I’m feeling rather low today.

I think it’s partially because I’ve been trying to help other people figure out their lives. While I’m not sure I’ve been actually helping anyone, I’ve certainly been forced to take a closer look at my own.

I’m not entirely sure why. I’ve finally got most of the basics pinned down. I have my Josh, my house, my car that makes me smile every single day, and my job that’s fun yet challenging enough to be interesting. I’m paying down my debt, and learning to save for retirement and for the other things I want.

Lots of my long-term life goals are tied to finances, and I seem to be on track in that regard. I’m not where I wish I was, sure, but I’ve got a plan in motion and for once I’ve been able to stick with it.

With some life goals achieved, and other so far in the future, sometimes it feel like my day-to-day living is going nowhere. Spinning my wheels while I wait for something.

I do know some of the feeling can be contributed to hormones. I ran out of BC last week, but my Dr. was away so I couldn’t get an appointment for a renewal until today, and my body is letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that it doesn’t like my “natural” cycles and wants back on the drugs ASAP.

I’m also worried about my cat. Last week we had a urine sample tested at the vet, to see if she had crystals or a UTI or something, but instead the tests indicated early chronic renal failure. o_0 She’s having some blood taken later this week to do more tests specifically for that, but if she does, since she’s only now starting to show (potential) symptoms, it means she’s already lost 70% of kidney function. I has a sad.

My trip to Michigan was fun! I learned a bunch of new stuff, including a new PCR technique, and I shared our techniques with the lab I visited. Everyone was really nice, and they all talked about how cute my “rollerskate” was (my Smart car), and not one person mentioned a word about my Atomic Pink hair. Haha!

When I got back, my boss and I put our heads together and we think we’ve fixed an issue that’s been plaguing us since mid July! Go science!

In unrelated news, looks like my old, old website mood theme works again since I upgraded WordPress last night. Weird. I don’t like how it’s in the sidebar of my admin for some reason, instead of below the text box, but whatever. I wonder if it appears in the LJ post?

So long, Telus, hello Fido!

I finally dumped my old crappy cell phone plan, and got a new one that actually suits the way I communicate!
My old plan was supposedly $25/mo, but with a system access fee, 911 access charges, misc charges, and $0.15/text (send and receive), it ended up costing about $40-45/mo, generally. I got 200 minutes, but I never went close to that limit.

My new plan only has 50 min talk time, but it has unlimited texting and unlimited email and Blackberry Messenger use, which is really what I do most. Not to mention I can actually use the Blackberry Josh got me for our anniversary last year, instead of the crummy $0-three-years-ago phone I was using.

The downside is that due to the Blackberry I had, my only options were Rogers or Fido (owned by Rogers). Rogers was way too expensive, but I can afford Fido. Plus no stupid contract! My contract with Telus wasn’t supposed to be up until November, so I’ll have to pay like a $100 fee, but that would be about the same as 2 months service. I haven’t gotten that bill yet from Telus, so hopefully it’s not too crazy.

I’m not saving any great amount of money, since in order to get a Blackberry plan I had to get a phone plan to add it on to, but the total should come out to be about $37/mo. The savings will more come from the fact that I can actually text people, and not worry about the cost when I get text messages that say “ok” or “:)”. Not to mention, I like typing on the QWERTY keyboard way more than stupid phone typing.

It’s official: I no longer have cable.

Woo!

I decided a little while ago that I just don’t watch enough TV to be worth paying for it anymore. I would, I mean, there’s loads and loads of shows I’d like to watch, but I keep doing things with real people instead. Probably better for me overall, and the shows I really need to see I just watch online. I’ve also been watching some of the specials that Discovery uploads to YouTube. Dinosaurs rule! ^_^

I had to give 30 days notice, and pay a $12 disconnect fee, but my 30 days was up on the 22nd, and I returned my digital box and remote control to a Rogers depot last week.

This will save me about $75/month. Holy crap, eh? I was only on the second “tier” of options, too! No pay-per-view, no HBO, no fancy-pants channels except Discovery, TLC, and HGTV. Those 3 were what I watched the most, though, especially Discovery, which is why I was paying for the second tier (which also included about 9million channels that I did not care for). Blegh.

That $75/mo is going right onto my debt, though. I still have a student loan, a personal loan, a Line of Credit, my car, and my mortgage to pay off. Rather than get used to having an “extra” $75/mo, I’m going to put it to work for me where it’ll do the most good.

My goal is to have all my consumer/education debt and 1/2 of my car paid off by the time I’m 30 (2 years in May). My stretch goal would be to have everything but my mortgage paid off by then.

Some friends and I went to see Up in 3D this evening.

They should have handed out packs of Kleenex with the 3D glasses.

Seriously.

That is all.

I haven’t been around much lately (err, more so than usual). Since October, four of my friends and I have been planning a small anime convention here in Guelph: Con-G.

It was this past weekend, and it was AWESOME! It was bigger and better than we dared to hope! We got about 350 people (about three and a half times what we were hoping for), and have had amazing positive feedback and great suggestions for things to improve upon next year.

I had next to no sleep and very little food and water all weekend (it’s not like it wasn’t provided, I just didn’t have time to go eat or drink, what with running around and making sure things were running smoothly, and averting crises such as when we ran out of walk-in registration forms… twice.) and felt pretty darn hung over yesterday. Ugh. Today is much better, especially after having a debriefing meeting with the rest of the con staff yesterday (remember, there were only 5 of us) and running the numbers and seeing the online feedback. We are already planning next year, though we do hope that it will take a bit less time to get up and running in 2010. We pulled Con-G out of the air with an almost $0 budget in 4 months, but we worked on it practically every after-work moment.
I hope to have a full report up later, plus some more updates on what happened with my job situation, since I never did write up the end of that saga.

For once, I thought I had a bit of an original idea. I guess I should have known better, in this world of mass market paperbacks, that everything has been done at least once. But still.

Check this out: Bite @ Amazon

It’s a book of short stories about vampires (duh). Apparently, one of the stories includes a “microbiologist-turned-vampire”. Damn. That’s what my story is about.

Shut up, peanut gallery. I’m trying to write about what I know and what I like here, ok?

I’ve seen plenty of “_____-turned-vampire” (and love the sciencey-types more than the oh-woe-is-me or ditzy-girl types) but never, until now, specifically a microbiologist.

I choose to take this as incentive to actually finish my story. :p

I like it when something I like references something else I like:

Also, is it weird that I’m tickled that in the latest vampire novel I was reading, the main character’s birthday was May 21, 1982, and the name of the vampire magnate was named Caitlin? ‘Cause I am. ^_^

Getting in touch with people I haven’t heard from in a while is also awesome!