My Crazy Thoughts
my thoughts on various topics.

Went to the dentist today...no cavities. Yea! In my family we may be afraid of many things but going to the dentist is not one of them. They are always so nice, of course, my mom is their crown and bridge lab, so I probably know them better than most people know their dentists. Anyway, Dr. T, my dentist said he was very proud of me, and not just because I have nice teeth, but also because I'm getting an education...Which is always nice to hear. When I got there I had to explain what a blog was, because I wore the shirt again. They didn't ask me for the address though, which I think is good. I can never decide whether it is a good idea for people I know to know my blog address. I don't write anything in here that I don't mind other people knowing, so I won't have to worry much if people find it on their own, but I guess I'm afraid of restricting myself too much, I don't think it would be worth it to blog if I was constantly trying to decide whether someone would dissapprove. I've read blogs before where people would put a disclaimer before they post on a topic, telling people they don't know not to knock their beliefs, and it's always so crazy to me, because, you know, it's their blog and they are entitled to their beliefs and how dare some stranger tell them otherwise, but it is different when you KNOW the people, you don't want to make someone unhappy by writing something, and I don't want to get to the point where I edit my thoughts that much. Wow, this post went from no cavities to rambling quick didn't it?

posted by Malissa at 11:30 PM | 0 comments |

Nothing in Particular

Things still seem pretty boring lately, but since I wore my, "I'm blogging this" t-shirt today, I figure I should blog.
Lori called me yesterday to see if I could go shopping with her. Her relationships are sometimes hard for me to follow because I don't talk to her as often as I should. Anyway, the guy she's seeing now was leaving today so she wanted to get a nice (but casual) outfit for their date last night. Shopping with her was a trip. We have completely different styles, so I doubt I did anything more than slow her down. But it was good to see her. And just recently something has occurred to me. When she was dating her ex-husband, I remember talking to Jenn and her completely agreeing with me when I said I thought Lori was rushing things, which was nice because when I tried to tell Lori that, she thought I was crazy. But Jenn completely agreed. At the time. Then last year she turned up married without even having told anyone, or even ever being engaged. Talk about rushing.
I'm still worried about Jenn, especially after the fiasco of Lori's marriage. I never in a million years would have thought that Lori would be divorced, she's just not the divorced kind of person, and even now, such a short time after her divorce she still seems to be rushing toward marriage again, she's just not exactly sure who it will be. She grew up in a stable home, and her parents loved each other and she wants that. To her that's what your life is supposed to be. That's what she wants for herself. She's achieved everything she ever wanted to with the exception of marriage and family and she wants to get on with it already. So...as I said I'm still worried about Jenn. Having met Carlos, I feel better, but one day meeting him is not enough to convince me. I feel bad thinking that, because I liked him. And he really seemed interested in her and her background. He kept asking me what Jenn was like, and it's really hard to answer those questions, to encompass everything we've been and done in a simple answer. No one you know well can be summed up in even a couple sentences. But he wanted to know her past, and her family. I liked him. And I would feel better had they gone the more traditional route, had I met him before they were married, or even engaged. Had her family met him, had we had more than a day to get to know each other. Had they had more time together before they became Mr. and Mrs. But I liked him, so I feel better. And really, it's not my marriage, so I can only worry so much. I hope they stay happy. And I hope the guy Lori is seeing is the right guy, and that they take a very long time to decide for sure. And that when they do decide it is a forever decision. And I hope they elope. When I talked to Carlos the other day he kept inviting me everywhere, he even told me I was invited to their wedding whenever they figure out when to have a formal ceremony. Jenn said she was glad he did that, because, you know, I wouldn't have come otherwise. But I have to say, I wouldn't be upset if I never have to attend another wedding in my life.

I keep taking pictures. Sometimes completely ridiculous ones, I have a few more of the gopher tortoise. I even took some of the bright house man. Since I have a flickr pro account I have practically unlimited uploading, so I always figure, why not. Anyway, here's the link to that.

posted by Malissa at 12:03 AM | 0 comments |

Pictures

posted by Malissa at 11:54 PM | 2 comments |

Nothing new is going on. So, nothing to report. Jenn and her husband arrived in Orlando Friday night, after much worry over the delays caused by the storms in Atlanto. So Tomorrow I'm going to go over to Orlando to have dinner and hang out some. I think they've gone to just about every Disney park in Orlando, and they sound like they've been having lots-o-fun. So if I can remember I'm going to take my camera and take lots of pictures. I'll post any that I take.

