Today was pretty good :) I only got a couple hours of sleep during the night though because I just couldn't stay asleep, though that's pretty much typical for the night before Christmas. It was fun to watch Kenny open his presents because he's been nagging us a lot for presents for the past week. Every Christmas he makes a pile of all of his favorite things and hovers over them as if he's afraid someone is going to take his presents, haha.

I got some cool things too :D

( Pic under the cut )

After we opened presents here, we went to my grandma's house as usual. We got there pretty early, and after a while, Kenny started getting impatient. He really wanted to open presents there, but not everyone had arrived yet and people didn't want to start opening until everyone was present. Kenny doesn't really do well with having to wait for something he wants :\ And once he did get presents, he wanted to leave, haha. I ended up leaving shortly after because I didn't feel really good x_x So I went home too. But after taking medicine and sleeping for like... seven hours, I felt much better.

Dad and I watched Hard Candy on Fearnet tonight, and that was very... wtf, haha.

Dad colored my hair a couple days ago, too. Red again. I like it.

( Unrelated emo )

Wow, I haven't updated in a while, haha. Been busy with school, but thankfully the semester's over now. Next semester as one of my courses, I'll be doing an applied study project in the form of a website. I've already registered the domain - illinoiscryptozoology.org - and as you can probably tell from the title, the website will feature everything to do with cryptozoology in Illinois. More info on that in a future post. One of my other classes is on the biological and cultural evolution of humans, and the third class takes place at the Illinois State Museum research and collections building and involves studying the artifacts there.

I've also been busy making Christmas gifts for relatives with my mom. She made something for every single one of my extended family, whereas I made two gifts each just for the women of my extended family (I don't want to say just what they are in case any of my extended family wanders over to my journal to be nosy). It's been really fun, and I'm so happy to say that my mom is feeling very confident about her creativity now. She and I are going to be selling these types of crafts at the SHG Mostaccioli Dinner in March, which is (I think) the biggest school dinner in town every year - and while it's called 'Dinner,' it actually lasts all day. I'm excited about that.

Oh - my dad finally got a job! After months! We're very excited. He'll be working for a nonprofit company called CQuest (*snicker*SeaQuest*snicker*) as the Manager of System Integration and Project Management... whatever that is.

Dad also chopped off a ton of my hair, haha. It's much shorter now. To my mid shoulder blades, I guess. Gonna see if I can get him to help me dye it soon. Also, my hair's full of static electricity pretty much constantly now that the heat's on. We have some anti-static stuff that we can spray on hairbrushes, but I have to resist the urge to just spray down my head with it. When my hair gets near fleece, it's like I'm touching a van de graaf machine. Fun times. Only not.

For my own reference:
( To-Do List )

Updated:
Vince - Busy (September 25)
Vince - Dance (September 29)
Vince - Dinos (October 8)

He's new.

I'm itching to leave. Not because it's bad here; I just really want to go to Chicago again, haha.

I've started playing the Sims lately. I bought Sims 3 for the PC, and am using Desmond and Luca as my sim characters. Luca!sim cracks me up because he's accurate; he gets excited about things, and he's a thief, and he... talks to their pet fish? IDK but that seems Luca-ish, hah. Desmond's pretty accurate, too. His traits are 'snob,' 'dislikes children,' 'hot-headed,' 'brave,' etc. Haha.

Also playing Diablo II again with dad, which is fun.

School's okay, though I'm not doing as well as I would like. So I'm going to try to step it up.

Work's fine, just kind of boring. They pretty much just have me at the register and straightening up things in the near vicinity of the register. I'm also getting very few hours this week, but eh, don't care. Hopefully less hours will inspire me to work more hours on school stuff.

I have acquired a jar of real sheep eyeballs pickled in alcohol (really).

Poll #1461381 :D
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

Are sheep eyeballs a good idea for a Halloween present for someone?

Real update coming later, I promise XD

The Rated-R Character Meme (stolen from debrising):

* comment with a character of mine.
* receive three bits of trivia about their sexuality: practices, preferences, experiences, fantasies, kinks, etc.

I only have a certain number of characters so I figured I'd just write about them all and save people from asking for specific ones. And I didn't bother with three things, I just rambled. Also, none of my characters have ever been in any sexual relationships with anyone in RP so far, so I guess this is subject to change depending on who they eventually hook up with? XD Or something. Yes.

( Under here! )

I should be doing something productive - but instead, character meme time! Jessi helped me with this; I asked him who I should write, and he gave me the names of five of my characters. I got it from a random person on LJ whom I don't know, and have since lost the username, so... can't credit, erk :\


1. Choose a few of your own characters. Five at the most.
2. Make them answer the following questions.
3. Then tag three people.
4. Feel free to go ahead and add some questions yourself!!

