First Name: Bethany

I'm so TIRED of filling out college applications.

I finished University of Rhode Island and UC Santa Barbara's today. I'm finishing up University of Washington's now. I need to finish one more question in their extra application and finish my statement of purpose and that one will be ready to pay the fee for. UCSB's I have to still write my statement of purposes, but at least the fee has been paid. Friday, after I get paid, I'll send my GRE scores off. URI's fee was $50 and UCSB's was $70. Each GRE costs me $20! I still need to send my MPC transcripts too. I can't believe I forgot about the holidays and how campuses are closes between Christmas and New Year. *sigh* That was just shortsighted of me and has really thrown me off.

UCSB's I have to mail everything too - statement of purpose, resume, and letters of rec. American University I have to mail the letters of rec together. I did my resume and statement of purpose on-line, but I might include them in hardcopy anyway.

It's gotten so complicated remembering what I've done for which college that I have a spreadsheet to keep me organized. LoL

Anyway, with that...I should get back to my applications!

College Apps...

I've been lazy about the rest of the schools and applying, but tonight I got myself into gear since I have less than a month to get all my materials submitted for all the schools! I have changed the schools I'm applying for, though. It seems like it's a never ending changing process.

I've already applied to Columbia and got in, but I'm applying now to University of Washington, University of Rhode Island, UC Santa Barbara, and American University. They all changed (except Washington) for various reasons.

I just finished my application to American University tonight. So that's all finished. I just need to get my Letters of Rec and send my college transcripts off. The application fee was $50 ($30 less than what the website says...). My GRE scores are going to kill me since they're $20 each. Oh well.

Next I'm going to do Rhode Island. All I need to do for that is my Statement of Purpose. I'm basically adapting my Statement from Columbia for each school. Hey...I figure I got into Columbia with it, it was okay for them!

After that, it's a toss up between Santa Barbara and Washington. They both have very tedious application processses. Washington's I have to do a whole separate application thing along with my resume/statement/college application. Santa Barbara I have to write an entirely new statement of purpose that goes along the lines of any difficulties/challenges I've had in my life to get to where I am today and/or whether I want to go into a career that helps the underserved. Now, really? Why would a college specifically want to know that?! I feel like my acceptance rides on how I answer that question more than all my other materials! I'm definitely applying to a California school... :P

I want to send all my college transcripts off at once next week because the campus is closed the 25-30th and Santa Barbara's transcript needs to be postmarked by the 10th of January. So I'll probably just mail Washington's and Santa Barbara's college transcripts and hope they understand a student is applying. :P

With that...I must be off!

I got into Columbia!!

I did Columbia's Early Application Deadline and I got my e-mail today saying I got accepted into the program!!!!! I'm SO excited!

I'm still applying to the other schools on my list because I can't afford Columbia's tuition without financial help, but it is a nice confidence boost for getting accepted into a program I believed to be one of the hardest for me to get into. :)

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving, if you celebrate, on Thursday!

Pretty scheduled life now...

There hasn't been a lot of updates in the past month because, well, I haven't done much! I'm on a pretty set schedule now, which is pretty nice. I work at Borders 9am-5pm M and F and from 1pm-6pm Tues-Thurs. I have class on Tues and Thurs from 9:30am-12:30pm. I have the aquarium every other Sunday from 1am-6pm. I can actually have a WEEKEND now! It's kind of nice since I haven't had weekends where I don't work at least one day in years, it seems.

The only interesting thing going on right now is that I'm actually applying to grad schools now. I'm filling out applications, getting transcripts, etc. Columbia's process is about half finished. I've sent out 2 of my 3 letters of recommendations to get filled out. I've already sent in the application on-line and paid my $85 application fee. I've sent them my GRE scores already too (that cost $20). I still have to send my college transcripts, though. That'll be about another $10 since I'm sending my MPC and CSUMB one. I still have to write my resume they want and write my statement of purpose. I think I'm just plain procrastinating on the statement of purpose because they want it somewhere around 850 words and it's like your essay to get into college! I have another 4 weeks to write it, though. I'm trying to get my application all finished by October 31st so I can hit Columbia's early application deadline, which means I'll get a yay or nay letter by December 1st.

The rest of the school's I'm figuring out how I'm applying. I've got an on-line account all set-up for Washington and Edinburgh, but I ran into an issue with Edinburgh. The Masters program I'm applying to says paper applications, but Edinburgh has on-line applications too (and I found the program through the application site). So I e-mailed them and asked which way they'd like the application. I'm pretty sure as soon as I get that application in, I'd hear pretty fast. They don't have application deadlines (how weird is that?). So, those are probably next two I'll work on. After that I'll plug away at Delaware (I STILL don't know how to apply or what program I'm applying to, their webpage is SO confusing!) and Maine. I'm pretty sure they're all due mid-January, so I've got time.

It also looks like I might be able to go to Australia too. Airfares have come down quite a bit. They're about $2k right now (that's including taxes). $2k I can actually do. So we'll see. I still need to talk to Mads and everything. I actually, funnily enough, found a cruise line that is doing a blowout on their New Zealand/Australia cruises because it'll be their last year of doing them. $2600 (including airfare from San Fran) for a 14 day cruise! I mean, I basically pay $600 more and get to go on a cruise! LoL Anyway, we'll se if I end up in Australia at the end of January or not!

With that...I think that's all that's really going on in my life.

Grad Schools

Okay. I've finalized the five schools I'm picking. I still have to check one or two more schools on the east coast, but I'm pretty sure this is what I'm applying to.

• University of Washington, Seattle - I'm applying for their Masters of Marine Affairs. You can see the webpage here. Application is due Jan 15th, I think. I find UofWa really hard to navigate around to figure out how to apply. This is a two-year program.
  
• University of Edinburgh - I'm applying for their Environment, Protection and Management Masters. You can see the webpage here. The EPM is a one-year program. I also looked at their Ecological Economics program too, but I don't think I want to ingrain myself that much into economics. That program is here. I can't figure out an application due date, but it always says to apply ASAP. I think one place I found was May!
  
• Columbia University - I'm applying for their Masters of Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy. Phew, what a mouth full! Their webpage is here. The MPA is a one-year program. This would be the most expensive program out of all the schools. Even with the exchange rate, Edinburgh ends up cheaper. I'm going to try and do their early application submission deadline on November 1st. That'll garauntee me a yes or no letter by December 1st. 
• University of Maine - I'm applying for their MS degree in Marine Policy. You can see the webpage on the programs here. In high school I talked with a UCSC graduate student and they said that Maine, UCSC, and Scripps (at that time) were the best marine biology schools in the nation. U of ME has the Marine Policy MS, but you can also do a duel MS in Marine Policy and Marine Science (I'd pick Marine Biology). It's a 3-year program for the dual degree program. Not sure how long for the normal MS. I'd assume 2-years since the 2nd semester the students figure out thesis papers. Applications are due Jan 15th.
  
• Univeresity of Delaware - I haven't figure out if I'm applying for their Masters in Marine Policy (MMP) or their MS in Marine Studies with a concentration in Marine Policy. Probably the latter. You can see their programs here.  The funny thing is the Interim Director of the Marine Policy program was a candidate for CSUMB for the Rote Professorship. So I saw him give a presentation. LoL Unfortunately, I wasn't too impressed with him, though he was doing some interesting work. For fall admission (they also accept for Spring, weird...), applications are due March 1st. 

Maine and Delaware I haven't looked at how much it'll cost to go. They're my recent decisions. LoL I also looked at University of Miami. They have a MS and MA in Marine Affairs. I requested information on both programs anyway. The MS deterred me because I'd have to take the General GRE AND the Subject GRE and I was just not going to do that. LoL The MA was interesting, but I think I've decided I'd rather try and stick with a MS than a MA. They did have an interesting looking program, though.

I'm still figuring out how I'm getting letters of rec to all these schools. Some want them via mail, some electronically, etc. It's all rather confusing. I think I'll probably do Columbia's application first and go from there. Columbia doesn't require the GRE either. I probably should take the test one more time since Maine and Washington seem to make a bigger deal about it than the other schools. I actually need to FIND my scores. I don't remember what I got...I basically need to get myself all aligned. LoL

Oh, October is when the NOAA Graduate Sciences Program "starts" too. The postings for positions and applications start. I'm pretty sure I'll need to go to one of the state schools to have a chance at the GSP since Columbia has a really strict program and I doubt the government would want to fly me back and forth over the Atlantic to do my job. :P

With that...I should head to bed.

I'm HOME! - Aquarium and Flights

I'm still in a mental fog as I just woke up from my passed out state for 15 hours. I don't even remember getting into bed...but my flights were almost a disaster, but I made it home at the time I was supposed to.

First off, my last day in Chicago. I had about 4 hours of sleep and Haley had stayed up all night and was tired. After we went to the Departure Breakfast where we ate and simply left, we packed up all our stuff (I was already packed from the night before) and brought our stuff to our friends' room. Haley passed out on their bed because she hadn't slept at all the night before and we were just all talking. I ended up going to the Shedd Aquarium on my own because Haley was just too tired to go. So she stayed in their room and slept about 3 hours more.

I like the Shedd, but I was VERY disappointed in their "World's Oceans" part. Their part with the dolphins, whales, etc and their Rainforest part were pretty cool, though. The Rainforest part because of how they did it and the look of the exhibits. The dolphins part not because it was dolphins and whales, but I liked the overall feel of the entire area. Funny enough, their dolphins are Pacific White Sided Dolphins, which I recognized as soon as I saw them. LoL They also have Alaskan Sea Otters, a California Sea Lion, and Beluga Whales (two with calves!). So that was kind of weird...I'm next to Lake Michigan and seeing animals from the West Coast!

On that note...I'd like to explain my feeling being near a lake. The Great Lakes are HUGE and vast enough that from a human's point of view, they're oceanlike. Except...they're not. Except for the fact you can't see land, it's a completely different feeling. You don't get the ocean spray, the smell of the saltwater, the water is incredibly calm all the time, the coloring is slightly different, there are yachts and HUGE boats everywhere, ducks swim in the water, etc. Going to the Navy Pier was nice and all, the water really is pretty, but it made me miss the ocean. I think that's one reason why going to the Aquarium was different. LoL They have to manufacture all their saltwater and most of the aquarium has saltwater! How weird is that?

