Yeah, so, I've been moonlighting as a house-elf...

...except that house-elves don't go to movies or read C.S. Lewis or get their fingers measured for bowling ball holes. As far as I know.

But today I did go down to the Red Cross, get put in a big set-off kitcheny area underneath where people were eating, with mostly just one fellow worker for company, and, without pay (except a free lunch), got food ready for people who never saw me prepare anything. And I just tried to start learning to knit, though so far my knitting is, in Lily's words (about other things, not said knitting), t3h suck. So I'm feeling a little like Dobby, and technically my socks are even mismatched, though they are the same color (white). Where's the liberation front on my behalf, huh? :-P

All joking aside, it was fairly cool, and I spent my morning with a nice (but very quiet) fellow volunteer named Jamar, putting slices of bread and cheese (separately) into plastic baggies, then sealing them via a sort of pressure-sealer apparatus shaped kinda like a big stapler, and with a heating element in the middle. They didn't go directly to the people there for the meals, as far as I know, but back in the freezer. So I didn't really feed anybody yet, heehee.

I got lunch, as I said, which I expected to resemble what we'd been working with all morning, but instead we got heartier stuff, warmed up--ham (with lemon glaze; an odd notion, but it tasted fine), vegetables, something that I think was sweet potatoes and tasted good regardless. After that, we cleaned up the kitchen and called it a day. w00t.

I'm signed up to go back on January 11th and possibly (though improbably) the 13th. They don't really need me other than that. But that's okay.

Saw Walk the Line with my mom tonight. That was pretty good. Makes me want to listen to more Johnny Cash, anyway. I've always liked "Man in Black," "Singin' in Vietnam Talking Blues," and, heh, "A Boy Named Sue," but it'll be nicer to hear the big hits now that I have some background (even if it's fictional in some cases--I'll have to check) for them.

And, as mentioned, I tried to learn knitting, but, um, there's trying still to be done.

But not now, 'cause I think I'm going to bed. I'm beat these days.

-Laurel

Eat at (Lily) Jo's

How did I forget to include Mellie Mae on my Christmas-wish list?

Well, here I am at my fabulous cousin's :-D, checking my e-mail and stuff while she takes a nap. I should probably take a nap as well. But I guess that's not happening, at least not now.

So I saw, oddly and nicely enough, both Tim and Zinni yesterday. Both of them let me know about 24 hours in advance that they were coming: Zinni 'cause she was making the drive from PA, and Tim because his family was helping some relatives move into their new house, and said new house happens, by fantastic coincidence, to be within ten minutes of my own. Who knew?

Tim, then, came over (Tom was apparently too cool for us :-P), and we watched Lord of the Beans, which's the VeggieTales parody of LotR. It was pretty good. They may even have made a gratuitous Tom Bombadil reference, which impressed the heck out of me (what I mean is, there's a really random character whom I think might actually be--vaguely--modeled after him). Right around the time the movie was ending, Zinni arrived, and eventually other home friends of mine, 'cause they wanted to see her and hang out at my house and stuff. Tim left partway through that, and pizza was eaten, DDR was played, old videos were watched, and Christmas gifts were exchanged.

Ooh, ooh! So I got a call back from the Red Cross. I guess they pushed my paperwork through, 'cause the perkiest lady, like, ever is in food service, and she called me and wants me to help. I start Friday, bright and pretty early, 7:30. Since I'm not being paid, I essentially get to set my own hours, which's cool.

Tonight is destination and adventure unknown with Lily Jo (well, if we decide to do anything besides her town's new coffee shop); tomorrow may be Great Northern with the home friends (there has to be a better term, but what? I've rejected "homies," "homesters," "homefries"...maybe "homestars", after H*R, since so many of us follow it?), but we'll see.

So, oh, oh, I got for Christmas, among other things, a bowling ball and a bunch of knitting stuff. So I'm gonna take up knitting, and do more bowling than usual. Lily Jo got me a knitting book and a book called Folk Dances of Latin America, which comes with a CD and everything. Gosh, how I love being a nerd.

That's really all for now. About that nap, maybe...

-Laurel

"Fragile fingers sent to heal us..."

It's been quite a year for, well, pretty much everybody on the planet. It's a bit of a crossroads Christmas for me, too, in a couple of ways--the obvious one, the move, and then another one--and, talking to Joe, some people's are just being downright difficult. Of course.

It's as the first time I've done it from here upstairs (yay wireless router, last year's Christmas present), and as the last time I'll do it from this house, that I carry out one of this blog's only traditions: wishing happy holidays and singling out new friends from across the year, even though they tend not to have the blog address to know they've been thus favored, heehee. I'm surprised how many there are this year; clearly, it's been an eventful one, or else I'm just feeling particularly warm and fuzzy toward all the new people in my life. :-D

So a merry Christmas goes out to Joe, Lisa, Amy, Emily, Michael, Kat, Chelsea, Terri, both Daves, Todd, Liz, basically IV in general (come to think of it), Trevor, Abby, Nicole, Missie, Jon, Barbara, Jen, Conrado, Erica, Lydia, and Tara. A happy Chanukah to Jenn and a general "happy holidays" to Yakov, since I know his family is Jewish but he's non-practicing and therefore I don't know what he celebrates.

Another merry Christmas to Samweli, Sunil, and the soldiers; the third year running I've wished that. Dona nobis pacem.

And one to my old friends and my best-beloveds.

-Laurel

Update.

I love how my brain totally had no problem with my going to bed at 9:30, since I felt tired, but how once I got in bed my body was all like, um, you didn't get up 'til ten. What makes you think you can go to bed before that?

And that's why I'm awake right now.

Today was pretty boring, honestly. Tomorrow doesn't look to be much more interesting until at least 7 pm. We're probably going to church on Christmas Day, actually, since it's a Sunday. Did I mention that?

I read the scripts for The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore, and Trial by Jury. Arthur Sullivan said that he was screaming with laughter the whole time he first read Trial by Jury, which is why I read that as well. ...I wasn't laughing really at all, honestly. I had no idea how formulaic Gilbert and Sullivan were. And I'm hoping it's supposed to be a weird joke at the end of Pinafore, the way the math doesn't work, where the captain and the sailor might well be similar ages, but one is marrying the other's daughter, even though I thought it was implied that the daughter and the sailor's ages were really close, and the wet nurse is marrying one of her former, well, charges...odd, very.

Mostly-unrelated thought: I suppose it's not, but could the opposite of "stereotypical" be "stereoatypical"?

That's really all I have to say about any of that. Twenty-three or twenty-four days left 'til school. C'mooon, Red Cross. I'm getting bored as all get-out over here, and that makes me freak out about things. Jeesh, who knew keeping myself busy was a service to humanity in general?

-Laurel

If anyone wants to play...

Swiped, as usual:

1. Post a list of up to 20 books/movies/anime/TV shows/video games/etc. that you've had an obsessive fannish love of at some time in your life [though not necessarily anymore].

2. Have your friends guess your favorite character/person from each item. [As people get it right, I'll put it up here with the correct guesser's name.]

* * * * *
In no particular order...

1. MarioKart (original or N64 version, whatever)
2. Lord of the Rings
3. Whose Line is it Anyway?
4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
5. The Monkees
6. The Baby-Sitters Club
7. Winnie the Pooh
8. M*A*S*H
9. Muppet Babies
10. The Indian in the Cupboard (whole series, whatever)
11. Backyard Soccer [computer game]
12. Fiddler on the Roof
13. The Chronicles of Narnia
14. A Midsummer Night's Dream
15. Newsboys [who is going to know this? ah well, guess anyway]
16. Darkwing Duck
17. VeggieTales
18. Harry Potter

And I'm gonna stop there, because I've had quite a few obsessions in my time, but there really aren't enough significant characters for the guessing to really mean anything (like, who in Cyrano de Bergerac is worth favoritizing besides Cyrano himself? Maybe Ragueneau, but...). Plus, it's getting hard to think of stuff. Some of these are not really obsessive-fannish, though you'd be surprised at some of them that really were.

Happy guessing. Most of these are probably easy, especially if you went to high school with me, or are Lily Jo.

-Laurel

Dap dap dap dap dau wau wau wau...

So I don't know for certain when my Haloscan comments reset--probably after I changed the layout here and then messed with the comment template on the site--but everyone's from before that disappeared, and that makes me sad.

Well, despite the arguments on Daf's blog, which I didn't read until afterwards (but which, in any case, I've heard from a kid at school who seemed to be boycotting the blood drive), I saw my way clear to sign up tonight as a Red Cross volunteer. It was my idea, actually; I'm looking for something nice to do over break, and volunteering was one obvious option. I chose the Red Cross in large part because their office, while in the city, is in the good part of the city--only half a mile, actually, from Writers & Books. My mom brought me there, but stayed out of curiosity. We both went through the training session; I went on to fill out paperwork, have the quick interview, and all that. w00t.

It didn't work out quite as well as I expected because the paperwork usually takes a couple of weeks to be processed, and that'll be exacerbated by the holiday break, so by the time I'm registered to help, there might not be time for me to do anything. But the lady I interviewed with said that she'd try to get the process sped up because I'm not here long and my availability hours are so good: Mom's office doesn't have much for me to do these days, so I probably won't be working. I put down M-F, 8 AM - 5 PM as free time for volunteering. As you might imagine, the Red Cross likes the idea.

If it works out, I might be helping out with blood drives, check-in and canteen and stuff, just like with APO, but other things I might do are help with office work or the food service program. Turns out that the Red Cross is in charge of at least a lot, if not all (I couldn't tell) of the Meals on Wheels stuff around here. I wouldn't be hauling the chow, but I'd help serve meals on-site and/or package ones to be driven other places.

