Monday, February 23, 2004

So I went to Junior Show rehearsal after dinner, and quickly realized that not only was everything backed up half an hour, but I couldn't get much work done sitting in an uncomfortable chair listening to people blabber. So I left. And then there was a fire drill in my dorm. Woo-hoo! Ok time for a digression: Why do we have fire drills? We don't take roll outside so we would never know if someone was totally deaf and needed assistance. And how would "practicing" the "escape" help anyone get out of the dorm? Don't we all know how to get out of the dorm already? And if we don't already know, are we really going to learn? Isn't it pretty instinctual to run out of a building when there are ear piercing shrieks (aka alarms) and flashing lights and, in the event of a real fire, fire and smoke? And don't tell me that they're practicing to make sure the alarms can, in fact, function; they could just as easily test that without the students being in the dorm. Basically, if you don't know how to get out of a burning building by this time, there's nothing that's gonna teach you.

So back to the story. I read, I doze, I listen to music. I don't really feel like going back out for junior show rehearsal, but I go anyway. I get there, and Tobe tells us we can all leave. So we're like, wtf? We just walked all the way over here and they're telling us to go back? But it turned out cool, because Alexis, Lindsay of the Philosophy Department, and myself, were walking down from Chapin when I brought up that we'd all be in classes together. Lindsay, I realized later, was in both Phil 100 and Eng 200 with me, and Alexis was in Phil. with us. So we chatted for awhile and it was really cool, because those first people that I met in classes my first year made such a big impression on me. And Lindsay liked Karen C-K, too! We must have been the only two... even though that was an awesome class.

So now I'm back in my room again... Argh, how am I going to write this paper for Friday?

Sunday, February 22, 2004

Lots of good stuff on Mer's blog, I hadn't checked it out in awhile! Chickens in "Odull" taking shelter from the rain, surprise birthday parties, Zen accusing her of being tardy to class... I'm afraid I haven't anything that funny to post, but... oh well!

This weekend was immensely boring, really. I went to meals with Dale, which was cool, but then I didn't, well, do anything else. I got holed up in my room doing homework, basically. So I was telling Dale the plan for the weekend apart, and how I was getting reacquainted with being in my room alone again. She was all happy for me. Until I said, "And then I realized how boring it is to be in my room." Yep. Mind-numbing, really. Now I remember why I try to have lots of activities going on constantly. Must remember this in future to avoid leaving having weekends totally devoid of the fun stuff that weekends are made for (movies, going out with friends, shopping, laughing).

Next weekend will be far superior. Junior show and Andrew!

Friday, February 20, 2004

What a day!

I got up at a decent hour and it was a little sad because I knew I wouldn't be seeing Andrew tonight. But then I got busy. I walked Kobe and we met a little white furry dog and Kobe batted at it with her huge paw and got its ear dirty. Then she acted like a dog on crack, or a dog on rabies, and refused to go back inside after we had taken a walk and played fetch. So I finally pounced on her and grabbed her collar, then hauled her back in the house, lamenting all the way about how she was being completely unreasonable. Kobe of course didn't get it, and watched me from the window as I was leaving, as usual.

I rushed back to my room and then thought I had more time than I did; I thought I had to be at the English department at noon for the group lunch instead of 11:50, so when I remembered the real time I booked it over to Shattuck. Luckily, they hadn't left yet. Me and two other English majors were scheduled to eat lunch with a professor MHC may hire to teach fiction writing. His writing samples were awesome. Last night I stayed up till three am reading his stories and something by Harriet Johnson about disabled persons and Singer. Well. Lunch was good, we had a few awkward pauses but on the whole it went well, I think. We almost didn't get dessert-- one student declined dessert when the waitress offered it to us, and the prof. was going to follow whatever we wanted to do. So I said I wouldn't mind seeing the desserts, and it ended up three out of four of us ate dessert. Yay me! Today is the day of inflicting my will upon others! I had a yummy hectagon of tiramisu, and two cups of earl grey tea (I would have stolen tea packets but the waitress took them away from us).

