Taking a leave of absence.
Over Thanksgiving break I realized that there was only a week and a half of school left for the semester. I've fallen behind in one of my classes and I'm unhappy about it. I still have a week to catch up but I hate playing it close like this. The best thing to do is to buckle down and just get the assignment done before I completely run out of time. If I give up now, the best I can pass the class with is a C and for such an easy class that would be a shame. So from here until December 5th I won't be reading anyone's LJs nor will I be replying to comments. I'm not ignoring anyone, I just won't be online. After the 5th, it'll be study week, finals and then I'll be done for the semester. Fun times.
After Thanksgiving I did wake up and do the whole Black Friday thing. With a few exceptions here and there, mostly when it came to parking the day went well. My mother's best friend even brought along her handicapped decal so we could find close parking. I found what I wanted and I picked up a few gifts for others. Since money is a bit tight this year around (it seems to be this way for a lot of people) I'll be budgeting what I buy in addition to putting in more hours at work. In addition to that, I'll be tallying up what I've spent in order to keep track of my spending habits. I can't afford to spend too much or I won't have anything left for Ohayocon in January.
I was unable to make TBL chat again this week. I was invited to my friend's birthday party down in Chinatown. I actually opted to drive there instead of catching the bus and the drive went well. I couldn't find parking because I refused to pay $15 to $20 dollars just to go to dinner. I lucked out and found a park a few blocks away from the restaurant.
When I got there my friend, Anne and other friend Kris, were the only two people I knew. geofflb was supposed to be there too, but he opted out because of a class assignment. The restaurant was an interesting experience. I've never been to a formal Chinese restaurant before and especially one where everything was paid for in advance by the hosts. Since the meal was paid in full we, the guests simply sat at their tables as huge platters of food were brought out to us. Everyone got what they wanted while some platters were taken away to make room for others. There were ten huge courses in all and I couldn't eat everything.
At first I was worried when the first course was cold ham slices topped with jellyfish. We were told to expect seafood on the Facebook invite, but I didn't think it'd be that exotic. Later things like fried shrimp, scallops and seafood soup were brought out. I ended up liking the beef ribs, peaking duck and egg fried rice with seafood the best. As for Anne, the birthday girl, she looked great. And she was a total sweetheart, even going as far as to serve cake to the restaurant staff members. All in all it was a great night. For those of you with Facebook accounts, I was tagged in a few photos and yes, it was formal so I went dressed up of course.
On Sunday and Monday I put in a grueling amount of hours at UPS. It was nearly five hours on early Sunday morning at UPS and nearly ten hours on Monday. It would have been more on Monday night but I left at the first chance I got in order to get catch up on sleep for school.
I brought my laptop to school so I can avoid the crowded computer labs, but this thing is giving me problems left and right. I've finally connected to Temple's wireless network but only some websites work. In addition to that, none of my adobe creative suite programs work and I can't even do a clean uninstall. I'm not sure what happened but there must be a software conflict. A clean uninstall and reinstall of Windows XP during winter break is in order. I don't really need one but I want to try again with a fresh start.
Now, back to the myriad of assignments that are due before the semester ends.
After Thanksgiving I did wake up and do the whole Black Friday thing. With a few exceptions here and there, mostly when it came to parking the day went well. My mother's best friend even brought along her handicapped decal so we could find close parking. I found what I wanted and I picked up a few gifts for others. Since money is a bit tight this year around (it seems to be this way for a lot of people) I'll be budgeting what I buy in addition to putting in more hours at work. In addition to that, I'll be tallying up what I've spent in order to keep track of my spending habits. I can't afford to spend too much or I won't have anything left for Ohayocon in January.
I was unable to make TBL chat again this week. I was invited to my friend's birthday party down in Chinatown. I actually opted to drive there instead of catching the bus and the drive went well. I couldn't find parking because I refused to pay $15 to $20 dollars just to go to dinner. I lucked out and found a park a few blocks away from the restaurant.
When I got there my friend, Anne and other friend Kris, were the only two people I knew. geofflb was supposed to be there too, but he opted out because of a class assignment. The restaurant was an interesting experience. I've never been to a formal Chinese restaurant before and especially one where everything was paid for in advance by the hosts. Since the meal was paid in full we, the guests simply sat at their tables as huge platters of food were brought out to us. Everyone got what they wanted while some platters were taken away to make room for others. There were ten huge courses in all and I couldn't eat everything.
At first I was worried when the first course was cold ham slices topped with jellyfish. We were told to expect seafood on the Facebook invite, but I didn't think it'd be that exotic. Later things like fried shrimp, scallops and seafood soup were brought out. I ended up liking the beef ribs, peaking duck and egg fried rice with seafood the best. As for Anne, the birthday girl, she looked great. And she was a total sweetheart, even going as far as to serve cake to the restaurant staff members. All in all it was a great night. For those of you with Facebook accounts, I was tagged in a few photos and yes, it was formal so I went dressed up of course.
On Sunday and Monday I put in a grueling amount of hours at UPS. It was nearly five hours on early Sunday morning at UPS and nearly ten hours on Monday. It would have been more on Monday night but I left at the first chance I got in order to get catch up on sleep for school.
I brought my laptop to school so I can avoid the crowded computer labs, but this thing is giving me problems left and right. I've finally connected to Temple's wireless network but only some websites work. In addition to that, none of my adobe creative suite programs work and I can't even do a clean uninstall. I'm not sure what happened but there must be a software conflict. A clean uninstall and reinstall of Windows XP during winter break is in order. I don't really need one but I want to try again with a fresh start.
Now, back to the myriad of assignments that are due before the semester ends.