Jobs and emo-ness and stalkers, oh my!

Here's the big update I've been promising for a while. I hope you're not disappointed!

I got a call yesterday for a job interview with the place I interned at in 2003, the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund. The interview is tomorrow so I'll be heading back to the suburbs for that. I am also supposed to hear back from Software Architects about my spring break interview by the end of the week, so I should know by sometime next week whether I will have either of these jobs or if I will be staying at NIU to finish out my degree. I get the impression that my mom does not want me to get a job that starts in June because she fears that I would end up neglecting my master's degree. The fears are unfounded because I could use my job as credit for two courses and then all I'd need for my master's degree is to pass the comprehensive exam.

That's my mom, though. She'd worry about having nothing to worry about. I love her, of course, but sometimes it seems like she doesn't have faith in me. I know that's not true, but it still bothers me a little bit. That's okay, though, because there are a lot worse things a mom could say or do, so I consider myself very fortunate to have her as mine.

* * *

I’ve caught myself whining about my poor luck with the ladies quite a bit recently. Chances are you probably haven’t had to endure my rants, but if you have then I apologize for being so emo. From now on I’m going to make a concerted effort to not spill my guts about my distaste for being single. It may not help me much (other than by reducing the guilt I derive from subjecting my friends to the blather), but hopefully those of you who have been unwilling psychologists will be able retire from that field—or at least take a long vacation.

* * *

So I spotted my gay stalker again today (introduced in this post). Once again he gave me a huge smile, a "hi", and a wave. Ugh... If I'm gonna have stalkers, why can't they at least be female?

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If you in the market for a good web comic I suggest checking out Perry Bible Fellowship. I'd call it a combination of Far Side with Penny Arcade (minus the video game theme), so if you like either of those strips you should enjoy this.


-Mark

Just a little update

Well with the completion of a computer program at around 11 PM last night my week of hell has ended. Now I have a little time to recuperate from the hectic schedule and poor sleep I have gotten. Of course as soon as this happens I get a cold. It's not terrible but it's enough to distract me and just make me know that it's there. It's a shame because I really need to rest now but it's so wonderful outside that I don't want to be cooped up in my apartment. Sigh... that's life for you I guess.

I did have some stuff I wanted to bring up about my job hunt and such, but I will post that later today. So keep your eyes peeled for that.

It's nap time. I shall return when I feel less icky.

-Mark

Break out the sunscreen

It's a balmy 57 degrees today and it's supposed to reach a blazing 68 tomorrow. With blazing hot weather like that, it's time to queue up some Jimmy Buffett tunes, grab a cold beverage, and relax. Unfortunately for me, my beverage is bottled water and my "relaxing" is a non-stop work for my classes—indoors at a computer, to add insult to injury. Well, at least I've got Jimmy!

My weekend was very busy but also quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned work, I don't have time to get into it quite yet. Tonight or Tuesday I should be able to add a nice lengthy post, however, so stay tuned!

-Mark

"My wallet's gone!"

R.I.P., Morty Seinfeld.

It figures

I was just thinking the other day about how everybody else has gotten sick this winter except for me, and now I appear to be coming down with a nasty cold. I'd better be careful not to think about how everybody appears to be dying except for me...

-Mark

Back to DeKalb

Well, after a long day of watching basketball, packing, driving, and unpacking, I'm back amongst the cornfields in DeKalb. It actually feels good to get back to the grind, as weird as that may seem.

-Mark

Dear Diary...

Today was pretty uneventful. I stumbled out of bed at 8:20 A.M. (on a paltry 6 hours of sleep) and managed to drive my car to the dealership to have a part replaced due to a safety recall. My mom had the day off so she agreed to follow and drive me back home, though we ended up going to Ikea and Borders before returning to la casa. Picked up the car not long after... they actually put it through the car wash, so now all the disgusting dirt stains have been extricated. That is awesome, at least until the pearly white exterior is gunned down by dirt again sometime in the near future.

