haha I so feel your pain about the once a week thing...except this week was not my choice..it was the week of interviews so I can get out of the h-e-double hockey sticks place known as kroger! But I did finally manage to land a job at a country club and as a tutor in the writing lab at school...its a start to a dream at least and I sent in aps to a whole bunch of writing agents in cali!!! so yay busy!! I am glad to read that everyone is at least living eventful lives...if not always pleasant :-p
I can add something to the whole northern weather too!!! being as I am from rochester and we experience one day of 70 and the next of negative 15 in july. haha but winter is pretty unpredictable but it seems the past 2 years the weather has been pretty mild until like january and it gets pretty icky after that...hope thats somewhat helpful. I know it snowed in texas a few weeks ago...hard core snow...the kind that shut down school for 2 days. but still nothing compared to the north. I have never seen so many snow man
and now a rant...so one of my friends is having a huge attitude issue and shes taking it out on us and I know its because she misses her best friend (who just uses her for the wrong things) but that doesnt mean she can take it out on me. I said she could borrow my car but then I had a responsibility at work...but she didnt understand and now I dont know what to do to calm her down... any advice?
Thank you all for the wonderful updates and hopefully I can hear some fun snow stories from everyone!!! plus its only 30 days left until bones returns and its getting closer to summer!!!! well in the us at least....is it spring break anywhere else? has anyones friends, family or co-workers gone as bonkers as some of the people I know lol!!! wow that was a semi long post for me! oh! has anyone else had any wierd dreams lately or is it just me? sorry for the jumping around my mind seems to be on a million and one different channels lol!! have a great night everyone!!! I miss you all...well talking to you all...but if we all got to meet everyday in person I would miss you too!!! haha mwah!!! hugs and kisses!!
I need to offer a quick apology to my sweeties out here for being so out of touch this week (work!!). I've now finished for Easter, and I would have posted massively yesterday, were it not for a concert in which I was singing and various shopping and packing jobs. For today I head off to Mayenne, near a little town named Laval, should anyone wish to look it up (hi French friends!). I will be accompanied by 2 valued colleagues and 30 excited 11-12 year olds to an activity centre where they will be doing all sorts of sports and going out on excursions every day. So when I return in the early hours of next Saturday morning I will want to sleep for a week, but won't be able to because of the 3 big Easter services at church!
I leave you in Rebecca's tender hands for a week, and I know she'll be brilliant. The only thing I'm dreading is the weight of posts I will have to read when I get back! See you all soon - I'll miss you! x
word count: 191
"We make our lives out of chaos and hope. And love." - Angela Montenegro
Thanks Sherry, Sharon and Catylin for answering my question about the weather in Chicago! Thanks Sherry for the very detailed report! Hmmm, what am I gonna tell my friend? Well, it´s cold and windy! I guess I am gonna let her read your posts. Anyway, I really appreciate your help! We´ll see! A decision will be made not before September, so we have some time to think about it.
Sherry,yes I was already 4 times in the USA. 1st time was long ago! It was in spring 1994 about four weeks on the west cost. ( LA, San Francisco, Phoenix). The 2nd time was over New Years 1994/1995 in New York for about 10 days. 3rd time 1998 (?) only LA 10 days. That was my film studio tour! The 4th time was November 2000 Las Vegas and LA! That was great. Wow it was already almost 8 years ago! Time to visit again! Maybe I´ll go with my friend in November. Chicago must be a great city! We´ll see! I´ll let you know! I really love the USA! I would spend my vacation there more often, but it is always so expensive.
Next week I have some days off from work over Easter. (My Spring Break, Dohee! ) But I didn´t go anywhere! Just want to relax a bit! Clean my apartment, go shopping, play CSI - Dark Motives, etc.! Because from April on till mid November it´s usually getting very stressful at work, so I took now a few free days.
Gotta go! Want to go to the movies to watch Bee Movie.
Steph, have a save trip! Hope it´s not to stressful with all the 11 year olds!