So. . . who's doing the quiz?
As requested by Jessi...
Bailey
Bastien
Desmond
Greg
Laurent


( Under here! )

Updated:
Laurent - Houston Game (August 27)
Bailey - Cupcakes (August 28)

Bailey needs help with that, yes. And that Houston game last night was LOL-worthy.

Anywho. In retrospect, being apprehensive because of school was silly. Have you ever had the feeling where you know what you're doing is the absolute right thing to do, something you were meant to be doing? That's exactly what I'm feeling. I've really clicked well with my professors, I'm enjoying my classes, and the school itself has a very comfortable atmosphere (hell, even the chairs much more comfy than any other college I've been to). So yeah... I'm really, really happy.

Dad had an interview today for a job in town and he thinks it went really well. He also has a phone interview tomorrow for a job in Champaign. Hopefully one of the two will work out! Once dad does get a job, mom and dad plan on using dad's prior 401k to pay off about half of all of the bill we have. So even if dad does have to take a bit of a lower paying job, it won't matter as much because there won't be half of the bills to pay that we usually do.

I had a job interview on Tuesday for a position at the Halloween store here in town, and I'm pretty sure it went well - but who knows! It sucks that seasonal stores aren't obligated to pay minimum wage. Though if they only pay like... $5/hr or something, dad said just I should just tell them that I won't work for that.

Anyway, I would write more but I'm really tired z_z Need sleep. Will write more about school in my next entry.

School starts today, and I don't think I'm totally mentally prepared for it. I kind of wish I'd been able to take summer classes now because then I wouldn't be feeling out of the habit of going to school. I only have one class on campus this semester, while the others are online. My class on campus is Understanding Other Cultures, and it's M/W from noon to 1:40. I've never gone to a college this big before. I mean, my classes don't have a particularly big size, but the campus itself is really big :p It's intimidating, haha.

And I have to pay for parking... I'm so not used to that. I haven't had to do that at any of my prior colleges. I only paid for parking in the fall because I'm still not sure if we'll have to move or not. My dad still doesn't have a job though he's applied to like... everything possible in the area. :( I've still been looking for a job too. I do have an interview tomorrow for one position, so we'll see how that goes.

Kenny starts high school today e_e So weird.

I finally made a layout for Laurent's profile though it's ridiculously simple, heh. Oh well. I have to make a layout for Paige at some point, too.

Here's my Netflix queue which is getting progressively smaller. Any recommendations? ...the vast majority of what's on there now is for Hector's amusement, haha.

Updated:
Bailey - Wildlife (July 28)

That Gold Cup final was paaaainful to watch. USA won every single one of their games until the final, where they lost 5-0. LOL. Laurent was criiiinging.

I'm not very confident about my job interview yesterday, just because I don't think my knowledge base is quite large enough. Besides, I don't really like the idea of never being able to talk about my job to anyone. The no-talk-ever policy - while understandable - is freaking stifling in my opinion. Can't do it. Besides, the ad for the job was seriously false advertising. 1/4 to 1/2 of the job hours, depending on the day, aren't spent as photographer at all - they're spent in the mailroom weighing packages and selling stamps and stuff. Might have been a good idea to mention that in the ad instead of springing it on applicants during the interview x_x Just a thought.

Anyway, I sent my application in at a different place for another job, so hopefully that one will lead to something.

I have two new WoD books I have to read at some point. I have Rites of the Dragon for Laurent, and The Book of Spirits for Hector. I also have the materials for a couple rosaries I need to make, along with some pendants. And I have to put some of my parents' records on Ebay for them (they had a sealed copy of Thriller lying around, hah). Have to write for Bastien, Hector, Laurent and Desmond since all of them have something to say at the moment x__x I let Bailey and then got tired, haha. Gonna sleep then get up and try to be productive again.

Updated:
Hector - Illusion Art (July 22)

For whatever reason, all of my character userinfo page layouts suddenly broke. I haven't changed my browser at all, so I assume LJ must have made some change which broke whatever html I was using. It bothered me so I promptly made new userinfo pages for everyone, haha. I wanted them to all be the same layout so they'd be recognizable as my characters. Here they are: Bailey, Bastien, Desmond, Greg, Hector, Laurent, and Paige.

