Ah… tasty chili. I like my workplace; today, because the people who usually run our little caf are off this week, a number of women organized a chili cook-off, and they were selling bowls for $2 a pop. I had a good bowl, very tasty without being insanely spicy, and I even ate a bunch of the beans. Be proud of me. :)

I wanted to explain why it is that I am now composing things solely for unCultured.com. Basically, there are going to be some format changes going on in the (near) future. Lucas and Ben are carrying them out, which means they won’t happen for ages and ages. ;)

Shawn and Lucas were discussing the fact that hits have fallen off for unCultured, which explains why I happen to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of less than 70 hits behind it now ;), and in order to increase some of the traffic, they brainstormed up a few ideas. Namely, they want to incorporate me as a publicist of sorts for the site, and so they developed a few options under that guise. One of them involved me moving my site to be a subset of unCultured, and since there were plans to upgrade the site, they thought that they would be offering me something that I didn’t have already – namely, the ability to upload pictures to my page, or have multiple pages beyond the first one.

What no one appears to have known or realized was that I already paid to upgrade my site quite some time ago, so not only would I possibly be losing out on readers because of the URL change (even though I know I could set up an “auto forward” function and all that), but I wouldn’t be getting anything I didn’t already have… and the money I’d invested in my page would be lost.

As well, since my site grew as something separate and unique from unCultured, I treat it differently. It gets my rambles about my cats, how my fish are stalking me, random grumps and mutters about strangers, coworkers or friends, and whatever goofiness I feel like posting. As much as such is encouraged for content to unCultured, I don’t feel comfortable posting the same way there. At least with the current format, it feels as though I ought to be posting something significant or interesting there; and while my numbers apparently show that some of you find my rambles interesting, I don’t feel right in boring the rest of the unCultured community with the same.

On this site, I write for me, and for you. I write to inform you of what’s going on in my life, I write to vent about what upsets me, or I write to think out loud and understand things. I don’t do that on unCultured, so I don’t want to move my page to a subset of it. Therefore, it ain’t gonna happen, so no one needs to worry, least of all me. Which almost makes it seem as if someone other than me has control over what goes on with my site, but they don’t. C’est mine, and that’s how it stays. :)

I like knowing that people visit my site because they want to, for whatever reason that may be. I wouldn’t necessarily have that reassurance with making it a subset site.

The astute of you (or the bored who skipped ahead through my angsty self-analysis and justification of not moving my site) have already gathered what’s going to happen instead. The other option was to have me write “exclusive” content for unCultured. For now, this means that I’ll contribute articles that don’t end up here, but discussions are underway to set me up a separate heading for answering people’s questions or whatnot. I’m not sure how successful it’ll be; people hit this and Whore's Boudoir on a relatively regular basis, but few ever post, but Shawn was talking about setting up an anonymous remailer in order to cope with that – namely, the assurance of anonymity is presumed to encourage people to perhaps write in questions/ideas/marriage proposals.

Right now, I feel as if I’m somewhat carrying the site, at least sometimes. There’s a pretty large cast of characters on there, but it seems as if everyone has abandoned the site for other projects. I’ve put it aside to focus on this and my other writing projects, but I don’t know if anyone else on there can say the same. It’s weird that most of the original posters have all disappeared, and I worry that they’ll feel us newbies have taken it away from them. :P I hope not.

I’m thinking I’ll post on a regular day, the same way I pretend to for Whore’s Boudoir. If stats show that my posts make a difference in terms of traffic, maybe I’ll see about getting a stipend for my work. ;) I have to admit, it feels odd to think that there’s content of mine going up on a site that isn’t strictly mine, and serves to benefit someone other than myself – and I won’t see anything as a result. Unless stats show that people go specifically to the site for my stuff, in which case that kind of ego boost may be enough. It’s just that right now I’m looking for a job that will allow me to earn money doing something I enjoy, which is where my uncertainty about this exclusivity thing comes along.

Ah well… I shall see what comes of it and how it goes. As much as some people I could name (*cough* Lucas *cough* Ben) claim they’re going to post, it never seems to happen. So, do I want to be left being the only one contributing to the site? No, I don’t. So, I shall see how things go, whether the format change leads to an increase in postings and such, and if not, then I’ll pull my content and put it back to here. *shrug* Seems fair to me. I think what it boils down to is that I don’t want my hunger for a little bit of fame and some publicity to mean that I get taken advantage of, as well-intentioned as it may be.

So, what else is going on, now that I got all that out of my system? Well, not a whole heck of a lot. Still applying to more jobs, trying to squeeze a few extra hundred bucks a month into my bank account. I’ve plotted out my next article/rant for unCultured, prompted by a trek through the shopping mall on my way to work (my usual path), and I’m just trying to pick the day I’m going to post. I’m thinking Monday or Wednesday, but I’m not sure. Also trying to come up with an idea for what I’m going to write today’s WB article on, but I have drawn a few blanks. I want to do something special for Valentine’s Day, which is one of the days I would regularly post anyhow, but that’s still a week away.

I managed to BS myself a research proposal in less than an hour last night, which was pretty impressive considering I went into it not having a clue what I would be writing my paper about. Now I can forget about it until early April, when the actual paper itself is due.

