moment

dreary
grey
cold
deadlines
stagnation
doors closing
lights off
tomorrow
same?

The Rich Stay Rich and the poor pay for it.

I cannot understand when I hear people complain about the status quo -- the economy, gas, the war in Iraq -- and that they do not want to pay for other people's health care if the USA shifts into national health care, when they shop at high end department stores, drive SUVs, are behind on their taxes and/or run up credit cards and are always on the go. I do not want to continuously pay for these peoples' financial mistakes and extravagant lifestyles, which many times fall into bankruptcy, as much as above mentioned people do not want to pay taxes to provide health care for those who cannot afford it. It is us, the lower middle class and the poor, who have no choice but bail out the "upper crust", the rich, and if we do not pay our taxes or bills the powers that be will take everything from us 100 1000 times faster than anyone financially above us.

I do not support the rich's welfare system.
Pay for what you buy or do not buy it.

Black Friday

I started a new tradition last year for Black Friday -- putting up the X-mas tree. (Yes, I shopped online -- come on, cannot pass up those deals for the asked for items.) 

Happy Thanksgiving

Family gatherings are always an interesting and sometimes frightful experience, especially on holidays. This Thanksgiving was one for the record books. There were no fights, no one was angry, my brother was here and no problems -- what more could any dysfunctional family want. 

My Thanksgiving was murder-free, yet there was a decapitated dead bird on the table for everyone else.

Preparation

Tomorrow the family comes over for Thanksgiving. I am not so sure how this year is going to go, but I am hopeful. Today is a lot of moving "stuff" to make a bit more room, and cooking. Right after this holiday, I immediately go into the next holiday and put the X-mas tree up and window clings to match.

Break

Today felt like the calm before the storm. I have a week off, and when I return to campus there is only a couple of days before exam week. I still think a break in october would have been almost better, but I will take this break at the end of the semester.

I have a paper on Tibetan Buddhist philosophy (then an in class final), an online chapter test (then the final), and a three part Japanese exam over three days. This semester's finals will not be too stressful considering I have plenty of time to study for Japanese.

Greater and Lesser Vehicles

Who knew Starburst wrappers could hold so much meaning. Perhaps this is due to the Human manipulating the meaning of something, said objects, which they are not, but are merely representing.

Little Miss

Squeaky is a funny little cat. She earned her name on her lack of a fully formed meow. Running around like mad and rolling on the floor to be petted are some of her favourite pastimes.

Shopping

The worst thing about this time of year, aside from driving in snow, would be shopping in the stores. There is a reason I shop online for as much as I can. I only went to get groceries -- the traffic was backed up and the store was jammed. It does not seem to matter what time of day I attempt to accomplish my mission, nor am I returning to the midnight shift. An hour and a half later I was on my way home, which is half an hour (at least) away. 

Driving around anywhere, for any length of time in this area, and one is bound to see an amazing bit of driving. Example: pickup truck with boxed turkeys piled twice as tall as the cab. Why?

..., again,

Buffalo Sabres lost, again,

Snowing, again,

Fell asleep on the couch, again,

Missed Hell Girl, again,

Just woke up, again,

Backdated this post an hour, again.

7 Days Left

All together I have 7 days left for this current semester. Finals will follow and then a period of "cool down". I do have a lot of work to do over winter break, but I am definitely taking a few days of "me time". So far I have one A, and I hope to keep the rest of my close.

བྱེ་བྲག་སྨྲ་བའི་ལུགས་བཤད་པ།

དང་པོ་ལ་མཚན་ཉིད།  དབྱེ་བ།  སྒྲ་བཤད་པ།  ཡུ་ལ་གྱི་འ་དོད་ཆུ༹ལ།  ཡུལ་ཅན་གྱི་འ་དོད་ཆུ༹ལ།  བདག་མེད་ཀྱི་འ་དོད་ཆུ༹ལ།  ས་ལམ་གྱི་རྣམ་གཞག་བཤད་པའོ།  

Room with a view

I really enjoy my next class, not just for the material covered (Classical Tibetan language), but also for the amazing view outside the window. For this area, it does not get much better; aside from the parking lot -- but then again I am fascinated by repetitiousness.

We have snow!

It is snowing, had snowed and will snow until April (most likely). I put the backyard light on to watch the snow fall and Squeaky was standing, paws pressed to the glass, trying in vain to see where this weird stuff falling everywhere was coming from. She moved before I could catch this act on video.

The First Interview

I watched 60 minutes tonight and for the first time, maybe ever, I not only was proud to say I was from the United States, but that I was hopeful as a citizen of this country. When I was out of my country I always had said I was from Canada, even if I was in Canada. I cannot express my feelings that, for the first time, this country came together to say enough is enough -- and actually do something about it. I voted for President Obama and I cannot wait to see what is going to happen in the near future.

