Fabric and the Ohio BMV

Well, I finally decided on the fabrics I'm going to use for next year's room. I know, this must be sooo exciting for everyone! :-P But I thought I'd share. Feel free to criticize my choices, I don't mind.

I'm going to make an upholstered headboard with this:








And use this to make curtains:









Tomorrow, I am hopefully going to play the Go Renew My Expired License and Switch Its State at the Same Time Game. Also part of hte game is hoping that they don't look closely enough to notice that it never was a real license. For those of you who don't know that story, if you want to know it, I'll tell, but basically I hate Ohio's BMV. Hate. I think that Ben K can properly hate them with me. Only...maybe he hates them a little bit more.

Well, actually, there are a few people who read this blog and don't know the whole family, so I suppose I'll share that...edited to remove Ben K's horrible BMV story. Sorry, Ben. You can picture me looking sheepish and repentant.

Meanwhile, I got my temps when I was 15 and a half, let them expire without getting my license, got them again when I was 17 to take the license test, got my license. There was a computer glitch saying that I'd only ever had my temps for two weeks, though (actually a year and two weeks), so they said they had to fix it, and I should come back the next day, and I'd get my license. I came back the next day and they gave me my license. Fast forward...three years, and some diligent car insurance guy requested my license information, and the BMV told him that all I have are expired temps. So I've been driving around on expired temps that look like a real license (it is a license), and my proper not real license has now expired. I've given up talking to the BMV, and am now hoping that Maine will just renew my license and switch it over to Maine without looking too closely. And if they do look closely, I'll play stupid, and then find out what I have to do. Needless to say, this will be a true independent adventure, and I still hate the Ohio BMV.

Stamps!

Well, I'm alllll done. All. Done. Free for the summer. My last exam was yesterday, French, and it went really well. Yesterday was spent packing until one, and this morning I woke up at eight =0 and Tim, Katie, and I took all of our stuff that we don't need till next year to next year's house. We filled the Jeep to bursting three times, and finished on the fourth load. It turns out that one of the bedrooms in the house is really small. That's where we stored our stuff, and we actually filled the entire room up to the ceiling. There was just enough room to shut the door.

After so much productivity so early, you can imagine that I have been completely wiped the rest of the day, and I've been spending my time attempting to eat everything in the fridge and freezer. I am so full, and feel so fat.

Tonight, I dyed my hair. It was supposed to be brown, but I think it's actually come out red. Once the dye fades from my forehead, I'll take a picture. Katie (roomie) had the wireless router, and she left today, taking it with her. Now, I sit with a big old cord coming out of the computer, and feel so chained. So, I'll be relatively absent from the magical world of the internet until...Saturday night....

Do you guys know StumbleUpon? It takes you to random web sites that match your interests, so, not so random...but cool. I've been wasting hours and hours using it, and am addicted. And now I want to make my own rubber stamps. Fast forward to Christmas: I hope everyone loves stamps!!

Next Year's House

You know what I think is soooo funny? When people are watching professional sports, they see what a player does, and they criticize it. "What are you doing?? I mean, come on! You're only up against one man." Riiiiight. These are professional players. This sport is their life, and this guy is sitting there talking like if he were in this guy's shoes, he'd be able to kick the other guy's ass. When I hear people saying these things, I seriously wonder what's going through their mind.

Heroes episode tonight: Awesome. Predictable, but I still loved every second of it. How evil does Future Hiro look, eh? Apparently there is a cello player named Hiro, as well as a Hiro Nakamura that has a PhD in...something...he's very greasy.

Today, the weather god smiled down upon Antigonish, and blessed us with a summery day. The temperature reached 75 degrees. No joke. 75. The warmest day this spring before that was like...55 tops. So, on this fine summer-like day, after not doing so well on my developmental exam, I went for a walk around town, and snapped a picture of my ugly, but new, house for next year. I'll be moving all of my junk in on Wednesday. The landlord's being supernice and letting us keep our stuff there over the summer, even though we have an 8 month lease (yayy!!!!) from Sept to April next year. He's also letting me paint my bedroom, pending paint chip approval. More on that later. So, here is my vinyl house for next year. Laundry is located in the building on the right.Just to show you how awesome my location is compared to last year, I drew some arrows.

Time for me to go to bed, 'cause my Research, Methods, and Statistics for Psychology exam is tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty good about it.

You know, I don't really care if Vancouver wins this, the seventh, game in the series and moves on or not. 'Cause looking at the way they're playing, they don't deserve to move on, and would probably just get badly beaten by the next team if they did. Famous last words before Vancouver wins the Stanley Cup. (Haha, right)

You tell me:

Apparently this is a rabbit.

