You win some, you lose some
I've had the same locker at the Rec center since I moved into the Kincaid street house in September 2001. It sucks because it's a top-level locker but I figure, hey, I'm tall and plus, it's mine only. I've just renewed it every term. I've also had the same backpack since pretty much around the same time. Those of you who know me know my backpack; that huge, green Eddie Bauer day pack with a million straps and doodads. It's comfy as hell but hugenormous beyond belief. The backpack and the locker do not get along.

Sometimes I have to struggle to even get the damn thing in there and still be able to lock the door. Gravity is a strong adversary, especially being that there are clothes, a towel, and toiletries in my locker *underneath* the backpack trying to push it out, but I usually win. Unfortunately, I only win most of the way. My backpack has any number of elevnty-million straps on it that stick out of the locker. Eh, so what? I can close it over them. Not a problem. Or so I though until recently.

There's this obnoxious little Spanish woman in the bottom of the two lockers below me and she's always either coming in or going out at the same time as me. She's a professor and why she doesn't have her locker with the other faculty is beyond me. They have the faculty hidden behind the last tier of lockers for a good reason... nobody wants to look at five rolls of wrinkled, old flesh and saggy boobs. At least, I wouldn't mind but... every day? Anyway, I digress. She's not the problem. The point is, I never see the girl in the middle locker. At least, I think I've only seen her once, some time in the last few months. She works there.

It struck me as kind of odd to come in one day the week before last and find my backpack straps (clips and all) stuck into the top of her locker. They were locked there. Couldn't get em out. It had never happened before and I was in a hurry to get somewhere so I was kind of pissed but I figured eh, what the hell, accidents happen. I ranted and then I went to get someone to unlock her locker for me. Case closed? No.

Monday of this week I was reminiscing about the karmic irony of the backpack straps as I came back from a workout to take a shower. What did I see? My backpack being munched by her locker. Not to the same degree, mind you, but ARGH just... argh. Again, after my shower I went to get help and found Dana, one of the SRC workers whom I know personally. I tell her the deal and she says to me, "If yours is the locker I think it is, I'm going to laugh my ass off."

"Why?" I say.

"Well," she says "I was in the locker room like, last week or something, and some girl was going on a fucking tirade about someone's backpack straps and how she was going to show them. This girl seriously blew a gasket, it was hilarious."

"Um," I say, thinking back to last week-ish, "I that is my locker."

Turns out, Dana's locker is about three down from mine and some wack-o bitch has a vendetta against my poor backpack. Weird thing is that the wacko isn't the person the locker is leased to (i.e. the one who works at the rec). Dana says she'll have a word with her coworker in case she's sharing a locker with a friend or something.

Now, the thing is, I just don't get this girl's damage. It's not like I was maliciously leaving my backpack hanging out. Christ, for all I knew, no one ever came to that locker (I never saw anyone and I'm there every single frikkin day). Second, I've had the same locker for two years now... and she's the first... one to have an... uh, menstrual freak-out about my backpack. I guess I feel bad for letting my backpack's cinching straps hang out of the locker. So I left a polite little note in the middle locker apologizing that I've been in the way and asking the locker's residents to please be careful in case the straps are left out because it's difficult to shove them in. I crammed them in there pretty good today, but it wasn't easy. I hope the note gives the girl a nice case of reality and snaps her out of the paranoid dilusion she's living in where unintentional interference by inatimate objects warrants karmic revenge.

Seriously. It was one thing when I thought it was an accident. This is another thing entirely.

Alls I have to say is, bitch.

**************
The last two days have been stressful for various reasons. Primarily, I got behind after spending a weekend in Seattle and had to haul ass on a photo-j project that ended up sucking majorly. I'm not looking forward to turning that one in tomorrow. Oh well, sometimes it's just a time to slack the fuck off. Today I had my History midterm and a Japanese Quiz. Aced both, I'm sure, which means I probably failed. I gotta pick up the slack on my History reading and write mom a letter for mom's day. Don't know why I should bother, it won't endear me any further to the most estranged of my estranged parents.

