CHECK THIS OUT!

okay, when we were kids and first got into x-men, we all dreamed about what we wanted our mutant power to be. gambit was my personal favorite, but i still wish like crazy that i was born telekenetic. i'd be sitting in class and the lecture would be boring, and i could start moving things around with my mind, writing on the board, invisibly throwing things at people i don't like. it would be so cool.

so yeah, check this out. i wasn't really into x-men quite so much, i was really more of a ninja-turtle girl, but was there a guy that was just super-strong? the mutant era has begun. coooooooool.

my ims are so funny lately....

The Rag boy is Scott

Devil64: i am SO dyslexic today, you wouldn't believe it
Devil64: i had a dream last night that i was trying to dial 911, and i kept dialing 119, i'm serious
RagOrder: ouch
Devil64: or actually, it was 0000000119
RagOrder: that sounds like a sucky dream
RagOrder: was it a nightmare?
Devil64: no, not really
Devil64: macgyver saved me, how cool is that?
RagOrder: whoa!
Devil64: and he was driving a stagecoach
Devil64: it was sweet
RagOrder: so if it was a nightmare, he would have turned into jack o'neill, right?
Devil64: ha ha ha!
Devil64: no, he was definitely macgyver
RagOrder: oh good
RagOrder: i don't think macguyver has ever been in one of my dreams... i wonder why
Devil64: maybe you weren't in enough trouble
RagOrder: maybe my situations don't require much ingenuity
RagOrder: like bombs from a bike or something like that
Devil64: man, he is so cool
RagOrder: yup
RagOrder: well it is way past my bedtime
RagOrder: good luck on your test
Devil64: good luck getting into trouble in your dream so macgyver... or jack, if you want.... can save you!!!!
RagOrder: maybe major carter can save me....
RagOrder: :-)
Devil64: ooo
Devil64: have fun
RagOrder: bye

how nerdy are you?

i really think i am nerdier than this... just because i don't own a weird al cd... grrrr...

You are 39% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

jolly old england

(the web guru is adam, the devil is me)

webguru: cherrio! beautiful day isn't it? love the weather, none of that damned fog that's so common in London
Devil64: yes... but this bloody, bloody sunshine! it makes my skin break out in all kinds of gastly splotches. makes me quite un-fanciable.
Devil64: i'm starting to miss jolly old england...
webguru: that's true old chap, but some sunshine is good once in a while, otherwise we'll all get rickets and be confined to wheelchairs!
Devil64: aye, right you are.
webguru: so are you coming to the grand lunch today? it'll be jolly fun
Devil64: is this the meeting that carmelita spoke of? i'm afraid i only just learned of it. honestly, love, i do wish you'd tell me these things earlier!
webguru: terribly sorry dear, but you know how my mind is these days
webguru: yes, it's the orientation training meeting Carmen spoke of, and there's free lunch provided
Devil64: that'll be bully. haven't had a proper tea in quite some time.
webguru: so true, these damned New Mexicans and their green chile and booze, they just don't know how to have a nice cup of tea
Devil64: quite right! another reason i'd rather be summering on the island. wherabouts is this jolly lunch to take place, love?
webguru: it'll be in Brown Hall, room 210, upstairs
webguru: hold on one second darling, I'm calling my dear friend Karen to make sure there'll be enough tea for you
Devil64: right-o. shall i hold my breath?
webguru: no need to, there's tea enough for the queen and her whole entourage
Devil64: good lord!
webguru: be back in a few darling, I need to use the loo right quick
Devil64: right then! see you at lunch, dear?
webguru: yes will do, see you there in about a quarter
Devil64: aye, until then
webguru: right-o

can't sleep... again

have you ever been upset about something, you don't know what, and you can't think of anything that will make you feel better? that's where i'm at right now. i feel like a bratty little kid, and, worse than that, i feel like i'm acting like my mother.

so i guess at this time of the night (or morning) i should be contemplating deep thoughts about the existence of man or the purpose of life or the riddle of death and so forth, but all i've got is restlessness and nothing to do. i could clean the shower! that would be productive. i could finish my homework! go wash my car... but the real disturbing thing is that i feel like i have to save some of these activities for tomorrow night, just in case i can't sleep again.

i feel so totally alone. maybe it's because in my house of four roommates, christian is the only one here. but i think it's because i'm upset and i don't know what i want.

i hate to leave you with that hanging feeling, but hey... i've been hanging for a while now.

new perspective on politics?

so far i have remained pretty much politically non-affiliated. i have a few viewpoints that i feel strongly about, like abortion is horrible and really shouldn't happen at all. girls who are in trouble need HELP, not a dangerous way out. i also think gun control is pretty pointless. i'm really anti-conflict though, and usually keep things to myself.

