Maybe it's a joke that they're not letting me in on.

I was standing in line at the bank yesterday and i was watching the "Fun Fact & News" TVs that they set up so that surly account holders have something to keep them occupied while they stand in line. You know the ones.

One of the Fun Facts / News items was telling us that according to Billboard, the Jonas Brothers album is at Number 1 for the second week in a row.

Now. I need someone to please explain the Jonas Brothers to me. Please. I really don't get it. It's not even like they're all that cute for the little girls or whatever. The cutest one has too much in the way of eyebrow to be taken seriously. The song. It is awful. AWFUL.

I thought, maybe it's like the New Kids on the Block were to my generation of 11 year old girls. Maybe. I mean, I never liked them, but all my 11 year old friends did. And i distinctly remember NKOTB not being nearly as voice-crackingly pre-pubescent as these boys.

Here, why don't you watch the video:



DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID? I EMBEDDED A JONAS BROTHERS VIDEO ON MY BLOG.

I can't imagine the hits i'm going to get after that.

I'm gonna be so smart, you won't even know who i am.

I took off Monday and Tuesday so that i could try to enjoy the last fleeting days of summer. Maybe go to the beach, take a long drive out east, shop at a farm stand, eat an ice cream cone from the wrong end, whatever. Summer. It's almost over - especially now that i'm starting school up again next Tuesday which i'm really not happy about.

Needless to say, i did none of those things and wound up laying around all day Monday until yoga class in the evening where i felt like my arms were just going to fall off from the freaking strain of holding them up. (Do you know how hard it is to just hold your arms up for 5 minutes? It's freaking hard. Try it now - just hold your arms out to the side like you're an airplane. Well, actually wait until you finish scrolling to the end of my post. You'll get distracted and not want to finish.)

Tuesday i decided i needed to go up to school and check on my textbooks at the famous college bookstore. You know, to see how much it's going to cost me for learnin' this fall.

Ah, college.

On my first attempt at college life right after high school, i went to a major State University of New York school. A great, big, giant university that chews up fresh-faced freshman biology majors and spits them out at a pretty fast clip. You can almost watch the self-esteem fade from people's faces - kids who thought they were so damn smart, aced AP Bio in high school and thought they'd become a doctor or some such nonsense, only to be washed away in the tidal wave of pain and suffering that is the bio department. Mmmm... memories.

My first semester at this large, stony university (ahem) was definitely a trial for me. It was awful. In fact, it's not even worth talking about. But i was so excited that first week of school and i remember going to the campus bookstore to go get my books. I didn't have a credit card then, at 17 years old (and I rightly shouldn't have - i mean come on. I remember getting phone calls at home from credit card companies telling me that they have these "great new cards just for college students!" and i actually sputtered out "are you kidding me??? I work PART TIME. I'm IN COLLEGE. How the hell could i possibly pay for a CREDIT CARD?? With 22%APR?? DON'T EVER CALL ME AGAIN." I was a fiscally responsible teenager) and was going to be paying for my books by check. As in.. Real Money, like straight from my 17 year old self's bank account.

I collected my 3 biology books (text, work book AND study guide), math book, English book and whatever the hell else i had to grab and went to the check out.

I wish i could remember what the number was, but then you would all probably tell me that it was nothing compared to what you paid for textbooks, so maybe i'm better off not remembering. But it went something like this:

Cashier: That'll be $25,000.
Me: I'm sorry?
Cashier: $25,000, please. Cash or credit?
Me:.....
Cashier: Credit? Cash? Hello?
Me: RAPE!! RAAAAAAAPPPE!!!! HOLY OH MY HELL, RAPE!
Cashier: Security?

End scene.


Yesterday i was collecting textbook information on the 2 (TWOOO) classes i'm taking this semester. I walked proudly into the campus bookstore (obviously not a comfortable place for me to be in anymore), found my books and sat on the floor with them. I promptly wrote down all of my ISBNs, prices, editions (just in case) and took a mental picture of what the covers are supposed to look like. I got harrassed by the pimply campus bookstore clerk for writing down the numbers, but I barked back at him for even considering chiding me for purchasing my books elsewhere. And do you want to know why?

My two, three-credit classes require a melange (that's 5) of textbooks that would cost me $497 if i bought them new in the bookstore. That's three dollars shy of FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. For TWOOOO 100-level classes.

I bought them all online this morning and paid $194.16.

YOUUU can go fuck yourself, pimply campus bookstore clerk. Holy Chist on a cracker.

Inevitably, someone always transfers me to outer space.

Something is going on at the ol' Blogger Dashboard and won't let me post anything without giving me an error first.  So i apologize for all the weird spacing on the last post.  It makes it hard to read and even harder for you to care about all the hopes and dreams i'm pouring out to you.  So we'll try to work around that from now on. 

I have finally registered myself to go back to school this semester on the long road towards finish up my bachelors.  I had started at a new school last fall after getting my associates degree, but i sort of did it in a rather half-assed manner which led to me not getting the classes that i actually wanted and me hating my life for 4 straight months. 

See, i never sat down with one of those fancy "Transfer Advisers" or "Department Advisers" when i started, and was hoping i could just coast on through and register for the classes on the list in the College Catalog and do it all MY WAY and not have to talk to any of the assholes in the State University of New York (SUNY) system.

(Maybe i shouldn't say that right here on the interwebs.  Spies and all...)

