Hallelujah!

This brief interlude to say that sometime between 8:30 and 10:30 this morning, while I went back to bed after eating oatmeal way too early for comfort, my amazing father gave my computer a talking-to and I can now both read and post to my blog from my computer.

And another thing!

Elephant Humidifier!

alternately, because I like them both equally,

Frog Humidifier!

Hola Mi Amigos!

I've really enjoyed this past week or so, even though it was tainted by having a nasty cold for the majority of the week. The cold has pretty much gone and left a lingering cough in its place, and I chalk up the quickness of the cold's retreat to zinc.

Zinc! I praise thee and thy strangely good-tasting orange flavor. The best part is that because I got the tablet kind and not the nose-spray kind, I didn't lose my sense of smell, as I've heard is possible with zinc nose spray.

Tonight was date night, and we made a lovely dinner of ham and mashed potatoes and green beans and time-pressed rolls that were delicious, and homemade peanut brittle and also some brownies. I rather like doing date night- it's always very friendly, and I just realized it's kind of a grown-up thing to do. Dinner party with civilized conversation and ham, you know. Well, until Roommate X's boyfriend started dancing. I guess it seems more civilized and grown-up because we're all generally still in our Sunday clothes. After dinner we trooped up to the north side of town to see the live nativity scene put on by the church. It was fun to go as a big group and bring my very long blanket to share with my four closest friends, sitting outside in the (relative) cold night air. We played a Mannheim Steamroller cd on the way back home, and played cards for awhile.

Tomorrow I get to help cement details of Hunca Munca's bridal shower this week, doing things like buying blue crepe paper and cutting out snowflakes to decorate the house, making sure people know where and when it is, etc. I'm looking forward to it, and have already purchased four bottles of Martinelli's. I love Martinelli's almost as much as I love parties. Perhaps more.

Could it be possible?

I've found something that makes me feel antagonistic toward one of my four favorite roommates. This thing? Politics.

Up until now, I've never really had any kind of problem with any roommate ever. As in, like, I have never felt in opposition to anything they have said or done, ever (except for that one time when I almost murdered my roommate because she beat me at a movie trivia game?). This is in accordance with the incredible patience that spontaneously sprouted from my heart when I moved from home.

Back to the point at hand, though. Somehow, I've realized that I really do have pretty firm opinions about politics and government, and I've come to understand that idea of how you're not supposed to talk politics with friends. Because, a sociological perspective of politics and government is very different from a... lawyerly perspective. Except I think her perspective is also a little different from the more common lawyer's perspective. In any case, we disagree, and since she has a stronger personality than me, and is better at asserting her opinion, she always comes out seeming smarter and more credible than me. This makes me very upset, because I know that my opinion is just as credible and sensible as hers is, but she never seems to see my point, and then I think unChristian thoughts about her, like thinking that she is stubborn and wrong.

I must needs learn to be less upsettable and less emotionally involved in such discussions.

December: the new November

Last night was a good night. Not only did I get to be all prettied up and eat a fancy dinner and dance with my friends, but I saw somebody that I haven't seen for awhile, and wasn't expecting to see. It made me happy, and we got to talk a little bit about this and that. I very much enjoyed myself. Great way to spend the last friday before finals start, I'd say.

Speaking of December (real smooth there, wasn't I?), I'm thinking maybe I'll include in every post this month something I'd like to have in my life. You know, for all those people who want desperately to buy me something for Christmas, but aren't sure what to get. Here you go,another gift idea.

Two posts in one day! Too bad it isn't November anymore.

Today, while walking around campus for work, delivering mail, I saw the following individuals;

1. A cute little girl, running around, playing on the mall and being precocious.

2. Some guy sitting outside the student union, eating McDonald's, with about a hundred little brown birds sitting all around him on the ground, on the other chairs at the table, and even on the table itself, about a foot away from his food. I don't know if he's like some bird whisperer, or if maybe he was feeding them crumbs, or if the birds just went crazy en masse, but it was a noteworthy scene that I wish I had had my camera for.

3. Santa Claus. He took a picture with a bunch of sorority girls, then continued on his jolly way.

Happy December, Yo

I just realized that my first final is only four days away.

Where has the time gone! I really enjoy the middle of the semester, cause it's just the plugging away part, you don't have to immediately worry about your grades, because you still have more to do. The end of the semester may be fun because you get many days of nothing, with one or two days of high stress, but I find it a little disorienting. Like, who am I? Who is this person who has to write exams? Who is this person who's lying around the house at weird hours of the day because she has nothing better to do?

Vacation time is pretty disconcerting. Except Christmas is nice, because you get to eat cookies and obtain gifts from people. Gifts like these, for instance. Or perhaps this.

Still Singing Newsies

Today has been a good day. I went to work, fooled around and ate a bagel, froze as I ran errands for the office, went to class, got out early, came home, wrote a paper, went shoe shopping (and was successful!), ate a delicious dinner prepared by my roommate, went to class again, came home and was entertained by the dancing antics of my roommate's boyfriend, watched Newsies again while having my hair straightened in possible preparation for the formal tomorrow. We'll see if it remains un-greasy enough to warrant letting it stay straightened and unwashed. However, with such a full day, I'm pretty exhausted, and I need my beauty sleep because tomorrow's also going to be a full day.

I must get up early to write another paper, go to work and school till five, then go home to try and make myself look pretty, go out to dinner with my date (I know, I have such a hard life), plus dance. A tortured soul, I am.

I think I may sleep in on Saturday, though.

This being the last day of November, I feel like I should remark somewhat on the NaBloPoMo experience. I'm amazingly proud of myself for missing only one day, and I feel like I managed for maybe 3/4 of the time to write something worthwhile, or at least interesting. As my readers, you may feel differently. We'll see. I kind of liked having a reason to look back on my day, though, and reflect upon what I do with my life, even if the results weren't very user friendly. I almost definately will not keep up writing every day from now on, but perhaps I shall do it more often than in the past, as it's a good way to sort out all the messy thoughts that clutter up my brain. It's been a good November.

Here's to December, being non-stressful (please?) and fun and full of holiday cheer.

Consumed by Shame, Again

I can't believe I missed a day! And so very very close to the end of the month, too! I am really too upset by this to actually say how much I am upset by this.

But such is life. I've been on a slight musical kick the past two days. Last night I randomly picked Guys and Dolls off the bookshelf and started watching it all by myself. By the end of the movie, most of my roommates were out there watching with me, one of whom had never before seen it (!). I am very glad we watched it. And then all day today I was humming the songs. That is, until I borrowed Newsies from a friend, and we watched that. Tomorrow, and tonight, I will be singing "open the gates and seize the day; don't wait around and don't delay! Nothing will break us, no one can make us give our rights away. Oh coooome aaaand seeeeeize thuhhh daaaaaay!"

Who knew that I'd be asked to watch a disney musical for a sociology class? But really, it makes total sense; unions and labor relations and all that. Very Marxian.

*Whimper*

I'ma warn you all now, so you're not surprised. I have four papers due in the next four days.

In other words, I will not be writing a lot of stuff here during the coming week. I'm sorry, because I know how much you all love hearing the tedium of my life in general. Don't worry, though- I'll be back and better than ever, in maybe, seven days from today. Because I just remembered the term paper that's due on Monday, as well. That's five papers in a week. I know I'm a wimp, but you'll just have to suck it up and wait out my busy spell.

I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke

But barring that, it's also fun to make the world some cookies, and keep it company. Tonight we mixed up a batch of peanut butter cookie dough, and trundled off to three of our favorite guys' houses, spending about twenty minutes at each house. Twenty is about the right amount of time to stick the cookies into the oven and bake them, take them out, let them cool, and most importantly, visit with the person the oven belongs to. I highly recommend this practice, as it's much more friendly than doorbell ditching pre-baked cookies, and you get to randomly surprise people by showing up on their doorstep with a trayful of cookie blobs. Who wouldn't want to open their front door and find friends and food standing on the other side?

Thanksgiving

Here's an abbriviated list of things I am thankful for this year.

• the weather? It's currently less than sixty degrees outside. Perhaps by Christmas I will be able to wear a sweatshirt outside all day long.
• my sister? She's amazingly cool and nice. She bought me a shirt because she felt pity for my brokeness.
• my parents? They're cool too. They gave me some helpful spot cash money to alleviate some of my brokeness, and they also have humored me all weekend long with the stuff I want to do.
• my roommates? They make me happy. They invited boys over tonight, and we watched Robin Hood and ate 60 chicken mcnuggets and talked a bunch and I got one high-five and two hugs goodnight.
• the boys we had over? They created a wonderful and varied conversation, and they knew when to leave to make them missed, rather than annoyingly overstaying their welcome.

Maybe Someday You'll See Them

Today being the day after Thanksgiving, I had the day off work. And school. Just like every other student in America.

