Just a heads up for people I haven't told about this yet:

I've withdrawn from grad school. I'm okay, Tonje's okay, it was just wasn't what I was expecting and I can't handle it at this point in my life (I will note that I withdrew of my own choice in good standing, I didn't fail out or anything). I'll be staying in Connecticut as much of this year as I'm able to, but that kinda depends on getting a job. If anyone knows any place that's hiring...!

Generally speaking, I consider myself fairly easy to live with (the jury's still out on 'get along with', but coexisting doesn't require camaraderie). I don't care what you do, when you come and go, who you have over (and when, and how long), which of my dishes/kitchen implements you use, whether you use some of my nonspecific groceries (especially since you're okay with me using yours), and I always try to be quiet on nights you have work in the morning. In other words, I stay out of your fucking way.

Your habit of defrosting meat entirely uncovered for hours (often when you're out of the house), usually sitting in the sink right when I'm intending to use it is unsettling. Moreso is your habit of cooking said meat, then leaving it (in what was up until very recently our ONLY saucepan) for periods that frequently exceed 48 hours. I was under the impression that they knew you had to refrigerate leftovers in Beijing, honey.

In our first few weeks living together, you made several comments about my habit of frequently getting up at ~7 AM. I'm glad to have been able to explain that the 'all Americans are lazy' thing was an unfair stereotype, but you'd think you'd have the manners to close your door when you have your frequent late night urges to talk loudly with your friends and family in Chinese. On a related note, that night you decided to make some sort of pork rib dish with mostly frozen meat at midnight the day before I had a test? Not cute.

You are a very sweet girl. You are not fun to live with. You may be able to cook for yourself, but beyond that you have no life skills. As evidence by several things above, you have no concept of food safety. I hope you do not get sick, especially since I take care of the bathroom cleaning. You did not know that all food waste doesn't belong down the sink - especially considering we have no disposal! And after I explained, you now put it... down the toilet instead? Oh well, at least I only pull cabbage leaves and fruit pits out of the sink twice a week now instead of every day. And I honestly can't understand how you mistook a sponge mop for a broom. You really, really can't argue language or cultural barrier with that one. And somehow you can keep your room neat, but the concept of cleaning up after yourself if the kitchen? How novel! I'm not your mother, honey. Just because she did all your laundry for you (and God knows what else) all through undergrad, doesn't mean I want to follow you around with soap and a dishtowel.

But really, tonight took the cake. You made a big meal for a bunch of your friends Thursday. Cool, whatever. And you cut yourself doing it. So sad. And because of this, despite my offer of bandages, you say you can't do the dishes until it's healed a bit, or it'll sting. Or something. Okay. I can deal with the dishes not getting done. You know why? Because dishes, generally, won't rot over a weekend when we're both not here.

Had I realized that "I'll do dishes later" meant "I'll do dishes, take out the trash like I promised, and put away or throw away the leftover food later", I'd have done it all my fucking self. I came home after a weekend with my Lady (which was lovely), after a long and stressful bus ride (as they always are, being Peter Pan is... special), bleeding like a stuck pig and in my special sort of pain, to walk into a kitchen that smelled like rot. That's right. You didn't even fucking refrigerate a bowl of leftovers. I spent a good half hour taking out all of the trash, washing all the dishes, and throwing away food in the hopes that, by morning, being in our kitchen won't make me gag.

Kudos to you. I have never been so frustrated and disgusted by a roommate. If I wasn't on a fucking year long contract with the school, I'd be out of here. Heck, if I had any friends/vague aquaintences living in on campus graduate housing, I'd be long gone. Congratulations for adding insult to the already significant injury of paying $800 a month for this grody little crap apartment.

That being said, anyone who's still reading... if you know anyone near Storrs, CT who needs a roommate or will be looking for an apartment come summer, let me know. I need some beacon of hope on the horizon to get me through a second semester of this shit.

Gave me chills. Take a moment to watch it, if you'd like:

http://vimeo.com/3985019

So.... yes. Guess which country I'm in.

Never, ever, EVER get denied entry into a foreign country. It sucks. No, I don't know what I'm doing this summer anymore. Trying to get a visa and get to Kew, where I'm supposed to be. No, it wasn't my fault. Everyone I talked to said that Smith and/or Kew would handle it, and that no, I didn't need a visa.

Sucks to be me.

Model: HP HDX16t Premium
OS: Windows Vista (with the service pack so it should suck less)
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo P7450 (2.13GHz)
Memory: 4GB DDR2
Hard Drive: 320GB 5400RPM SATA
Display: 16" High Def
Graphics: 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 130M
Full Keyboard
Webcam

All in all I'm pretty happy, although I only have the faintest idea what some of the technobabble means...

Paper-writing, internet-browsing, wide-screened, game-playing procrastination machine. You shall be dearly missed, my friend. You were my first laptop and I abused you terribly, but you took it well. I had a good three years with you, with hardly a single problem in all that time, and you will still live on in that mini external hard-drive salvaged from your corpse.

Gee, that's lovely imagery.

It was the motherboard. Replacing that sucker costs more than the computer's worth. Guess I'll be getting me a new laptop. I'll post it up here when I've got it picked out...

I am sick. Fever, sinus-y, headachy sick. I will not make it to my morning classes. I'm going to try not to miss my lab or my night class, but... meh.

At least my stomach trouble is easing up =/.

Edit: Well, my lab instructor took one look at me and told me to go home. Heh. Have I mentioned Carolyn's a wonderful lady?

Man, I'm just a lazy ass lately. Heh. There's so much I need to get around to. Things to read, things to write, things to draw... I just keep slacking off.

In other news, more dragons. Took me long enough to get a silver.

I'm at Smith...

What about y'all?

Yeah, I'm kinda hooked.