The GirlAlive Blog

I've got nothing new to share on the topic of my stolen computer.  We're still waiting to find out if the insurance company will help me get a new one or not.  In the meantime, I'm stuck using my tiny computer.  It's a good little computer (an Asus EEE pc), but I can't play many games on it, and some web sites don't work.

I did something stupid at work and screwed stuff up and had to re-do about an hour's worth of work, along with making a bunch of work for one of the data managers.  Made me feel like a stupid piece of crap, but I think I got it all fixed.

I've been obviously a bit depressed.  I'm getting a bit better.  I've been looking at maybe going to Napier University next year to get a Master's degree.  I'm tired of being the loser of the family.  All my old friends have advanced degrees and real careers, and I'm a data entry clerk, earning just above fast food money.

One of the few web sites that mostly works on my tiny computer is YouTube.  So I've been there a lot.  I mentioned my new obsession with Weezer a few weeks ago, and that led me to this video, which is awesome cause it has both Weezer and the Muppets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4mDIpYHxWY 

Okay, so that's 100% awesome, with the Weezer and the Muppets and everything.  But then I started following links on the side and wandering around in general, and came upon this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6NHPrYcJpo

It is a girl called Julia Nunes, and she's awesome.  I almost like her version better than Weezer.  Almost.  I encourage you to go to her YouTube account and check out some of the other songs.  I especially like her version of Mr. Brightside by The Killers.  I tried to buy her album, but paypal does not like my tiny computer.  

I like Julia Nunes so much I even took my ukulele out and fixed the tuning heads and got it all tuned and playable.  Of course, I still can't play the thing.  I think my fingers are too fat for a tiny guitar.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 07:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, so I'm getting really sick of vegans saying that eggs are "chicken abortions".  Let me use science to explain how that is a complete load of crap.

An abortion is the destruction of an embryo or fetus.  An embryo or fetus is formed with egg and sperm combine and divide and turn into some type of animal.  An egg, on the other hand, is just an egg.  There is no sperm,  The chicken never had sex.  If you kept that egg in the nest, it would not hatch into an adorable fluffy chick.  It would rot and stink. 

The eggs that we buy and eat are more analogous to chicken menstruation than chicken abortion.   They are useless eggs that didn't get fertilised and are expelled from the body to make room for fresh eggs.  There is no ethical reason on earth not to eat eggs, as long as the chickens are treated well.  So if you're that concerned about chickens, buy free range eggs.

This has been a public service message brought to you by science and common sense. 

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the moment, I'm feeling very directionless.  I don't like living where I am.  I'm far outside the city, in a very white trash suburb.  We live almost an hour outside the city, but at the same time live so close to all our neighbors that we have no privacy.  So it's all the disadvantages of a suburb, combined with all the disadvantages of the inner city.

I don't know where I want to live.  I miss Seattle, but I don't think I'll ever be able to live there again.  It's looking more and more like I'm stuck in the UK.  I don't know if there is anyplace in this country that I would like living.  

I don't know what I want to do for a living.  My current job is okay, but it's only a one year contract.  And besides that, I was sitting in a meeting today, and halfway through I was struck with a panicky certainty that I just don't belong in a cubicle.  The thought of dealing with the structure of an office environment for the next 35 years literally makes me suicidal.  If I'm going to spend half of my waking hours for the rest of my life in an office, I just don't see a point to continuing it.  I don't fit there.  

Truth is, I don't fit anywhere.  I have no useful skills.  I'm too much of an artist to work in an office, but not enough of an artist to actually make a living at it.  

Right now, between not knowing what to do and not knowing where to go, pretty much the only time I'm not frustrated and depressed is when I'm asleep.  Maybe I could be a good coma patient.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With my shiny new job and nice coworkers I was finally starting to think that maybe the people of Scotland aren't all drunken amoral idiots.  I was wrong. 

Last night someone broke into my house and stole my laptop.  Out of all the stuff in our living room, all they took was my laptop and my favorite mouse.  The PS2 is worth more than my 4-year-old computer.  But they didn't take the PS2.  Didn't take my husband's computer or either of the digital cameras.  You see, we wouldn't care if they took cameras or the game console.  But my computer, as worthless as it is on the resale market, was the preferred thing to take because it leaves me without most of my important stuff.  

I lost the address books for my family and friends, other than the few addresses I stored in Yahoo.  I lost most of the pictures of my guinea pigs, including the pictures of Homer and Binky, who are dead, and therefore unable to pose for anymore pictures.