Not like every other student in America, I spent the day taking pictures with various cameras- a fisheye camera, two pinhole cameras, and my trusty old digital camera. We got some pretty cool shots with the fisheye, as well as some truly mediocre ones, and we had mixed results with the pinholes. It was great fun taping towels and blankets over the door and windows of the bathroom to create our very own darkroom, and the little red lightbulb gave it the mark of authenticity (also the mark of being able to see what you're doing. A darkroom is, to put it bluntly, very dark). It was pretty nifty swishing the pictures around in the various solutions and watching them develop, and I hope someday to create more focused pieces. This being my first experience with this type of photography, it took several tries before my pictures came out recognizably, and even then they weren't very well composed.

Fortunately, I get to try again tomorrow.

(props to my mother, who is posting this for me, as I'm separated from computers that get along with blogger right now)

Home For the Holidays

I've got a lot to do today, between cooking the turkey and visiting with my family, so I'll make this short.

Happy Thanksgiving.






















You didn't really believe I'd cop out that easily, did you?

All of my roommates left yesterday for their various homes and celebrations across this great state, leaving me to sit around and twiddle my thumbs all alone last night. What to do when you're all by yourself for an entire night, you ask?

You get in your pajamas at 7:30, watch chick flicks until midnight, then play online games until 4, so you'll be in your best shape when you get up at 8 to go to your parents' house.

For reals, though- Happy Thanksgiving!

Proof of the Sadness of My Life

I have a job. It doesn't pay terribly well, and I only get 15 hours per week, but it (hopefully) pays the bills, and it fits my schedule.

My job is kind of boring. I go in at ten o'clock, pick up a bunch of manila envelopes, walk around campus for an hour delivering them to various buildings, then sit around and file for two hours. If I'm lucky, the administrative assistant that I work with will order zucchini sticks and share with me.

Today, I had an invitation to deliver to the president of the university. Top floor of the admin building is pretty posh, let me tell you. And the secretary? When I gave her the envelope and told her who it was for? She said, "I am happy to receive it for him."

So cool!

Christmas List addition

Two more things that would make my life better if I had them:

Body Butter, the orange-smelling one

a Vaccuum. One that really sucks.


I spent the evening doing this thing that other people of the female persuasion find "entertaining", or "addicting" or "fun." I shopped with some friends. Rather, we wandered around the mall and touched a lot of clothes without any intention of buying them. The point being? I don't know, I really don't. Some things about women I really don't understand at all. Shopping makes me grumpy and tired, and when you add that to the fact that I was grumpy and tired already by three in the afternoon, that makes for a very grumpy and tired me at eleven o'clock after shopping for two and a half hours. However, because we stopped at the Body Shop, my hands smell very nice, and I remembered how much I like things that smell nice. So, if you're wondering what to get me, quit wondering and start buying things that smell good. I will like them.

Now for some bedtime advils.

I've run out of interesting post titles

I've hit the wall. I've been doing pretty good about having interesting things (well, interesting to me, at least) to post this month, but tonight, I've got nothing. I think it may be because I've done so much actual talking to real live, present people today that I'm all conversed out.

But tomorrow I get to go shopping! At the mall! Cross your fingers and hope I don't buy anything.

Sorry, Dad

As we drove through the burgeoning dusk, searching for the bus yard, I got the grand idea to call my mother and see if she knew what street it was on. My dad picked up the phone, and there was, unfortunately, static. He didn't hear all of the words that I said, so I decided to explain things in painful detail, so that he could deduce from the context what I was talking about, in case he missed some words. This led me to say the following sentence:

"So, you know, school busses? Those things that little kids ride to school? I'm trying to find that place where they keep those school busses, like at night. Get it?"

I'm pretty sure he thinks I was trying to be condescending and rude. Dad, I didn't mean it like that. I love you.

Music Video Madness

Last week we made a music video, and it ended in tragedy.

Today, we salvaged what progress we had made before our last effective save, and worked for another six hours straight, and created an even better video than we had made the first time. That's right, folks. Our video is complete. It is on a dvd, with a menu screen that looks darn professional if I say so myself (which I do).

If you'd like to see it, and are in town (sorry, Uffish. Maybe at Christmas?), feel free to set up a screening time with me. It'll take about six minutes of your life, unless you're like me and feel the need to watch it at least three times in a row. If so, it'll take around 18 minutes of your life. If you want the full movie experience, you can bring a bag of popcorn and pop it in our microwave.

I feel like I sound like I'm bragging (because I am), but this video is seriously hilarious. And the content has inspired the S.O. of one of the stars to hunt down and beat another of the stars. I hope I'm there when this fight occurs, because it promises to be at least as funny as the video itself.

Required Dance Talk

Him: so, what are you studying?
Me: sociology...
H: so, that's like the study of groups of people, right? So you could tell me, theoretically, why we're all here, moving rhythmically to music and being forced to make small talk?
M: yes. It all has to do with totemic clans in Australia, who come together in effervescent rituals every once in a while, to gain a greater feeling of community. When they come back from these rituals, they're all pumped up, but it only lasts so long. Then they have to go back and have another ritual. If you're really interested, you could read all about it in Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life, which explains it in more detail. Like 500 pages more detail.
H: ...oh.

Wintertime is Pajama Time!

My roommates love it when I come out of my room in the morning. You should love me too.

Busby Berkeley Dreams

How many of you have seen Oscar? The movie with Sylvester Stallone?

If you've seen it, I'm incredibly mad at you for not having told me how hilariously funny it is. Why have I never heard of this until now?

My life has been so empty and meaningless!


In other, less astonishing news, my arm is feeling less sore, so I can no longer claim that I am dying of tetanus. This is a good thing, although less fun for getting sympathy. Can sympathy work retroactively? Please send me sympathy for last night, when my arm was hurting really bad so my roommate gave me a long massage. The massage was so long, however, that she forgot why she was giving it to me, and tried to massage (rather, squeeze really hard) my arm. Whereupon I yelped so loud that her boyfriend, on the phone with her, remarked on how she abuses her roommates.

Xylophone

My car and I have been through a fair amount together during its short five years of life, and she hasn't come out of everything unscathed. I list here, for your reading enjoyment, the short and sordid history of Stacey the WonderCivic:

-fall 2002, I think: a truck I'm parallel parked behind backs up and munches the hood of my car. The driver takes responsibility and offers to pay for repairs, but under the condition that we take it to a certain body shop way downtown because he knows the owner and can get himself a deal. The body shop takes a long time, then tries to give us back the car when there's obviously a big crack in the windshield. They claim it was there before, we tell them it wasn't, they call the guy who hit my car to get his permission to fix it (?), he calls me fifteen minutes later and yells at me over the phone. We eventually get the car back, intact.

-sometime after that: as a new driver, I run over a curb at a gas station, and get a scratch along the side of the car.

-summer 2003: driving home from work at 3 in the morning, I notice that my driving feels.... lumpy. I pull over to find that I have a reeeeaaal flat tire. Being the wimp that I am, I call my dad and demand that he wake up, get dressed, and drive out to help me fix it. He complies, and my first tire-changing lesson is held in a gas station parking lot at 3:30 am with a very tired teacher and an equally tired, but less groggy, student.

-winter 2005: somebody leaves a light on inside the car overnight, and I get to watch my friend give me a jump in minus 30 weather.

-also winter 2005, multiple times: I foolishly drive into various drifts of snow, and require the assistance of passersby and passengers to push me out. The last instance was particularly exciting, as I parked on what looked to me to be the side of the road, but was actually a ditch, filled up level with the street, with snow. Dismay set in as the car noticably sunk several feet. 9 in the evening, on a lonely street, with no shovel. A few cars pass, and finally a kind-hearted guy in a truck pulls over and tows us out. I vow never to get stuck in the snow again.

-april 2006- there are a few here
:somewhere between Saskatoon and Calgary, the weatherstripping on the right side of the windshield comes loose. Superglue does not help.
:Vancouver, a few days later. We wake up to find the keyhole of the driver's side door munched up, the bike-holding part of the roof rack (as well as the bike itself) gone, and the little triangular window on the back right door smashed in. At least the thieves didn't smash one of the bigger, openable windows. How thoughtful they were.
:oh yeah, and they spilled coffee on the floor of my car, so for the rest of the trip it smelled like stale hazelnut. (not so bad, actually)
:somewhere just south of Pescadero, CA, we stop at a gas station. The driver of the car accidentally scrapes the side of the car along a blue pole. I hope people think the blue streak is really just artistic pinstriping.

I feel a little nervous, because it's been six months since anything really happened to the car. That means that whatever's coming up next is going to be really bad. I bet I know what it'll be, too. Aside from some monumental crash, somebody's going to try and break into it again, and ruin the lock on the passenger side door, and then I'll have no way of getting into the car, save climbing through the trunk. That'd REALLY give me and my car some character.

Two Kinds of People

I sat in urgent care for two hours today, reading Where Angels Fear to Tread and getting stuck by needles. You'll all be happy to know that I will not get lockjaw as I got my tetanus shot, and hopefully neither will I get the flu. They give those shots out there, too. The process had me talking to five different people- two for check in, then an initial nurse to ask me what was wrong, then the doctor who also came in and I had to tell *her* what was wrong, too, then a final nurse who actually administered the shots.

The nurses were both pretty indifferent, except the second nurse gently mocked me for coming in for such a tiny cut. Tiny yes, but created by a nasty piece of rusty metal that's been sitting in our backyard for a long long time. I'd rather not take any chances.

