December in Review
Jan. 6th, 2012 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astillarI suppose I’m overdue for an update. I haven’t had much alone-time this past month; been so busy with friends, family, and girlfriend. That’s good medicine for an introvert like me but doesn’t leave much time for collecting one’s thoughts and committing them to paper. So what’s been up . . . ?
I spent most of December working up in Grapevine, which was cool since it meant I could stay at Courtney’s place for the whole duration. Playing house was fun and all but after a couple weeks of being cooped up in someone else’s small apartment with little to do (besides the obvious) I was eager to get back to the comforts of my own home.
I spent Christmas weekend on my own back in Austin. I didn’t do much other than half-hearted house-cleaning and working on various cosplay projects. I had some trouble feeding myself on Christmas Day as all restaurants were closed but aside from that hiccup the weekend was easy and enjoyable.
Courtney came down to Austin for the New Year’s weekend. I was excited about this since it was her first visit to my town. Honestly, I’d been getting a bit resentful that I was doing all the traveling. With NYE eclipsing the entire weekend, there weren’t many of the typical Austin-y events going on. We managed to keep ourselves entertained despite the dearth of events, I think. Throughout the weekend we hit up many of the noteworthy Austin eateries, from Amy’s Ice Cream to Hey Cupcake to the Salt Lick (though we did miss ThunderCloud Subs).
It helped that Ikki-con was also going on this past weekend. I was only mildly interested in checking it out. Courtney was running one of the fashion shows there so we loaded up the car and headed down there Saturday afternoon. Once there, Courtney began dressing her models. I probably would’ve enjoyed ‘helping’ too much so I was pardoned from that task. Left free to roam the convention grounds I quickly sized up the cosplay talent on the hoof and decided I didn’t need to bother fetching my camera. Instead I raided my stash of booze; that helped to make my stroll more entertaining.
I was unable to attend the fashion show itself since I didn’t have a con badge. I finished off the malt liquor and half the rum while I waited. Once we were done with the show, Kevin and Cat joined us and we headed over to Jenny’s for random fun. I don’t actually remember that visit, but there are photos to prove that I was there (at least physically). I think we finally got home around 4 am. Between the booze and my old-man’s-sleeping-schedule, I was dead-tired. So tired that I turned down sex. Yeah, I know. I surprised myself too. Frankly, I wasn’t in any condition to perform well. I’m trying to keep my batting average high, after all.
Saturday we went browsing through the curious shops of South Congress and then paid one last visit to Ikki-con for the dealer’s room. Then it was off to Jenny’s again for the NYE party. This year’s theme was ‘post-apocalyptic’. I hadn’t really gotten around to making a new costume for this so I just wore components of my Sechs costume which easily satisfies the post-apocalyptic criteria.
I was kinda disappointed to see that less than half the partiers came in costume. I wouldn’t have bothered with all that cumbersome armor if I’d known that’s how things would turn out. I made a point of restraining myself booze-wise. Last year I went full throttle and didn’t even make it to midnight. I wanted to remember the event this time around. Maybe it was because I was sober-ish, but the party seemed quieter and more subdued than years past. *shrug* I think a puppy showed up. Anyways, people trickled away and headed home till all that were left was our same core group hanging out around the hookah at 3 am. Yup, the Ole Reliables.
Sunday and Monday were lazy days. Sunday I think we may have gone to Jenny’s for an unprecedented third evening in a row after watching “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. While there I stayed sober and got grumpy with drunkCourtney’s behavior. That soured our evening. Monday zipped by pretty fast and Courtney had to head back to Dallas.
Tuesday I took off from work to take my GRE, a standardized test for entrance to graduate school. Even though I’m not going for an actual degree, some universities ask for it, some don’t. Figured I might as well do it just to have it. The test was fairly smooth, or put another way, I didn’t have to cram to take it. When I looked at the example questions a month or so ago, it didn’t look too difficult. What I didn’t realize is that there would be essay questions. The questions weren’t the problem. The problem is that the test computers were all your typical QWERTY keyboard layout. The proctor wouldn’t allow me to change the keyboard settings to DVORAK (which is what I’ve been using for the past 8 years). That meant I had to hunt-and-peck type my essay responses. That really reduced the amount I could type within the allotted time. But I was more embarrassed/frustrated by my math performance. Most of it was easy but some of the most basic algebraic rules eluded me. It had just been so long since I’d done this stuff longhand. I worked down to the last minute on each of the math sections.
