Yesterday when I got off work, Mom and my sister, Ashley came to Deadwood to visit me. We went downtown and gambled at three different casinos, with me losing $10 at the first table, $14 at the next, and $20 at the last table for a combined loss of $44. Better than my other nights out, I suppose, but that's why I only go out gambling one every month or so. At the last table, I just wanted to leave, so I was trying to get rid of the last $6 I had, but every time I put down my chips, I'd win. So I'd put down more, until I was finally up to $15, which would have left me only $5 short on that table. Nope...lost it all. I suck at this game, but it's the only one I like to play.
Everyone at the casinos thought my sister and I were twins. One of my co-workers even though I was playing on a machine at work (when I'm not supposed to be, house rules), and almost went up to Ashley and told her she shouldn't be playing. I told him to do it anyway because it would make her mad, haha. Am I a good big sister, or what?
We went back to work to have dinner because I'd recieved some free meals as a birthday present from my manager, so I "treated" us all to steaks, which were very yummy. Aaron supervised them and made sure they were done correctly, since he was working that night.
We had a really good time, despite losing my money, but oh well. That's what gambling is, really. Although Mom did win $600 on a machine at our last stop, so that was really good. It's nice for someone to go away a winner, at least.
And thank goodness for Daylight Savings Time because I was gettin' tired of driving to work in the dark on weekends. Those deer out there scare me.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Friday, October 28, 2005
the NEX generation
So, after almost my entire lifetime, Nintendo is coming out with the NEX system. It is a new, sleek original Nintendo Entertainment System. It plays all of the cartridge games you've been saving up since you were five years old, and it also plays the Japanese-made cartridges as well (which I guess I wasn't aware that the originals didn't play the Japanese cartridges).
It's only $50!
In other news, next semester is going to suck. It's my methods block of classes, from 8am to 3pm, Monday through Friday, professional attire, and uh...yeah. I don't know how that's going to work with my work schedule, but as our teacher said, "This is a career commitment. Your current job needs to know that." Guess I'll have to talk to Marvin tomorrow at work if he's there, or leave him a note, or something.
Anyway, I'm going to try to figure this database thingy out for my computer class. I just thought the new Nintendo thing was pretty cool.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
moose!
I've been looking around at more foreign coins and what not lately (okay, tonight), and I found the cutest coin ever! According to the site I found it on, this coin was designed by an 11 year old in British Columbia, for Canada Day. I want one!
Aaron and I will be carving our pumpkins tonight, as soon as we get the kitchen table cleaned off and digest our dinners (mmm, steak), and I will post pictures. We're going to set them outside the window in the living room, underneath our upstairs neighbor's deck, so hopefully no one will mess with them.
Work's been going well, school's alright, and things are all in all pretty okay.
huh?
Dream:
I'm waiting in a line to go somewhere. The line forks, like traffic does with an exit ramp on the Interstate, but I'm in the wrong fork. A girl in the right fork says "Well, maybe someone will scoot over," so I shove myself over behind her. Then she turns into Ashlee Simpson with blonde hair and lots of bangs, and starts telling me the groups she's in and on what days they meet. Then she turns into Sonja at work who's taking keys from someone and signing them back in (something I really do at work, actually), but she doesn't know how to do it well, so I take over for her, and am signing in about five keys for every person on the other side of the cage.
wtf?
Awake. Tonight we slaughter the pumpkins. It is a "team night" for my Human Relations class, so we don't meet tonight, and that is awesome. I can't find my partner's email address, though, so I don't know how I'm going to get ahold of her, aside from talking to her in another class we have together tomorrow night.
Bowling only lasts for another three class periods, so next Friday is my last day of bowling, and then I'm back to sleeping in on Tuesdays and Thursdays! Yessssss.
Anywho, I have a test to take in half an hour. Gotta get ready.
I'm waiting in a line to go somewhere. The line forks, like traffic does with an exit ramp on the Interstate, but I'm in the wrong fork. A girl in the right fork says "Well, maybe someone will scoot over," so I shove myself over behind her. Then she turns into Ashlee Simpson with blonde hair and lots of bangs, and starts telling me the groups she's in and on what days they meet. Then she turns into Sonja at work who's taking keys from someone and signing them back in (something I really do at work, actually), but she doesn't know how to do it well, so I take over for her, and am signing in about five keys for every person on the other side of the cage.
wtf?
