So cool! I was just looking up Moulin Rouge - The Ballet because apparently my dad is going and found out that Eric Nipp is playing Zidler! How cool is that? And the other guys in our class used to bug him about doing ballet! I'm so proud in a weird detached way. (He was in grade 7 while I was in grade 6 in the same class. He was cool. Him and Jeff Dobson were besties.)

Okay. Boiling over with rage from things that do not concern me. It's rant time.

I hate how after reaching a certain age or stage in their lives, most of my friends have come to the conclusion that there's no such thing as having fun unless you've got a drink in your hand. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Riley in particular has this problem.

Can anyone honestly say that it's okay to
- Plan to get drunk before your first day of college just so that people will think you're hilarious when you show up drunk?
- "Party" (sit around drinking) at least twice weekly?
- Have in excess of 30 empties in your room, perhaps half of which are single-serving bottles?
- Outright antagonize a non-partying lifestyle?
- Have so many people over that when your brother and his girlfriend are attempting to have an actual rested sleep, it is inevitable that at least one drunk idiot will come into their room, waking them up, trying to figure out who's there?

Honestly, it makes me so angry to go on facebook for like, a second, because I am suddenly assaulted with people's photos from three different parties at which all of the same people are in attendance. I mean, I know it's Salmon Arm, but they don't have to drink their way out. I remember a time only a few years ago when many of these people would be able to just hang out playing videogames and talking about boats girls and drinking tea and they'd have a fantastic time. And even then, they'd do it probably only once a week. And they were happy with that. Brendan used to be a part of that. What exactly happened that made specifically him split off into the sole member of the group of sane people while the others spiralled into alcoholism? I'm pretty sure it wasn't because of me, because as far as I can tell, he's just not an idiot. Is that really the problem? Is everybody else just stupid? I don't really think so. I used to like some of those people, and because of this lifestyle they lead, I have serious issues with them now.

I used to have friends. Now none of them pay attention to me anymore. This is probably because I was never really a very good friend and they only spent time with me because I was conveniently around, but now that they're all living in different places and some (mostly Riley) are actually purposefully rude to me, I'm sort of just left with Brendan. I mean, I love Brendan, and he's the best friend I could ever want, but I do get lonely. And I miss having girly friends to be girly with. My only friends I get to spend time with now are the people we hang out with who play D&D and Star Wars RPG (which is fine, I'm not complaining that they're a bunch of geeks because I'm into that), but the problem there is that I don't participate in those things. I feel weird when I just go for the company, but I honestly have no interest in playing. I feel like they think I should either play or stay home, and I don't think they know how much I like them and need them around. Even people who I thought I'd be friends forever with are distant. I feel like they're all changing or have changed and I'm staying the same, which is probably exactly what's happening. I just find it hard to relate anymore with those I have the option to. Others have fallen of the face of the earth as far as I'm concerned. I don't know if I'll ever see or hear from Erin again, and I only seem to have contact with Jesse through Colin, who has contact with everybody or something. Even livejournal depresses me friend-wise. I have five mutual friends on here who I actually know or have spoken to at some length. It looks like I have more, but 13 of those journals are inactive. One friend is my dad and another is Brendan. Hilary's left for bigger and better things (DJing all over the place and advertising herself on facebook), which alienates me further. It makes me angry and sad that my best friend other than Brendan is actually my mom. I mean, she's cool and all, but it didn't used to be that way. And largely, I owe this isolation to alcohol.

Thank you for ruining my social life.

In the past couple of days, our internet has been down for which we had to buy a new router, I have procrastinated only a little from doing my work, Rowan got in a horrible falling-off-of-chair accident that required a trip to the ER and 7 stitches, I have tasted my (delicious) squash pie, and I have been working on a super mega Christmas project.