Moving on, after the aquarium I made a quick stop at Panera since I was a little hungry and we don't have Panera near here! Once back at the hotel, I went up to the Leaky Suite to say bye to whomever was there. Haley's grandmother picked us up and we went out for REAL Chicago deepdish pizza (oh my gosh...It was SOOOOO good) and then we went to get gelato. After that we went back to their house to get Haley's car and we drove to her house. Once there Haley and I fell asleep for about 4 hours because we were both EXHAUSTED. I slept about 4 hours that night and Haley didn't sleep at all. So she had been napping al dayI woke up after 2 because I had passed out on my arm without realizing it and woke up again after another hour because the alarm went off, which we both wanted to sleep more so we fell back to sleep for another hour. We got up after that and watched some Olympics with her brother and dad and she was on her computer. We left at like 2:30 for the airport and got there around 3am. No one was at the desk, of course, and wouldn't be till 4:30 and my plane left at 6am. I was fine, though. I went and chilled on some chairs. I was so tired I think I could have sat there all day and it wouldn't have mattered! LoL

I was at a kiosk when they opened and I tried THREE different ways to get my flight information, but it couldn't find it. Eventually I talked to someone and they could find my flight information, but apparently it was all screwed up (thank you travelocity!) and they spent about 30 minutes figuring it out. Mind you, the 30 minutes was approaching 5:15am. Travelocity, if you remember (did I blog about it?), messed up my return flight home months ago and I had to call them about it. My flight from Chicago changed so they had me left in Denver on a multi-destination ticket instead of roundtrip. When I called them, they had to put me onto all new flights (ORD to Cincinnati to LAX to Monterey) to get me home. Apparently that messed up my ticket.

Anyway, I was panicking, but I got to my gate fine, but it left me so I couldn't grab a drink or food before the plane. I was okay at that time and I had two breakfast bars in my backpack anyway. The flight to Cincinnati from O'Hare is a little more than an hour and I slept on the entire thing, which was kind of a shame because I was ZONE 1 for loading! So I had two seats in a row and a LOT of leg room. LoL I wasn't first class (they were in front of us), but I must have been business class because of being zone 1. It was kind of funny, though, because that plane was a prop plane and I hadn't been in that big of a prop plane in a long time! Getting off the plane, I just quickly walked to my next gate (which was in another terminal...*sigh*) because I had like 30 minutes before it took off and I had seat requests for ALL three of my flights because of whatever got messed up. So I get there and they had a window seat at the emergency exit open. I took it so I had, once again, a LOT of leg room. I passed out for the majority of that flight too. I woke up for about a half hour because I was slightly cold and it was causing me to not get back to sleep. I got up to get my sweater and then fell back to sleep. I woke up when an announcement was made (they're hard to sleep through...) and a few other times, but no drinks or food for me!

My flight landed on time in LAX and I had about a 2 hour layover. So I went and got food and drink, called my mom and Chris (yes, in that order!), and walked around a bit. The problem was when I landed, my flight had no gate number so I was paranoid about that. I eventually, about 40 minutes before my flight took off, went and asked and it turns out I had to go to gate 42B to get the shuttle to go to the American Airlines terminal for the smaller planes. Ugh! I had forgotten! I've never flown Delta from LAX to Monterey. I've only flown AA to LAX to Monterey and it tells you ON the screens, but because AA does the flight, Delta doesn't seem fit to even tell you to go to 42B! So...I hurried over there and JUST missed a shuttle. I was getting nervous then I'd miss my flight and two other ladies showed up. We waited, not kidding you, 20 minutes for the shuttle to show. We get on and we get there and we RUN down the hallway (of course it'd be at the VERY end) and I say, "I have a seat request." The lady goes, "oh my gosh. I closed the flight! Where were you?!" So I did a quick one sentence explanation and she says, "are you sure you're on this flight?" and I'm all "Yes!" She was quick, though. In less than 2 minutes (the length of our conversation time) I had my boarding pass and onto the flight. I sat down in the seat behind where I was supposed to be (so I didn't have to move the guy in the aisle seat) with 2-3 minutes left to spare before the flight was supposed to take off. I actually boarded the plane with one of the ladies who was late too (not bad!). The ironic thing? We ended up having to wait almost 20 minutes because the didn't empty out the lavatory, which no one was happy about because the plane had been at the gate for almost 3 hours. LoL I actually stayed awake long enough on the flight to get a drink on the flight (the first time on a flight for this trip) and then I passed out after that. I was jolted awake with the announcement we were preparing to land.

Once landed, I realized my backpack felt a little wet in the corner my Snapple was in. I hugged my mom and we went to the baggage claim and I checked my backpack. Sure enough, my Snapple DID leak and I checked all my stuff. My newest Science magazine got most of the liquid. My computer case that's neoprene got some of it too, but it didn't soak through to my computer. I also had two of my signed books in there, but had placed them into a Borders plastic bag and the bag saved them! The bag was wet on the outside, but my books were fine (or as fine as they could be being in a backpack!). My luggage also arrived on this flight too! I was worried because LAX has this "bags must be checked in one hour prior to your departure or your luggage won't arrive with you." (It's true too...my luggage got scanned late once and it didn't arrive with me...) Apparently ORD doesn't have that rule. :P

Anyway, I'm all unpacked already. I came home after my mom and I ate out and immediately unpacked. I have a load of laundry to do now! The humidity definitely makes it so you can't wear clothes more than once. LoL After unpacking I basically passed out. I don't even remember getting into bed and I slept the ENTIRE night through. I think the only reason I even got up is because I had to use the bathroom. :P Maybe I can use this to get my sleeping schedule back on track! Ooh! I should try it!

Anyway, with that, I'm off to shower! I might upload some other photos from other people on Facebook, but that'll take a day or two. I need to get my life back on track with grad school applications and Contest work. I'm behind in responses to people in Contests from the Riddle Contest and need to compile the survey results. :P

Okay...Laters!

More Terminus Photos

I dragged myself out of bed at 7:40am after going to sleep around 3am. I conquered Megan's camera and downloaded her Terminus pictures and uploaded a highlight of the photos she took onto my Picasa site here. She took a lot of photos of staff before Reggies and at the Ball last night.

I'm just waiting for the girls to finish packing. I stayed up late and packed last night so I could get up this morning and burn CDs for Haley of her photos (she was having problems downloading them to her computer) and get Megan's photos.

I'm going to die (aka pass out) once I get home, I think. I am SO tired and I'm not feeling 100% either. The "Leaky Flu" was going around and I'm hoping I didn't get it, but I'm definitely not 100%.

With that...Time to pack up the computer.

Part 2 of Last full day at Terminus

What happened today?! LoL

I didn't go to ANY programming today as when we got back to the room everyone was napping or resting so then we all said we'd go at 3pm. Well...I slept for an hour (more like passed out...) and woke up at 2:30 and no one was there. Haley and Megan had gone out to do a few things and wouldn't be back in time for the 3pm program and then Shawna said she was going to another one, I think. Or maybe she wasn't going? I can't remember now. Anyway, Shawna came over for a bit and then I just sat in the room and rested some more. Around 5 Shawna and I went to Subway to grab a foot long since they're only $5. Then we got ready for the ball!

I just threw on my robes over my regular clothes and left my hair down, but I used the cord we had gotten and braided it into a headband of sorts. Everyone said it looked good. The majority of people wore dresses or dress clothes of some sort (the entire staff group wore dresses or some other formal type clothing). There were some elaborate costumes, though. Course, there have been elaborate costumes all week. My robes got too hot so I ended up taking them off at some point and putting them back on before I left early. Everyone seemed to like my robes, though. I definitely stood out. :P Some random guy took my picture as we were walking in too. Haley told him my mom made them and he went, "yay for mom." LoL There's this one girl who has a very elegant ball gown on. It's GORGEOUS. It must have cost a fortune.

I was kind of laughing because the feeling really felt like a prom except the girl to guy ratio was WAY off. They had dessert there, which was nice. The Grand Ballroom is, well, grand! Very ornate and gilded. It has a 2nd floor balcony that goes all the way around it too. It's REALLY pretty.

Anyway, I came back early to relax for an hour before we hit the Leaky Suite for the rest of the night and into the wee hours of the morning. I am going to be SO incredibly tired by the time I get home! I should sleep once I hit Haley's house tomorrow evening...We're going to the Shedd Aquarium tomorrow. We're dropping our stuff off in one of our friend's room and will then get picked up by Haley's grandma around 4:30pm. Once we get back to her grandparents' house, we're driving to Haley's house. Then we'll drive over to the airport sometime between midnight and 1am. My plane leaves at 6am and having Haley stay up all that time to drive me just doesn't seem right. So...She's going to drive me over WAY early. Let's hope my plane is NOT delayed even one minute because I may go nuts sitting in an airport any longer and then I'd miss my connecting flight in Cincinnati, which would not be fun.

With that...I'm off to chill till midnight to head to the Leaky Suite. I'll be home soon! 

Last full day at Terminus

I'm proud of Megan and I! We got up and down to the Keynote room with 10 minutes to spare! We rolled out of bed at like 8:30-8:45am to make it to the keynote. I don't think I'd have gotten out of bed except I paid $40 for the keynote (it was a breakfast keynote). LoL

I fell asleep at like 1:45am last night, but the girls came in at like 2:45am. When they opened the door it woke me up so I ended up being awake for like another hour. I think Sarah came in sometime close to 4am, but we were all in bed by then, I think. The alarm went off at like 7:45am and every time it did someone would roll out of bed and hit snooze. We'd all roll over once it was turned off. LoL I never got up, but Sarah, Megan, and Haley did. My alarm went off at 8 and I hit snooze twice and rolled out of bed and yelled at Megan. :P

The keynote I liked a lot. Tamora Pierce gave an interesting speech about how Harry Potter has changed Children's Literature and gave her own perspective and history with the books. She was funny, engaging, and showed she has some spunk, which is probably why all her female characters have spunk too. She's one of my favorite authors so I'm glad she was likable because it makes me like her as a writer even more.

