(no subject)
I've already tried to go to sleep once tonight; I didn't quite succeed. I have some rooibasa tea now, and allegedly that's good for insomnia.
I took it a bit easy today on the schoolwork front. It's now graphics project time, so that can't last very long. I did do a couple of questions from my pure math assignment, though. I did some other things today, too, such as finding out how much it would cost me to get my hair done at the salon on the bottom level of the SLC ($60 for partial highlights or a full bleach x2 (to get my hair light enough for pink dye) or $80 for full highlights; I'll probably do either full bleach or full highlights, 'cause I'm like that).
I then planned to go visit Joe, but it turns out that my van's busted again and won't start. It may be simply that the battery's dead, but the last I couldn't start it, it turned out not to be *just* a dead battery and I had to spend a fairly significant amount of money on repairs. Also, since I don't think any of the doors were ajar or lights on, even if it is the case that the battery is dead but boostable, it probably means that there's a short somewhere in the electrical system and the battery won't stay charged anyway.
I then walked down to the plaza and bought a couple of CDs at the HMV, both from Twelve Girls Band, a 13-member (they always perform as 12 members, I guess with membership varying based on individual commitment) all-female group from the People's Republic of China. They're all classically trained, and the music is a pleasant and interesting blend of eastern and western styles. Really pretty stuff. The website has some 60 second samples of some of their songs from the latest disc, Romantic Energy (the first one is called Eastern Energy; I guess they're pretty keen on the energy).
I next walked up to Eby Town foods (I did so twice, actually; once before I hit HMV to check their hours, and once after, about a half hour after they were supposed to open, very luckily managing to come in right on the heels of the folks opening it) to purchase a Diva Cup menstrual cup. I hate using so many pads every month, as it's expensive and a bit messy and it just feels a bit wrong to use something disposable so regularly and profusely, especially when they don't seem to be particularly biodegradable or otherwise environmentally friendly. I'm not much of an environmentalist for the most part, but given a choice between two options, if the more environmentally friendly option doesn't really cost me much more and is approximately as satisfying to use, I'll choose it over its slightly cheaper or slightly sleeker alternative (in other words, I'm not a spiteful dick who figures I'd better use up as much of the planet as I can, since it'll be mostly other peoples' descendants who use it in the future anyway).
The Diva Cup is reusable in a fairly long-term sense (they make the vague claim of "many years" with proper care, unlike the Keeper, whose makers claim their product should last up to 10 years), and of course the makers of menstrual cups claim their products may have some health or other benefits compared to pads and tampons. You insert it into the vagina somewhat like a tampon, and it rides fairly low in there and collects your menstrual flow (well, assuming you menstruate and use a menstrual cup). A few times a day you take it out and empty it out into a toilet, wash it, reinsert, and then go about your merry business. They're not supposed to be worse than tampons for risk of toxic shock syndrome, and in fact the makers claim they're better since they collect non-absorbently and don't absorb away the natural fluids of the vagina produces to keep itself clean.
I tried the Diva Cup once before, but couldn't manage to fit it in; I returned it for full refund (they have a year-long satisfaction guarantee to try to get people past the greater cost compared to disposable products). I decided to try it again now because A) I have reason to believe I'll have greater success this time, and B) since I can still get my money back if I have problems, I might as well. And indeed, I've found that I can insert it this time. In fact, I inserted it and forgot about it for a little while as I made my test run, so assuming it doesn't leak, I think I'll be pretty happy with it. It's even supposed to be usable for swimming (not that I've actually gone swimming more than once this term). All in all, I'm looking forward to trying it out in action next week.
And on the way home I got a bubble tea--"free" because I had already purchased 8 large drinks at Sweet Dreams on previous occasions. It was there, in fact, that I learned that rooibasa tea is supposed to be good for alleviating insomnia.