The Container Store

I am completely in love with The Container Store. It's true. I've spent something like five hours on their web site, oohing and aahing, and thinking about how much I want useless stuff.

I present Exhibit A: Cup-A-Cake
Exhibit B-Domed plastic thingies. This actually seems superuseful for those partially used onions and such. Or, you know, I could just buy ziplock baggies.
Exhibit C- Man I want this so much!!!! It's so cute and tidy! You don't have to worry about your brown bag getting smushed to death, and then your PB&J screaming in pain as its insides ooze out. Aaaahhh!!!
So, these are my container store wants and desires, plus lots of lots of organization thingies. If it weren't for that little issue of money, I'd buy so much useless junk.

Stanley Cup?

I've embarrassed myself quite a few times by not being culturally clued in. At first, hockey was one of these things. Two years after arriving in this fair, cold (why won't you warm up by now???? Come ON!) country, I'm really starting to appreciate hockey. When you watch it with no previous hockey watching experience, it all just looks like sort of boring mayhem. Crazy skill can be happening in front of your face, but you don't recognize the beauty of what you're seeing, and think that hockey's just a little bit not special.

Now, though, I can appreciate the organization behind what appears to be mayhem, and how surprisingly coordinated everyone is. Since I've been learning to appreciate hockey in this northerly Canadian clime, I find that I've also been adopting a love of practically any Canadian team. In the playoffs, I'm cheering for every Canadian team to move on to the next round. Particularly the Canucks, Senators, and Flames.
After trying to go into the butterfly position, like any goalie, I have respect for their knees. Ow!

The only thing that I don't like about hockey: The fighting. It's part of the game. The refs ren't even supposed to break it up until the players fall down on the ground, and then they can intervene, most often ineffectively. It's unfortunate. I really don't like it.Aaaand there's a player on Vancouver's team whose name is Ryan Kesler. Just putting that one out there. So now the Stanley Cup playoffs have begun, everyone is growing their playoff beard who is capable of growing one, and I have been watching hours, hours, and hours of hockey every day. Go Sens and Canucks!

Only I

Only I could do something this outrageous. As I think everyone is aware, I'm in exam season, and today I had my first one. I studied in a fairly lazy though productive manner for Developmental Psychology, my most difficult exam. I got myself all psyched up, and kept thinking developmental thoughts. So imagine my surprise when I go in to take the exam, and find in front of me a social psychology exam. Only I could do such a thing. I studied for my developmental exam and not at all for any other, and it was actually social psychology. However, if this were to happen at all, this is the best way that it could have happened. A) My social psych lectures are super clear, and I pay amazingly close attention in all of them B) Developmental is actually my most difficult course, and since I thought the exam was today, I've actually tricked myself into studying in a nonprocrastinatory manner. How smart is my subconscious, eh? Eh??

So, how funny is THAT.

Happy Birthday, Evie!

Enjoy your day as the boss!!

Knitting screw-up

I've been intrigued by the idea of making a neckwarmer for a while. But not one of those scary ones. Oh my goodness. I really have to show you guys this. It's sooooo creepy. These guys terrify me so much. And I really wanted to make a cool neckwarmer, but in the end, what I have is more along the lines of what the creepy guys are wearing.

Anyways, this is just a first stab for me. Notice how I used a hideous pale green yarn, since I knew that this was a trial run. And I've learned some things. A) I should probably use thinner needles B) I should also use thinner yarn C) definitely don't add so many stitches towards the end. Right now, it looks like a skirt for my neck.

After spending all this time working on it, I'm not exactly raring to go on a second trial run. So, here is my Neck Skirt.
You know what I love about Worms? You can use a Holy Hand Grenade! That is too cool.

All done!

Now you can blog in Hindi!

Well, I'm finally finally done. My last class was on Wednesday, but I still had this lab that was all about SPSS to do. I turned it in twenty minutes ago, and now I'm totally totally done...until exams. Yay!

On Tuesday, my research methods and statistics group put up our poster, the end result of a year-long project, in which we designed a study, wrote up questionnaires, an invitation to participate, consent form, and debriefing letter, applied and received ethical clearance (took about our third draft for us to get it), collected data using a psych 100 class, analyzed the data, and created this poster to report our findings. I won't bore anyone with exactly what we were looking at, but suffice it to say that we found absolutely NO result. That was because the design of our experiment was horrible and designed by a researcher who wanted to be lazy (me).

