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Okay, I rested a minute and now I'm taking a break from studying (already). This was today at school:

7:30am - Weight Training. Love the older teacher, he's really nice. We're in a small gym, about the size of my workout room at the YMCA actually. Plus - we can do anything we want! We can use treadmills, bikes, weight machines, free weights - ANYTHING! I'm going to love that class, and I'm so happy I get at least 2 days a week of working out.

9:00am - Archaeology: Reconstructing Lost Civilizations. Cute teacher, looks about 25 but he's a doctor, and he looks like a weatherman. Says he's a bonafide "professional archaeologist". It doesn't look like the class will be terribly difficult and there's only a couple papers due.

10:30am - European Lit: Homer to Dante. This is with my beloved "mean" teacher from last semester and I already love the class. It is very very difficult to not get excited about reading Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, whoever she is teaching. I am very lucky I found her early on.

And then at noon I went to work for four more hours. I had to get up at 5:30am. I am exhausted. But excited about school finally.

Tomorrow: Spanish.

IMDB.com has a sense of humor

Also, I love the head shot that IMDB has up for Isaiah right now. Check it out. That can't be a coincidence.

*cough**bullshit**cough*

So Isaiah Washington is in "treatment" for saying the "f****t" word.
What happened to just saying "I'm a jerk and an idiot and shouldn't speak in public just like Katherine Heigl said because I seem to have no thought process between my brain and my mouth. And I'm very very sorry. Because I'm a jerk and an idiot."

Talk about not taking responsibility for your actions. I suppose it's some childhood trauma, some deep seated long repressed memory that caused his stupid multiple slips of the tongue. So he needs "treatment".

I suppose I should send Buffy to treatment every time she lets the S word slip in front of her friends, eh? Because it's some unconcious psychological issue that makes her say it, and has nothing to do with the fact that she never ever slips up in front of a teacher or her grandparents.

