i'm wearing a ski mask right now. it squishes my nose so i can't breathe well.

i love my italian class. it's fun. i believe i've told you before of the Romeo/Ophelia/Hamlet/Juliet love... rectangle.... but i love my class for two other reasons. 1) my teacher is originally from germany. she often slips when doing numbers or really obscure words. as i've also taken german, i notice it when she does it, and i inwardly laugh. 2) my teacher also has a funny way of speaking english. she uses the word "gunna" ALL THE TIME. as in. "i gunna get some lunch", "we gunna read this chapter", "you gunna answer the questions", "she gunna write it on the board". oh yeah, and my very favorite: "what's the weather gunna like?" i spose it just comes from the way it's phrased in her language(s), and the fact that NO ONE likes to conjugate things in anything other than their native language. that is all. i gunna go to bed.

My hands smell like restaurant soap and limes

Hey, Internet! Long time, no see! How's everything been going? Seen any good movies? Neh, me neither. Hmm? Yeah, not much. Wrote a paper, went to classes, took some tests, the usual. So I'd really love to stay and chat, but I was just on my way out... yeah, I know. We should have lunch sometime and talk about the good old days. Yeah, I'm pretty busy too. But we should really get together sometime and catch up... I'll give you a call... yeah, see you around!

random attractive italian!

Tiziano Cucchiarelli may just be my favorite actor-that's-only-been-in-one-movie-and-it-wasn't-really-that-big-of-a-part-either. And of all two of the italian movies i've seen, i like Pane e Tulipani the best. Life is Beautiful is just way too depressing. Look for Nic's transformation at the very end of the movie. A change for the better? I think that's a resounding Yes! The whole movie is just the greatest thing ever. I like it so much, i think i'll rent it and watch it again, so's to pay better attention than i could in italian class.

in the computer lab

at my school, we have an underground giant sea of computers. right now is the first time i've ever looked at my site from a computer other than home, and it gives me a little shiver of "wow. my words can be accessed from anywhere." but i have two little observations from where i sit. first, it kind of smells like a Penguin's, for some reason. second, about 1/6 of the computers here are macs. there's like these tiers, or landings, in the lab, so it's like a big staircase. the top landing is the one full of macs. i think that says something. something like, macs are superior. or perhaps something like macs are weird and need to be segregated so's not to infect the other computers with their appleness. however, i like that we're segregated. in the morning, when everyone on campus is trying to check their email and there's a line of people waiting on each tier, i know that i can always walk straight to the top and find an empty mac. because stupid people are afraid of them and don't know how to use them. i am of the priviledged class that can use either a mac or an ibm or a dell or whatever. but i try to use the apples whenever i can, because they're just so much easier, and i feel like i belong here. whenever i'm too tired to walk up all the stairs to get to the mac area, and i settle for a dell, i can't relax and enjoy myself, because i feel like an outsider. i think i've rambled on for too long, and the things i'm saying aren't all that interesting, so i'll leave you with these parting words: apples are good. especially when they smell like frozen yogurt.

overheard conversation

guy: "yeah... mick jagger and steven tyler have been technically dead like four times each"
girl: "i know! their hearts stopped and everything"
guy: "and you know that if someone else, like if i tried to do that, i'd just die"
girl: "tried to do what? wear a woman's scarf?"
girl: "wearing women's scarves actually gave steven tyler a heart attack"
guy: "yeah, it couldn't have been all the drugs and alcohol"

cake mix

I love it when I come across some old cd that I haven't listened to in a long time. Like years. This summer, I went to a play (in Hollywood, while visitng relatives) where the intermission music was an album I had almost forgotten I have. Hush, by Bobby McFerrin and YoYo Ma. It's so great. Once we got back home, I went and found the cd, and stuck it into my computer so I can listen to it any time I want to. Lately, I stole a few cd's from my sister, and I realized that I really DO like Cake, and they're actually a lot better and more fun than I first thought. I made a compilation cd of my favorite Cake songs, and what better name than Cake Mix? Informative, simple, and something I just have to laugh at every time I see it. I think maybe I should hide a few of my favorite albums, so I can find them later and enjoy them again.

sad songs and waltzes

you know what's just the crappiest? when you have a great day, do homework early in the afternoon, go to two different social events, have tons of fun, then get in your car and start crying. and you cry for like a half hour straight while driving home. yeah, that's totally the crappiest.

hey HEY!

the evidence of my very THIRD reader! excitement galore. But I thought I'd inform you of my future job, as predicted by this site: Fluffy Bunny Trainer. Ohhhh yeahhhhh... so cool. Now what was I really meaning to say? Did I already tell you about the whole travel journal idea? Yes? Well, I haven't used it yet. I'm thinking it'll have to wait till after this semester ends, when I'll have more time, and I'll be changing my work schedule anyway. Oh. I remember what I was going to say. I burned a bunch of cd's from Isabel the other day. MY Simon and Garfunkel's greatest hits that she stole from me, 3 Cake cd's, and, er, the Eagles of Death Metal. And I'm really enjoying Pressure Chief (Cake's latest album, I think). Especially the End of The Movie. It's so cute with the banjo and all. I like timid-sounding songs by artists that aren't usually timid. They always make me happy. Like If I Ever Leave this World Alive by Flogging Molly, or Blackbird or Mother Nature's Son by the Beatles. Sweet little songs are nice. Like sitting inside in a sweater and fuzzy socks and watching it raining outside.

parlo italiano, e tu?

So I'm taking Italian 101. I am obviously as good as fluent already, no? Anyway, we do a lot of group work (writing dialogues, etc), and my usual group is fun. We did an exercise awhile ago where we had to write letters of advice to lovelorn kids, whose names were "Romeo" and "Ophelia." Hmmm, we thought, suspicious. And their stories were oddly Shakesperian. So we wrote each telling them to dump their crazy significant other, and hook up with this cool guy/girl we know named romeo/ophelia who's also breaking up with their SO. Since then, any dialogue, any story about a picture, is a continuation of the Hamlet/Ophelia/Juliet/Romeo love tri...rectangle.... It's been very fun, leading to some hilarious stories. Like Hamlet being a barista and poisoning Romeo's coffee because he stole Ophelia from him. Anyway. today's dialogue was almost about Giulietta, but we decided against it. Instead, it was just us. We went to a restaurant, and our check had the wrong stuff on it. We complained to the waiter, got free dessert out of it, but still didn't leave a tip. Poor waiter. It was more fun than I'm making it sound right now, but I think the humor would be lost in translation (read: I'm too lazy to write down the whole conversation). Io capisco paroli italiani. Capiscete, o non capiscete? Io vado al camera di letto, perche ho sonno, e voglio dormire. Buonasera!

don't read anything into this

Girl in my singles ward today: "i hope nobody reads anything into this, but i've been thinking a lot about motherhood lately, and how great mothers are..."

My actual post: i read several liberal-type blogs, etc, and it seems like there's been an eerie silence since tuesday. NOTHING has been updated. no new posts, no new flash animations to watch. nothing. i'm neither here nor there on the issue; i just noticed, and wanted to point it out.

i need to stretch

I went to Borders today. I hate that store. It's so... common. Take Barnes and Noble, take out all the pleasant, atmosphere-inducing furniture, make it less friendly, put a bunch of creepy old people (not nice old people), and replace anything that might be useful with crappy best sellers and mass produced teeny-bopper address books, and you've got Borders. Although I don't drink coffee, I'd bet that their cafe is crappier, too. So while I was looking through the postcard/ stationary set area, i came across a box of postcards labeled "Going Places." The pictures were awful, but behind it there was a matching book. The book was pretty interesting- it had a section for 'where I'm going/what to see/how I'm getting there', one for 'pre-trip budget/how much I actually spend per day/ etc', and then places for notes and journal type stuff. The way it's set up, though, makes it useful for exactly one trip. Want to go somewhere else? Gotta buy another one for another $15. But. After I had looked through it, and stuck it back on the shelf, I thought to myself, too bad I'm not going places. I'm not even going place. So I walked away from that book and went and bought an overpriced "leather-look" empty journal. I know, that's so Tolkien-fan-like of me. I actually bought it because it had a little flap on the right hand side with a magnet in it so the book stays closed, and because the paper had a nice feel to it. I could really do without the leathery look and plasticky texture. Anyway, back to my narrative. I'm going to clean out my car so there isn't any trash in it. I'm going to put the book somewhere where it'll be really noticable so i see it every day, and it reproaches me. I'm going to change my work schedule so I don't work Saturdays. I'm going to be a good student and do my homework during the week so I'll be free weekends and not feel guilty. I'm going to start small. Day trips. Afternoon trips, even. Just to make my life a little more interesting. After doing this for a semester, Stacey (my well meaning, but empty-headed car) and I will be ready to make a real road trip during the summer. Drive all over, do a Twine Tour. Hopefully Krista will come, too. Or Lauren. Or maybe I'll make a new friend between now and then. Or maybe I'll buy a dog. The point is, I'm tired of driving down the same street every day, seeing the same line of businesses followed by the same line of houses, and then driving back the other way a few hours later. Everything in my life is too familiar, and I want to see something different. So there. Go watch Breaking Away. That was the other thing I thought when I saw the book. "But I'm not going anywhere." "Oh, I'm not so sure about that..."