Holiday News

Tipsy and I spent a most uneventful break at Miss Caitlin's Parents' house. The esteemed Deirdre accompanied us on the train at the beginning of break. Miss Caitlin was sympathetic to my suggestion that it would be extremely rude to leave her alone on the desk here for Thanksgiving, and there was no opportunity for her to return to Miss Adrien while we were still at University. So we brought her with us and returned her to Miss Adrien on the day before Thanksgiving, when Miss Caitlin visited Miss Adrien and her Puppy, who were both staying at Miss Adrien's Parents' house.

We had a diverting time catching up with all of our friends at Miss Caitlin's Parents house, including Hamlet the Elder, who was visiting Miss Caitlin's room, having been long neglected by her brother. Her brother was also in attendance, though only for a few days, as he had to make sure that their lab's cellular research was not neglected.

Having returned yesterday, Miss Caitlin has commenced with Holiday preparations. Caitlin adorned the windows with snowmen and snowflakes, and Master Gabriel accompanied her in the picking out of a small Christmas Tree for the apartment. She belatedly realized that she had forgotten a star for the tree, and that it could do with some more beads. However, it is suitably charming for the time-being.

Miss Caitlin also found out today that the English Honors Committee has accepted her revised proposal for her project, so she will begin looking for sources to check out over the long winter break to begin her research. She will be examining creatures like "the Fey" in different cultures and will try to ascertain if they are connected to each other or to a common ideal. While the committee said that she had picked a large project, they approve of her enthusiasm.

Otherwise, Miss Caitlin's time will be spent between final projects for her various classes as well as keeping her sanity. She has yet to commence her scene design project, but that will be begun for certain tomorrow, as they have time to work in class. Otherwise, she will be fitting things in as she can.

The Continued Adventures of the Snowdrop

I am so sorry. There's been like two and a half Traveller games and I haven't reported on them. One was a short day where Sera Lewellan made sure that the local authorities were aware that the Snowdrop was in NO WAY involved with the bombing of a rebel base. They also made a fair profit on their speculative trade goods. It was short because Cat was really sick and couldn't focus on the game.

In the next exciting session, the ship was almost blown up by pirates. Comm and sensors officer Midnight and Pilot Chester Mannix had their hands full managing the long distance battle with a ship significantly larger than they were. With the help of the Steward's shooting as well as the engineering know how of Chad Ahron and Van Hawkins, the ship managed to stay together while taking the pirates down. Captain Gerrick Ransly kept the crew organized while the battle took place, and even managed to help hack into the enemy's computer. Drake Reed waited impatiently for a boarding that never came while Sera Lewellan stood at the back of the bridge with her fingers crossed that these fools would NOT succeed in blowing her and her ship up.

Having triumphed with a ship that was barely holding together, they limped to the spaceport in system where they received a discount for having taken out an impediment to business. While the ship was being repaired, the crew sampled "Argentinian" Pizza and gambled. Captain Gerrick ran into an old friend from the time he was in "information gathering" for a organized crime boss a few systems over. His friend, in "acquisitions," needed a loan to complete a pre-arranged transaction. Not liking the thought of what would become of his friend should his business not come through, Gerrick agreed to loan him 20,000 credits with a nice interest rate. Unfortunately for Gerrick, his friend was nailed and port security got his name. Gerrick lied his way out of charges of aiding a drug run, but he was less than thrilled with the news that his friend had gotten away and did not seem likely to pay him back. Taking the group's muscle with him (Reed), Gerrick went to confront his friend about the 20,000 credits and interest that had been promised to him. Unfortunately for them, his friend was hopped up on some highly illegal and unstable psi-drugs that sparked an immediate fight. Leaving Reed stuck under a steel crate, the criminal escaped.

Gerrick of course informed port security of the criminal's whereabouts, but they where soon proven no match for the rouge psionic's mind powers, hiding ability, or his drug-filled tranq darts. Gerrick again decided to take matters into his own hands, taking with him Reed (who was pissed because the guy "cheated" with the telekinesis thing), Chad, Chester, and Carmichael the steward. The remainder of the crew ordered pizza delivery and watched the fight on the bridge, Midnight having used her hacking ability to put the security camera feeds up onto the main screen. In the firefight that ensued, Carmichael parried the psionic's telekinesis with powers of his own, much to the surprise of the rest of the crew. The crew succeeded in taking out the dangerous drug runner but decided that they had had enough trouble in the system and kept a low profile until their repairs were finished.

