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.

Two Weeks of Homelessness: Day 2

Day one was alright. We drove up to Parts Moreknown, partially to give us a nice, easy start to the trip, and partially to regain a couple of books I had lent out last semester. The trip was fairly uneventful, and we spent some time walking around the cute river area before heading to the home of a friend where we stayed the night. It was a pretty laid-back night, just talking and letting my sister get to know my friends a little bit.

Day two was a little more strenuous. We snuck out the house around seven in the morning, and drove hard for a solid 7.5 hours, stopping only to purchase gas and to take pictures of us at the sign announcing the new province. Oh yeah, and that other stop, where there was this little town that had a whole bunch of dinosaurs. We took a lot of pictures there, too. We got to our destination for the night around 2 in the afternoon, a city bigger than I've been in for a long time. We got a little bit lost downtown (well, not lost, we just missed the street we wanted to turn on, and had to backtrack), and had a close call involving a commuter train (more like a blonde moment. Not dangerous, Mom). We're now in the hostel, after having napped for a couple of hours, and walked around downtown for an hour or so. We're going to try and get showered up and then find dinner at one of the many varied restaurants around here, and get to bed kind of early- tomorrow's drive is a good 11-12 hours. Ugh. Hope everyone is well, and so far we haven't killed each other. Fingers crossed.

No more greasy Denny's food for awhile, please

My sister is here! Her planes didn't crash or anything, and she didn't get barred from the country by the customs people, and she was even in a good enough mood after a day of travel to go to Denny's with some of my friends when she got here. We ate greasy food, chocolate milkshake, and pancakes as she and my friends unconciously tried to one-up each other by mentioning various inside jokes. All in all, I won, because I knew all of the inside jokes. Good times, and more fun will happen tomorrow!

So Very Confused

Last night I dreamt that I was in Hong Kong, in a mall, trying to find a Taco Bell. I never found one, so instead I ate at some fast food chinese place, then went to explore the mall. This mall was odd in that it was like fifteen stories high, and each level was specialized. I only saw the first two levels, and the stairs between levels were really strange, too. They were like, not made up of 90 degree angles, but of a bunch of really obtuse angles, so it was more like trying to climb up a steep ramp with a bunch of bumps in it. I ran up the stairs, and as I came onto the landing of the second level, some guy who was watching me commented, "it's intrinsic." I don't know what he meant by that. So the first floor was like clothing and restaurants, and the second level was all stores to cater to children, with like supermarket pony ride things, you know the ones where you stick a quarter in and they rock back and forth, and the stores were set up so you made like a western movie of your kid riding this plastic horse thing. It was all very bizarre. I went into one of these stores, to ask where I could find a Taco Bell, and the guy asked me where I had eaten. I told him, "Oh, some crappy fast food place with like chinese fast food," and he got really upset. Apparently in Dream Hong Kong, they don't use the word "crappy" as liberally as I do, and he was insulted. He finally told me that there was one Taco Bell in Hong Kong, in the Seyoon province, right near Leningrad. I kid you not. That is exactly what he said to me. After being told where to find Taco Bell, I went back to the first floor by way of stairs on the outside of the building, because the mall was really dark inside, and who do you think I saw standing in a very small crowd of people? That's right, George Bush. I had my camera with me, so I took a picture of him to show to the people back home. I also took pictures of the strange obtuse stairs, and I had some person take a picture of me wearing a very sparkly coat while holding a giant dictionary, in one of the clothing stores.

Perhaps I shouldn't have drunk that mixture of milk and pineapple juice before I went to bed last night.

Hooray!

I finished my last final a few hours ago, then walked back to my apartment the outside way, and giggled and talked to the groundhog things out there, then went to dinner with one of my roommates and ate a tasty burger at a Chili's-like restaurant. I am now going to ride my bike around the lake, partially because it's so darn SPRING out there, partially because I'm so darn HAPPY I'm done with the semester, and partially because I ate so darn MUCH for dinner, and I feel the need to exercise some of it off.

If you need me in the next hour or so, too bad. I'm having fun.

Edit: I'm back from my ride, and it was excellent fun. Now I'm going to have fun in a different way, known as playing ping pong with the Long Haired Christian, and eating orange jello. Perhaps even watching a movie? Who knows! The night is young! It's only seven o'clock!