Have a great sunday you all!
Simone
word count: 294
Angela: Well, what about love? What do you have to say about love?
Hodgins: It´s overrated-most of the time Dexter: They make it look so easy-connecting with another human being. It's like no one told them it's the hardest thing in the world.
Ohhh where is everyone? No posts in over 2 days. Hope everything is ok with everyone.
Catylin I don't have any snow stories for you, I imagine where I live in Texas gets a lot less snow than where you live!! It snowed two days after Thanksgiving last year and we haven't really seen any since then except up on the mountains a couple of times. Can't count out that we might get some before the middle of April though, our weather is crazy like that. Snow one day, temp in the 90's the next.
I only have two more classes until my spring break. WOO HOO! One more today (I'm at school right now) and then I get Good Friday off, and then chemistry on Saturday and then off for 11 days.
I had to do a presentation in the programming class on Monday, and we were told to "dress professionally". Of course, only about 4 of us actually did, most college age kids don't really want to dress that way yet. LOL One of the two guys in my group wore nice jeans and a button up shirt. That was professional to him. I hate group projects because there always seems to be one person that thinks everyone else will do the work and they can just get the grade. This time one of the two guys said he was "too tired" to try to find the things we had given him to do and wanted to just do the presentation part. We didn't go along with that though-I mean the other kid works two jobs and still did his work! But the one that tried to get out of it did end up doing the work and giving it to me in time and he did a REALLY good job during the presentation. I told him so too, because I think he felt like he didn't really know what he was doing.
So thats been my week.
Hope some of you have time to check in soon. I know I haven't seen anything from Kate in quite a while so hope you are ok Kate and your little one as well.
Sharon
word count: 375
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.-Camille Pissarro
Yea Sharon's right. No one has really been around in a while. Hellooo? anyone out there??? =]
My week has been not so fun. This is only my third day back in school and i'm already dying for another break. Particularly yesterday, not so good. The weather here has been kind of bad. On tuesday it started to rain. alot. nonstop. and yesterday was suposed to be my first soccer practice. of course it got canceled. =( And we have our first game this weekend so we really need to get the practices in. Although, if i was playing on the team that i wanted, i would already be playing tournaments and games and such. But thats a different (and complicated) story, maybe for another time. =)
Hopefully tomorrow will be less rainy and icky. This doesn't really feel like spring. But you can't expect much from the weather in Indiana.
Hey Sharon, I have a question. You talk about your programming class in college, and i was wondering what kind of programming class you were talking about. Because i was thinking about taking one next year. but i'm not sure. I kind of want to know more about it, even though i know they won't be the same. My dad teaches a programming class at the university and it sounded pretty cool.
Wow, really quiet here! Steph, we miss you!
I guess everybody is busy with Easter preparations!
The movie (Bee Movie) was really cute! Liked it! Although I was a bit angry before the film starts. We were sitting on the wrong seats (because the employee gave us really bad seats right next to the entrance in a corner) but as the movie theater was quite empty (about 10 seats were taken from 200!) I thought it didn´t matter. Just before the film starts some idiot came and demanded they want to sit there. These are his seats. Can you imagine that??? I told him that there are so many seats free but he demanded to sit where we were sitting. So we moved with our popcorn, coke, jackets, etc.! (Not without exchanging a few "pleasantries") I was really upset! But then the movie started and it was really great. We laught a lot! Put my mind at ease a bit, but it still upsets me when I think of it. Maybe I reacted wrong but at this time it made me angry!
Does anybody watch CSI? You get better information in the USA! So can anybody tell me if/when Jorja Fox will be back? I heard she left the show. Was it her decision? I love the Grissom-Sara-Romance so I hope she will be back, soon.
In Germany they finished the 2nd season of BONES and started with the reruns! I guess we have to wait a while till they start the 3rd season! Too bad! Hope it will be out on DVD soon after it´s been finished in the USA.
OK, that´s all for today!
Take care!
