Maggie’s Blog

So I did it. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but I finally got my hair done. *evil grin* It’s dark, dark brown now. Like, almost black. I wasn’t intending to go *quite* that dark, but now that I’ve got it, I’m starting to really like it. It’s very different, though. I look like a totally different person–far more like the evil femme-villain with the short dark hair. Mwahahaha! My goals of world domination have taken one step further!

I will post pictures once Andy gets time to take them. ^_^

Also, cleaned out some of my room today, which was a good thing to get done, and which needs to be done before Andy moves his dad’s amp and guitars into my bedroom for storage. However, it did make my nose run like crazy, because apparently there’s a lot of dust in that room. But I did throw out a lot of garbage, so that’s good! And I can see the floor now, which is also good. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go through some of the boxes of random stuff I’ve got under my bed.

Maybe I’ll pick up a dust mask at Home Depot while I’m at it…

Watching Pan’s Labyrinth tonight, too, which we (Andy + Me) are looking forward to! We intended to see it back when it was out in theaters (yes, like more than a year ago), but we just never got the chance. So we’re watching it now. Hooray! ^_^

And that’s about it for today!

So the last week or so has been pretty chaotic. I won’t try to recap here, because I’m still pretty dazed. So moving on!

Got the wedding bands back from the jeweler’s today (hooray!) and they fit! Or at least, MINE fits–Andy hasn’t tried his on yet, but hopefully it’ll be all right. Also picked up a new anthology of SF, which I plan to look through. I’ve been trying to get on a “Best Of” anthology binge recently–I figure, I might as well read the best I can get my hands on, right? Can’t hurt, can it?

Also, in association with this entry’s title, I’m looking for a temp audience for the “novel” project I’m starting on this summer. “Starting” is perhaps a debatable word, since this project has been the black hole of those never-ending projects; I just want to make sure that at some point, I get a rough draft done. SO! I’m looking for people who would be open to being chapter readers. Now, “chapter readers” is actually debatable, too, since I don’t actually care if you read it (sure I’d love an encouraging note if you can muster it), I just need to THINK people are reading it. That keeps me from trying to go back and change everything once I’ve worked it into a chapter. SO if you think you can stomach a chapter of space opera by an extremely amateur writer appearing in your email inbox every so often, this might be just the task for you! Plus, it’d help me out a bunch. You don’t have to comment or critique–actually for this version, I’d prefer all critiques and corrections (of which there will need to be MANY–it’s a rough draft, so it’ll be really unpolished) be saved for the very end, when I’ve finished the last chapter and sent it out. I’m looking at it being about 20 chapters long, and each chapter will be about 3,000-5,000 words each (6-10 single spaced pages; 12-20 double spaced).

If you think you’d like to give this a try (it’s new for me, too!), just send me an email (m.d.jamison@gmail.com) and let me know. Hey, if it ever gets published (don’t hold your breath) I’ll put your name on the “Special Thanks” page. ^_-

There are about a million and one things to do in the next few days, weeks, and months culminating with the cross-country drive out to Portland, Oregon. You know, when I used to play “Oregon Trail” I didn’t think I’d be *actually* heading west. Anyway, that means a lot of things need to be done before then. Here’s the growing list:

1. Get Married –Since Andy and I are eloping, this could happen anytime before July.

2. Honeymoon in Switzerland–This will be over the first two weeks in July, hence the aforementioned “before July” clause above.

3. Get a Job–I just finished sending two applications in for jobs out in the Portland Area, but who knows if any of them would be willing to wait until August for me to start. I’d also like a job that can actually support two people in a one-bedroom place, if possible. Benefits would be a huge plus, but we might be able to get some kind of health coverage through Andy’s school.

4. Double-check Financial Aid–We need to make sure the financing goes through at WSCC, otherwise that will make life very complicated for a while.

