There's been quite a lot I've been wanting to post here in my LJ of late.

But I'm not going to do that right now.

I'm halfway through my finals. I have to do three journal entries for a class and fix my screenplay up all shiny with covers and three holes punched down the sides and so forth tomorrow morning before class (I hope Staples will be good for all of that). I need to pitch my screenplay tomorrow and then hand the screenplay and journal entries in to my professor. After that, I need to read an article and write a two to three page essay on it, then go to class on Wednesday where I'll hand it in and take my last final. After that is over, I'll be going to an Apple Store to have them look at the DVD stuck in my dvd drive.

Once I have that finished, I need to pack up all my stuff Wednesday night and Thursday morning, and ship it all home Thursday early afternoon preferably. Then I make sure I have all that's left ready to go.

I spend Friday going hopefully down to the Haight to take some photos for my dad that he requested. Friday night, I check out, then I gather up my final items and leave at 5:45am by taxi. Then I get a bus at 6:35am. After that, I get to the train station and I'm off train hopping for three and a half days.

I get home Tuesday evening. Fantastic. Rest, finally.

So it's 1:30am and I have three journal entries to go before I call it a night. I'm procrastinating.

And all I really want to do is to tell everyone to go to my terrible little website I made through freewebs, because I finally got around to posting the first page of that web comic I planned last summer. It's terribly basic and not the preferred layout, but I'm not a web designer and I don't have ultimate computer coding skills and I don't have the money for my own domain name. This will have to do for now.

So darlings, if you care to, thrill my soul and entertain me. Go to Apathy Included.  It's your choice.  It's really a nice distraction for me right now.

Tata.

Since I haven't posted a random online quiz-thing in ages, and because I just spotted this in the journal of one rambling_ink, figured I'd swipe it. So yeah, here it is.

Lookit!  It's my happy nudist vampire plushy, Lloyd.  Lloyd has a real heart, and everything.  I love him to pieces and more.

So I ask anyone who might see this:  If you had a morbidly cute plushy, say like of a vampire or something of the like, what would you want it to look like? 

Style, clothing, hair, colors? 

Any particular fabrics  you'd want it to be made out of?  A felt, a soft cotton, something super soft, something that had a slight fuzzy feel? 

Solidly constructed or kind of floppy? 

Condense like in a chibi way, or slightly more realistically proportioned?

Entirely soft materials or would hard objects be okay, like buttons for example?

Do let me know any specifics about how you'd want a morbid, dark, or odd plushy to look like.

I really want to know, so tell me.

So yes, I am back on the west coast.

And it's awesome to be here again...even if it's been raining nearly  constantly.  Classes seem good, classmates seem good, city seems good.  So it's pretty good.

I really do love this city.  Have I mentioned that before?  Oh I have?  80,000 times?  Whoops.

Anyways, so I took a train ride out here...technically three train rides and a bus.  Left Tuesday at 11am.  And it was awesome!  I met the coolest, weirdest people on the train...more specifically the train from Chicago to Emeryville, California.  During the second half of the final day, I pretty much spent it hanging out in the observation car staring out at insane snow and then darkness, chatting with several chaps probably in their 30's to 40's.  Two of them had a part of their lives that was off-the-grid.  One of those two preferred hitchhiking as his favorite method of travel and had experience freight train jumping.  The other was a major Marijuana legalization activist with a license to distribute medicinal marijuana (Plus he was totally reading one of my all time favorite books while on the train).  Another chap who was there on and off seemed like a nice enough fellow if he wasn't getting drunk while having a tiny baby with him.  Yeah.  Funny how, unlike what it could potentially sound like, it was anything but creepy to be chatting with three older men I'd never met before that trip.

Then there were a variety of other people there that you can't help but talk to.  I met a young chap who came across as obscenely nice, intelligent, witty, environmentally concerned, and just straight interesting.  Plus he was so unbelievably adorable I very nearly wanted to swoon.  That was pretty awesome.  Alright, so that was better than 'pretty awesome.'  It was freaking hardcore awesome.  I got to have dinner with him and this older scientific chap who'd dealt hands on with some environmental changes and issues.  Good times.

