sister (D) – Imaginary Sunshine

Full of sense and nonsense ramblings

Michelle — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 05:06:58 +0000

Life has gotten a little bit better since my last post (thank goodness). My working situation has changed a little bit. As of Monday, I will no longer be working as the receptionist (yay!) as they’ve finally hired someone (after having the position vacant for, I was told, a few months – and a few very temporary temps later). I’m going to be working amongst different departments very, very, very soon! Once the new receptionist gets settled in and I help her with getting to know the programs and whatnot. I’m going to get to move (!) into a shared office (my own space, finally!). They’re even going to reprogram the phone so that my name will show up via the caller id (at least within the company’s phone network), but I’ll have my own direct line. Ohhh, ahhh. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m kind of going to be having two supervisors at that point, once I get settled into both departments. Two supervisors, two job descriptions, two titles.

Needless to say, I’ve been told that being able to write “Customer Service Representative” on a resume is a good thing. Or something like that.

I did do a lot of shopping with my family this weekend. We’re not candidates for Extreme Couponing (we just can’t do it the same way that people in the USA can with coupon stacking and double-coupon days – such things do not exist in Canada beyond coupon-stacking at one store: London Drugs), but we did fairly decent… I’m the one in the family that looks up all the deals now and have Canadian coupon websites bookmarked (there are a few sites that are pretty awesome, they mail coupons free of charge because they’re all manufacturer coupons). So we got a lot of toiletries at about half-off everything. Then there was a trip to the Greyhound station to pick up my bus tickets (going on a trip soonish!) and a trip to Michaels – they were having an additional 40% off lowest marked prices of clearance beading goods. And I actually contained myself – I bought 10 sets of filigree clasps (so cute with a floral design) and two strands of rainbow glass beads… So pretty, they definitely remind me of the AB coating found on Swarovski crystals. I should really take photos…

My sister D and I went to Value Village again this weekend (I swear, it’s becoming a weekly trip now). She had a 25% off coupon and a stamp card that still needs to be filled. We dropped off a bag of pants that J was donating, which led to another stamp (they do 1 stamp per $5 spent or per 1 grocery bag filled with donated goods). D got a gorgeous scarf with a stain that was easily cleaned by hand with a little soap and water, I got a teal-turquoise-ish and chocolate brown dress. No good books to be had, but her coupon was expiring today so we just wanted to see what was good to be had there. The dress is super cute, and has a bit of a flair at the bottom. It’s even work appropriate (!) which is always good. I’ve discovered that despite my surplus of dresses that I have, not all of them are particularly work appropriate (especially not the ones that are too low cut or too short).

And just so this entire thing wasn’t just a wall of text…

Here’s the dress mentioned in my blog post from May 28th:

And the dress that I mentioned buying today….

Aquarium Adventures – Part Two

Michelle — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:24:32 +0000

More on my day at the Vancouver Aquarium with my sister. We actually didn’t pack any lunch food to take in with us (a lot of people seem to bring in their own food – the prices there are pretty outrageous with a small soft-serve ice cream cone at $3.50!) beyond snack foods (granola bars, bananas) and a bottle of water for each of us. So we were pretty hungry and I was getting pretty tempted by the (overpriced!) ice cream. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed (sort of, it was a pretty hot day outside!) and we later got ice cream (and actual lunch food) when we left the aquarium (and Stanley Park).

A crab with a sea anemone on its shell for protection purposes – how awesome is that? Sea anemones sting, so if someone were to try to eat the crab, they’d get stung instead. The crabs, in return, carry the anemone to different areas for feeding, and when they’re feeding themselves, they create a current with their front claws so it provides the anemone with food as well. It’s a pretty nifty symbiotic relationship that they have.

Adult moon jellies! I loved learning about jelly fish when I was taking my invertebrates zoology course.

More jelly fish, I don’t recall the name of these ones though. =/ But they’re pretty amazing though, aren’t they? (And yes, this was taken the ‘right side up’, they all just happened to be going downwards when I was taking this photo!)

