Bomb threat articles here, here, and here.

To summarize them all, two packages, wrapped in Christmas wrapping and addressed to the chancellor, with a non-local return address, were reported as suspicious to the cops. The gift-giver was apparently someone who "sent a couple of suspicious e-mails to the chancellor in recent weeks," and supposedly wrote random statements in them.

As well as evacuating us, they evacuated students in at least one nearby building.

The packages were "too dense to be determined by an X-ray," so they detonated them with a water cannon (whatever the heck that is) on the lawn. And what was inside? A couple of books, a game, and a TEDDY BEAR. The latter bit reminded me of that M.A.S.H. episode where Frank hides a gun in Radar's teddy bear.

Even funnier, had this been a bomb? The chancellor WASN'T EVEN THERE THAT DAY. Theoretically, we could have all been blown up for nothing!

The bomb tales afterwards have been amusing. Two chicks in my office had been on break when everyone got shooed out, and they had left their purses, keys, and coats inside. They didn't get to go home, the poor schmucks. Another coworker of mine had been at a meeting at the time and asked me if we'd really thought it was a bomb. I'm all "Hell, no, nobody thought there was really a bomb!"

Things have been decidedly weird this month, but especially so in the last two days. Most of my coworkers went home sick today (I got called "the old reliable" today for not being sick or not going home in a snit like everyone else), and my boss was griping about how she wishes things would be less crazy and it must all be a January thing. I was all, "Amen to that." The vibe at work is tweaky. The temp who got hired has been all hyper and talkative, and started getting on me to apply for better-paying jobs after she found out what level I am here. I was like, are you crazy? I'm 25, a peon, with no experience in anything much that's Officially Clerical, and I can't get past HR for almost everything I've ever applied for. If I lose this job, I'm DONE here. She didn't buy it. But just in case, I looked online and sure enough, no jobs I was qualified to do and they were way out of my pay range. And yet interestingly enough, not at my level. Oy. Even worse, I think I managed to inadvertently tick someone else off during this conversation by revealing info that perhaps should not have been revealed. At least, I think it was me because of the aforementioned home-in-a-snit thing. This makes me nervous, not to mention kinda hoping that everyone stays home sick tomorrow so maybe the weird will wear off.

And it's only Tuesday!

On another note, my beading class on Monday went well. We learned how to make little suncatchers, which are cute as all hell and after I got the technique down, only took me 20 minutes to make. The first one I got technically correct, but absentmindedly put the wrong shade of beads onto at one point and then went and knotted it all up, so I did a second perfect one. They're gold and copper at the centers and silver and lighter copper on the edges, and are gorgeous. In the future, we shall be making dangly comanche earrings, tubular stitching, lacey necklaces, what have you. Very exciting to a bead whore like myself. (Plus it looks like I'll hardly ever need to buy supplies for this class other than bugle beads. I am equipped.)

As for my online classes, well... I haven't done diddly-squat on them yet. I printed out the first week's lessons, and that's about it. Most classes' first week's homework is to post on their message boards, except for the CSS class, which requires actual work on my part. I will HOPEFULLY get to actually trying to do these assignments Wednesday and Thursday nights when I'm not going out much (well, I'm going out for Chinese with Heather, but she has a lab afterwards). I hope, I hope. I fear that online classes make it much too easy to just uh, "forget" to try to learn.

The writing for publication class is supposed to make many posts giving an introduction, story ideas, tell how you get ideas, and explain what a metaphor is. I suppose I can BS those when I get to them, but the personal finance assignments are kind of emotionally overwhelming. Have to do another introductory post, only this one is along the lines of "how are you going to advance your career?" and another post about setting goals, and one about economic trends. I can BS the last one (positive economic trends in my favor: none; negative economic trends: economy stinks, evil Republicans stink, overseas jobs, nobody needs any goddamned writers or artists anyway), but fuckall if I know about the first two. I have no idea how to get into some fantastic career, nor do I have any personal goals for myself in the next six months beyond (a) don't get laid off, (b) save money because I probably will get laid off at some point anyway, and (c) manage to find another roommate for next fall since one way or another Heather will probably not be around. At any rate, I don't really believe in setting long-term (i.e. beyond the next three months or so) goals because, well, God laughs when I make plans.

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