After Albert's explanation this summer, I also had a moment of pleased recognition when I discovered that the puppet program they run in elementary schools is actually Kids on the Block (check it). I can't do anything with that--it takes too long.

So we'll see if anything happens with all of that.

In the meantime, turns out we're moving earlier than I thought we were, and I don't have the whole summer; Dad has to start working July 1st. So he'll probably commute(?!) for the first week or whatever, but that'll be it, unless the house doesn't sell, in which case he'll commute indefinitely, I guess, until it does (good gracious). This means that I'm going to have to start cleaning my room out now, in case my parents can't wait until I finish out junior year to start packing things up. This also means that, and this is simultaneously good news and bad, I have no need to run a job search, because my job prospects are pretty much limited to...Mom's office, if they want me. 'Cause they're going to be the only ones easygoing enough to have me part-time and part-summer. Or I hope they'll have me, anyway.

It was kind of going to be miserable enough to lose all my senior friends without also losing my house, but okay then...I hear the folk dancing is good in Syracuse...and they should have plenty of volunteer places, too.

-Laurel

school-ness already. shuttup.

So environmental science effectively ended my hopes for my first 4.0; I got a B-plus. That's predictable and all, but not very satisfying; it always sounds like sour grapes to bash the course thereafter, but I really think the class wasn't set up that well. A 101 should be much more basic, much more organized, and should have a TA (or whomever) that doesn't scribble comments like "NOT a good ending" on my essays (thanks, Mary Sunshine! By the way, I disagree).

...Tolhurst I respect, and appreciate all of the insight into my writing that I got. Getting an A in her course is a rewarding moment for me.

The irony here is, the B-plus may well end up unnecessary. At least I hope it does, because, as I believe I've mentioned, they finally ran oceanography, which was my second choice for non-lab science courses (can you believe enviro-sci was my first? I want Mr. B back), and because I was about 25% of the student effort involved in getting it, I'm taking it next semester, even though enviro-sci just fulfilled that non-lab science credit. With Otto teaching, no less. So I hope I get better than a B-plus, but Otto's tests may well make Dr. H's look merciful, so we'll see.

I also hope that its being a lecture-format intro course, like ENS-101 was, doesn't automatically mean it's wretched. Clearly, we won't be taking any group field trips, but hopefully hanging with Matt, Kathy, Amy, and Rachel will be fun, plus Tim when he decides to show, if he's an audit. (Audit, ha. So, basically, all three times he decides to show.) Otto says the textbook is good, though, and if he's right, that's a really good thing.

We'll see if things get weird in my head when suddenly I'm buzz-step-swinging on Tuesdays with someone who controls my GPA on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Speaking of swinging, hopefully I can get my act together and join Swing Society next semester, now that my classes should actually end at 5:10 instead of 5:30 and I won't have been in them for four-and-a-half consecutive hours (that's brain-deadness right there).

That's right, home dudes: I'm going to be in THREE dance-related thingies next semester, between folk dancing, swing, and Fundamentals of Dance (subtitle: yeah for gym credit). Why not? My room's a little small for DDR these days.

-Laurel

Dang, but it's cold in here.

Hurrah for random Jitters-and-Tim-Hortons outings with home friends.

So I guess I can say, now that I've told as many home friends face-to-face that I could gather 'round me, that my family's moving to the Syracuse area, late summer or early fall '06. Should be interesting, exciting, depressing, the works.

Gotta love how 'Nanda and I had the whole internet to play around with, but somehow still managed to go on the same site and get Daf the same Christmas present. ::giggles::

Shamelessly swiped from someone who links her LJ in her profile and therefore should not be surprised that I'm reading it, unless she doesn't know I have her AIM name, in which case she shouldn't post it on Facebook (this is how all my cyberspying begins...):

Take the first line(/sentence) of the first post from each month this past year.

January: Being with Tim and Tom was wonderful.
February: Ha to the above, ha.
March: Part of the problem I have been having, I think, is something in psych that gets called emotional loneliness--when you have a lot of friends, but few really special people.
April: Tonight's tip: before opening and heating the canned spaghetti-and-meatballs that you bought at the dollar store for seventy-five cents, read the label to make sure that you aren't consuming 104% of your Daily Value of sodium (no, they weren't that blatant: they divided the whole can into two small "servings").
May: My birthday (which was Monday) went pretty well, except for the weather.
June: Great Northern Gathering, June '05: simply amazing.
July: Well, this was a whirlwind weekend and no mistake.
August: I used to be a renegade, I used to fool around
September: There seem to be more drunks than usual this first weekend after classes.
October: [from a quiz] You are a: duckling!
November: Here's how I know I've been completely remiss in my cleaning for far too long: I've encountered two moldy dishes today, an additional one nearing that point, and the spoiled dregs (or so they must be, being four days or so past the due date) of a carton of milk, not to mention all the caked-on applesauce remains from who knows how long ago, though thank goodness homemade applesauce is apparently not good microbe food (they appear, however, to like ramen and German potato salad).
December: I've just found a pretty clear outline of what people have against the Narnia books, after my confusion over Phillip Pullman's charges.


Everything set up even remotely like that makes me read my archives a lot. I've noticed that most of my entries sound better when they've sat around for a couple of months than they did at the time or a day or two later.

-Laurel

In which the emetophobe gets a stomach virus

Best crazy news story in a long time: right here.

So, as the title states, I definitely spent very-early-Saturday sick. It was bad, but not so bad. All I need now is for someone else to be sick in my presence, and maybe I can hack it in Rescue Squad after all, not to mention be unofficially qualified to someday have a kid. ::giggles::

I don't really have anything else to say.

-Laurel

oh no oh no oh no

So the petition.

The director of residence life asked a few days ago if I'd meet with her to discuss my petition. Which I hadn't handed in yet. A bit odd. The e-mail said to contact her secretary to schedule a meeting.

So I did. She e-mailed me back times that Brenda was free, and because of finals and leaving campus, I had to e-mail back with my regrets, saying none of those were good for me.

Brenda arranged a meeting with Tom, since he's my RA. By the time they met today, I'd handed in the petition.

She proceeded to, from what I can tell, more or less yell at him.

I didn't respond to her e-mails, she said. (Luckily Tom knew I'd gone through the secretary, and defended me on that--but why didn't she know that herself?) I was misinformed, she said. I should have talked to her before I petitioned, she said. RAs elsewhere make even less.

Tom did some checking and says that he's submitted a chart of his findings as to comparable RA rates. Ours don't make more.

At the time, he told her that the hours were making scheduling difficult. She told him to quit if he didn't like it. She made it clear that she was angry and nothing was going to change. Though she said that my cover letter "softened" things a bit; I'd pointed out that the RAs hadn't asked me to petition and that I'd limited it as much as possible so as not to be aggressive. I'm not sure what she thinks was harsh, the situation or the words.

Please believe me, I did everything I could to be diplomatic except for consulting her first, and honestly, that didn't even cross my mind. Who asks for permission to start a petition, or discusses an issue on threat of one? I only petitioned for two days, and with no publicity except the announcement in Student Senate. Sixty-eight signatures, out of a student body of about 2500. That's less than 3% of the population. I doubt as many as 5% of the student body heard about it, no matter how you slice it or if some people told other people. The vast majority of campus doesn't even know that anything happened. How can she be this angry?

Gosh darn, I didn't do anything. I read the petition and had RAs read it to make sure it was okay. I wrote and rewrote everything, trying to sound courteous. I stopped petitioning once classes ended so I wasn't making a scene during testing. I didn't publicize it over e-mail, with a table, a sign, or anything. It went in my backpack. I only asked two of my classes, the Poder Latino kids, some Powell diners one night, and Student Senate. Almost everybody agreed; almost everybody signed. I didn't have to do much talking; most people were already ready for action. I told myself, because I was frightened of what I was doing, that if I did everything as respectfully and honestly as possible, she would have to respect that, she couldn't get angry, she couldn't be belligerent. Not to me, and certainly not to the RAs.

Well, I was wrong.

I'm not meeting with her now. Not in January, not ever. It would only make me cry, and I'm not doing that with her there. I told Abby I was so grateful when Senate applauded; she told me everyone's been angry about it, but I was the only one who'd tried to do something. If Brenda thinks I'm wrong, then if she finds statistics backing it up, I'm wrong. I'm okay with that. But it should be facts, not vitriol, and she should attack my document instead of me. I implied that she was being unreasonable, not that she was a bad person.

I hope I didn't screw it up for good for the RAs, most of whom didn't ask for my help, most of whom don't know I even tried.

-Laurel

::squ-eeee!::

Twenty folk dances.

That's how many I know well enough to teach, or at least to do automatically, with little to no brainpower at all. And even more where I'm on the threshold.

Last year at this time it was, like, eight. Things have really come together for me since then. I remember being so giddy spring semester, feeling the lightbulb come on.

And today I got two lovely mail-related surprises: 1) Tim's birthday present came here and on time, when I thought it was going to come late and to my house, so I got to give it to him while we were still here after all. 2) Packages received over Christmas break are not returned to sender; they simply sit in the mailroom. So should something come to my mailbox Saturday instead of tomorrow that I ordered (luckily it wasn't for a present to anyone), I don't have to worry about where it will end up.

So hurrah!

-Laurel

-Consumer plug-

Anyone looking for fun things with eyeballs on them should check out Mad Martian, because I ordered something off of the site recently, and there were two problems with the order (one totally my fault, one mostly their fault), but Mike Shkolnik, who runs the site (or at least does all the e-mail stuff, if there's anyone else helping), was unflaggingly patient, not to mention really prompt with e-mail.

So this is a grateful plug for him. His website's kind of slow to load, but patience will be rewarded, so if you're curious, go and see.

-Laurel

-only a ten-minute break, honest-

My dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Your anger can never make things right in God's sight.

