i'm tired.

seriously i am. spine out of alignment, stars out of alignment, mind out of alignment, realizing that not leaving isn't the same as staying, wondering if you have to like the road you'll have to take in order to want to arrive at the destination? suicide thesis is the new band in town and there's nothing that can give me comfort, even if it were simply served cold like revenge at the best restaurant in town.

and, finally, he asked "did you ever consider for a moment that it might all be neurological?" to which i replied "did you ever consider that it might not exist?"

this new google blogger shit is driving me insane.

anyway...school starts back up tuesday so i've got a lot to do still to prep for the classes i teach...and much to do in so many areas...

the study abroad crap is getting there. most of my annoyance is in the amount of work i've had to do on the passport/visa/travel stuff while i was supposed to only be working on the academic side of things. i've realized that my time with wimse is coming to a close, as sad as that may seem. this is it. this is my last semester there as a grad assistant. i have a new boss that starts tuesday, i have to, have to, have to finish no later than august. i want to finish no later than august -- that's the more important part. i'll miss it, no doubt. but it's time to move on. what will they do without me is the question so many ask. i don't know. but i can't believe -- or let myself believe -- that on soooooo many of my job duties someone else couldn't do it. maybe the next person won't have my personality or my same reasons for wanting wimse to grow, change, etc with the times. but it's easy to get yourself in a lull where you are no longer effective, no longer able to see beyond just the day to day demands of the job.

do i think i've made a difference? yeah, i do. but there are so many other things i feel i need to do for me and for others in this life. it's time for me to go. yeah, i can point fingers and make a stand and say "i'm leaving because they are users" or "i'm leaving because they don't value my opinion even though i'm the only one in housings that's in the real trenches of wimse." but really? just as my students move on and graduate...so must i. so must i. and housing doesn't care if i move on...the university doesn't care...but i must and i do care.

it's time for that next step. as scary as hell as that is. it's time.

it WAS kinda hilarious, actually, to see the lunesta ads that were shown during the breaks between that new grease reality show as if anyone watching were still awake. i mean, i have NEVER watched the whole american idol process but i think it's pretty similar...i mean could they have found MORE boring hosts? now i know what NOT to do during GDC...

heh. speaking of...in the latest game dev mag, there's a picture of me asking my pain in the ass question at last year's game dev challenge in the half of the magazine that is the gdc advertisement. no, that's not the caption -- there's no caption. but if i were to caption it, it'd be something like "i KNEW this was gonna end up on some ad..." it's kind of funny. but cool.

so today dr. b told me that any normal person would have died from the poison from the rage...which reminded me of another dr. b who told me that everything was going to make me a stronger person...how strong do i need to be, exactly?

what part of "do you have a US passport? if not, are you getting one now or are you in the visa process if you hold another country's passport?" is so damn confusing?

ok, age and experience has a lot to do with my crankiness about this. but it's really, really irritating when, after email 5 on the issue, someone's just now realized "hey, i DON'T have a us passport and/or visa to exit and re-enter the country -- so do i need to do something?" and then someone in a position of power says "oh, you should let students know that they need passports and/or visas." yeah? really? you think so? god, thanks for letting us know! we'd totally forgotten about that...

ahhhhhhhhhh. wake up, wake up, wake up. and i'm talking to myself right now. a little over a week before i have a new boss and i have an awful lot of shit to figure out.

i think this pretty much describes it all...the re-modernist space between places that i've found myself in with regard to how i view myself and how others view me...the abd catch 22 of somehow not being human or alive if you are in grad school...any minute now, my ship is coming in
i'll keep checking the horizon
i'll stand on the bow, feel the waves come crashing
come crashing down down down, on me

and you say, "be still my love
open up your heart
let the light shine in"
but don't you understand
i already have a plan
i'm waiting for my real life to begin

when i awoke today, suddenly nothing happened
but in my dreams, i slew the dragon
and down this beaten path, and up this cobbled lane
i'm walking in my old footsteps, once again

and you say, "just be here now
forget about the past, your mask is wearing thin"
let me throw one more dice
i know that i can win
i'm waiting for my real life to begin

any minute now, my ship is coming in
i’ll keep checking the horizon
and i'll check my machine, there's sure to be that call
it's gonna happen soon, soon, soon
it's just that times are lean

and you say, "be still my love
open up your heart, let the light shine in"
don't you understand
i already have a plan
i'm waiting for my real life to begin

on a clear day
i can see, see for a long way
yeah...colin hay of men at work fame...who can it be now?

hmm. like someone was reading my mind when they posted their favorite scrubs episode songs and is it just me or does everyone have those once-a-month days where all they do is play songs, watch tv/movies that make them cry? mood-state dependency...

more from finland...

