Okay, so, the last few days have been kinda pooey on the grand scheme of Jen's life sucks at times.

How's that for grammatical pain and misery?

Let's see, here's a list:

Wednesday evening, the heat (kinda sorta) goes out. My apartment rebels against having served as a sauna for the last while, and punishes me by staying at a balmy 17 degrees. I discover that the flannel sheets that my mom got me for Christmas aren't, in fact, flannel sheets, but a flannel pillow sham and duvet cover. I don't have a duvet, and my pillow feels quite real and non-sham like, so nearly a month past Christmas, we may have to try to return these things. No one I know owns a duvet. :-\ (Plus, when I move again next year, I want to get a new bed anyhow, so I don't really want to invest money in sheets for this one, unless I move it too and use it in a guest room or something).

So whatever, grab the flannel pyjama bottoms, thick socks and a polar fleece top, lots of blankets, snuggle down, decent night's sleep.

Thursday morning, still cold. I run into the shower, which feels good, but whatever part of my body isn't under the water does feel the chill. Dry off, pull on the pants, run into the bedroom and wrap the polar fleece blanket around my shoulders. I did my best to dress this way, too; blanket around the shoulders to stay warm. :)

Anyhow, work was okay, usual average day, then it was off to the gym. Everything's going well, until (*cue ominous music*)... one particular ab move that my trainer was having me do. I'm lying on my back on a mat, and she's standing above me. She throws me the medicine ball, I reach my arms up to touch it to the ground over my head, then I sit up and throw it to her. We've done this before, with no adverse effects.

Well, this time something went wrong with the first throw, and I took the ball to the side of the face, knocking my glasses askew. Sure enough, they'd gotten bent. My trainer was all apologetic, but I didn't really care; that kind of thing happens, and it's not like they couldn't be fixed. Big deal. So we did the rest of the workout with me sans glasses, which, once I get used to seeing the world kinda blurred, isn't that big of a deal. My glasses came apart on me one day at the gym at the start of my workout (I was just there on my own) and I did the rest of it without 'em. It's kinda neat, 'cause you wind up in your own little world and less distracted by other people.

After we finished that workout, we were standing about seven or eight feet apart and doing various exercises that way. One of them involved her throwing it to me, then me throwing it back to her. Well, the first time she did it I was understandably a little cautious, what with the lack of vision and all, and she kinda laughed when I caught it. I said something about her seeing the look of abject terror on my face, and she laughed again. I think I might've looked a little worried a few times, but otherwise everything was fine.

I got to use boxing gloves yesterday, too -- the kinds you use when you're doing kick-boxing and stuff. She held up the targets and I did various punching exercises, and that was kinda fun. Better watch out everyone; I pack a pretty pathetic punch. But my triceps are a little more obvious now, so someday soon...

We also did chin-ups and even dips (a new one for me) on the gravitron and she said that when I did the dips I was doing really well. She was telling me that I had really good form, and that I'm getting strong -- she's removed 20 lbs from the stack (the gravitron works with your own body weight, minus whatever weight stack you have, so removing from the stack makes it more of your own weight you're lifting), and I'm doing well. Yay, me! :)

So aside from the glasses fiasco, the gym was good times. Afterwards, I trudged upstairs to get the glasses fixed, where the girl asked first if I'd bought them there, to which I said no, and then she said that they could try to fix my glasses, but if something happened, they couldn't be held responsible. Now, they do have a sign that says the same thing, but still -- I was thinking if something did happen, I damn well was going to hold them responsible. I was feeling kinda ragey at that point. *grrr*

Since it was going to be a half-hour, I went and found a bench and read. Now, I hadn't bothered to dry my hair, since I was just heading home; I'd just washed and brushed it, then stuffed it under my loser hat and that was that. This meant that I had a bit of a cold head going on -- nothing too bad, but it wasn't the best feeling. Of course, the bench that I sat down on seemed to be directly beneath a draft or an air-conditioning vent, so I wasn't the most comfortable while I waited. :P So much for my dreams of going home and being toasty warm, right? Maybe sitting under all those windows wasn't the best of ideas.