-James 1:19-20, NLT

...Heed, drat you my tongue and typing fingers, heed. ::sigh::

Okay, so I've had one "final"--really a unit test, for Judaism/Islam. Went rather well on the whole, and I was out by 8:15, which gave me a glorious two-and-a-half hours (I think; we ran late) of folk dancing, the last meeting of the semester.

I have new folk dancing music, and that makes me all kinds'a happy.

I discovered that I actually like Sam's Club Southwest Black Bean and White Corn salsa (though its "mild" label is less true than I would like), which Sandra happily was looking to get rid of, and Todd graciously offered me his scoop-shaped tortilla chips, and Tom gave me the rest of the bottle of Pepsi he brought, and I have another bottle in my fridge (though the soda itself is flat as a pancake; I think it's been there since late October). So I am certainly fortified for the last three pages (six, seven, and eight) that I have to write of my research paper.

It's coming, slowly but surely. It helps that I put the ones that required a fair amount of research while writing first, because now I'm done with those and can focus on just one sentence-worth of history or biography and fly from there.

Still, it's nearly two-thirty, and at my normal research-paper rate of a page per hour, I'm not going to get too much sleep. Off to keep at it.

-Laurel

Given the raspberry...slushie...

Besides Tim wearing flip-flops there, the following brief scene is my official Moment of this semester's Midnight Breakfast:

[Laurel, attempting to show Albert how thick the fruit slushes are that they've gotten from Dan, holds the cup nearly perpendicular to her mouth.]

Laurel: See?

Albert: Hmm. It's kind of like Heinz ketchup...

[Just as this sentence is finished, gravity finally catches up with Laurel's slushie, and, in a very ketchup-like fashion, two-thirds of it slides out of the cup all at once. Part lands in wide-open mouth, but a majority ends up all over her face and tray, though somehow very little winds up on her clothing.]

I got slushied. Admittedly, it was pretty funny.

Okay, back to work.

-Laurel

-boom-

My enviro-sci homework took, no kidding, until 3:30 this morning. I think I started it at ten-something. Maybe eleven-something.

So I'm going to bed now, so I can get up at like six, so I can do my annotated bibliography due at 2:20 tomorrow. Yes, this means that I actually have to pick a topic tomorrow before the library opens, then go and get the books and read them enough to outline the project by 2:20. I don't want to talk about how doomed I am right now.

And I only got three petition signatures today because things just weren't working out with the asking. I only have, like, sixty-two signatures, which isn't nearly enough to be taken seriously (that's not even 5% of the school's population), but I refuse to spoil my Midnight Breakfast on Monday by having to play rebel. It's not going there, at least not with me on the other end. So what I'm going to do, I'm not entirely sure.

Except, you know, go to bed.

-Laurel

Sea of Faces

So I started a petition.

The resident assistants here, to make this long story just a little bit shorter, have had a fairly big increase this year in what's expected of them, and the practical upshot is that they're working an average of 13 hours more per week, but without any form of compensation whatsoever. This's been going on all semester, but I had no idea just how unfair this was until this weekend, talking to Tom about all they do now, and it tripped my injustice alarm enough to get me to promise him to write a letter to the Residence Life director about it.

The process was slowish, but after showing it to two RAs and Albert (once in a while we edit each other's work), today I started collecting signatures.

Fifty-nine. Pretty good for not even twelve hours' work.

About twenty of these came from Student Senate; I actually presented the document to the group at large tonight. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing; I hadn't planned on going even that public with the letter, 'cause totally the last thing anybody needs right now is to make Res-Life angry, so I'm trying to be super-respectful (they deserve that anyway, of course) and as low-key as possible. So no, I'm not mass-emailing campus about it, nor setting up a table. Just a grassroots kind of petition. ...Honestly, I don't need more than that; most people are indignant enough with the whole mess to sign it without my having to explain all the arguments I've made.

I looked out over Student Senate and tried to emphasize that I wasn't trying to pick a fight with Res-Life, but I wanted to show that a lot of people were concerned, and I encouraged everyone to read it all the way through and not feel pressured to sign.

I knew that I was probably giving up any element of surprise I would have had with Res-Life, and any claim to mega-low-keyness (since the minutes of Senate go out to all the clubs/orgs and several administrative-type groups), but I really wanted that chance at moral support, since I've been feeling more insecure about it than I expected. At the end of my address on the Senate floor, I realized my voice was quivering a bit (I was nervous), and, honestly, so was the rest of me.

But when I finished talking, the room broke into applause.

About twenty signatures I got, and a lot of comments and questions. Some of them were from Res-Life's Senate rep. I didn't know they had one. She said that she was responsible for reporting Senate goings-on to Res-Life, so she was going to have to tell them that there was a petition coming. But she'd be vague, she said: she hadn't read it, didn't know what was in it, hadn't signed it, that sort of thing.

Confused, I looked down at the paper. "Isn't this your signature here?"

"Yeah," she said, not batting an eye.

I decided to leave that one alone.

I'm glad that so far I haven't gotten any RAs telling me I'm overreacting, though I did have one look at me like he thought the CIA would come after him if he signed it. So far no actual RA has. An SA has, and a former RA or two. I've had RAs tell me they think I'm doing a good thing. But you can see why there hasn't been a petition from them by now. They draw paychecks from Res-Life and don't really feel comfortable with tangling with them. Plus Tom won't sign it because he doesn't want to dilute all the power of fifty-something non-RAs signing something on behalf of the RAs.

What also meant a whole lot was Amy's signature, since she's so quiet, deliberate, moral, and a lot of similar things. I have a lot of respect for her, and didn't want to come off looking hotheaded. She read the whole letter through very carefully, and then signed. Looks like a mark of success to me.

I do have one amendment that I'll have to attach before I hand it in; I made an argument that had to do with the number of alcohol-related Rescue Squad calls going up instead of down; the Squadians looked over their paperwork today and informed me that, to their own surprise as well, the number of alcohol calls has actually stayed the same. So that statement is inaccurate. But they haven't gone down, which's the important part of the point. So it's not a total concession.

Strange that a few people are looking at me like they're proud of me. It's not so profound to start a petition. I mean, I'm hoping I'm not pointed to as the ringleader and put in charge of talking to Res-Life, but if anyone has to deal with them personally, I know very well it's going to be me. It's not like this is going to make or break my reputation with the school in any way, nor the student body.

It's an odd experience, much more uncomfortable than exhilarating. I keep wishing it could end, that I could stop pestering everyone I see, like I'm some annoying salesman for what I see as justice. Clearly, I don't have the relish for politics that, say, Bono does. Though one petition is not to be blown out of proportion: this is Student Senate, not the U.S. Senate.

More to be chronicled as it unfolds, but here's one of the most interesting things in my life right now.

-Laurel

More on the previous

So for those interested in something more biographical:

non-argumentative C.S. Lewis stuff

For those interested in the argument over whether the Narnia books are supposed to be Christian allegory or just happen to have a possible Christ-figure in them (not the same thing, if you think about it):

as allegory

as non-allegory (not to mention that this's quite a contradiction of the most well-known Lewis biography [since SBJ is autobiography], which I've read, and am glad to hear that it may well exaggerate)

The other thing that's interesting is that I've been trying to follow the writings leading up to the movies, and so far the people most decidedly judgmental toward C.S. Lewis are his fellow British; the Americans seem far less scornful. I mean, they mention a lot of the same things, but draw different conclusions from them.

Or maybe more Americans have yet to write; we'll see.

I know this may be less interesting to some of my audience, but C.S. Lewis is one of my biggest heroes, so I'm fairly fascinated. Also, it's my blog. :-P

It's been a nice weekend; I did soooo much yesterday, holy cow. Attended many different events. But I'm still behind like whoa on all my reading, so I'm out.

-Laurel

::glances at floor:: Gosh, but my room is a mess.

I've just found a pretty clear outline of what people have against the Narnia books, after my confusion over Phillip Pullman's charges. You can read it here if you'd like.

Most of what they say isn't exactly unfair, but I think a little overpanicky. There's no evidence I've found in Lewis's real life of his being racist, and I've read a majority of his nonfiction, plus a fairly critical biography that didn't give any evidence of that that I could find. His opinion comes through clearly that we should think the best of people that we can, and I assume he would recognize that kind of incongruity.

As for the feminist criticism, they perhaps have more grounds for an argument, but I don't buy that it's either clear or intentional. I think that in Four Loves he underestimates female ability to have intelligent conversation with men, but you've got to give him this: it was, like, 1940 and 1950. If he made a mistake, it was a common one, and one, as the article points out, where he didn't have a lot on the other side to argue the point, having grown up in an all-male family for most of his life, going to an all-boys' school, working in a university where all the professors were men.

Anyway, I think everyone's underestimating Lucy, who is given several adventures of her own throughout the course of the books. Not to mention Joy in real life, whom I think once they were together would have caught him eagle-eyed at any misogyny and ridiculed it out of him, frankly. ::giggles::

And gracious, before this year I never heard of anyone getting angry over Susan's expulsion from Narnia, and all of a sudden J.K. Rowling and everyone else are taking it as a personal insult. ...After all, it is an allegory of Christianity. Sometimes the people we're closest to leave the faith; if you're trying to express that to a child, how do you do it? I don't think it was such a bad choice: if you're a kid, fully and innocently, and your big sister leaves you to go be pretty, of course that's going to mess with your world. ...Like, it never occurred to me to think it harsh that they didn't try to go and win her back, but I didn't interpret it as being shut out of heaven, good gracious.

