maintenance guys were just here - they recaulked the tub and some of the flooring, and now we wait for it to dry and see if it still leaks. (understandably, they're attempting to fix it wihtout cutting holes in the ceiling/floor)

More on the Leaking...

The maintenance guy showed up at my apartment at 1am last night to see about the ceiling. (which was still dripping in two places) He took a knife, punctured my soggy ceiling, and about a quart of water came out. It was ooky. So he went up and banged on the door of the apartment upstairs - but nobody was there. He left me with a (very very dirty) bucket and told me they'd be out to fix it this morning.

Still haven't seen anyone, and the ceiling is still dripping (and water comes streaming through the knife whole when the guy upstairs runs the shower). I called the office, and they said "we'll call you back when the maintenance guys get back from lunch" - still no phone call. *sighs* Using the toilet is something like dancing with a bucket (and trying not to get dirt and grime all over me)

Oh well - in any case, I dont think my ceiling is going to collapse.

Amusing thought of the day, from The Tudors: A Very Short Introduction by John Guy: on Henry VIII: His character was fascinating, threatening, and sometimes morbid. His egoism, self-righteousness, and capacity to brood sprang from the fusion of an able but second-rate mind with what looks suspiciously like an inferiority complex.

Just the average Tuesday, right?

Weekend #1 of the semester down - 15 left to go!

So I woke up this morning, went into the bathroom, and stepped in a puddle. This should've been clue #1 that today would be not so fun. Said puddle had no obvious cause - I think I got dripped on once, but it wasn't an active drip. So I took a shower and went to class. Class proceeded as normal, with the addition of a splitting headache about noon. Choir was, as usual, both fun and frustrating.

Get back for lunch, go back to class, go to Tai Chi... apparently i get to learn how to walk again. My knees/ankles are acting up, particularly the one that got rebuilt. And my teacher was watching today and apparently I have all kinds of borked alignment issues. So I'm re-learning how to walk. This means that my right knee and ankle, along with my calf muscles and the arch of my foot are in a constant state of dull throbbish pain right now. They are angry - they like my gimpy walk with one foot turned half sideways. ((you'd think after 4 years of Shotokan I'd have gotten over that))

So anyway, I go home, eat an apple and some cheese (aka dinner), and sit down to study. Not going into the WoW thing tonight, because it will just make me more mad about it, but needless to say I didn't do much playing tonight, even though I don't really need to do any studying today. Got up to go to the bathroom...

And noticed that the ceiling is leaking. In two places. And that the sheetrock is slightly discoloured and bulging over my toilet and tub. I cannot pee without being dripped on. So I call the maintenance people (woman at the answering service was RUDE!!!) and we'll see what happens. I really don't need people digging up my bathroom right now.

Two good things though:
1- this means they might actually fix my shower drain (which currently drains so well that after my normal 8 minute shower I'm standing in 6'' of water)
2- the Air Conditioner is so loud I can't hear the water dripping into the tupperware.

(part 2)

Second half of the day - tiring. My back was bothering me from carrying books again. I'm going to have to get used to that. Most of my walking this summer was done without weight!

Musical Theater is going to be an... interesting class. Very free form, lots of listening and individual presentation. There are only 7 of us in the class, and it's a team taught class; lots of professor attention (and VERY conspicuous absence - even though I dont really skip class). Should be fun though.

Tai Chi will be a great way to end the day though. It was good to see Ruby again - he was totally flabbergasted to see me. Somehow he'd thought I'd graduated with the rest of them last May. I'm glad I get to finally take his class. I've taken dance from him for 4 years and always promised to take the tai chi class, but it never fit into my schedule. I have to find my Gi pants though, as they'll be perfect for the "dress requirement" of loose fitting, non constricting clothing.