The doctor was very nice, and she had an interesting trait for a doctor. Her hands, when she grabbed my foot to examine the wound, were warm. Warm hands! On a doctor! I figured with how nice she was and how warm her hands were, that she must be an alien spy pretending to be a doctor.

All in all, it was a fairly good two hours- I got through four chapters of my book, and got both shots I wanted, and the whole thing was just a $25 copay. For some reason I thought that I would have to pay for the shots as well as the base fee for the visit. Maybe I should go there every year for my flu shot, instead of the clinics that charge you $30.

I Shatter

The day of the colossal disappointment that was our music video, I did something stupid. I did something that requires action on my part to make me not die from it.

(Ok, really, not so bad. I just ripped my toe open on a rusty piece of metal, and since it's been forever years since I had a tetanus shot, I'll need to find a doctor sometime tomorrow to get one.)

The really annoying thing about this, more annoying than hurting myself, more annoying than having to go to the doctor and get a shot that will hurt, according to my nursing student roommate, is the fact that shoes are going to be difficult to wear for the next week or so. Because my toe hurts, a lot. Normally, I'd just wear thongs all week and there'd be no problem. Normally, I wear thongs all year long anyway. However, the job that I got? That is so convenient because it's right on campus so I go there, then stay on campus for school right afterward? I can't wear thongs there. This means I have to wear things like tennies, or like mary janes, or things like something else that encloses my toeses, something that will hurt to wear. And I'll have to wear them all day, every day.

My life is really tough, I know.

Yeah! Oh, Yeah!

The day began with me squinting, rolling over and turning off the alarm on my phone and rolling back over for another hour and a half, at which point my roommate told me I was a half hour late for the activities planned for the day. I squinted again, but rolled out of bed nonetheless.

The day ends with me blogging. And with my roommates angrily doing housework. Not angry so much about the housework, but angry because the ten hours we spent working on conceptualizing, filming, and editing our music video today came to naught.

It was a work of art. We had spliced it together so well that the music and the lip synching were completely in exactly the right place. The visuals were inspired and stunning. We had gone through countless costume changes and filming locations. We had learned on the spot how to edit using iMovie. We had made it so perfect and beautiful and we were PROUD OF OUR CREATION.

Then, as we were moving the last audio clip to its place, the last click of the mouse, the public computer we had been using, and saving to, crashed. Well, no, it didn't crash, it just froze completely. And freezing completely means restarting, and restarting means everything we had been saving was gone, because it was a public computer that doesn't keep stuff.

Fortunately, we still have all the original film, so we can still make the video some other time, and it'll take less time because we know better what to splice together, etc. Unfortunately, the talent show we were making it for was tonight.


This experience has taught me three things:

1. Always find a permanent place to save stuff to, because you never know when the computer's going to hate on you.

2. I really don't get upset by things easily, even when they're things I ought to get upset by, like wasting an entire day.

3. My roommates really DO get upset by those types of things.

Or Gesticulate

Life goes on much as usual, and with Homecoming season upon us, I realize that I've never really been a part of the school community. I only went to homecoming once during high school, and pretty much never during college. I am going tomorrow, however. I'm going to obtain a free hot dog, and watch the floats, and then I'll probably run away in a fit of discomfort when I realize that I'm at a giant social event that I have no real reason to be at, aside from the fact that I'm a part of that society.

If you were Emile Durkheim, you'd probably be muttering to yourself that I'm a prime candidate for suicide (aside from the fact that if you were Emile Durkheim, you'd be dead). (And french).

Discovery

I have found that it is completely impossible to try and write a report while sitting in the lobby of a public building. Even if your intentions, like mine, are pure and good and focused on finishing the paper, five minutes after you sit down you will be accosted by some friend who has no regard for your worthy intentions. Once you finally push them away like very persistent gum off the bottom of your shoe, it will have been a half hour and you will be forced to pack up and move as your ride will have arrived to pick you up.

coming soon: Part II: why it is impossible to write a paper while sitting at home when all of your roommates and some of their boyfriends are watching a movie.


*I know I'm post dating this, but it's only because that's when I actually wrote it. For some reason unknown to man, I hit the "save as draft" button instead of the "publish post" button when I finished it, and then slammed down the screen of my laptop in a victory over being awake. Then I freaked out this morning when I opened it back up and found the wrong results page. But such is life.

And now, a word from our sponsers

milquetoast.

Seriously, what genius came up with this word? Oh, alright. It was Harold Webster, and it makes complete sense. But still, I'm truly amazed that this term came to be a bona fide word, a word that people use if not in daily speech, then at least in bi-annual speech. You should all use this word tomorrow, and report back to me on how it went. This word needs a lot more exposure, unlike words like bling and ....

and...

well, frankly, I'm too tired to think of another word that bothers me enough to viciously attack it. You'll have to use your imaginations on this one. Sorry.

Yo, Empress

It's been awhile since I've seen you. Perhaps we could get together, I dunno, saturday at elevenish? I'll be on campus at that time, because there's a hot dog with my name on it from my work. I guess I'd understand if you were busy, though.

You see, gentle readers, I'll let you in on the secret: the empress has a much better paying and much more busy work life than I do. I sit around stapling papers for people for three hours a day, five days a week. The empress, on the other hand, does a good deal more work, harder work, and at stranger hours than me. It is for this reason that she can afford to live in the cute, cute house that she does, with the porch and the claw foot tub and the random hole in the closet to hide mexicans in.

On the subject of great music, however, I would like to direct you people to The Magnetic Fields. Finally, some cool and funky music that I did NOT get from the empress! It's truly amazing. I've been making my way through this album, and there's some gems on it. There's some other songs that I really don't know what to make of, but the good ones make it totally worth it. Where else will you get a cd of love songs that includes "(Crazy for you but) Not that Crazy," "Busby Berkeley Dreams," "I'm Sorry I Love You," and "Love is Like a Bottle of Gin?"

My favorites so far? "Long-Forgotten Fairytale" and "Washington, DC."

I only love old people when I can mock them

As my mother can attest, I am not a fan of the elderly. They are generally poor drivers, obnoxious shoppers, and confused and selfish voters. We do have two old old people who live on our street, and I like them both because I know them as neighbors who wave to us when we leave for school and arrive at home, and let us borrow their can openers and stuff. They are friendly and nice, partially because they're downtown old people and not snobby suburban old people.

A n y w a y,

The other day I walked by an old man who was near the university (I was walking around delivering inter-campus mail for my employer) who had just gotten off his bike and was speaking on his cell phone. He was telling the person on the other end about his day: "I went to the coffee shop and read the newspaper for a few hours, then I got stuck on one of them suh-dookies for another hour. You know, those number puzzles? Suhdookie."

Three posts in one day! It's like some sort of record!

Really, I just wanted to show you all the creativity of Hunca Munca. We got to the store too late on October 31st to purchase an actual pumpkin. They were all gone. Instead, we did this:



I love Hunca Munca. Her gourd looks evil and cute.

Office Job

I've discovered a few perks of working in an office full of academic advisors. One of the perks is that they don't have a whole lot of work for me to do, so they encourage me to take my time on every project I do. I thus get to spend long amounts of time sauntering about campus, delivering "urgent" envelopes to various buildings.

Another perk is free and easy talking with advisors. While they are technically not supposed to advise me because I'm not in that college, one of the advisors has taken something of a liking to me and we are going to get together this week to talk about stuff. She happens to have done her undergrad and graduate work in my major, so I'm going to pick her brain a little bit.

As we were setting up my appointment with her, she stuffed a cd into my hands, telling me to borrow it and listen to the music, because she thinks I would like it.

I like my job.

Rawr!

I like this seal a lot, partially because it has an excellent motto, and partially because it's a big bear looking for someone to eat.

As a side note, but still related to the NaBloPoMo topic, when I signed up, I had not considered the fact that my site would be getting more traffic than usual and thus more comments than usual. This is an interesting feeling, knowing that at least two new people have found something worth commenting on within my feeble attempts to blog well. Encouraging? Very much so.

It's Good to Have Roommates

I live with four other girls, in a house (a cute little brick house! with a black fridge and a black oven!) near where I go to school. We have a backyard that is full of unintended and untended grass, four frighteningly large anthills, two bikes and sometimes a cat. Our neighbors to the south and west are very old people who we assume have been living here since the dawn of time, and our neighbors to the east appear to be a houseful of college boys. They have two cute black puppies (we play with the puppies through the fence and I am tempted to feed them bacon), and a clothesline that once had about ten pairs of jeans on it and nothing else. I wish I had taken a picture. All we know about the neighbors to the north, who are across the alley, is that they have two dogs that freak out whenever we take our trash out to the giant trash barrel in the alleyway. The neighborhood isn't the best, but we really have it good here. I've written about some of my roommates previously, and tried to think up witty names for them and failed. I will try again tonight.

The Desirable One: I think I'll stick with that name for her, because it is pretty fitting, and because any other names I think of for her end up sounding disparaging when I really don't mean them to be. No, she's not ditzy and blonde. She's great and hard working and quite smart. In fact, I'm pretty sure everybody in our house is quite smart. She helps me try to sort out my feelings (she and Io are both very verbal and into talking things out, a thing that until I moved in I had never really considered doing) and sometimes gives me hints on how to flirt. She is also great because she and I share a room, and when she studies she often just sits there and watches the chinchillas watching her.