The afternoon was lazy. I casually watched the Cubs-Sox spring training game, read (and finished) a book I checked out from the library (Twisted by Jonathan Kellerman, which I highly recommend to anyone who likes to read and is not squeamish), and played a game of MVP. (I'm 130-30, with only 2 more games left until the playoffs begin... not that you would care.) I also worked on some stuff for my job, although I didn't make as much progress as I would have liked. Oh well, I am on spring break, so that can be forgiven.

My good buddy and first-ever roommate, John Burkholder, stopped by after dinner and we watched the first two episodes of season 1 of 24. I think I've got him hooked. (Not that I had to do much of anything—all it takes is popping in the DVDs, sitting back, and letting Jack Bauer work his magic.) John, who is a loyal reader of this wonderful blog, is a great guy with whom I survived freshman year at Grant. No matter how much nasty stuff I say about that place or my freshman year there, I probably have more memories from then than in any year since. Not all of them are good, but most of them are interesting.

Still no word on the job that I interviewed for, but that's not a big surprise. The official timetable for hearing the decision is two weeks, so that means at the latest I should know by March 29th. Until I find out, keep your fingers crossed for me.

-Mark

A snowy update

After the fairly warm weather we had on Wednesday I was quite disappointed to wake up to snow this morning—however little of it there may be. This week has been alternating between a spring break and a winter break.

I haven't had a real update in quite a while, so I'll start with my job interview this past Tuesday. I think it went well—not perfect by any means, but well enough where I feel pretty good about my chances. It's now time to play the waiting game, as the company makes its decision and then gets back to me. I have a few things to say about the job but I don't want to mention them right now because I don't know if I will be hired, so if and when that time comes I'll return to that subject.

Break so far has been okay but not great. I haven't had a whole lot of time to relax but I won't complain because there are people in the world with real problems so I don't want to be a whiner. I somewhat look forward to coming back to NIU so that I can see my friends and such, although I will miss my family and my mom's cooking. I'm also not looking forward to lugging all of my shit back to DeKalb, but I'll get by.

I think I'm going to be trying to ween myself off of chatting for a little while. I've been chatting several hours a day since late last year, and I rarely get anything else done when I'm chatting. Between school work, reading, and some writing I've been meaning to do, I have a lot on my plate and I want to accomplish it all. So if you don't see me on AIM, don't fret—I'm still alive. I'm always available if you want to call or e-mail me, too.

I was very, very tired when I went to bed last night, so I had some pretty vivid dreams. Two in particular stood out. In the first one, I was a member of a group of people who were trying to blast our way out of from some kind of monster-infested cemetary. (I have no idea where that came from, but apparently I was a pretty good shot.) The other dream involved a family member and myself going to a restaurant. The girl who seated us flirted with me a lot and then just gave me her phone number out of the blue. Man, if only it was that easy! Hopefully, though, the people who think dreams predict future life are actually on to something...

I've got a lot of mundane and boring tasks to accomplish today before I go out for St. Patrick's Day tonight, so I'd better shove off and get to work. Those of you who will be celebrating in a pub or bar tonight, enjoy yourselves and try not to wake up half-naked in the street.

-Mark

Early bedtime

Well I had originally intended to leave a longer post here for you to chew on, but due to an unusually early wake-up time on Tuesday morning for my job interview I will have to keep this concise. Spring break has been okay so far, although I've been kind of lonely and bored. I will be in good spirits later this week, though, after my job interview goes well (as I am confident it will) and we get to the St. Patty's Day celebration on Thursday. Can't forget the start of the NCAA tournament!

I really don't know how to end this so I'll just say thanks for reading and I'll be back soon. God that sucked, but oh well... I'm tired!

-Mark

It's coming

According to a news post at Think Secret, the next version of Mac OS X (10.4, a.k.a. "Tiger") will be coming out by the end of May. Since I was waiting for that to be released before purchasing my 15" PowerBook, it looks like I now have a timetable for getting my laptop. I can't wait!

