Athene Numphe

I've been meaning to write a update for a while.

Mom came to visit for the long MLK weekend. It was nice. I love hanging out with mommy. Over the weekend went shopping on South Congress, went to Kreuz Market for yummy bbq, and made King Cake. On MLK day, Mom and I dropped lordaerith off at work and then drove down to San Antonio. We visited the Alamo and walked around the city a bit. After lunch we headed back and stopped at San Marcos to visit the Outlet malls. Almost found shoes that fit perfectly, but they didn't. Oh well.

Last Saturday byskwik and I ran around like crazy trying to put together costumes for the Steampunk Ball at Elysium. Couldn't find goggles anywhere, but I found some awesome gloves at Goth-in-a-Box. The Steampunk Ball itself was really awesome! There were so many people dressed up in awesome costumes (tiny hats FTW!) Ran into some friends that I expected to see there and a few that I didn't, so that was nice. Also, the DJ's played Airship Pirate by Abney Park which totally made my night.

Monday night Aerith and I went to one of those karaoke places where you rent a room with friends. It was an interesting experience. They had a lot of songs, but many of them were in languages we didn't know and the remote was tricky to figure out. Also they had these weird videos playing in the background of the songs that made us laugh.

Tuesday night jack08180 (aka Camera) came over and we watched Serenity (I cried, as usual). He has now seen all of Firefly/Serenity.

This morning I made pancakes. I tried to add raspberry gel to some of them for Aerith. It worked okay.

Stuff on the job front is going okay. My resume is all updated, I've updated my profile on places like WorkinTexas and LinkedIn, and I've even started applying for jobs. We'll see how it goes. *crosses fingers*

I've been enjoying my last week of "freedom" before I rejoin the working world.

I've spent most of the week so far cleaning up the apartment (gods, did it need it). The study is in a MUCH better shape than it has been in a long time. There's still a lot to go on it (can we say total reorganization of the closet), but the paperwork is off of my desk-bed/the floor and has been put away, put into meaningful piles, or been trashed/recycled. Last night syhira brought over the futon base that she no longer needs so we put my desk-bed up on top of it. It's going to take some time for me to adjust to my desk-bed being up so high. I've also tackled the mess that was the kitchen and just finished doing a dark hand-wash load in the washer (I love that my washer has that setting).

I hope to finish cleaning this place up this week, which includes lots of vacuuming and possibly reorganizing my clothing (especially the clothing in the closet...I may need to buy more hangers).

I've also spent some time reading Children of Dune, watching Season 2 of Weeds (wow it's a good show!) and watching some Firefly. Had a nice long conversation today with artemis42, which I think we both needed.

Last night I went to karaoke and stayed out very late doing so. It was a lot of fun (as always) and I really had a good time/felt that I rocked it. I sang a bunch (yay for a short rotation). I think that my favorites of the night were "Call Me", "Walk this Way" (the pure Aerosmith version), and "The Time of My Life" duet with zyrain.

Next week: work. In three weeks = week long trip to Massachusetts. October = filling up fast with the Browncoat Ball, TRF, and Halloween parties.

Oh and lordaerith and I are planning to go to RHPS this weekend. Let us know if you are coming too.

Yesterday I turned in my very last paper both for the semester and that I will ever have to write for my Masters. Just my capstone and then I'm done! Yay!!!

Also had what is probably my last day of work for the semester. Got to play with rewiring the audio on 66% of the computers in the digitization lab (did the other 33% earlier in the semester). syhira came and helped me which made the whole process go a lot faster. Rocked out to my "Tori Dolls choice" station on Pandora the whole time :)

Came home and took a nap as I'd gotten very little sleep finishing up the last paper. lordaerith made a yummy dinner of potatoes-au-gratin, bison steak, and asparagus. Watched last week's episode of Lost, which I hadn't seen due to writing my paper on Lost.

Went out to Karaoke. Was there from about 10pm to about 1:30am. The new KJ was cute. She kept having problems though. First the next to the stage monitor wasn't working (FireCat and I tried to troubleshoot it, but we couldn't figure it out) and then the cord kept falling off of the mic (at least those it happened to were able to fix it before their song started).

I sung a lot and totally rocked it. The songs that I sung for my turns were in order:

1. Papa Don't Preach - Madonna
   
2. Hand In My Pocket - Alanis
   
3. Stacey's Mom - Fountains of Wayne
   
4. Voices Carry - Til Tuesday
   
5. Walk This Way - Run DMC version
   
6. Long Time - Boston

I decided that I had to sing Papa Don't Preach after it came on my iPod yesterday and I found myself singing it out loud while walking across campus. Even startled my boss *grin*. I've decided that I like the Aerosmith version of Walk This Way better for karaoke purposes because it has all the words and it flows smoother, IMO. I didn't sing it by myself though. One of our group did the chorus part. Also, Long Time has a 2:40min intro due to also having Foreplay attached at the beginning of it. It's fun to go up for a song, and then go sit back down for a few minutes :)

In addition to the songs above, I also sang Bohemian Rhapsody with "The Group" (ie anyone we could convince to go on stage with us) and "On My Own" with zyrain on his turn. Turns out I had most of the words in that song. Oh well.

