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 =(