-Mark

It's late and I'm tired

-Mark

Apologies to Chad

I got an e-mail from Bill just now. It seems like things are going about as well as can be expected over in Iraq, which is great news. The DVD of 24 that Dan sent him seems to have hit the spot, as he is once again enjoying the adventures of Jack Bauer and his CTU comrades.

I e-mailed him back and suggested that he check out my blog. Well, if he's gonna do that then I wanted to give him a post that would make him smile, and what better way to do that than to post the funniest picture in the world? As the title states, apologies to Chad for exposing his dark side, but hopefully Bill will get a solid chuckle out of this classic photo montage.

Now, as much as I'd like to sit down and come up with some good material for Sergeant Dunn (he is a sergeant, right?) I have an exam to study for, sleep to get, an exam to study for after waking up, an exam to take, and a meeting to prepare for. Thank God Friday is only 2 days away!

-Mark

Mmm, potatoes!

So yeah, you know a bag of potatoes needs to be disposed of when there is more growth in the bag than there are potatoes... and also when there is a big nasty puddle of spoiled potato juice festering under the bag.

This is just a public advisory for all you uninformed people out there. I'd hate for you to have to go through the disgusting sensory nightmare that Chad and I partook in on Monday. (Of course, if you do, then Glade plug-ins are your best friend.)

If you happened to be eating when you read this message, well, I apologize—and I hope you weren't eating any potatoes!

-Mark

There's a first time for everything

Well I have to say that I'm glad U of I lost. No offense to the team but I was sick and tired of everybody kissing their ass (coughChicagoTribunecough). I hope they do well in the tournament (at least until they play North Carolina) but I'm thankful the perfection thing can be put to rest. Now once the local media stops slitting their collective wrists over this loss, we can get ready for some March Madness!

A while back I got an unsolicited and anonymous instant message informing me that I was, in fact, hot. I was confused, as this rarely happens to me. Well as it turns out the giver of said compliment, "Drew," also offered certain, uh, favors any time I wanted them. Well let me just say I blocked that guy faster than Tyson Chandler blocks a 5'10" point guard. I don't know where he got the impression that he did, but I think "Drew" needs to go get his gaydar fixed. Anyway, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because I think I know who may be behind that message. There is this guy I've seen a few times in passing in the parking garage who I'm pretty sure is a computer science major (and, hence, would have seen me around). Whenever I've passed him he's flashed this big smile and said, "Hi!" I've always wondered why he does this, as I've never met the man in my life. It hit me today, though, that this may be the creepy instant messenger. I guess it doesn't really matter one way or the other, but if this is true then it would at least explain these two bizarre situations.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

-Mark

Are you with me?

This is Ron Santo. This man should be in the Hall of Fame, but he was not selected by the baseball writers nor has he been selected by the first two meetings of the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee. This is a shame... no, remove the 'e', it's just a sham. He's one of the top handful of third basemen ever, yet he has yet to be recognized for that excellence.

I am joining my pal Nick in boycotting the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown until this matter is resolved. Now, I had no plans to go there anyway, but now I definitely won't until Ronnie is there first.

That is all.

-Mark

I need sleep...

Yeah I know, it's late. That's why I'm going to keep this really short. I had an interesting day, with my exam at 5 PM. I studied all morning and early afternoon, although a sinus headache (and the accompanying blurred vision) hampered that somewhat. Thankfully, I think I did alright on the test.

While I was studying I got a call from ASAP Software. I passed along my resume to them at the job fair and apparently they have some interest in hiring me. I didn't get a chance to really discuss it on Tuesday because I was busy preparing for the exam, but I am supposed to get a call today regarding the job. They will probably want to set up an interview, so if that's the case then hopefully it goes well. I am still very interested in the job from Software Architects, but it never hurts to have options. I just hope that I get a job soon and don't have to spend the summer months looking for one while I finish up my graduate work.

(Speaking of job interviews, I wish the best to both Dan and Tim, who have had them recently.)

Gah, my eyelids are betraying me! I think that's the sign that I should go to bed now, so I will. Adios for now, amigos.

-Mark