Spent last night at Lady Prudence's working on SCA name stuff. She has the Ansteorran heraldic library at her house, so I went book diving. Sadly, all the stuff they have starts at the late 12th century, and I want an 11th century name (preferrably with the Old English spelling). She suggested that I find one I like, and then just use a feature byname - like " Brown Eyed" or something. I actually kind of like the idea, as it'd be translated into Old English by a Herald-Who-Knows-More-About-Such-Things (tm). The name I've found that I like best so far is Aelfswyþe. It's a 10th-11th century name, English spelling. Nicknames to Ellie (the nickname that I've used for my SCA persona) easily. Only problem is it's an A-name (as opposed to a name that starts with R), and there are TONS of A-names. So I'll dig through the online sources some more and see what I can find.

Last First day of school! (part 1)

Lunch! I actually get to eat lunch this semester! woot!

Schedule is Tuesday-Thursday only:

8-9:30: Music History 1800-WWI
9:30-11: Tudor/Stuart England
11-12:30: Women's Choir
2-3:30: American Musical Theatre
4-5:15: Tai-Chi

with a piano lesson thrown in there somewhere probably on wednesday.

So far my classes seem to be fine - music history will be a blast, and Dr Francis (Tudor/Stuart England and/or Britain depending) is a riot. I totally expected your standard, older/middle-aged white dude to be Dr. Francis. Instead he's a young man from the West Indies with a heavy accent and too much energy for his own good. So that was fun.

Hauling my ass across campus for choir was less than fun, but the choir sounds GOOD - like WOW good. And we're split 11/13/12/12 part wise (S1/S2/A1/A2) so I get to keep singing Alto 1.

Anyway - will update again after the rest of class - I dont feel like studying, so today was a mid-day update day (: Have a good chunk of reading to do for thursday though - tomorrow will be busy!

a-p.org decisions

ok - so I think I've figured out what I want to do with the journal thing. See - right now I have three (three!) various journals online. And from what I can tell, only a few people still visit the one at amar-prestar.org/blog. So rather than fight with a layout style and a journal system (greymatter) that I can't for the life of me figure out anymore, I'm going to ditch that one, use this one and the livejournal, and set up myself a real functional working homepage at the www.amar-prestar.org address. So that's what I'm working on this morning! The graphic needs some work too, but I'm not sure if I want to start over (go to the site and see what you think of the background graphic - blue and stars).

This change will take place over a few days (I'll leave the other site up with a "going away" notice for now - in about a week, I'll take it down and just leave up a message there with where it went)

yay hosting!

IT WORKS!!! www.amar-prestar.org/blog is back online.

now to decide if I delete it or not. I am in a comments-spam ring that I cant get rid of.

and regardless, I seriously need a new layout.

back on the 'net... and no internet to speak of.

it appears that e-star finally got my hosting thing worked out and billed - so it'll be a matter of a day or two and www.amar-prestar.org will be back up.

of course, i just moved myself back to waco and have no internet (long post back on my computer... but no way to get it here to the SUB where I'm currently bumming around because I don't want to unpack anything else)

So anywho - any ideas for some new layoutness? I may try to learn typepad or something. Also going to try to put things up on the main site... maybe. dunno - can't decide!

< backposted >

Moving In (7:30pm, Thursday, August 17, 2006)

Since I don’t have internet, this post is actually going to appear a day later than it was written – but oh well. I’m tired and need a break, so I’m going to ramble :D

I moved back to Waco today – got up this morning, put the last of the boxes in the car, and drove my not-so-happy self back up here. I am looking forward to being back in class, but the “driving every weekend, always exhausted, not enough sleep, too much homework” drag isn’t exactly appealing. But the guys are coming tomorrow to set up the internet (more on that later) so I had to be here today so that there was someone in the apartment.

Nobody has lived here all summer, see, so I’ve been checking in periodically, but there’s not been much of anything here. I didn’t bring a whole lot with me either – my computer, two boxes of books, some clothes, and a (very) meager kitchen. Nevertheless, it was a hot haul from the car by myself.

Got everything in and realized… $)(%* it’s hot in here… so I go to look at the AC.

