Today was actually kind of fun! I spent almost the whole day making money-trees out of pipe-cleaner and chocolate coins, painting signs, organizing the decorations for the employee event tomorrow. It's Chinese-themed, so I think I'm going to pretty much nail down the atmosphere as much as a Westerner could manage. I'm a little worried that my cross for the first aid sign looks a little too much like an upside-down Christian cross. Hilarious considering my past struggles with work and religious symbols. Lawl.

Pat did a good job today taping up the vents at work. So I can actually sit at my computer without my coat on.. because it's usually fucking COLD in here.

I've been working out my school-type finances with my mom, which include a student line of credit (which I will use to merge and destroy all other credit cards), as well as OSAP. The line of credit is going to be for any extra expenses, tuition, books and emergencies. The OSAP itself (which is substantial) will go right into an investment, so that, hopefully, the accumulated amount will more or less pay off the line of credit, if not a big enough chunk of it. Everybody wins! My parents approve of this plan, and it makes me feel good about being responsible with my funds. I'm not exactly going to go out and drink it all, and man, I really don't go out and spend needlessly. Except maybe on food. But that's pretty minimal.

On the job front, I have three possibilities. The first is.. MIRARCO keeps me on during school. This is not preferable because it might be demanding on my time, and I feel stressed out here for almost no reason, but the pay is good. The second is freelancing, which a friend of my parents would set me up with and show me how to make as much or as little money as I choose working from home. The third is waitressing at Respect, which has minimal responsibilities, and I could make just as much an hour as I do at MIRARCO if I get decent tips. But it would mean my income fluctuates. Same with the freelance job. But I'm going to talk to the guy, and maybe try out the waitressing to see if it makes me enough, and if not, then I'll freelance once or twice a month to make up for it.

I just want something flexible and more... fun. More actually design oriented. Or maybe just vastly different. I love change.


Why does everyone have to take everything so personally? It's not always about you.


Except that. That was probably about you. Oh the irony!

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Is anyone good at photoshopping pictures or making manips? If not, do you know anyone really good at it?

This is VERY IMPORTANT! XD

I'll fill you all in later...

For the last couple months I have maintained a policy of silence as regards tjalexander and twinkstar2007. I have not responded when they went onto a dozen different lists, forums, and online communities and lobbed personal attacks against myself and my group. I did not respond when they came onto my friends' journals and tried to pick a fight with me there. I let them rant and rave and say whatever false and malicious things they wanted. It wasn't worth the loss of my serenity or the time and effort it would take to combat their harrassment. Besides, they were doing a much better job discrediting themselves through their words and actions than I ever could hope to on my own.

However, I feel it is necessary to break that silence to address something that Tim said on the M&M forum about erl_queen and myself.

"Additionally, when the Gods speak, is anyone listening to them or
just the delusional voices in their heads. I read the blog of one
author who wrote on the day her new book was released she had been
struck by allergy symptoms so bad that it completely incapacitated
her, causing her to even miss work? Do we take that to be a good omen?
A while back I read one person who had planned to perform a ritual at
the PantheaCon, representing Hellenismos, was struck with a family
emergency and financial difficulties, forcing him to abandon it. Did
it cause him to pause or question that his visions of what "they"
wanted him to do may be false? No... he just kept putting along."

Classy, isn't it?

I can't believe that he would stoop to using my mother's illness as ammunition against me.