more from finland...
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

how...bauhaus

yeah, you'd think i'd lived in finland or something with the number of pix i have to post from there. this one just kept coming up in my photostream so i thought i'd finally blog it. anyway, i'm wondering if this diy-crafts-arts-technology thing has something to do with that whole re-modernist crap (read: philosophy) i was reading a few weeks ago and the space between places...someone's had to have written about it, right? or maybe i just did.

and wasn't it weird when last night's ep of law and order svu had that quote about unhappy families from anna karenina and it's the book i'm currently reading...although it was a bit *summarized* when they used it...happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own wayword.

so ford's dead and i've realized he has a lot in common with bush...in the sad fact that he, too, was appointed president...at least for term one. then, somehow, we elected bush president for term two. maybe we'd have been better off electing ford...wonder how things would have turned out...you know, with that whole hostage crisis thing ending with reagan that showed us exactly when we sold our souls to the republicans...ah well, we can play that game with gore and/or kerry versus bush as well...

but all i can think of is those old SNL skits...not the ones with chevy chase tripping everywhere but the newer older ones where they are working on ford's "death announcement" on cnn and saying things like "president gerald r. ford was mauled to death by bears today..." ok, bad timing and taste BUT seriously cnn had that packaged death montage up in seconds after the announcement...

oh yeah, it's the new year. i should make some coffee. and have a shower. also, why is it so cold in here? is my body temp really 97.4? and why exactly do i not write about the architecture dreams...

do i like this new blogger? not sure yet. my body looks like it's been in a war and i have a giant bruise on my cheek and it's like wtf? did i punch myself in the face in my sleep? i must have because that's the only explanation.

did you hear? did you hear about the world peace that broke out? hussein is dead and now iraq is like a big disco party and everyone has ponies and holding hands and oh everyone converted to christianity in the whole world and then the angels came down from the heavens...

and shot us all to hell. do you ever sit on a plane in front of loud mouth assholes who pat each other on the back about how reagan was the greatest and bush junior is even greater and we're all too stupid to see it now. yeah. i guess that must be true. i guess when i get that lobotomy i'll be able to see it too.

the cost of string? who knows? what is it worth in the end anyway as long as it made some people happy. all i keep rewinding in my head is the whole i am ashamed of you...i am ashamed of you...i am ashamed of you. it's like a sick xmas song for the dysfunctional family...i am ashamed of you...medical care isn't for people like you who can't afford it...i'm cutting you off...i'm cutting you out of the will...oh you are sick? yeah grandmother fakes that hand shaky thing too...i am ashamed of you...quicken will save us all...get out of the car then...just go...just stop shaming me.

damn. if this were an old samurai movie...thank god i only have that stupid plastic sword they gave out at last year's gdc.

this year's gotta be better than the last?

me on npr in a story on game accessibility for the blind on xmas eve...meanwhile in non-radio life i tried to ignore, well, everything around me.

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o'hare

homeland security has *recently* upgraded our alert to orange according to the speaker system...but hasn't it been orange for many, many months now? and is orange the middle or second to the top? it did cause quite the commotion at o'hare security as we moved all our damn gels into new plastic bags and meanwhile i got to the conveyor belt to see, shit, i didn't take out the laptops yet. so i had to yell down for someone to pass me some spare plastic tubs (one laptop per). yeah. two laptops. that's how i roll.

anyway, i've been trying to get home since 5am but now it's 5:30pm and i have *at least* another hour to wait because our incoming flight is circling above chicago due to the traffic. you know...fucking holidays. airport hell is how i roll.

and i had to take a bus to o'hare because nothing's leaving champaign for the next 40 days due to, i don't know...sun? all i know is that i'm manic now so i best avoid my family by working non-stop on my dissertation. it's the only way to survive.

lonely nights, never end,
they come here again and again,
whenever i'm alone, without you.
this love, it seems, to keep taking me higher.
but i'm flying alone, without you.
i know i tried and tried before,
(i know, you know.)
you know i need you more and more.
were you tellin' me lies?
did you really mean goodbye?
can't you see, I'm yours,
i'm in love for the first time.
and now I'm lost,
without you, without you, without you, without you.

i'm flying with broken wings,
i'm flying alone.
(yeah, i'm flying, yeah i'm flying alone)
i'm flying with broken wings,
i'm flying alone.

