I made it to the end.

I took my last final on Saturday. I think I might have been the first one done. It's over. For now.

Think my grades were pretty good. I can rest.

Whew. That was close.

I've been bad...and I'm not ashamed.

Blargh, I just finished some homework from last week. One more blessed week of this, then winter break.

You know what I've been doing most of the week? Playing Vampire Knight DS and giggling my ass off. I like it more than Twilight (three chapters of the audiobook and I cried "Enough!"), but it's still got enough ick factor to it that I haven't finished watching the first season of the show or gotten past one volume of manga. It's so good I squirm, but I squirm too much and it becomes uncomfortable.

But it's anime. It's more palatable to me. I'm too old to be getting my otome on, aren't I?

So why is it so fun?

Riddle me that, why dontcha? I even understand most of it. That's my excuse. I have not been able to flex my feeble Japanese knowledge in a while, and immersing myself in a fun video game is helping me blow off steam. The characters are fully voiced, so I don't have to try and read everything, since that would make the game take weeks instead of days.

Ah, it couldn't come at a worse time. The end of an academic quarter :(

Methinks I'm overly tired and need a break. Finals are next week, then I can lounge...and complete my harem.

My Mood: Bummed.

Ah, my kitty is starting to throw up again. I'm taking her to a different vet Friday for a second opinion. Darnit. Mom's cranked up about it, and I just want to hide in the closet. I had a feeling it wouldn't last.

It's the end of the quarter and I have zero drive to get anything done. I hope I don't ruin any of my grades because of this, because I do NOT want to take this stuff again. You think that would be motivation enough, but no.

Despite having a decent Thanksgiving, I'm not in the holiday spirit, at all.

Update.

Hello. It's been a while. School has been keeping me busier than before. Bleah, I hope I make it to the end.

I just wanted to record what's happened the past few weeks:

• As you know, my cat throws up on a regular basis. Near daily. It causes much stress in the house. Mom has covered all the carpets in an attempt to prevent staining, but it looks horrible. We tried different foods, hairball remedies and other things, but it wasn't stopping, and then I started getting grumpy and thinking she was unhappy and vomiting out of protest. A couple of weeks ago I took her to the vet and they said she might have an intestinal parasite, and they gave her a steroid shot and some medicine that you put between her shoulder blades. This after $200 worth of blood tests to see that she doesn't have hyperthyroidism or something (I knew I shouldn't have went to the vet in the pet store, but The Cat Doctor couldn't see her for a week, and I was feeling desperate). So, $241 and two weeks later, she hasn't thrown up since. I feel bad that I didn't realize my furball had something internally wrong. She didn't lose weight, she wasn't weak, or irritable like a sick cat would be. She would just purge and go on her merry way like a model with an eating disorder. She's better now, but if we have to keep giving her steroid shots, it could cause her to become diabetic, which I don't want to happen. I'm not sure if there are other ways to handle it. The PetSmart vet clinic wasn't my first choice, and it was mad expensive, but I don't know if it would have been less expensive anywhere else. She has a checkup the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so I'll probably take her to that and then find a more traditional vet to take her to from then on that won't gouge me for blood testing.
• I've been a slacker and not wanting to read my excessively dry textbooks, and the past two weeks I've been cramming everything in at the end of the week. I hate all of it. Well, my Web Essentials class isn't bad, but the rest of it can go to hell! I knit two Cookie A. patterns (one from each potential pair), Vilai from Sock Innovation, and Clandestine from Knitty. They didn't take very long to make, but getting the second ones done is going to be the issue. I might have to wait until my winter break before I get the second Vilai started.
• After hearing Mom procrastinate about it for almost a year, I bought her a Neti Pot with a surprise $5 off coupon from CVS. She used it for the first time today, and it was....kind of hilarious. "Can you you drown?" she asked as water streamed from her nose. Just keeping breathing through your mouth, mom. She was interested in it because when I started using a Neti Pot last winter, my severe sinus pain went away, and for the first time in years I didn't have a cold that dragged on for months. I haven't bought prescription nasal spray since the Neti Pot came home with me. My headaches used to get so bad that I couldn't work and I would get sick to my stomach like having a migraine. I hope that she keeps it up. I inherited my mom's sinsuses :P

That's about it for now. Time to go work on some spreadsheet or something.

