In Denial

The US GDP went down by 6.2% last quarter, the worst drop in 26 years. And it was just announced today.

:| Stocks are already plunging, and yeaaaah, we haven't seen the bottom of the market, yet.



... and on a completely related note, I'm definitely applying for those FAA jobs I heard about at the job fair last week.

I got the highest score on my after chapter tests EVER and I only studied off the pretest for 20 minutes instead of reading the chapter for two-three hours.

Uhm. I FEEL LIKE I CHEATED, SOMEHOW.

Note that this is from C-SPAN, a cable channel "dedicated to airing non-stop coverage of government proceedings and public affairs programming" (from Wikipedia). So this should be legit. And so I suggest EVERYONE watches it. This explains why the government pumped the first stimulus package into the banks rather than buying up their toxic assets.

It explains why lending is still so tight--banks are still reeling from the crisis caused by the sub-prime mortgages that never should have been approved and are still losing money, but at a much slower rate than before. Which is why the second stimulus package is in the works, and why they're working so hard to get it passed--the longer the slump goes on, the greater the chance another large company will fail, creating another run on the banks.

Seriously, though. Holy fuck.

I suppose the bright side of this is that if the government doesn't limit executive pay that companies most likely will, if only to keep themselves afloat. And it will be a long time, even if there aren't laws made against it, before banks start allowing large amounts of sub-prime mortgages again. (AKA, making risky loans to people who will more likely not be able to keep up with the payments.)

Of course, all of that probably could have been avoided if it was required for the average person to take a couple of economy classes, so that families could have better understood what was and wasn't within their means. Maybe they should make that a requirement to graduate both high school AND college? I'm certainly going to be buying a few economy books or taking a class or two in the near future, because even though I took one recently, I still need to read more advanced material....

My class got out early, so I got to watch the Inauguration. First time I've watched one, and the world... feels different now. Really different. As if we have a future.

Here's to hoping that our 44th President can live up to our huge expectations for him. He's got a lot on his plate. And that was a damned good speech. GOOD LUCK!

I also recorded the majority of the Inauguration. It's about an hour and seventeen minutes long, and is 576 MB, if anyone wants it.

( That Letter to Santa Claus Meme )

Took a while to get something that had people I poke regularly on it. And now all I can think of is how I had to "reroll" a meme.

It's more of a question of "what don't I have?" now. Or, at least, it feels that way.

First, Mom suspected I had hypoglycemia, and eating like I did has certainly improved my health by quite a bit. We haven't gotten back a test that specifically confirms this diagnosis, as I was eating properly for a few weeks before we got tests. Although, they did say my average blood sugar was a bit low when they did it for the last 120 days. But since I've been eating "right", my blood sugar wouldn't be extremely low, and it wouldn't show up. Same thing with the fasting test I did over Thanksgiving break--it takes a while for my blood sugar to go low after I wake up. Although, they didn't tell us the numbers, so my blood sugar could've still been low. I've been noticing that, as I continue to eat more often, my blood sugar tends to stay up, and I'm having fewer lows. Yay!

My doctor decided to send me to a sleep study, just in case, over Thanksgiving break. There, we learned that I had mild sleep apnea. We won't be able to do anything major about it until after the semester is over, so I'm basically just going to have to sleep more, which seems to be helping.

There are still days that I feel crappy despite that, and now we know why. The test results from that fasting test were also testing for something additional to my blood sugar. Turns out that he was also testing for Mono. I don't currently have it--the "active infection" part of the test returned negative, but I had it either 30 or more days ago (as the antibodies were present). This kinda frustrates me because I complained of exhaustion and having swollen lymph nodes in my neck before, but the doctors ignored the second part whenever I mentioned it. AND I could have infected members of my family, at the very least, with it. :| Everyone seems to be fine, though, so far.

What that basically means is that I'm in the "recovery" stage for Mono, and it could take months for me to recover fully. So I could still have days I feel like crap, and there's nothing I can do about it. But at least I know why there was also something in the back of my mind nagging that whatever I had was more serious than the doctors were taking it.

I'll probably be scarce online for a while--I gotta catch up on a lot of school work now that I'm starting to feel better. I just wanted everyone to know what's been going on with my life. Hope everyone is doing well! ♥

This scene is from the RP I'm currently doing with table_chan and uuhhhhh, just mostly posting this because Sakura is AWESOME.

Basically, Sasuke decided he didn't trust any woman enough (besides maybe Sakura, and that was right out) to carry his child and decided to do it himself. Er. Herself. And decided that Naruto would be the father. And then tricked Naruto into thinking that their sexual encounter was a genjutsu. But (s)he didn't count on getting captured and tied up, which really changed her plans. XD I know she's quoted another scene from it already.

( You're a woman?! )

Who else has noticed that they're having trouble with e-mail notifications lately? Mine have been going really slow.

First off, I apologize about posting twice in one day.

Second off, THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPHS OF PLANETS OUTSIDE OUR SOLAR SYSTEM HAVE BEEN RELEASED.

EW.

NEW PROFILE PAGE IS UGLY.