kabby.net blog

Champaign Visit v7.0

     I know it has been a long time since I have posted. This past week has been very busy due to planning and celebrating multiple birthdays. For the sake of brevity, some events of the past week may be omitted.

     On Monday, I hung out with Jen*. We went to lunch, went shopping, and tried to go to the Oberweis for ice cream but it was closed due to a blackout. It was the only store in the vicinity with such a power failure, so we were pretty bummed. We started to put together a puzzle at my house, while watching movies and eating pizza. She slept over. The picture below details the lovely presents I got from her.



     Tuesday, again, I believe, I hung out with Jen. Same with Wednesday, but only after buying her presents for her birthday party on Thursday. This was quite an ordeal. I went to Stratford, two Targets (one of them twice, so three total Target trips), and a Walmart (twice as well). The lengths that one goes to for friends with birthdays Anyway, after I got all that shopping done, Jen and I went to Michaels and bought crochet materials. I started making a blanket. I gave up on that a day later to make a potholder instead. The potholder got done. The blanket, not so much. Right now, I’m working on a scarf, which isn’t going too well, because I can’t count.

     Thursday was Jen’s birthday party. I had fun, although I hadn’t met any of the other people there before that day. They turned out to be pretty cool, and we played some games, watched movies, ate CHILI CHEESE DIP and pizza. Mmm… *drools over chili cheese dip*

     Most of Friday I spent organizing my party. This took some doing, since at this point I had a date but no real location. It took a considerable amount of coaxing to get Alan to agree to let me have it at his apartment. I got to Champaign at around 1pm Saturday afternoon. Alan and I went grocery shopping. I talked him into buying me some pretty flowers (which were only $2.09). They’re really more beautiful than this picture shows. Not to mention, this picture was taken two and a half days after he bought them.



     The party went very well, in my opinion. The “How to Host a Murder” game was enjoyed by everyone, it seems. We played “An Affair to Dismember,” which is a Halloween-themed whodunit game. I was a depressed witch, Alan was a musical-loving Frankenstein, Lexi was a fortune teller, Sara was an evil dentist, Jen* was a goth chick, Alex was a kosher cannibal, Mitch was the prince of dimness, and Nathaniel was a smooth dressing mummy. The game lasted a few hours, and I’m surprised it kept everyone’s interest for that long. If I was sure that I would have the right amount of people, I would probably do it again, in spite of the game’s hefty price tag of $35. Thanks to Jen for the cute puppy!



     Sunday was relaxing. I cleaned up the party mess, then woke Alan up (so he was at least indifferent about having the party at his apartment). Then we watched Men in Black since I hadn’t seen it in a long time. After this, we went to Outback for dinner with Pavel and Vicki, who were 30 minutes late because Vicki lost her keys (tsk tsk). Thank God for appetizers.

     That brings me to today (phew). I applied for seven jobs today, because I really should be doing more of that appling for jobs stuff. I worked more on my scarf, but then I decided that it wasn’t going well and pulled half of it out for the second time. I really need to start counting (and counting correctly). I spent the other half of the day finishing up the puzzle that Jen and I started on my birthday. It was harder than hell, because it was 1000 pieces and about half of it was out of focus, but at least it’s cute, right?

* Note that there are two Jens in this entry – the Jen I talk about at home is Jen from high school, and the Jen I talk about in Champaign is Jen my suitemate from last year at HH.

Feeling: Headed in the Right Direction

Listening to: Fastball – Fire Escape

August 30, 2004

Champaign Visit v6.0

     Friday I went to North Beach with my cousin Amy, her friends Melissa and Erica, Jen and Nicole. We had free drinks for an hour. I had three (Fuzzy Navel, Amaretto Sour, Rum & Coke), then I felt like I had to stop. The bartenders who tend the free parties are definitely trainees. I told the one guy to make me a Fuzzy Navel and he looked at me like I’d just asked for a picture of a dog screwing a cat. Shortly after the drinks were cash only, Jen, Nicole & I ditched Amy & pals to go to Steak N Shake (we were hungry). It was good times. Thanks to Nicole for driving and to everyone for coming out for my birthday!

     Saturday morning I woke up at 9am to drive to Alan’s in Champaign. He has a new apartment now, which is super nice, but the internet doesn’t work yet. Alan was pretty pissed about that. We first went to lunch at Giovanni’s, then we went to Beverly to check the times for AVP and “dicked around” (Alan’s new phrase) in Meijer for an hour. The movie was okay, but nothing spectacular. (Review soon on the forum) Alan gave me my birthday presents (the Miracle DVD and a cute picture…)



     Alan somehow convinced me to let him play hockey for a couple of hours. After that, we made some pasta together and watched my DVD. By the time it was over, I was falling asleep. It was a very nice day. Did I mention how nice his apartment is?

