Whatever she's using is noxious. Who the hell does this at almost 2am?!

ANYWAY. In nearly a week, I won't have to deal with her quirks for a month. I wish Heather and I could room with each other already. ^^;;

Yay for not actually having religion class tomorrow. I still have to get up and go since we're working on editing/final touches (I really hope people looked for music, because I haven't had a chance between editing my half of the bloopers and messing around with the QM project), but no reading is a glorious thing. I'm happy to be done with that class. Braxton's unnecessarily harsh grading strikes again. I got a 77 on the last test. My lowest score. He nitpicked the hell out of it. Poor Michelle has to take another class with him next semester, and I don't think she's looking forward to it. For our part, though, the film is pretty good, at least in my opinion. Braxton will probably rip it apart.

Drew a picture of Oni that I'd just shaded the hair on, but then I shaded the rest--skin included, which I don't tend to do for my dark-skinned characters--after thinking about the last time I saw Oliver ruined any chances of sleeping. It looks good. The shading isn't as even as I'd like, but for using my finger to smudge it, it's good. Whenever I actually have some time (not this week), I'm going to scan it in and add color to it. I'll probably post both to dA, because I really like it.

Sleep. Assuming I can through the overpowering odor of cleanser.

MY STOMACH HURTS

Don't click that if you value your ears. Or turn the sound down. DO click if you like crazy drunken singing. Holy crap, Denmark. XDDD I expected it to be cute like all the other Fukkireta fandubs, but NO. I lasted eight seconds before I started a laughing fit that ended in tears. EIGHT. I wasn't the only one, either. XD

Mom, Dad, and Craig came to visit today! We drove to Altoona to eat lunch at Red Lobster, so I didn't miss endless shrimp. (We might do it again when I visit in a couple weeks, if it's still on.) It was great seeing them again. I haven't gotten to know people well enough to know if they have the sense of humor Craig and I have, so being able to just joke with him was awesome. We watched a couple Zero Punctuation reviews (Shadow of the Colossus and Phantom Hourglass--when I mentioned how I never finished it because of the insane amount of backtracking, Craig brought up Yahtzee because Yahtzee went off on that VERY thing in his review... seriously, the one Zelda game I can safely say I will never play again) on my phone and had Mom and Dad cracking up. :D In two weeks Mom will pick me up, and we'll head to the house, where there will be a puppy! I can't wait, yo. I'm sad I'll only get to see her for a few days, but I'll be back there again a month or so later. The way time seems to be passing (midterms next week!), it'll take no time at all.

Mom was thinking about Oliver the other day, when Craig got a virus and was freaking the hell out. Oliver would've been up under her in no time at all, haha. She kept expecting him to come running to her. He was like that. When Craig got into one of his moods, he'd run right to us and hide behind us. Eventually he started trying to climb up on the couch with Mom, fat little thing that he was. ^_^;

All right. Music to get Denmark's drunken screaming out of my head. XD;;;

So yesterday, I developed a cold. This is because the temperature dropped a good 20-30 degrees between Wednesday and Thursday, and I rushed out to class without looking at the weather widget on my desktop, so I was wearing short sleeves and my thin hoodie. All day. Because at that point it was Thursday, and Thursday is my no-time-to-do-anything day, which meant I came upstairs after religion and CS, dropped off my laptop, and ran back out to the studio. I think, between that, lack of good sleep, and the fire alarm being set off at around 9pm because one of the guys burned popcorn and forcing everyone to wait outside in no clothes for ten minutes, I woke up yesterday not feeling quite right. But I'd already skipped a set of Friday classes, last week, so I got up and went. By the time I got home two hours later, I was ready to die. -_- I talked on the phone with Mom (the laptop will be fixed during winter break) and Craig, and decided I needed a nap. I don't recall exactly what time this was. I think I ended up getting off the phone at two-something. I didn't wake up until almost seven. (My first thought: "Well, so much for going to Art Alliance's first meeting." Which was at 5pm.) Emma went to a dance show they had at the theater, and I stayed behind because I knew I'd be a sniffling, coughing, miserable mess, and ended up missing what was probably a great show. (Keigwin + Company, I believe, is the name.) Emma thankfully went back out to party, so I was left alone to work on homework. Eventually that turned into a marathon session of HetaOni watching. New obsession. I'm torn between being patient for the author to upload new episodes, because she is from Japan and they had/have a lot to deal with after the quake and tsunami, and ripping my hair out. It's that good. But anyway.