In other news, Cat went to see a play at the school Kyle went to. Snibbly went, and he went on and on about the whole thing forever. They saw the other Caitlin from the Girl Scout troop and heard all about her summer research. Again, Snibbly went on and on about cell wall permeability in red blood cells because of it (I think it was for Deirdre's benefit - she's visiting again - anyway it certainly wasn't for mine). They also saw Kyle and met some of his gaming friends (wish I was there for that at least).

She also went to Columbia one day to try and find shoes for work. No go on the shoes, but she did find an awesome hat to wear when she doesn't have time to do her hair in the morning.

Cat took the GRE while she was sick, and rocked its socks even though (because?) she was on a little too much medication, taken so she could sit up long enough to take the test.

Thanksgiving's this week. She still hasn't taken the tickets off the fridge and given them to me. She really ought to do this. HINT HINT. We'll get to see all the home people. It will be lots of fun.

My last bit of news is very sad and very solemn. After many years of faithful service, Cat's oven has given up all hope of life. It totally killed Cat's breadstick earlier tonight. And in like 4 minutes too. It was pretty sad. Cat left a phone message for her landlady about the tragedy. Hopefully the appropriate steps to dispose of the poor thing will be taken soon.

Cat's not here right not because she's at the play, "house managing." She says that means she bosses the ushers around and tells people not to bring food into the theater. It doesn't sound all that important to me. Cat doesn't really like the play, not that it's not done well, she says, she just isn't a fan of Brecht. I guess he wrote it. It's called Threepenny Opera. Anyway, tonight's the last night for that.

That's all for now folks. I'll try to stay on top of the Traveller thing better from now on. That was a lot to write!

Not on Her Way to Campagne

Miss Caitlin, as the title of this post would suggest, is not currently on her way to Champagne.

It was her hope to take advantage of the recess from classes that occurs tomorrow to visit the Library Science program at University of Illinois. Unfortunately, Miss Caitlin has been suffering from an illness that has not quite abated as of yet. While she is much improved, Miss Caitlin decided after much deliberation that she would be better served by staying home and resting tomorrow and calling and visiting the graduate program later.

Miss Caitlin is very frustrated that she had to make this choice, as she has been looking forward to leaving Kirksville and visiting her friends in Champagne. She is also frustrated that it has been gloriously fall like in weather conditions and temperature, and she has been unable to enjoy them, being stuck inside while ill. She was angry that she could not move her GRE examination from yesterday to a time when she would be healthier, but she did very well on the portions of the test that were already reported. However, the score she was most wanting to improve was her writing score, and that will not arrive for a few weeks. Miss Caitlin had to take a little more medicine than she was supposed to so that she would not cough through the entire test and prevent both herself and the unfortunate people who were in the room taking it with her from doing their best on the test. In general, Miss Caitlin is impatient with being ill and desires rapid improvement, which does not seem forthcoming.

Crafty

Cat made stuff for the Cabbage Patch Kids. Comfort is now the cutest Cabbage Patch Kid on the planet. Cat finally finished the shirt she's been working on since before school started - she had to make substantial alterations to the pattern - which annoyed Cat to no end, because it was supposed to fit the classic Cabbage Patch Kids, no problem. But all turned out well. Cat also made the cutest jumper on the planet. Comfort is now well stocked in flutterbies. Mrs. Cat's Mom will be jealous. The flash made the jumper look more blue, but really it's a plum purple. Without the flash it was blurry, so I included both.


Also pictured here is Sean-Spud in his PJs which Cat did two weeks ago. They're very warm, so Sean hasn't been wearing them much yet. But he wanted his picture taken in his new clothes with Comfort.

Adventures of the Snowdrop

Cat has been working on grad school stuff - slowly but she still has plenty of time. She was delayed by getting sick last weekend. It was a weird little thing - she was really sick for like 36 hours, and then she was fine, just a little tired. Anyway, not much got done over the weekend. Just the absolute necessities. But now her references have everything they need to reference for her, and she has most of a resume and most of a personal statement. Those things are going to get hammered out this week so she can have everything ready to put into applications in one go. She's also studying for the GRE with Sean (big Sean, not Spud - Spud wouldn't help her very much . . . ), and some on her own.

