AngstnoKami's IJ

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[+1 angst] Random Thought Mar. 16th, 2008 @ 04:15 pm
If one were to wear the same pair of socks every day, only washing one of the socks at the end of each day, and that washed sock were the same sock each day, would people be able to tell that, for instance, one's left foot only were odorous? Would they comment on the disparity?

[+2 angst] Will update again soon Mar. 16th, 2008 @ 04:04 pm
Reports that my absence is due to insanity should be considered extremely fishy. Fishie fishie fishie!

[0 angst] In which Zara and her sleep cycle need a long talk... A long, boring, lulling talk Mar. 5th, 2008 @ 07:44 am
Zara: Pop quiz, body.
Body: My dog ate my...
Zara: We don't have a dog. First question. We went to bed at 9. We're getting up at 5am. What time are we getting up?
Body: 2:30am!
Zara: Incorrect. Second question. We went to bed at 8. We're getting up at 5am. What time are we getting up?
Body: Uh....1am.
Zara: NO. Third question: We went to bed at 10. WE ARE GETTING UP AT 5. FIVE. In the MORNING. That is, FIVE AM. THIS IS NOT A TRICK QUESTION. WHEN ARE WE GETTING UP?
Body: 3:10am?
Zara: You FAIL, body.

[+1 angst] Quote of the (yester)day Mar. 4th, 2008 @ 06:13 am
GSA Faculty Adviser to another member: "If I can't call out of work gay, you can't call out of [an upcoming meeting with the College's trustees] dead."

At the same club meeting yesterday, I accidentally became secretary of my school's Gay-Straight Alliance.

::shrugs:: These things happen.

[+2 angst] In memory of Kitt Mar. 2nd, 2008 @ 04:40 pm

( A Last Picture )


When I was 12 years old, I coaxed a feral neighborhood cat to let me feed and pet her. She later moved in with me. She did not live long; she sickened suddenly when she was around two years old, as far as I could gauge. But in the spring of 1996, while she yet lived, two kittens appeared by her side one day, wary and wide-eyed.

One of them was Kitt.

When I first tricked the kittens into the apartment with thin slices of SPAM, Kitt would sit by the door at night, crying for inability to see the sky, to breathe the New Jersey smog and run through the clipped, pesticide-treated lawns, until I'd pick her up, carry her to bed with me, and cuddle her until her purr resounded throughout the single room.

We grew up together, Kitt faster than I. She was an adult when I arrived, relieved, sad, and terrified, at my grandparents' house and began high school after being out of formal education since second grade. She followed me from room to room, just wanting to be near. She comforted me when I cried.

When I'd come home from college, she'd take charge of me. She'd be the first to let me know if I should be going to bed earlier, rubbing against my legs, sitting beside me and staring, nipping at my concentration on whatever pointless thing I was doing with her short, gruff "mrrf" of a meow. She'd tell me all of her troubles. She'd reassign my priorities from whatever I was trying to read or work on to paying her well-deserved attention for her patience.

When she came to live here two months ago, after living with my grandparents and then my mother, I could tell she was in poor health. She'd become hugely obese and developed a wheezing breath. Though the latter seemed to diminish as she lost weight, that weight loss was too rapid. She became depressed, sleeping underneath my bed most of the time, returning to that secluded place shortly after every time I removed her from it. She developed hepatic lipidosis, a fatty disease that destroyed her liver, and declined rapidly between her visit to the vet on Friday morning and her transfer to a 24-hour facility on Saturday morning. By the time she was settled in the second vet's office, she'd become nearly unresponsive. The vet made it clear that there was very little hope, and I made the decision to help her on her way with as little pain as possible. I held her for a few minutes, stroking her head and back, telling her that she was a good cat, a pretty cat, a sweet, smart, kind cat, my best girl and my beloved friend. I told her over and over that I loved her.

Then the vet came back in, and...twelve years were over so quickly.

But this is why I am glad to be human. Because we are the makers of immortality. We are the ones who remember, who keep and share what we know. And so she lives on with me, in the love I have for the next cat, for the next person, for my fellow man, because I have embraced and been embraced in the simple, unaffected love shared by a creature without words, with so little time on this Earth.

And she lives on in these words, through which I also extend that love to you. You are beautiful, shining people who can make that simple love spread even farther. So please, smile at a stranger today. Take the time to explain a difficult concept to a child kindly. Hold your tongue when you're about to say something hurtful.

And if you have a kitty, please pet them for me, and please tell them they're a good and pretty cat.

[+3 angst] Mar. 1st, 2008 @ 08:40 pm
I have a cold. The fifth I've had this winter, I think. It's getting worse.

I have my period.

I have mid-term exams next week.

I still have no job.

And this morning, I had to euthanize the cat I've had since I was 12 years old.

[0 angst] Fun with public transit Feb. 27th, 2008 @ 03:15 pm
On the bus back from school today, there was a man sitting in the row of seats behind me. He may have just had a respiratory difficulty or been making little breath noises unconsciously, but it sounded as though he were whispering, which in itself could have been explained by his trying to draft a text message or remember lines for an upcoming play.

...but one of the "whisperings" sounded very much like the words "breathing on you."