There's a presentation I'd like to go to on Latin in Harry Potter II: Curses, but I'll probably skip it because it's in a half hour and I'm not sure I'm quite awake enough to make it. I WILL make the 3pm presentation on Harry Potter and fairytales (can't remember the exact title off the top of my head) and hit the other presentation I want to see later in the afternoon (something about the power of the press). We'll probably go out in town today at lunchtime. Megan hasn't seen the Bean yet and she needs to do some shopping. Can't forget the ball is tonight too!

Photos of Terminus Thus Far

I've uploaded most of the photos from Terminus here. I haven't mapped them yet on Google. I'll do that later since I have to look up addresses. LoL

Part 2 of Terminus Day Something

I am SO tired. I ended up napping for THREE hours. I thought the girls
were going to get me up so we could hit the grocery store and go shopping north of Michigan Ave, but no one
woke me up! I woke up at some point because someone woke me up moving
around in the room and we had a little more than 1 hour till the
podcast.

So I dragged myself out of bed and Haley and I had to
figure out where to eat because we hadn't really eaten that day. So we
were just going to do Kitty O'Sheas, but it was busy and I wasn't sure
if we'd finish in time. So we walked down Michigan and got food to go.
We ate it in the room where the podcast was going to be. As staff, we
got in early and staked out 4 rows of seats. Since Haley's with me (I
don't think anyone really questions here coming everywhere with
me...LoL), they let her in like she's staff. The podcast was fun. The
mudbloods played 3 songs and Alex from the Remus Lupins played the
intro and final song ("This Cauldron's got a hole in it. It's where the
news leaks out...").

I left as soon as the podcast was
finished so I could run across the hallway to see Tamora Pierce. Funny
enough, the doors were closed and they were still doing the
presentation and a presenter opened the door, but the door got stuck so
they couldn't close the door. I saw this and instantly jumped into
action of what was wrong because it was LOUD in the hallway since the
podcast got out. I turned around and someone who works there is all
"I'm giving you some house points for helping out! You closed the door
before I even had time to get here." So I got 5 points for Kohilo! LoL
I was also treated like I was staff for Terminus. I do have a small
"TLC Staff" pin on, but I don't think most people noticed that.
Presenters kept asking me questions...Anyway, I got my book signed by
Tamora Pierce! I just said thanks because I was going to the next "Meet
the Authors." Tamora wrote "Females Rule!" in my book. Actually, she drew the symbol for females and wrote "rule"

The
Meet the Authors was neat. There was three authors, but of course the
room filled out for Melissa. LoL The other two authors (Erin Pyne and
RM (the initials to her fandom name)) were interesting and both were
humorous. Erin is a dolphin trainer! How cool is that?! RM has a trivia
book and it looks pretty darn good. Erin has a fandom book out (and an
encyclopedia coming out next year), but it's more interviews with fans
rather than Melissa's first-person perspective of the fandom. Melissa
read the first chapter or introduction part to her book (about 6 pages
long). She spoke a little fast because she was nervous, but the book is
going to be AMAZING! Just in those 6 pages I was instantly hooked on
the book. She also read a little about how Jo got her contract for the
books too. That was really neat too. Overall, I'm really excited for
the book. It's going to be really good.

After the author thing
everyone is all "are you going to Reggies?" and no one knew and I ended
up deciding NOT to go even though I'd have liked to see the wrock
bands, but I'm tired. Haley is out in town walking around and Megan and Sarah are who
knows where. I have to be up tomorrow for Tamora Pierce's keynote
breakfast and I really want to do programming for tomorrow since I
haven't yet. I paid for the conference, I might as well!

With
that...I'm watching TV and looking over the program for tomorrow. I'm
beat. I'll upload pictures in a bit. Tomorrow is the Bon Voyage Ball
too.

Terminus Day Something

Well...After falling asleep sometime near 5 am because our room got invaded, I dragged myself out of bed at 9:40 to get ready to go see the Wizard Rockumentary.

We have another roomie. Sarah is staying with us tonight and she stayed with us last night. This all came about at around 3 am. LoL Then Shawna and Danae came down because their roomie was asleep and they were awake. We just watched some Olympics (Dressage!!!!) and just chit chatted. Once Megan came back we all got into bed and didn't fall asleep till sometime close to 5am. Megan set the alarm for some time I can't even remember because Haley had to report for her volunteer shift at 8am. Well, Haley didn't leave till like 8:20 (the panel was at 9am) and we all kept sleeping more. My alarm went off at 9am and then I got up around 9:40 and yelled at Megan that it was 9:40. She had to be at the vending table for Leaky at 10am.

The Wizard Rockumentary was REALLY good. I was thinking I'd see some amateur documentary, but this was QUALITY. I was really impressed and really enjoyed it which surprised me since I'm not all that into wrock. After this whole conference though, I may have to go look up wrock again. After seeing them live, there's just nothing like it. The documentary was really good too because it captured the heart of what wrock is and it told the history of some of the bands too. Seeing it with a room full of people who know wrock was fun too because people would sing along and cheer for various bands that came up. There were so many funny moments too.

To say the least, at the end of the documentary I decided to buy the DVD for $20. It was well done, helps the two sisters who put it together in their free time, and it captures a part of history since they also had footage from the Deathly Hallows book release in Seattle.

I haven't eaten yet and I will probably munch on some food we have in the room and just call it a day. I'm SO tired and our evening starts promptly at 7pm and goes till somewhere after 2am. So...I'm showering and napping. :P Hopefully tomorrow I feel more up to programming because, seriously, I haven't done a whole lot of anything related to Terminus. LoL Tomorrow IS the Tamora Pierce keynote breakfast which means I have to be up at 8:30 at the latest to get to the breakfast in time at 9am.

With that...I'm out.

What day is it at Terminus now?!

We all seem to either be a day behind or a day ahead with Terminus...

Anyway, today didn't start off as planned. LoL Haley and I didn't get out of bed till almost 12:30pm after staying up with Megan till almost 4 am just talking. Megan had set the alarm for 7am so she could straighten her hair and get ready for programming since it started at 9am. We had planned to see the first hour of the WB vs RDR panel and then at 10am go see the LeakyCon panel. Uh, yeah, we woke up at like 9am and Megan got ready and left at like 9:40 to go see the LeakyCon panel. Then she was going to Cheryl Klein's keynote presentation at noon.

Well...Haley and I totally didn't hit anything this morning. LoL We left around 1pm to go to the library to get our tickets for the John Green book signing. (He wrote Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines.) It started at 2pm and he did a book reading from his new book Paper Towns and then he answered some questions with his brother. At 3pm they started reading off numbers for people to get their book signed. By 4pm (my number was 209 while Haley's was 121...) I got my book! We also bought Hank's CD and had that signed too. Hank said he liked my name.

After that, Haley and I hunted down a CitiBank so Haley could get cash, went to the Navy Pier, and had dinner at the
Rainforest Cafe. I'll upload some pictures later. I've only been
uploading highlights anyway.

Now, for this evening, my ears are ringing...LoL

Why you ask? Because of wreggie's! Wrock at Reggie's was totally fun, but the music was LOUD and seemed to get louder every time someone came on stage so by the time they cut the music, everyone's ears feel like they're muffled when someone talks. I was fine until we got onto the bus and people kept singing really loudly and that's when I got grouchy. LoL I just wanted people to shut up to give my poor ears a rest. I think I'd have been fine if I wasn't so tired because I was ALL for it on the way there.

Anyway, wreggies was fun. I had fun and that's saying a lot since I'm not into wrock, clubs, alcohol, and dancing. LoL Some people were totally smashed. It's a good thing Reggie's was providing a bus to drive people to and from the hotel to Reggie's or there'd be a lot of cab rides for people. Plus, it was a good distance from the hotel too.

Tomorrow Haley is volunteering for a panel and she has to BE there at 8:45am. We got back to the hotel at 2:15am. :P So I'm going to TRY and get up and go to the panel she's volunteering on or going to another program and we're going to see the Wizard Rockumentary at 10am (goes till noon). Saturday evening is PotterCast, Melissa's first official book reading of her book, and some other things (it's author's and artist's night). We're going to both and I'm trying to figure out a way to sneak in a meeting of Tamora Pierce, which happens to be during PotterCast.

With that...I'm crawling into bed...We're going to Reggie's tomorrow night also so...it's another 4 hours of wrock and loud music and ringing ears, but lots of fun!

Terminus Day 3

So...today...

We went to Panera for breakfast and came back and went and got our stuff from registration. We have Terminus t-shirts now and the program and our name badges. Afterwards we went to the Vendor Room and looked around. It almost looks like Whimsic Alley brought half the store! LoL They take up the entire back end of the vendor room. There are a ton of wands, robes, band t-shirts, and so forth available. After that a ton of staff went to get lunch at Kitty O'Sheas. Haley bought some bumper stickers and was at the room for a little (she also had a volunteer meeting to attend, but the Leaky thing this afternoon was staff only). I met up with some of the staff at Kitty O'Sheas a bit later and went with a few of them for a grocery run before the Leaky party.

After getting the groceries we had gone back to the floor with the suite (25th floor) and people were hanging out in the floor lobby. MTV was still interviewing Melissa, John, Andrew, and whoever the 4th person was so we were just waiting till they were finished. Once they were finished it was a bunch of hanging out for about 3 or so hours. It was nice just being the Leaky crew. We all sang the TLC song twice (clean version for MTV and not clean version before they came back). Then it was just a bunch of mingling and munching while MTV went around to the different groups and talked to us. They actually interviewed me! Laurie (LJ), Megan, Melissa (mlwl), and I ended up answering 3 questions: how is Twilight different than HP fandom, where do we think DH should split for the two movies, and what's LeakyCon. I think they liked us a lot because we were in a closed room and it was just the 4 of us, whereas before they had a HUGE group and it was kind of nuts for them. We'll see if they use any of the footage.