(can't you hear me, can't you hear me?)
i'm flying with broken wings,
i'm flying alone.hendrix, as performed by the ohare holiday band...

so soon i'll be on npr but i won't know when or what show yet but it could be all things considered. which would be amazing. so, yeah, i had to go to the npr station here and do some weird phone patch in thing with the reporter from san francisco and it's being edited now so that all the "uh..." pauses are removed. it took a couple minutes to get myself from the "uh" habit but once i became aware of it, things were better. it's been a long time since the days of the woove and i couldn't just say shit like "oh...so i fell asleep so that's why you heard the whole half of that album..." and then have friends call in so we could mock people.

did i just say album? oy...

anyway, i was in my other office yesterday -- the one on the complete, complete opposite side of campus from my dorm one -- and i remembered that i'd been meaning to take in the mac laptop to figure out what the fuck was wrong with the wireless. so there's a mac store that's in the same building as all the illinois campus media and the radio station has the dj in the store window...which is creepy. maybe it's a chicago thing because they do that on michigan avenue. i don't know. i do know that they are commercial, which drives me insane -- no campus radio station should be slave to the man. that's right. i said it. the man. and i do know that they don't look anywhere near as sleep deprived and/or high as we did. and i don't know the answer to this for sure but i'm thinking that they probably don't take requests to play the emergency broadcast system...back when it was that two-tone fucker of sound.

which brings me back to npr...that was our parent station and would receive all of our random ebs shit and turn us in. what? ok, it wasn't like 9/11 was anywhere close to happening and the cold war had closed up shop so we were bored, we were slackers, we were grunge. and kurt cobain was still alive and nirvana was still underground and, fucking hell, no he did not die from overeating. wtf. no really. someone actually said that to me the other day: "didn't he die from overeating?" wow. no.

but beside all that i'm not dying from overeating because i can't keep anything down and i'm wondering if it's because i owe 8 million dollars in medical bills?

technically speaking, i was fired on the 19th. that's because of the whole banner fuck up with my med insurance, etc that happened right before thanksgiving. only i'm just finding this out.

why was i fired? computer glitch that has collapsed my whole house of cards. of course this begs the question...so i'm going to work tonight, why?

there are many terms for this kind of behavior of mine. saint/sinner. sucker. idiot. the guy who hoards the stapler in the movie "office space." i guess there's also "actually gives a shit" and "person who hates the system so much that they'd go to work for free just to completely and utterly annoy the people who have to figure out what to do with all those clocked in hours that have appeared on their computer unexplained." freud would have called this...uh...something to do with my parents, only in german. all probably fitting terms. especially the translated in german bit. everything sounds more severe in german. not just german...but german for sure.

i'm now trying to come to terms why exactly my face has broken out...it's not like i don't know the answer (period in t-minus 3 days)...i'm just not able to comprehend, at this moment, how much i owe in medical bills thanks to the ol' insurance cancellation trick (if you are thinking over 10 grand...you are close!) and what reality show do i need to win in order to raise that cash...which means anything minor that happens in my life (flood, fire, face breakouts) just can't get processed.

yeah i was kidding about the flood and fire being minor events. thought i'd clear that up before it happened to me.

the gift of life. some days it's like that sweater you got for your birthday that you hate but can't bring back and have to wear it every time you see the person who gave it to you in order to avoid major ass conflict.

"so where exactly do you think we are?" [scrubs]

i'm not quite sure, really...

in canada, i'm famous.

that being said...in illinois? i mean wtf does it take for the university to fucking put this on their homepage? yes, the "university" is "my father" blah blah fucking blah. call freud up next time and he'll explain it all. or, i guess, channel freud, being that he's dead and all. anyway this is the interesting bit -- accessibility gets more attention from industry than academia. there. i said it. i'm really starting to believe it more and more every day.

and that being said...i hate having to post narcissistic things to bring attention to the field. you'd think i were religious from the way that i have an anxiety attack when i do anything that smacks of pride. so that last bit about illinois? i feel like an asshole for saying "hey, wtf -- is anything i do good enough for you people?" and by "you people," i'm referring to the university administration...not individual departments. instead...i get a dramatic email about how i'm "just a grad student" from them. that is true...but i am also NOT a teaching assistant. maybe they could have emailed me to get the right department to verify this bit?

and that being said...i moved all my books to the creepy col wolfe building so i am now forced to work there. it reminds me of the office christine and i shared back in the ncsa days in CAB...it *is* just around the corner. and that's probably a good thing.

probably.

ok, how about this: every time a doctor gives me grief about my period, the terrorists win!

actually...no...there's the damn opiod's connection with the middle east. so it's more like every period that i live through without any pain killers shows that i love america.

god dammit.

so every month that passes, i'm getting more and more concerned about what i couldn't say but could only write down on a card for chris to read. yeah...it's the menstrual psychosis thing, the extreme high followed by the extreme low in a short period (haha) of time. the weirdest thing is the recurring dream i get after the crash...the geology lab architecture dream.

so dr b...why are we not analyzing THIS? surely it's more interesting than why i don't like mondays.

and why is tivo giving me such grief? why am i letting it give me such grief? and can it really be possible that my period is starting again? and did you know that instead of percocet more doctors are comfortable prescribing methadone as a pain killer because of all the percocet/oxycontin debacle? i can see it now...me, hanging out at the meth clinic...for cramps.

i'm hard core.

and, no, i can hardly get a damn doctor to prescribe advil to me let alone percocet. but maybe if i picked up a heroin habit real quick i could get some methodone. does this make ANY sense at ALL? it's amazing that i haven't picked up a serial killer habit real quick.

and fuck you blog censors. i'll say whatever i fucking want on this.

