here is why i am a bad person:

case 1. a woman came to the desk to say that she's used up her copycard printing a job that she accidentally sent to the color printer. color printing is $0.90/page, while b&w is $0.10. big difference, especially with a 10-page document. she's very nice about it and admitted she screwed up, but wants to know why the pages in her job are not printing. i guess she's paid for seven or eight pages, but the queue doesn't release a job until it's paid for in its entirety. there isn't a way to cancel it and get her money back, and since it's her fault, we don't refund. so she goes to pay for the rest of it, and puts a $5 bill in the color copier/printer. admittedly, this *is* confusing, but we have signs up everywhere to warn people that putting money in the coin tower by the copier will NOT have anything to do with color PRINT jobs. she returned to the desk. "i'm stupid today," she explained to me. i nodded sympathetically but still couldn't get her money back. the coin tower doesn't give change unless you print something, and this was, again, her fault. i felt bad, but i wasn't allowed to give a refund for her mistakes. i think she copied a blank page and used the change to finish paying for her 10 pages of color printing, ouch.

case 2. another woman came to the desk and told me she'd put $1 in the b&w copier, thinking it was the printer, and now it wouldn't give her change. one, the b&w copier is totally unrelated to the b&w printers, as well as considerably more inconveniently located relative to the computers. two, you still need to copy something to get change. b&w copies are $0.15 (dunno why they're more than prints, but whatever). she said she had nothing to copy and that she wanted her money. i think she indicated that she didn't have the money to continue with her print job without said dollar, but i could be mistaken. i apologized and said i couldn't do anything about it. she stood there and said, "i want my dollar back." i can't just say, "look, lady, you screwed up, ok? i'm sorry, but the library doesn't have to pay for your mistakes. just copy a damn blank page and get your change if it's worth that much to you," so i was like, "well... i don't know what to do for you!" she stood there, indignant. "the best i can do is give you a refund slip for the dollar, but you won't even be able to get it today because the cashier isn't in on weekends." she accepted, noting once more that she wants her dollar. walking away with the slip, she fumbled through her pocketbook and said, "oh, good, i have another dollar," and went to the printers. then she came back to the copier and made copies with her precious trapped dollar. to her credit, she gave me back the refund slip.

how does this make me the bad person?

i let the nice person get screwed and the whiner get her way.

well, i'm at work again, covering for a coworker who wanted to go party in portland for the chinese new year. he said he'd been holding off on celebrating for a month now, only recognizing 2003 in the sense that he had to write the date that way. no one else seemed to want to work the closing 3.5-hour shift today, so i took it. hey, what the hell else was i gonna do with my saturday?

so this morning i woke up too fucking early after going to bed too late. kevin was here until 3am or so and i was drifting...off...so...muchhhsdkjfzzzrrrggghh. i finally let myself get out of bed around 10, then i started laundry. despite having several larger items that deserve a good washing (sheets, towels, bath mats, pants), i decided to limit myself to one load containing mostly shirts, socks, and undies. my room is messy from the towels, coats, pants, and miscellany piled on the floor after so many rainy days, and it's starting to smell a bit musty. maybe i shouldn't have been so cheap. maybe i'll start being better about hanging things up properly, especially when they've been dampened. maybe it'll just have to wait 'til next week. hah.

my apartment is so cold. my roommate and i received a truly Evil $130 electric bill a few weeks ago. at first we were pissed that someone in the building could so overuse power, because we were under the impression that all utilities were split by building residents. upon checking the fine print, we discovered the electric bill was ours and ours alone. i guess that makes sense, but damn. $130 frickin' dollars! for people who (1) use minimal heat (i was the only one to ever turn it on) and (2) aren't really home all too often to suck up massive amounts of power. jenny called city light to see WHAT THE FUCK, but they explained that the former residents of our unit were also socked with such a bill for the same billing period a year ago, and explained the three-tier system to her. apparently we were being billed on two of the three tiers as penalty for our orgiastic use of electricity. right. my mom told me we should get a water heater blanket from home depot. some of my friends said the bill is based on estimates, not actual readings, so we should've requested a meter reading, and that even if we don't, they'll have to pay us the difference in the end, or something. we have done neither of these things because we are busy and lazy and my check to city light was cashed two days ago. the result: my apartment is cold and i am afraid to turn on the heat.

