Timat

Okay...so, for serious this time I've actually been working on my comic. I'm sure it seems otherwise, but I have actually managed to download and install WordPress and ComicPress.

Considering I don't know any programming and only a bit about how websites work, it's a start eh?

If any of you actually know how to make it look like I want it to look, and links or tutorials or just telling me how to do that...well, that would be super. In the meantime I'll probably stumble around until I can get it working like I want to.

anyway, the link as always is: http://www.topsecretilluminati.com/

I got a Wii Fit about a week ago. It's a pretty cool little thing. I love my Wii anyway, so it gives me more reason to use it!

Unfortunately, when I got it I was suffering from a chest cold...which is still lingering pretty hard in my lungs even now. But yesterday I finally felt up to a full workout. I worked out for 40 minutes. I good amount of that was yoga, 10 minutes of strength training, a few minutes of aerobics and then a couple of minigames.

Today, and last night even, I am feeling the results of being really out of shape. My muscles hurt...which makes me fell productive...but doesn't really make me want to do it again today. Though, I should...and my mii and it's activities are adorable...so at least that's encouraging ;-)

Unless there's something else very major wrong with it...I think I will still take the kitten. I've been doing a bit of reading about blind cats and apparently they can do pretty well...you just can't move their food or litter box all the time, and it's better to not move furniture too often. But...honestly I don't see that being that big of a deal. Faye's(my current kitty) stuff hasn't been moved since I got her.

God. Why do things have to be like this? ANYTIME I get my hopes up I get screwed over. It's like clockwork.

The medical trial...last minute they tell me I can't be in it because I was "In a trial" on July 11th. I didn't even take any experimental drugs in this trial...I was sent home as a backup because the non-experimental drug made me sick...but NOW three fucking days before I would go in to make me $3600 they tell me...I feel like someone just punched me. It's not fair. My luck makes it SO hard for me to believe anything good will happen, then like a fool I do and it happens again. FUCK. And right now there is nothing else that will fit with my school schedule. FUCK.

And too top it off, my mom took the kitten I was going to adopt from her to the vet today because it was having a problem with it's eye...well, turns out it's probably blind in both eyes. I feel like an asshole, but I really don't know if I want to adopt a cat that's going to be blind for its whole life. I've been excited for this kitten for 2 months...and like I said before no good luck on my behalf. *sigh*

Well, I am relieved. I quit my job at Target at the end of July. I had been working there for 2 years and I was just really sick of it to put it mildly. Luckily I wasn't really updating this much during that time, or you would have had to endure countless hours of bitching about how much working for Target sucks.

To supplement our income, Ryan and I have done a couple of medical trials. Which means we go take drugs that aren't on the market yet, in a very controlled setting and tell them how it makes us feel and get our blood taken a lot. I was set to be in one for 11 days straight(you stay there in a dorm room) for $2900 back on the 11th...but it was a trial involving a painkiller, a generic form of oxycodon(sp). Don't worry! Everyone always freaks out...but they give you such low doses at these things it's crazy. This one I had to take 1 dose every four days but the problem was that they make you take an opioid blocker to cancel out any good effects a painkiller might give you. But apparently I am sensitive to the blocker, and it made me really nauseous so I opted to go home because i didn't want to be sick the whole trial(they give you the blocker 9 times UGGGH!). It is just a side effect that happens to about 1 in 50 people, usually petite women..I just drew the short straw.

Anyway, I got into a better study. Less visits, shorter visits, and MORE MONEY! Woo...$3600 for 3 weekends :) yay!

I'm exhausted though. I didn't sleep last night, and had class all day today. So I will probably sleep well tonight!

Well...I haven't updated in quite awhile. I haven't updated regularly in even longer, that much is obvious. I do have myspace and facebook, those are better ways of keeping up with me...but I do believe I will start keeping up with my journal again.

Leave a message here is you still read or are interested. I'm curious as to how many people do still do this thing on here. I actually miss reading about some of you hah, and wonder what has happened in your lives.

