What makes you happy today?

[Violet]

I survived my first semester of grad school and I have an academic assignment for next semester, so I don't have to pay twice as much for out of state tuition!

[Whistler]

you can take evening classes at BYU as a non-student! :-O

[Katya]

you can take evening classes at BYU as a non-student! :-O

Oh yes.

That's actually how I took bookbinding.

[bobtheenchantedone]

I took almost 2000 photos today. It was very exhausting but I love it! (I'm shooting during my op shop dress rehearsals.)

[TheBlackSheep]

I'm proposing to TBR while we're in Las Vegas for Christmas. We had a talk about my want to be engaged, and he knows I mean to propose sometime soon (I told him flat out) and he seems to be encouraging about it. I'm delighted.

[Portia]

I'm proposing to TBR while we're in Las Vegas for Christmas. We had a talk about my want to be engaged, and he knows I mean to propose sometime soon (I told him flat out) and he seems to be encouraging about it. I'm delighted.

Congrats! I just said today that engagements are a mire of traditional gender roles (loss of control makes me feel anxious, often enough), so good on you for doing what makes you two happy.

What makes me happy today is that my picaresque quest for self-fulfillment, or whatever it is, in my work seems to have led to a company and position where I could be well-compensated, do work I enjoy, and work with clever, charming people. It's nothing that I sat down as a kid and said, this is my life calling, but feeling confident and prepared in an interview, like they're wooing you, is great. When one of my potential coworkers at the Christmas party (my escort works there, too, which would be an interesting setup but an overall boon for us, I think) said, "hey, after Foucault and Derrida, how tricky can tech writing be?" I knew she was one of the good ones. When her boyfriend (who grew up maybe half a mile from me) said he was just there for the scotch and made a toast to younger women, I realized that they would make great new friends, which are actually harder to find than lovers, and something I feel the lack of. I envision half-teetoal, half-boozy parties where we ironically watch "Dougie Howser."

What made me happy on Wednesday is that I found my long-lost father's grandparents with the help of the Mormon genealogy library downtown. Although I think that initiating "Wife Deceased" into one's religion is both foolish and crass, I didn't get the impression that was what they were after. I thought my helpers were very cordial and seeing the actual name, origin story, and occupation (the husband was a well-paid college graduate from Germany. His wife lived to, like, 100, at least) was a very moving and positive experience for me. I have always envied my super-Mormon friends' sense of identity, and I think that making one's antecedents humans, knowing where you come from, is a pretty universal human thing. I actually started crying, but in a good way. It's weird to me that this extremely complex, decades-spanning adventure was solved in my hometown, right where I had walked a thousand times before.

[bobtheenchantedone]

Yaaaaaaaay I'm so happy for you TBS!

I had my first job interview in over five years today! It's minimum wage retail, but that is way way better than the income from my business right now.

[Whistler]

I decided to check up on my favorite local author (I don't really have a "local celebrities" Facebook list right now) and enjoyed reading some stories he posted as statuses.

[bobtheenchantedone]

Today I had a piano final. I did as well as I expected, which was not very well. I simply wasn't well prepared, which was my fault. What made me happy, though, is the complete lack of freaking out about it. I went, did what I could, will pass the class, and intend to do better in the second level course next fall. Things are okay!

[Emiliana]

Today I had a piano final. I did as well as I expected, which was not very well. I simply wasn't well prepared, which was my fault. What made me happy, though, is the complete lack of freaking out about it. I went, did what I could, will pass the class, and intend to do better in the second level course next fall. Things are okay!

Yay for a nice healthy attitude!

[bobtheenchantedone]

I am employed for the first time in like 5 years! And I'm even starting at higher than minimum wage! Hooray.

[TheBlackSheep]

bob, that's awesome! And congrats about your stability after your final, too. What's the job?

[bobtheenchantedone]

JCW's, Marduk's favorite burger place. I offered him free burgers in exchange for rides home from work and he had to have a moment of silence to appreciate this new world.

It's fast food (ish; slightly more upscale) and my boss is younger than I am, but DON'T CARE. HAVE JOB. Also apparently how he does things is, after the first three months, I come to him and ask for an evaluation at which point he will pay me what he thinks I'm worth. Considering my feedback from previous employers, that could possibly be a pretty decent wage.

[Whistler]

My DD (dear daughter) woke me up early this morning, but I almost didn't mind because I got to read more Words of Radiance while I fed her

[Shrinky Dink]

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm just waiting for family to completely wake up....

[mic0]

I made a random sentence generator in python using bigrams! Every Friday I take a few hours and program something so that eventually I can be really good. This has taken me about three Fridays worth of work. I used Dorian Gray as my source text and the sentences are almost sensical:

"Lord Henry, rising to care for" (*for* must have ended a sentence somewhere, weird)
"Even to take the appearance of the top of remaining young again."
"Besides, what to end of marriage"
"It is better"
"After some attention to stir their minds with its divine beyond his lips, and putting on his plate went in curious table-napkins wrought with the park"

Now I need to think of a new easy to medium project. But anyway, that was pretty cool.

[Whistler]

cool!

[mic0]

Yesterday Mr. Mico and I found a puppy wandering around our street. I posted about it online then took it to the shelter because hey streets are dangerous for puppies, and today the shelter emailed me saying the owner came and picked her up.

[Whistler]

aww you're a good person

[Portia]

I have a new laptop that syncs with my phone really well, will help me in job hunting, and is portable enough for a committee I'm on. #goodbirthdaypresents