I should be asleep, but I'm not

One of the best things about being mostly grown up? Being invited to charity dinner things. I'm serious. Not being dragged to them, or going with the parents, but being invited. I feel so posh. Or something. Though this whole thing my bosses keep doing with mentioning who I am to people and said people coming up and knowing my name before I meet them does sort of prickle my inner paranoia. XD I know, they're being nice, but seriously. Random people knowing my name has ALWAYS freaked me out a little.

I went out and bought some sewing supplies for my costume, but since I was lazy and had that charity thing in the evening, I basically took the weekend off. There was also renting of movies, and my finally seeing The Maltese Falcon (sacrilege my having not seen it considering what a HUGE noir fan I am). I made my parents watch Brick afterwards to compare. Seeing Maltese made me love Brick even more, because there's some similarities and homages (I mean, both were based on the writings of the same author) and basically awesomeness. The fun thing is how in the neo-Noir, the main character isn't nearly so much an anti-hero as a basically good guy who makes questionable choices when pushed. Whereas the Sam Spades of the world couldn't give a rat's ass what you want. I happen to rather adore both types, if done well (they can be done pretty awfully in the wrong hands), so it was basically fun times. My mom also made hilarious comments about what a huge Humphrey Bogart fangirl my great-grandmother was and how she was going to hunt down Ingrid Bergman and let her know Bogie was hers. I'm starting to wonder about my genetics now.

My dad almost fell asleep in both. He doesn't read books either, though, so this was cause for my mom and I to call him a plebe.

The other movie was Notes on a Scandal, but that was mainly because Dame Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett were in it and it involved creepyness. I won't hide the fact I like strange psychological movies. I mean, come on, I love Mulholland Drive, clearly I've got a soft spot for the crazy. The movie did however make me think a lot, and I found myself equally appalled and rather liking the main character, which is something I look for in stories. I like it when they toy with my emotions and loyalties. XD

I also own The Brave One now, because screw you critics, but I loved that movie. Anything that'll actually reflect on a basic revenge fantasy and/or give Jodi Foster a gun and I'm all over it. Because Jodi Foster is my favorite actress besides Audrey Hepburn. It reminded me a little of Taxi Driver (coincidentally ANOTHER movie Jodi was in), which is another awesome movie. Well, if you get into that kind of thing. A lot of people don't. XD I like challenging my perceptions every once in a while. That or the years working at a movie theater have really REALLY turned me into one of those art movie nerds. Not that I don't like fun movies or action movies (hell, I like two out of the five Rocky movies)... I just crave something interesting for interesting's sake once in a while. If it has Jodi Foster with a gun then it gets bonus points.

Heh, if someone's bookshelf can say a lot about them, my slowly growing movie collection says a FREAKING lot about me. XD Maybe I should post the list sometime.

~Cendri

Alright, so other adventures of being an adult-like person

Oh my god, my schedule next year is going to suck no matter what I do. I'm down to two lingering stupid required classes (Diff Eq II, and Thermo-fucking-dynamics), one lab (controls! :<), a propulsion requirement (also :<), and of course my senior design. The rest are "electives" which means whatever Structures or Dynamics classes I want to take that will hopefully not kill me. I may take some rocket classes just cause rocket/space dynamics is simpler than air vehicle dynamics (do you want to deal with wings or not, basically). I managed to find a Structures elective that will prolly not suck, as I've taken a class with this guy before and managed a B (which is fucking amazing in engineering for me) because he's probably the oldest guy in the department. Also that course said nothing about math. Which is good. The other elective I'm trying to take is Principles of Dynamics which translates as "wobbly things with some math!" but since I rather like that professor (he was my first Dynamics prof and I generally understood what he was about) I'm willing to give it a shot.

This is all dependent on my adviser looking at my proposed Plan of Study and telling me if I'm psycho or not. I'm trying to overload this first semester slightly to account for a possible failing of my math class (considering my track record with that, this is necessary). Since I've got so few credits left (28!!! OMG ONLY 28!!!) the worst that can happen is I go on probation again. You have to be on probation for a couple semesters before the dropping happens, so ha. Even if I got an extra semester, that ain't happening. So really, my goal is simply to pass my damn classes and see how it goes. Having a job already makes me less stressed out about this, as they honestly don't care what my graduating GPA is, merely that I do graduate. My dad recommends I do interviews at other places, as it's easier to turn down a job after an interview than for your company to suddenly go belly up and you go begging for a job. Since engineering companies are slightly bastards about GPAs these days (I'll spare you the rant about how ridiculous that is) I'm probably not likely to get many offers. But then again, I have more experience than about 85% of the department (our school is really bad at setting up co-ops and jobs). I can always tell them that I have minions at this job and they want to make an action figure of me.

Future talk is crazy, basically. I'll admit to eying certain apartment complexes near my work building, because I'm about 98% likely to keep working here, full-time, and make salary after working for about 6 months to a year. Since I don't plan on having a car (hence the eying of the apartment complexes NEARBY) or cable, or anything really besides the basic utilities and of course, internet, I might not need too much of a raise. I figure since they do seem rather enthusiastic about keeping me working here, possibly on more projects and liasonning between companies at some point that I can negotiate a good wage. I don't want to be greedy, just be able to feed myself more than ramen. XD We'll see when it comes, I guess. Main goal is to graduate school already. SIX YEARS IS ENOUGH DAMN TIME.

And this is totally why I took the summer off. Working is awesome, school, not so much. I hope I haven't gotten dumber and suddenly won't understand this stuff. There might be bugging of the few grad students I know that are crazy and hanging around the department. Also, TAs.

Oh god, I'm dreading going back already. Why am I not one of those genius kids?

~Cendri

P.S. So I stumbled upon a college forum when I was looking around for class descriptions (because course numbers change sometimes) and I came across this entry:

Fortunately, I've been accepted to [name of my school]'s First Year Engineering Program. How is it (are there lots of weeding-out classes)? IF I do plan to attend [school] this year, do you think majoring in aerospace engineering ([my school's rank]) is worth my time and money? How's majoring in aerospace engineering, in future prospect? I've heard that not many students major in aerospace during their undergraduate degree; why is this? I also have a strong desire to study business/economics but I'm not sure whether I should or not. Do you think it's wise to major in aerospace engineering for undergraduate and go to MBA after few years of experience?

Many questions but I hope you can help me out. Thanks.

And maybe this is indicative of how long I've been in school, but I laughed uncontrollably. Especially at the "there's not many in there". No, there's not many in my major because you have to be a little out of your mind. XD

P.P.S. BEHOLD A POLL! Because all the cool kids are doing it and I'm slightly bored.

Because I never make polls

A random poll. Because they are fun to make and I'm slightly curious.

~Cendri

The Stable Instability of Water (ff_press ignore)

Fandom: FF7:BC (sort of)
Characters/Pairings: Veld/Ifalna
Rating: PG
Summary: "You're an unstable mix, you know."
Notes: Written because a friend was having a bad day and I was listening to earthy music. I also kind of love making Iffy being way older than everyone else and the possibilities of her having met them as kids is somewhat cute to me. Psychobabble arc, so if you have no idea about wee!Veld in Wutai, well. I have other stories about that.

( we're connected by the water of the shore )