My Sporadically Updated Online Diary

5:28pm: I'm about 31 weeks along or so. I finally started a new job Wednesday and it is indeed permanent! The people there are great and I get along really well. The pay isn't so great, but it'll do for now.

The baby's father is back in town at long last. He got in Saturday. Hard to believe he's been back such a short time as it feels longer. We've been getting along well.

I'm tired. I know I should write more. I must have more to write. I certainly chatter on and on enough.

The baby is doing well. I'm managing my diabetes and Protein C deficiency.

1:42pm: I really want to update, but I keep meaning to from home and stuff happens. The baby is fine. Will try to update soon really I will. Feel free to keep nudging me Nim :)

11:43pm: Will Work for Food?
So my hope this weekend is to finally apply to some jobs in the paper. Seems like it could be an effective way to hunt. I feel rather lost on how to get a job, but I really do want a full time job. I had a temporary job back in December that I liked quite a lot, but it was temporary and ended up being only half as long as I expected. I was really sad to leave.

Wish I knew what to do with my degree in music performance and how to get to doing it. I really need to follow up on the minor things I'd hoped to do like getting hired to play at at least one renaissance festival in the summer. I've been letting things slide.

7:40pm: weight
I've been thinking about my weight again. Decided yesterday or so to actually attempt to weigh myself. My grandma's old scale acted a little funny and then it said ERR. So I thought maybe the scale is just broken and I'm not maxing it out. Then I tried another scale and it told me I'm back to over 300 pounds. I'm a little short of what I weighed at my heaviest but not by much. Whoever reads this will be the first to know this disturbing little tidbit.

3:13am: a brief tease?
In a week I will be living under a bridge, but tonight was awesome! Got to play music with some Irish guys currently visiting Kentucky. I'm tired and a little buzzed. I should write here more lol.

3:33pm: Stephen Foster
Stephen Foster was born in Pittsburgh in 1826 and died in New York City in 1864. From 1846-1850 he lived in Cincinnati, Ohio near the river. He was there working for his brother Dunning Foster. You may know Stephen as the composer of "My Old Kentucky Home", "Old Folks at Home" (aka "Swanee River"), "Oh Susannah", "Camptown Races", etc etc. I'm currently researching for a paper on Foster in Cincinnati. Might post more about that I'm not sure. In the meantime, here are some pics of where he lived while he was in Cincinnati. I took them with my phone's camera unfortunately. I'll get back to take them with my digital camera at some point.

Pictures of where Stephen Foster lived in Cincinnati

3:11pm: Job Interview 2.0: Now With Riddles!
http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/Riddle-Me-An-Interview.aspx

Posted today and it's quite an entertaining read. Plus it makes fun of Microsoft.

9:20am: Paper Hell
2 pages down and only 13 to go! And it's overdue by like 5 days. I'm hoping she'll give me two more to finish up. Then on to research for the next paper for another class.

11:26pm: today
I threw in some more hours on the huge paper due Thursday that I've really not even begun to write. I went to my classes this morning. I played a viol for the first time and had no idea what I was doing really, but it was pretty neat. I met a cute guy on the bus on the way home to get my car to go back to school to practice piano finally. He lives in the apartments here. Kinda hoping I'll see him again. Some package came for me today, but I wasn't here to get it and it's waiting in the office for me. I'm wondering how I'll pick it up tomorrow as I need to get to school early to do work I have no chance of finishing in time. I'm about to go to bed. I've been home a little over an hour.

10:54pm:

You Are 73% Tortured Genius

You are smart. Brilliant in fact. And while it's a blessing, it's also a curse. Your head is filled with everything - grand ideas, insufferable worries, and a good deal of angst.

My mind never stops. Especially now that I'm a grad student. I keep thinking things and getting obsessed with topics and such. If only I could write a paper! I can stress myself half to death over it, and spend hours reading and researching, but hell if I can write a paper.

4:17pm: Had my wisdom teeth out Friday morning. I'm feeling better, but still some pain of course. I keep worrying I'll mess up the stiches where the impacted tooth was. I'm grateful only one of my teeth was impacted. So that's how my weekend has been :P

11:33pm: For Nim?
I called my mom tonight and she told me one of the cats died. Belle was about 14 years old and an outdoor cat so it's pretty remarkable she lived to such a ripe old age. We thought she died years ago when she disappeared for months, but she shocked us by coming back. She actually died right by the house. I'm surprised she died there rather than wherever she managed to wander off to.

I thought about writing about how I have to move to a new apartment because my roommates want me gone, but I don't feel like it. Maybe later I'll write on that.

10:23pm: Busking in Europe
I think it would be interesting to try busking in the streets of western Europe and seeing how much I could do that to pay my way. It's certainly a fun idea when I think of it in a fanciful sort of way. I'd have to know a whole lot more about how busking there goes and if some areas are better than others and such. It's not something to work out now, but it's an idea I'd like to pick up at some point.

1:51pm: LJ Talk post
This is me posting from LJ Talk while using meebo. By the way www.meebo.com is way nifty for a web chat client that connects to a wide variety of IM's.

1:36pm: Reading 50 Books in 2007
There's an interesting goal of reading 50 books in a year. I don't see making that goal, but I like the idea of trying to track what I've read. I'm not sure if I can remember what I've already finished this year, but here's a try.

