A day of changes of plans. Mum did, indeed, schedule a dental appointment for me. And the funny part was, it was with Lindsey’s dad’s office! So we saw Calli’s mother again, and I had my whole head x-rayed. The machine made a space age sort of fluttery noise as it was going around my head. But I had my eyes closed because I wasn’t sure what one is supposed to do with one’s eyes while one’s head is being x-rayed. I suppose it’s silly to close your eyes as if that’s going to protect your eyes from the x-rays, when we all know the big lead apron thingy is the only thing that’s going to block them. But yeah, I still closed my eyes.

The good news: the wisdom teeth can wait till May to be plucked out (ok, cut and wrenched out would be a better description, but plucked makes it sound so simple and painless). The bad news: that I have wisdom teeth in the first place. They aren’t very “wise” teeth, either, to be coming in like that without my wanting them. If they were smart they’d find a way to come in without being hard to brush and without causing infections or cavities. The pain in the ass teeth would be a better name.

So… afterwards we went to Artifacts and I found a volume of Catullus’s poetry, but it’s a different translator… but it was only a dollar so I bought it anyways.

Then we had a visit with Grandma R., who is definitely worse from the last time I saw her. I got a little, well, nostalgic and stuff, and it was difficult to see her in such a different state from how I’d like to remember her. But we did it— I suppose that’s important.

An old woman came up to us in the Alzheimer’s unit and kept asking Mom “what is it?” She was curious about the fabric of Mom’s coat… Then she came up to me and touched my coat which I was holding and she was rather excited about it. I told her it had some wool in it. I guess she enjoys fabrics or something. Then another woman in a wheelchair was sitting in her room in the dark and one of the assistants came up to her to ask what she was doing. And she said “I don’t know but it must not be right.” That made the assistant laugh and say it was a good answer.

We also saw our great uncle, Johnny… Who’s pretty sharp with his quotable comments, although he pauses before he speaks. Very cute fellow, Johnny.

The little jabs continue, as Tim will simply not take his boots off and he tracks in snow which melts which I step in and which causes my socks to be damp. I hate damp socks. But, I soon will be back, fending for myself in MA, pros and cons to both locations…

Yesterday was more eventful than today, so, let's start with that:

Saturday: We got out of the house early (as in, noon) for our shopping trip to Portland. We went into all sorts of mind-numbing teen/twenty something clothing stores, frustrating Mom and disgusting Merrie. I did, however, find a few items. Shopping will continue Monday, as I'm looking for boots. Got some random books at Barnes and Noble, in retrospect wish I had gotten some Don DeLillo as I'm about done with The Body Artist. Oh well. Next time. After, we got lost in Portland looking for Old Town Pizza. Mom was cruising around in circles, asking people on the street for directions (they didn't know where it was), stopping at a gas station (they didn't know where it was, either, although one guy remembered seeing the pizza delivery guy on a bicycle), and eventually asking someone that actually knew what street the restaurant was on. After parking, we were quickly walking to get inside out of the rain, and someone was yelling obscenities and "hey girls" and I assumed he meant us, so of course I didn't turn around, and when it turned into "f-ck you" I was particularly glad I wasn't acknowledging it.

Well! So even though we were a quarter of an hour late, Patti and the girls were late, too. All turned out well, we girls sat at one table and our mothers at another. We had lots to catch up on, but I think we barely scratched the surface! Hope to see them again soon! We all have fond memories of weekends spent together back in the old days...

So today! Uhm... I woke up really late, felt really faint and yucky in the shower, watched some tv, read some of my book, took a nap, ate dinner, had fun talking to Andrew, read some more and talked with Mer and Tim, and now Mer's watching the Garfield Christmas video finally. That's about it! More later =)

My throat this morning was definitely worse off than yesterday. I stumbled out of bed and promptly began making this fact known to the entire household. Naturally, Mum called and made a doctor's appointment for me. The doctor's office... not so crowded. I whizzed past signing in and getting weighed and actually saw the doctor within ten minutes of arrival! Yay Dr. P--! So he talked to me about college (he has kids around my age) and looked in my ears and at my throat. My right ear was apparently red and worse looking than my throat (funny, my throat feels waaaay worse than my ears), and apparently at the beginning of an infection (I'm not crazy! I knew my ears felt funny). So I'm thinking my ears are... extra-weak in constitution, because I distinctly remember having swimmer's ear in high school and I definitely didn't do a lot of swimming.

So now I'm on the miracle-drug-ever-since-the-1940s, frequently sought out by not-so-smart parents to cure their children's viruses, the antibiotic. but, for once, I apparently don't have a virus! woo-hoo! and I don't have strep throat, which was the other not-so-pretty bacterial choice (involving a big fat needle to las nalgas or a ten day purple liquid regiment). Uhm... I don't feel miraculously better yet, though...

After the doctor, we proceeded to downtown Hood River, where I redeemed the Silverado gift certificate. Managed to get both a necklace and earrings with amber. Then the happy-dappy wal mart trip, where I bought everything I might need going back to college (including the best kind of notebook ever, a BUNGEE notebook! and in purple, a three subject, couldn't find it in that color last summer! this is going to be a good semester!) Oh! And I bought a couple little things for Mer as it's her birthday Jan. 14 and I won't be here and I don't have much opportunity to be sneaky! Also got some too-dry otis spunkmeyer m&m cookies (in place of my usual chocolate chip). And then we headed over to mcdonalds because I wanted dippin' dots! Yum!

Oh, and now I'm updating really late because i fell asleep with wet hair and thought I'd best blowdry it before going back to sleep. Goodnight! Good morning!

Christmas Eve I woke up a little more sick feeling... I had quite awhile to relax, however, before Mer & I headed down to Hood River to meet up with Dad & Margy. (I read part of Santaland Diaries to Mer on the way down!) They got a motel room for a couple of nights so it'd be easier for us to see them. Since of course there isn't a Christmas tree in the room, they fashioned a "tree" out of a lamp with gift wrap around it. We had a nice little gift exchange and Dad really really liked the clothes we picked out for him, so we were happy! The 70 channels is too much of a temptation for Dad, however, so we watched some of a Bruce Lee documentary and part of some black and white movie. We almost went for a drive to see Christmas lights, but Mer was just not up to the task of driving anywhere new at night!

On to the next Christmas festivity, we drove to Tim's mother's. We beat Mum & Tim down, so we socialized with Scott, Linda, and Arlene for awhile. And of course the orange cat Morris, who is not allowed inside due to his excessive shedding habits. We had a nice dinner, the usual homemade chili, and Arlene's dining room looked like something out of a Martha Stewart Living magazine spread. Tree with gifts, table perfectly set... Robin & Maribeth arrived with the baby (Makenzie, now two years old and cheerful and cute and talking!!) and we gradually started the gift unwrapping. Makenzie definitely stole the show, she got super excited over everything given to her. She received not one, not two, but three stuffed dogs! She kept playfully attacking us with the dogs throughout the evening, and looking into the birdhouses that Mum made for everyone, trying to find the birds!

Last night Mer ended up sleeping in my room, and I listened to a little of the Nutcracker music before bed. Tub woke me up at like 7 am by being cute -- she laid down across my arm so I could hug her and pet her, although I did eventually fall back asleep. Unlike when we were, oh, say, five years old, we started the gifts at 11 in the morning! Mum pretty much picked out the perfect things I needed/wanted, and we're going shopping for anything else that requires our selection within the next couple of days in Portland. I think everything I picked out was well received, yay =) Mer loves the green zip up sweater, and Mum actually wore her red hat around for awhile! Mer did, indeed, pick out the things I pointed her towards, and some cool things she found all by herself! And she actually like the necklace I made her! yay, Res Life actually taught me something useful!

Well, now I think it's time for breakfast and relaxing, my throat's a little more sore than normal today, what is wrong with my immune system!!??

Visiting Grammy & Grandpa today, had to give them the whole story on Andrew. Things my grandparents enjoy: hearing about college and questioning me about this new fellow that shares my grandpa's birthday! We chatted for quite awhile, I love grandparents... especially mine! =)

We saw Dad walking in Hood River but couldn't find him by the time Merried looped back around... Finished the Christmas shopping craziness, thank God.

I had another happy visit today, I continued the new tradition of watching old Christmas specials with Lindsey! We watched Garfield & the muppets, drank hot cocoa and ate caramel corn. And the new puppy is so soft and cute and already so smart!!

Tonight... was strange. I was cold so I wanted to shower, and accidentally was in the shower while Tim was in the other bathroom taking a bath. So I definitely had a cold shower which wasn't helpful! Now I'm warming up with hot tea, however... Sometimes I can't wait to be back at college... I'm going to enjoy having Windy's whole house to myself...

Ahhh so much has happened!

So... last Thursday after I handed in my paper I slept, and I slept until Kobe's dad called and let me off dog walking duty for the day (he was down with the flu and home from work). Dale came in and worked on her paper on my laptop after we had a "lunch" at Blanchard... a goodbye lunch with Lindsay! This girl from Res Life training gave me a M&M brownie ice cream sandwich, which was very appreciated after I got ripped off for a little orange sherbet push up pop! Anywho, in the evening we walked to Prospect and realized that we weren't being fed dinner! So we unearthed Dale's car from under its pile of snow and ice (with help of One Card and Rite Aid card), then Dale finally turned in her paper and by like, what, 9 pm? We headed out for the grocery store!

I ended up buying $24.67 in food stuffs (since Res Life reimburses us for up to $25 if we stay till Saturday to close up the dorm), and Dale and Miranda got Chinese food. We had a little dinner at the nice dining table downstairs, and I stayed up rather late...

Friday! Everyone was leaving... and I walked Kobe... then the mail center didn't need me, so after talking to Priscilla awhile I headed off again! Had to come back to pick up a package (it ended up being my verse writing portfolio... course grade: A!) Then I cleaned up my room, visited with D. Becky, returned library books, and mailed letters. Got ready in the evening to see Andrew! I dragged my cd player/alarm clock into the bathroom and blasted music while I showered, it was fun! I definitely took advantage of having the dorm to myself! (or at least hypothetically, if someone had been so inclined she could have stayed and eluded us closing the dorm.)

After looking around online, Andrew & I went to Amherst for dinner at Judie's, which was really fun! We sat at a Matisse table, and Judie herself with talking at the table next to us so we got to overhear random tidbits about the owner's life... It was so cold though! I was "ice skating" on the frozen over snow outside Pearsons!

