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heather
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| knock loud, I'm home |
[Jul. 8th, 2009 | 05:36 pm] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  okay | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Neko Case - Knock Loud | ] |
Obviously I've been undergoing a rather quiet blog existence since November, most of which has been due to the job I now have. Now it would be disingenuous to suggest that I'm just too busy to write, as I have somehow managed to write in this thing for the last five or six years without ever being "too busy," so I will instead blame it on laziness and apathy. So Twitter has been bothering the everloving crap out of me: I can definitely spew out little blurbs throughout the day about what I'm thinking but I'm pretty sure that not even I would really be able to keep tabs on why any of them would matter to my general existence. My previous blog entries are generally at least long enough to warrant self-reflection. Now I'm not going to completely discount Twitter, as it has been rather important in reporting the news from Iran lately. I will, however, note how extremely self-centered the thing can be: sure you can follow other people's brief sputterings, but you're mostly posting for other people's approval. I suppose this has bothered me about blogs for a long time anyway, so the point is probably moot. The constant barrage of information is sometimes rather taxing: maybe that's why we can only appeal to each other in terms of our likes and dislikes. The most any of us can do facing this kind of onslaught is compartmentalize things into "love" or "like" or "hate."
A number of things have changed since November: Jonny and I now live together in Raleigh, which has been a lot of fun. We just got back from a mini holiday in Asheville. :)
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| fingers crossed, my time is coming now |
[Nov. 18th, 2008 | 03:04 pm] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  frustrated | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Lykke Li - Time Flies | ] |
It's November. I still haven't found a full-time engineering position. I had a couple more interviews recently, but neither company could hire me (in both cases, it felt like a monetary thing, not really a dislike of my qualifications or me personally). All kinds of companies are having hiring freezes, and it may not get better until next year. For the time being, I'm trying to get temp work at UNC. It might pay better than Galaxy if they give me a lab position, plus it would be much closer to Carrboro. Hopefully that will give me 15-25 hours of part time work every week, then I can still have time for interviews, etc.
It's cute that I wrote in September that I'd be happy to even lose 20 pounds. Well I've now lost about 22 doing the Couch to 5K program. I'm about to start Week 8, jogging for 28 minutes, tomorrow. I've also been watching what I've been eating (with fitday.com), of course, but I really do think that being able to jog for 25 minutes nonstop has done a lot for my health and wellbeing, regardless. I still plan on eating a piece of pumpkin pie next week.
In other news, Jonny and I have officially been dating for a year now. He's the best. :D
**Note: this entry was made for Misha. Speaking of Misha, we went to see The Mountain Goats last week, which was awesome. They even played a Morrissey cover.** |
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| and I can't sleep |
[Oct. 16th, 2008 | 01:35 am] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  hopeful | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | The Magnetic Fields - Strange Powers | ] |
I've basically started falling in love with Pushing Daisies. I therefore love this limited edition shirt from glarkware:
I guess if I want one, I'll have to order it before the end of October.
Speaking of which, how is it mid-October already? Where did the rest of the year go? And if I get Halloween night off from work, what/who should I go as (I want to do Sarah Palin, but I guarantee other people will be doing this as well)? |
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| But what can I do? |
[Sep. 22nd, 2008 | 03:03 pm] |
Despite that I'm really watching what I eat these days, I think it's important that you all know that this is the best ice cream flavor ever invented:
Apparently they've begun selling it in select retail stores. Last year you could only get it at scoop shops (not that this was much of an impediment, since they will handpack a pint of it for you at those locations), so I'm wondering if it's been spotted anywhere locally. If you've seen it, let me know. It's the bees knees.
I'm also taking the time to read Love is a Mix Tape, since Misha, Jonny, Shirley Manson and Brian liked it. I finished Libra last week, and I still really adore DeLillo. |
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| I've been searching for a job |
[Jul. 11th, 2008 | 01:43 am] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  determined | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Du Pré, Baker, Barbirolli (LSO) - Cello Concerto in E minor Op.85 | ] |
So I haven't really been updating lately. I keep listening to Elgar's Cello Concerto, and it just kills me. The first movement is so beautiful. According to Wikipedia (oh stable source!), Elgar hummed the concerto's opening theme to a friend in 1934 during his final illness, telling him, "If ever after I'm dead you hear someone whistling this tune on the Malvern Hills, don't be alarmed. It's only me."
I continue on with my job search, and hope that I'll eventually have something worth posting in here. Otherwise, things are going rather well: Jonny and I are going to see Batman in IMAX at midnight next week when we celebrate being together for eight months (!). If you haven't seen Wall-E yet, do so immediately. It's such an amazing movie.
