October 27th, 2003 12:34
So my older sister has been chosen as one of 6 finalists (out of 1700!!) in the 2003 Independent Music World Series.
The 6 finalists are going to be performing (for fans and industry judges) in NYC this Thursday.
8PM, Lion’s Den, 214 Sullivan St. Ask me for a free ticket.
I’m going with my mom to watch and cheer! Come along!
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So tonight I have yet another piano lesson – I’ve had two/week this entire month! I can’t take this stress… but it will be over soon, because on Wednesday evening I will be playing (along with 5 other adult students) in a very tiny very informal recital at NEC. 3.5 minutes of pretty but unimpressive Chopin. C’mon, you know you want to come!
Wednesday, Oct 29, 6:30 PM
New England Conservatory of Music (Huntington Ave.)
St. Botolph Building, second floor (which I think they call floor 1), end of the hall
Be there or be square 
October 27th, 2003 11:59
Great weekend.
Zaubi and I went on the MIT Outing Club trip to Intervale, their little cabin in the White Mountains National Forest in NH. It was a keyholder trip – meaning that now that we have visited the cabin, helped fix it up, learned how to deal with the propane, etc. etc., we can sign out a key to it at any time for $5 per person per night and go stay there! It’s 10 minutes from Attitash, 20 from Mt. Washington and Wildcat. There are numerous other ski areas in the vicinity but I am not familiar with any of them. In any case, I look forward to a lot of snowboarding trips this winter!
I really enjoy working outdoors. This weekend I chopped down a tree with an axe (ok, it was a small tree!), helped chainsaw up two very large trees, chopped down endless yards of brush and brambles with a very defunct hand clippers, hefted numerous 5 foot tall bottles of propane, hauled wagons full of logs, and so forth. The first night we slept in the cabin itself, which has a big padded loft, and the second night we slept out in my little Walrus Swift tent out under the stars which were stunningly, jaw-droppingly numerous and bright.
I also, along with (Zaubi and a very happy guy named Martin), made a very interesting marinade for 4 giant steaks that we roasted over a massive campfire. And assisted in teaching foreigners how to make S’mores (even though I happen to hate S’mores).
We drove back yesterday afternoon and stopped off in one of those ridiculous NH State liquor stores to get some Mead. Sooooo good. I could guzzle a bottle of that shit myself. Zaubi and I are going to try to make it this fall sometime; only drawback is it takes about sixty pounds of honey!
Now I must go listen to Muta give a presentation on how to set up Apache with SSL… Maybe my web server will start behaving itself sometime soon…
October 23rd, 2003 19:00
Waaaay too cold outside.
My piano lesson was rather horrible; that is, I lost my temper. Hate it when that happens.
Haven’t heard from Joe/Jenny yet so I think I will sit on my sofa and eat homemade chili and drink tea with raw honey and watch a copy of The Royal Tennenbaums (sp?) that my housemate left in the living room months ago…
October 23rd, 2003 15:18
It was snowing this morning. So says T., at least, who lives in the suburbs. Snowing or not, it is revoltingly cold and damp and horrible. If I didn’t have a piano lesson at 5, I’d go home now and huddle up in the warmth!
I saw a squirrel killed this morning and it upset me a lot. It still upsets me now, in fact.
I didn’t learn PHP last night. I had serious apache installation issues on my laptop and then I got bored and tired so I went to bed.
Tonight!
I tried to go to the gym this afternoon, but it persisted in having fire alarm after fire alarm. After a bit I gave up because I do not have enough time for the hour at the gym AND piano practice, and I’d rather be alive than muscular
It was very amusing to see all the poor people who were swimming huddled outside in the miserable chill in nothing but their bathing suits.
Tracy invited me to join her book club. The first meeting is this evening, but I think I will miss it because Zaubi and I were supposed to hang out with Joe and Jenny, although I’m not sure if that is actually going to happen. I haven’t read the book yet, in any case, nor do I know how to cook “New York Swank” for the potluck… burned street pretzels and Dijon?
G. wants to go into the real estate business with me – we talked about it over dinner last night. This is definitely a positive thing! The thought of doing everything by myself is slightly daunting, though certainly doable; but it’ll just be much funner to do with a friend.
Now I have to go practice. Man, it’s freezing. What a miserable day!
October 23rd, 2003 0:55
MY HEATER WORKS!
I didn’t trust it, because after all it is just a section of my stove, so how could it heat an entire apartment? But I left it on low this morning given it’s so damn cold here now, and it warmed my place beautifully. Ahhh!
Found a centipede in the bathtub. Caught him in a glass, was going to use my layoff letter to pick him up, but changed my mind and used NEC’s Fall Schedule of Events instead 
G. took me out to dinner tonight, in celebration of my officially losing my job. (Actually, we were just hungry and I had only $8). Pizza (I haven’t had in months) and cheescake factory cheesecake… I am going to explode!
Then he loaned me his PHP/Apache/MySQL book. I’m going to stay up all night. By tomorrow I will be an expert in PHP and MySQL, you’ll see.
R. just invited me to drop in on some hockey practices he is coaching/helping coach – a bunch of 11 year old girls. I’m really excited, I think that will be a blast.
I am wearing Barbie-pink boyshorts undies today.
It is now officially over a month since I last saw my housemate; he has been out of the hospital for several weeks, too! I wonder where he is and if he is ever coming back…
October 22nd, 2003 12:25
Alas, it is official…
I have been laid off.
Last day to work – January 3, 2003 (that is sort of random, isn’t it?)
Well, I knew this would happen, after all… given that the project I have been contracting for these past 1.5 years is ending in December and my position is thus being eliminated.
I am going to look at this positively. All possibilities are open! And they really are, too. I just have to decide what I am going to do next.
Given that Zaubi is defending his thesis in December, he will also be up for big life change – leaving school and moving on – right around the time I get laid off, and so that makes life even easier given that I won’t have to decide to stay around here to stay with him.
What shall I do?! I could… stay here and find a job. Move to CA again (I rather miss it). Move to Germany with Zaubi. Completely change my career path (I never liked computers anyway!)… Finally take the plunge and start my real estate investments as I’ve been considering these past 3 years. Start working with children and/or animals (both of which I find highly preferable to most other things). Become a race car driver (ok, maybe that one wouldn’t work, even if I do have that great Rally Racer article about me). Learn to fly and become a flight instructor (Zaubi was suggesting that yesterday). Web programming – I already know Perl and Javascript and I’m sure I could learn PHP and all that boring database shit pretty fast. I could mass-produce standardized websites for porn companies 
. Sell all my belongings on Ebay. Make a website like SAVEKARYN.COM!
The possibilities are endless! And I have over two months to begin! 
Even given having to leave MIT, If I choose to stay around here, I will only have to give up one hockey practice of three (given that I never go 8AM Wednesdays anyway – I’m not psycho!) and I will have to change my gym hours from 3PM to 8 or 9AM. Both of these changes are ones I can easily adapt to. My lease is month-to-month so there are no worries there… The only truly annoying thing is the parking – I will have to find different parking. And I will have to give back my cute little mini-Dell :’( (Maybe Oliver will be nice and let me keep it? )
I feel infinitely better now that I know. Waiting is the bad thing.
I think I am going to end up glad of this layoff. It’s time to take a risk and do something new. Off I go!
October 22nd, 2003 11:27
My mother just signed an email to me “your ever lovin’ Mama”
She’s either gone crazy or else losing my father was the best thing that ever happened to her.
Probably the latter.
Death walks at noon…
