Purse

My purse went missing. Not the first time. Usually turns up on its own, or is discovered after some light searching. Once, it was hidden in a closet by a child. Two days later, it didn’t show up. We searched the house and both cars from top to bottom, bottom to top.

I just had to call my bank and close my account, cancel my credit card. I hate talking on the phone to people I don’t know, even on a good day and this was already becoming one of the worst days of my life.

If you know me at all, you know that (aside from books), I’m not really into stuff. For the most part, I don’t need or want a bunch of things around. But what I do have is incredibly important to me. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t keep it around.

So much that was in the purse can’t be replaced. My collection of temporary library cards, my collection of actual library cards, my ticket stubs, my little foot keychain, things that don’t matter to anyone but me. Why do people steal from others? I guess it’s an old question. I feel violated, having had something so personal taken from me.

Contents of the wallet:

$65

Credit card

Check card

7 picture IDs, including 4 school IDs, my license, and a season pass to Fiesta Texas from 2002, with a 2003 renewal.

3 Library cards, mine, and two old ones from friends

Every temporary library card I’ve had since moving here, except the very first one

A collection of the parking cards you get when you park at the library, including one from the very day the new library opened

My insurance card, CPR certification, PETCO PALS card, and Borders rewards card

Then, there is, of course, the wallet itself and the keychain in the shape of a foot hanging from it.

I just wish that the person who took it would have taken the money and returned the rest of the purse. Hell, take the money and any card that might have value, just give me my things back.

Sexuality

I was talking with a good friend of mine, Sam, last night about sexuality and how I didn’t quite feel that the current categories were enough to encompass the feelings of all people. I explained the scenario I have some personal experience with, different feelings based on the other person’s sex. How when the other person is female, the attraction is of a a physical nature, a more shallow kind of attraction. And then with males, there’s the more deep, soul-engaging, bonding attraction, the kind of attraction over which people fall in love. We were trying to identify if there was a word that described this without the implication of more than there is. Bisexuality implies feeling roughly equal attraction to both sexes, which is not the case, at least in this scenario.

The word we eventually thought of was disexuality, which was maybe also a bad choice because urban dictionary states this as a type of masturbation that involves inserting the other hand into the anus, which is not what we were going for with that word. I don’t even know where to begin when searching for more information on this topic. I don’t think that’s it’s likely that I’m the first person ever to think this deeply about this. But finding more information is challenging.

I Want to See How This Works

I’m basically just testing this to see how this works.

My First Video

I decided to make use of my mac’s editing program, so I made this video:

I know it’s not perfect, but I’m still rather pleased.

The Start of the Semester

Today was the first day of the semester. I guess, technically, yesterday was the start of the semester, as it is now 2:30 in the morning. I had three classes. I was ready to be done after my first class was over, but I do like my teachers so far. It felt weird to be on campus. I was only there once all summer, and that was for ten minutes to pick up my textbooks.

In other news, I’m getting a Gerbil tomorrow. I would have gotten her today, but there are crickets in the basement and we’re laying poison bombs tomorrow morning. I’m excited about it. I’ve never really had a small animal before. My sister had guinea pigs years ago. I remember finding two of three of them dead one morning. That was a little traumatizing, but I think I’ll be okay.

I’m only awake right now because my knees are in pain to the point where I can’t sleep. I’ve been laying in bed for more than four hours now. I have to be up in 3.5 hours.

Back to School

I have to go back to school next week. Like most students, I’m not particularly excited about this. I did find out today that my refund was processed and they’ve issued a check. For some reason, my account balance still isn’t zero. They have a little more than $400 dollars unused. I don’t actually know why this is, but I don’t really care. It will just be applied to my tuition for next semester. I didn’t realize how many different fees there are. I looked through them today. Mostly, they’re under ten dollars. It’s kind of cool that they list everything individually in your eBills statements. I get to know exactly where the money’s going.

Last Week

This week is my last week of work. I work really weird hours, too. I like the last week of summer employment, because I get to do all kinds of things, which only I mostly find enjoyable. I count all the leftover prizes from summer reading, and tally them. Sometimes, I get to draw names for certain prizes that we give away.

I also have to schedule an evaluation and exit interview day. That’ll be fun. I usually get good evaluations, so I’m not worried at all about that. I’m most likely going to be ordering my mac laptop and my iPod touch this week, which excites me.

Awesome!

Tuition–                         $3,562.74        $3,562.74         $7,125.48

Chancellor’s–                   $1,781.37         $1, 781.37        $3,562.74

Pell Grant–                     $2,675.00       $2,675.00         $5,350.00

Supplemental–                $250.00          $250.00             $500.00

Higher Education–          $1,320.00       $1,320.00      $2,640.00

Snyder–                         $1,000.00                            $1,000.00

Alumni Scholarship–        $1,000.00                             $1,000.00

PTSA–                            $500.00                                $500.00

MacPherson–                 $1,500.00                            $1,500.00

Total Aid–                      $10,026.37    $6,026.37        $16,052.74

Aid-Tuition–                $6,460.63       $2,463.63         $8,924.26

All of this=Awesome!

Yay for making a profit off of going to school!

5 Seconds

Every day, I ask myself why I’m still alive. I used to think the answer was simple: people. More specifically, the people who paid attention to me. The ones who answered my questions and tried to help. To say this now, however, would make me a liar.

Every day of the week, I get up at a different time and I have a general layout of the day. Five days a week, I go to the library. I shelf-read and rebox dvds and generally do as I’m told by my boss and co-workers. Then there are the moments. Today, I sat at one of the tables with my boss, Mari, and we watched as a presenter got a few kids started doing Recycled Art. We had a bunch of “trash” for the kids to turn into artwork that they could then take home. Mari commented that I should do one. I declined (my skills in art leave much to be desired). She walked over a while later and said that if I wouldn’t do one, she would do one. I came up with an idea. I told her that I would make one for her, if she promised to display it as art either in her office or in her new house. She agreed. She chose all the parts that she wanted me to put together for her piece. I went at it, taping the things she found to an old game board. I worked on it the entire length of the program. When I finally finished, everyone else had gone from the table, including the presenter and Mari. I looked at what I had created and I smiled to myself. And for that moment in time, I was ok and the world was ok. And those five seconds are the reason why I’m still alive today.

Movie Review #2: Carrie (Comparing Original and Remake)

So, for this comparison, I watched the remake first.

Music: The older version did a better job of building suspense, but didn’t seem to do so when it was appropriate. The use of the Psycho theme was present throughout the movie, but until the end, the music didn’t make sense ot me.

Gym scene: Ok, this is one thing that I really preferred in one  movie over the other. I didn’t like the way they did this scene in the older version. Sissy Spacek acts as though she is retarded in some way. She’s kind of like Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker.” She doesn’t speak or scream. She just has this look of horror on her face and she mumbles as she reaches out to touch the other girls. In the newer version, she just kind of breaks down in her own world, without interacting with the other girls in the scene.

I liked both endings, but for different reasons. I have trouble with making decisions, so trying to decide between the version where Carrie dies and the one where she lives is difficult. So I compromised. I like the way in which she almost died in the newer one. The whole scene in the bathtub was better in the newer one. But if the drowning had actually killed her, it would have been much better.

I did really like the people being interviewed throughout the new movie. It added a nice touch.

After all of this thinking a discusssion, I am reasonably certain that I liked the newer version better.