I mean, I read all the books in ninth grade, old enough to pick faults in them, and I never felt slighted. Perhaps this's because I tend to assume males and females are equal unless given blatant cause to think otherwise: I've never been a good feminist reader because I don't remember having it any harder because I was a girl. Sure, cutting your hair short is not always the wisest move, but I got the same criticism that long-haired boys used to get: accusation of looking like the other sex. They don't scold boys because it's an insult to look like a girl, do they? Looks to me like the scorn comes from violating the norm, confusing the gender roles, period. If there were a third gender, I don't think people would be any more comfortable with anybody looking like anybody else.

Anyway, that's my rant, and I'm late for my APO thingy.

-Laurel

One for the DDR fans

The Bemanistyle simfile database is back up. I don't know when that happened, but it makes me glad.

-Laurel

"Had another Thanksgivin' dinner that couldn't be beat..."

My family really did end up having, essentially, two Thanksgiving dinners: the official with Uncle Bert and Nancy, and then such a pile of leftovers today at Aunt Lisa and Uncle Paul's that it was pretty much the feast all over again. Only mine came in the form of Uncle Paul's amazing turkey soup, and I dipped lots of bread in the broth.

Here's what I want to know, to gauge just how crazy a child I really was:

In elementary school, did you people out there in Blog-Reading Land ever spell words wrongly on purpose on assignments, just to not be the only one without red-pen corrections? I'll accept other-subject equivalents, like sabotaging your own math problems.

...And if so, was anyone in the first grade? Or can someone perhaps beat that?

-Laurel

Ooh, playplay!

You have to play this game right ruddy now. Or at least when you have a spare half-hour. No matter who you are.

Grow!

My brother and I played them together and beat them. He gave me hints on the two he'd done, and we beat the Version 3 one together. Yay!

The trip home was simple. Ooh, and I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was good, though obviously not as good as the book. Only it was annoying when Dumbledore said "Drumstrang." It's Durmstrang, and that's important, not to mention that it took me a long time to get: it's a spoonerism of sturm und drang, which means "storm and urge." Besides being a German literary movement, it's also an old psychological term referring to adolescence. Like, surly teenagers. Such as those learning to be wizards.

I thought it was cool, anyway. Assuming I haven't told everybody already.

Anyway, go play the game, and have a happy Thanksgiving.

-Laurel

Snow globe

So it turns out that I stayed on campus for the night more or less needlessly: the reason I didn't leave this afternoon, or at least the surface reason, was that I had class at night, 7:20-9:10. My professor said so, and it was right on the syllabus and everything. Of the nineteen in the class, about seven of us showed up. But Dr. Peterson never did. We waited fifteen minutes or so and then gave up; another class was taking place just a couple of doors down, so it's not like the department really gave a crap about the "no classes after 5:20" rule.

So I went back to my room and took a call from Kristin, and then we did folk dancing in the lounge. Only four of us: Tom, Mellie Mae, Emily, and me. Really three-and-a-half of us, since Emily mostly didn't dance. Tom and I ended up doing a one-pair Salty Dog Rag, which was fun for us and amusing for our spectators. We ended the night pretty early, though, and didn't even do Ajde Jano.

Emily's dad came partway through; the two of them leave for Massachusetts tomorrow morning. He didn't dance, nor did we expect him to, but he's really nice, down-to-earth with a good, kind of gentle sense of humor. He and Emily clearly get along well, and they both like animals. I talked to them for a while after Mellie Mae had left and Tom had gone upstairs to work.

Then I took the rest of the cornbread I made earlier tonight to Tim (and Katie), and here I am, watching them and their other lab partner boy work like sixty on their stuff. Actually, mostly I'm not watching, but reading A Walk Across America (after Linked Arms, might's well keep with the Allegany County sort-of-theme, right?).

It's a cold, on-and-off-snowy night, and I can't get to my coat until the 27th at least, 'cause I left it in Ada's apartment after the brothering this past Sunday (I must have; people saw me wear it there, but I haven't seen it since, and I didn't go anywhere else 'til I missed it but my dorm, where it clearly isn't), and she and her roommate left for their respective homes the next day. I have a coat at home I can use, but in the meantime, while I'm here, I'm wearing Tim's. I don't know what I'd do if he wasn't around to go around in fleeces, which he insists are warm enough, even though the wind cuts into me like it's ice held to my ears.

It's pretty around campus, but quiet and solitary, and for someone like me, for whom part of the comfort equation is signs of life (I don't need the presence of people so much as just to know they're there, and especially that they're awake; I like being alone by choice but hate it any other way), I'm fighting my desire to go back and sleep in favor of staying here, where it's bright, and where people are. I like staying late on campus much better during Senior Week.

But I was glad to have this excuse to hang out on campus without having any work to do; I was glad class was supposed to happen tonight and gave me the excuse. ...Foolish me, I also thought I'd get to hang out with Tim, even just reading side by side, instead of having him working literally all day and all night, something like fifteen hours' worth by now, when you subtract mealtimes. But it was nice to talk to Emily and her dad. She seems happier around him. That's good, too.

Time to go back to my book, though. I'm just in the next building over from my room when we do go back, and there'll be a warm room and gingersnaps waiting for me when I have to go.

-Laurel

::moment of randomness!::

Here, for your enjoyment and possibly mild disturbance, is a great big huh? of a webpage. Like, I get it, but even so, huh?

http://www.tech.org/~stuart/semper_ubi_sub_ubi.html

-Laurel

Swiped

Ripped shamelessly from the Dave Barry Blog, which posted it as the "Sensible Headline of the Day":

(It's a good one.)

So okay, things're all right. I really don't have much else to say about school. On another note, Daf posted up, on Facebook, a picture of her, Zinni, 'Nanda, and me after the Monkees concert in the summer of '01. It's a cute picture, but I'd mostly managed to forget how hideous my hair still was at the end of tenth grade. Ruddy crud, my bangs were not only wavy, but triangular. Oh, well, every group needs one dorky-looking person. It's that way in all the books and stuff. :-P

(And for that reason, I can't help resenting, just a little, that the Harry Potter movies never gave Hermione big teeth and hair. 'Course, I can't help resenting just a little in the books that Eloise Midgin is never given any more in the way of character traits than a lot of zits, but maybe she'll show up later.)

Editorial over with; I'm out.

-Laurel

-momentito-

Yesterday Tim, Albert, Chris, and I went for wood-fired pizza out in the woods (long story). It was fairly expensive but incredibly filling; I didn't eat another meal for six hours thereafter. So hey.

Much of today simply kicked my butt, but I am in high spirits and will give it another shot tomorrow.

And I have this bad feeling like I'm about to develop a Milk Duds addiction. Somebody please hide all the money that I don't need for my phone bill. :-P

-Laurel

Questions, ponderances, boring you silly with my ramblings...

Remember when (it was my freshman year; I don't know if they did it before that) Poder Latino's posters all said "I like raisins"? What the heck was that all about? Did anyone ever learn?

I understand that Tom and Emily's breakup was not my fault or anything, but I have realized that anger really kills. Like, even to the day of the breakup I was all snide about them (in large part to no one but myself, but that doesn't excuse it), as even to a couple of days before Heather's death I was all cranky about her and the other crooked-phis being such a huge pain in the e-board's collective neck, and it totally killed, in both cases, a lot of the kindness I should have been showing them in their last days. Each time, I reformed at just about the last minute, but still. I should straighten up, 'cause for one thing, things're a lot less permanent than I assume.

Anydangway, last night I got sick of being on campus (not really sure why, inasmuch as I was at Tolhurst's house with the rest of ENGL 308 on Friday night; the Chinese food was delicious) and fled late at night to Wal-Mart, where I bought, well, mostly craft stuff. I'm still trying to make my room look less stark. Last night I tried tackling my mirror, which is quite plain and has no frame at all. So I outlined it with ribbon and put little flower-things in the corners (this involved a lot of Scotch tape and a stick of chewed gum). It looks pretty good, but if anyone has a flash of brilliance and wants to tell me what would be even better to do, I'm open to that.

I still have no idea what to do about the walls. I've hung all the posters I own, and it's not even like the room is that big, but there's still all this negative space. ...I've gotten used to living in the smallest room I've ever had, but the honors house is lookin' better and better for next year.

I also broke down while at Wal-Mart and bought candy. Milk Duds make a horribly good second breakfast, let me tell you. I don't remember them being so big. That's a good thing, though.

Okay, time to go.

-Laurel

-guilt trip-

I've been angry the past few days at Tom and Emily, but especially Emily, for her switching out of our Bible study, fussing at folk dancing, giving APO the run-around, and cutting out of SonLife, all because she was miserable any time she couldn't be around Tom.

There've been a few times where I've said to myself that the best proof of what was really important to her would have to come if Tom broke up with her. See then what she'd come to.

I never said it to anyone else. But tonight...he did. Emily came to my room to find me.

Good heavens forgive me; I didn't mean it.

-Laurel

What I learned in enviro-sci

According to a factoid in my textbook, the world's richest 20% (of the total huge population, I assume) consumes about 80% of the world's resources currently being used, and that America accounts for 25% of that, despite accounting for less than 5% of that rich population.

Enough percentages; I don't like that paragraph either. Watch this. It's amazing. And it, unlike what I've just posted above, is hopeful. Look how easy it is to help. Even if you're not a star.

World on Fire

-Laurel

'Cause you totally needed another way to waste your time, right?

http://www.sharpieminigame.com/

I got to the last block on Level 11, dang it. I don't like the "enter your name and e-mail" crud that they put you through to get to the game, but honestly I fudged it. Which complicated things when I won a mini-Sharpie partway through. ::giggles::

Anyway, whatever. The game is all kinds'a fun, and you should play if you find yourself with a spare half-hour.

-Laurel

-sport spoiled-

I know that this is going to sound snotty and perhaps hypocritical out of me, but there are certain things that are a heck of a lot more enjoyable and less complicated before you start adding intragroup romance into them, and one of them is APO, and the other one is folk dancing.