posted by Malissa at 11:40 PM | 0 comments |

So I was supposed to blog about my last obsession but that didn't happen. And, in truth, as I write this I can't for the life of me remember what it was I wanted to say about it. About all I can think about these days is the snake living in our back garage and how much it freaks me out and how no one seems to care that I am freaked out about it. I think I've made it more than clear, while trying not to make it a huge thing. But no one seems to notice. I've had a snake thing for a while, it comes in waves, on and off (never a friendly relationship, but not so freaked out either), but last summer was the clencher and this wave just hasn't seemed to let up since then. In normal life it wouldn't be a big deal. But since it's something that bothers me, it seems to come up all the time. There's been a rattle snake in our freezer for a couple years now. I deal with that. It's dead. It was dead before it got in my freezer and was even frozen before it got in the freezer. I deal with it, but I make sure that someone else keeps it covered up so I can't see it and be reminded of it when I open the freezer. But the snake in the garage is real, and alive and I don't care if it is perfectly harmless.
Nikky's boyfriend bought a snake. And since he bought it you would think I wouldn't ever have to see it, except that he lives with us (though he claims he has an apartment, he hasn't lived there since Nikky got home). Before he bought it there was a lot of talk about it and I made it clear that he didn't need a snake and if he got one I didn't want it here. And everyone seemed to think that it was silly that I even mention this, because why would he bring his snake here? But the day after he got it it came to live in our garage. Of course it was "only there for the day," while he was at work. But that's not true at all. It lives there. Keeping my hammock hostage. They carry it around in the yard, and sit with it on the porch. And today she brought it inside. Eventually I'm going to have to go and clean out my apartment but I don't know what I will do with my stuff, because the snake is in the garage, and I'm pretty sure that if I leave for even a day it will end up living inside, and I can't hardly stand that it is in the garage. My mom's only concern is that they feed it baby mice, and so far it hasn't eaten any so they had to kill them and she thinks that's gross, so they've decided to only feed it crickets and frogs. That it is here makes my skin crawl. Today they left it on the porch for hours with the mouse. SHE BROUGHT IT IN THE HOUSE TODAY.
Her boyfriend lives in our house. He snores like a train and I hate that. I can hear him in my room with her door closed and mine. But I can even deal with that reasonably well. But no one seems to care that I can't stand the snake.
Nikky asked me if I had seen the snake, I just shook my head and kept doing what I was doing. It was obvious I wasn't interested and it made me uncomfortable. But then when I came home today she was right there on the porch with the snake, and THEN SHE BROUGHT IT IN THE HOUSE.

posted by Malissa at 11:31 PM | 2 comments |

I've had a blog topic for several days now, but I haven't had the motivation to actually take the time to post it. I have always had obsessions about things, I get something in my head and it takes forever for me to move onto something new. This is the way it is. Last night my mom said to me, "I didn't know you obsess about things" or something like that. I don't know how she couldn't now, for weeks at a time I focus on one thing and at times I bring all coversations back around to the topic of my obsession. Some obsessions last longer than others. But anyway, it seems like a perfect time to acutally get that post written, but even as I'm blathering on about it that obsession is fading to make way for another, so I'm going to post about something different, and keep working on the other one in my head. Maybe I'll post it later today.

So...what will I post about now. Well, you all may have better weeded flower beds, but I bet you don't have a itty-bitty-baby-endangered-cute-as-a-button gopher turtle living it yours. Because we do. The other day. I don't know which one, but anyway, I was making lunch. I had just started cooking it when I went to the front window and say on our front walk the aformentioned gopher turtle. So of course we went out and poked at it. We moved it over out of the walk way and into the flower bed so we wouldn't step on it. Then we all looked at it for a while. And during this time I had to keep dashing in to tend to my lunch which was burning, but who cares. Then we can inside and I watched it with my head pressed to the front window. And ate my lunch. I was trying to get the cats to look at the turtle because they like to look at things from the front window, but they just thought I was going to share my lunch. Which I wasn't. Anyway, later my mom went outside to look at it some more, and she said she kept hearing it moving in the leaves under one of the plants and then it was quiet but she couldn't see it, so when she moved around to the other side she found a hole. It's living in our flower bed. And my mom has sworn off insecticide this year.

