Backend of Forever

This week has been incredibly long. School things are starting to wrap up, and my focus has finally turned almost entirely to completing my thesis. Once that is written, I will have to put together my final presntation on my thesis, but I don't think that will take too long to put together. The hard part, I think, will be memorizing what to talk about, since we are on a strict "no notecards or presenter view" rule. I managed to squeeze in some reading for Project Readathon, as well! I am super excited I was able to do that.

This weekend, I went home. My brother and his wife had a housewarming party on Saturday and I really wanted to be there. Lately, Dragon AGe Girl (DAG) has been incredibly clingy. She  gets really upset thinking about how I am leaving in May and she still has two more years. I figured I would be nice and invite her along (my brother said it was fine). I am kicking myself for it now. It was a very long, aggravating, unpleasant weekend. Before we left, she agreed to leave the drama at school, and to refrain from any references to Dragon Age or roleplaying for the entire weekend. The entire four hour drive home she was on her phone doing her online roleplay. All evening she was on her phone, and ignoring attempts my parents made at conversation. Friday, she and I went to a mall and she just HAD to go into GameStop and point out all of the copies of Dragon Age games and bitch about "why would people trade in such a perfect game?!" I told her not to, but she ended up buying a used copy of Dragon Age Origins and gave it to me. I have no desire whatsoever to play the game, but now I feel obligated... Joy. Anyway, that night, we went to hang out with my friend Draco for a little while. As much as I love Draco, I love him less and less with each passing month. He has goten very sex-obsessed over the past year or so, and literally every conversation has to come back to it. DAG is very prudish and inxperienced, and get very easily embarrassed. I asked him beforehand not to bring it up, but he literally spent the four hours we were over there going on about it, making jokes, hitting on DAG, hitting on me yet again, and more, even when I would flat-out tell him to stop. DAG played into it and was trying (and failing) to make sexual jokes, too, and would keep going when I asked her to stop. The whole evening just seemed to be an inappropriate waste of time.

Saturday was my brother's housewarming. We arrived a little early to help them finish getting ready. I was busting my behnd helping my sister-in-law finish getting all of the food ready and set out, and where was DAG? Standing right in the middle of the kitchen, glued to her phone, and in the way. Didn't even notice us asking her to move. I finally had to put my hand in front of her phone (eliciting an angry scream of protest) and tell her to go sit at the table out of the way if she wasn't going to help. For the entire first half of the get-together she was glued to her phone and wouldn't even notice me trying to talk to her. I love my brother and his wife, but I don't care at all for their friends and it gets awkward, so I was looking forward to having someone to talk to... May as well have gone alone. After a little while, we moved to the basement and started playing darts to pass the time until my parents wanted to leave (there was nearly no parking, so we went together). It was fun at first, but after a couple of rounds she started shouting Dragon Age quotes at the top of her lungs "for luck." Seriously, what the fuck. We were surrounded by well-respected, sociable adults. And here she was shouting random things that made no sense to anyone but her at the top of her lungs. I nearly died of shame for being the one to associate with her and bring her along. I honestly thought she was better, not to mention she agreed no Dragon Age comments this weekend. We see how well that turned out. Fast forward a touch to Saturday night. She, my mother, and I were the only ones home, so we decided top lay a dice game called Tenzi. My mother had to tell her to put her phone down 4 freaking times in the 20 minutes we were playing, and eventually even my mother, who has the patience of a saint, was fed up with it.

Over the course of the weekend, both of my parents and my oldest rother had all asked me wtf was her problem and why was she on her phone all the time. It was incredibly rude. Oh, and she didn't even make an attempt to clean up after herself. After meals, she just left her dishes where she had been sitting, not even a "what should I do with my dishes?" She left her belongings all over our kitchen counter, including her jacket that is covered in literal horse shit because she wears it to the barn all of the time. She left her towels all over the bathroom, when I told her that when she was finished she could set them in the dirty hamper in the laundry room 10 steps down the hall. She was an all-around rude guest!!!

