Well it certainly seems like Tuesdays are my blog update days.  Maybe it has a lot to do with it just being the only day of the week I don't find myself swamped....wait...no that's not true.

I'm almost completely over being sick.  I'm at about 93% right now.  All I have left is a little bit of a runny nose and a slight cough.  I think I'll be back up to 100 % soon.  All things considered...I'm not surprised at all about getting sick.  I've been super stressed and I've not been getting enough sleep.  I get sick once or twice a year at most.  I guess it was just my time.  At least this time I didn't get a sinus infection like last year's nasty cold.  Yuck.

Today wasn't bad after a string of days that just sucked.  I wish I could tell you why too.  There's a lot of reasons, and I'm not allowed to talk about them.  Yeah, I'm being serious.  Let's just say...there are a lot of things I'm not happy with right now and there are a lot of possible things that may change that in the near future.

Anyway, back to today.  I stopped to help out two people today, and it made me feel great.  I was at the grocery store, and a woman was calling for some help.  I looked over as I was walking, and it was a woman in an electric wheelchair.  She needed help getting something.  No one else was paying her any mind, and that really bothered me.  I walked over and helped her.  She was a very nice woman and was very gracious.  Why don't people stop to help others more often?

Also, I went to check out and swiped my two items at the self check station.  I looked at the price and was like "Gah!!".  It was several dollars more than it should have been.  I had two items: a pepsi and a donut.  The bill was six dollars for some reason.  Turned out someone had scanned dishsoap and forgot to void it.  So I did.  I went to swipe my card afterwards, and the receipt was already on its way out.  Turns out someone had gone through but didn't finish their transaction. So instead my two items were on that person's card.  Most people would walk away claiming a freebie.  I have a conscience.  I told the clerk, and she took care of voiding that transaction.  I rang my stuff up and paid.  I was thanked for my honesty.

That transaction was the last one I'll get this week.  Payday is Friday, and I am literally flat broke until then.  When I got home from work today, I opened my mail box to find a collections letter in there in regards to my medical bills.  I called the number and had a long conversation with the man on the other end.  They expect me to pay back $700 in five months.  I have literally no room in my budget, and they want me to pay 150 a month or so.  I have no idea how I'll manage that.  I don't get it.  So many people hold off on paying medical bills.  I was specifically told to put that last on my list.  Why am I dealing with collections?  How do other people manage when they have bills outstanding for much longer and at much higher rates?  I hate money.

At least there's some light at the end of the tunnel.  I have some new freelance lined up.  Another editor backed out, and I got the gig instead.  That's always good for me.  The videos are 3 minute clips for a set of restaurants in the area.  There will be five of them, and they pay $350 each.  Starting this month.  Maybe I will make it through ok. In fact, I may come out with even my furniture paid off!  Who knows.  Maybe in a couple months...I'll even have some money in savings?!!

I have to do my taxes yet, and I'm not looking forward to it.  I may have to pay.  Due to my sickly financial situation, I never was able to put any of the money I earned through freelance away.  I overpay on my full time job taxes and I can write off a lot of things for my business.  So we'll see.  There's also a possibility of a return.  Here's hoping.  I'm putting money away for taxes this coming year.  That'll make me less stressed next March.

There's some potential change coming in my future.  I've been thinking about what I want to do in the coming year, and one of the things that has come up recently is grad school.  If things continue, I may have a lot of my debt paid off by the time I could start grad school.  I've missed the deadline for applying for this coming fall.  That's actually ok.  I still have to take the GRE.  I am thinking about two options.  The first is the more likely of the two.  I'm considering the Mass Comm graduate program at the University of Minnesota.  My major would be Mass Comm with an emphasis on communication processes, structures, and effects.  The minor would be in feminist / gender studies.  The second option would be at the Annenberg School for Communication, which is part of USC.  That's like...the premier of schools for communication, and it'd be difficult to get in...and pay for.  But I might as well try, right?