And TODAY. Oh gods, today. Today sucks.

My body's been acting really strangely lately, I think because of the stress of a new environment or schoolwork or something. Long story short, and being vague (but not vague enough--TMI, menfolk), something was supposed to get here early this week. Something started to come two weeks early and then disappeared. Then it showed up again, and disappeared. It did this three times. I've been wasting supplies because I didn't know when it would come back. Guess when it came back, with a freaking vengeance? And the extremely aggravating thing is, because it wasn't normal this time, I have no idea what day I'm on. It's been on and off for two weeks. I'd guess (hope) and say four. With my luck? One.

So, I'm sitting in bed, sniffling and achy, waiting for painkillers to kick in, and hoping that MAYBE this crap will go away so I can actually get some work done. What I have to do at the studio is going to take several days, and I have to have it done by Thursday morning's class, which is not my class, but the one before it... which really means I need to have it done by sometime Wednesday. Also have a math project that I forgot about, that I've had for a week now, that's due this coming Friday. And I have lots of studying to do for tests this week, and I'm in the process of rewriting that religion paper. CJ is a sad bunny right now. CJ would rather be drawing or writing at the moment. ._. I might actually do a little of that a little later. Right now, religion paper. I need a good one and a half more pages of material, I think. I wish we didn't have to write it from the student's point of view. It's so alien to me. ^^; I am happy to be in bed, though. I'd rather be sitting in my bed than on a hard chair, or worse, one of the stools in the studio. My back does not like those things at all, and because I'm always looking down at my work surface, I get serious low back pains when working in there. I wish they had a chair that could sit as high as the stools do; I could use something with back support.

Plus side? CS homework is done. Programs weren't all that difficult. Although I did have a bit of an issue with the outputs. We had to write a program to ask the user "Is it raining?" and "Is it freezing?" and give four outputs based on the answers: "Oh rainy day" for rain but no cold, "Oh cold day" for cold but no rain, "Oh great snow" for both, and "Oh sunny day" for neither. I could get every output to work but "Oh great snow". When I removed the first part of the if statements (the "raining" part), it worked. So, as a workaround, I just moved the bit to display "Oh great snow" to the top of the if-else part of the program, and it works. Prof didn't say that part has to be written into the program in order (yay, loopholes!), and I'll explain it to him if he asks (at which point he'll look at it, tell me exactly what was the matter, and I'll slap my head and feel like an idiot). What matters, I think, are that the outputs work, and they do. It's probably something very simple that I'm missing, but I couldn't work it out. And originally I had three boolean variables (which was part of my trying to fix the output problem--I added an extra boolean for snowing), but then I looked at the assignment again and realized I could only have two. Removing the snowing boolean didn't affect the program at all, so it's something with the order. For some reason, if I put "raining" first, it doesn't connect raining + freezing to equal snowing. But ANYWAY, screw it, the outputs work. More important things to deal with!

Later, if I feel better, I am totally going to Weis and picking up some chocolate syrup. I've been able to have chocolate milk, but out of a machine. I need some real chocolate milk. And maybe a thing of ice cream. I totally want some ice cream that's not in one of those huge tubs that I have to break my arm scooping out of. ^^; I might get more of those small Stouffer's lasagnas, too. I had one last night, because I skipped breakfast (as usual) and didn't go to lunch because I didn't feel like going back out, and missed dinner due to sleeping... and I figured I had to eat something, so I finally took one of the lasagnas out of the freezer and nuked it. The small one's actually better than the 21-oz one. The smaller one has more types of cheese, I think.

Okay. Back to work. I am determined to get the religion paper and my math homework out of the way today so I can focus on starting the math project and glazing my teapot. And studying for tests.

( Family drama )

Anyway. Better things.