We all went down for the Welcome Feast and found our houses to walk into the conference room with each other. It was kind of funny because the 4 houses were basically lined up on the first floor and on the 2nd floor (stairs leading up from the lobby to the 2nd floor) and so you could see all 4 houses. We started the whole "Kohilo, Kohilo" or "Brubu Rocks" or whatever house you were in. It was NUTS! The ENTIRE lobby was PACKED with Potter fans. There was almost no way for people get past. LoL That poor hotel must be regretting us being around. I also found out there's an AVID conference at the hotel too. So, basically, there's 3 conferences. The National Convention on Gospel and Choir Music have been pretty nice, though we seem to be competing with them for space the most.

Anyway, once at the dinner it was a buffet dinner of all sorts of food, but it took FOREVER to get your food because there's like 1500 people who signed up and all that. Then there was some speeches (each head of house, the head of Aeolian, and the conference coordinator). It was SO hard to hear anyone, though! It was really bad. Brian of Draco and the Malfoys got a TON of love when he got up to talk and he turned BRIGHT red when everyone started cheering for him while his bio was being red. We thought Sue got lots of love, but Brian's was MASSIVE! Anyway, we all said the sound system was horrible and then all the houses tried to do various things together and we got told to stop and to be quiet. *rolls eye* HELLO we're at a conference and we WERE being pretty darn quite, but they kept yelling at us to be quiet because the Gospel group was below us. We all laughed at that, though, because we could hear their music in our conference room!

After the dinner we all went back to the Leaky Suite to hang out some more. Actually, we went to the Leaky Suite and I ended up leaving to go on a liquor run and THEN I came back. LoL It was weird caring a case of beer through the hotel and on the streets of Chicago, especially since I don't drink. :P I left early from the suite, though, because it was getting really crowded in their with the wrockers and I'm just REALLY tired. With wreggies tomorrow and everything else...I'd rather sleep right now. We'll see if I can sleep, though. There's a party going on in the room across from ours and knocking and doors opening and closing keeps happening every 10 minutes. There's got to be like 20-30 people (easily) in a room the same size as ours. It's really nuts.

Oh...I almost forgot to say! When we were getting our registration stuff, I was standing outside the room waiting for Haley. A girl comes up to me and says, "oh my gosh! I love your shirt! Where'd you get it?" and kept going on and then she said, "can I take a picture of you?" If she took it with me, I could officially say I got fangirl'd. LoL Actually, I had a lot of people tell me they liked my shirt and a few people asked where I got it or that'd be a shirt they'd actually buy. Frak said he has the coaster of my shirt and his parents got it for him. I asked where they got it and he said Monterey. I told him I live there and we high fived. It was rather funny. LoL

Tomorrow is *thinks really hard* John Green's book signing and wreggies. I have NO clue what else we're doing since John Green takes up most of the afternoon (1:30-4:30pm). Wreggies starts at 10pm, I think. Not sure what else we're doing, though. I haven't even looked at the program yet.  :doh:

Terminus Day 2 and Beginning of Day 3

Where to start...

Yesterday we (Megan, Haley and I) tried to get me a wrock (wizard rock) daytime ticket, but they were sold out and wouldn't sell headliner tickets till 5pm. So we went to Starbucks a few blocks away so Megan could get her caffeine and we hung out there for a while and then walked back. Haley and Megan felt bad I didn't have a ticket for wrock, but I told them to go so I hung out in the room and did some Contest work. Melissa came back and informed me she's going to stay another night! So that was nice news. She was only going to stay the one night.

We were planning to go to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner yesterday, but after getting my headliner wrock wristband and all that, it was almost 6pm and the headliners started at 7pm. So...we ditched that idea and we all went up to the Leaky Suite where some other staff were hanging out. It was fun to meet some people I'd only seen on the forum before. Some of us decided to go to Panera Bread for dinner then so we all trucked over there. We were hoping Megan could get her 50% discount because she works at Panera in Georgia, but she only got her discount at her store. Boo, hiss! After getting our food we trucked back to the Leaky Suite and hung out till close to 8pm when we trucked down to a headliner we wanted to see.

I meandered back and forth into the wrock. It was DEFINITELY a rock concert. LoL The stupid thing the hotel did, though, was to put us on a 2nd floor conference room so with the bass, the concert like movements (bouncing, dancing, etc), the floor would bounce. Not kidding you. It bounced, not shaked, bounced. Anyway, the hotel told us we couldn't dance or bounce then because the National Convention of Gospel and Choir Music is also at the hotel and they were in the conference room below us and apparently the chandelier and ceiling were shaking really badly (something about a chandelier breaking?). A lot of people weren't too excited about that, but...whatever.

After the Harry and the Potters were up (they went till almost midnight) we all decided to skip the last headliner and headed back to the Leaky Suite to party. It was basically all Leaky Staff in the beginning and it was fun. After a little while, two Mugglenet boys showed up with their posse and that changed the tone of everything because it was REALLY crowded in the suite then, but they left eventually and then Melissa, Haley, and I left at around 2am, I think. Megan came in about a half hour later after some wrockers had shown up, but there was no more food (we ate the pizza that was bought) and everyone was just talking and most people had left.

We crawled into bed sometime around 3am last night and Megan set the alarm for 8am. Haley and I were going to get up at head to the Shedd Aquarium at 8:30 to get there when it opened at 9am, but that didn't happen. The alarm went off; Megan got up and hit snooze; the alarm went off; Megan got up and hit snooze; Melissa got up and jumped into the shower; I looked at the clock and it was almost 11am. I had woken up a few times (9am and sometime around 10am), but I was like "I'm SO tired, there's no way I'm getting out of this bed and Haley is still sleeping." So I just let it go. Sometime around 10am I checked to see if Megan had gotten up because she had a LeakyCon meeting at 11am, but didn't see her body past Haley. Turns out she was still there and jumped out of bed when Melissa got into the bathroom and scrambled to get ready.

To say the least, plans haven't gone the way they were supposed to. It's a little after 11:30am here and registration starts at noon and none of us have even eaten yet! There's a staff meet-and-greet at 3 till the welcome feast too.

With that...I'm off to get dressed and get ready for Megan to show up again so we can do a Panera run (at least, that's what I'm hungry for...). I leave you all with two photos: Melissa (mlwl) and I and The Four Roomies. Megan's the one who did the bunny ears behind Melissa and I; Haley took the picture.

Stephenie Meyer

So...I just got back from seeing Stephenie Meyer and Justin Furstenfeld (the lead singer from Blue October). The entire event lasted a little less than an hour and we had to wait like another 2 hours (maybe less?) before we got our book signed by her.

First off, I should start with how the day started off.

Haley and I THOUGHT we were going to pick up Megan today at ORD around 9am, but she missed her flight and ended up not making it to the hotel till almost 6pm. Her flight was delayed, she took the train here, had to take the bus, and walk to the hotel. So Haley and I ended up coming to the hotel early, but we stopped at the grocery store first. Her grandmother insisted on paying for our food as her contribution to the whole thing, which we tried to talk her out of, but she she insisted. Both of Haley's grandparents were really hospitable and so incredibly nice! We ended up getting to the registration desk around 12:15pm (check-in time is at 3 pm and check-out is at 11am). We get all checked-in and he hands me the keys to our room (room 924). I was a bit confused since we didn't pay for early check-in and all that, but I figured we'd go check it out anyway. Sure 'nough, our room was all ready! So we got to check in early and we just hung out at the hotel.

Melissa texts me asking if we were at the hotel yet and we were so I told her the room and let her in. We also called to have a mini-'frige brought to our room so we have that to use while we're here. The three of us just hung out, rested, talked about Breaking Dawn, I was on my computer, and whatever else. Around 5 pm we decided we should head out and look for food. Megan still hadn't arrive and was still iffy at that time. We stopped at Cosi's and got sort of like sandwich type things. We went to Millennium Park then and ate our food. It's not really hot in Chicago, but the humidity is horrible so my clothes were sticking to me by then (a half hourish walk) and it was disgusting! After eating, we walked around Millennium Park for a little and then walked to the theater.

We ended up waiting till the VERY last minute for Megan to arrive. I mean, LAST minute. We sat down in our seats at 7:02 and the event started at 7:10. LoL We had pretty cool seats. We were on the floor, but they elevated the floor so we were in the back row of the first sloped part, so we had a nice view. Justin Furstenfeld came out and had his acoustic guitar and sang three songs based off of the series. They were good, but I'm not jazzed about fan music...Then Stephenie Meyer came out and answered some questions. This was the first time she was able to answer questions about Breaking Dawn so the questions were interesting, but nothing was like really "deep" and sometimes I felt let down by the answers she supplied. Then Justin came out with Stephenie and Stephenie would listen to Blue October while she was writing and some of the band's songs are songs that relate to the series or a certain character. So Stephenie talked about who the song related to and Justin would play the song on his guitar or just sang it. It was kind of neat because Justin would then tell some of the history behind the song too. The band is a rock band so it was kind of interesting hearing the songs with an acoustic guitar. In some ways, I liked him better with the acoustic guitar than the the hard rock (I should relisten to some of their music, though). He really put the feeling into the song better, I think. Anyway, after that they started letting people out to get books signed.

One of the publisher representatives were letting people out and doing trivia and then people started showing off their t-shirts and there was some smack! LoL It was kind of funny, but some of the shirts had some very STRONG innuendo in them and we (Megan, Haley, Shawna, and I) were just appalled! Then we were lamenting the fact we wished these were all Harry Potter fans than Twilight fans. We might have been acting a wee bit snobby in the literary department.... *innocent look* We got upset though because someone's shirt said something like how Albus Severus wished he had a name like Renesme or how Albus Severus has nothing on Renesme for a name. We were ready for the Harry Potter vs Twilight smack down. LoL Luckily, they stopped doing that. It was getting to be a smack down between the different fractions. :P Anyway, once we were line, it was much better. She just signed her name in the book with a sharpie and out we were! She did talk to us, though. LoL I don't think she was as nice as Jo, but I might be a little biased. LoL

We're back in the hotel now. I'm about to take a "get the sweat off me" shower since the humidity is just horrible here! Megan is out getting food with Shawna (she's not staying with us, but she's a Leaky person). Melissa went down to the hotel's bar or something to meet up with some more Leaky people. Tomorrow is wrock (better known as wizard rock). I have to buy a $20 ticket, but it should be good. That's ALL day with a 2 hour dinner break. We might go to the Shedd tomorrow, we might not. We're thinking of hitting the Rainforest Cafe that's closest to us for dinner, though!

