Oh, the weather outside has been frightful. I just have to say, normally I avoid writing about the weather bc it's small talk. It's not interesting to read about. But in the last two weeks, it's snowed about a foot, the roads have been coated with ice, the temps were "bone-chilling cold," and then the temps rose to nearly 60 degrees, and the thickest fog was settled over Rockford.
The snow. It's the Midwest, I get it. But I don't think it's snowed this much in a long time here. Ten years and more, I do believe it snowed more. School actually closed because it was snowing too much. But as I got older, it seemed like school was closed more often bc the temps were well below zero, and the buses hadn't started that morning. I should be used to it, I guess. But I'm not. It no longer does anything for me. I'm going to just need to move away to somewhere where snow is a freak occurrence.
Snow and ice are not my car's friend. Can't drive in damned inclement weather, which forces me to cancel a lot of plans. And I don't have many plans to start off with.
The cold I am certainly more used to. But it's unacceptable to me that it should be negative 8 degrees. That it's so cold that literally all I can do is lie in bed with my blanket wrapped tightly around me. And the freak warmth following the cold. All I can say is that global warming exists man. For all of those who don't take the thinning of the ozone to mean anything, 60 degrees in a Midwest December is just not normal. I'm not complaining, cuz I would love to live somewhere where that is normal. But still, it's messed up.
And the fog. Can I just say, that for the previous two days, all I could see was the car in front of me when I drove. I read that visible was .1 mile. That shit's ridic. I mean, literally, I could see it rising off the ground. And as my car traveled, I had no idea where it was going. I could only pray that the other drivers were not fucked up, so they wouldn't kill me. As Phyl's sister escorted us Friday night, I couldn't help but feel the atmosphere was the perfect backdrop for a gory horror movie. I think there might even be a bad movie called "The Fog" and I feel like it's fairly recent. Being in the car at 2 in the morning was scary enough. You sure as hell won't see my ass in the woods anytime soon.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Look how far we've come
Here's me circa soph year, looking sheepish as I am caught aiming some one instead of working on my finals.
On the radio, driving back from work, Steve and the new girl on 97ZOK were commenting on the greatest time-sucking invention ever: Facebook. And I gots to agree, basically for the last three years of my life, every time I sign onto my computer, Facebook is one of my first stops. Waay more so in college. I'd fb stalking (ya know, scrolling through the profiles of people you only vaguely know) and be chatting it up instead of doing my homework.
And it got me thinking: How did we get along without the world wide web? I'm the .5 generation when it comes to the Internet. It's been around most of my life by this point, but I still had to learn to do things manually. Can you believe Eisenhower Middle School still taught keyboarding on the typewriter in what 99? That's a joke. It was almost the millennium. But now, I don't know how to use at all. At work, Maria asked me to use a typewriter and I just couldn't handle the task.
School must have been so much harder. I nicknamed the Stacks at the Undergrad "Rape Central" bc that old school book cataloguing system was large, unlit, and creepy. As much as I do enjoy reading, 90% of all the research I've done in my college career was online. And man, registering for classes must have been a drag. When I see the process in '90s films, the standing in line all day just to get locked out of classes, it just looks ridiculous.
What would college have been without the Internet? Without AIM? Without FB? Without even those stupid chain letters on MySpace? Without Illinois Compass/Blackboard so we could have discussions online? Without LexisNexis and J-Stor, so-we wouldn't have to look through hundreds of academic journals by hand? I suppose we'd have less time. We'd probably talk a lot more, face to face... Or maybe not. Maybe we'd just forgo leaving our rooms to make plans and instead, continue to be stuck to the TV. Who can say? All I know is, it woulda been completely different. But I wouldn't trade my and my roommates' Wikipedia-ing while watching TV for anything.
Now, the first generation to be raised totally online, they're going to be some entitled kids. But they'll also be super-self sufficient. Only crazy old people (basically my parent's generation) are going to head into banks asking for the balances and interim statements. E'rything's gonna be online. The future's going to be interesting.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Tis the season to be paranoid
Today I'm writing to you at 4:45pm on a Friday. You might be wondering, shouldn't you be at work, Div? Ya, I should. But it snowed a lot today. Bc none of the networks can coordinate their coverage, it's probz between 8-12 inches. This morning, neither my drive nor my street were plowed in time and I knew my car was going to stuck somewhere between here and Sandy Hollow. I was supposed to go into work later but, the plows just came by a short while ago, so by the time I got ready and traveled to work, I'd have been there an hour max.
The last two weeks have been a trial. Not this week, really. But the weeks prior. Two weeks ago, as I mentioned previously, my mother got into a car crash. She was fine, are car was kinda OK, but we were all shaken up. Of course, there were insurance issues. While at first we had thought the women driving the other car (the one at fault) had insurance, turns out the car she was driving was insured, but for another driver.