This year, my mom's entire side of the family is coming from their homes (mostly in Saskatchewan) to spend Christmas in Salmon Arm. I have seven cousins coming to visit, and then another two on my dad's side. I have decided to make all of them, and Rowan, sock monkeys. Or rather, sock monkey dolls (because they are not the traditional sock monkey so much as a sort of soft doll that happens to be a monkey). I have completed one monkey so far and am almost finished with another. Only 8-1/4 to go! Oh boy. On the plus side, though, they are quite fun to make. I'm making little outfits for them and they have yarn hair as well. I bought $20 worth of socks, which is actually quite a lot, as I bought them at an Ardene, and therefore, they were bargain prices for knee-high socks. Usually those will cost about $5 a pair, but for $20, I got 12 pairs, which means at least 12 monkeys with all the scrap pieces (I cut off the top 6 inches of each sock) for clothing material. It's pretty much awesome. I got my sewing room set up a while ago (Nicole's presence is but a faint memory to me already), and I'm loving it. I haven't felt this happy for a long while. Eric is so easy to get along with! He may be messy in the most confusing way (the location of our kitchen dishcloth and sponge is currently unknown), but I think I am learning to let it go somewhat. It's just upsetting when I want it tidy for people to come over because there is just so much to do. I'll probably get all uptight in a few days again.

Anyway! This is the procrastinating I was talking about. Worktime begins now.

( Halloween! )

Now I have a fake coconut pie to make. It has no coconut in it, but apparently it tastes just like it. It's actually spaghetti squash (which I am otherwise never going to eat, probably), so hopefully all goes well!

That bitch stole our laundry detergent.

- Facebook doesn't recognize me anymore.
- Nicole moved out and I have a sewing room now. (YAAAAAY)
- She left two pairs of shoes here, though.
- I am taking on a project editing home videos from when I was just a wee one.
- I have lots of work to do so I can't post pictures from Halloween or anything at this time.

More later!

Sleep experiment = moderately successful! It would have been better if there was some big conversation or something, which sometimes happens, but I did manage to get this little gem:


Brendan sings.MP3 -

There were some other little things, just words or mumblies, but he actually sang a song in his sleep. I think he says "put your tiny heart on my face." Sooo cute, hahah!

So, because my body parts are trying to kill me lately, I have to sleep on my back all night because it makes me feel slightly better. Unfortunately, I learned last night that sleeping on my back also aggrevates my lower back and left-sided ribs. This discovery resulted in an interesting dream.

After waking up to realize that my ribs were hurting me, I fell asleep to eventually have a dream where I woke up, realized that my ribs were hurting me, and got up and went downstairs to watch something on the TV because I couldn't get back to sleep. While I was lying on the couch, I realized that my lowest rib on the left was jutting out about five inches higher than my other ribs. Experimentally, I traced the line of it to my side, where it had popped through my skin with a broken edge (very like when Claire from Heroes does something stupid and then has gross ribs coming out, only not bloody). I was quite alarmed by this, but was relieved that there was no blood, and I tried to push it back in, succeeding only in moving it a small way. I then went upstairs, woke Brendan up, and was going to ask him to take me to the hospital until I remembered that we don't have a car. I told him I needed to get there anyway, and he was being difficult and sleepy and wouldn't understand properly that there was something wrong. I was just like, "uhh, my rib is sort of poking out of my body," he was like "well, can't you put it back in?" and I had to say that even if I could, I needed someone to stitch up the hole or something. I think I woke up then, and my rib was hurting. Thankfully, when I felt around, it seemed to be in place.

Hoo boy. I just want to go get checked out and whatnot so I can start feeling better. I think my liver is enlarged, which isn't really a good thing, and I would like that to be verified. I am willing to undergo pretty much any kind of tests, so long as I can know that I will be okay in the end. I can't wait until I can sleep again.

I know that nobody cares, but obviously I should bring this up to someone and this will help me remember.

I just finished a report and counted 7 points to deduct from my final score. This report was out of 78. That should give me 91%, yes? Obviously, they borked this one because I enter 7 in the "points to deduct" box and it tells me I got 6%. Which is 5/78. Which is completely baffling. It's not like they even counted my 7 as the number of points I got right, because that would be 5/78. So what the hell? I don't even know how I should report this. There is no email address set aside for errors in the course that I know of, and the only address I even know is the general Canscribe address, which I know wouldn't help if I wrote to. Same with the phone. Urgghhh. This had better not affect my final grade if I can't find a way to report it. I'm supposed to get at least 85% on each report, so it very well could.

