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!

how's life?

ahhh.... home again.
yeah, not really.
tonight i got into a pretty heated argument with my sister, which really wasn't that interesting, but resulted in her going to a lame party with my brother and me trying to walk all the way home from the hilton.
on the good side... hey, i'm back in a town with a hilton! and my grandparents saw me walking down the street and gave me a ride. i was actually enjoying my walk, but i didn't want my grandma to worry. she worries.
elizabeth is here again. she gets into fights with my mom all the time. she keeps saying smart-alecky things to me, like, 'holly, when you grow up, let me know.' tonight i was particularly shocked that she could make so much noise drinking her milk. honestly, it was incredible. i didn't say anything though. it's best to keep those things quiet around her.
on the good side, i'll be leaving in a week and i won't have to see elizabeth after that. for those of you who don't know, elizabeth is a girl that is two years older than me (22) that my mom decided to adopt two summers ago. i know what you're thinking... hey, i thought you couldn't be adopted after the age of eighteen? yeah, that should be the way things work.
i'm back at the nursery working for a while. the best thing that's going for me here is the weather. it's been cool lately, not just cool for the summer or cool for las cruces, but actually chilly. i'm learning all the names of plants again. all in all, work is going great... but there's this new guy duane who is SO annoying! he's such a suck-up and the biggest know-it-all. grr.
tomorrow my little brother nick graduates from high school! i think i'm going to get him some hockey gloves, like that's something i can afford... but i feel bad that everyone made such a huge fuss over my graduation, and no one cares that much about his. poor little brother bear.
this morning at 9:30 my aunt had a baby boy! i have a little cousin! he was like ten pounds (holy crap) and his name is alexander jefferson. i haven't seen him yet, but my grandparents were talking about him a lot on the car ride. i guess my uncle is really excited. how cute!
i guess that's it for a while. one week til i go back to tech and we start filming for "the real world: socorro". that's what my hockey buddies are calling it. no one can believe i'm going to share a house with corrie and three guys. but i'm excited!

here i am!

The Guardian
Adventure, thrill seeking, loyal, with high goals
for themselves, and equally high standards for
society. They protect what they stand for, and
those that cannot stand up for themselves.


A unique perspective on one's inner self: who are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

i'm a guardian angel! neato. i think the description fits me pretty well, but i think this was one of those quizzes that people can find a little bit of themselves in every answer. okay.

one more week of school (two tests and three homework assignments), then a three-day finals week, and i'm done for this semester! yay! then i have three weeks to work at the nursery again before i come BACK up to socorro to take my summer courses. this summer it's electrical engineering for non-majors and technical writing. i'm going to live with steve and christian, and maybe corrie. i'm excited! i've never had guy roommates before, not counting my brother and hoyoung. and i don't count them. it'll be interesting, since steve is my best friend carmen's fiance. stay tuned, this summer is sure to be an entertaining one!

ok, NOW i'm mad

alright, i don't know if anyone knew this but i am a huge hockey fan. HUGE. and this is the first season in a long time that i have actually had time to watch the play-offs. i was really excited about this, up until all the teams i care about were suddenly OUT. watch this.
teams i care about:
DALLAS STARS (my favorite team ever! yay, dallas!)
--- out
new jersey devils (my buddy kevin's favorite team, that i root for in case dallas is not around)
--- out
st. louis blues (my buddy hugo's favorite team, that kevin and i root for in case we both are teamless)
--- out
boston bruins (my boyfriend mike favorite team, that i don't really root for because they aren't very good, but still, i care)
--- out
the penguins (my ex-favorite team that i divorced after the jerks traded jagr)
--- out
i think you get the idea. actually, i'm not being entirely truthful here. there is still one team in the running that i care about. it's colorado. and when i say care, i mean hate. i don't know why people hate sports teams. it's totally irrational. but i HATE colorado! i like them a lot better now that roy is retired (sorry roy fans, it's nothing personal, i promise. yeah, he's good. no, i have no reason to not like him. but i don't), but i still love to see them loose. my friend jeremy says they are like the yankees... everyone holds a strong opinion. my opinion is utter loathing.
so honestly.... why have they won their second game in a row against san jose in over time? any of my fellow ABC (Anybody But Colorado) fans will be happy to know the answer. they won twice when they should have been swept for this reason alone: my friend jd prayed for them.
it's all over.
once last semester jd thought the weather was a bit hot so he prayed for rain. it POURED for three days. the roads closed.
remember game seven last year when the red socks got illiminated? they blew their comfortable lead because jd prayed that the other team would win it. same thing happened with the cubs and the marlins.
nice that jd can petition heaven for things like that. CRAPPY that he doesn't care about hockey at all, he just prayed for them because he knows i want them to loose. my only hope here is to trick him into thinking i want san jose to loose so he'll pray for them. DANGIT!