The entire 4 hour drive back to school was the loneliest time I have ever had to make that drive. She was STILL glued to her phone. Still. For the entire trip.

Never again.

TV Shows: I made a little more progress in Supernatural. I finally made it past the Leviathans, at least. Now I honestly have no idea what's going on. I really wish the show would jsut end already, but I am determined to keep going because I said I would. I am excited for the fourth season of the Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show that just dropped on Netflix. I also got all caught up on All Hail King Julien, and was actually disappointed with the fourth season. I feel like they traded in the funny for a multi-episode story, and it didn't quite pan out well at all. Oh well, gotta try things to see how it goes, and learn from it.

Over the past week I managed to watch all of Extras. It is a British comedy from the mid 2000s and lasted for only 2 seasons and one christmas special. It was written by and starred Ricky Gervais, who played a down on his luck guy who is always an extra, and who has a terrible agent that can't get him any roles. Each episode has at least one famous actor or actress in it. My favorite episode, hands-down, was the Kate Winslet episode. She did fantastic, and I laughed the entire way through. If you enjoy Britich comedy, I highly recommend the first season of the show. Season 2 and the special just weren't as good quality, in my opinion.

Another show that I recently finished and don't think I have mentioned is The IT Crowd. It is another British comedy. I have tried watching it beofre and didn't care for it after one episode, but it has been a few years, so I tried again. The first episode or two can be a bit slow, but things do pick up, and it gets very entertaining. Plus, the two main guys remind me of some old friends I used to have, so it added another layer for me. If you have ever worked in a tech support field I definitely recommend it. There are some really good jokes hidden in there, and the cast did an awesome job.

Movie: This morning I watched The Benchwarmers. I am not usually one for "bathroom humor", so I wasn't expecting to like the movie, but I was pleasantly surprised. There was a lot less of it than I expected, and the main cast did a great job making the characters funny, with a hint of believability when it was needed. Plus, I sectrely enjoy baseball (I was raised with two brothers who played and a father who coached), so I enjoyed it.



Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I feel like a lot has happened in the past week, but when I think of everything, it really wasn't that much.

( I had a bad day, ok? Mostly venting. )
In more optimistic news, I applied for a job! It is a Barn Manager position at the barn where I first learned to ride when I was 7 years old. I did a presentation on the facility for one of my classes last spring, too. I sent in my cover letter and resume, and the barn owner replied to say that she was going to try to call me soon. She and her daughter are at the Carolina International Horse Trial this weekend, though, so I don't expect to hear from her until later this coming week. I hope she considers me. I am a little worried, though, because I don't graduate until May and the job posting says it is "available immediately". The woman does know, though, what I am going to school for, and she has had riders from her stable graduate from here before. The barn is also a few minutes away from my house, which would make commute easy, and I could save money living at home for a while and paying off some debt. Cross your fingers for me!

TV Shows/Movies: I have watched a couple movies this week. I watched Coraline and was rather unimpressed. I remember not caring for the book, but usually I enjoy Tim Burton's stop motion movies. This just didn't seem on par with his other works. I also watched Pete's Dragon, the 2016 remake, and was more annoyed by it than anything. It was ok, but I felt the story was missing a few steps. I don't remember the original movie, since I haven't watched it since I was probably four, but I do remember Elliot looked way different too. I get wanting to make it a more realistc dragon, but didn't Elliot talk, too? Oh, I do remember some o the songs from the original, and was kind of sad that they didn't keep them. I was also a little annoyed by the not-very-subtle "deforestation is bad" message they hid, but I could let that slide. I guess it was an ok movie, but probably not one I will choose to watch again on my own.