Harbour seals! They’re quite adorable and very round like little seal sausages. When they were going back towards the water, they kind of just turn to one side and roll down!

This was either a Harbour Sealion or a Stellar Sealion (there was both in the same large tank and I can’t identify them!). I managed to snag a shot while it was barking.

Harbour sealions/Stellar sealions, they were both keeping their eyes on some of the people who worked at the aquarium (who were carrying small coolers of fish!).

My favourite shot out of anything I took on Saturday: a sleeping sea otter. I have a huge love for sea otters, they are considered to be a keystone species. They have a unique relationship with sea urchins and kelp! See, the sea urchins mow down the kelp forests at an astounding rate and they’re one of the foods that sea otters eat. Without sea otters, the sea urchin population is left unchecked and that completely destroys the kelp forests, which is home to many other animals.

Two of three of the Vancouver Aquarium’s Pacific white-sided dolphins. The aquarium only has the three dolphins – all of them were rescued and deemed unreleasable due to injuries sustained when they were rescued. But they’re so amazing and very playful and willing to ham it up for the camera (and for fish).

There’s a whole area for frogs at the aquarium. This little fellow was hiding out at the back of his terrarium – I guess all the noise from the visitors can be pretty bad at times.

The Pacific white-sided dolphins again! They’re completely white on the ventral and dark grey (with streaks) on the dorsal side, for evading predators. They were incredibly playful in the underwater viewing area (after the dolphin show) and seemed to really like interacting with the people in the viewing area. They’d come right up to where little kids were putting their hands up against the glass and touched against the glass before swimming away again.

This is from the viewing area for the belugas. The aquarium has 5 belugas – 1 male and 4 females. Of the females, two of them are babies (so they’re grey in colour) and the two adult females are actually mother and daughter. Each of the adults has one calf, so there’s three generations of beluga whales in one tank! This is the best shot that I got that day and it’s of one of the adult belugas waving with her tail.

Aquarium Adventures – Part One

Michelle — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:22:36 +0000

This is part 1 of my aquarium adventures! Only because I took an absurd amount of photos (well over 300 photos and 3 videos!) and I managed to whittled down the number that I wanted to share to 22 and that still felt like a lot to me for one post, so I figured since it was an even number of photos, I’d show off 11 photos now and 11 photos later.

I went for a small day trip to the Vancouver Aquarium with my sister. It was World Oceans Week and there was a special discount of 10% off admissions for wearing blue. When we walked in, we got our photo taken and could choose to buy the souvenir photo later (the problem is, standing in front of a blue scree while wearing blue is that part of me disappeared…).

Vancouver Aquarium entrance. The aquarium is located inside of Stanley Park, there was concession stands outside (and inside) of the aquarium, as well as someone making balloon animals. This beautiful structure is the focal piece of the fountain in front of the entrance.

There are tanks and tanks full of different fish. They tend to keep groups of fish together that aren’t going to eat one another (for obvious reasons). These bright blue fish are ones that are commonly found in pet stores, but they’re just so charming (and bright!).

These dull and glum looking fish are piranhas. I expected them to have mouthfuls of visible teeth or something! According to the sign next to their tank, piranhas are unlikely to kill their prey. Instead, they’ll pick out bits and pieces of them (like fins, parts of tails).

A parrot in an aquarium? The aquarium has a whole section dedicated to fish (and animals) of the Amazon. This pretty bird preened itself in front of an audience of young kids that were catcalling to it to try to get it to talk.

I nearly missed this one until I was looking up because a leaf fell near my head. This is a sloth! I’m not sure if it was three or five toed, but it’s a sloth nonetheless. It was very sleepy-looking.

Caiman crocodile… My, what big teeth you have…

Sea urchins (the balls of spikes) – what not a lot of people know is that they’re actually closely related to sea stars/star fish, sea cucumbers and brittle stars. They’re fully capable of moving, albeit at a slow place. The fish in the tank with them are an endangered species – I wish I could remember their name! The sign stated that the fish only exist naturally in one small part in the Indian Ocean, I believe. It used to be that people would capture up to a million of them every year for selling for people’s aquariums at home. The babies of the fish that are bred from this species (at the aquarium I went to yesterday) are sent to other aquariums with fish breeding programs to help conserve the species.

