Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Chem is turning out to be a dangerous class

I was prepping for the lab demo I have to do for my presentation Friday at lunch today. I'm doing a flame test, so I pretty much just light metals on fire and see what colours they burn. Anyway, I was making sure the calcium worked, and I had a little chunk on the loop, and it was turning the flame from the butane burner a nice pretty purplish-red, and then all of a sudden it friggin' exploded and there was this insanely bright flash of light (if you've seen magnesium burn, it's like that but just for a split second and purple instead of white) that I did not see coming.

During the lab prep, I also spilled lithium chloride solution on my hands. By the time I got out of the lab I had about five minutes left to eat lunch, so it was either wash my hands and starve or just suck it up and eat. Lesson of the day: lithium chloride is really, really gross. It is disgusting. Don't ever eat it. Don't ever get it on your hands, rub it on an apple, and eat that. Seriously.

Finally, during actual chem class, we were making Christmas ornaments with pipe cleaners and solution stuff that makes crystals grow on them, which involved boiling water on a hot plate. And, of course, since I was having such an amazing day already, I accidentally touched the edge of the hot plate (which was cranked all the way up and had been on for a while, maybe 5-10 minutes) with the back of my little finger, and now I have a lovely burn that hurt like hell every time I got masking tape stuck to it during art class.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Falling apart

Physically, not mentally. Although...

I'm pretty sure it's cluster headaches I've got, although it's not like I'm qualified to say for sure, but the diagnosis is made based on a time pattern which I know the headaches fit, so...yeah. And now I'm starting to think I have some problem with something, I don't know if it has something to do with metabolism or blood sugar or blood pressure or something else, but this morning I had to do a bit of running when I realized I'd dropped my gloves, had to run halfway back to my house and then all the way to the bus stop and ended up feeling really light-headed and a bit nauseous and could barely move/breathe. I ate breakfast, but being a small person, I don't eat that much (I get full really easily, I'm not anorexic). I rarely have any energy, and when I do it's not for long, and apparently I can't jog for a whole...30-60 seconds without wanting to collapse in an exhausted heap...

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Well, that's depressing

So there's this girl. And she's all kinds of straight (well...no, I suppose there's just the one kind). And she's a really good friend of mine. And I can't get over the fact that I'm totally in love with her. She knows, when I told her I have feelings for her she pretty much just said "I can't say I feel the same way, as I'm only into guys. You are an awesome friend, though". Which...only made me love her even more. Now I can't stop thinking about her, and I'm afraid we're going to end up with this weird unrequited love thing going on. And I dread the possibility she'll decide to do some "experimenting" and see me as the obvious choice, although knowing her I don't think she'd do that to me. On the other hand, it'd be just as hard to see her with another girl, even understanding why.

.../emo rant
Ooh, and I found this pic on DA (by Drasonae):

Saturday, November 22, 2008

50k!

Well, there goes another exciting, depressing, fun, hair-tearing NaNoWriMo. Even though November isn't actually over yet, I quit. 50k is plenty for me this year. Maybe next year I'll do 75k, but for this year, I'm done. I've got a presentation to give on the applications of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and reconstructed ion chromatography in forensic science Friday, and I should probably get started on it.

But it was a good 50 000 words (well, no, but it was a good time. Some of the time). Here's a screenshot I took:

Monday, November 17, 2008

BOOK!

So last year, for completing NaNoWriMo, I received a promo code for a free proof copy of my novel, from a self-publishing site called CreateSpace. After much fussing over formatting and cover-making, I uploaded my files and ordered my book about a week or maybe two ago. And it came in the mail today *happydance* and it is pretty damn awesome if I do say so myself. Now I just have to read it and decide how many people I'm going to let see it. Last time I read it through was a while ago, so I can't remember much of it.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

This is bad, very bad...

I am this *holds up fingers really close together* close to just blurting out "I love you", which is such a bad idea it's not even funny.

In other news, I hit 40k today. Go me.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Stress, maybe?

Been getting these headaches lately. Not sure why. Maybe cluster headaches come back to haunt me, maybe stress (novel/school/weird guilty apathy thing/relationships/lack thereof). It's usually a nighttime thing, although they occasionally come charging through during the day.

So, in my novel, the gay pirate has decided he's bi and he's going to fall in love with a salty wench, and the bi pirate has decided he's just gay and doesn't care much for salty wenches anymore, and Captain Jacques is way too close to finding out about the two of them banging each other at this point in the wordcount - er, novel...

33, 457 words and sort of maybe would be counting if xkcd weren't so damn distracting...

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

update

30, 616. Why am I doing this again?

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

What's your happy dance?

I found out what mine was, when I came out (I'm bi) to a really good friend of mine. I was scared she would be crazy homophobic or something, but she was cool about it, and it was awesome.

Monday, November 10, 2008

At least out loud...

I won't say I'm in love...

People and their heterosexuality. It makes me grumble.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

My name is Michelle, and I'm an addict

To two things. And we all know that mixing drugs is dangerous. It's not my fault AdventureQuest is so damn fun and word wars are the only way I get much writing done. I just finished the Trobble quest and I'm in the middle of the Rogue quests, but I need to level up a bit before I can get any further in that. And last night we had an online write-in in the OttawaWriMo chat room, I won one of four word wars and tied in another two (the counts were within ten, so we called them ties).

And last night I managed to get to 25, 034

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

I don't get it

Well, I sort of get it. Electing the first black* president in history is a big step for America. What I don't get is why the importance of Barack Obama's race has been blown way out of proportion. I think there are more important ways to show racial tolerance on an everyday basis instead of just putting one shining example on a pedestal and saying "look, we're tolerant".

People should be focussing on the more important aspects of this election, like the voter turnout and what the candidates' platforms actually were. I'm not saying I'm not happy, though. McCain could kick the can any day and Palin's just a scary-ass bitch is what she is.

*If this term offends you, go away. I'm in no way racist, in fact, I find the "n" word highly offensive, but I think political correctness has gone too far. I would slap someone if they called me caucasian. I'm white. Barack Obama isn't "African American", he's black. They're perfectly useable terms that don't take a day and a half to say.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Fred's all better

Day two of NaNo, the going is good, when what happens? My laptop has a nervous breakdown. The touchpad stopped working, and no matter what I did I couldn't fix it. The driver for it ended up uninstalling itself in the process, so I can no longer zoom or scroll with it, but thanks to an awesome, google-going friend on MSN I managed to fix it a few minutes ago, which means it's time to get back to novelling.

9, 156 words and counting!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Haircut!

So when I went from "past my waist" to "shoulder length", I was really happy with it. Then it went and grew, and I had to get it cut again, but she ended up not cutting it short enough. This time, the back is perfect length but apparently "all one length" means nothing to some people, because the front is too short. And she tried to move my part (that bitch!). But hopefully it'll grow out into something workable. I'll probably update with a picture later today.

EDIT: I've decided that I like the front short, which now means the back is too long but that, fortunately, is something that's pretty easy to fix. Now I just have to find my guarantee so that I can get the back trimmed a little shorter for free.