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So, Monday it was sweltering hot here. Tuesday was about the same. So I turned on my air conditioning unit that my landlord gave me. I'm on the second floor of an old, poorly ventilated building. It gets really hot in here. So hot that they normally don't rent the place for the summer. I was just interested so they supplied me with an air conditioner. Well, the AC unit was old. It had "radio button" style switches. It didn't really cool all that well, but it was better than nothing. Monday evening, I had it running and heard this trickle sound. I look over and saw this stream of water leaking out the bottom. I went and got a towel and left it under the leak.

Well, the next day hit and my place was just getting hotter and hotter. It was 85 degrees inside. With the AC unit on it got as low as 84. Obviously it wasn't really doing anything. It continued to leak too. Tuesday night it leaked so bad I had to wring it out several times. Thankfully, I had already called the landlord about it.

I didn't really get any sleep either Monday or Tuesday night. It was just too hot in here. I was tossing and turning and sweating all over the place. I just couldn't get to sleep. What little sleep I got was restless. Tuesday morning I woke up with a huge headache. I have headaches maybe...5 or 6 times out of the year. So it wasn't a good day. My apartment was so hot that my computer couldn't be turned on. If I did, it would overheat and reboot itself a lot. Really helps with productivity at home on the website rennovations.

Today I came home after work, walked in to my apartment, and was just shocked by a 66 degree apartment and a shiny, new air conditioner in my window. I was so happy and giddy. Then I realized how tired I was and fell asleep for a few hours. That felt so nice. I should be able to function at home now. My computer is running ok too. So that's good. Well, that's my excitement for the week thus far. Tomorrow morning is my next laser treatment followed by Friday's electrolysis. I may meet a new friend Friday evening. We'll see. More on that later. Now, it's bedtime. G'night all.

Luv,

Jess

Yes, yes, I have been lazy with my diary. Several of you e-mailed me about my lack up an update this past week. I apologize. However, I will say that had I updated, you would have been rather bored. I didn't have much going on and it took me this long to get enough stuff to make a decent entry. Anyway, on to the content.

Though I was lazy with making an entry, I haven't been lazy with the site. I've spent my entire week inbetween calls at work creating the new design for this site. It's looking pretty neat. I had a menu design that just failed outright, but I think that's a good thing. The idea was cool, but not practical. The new one looks pretty and does what I want it to. Just wait to see it. I also redid the logo and created a new video clip that I have to put up soon. Once I remember how to properly stream video, I'll do that. It's nifty.

For those of you that write a lot on this site, I'm going to be putting up a link to create an account. It's not to create a blog, but it'll allow you to sign in so it remembers you when you comment on stuff. That'll come with the version update of the diary system. There are going to be two new sections on the site. One with some random writings I've done in the past and present as well as writings from Lauren if she wants to post stuff. I'm also going to set up a forum for anyone that wants to talk about transgender issues. Oh, and for my friend werfe1, I will be updating the pictures page.

Let's see, other excitement for the week. Monday was genital electrolysis. That was a blast, let me tell ya. I will say that it's not as painful as laser if done right. I had a numbing agent on the area, and my electrolygist used ice as well. So after that, it felt pretty much like normal electrolysis. Very tolerable. Thursday was my second genital laser treatment. I had a friend set up to drive me back from that, since I had pain meds to take for it. So we picked up breakfast, headed towards the freeway, and I realized I left my pain meds on my dresser. We didn't have time to go back for them. So I had to suffer through an hours worth of intense pain. The nice thing is, since I had electrolysis and there was less hair after the first laser treatment, it didn't hurt nearly as bad as I expected. Nevertheless, it was still painful. Two more months of this, and I'm done though. So I can tolerate it. So basically, it was a physically painful week.

The best part that happened involved money. I FINALLY got paid by the University of Illinois for my speaking earlier this semester. I didn't expect to get paid at all. The really nice thing is I got paid four times as much as I was supposed to. I dropped my jaw when I saw that. Right when I needed money too. I was so broke this week. My parents had to help me out. Rent, two electrolysis sessions, one laser session, and I had no food in my house. All that totalled about $725, and I had about $100 on Monday. I made it through ok though.

