ouch

since i know you all want an update on my illness, so here it is. last night i had a fever which kept me up for a few hours shivering like there's no tomorrow. my skin aches a lot. my throat hurts a lot and my nose is all stuffed. and i am semi-nauseated. owwwwwwwwwwwwww, i hurt a lot. :(

owie

i am getting a sinus infection, for the second time in 2 weeks. owie!!!

i sent the letter yesterday. i also sent an email notification. no replies to the email. i now expect 1) no reply to anything or 2) a very late reply, like in a month or two. well, i did what i could.

i had to train in a new guy today. he is in fact the guy i saw being interviewed last week or whenever he was, and he does look like a blond mr. wright. he is married. his brother went to uw-madison and now lives in the cities, and is my age. it was kind of hard to train him, only because he is good at learning. when i trained ipod guy he had a hard time understanding shit. this guy is great. but, i felt bad because i had nothing to do for a while. i had a lot of conversations today about not having enough to do. i also like this guy because he appreciates my humor.

as my manager was introducing me, she said, "elizabeth is not what we'd call a senior member of the team, but she's right on the cusp." uh....huh? what a weird thing to say in front of me and in front of the person i was just about to start teaching. not like i don't appreciate its meaning, but why say it? "she's not exactly the best we have, but here you go, learn a lot!" she did say i was very knowledgeable and helpful, so that was nice.

my damn left sinus really hurts!!!

i haven't been this nervous in a long time

i have the email all ready to send. it's typed out. and it's not even THE letter, it's a notification that i'm sending the letter. but i am feeling as though i may vomit. i am SO nervous. all i have to do is hit send.

 

uuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

i have to do this. i have to. ok, proof it. proofread done.

 

send it.

 

i did it.

 

now i'm going to go vomit for 5 hours straight.

ugh

we are getting two new people this week and my manager asked me to be the "mentor" for one of them. well, when she asked that i said, "oh, i'll have to make sure i have enough work to do, then." she was concerned and said i should be working on my medium/low priority stuff, and i was like, i don't have any. she was kind of shocked. but seriously, literally everything that's in my queue is either stuck waiting for a question or feedback or it's done. she asked if i check for responses every day and i said yes, bec. i do.

 

so i just overheard her talking to her boss about the same thing and she was shocked as well. i almost felt bad. why the hell would i feel bad for that? i almost feel like they don't believe me or that they think i'm doing a crap job. it would be nice if they were like "wow, she's great!" but i don't think they are.

 

i'm just thinking to myself, is something wrong here? am i missing something? NOBODY else has this problem. it's like, do i do more work during the course of a day than most people, so it can't get stretched out over days? i don't think so. do i work INSANELY fast? i guess i must. i do know i work quickly, but i can't imagine that everyone else is that much slower than i am. maybe i figure shit out more quickly. i don't know. whatever it is, it pisses me off. whoever thought i'd be pissed at myself for doing well?

 

this is becoming an issue that's really bothering me, because everyone is talking about how swamped we are, and i'm continually bored out of my mind. and the worst thing of it is that my managers do not get it. there was one day last week where i actually worked for the whole day, and it happened to be the day of our company picnic. so i didn't go, because i had to finish my stuff. and i think that stuck in my managers' minds more than the endless days of not having enough to do. i hesitated when telling them i was busy, because i thought it would make them think i was always busy, and i definitely want to get the point across that i need more friggin' shit to do. which is very backwards.

 

I have to do some cleaning tonight because the apartment people are doing inspections this week. I hope they check my bathroom fan because it hasn't been working right for a long time. 50% of the time it makes this hideous high-pitched screech which scares the hell out of me, and the other 50% it just sounds like a car that can't start. And for those who haven't been there, the fan automatically goes on when the light goes on. I haven't been proactive enough to try to damage it into not working at all, though I think I could. It really is not the most enjoyable feature to have for a light.