Saturday was rather sad, and I was nervous as usual before traveling. Andrew was an amazing help with getting me ready and to the airport! I was definitely feeling rather sick and scatterbrained and he was calm and helpful, and, well wonderful =) Sad leaving but it helped that he really had to leave me at the airport as there were police cars around and his car was "parked" in the "actively loading/unloading" area!

My flight was SO long! I went to Atlanta, ended up having to switch planes, then sat next to some gals home from boot camp all the way to Portland. Time in the air: about 8 hours! My lower back was killing me. Luckily I had lots of music to listen to, Andrew and Lindsey made the best mixes ever!

So in PDX Mum & Mer & I were standing around, and my luggage was definitely not riding the big belt circle thingy... a bad premonition was in the air. My luggage was definitely still in Atlanta, no doubt just hanging out on an identical big circle thingy, going in endless circles, subject to any random person going by and stealing it... I think the Delta customer service guy heard me bitching about "what a huge inconvenience this is" and how they'd "better drop it off at our house, we don't want to drive all the way here just to make up for THEIR mistake..." and about how "there's not much time before Christmas and my gifts are in that bag!" Yeah. Because he was super duper helpful! And my luggage was delivered to our door yesterday!

Yesterday... I didn't do much. Partly because my clothes were in transit still. I was bumming about the house in sweatpants and a hole-y sweatshirt. We did decorate the tree, however, and I watched the Homecoming air guitar video! I kinda tipped the tree over a bit (think the leaning tower of pisa) and had to readjust the damn thing (my hands were all pitchy afterwards) while trying to make our vcr work (didn't end up working for me). Cleaned my room and unpacked finally! Threw lots of junk out. Had hot chocolate with a candy cane and fell asleep in my bed a little early!

Today was a good day =) Mer went to the library and I did some more shopping, then I directed Mer to what I want for Christmas and she bought stuff for me with the money I loaned her while I waited! Funny, huh? So I have a good idea of what she got me... Oh! and she ended up buying this sweater I found from Anthropologie at the second hand store in Hood River that was only $14 and looks new. In the catalog I bet it'd be over $100... so I told her she should definitely buy it, if she hadn't I would have! She needs sweaters though... On our way out of town we went to McDonald's and spent the last of our cash (she'd forgotten her wallet and I had used my credit card for nearly everything as I don't carry much cash on me) at Mcdonalds... Yes, like the silly girls we are, we sat together and split french fries in the empty restaurant!

So now I should go eat dinner! Tomorrow I get to see Lindsey and the new puppy!!

I just physically handed in my paper... Quillian was in his office so I got to hand deliver it! Here's how it went:

Quillian: Do you like this paper?
Me: I hope so.
Quillian: No no, I mean, do YOU like this paper?
Me: Well, I did last night, and then I got jittery handing it in.
...
Quillian: Don't worry, you did fine. And I'll see you next semester! ... Have a happy holiday!
Me: You too!

Something about delivering a paper in person is so much more... rewarding. Handing in a paper I wasn't totally enthusiastic about would be easier with any other professor, but one just doesn't want to hand in anything less than perfect to Quillian... Oh well, I tried, I have had my vision!

A blog in honor of the wit of Merrers:

Pink Poodledog: I'm going to walk to the library with dale (at 2 am, mind you), print my paper, and then scurry over to quillian's office and leave my paper on the box on his door
MuskratFan: hahah. Why? To get your paper in like, earlier than everyone else or something?

...

MuskratFan: oh my goodness
Pink Poodledog: and then "well I was married at 19, and grandma was married at 20, so we're thinking it's probably going to happen to you"
Pink Poodledog: hahahaha
MuskratFan: omg. The whole freakin' Bambi thing AGAIN!
Pink Poodledog: hahahah what???
MuskratFan: last night, I forget what we were talking about, but she said "it could happen to you.."
Pink Poodledog: hahahaha
MuskratFan: and I was like, mom, that's the whole twitterpated speech the owl gave
Pink Poodledog: HAHA oh DEAR!
Pink Poodledog: so true!
MuskratFan: yeah, it was ridiculous. It was something totally unrelated to relationships though

...

MuskratFan: it's really starting to annoy me at school, seeing all the couples cuddling and blocking the hallways!
MuskratFan: it really pisses me off. Like now that it's almost break, people are spending more time together or something?!
Pink Poodledog: hahahaha
Pink Poodledog: just wait till one of your crushes and you get together, then "it'll happen to you"
MuskratFan: ack!

...

MuskratFan: I'm adopting if I ever want kids. If I get too desperate, please get me a small lap dog. I have no feelings for children except they're cute at times as a "novelty sort of thing"
Pink Poodledog: hahahahaha
Pink Poodledog: will do mer, I'll get ya one of them dogs that have the reincarnated spirit of a monk in 'em, the wiggly caterpillar lookin' ones
MuskratFan: ha. Those caterpillar dogs
MuskratFan: well, I suppose I should let ya go now.
MuskratFan: sounds like you have a mission to carry out

And in her blog, if you haven't read her latest:

Oh yes, I forgot to add previously that there is an angel in my bathroom. (As in a small lighted plastic angel that mom traditionally sets up in the living room around Christmas time).
posted by Merrie @ 10:52 PM

Mum IMed me today, so yes, I'm going to copy and paste some tidbits instead of actually writing anything new!

SITA3783: are you typing away?
I got your sheets changed. I think they were already changed, but it was hard to tell for sure, since the Tub (and Mebes) [the cats] had tucked themselves in a few times

...

SITA3783: did I tell you about the girl over here who landed in the Hood River on one of her first driving lessons?
Pink Poodledog: haha! nope!
Pink Poodledog: what a story
SITA3783: she was driving with her stepmom, down there where I took you, on the port front.. learning to park. anyway I guess she hit the gas instead of the brake
SITA3783: and they landed in the Hood River and they had to kick out a window or something to get out . they were totally submerged

...


SITA3783: I had to change a light bulb, kinda had to rob peter to pay paul
SITA3783: did you know you can die from water poisoning?
SITA3783: merrie was like telling us you can actually drink too much water
SITA3783: like if you drink a couple gallons
SITA3783: it dilutes out the potassium and salt and stuff.
SITA3783: anyway that was a weird thing to learn

(who says this?? love you mum!)

And from Merrer's blogspot:
I asked Becky about what song I should use to represent me in English class...then realized with the answer its implications! Hilarious is right...

MuskratFan: I can't decide on one! What about something from The Last Unicorn? Hehe..
MuskratFan: or Cake? Or Mundy?
Pink Poodledog: mundy'd be cool
Pink Poodledog: what's that song...
MuskratFan: yeah..I don't know which one
Pink Poodledog: the something and something sky
MuskratFan: gin and tonic sky
MuskratFan: oh no! Not that one!
Pink Poodledog: haha why not??
MuskratFan: There's this joke in that class...
MuskratFan: 'cause of that near-empty alcohol bottle that Zen found after I house sat!
MuskratFan: that was consumed most likely by that other guy that was staying there!
MuskratFan: and it came up in class again today that my song would be something about a drunk Irish man! And Mundy's Irish! And he's singing about gin and tonic skies!
Pink Poodledog: hahahaha
MuskratFan: now that's hilarious
Pink Poodledog: oh my gosh, that's hilarious
Pink Poodledog: yeah, precisely, I saw you typing that the same time I was...!
Pink Poodledog: but I finished anyways to show how apt the word was :-)
MuskratFan: so funny. Glad I thought about it before I used that one! Hehe. But it would have been funny anyway


For the record, Lorenzen asked my freshman high school class the same question, what song would we pick to "represent us" or be the "soundtrack to our lives." And I think I said Paula Cole's "I don't wanna wait"...

I just wrote a 13 page paper in like, 24 hours. And it didn't feel the least bit rushed. By page 6 I had a vision of my paper turning out well, so I hope it has! Must read it over and see if there's anything I should tweak a bit, but I think it's basically done! Wow, only a year and a half left of MHC life! I'd better get on those grad school applications!

“I love how flashlights can sit up on their ends… who created that?” – dale on the second to last day of finals, while reading sociology in my room and moving a flashlight so she can spread out (yeah, my room's a mess, the flashlight is still by my fridge, from when the mice were running around).

Ok! So I only write one page tonight, but after sitting and staring at my screen for over half an hour and eating popcorn instead of typing, i realized I am just not in the place to be writing an essay right now. Definitely need some sleep to function properly again. Luckily I have absolutely nothing I need to do tomorrow except fill up the next 9 pages with a development of my idea of what these novels are about. I have a general thesis and I made up a little outline of what points I want to get through in what order so I can pick out appropriate quotes tomorrow from what I've marked as "most important" to do close readings on. I couldn't actually type so the outline seemed like a good idea to get me on track tomorrow morning.

So to bed now, and tomorrow morning/afternoon/evening i'll be typing away!!!

Ahhhh!!!! Three down, one to go! I studied art history this morning, walked Kobe, studied some more, and then the test went QUITE well, I think. He seemed to pick out pieces I remembered enough about to write a decent amount, and that I at least thought I remembered the date to rather accurately. It was structured just like our quizzes, same amount and type of questions (thank you Prof. Staiti!) but with tons more time (thanks again Prof. Staiti!) Then I took the rest of the afternoon off & had dinner with Dale, Miranda, Elise, and another Katie of '05 at Abbey-Buck. Food was surprisingly decent tonight.

I made an ever so brief visit to the library (because people are sick and nasty in the library, even my obscure under the stairs hiding place is completely defiled and disgusting. Note to people dirtying up the library: learn to throw food IN THE GARBAGE! TRY to act as if you have some class! Stress is no excuse for this large scale debauchery!) and I found bits that I may use to support my Woolf paper, but frankly, I think this is going to be all about taking the text and analyzing it to death and proving what I want to prove. My thesis changed a bit after reading an essay & relooking over all the passages I marked. And of course marking the bestest passages with sticky notes!

Ahh. So, tonight the goal is to write the first three pages. And tomorrow to finish it.

"I see stacks of books and piles of papers,
The sick studying day, the paper-writing night,
And I think to myself, it's finals week."

Ok so that didn't really sound like "what a wonderful world" but yeah, it's finals week. And compared to everyone else who isn't finished I feel, well, on top of things. Not gonna lose any sleep, either. Dale and Miranda were camped out downstairs with work all day and I can hear someone coughing in the room next to me. Now does everyone see why I was able to actually get over this cold when I left to see Andrew for the weekend??