There's a position opening up in Chippewa Falls at a dentist office.  It's not glamorous. It's a receptionist position.  I know the owner / dentist, and she's a really awesome person.  She's a friend of mine and Chris'.  She actually mentioned it to me.  It'll be opening up in July.  If I apply and get that, I'd move in with Chris.  He's moving into a house that costs $700 a month to rent.  It's much bigger than my current place and is cheaper.  We'd be splitting costs.  So bills would be cut down by a significant amount.  I'd go from $760 a month in rent to $350.  Plus, I'd be living with my best friend.  We've done that before and we know it works.  So neither of us is worried.

It's a big move, but at the same time, I think it's the right one.  I'll be happier.  The job is much lower stress.  Paying bills will be easier.  And with the lower stress job...I might be able to get more done on goals of mine.  Right now, I work my job and when I come home, I don't want to go back to work.  So nothing gets done.  If I had a low stress job, things might be different.  So I'm strongly considering it.

My big concern has been freelance and whether I'd keep it.  Honestly, I can't see why I'd lose work.  I have an ftp site, and most of the work I do has web delivered content.  I'll probably be down in Milwaukee once a month to meet with people and work on some longer term projects.  It could prove even more lucrative than staying here.  That's my hope at least.  I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Podcast news...I'm working on an ambitious approach to my next few.  This upcoming one will be about the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation.  I'm going to start shooting this weekend.  I'll probably shoot some of the middle of it during the week, and hopefully it'll be online sometime late next week.  I'll post about it.  The ones after that one will be a three part series.  :D  Aren't you excited?!! I am.

OK...I have to get up early tomorrow.  I'm leaving work for an early lunch tomorrow to help a friend go to a doctor's appointment.  I want to get to work earlier to make up for the time.  Hopefully I'll find some time to post another update before next Tuesday.  Have a good week otherwise. :D

Wow, I got hit pretty hard with the flu today.  I wasn't feeling sick yesterday up until late in the evening.  At that point, I was starting to experience a dry cough.  When I woke up this morning, I felt like I had been hit by a bus.  My body ached everywhere.  I was still coughing, and by then it was starting to hurt.  I also felt like I was going to fall right back to sleep. I had no strength or energy, and I was experiencing the telltale dizziness that I usually get when I'm sick.  I climbed into the shower and very slowly got cleaned up.  I went in to work, and when I got there, I turned around and went right back home.

I passed out from 11:00 am to about 6:30 pm.  I was sweating a lot...which is abnormal for me.  I must have had a fever.  I made myself some chicken soup, and after eating that, I started to feel a little better.  I've been up for just over 3 hours now, and I'm still a bit achey.  I took some generic tylenol, which has helped a lot.  I'm not sure if I'll go to work tomorrow.  I'll have to judge that by how I feel in the morning.  Ugh...I hate being sick.  I think this is the first time I've gotten just the flu.  Usually I get a cold.  I'm not used to the body aches and pains.  It's particularly hitting my lower back, which makes it difficult to sleep.

Otherwise, things are ok.  Yesterday at work, I had some very stimulating watercooler chats.  If you read the review, I saw "A Clockwork Orange" this weekend, and I mentioned it to my friend Tom.  We ended up discussing the plot, which turned into a discussion of dissonance.  That turned into a comparison between Stanley Kubrick and Igor Stravinsky, the composer of the Rite of Spring, which is all dissonance.  That moved on to talk about Debussy, another composer.  That's when Joe walked in and said he was impressed with the content of our chat.  He wasn't expecting something so intelligent I guess.  Most people talk about their weekends and stuff I guess.  I've never been one to be "normal" though.

Later, that conversation continued with Ben, another coworker, and somehow we got to talking about 2001.  We branched off to discussing multi-dimensions, and I pointed out a video I saw a while back about the ten dimensions of existence.  You can find that video here.  It's a fascinating look at visualising how dimensions beyond our every day 3 dimensional existence look.  Ben and I ended up talking about time travel and existence off and on throughout the day when thoughts appeared in our heads.  What a stimulating Monday!

OK, I think I should get to sleep since I'm still sick.  Until next time.