 

I finished my letter last night and am pretty happy with it, surprisingly. I'm actually feeling really happy that I will (hopefully) hear from him this week. As I was trying to complete the pile of mind-bendingly torturous information I am going to send, I was remembering what a wonderful person he is, and how the root of the matter is that I'm just sad he's not a part of my life anymore. I am going to implore him to be nice, so hopefully the whole exchange will be somewhat pleasant. I am glad I'm doing this. The letter-writing process was akin to removing each cell from my body one by one and dropping it into a giant vat of acid, so I am glad it's done.

 

YES!!!!!!!! I CAN GO HOME NOW!!!!!!!!!

ARG

this letter is the most difficult thing i have ever written. i must have at least 5 drafts now. and now i'm totally lost. i've lost my mind.

 

i caved and went to target today because i needed a lighter. no, i haven't started smoking, it's a lighter for my candles. and, well, that says it all. i decided to light them all tonight and the lighter i had was alrerady out of fuel. those things run out quickly. but anyway, i got a shirt, two skirts, and a pair of gauchos. i'm not sure if those pants look great on me but, by god, they are comfortable. i was pleased - i needed those things. now i'll be all in style for the trip to madison.

 

BRIGHTON! emily tells me you got 2 pairs of new shoes. and that they are green and red. i nearly had a heart attack when i heard this piece of information. so, i am hereby forcing you to either wear the green pair or the red pair this weekend, or both. i thought it was funny because last time i got new shoes i got a green pair of pumas and a red pair of adidas. my green ones are extremely bright and i always feel somewhat self-conscious when i have them on, especially when i am wearing dark jeans. however, they always get compliments.

 

i am completely in love with my new shoes. just thought i'd mention that. and yes tom, it is funny to imagine them by themselves, especially if they are posing for this mythical camera person. standing on their "tiptoes", etc.

 

back to writing the most frustrating piece of correspondence ever to exist in the universe.

I dislike losing things

I have misplaced two of my Bright Eyes CDs and I REALLY want to listen to them right now. Boo. Does anyone have a copy of "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" that I can borrow? I'm also missing one of my Arcade Fire CDs. I bet they are in Rochester, and that pisses me off.

Shoes

So here is what I got today. I was lucky enough to be able to find a picture of both pairs. I was trying to look for a skirt or some type of shorts and had no luck whatsoever. Bottom line: Kohl's had a TERRIBLE selection today (and that's where I always get my pants). I got both of these pairs of shoes from Marshall Field's (soon to be Macy's). I love that place.

Kangaroos (Emily, aren't you proud?)





















And Kenzies (every single pair they had was stellar - I was v. impressed). The woman who was helping me advised me to take very good care of them and was raving about them. I think she was on a commission because she was almost overly helpful. She talked me into getting a MF credit card, which I am ok with, since I've been shopping there more lately. Now I have 3 credit cards, and I don't use any of them. Thanks, Wells Fargo Debit/Credit! I hear it's supposed to be good for your credit to have them and not use them. Whatever.

Annoying laughter

There is this woman here for the week helping out some other lady in the other dept. and he laugh is so annoying, I feel as though I'd rather stab myself in the eyeballs with two pairs of scissors than listen to it.

uuuuupdate

Imagine "update" said with an umlauted u. Or the sound that is in "shoe" (the oo sound). That is how my coworker Patrick said it one time and now that's the absolute only way I can ever say that word. Even worse, I have to say it in my mind every time I update something, which in our software is like 120,000 times an hour.

Anyway, I slept for 7 or 8 hours yesterday, had a whole bunch of food for dinner, ate a couple of vitamins, had some water, went to bed early...and...nothing. Still feel exactly the same.

????????????

I have "Hips Don't Lie" in my head, which I secretly love (not so secret anymore, I guess). A song I really don't love is "Promiscuous" which I have also had in my head lately.

Sick

I had to come home sick today. I'm getting increasingly worried about myself because I've been feeling sick for a long time, and I've been feeling really bad for about two days.

 

I am wondering if it has to do with my diet. Actually, I pretty much know that. When it's your own body you just know. I didn't have this problem when I was on it before, but a lot of things have changed. I don't really eat very much at all, which could be a problem. I'm worried that it's triggering things that could lead to diabetes (which runs in my family). I don't want to slip into a coma or something. I should probably pay more attention to other stuff like how much fat is in whatever I'm eating, and stuff like that, but I just haven't been.