Elettra's question of the day... we'll reveal that later.

First of all, sorry it's been so long! Andrew noted an inverse relationship between Spanish papers & blog posts =\ I get a little distracted! So here are some vague recollections of the past week:

Weds: I think I started feeling a bit crappy this day, which was too bad because it was the last day of classes! We had pizza in my Spanish class & suddenly we were all friends with our profesora after everyone's been complaining about her all semester. But the pizza & cider definitely boosted morale. I knew I was getting sick & Thomasena offered the wet sock advice, but I didn't follow it (for better or worse). Quillian's class we watched To the Lighthouse, which he likes even though some of us were a bit disturbed with the liberties taken with the plot. But I guess movies are a different medium and I shouldn't judge on that...

I got out early from Quillian's class (although it seemed to drag on, I wasn't feeling well) & spent the next, uhm... 3 hours? helping Katie get our floor activity set up. We somehow lugged over media services equipment from the library that weighed as much as us, got a copy of Pirates of the Caribbean, and spent about 60$ on food! It took forever, but we finally got the equipment to work (with the help of our HP) and we watched the movie through a cool projector system set up through Katie's spiffy laptop! Ate lots and lots of good junk food! Got to bed too late considering my sick state.

Anyway. I started writing my Spanish paper earlier that night, yay for productivity!

Thursday: Definitely felt like crap this day. I worked pretty much all day while Dale & Miranda went to the mall for holiday shopping. Took a break in the evening to stagger around in the village commons in search of christmas cards & gifts. Uhm... not recommended. Walking around while you're kind of woozy from a combination of sitting all day alone with your laptop & being sick, vainly trying to make decisions... I think I looked at cards for like half an hour. It was ridiculous. Anyway I DID finish my paper, and got a full night's sleep!

Friday: Bustling day! All morning I found art history images for my flashcards, then I walked Kobe, had some chips & salsa (to stave off the crappy sick feeling, ie, a sore throat), worked in the mail center for an hour, picked out hours for next semester, then printed and handed in my Spanish paper! I turned the corner to profesora's office just as Whitney opened the door from the stairwell, and we slid our papers under the door when whoosh, there's Kristin! So we had a little chat with our profesora & then scrammed! I imported all my art history images to a word document, resized each picture, and printed! Then in my incoherent sick daze I packed to catch a bus to see Andrew. It took me forever to pack, like a bad dream where you're late and nothing comes together and you're all panicky and nervous. Things that contributed to the feeling: carrying projector equipment back to the library with Katie, being questioned by Ramona "you're going to Boston? don't you have any finals?", forgetting to water D Becky's plant and reentering the room to do so.

So I was at the bus stop before 5:15 (when the bus was supposed to be there), and I waited for like 15 minutes until I was sure it had left without me! I was walking back, looking behind me all the way, and there's the damn rectangle on wheels coming straight for the bus stop!! So I high tailed it back, hitting a car in the crosswalk with my bag on my way, saying "sorry" as if the car could hear me, and puffing out "I thought I'd missed you, I was just heading back when I saw you!" to the bus driver before plopping into a seat. And somehow, even though the bus driver was definitely late and caused all sorts of anxiety because of it, I couldn't believe my good luck! I was sitting on the right bus!

Met Andrew in Worcester & we did a little, uhm, food shopping for the sick before going to his place! We had chicken soup together that night, I love lipton's chicken soup, especially with Andrew =) Watched a funny episode of The Family Guy, and I'm not sure what else... it was a relaxing evening!

Saturday: Started feeling the cold more today. We went shopping and then watched The Ring which wasn't as scary as the first time around... I think a dark room up alone with Merrers contributed something to the scariness. SNL was pretty good though, Elijah & Kattan... weird. Strangely similar.

Exchanged gifts in the evening, Andrew gave me the most amazingly color coordinated gift ever, and better than anything I could have picked out for myself =) I picked out Taboo, because it's different from other games we play & I thought it'd be hilarious to play it with a group! Dale's already excited about it, too -- we'll have to see if we're as good at this game as we are at most others ; )

Sunday: Snow was predicted, we had a quiet day in. I worked on my art history flashcards and slept in as my cold had its little peak (I think) on this day. Andrew saran wrapped his window so it was a lot warmer. More chicken soup, more tea, and a game of Trivial Pursuit! We put off thinking about bus schedules!

Monday: Being naughty we slept in, then I was rushed to Newton for the bus! Which I caught, and made a few wrong decisions on which buses to take, so got back a bit late! Missed one meeting but was able to get Windy's key and walk Kobe before seeing Dale and going to dinner. Now I'm showered & ready to study for art history!! Tomorrow's the final, then I've got a couple of days to write a paper for Quillian. I'm going to write on Mrs. Dalloway & To the Lighthouse, on the underlying "net" that connects everything... or that's my vague theory right now. More later!

KruMatata: becky

Auto response from Pink Poodledog: english department winter social!!!!

after a full day! yoga, compiling poetry, art history, lunch, verse writing, a meeting with prof. pesola, quick dinner at blanchard...

KruMatata: mice!!!
KruMatata: ekk!!!

I knew you'd understand, Karuna... I remember your little run-in with a mouse last year!!

An excellent, but busy, day. Staving off illness, I bundled up for yoga this morning, which was a huge class with people trying to make up for absences. I put together my poetry portfolio and made copies of my latest poem, then picked up the package that I got a yellow slip for yesterday. Turned out to be from Grammy & Grandpa's church. I tried eating the oreos tonight but they tasted like the lavender sachet!

Our last verse writing class wasn't anything spectacular, but it was a little sad when we all left. Elaine gave everyone hugs. I decided to eat a real lunch today, by the way! I went to Prospect and had some yummy almost-Chinese food. Hot mustard sauce is definitely a good thing when you're feeling a little on the verge of sickness. Ate with Caitlin, which was cool, since I never see people from her corner of the floor.

Also had my meeting with Prof. Pesola today, which was uhm, not as productive as it could be because I hadn't formed a really solid idea of a thesis yet. We ate popcorn and she got me thinking. Then I grabbed a quick "dinner" at blanchard, hurried home & changed for the winter social! It was one crazy night... we DID have raspberry cream cheese bars!! So yummy. And Prof. Brown read something cute about cats and Christmas, then something more by Langhston Hughes. Prof. Lee read from Practical Magic & Molly Makes up her Mind. Quillian read something by I think Jonathan Berger? Something Berger. Uhm, wow! A cool excerpt about Caravaggio and sleeping together (which I found particularly good to hear, it definitely confirmed thoughts I already have), then a bit about a woman leading a goat into the forest to be bred while the snow's starting to fall. Megan was about to grab me when Quillian got to the part where the goats actually have sex, it was hilarious! Talk about shaking things up. Also loved the part about chickens getting shaken and then thrown up into the air. HILARIOUS!

Took a nap, now I'm up thinking about what all I want to talk about in my spanish paper!!

Parents (and sisters) say the darndest things:

SITA3783: wel l jeez, you can't have mice taking over your room, that's ridiculous
SITA3783: exactly!
SITA3783: well, to those folks who said that you were so cruel, ask them if you could release them into their dorm rooms
Pink Poodledog: hahahaha
SITA3783: Tim says those ppl are a bunch of uneducated geeks

...

MuskratFan: damn, I hate mcdonald's new ad campaign
Pink Poodledog: what is it? the white meat chicken mcnuggets?
MuskratFan: exactly
MuskratFan: damn "i'm lovin' it"
MuskratFan: positively ridiculous. I bet if those kids knew that white meat=inactivity for the chickens they wouldn't be "lovin' it"

...

MuskratFan: mom again: "are you guys laughing at me behind your collective backs?"
MuskratFan: lol..that doesn't even make sense!
MuskratFan: It should be "behind my back."
Pink Poodledog: hahahahahaha
Pink Poodledog: oh mum
Pink Poodledog: you say the best things
MuskratFan: mom: "she better not quote me on that. She will now."
Pink Poodledog: hmmm.... not a bad idea :-)
Pink Poodledog: come on mum, be a sport, you know you say stuff like that because subconsciously you want me to quote you!

...

MuskratFan: it's chilly in here too. The door's been open for mom to bring in wood. Ironically enough

...

MuskratFan: Unicorn Unicorn running free
I am so glad you can be here with me
Unicorn Unicorn You are so special
Uni in unicycle Uni in You.

(Mer's friend, Jodi, wrote that)

Kobe escaped today! I went chasing her all over, I was NOT happy with her! No more playing fetch after walks! Continuing the mouse-infestation clean up. Finally did my laundry!!! So proud!

Got Kathleen's postcard, too, beautiful!

Something funny from the weekend: Beth and Korisha forming a congo line (is that what they're called?) and making us dance with them down the hallway to Barry Manilow. Their neighbor opened the door, and Kate took one look at me and Andrew and said "oh that's why, they're wasted!" "no, you'd hope so...but no." Then someone decided that a closet door would make an excellent sled, so Beth and Korisha started dancing with one and then blocked someone's door with it. Then knocked on the door and ran, so we ran, too!

Ahh, another lovely weekend, I'm getting spoiled! Andrew came on Friday & as a snowstorm was predicted, we got provisions at the Big Y and a movie. I had Mcdonald's in the first time for ages! I missed their french fries. No dippin dots here though =( We waited for Korisha to do some calculus homework, and then had a Cranium rematch!! Beth misread "Runway model" for "Runaway model", which caused some hilarious guesses! And me and Andrew definitely won again ;) Mum, I recognized the picture of a columbine flower, you would've been proud!

Of course the big news of the night was my mice. When I got home from the mail center and started cleaning my room, I was noticing lots of little black dots in corners and random places. And when I finally sat down to look at my mail, I saw something dart out of the corner of my eye towards my fridge. So I was like, damn, was that a big old house centipede again? I started moving my fridge around and from underneath I could see two big black beady eyes looking up at me! Yes, it was a mouse! So of COURSE I called Public Safety, as every MoHo knows to do in such an emergency, and tried to corner the little bastard under my fridge. Somehow it must have gotten away, because by the time the two heavily accented FM men arrived with sticky traps the little bugger was no where to be seen. Well I started cleaning more and discovered in the corner of my closet a peanut butter cup wrapper and a pile of mouse shit. Yes, the mouse had obviously been gorging itself on junk food.

