Seismic Twitch

You must go to The Centre of Gravitas and read. You must.

I got a nosebleed today. Sadly, it was partly in reaction to the scent of Tali’s hair spray. It’s not that the spray caused the nose bleed, but my reaction was to instantly produce snot which in turn had to be gotten rid of. It was the latter process that caused the nose bleed. Too much information?

Thank you, Enviroboi, for going to all the trouble of posting the mitten pattern onto your blog. I hope to make some yummy knittens sometime in the future with it.

Today I went to my prof to see if there was something that could be done about the abyssmal mark I got. We went through the Op-Scan sheet to figure out whether or not we could identify where I’d changed my answers. I know I changed more than what was seen, but we couldn’t clearly identify that. There were at least 4 that I changed that were correct, but not as many as I thought. She hasn’t decided what she’s going to do. I’m in class all the time and she knows that I know what she’s talking about. I guess I’ll find out later if anything is going to be changed. I told her that I didn’t expect anything to begin with so if she decides to leave things be as they are, it’s not an issue to me.

After that I went to criminology class. I had about 1/2 hour before class started so I went through the requirements to have a Criminal Law and Justice minor. This is one of the sociology minors. They set it up that Sociology majors can get the Crim minor as well. It’s the first time that a minor has been offered to students within the same department. I have many classes to take, Women and Law, Aboriginal Youth and Social Control to mention just a few. Summer is going to be fun. After this term I’ll be finished the required classes for my major and can concentrate on getting my minor and the honours classes.

Bran, being the sweet, wonderful man that he is, found a place where I can get Cree lessons on line. Though the dialect is slightly different (Swampee Cree compared to Southern Prairie Cree), the pronounciation is similar. It’s a way that I can learn some of the common phrases, some conversational Cree and go on from there with my own stuff. I’m hoping that next fall there’ll be another conversational Cree class offered. That uses visiting, cooking, and other methods to get an immersion into the language. For now it’s up to me.

My exam schedule has been posted for the end of this term. They’re spread out a bit. This means that each class can have a concentrated amount of studying done. On April 12 I write the Aboriginal People in Cities exam, on April 14 is Stats, April 17 is Advanced Criminology and Penology is on April 28. Two of the classes, Stats and Penology, are on Saturdays. With a nice long break between Criminology and Penology that means I can get in lots of studying for the Penology exam and do well on it, well enough to make up for the atrocious performance on the mid-term exam.

This summer I’ll be taking 4 classes again. Two of them will overlap and two won’t. I’ll be taking: Sociology and Social Welfare Organization, Youth Crime Justice and Social Control, Sociology of Law, and Current Issues in Criminal Justice. Three of those classes are needed for my minor. Then next year I’ll take the honours classes and any others that I’m missing. Then I’ll have a Bachelor’s Degree majoring in Sociology and minoring in Criminal Justice and Law (or something like that, I can’t remember the exact title of the minor). This rocks the Casbah and will give me the opportunity to get into either probations or parole supervision a whole lot easier. If I get into either and I’m in town, then I can do my Master’s as a part time thing. Although I might want to get my Master’s right away and then go job hunting. It’ll take less time to get it if I just go for it rather than try it part time.

Anyway, that’s the way things stand right now. I’ve got so many doors open right now. I don’t want to close any of them, but to be honest, I don’t think I want to be a lawyer. I think that having my Master’s degree will do me better than the Law degree would. Besides, I think I’d rather go through the thesis composition and oral examination than do a year as an artlicling student.

That’s it from here.

Ta-Ra

The temperature has taken a bit of a dive again and we’re living with temperatures around -15 to -20 or so. It’s chilly, but not unlivable (I know, for you Southerners it’s horrid, but it’s really quite nice). Bran had a bit of an adventure today trying to stand upright. His middle ear seems to have been affected by his cold. He shoved stuff up his nose (decongestant) and took an antihistamine. That seemed to do the trick enough that he could go to school.

We got up about 9:30 and I had a shower while he tried to regain his balance. The shower was wonderful, nice and hot and helped to clear up my nose. With that and my necklace (it has some eucalyptus essential oil in a little diffuser) my breathing has been somewhat less congested.

I wore my shrug to school today. I discovered that the shrug is enough to wear. The sweaters are too much under my jacket, my shrug is just right. For those who don’t know what a shrug is, it’s a sweater of a sort. It’s the arms and back part to connect them and not much else. It’s really simple to make, just do it like you would a sleeve except you keep knitting until you have it long enough to go from wrist to wrist with ribbing on each end. Voila, a shrug. I’m going to make another one when I get some more yarn. I want to make one of cotton as well. I like shrugs because it’s my arms that get cold, not my torso.

Classes were cool. I found out there’s a quiz in Stats on Thursday. All the marks a person gets on that will be added to the midterm mark. It’s either 10 or 12 marks. This means that my 70 can be raised to as much as 80 or 82%. I love that.

