X-Ring Yearning

Lip gloss is a pretty cruel joke. On the one hand, that "glossy luster with subtle (or not so subtle) color" is supposed to be really sexy, and when do you see a girl who's sexy without shiny lips? But on the other hand, if you're actually going to be kissing that girl, that must not be so great. It seems like it would be...messy. I'm just trying to imagine this from a guy's perspective, since it's obviously different when you're the one used to wearing something on your lips. Perhaps this is the equivalent of having your face rubbed raw from kissing a guy with stubble. Just one of those things that comes with the territory. At least we know for sure that kissing cherry chapstick is nice, thanks to Katy Perry. :-P

X-Ring was yesterday, and so my Facebook news feed is filled with everyone's pictures and congratulations, making me miss my friends and StFX. In particular, my roomies Sarah and Stephanie got theirs this year (congratulations!!!), and seeing them get it together makes me wish we'd all gotten it at the same time. The Lovely Ladies of 69 all out with our new bling would be great.

I can't wear my X-Ring to work, actually, which means that I rarely have mine on lately. Also, work makes my hands swell a bit, so it just doesn't fit as well, ergh.

I'm attempting to get everyone's Christmas presents done this year...but don't hold your breath, as usual. :-P

Backinaction

Well Sam, you've shamed me back.

Blogging seemed especially nice while I was in Nova Scotia, since really I never saw anyone and didn't have a phone. But now I'm in Columbus, the Family Hub, and I see people so often. AND I have a phone now. But I still don't like talking on it, so don't call unless you want to make plans or deliver news. :-P

Recap:

So Anne and I are living together in a cute apartment that's just the right size. There are four (non-functional) fireplaces, hardwood throughout, and a spattering of exposed brick, which is really all I ask for in an apartment.

I bought a 1989 Volvo stationwagon named Blueberry, which promptly broke down, and I can't afford to fix it. And I've been waiting so long to take it to the shop that now the battery is dead, which is very brilliant of me, thank you. I really love it, though, and want to get it going again.

I got a job at a little cafe-style restaurant that serves very good food. I'm sort of, but not really, a waitress. Clearly, I'm using my degree in psychology to great effect. However, after 90 days there I qualify for health insurance, and 90 days is up tomorrow. I plan to visit every kind of doctor I can imagine to make up for the last doctorless age. Now that I'm out of university I'm doing the completely independent thing, which is sort of liberating and scary, and at the same time it's embarrassing to think of how other people have been supporting themselves for so long, getting loans or working their way through university. So it's embarrassing that I'm only doing it just now. But I'm also proud that teeeechnically I'm getting by. I can do it!

Anne and I have been going to Ben and Julie's church, and attending their home group. I feel completely like part of the group, which is funny considering my lack of belief, and that there's *absolutely* no way I could ever join the church. But I enjoy the people there and the discussions.

Anybody watch V tonight? Pretty fuuun. That one V is totally hot, and I'm not talking about the Firefly chick. Though I do love that Firefly's got two actors representing.

Watched Zombieland. Fun, but my expectations were too high. Woody Harrelson's so skinny in it that he looks like he's doing tons of coke. His head's so big that it draws attention away from his emaciated self. On the other hand...maybe his body only looks so twig-like because it's next to his huge head. I'll give him that.

The best part about being in Columbus is the amount of time that Anne and I get to spend with family. It's really refreshing after being in my own corner of the country for so long. Though now I think everyone should just move to Antigonish, so that we can enjoy inexpensive houses with a low cost of living, no traffic, relaxing jobs, and go down to the pub together for drinks after work. Oh yes.

Gift List

Fun jewelry--Etsy's a great source
Examples: $8, $26, $7, $9,
Knitting Books
Any little or big piece of wall art

Planter $24

Food scale $25

Printed tee, $28

Clutch $29
Wallety clutch $32
Clutch $35
Purse $41.50
Purse $41.50

Shirt (black or red) $37.70

Headphones
Matador in Shade, $50
Audio Technica, $50
WeSC, $60
Equation, $50

Dilly Beans

GPS, $200
GPS when dreaming, $280

Canon Powershot SD940 (black) $259

I can't spell out loud

I have a bad habit of switching letters around when I'm spelling out loud. I switch my Cs and Ss, Ys and Is, and a couple of other pairs of letters. Maybe this is why I'm abysmal at spelling bees. Either way, I usually have to think slowly and carefully before I spell something out loud, which made yesterday not very surprising to me, but nonetheless a classic moment that I thought I'd tell before someone else gets the chance.