Later, I was able to see the interview-ee speak to the faculty about his teaching philosophy and about how he sees fiction writing classes. He was totally engaging, and I just loved being in the same room as all these profs. I had Profs Demas, Shaw, and Quillian to talk to, it was wonderful. I love our english department! On my way to dinner I ran into Miranda and Dale; we ate at Wilder and Dale made us deviled eggs.

I've relaxed, read, done laundry, and been on duty tonight. Weird. So this is what Friday nights used to look like.
So "A" sent me some news articles online as we're making an inspiration board for my short story seminar out of newspaper and magazine articles. (I think we can all figure out who "A" is.) So A. sent me an article about a camel that got loose in sweden because its stablemate, a horse, wasn't there, and another about a piranha in the Thames. This is A.'s idea on how to connect the two into a really great story:

A: you could do a story about all these crazy random animals
A: maybe about a south american piranha and a mongolian camel who met on the internet and traveled the globe to finally meet
A: but the piranha got lost in the thames, and the camel got sidetracked in sweden by a horse
A: then you could make up the ending! it would be like finding nemo on crack
Pink Poodledog: hahahahah

(just had to post that. yay I've actually updated my blog twice in 24 hours!!)

Thursday, February 19, 2004

After yesterday I'm feeling the need to update. And while eating dinner I was reading the creative writing class stories and was feeling the need to write something before reading for quillian's class. So here goes!

Weds was the big day. Two public speaking adventures in the space of 5 hours. The sorts of things I normally stay away from. Weds morning I did some reading for my Spanish presentation, and then met up with my group at the library. We were feeling pretty confident, but I think all of us except for Corinne were pretty nervous, too. I ate lunch over my notecards, rehearsing what I'd say during the presentation. I sat through Lit. Crit. & Theory and then ran off to Ciruti for Spanish. Very nervous at this point, and needed to use the bathroom (drank too much water at lunch). The presentation was going ok, very mellow and comfortable, when Michelle handed it over to met earlier than I had expected. Then my mouth started getting dry and I kept stumbling over long Aztec words. At one of these words (as Corinne told me later) I said "caca" in the process of sounding it out (hey, that's what was written!!). Naturally, a couple of girls in the audience laughed. I didn't know WHY they laughed though, so I just got totally distracted and embarrassed, thinking that they were laughing at me. I think this was the beginning of the end. So I cut out all the cool things I had wanted to say and just ended it in my stumbling Spanish.

But, this turned out ok, because we actually were two or three times as long as our professor had expected. She assured us that we had done a wonderful job and had set a high precedent for the rest of the presentations, but, we all know I didn't do very well on my part!!

After Spanish I ran back to my room to get ready for the poetry reading. At which I hoped to redeem myself. (Yes I know that that was a sentence fragment). I waited in "The Dirty" for awhile, until Kim found me and we drove over as the two MHC representatives. We found the house, and wandered upstairs looking for the hosts. The apartment was amazing looking, very Asian inspired decorations and bookshelves on every wall. A very pink satiny love seat in the living room, and the best flatware, very Martha-Stewart-shopping-at-the-Pottery-Barn-esque. More people kept trickling in, so we kept reintroducing ourselves. Out of ten students reading, only one was a guy. Everyone was pretty cool in very different ways.

At dinner, I got pushed to the end of the table since the Amherst girl had her mother with her at the dinner (wtf?) The conversation was dominated by the two Smithies (talking about playing this game, Assassin) and the Amherst girl & guy (Amherst girl was nice but too much like me when I'm trying to be social so of course I didn't like her. I tend to dislike people that are like me). I sat by the quieter Umass gal, who was a senior and nervous to be reading in public. Neither of us had read in a public setting like this before. The dinner was amazing, rice and some sort of lentil topping and salad with grapefruit sections (beautifully sliced) and duck. Dessert took me awhile to eat because I was shy to just take the dessert fork that was at the place setting next to mine (seemed like bad manners?) But dessert was amazing, we had pie pieces of fig tart and cubes of what tasted like fresh pistachio ice cream, bliss.