Despite all that, I got a decent score on the tests. 165 verbal and 159 math (out of 170). I could’ve done even better if I’d brushed up on my math rules just a little bit. Hopefully these scores will help augment my chances of getting accepted into school, but that’s material for the next LJ post.
I spent most of December working up in Grapevine, which was cool since it meant I could stay at Courtney’s place for the whole duration. Playing house was fun and all but after a couple weeks of being cooped up in someone else’s small apartment with little to do (besides the obvious) I was eager to get back to the comforts of my own home.
I spent Christmas weekend on my own back in Austin. I didn’t do much other than half-hearted house-cleaning and working on various cosplay projects. I had some trouble feeding myself on Christmas Day as all restaurants were closed but aside from that hiccup the weekend was easy and enjoyable.
Courtney came down to Austin for the New Year’s weekend. I was excited about this since it was her first visit to my town. Honestly, I’d been getting a bit resentful that I was doing all the traveling. With NYE eclipsing the entire weekend, there weren’t many of the typical Austin-y events going on. We managed to keep ourselves entertained despite the dearth of events, I think. Throughout the weekend we hit up many of the noteworthy Austin eateries, from Amy’s Ice Cream to Hey Cupcake to the Salt Lick (though we did miss ThunderCloud Subs).
It helped that Ikki-con was also going on this past weekend. I was only mildly interested in checking it out. Courtney was running one of the fashion shows there so we loaded up the car and headed down there Saturday afternoon. Once there, Courtney began dressing her models. I probably would’ve enjoyed ‘helping’ too much so I was pardoned from that task. Left free to roam the convention grounds I quickly sized up the cosplay talent on the hoof and decided I didn’t need to bother fetching my camera. Instead I raided my stash of booze; that helped to make my stroll more entertaining.
I was unable to attend the fashion show itself since I didn’t have a con badge. I finished off the malt liquor and half the rum while I waited. Once we were done with the show, Kevin and Cat joined us and we headed over to Jenny’s for random fun. I don’t actually remember that visit, but there are photos to prove that I was there (at least physically). I think we finally got home around 4 am. Between the booze and my old-man’s-sleeping-schedule, I was dead-tired. So tired that I turned down sex. Yeah, I know. I surprised myself too. Frankly, I wasn’t in any condition to perform well. I’m trying to keep my batting average high, after all.
Saturday we went browsing through the curious shops of South Congress and then paid one last visit to Ikki-con for the dealer’s room. Then it was off to Jenny’s again for the NYE party. This year’s theme was ‘post-apocalyptic’. I hadn’t really gotten around to making a new costume for this so I just wore components of my Sechs costume which easily satisfies the post-apocalyptic criteria.
I was kinda disappointed to see that less than half the partiers came in costume. I wouldn’t have bothered with all that cumbersome armor if I’d known that’s how things would turn out. I made a point of restraining myself booze-wise. Last year I went full throttle and didn’t even make it to midnight. I wanted to remember the event this time around. Maybe it was because I was sober-ish, but the party seemed quieter and more subdued than years past. *shrug* I think a puppy showed up. Anyways, people trickled away and headed home till all that were left was our same core group hanging out around the hookah at 3 am. Yup, the Ole Reliables.
Sunday and Monday were lazy days. Sunday I think we may have gone to Jenny’s for an unprecedented third evening in a row after watching “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. While there I stayed sober and got grumpy with drunkCourtney’s behavior. That soured our evening. Monday zipped by pretty fast and Courtney had to head back to Dallas.
Tuesday I took off from work to take my GRE, a standardized test for entrance to graduate school. Even though I’m not going for an actual degree, some universities ask for it, some don’t. Figured I might as well do it just to have it. The test was fairly smooth, or put another way, I didn’t have to cram to take it. When I looked at the example questions a month or so ago, it didn’t look too difficult. What I didn’t realize is that there would be essay questions. The questions weren’t the problem. The problem is that the test computers were all your typical QWERTY keyboard layout. The proctor wouldn’t allow me to change the keyboard settings to DVORAK (which is what I’ve been using for the past 8 years). That meant I had to hunt-and-peck type my essay responses. That really reduced the amount I could type within the allotted time. But I was more embarrassed/frustrated by my math performance. Most of it was easy but some of the most basic algebraic rules eluded me. It had just been so long since I’d done this stuff longhand. I worked down to the last minute on each of the math sections.
Despite all that, I got a decent score on the tests. 165 verbal and 159 math (out of 170). I could’ve done even better if I’d brushed up on my math rules just a little bit. Hopefully these scores will help augment my chances of getting accepted into school, but that’s material for the next LJ post.