Ben, Anne, and I were sittign in North Star having a drink and a crazy cookie, and Ben was saying we should just tell landlords we're sorry, but we can't do more than $1,000 a month for rent. I said I wasn't good at lines like that. They both protested that it wasn't lying at all. I tried to say, "No, LINES, I'm not good at LINES. "No, we really just had that talk, Mandy, and we don't want to do more than $1,000." To which I regrettably responded, "No, LINES, L-Y-N-E-S, LINES."

Ben and Anne got a big kick outof this, and I have a feeling it will follow me like my mispronunciations of awry, hearth, and Yosemite, and chasm.

Me News

First off, immeasurable thanks to Ben, Anne, Jennie, Dad, and Sophie for makign ti up to my graduation. These guys arrived on vrey little sleep, all five crammed into a Mazda Protege with a car seat in teh back. Amazing! And Ben sent too expensive texts to keep me abreast of when they'd get there--thanks.

Perhaps the best part of graduation was skipping out early to hang with everyone intead of sitting there another two hours. It may have been the best decision ever made.

On another note, as some of you know, I have a cell phone. What?! Yes, a cell phone. It's a Tracfone that Dad got me for my birthday and put minutes on it. For a TracFone it's not too ugly, either. Hoooowever, it's an Ohio number, and wihle I'm in Nova Scotia, or Canada, or in Calais running off of the Canadian cell signal that we unfortunately pick up there, I can't accept calls. It's not like I won't accept them because they're so expensive, it jsut won't let me. And I can't make calls either. I can send and receive texts, which I'll do happily.

I'm just saying this 'cause I got another call that I couldn't accept, and whoever it is left a voicemail, which I couldn't check. Also, I know Dad's voice is on ym voicemail right now. I'll change it as soon as I can.

Want to know my number? Of course you do! Email me.

Right now, I'm in the middle of packing It appears as if evreytihng might *actually* fit. Even my bike. I'll probably be in Calais by Thursday. On the 10th or so, I'll be road tripping it to Ohio to drop my stuff off at Ben and Julie's, driving back to Maine, going camping for a bit, doing Sam and Susie's wedding in London, then driving to pick up Anne and her stuff in Vermont, and finally, arriving in Columbus around June 7/8 and settling in for a kickass summer with lots of Rock Band with Ben. W00t!!

Oh, and Ben and I are going to build a computer this summer, which I'm soo excited about. I hope to learn much. i'm currently hooked on the site Texts From Last Night. Buuut, that might be appealing more to my own sense of humor.

Mandy's Art Studio: XIV

Prepare for color

Just in time to help me not study for finals:

What's that????? My kickass roomie Stephanie brought an XBox 360 with Guitar Hero III and Halo 3 back with her???!!?! YES!

Oh yes. Be afeared. In the privacy of my own home, without risk of embarrassment and with time to spare, I can get a little comfortable playtime in.

Ohhhhh yes.

Newfoundland Extravaganza

Just got back from a quick and dirty trip to Newfoundland.  It was awesome.  Sarah, Wayne, and I flew out to St. John's from Halifax.  It was Wayne's first time flying, which was fun, and Sarah did a great job documetning the experience thoroughly.  Sarah's dad, Leo, lives in St. John's, and he pulled out all the stops as a host.  He let us spend the night in a really nice rental in Georgetown, fed us, showed us all the sights there was time for (Cabot Tower and Fort Amherst), and answered all my annoying questions.  We spent the night out on the town with Sarah's cousin David, and got to see George St, which is really just a street with only bars, in lots of varieties.  

The next day, we drove to Grand Falls, which is where Sarah's from, and stayed at her mom's house.  We were all a bit tired, so spent a chill night in enjoying her mom's AMAZING cooking.  Wayne and I watched Apollo 13 while Sarah's old friend Rob Maye came over to visit.

