It's been a long day. I should be back to normal as of tomorrow or the next day.

Things seem to have turned out as well as can be expected. I guess the easiest way to sum up is to tell you guys that a long-term member of my very small town community passed away unexpectedly this week. He wasn't someone I knew well personally, but he had close ties to my family, and my parents were in desperate need of moral support. Today was the funeral and it was one of the more difficult things I have ever done.

Due to a very unique set of circumstances, going to the funeral at all was a chancey thing to do, and not one that was entirely well received by the community. It's a very odd feeling to be in the middle of your friends and hometown and family and feel completely set-apart and isolated.

I guess I'm left with the thought that you can't ever really know people the way you think you do. That even the people you're closest to sometimes are more multilayered than you expect them to be, and that sometimes advice and approval and opinions don't matter at all. People's choices and actions are their own, and sometimes it's not even my call to be happy or sad about the way things turn out... it just is that way.

Sorry to be vague or emo or whatever. :P I've had a hard week, I'm glad this is finally over.

Having a family emergency. Should be back in a week or so. Those of you who know how to reach me outside the internets, feel free.

The job interview went great. I don't really want this type of job again, but it looks like the company is a little better to work for than the last one and the performance requirements seem a lot less stupidly strict. Besides it's easier to do something if you know it's not forever...

So less than an hour after I got home I already had a phone message waiting. Gotta get my stories checked by a fact checker (just to make sure that I don't tell lies about my education and employment history...) and then expect a call around one tomorrow afternoon with an offer, if everything checks out. Woot!

I made up this banner/avatar combo out of nostalgia. I have the game, but I can't install it on this computer, so I can't actually go back and revisit it just now.

Also, this is the first banner thing I ever made for myself. Give me compliments! I know it doesn't look as good as if someone who does these all the time had made it, but it took me for-freaking-ever to do! And I'm reasonably satisfied.:P

I'm going off to a job interview in a few minutes, sitting here trying to quench my nerves before I go. Hopefully I'll get the job, with that paying pretty well plus the writing thing that's sure to pick back up eventually I ought to be okay for a while. I hope.

PhoneSaber

I'm putting it in the box labeled: "Things I look for in a man."

What do you do when you forget to bring your coffee maker with you to your new apartment? You improvise, because of course, your caffeine addiction won't wait until the next time you go to the parents' house and you're way too broke to go out and buy your coffee premade...

What you wind up doing is improvising a percolator.

Take a saucepan, fill it with water... the same amount of water you'd usually use for your coffee maker, that is. Take a paper coffee filter, dampen it in water, so it's wet all over. Put it in a wire strainer, the kind you use to strain noodles. Fill it with your normal amount of coffee grounds. Set the wire strainer on top of the saucepan, so the bottom of the coffee gets wet. Boil. You have to keep an eye on it, to make sure the paper filter doesn't get burnt up, but you can't do it without the paper filter, otherwise the grounds just sink right through the wire strainer. And for god's sake, actually bring it to a boil, otherwise you get something very weak and half-cooked tasting.

Once it boils put it in a cup and drink it. It's not too bad.

Helpful hint, don't use flavored coffees. They seem to have sugar in them and they just come out tasting like burnt sugar, not actual coffee.

General life update:

• I need a second job.
• I registered for the LSAT
• I'm still waiting on that new computer
• Today I finished KOTOR II, don't expect a review, I probably couldn't stop ranting long enough to make a coherent sentence about it.
• My favorite author's newest book came out about two weeks ago, and I can't afford to get it. I am sad sad sad sad sad.

Received in today's mail:

Dear Sara,

It is my pleasure to inform you that you are being considered for inclusion into the 2008/2009 Cambridge Who's Who Among Executive and Professional Women "Honors Edition".

The 2008/2009 edition of the Registry will include biographies of our country's most accomplished women. Recognition of this kind is an honor shared by thousands oof executive and professional women throught America each year. Inclusion is considered by many as the single highest mark of achievement.

Upon final confirmation, you will e listed among thousands of accomplished women in the Cambridge Who's Who Registry.

For accuracy and publication deadlines, please complete your application forma and return it to us at the earliest opportunity. For your convenience an online form is also available at [WEB ADDR]. Use online application code: . There is no cost to be included in the Registry.

On behalf of the Managing Director, we wish you continued success.

Sincerely,


M. Foster

Editor in Chief

**

In case the irony of this is lost on you, I'm just barely employed. I write part time for a company that designs websites, and the text I write is a combination of advertising copy and search engine optimization copy. Due to the nature of the work, it's not even well written copy. I am the very very lowest man on the corporate totem pole. In fact, I'm still in the training phase. My professional achievement is ... nonexistent.

What did they do, pull my ancient SAT or GRE scores and assume?