That's right. I went to a drag show.  If you've read any of the posts from years ago, you may have noticed that I'm not a fan of drag shows.  I've often found them to be degrading and insulting to the trans community.  Of course, I was watching drag shows done by college students...specifically the college students at UWEC.  Needless to say those weren't very good.

The show I saw on Saturday night was performed by a group of professionals that put on these shows regularly.  There wasn't an offensive aspect of them at all.  For the first time, I was able to see the statement that drag shows were intended to make.  I had a good time.  A few years ago...I don't think you'd hear me say that.

This show was a little different.  It was a drag king show.  For those of you that don't know, a drag king is a female identified person that dresses as a male identified person.  As with any drag show, the goal is to make fun of stereotypes while entertaining the viewers.  The performances were fun and I laughed a lot.  I have two friends that are directly involved with the group, and they were also thrilled to see me there.  I believe the statement made when I came in the door was "YOU FINALLY CAME!!!".  Haha.

I was invited to go to the show by my friend Tracy, of whom is awesome.  She's nerdtastic like I am.  She knew so many people there.  I'm not very connected to the community here at all.  I felt a little awkward, but turns out I know many of the performers.  I shot the video for the wedding of my two friends that are members.  So I saw a lot of the performers there.  I doubt they'd remember me though.  One or two did, which was nice. :)

After the show, Tracy decided to go to the after party.  So I went with.  I haven't been out to a bar in ages.  Aside from the usual cloud of smoke, it was fun.  In fact, I ran into a friend there.  Kate, a girl I met on myspace about a year and a half ago, was also there.  Oddly, despite us living near each other and being friends for so long, we'd never actually met in person before.  It was really cool getting to say hi and talk for once.  Turns out we have good in person chemistry.  It's always the worst when you have a friend from online, and in person you have nothing to say.  She'd like to get coffee sometime.  I'll take her up on that.  It'd be nice to have another friend to hang out with in the area.

The other random thing that happened...the drag group has a person shooting video of the events with a Sony HDV prosumer grade camera.  It's a V1U type variety.  I've used them before.  I was eyeing it up, and later on I said hi to the camera girl.  We chatted and she gave me her business card.  Later, she was at the after party, and we got to talking.  She seemed really nice.  We chatted a lot about the biz and what kind of work we do.  It was a good conversation, and I think she likes me.  She told me to e-mail or call.  So I will.  Though it'll be difficult if she is interested.  As I pointed out in an earlier post...I'm not really dating.

I've started work on the next podcast.  I set up a more standard format as suggested by my friend Mike.  I think it'll work very well.  I also have started brainstorming future podcasts. I'm thinking it'll be fun to start doing series of podcasts on one subject.  Like...do one episode, expand on the concept the next, and complete the issue on the third.  There's so much to talk about, and it's hard to pick each one.

Oh I have to write about this since it's so karmic.  I tend to make myself nice meals on the weekends.  I figure, I have the time, I'm relaxed, and well...I need good food once in a while, right?  So Saturday I set out to make myself some szechuan beef and chicken.  I found a great recipe online and went out and got the few ingredients I needed.  It took me about two hours to prepare with the mincing of the ginger root, garlic, chopping up all the vegetables, slicing up the meat, etc.  It was one of the best meals I've ever made though.  I had to have a kleenex box on the table with me because my nose was running due to the spiciness.  Holy crap was it awesome.

Sunday night I decided to make myself a Chicken ranch pizza since I don't make those often.  I started making the crust dough in my bread machine, and for once, it wasn't turning out very well.  The recipe was short on water.  That was an omen right there.  I used the dough anyway.  I prepared the pizza like I always do, but this time, it got very overcooked.  What a waste! I ate the food anyway, but it wasn't the most fantastic thing ever.  What a contrast between Saturday and Sunday!

I've been fighting with Scarlet lately.  She's been being naughty.  I can't seem to get her to stay out of the couch.  She climbs inside thinking its a play area, and she chews on parts of it.  She's surrounded by all the mechanicals of the couch too.  So it's not very safe in there.  She's not quite associating getting put in the bathroom by herself with what she did yet.  I think I may have to get some animal repellent and put it in the couch on a rag or something.  I need to somehow associate negativity with it.  If you have other suggestions, let me know.