After, we walked over to Converse Hall together. I was quite nervous. Loved hearing people read their poetry, all the more enjoyable because I was at least casually acquainted with everyone now. Kim was very supportive, and I read without making any mistakes (even though my voice was a little shaky). Prof. Shaw was there, chatted with me afterwards. Laura came which was super exciting, and we took the PVTA home together (after sampling some amazing chocolate dessert cups with raspberries. Oh raptures!)

It was a very productive day, I don't think I was in my room for more than 2 hours between noon and midnight! Also a day of realizing that I enjoy poetry writing more than fiction writing. And I'm in a short story writing seminar. Oops. Also realized me-as-poet is a very egotistical creature. Seemed like a lot of the five college poets reading were of a similar nature. Or am I just imagining this?

Today I ran many errands and did everything that I was supposed to do (up to this point).

Monday, February 16, 2004

Good things about today: I got a lot of work done in the morning, had a yummy salmon and caesar salad dinner at prospect with Lindsay and Irena, actually went to a junior show meeting, discovered that the decadent looking pie at Uncommon Grounds is, in fact, the pie version of my all time favorite: the raspberry cream cheese chocolate bar. So I just ate that, and wow, wow...

Bad things: I was sad in the morning, the junior show meeting really had nothing to do with my being there and I didn't need to be there (wasted hour, could have been napping), and, uhm... that's all, I guess it was an ok day, overall.
Last week was soooo busy I didn't even post, partly because I was busy and partly because it would have been basically like this: today I woke up, hurried out to classes, hurried to do homework & eat, went to meetings/ did more work. Not so exciting. Two good things: Thursday was our Verbosity meeting and lots of people came!! Yay us! And Lindsay and I had a lovely dinner at the Rockies and she gave me the most adorable valentine's day surprise -- a pink poodle bookmark!

So let's just talk about my weekend now since that was lovely and it was Valentine's Day, after all.

Friday: I ate dinner at Wilder with Hollin and Alyssa, and others that I had just met so I don't remember their names. I took some chocolate pie and challah, and wasn't very productive back in my room till Andrew came. I did start a possible short story, though. When Andrew arrived, we talked with Dale a bit and then started getting his dinner together. Between the three of us, we constructed quite the meal. He had soup, I had bread & dessert, and Dale had salad. So we all sat down in the formal dining room of our hall with Ashley and ate together. That was fun =) Plan to someday eat tv dinners down there at opposite ends of the table and provide some comic relief for the people doing homework in the common rooms.

After, we watched Thirteen, which was a rather disturbing movie about two wayward young girls. Crazy kids, I sure wasn't into that stuff in middle school. We decided to cheat and exchange gifts Friday night (but it was technically Saturday, it was after midnight!!) I showered, and at some point we fell asleep with the lights on, and didn't wake up till like 6 or 7 the next morning. Oops. Granted, I do this pretty often when I'm here alone, but now I'm dragging Andrew into my bad habits.

Saturday: The good thing about falling asleep was that we got up in the morning at a decent hour. I think we got up around 10, so we had plenty of time to get ready to go out for brunch. We took this winding road (was it route 9? I'm so bad with picturing this stuff in my head) that reminded me of country roads back home. It let out right at the breakfast place Andrew had picked. It was a really cute place, a rustic feel and very small and intimate. Old baking tools up on the walls, and signs and such. And really yummy food, apricot bread and cornbeef hash. We pretty much stuffed ourselves. Then we went to the Quabbin Reservoir and walked about, took pictures and had our picture taken. We started walking across the dam but it was too cold. So we drove further up, and we saw this lookout tower thing, and the snow was a sheet of ice on top so it was shiny and pretty.

