My birthday ended up pretty fun. I hung out and read at a coffee shop for a while (would have been nicer if some annoying guy hadn't insisted on asking kind of personal questions than rambling on for 10 minutes about some legal issues he's having with his retaining pond), then the boyfriend took me out for dinner. And then watched Mad Men which gave me the birthday present of an awesome season finale

( Mad Men Spoilers )

Happy birthday me!

Unfortunately, today's kind of highlighting a bunch of things I don't like about my life at the moment, but I'm trying to stay positive. I am now a quarter of a century old and that's not too bad. I am making myself an unhealthy, but yummy breakfast, and I'll probably do the same for dinner.

I went bra shopping yesterday as a early birthday present for myself, sort of. I was actually kind of pleased that my recent weight gain means that now I wear a common size and therefore could actually find cute bras on sale.

Ahh, I've been busy lately. I finished editing my thesis down and actually got it to 100 pages! I think I'm losing some stuff that I'd rather have in there, because I think it adds to the thesis, but given the limit I think it ended up not too bad! My supervisor gave me his comments on the first chapter. It looks like he's not taking the 100 page limit seriously, and keeps adding stuff, so I think I'll have to go back and talk to my committee member to see if he really meant 100 pages, and no more. When he told me about it he seemed pretty serious, so I suspect I'm in for some uncomfortable times as I try and balance those two.

Still, though, this is going way faster than I thought.

While grocery shopping this weekend I found some black garlic:


It's a fermented garlic I've seen mentioned on cooking blogs a few times, so I brought it home. It looks weird, but it's really really good. It has the texture and a bit of the taste of roasted garlic, but with an added molasses/umame kick. It's milder than regular garlic, and doesn't taste fermented. If you ever see it, pick some up!

Kraken Rum! That is so awesome. I'm just pissed off that they don't ship their free posters to Canada. Boo!

Things are looking up :D. My supervisor thinks defending this semester is still a possibility (I don't, but it's nice that he's optimistic). The edits are going really fast, too. Today I finished all the general edits/changes my committee member wanted, so now it's just cutting 80 pages out of my thesis. I'm not sure it'll work, but I'm willing to give it a shot. For some reason, I think it helps that all the other grad student I've mentioned it to think that's a pretty ridiculous thing to ask for. Maybe it just makes it more like a challenge.

I've been listening to these audiobooks recently. They're from the series The Dresden Files and they're hilariously cheesy. It's like a hardboiled detective book but the detective is also a wizard. However, they're quite charming and funny and at the moment that's what I need. They're also read by James Marsters (aka Spike from Buffy). He really should give up acting and go into voice acting, because he's actually really good at this. He really switches voice patterns and tones so well you don't even need to be told which character is talking, and I'm always impressed with men who can do women's voices without sounding goofy or over the top.

I bought my early birthday gift from my mom today! She had told me she wanted me to invest in a nice, well-made leather purse. I ended up going to etsy because I always see interesting purses there. It turns out two I liked best were on sale so my mom bought me both!

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I talked with my parents this weekend, and they want to sell the condo (I don't know if I've talked about this on here before: my parents and I jointly own the condo. They paid the downpayment, I'm taking care of the mortgage payments). And they want to start soon. Since my boyfriend and I are kind of messy people and we have a lot of stuff, I don't think selling while I live there will work, so my parents have decided the best idea would be for me to move out soon. I was hoping to wait until after I defend, but everyone involved seems to be dragging their heels, so I don't see that happening soon. Nor does it look likely that I'll be getting a fisheries job any time soon, so I'm not going to wait for that and just get a McJob to pay the bills. My mom thinks I'll be more likely to find work if I'm not in Prince George, so I'll be moving cities as well.

I have no leads or job prospects anywhere in particular, so I have to decide where I want to go based on the likelihood of getting work. So, friends list, what Canadian cities have somewhat active job markets and a low enough cost of living that I can survive on a retail/food service job?

Instead of, you know, following through on their promises to use the push from the Olympics to actually DEAL with homelessness, the BC government has decided to force the homeless to go hide in shelters. Yes, those shelters, the ones that are often so dirty and violent people prefer to go live on the street rather than risk staying there. Now, they don't have a choice to leave if they're afraid! Isn't that awesome?

Fuck you, Gordo, not only do you waste money we don't have on these games, you're going to stomp over the civil rights of your constituents to pretend your homelessness problems away. And no Olympics on stolen land and all that.

One of the places I applied to awhile ago has asked me to interview, which is great! Unfortunately, it's in Whitehorse, which means I either need to find ~$1000 for flights (plus extra for a place to stay, I guess), or take 5 days off work to drive there. It's 24 hours of straight driving through pretty remote areas, so I'd also have to get the car checked out before I left. I also could ask to do a phone interview, but I'm worried that would hurt my chances of getting the job.

In other news, my internet was shut off all yesterday. It turns out my boyfriend has been downloading movies. Lots and lots of movies, to be precise. Last month he hit triple our download limit, and on the 14th he reached the limit for the month, so they cut us off. I have no idea why he needs so many movies, but he figures he downloaded close to 1000 over the last few months. Suffice to say, he's going to have to cut back, because I spent almost an hour fixing it this morning, and I'm not doing it again.

I'm excited about this new niche perfume line. The scents sound interesting and the whole thing is just so sweet. I've been thinking of getting myself a little gift when I hand in my thesis final draft, and for $15 for 5 samples + $5 shipping, I think I can swing that. I'm not crazy about them being oils, as I prefer eau de parfums, but I'm charmed, so I might get them anyway.

The other option is a couple samples of perfume I've been wanting to try from the Perfumed Court. Maybe two or three Tauer perfumes, because I've wanted to try L'Air du Desert Marocain and Incense Rose since I heard about them. Or maybe splurge on some CB I Hate Perfume?

I need to get some disposable income.