Hunca Munca: she isn't a bad mouse at all, but I expect that she would like the way the name sounds. She is probably the roommate with the most personality, as evidenced by the night when she found out she passed the Bar and pretended to get drunk by swigging sparkling cider from the bottle. We have pictures to prove it. She's also quite the hard worker, even though she creates time to say and do the most hilarious and outrageous things. Her fiance, whom I will call Tom Thumb for convenience, is very quiet but if you catch him at the right moment he is also quite funny. I almost wish they weren't getting married, so I could have her as a roommate for longer.

Io: no, she is not one of the moons of Jupiter. She is, however, a lot like me, both in personal history and personal opinions. This is one of the reasons I like her, although she sometimes confuses me because she's much more opinionated and sensitive of those around her than I am. We generally get along very well, which is funny because when I was considering moving in, she was the one part of the household that I wanted to avoid. That first impression of her was soon dispelled, and I'm so glad that I got to know how great she is. She also gives great massages.

Roommate X: she is the one who is very often not here, but somewhere with her boyfriend. She misses a lot of the goings-on in the house, but then again, she's having tons of fun with her boyfriend. It's really kind of a toss-up. She does have the parental hook-ups, though: they're the ones who signed the lease for the house, and when some old lady they knew died, they got her recliners and sent them along to us, as well as some old lady jewelry and scarves and even two pretty pairs of white gloves. I feel a little guilty for being happy that somebody died.

4 Days and I'm already tired

Ok, so NaBloPoMo is a little harder than I thought it was. Perhaps I would do better if I had Maggie's book...

Ooh, ooh! I got it! I'll write a list of things that would make my life better. Things, that could possibly be purchased as gifts for holidays?

-No One Cares What You Had For Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog
-some albums by Iron and Wine
-some albums by Death Cab for Cutie
-tennis shoes of some sort that are easy to put on and take off
-a mini stapler
-some jeans, but I probably should get those for myself
-a dignified fleecy zip-up sweatshirty thing that I could wear to church and not be embarrassed of
-a flyswatter
-a ticket to europe or canada
-my own copies of: Star Wars original trilogy, Pride and Prejudice, Breaking Away, A Room With a View. I'm sure this would make my parents happy cause I'd stop stealing their copies.
-a Slippery Splug

You probably think I'm really trivial from what I write here, don't you?

But I really do, you know, think about stuff. Like today? In my sociology of families class? We watched an episode of Frontline about reproductive technology, and ethical questions and problems it creates. Like, how much genetic engineering is acceptible before it's eugenics?

Deep stuff, baby.

Know What?

I don't like being tricked. I am much more likely to give you something if you ask for it straight out than if you try to trick me into giving it to you. Case in point?

I don't do this all the time, but when conditions are right, I have been known to give a few bucks to the bums on the medians, and more than once have I unloaded whatever change is in my pocket to the random guys who ask for it downtown or on campus. I even felt a little guilty one day not long ago because when I pulled my fistful of change out of my pocket for the bum next to the market I saw a lot of pennies in the mix. "I hope he isn't offended that I'm giving him a bunch of pennies," I thought to myself, right before I realized, "dude, he's the one demanding money fromm *me*. Anything I give him is more than what can be expected."

I did studiously avoid looking at him as I exited the market a few minutes later, just in case he was upset at my contribution.


On to the trickery, then. The other day (Halloween, in point of fact), I was accosted as I chained up my bike outside the building my classes take place in. Well, no, not really. I had locked up my bike and had returned to the sidewalk and was just standing there looking at my phone because somebody had called me. As I was standing there, some guy was walking by, and said, very much in passing, "do you have a lighter?" He was holding a cigarette. Naturally, I said no, because I really didn't have a lighter.

He continued walking, then stopped as if an idea had occurred to him. "Hey, do you want to vote for me?" Umm, yeah. I love voting for people I don't know who ask me for a light. I told him that I didn't know who he was (mistake number one! I should've just said no, and walked away), so he launches into this spiel about how he's in a radio personality class, or some crap like that, and he had to get voted for so he could win a trip to Paris and like his weight in beer or something. If I had been in a hurry to get to class, or to get anywhere really, I never would've let myself get conned into sitting down to listen to his scheme. However, I had an hour to kill, and was still busy looking at my phone, so I wasn't really paying enough attention.

He led me to a curb and we sat down and he pulled out this documentation ("to prove I'm legit")(cleverly in a little clear holder that also contained a baby picture?). At this point I finally began to realize that something obnoxious was going on. Then he pulled out another clear holder that had a little schedule of magazines I could suscribe to. "Just point to a magazine that you don't hate and I'll tell you how cheap it is!" At last, the lights and alarms in my head were going off in full force. I'll have to change the batteries, though, cause they took way too long to get started.

When the stupid me realized that he was just trying to con me into purchasing magazines that may or may not actually be sent to me, magazines that I don't want in the first place, I began to make my apologies and tried to excuse myself from the conversation by telling him (truthfully) that I was beyond broke right now, so I couldn't even pay for the magazines. Either he didn't care or he didn't believe me (likely, since I was dressed rather nicely that day in my expensive new attire purchased for me by my parents), because he started pleading with me, saying I didn't even need the money right then, they could defer payment, and it's really lousy of me not to even give him a chance. I explained as I handed back the magazine schedule that I did in fact give him a chance by listening to all his garbage. Then I noticed that only one of us was engaged in the act of handing back the magazine schedule. He refused to take it back, ignored it quite unashamedly. I finally laid it down on the curb next to him as he outright swore at me in a frighteningly passive aggressive manner.

I wish I had slapped him or something, instead of meekly walking away.

Heigh ho, Heigh ho

For the past week and a half it's been "off to work I go," which is an excellent idea, as my bank account contains approximately $50. Huzzah! I'm broke!

Good thing I've got a credit card! Hopefully I'll be able to scrape by on my fifty bucks for the next couple of weeks before my first paycheck comes through. I'm not really the type of person that enjoys living in debt.

Mom and Dad, I'm not asking for money from you yet, but be aware that there is a distinct possibility of that in the next week or so. Just so you won't be taken by surprise.

***

In other news, I'm feeling halfway productive tonight because I washed the dishes! I cleaned the kitchen! I even went so far as to put my laundry in the washer. Whether it subsequently gets put into the dryer is yet to be seen.

To reward myself, I'm blogging while watching some of the five hour Pride and Prejudice. How's that for a fun evening?

Which reminds me. I took the Jane Austen Heroine Quiz this morning. Partway through the questions, I'd say, four questions in, I realized that I already knew who I was going to be because of my answers. That's right, I'm Catherine Morland. You know, from Northanger Abbey?

I never really intended to read that book, and didn't expect to enjoy it much even when I found that I had to read it for my Jane Austen class in Parts Unknown.

However, after reading it, I realized that a book doesn't need to be well known or widely liked to be an entertaining thing to read. I liked it a lot, and because of my surprising enjoyment of that book, I thought to myself, "Self, perhaps I'll like Emma as well when we read it for class, even though I hate the movie and I've never been able to get more than three chapters into the book because it makes me claustrophobic."

I was wrong. Turns out that you can still dislike books that other people love, just as easily as you can like a book that nobody else wants to read.

Weekend Update

The past two days have been amazing, as a certain friend of mine from Parts Unknown flew down to my state, and we had a really great time. Really great. So very fun, but also a little tiring, as I had to drive back and forth between home and another city twice in two days, plus it's just exhausting to have so much fun.

Oh yeah, and you know how I wore my skirt backwards to the job interview? I got the job, yo. I start today, working as an office assistant. I've been told that my first task is going to be shredding a giant stack of old papers.

Yesssssssssss.

D'oh!

I had a job interview today. To get the full effect of the day, we will have to backtrack to this morning, when I was asking Uffish what I should wear. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: What should I wear to my interview today?
Uffish: A nice shirt and a nice skirt.
Me: (whining) But I ride my bike to school. How on earth can I get around this insurmountable obstacle?
Uffish: Um, suck it up and take a skirt with you in your backpack? (Or, you could just go naked. Whatever.)
Me: Oh, that'd probably work.

I went about my morning, getting dressed, finding a nice skirt and nice shirt (I even ironed them!), switching my backpack stuff from my normal backpack to my messenger bag so I wouldn't get back sweat all over my nice ironed shirt while riding my bike.



I went to my class, and enjoyed the hour and fifteen minute lecture on why Westerners create monsters that are mixes of people and animals (think werewolves. Or Superman) while Easterners create monsters that are their own things (think dragons and Digimon). It has to do with society (surprise! It's a sociology class), and reincarnation.

After class I went into the bathroom and laughed at myself because we had just been talking about Superman and here I was in the bathroom stall changing clothes. I reapplied makeup and straightened everything so I'd be presentable, then walked across campus with my bike over to the building where the interview was. I went inside, had a fairly nerve-wracking interview (four people interviewing me at the same time! For a stupid office job!) that I think I did alright on (?), thanked the nice ladies, and left. I went into a nearby building to switch back into Clark Kent, strode (strided?) into the handicapped stall where there's a big full-length mirror, reached down and....

