Kitchen Sink

You may know the phrase of packing everything except the kitchen sink. Well this category is for all the posts that don’t quite fit anywhere else.

My Life as a Book

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If your life story was a book, what would it be titled? What would its chapter titles be? (Topic from The Imagination Prompt Generator.)

Title: Dreams Deferred

  • Early Christmas gift : a daughter is finally born
  • Sibling ups and downs
  • Childhood friendships
  • Morning coffee routine : the bond between father & daughter
  • Catholic school or how I learned to fear the ruler
  • The bond with grandma & grandfather’s painting legacy
  • Have you heard of Japan?
  • Going to public school : meeting my best friend
  • All the curses I need to know I learned in Junior High
  • Sometimes Akira ISN’T the best way to introduce someone to anime
  • High school is the innermost circle of Hell
  • Dad’s home early. What’s a pink slip?
  • Ronin Warriors : love of anime rekindled
  • College life
  • An anime fansite is born
  • Music Department Work Study
  • Changing majors repeatedly
  • My world is shaken as my grandmother dies
  • Summer school and my first library job
  • Cataloging Student Assistant
  • Mom rejects my new career choice
  • Meeting my future husband
  • A year of Japanese
  • Graduation and moving to New Hampshire
  • Bookseller or yes ALL calendars are on sale
  • First cataloging job out of college
  • 9/11
  • Moving 50 miles away from my job
  • Future husband’s job loss & the start of his diabetes
  • The debt builds & the cursed car
  • The promised land of Georgia
  • Job promises fall through
  • Moving out of New England. At least it’s snowing on my birthday..
  • Trying to get my foot back in the door, and failing
  • Temp work
  • My first full-time cataloging job
  • What is Dragon*Con & JapanFest?
  • The economy tanks, again
  • Heath issues..
  • OMG! Delicious Japanese food, Korean bakeries, & Asian supermarkets. I’m in Heaven!
  • Future husband can’t find a better job because he’s paid too much?
  • Seattle & Sakura-con
  • Marriage : So long and thanks for all the fish
  • Finally my husband gets a good job
  • The head cold & wisdom teeth surgery from Hell
  • Dear Rabbit: I thought this was supposed to be a slow year!!

Two Firsts Today

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     So I had two Firsts in my life today, one good, one bad.

     I’ll start with the bad.

     I got into my fiance’s car this evening to go shopping for new headlights for my car since one just went out. Suddenly I felt a pain in my right leg. I rubbed it and it stopped. It happened again. I did the same thing. Then it happened again. Okay I think something is biting me on my leg. I pull up my jeans and something falls off my leg. At first I excuse it as a strange object. Then I see something small and moving across the mat on the floor. However since the mat is black I can’t tell what it is. So I keep looking. Then I notice ants on it. Then I notice them crawling all over my sneaker. Then I notice them walking up my sock. Then I notice them on my leg itself and … OW! I’m getting attacked by quite a bunch of fire ants!

     Realizing what is going on I scream out that I’m getting bitten and attacked my ants to my fiance. I quickly try to brush them off or kill them before they can bite any more. Unfortunately one gets on my left thumb and bites the top of that. I keep getting bitten as I try to swipe them off. My fiance finds a place to pull over. I open the door and continue to swat at ants on my leg and still they manage to crawl up somehow and bite me. This goes on for some minutes even after my fiance removes the mat from the car.

     Of course as this all happened I thought back to the large ant hill at the end of our yard by the street edge. I was always suspicious of it but my fiance kind of waved it off. Now I knew for sure it was a fire ant hill and somehow I had stepped on it or too close to it before getting into my fiance’s car. (Which was parked on the road.) Least to say they started this war and I’m going to finish it with a vengeance. And yes fire ant bites REALLY HURT.

     Now the good first.

     Today at work I cataloged my first original record. Actually my first FIVE original records. This is a big deal as I’ve been copy-cataloging all this time. I added new records to the online record database (OCLC). Whoooo. One step closer to being a fully fledged cataloger. I’ll be adding even more original records soon. (I’m waiting for my boss to finish reviewing my work and giving me the okay to update the holdings on them.)

The big news… finally

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     Sorry about the long wait on the news. I needed to upload the picture to show everyone. With my PC giving one final gasp and needing a nearly complete overhaul.. well.. it took time to recover everything I needed again.

