D'Izzy Words

Reached here safely.  Am using my parents' computer (with a non-genuine copy of Windows so I'm not willing to use GMail or other email services or bank stuff or Amazon or anything with sensitivity).  My mom doesn't know the passcode to the wireless router here so I can't use the Internet on my laptop!  Will try to rectify this in a few days.  (The next few days are busy.)

Will say, this feels unreal.  Much crying prior, at, and after the airport. 

flight tomorrow to Vegas. I'm in a neck brace. here's hoping 24 hours is enough. (pinched nerve, apparently)

Ticket, Please

What is your favorite vacation spot in the world and why do you love it so much -- is it the activities, the people, the sheer beauty, etc? Would you live there full time if you could, or do you prefer to keep it as a special treat?

~*~*~*~

 I wish I do have a favorite vacation spot in the world.  I've never visited any one place often enough (that wasn't my home country) to count as a 'vacation spot.' There have been vacations I've enjoyed but never that I felt like visiting again.  Well, I visited a friend once in Spokane and that was a delightful visit.  Horsies.  Kitties.  Doggie.  (Yes, I become infantile when horsies are around.)  I'd like to see her again, before I leave...  But I guess I wouldn't consider it a "vacation" spot but rather a place and person I loved visiting and would love to see again...  

I'm writing this Wednesday afternoon while at one of my volunteering positions so I can type it up later. Thus far the phones have not been ringing.

Tuesday night I saw Tamora Pierce at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, IL. I was lucky enough to get off at 4pm. Matt drove me to the Metra stop so I could go downtown and catch another Metra from Chicago Union. I got a little lost walking from LaSalle St. Metra to Union Station in the dark and the rain. (My phone does not have a real-time updating GPS app/program.) The ticket line was long but I managed to catch the very full express BNSF to Naperville at 5:45pm. Of course I got lost again trying to find downtown Naperville. I walked a few blocks in the opposite direction before I figured it out. I got at Anderson's Bookshop at 6:50pm, about 10 minutes before the event's scheduled start. It was rather crowded. I was by myself so I got a free seat in the middle of a row of 5. Oh, sometimes there are advantages to being alone!

Tamora Pierce is so funny! I read both her personal and author LiveJournals. I guess the humor never translated that fully. (Patrick Rothfuss is an author whose humor translated well into writing. I was at his signing earlier this year, too.) We had a Q&A before the signing. Some rather hilarious answers. Soemone asked who her characters were based off, if anybody. Both males and females. She said she based Roger, Duke of Conte, off a high school boyfriend.

Pause.

"I killed him twice."

:P

She also said two characters did not end up as how she original intended. One example is Alanna who was unhappy at how her (Alanna's) future was disposed. Tamora danced around names of Alanna's romantic interests because she wanted to be spoiler-free. After her dancing-around answer she got asked by another person in the audience who she met and another person in the audience hadn't read The Lionness Quartet so Tamora told her to cover her ears. Tamora had intended Alanna to be with King Jon but being queen was a job, a diplomatic job, and Alanna highly lacked diplomacy. Tamora also talked about future works, both in the Tortall and Circle universes.

Someone also asked what made Tamora decide to write about sexuality. She said at previous readings several people came up to her and said when Kel tells Neal that in the Yamini Islands nobody cares who you sleep with (from The Protector of the Small series), it meant a lot to them. They, apparently, were crying. They felt like she, Tamora Pierce, was saying that being LGBT was okay. Tamora herself felt that two lines wasn't okay and that she needed to "step up." She had always known that Daja was a lesbian (from the Circle universe) and that Lark and Rosethorn were a couple - that flew by me completely when I read the Circle books, though I only read The Circle Opens series once. But in the small manuscript sizes of the earlier books every word counted. In The Will of the Empress she wanted to be open about Daja's sexuality but she didn't make it a big deal in the world just as it shouldn't be a big deal in our world. That exact question was percolating in my mind! I asked about parents' response. If anybody was completely fine with her strong female characters but aghast at the emergence of a lesbian character or a cross-dresser in the Beka books. (I am biased in that I automatically think anybody who approves of "strong female characters" would not be against non-heterosexual sexuality.) She said she didn't get any negative responses about that. Just a few regarding sex appearing in the Alanna series, that it appeared at all, and the violence in the Kel series. Tamora also mentioned getting kicked out of the room where one of her girls (she was a house mother) was pregnant and counting her contractions because Tamora was making her laugh and it threw off the count.