Gasp! Where did the zipper on my skirt go? It's disappeared! Oh wait, phew, it's right here in the back.

Gasp. The zipper was in the back. The skirt was made to have the zipper in the front. It must have gradually turned around as I was walking across campus with that stupid messenger bag on my hip. I had sat through an entire interview with my Skirt. On. Backwards.

This is why I shouldn't ever think that my day is going alright, because I'm really walking around with my skirt backwards without even knowing it. Think of all the other things I never realize that are quietly working against me and making me look a fool. I shouldn't even get out of bed in the morning. I should just lie there, twentyfour hours a day, contemplating my complete moronity.

Really, I'm not that worried about it. As my roommate said, perhaps the potential employers will remember me better because of it: "I really liked that girl with the backwards skirt- she seemed really on the ball. It shows that she's very focused."

It was a 94%, thankyouverymuch

Oh, what better way to top off a day when you've been whistled at by construction workers, gotten an A on a hard-to-get-an-A-on test, won a volleyball game, and gotten a good workout at the gym? And also ate a lovely punkin-chocolate chip muffin? I'll tell you how to top off such a day.

Go to the Bleat and read Lileks' inspired words: Maw! Git the Scotch-Brite! I done sneezed while barfin' and shot off a mess a' groiny hairs!

I'm still laughing. I'm glad my roommate didn't question why I suddenly burst out into laughter, because I would have had to tell her that I was imagining, well, never mind what I was imagining. But it was darn funny.

It even hailed on us!

Not much to say tonight, except for that I'm still alive, and also that I'm not on speaking terms with the garbage disposal.

Our modem got fried a few nights ago in a big exciting storm, which turns out to have been a good thing. Because I needed to use the internet in order to finish some homework assignments, I was forced to awake in the morning, get dressed, and ride over to school a few hours early yesterday and today to work on school computers. I got a lot of work done, and life felt more relaxed, sitting around at school with no pressing concerns like getting to class. After computing for an hour or so yesterday, I moseyed over to the student union and got myself some cheap pasta (with "vegan meat sauce"! yum!) and ate while reading through one of my textbooks. I sat there for a good half hour or 45 minutes, reading, eating cheap pasta, and watching it rain outside.

The internet repairman came today. He gave us a new modem and our internet works at home again. Which is nice, and very convenient. But I think maybe I'll try to keep going to school earlier and just hanging out a little bit. It's nicer that way.

Deep Thoughts

Can somebody please tell me why I am compelled to close and lock every door to the outside of the house (knob and deadbolt), plus the door to my bedroom, plus the door to the bathroom inside my bedroom, every single time I go to the bathroom when nobody's home? I can sit here in the living room with the front door hanging open for hours, just waiting to be shot or chloroformed by the roving gangs of hoodlums* on our streets, but if I'm going to be further away from the front door for two minutes, I have to secure our home.

I blame you, Mom. I still love you, though.

*there are no hoodlums. The only people I ever see on our street are either old people or friends coming to visit us.

National Treasure: like the Italian Job, only with Masons instead of Mafia!

I did something good for myself yesterday! Thank you, thank you. Flowers and monetary donations will be gladly accepted.

But seriously, I went to the rec center on campus for the first time ever last night, and I worked out for about forty minutes, then sat and watched some friends playing racquetball. Now that I know about this place, and I know when racquetball happens, I think I shall be going more often.

I'm sure you're all wondering how I came to gather enough momentum to get myself to a place I'd never been to before. Well, I'll tell you: this past few weeks have been full of papers to write and exams to study for, as well as videos to make and volleyball to play. Last night I celebrated the end of that push by realizing that I didn't have anything I needed to be doing, and I balked at the idea of just sitting around the house all night doing nothing. Thus, the rec center and blessed physical activity.

Other things of note:
-I started watching National Treasure last night with a couple of roommates and friends, and I've realized that I must be really annoying to watch movies with. If I've seen the movie before, I feel the need to recite everybody's lines along with them, while if it's a movie I've never seen, I give a running commentary of all my thoughts: "No! Don't get in the truck!" "Oh, gee. They're getting gunpowder all over the place. I totally can't see what's going to happen next." "Come on! You can't just roll up the Declaration of Independence like that- it's almost two hundred and fifty years old! It'd crackle and turn to dust if you even looked at it wrong!"

-I had some weird dreams last night. They involved me 1) killing a lot of bugs, 2) throwing a jar of sunflower seeds at a tri-fold science project poster so my academic paper could be published in a national periodical, 3) purchasing $3 worth of gum with my credit card and shouting "I don't have a job!" at the clerk, and 4) being chased around the docks of some eastern seaboard Costco by an entity that was alternately some Egyptian guy, Martha Stewart, and that creepy girl from The Grudge, you know, the one that makes that clicking noise and crawls toward Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Apparently I had learned of some sinister plot while strolling past one of the ships, and was trying to get to the Costco manager's office to tell him before I was killed.

-One more thing before I go: if only all websites were this clear. (Via Mimi Smartypants)

Good Vibrations

It's October, and guess how much I'm excited about that? Very much.

I'm excited that it's going to be cooler soon and I'll be less sweaty in class after riding my bike to school.

I'm excited that I've made it through so much of this semester so far, and I'm doing much better gradewise than I was this time last year.

I'm excited because my sister liked the birthday presents I gave her, and because my roommate also had a good birthday, with lots of people in our living room.

I'm excited because I learned of a possibility of camping on the mountain this weekend (or next?), and even though I had a bad experience this past weekend, I still want to go (this time I will bring benadryl and two kinds of eye drops and lots of kleenex with me).

I'm also excited because in a few weeks, I'm going to pick up my friend at the airport and show her around my fair city and let her see what October without coats is like.

I'm excited for winter to start, even though it's far away, because winter means end of school and Christmas and wearing a scarf maybe.

I'm excited because I'm going an hour or two north in a few months to see a basketball game with like fifty of my closest friends and even though it's far away I look forward to such a fun way to celebrate the end of finals.

I'm excited because after writing a two page response and taking an exam tomorrow, I'll be relatively schoolwork free for a week or two.

I'm excited for my good friend Uffish, for the fun things happening in her part of the world right now.

I'm excited because I really like living in this house with these roommates and being able to ride my bike to school. I was a little worried about moving in with one of them to begin with, but my fears have proven unfounded and she's become a good friend.

I'm excited because I bought some socks today and they're really fun.

I'm excited that I found this many things I'm excited for, because a lot of the time I think about the things I dread instead.

Saturday is a Special Day

I've been strangely productive today, and I'm feeling good about myself, so I thought I'd let you all know that. I think I'll start at right now, and work my way back.

Right now, it's nearing 2am and my fingers are covered in shreds of picked-at krazy glue that I've been trying to get off for the past two hours. I am tired, and happy.

Around midnight, I finished my art project, heaved a sigh of relief, and loaded and ran the dishwasher. Moxious! Also, Productive!

At 9:30, our friend Dave (I call him Dave because that's his name) left, and my two roommates (The Desirable One and her sister, The Quebecer) went off to dye each other's hair, while I baked the cupcakes and worked on my art project.

At eight-ish, The Desirable One got home from work, and we three decided to set off in search of groceries. As we opened the door to leave the house, we ran into our friend Dave, who had come to pay us a visit. We all went shopping together and had a grand time, and found cake mixes for like 82 cents each at walmart. We decided to make cupcakes to eat during the potluck lunch in between sessions of conference tomorrow.

From perhaps 3:30 to eight-ish, The Quebecer and I worked on cleaning the house. I cleaned my bathroom, the chinchilla cage, and the fan in my bedroom, while she cleaned pretty much the rest of the entire house. She's much more industrious than I. I also planned out a four page paper that's due on Monday which I should have mentioned typing up after loading the dishwasher. In other words, I'm all done with that assignment and ready to print of it and turn it in.

1:00-3:00: The Quebecer and I went back to the House of Excellent Food, and watched the second session of General Conference. I was completely awake this time, and I paid attention and took notes and thought that all of the talks were marvelous. There were freshly made giant chocolate chip cookies halfway through the session. They were delicious.

11:30-12:20: I laid my benadrylly carcass on my bed and slept like a log. Like a log that's at the bottom of a lake, covered in slime and moss.

We started the day, first of all, with me not being able to open my eye. It was glued shut with disgusting rubber cement that appeared out of nowhere during the night sometime. This provided great start to the day, getting that one part of "I am the Walrus" stuck in my head: "yellow matter custard/ dripping from a dead dog's eye...." We went to the House of Excellent Food, where live three or four young men of my roommates' acquaintance who invited us over for pre-conference breakfast. The breakfast, which happened at an ungodly 8 in the morning on a saturday, included lovely omelet something, fruit salad, and Stuffed French Toast. This is some sort of ambrosial mixture of bread, caramel, cinnamon, apples and cream cheese, layered in a casserole dish, and served to very lucky people. We watched the first session of General Conference on their big screen tv. Well, *they* all watched the first session. I pretty much was un-awake for those two hours, being in a benadryl-induced haze of drowsiness (I had taken a couple of pills when I woke up, in an effort to make my face look like normal).

Yesterday evening: There was a supposedly Totally Awesome Activity happening on the mountain which I wanted to go to, but all of my roommates were either out of town or had other plans, so I harrassed my resume-writing friend to give me a ride. We got to the site of the activity, and it wasn't quite as thrilling as expected. We played capture the flag, and I "guarded" our flag. In other words, I sat in the dark under a tree for a long time while nobody came, and gradually developed some nasty-itchy eyes from allergies. The allergic eyes continued after the game ended and we stood around the campfire, talking. Before I go on, let me suggest to you that you go and watch Hitch, because if you do, I won't have to explain what happened next.












You didn't watch the movie, did you? Sigh. Ok. So, we get into the car to go back down the mountain, and my resume-writing friend sees in the light of the car that my eye has swollen up to the size of something that's not eye-sized, but much bigger. And we're not talking just like the skin surrounding the eye area, but the actual eyeball. He suggested that it might explode, and maybe we should stop by the store and get some benadryl. I concurred. So we went into the store and the patrons stopped in their tracks and gaped at my hideousness as we walked to the pharmacy section. We got a bottle of liquid children's benadryl, as well as a bottle of normal benadryl pills. I looked down as we checked out, so the cashier wouldn't run away in fear. When we got back out to the car, he tossed me the bottle of liquid and directed me to chug about half of it, which I did. It tasted nasty. Then he drove me home, where I sat up and waited for my roommates to come home so they could put allergy drops in my eye, because I was too scared to do it myself. By the time they got home and put the drops in my eye, I was succumbing to the benadryl's drowsy-making power, and I had a precarious climb to the top bunk where my deliciously soft and welcoming pillow awaited me.

Weekend Update

I had a good day on Tuesday. My sociological theory class meets that day, and despite its being a required course, I enjoy it. The professor is kind of a hoot: this week, he explained in detail why an orange Air Jordan tennis shoe is analogous to Da Vinci's The Last Supper. And it totally made sense. Cell phones go off pretty frequently in this class, and every time one does, I expect Herr Professor to do a little dance, but for some reason he never does.

Another reason why I liked this Tuesday was the way I spent my afternoon- I went shopping, just for the fun of it, and as I rode by the Co-op on my bike, I was treated to the sounds of some twentysomething guy playing the fiddle and singing in a startlingly authentic manner. I wasn't brave enough to stop and listen- I just rode on by slowly, savoring the moment.

Thursday was a different kind of good. I went to a fast food restaurant for lunch in order to do my homework for a different class. The assignment? Observe fast food workers and write two pages about what you saw. I wrote three. I also ate a burrito.

After lunch and class, I went to the student exchange office and was videotaped as I babbled and rambled at the speed of light on how great it is to go on exchange. I laid awake for hours the night before, thinking of the many things I wanted to tell the people planning on going out into the world: how great it would be, how many friends they would make, the things they would learn about themselves, funny stories about my own exchange, warnings of pitfalls to avoid. In the end, I'm pretty sure I sounded like a raving lunatic, making wild leaps from one topic to the next without pausing for breath. But I only got three minutes! And I had so much wisdom to impart! They're going to send me a dvd so I can keep evidence of my horrible public speaking skills to show my friends and family. Hopefully they'll edit out the first thirty seconds or so where I wreck my train of thought before it even leaves the station, and simply stand there giggling and saying "I'm sorry! Can we start over?"

Disgusted With Myself

Living in this new house, with these roommates that are roughly my age, I've been exposed to much more radio music than I've been used to listening to for at least the past three years. Not that I am against radio music or rock music in general. I've just been in the habit of listening to my iPod and therefore my specifically purchased music for a long time now. So it's been a long time since I've listened to a lot of Top 40 type music, but now I do!

I've heard most of these songs before, in passing, but now I'm hearing them over and over again, I've begun to like some of them. "Some of them" being Unwritten, by Natasha Bedingfield, and Waiting On the World to Change, by John Mayer. Also some other ones, but you get the picture (or maybe not. Maybe you listen to way less radio than I do). It's not that they're bad songs, it's just that they're not *my* kind of songs, and they're so terribly common and obvious.

I guess my problem is that these songs are okay songs that the music industry has told me to like. I like to feel like I'm an independant thinker, so when I am tricked into buying into what is sold to me, I feel vaguely disappointed and annoyed.

Random bit of KoL Happiness

Huzzah! I found some of the new content! Without looking at spoilers! I feel totally cool and stuff. And there's so much to do! And I haven't even seen all of it yet! If I was good at poetry, I'd write you all a haiku, but since I'm not, I'll just grin and gloat for awhile.

Landmark Day

Last night, a friend of mine came over and he ushered me into adulthood. That's right, folks. You heard it here first: I have a resume. It was like pulling teeth, trying to make my job experience sound useful, but we did it. Or rather, *he* did it, and I took dictation. Anyway. It was still hard.

This exercise wasn't just for kicks. I needed a resume in order to apply for a job this morning. I'm not going to tell you what it is, cause I don't know if I have it yet, but as soon as I have news, you can be sure that you, the internet, will be the first to know. Cross your fingers for me.

Favorites

Favorite part of the group dinner date tonight?
:The part where my date and my roommate's date (they happen to be roommates, too) left early, cause they were seriously cramping our style. As in, they sat next to Each Other on the couch (instead of next to us, their Dates), and talked only to each other about football except for when they were bragging to the general assembly about their various proofs of coolness.

Favorite thing said during the evening?
:In a desperate attempt to create a conversation of general interest during dinner, my other roommate pipes in with, "Once, I joined the Communist Party!" Even this comment could not save the evening.

Favorite art project made this afternoon?
:That one that my communist roommate and I did in the backyard with the photosensitive paper and the weeds.












Favorite dessert we had tonight?
:It's a toss-up between the delicious cheesecake made by roommate #3 and the delicious chocolates made by me. But probably the cheesecake.

Favorite totally hypocritical statement made by me?
:"I hate it when nobody updates their blogs!"

I'll be Bach

I'm sitting here, on my roommate's computer, typing this first post in a long time. For those not in the know, I've moved. I'm living downtown in this great little house, with this great backyard, and this great way-closeness to school which I take advantage of every day when I ride my bike to class. Take that, high gas prices!

I'm on my roommate's computer not because mine is broken or lost, or anything like that, but because as I may have mentioned earlier, my computer hates blogspot dot com, and refuses to load any website that includes that name. This is also the reason why it's been so long since I've posted- I'd pretty much forgotten that it exists, since I can't ever see it myself. Anyway, I'm back.

I'm loving the new living situation, because I've got fun roommates who do fun things- we switch off weeknights for cooking duty, and there's always friends over, and we're thinking of doing hikes every saturday (two of us already went on one, and it was pretty fun), and it's nice to go grocery shopping together, and three of us have a class together on thursday evenings so we carpool, and they all think the chinchillas are fascinating and great.

This summer, I was a little worried about my classes this semester because they're all upper level sociology classes, a situation I've never had before. My fears seem to have been needless, however: two of them are taught by grad students and are therefore not terribly hard, and the other two are pleasantly paper-free. In fact, I've only got the one class that has an actual long paper due, but he's chopped it into bits that are due every once in a while, so you can't do the entire 15 pages the night that it's due, so it's really not that bad at all. I've already got the first part done! The other classes have things like weekly reading responses (only a paragraph or so each week), once in a while-type memos (write three pages about watching a video online!), and, uh, I think that's it. Except for exams, you know. So I'm absolutely way less stressed and worried about this semester's workload now that I'm in the middle of it. Hurray for my school being a "party school!" I can get good grades becase we've got crazy grade inflation, not like the University of Parts Unknown, which gave me a harsh harsh taste of reality for the past year.

Well, I know you've all been checking my site every day, waiting impatiently for me to post a long, rambling vomit of words that isn't all that entertaining. Now that I've discovered the joys of stealing the roommate's computer (except that all she has is Internet Explorer (shocking, I know!)), I will perhaps get back to my regularly scheduled short and possibly interesting posts in the future.

Another short post on my current state of annoyed-ness

There's a few things bothering me right now. Two have to do with my bathroom, the other is non-bathroom related.

Light lag: the light in my bathroom does not turn on at the same moment as you flip the switch. It waits approximately three seconds before actually illuminating the room. This is slightly aggravating the first time it happens, and when it's been going on for several months, it really can get on one's nerves. However, I'd almost rather have the light off altogether, because when it's on, I can see the minute details of my shower curtain, which is the other thing that bothers me. My shower curtain is an otherwise lovely and happy looking map of the world, with one irksome flaw: no rivers. Alright, I know it's just a shower curtain, and it isn't supposed to be an exhaustive study of our world's geography, but come on! At least put in the Nile and the Amazon. Perhaps the Mississippi? Also the name of Brasilia is in a larger font than Hawaii.

