I realized I was trying to sign in as "Nashida" and not "The Twin", when I haven't used that name in months. How is everyone? Felt I was neglecting this place too much. Here's what I've been up to: -I teach preschool and teach Spanish to them and prekindergarten -I own and run a moderately successful art/Etsy business -My grandmother dodged yet another near-death experience last fall How's about youse guys?
I can't guarantee it'll still be there when you want it back, though.
I know.. a second time I've posted one of these threads but the last one was almost four months ago. Anyway, just a heads up that I'm back on American soil, working at another private school for better pay than China, and busy with a successful art business, budding love life, and con schedule (to go with that craft/art business junk). I bought the first volume of KH: 358/2 Days manga and it reminded me of this place. Figured I'd check on errybody.
Hey...anyone remember me? I kind of dropped off the face of the planet several months back, maybe even earlier than that. Basically here's why: -Boston Marathon hit too hard and too close to home for me -Same day that happened, someone I thought I could trust tried to corner me in his apartment so that I could "satisfy a month-long need" of his (he didn't win, I don't think he planned on me fighting back). It's left me feeling very insecure, unsure of myself, and basically all around disgusted. Might make a HwL thread. It's quite mature though, so I may not. -I dropped 30 pounds in two months -Work decided to triple my work load, expecting far too much and giving me a tenth of the resources I needed to be able to do it properly (this is a company wide problem) -I've switched positions - I'm no longer teaching the kids anymore because of the stress and workload but I'm now more of an event coordinator which is far more fun and involved -The stress managed to trigger the IBS and acid reflux I thought I had under control and I required treatment (which took forever to get accomplished because my coworkers thought TCM is best medicine...I'm sorry, but putting a white herb patch on my side is not going to stop my throat from eroding, thanks) On the plus side I have two months left here in China before I fly home. Yet that is causing it's own stress as well, as it now means packing everything, getting the ease taken care of, and a myriad of other things before I fly. I'm going to try to stick my nose here more often, but the truth is lately more things have been sucking up my time and energy. So if I disappear again, that's why.
So...Christmas is coming. Normally I'd be happy about it, but I'm not. This year is the first time in my life I haven't been home for the holidays. Thanksgiving..eh. That came and went, and that was all right. I called my family early that morning, got to speak with my grandmother, and then went out that afternoon for a potluck with a few friends and had our own feast. Thanksgiving was never really that big of a holiday for me. But Christmas, that's a whole other story. Every year we follow the same pattern: get a tree, decorate it, roasted chestnuts almost every week, tease each other about what gifts we're getting for one another. Then, Christmas Eve we make this big pot of sauce, add in pork meatballs, Italian sausage, pork chops, and let it simmer in the crock pot all day until we get home from Christmas Eve mass with my grandmother. The next day, we do the presents, goof off, have fun, then visit relatives in the evening, which is always fun since we're such a big clan. But that's not happening this year. I don't get Christmas off here, for one thing. For another, things aren't the same. I'm way out here, and my uncle passed away back in the spring, and he was always at the center of our family gatherings, so all of us feel scattered. We wanted to exchange gifts but they wouldn't arrive in time and postage could cost almost three times as much as the gifts (prime example; Mom had to mail me a new debit card after my current one got compromised somehow, and it cost her $60 to send it over, still in it's mailer, sealed in a bubble envelope). She still either wants to send me something and just eat the cost, or send me money to go to Hong Kong (which I've talked her out of doing). I told her we'll just make up for it when I go back to the states next year but it won't be the same. My coworkers want to do a secret santa, and there's talk amongst the circle we had at Thanksgiving about doing one, but I know that's not the same either. I guess I'm having a hard time finding holiday cheer when the things and people that make this time of year so special are a 14-hour flight away.
Here's a curveball for you guys that Google just couldn't find an answer to. This is only the second day this has happened. I have a Win 7 64-bit laptop, and to access the internet I have a wireless dongle that plugs into a USB port. Since I'm in and out of my apartment all the time, I tend to just close the lid and put the laptop to sleep. It has never given me any problems when I do that. The last couple of days, when I wake the laptop from standby and log back in, after the dongle connects me to the internet again, I can't load deviantART. I can load my mailbox, Tumblr, here, Pinterest..but not deviantART. I'm not entirely sure why, but the page will take over 2 min. to load before finally spitting a Err.101 - Connection Reset at me. All of the other pages load within seconds. Like I said, it just seems to be deviantART, which is a little frustrating as now is a busy commission month for me. I've tried using different browsers, and I get this same result in IE, FF, Chrome, and Rockmelt. Clearing my cache from both in browser and Control Panel has not helped. It's not blocked here in the land of rice: I've been able to get on before, and I do get on after a hard restart of the laptop. I've tried turning off sleep settings for the dongle but there doesn't seem to be any. Ejecting the dongle via "Safely Remove Hardware" has not worked either. The only "fix" I have is to restart the laptop after it wakes, which I think is unnecessary. Any ideas why it's doing this, and to just one website?