EDIT: Er um, turns out is was my fault, even though I couldn't have known. In that particular report, I had a significant omission (not actually, but I did move a poorly placed dictated section to a better spot, which the footnotes after submission told me was fine), and apparently having a significant omission will dramatically affect your grade. So case closed, I guess. Now I'm all embarrassed.

So I was doing my work for about 40 minutes before I got super tired. I haven't been sleeping too well, so I figured a nap was in order (mostly because it wasn't just my usual sleepy and bored doing work thing; I was making stupid mistakes and everything). I instead sort of took a short sleep that lasted two and a half hours, dreams and everything. If I had been doing my work, I would be done by now. Now I have to get back to it until like, 7:30. Stupid nap.

Bands that I want to see live, top 10:

1. Radiohead done that but I'd sell my soul to do it again (just not all my money, apparently)
2. Tool
3. The Smashing Pumpkins (the olden days kind, which sadly will never happen again. I'd say the new version, except that I went and got my Billy Corgan fill when I saw Zwan and I just don't see the point as I haven't properly listened to the new stuff)
4. Muse
5. Lemon Demon (totally attainable, but pointlessly expensive for me to actually do (also yes, this really is my #5))
6. The Mars Volta
7. The National
8. Beck
9. NIN also done, and was totally awesome
10. Kunek, probably, although I have no idea how to go about seeing them.

This numbering is in no way indicative of my favourite bands. This is just how I would prefer to see them live.

Seriously though, I've had these awful dreams since seeing Radiohead where they came back to Vancouver right away and I got to go for a discounted price for some reason and then I wake up and it's all a lie. I haven't had one of those dreams for a while, but after waking up from them, the rest of my day would kind of just be miserable.

You know, I really hate that everyone who thinks they like Muse these days likes them because they are "known for being Stephenie Meyer's inspiration for Twilight!" They're really very good and it's awful that they're getting attention because of something as stupid and awful as the Twilight movies (because really, it's most likely because of the movies and their soundtracks). I'm not knocking the books because I haven't read them, but the movie was AWFUL and it wasn't even mostly due to acting. I've heard a lot of people I know go on about how the books are just so great, but I honestly don't know how great they can be. That movie had the stupidest plot ever, and unless it was drastically changed from the book, I don't have high hopes in that case, either. I'm kind of afraid to even try reading them, though, because then I might actually like them and then I'd be a *shudder* Twilight fangirl. There is no lower depth one can sink to, as far as I'm concerned.

(Also, believe it or not, but I ran across that link while verifying medical terms! I promise. Also I know very little about Taylor Swift, but in that picture she looks about 14, although apparently she's only a couple months younger than I am. Kind of weird is all, but then there is Hilary, who is ageless and can be any age that she tries to look.)

For the past couple days (since Saturday night), I have been super sick with a cold. I'm specifying "with a cold" just to let you know it's not swine flu or something supposedly scary. Just a cold, although it is pretty bad and it did hit me out of nowhere. Brendan started showing symptoms at pretty much the exact same time that I did, so I think it's safe to say that we got it from the same source. We've been having quite a few people over lately, so I suspected that one of them passed over some germies. The only thing is, none of them are or have recently been sick as far as I know. And then Brendan had an enlightening conversation yesterday morning.

Yesterday morning, he went upstairs to talk with Eric, who had just arrived home from some form of all-nighter (where he apparently had the worst drunk experience ever and he's giving it up For Good For Real This Time), and during their conversation, Nicole popped up and heard Brendan sniffling.

"Do you have a cold?" she asked urgently.
"Uh... well, a sniffly nose, I guess..." he responded.
"Does Kathleen have a cold?" she pressed.
"She's pretty sniffly too?"
"THAT explains it! I've been feeling this way for a few days now. You guys gave me a cold!"