Our luck with the weather stopped holding out on Eater morning.  The last two days had been gorgeous, but Sunday snowed like three inches, then turned into rain.  Sarah had the pleasure of driving us through those conditions to the ferry.  I was really excited but apprehensive about the ferry, 'cause everyone had built it up to me soo much.  My previous ferry experience were the tiny half hour ones in North Carolina, not gigantic 7 hour things that really rock out in the elements.  Even though we had soem rough weather for the first four hours or so, it was great, though.  

We arrived in North Sydney, Cape Breton at 7am, and were back in Antigonish by 10am.  

It was certainly a whirlwind tour of Newfoundland, but now that I've been, I want to go back.  Especially St. John's.  It's small but lively and friendly and cute.  I'm putting photos up on flickr soon, for those anti-social Facebook types.

so much to say, but I don't want to bore you, part I

I have so much to blog about. So I'll be doing that while my nails dry, instead of putting my clean sheets back on my bed (proud, Julie?). I've just done a French manicure, and it looks lovely.

Soo, to start things off, I made my first bread a couple of weeks ago. It was perilous, as it poked itself (I certainly wasn't the one who bumped it) against the rack in the oven, making it de-poof. But, all in all, it still turned out pretty good. My thanks to Wayne for the bread-making lesson, and for letting me use a recipe that is apparently his own creation. Despite a certain lack of circularity, it was delicious.

About two weeks ago, we had a really warm day, things began to thaw out, and the very day after I thought to myself, "I can see our sidewalk through the ice!" a snowstorm hit. Then last Sunday, the weather was beautiful and fine. And on Monday, we got like 25 cm, again. I took a photo of our lovely house the day after, for those of you who haven't seen this noble palace. But the snow really was lovely.

I just have to say, a million thanks to Ben and Julie for getting me a pair of boots the Christmas of my first year. I've worn them almost every day the last two winters, and I don't know what I would have done without them, this year especially. They work really well, are holding up great, and aren't even salt-stained. I think they're from Target.

Well, I have more to say, but my nails are dry, and it's three in the morning. I've been going to bed at five lately, and I need to curb that. Last day of classes is this coming Wednesday! Feeling so nostalgic.

Hair

Alice in Wonderland is not child-appropriate. I actually thought I hadn't seen it all the way through, 'cause I had no sense of what it was about, but when Sarah, Stephanie, and I watched it last night, it made sense that I couldn't actually remember. There was nothing to hold anything together from one scene to another, but I *had* seen it, perhaps several times. And I'm not surprised that I didn't like it. Everyone is cruel. The nonsense is so severe that my brain felt assaulted.

Today is a bright, sunny day in mid-March, and it is BITTERLY cold. I keep trying to tell myself, "Enjoy this cold right now, 'cause you'll miss it next winter in Ohio," but it's a little hard to appreciate when I don't have my scarf.

At some point, someone mentioned getting a fun color put in their hair, and it got turned into, "Let's all get our hair done!!" Which is exactly what happened last Thursday and Friday. I forgot my camera for Sarah's appointment, though, so you'll have to be satisfied with some day after shots.



This is Thomas, who is magical with giving you what you want for your hair.

en route

Nothing quite like a six am flight back to Antigonish. Be seeing you soon, homies. Homeys? Whatever.

That pinched

For those who don't see me very often, don't creep people on Facebook, and don't look through people's flickr updates, this is the blog post where I tell you that I got my nose pierced!

I asked Ben and Anne about it, and got a strong "no" from Ben (surprised, anyone?), and an "ugh" from Anne Marie. And was also informed that nose rings had had their time, and I missed it. However, I've been thinking about getting a piercing of some variety for years. About....six years. So, to be honest, I think I've considered it long enough.

Ben told me that this is just some phase I'm going through. Of course it is. I'm not going to have this forever, I'm just enjoying it right now.

I went to Piercology on 2nd Ave to get it done. Their store is lovely; the girl at the counter was really helpful and didn't make me feel like an idiot for asking all hte basic questions I had, and being so un-pierced. The guy who pierced me (David) was really great about explaining everything that was happening, letting me have fun without rushing me through it, and was also really gentle and swift.