 

Anyone know what prolonged headaches and nausea could portend? Combined with eating almost nothing? And kool-aid saliva (which has pretty much stopped for the moment)? Ha, ha. I'm going to bed now.

VERY AWESOME

after saying "very awesome" i realized i might be 12. however, i just found this website called mog.com and i'm already in love with it. i saw it on spin.com . i had to write about it the moment i saw it. i think that certain people would love it, including nikki and especially tom peed. but NOT brighton. later.

i have bitten my nails way down

i'm trying to write this damn letter and it's not getting done. i now have like 6 pages of crrrrrap (with a rolled r).

 

here's a confession: a couple weeks ago when i asked about zip codes, it was because i already wrote him a letter, and sent it. i only partially addressed it. it said his name and madison, wi 53706. and it had a stamp on it. no return address. i now sort of hope it doesn't get to him. i think the post office is pretty finicky about things. so maybe it is a dead letter.

 

i did that because i thought it would help get stuff out of my brain. it did, temporarily. my thinking was that fate would decide whether he read it or not. which actually means the post office and you guys, since you voted to put the zip on there. :) "fate is kind...she gives to those who love..."??? i don't know the words. so now you know. and can judge accordingly, since i'm a hopeless idiot.

 

blech. i am so tired of all of this.

 

i talked to brighton tonight and it was nice. we both watched the daily show on mute at the same time. that was hysterical.

 

i have had an extended feeling-crappy time lately. a couple of weeks. tonight i almost fainted. maybe i am a hypochondriac. i don't think so...it's not like i think i have cancer or something. i just genuinely feel shitty.

new office setup

Well, we are indeed changing our office setup in a major way. I am slightly upset by it. Mostly because I really like sitting by Dan and in the new setup he is placed as far away from everyone as possible. I think our manager is doing that because he has a tendency to talk and not do work. He has been getting into a lot of trouble lately because of that. Today he got a couple of lectures from our manager. I have also been "inheriting" a lot of his projects lately. I guess it's good that people trust me enough to get his shit done. It is nice that they think of me for those projects because they have so far been needing to get done really quickly, and that is something I can do.

I am moving into the "Think Tank" which is this separate room in the area. I'll be in there with Christi and Seth. That's going to be strange. Not because I dislike them in any way, but because I don't really talk to them. I guess I will now. Our manager said we could get half walls. Christ....I REALLY want whole walls. I hate the idea of half walls. Maybe I should say something. I think I will. The plus side is that there will be basically no traffic in there.

That's my story. I'm tired and exhausted and feeling like crying for some reason.

interview II

he looked like he was about 29. he was tall and blonde and had glasses. that's about all i saw. i think he is unavailable, though, because i overheard some stuff like "we just bought a house" but i also thought i overheard "i just graduated." we will see, i guess. apparently our office is going to get rearranged. i hope i don't get screwed in that situation.

interview

there is a guy having an interview right now. please god be a young guy. it didn't sound like he was. i am going to accidentally stand up and go over there when he leaves. more update on that later.

yoga

jesus christ. i ordered this yoga tape (actually dvd) from netflix and it was crazy. it didn't even start sitting down. what kind of yoga practice doesn't start sitting down? even worse, it didn't end laying down!!! i am proud of myself because i did almost the entire thing on the first try. it was about 35 minutes. the only thing i didn't do was chair pose, which apparently to this lady is the most important pose ever because it was inserted into the practice at least 20 times. also, i cannot do boat pose and probably will never be able to. the worst part was that it went way too quickly. "do these all in the next 15 seconds!!! lunge! downward dog! plank! cobra! plank! downward dog! forward bend! chair pose! mountain pose! now repeat 7 more times!!! ON EACH SIDE! don't forget to breathe!" it's like those horiffic push-up things they used to make us do in phy ed. oh, i'm sorry, GYM. i also cannot stand this lady, so either i'll have to memorize the stuff or just not do this one anymore. she says things in a horrible accent and she does everything with a way too large grin on her face. "i'm perfect!"