meet my supervisor at the nursery, gary. he's a hard-core conservative, and i happen to be on his republican spam list. some of the arguments are good, some are ridiculous, and then there are stories about soldiers and such that are clearly made-up. but he sends jokes and stuff with the propaganda, so i don't really care that much. like i said, anti-conflict.

my best friend adam is incredibly liberal. true, i have a private theory that being a liberal is his own way to rebel against his parents without denouncing his faith, but he has very good points and explanations to way things aren't working out for us. he is entirely against the war, a stark contrast to gary, who wants to nuke the place and be done with it.

but about me...

yesterday morning i was doing my usual surfing the web and general procrastinating between class and work, wondering what i was going to eat for lunch and wishing i didn't have any homework. i stumbled across a link on another weblog that i'd been curious about for a long time. anyone heard about the beheading of nicholas berg? my understanding is he was an american in baghdad who was captured and executed, and the video of his death made the rounds on the internet. i had heard gary say something about it in passing one day.

why did i open the link? was it morbid curiosity? boredom? whatever the reason, i watched it, and it was honestly the most horrible thing i have ever seen. it's not like in the movies.

the video opened with a man identifying himself and naming his family members, then went to him sitting on the floor with five or six masked guys standing behind him. their spokesman talked for about four minutes in another language, and then they started yelling and jumped on their captive. it took them forty-one seconds to cut off his head.

yesterday i couldn't eat or sleep. i couldn't stop thinking about what i would do if that man in the video was someone that i knew, or worse, someone i loved. i can't believe there are people out there that would do such a thing. i was really freaked out all day... and all night.

today i did some research. i read a lot about nicholas berg and his family and the days before he was kidnapped, and a lot of stories about him from people he had known. i also read a lot of angry letters and conspiracy theories. those last two weren't very encouraging. one letter would say, "the liberals are insane to be so blind and blah blah blah" and another would say, "he's dead because the bush administration is a global joke and blah blah blah". even in the face of something so horrible, people can't agree on what needs to be done. and then there are theories out there that this man was actually killed by the us government to create some pro-war sentiment.

what is going on here? something horrible happened, and everyone is using it to serve their own causes. the webposts told me to do everything from march on the white house to join the army and kill a few terrorists of my own. i guess what i'm getting at is that i want to do something to help, but i don't know what needs to be done. no one knows what needs to be done because everyone is so mad that they can only see what they want to do. i don't want something like that to happen again, but what can i do?

really, i want to know! what can i do?

new perspective on the ee class

i was looking over my very disappointing ee test yesterday and noticed that i lost four point on a problem that i had actually done correctly. i waited around after class to tell dr. oravecz, and when i was explaining it to him, this other dude perked uo his lazy ears and grabbed his test and ran over. dr. oravecz was apologizing as he pulled out his grade book to change my grade. i was super-happy, thinking that i was going to get four points back (which would have brought me up to a B), when mr. too-lazy-to-look-at-my-own-test rushes in and said, "oh! i did the same thing!" and shoved his test under the professor's nose.
dr. oravecz checked him out and told him that he didn't get his points because he didn't talk about the current or something, and then he looked over mine again to see if the current was included in MY explaination.
it wasn't.
he gave me one point back.
grrrr! i totally wanted to cuss the lazy dude out! he couldn't just let me have my points! bastard.
but afterwards dr. oravecz looked over my whole test and gave me another point on another problem, so i've got a B-, anyway. then he told me not to worry, i'm above the class average and going really well on the homework. then he asked me about my major, my gpa, how many years i've been here, stuff like that.
maybe this class won't be too bad. the final is 50% of the final grade, so i could be bummed about how much the final counts for, or i could be relived that i have a lot of room to mess up.
dun worry... be happy!

wow! you totally smell like trash!

last week i got a job at the val verde steakhouse and cafe. my job is waitressing, catering, working at the coffee shop, and washing dishes, which is what i'm doing this week. i know what you're probably thinking... "gross! dishes!", but it's really not that bad. washing dishes is easy. you just wash the dishes until you're done, and then you're done!
but what IS that bad is closing up. i started on the dinner shift last night, which was just fine until the end. i only had like two more dishes to wash, and i was thinking "score! i'll be out of here by nine!" and the chef told me, "you know you have to sweep and mop the whole floor, right?" no, no one told me that. no big deal. i started mopping.
then, "you know you have to clean out these jugs, right?" (the jugs were like sixty pounds and full of bleach water)
then, "you know you have to take those jugs downstairs, right?"
then, "you know you have to take out the trash, right?"
i was there for another hour and a half. but alan took out the trash because he felt sorry for me, and he made me some ice cream. it meant i had to mop the floor two more times because first he spilled the trash and then tracked mud through the kitchen, but it was worth it not to touch that discusting trash.
i was pretty cheerful last night. but i have to close every day this week through sunday, and i have a feeling i'm going to be a lot less nice by then... especially since i will be working and smelling gross while my boyfriend is in town and i could be hanging out with him.
i hope i can stay happy!

remember that test i destroyed? yeah, i got a C. a high C, but still... this class is going to be suckier than i thought.

hhmm, now... what fruit are YOU?

