A friend of mine is currently in San Francisco looking for her runaway sister and her sister's friend.  These two have been raising hell at home by going to raves and doing drugs and pissing off their parents, and now they've gone and hopped a Greyhound to SF and have been missing for 6 days...  If anyone knows anything that might help us find them, please pass the information along.

http://www.pollyklaas.org/missing/kids/christine-bronder-marissa-yturbide.html

Be warned, knowledge cannot be unlearned...

This is the culmination of a single semester, well, ok HALF a semester of honest work, plus several days of frantic work (procrastination :P) on a project that  I believe is one of the most important things in my life at this point.  Please feel free to email comments, questions, suggestions, edits, requests for more information, explanation, well... you get the idea... I was feedback, people!  This will be a BOOK some day, and it can only get better with support from the readers ^-^

Gotta run now... more to follow....

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddg4d23x_3cdmrnv

Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America

The end of Free Speech in America has arrived at our doorstep. It's a new law called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and it is worded in a clever way that could allow the U.S. government to arrest and incarcerate any individual who speaks out against the Bush Administration, the war on Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security or any government agency (including the FDA). The law has already passed the House on a traitorous vote of 405 to 6, and it is now being considered in the Senate where a vote is imminent. All over the internet, intelligent people who care about freedom are speaking out against this extremely dangerous law: Philip Giraldi at the Huffington Post, Declan McCullagh at CNET's News.com, Kathryn Smith at OpEdNews.com, and of course Alex Jones at PrisonPlanet.com

http://www.oregontruthalliance.org/?q=node/393

Full text of the bill here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h1955_rfs.xml

I'm currently investigating schools strong in the forces of Biotechnology up in Canada.  I may just get my school loans here, then move up there with them XP    Although I haven't looked at exchange rates recently... anybody know if the Canadian dollar is stronger than ours yet?

*trembles*

*WARNING* Knowledge cannot be unlearned...

I actually responded to one of these, so I guess I'm obliged...
Comments screened...

1. give me your number?
2. let me hug you anytime I wanted to?
3. let me kiss you?
4. watch a movie with me...even a really sappy one?
5. let me take you out to dinner?
6. drive me somewhere/anywhere?
7. take a shower with me?
8. have a fling with me?
9. listen to me if I called you crying even if you were out with all of your friends?
10. buy me a drink if i didn't have money?
11. take me home for the night?
12. let me sleep in your bed?
13. sing karaoke w/ me?
14. sit in the doctors office with me because I didn't want to go alone?
15. re-post this for me to answer your questions?
16. come pick me up at 3am because my car ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere?
17. Do you think i'm cute or hot?
18. Do you like my style?
19. Do you think I'm funny?
20. cry if I died?
21. dance with me?
22. sing happy birthday to me?
23. take advantage of me if I was drunk?
24. strip for me?

http://crazyfox.com/

**video commercial**
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uhcCnhCrqm8

its a fishing site for info for spam for the purposes of praying on the ignorant I'm sure, BUT its got a talking CG anthropomorphic fursuiter-looking mascot

Life has been much more full these days.  I dun think the workload is really getting bigger (though the semester is more than half over, meaning that end-of-term projects will be coming up soon), but I know that I've been working harder...  I want to improve my grades, of course, but more than that, I'm actually getting back a bit of what it felt like to be a student - the concentration, enjoyment of the subject, the longer hours studying and practicing and working with concepts that are new and unintuitive (until they're familiar, at least)  At any rate, it certainly feels great to actually enjoy working on organic chemistry nomenclature with some others from my class.

Funny that.  When you're a better student, you usually seek out others to work with.  Then you've got common interests, and certainly lots of ones that aren't shared as well.  I'm actually MEETING people through my classes!  Very rapidly, in fact.  And because they all do the same thing, it seems like I'm meeting new people a friends-of-friends who are in my class (but I didn't even know - thanks to 200 seat lecture halls).  At any rate, its a good feeling, one I don't think I've really felt since my heydays in California....

Also, while I'm working with my classmates on practice problems and such and having problems, I find myself much more likely to go meet with the professors in order to help clarify things.  I dun know if I was intimidated or just lazy (or ashamed of not really doing much work), but nowadays I'm feeling more proactive, interested, and, well, smart again...