I have so much homework I can't go to bed.
I'm tired and I'm bored and I've knots in my head
From sitting, just sitting here day after day. . .
It's WORK! How I hate it! I'd much rather play.
I'd take a vacation, run off for a rest,
If I could find someone to go take my test.
If I could find someone, I' fly away free....
Would YOU like to do my homework for me?


No, I didn't really write it. Dr. Suess wrote most of it, I just changed some of the words because the complaining and longing to have fun inspired me! And hey, if you know which Dr. Suess book this is from, you are SO cool. You should write me a note. And hey, now I have the comment feature, so that's entirely possible! NEAT.

no-go on the initials in the wet cement. last night i was sick because i went and ate some nasty food at the cafeteria, so by the time night fall came around, i was doing as little walking as i could. that's college for ya. either you're up all night studying or you're up all night sick from the freakin' bad food.

the dorm next to mine is being re-constructed into an office building. this is sad on many levels. first, all the boys that used to live there who were really fun and my friends are now WAY across campus, like a five-minute walk. yeah, it's not that far, techies are lazy. second, the work day for these construction guys starts at six-thirty. the work day also usually starts with a jackhammer or something equally loud right outside my window. yeah, it's not early, techies are lazy.
but right now it's not so bad. they just poured some new cement down there, and there's two guys very dilligently sweeping off the surface to make sure it is smooth and blemish-free. the problem is, there's only one broom. so these two big burly construction workers are very carefully, very tenderly tossing the broom back and forth over their fresh cement so they won't mess up the work they just did. it's one of those things you have to stop and watch.
but that won't stop me from sneaking down there tonight and putting my initials in the cement. bwah hah hah!

she's done it again!

that's right. the third materials lab write-up. it was not as painful as the second, but it did require an all-nighter, a caffine pill, breakfast at denny's, and five hours in josh's room. i got the highest grade (actually, the only 'A', and it was a high one) on the first write-up and the highest 'A' on the second write-up too, which surprized me because i thought i turned it in pretty incomplete. i only have two weeks to rest before the last one!
i'm a little concerned about school here... i am kicking butt in materials lab, but that's only one credit hour. i'm doing great in mechanics, but really the only grade that matters there is the final. materials is just about the easiest class ever, so i'm doing fine, but i never go to class and the teacher knows this. i haven't gone to diffeq in like two weeks, and i've resorted to bribery with the grader. that leaves physics and physics lab.... ug. i try so hard in those classes. i just suck at physics.
it doesn't help that i am completely un-motovated. i really don't want to work on anything.
i don't want to but i must, dear, dear. i have a physics quiz in half an hour. i'd say it's time to hit the books.
i remember when i was SO good at school...

now it is an ugly day

okay, here's the deal with me. i'm obsessed about records. like keeping records and setting records and breaking my own records. if i can go four and a half days without eating at the cafeteria, i'm all for it. if i can do three days without sleep, heck yeah! it's hard-core to have outrageous records. i have never been skiing in my life. i take great pride in telling people i have never been bowling. i have had ample opportunities to go bowling, but i never have, because if i did, i couldn't say that i'd never been bowling anymore. my record of twenty years, four monhs and a few weeks of not bowling will be spoiled and i'll have to start over. it's not because i'm deprived. it's becasue i'm obsessed with records. i've never done my laundry on campus or gone to the el camino family restaurant or visited the school's famous mineral museum. just to say i've never done it. it's completely irrational.
so does that mean just because i've never had a boyfriend, i'm going to want to keep that record going too? i've never had my heart broken by a guy. why should i stop that trend now? and just because i've always gotten along with a friend and never had any kind of disagreement with him, is that a good reason for me to NOT tell him that he's bugging me? because it will break our otherwise-spotless relationship record?
i'm really confused right now. i've broken records that i didn't want to break. i've set new records, too. i dealt with things badly and caused a friend that i care about to not talk to me for several days in a row... another broken record. i think i'm fast on the road to doing other things i've never done before, and i don't like it.
i keep telling myself i'm just in a bad mood. i'll feel better about things later when everything gets back to normal. but i think i'm kidding myself. things aren't going to get back to normal.
i should have listened.