I've had some bad experiences with the SUNY system and i'm not ashamed to say that i have some voodoo dolls of certain administrators sitting at the bottom of a drawer from the first SUNY school i attended.  I'm not above using them again, is what i'm saying.  Don't tempt me.

I made the call to the school on Monday (first day of class is only 2 weeks away.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute, i say.) to try to make an appointment with a Transfer Councilor so that i could get all of my associates credits transferred to my next degree plan.  This is something i should have thought about BEFORE even applying there.  This was Stupid.

Since i couldn't actually find out anything about the Transfer Whatever Department on the website, i called the main number. The operator transferred me to Admissions who transferred me to the Transfer lady who told me she couldn't help me and then transferred me to My Department who told me that i need to talk to a Transfer Councilor and i just stopped them right there. 

Then I argued with the secretary from My Department for a little while over whether or not i actually HAD my associates - she didn't think so from looking at my transcripts. I said i had a goddamn piece of parchment SAYING SO - and then she put me on hold.

I waited on hold while she talked to the Transfer Councilor lady and then she came back sounding a lot happier.  Maybe they made plans to go out to lunch; it was never mentioned.  But i wound up getting some answers, the promise of having my "Plan" faxed to me and instructions on how to get my online password reset so that i could register.  Department lady transferred me to Registration for my password and then Registration put me on hold for 7 minutes until they just flat-out disconnected me.

In the end, it took 4 hours to register for 2 classes.

I got the faxed copy of my Plan yesterday from My Department, illustrating what credits i have fulfilled and what i still need to take.  They decided that i have 7 whole classes (that's 21 credits) that cannot be applied to my degree. 

I would like you to know that it took me 3 1/2 semesters to accrue those credits on my part time schedule.  THAT'S 2 YEARS OF MY LIFE AND A COUPLE THOUSAND DOLLARS THAT THEY DECIDED ARE NOT WORTHY OF THEIR STUPID DEGREE PROGRAM. 

I am a little on-edge about this right now as you can imagine and i've already called to bitch someone out about it, but My Department called me back to let me know that they're not seeing anyone until the 3rd week of classes by which time i will probably totally lose all this steam that i've built up over the past couple of days and will do whatever the School Overlords tell me to do.

I hate SUNY.  I HAAAAAATE them.  HAAAAAAAAAATE.

Namasté and Junk

I'm not sure why i'm avoiding my own blog. But i am. And there it is.

 

I haven't even wanted to sign onto the page.

 

I am literally avoiding my blog. It's very strange.

 

Maybe i just don't know how to post an update after 3 months of nothing. There's been a lot going on; not all of it bad. But not all of it great, either. Maybe that's why i haven't wanted to post anything - nothing has really changed, per se, even though i was preparing myself for making a BIG change in my life. I really sort of chickened out and let it smooth itself over. Everything is pretty much back to status quo and i'm not interested in shaking it up again. Which is good. I think. Not bad. Like it was.

 

For those of you who don't remember my last couple of (deleted) posts, this means nothing to you, so here is some stuff that has been sitting in draft since June:

 

 

There are people in my company that don't leave detailed voicemails because they think that someone in the IT department is sitting around listening to them. There is one person in particular that has left me 3 vague vmails the past couple of days that is making me unconsciously grind my teeth. She really believes that people are listening to her voicemails - also her phone calls, btw. As if anyone in any other department could really give a shit about what she's working on. This isn't NASA. Nothing is that interesting. Let's get over ourselves, eh?

 

Aside from working side by side with the paranoid, i've been working on other ways to try to fix myself a little. I joined a gym - and am hoping that i'll still be going at this time next month - and started taking a yoga class on monday nights that is seriously. Kicking. My. Ass.

 

I've taken yoga in the past, either as a gym credit in college or at the last gym i belonged to because

 

 

 

And that's where it ends. I must have gotten distracted somehow, as i'm wont to do, and never finished the thought. But lets update that a little:

 

"Aside from working side by side with the paranoid, i've been working in other ways to try to fix myself a little. I joined a gym and totally stopped going about a month after joining and am hoping that i'll still be going at this time next month which we all knew was going to happen and really was just a pipe dream that i totally predicted - and started taking a yoga class on monday nights that is seriously. Kicking. My. Ass. "

 

I'm still paying for a wasted gym membership, but yoga is still kicking my ass. Which is great, because we know that nothing else is kicking my ass, like that damn treadmill that i haven't seen since June.

 

But with the yoga, i actually feel like i'm getting better at it which i never anticipated happening when i was pulling out my shoulders every week when we were told to "reach around your knee and clasp your hands behind your back". This one is still not happening, by the way, but can you really blame me.

 

Oh, and this one. We don't use the wussy blankets or anything for support like they show in the picture, so when i kick my legs over my head, i get my chin mashed into my chest and then find myself getting suffocated by my own boobs. Yoga is so relaxing, you know?

 

I'm getting real fucking good at this pose, though. So, you know. Result.

 

The real test, that i've discovered, that has me believing that yoga is doing something is the fact that I, Claire, can actually do a push-up. Like a real live big-boy push up. Not on my knees like a girl, but a real, honest to goodness push-up. Two of them, even! Like back-to-back! It's crazy. I don't think i've been able to do a real push-up since the 6th grade. I am a rock star. Behold my awesomeness.

 

 

Well, whatever, that's just a snippet of what's going on. I'm going to try to ease back into this writing thing since, you know, i actually kind of like it.

 

For all of you who emailed my or commented and i didn't respond? I'm sorry, i've been living in my own world for a little while. But i'm back now. Thanks for your kind words.