I just have to share that Jibbles (resident cat) put his head inside my Tim Hortons doughnut bag, it got stuck on his head, and started running around the house with the bag on his head, until it finally fell off. Amazing! And I didn't grab a picture. I might put it back on later, to try and recapture the moment for everyone.

So, here is the final result. I was shocked at how long this poster took to put together. So don't make fun of it. :-P
And here is my noble group. Shelley, Erika, Laura, and Gregg, as we all sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labor. I realized, Sam, that while you visited me, the present I got for you two Christmases ago was right here on my bookshelf, all wrapped, and I still forgot to give it to you. Oy.

Dad got me a Skype phone for my birthday! It's not up and running quite yet (charging), but now if you call me on Skype, the chances of me picking up (since the sound won't be muted, and I won't need to try and find my headset) will be greatly increased. Also, I'm counting on the sound quality to be better.

It's still snowing, all white outside, but it's nice and warm, so at least that's something. I really really can't wait for that month of traveling, being in warm places. It's April 12th, but there's no way you'd be able to tell by looking out the window. I'm very ready for some sandals.

What's with the joining Facebook craze? Jennie, Dan, and Jaime are the only siblings not on now, right? Nope, Dan and Jennie are the only ones. HOW did I not know that you were on Facebook, Jaime?? Aaah. Well, I just added you. Problem solved!

Sooome Stuff

I have four more classes left in the year, and all four of those are just review sessions. Of course, since it's the end of the year, things are due, and there's some stress going along with it. Stress and happiness.

I only took developmental psychology this year because I was looking for any course that was still open and fit into my schedule. I was even looking at physics (yikes!). However, I am so so immensely happy that I took it. Everyone should take this course. Every parent, (moms and dads), educator, administrator, anyone, should take a developmental course. Not only do you appreciate what kids/babies you know are going through, you appreciate your own development, and how things influenced you. It's really fun!

We've been doing adolescence the last couple of weeks, and just listening to lectures about all the stressors and awkwardness and stuff, has made me feel more stressed and awkward.

So, there was a huge snowstorm Saturday night, and I drove back to Antigonish Sunday after church. Church?! Me?! Together? Shocking, I know. Anyways, the roads started out looking okay near Saint John. The closer I got to Nova Scotia, though, the worse the roads were. I passed a semi overturned between the two directions of traffic, with a backhoe attempting to push it back up the slope on its side, and a full mile of traffic at a dead stop behind it (a full mile of cars is pretty hard to get around here). Happy that I wasn't going in that direction, I was just at the Nova Scotia border (right under the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick flags), when I stopped for a crash/accident/sliding of many cars. Bright side: I was the second car stopped, so I had an excellent view of everything happening. Second bright side: Because I was stopped, and saw what happened to the other cars, I myself did not slide off the road. Thing Making Me Not a Bad Person For Enjoying Watching: I really don't think anyone was hurt. There were three cars, but I think they all went off the road at separate times, and just thudded into huge snow banks. Why, you may ask, did this happen. Mostly, the roads were okay. What made them dangerous was their unpredictability. One second, you could be driving along a nice, dry section of road with good visibility, the next second, you're blinded by snow, no visibility, nothing but hard, packed snow on the road, because snow gusting presents serious difficulties with the roads. For intermittent sections, the road might as well have not been plowed at all. There were nine more cars off the road in the Halifax direction. Everyone was being told not to drive unless there was an emergency. By the time I realized this, I was already halfway to my destination. Besides, I needed to be here to work on my group project! Anyways, I'm safe, aren't you all relieved.

While talking about possible causes of aggression, and obedience to authority sometimes as an explanation, the Milgram shock experiments and Zimbardo prison study of course came up. While watching a movie on this, though, a modern, real-life example of obedience to authority was shown from the media. And I was shocked. Perhaps you guys have heard of this. The specific case I was told about, was that someone saying he was a police officer called a McDonald's, asked to speak to the assistant manager, told her that an employee was suspected of stealing a purse and asked the assistant manager to bring the girl into her office. Following what the "police officer" on the other end of the phone said, the assistant manager stripped her of her clothes and made her do jumping jacks naked. Since the assistant manager needed to go out to the counter to work, the police officer told her to call her fiance, and have him watch the girl. So the fiance came, and continuing to follow orders from the police officer on the other end of the phone, forced her to dance, spanked her whenever she wouldn't comply, and forced her to do some really horrible sexual things. Meanwhile, there's a security camera in the office, recording everything taking place. This lasted for over five hours, until the fiance had to leave, and the janitor was asked to come in and watch the girl. The janitor walked in, was told by the cop to describe this naked girl, said no, asked what the hell was going on, and everyone sort of realized what was happening, and the "police officer" on the other end of the phone hung up.