Awake. Tonight we slaughter the pumpkins. It is a "team night" for my Human Relations class, so we don't meet tonight, and that is awesome. I can't find my partner's email address, though, so I don't know how I'm going to get ahold of her, aside from talking to her in another class we have together tomorrow night.
Bowling only lasts for another three class periods, so next Friday is my last day of bowling, and then I'm back to sleeping in on Tuesdays and Thursdays! Yessssss.
Anywho, I have a test to take in half an hour. Gotta get ready.
Monday, October 24, 2005
One more reason...
One more reason to hate my computer class. On Wednesday the 19th, I went on the field trip to the reservation. It was supposed to be on th 5th, but that was cancelled due to snow. I'd told my computer teacher I was going to be gone on the 5th because of the field trip, but I didn't tell her it was cancelled and I'd be going on the 19th and missing class that day. That was my fault, I admit. Then, Friday, I'm up early, working on the assignment that was due Wednesday, not realizing how long the stupid spreadsheet was going to take. I didn't get it done in time, so I finish it up, not going to class, 'cause it was too late by then.
So I showed up to class early this morning to ask her if I'd missed any assignments those two days. She said, "Do you realize what you just asked? *high pitched voice* 'Did we do anything important in class?' *normal voice* Of course we did something important in class, we do something important in class every day."
Jeez.
So she says she doesn't have time to talk to me before class, and to come to her after class.
Teacher: Okay, now what about the spreadsheet assignment?
Me: Done, right here. *points to print outs*
Teacher: Oooookay. Chapter four crossword puzzle?
Me: Done, handed in. *points to pile of crossword puzzles*
Teacher: Hmmm. Okay. What about the charting assignment?
Me: Didn't get that one.
So she tells me what it is, and that she'd gone over chapter four, which was "pretty technical" so I might want to look over it, and know the difference between kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes.
So basically, I missed ONE thing, and she doesn't realize this when she's first talking to me, and is a bitch to me and mocking me with the high-pitched voice. What kind of teacher is that? Then she realizes that I actually have my stuff done and together, except that one assignment. Then she was nicer.
Oh, and I got a 27/30 on my teacher website I had to make for the class, which computes to a 90%, so that was pretty cool. I think I'll do well on the midterm on Wednesday, it shouldn't be too hard.
And I realized my book reviews for Indian Education aren't due 'til the 23rd of November, not the 3rd, as I previously thought, so that alleviates some stress right there. Whew.
And for those of you who comment, I had to put up the stupid word verification thing, 'cause I started getting spammers. Took 'em a while to find me, but oh well.
So I showed up to class early this morning to ask her if I'd missed any assignments those two days. She said, "Do you realize what you just asked? *high pitched voice* 'Did we do anything important in class?' *normal voice* Of course we did something important in class, we do something important in class every day."
Jeez.
So she says she doesn't have time to talk to me before class, and to come to her after class.
Teacher: Okay, now what about the spreadsheet assignment?
Me: Done, right here. *points to print outs*
Teacher: Oooookay. Chapter four crossword puzzle?
Me: Done, handed in. *points to pile of crossword puzzles*
Teacher: Hmmm. Okay. What about the charting assignment?
Me: Didn't get that one.
So she tells me what it is, and that she'd gone over chapter four, which was "pretty technical" so I might want to look over it, and know the difference between kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes.
So basically, I missed ONE thing, and she doesn't realize this when she's first talking to me, and is a bitch to me and mocking me with the high-pitched voice. What kind of teacher is that? Then she realizes that I actually have my stuff done and together, except that one assignment. Then she was nicer.
Oh, and I got a 27/30 on my teacher website I had to make for the class, which computes to a 90%, so that was pretty cool. I think I'll do well on the midterm on Wednesday, it shouldn't be too hard.
And I realized my book reviews for Indian Education aren't due 'til the 23rd of November, not the 3rd, as I previously thought, so that alleviates some stress right there. Whew.
And for those of you who comment, I had to put up the stupid word verification thing, 'cause I started getting spammers. Took 'em a while to find me, but oh well.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
pumpkins!
As promised, a picture of the pumpkins, pre-slaughtering.
