I got a chance to meet with my adviser today and we figured out the problem. All this time, we've been going by my "units attempted" not "units earned". If my units attempted counted for graduation, then I'd be fine. But those 2 math classes I had to take in 05 and 06? Because they are considered "remedial", they don't count for graduation, so even though I'd taken 8 units of math I hadn't "earned" 8 units of math. And no one bothered to tell me until 3 days before graduation.


Today, I did not win.

GUESS HOW MUCH A 4-UNIT SUMMER COURSE WILL COST.

Go ahead, guess!


$2,008!!!

As in: 2008! My graduation year!

It's true. The hold is off my account; I checked my transcript, I'm short 4 units. I'm absolutely bewildered because my units were supposed to be carefully calculated. Now all that remains is fixing this fucked up situation. Again, hats off to the U of P for letting me know in a timely manner. Summer classes begin THIS Monday, so I'm glad I have those 2 days that I already had plans for to figure out how to get out of this quagmire.

So, here's to me, the almost-graduate. Good fucking show old girl.

Update on the fiasco from hell:

I went to check my unofficial transcript to count the units myself (even though by now I've gotten yet another email saying, "I'm sorry, unfortunately there has been no mistake"), but I couldn't look at my student records because I have a financial hold on my account.
So I drive to campus, to pay off the balance. I am informed that credit card payments are only accepted via my online account, not at the finance office, and that they do not accept Visa (Visa is the only credit card I own).
Lucky for me Neko lets me use his Mastercard,but I'm having difficult figuring out where I'm supposed to pay. I call tech support. Doesn't the term "tech support" imply some sort of knowledge about computers and the Internet? Well, the guy tells me where to go, but it's having difficulties loading, and I ask him, "Does this website ever have trouble with Firefox?" and he stammers and is all, "Excuse me? Firewhat?" and I repeat myself, "I said. Does this website. Ever have trouble. With FIREFOX". "Uh, um, I'm afraid I don't understand ma'am".

GEEGOLLYWHIZ. I've never heard of this thing called the interwebs! Sounds like sorcery to me!

Anyway, it eventually works and I pay the amount. Now I'm waiting to the hold to come off. In the meantime, I've contacted my academic adviser, he told me get in contact with the department dean, and now I'm going to put my ice water packs on my eyes.

I really love how the University of the Pacific waits until three days before graduation to tell me that I'm short 4 elective units for a degree. They "want to know when I plan on fulfilling those requirements either at Pacific or another 4-year institution so that they can extend my graduation term". Oh, and they're also "sorry" about the late notice.

I had a degree evaluation done LAST SEMESTER and everyone said, "Oh yeah, you're good to go".

And NOW I get a "Oh, by the way, you're not graduating" email, just you know, a little FYI.

I don't know about you, but my dinner was pretty amazing. Fried tofu, garlic-rosemary Okinawan potatoes, and creamed peas.

Well, this weekend is my long-awaited and much anticipated college graduation. That's right, I done got me a education. So the end of this week will be pretty jam-packed. Thursday I'm driving to San Francisco to go shopping with my little sister and have dinner with my family. Friday my parents will be in Stockton to attend my baccalaureate service with me, then we're going to the Alder Street Market for dinner.
Saturday: graduation ceremony then BBQ reception at Beka and Joe's. Yay!

Also, when I talked to my mom on Mother's Day, I found out that she is indeed coming to my graduation. She lives in New Orleans and doesn't have much money, so I was under the impression that she wouldn't be coming because she couldn't afford it. But she is! Hooray for that too!

Our wonderful beautiful betta, pretty much the only fish I've liked our cared about since Susumu, died tonight. This fish had it all: looks AND personality.

I'm over fish.

I was feeling nostalgic for my time spent in the U.K. last summer, so I decided to peruse my pictures and realized I haven't shared very many of them online.

This one is from an abandoned abbey in the highlands of Scotland.

Well, today had been a blast until about 30 minutes ago. I aced my photo final, our teacher brought pizza...

And then my dad calls.

"I've got some bad news". And right then I knew someone was dead, but I was hoping it'd be a dog or a cat.

"Sonny's dead".

I guess I'll take a minute to explain who Sonny was, more specifically who Sonny and Fred were. I don't know how my parents found them, I guess through word-of-mouth when they were looking for landscapers and interior designers when they were remodeling in the early 90's. They were a gay couple landscaping duo. Sonny was big and masculine and defied almost every stereotype one might have about gay men. Fred was gentler and a bit more effeminate. And somehow, they became more than just two guys landscaping our yard; they became dear family friends. They babysat us kids all time, took us to sixflags, let us ride on the tractor. And so I grew up with these men almost always present in my life.
A few years ago, Sonny and Fred ended their very long relationship, and Fred was kinda never heard from again, sadly, but what-can-you-do? Sonny stuck around in Montgomery for the most part and he and my dad remained pretty close.
I won't go into details about Sonny's personal demons, but needless to say he had his fair share of them, and last night while partying and having drank a great deal of vodka, and gobbled a handful of pills and stopped breathing shortly thereafter.
My dad says he has no reason to believe it was intentional.

The last time I saw him alive was at the New Year's Eve ball I went to in Montgomery because my younger sister was being 'presented' at it. Sonny was drunk as a skunk and being super sentimental...telling everyone, "I raised these kids! They're my babies!" to anyone who'd listen. It was sweet. I showed him my brand-new engagement ring, and he kissed it and said, "He's good looking, right?" And I said, "Of course!"
I guess I'll have to remove his name from my wedding guest list now.