Sea dragon with some very awesome camouflage.

Sea horses that are tangled up together – they had a little game of tug-a-war with their tails!

Hey look, I found Nemo, Merlin and Dory, all in one tank together!

The underside of a Sunflower Starfish! They can grow up to a metre in diametre and are pretty vicious predators. This one was about 60cm in diametre, so getting up there in size! I love all the little arms that they have.

Better late than never!

Michelle — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 01:27:43 +0000

The dentist loves me. Mostly because I go so darn often. Heh, not as often as my sister though! I went today for my regular cleaning. My dentist poked around at the spots where I got my wisdom teeth extracted (by him) and my mouth is sore in the back right now because of it. Apparently he was checking that they were healing well by poking at them. Absolutely stupid logic in my opinion. The hygienist that I got today liked me because I a) got my wisdom teeth pulled (so he didn’t have to clean those) and b) I got 4 adult molars taken out when I was younger (so even less teeth to clean, yay?). Plus, it’s okay, because I ended up with a pretty green toothbrush and I got to watch most of Up while I was getting my teeth cleaned.

Oh! My sister D finally gave me my 2009 Christmas present! I got two silicone cupcake/muffin trays! There’s 6 cupcakes/muffins per tray, so I can bake a full dozen. Love! And they’re even red! I’m still on the lookout for silicone mini muffin trays – I’ve been looking for decently priced ones that have enough spots for a dozen (and then I’d buy 2 so I can use up the majority of one batch of batter). Which would be fabulous, but I do love the fact that I finally got my 2009 Christmas present from my sister! Plus, it is exactly what I asked for and exactly what she said she was going to get for me – she just took a while to get around to it.

I’ve also been working (still!) on a new crochet pattern for an infant/toddler/child hat (three different sizes… you best believe I asked three coworkers with appropriately-aged children if I could borrow their children’s heads briefly just for sizing and to get some feedback!). I plan on making the pattern for sale soon… After I’m done doing my prototype hats and getting them out there and tried on! It’s going to be a paid pattern (first one!) on my crafts site – chelle-chelle.com (which also has a few free crochet patterns too!). I do have a few other crochet patterns that I’m working on for the site – there will be a few more free ones coming out this summer along with a few more ones for sale that I’m going to be working on after the current hat pattern, yay. So excited to be working on so many new things though, keeps me busy (aside from work, yay!).

Questions for you:

What’s something new that’s going on in your life? And on your blog/website(s)?
What is your favourite recipe (baking!)? Any that you would recommend?
What is something that a family member did to you that was hurtful? Did they bother apologizing for it?

Michelle makes a friend, gets mail and worries a lot

Michelle — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:09:24 +0000

So I had my first plants biology lab this week and it went really well. The awkward thing is that I walked into the room and didn’t know a single person (besides of the instructors, because she’s also one of my profs and I had her for my plants biology lab last term as well). And then a girl sits down next to me and introduces herself and guess who’s got a new lab partner? That’s right, me! It turns out that we both took the same plants biology course last term and we figured out where we sort of recognized each other from – we also had the same plants biology lab. Total fail for memory, I know. She’s also in my invertebrates zoology class and she’s in my invertebrates zoology lab as well. I know people! I know people! Oh, also turns out that she is in my biochemistry lecture as well, so hopefully a good resource and will be my friend? I feel so awkward when I say crap like that though.

Makes me sound like a little kid going “Will you let me take a look at your notes? I’ll be your bestest friend forever.”

I also have two TAs in that plants lab – one’s a Masters student, the other is an undergrad (and same age as me o_O). Plus we did a few cross-sectionings today and my slide of my stained yam (yes, I said yam – stained it to look at the starch) got photographed for the class website. Yeah, total dorkish moment there. But it was cool. I got asked if I had taken the plants class last term because I was using tips I had gotten then for making my cross-sections (the answer, of course, was yes).