On a sad note, my camera won't work properly outdoors. *sigh* It turns
all red (like it's overexposed). It works fine in a room, though. It's
a complete mystery to me since it worked when Chris and I went
tidepooling and at the Aquarium gala. I haven't dropped it or anything
either. NO clue. I also realized today that my camera is only 2
megapixels! LoL That says something about how old my camera is. Anyway,
I've been using Haley's camera to take pictures since she feels weird
taking pictures of a city she visits a lot. :P We'll try uploading
pictures everyday, if we can or think about it. I bought a 7-day
wireless pass for $60 at the hotel so I can use it 24/7 basically.
Might as well utilize that!

With that...I'm out.

Have I mentioned I hate airports?

I wrote this somewhere else for other Terminus people arriving at Chicago tomorrow, but it basically sums up my day pretty well.

I'm hoping the weather remains nice for those flying in because it simply was NOT fun today for me. My flight was delayed by almost 4 hours because there was lightning, thunder, and heavy rain at ORD. Then, upon arrival, we found out that about 1.5 hours after we took off from LAX they closed down ORD because another weather cell went through. By the time we landed, the airport was a little backed up and we sat on the tarmac waiting for a gate to open. Once we got off the plane, our luggage was delayed because the weather picked back up again and it was deemed unsafe for the workers to get the luggage off the planes! I was supposed to arrive at ORD at 7:06pm. By the time I got my luggage, it was 12:15am.

I didn't tell the others this, but my flight from Monterey to LAX was also a little late (30 minutes). So, to say the least, my day was full of "delays." Let's hope that doesn't happen on my way home because I have TWO connecting flights and a short layover in Cincinnati when I leave ORD.

In about 7ish hours we pick Megan up from the airport (she's our roomie) and we're going grocery shopping then we'll get dropped off at the hotel around 3pm by Haley's grandmother. I'm SO excited!!

"Bethany - what a pretty name!"

I forgot to tell about my funny-weird story at the Aquarium from today.

I was at the touch pool, but we got a complaint from a visitor that people were touching the animals in the Aviary. I was the 3rd person at the touch pool so I went to go check. There was almost NO one in the aviary and I talked with the 3 volunteers in there already and they said they told these people to stop, but they kept touching and they kept saying to stop. Anyway, the problem wasn't there anymore so I ended up helping a few visitors in there. Well, this one guy was asking questions and I was helping him and Ross also came over to help. So Ross wanders away and I'm there and the guy looks at me and says, "you have a very pretty name." I must admit it's not uncommon that someone compliments me on my name, so I said, "thank you," thinking the convo was finished. Then he keeps standing there and says, "it's a very lovely name. I like it a lot." I'm starting to creep out a little now and, again, say, "thanks" and start to walk away. He didn't look like he was going to move anytime soon, it was weird. It was also weird because the guy was older (mid-40's?) and I'm pretty sure he had a daughter.

The funny thing is I think most times I get compliments about my name from males. Even on-line a lot of the guys would say, "I like your name. I'm putting it down on my list of potential daughter names." No joke. *shrugs*

With that, I'm off to sleep since my external HD FINALLY mounted and I've been backing up my files.

What a week(end)!

Thursday was Shae's bachelorette party. We went to Lallapalooza's and had some food and a drink. Then we went to the Mucky Duck and the girls basically just danced. It was nice and Shae had a good time, so that's what counts.

Friday night was the Breaking Dawn book release. We sold 200 books in 30 minutes - oh yeah! It was good. I was at the registration table a lot, which was perfectly fine with me, but that meant I didn't see any of the party. Like I said, it was fine with me! LoL I got home around 2 pm and started reading the book (even though I had the wedding that same day). I finally fell asleep around 6:20am and got about 460 pages read in that timespan. I've read a few more pages since then, but the book (I promise no spoilers!) has left me a bit disgruntled for various reasons so I'm not feeling the "need" and "rush" to finish the book like Deathly Hallows.

Shae and Adam had a LOVELY wedding. The ceremony was less than 30 minutes long,
which was nice. LoL Adam's father is a pastor, so he officiated the ceremony. We loved seeing the family resemblance of the
Mitchell men and the mothers! Wow! The bridesmaids had lovely black
dresses, which surprised me because her colors were a shade of pink.
The dresses were functional for other events, though, so that's gotta
be nice for them. Shae looked positively beautiful! I loved her dress.
It has a sweetheart neckline with a strap that attaches to make it a
halter (though it could have been done as a strapless). It's an A-line
dress with lace and sequins sewn onto the sides of the dress, bodice,
and the strap for the halter. She had a short train (not decorated at
all). The dress was perfect for her.

Adam started crying when
she walked down the aisle and Shae started to cry while saying her
vows. The funny part was right when the pastor (Adam's father) started
speaking, the ring bearer dropped one of the rings! So we hear this
"tink, tink, tink" and the boy scrambles to get the ring. We're all
muffling our laughter so eventually Adam's father makes a joke and we
just all start laughing. Adam had to be prompted a few times on what to
do too, it was cute. They both looked so happy and radiant!

For
their favors, they had a candy bar! They had little boxes with "Shae
and Adam Mitchell August 2, 2008" on them and they had 9 different
candies you could fill the box up with. It totally rocked my world. LoL

Today I had the aquarium (or I guess Sunday), which was the first time I've been there in a month! It went well, but it was SO crowded! This weekend we had a sailboat race in the Bay and Spirit West Coast also, so we had some crowds from that. It was nice to be back, though.

With that...I need to get this stupid external HD to mount on my laptop so I can back-up my laptop before I LEAVE! It mounted the first time, but got hung up on a file so it "froze." Now it won't mount...I have the most difficulties getting the stupid thing to mount, it's nuts. Anyway, my plane departs from Monterey a few minutes after 10am for LAX. I go from LAX to ORD. I should arrive at ORD around 7:10pm (local time). I think (and hope) I've packed everything! I will post about Terminus and post pictures over the week (if I get my act together - LoL).

Tales of Beedle the Bard

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here to inform you that I have purchased the Collector's Edition and Standard Edition of Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling.

For those that can't recall information I've blogged about over 7 months ago, you will recall that JK Rowling handwrote and illustrated 7 of the leather bound editions of Tales of Beedle the Bard. Six of those editions (every intro was different and every gemstone in each edition were different colors) were given away to people who were closest to the whole process of Harry Potter through the years as "Thank Yous." The 7th (or "moonstone") one was auctioned off in December 2007 through Sotheby's. Amazon.com bought the book at an amazing £1,950,000 (double that number and you get the approx USD value). The proceeds went to her charity, The Children's Voice.

Now, Amazon.com was fair and reviewed each of the stories and set-up a contest where the winner and another person were flown to the UK and the winner got to actually sit in a room and HOLD the book and READ the stories. No one, other than the 6 people and whomever they shared it with, had read the stories. So, you can imagine how the entire fandom was dying to know what the stories were. There were photos taken of the moonstone edition (click here and scroll down past the reviews and there are the photos) and whatnot, but I had no hopes in ever reading the stories. I was bummed, but I wasn't overly bummed because the story that was important we read about in Deathly Hallows and the rest were just for fun.

Anyway, today (or I guess yesterday - Thursday) it was announced that the book was going to be published and all net proceeds would go to The Children's Voice (Amazon.com and the people who own the other 6 books gave it an okay to do). I was SO excited! Then I found out they have a Collector's Edition and, well, I couldn't pass it up. Rumor has it there will only be 100,000 editions made and they're exclusive to Amazon.com (makes sense). If you look at the pictures, it's going to be REALLY cool. It's as close to a replica as you can get. The standard edition is for my reading pleasure. LoL

Doremifasollatido and Durkin

Okay. I thought Arrrrr was just hilarious, this one is even funnier because he sings the horse's name in the stretch. LoL

Doremifasollatido's race in July

It's even funnier because he goes back to being normal to call the 2nd and 3rd place finishers. LoL

"Here comes Arrrrr..."

I was on bloodhorse.com tonight reading some blogs from the staff members and this one blog had commented about a horse named Arrrrr (that's 5 r's!) and Tom Durkin calling the races for this horse and how funny it is. Now, I must say, personally, I think Tom Durkin is the best horse race announcer in the industry. He's got that nice voice to listen to and he's really good (not that other people aren't, but I just like how he calls a race). I'm not signed up with TVG so I couldn't watch the races of Arrrrr, but I figured...Hey! YouTube has almost everything! Sure enough...YouTube has the two races announced by Tom Durkin for this horse Arrrrr. I watched them and just laughed! Tom Durkin just plays with the name when he says it and it's hilarious!  I must say, whoever named the horse DEFINITELY has a sense of humor because, think about it, this horse in any race has to have its name called out! Anyway, the combo is hilarious.

Below are the two races called by Durkin for Arrrrr. The video quality is horrible, but the sound quality is fine. After the horses break, there's a slight "dead air" before Durkin starts talking, so don't turn your volume up thinking you can't hear anything! Give it a few seconds.

Arrrrr's Belmont Race in June
Arrrrr's Saratoga Race in July

As for tonsil stuff...I'm feeling GREAT! Swallowing is much easier now. It hardly hurts at all to swallow now. I still get some random ear pains every once in a while (at truly random times), but for the most part they're okay. My left side is still slightly tender, but I don't worry about what I eat at all anymore. Talking is still an issue, oddly enough, though I can talk at basically a normal level and at fairly long amounts. I still feel like I'm slurring my words sometimes and not enunciating as well as I could, but at least it's getting better. I'd say my speaking capabilities are about 85%. I find talking more difficult at various times and sometimes I feel like if I talk too much, it gets harder to talk later on. It's kind of weird. It's very much "come and go," I guess. I still avoid talking on phones as much as I can because phones are hard to hear over sometimes and since I'm not enunciating as well as I usually can, it just makes me not want to talk on the phone. LoL Speaking in person is pretty good, though. I still can't "yell" or raise my voice really loudly. So...let's hope there's no reason for me to yell for a bit longer because it wouldn't be fun!