I totally rocked almost all of the songs I sung and had a really good time!

Today was a lazy lazy recovery day for me. Probably more lazy than it should have been...going out with maddaddy to see Speed Racer tonight. Best get ready.

On Tuesday I went to Karaoke. Sooo much fun. I sang Voices Carry for the first time and totally rocked it. At the end of the night we all got on stage (including two people not in our group, but who were cool) and belted out Bohemian Rhapsody. hehehe. I totally need to find out if my Karaoke CD authoring program works (good thing that FireCat has Bubble's karaoke machine at her house) and then I will by lots of JoCo songs in karaoke form and it will be FABULOUS!

On Friday night lordaerith and I went to see The Rainmaker, put on by the Paradox Players. Aerith had done the set & lighting design (I helped...and by helped I mean I was the one on the ladder with the wrench in my back pocket, pulling gels and focusing the hot lights)



Last night we went bowling with Bouncy, Blondey, nikkita422 and helfyre13. OMG was fun. Haven't bowled in so long. Got above 50 on my second game. YAY for me! (no really, this is an accomplishment). Hung out with nikkita422 and helfyre13 afterwards. Told nerdy gaming stories the whole time :)

Today I finally figured out how to french braid my hair...don't laugh. I'm proud of me.

Now back to reading about New Media, Networking, and Communication.

artemis42 has been in town since Sunday afternoon and this has been making me exceedingly happy.

On Sunday I picked her up from the bus station (after becoming a QuickTime VR Goddess) and brought her home to rest. That night we saw Josh Blue at Cap City Comedy Club. He was soo funny, that Artemis almost fell out of her chair. The other two who went on before him were really funny too. Over all it was a great night and we had fabulous seats. I am currently trying to get the picture of me and Josh Blue off of my cell phone...but it's not sending (grrr).

On Monday we took Artemis to Whole Foods World during the day and then went to see the Simpson's Movie at the Alamo Drafthouse. It was pretty funny, although I felt that the middle sort of dropped off a bit.

On Tuesday, lordaerith went into the shop and so Artemis and I had the day together. Mostly we just hung out and talked while I worked on and off on my Independent study. That night we went to FireCat's house for some Guitar Hero and then to Karaoke where I found out that I do much better when I sing faster songs and artemis42 shocked a group of people in the bar by singing Tori's Precious Things. At one point someone in the group decided that since we didn't have lighters, we could use our cell phones as a light source instead. I think that FireCat almost lost it when we started waving the cell phones while she sang "Stand By Me."

Tonight we're planning on going to the Poly Meet-up at Central Market. Hurray!

ps. From catling42, Harry Potter and the... (no spoilers, but not entirely work safe either)

After having an incredibly insane week at work, due to the launch of a new product this coming monday, this weekend has been so what I needed it to be.

Friday I came home and chilled for a while and then went to drum and dance. I tried to get lordaerith to come with me, but he wasn't feeling up to it. Had a pretty good time there. When I first started dancing I just let all the tension from the last week out and got lost in the rhythm of the drums. Found out just how out of shape I am though. couldn't really dance for long periods of time. Talking to people was good too. Met some people who have been doing relief work down in New Orleans. that was nifty. Also, autumnlaughing really liked my outfit, which made me happy. Also got to see people, which was nice. even saw someone I knew from Smith, whom I haven't seen in ages. About half way though the evening I started getting all these weird doubts about people's perception of me and stuff, and i couldn't get them out of my head. it was somewhat distracting from the dance. Sat on the floor at the edge of the dance space. Ended up hanging out there with kiten and adan_ (hindu god *G*). Got some more dancing in and had a good conversation with another pagan classicist who's been to Europe too.

got home to find my man in bed...and well, that's another story. :)

Saturday Aerith and I went out shopping and then headed down to kiten and doctorjekyll's party. on the way, we stopped by a video game store and picked up Karakoe Revolution Volume 3. After hanging out with everyone at the party for a while, we started up the game. OMG! So much fun. everyone was singing and having a blast. I don't think we laughed that hard in a good long while. and both msbutterpecan and lordq42 got perfect scores. We played both volume 3 and party (volume 4). I so want volume 1 and 2 and another mic so we can do duets.

I think that Aerith and I need to host a karaoke party here sometime soon. with lots of alcohol and singing. :)

This morning I got to talk to the Mad Russian, who is getting married in May. eee. i'm so excited for her. I think that everyone who was at my wedding knows how much her fiance wanted to marry her by the way he jumped for the garter. :)

now it's time to get on to other things (and by that I mean watch aerith play The Bard's Tale)