 

and there is my synopsis on the new yoga practice. it pretty much sucked!!! now i have to go force myself to do other stuff.

Well, I found something to do

I'm creating this gigantic spreadsheet that will eventually have 11,400 rows. I've been going through the data (in an XML file) for 3.5 hours now, just sorting it so that it will import into Excel correctly. The reason it's taking so long is just that it takes a long time to go through 11,400 records. At some point I tried doing it in Notepad and it appeared that it would take like 10 minutes...it was taking about 1 second per record, so that wasn't working...I'm now using Word. It goes a lot faster. But I still have to wait an insanely long time. For instance, right now. I hope everyone's happy with this report when it's done.

 

This is one case where I really have to hand it to Word and Excel. I already enjoyed Excel already, but I hated Word. Well, in Word you can Find/Replace anything your mind can imagine. It's incredible. And in Excel, you can just do anything you can imagine. I am very impressed with Excel, and Word impressed me today with its Find/Replace capability. Ok, did I just repeat myself? I don't know.

 

The skin beneath my eyes is extremely irritated and red. This morning I put some lotion on it and it burned for approx. 5 minutes.

 

My mom, in order to fund her trip to TN, borrowed all of my sister's graduation money, a crapload of money from my grandma, my grandpa's credit card, and my uncle's credit card (I think - there were two credit cards involved, at any rate). I cannot believe she took my sister's money. I mean, she makes her pay for everything anyway (she had to buy a lot of the stuff for her own party). And the saddest part is, there is a 90% chance she will never see it again.

 

With every new day comes a new stupid, sad, and tragic thing my mom finds to do. My brain is so worn out from her that I can't even think of anything to say regarding her most recent hijink. So I will just go back to sorting my data.

Strange, strange movie

The most recent movie I watched was titled "Immortal," and it was extremely strange. The strangest part about the entire movie was that it was half animated and half real. Some movies have that, I understand. But this one didn't execute it very well. The animation was Toy Story type, or sort of video game looking, so it was almost like they wanted you to think they were real people. In one case, I swear to god a guy was a real person in one scene and then a video looking guy in another scene.

 

The second weirdest thing was the fact that they used Sigur Rós' "Hjartað Hamast" in the movie. Not once, but twice. About half of the song was used the first time, and almost all of it was used the second time. It was a giant part of the movie, and I don't really remember much other music. That was so weird. It's like that was the only song they could get rights to, so they decided to use it twice. Haha. Of all songs to choose, they choose that one, and use it twice. Not like I don't like the song. It's just a strange choice for a movie.

 

Thirdly, it was just a weird-ass movie. Not as weird as Eraserhead, but a movie will never be as weird as Eraserhead.

Mom incident

My mom planned to go to Tennessee yesterday for some class. She was going to go with Gary. Well, Gary, the creep and asshole that he is, didn't show up. I really hope this will show her that he is an ass, and she will get rid of him.

 

She is using this as an excuse to make my sisters be with her this weekend, even though it is Father's Day.

 

I painted a painting of a lighthouse for my dad. I didn't buy him anything because they are always complaining about how much crap they have now that two households were combined and they had a wedding, where they got even more crap.

 

I am really itchy right now in the area right where the band of my bra is. I hope you enjoyed that information.

 

I have been working on my letter to Tom. It's going to take a lot of work to make it turn out well and to get it to say everything I want and to sound good and send the correct messages. I hope to get it sent next week.

Ideas to curb boredom at work

- Count ceiling tiles (Dan's idea)

- Count dead bugs in the light (Dan's idea again) (there are three - it didn't take long)

- Daydream

- Delete files

- Stop writing this list because it is annoying me

 

I don't think it's possible for a person to be as bored as I am right now. Seriously. There is no feeling that is worse than this. And I think this day has gone by slower than humanly possible. sda;lfj;salkdjf;lksdjfa;klsjdf