My other annoyance is that about a week ago, for some reason my laptop decided it no longer wanted to load any pages with the word "blogspot" in the url. Seriously uncool. I can't figure out why it is so against the free communication of thought and also pictures; I tried clearing my history and my cache and all kinds of other things that I sort of understand, but it still refuses to cooperate. I think I need to shut down my computer for many days to give it time to think about the annoyance it has caused me. After which thought it will obviously see the folly in omitting an entire server's worth of blogs, and apologize profusely.

Arg, Arg and Double Argh!

1. My hair, upon exiting the pool around 7:30 in the evening, magically transformed itself into something curly and pretty, without me having to so much as brush it. Naturally this happens when I stay in and do nothing all evening. Beautiful hair, wasted!

2. Um, I have to work tomorrow? And the next day too?

3. (this one's the double arg) The amazingly perfect and nice house that my friend and I fell in love with, that we were going to rent and share with maybe four other girls and have a fun house of people, cannot be rented by us at this time. Why? Because we couldn't find another four girls to share it with, and the two of us can't swing the $1000 per month for much longer than two months by ourselves. I now need to find a new place, and nothing will be as wonderfully spacious and friendly as that house.

Total Awesomeness

Alright, so I'm pretty sure I'm the last person on earth to know about this amazingly wonderfully great video. Just in case I'm not the last, though, I'll pass it along to youse guys.

(Directions, for the unsavvy: Wait till the whole thing loads before you play it so you don't get weird lag and skips. Play; enjoy, giggle. Repeat indefinitely.)

Violasaint, World Traveller

As you can clearly see from this,
and this,

I am a west side type of girl. I have a strange fascination with the middle states, like Ohio, and Illinois and Indiana, and all those places that I know must be there, but as yet they are just empty holes in my experience of the world. Once I get enough money saved up, I'm going to try and do some travelling, both to the rest of this continent, and also to Europe. Beyond that, I have vague hopes of someday seeing like Tokyo and Hong Kong, and Mexico City, and some chunks of Africa maybe?

If I was a dog, but I was counting my age in people years, I think I'd be three.

Festivities included a sumtuous dinner of fondue, salad, fondue, and fondue. Fondue you want some more? Fondue you think I'm crazy? That was a ton of cheese and meat; I fondue not need any more food as long as I live!

You may ask, "how does it feel to be another year older?"
I may answer, "a lot cheesier."

To be perfectly honest, I don't feel this old. At least, I don't feel like a responsible adult- I still don't know what in the world I want to be when I grow up, and for goodness sake, I'm still working in fast food. Although today I didn't work, and wisely spent the day watching America's Next Top Model as a reward for working out for half an hour while watching Chariots of Fire.



I think I need to get myself a hobby.

Neither of us drinks coffee, either

As I get ready to leave after a longish shift at work, my Mexican coworker (who is also a male model, I found out this morning) walks up to me all eager-looking.

Him: "You're not leaving, are you Violasaint?"
Me: "Yes, I'm tired and want to go home and relax."
Him: "You're sure you want to go? You could stay and we could sip coffee and talk about white brotherhood!"
Me: "I'm not sure that would work on any kind of level..."
Him: "Why? Just because you're a girl and I'm Mexican?"
Me: "Pretty much."

Ah, but do you care what I refrained from getting for dessert?

After spending the past few days at the Grand Canyon, I feel the need to share some of my observations with you, the internet.

-It may not occur to you, but the Grand Canyon is in fact, a big hole in the ground in the middle of the desert. If you stand on the edge and take pictures of it all day, you will end up sunburnt. If you wear pigtails while taking pictures all day, you will end up with a sunburnt scalp which will flake off over the next few days in a painful and ugly way.

-It is nearly impossible to take an interesting picture of the canyon, because every angle you can get of it has already been gotten a million times before by Japanese people in tour buses. Your only hope is to get a really great sunset or lightning shot, because the sunset and lightning are the only things about the canyon that actually change.

-When the hotel boasts "modern rooms with vaulted ceilings," it means the roof does come to a very obtuse point, and you get a TV, two lamps and a bathroom. Modern!

-The fact that there are exactly three restaurants in the actual park leads the Bright Angel Lodge to believe it is safe in naming a dessert "Warm Apple Grunt." I know that my favorite dessert is the Tepid Blueberry Howl, not to mention the delights of the Cool Watermelon Snort.

Mourning a Great Loss

I got my oil changed today. Back here, in the land of crappy service and aggressive oil change guys who try to get you to buy fifteen extra services beyond a simple oil change. This is one more reason why I miss Parts Unknown- they have a wonderful little chain that gives you an oil change (and ONLY an oil change) in ten minutes. Cheer and lemonade are distributed freely, and you don't even have to get out of your car. Ten minutes!

I feel so patriotic

What better way to celebrate your country's independance than by eating hot dogs and getting rained on as you listen to an overture by Shostakovich? While wearing your Communist Party shirt?

It was actually slightly more interesting this year because not only did we have fireworks to watch, but in between we could watch lightning, nature's original fireworks. As always, the Sousa marches were excellent and crowd-pleasing. The Fourth of July is the only redeeming feature of that stupid park with no swings.

Great Dalmuti!

Seems like I must have loserly genes. Or something.

No matter what game I'm playing, no matter who I'm playing with, I generally lose. Dominoes, cards, Settlers of Catan. The game of Life, even.

When I was younger, the Losing usually preceded the Crying in Frustration and Anger, which made my family think twice before starting a game with me. By now, however, I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I'm not going to ever win a game. This resignation has made losing slightly more bearable, and for some reason, I still love to play games. They're fun and exciting, and once in a while I even let myself think I have a chance of winning. I don't get as disappointed when I end up losing again, which is a good thing. I suppose.

How to Depress Yourself

1. Go take the Personality Disorder Test. Although I suppose if you don't have any personality disorders, it won't depress you as much....

2. Go get a copy of I Hate Myself and Want to Die. It's a book describing like fifty depressing songs. Except from the few chapters I read of it, it's more funny and chuckle-inducing than it is depressing.

The Stars are Masses of Incandescent Gas

You know, you really forget just how many stars there are until you go out into the middle of the desert late at night. There was such a Milky Way to be seen last night, and about a gazillion other stars elsewheres in the sky. One of them even came down to earth and burned up in the atmosphere not too far from where we were. I've decided that it must be an extra-special shooting star, and will therefore be extra-powerful in granting the wish I made on it.

Total Soreness

I went and did something fun the other day. I know, go ahead and gasp in a shocked manner.

A friend invited me to an evening of swing dancing that apparently happens every week at another friend's house, and I went with high expectations and my newfound love of dance. I'd just like to say, that was the most fun I'd had for a long time. So excellently fun. So magnificently a good time.

I learned several new and fun moves, including two dips, one nifty jumpy thing, and two aerial moves. That's right, I did aerials. Me, one of the boringest and most landbound people on earth, went flying through the air, and I loved it! I intend to attend these events for as long as they hold them, I like it that much.

However. Many of these cool new moves involve the use of cool new muscles. Muscles that I previously didn't know existed in my body. It's been a few days now, and I'm still incredibly sore in my right upper thigh, as well as somewhat sore in my neck and back, and my abdominal muscles are also making themselves known. This will not stop me from dancing in the future, but it will make me think about stretching afterwards.

Nothing New

Not much is going on in my life right now. Working, yes. Today I made a whopping $18, because business has slowed down so they can't afford to give anyone very many long shifts. On the other hand, working for three hours a day is kind of nice. Except that I don't have any other pressing activities to attend to during the other 21 hours of the day.

I met up with some friends tonight, though, and I looked very cute in this great skirt that I got for maybe $8 and pigtail braids that made me look either like Pippi Longstocking or like Anne of Green Gables or like Snoop Dogg. But Snoop Dogg wouldn't wear such a cute skirt. Anyway, through talking with various people, I learned of fun activities that go on around town, such as swing dancing at somebody's house every once in a while, and weekly indoor soccer at the church. Perhaps I'll become less hermit-like and check out those events. My plan, as you may have divined, is to make myself busy so I don't realize that I have nothing to do.

My plans for tomorrow? Finally tackle the pile of stuff that I had use for during the past year, but not anymore since I'm living in my parents' already-furnished house. Stuff like mixing bowls, and blankets, and twin sheets, a non-functional printer, and oh yeah, all of my favorite books that I brought up there with me that I now have no room for on my bookshelves because they're all filled up with the books that aren't my favorite favorites.

Between living a suddenly very sedentary lifestyle and eating not the best for me foods (and large quantities of them, since I don't have to pay for groceries anymore), I believe I'm ballooning up like, well, a balloon. Tonight I ate a cod filet and several mini mushroom quiches, a root beer float, and then some Pecan Pandoutie (panned-outie?) with ice cream, and the mix of it all is making me want desperately to vomit. Sugary pecan mash does not go well with mushroom quiche, I'd like you all to know. Beware the admixture of nuts and fungus!

Hopefully the effect will wear off before I wake up tomorrow and try to sort through boxes of stuff.

Prepare for Severe Cuteness

Tomorrow will mark the one-week anniversary of my owning two almost unbearably cute animals. Wanna see? Yeah, I thought you would. Here you go. You might want to brush your teeth after looking at them, because they may give you cavities. They're that sweet.



I like to call this first picture "Chinchillas in Da Big House."


And this one? Well, it doesn't have a funny name. It's just a cute Chinchilla on my shoulder.

Happy Holidays

Today was Thanksgiving, and tomorrow will be Memorial Day, Easter, and Christmas all rolled into one. Since I was gone for a few major holidays this year, my family is having them in May. Not full-blown holidays, mind you, just little pseudo-celebrations. We had a turkey roll tonight with mashed potatoes and green beans, and mom made a pumpkin pudding for dessert. Tomorrow we'll be having hot dogs for dinner (Memorial Day) and jelly beans and devilled eggs and chocolate on the side (Easter).

Where does Christmas come in, you ask? Well, tomorrow is the day that I get my new pets, which I am very excited about. Even more anticipation in getting these than in getting Christmas presents this year.

Wherever life finds you during this holiday season, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and a Happy Easter, and may your Memorial Day be memorable.

Un-unemployed

Hooray, tomorrow I begin working again. I'm looking forward to my new job- it's a place that I like, it's really close to home (we're talking a 30 second commute here), and the people so far seem friendly and more clean-cut than my old coworkers. Let's all hope that I like working there, and that I like the people and stuff. Getting the job was the most painless thing in the world- I got an application, took it home, filled it out, brought it back a few days later (today), and the manager interviewed me and hired me after about 15 minutes of me walking in the door. No, it's not the most glamorous job out there, yes, I'm still working with food, but it's better than my old job and it's absolutely better than my recent state of no-job-at-all. I'm excited- I now will have a reason to wake up in the mornings. This is obviously a Good Thing, especially when you take into consideration that the thing that will keep me busy and not dying of boredom will also supply me with money. In return for what? In return for having something to do all summer, that's what! Having a job rawks.

Also, since I now have a job and will soon be earning money, I can now start seriously working on obtaining that pet that I want, which is now looking like those two pets that I want. I imagine that I'll have them sometime within the next month, if all goes well with the job and the pet-obtaining process. I'm very much looking forward to meeting with the breeder and checking out the various animals, choosing which ones will be right for me.

All in all, this summer is shaping out to be pretty good. A job to keep me busy, a pet (or two) to keep me company, and an income to keep me happy. The only drawback? When I talk about waking up in the mornings for my job, I mean the mornings. Like, up with the sun. It may even be up before the sun; I don't even know, because I've never woken up early enough to know when the sun rises. Early to bed and early to rise, as they say.

Don't get your hopes up

I don't really have anything to say, since I haven't done a whole lot of anything during the past few weeks. Well, other than getting a cute orange skirt a few days ago for seven dollars, and getting a black eye tonight for free. I'll give you internet people a picture of the cute orange skirt, since the picture of the black eye didn't turn out very well.

Mainly I just wanted to reassure you that I'm still alive, and the blog is not dead. It's just in a dormant phase while I have a boring life for a few weeks. I've got some tricks up my sleeve, though. I have plans to obtain a job really soon (I'll be applying at every place of business in a five mile radius of my house on friday), and I also have supersecret amazing plans of coolness that will make me less lonely. No, I'm not hiring a male escort, I'm thinking about buying a pet. But not just any pet! It's a supersecret amazing pet that if I actually get one, I'll tell you more about. Here's a hint as to the species: it has fur. Is it a hippo? Is it a stoat? Is it a yeti? Those of you not in the know, please leave a comment with your guess as to what would be my perfect pet. If you have a better idea than me, I might just change my mind!

Grammar Nazi

I used to be one, probably from grade 8-11. My senior year of high school, I relaxed a lot about it, realizing that people are going to talk the way they talk no matter what I thought about it, so I should just chill. Then I took a linguistics course during my freshman year of college, in which I learned about descriptive and proscriptive grammar. Now I essentially root for descriptive; if everyone in history was all grammar nazi-like, nothing would ever change, and we'd only speak one language, and talking would be boring. Innovation and evolution are part of language, so all you people who visibly cringe when someone uses a word "improperly," you can all just shut up. I hate you. Alright, I really don't hate you, but people who use their so-called superior knowledge to make normal people look up to them, they really annoy me and sometimes make me angry.

That all being said, I still have little bits of my past control-freak that surface now and again. One that really bugs me? When people try to type "Voila," but end up saying "viola." Those two words are not the same. It really shouldn't bother me, since spelling isn't terribly important in the grand scheme of things, and especially since neither of those words is used very frequently. But still. Every time I see "Viola!" in somebody's writing, I think to myself, "Cello! Bassoon! Marimba!," even though I know what they really meant to say.

Now What?

I'm back home. I spent the day with my parents, going to lunch with them and grocery shopping with them. Much as I love them and have missed them, I really hope that the rest of my days don't follow that pattern this summer. I guess I need to find a job, and I hope that the job will keep my busy enough to forget the fact that I don't have any friends in this country. Sigh. Eight months doesn't seem like a long time, but I feel so amazingly out of the loop here. I went back to my old workplace just now to visit, which was a mistake. It only depressed me, and the two people who I was hoping to see weren't working at the time. The few coworkers I did recognize were vaguely friendly, but not very interested to see me, as I was not very interested to see them. I've been back in town for about a whole 24 hours, and I'm already lonely and sad that I left Canadia. Also very bored. Perhaps I'll watch a movie tonight, to distract me from the fact that I have absolutely nothing to do: no school, no work, no friends to call, no shopping to do (because of the lack of money to spend), no jobfinding to do until monday morning. Not even parents to hang out with; they've got a previous engagement with friends and food. Thank you for reading my long paragraph of boringness. Sorry I'm not more exciting right now, but perhaps my life will pick up again when I see people at church tomorrow, and start looking for a job on monday. Cross your fingers for me.

A Quick Update on the Trip

I'm not going to detail the past three days. I'm far too tired. Suffice it to say that each day has been excellent beyond belief, and I'm loving the whole idea of hostels, especially the four most recent ones we've stayed at. Each one has been so absolutely cool and breathtaking, with great locations in cities and in the middles of nowheres, and wow. Just great. Tonight we're staying about 50 feet from the ocean, and I'll leave you with a picture of our explorations on the beach this afternoon.
(please don't mock my giant calves. They're genetic and I can't do anything about them)

Two Weeks of Homelessness: Day 4

Our day did not start well. In fact, it started pretty badly. Not only was it raining when we woke up, but it was raining on the bag of my clothes that was sitting on the roof of my car where my bike should have been. Apparently it's not a good idea to park your car overnight in the area of town where our hostel was located. Sigh. Not only was the bike stolen, but one of the side windows of the car was smashed in and all of our stuff rifled through. It seems that they got away with my bike (minus the front wheel) and my Gamecube. They left the car, with all of its confusing mess of stuff useless to thief-type people, for us to continue our trip with. Lucky!

Our day seemed doomed as we sucked up our loss and tried to find our way to the next place we were supposed to go, but became sadly lost and Very Grumpy in the rain. We magically found our way to the ferry, though, and our day became pretty dang good from there on out. The ferry ride was excellent, although rather cold and windy. We saw two (two!) bald eagles, and a group (herd?) of seals swimming about in the water, as well as other fun stuff like kayaks and sweet little cottages on islands. I will not show pictures of the car, since I didn't take any, but I'll show you some happy pictures of what we saw today and where we are now.

Our hostel tonight is way cool. It smells good, and has fun people, and fun artwork, and fun everything. We look forward to our stay here being happy and non-car-breaky-into. Cross your fingers.

Two Weeks of Homelessness: Day 3

I forgot to mention this earlier, but for the next little while (I believe till a week from today?), this site will be more of a travelogue than my normal blogginess. Just so you all know.

Today's drive was lovely. We went through the mountains for like forever, and we saw numberless lakes and trees and snow-capped peaks and all that great stuff. We also saw numberless signs warning of elk and deer and moose and elephants and what have you, but the only wildlife we saw was maybe like three deer and a couple of woodchuck things. The drive, though lovely, was very long, ending up being about 13 hours when you include the rush hour traffic in the city of our destination. We are both pretty tired, after each driving more than six hours through curvy mountainy rubber-neckingly beautiful terrain.

Our hostel tonight leaves something to be desired, and that "something" is managers with a proper grasp on the English language, and rooms that don't smell like old chinese food. I hate to be all ethnocentric, it's just that those two things have been trying for us. It took a long time for the guy to find our reservation when we were already tired and grumpy coming from 12 hours of mountain driving and one hour of rush hour traffic, and being that we were still kind of woozy from the drive and the vertigo of finally not being flying down the highway, the smell caught our grumpy selves off guard. Fortunately, we're only here for one night, and the place we're staying at tomorrow looks to be coolness surpassed only by Disneyland itself. Hopefully it lives up to the pictures and description on the website.

Tomorrow should be a good day, once we get out of the hostel and into the city to look around. We've got a relaxing, enjoyable day planned, which will be the first of several stops that we expect to be great.

Update: we seem to have found the source of the smell. It appears to be coming from the kitchen, where we found a bowl of clam shells in water, and what we believe to be the body of an ill-fated crustacean. These items were left on the table despite signs in the kitchen which direct you to wash and deal with your dishes when you're done with them.