Let us assume for a second that he is correct that I hold wrong views about the gods. What sort of god worthy of the name would inflict horrible torment on my innocent mother in an attempt to punish me for those beliefs? Such a notion makes the gods small, petty, and inhumanly vicious. If that's what the gods were really like, atheists would be entirely justified in rejecting the worship of such monsters. Thankfully Tim is completly off the mark here, both about the nature of the gods - they are good and beautiful and noble - and the circumstances surrounding that incident. My mother's illness was neither sudden nor unexpected. She has had declining health for 20 years now, after contracting gestational diabetes while carrying my siblings. Her complications are the result of poor genetics and lifestyle choices and not a result of divine wrath. Further, the gods did not stop me from going to Pantheacon. Nor did my mother even ask it of me. I had the money, I still could have gone, but I decided that it was more important to be with my mom during this scary and uncertain time than give a lecture on religion, however important that may have been to me. That choice was actually a religious one, since I take seriously the Delphic Maxims about honoring one's parents and the importance of family. These aren't just pretty words for me: they are a code of ethics I live by. Similarly, when I was down there I found that my family was in a tight financial situation that would be made even tighter by my mom's sudden surgery. So I gave them what money I could to help keep them afloat through this crises. Yes, after that, I was in a tight financial spot myself, especially since I never asked for the money back. But that wasn't any kind of punishment from the gods - it was a result of a choice I made, and one that I would make again, even though I suffered for it in the weeks that followed and missed the opportunity to go to Pantheacon.

It is shameful of him to bring this stuff up in an attempt to discredit his opponents. He should stick to the issues at hand and avoid personal attacks. If he is not capable of that he should maintain his silence.

But ever since this obsession of his began, he has been unable to do that and I do not expect things to change any time soon. In fact, that is why I am writing this post.

I want to thank Timothy J. Alexander. He has made me a better man.

You see, every time that I'm about to lose my temper, say something wrong or hurtful, or consider acting in a shameful way I pause and reflect:

"Sannion, these actions are unbecoming for one such as you. This is the sort of thing that Tim does. Do you really want to act as he acts, have your name stink the way that his name stinks? Remember, you are different from him. Live up to that."

And that little speech always makes me change my course of action. By being a negative example he has helped me to become a better person. And so I would like to thank him for that.

I just went back in my friendslist and read toast3r  's post about drama, which was supposed to be a parody of Karma, but ended up being really awesome. You can read it here!

Some highlights, for the lazy:

Sometimes people create drama so we, as the audience, assume what the problem is without knowing what the real problem is.

Sometimes people create drama so they themselves pretend to know what the problem is.

Sometimes people create drama because any reaction is validation, whether sympathy or flame.

Sometimes people create drama because it is a situation they can control, giving them permission to ignore the situations that are not in their control.

Sometimes people create drama when it is legitimate. Fear that you will lose your job, your loved one, your shelter or a basic need falls under this.

Sometimes people create drama when it is legitimate. Being in the wake of losing your job, your loved one, your shelter or basic need and needing someone to turn to falls under this.

I have come to the conclusion that drama, whatever it is, is the expenditure of energy to attract people to you on a personal situation to share and then let go of negativity.


These are a lot of things I've said on separate occasions, but it was really good to read it as nicely and as clearly as Ryan lays out his ideas, as opposed to my long, rambling style. And I think people forget there is legitimate drama, in an attempt to avoid or hate all drama. Negativity and conflicts are a part of existing and interacting with humans. It's not always just for selfish reasons, though the obvious kinds of dramas are.

In short, toast3r  is very wise. And I think I learned a few things from his post.


I'm very tired today. I think I'm worn out. I really want to hermit for a while, and just have some alone time, but it's not exactly feasible right now, and I understand that, and I can wait. Wait for time alone, either by myself, or with Luke. I love that our home is kind of a home base for friend hang-outs, and I love that people are comfortable here and come over randomly. But it also makes it harder to escape. Maybe I need to actually plan it out and say "This day is my day/mine and Luke's day" so that I can have one and let people know it's not personal. It's just cause I need time sometimes. Lately, it just hasn't been working out that way, through no fault of anyone's.

Oh work. I'm so bored with you. I'm going to talk to the bosses soon about finishing up all these projects so I can get the hell out of here come fall. I want a simple waitressing job were my responsibilities consist of remembering things, smiling, being friendly, and not dropping things on the floor or customers. Yes, thank you. When can I start?

I hope this day goes by fast.