'Course, the trip out of Chicago didn't start off the greatest, what with the drunk guy who decided to sit next to me...despite there being so many empty seats that everyone on the train could easily have two seats to themselves.  Now he had the creep factor going on.  When a guy sits next to you and tries to get you to listen to his music and talks to you about how he's a racist, spits on the floor and spills his beer when the train's hardly even moving yet....that's just not good.  I talked to an attendant after dinner with the awesome duo (to which the younger one replied that I was 'the winner' considering the drunk guy next to me had apparently already created a notorious reputation over such a short time) and he told me that the drunk guy had been moved to the back of the train.  Success.  No more trouble on the train after that.

Plus, the two guys who sat in front of me (while somewhat loud and boisterous themselves, were actually still nice enough) gave me their pillows since they brought their own.  So I rocked that three day train ride with two reclining seats to myself and three pillows.  Oh yeah.

The other rides were neat, but not the same.  Philly to D.C. was short and basic.  D.C. to Chicago...well, I'll start this by saying I'm very much Pro Choice.  And it happened that there'd been a Pro Life rally in D.C.  So the train was filled with a group of high school students, a nun or two, and a father or two who'd been down supporting Pro Life.  There were one or two others on the train also from the rally.  Okay, not really a problem.  Sadness was when I sat with a nice lady at dinner who proceeded to speak about how she was pro-life and that the kids were doing such a good thing and how she was pro life and it was good that all these kids were doing this what with the youth being so important.

Yeah, I did state that I am pro-choice, because I didn't want to have to act like I'm not just to please some stranger.  Even so, she continued to voice how good it was.  Please, I'd prefer if someone does not continue to tell me how it's so good what the kids are doing after I tell them I'm of the opposite persuasion.  After that I did end up just kind of sitting there and staring, because I didn't feel like voicing my opinion again and potentially starting an argument.

So that was annoying.  But aside from that, she was actually a nice enough lady and I chatted with her at the Chicago station for a little while.  And the lady I sat next to from D.C. to Chicago was also nice.  So it wasn't actually that bad at all.  Just an annoyance on my part.

And lastly, due to the train being late...something you need to plan for when taking a train...I arrive in San Francisco at basically midnight or a little before.  I arrived there, saying 'screw it' to the fact that I was concerned about arriving in the city alone at midnight.  I figured whatever, there are others arriving alone as well.  I figured I'd just say 'why not,' considering the marijuana activist was going there, too...plus, an English fellow as well, and who am I to pass up getting to talk to an English guy?  To summarize his words, "I'm English, it's alright.'  So I said screw it, there are others around and taxis are a plague on the city so it shouldn't take so long to find one.

So we all go to the city, bade farewell to the activist chap, and me and the English chap shared a  taxi.  Then, he was super nice enough to insist I not pay for my half of the taxi ride.  So that rocked.

Thus, I arrive at midnight, Friday going into Saturday, at my destination.  I climbed the stairs with help from an RA, I signed in, and what did I do?

I took a freaking shower. 

Oh Gods, it was so wonderful to take a shower.

I really, honestly, never want to travel long distances in any another way. 

And thus, this post has turned into a very brief synopsis of my train adventure.  I highly recommend everyone travel that way, at least once.  Beautiful, different, leisurely, and worth every second.

There are a great deal of things lately that are bugging me.  They're bugging me quite simply because I don't know how to do them, don't know enough about them, or don't have many opportunities to do them.

So thus, I present a list of random things I'd like to do as soon as possible, in no particular order:

-Change my Hair.  (No, I haven't yet decided what  I want to do, and I have less than a month to figure it out and accomplish it.)
-Learn another language, preferably something like Greek or Japanese...or even German.  Just something.
-Learn to play the violin.
-Learn to dance in a variety of fashions, develop my own style of personal dancing, and have a chance to dance frequently.
-Discover new and interesting musical artists and bands.
-Learn to sing...or at least find out  if I actually have the ability to sing.
-Become a healthier person in both food intake and physical activity.
-Finish what I've written and make real attempts at getting published.
-Have activities and hobbies to do when I'm not writing, in school, or working.

So, that's what I've got so far.  This was entirely inspired by a NanoWriMo email I got about making goals for the next year.  I don't believe in making New Year's resolutions, but I do believe in having goals  and learning new things.

I might add more later in other posts, just so I can have it recorded somewhere in a place where I'll probably come across it repeatedly (instead of writing in on a piece of paper that promptly gets lost in less than a day).