My hair is done. I feel SO much better. Also got some tips on taking care of it while I'm at school, so hopefully things will go well. Roger says it's coming along, especially in the middle, just as I thought it was. That's going to lock first. The top of my head and the very bottom in the back are less happy with the process, but whatever. My hair's getting so long. :D

My roommate is from Beijing (did I mention that already?) and is also a studio art major, so that's awesome. I went from going, "Beijing? WTF?" to, "Ohhhh." I e-mailed her a couple days ago, and she responded. We'll see each other when I get there on the 20th. She'll actually be there on the 19th for the international student orientation. Her name's Haining, but she said I could call her Emma. I'm going to ask when I meet her which she prefers; I have no problem calling her by her actual name if that's what she really wants.

I'm moving in in ten days. The butterflies are making a nice home in my gut, a mixture of anxiety and excitement. I have a newly-fixed-up bike to play around with when I get there. (Turns out it didn't need much fixing, despite sitting in the basement for god knows how long, neglected... I think I'd have ridden it more had it not been in the basement. I hate using the bilko door. Lots of creepy crawlies back there, and it's awkward carrying the bike up the steep stairs.) I'm getting it into my head now that I will be more active, I will get into the gym as much as I can, and I will try to make better dietary choices and broaden my horizons a bit. I want to lose some weight. I don't care if I only lose five pounds the whole semester; it'll be a start. The last time I did that, I believe, was the first weekend I was on Cymbalta... and that's because I couldn't bring myself to eat. I'm celebrating this change of pace with brand-new workout clothes.

Juniata got the payment that secures my health insurance (even though I don't think it's showing as cleared yet at the bank--it's showing up on my bill though, and says it was received on the 8th), I made the second tuition payment, and I'm waiting for either a notice through the mail or Judy to get back to me, hopefully soon, about the status of my claim. I'm hanging out with Charlie on Friday. I'm probably visiting work tomorrow.

Things are good. Aside from the sister thing. But maybe even that will turn out okay. Here's hoping.

Mentioned on Facebook already, but I got that damned fake security virus that's been infecting the college computers, while searching for images of altered books. (SERIOUSLY, altered books?! It's not like I searched for Cameron Diaz pics or something!) Clicked a picture and got a BAD feeling when I saw the URL (something weird: I just looked at my history and it went from what looked like a normal result to a page with a URL that started off with something like "loading" and ended with something like "cz.cc" or "cc.cz") and the image didn't pop right up. Tried to shut the browser, but couldn't in time, and bam, virus. Had to install Malwarebytes and run probably the most in-depth computer scan I've EVER done to get rid of it. 7 1/2 hours, including all of C:, D:, and K:, my 1TB drive that I just got finished moving all my music to last night. But rid of it I am. I'm actually thinking about spending the $25 for the full version of Malwarebytes.

Anyway, Craig says he doesn't use Google Images, he uses Bing. I've been resisting using that, but I might have to make the switch. No idea if that'd make a difference when searching for images, though.

TOMORROW. Have to get off my lazy ass and go back to Strand and to Blick. Need blue paint if nothing else. Going to try to find another book, too. I'm still trying to figure out how to combine two books. Honestly, if it was just altering a single book, it'd be SO much easier.

(Do not have sympathy for me. Procrastination kills!)

In other news: My right arm is bothering me. The underside of my arm down to the wrist.

For the rest of the night, I'm working on Graphic Narrative stuff. Three pages due this Friday; comic, traveling page, and back cover. Also a report on Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, which I have yet to read, but have waiting for me as soon as I get around to it. The good thing is the traveling page is more or less done, sketch-wise. Will probably change one thing at the bottom, but all I have to do is ink and color, and the color isn't extremely necessary. It's the back page I'm concerned about, because I'm not sure what I'm going to put on it. I might actually redo my front cover, because I don't really like it. It's too boring. Comic page should be a snap, because every character involved in it is a character I've had for years. I'll just have to worry about composition and backgrounds.

Cookies tonight. Need for chocolate.

--Started off miserable, not because of anything at school, but because I didn't go to sleep until after 1:30 last night since I was working on the title page of my comic. I'd decided to add color to it and didn't really finish because I couldn't figure out what to do with the backgrounds of each panel. Prof. Mayer didn't bring that up though. Anyway, 20th Century Art ended on a high note with a film about Matisse and his friendship with a nun. Was nice to see another angle to an artist we've learned about, something that wasn't purely academic.

