Good Xorning, 2008!

[Ultradude]

And I like to complain about my internet booting me at random... or when someone makes or receives a phone call (THIS IS DSL FOR CHRISSAKE!).

At least Tai can get on IRC without fear of a sudden boot flurry. I haven't been on more than a few times in the past few months because my phone line is that bad.

[BaconForTheSoul]

Yay for 25 posts per page!  (Not sure when this changed, just noticed it.)

[Talaysen]

Yay for 25 posts per page!  (Not sure when this changed, just noticed it.)

Yesterday, I think.

[Cmdr_King]

Mmm.  Skipping class and sleeping straight through to the point you'd normally be getting back from it is good for the soul.
Pity this school has an attendance policy and I can only do this once.

[Strago]

So I've been back at school since last Sunday evening. Unfortunately my housemates and I arrived to find some rather unpleasant doings a-going on in our refrigerator, so we spent several days cleaning and re-cleaning it, and it is now empty except for several bowls of coffee grounds and baking soda mixed with vanilla extract. I am told that these substances do excellent jobs of absorbing nasty odors. Tomorrow we're going to open her on up and see how things smell. Hopefully it should be much better. If not, one more round of scrubbing with much baking soda/bleach and another few days of de-odorizing. Thankfully it is still fairly cold in Connecticut and the few perishable we absolutely need seem to be keeping quite well out on our back porch. So things could be worse.

The other unpleasant surprise I've had recently came on Wednesday, when I went in to meet with my thesis advisor. My thesis advisor who had been so understanding of my slow/non-existent process last semester quite suddenly dropped the bomb that I needed to have a 15-20 page rough draft on his desk by Monday afternoon. Thankfully, A) I have very few classes this semester, so I've had plenty of time to do nothing but read and write for the past couple days, and B) when he says "rough draft," he seems to really mean rough. And I'm reeeeally taking him up on that. And I've got about 10 rough-as-hell pages right now, so things are coming along and I think my ideas are devloping and my focus is sharpening nicely. And I've been reading not only a lot of cool stuff on Japanese No theater, but Jerzy Grotowski's Towards a Poor Theatre, which is a total avant garde idealist geekout for me. So here, too, things are maybe less than ideal but could be a lot worse.

Plus, I'm starting a PC (gnome wizard!) in a brand new tabletop D&D campaign (Forgotten Realms, specifically Waterdeep; not my favorite by any stretch, but I know the DM fairly well and it will be fun in a fluffy acion-adventure sort of way) this Sunday evening with some of my best friends on campus, and I have a great acting class and my first rehearsal for Big Love this Monday after I will have handed in my thesis draft. My last semester of college is shaping up to be pretty alright, despite my initial thesis freakout. Huzzah.

Oh, and it looks like I'll be moving to New York (Brooklyn or Queens) some time after graduation. Exciting stuff.

[Shale]

Hey, Strago. Random question, but what school do you go to?

(I swear, this has a point).

[Strago]

Wesleyan University, in Connecticut.

[Shale]

Ah. I just realized that since my sister's headed to Connecticut (the O'Neill center, in particular) to study acting for a semester, there was a chance it might be the same place you are (weirder things have happened, like her going to school with Sopko for a while).

[Strago]

Oh, cool. The O'Neill Center is great. But I'm not in a conservatory program, yar. Never really felt like that would be quite right for me.

[Dunefar]

Strago's graduating from college soon? Damn, I remember when he was in high school and jazzed up to go. Obligatory feeling old joke goes here.

---

My uncle's mother died. This doesn't mean anything to me at all, as we'd never met and we're not required to go to the funeral. But this spurred a thought; I feel lucky since I've only been to two funerals in my life. Does this number seem low to anyone else?

[Yakumo]

Considering that I've only ever been to two myself(two great-grandparents), I'd say no?  Then again, I could be weird too and my family does seem to be long-lived in general.

[Twilkitri]

Without knowing how old you are, I can't really compare. But at 24 I've been to 4 funerals of relatively close family. But I think that may be a bit higher than normal.

[Dhyerwolf]

I've haven't actually been to a funeral, but small family+our family doesn't really have them. I've been to two memorial services in place of actual funerals though.

[AAA]

Only 1 here(great grandmother)

Though there were more deaths than that, just that they were relatives who lived across the country.

[BaconForTheSoul]

Two at age 22.  Grandpa and Cousin

[Luther Lansfeld]

I've been to about six.

[superaielman]

Three. One a classmate, one a grandfather, one a cousin.  And you met her several times Dune, you just don't remember. It's been a while.

[Yakumo]

Oh, I was thinking just family funerals.  If you count the one Navy friend of mine then I've been to three.  I'm 25, for those who care.

[Taishyr]

If we only count family funerals, four; a distant aunt, both grandfathers and my mom. (19.)

If we count funerals for people my family knew, I lost track around 20.

[Meeplelard]

I've only been to 2 funerals, both were on consecutive sundays too, both being my Grandparents on my fathers side.  Yes, they died within a week of each other, not exactly the greatest of weeks of my life (though, led to interesting situation in school where I was basically excused from school work for an entire two weeks...yeah, Jewish Day Schools have that little edge in that you don't have to explain your religion to anyone <_<)

I could have been to 3, as my Great Grandmother died when I was younger, but being young and such, elected to not go.

[Sierra]

Family funerals? Just two, a couple great grandparents' when I was in elementary school. One we saw reasonably often, the other not so much.

Altogether? Four. A friend's dad in high school somewhere (suicide; bad situation there), and a co-worker's daughter last winter. Kid was only seventeen, and she was an only child too. They requested that everyone wear pink (or at least Not Black; I had nothing pink and settled for light blue) and at the end everyone released pink balloons into the air. I approved.

Oh, and I'm 27.

[Monkeyfinger]

All my ailing family members had the decency to croak before I was born. Haven't had to experience a family death yet.

Time's probably running out for my mom's mom though...

[Hunter Sopko]

5

Uncle
Grandma
Girlfriend's Father (I met her entire family. This started my rep of being the King of Awkward Situations)
Great-Grandma
Hockey Coach's (And close family friend)'s Father

In that order, I think

Shale: I didn't actually go to school with her. I did show her and your Mom around campus, but I was kicked out before she arrived.

And awesome, Strago. We would need to hang out. (In regards to rehersal for Big Love, do you mean the HBO show?)

[Shale]

I've been to funerals for my great-grandmother, cousin once removed, a good friend of the family (who I knew well; she got us involved with our synagogue), and the woman who owned the used-book store next to my office. The latter three were all of cancer, which gets damned depressing.

[VySaika]

I haven't actually been to any funerals I can remember. I've had family members die, but my family is so spread out that when it happened it was always too far away for me to get to. That or I didn't hear about the death until after the funeral.