Kenny went with me, which was awesome. I attempted to convince him to get a piercing with me, but alas, to no avail. I think he could rock an eyebrow piercing. Or the tongue! He could really carry off hte tongue well. Aaanyways. We went together, and he took pictures with his camera phone (which has this weird feature where it takes a picture when it sees you smile), and held my hand during it. I was really happy that he took a picture of me in the middle of hte piercing, when I had teh needle dangling out of my nose, but unfortunately the flash washed me out so much that you can't really see it.

I'm glad that I watched videos of lots of piercings before I went, 'cause if I hadn't, then I would have freaked out when I saw the needle about to skewer my nose. God bless mental preparation.

So, yeah, I really like the look of it. Now that a few days have passed, I've rotated the ring so the ball's on hte inside, which I like much more. So, here it is. After about three months or so, I expect I'll switch to a different ring. I am not going to look forward to seeing Grandma and Grandpa Callahan with this thing in.

Last night, in Boston

They charge for internet at the Hyatt, which of course I won't pay, so instead I'm procrastinating on my paper by writing excessively. Sorry. Overly long entry, feel free to bow out whenever.

In my short life, I've been blessed with uncanny luck regarding flying. Everyone, especially in the sibling pool, seems to have really (like, really) awful stories about flying. There was that time with Anne with the guy and the heart attack and the subway in New York or something. Or that time with Dad just recently with the million reroutes and delays until like a day later he got back to Boston at 4 am and got to drive the rest of the way back up to Calais. Everyone has these crazy bad stories!

And I still don't.

But I dooooo now have a good and proper flight cancellation, so allow me to describe it in excruciatingly boring detail. The closest I've come, really, to nuisance, was that once I got off a flight and my connection was canceled, and they pointed me to a gate 20 feet away, where I boarded after an hour. Haha, yeah. So today, I got to the airport wicked early. Like, 4 hours early. It was either be four hours early, or 45 minutes early, since I was taking the bus down, and I prefer to be on the safe side. So after bumming around the airport for four hours, I find out that the first leg of my trip is grounded in Boston because of a storm (pft), and will be two hours late, at least. That sort of sucked, since I had a 45 minuteish layover to work with. So I was like, le suck, and even more so when they told me that was the last flight from Boston to Columbus, so if I didn't make it, I would stay at a hotel, which they wouldn't pay for, because it was cancellation due to weather.

I really didn't want to pay for my room, since all the hotels (I love you, Google maps) seemed to be $159-$169. On the plane, I sat behind a girl I know from StFX, but whose name I can't for the life of me remember (she's very nice), and sat beside a law student from Dal, who was lots of fun to talk to. And miraculously, in the end, my flight got in only a little bit late, and my connection was running two hours late. Yay! Happy ending! No.

While I was struggling to ignore the Academy Awards (I wonder if they paid the airport to have it on that channel) and instead read my incredibly boring book, the time for boarding kind of came and went. And eventually they told us that a fuel truck had, in fact, run into our plane. And the flight was cancelled.

So I was like, that's cool, I get my hotel room paid for now!! And the very nice woman with a heavy Boston accent gave me three meal vouchers to use instead of one. But when I went to get my luggage, alas, it was missing. It turns out they already checked it through to Columbus for tomorrow. How efficient of them. So I told them, don't worry about it, it seems easier this way.

The woman next to me on the shuttle was really angry (we were all from the same flight, of course), and when she telling me how angry she was (she was from Toledo), I told her that I didn't really mind. She said something along the lines of 'aw, how cute.' But the woman from Delta only gave her one meal voucher. I wonder whyyyy.

The group on the shuttle was a really amusing bunch. We didn't have one repeat personality. There was an almost albino-looking slavic-ish older woman, a stylish young Asian guy, the angry soccer mom from Toledo, and a 30s business type. And me.

Somehow....it never really occurred to me that Boston's on a waterfront. And has a harbor. When I think of Boston in history, of course it's on the water. But when I think of the modern Boston that I've had limited interaction with, it's a crowded city with an airport and hellish roads, and water never even occurred to me. View from the dining room:

In an attempt to feel better, I've used every free sample in the hotel room. Every inch of me has been scrubbed with soap and moisturized, and I took an extra long shower to enjoy not runing out of hot water. I turned the tv on, and enjoyed some ...dammit...Germaine and Brett...flock...humans are dead, hipphopopotamus and rhymenocerous...this will come to me. Anyways, I'd never actually seen an episode of their show before, so that was fun. Flight of the Concords!!! Yes! Whew.