In other news, the apartment is looking better and better these days.  Got a couple couches and a nice table and some good lights.  Got a decent set of surround speakers and a nice amp - and boy do I *love* music.  It makes me very happy.  I'll prolly be trading some old computer gear for my old projector, and then I'll actually have a *theatre*.  *grins*  I really love my roomates kitty - I'll have to put up some pics some time, but she's one of the most sociable cats I've known.  She'll talk to you if  you talk to her, and its always great to see her when I come home.  I even made her a nice carpet-scratcher that she likes.  Its nice to be appreciated. 

Finally, my phone is on its last legs, but I've already bought a replacement.  I'm stoked because its pretty, smart, and its called Star Trek :)  It comes with different color faceplates (pink and orange come with mine :D) the only downside is a proprietary USB connector, but I've already figured out how to get around being able to use my own headphones with it - just requires a bit of soldering on the OEM headset.  Oh yeah - I also got a 2gb micro sd card, and its going to be my new portable music player.  I think that I'll just get the unlimited data plan for like $20 and finally have internet at home...

HTC 3125 Star Trek

I wanted to improve my grade in my Cell Biology (341) class, so I studied extra hard for the test the Thursday before last.  We got the grades back last Thursday, and my reward was somewhat underhanded.  My grade was identical to the first one I'd gotten (lower than I'd have liked, but marginally acceptable for a first test) - however for the second test, the class average had dropped by 12 percentage points, so at least I didn't slide with them.  I guess that made me kind of happy.

I kinda freaked over my organic-chemistry test on Friday.  I needed a stiff drink and a cigarette afterword.  I know I did poorly on it, even through I studies for it for at least 20 hours all week.  At least I developed some *great* study habits.  Mixed feelings.

Physics (later that day) made me feel better however, as I aced the quiz we get every Friday (as I usually do)

I finally got to meet up with a couple friends whom I haven't seen since before the semester began.  It was awesome - I'd given them a piece of glass art that needed repair, on the condition that they'd get it fixed.  Laura loves it now - its whole again and well appreciated, and I finally got to see it whole again for the first time since early 2004.  It lived in the house in San Francisco for all of three weeks before it was broken, and has been floating around in that condition ever since.  Now its back together, and again with people to whom it brings enjoyment, and whom I care about.  That makes me happy

I rearranged my living room yesterday - it is much more space efficient and inviting now, and this makes me happy. 

Down side was that it stirred up a ton of dust, and I lost my voice and had a sinus headache and runny nose for most of today, which interfered with my rehearsal for Hayden's Mass in Time of War.  That was frustrating.  Regardless, I get to sing in a quartet with Katherine DeBoer, a most excellent vocalist here at UNR, and that is good.  I love to sing, and I'm pretty good at it.  Its great fun and an honor to sing with others who have real talent.

It was remarkable how much I enjoyed the fact that my ex got pulled over doing almost 20 over the speed limit.  My nose feels better already.

I'm feeling better every day about being a student. It seems like I'm slowly, bit by bit, becoming more and more interested and dedicated to the subjects that I'm studying. Having drama-free time to myself for a while has been the best thing thats happened to me in several years. I'm starting to sleep a bit better (and fall asleep during the day less), I'm better able to concentrate and enjoy the things that I do, even if they're just more work (or classwork, as the case may be).

I'm eating reasonably well, and on less money than I ever did since I started paying for my own food. Having a freezer and fridge and pantry that I can actually make the basics of food out of is a good feeling. Its these simple things that I'm doing for myself that help me. I've been able to make stew a few times with Shawn and Alix and Sisi over a bottle of wine and some good conversation - this just proves that food feeds more than the belly.

My finances are livable, meaning they're not interfering with my schooling. But only barely. My parents were already stretched thin before they helped dig me out of a hole I'd blindly hopped into at the beginning of the summer. Now they've done all they can, and are potentially moving out of town soon, so I may be about to loose my tuition break if my Dad moves away from UNR. I'll make something work, but at this point money has just become a much larger hurdle than I'd planned on. I went to California with the expectation that I wouldn't bring back any more debt than if I'd stayed in school in the first place. It was mostly the case... and at any rate I've managed to pay off most of the debt I was unfairly saddled with in a good amount of time, but of course at the expense of other more worthy endeavors

I'm still not over myself entirely.  I'm still on my meds (Lexapro and sometimes Provigil).  I still get lonely and frustrated, but life is much less chaotic now.  I'm not confused or hurting the way I used to be - now that the chaos of my relationship is over.  I can finally get back to doing what I want, and be the intensely curious student of the world that I used to be.