Edit again: apparently during finals, it's 24 hour quiet hours so people can study. Apparently during quiet hours you're not allowed to play ping pong. Apparently this rule is really dumb. Instead, we played pool for a little while, then sat around and watched Star Wars ep. IV and V, since the LHC had never seen them before. How in the world do you live for 20 years in North America without having seen Star Wars? It's unheard of! Absurd!

The End is Near

I can feel it coming. I'm leaving in less than a week. Leaving forever. It's been tough, watching my roommates gradually packing stuff up and taking it back to their hometown about an hour south. Every time I look around the apartment, it seems less and less like home, and more and more like the empty shell I saw when I first moved in 8 months ago. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to people, to the university, to the wide open prairies. Excuse me while I let out a sad little sigh.

On the other hand, I've only got one more final to write tomorrow, then I'm free to do whatever I please for the next few days. Probably "whatever I please" is going to be packing up all my stuff, getting a big ol' oil change, and doing a bunch of business-like stuff to get ready for not living here anymore. Maybe I'll set aside some time to play with my $5 badminton set with a friend, spending some last minute quality time. I also have grand plans of playing ping pong on monday night in between FHE and when I have to head over to the airport to pick up my sister.

Russia's Greatest Love Machine

My friend, who I once dubbed Nameless Joe, has some pretty great music in his computer. No, that guy in the picture is *not* Nameless Joe. I would not make friends with someone that looks like that. That man is Rasputin, the subject of one of the many strangely fascinating songs in NJ's library. Aside from the roughly 5 hours of Bee Gees and ABBA music, he also has some really cool Swedish music, and some other really cool music that's from Russia (but not about Rasputin), and one song that feels like it's an eternity long, but is really only about 3 minutes long, it only feels like an eternity because it's SO BAD. I need to remember to ask him to send me a list of all the fun music he has, so I can get it for myself and not forget about it when I go back home. Everybody go out and get Rah Rah Rasputin by Boney M, because it's pretty rad. You'll like it.

I wish I could wear makeup like that all the time

Last night, as I revelled in my complete absence of responsibilities (it being my first evening free from schoolwork) and watched Jeopardy, I noticed that there were a few people in my apartment that I didn't know. They walked back and forth between the bedrooms of two of my roommates, in various states of dress and undress, hair being done, makeup being applied. This makeup was something else, though.

Everybody had one eye all done up crazy cool-like, as you can see. Upon seeing one of these random girls walking by with the makeup done, I became curious enough to leave the Jeopardy game to find out who these people were and why they were so cool.

Turns out last night was the performance final for a dance class in which each student had to coreograph a dance and get their friends to perform it. My one roommate had been practicing this for months on end for one of her friends, and I finally got to see it happen! The whole evening was free, since it was a final and not a "real" performance, and included an acting class, a dance class, and a lighting design class.

The actors did the typical "I am...................a leaf!......Blowing,... blowing............... in the winddddd........!" type of performance- each had a few sentences to say, and they had to incorporate movement into their performance. Let's just say I saw a whole lot of running in circles and jumping in the air like an explosion, but not a whole lot of good acting. I dunno. I guess I just don't like that genre very much. There were two or three that I actually liked, but that's out of maybe twenty performances.

The dances were Very Cool. They were all kind of, uh, how would you call it? Modern Dance, maybe. You know, dancers in leotards with strips of fabric wrapped around them, doing Strange and Beautiful things in a random-seeming manner. I'm not really a fan of that kind of thing, either- it can get pretty cheesy and predictable, but these were pretty fun. As similar as the dances were, they were each very unique, using different types of music, sending different messages, etc.

The lighting design class did pretty well, as well. They collaborated with the dance students, mainly lighting a scrim with bold colors, and using backlighting (but it came from the sides of the stage. Is that sidelighting?) to make the dancers look all shadowy. They also lighted them just normally sometimes so you could see the amazing makeup jobs on the dancers. I know I probably sound dumb trying to look like I actually know what I'm talking about with the lighting stuff, Sis. Maybe you could explain to me what these things are actually called. Anyway, the effect of the lighting was very nice, but for some reason it took a looooooong time for the lights to go up after the dancers were positioned on the stage. Like, the dancers would actually be standing there, ready to dance, for up to two minutes, and this happened for *each group*. I don't know whose fault it was, or maybe they were just trying to drag out the performance or something, but it got a little tedious.