Simone
word count: 285
Angela: Well, what about love? What do you have to say about love?
Hodgins: It´s overrated-most of the time Dexter: They make it look so easy-connecting with another human being. It's like no one told them it's the hardest thing in the world.
Helloooooooo Dohee and Simone!!! There is LIFE IN TJLAND!
Dohee, the class I'm taking is a java programming class. I like it, other than the few things I've mentioned before. Java is one of the best languages to learn right now because its used A LOT. What kind of programming does your Dad teach? Honestly, it never hurts to learn any of the programming if it fits in with your degree plan-or even it if would just be an elective its a good extra skill.
Simone I don't watch CSI but I'm pretty sure Jorja Fox isn't returning. At least she isn't planning on it, I'm sure I read that she chose to leave. So I wouldn't count on a return for her. Sorry.
We get a Bones repeat tonight, Girl in the Fridge, which I've seen many times but I'm gonna watch it again!!!
Good to see you here Simone and Dohee, I hope some others check in soon (though I think Steph is still probably chasing kids around Normandy
Sharon
word count: 183
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.-Camille Pissarro
For any of you who may have actually read some of my early posts in this particular thread, you may recall that my entire office building (and all the departments therein) were laid off right before the holidays. We've all been out of work ever since. I've been applying online to jobs through careerbuilder and monster.com; I even had an interview with a recruiter about a week ago. She had me take a bunch of tests online, just to see what my skill levels were. I did relatively well, I think:
94% on Customer Service test
(I wonder what they considered wrong on that test. I thought I had it bagged entirely, except for one question whose answer I thought was debatable.)
100% on Administrative test
100% on Microsoft Excel
91% on Microsoft Word
(What the --? I knew there was a wacky-worded question in which I couldn't see exactly what they were asking for, and a couple questions where I thought there were a few different options for how the answer to the question could be approached, with a manual process or with CONTROL-SHIFT-key code kind of shortcuts. Those were probably the ones that messed me up. Ah well. *GRIN*)
And I got 70 words per minute on my typing test, but I think that number is low. I found out afterward that if you hit 'delete' or 'backspace' in order to correct any typos, it slows down your time. And of course I just had to make sure I didn't have any typos, so I think I hindered myself, because I know I typed way faster than that. I usually average around 85 WPM. Occasionally over 100 WPM, if I don't give a damn about mistakes. I sent her an email reply asking if she wanted me to retake that test, and just go flat-out as fast as possible without caring about errors, but I haven't heard back from her yet. I suppose it really doesn't matter.
Anyway, the recruiter said my scores were 'awesome' and that she'd keep me in mind for the types of jobs, locations and pay ranges we discussed. But time's ticking by, and my savings is dwindling, and I recently got notice from my apartment management office that I need to let them know if I'll be staying or leaving at the end of my lease. My lease is up May 31. I have to give them 60 days notice. That's March 31, which is a little less than two weeks away. Problem is, if I don't have a job, there's no way I'll be able to afford this apartment anymore. But if I give them notice that I'm leaving at the end of my lease... where am I going to go? How do I look for an apartment when I have no idea what job I'll have or where that job will be? Or what I'll be able to afford? I've been looking online at apartments anyway, just to see what's out there, but everything feels expensive when you don't have a job.
As you can imagine, I haven't been sleeping well. In fact, here it is, 1:10 AM, and I'm wide awake. Tried to go to bed about an hour and a half ago, but the mind kicked in and wouldn't stop thinking about everything. I keep trying to remind myself not to stress about the things I can't control. And how -- like when writing a story -- sometimes things fall into place when you least expect it. When you let go, and stop stressing about it or trying to control every little thing. (Two things I'm afraid I'm often guilty of.) Sometimes you have to wait and listen for the answers, for the moment when it comes to you what step you should take next and in what direction. I've been trying really hard to listen and see what comes to mind. What I feel in my gut. Unfortunately, this week it's been difficult to know if it's my gut talking, or if it's a stress-induced stomachache.
