Iva’s personal site - Squirrelism.net

The title of this entry hardly has anything to do with the entry itself. It’s a rather humorous way to contradict some things. And I’m enjoying it with as much pleasure as I’d enjoy roasted potatoes…however, there’s one slight difference: this doesn’t give stomach problems, unless I’m laughing at what I wrote so much that my stomach hurts;)

So, now that it’s official, I can proudly say what’s my new job: I am the admin of Lush Serbia!:) The site looks pretty oldsk00l, but I, with suggestions coming from the head PR/trainer/godhedoessomanyotherthings will make it look as cool as possible. And I’m so excited about it, since I’ve been Lushing My Religion for about a year now and I’m totally addicted, so this is like the second best thing after being like a kid in a candystore (which would still be an equivalent of something else).

Speaking of Lush, here’s my yummy stuff for tonight or tomorrow night:

Snowcake soap and Puddy Holly ballistic

Other than that…gosh, I’ve had a pretty busy week, so everyone who didn’t get a comment back from me, even if it was long ago, it’s not on purpose. My busy social life from last week continued onto this week, but it turned out I also had a busy business life…if there’s such a thing. With little jobs here and there, now I also work for someone who’s free only on weekday evenings, so I’d often end up coming home at midnight and just jumping into bed. And on Friday I spent four hours freezing with 100-ish people in a row for something…and if I don’t get that something, I might just call 2006 the worst year of my life.

I wanted to bitch blog about how western culture turned Christmas into a major joke and how watching Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire for the third time in a year made me think of some things related to the psychology of the characters and ms. Rowling herself, buuuut…some other time. Too tired now and too annoyed with how I can’t set up my downloadables and gallery on Invisible Movement. Instead of that, I will just post a pic of John from the 56666887989789th RHCP gig in UK this year, taken by my friend Kim:

John Frusciante in London, 22nd November 2006

If you want a nice review of the show, Sarah wrote one, click here

I almost deleted this website yesterday. I had a bad, bad, bad PMS (sorry for too much info) and I don’t remember having been this self-destructive in years. The past two weeks have been mentally overwhelming for me, with good and bad things bombing me each from its own side. Blah. I could use some cheering up now.

The first week, which is, well, the week before this one was all about one BIG shock. Let’s say that some people are becoming more and more dominant as I’m writing this and that they have changed their tactics from You all suck to Aww, I love you guys so much! Wanna be my friends? Whoever the person in question is, they’re really taking this shiznit too far and I don’t get how they’re winning people? Maybe because people whom they’re winning, with honourable exceptions, are the social butterflies. Either way, I’ve had enough of know your whatever this year.

Unlike that week, the week that’s ending with today was…well, stressful. I learned one thing from it: never ask your parents for job advise. I am close to getting a very nice job and I almost lost it because mom and dad were telling me how much to ask from the job providers…and my unofficial older sister was on their side. In the end, it turned out that the pay IS small, but that it WILL increase as I’m advancing so…yeah, I said yes. Once the contract is signed, I’ll tell you where I’m going to work, but I guess it’s not that hard to guess. And no, it’s not Pepsi :p

Does anyone of my age and slightly younger/older remember Fabuland? You know, one of those lines of products Lego had before they became waaay too complicated to follow. For an anthro fan like myself, Fabuland was Promiseland. All the characters were cute animals. My favourite was and always will be Max Mouse. In my mind, Lucy Lamb was always his girlfriend, as they were together in most of the playsets they were a part of. I have a small roudabount with a parkbench, with Max and Lucy, I have a house with Bonnie Bunny and Edward Elephant, as well as the bus station with Nessie Hippo and Mike Monkey. But I don’t have the amusement park on this picture. That one was my obsession. When I went to Italy with mom and dad in 1987, I wanted that one so much, but I got some Lego Basic set instead. Then mom went to Germany twice in 1988, but she’d always bring me something else. Then it turned out that my wonderful friend Mira never got that one either. And we made a deal: one day we’re soooo going to get that amusement park, no matter how much it costs. Yes, we’re mad, but proud of it as well.

What else…John shaved his head again:

I’m going to miss those long romantic brown curls a bit, but, at the other side, he looks younger with shorter hair; and if he donated hair to Locks Of Love again, that’s one more reason to love him. Come to think, when was the last time we were able to see his whole face. Errr…early 2005?

.::uni stuff::.
I am pretty much comfortable with the fact that I didn’t pass the second year of my four year studies for…god, you don’t want to know which time. However, I’m not comfortable with the fact that, when I get to the last year someday, I might have someone from 2001 generation I’m a part of teaching me. Sofija is a better student than Mila and me, she is at the beginning of the last year now and she was rather surprised to see one of our class mates from the first year as professor’s assistant. And then, well, I have to wonder. When I was 18, looking at what to choose for my degree, I picked something I really liked. I could have picked English language and I would’ve probably obtained my diploma by now…but I always thought of English language as some sort of an universal, rather easy thing which wouldn’t be that interesting to get deeper into. I could have picked my native language, but what would be the use? I’d have to spend the rest of my life at a highschool or elementary school teaching a bunch of kids with hormones set on overdrive. This way, I hope to find something more creative to do for living.

.::g33k stuff::.
I think the most of the site problems are solved now, apart from the ongoing issues with every single Gravatar plugin I try to use. They all either display no gravatars at all, or they display the default one for every single person. Why do the Gravatars hate me? I seriously don’t get this anymore.

The commenter plugger and the threaded comments plugin hate each other, since the first one is plugging *me* after I reply to someone else’s comment. I can live with the ridiculous idea of plugging myself on my own website, but it’s still…stupid.

I am currently making myself some link buttons. I feel bad because I owe one to Sam and I just SUCK at making buttons. So, well, hope these on the domain page are at least satisfying.

And I am desperately looking for a plugin which would enable me to blog in Serbian as well, without too much fuss or without installing another WP.

.::stuff stuff::.
Either way, here’s my little reward for the day. My wonderful friend Marian from New York sent me a letter, a little something for which I can’t still figure out what it is, the both Dani California singles and one of the Tell Me Baby Singles…2 of those 3 were bought via gift certificate from my Amazon associate earnings; the third one was a gift. And, the best part of the gift is the November 2006 issue of Guitar Player Magazine, with John Frusciante on the cover. The article is amazing, he’s talking about recording of Stadium Arcadium…in fact, he dissected every single song to atoms, he revealed the secrets of what he was using in terms of equipment. My mother was, as usual, annoyed with the cover, she compared John to Genaro Gattuso, she accused him of wanting to gain more female fans by wearing an unbuttoned shirt and she was pretending not to hear me when I said that John today is what Hendrix and Page were back in the days. Blah…either way, if you want to see the whole article, head over to Invisible Movement; I should have it up there soon.

So…all hail Marian and fingers crossed to her because that wonderful woman is going to two Red Hot Chili Peppers’ shows this week and she deserves to have the best time ever. I am as excited as if I would be if I was going to those shows.

I am not supersticious. Friday the 13th, so freakin’ what? However, in elementary school, there was this girl, Nena, who was scared to death not only of Friday the 13th, but also every 13th of the month. Maybe it was because she was one of the worst students in the class, so she needed an excuse for failing? Either way, my friend Sofija has an exam today. It was supposed to be yesterday, but they postponed it. I know that we’re at the university and that everything is supposed to be serious and mature…but knowing our professors, they did it on purpose, to try to freak out as many people as possible. Not a nice joke, methinks.

I would like to thank everyone who commented on my previous entry. You were so nice, so supportive and it was wonderful to read such comments even from people who don’t know me, such as Despair commenters and those who stumbled upon my site. And, thinking about all that, I also figured out that the certain guy might’ve been frighten by the fact that I know much more than he knows. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time it happened. Here in Serbia web design, e-commerce and similar things sort of exploded in 2005 when the main telecommunications company let go of its monopoly and allowed minor ISPs to offer ADSL, wireless and cable connections to people. Can’t imagine what kind of a war this will be once those connections are actually affordable by each single regular mortal the way dial-up is. Designers will be jumping over each other to get a work opportunity…ohwell, guess I need to learn how to resist….in “the way the Eastpak bag stays on a skeleton” way.