I will give a quick breakdown of what has happened in my life over the last few years, if anyone wants to do the same for me...that would be fantastic!

Well, I forget where I left off here so I guess I'll start with my moving to Texas. I moved to TX, a little south of Austin the day after Christmas '04 and got married on Jan 7, 05. Married life is good, about the same as living together life...just some legal benefits. And you get to be a cutesy married couple ^-^

This past winter break I worked on a short film, and while I've always wanted to be a film maker I was to scared because of years of my evil ex-stepdad telling me I would always be starving and poor and in debt. Well I, along with Ryan who helped in the making of the film, have decided we both want to work on them. He's more of a director type, and has changed his major from acting to directing after a lot of soul searching and contemplation over the last few years. I would rather go the more artsy route, as always, and work with cameras. As I can't/don't want to switch schools yet again I'm now a photography major, and hopefully will be able to get a cinematography masters. That's where I stand as of now...

My social life is a bit of a tangled web. I live in a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other people. Thankfully one is my husband. There is lots of drama...I should really write some of this shit down...might be a comedic gold mine ;)

If anyone wants to message me, my AIM is still Riazknyne and my msn is illumilatte(at)hotmail(dot)com. I don't really have that good of an excuse for disappearing offline for so long, and I really hope no one took it personally. To be honest I was just really stressed out, and wanted to get my life together. I had bad internet access for awhile, and also I have a lot more things going on in life now than before and a funky schedule for quite awhile. So...hopefully you still want to be friends. If not :) have a good time anyway.

Oh...also, I think I am going to start a photojournal. I don't know if I will just stick it on here, or if I will make a new one. If I do I'll post a link.

My friends are leaving. I'm hurting. I don't want to say anything about it. I feel like if I say anything that I'll be considered needy, or clingy or maybe it's strange that I care so much. I don't want to be some creepy girl that, you know, is too emotional. I wish I didn't care that they were going. I guess...I'm just sad that they'll forget about me, well...not forget. I guess that they just won't care.

Bleh. I think part of my problem right now is body image problems. I've always had somewhat of a problem with this. My stepdad made sure of it, from when I was 5 til I was 21 I constantly had to hear about how ugly I was. Or teased in school for being ugly, having curly hair, bad skin, and dark circles under my eyes and that was just the physical things they teased me about. I had a lot of back stabbing friends thoughout gradeschool...maybe thats why I only really like an open upto very few people. At least back then I had one thing going for me, despite Dale telling me I was a fucking cow I knew better. At 113 pounds and 34-25-36 hourglass figure in a size 4 is not a cow, no matter which way you look at it.

Right now I know I'm not fat, but I'm not anywhere near what I used to be. I want to cut out the fast food and eat healthier, and I have stopped eating candy. I just get depressed and busy and stressed out and don't know what to eat or make and I just say screw it and go get food that's crap for me. I have problems with exercise because I need to do it, but I hate jogging. It makes my joints hurt to bad and I already have bad joints. I like to swim, but the pool at the school is only open weird hours that don't really fit my schedual. And it's too expensive for me to go to the San Marcos Activity Center. Blah.

The thing I hate the most is really the dark circles under my eyes. I've always had them, since I was a little kid, and I feel like I always will. They just make me look tired, ugly and unhealthy. I really can't get past them. They're genetic, so while I don't get much sleep, that's not the cause of them. Nearly everyday, even when I am getting plenty of sleep and feel great, someone comments on them. And I can't tell you how many times a day someone says. "Are you tired? Your eyes are dark." "Man, you look terrible, haven't you slept?" yada yada yada. They're so dark one time when I was working at a salon and had no makeup on, a girl told me I needed to stop using dark eyeshadow all around my eye! UGH! I told her I didn't have any eyeshadow on and she didn't believe me until I told her to remove it if she thought she could. At this point I've given up and just agree with whatever they say even if I feel fine. It's a major source of frustraition for me.

