So, yeah. That random jobma I think I requested panned out, and I forgot to mention it here, because I'm spiffy keen like that, but anyhow, I have a job, and it has started, and today was day one of Kool Aide consumption, and I'll be dim until settled (however long THAT takes)! Wish me luck on the dark side of the force.

Job~ma requested. Just mailed off an application for a great job that gets me out of here, the minimum is more than I make now, and gets me back into the legal arena.

Another job~ma request. I already had a first interview at the MLA (and forgot to request the all-powerful ~ma) and am waiting for an invitation to campus. I have no idea what my chances are, but I would be very excited if this worked out, not least because it would mean moving to a cute city. And, of course, a steady income. Which would be nice.

More books to go.

• *picture book
  
• YA or Junior Fiction
  

The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult
The Other Side of the Story, Marian Keyes
Sea Glass, Anita Shreve
Galileo’s Daughter, Dava Sobel
The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
Deus Lo Volt, A Chronicle of the Crusades, Evan S. Connell
Gardening with a Wild Heart, Judith Larner Lowry
Veronica, Mary Gaitskill
Irish Blessings
The Time Hackers, Gary Paulsen*
Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
Memoirs of a Geisha, A Portrait of the Film (pretty pictures)
Vinnie’s Giant Roller Coaster Period Chart & Journal Sticker Book
Solos, Kitty Burns Florey
Their Eyes Are Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
A Zagat Survey of San Francisco Bay Restaurants
Geeks, Jon Katz
The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy, Gary Soto*
Toning the Sweep, Angela Johnson*
Uglies, Scott Westerfield*
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Bronte Project, Jennifer Vandever
The Thin Place, Kathryn Davis
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius
Devil in the Details, Jennifer Traig
Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
The Know-It-All, A.J. Jacobs
1688, John E. Wells

Everything-okay-ma please? It's just shy of 2am, and although I've only been asleep 2 hours and am getting up again at 4.am (travelling down to London to get plane to Bangkok) WeeSisterJay has just telephoned us from London, from a police station.

She was mugged, and had her bag stolen. But she wasn't hurt, thank God. However, she's staying with a friend whom she hasn't stayed with before, and she couldn't quite make her way back to his place in the dark by memory after all - and didn't have the phone or his address any more, to contact him. So I've just been SKYPEing her mates to get his contact details.

Evidently she's been out with other friends this evening, but she did phone him and ask if he would mind meeting her at the tube stop and walking her back to his, because she wasn't really familiar with the area.

And he said he couldn't be bothered.

And she was mugged.

If I ever set eyes on this boy I will rip his fucking gonads off and feed them to him. Thank God she wasn't hurt - but WeeSisterJay being WeeSisterJay she screamed like a banshee and went racing after the mugger to get her bag back; notwithstanding some karate lessons in elementary school, my little sister isn't Buffy, and she was alone in London in the middle of the night, so I'm just grateful he got away.

Anyhow - cardcancel-ma and all that jazz would be much appreciated - she's a graduate actively seeking employment, and she can't afford to have some fucker sucking money out of her bank account.

...apologies for the expletives. Am a tad overwrought.

w00t! I got into grad school - a fact that I wasn't aware of until the first day of the semester, but we'll let that go. I GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL!!!

(on edit: The late notification was because my letter went to the wrong zip code. Curses on the fatal conjunction of their low-tech paper application forms and my awful handwriting! But they did try. And, more importantly, they did let me in.)

E and I could use some co-op-ma -- we're on our way to the board interview in about an hour.

I'm planning on going on an Alternative Spring Break trip with the Jewish National Fund, to help rebuild and replant parks and buildings and towns and forests in the north of Israel that were destroyed during the fighting with Lebanon this summer. In order to go, I've got to raise $800 in donations. Last day for donations is January 22; the first 250 people to raise $800 are the ones who go.

If anyone would like more information, or would like to donate (even $5 or $10 would help), please go to [link] . It's a new year, new tax-deduction period!

No pressure on anyone, please. If you don't want to donate, or can't, then no problem. I just wanted to let people know, if they do want to give something.

(If I don't raise enough money to go, the money that I did raise goes to Jewish National Fund, which does all kinds of environmental and land-focused stuff in Israel. So it's a good cause, anyway.)

edit: I've been having a bunch of problems with donations that were mailed in by check, rather than online, not showing up. So if someone did send a check, please let me know so that I can make sure it got recorded.

Hi. Somebody hit the American Embassy in Athens with an RPG last night. While we are on security alert, at this point everybody's fine.

That Buffista-ma is strong stuff -- we got approved! Woo hoo!