Did I mention I finished One Tree Hill? I started Gossip Girl. Not sure if I will keep with it, but I will give it a few episodes. I also started Voltron Legendary Defender, on Draco's recommendation, and I have to admit I am really enjoying it. I don't usually care for the whole giant cartoon robots thing, but I am enjoying the dialogue and character interaction. Originally, it was going to be my "I can't sleep so I will watch this cartoon til I fall asleep" show, but I was getting too invested, so now it is another show to watch. My insomnia show is now All Hail King Julien, and it is craking me up. I never really liked the Madagascar movies. I tried to like the Penguins of Madagascar show and movies, but still couldn't get too into it. This spin-off, however, is fantastic. It's almost too amusing for me to watch when I am trying to sleep. Almost. But I am running out of shows that fit that niche, so this one works for now. Regarding Supernatural, I just finished up S7:E21, and I am really not caring at all for anything anymore. The characters are played out, they keep all the wrong charactrs around, they keep writing themselves into a corner only to suddenly have some new thing show up out of nowhere to save them... Plus, I'm 21 episodes into this season, but I feel like they have only had enough actual material for maybe 4. It really feels like next to nothing is going on. But! I told myself I was going to try to make it all the way through every episode on netflix to get caught up, so I will keep pushing forward.

Gaming: I have some big gaming news! I finished the storyline in Horizon Zero Dawn! And a couple nights later I got the platinum trophy for getting every trophy in the game!!! I'm so proud of myself, it is the first game I have achieved platinum in. I still have to finish collecting all of the logs hidden around the world, but once I do that I will have officially done and found everything in the game there is to find and do! The scene after the credits makes me wonder if there will be a sequel, since you defeat the evil computer program, but you can't eactly delete him with your little sphere, not that I'm sure the thought ever crossed Aloy's mind. Her culture is pretty much "stab it and if it stops moving it's dead for good." I spent some time reading some of the lore from the collectibles, and I am in love with the writing. The story made me a bit nervous because it's one of those "almost too realistic" scenarios, but they used it well and eventually it created more hope than dread. I was glad that the name of the game finally made sense, since it really isn't even mentioned until most of the way through the main story. I read most of the ancient lore, but I still need to read the more recent lore about the tribes. A lot of that is in the logs that I still need to hunt down.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Ever feel like holding on to someone, knowing they're slipping away, but don't because you don't want to be seen as needy or clingy and end up chasing them away?

Well, I think I'm coming to terms. I'm not happy. Nowhere near, in all honesty. However, I am getting better adjusted to the quiet. It's a painful, lonely quiet, but it hurts less now that I have more things to do to fill my time. That's the plus side of the semester finally kicking in. I have to write my senior thesis paper this semester, which will take up plenty of my time and help me stay focused on something other than the silence.

We have had two weeks of classes already. My riding class is really small, with only 3 of us, which means more individual instruction. I am really happy about that. Our instructor also wants to give us horses that we enjoy riding, and has ideas for musical rides, drills, and creative jumping lessons. I am really interested to see what she comes up with. She seems like the type who will push us hard, but will cheer us on while doing so, which is rare to see in this competitive industry. As for my other classes, I am taking Fundamental Theories of Riding, Management of Equine Activities, Equine Nutrition, and Senior Seminar. Management is pretty dull. It's pretty much all about running hunter/jumper horse shows... It's like this school forgets there are more disciplines than that. Nutrition is pretty cool so far. THe other day we spent the entire class weighing every horse in the barn (all 96 of them). We were also assigned project horses for the semester. We will be doing a semester long small group project where we analyze the horse's health and create a feeding plan to get them to a proper weight and maintain it. My group is doing a horse that just arrived a couple weeks ago. His name is Leo ("A Midsummer Night's Dream"), and he is a gorgeous bay warmblood who is only 12 years old. He is a tad underweight at the moment, but fit, so our goal will be building up what muscle he has and maintaining his condition while packing a few more pounds on him.