I leave for Chicago in a little less than a week (Monday, August 4th!). I'm EXCITED!!!! It's going to be fun.  The wireless at the Chicago Hilton is $12.95 for 24 hours. So...I'm still debating what I'm going to do about wireless as I'm bringing my laptop. My roomies might split the cost with me or we may just truck to other places around us. Rumor has it the hotel next to the Chicago Hilton has wireless for $6.95. :P We might also be able to get it free in the lobby, but that still has to be determined. LoL We're plotting ways of cutting down costs too like buying oatmeal, easymac, and other things we can use hot water for since we'll have a coffeemaker in our room. We're also thinking of buying drinks and whatnot too so we don't have to buy them in the city. We're going to work the system!

Anyway, with that, I should head to bed since it's almost 3 am. My sleeping schedule is totally messed up and I can sleep for like 7 hours, be dead tired the whole day, and still fall asleep at 3 am. It's horrible. I'm sleep deprived and it's almost a guarantee I'll be sleep deprived in Chicago too. LoL

Check-up at Doc's

All is good with my tonsils! I'm healing as I'm supposed to. Always good to hear. I'm taking this Sat off from work, though, as I can only speak at about 50% still. I still have pain in my left side (about 70% better?) and it still hurts and bothers my ears when I swallow hot or cold things. Popsicles don't seem to be a problem though. I'm finding drinking to be a bit harder than chewing, funny enough. I think it has some to do with tilting your head back to swallow. I seem to do okay with straws. *shrugs* I still tire after being out for a while, but I'm getting there. I don't find the need to nap as much as I did before.

I ordered a Stephenie Meyer Breaking Dawn Concert t-shirt on-line today. Hopefully it'll be here before next Friday so I can wear it to the Breaking Dawn book release! I'm going to the concert in Chicago, so I'll just have my shirt early! :) Now let's hope it fits...LoL

I found out the other day that Level Two (a Harry Potter conference) that was going to be in San Jose in July 2009 is now going to be in San Francisco and it's called Azkatraz! Azkatraz being a combo of Azkaban (the wizard prison in Harry Potter) and Alcatraz. I think the name and the location is MUCH better. The name fits the theme better too. We'll see if I'll be able to go or not. It depends on grad schools and also whether I go to LeakyCon or not. LeakyCon is The Leaky Cauldron's conference they're doing in Boston in May 2009. As a staff member, it'd totally rock to go to LeakyCon, but Azkatraz would be a lot cheaper since I won't have to do a plane ticket. So...we'll see. If I end up going to Columbia I won't be able to go to Azkatraz anyway as I'll be in school by then. LeakyCon is during Memorial weekend, so probably the weekend before I start at Columbia. I probably won't go to LeakyCon even then. We'll see, though!

I finished Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I devoured the books is the better term. I absolutely loved the books in the series so far. I can't wait till the last one comes out next year! I simply loved the ingenuity of mixing the Greek Mythology into the series. It was fresh and clever. It also gave a nice fresh spin to those old Greek Myths we all know. My next series I'm reading is James Patterson's Maximum Ride series. It's a step-up from Riordan's series (that's how Chris terms it), which is independent reader (IR). Maximum Ride is in the young adult (YA) section and it's fiction, but has a slight sci-fi feeling to it. Riordan's was definitely fantasy. I'm not too far into the series, but I'm liking it so far. There's 6 kids who have been subjected to scientific experiments where they have avian genes grafted onto their human genes and they have wings. So it's the story about how they escape from the "Erasers" (half man, half wolf) and try and figure out why they were made and everything. The only thing I'm not liking about the series is the fact the chapters are like 5 pages long! There's 133 chapters in this book! We'll see how it goes as I get more into the book, though.

Anyway, with that, I'm off to finish my Contest work and sleep!

Two more weeks till I leave for Terminus!

Two weeks from today I will be in CHICAGO!! I can't believe Terminus is already here. It's gone by SO fast. I was counting how many weeks until Terminus today and realized it was in two weeks! Where did the time go?!

I think I'm more excited about all the people I'll be meeting than the
actual symposium. LoL It should be fun, though. The actual symposium
doesn't start till Thursday, August 7th so we have a few days to hang
out in the city and do stuff. We also need to go grocery shopping
sometime to get stuff we can stash in our hotel room to help cut down
on food expenses. The sales tax in Chicago is 10%! That makes me super
sad. Apparently the city's sales tax went up so they can make a bid for
the Olympics and they need the money for it. LoL

The weekend before is going to be nuts too. Friday, August 1st is the book release of Breaking Dawn (the last book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series). So I'm working that till who knows when (2 or 3 am?) and Saturday morning is Shae and Adam's wedding. So I'll be going to that. Sunday I have the Aquarium and Monday I leave for Chicago!

Now to my tonsils...I'm doing a load better. Still don't always feel like eating or drinking, but I'm doing a lot better. I'd say I'm like 70% better. I still have troubles talking, especially loudly, but I'm getting better at it. The back/base of my tongue is still sore so I still can't stick my tongue out very far, rub my tongue along my back teeth, etc. When I eat I sometimes feel like I get food stuck in the back of my throat too. The pain on my left side when I swallow comes and goes. I still feel the worst when I wake up, but through the day it sort of dulls out. I also still get some pain in my left ear. They must have done more work on the left side or something because my right side feels 95% fine. My left side is like 60-70%. I still get some pain in the back middle of my throat too. I think that's where my adenoids were, which were removed also. Other than I'm still eating slowly on harder/crunchier foods (I can eat soft foods before they get cold now!), I'm doing pretty good. Energy level I'd say is around 70% also. I still get tired and feel a need to take a nap in the daytime, but I'm doing way better!

I'm supposed to work Saturday at Borders from 2-10pm. I had to take the aquarium off yesterday because I still can't talk, but hopefully I'll be okay by Saturday. Thursday I have a follow-up appointment with my doctor so I'll check with him on whether I should/could work on Saturday.

Lastly...During this past week I've gotten into a new book series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. It's a sci-fi/fan independent reader (IR) series (ages 8-11), but I'm really enjoying it. It's set in modern times in New York, but Greek Mythology plays a HUGE role in the series. Essentially, the Greek gods/goddesses live in our time with us (Olympus is on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building). It's pretty fun because I like to guess who the new person is or try and recall the story of them. Their different stories play parts in how Percy (the main character) solves and handles different issues too. It's a lot of fun and it's a nice refresher of Greek Mythology. It makes me want to go back and reread some of the stories. There will be 5 books in the series and the 4th one just came out recently. So I read the first three in 3 days (1 book a day) and I got the 4th one today.

With that...I'm off to start reading the 4th book!

Day #8 - One week later

It was a week from today that I had my tonsils out and I thought I'd be much farther along in my recovery process, but...I have made it regardless!

I had a minor set back the other day because I was spotting some blood, my ears were super hurting when I swallowed, and medicine going down was burning. Not to mention, with all those things, the pain in my throat increased a bit. I was super bummed about that. I was getting better and then woke up with a different kind of pain that was more than the day before. It was a bummer.

Yesterday I took it easy and ate at THREE separate times (so proud) and had about 3 popsicles. After the morning there was no more blood that I could see and I was taking my normal liquid tylenol every 4 hours to keep the pain down and inflammation.

I still woke up once last night and had to grab my cup of water and then trucked downstairs at like 6 am to grab the ice pack for my ears, but I went back to sleep fairly fast. When I woke up today I was in a little discomfort, but as the hours went by...I was feeling pretty darn good! Thankfully, today I feel the BEST I have since last Friday in every regard. My energy level is pretty low still, but it's coming back. The pain in my ears when I swallow has lessened, and the pain in my throat has SIGNIFICANTLY gone down. It's still sore in the back middle and left side, but the right gives me almost no troubles at all. Anyway, everything feels pretty good, enough that I haven't taken any pain meds since 10 pm last night!

I still can't talk and I still eat my food so slowly that it's cold by the time I get 3/4 through it, but I don't have the same level of pain! I still swallow cautiously, contemplating whether I really need to swallow, but I'm trying to swallow more now. Large, lumpy foods still travel down pretty badly so I'm still stuck to a boring diet, but at least I'm getting better.

Onto other news...I got my new glasses today. They look almost exactly like the glasses I have now. LoL The only real difference is the frame is a little thicker, but it only has a frame at the top, the lenses are pretty small, and they're about the same color. The temple pieces are also a little thicker, but it's okay. Not totally jazzed about the thicker nose band as it looks like it's more of a "v" than my old ones, but they're more comfortable on my ears at least. The lenses are transition too. I just had to give in because there was no way I'd do clip-on sunglasses or switch them with glasses and I should wear sunglasses. LoL The new prescription is a little stronger in both eyes, but I feel it a lot more in the left eye. Then again, my left eye is much weaker than my right eye. Anyway, I'm slowly adjusting to them. Swapping between my new and old. The new ones don't give me a headache, they make me feel a bit dizzy and nauseous instead So...I wear them for as long as I can stand and then switch back to the old ones.

Anyway, with that...I'm off to rest. Going out today wore me out a little and I ate right before going out and eating wears me out. Yes, I know. It's sad that eating wears me out. LoL

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is created by Joss Whedon. He created such TV shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly.

Our webmistress on Leaky told us all about this and it's fantastic! It is a musical of sorts and it's about an evil mastermind, who, well, isn't quite there. It's funny, cute, low-budget, but well done. The singing isn't bad either. Who'd of thunk! The best part about it? It's FREE! You can watch the the parts (Part II available on Thursday and Part III on Sunday) or buy a season pass on iTunes for only $3.99. Once Monday arrives, though, the episodes won't be available again.

Apparently, from his "Master Plan," he created these during the strike and wants to change how things are done. Can't blame them for their vision to change things to make them more fun for them and for us as viewers/purchasers.

Anyway...Go to Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and check it out!

Day #5 - No laughing!

So...it's day 5 that I've lived in pain of not swallowing.

