Oh what a night....

and what a day.....

Yesterday saw me working a little over twelve hours at work (I don't take lunch breaks) and then going home and doing four hours of homework.

Funny...I feel good this morning....and my assignment looks great!

LOL

What you get for complaining...

is an absolutely awesome class change! Actually the title makes it sound worse than it is (it sounds like I threw a tantrum or something--trust me, nothing close!) I simply called my advisor and said the compy class was remedial for me and that the instructor even questioned why I was in there. She called me back after an hour and said she'd put me in Design 105 where we are working with InDesign. Since my first class met Wednesday (while my brain was turning into mush in Computers 101) I went in last night, met my instructor and he gave me a rushed 20-minute review of what I missed. The first assignment is due today, but he gave me a penalty-free extension to Monday as I just received the software last night. I have to jump over to Apple today and get my serial number and start installing the program so I can get on the assignment. For what I saw of the program though, girl is IN LOVE...this really is an amazing program, and I've only seen a few minutes of it! I am soooooooooo happy-- I am in school! Whee! And I LIKE it (school, not being happy...being happy makes me, well, happy!) Oh, and I am still posting 2 pics per day at Deviantart....check me out here

Sitting in class...

Oh boy am I going to have fun here...seriously, if I don't get an A out of this class I will demand a re-count. Today we're learning how to explore the wonderful world of Windows.....(yawn). Think I need to get into a harder class....the teacher even asked me if I was a little too advanced for this one!

WARNING cont.....

Just counted...there are actually 52 waiting to be uploaded! Wish me luck guys...school starts tonight!

WARNING!

I finally went through and cleaned up my desktop Sunday night...seven hours later I had not only categorized my pictures, but had thrown close to two hundred onto my jump drive to sort through later as possible uploads to Deviantart. I am happy to say that list has been reduced to somewhere around 40 (hey, its been ages since I've uploaded onto that site!) so here's the warning. Yes, I will be posting a couple tons of new images onto Deviantart, but I will be nice to everyone involved and only load 2 per day until the pile is gone. Goodness knows I should have more to upload by the time I am finished with this batch...

My day as a secret agent

Note: this is NOT fiction, what you are about to read actually happened.....

It all started on a monday....I never could quite get the hang of mondays. I was at work, of course I was at work, a single girl has got to eat and for that, she needs a job. I received a phone call, but as I answer phones as part of my job description, this was hardly surprising. It was a man, mid-twenties to thirties by the sound of his voice, a pleasant voice with an American accent--not a New Yorker or a Southern boy, just....American. A contest, he said. Your company name was drawn, and (you lucky girl) you get one of four fabulous prizes. In retrospect I only recall the HD widescreen tv and the 2008 pickup but the other two were fab as well...all he needed to know was when he could send the boys by to wrap things up. The guy threw out a day and time--thursday, 2 pm--and I hesitated. I wasn't interested...a smart cookie like me knows you don't get something for nothing and the the man quickly jumped to the subject of how great this deal really was. I tried to back out but he started asking my demographic information, for a survey, he said. He asked my age group--I lied and said 40. He asked if I made 40K or more--I lied again and said 28. He said great, I could affort the state tax if I won the truck, thanked me for my time and said the boys would be by with my scratch and win ticket and was off before I could say another word.
I sat there stunned...what had I let that smooth talker get me into? I never could say no to a smooth talker...something in me got all tongue-tied and made me feel guilty if I even so much as thought the words "get lost Buster". I sighed, signed onto Google and ran his so-called new company to the area. No hits. I let out an unladylike term and realized I had no way to call this shmuck back and tell him not to bother. Just then another call came in, a legitimate one this time and I forgot about my appointment with destiny...
Thursday. The alarm didn't go off. I woke to my roomate warming up her jalopy just outside my bedroom window, the window I keep cracked open for so-called inner-city fresh air. I grabbed a fresh towel--pale blue--and a darker blue washcloth and raced for the shower. I won, but as no one else was competing for it at the moment, this came as no surprise. Rinsing my hair of its lavender-scented suds it hit me that today that destiny was tossing the boys my way...and me with my best t-shirt in the laundry. My thoughts kept mulling the matter over as I applied my daily coat of paint and styled my from-the-bottle auburn locks. By the time I waltzed through the office door--loaded down by forty pounds of screws I'd picked up along the way--I'd made up my mind that it was time to call the Feds.
Cue one long, tall drink of water (hey I was thirsty) and I had an agent on the line. He listened to my take of suspicion and intrigue, agreed there was something fishy in the air and directed me to my local fuzz. Quietly pushing aside the tuna casserole I was snarfing down as an impromptu breakfast I admitted this agent man was good and called the coppers.
The dispatcher was a brunette. I can't say for certain, but she seemed too level-headed to be a blonde. She agreed with my special agent friend and said she'd have one of the boys in blue over around 1:45 to watch for my Matchstick Men. True to her word Office N strode in at 10 to the hour...tall guy, black pants, bright yellow and black jacket, a .38 special on his hip and cheek-to-cheek ironwords framing all those pearly whites. Wondering where the heck all the blue went I exchanged pleasantries, then got to business. He took notes, then asked for my number, though I hardly expect him to call me later, he didn't strike me as that type of guy. He wore a band on that all-important digit...if you're single you know the one I am talking about. We kept it short and he promised to watch out for suspicious characters in the neighborhood while he causally drove by a few times. If the culprits came if I was to excuse myself, call the dispatch dame and let them know I had two fish on the hook. With that the officer left, handcuffs at the ready for those slime who felt it was fine to gyp poor secretarial-types, like myself, from their hard-earned wages.
Sure enough Officer N drove by several times as I went about my afternoon business but the goons never showed. Dan the man says it was probably because my friendly fuzz was parked in front of our office until nearly 10 past the meeting hour. My special agent earlier said they'd only target women who were alone in the office, and Dan had chosen to hang around and get some work done. Personally, I think it was the 28Gs...to small of potatoes for the likes of them to bother with.
Plenty of other stuff happened today--evaluations, raises, freight to unload, orders to fill, paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork, orientation at school and class schedules to work out...between all that and my adventure in busting big-time scam artists, I can honestly say there was a legitimate reason my exhausted body surrendered to sleep by 9:30. I wonder what tomorrow's adventures will bring....