Last semester, Dragon Age Girl adopted herself a freshman. Let's call her Lamb for now. For most of last semester, Lamb was very quiet and went to great lengths to avoid interactng with people. Towards the end of last semester, I officially brought her into my little group of mionions, as I like to think of them. They call themselves my ducklings, and now there are 3. Well, the poor unfortunate Lamb is stuck in a riding class with the Tweedles, and Tweedledum, specifically, has been aggravating her. Lamb, having no social skills and plenty of anxiety troubles, immediately demanded to her advisor that she get her scheduled switched. Trying to be a supportive older friend, I explained to her that in life she won't be able to pick everyone around her, and this university is a better place to learn to deal with people than out there in the real world. I offered her skills for dealing with them, because since I've known the two of them I have had to come up with plenty. She shot down every single one in favor of simply demanding to her advisor and to the department chair that she be allowed into other already filled classes just to get away from them. I'm sorry, honey, but the real world won't just move to oblige you because you don't like someone. Coping skills are vital to learn, and better now than later when your job and income depend on your interactions with others. Well, her advisor told her the exact same things that I did. I guess advice only matters when it comes from someone who is tenured. Or maybe it was because she realized her little tantrum would get her nowhere. She is now avoiding them like the plague when she isn't in class. The down side is that she has been messaging me an average of 14 messages an hour for the past week and a half since I gave her my google name. The reason I gave it to her, and I told her this flat out, was that it was the quickest way to get ahold of me if she needed a ride back from the barn after her riding lesson (she rides directly after I do and the shuttle doesn't always run that late). That was it. In case of emergency. Well, she has been abusing the ever-living hell out of it, messaging me to bitch and whine and complain about Tweedledum. Like, I get it, you don't like them. Fun fact: No one around here does. But we don't have a choice, so we cope, put up with what we have to, ignore the rest, and carry on with our lives. Besides, you asked me for advice, shot it so far down it downed in the Indian Ocean, and acted like a spoiled brat who thinks the world should bend to suit you. I don't like self-entitled brats. Get over yourself, learn to have an actual conversation instead of a 24/7 bitch session, and then try talking with me again. I like to converse when it goes both ways. I'm happy to give advice if you ask for it and I can. But I have better things to do than humor your petty childish whining. I'm not sorry.
TL;DR: This freshman is really getting on my nverves by constantly whining to me and thinking the world revolves around her.

Last weekend I was super excited because I got to see my best friend. I really needed to see her and relax with a friend for a while. I don't get to see her often, as we always seem to be a state away, but when I am at school she is only an hour away, so I can visit her once in a while for a day. We hung out and chatted for a bit. She is madly in love with Prompto (FFXV), so there was plenty of teasing~ (ilu and I will ship it for as long as I feel like it). We hit up an outdoor mall by her, which was a lot of fun. I picked up the book The Color of Magic (Pratchett), which is the first Discworld book. There was an awesome little candy store where I got more than I should have >.> I regret nothing when it comes to my candy store purchases. There was even a Peeps store! You know the marshmallow peeps? They had GIANT plushie bunny peeps, tons of marshmallow-y goodness, and Mike-and-Ikes galore. I picked myself up a super comfortable zip-up hoodie that says "Chillin with my Peeps" on it. Cliche, I know, but I have a secret love affair with peeps and I geeked pretty hard when I saw the store. Anyway, I had a ton of fun with my bestie and I am hoping to visit her again sometime soon.

Games: I haven't gamed too much lately. I've been trying to focus on schoolwork. I have played some FFXV though! The Moogle Chocobo Festival started on Mon Jan 23, and it is so freaking adorable!!! I managed to knock out all fo the quests and I have done all of the activities at least once on each difficulty. I want to grind some of them to get the chocobo racing trophies and buy the car decals and paint colors.

Books: I set aside The Ocean at the End of the Lane for a little while. I got to a lull that I was having trouble focusing through. Instead, I have started The Color of Magic (Pratchett). I have about 40 minutes between clsses on Mon/Wed, so I manage to knock out about 20 pages at a time between all of the interruptions. So far it is quirky, but nothing exciting yet. I have heard great things, though, so I plan to stick it out and see if I feel the same as others.