5. Find a Car–Andy’s Volvo bit the dust. We need a new, preferably very cheap, car to get us out to Oregon.

6. Pack Up–With much moving comes great responsibility. We need to sift through all our stuff and figure out what is a “must have”, a “like to have”, and a “well, I guess we can leave it here for now” item. This also includes helping Andy’s family pack up, as his mom and twin brothers will be moving down to Texas at the end of the school year.

7. Smaller Tidbits–This includes getting my hair done (next Wednesday), getting a black dress for tomorrow, collecting all the recipes I want and putting them on index cards, getting index cards, getting thank-you notes for wedding gifts, renting a trailer for the trip to Oregon, having the family/friends post-honeymoon get-together, BBQ on the 25th, having Maryann out to visit!! YAY!!, getting a planner (so I can keep track of all this stuff), and hopefully keeping up on writing. I did manage to write a somewhat crappy short story last week, but I’m counting it, because I only need 4 brand new (not necessarily edited) stories. I’ve got another one on the mind, but I haven’t been able to get myself seated long enough to put it down. It’s time to scramble, and I just don’t have any energy. Bah.

8. I don’t know how many people actually read this who will be in the area, but Steve Slater’s funeral will be tomorrow at Grace Lutheran Church (the triangle church across from Roby Park) at 5 pm. Figured I’d mention it, in case anyone missed the announcement in the newspaper.

*Le Sigh.*

Andy’s father passed away today at 12:30 in the afternoon. He will be greatly missed, but his memory will be cherished forever.

Love you, Steve. Rest in peace.

Finished at last my Civil Rights class. I’m really glad I took it, because I know I learned SO much during the course of this semester, but wow. It was a hard class. At least, I thought it was. Granted, this could be because I always went to it (it’s a 3 hour class) directly after working my 9-5 workday, but still. It was tougher than any of my other classes.

But that means I only have one more final to go before I’m DONE! Done, done, not just done for this semester done. So close!

I’ve just been hanging out on my own a lot the last couple days, because Andy’s at home spending time with his dad. It’s been good, though, because other than Andy, I haven’t really wanted to spend time with anyone. Very antisocial at the moment, which I blame on stress. Whenever I get stressed, I kick into my full-blown introvert-ism and just need to get away from people to recuperate. Unfortunately, it’s hard to do this in a dorm-environment (not anyone’s fault–it’s just the setup), particularly in Albany which has no where interesting to go, and it’s especially hard during finals, when I should be studying. Can’t wait to graduate, though. When all these exams are out of the way, I’ll definitely be feeling better. Still have to edit my speech, though… blah. I’ll do it tomorrow. Or Wednesday after my last exam. :-\

Writing Stuff:

Subbed “Ten-Day” to the next place on the list. Here’s hoping!

I don’t really want to talk about this. At least not directly. I just… I need to express this feeling somewhere or else I’m not going to be able to focus all day. And I need to. I have to study.

It’s just not fair. He’s only 48.

What the hell. I want to punch something, scream at something, but I don’t want to take it out on anyone else. This isn’t their fault.  It’s no one’s fault. It just… is. Sometimes I really wish I could see what the big scope is, because maybe it would then be clear to me why this might have to happen. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even allowed to feel like this. I’m not… I don’t know. I wouldn’t even know how to describe our relationship. I helped him build his office chair. I really enjoyed that.

There’s a hole in my chest. It’s cold. Sometimes I can almost feel the breeze blow through it.

I am definitely hitting that wall of not caring about school anymore. I’m so ready to be done and out of here, I can barely stand it. And yet there’s still so much work to do! Not as much as there was last weekend, but still plenty. Today I turned in my portfolio and my internship paper (that class is done!). Hopefully I did the assignment right, because apparently I didn’t do the Interview Assignment correctly (not sure what I could have done differently, but I still got an A, so I’m not concerned about it). I also mailed the two Mother’s Day cards Andy and I got for our moms; my mom’s also contains scratch tickets for her birthday, which is the day after Mother’s day, so it’s more like a two-for-one thing.