Right now the last episode of To Catch a Predator on Dateline. I’m loving it. So many perverts and so little time. One of the pervs even talked about the other Dateline. He made fun of the other men who’d been caught only to be caught himself. Then there was a guy who said to the decoy, “How do I know you’re not the police?” to which the decoy responded, “How do I know you’re not my Dad trying to set me up?” You guessed it, the perv showed up and was arrested by police. Every one of the men said that they weren’t going to try and have sex with the young person they thought they were talking to. Luckily for the potential victims, none of them were able to rape a child. Every one of them were arrested and charged with felonies according to Florida laws.

I wish that they would have more and more of them and that MSNBC would rebroadcast them with more regularity than they have. I missed last week’s episode. Nertz!

That’s about it from here. Dateline is nearly over then it will be time to read other people’s lives.

Edit: The ending of the show announcement said that there’s more of my favourite Dateline episodes coming! Yay!

There’s another Naomi at the university. You are probably thinking I’m nuts, but I’ve only ever met one other Naomi…ever. This time I found out because I got into trouble over her not fulfilling her volunteering obligation today during Ally Week. She volunteered for a huge number of shifts on the same days that I’m off of school. When I saw the W. as the last name initial, I thought that perhaps I’d been voluntordered by the organizers. However, that’s not a part of what the centre is about. So I talked to one of the organizers and got them to talk to the coordinator so that she’d ungrump at me.

The rest of my volunteer time was spent knitting and chatting. It was a fair bit of fun.. I am tired though. The alarm went off and I asked Bran to reset it to a later time. Tonight I have that stats assignment to take care of so I’ll get it done and probably head to bed.

Right now on TV a new show called Unsolved Cases USA is featuring the hijacking case of DB Cooper in 1971. That was a man who hijacked an airliner that was flying betweeen two cities in Washington state. He demanded money, let the passengers to, had the pilots fly south, sometime during that flight he jumped out of the airplane using one of the parachutes he’d demanded as part of the ransom. He’s never been caught and has since made it into criminal legend. The FBI agent who worked on the case doesn’t think that the man survived the jump. So, whether Cooper (probably not his real name) survived the jump and lived through the trek to civilization from where it’s theorized he landed, has been much speculated over the years. He’s become a cult phenomenon since that time.

That’s about it.

Ta-Ra

Stolen from Danulia’s journal. She’s such a cool person.

20 years ago
1.) How old were you? 26
2.) Where did you go to school? Didn’t
3.) Where did you work? I didn’t, I was in school
4.) Where did you live? On the other side of town with Bran, we were newly weds.
5.) Where did you hang out? Either at the university or at home
6.) Did you wear glasses? No
7.) Who was your best friend? Other than Bran, Sru
8.) How many tattoos did you have? I didn’t
9.) How many piercings did you have? 4, one in one ear and 3 in the other
10.) What car did you drive? Dodge Aries station wagon (with real fake wood paneling on the side)
11.) Had you been to a real party? Define “real.” I’d been to baccanals, and tame sippers.
12.) Had your heart broken? Yep
13.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced: Taken

10 years ago
1.) How old were you? 36
2.) Where did you go to school? Wasn’t.
3.) Where did you work? Wasn’t
4.) Where did you live? In a dump.
5.) Where did you hang out? In the dump
6.) Did you wear glasses? No
7.) Who was your best friend? Bran
8.) How many tattoos did you have? None, but I was wanting one.
9.) How many piercings did you have? The same 4 as 10 years before
10.) What car did you drive? None, by that time the old wagon had been murdered by an all metal car on Christmas eve, 1992.
11.) Had you been to a real party? Real, unreal, yes
12.) Had your heart broken? Yes, very broken.
13.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced: Married

5 years ago
1.) How old were you? 42
2.) Where did you go to school? Wasn’t
3.) Where did you work? Tamara’s House
4.) Where did you live? A duplex
5.) Where did you hang out? At home
6.) Did you wear glasses? Yes, old age demanded that I get my first pair of reading glasses.
7.) Who were your best friends? Linda and Jon, and Bran
8.) Who was your crush? I didn’t have one
9.) How many tattoos did you have? None
10.) How many piercings did you have? 5, my ears as before, and a nostril piercing
11) What car did you drive? Didn’t
12.) Had you had your heart broken? No
13.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter: Married
14.) Any kids? Yes, Boy…by that time he was 9 years old.

Present
1.) How old are you? 46
2.) Where do you go to school? U of S
3.) Where do you work? Don’t
4.) Where do you live? The same duplex as 5 years ago
5.) Where do you hang out? Here or in the former Centre of Many Initials
6.) Do you wear glasses? Yes
7.) Who are your best friends? Bran
8.) Who is your crush? Don’t really have one
9.) Do you talk to your old friends? No
10.) How many tattoo’s do have? 1, my dragonfly
11.) How many piercings do you have? The same 5
12.) What kind of car do you have? Still don’t have one
13.) Has your heart been broken? No
14.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter? Married
15.) Any kids? Boy is still hanging out with us, he’s now in high school.