I think I still have a cd of wedding photos here somewhere.  Most of my music is gone.  I have a few favorites stored on a flash drive, but I'll have to dig through boxes to find cd's to replace the rest.

I don't know how much longer I can stand to live in this amoral hellhole of a country.  I lived in the US for 29 years, and the only thing I ever had stolen was a lunch from my locker in 11th grade.  I'm here less than three years and someone steals my computer.  I hate this fucking country full of drunken theiving bastards.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

In September, I'm leaving my house and all my rodents in the capable hands of my in-laws, and going back to the US for about two weeks.  If any of you want to know more details about where I'll be and when, I'm trying to organize some stuff through Facebook.  So add me as a friend on Facebook, if you know me well enough to know my name and email address and everything.  I will probably only accept friend requests from people I know in real life, or at least vaguely remember from high school.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I started my new job today.  It seems pretty good.  Unlike my last job, they actually knew I'd be starting and had things ready for me.  I even could get into the computer on the first day.  And I got my ID badge and everything.  And they have free coffee, which I am allowed to drink at my desk.  It is a lot like the health insurance company I worked for back in the US, but nicer.  Nicer because it's just a small branch office of a large corporation, so it's friendlier than working at a location with several hundred employees. 

I wasn't sure what I was coming into, so I wore long sleeves to hide the scars and tattoos.  By lunch time, I figured that it wouldn't be a problem.  Just in my small working team, there are at least two others with tattoos.  And casual Friday actually means casual, with jeans and stuff.  No one seems to care if I wear comfortable shoes.

It's a good thing I did wear comfortable shoes because I have about a 15 minute walk to get from my office to the bus stop to get home.  But it's a nice walk through mostly quiet wooded areas.  I could catch a bus right outside the office, but it wouldn't take me all the way home, and that bus is only once an hour.  

So I'm getting more exercise, whether I like it or not.  My doctor is happy about that, but I'm just tired.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 06:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been thinking about cowards lately.  As a Christian I'm supposed to forgive, but that's the thing I struggle the most with forgiving.  I really don't like cowards.

It's a specific kind of cowards that I hate.  There's a kind of grudge that I carry which is a grudge that always says, "I gave you every chance to tell me the truth and you were too cowardly to just say what you think."  Let me give you some examples.

My first boyfriend was named Jason.  (In my life, a lot of assholes have been named Jason, but that's another story.)  We knew each other on the internet before we met in person.  I had plans to take a trip to The South to visit him, but in the month or so before my trip, he was acting distant and weird.  I asked him over the phone several times, "Should I still bother to visit you?"  He insisted nothing was wrong, and then dumped me the minute I got home from visiting him.  What an asshole move!  Make me spend time and money on you because you didn't have the balls to just say, "I'm not interested" earlier.  

I was in film school studying documentary film for a short time.  I needed to shoot footage of a friend of mine for a student film.  I emailed and asked this friend if I could go to a meeting he'd be leading to shoot some filler footage.  He never responded.  I was on a deadline.  My partner and I went to the meeting and shot our footage.  We were there half an hour before the meeting setting up cameras.  We shot for about fifteen minutes and then left.  The next day I got an email from this "friend" saying that he hadn't wanted me to shoot footage there.  In my mind, I scream.  Didn't I ask you if it was okay?  Why didn't you say "no" then?  Didn't you see me setting up cameras?  Why didn't you tell me not to shoot footage then?  I gave him every opportunity to refuse permission, but he was too spineless to just say, "I don't think that would be a good idea," and consequently wasted my time and my film partner's time and left us with a pile of footage we couldn't use.

At one of m previous jobs, I said something stupid that hurt someone's feelings at work.  Rather than coming to me like an adult to tell me that she was hurt, she had one of the other people in the office file a grievance against me.  So rather than being able to simply apologize and tell her that what I said was stupid and I was sorry, I had to go through a disciplinary hearing with a bunch of managers, which ended with me quitting my job because I couldn't stand the thought of working with any of them ever again.  This co-worker didn't have the figurative balls to say what she thought to my face, and ran to tell her mommy instead.  I am still sorry for what I originally said, but after reading the "witness" statements from my other co-workers, I have no respect for any of them anymore.  Given a choice between an uncomfortable conversation with me or using buerocracy to stab me in the back, they chose the latter option.  It was a coward's choice.

I'm working on learning to forgive cowards.  But I think it's easier to forgive when it's a sin you understand.  I just don't understand the unwillingness to have an honest conversation.  I've had friendships broken over yelling matches, but I don't have nearly as much venom for those I've argued with as I do for those who were unwilling to argue.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)