Yep, I really hadn't expected that, I am not sure what I had expected. A friend of mine got Brage, which so fits him it is fun. I guess Odin fits me. Actually I like combination of my top 4, I think together they make up who I am.

In other news, I battled long and hard with the monster called the Database, and for now I own! Yay!
\

Wednesday, July 30th is the 28th day of the Makedonian month Lōios, the date I've set aside to do the monthly Dionysos Day oracular session. So if you have a question, or just want to hear what Dionysos has to say to you, send me an e-mail at sannion@gmail.com and I'll add you to the list. As always, this is a service offered on behalf of the god and my community, and so I do not ask payment for it.

Tomorrow I will head in to interview for Webs. If I get it, that'll be my third job this summer. That whole adventure in being independent and free and awesome? Didn't work too well. Dear everyone, remind me of this next time I'm blithely and blindly excited about something a bit questionable. I hope I get the job. It won't be much, a few days a week at most, but it'll be something. I may not fail at rent so catastrophically. (Probably, though.) And I may be able to keep it during the school year, schedule willing. My one worry is that they'll laugh at my knitting. They want me to bring in a project. All I've got are those weird arm warmers and a half-made very plain hat, neither of which exactly showcases my great skill. Probably because I don't have any great skill. I'm a beginner. Hopefully being honest and earnest will cover for that. All the halfway decent stuff I've made is packed away with my other non-summer clothes, like my Slytherin scarf. That I wouldn't mind showing off.

Well, here's hoping. And whether or not I get the job I've been meaning to pick up stuff for the Aviator scarf I said I'd make Jason. And then I'll go and work on AMVs all afternoon, and then be on Smith for at least a bit of the evening. Good times, right?

-Went to the Spanish Consulate
-Waited in line
-Acquired my visa/reclaimed my passport
-Missed the 10:00 bus by all of six minutes
-Waited until the 12:01 bus
-Read all of the informational packets and handouts given to my by the Office of International Study (the first one was interesting. I'm sure the one on how-not-to-get-robbed-blind/mugged-and-left-in-the-street was useful. The one about imports and exports and GNP and this is all of the most recent political leaders and how they interacted with US foreign policy but very little on what they actually did for the country was dense, dry, and boring, and most of the useful data that it contained had already been presented to me by the first packet.)
-Discovered that the Power of Attorney form not only needs to be notarized, it needs my mom's signature. (Just as well; that's an excellent reason to put it off for another two weeks)
-Sat on a bus for 2 3/4 hours and listened to Dealing with Dragons.
-Got a new OneCard because the magnetic strip on my last one was going (it occurs to me that my new Lab Consultant nametag has a very powerful magnet on the back; ought I to be careful to keep it away from cards with magnetic strips in addition to computers and other electronics?)
-Bought an adaptor (actually six adapters) for Miss Eliza for foreign travel. I don't actually need most of them, but I'm sure that I'll someday have a use for an adapter that lets me plug her in in India (or not. I'd've been just as glad to pay less and only get the one for Continental Europe.)
-Talked to Student and Financial Services and discovered that I've been billed something like $250 less than I expected to be for housing this summer.
-Have failed to find any reasonable reason for this. I would think that it has to do with the fact that Housing billed me for reunion when they shouldn't've - only the numbers don't work out quite right for that.
-Briefly debated whether or not being a good Christian/good person obligates me to try to resolve this issue.
-Seem to have decided that answer to above is yes, barely. My mother suggests an e-mail. One e-mail. I believe that this will be my course of action, especially considering how well Housing has been doing at replying to my e-mails.
-Visited Housing and confirmed that I would be staying an extra week. I'd already done this (by e-mail), but it's a good thing that I stopped by in person, because it wasn't on my record.
-While at Housing, determined that I can indeed store boxes in JMG whilst I'm abroad (this query had previously been presented in an e-mail, and was not answered).
-Called my mother
-Discovered that my dad has been operating with the understanding that he's coming up this Friday to take me home, despite the phone conversation in which I confirmed that he's going to pick me up next Friday.
-Called my father and made sure that he wrote down the relevant dates (and removed written instances of incorrect dates)
-Did a load of laundry
-Swept my floor
-Gave Emily two recipes
-Talked with my mother on the phone again and confirmed that the bill is very odd.