i so want to move when the lease is up.

where to, i don't know. but not here.

i've figured out my senior 'year'. i have three more quarters after this, and my plan is to take my 400-level psych class (there is a 5-cr. seminar on motivational theories in social psych), media law, and the copywriting skills elective next quarter, newslab this summer, and in autumn i'll take my last psych class (my eyes are set on developmental psych, but i'll take what i can get), another skills elective, and ethics. then, ta-da! i'll be a college graduate. i think.

this brings up all kinds of issues, not the least of which is what the hell am i doing?! where am i gonna live, what am i gonna do, will i have money, how should i be preparing, am i gonna be happy to be out? as it stands, i'd like to be done soon, though i have a nagging suspicion i should take advantage of more stuff that students can get. i should be interning, writing, working, practicing, networking, i dunno. i know a lot of doors close when you leave academia, but as they say, you never notice what's all around until it isn't there. (at least, that's how 764-hero put it.)

i'm blogging instead of ___. as usual. ___ being, oh, school-related work. see? it's hard to care. i guess it always was. i have a project for the stupid online class i should be preparing so as not to fuck over my groupmates (also friends), and i opted to do a separate (but easy) project for environmental com that i have yet to start. i have a midterm in stupid online class on saturday and one in philosophy (that is what 'intellectual foundations of journalism' is, no bones about it) on tuesday. advanced reporting comes with its own host of insanity--need to write an advance city council story by monday at 10am, then write the story on the meeting quickly after that. in class we're doing the crisis reporting stuff for a week and a half and then writing another story. or maybe multiple stories, i'm not sure. there is also the profile--i haven't even spoken with my intended subjects--which the prof has suggested we have done in the next two weeks, as well as the day-in-court story, where we attend a random day in court in whatever case sounds interesting to us that day, then research the entire case and write a story about that day. it's good practice, i suppose, to have all these mounting projects and deadlines, at least that's my prof's excuse.

whoooa now. there will be no freakin' out today. today is not the day for freakin' out. today is the day for doing homework at work and gettin' paid. oh yeah.

except there's really not a whole hell of a lot to do after work, and eh. i dunno. i think i am doing something with josie tomorrow, at least a meal, maybe movie rentals. i haven't been to scarecrow in well over a month. haven't had the time even to go stick my gift certificate in the account. i am behind in movielandineering. i need to dominate.

also, just to prove that i don't live exclusively in my own self-absorbed little cloud, the space shuttle? yeah. that sucks. (beyond those thoughts, yeah, i do live in a cloud. but nobody comes to visit me in my little cloud...dunno why! maybe cos i'm cuttin' muffins.)

yowza! i'm at work again. i am also so far impressed with the tenacity christine displays in keeping up her russian blog! it's good stuff, y'all. read it. the elevator story is priceless. so i'm gonna pimp the shit outta my dear friend's bloglet cos she is doing a bang-up job and doing interesting things in life. also, russian jokes are good.

my friends in general are cool! they should all keep journals. some already do--besides christine, becky writes a lot. liz sometimes. chris will occasionally post, but not lately. not to mention the supercool online friends, mostly from n00nland. well. not all of them are good about keeping up with these things, but they SHOULD BE. cos they're innerestin' people and i don't see them enough and like to read. read blogs instead of textbooks instead of doing homework. :D

let's see, what else is new. the other night, kevin came over and we called winnie on my cell phone. winnie needs to visit the westsiiiide this summer and kick it with the nooners, kevin and myself included. i wish meesh could join her and we could have a giant irker party. yeeeashhh. that would be the coolest.

hookay! i have basically nothing to say right now? i have made up sentences in my head lately that don't fit into anything, for example:

she looked up and smiled at me as if to say, "go on, little miss plowing-ahead-at-the-speed-of-a-meandering-bicycle!"