Ahem, Besides my major biology geekery there ^… I’ve spent money lately, for two lab manuals and custom courseware. What I hate is how my school handles stuff like lab manuals and custom courseware. If it’s lab manuals for science classes or custom course materials for science classes – they’re not available through the school’s bookstore. Instead, they’re available through a somewhat related student club. For instance, I had to track down the biology club in order to buy my invertebrates zoology lab manual, I went to the microbiology club’s room to buy my biochemistry custom courseware and I had to get my plants lab manual directly from my professor (because the botany club doesn’t handle sales?). In previous years, when I had to get (required) custom course materials for classes like chemistry, some biology classes and English, I could get everything through my school’s bookstore – meaning one stop, one line-up, one swipe of the credit card rather than needing exact change in small bills. /rant.

Anyways… Things have been going pretty well thus far (then again, only the fourth day of school, so who knows?). I did, however, realize that in my last week of classes before the spring/reading break that I get, I have 3 lecture midterms and 1 lab midterm. Which would be fine if I didn’t have two midterms on the same day (lab and lecture) but the lecture midterm is in the late evening (7-9pm) and the next morning (at 8am), I have another lecture midterm =/ Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? I’m going to ask my prof (for the 7-9pm midterm) if it will be possible to write it at another time, since I do live off campus and I’d be a) getting home at around 11pm and b) needing to wake up at 5:30am. And while I would really love to suffer and go through sleep deprivation for the sake of getting something that resembles a grade, I’m going to see if I can write it on another day, like on Wednesday or something. So I don’t fall asleep during my morning midterm or something.

Gah. I need to stop talking about school.

Umm… I got mail? (Finally?!) I ordered my sister D’s Christmas present back in December. I got a notice that it had shipped (from Hong Kong) on December 8th (the label on the package says December 7th) and it arrived yesterday. So my mom said that it was probably sent via surface mail (chugging along the ocean on a boat or something), but there’s like three different stamps on it that states that it was sent by air mail. So either the postage system in Hong Kong is incredibly slow, or Canadian customs is incredibly slow or Canada Post is incredibly slow. Or some combination of the three (I’m guessing all three). You know those Rubik’s cubes? I found one online (that’s not an “official” Rubik’s product) that is 4x4x4 rather than the traditional 3x3x3 for my sister’s gift. Needless to say, she really likes it – even if it did take forever to arrive. =)

Also, my mom’s been having vision problems lately and she’s had an appointment with the optometrist. He claims that the issues that she’s been having are “normal” though? And only to be worried if it persists or worsens. I’m really concerned since my mom does drive to and from work on Mondays and Tuesdays (she carpools with my sister for the rest of the week)… But my mom doesn’t seem too concerned? So I don’t know if I’m just worrying over nothing right now. I mean, even the doctor said that it was normal and it wasn’t anything to be worried about. =/ Not sure how I feel about that, honestly. I mean, while he does have a medical degree and specializes in eyes, it just seems weird to have a doctor tell someone that the vision problems that they’re experiencing aren’t anything to be worried about.

I hope everyone had a lovely Thursday. I’m looking forward to the weekend already…

Internets, meet my formerly denomic gnomes.

Michelle — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:09:18 +0000

Today is Day 12 of my winter holiday break.

Tomorrow is Day 13 of my winter holiday break.

Which is also my last day of winter holiday break as term 2 (which has, as of today, been paid for!) starts on Monday.

Which means I’ll be waking up at 5:00am in order to go to school (on time) because I have a class at 8am.

(Which also means that I will cry as I will no longer be able to sleep in, and I’ll have to go to bed at a decent time. And also cry because I only had 13 days off. I know many someones who had 20+ days off. I hate loathe dislike envy you all.)

Actually, I start at 8am on Tuesdays as well. Along with Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Fudge.*

I’m taking four classes this (very) upcoming term:

Invertebrates biology – really looking forward to this class as it involves awesome things like worms, insects, crustaceans, etc. I took Vertebrates Biology last year, term 1, and absolutely loved the class – this one is similarly structured

Vascular plants biology – also really looking forward to this class, I took the ‘sister class’ [Non-Vascular Plants] in term 1 and loved it, and the teaching team!