Pain wise I'm doing pretty good. I haven't taken pain meds since around 7pm yesterday. So that's not bad. I could probably use some pain meds now, but I'm over the codeine stuff. I'd rather suffer through the pain of eating (which is about to the level it was on Saturday WITH pain meds) and wait for some plain liquid tylenol (mom's going to the drugstore today). I'm not being brave, I just seriously can't stomach the thought of taking anymore of that medicine...LoL

My tongue is still sore at the back base, especially on the left. They must have done more work on the leftside because the base of my tongue hurts (so I don't chew on that side) and my left ear bothers me a lot on that side too. I may be able to eat more normal (besides the swallowing part) if my tongue wasn't so sore. I might also be able to talk better if my tongue worked too! I'm trying to keep myself hydrated as much as possible to help reduce the scabs comin' out and me bleeding. According to my nurse friend, about 5-7 days after the surgery is the most critical time on whether you'll bleed or not. So I'm forcing liquids down. Probably not enough or as much as she'd like (she said TWO liters!), but I'm forcing liquids down even though I'd rather live on bread and water for a week than try to swallow anything.

Yesterday Chris came over and we watched Tom Hank's The Terminal. It was a cute movie. I can't imagine living in an airport for like 9 months, though. LoL The only bummer about Chris coming over is he was telling work stories and they made me laugh! You use a lot of neck muscles to laugh and I simply can't laugh because it HURTS like nothing else. So I told him to STOP making me laugh and he said, "that's what I did the first few days, you're past that now." *rolls eyes* He did stop, though. Kind of ruins the funny parts when someone goes "haha...*groans in pain* ow...it hurts to laugh *groans in pain again*" It just doesn't have the same effect. :P

Well...with that...I'm off to do something other than be on my computer and watching TV. I've been minimally on my computer, but almost plastered to the TV. I've been reading, but...*shrugs*

Day #3 of Pain

I woke up okay this morning (I'm sleeping kind of funny, though...Not
really deep) and wasn't in a whole lot of pain so I said 1 tsp of my
tylenol/codeine and then I took my antibiotic. I came downstairs to
take my THIRD medicine stuff (I've got the grossest combo of medicines
ever) and lazed around the couch. A couple of hours later, though, I
was in a lot of pain and my mom said, "I'm assuming this is a 2 tsp
time?" I can take up to 3, but the most I've ever taken is 2. Codeine
makes me feel weird sometimes. Anyway, after that I ate some sherbert
and some solid food, but then I was feeling nauseous. I ended up
sleeping for 1.5 hours instead. I had a bit more mac and cheese, but
I'm just in pain.

The swelling I can tell has gone down a
little, but the wall or sides of my throat hurt like NOTHING ELSE. So
I've been careful. I am trying to get more fluids down, even if it
kills me. The unfortunate thing is yogurt and sherbert are a bit too
sweet for my stomach right now so I have to be careful or it starts making my stomach feel weird. I did finish the vitamin water Chris got me the other day, which was good.


I feel better today, but at the same time worse. Is that
possible? LoL Yesterday I think the swelling affected me more than anything. I still have some swelling (my tongue feels huge), but I can tell the swallowing doesn't hurt as much because of the swelling. Who'd of thought burping, hiccuping, etc your throat muscles work to do. I basically try and avoid anything with the throat/mouth. It doesn't really hurt to chew, but the base of my tongue is sore and you use your tongue a lot to move the food in your mouth. So...that limits my chewing down a bit.

I think one of the worst things about getting your tonsils out is the fact you can't EAT most foods. Do you know how agonizing it is when you're watching TV and food shows up on a commercial? I practically drool. I'm hungry almost all day, but I can hardly get anything down and you get to a point where scrambled eggs, sherbert, water, and whatever smattering you can barely get down your throat just doesn't sound appetizing anymore! My mom made her homemade chicken soup the other day (on Friday) and I can't eat any of it and I just have to imagine eating it! Shish kabobs are being made tonight! We've never done shish kabobs here! I can't eat them! It's super sad and makes me depressed. If I loose any weight from this ordeal, I'm bound to make it all back from eating everything I can get my hands on when I'm all well...

I fixed the background. It's taken me a few days (weeks?) to notice that it wasn't working. Sometimes if the page doesn't finish loading the background doesn't load. I realized today the background I had was on my CSUMB account, which I no longer have. So I had to upload the photo to somewhere else.

With that...I'm off to do something other than lazing around and doing nothing. I have to move every once in a while or watching too much TV or whatever makes me feel ill.

I'm tonsil-less!

So last weekend was spent at Pismo, which was fun. This weekend will be spent laid up because I got my tonsils removed yesterday!

Here's a post I made in Beanies:

Had the surgery yesterday. My mom and Chris were there the whole time.

The nurse for my surgery and the anesthesiologist
were funny and had me laughing before they put me under. I saw my
doctor (Dr. Block) once before the surgery, right when the
anesthesiologist showed up, but I saw the anesthesiologist like 4
times. I told them general anesthesia and me don't work. So they gave
me some nausea stuff during the surgery and a bit afterwards, but I
still woke up nauseas and there was just no way I could have made it to
the car. So I stayed in recovery a bit longer than I would have. They
gave me some other nausea medicine, which helped me loads, but had a
side effect of making you sleepy (I was already having problems waking
up at first). So it was a rush to get me dressed and out to the car as
soon as they could. I fell asleep in the car and when I got home. I
slept most of yesterday. I had some nausea when I got up to go to the
restroom (they pumped me with a LOT of fluids before I left), but was
okay till later when I had some homemade chicken broth and apple sauce.
Stomach didn't like it, so I vomited. Definitely didn't feel good, but
the good thing was there was no bleeding. Few hours later I felt like a
scrambled egg so my mom made me one and I kept that down. I had two
more scrambled eggs today.

The doctor said my tonsils were "a
mess" as my mom tells me. They were full of infection and were so large
that they were irritating the wall of my throat so he said I may be
sore around there (boy am I!). I ended up sleeping on the couch to stay
upright last night. Wasn't the best place to sleep, but it was better than my bed trying to sleep upright. I wouldn't have accomplished that.

I
haven't been taking too much of my liquid tylenol with codine. My
throat is fine as long as I don't swallow and the codine makes me
sleepy and groggy. So I've only taken 1 tsp in the last 14 hours. I'm
feeling loads better today, but really weak. I shouldn't even be on my
computer this much, but I wanted to check everything.

I basically feel like I have the world's worst sore throat. It hurts a LOT to swallow so every swallow is a definite chore and I think about why I have to swallow quite a bit before I do it. I did take a shower today so I feel a bit more human at least.

With that...I'm off to laze around some more and maybe eat something...

Rewatchable Movies

There are some movies you just love to watch over and over again. Some of them better than others and some that just tickle your fancy every time.

I was just listening to a song from Pirates of the Caribbean (PotC - the first one) and it was the final song in the movie right when the film ends and goes to credits. It's that nice theme song for PotC that everyone knows when they hear it. Funny enough, hearing that song made me think of seeing the movie in the theater. Made me think of when everyone is finished watching it and start instantly talking about whether the movie was good. That time when people start standing up and filing out of the theater. It was kind of weird. On top of it, it made me want to see the movie again! PotC is a fantastic movie. It's one of those movies you can watch over and over again and you won't get tired of it. I probably still chuckle to myself at the same parts I laughed at when I first saw the movie. It's just one of those movies.

The other day I watched Two Towers and the first half of Return of the King. I was watching it with Chris and I kept saying lines before they happened. I think he was about to strangle me at one point (I did behave myself eventually). He said something like, "watched the movie a few times?" I can't even estimate how many times I've seen LotR. I think Fellowship gets the raw end of the deal for me because I typically start with Return of the King and go backwards. For some reason I don't quite get to Fellowship...I should have a LotR marathon when I get my tonsils out! LoL I usually watch the extended DVDs, but the theater ones are just as good (that's the version I saw with Chris). Again, LotR is one of those movies that I love to watch over and over and I still enjoy it as if it was the first time.

Now we've come to the Harry Potter films. The weekend of July the 4th, ABC Family is doing a Harry Potter movie weekend again and in November Half-Blood Prince comes out in theaters. I like watching the Harry Potter movies, but they don't instill in me the same urge or desire to watch them. Don't get me wrong, I still like to rewatch them, but...they're just not the same. It probably has a lot to do with the fact I know the books so well, but even then...I just don't think they're as good as other movies. LotR is a great set of movies on their own, books aside. My observations have shown that very few people who are fans of the books will say they don't like the movies. In fact, I don't think I've found anyone who is a fan of the books who didn't like the movies. The movies hold up as separate pieces that are semi-attached to the books. Harry Potter simply doesn't hold up. I know numerous fans who do NOT like the movies, but still watch them in theater. They only do this because it's almost a necessity if you're a HP fan. Maybe the LotR observation has more to do with the fact I'm not engrossed into the fandom as I am with Harry Potter (when you work for a Harry Potter fansite that has a staff of 200+ and have 10 really good HP friends...being engrossed happens!), but I doubt that.

A movie-to-book adaptation is never perfect and it's not that I think the storyline and what they cut out of HP is absolutely terrible, I just don't think the production is as good as it can be. WB is making multi-millions off of HP fans (simply because a few hundred million are fans) with the movies. If it weren't for the fact HP fans seem to be a breed of their own compared to other fan groups (I think every group says that, but HP fans range all over the world in strong ways compared to Star Wars or Trekkies), I wonder if the movies would have been produced this far into the series. I don't think Narnia is going to make it past Dawn Treader. That's a bit sad, but I just didn't enjoy the last movie. There was no connection between the audience and the characters. There was no real growth and I just had issues with the storyline. I do admit the production value of Prince Caspian did go up from Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe. At least I overall enjoy HP, but I think WB would be opening themselves to millions of hatemail from disgruntled fans (don't underestimate moving hundreds of millions of fan all over the world!) if they didn't at least attempt to create good movies. I am disappointed, though, that WB seems to be cheap about their productions. They cheap out on a lot of special effects for magic because it'll cost too much. I have issues with that since they make so much money (they also own the marketing license for the HP merchandise). Call me a fan, but I think they can at least attempt to make the best movie they possibly can. I don't think anyone after watching the movies would say they are right now.