Neither one is a dating service or a tryst-spot, holy cow.

-Laurel

Chris Rice and Michael W. Smith...jumping rope. Sa-weet. ::laughs::

Okay, Chris Rice's blog is now going in my link section. It is just too good not to read.

Granted that he's also one of my favorite singers, so I may well be biased.

-Laurel

In Which Laurel Comes to Her Senses, Does As She's Supposed To, and Life Improves

Dishes (save three cups from last time and now my ramen bowl and spoon) are done, and much of my laundry is as well. Recycling has been taken downstairs where it belongs. Almost all of the questionable food has been removed (still gotta deal with those pickles).

Have, as aforementioned, begun to get an APO-related grip. Still havin' to work with the chapter on all manner of headaches. Still havin' to work against chapter apathy on a lot of things. But I'm not at people's throats anymore, and they're not at mine. We (the brotherhood) had a stinkin' long but very reasonable discussion yesterday about how to deal with the particularly troublesome pledge that's done some particularly troublesome things. We ended up coming up with what appears to be a good solution, including both accountability and second-chanceness. Said pledge's response has been good thus far.

The thing is that we're all supposed to be united by our desire to serve others, and in just about every case (including that of the questionable pledge), this is true, but the problem starts in that many cases that's about all we have in common. So any question involving any form of gray area ends up with like nine different projected answers, and because we're all such dedicated people, we have very specific ideas of what has to be part of the answer, and we're humongous pains in the butt.

But with a combination of calmness, debate, dedication to facts, bylaws, parallel reasoning, majority rule, and the Colonel's secret blend of herbs and spices...we're getting there. Perplexed, but not in despair, if the phrase is not irreverent.

Bible study has been simply amazing and I love everyone in it. And tonight I got to send music to Zinni, and that was just good.

I have been getting a half-decent amount of sleep and laying off the caffeine.

What I have yet to do is catch up on my work. But I'm doing that, too.

I'm reading Linked Arms (Thomas Peterson) in my spare time, and it's kind of inspiring to see that the kind of stuff we're doing in APO really might help us deal with real-life difficult situations.

I should finish Ishmael, though, since Tim has started Screwtape Letters. Fair is fair.

-Laurel

In Which Laurel's New Pile of Dishes, Dirty From Breadmaking, Still Do Not Get Washed

Here's what I did today instead of washing my dishes from last night:

-Woke up at about nine, to have my parents call at about nine-ten, telling me that they were coming down to visit a day earlier than planned

-Entertained said parents from quarter after ten until nearly one PM

-Went to lunch with said parents, Lily Jo, and Lily Jo's parents (the 5th was her 21st birthday)

-Went to a place that, if I described it, would more or less let out the secret of where I'm going to school (since this is a private blog, the odds of my being stalked are slim, and anyone who really wanted to would prolly be smart enough to figure out where I am, since I can think right now of a way to do it, but hey, might's well have a blog mystique)

-Said goodbye to parents and relatives and had a long nap

-Ate dinner and read (a pleasure all round)

-Discovered that karate is, indeed, cancelled for the very semester that I'd planned to take it (spring of this academic year), and picked dance instead (this is how you know that Laurel has progressed from high school to college: she is signing up for fundamentals-of-dance, by choice, ruddy crud)

-Listened to NPR's Says You! for the first-ever time, courtesy of Albert and his computer (it was fun)

-Decided to run to the campus center to pick up a couple of APO things and maybe look into the swing dance going on

-Encountered the Prinze-Nadwornys(!) at the swing dance (they moved to Rochester, as a matter of fact, but come here on weekends), whom I have not seen in person for--::does math::--holy cow! Just about six months! Wow, I totally didn't expect that. Okay, so I hung out with Brian and Raffi and talked, which was supercool, and...

-stayed after they left just to watch, which was very enjoyable, and the music was good and made me think of hearing high school jazz band, and people swing-dancing at the chicken barbecue.

So here I am now, talking to Erik and Glenn and considering going to bed.

-Laurel

::humming "Twilight Zone" theme::

So this comic on Toothpaste for Dinner is just like some of the stuff we were talking about in environmental science today. And I think that's weird.

-Laurel

Starting-point

So I confronted a particular APO member and friend of mine that had said a thing or two about the chapter to Kristin that I didn't particularly appreciate, but I did it over AIM and as detachedly and non-judgementally as possible, deciding to get as many facts as possible before I started arguing.

It worked. I can hardly believe how well. Like, I did have to convince him that I wasn't about to yell at him, or trying to pin anything on him, and I suppose I had that coming, considering that I tend to be pretty passive-aggressive about APO stuff: you get one or two hints, one of them sure to be blatant if also polite, and then if you blithely keep doing whatever-it-is you get the verbal smackdown. I do realize that that needs to stop.

But we ended up having this conversation about something else, having calmly diffused the other situation, where I realized that I've been overestimating the general apathy/corruption level of the chapter, such that I've ended up playing devil's advocate to the e-board for someone who did something inappropriate, thinking that this was just Tim and Tom reacting, when in fact most of the chapter is pretty riled up about it.

Now, though the e-board as a whole is pretty out of touch with the rest of the chapter (goshdarn, for people so wary of administration, we on e-board're pretty good at emulating their evils sometimes, and that's really frustrating), I also learned that I'm a lot more so than I thought. Granted that I wasn't there for the incident in question that everyone's bothered by, and so I was working only from a description, but I seriously thought that that was something that, while certain to touch off Tim and Tom, whose Sam-the-Eagle acts really get to me sometimes, everyone else was going to shrug off. Turns out I was wrong, and the rest of the chapter was pretty bothered as well.

This is a good sign, inasmuch as it's not such a callous world after all, and there's less moral division between chapter members than people have been implying, even if the e-board and chapter need way better communication (though the e-board also needs it internally like whoa).

A better sign, although I know that anonymity has obscured much of this entry, is that I managed (through, I'm serious, a lot of God-help) to have a difficult conversation without losing my temper, which lends a lot of hope that maybe this career in community service administration is a feasible long-term idea, not to mention that staying in APO and not hating the guts out of it is a short-term possibility. I have a lot to learn, but this is a good new beginning.

-Laurel

Livin' in the Fridge (this entry not really for the squeamish)

Here's how I know I've been completely remiss in my cleaning for far too long: I've encountered two moldy dishes today, an additional one nearing that point, and the spoiled dregs (or so they must be, being four days or so past the due date) of a carton of milk, not to mention all the caked-on applesauce remains from who knows how long ago, though thank goodness homemade applesauce is apparently not good microbe food (they appear, however, to like ramen and German potato salad). I managed to do the worst of the dishes, except the molding one that I just found 30 minutes ago and haven't had the fortitude to remove from my refrigerator.

Here's how I know that this is far too much spoilage to find and deal with all in one day: I looked at myself in the mirror and, for a fleeting part of a second, mistook some of the larger and rounder of my zits as a series of bacteria colonies on what's apparently the agar of my complexion. And so zits are, in a way, but this was ickier.

Flashback to when Albert came over early for Terri's wedding and every piece of bread in the house had rotted through, leaving us to Easy Mac it.

Well, this's bad-dreamlike.

-Laurel

Laurel as temple of God = spiritual fixer-upper?

Ech.

What a week it's been for moral failure and complete interpersonal weirdness.

I feel like sighing and slumping down and sitting on the nearest floor, with my back against the nearest perpendicular surface, and staying there until I get hugged, but I've gotten much hugging tonight and it didn't hit the tired failing lonely spot, so I'm not entirely certain what will.

Guess I'll wait for the tide. And go to bed in the meantime. I guess it's not a good idea for me to have any caffeine, since last night I had only about two mouthfuls a little after dinner and was thereby wired for half the night, which made a lot of today interesting.

I'm not anything to be worried over; it sounds like I'm depressed, but I'm really more overwhelmed than anything.

-Laurel

"Think I'll wait for the tide..."

I am back from the Stratford Theatre Festival up in Canada, to which I went with various English-interested friends (since we weren't all majors/minors). We saw Hello, Dolly!, As You Like It (as re-set in the 1960s, which actually worked quite well), and The Tempest.

More on those later, perhaps, but here's a question I came up with on the trip that, even though it isn't really theatre-related, is one that I pondered enough to include here:

What exactly is deliverance? Is it really a complete taking-away of something standing in your path or threatening you? Or is it still that God brings you right up to the point where you're free, but you have to take that final step?

I'd always thought it was the first, but I'm going to have to look at some of the stories again to make sure.

-Laurel

In Which Laurel Has Had Caffeine, But Luckily Has Also Gone to Folk Dancing, Leading (Perhaps) to a Surge in Endorphins Just as the Caffeine Subsides

Course schedules for next semester are out, which means that I am one happy nerd. The riveting questions this time around (since there are always some):

-Do I want to take Text and Image (which, as creative-nonfiction [which I really like, 'cause it's so close to personal essay] done alongside photography students, sounds sa-weeet) badly enough to get up at 7:00 for it, as it's an 8:20 class, a beginning time that I thought I'd never have to suffer? Does it make the situation better or worse that it only meets twice a week (i.e. will that save me from utter doom because staying up 'til one every night, as I'll probably do, won't matter quite as much; or will it aggravate any attempt I would make to actually start going to bed at a more decent hour)?

-If I lobbied for an ocean science class that has finally gone through, should I therefore take it so as not to be an ungrateful snot, even though I no longer need it, and even though I'm possibly going to kill my GPA for something that doesn't matter anymore (Otto is a spectacular person, but his tests are apparently truly evil)?

-Should I wait around for a possibly-better psych class than Cognitive Processes? ...But what better class (that fulfills the category requirement), and what would I put in that space instead?

