Whoops, I missed a couple of days there, I should let people know I’m not dead!

• The ant problem in my computer seems to be resolved. Unfortunately the ones making a line from the back porch in through the cracks and to the cat’s food dish are not resolved.
• I’m writing a letter to the audiologist who told me hearing aids wouldn’t help…letting her know that THEY HELP!
• We went to see Vantage Point today; I was not at all impressed. Definitely not what I was hoping for. I like Forest Whitaker, and I wanted to see all the different points of view, but the whole thing was kind of blah with about 20 minutes of actual plot.
• Got shoes at Payless, woo hoo!
• Still too much homework and stuff to get done, including three papers due within the next month. Fun!

My prank on A was so good, she thought it was Google’s prank! I had changed all her iGoogle stuff to be in German, including widgets all in German and a different theme and everything. I used Google Translate to put instructions on how to restore the backup I made beforehand, but she didn’t bother with it - just went to the tab where I had stashed all her real widgets. It wasn’t until tonight that I prodded her about it and she said “oh that was you!”

Tomorrow I am going to these people to see about buying my Epoqs. VR has new rules that mean I would have to wait more than a year for service, and very probably longer, so I didn’t even bother opening a file. I will get a trial period through these people, so I get to figure it all out and stuff.

I left school early today - skipped linguistics class and College Bowl practice - because I am all anxious and depressed and don’t feel good. I think I am better now though. A and I just finished watching Gypsy 83 and I feel okay.

Also, my story and picture finally got published in Budget Travel magazine’s funny travel stories contest! check it out!

Oy, I picked something up again. On the day I flew home I was wheezing, yesterday I slept all day, and today I tried to sleep all day. A had to work in her office, so I went in with her. I didn’t have any decent internet access (only a very stripped down version) so I took naps on the floor - twice, and we were only there for a few hours! We went over to the house of a couple we know, and we played their Wii; they only had one guitar for Guitar Hero so I unlocked a bunch of songs for them because they hadn’t gotten very far. I really wanted to get to Devil Went Down to Georgia but there wasn’t time for that. And then I fell asleep on the car ride home! Now it’s barely past 9:00 and I’m ready to sleep again. Tomorrow is a big family dinner thing for Easter…I kind of had this sprung on me when I got back from vacation. Oh, and my linguistics teacher is letting me take the test I missed!!!

I’m back home. Much too tired to write much of anything. Annoyed that my Blackberry case arrived…but it’s for the 8800, not the Curve. Going to send it back. So exhausted I can barely type.

Had a great time in San Francisco yesterday. Did some geocaching with necanthrope…unfortunately we only found one out of the three we searched for. Got to have dinner with tuliphead, dissonant_etak, crayonbeam, and other wonderful people who I haven’t seen in millennia. One of my dearest friends, who I hadn’t seen in about 7+ years, actually showed up…thanks man, really missed you! And several of us trooped over to a friend’s house after, where I learned something I wasn’t previously familiar with, thanks to gilmore427.

Today was pretty laid back, did some shopping at Torrid and got a cute miniskirt (I think this one) and pretty shirts (can’t find either on the website). We also went to BevMo where I was suitably stunned by the selection - remember, I come from little ol’ Virginia, where you have to shop at a state-run store if you want liquor! Alas, no Dr. McGillicuddy’s vanilla schnapps. No Kristov chocolate vodka either, but there was a Polish chocolate-infused vodka so we are having drunken egg creams anyway! I also took a really long nap and woke up at 10pm, whoops!

• Having fun doing research for my paper on transgender children.
• Really disappointed with the 75 I got on my deaf studies test, especially since I studied for it.
• The A I got on my test is dampened by the B I got on my paper.
• I wish I didn’t feel I had to be perfect. But I really want to keep my 3.7 GPA or even improve it.
• Having fun with my Blackberry. It knows where I am! I downloaded the free Blackberry trial of Geocache Navigator, I hope to find some caches with it. If I can, and I like it, I will probably sign up for the yearly subscription.
• Back still hurts. Also tired.

I haven’t posted in a couple of days, bad me. For 24 hours I’ve been trying to ignore really bad back pain, so bad I can’t hardly move. Last night I couldn’t even scratch my nose without it hurting, from moving my arm or whatever. Heating pads, extra sleeping, painkillers, etc. It’s driving me insane, I can’t focus on my homework - I’m supposed to be doing reading for Sex & Gender class tomorrow. I will have to catch a ride tomorrow because I can’t imagine driving like this. It’s insane.

8:00am - Enter post office, get Blackberry
8:05am - Drive to school
9:40am - Look up IMEI number on Blackberry
9:45am - Order an unlock code via eBay
10:00am - Take role of “attacker” in debate, attacking the team who supports gay marriage (sigh)
12:05pm - See if unlock code has arrived yet
12:15pm - Lunch
1:00pm - Work
3:00pm - Go home and play with Blackberry!!!

Argh! My Blackberry got delivered yesterday, or they tried at least. If my sister-in-law had called me last night like I’d asked her to do when it arrived, I could have rushed to the local post office and picked it up this morning! But no, she didn’t, and I didn’t get over to the house today until well after the post office had closed, so now I have to wait until Monday morning. Fortunately the 7 days “no questions asked” return policy doesn’t start until the USPS shows it as delivered, and that won’t happen until I sign for it Monday morning. But I could have been playing with it right now!

We are spending the night at our own house tonight, to play with our kitties (Tubbles is here on the bed with us) and hang out. I did homework for my Sex & Gender class for six hours today. Arguing the case against gay marriage on Monday is going to be absolutely brutal. And worse, we can’t seem to pick a time to get together to discuss it. It’s going to be fabulous…NOT.

Today was my first day back on campus. Sex & Gender class went fine in the morning, I am caught up with everything (I think). Tomorrow we’ll find out how much I fell behind in my other classes, and whether I can catch up quickly or what. I know I fell behind in my linguistics reading…I don’t think I even cracked that book while we were gone! I have to do some history reading tonight for sure.

Also today I had my brain scan at the audiology center. They found out that the hearing loss does not lie between the cochlea and the brain, so it’s somewhere between the eardrum and the cochlea. They don’t know why, though, and won’t speculate - they said I’d need to see an ENT doc for that. They explained why my mild hearing loss is a problem - apparently a high frequency loss takes away sounds like s, sh, and f. As we all know from Wheel of Fortune, s is a very common letter (RSTLNE anyone?) and so by missing certain sounds, I’m not able to fully understand. It’s not that I can’t hear when someone is speaking, I know they are speaking, but missing out on certain sounds means I don’t get the full information.

For home situations, I have to train my family to get my attention before they start talking to me, not call to me from another room, etc. This will allow me to use lipreading just a little bit so I can fill in the gaps, and also it makes sure my attention is focused on my ears. The reason I have trouble is because I often miss the first half of a sentence and then I miss some information from the rest of it and I end up clueless. So attention-getting is going to be important at home. For work, the audiology department is going to order a special in-line amplifier so I can try it for 30 days and see if that helps me. If it does, then I get to buy it for myself - they’ll tell me how much it costs. If it doesn’t help, uh…I dunno!

The audiologist is going to send my audiogram and the certification letter to the admissions department so I can get converted over to regular student status.