Tuesday night I went to a local youth group for queer kids. They are looking for volunteers to help out, and I thought I'd get the feel for it to see if I'm interested. I think I am, though I don't know if the times will work for me. The kids are cool. I had fun, though I didn't participate all that much. I was trying to get to know everyone. I'll fill out the paperwork and see how it goes. Maybe I can help out during the school year instead, since the times work out better then.

A couple of the girls in the group were from the high school I spoke at earlier this year. They made sure to invite me to a picnic on Friday that all the local schools were participating in. They had a gift for me apparently. That was a huge surprise. I really don't do my speaking out of any desire for gifts or even money most of the time. The U of Illinois pay was simply to cover travel expenses. I do it because it makes a difference. So, when I get offered a gift, it's very unexpected.

I went to the picnic and felt very out of place simply because I haven't been in high school for five years now. That's ok though, eventually I got used to it and had fun. I played frisbee with a bunch of people and ate some good food too. The youth group facilitator was there, and we talked, as well as a few others that I also knew. Eventually the kids gave me the gift. It was a gift certificate to Victoria's Secret. That's wonderful since that's the first place I'm going to after SRS. It was an excellent gift. If any of you high school kids read this, thanks a lot. :)

Well, that was my week. Hopefully something exciting will happen this coming week as well, so I can actually write about stuff. In the meantime, today I woke up at 3:00 in the afternoon, so I realy need to get moving. I would like to do something productive today before the sun goes down. See ya later.

Luv,

Jess

Well this week was filled with a whole bunch of nothing. I worked everyday. Real exciting. What I don't get is why my boss gets on my case for being a couple minutes late, when I stayed extra earlier this week for well over an hour. They asked me to do that. They told me to come in a little late. I come in like....three minutes late and he gets on my case. I know he's anal retentive like no other, but geez, I'm reliable, intelligent, and trustworthy. Do they want to lose someone for being a few minutes late once in a while? Or do they want to just put up with the fact that I have a bar next to my apartment that does Karaoke every Thursday night really loud and keeps me awake so I come in late the next day by a few minutes? I don't know why, but it really bothers me.

Anyway, I heard back from Dr. Schrang on the documentary thing and apparently none of the networks are interested in the topic right now. Figures. But I guess it doesn't bother me all that much. I've been wanting to do my own documentary for a while, and now I'll actually have control over how it's done. So I guess that's good. I think I'll put segments of it online. That'll be useful.

I've spent a bunch of time this week working on a new menu for the site. It's not going as well as planned. I have the animation all set up and stuff, but the action scripting in flash is so different from what it once was. I can't figure out how to do anything with it. It's a huge pain. I don't want to give up on it, because what I have is a good idea. I'll keep working on it. Eventually I'll get it going.

Anyway, that's about it for news. I'm not too exciting this week. Hopefully the Adventures of Jessica will be more action packed next week. Until then, see ya.

Luv,

Jess

School is finally over. I took my last exam on Friday and am happy to be done. No more straining my brain on classes I don't care all that much about. I have yet to see my grades. I should know them all by tomorrow though. It feels good to be done though. All I have to think about now is SRS. Only two months to go. Sometime this week I'm going to add a countdown until the day. It should be cool.

I saw Kill Bill Vol. 1 on Friday night with Chris. I can't believe how much blood was in that film. It was pretty funny to watch that. It was a cool film though. It is what Chris calls an anime film. It's definitely inspired by some sort of anime show. It has a plot similar to an anime series, only a little thin compared to that. I liked it though. It was a very good venting movie for after the end of the school year. I look forward to seeing Kill Bill Vol. 2.

Saturday I had a laser appointment and then I drove home to see my family. That night, we watched "Love Actually". That was a movie I had no interest in seeing, but I am so glad I saw it. It was a great film. There was a lot of sappy love stuff, but it was very funny overall. Besides, I like the sappy love stuff. I would recommend this film to anyone. It's great. OK, that's enough of Jessica the movie critic.