Ha! I almost forgot the acting class' group performance! The teacher of the class had explained earlier that he had coreographed their performance and they had been working on it since September, or something like that. I think this teacher had watched Quidam a few too many times before "creating" this piece. Not that it was cut-and-pasted from the show to their class, but they definately used some of the same effects, like the "slow walk of the group, huddled together, from the back of the stage to the front, slightly cowering," and the "some person pretending they're walking when they're actually floating through the air," and the "everybody is wearing suits and looks exactly the same, and they're all walking fast through harsh, contrasty lighting so it looks all confusing and weavy and stuff." It seemed like they had a little more original content towards the end, though. Perhaps I just haven't seen the original of what they stole the end from, though :).

Somebody call me a wah-mbulance

I have to write this whole big long paper for tomorrow, and although I did work on it last night for two hours, I still have nothing to show for it.

I fell down the stairs and hurt my foot while descending through the auditorium to turn in my dance final. Dubya tee eff? I *never* fall down the stairs. So much for "I believe this class has greatly enhanced my confidence during physical activities. I feel less self-conscious than I used to." I hate doing reflections on finals anyway.

Whatever the bones are that you use to sit on a bicycle seat are, they hurt right now. A lot. Like, I think I may have bruising. Dumb hard bicycle seat. Dumb me for riding through bumpy grass.

My roommates' classes for the past two days have all been like fifteen minutes long, and consisting mainly of eating cookies or getting hints for the finals, since it's the last day of class. My poetry class is meeting a half-hour early today, so we can have an extra-long time to get through all the material we haven't gotten to yet. Hooray for me!

And I have the hiccups.

At least after tomorrow afternoon, I'll be relatively free to do as I please. Once I finish that paper, that is.

Yet another fun way to spend an evening

Spend three hours straight playing doubles ping-pong while having a full-on shouting fight (debate. whatever.) about whether socialism is a feasible system, and if it isn't, what is? Try not to die laughing when your opponent runs into the corner of the table and rips open a huge gash on his side. Pretend to be sympathetic, then mock him when he can't bend over to pick up the ball because it hurts too much. Realize around midnight that maybe it's about time to head home and get to bed. Oh yeah, and spend the whole evening blaming all of your opponents' faults on the fact that they're Canadian, while they mock you for being American; it's even more fun than yo' mama jokes!

"Oh yeah, well, your country's so stupid they cracked that Liberty Bell. You know if that was OUR bell, it'd be in primo condition. Or at least, we'd try to fix it if we did break it..."

I know this will only make sense to maybe one of my readers, but I feel the need to say it anyway

As I listen to the Frances the Mute album by the Mars Volta, I wonder to myself, where is the rest of the song Cassandra Geminni: E. Sarcophagi?

And more importantly, why isn't the whole rest of the album just. like. that. song.?

*Sigh of contentment. Also of tiredness.*

Holy moley, I just had a wonderful evening. After a very rocky start (an hour late because I couldn't decide on an outfit. I'm such a girl), I made it to the last formal activity for the Chrazy Christians group (my name for them, not theirs). It was billed as a "Swing Dance," and I went with all intentions of it being a fun night.

I was so totally right. My outfit was perfect, my hair was perfect, and most importantly, my attitude was perfect. I danced for most of the time, doing Jive and looking like a frickin expert thanks to my dance class, also learning a Charlston-like thing, and getting that down pretty well, and even going so far as to try the polka. It was such glorious fun just to get out there and dance my little heart out with other people who wanted to do the same.

Favorite part? The way I was pretty much the most graceful girl when it came to spinning out during jive, and the way my skirt twirled just the right amount to make me look cute.

Absolutely fun night, talked to a lot of people, danced with a lot of people, and oh yeah, ran into a lot of people- my partner for the waltz was not the best leader :P


What are my plans for tomorrow, to top such fun tonight? Go on a walk around the lake, work on papers, then have an indoor birthday barbeque with my roommates. I made the cake and it looks delicious.