-Should I rejoin Chamber Singers for the spring semester, now that I'll probably have only one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays? But what if the music is as boring as I think it might be, and Luanne is as stark raving mad as ever? ...I miss the music. I don't miss the class. Dilemma here.


Ah, the delicious mystery of another semester. Sad that this is one of only three more times I'll get to do it.

-Laurel

Just to prove that I read Evelyn's LJ?

Jumping on her link bandwagon once again:

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com

Go and click, 'cause that's totally the only chance they have at making it to their goal in only another week.

I don't have much to say about Heather's stuff this weekend right now, or possibly ever. I discovered that I can't sing Spanish songs that mention death without crying, so maybe I shouldn't be in the front row. And that it doesn't really look like Tim is crying even when he is.

We went to her gravesite, the better fraction of APO. It's nice, and in a nice spot, though everything'll be better when some grass starts growing on it and she gets a headstone instead of just a marker (they have to wait a year, it turns out, for the ground to firm up, else the stone'll sink down).

I got to see cider pressed on Sunday, which was supercool.

Other than that, I've basically been sucking at life for the past couple of days because I'm substituting caffeine for some of the sleep I should be getting. I've decided that the first bad sign of my being sleep-deprived is my drinking soda with caffeine. The second bad sign (this is when you know it's worse) is me being cranky when my caffeine wears off, instead of just tired. The third and worst bad sign of sleep deprivation is when I'm cranky even when I'm on said caffeine. Right now I'm somewhere between steps one and two, but I'd been, as of last night, between two and three. If you're ever there when I hit three, sedate me and put me to bed; the world will be a better place.

Speaking of, I've got to be up at 7:30 tomorrow, and it's 12:35. And I'm behind on my Hawthorne/Melville homework already. Crud.

Oh, and iharthdarth is ending. And I think that's sad. :(

-Laurel

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum

So Heather's service is tomorrow(/today), and the Babes are singing "Ave Maria." We're the ones left from the ACDA; we went with her, and when we got together after to sing stuff for the choir concert, she starting calling us the Babes, like we were another female acapella group. There were five of us, counting her, SSAA, but Heather and Barbara were both second sopranos. Heather is gone and there's still one to a part--Jen, Barbara, me, and then Lydia (listed highest to lowest).

So we're singing "Ave Maria," which she was going to sing this summer at her--I think cousin's--wedding, but just SA.

I've had little time to prepare, so today at practice I was the only alto (Lydia was on a thing for APO, actually) and a mediocre one at that, but tonight Tim and I went into the dance studio and he rode his unicycle and I played the harmony line to "Ave Maria" with the sheet music on the piano in there until I more or less got it all.

I'm all in favor of the service, but all of a sudden I don't think it'll mean as much to me as I thought it would. Like, as weird as funerals are, and as much a shell as people in caskets look, at least funerals seem complete. Tomorrow, her family will be there, but Heather will not. And somehow that makes things empty, like a gathering of--of whom? I keep thinking of shipwreck survivors somehow.

It's the living talking solely to the living, though we feel like the music should talk to her. Like somehow that should transcend the divide itself, even though we don't expect the speeches to.

Sudden death must be kindest for the dier, but I can't help thinking it's cruelest for the survivors. People talk about how much pain you watch in a slow death, the hope dangled in front of you for the person's life that then gets snatched away, but at least it happens slowly enough that you can understand. It's straight cause-effect, and even the death has some measure of logic, even when the sickness doesn't. Once given terminal sickness, no matter how illogical in itself, death by it becomes logical. But diabetes isn't terminal, and you get no warning from Rochester of a heart attack some 100 miles away. There were warning signs, but they didn't add up. Not to something so soon, certainly.

My heart goes out to Chris, Jenny, and Allison, familiar with emergency situations, who know far better than I what those last horrible moments must have been like: where my mind has some hazy thought of Heather's eyes shutting, maybe an EKG flat-lining, theirs must have a whole sequence of events from a completely different perspective: from the ambulance tones going off in some faceless EMT's pocket to the paperwork for certifying the death. She died at the hospital; nothing I read said "taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead." That means that somewhere is a doctor or a similar figure who tried to help someone beyond helping. I couldn't do it. I'd blame myself. There's already enough I blame myself for.

I'm appalled at how little I've learned from all of this. I mean, I've learned an incredible amount about the aftermath, what kinds of things happen, that whole psychological thing. But I haven't learned to be any kinder or more patient or more appreciative or less argumentative or jealous or nasty, and realizing that doesn't even inspire me to try to change it. And I'm really frustrated by that. Just what will it take, if someone I almost roomed with dropped dead and I'm just as self-centered as ever? How can you go bigger than "maybe you should be kind because at least they're there to give you the choice?" There's no stronger dosage, except maybe threatening me with death and then letting me live. If I'm stupid enough with this, I'm stupid enough with essentially everything.

It's not that I think that Heather died because God wanted me to learn something. (Hmph, maybe my not believing that is why I haven't changed.) I understand that this is much larger than I am on my own. But here I am with it anyway. And now what?

The service is tomorrow. I imagine I'll write a thing on that. But after that, you out there in Readerland should get another long hiatus from these horrible rants. They're valuable to me in retrospect, but I also realize that outside of recording some of my many thoughts, they're completely futile. They don't make me kinder and they don't bring her back.

But it's not even "back" I want; I want it never to have been. Though how would I be any better towards her, with no motive? Even the threat of death, in her, I doubt I'd have learned from in any lasting way.

Sleep now; there's much to do tomorrow, and I don't think I want to do any of the prepwork at all. Maybe I'll sleep until noon, just because it's a Saturday and I can. That'd be nice.

-Laurel

Vah! Denuone Latine loguebar?

Your Latin/geeky education for the day:

http://www.lipsum.com/

-Laurel

Interrobang

I realize that I haven't read LWW since the ninth grade, but can somebody tell me what Phillip Pullman is on about here?

Also, the way they summarize His Dark Materials...I've only gotten to the end of the first book. Is that really an accurate description itself? It doesn't sound quite like that so far.

-Laurel

Another update from home

So today the obligatory shopping got done. I ended up with a winter coat (not the warmest ever, but it was the only one to fit all the other qualifications [hood, good fit, decent pockets, long enough, not too puffy or quilted, not easily stainable], so whatever), curtains (boy what a pain that whole thing was), and Chris Rice's Amusing (yaaaaaay!), to which I'm now listening. He's all up into love songs this album, which's weird inasmuch as a) it's always been straight Christian stuff before, and b) he isn't/wasn't married. But I like it. "Love Like Crazy" is going straight onto my "Save-the-World Mix" CD if I ever make it.

I started learning "Ave Maria" for next Saturday. It's okay. Harder than I expected, especially for a song with only two voice parts, but most of that is because the Latin is a big pain, even though it's pretty. Dangit, another reason I should've hung out at Zinni's church more often. :-P

Dinnertime.

-Laurel

Oooooh...ahhhhh...

So I figured that it was time for a template change, since I think I had that other one for at least two-and-a-half years. Jeesh, I've seen blogs not even survive that long.

The good thing is, as much as I loved the look of the black-gray-white one, it went a little too well with my more melodramatic postings. This one will hopefully help keep some balance, whatever I mean by that.

I'm home on midsemester break, and it's really nice. My brother managed to lightly sprain his ankle in gym on Friday; he likes to make jokes about all the nice things he would be doing for the rest of the family if only he had more freedom of movement (clean his room, pick things up, etc.). He hung around on couches and in chairs with bags of frozen vegetables on the swollen part; today he was better still, though with a bit of a limp. My mom made fondue for dinner, which I don't think we've ever done before. I was impressed that I liked it so much, given that there was a noticeable amount of wine in it (usually that ruins it for me; it did ruin it for the bro), but the fondue was good stuff.

So was the macaroni salad at Dinosaur BBQ today, even though I normally can't stand anything tainted with mayo; my family went, and we brought Erik along. After that, all of us (except Dad) played two games of Chrononauts. My brother won both, extending his lifetime streak to, I think, 5-0-1 (the tie is from when he was about to win, I stopped him, and in his show of anguish he swept the cards off the table and the game had to come to an end). He just doesn't seem to lose that game, ever.

Even before dinner and Erik, he, Mom, and I went and saw Wallace and Gromit. It was very cute and intelligent, but wow did they get away with a lot, for a G-rated movie. Oh, well, I guess.

The garage got painted for the first time practically ever(!) and looks fabulous. I really love how open and airy our house is, except in winter, when that kind of makes everything seem (and feel) cold. You really want a house like the twins' for autumn and winter, all coziness and warm-colored shades of wood.

In an effort to make my dorm room look a little less stark, I'm going to attempt on Monday to get some curtains, or at least some material to drape in that general area. Let's see, the window is 40.5 inches wide, 58.5 inches long...

Everyone on campus appears bored out of their minds. So to them I say, hey, should've come home with me, because nobody did. :-P

And could I have used the word "cool" any more times in the last part of my previous entry? Sheesh.

Yup. This's the part where I get off the computer and sleep so I'm not a zombie in church tomorrow.

International Moment of Frustration Scream Day

(really. It's on wellcat.com and everything.)

This has been, like, my Semester of Rage, and I don't really know what to do about it. Just deciding that I won't get angry at people apparently doesn't have much effect, because I have like no tolerance for people. Notice that I don't say "stupid people," because people who say that they hate stupid people also make me angry, since they come off as really obnoxiously prideful. My main complaints are against closed-mindedness and lack of follow-through, both of which find a lot of material, especially within APO.

Yeah, I don't know what to do about it. Find a new set of friends springs to mind, but I believe too much in the buried brilliance of APO as an organization, not to mention that I like a lot of the people I associate with most often. So...crud.

