Retraction

Ok, something happened between this morning, when I wrote the previous post, and 1:30, when I went to my poetry class. Not quite sure what it was, but it made my day like fifty times better. I was sitting in the kitchen, eating freshly made corn muffins with my roommate, watching Days of Our Lives, when something flew by our (2nd story) window. It just barely caught my eye, but I wondered, and went over to get a better look at the outside world.

There were four guys out there, in tshirts, playing catch with a football. I stood there watching them for maybe twenty minutes. They seemed so happy and carefree, running around outside and having fun. When I went outside to my poetry class, it was like breathing in, I don't know. Like, Sprite, or pure oxygen, or a ferris wheel or something.

Poetry class was excellent, as we were discussing Ozymandias by Shelley. This guy in my class grows more like a friend from home every day, and he was hilarious today. We had a really fun time in class, and I left thinking, it's so nice out today. I should go for a walk.

So I did. I left at 2:30, and just got back at 5:30. I walked all the way around the whole lake, and the walk was just perfect. It was like, "I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing right now, and that's fine with me." I didn't wear a watch, I didn't bring my phone, nor any headphones or anything else to distract me. Just me, my sweatshirt, and my water bottle. For awhile I even took my sweatshirt off and went in my tshirt, because it was that nice out.

I have no idea how my mood changed from so depressed and annoyed and worried to so happy, so lighthearted so fast. All I know is, I like the change. I even found myself singing "What a Difference a Day Makes" out loud as I got ready to go for my walk. Twas an excellent day.

Grump, grump, grump

What with this and that, the next few weeks I have a sneaking suspicion will be a grumpy time. Here's a list of things I want to complain about, but don't have the energy or patience to explain:

Money

Dance class

My trip home, which will be fun, but right now is a stressful thing to plan

My room is messy

I hate writing papers

I kind of want to stay here forever, but also kind of just want to be home right now

I hate working. I would look forward to summer, but I'm going to have to get a major job (see Money), so I'll still have to be in a specific place at a specific time.

My roommates are never home on weekends, so I pretty much end up being a total slob, sitting on the couch watching tv by myself all day on Saturdays

My one roommate, who I don't know very well at all. Who moves in halfway through the second semester, then spends maybe one night out of four actually in the apartment? I'd rather have my bad roommate back than this one who once in a while shows up out of the blue and uses the bathroom when I need it, then disappears for another four days.

Nyargh

We never seem to have anything good in the fridge, but we don't want to go stocking up on stuff now, since we've got less than a month left before we all move out.

I'm sure there's something else I forgot, and the fact that I forgot something bugs me, too

Vaguely related thoughts after volunteering at a soup kitchen

Ugh, the food doesn't really smell all that good.

It's really hard to understand homeless people when they try to tell you a story. They pause dramatically in the middle of sentences, and mumble a lot. Mostly what I got from this one lady was that her mom had cancer, and as she (the lady) was hitchhiking home to see her mother, the trucker knew that her mom was sick. Except that it turned out that there really wasn't a trucker. Or maybe he was an angel, and disappeared? At any rate, she ended up at home with no idea of how she got there.

A lot of people drink coffee.

Even their young children.

I'm not a people person. I find it very difficult to remain calm and pleasant when some man is gripping me by the hand and telling me he struggles with alcoholism. No, I wasn't in danger, yes, I realize that he just needs someone to talk to and validate him (perhaps some counsellors and doctors, too), but I'm not good with that kind of thing. Same way as I really don't do well going to nursing homes to cheer up the old folks.

Hey, the water in the mop bucket is the same color and cloudiness as the coffee I've been serving to all those people. Don't know whether that says something about the state of the floors or the state of the coffee. Don't want to know.

I'm glad I have a home. Also food, and a shower.

Sad that those people do not, and that about 85-90% of them happen to be of the same marginalized ethnicity. Like, there were maybe two white people there.

Working there for an hour is possibly more stressful than knowing you've got two 10-page papers due in the next two weeks that you haven't started yet. Possibly.

I'm tired.

Oh yeah, and I kind of felt bad when my roommate and I went home and made ribs, garlic bread, rice and corn for dinner. We had leftovers.

My friday night

"As everybody knows, a poke will contain and conceal a marketable pig;-- even two actively wallowing pigs, according to Chaucer..."