Here's a picture of him from that night with my dad. (Sonny is the bald one on the left)



I'm having a hard time sorting through what I'm feeling right now. I'm certainly not in hysterics or anything, but I just feel depressed and numb and confused. Whenever someone dies unexpectedly, even if it's someone I don't know, like a celebrity, I always get this wind-rushing-in-my-ears sensation of the resolute feeling of knowing that person is gone forever. I might fall asleep and wonder if it was a dream when I wake up.

What a shame. A bloody shame.

Shooting in RAW is a million times more convenient than shooting JPG. Why on earth did I ever think otherwise? Because I wasn't having to tediously and unsuccessfully try to white balance 370 overly-magenta photos before, I guess.

GRR!

It seems I should offer a real update to the Livejournal Gods.

-I had my English Language final on Monday. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Hopefully my average pre-final will stay the same or go up.
Yesterday were my final critiques in photography and ceramics.Both went well, I think. I don't know what grade I'll be getting in Photography over all, but my ceramics professor told me I earned a B+ for the semester, which I'll gladly take.
I have a written exam for photography tomorrow, and after that I'm done, save for finishing up my online computer class at Delta.
I'll be graduating in 10 days. I meant to take a moment to really let everything sink in, realize these were my last times at Pacific, my last moments as an undergrad, but as usual, I was in too much of a hurry.
Well, that's it I guess.

-I helped Mary shoot the Stockton Police Departments' annual retiree uhhh thing (I think they call it a ball, but it's definitely not up to 'ball' standards). Anyway, I shot over 300 candids, and I've been wanting to get started on processing those, but I have to wait for her to tell me whether she wants me to crop them as 4x6's or 5x7's. (Depends on what kind of album she gets)

-Any tips on keeping scratches from turning into scars? I scar really easily, and last Friday, Teapot Von Schadenfreude scratched the shit out of me. We were just playing around and suddenly she want to predator attack survival mode, and for about 3 seconds, she was no longer domesticated household pet, she was a wild animal. She bit me so hard it drew blood and she did that hind-leg-kicking thing across my wrists. *rolls eyes* Stupid cat.
Last night Neko suggested having her euthanized and I said, yeah to put her out of her misery, and Neko was like, No, to put her out of OUR misery.

Stuff White People Like was freaking hilarious at the start of the new year, but I think they've been a victim of their own success and are seriously running out of new material, because the posts are getting stupid. "White people like to uhhh....eat!"

Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

I swear I can stop these 2-line posts anytime I want to. I'm not addicted.

Are we supposed to call Africans in Africa African Africans?

I'm kinda nauseous and gaggy this morning because I have a final at 11:00. So when I scrolled down my FL and saw the latest "Get Bento" feed for Japanese Dry Curry with Soybeans I literally gagged.

Being me is such a blast sometimes.

Somehow I got the foolish idea that going to wash my car and getting gas would be fun.
Something, maybe it was the foaming brush that smelled like a rotten french fry fart, or the machine that didn't warn me my time was running out, so I had to deposit $2 just to finish rinsing one side of my car, or the vacuum with no suction (after I deposited a dollar in it), or the $30 it cost for a half tank of gas, or the guy who decided to stop in the middle of Pershing Ave so he could talk to the car in the left lane, or the school children who think the street is their personal sidewalk...At least one of these things made the whole experience not fun.


The good news is that I'm getting a B in a class I thought I was doing not-so-well in. Hoorah!

$3.50 flip flops from Old Navy are much better than $30 flip flops from American Eagle.

It seems like every time I'm watching random videos on youtube, I accidentally learn about some weird sexual fetish I'd never heard of before.
Yesterday, it was diaper porn (which I found looking up the trailer to the movie 'Baby Mama') and today it was fat-belly squeezing, which I found looking up videos of cute pandas.

For neuk, per our conversation earlier...

Because I was so exhausted yesterday evening, clearly the logical thing to do was to go over to Jeff's and hang out until 2:00 AM. Neko had no compunction about drinking cheap beer with 19 year olds, but I got to snuggle with a teeny tiny kitten for hours. Jeff's girlfriend brought over her kitten, just for me. As soon as I saw "him" (she had told me her cat was a boy), and I knew it was a girl, because she was a dilute tortoiseshell. Sure enough, after I proved to everyone that the cat indeed had a vag, there was much surprise all around, and the cat became a girl.

After that I had major kitten fever. The cure of course, is more kitten.

So, the job interview. We talked for over an hour. He didn't offer me a job on the spot, but it seemed to go well. I didn't leave feeling great about the whole situation though, because 1) If I'm hired, I could be getting myself into something way over my skill level and 2) it pays per project. So some weeks there might be 60 hours worth of work, and some weeks none.

I dunno. I'm still bitter over the Children's Home thing. I just wish it would work out with going to school. I guess I could call them back up and ask them if school could be accommodated, but the lady I spoke to really seem to emphasize that a flexible schedule was mandatory.

As for the kinky photo shoot, well, it's my final project in photography. I'm having models pose in replications of torture positions from Abu Ghraib. And not surprisingly, many of them are of an erotic nature. The military are pervs.

Today was exhausting. Non-stop activity + only odwalla bar and coffee and chocolate croissant as nourishment = frazzled, headachey me.

School.

Had the interview at Element Photography Studio in Lodi. More on that later.

Spent about 2 hours taking pictures of people in humiliating, compromising positions (also more on that later, but I've discovered that studio photography and lighting is difficult, and I HATE TRIPODS)

Thank god for Siamese Street take-out, because today was definitely one of those days that if I had tried to cook I would have capsized in the kitchen.

Hmmmm. Looking back on it, it hardly seems like I did anything at all, but I swear, it was jampacked! Blackberry jam, even!