Aaron's is the orange one, mine's the white one.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Where's George, school, and pumpkins
Ha, I've been playing around with Where's George, I got my new stamp, and all that jazz. I've been getting more hits lately on my bills because of the tips I've been making, marking, and entering, so that's a lot of fun. I just got an email today from a Georger who's bill I hit earlier in the week, and she has the same birthday as me, and emailed me to let me know. My profile view tells people that I'm "getting the hang of things" and also that I'm "just really nice." I didn't put those on my profile, they're based on my posts and bills with hits, I guess. I've been a pretty big nerd about it lately, looking up more money links, and I even found out that one of my floor supervisors at work bought 20 (!!) one dollar silver certificates from a customer! And he got a Walking Liberty half dollar from about 1943 or so right before I showed up to work.. Arg. I hope that happens to me some day soon. What I'd give for a silver certificate.
I got that paper done that I was super-stressing about earlier, and I think I did really well on it, because a lot of the girls in the class seemed quite upset when they saw what the criterion were (mostly because we only had three sentences of instruction on how to write the paper, and everyone tried to cram it into the 5-7 pages that was expected, whereas I couldn't delete THAT much information from mine, and it ended up being 15 pages long), so my stress level has gone down quite a bit, and I know Aaron is thankful for that! I think my bowling class is kind of helping me with that, too, because it's something I can go out and do, and it's just a good relaxer, and it's fun, and my scores are improving, so that makes it a lot more fun. I'm still wayyyyy below most of the boys' scores, but so are most of us girls in the class. I'm usually the high scorer in my group, so that makes me feel better haha.
We got our pumpkins for Halloween, and we're going to try to carve them up sometime after the weekend so they stay pretty fresh for Halloween, even though neither of us are going to be home that night. I'll post pictures of them before and after.
That's about all the news I have for now.
I got that paper done that I was super-stressing about earlier, and I think I did really well on it, because a lot of the girls in the class seemed quite upset when they saw what the criterion were (mostly because we only had three sentences of instruction on how to write the paper, and everyone tried to cram it into the 5-7 pages that was expected, whereas I couldn't delete THAT much information from mine, and it ended up being 15 pages long), so my stress level has gone down quite a bit, and I know Aaron is thankful for that! I think my bowling class is kind of helping me with that, too, because it's something I can go out and do, and it's just a good relaxer, and it's fun, and my scores are improving, so that makes it a lot more fun. I'm still wayyyyy below most of the boys' scores, but so are most of us girls in the class. I'm usually the high scorer in my group, so that makes me feel better haha.
We got our pumpkins for Halloween, and we're going to try to carve them up sometime after the weekend so they stay pretty fresh for Halloween, even though neither of us are going to be home that night. I'll post pictures of them before and after.
That's about all the news I have for now.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
life on the rez
Today was our field trip to the Pine Ridge reservation to observe K-8 schools in that area. One was a private, Catholic school, one was a public school, and the other was a contract school. There was one more school we were supposed to go to, but their was recently a death in the community, so there was no school for the day, as they were holding a wake in the building for the community.
Getting up at the butt crack of dawn is not my favorite thing to do. Especially when coupled with only two hours of sleep after working for 9.5 hours in the casino and making crappy tips because the Canadians don't know how to tip. But their money sure is silly! Actually, I like their money more than ours, color-scheme-wise, and think we should adopt that idea. Or steal it, I guess. We've already made our new 20s green and our new 50s red, just like theirs.
Anyway, back to my original story: the reservation. Driving through the reservation was probably one of the most depressing things I've seen. Now, I live out in the country, 10 miles from town, and I've seen a few weird things. Cars piled up in backyards, dogs running amok, you know. Well, each house we drove by had between five and 10 cars in their yard. Some were wrecked, some were burned beyond recognition, some were older than dirt, and I'm sure one or two of them worked. There was stuff all over the yards, there were animals everywhere, and the houses looked dilapidated and in disrepair. There was graffiti all over the buildings and cars.
It honest to God made me sad. I know that we, currently, are not the direct cause of their living conditions. We, in 2005, did not force the Indians off their land and create the Allottment Act, where men were awarded 160 acres of land, and women 80 acres of land, and anything that wasn't claimed by an Indian was sold to the white man. The Indians lost 90 million acres of land. And the land they did get was crappy land. Part of what we drove through looked like the Badlands. It was sandy, dry soil, with prairie grass and not a lot of trees.
And the reason they have to live the way they do right now is because of what happend back in the 1900s and earlier. We thought we were doing them a favor, making them less reliant on the government for their food and provisions by making them self-sufficient and forcing them to be farmers and ranchers, which is not what they were. By taking their children away from them and putting them in boarding schools, where they couldn't learn to function in a White society, but when they got back home, couldn't learn to function in their native society. It's sad.