Still didn’t feel like I got enough sleep, however. I rarely seem to, lately; been sleeping poorly. I came home today, put Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back into the DVD player, then watched and snoozed briefly. This evening has been spent mainly prone, simply because I’ve been feeling tired and useless, and it’s the most comfortable position for my back, it would seem.

I hate times like this, when my back simply knots up and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s so frustrating that it makes me want to cry at times; other times (like last month), I have no problems with it whatsoever, or at least none that bother me. PMS is a real bitch and a half.

I’ve had a few times the last few days where it felt like my blood sugar or something similar simply plummeted. I don’t know if it’s because of PMS or if it’s because I’m not eating enough, but it’s (also) frustrating and somewhat scary. I thought for a bit this morning that I was going to pass out, but then my system absorbed the croissant thing that I ate (empty calories, but filling enough for the time) that I felt okay.

I started writing this while I was at work, and I thought I had so much to say, but now I can’t seem to recall any of it. I picked up my final textbooks for mystery novel today… I wanted to rant a little about indy bookstores.

There are a *lot* of bookstores at which the profs order their textbooks. In the course of my four years, I think I’ve been to all of them, plus some; Witchcraft this semester introduced me to a bookstore that’s specific to that type of subject, so I doubt many other profs are sending their students there.

Nonetheless, there appear to be two kinds of indy bookstores; one, like the one I was en route to when I met the guy on the bus, is staffed by really helpful, nice clerks with great attitudes; the second is staffed by people who appear to resent your presence in the store, your existence as a student… in fact, your very existence, period. It was at this store that I have been many times during the course of my four years, and I’ll be ever so glad to never darken their doorstep again.

Admittedly, it’s not all of the clerks that make me feel that way, just the one guy who appears to be the owner. He gives me the creeps, and he seems to resent the fact that (*gasp of horror*) *students* dare to enter his establishment. Sometimes I just want to yell at him, “Trust me buddy, I wouldn’t be here if my profs would just order their fucking textbooks through the uni bookstore, or I could get ‘em at Chapters and get 10% off – or more!”

I have a similar problem with the student-run bookstore. They’re so fucking poorly organized – there are often huge lineups, their methods of searching for your textbooks are haphazard at best (photocopied lists that list the texts somewhat by coursecode, but not all of them, and section letters or profs names aren’t included, so if you don’t know the title of the book you need, you’re fucked in some cases), they won’t tell you if they don’t have your text until you reach the head of the line – there are no signs posted to warn you ahead of time that you’re going to be wasting at least a half hour or more – and last semester, when I was there, they were taking our little lists of required textbooks, giving us numbers, then taking the numbers in whatever order they filled the order. D and I stood in line for a half hour or so to reach the head of it, only to wait as at least five people behind us got their orders filled while we tried to shuffle back and forth out of the way of the people who were paying. In the end, the textbooks that I got? I used for one article that I had to present to the class. I never cracked either of them open after that; thanks, professor waste-my-time-and-money.

*grumble* The discounts the student bookstore offers are sometimes significant – some texts will be $18.00 off – but frequently it’s between $1.00 or $5.00 that I’m saving. Sure, I’m willing to celebrate getting $5 off, but I’m not so damn poor that I can’t afford the extra dollar to get my book a little faster… or hell, if it’s a regular old book or text (like my Greek Myth text and Witchcraft Encyclopaedia, both of which I got through Chapters.ca for at least $20.00 apiece), I’m willing to go to Chapters for it. Meh. This semester I’m done, and the only books I buy will be for personal research, gifts, or pure entertainment. I’ve been dreaming of this for four years.

Mind you, the first bookstore of which I was complaining has an offshoot in the local mall, and sometimes you can get decent texts there for mucho cheap; Ben got the BUST Guide book for $9.00 and I paid the cover price ($24.95 + tax, if I remember correctly) at Chapters. The advantage of that one is it’s much more convenient, and Mr. Creepy Owner Man doesn’t seem to work there that often.

I polished off another Carl Hiaasen today, which was quite enjoyable; a review will find its way up sooner or later. Now I have to tackle the Agatha Christie for Mystery Novel, as well as maybe crack open a course reader so that I’m not panicking over reading week (which is a week away). I also picked up a gift for Moose today for Valentine’s Day, and that reminds me… gotta book those theatre tickets. Only issue? Got no real room on the credit card. *grumble* Actually, I do have some space, but I’d rather not put it on there; I’m trying to pay that thing off, which usually means not billing things to it.

I’ve got a lunch/brunch thing with Markuk on Sunday. He’s been in town over a week, but he’s been ignoring me, so he sucks, and I told him so. :) No matter, I’ve been pretty busy anyhow; still haven’t called that guy from the bus back, booked the tickets, booked Shadow’s vet appointment, or called the pharmacy. I suck.

And tomorrow I’m joining in on day two of the birthday festivities for gord. On that note, happy birthday sweetie. :) Tomorrow will be Chinese food and a party. Unfortunately, Moose is working, so he can’t attend, but at least I’ll have a few people there to bug – Angus and Ben among them. :)

On that note… it’s late, I’ve been exhausted for a few days straight, and this poor post is long enough. Thanks for making your way all through it, and I’m sure I’ll have more to report when I’m awake. Or have done something other than watch television and read.