Bummer

I was sitting here at my (very messy) desk today, thinking about money. Specifically, still groggy from sleeping, I was wondering why I always have more meat than I can think what to do with in KoL, while I can't seem to hold onto money for very long in real life. Then I realized what the problem was: in KoL, I can get pretty much anything I want by beating up a bunch of people until one of them drops what I want.

Too bad real life doesn't work that way. I could be rich.

Check me out!

If all goes according to plan, I'll have finished my term paper for my poetry class a day and a half before it's due. I don't think this has ever happened before. Oh yeah, and if I get THAT amazing feat accomplished, I'll start on my paper for my shakespeare class a week before it's due. With luck, I'll have THAT finished before the due date, too!

In other news, I just cleaned my bathroom and the kitchen in a very. thorough. manner. because I failed my cleaning inspection two days ago. Not because I'm a bad cleaner, but because I just didn't feel like cleaning right then. Hopefully I'll pass with flying colors tomorrow, so I don't have to pay the $35 to have the cleaning ladies clean for me. Although, I really don't see how they could fail me when I actually did clean. I would eat off of that bathroom counter. Not the toilet, cause that's just nasty, but the counter is spotless. Also, I never knew that you could make your own windex with ingredients from your kitchen. Here's the secret recipe: use vinegar.

Simple as pi.

How to start your day off right

Step 1: write all over your mirrors with window markers that you have to register for next semester's classes at 7 in the morning. Forget that 7 in the morning at home is actually 8 in the morning here. Do this step around 1 in the morning, the night before.

Step 2: go to bed, enjoy the sheer loveliness of being asleep.

Step 3: nearly have a heart attack as you're awakened by the fire alarm. Stumble in a stupor around the apartment as you put on pants and a sweatshirt, and shoes but no socks.

Step 4: continue to stumble around the apartment, trying to find your keys.

Step 5: stumble some more as you enter the hallway, and become confused when the across-the-hall neighbors ask if your roommate has already gone outside. Realize that she must have come back home after you went to bed, and reenter the apartment to encourage her to leave.

Step 6: emerge from the stairwell and enter the cold, wet, outside world. It greets you with the loving embrace of biting wind.

Step 7: huddle with the across-the-hall neighbor and her friend, watch your roommate walk off to her car to spend the night at her boyfriend's house.

Step 8: trudge toward another building that people seem to be going into. Hooray for our sheeplike quality of following anything that moves!

Step 9: sit around inside the other building and watch as the firefighters enter your own building. Listen to your friend from the 7th floor say that she smelled smoke coming from higher up in the stairwell. Great. It's actually on fire.

Step 10: realize just how many people are still up and drinking at five in the morning. ugh.

Step 11: get confused when the firemen tell you to go back into your building, that someone just pulled the alarm- the alarms are still going, and your friend said she smelled smoke, right?

Step 12: note the strange powder dusted all over the stairwell as you and your 1000 closest friends all try to go up the stairs at the same time. Ash? Weird sprinkler powder? I thought they said there was no fire...

Step 13: wonder briefly if this is the firemen's idea of an April Fools' Day joke. Decide that it's not april 1 anymore, and that would be in terrible taste. On the other hand, you could see the firemen's point- let the drunken idiots burn.

Step 14: try to figure out how you're going to get back to sleep- the alarms are still going off, and your system is pumped to capacity with adrenaline.

Step 15: sigh with relief when the alarms mercifully stop.

Step 16: spend 45 minutes trying to get back to sleep, which is hard. Your arms are hot, and don't want to go under the covers. However, you know from experience that it is impossible to sleep with exposed arms: the boogeyman will come and pull on your fingers and bite your elbows if you do. Much like the way he gets really close to your head and mumbles things if you don't cover your ear as well.

Step 17: after finally falling asleep, wake up a half hour later to your alarm clock calling you to register for classes. Curse the sun, then realize that you actually have an hour until registration actually begins. Continue cursing the sun, but in a more upbeat manner, as you go back to bed for another 45 minutes.

Those hats are everywhere

There's a group of about 7 guys outside below my window, where the football guys were yesterday. These guys are practicing jumping their skateboards. I can just imagine the email:

"Meet between the dorms and the gym at dusk. Make sure you're wearing your cigarette pants and a black tshirt. Wear a castro hat if you've got one. Oh yeah, and if you have the time, try and dye your hair black to match the darkness of your soul. Bring your skateboard."

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.