Hello,

I've been meaning to post an update for awhile. I notice a lot of my life is like that. I mean to do something but it always seems to take a long time to translate that intention into action.

The depression has been a lot better. I still have a lot of anxiety especially in crowded places. I really dislike shopping for groceries in the city. Thankfully it's not too bad at the local grocery store.

I have most of the week off of work so that I'm able to concentrate on working at Vacation Bible School at my church. Thursday's are hard to book off so I am working a three hour shift there but other than that... and it's paperback order time so I brought home the catalogues to look through.

Tomorrow is my 27th birthday! YAY!!! After VBS tomorrow I'm going to be heading over to my parents place. The cake will be picked up at one and we are going to watch movies. Amber will come over after she is done work. I get to choose what to eat and Dad'll go pick it up. I still haven't quite figured out what I want yet. Then presents, more movies and just relaxing.

I don't have anything planned for having a big party with friends. I do enjoy parties with my friends but after that one year where there were a lot of upset people at the end of the party I don't really want to plan it myself. In mind my if I plan it than I am responsible for making sure that everyone is having a good time and if they're not than I feel really bad. If anyone else wants to plan one than I have no problem with that, though my actually birthday is reserved for partying with my family.

Speaking of family Mom and Dad are going to be coming over and we are going to Grandma's for a turkey dinner. Yay! I'm really looking forward to that... and I better sign off because they will be here any minute. Have a great day everyone!!

Hello everyone.

I suppose this will be a good chance to see if this whole post on Livejournal and it shows up on my Facebook works.

I know that a couple months ago (probably even several months ago) I promised an update on my life and why I have been MIA for so long. I'll be writing this as I try to get the next paperback orders under budget (a occasionally frustrating task that requires me to either take frequent breaks or go crazy). Plus I think that writing this is going to be very hard so it will be good to be able to take a break during this as well.

First I want to apologise to all those who have contacted me on Facebook and I have not responded. At first Facebook seemed great and was a lot of fun. Then what happened is so many people were contacting me at once and there were so many things to reply to or join that I just overloaded. Which leads to the first part. Anxiety. I've always been a somewhat anxious person, worrying about the silliest things but it was somewhat under control. It's not so much any more. Starting last year it got very maladaptive. I would worry about every little thing. Emailing and responding to things on Facebook or livejournal seemed impossible. Thinking of doing so would make me nauseous and/or give me a headache. At it's worse it might set off an anxiety attack. So I would just ignore things, try not to think of them. I think part of the problem is that I'm terribly shy and my shyness just gets worse when I'm online. I think this is because for e-mail and messages and stuff you lose nonverbal communication and this is a very important element for me. Without nonverbal communication, the body language and tones of voice that indicate wither a person is annoyed or interested or bored or angry I generally tend to presume the worse. I think about everything that I type. Is this going to be taken the wrong way, will they think I'm stupid if I say this?

Sadly it's not just online that I feel this way. It is certainly worse online but I've gotten fairly reclusive in real life too. I do for the most part okay in controlled situations, for example at the library or doing a presentation. When I'm at the library I know my role, and I know my stuff. I enjoy helping people find the books that they are looking for. Doing a presentation I have my notes and I've usually been thinking about it for quite awhile so I know what I'm doing.

Uncontrolled situations are things like a party or going out somewhere where there will be people I don't know very well. It's also things like church which is unfortunate. I haven't been to church for a while. I do miss it but when Sunday rolls around it's hard to get past the anxiety and almost panic about going. I use situations to give me an excuse not to go. Like I was up super late hanging out with a friend so I'm much too tired to go, and stuff like that.

I get anxious about small things. Too many things piling up at work, or not having the house clean. These are things that I should be able to deal with but feel like I can't.

The other major thing is depression and I'm not talking about just being a little bit blue. I'm talking about Clinical Depression (capital letters and all). This depression has probably been one of the worst things in my entire life. It's hard to explain. It would be like a crushing weight. At the worst of it I didn't feel connected to reality. I was thinking of suicide. Not just thinking of it but planning out details of how I would kill myself if I did commit suicide. What kept me from doing so was the knowledge that I would hurt a lot of people if I did kill myself. However the temptation became stronger and stronger so I finally went to see my doctor. I've had to see him twice (well four times counting the supplemental visits to be sure the medication wasn't having super adverse effects on my body). I am on medication now. At first I didn't want to go on medication. I thought that doing so made me weak. That it meant that I wasn't strong enough to handle this on my own. I had to do a lot of reading about depression to realize that this just isn't true. What I have, what I'm going through isn't my fault and the drugs do help. I do hope to someday be weaned off of them. If I get into a more financially secure situation I'm hoping to start going to a therapist to help change the chemistry in my brain more naturally.