Sunday morning was my sister's graduation. She got her masters. So it was a big deal. We all had to get dressed up and stuff. Throughout the morning, I was just starting to feel the same thing I feel everytime I'm around my family;....depression. Again, it was mom and dad, older sister and fiance, little sister and future fiance....and then me. I'm always the only one that's single. They're all in major long term relationships. I just feel left out.

On top of that, there's the whole issue that they still think of me as male. I know simply because of pronoun usage and attitude towards me. It's obvious they think of me that way. They don't even need to tell me. I understand that it's difficult for them, but it doesn't help me any. On top of that, my sisters are still condescending. They just have this egotistical attitude about them. I don't enjoy it. For these reasons, I hate going home. It's never fun.

There was a very cool event that happened, and now I actually bring in the title of the entry. Last night there was a tornado warning in an adjecent county. The storm was moving fast and in our direction. It wasn't raining, so I went out to look at the clouds. It was a beautiful sight. My father and mother came out and joined me after a little bit. As we were watching, the funnel cloud came into view. It was in a meandering shape, but very much still up in the sky. It looked as if it had no intention of dropping. Up until this point, I had never seen a funnel cloud in person. We watched the cloud for about five minutes before it dissipated. Then it started hailing. After the hail stopped, we watched the clouds for a while longer before I finally decided to head back up to my apartment.

I have a recurring theme of tornadoes in my dreams, so I wasn't really scared to see the cloud. I know I would have been had it actually touched the ground. Tornadoes have always fascinated me. I'd love to go storm chasing sometime. Maybe someday I will, just for the fun of it. While we were watching it, I was telling my parents why they happen and what they are. I took a weather and climate class three years ago. It's a class that stuck with me because it was so interesting. The choas of weather is just so fascinating to me. So yeah, that's my story. Well, back to work.

Luv,

Jess

I had my surgical consultation yesterday with Dr Eugene Schrang. It went really well. I have set the day for my SRS now. Officially, my vagina will be born on August 3rd, 2004 at 7:30 am. I can't believe how soon that actually is; only two and a half months away. I'm actually getting a little nervous. I'm still extremely excited though.

I also got some other really really cool news. I was asking him if he'd be ok with me shooting for my documentary, since I've been wanting to do this documentary for a while now. He said that he doesn't really like having camera people in the operating room because they just get in the way. I was ok with that. In a way I'm not sure I want to ever watch that surgery anyway. He asked me how comfortable I am with people knowing I'm trans. I told him I'm very comfortable and in most cases prefer that people know. He then made the awesome offer. He gets contacted frequently by national TV networks looking for a smart, attractive, young trans girl about to get the surgery to do a documentary on. He was curious if I was interested.

I jumped at the idea. He showed me the list of people that contacted him. There were people from MSNBC, CBS's 48 hours, ABC, and even the Discovery Channel. I am excited about this, but at the same time, very intimidated. I told him I'd like a day or so to think about it. He told me not to take too long since surgery is close. This morning I decided it was too much of a great opportunity to pass up. I don't care about the intimidation. I'd regret it if I didn't do this. So I e-mailed him to let him know I want to. He's going to go through the list to see who would do the best job and contact them. Then he'll let me know. So, watch for me on network TV in the next six months or so.

I'm hoping, since it's my field of study anyway, that they'll let me turn it into an internship. I have a lot to offer a network trying to do a documentary. Not only that, I have lots of ideas. I hope they are ok with that. It'd be a great opportunity for me to get my foot in the door and get my name out there to the networks. Hopefully it'll be a good experience. I'll keep the site updated with the latest news and developments. So yeah, just a bit of excitement in a day. Really makes being ditched by a girl last week seem rather trivial. I think I'll be ok by myself for a while. This whole thing is going to be keeping me busy for a while anyway. Well, back to work. Only one more exam to go. Wish me luck.

Luv,

Jess