Danulai, you mentioned about how, when you were in high school, you’d drive to the nearest town and cruise up and down a street. I think that’s a pretty common things for North American teens with driver’s licences to do. I did it in high school as well. In fact, I did it even after I was done with high school. There might still be people I know from 30 years ago who are driving up and down Main Street. They even did it in American Grafitti. Hey, if Hollywood shows it, it must be the way things are, right?

I’m having a Bond-athon today. At about 2 pm I decided, since there’s nothing on television and plain music isn’t suiting my fancy, to knit on my scarf and watch James Bond moves. Thus far we’ve gone through Dr. No and are currently well into From Russia With Love. I’m rather enjoying it. After I read other people’s lives then I’ll get back to my knitting. I should probably be doing my statistics homework, but I have tomorrow night as well so I’m not worried.

Bran was going to make supper tonight, hamburger pasta stew, but he’s still not feeling up to par so I took over and made “hangover soup.” It’s called that because most of the people who made it did so on Sundays, after a night of partying. It’s one of those empty-the-fridge soups. You fry up some hamburger, mix in onions, carrots and celery, a bay leaf or two, a can or two of tomato (depending on the amount of burger and veg), stock or water and some black pepper. I hesitate to use salt because I add powdered veggie boulion and with the canned tomatoes there’s usually enough salt for most palates. You can make it without the hamburger or with that veggie burger stuff. In fact, that’d shorten cooking time. As well, you can add any leftover vegetables that are hanging out in the fridge as a way of using them up. Since we didn’t have any other than what I cut up for crudete I didn’t add extra. You could also use lentils if that suits your fancy. The basis of the soup is to make things as easy work free as possible.

Bran got an early morning phone call. I hope that this person finds more support people because late night/early morning crisis phone calls are hard to take. There are people out there who are far better at dealing with that sort of thing, like the Crisis Lines and Sexual Assault lines (in the front of the phone book) that have trained volunteers. One thing I know is that Bran can’t be the only support person, nor can he be there for immediate crisis situations. He’s got enough of his own shit to deal with.

That’s it for today.

Ta-Ra

As Bran and I were snuggling in bed today, I figured that I’d do my kegels. It’s my attempt to strengthen my pelvic floor to control my “issues” with my bladder. It was one of the choices I was given when I went to see the gyno in January. She said to do 5 repeats of 10 second holds of kegels a day in order to strengthen the necessary muscles. Anyway, as I was laying there kegeling away, Bran decided to join me in my exercising efforts. I got to laugh a lot about that.

So, come on everyone! Let us kegel together. Are you ready? Go!

I got this from Danulai’s blog.

I’ve settled on the current template for now. I like that there are no more floating pieces and that everything matches. “Minty” as Mush said. Yes folks, my blog is now minty fresh. Next week it might be some other colour that suits my fancy. I’m just a whimsical kind of girl.

I didn’t go to class last night because there was a blizzard warning for the city. I didn’t want to get caught at the university if things went as they did the last time a shit pile of snow fell. Of course, no snow fell until sometime after midnight. But such is life. I’ll get the notes from someone else.

Today is Bran’s birthday. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have any cake mixes, but I’ll make sure that he gets something next week that is suitable to the occassion. Go on over to his blog and wish him a happy hatch day if you want. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.

Right now we’re watching The Addams Family. It’s the farthest away from murder and mayhem that I could tolerate. I’m ever so glad that it’s on. This way we get to watch something all together and we’re all relatively happy. The only problem that we’re having is the the movie sound is very quiet and the advertisements are all bloody loud. I have to mute it everytime there’s a station break for ads.

Last night Bran sent me a link to a site that has a pile of wallpapers. It also has themes for Macs and other things that you might find nice to have. Right now I’ve got a dragonfly as a wallpaper. I love it.

Today was a relaxing, dull day. In fact, it was nigh on perfect that way. Boy stayed home because he twisted his ankle again. He slept until 4. Bran has a headache and cold and is feeling icky and grumpy. I’m ok, but somewhat congested. But otherwise we’re all pretty much ok.

That’s it for now.

Ta-Ra

There is now a link to the entry that lists some of the comics that I read. I’m thinking of doing the same thing for the other links. I mean, having a brief list of links seems somewhat more desirable than having something that is 15 billion entries long. This way all that a person has to do is click on the “blogs I read” link and the entry comes up. Or maybe I’ll leave the blog roll up and create soemthing for the linking to entries about myself.

I have a lot to think about. But for now, it’s time for “white trailor trash” hors d’oeuvres with saltine crackers, cheese spread and dill pickles. Sure, I know that it’s a quick and direct route to heart burn, but damn, those things are yummy!