hahahahaha... wow. Dear UM's Office of Financial Assistance: You should probably stop calling yourselves that, because I don't think "assistance" means what you think it means.

Short summary cause I'm short on time atm:

I filled out my FAFSA (form for financial aid) in, like, June. They had to verify some stuff, and then on July 20th (man, I'm glad I'm a packrat and keep everything) they sent me an email saying that everything had been verified and "No further action is required." So I was like, great, I'll just wait for them to let me know what aid I can get. And so I waited. And waited. And then it was mid-October and still nothing (I didn't need aid for this fall semester, I wanted it for spring though). So I was like, fuck going through UM, I'll just apply through my previous lender. So I went to go do that, but UM is only listed under its law school on their list (this has happened before but I didn't remember what I was supposed to do). So I emailed UM's office cause that's what the site said to do. And they were like "Oh hey, you can't apply for loans until we approve you. Now answer all of the following questions even though WE ALREADY SAID YOU DIDN'T NEED TO DO ANYTHING ELSE and we obviously weren't going to bother telling you on our own."

^-__-^;; So I answered the questions, and then by the weekend we just had, still hadn't heard anything else from them. Tuition for spring is due on Dec. 17, so I kinda needed to know if I could even study next semester, since I was applying for loans in the first place cause I don't have the bloody money. So I kinda needed to know soon if I had to withdraw from uni or not. So I sent them a rather annoyed email on Saturday being like "Will you PLEASE tell me this time if there's anything else I need to do because I kinda need to pay in less than a month??" (cept it was longer than that and I mentioned how they don't like informing me when I need to do stuff for them)

And then today I finally got a reply for them and can now apply for loans. Yay, annoyed emails solve everything! *shifty eyes* Well, at least that's one less thing I have to stress out about. I'll go over the loans AFTER my bloody exam today, GRAH. I REQUIRE THE DAY TO HAVE MORE HOURS IN IT KPLZTHX.

*wanders off to cram brain with more genetics info*

Holy crap, this new (well, I've not seen it before. I don't think it's actually new per se) episode of Criminal Minds is almost exactly like the first (and last) NaNo I ever tried. Basically, a middle-aged white dude married to an emasculating, controlling, "perfect" blonde woman, who ends up murdering women who remind him of his wife because he can't kill his wife. Cept my character didn't use a shotgun, and had some issues with his mum. Haha, this is so amusing. :oD

... ^-__-^;;

I hate when I do stupid shit.

I was bored, and made some wallpapers. I think they actually turned out OK, considering I'd only made two others before this, and I lack creativity. The last one took FOREVER though. ^@__@^;;

[1024x819] | [1280x1024]	[1024x819] | [1280x1024]	[1024x819] | [1280x1024]

... I have never been so busy in my entire life. And this is with only two classes. ^@__@^;;

... yeah, I have nothing else to say. Woo, spam post.

So, apparently I became a senior about 12 credits ago and nobody bothered to tell me until now. Considering I've only been taking two classes a semester, that's one year of being a senior without knowing it.

... AAAAAAHHHH SO MUCH STUFF I HAVE TO GET DONE BEFORE I GRADUATE AND I'M RUNNING OUT OF TIME WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY TEEEEEEELL MEEEEEEEEEEE. *splodes*

The good news is that, while I only have like six classes left to graduate, I still have like ten more on top of that because of the pre-med stuff. So... while I don't have as much time as I assumed I had, I still have a decent amount of time left. At least, enough to (hopefully) get all the stuff I need to get done before I graduate.

At least now I don't have to worry about still being an undergrad at 30 anymore. That is a big plus! :o)

And now, to wait for my stupid A/C to finish its nightly hissy fit so it can cool my room back down and I can sleep.

I am apparently a lot happier these days. It is a very strange feeling. I usually wander about campus singing softly to myself, but today I almost started singing in class. I always get to class early, so I was working on my class schedule for next semester and I hummed a few notes out loud and was like........ ^O_____O^;;;; I don't think anybody heard me though. *whew* And then I was waiting for my dad to pick me up (sidenote: it is finally getting to a decent temperature and I can start walking home again! yay, no more hell!), and I kinda just burst into song.

