Thrashers Hockey: A Source of Love and Frustration

My goalie got his first shootout win tonight, opposite the #1 goalie in the league (Pavs has been #2 in Save Percentage for a while and keeps going back and forth with Jonathan Quick for second in GAA). This came after both of the goals that got past him were shootout type goals, so I was definitely worried when we went to the shootout. Guess I had no reason to worry because Pavelec was definitely awesome while our defense was somewhat lacking throughout a major portion of the game. I know Pavs stopped at least 42 shots (last shots on goal I saw was 44 for Boston).

The team goes to New Jersey tomorrow to play the Devils. That should be interesting considering when we last played them we won 7-1 (Boulton got his first career hat trick). I do still miss Moose, and apparently many of our fans did too, because when he came out to replace Brodeur, all you could hear was "Moose." Maybe it's just me, but I still think Moose would have been a better fit with Pavelec. Maybe it's just that I haven't really adjusted to Mason. It's a rare game when Mason lets in less than 3 goals though he was doing good in the beginning. I get that him playing so many games in a row with no relief got to him, but Pavs has done pretty decent doing something similar. In fact there's only been 3 games (of 27) he's played so far where he's let in 4 or more goals. Mason is 8 of 16 on that count.

Granted I know Moose isn't having the greatest season so far. (Oooh. Just read that Moose might get the start in goal tomorrow for the Devils.) He's only got 4 wins in the 15 games he's played, but only 3 games in which he allowed 4 or more goals. So I don't know. I guess I just carry a special place for Moose. Why I like goalies and defensemen so much, I don't know, but Moose, Bogosian, Schubert, Pavelec they've all been my favourites over the last two seasons.

Time to end this random hockey post.

"A Brutally Good Time": A Hockey Post

So in an effort not to write my paper, I'm going to blog.

Hockey has been interesting so far this year. The Thrashers are 6-5-3 on the year so far. Not bad I guess. It puts us in 3rd place in the division, 1 point behind number 2 and 3 points behind number one. I wouldn't be surprised though if the Lightening and Capitals switch places many times though with the showing that TB has been giving so far. Unfortunately conference wise, we're in our tenuous number 8 spot, a place we knew well last year. Luckily we have a game in hand over the Penguins, however, we play them on Saturday. Hopefully, our two games before them will give us little leeway if we do something stupid.

Last night's game against the reigning Stanley cup champions was insanity. We managed to have a lead 3 times (1-0, 3-2, and 4-3) but we lost them all. At the end of the first we were trailing 2-1 and all I could hope for is that Pavelec kept his ass in the crease. Him not keeping his crack there is what lead to them tying it up 4-4 in the second, though goaltender interference should have been called, just like it should have been called for Mason when we last played the Sabres. I mean I'm pretty sure yanking the goalie's stick out of his hand when he's trying to skate back into his crease or not allowing the goalie back into his crease is interference. Maybe that's just me.

All I know is we have a tough month head even though we've already got the Blackhawks out the way. We play the Penguins, the Capitals twice, the Red Wings, the Bruins and the Canadiens. This is going to be fun. Though the meeting with the Penguins and the Bruins should be fun in their own rights because of what happened the last time we saw the Penguins, i.e. Kane's beautiful knockout of Cooke, and as far as the Bruins, they made Kane an honorary member for that KO because of what Cooke had done to Savard and not got punished for it.

As far as my other team, the Coyotes, I must say I've been a bad fan and have not been following them as closely as I should. A quick check of the standings tell me they're at the bottom of the Pacific Division with 12 points on the year (4-5-4). Seeing that the team who's at the top of the division has the same number of games and is sitting pretty with 20 points (10-3-0), I can only ask what happened to the team who made it to the playoffs last year? Granted they seem to have been plagued with problems, like Doan being suspended and recently injured, various other players being injured, and I'm kinda wondering is the defense being that crappy or is some of the blame on the goaltenders? All I know is that the Coyotes are second from last in the Western Conference, and that's because the dead last team is two games behind them.

Off to write that paper I guess since it's 15% of my grade.

Hmm...

So tonight I had a bit of a reality check. For me to do the Ireland BUNAC program in (it would need to start between Feb and Aug) 2012, I would need to save up at least $4500 by that time. The question becomes can I do that. Let's say I start saving next month and want to try the program for Feb 2012, that's 15 months. I would need to save $300 a month. Granted I'm hoping to make about $1000 a month between my two jobs. However, if I aimed for August 2012 and a 21 month buffer, I would only need to save $215 a month.

Nevertheless, my big problem will come from my credit cards and my student loans kicking in. One of them, I can't seem to get a decent dent in. The other, my mom helped pay down some, but it's still at a not so pretty number. I really wish I could just combine them and just pay one card. My life would be much easier, but with the crappy credit score I have little hope of getting either card extended to accommodate both of them, that and balance transfers can incur some crazy interest rates.

So time to try and get some stuff done, like seeing if I can get on foodstamps. That alone would help take care of some of the money issues. We'll see how this fares.