My mom tells me it snowed the other day back home.  For the past three days, I've been walking around outside with a sweater and sandals.  In December.  There are giant green palm trees next to giant decorated Christmas trees in the Squares around the city.  That's just weird.  I just got a new memory card for my camera, I'll have to go  and take a picture of the oddity.

I mean, it got a little chilly around 4:30pm today and a heavier sweater would have been nice, but...I was fine.  I smelled wood burning a few times, which was nice, but being in the  city I don't know if that's a good thing.  Those firetrucks are on the move an awful lot each day. 

It's really neat though, to walk around in December with a sweater and sandals and be okay. 

I'm surprisingly enough, looking forward to being home for the break.  To have my own room that's not on the third floor, to be with my cat again, and see if I can smell the crispness of winter air right before it snows mixed with the smell of a wood burning fire.

Though, I'd still prefer my own place somewhere.  I'd really love that.  Really. 

I can't say which environment I'd be better off in.  I really like the peace and privacy offered by a rural setting.  Trees everywhere and actually being able to see the stars at night.  At the same time, I love how easy everything is to access in the city, that I don't need a car, that there are so many more choices of what to do and where to go, even if it's just to wander around and people watch.

I usually like the grey area, the middle area, but I don't know in this case.  The 'middle' area of it seems to be suburbia, and I have about the biggest grudge against suburbia one could possibly have.  I don't think I could ever bring myself to live in suburbia.

It's nice to get to experience those extremes, though.

No, there really was no point to this post.  I just wanted to let a few simple thoughts float out.  For the sake of letting them drift about, for something light to muse over, with no real conclusion to be reached.

Indeed, I've felt the first earthquake and I feel the need to post about it. 

Alright, so it wasn't much.  The earthquake itself was a 5.6 magnitude but it was a good distance away, down at the bottom of the bay and slightly east of it.  So while it was a 5.6, we only felt it rather lightly.  As in, I'm sitting in the basement common room at a table with three others, half in conversation half not, while another group of people are watching Stir of Echoes, and I feel some shaking.  Initial reaction:  'Is that an earthquake?'  Then I thought, 'well it might be someone shaking their leg under the table.'  Then I look around and see the lamp shaking at a rather good rate, especially if it was just someone moving  their leg.  It'd have to be one powerful leg shake or one unsteady lamp.

So I leave it be, and a minute later someone comes downstairs (apparently wide eyed) saying that her room was shaking, her blinds and her desk and whatnot, asking if we felt the earthquake. 

So we all realize that the movement we felt and didn't say anything about was actually an earthquake.  So I check online to see how fast things go, and low and behold there's a super quick Bay Area earthquake update site, and it stated where the earthquake was, and had reports as to where the quake was felt and to what extent.  Dang quick, I must say.  And it's been reviewed by a seismologist and everything, so the site tells me. 

Ultimately, while the quake was a 5.6 at source, reports from my zip code area put it at about a 2-3 magnitude felt, meaning felt weakly and with no damage here, and felt moderately to strongly with very  light to light damage at the source.  Or something like that.

So yeah.  First San Francisco earthquake I've felt happened most gloriously on the night before Halloween.

Links!

About  the earthquake.

Where it originated, where it was felt, and at what intensity.

I've been curious, so I want to ask whoever actually reads this a question.  What would your reaction be if I decided to get dreadlocks?

Really, my thought pattern has gone as such:  I'm sick of my hair and it just hanging there.  Sick, royally sick, fed up, repulsed.  It's dull and boring and really starting to annoy the hell out of me.  I've been trying to think of a way to do my hair that would be interesting and different, but low maintenance at the same time.

So I've been noticing how much I honestly think dreadlocks are awesome.  (Zerabell, you can probably attest to this on at least some level if Studmuffin has a say.)

Plus, considering I want something different, that's a big way to go about it.  It'd be an experiment, and probably an pretty neato experience. 

The first couple months would be Hell, as they 'mature' and all kinds of stuff would have to be done to maintain them and to get them to lock in the best way possible, but after a while the maintenance gets pretty low.

And yes, dreadlocks are washed regularly.

So I've finally uploaded a very and utterly small amount of photos of the Bay Area to my Photobucket account for the viewing pleasure of others. 

And thus, you who may or may not care to see photos will have access to view them.

I fall somewhere close to what might be described as the liberal environmental activist point of view.  I want everything to be done that can logically be done to assist the environment.  Except in all honesty I do little to nothing, and know little to nothing about current environmental issues. 