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i know. wtf, right? why did i post this? i just liked the ice cream image on the bathroom condom dispensor. mom?????? can i get an ice cream cone???? marketing people...

"need to talk to your kids about sex? then bring them to the montreal airport bathroom where you can talk about it with friendly images that kids can identify with!"

christ, no, i don't think that's what they were thinking...but it made me laugh anyway. i've heard worse.

so quebec...what's with your metro system? you walk into an entryway and instead of seeing anything resembling what looks like a subway and/or other kind of transportation system...you see a set of stairs...that leads into a food court. so i went back outside, figuring i went into the wrong set of doors...no...so i go downstairs and, yeah, i'm in a food court and this giant underground mall that reminded me a lot of taipei, only there you did at least have some signs here and there that you were going past shops but headed towards a subway stop.

so i'm walking around, asking as many retail workers as i can find in case i can find one that understands that i'm looking for this fabled transportation system. finally i get to a station stop...kind of. i'm expecting that there will be some kind of machines where, oh, one could buy a ticket. nope. just a desk. and it seems that where i was trying to go was one stop away...yet cost $2.50! shit i could have walked if i weren't in period hell pain. even with the pain...$2.50!?! and that wasn't roundtrip. then it turns out that i'm not even going where i thought i was going.

where was i trying to go? well, it seems that the conference people wrote me a check in canadian dollars from a canadian bank (or banque) that my bank in the us is gonna be SUPER happy about (how many weeks/months do you think it will take them to clear that check when it takes them 13 days to clear my direct deposit checks from university payroll? so since it's my last day in canada, i thought that i'd go to the bank that issued the check and see if they can do a direct deposit into my us account and/or recut the check in a more accessible format like travellers checks (cheques) or an international money order. nope. same as everywhere...you have to open an account and there was no fucking way i wanted to open a checking account in another country and then wait for 40 days for the check to clear and try to transfer that money to some other format...%($#*%(#(@*$(#@

anyway, it was a total waste of 4 hours and then i got caught in a rain downpour. so while i was getting soaked, i took pix of the cool and what has to be amazingly expensive xmas lights that are on every fucking tree in this fucking city. and i ran into this guy who works in the hotel and was laughing at my taking pictures of city stickers and signs who gave me ideas about the coolest picture taking places in the area -- earlier we'd had a conversation about how "mooning" and the fact that we have homeless camped out down the street from the white house is such an "american" statement and that seattle was pretty close to montreal in look and feel. this after my asking all the staff why everyone was wearing a red posey today (tomorrow is canada's version of veteran's day and they are dealing with the first generation in a long time of children remembering their parents who were recently killed in a war, lost in the iraq disaster.

and i'm so fucking glad the us house and senate is out of republican control. fuck, i think the whole world might feel that way. and my moods are way out of control and it doesn't have anything to do with the us house or senate that i know of...i'm really, really, really tired of my period. and i'm really, really, really sick of it meaning that i've had to miss out on fun things, like everything at the conference that wasn't my talk.

my latest art project is completely disgusting and could, possible, land me in a whole heap of trouble coming back through customs tomorrow. and, no, it doesn't have anything to do with the canadian flag...oddly i haven't seen any of them for sale anywhere. but i'm not really in a souvenir part of town...more like the expensive stores that i can't afford to even enter. maybe i'll find some bulk flags on sale at the airport tomorrow so that i can play the fun with customs game..."do you have flags in your bag?"

the rules of speaking engagements

the rules of speaking engagements
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

so today i gave a talk on accessibility to a pretty sizeable crowd (and no one did the "oh, i must be in the wrong session" faux-confusion maneuver to escape so i actually had the same audience members from start to finish. and i felt good about the talk. i felt completely relaxed and in the groove and you know? for fuck's sake...i felt proud of myself for the first time in a long time. i got a huge number of compliments for my "passionate" and "laid back" speaking style and one of my room assistants told me that he forgot to give me my five minute warning because he was so into what i was talking about and showing in my video clips. and i got a few invites to collaborate on grants...and i was interviewed by the canadian press (canada's version of the associated press) and, damn, that was cool...

what's going on? the canadian press guy even asked me how i'm handling my newfound fame.

fame. i want to live forever. i'm gonna learn how to fly. high.

now, more than ever, it's time to graduate.