So here are the pictures:


The gopher is endangered here, and to help the turtle survive there are laws about building on turtle habitat. Developers must relocate them, sadly though, many just choose to pay the impact fees and bulldoze over their holes, effectively suffocating the ones who are in their holes at the time and displacing the rest.
The gopher is not acutally a turtle, it is a tortoise, but everyone refers to them as turtles anyway.

posted by Malissa at 12:55 PM | 0 comments |

The Great Blog Killer

I am the Great Blog Killer. Whenever I start reading a blog there seems to be a chance that the blog will suddenly quit. Not always. And not usually immediately or permanently. But it's a little dissapointing to arrive at your destination to find out that they are calling it quits.
Exhibit #1: Witt and Wisdom
Then there are those who just drop off the face of the earth.
Exhibits #2-4: Tequila Mockingbird, 327 words, Frost Street
Then there are the ones that probably stopped posting before I started reading it, but since I had to read through the archives I really don't know, and I'm just sure that they aren't posting anymore simply because I would try to read it.
Exhibit #5: Hoo-Ah
There are the ones that announce they are going to stop posting and completely remove their site.
Exhibit #6: This guy
And of course there are the ones that say they haven't stopped posting, they are just waiting for something to post about.
Exhibit #7: The Vanilla Gorilla

Luckily, the ones I really like come back. I just have to wait for it.

posted by Malissa at 10:00 PM | 1 comments |

Today was a big day for me. Well, for my digital camera in any case. This morning my UF software CD was delivered. Talk about service, I just ordered it yesterday. I was very excited. It took me a while, but I finally figured out that I had chosen to run the WRONG program, but when I found the right one it worked right away. So now I have a place to host my movies. I also determined that I needed more space in my flickr account, so I broke down and PAID for a pro account. Thankfully they just reduced the fee by about half. So while before I had uploaded 96% of my monthly alotment, is now only 1%. I can upload 100 times more pictures! So, now I'm taking my digital camera EVERYWHERE (if I can remember it) and I'm going to post pictures with my posts everyday (if they are any good, and I don't forget).

And now for my update on Jenn (because Tab asked about it)
It's been quite awhile now, but Jenn FINALLY sent me pictures of her engagement ring. I had to send her an e-mail to bug her, which Carlos got to first and I think he probably bugged her about it for me. They are very blurry. But I get the jist. it is very pretty and has a very classic look next to her wedding band. It's still funny to me that they did it backwards. That was before finals week. During finals week it occured to me that while I had told my mom about the ring and even showed her pictures I couldn't remember replying to her e-mail. So I checked my sent mail and sure enough I hadn't. Because I'm not a very good friend. So I sent her a quick e-mail telling her that and that it was pretty... And then Carlos sent me a reply telling me that Jenn was in the shower or something and that he would pass along the message. I told them they needed to get a blog, and then he asked what a blog was. SO I told him. And I thought I might have made some progress, which I hadn't made with Jenn so far, so I was happy. But it doesn't look like it worked. No blog from them yet. But I'll keep working on it. I have a horrible time remembering to call people. I know people work so I always try to wait until the evening. And then I forget until it's after 9:00 and all my friends are practically old farts now so they go to bed early (because they actually have jobs...that start in the morning) and I know they go to sleep early because when I'm talking to them at night they tell me they have to go to bed. Weak. Anyway, my mom trained me from a young age that it is bad form to call someone after 9.

Now I'll get to Lori. Her divorce is final. And she had been hanging out with some people from her divorce attorney's office (believe it or not) and they had been having all kinds of fun jet skiing and stuff. And then SHE called ME later to say hi, which I was suprised about because it had been a while since she called me. And she was dating someone from school (another teacher). I think it might be too soon. But I'm glad she is happy, and if nothing else it gives her something else to concetrate on. She's not the kind of person who gets a divorce so I know the whole thing has been really rough on her. Not just the dealing with an ex who has no respect for her or himself really, but shifting all her goals and plans for the future. I know she never would have dreamed she would ever get divorced. Not in a million years.

posted by Malissa at 9:35 PM | 0 comments |

This morning I called UF and ordered the UF software CD. Hopefully it will get to me, he seemed to have a hard time with my name and address even though I said it and spelled it, VERY CLEARLY. But he didn't ask me for my ID number or anything, so I guess they really don't care if you are a student. It's only $2.50+shipping, which will be about $3.00. And then I will have an FTP and then I can move onto trying to figure out how to work it so I can make use of all this hosting space I suddenly have come across. Stay tuned. I'll probably get tired with making movies before it gets here, I've already run out of clips to play with, so I have to take more, but I'm boring and have nothing to film. Such is life.