Anyway...I guess I'm just bitching to vent and get it out of my system. I know I'm not fat, I'm just not in shape. I know I'm not ugly, I'm just not very cute...and I'll never be "hawt" because I really just look too young for that. And I know all the bitching in the world isn't going to change the fact I inherited thin eyelids. And even though I'm just a big ball of crazy, as I have just shown, Ryan still loves me. He's more than I deserve.

Stuff.

It's been forever since I've written in here. I guess I should give an update. I am still in school, chugging along. I still work at target, but only part time while I am going to school full time.

The last month or two has been a transition period in my life I think. Our friend John moved in, and Jason moved out and downstairs. Clint and Michelle(my other 2 roommates) got married :)

I guess the best thing that's happened lately is making new friends. I am really happy and really sad at the same time. I really like these guys. Very rarely there comes along a person that I just automatically know I like and would do anything to help them out. I havn't met anyone like that since I moved here, and about a month ago I met two(they're friends with eachother). But I am really sad because they're moving away to Fort Worth. So...right now I'm pretty happy, we actually have people I want to have over and do things with and laugh and have fun. I always get depressed when I move or my friends move away...and they're leaving in just a few weeks. *sigh*

I know life is change, and I'm glad to have met them but why do they have to leave so soon. :-/ C'est la vie.

I miss you guys on my live journal...I guess I just haven't felt like writing much lately. I don't get on AIM or messenger much anymore either...I guess I just feel like I don't want to come on here and just bitch about how much I hate my job, and how I'm confused, scared and excited for the future all at once. I just don't know.

Sometimes I really hate that I love doing so many different things. It makes it hard to narrow down what to do for a job. But...I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. What I really want to do is cinematography. I'd like to be the director of photography for movies or TV or something...I think I would enjoy it. I love telling stories...and I think it would be great to be able to tie my creativity in with that. I just don't know if my school offers cinematography.

Damnit, I just finished Dreamfall and it pissed me off...mostly because the story was really cool and then just cut off. Le sigh...I really do hope they make another one to finish the story up. The game is different from the first...the only interesting parts of it are the story and dialogue. The "game" parts aren't interesting. The fighting is simplistic and sucks, the "puzzles" aren't puzzles at all. You only have 3 things in your inventory at most(2 of which you have the whole game pretty much and use to check e-mails or rarely pick a lock) while the Longest Journey had some really hard and annoying puzzles...this one really doesn't have anything you really have to think about.

The story still roxxors though.

I finally finished a big project for my 3d design class. I worked my ass off to get it done, but it paid off because my teacher wants to display it in the art building. Woot. It's this wooden spine mobile thing made from wood and fishing line. It's 10 feet tall or so. Yeah, I'm glad it's done.

I've decided I want a new tattoo. I want one on my foot..I have for a long time :-P Dunno why. But I want a Koi. Koi isn't a super common tattoo, but more people have them than I thought which surprises me. The reason I want one is because I have been thinking about a tattoo I wanted and about my life lately. Lately my life has been about perserverence and just pushing forward dispite all the forces trying to push me back.

According to Japanese legend if a koi succeeded in climbing the falls at a point called Dragon Gate on the Yellow River it would be transformed into a dragon. Based on that legend, it became a symbol of worldly aspiration and advancement. More generally, the koi is associated with perserverance in adversity and strength of purpose. Because of its strength and determination to overcome obstacles, it stands for courage and the ability to attain high goals. it also means good fortune or luck.

So, I feel that a koi fish would be appropriate.


In other news I've been working on Top Secret Illuminati again :-) hopefully I can keep it up. If only I were paid to do it ;) I could totally handle that.

I will be very glad when this semester is done. It's stressful. I have too much work and too much school/home work and no time to sleep. I feel like I can't neglect my school work so I end up not getting much sleep. But while I do a lot of homework drawing homework is really time consuming and I also don't have time to really do what I want so I end up half assing some of my drawings that I know I can and would like to do it better. The drawings I actually try on I've gotten A+'s and excellents, so that is good.