That's about it. Hit me up sometime, people: I'm dreadfully out of place here in Carrboro. |
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| weather changes moods |
[May. 26th, 2008 | 11:30 pm] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  bored | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Nirvana - In Bloom | ] |
Picture of the Day:
Apparently this happened at a Pro-Tibet rally way back in March or April, but I hadn't seen Rowan Benum's picture until Saunders showed it to me today. Enjoy. |
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| turn the volume up real high |
[May. 21st, 2008 | 06:59 pm] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | The Mountain Goats - Game Shows Touch Our Lives | ] |
I've graduated now. I need to find a job. I'm also temporarily moving in with my sister in Chapel Hill.
Also, Wolf Blitzer blogs.
And Jonny and I have fallen in love with watching Tila Tequila's Shot at Love II. We can't help it. It's like some kind of colorful trainwreck. |
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| just for kicks |
[Apr. 21st, 2008 | 12:11 am] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| | bored | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Explosions in the Sky – It's Natural to Be Afraid | ] |
My Personality
| | Neuroticism | | Extraversion | | Openness to Experience | | Agreeableness | | Conscientiousness | |
| You rarely get angry and it takes a lot to make you angry, however high levels of stress can lead to you feeling panic or confusion, but usually you cope with day to day pressures. You are not prone to spells of energetic high spirits. You tend not to express your emotions openly and are sometimes not even aware of your own feelings. You dislike confrontations and are perfectly willing to compromise or to deny your own needs in order to get along with others, however you are not affected strongly by human suffering, priding yourself on making objective judgments based on reason. You are more concerned with truth and impartial justice than with mercy. You take your time when making decisions and will deliberate on all the possible consequences and alternatives.
| | Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report. |
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| there is still no place for someone like me to fill |
[Apr. 7th, 2008 | 02:51 pm] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  busy | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Peter Bjorn and John - The Chills | ] |
I've been rather busy lately: sorry about never posting.
I feel mopey: there's too much I need to get done by the end of April, for one. Plus it keeps raining, though I suppose that's a good thing due to our drought.
I keep thinking that today, fourteen (gracious, I'm getting old) years ago, Kurt Cobain's body lay quietly in a house in Seattle. Now I don't mean to make this into come kind of oversentimentalized treatise on the subject, but it's still interesting to me. I keep getting the feeling that other people are having lives all around me and I haven't started mine yet, I'm still drowning in work. It's not even that the work is too hard to manage, it's just that the something else I should be doing is completely unrevealed to me: more importantly, I doubt it ever will be. But what are we supposed to do in the wake of such things being so far in our past? Someone once interviewed Frances Bean and she said she has no real idea why people would pay attention to her (outside of her parents being famous) because she hasn't done anything yet. And what have we done yet, after that? After that outrage about what had come before? It seems we merely decided to give it up, give up on the importance of that kind of intense feeling about... well, basically anything besides the minutiae of ourselves. Intensity has been played out, the idea of saving anyone from anything has been played out (as Kurt so proved)... What is left?
Unfortunately, I think the answer is the internet, where people can have all kinds of crazy ideas but refrain from ever making them public (the exceptions lately, I suppose, have been people like the Westboro Baptist Church... but like all groups with a dogma, they're hopefully quickly disregarded as nutjobs or, at minimum, too biased to enter the discussion). I'll give it credit for the kind of intertextuality that I find interesting, but it's people talking across each other through each other around each other- sometimes at each other- to a length that's completely unproductive. What have we done, then? More importantly, what is there to be done about the fact that we haven't done much? We're disillusioned of our own will to act. There are absolutely individual exceptions, but as a whole there's been no revolution (even that word is too charged for what I mean), no holistic change. And frankly, we're probably even bored with change, or at least the idea that things can be radically different for us. We're too used to the status quo, and yet we're also too used to lame attempts to change it.
I'd invoke Nietzsche, but I abhor his sexism (I cannot say if his thoughts were merely "in fashion" at the time as some critics say, but if they were, that tends to undermine his entire anti-system argument). He therefore cannot suit all of my needs in the "will" department. Part of the hilarity of all this is that he had his say on women and there is not much to be said in response this late. Feminists have bungled certain things that now only make any woman who stands up for herself look utterly ridiculous (and more importantly, make her look like she is some kind of angry, man-hating lesbian because she calls for equality). People (best of all, women!) are so over feminism that some have reverted back to not valuing themselves outside of the system in which we exist. Since no attempt at smashing it is likely to succeed and getting angry about it only succeeds in making you a laughing stock, can anything be done? The best illusion of all, I suppose, is that people claim we're (any minority, really) already equal or pandered to in this society when it still has a long way to come. See also: menarebetterthanwomen.com
So I just ask myself: what should I do? I don't even know where to start. |
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| Who's being pessimistic now? |
[Mar. 17th, 2008 | 10:25 pm] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  content | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Camera Obscura - Country Mile | ] |
Good news about my dad, quoting my mother:
"The big news of the day is his pathology report came back. There was one foci of active cancer still remaining in the esophagus after chemotherapy and radiation. This part was removed. There is no evidence of metastases!! The histologic grade of the tumor was grade 2-3. Basically, Dr. Harr said he does not have to do any more chemotherapy and radiation related to this, which is good news. We hope we can consider this surgery curative."