Cell Biology II– essentially an introduction to biochemistry – I liked Cell Biology I, which I had just finished, so this should be interesting!

Calculus – ahem, retaking this and incredibly determined to kick ass**, and abuse my professor’s office hours and tutorial time, for this class

12 hours of lectures per week, along with 6 hours of lab time (for Invertebrates and Vascular Plants). Coupled with a total of 5.5 hours of breaks (spread out throughout all days, of course) and 3 hours of travel time per day. Making it a grand total of 38.5 hours per week for school and travel. Not including studying time, of course. Haven’t bought any of my textbooks yet (still waiting for the booklist to update, as there’s no textbook listed for Cell Biology II) and I know I will have to at least buy a textbook for calculus (a little difficult to do my homework without it, I would think).

And now, the end of my school talk – because I’ll be posting about what I think of my new professors on Monday/Tuesday.

I went out with one of my sisters (D) and my mom today, we had to go to the bank (to pay for my tuition – my school is, thankfully, awesome and hooked up with one of the major banking institutions so I can authorize a direct deposit into the school’s account with my money… I also suddenly feel poor) and then to the mall.

First off, at Zellers there was still some holiday stuff that hadn’t been sold yet. On Boxing Day, my mom said it was at 50% off. Today, well, being as it is January 2nd… everything was at 90%.

Look! Gnome ornaments! From left to right: gnome with frog, gnome with turtle and mushroom, gnome with mushrooms, gnome with squirrel and mushroom. Original price was $1.99/each, they rang up at $0.20/each. Swoon. I love these. When I first found them (found the one with the squirrel first) I held it up to my sister and went “LOOK! It’s a denomic looking gnome with a squirrel and a SHROOM!”. Now I no longer think they look denomic, they just look awesome.

Other wonderful holiday goodies that were deeply discounted including a snowman nightlight (my mom found it, it rang up at $0.01 but apparently they weren’t supposed to sell it at that price and it wasn’t even supposed to be available to us, but we got it for $0.20 as well), a door hanger that says ‘Welcome’ and has a snowman, a penguin and a ‘Santa’ hanging below it in a row (original $12.99, paid $1.30), two boxes of dull silver glass ornaments (original $3.99, paid $0.40/box), taper candles! (original $1.50, paid $0.10/each) and, the best find of all, this musical figurine! When you wind it up, a little penguin spins around and it plays the tune of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”. We later found out that it was missing another ‘dancer’, but the original price was $24.99 and we paid $2.50 for it so my mom just said that the other dancer was too expensive for us (given that it was nearly $22, hehehe).

We had 4 bags of things. All of the things mentioned above plus 6 boxes of cereal. In total, we spent < $18 at Zellars (and $12 was on the cereal). Oh, how I love discounted holiday goodies. Especially formerly referred to as denomic gnomes with squirrels on their backs holding onto giant shrooms.

Besides holiday goodies shopping, the Disney Store in the mall was closing.

So naturally I went in. And naturally I ooohed and ahhhed over cute Disney-related things.

And naturally I may have bought some things.

Like those? The mini Wall-E in the front I had originally (I actually bought two! One was given to Clay as part of his birthday gift last year and I kept the other one, because I wanted one.). I got Eve (Eeeee-vah?), “U-Repair Wall-E” (which has fully articulated hands! and opens up! and can move his head up and down and tilt all the way back! and zomg awesomeness!) and also Mo (Microbe Obliterator). I figured if I was getting a (bigger) Wall-E and wanted to get an Eve to go with him, I couldn’t leave Mo behind, right?

After all, it’s really funny to hold him up to my sister and go “foreign contaminant” in a robotic-ish voice. I am an awesome sister, she threw a cushion at my head.

But they are just so much fun. My sister arranged this scene after they were all out of their packaging:

Clearly Eve looks like she’s hormonal and looking to kill something.

