Couple of weeks ago, I was in martial arts class. It hadn't properly started yet, as we were all just getting into the room and lining up. There was a big male mosquito on the floor, and most of us freaked out at its sheer hugeness and yelled for someone to stomp on it. Another student, a man in his late thirties, said in an attempt at a thick, generic Asian accent, "No! Could be honorable ancestor!"

... What do I do in this situation? I felt a twinge of annoyance, but no outrage or sadness, just a prick of "Ugh." I've been playing it over in my head recently, because it bothers me, but I can't really think of any reaction I could've given that would have been appropriate. I imagined saying nothing and leaving the room. I thought about snapping something at the man. I didn't feel that any of my spite-fueled responses were really right, because it wasn't as if the man was pulling his eyelids tight and making faces at me, screaming and shoving my difference in my face, or even targeting his comment at me specifically.

But I feel like that doesn't matter. I feel like it's not fair, that if I went around making stereotypical white jokes, aimed at no one in particular, someone would've said something to me. Someone else would've looked uncomfortable. Someone would've been shocked and left the room.

I probably should have said something. Maybe not anything that snapped, just something like "Don't." I tolerate that sort of joke more readily from my Asian friends, for obvious reasons, and from close friends, because they've sort of earned it, I guess. But from someone I barely know, to a roomful of people he doesn't really know... I feel like everyone should know not to do that. It's not funny. No, it wasn't a particularly cutting comment, but it's not funny, and it bothered me.

Why doesn't everyone know not to do this?

UM NO

I've seen enough freaky unexplainable things in my life that I do not need to wander into a situation where I would see more. THXXXXXX

Candle was slightly too long and the inside of the pumpkin top was smoking and burning a bit. Slowly, as wet things do.

GODDAMN BUT IT SMELLED GOOD

The innards were scooped out before, and will likely be turned into cookies. Oh man, cookies. Nomnomnomnomnom.

BD, RED: I'm not sure if you saw it in IRC, so THX FOR THE REDWALL COOKBOOK. Holy crap, this vegetable soup and onion and cheese hogbake sound amazing.

Internet's deeaaaddd. :(

Seriously, I must have sinuses the size of Luray Caverns.

( Silly things I drew while I was feeling worse than I am now. )

I need to go down more tea to clear out this crap in my throat. After yesterday I'm not taking Mucinex D anymore XD I was unable to sleep until NINE AM. I made use of that time by going to auctions in FFTA2 and I now own most of the known continents. Little moogle city, you're next.

Speaking of FFTA2, I finally met Vaan, and what is with all the stealing of Balthier's lines, boy? Come up with your own material, you talentless hack.

Vaan: {:\

FOR MY BIRTHDAY I GOT

lenny kravitz

and jackscarab got me FFTA2 for my DS, which has been my constant companion while I wallow around feeling sorry for myself

and an extra dose of throat-clogging mucus that is probably dribbling down from my overfull sinuses. RADICAL. There is also an unexplainable pain in my lower right side which only flares up when I want to stand and reduces me to an ungainly sort of hobble.

Yesterday I was at work, and I'd forgotten my jar of honey at home, so I tried using the cheap stuff in the cupboard in the office. I'd never realized so acutely before, the difference between cheap bargain honey and an eight dollar jar. The stuff in the office was sickly and molasses thick and didn't dissolve in hot water, and I strongly suspect it wasn't honey at all, but motor oil. Dosed myself with heavily honeyed tea today, with MY honey in it, which worked a treat for getting the gunk in my craw to clear temporarily. I don't care if it's eight dollars per jar, I don't care if maybe it's been cut with corn syrup (probably not, it's the thinnest honey I've ever had), this honey I got from the Renaissance Festival is the best damn stuff I've ever had. It's tupelo honey! I've never had it before now, but I really, really like it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupelo

( An uncomfortable TMI question. )

*wet cough* Happy birthday to me~...

( WELL? )

LSKDFJET XDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

oh god

oh merciful god oh god XDDDDDDD I'm dying here guys, seriously. Oh man I oh god soundless monkeyfaced laughing oh lord I just made the most unladylike snorting noise

Edit: oh god it's a half hour later and I'm still laughing

AH FEEL CRUMMAY.

And I have a question. Do fall allergies make you feel as if you've got a cold? I've previously never had seasonal allergies and i would expect that allergies would make you feel like shit for the whole season, but maybe I'm wrong?

Some of you might vaguely recall that two weeks or so ago, I was in IRC complaining of feeling sicky. I was not QUITE sick, I only call it sick if I'm flat on my back in bed, which typically is the case. It felt more like the little microbes were trying to get me sick, but halfway through the invasion (oh my god I am ill, I typoed that three times) they suddenly realized that they weren't strong enough for a full scale illness and settled for a small street brawl in my sinuses instead. The vaguely-sore throat was gone within a night, and the only lingering effect was a sort of fatigue that led to me having to leave martial arts class a half hour early the next day. The days after that, I was sprightly as a sprightly thing, with that happy feeling you get after a sore throat is finally gone and you can eat and breathe and sleep without feeling like you fellated a cactus.