If you're having a slow night, go down to your local university library and pick up a copy of Shakespeare's Motley, by Leslie Hotson (published by Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1952). It's an odd little book about the costume of Shakespeare's fools, which is not exactly what you've always thought it was. Unless you're Leslie Hotson's child, in which case it probably is exactly what you've always thought it was.

If anybody needs me, I'll be wallowing in my poke. Rather, I'll be reading this book while wrapped up in a blanket. Have a great night.

How to tell when I'm having a slow week

The reason I haven't said much here during the past week or so is because I haven't done much in the past week or so. Aside from going to classes, going to the gym, and making dinner once in a while, my life has been pretty boring lately.

Except for that one night when I made a cubic ton of bread, "helped" a friend paint his home orange, stalked this one guy by sitting outside his house in a car and laughing like 13-year-old girls, then got in trouble for eating frosted cake with my hands in the back of my friend's car, and took a tour of the nice, rich people area of town, all before coming home to watch a movie. That night was pretty fun. Oh yeah, and so was the night when we did makeovers to practice for the day when we become ladies of the night.

Ok, so maybe the reason I haven't said much here during the past week is because I'm lazy. That's a much more likely excuse, coming from me. However, next weekend I'm going on a trip that promises to be exciting, hilarious, or disastrous, or all three. You can look forward to my writeup of that event when I get home, probably I'll have something to say about it by next monday night. In the meantime, hope that I get less lazy and at least put something vaguely interesting up on the site just to keep you guys from taking me out of your bookmarks.

Oh yeah, and the snow is beginning to melt. You can't really tell, since the pile of snow on the left of the picture is as tall as the (not pictured) door leading into that building, but in the lower right hand corner, you can see a stream of water running into a drain. Sigh. Oh snow, I barely knew ye.

I didn't even need to wear a jacket outside for the past three days. Excuse me while I choke back a sob or two.

My fear of pickles and mustard is ruining my life!

You know that there's something wrong with the world when that's the title of an episode of Maury, and it's totally not a joke. Like, they treat the subject as seriously and legitimately as any of their other subjects. Let me just ask this: Who in the world is afraid of mustard??? "Aaah! There's a tasty, tangy condiment coming towards me! Oh noes!"

Favorite part of the show: when a helper brings out a tray just heaped with a mountain of gloppy mustard, and the guest runs screaming into the audience.

Can you say "Total Hottness" ?

Today being St Patrick's Day and all, what better way to celebrate than with bagpipe music? I'm not sure, but I thought St Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, not Scotland. Either way, I was totally pumped when I walked out of my poetry class on the 5th floor of the Catholic college on campus, and heard bagpipes and drums playing on the 1st floor. As I descended the stairs, I sniffed, and thought, "it smells like lovely bread is baking," then I realized that duh, it's St Patrick's Day, so they obviously have some beer-selling thing going on (colleges here are a lot more open about the amount of beer consumed by their students, and use it to their advantage, having beer tents and other events in which they make a lot of money for the school). I gleefully ran down the stairs to find four bagpipers and one drummer standing in a circle in the middle of the big common area near the stairs, playing to their hearts' content. I sat and listened for about half an hour as they played several songs I didn't know, and ended up with Scotland the Brave, naturally. All in all, an excellent way to spend a Friday afternoon.

Oh yeah, and I'm now partially deaf. Them bagpipes is loud!

Written from a hospital bed with two broken ankles, a dislocated hip, and hypothermia*

Good thing healthcare in the Wild North is free!
*no, not really. I'm completely uninjured. Mom, you can start breathing again.

I went skating for the first time outside last night. It was pretty fun, except for the fact that my skates were just slightly too small, and the ice was all irregular and bumpy (seeing that it's naturally-occuring, and not zambonied every half hour). It was also only a very small area we could skate on, since it had snowed that morning and only maybe 1/6th of the rink had been cleared off. Still, it was fun. I kind of got the hang of it, and never actually fell down (mainly because I was going too slow). I wore my tocque and two pairs of mitts, and my happy down vest. I fully intended to document my first skating experience for everyone to see, but when I tried to turn on my camera the batteries died, which was vexing. Fortunately, I've already got plans to go again with another person on Saturday afternoon, so I can charge my batteries in preparation for that outing. Plus, those pictures will be taken during the day time, so they'll be more likely to come out well.