1. Crown of Stars - Kate Elliot

I think that's all I've finished so far this year actually. Oh I finished A Smattering of Ignorance by Oscar Levant, but I read nearly all of that last year. I'm currently reading Nickolas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. Reading about Dickens when I read A Christmas Carol made me more curious about his books as well as what I"ve read of him in association with Elizabeth Gaskell.

This semester looks to be challenging, but we'll see what happens reading wise. I like to read before bed so that'll add at least a little bit.

11:08pm: The first fruit of my New Years resolution
So one reward of my resolution is that I have an invitation to lunch with a friend this Friday. Maybe it'll lead to going out with her more, which would be nice because we have a bit in common and we're both the same brand of odd.

7:59pm:

Your Birthdate: June 17

You love being in love... so much so that it's very hard for you to be single. Unfortunately, it's difficult for you to stay in love over time. Too many people intrigue you! Only your true love will be able to keep you interested over time. Number of True Loves You'll Have: 1 Number of Times You'll Have Your Heart Broken: 4 You are most compatible with people born on the 8th, 17th, and 26th of the month.

Interesting and a little disconcerting for reasons I won't go into here and now.

12:19pm: New Year's Resolution
So my new year's resolution is to keep in touch with people better than I have. It's pretty open-ended and I got to thinking today I could give myself the whole year to do it and there's no minimum or maximum and the benefit to me is that I get to feel more connected. No minimum also means I don't have the easy out of "Well seeing as I haven't done anything yet I may as well drop the idea altogether". Today I made my first "contact" and it only took maybe all of two minutes. ritual605 may be joining me on this one, but I only volunteered him and he hasn't accepted yet. It will be fun to see how this evolves over the course of the year and if I still remember this resolution by December. I don't think I've ever made a strong attempt at a resolution before. This one is supposed to be fun as well as good for me and I don't want to get bogged down it "shoulds" on it. Shoulds aren't much fun.

So here' s to the beginning of keeping in touch with people in my life, which habitually I have let fall by the wayside to my disadvantage.

11:01pm: Gracewanderer should like this



See you soon gracewanderer?

1:06am: As a reward for doing so much hard work I'm letting myself stay up late while exhausted and then I still have an exam Friday morning bright and early at 8am which will be so much more fun if I'm on a funky schedule. Nice reward, huh? Rather glad to have this first of two exams done with. Now I just have this last one and I'm done for the semester. I'll probably get bored over the break, but man am I ever ready for some rest.

8:02pm: End of Semester Update
I don't feel like studying or doing homework right now. Actually, I think I could have used some time out relaxing and having fun this weekend, but didn't really know how to go about finding that.

So the semester is almost over. Last week was the last week of classes and this coming week is exam week. I've spent most of the last two weeks working about as constantly as I could finishing the big project for my research methods class and then working on an analysis of the first movement of Shostakovich's piano concerto in C minor and writing a paper on it. Once I had those two things turned in it seemed like what needs done exam week is pretty doable. I still think it should all be downhill from here.

Tomorrow I have to turn in a smaller project that the teacher gave us some extra time to turn in. I have an exam Wednesday and some prep to do for it. My only other exam is Friday bright and early and I just have some hours of studying to do for that. I figure I'll go up to Cincinnati for 10 days or so once I'm done with exams. It'll be nice to see family and friends and my poor dog that nobody walks anymore. I try not to think too much about how bad I feel missing what little time I have with my dog. We got him a year and a half ago and he's 11 years old now. Ah well, I shall continue to try not to dwell too much on it.

I've been thinking a little bit on how I want to spend the three weeks between semesters. I'm going to do some researching and see if I can't find a thesis topic or at least have some ideas on what I might want to do. I won't finish my course work before next fall semester so I have some time, but I can't help but think that the more I do as soon as I can then the easier it'll be to finish this degree program in 4 semesters. I really do want to finish with being a student someday. I also want to do some playing on my violin and maybe go to some jam sessions when I'm up in Cincinnati. I miss playing Irish music. I haven't gotten around to finding any jam sessions here of any sort of music. I thought early on about checking out the old time session I've heard mentioned, but that got lost in everything that needed to be done.

Ah well, back to the grindstone I suppose. Enter obligatory promise to write more here.

6:12pm: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1122061deer1.html

Oh my. "NOVEMBER 22--A Wisconsin man who argued that he could not be prosecuted for having sex with a deer because the animal was dead at the time, was dealt a legal setback today when a judge rejected a motion seeking dismissal of a criminal charge against him. As a result of Circuit Court Judge Michael Lucci's ruling, defendant Bryan James Hathaway, 20,will have to stand trial for his alleged assault last month of the deer carcass."

Disturbing? Certainly. Oddly interesting to wonder what I think of it as a legal issue.

9:57pm: ( cut for quiz )

I'm amused :)

10:49pm: Wow work sure has a way of piling up and getting overwhelming as the semester goes on. Scary to think I have about a month left in the semester and 2 big projects (not to mention little ones and a few tests) still left to do. Oh and music still to learn and memorize for juries. Why did I want to go back to school? Actually, I mostly love it except for the stress. I love some of the people here.

10:52pm: I can't believe I managed to get Copland's Piano Variations stuck in my head. He basically takes a little 4-note figure and spins it out not only into a 5-gesture theme, but 20 variations (I think) and a Coda. It's not exactly the sort of theme you'd go whistling as you walk down the street though if you have the range more power to you!