Well, we survived our first bout of classic Alberta winter last week. Given, it was much later than usual and didn't last very long (thankfully,) but it's nice to know we can always depend on at least one agonizing stretch of skin-biting frigidness that even gives Antarctica a run for its money.
While we were braving one of our infamous flash cold fronts last week, I caught an episode of What Not to Wear and couldn't help but feel a little chapped as I watched the 30-something hapless fashion victim of the day be stripped of her baggy sweaters and sweatpants and don a new wardrobe full of cute, flowery tops and adorable strappy sandals. That's all well and fine when you live in balmy Florida, or hell, even Chicago, but where are the fashion gurus for us poor Albertans? Where's our What Not to Wear: Freeze Your Ass Off Canadian Edition? I'd like to see Stacy and Clinton make me look respectable in giant, clompy winter boots, a parka, and oven mitt-like ski gloves, achieving style that is both sexy but will also keep me from freezing to death in -40°C while waiting for the bus. Good luck with that, TLC.
D:{
Also, since I'm already feeling cynical and ranty, why are mothers always so chipper and smiley in paper towel commercials? You know what I'm talking about: a pristine white kitchen, a child sitting at the dinner table, and out of no where the little goon is splattering pasta sauce all over the place; enter mom, who gives little Bobby that little smile and shake of the head, as if saying "oh, you little scamp," and then proceeds to demonstrate how easily one sheet of Bounty can wipe up that tough spill. High five, little man!
Ugh. Seriously, what the hell? It's as if there is nothing more adorable in their sad world than their obnoxious, bratty four-year-old smearing chocolate sauce or finger paint all over the counter top. Fuck that. That shit would never fly in our house. That kid would get a sharp smack on the ass and be sent to their room without any freaking pasta, chocolate, or dinner at all to speak of. Little hoodlum. It's bad enough that parents already spend most of their time running around cleaning up after their kids already -- but then the brat thinks it's funny to smear their greasy little rugrat hands all over my counters? They should make a more realistic commercial where the parent shoves a roll of Bounty in little Bobby's grubby fingers and orders him to clean up his own mess. "And put some elbow grease into it!" as my dad used to say.
Sorry, I don't know what prompted the impulsive television ranting. Obviously I haven't had enough homework to keep me busy this semester. *Knock on wood* More blogging later when I actually have something to blog about.
Christmas has come and gone, and remarkably, somehow our tree has remained in one piece this year. I think my brilliant tactic of spritzing the tree down with smelly perfume each day helped convince Iroh that maybe he'd forgo climbing through the branches and breaking all of my pretty ornaments this holiday season. *Gives kitty a warning look*
I hope Santa was good to everyone. I, for one, must have made it somewhere on that nice list, as I received all sorts of shinies, such as a very badly desired clothes steamer (no more ironing, hurrah!); several awesome paintings commissioned by Sister, courtesy of her lovely friend, Jill; and a wonderfully obscene amount of chocolate. Also, wonderful husband is wonderful -- he ordered me my perfectly perfect new Miche purse, as well as set me up with a year-long subscription to both Batman and Detective Comics~ X3 The timing couldn't be more perfect, what with the whole DC reboot, which I've been meaning to give a try; admittedly, I'm not thrilled from the snippits of Harley Quinn's head-to-toe revamp I've seen floating around online -- and when I say "not thrilled", I actually mean a little piece of my fangirly soul has been ripped out, gored to death, and left to shrivel up and be picked at by scavenging wild dogs *twitch twitch* D:{ -- but aside from that, I've been told that it's still more-or-less the same Batman I've come to know and love. I eagerly anticipate glossy pages chock full of caped crusaderdome to begin arriving monthly in my mailbox~ *Squee!*
Speaking of a certain Dark Knight, what's with DC's complete lack of officially licensed Batman art? In an attempt to spruce up the walls of our depressingly bare basement, I geeked out and ordered a couple of great Doctor Who prints to hang up -- namely, this one and this one -- and have also been trying, without success, to find something awesome and Batman-themed to hang over our shuffleboard table. Unfortunately, it seems that when you do a search for Batman wall art, all you get is the same dozen poster prints over and over again. Don't get me wrong -- I schmooze over Jim Lee's sexy drawings as much as the next comic book fan, but is it too much to ask for a little variety? You'd think with all of the different artists that DC enlists, they would release a steady stream of for-sale prints for fans to plaster their homes with, but there's really not much to speak of at all. ;_;
Ideally, I would pee rainbows of joy to have a copy of this magnificent canvas print mounted on my wall:

Sadly, it is a tad more ridiculously expensive than I'm willing to pay, so unless an unlikely $20 clearlance copy pops up on eBay, I'm out of luck. Like all *coughcough* highly illegal *coughcough* fan produced prints, they're hard to find copies of in the first place -- and when you do find a nice one, they're usually pricey. It's so very unfair that finding pretty Batman art for sale should be harder than going out and purchasing a bag of crack cocaine (this is a guess, obviously, as I actually have no idea how hard it is or isn't to buy crack, or any type of drug, really -- however, I stand by my assumption, as evidenced by the fact that I have met a depressing amount of people who seem to walk around permanently stoned, yet I have met a total of zero people who sport any type of fashionable Batman artwork on their walls.) Sigh.
Sad fangirl is sad.
Oh, my poor, poor neglected blog. What has full-time schooling done to you?
No fear though, I have successfully survived my first semester! Bring on the Christmas holidays, coo coo ca choo~ I'll try to give my blog a little more love during my two weeks off, maybe post some more book reviews -- but for now, here's the entirety of what little you've missed of my life for November and December:
Oh yeah, and obviously I'm back from our cruise! I kind of forgot to get around to writing up a whole vacation recap post in the midst of looming project deadlines and exam havoc. Rest assured though that the vacation was very awesome, despite this Carnival ship being especially rocky for whatever reason -- we heard someone say that the Carnival Dream didn't have "stabilizers" or whatever the crazy boat magic is that's supposed to keep the ship from pitching back and forth wildly under your feet in crazy 16 foot swells. So a slightly dizzying trip, yes, but still awesome.
Did I mention that we swam with sea turtles? WILD SEA TURTLES. They swam up for air right next to you! If not for the strict rule we were given beforehand of "no touching, no hugging, no licking" (no lie) of the wild life, I could have kissed those sea turtles right on the nose -- that's how close they came! So amazing~