We took a little trip to Target for Buster supplies and candy and a dvd. We looked at plastic tubs for quite awhile, it was funny. Had a dispute about shades of blue. At some point we came back here and relaxed for awhile. We got an early start out to Northampton, where we wandered about looking at books before heading to the restaurant. It was a really gorgeous place, The Union Station. It was also a very crowded place, so luckily we did have reservations! We waited awhile, but it was pretty entertaining because we were sitting next to this really snotty couple for awhile (the feminine half of which I think goes to MHC, ack!) and they were bickering. By the time we got seated we knew just what we wanted to order, and then we attacked the salad bar. I had the biggest salad ever. I think we kinda filled up on it, because we had leftovers for Sunday's dinner. Everything tasted good though, and I had real cottage cheese (as opposed to dining hall cottage cheese)!

By the time we got back home we were pretty stuffed and tired. Andrew fell asleep, and I followed suit. We woke up about an hour and a half to two hours later, around 2, and brushed and went back to bed. But then we got up early, again!

Sunday: I woke up a little after 9, and urged us out of bed, ready for another full day of weekend! We looked for Valentine's day candy at the Big Y (they were lacking in the post V-day sales), but ended up going to CVS in Amherst for such things instead. We intended to eat at Thai Corner, but as that was randomly closed we went to Fresh Side. Which was good, because it definitely improved my impression of the place, I had help ordering =) Yum!

Back here, we started watching Fargo. Really intriguing and hard to stop watching. But we had to stop at some point to rest and eat and then head off to the library where I had to meet my Spanish group. We both were in the lobby, me with my group and Andrew with his book. Then we went to Kendade for my Post Colonial Studies movie. Black and white and slow and hard to follow (maybe because it was in French and we just had subtitles? Hard to get to know characters' voices). Andrew fell asleep. I ate candy and stuck it out. Finally it was over and we were able to leave! We finished watching Fargo, which was super disturbing and what's the word, poignant? And showered, and went to bed. Sunday nights are always sad.

This morning we got up before our alarms and rested awhile. Monday mornings are always so sad =( Now I must do my reading & homework, blah!

Work is so difficult after a lovely happy weekend! And the happiest Valentine's ever =)

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Ack now I can't remember what I did last week. Thursday is kinda blurry, so let's start with Friday:

Friday: It was snowing/raining/gross out, and I wasn't sure how I was going to get to Boston for the weekend. None of the pathways had been shoveled yet, even by 11 am when I was heading out to run some errands and eat lunch. Everyone was slipping all over and the snow was avalanching off the roofs. The mail center was closed (the door was locked and I could see a paper sign with something about the weather scribbled on it). There was a festive feel at lunch, I sat with Stephanie and Erin and looked at alloy catalogs. I was quite antsy to get out of Peer Mentoring, since it was probably the only class meeting that afternoon in the whole valley. It turned out that another member of that class was catching the Boston bus, so we headed over together. We met some cool people on our way, including this gal running by who wanted us to delay the bus so she'd have time to get her birth control pills! It was a really nice bus ride, no bus switching or anything, so I napped and read some.

Andrew arrived about 5 minutes after me at the Framingham stop, and we headed to the mall right away to eat something. We wandered around for awhile and sat right by a big plotted plant. At his apartment I sat through the last Ed of the season(which, I admit, was pretty funny). A night of firsts, I enjoyed Ed &, well, yeah.

Saturday: I didn't leave the apartment all day! Very relaxing and pleasant day. I read a little, and we baked cookies (with smokey results, we discovered that wax paper does it, but we didn't know what was wrong and Andrew was worried about leaving me to get his hair cut, but it was fine, the smoke alarm didn't go off!), and we had pad thai for dinner and a game of scrabble (he won, by a lot). After dinner we all watched Seabiscuit, which was highly entertaining and good due to lots of horses being in it. Then we watched a little bit of SNL (for weekend update, the rest wasn't very good...) and I showered and we went to bed.