Since then I have been failing to finish my Ulysses essay. I can’t be too hard on myself though, because it’s not due until Monday, and I did plan it out, and I did write four pages of it. I’m calling that a rough draft. I figure I’ll go back over it on Sunday sometime and fill it in and smooth it out. It always seems like whenever I sit down and write a paper, right off the bat, I end up with a lot of logic holes that need to be patched up and smoothed out, so hopefully that will ease me into the proper 6-8 pages I need for it. I’m not too worried.

But Sunday is also my uber-cram day for my Civil Rights Exam on Monday. This is the class that seriously kicks my butt. I’m doing fine grade-wise, but it takes so much work and so much time! I’m not looking forward to studying for this test, but he gave us specific page numbers to go over in one of our books. While that’s really generous of him (he wasn’t going to tell us anything that was on it), and I do mean that–I’m not being sarcastic, he still refused to tell us what the format of the test would be. This is very frustrating. He did mention it wouldn’t be like the last test, but the last test involved every single imaginable testing style: we had multiple choice, T/F, paragraph answer, and there may have been an essay, too. So what does that leave, if he’s not going to format it like that? He did say he liked having both the multiple-choice and the essay because some people did better on one than the other, and vice versa. Sigh. Who knows? Could be anything. So I’m just going to have to study like mad and hope I come out in one piece.

Meanwhile, I need to edit (again) my commencement speech. It is apparently too vague, and they want something more along the lines of a personal anecdote. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before in an earlier entry, but oh well if I did. I’ll probably edit it a little tomorrow, though to be perfectly honest, I’m really not keen on getting up in front of random people and talking about myself. I just don’t find myself all that interesting. I mean, I’m okay, but I’m no more interesting than the next kid. I haven’t traveled through Southeast Asia on my own while lying to my parents that I was at an out of state school; now THAT’S exciting.

Writing Stuff:

Decided I’m going to try the Mount St. Helens approach to writing. Should be interesting, if a little messy.

Nothing too much going on today, so I’ll keep it brief. Most productive thing I did today was wash the dishes from last night and the night before. Well, I guess finishing my study-guide for my Crime and Punishment in Ancient China final tomorrow was pretty productive, but it didn’t feel productive. It took me literally all day, off and on, to get everything done, and that’s WITH half the terms already defined for me from the midterm. I felt terribly lazy.

Around 5, Andy came over and we walked down the “secret Freedom path” to Stuyvesant Plaza to get Coldstone. Mmm. Coffee Lovers. Very tasty. Then we strolled back. The day was just perfect, really. They say it never got past 72 degrees, but it was sweltering earlier. By the time we walked back, though, it was that perfect balmy temperature. The breeze was very benign and warm. Perfect. Later, after a little mindless TV, we strolled down to campus and walked to the garden by the Bio building. It’s really a lovely, quiet spot. Sometimes you can see rabbits there, though how they got on the Podium in the first place, I have no idea. It was very dark by that time, around 9:30, so there weren’t many people around. We laid on the grass in the middle of the garden where we could watch the trees (many of which were full of pink blossoms), and just relaxed, enjoying the quiet escape. Thought some deep thoughts. It made me feel… I don’t know exactly. I want to use the word “complete” but it needs more of a sense of oneness with the calm of nature, the perpetual, steady motion of life. It was soothing.

Then we strolled back, he dropped me off and I came upstairs, chatted briefly with my roommate and her boyfriend (it’s his birthday tomorrow), and then called my mum to catch her up on yesterday and today. Tomorrow morning, I’ve got my first final. Haven’t studied half as hard as I probably should, but that’s just the way of it, I suppose. I had a hard enough time conjuring up enough motivation to get any studying done at all. Need to write my internship paper tomorrow, too. Lovely. It shouldn’t be too bad, provided I can sit myself down and just dig in.