Hey, I'm not complaining. :op I just hope nobody else does. I'm not sure how good my voice is after like five years of not being in choir.

Max: Honestly, I just want an intellectual, XD
me: I... don't want anything! Yaaaaaaaay!
Max: I just want to find Waldo and shoot him
Max: >.>
me: I want to see the offspring if Waldo and Carmen Sandiego mated
me: Or, not see, as the case may be
me: Where in the world is baby Waldella Carmenando Sandiego Walderson??
me: HOLY SHIT, SHE'S INVISIBLE
Max: Lol, imagine if it was you.... KC, the master of hiding in boxer drawers
me: Holy fuck, no wonder I'm adopted
Max: XD
me: They lost me when I went ninja at 6 weeks old
Max: XD

I've not ranted about anything in awhile. But living in Miami and watching CSI: Miami as much as I do, I hear a lot about "balseros." For those who don't know, una balsa is a raft. Thus, balseros are the Cubans who come over to the US in rafts, braving sharks, the coast guard, and jackasses out for personal profit over people's lives.

Yeah, OK, I wasn't born here, and yeah I choose to continue living here because there are better jobs and hospitals, etc. But story after story (and I'm not talking about CSI: Miami stories here, I'm talking about local news) I hear from Cubans who come here it's like, why did they even bother? I think it was our plumber or something who was a freaking doctor back in Cuba, came here, and... well yeah, now he's a plumber. Or electrician. Whatever it was. There are tons of stories like that here. And tons of Cubans on the telly are like "Yeah, I miss my family who are all back in Cuba, and I wish I could go back there because being here is not the way I thought it would be."

I'm just wondering why they all want to come here so badly to chance getting devoured by sharks or sent back to Cuba by the coast guard or dying of dehydration or whatever just to end up mowing lawns or being hairdressers. I'm in a good university, sure, and I will (hopefully) have a good job in the future, but I know first-hand that studying in a uni outside the US usually doesn't count for shit when you come here (I think I wrote about it a long long time ago, trying to get Miami-Dade community college to accept my transcripts from the semester I did at PUCMM in the Dominican Republic. I eventually had to just tell them to render the transcripts null and void so I could actually start studying here). Yeah, some Cubans who come here do end up in good jobs, but the majority... I dunno. I just don't see how the benefit outweighs all the risks.

Oh, and don't even get me started on that "You're in my country, now speak my language dumbass" bullshit. I always took it as a joke until I heard something similar in person the other day. Ugh. I should've jumped the counter and beat his ass until he stopped harrassing my friend. He wasn't really yelling at her so I didn't, but... ugh. 98% of the population of Miami is latin anyway, so technically he should be learning our language. ^<__<^;; Anyway, the racism/prejudice/white American supremacist rant will have to wait until I have enough energy to care about something so stupid (which will likely be never, cause prejudice is dumb and should be shot in the face).

Well, since my attempts to talk to a "friend" of mine about this have ended in spectacular failure, I guess I'll post in here about it. It's not like anybody on here even knows the person this is about anyway, so I suppose it doesn't really matter.

I'm not sure how to talk about it though. I mean, how to put it into words. I really don't know exactly how I feel about it.

One of my good friends apparently has a plan to kill himself when he reaches 30 years of age if he's not gotten into a relationship by then.

Those of you who have been reading my LJ for awhile may or may not know that I used to feel the same way, cept my deadline was like 40 or 50. I have since then decided that I should try to make myself happy instead of relying on someone else to do so for me. I'd noticed that I'd be ecstatically happy every time I got into a relationship, until they inevitably went to hell, at which point I'd become extremely miserable, and sometimes try to kill myself. This was obviously an incredibly unhealthy pattern, hence my lack of any significant relationships (i.e., none have been longer than two weeks, and none in person) over the last five or so years. I'm not happy all the time, but I'm no longer miserable, and my happiness isn't completely dependant on having another person in my life.