( Rest of Q&A, hanging out with Kyle )
So a brief shower and hot soup, saline crackers and apple for lunch, then off to this volunteering position!

The last time I posted on LiveJournal/InsaneJournal was August 7th, Sunday. Later, at around midnight after I broke fast and continued snacking and drinking water - ever since I was little I've thought of water as the elixir of life and when you're fasting/dehydrated it absolutely is - Matt and I found a scale in their house and I weighed myself. I was a little less than the absolute limit we set up a few years ago when I tried fasting, so I went "Oh, well! I should stop fasting!" Looking back I think I was a little too cavalier, and gave up too easily. Especially after I found an article about a high school American football player in Florida who continues to go to practices in full gear while fasting. It's good for him his coaches watch him for symptoms of heat stroke/heat exhaustion and the practices were moved to 7am in hopes it'd help the player avoid the heat. Though their games are still in the afternoon, I believe. I was talking about it to Matt and mentioned the football player was 265lbs after losing 10lbs after 9 or so days of fasting and Matt said "He must be a linebacker!" I have no idea what a linebacker is or any football positions but I guess they're the ones who attack the opposing players. I know more about European football than American football. So I went back to the apartment and was happy to be able to eat food and drink water whenever I wanted. And eat my ice cream. I celebrated by buying ice cream, yeah. :P I don't remember what I did the days I was back in the apartment, though I think I started feeling like I wanted to be alone... I did visit Matt the following Friday - he picked me up - and we watched two movies that evening with his family/some of them.

( Source Code, Adjustment Bureau, relationships )

( Museum visit, migraine, Paprika movie )

Then the next Sunday we had a brief driving lesson in a smallish high school parking lot. :( We were out at noon or something so that was understandable we couldn't find a more deserted area. I still didn't get on the road, and acceleration was scary... I think I went up to 8mph...

The work week was a little WTF and multiple breakdowns.

Saturday - there was free medical check up, dental (extraction, cleaning, filling) and vision (prescription, pressure check, dilation check, glaucoma, free frames - you get free complete glasses with prescription lenses if you got there early enough) offered by Remote Area Medical. Matt and I got there around 5:45am after waking up at 4am for shower (him) and breakfast and to drive there. Doors open at 5:30am. My number was 503. Apparently they started handing out numbers at 3:30am! I got into the building at 10am. I got into vision at 10:30am and was done around 1:15pm. I waited for dental but within being 20 people of getting in they started turning people away who had already gotten something else done. :-( SO CLOSE! I left around 5pm and got back to Matt's at 6pm. More than 12 hours of waiting - Matt had to leave around 9am because he had to help his brother move furniture - with about 4 hours of sleep. I still haven't slept long and well since Friday night. A lot of the people there were also students. I had both an optometry student and an optometrist inspect my eyes. My vision sucks.

Today I primed for the first time! And swung on a rope. And played Mario Galaxy. We had a full day of eating, too. Sausages, eggs, watermelon, musk melon, chicken cajun-cheese-mayo sandwich, more watermelon, musk, mango, chicken enchilada, lettuce, salsa, watermelon, musk, mango. YUMMY. Oh and there's corn leftovers. ♥

Thanks, too, to people I talked to amidst crises moments, who put aside time to talk to me/call. ♥

I haven't touched a laptop since I packed up Friday afternoon to visit Matt and his family... The past few days have been eventful, to say the least. I got on the train a bit late on Friday (for safety's sake it's preferred that I'm on the train by 5pm). And then the bus was a little late... But I got there on time. We watched the final disc of True Blood Season 3.  What a mind-trip. And so dark, dark, dark. Then some serious discussion time with Matt and a phone call with a friend. Serious times. I think I finally crawled into bed around 4am.

Because of the late night, Matt and I didn't get up early to prepare for our trip to the beach, Ohio Street Beach which opens at 11am. We only got up around 11am, something like that, to his brother telling us breakfast was ready. Which it wasn't, completely, but we helped set the table and all that while waiting for the gravy to be done. Yummy biscuits...

Then, afterwards, we readied our stuff. Matt did most of the work, finding the beach blanket, the beach chairs, the umbrella, the Frisbee, preparing the food, etc...

