The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations: - I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! - What I create will be just for you. - It'll be done this year. - You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure! - I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to repost. We can all make stuff!!
I like making stuff. Does anyone even see this journal anymore
edit: since I am a responder and it looks like more people have said they want something here is the list: 1. freeimprov 2. gamerchick 3. dracoangelica 4. 5.
These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. Bold what you have read. Italicise what you started but couldn't finish. Strike through what you couldn't stand. Underline those you want to read. Change the color if you've never heard of it. * it if you own it but haven't read it
In this case its more of a started but DIDN'T finish. Usually for various reasons, but not because the book was so bad.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Anna Karenina * Crime and Punishment * Catch-22 One Hundred Years of Solitude Wuthering Heights The Silmarillion Life of Pi The Name of the Rose Don Quixote Moby Dick Ulysses Madame Bovary * The Odyssey Pride and Prejudice Jane Eyre The Tale of Two Cities The Brothers Karamazov * Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies * War and Peace * Vanity Fair The Time Traveler's Wife The Iliad Emma The Blind Assassin The Kite Runner Mrs. Dalloway Great Expectations American Gods A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Atlas Shrugged Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books Memoirs of a Geisha Middlesex Quicksilver Wicked : The Life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West The Canterbury Tales The Historian A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man * Love in the Time of Cholera * Brave New World * The Fountainhead Foucault's Pendulum Middlemarch Frankenstein The Count of Monte Cristo Dracula A Clockwork Orange Anansi Boys The Once and Future King The Grapes of Wrath The Poisonwood Bible 1984 Angels & Demons The Inferno The Satanic Verses Sense and Sensibility The Picture of Dorian Gray Mansfield Park One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest To the Lighthouse Tess of the D'Urbervilles * Oliver Twist Gulliver's Travels Les Misérables The Corrections The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Dune The PrinceCryptonomicon Neverwhere A Confederacy of Dunces A Short History of Nearly Everything Dubliners The Unbearable Lightness of Being Beloved Slaughterhouse-Five The Scarlet Letter Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Mists of Avalon Oryx and Crake Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed Cloud Atlas The Confusion Lolita Persuasion Northanger Abbey The Catcher in the Rye On the Road The Hunchback of Notre Dame Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance The Aeneid Watership Down Gravity's Rainbow The Hobbit In Cold Blood White Teeth Treasure Island David Copperfield The Three Musketeers
That's not too bad- I had a list once that I was working off of, thus one of the reasons I have read many of these. Of course, English major gave me a bit of a heads up too.
It's not that likely that any more survivors out of the still missing 8 or so people will be found in the 35W collapse (pretty near impossible), but it'd be nice to keep up the effort of finding out where they were and what was happening with the bridge- then Bush had to come to the city and fly over the wreckage so the whole effort- rescue, search, cleanup and Red Cross efforts (aided by my church) were shut down for two days. He was "touring" the site. Lovely Bushy, just. All ye liberal friends shout for joy as I have finally expressed annoyance at our dear old Prez.
In the good news I am installing Sims 2 Nightlife and I am excited.
On Friday night Iain and I had a long talk in which I realized the horrible mistake I have been making for years. This mistake has hurt all of my relationships and I just didn't notice it- I guess all I can say is that sometimes I am a social idiot. Well, I can't say I didn't notice it, I noticed that I don't talk to my friends as much about things beyond gaming or the weather, but I couldn't figure out why.
Now, I am a Scientologist, that's not a secret, and it's a big part of my life. I mean, that is what I have dedicated my life to training to do right now, and when I am done training I will spend at least another 5 years beyond that working at applying that skill I am acquiring. But raise your hands if you really understand it- what I am doing, how I feel about it, beyond that I think it is worth dedicating my attention to. Anyone? I didn't think so. That was my mistake, I stopped talking about it. It's dumb, it was for a dumb reason because I don't know many people beyond my friends who are more religiously accepting- especially my best friend.