--In Graphic Narrative, spoke with Prof. Mayer about college stuff. She said she recommends Smith if I can get in. She has a relative (if I remember correctly) that went there. Ended up with like $40,000 in loan debt, but I'm pretty sure that was for all four years, and the Smith network is HUGE. I know that; that's part of the reason I applied. Meanwhile, I'll put in a deposit with Juniata, and I'll write Smith a letter to try and push my cause a bit. Back on topic, Prof. Mayer said there's going to be a show at the school for women students' artwork, and each teacher gets to nominate someone. She wanted to nominate me. That's awesome. :D So she will be nominating me. I just have to have my 2D stuff framed, and I'm going to try to make some new stuff.

--Got home to find out that Woot posted Random Crap today! I am NOT happy. I didn't check it this morning because I was finishing up some stuff on my comic pages and had to rush out. When Dad checked the site, they were at level four bags, and when he came back, they were selling level ten. Pissed, I am.

--April Fools jokes: An e-mail from Hiram College saying I'd been accepted. I was like, O_O, because I didn't apply there. Then I clicked it and it said something like, "April Fools! You haven't applied yet. We're sad about that." XD; Also, Steam has thrown potatoes into some of their games, including BIT.TRIP BEAT. The three representations of the levels are now yellow, brown, and red potatoes. That's just so unbelievably random.

--Think I have an idea for A&DS, finally. I'm not sure how good an idea it is, but it'll do. It requires some sculpture on my part, though, and I'm not sure about that. I'll figure it out, though. Who knows, I might have fun with it. If I can't do the sculpture, I'll have to figure out another way to portray the idea.

--Pizza as soon as the guy GETS here. I'm starving. Will eat and sleep, because I've hit relaxation mode and if I even touch my bed, I'm done.

Do NOT work for the MTA. They will screw you every single time.

Something's gone wrong with Mom's retirement, and while she can still retire on the 12th, she'll be going from next week's paycheck (which was supposed to have been here last week, by the way, but the MTA decided not to pay anyone out on Worker's Compensation) to the end of MARCH with NO money. The MTA is trying to blame the somewhat-new girl in Human Resources, whom they say "should have known better".

This is going to be interesting. I told Mom to get the lawyer involved. We can't live on my unemployment money, and that's IF they don't decide to throw me off UI because they want to be assholes about my schooling... which I won't even know about because apparently I have to call Albany to obtain a form to send to the Special Programs Unit. (Why the HELL don't they make that form available to you when you click the radial button that says you can't work because you're in school?!) Being a state agency, they're closed, so I sent them an e-mail.

Seriously, aside from Creative Writing Workshop, my life is a big ball of stress right now. Mom's issues with money, stupid unemployment (I'm worried they won't approve me), and Prof. White shoving twelve weeks of work into a six-week class and me being two weeks behind because of sickness and technical issues. At least I get a week to write the essays. I told her earlier (but not in so many words), no way in hell was I writing BOTH in one day. I have too many potential careers to look through. But, that's what I get for switching classes and ending up with the chair of the Cooperative Education department. I'm not looking for easy, but other than the self-assessment, this class is the biggest waste of time.

Sigh. I want lots of money and a trip across the world. I just want to take a break from everything.

Got the Graphic Narrative syllabus that Prof. Mayer would have used had the class not gotten canceled. Good lord, there's a lot of work. A lot of supplies, too.

Yay for someone at NBC giving people the names of the songs on Minute to Win It. This one's pretty darn awesome, if short. 1:31?! Time for Audacity.

Nothing big, and made no sense, but I was somewhere with unfamiliar people... maybe another college open house or something. We were watching a movie clip. You know how mobsters used to carry guns in violin cases? One guy on a catwalk pulled out a clarinet and literally blew a small rocket out of it at another guy on the ground, by playing it. Like, "G#--FWOOSH." I remember cracking up, and some of the people looking at me, and I had to explain that I used to play the clarinet and found it absurd/hilarious that one could be used to fire rockets.

Seriously, this is what my mind comes up with. XD;;

Obviously I've not gone to National Portfolio Day! I want to work on my portfolio more. Between this weekend and next week's extended one, I should get stuff done.

I'm cleaning my room. Not fun, but necessary. Had to dig some things out not too long ago and kind of negated everything I'd done before.