Other purchases include clothes (boring things, you wouldn’t be interested and I wouldn’t want you to be all like “omg, you bought WHAT? You cannot wear those in public” like my sister did) and grocery-type foods.

All in all, it was a fairly good day. Got to spend with my sister and my mom, pay for school (bleh), ransack the dregs of holiday clearance, hunt through Disney Store goods and go clothes shopping. Oh, as well as getting the most delicious ice cream ever in a waffle cone (chocolate hazelnut with a sprinkling of chocolate shavings on top… in a waffle cone).

Anyways…. I hope everyone had an awesome day today. And if you’ve read all of this, you deserve a cookie (or two).

* Honestly, I should have used something stronger here, but my sister has made me a bet that I can’t a day without swearing. So I’m trying my darnest not to swear. It’s not working out very well for me as now I really want fudge.

** I don’t consider ‘ass’ to be a curse word. I know some people do, and more power to you. But honestly, another phrase for a donkey is an ass. And that thing you sit on? Same thing. Cheers!

There’s this weight on my shoulders

Michelle — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:02:52 +0000

First thing’s first…

I got approved for a new fanlisting! The Ethan Lovett & Lesley Lu “Lulu” Spencer fanlisting. They’re are two characters in the ABC soap opera General Hospital. They started off as adversaries, then they decided to be friends, and then, it turns out that they’re half siblings. I love their relationship. Hence the fanlisting. Besides… Ethan has an Australian accent. Which was a really pleasant surprise, I applied for the fanlisting nearly a month ago so I nearly forgot about it.

Work was okay, rather boring and long, but it was okay overall. The new logo that was revealed a while ago, came with a new company website (of course). They came up with little slogans for each product line and someone actually approved the phrase “you need balls for this job”. For a company website. I’m not sure why someone would approve that. I mean, yes, on some level it’s amusing. But at the same time, for a professional website for a company that deals with people on an international scale, it’s not appropriate. That and I don’t have much of a sense of humour tonight.

I went thrift store shopping with my eldest sister today and it turns out that I introduced her to it. I found a really cute hoodie (green with white daisies all over it) but the sleeves were ratty and… it had this horrible smell to it. I mean, the smell would probably come out with a good washing (maybe). But I didn’t like the sleeves. I also found sweatshirts and such from my school – the thrift store was selling them for $5-6 and they retail for $60+ at my school’s bookstore (granted, those ones don’t come with stains…).

Some… stuff happened tonight, so I don’t really feel like writing too much. I did want to share my new fanlisting acquisition though, since I love their relationship and all that.

Anyways, I decided that I will be making a dolly blog so I won’t bore you all to death with details about Sophie and her hopefully soon-to-be expanding wardrobe and other dolly-craft endeavours! It will probably be on a subdomain (I have 3 domains already… And I’m not that good at updating all of them!) but I need help coming up with a name!

Because, left to my own devices, I just know that I’ll end up with something like… “Make Believe” or “Imagine” or something equally non-descriptive, short and… well… kind of boring.

Not much of a clotheshorse

Michelle — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:48:03 +0000

Heather – I have tickets for Les Miserables! I’m so excited for it. I’ve been driving my sisters insane since I’m sort of (maybe) just a little bit crazy and have been (only sort of) counting down… I’m a nut, what can I say? That being said, I’ve been listening to Les Mis almost exclusively since Tuesday afternoon. And have been singing along to everything while I’ve been at home or in the car with my mom going to and from work. I mean, seriously, what other musical do you know of has the line “The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France”? in the lyrics? None. And it’s like having awe and morbidity all rolled in with a tablespoon of awesome. And have I mentioned that I’m really excited? (And it’s not even until July… I wonder if I can keep this up, haha.)

So I was texting Clay and I asked him what he thought I should blog about today. He had a great first suggestion. Which I vetoed because it was kinda… inappropriate-ish by a lot? Then there was the suggestion of cars and games. Guess I know what kind of entries his blog would have if he had one? But then I came up wih something… With the help of my sister D, who was rooting through my closet.