I've met a cool couple in my O-Chem class. We're in the same tutoring session, and I just spent about 6 hours with them reviewing for the test on Friday and eating bottomless bowls of zuppa toscana. They're 18 and 20, have been together for three years, and are planning on marrying in the next few. They're both pre-med, and both happy, successful, and dedicated. I wish them luck, and I hope they're better for each other than I was for my ex, and vice versa.  

My Physics Professor just agree to give me an extra point on my overall semester grade if I present to the class an accurate assessment of the rotational forces necessary to fling everyone from the surface of the earth.  I think I like her a bit more now.

*toothy grin*

Also - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2304-Zero-Punctuation-Halo-3

Its the next best thing to British!

This is a List of the top 110 banned books.
Bold the ones you’ve read.
Italicize the ones you’ve read part of.
Underline the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of).
Read more. Convince others to read some.

#1 The Bible

#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

#4 The Koran

#5 Arabian Nights

#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (good:)

#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

#11 The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (One of my Favorite Books)

#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker

#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin

#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne

#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

#25 Ulysses by James Joyce

#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell

#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

#29 Candide by Voltaire

#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

#31 Analects by Confucius

#32 Dubliners by James Joyce

#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal

#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx

#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire

#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence

#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair

#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx

#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding

#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys

#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel KantA

#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus

#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker

#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck

#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau

#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

#69 The Talmud

#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau

#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence

#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles

#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck

#78 Popol Vuh

#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith

#80 Satyricon by Petronius

#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright

#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu

#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle

#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin

#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner

#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig

#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown

#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines

#102 Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau

#103 Nana by Émile Zola

#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck

#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark

#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

*yawns* Mhmmmm, sleep. Thats good. Sos all the leftovers from my first Christmas dinner prepared (mostly) by myself... *takes a theatrical bow to Fox Palmer for some good pointers and help*, and a Christmas holiday that went off on the whole rather well. I started just by inviting a couple people over, and with the help of a certain overactive fox, we ended up with a nice little crowd. I was glad for the company though, and from what I've heard, everyone else was too.

As for the tired part, I'm still doing dishes :P

I'm going now.

I'm dropping off Tatanka, my friend.

More when I come back...

I am fridge Jesus!

*Jake* I am Fryer Satan!

*teehee*

So yeah.

And stuff.

Life is either in your favor, or wearing down on you bit by bit. I think I'm in the latter category right now...

I feel as though I'm without prospects, and realistically, I am. I've finally got a job, but it costs me 4 hours of travel time each day, which doesn't leave me time for be a contributing member of my adopted family and household up in the city. I want to open up to the ideas that Alakani is proposing, but between the two of us, we can't afford to live even a modest independent lifestyle. I feel trapped, and if I'm not careful, this could throw me back into withdrawal. I've got a lot of good things going on in my life, a lot of generosity, strong friendships and trusts, I need to remember that... I'm just scared that I've compromised too much...

I don't have the energy to elaborate on anything right now. I suppose this is life? Having to work at it, guide yourself - not having someone to say everything will be ok... Its lonely, despite the closeness.

Well. It been a while, but more importantly, its been a hugely exhausting and rewarding weekend. We actually managed to pull off a huge surprise birthday party for Justin - we're all amazed (including himself) that he didn't figure it out. He was even trying to get some of his friends to go to a rave with him, and they're all like "no- sorry - we've got something else we're doing this weekend..."

Anyway - throwing parties is a huge amount of work - many thanks go out to Kenyoni and Jim Cyr for their great advice and guidance - I wouldn't have been able to make things work as well as they did without it... Thanks to Zephyrr for putting up with my antics and helping anyway - and to Frag and Jake for just being around and helping with the lights and stars :)

We invited everyone that he knew - so the crowd was quite varied - and for the most part everyone was able to remember that it was 'kani's party and put any personal differences that they had aside. Aparently people enjoyed it, which was about as much as we can hope for :) Oh yeah - and we needa track down those pictures of the cake that Phyx took...