...Um, do the math. Is it really likely that one of us passed our cold to her when she was apparently exhibiting symptoms days before we were? Probably not. Gotta love that completely self-righteous antagonism.

In any case, now I'm pretty sure I know where I caught it from.

More on a complainy note (I know, you were waiting for this), it really is probably the worst head cold I've ever had. The only thing that could make it worse is if my throat was involved. Sore throat cold is like a hundred times worse than just stuffed up cold. This morning I woke up with a super sore throat and I thought that was it for me, but I had a Halls and it seems okay. Speaking of sleeping, it has been quite the ordeal. Saturday night was bad enough with both Brendan and me snuffling away, but as of last night, I was so plugged up that I was being forced to breathe through my mouth, which I just can't make myself do. It is too horrible. Also, this is a really bad cold in that I do not only feel pressurized behind my nose, but pretty much all over my head, ears very much included. It is an awful feeling. It's like having a headache that you can't get rid of by sleeping it off or taking a pill, and it's not even really headachy anyway. It just feels like I'm filled with cotton or my head is trying to explode or something. So last night, after lying sitting in bed for a couple of restless and sleepy hours, I gave up on trying to just deal with it, went downstairs, and looked up a recipe of sorts for a nasal saline solution. I had thought about doing that before, but I didn't because I don't have a dropper, which I thought was kind of necessary. At 2:00 this morning, I remembered that you can trap liquid in straws. So I ended up clearing up my nose (well, one nostril, at least) just fine and having a fairly pleasant sleep. Unfortunately, I also got up probably around 5:00 to use the bathroom, the result being that I'm not very well rested feeling. I'm just glad I caved and made myself some salt water. I had to make a whole cup of it though, because otherwise I would have had to approximate some pinches of salt (wheras per 1 cup of water I added 1/2 tsp salt). It may just be re-warmable for tonight if it's still a problem (which I assume it will be).

Oh right, I just remembered: Nicole keeps turning on the heat. Brendan has talked to her about this (because we absolutely don't need the furnace going, especially at night), and she insists that her room is drafty. My solution? Add a blanket. Hot water bottle. Space heater. Don't just turn on the furnace to boil us all in our sleep. It really is not that cold out yet. I'm pretty sure Brendan kind of let her know that finding an alternate and personal heat source was preferred, but here I am, sitting in my room, and the heat has just come on.

I have mentioned how I'm pretty sure she just disregards everything we/Brendan says, right? Can this be proof so I don't sound like a lunatic anymore?

OH MY GOD I NEED THIS: http://www.whatdoyudu.com/products/detail.aspx?id=625000

I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING. I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT IT'S $300. THIS IS ALL I WILL EVER NEED TO BE HAPPY.


(feel free to give me actual advice on this because otherwise I may actually go buy it. I saw it today at Michael's and it is amazing. Super duper Christmas time present maybe?)

Things that are cool:
- I am 20 now.
- I have increased my lines per hour by about 30, which is great and means more potential moneys for me.
- I ordered 3 Threadless shirts and they are on their way.
- I have 3 different cakes currently available for my eating pleasure.
- I have my own sewing machine now (!)
- Brendan has decided to put his foot down and ask that Nicole move out by next semester.
- I am wearing my Smurf shirt.

Things that are less cool:
- Yesterday was a horrible depression day where I did nothing but cry and hyperventilate and stay in bed.
- My Mario Kart Wii injuries (twin ring-finger blisters) are back (from sustained Mario Karting a few days ago).
- I cannot use my new sewing machine until I have somewhere suitable to put it (hem hrm Nicole's room).
- Preeetty sure that Nicole is actually antagonizing me to some extent and therefore I am an actual shut-in (confined to bedroom) unless she is out.
- I have 3 different cakes currently available for my eating pleasure. :(
- For my birthday, my mom gave me a bunch of assorted foodstuffs and My Fitness Coach for Wii, which is sort of both mildly disappointing and very mixed-message-ish.