This makes me sad.

Now, what I need is to unlazify myself so maybe I will know said facts and issues.  That'd be just dandy, then I could actually feel alright about taking a stance in however way I might decide.  I mean, in all honesty it's just not smart to go fighting issues you feel strongly about without knowing all the facts, ideas, and theories.  Then we're getting into an area similar to blind faith, and I hope the very, very few who may read this blog of mine know how much of a farce I consider blind faith.  And, well, I wish everyone in the world thought blind faith was a farce.  Alas. 

Anyway. 

I always thought it'd be an experience to be a part of some great environmental movement, to get that whole, 'hey look at me over here making a difference' type of feeling.  I'd feel good about myself (selfish reason) and I'd be lending a hand to something worthy (not  so selfish?). 

I just need to put out the effort to learn.  I know where I stand on the issue of environmentalism.  I just need to make sure I fully understand why I'm standing where I'm standing.  I feel like I'm in a good location to do that learning  I'm wanting on the issue.  Now I just have to take the first, and what I've always viewed as the hardest, step towards making that learning  happen.

As found in zerabell's livejoural, I present to you a list of seven weird quirks that I happen to possess. 

1.  I can't let anything near my neck, especially people.  It disturbs me a massive amount and I can often be found with my hand near my neck in some futile attempt to make it feel more protected.  I've almost hurt people on several occasions for getting too close.  Throat slashings in films are the worst for me.  Yet for some reason I adore vampires.

2.  I tend to hold my hair in front of my face...all the time.  I don't know why, maybe it's an insecurity thing. 

3.  I have number maps in my head, which I thought was normal until people started telling me it wasn't.  Some are slightly color-coded.  The 1800's are a nifty brick red.  The 1900's  are a dull, murky blue.  The 1500's are a nice leafy green.

4.  I hate the sound of a heart beat.  I hate it so much.  It makes me incredibly unnerved and unhappy. 

5.  I can't keep my hands still.  I need to constantly be doing something with them or fidgeting in any way possible.  Doing nothing with them absolutely drives me nuts.

6.  I stare at people.  It's pretty bad.  If I see someone I think is interesting in any way, I'll just stare at them and let myself be intrigued.  I try not to, but half the time I don't realize I'm doing it.

7.  I hate shoes and socks passionately, however I adore knee socks with all my heart.  Kind of how I like fruit and I like cake, but put them together and I am repulsed. 

I feel like, every day this week I've talked to someone interesting.  Not everyday, but close.

The man who assisted me with opening my new bank account.  Greatest customer service, ever.  Blatantly hating his job and not afraid to say it.  I must have had a face that told him it was okay to vent, or so others say.  Thank you, bank employee.  I wish all employees were as honest and casual as you.

The chap from Greenpeace.  First time I ever enjoyed being stopped on the street.  Thanks.

Fellow classmate.  You've no idea how neat it was when he wasn't sure if I was from the states or not.  Czech or Russian?  I'll take that.

Guy who almost always gives me lab equipment.  I can't tell if he's an utter asshole or just a little different.  Either way, every time I go in there I get an entirely different impression of him and it's never dull.

Well, that's a good chunk of the week. 

To reiterate from my last post, life is odd.  Bizarre, strange, and just odd. 

I want to start dressing odd.  External exhibition of the internal.  I want to embrace all the oddness I can before I might have to really start looking professional.  I think I want a revolution.  I think I might have to start it now.

Every school experience I've had seems to open me up a little more. 

It is.  It's mind-numbingly, absurdly, irritatingly odd.  There's nothing I can do about it, it just is.  I feel like there should be something I should do about it, but nope.  Life just laughs and says, 'Hahah, sucker,' to everyone that lives in it.

Fucking bizarre. 

It's probably something I'll never quite be able to comprehend.  Not that it's supposed to be understood.

So I was walking down Haight Street today after trying to find Greek cookies in a place that didn't sell them.  This guy with spiky black hair and a black trench coat, looking not so bad as most of the panhandlers in the area, walks by and says to me, "Spare some change? I swear I'll spend it on beer and not food."

I'm still working on interpreting the motives behind the statement, because I feel it most definitely went beyond the obvious.

So after that I went and had amazing soup at...::drumroll::...The San Francisco Soup Company.  There's quite a few throughout the city, plus there's at least one other entirely different place in the city that focuses on soup, appropriately called 'Soup Freaks.'  So many soups on the menu, it was true glory.