Literally....I logged in today and all of my trophy points are gone. What happened? Did I miss something? Or did I lose them because I've been more of a lurker lately?
Tomorrow morning I will embark on a 15-hour flight from NYC to Shanghai. As far as I can tell KH-Vids is not blocked there, but on the off-chance it is this is goodbye until I can get a VPN running. ....not that anyone's gonna notice if this cat obsessed moron disappears anyway, right? Just kidding. Hopefully I will be back on soon.
I just noticed this tonight. I guess I really am one hell of a butler. /prolly gonna get in trouble for this, but I still found it funny. Plus I had too much caffeine and it's late.
Hopefully this is an advanced enough notice. For the best backstory just click this. If you didn't (or TL;DR'd it), I will be starting a new job in August teaching English to children in China, my "boss" being a certain famous King we all know here. My tentative start date is anywhere from August 2-September 2 of this year, and I will (supposedly) finish my contract (quiet.) October 2013. I don't even know when I'm flying over there yet. Here's why I'm saying it's going to be spotty. It's China. Unless you're in the know and can work around it, a majority of sites will be blocked. I'm not sure if this one will be, I'll try getting on a couple of times once I've landed there (and if I have Wi-Fi in the hotel and/or new apartment). If it turns out that I can't access the site, consider it a leave of absence of sorts. If this happens and I can get on MSN, I'll be sure to let people know. In the meantime, I'm telling everyone that wants to to add me on Skype if you still want to get in touch with me and face chat (but only if you really wanna see my ugly mug). Here's hoping I can still stick around.
Just for fun today, I tried on the dress I wore to my high school graduation to see if it still fit. When I first wore it, it was a little snug. Six years (and two days, this Monday) and almost 50 pounds later, not only does it fit, but it looks GOOD. Thought I'd share my "feel good" moment of the day.
My iTunes keeps popping up with a note saying an update is available, but every time I download the update and go to install it, I'm only given two options: repair and remove. If I choose repair it locks up, and I can't free the computer from it unless I go into the Task Manager. I thought it might be because I have the most recent version and it seems to have forgotten that (I think it's 10.6.04, at least that's what my version is)but I have been wrong before. And for the record, my machine's a Windows XP with SP3 installed.
Source: Spinner I know the last few years he had been looking worse and worse. I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, but I hope that heart attack did him in quick. The poor guy had been suffering long enough.
Guysguysguysguys. They're playing The Lion King on ABC Family right now. Go. I command you. /is already watching it and Inspector Gadget on cartoon Network at the same time
Source found here As of yet, an actual cause of death is still unknown, although it may turn out to be related to the drug use the article mentions.
I can't get the volume level to display in Windows XP. I've had this happen for a couple of days now. I have sound, there's no trouble there, and the volume up/down/mute buttons on my laptop work, and the volume icon is in the icon tray near the clock, but it doesn't display what the volume's level is at when I use the buttons. Usually when I use the buttons, a little meter shows up on screen that either fills or removes green bars as the volume changes. I don't have it now, and I can't figure out how to get it back. It's a little annoying, but not as much as it could be if I didn't have sound at all. I tried going to my control panel, and couldn't find anything under the sound settings or even display. I'm running Windows XP with SP3. Anyone have any ideas how to get it back?
Maybe you will, maybe you won't. But it still killed a few minutes, didn't it? Here.
Mom's dropped the bombshell that she wants to get one of these for me for Christmas this year (smooth, Mom). But we're both stumped. Ideally I'd like one that is backwards compatible with my PS2 games (and the handful of PSone games I own), but is also able to play Blu-Ray. I'm also unsure how much hard drive space I should get, I'm a bit afraid of the high price. I'm also having trouble picking games I'd like; I'm so used to Mario, Zelda, puzzle games, RPGs and so on. I stuck this in the Spam Zone because I wasn't quite sure if this was a good enough fit for General Game chat. Any help will be, well...helpful.
Spoiler How's it coming, guys?
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/05/steve-jobs-dead_n_997223.html Just a day after the announcement of the iPhone 4S, he loses his battle with pancreatic cancer. Discuss.