I've got the same symptoms now! Again! A kind of not-quite-ill, but it's a bit more stubborn this time. Been lingering for two or three days now. Throat only hurts if I yawn a certain way, sinuses stuffed yet runny, ears itchin', intermittent cough, and a tired, short of breath feeling that led to me missing class -again- today. I don't think the others would appreciate me showin' up and having to take breaks to blow my nose all the time anyway. And coughin' on them.

I beat Diabolical Box today. B-but like... I didn't even KNOW I was beating it! It just happened! I-is that all there is ._. I breezed through it compared to the first game (well, all the L-SHAPED BLOCK PUZZLES KIND OF MADE ME CRY) so now I'm really confused.

Arrrgh I still love it though. Am I the only one who... laughed, during the big cutscene at the end? LAYTON YOU HAVE TO STOP BEING AWESOME BEFORE THE WORLD COLLAPSES UNDER YOUR WEIGHT!!11 I seriously started laughing, because I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. ... In a good way. PROFESSAH WILL YOU MARRY ME?

( AND NOW A LAYTON PICTURE MEME! )

Sooooo...

Pretty much everybody on my flist knows that I'm doing martial arts. If anyone's been reading, that is.

It's something I've wanted to do since I was very small, and something I was prevented from doing since I was little because I'm a guuuuurl and I once had to depend on my parents to pay for things like that. I'm a green belt now, which is sort of like... kind of in the middle of belt ranks. I've had a fair taste of martial arts, found that I like it, found that I'm actually pretty good at things like forms and technique, and I like being good at something.

Problem is, I'm something of a wet noodle. I don't like hurting people. (Unless of course they're deserving of it, in which case I'm a GREAT BIG SLOBBERING FAN) I fight really defensively and it makes my skin crawl to admit it, but I'm not that great at sparring. I don't think that I'm the worst in my class, and I can say that honestly, but that's not saying a whole lot. I'm afraid of getting injured because pain is bad. I'm slightly less afraid of injuring someone else (and having my BUTT SUED OFF), because most of the other people have the presence of mind to dodge, and it's easy to pull your punches if you know you're up against someone who's a little less confident than you are.

Problem 2 is, part of the reason I'm doing this is because I WANT to be able to kick someone in the teeth if I have to. I don't have any problem kicking bags. They tend to not try to hurt you back.

Problem 3 is, and this is a big one, I have no health insurance. I can't afford it. I work at a small company who can't afford to insure me. I'm going to be 25 soon and I can't affooooord to be hurt. If anything were to happen to me, all-gods-that-ever-existed forbid, that would be coming out of my own pocket. A classmate of mine already broke her toe and it was not a pretty thing to look at.

I'm saying all this because my school has a competitive team that takes part in the AAU (http://www.aausports.org/). If I joined the team, I would get extra training in a tighter knit team and if I felt so inclined, I could compete but that's not mandatory. Not mandatory but I wouldn't mind doing it. I have to decide whether or not I want to join up soon, because practices start soon and it's awkward to join in the middle of the season. But I'm feeling a little afraid to do it.

Fear of public performance has nothing to do with it, really. I'm just afraid of injury and the bill that'll go with it. AAU seems to have some insurance for its members, but only for AAU events. I think so, anyway. That's the gist I get from their website. http://image.aausports.org/pdf/sports_insurance_brochure.pdf But if I were to get hurt during practice or something, that would be ... worrying.

It would also be an extra 50 a month, added to my current tuition which is something like 140 a month. I've also got student loan payments to make monthly. If I signed up for AAU for -two- years, It'd be 40 a month.

If you were to ask me how much I want to join, I'd say I'm middling. The fires of enthusiasm are somewhat dampened by lack of insurance and general monies. One could argue that the rewards are worth it. After all, I like martial arts and I'd like to get better and quit being such a girl at sparring. I've been told I'd do well in the AAU. I'm not a GREAT FAN of sparring, because there are only certain places on the other person you're allowed to hit, and if I'm trying to defend myself, I'm going to be hitting below the belt a bloody lot. They don't give you that restriction during the self defense bits of class, but sheesh, if I'm gonna kick you, I'm gonna kick you where it hurts. I just, y'know, need to get over not wanting to kick the other guy.

uuugghhh why are all my problems related to money

I know this is basically something I gotta decide for myself, and common sense seems to dictate that I should play it safe and not do it, but I would like some opinions gaiz :(

There was not, on the whole, very much that Milford wanted out of life. He was a man of simple pleasures, and was fortunate in that he was not very concerned about what other people thought of him. He lived a mostly carefree life, even blessed with (or cursed, depending upon your perspective) absolutely no sense of self preservation.

This is possibly why he was perfectly comfortable sitting on a park bench at two in the morning, headphones on his ears and a portable music player in hand, singing horrible pop songs as loudly as he possibly could.