But I went to Poder Latino tonight for the first time. That was cool. Conrado's been really nice to me all year, which's cool, 'cause he was one of the coolest people I met in Spanish classes. I got a button; it says soy amada, "I am loved." Which I am, friends included in that equation.

-Laurel

Things I'm thinking about a lot lately

-In Bible study we just got through the Book of James, which is super-cool, and there's this part (4:13-16) where it basically says not to have too much confidence in what you're doing in the upcoming days, because you don't even know if you'll be living past today. I've been thinking about Heather a lot when I read that part, and I wasn't going to mention that, because a) that's pretty bummerly, and b) I've talked about her a lot already and didn't want to be like, well, *I've* got the biggest application of all, but I didn't have to say anything--Joe brought it up himself, looked right at me.

-I believe that all of the chaos of the past year really has made people think about themselves differently. What makes me think so? Well, I've been meaning to bring this up--last year, beginning of sophomore year, when I went to the Maura Cullen presentation as an OG, and she asked who had grown up with "more than enough," I had stood, and only about two other people had stood with me; everyone else stood for "enough." I felt really stupid for not understanding that she'd really meant--or at least by the result I'd assumed so--"whose families are wealthy," so this year I figured I'd have to fix it. Well, this year my eyebrows shot up about an inch when she did "more than enough" and everyone I watched stood up, except for Evan, whose family was poor. Even he upgraded to "enough." I sat there through the whole thing, too surprised to know what to do.

-"Liberal" does not mean "non-Christian." Some people are liberal based on their takes on environmentalism, gun control, and the death penalty, not abortion and/or gay marriage. And I know Christian conservatives, really strong ones, who support some of those things. And, like, I have read really good-quality, logical arguments in favor of some political idea that I was all ready to give a respectful nod to, only to find the authors completely ruining them in the very last sentence by playing the "liberal media" card. And by the way, liberals are being pretty darn obnoxious themselves; every mention in my English classes of injustice, invasion, etc. is getting that, well, where are we seeing *that* these days, boys and girls? Instead of things that might actually be helpful, like writing letters and holding info sessions, instead of trying to spit in the government's eye, which of course is oh so educated and mature. ...Will everyone please just get a life? Edging toward the middle is not a sign of weakness, people.

Okay, time for homework.

-Laurel

::giggle!::

There's actually, on Quizilla (this is not my fault; by extension I got it off of Chelsea's LJ), a quiz for what book of the Bible you are(?!).

So I'm Romans. Which makes me nerdily happy, even though the accompanying description is a little too accurate, because that's like my favorite one.

Once again, the internet swoops down to show everyone how utterly weird and how utterly normal they are.

-Laurel

Quotations

A brother and a sister...grow to a certain age sharing everything. They have read the same comics, climbed the same trees, been pirates or spacemen together, taken up and abandoned stamp-collecting at the same moment. Then a dreadful thing happens. One of them flashes ahead--discovers poetry or science or serious music or perhaps undergoes a religious conversion. His life is flooded with the new interest. The other cannot share it; he is left behind. I doubt whether even the infidelity of a wife or husband raises a more miserable sense of desertion or a fiercer jealousy than this can sometimes do.

-The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis


I've been pretty cranky this weekend with lots of people and things who seem determined to make their lives easier or more pleasant at my expense. Which is a pretty disgusting, false-martyrly position to take on the matter.

So here is a posting inspired by Kristin's away message, which made things feel a little better.


O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

-Walt Whitman


So begins the last week before break. Hope people do decide to come home with me (I've asked John, Tim, and Lily Jo, but I doubt Tim will). It's not that I don't think my parents and I could spend quality time together, but, among other things, it's just happier all around when the house is noisy with people playing DDR and talking to my parents, and my mom has appreciative college-age mouths upon which to lavish lasagna and breakfast food (actually, Friday's project is probably going to be cheese fondue...).

Besides, my brother likes John a lot, and it's mutual. He's still pretty lukewarm on Tim, but I suppose I'd be a little wary of any girl cuddle-nuzzling my brother, so that's fair enough. ...I know that half of his niceness when I've got friends in the house (though it's usually limited to guy-friends, come to think of it) is fueled by wanting new people to play games with, and part of the rest is him rolling his eyes and asking himself what his hospitality-impaired sister would do to entertain these people for so many days if it weren't for him to move things along. But, well, it's hard to argue with that.

I played DDR tonight for the first time all semester. It was good.

Good night.

-Laurel

< <

Heh. Maybe my subconscious wants me to join Rescue Squad: there've been vomiting people in my dreams these days (not, like, a lot, but on more than one occasion), which's a pretty gross concept, and I've been pretty okay with it.

But I have a feeling I'd have to see the real thing to know for sure. I mean, I'm less of a phobe since elementary school, but granted that that's also the last time I had a stomach virus, though not the last time I was sick.

This is a disgusting entry, and I will stop it here. ::giggles::

And the next one's probably going to be about food.

-Laurel

> >

I guess I take back the thing about Tom.

-Laurel

//

It's four months tomorrow since Heather's death; last time I wondered something like that, it was only about two. I'm...worse than surprised, but not quite shocked.

I say this because it's rainy and everyone's trying to get stuff together for Heather's memorial, even though it isn't for...oh, 15 days. That's fewer than I expected.

I still get these moments, like I got one today, where I remember how ubiquitous she was, and have this horrified moment all over again that she's dead.

Sometimes they make me think of this Newsboys song that I've never heard, I've only read the lyrics to, called "Elle G." I've known it since...oh, probably the summer, maybe even longer, but it wasn't until today that I realized you're supposed to read the word as elegy.

The lyrics (here, if you're in that kind of mood), about a suicide, don't fit, and yet they do. Week nine: I am writing in the sand/Any little clue that could help me understand...

Who it actually fits completely is Rachele, the girl from my church who actually did commit suicide by train, but I knew neither her nor the song at the time, only her brothers, and them but little.

So much has gone on this semester that I don't know how to sketch out, or can't.

I guess I don't do well with uncertainty, and I still have homework, so I'll leave off here.

-Laurel

"You just want somebody listenin' to what you say/It doesn't matter who you are."

In geologic time we aren’t even a speck of dust. Things that take millions of years to form, we take for granted. I suppose I must be very fascinated with time. I like to know what a river is going to eventually do, given enough time. I like to think about how mountains got to be there and what damage can be done in a second of time and what things take billions of years to form.

-Zinni, posting tonight


That was interesting and made me think. I guess I'm not as interested in time. And geology as a major, unlike Zinni, is not for me. Lots of times I'm simply not interested in the non-living. The river, the mountain, so what? What I want to know is, who's near the water and the mountain, and what are they doing in or with them, and how is that working out? If she's fascinated with time, I guess I'm fascinated with human connection. Is that why I'm so drawn to stories? I don't think I ever thought to ask, until late last year or early this, why. It's always been enough to know that I am.

I'm meeting lots of new people this year, but I guess the one to whom "friend" is most strongly applicable is Liz. I hardly know how that started--the best of it is barely a week old--probably something about finding out that we both loved the Chris Rice song "Me and Becky." But a lot of it has been her, messaging out of the blue to say this or ask that, and it just feels really good to get to know her. I feel kind of like she's telling me secrets, like it's some junior-high sleepover, and I want to giggle and whisper back. It's weird. But it's really nice.

In fact, just about all of my new friends this part-semester are female, which for my college career is a switch. ...Speaking of, the one-year anniversary of the London trip is in about a week. I wonder if we really will gather, sans the two that aren't with us right now (I think Lauren must have transferred), to have tea and lemon drizzle cake. We talked about it. Perhaps I should have thought of that while I was in Wegmans today, picked up a cake mix or something. Ah, well, we'll see how things develop.

I need to not try to talk to Tom when I'm bored and lonely anymore, like I did in the weeks of school when he wasn't going out with Emily.

Glenn's life these days is reminding me of just how much of freshman life is t3h dr4m4. I don't wish that back, though I miss a lot of things about my first year here.

The leaves are starting to turn. That was one of the first parts of my finally being happy here, first year. There were a lot of others--meeting Krystal and then the twins, having Erik here...Chamber Singers, though that eventually soured a little. At the time, it was amazing. And it gave me success, familiarity, and an outlet at a time when I needed all of those.

I don't miss the class, but I do miss the music and the friendship, and the way it felt some evenings to have night fall as we were rehearsing.

You can tell I really ought to go to bed.

-Laurel

Slogging through (an ode, haha, to Dr. Tolhurst)

Tolhurst is yet going to whip my writing into shape, I think.

I'm busy writing my 5-to-7-page paper on the writing styles of Julian of Norwich in her Revelations of Divine Love and Peter Abelard in his Historia Calamitatum (how do they function as confessional writers? do aspects of their writing styles interfere with their attempts to instruct others through confessing their own failings?), incredibly grateful for the one-day extension-on-top-of-an-extension that my class got for it, since my entire weekend was shot from APO stuff (three-point-two-five-hour Adopt-a-Highway project, campout, meeting, compiling service reports).

I've done two things already for this paper that I pretty much never do: I outlined my paper (not formally, but informally) and I looked at the two assignments of mine that she's already graded to try to get some insight into what she's looking for. No, you don't understand: I actually reviewed graded work when I wasn't assigned to make corrections. This never happens, because I don't deal at all well with comments on stuff I've written, even when they're good ones. Across the board, they make me squirm. (Why, then, have a comment box on my blog? I guess I'm looking more for opinions on what I've written than how I've written it. I'm in it for the "hey, me too" especially. I mean, a fair number of comments also make me squirm, but in that case I'll deal with that.)