[+1 angst] Notes on programming in Alice, day 2. Feb. 26th, 2008 @ 04:53 pm
4:54pm: I hate you, little virtual astronaut. You and your stupid legs that keep falling off.

5:09pm: Why can't I make my hedge maze as black as my soul?

9:18pm: Real people can't walk through things. I have to make him go around. Real people can't walk through things. I have to make him go around.

[+1 angst] Trojan War Personal Outcome Flow Chart Feb. 26th, 2008 @ 02:48 pm
( Disclaimer: This is a humorous approximation of a long oral and written tradition. Any claims to its accuracy are equally humorous. )

This is a response to my own challenge. To see the original challenge post and all its responses, click here.

[0 angst] Awake Zara is ....well, not really. Feb. 25th, 2008 @ 05:08 pm
Things that don't help me get back to sleep when I wake at 2:30 am:

  • Lying there
  • Anything to do with the computer
  • Folding a highly complex but basically inaccurate paper model of the space shuttle

[0 angst] Challenge Feb. 25th, 2008 @ 04:50 am
Tell me a story, f-list.

Tell me the story of the Trojan War.

You can do it in any way you like, with only one condition:

Don't mention the horse.


(Please either post in the comments here or comment with a link to your post.)

[-1 angst] Hey, [info]seishonagon!!! Feb. 24th, 2008 @ 03:33 pm
...and all other Star Trek fans on my f-list, too.

CLICK HERE

[0 angst] There WILL be win today Feb. 24th, 2008 @ 11:17 am
Goal for today before 3:00 pm: Finish Computer Science homework
I've been putting this off; I'll figure out why later and might journal about it. But for now, it's getting done.


  • Read and comment on two classmates' career plan forum posts. DONE
  • Read chapter 16 of CS Illuminated book. DONE
  • Look up newest XHTML standards on web. DONE
  • Complete lab 16A and 16B from Explorations CD. Put in separate folders in LAB4 folder on computer. Zip LAB4 folder and submit via Blackboard link. DONE
  • Read ALICE book.
  • Complete ALICE tutorials 1-4.
  • Finish homework #8. Zip file. Submit via e-mail.


FAIL!!!

...but there will be another attempt at win after a bit of a break.

[EDIT (8:03 pm)]
How, exactly, did it take 4 hours to make a trip to Pizza Hut? ::shakes head::

As of a few minutes ago, I finished reading the Alice book. On to the tutorials.

[0 angst] x_x Feb. 23rd, 2008 @ 07:31 pm
Kids are awesome.
...Okay, somewhat less awesome after 11 hours of babysitting.

2nd babysitting gig ever! And I made it through!

At some point along the way, I also explained patent law such that it made sense to a 7-year-old. I'm still not sure how I pulled that one off, but damn.

So, um. Tonight's agenda is collapsing, death, and restorative chocolate.

[+1 angst] Cats Feb. 23rd, 2008 @ 06:42 am
( Cut for ew )

[-2 angst] I swear I'll be productive right after this Feb. 22nd, 2008 @ 11:00 am

[0 angst] But, but...SNOW! Feb. 22nd, 2008 @ 08:30 am
Why is no one awake? We should be out throwing snowballs at each other and sliding down hills!

[-2 angst] SNOW!!! Feb. 22nd, 2008 @ 07:46 am
What has happened? Ere I slumbered, the world beyond my windows was as cold, yet every branch was not resplendent with magic. The sky was obscured by clouds, yet these cloaked no fabled floating city from view of dwellers upon the ground. Now, frozen petals of triumph grace every path, reminding us of the momentary kings once we were.

A gallant god has spread his cloak upon the world, allowing us to step across the pool of time, to return to childhood. We again are young and careless, for a time immeasurable but in private joys.

Let us find one another with whooping and waving, the buoyant secrets of our kind.

[0 angst] Hannibal Crosses the Screen Feb. 21st, 2008 @ 09:01 pm
I have a copy of a computer game called Caesar III. I've had this game since...oh, 2000? I know I bought it in high school, but I can't remember during which of the two years I attended. It's a city-building game, and when you reach the goals of each level, you're given a promotion to the next level of difficulty. Eventually, you achieve the rank of Caesar.

I don't know how long that takes, however, or what one must do to achieve it, for I have never beaten this game. I'm not exactly a serious gamer, but damn, can I pick them. Caesar III is hard.

I have independent evidence to back this up, btw. A patch was put out for the game after its initial release. That patch gave the user control over the difficulty, renaming the original difficulty "hard" and creating three levels of difficulty, including "normal," below that.

Of course, being me, I must beat the game at its original difficulty. MUST. Yes, I'm crazy. I'm crazy because I play this game for an hour every few weeks now, as I have been for a month or two (after keeping it in a box of CD-ROMs for years), and I've just hit the Mediolanum level again. The Mediolanum level in which one is attacked by waves of Hannibal's armies over and over in addition to having to manage a city on lousy geography with little starting money. The Mediolanum level I've only beaten once before.

I think I was planning to say something more, but all I can add right now is WOE.

[+1 angst] More dreamspam Feb. 21st, 2008 @ 01:40 pm
There was definitely an evil plan involving plastic lanyard lace in my dreams last night. I would be delighted could I only remember what it was...
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