So after Andrew & I played Cranium he checked the traps for me, and found not one but TWO mice in ONE sticky trap. As much as I pretend to be a cold hearted survivalist, I couldn't handle seeing the little furry bodies stuck on there. Luckily Andrew has a slightly warped sense of humor ;) And he threw them out, as the Public Safety people said to do, into a garbage can. Where they probably had heart attacks &, I hope, died quickly. But back to being mean, they somehow got onto my top closet shelf and were eating whatever they came upon in my food supply, as in, half a snickers bar! Ick! Icky mice, I'm totally opposed to rodents right now...

Anyways, on to Saturday! The snow was gorgeous, and we ate at Blanchard while it was falling heavily. We went to the Thirsty Mind and drank coffee & listened to this woman sing the first like 30 seconds of various songs. And we played scrabble again (Andrew won again). We watched SNL in Korisha's room, which was hilarious! Al Sharpton & Michael Jackson on a roller coaster and Paris Hilton appeared & Pink was ridiculous (and it was remarked that she wants to be Gwen Stefani).

Sunday we went to brunch in Abbey, Elizabeth was there, too! We then watched In the Bedroom which was good but I think it's hard to get into a really dramatic and depressing movie when I'm happy and the sun's shining and there's snow on the ground! After, we dropped off the movie, did some pick up shopping at the Big Y, and went to get dinner at Boston Market. For dessert we ate another pint of ben & jerry's =) Watched Habla con ella, which was really good and well done. The Practice was pretty good, too. Shore is excellent and makes even the most run of the mill cases exceptional.

It was really weird to come back to my room alone this morning =( I ended up trying to write my poem for Tuesday and sleeping till ten!! But it's a pretty day out and not so cold. More later!

Dale holding up a spoon at breakfast: "This is a pretty spoon." [waits a bit, then whispers] "It looks like a vagina!"

Then we went to Ashley's room for a peak at the Christmas tree her mother and grandmother sent her. Very pretty, even though all the glass ornaments broke in transit!

Ok, plan for today: go walk Kobe, have some soup and something else at Blanchard, then work in the mail center till 4:30 pm. Then clean up my room before Andrew gets here!!

Looking at Mer's blog, I found this:

Word o' the blog: Parzival: An epic poem written by Wolfram von Eschenbach. -Reader's Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary

// posted by Merrie @ 7:55 PM

So of course I'm thinking "Hmm, sounds like Percival or Parsifal of King Arthur." And sure enough, the first thing that comes up on google is this site: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15683a.htm

Basically, in the 13th century this German fellow dictated an epic poem telling of Parzival: "It is the well-[known] story of the simpleton who passes through struggle and temptation and in the end wins the highest earthly happiness and becomes King of the Holy Grail"... Of course, he stole this from the French. Memories of Eng. 316 & Chretien de Troyes! So, I salute you, Merrers, on a good word of the day.

As a funny sidenote, Dale actually said this today when she was about to go back to her room:
"Ok, I'm going to go soak my crotch now."

A blog in fragments, not in chronological order:

An encouraging day: a low A on the Spanish paper & an invite to read some poetry. Snow flurries continue. Breath-takingly cold out. Distinct draft from my window. Cranium rematch scheduled for friday night! Finished rereading To the Lighthouse. Warmed up some caramels over my radiator (which I had to request to have turned on earlier, and the man at the central heating plant, after asking my name, told me that his great-niece born today was given the same name, to which I replied that it's a good name =) Took a nap and woke up thinking it was morning and couldn't figure out why my computer was turned on. Went to a not-so-good dinner at the Rockies. Dale is back & happy! Last night was first night in awhile I had to sleep quite alone, ten days or something? Room seemed lonely. Have resumed using my illegal extension cord. Between really hot showers & tea & blankets I can almost fight off the draft from the window.

Quotes!

Merrie: Oh oh oh! Becky! I got another perfect score on my math quiz! I got better than a perfect score! I guessed my score and got extra points! This is the third week in a row! I'm on a roll!

Andrew upon seeing me dump corn nuts into my mouth: So did you spend a lot of time in bars when you were little?

Ok, now all the madness is over and I'm too itchy to sit down and read so I'm going to update! So last we heard, I was stuck in the Somers library, doing a mix of work and procrastination (read an excellent article on the upcoming Lord of the Rings). Well, Joni & Dale called, but in my hurry to make the ringing stop in the quiet library I hit the "end" button instead of any other button which would have connected me! Luckily in about ten minutes they showed up and off we went! Dale wasn't feeling too well at this point, and by Sat. morning it had developed into a flu or cold of some sort. Thank God we had a couple of hours of peaceful sleep after the pug left with Dale's grandfather. That dog snored even when it was awake, you can't imagine the bone rattling racket she created in her sleep! I had a nightmare of suicides and unearthly dogs that chopped down trees with their jaws on Thursday night, which I'm blaming on that dog. Anyway, Dale was quarantined in her room at this point, and I spent most of the day reading and cuddling with the cats.

In the afternoon I got ready to see Andrew, and questions mounted as to what I was going to do if Dale wasn't well enough on Sunday to drive up to MHC. Joni assured me she'd bring me up to MHC, but that seemed like an awfully long day and lots of trouble (big travel day and 3 hours in each direction with traffic). So when Andrew arrived in the evening he learned he was going to have a stowaway on his drive up! I greeted him at the door with Selena the rat (who is greatly enjoying her new condo). Maybelline warmed up to him (naturally, since she's mostly white and he was wearing black fleece), but Dunlop behaved herself (maybe for my sake) and didn't act like a slutty girl, although as Joni says, usually she likes anything in trousers ;) Theseus saw fit to invade the bathroom via the cat door, too. So our date plans changed, rather, since now it seemed like a better plan to get an early start up to Boston rather than being out at all hours of the night. We had dinner at a Chili's (my first experience with this one), and then went back to Dale's to fetch my things. I think Dunlop is going to be angry with me for a long time, after I made her cuddle with me all the time and then I left =(

The drive up was good, I subjected Andrew to my oldies CD and one of my girly favorites mixes. We stopped for corn nuts & fruit mentos, and time flew by. We caught the latter half of SNL with Justin Timberlake (who can't act or sing); weekend update was funny but way too short. Got to bed at a decent hour, no late night scrabble matches!

Sunday morning we definitely slept in, but it was an odd sort of sleeping in as I was expecting to catch a ride either with a student or on the bus back to MHC. So I wasn't really content. But we had a nice brunch & went on a walk looking at some cute stores and revisiting Jamaica Pond (lake, really) & the albino squirrel. Got a better picture of our white furry friend!! (make sure I send it to you Merrers.) At some point the idea was raised that I could just get a bus in the morning and relax Sunday evening with Andrew. So once that was voiced as a viable possibility, I felt very sure that that was what I wanted to do. With the help of Madalyn I did my Spanish paragraph-on-final-paper-plans and was able to watch The Practice with Andrew (second time in two weeks!) We had yummy pasta for dinner from The Cheesecake Factory (if we do this again I must remember to just eat like a third of an entree we split and then have room for the cheesecake!)

Again we got to bed at a decent hour, and woke up at a horribly early hour, 6:15 am... =( I don't think I've been up that early for months. But I was pretty awake! Andrew dropped me off at the bus station, and I ran up the steps and into the building as if I knew what I was doing. This illusion was promptly broken when I was unsure of where to go, to the left or up the escalator. Luckily a woman waved me up to the 3rd floor for buses. Another crisis when I found a completely deserted ticketing counter. There was a sign from Bonanza buses about a bus to Rhode Island leaving at 8 am, and I was quite sure that this was the bus I needed to take (pay the driver at the bus). In something of a daze I considered calling Peter Pan about what bus to take and how to pay, and I absent mindedly wrote out some luggage tags. Then I wandered around a little bit, and finally realized the ticketing counter on the other side was open! So I did get my proper ticket from Peter Pan from a super friendly woman. At this point I decided to get a chocolate donut to reward myself for finally figuring out the station.

Got on the bus without a problem, but unfortunately got a rather sleepy seatmate that was perpetually on the verge of tipping over in his napping onto me. Luckily his balance held out (usually the bus would jolt him awake over a pothole in the road before he was in a deep enough sleep to capsize) and at Springfield I snatched a seat with a girl in my Spanish class. I had almost talked myself out of going to Spanish, but even with arriving at MHC five minutes late I had time to ready myself for class and bolted off. I didn't have my interpretive question for "Chac Mool" (I forgot) but Prof. Pesola smiled when I said "me olvide" and let it go. Did get to hand in my paragraph, which at least one person hadn't done yet (I like to measure myself against worst case scenarios like that, it makes me feel happy about myself).

I had a rather extended lunch of soup and carrot sticks, and ate my ice cream on my way to Kobe's. Kobe was in fine form today! We took a walk and did a little fetching, she ran full on into me at one point, and was throwing stuff around for herself. She skidded out trying to catch up a tennis ball in her mouth and actually fell down, did a half roll, and picked herself up again for another try. Crazy dog. Some guy in a red car slowed down while I was walking her, and had the goofy "I know you know I want to ask you something, thanks for stopping there and obliging me as I roll down my window" smile. So I waited, and he finally asked "Is that a Leonberger?" To which I replied, yes, the couple down the street own her, I'm just a student who walks her. He has one too, apparently, down the same street in the opposite direction. There was a snow flurry, so I explained away my trying to tug Kobe on her perhaps not liking the snow and going in the direction of the wind. But really I always have to tug her along after she sniffs at one plot of dirt for five minutes.

Newton was likewise admired on his walk by a couple of FM workers who didn't think he could see with all his fur in his eyes. Saw Newton's father again as I dropped him off.

I hate it when professors say they'll put something out for you and then forget or do it after you stop by... Must go to Prof. Pesola's door again this evening, as I'm nervous about how I did on my Spanish paper that I didn't like and wrote before the fire alarms were supposed to go off.

Daley's gone =( And she would have so enjoyed Prospect's dinner tonight: quesadillas!

Yay I posted a lot today. Tonight must continue with To the Lighthouse (which is much better the second time around) & attend a hall committee meeting.

Dear Lord, I must have missed about a week of your posts, Merrers! Because I just read them instead of getting ready for my Kobe walk!! Totally understood your confusion on the stand as-Raymond or as-Merrie... ack!! Sounds like the next class was a hell of a lot easier though, you seriously cut out paper snowflakes and talked about what you're thankful for?? Damn. Maybe I should get that AP English book out for you so you can get some additional studying in ;)

Glad you saw Scotty for his b-day, I just sent him a card/letter thingy. Tell me how everyone is?