So that's where I am now. I am feeling much better but I do have my really good days and my really, really bad days. The anxiety is certainly still an issue but I remain hopeful that I can improve. I've been drawing and enjoying art again (one of the things that happened during the depression is that I just couldn't find the energy or the willingness to draw... and when I don't want to draw you know that there is something wrong).

It has been somewhat terrifying to write this all down and I will admit up front that I might disappear for awhile again. Hopefully though it won't be too long and I can relate a lot of the other stuff that has been going on with my life.

Thanks for reading and if you do pray could you please pray for me.

I have a bit of a habit of disappearing off the face of the world for long stretches of time. I keep trying to train myself out of it but it just doesn’t seem to work. Alas.

I am currently working two jobs at the moment. Between both of them I’m probably a little bit over full time. On the plus side this means that I actually have money which is a bit of an odd thing. I am the Branch Head at Warman and have been making a lot of changes. When I first moved up in my position I was a bit flustered. Unfortunately I kept comparing myself to MA (the previous branch head) and in my mind coming up short. Once I stopped doing that and started running things my way things went a lot better. I’m also a part time circulation clerk at SIAST.

More about the Warman Branch. I love ordering in books. Shortly after MA left I was able to do a paperback order. It was so fun. I’m pretty sure that there should be another one coming up soon. I just can’t wait!

I also have been in the works with attempting to convert our booksale area into a Young Adult Lounge. Unfortunately this is stalled right now as I wait to hear back in terms of making the computer that is currently located there wireless so that it can be moved. I’ve started using the bulletin boards as actual bulletin boards. Currently our theme is Chill Out with a Good Book which is to go with our winter reading program. I’m just really excited about all the really cool things that we are doing at the library.

SIAST has been going good as well. Sometimes I get myself all worked up and worried about nothing but alas that is just me. I think I should tattoo those bible verses about not worrying on my arm or something. I really am enjoying myself there. Plus it’s nice to have sick days and stuff like that. I’m a bit worried that sometime in the future I’m going to have to go on strike but I suppose I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

The big blizzard of 2007 was a pretty enjoyable day for me. Mom and Dad called in the morning to let me know that the highways were blocked and I shouldn’t even think of trying to come into work. I agreed and called my supervisor. It’s really just as well. SIAST closed at 1:00 anyway, and it really was a bad blizzard. I played videogames in the living room for the entire afternoon with the blinds up on the windows. It was so bad that I couldn’t really even see across the street.

I was able to finish playing through Jade Empire again. This time my character was so evil that I was able to kick puppies. They gave health.

The next day we were snowed in. Seriously. Dad was nice enough to come out and help us unbury our cars. This was a good thing because the snow was piled up waist high outside our door. If he hadn’t come we would not have been able to leave the house. It was that high!

( The great car unburying )

Let's see, Christmas... it was really good!

I went into Mom and Dads and Grandma’s on Christmas Eve (mine and Dad’s departure was slightly delayed by the fact I had to do a load of laundry so that I could back my suitcase). I spent the night and only woke up from excitement three times during the night which is a new record. Generally I’m up every hour. Then we open presents. Mom and Dad really liked what I got them, though unfortunately what I got Grandma didn’t fit. I got lots of really cool stuff including manga, Inuyasha season one, and a Nintendo DS. I’ve used up the battery power on that quite a few times already. I also got socks which I was really happy to get because I desparately needed some new ones. There was lots of cat related stuff (~smile~) Then it was over to Uncle Jim’s and Aunty Cindy’s for the rest of the day. In total there was seven of us over there and that would be all my immediate family up to grandparents. Small, huh? But cozy.

I got some new really awesome Grandma made stuff. She also put together this great cookbook of slow cooker recipes which I have been making for the past couple of weeks.

On boxing day I finally purchased a tablet. I don’t know why I didn’t buy one of these sooner. It makes colouring my artwork so much simpler. Remember that poster I was working on for Kittie Kaat Remnants of the Past? Well I finally finished colouring it. Half of it was coloured with the mouse and the other half with the tablet. The tablet was faster, easier, and I personally think looks a little better. Of course it will take me awhile to learn how to use it to it's full advantage but that the was with everything.