On a more positive note... I've been chatting with a woman in Belgium who's just started trying her hand at writing. She's a big Prison Break fan, so she decided to write a story involving two of the characters from the show. When I offered to read it, she asked if I would provide not only positive feedback but also constructive criticism. So I spent a few days reading it and typing up my thoughts, and sent it to her last week. It was fun!
Well, I hadn't heard from her since, so I feared that I'd gone too far and given her too much feedback. More than she wanted. Or perhaps more than she needed, especially if she didn't want to invest much time in editing the original story. People can say they want constructive criticism, but when it comes down to it, most seem to want the positive 'yeah, that was great!' kind of feedback, you know? I was afraid she had been sorry she'd asked for it. *GRIN* Imagine my relief and surprise when she emailed me this week, thanking me for everything and talking about how my comments are really going to help her. And how great it was to have someone look at her story that way. She concluded with: "Will write a long and in depth reply for this as soon as I can but I wanted to hug you really tight to let you know how much I appreciate this." Heee. How about that? (And on a side note, I'll be really curious to see what she does next with her story.)
In my own creative playing, I've been working on that one story I mentioned I'd been trying to edit for over a year now. I'm almost done with it! Finally making some solid progress, feeling attuned with the character's voice again, which is a relief and a huge joy.
And I'm meeting a good friend of mine for dinner tomorrow night. Probably go for cheap eats at Potbelly's (a sandwich shop with really yummy shakes and yogurt smoothies... yeah, baby) and then hang out and catch up. Should be fun. And it will be good for me to get out of the apartment and take in some fresh air and human connection, rather than being cooped up indoors searching online for jobs. I need some perspective!
And that's where things are at for me right now. Thrilling, isn't it? Sharon, after reading all my ramblings, I hope you aren't sorry I 'checked in.'
Sharon, you destroyed my hopes! - BUT - I looked it up in the internet a few minutes ago and found an interview with Carol Mendelsohn (one of the CSI-Bosses, I guess). And she answered to the question if Jorja will be back: Yes, she is definitely returning. Maybe not in season 8. So there´s still hope! I also read that it was her decision. The didn´t wanted her to leave. At the moment I just love to watch CSI. (As well as BONES, but there are no new episodes of BONES at the moment on German TV!) The Grissom-Sara-Romance is so great! Love those scenes! And William Petersen is such a great actor! I love his character Grissom! Sorry about writing this in a TJ-forum! - TJ, you´re still my No. 1 !!! And the Angela-Hodgins-Romance is so much sweeter and less frustrating, because you get to see more of it!
Sherry, good to hear from you! Hope you will find a new job, soon! Keeping my fingers crossed!!! I hated those tests!
OK, a new episode of CSI is on TV in a few minutes, and after it a rerun of BONES "The Man In The Wall"! So, gotta go!
Take care!
Simone
word count: 210
Angela: Well, what about love? What do you have to say about love?
Hodgins: It´s overrated-most of the time Dexter: They make it look so easy-connecting with another human being. It's like no one told them it's the hardest thing in the world.
Sherry, I'm not sorry you checked in! I'm so glad you did, I was worried about you. I understand about the worry after losing your job, I'll be praying for you to find one soon. I lost my job over 5 years ago, and had to move from a place of my own in Oklahoma to back here in El Paso with relatives. Honestly it is why I am in school, I had to do SOMETHING. Things will get better for you though, somewhere God is gonna open that window!!! {{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}
Sharon
word count: 95
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.-Camille Pissarro
I just learned something very sad! My uncle died last night. My mom and my cousin found him an hour ago. They don´t know the COD, yet. They have to wait for the doctor. I am alone in my apartment and I guess I just needed to tell someone. It´s so sad!
Simone, I am so sorry for your loss! I know what an unexpected shock something like that can be (I experienced it myself years back -- one of my uncles). My most positive and loving thoughts are with you and your extended family.