I'm not trying to say I'm a better person than my friend, just that I know where he's coming from. The other problem is that I had another friend at one point who said the exact same types of things my friend is saying now. Things like "I'm a virgin at age 22, I'm a failure," "You may have had really bad relationships, but at least you've had them," and "I'll never be loved." And that other friend... went down a really bad path and I ended up having to sever all ties with him after an incident where he really crossed the line and tried to take advantage of me. I know the friend this post is about isn't like the other guy, cause the other guy had a history of being a stalker and whatnot, and the friend this post is about (I'm just gonna call him M from now on) isn't like that at all. It just scares me cause it makes me think he's going to do something stupid. The other guy externalized all of his anger and frustration. M internalizes everything.

Then he tells me about this 30th year plan of his. *sigh* Having been suicidal in the past, I know what it's like, I know where he's coming from, and I'd be a hypocrite and incredibly selfish to beg him not to do it. So all I told him was: "M, I love you as a friend, you know that. But in the end, it is your life and your choice, whether you want to keep it or end it. I'm not going to be selfish and tell you to not do anything just because it would hurt me, and that I'd rather make you suffer so I won't have to. The only thing I ask of you is that if you do end it, you do it because you want to, not because of other people. If other people can't see you for the nice, awesome person you are, that's their problem and their loss."

Yeah, so... that was my day today. I'm not looking for reassurances that I told him the right thing, or screaming at me that I should've said something different. I just wanted to get this stuff out somehow cause, like I said, trying to actually talk to someone about it was incredible phail so I have no other choice than to put it in here.

To add to my last post... Here are the results of getting about six hours of sleep when you're used to getting 10+ hours a night:

me: What's (random word) in Japanese?
Yutian (classmate): *looks it up in the textbook, tells me*
me: You're awesome, I love you.
Yutian: ..... X__o;;;;???
Trevor (other classmate): ... *snerk*
Yutian: No! No, it is the textbook that is awesome!
me: No, you're awesome cause you let me keep being a lazyass by looking stuff up for me.


*five hours later, at home*

me: ... wtf did I say!? ^x__x^;;

Dear Captain Moron:

Stop going to bed at 2am when you have to wake up at 8:30am. *groans, falls over dead*

I've been geeking out entirely too much lately. I don't know what the FUCK I was talking about to Chris the other day, but I was just being all otaku about it for like a bloody HOUR and he was just like *smile and nod*... I think it was about all of the studies they've done in Japan involving GFP, and other related genetic research studies.

So, yeah... that is all. Me being uber-science-otaku lately. Just be glad I've not done it in here yet! :op ... wait, did I just say "yet"? *DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN*

Wow. Today was the closest I've ever been to an asthma attack in my entire life. I mean, yeah, I'm allergic to, like, every single non-edible plant in the world (plus some other things, like dust mites and cats), but I've never had this "HO CRAP I'M HAVING TROUBLE BREA *GASP* THING!!" thing before. I mean, in high school, I took allergy shots (four a week). Three of them were a mix of all of the bazillion plants I'm allergic to, and the fourth syringe was pure cat. That's how allergic I am to cats. But I've petted cats before, been in multiple cat households before (hell, my high school dorm had like three cats living in it), and never felt like this.

I think it's time to look into having an inhaler around again. And possibly the weekly shots. Ugh.

Bored, with two hours til I have to be anywhere or do anything, so thus, a pointless quiz stolen from KB, and because Trek is t3h awesome.


Your results:
You are Worf

Worf 85% Spock 82% Deanna Troi 80% Geordi LaForge 75% Jean-Luc Picard 65% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 60% Beverly Crusher 60% Uhura 45% Will Riker 45% Mr. Sulu 40% James T. Kirk (Captain) 35% Mr. Scott 35% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 35% Data 30% Chekov 10%

You are trained in the art of combat and are usually intimidating.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test



Last time I took this, I still got Worf, but Troi and Dr. Crusher were my other top three. Annoying, because I dislike both of them. :op Not my fault I'm a psych major planning on going to med school!

*foams at the mouth*

too... much... work...

*dies*

So, like, today is the first day of JPN 201 class. When I registered, it said "Merrick Building" for the class location. Which is all fine and dandy, cause Japanese classes are usually either in Merrick or Memorial. I was checking last night to make sure (I mean, they both start with "Me" so I like to double check and make sure), and I was too lazy to find the printout in my bag, so I looked it up online.