Unfortunately, my camera is in my bag, or you guys would have been treated to some very interesting single serving photography. The toothbrush was going to be a particular work of art.

My apologies to Ben, who I wasn't able to get ahold of to let know what was happening. When I have a job, I've decided to give in and get a cell phone. Oh, the horror. The fun, gadgety horror.

Oh, Boston, why?

I haven't woken up this early since....since I left Columbus for Antigonish during winter break, actually. Halifax Airport is one of my all-time favorite airports. It's small, friendly, accessible, and pretty. One of my favorite things about airports is all the windows. Even here, in the center of the room (at a convenient little counter with outlets for laptops), the entire room is saturated with light. Actually, almost the only part of this room not glass is the roof.

Upon further reflection, that's a little frightening. I would not want an action movie plot to happen around me. The chances of surviving all the broken glass flying around would be slim indeed.

I grabbed a cab to the airport today, and I feel like a bit of a wuss as a result. But I didn't want to wear my winter boots all day in the airport, and even though I only had my one rolly suitcase, I wasn't sure....well, I had my reasons! And I took a cab.

One of the best words I've heard recently is Trifluvian. I was reading about Trois-Rivières, and eventually the author addressed its residents, and out popped.... Trifluvians. It's almost worth reading this incredibly boring book on Local Responses to Canada's Great War just to get a happy little jolt every time I come across Trifluvian.

Well, all of these pleasant reflections on airports are coming crashing (lol) down around me, as I wait to find out what's happening with my flight, since the one I'm waiting for is grounded in Boston, and I'll be missing my connection. Not that bad, not that bad at all. I'll wait to complain until it's three days later, and I'm still sitting here. I just shouldn't have been so fast to eat that second peanut butter and jelly sandwich I packed. For some reason I stocked up on food when I came, though, so I still have granola bars, SunChips, an orange, and a couple of little pieces of chocolate floating aorund.

I should just view this as an excellent opportunity to be forced to work on my paper.

Our decision

Brothers, sisters, and friends who are interested... we, Anne and Mandy, long-separated by higher education and that silly U.S.-Canada border, will be reunited this summer when Mandy graduates from college and Anne finishes her post-bacc program. We have finally reached a decision about where to move this summer. Front running cities included Brooklyn and Seattle, but we kept coming back to:

Columbus!

Our apologies to all cities other than Columbus, which are undoubtedly feeling a little rejected. And to Brad, for our failure to make it across the Mississippi.

By the end of the summer, we plan to be somewhere adorable in the Short North, enjoying a low cost of living, re-establishing our residency in Ohio to enjoy low tuition rates later, going to yoga classes after work, hiking and exploring on the weekends, and stealing dinners from Ben and Julie. Most importantly, we plan to be around for a while as Ella and Sophie are growing up. Serious apologies to Moira and Evie for not being around when you guys were living in Columbus- our bad.

All will be welcome at our pad of coolness. (Mandy takes responsibility for this last line)

Mandy's Art Studio: XIII

So, I took a botanicals drawing class last semester. I decided to only include the non-embarrassing results of my efforts. 'Cause the embarrassing ones are pretty boring. Sort of like, oh, there's a pretty poorly done leaf...wow?.... This semester we're doing painting botanicals, and the color is awesome and fun, and I'll do another post with those when I get my portfolio back at the end of hte year.

Care to suggest a city?

I've found a projector I'm interested in. Of course, it's not being sold stateside. Hopefully it's only not being sold stateside yet.

Hark! (someone on engadget said "hark," and now I'm really into it) Heed the Good Word, in the world of Deodorant. I've finally found true happiness with an antiperspirant. And that's probably because it's RIDDLED with aluminum. 20% aluminum, to be precise. Anyways, I recommend: Mitchum Smart Solid. It feels light going on, doesn't have a sickeningly sweet smell, and works really well.