And if you need someone to listen, I'm here for you, sweetie. *hugs*
Simone.
How awful for you. I hope we and our feelings of shock and sympathy have made you feel a bit better. We're always here for you, but especially when you are isolated and don't know where to turn.
Lots of love finding its way to you out there.
Steph x
word count: 53
"We make our lives out of chaos and hope. And love." - Angela Montenegro
Thank you all so much! Came back from my parents a few hours ago. My cousin, her husband, my sister and I, we met there to discuss everything. What actually happened. What need to be done. Talk to the other relatives. Talk to the funeral home. Make all the necessary arrangements. Hats off to my cousin and my mom! What they have to do now must be hard! I don´t know if I can help them much, but I try! We all meet again tomorrow.
It´s strange, but I have to think about the trip to Chicago this November or December the whole time, and I think I will do it! Life is short!
Thanks for listening. Really appreciate it!
Simone
Last edited by TJ4ever on Sun Mar 23, 2008 1:55 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 123
My thoughts are with you and your family at this sad time. Take care of yourself.
~~annie
word count: 18
...he remains Hodgins of the unstoppable libido, with the constantly coiling Kundalini, the freaky twist of mystic master meets geekzilla. He’s still a poet, a shaman of the weird, and he’s in there, somewhere...
Simone, how are you and your family doing today? I hope you're all able to be together and lean on each other during this difficult time. I send more hugs! xoxo
I confess, I just got some bad news from my own mother a few minutes ago. Via email. (Thanks, Mom.) And I've gotta say, I'm not too pleased with her at the moment, because she told me the news in this manner: "Also, Verna died, did I tell you?"
Um, no, Mom, you didn't tell me. And when did this occur? Almost THREE WEEKS AGO. I would have come home. I would have gone to her funeral. *shakes head* I'm a bit upset at the moment.
She was such a dear woman... she and her husband were an extra set of grandparents to me, no question. I was about to start telling stories about her, what she meant to me, and my very strong memory of the last time I saw her (what an impact she made on me during that visit), but I think I need to collect my thoughts. I may end up writing about it on my LiveJournal instead. I was there for her husband's funeral; I can't believe I wasn't there for hers. I feel like I need to write something in tribute to her, to make up for that.
I apologize, everyone. I feel like lately I haven't exactly been the beacon of positive news and joy. I really do apologize for that. I thank you -- and I thank TJ and Ben and the M Team -- for creating this space where there's such love and support and care amongst all who visit and post here.
Hey.
You apologise here for nothing.
We are your friends and we try to understand how you feel and will support you.
Sherry, I'm so sorry that your mother was so insensitive about this. She was very casual about a bereavement, and that's wrong of course. But we all make mistakes and miscalculate others' reactions at times. I'm sure Verna would have realised that, she sounds like such a great lady. I know your written tribute to her will be the best of you and she would have loved that - so be positive and write for her, immortalise her with your talent.
Simone, I am still thinking of you and all your family. Take care now. A big cybercuddle for you all.
word count: 125
"We make our lives out of chaos and hope. And love." - Angela Montenegro
Simone, sorry to hear about your uncle. {{HUG}}. Sherry sorry to hear about Verna as well. That is sad and too bad you didn't get a chance to properly say goodbye.
Sharon
word count: 33
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.-Camille Pissarro
Hope everything is ok with everyone. 
I told him that there are so many seats free but he demanded to sit where we were sitting. So we moved with our popcorn, coke, jackets, etc.! (Not without exchanging a few "pleasantries") I was really upset! 
But then the movie started and it was really great. We laught a lot! Put my mind at ease a bit, but it still upsets me when I think of it. Maybe I reacted wrong but at this time it made me angry!
Too bad! Hope it will be out on DVD soon after it´s been finished in the USA.
I sent her an email reply asking if she wanted me to retake that test, and just go flat-out as fast as possible without caring about errors, but I haven't heard back from her yet. I suppose it really doesn't matter.