Greg's very stressed lately about Angelo - well, not just stressed; but constantly plagued (har har) with guilt and worry because he feels like Angelo is his responsibility. And he's also upset because he isn't being allowed to see his niece and nephew anymore because they're starting to get to the age where they'll realize that Greg isn't aging. So his sister and their parents think that explaining that uncle Greg has moved overseas or something is easier to explain than saying that uncle Greg is a vampire. He's pretty depressed about that. Those are the two main things, but there are other things that just compound the issue (i.e., he usually spends a lot of time with Desmond, and Desmond being gone for weeks makes him consider the idea that Desmond might leave altogether too - just like Angelo did.) Part of me wants to be mean and make him develop a high stress-induced malkavia >_> Wut, he has practically every other disease in existence, why not that one too? Hah.

Dad seems to want to only pursue jobs in town now, or at least that's what it sounds like to me, so for that reason I've started applying for jobs again. I saw an advertised job online (not on the newspaper's website or other classifieds-type site, just on the site of the business), so I applied for it. They asked me to call them back tomorrow morning and have since removed the job listing from the website. Is this because they think I'm the person for the job? Or is it because it's already been filled and they want to tell me this directly instead of sending me a message? Oh, the suspense~

I don't want to talk about it too much in case it's already been filled, buuuut... if I do get it, Hector is going to LOVE it. Haha. Anyway, cross your fingers for me :)

We're having a garage sale on Saturday, so today I've been verrrry busy marking things. I want to get as much together as possible because I'm saving to pay for my textbooks/parking pass/etc. for school at the end of August.

Updated:
Laurent - Bookbinding (July 10)
Desmond - Luca!praise (July 11)
Paige - 'Pond Creature' Sighting (July 12)
Hector - Crime Scene Cemetery (July 12)
Laurent - Fruity Smells (July 13)

Nothing bad happened today, I'm just hormonal and moody. I've been going back and reading old journal entries from high school, which is definitely masochistic.

Eh. Anyway, I've been watching the Gold Cup with dad lately. Originally it was just for Laurent's benefit, but now I actually don't mind watching the USA games. I doubt I'll branch out and watch other countries, though.

I bought dad and I each a shirt from here, dad the cryptid one and the alchemy one for me. Hector approves of the latter, of course.

Today I went with dad to get him a new cell phone, because he's had the same one for about ten years (the salespeople at Sprint were very amused when they saw dad's old phone, haha). He wanted a phone for business in case he'd have to travel, so he got a really neat Palm Treo Pro. As a sort of impulse buy, I got a new phone too, just because it was fairly cheap ($49). I got the purple Lotus which is super-pretty, and it has picture messaging which my old phone didn't have (or at least I couldn't send pictures; I could only receive them before). It has a GPS too and all sorts of other neat things, including a really nice camcorder. So I'm excited :D I've been playing with it lots today.

One unfortunate thing is the 'send' button on my new phone is exactly where the 'backspace' button was on my old phone, so a couple times already I've hit that on accident and sent people typo'd, half-written messages, haha. Oops. I'm sure I'll get used to it soon though.

I'm okay now, but things were pretty tense earlier in the day. Mom was very stressed out to the point that it was turning into anger, and she was just lashing out at people. Things calmed down later in the day, though, thankfully. Meh, I'll just be happy when everything is settled.

I have to remember that the Gold Cup starts tomorrow night. Laurent will want to watch it. I have to journal post for a few of my characters tomorrow too, but I think I'm too tired for it tonight. Today's been busy.

Oh, I forgot. Dad, mom, Kenny and I all went to the St. Louis Zoo on Wednesday. That was fun though we didn't stay too long because Kenny wanted to leave. While there though, my digital camera broke - something's wrong with it display that causes all pictures to be almost completely black save for some purple-ish streaks through it. I've had that camera since 2004! I guess it lasted pretty long considering. Canon said they could fix it for $89, but I figure I may as well buy a new one if it's going to cost that much.

Updated:
Laurent - Soccer (again) (June 19)
Laurent - Confed Semifinal (June 27)
Laurent - Confed Final + Perfumery (June 30)

He's evidently really talkative lately. But he's amusing so it's fine.

( Family woes )

I have been drowning myself in video games primarily to escape the stress. I bought Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for my DS and the car chases are proving unfortunately difficult. Also, chat RP is good. I've also purchased a bunch of beads so I'll focus on jewelry-making once they arrive in the mail. I really miss school. I need to keep busy.

Yay, dad's getting me a horseshoe today. Sooo looking forward to that. I'll take pictures because Jessi is grossed out by them, haha :)

Updated:
Paige - Lake Champlain Sighting (June 15)
Laurent - Soccer (June 16)
Desmond - Observatory (June 16)

My sinuses are acting up again, gah. It's not so much the sinus pain that's bothering me as much as the fatigue. Whenever I have sinus pain, it's always accompanied by this insane urge to just sleep all day. I hate it because I have no energy to do anything but just... sit. And sleep. I am taking the non-drowsy medicine but it's not really helping.