• 
  

Boo. Paranormal Activity = FAIL

It was a case of carrot and stick, with a twist. When I finally got the carrot, it didn't taste very good.

I wanted to be scared. I wanted to join the in crowd. I wanted that hype to be deserved.

I wanted it to be good. I didn't want to laugh, I wanted a fright, because it's Halloween, and well, I felt like being frightened. It's not often, but sometimes a scary movie can be fun.

Maybe I'm jaded, but the horror vérité /shaky cam genre doesn't creep me out all that much, the partial exception being Cloverfield. Cloverfield was pretty good, but it didn't scare the crap out of me. It had good pacing, and I felt more of the character's panic as they desperately tried to escape from Certain Doom. It was less about the monster and more "Oh shit, what are they gonna do? OMGOMGOMGRUUUUUNNNNNN!".

Paranormal Activity didn't do much for me. Most of the time, I was giggling at how dumb these people were. The suspense was okay to a point- the tension/release was good for a while, then I got irritated. It dragged on. Too much tease, and not enough reward. It's like a dominatrix that tickles you, but never gives you that smack you so richly deserve....

Where the hell did that come from? Oh, Amy, why does your mind go there? Ahem.

When I finally got the payoff, I was thinking, "That's fucking IT?!?" I should have learned my lesson long ago from The Blair Witch Project, but I never saw that in the theater, and I thought maybe that sort of stuff is scarier on a big screen. No, no it's not.

I really wanted to enjoy it, too *sniff*

Shawl WIP pic post

A quick picture of the Lilac Leaf Shawl I started in May. I'm in the middle of the leaf section, and it's...boring. I might be halfway through the repeats listed in the pattern, I don't know. I haven't been counting. I know it has to be longer than it is now to be wearable. It's like a 20 row repeat. It's pretty, but I'm not in the mood to work on it now. I think the math class I took over the summer took up too much time!

But I wanted to get some proof up here while i was in the picture taking frame of mind.

Slow and steady will win this race.

Here we are.

it goes on...forever...

Here are pictures of Angelika. It was a fun pattern to make. I tried to chart the directions so I could work faster, but I just wasted a lot of paper instead. I worked until I ran out of yarn, so I did one less edging row, but it still peaks nicely. I enjoy chevrons.

The only thing that I don't like is the color of the yarn. This yarn is called Raspberry Heather by Knit Picks, and at the time, the picture on their site was a kind of pinkish red color, like the fruit. I got it in the mail and it's....orange. Sort of a salmon color. This would have been fine if I had been in the mood for orange, but I was in the mood for RED. Even looking at a few pictures on Ravelry of this color, the pictures came up reddish, so I thought I would be okay. Nope.

Knit Picks now describes the color as it should have: pinkish- orange. Maybe it's an heirloom raspberry color. If I sound annoyed, I am. I got used to the color, but I still don't love it. If I sound like a brat tonight, well...I can be. I am still grateful for the yarn I have.

It blocked pretty large. I could not get good pictures of the shawl flat because the wingtips fell off the edge of the bed. I didn't have a good place to lay it on the floor this time. Sort of good because the carpet leaves fuzzies on my projects. The curve of the shawl allows it to stay on your shoulders, like a Faroese shawl, but not. I would use a shawl pin on it if I had one. There are more pictures on Rav if you want to look.

One more FO pic and I'll be done playing catch up in the photo department! It's a matter of time. Oops, I forgot about the CPH. How could I forget? I can't wait to pull it out again.