( Kittie Kaat Remnants of the Past )

Recommended link: Spiders on Drugs

Hm.. I think that is about everything.

--
Tamara

There had been much stress for the past little while regarding work, but that is mostly done with. Well there are still a couple of things that I am stressed about but don't think I should really post. It looks like I will be staying with the Warman Branch of the Wheatland Regional Library for awhile. Since this just barely pays the bills I have been looking for other part time work. The search does not go well. Not at the moment anyway. Alas.

In other news the car is behaving badly. And it's that particular type of badly that causes me trouble but works just fine when taken into a mechanic. We are going to try again tonight.

I did catch the nasty cold that's been going around but am mostly over it now. It was interesting in that I can no longer take decongestants (noooo!!!) and I just couldn't afford to take all that much time off of work. Speaking of work I should be getting my paycheck today. Yay!

In other news I've working on my comic a bit. I also have Darkwing Duck on DVD now (not all of it of course but what they have out). I felt bad about buying it, because I don't have all that much extra money but I had a hard time resisting the lure of the terror that flaps in the night. I was pleased to find that I love that show just as much now as I did when I was a kid. Sometimes when I watch shows that I enjoyed as a child now I wonder why I ever liked them.

I've been reading a lot too (surprise, surprise). Mostly I'm going through Garth Nix's Keys of the Kingdom books. They are very good.

Can't really think of too much else to post.

Hope everyone has a good day.

--Tamara

Boy was last week ever hectic. Most noticeably Saturday. After many complicated things which I won't mention here we were allowed to move things into the new place. We didn't officially have the key yet but were able to at least get all the furnature out of the old place. So most of that afternoon was spent doing that. After both my parents and Amber's parents had left for their respective homes Amber and I went back to the old place. I then ended up losing a part of my vision. Around this time we got a call from the previous tenants of the new place saying we could come and pick up the key for good this time. So we stopped by on the way to the hospital.

Emergency was very busy but I did eventually get in. It turns out that I had an Acephalalgic Migraine. Far as I understand it, this was a classic migraine (a migraine with aura) that aborted before the blinding pain (thankfully). Still at the time it was a little scary. On the plus side my roommate works at the hospital so we found that with no problem. I think that it was just brought on by stress.

Other than that the move has not been too bad. We've both been enjoying our new place. Hopefully I'll most of the boxes unpacked before my party but there are an awful lot of boxes. I am looking forward to showing this place off.

In other bad news my car has decided to die on me. Thankfully I work in Warman so this isn't too crutial, and generally if I have to do things in the city Dad is willing to drive me around so that is nice. I guess that's pretty much it.

Sorry I haven't been on for awhile but there was a temporary cessation of internet while we moved. It's nice to have it back.

--Tamara

Most everything is packed up now. What we are currently waiting for is the key to the new place then we can start moving stuff over. In addition to all the moving stuff I've also had a pretty big project that I had to get done for the library. Well more than one, but the other project I'll work on over the weekend. All in all it's been a little stressful. I was able to go and work on my project today while Mom and Grandma came in and started cleaning this place.

In other news I've been to see Pirates of the Carribean twice. I really enjoyed it although was slightly miffed at the ending. Mostly because I'm impatient. I also am not too pleased by the love triangle they are developing, but whatever.

Oh, yes. A couple years back I had Hyperthyroidism. This basically meant that my thyroid was producing too much hormone. After a bunch of tests I was given some radioactive iodine to knock part of it out. I was warned at the time this could cause my thyroid to start producing too little hormone. This is what has happened. So now I'm on hormonal supplements for pretty much the rest of my life. Thankfully they are not super expensive and are really tiny little pills. Right now we are in the process of finding out the right dosage for me. I have some right now and in two months time I'll get some more blood work done and we'll see if the does is right. I have already been feeling much better because of them. Before this I had been very fatigued. I just felt so worn out, like I was stretched far too thin. Now that I have been on the pills for about a week I am feeling much better. I'm still tired sometimes, but it's a tiredness that comes from lack of sleep. Unfortunately the pills do react with my ventilin so I'm probably going to have to be even more careful about avoiding my asthmatic triggers.

And that's my life.

Hola everyone.

