leaving one of the night buses that ran every half an hour. Get on, ask the bus driver the best way to get back home and he says 'Get off at Granville and pick up the next bus coming down there, I have to cut through downtown first', so I do so. And then wait, and wait, and wait for the next bus, and when it finally comes - it's the same bus driver! Which made me rather unhappy after having waited in the cold outside for twenty minutes. But I got home, and got talked into joining another campaign, so it's all okay in the end.
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I really enjoy doing lab work. Even when things are not going quite as planned, and I'm dripping the diethyl ether with the solute I'm trying to recover in it all over my bench, it's still relaxing. I lucked out and have a bench all to myself for the organic chem lab, which means no more idiots who can't undrestand how the vaccum filtration system works. Also, organic chem labs are very...aromatic (in more ways than one, although only the chem/life science geeks reading will get that terrible pun). Ether in particular has a strange sticky-sweet smell to it. Acetone...well, acetone smells like acetone. It's nail polish remover, basically, although I think usually it's diluted there. Smells bad, but not as bad as ammonia.

I really, really need to find a lab to volunteer in in the fall. I've been trying really hard not to get too down about finding something for the summer, although it's difficult when every third sentence out of Yana's mouth starts with 'In my lab...' (another third is complaining about how badly she did this year, and the last third is everything else. Great person, but sometimes I want to tell her to either shut up, or get some hobbies or something). I'll probably start compiling a list now, although I don't have time to actually write up a ton of e-mails at the moment.
( May. 7th, 2007 11:50 pm)
Has my tuition refund that was mailed last Monday showed up yet? No. Has my invoice for the fifteen dollars I owe the library mailed last Thursday showed up yet? Yes.

At least my tax return finally showed - used some of it to by food, one delicious bagel of which I'm eating right now. Think I'll take a walk afterwards - it's a nice night out.
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