TV/Movies: I have made it to Supernatural S5:E13. Progress. I am definitely not as into it as I was in the first few seasons. I am trying hard to stick it out, but the writing makes it difficult. It realy did, in myopinion, lose a lot of its charm and what made it uniquie when they decided to go the Angels route with it. I have also been watching Glee, for something out of my usual genres. I have to admit, I went in with a lot of skepticism. Some of that skepticism was justified, it seems, but a lot of it was also proven wrong. Most of the actors have truly incredible voices. I am very impressed (It helps that they were all about a decade older than the characters that they portrayed). The show does get very "after school special" way too frequently. I'm on season 3 episode 14 and so far it has felt like every other episode gets in your face with a moral issue. I get it, television is a platform for moral issues, and it's a show for teens so go out there and accept yourself and be you. But there are plenty of shows who have managed to get the same message across without being so... overwritten.

That's the latest in my little fragment of the world. Hope everyone has a wonderfully lovely week!
-NF

Well, supposedly I am fine. I met with a neurologist on Wednesday that ordered a series of neck Xrays, as well as a CT Scan because she likes to have a base scan for her new patients. Apparently everything came back normal.

I'm only mildly comforted.

I'm relieved, of course, to hear that I'm fine. I'm still freaking out, though. I still don't know what was going on. To top it all off, I probably need to get a tooth pulled (it's been on my dentist's to-do list for a little while now, but apparently she never thought it was terribly important... now it's crumbling slowly. I miss my old dentist...). I headed home yesterday to get out of that town for a little bit, so I called my dentist this morning and wanted to reach through the phone and slap the secretary I was talking to. The "best she could do" for me was May 18. That's almost 4 weeks out. My tooth is literally breaking to pieces. I asked her for an emergency appt today and her response, I kid you not, was, "They're all booked. If you had called yesteray morning we could have fit you in." Is she fucking serious? Emergency appts are for, you know, emergencies. Like people usually know about those in advance. That's why they're Emergencies. So I guess I will be spending my afternoon looking into dentists up by school. Here's hoping I can get something soon. The timing of this tooth becoming an issue is fucking annoying. It's kind of one of the last things that I need right now.

On the trip back home yesterday, I got a phonecall from my building director on campus. Go figure, the one teacher who never checks his email (I let him know ahead of time about each class I'd be missing and that it was health reasons) reported me for missing 3 classes in a row. I went to the health center on Wednesday and spoke with the doctor, who gave me a note for my abscence. I wanted to make sure she knew what was going on, and so that I could get back into classes with minimal repercussions (not like I could have gone to class even if I tried). I will be meeting with the building director when I get back up there, so that she can set me up with Student Life to make sure the teachers excuse my abscences and get me the work that I missed. I get the feeling that teacher in particular is going to be a major ass about the whole thing. He is incredibly annoying, egocentric, and should not be a teacher. He is horrible. Hopefully Student Life can help me out.

Anyway, figured I would update again.

I really just want to live a boring, uneventful, completely average life. That's all I want, Universe. Simple.

-N.E.

It's been an incredibly long and frustrating weekend.

But more on that later. My week back hasn't been too bad, I guess. Nothing terribly eventful happened. Monday was pretty normal. I wish we could have gotten a day after break to readjust instead of jumping right in to things. Monday night I got set off pretty bad, and wasn't anywhere near recovered by Tuesday morning, so I didn't go to classes that day. By Wednesday I was doing better. Thursday was pretty good overall. I spent a good chunk of the day working with Twist and making him "show ready".

Now on to my long weekend.