     So here’s the news. On August 27th in the morning I became the brand new owner of a Subaru.
     I wasn’t kidding when I said my old car has to go. The AC repair job was the last and final straw for me. So I went car shopping and bought a 1998 Subaru Outback Limited (automatic transmission) which had just over 61k on it from a used car place.
     I took the car for an inspection at a local Subaru dealership prior to purchase since it seemed to shake when driving. It was discovered that the previous owner was either unaware or just an idiot or both, because they put different type and size tires on the car. Different type/size tires + all wheel drive = differentials get busted. Other than that though, the car was solid. Even the first owner wrote down all their repairs on the owner’s manual which was in the glove box. (I did a background check on the car to find it had 2 previous owners.) So after some haggling over price, buying car and adding on some amount to car loan for repairs, I had my car. (Aside from the fact the other 2 Subarus I found online were both already sold.)
     A friend/former boss of Giuliano’s (Jim) knew someone who could work on the car and save us (er.. me) a lot of money. (The dealership was quoting 1.5k for just one differential.) In the end the cost of repairing the differentials cost 1.4k for all of them. I also bought 4 new tires prior to the repair to make sure the new differentials would be just fine. (Note: Picture above taken after buying car, and before new tires and repair.)
     So now the car runes extremely smooth. The AC is fantastic. The acceleration on this car.. wooo. I tap the gas and it starts racing down the road. (My Geo you have to press down just to get it to budge.) The steering wheel is either leather or leather like, as opposed to the plastic of the Geo. There’s auto windows, locks, cruise control, cup holders *grin*, fog lights, a rear wiper.. all things my Geo lacked. I’m actually taller than some other cars on the road as opposed to so low to the ground that other vehicle’s headlights blind me at night. (When civics and the like are higher up than your car, and you can’t see past them to view traffic, that’s a problem.) People more often than not yield for my new car as opposed to cutting me off in the old smaller coupe. Heh, heh, heh, heh. The windows of the Subaru are also tinted. The back is heavily tinted as are the passenger windows. The front windows are slightly tinted and the top part of the front windshield is also tinted. It’s taking some getting used to the tint.
     At first I had called the new car Dragon due to its length and power. The name has now changed and seemed to settle on “Haku” after the character from Spirited Away. (Mostly in the hope that the car will live up to its name. That and it’s fun pressing the gas and shouting “Go Haku!”:D Yes I’m weird, get used to it.)

     My old car will be hopefully donated. I have to look over and fill out some paperwork before sending it out. Right now it’s sitting at the end of our driveway while the new car gets the garage space. 😛

So there’s the big news. I have a new car. (Hurray for car #2!)

First Post! WOOT!

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Okay just kidding about the subject. I just find it funny how many people do “WOOT! First post!”, or “First page!”, or something of the sort. So I thought I’d poke some fun at it with my first blog here.
So this is my first official blog. I have done a blog by hand on my website, but this is the first blog software I’ve used. So hello to everyone out there who reads this.

My life right now is a bit messed up at the moment. On my birthday, Dec 2nd, I began the move from Mass to Georgia. As such, I had to leave the job I loved. Now I’m still unemployed and miles away from where I grew up. Even my boyfriend Giuliano is still unemployed after having to leave his job he had here in GA. We couldn’t buy any presents for the holidays. We have to watch our money and make it stretch as far as possible. We’re staying at the house of a friend of Giuliano’s. And we have to wait to move into our first house until late January or Feb 1st at the latest. I feel like I’m stuck between two worlds right now, the world I left, and the world awaiting me when we move into the house.
It’s odd staying at someone else’s house for an extended amount of time. It’s compounded by the fact I’m the only woman at the house. I’m surrounded by guys (computer geeks) and their chatting about their interests. The fridge has a box of beer and tall cans and bottles of other kinds of beer. At least my boyfriend Giuliano and I make our keep by helping to clean up after other people staying here and buying supplies (food, drink, etc). Don’t worry, we get reimbursed for what we buy for the house. Now I am grateful for Mike (Giuliano’s friend) for offering us a place to stay. Still there are times I feel like I’m in the way. There isn’t much I can do about it though until at least one of us gets a job.
The only thing I’m happy about is the weather around here. Giuliano and I are walking around in short-sleeves almost ever day. People around must think that we are strange. I see people in long-sleeves and jackets, while we are basking in the 50 degree weather. Compared to the New England winter weather I’m used to, this is great.

Well I think I’ll end this blog entry as “Who’s Line is it Anyway?” is on TV now and dinner is ready. I’ll try to add more blogs soon. If I don’t post another blog before 2004, I hope you all have a happy and safe new year.

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