I guess in elementary school, you really just get the fairy tale version of everything, don't you? I mean, I knew the Indians got the fuzzy end of the lollypop, but still...being from Wyoming, I didn't grow up with any of that, really. So yeah, a depressing day, all in all. The first and third school we saw were in bad condition, and the private school was really nice, but that's because they have benefactors and the students have a tuition to pay.
Not to mention the ride in the van sucked 'cause the roads were bumpy and it was hard to sleep on them...
Getting up at the butt crack of dawn is not my favorite thing to do. Especially when coupled with only two hours of sleep after working for 9.5 hours in the casino and making crappy tips because the Canadians don't know how to tip. But their money sure is silly! Actually, I like their money more than ours, color-scheme-wise, and think we should adopt that idea. Or steal it, I guess. We've already made our new 20s green and our new 50s red, just like theirs.
Anyway, back to my original story: the reservation. Driving through the reservation was probably one of the most depressing things I've seen. Now, I live out in the country, 10 miles from town, and I've seen a few weird things. Cars piled up in backyards, dogs running amok, you know. Well, each house we drove by had between five and 10 cars in their yard. Some were wrecked, some were burned beyond recognition, some were older than dirt, and I'm sure one or two of them worked. There was stuff all over the yards, there were animals everywhere, and the houses looked dilapidated and in disrepair. There was graffiti all over the buildings and cars.
It honest to God made me sad. I know that we, currently, are not the direct cause of their living conditions. We, in 2005, did not force the Indians off their land and create the Allottment Act, where men were awarded 160 acres of land, and women 80 acres of land, and anything that wasn't claimed by an Indian was sold to the white man. The Indians lost 90 million acres of land. And the land they did get was crappy land. Part of what we drove through looked like the Badlands. It was sandy, dry soil, with prairie grass and not a lot of trees.
And the reason they have to live the way they do right now is because of what happend back in the 1900s and earlier. We thought we were doing them a favor, making them less reliant on the government for their food and provisions by making them self-sufficient and forcing them to be farmers and ranchers, which is not what they were. By taking their children away from them and putting them in boarding schools, where they couldn't learn to function in a White society, but when they got back home, couldn't learn to function in their native society. It's sad.
I guess in elementary school, you really just get the fairy tale version of everything, don't you? I mean, I knew the Indians got the fuzzy end of the lollypop, but still...being from Wyoming, I didn't grow up with any of that, really. So yeah, a depressing day, all in all. The first and third school we saw were in bad condition, and the private school was really nice, but that's because they have benefactors and the students have a tuition to pay.
Not to mention the ride in the van sucked 'cause the roads were bumpy and it was hard to sleep on them...
Monday, October 17, 2005
urrrrrrrg
Ever had one of those days where everything just seems to fall apart for no apparent reason? Yeah, today was that day. School, work, being tired, more bank problems, and my birthday kinda sucked. Just had a meltdown.
Going to try to get some stuff done at work tonight. See if I can bring my laptop with me and work on homework during breaks, or just read, or maybe it'll be slow tonight. I don't know.
Middle Level Methods midterm due Thursday
Inquiry-based learning paper due Thursday
Three book reports on books about or by Indians due...November 3rd?
Dr. Carl Grant paper due Monday, October 24, I think.
Spreadsheets on Excel due Wednesday
Team project due Wednesday, November 9th, haven't even gotten together with my partner to work on that.
I don't know, I probably have more stuff due, I just can't remember it. This is getting stressful. I know I procrastinate in the worst possible way, but I work better under pressure. Just maybe not this much pressure.
Going to try to get some stuff done at work tonight. See if I can bring my laptop with me and work on homework during breaks, or just read, or maybe it'll be slow tonight. I don't know.
Middle Level Methods midterm due Thursday
Inquiry-based learning paper due Thursday
Three book reports on books about or by Indians due...November 3rd?
Dr. Carl Grant paper due Monday, October 24, I think.
Spreadsheets on Excel due Wednesday
Team project due Wednesday, November 9th, haven't even gotten together with my partner to work on that.
I don't know, I probably have more stuff due, I just can't remember it. This is getting stressful. I know I procrastinate in the worst possible way, but I work better under pressure. Just maybe not this much pressure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)