Uhm, as for where the heck I've been since Friday, I'm going to leave that for a later post, maybe tonight when I have more time to include details for once!

I'm at the Somers Library, updating my blog, how dedicated am I? Here's a fast update before the librarians kick me off:

Friday: Worked at the mail center but left early (have to make up the time next week), showed Nuria how to use Telnet, spruced up my room! Andrew arrived and we went to the Nice Shoes jam, but it was a little anti-men and pro-lesbian and the themes seemed to center around domestic violence. "earl had to die." So we left eventually! Played a game of Scrabble and then joined Korisha and Beth for a competitive game of Cranium! We won! Yay! Andrew had to do leapfrog though =)

Sat: We went to Amherst and I tried Thai food (no d. becky, not Thigh! =) We found play-dough (how do you spell that??) for Beth's Cranium game as her modeling clay is out of commission & the sculptorade cards are hard to play without it! We had a hilarious dinner at the Mandarin Gourmet, heard the musical background to "Unchained Melody" and "Whenever I want you all I have to do, is dreeeaaaam." Watched SNL with Bethy!

Sun: Grabbed a bite to eat at Blanchard & then wandered off with our cameras. The white goose is really aggressive to the Canadian geese! And we got lost on a path off upper lake and ended up in a field... Tired when we got home, I talked Andrew into tv dinners =) Played a game of scrabble in which I started off with an over 100 point score on my first turn =) Used all my letters, Mum you should have seen it! Had to make up for every other game in which Andrew wins.

Mon: Took Andrew on my dog walks! Kobe was behaving horribly. Newton was good though, and his father came home to meet us (a little strange!) Had our take-home Chinese for lunch and flipped through magazines. We were tired and took a nap before going to Fedora's for dinner. Overheard some funny conversation involving tellatubbies and a chemistry prof (all in british accents).

Tues: Went to art history class and skipped the others! Sad to say goodbye, but we got to wave some more from cars as Dale and I stopped at CVS on our way to her place for Thanksgiving break. Good to see everyone at Dale's house again!

Weds: Lots of errands!!! Had subway for lunch after Selena's vet appointment (she has a lingering sneezing problem). Everyone met up at the diner for dinner. Dale & I drove home alone and picked up some groceries. Pre-Thanksgiving preparations!

Thurs: I tried to be helpful and then stayed out of everyone's way!! The dinner was wonderful, and I sat by Bobby who was by Ganny of course and by Joni. Dale was across from me. I stuffed myself! I think I had the fullest plate of anyone, but I definitely put a dent in it. Plopped down on the bed and took a short nap (Joni has the pictures to prove it!!) Ahh, I love Thanksgiving...

Today, Friday! I'm at Somers Library, like I said =) Wow, finally an update! I can't update at Dale's house as the computer has all cookies disabled. More later!!! It's raining out, so no zoo for us today! =(

So I was alerted that I haven't been updating much this week! =) Here's my grand excuse: I was working on a Spanish paper! It's done now, as done as it's going to get. It couldn't be improved upon unless I totally changed it (and it perhaps is bad enough to warrant that, but, it's done and I feel like getting rid of it). Ok, so if there are lots of typos it's because I'm listening to a Rent song and it's totally distracting me. "No day but today." I want the soundtrack now I think, it seems like you don't even need the acting, just the singing... haha maybe that's because me and Dale were so far away from the stage that all we really had to go on was the singing!

Pearson's fire drill was scheduled for last night, so I was up late waiting for it. I worked on my paper till about 2:15 am, then got ready for bed. Wandered around and met up with everyone downstairs in the living room, waiting for the alarm to sound. But it didn't. Turned out that it was canceled due to some rain (figures). So tonight we had it, and I was actually in the bathroom this time around, and it was blaring and loud and super annoying. "How are we gonna pay last year's rent." I'm way too distracted to be writing this =)

On my way to Newton today I was walking down Jewett Lane, and everything was quiet and the sky was gray but it wasn't raining. I saw a roadkill rabbit (strange, it's not supposed to be a street you can drive fast on), and then this medium sized bird swooped down from a tree on my left to a tree off in someone's yard. I was hoping it was an owl, but it looked like some sort of bird of prey... I would have guessed a falcon but I have no idea about these things, maybe a hawk? It was brown, with a white belly and brown zig-zag markings on the breast. Can you help, Mer? =) Very surreal, these solitary walks... Then walking Newton back towards his house a girl from my floor came up to us, wanting to meet Newton. She was like "Oh, he's sooo cute!" And then he wiggled himself between a couple of small shrubs into Pearson's lawn. Next comment: "Ohh... he's taking a dump!"

Oh! I was totally awake for art history today, engaged, an active listener! Figuring it's either because I skipped yoga or because I was able to wake up at a later hour. Didn't get significantly more sleep, but maybe the combination of no too-relaxing yoga and no getting-up-before-I'm-ready helped. We got up to Picasso today. Georges Suerat, the guy with the painting of tiny dots. I remember taking that very literally when I was in third grade, that it was composed entirely of little dots. Like dippin-dots.

Gracious dinner tonight was lovely. Candles and cloth napkins and tableclothes, very nice. Dale, Lindsay & I were impressed. I stuffed myself. They even had dried apricots. I couldn't manage to eat dessert I was so full. Had a cookie from Mum tonight instead =) Mum, you put evaporated milk in a baggie with the cookies to truly be "M &C's", very clever you are! I was wondering "what is this mysterious label? oh! what's this baggie of white powder?" No, not a craftily disguised drug trade, evaporated milk!!

I napped this evening, from the amino acids in the turkey (or at least that's what I use as my excuse).

I joined the fourth floor for a game of Cranium, and I acted out the inchworm in the charades clue! Always immensely entertaining...! Ate lots of candy, too.

Ok, bed now. If there are any words missing from this, grammar mistakes, or spelling mistakes, just remember it's 3 am and I'm distracted!

Tomorrow will be a good day! =)

Had a lovely weekend visiting Andrew, making it all the harder to settle down and finish Mrs. Dalloway and write a Spanish paper on Pedro Paramo! And yes, I did pet the tortoise, Mum, and I think I rather scared him out of a nap. We watched About Adam (lots of Christina Rossetti references, they actually quoted "Goblin Market"!) and played games and walked about in the city and I saw an albino squirrel at the "pond" that I think is a lake. And the squirrels in Boston's parks are apparently all rather overweight. They look more like small rabbits than squirrels...

So back in my unfortunate school mode, I re-decided to be a Spanish minor and have turned in my schedule for next semester. Had a talk with Quillian about my paper, classes in the future, thesis writing, and grad school. Oh the horrors!

Off to yoga now, more later!

It's late! So this will be short. My Newton walk was particularly memorable today, it was windy and blustery all day, at one point Newton and I were running full speed with the leaves to God only knows where, Newton was leading and I was just looking out for cars and holding on! Played with him when I brought him home, he looks like a little doggy teddy bear. He barked (I didn't hear him bark for the first three months I was walking him), as he expected a dog biscuit after being so well behaved.

Had a good conversation with Mum today, here are some fun bits:

This is Mum worrying about my driving about with someone she hasn't officially met yet:
SITA3783: what kind of car does he drive? is he a good driver?
SITA3783: did you email me a photo?
Pink Poodledog: hahahaha you're such a mom, mum :-)
Pink Poodledog: yeah
Pink Poodledog: let me know if it doesn't go through and I'll resend
SITA3783: I know hehe, I can't help it

Here we are thinking about turtles:
SITA3783: will you get to meet his turtle?
Pink Poodledog: hahahaha yes
Pink Poodledog: oh, and apparently it's a tortoise, officially
SITA3783: what fun!! well give him a little rub for me
Pink Poodledog: a russian land tortoise or some such thing?
Pink Poodledog: hehehe ok
SITA3783: oh yes, a tortoise

This evening Dale and I had a super interesting dinner. We went to Ham for a "gracious dinner" (there were no tablecloths, nor candles, so I don't really consider it a full gracious dinner), Chinese themed. I had some, uhm, fleshy pink looking balls of shrimp or something, and noodles and hot and sour soup (which wasn't good), and stir fried stuff... The "dessert" was almond flavored bean curd (think denser and thicker jello) with a few mandarin oranges and a mint leaf (they get points for presentation). Oh, and there were "banana people" for the salad bar garnish, really wished I had my camera already! (the cameras were actually delivered today while I was talking to Mum, but of course they were delivered to Oregon rather than here!) Anyway, it wasn't an entirely satisfying dessert so I had cookie dough softserve, too.

Attended the family themed poetry reading and of course snatched a chocolate raspberry cream cheese bar, oh heavens, oh bliss, oh raptures and singing angels! I love those CRCCBs! So I ate that on my way to Top Girls, which was strange and funny and crazy. Lee did awesome, and my neighbor was in it, too. Dale, Jos, & I walked out very confused. Then I was bodily dragged to CVS, the cheap gas station in Chicopee, and Taco Bell (Taco Hell as Jos says). But now I'm all packed for my weekend, and wishing I was going first thing in the morning instead of after working most the day!! =)

PS: Dale and I ate with Jos in Wilder and met her very cool new roommate. Was in the elevator with Yelling Girl! Dale and Jos were asking "why are you hiding?" "why are you acting weird?" "what's wrong?" and the girl ended up striking up a conversation with us over caffeinated sodas. Strange. So she now must really, really know that I'm uncomfortable around her....

We watched the movie version of Ulysses today in my English seminar, it was surprisingly well done. We had a hell of a time finding a room in which to watch the movie, however. Quillian sent one girl over to the library to check out a possible room, which ended up being taken already. So we were all just talking about random things, advising for next semester, Shakespeare classes, etc. etc., while Quillian checked on rooms in our same building (Clapp). Upon finding that no rooms were available, he decided to lead us over to Shattuck. Long story short, no rooms with DVD set-ups were unoccupied there, either. So about ten of us were just standing in the hall talking, wondering what Quillian was doing, figuring that like kids lost in the woods we should stay in one place and wait to be found. When we heard a roaring in the stairwell that could only have been Quillian, directing a bunch of students into the English department lounge. Apparently he kicked a philosophy class out of the room we wanted to use! So we watched the movie with a few sporadic interruptions when philosophy students came in, realized we weren't their classmates, looked befuddled, and were directed to the English lounge.