Finally, a kind-of funny story from today (this post not in chronological order, as this happened before any of my plaza dealings): on my way home from the SLC, I decided to cut across one of the smaller grassy patches of lawn because the path in front of me was blocked by a truck making a delivery (some kind of gas canisters, I think). I was sticking to the ice because the ground was rather sodden, being that it was quite warm today and a lot of the snow thawed out. No, I didn't slip on the ice; I'm pretty good about that, most of the time. Instead, I put my foot down on a bit of ice, transferred my weight, and was quite surprised to feel my foot and leg then sink a couple of feet into an icy pool of water, stopping at my knee only because my other knee hit the ground. A girl on the path asked me if I was okay as I got up, and since I wasn't so much hurt as surprised, I called out that I was and after a bit of banter on the unexpectedness of the occurrence, began to walk home. The hole was pretty small in diameter; I don't think it was much bigger than required to put a leg into it. It was quite deep, though--I didn't feel any sign of the bottom before I hit the ground and got out of there.
As I was reflecting on the unexpected hole, the coldness of my leg, and the sodden feeling in my boot, I realized that it sure would suck if someone else tripped in the same hole (and it wasn't even made a heck of a lot more obvious by my piercing the ice that had been hiding it) and that if someone had known about it before I got there, I sure would have liked it if they'd done something about it instead of just leaving it for the next sucker. So, I turned around and headed back to the SLC to tell someone at the Turnkey Desk (Dan, as it turns out). I also showed him the hole, since it's not horribly obvious and my description of "on the triangular patch of grass out by the path from the SLC and the MC" wasn't terribly helpful, and he said he would call plant ops about it. I then went downstairs to the tech store to see if they had an cassette audio line adapter (for me to plug my MP3 player into my van), which I thought of sometime between the hole and returning to the SLC) and stopped by the Watsfic office very briefly. Then, I finally returned home to change my approximately quarter-soaked jeans and sodden boot and sock before I tried but failed to head to Joe's place.
So, that's been my day. Exciting by Caitlin standards.
By the by, it looks like hypnotist Tony Lee will be performing at Fed Hall on Monday, March 13th. Is anyone interested in going to see him with me? I've seen him perform twice (once before and once during the ban on alcohol at Feds venues), so I'm not that worried about going, but his show is pretty amusing (if you like seeing people happily make fools of themselves on stage, at least). $7 advance, $8 non-UW, $9 at the door. I don't even know if there are still tickets available (and I think his shows do sell out sometimes), but I thought I'd see if anyone was interested.
I took it a bit easy today on the schoolwork front. It's now graphics project time, so that can't last very long. I did do a couple of questions from my pure math assignment, though. I did some other things today, too, such as finding out how much it would cost me to get my hair done at the salon on the bottom level of the SLC ($60 for partial highlights or a full bleach x2 (to get my hair light enough for pink dye) or $80 for full highlights; I'll probably do either full bleach or full highlights, 'cause I'm like that).
I then planned to go visit Joe, but it turns out that my van's busted again and won't start. It may be simply that the battery's dead, but the last I couldn't start it, it turned out not to be *just* a dead battery and I had to spend a fairly significant amount of money on repairs. Also, since I don't think any of the doors were ajar or lights on, even if it is the case that the battery is dead but boostable, it probably means that there's a short somewhere in the electrical system and the battery won't stay charged anyway.
I then walked down to the plaza and bought a couple of CDs at the HMV, both from Twelve Girls Band, a 13-member (they always perform as 12 members, I guess with membership varying based on individual commitment) all-female group from the People's Republic of China. They're all classically trained, and the music is a pleasant and interesting blend of eastern and western styles. Really pretty stuff. The website has some 60 second samples of some of their songs from the latest disc, Romantic Energy (the first one is called Eastern Energy; I guess they're pretty keen on the energy).
I next walked up to Eby Town foods (I did so twice, actually; once before I hit HMV to check their hours, and once after, about a half hour after they were supposed to open, very luckily managing to come in right on the heels of the folks opening it) to purchase a Diva Cup menstrual cup. I hate using so many pads every month, as it's expensive and a bit messy and it just feels a bit wrong to use something disposable so regularly and profusely, especially when they don't seem to be particularly biodegradable or otherwise environmentally friendly. I'm not much of an environmentalist for the most part, but given a choice between two options, if the more environmentally friendly option doesn't really cost me much more and is approximately as satisfying to use, I'll choose it over its slightly cheaper or slightly sleeker alternative (in other words, I'm not a spiteful dick who figures I'd better use up as much of the planet as I can, since it'll be mostly other peoples' descendants who use it in the future anyway).