Now let me mention again – nobody has been here all summer. So the AC had been turned to “barely cool.” This is also Texas – and there’s just a windowbox AC in this apartment – it’s right above the bed in the bedroom. So while the bedroom was moderately pleasant-ish, the front room/kitchen was rather steamy. So I turned up the fan and cranked up the AC. Figured I’d go to the bank and the store while I waited for things to cool so I took a quick inventory of the place.

Now – this is an old apartment, but it’s not in too bad of shape really. A little dark, the mattress looks a little… well it looks like someone made swiss cheese of one side with a screwdriver. *adds vinyl mattress cover to list*

I go to the store (avoiding all the freshmen and their mommies and daddies – today being freshmen move in day) and spend way too much money on an ink cartridge, a microwave (didn’t I mention it didn’t come with a microwave?), various food items, shelf liner, water, and a spiral/file/folder set for class next week. Get back, unpack…

)($$#*%! it’s STILL hot in here. Still comfy, if a tad on the warm side in the bedroom too – but then that back wall of the complex is beating in the western afternoon sun.

Ok, whatever, I start to unpack, make up the bed (this one squeaks even more than the one last year did!), put the kitchen in semi-order.

Hey look… there’s no towel racks or hooks in the bathroom. Fun. And… every single plug in this apartment is a two-prong plug. Not a single grounded plug in the place. Which is fine… except the microwave I just bought? The one that has to sit on the kitchen table because it’s not going to fit on the counter, even though it’s the smallest one at the store? Yeah – 3prong plug. As does my surge protector. And I need a fan to blow the cold air out of the bedroom and into the apartment.

*sigh* so I go BACK to the store, again dodging freshmen and their mommies and daddies (boy am I glad I’m not going on Sunday though – I got to pick what kind of stuff I wanted, rather than after all the other non-freshmen got to it.) Spend (again) way more than I intend to spend, but hey – I now have salsa and taquitos and rice and some more shelf paper, a seat cushion, some chinsy cheap fabric and stitch-witchery to make “curtains”… you know – important stuff.

But it is now 6:00pm – and I have no desire to cook something. Because the apartment is already hot. So I stop by Subway, grab a sandwich, and head back. All the time forcing myself to pay attention to the road and not the neck-wrenching, ear splitting tension headache I am now sporting for my afternoon’s efforts.

Get back, plug in my stuff with my new found 2 > 3 converter pluggies, microwave works, computer turns on, fan works, finish with the shelf papering, look at the suitcase full of clothes…

And sit down to write this (:

I’m also noticing now… it’s warmer in here. The front room IS cooler – a bit. And the bedroom is warmer. Perhaps I will not be running the fan at night. Or I should just point the fan dead at my face and hope it keeps me cool enough to survive. After all, once we get to the end of September, it might cool off outside…

Oh – and about that internet thing? Apparently I’m in the “rolling appointment” book – meaning that I have no idea when the hell they’re going to show. “Sometime between 8am and 8pm, they’ll call ½ hour before hand” *sigh* - so I can’t go help set up for the Hunters Moon event that is this weekend in Waco, but I also can’t get to everyone’s info on the internet to let them know why I’m not there when I said I would be.

*grumblegrumble* I’m going to go take some advil… oh wait – don’t have any

digging up the past

so i'm looking at my profile and getting rid of the junk I never cleaned out after I graduated from highschool and got my real domain... and I discovered this little tidbit in my profile:

On Blogger since - December 2001.

Wow. that was a LONG time ago. Makes me feel kind of bad for not posting much recently, either here or at my other webpage. Funny how, when you know people read something, you stop posting.

new blog

well, my stupid webserver crashed, and they dont seem to want to let me renew my domain name. so i'm posting here in the interim (also because i have a friend with a new blog, and wow - blogger brings back memories)

so anyway - i'm also found at http://amarprestar.livejournal.com/ since LJ friends are awesome (: