Some interesting local news that may be of interest to no one but me:

The clerical union here finally reached an agreement. I'll be getting a 1.5 percent raise, which just excites me no end. It's just a shame that I wasn't permanent earlier so I could have gotten that extra-special 2 percent raise too.

What I thought was amusing was the notice sent out by the clerical union: "CUE president Claudia Horning, from the UCLA campus, issued a statement that said, in part, "This vote does not mean that UC clericals are satisfied with the wage component -- as was made clear by the large number of "no" votes cast. People just want to sign off on this contract and take advantage of the other language gains that we've won through bargaining. It's our second contract and the second time our bargaining team has won significant improvements in many parts of the contract. We all know that UC has lied to us about their ability to pay us better wages. What clericals will get is pretty much what other UC unions have accepted. Clearly it will take more pressure from all the unions to get a wage offer that we all need and deserve."

So uh, in other words, this is the best we're gonna get right now, it's been years, we give up and plan to make another stink next year?

In other news, the design department (one of my majors) looks like it'll finally changing colleges. Finally! It's about time!

To explain what I'm talking about, there's several different "colleges" under which majors reside at UCD. There's the arts-and-sciences college (Letters and Science), and then there's the agriculture college (CA Agriciultural and Environmental Sciences). You'd think that design (interiors, graphic, clothing) would be in the arts college, right? Hah. Nope, design is currently located in the ag school. The AG SCHOOL. This was quite a royal pain in the ass for me, seeing as one of my majors was in L&S and the other wasn't, and the two don't have much overlap at all. I was amazed that I could even double major, and I ended up getting two different degrees because of this. Hell, design right now is a bachelor of science, like that makes any sense or like I did any science to get the degree. When I got here, I was all "What logic was behind this location? Clothes are sometimes made out of plants?" I was told by someone in the department later that design was here because home ec used to be here. Uh, okay...

Well, this hasn't been great for the department. As you can tell from the tactfully worded announcement, the program is (a) very popular (i.e. impacted- it's the second largest department in CA&S), and (b) essentially shit on financially because it's not agricultural. They're low on professors, offer few and small classes (1 per year, if you miss it, you're screwed), and generally are on the short end of the financial stick. One of my profs told us to have our parents write letters of complaint, because the administration would ignore students. So I'm pretty thrilled to see them escaping to a more appropriate department that will perhaps value them. Not to mention give more money.

I also saw, in person, a Segway the other day. I was going back to work after lunch and saw one of the bigwigs on hers. She just casually rolled in the door and rolled over to the elevator while everyone pointed and smiled. Heh.

Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that Dave has a job interview tomorrow at a place that has like 8 openings and offers fat benefits. It even gives a good psychic twinge on my end. The bad news is that he's currently having a meltdown over filling out the paperwork, which is all kinds of fun. His meltdown is giving me a meltdown. And he's INSISTING on putting me as a personal reference, which I am severely not comfortable with at all. You're not supposed to put significant others or relatives, right? I know he's got limited options (as he's either annoyed as all hell with certain people or people he might use don't have phones. Don't ask about that one.) and has to have three and without me he only has two suitable, but GEEZ. I know what he's like at a job- he talks about me and/or flashes my picture all the damn time, and he would SO get caught lying about this. I really don't want them to call me and then I don't know what the hell I would say about this. But he's insistent.

I'm considering writing for Bookslut. I am (very, very slowly, as my attention span has shrunk mightily of late) working on a review of Sex and the Married Girl, and theoretically I could drum up an article on e-books as well. Sounds interesting, if I actually get anything done.

I have always wanted to write for websites, but well, previous experiences haven't gone well. Most of the articles I wrote either weren't published or lost by the editor or weren't posted on time (holiday issue). I had one published, but she rewrote me to say things I wouldn't say, and I wasn't real comfy with that.

This editor, well, had a very good feminist writing site that I think could have a lot of potential if she would just put more work into it. Instead, she updates it about once a year with one article or two, and mainly spends time (as far as I can tell) digging up people to redesign it. I just got a notification about the site being updated and redesigned again, and my article is no longer on it. Ahem. Not that I blame her really because I'm not real proud of it. I've been tempted to just say something to her about it, but we haven't talked in a few years (this is someone from The Old Crowd) and it would just be weird.

The more I read about Saturn Returns (Madame Astrologer here is obsessed with them), the more I want to shoot myself before my 27th birthday.

More possible site templates:

This is my place to vent. Pros: Nice slogan. Cons: Black, frames.

Secret Cove. Pros: This just looks cool. Cons: very dark otherwise.

Castle. Pros: Love castles. Cons: Again, kinda dark.

Tropical. Pros: pretty picture. Cons: lotsa white.

Cute but psycho! Pros: hey, I wanted this! Cons: still lotta black, small columns.

Purple swirl. Pros: pretty, like the purple. Cons: narrow column.

So basically, I know what I want- something pretty and preferably purple plus snarky- but can't design it myself. How frustrating it is to be a dolt at certain things.

Still haven't heard back from the doctor yet. Am having yet another coughing fit as I type, so obviously all this preventative inhaler crap isn't working. Breath-o-meter scores better than yesterday, but still below what it should be. Bleah.

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