The Diva Cup is reusable in a fairly long-term sense (they make the vague claim of "many years" with proper care, unlike the Keeper, whose makers claim their product should last up to 10 years), and of course the makers of menstrual cups claim their products may have some health or other benefits compared to pads and tampons. You insert it into the vagina somewhat like a tampon, and it rides fairly low in there and collects your menstrual flow (well, assuming you menstruate and use a menstrual cup). A few times a day you take it out and empty it out into a toilet, wash it, reinsert, and then go about your merry business. They're not supposed to be worse than tampons for risk of toxic shock syndrome, and in fact the makers claim they're better since they collect non-absorbently and don't absorb away the natural fluids of the vagina produces to keep itself clean.
I tried the Diva Cup once before, but couldn't manage to fit it in; I returned it for full refund (they have a year-long satisfaction guarantee to try to get people past the greater cost compared to disposable products). I decided to try it again now because A) I have reason to believe I'll have greater success this time, and B) since I can still get my money back if I have problems, I might as well. And indeed, I've found that I can insert it this time. In fact, I inserted it and forgot about it for a little while as I made my test run, so assuming it doesn't leak, I think I'll be pretty happy with it. It's even supposed to be usable for swimming (not that I've actually gone swimming more than once this term). All in all, I'm looking forward to trying it out in action next week.
And on the way home I got a bubble tea--"free" because I had already purchased 8 large drinks at Sweet Dreams on previous occasions. It was there, in fact, that I learned that rooibasa tea is supposed to be good for alleviating insomnia.
Finally, a kind-of funny story from today (this post not in chronological order, as this happened before any of my plaza dealings): on my way home from the SLC, I decided to cut across one of the smaller grassy patches of lawn because the path in front of me was blocked by a truck making a delivery (some kind of gas canisters, I think). I was sticking to the ice because the ground was rather sodden, being that it was quite warm today and a lot of the snow thawed out. No, I didn't slip on the ice; I'm pretty good about that, most of the time. Instead, I put my foot down on a bit of ice, transferred my weight, and was quite surprised to feel my foot and leg then sink a couple of feet into an icy pool of water, stopping at my knee only because my other knee hit the ground. A girl on the path asked me if I was okay as I got up, and since I wasn't so much hurt as surprised, I called out that I was and after a bit of banter on the unexpectedness of the occurrence, began to walk home. The hole was pretty small in diameter; I don't think it was much bigger than required to put a leg into it. It was quite deep, though--I didn't feel any sign of the bottom before I hit the ground and got out of there.
As I was reflecting on the unexpected hole, the coldness of my leg, and the sodden feeling in my boot, I realized that it sure would suck if someone else tripped in the same hole (and it wasn't even made a heck of a lot more obvious by my piercing the ice that had been hiding it) and that if someone had known about it before I got there, I sure would have liked it if they'd done something about it instead of just leaving it for the next sucker. So, I turned around and headed back to the SLC to tell someone at the Turnkey Desk (Dan, as it turns out). I also showed him the hole, since it's not horribly obvious and my description of "on the triangular patch of grass out by the path from the SLC and the MC" wasn't terribly helpful, and he said he would call plant ops about it. I then went downstairs to the tech store to see if they had an cassette audio line adapter (for me to plug my MP3 player into my van), which I thought of sometime between the hole and returning to the SLC) and stopped by the Watsfic office very briefly. Then, I finally returned home to change my approximately quarter-soaked jeans and sodden boot and sock before I tried but failed to head to Joe's place.
So, that's been my day. Exciting by Caitlin standards.
By the by, it looks like hypnotist Tony Lee will be performing at Fed Hall on Monday, March 13th. Is anyone interested in going to see him with me? I've seen him perform twice (once before and once during the ban on alcohol at Feds venues), so I'm not that worried about going, but his show is pretty amusing (if you like seeing people happily make fools of themselves on stage, at least). $7 advance, $8 non-UW, $9 at the door. I don't even know if there are still tickets available (and I think his shows do sell out sometimes), but I thought I'd see if anyone was interested.