.:reflections of twilight:.

Apparently, my hoop jumping is far from over. I went to the school today to turn in my initial certification application, and it seems the school doesn't even have my graduation status up yet in their official documents. The lady there, who was very nice, said it might not be until January 23rd or so. Which is interesting since I have to pick up my diploma on the 19th. I also have to order my transcripts from my other schools to be sent to the state Board of Education. I'm not going to worry about that just yet, since it'll still be a few weeks until everything gets organized. Luckily, the schools are used to the whole red tape aspect of everything, so if I say my certification is “pending” that'll usually do for the time being until things come together.

While I'm glad to be finished with grad school and all of that, I still have the stressful part of the job hunt ahead of me. I filled out the online application for the Knox County School System, so that's done at least. I haven't heard anything back yet, but it may be a little while yet and there's also the holidays coming up and people are busy with that.

My dad was in town for my graduation and it was nice that he was here. The ceremony itself was pretty basic, not that it wasn't still nice though. It was a typical graduation ceremony and all. The graduate students went first, with the doctoral candidates going first and getting hooded onstage, followed by us, the Master's candidates. Finally the undergrads went. The speaker was actually pretty decent, which can't be said of most graduation speakers. We went to get a quick bite of lunch afterwards, and then I went home and changed and dad and I went to the movies. We went and saw Spectre which was pretty good. There were some Star Wars cos-players in the movie theater who were promoting the new Star Wars movie (which mom and I are planning to see on Monday morning, once the opening weekend crowds thins out a bit. Presumably) and I got a picture of dad with them. It was fun. Mom wasn't feeling well, so when we went to dinner, she didn't eat anything. I think the burger she had for lunch was under-cooked, so it was bothering her. We were going to go and see the lights at the local raceway, but she really wasn't feeling well enough to go.

Sunday, I went and had lunch with friends of ours, as a post-graduation celebration of sorts. We went to our mutually favorite Chinese place and it was very good, the company AND the food!

So, due to all of the goings-on recently, we haven't decorated for Christmas. At all. I have my lights in my windows, but that's mostly because I didn't bother to take them down last year. If I do end up moving to Knoxville, I will have to take them down eventually. That's another thing I'm trying not to think too much about. I don't mind having to move, but the actual act of moving isn't all that fun. But, I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch, as the saying goes.

Hopefully I can get some things done around the house now that I'm no longer tied up with studying. I need to do some catch-up house cleaning and organization. And reading!! I can do some pleasure reading again! And hopefully I can re-learn my knitting. My skills are considerably rusty since I haven't been doing it as much due to school. I had to frog what I was working on and start over since I forgot a simple purl stitch. And my knit stitch could use some work as well...

I haven't had much opportunity to enjoy many hot beverages lately. The crazy weather due to El Niño hasn't helped any. It's usually a looooot colder by this time of year and we've had at least one snowfall by now. It's barely broken the 60's for the majority of the time. I don't know what January and February will bring since they're usually the coldest months. I guess we'll see.

I hope everyone has a happy holiday season and I'll send out letters as soon as I can!

The guy that's been annoying me on my forum has been at it again. I've decided to ignore him. Completely. Akin to shunning, basically. I'll not read any of his posts anymore, because I really don't care what he has to say. I can't kick him off since he hasn't officially violated any rules, and it wouldn't be fair of me to do so without proper justification, so I'll simple ignore him. If I don't know what he says, then he can't piss me off.

I've started in on reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Basically that's where I left off, technically. It's a long ass book though, but it flows well and it doesn't seem to take to long to read, so I might be able to get through it in a relative short amount of time. It just depends, though.

Someone on the FGML linked to an interview with Takaya-sensei on Time Magazine Online. It's pretty interesting. She basically talks about how manga has grown more popular outside of Japan. She even mentions she's a CSI fan! I thought that was pretty cool!