The last time we took a trip to the beach, on July 4th, it went horribly. We were suppose to meet one of my former high school friends and some of her friends up in Evanston, where we didn't know where the beach was or parking situation. We got there, we walked a lot of blocks with our heavy cooler, and my phone didn't get reception. >_< I used Matt's phone but I kept getting my friend's voice mail after several rings. OH MY GOODNESS, I felt so worried and guilty and tense, because it was my friend we were going to meet and the meet-up didn't happen successfully. Turns out she had forgotten her phone back where she's staying and so she had to use one of her friend's smartphones to look up my number in a Facebook message to her. I had called Matt's brother to ask him to pick us up, then I had to call him back and cancel it after he was already a few blocks away (couldn't go further because of roadblocks). My former schoolmates and her friends were way late, too.... It was awkward, tense. The fireworks were a nice show, but it still left a bitter taste in our mouths... It was a very tense situation.

Yesterday's beach adventure was suppose to make for the crap-show the 4th of July was. It did not.

We got on the highway fine, but then the GPS started getting all weird. Ohio Street Beach is given the address of 400 N. Lake Shore Dr n the Chicago Park District official website - though it's not on Google Maps by itself - and then it directed us to the middle of the highway. We're not familiar with the area and how to get underneath or beside the highway. Parking was horrendous. We went around and around for more than an hour? We finally got a parking spot in a parking building near Navy Pier, got a taxi and asked him to take us to Oak Street Beach, but then we noticed Ohio Street Beach was on the map so he dropped us off nearby. We had to walk a bit to find it.

That was around 5:45pm. The beach closes at 7pm. We left the house around...3:30pm? And it takes about 45 minutes to get there, by GPS and traffic. The remaining time was just...going around and around. We were very frustrated and tense... But we found it, in the end.

Ohio Street Beach is much smaller than North Ave Beach. It's at the end of Pfc Milton Olive Park. It's not on Google Maps, even, Ohio Street Beach. Anyhoo, because it's smaller there are no changing facilities on the beach. I had to walk all the way to Navy Pier to change - long line for the bathroom, with only 3 stalls - and then I had to walk back to the beach wearing only my bikini with nothing to cover me... It was a little embarrassing. (The dress I wore beforehand was too tight for me to wear over my bikini.) Stupid me didn't bring my phone with me so I couldn't let Matt know I was okay since I was gone for a while...

But...yeah...we set up the blanket, the chairs, got out the food and water... I got back to the beach at 6:15pm and we spent about half an hour in the water. That was nice... The lake really accentuated the height difference between Matt and I. He walked so far away from me before only his head showed above the water. A few times he dropped me in my height water but I was so clumsy I fell over anyway. :P And inhaled water.

( Ill feeling, fridge broke down )

Hilarious!

It's on Hulu, so sorry it doesn't work overseas! :'(

Wow... This is quite a desperate musing - asking customers to pay to use the bathroom while they're onboard...

( Full text of article )

I would boycott any airline that tried to reinstate this!

1. Bowling. I bowled Saturday night with Nathaniel and four of his friends. I got 76 in the first game (second) and 124 in the second (first). Unfortunately that isn't a new high score - it's the same one as what I got a few years ago.


2. Pumpkin patch visiting. Did that Saturday, too, though in the afternoon with Nathaniel and two of his friends.


3. Getting a 104% on the philosophy midterm, and an A on the philosophy paper about whether or not zombies can exist!!!

I had fun Saturday in Madison, though I got sick and dizzy at the end of it. Met someone new, a very nice person who is the girlfriend of one of Nathaniel's friend. I took some pictures at the pumpkin patch, and so did Nathaniel, but it is on his camera, so I may have to steal that from him for a bit to upload the pictures onto my laptop. I/we also got a pumpkin that looks like an eggplant sitting on its end so it's more tall rectangular than short squat round. We forgot the knife in the parents' car on the drive back here (his dad drove us) so we may just have to borrow a knife from someone or somethin'. I want to help carve it - I've never carved a pumpkin before!

There was an affirmative action presentation I attended. It was comparative between the US, France, South Africa, India and Malaysia. I bet it's easy to guess what caught my attention! It was alright, and I suppose I shouldn't have expected a bit more analysis and personal judgement from the speaker about which system seems to work best, or why they do, or which one suits what kind of system, since it's comparative.

I miss the sun, and I wasn't ready for the rain. I was late for class so I rolled out of bed, changed clothes. I forgot to put on a bra, so this entire day I went around without one on. I hope under the shirt and hoodie it wasn't that obvious!