So here I was not talking about it because I thought I had something to lose. I mean, I know that people have incorrect information about Scientology. There is shit on the internets the likes of which I can't believe and that I won't get into now because everyone creates false ideas about things that they don't understand. Suffice it to say, I was afraid that people had looked at those things and that if I brought up Scientology then they would think I was weird. It's the stupidest computation in the world. One, people have known I am a Scientologist so if they do think weird things they'll probably think them if I bring it up or not. And two, by not bringing it up, I don't give people the idea of what it really is and I just re-enforce the idea that there is something about it to hide. Which there isn't at all. Anyone can find out anything at all that they want about it- I'll tell you, you can read it in a book, you can go to the church- there are lots of ways. Because it's not a "phenomenon" it's a religion, and it is just as legitimate as anyone else's.
So now here I sit, and I have the idea that people think I am doing something strange with my life and not talking about it and I don't know how to approach fixing it up with everyone, except to make time to talk about it in person. It's upsetting to say the least and I am sorry that my recalcitrance has hurt our friendships. You know who you are, because I am sure that you have felt it. From here on out, I am more open, I promise, for I will not be afraid to talk about something completely legitimate that I am interested in.
As you can tell, I am back to town a couple of days early. Essentially, things are a little different than I had thought they would be because when I got to Florida we figured out that I wasn't as set up for the program as they wanted me to be. So now I am back and I have a program to complete before I can return to Florida and do the training I had meant to do. And it sucks, but the program will be fun and rewarding so what can I say? I guess I'll just have to work on getting it done fast. I am estimating it will take at least a couple of months.
Maybe by the time I go back to Florida the worst of the hot weather will be over. I am afraid that it was just gearing up and I was pretty miserable because of the heat while I was there.
While I was there I had fun.
The church is in Clearwater Florida- The Hubbard College is in the same area as the main church. There are four main buildings- three of them are hotel/church buildings (because the Florida church is a religious retreat) and one of them is the student building where all the training occurs. They are all in walking distance (the longest is 4 blocks) but if you have to walk more than a block it gets pretty taxing (I swear I had to drink so much water!).
I lived in the "student motels", three motels purchased and renovated by the church for the specific purpose of housing the 500+ students. Mine was named the Clipper. It was right on an inlet of the sea with a dock and a sailboat named the Pelorus Jack. Named after a legendary dolphin that guided ships through the French Pass in New Zealand (no ships crashed in that treacherous space while he was doing his work). I lived in Clipper 15 with 5 other women. They were all older than me, spanning quite a range, but I liked them all and we got along well. Strangely enough, I had the bed that two other trainees from my home organization slept in while they were there for training... weird.
The schedule was as hard as I thought it would be, maybe harder, but fun in it's own right. I liked knowing exactly what to do at every moment of the day and when I had any free time I made phone calls of wrote letters and that was that. I did have time to listen to CDs when I got home to my room with 1/2 to spare as we had a cd player in there and we would jam sometimes.
All in all it was a good experience, the only bad part being the whole getting sent back thing and I look forward to when I can return. It felt like I was right at the fore of what was going on in my religion. Since the church in Florida is one of the management organizations, I always knew what was going to happen across the world before it actually happened. And we are preparing for some pretty big events this July and I know what's going to happen so it's rather exciting to have been there for that.
Now, I am here so I will get back in the groove of things and have fun with the time I have before I head out again. So, anyone want to hang out? I got the weddings coming up of course, but I'll be around so drop a ring on my phone eh?
Whew LJ finally got it's shit together so that I could post the post I have been trying to make for about 5 days now. Oh boy. And now of course, this is really short notice, because that means I leave tomorrow.
I worked Serenity out with Beth guys, so I will be drunk in the shuttle for two weeks and we'll get Quinn out of the game while I am back home for the weddings. It'll be fine, I'll return and get to play with you all again.
Maybe when I come back we can have a party of going away because there will be more notice. That would be nice.
So I am excited and not and I hope that things go well for all.
I'll post my address in a private post as soon as I get a hold of it.
Wish me luck!
P.S. I won't have my cell phone, but I think I'll still have that voice mail if you want to leave me a message. I was thinking about calling once and a while on Sunday if I have time so that I can talk to the group shortly, but for now it's only three weeks and we can work more things out when I get back for the weddings on the 28th of June.