So...Though I find the HP movies rewatchable and enjoyable when I watch them...They just won't ever match PotC or LotR in my mind. PotC and LotR are in a league of their own. HP I wish was better, but I'll take what I can get. I do like the cast, but I think they're wasting the adult cast for one-liners here and there.

Borders is DEFINITELY the Titanic

I just found out that Borders is no longer giving the EGC for Employee of the Month! :( There's no point to being Employee of the Month! You get a certificate, a name badge insert (yay...), a letter, and a supposed lunch with your GM (I don't think anyone has done one in a while...). They're also getting rid of our bottle water in the back room. What the heck. Seriously. What the heck?!

This shifting baseline is changing awfully fast in the negative direction for Borders...

Changes and Shifting Baselines

My musing for the day.

-----

Borders, corporate wise, has been making my job less enjoyable (and for my store) the past 6 or more months. Managers (besides the GM) are no longer salary, they cut an entire manager position, we don't get free tea/coffee from the cafe anymore, they got rid of the $30 monthly EGC (electronic gift card) for full-time employees, we don't get holiday pay anymore, they're changing the return policy, they're changing our ordering system (which we think is less customer friendly), they've cut our hours a few times, they cut something like 20% (or was it 40%?) of corporate staff, and there are some other smaller in-store changes that have happened.

Changes are hard, especially when they're in the "negative" realm, but I can't help thinking that when the next wave of Borders employees come through, these changes won't affect them at all. It's only because I've been at Borders for 4 years and am experiencing these "negatives" that have made me enjoy my job less. It's the same for my fellow employees too. We've hired a few new employees since this all started and to them it's how Borders is. All you need is the next generation to live with the changes from the start and the changes don't seem that significant at all. It's the shifting baseline.

This thought all came about because I'm editing some changes to the NOEP's non-market webpage. I was reading something about the creation of the first national system of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and they're equated to our (the U.S.) system of national parks and wilderness areas. Hardly anyone ever complains about the national parks or our wilderness areas. They've been ingrained into the US's history now and people understand the importance (for the most part) of protecting the land from destruction. I don't think you'd find too many people nowadays who'd complain about the creation of Yosemite, Yellowstone, or the Ventana Wilderness along the Central Coast. Yet, when it comes to creating MPAs, marine reserves and sanctuaries, there's a lot of upheaval from various stakeholders (or interested parties). This, of course, is because they're living through the change and not after the change.

When it comes down to it, though, there's not much difference between the ocean and the land in ways of the need to protect it. We need to protect the ocean just as much as land (for many different reasons I could spend an entire other post on - LoL). Sadly, it's generally accepted that land has always been better managed and protected than the ocean. Not until recent decades have we really understood the ocean and the need to protect it and that's mostly because of the inaccessibility that the ocean has. It's not like just anyone can submerse themselves in the ocean for an hour and not have to worry about breathing. You can walk into Yosemite and not have to strap yourself to a tank of air. There's also the difficulty in actually "managing" the ocean. You can put fences up on land. You can create borders. You can't do that with the ocean easily and something not being easy means you're spending more money. More expenditure, new changes/restrictions, and less "solid" science means the changes that are trying to be enacted now are much more difficult to handle for generations now. Give it 30 years and these changes won’t even seem significant.

I can't help but think years from now how different the Earth will be because of change. Future generations will have grown up with MPAs, marine sanctuaries, and marine reserves. Will they think that the government is trying to take away public "oceans" for some crackpot idea? I seriously doubt it. I also wonder what state our national parks will even be in from now. The ocean is vast and the reason why for years people thought there was no way resources from the ocean could ever be exhausted. Course, we probably thought the same thing for land too and untouched, pristine land is getting scarce. Will we start "creeping" upon national parks and wildernesses? Or will they protected forever? Right now, if the government wanted to turn Yosemite into a housing district, I think there'd be some bloodshed over that. But do we say drilling in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) is okay, do we say drilling is okay within certain measures, or do we say drilling is not okay? If we say within certain measures, how do we make sure those measures are always kept and the baseline doesn't shift?

We're told by somebody sometime in our lives to not forget history. We read history books and we "remember" certain events, but what about the shifting baseline? Shifting baselines are sly because from generation to generation they don't seem like that much of a change. People don't live through changes very well, but growing up with a change we seem to do okay. So you change something a little to lessen the effect on current generations and then the next generation does that and so forth. Eventually, a HUGE change has occurred and you only notice it because you've looked at it from Point A and Point Z. You can't really prevent shifting baselines and changes, but they're real and affect all our lives. Borders has shifted its baseline and new employees aren't affected by this changed baseline. The implementation of a national system of MPAs is shifting the baseline in a more dramatic way, but it's changing.  Future generations won't think anything of MPAs like we don't think anything of national parks. The baseline is shifting for the good or bad, little or small because of change. So the question is...When do we say yes and no to change, compromises, and shifting baselines to protect our planet and our way of life? As people say…a little change never hurt anyone. Or does it?

Anti-Motivators

A co-worker of mine at MBARI every once in a while will e-mail all of us assistants these funny unmotivators. Today's, though, REALLY hit the nail on the head. So I'm going to post a few of them (there's a ton) that tickled my fancy, though the webpage has many more that are amusing.


Quality: This is the one that my co-worker e-mailed to us today. It fits finishing the FL report SO well it was almost sad reading it. LoL He sent it in regards to us doing the National report now, but it works for either!


Customer service: I think a lot of m co-workers would agree with this. LoL


Apathy: I know I feel like this at Borders!

With that...I'm off to eat and relax. I took tomorrow off from MBARI. I'm missing the BBQ tomorrow (chicken kebobs, tri-tip, Asian salad, etc for $3), but...I don't think I could make it through tomorrow. LoL

Books and deaths

As just about everyone in the world knows, Tim Russert passed away the other day from a heart attack.

Now, working at Borders, deaths are only important to us if they've published a book or they have a book about them. Tim Russert has published two books: Wisdom of Our Fathers (a book Borders was pushing as a Father's Day gift last year) and Big Russ and Me. We had Big Russ and Me on our Bargain tables for a LONG time and they sold okay. Not fantastic, but they did okay. His other ones you'd get asked about every once in a while too, but nothing spectacular. With his death, though, his books have suddenly become THE in thing to read and buy! Our store is all sold out. The bookstores around us are sold out. We can't order them. The publisher is out! So the publisher is reprinting his books and customers are practically banging down the doors wanting a copy of his books! I had to have told, at least, 5 people that we didn't have the books and the situation with the books yesterday. On top of that, I know a number of my co-workers told many more people the situation.

Having worked at Borders for 4 years this July, when someone dies...they suddenly become the most popular person. Does that just seem wrong to anyone else? Why is it when someone dies, there's such a fascination with them? It's like until they die, the populace just doesn't care about their life or their work. As soon as you die, though, you seem to be worth more. Ironic since they can't create, contribute, etc anymore to society. Take Princess Diana as an example. Do we seriously need to write a new book on her almost every year? Are
we really going to gain THAT much more knowledge of her life or death? Let the poor lady die in peace, people! Presidents and political figures, to me, are a bit different since their "contribution" or "legacy" can't be felt until some years later and most times people won't even regard them in any fashion until they're dead (that's politics for you). That makes a bit more sense, but, at the same time, it'd be nice to be recognized for your work BEFORE your death.

I guess there's something in society that can't heap praises upon you until you die JUST IN CASE you do something completely stupid and ruin everything you've worked for. Course, in that regard, you'd have books written about you in a jiffy because it'd be a scandal of sorts. I dunno, though. I really have no opinion either way of why society does what it does, but I think it's funny and, sometimes, sad that Tim Russert is all of a sudden so popular (book wise) when he's dead than when he was alive. Does his work mean that much more now that he's dead compared to when he was alive?

With that thought, I'm off to eat.

No wonder we have days off...

Today marked the 8th straight day I've worked. I am exhausted. In fact, from Monday, June 2nd, to either Wednesday, June 18th or Thursday, June 19th, I will have only had two days off. Thanks to the aquarium, Borders, and MBARI. Bank account may be liking it, but I am just simply exhausted. I think I've hit my capacity of working without days off. It wouldn't be so bad, either, except this last week at MBARI has been absolutely nuts because of getting a report finished to go to press on Monday. I don't want to see the report EVER again. Seriously. It was just really stressful, tedious, and annoying these past few days getting it finished. Borders tonight wasn't fun either. We had a call out from the cafe and another cafe person left work early because they're sick. So...They pulled someone off the floor to cover cafe and we have virtually no cashiers at all (we need to hire more) so everyone on the floor and the managers kept being called to the registers to help out. I feel like all we had was a line all day. Even then, I don't think we'll finish the day even close to our target. I probably, easily, spent about a third of my time at the registers. Of course, when there's no one on the floor...Customers needing to be helped takes longer and/or the store gets neglected. To say the least, when I left, the store wasn't pretty looking. So I feel bad for the closers and openers tomorrow. I'm sure the store will be trashed (I know kids was a messy-clean).

I put in an application to work at the new Apple store that's opening up at the Del Monte mall last Sunday. I got an e-mail yesterday asking for a day and time for an phone interview and asked to answer a few questions in the reply to the e-mail with a day and time. We'll see how THAT goes! I'm gone quite a bit in July and August,  so I'm not sure how that'll work in favor for me to get the position since, I think, August is when the store's training will happen and the set-up of the store. I think the store will open sometime in September. I'm thinking of taking the part-time job (whichever position I get) and working there 3 days and 2 days at Borders. Not exactly sure yet. I'm taking my micro and macroeconomics in the Fall and that's in the morning-afternoon or afternoon twice a week. So we'll see how everything pans out.

On another Apple news point...I thought about getting an iPhone, but the data plan just kills me. If the data plan was $20, I'd do it, but $30?! That's a bit much for me since $20 was my max on data prices...I have another year on my contract with my current phone anyway, but I'm not happy with the battery life or signal strength. I wish the phone plans were cheaper...I hardly even use my phone for verbal communication anyway. And, even if I do, most people I know have AT&T so it just goes M2M. I use my data plan much more. Oh well. It's not like I'm in immediate need for a new phone!

Well, with that. I'm off to sleep. I'm positively exhausted from working Borders tonight.