I won't even go into what these people were thinking, and I thought this was bad, but it turns out that this has happened over 70 times in something like thirty states, almost the same everywhere. Really horrible things happening to girls as young as 14 (the girl earlier was 18). And these people in positions of authority are sometimes so reluctant to do these things, they cry and sob as they're spanking their naked employees on the ground, but they still do it. Others are kind of sick, and won't stop, while family members eventually arrive, and have to forcefully take back their daughter/girlfriend from this person who's actually imprisoning them. Meanwhile, the person who's the focus of these attacks is young, terrified, thinks they're in trouble with the law, and locked in a room with these people.

I just couldn't believe this. If anyone's interested, here's an article that has a lot of information on the history of these calls, and a suspect they found.

So, pardon my long rambling about this horrible thing, but I was just amazed by it. Time to go work on one of my labs.

Dream Rambling....Brad's Fault

I really really hate the smell of seafood chowder. And if there is any in the same building as you, you will smell it. My italics is stuck...nice. I wish that I could *attempt* to describe last night's dream to you. I'll give some highlights. I dreamed that:

• Everybody Loves Raymond was funny
• The horrible grandpa from that show oversalted my tomato
• I was in pursuit of an evil, toy-making genius who was killing puppies
• An old Roman woman tried to stab me in the back with a Bic pen. She pretended to hug me, then whipped it out. Because of the bad angle, I couldn't rip her off, so I had to bang her head into a marble column until she lost consciousness
• That last part was in an ancient, underground, Roman temple, where I was hiding a woman and her three children from this old woman. Dan, Jennie, Hiro, and Ando were all helping me. The woman and children were hiding in this watery sewer, and by pretending to learn kendo we could mask any watery sounds they might have accidentally made.
• Also, in an evil universe, I was made a slave, and forced to repot many exotic plants, and the soil was filled with worms. I like worms, so this was okay, but I definitely had no idea how I was going to escape.

Does bullet point form make reading about my dreams more tolerable? And talk about summarizing. That underground temple involves at least an hour of narration. The woman's poor husband was shot off a boat in a canal, trying to give his family time to escape. What a guy.

I'm glad, Brad, that you seem to have a similar dreaming style. I twice tried to use a dream dictionary, but neither had what I needed. And it was all such bs that it was pointless. I think that what's in a dream is too personal for a dream dictionary to work. In part of one of my recurring dreams, I'm frantically trying to pull those pieces of plywood in the basement over, to cover the glass doors, so that if the lion (who metamorphosized from an alligator once I got out of the lake) managed to smash through the glass doors, the wood would still be there. But the wood's hard to pull over, and gives me splinters as I'm yanking at it in a panic. And dream dictionary's just don't cover that.

Hey, Brad, you're in one of my recurring dreams. I'm like three, the farm house is under construction, and I'm riding on the back of an elephant up towards the front of the house. You're riding on the back of an elephant in front of me. Later on, while we're in the house, the elephants stampede through the walls. Brad, you picked me up and rushed me through to Mom and Dad's room. Everybody was safe, we asked the elephants why they did that, and they explained that someone had lied to them, saying that someone really evil lived here, but that they saw they were wrong and that they'd hurt the house. Very nice elephants. And I've completely failed at not rambling on about dreams....

So, I'm in Saint John. On the drive down, the roads were terrible thanks to a brief snow storm. Snow storm! And the weather seems to constantly say, "Flurries, flurries, flurries." It's April! Come ON! Haha, wow, winter storm warning for Antigonish. 45 cm of snow expected. That...is unfortunate.

So...what's new...nothing.

Happy Easter!

Well, I'm heading over to Saint John for the long weekend, so blogging will be scarce.

With the exception of Anne, everyone's Happy Birthday Mandy picture was from winter break. I find that pretty funny. Was it for up-to-dateness' sake? Of course, I appreciate everyone's sweet happy birthday wishes. The Youth Philharmonic story Anne told was in fact very traumatic, and a day that would be nice to forget. I was horrible to Mom, and at the time thought that my trip to visit Ben in St. Andrews, as well as all of my books, were being taken away from me. Much crying followed. But there was NO way I was going back to that orchestra. (I would like to add that this was the beginning of a new season, not in the middle.)