Take the What Fruit Are You? test by Ellen!

huzzah!

i took my first ee test today, and bwah, hah, hah, i destroyed it! i MAY have aced it, but i don't know exactly how this teacher grades. his name is dr. oravecz, and he's hungarian and adorable. he has funny phrases for things, for example he calls homework "the task". he also wears he same suit like every day... and i've had five classes so far and only seen two ties. i'm really glad that i seem to have done well on this test because, let me tell you, i completely BOMBED the first quiz. eight out of twenty. ouch.

my other class this summer is technical writing. my teacher is dr. griffin, and she is also adorable. of course adam, carmelita, john, and adam's new roomie bryan are in that class, so it's a lot more fun than ee. during class adam and i comment on the teacher... she's really trendy. she always wears funny, cute little clothes and cool shoes. she's also surprizingly muscular for a fifty-something english teacher, and i really like how she does her hair. she kind of ties it in stratigically-places knots. that class is going okaaay... how i do is yet to be seen. but hey, i don't mean to brag, but i am awesome at writing papers. did i tell you i got less than one point less than the highest grade in my materials lab? that actually really bugs me. if i'd only tried a LITTLE harder... and i could have...

you know what? i like my boyfriend. what a cutie. :)

keep those fingers crossed...

here i am, back in socorro, where the weather is cool, the schoolwork is hard, and the boyfriend is only an hour and ten minutes away! hooray!

i moved into my house on saturday, but nobody was really around until sunday night. i am liking my living situation very much! meet the roommates:

steve wasson is the owner of the house, and therefore the landlord. i've known him for a long time, and he happens to be engaged to one of my best friends, carmelita, so she's over here a lot. steve is an electrical engineering grad student, and he works in the robotics department with my other best friend adam. steve's cool, he's funny, and he's easy to hang out with, although he does sometimes put his foot in his mouth. he's also the oldest one in the house, a whopping 26! dun dun dun!

corrie lambracht is the only other girl in the house, so the two of us are sharing the master bedroom and bathroom. i'm the first roommate corrie's had in a couple years. we get along great, but don't nessasarily hang out that much. she is a fourth-year astrophysics major, and this summer she's working on a high-tech telescope and at a day camp for super-nerdy high school kids that are studying astronomy. corrie and i are both really good friends with adam, so he'll be over here a lot, too. corrie is also extrememly cool. she's a great leader, good at organizing things, and (this might sound dorky) a very effective communicator.

scuba steve bract has been corrie's study buddy / co-worker for several years now. he just graduated in may with a degree in astrophysics, and he's not quite sure where he'll be next semester, because for some reason his 4.0 gpa didn't attract the attention of many grad schools. this summer he's also working on the telescope and at the nerd camp, so he and corrie will probably be sick of each other soon, since they work together and then come home to the same house. scuba is the sweetest, most polite guy in the entire world. he's such a cutie, too. he's an enormous nerd, but he's so incredibly endearing that it's really hard to notice. he's very soft-spoken and hard-working, and i think he's totally cool. he happens to have a huge crush on my former roommate kim as well, who is also around this summer.

christian w. brown is the fourth and final roommate, and the one i know the least. he's sharing a room with scuba. he just finished his first year of college working towards a degree in computer science, the weirdest of the weird. (cs majors reading this, i apologize, but face it, you've got some real freaks in your major.) christian seems to be on the normal side however, except for his tendancies toward zen, new-agey stuff, like kokology and crazy teas. he's a gentleman, very nice, extrememly smart and convicted, a good conversationalist, and has impeccable manners. he and i are the only ones in the house actually taking summer courses. he's enlisted for calc 3 and psychology. his good buddies lee (who i think is hilarious) and andrew (who is so cute! he reminds me of my brother) have been hanging around lately. all in all i think christian's pretty cool, but i'm still trying to figure him out. i'll keep you posted.

so that's it for the house! together we are very funny and very intelligent. i'm really looking forward to this summer, i think it will be a lot of fun!
i'll fill you in on the classes and the job another time... be assured, there is a lot to say! think hungarian grandpa, steak sauce, trendy buff elderly lady, creepy cook, resumes, and the rotery club...

and let you imagination go wild!