The following week, in the wee hours of Monday morning, someone entered my house and stole a few things from our living room while we were all asleep. Some time between 1:30 and 6, dude broke in and stole my brother's Ipod and backpack and calculator, appeared to get scurred off, and left. My mother and I, on separate occasions, woke up to use the restroom. When we got up, we found our hammer out of place in the middle of our family room. It appears that one of us woke up while he was here, so he might have found this weapon in case one of us found him out. Thankfully dude was a fool. It had snowed Sunday, so his footprints were all up in the snow. The police sent over a CSI detective and they measured the footprints and whatnot. Later that week, they found the guy casing another house in our neighborhood. How'd they know who he was: his shoes matched the footprints. He was arrested, though no doubt released right away. Still the fact that he was arrested gives me some peace of mind. I don't think he'll be around any time soon.
I've been really paranoid lately as a result. The following Monday morning I had trouble going to sleep bc there was a storm with a lot of wind, and every time the branches shook, I imagined someone breaking into our house. I forgot to mention that our doors were locked when dude got in. He snuck in through a side garage door we haven't used in years and presumably unscrewed our door handle. The next day - Tuesday- the knob fell off into my hand in an action that would have otherwise been comical.
Last week we also attended fraud training at work. We watched footage of an actual robbery in the burbs, which also scared the hell outta me. As it is, I fear for my life when I'm walking to or from the car after/before work. So many malcontents hang around the bank in our parking lot and I just never feel safe in the area. I've resolved to buy some self-defense spray. I know I won't be able to fend off bank robbers, but it'll just make me feel better to have some pepper spray in my purse.
The last two weeks have been a trial. Not this week, really. But the weeks prior. Two weeks ago, as I mentioned previously, my mother got into a car crash. She was fine, are car was kinda OK, but we were all shaken up. Of course, there were insurance issues. While at first we had thought the women driving the other car (the one at fault) had insurance, turns out the car she was driving was insured, but for another driver.
The following week, in the wee hours of Monday morning, someone entered my house and stole a few things from our living room while we were all asleep. Some time between 1:30 and 6, dude broke in and stole my brother's Ipod and backpack and calculator, appeared to get scurred off, and left. My mother and I, on separate occasions, woke up to use the restroom. When we got up, we found our hammer out of place in the middle of our family room. It appears that one of us woke up while he was here, so he might have found this weapon in case one of us found him out. Thankfully dude was a fool. It had snowed Sunday, so his footprints were all up in the snow. The police sent over a CSI detective and they measured the footprints and whatnot. Later that week, they found the guy casing another house in our neighborhood. How'd they know who he was: his shoes matched the footprints. He was arrested, though no doubt released right away. Still the fact that he was arrested gives me some peace of mind. I don't think he'll be around any time soon.
I've been really paranoid lately as a result. The following Monday morning I had trouble going to sleep bc there was a storm with a lot of wind, and every time the branches shook, I imagined someone breaking into our house. I forgot to mention that our doors were locked when dude got in. He snuck in through a side garage door we haven't used in years and presumably unscrewed our door handle. The next day - Tuesday- the knob fell off into my hand in an action that would have otherwise been comical.
Last week we also attended fraud training at work. We watched footage of an actual robbery in the burbs, which also scared the hell outta me. As it is, I fear for my life when I'm walking to or from the car after/before work. So many malcontents hang around the bank in our parking lot and I just never feel safe in the area. I've resolved to buy some self-defense spray. I know I won't be able to fend off bank robbers, but it'll just make me feel better to have some pepper spray in my purse.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
It's been a while
So much has happened since the last post. I'm not in the mood to elaborate on it all right now. So I'll save it for next time.
One interesting and new thing: I've started blogging/contributing to inColor, an upstart online community for people of color. We talk arts and entertainment and beyond. I just put up my first post there, an introduction to me. Check it out here: http://in-color.net/
By the by, I may look a little unrecognizable there. That's cuz that photo's from junior year, a year and half and probably 20 pounds ago. But it was the only landscape size portrait I had. So there you go.
Later.
One interesting and new thing: I've started blogging/contributing to inColor, an upstart online community for people of color. We talk arts and entertainment and beyond. I just put up my first post there, an introduction to me. Check it out here: http://in-color.net/
By the by, I may look a little unrecognizable there. That's cuz that photo's from junior year, a year and half and probably 20 pounds ago. But it was the only landscape size portrait I had. So there you go.
Later.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Cursed
This was a disastrous week.
As we know, I've been in denial for quite some time. As in, I keep thinking of this situation as temporary when it's clear that I've been here for 6 months and that I'm going to need to reside in town for a while.
So ya, I put off getting a car for a while. Like, I've been looking at used cars but probably not as actively as I could be, bc I figured I might not actually need a car that bad. And I was getting to work, dropped off by my dad and picked up by my mom most days.
That was going semi-smoothly til last week. On Tuesday, my mother got in an accident on her way to pick me up. Of course that would happen. I ended up waiting at work for an extra hour, which was fine bc thankfully my mother was unharmed. The car was a little tore up. The headlights are busted up, and the front has some damage, but otherwise it's drivable. So, we don't have to buy two new cars. And she was driving the van, so she wasn't injured in any way. The other woman admitted to her fault, so she got a ticket, and luckily, she has insurance too, so we can one day fix our car.
