I have a new-to-me computer now. This Windows XP thing is crazy looking. I haven't used it before. I am loving the new computer, and it is a lot faster. I might even be able to play Sims again. However, what I am not loving is the fact that my computer is not acknowledging that my printer exists. I actually was going to do some work and print it out, but I am too frustrated to deal with it and I will wait until I get to school tomorrow (a good excuse to procrastinate, right?)
Justin went to work with his dad and won't be back until tomorrow. I hope he is getting paid for it, but it still feels like he is putting off the inevitable. I know I said a million times that I would try to not worry about it, and try not to nag him about it, and all of that. I can't help myself. It's been over a month now and he has (to my knowledge) looked at the want ads one time. Please, God, don't let this be what ends our relationship.
I barely ever hear from Cassandra anymore, and I barely ever call her. I need to be in better touch with my friends, seriously. I barely have any friends as it is, so I can't lose the ones that I have. I don't know if I am ever really going to adjust to being a teacher and figuring out how to manage my time so I have a social life and I do a good job at the same time.
I finally finished Live From New York. It was almost six hundred pages long, so I guess it was the longest book that I have read in awhile. I am ready for a cheesy novel now. I hope one of the other books I checked out fit that description.
I'm disappointed because I wanted Mark and Elizabeth to come down to celebrate my birthday with me next week, but Elizabeth has to work. She is going to look into the following weekend. I didn't have a very good birthday last year, and I would really like to do something fun and exciting Portland-style. Um, yeah. Well, I do know that I want to go to dinner at this pasta place across from PGE Park. It looked like it would be really good. Mark still might come down, but it might be better to have both of them come the following weekend.
I am really getting nervous about my teaching license. It expires on my birthday, and I sent in the paperwork August 16th, and they received it August 19th. I got an email acknowledgement, and they said it could take 30 days, and to contact them after 35. Well, I emailed them a few days ago since I haven't received my license yet, but I haven't heard back. They are notoriously bad about paperwork. I also wanted to make sure not to send it too early because the paperwork said not to send it in more than 60 days early or something like that. I hate them. If I don't have my license I can't teach until it gets straightened out. I did everything right, so I shouldn't have to suffer. They also already cashed my $75.00 fee!
I really, really liked Lost in Translation. I have always liked Bill Murray (I'm not sure why, really), and he was really good. I also liked the girl from Ghost World. I thought it was excellent overall, and really worth all of the fuss. I have never seen The Godfather 3, so I have not witnesses Sofia Coppola's bad acting, but I really do think she is a good director based on the two movies I've seen. I loved The Virgin Suicides, too. I have it on my wishlist, but so far no one has bought it for me.
I already got a few birthday presents. My father bought me a book on grant writing, which I have been wanting. My mom bought me the movies Holes and Fame. They both came by mail, which is why they were so early.
A strange thing happened yesterday. I was at the mall, standing in Express, and suddenly the lights flickered and went out. Everything went silent and it was like a huge pause, and then finally the Express salespeople said we should all gather at the front of the store, and told the people in the dressing rooms to come out. Apparently everyone didn't move fast enough because the token-effeminate-male-Express-worker started rapidly clapping his hands and chanting that everyone needed to move forward quickly. It was very surreal because where I was at, you really couldn't see in front of you. When I got to the front of the store, I realized that every store in the mall had a power outage. The mall has a glass cover, so the main walkways were light, just all of the stores were dark. Since it was a Saturday there were obviously a lot of people at the mall, but you don't realize how many until everyone exits the stores they were browsing in. There were a ton of people, and they were all on their cell phones. I was about to leave anyway, so I followed the rest of the crowd up the disabled escalators. I finally got out of there by the time the power came back on, and the stop lights right around the mall were out as well.
What was so weird about the whole thing was my initial reaction to the power outage--it's some sort of terrorist attack! Obviously, after that one second snap reaction, I realized that was absurd, but I imagine that many other people had that same snap reaction, too. It just reminded me a lot of Bowling for Columbine and the idea that Americans have this perpetual fear. I don't think that it started with September 11th, and that's not really the argument of the movie either, but I wonder how long it will take before something simple like a power outage doesn't cause a snap reaction like that.