Walking home I took a less populated route and the sky was rippled with clouds and the sun was starting to set behind the trees. I felt like I was walking around in Ulysses, until I got into Pearsons and the stench of rotted pumpkins hit me.

Watched another crazy movie this evening for my Spanish class, based on this short story we read.... there were screaming mimes, nude girls wrestling in blue paper, and zany 60s fashions. Then listened to some awesome music, thanks to my very talented co-SA, Katie!

Decided to put off starting the Spanish paper till tomorrow evening =) After the play, of course!

Saw the first snow from the windows of Clapp today!

Uhm, a lot of my day has been spent reading Ulysses, so that's what I'm going to put here, a little section from Chapter 17 (the chapter written in questions and answers, like a catechism):

"What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from the rear of the house into the penumbra of the garden?

The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit."

note: in my text it actually says "rere" instead of "rear" but I didn't want to put brackets in the above quote explaining that I don't know if it's an "on purpose" error or not, so I just corrected it so we'd all read it and appreciate the sound and sense without worrying about typos =)

A really cold day with lots of napping!

So I have trouble crossing streets when there are cars around that I have to anticipate whether or not 1) the driver sees me and 2) whether I should "go for it" or wait on them. This is especially traumatic when I don't see a car and have to make a split decision. I was crossing from Pearson's lawn to the sidewalk heading towards the village commons, on my way to walk Kobe, when I realized a car was coming out of the driveway. So for a moment I just kept walking straight on my side, but then they were moving so slowly that I decided to make a run for it. I had gotten across the driveway when I heard honking, so I thought, oops, they just found that rather unsafe. But then it turned out to be two of our ADs (Mari being the driver)! So instead of getting a safety warning, Mari drove me to Kobe's! Cut down on my time outside, but it was a sunny day (it just never warmed up).

I had a super weird experience on my way back from Kobe's... I was nearing the bus stop when I spotted a familiar face. And it wasn't the sort of thing that I had to think about. No, I knew this girl from the second I spotted her. It was S. (abbreviated because I don't really recall her name that well), Karuna's Parisian roommate from first year! She was supposedly only at MHC for one year as an "exchange student," spending her junior year with us and then leaving us in peace once again. However, while she was here, she wrecked havoc on our floor (and especially in Karuna's room). She didn't eat, which was especially noticeable in those good old days of dinner in all the dorms. She hated America and delighted in weighing herself 3 times a day. Karuna eventually got a new roommate and we all thought S. was out of our lives for good. But no, she and her gorgeous mother were waiting at the little South Hadley bus stop, quite the change of pace from Paris. Wonder what she was doing here...

Ahh Merrie, you're reading The Stranger! I just had Andrew listen to the song by The Clash that Lindsey gave me, so strangely about that book! If you read "Araby" have me send you the Hootie and the Blowfish song about that one, definitely interesting...

And in further news, getting more used to talking on the phone =)

I haven't updated in awhile! I was off house/dog-sitting for the weekend, and had a lovely relaxing and happy time.

Friday: Kobe confronted a little girl (about 3 years old) and an infant in a baby carriage with great success. Lily basically wanted me to follow her family home so she could spend maximum time near the dog, and the baby started smiling when Kobe gave him a kiss on the mouth. I was a little worried watching this lion-dog sniff at Lily who is, after all, just barely tall enough to look Kobe in the eyes and definitely only like a fifth or so of Kobe's weight.

Had fun "double-dating" for a movie in Dale's room!

Sat: The Flayvores expedition that was successful, since Andrew actually figured out where the place was! Dale was in raptures over the cows, her hands were brown from their snot and dirty fur. Our shoes got kinda caked up with manure and it was cold but lots of fun =)

Sun: The third matrix was entertaining and great with all the special effects. Had some discussions afterwards... I wanted them to wrap everything up better. The sunrise scene didn't really give me a warm fuzzy feeling of conclusion and resolution... and I think we agreed that the action scenes were good but the dialogue tended to be predictable and overly sentimental. There's the movie review that doesn't give anything significant away!!

Must get through the week, now --

Ok, so my only really big news came yesterday: I got an A+ on my Lawrence paper! The one I thought I should maybe not turn in? Yes, that one! The one that was easy and relaxing to write? Yes, that one! So maybe I'm getting comfortable now with the whole business of writing essays? We'll see... Because my art history paper got an A- (uh oh, i'm slipping up!). Oh yes, and today was my art history quiz, which was intense. I thought Constable was off our study list so I definitely didn't study or remember the title of The Flatiron Mill or whatever the heck it is. I wrote an ok essay just remembering what we talked about in class, but I could have sworn he said that Constable wouldn't be quiz material... oh well. Won't be getting lower than a B on that, so, no problems...

Cleaned my room today, this is becoming a regular habit of mine, doing laundry and sprucing up so my room is presentable for a guest. Dale was cleaning rather intensely so I thought maybe I should go a bit more in depth, too. Dusting and all that.

Dale's got Warren over, so I went to dinner with them. Tomorrow morning I have a SAW center interview, a Kobe walk, and work at the mail center. Oh lucky me. But I have things to look forward to after all of that is over!

Hmmm. Just got caught up looking at the class schedule for next semester. So if I took Short Story II, Lit Criticism & Theory, Psych. of Women, and Intro Latin American Lit I, I would have 1) no classes before 1 pm and 2) no classes on Fridays (of course). Sounds perfect, right? I wonder if I could handle the Milton class, too? and that's only at 11, but it'd mess up both of the above perks of my schedule as planned out now. Hmmm. Or maybe Adv. Spanish Grammar... why do I feel like taking five classes? To make up for my kinda silly schedule this semester?

Will be thinking on this...

Just read Mer's blogspot, and I'm rather ashamed of my so very short updates! =) In response: congrats again on the Elks student of the month thing! Did they give a specific reason why they chose you? They never chose me... =( And why did the Whitmans sell Pretty Boy and Suede (alpacas)? I thought they were going to hold on to them... I liked those two... haha and I'm afraid I side more on finding the injured bantie chicken funny rather than sad!

Ok, back to me. It was drizzling today, misting you might say. Yoga went well, I think, we're doing some freaky things with trying to hold our legs in the air though. Have a hard time with that, I'm weak! Uhm... kept falling asleep in art history and verse writing (well not really, but I wanted to). So when I got home I just put on my nightie and slept for awhile. It was quite, quite nice. Disorienting to wake up though, dark out, and go to meet up with Chrissy for our Spanish stuff. I think we'll do ok, even though uhm, I can't speak spanish. I'll try... getting together before class to coordinate everything. Got through the next six chapters of Ulysses, but considering there are still six more, about 350 pages more, that doesn't seem too impressive. Oh well, I'll have to catch up for next week =(

The hall committee meeting was canceled (maybe due to Dis-O. speaking of dis-o, I appreciated last night's rendition of soft cell's "tainted love" by the lovely Pearsonites). Had a happy phone conversation before showering =) Looking forward to Friday!

Me and Chrissy are going to have a hell of a time with our Spanish presentation. But we'll worry about that weds morning when it happens! Ulysses is still a very long novel. Have to read more tomorrow! ack! The weather reports lied today, it definitely didn't rain. It was beautiful and warm out till 3 or 4 when some clouds finally came over the sun. Dog walking today was at least enjoyable, even though I should have been reading instead. Kobe was well behaved, Newton was his usual jolly self.

My v.s. order finally arrived too, so I wasted a bit of time to try everything on. My taste for nightgowns runs a little on the frilly side.

Had a happy evening, and now, to bed =)

Well, to start from the beginning...

Friday night Lindsay and I didn't quite make it to noho... We ended up on the mall bus instead (long story, but luckily Kaitlyn came by and reminded us of Hampshire Halloween), and we had a great time shopping. Pink scarf set, sweaters, toiletries... very successful, I think. Sat. I did some reading but there are so very many distractions with people knocking on my door all the time! But I did complete a few chapters before Andrew arrived. We delayed hiking for a bit, "listened to Selena," and then, when it was a bit dusky and cloudy out we drove over. I think we ended up on the "Laurel Loop" trail, which was short but very pretty. Really warm out, I was walking around in a tank top, believe it or not.

Later, Andrew drove Dale, Jos, and me to the concert (I think we're a bit of a distraction in a car), dale wasn't feeling so well and she had no idea where we were going. Anyway, Dale wouldn't have been able to find a parking spot if she had driven us! Dale and Jos proceeded to show us up (they were all over each other), and we ended up in the "chaperoning" role as they went off in search of lingerie and toy shops. About half the second floor of Pearson's went to the same Italian restaurant for dinner, we were seated right by Irene and Rebecca's group! Katie and Emily were in the streets, and the girl from Buckland last year was at the concert. A little disconcerting!

The concert was great, the opener was a bit tipsy and rambling, but had a pretty voice. As for Badly Drawn Boy: Mer, I think you'd like the rest of his songs as well! He came on wearing a jacket, hat, and scarf. No idea how he stayed at a decent temperature. The band played toward the second half, we liked that. Then he started that Journey song, the one played all the time on the radio? "midnight train... born and raised in south detroit... smokey room... smell of wine and cheap perfume"? He definitely made fun of Coldplay twice while on stage, and he was smoking. And the manager person held up a flashlight so he could read lyrics. Lots of entertaining things going on simultaneously...

Chilly when we left the Iron Horse... hit the hay about as soon as we got back, as it was nearly 2 am. Dale & Jos sent emails to Victor the snake breeder (snakes eat rats, right?); got a late night call on that one! Jos sent a scathing email in reply.

Today we all had brunch in Abbey again, it wasn't terribly crowded though (despite parent's weekend). Watched High Fidelity, I'm cheating and seeing the movie rather than reading the book first =) Listened to the Mundy CD Mer, I like it more the more I hear it.

Well, now, poor me, back to work =(

So, so much res life. So, so much gossip. As Lee said, our floor is having a post-midterm stress fest, everyone's "cracking at once." Well, I wouldn't say cracking, exactly... And my little sister is leaving the floor and that's traumatic for a lot of people here... And Dale went home till Saturday...

Promised to accompany Lindsay to noho tonight for gift shopping, so my reading will just have to wait till I get back and am "on-duty" all night. Kristina, the best HP in the world, took over my Saturday on-duty, so I am, in fact, going to the concert! Dale will be "chaperoning" us and I think we're going to take her car, I think Dale likes to be in control of things like that!

Well, off I go, Kobe walking & the mail center before fun & homework!