I had to take mom to get her haircut this morning. She's been wanting one since her hair had gotten too shaggy for her liking. Then we went to get a few more things at the store we forgot yesterday.

And I started on another scarf for mom. She picked out a nice soft Autumn Red for the color she wanted. There's a pattern for a nice simple poncho on the label, but the instructions are for knitting, not for crocheting.

A friend of mine is going to be on the CBS Early Show's Living Room... LIVE! on Monday morning with her band performing a song she wrote for the talent search competition! I'm really excited! So if you get a chance, please be sure to watch! If you don't get up that early (or don't get this network for those of my friends who are Canadian), it'll be available for viewing online.

Tonight is movie night and we'll be watching Rear Window. I've seen it before on television and liked it.

Have a good weekend!

Trivia of the day: Pooch Passion: According to a pet owner survey, 79 percent of Americans give their dogs holiday and/or birthday presents.

...baby.*snickers*

Anyway, mom was having trouble trying to download a song from iTunes last night. It's been awhile she she did it, and so she had thought she lost it. I told her to show me what she did. So she went through all the steps and then I figured out why she couldn't find the song on her hard drive. She didn't download it like she thought she had. She did the second time. Then she tried to burn it onto a disk, but the format was one of those m4p's instead of an mp3, so she couldn't do it. So she had to download a converter that would allow her to do it.

Tonight is our movie night and it's my turn to pick, so I'm gonna pick "The Mummy." She's never seen it all the way though, so I felt it was high time. That is, unless my aunt wants her to come over so they can look through photo albums before her and my uncle leave on their vacation on Thursday.

Went to the bookstore yesterday. Got some manga. DN 6, FMA 8 and the final volume of RK. Twenty-eight. I've only read FMA and RK so far and so, I give my impressions...

( FMA )

( RK Finale )

I want to see if I can watch some more of my torrents that I have. Hopefully I can maybe burn some of them so that I can perhaps make more room to download more.

Trivia of the day: In English folklore, Queen Mab was a fairy queen who governed people's dreams.

Today our movie night is gonna be held elsewhere. A friend of ours invited us over to her place to watch 'Million Dollar Baby." I said I wasn't sure I wanted to go. Not because I heard the movie is a major tear-jerker, but because I wanted to give mom an opportunity to go and do something without me tagging along. Then I thought, "I really should socialize more." So I'm still kinda on the fence. Maybe I'll call mom at work and explain the sitch to her.

An interesting development has cropped up in the book I'm reading. I'm reading the new 'Star Wars' novel, 'The Joiner King' and it's very good. I mentioned before in this post on my GreatestJournal. Anyway, I've grown very fond of a number of the characters in the newer series due to the fact that I read about thier adventures when they were Jedi trainees in 'Young Jedi Knights.' Two of them, Jacen and Tenel Ka sort of had an attraction when they were in training together but nothing ever really came of it. Well, over the years since, wars have come and gone and now a new conflict arises. Since Tenel Ka is now the Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium, Jacen went to seek her assistance in this new conflict. Well, let's just say, he was able to... convince her to make use of her fleet. Whatever happened is never explicitly mentioned even though it's strongly implied. Whatever it was, it was enough to convince members of her Court and the Royal Family to refer to Jacen as the Queen Mother's new consort.

Now, the reason this floored me, aside from the mention of people actually having a sex life in the 'Star Wars' Universe (not that there wouldn't be, but still...), is that I kind 'grew up' with these two characters and while I enjoyed the brief flirtation they used to have I was a bit surprised things 'advanced' to this level. Now I haven't read far enough into the book yet in order to discover if this is an 'official' position for him or not. Needless to say, even though I'm enjoying the underlying intrigue that's center stage of the novel, this new development has distracted me enough to want to know more details. Man, I'm such a perv...

Now I want to make an icon of sorts... I can't stop myself. Oh, and I apologize for my massive run on sentence, there.

Quote of the day: "The human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in return." -- Maria Edgeworth