Okay, I can't resist telling the background of why I didn't want to go. I got into the orchestra thanks to Mrs. Moore, my cello teacher, who told the conductor that I was good enough. And the orchestra may have been the "Youth" Philharmonic of Central Ohio, but I was far and away the youngest. Everyone had many friends from their respective high schools, and combine that with my shy attitude (especially then) and I was definitely not making any friends. I spent my free time looking over the music, taking trips to the drinking fountain, and waiting for rehearsal to begin again. On top of that, the music was just out of my reach of playability. I was constantly struggling to make some position changes on runs. I can still remember the back page of The Toreador Song, and how I would cringe every time it approached. And knowing that I was the one who was responsible for that slightly off sound in the cello section. Anyways, when the new season was beginning, I definitely didn't want to go back.

Time to go driving! To New Brunswick! Happy Easter, everyone...a little early.

Mandy's Art Studio: V

So, yes, there are some nudes in here. Never fear, none of them are of me. I go to the "artistic nude" section on deviantart.com, and find ones that use a lot of light and shadow. And in that sideview one, her boob really was that pointy.

An unremarkable birthday post

Happy birthday to me!

Thanks to everyone for fabulous birthday wishes. Ben K, I can't get to your blog for some reason. :-( (...hours later, I got to it!) I love how Facebook brings all these friends out of the woodwork for a quick happy birthday wish. It's kind of nice and random at the same time.

Never fear, Jaime. My 21stish celebrating took place last night. I had a couple of martinis with dinner, and a pina colada when I got home. Yummy! But it was all a very tame affair.

Yesterday, I had a French oral exam for my final in French lab. And I am not lying at all when I say that one of the guys who went managed to speak the dictee with a French Borat (!) accent! It was Borat in French, no kidding. Picture Sacha Baron Cohen saying, "Pierre et moi, nous nous connaissions depuis deja trois ans." It's pretty funny. And I really don't think he intended to do it. Also, the lab professor tried to lighten the mood by being "funny," and interrupting us over and over again right as we started to speak. Talk about unnerving.

As I think about graduate school, I'm not certain that I want to necessarily go to one of the "top" psych universities. I'd prefer a university that is really friendly in a medium-sized city. Does anyone have any "this university kicks ass" suggestions?

Have you guys ever played Worms? I love it! Scorched Earth with worms. And they're soo cute; I can't really bear to kill them. But I sure can throw a mean grenade.

My Version of Ben I's Post

I believe...

that maybe there's a God.

And that about wraps it up! See, Jaime? Ben I's such a pro-Believer compared to me. He looks positively angelic.

Mandy's Art Studio: IV

So, here are two sketches I did for fun last weekend. The first was to work on reflections, and the second was to sort of work on glass. Unfortunately for the second one, I could only find my 4B pencil, and my graphite sticks crumbled to death in my backpack, otherwise my blacks would be much less wimpy

Easily Impressed

Well, it takes anything forever to reach Nova Scotia, so don't laugh at me when I'm amazed at new things. The new thing I'm amazed at: A movie rental store. It's been around on the corner of Main and Hawthorne for a while, but I never went. I took a step inside today, however, and was amazed. The whole store takes up about 15 sq ft, and is basically an empty room with an ATM-style machine. You put your store card in the machine, select a movie to buy or rent from the screen, take your card over to the movie dispenser, insert, and your movie comes out of a slot in a neat little plastic case. Want to return it? Put your card in, and the slot sucks the movie back in. And since it's just like an ATM, the store is open 24/7. This is amazing!! Even better: The house I'm living in next year is about 50 feet down the street from this place, which has a convenience store sharing the building with it.

Technology: Continually decreasing my need for human contact. Thank you!

However, I did have a very Independent Mandy moment the other day. I bought a slipcover for a hideous trashpicked chair from WalMart. There was only one option, and the end cost, including taxes, was $86. It looked all neat and cute on the packaging, but when I got it home and on the chair, it turned out I'd bought a hideous slipcover for my hideous chair and paid an outrageous $86 for it. I normally never return anything, but I absolutely had to return this sad excuse for a slipcover when I paid that much for it. So, there's not much of story here. I returned it. But that's the story: I returned it! Go me!

Tim and I went out to Pizza Delight for dinner, and there was this huge (for Antigonish) line, because a kids hockey team with all their parents was waiting to be seated. Meanwhile, the line was stacking up behind us. A little kid came in with his grandma, who was trying to keep him entertained during the wait, and explained that everyone had to wait for a table to be free. The kid goes to the restroom, which is at the back of the restaurant. He comes sprinting back to the front to his grandma to proudly declare, "I found a table! There's an empty table back there!" and proceeded to try and drag his grandma to his find. It was really cute.