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Monday, 11-24-03. Nostalgically cool and gray.
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Though it was brief (like the previous trip in September), my trip to Oregon last weekend was very much a welcome and entertaining slice of vacation. Rice and donuts were consumed, and interesting conversation was discussed on all fronts. The only thing missing was a Cherz, but he was unable to come down. Thanks to Mike, Sandy, and Eherz for putting me up for the millionth time, to Halstead for buying the drinks, and to Lukcifer for being my unofficial chauffeur.
Help ban land mines.
German word of the day: Nahkampf (m) - Close combat
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Thursday, 11-20-03. Partly cloudy and cool.
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Following the drawn-out death of my previous illness by mere days, I now have some sort of second sickness. This one isn't even a tenth as bad as my last bug however, but it's enough to be annoying. I think I'm going to have to start making the kids I work with wash their hands and wear face masks before coming into the classroom now... if I get sick again this winter I'm going to kick my immune system's ass.
I was chatting with a friend through Yahoo IM the other day, and discovered that Yahoo IM has all kinds of odd multi-user features, like the ability to draw pictures with the person you're chatting with. I'm not sure how exactly it happened, but this is what we came up with.
German word of the day: Ziehen (n) - Drawing
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Tuesday, 11-18-03. Sunny and cool.
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For the second time now, my CD-ROM ist kaput. A few days ago I was suprised to find that it would not close any longer, so I shoved the drive back in by force. Now, it will not open. This happened once before a few years ago, and I ended up taking the drive out and tinkering with the gears inside the casing until I got it to work again. However, I should mention that there were... side effects. Some of these include my drive's odd habit of closing itself after being open for a few seconds, and its occasional emmitting of strange bone-scraping noises. I think I may unfortunately have to devote some of my extra funds this month toward getting a new drive...
In other news, my folks put forth the idea that I move back to Oregon the other evening, as I've been hard pressed to develop much of a dating or social life where I live here in Cali. I seriously considered the idea for the rest of the evening, but ended up leaning toward a conclusion in the negative. I have yet to make a final judgement, as the issue is extremely complicated, and heavily dependent on a great many tricky psychological issues.
Bizarre and comical photo, anyone?
German word of the day: Blase (f) - Bubble
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Monday, 11-10-03. Partly cloudy and cool.
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Ever since I moved into my new place almost 2 months ago, I've been renting at least one movie every weekend that I've never seen before. This week the movie of choice is Donnie Darko. It's a good movie, though a bit confusing. I think I'm going to have to watch it a few more times for it to completely make sense. Due to the high-school theme of the movie, I had a bizarre high-school-like dream this morning involving an old crush of mine and some strange social scenarios. I really could've done without it...
This evening, as I was filling up on gas at the pump, I noticed a lady on the opposite pump from myself having some sort of an incident. I should mention that this station is on a very small wedge-shaped piece of property that is crammed between two major boulevards, and there is little room to turn around or wait for a pump, so confusion and traffic jams run rampant. The aforementioned woman pulled into a space without facing the correct side of her car to the pump, and then when she pulled out to turn around, someone nabbed her space. She then became extremely irritable (as irritable as older ladies can get, mind you) and attempted to "shoo" the other car away. As I was paying for my pump in the station, she came in exclaiming how she had apparently pre-paid her pump, and another driver had since stolen it. It was all very entertaining and disconcerting at the same time.
I made burritos for lunch again. Unfortunately, I forgot to put away the fixings before I went to work. What a great waste of food...
German word of the day: Nixe (f) - Mermaid
Creatures relocated from my apartment today: 2, both spiders
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Friday, 11-07-03. Overcast and cool.
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I've started hitting the Dayquil/Nyquil, and have been feeling considerably better. Today, for a brief time, I could actually taste some foods. I've discovered (most likely re-discovered) that one's sense of taste is determined mostly by the availability of one's sense of smell. I've found that, with my nose congested, I can taste whether something is salty, sweet, etc, but I can't taste any of the flavor. For instance, I was eating Starbursts left over from Halloween earlier, and I could tell that they were sweet, but I couldn't tell that it was cherry or passion fruit. I guess I never really noticed that firsthand before... odd.
I mustered up some energy earlier and went to go feed my ancient wheat bread to the ducks and geese up at Howarth Park. They were their usual semi-domesticated selves. I took photos.
German word of the day: Säure (f) - Acid
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Tuesday, 11-04-03. Rainy and cool.
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Somehow I managed to pick up a rather virulent strain of the common cold last Thursday/Friday. I'm not sure who or what the source was, but I might lean toward it being one of the students at work. I took some generic 12-hour decongestant I bought over the weekend to try and alleviate my symptoms. I am inclined to believe, however, that the medication actually made me feel worse, as my cold symptoms went from bad to excessively bad precisely when I started taking it, and then toned way down once I stopped. I was feeling really dizzy, spaced-out, achey, and nauseous... all symptoms described in the "Cease dosage if you feel this way" warning label on the back of the carton. In other news... it's been raining lately, and that's pretty cool.
German word of the day: Lametta (n) - Tinsel
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