Clicking through a link on Johnny's website, I found this Ugly Cake Story and laughed till it hurt. Hehehe!

I checked my class roster. Only two people dropped after Monday's class. One of them sent me an email that she intends to take a different class that is better time-wise and I sure don't blame her! I brought a Starbucks coffee to go set to Monday's class because those poor people (and poor me!) had to get up at dawn's early light for school and it was difficult.

Although, it's very difficult to have enough time to really do much of anything, so far. I believe I can work in some enjoyment around loads of laundry this weekend. We'll see :) I do suppose I ought to cancel my newspaper subscription though, as I haven't had time to read anything since I got back from San Jose. I have piles of newspapers and true to my obsessive compulsive nature, I cannot read today's paper without having first read all the prior days'. :/ Argh, matey!

Good to see you're alive in more than one-liners, Broos! Hugs back atcha!

School starts tomorrow. Professor Tracy will begin the quarter with an exercise in remembering what one hears. She hopes that telling some of the somewhat, maybe, kind of interesting facts about herself to the class at the start of the morning, then later asking folks to recall some of those facts will provide a bit of fun to the idea that people remember different things even when they all witness the same event.

In the fall quarter, the class had focused on criminal law. Since I haven't a criminal mind or background, this quarter we are doing more civil investigation. I will need to write out the guidelines for the students' written assignments and the interview roleplay, plus a midterm and final exam. I have gotten some attorneys, a private investigator and someone from the State Patrol to be guest speakers.

You're all welcome to attend :)

This makes purrrrfect sense.

As I suspected, my best method for finding someone involved not looking. Once I tried that tactic, I turned a corner and there she was :)

An interesting week. I'm tired. Trying to catch up emails, doodads, real mail and all that. I also remember what a lonesome experience being away from home can be, especially when you don't really know anyone particularly well. If I didn't run into John Ratcliff every day, my spirit would have been very dismal indeed. I practically tackled him the first day he came up to me because it was like, "Thank god! I'm not invisible after all!"

Being a shy person, surrounded by people who all seemed to know each other, was lonesome. Everyone else seemed to have someone else they knew and were gabbing away with, which made it difficult for me to get up the courage to speak to anyone. Even at the Thursday night thing, I was ready to fade away within 5 minutes, but a couple of cheerful guys started talking to me (I was trying to peer past them to see the hockey score on the TV; it looked like the Red Wings were playing, and as they got trounced by San Jose, I was interested in seeing how they were holding up) and I stuck around for a while.

On Tuesday, the group I was in designed a game garnering enough votes from the entire session that we got to actually play it. In "Scramble," everyone got one Scrabble tile and within 60 seconds had to find other people with whom to form a word. We were so loud during the game play that the sessions to either side of us complained. Always a sign of a good game, no? :)

I spent some time on Friday trying to find a shop in which to buy a bag suitable for checking in as luggage. All my freebie things, even though there aren't that many, were too much for my backpack to handle. Downtown San Jose, though, is not like downtown Seattle. It was pretty deserted. The guy at Starbucks said they didn't have any office supply stores downtown. A lot of the shops were empty, too, which added to the deserted feel. I finally gave up looking after a nice toothless man asked me for my spare change, and headed back to my hotel through the Fairmont. Lo! in their gift shop they had an inexpensive, wheeled suitcase. I wished I started there, instead of dashing past them to find a 'real' store!

The wireless is here! The wireless is here!

So, like, every day that I've been here at GDC, I've run into Kevin, a friend of Broos'. This morning I ran into him, not literally, as we grabbed breakfast. I've also run into John Ratcliff a couple of times. It's interesting that even as packed as this place is, I've run into the same people more than once.

Although, amusingly enough, I've been trying to run into our General Manager and have only encountered her incidentally twice. The first time was Monday, the most recent time was yesterday at the Microsoft party for women in gaming. Supposedly there is some kind of gathering something or other tonight someplace for people who work in multi-player games. I asked Kevin if he knew where it is, since I keep running into him. But no, he has no idea, so now I guess my tactic will be to not look for Elonka, for if I don't look for her, I'm sure to run into her :)

My bags are packed and I'm mostly ready to go. I think. Now I'm filled with both exhaustion and anxiety.

I did my nails this afternoon and the top coat dried with little bumps. There is no time for me to redo them. I will need to panic about it in the morning. Perhaps another application of top coat will smooth over the bumps? Of all the days for my nails to misbehave. Argh!

Next Monday is my first day teaching at the college. Should be interesting. The class is apparently full. However, I don't know what full means, and since it's the first class of the day, I have no idea how I will get my class roster either, as there won't be anyone in the office to get it to me.

Hopefully, sometime this week I will have a chance to lay out in the sunshine somewhere. I am not packing a bathing suit, but if the opportunity arises, I will not be above buying one. Surely San Jose has a shop somewhere with bathing suits? It is supposed to be in the 70s. That is mighty warm to someone from Seattle :)

If the wireless network works for me, I may post something or other this week. I'm not taking my camera; that would be one more bit of technology to pack. The GameBoy Advance and its plugs and things are already in my purse. My goal is: buy a latte (Starbucks better be open) and then sit at the gate till the plane boards and finish Castlevania. I am 74% through. It's nice in that there's usually a save spot close enough for a commute's worth of adventuring. Of course, if I finish it on the way down, I shall just have to pick up a different game to play on the way back, eh? :)

So, like, I just saw this today and it made my day.