All in all, it was a success. We've been working toward it for so long that I really don't know what to do next... maybe just sleep for a while.

Oh yeah. Happy Birthday, Alakani!

*snuggles*

feh, so I've been lax in my posts recently, but then there's not been much new recently either. Still looking for some kind of summer job an all, an just tutling along with my piano tuning.

On the other hand, I *did* get to go down to SF for Gay Pride last weekend, and that was a BLAST. It started rather rough, but that was only getting there, and we only ended up a few hours late when all was said and done.
___________
At this point I'll add that we made it down in 2:37 minutes. It was scary. I won't name the driver, but I will say I'm not riding with him on another long trip EVER. We averaged a speed of about 110. NOT GOOD.
___________
I was a bit worried that I'd get in after Justin woke up, spoiling that whole waking up with a surprise in your bed kinda feeling, but i managed to pull that off. From there, the weekend was all uphill. We got out saturday to Celebration, this kind of street-fair/party thing near 8th street, which started kinda cool. We then managed to find our way down to the Castro (which was our original desitnation, but we were happy we got lost :) it was fun seeing it while everyone was all excited and getting ready for the big stuff to come that night and the day after. the Dikes on Bikes parade was wrapping up right around 7, and then the real fun began. They roped off all of the Castro, something like 4 blocks right at sundown, and the partying didn't stop until 3am. There was good music and great company, not to mention the people-watching *grin*. Rather wild, all things considered.

azurite also gave me this really nifty Pride bracelet (that Jags made! yay Jags!) along about 11pm. I'd been looking for one all day, but none of the ones i found either fit or looked good... Thanks Az!

oh yeah. and as shawn and John tried to get back to the house (far south end of San Fran) they somehow wound up smack in the middle of downtown. Fortunately they managed to get themselves back just as we were returning, despite having left several hours before we did...

So we crash early sunday morning - and sleep in through most of the parade (:P), though I much prefered the extra time to be with Justin... but we got back to the Celebration area about 2, just as the parade quit, but also just as the music was starting to move again... this means that we dance for another 5 hours and meet more poeple and see more strange sights, and all in all have another great time.

It was a great weekend, quite fun getting away from all the dreary boringness of Reno...

Getting to see alakani was *really* good for the both of us, I think. Also finally got to see Steve and Zephyrr again - and have a wonderful conversation with them over sushi on saturday night (and meet a really cute waiter guy, too ;) This turned out pretty well in the end. Except for this really nasty sore throat that I'm just now getting over (dunt know where I got it...), and having completely trashed my back and neck dancing for the better part of eight or ten hours... what I get for having too much fun, I guess *grin*

Meanwhile, back at the Bat Cave...

So, school is out, and I'm living with my parents once more. I'm looking at a few part-time throw-away jobs so I've got a *bit* of cash and have head start when I finally move out to California. And as for THAT timing, I can get out there as soon as Art is ready to turn me loose on the pianos of San Francisco, hopefully within the next couple months...

I'll hopefully be rooming with Krominof (as the rest of the house will be full), but that will be cool in its own right, as he's actually a super-cool guy who I'm wamring up to quite a bit, now that I'm getting to know him a bit better.

So yeah. Stuff, and things.

school seems to be going rather a bit better now.

I talked with my Education 101 teacher, she's aparently has a personality to match the third grade lessons that we keep getting in class, meaning that she'll accept ALL my late work from the entire semester so far with only 10% off until april 16th. She's also given me the option of withdrawing completely, with nothing appearing on my permanent record. cool! dunno what I'm gonna do yet, but things with regards to that class are now much less of a headache.

Had a fun time out in San Fran again this weekend, as usual - Alakani and Kenyoni and FurryLogic and I all remodeled Kenyoni's bathroom - he's now got new cabinetry, sink, vanity, plus butloads of wiring. It took about 30 hours total - quite a bit of work, but its looks quite a bit better, and we owed him anyway :) Its good to return favors!

Got a new battery for my laptop! I can now get almost double (a whole hour and a half total! phbbbt:P) my previous battery life. I may just send the whole notebook back, it keeps cooking itself...we'll have to see if I can isolate the problem as being heat related...if so I may send it back, or just turn the bottom into a solid aluminum heat-sink and leave scorch-marks everywhere I set it down....fun fun fun...

Anyway, life goes on...