posted by Malissa at 10:27 PM | 0 comments |

Bought gas yesterday when I went to Orlando with Nikky, to tour UCF. I was somewhere between a half and 1 quarter tank. I bouth 10.845 gallons of gas at $2.14/gallon for a total of $23.31.
The campus was very nice, though I will always have a soft spot for USF, since I am an alumnus, but I was impressed by the looks of the campus.

posted by Malissa at 9:05 PM | 0 comments |

So, it was my goal when school got out that I would post everyday. But I'm not good at goals. I've spent some rather busy days doing not much that is worth mentioning and they have tuckered me out.
When I got my digital camera I thought it was soooo cool that I could use it to take small movie clips. But then I couldn't really do anything with them so it was boring. But recently I learned that there is a program on my computer that is very easy to use that will let me edit the clips. I'm very excited about this. But my free stuff keepers aren't. Mywebpage.netscape.com, pretends like it will do it but it just contorts the files into computer speak, which is pretty, but I wanted to see a movie, not a boring page with crazy computer letters. So I switched to geocities. Which does an excellent job. Except, that I'm at 91% capacity and it will only allow so much traffic at a time so a lot of times people get a little message that tells then to come back in a hour. I don't know if this bothers them, but I very much like the information age, where I get what I want when I want it, and an hour is forever to wait. So the search for a host began. We have roadrunner as our ISP, And what-do-you-know, they offer 10MB for a personal homepage (it says 5 on the website, but when I signed up it says 10). So I am one step closer to a host for my movies. BUT...I don't have an FTP, and apparently this is important. And because I'm cheap I don't want to pay for it, and because I'm paranoid I don't want one with spy ware. So...I set out on a journey across the internet to find a free, but still clean FTP. No luck. Now what? I could do a trail version, but that would only last 1 month, and I'd be back to square 1. So I thought to myself, "Self, you go to UF, why don't you ask them?" Universities are supposed to have cheaper software and I pay them enough money they should be able to come up with one little FTP. So off to UF.edu to search, search, search. And...Low and behold they offer their students 20MB of space. So now I have 30MB of space out there just waiting for me. But no FTP. AND...I can't find that free software place again. Still haven't found it. But I did find a place where they tell you about this UF software CD and they make it sound like EVERYONE knows about it, but no one told me. So now all I have to do is get this CD, because the internet says it has more than 1 FTP. Yee-Haw! But you have to actually get the CD. Like a physical copy. And I don't go to the gnv campus. So...Now I have to figure out how to get it. Hopefully I can figure out the right people to call and get them to send me a copy. Otherwise I will have to drive over there and kill someone for a copy, and that would be messy.
Was there a moral there? Nope. But I'll make one up anyway. Okay, how's this? With a little work you can achieve anything. Well you can't be president of the US if you aren't a natural born citizen, and you can't deliver a baby if you're a man, but you get my point. You can do anything, as long as anything is just finding free hosting space and a free FTP.

And here's a movie I made in case you're bored (You'll need Windows Media Player). It's my sister playing soccer. I doubt anyone will actually watch it, sorry if you have to go back in an hour.

posted by Malissa at 10:28 PM | 0 comments |

Still looking for apartments. Forrent.com seems to be very useful. My problem is that I want an apartment for cheap that is not a hole. This is hard to find. I keep finding places that look good, but I just don't know. I will have to go up and look at EVERY single one. And then hope that what they show me holds some kind of resemblance to what they will rent me. It's very stressful.

posted by Malissa at 11:22 PM | 0 comments |

So, summer has made me lazy. I didn't even turn my computer on today, I'm blogging from my mom's. And since I'm in a lazy mood I'm going to steal other people's topics today. Today, the IA blogged about what he is keeping in his car for emergencies. I don't keep anything in my car for emergencies, I live in Florida, and if I ever get snowed in I guess I'll just have to die. This doesn't mean I don't keep things in my car, I do. Every pair of dress shoes that I own (and actually wear) are in my car, usually there's another pair of non-dress shoes there. For the last several months there have been two pairs of khaki pants in the back seat, and there is currently another pair of dress pants keeping them company. There is an ironing pad in the back seat as well, because I'm don't have an ironing board in my apartment so I thought it might be handy, but it never made it into the apartment, so I've never used it, a table with a towel work just as well. And whose trunk wouldn't be complete without a box of paper. I was buying reems too often so I decided a box would be a better investment, but it is HEAVY so I never carried it up the two flights of stairs, which is just as well, because I'm mostly back at home now and wouldn't have liked carrying it back down, even a few reams lighter. And of course, there is an ever changing cornacopia of bottles in the passenger floor board, I always have a drink with me, but they never seem to make it out of my car with me.