Nothing feels so good....

As being well again! I wanna pull a Julie Andrews, run loose over the mountaintops singing my lungs out about how wonderful it is to be alive. It is amazing how much richer things seem when you finally pull out of "sickness mode"...not that I don't appreciate life on a daily basis, but its certainly amplified at the moment!

What your Pandora says about you.....

How does Pandora go from Jimmy Eat World, Linkin Park and the Cure to dump you into celtic and folk music(with the occasional Dashboard Confessionals to round out all the chick singers)is beyond me. Sadly though it is right, I DO like this stuff, I just wish they'd throw some harder stuff in there on occasion. Guess it's time to try a new music "station"...

Happiness is.....

Buying that warm winter coat you've needed for some time now and getting it for 60% off. Also bought that t-shirt I desperately wanted a couple of months ago but refused to pay $40 for (it was clearanced down to $15.99). Guess no one else in the area likes orange, or maybe they just can't pull off that shade!

Being sick really stinks.....

Been sick on-and-off again for nearly a week now with the flu. Feel good one minute and about to keel over the next from dizziness. Not that I have thrown up much (unlike the poor pumpkin here!) but I couldn't resist the pic. What do you want to bet that even though I have not been eating much lately because of the nausea that I haven't lost anything? sigh. Being sick really stinks because you aren't even allowed the fringe benefit of minimal weight loss! Felt pretty good yesterday and was bouncy and ran a couple of errands after work only to wake up at two in the morning feeling like I should be hanging onto my bed so I wouldn't fall off! After laying there channel surfing (oh the evils of cable tv in your room!) for about 2 hours I drifted back off again until the alarm started screaming at 7. Right now I am good, but that can change. I hope the good feeling stays because I have to go grocery shopping this evening and make up 8 hours this weekend at work!

Life can change in the blink of an eye

Okay, my life didn't change that quickly for me (try more in the space of an hour) but it has changed. I decided to do a little more checking into a local school's graphic design program yesterday and agreed to come in so they could go over the information in person with me (I figured what the heck since I was going to stop by for a class catalog anyway).

Long story short, I start classes on the 22nd of this month. I will be in school in the evenings for the next 18 months Monday through Thursday. I am extremely excited over this and can't wait for the next two-and-a-half weeks to hurry up and be done with. Some of my previous classes should transfer but I probably will not know which ones for another week...I'll definately know by the time I go in for orientation on the 17th. Wish me luck everyone!