Gotta remember to list a couple more things on Ebay today.

Mom and dad have tickets to go see John Edward next week, haha. So they're going to St. Louis for the day and I'm staying home to watch Ian and Kenny. Mom's pretty excited about it.

Updated:
Desmond - Sire Snark (June 10)
Laurent - Chinatown (June 13)

Mom wanted me to make a rosary as a gift for Springfield's current bishop, because he's moving in a couple weeks to become the archbishop of Omaha. She bought these high-quality malachite beads for me to use, and they were really awesome. I was stupid and forgot to take a picture before she dropped it off to him. Oh well.

Another of my rosaries sold on Etsy tonight too so that made me happy :) I don't even use rosaries myself, but for whatever reason they're just really relaxing to make, heh.

Last night kind of sucked. At about 2:30AM I opened the first floor bathroom door and noticed it was completely flooded. Ooookay, I thought, and went right up to wake up mom and dad cuz I didn't know what to do. We found out that water had also begun seeping down into my dad's office/computer room which is in the basement, right below the bathroom. Thankfully no electronics were damaged, but lots of papers and books were really water-damaged. And it was really good that this was clean water and not sewage-y water so the only smell down there is the sort of musty smell from the water mixing with all of dad's old books that had been stacked in piles on the floor. We have one of those deep-cleaning carpet vacuums that suck up water, so dad used that on the carpet in there and filled the thing four or five times I think :\ Dad, mom and Ian all worked to move everything out of the computer room while I watched Kenny upstairs. Dad thinks he knows what the problem is now and that he can fix it. Hope so!

Tomorrow would have been my grandpa's birthday, so mom wants me to go on a few errands to pick up some things for my grandma. Mom wants to make grandma a cake, so I have to get ingredients for that, then mom wants me to pick up a couple CDs to give grandma too.

I think I'm going to get my cousin Becky to get me a job at Goodwill where she works, haha. I'm to the point where I am beginning not to care where so long as I have a little money coming in (though I still refuse to work in food. I just have a paranoia about it x_x).

Dad and I finished watching season 2 of Carnivale tonight, and I was very disappointed to have it end. It really did end too soon, lots of things left open, but it was an awesome series regardless and I'll definitely be buying it in the future. I found it originally by randomly browsing for things to watch on Netflix, and opted to add it to my queue. I'm glad I did!

I highly rec for those who like their TV shows to have a rich mythology, an intricate storyline, and a wealth of fascinating characters.

For those who haven't seen it, here's a trailer for season 1. Season 2's even better, though!

Full Name: Laurent Hall
Birth date: December 2, 1966
Death date: December 29, 1992
Race: Vampire
Clan: Daeva
Bloodline: Gulikan
Covenant: Ordo Dracul
Rank: Dedicated Scholar of Pain
Real Age: 42
Age Appears: 26

( Full Profile )

(Tell me if there's anything that needs changing, Jessi~ It's open for editing. Maybe we can work some already-existing relationship out or something. Lemme know :3)

'Believe' is such a weird word choice to use; I'm sure everyone believes it's possible. As for whether or not everyone personally strives for it, I'm sure the question was meant to address that. Or at least that's how most people seem to be answering it. I don't really talk about this much in my circle of friends because I feel like the minority and don't want to offend anyone. Not that I would try to offend anyone, but I might say something and someone would interpret it wrong. So in preface, I'll emphasize that I'm really, really not trying to do that. No matter what I hold as an ideal, if you hold true to something different, then I respect you for that.

I had never even been exposed to the idea of polygamy until I became an avid internet user. No one I had ever known was in anything but a monogamous relationship. My parents are still happily married after twenty-two years and I see that interaction every day. Of course they miff each other off on occasion - I think it'd be impossible for anyone not to get in an argument now and then - but they always work through it because they care about each other. Both sets of my grandparents were together until one of the pair passed away, and after that, neither of them remarried because their partner was it for them. My grandma still gets weepy all the time because she misses my grandpa, and after having him there for fifty-four years, I really can't blame her in the slightest. The only one of my aunts and uncles that have ever had a divorce was an uncle who divorced his wife because she was always constantly drunk, so much so that she was unable to take care of their kids. He remarried and has been married ever since, and all of my other aunts and uncles who have been married are still together.

( This is sort of long. )

( And now for something completely different. )