Bright and sunny out today, not sure where the rain clouds went. Seemed very busy today, classes all day (crazy yoga with pelvic floor muscle flexing), then I read straight until dinner (yes, ulysses), then I read my spanish up until my mediation session, did the mediation session, took a quick trip to the library, showered, and finally, finally sat down in my room to relax and talk. Ended up having a bit of a heart-to-heart with Daley (who wants a rat now), then, well, started on my SAW application! The essay's gonna be short, but I don't know if I even want the job so I'm not going to worry about it!

I'm exhausted, better, but still fighting off some sort of fever or cold. And tomorrow is a res life inservice -- yes, a date with Res life, till about 9 pm. Then I must worry about prospective students (uhm the possible ten has dwindled to only one definite overnight guest... weird). Not sure if I'll be getting to that Badly Drawn Boy concert, as I'm supposed to be on duty friday and saturday nights... icky stuff.

Ok, I'm for bed, goodnight!

Oh wow. I didn't update since Friday. Yes, I have an excellent excuse, I had a good weekend! Andrew & I saw Lost in Translation -- the next day Dale says: "Oh yeah, that was a light heared movie." And no, we didn't just let that comment go! Anyway, I'm feeling a little sick (maybe "under the weather" would be most appropriate, since I was out and wet in the rain quite a bit today) so I'll keep this short. Basically, an excellent weekend, a decent Monday, an 89 on the Spanish midterm (but the highest grade was an A- so that made me feel better), corn nuts through the mail from Mum & a care package from Grammy & Grandpa's church. Oh! And krispy kream donuts from CT for our public safety hall activity/get together.

Work day... had a mediation in the morning, a Kobe walk (finally, we got paid!), and then 3 hours in the mail center (they sent me home early). Then Dale dragged me to the gym with Jen... I had about 25 minutes on a stair master, then we went to the weight room. Uhm yeah, so, I'm really weak... but I did show them some cool yoga stuff. Like "crow" position and some wickedly painful abdominal exercises. Have been eating heartily to make up for this out of character trip...

Res. life has consumed me, and probably won't let me go till after this weds. Our floor is exploding... But at the same time we have lots of fun. Seven of us or so gathered in Irene's room for Down with Love (which was excellent). Then Lee tried teaching us how to dance to hip hop. Dale looked hot in spandex, t-shirt, and Lee's baseball cap. I think we concluded we need professional help!

Cate & Ramona came by with pizza (can't you see the bad habits developing?) Flipped through more magazines and catalogs and contemplated doing some work. Didn't, however, do any. Did make a list of what work I need to do... Mainly just reading. And writing a poem in blank verse... But I'll do that stuff tomorrow. "After all, tomorrow is another day."

All day I was thinking of when I could next curl up in bed. I came back after yoga, slept. After walking Newton, slept some more. Uhm... had a really strange dream about drinking beer at a bar with Dale. Decided to go shopping online as it's my "compensation" for not getting the travel scholarship, and I just needed to replace some stuff. Bought two sweaters, two cardigans, and a bra, from alloy.com for under 50$ including shipping. Just now decided on four pairs of panties and a nightgown for under 35$ from victoriassecret.com. Yay! I love girly nightgowns, especially now that I have my own room. I'm going to be a very special girl for awhile now, Mum's sent a package (thank you Mum!), the church care package comes in late Oct. (thank you Grammy & Grandpa!), & I've ordered from two places online. Happy days when yellow slips appear in the mailbox!

It was movie night for me and Dale -- we watched El espinazo del diablo with Miranda (which was muy muy excelente y la mejor pelicula de horror que he visto) and Bowling for Columbine at Blanchard. That was amazing, very glad I stayed up for it.

This weekend I start Ulysses (again). Only this time, I WILL be finishing it. Reading but nothing "due" next week. Which is good, because I'm hosting a prospective student and organizing that whole deal on Thursday. Although the poem for next week has to be in blank verse, which is close to impossible for me. I have no ear for stresses.

In further news, James (Phil. prof of last semester) is nominating me for the SAW center, and, well, I might drop some hours at the post office and take that on instead. More helpful for future grad. school apps. And then there's my J-term course proposal: it's been accepted and they want more details. So I will be getting some teaching experience over January, which would also be muy muy util for those grad school apps... esp. if I end up at some less than dreamy place like U of O, where fellowships for first years are only given to those who have teaching experience...

Oh! And I did get my $1.30 back from that damn washing machine incident.

Tuesday was crazy. I read about 250 pages of Women in Love, staying up till 3:30 in the morning. Had a "conversation" over AIM that was just really not necessary, the sort of communication one finds degrading... Got not enough sleep but went through the day without a problem. I did, however, need a nap by the time I got home. It was a short one, but I was excited about Rent so it was easy to perk up. Had dinner with Dale before we headed over to umass, all dressed up for our night out =) Enjoyed it, of course, Dale & I kinda side hugged and swayed to "Seasons of Love" and got a little cynical over some of the scenes that were supposed to be sad.

Had long conversations with Mum & Mer, mostly me talking at them! Then there was the laundry fiasco. Someone took it out of the washer and it was sopping wet. I actually had to wring some things out. So of course the dryer didn't help much, everything's now drying on my drying rack. Uhm... I WILL be calling card services tomorrow demanding a refund! I hate the laundry facilities...

To bed, finally!!

I haven't updated in awhile...! A quick run down since it's late and by weds. I have to finish Women in Love. Las Vegas Night was ok, more fun dressing up for it than going to it. Got hit on by a girl who yelled "Hey Cutie!" Some guys said something or other to Miranda and I on our way into Pearsons but, well, we ignored it and I started giggling about it soon after, so... yeah. Had to quiet down a party upstairs and got to sleep, finally, at 5 am.

Sunday I had brunch with Dale and Miranda, then Dale accompanied me to the Thirsty Mind so we could meet up with Andrew. Dale definitely kept me, well, less nervous. I tend to act like a complete goof (yes, more than normal) when meeting people. Had a great time, the weather was nice for us finally by around 4! Then I had to try to focus on Spanish =( Poor me!

Really cold and foggy out this morning and it burned off after spanish class. Midterm wasn't terribly bad, but it was still rather horrid. No one feels good after an in class essay I guess. But it's ok, it's over, I'm guessing it'll be a B test. Walked dogs, Kobe got rather out of control, she could seriously use some training... Newton was perfect... Sent something in the mail... Salmon dinner with Lindsay at Prospect like old times, at the same table... Hall committee meeting... art history paper... first write up for a noise violation... that's about it!

So I stayed up till about 3 am last night, tired as hell but wishing I could stay up longer. I fell asleep with my light on and without brushing my teeth. Woke up at 7:30 am. Brushed and realized there was no way in hell I'd be sleeping till after 8:30 am (time of winner's call). I waited in bed with nervous stomach knots, but nothing happened. Once I think I almost hallucinated the start of a ring. But nothing. Had a bizarre dream in which the award went to someone that planned to only travel in the US. So I was like, you do realize she's not going abroad, and it says in the application for travel outside of the US and Canada? And they were like yeah, but we liked her application. But isn't that against the rules? We can change the rules. Yeah. Then I woke up. It was 10 am, still no call. At this point I gave up.

I was rather sad about it all until Dale and Miranda and I went to lunch. We were walking over and as soon as Miranda knew I hadn't been selected, she just said "You didn't get it?! Those fuckers!" Then I felt ten times better -- I'd been thinking of how I'd done something insufficiently, and her comment made me look at it differently ; )

Mum made me feel better too, sorry to continually quote you, but, I liked this:
Pink Poodledog: thank you mum :-)
Pink Poodledog: i'll try to perk up more, maybe I'll find something better to do this summer anyway!
SITA3783: yeah, anytime
SITA3783: I'm your mum. and I love ya
Pink Poodledog: hehe love you too
SITA3783: I'm a firm believer in when the time is right, it will come

So we're waiting for the right time, sometime in the future. As Dale says, I just wasn't meant to go in that way at this time. And something that brightens my day esp. when taken out of context:
SITA3783: Tim and I are going to Salem to pick up 500 gallons of apricot puree today
Pink Poodledog: oh my god
SITA3783: for skunk bait. we got it real cheap

This afternoon I took a nap and had a bizarre dream. First my neighbor Leah showed up, her nickname became "Gail." Uhm... I could see why Leah was in my dream (she has my delia's catalog), but why Gail? I only know one Gail, who's our neighbor... Yeah. Then Helen & I were roommates in this huge room that I guess was Jojo's... why we were like renting a huge room in a vacant house owned by MHC's president I have no idea, but, there you go. I was like, wow, this is a huge room, do you want to split it in half or share all of it? Helen: I was thinking to split it. Me: Yeah, that's cool... and we can put the fridges in the middle of the two spaces so if we get something out at night it won't wake up the other person. Helen: Yeah. And we were all happy. It was muy extrano. I can't figure out what that fridge dialogue even meant, but it's what I remember best. And then Jojo showed up with an assistant and I think we were like hiding or keeping out of the way...

Woke up when someone knocked at the door, apparently it wasn't Dale as she called me a bit later from the art studio. Still lazed around though. Then I got a call from Andrew and that motivated me to wake up finally. We're meeting up tomorrow, Dale's coming with me to encourage me to be myself from the start instead of being my usual silly nervous just-meeting-you self. Yay! Lindsey you'd be proud of me, as we're meeting for coffee =) I'm going to develop a taste for the stuff!

And now to address Merrers: I totally understand what Mr. DeBorde is trying to teach you, but if you got to Linfield it will NOT be like that... Here it's almost like high school in that the professors really are responsive to how we handle the work load and how much work is too much, and what sort of expectations are too high. And if no one in the class understood the directions and did something wrong, I think most of my professors would blame themselves for being unclear rather than the students for being lazy or something. Sure, be careful and follow your syllabus, but most things can be cleared up with a simple question in class. And again, big difference between U of O or OSU and Linfield or MHC...

Well, think I'll read a bit, then I'm going to get ready for Las Vegas Night! Dale, Miranda & I have sparkly dresses to wear!

Oh, some funny things from today's away message:

MuskratFan: Beckers, just wanted to see what your little yellow note says... =)

SITA3783: Gee, I got quoted. Guess I'll have to watch what I say from now on
How did the interview go? Sunny day here after tons of rain. guess I should quit looking at ebay (frilly vintage bib aprons, of all things) and enjoy this sunshine. love you!