All is going well, except I should probably get started on writing some papers for my classes... Tonight I'm going to a pizza potluck, and I'm not sure if they just mean to buy a pizza and bring it, or actually make one yourself. I'm going the safe route and making one myself. It'll be more fun and less greasy that way.

You know how a couple of weeks ago I drove east? Well, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to drive west, with a different set of friends. It will be great fun, and I'm very excited to go. I'm even more excited, though, for my big trip that's coming at the end of April. I've been planning out routes and places to stay on the way, and it'll be all kinds of fun. My first real road trip! All these other trips I've been on this year don't count, since they only take less than a day of driving to get to the final destination. This'll be a full-blown, longer than a week drive with zany adventures and youthful hijinks. Well, perhaps no hijinks, but it'll still be fun.

Lovely

My roommate and I went on a walk around the lake the other day, finally. It's been like, seven months since I got here, and I've never actually walked very far on the lake walkway. It was beautiful, all snowy and perfectly white and stuff. I took some fun pictures, and here is one of them. That's the one beautiful building in town, and it's across the lake from where I was standing at the time. We were walking on that bridgey thing, away from the lake, then turned around and saw the great framing of the building by the trees. It was a pretty cold day, and we spent about an hour and a half walking around outside, so by the time we got home we were incredibly rosy-cheeked, and our legs were frostbit. Interesting sensation- it's like, your legs get really itchy for maybe 15 minutes, and then they're really hot for another 10 minutes or so, then they're magically better. Anyway. It was a fun afternoon, and I should use that walkway more often during my last month here. It's nice.

Slightly Disturbed

Would someone care to explain to me why the pants I just wore to the gym smell like the inside of a rental car?

No Clam Eyes to Cry Clam Tears

I have three songs about clams in my iTunes playlist. Yes, clams. I've only got one song about lobsters. Looks like the mollusks beat the crustaceans by a landslide.

BTW

I don't know why I wrote that last post in the voice of a man. That's just the way it came out. No, Mom, I'm not a lesbian.

Academic Infidelity

I feel like I have a mistress. I am married to Sociology. This is the major I have chosen, the major I have gone through college with, telling everyone I love and care for. I've put so much time into my marriage with Sociology (time, but not really a whole lot of effort) that I don't want to quit now. But I've fallen out of love with Sociology. I'm not even sure I ever loved her to begin with.

Internet, please don't tell Sociology, but I've been seeing someone else, almost from the very beginning. I love English. I love English so much more than Sociology. When I have rough times, I run to English for comfort. She understands me in a way that Sociology never will, and since I'm not married to her, our relationship causes little to no stress in my life. Everything comes so much more naturally with English.

I don't know what to do; I love English, and want to be with her, but it is so much simpler to maintain the status quo. I'm not sure I want to rock the boat, and I don't think that Sociology suspects a thing. But isn't that even worse? I'm not doing right by Sociology or English: lying to Sociology, and not admitting my true love of English. I feel so guilty, knowing that no matter what I do, I can't have both ease and happiness.

If I switch to English now, it will mean another year of school, another year of tuition. If I stay with Sociology, I'll have to deal with getting a degree in something that I don't really like as much as I thought I would when I declared my major. Should I be happy with finishing school as quickly as possible, with a Sociology degree and minor in English, or should I switch them around, getting an English degree that takes longer but is more fulfilling, and minoring in Sociology? Any advice is welcome.

Academic Infidelity

I feel like I have a mistress. I am married to Sociology. This is the major I have chosen, the major I have gone through college with, telling everyone I love and care for. I've put so much time into my marriage with Sociology (time, but not really a whole lot of effort) that I don't want to quit now. But I've fallen out of love with Sociology. I'm not even sure I ever loved her to begin with.

Internet, please don't tell Sociology, but I've been seeing someone else, almost from the very beginning. I love English. I love English so much more than Sociology. When I have rough times, I run to English for comfort. She understands me in a way that Sociology never will, and since I'm not married to her, our relationship causes little to no stress in my life. Everything comes so much more naturally with English.

I don't know what to do; I love English, and want to be with her, but it is so much simpler to maintain the status quo. I'm not sure I want to rock the boat, and I don't think that Sociology suspects a thing. But isn't that even worse? I'm not doing right by Sociology or English: lying to Sociology, and not admitting my true love of English. I feel so guilty, knowing that no matter what I do, I can't have both ease and happiness.