Writing Stuff:

+ 2,500 words to complete Chapter One of Dark Matter. It was a nice long writing session, and I’m generally pleased with the results. It’ll do as a first chapter. On to Chapter Two. ^_^

Today marks the end of my undergraduate academic classes! That is to say, today was the last day of classes. Finals are coming up fast (first one on Thursday), but each test brings me closer to graduation. ^_^ WEE! It’s a little scary, but at the same time, it’s going to be great. I am really looking forward to it.

Today was pretty straight forward. I went down to lunch with Andy to see Pam, though she scolded me awfully for being so elusive this year (I can’t help it! I don’t have the meal plan, and the cafeteria food isn’t that good! ^_^). Then Andy and I got our regalia. Oh! Little story about that. So, me and Andy get our medals for summa and magna cum laude respectively (mine is gold and his is silver), and as we’re walking back to his place, I’m looking at the words on my medal and it says “Magna Cum Laude.” But it’s gold. Hmm. So we go back to the Campus Center, just to ask and see if that was normal (since I didn’t know whether or not I’d always have to explain to people who saw it that “yes, I was Summa not Magna” that whole thing). Well, it turns out there are a couple different KINDS of Magna Cum Laude medals, and apparently I just got one of the gold ones by accident. So they got me a gold Summa Cum Laude medal. Then ANDY, wanting to steal my thunder, decided to see if they’d swap his silver Magna for the gold Magna I had had. They said sure. So now he’s all excited because no one from a distance will be able to tell that HE isn’t Summa Cum Laude, too. Though I definitely rubbed in the fact that mine actually SAYS “Summa Cum Laude” on it, and his–though gold–still says “Magna Cum Laude.” Splitting hairs, perhaps, but I worked darn hard for that Summa! ^_^ Actually, I didn’t. I didn’t even think about it until we had to start getting regalia stuff. XD! But still! I wanted the gold medal, but I’m cool with him sharing the ore. Whatever–he’s in science anyway, so he probably did more work than I did, even if he DID write fewer papers. ^_^

Then I went to class–all very pointless, in a lot of ways. Mostly reviewed stuff, but we generally got out early. Then after class, Andy and I got wings and went up to the Humanities building where one of my professors was going to be showing Ulysses: the Movie (from James Joyce’s Ulysses, which if you’ve ever read you would know why even the concept of a movie based on this book makes NO sense at all, and even if you haven’t read it, you know it now). It was…bizarre to say the least. I stand by my original thought while reading the book: “Now here at last is a book they CAN’T make a movie of.” As far as I’m concerned, they still can’t. I can only imagine how fast James Joyce must be spinning in his grave over this one. XD!

And that’s about it for today! I’m just going to chill out and relax for a while, and tomorrow, I’ll crack the books and begin studying.

So I was actually productive today. I KNOW! I know what you’re thinking–she’s lying. Maggie is not productive. She is never productive. I saw that blog title–it has the word “deadlines” in it. She must have pushed everything back to the last minute, and now she’s all thrilled because she got done the stuff she should have done last weekend.

No. I mean, I’ve been productive. Today I not only prepped my presentation for Civil Rights (which technically, I got mostly done last weekend when I was panicking that it was due THAT Monday), but I also wrote my five-page paper for African Civilizations due Tuesday, and finished putting my portfolio together which isn’t due until Friday. TAKE THAT! Woo! *does happy productive dance!*

It’s been a long day, but somehow I managed to plow through everything I had to do. Not only THAT, but I did my dishes today too (which after being wiped-out sick the last three days, is quite a task). ^_^ I’m so proud of myself. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen.

But basically, that’s all I have to say. I sat the whole day doing homework, wishing I were doing something more fun, and now I’m going to have fun, maybe look for some fun new songs on iTunes, and just chillax. Chillax… I’ve been using that word a lot lately. Hmm. Strange.

Also, I’m scared I’m Typhoid Mary for publications recently. Seems like everywhere I sub to (even when they reject me) is close to either shutting down or going on haitus. I never hear about it until I’ve got something subbed to them. Am I jinxed? I hope not! T_T