We're all rather strange.

by Jazzy Lemonade
It's really loud here at my grandparents' house. They're going deaf, right? So the television is blaring and everyone is yelling so the grandparents can hear what's going on. Obnoxious really, especially since I'm generally soft spoken.

We all just played a game of cards and I'm pretty sure I was the only sane one at the table. My grandma was incredibly competitive and accusatory and not paying attention to what she was doing, my dad was going berserk and laughing over really stupid things, and my grandpa didn't understand how the game worked and kept making the same mistake over and over again.

My brother, on the other hand, is enjoying himself with his ex girlfriend, whom recently declared that she still likes him and he still likes her. It's nice, but sad because she does live in Arizona and we don't.

Relationships are strange in general, aren't they? People who just aren't at all similar get together to play cards because we're all family...

The A- Team

by Laina

Christmas Gift List:

1. Red scarf: with some thin white stripes and pink ends with red frays. I got this one from my Secret Santa at work. This is pretty much due to the fact that Granma wrote "scarves" on my questionnaire. *sigh*
2. Green scarf: handmade by mom, with super fuzzy and soft yarn but woven tight enough that the whole of the scarf feels tough. It can get itchy, so it's pretty much for really cold days.
3. Fuzzy beanie: purple, blue, and green hints. I'm not sure about the shape of it on my head; I've still got to get used to it. Ehhh.
4. Sweater: that's more to my mom's taste than it is my own. We'll be going shopping again when I get back from Arizona. <<(WHATTT?!)<<
5. Snuggle socks: super fuzzy and soft socks to wear around the house. They're lovely.
6. Picture Frame: set up in a collage format of 3x5 black frames. I'll be putting my photography in there eventually!
7. Red umbrella: with like, wizard gadgets on it.
8. Cookies: homemade by the boss. She gets them for us every year. I'm eating one now. NOMNOMNOM.

The Every Day List:
1. A friend of mine at work was telling me that he was never hit on at work before by a customer. I thought that was preposterous, but realized that girls are just wimps is all the reason was. He's a good looking dude, I've liked him since I met him even. So I told him that I considered going up to his register to hit on him so that he could say that it happened. Haha. I was too much of a wimp. I went up to the register and was just smirking with shifty eyes and we both started laughing because I didn't know what to say.

2. Someone at work was asking me if I had a limp. Not that I know of. Apparently he was serious. He said he'd keep an eye on it for me. What?

3. We lost six people to layoffs/firing just from our department this holiday. Granma was laid off, too. He was expecting it, though. I asked him the other day and he wasn't stressed at all, morely considering it a great break to do a lot of skiing. I didn't act sad about it, although I feel sad. I feel like I'll never see him again, even though we'll have chances now to get together outside of work and he'll probably be hired back eventually. I wonder if he'll accept any requests to hang out again. Who knows.

4. I'll be on vacation in Arizona starting tomorrow morning! I have to get up awfully early to make a morning flight. Still have to pack. Ugh.

5. Morning shifts again! The night crew will miss me! We were the A Team. Now that I'm gone they'll be the A- Team. Hahaha. Anyway. Once I get back from Arizona, they'll have me working mornings and doing production and washing the machines. I hate doing the job, but at least I'll be hanging out with that guy I talked about in #1 again. He's pretty fun. I would consider going out with him, definitely, if he took better care of himself outside of work. He gets drunk and stays up late all the time, it's pretty uncool of him.

6. Those issues I was having on finals week that I didn't want to discuss because of personal reasons have been resolved! Now I don't have to stress about that, either.

7. Still haven't gotten my grades back. How annoying.

8. I don't know if I'll be updating or not this week. I'll be at my grandmother's, so who knows if she'll have wifi. Probably not.

Happy Holidays!

by Kinly Steebin

Merry Christmas Eve!

by Iumazark
Work has finished their annual laying off ceremony for those freshly hired this year. I'm sure we'll hire some of ours back eventually. Anyway, I'll be working some long, hard hours from now on. Sucks.

The tradition in my family is to celebrate Christmas secularly on Christmas Eve. Which is awesome, so we don't have to wait to open presents until Christmas morning like everyone else! Hells yeah.

We had some pretty rad stuffing and turkey that my work had provided for us for doing such a good job. Yeah, right. Then we watched "It's a Wonderful Life". Such a good movie. I don't really know why, but I'm a huge fan of tearjerkers.

And I've got my haul. So far. I'll be having another Christmas with my uncle, and another with my dad and grandparents. I might put up some pictures eventually of what I got. Probably not.

I'm really happy as a Secret Santa. The guy I got my gift for really, really liked the shirt I got him! Apparently he's a big fan of Back to the Future, so the whole "My other ride has a flux capacitor" thing was spot on to his taste. It was a good guess.

My mom really liked the gifts I got her. She goes to this special clothing shop all the time; I pretty much won't wear anything in there myself, but I know what my mom likes and I got her two tops from there that she ended up loving. I also got her a ceramic vase that was handmade by art students at school, as well as a three-tiered bottle of different flavored olive oils from Harry and David.

I might have a special Christmas entry tomorrow. Probably not.

No trendsetting allowed.

by lunariya
Winter nights means frosted car windows.

I was ready to leave work, rummaging around my car with the light on trying to find my iPod, when I look up and Granma is in the middle of drawing a furry monster on my misted passenger window, with 'hi' on its chest and a heart by its head.

I couldn't stop smiling for the life of me. When he does things like this it makes it a lot harder to forget about him. He's such a tease.