If I switch to English now, it will mean another year of school, another year of tuition. If I stay with Sociology, I'll have to deal with getting a degree in something that I don't really like as much as I thought I would when I declared my major. Should I be happy with finishing school as quickly as possible, with a Sociology degree and minor in English, or should I switch them around, getting an English degree that takes longer but is more fulfilling, and minoring in Sociology? Any advice is welcome.

Total Greatness

Uffish's good mood from yesterday magically switched over to me today. Not only am I still excited about having skates, but I also had lots of fun in badminton today, where we played silly games, like "badminton volleyball," and sillier games, like, "I'ma dump like 20 birdies on the court, and give you like three minutes in which to hit them. Whoever has the least birdies on their side of the court at the end, wins." We've only had three classes so far in the course, but I already feel an improvement in my ability to hit the birdie where I want it to go, and more importantly, in being able to hit the birdie at all.

Beyond badminton, I enjoyed my dance class as well. I finally found a suitable pair of shoes for the class (knock-off walmart Keds for like $4), so I didn't have to dance in socks today. We're putting the finishing touches on our group projects (make your own line dance!), and will present on Wednesday. Hooray for not feeling nearly as clumsy as I imagined I would!

I amazingly got my reading and writing done for my monday afternoon sociology class, and I went to my poetry class where I totally rocked all the professor's leading questions (what do you think the field and single tree could represent in Wordsworth's Intimations on Immortality? :the garden of Eden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, duh!). I'm rapidly pulling away from the rest of the class, who only could muster the "duh" part of my answer. Hooray for growing up in a religious atmosphere, as well as an intelligent atmosphere. Who knew those things would come in handy in a poetry class? :P

Hmm... what else good happened today? Sociology was pretty boring, and I made the mistake of eating a fruity snack before, instead of during class, and therefore had a giant blood sugar drop in the middle of class and nearly fell off my chair in sleepiness.

OH! OH! I just remembered why I started this post to begin with! As I was leaving my soc class, I saw a bunch of boxes sitting on the floor outside the map library, with a sign taped above them that said, "Students, feel free to take these." I totally felt free to the amount of five cute little book things. The insides are full of boring words and stuff, but the covers are sweet and green with nifty little pictures on them. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, but I know they'll come in handy for something. Better safe and possessing a bunch of fun little books than sorry, I always say.

Guess what I'm wearing!

Ok, you'll never guess, so I'll tell you. I'm wearing my argyle tights, a pink tank top, some light blue seersucker shorts, and an old pair of ice skates, borrowed from a friend of a friend. Any time I tell you I'm excited about what I'm wearing, it's a good possibility that I'm wearing my argyle tights. They make every outfit more charming. Having reported that I have ice skates in my possession, let the nonstop prayers (protecting me from my dangerous activities) of my mother begin!

In other news, today at church, the Mathematical Knight taught me how to solve a rubix cube. Hooray! One of my life goals has been accomplished. It's surprisingly easy: he taught me the various steps in probably about a half hour, and I solved it twice in the next 15-20 minutes. Hah! I am a master.

YO-GA! YO-GA!

I'm taking some activity courses this semester. I'm taking badminton early in the morning, then after that I go directly to a dance class. This makes my life somewhat difficult- I need to be able to run around and be all exercise-y in badminton, so I would like to wear shorts. But I would feel dumb going to dance in shorts. I have therefore gone on a little shopping spree, and purchased 3 pairs of yoga pants. They're perfect, cause I can exercise in them like shorts, they are totally comfortable, and they look good so I'm not embarrassed of them in dance class. I'm also eager to wear them to the gym- they won't ride up like shorts do on the treadmill, and they're not as hot or ugly as sweatpants. Last night, I even wore them around the apartment to watch a movie in. They're THAT wonderful.

I never knew I was an emotional person

I've never been one to cry in public about things that are beautiful, or moving, or whatever. Usually when I cry it's because I'm mad, or feel insulted or embarrassed or something. I pride myself on being an oversensitive baby, not on being an emotional blubberer.

I now know what it is that can turn me into the second type of person: sports. I know, you're thinking, "huh?"

During the Olympics, I got all misty at least three times, as teams won hard-fought games, as an exhausted cross country skier's little daughter ran through the snow to hug her after she won gold, etc, etc.

I'm not sure where I was going with this train of thought. I have no pithy statement to make at the end of this post, no punchline. Sorry.