Sunday: After an apple & croissant dough experiment (which turned out pretty yummy) and breakfast, we read a bit and then headed out. We wandered around Newbury St. and got some good candy, looked at music and exploratory fun stuff, and had coffee (or tea, in my case). Then we got to see his friend Carlo's new apartment, which has been very tastefully and elegantly re-done. His parents were there, which was cool, so we all ate dinner together. And I met Kiwi the pug, who was single-mindedly going after my wool scarf and mittens. I was a little sleepy on the way home, but perked up as we watched The Royal Tenenbaums.

Monday: Very hard to wake up. Slept on the bus and read a bit. Elizabeth was on this bus, too! So we sat together. It was a little strange getting back into the swing of things... Then I had the awards ceremony at 4, and Lindsay was there! Sarah W. scholars pretty much just stood up and sat down, but still! Then I socialized a bit over snack food, and met one of the gals next to me, Darcy. Then me and Lindsay met for dinner, and I found out that the girl I'd just met, Darcy, lives right next to Lindsay. Small campus! I was pretty sleepy after the huge gracious dinner... but it was fun, Dale, Miranda, Lindsay, Thomasena, Rachel, and Jos were there. I ended up sleeping a bit over my homework, until Michelle called to update me on the Spanish presentacion. I must sound strange when I first wake up.

Today: Was crazy. I woke up and immediately started trying to find a sub for today in the mail center, because Rachel F. needed a babysitter and I thought the prospect of spending the afternoon with Hieu and Newton was far more appealing than working in the mail center! So I found someone during ballroom dance (learned the foxtrot today) and proceeded to have a relaxing afternoon playing dogopoly and petting Newton! Also managed to pop a huge yellow balloon, but luckily H. forgave me.

Oh, and my mother sent me Valentine's Day window decals! Which are now all over my window and mirrors! And my book came for SAW, and a little care package from Grammy & Grandpa's church.

And I am full-time worrying about this oral short story due Thursday.

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Classes have been figured out: 300-level English: Intro Post-Colonial Studies, 300-level English: Short Story Writing, 200-level English: Literary Criticism & Literature, 200-level Spanish: Latin American I Lit, 200-level Interdisciplinary: Peer Mentoring (so that I can work in the SAW center next year and get paid for reading and attending classes instead of working for Res Life). Yesterday was a good day because 1) I figured out these classes to take (oh and I'm taking ballroom dance!), 2) both of my ebay buys arrived, and 3) it snowed beautifully & I had a nice dinner with Lindsay & friends! Things definitely turned out well even though I started the day off on a hectic note when I slept through my alarm and woke up about 25/35 minutes before my first class started!

Today was also quite busy... I read, had lunch, turned in some stuff for Karuna at the CDC, read some more, sat around with everyone waiting for the door to be unlocked for Eng. 280, had a happy class, rushed to the bathroom and to Ciruti and still got to my Spanish class about five minutes late, participated more than usual to make up for my tardiness, read for an hour in 1837 before dinner, had a lovely dinner with the ladies of the English Student Board, then came back here! Quality quote from dinner: "I didn't want to serve Justin Timberlake a nasty hot dog." - Emily, who did, in fact, meet J.T. Megan had her point proven that any subject and verb can be made to sound dirty if said in the right tone of voice: "Hey, wanna tie my shoes?"

Things seemed to move slowly today, it felt like I'd been awake longer than I had been. Maybe because last night I fell asleep with the lights on and without brushing my teeth, so at 8 am I brushed and turned off the lights, then woke up again at 9:30. Strange. Must stop doing that. But my bed is so comfortable...

