Okay, I have to write this down because it’s too funny to forget about. It’s not a recent event by any means, but talking to Jules and Rosey this morning I was reminded of the incident.

This was probably in like…late 2000 or early 2001, I can’t quite recall. I was in the University Biology lab with my classmates, and for some reason our lab for that day was centered around goat blood. This class was pretty strange to begin with because it was a 5-credit Honors Biology class, so it was full of really smart and motivated people, but it was taught by a man who, to put it mildly, shouldn’t have been teaching a university course at all, let alone an honors one. The labs we did had nothing to do with our lectures or our discussions, so I don’t even know why we bothered. But yeah…I think my group had gotten most of our lab work done and we were just sitting around, or else I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on. (I hated that class!) Each lab table had a Mac sitting on it which we were supposed to use to record our lab data, and for the most part, that’s what we used it for. But due to boredom, I set the default speech voice to “Deranged” and began typing in the text editor. This voice is supposed to be an insane man with a very nervous and wavery voice, but it comes out sounding an awful lot like a goat.

Now, if you haven’t used a Mac very much, you might not realize that there is a feature in the text editor that allows you to have the voice read aloud what you’ve typed. Well, most of my classmates didn’t know about this either and you could imagine their surprise when the computer started talking to them. I had the volume up a little higher than I expected and this deranged goat voice interjected, “Stop looking at my blood, you bastards!” (that link is an audio file, btw) My face turned beet red and suddenly everyone started laughing, including the teacher. Then, once I explained to everyone how I’d done it, there was a chorus of goat voices filling the room.

Ahhhh, so nice to know that some people are as easily amused as I am.

I must have been sleeping wrong the last couple nights because my neck, shoulders, and base of my skull are just aching. It’s fine when I’m looking straight ahead but as soon as I turn, there’s pain. :-(

I’ve been keeping myself pretty busy lately. When I haven’t been cleaning up stuff, I’ve been working on Ross’s blanket (about 10 rows away from being half done) and watching various things I’ve downloaded, including episodes of The Kids in the Hall, The Upright Citizens Brigade and now Twin Peaks. I finally saw Hero on the recommendation of many people. I will have to watch it again as I wasn’t quite ready for it from a stylistic perspective. I’ve never seen a Chinese kung-fu or swordfighting film before so it took me awhile to realize that breaking the rules of physics was the norm. I spent a good portion of the movie thinking “Hey, he can’t do that!” Now I sort of “get it” so I can appreciate its artistry rather than expecting it to be realistic. The colors in that movie were unbelievable…I mean, my god. In a way parts of it reminded me of What Dreams May Come because it was almost like watching a painting in motion. Everything was graceful and flowing and just utterly elegant. I’m pretty sure the version I got was the US version because it was just under an hour long. :\ Oh well, I’ll be watching it again with Rosey in Australia so I’ll get a much richer experience. Also saw Mystic River, which was extremely well acted…Tim Robbins and Sean Penn were amazing….as well as The Cider House Rules which was really interesting and engaging. I kept looking at Michael Caine though, and only seeing him as Nigel Powers with the horrible teeth, so a little of his prestige as a doctor in that role was lost on me. XD

Last night Jules got broadband so he and I talked over Skype for quite awhile, then we conferenced with Will and Hiroko. Waaaaa. That was so much fun. I love hearing his voice and listening to his accent…. :-D I listened to him some more this morning as well, and Rosey was there so I got to hear her too. Rosey’s accent is soooooooooo cute. I told the anecdote described above about the goat blood, and she laughed so hard she was rolling around on Jules’ bed clutching her stomach. Waaaa. I can tell we’re going to have so much fun together! :-D Then a bit later after Jules had taken Rose home, he got an SMS on his phone from Ross, which turned me to insta-guu because it was instructing Jules to tell me that Ross loves me. X3~~~~~~ It was so nice to hear from Ross, even indirectly like that, because it just reaffirms that he’s okay and still thinking about everything despite being so busy. Waaaa, I just love him so much! X3

I’m proud of myself for holding up so well in his absence. In the past, in similar situations (with various people) I’ve gone through a great deal of freaking out and obsessing over the fact that I simply cannot talk to them and desperately want to, where it gets to the point that I can’t focus on anything but that fact and begins to interfere with my life. This time, though, I have been very happy and relaxed for the most part, have maintained a decent amount of focus on important tasks, and have kept myself busy. I haven’t even felt the need to obsess. This is yet another thing that goes to prove that the relationship I share with Ross is very different than anything I’ve experienced before. Instead of feeling desperation and painful longing when I think of him, I feel happiness and warmth, and it makes me smile. :3 Waaaaa, Rossssssss….

Tonight I am getting my copy of Silent Hill 4. I’ve been waiting with great anticipation for this to finally be released…it’s ridiculous that it took this long given that even the Japanese release of the game contained an English version of the text, so it’s not like they had to do any translations or anything. Meh. From what I’ve read it’s supposed to be a pretty big disappointment but I’m not going to expect anything either way so I’ll comment on my reaction to it once I’ve played some of it. Personally I thought Silent Hill 3 was fantastic, even though lots of people bash it. 2 has always been my favorite of the series, if only because I played that one before the others.

I did a little tally today Ross: 64 days to go, just barely over 2 months. :-D