My boss is back from maternity leave. :-/ I didn't like her before, and now that she's back I like her even less since I had a good boss for awhile. She always talks down to me like I'm stupid. At least I didn't name my baby after starwars like she did. Her and her husband are obcessed nerds that work for and love Target >:(. She's only been back one day and she's already starting in on me.

we never get any thankyous at that job it's just criticism. We work long hours, really crappy hours doing annoying work on a time table for shitty pay. the only perk is weekends off which I don't even care about anymore. I'd rather have school days off so I can actually have time to do homework.

Sorry I'm complaining...I'm just frustraighted and cranky. I'm tired of my boss thinking I'm dumb. At my 90 day evaluation she told me she didn't think I could do this(it's not rocket science, I was just new to it and retail! And she didn't teach me as well as the other girl. she would just walk off all the time after giving me vague instructions). She also told me that I would stare at the planogram with no expression, that I have no emotion on my face and no thoughts in my head. WTF??? noone else told me that.

My response was, "I'm not stupid and I'll focus on making my face look more thoughtful when I am reading my planogram."

She's stupid. and she gets snappy and unapproachable to ask questions. She tells me to ask if I have a problem, but then told me I ask too many questions and would roll her eyes the entire time so I stopped asking. Blah...I really need to get away.

I have to be up in 2 and a half hours...but I am studying for philosophy. this is the only time I had. :-( It's sad considering I haven't been wasting my time. I go from here to work to school then home and study I take a small break to eat usually then do my work and go to bed for a few hours then do it all over! Grrr..just a few more weeks. But I don't know what I'll do when I start getting into the harder classes. These ones are just time consuming, not really hard. once they get time consuming AND hard I don't know what I'll do. I don't think I'll be able to work 40 hours a week. I didn't even want to work 40. when I was hired they said 30 most...and I was happy with that. :-/

Ryan was nice and got me general tso's chicken from rose garden before he picked me up from school. That's love ;) feeding your poor exhausted wife fattening food before an all nighter without even being asked.

http://www.zippyvideos.com/6433767761876696/drtran

So, today was my birthday. Doesn't really seem that long since my last one. At least I wasn't sick and pukey like my 21st which was probably the worst birthday evar ;-P.

Aaaanyway. Ryan got me a yummy icecream cake, an Eberon novel and took me to see Brokeback mountain because I wanted to see it. And we went to the Tap Room, and got some pretty good food. I also got to talk to my mom on the phone, though I wish I could've seen her and my brothers. Other than that, nothing much. We played Jason's mage game.

Pretty calm day all in all.

I'm on my way to get'n old. At least I have Ryan to take care of me though.

Okay, so I just went and figured out how many more hours and classes I need to graduate with my dual major.

45 classes and 125 hours. How will I ever get this done! :-( I have been in school since I was 18. 1 year I was doing the esthetics things, but...blah. I feel like I will NEVER finish.

The biggest thing worrying me is my artwork. I like some of it, and I think I have some potential....but there are so many people that I feel are SOOO much better than I am that haven't even had any training. I don't even know how to get anywhere near that good. And...what's the point of putting myself through all of this, then when I get out what if I can't get a job because I'm not good enough? I guess I am just afraid.

I feel like I'm looking at a mountain, and I know I'm going to climb it...but once I get to the top...what if there's nothing there but a bunch of snow and a nice view of what everyone else is doing?

So...our lizard is named Lebowski...or "The Dude" for short. 'cos it fits his personality. He's cool.

Get your own spectral analysis from Area 23®

I bought a baby bearded dragon! Yippie! Though, I have yet to name it.

Everyone keeps telling me to name it Trogdor: the Burninator. As cool as trogdor is, my dragon doesn't seem like the burninating type. So...yes, I will keep looking for a name.