Either way, thought I’d reveal a little obsession here. Virtual Villagers! That game is sooo addictive. Some people say that it reminds them of The Sims, but since I am not a gamer and I never played that one anyway, no matter how famous it is, I can’t really make a comparison there, sorry. All I know is that this game is, well, tricky and that cheating or experimenting isn’t a good idea…why?

…because it ends like this:

And, it should definitely be like this:

So, I’d advice everyone to try your luck with Virtual Villagers. 4 of my tribes starved to death, but the 5th tribe survived, I solved all the 16 puzzles and bought all the tech…and now I basically have to wait for someone to die of old age so there could be more babies, as the population is limited to 90 villagers.

P.S. Very special plugs for Claudia because she found me the commenter plugger script and for Nozomi, because I spy the certain most wonderful person on the planet on her layout. Oh yes, and also Rika, because this is, if I’m not wrong, her…fifth domen since we met? So…..Rika, Rika, Rika, Rika, Rika!!!:p

As Victoria said here, sometimes it’s really hard to blog when there’s nothing to blog about. But, well, I’m trying. :p

I always end up whining to my friends about how their lives are more dynamic than mine instead of doing something to change it. This week, my friend Laura encouraged me once again, for the second time this year. It has nothing to do with looking up to others, as I lead a specific life, being the only person in my household who works AND studies at the same time; it has something to do with stopping the whining and getting to do something! And that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Sooo…during the week that’s just passed, I worked on two different part-time projects I get paid for, worked on websites of three of my friends (you just saw one of them in the previous paragraph…:p), went to Via del Gusto with mom for some delicious pancakes with cheese, ham and sour cream; as well as considered one of those courses over there at Educon…why? Because they provide their students with certificates valid all over Europe! I think it would be quite handy for increasing the income from part-time design jobs while on university. Oh yesss…and, out of the blue, one of my dearest online friends, whom I’ve known for 2.5 years now; decided to visit me next month. She’s not supersticious about her arrival date being Friday 13th. I haven’t had anyone visit me for more than, like, one day; since my beautiful and intelligent Spanish friend Cristina/Calitoe was here in February 2005. I’m sooo excited about this:)

Regarding the personal sphere of the web design/blogging universe…I’d been out of the loop for months, maybe even more than one whole year, I’ve been surfing around, trying to catch up with people (many of them deleted me from their friends’/reads’ pages, guess they think I’m dead or something), redesigning all my websites apart from the ever-so-popular Invisible Movement, saving my friends’ fanlistings made with malicious out-of-date scripts…in other words, I’ve been busy for the past couple of weeks. An useful advice to everyone: don’t break your routine, don’t procrasinate, it will turn into a bad habit and you’ll end up having way too much catching-up to do. And then, while you’re catching up, people who are used to your updating a fansite by the speed of light will go ballistic and think you’re ill or something. So…it’s almost like a neverending circle. I need Iva #2 to help me finish some things, but that would also require a computer #2, I’m afraid.

This site has been updated as well…surprise, surprise! I stole a survey from Sam (like your layout number 14, btw) and filled it out; also, I’m halfway done with redoing my quizzes and creating an archive of my past layouts. Then I’m off to redesigning some other sites and, one nice day when everything is up to date, I might make my old site themes WP 2.0 compatible. Before any of that, I need to make *this* theme Firefox compatible. I used one of the pre-made themes to see what WP 2.0 has to offer as a template for this layout; thinking it would be all valid…yeah, it IS valid, but in Firefox, it’s a complete mess. I really have to figure out what went wrong.

Either way, all of you who come here and lurk…say something;) It’s nice to know that you’re here. And, well, that makes me want to write more. Many thanks to Milica who said she enjoys reading my blog here.