I've had a lot of ideas lately for site designs.  I get very frustrated trying to see them into fruition.  My perfectionism holds me back as usual.  I can't get it to look exactly as I see it in my head, and due to that, I get discouraged.  I'll press on though.  It'll just take me longer.  I know what colors I'm going to use for my JessicaJaniuk.com site design.  It's going to be a much brighter palette than is there now.  I think once I get it done, I'll feel a lot better.

OK. I better leave it here.  This post is almost as long as "Twitterpated".  Sorry Adam...it's still not 1337 words long.  I'm short by a couple hundred.  Maybe next time. :)

I'm reserving this post for a review of "a Clockwork Orange," to which I just finished watching.  I've been perusing the classics off and on with my Netflix queue and some I've liked.  Some, like this film, I haven't.

To cut to the chase, I found this film to be bombastic.  Throughout the first half of this film, I found myself wondering what the purpose of it was.  I felt the whole first half was just a vehicle to show gratuitous violence, nudity, and brutal sex.  The sheer amount of phallic imagery and naked women left me wondering what kind of a man Stanley Kubrick was.  The milk shop with a machine that dispenses milk out of a female statue's breast is just one example of blatant sexual objectivity.  I was stunned by the misogyny, and while I think the viewer was supposed to associate that with Alex, I attributed it more to the director.

I don't I never once felt connected to the main character, Alex. That trend continued through the film.  Despite the first person perspective used to tell the story, the film felt very disconnected.  I felt the film was floundering for it's own story the whole time. The message of the film finally appeared about 2/3rds of the way through, but in the end, even that was missed.

I'm still at a loss for what this film was trying to say.  Was it trying to suggest that all human beings are evil?  Was this supposed to be a redemtion film that failed? I do know that the final chapter of the book was omitted in the US until the mid 1980.  That chapter in fact included the redemption of sorts.  Or was this just supposed to be a tale of a psychopath?  If so...then what was the point?

I felt that Stanley Kubrick's ego shone through throughout the film.  It was comparable to watching a Quenten Tarantino film.  They both think they're the most amazing filmmakers ever, and that pompousness reveals itself in their approach.  Kubrick was mimicking Citizen Kane in many shots throughout the film as if to say...look at me...I one upped Orson Welles.  I'm not denying the film looked pretty.  In fact, I'd say the cinematography was the best part of the film.

I felt this film to be disturbing and disfunctional, like the group of friends Alex has at the beginning of the film.  "Detached" would be the perfect word, which very well may have been Kubrick's goal.  He's like the Stravinsky of film.  The only difference is that I don't think anyone's thrown vegetables and booed a Kubrick film.  Turns out I don't really appreciate the dissonant tones of Stravinsky all that much either.  But, in both cases, I can respect that others do.

So, this was my first viewing of "A Clockwork Orange", to which I still have no idea why it's called such.  It's also likely to be my last viewing.  I have no interest in seeing it again.  This film continues a trend for me.  I don't really enjoy the classics all that much.  I very much respect what they have done for the medium.  I find this film to be influential and well done, but I'd never say it's a good film.  As it was put recently, the printing press was a revolutionary invention and had an incredible influence on communication, but I'd never want to use one with all the modern tech we have today. I'll leave my thoughts at that.

Stay tuned...er...reading...for a life update in the next post.

Today I got really motivated with lots of creative ideas floating through my head.  I have solid thoughts about the look of this website and transcending productions website.  I know what colors I want to use for this one too.  Then I loaded up Adobe Illustrator to get started and that's where the motivation started to fail.  The reason being...I know what I want in my head, but achieving it in the design programs is another story.  I do my best to come up with the look I want, but I frequently find myself frustrated that I can't acheive it.  As I work, my motivation disintigrates into nothingness and I end up disappointed.  I'm not sure how to fix this problem.  I still want to make my sites happen, but it probably won't be today.  I'll keep thinking about them though.