     Today was contrastingly frustrating, on the whole. It started off okay. Alan, Alex & I went to Zorba’s. Alex gave me Bobcat, named after Dr. Zoidberg’s nickname on Futurama.



     Then, Alan & I had to run to Best Buy to get some VHS tapes he needed for his TA microteaching tomorrow, and while we were returning, he ran into Will who was moving into the apartment. I had a hard time finding a parking spot. The first time Will’s parents saw me, I was drinking straight from the juice container out of the fridge. After Will moved in, Djenia moved in. The first time Djenia’s dad saw me, I burped… he was a couple of feet away. Nice first impressions. Anyway, we briefly went up to Heidi’s birthday party. I felt unspecial, because no one knew of (or probably cared about) my birthday there. I guess it’s because they’re not really my friends, so I shouldn’t hold it against them. After that I had to leave, which sucked because I hadn’t gotten to spend too much time doing things with Alan.

     On 57, I ran into an INSANE amount of traffic before I even hit my half hour point. It added an extra 30 minutes to my ride home — all for one lane merge at 10:00 at night on an expressway that’s almost always empty. I wanted some hot chocolate, but I figured the first rest stop (which was about 20 minutes after the traffic jam ended) would be packed, so I waited for the second one. The second one was backed up the entrance ramp with trucks trying to fit in the parking lot to sleep. The hot chocolate machine in the rest stop was broken. There were two guys in the back of the rest stop talking about “..but the sign says the rest area uses video surveillance..” Then, to top it all off, parked next to my car was a van with a guy standing outside the open back door to the van. That has always been a bad situation, according to most “accident prevention” sorts of places. Luckily, when I was going back to my car, a guy was just getting out of his, parked next to mine. Talk about suckage. I just want to go to sleep. I’m a slave to blogger.

Happy birthday to me (tomorrow).

Feeling: Un-special

Listening to: Styx – Come Sail Away

August 22, 2004

Come on, Come on, Come on, Come on…

     I got to talk to Alan online today. He didn’t have the charger for his phone in Champaign, so that didn’t work, and yesterday he wasn’t online. We hadn’t talked (really) since Thursday (I don’t count the call I made from Jen’s house when he told me his phone was going to be low on battery w/o the charger soon), which would be a whole week. It was hard. We didn’t fight or argue or anything, even though I had felt lonely some of those days without him. I’m surprised but of course happy about this.

     I bought brakes for the Mirage today (because Dad doesn’t get home in time to buy them himself) so I can take it to Champaign on Saturday. I ordered the case for my cousin’s computer FINALLY, after New Egg pushed its ETA back for a second time today, from another online retailer. It was $2 cheaper there, and we should hopefully get it by the middle of next week. Tomorrow night is my North Beach party. I hope it will be a lot of fun. I need to go to bed now.

Feeling: Tired, Approaching Normalcy

Listening to: Janis Joplin – Take Another Little Piece of My Heart

August 19, 2004

Yet Another Sleepover

     First things first, I uploaded some pictures from the Saturday night girls’ night in. See Renee drinking. See Jenny laughing at us. See what happens to Renee when she lets Karen draw on her face.







     Well, last night (Monday night) I slept over at Jenny’s. We watched Murder by Numbers and Newsies. Murder by Numbers was pretty good, but Newsies was a musical, so it wasn’t good in the conventional sense. Murder had a couple of plot holes, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying the movie while watching it. After all that, we made Chinese food and sang along to the Charlie Brown musical. We spent the rest of the night catching up. Afterall, we have all of college to tell each other about.

     Today I didn’t do much. I went to Target with my mom to buy some toys for my cousin. I did some work for Rebecca, but it turns out it was just telling her what she forgot to do to make my program run. It’s not as easy as you’d think. We should write up an instruction booklet. Oh, and the case for the computer I’m building for my cousin is delayed. It was supposed to be in stock Monday but now they are saying the 21st. Go figure, eh.

Feeling: Generally Unhappy and Sluggish

Listening to: Dusty Springfield – Son of a Preacher Man, Eagles – Desperado

August 18, 2004

Bending it Like Bender B. Rodriguez

     After a very exciting weekend, today was rather slow. I wasn’t a bum today, but I didn’t go out of the house either. I finally got to call Alan (yeay!), although he couldn’t talk when I called and had to call back a few hours later. I would have been upset, but he apologized, and he did call me back before I called him. He also told me that he bought me my birthday presents. I was shocked. This may be one of the special times that he gives me my present on time – or actually, EARLY. This made me very happy. He’s at an Indian Casino tonight, that should be fun.

