Oops! (Part two)

Heh. Well, so much for my ability to properly ID kitten anatomy.
Amulet is, on a second and slightly less hurried look, a boy.
*amused* Oh well - that actually suits me better anyway. No screaming and howling when Kitty goes into heat and wantswantswants to go outoutout! Now! Niiiaaoww! (I swear, Onyx made that /exact/ noise when she went into heat..)

It'll be a little harder to know when to take him and have his gender removed, but I figure we'll manage.

In more annoying news, I /still/ can't get into the My PCC website - I apparently do not exist. (I find this highly amusing.) Fixing that will have to wait, like calling the vet and running a few other errands, until Monday.

It's sounding like the car is on the road to being repaired, but Andi and I are looking around for a vehicle of our own anyway. He's /finally/ managed to land a job, doing part-time contract work for a guy in Portland - you can imagine the jumping for joy and bouncing. ^^
We're not going to be able to afford anything fancy, even when you blend our college FinAid into it. I'll settle for something that runs - even if it's day-glo pink. (Well, we'd never have a problem finding it in the parkinglot... o.O)
We go for the car because it doesn't look like we'll be affording moving out this year. Are we upset? Well, yes... it's really rather crowded in the house with five people, three hounds and four cats... not counting the umpteen fish. ^^

Nh. Anyway - something amusing I found in B. Onna's blog..

Your Slanguage Profile

Aussie Slang: 75%

Canadian Slang: 50%

Prison Slang: 50%

British Slang: 25%

New England Slang: 25%

Southern Slang: 25%

Victorian Slang: 0%

What Slanguage Do You Speak?

*snert* Yup, that's about right. Now, if only they'd tell you which terms are which... ^.~

Oops.

I did it again. ^.~

No, no, not THAT. *grins*
I brought another kitten home. Yes, Andi was with me. No, he didn't discourage me. This one is mostly black, with white mittens on the front feet, white socks on the back, a white tip on her tail and a white stripe that goes from her muzzle all the way down to her tail on the underside.
We decided to call her 'Amulette' - we've already got a Fetish. ^.~ (Token and Talisman were also suggested, but turned down. I know there are others, but I couldn't remember any...) She's currently asleep in a little basket on my desk.
I'll arrange for pics later....

Shots and a chip need to be arranged - I will probably be calling the vet Monday. (I don't /think/ they're formally open on weekends...

Fundays was, what we saw of it, pretty cool. The parade was fun - I took some pictures and came home with a partial pocket-load of candy. (I /still/ think throwing candy in parades is the worst damn idea... but I'm not shy about taking advantage of it!)
This time, they had a tank. No, not a /tank/ tank - but it was close enough for me. They've never done that before...

And, my belly-dance group was there! Holy crap! It was actually pretty funny, because I got like three pictures of them - and then three of the six or so recognised me and there was hugging. *amused* It was neat. That's never happened before. ^^;

I didn't take pics of /everything/ - but there was some nifty stuff. The usual politians, fire engines and church floats, a group of cheerleaders, two groups of martial artists (one that had a moving stick-fight (probably has a name) as they walked - that was interesting) a flower-cake float (one of the local nurseries, I think..) which was nifty and I wish, in retrospect, that I'd gotten a picture of it... Rodeo queens on horseback, the local Auxiliary (Vets! Thank you!) doing the Colour Guard - I'd like to think Andi and I weren't the only ones who stood to attention in respect...
And, obviously, the belly dancers and some antique cars (And what might have been a couple of honest to purple monster trucks.. o.O), bunches of kids and adults riding bicycles, ATVs, motorcycles and other things - I think there was a goat too ... o.O
It was a pretty serious parade - and I got pics of the stuff that interested me. ^.~

I think Mom and Ladd are still considering taking the hounds down to socialize the Misses Mayhem - should be interesting.

*checks* ... Amulette is asleep. Heh.

Why the hell...

... do these people have to be so #$%@!! difficult?!
Would it kill them to give you a straight answer?

*sigh* I just got through sorting out my 'college experience'. So far, it looks like I'm doing PCC, general studies with a hope of transferring to a more focused school later on.