:D |
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| my dad was there |
[Mar. 7th, 2008 | 07:06 am] |
| [ | I'm in |
| | Mercy Hospital, Charlotte | ] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| | anxious | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Rilo Kiley - And That's How I Choose to Remember It | ] |
I'm writing from the hospital. Feel free to check our CaringBridge blog (yes, another) for updates on my father's surgery.
It's gonna be a long day. |
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| how would I ever make it through? |
[Feb. 15th, 2008 | 01:04 pm] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  loved | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | John Vanderslice - Dead Slate Pacific | ] |
I hope everyone had an okay Valentine's Day. Mine was pretty awesome (aside from remembering Frank): Jonny and I stayed up all night for Radiohead tickets to the Charlotte show. He bought them while I was in class. He also gave me Pixel Revolt on vinyl, which I adore. <3
We're going to the art museum to see Pierrot Le Fou tonight. I'm excited. At some point this weekend, I need to write a couple papers though. :(
Oh, and if you kids are ever free on Wednesday nights from 10-2, go see Brian DJing at Jackpot. It's a good time. |
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| I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me |
[Feb. 11th, 2008 | 12:18 am] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  morose | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | The Mountain Goats - This Year | ] |
I miss you, Frank. I can't believe it's already been a year. I really can't. So much has changed. I wish you knew.
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| I've got a thousand opinions and not the time to explain |
[Jan. 21st, 2008 | 03:00 pm] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  listless | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Kate Nash - Mouthwash | ] |
I should post something.
Well it's January 2008. That freaks me out. All of my official graduation nonsense is due to the English office by Wednesday. The engineering job fair is on the 7th and 8th of February. I don't really understand going to them most of the time, since it seems they just collect your resume and request that you apply online. I went last semester, but they were mostly interviewing for December graduates and such. I'd apply to RISE pro for a three-month job in Germany if I didn't have reasons to stay here. I fear this will be an all-encompassing problem for me in the future: namely, what to do and where to do it. There are certainly a good number of people who hold an opinion on what I should do and where I should do it, but it is unfortunately something of my discretion. I'm still busy with school, which is just enough to guarantee me being caught completely off-guard come May.
I went to see The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. Depressing but beautiful. Jonny complained about the camerawork/cinematography being too shaky and fluttery. But if you could only move your left eye, I'd wager it'd look a little something like that. Tragic, and yet I can barely force myself to write in something as trivial as my blog. I will need to get back to writing after I've burnt myself out on being in love. I still feel like I can't write anything important anyhow: I feel so underread, underprepared. I probably only think this because I admire people like Pynchon so very much. I suppose I'm prepared to write a terrible novel, but isn't everyone?
I bet Nabokov would've liked that one. I do, anyway. |
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| I don't wanna grow old |
[Dec. 26th, 2007 | 01:40 pm] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| | bored | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Radiohead - 4 Minute Warning | ] |
You know what's awesome? Etsy.
I'm sure most of you have checked it out at some point, if you're anything like me. I just like browsing for jewelry and bags (I sorta need a new large bag to carry with me to classes and such). Anyway, I found this one shop, ragtrader, and I adore just about everything in it.
( Examples. )
There's lots of other fun things lurking about the site, too. The bunnies over at spidercamp's store make me laugh.
I'm a big nerd. I just think of all kinds of fun shirts to make, though I can't convince myself to buy any of them:
I've spent way too much money in the last few days. I just really really really wanted an OK Computer LP and a new bag. Speaking of which, I bought this bag off Etsy:
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| if you take me there, you'll get relief |
[Dec. 22nd, 2007 | 01:02 am] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | Radiohead - Last Flowers | ] |
So I guess I'll be receiving my degree in the mail in January, but I did actually complete everything for my Chemical Engineering major. Mom, Dad, Rachel, her boyfriend and Jonny came out and watched me "graduate" at the small department ceremony. I dressed up and such.
( here's proof )
I haven't been doing very much lately, just bumming around here at home and helping prepare for larger family festivities. I'm trying to catch up on some reading, too, though I forgot to bring my copy of Against the Day home with me. Speaking of which, the paperback cover of it is atrocious. I'm glad I own it in hardback. The British paperback copies are a lot cooler than the American ones, anyway.
