Bloguation!

Today's the big day! Everyone puts on fashionable black dresses and funny hats! Yep, that's right, it's the Oscars.



Alright, you caught me, it's Graduation Day.

My former comrades in Butler R&R would look at the procedure for today and giggle. We pick up our tickets right before we arrive and the whole ceremony last 45 minutes, supposedly. There's talk of an afterparty put on by the school but I've heard conflicting stories so I'll believe it when I'm eating. I would imagine, the ceremony taking place on a Saturday in the middle of the term, they're not too worried about everything being just so, but the situation doesn't really inspire much confidence.

I've confessed that I would like to walk in on a class while I'm here, just to see what the new group is like. I've even heard tell of another American in the course this year. USA REPRESENT. It's going to be neat to see Tremough campus again today.

It's getting time to get ready so I'm ending here. I'll have a couple more updates before this blog's run its course I think.

I've Caught the Blog

So I've not paid a whole lot of attention to this blog - or the web for that manner - in a while. That's not right. For one thing, the web gives us lots of shiny things to look at. For another, I will be counting on the web and its various capacities for my bread and butter not too long from now (I HOPE!!!). Now then, let's see what's happening.

The Colts, 7-0, face the Patriots, longtime rivals and also 7-0, on Sunday. American football is about the only sport I get excited to watch these days, and then just with the Colts. A quick check on ebay shows that there are pairs of tickets on sale for as much as $3,500. My dad sold the VW for less, much less. I know a couple of people who are going just because one works at the radio station; now football's one of those sports that's usually better to watch on TV since in person you can't see as much, and it's this property alone that keeps me from going into homicidal jealous rages.

On the subject of rages, my parents' second car has gone kaput, which means until we come up with a solution we're three working people with one car. We've worked it so far so that all three of us can manage, but it's incredibly limiting. We'd go to St. Louis and steal my car back from my sister... if we had a car.

My baby brother took my cell phone when I left for England, and when I returned my number was in a phone that shuts itself off after two minutes. I wanted a phone with the ability to store contact information and some data, something like a PDA, but as anyone who's looked at cell phones knows those get pricey. I had $100 in equipment credit from Verizon but even that doesn't bring it down enough, AND using the credit apparently disqualifies me from other available discounts. I'd been doing legwork and research for a few days now and I'm ready to agree with the general opinion: Verizon has an amazing network and complete shit for customer service. So I ordered a phone online in an attempt to screw as many Verizon employees out of work as possible. With luck I should be hearing the dog bark its head off in a couple of hours and then I can start praying to the Patron Saint/ Aztec god of new toys Technocatyl that I can make it work.

And on making things work, I'm working on updating my web site. I was going to be content with fresh content, a few color scheme touches and that's it, but then Brad starts telling me about things like CSS and streamlined content management systems (NOT Mambo, fellow bloc editors!!!!), and if this works out it'll mean a very VERY different site. I'll be able to update it at a moment's notice from the web AND keep an integrated blog on the site. So if that works out that's where I'll keep my new blog.

20 days and I go to Falmouth to graduate. I'm really excited to see everyone again, excited to go back to a beautiful, historic, and charismatic corner of the world, and excited to sue UCF for discrimination. You see, I'm pretty sure they arranged the date of the ceremony specifically to discourage US citizens out of their Thanksgiving holiday. As soon as I've got my evidence together, all I need to do is take it to a barrister, set up an expense account in Cornwall, maintain a working correspondence...

...you know, I may just have to let it slide.

Blogging my Face Off

Just a quick note to let everyone know I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth, but might have tried to claw the eyes out of it once or twice. Things that were crazy have gone purely mental.

-Gone from three cars to one in the house in two weeks.
-The quest for a new cell phone has more up and down slopes than Kings Island and Six Flags put together.
-My hours at the comic book store are getting more interesting all the time. It's as much fun as I could hope for but all of a sudden a lot of hours are opening up and I can't take the ones they're offering me.
-My quest to start selling material keeps running into pitfalls, but I AM making progress. It's minute but it counts, dammit!

I'm exhausted now. Me sleep.

No, That Cable Goes to the Engine Blog

I am declaring myself officially over jet lag AND MA-related exhaustions. I have little choice.

Monday I start working at the Comic Carnival. It's bad in that it's a retail job that I worked before, so there's the feeling that I'm taking a step backward, but it's great in that it's work and coworkers I know I enjoy and can feed my literary addictions for cheap. Plus it's not so many hours that I can't do anything else. Hooray!

Plans are underway to liberate my mother's gym membership for my own ends. Don't tell her, she likes surprises. Looking after a friend's toddlers for a few hours makes for good exercise in the meantime, though, even with said friend there as well.

My resume (CV to the British audience) and portfolio are more or less polished up, so it's to me to hunt for those freelance jobs I pray exist here. As I hunt for these, I'll be editing some stories and hunting for places to sell them to.

I say all of this so that, knowing some people do read this thing, I'll feel extra pressure to actually follow through on it.

Incidentally, the eBay auctions end Monday, and it's looking like I'll see at least enough for that phone I need. One relief, anyway.

I am going to miss treating myself like a recovering patient. It's been, I suppose refreshing is the word, just relaxing and not pushing myself anywhere. Still, it's common knowledge I'm my own worst critic, and I've called myself a sloven do-nothing just one time too many. Now I have to show me that I'm a lying ignorant jabbermouth and CAN in fact do something with myself.

Too bad, as I was THIS close to starting a Netflix account.

Blogbending

I really should have seen this coming.

I have a pretty good history of running myself into the dirt to finish things. A number of times in my last job I'd work very stressful days for weeks at a time, well past my limit, and crash hard. Not in the cute 'I stayed in bed all day' way, but in the 'my immune system shuts down and become incredibly ill' way. It used to take way longer than normal for my body to catch back up, and the entire time I kicked myself for not being able to do anything. I dislike not being able to do anything.

Despite my insanity with the MA project and massive miles travelled, I've avoided the debilitating illness, for which I'm puzzled and immensely grateful. I've still crashed, though, and true to form it's not going away quickly. Though I've more or less adapted to the local time zone and sleep pattern, I still wake up like I did last Tuesday when I came home: sore and jet-lagged. I've been pitching in around the house but that minor activity exhausts me.

I'm selling a few things on eBay soon, using an exercise we did early in the year to help boost sales. My hope is to earn enough money to get a new phone and to clear a few cobwebs. Can't crash forever, no matter how many games Squaresoft puts out.

I am now Blogworthy

So it's been almost a week since I got back to my motherland. I can just about trust myself around people again, though it seems I've developed a tendency to mutter obscenities of a varied nature. I'm pretty sure it's a tenacious symptom of jet lag combined with coming down from the anxieties of finishing the MA. Everyone that's noticed seems to believe it, so we'll stick with it for now.

I'm watching the Tenacious D movie right now. It's about as mentally challenging as I'm capable of dealing with right now, that is to say I can see this used to pacify three-year-olds and recovering trauma patients. I like their CDs, but their cinematic prowess does not match, I'm sad to say.

The future of this blog has come up as a concern for a few people. First let me say that I'm thrilled and hope more people express interest in my writings in the years to come. Secondly, this being a blog about my adventures in Falmouth, it's not really appropriate for me to keep it going. I'm going to keep it up through graduation in November, and then I'll transfer to an all-new blog. Or maybe change the name of this one, I need to figure out what this set-up can do.

Blog Home AGAAAIN In Indiana!

I'll make this short, as my mind's still kind of wonky. I have arrived back home! I'm happy. Later!