Change of Plans

Seeing as I'm already $21500 in debt to the federal government, I'm starting to rethink going back to GSU to get my degree in sociology. While I'm only 6 classes away from having that degree, don't quite know what I'd do with it considering I'm wanting to go into museums/archives. So I'm thinking I could do the BUNAC program for Ireland starting in like January 2012, then go on to try the BUNAC program for Britain and then go for my Masters. I think it would be a better use of money and such considering I'd be just working for a year and a half. Plus I've wanted to go to Ireland for so long, and what better way other than studying abroad.

"I'm About to Whip Somebody's Ass"

So this weekend, my mom confronted my aunt (her sister) about her "rendezvous" at the house my mom owns. My aunt felt that was invasion of her privacy and promptly declared she was going to move out (and actually did start the process.) She had left and come back, and then decided I needed to be talked to about how things should be now that she was moving out.

1. She declared that I need to come home more to watch out for my mom. That's fine and dandy when I can get the time off. Retail holiday season is starting, and I start my second job next week. I'll come home when I can. My mom knows that.

2. My aunt declared that her older sister is ruling my mom, and that's why I need to come home. (Plus she felt that she needed to be like 2 inches from my face when she told me this, while I was cooking.) Uhh, my mom is essentially the matriarch of this part of the family. I doubt her sister is telling her what to do, plus she's 56 and been married since she was 17. I'd say she knows how to run her own household by now.

3. She came at me with, she was going to remind me of these things every time she saw me. I stopped her right there with the words "Just don't." She tried to pull that shit with me before in declaring that I needed to give thanks to her God for the success that I've had in my life. Uhh, no. While I do believe in a higher power (and refer to it as The Powers That Be), I do not believe the Christian God to necessarily be that higher power, therefore I am not going to give thanks. That night she went on and on about how I needed to become Christian. I don't come after Christians about why they believe what they do, so what is the need in trying to convert me?

She did back off when I told her not to pull that crap though. Finally. Our family has already become so fractured with the death of my dad, and her drinking and whoring around then getting upset and bitchy when somebody called her out on it did nothing to help.

But on to the next. Tell me why three people managed one tv/dvr for a year with very few problems, but before he even moved in, the new roomie was insisting on having cable in his room? First he hounded me with trying to get a jack put in his room. Comcast won't do that in apartments. It took me getting bitchy before the point got through. Now he's stuck on using a splitter. I asked someone at Comcast about that. They said it would downgrade the signal. He was told this. He's still insisting on the splitter. At this point, I'm past caring. If it messes with the internet and such too much, I'll get my own internet and just watch everything online. I practically do that now. Shouldn't be too much of a hardship except for missing Thrashers games. I will be sad about that, but life goes on. Times like this I fucking hate spoiled brats.

All that was to say this. I am normally one of the calmest people you can me, and it's hard to make me well and truly mad, but this last month alone, between 3 people, I've been ready to knock someone on their ass. And if this continues, I do believe I will.

The Plan

I love discovering new things, so having discovered blogs written by black women expats has been awesome, especially since I'm looking to become one myself. I know I'm probably going to be reading as much of them as possible considering how I used to be as a kid (like being obsessed with sailing around the world - something which still would be awesome to do). I've been obsessed with travel since I was young and having lived outside of the country once, I can't wait to do it again. That and getting to travel to all those places I didn't see on my last trip over. I'm hoping things come together like I want them to, especially since I'm getting a plethora of info about various things like the fact that BUNAC has a 12-month work program in Ireland and a 6-month on for Britain. I mean, with the plan I currently have running in my head, the 6-month program would fit in beautifully. Granted a chance to live in Ireland for a year would definitely put the England thing on hold.

So tentatively my schedule is as follows:
Graduate from GPC by December 2011 (I'm thinking I could be done after Summer semester though)
Graduate from GSU (again) by December 2012 (once again, I might be able to get it done in Summer)
Do the 6-month BUNAC program (from January to June, maybe February to July)
Start the 24 month Museum Studies Program at Newcastle Uni in September 2013

I'm getting excited about the thought of this working out. Granted school here will put me in further debt more than likely.

Coming Together

So I think things might be coming together in my head for trying to move back to England. I've found a two-year program at Newcastle Uni that I want to do. It would be almost £22000 ($33000) for the program, but in that time, you not only complete the MA in Museum Studies, you also get like 46 weeks of work experience. The only downside is having to write a 12 to 15,000 word dissertation for the MA part.

To top it off, I found out that Newcastle leases rooms at Garth Heads, which is where I stayed before on my study abroad. I loved living Quayside, and think it would be totally awesome to live there again. It's £4300 for a 48 week lease, and Newcastle has guaranteed postgrad housing for the first year, so if I couldn't make it there, I could get somewhere else.

Now I've just gotta figure out how to save money. It would be awesome if my mom lived down here so I didn't have to pay rent, but alas, at least I'm only pay about $300 for it. Could be worse. It's my credit cards that I need to figure out how to get rid of.