The weekend before Christmas, we bought a 20″ iMac for ourselves as a joint Christmas present. We’d been sharing my Powerbook, which was becoming tiresome. This computer is awesome. It’s so nice to have a desktop machine again. This computer is really fast and damn, the 20″ screen makes me feel small, haha.

Chris got a beer brewing kit with his birthday and Christmas money, and started brewing his first batch last night. How exciting!  It has to ferment for a week and then we can bottle it and drink it, I think. Cool!  He said he’s going to start a beer-brewing blog.

Today was my two year anniversary at work… It’s hard to believe I’ve been there two years already. Today I got to order myself a new computer at work… I ordered a 20″ iMac like the one I have here at home, with an extra gig of ram.  Ohhh yeah. I can’t wait to work on that instead of my older G4 with an old CRT monitor.

It’s almost time for school to start back, I guess sometime over the next week or so I should order my textbooks so that I can actually get them online this year and avoid spending SO much in the bookstores here in town.

I’m really sleepy now. I could NOT fall asleep last night - I kept tossing and turning, and it was driving me crazy. Too much stuff running through my mind, coupled with a mid-day nap that I shouldn’t have taken, and a late afternoon coffee. So of course now I’m all groggy. Maybe some peppermint tea will revitalize me.

My dad broke his nose last night! Poor poptart. He called me last night to tell me about it and to let me know he was ok. Apparently, somehow he fell while carrying groceries into his apartment and landed with the brunt of his weight on his nose. OWWW. I feel bad for him. I’ve broken my nose a couple times and it’s awful.

I’m amazed at how much softer and silkier my hair feels when I wear it straight instead of curly. I asked Chris’s mom for a really good ceramic straightening iron for Christmas - she works in a salon so she can get really good stuff for discounted prices. I hope that’s what I get… my straightening iron now leaves something to be desired.

Yesterday at work, I found out that I am receiving a Christmas bonus. It was unexpected and totally awesome! I’ve been working really hard and it’s nice to feel recognized for my efforts. I really like this job much more than any other job I’ve ever had… my coworkers and boss are really cool and pleasant to be around, and I always feel appreciated. Tonight my coworker, Scott, and his wife are having a Christmas party at their house. Hopefully I will have time to make some pumpkin bread either now or after work so I can take that with us to their party.

Yay! No more school for a few weeks! Man I am just so jazzed to have a little break.

I need to get on some Christmas gift-making/buying.

So after that, we watched the uncensored version of the Comedy Central roast of Pamela Anderson. Very funny. Very very wrong. And funny.

My feet are cold. I really don’t like winter at all. I need to live someplace where the temperature stays between 50 and 75 degrees at all times. I don’t like wearing coats, or gloves, or hats (especially hats). I don’t mind wearing a good sweater. But coats? Not so much. My dislike of winter is compounded by the fact that I can’t ever find boots that A) I like or B) that fit. Even if I luck out and find a pair that meets my very picky approval process, they invariably don’t fit around my calves at all. So irritating. It just turned into winter and already I’m jonesing for spring.

I got my New Media certificate tonight. Finally! Yay! The director of the New Media Institute wrote a really nice note to me on the back of my certificate, too. Made me feel good. I really worked hard in those classes, and definitely enjoyed them. I will miss the NMI. Those classes were the only thing I really liked about UGA, and have definitely been most beneficial, too.

So, in what seems to quickly becoming some sort of a new routine, a la chinese water torture, some building down the street from our house has an alarm that goes off about 3 am almost every night. And no, it doesn’t just go off for five or even ten minutes… it’s a good half hour of hell. It went off yet again last night, waking both me and Chris up, right after I’d finally been able to calm down and fall asleep. Argh. Chris ended up calling the police. I put my iPod on and tried to drown out the alarm, but the alarm was so obnoxiously loud that I had to turn my iPod up to a painful level to even begin to drown it out. Finally, it stopped and I was able to go back to sleep. I’m really really tired now.

I’m so glad it’s Friday. This week has been very very very long. It seemed like it should’ve been Friday at least two days ago. It’s the end of the semester and I’ve been wrapping up some assignments - turned in a big paper for my Metaphysics class (on Possible Worlds and Trans-World Identity) Wednesday, and today I turned in my final project for my Writing for Electronic Media class: a half-hour sitcom script (35 pages! Who knew I could be funny for 35 pages?). I feel like a weight has lifted after getting both of those things turned in. Now, this weekend, I have to study for my Metaphysics final, which is Monday afternoon. Thankfully, it only covers the last portion of stuff we’ve covered in class since our last test, but still, it’s confusing and I am not at all ready yet. I think my professor put some notes online at least. Then on Wednesday morning, I have my other final for my Intro to Telecommunications class.

After that, it’s relaxation. Oh, and working a lot of extra hours. On a zillion projects. But at least I like work. Wednesday night my coworker Scott is having a Christmas party, so that will be a nice way to blow off steam after finals. Thursday I’m headed to Atlanta to get my hair cut, yay. Then on Saturday we have two Christmas parties to attend - Chris’s office shindig, for which I need to get something to wear, and Mollie’s party after.

We need to do Christmas shopping too. I think we’re going to do some tomorrow and then the rest next weekend. We’re going to try to get handmade things for people… gonna go to some craft sales here in town. I might try to get photos printed up too to give as some gifts.

I guess I need to figure out what the hell I am giving Chris for both his birthday and Christmas (they’re 4 days apart). I have no idea. I guess I should just ask him what kinda stuff he wants. We decided we’re not getting each other much, because we want to get a new iMac in January, so we want to save our money for that. This sharing a computer thing is getting old. Maybe one day I will get brave enough to dismantle his iBook and replace the hard drive so that the computer is usable again. All those damn little screws intimidate me. I wish I had a techy friend to come over and help out with that.

Oh! Saturday is the Holiday Slam at the New Media Institute, where the students show off their semester projects, etc. I didn’t take any classes in the NMI this semester (so sad! I miss those classes) but I’m getting my New Media certificate finally. Very psyched about that.

Shit, I just realized I made coffee for myself and then forgot to get a cup of it.

Speaking of weather changes, it’s finally fall here in Athens now. After a really long summer, it’s a nice change to have cooler weather. I wasn’t enjoying it at all at first- our house gets a little drafty and man, was it cold. I would be in 3 or so layers of clothing and be freezing… and the wood floors were painfully cold. We finally turned our heat on, though, and now it’s very pleasant in our house.

I was just in the car a little while ago and caught the tail end of “33″ by the Smashing Pumpkins on the radio. It made me think about how I strongly correlate certain songs with certain seasons/times of the year. “33″, for instance, is definitely fall- a cold, grey day in mid-late fall… leaves on the ground but mostly gone from the trees.