Almost every night there's a few anime dorks who watch anime in the common room of my housing.  Score. 

In the beginning of October, there's going to be a literary festival called LitQuake.

Supposedly there's a big Festival on Halloween, and by the looks of it, there's more than one on varying dates.

Now to work on finding a costume.

Hanging recklessly off the side of a cable car while zooming downhill through traffic, shark-infested waters with no lifeguards to keep order, slopes you can't even see when you're on top of them, views to oblivion from nearly every spot you can find to stand,  fog so heavy it conceals even the largest man-made structures, characters the likes of which are stunning in variety, homeless people who are a bit more friendly than the average citizen would prefer, medicinal marijuana sold in shady head shops in the most notoriously free-loving part of town, organic and natural food located in more places than not, energy conserving light bulbs sold for pennies vs. regular light bulbs, more buses running on electric than gasoline or diesel, chain stores few and far between, anime stalls and comic shops located in the same shopping center, multiple stores selling only socks, used bookstores everywhere, ample public transportation used by all types of people, painful prices on housing and food, more cultural diversity than you can throw a translation book at, and all standing on a natural disaster hot spot of the world.

Yeah.  You bet I'm diggin' it.

In two days, I'll be experiencing my first night in San Francisco.  Packing as of yet:  well it's sort of happening.  Last minute as always.  Heh, at this rate, I honestly don't think I'd know what to do with myself if I didn't wait until the last minute to get everything done.  I'm supposed to be getting sleep tonight, but really, who believes that'll happen?  No one, that's who. 

I've got myself some nifty homeopathic sleep lozenges, I'm going to take one before/on the flight and sees if I can't get myself some sleep going on so I don't have to experience most of the flight.  Confounded planes.  Maybe I'll get myself a train ride later.  Three days of sitting in coach on a train would probably be better than 5-6 hours of anxiety and wooziness in the air.  Plus, it's just not fun times when you're descending and one of your ears refuses to pop, thus clogging it up and making it painful for the next couple days. 

Ah well.  On to the land of Earthquakes and rolling blackouts.  That's some hot stuff , right there.

That's right, I admit it.  I'm apparently such a dork that a Harry Potter tribute that played a sad song I'd normally never, ever like, got me thinking about one of the characters that die in the last Potter book.  And that's right, that danged tribute made me cry. 

So it was a delayed cry for this particular character.  But some part of me admits that I'm happy about it, because I felt horribly cold hearted for not crying when I read it because I was full aware of how awful it was.

I figure the sad song, plus the images that went along with it, kind of made me really think about the affects that the death would have on the other characters, and boom.  I was gone.  For shame on me.  It's so awful. 

But dang it all, of all the people she killed and could have picked to kill, that's who Rowling chooses.

::Goes off to brood and obsess in a dark corner somewhere.::

What looks to become my newest anime of interest is one by the name of Mushishi, or Mushi-Shi. 

The episodes seem to just drift along and it's rather soft and beautiful, and the music is also very soft and soothing, so it has a really nice mood and atmosphere.

It's basically (after seeing two episodes) about a Mushi Master, a man who travels around helping people who run astray of Mushi, a being that is basically a pure essence of life in its purest far, ambiguous in shape and definition.  There are many types of Mushi.  It speaks of a river of life (or light, don't remember) that runs just beneath the surface of the world.

It's really rather lovely to watch.

So all four of my wisdom teeth are now out.  It's only been a day and I haven't started all of the healing procedures yet (such as rinsing my mouth out with salt watch, which I'll do later, but so far I'm holding up.  I too my pain medicine three hours before going to be, only slept for about seven or seven and a half hours before I couldn't sleep anymore, and I haven't taken my pain med  yet and I'm not feeling too much pain.  It's a little sore and mostly awkward. 

I, frankly, can't wait until the stitches dissolve, because they're the most awkward part, but I forgot to ask how long it'd be before they dissolved so I don't know how long it'll be before the danged things are not there anymore. 

Eating soft food and liquids, though?  I could get to like this.  It's less work.  Well, it would be if I wasn't making the effort to send all the food right down the center of my mouth so it avoids the sides, but still.  No chewing.  Not too shabby.

The blood seepage was a little odd, though.  This is the most vampiric I've felt probably, because for the first day I spent most of the time with a slight taste of blood in my mouth.

Wee.