AI is still a contender, but I'm now also looking at the Pacific NW College of Art and Craft (Portland!), the Northwest College of Art (Washington!) and the Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland!).
Why? Because I don't like being stonewalled and having someone talk at me out of both sides of their mouth. I also don't like having it implied my only real option is to put myself in debt for the rest of my life /just/ for a degree in this, that or the other.
I'm also tired of hearing that 'we're a private design school, we can do what we want' - maybe so, but if you want /me/ to study there, you're bloody well going to give me a few straight answers and accomodate at /least/ one of my major hurdles! GAH!

Major hurdles to date: Funding, Transportation, ability to focus.
I'll settle for them accomodating the funding - I'll bloody well figure the rest out on my own if they'll get that one! Rrr.

So far, I'm less than amused, and trying to figure out wtf is the problem with the compromise I am proposing - which works for ME, and makes it possible for me to do this. 'We don't have an articulation agreement' - uh, yeh, you keep saying that, then you tell me you /do/ (or did, but that's not /quite/ what she said..) and ... what am I supposed to believe?!
While I'm perfectly willing to accept that she /can't/ tell me the things I need to know, what I want to know is why? Why is it not cool for a student who's strapped for cash to take the general courses (Math, history, science - boring shit) at one of the community colleges, then transfer to their 'private design school' for the specialised courses that you can't get at the community college?
Is there a snag in that that I, the student, am missing? Is the 'evolving curricula' so throughly enmeshed with college math, history and other stuff that what is taught at a community college isn't the exact same materiel?
If I were a little more pessimistic, I'd think they were doing it for the specific purpose of being difficult! >.<

Well. While I am willing to a point to leap through hoops, once I reach that point I stop jumping (this is why I'd be no good in the military, except maybe as an officer - I don't take orders well) and start wanting straight answers and a lessening in bullshit. Needless to say, I've about hit that point. ^^;
They want my money? /And/ my talent? they can bloody well accomodate my big hurdle, /without/ the garbage, and without standing on their tongues!

So it looks like it's PCC to start with - I'll have a word with them over at the Northwest College of Art (Washington! GAH!) and the Pacific Northwest CoA and see what they say, as well as a word with them over at PNWCoAaC - still debating whether I tell them I've been talking to them at AI ... and, whether to tell AI that I'm looking around, since they're being overly (to my mind) difficult.. ^.~

Generally though, I'm getting tired of the run around. This is not productive, to my mind, and the more I'm bullshitted the less I am amused and the more I am tempted to tell them to take it and shove it where the sun don't shine...

.... flapping /hell/, why can't they ...

Make it a little easier for people to work out what they're gonna do?!

We spent Friday traipsing around half of Portland - first to Sylvania campus, to talk to a PCC advisor about figuring out a transfer thing. We get out of there, I figure, okay - so I take the general crap there, then hope I can transfer the whole shebang over to AI. Right? Wellll...
Okay. We have to go into Portland /anyway/ - Andi's /finally/ got a contract, and he had to pick up some stuff so he could work on it. ('some stuff' being a server thing that, thankfully, doesn't take up too much space in the comp-room.. ^.^) So we hike over to AI, who's having an open portfolio show.
We go in, waffle around a bit and finally get to talk to one of their general guys (Not the lady we talked to Thursday morning in a phone interview - she's calling back tomorrow..) and discussed this thing.
*chuckles* I laid out the problem, my possible solution and the issues with it, with Andi's help, then, while he was waffling, fished out my portfolio.
"Let me show you something." I said.

.... I have never seen someone go from 'welll...' to, 'Okay! How can we help you do this!?' so damn fast. ^^ Anyway. He thinks my idea of taking the general stuff (Maths, sciences, psych, history..) at PCC is workable.
Having seen his reaction, I got the wild idea of setting up an online version of my portfolio. I will give Jo-Ann the URL tomorrow.. ^^
(Anyone curious can go here to see it..)

Since we were there, we wandered up and had a look at their portfolio thing. I'm now thinking that their Media Arts and Animation course might be more effective than their Graphic Design course - particularly after having had a look at some of the real-time /examples/ of the results of both courses. Wow...
I managed to avoid drooling - but /damn/ some of these people are absolutely /amazing/ ... ^^

The next stop was Whole Foods. I nearly walked out with fresh Oregon strawberries - and I /would/ have, if I thought I could get 'em home intact! ^^
I /did/ find some of the organic, no sugar added fruit leather strips I like so much. (Stretch Island, for the curious. I'm hoping Harvest Fresh also carries them....)