This weekend, I set aside Friday to Sunday, all day every day, to work on a history paper. It's 10+ pages about the Space Race. Friday, Dragon Age Girl came over and hung out. I got a decent start on my research, not quite as much as I intended to, but I still had Saturday and Sunday. Friday night I spent a little time playing Ether One, which is a rather intriguing story. It was too late to get inivested in more research, so I figured I would play a little.

Saturday, I went to brunch with Dragon Age Girl. She had projects to do this weekend, as well, so we had planned to grab our stuff and head to the library. Well, when we got back to my apartment there were a whole bunch of people there having a very heated discussion. The way the apartments are set up, there are 4 people and 2 bathrooms. The fourth girl in my apartment has been out sick for this entire semester so far (she has a stomach disorder), and she finally came back. Her mother and 2 younger sisters had come to help her move back in. So, the other two girls who live here are both international students. One of them is really kind and friendly, and seems pretty mature. The other one is very rude, disrespectful when you try to talk to her, and her and her friends trash the kitchen at least twice a week. They never clean up after themselves. The other girl and I only ever use the microwave in there (I'm not risking my health in there, it's rancid... there were week old muffins with bugs living in them in the freaking oven, which was wide open). So when the fourth girl arrived, she and her mother flipped. Due to her condition, she has an very sensitive immune system. Honestly, I don't care how good your immune system is, that kitchen was a risk to everyone and anyone. There were dishes in the sink that have been there for weeks, since before spring break. So the building director called the director of Residence Life who came over, and they both were very awesome about calming everyone down and getting the messy girl (and one of her messy friends who was over and is also guilty) to help clean the kitchen. They really didn't do anything, just bitched and joked to each other in their native language (I'm not fluent, but I studied it and knew enough to get the gist -.-) and pushed dirt around for 10 minutes until the fourth girl's mother got sick of their shit and told them to get out. The rest of us scrubbed it from top to bottom, cleaned the living room, and even borrowed the custodial vacuum (which was AWESOME) to vacuum everywhere. The fourth girl's family didn't leave until 10pm. So I lost all day Saturday to work on my project.

Now we get to today, Sunday. Woke up around 9, ready to buckle down and get shit done, only to find out that, thanks to extreme winds, the internet and phone services were both out on campus and around town. They didn't come back until 9pm, way too late to start on my reasearch. Thanks, Universe. I set aside an entire weekend to do a project and all I get is a giant middle finger.

To top it off, those hours I spent working on getting Twist show ready apparently weren't enough for the riding director. She sent out an email at 6pm (the barn closes at 4pm on weekends, mind you) saying that a whole bunch of horses weren't up to par or whatever and said that we had to fix them and present them to our riding instructors before we are allowed to ride again. Now, before I started Twist, the captain of the Dressage team told me exactly what my riding instructor (the coach for the team) wanted done for him. I did it all and both the captain and barn management said he was good. However, he was on the list that the riding director sent out. I emailed my instructor (the coach of the team) and explained to her that I did what the captain told me to, and I was approved by both her and management. She agreed to meet with me tomorrow between my classes and look him over to see what isn't up to the director's standards, since by the sound of her email she thought he was fine. I'm so annoyed. Not only about having to redo him, but also because the director SHOULD have sent the email out Friday evening after they checked the horses, and not after the barn closes Sunday night telling everyone they need to be done by Monday morning. That is unfair to absolutely everyone. One more reasons everyone wants her kicked from her job. She runs her mouth, disrespects every discipline that isn't hers, acts like she is entitled to whatever she wants (ex: we have one outdoor ring, and she always calls dibs 15 minutes before her lessons so no one else can use it... she has kicked classes out of it before), bad mouths the other staff members/instructors/coaches, and has even bad mouthed students. She is so incredibly unprofessional.

Anyway, that was kind of ranty. I'm in a horrible mood thanks to getting next to nothing done on my paper, even though I set aside ALL WEEKEND to work on it. Add the bullshit of Twist apparently not being good enough. This weekend can kindly go fuck itself.

-N.E.