After two weeks of having the flu, I finally feel ready to go back to university. Yesterday, I go in, and there are loads of people outside. I figure it's a fire drill or something. As I get closer I see massive orange signs saying "CAMPUS CLOSED DUE TO POWER FAILURE". I wait for half an hour and eventually we get told it's closed all day.

Today, I got up and was ready to go to class - I thought okay, seeing as I don't know what I'm supposed to have read this week I should look it up. So I get out my week-by-week guide to what we're studying. Turns out this class has a fortnight long reading week and instead of there just being no class next week, there's no class this week either.

I'm trying, I really am, but life is conspiring against me

Herpes got the Power?! Crazy.

Hiccups.

I'm sorry but I found that unusually hilarious... Hiccups do suck though. Especially when you just have one, really loud one and everyone's like "...wtf?"

OMG! I do that all the time!

Haha. Oh how cute.

My office was just invaded by a 2.5 inch long palmetto bug (or wood roach or water bug, depending on the area you live in). These are the only living things I am actually afraid of. And by afraid of, I mean a phobia of nearly disabling proportions. I ran into a wall, twice trying to get away from one once.

Seriously. I saw it coming at me, turned to run, ran, smacked into the wall that was four feet away, fell down, realized I was now on the ground with it, jumped up and smacked into the wall again. This was in front of people too.

Anyway, just now, I spotted said monstrosity (they can freakin FLY! And they aren't scared of the light or people. They don't run away when you throw things at them, they run right toward you! AND THEY CAN FLY!) and basically crawled over my desk to get out of the office. Then I hurried over to enlist the aid of Kelly the IT guy (I was all, "Help me! Help me! Help! Help! Help me now!" ) He came and killed it and thankfully took it to a trashcan in the break room (because I can't even stand to be near dead ones and if he'd tossed it in my trash can I don't think I could have made myself go back into the office).

And he only made fun of me a little bit about my near hysterics. I still feel kind of dizzy.

Those things are freaking terrifying.

Had one in our house once on the top of a door way, and my dad was going to kill it, but if fell off and went down the back of his shirt while he was reaching up.

I've never seen him move so fast ever since.

Oh you poor thing. Go Kelly the IT guy! Give his a highfive for me.

Haha, that's hilarious. I kind of want to see what one of these looks like. Wikipedia link plz!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AmericanCockroach.jpg

Closest picture I could find, but not exactly what I'm talking about. The ones I saw were blacker and less smooth.

Also keep in mind they are about 2.5". :|

God... that's horrible. *shudder*

My mom told me a funny (and vaguely horrifying) story once about how her and my dad were walking along after a date, and it was Fall so there were all these leaves all over the sidewalk. Then my dad kind of stops and abruptly smacks himself on the leg and my mom was like, "Why'd you do that?" And he replied that a palmetto bug had crawled up his pantsleg and it was either squish it inside his pants or take his pants off.

Honestly, I'd have taken the pants off. And the hysterical screaming would have drawn a nice crowd to see it too.

My youngest sister has a clown phobia. She made fun of my palmetto bug phobia one day and so I said, "Yeah, well, clowns can't climb up your legs can they?" and she just went really pale and said, "Yeah. Thanks for that nightmare."

I think I know the incident that spawned my palmetto bug phobia though. When we lived in Florida, my mom let us collect aluminum cans for recycling cause we got money for them. It was a nice supplement to our allowance. Me and my sisters each had a big garbage can in the shed by the carport and when all three cans were full, mom'd load em up and we'd go collect our money. Well, cans, as you might know, are just lovely places for palmetto bugs. Like little apartments, even when they're smashed down to make more room. Anyway, the recycling guy lugged my garbage can over to the weigher, and dumped the cans into the bin... and like a million palmetto bugs just came rushing out like some nightmare swarm and got all over me and everything around me. It was just about the most awful thing ever. I think, ever since then, I've been horrified by palmetto bugs.

Plus they can FLY!

Double post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmetto_bug

^Linky.

I would have died. ;.;

I hate bugs.

Oh hell no. Those things are huge and fast. -backaway- June bugs scare the hell out of me, now they have competition.

I thought it was that she's a Borg. Or Cylon. Or something similar.


Actually, that's allergen information for people who have coeliac, which sometimes manifests in part as a skin reaction against wheat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease

Rant: My girlfriend has coeliac, which means I can't show off my awesome baking skills It also means no dairy, because her particular variant recognizes casien (a milk protein) as evil, and thus milk and all derivatives thereof (including cheese) are off-limits. That and every time she accidentally eats wheat/soysauce/balsamic vinegar (what foul heathen decided to line the barrels with wheat flour!?)/milk/butter/apples with the skin on (seriously, wheat based waxes? Wtf!?)/most types of fish roe (seriously.... who the hell puts wheat on this stuff?)/white vinegar (made from wheat)/food that has been contaminated with wheat (I see you, jerk who uses the wrong serving utensil in the dorm food place)/a whole horde of stuff I'm forgetting to mention she gets really really sick for about 2 days, loses gastrointestinal functionality (and gains scars on the lining of her small intestines), and is very sad (which is the worst part).

And yes, she did get sick from the salad bar because some assmonkey used the crouton tongs in the lettuce bin.
As someone who really really enjoys food, it's really frustrating that such a huge portion of the food world is anathema to her health, especially at large social events where the food of choice is often pasta or somethingsomething with cream sauce or breaded blah blah blah or burritos in flour tortillas or.....

What really sucks is that she also has contact-intolerance, which means no touching of anything that has been contaminated with wheatstuff or any of the myriad related items, or else she gets a nasty rash.

MRRRRH. Nerf wheat.



_{I think I've ranted about this before o_o meh, oh well, it's still rant-worthy.}

On the plus side, I'm learning a lot about alternative flours, new baking techniques, and general nutrition stuff. We even made an almond flour based Portal cake, but sadly I didn't take pictures, I just ate it. SO YUMMY!

Regarding palmetto bugs, those :censor:ers are FAST but they're also really dumb and it's easy to coax them into jumping into an empty soup can but yeah, my mom reacts in a fashion similar to Noola, except with more high-pitched shrieking and swearing that's right in the sweet spot to give me a headache, and that's a bad thing to do if I'm the one trying to catch the damn bug. Grrr....

I hear that Portal based cake is a lie. GET IT?

No.

Boss's lab puppy chewed through my internet cable!