About a month ago I applied to the Hubbard College in Florida where they have the best training programs for people training to be Scientology counselors in the world. And I found out that I am accepted! It's crazy cool, this is the best opportunity ever because the program is so intensive and you come out the other end jammed full of information and knowing exactly how to apply it. For example, I have been working at my church for almost two years and I have been training there full time to get as far as I have; in Florida, because it is so intense people are getting through the training I have done here in 5 months or less there. The people who come back from training there have this incredible confidence in what they know and their ability to apply what they know to life and their job and that is really what I want. Plus, when I come back I will be the FIRST person in MN to train as high as I will be trained, ever. It's like getting a doctorate in Scientology. The reason it's the best church to train at is because it was specifically founded to be so by L. Ron Hubbard. And it's not easy to get in, there are a whole bunch of requirements- among those being able to study fast- so I'm really pumped.
If I do everything perfect then I will probably be down there 7 months. It could take longer if I get stuck a little (because you study at your own pace) or I could be faster than that and really rock the house. It all depends on me and how well I do.
Let's see, the church is called "Flag" because it was originally a ship that L. Ron Hubbard used and he landed it and founded the church there. I'll be staying in dorms and eat at a cafeteria and the schedule is from 8-10 daily (except Sat, we have the morning off). Of course, that means that about four years of college-like classes can be jammed into much less time, so I wont be gone as long by doing a schedule like that, but I know that at first I am going to HATE it. That's part of the reason I want to have a few weeks to get used to it first. I won't have time to access the internet and I won't have all the time in the world to call people, but I'll write when I can and call when I can and I really won't be gone that long.
The only thing that I am not looking forward to is how hot it is going to be.
So my original plan was to go down after Rachel's wedding in July, but I really want to go as soon as possible, so I am trying to work it out to go for a few weeks and come back for the weddings for a couple weeks and then go out there for the long haul. That'll start it out, let me get my feet wet and give everyone a little better understanding of how things will go while I am gone.
The only thing that's standing in the way of that happening is that I would have to quit my games with all yous guys that much earlier and that causes me a little bit of strife. Of course, when I came back for the weddings I could play so that we can let my character gracefully exit instead of saying "she disappeared one day" that doesn't really work for the pilot of the ship does it. I could be drunk in the wagon for the weeks that I was gone that don't overlap with Beth's honeymoon right? Are we planning on playing a little though the weddings will be going on? This is what I am trying to figure out because I really want to go a lot but I don't want to fuck anything over with other people. If I can, I would jet out of here on Wednesday and come back on the 28th.
So I'm trying to figure it out and I really really want it to work.
Just wanted to drop a line and say that I am leaving tomorrow to go to Japan for two weeks so I will be more out of touch than usual (not that I ever post here anyway, so no one will really notice right?).
I got some good stuff the big stuff: cash for Japan, an iPod (yes, I have fallen and I now own one. Sweet!) and a pair of garnet earrings.
Last night I fixed an scarf my aunt bought by completely unravelling it and then re-knitting it again. Everyone was very impressed, it was pretty awesome.
News about my car is that it was totalled, but we got some good money for it from insurance so I will be able to get something else that is good as well, and will hopefully eat less gas. And that's all.
My car just got whacked. As in, the lord of the drunk drivers called out a hit on it and the instrument of his hand of smackdowns took my Cadillac out of commission. A 1995 silver pickup driven by CARLOS who subsequently was hauled off in a cop car to spend time in the tank. I am now saddled with the responsibility of figuring out whether or not the insurance (in someone else's name) is correct and the owner was the driver or someone else (a third name) all together. I have to get up early and go get a different car to drive (which needs its tires filled) so that I can go to work.
Luckily for me the gods of the road had thier eyes out, and while they could not completely stop their brother of destruction, they put a hand in to make sure that CARLOS (I don't know why that is in all caps) hit me right in front of the driver's side door- litteraly, the door was making horrible noises of not wanting to open when I did open it- and not actually in the door, where I would have been hurt. I came out of it without any hurt, besides the loss of a favorite possesion and some sleep, since I am wide awake and have to wait for the towing company to figure out thier paperwork so I can call them for some info I need.
I just turned on the TV to some Saturday afternoon public channel science fiction and what should I see but our favorite inapropriately touching duo from Farscape on S-G1. Yes siree. Maybe one of the spins off thereof, god knows there are enough of them. I will now IMDB it and post the links.
excited
lonely
happy
annoyed