And just as teahouse is looking for apartments so am I. I absolutely refuse to live in the same one next year. Luckily I'm not buying, so I don't have to bid for one. I just have to find one in a good location on the cheap. And then I have to buy furniture and GET IT THERE. I'm trying to decide if I should look for a roommate or live alone. It would be cheaper with a roommate, but that would require more effort on my part, and you never really know what you're going to get until you actually live with them. But I'm not sure that I should really live alone either because I can be a hermit and go days without talking to people. I don't really have a problem with this, but it might make me even more anti-social. So, I think for now, I'm just going to look for places and see if anyone else starts looking for roommates. And then take it from there.

posted by Malissa at 12:32 AM | 2 comments |

Haven't posted much lately. I thought that as soon as school wasn't pressing down on me so much I would get back to posting like normal. But I just haven't felt like that lately. But I'm going to post anyway. I saw my grades today. They are better than last semester. I was worried after 2 of my finals. One of them I did MUCH better than I thought I did. The other I didn't do well on, but well enough to pass, which is what I told myself I would be happy with when I walked out of the exam. But over all I'm happy with them. I'm still amazed at how I'm so willing now to just pass a class, when a year ago I would have been upset that I had gotten a C.

So...The Incident. It's boring.
It was basically like this. In one of our classes we had an assignment. It was an assignment that had been assinged in previous years, so the key was floating around. In the class we were told my our facilitator that if we didn't know the answer then to write down the answer when she gave them to us in class, she knew that there were keys around, but she gave everyone the opportunity to get the correct answer even if you didn't have one. She wanted everyone to get credit and to learn the material. We actually had three assignments over three weeks. And then a couple weeks later we had the exam (I think it was a couple weeks). Apparently for the second assignment some people didn't bother doing it, they just printed out the key from the previous years and turned it in. And then apparently some people also just copied it down word for word on the paper. You have to remember that there are 4 campuses, and the gnv campus has several different facilitators so who knows what they were told. But some people also copied down parts of answers or most of an answer while they were in class. So a few weeks after this assignment we take the exam, on a wednesday. The grades are up on Friday, along with our final grades. Before this in every class it takes at least a week for grades to come back, and a lot of times longer. So I was amazed. And I wrote about it before. The average was a D. In previous years it is said that everyone got an A, no problem. So I'm wondering what happened. Luckily I got a C, and ended up with a B in the class. A lot of others weren't so lucky. People who always do better than I do. Significantly better. People who had been studying with me right before the exam. People who had answered my questions and helped clear up concepts for me. That's one of the good things about being early for exams, you can get your questions answered and get a feel for what other people think are the important points, and you learn things that you didn't catch or hadn't thought was important. So I have a good idea of how prepared other people were. Not that I was unprepared or should have failed or anything. Anyway, grades were out Friday, I was amazed. On Monday I find out what happened. On the Friday that grades came out a lot of people were called in to their respective offices for conference calls to the course coordinator to talk about their cheating. They all got zeros for that assignment. Also on that Monday I find out why the exam was so hard and why the average was so low. She was mad. She apparently told the Gainesville students that she was going to make the exam hard, and either said directly or it was implied that it was because of this incident. Of course, no one told me until the Monday after the exam. It is said that she sat at the front of the room in gainesville while the test was being given with a big smile on her face. So, because a few people were stupid enough to PRINT OUT THE KEY and turn it in we all did poorly in the class. It wasn't enough for her to just punish those involed, she had to punish everyone. And while this was one of our smaller classes this year, it will be a much bigger class next year, and everyone is afraid to say anything more about it because we all fear for our grades next year. This includes those who say that they didn't cheat in the classic way I talked about but just wrote down one of the answers when we were in class, like our facilitator told us. These people also got called in, got 0s AND because of the difficulty of the exam, most likely got Ds in the class and are now on permanent academic probation. And they were afraid to explain what happened because they were told if they argued they would end up before the academic honesty board, and that is a terrible fear for all of us. So that's the incident.

I'm not editing this, so sorry if it's long and rambling and doesn't make sense and has a lot of typos.

posted by Malissa at 10:11 PM | 2 comments |

Bought gas. Yesterday. 4/30/05. At the Hess in Green Cove Springs at the corner of 16 and 17 (country roads maybe), I think. Price was 2.21, bought 8.569 gallons for $19.01, I was at just under half a tank.

posted by Malissa at 1:12 PM | 2 comments |