banking

That wasn't so bad. So Bank of America recently sent me some letter about a fee increase to my account which turned out to be the Rolls Royce of checking accounts, something I signed up for 10 years ago back when I had something called a real fucking job. Anyways, BOA was taking $20/month out of my checking account so it was time to give them a call. Almost 9 at night is a good time as their call centers close at 10pm and most people are getting kids ready for bed and all that. Oh yeah so also, they were taking $5 out of my Savings account each month starting recently and I needed that to stop. Turned out I qualify for a CampusEdge account for students which means no charge for 5 years, and by transferring $25 from my checking to savings each month, I don't pay the $5 fee on the Savings account either. They even refunded me that $20 charge. And the customer service guy was friendly and not a complete idiot! BOA and I can be friends again, especially since they have ATMs everywhere.

highschool

I derive a sick satisfaction from seeing former high school classmates on Facebook, especially those who crossed me or whom I otherwise found annoying, shallow, egotistical or ignorant which describes about 90% of them. My high school was in an (at the time) almost entirely white middle class suburb 40 min east of Vancouver. Things that crack me up:

- FB friends list comprised of, guess what, a bunch of people from high school and no one else except siblings in-law
- under fan pages, fans of the local pub 5 minutes from our high school
- nothing under education but high school
- nothing under employment but mommy or bar waitress or other hourly wage job
- status updates about babies and other people's babies and playdates
- photos of nothing but kids and babies
- photos of them bald, fat, or really fat, or really into female body building and tanning themselves silly/wrinkly and unnaturally dark brown
- still living in the same town, or worse, east or north of it in a SMALLER town

All I can say is I'm glad I've gotten the fuck out of there and had a life that didn't involve a marrying a high school sweetheart, having three kids by age 25 and moving deeper into the sticks.

upstairs

Oh yeah I forgot to update you all on the assholes upstairs. Read entitlement for a refresh.

See I found out that the n-word spewing soccer-playing douchebag frat boys upstairs actually moved out. Yeah, so that means the fucking bitch who was ringing my doorbell a million times is the mother of the NEW FUCKING TENANT. This also means the party that was going on til 4am the other weekend was hosted by the new tenants. But their wireless network name which is called "[lastname]TakesAnal" has stayed the same so I am guessing that the previous soccer assholes just passed their apartment on to their younger asshole friends. Fantastic.

Oh and let me catch you up on what other thing happened with the new tenants before I went on my far-too-short vacation to Thailand. So sometimes I get a little ripped at home here by myself and forget to lock my door. Not a huge big deal since there is another door leading to outside that locks. Well one morning I woke up and I swear to the gods I thought I saw a ghost in my doorway. It doesn't help that I'm practically legally blind so anything more than a foot away is really blurry for me. In fact I just took off my glasses and realize I can't read my laptop screen which is less than a foot from my face. Fuck. Ok so anyways, I'm in my bed and there is a white girl standing there barefoot saying "Joanna? Where's Joanna?" And I grabbed my glasses to see wtf was going on thinking, holy fucking shit, I'm seeing a full apparition!

But no. This dumb bitch keeps saying, "where's Joanna" and I'm like, "who's Joanna? I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong apartment"

Idiot says "I'm so scared, where's Joanna and [we'll call him Klein since he's my neighbor]. I was with Klein and Joanna."

And I reply, "Are you drunk?" (thinking, you better be fucking drunk and have a fantastic drunk tale to tell, or you have no business in my apartment)

Dumb bitch says "No, I'm so scared, I'm so scared. Where am I?"

I gave her one last, I-dont-give-shit-that-you're-scared-get-the-fuck-out-of-my-house look and she walked out the door.

I heard her run into her friends outside and apparently she was sans shoes, sans cell phone and sans clue as to where the fuck she was.

So I listened through my paper thin walls to get the scoop.

Turns out Klein is my new upstairs neighbor and his gf invited this girl, her best friend, to come party with them. They all got wasted and the dumb bitch ended up drunk sleepwalking into my apartment and sleeping on my couch. Even as she was explaining the story to the guys upstairs she was too stupid to understand what happened. She kept saying "but someone put a blanket on me so I don't know how I got there. Someone must've put me there" The guys told her the blanket was probably just there and she must've just grabbed it. They were right. Then she kept explaining that I looked really pissed and the guys said, "uh yeah, you were in her fucking apartment." At least they're a wee bit smarter than she is. Oh and of course she omitted the "I'm so scared" part of the story and played up the "she looked really pissed" part.

One day I'd like to live in a place that has a washer dryer and tenants over 21 whose guests don't end up passed out on my couch. Is that too much to ask?

twitter

So I can admit I've become twitter obsessed, but I twitter as myself, like my real name, which I hope doesn't bring up this blog when googled.

I wonder if I shouldn't just start a Twitter for FumblingThroughLife so I can more quickly put my misery into pixels for all to enjoy. Hmmm.

bumper

I'm not going to state the obvious by commenting on the last time I blogged. This isn't a fucking confessional. Anyways, I saw a bumper sticker today that said "liberals treat dogs like humans. conservatives treat humans like dogs." Awesome.

So despite the fact that I'm still working on my prospectus, I'm going on the market. Sort of. I'm putting one application out there for a school in the midwest. Yeah, not really where I want to be but let's face it. Faculty jobs are few and far between and if I can't get my ass into gear and either graduate on time or find another year of funding, I'm going to be paying international student tuition for my dissertation credits by Jan 2011. That's not going to be pretty. My waiver says that my 10 credits cost $7700 per quarter. I'd have to find a full time job to live on and to pay for the credits. I hate having a stressful unstable life. Hate it. Sometimes I wish I had a 9-5 job, husband, 2.5 kids and a dog. Actually the one part of that equation that is truly within my control is the 9-5 job part. The rest still requires luck and timing. Fuck my life man.

At least I'm heading out of town this week to a place sunnier than the northwest.