I guess I'm decently happy today. Apparently people are coming over tonight for a wild and crazy party (aka D&D night), so the place has to get somewhat clean, which means I should go and help get it somewhat clean (Brendan is washing dishes now). Perhaps I can invite everyone else to have some cake tonight! This cake situation might not be so bad after all.

I guess I'm posting just because I haven't in a few days...? I'm not really sure, actually.

Success!

Yesterday my mom and Ron and Rowan came for a pre-birthday celebration day and we went shopping (at my request), so now I have clothes that fit and look good! I didn't get any of the ones I actually planned to, because it turned out they were not as nice as I thought they would be on me, but I did end up getting two pairs of jeans, a pretty black cowl-neck top, a purple t-shirt with Wolverine on it, and a grey one with smurfs on it. Oh, and two necklaces. So now I am happy.

Then we went and got food for a barbecue and then... well, barbecued it. Then we had ice cream cake, and then they left and Brendan and I went to the weekly Star Wars game (because we are geeks).

I also weighed myself today and apparently I am five pounds lighter (again, a fluke I'd say because it did fluctuate back up at a different point and I'm thinking it's just a day-to-day water and waste retention thing), but apparently my fat percentage is up by 1% and my water is down by %1. Neither of those things is good, but it kind of makes me go all shruggy because how does that make sense? Oh well.

Hungry now. Also, work time now. Looks like that extension will be happening, because it turns out I have a buttload more in my course after all. I haaate thisss.

(My birthday tomorrow, yay! My dad and Leila and grandma and grandpa are coming to visit!)

Uhh...

So I'm actually using this dumbo shorthand thing (which is super annoying, by the way, because it runs all the time and I've had to correct a few things in this entry already because it keeps expanding them) and I just did one example:

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION: Patient is a well-developed, well-nourished 73-year-old male. He is awake, alert, oriented, and in no acute distress. Head is normocephalic, atraumatic. Eyes: Pupils equal, round, reactive to light and accommodation. Neck is supple. Chest: Clear to auscultation. Heart: Regular rate, rhythm. No murmurs, rubs, gallops. Abdomen is soft. Good bowel sounds noted. No hepatosplenomegaly. Extremities: No clubbing, cyanosis, edema.

which in normal person land is supposed to take 465 keystrokes if you double-space after colons and periods (which I do not). I just did it almost entirely out of shorthand. My keystroke count? 592. And I did it slowly so I wouldn't make mistakes! Yeah, I'm going to be using this on a day to day basis. (That was mucho sarcasmo.)

Also, I just found out (from my wouldn't) that " 't " expands to 'the, which is totally useless. It is because plain old t is the. (In case you're wondering, I'm writing the example things for you by pressing the escape button after every normally expanding thing that I want to keep unexpanded. Is that any way to live a live? I think not.)

Oh my god. So angry.

NOW my course is letting me know that in order to make significant money, I have to learn shorthand and invest in a shorthand program.

UHHH. Relearning the English language = NO THANK YOU. Especially this late in the course, after I've actually finished the majority of the practice reports. As far as I'm concerned, it's an insult to our language. I'm actually expected to switch from typing everything out normally:

The patient is a 39–year–old male with a history of diabetes type 2, coronary artery disease, and fibromyalgia. He is on metformin, hydrochlorothiazide, and nonsteroidal antiinflammatory medication. He has no known drug allergies. His review of systems is negative for headaches, dizziness, and sore throat.

to some monstrosity:

Tp is a 39yo male with a ho dt2, cadx, and fibm. He is on metformin, hctz, and nsaid medication. He has nkda. His rosx is nf headaches, dzs, and sot.

They actually expect me to be able to type gibberish like this at the same speed that I would type actual words. That requires relearning EVERYTHING I KNOW and they are telling me this NOW. Sure, it significantly reduces keystrokes, but so the frick what! It's an abomination that would require solid months of practice to get anywhere near my current typing speed. And then what? When I go to type anything that isn't a medical report, am I magically able to revert back to real words? I think not. It would require complete conditioning. I would become illiterate.

I do not think so.


I am actually so mad right now.