Invisibility has its drawbacks

Three seemingly-unrelated things happened this week:

• The pastor of my parents’ church found out (from my parents) I’m leaving in June. When I ran into him this week, he said “Come by my office before you leave [Name of Church] for Ghana.”
• I got a bill from Auburn University. For $0.00.
• I got an email from my old work supervisor - a generic “timesheets are due” reminder.

I haven’t worked that job for almost three months. I graduated from Auburn in December. I haven’t attended my parents’ church in over three years. What the heck, people.

I didn’t fall!

(OR lose my hat.)

The graduation ceremony went off without a hitch (minus idiots with microphones; seriously, WTF mate?).

The post-ceremony-diploma-retrieval went off with slightly more of a hitch: Your’s Truly still, technically, does not have a degree. In a “funny” turn of events, Auburn University either 1) lied to me earlier this week, when I was told my transfer transcripts were all A-OK, or 2) “misplaced” a transcript. in either case, I’m supposed to try again later this week to see if I can retrieve that all-important piece of paper.

Anyhoo. I have a “Photos” section. Did you notice? There are now way too many photos of me available for your perusal.

On the waiting-for-news front: we’re still waiting for news.

I beg your pardon, I have an announcement

SCHOOL’S OUT FOREVER*, BITCHES!

I have officially finished school. Feel free to shower me with laud if you’re in the area. I walk on the 17th. 2pm. Come if you’re around. There will be CAKE.

*Technically “forever” = until graduate school, so for ~3 years. I just really love the sound of FOREVER right now.

I don’t understand American sporting events

[Continuing in the vein of pseudo-counterpatriotic-arrogance…]

I went to a football game this weekend. For those counting, this makes two. It was long. The sky was pretty. I was nearly molested by a bird. Some guy proposed to his girlfriend after it was over. I was able to watch on the 1200² ft.* ubertron I helped pay for.

I think we won, too.

*Yes. A screen with the squarefootage of a two-bedroom-house. That is correct.

Google ate my brain, and I’m ok with that

(But I think I already said that a few years ago. In the first of tonight’s “other news”-es, that really was a few years ago. Snap.)

Finally re-acquired my photos (yay!) yesterday, so tonight I loaded the least-crappy ones onto Picasa. I had no idea that, since I last checked, Google’s web album service had gained the things I asked for (tagging, video support, & easier organization). Granted, it’s been like… a year… since I thought about it. So that’s nifty.

Three albums cover the summer; at the moment they’re not public so just bookmark or some such.

• Month the First: Yunnan Province
• Hong Kong & Shanghai
• English Camp

Eventually I will get around to georeferencing* locations, tagging things and writing captions - really.
*I’m a geography major, I can actually use that word legally.

Side note: has the horizontal rule (<hr> tag) been deprecated, or is my current code just wonky? I’m curious, yet too lazy to find out.

As promised, in other news: for the non-Auburn characters, work & class started back this week. Work went well; we have a new guy who seems like he’ll make it on our little funny farm. I don’t think I actually got to sit in the office for more than 5 minutes Thursday, and I ran around not one, but two, buildings - yay first week goodness. I’m fairly ambivalent over class. I think I have finally, finally reached acceptance of the fact that ‘holy crap, this is my last semester here’. The heavens opened, rain fell, thunder shouted it’s approval.

And finally, in other, other news: Ryan North has an awesome hat, but really needs a tan. For serious.

It’s so easy when you know the rules

At Auburn, they occasionally make you register for random classes-that-aren’t (but may play one on TV). If you study abroad for a semester, you still register a 0 credit class at AU. Same goes for transient enrollment, etc. I got to do that at USA, for study abroad, and later honors, credit. Never got a chance to have a 0-credit class on my schedule since moving back here, though. Until now.

About damn time.

Off the bum-rack, for a while

So I’ve started classes here at Auburn: and if you get text messages in the Auburn area, you’ve probably heard me say YOUR CAMPUS SUXX0RS about three times this week. It still does, for the record. Not a fan, kthxbye. But yeah, taking as many hours as They will allow, in the hopes of leaving ASAP. Don’t ask what my major is. Please, just, um, don’t.

Also keeping occupied with tutoring: I feed that bug via seeing a highschool kid every day for an hour or so — he’s fresh out of Korea, been here about three weeks; I absolutely adore him. And no, I’m not projecting my entire summer class onto him at all, not one bit. And then on Wed. nights I help teach a TOEFL-prep class to a bunch of folks in Auburn, but that just started last night - so we’ll see how it goes.

Ok, but the main news is: SARA GOTS A JORB, YO. Finally. Even though some of the tutoring pays, it’s not much. I needs monay. So now I work here, apparently. Ha ha, look at you try to click ‘here’, yeah right. (what, it’s 6am, I’m easily amused…). But essentially, a company based in Auburn that works with sportsy-folk in the US, and sells them expensive tech stuff. If you are a Power That Be’s with a high school or college sports team around the nation, and you owe moneys, I will be the one calling you to be all, GIMME MONEYS, BIATCH. Yeah. That’s me. 8am. Wake up, pay up.

So yeah: totally not that great, but better than delivery or restaurant work — which apparently is all that hires part-time in Auburn this time of year. Trust me, I looked everywhere this week.

That’s it for this week’s news — those of you who pray; another big change is on the horizon, with any luck (luck?) there’ll be an update on it in a day or two. Keep it in mind.

And yes. I have yet to post any follow-ups about China. I realize this. It’s less a matter of laziness or procrastination, more a matter of… well, procrastination, but in the sense of putting-this-off-because-I’m-not-wanting-to-deal. It’s really, really strange to process and synthesise all of everything, and there’s some part of me that doesn’t want to finalise it by getting it on virtual paper. So there. (However, photos have been flickr’d. Go view to your little heart’s content.)