We have control of our language, People. Say it or don't say it, but take responsibility for it.

~~~ Also, I started school today and I'm happy but exhausted. I owe people emails. They aren't going to come today. Good night.

Gawd Donald, just shut the hell up already. Why am I watching this show? Oh yeah, because it's good up until Trump hits the screen and opens his mouth - and your little kids are jerks too.

How awesome would it have been if Michelle had just interrupted him, stood up and said "Shut the fuck UP already, I said I quit! I would NEVER work with a stupid jerk like you!"

It's the rest of the stupid guys there who are left who now look like idiots. Yeah, keep shivering in your tents, you are SO much better than she is. Right.

*cough* *cough*

Sorry, I've been out sick for most of the week. Well, I've been working, but mostly I've been sick at the same time. Came home from Scott's house early this weekend. Have the day off tomorrow (Scott and I are supposed to be on vacation, oh well) and I'm going to concentrate on getting well. The good news is that I don't start school until Wednesday - I thought I started on Tuesday! So I have a couple days to finish recovering before the madness begins again. It's been a week already, damn cold.

Scott decided to go see "O" with me in Las Vegas at the end of March. We're just going to fly down, see the show at the Bellagio, stay at the Bellagio, and fly back the next day. If I can manage to stay IN the hotel and never have to leave it then I think I can manage to survive another trip to Las Vegas. I got a fantastic deal on Travelocity.com, so much so that it's worth going to LV just to see one show. Yay for reserving early on Travelocity! Yayy for weekday prices! Yay for short trips that don't cost much!

On the other hand, I am also happy that most of the rest of my money is now locked up with the Financial Advisor. I was well on my way to donating it all away. Not that I'm sorry I donated a penny, but if I keep hold of most of it from now on then I can continue giving away as the years go by. Yayyy for Mutual Funds and high interest rates. I guess I'll pick more things to donate to next year - and I'm glad I'll have that chance. It's pretty amazing to know that if I take care of this money and spend wisely then it won't ever run out.

I think about my mom and dad every time I spend a dime on donations or vacations with the kids. I think they are very happy to see us happy AND to see me take care of the money. If I am very careful I can turn this money into a whole lot of money before I retire - and in return leave it to the kids. On the other hand, I have no intention of saving ALL of it and never taking these trips until it's too late. My mom never made it to retirement. I am glad she and my dad did take some trips. In the few years before they died my mom was able to take a trip to Europe with her sisters, and two cruises to Alaska with my dad. Good for them. Having some sort of vacation every year was something they always made time and money for, and little weekend trips throughout the year.

I still miss her a lot, and finally realize the reality: I will always miss her and it will always hurt. You just get used to have this horrible ripped out hole in your heart. It doesn't hurt less and you don't forget about the pain - you just get used to it being there.

Just turned on CSI right now, and the opening scene set on the Strip of Las Vegas was a headache waiting to happen. Ugh. I really don't want to see that city again for a long long time.

I swear, we did have a good time... but 48 hours was QUITE enough for me.

Plus, truthfully? I cannot imagine a less romantic place. It's just... Not. At all.

Television revision

I made the previous post towards the beginning of American Idol last night. And while Paula did continue to appear coherent, clear eyed and awake (which compared to the previous night and her television interviews just helps prove she was definitely on something the other times)...
I take back what I said about Simon. Because Simon was NOT very nice. I mean, overall he gave nicer comments than he usually does, but when they all start picking on the appearance of people... calling one guy a "bushbaby"... I thought they were incredibly mean. And the fact that the show decided to focus on these unfortunate people - who possibly may have had other problems than their looks - and decided to NOT show several people who continued on in the contest... Shame on you, AI. Making fun of people who obviously can't sing is one thing - they came to the audition, and the feedback was overall pretty accurate - but making fun of peoples' appearance and disabilities - None of that was funny. Shame on you!

No Spoiler Zone!

Top Chef: First off, Gosh that was a scary situation with Cliff. To be woken up like that? I had the worst feeling in my gut as they were playing the tape. It was pretty horrible and they really didn't have any other choice than do what they did.

American Idol: Okay, I got sucked in this season. But seriously, how can anyone now deny that Paula is on *something*??? Today, in Seattle, she finally seems coherent... so far... but yesterday she was drunk, straight up. And all the current television interviews... I saw one on our local station and Dudes, something is WRONG with her. It's an insult to viewers and a harm to Paula to keep denying whatever this problem is. That TV show needs to get her some help.

On the other hand, I think Simon is much nicer this year.

Yeah, that's it. Haven't seen much TV this week. School starts next week and I don't wanna go. Wanna watch TV. *stamp*

I totally forgot this part... The Adult Video awards were this weekend in Las Vegas. And we were told they were staying at our hotel. There certainly were a lot congregating in lobby when we arrived - I guess their "convention" had just let out (Saturday Night). Sunday night was their "Academy Awards". We did see a lot of hootchies. I must say I didn't see anything remotely beautiful. Buffy walked around behind them all saying "Old Porny, Old Porny, Old Porny."

Spike kept quiet and just took in whatever sights he could.

Back home, yayyyyy

We are back home safe and sound.
We had a very good time, even though I hated the traffic and the crazy taxis and the city planning that requires you to walk a mile just to get across the street... or even next door.
It was 20 F at night, and 36 F during the day - walking in and out of 70 F casinos and the 30 F cold has given me a terrible cold.

But we did have fun.

We saw Cirque du Soleil "O", which was the most incredible thin I have ever seen. In Buffy's words: "That was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life, and it's probably the most amazing thing I ever WILL see." And she's probably right. If any of you ever go to Las Vegas, do whatever you can to go see that show. It made our whole trip worth it - I would pay $1000 each to see it again.

We saw Phantom of the Opera. It was the most excitement I've had in 20 years. In a terrifying sort of way. If you click that link, then click "The Show" and scroll down you will see the massive chandelier that the kids and I were sitting directly under. In our incredibly expensive seats. That should have had a "heart problem" warning on the tickets. That Chandelier comes crashing down ON US near the end of the play, stopping mere feet above our heads. From 60 feet above. The three of us were swearing for hours after the show, and my heart still thumps when I think about it. Overall... I thought the tickets should have been more like $50 - it wasn't that special... the chandelier had incredible effects and was scary and beautiful as heck, but I wasn't that impressed with the show. On the other hand, opera is not my thing. Buffy liked it, Spike liked some parts and was bored with others (the singing parts).

We saw Nathan Burton, magician. I was not impressed. Neither was Spike, who does magic tricks himself. In fact, Nathan performed one trick that Spike had just purchased at the local Magic Shop down the street. I paid $27 for each of our tickets to see magic that my son and Buffy's friend have done themselves. Plus, the show was less than an hour long, and 15 minutes of it were video clips of "celebrities" (like Emmanuel Lewis! Oooh!) telling us how great Nathan is, that he's the "new David Copperfield". Some of the tricks were cool, but if my son can do most of them, I don't want to pay more than $10.

Overall though, we did have a nice family weekend. We loved our room at the Venetian, we survived our plane rides, we survived our taxi rides, and I was very very very very very happy to leave Vegas and come home.

When I went to bed last night the kitten was hiding underneath it, so that was a relief. I closed the back door and got into bed, and the kitten jumped up and played with my feet for about an hour, then went to sleep. This morning she wanted back out to play with Christmas cat.

We are off to Vegas in an hour. I'm leaving the back kitty-door open so she can come in at night and we won't have to worry about her.

I'll see ya'll on Tuesday - check in at Flickr to see what we're up to over the weekend!

In case you all didn't notice, I updated the journal! Twice today! And now I go to bed to procrastinate packing for Vegas.

"All runners receive an official race T-shirt and both male and female first place winners of the half marathon win their weight in wine."

That sounds like my kind of race!

DVDs: I bought the first two seasons of The Office which I had never seen before. I love that show with all my heart now and have seen each episode about 5 times. And I'm not even close to being tired of it yet.
Also: Jim... (John Krasinski)... is like the sexiest dude, Evah. Oh to be young and living in Los Angeles and able to go stalking...

Movies: Scott and I saw The Good Shepard last night... and were SO DISAPPOINTED. Omigod, that movie is THREE HOURS LONG. Only it seemed like a month long. We thought it was horrible. I'm not going to get into all the reasons why, there were SO MANY reasons why.

Television: Donald Trump makes me sick.

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*cough**bullshit**cough*
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*cough* *cough*
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Back home, yayyyyy

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