and

i, for one, refuse to continue to be oppressed by the unending chaos of SOUND!

ok, so they both involve exclamations. and so they are stupid. but they are SENTENCES and they ENTERED MY MIND at some point yesterday. also, i have not been home since yesterday at 1, which is when i left for four hours of class. that's over 24 hours of not being home. that is weird to me.

wow. i really have nothing to talk about. i'm tired and i drank coffee that tasted like soapy, dirty water earlier and now i have to pee. yesandthankyouforthatlovelyimage! i need to study for my com 418 quiz. i got a fish on my last one (perfect score) and got to babble about exhibits at the monterey bay aquarium, so i'd like to repeat that performance.

i'm working this weekend (covering) and skipping out early on monday to attend a city council meeting. how *exciting.* mayor nickels is to deliver his state of the city address at the meeting as well, and i must research a bit and write an advance as soon as i get the agenda. that'll be one hard assignment out of the way, two more to go. i need to talk to the owners of the continental about profiling them and figure out what day to attend court. this class is hard, but good for me, i'm sure. oh. also. much reading. i should go home and do work today for sure. no more fun and games. we are starting the covering a traumatic event sequence next week, which will be interesting and challenging.

i *really* need to pee. time to run away for a few minutes.

my upstairs neighbor is fucking constantly vacuuming. what in hell.

i don't even own a vacuum.

yeah. it shows.

listening: girls against boys - all the rage

YES! HELLO. I AM OK, HOW ARE YOU?

capslock is for the leet!!@#

um. hi.

last night i was freakin' out. i have been wasting my weekend doing nothing and was very upset about it. i felt, actually, kinda suicidal (let's not overreact) and i couldn't cry or sleep or do anything but type, i guess, so in the middle of the night kevin came over and just lay with me until i could sleep.

(for the sake of those who, despite my disclaimer, WILL overreact, by suicidal i only mean i sat there going, life is pointless, i suck, wonder what'd be like to just be gone, etc. but i promise that i value the people in my life and life itself far too much to do anything remotely close to offing myself, thankyouverymuch. and, pertaining to question no. 1, i do not have a "plan," etc.)

met josie today for confessions of a dangerous mind. holy fuckin' wow. that was a kickass movie. now that is on my list of movies i'd buy on dvd. lots of amusing cameos, very stylized (george clooney definitely learned from the best), charlie kaufman script's fantastic as usual, but, of course, they had a crazy, bizarre story with a crazy, bizarre subject behind it. anyway, much enjoyment, i may even have to see it again (!) to make someone else see it, like kevin, cos it was darn good and i wouldn't mind a repeat viewing at all.

before the movie, i was running some errands. i picked up an adapter for my headphones to use with my mixer--why i can't find one of the two i'm certain i already own, i don't know--and wished bulldog had the new issue of bitch in, but they didn't. i browsed cellophane square for awhile and decided not to buy anything (their selection and prices are kind of sucky, but i do buy some new things from them), deposited my paycheck, and went to the little hole-in-the-wall al's, which has a bizarrely good selection of reasonably priced used cds. i picked up several things--beth orton's "central reservation," st. etienne's "so tough," some other stuff i forget. kevin has this beth orton cd, it's the one i borrowed and fell in-fucking-love with, and the other night he couldn't find it. doh!

i should be doing something kinda homework-related, i suppose, but i am not sure what exactly. i need to write a proposal for my reporting class to profile someone somehow involved with the ave--i am thinking of the proprietor of the continental, but i need an angle--as well as a project plan for my environmental com class. for that, i still need to decide if my project is related to my esc110 project, or if it's something else--the prof suggested someone do a project analyzing the kellert typology in various genres of music, which would be pretty easy and fun for me to do, even though it seems pretty useless. i also have bucketloads of reading to catch up on, hahaha.

i think i'll just listen to music and make coffee and eat lunch. yes.

listening: beth orton - central reservations