Anyway. Weird crap. First, fished out of Lutra's Pond -


how jedi are you? :: by lawrie malen
... Well, they got the 'badass' part right. Heh. ^^

Next, snitched out of Red for Pleasure,
You Are Absinthe!

You have a unique personality. Although most like you, sometimes you take some getting used to. You can be a bit strong. You are full of energy and sometimes flamboyant. You are the life of the party but if people are not careful you can knock them on their ass.

What Naughty My Little Pony Are You?

.... Life of the party? Me? If you say so ... ^^

HOUNDS! GAHHHH!!!!!!

Well, that's it - that's the last one. Andros Raqs al Khamsin (tranlation, roughly 'Andros Dance of the Desert Wind' - 'Khami') has finally shown up. She's huge. Particularly next to Tziki, she's huge.
Here - some cuteness.

The top one is the Tziki-brat, the lower, long-suffering one is Shadi. You can't see it, but not only was he being stomped on by the puppy, I was brushing his flank!

.. I like Shadi. He's a sweet hound. He's allowed in our room. (Well, /I/ allow him - Andi's dubious.)
I do /not/ like the puppies much. They're cute - but they tend to leak. >.<

The case seems to have fixed the problem - which is to say, while the damn thing is /still/ overheating, I can at least count on an hour or so before I have to shut things down and let it cool off.
We also inadvertantly solved the DVDrom problem - I had an internal ZIP drive in, and it was apparently not playing nice with the DVDrom. I removed it (Wasn't using it, it was taking up space ..) and the DVDrom is now being recognised - /with/ the disc in it. Yes!

I'm Enrolled. I've been Oriented. (I wasn't even aware I was disoriented before... hm.) Now all I gotta do is get hold of AI and find out whether I'm going to take PCC's transfer degree (Associate of Arts, I think.) and transfer to AI, or not bother with that and just take PCC's Graphics Design degree.

First, of course, I have to get their dratted 'Personal PCC Webpage' thingie to work. ... *sigh* *gripe* Sometimes, I have this overwhelming dislike for technology...

With the car defunked.. uh, defunct.. we have transportation issues. And, while our FinAid might cover a car.. we don't /get/ our finaid until two weeks into the term. Fall Term. Does this make sense? It doesn't to /me/, but there must be a reason. Anyway.
Webpage. Ain't got there. Soon! Really! o.O

*grrr!*

Right. Looks like the /majority/ of my problems have been caused by overheating.

We discovered this when I stressed the video card playing Neverwinter Nights. ( .. better that than something important, considering the number of crashes I had..)

Video card overheat, video go away. Video no come back. Grr. Shut down. Comp not like this.
And, to add injury to insult, about half the time the DVDrom isn't recognised, so I have to basically reboot until the damn thing sees it.

Do I hate my comp? Yup.
We're going to see if putting it in a new case (with better ventilation) will help ... If it doesn't, I may bite the bullet and get a water-cooling kit. *WAAAGH!*

Other than that, I've been 'blah'. Cranky, grumpy and not interested in just about everything. (Aside from cornering Shadi and sitting on him in order to work some of the mats out of his coat. This is /not/ his favorite activity.)
Hounds, I am learning (Re-learning?) really aren't terribly 'doglike'. Shadi, for example, is a people-hound - but he's not '*boingboingboing* come play, mama! Comeoncomeoncomeon!!!' He's sociable without being doggy, if you get my drift. Cat-like. Aside from the whistling - he was de-barked, and mostly, the noise he makes is a hopeful whistle. He /can/ bark - sort of - but it's muted, so he usually doesn't bother..
Really, very patient and sweet-natured. He is, however, a born manipulator. Not an Alpha Male - rather, a con artist extraordinaire. It's not doing him any good here - Mom's the Queen Bitch of the house, and I'm apparently the Bitch in Training - with most of the emphasis on the Bitch part. I have no sympathy for puppy-dog eyes, mournful noises or hopeful looks.

Then, of course, there's the puppy. She's adorable - the cutest darn thing you'll ever see, with more attitude than any three hounds could ever use. She's been terrorising the cats (Badly wants to play. They hiss, poof up and occasionally swat at her if she over-does it.) and Shadi.

Puppy #2 is slated to arrive this Thursday. ........ Help!!!!!

... I think I'll actually be /glad/ when the Fall Term starts... it's a chance to get /out/ .. o.O