Friday and Saturday I have Waseda orientations. It will be nice to finally meet the majority of the participants in the programme. I'm still feeling ambiguous about going, especially with the most recent developments in scholarships. It's not that I didn't get any. In fact, I've gotten all but one (that have been reported thus far) of those I applied for. Opportunities Abroad= $500. Freeman UO= $4,500. Freeman-ASIA= $7,000. AIEJ= $7,200ish (based on conversion rate). The problem is that it's a "one or the other" sort of deal. I anticipated this in part, but not just how ancy it would make me. I can pick one of the Freemans. Obviously, I pick the $7,000 one. That way, I get to keep Opportunities Abroad (I think...). Freeman disperses once per term and goes into my student account. AIEJ covers airfare in its entirety, gives me an 80,000Yen monthly stipend ($650 about) and a one-time 25,000Yen "settling-in allowance." (about $210). Sounds nice, ne? But also less than or equivalent to Freeman and easier to spend instead of apply toward program. If I pick AIEJ, too, I can't have any other scholarships for abroad. Stingy of them, huh?

Oh well, I seem to be "good enough" in some respects, I just can't understand why I can't glean FULL funding for my programme. Sheesh.

And I didn't get ALL the scholarships, the jury is still out on two more... I did get a letter from the University today saying that I wasn't good enough for whatever hoity-toity "prestigious" award I was nominated for. No fucking wonder, too, I took a look at the past winners of those things and they're all freakish prodigies. Obviously kids on full-ride scholarships or with rich daddies. With community-service and intramural resumes like that, none of those kids EVER had a time for a job. Ever. Doesn't that count for something?

Huff. I'm still sick with a stupid headcold and waiting for it to go away just in time for GRASS SEASON ALLERGIES!! Yay! >.< Why oh WHY did Linn county have to be so worthless as to merit them taking up the grass seed industry for economic support? Don't they know the misery it causes us? That it makes us the city with the worst seasonal pollen count in the nation??? WHYYY!!??!?!

*hack, cough*

Anyhoo, I've got to get some work in before I go to south park. Oh, and my dear friend Rachelry has her own blog now. So go check it out, dolls.

In closing, a poem generated from my dear blog (yes you can make your own). I call it...uh.... um....

08 29:01 AM
blogging before bed
the idea to be careful
in the rec. center
since I
feel about this sentiment.
glad proud to
last, and then I pick one of her image is
contributing to the Moment she has the participants
in wonderfully legitimate
ways to take for a feminist passed on it
struck me an OV staff meeting,
went to a time Soak good.
enough for GRASS SEASON
ALLERGIES!! Yay! grass SEASON ALLERGIES!! Yay!
Ha, ha. Ha.


and this one... it's almost a haiku:

write mom a 25,000Yen
allowance. about $three lip rings, stretched
earlobes, ratty dreds and getting dressed
like
I e.

This one is from my bio. I like the ones from my bio:

About them. I can
gain some crucial understanding
of time and good
story maybe it eats your soul. I
love me or hate me,
mellow and a cynic.
It�s a Clydesdale
and never going back. Before
that, okay for a faithful
heart
tall blonde
and my partner
of an abstract thinker
and writing shit either
Love the right brained, an
exhibitionist and I;
where I think a closet drama
in computers but then fail to contact Me
I don�t plan
on in, my biggest fears are
dense, the circumstances.

and this one... wow

About past three years, two fish,
twenty plants, and
more power
out running/ lifting weights ,
playing with water, air, and yes,
I wear sexy underwear. a home
away from home. away
from a dreamer
and have a land of an
adult, I
lead a blessing or any stigma, Or any
given day it become addicted to
anesthetize a long enough period of my
history to make myself Hence, I never
go there is it eats your
soul. I also a closet drama in
writing, I never could maintain it Love me I am not
long enough .
I
never program.