Also had happy encouraging IMs from Julia and Lindsay and Kathleen, thanks!! =)

I'm tired and I've been inhaling nail polish remover and eating cookies in Dale's room and am really in no condition to be typing anything that anyone might read. That said, my interview was today. I walked Kobe, worked in the mail center for two hours, and then had my nervous-under-time interview. I hope I didn't make a bad impression. In view of probably not getting the reward, I am going to sleep in tomorrow, so if I get a phone call at 8:30 am (doubtful) I'll wake up. and if the phone call does not come, I'll sleep till about 11 and wake up and go shopping online.

Met up with Madalyn as I was coming out of the interview, who had good news in the form of cosmetics. I like them! Must get some blush next. Then Dale, Miranda & I had dinner at Prospect, and headed for the mall. Got a sparkly pink and black striped strapless dress for $20 for Las Vegas Night and some hoop earrings. Fashioned a choker and bracelet out of a black bra's straps that I don't use anymore. Almost wanted to buy this black and white strapless sparkly dress, but it cost twice as much...

Anyway, I'm tired. But tomorrow will be fun. This whole weekend will be happy, actually. Despite whatever happens with the scholarship.

"And when you get off that plane, you're going to be scared, and if you're not, you shouldn't be there." - great quote from Mr. Sullivan, the founder of the travel award I'm a semi-finalist for. The award dinner was, in a word, long. 3.5 hours long. The past recipients talked, talked, talked... I wasn't bored, but I did have to leave at some point for the ladies' room. And the food was horribly lackluster. Regular iceberg lettuce salad mix, rice I recognized from the dining hall fare, mushy chicken cordon bleu, cold and unremarkable french apple pie (or something like that).

So we're all nervous for the interviews tomorrow. They said to "be creative." Uhm... I have postcards & brochures from the '60s when my grandmother took out a loan to take a trip to Europe with my grandfather who was going for business. But I don't know... what does one do in such a situation? I was nervous enough talking this evening in front of everyone. Maybe I shouldn't be thinking about it at all so my nerves can't build up... maybe I should do some yoga or something tomorrow?

Took a nice walk with a very clean Newton, I think he must have been to the groomer's. Tried to take a nap but my phone rang twice... I about fell asleep in art history class, but perked up halfway through when Prof. Staiti said something funny and my mind was finally engaged. Partly tired due to a late night conversation with Mum, round about 2 am we were talking about vacuums, here are some excerpts (haha now that you know how to read this Mum, it's not so sneaky to quote you):

SITA3783: Oh, I will send you another little package soon.
SITA3783: I got a real deal today on a favorite of yours
Pink Poodledog: haha uh oh, I'm going to be gaining weight this year ;-)
Pink Poodledog: hmmm... I'd wager a guess at corn nuts? hehe
SITA3783: jeez. well I guess I bought the right thing then, you guessed it!!
Pink Poodledog: hahahaha
Pink Poodledog: no, I was definitely wanting some, and at the store they finally have them, but no plain flavored ones :-(

and then:

SITA3783: I just bought a indiglo watch on eby for 13.00
SITA3783: brand new timex

and of course:

SITA3783: then I was thinking of going for a rug nozzle for my rainbow vac. exciting huh?

Sorry Mum, but, it was pretty funny that you tried to buy a vacuum part on ebay... =)

And here's a quote from Prof. Staiti, remembered especially for Lindsey, who showed me the Rococo painting "The Swing" by Fragonard in high school when she took a correspondence art history course (I specifically remember that painting and the spooky figures in shadow!):

Prof. Staiti: "And look, who's this pushing the swing? The local priest! Sure, why not? What a capital idea!"

Had Lucky Charms for breakfast this morning in honor of today being the day I find out if I'm a semi-finalist in the travel scholarship process.

To Mer: about your math... call me if you want any help, you're basically doing problems where there are different equations for different portions of your graph, right?

Home sweet dorm! I had an exceedingly relaxing weekend at Dale's house, despite the homework that accumulated. Also had my first manicure, I felt beyond pampered. My nails are now a deep red and it's strange how very waterproof the top coat is. Joni found a sweater for me, too. Walked about in it tonight and felt warm and snug, it's wool and handmade. The last night we were there Dale wanted to see her bf, naturally, so we went to the mall and out for bowling. The mall was closing down and not so exciting. But bowling was fun, me and Dale were horrible and Warren started bowling left handed to compensate. In the midst of my gutter balls I bowled two strikes in a row, and Warren remarked: "Wow, we've just entered the matrix." Dale and I agree it was the most fun. I obtained bleeps through the quarter machines, only one of which was good. Bowling shoes are still ugly.

Now we're back. Must hand in essay on Friday as it's dismal and unfinished. I'm hoping to write another essay that is better that I will end up handing in instead. Will finish this one though for back up. Bit more to read to get through half of Women in Love...

To Mom, Mer & Tim: received a package notice today in the mail! thanks bunches, I'll go pick it up tomorrow =) Also got a Delia's magazine I requested, yay!

At Dale's house for Oct. break! Thurs. night we went to see Cold Creek Manor with her bf & his friend back in Hadley... it was more funny than scary though. I was on Dale's lap for part of the movie and I couldn't stop laughing. Then it was back to Windy sitting... which I finally stopped this morning when Dale picked me up. We all ate at Prospect, then Dale, her bf & I strted off for NY. Dale & I greeted everyone (including the cats, of course). Had my first raking experience with Dale, very Charlie Brown-esque. Went to a great restaurant for Mexican food. Have some saved for tomorrow. Chips and salsa like the Crazy Pepper's back home. And we had fried ice cream with quite a bit of brandy or something in it still. Had my first flambe experience =)

Well, that's all for now, don't want to take up too much time on the computer! Will update later. Oh. Big task this weekend: write my midterm essay on Lawrence and/or Joyce.

To Mer: Go to both the party and the dance, and enjoy! Sing along, sway if you can't dance, and have fun =)

Dog sitting... it's always rather amazing to suddenly have an entire house at your disposal. Last night Dale came with me and I did laundry & showered. I filled out stuff for Verbosity's registration with Student Programs, and my proposal for a non-credit course during J-term (which I would teach) on creative writing. The whole goal with that goes back to my grad-school hopes -- if I can't get into a good one that helps financially (a lot), and I end up somewhere like U of O, then I'm going to need teaching experience to get a fellowship starting my first year. So yeah... maybe a little practice. Plus I'd enjoy trying out the teacher role for a change...

Got to bed rather late as I actually did my Art History reading... At 7 am I looked out the windows and there was a thick fog all through the trees, and the combination of pea-soup atmosphere and fatigue led me to the decision that skipping yoga class would be a good idea. At 9 am this still seemed like a good decision, although I still dragged myself out of bed (not quite so tired though). It takes at least two hours for me to get ready for class, walk windy, and get to campus. Got to Art History at exactly 5 till 11. The fog had burned off by the time class was over, and I had my ultra healthy granola bar with odwalla fruit smoothie for lunch (d becky was rather disgusted by this).

After, I walked both Kobe and Newton. Kobe found a neighbor in her garden and was awarded with dog biscuits. Newton & I explored the strange forest trail near his house, although I'm not really sure if I'm supposed to be on that trail or not... Anyway, it was interesting. Had to turn back at one point, as I was worried we had wandered off the main path... there are numerous "take-off" trails that eventually come back to the main one, I think... Newton looks rather like a muppet when he gets excited.

Good news: Verbosity does appear to have funding! The English Department secretary had overheard Prof. Hill talking about this, that the budget was the "same as last year." Introduced myself & asked for info. about Nostos's contact person, would like to use the same publisher as them this year. Then I went to Student Programs to turn in our little registration form... still waiting to see if we want fleet and copy cat accounts. Good news, Laura, we're official!!!

My library search wasn't terribly fruitful. No "fecund darkness" in the journal shelves. Did find one book on DHL's "bestiary" and an online article about Ursula's horses. Hmmm. I hope those will be sufficient to get me started on my essay.

About time for me to head back to Windy's house now... will update later...

Finally an update! I've been kind of distracted in the evenings, so my journal-keep-up has been a little lackluster =)

Well! Lo bueno es que my work has been coming back to me with pleasant grades... Finished The Rainbow last night and wrote a reading response (I turned it in, even though apparently we were supposed to take a week off of writing those... oops). Today I started dogsitting Windy, so I'm going back there tonight with Dale, who is graciously driving me over! Then we're going to read, and read, and read... It was beautiful today, 70 something high and lots of sun. Wore a skirt for maybe the last time before the weather gets icky again... The trees all seem so distinct and clarified to me now (new contact prescription, maybe?), esp. with the sun highlighting things... Very nice walk to/from/with Windy.

Merrie just sent me her story for AP English. Good job, Merrers! I'm sure Lorenzen is going to think our entire family is completely screwed up with these gory stories we write for his classes! haha that was you through and through, I think you just made a new example for true "irony," too.

Ack! It's rather late. Still must do lots of reading tomorrow... but I was having too much fun with Dale and then with talking to a particular young man online... definitely a diversion for me...

Well, no Kobe walk today (the dog is going with her family on a vacation, go figure). And I felt sick from Blanchard food, so I was lazy... ok, no more online time for me tonight, goodnight! I'm going to read a bit more...

Drove with Dale to Fairfield today. Fairfield U memories: guys throwing balls around, guys lounging against walls, guys in the hallways, guys talking, guys with their laundry baskets... wow. And cute guys, too. Slept on the way home, and it was suddenly dusky when I woke up. Me and Dale are sick from icky Blanchard food. ICKY. Mustn't think about what I ate. Will finally learn lesson this time: no sandwiches from Blanchard, ever, ever.

OH! Picture board is up, I just had to finish it and surprise Katie.

Must sleep, continue with The Rainbow. Very short update today.

I'm in the process of realizing that I'm woefully unable to communicate with guys around my own age. Wait, let me back up. I'm actually woefully unable to even be in a situation where communication could possibly happen with a guy around my own age. For example: I get dressed up to go to the library. At the library, I sit and read and occassionally try to make accidental eye contact with any guys there. Problem with this? At least half the guys in the library are taken and just hanging around waiting for their gfs. I don't know what's up with the other half, but one thing's certain, I've never had a conversation with a guy on this campus. Sometimes I get a little sad that I'm not making any guy friends or even acquaintances... but oh well. Dale tried to help by having me IM one of her guy friends. But somehow... well, I want to meet someone in person.

In further news, the trip to noho was canceled due to rain, but I did get to see Lindsay's room!