So. My Italian visa. Which I've been griping and moaning about and probably making a lot of you roll your eyes at me from all the melodrama.

But once more, with feeling: I HATE VISAS!!!!!!!!!!!

However, I recognize that had I been more informed and if I'd been made more aware of what all the components were and when they were all due, I would be less angry with the visa (yes, I'm speaking of it like it's a human being, roll with it!).

So, really, my anger is aimed mostly entirely at the IPE office. *fumes with the thought*

In order to obtain an Italian visa, I need to prove "financial security." The only way I manage to attend and live at UW is through financial aid. So, I submitted the document saying I'd show I have financial aid so the people at IPE could write a letter saying, "She has money. Let her go to Rome."

Admittedly, I dropped the ball a tiny bit on this part. I didn't realize I needed to have already applied for summer aid by the time I submitted my visa application so the woman working with us Creative Writers (we shall henceforth call her YoSaffBridge because I don't like either woman) could send the collective visa apps sometime in the last week, so that's my fault. But the financial aid office doesn't decide financial awards until May-ish.

Can we see the issue here?

I submitted my visa application the 10th of April. YoSaffBridge only emailed me about the problem on the 29th. I'm not even going to try and speculate what all she was doing in those TWO WEEKS she had it.

And now, comes the true source of my anger (because up until that point I was merely frustrated). YoSaffBridge's office hours are from about 8-11ish and then from 2-closing. I got there at 2PM, almost exactly.

She walks in about 2:15 from her break. Then proceeds to take about 15 minutes to do...something. I have no idea what. We talk, she says I need a visa even though the program directors said all we have to do is sign an indemnity form if we didn't get a visa and pretend we're tourists instead of students. I go down to the Financial Aid office, I burden a very nice woman (Lisa, her name was, who was MUCH nicer than the last person I went to about financing Rome) with estimating how much financial aid I would receive for summer, I go back up to IPE about 10 minutes later with the estimate....and YoSaffBridge is "out."

I get that sometimes "when you gotta go, you gotta go." However, YoSaffBridge was only available for....10 minutes out of the 45 minutes I was at IPE.

Mayhaps I'm at the wrong university. When your hours are said to be from 2-closing, you're supposed to be at your office at 2 o'clock NOT leaving wherever you took your lunch at 2 in order to get to your office whenever you get there. Isn't that how it works? Or am I just strange?

I'd heard that IPE was horrible, and you have to watch 'em like a hawk to make sure they don't screw you over, but from the few, brief instances I dealt with them before it didn't seem bad. The secretary/person in charge (she seemed to have more knowledge than all the advisors put together, but she was only greeting people and answering the phone...) was very nice and helpful. But after YoSaffBridge....yeah. *takes out her hawk eyes*

Blah. I don't even know how coherent some of that is. I just got onto the elevator to escape IPE and thought, "She is so going into my livejournal." Grrrr.

I went grocery shopping yesterday, and I now have some yummy French bread, pepperjack cheese, lunch meat, and apples. Oh, and Pepsi, too. *drinks Pepsi to make up for the bad, bad IPE woman* Also went to B&N to pick up a copy of issue 13 of BtVS for Freddie and the 2nd issue of Better Days, since B&N takes about 2-3 weeks to stock the new issues. But they didn't have Better Days, sadly. I'll probably go to Pike Place and see if a comic store there has it. *hopes*

And there'll be Korean food tomorrow! The KSA at UW is hosting a "Korean Food Market" on the HUB lawn. Thankfully the food is bought through tickets purchased at the Ticket Office, so I can use my Husky Card to buy food. *cheers* Since I don't have cash and I demand Korean food. I just hope it's good food, and not fast-food quality Korean food (though I will still buy it).

The Korean test I took yesterday was difficult. Thankfully, though, it wasn't difficult because I didn't know my stuff (though it was still a factor). There was one section where it says, "fill in the blanks to reflect the translation given." Problem? There was no translation. Just a sentence in Korean, a blank, and whatever the heck our brains could come up with. Kim-sunsengnim wasn't there for the test, too, because she had to survey her TAs or some such, so we had no one to ask. Then there was a part where we had to use a certain sentence connector and come up with a sentence based on cues given in English. I knew how to use the connector just fine, but the cues weren't working harmoniously.

Kim-sunsengnim noticed no one finished the test, though, so we get tomorrow to work on it after taking a glance at it today to refresh our memories what we had trouble with. We informed her about the lack of a translation to "reflect" from, so she'll fix that. I don't know what I'm going to do about the connector thing, but at least I'll have more time to B.S. it and get partial credit.

Had my Planets midterm today, too. I know I didn't get 100%, but I didn't utterly fail either! I'm predicting perhaps about a 3.0, maybe a little less if the TAs didn't get their coffee/chocolate/whatever. The labs are weighted more than the tests, though, and I've been getting an average of 9/10, so I'm not worried about my Planets grade (unless something changes for the worst in the class).

I'm feeling a little calmer now. Probably #11 on "You Know You're a Writer When" shirt: You write out everything that makes you frustrated/angry and you feel better afterwards. Heh.