D: When did you get this? [holds up a hanger with a black dress]
M: Umm, last summer.
D: How about this? [holds up a hanger with a green skirt]
M: Late summer.
D: And this? [holds up a hanger with a red skirt]
M: Umm… Maybe before midterms?
[several items later that have been purchased since last year…]
D: You’ve gotten a lot of nicer clothes since you started dating what’s-his-name*.

And when she said that, I got up off of my bed and looked into my closet. I don’t use my closet all too often, I have a wardrobe for all of my ‘I don’t care if it wrinkles’ things. But she had a point, I realized. I have more than just a ‘few’ skirts hanging in my closet, a few shirts that I actually care if they get wrinkled, dresses that I actually like that I didn’t get as hand-me-downs. And most of them have been purchased within the last year, except for my grad dress and two skirts. She finds it ‘fascinating’ and I call it a coincidence. Then she also pointed out that I have shirts that “shows things” (seriously, that’s what she said). My answer to that: I don’t really have much to show, so I don’t think it really matters…

But before she mentioned it, I never really thought about it. I pay a little bit more attention to skirts and dresses now whenever I’m shopping, perhaps. And I have an absurd amount of jewellery that can go with pretty much any outfit, if I ever remembered to put some on (but that’s made, not bought, not directly anyways). And, I don’t know. I think what she’s confusing as ‘my baby sister’s buying clothes to please a guy’ is more ‘my baby sister finally has money that she could potentially use to spend on clothes she can completely branch away from wearing hand-me-downs like she did for so many years of her life’.

I mean, when she moved away, she didn’t bring a whole lot of clothes with her. Now she’s come back, she has like 6 times the amount of clothes that she ever used to have, a lot of nice jackets, not a whole lot of skirts, but she did buy a dress while she was in the States. And because she claims that she never had any romantic interest in anyone while spending a few years in sunny California, she can say that she bought the new clothes for herself and herself only. But, I suppose in her mindset, because I’m dating someone, things get scrutinized a little.

You should have heard her when she recalled the trip to the mall and, subsequently, the lingerie store. “Are you having sex?!” My answer: “You mean like… right now, at this very moment? I would think that someone with a biology degree would be able to tell.” She shut up after that. Totally a conversation that should never be had with someone that I’m related to, regardless of the answer.

* My sisters both know about Clay. J’s met him before, D hasn’t. But D never remembers his name and refers to him as ‘what’s-his-name’.

Weekend where I’m actually doing something, continued

Michelle — Sat, 30 May 2009 18:30:50 +0000

So last night was fun. We went out to a restaurant (the choice in restaurants had to be changed as the first one had a power outage) and there was about ten of us. K had invited everyone, so everyone knew her and every time someone new showed up, she’d have to do introductions again. I think next time, I’ll just get a shirt with my name on it and wear that out. It’ll make things so much easier. But I had fun. I ate key lime pie, which was delicious. K enjoyed herself by ordering drinks (they cut her off after a few though). It was cute, she regaled everyone with stories of last drunken antics. I’d heard most of the stories before, so it was interesting to hear about it.

But going out again tonight, which will be fun as well. Not quite sure what all the activities will be, but I’ll find out anyways. It may very well involve drinking tea and loads of desserts… Which is kind of straight up my alley considering how much of a sweet tooth I have. So not sure about that, but it sounds like it’ll be fun. I have no clue who’s all going to that, besides the hostess, so hopefully I know almost everyone and won’t be like “Erm… Hi? I really need to get my name screen printed onto a shirt.”

So far, I’ve spent this morning… Watching clips from Britain’s Got Talent. I mocked that little teary-eyed girl (Hollie Steel, who broke down and got a second chance during the semi finals) a little bit after I watched it. If she had been, say, 16 years old and broke down, I doubt they would have given her a second chance. But she was 10 and put on the tears and the “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease *tear*” so very well. I hope she doesn’t win… But good for her for pulling on heartstrings and getting pity from the audience. But, to each their own. If she wins, people will always speculate if the breakdown on stage had anything to do with it.

