gloomy sunday

well, i still think the "music therapy" proponent people are quacks, but more and more, recently, i'm noticing how much what i listen to can seriously influence my mood swings. for instance, sarah mclachlan's "gloomy sunday."

actually, though, today was anything *but* gloomy, outside. yesterday was another story (it actually snowed again, which was incredibly bizarre, but it didn't stick). today, though, the sun came out, and i had the windows open for most of the day, drawing a nice breeze through the appartment. a little chilly, perhaps, but very nice nonetheless.

i went jogging again this afternoon. these last couple of attempts have been rather disheartening. clearly there is something wrong; i just wish someone could tell me how to fix it, or even what it is. last time i got horrible cramps in my calves (which has never happened to me before), and it eventually got so bad that i had to stop less than halfway through my planned route. today, my arches were killing me. even after i gave up and stopped running, it still hurt like hell to even just walk home. it's almost like the harder i try, the harder the higher powers get to laugh at me. not surprisingly, though, i don't find it particularly funny.

once, i heard about a doctor whose secret to weight loss was to make his patients look at themselves naked in the mirror regularly for a certain amount of time; like 15min twice a day, or something. supposedly, it worked rather well. maybe i'll have to try that.

oh, and since i was talking about music, a couple days ago i made a new discovery (in keeping with my customary ineptitude regarding such matters, i'm probably about 5 years late on this, and you all have already moved through this phase, but anyway), the band is call "the kings of convenience," and i borrowed a couple albums from a friend. it's truely amazing stuff. reminds me a bit of an odd sort of cross between simon&garfunkel and bell&sebastian. on the off chance that any of you haven't heard it yet, let me know, and i'll hook you up.

well, i guess i've neglected my journal here for a little while, as it seems that we've had two more twin peaks nights since my last entry. still going strong, though there are usually a couple absences and a new face or two. psychobitch from upstairs came and rang the bell two weeks ago. i kept the door locked and didn't answer it, but i did try to quiet things down a bit (even though we weren't really being loud to begin with, just ordinary television watching volume, with an occasional laugh or two when something happened). she still scares the shit out of me, and she also makes a hell of a lot more noise then i do (she's the one that likes to get drunk and throw plates or other shattering things against the wall at 2 or 3 in the morning while screaming at the man she lives with), so i don't really feel any guilt for ignoring her. besides, even if she were to have called the police: 1. the police would have stood an infinitely higher chance of being reasonable people that i could talk to without having my life threatened, and 2. by the time they arrived, everyone would have been gone anyway (this was at like 11:00, and everyone was planning on taking the last bus back to the center around 11:30). this week, she didn't come back, so i was happy about that. enno helped me make what he calls a "rice table" for one of the nights, which was really good, but somehow we grossly overestimated and i was eating the leftovers for about the next 8 days. :) this week, i tried my hand at making a vegetable lasagna, which came out really well (if i do say so myself), but it turned out that there wasn't quite as much of it as it had hoped, so the servings were a bit small. but everyone seemed to like it.

for the first time since something like november, we actually saw a movie at markus's movie night. "the butterfly effect." it was interesting. clearly not the greatest film ever, but did a decent job of getting me emotionally involved with the characters to the point of being kinda shaken up about the things that happen to them. my final analysis is that it's basically just a remake of "it's a wonderful life" except where everything goes to hell. in case you haven't noticed, i'm not exactly comfortable with films that push buttons a little too close to home. anyway, while i wasn't nearly the nervous wreck that i was after seeing "requiem for a dream," this film's ending was complimentary enough to my own rampant insecurities that i was not a particularly happy camper after seeing it. irrational, i know, but who ever said life was rational? oh, wait, that was supposed to be "fair" in that quote, wasn't it? hrm, well, i don't care. i'm telling you now: life isn't rational. deal.

amazingly enough, i seem to have somehow grown a social life. there's like a planned recurring event that i take part in nearly every night of the week now... strange.

fridays, jim has started a board game get-together. we've been learning "the settlers of nuremburg," which i guess is similar to, but more complicated than "the settlers of catan." it's a pretty cool game, and decently fun, even though i'm terrible at it. :)

work is going alright, i guess. i still have to pull these papers out of my ass, and i'm beginning to doubt that we will be able to make the deadline for the IJDSN conference on the 15th. come hell or high water, though, i _have_ to have a camera ready paper for SIS by the 22nd, which scares me, but probably not as much as it should, seeing as we have a long-ass way to go in the next two weeks. ugh. it's sunday; i'm not supposed to be thinking about work. new subject.

last weekend, jon and i finally got the video conferencing thing to work, which was fucking incredible. god, i miss all you guys so much. you should all get cameras, so that i can at least see you once in a while, even if i can't physically be around. it was awesome to talk with him, and be able to see his face.

yesterday, while waiting until cathrine had an opening to cut my hair, i wandered around the shops in the centre, and happened into a little pawn shop. i found a dvd copy of "amelie" for 12 francs, which i thought was decent, so i bought it. the only downside is that (being published here, obviously) it doesn't have the english subtitle track, so i can't show it to anyone who doesn't speak french. also there, they had a bunch of old game consoles for what looked like amazingly cheap prices (an original nintendo for 15 francs, and assorted other systems all the way upto a gamecube for 85). i was tempted, but eventually convinced myself that i should figure out how/if/forhowmuch i could actually get cartriges for it, before i did anything stupid. besides, i really don't have that much extraneous time to be spending on such things at the moment anyway. guess i'll add it to my ever-growing wish list. sigh. i think the bicycle still has higher priority, though.

oh---one last thing, and then we're done for tonight:

i paid off my acs loans!!! they were holding all my perkins, and had been real nasty about approving my deferment. but now, it's all taken care of. sure, it hurts like hell (and is more than a little bit surreal) to write a check for $10,400, but it also feels awesome to be just a little bit closer to debt-freedom. now all that's left are my stafford loans at wells fargo (about $6,000), and if i get them taken care of before december (which i'm hoping to do), i'll not only be scot free, but i'll have gotten out of the whole deal without paying any interest! and since paying interest is against my religion, this is a very, very good thing. ;) hahaha.

okay, that's it for now. good night, moon.