Last Sunday was the going away party for Taba, my friend from school. It was a really good party, though it had to switch locations a lot. Originally it was going to be at Kinsmin Park but they had lied about having barbeque pits. So we went to this little park by the river. It was really nice but too windy to keep a fire going. Finally we ended up at Taba's friend place. We roasted our meat and talked a lot. After awhile we went to go out for coffee. The first place we went to had just closed so we went to Boston Pizza and stayed there until it closed. I had a really nice time, but am rather sad that my friend has left the province. I do wish her the best of luck, but we'll all miss her.

Also on Sunday my roommate, Amber, came back from her vacation. We talked a lot and it is great just to be able to hang out with her again. She also got to join operation packing. That's what I have been doing for a lot of the time. Packing. Packing. And more packing.

That's not all that I have been doing, however, I've also been working on the Remnants of the Past Poster. I have managed to get the flat colours done. Now all that is left is shading, highlights, and finishing touches.

( Flats )

And that's pretty much it for now. I've got work tonight, and tomorrow I'll be leading the activity for the summer reading program (I suppose I had better look that over tonight).

Have a good day everyone.

--Tamara

Hola everyone.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. In the afternoon Mom and Dad showed up with some more boxes and took the ones that I had already packed. While I was packing some more boxes I found my writings cd. I decided that instead of risking all those old writings getting lost I would actually transfer them over to my hard drive. Naturally part of the afternoon was spent reading some of those. It was a good trip down memory lane.

After that I pulled out my scanner and scanned in the line art I had done for my Kittie Kaat Remnants of the Past poster. This had been drawn on pretty big paper so it was not an easy thing to scan in. I think I had to do it in six parts and then stitch them together. Alas. If I had a more recent version of Photoshop Elements it would have stitched them together for me. As I don't I had to do it by hand. The image was scanned in at 1200 dpi so it should be good for enlarging and getting printed at a photoshop (likely Don's).

( And here it is... )

After I was finished that I gave Mia a call and joined her on her walk. Then we went to go and see Superman Returns which was a pretty awesome movie. Even if we did giggle at inappropriate times.

Well I guess that I'm going to go and work on that poster for a bit. This will be interesting because it is so huge of a file. Aiya!

Ja

--Tamara

Let's see. Sunday was a pretty good day. Dad and I went to church and it was a pretty good service. After that I was dropped off at home where I booted around for a while, had a nap, etc. Finally I decided I was going to track down a new bulb for my lava lamp. I packed up the old bulb in my purse and off I went. London Drugs didn't have and neither did Zellars. I finally ended up at Canadian Tire where I found a bulb that looked similiar. It also had a picture of a lava lamp on it so I figured this must be the right bulb. The bulb cost me almost as much as the lava lamp.

Since I was so close to Mom and Dad's anyway I gave them a call to be sure they were home and than had supper with them. It was nice just to relax with my family for a bit. We discussed the new house for a bit and I learned that Grandma is also going to give us the outside umbrella for our deck.

I went downstairs to hang out with Dad for awhile. He was working on the pictures that he had taken on Canada Day. They were pretty incredible. I am always in awe at Dad's skill at photography.

Yesterday Mom and Dad came over with some more boxes. Mom stayed to help pack/clean and Dad went to go and talk with Pastor Greg. I got all of my cat collection that was in the living packed as well as all the books and movies that were on the display stand/bookcase. Mom cleaned up the kitchen and packed up the spare bedding.

Eventually we had to stop because we ran out of boxes. Dad eventually brought over the rest of the boxes from the elementary school. They are also going to be hunting around the city for more boxes to bring on Wednesday. Today, after work, I'm hoping to get a majority of my clothes packed, leaving just the ones that I think I'll need. This will be a bit hard for me, but it'll only be for a month and without all the clothes my room should look neater. That's one of my goals to accomplish quickly. I want my room to look presentable before my current landlord starts to show this place to people.

Last night I also finished the inks for my Kittie Kaat Remnants of the Past poster. Now all I have to do is clear off enough room on my computer desk to pull out the scanner and scan it in.

The summer reading program is going pretty good. We have a fair amount of kids signed up already. We have a goal this year. We hope to have collectively read 5000 books for the summer reading program. I made up a trophy cup for us to colour in.

I woke up today feeling rather woozy. I'm not sure what's going on there. Oh well maybe I'll be feeling better by the time work comes along.

That's pretty much it for now.

--Tamara

Happy Canada Day everyone!

