Squirrel's Ink

I called today, after realizing that the hold may not be about fingerprinting after all. It was not, and after asking me a few simple questions, the guy removed the hold on my account. He told me my CERTIFICATION will be printed and mailed! Oh, the joy!

Next step: start collecting materials to send to CT, so that if I decide I do want to move, I can get a damn job. The website makes it look surprisingly easy, once you've got your CERTIFICATION!

I recommend going to a Presidential Inauguration. It's a wonderful thing to watch the Peaceful Transition of Power (TM), and it was very cool to be in such a crowd of excited people and to talk to other people from around the country (even around the world - neat!) I just don't think I recommend going to a major, historic one in which the Most Hated President ever is being replaced by the Messiah.

Also, bring lots of those pocket handwarmers. I had a whole bag, and I'm sure that's why I did not lose any extremities.

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There will be new Ugly Betty episodes put into production for the season :) Four or five, can't get an answer on how many exactly. A month and a half will be, what, early April?

Happiness abounds!

I missed my home!

I'm never leaving for longer than a week again.

I may never leave the country again, either.

1. Birthday!

Yesterday my entire immediate family plus Kate and Amy came to NYC and we went to see Spamalot (IT WAS FABULOUS!), then I went to dinner with friends in the Village. We were planning on a party afterwards, but sadly, I am just an old fart and don't stay out terribly late.

My mom gave me a solar-powered light up garden squirrel. It is going in the backyard tomorrow morning and shall freak out the neighbor kids for the rest of the summer.

Today I got to ride in a 1934 Frazier Nash:

http://www.kitcars.com/Classifieds/Pictures/8792-1.jpg

It was quite exciting, especially the bit where the car shook like it was about to fall apart.

2. Happy birthday, hatefulping!

3. Incredible teacher moment:

I read the card my student gave me on Friday, which was the last day of class with this girl. It was incredibly sweet, the kind of teacher moment that makes you think you can put up with all the crap. I gave her a book I bought for her on investigating crime scenes partly because I knew she was having a hard time this year and wanted to let her know that someone cared, and partly because her obsession with serial killers was a bit disturbing to me. She seemed to really like it. I'm going to let her know I read the card on Monday, because I just kind of glanced at it when she gave it to me - we had to get to class.

4. Jesus Christ Superstar

I went from video store to video store on my way home today looking for a copy of "Jesus Christ Superstar" only to be frustrated at every turn. I got home, having given up, and was greeted at the door by my roommate's extremely perky friend who is staying with us for a while, since she is moving to Florida and the lease has run out on her apartment. I remembered that she had a binder o' DVDs and asked her, expecting a no, if she had a copy.

And the heavens shone down upon me . . . tomorrow my classes that have already taken their finals are going to be watching some of this:



"Could Mohammad move a mountain or was that just PR?"

And the radiator is fixed. Apparently it just needed the steam let out so it could fill with water again.

Yay for normal temps inside again!

I'm kind of appalled to read about people who aren't so lucky - slumlords in this weather refusing to turn on the heat. Its been all over the news.

I contacted my rock climbing buddy from back in October, in the theory that she was really busy during the holidays, and she emailed me back. We're going climbing this weekend!

Jeff, thanks for telling me to go out rock climbing today. I feel better than I have been for a few few weeks ^_^

Since I'm scared of heights, getting to the top was a real accomplishment, even if the walls were relatively short (according to some more experienced climbers.)



Afterwards, people talked me into going to CANstruction, which some architects and design firms do as the most unique food drive ever. The firms compete to create the best piece of artwork out of canned goods and other non-perishable food, and the entry price to view the sculptures is a canned good. After the competition is over, all of the food goes to charity.

More pictures behind the cut:

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Not only did nobody try to throw eggs at me, but I only saw *one* broken egg on the ground.

I really like my new neighborhood.

I went out to the Halloween parade in the Village last night. The beginning of the parade had people carrying cool stuff on poles, - ghosts, snakes, pumpkin-head scarecrows - like in some sort of a Mexican Day of the Dead festival, but after that it degenerated into people marching along in their costumes. The first part was *really* cool, though. I wore garb, because I'm boring (and because I had no reason for a costume, with the wedding falling on the day of all the Halloween parties.)


*Good luck to everyone taking the National Novel Writing Month challenge!* If I ever do such a thing I will probably wait until summer, when I'm off from school. Instead I shall show support by going to a bookstore and buying a book from a first-time author.