Now the next day, my father scared my mom talking about her engine was probably busted up too. So, on top of her fear of driving down Kishwaukee again, she was afraid to just drive the car. Well, she decided not to pick me up, that I should instead order a cab, since the other insurance company would cover it. This though is clearly not Chicago or even Champaign, so the cab drivers could really care less. I waited for about an hour in the bank lobby, and called them a few times in between, before I realized the cab was just not coming. So, I called my dad and finally convinced him to pick me up.
Then, after waiting for an hour and a half, I needed to go to bathroom. When I came out, I found out from one of my bosses that my dad had come to pick me up but that he had told him I took a cab home instead. WTF? Did he see me get in said cab? No. So why? I dunno. Argh. Well, my father hasn't got a cell phone, so I had to wait til he got back to work before I could ask him to pick me up again.
Why why do these things only happen to me????? I mean, lotsa people get in scrapes, I'm not that unaware, but really, shit just piles up in my life. And the most ridiculous things occur.
As we know, I've been in denial for quite some time. As in, I keep thinking of this situation as temporary when it's clear that I've been here for 6 months and that I'm going to need to reside in town for a while.
So ya, I put off getting a car for a while. Like, I've been looking at used cars but probably not as actively as I could be, bc I figured I might not actually need a car that bad. And I was getting to work, dropped off by my dad and picked up by my mom most days.
That was going semi-smoothly til last week. On Tuesday, my mother got in an accident on her way to pick me up. Of course that would happen. I ended up waiting at work for an extra hour, which was fine bc thankfully my mother was unharmed. The car was a little tore up. The headlights are busted up, and the front has some damage, but otherwise it's drivable. So, we don't have to buy two new cars. And she was driving the van, so she wasn't injured in any way. The other woman admitted to her fault, so she got a ticket, and luckily, she has insurance too, so we can one day fix our car.
Now the next day, my father scared my mom talking about her engine was probably busted up too. So, on top of her fear of driving down Kishwaukee again, she was afraid to just drive the car. Well, she decided not to pick me up, that I should instead order a cab, since the other insurance company would cover it. This though is clearly not Chicago or even Champaign, so the cab drivers could really care less. I waited for about an hour in the bank lobby, and called them a few times in between, before I realized the cab was just not coming. So, I called my dad and finally convinced him to pick me up.
Then, after waiting for an hour and a half, I needed to go to bathroom. When I came out, I found out from one of my bosses that my dad had come to pick me up but that he had told him I took a cab home instead. WTF? Did he see me get in said cab? No. So why? I dunno. Argh. Well, my father hasn't got a cell phone, so I had to wait til he got back to work before I could ask him to pick me up again.
Why why do these things only happen to me????? I mean, lotsa people get in scrapes, I'm not that unaware, but really, shit just piles up in my life. And the most ridiculous things occur.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Here's winter
As is customary for this blog, I must comment and complain about the turning of a new month. I know I tried to get through November as fast as could. And on my part, I was mainly complacent - I mean, what's new, right?
I focused on just making myself feel good as a distraction from reality. So I went to the movies. And I saw Bond, and Twilight, maybe High School Musical ... I can't remember when that went down. I watched some DVDs: Tropic Thunder, Iron Man, Under the Same Moon, etc. and watched waaay too much TV then is healthy.
But I was also social. There was Sha'Donna's bday one weekend along with the (awesome) wine tasting with Katie, and Katie's bday the next. And there was a reunion with friends of past over T-day break. I'm glad I did all those things.
Now that's about 6 months since I graduated, it's time to get real. As I said, I'm gonna finally kick this shit out. I'm gonna apply to some advertising/pr firms. I'm gonna apply to some non-profits. I need to be somewhere warmer/more urban than here. And I must make it happen now. I will work out more and healthier, even if it's just a little bit at a time.
And the most interesting bit of news, I'm joining a writers community. It's an online magazine called In Color, for people of color, and I'm going to help develop it. It's not paid of course, but it's about forming a community around commonality and writing articles for people like ourselves. It's to be a labor or love for writing and expressing and I'm excited for it.
I focused on just making myself feel good as a distraction from reality. So I went to the movies. And I saw Bond, and Twilight, maybe High School Musical ... I can't remember when that went down. I watched some DVDs: Tropic Thunder, Iron Man, Under the Same Moon, etc. and watched waaay too much TV then is healthy.
But I was also social. There was Sha'Donna's bday one weekend along with the (awesome) wine tasting with Katie, and Katie's bday the next. And there was a reunion with friends of past over T-day break. I'm glad I did all those things.
Now that's about 6 months since I graduated, it's time to get real. As I said, I'm gonna finally kick this shit out. I'm gonna apply to some advertising/pr firms. I'm gonna apply to some non-profits. I need to be somewhere warmer/more urban than here. And I must make it happen now. I will work out more and healthier, even if it's just a little bit at a time.
And the most interesting bit of news, I'm joining a writers community. It's an online magazine called In Color, for people of color, and I'm going to help develop it. It's not paid of course, but it's about forming a community around commonality and writing articles for people like ourselves. It's to be a labor or love for writing and expressing and I'm excited for it.
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