I have spent the entire day either on the computer, drawing, or watching television. As such my mood has mostly been either bored, lonely, or depressed with the occasional feeling of accomplishment. I'm fairly close to finishing the pencils on the Kittie Kaat Remnants of the Past poster. When I look at it I either think that it's alright or that it sucks and what am I thinking? This sucks and that sucks and I should just forsake drawing forever. Then I berate myself for being a drama queen, again! At the moment I am feeling fairly well disposed towards the poster and am anxious to start colouring it.

And that's really all that I have to report right now. I probably should do some more packing, but it's a stat and all that. I think I'll take some time off.

Once again, Happy Canada Day!

Today I got up early to get dressed, move from bedroom to the living room and go back to sleep. I did this because I was unable to get ahold of the person in charge of rent, etc to give my last month of rent and a written notice of termination. Most months I miss her because at the beginning I had given her a bunch of postdated cheques. This enabled her to just slip our receipt under the door and that was that. I had to actually interact with her this month and thus the move to the living room. I was also able to say goodbye to Amber by being in the living room. My roomie is off on vacation.

I then went over to the elementary school to drop off my first box of packed stuff and to pick up some more boxes. After Mom and Dad were finished at the school we all went to Venice House to celebrate their 30th anniversary. YAY!

Since then I've mostly just been packing more of my cat collection up and working on one of the posters that I mentioned in the other post.

Well, so once again I got very little sleep last night. I thought it was pretty likely we would be getting the house but was not absolutely sure. So there was a little bit of nervousness there. Most of it however was planning. Planning how I want to set up my room. My room has it's own storage room. That is so cool. I was also thinking that I might want to do up some posters of all the series I've created. Well, at least the main series. I'm going to draw them in my big sketch book, scan them in at 600 dpi and colour them. Then I'll look around the city and see what places can print out big pictures. I want actual poster size pictures. I think that would be very cool. It would also be a great way of personalizing my room(s) as well.

Last night while I was having problems sleeping I eventually gave up for awhile. I got up, turned on the light and made up a list of things I want for the new house. Mom, Dad and Grandma have that list now. I think they want to get me a house warming gift (yay). We are also getting some spare furnature from grandma. Three deck chairs (to go on our new deck), and two lamps. I shall likely paint the lamps. Grandma called me back to ask if one could paint on velvet. She said I should paint my 'ladies' on them. I thought that was a great idea.

Speaking of lamps, I am also now the proud owner of a lava lamp. Sadly the bulb burned out so I need to get a replacement for that.

Amber and I gave the deposit money to the landlord of the house tonight, so everything is all squared away. I have also officially started to pack. My very first box of stuff is all packed up. I would have done more tonight but I have no more boxes. Alas. That's okay tomorrow I will be picking up some more from Mom and Dad.

Well I should get going. Hope everyone has an awesome Canada Day!

--Tamara

We got the house!!

So we went to see the house and we both want it pretty badly. Unfortunately we won't find out if we get it until the end of the week. Alas.

It's very nice. There's a loft area which is where one of the bedrooms would be. It is unfortunately a bit warmish but is still very cool. To get up to it you take a flight of narrow little stairs. The ceilings up there are slanted. There is the bedroom area and a storage room. It is quite perfect for me since I have a lot of stuff.

The kitchen and living room areas are very nice and much larger than what we have now.

The other bedroom is down in the basement and is quite large. There is a commons area where we would put the computers (and one of my dressers since there is very little chance of getting that up the little stairs). The laundry room is nice and big.

There is an awesome yard. Lots of trees. Yay!

All in all definately much wanting. Now we play the waiting game.

--Tamara

I’m sorry that I haven’t updated for awhile. I just get very self conscious about my writing, and will confess that when I do updates they haven’t always been very grammatically or atheistically pleasing.

May had been a very good month. For the first part of May I had been on my practicum up in Tisdale. I served at the Tisdale Community Library which is a combined public and school library. I was wonderful working there. That, more than anything else, showed me that I can do this. I did all sorts of things. These included cataloguing, making a couple of bulletin boards, helping to plan out activities for the summer reading program, story time, and just helping where I could. The people I worked with were just so nice.

While I was at Tisdale I received a phone call from the Saskatchewan Library Association. I was the winner of the Mary Donaldson Award. As well as the money for the award I was also able to attend the SLA conference in Regina for free. Really for free. They paid hotel and meals as well. Dad and I left on Thursday night. It was a very good conference. I learned a lot of things and am definitely hoping to attend next years conference which should be in Saskatoon. There was a banquet where I was presented with my award. Later that night there was also a bit of entertainment. This cool band which I can’t remember the name of played and they had belly dancers. Honest to goodness belly dancers. I got to dance with one. It was very fun.