Monday, February 02, 2004

Oopsy it's been awhile... Very busy. Can't figure out classes yet. I had my best ever snowy walk with Newton last Thursday, we met a cockapoo named Willy. I had three meetings with Quillian on the subject of my classes, one while I was running from Shattuck to the Tower Room looking for our creative writing class, and Quillian called "So have you decided?" and I yelled back "No!" and kept running. One of those MHC bubble moments, there. My first Peer Mentoring class was interesting and strangely parallel to Res Life training. "Are you a hammer or a nail? An ocean or a forest? A leader or a follower?" My first shift back to the Mail Center was odd but good, it's been awhile, and Bernice and I, surely, have some catching up to do! New rule: must push the pulley rather than pull the pulley. Why? It could cause back pain.

Now the weekend I can recall in more detail, so here we go:

Friday: After my Peer Mentoring class I got ready for Andrew's arrival, and tried to round people up for dinner! I rushed Andrew from his car to Wilder, and we had a crazy dinner! It was a Thanksgiving-ish dinner (turkey, squash, mashed potatoes, stuffing, that sort of thing), with challah bread and two desserts and matzoh ball soup (without any matzoh balls). Lindsay, Korisha, Emily, Beth, Andrew, and myself were there, and it was crazy, I think we were all talking the whole time! I couldn't stop laughing, Korisha did the "food testing" test with Andrew and he responded the same way I did for the last like 2 years. And Lindsay had her hilarious dorm-life accounts, which are definitely accurate (esp. the blow drying in this cold weather!) After dinner we went upstairs for a game of Cranium, but me and Andrew weren't allowed to be partners! It was still fun, of course, even though me and my partner had a little trouble getting off of start!

Saturday: Since we got to bed at a decent hour the night before, we managed to get out in time for brunch. We tried Karen's Kitchen, which was yummy and rather casual, with a "store feel" inside. We sat and drank coffee and tea afterwards, in the midst of the closing chaos. We decided against going into Amherst, and instead we headed back to MHC to get some work done. We took a little stop at Atkin's to avoid said work. Finally though, it couldn't be put off any longer, and we had a nice work session in the English lounge of Shattuck (which may become my second home, soon). After the sun stopped steaming in through the windows we decided it was time to go out for dinner. Took a bathrrom break and hurried off to see if anyone wanted to go with us! Everyone was pretty much in for the night, so we went to Amherst by ourselves for dinner. I had Bueno y Sano for the first time! It was good, except there was a hair in my burrito =/ But at least I didn't dump my burrito on the floor, scrape it back onto a plate, and eat it, like the girl at the next table over from us!

We found ONE book I wanted at the used book store, not the greatest luck! Had a tissue incident. And a trip to CVS. And a cold walk to the car! Back at MHC we had coffee and dessert from Blanchard, and then speed walked over to see Pirates of the Caribbean on the big screen in Gamble. It was really good, even a second time around. Very entertaining! We almost watched some Sex and the City at the hall activity, but the room was too packed looking.

Sunday: We got up fairly early, and then recruited Dale & Miranda to eat brunch with us! We went to Abbey for the crepe bar, which was pretty good. I ate my old classic three plates, but without the old bloated feeling. Ahh I miss you, Kathleen!! We ate with Alyssa, too, and ran into an old Amherst friend of Andrew's (and his first year MHC gf). We did a bit of reading in the afternoon, but soon got distracted. So we played a game. Took a trip over to The Thirsty Mind and continued reading, then we picked up supplies (for the Super Bowl get-together, and my floor activity on Tuesday) at Big Y. Before going to Phoebe's, we picked up Fanny, a really cool gal from France who's here for a year and knows Phoebe from a class. This marked the first time in years that I watched a football game, and kinda sorta enjoyed it! It was pretty exciting towards the end, we were all hoping for the game to end without a tie and overtime! Finally got to bed, I had a weird dream with Torrey's architecture and Andrew. I need to have a more coherent one before Weds so I can turn in a dream fragment for my creative writing class!

Now I'm sitting about with tea, about to do some reading! Then I'll print out some more reading at the library, read that, have lunch, and start with classes! Oh and make signs for my floor activity...