Okay, that's it, I'm too tired to continue writing. I'm sure there's a ton of minutiae that I am deliberately leaving out, but whatever. |
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| mistletoe is hanging everywhere |
[Dec. 12th, 2007 | 03:11 pm] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| | busy | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | The Magnetic Fields - Mr. Mistletoe | ] |
Shirt is awesome.
It is the middle of exam week, and I only have two more exams to go. They both, however, happen to occur tomorrow. So to avoid studying, I'm obviously going to take time to write an entry. Finishing up that 200-page report and presentation felt really good last week. I can't wait for this week to be over, really. Aside from finishing exams, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mukei's having her birthday celebration on Saturday, and that should be fun. :)
On Sunday, I'm going to be headed home for a day or two, then I'll be back for graduation on Wednesday. I still need to buy a cap and gown. And make sure I pass the three classes I need to graduate. So far, I've gotten an A in CHE 395, so I only need two more grades in order to graduate with my ChemE degree (ENG 331, which I've turned in everything for, and CHE 461, for which I have a final tomorrow at 8 am).
I can't wait to have some time to relax. |
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| I promise that I'll run away with you |
[Dec. 3rd, 2007 | 03:31 am] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| | loved | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | The Cure - Just Like Heaven | ] |
People get stupider by the minute. Here's proof. Scroll down to the comments. This guy spends an entire paragraph commenting on the song, extrapolating from his assumption that Zurich is in Germany.
No Country for Old Men is amazing. Go see it.
I've been a little busy lately. It's the last week of the semester and I've got a paper to combine and edit for CHE 395 by Tuesday night, a huge group presentation to do on Wednesday for E497B, and a paper to write for Halpern by Thursday. On the plus side, I think I only have three finals. I've got one on Tuesday and two on Thursday of next week. So if I can manage this week, I should have plenty of time to get ready for those.
Barring any complete disasters, I will get my degree in Chemical Engineering in 16 days. That's so weird. If you want to come watch me dress up in a cap and gown for half an hour, let me know. On the plus side, if you miss this one, you can catch the one I'll get in English in May. :D |
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| if you want me to |
[Nov. 24th, 2007 | 01:03 am] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  sleepy | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | The Avett Brothers - Paranoia in B-Flat Major | ] |
My boyfriend (whom I miss) says I should update my LJ.
Thanksgiving at home was good. I ate a lot of pumpkin pie, and played cards with Rachel and her boyfriend. I had to come back earlier today so that I could go to work at 5. Speaking of which, a ton of people came to see No Country for Old Men. Nearly all of them also wanted popcorn. I figure tomorrow will be similarly distressing. Also, please, for the love of theater workers everywhere, just take your stuff to the trash can. I swear, it's not that hard. Honestly. And we'll love you forever. Something about the anonymity of a dark theater turns people into slobs.
[rant]
Oh, and if you're stupid enough to leave an eight-hundred-dollar coat in a theater and then demand to go poking around in there with a flashlight while there's a movie going on in there, screw you. No really. It's not my problem that you're a moron and you can't keep track of your stuff. Sending your husband in to deal with this isn't going to help either. Nor is getting a flashlight. You're a miserable excuse for a human being for bitching about needing to interrupt a movie when you're the one who forgot something as simple as picking up your coat when you left.
[/rant]
I've got a ridiculous amount to do in the next two weeks. It's weird that the semester is nearly over. Okay, I'm officially exhausted. Goodnight kids. |
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| you and me on half speed |
[Nov. 8th, 2007 | 02:07 am] |
| [ | I'm feeling |
| |  exhausted | ] |
| [ | I'm listening to |
| | The American Analog Set - We're Computerizing and We Just Don't Need You Anymore | ] |
Thoughts:
1. Diwali begins Friday. If you normally don't pay much attention to other cultures' holiday phenomena, it might help you navigate a few things this weekend. Namely that The Galaxy is opening what is predicted to be an INSANELY popular new Indian film this weekend. It would behoove you to avoid coming to visit me at work unless you want to watch me run around frantically trying to deal with people.
2. Lars and the Real Girl is a great film. Ryan Gosling is nothing short of perfect in it, to boot. Yes, it can absolutely seem a little derivatively heartfelt here and there, but it's good on the whole. The trailer is very misleading, actually, the film sounds perversely comical when it's actually much more of a serious and bittersweet endeavor. And if you don't tear up while watching the scene with the noosified teddy bear, you officially have no soul. Oh, and I bet I liked this movie a little more because of Nancy Oliver (who wrote episodes of Six Feet Under).
More later, I'm sleepy. |
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