I will now e-mail Housing.

Tomorrow, in addition to going to work, I'll talk to the mail ladies and see if they can put off forwarding my mail for another week.

Watch This
I'm amazed that Larry King can keep a straight face... but these guys seem to be pretty on-the-level.  The claim: UFOs have caused weapons malfunctions and activated missile systems at US Air Force bases.  They're also claiming that UFOs caused missiles to fail, and that UFOs were possibly keeping track of nuclear weapons caches.

Clearly this is because aliens hate our freedom.

Yeah, so I'm a lazy bum who'd rather do memes than post photos. Good things come to those who wait, mmkay? In the meantime, here's your chance to engage me in some semi-intelligent conversation and find out a bit more about my thoughts on important (and not-so-important) topics.

Oh, and I'm feeling much better due to the massive amounts of herbal remedies and over-the-counter meds I've consumed. Throat still hurts a bit but at least now it doesn't feel like my head's gonna explode from sinus pressue. Yay?

From fatalfille
Ask me a question about each of the following:

1. Friends
2. Politics
3. Music
4. Religion
5. Love
6. Live Journal

Then post this in your journal and see what questions you get asked.

****************************************************************************
From spooky_squee

A = Age: 21
B = Bed size: Full at home, twin at school
C = Chores you hate: Scrubbing dishes, laundry.
D = Dessert you love: Banana & vanilla wafer pudding, hot apple crisp a la mode.
E = Essential start your day item: Caffeine!!!!
F = Favorite actor(s): Johnny Depp, Emma Thompson
G = Gold or Silver: Silver
H = Height: 5'5
I = Instruments you play: Some guitar, but I'm maaaajorly out of practice. I'm trying to teach myself how to play the djembe hand drum
J= Job title: Student/theatre intern/aspiring actress
K= Kids: None
L = Living arrangements: This coming school year it'll be a nice single in Tenney House, Smith's vegetarian co-op dorm
M = My name is: Emily Samantha Cordes
N = Nicknames: Em, Emmy, Melody (Amanda's sometime nickname for me), The Sniglet (embarassing parental nickname), Kitten
O = Overnight hospital stay: 3 weeks in Western Psychiatric Hospital during which I was force-fed like a veal calf treated for anorexia
P= Pets:  Tao, my adorable seal point Himalayan kitteh ^_^
Q = Favorite quote: "Magic is entirely possible. But it takes work to know it. Magic is in everything. Our culture just doesn't value it."--Francesca Lia Block, "Safe Love"
R = Right or left handed: Righty
S = Siblings: None
T = Time you woke up today: Around 8:30, had to get up for work
U = Unique about you: I knew that my first memory would be my first memory, as I was experiencing it.
V = Vegetable you hate: Celery
W = Worst habit: Worrying too much and obsessing over things
X = X-Rays you've had: Dunno, probably lungs, teeth, that sort of thing.
Y = Yummy food you make: Ratatouille, orange-glazed brussels sprouts and carrots, acorn squash stuffed with wild rice
Z = Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

i know i can't complain about having two jobs.
some people out there can't even find one.
time has become a very precious commodity to me.
trading it for pay and benefits is only so gratifying.

what i'm trying to say here is that i miss you all.
and those times that we had together.

what if i'm never be able to get out of this cycle?
i used to be unsure about putting down roots.
what if something happens and i can't make time?
i used to be everywhere with anyone.

five weeks until this class ends.
six weeks until a precious friend.
seven weeks until i make some time.
eight weeks until autumn's prime.

I'm sitting here, enjoying tacos for lunch, and waiting for Frey to get home, so we can harass Subway for jobness. Mondays are nice, because they allow me to wind down from the weekend. Although this weekend we were mostly indoors, so now I actually feel like going out today for a bit. I rarely write in my LJ on weekends, heh!