After the practicum it was debriefing and then graduation. The practicum put in my mind an idea and this was confirmed by talking with Marjorie. Sadly my education is not finished. I am going to attempt to get an education degree and become a teacher-librarian. I’m not going to start this right away, however. What I will do is pay off my current student loans and then start getting some classes. The nice thing is that through my library technician course I already have some credits towards it. I’m not going to put in a full course load. I am not a good person to be around when I am stressed by school and I hope that having less classes and thus less homework will help me to not stress out as much.

That brings us to June. On 14 June 2006 I received some sad news. A classmate from my course at Kelsey had died. On the 16th some friends and fellow classmates and I attended the funeral. It was very sad. I know that Teri is in heaven now, but the people down here on earth still miss her.

I have been working more at the library which is very good. I am going to be getting a lot of hours in July and August (and likely passed there, but I shouldn’t really say anything about that yet). I’ve been able to hang out with some friends which is just yay! Last weekend was Crystal’s birthday party and that was a lot of fun. We went to Rucker’s first, then we went bowling and then we went to Boston Pizza for food. YAY!

I’ve also had a chance to do a lot more reading. I love to read.

There is the strong possibility that Amber and I may be able to rent a house. We are going to look at it today and I must say that I am quite excited. If things work out this would mean more space which we desperately need. It would also mean we could park both of our cars. Oh, yeah. I suppose I should mention that as well. Grandma gave me her car. I now have my very own vehicle. It’s registered in my name and everything. Yay! Unfortunately the place where we are at the moment only has one space available. I have to park my car on the street in which I feel guilty about but there’s no other place I can put it. This is not a major issue since it is summer. Come winter it would be a pretty big issue. Alas.

If we get the house it would also be very good in that it would give me a place to have my birthday party. I am going to be a quarter century old on August 13th and I thought that was a momentous enough birthday to have to celebrate. So I have tentative plans. I was thinking perhaps having it on Saturday after I’m done working. If everyone chips in we could likely get a lot of pizza. We could have DDR and movies and etc. Then we could likely go out and see the fireworks. Then if people want to they could pull up some rug and sleep over. But this is all my tentative planning. Nothing set in stone yet. I am open to suggestions. I’ve also been over at Amazon.ca adding items to my Christmas wishlist to make it my birthday wishlist. This was in preparation to give to mom and dad and anyone else who wants it. I rather like the amazon wishlist feature and highly recommend other people getting it. I say this because it would make it so much easier on me when I am buying presents for my friends.

In art news I have been working on a Danny Phantom doujinshi. I have much love for that show and it inspired me. So far I have two pages completely finished and a third one almost finished. Sadly I don’t have name for it yet or I probably would actually post it on deviantart, etc. Thus far it is only on my livejournal scrapbook thing.

( Danny Phantom )

And finally the webquizzes that I have been saving up for the last year or so.

( Quizzes!! )

I've done it! I have successfully completed the Library and Information Technology Programme. Graduation was today (and you can go to http://pics.livejournal.com/celest/gallery/00001p6d to see my grad pictures) and I'm still pretty pumped. I was chosen to be the distinguished graduate for my programme. ~grin~

I have also been away on practicum for a while so if anything important has happened or you feel I should know about could you please let me know in the comments. Thank-you.

I'll update more later. I just wanted to quickly update to say, "I made it!!"

--Tamara

Wow. If you really want a work out while DDRing and, like me, don't have the skill to do anything level harder than light mode then try the freestyle component. In DDR Ultramix 3 there is this mode called Freestyle. You basically get the song and dance to it. You aren't trying to match arrows, you're just moving to the beat. It can be very intense.

Yesterday was lots of fun. After school I headed over to Taba's where we had an awesome girl's night out. There was cheesecake, we watched a movie (Brother's Grim), and over all just hung out. I tried out this fabulous shirt that looked pretty dang spiffy on me. There was some not so good stuff that occured which I won't go into, but overall it was an awesome night.

Today has been spent on the computer and periodically DDRing. I'm actually managing to do light mode. It gives me a pretty good sense of accomplishment.

That's pretty much everything.

--Tamara

I'm not dead.