Visit

My niece came to visit tonight. She is three and is growing up so fast. I read her the books she brought with her, then I had her read them to me. She did not know the words, but the stories she told based on the drawings were quite imaginative. She has learned to count but forgets 10 and goes right to 11. She also has a bit of trouble remembering the colour yellow, but knows the hippopotamus.

Series

Photos 151 - 153
23:11:00 - 23:11:56 EST

Sleep?

I cannot begin to explain the level of exhaustion I am currently experiencing.  Despite this, I cannot sleep.  I am even going to leave some homework until tomorrow morning just so I can go lay down.  I do not understand, I mean I should be tired -- heck I was tired trying to drive home 8 hours ago.  The cats can sleep just fine.

Lucky Day

A little bird flew into our window.  I ran outside to check on him.  Poor little guy was scared and had the wind knocked out of him.  I held him for a bit and then placed him in the tray of the bird feeder.  When I thought he was in the way of the other birds suddenly wanting to eat, I attempted to move him to a branch, but he had other plans.  First he snapped at me, then he tried to fly but could not get too far so he landed on my shoulder.  After pooping on me, I talked to him as he looked at me.  He gathered enough strength and flew to a near by branch, where he stayed until returning to the feeder to eat and then flew away with his friends.

I Survived (another) Japanese Dialogue Check!

I would probably feel better about dialogue checks if these became a game show and not the "horror of the morning".  Okay, maybe not.  I naturally dislike standing in front of people and speaking in English.  Now imagine the same scenario but in Japanese.  I got through it, and that is all that matters. 

Us

Rocky and I watching leaves blowing across the yard while the birds fly back and forth to the feeder. Storm is approaching, more like snow clouds moving in.

Low Disk Space

I was working on a new video clip and noticed I did not have a lot of hard drive space left, actually only 1.38 GB. I figured iMovie was wrong so I looked, and sure enough -- should have know I was wrong. I figured out what the problem was but I still spent my afternoon backing up my files and burning disks while trying to memorize my Japanese dialogue for Tuesday's class. I will just say I was only successful in freeing up some more space.

I am going to make a note in iCal so this does not happen again.

Leaves

End of a year
Death blanket
Whither
Rotten
Dormant Life
Awaits Rebirth

Banging Head on Wall

My classes ended early today.  I could not bring myself to do a whole lot since I was so tired.  It is already 16:51 and I do not know where the afternoon went.  I feel like I should have been at school since 3 of 5 days I am late.  It was a b-e-a-u-tiful day -- in NOVEMBER -- 70+F in WNY.

I need to write an additional 9,000 words this weekend to catch up; I average 500 words a page, you do the math.  My inner editor is on strike.  My assistant inner editor is screaming at me to fix the shitty writing.  My inner writer takes the streaming conscious approach and constantly gets lost.

\(T o T)/

Dragging Feet

I am officially 5 days behind in my writing.  I have a novel screaming at me to be written down and I cannot manage to sit and write it down.  Usually I have a few minutes, like now, but I have class soon and I need to finish preparing.  

I am not giving up.

THe Day After History

I woke up this morning and the sun seemed to shine a bit brighter, the air smelled a bit sweeter, and over all the world seemed to spin a bit steadier.

* VOTE DAMN IT *

I just voted half an hour ago, but I am not sure how much my vote will effect anything, but I like to think I made a difference.  If all the people who do not think their vote would make a difference and there-by do not vote, actually voted, maybe things would actually change for the better, as these people as usually pissed off at the status quo, so they would vote for a candidate who says they will create change.

This is the fucking US of A --- exercise your right to vote!!!

Day 3

Well as of this moment I have half as much as I should to keep a decent pace in running to finish my novel on time. In 15 minutes I will be an additional 1,667 words behind.  Maybe this weekend I can catch up a bit, but none-the-less I will keep plugging along.

2681 words

Behind

Ugh, I am already behind on my novel.  Damn college work and house chores! [Not really, but this is why I am behind.]  Never fear tomorrow is another day.  Well that is what I keep saying to myself. 

Anyway, looks like the weather will be turning around for the better again -- for the last time I would imagine.

NaNoWriMo

Ok . . . . begin.

I have only 200+ words so far, but I only sat down to write for a little bit. The most important thing is I started, which was the hardest part.  Trying to figure how to start, those first couple of lines were the worst. I got through it and so far the rest is flowing.  I think I am going to post what I write each day, somewhere, for others to read and to have a back up copy.