My superviser just became a grandmother this morning. Believe it or not, the grandson's middle name is 'Explosion' of all things. I thought that was awesome. 'Splode' would be a completely boss nickname for him.

As for some Deathly Hallows, I only found out recently that part 1 comes out in less than a year! November 2010. Then part 2 comes out July 2011. There's a sneak preview of the Deathly Hallows movie trailer on the special edition Half-Blood Prince DVD. And it is so awesome.

I bought a gift for a coworker of mine as his Secret Santa. It's a shirt that says, "My other ride has a flux capacitor." He's a lucky dude.

Update:
OH MY GOD. My teacher gave me a B- in that terrible math class! The curve really must have been massive beyond belief. You cannot imagine how relieved I am right now! I feel like running and jumping and laughing hysterically, but it's late and I need to sleep!

I'm done!

by Olga Koffych
Want to know what's so totally boss? I'm done with finals. Hence the title. "Yeah, hence."

There's just one little itty bitty problem. I'd be surprised if I didn't flunk that one math exam I was worrying about. What I'm hoping is that the rest of the class does just as poorly as me so that the curve will be massive. It's happened before; that's how I got a B in a class where I didn't understand a thing.

Hopefully I will pass this class. Then I won't have to take any more math classes for the rest of my life. What a relief.

There's a couple of things that I feel like I need to get off my chest but is just too personal. I'll just say that Sunday was literally the worst day of my life, and it was terrible timing considering that I had the worst exams ever to study for and couldn't.

But I'm done with stressing about school and everything. Now I get to draw, take pictures, go on the internet, see friends, and play video games whenever I want. Outside of work, anyway. I even went shopping recently! Not that I really found much of anything, except for this watch!


I'd always decided against getting one because we're not allowed to wear anything like that at work... but whatever, right?

I cave.

by Nirrimi Joy
I've been utterly stressed out over my final exams for Monday. I managed to move one of them to Wednesday, but the fact of the matter is that I have no idea what's going on in one of my math classes and there is just so much stuff to remember for organic chemistry that my brain itself is on the verge of spontaneous combustion.

Meanwhile, the muscles in my back are crazy tense and I'm constantly in pain during work and have to keep taking breaks to stretch and personally massage it. I told Granma this.

"Pizzas?" I make pizzas, and yes, this happens when I make them when we're busy. He was inquiring if this was the cause.
"Yeah, but school as well."
"Ah, finals week, eh."
"It's shitloadious!"

Okay, I didn't say that last part, which would have been funny, but instead he just kept standing there for a while as I was working and it was completely awkward for me. I could feel his eyes on me the whole time. And apparently he is caught staring/looking at me by some of my coworkers often.

But Granma liked the bracelets I made him! He was even wearing them the next day during work; I am so glad, you have no idea.

The other night, my supervisor was closing with me and we were all leaving late so that the only cars left in this area of the parking lot were mine, my superviser's, and Granma's. But when I was walking to my car, I noticed my superviser rummaging around her car all flustered because she lost her car keys.

I got a flashlight from my car and she found out that they were inside. Granma started walking out to his car when I asked if he might have a hanger and we were all trying to find stuff that might help her break into her car but came up short. She ended up having to go back inside and see if they had anything that would help and I waited there with Granma to look after her stuff until she got back.

It was really cold and we were standing rather close when sharing pictures of some of our artworks on our iPods. I asked if we could hang out for an hour or two, but he's always made plans already when I try to be spontaneous. Sucks. At least he said sorry this time.

Well, my superviser came back out with a flimsy piece of metal that ended up not working so well. Granma and I waited with her until she got some more help from inside the store and then after twenty minutes I figured I ought to head home, so I lent her my flashlight. I found out the next day that Granma waited with her for another hour after that to use his AAA. *sigh* He's such a good guy.

For the win!

I had a lot of flashbacks yesterday. It was awesome.

Nothing much to say here except that a coworker stated that my back is shot and I need to see a chiropractor. I really am an old woman, cereally with extra milk.

This'll just be a photo reel of all of my new artistic endeavors, drawings and photography. I also totally revamped my art website (not referring to DeviantART). Enjoy, dudes.

Click to see a larger version on my DeviantART:

Too close.

by Rengim Mutevellioglu
I'd like to take the liberty to personify winter as a nun whipping my hands with a small rod.

These weeks are starting to go by slower. I don't know if it's because my brother is staying with me now for nine weeks until he gets recruited into the army or because Granma is being nice again, -ish. You know how he is.

And everyone at work seems to think we either are dating or should be, and commenting on that in front of the two of us. I'm going along with that crowd, personally, but it's not really up to me.

We're doing a secret santa thing at work in our own department and Granma was overhearing about it as I was writing up this questionaire so that my secret santa would have an idea of what to get me. One was questioning me about what I might happen to collect and I came up blank, but Granma stole the pen and paper from me and wrote "scarves" and I said, "Oh. That's true..." I do have a ridiculous number of scarves and I mentioned this to him while we were still dating in July. I was happy and surprised that he remembered such a silly thing about me.

Anyway, I asked him if he'd wear a bracelet if I made him one, and was pleasantly surprised that he nodded a yes with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever. So I'll be making him two bracelets of his favorite colors, so he says: 1) dark purple with teal, and 2) baby blue.

About those three final exams I was stressing over, I've decided to take two of them early if it's possible--I emailed my professors about it and am currently awaiting their responses. I really hope they let me, otherwise I don't think I'll have any time to study for some class because I'd be stressing too much over some other, you know what I mean? But assuming I pass this terrible class, it'll be the last semester I'll be taking math. After all these terrifying upper division courses, of course I'm ready to have it all be over and done with.