:3
</melodrama>
Seriously though? The combination right now of school, homework, and working part-time is all kinds of unpleasant.
I spend my entire day walking around in a constant state of fretful anxiety, worrying and strategizing on how I'm going to get the current class assignment finished and how little time there is to finish all of the rest of the assignments following afterward. It's not that I'm doing bad in my classes -- I am, in fact, doing pleasantly well grade-wise -- but trying to stay on top of my course load and maintain my marks while at the same time not completely neglect the rest of my life is becoming... problematic. I think we can all agree that I hit an especially low point last week which involved me having a mini meltdown while cleaning the kitchen at 10 p.m. Let me explain: in our house, the chores are split up and one of my jobs is washing the dishes. It's pretty safe to say that for the past two months since I started school, the dishes have not been clean.
"Why can't I do the dishes?!" *Sob sob sob* "Why can't I even keep on top of something *sob sob* as simple as keeping the kitchen clean?!" *Sob hiccup sob*
True story. Somewhat pathetic (and hilarious in hindsight,) but true.
I know I'm not the only one in my class suffering from a severe case of November burnout, and it's a little bittersweet to think that there's only nine days until I escape for a much-needed week away in the Caribbean. On the one side, YAY VACATION YAY OMGINEEDTHISSOBAD. On the other side, I now have even more assignments I need to get finished before next Thursday to make up for the time I'll be away. As it stands, I will already be bringing a backpack full of school work with me on the ship. Nothing dampens a day at port in the Bahamas like spending it in your stateroom doing homework. :P
All right, no more whining now. Suck it up, princess. *Brushes the angst off her clothes*
In other somewhat belated news, Toby finally has his glass door! It's fantastic. Toby once again gets to see what's going on outside his room, we get some natural light in our hallway again, and Iroh gets hours of endless entertainment and frustration. Everyone wins.

It is, at times, hard to physically pry the cat away from this spot now.
Man, I really suck at this whole book reviewing thing. (When was my last one...? June?) Good thing I don't actually do this for a living, because I'd have fired my lazy ass months ago. To be honest it's been so long that I don't actually remember most, if not any, of the salient details I wanted to touch upon from the following books, so some of these recaps are going to be composed of very half-assed "I think I may remember this book possibly being awesome!" Let's face it though, how many people actually read through my rambly thoughts anyway? Right? All set? Let's go.
And now obviously I have no choice but to end off with a sexy David Tennant avatar.
Well, I've survived my first two weeks of being a student again. This whole going to school full-time and working in the evenings makes for some extra long days and is a whole unpleasant flashback to high school that I'm not loving, but what can you do. I figure as long as I continue to keep on top of the assignments and not give in to my horrible and occasional habit of procrastinating ¬_¬ then I should be able to finish this first semester without pulling a nutty. *Stern face is stern*
Overall, I'm enjoying the program so far, with exception of one of my five classes -- I have a lingering resentment left over from high school of anything resembling an English class, so I'm desperately trying to find a way to use transfer credits to drop my compulsory Eng 111 slot (which would detract a considerable portion of stress, frustration, and extra unnecessary workload from my life over the next four months.) However, with NAIT's record of epic failure in the area of establishing reputable course syllabi of any kind, I'm not holding out much hope. It's not that I'm worried I won't pass the class -- I've always done well in English classes, but that doesn't mean I enjoy them at all. It doesn't help that the instructor in this instance gives off a first impression of being a bit of an arrogant, condescending snot; I know I'm not the only one in the class who bristles each time we're addressed as if we were a group of eight-year-olds.
Speaking of fellow classmates, a perk of being in a very niche program like Library Technology is that practically everyone in it has some element of geekiness to them -- whether they're a book geek (okay, well almost all of us in this case are book geeks), an anime geek, a video game geek, or whatever else, there's usually at least something you have in common interest-wise with any random person you sit down beside. It's cool when your instructor says that one of her favorite books is Harry Potter and the entire rest of the class is all "FUCK YEAH HARRY POTTER!" :B and no one looks at anyone else like they're crazy. It makes for a pretty comfortable atmosphere even despite the huge age demographic among students. The library program has a fairly diverse mix of fresh-from-high-school teens, 20/30-somethings, and even middle aged and older individuals -- so the generation gap is definitely a little jarring at times... but again, we've all got our fair share of geek on so it's not too hard to make conversation.
Did I mention that there's a man in my class that looks like a slightly younger and less haggard looking Michael Douglas? It's awesome! I keep imagining him standing up in class and randomly bursting out into character monologues from Ghost and the Darkness or The American President. He would look rad in a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches.
On a completely un-school related note, a new season of America's Next Top Model started this week! Guilty-pleasure joy! XD