I've been thinking on the idea of identity; how it's partially defined by ourselves, and by what others tell us about ourselves. How we can pick and choose what pieces to accentuate and what pieces to downplay... usually our best qualities are the former, and our worst are the latter. I always listen to everyone, I'm always nice, and I'm not jealous, I just love too much. Sometimes we shy away from the blunt words of others because they aren't the nicer ones we've justified in our heads, and under that pretense, we think people don't understand us. Of course they don't understand us FULLY; they can't know all our feelings and intents 100% of the time. But we really shouldn't toss those blunt statements away all the time, either. We need to look them in the eye and see if we're acting in a way we didn't mean intend to because of how we hide from ourselves. WE don't always know our full intentions either, because some of those intentions/desires are dark, or bad in terms of society and what we've been told. We spin 'good' intentions around the darker ones, and thus can get away with doing bad things for good reasons for years, encountering similar problems over and over, and constantly wonder why people are jerks.

I would start to wonder, after a certain amount of time, after the same issues with vastly different people.. whether the problem was internal or external.

Another problem with our identities is that when we define key aspects of it, we strive to uphold them. We strive so hard to keep that identity if we like it that sometimes we actually become something completely different, because we don't acknowledge that we've changed on the inside, because we want our outer identity to stay a certain way. In holding onto that outer identity and not letting it evolve with your inner one... you warp BOTH identities. The problem is, others may start to see the warped one, but you still see that initial identity that you've worked so hard to keep.

And identity should be something that naturally changes. Not rapid, contrary types of growth spurts, but gradually progressions that sync up with events in our lives, people that we've loved, friends, joys, tragedies, lessons, everything. You can try to impose changes upon yourself, but it won't always work. You can't just jump from being A-thing to being X-thing; there has to be journey in between. And some things can't be forced; like trying to fix a core issue within yourself.

Knowing ourselves honestly is probably one of the hardest things to do ever. We're so often caught up in external things that we start to consider most problems external. The worst part about trying to know yourself honestly is that it's hard to KNOW you're doing so honestly; eventually I think, it will become apparent. But you have to be prepared to continue to make an effort to know yourself, because you're going to change. It's inevitable. Maybe someday, when you're older, you slow down, but you still change. You may have core parts that are essentially the same, but things around them might change too, and that's tricky.

Other people might see other things in you that you don't want to see, or have trouble accepting. Sometimes other people are totally off the mark. If you're hiding from yourself, you'll often think people are off the mark, you'll often think people will never understand you. This is because what you are on the inside seems out into what you do whether you like it or not. Eventually, people will pick up on it. At that point, it's really time to start really looking. Not many people really look. Some people look somewhat. Some people look half-way. Some people look MOST of the way, but have dark corners they stay away from. Really looking is hard. Really hard.

Maybe impossible.

But hey, if you wanna reach the moon, shoot for the stars.

Earlier today I worked on Savin Me and I wrote a whooping ~1500 words. I am not entirely sure how I did that. The story is taking a little different turn as we get to see a new side of Night. It was fun to write and elaborate on, and I felt it was the appropriate time for it. Hopefully I have dropped enough hints earlier to make it not weird. I also have large parts of the next chapter planned out and will start writing on that one sometime later today or tomorrow.

In other somewhat related news, I am looking for a comic project to work on or maybe someone to start one up with. I love to ink and color but can't draw to save my live. So I need someone who wants to draw and probably write (though I have some ideas I have never written comic scripts before). So that is my new quest.

You know what's weird? The human threshold for acceptance.

Say that ancient people's believed in "dragons", and you might as well say they believed that they could fly.

However, "dinosaurs" ain't so crazy, even though the only appreciable difference between the two concepts is breathing fire. And really, when you're as big as a medium sized apartment building and can rend a creature half your size in twain, do you really need to breathe fire?