It would not be fair to say that he was bad at singing. There was simply a certain penetrative quality to his voice that was at just the right frequency for Maximum Annoyance, and to be near a singing Milford for any extended period of time left his listeners feeling as if they could now breathe out of their ears.

He got up off of the bench to start gyrating shamelessly beneath the streetlight, and even the man sneaking up behind him with a pistol in his pocket had to stop and stare for a moment. Milford turned, furiously strumming an invisible guitar, and finally noticed the other man.

"EVERYBODY'S WORKING HARD TO HAVE! SOME! FU-... oh! Good morning, sir! Can I help you?" asked Milford the Suicidal.

The other man blinked hard, and pointed the gun at Milford, who only tilted his head politely in response. "I think you might be able to, yeah. Like help me to your wallet, and I think I want that iPod too."

Milford only looked mildly sorrowful, much to the thief's increasing confusion. "Oh I'm sorry, but I don't have a wallet. I'd give you my iPod, but it was a Christmas present from my mom, so I'd really rather not," he said. "I could give you my watch instead, maybe?" He held it out for inspection.

A very large part of the thief's brain was thinking that this was not how things were supposed to go. You pointed a gun at someone, they would piss their pants and whimper, and you went away with their stuff. They weren't supposed to ... be helpful, or smile at you in that weird way.

Well, the watch would be worth something, he was sure. He grabbed it from Milford's hand and stuffed it away in a pocket, keeping the gun trained on him. "Don't be fuckin' around with me, alright? I said. I want. That iPod."

"Look, I already said that I don't-"

The thief started forward automatically after the shot rang out, meaning to grab the iPod out of Milford's grasp. But Milford had simply taken a step back from the force of the bullet, and was looking down at his pink and white striped shirt which now had a large red stain blossoming out from a hole over his stomach. His head jerked back up at the thief, grabbing at the ruined cloth and thrusting it out at him. "What was all that about?! I told you I don't want to give it to you, and now you've gone and ruined my favorite shirt!" he screamed, taking several steps forward.

The thief stared. With the bottom of the shirt bunched up in Milford's fist, he could easily see the wound beneath. It was there. You could not deny that it was there. Blood was leaking out of it and was now staining the front of Milford's jeans. He had definitely shot him in the stomach, but Milford wasn't showing any signs of crumpling to the ground.

He turned and ran.

"Right where it shows, too!" complained Milford.

( Looky looky, I got Hooky )

I HAD A TERRIBLE DREAM. 8[

I dreamed that the world was coming to an end, and the only way to stop it was for me to be involved in some straaaaange ceremony where I had to have sex with.................

...

...

...

...

Al Roker.

In case you're not sure who that is, he appears on The Today Show a lot on NBC, doing weather and occasionally just showing up to talk to the other anchors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Roker

I was very uncomfortable about this arrangement, and I dug my heels in NOT to do it. Some friends of mine yelled "WHY ARE YOU BEING SO SELFISH, THE WORLD IS GOING TO END, NOW TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS" and I said, I said "IF YOU'RE SO KEEN ON SAVING IT, YOU SLEEP WITH HIM" and theeeyyy said "I'M NOT THE ONE WITH THE MAGICAL QUIM" and hit me. :(

I decided to go shopping for a pair of toe shoes http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/ because I was sick of getting shin splints (well, I am), when the world apparently ended. Flyers dropped from the sky, reading "WORLD ENDS" and ... that seemed to be all that happened, really. I do remember that no one carried toe shoes in their store, but whether that was linked to the end of the world or not wasn't really made clear.

MOTHS.

BROKEN FRIDGE.

BROKEN WATER CONDITIONER. (This makes the incredibly bad well water around here bearable.)

NO HOT RUNNING WATER.

FESS UP, WHO CURSED ME? >8[

This stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congee Except we call it juk.

What my family does, usually, is boil a whole chicken with green onions to make soup, and then we use a portion of it to boil down some rice into a mushy sort of porridge. Apparently it digests without much effort, and whenever I had food poisoning, it was one of the only things I could keep down.

Suffering silently in bed helps too. Playing games, however, does not, and if I try to play the game once I've recovered, I just automatically associate it with feeling ill. THIS IS WHY I CAN'T PLAY METROID ECHOES ANYMORE. well that and also i thought it was kinda boring, nur

Also spicy foods, if the upset is not with my stomach. It clears out the sinuses a treat. And also heavily honeyed tea.

HEY kavitykrunch AND revokov

( REMEMBER THIS? )

WHEN WILL THE MOTH SAGA END

( No seriously. )

HAY GAIZ, WE'VE BEEN MOTH FREE FOR ALMOST A WEEK. This is really excellent and I can only hope it stays that way, ohgod.

I have a halo. I think the whole drama is really funny. The end.

The EXCITING CONCLUSION (I fucking hope) of this entry, which you really should not read unless you want to be grossed out: http://zaphy.livejournal.com/316420.html

( No seriously. )

Terry has grown into a fine specimen of A MAN.

( Well, a teenager, at least. )