But overall, everything’s been going well so far. Apparently I’m going out for lunch with the family and the extended family today? I just found out three minutes ago. So that should be interesting. My eldest sister has been back since Wednesday night and so far has not done any of the dishes or any other chores besides just organizing her own stuff. Her excuse was that she gave my parents money earlier this year and that ‘counts as rent’ so she doesn’t ‘need to do anything’. I wonder how disasterous her apartment down in the US was then… I mean, she had to pay rent, and so if the same logic applies, she never had clean dishes, clothes or floors. Doubt she pulled the same crap there though. She didn’t have anyone to pawn the work off of. I did the laundry this morning and left out all of her clothes… We’ll see how long it takes for her to start doing chores around the house again.

Anyways, for this summer, I’m determined to do more than I did last summer. More time spent with my friends and with Clay. The zoo, the aquarium, hiking, parades, (window) shopping in malls that I don’t regularly go to. More crafting, more everything. Hopefully it’ll all work out. I’m trying to determine to see if I can go paintballing next weekend right now. Although it might overlap with volunteering, so I might do that instead – not sure yet. But shooting paintballs at people that I don’t know? Always fun.

So how was your Friday night? What do you have planned for today?

Strange greetings and lobster

Michelle — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:20:50 +0000

Wednesday has been a lot more cheerful. However, I didn’t manage to avoid interacting with A (this is the problem when I take lunch at the same time that he does… as it’s the same time that my mom does and nowadays, beyond driving to and from work, it’s the only time I have to talk to her at work.) this morning. I was walking with my stuff towards the stairs to get started on my day and he’s walking in the opposite direction and he stops and goes “Hey!” with this great big smile and I pretend that he’s talking to D, who was walking with me and going on about something about someone at work, and I continue on my merry way. Trying to avoid him doesn’t work though. Why? Because by avoiding him, he was convinced that I’m not feeling well and therefore will ask everyone (it seems) if I’ve seemed sick lately. Maybe I should tattoo the words “leave me alone” on my forehead, because actually saying those words has no effect whatsoever.

But in other news… Work’s been going well-ish. Got a lot of work done, and then it was pretty relaxed after about 1pm-ish. I have a meeting tomorrow at the start of work (8am, my boss is trying to make me fall asleep or something, I swear) that I have to attend and be there for and actually talk in it… I hate talking. Which, if you know me offline, you’re probably laughing about since sometimes, I do nothing but talk. And I go on and on and on and can ramble on forever. And then I have another meeting tomorrow at 1pm, that will probably go on for about an hour. That’s at Building B, so that involves driving. And one other interesting thing that happened at work today, I was having a conversation with M. He’s really nice, and he makes an effort to learn the basics of a lot of languages, since he needs to interact with clients and suppliers and such, at times. So I taught him a new greeting! It’s one of the greetings from Stargate SG-1, that involves hands moving around in a circle and going “Comtrya!” with a great big smile. He thought it was hilarious and thinks that I’m a total scifi nut now (and, considering some of the shows I watch, that’s perfectly okay). But now he uses it whenever he sees me at work, so it’s kinda funny.

What else happened today? Oh! I had lobster for dinner!!!!!!!! My dad went and bought it, it was $5/lbs (regular price is closer to $20) and he bought 2 of them and there’s 14lbs in total… Yum! I have a thing for seafood, it’s kind of a weakness, really. And in addition to my awesome dinner that my dad actually went out and went shopping for… He made chicken, which was good as well and it’s easier to bring to work for lunch than the lobster is. Mmm, lobster.

I shall stop drooling over my laptop keyboard any moment now. Honest.

And… My sister’s coming home today and her plane arrives within the hour so we have to eventually leave so we can pick her up. And of course I’m going, because I got guilted into it. “Why can’t you be a nice daughter like your sister? She does things for us without us having to ask her!” and on and on and on. So annoying. Oh well.

I hope you all had an excellent Wednesday and that your Thursday is even better.