emalee.me

It's been a long time since I've updated and a lot of things have happened, but the most exciting change is that I'm now living in Madison with my sister until Ben is ready for me to move in with him (November, hopefully). It was... kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision but not really, because I've been talking and dreaming about moving out from under my parents since the whole divorce thing was going on roughly 2.5 years ago. Honestly, I think I just finally hit a wall and felt like I needed to be "on my own" because suddenly I was 22 years old and still feeling like a shy, awkward, irresponsible, 16 year old girl. Any reservations about moving on to the Really Real World that I had previously just didn't seem so scary anymore, because I finally looked at it as a step I needed to finally grow up.

Not that I think that I'll ever really grow up. But I'm trying, at least!¹

I've been here for about a month now and I absolutely love this city. I never really pegged myself as a city girl because Milwaukee has always kind of scared me, but the atmosphere in Madison is totally different. It just seems so open and bright and fresh in comparison. I don't have strong fears about walking downtown alone like I did in Milwaukee² and have explored State Street on my own several times.³ I just wish I had more money to spend there, even though it's kind of a good thing I'm broke because if I had money State Street would make me broke.

Until I find a job, I'm surviving on my remaining mutual funds... which I'm not totally happy about, because it's sort of my emergency "Oh-shit-my-transmission-blew-up-and-I-need-a-new-car" fund. But I could be spending it on way more superficial and irresponsible things than rent and food so it's not all bad. My parents intended it to be a cushion, anyway, so ultimately I'm using it as intended. I just hope I have a job again before it's completely depleted (and hey, if you need a quick and dirty website in the meantime, I'll do it for cheap). I think the money issue is my main reservation and cause of the occasional "Did I make the right decision?" panic attack.

I haven't heard back from Madison Area Technical College yet, which is a little upsetting, but I'm fairly certain it's because they were waiting on a transcript from the Milwaukee Area Technical College considering it was sent out after the summer semester ended a week or so ago. Speaking of which, I'm really annoyed at one of my professors. He lost three of my assignments from July and didn't let me know until after he needed to submit my final grade for the course, so I got a C+ when really I deserved an A. I forwarded my original e-mail with the assignments and he told me he would fix it over a week ago, but INFOnline is still reporting a C+ for that course. I just e-mailed him again asking if it's been changed, considering I'm going to have to spend another $7 to get the updated transcripts sent to MadisonATC. Really, I'm more annoyed about the principle of the thing because I did earn the A and deserve to have it on my transcripts.

Er, anyway. I'm going to need to call MadisonATC just to check on the status of enrollment and see if I can pick up at least one online class, which might be all I can afford this semester until I get Financial Aid and potential loans figured out for next. But, honestly, if I can find a full-time job I'm not really concerned about a potential semester break—it will give me more time to gather/figure out the funds to pay for everything and I've been doing school non-stop since I started working towards my technical diploma in Web Design last September. I finished the requirements for it with a 3.0 GPA, I applied for graduation this summer and should have the diploma in my hands in a few more weeks, or December at the latest. It might be nice to have a break before I go after an Associate's Degree in Web Programming.

Tonight, I'm going to the Essen Haus with Ben and a few of our friends and I'm totally excited. Pretzels! Beer! DAS BOOT!⁴ I'm going to miss being in walking distance of all these fun things when I live when Ben, but hey, I am going to make the most of it while I can! Which means more adventures and subsequently more blog posts. I think. Hooray!

1. Just... leave me alone about the dentist and optometrist appointments I need to make, please. I'll get to that someday, HONEST! ↩
2. I felt preyed upon there with all the "You got a boyfriend?" inquiries and just... unflattering pick-up attempts. And that was on campus. ↩
3. Okay, maybe not so impressive, but it was a big deal for a shy kid like me. ↩
4. Although, I've come to the conclusion that I definitely can't handle a boot on my own. ↩

I think you all know the drill by now.

I'm not overly thrilled with the design and it may see some tweaks in the months to come, but I think I have a good platform to work from when making my own themes for Habari. And it's definitely got room to evolve as the amount of content I have expands if I get really lazy and keep this design for eons. Not to mention I got my hands a little dirty with HTML5 and CSS3¹, something I've been lusting to do for a while. :)

More substantial stuff to come, probably.

1. Still pending compatibility with IE—but whatever, you know? ↩