I knew that at some point I was going to have to start doing this, because a lot of my writing has been too similar. I mean, the good and meaty part is making the connections and answering the question, and I don't have a problem with that, but I've been feeling a lot like it's cheaply gotten, thrown together in the same ways on tight deadlines. I still pay pretty close attention to whether the words I'm writing are correctly-used, but it's been a long time since I've taken quite so much care to use fewer of them and keep clarity to a maximum. Rasmussen, ex-journalist professor from my thankfully-brief days in Writing II, really tried to smack us upside the head with that. The thing is, in my opinion, she crossed the line in how tightly she enforced it (I believe that nonfiction prose has room for elements of poetry, intellectualism, and storytelling; just read, like, anything Adam Gopnik has ever written), but Tolhurst seems to be able to appreciate style as long as it's also easy to read. I'm not good at that yet, but I'm working on it.

I'm glad my second assignment turned out better than the first, because when I put some thought into how similarly 100s got treated to 88s, and when I realized she'd outlined exactly what the difference was, I guess I came to trust her with my writing a lot more. I'm not afraid of Westby harshness, that my paper will be slammed as "self-indulgent" or "glib" if I don't stay alert (the fates that befell Chris and Bequi in the twelfth grade), but I do understand what Andrew meant when he said that Tolhurst "ran a tight ship," and I'm really having to try to avoid complacency, 'cause dang will she catch it. But hey, if I can make it here, I'm starting to think, I've got a shot at making it anywhere.

Medieval Women Writers does not have the mental liveliness of Hawthorne/Melville; that's the class I really look forward to as something that makes me glad to be an English major. But if I'm going to learn more about reading there, I'm going to learn a lot more about writing here. The paper is not progressing quickly, but it is progressing, and my style is, too.

So it's time to go back to it. It's not due for another 27 hours, but I'd like to get to folk dancing for a little while tonight, unlikely as that's coming to be.

-Laurel

Just to prove that I am still the Duck-in-a-Box, haha!

You Are A: Duckling!

The cutest of the cute, these baby ducks are often spotted in the spring following closely behind their mother. As a duckling you will grow up quickly, becoming one of the adult ducks seen commonly in ponds and streams. Playful and timid, charming and vulnerable, ducklings are nature's very definition of innocence.

You were almost a: Kitten or a Lamb
You are least like a: Turtle or a MonkeyWhat Cute Animal Are You?

...I don't know how I got some of those adjectives, especially since I was pretty clear about being more of a leader than a follower (though I did say I usually do what I'm told, since the only alternative was that I usually didn't). But hey.

Today was good. Funny, cool chemist guy in church. Very tasty lunch thereafter. An APO meeting that actually didn't make me want to scream. I haven't gotten as much homework done as I'd have liked, considering that it's long after midnight, but I did finish House of the Seven Gables for Hawthorne/Melville. Dang, but the chapter "Governor Pyncheon" is pretty darn creepy, especially reading it at quarter to midnight.

I had sesame chicken tonight, because I've been wanting some all week.

Lessee, anything more interesting, any thoughts on life? I keep musing about things and thinking that they should be blog fodder, and not this recitation of my doings.

...

I got nothin'. I'm going to bed.

-Laurel

About hair (and then some more blithering about myself)

<girly tangent>

Lily Jo donated her hair to Locks of Love really spontaneously--from what I can tell, she woke up, looked at her hair, thought, "hm," walked to Main Street, and got it cut. She didn't have to pay anything; the nice ladies at Hair Care who want to save the world give Locks of Love donors cuts on the house. It's a great style for Lily, too, really kinda glamorous.

She beat me to it, so to speak; I've been wondering myself, in the back of my head, whether I should do that when it got longer. If the cruddy ruler in my room is correct, I do have ten inches to spare, but that may make the cut rather shorter than I'd like it. If Jeanne (one of said Hair Care ladies) becomes one of APO's advisors, as she might, I'll ask her what she thinks. 'Cause I haven't had hair this long since at least the eleventh grade, probably the fifth; I thought maybe I'd get it cut shoulder-length soon so that it'd be long again by the time summer came around, 'cause my mom kinda likes doing my hair, but now I wonder if instead I should wait until the beginning of the spring semester and then have it chopped, so I'll have all Christmas break to get sick of braids and pigtails and that stuff. The twelfth-grade cut was just plain too short, so I'm a little wary of getting anything done before I feel good and ready.

</girly tangent>
So the service program is picking up some, even though I still don't have an all-enveloping solution for two people's inability to do projects at times convenient for the other fifteen members of the organization. Like, this really is an issue, because everyone has to end up with fifteen hours' worth of stuff, or they can potentially be kicked out of the organization. So I'm working on it. I keep telling myself, and them, that it's only September.

I have successfully gone over to the dark side: I am now consistently drinking straight-up skim milk for the first time in my life. No more shots of 2% in there to make it palatable. This is not to say that I like it better than forms of milk that are not slightly blue (really, look at a glass of skim milk sometime), but I'm not grossed out by the taste anymore. 'Cause you were dying to know, I'm sure.

A girl I've gotten to know better this semester, Liz, has a radio show that just debuted today; she decided to make it a Christian-music one (which's cool, 'cause nobody know the last time the campus had one), and so far it's both fun and wonderful. She asked for music, so I sent her some last night, which was a fun way to become re-excited about all the Christian music I accumulated between eighth and twelfth grade. She played at least two of them today(!), so I got to hear two familiar tracks go across campus--and, for that matter, to Boston, since Chelsea was listening live via the website. :)

Tom's girlfriend Emily is one of the freshman journalists for our school's website, the same way I was my own first year. ...Hers appears to be better than mine already, which is really rather unnerving, considering that I'm the English major, but never mind, it's only a journal.

Okay, time to put my currently-long hair back up and go to Judaism/Islam. The class has been really interesting so far; right now we're doing Hasidic Judaism via a really fascinating and cool book called Holy Days, by Lis Harris.

The side effect of sitting through long classes: I've been going through gum this week the way some people chain-smoke cigarettes. That's kind of a weird thing with me--for a long time I'll lay off all gum, then I'll have this burst of consuming it. At least I had a sensible moment the other day and bought sugar-free stuff. Now all that remains is to stop biting the corners of my mouth by mistake.

-Laurel

About-face

Today was a very nice day. Among other things, I went to the op-shop for the first time ever (it's basically a one-day-a-week thrift store, run in the parish house of the local church) and got myself a pair of $1 jeans, Old Navy and everything. (They're really musty-smelling, though; I'll have to wash them.) Folk dancing was the joy it always is, and I even made applesauce when I got back.

Know what's amazing? The PBS Kids website, if you don't mind some childish fun. The Mr. Rogers page is pretty awesome, dudes. The Arthur and Reading Rainbow ones are cool, too, if you know where to go on them--yay for book lists! And I even swallowed my scorn and got some recipes off the Zoom one.

So it's time for me to go to bed. Tomorrow's going to be quite a bit harder, I'm pretty sure. Maybe I'll finally get myself to Poder Latino, though. We'll see.

-Laurel

-personal statement-

I am cranky. I did not do my laundry, I did not write to Chris, I did not do my homework, and I did not even get to bed. So far, everything I've tried to do in the past however-long to improve myself has failed pretty spectacularly. And I should not try to fish for solace in regards to my apparently-mediocre service program, lest I get a repeat of today, where I told somebody in particular that it sucked, and his idea of reassurance was, "Well, yeah, but it's still better than Mike's."

Here is the good news: three years of this place has finally taught me how to like both Abby and Dani. I wonder how far I would have gotten with Terra if she hadn't transferred.

-Laurel

"There's a guy who's been awake since the Second World War..."

So I'm really starting to think that I've screwed up my sleep patterns for good and all.

Anyway, tonight, in all the time I've spent not-sleeping, I actually have done my dishes (except for two cups I forgot), taken out my garbage, and brought down my recycling. I have planted the seeds for a service project in November. Less productively, I have checked the heck out of Facebook and away messages.

Okay, time to click-to-donate, brush my teeth, and go the heck to bed. There is stuff to be done tomorrow, stuff in plenty.

-Laurel

It's Dear Diary Day!

Check out this link if you don't believe me.

In fact, let's have a web-watch listing right now:

Essentialist Explanations - Sent to me by Albert, and very much linguistical fun. Don't forget to check out the quotes about Klingon, under "Other Artificial Languages, A-M."

Library Thing - As yoinked from Evelyn's LJ. Talk about your total Brain Takeover Alerts (a term in itself yoinked from Dave Barry); I have been a complete nerd about this one. I'm attempting to use it to set up a campus-wide, underground lending library. So far I have exactly one supporter, Albert, but maybe when everyone stops being so busy it'll catch on. So...over Christmas break. Ah, well; I can dream.

Passing the 4th Grade - Sent to me by Tim. I actually passed it on the first try, for which I credit a lot of Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? and a lot of reading the accompanying Fodor's USA. But I passed it in the very last seconds allotted, so I still feel more like I got away with it than that I earned it.

Oregon Trail Online - I'm pretty sure nobody put this up on their blog already...

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/080503/change-for-a-dollar.gif - I meant to put this up for Talk Like a Pirate Day and forgot.

Cows - I have no idea what this was all about, but I have it bookmarked, so here it is, for anything it's worth to anybody. :-P


Okay. So pretty much all of my non-academic goals for this week have gone straight to pot. They were: do my dishes, bring down my recycling, write Chris a letter, and get some sleep. To which I now add: do some laundry.

Maybe I'll do the dishes now, at least, since I have no desire to lose another bowl to icky white mold that I'm too cowardly to try to scrub off (this has only happened once, but it was about two weeks ago).

In closing, hurrah for my going to a school where I can walk alone at night without having to worry about being assaulted. Not every girl can say that. Heck, some guys can't.

-Laurel