I kind of feel like it, but I'm still hanging in (barely). I seem to have managed to catch a rather nasty cold. It's almost like the ones from high school. Lasts a really long time, and just doesn't seem to want to go away. I'm actually a little frustrated with it right now. Last night I was getting better. I was feeling much more my old self and was looking forward to going back to school (which I feel so guilty for missing four days in a row!). I headed off to bed. I couldn't sleep. At all. Around one o'clock I did a bit of homework... then tried to sleep. I tried reading, I tried just lying still, nothing. Then around three o'clock I began coughing again. By four o'clock I was actually coughing worse than when the cold first started. And it certainly wasn't helping me sleep. A lingering pain accompanied the worst of the coughs, making it very hard to go to sleep. I think I actually did get off to sleep around sixish, but was up again an hour later. ~grr~ Get better body!

I've taken some more medicine. I had to stop taking the Neocritin cause it had a big warning about stopping immediately if sleeplessness occured. I did take something else however, and am hoping it will kick in soon.

I feel really bad about missing school. I know I need to get better (and not spread this to my classmates. It seems like it may be contagious... my roommate seems to be showing signs of the first symptoms). But I just feel bad, as though I'm deliquient. I'm really hoping to get in tomorrow (I don't know how I can miss tomorrow, what with the digital camera assignment and all). Sadly I likely won't be able to go to the movie night. Well, we'll see I guess.

--Tamara

Yesterday I made my second meal in the slow cooker. It was a White tail deer roast that seemed to turn out pretty good. And didn't burn the place down which was another bonus. Went to go and see Batman Begins for the second time yesterday. ~grin~ I very much like what they have done. It was most excellent. Now I'm looking forward to seeing the next one (for surely they are going to make another).

It was also a great opportunity to hang out with friends.

It's been over a month since we have moved and Amber and I are doing pretty good in our new place. If I ever get my hands on a digital camera I'll take pictures of our place. We've gotten it to be pretty cosy. The only thing missing is a dishwasher (instead that's Amber and I).

The VCR ate a tape yesterday. It was one that I rented from the library so I'm a little uncertain what to do. I don't know if I really want to test it to see if it still works (because it may have been the tape's fault). Ah well, I'll ask M-A on Thursday.

Ah! Thursday is scary. We are having a talk on constellations and guess who gets to lead the talk. Yep, that's right me.

I got a couple more e-mails from libraries in the city asking if I would do a manga workshop. I guess I'm getting pretty popular. ~grin~

Well that's pretty much everything.

--Tamara

Well, it's been a couple of weeks and this whole having my own place is going great. The last couple of weeks have actually been rather busy for me. Last Sunday (the 12th) Anamariasparrow-chan and I were invited to a church picnic up at Redberry Bible camp. It was much fun (although a little crowded for my tastes). We waded into the lake. It was great! There was all this slimy mud and stuff. Afterwards the whole group of us (Anamariasparrow, her sister, her brother-in-law, and me) went to the city and went swimming. Lots of fun.

Then there was a week of well work for me, and school for Anamariasparrow. Lots of food was consumed (food runs out too fast... we'll have to go shopping again tomorrow I think).

This weekend Anamariasparrow and I went into Wal-mart to do some shopping. We picked up a lot of cool things like a ducky shower curtain, and a blowfish toothbrush holder. I also managed to find the last season of Slayers that I needed to complete my collection (Slayers Next). First of all I was rather surprised that Walmart had it at all. Most of the anime that they seem to sell is single dvds of a really popular show (like Inuyasha). The second thing that surprised me was the price. It was priced at around $24! The whole reason I didn't have this season yet was because of the price. Everytime I had seen it, it was close to $200! Needless I picked it up right away (and have been slowly enjoying it again).

We also picked up a router and a wireless usb thingy. Now both of our computers can use the internet. Yay!

Sunday was Father's Day (of course). I got Dad a card reader(for the memory cards that his camera uses). We also went over to Anamariasparrow's family's to celebrate. ~grin~ That was fun.

Today I got to see Mom and Dad again. They came over for a visit and to use my internet connection. They're going to be going on a photo expedition soon and wanted to check out road conditions (is this highway under construction, etc), weather, and get some numbers for places to stay. It was nice to see them again. I must confess that after they left I had a bit of homesickness. I'm not even sure if that's the right word. Regardless I missed them.

Well I suppose I actually should start thinking of supper (and getting ready for work).

Until next time.

--Tamara