     I watched Bend it Like Beckham today, since Jen left it at my house. It was similar to many of the romantic and mushy movies that have come out recently. I actually learned a few things that I didn’t know about Indian culture (despite having a few Indian friends). It makes me glad I don’t know anything about Poland, aside from the fact that my mom knows the “We like Perrogies” commercial song from forever ago.

Feeling: Special (and not in the retarded way)

Listening to: Weezer – Susanne

August 16, 2004

Ow Ow Ow

     My back really really hurts. Ugh, somebody shoot me. I emailed Krissy from AFLAC today to tell her that I won’t be taking the position at AFLAC. It was hard to let money go, but I can’t see myself enjoying that job.

     On Saturday, I woke up to receive an email from Rebecca (from TravelCLICK). She was pretty frantic, as there was a little bug in my VBA code, and she hadn’t tested it like I expected her to. I put in about an hour’s worth of time fixing what she seemed to describe as the problem, so add another hour to my timesheet with another $40. Huzzah.

     Last night, Renee, Jen and I had a little girls night in sort of thing. Renee bought 12 wine coolers and a bottle of peach chardonnay, and Jen bought a 6 pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Yep, Renee was plastered (and insisted “I’m not drunk!” while also saying the following amusing quotes… “Yes! Yow! Go! Blue!” “I remember the frosted cock,” “How does a piss-horse race?” “Let’s listen to the soundtrack of ’13 Going On 80′!” “How do you spell ‘frog’?” and “I told you it was Saturday Tuesday ago!” We talked online, colored, and talked a lot of girl talk. They slept over.

     At 7 in the morning, Jen got up to use the bathroom. I didn’t completely wake up, but when she returned I sat up a bit, looked at her, and fell back asleep. She laughed at me. When I woke up I didn’t know if I’d dreamed that, because I fell immediately back into a dream after I saw her. I had to get up at 10am to drive Renee home; she had to work. Then, Jen and I tried to feed the squirrel in my backyard peanuts. We had only mild success.

     After Jen left, I played a lot of Gunbound. I’m a double sided silver axe now (I know, I rock), and Aloshya (Trevor) and I made a guild. It’s called “Doctor,” so when it displays the name, I would be Doctor kabby. I thought it was neat. I also bought myself a Pet-AD (I had the dizzy glasses for my bunge suit, but the pet adds shield which I want). That was a lot of fun. I wish I could play now, but the servers are down for “maintenance.” Oh well.

     Tomorrow the case for my cousin’s computer should be in stock at newegg, so I’ll buy that (and hopefully get it on Wednesday).

     I’m having a hard time not calling Alan. I told him I wanted him to have a peaceful and relaxing time in Minnesota, so I wouldn’t call him while he was gone. I miss him so much more when I don’t get to hear from him. The girls night in helped, but I’m still lonely. I hope his trip was nice enough, and that my sacrifice helped him to enjoy himself.

Feeling: Tired and a Bit Jaded.

Listening to: Aerosmith – Crazy

August 15, 2004

I Guess Not

     After doing a little internet research (message boards) it sounds like AFLAC isn’t a helluva lot of fun. I don’t really want to go into the details, but essentially it’s cutthroat and they aren’t as helpful as you would like. Anyway, it is definitely something I’m capable of (and probably capable of doing well at), but it’s not something that I would be happy about doing. I would still consider taking the job if it didn’t have so many early sunk costs (classes, certifications). Right now, we’re leaning towards no. This decision crap is really wearing on me. This morning I went from a full fledged yes to this (this evening). I’m exhausted. I just want a normal job.

Feeling: Underappreciated

Listening to: Lots and lots of Pink Floyd.

August 14, 2004

AFLAC *Quack*

     Krissy from AFLAC called me at 10am this morning to tell me that she wants to offer me a contract. I was expecting this call on Monday, so I was a little surprised. I either need to call her back (probably) or go to “the monthly regional meeting in DeKalb at 9am on Monday” to “see how it goes.” I’m still a little curious as to where the money comes from and goes to, but I told her I’d probably call with a couple more questions today. Be a sport and download the AFLAC duck screensaver. I recommend without sound.

     I guess it’s time to stop being a bum and actually get some stuff done today. Namely, I want to do everything I was supposed to do yesterday, like write up my hours for Rebecca, post on the forum about the movies I saw this weekend, and shower. You know, those little tasks. Anyway, I should be getting to that.

Feeling: Headache, but Ambitious

Listening to: Josie and the Pussycats – You’re a Star

August 13, 2004

Cell phone post: test

Blogger allows you to post via email, so I can post to my blog from my phone. How cool is that?!?

1 comment August 13, 2004