And I gave Nikki her bday present, so now I can show the x-stitching project I did for her.
( David Tennant in sepia )


Buffy: You're right. Ooh! She's even affecting my work, now. She's the Titanic. She's a crawling black cancer!
[She brings her foot up, around and down onto a bench, breaking it in two.]
Buffy: She's... other really bad things.
Oz: On the plus side you've killed the bench, which was looking shifty.
....
Willow: [on the phone with Rupert Giles] Giles, I just talked to Buffy and, yeah, I think she's feeling a little... insane. [pause] No, not bitchy crazy, more like... homicidal maniac crazy. So I told her to come see you, OK? --S.4, Living Conditions

[takes place in the musical episode, so everyone's singing]
Anya: I've got a theory, it could be bunnies. [uncomfortable pause]
Willow: I've got a theor-
Anya [accompanied by rock music]:
Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes!
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses!
And what's with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for, anyway?
Bunnies! Bunnies! It must be bunnies!
[Long silence. rock music stops]
Or maybe midgets? --S.6, Once More With Feeling, Buffy

*is 21* Yay!!

Yesterday I thought I'd not attend a quiz section, because it was my birthday and I was going to treat myself with not having a class which doesn't really help me understand the concepts too well. But then I told myself I was just being lazy and I was going to go, even if I have to be an internally whiny brat about it.

Umm....since the class is at 10:30am and by the time I post this it'll undoubtedly be after, you can plainly tell something went wrong with that plan.

So now I just have class at 12:30-1:20, and then a watch a movie/discuss a movie from 1:30-3:50. And also turn in my 4-5 page paper for that movie class....WHICH I FINISHED THE DAY BEFORE IT WAS DUE!!! O.O I'm not used to that feeling of accomplishment in college.....'tis sad. And it wasn't even a "3 minutes til midnight, printprintprint!" kinda thing. It was an, "Oh, it's 8:30 and I'm done....what do I do now with the rest of my night?" thing. *shrugs*

Don't know when my mother and sister will get up here, but sometime after 4:00 I'm going home. And I will (supposedly) have a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake ready to pick up by tomorrow. Yay! Me gusta el cake! Cake를 좋아!

Probably the only thing I'm not going to like about this weekend is needing to talk to my mother about Rome. I know she says she's okay with me going and that she wants me to go, but....well, it's the typical, "I'm glad you're going but don't go," that I fear.

Heartfelt wishes to the NIU students, and that all this violence occuring nationwide and in Seattle will stop.

Edit 9:00PM: Well, finally got home at about 7:30, after leaving at 3:40-ish and having an hour break for dinner. Eeesh. Though, I really shouldn't complain, because my mother and sister were on the road since 1:00, and didn't stop until the dinner thing.

So far birthday plans are not plans. There's been mention of a trip to Westport, of shopping, of ice cream cakes, of a lot of things, and yet there's nothing definite. Sooooo....if you need to get a hold of me tomorrow....cell phone!

50 Books in a Year:
3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
4. Lirael by Garth Nix
5. Abhorsen by Garth Nix

Lolita is an....interesting book to say the least. I was a little more interested in his word choices and the style of his writing than the subject matter, but do I recommend it? If you can read past the pedophilia/slight incest, then sure. If the thought of that makes you lose your appetite...then you will probably want to avoid it. I can't say that the book changed my perspective/made me sympathize with the pedophiliac, but there's nothing graphic in the book except for a bit of non-sexual violence.

Books I plan/have available immediately to read:
1. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
2. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3. Cast in Shadow by Michelle Sagara
4. Lirael (Edit: Finished this book 2/17/08) and 5. Abhorsen (Edit: Finished 2/19/08) by Garth Nix
6. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Which I got the $25 hardback for $1.50! Wooo!). Yes, yes, I know Angels and Demons is supposedly better; maybe I'll get around to it if I can.
7. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
8. The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
9. The Waves by Virginia Woolf
10. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
11. Passage to India by E.M. Forster
12. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
13. My Antonia by Willa Cather
14. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Maybe...but certainly not War and Peace)
15. The Almost Noon by Alice Sebold
16. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
17. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson

Sooo...yes, I've lots of books lined up. Of course, having read 3 books out of the 50 I need and only have about 42 weeks left....I need to pick up the pace. I'm hopefully taking a Chaucer class, and there'll be text that I haven't read before, so I'm counting those as well. That'll be about 4-5 more books for my list.

Not much more news. My mother's made some comments about taking me out to a casino to gamble away all my money or something.....and I believe she's only 10% kidding.....

And Nikki! Thanks so very much for my gift. ^_______^ It shall be used well! And to all those who wished me a happy birthday (either in real life or on facebook) thank you! I'll send more personalized messages when I'm not under a time crunch.


Oracle: I'd ask you to sit down, but you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase.
Neo: What vase?
[Neo turns around sharply, hitting a vase with his elbow, knocking it to the floor, where it crashes]
Oracle: That vase.
Neo: I'm sorry.
Oracle: I said don't worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it.
Neo: How did you know?
Oracle: Ohhh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything? --The Matrix

Um...Yeah. A Merry-Almost-Two-Months-Late-Christmas to tinuviel428. It's not the best quality Doctor Who fanfic, but....I decided to stop whinging about how not-up-to-par it is and let you finally have your Christmas gift.

Available to all who wish to enjoy a Tenth Doctor/Rose Christmas fic, though I apologize right up front for my atrocious British lingo. If you're British (or you have a better grasp of it than I) and want to point out words I should change, feel free! The fic does contain a tiny romantic Doctor/Rose moment, so you are warned.

And......enjoy The Fluff.

( Deck the Halls with Fluff )