Anyhow, glasses were fine, no problems -- I was dreading them breaking, having to get a new pair, wear contacts today to work, and so on and so forth, but it was fine. Weird thing was that just today I'd thought about wearing contacts to the gym, but I don't have any solution yet -- and I'm lazy. :) (Contacts aren't fun to take out when you have long or fake nails. :P)

I got home, and rather than a stifling blast of heat to greet me, there was a little space heater. My apartment was a comfortable 20 degrees, and even the bedroom was at a decent temperature (I guess there are some advantages to having a small place). I left the thing running overnight, but I kept it where it was, on top of the DVD player and near the fish (though pointed away from them). I also unplugged it before I left the house; save myself some electricity and whatnot.

Since I was feeling kinda lazy on the dinner department, I decided to make myself a grilled cheese sandwich. The light above the stove was on, since I was working in that space, and my floor lamp was on, because it's my primary light source -- it's brighter than having both overhead lights turned on. :P I also had the television on and the space heater running. I'm just setting the scene for you all, so you can follow. I put the bread in my crappy toaster oven to defrost, and when it finished its run and made its clunk sound (rather than ding, which a quality toaster oven would do) to signify it was done, the television, space heater, floor lamp, microwave, computer and clock radio (both in my bedroom) all shut off. My mind registered the light that was still on in the kitchen, so I knew the power wasn't out, I'd just tripped a breaker. 'Cause I'm dumb and despite knowing the drain that a space heater makes on a circuit, hadn't really realized it.

(The news just said that temperates are "several" degrees below normal. Oh yeah, several -- normal ranges for now are between -7 and -15 I seem to recall, and we're at like, -31. Oh yeah, "several.")

So, having looked around at various panels in my apartment already, I knew to go into my bedroom and take a peek at what was there. Admittedly, I picked up my cordless phone initially to see if I could call my dad on it if I needed to ('cause you see, cordless phones needs 'lectricity), but that was just a backup. Looked at the panel, saw one out of line, pushed it back, and ta-dah! Magic happened. ("Trumpy, you can do *stupid* things!")

Aside from that, the evening was moderately quiet until D called and said that rumours were circulating around our old workplace about things we'd supposedly gotten up to. I talked it over with him, explained the two people that I could think of where it might've come from (as most of my discussions about relationships took place with my close friends, not people I worked with), and told him that I'd back him up with whatever he wanted to say to deal with it. I've had too many times where there have been rumours circulating about me, so I understand how frustrating and depressing it is.

It made me realize this morning how much I prefer working with people who are senior to me, as opposed to people my age or younger. At some places, it's primarily kids, and they *gossip* like you wouldn't believe. Everyone is against everyone else, and it's so cliquish and obnoxious, and it's something that I've found whenever I'm surrounded by young people. Whereas here in the government, or even my old daytime job, I was working with people who were in their 30s and 40s, and they've put all that bitchy bullshit behind them -- for the most part. I know this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's certainly applied so far. When people are married and have families, they care less about who in the office is dating who, or what that person might've done with their girlfriend or boyfriend, or even trying to backstab someone to get ahead in life. I only wish I'd started here sooner, so I could've rid myself of the bookstore dust sooner... but what can you do?

*sigh* People suck. :P

I think that was the end of the bad yesterday. I chatted with some friends online, then decided to just head off to bed -- I needed the rest rather desperately. Wow -- CAA had 300 calls per hour in Ontario yesterday. Sorry, news interruption. :) Apparently parking cops didn't go out yesterday, so that was kinda nice. :)

Today I'm heading home at some point to spend the night with the folks and the cats, then I'm learning how to knit. Yay, knitting! :) In the evening is skating, so long as the weather stays mild; I'm not going out if it's below say, -15, especially if it's windy. I'll be proud of being a wimp, thank you very much -- my ears are still somewhat sore from a few days ago, when I think they might've gotten frostbitten. :P

I went and saw Big Fish on Tuesday. I enjoyed what I got to see of it; somewhere about 20 or 30 minutes before the end of the movie, the fire alarm went off and we had to clear out. :P I don't really want to watch the whole thing again just to find out how it ends, so I'm either going to have to "find" it, or wait until it comes out on video (or pester Heather until she tells me. :)

And this is long enough, so I think it's time to study or something (note to self: take study materials home). Yay, studying. :P