And it suddenly said "Mahoney-Pearson Commons."

me: .... WTF????

A mad search of several online campus maps later confirmed my worst fears: THIS DOES NOT FUCKING EXIST. Mahoney is a dorm. Pearson is also a dorm. They are not, in fact, the same dorm. Being dorms, they are not classroom buildings.

One super-spazz email to Mari先生 later, and she apparently has no idea where the bloody thing is either. I suspect there will be a lot of confused people wandering about campus come 2pm.


Chris: Is there a common space between them?
me: but it lists a classroom number too...
me: Also it's too bloody hot outside to have a class
Chris: Hm
Chris: Well, I just wondered if there was some building between them.
me: Imagine you taking Spanish class on a lawn all semester in 90+ heat
me: there's the dining hall...?
Chris: Oh ...
me: Let's all eat cardboard pizza while learning languages!
me: I think my uni went insane
me: "Mahoney-Pearson Commons" doesn't even show up on any campus map...
Chris: ;_;
me: just "Mahoney Residential Building," "Pearson Residential Building," and "Mahoney-Pearson Parking Garage"
me: ... perhaps the "classroom number" is actually a parking space in the garage...?
Chris: ...
me: Maybe it's some sort of whacked-out treasure hunt, with the treasure in question being a classroom of our own...
me: THE FIRST CLUE IS IN THE GARAGE
Chris: That would be fun~!
Chris: You should get an auto-A if you win.
me: totally
me: *tosses tear gas into random classroom in random building, waits for everyone to run out screaming, claims classroom in the name of JPN 201*
Chris: ^.^;

Classes start up again on Wednesday. Looking forward to it, but also freaking out a bit too. There's so much stuff I want to do and so little time. Now that we've all finally gotten over the damn flu (seriously, it took forever, wtf?), I want to start swimming again. I also want to look up info on volunteering at Jackson Hospital (dunno if I mentioned this already), since I don't need a car to get there (I can take the UM shuttle to the metrorail and that (supposedly) takes me right to Jackson) and thus don't have to rely on my notoriously unreliable parents to drive me there. I also want to try tutoring JPN 101 students this semester. There are absolutely ZERO Japanese tutors listed. There are like 10 for Spanish and eight for French and some for other languages and lots more for other classes like sciences and psych classes and whatever else, but none for JPN. I emailed my teacher and asked if she thought it was a good idea (cause I didn't know if the lack of tutors was from lack of need or because there was no one to do it), and she said it was. So... I'm not entirely sure if I should be loading myself up with all this stuff this semester. Like, if it's too soon after me feeling better about everything in general for me to just jump back into doing lots of stuff (I've been taking only two classes a semester for the last couple of years). I was also thinking about, since I feel a lot better about myself and my depression and whatever else that I should try taking three classes instead of two next semester but I dunno if three classes plus volunteering is too much.

It may sound like I'm just trying to be a slacker here, but I do have a tendency to overwork myself until I burn myself out (which is what I'm recovering from now). Like those two semesters in a row in community college, where one I took seven classes in a semester and the next (which was summer) I took FIVE. ^@__@^;; This is why I wanted to start seeing a psychologist again, for an outside perspective on whether I'm pushing myself too hard too soon or not. Which reminds me, I gotta figure that out too... blar! I wouldn't keep tutoring next semester cause I don't think I'm good enough to tutor 102 (101 I can do fine though), and just tutor 101 every fall or something. The good thing is, is that if three classes plus volunteering is too much next semester I can just drop a class and then stop volunteering after that summer and go back to three classes next year.

Anyway, babbling. Gotta go finish up my pre-semester crap, like finish organizing my room (which has been going on for like a month now :op ) and whatever else is on my to-do list that I can't remember (which is why I have a to do list in the first place). Whee....

So, I was just in the kitchen, grabbing dinner, when the latest breaking Miami news comes on.

Apparently, some woman in a mall near here entered one of the stores in the mall, asking to use the bathroom. A short time later, she comes out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a bra, her underwear, and fire.

She's not screaming, she's just wandering calmly about.

While on fire.

...... one must wonder if she didn't read this strip right before leaving the house.