Dateline: Seattle Husband Threatens To Remove Hearts!

The Battle of Orkut continues in Sheepville. Rob asked me how to invite people, and I offered to explain it to him when we got home from work, but he managed to figure it out and got one of his EQ buddies to join. I asked whether Rob intended to invite his brother Richard, who reads both of our blogs and is no doubt cringing at now being singled out in public. :) Rob said he didn't think Richard would be interested, so...that means he's fair game!

If you want an invite, Richard, send me an email :) I'm "owlchick" at this domain name. :)

Later still (as in, 2AM later), an email from Rob arrives in which he threatens to remove the "hearts" he used in ranking me and said that would leave me with only about 5 hearts and we would all know who at least 3 of those came from. Men. :P So with only moments to spare before I have to dash to work, I added maximum hearts to Rob's listing.

It's a good thing we aren't into sports or we'd be putting out each other's eyes or hiding the athletic equipment for sure.

Spent some time trying to get my Front Page and my archives to meet. They don't want to and I'm tired of fighting them, so our compromise is this new look for the blogger page.

And yes, Broos, I know all the links on the right are in a very pale green that you can't see :) But you lived through all that with me once before and I'm sure you don't need to live through it all again!

It's a beautiful day in the neeeeeeighborhood!
Unless like me, you're allergic, but good :(

Each night I wake up with a full and stuffy nose, somewhere about 3AM. For an hour I quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) blow my nose, toss and turn, and wish Seldane were still available. Seldane, pulled off the market for having some side issues with hearts, is the love of my allergic life. It worked! I've tried Allegra and Claritin, but nothing works as well as Seldane. Still, I am not inspired to put up a page in homage to it. And, Seldane is still available, just not in America.

I miss Seldane.

And now for some recent Sheepville Conversations of Note:

Tracy: (glancing at empty cupboards and finding nothing to prepare at dinner-time) I can't cook!
Rob: That's never stopped you before.

Cherub Chris (from the passenger seat): Without my glasses on, I can't really see anything on the dashboard.
Cherub Phil (from the backseat): Me, either. I can see there's lights and stuff, but I can't see what the numbers are.
Tracy (peering over her glasses as she negotiates a turn): Me, too. Without my glasses on, I can't see...
Cherub Chris: MOM!!! Put those back on; you're driving!

A little something for the liberal minded. :)

Today's interesting search engine string used to locate this webpage: "Do owls have butts?"

Answer: I don't know. Do they?

Rob posts yet again! A miracle!

We do tend to be competitive. :) Actually, I was curious after I saw John Ratcliff's passing mention of orkut on his blog, but you can't view anything without being invited into their network, so I idled my curiosity. Yesterday, Rob sent our other friend John a link to a game that involves beheading penguins, and John (who hates penguins) immediately invited Rob into his inner sanctum. So, I hadn't seen much of the site till Rob showed it to me over his shoulder.

And did he invite me to be his friend? Nooooo. I had to ask John R. to send me the official invite. :) Once I started filling out the info, I thought a couple of folks I know would find it rather interesting. Amy in particular has a large extended family all over the place and this might be an interesting way to gather them in one spot.

I have a migraine working on me, but I sent some ibuprofen to attack. I hope it works. It's Tuesday, Grommit, the traditional meeting day for us game-folk and I must dine and dash.

I have no time to do anything fun. :( Behind me, I hear Rob playing with MY copy of Beyond Good and Evil. Mine! Mine! Mine! (hear in your head the lovely seagulls from Finding Nemo)

At the moment I am pondering how to construct an Egyptian barge for Cleopatra's wedding this summer. Also, I am planning to host a party for her next month...only it's now this month and it's not happening.

Newsletter still to do -- and no articles to go into it yet.

Lecture notes to plan. At least I have a textbook, and several review copies requested, so I am going to outline each chapter and take it from there. But I don't want to plan too much on this as the course could be cancelled it it hasn't enough enrollment. We don't find out till the first week of class. So I don't want to plan too much in case they cancel class; I'd hate to have wasted all that time.

Plus a week in San Jose, which seems as though that ought to be fun, and in many ways it will be, but Rob won't be there (prolly playing MY copy of KotOR! Mine! Mine!) and I am not exactly an outgoing person. Well, I kind of am. But I'm mostly shy. Broos won't go to keep me company, so I'll be lurking in corners, hoping to run into someone nice to talk with about stuff and things. At least the sessions are interesting. I've highlighted the ones I'm most interested in and now must hope they don't conflict with all the other ones I want to attend. So, you can see why this isn't exactly a relaxing week for me.

Taxes still aren't finished either. We ran into a glitch entering some of Rob's information, and I'll have to wrestle with that later as well. His laundry is in the dryer and needs to be wrestled with, too. Plus there's a half a chair on the floor behind me. Recall that Rob went to buy a new one; evidently taking the old one out with the trash isn't on his "to do" list. Not that he can remember to take out the trash either. Men.

To top it all off, it is getting to be Spring here in the PacNW and my eye feels as though someone has tossed a handful of sand into it. Just one eye, though, so I get to wink at everyone trying to clear it out which probably makes me look like a hooker when I'm standing at the bus stop in the morning, waiting for the bus and winking. Oy!