Today was a Traveller day! Almost as much fun as DnD days! Anyway, two weeks ago, the Snowdrop (a modified noble's pleasure yacht owned by Sera Richelle Llewellyn, Baroness of Umkahkuu) was employed to make use of the not-so-famous-but-very-intelligent Professor Van Hawkins's latest experiments - aka chemically enhanced weapons and explosives. The thing they were supposed to make use of this on was a base for insurgents with a free-Earth agenda (not very popular in an Imperialist setting, alas). There were grenades, and a really big fire, and the ship's hired gun was badly injured (no one was surprised) and the engineer was almost killed (everyone was not happy - engineers are important! Not that hired guns aren't . . . ), and Sera Llewellan had to bad mouth the nightside starport manager. But everyone made it out okay in the end and they retreated back to another system - one far enough away to hopefully not raise suspicion.

There they played on the fancy space station. Drake Reed (the hired gun) got in a bar fight over a not happening pool game, Chester Mannix (the pilot) and Chad Ahron (the engineer) went shopping, bought toys, guns, and candy, and saw a news report about they haven't been caught yet for blowing up buildings elsewhere in the sector, and Sera Llewellan lost her artificially intelligent robot when some navy sneaks wanted to see what kind of info he had inside of him. After paying off the port security for Reed's misdeeds, and kicking them into gear to help with Sera Llewellan's problem, Captain Gerrick Ransly and the rest of the crew (minus the delinquent Reed, who was kept on the ship by the Baroness's hand maid and her tranquillizer gun) got together to muster out the robot from possible harm.

After a bit of speculative buying, the Snowdrop is preparing to depart to deal with some pirates several systems away, hopefully for more profit this time. I know everyone will wait anxiously to hear the continuation of the Snowdrop's exploits, to be continued three weeks from now, when people are mostly done taking stupid tests and things. (Cat won't be, but that's okay - the next Traveller game is the week before she takes the GRE - which isn't a big deal since she has plenty of time to prepare for both)

Discussions of the week: New nouns in Japanese since they've learned basic sentence structure, the syntax of African American English, resumes in Theatre Seminar (convenient, eh? It's supposed to be), and measured perspective in scene design.

Onset of Fall

This week, Miss Caitlin is discussing the history of the development of African American English, Theatre Graduate Programs, Japanese Adjectivals, and circles. It is sort of a full week, but Miss Caitlin is enjoying a little more free time because she is not leading a game this week. Instead Miss Adrien is, therefore allowing Miss Caitlin to play. She has to organize the next week's space adventure, but she already has some ideas for that. Perhaps Tipsy will regale you with more information about the starship Snowdrop at another time. After all, she is far more interested in that than I am.

Miss Caitlin is enjoying her work at the library. While she mostly just shelves books, she also has the opportunity to do other things, like discussing with an eleven-year-old the pros and cons of reading Brian Jacques' Redwall books in chronological order versus in the order in which he wrote them. She hopes that they will eventually give her more involved jobs later.

The weather was beautiful today, with a high of 70 degrees. The whole week is projected to have highs in the low to mid 70s. It is Miss Caitlin's favorite weather. She plans to enjoy it while it lasts - keeping last winter's ice storm in mind.

Schoolness

We're back at school and Cat's been to all of her classes at least once. Cat says Japanese is pretty cool, especially since there are people who are worse at it (yes, even with only 3 days of class, she can tell). Theatre Senior Seminar is like Theatre-group-therapy- because-no-one-knows-what-they're- doing-for-the-rest-of-their-lives. Cat's glad it only meets once a week. Scene Design got taken over by the new Theatre teacher - which threw Cat. Not that this Janet person isn't nice or not a good teacher, but Cat was mentally prepared for a Ron class. African American English involves a lot of reading, so I'm glad it's Cat that's taking it and not me. Of all the classes, Cat's the least sure about that one. She thinks she'll do well, but it will be more work than she expected.

In more interesting news, Cat got her Traveller rulebook (finally) and she has some characters and a spaceship (how often do you get to say that?!). She's working on stuff for them to do with their characters and spaceship.

Some people might find this interesting - Cat dyed her hair again, so now it's all one color. It's pretty close to her original hair color. The sun-bleached part was really getting to her.

We have a new addition to our house - Shawn Samuel. He's a perky little kid - all the same, Snibbly and I have been staying away from him. He's nice to the other animals, particularly Clem, but the other animals are on a more even size with him - Snibbly and I are afraid of the damage he might inflict on us. Maybe when he's older. . . Cat's settled on the nickname Spud for him, but only when her friend Sean is around. Otherwise, things would be way confusing.

Other than that, things are pretty normal. Cat's working on homework and studying for the GRE. She has to sign up for a date still, but she's working on it. She hasn't been writing as much as she'd like - once the spaceship thing gets off the ground, that should improve.