Everyone is probably wondering why I'm bothering to talk about deodorants. But I realize that I've complained about them...sort of frequently on my blog. So I thought it was only fair to praise a deodorant when one that was praiseworthy came about. Accolades, Mitchum!

Hmm...what else...I went to Superstore (a grocery store that sells everything) with Stephanie and Sarah, and blew some money (whoops) on fun clothes and earrings.

Anne and I are trying to decide where to move. We might do someplace new and adventurous (Brooklyn?) or go with an old standard (Columbus). However, there are, obviously, lots of cool places that haven't occurred to me to even suggest. So, if any of you have any particularly lovely cities you'd like to recommend that offer arts, beauty, cute apartments, and a low cost of living, suggest them. BUT. You can't suggest a city you're living in, 'cause obviously we will have already considered that (e.g., LA, London, Columbus, Calais :-P, etc.). I'm curious to see if anyone offers any interesting suggestions.

Phase II and completion, long and rambling

Phase II came and went. It lasted for two days, since I didn't succeed in getting the fabric until Monday night, so I worked until about 2am Tuesday morning, then sewed like one possessed until 2pm Tuesday, and even made it to my class on Shakespeare.

I was going to take some photos of the final product, but I wasn't able to get into the Inn (the campus bar) last night, 'cause they were at capacity like all night. So I'll just tell you, I made a banner with theu's logo on it to hang at hte back of the stage, and curtains for the sides. I also made a swag type of thing for above the top of the stage, but it was used instead to decorate the table seating the candidates for hte debate for the upcoming election.

...Days later I'm continuing this entry. I went to the Inn last night, and all my stuff was still up, so I was like, "sweet, picture time." In other news, the reason I was at the Inn is because Picnicface was performing. For those of you outside the area, you might know Picnicface from their Powerthirst video. I'd always liked the Powerthirst video, but not been too impressed by some fo their other stuff, and a video that I saw of them live, so I didn't really know whether to be excited abotu the night or not. Picnicface did not let me down, though. It was awesome. The student union has brought in comedy acts before, all of which I thought were absolutely horrifyingly terrible. They relied entirely on tasteless sex jokes whose only humor was in how off-color and embarrassing they were. I can take sex humor as well as the next guy, but this was beyond the pale. It was really only shock value. Anyways! So imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when the two guys from Picnicface were awesome and hilarious.

I was completely in love with the sweater one fo the guys from Picnicface was wearing. Before I even knew he was...damn, my shirt's on inside out. That's pretty embarrassing.I'm pretty curious about how long it's been inside out, since right now it's 1am. As I was saying, though, when I just saw hte guy in the bar before performing, I fell in love with his sweater. If possible, I would have stolen it. But that would have been preeeetty difficult.

So! The end of hte story is, I got to take a picture of the final product. I specifically didn't answer Edmundo's question about what I was making on my last post (on Facebook), because I wanted to have an "unveiling." But now it's really anticlimactic. Soooo, here's what I sewed. The "U" logo that I did is a lot bigger than it seems when put in context. :-P Since technically I'm getting paid for this, I wrote up an invoice just now. The template had a little spot for business name, so I decided to make up a business name for myself. But I'm not going to write what it is, 'cause I feel too silly for even having done it. :) Who knows, though, maybe I'll start a little shop on etsy for fun. Of course...it would be necessary to have something to sell. Tiny, tiny detail.

Brad posted his Snobfest 2008 a while ago on his blog in a convenient zipped folder. I really like most of the songs (with a couple of exceptions--Party Crashin'...actually, that's the only song on the whole list I don't like. I'm sort of meh about Set In Stone by Catfish Haven, though), but I thought I'd mention a few that I can't get enough of playing right now. First, Somebody Somewhere by Cazals is my favorite song of the moment. Also Bright Side (couldn't find a good video for this). The others are really great, too. Even the weird and surprising rap on there. So go take advantage of Brad's Snobfest if you haven't already!

This entry is dragging on into long territory, so I'll just wrap things up by mentioning that I spent hte last two days making a shirt from the scraps of fabric I used for the union, and the incredibly surprising thing is it looks pretty cool. I'll take photos of it when I wear it out. Probably for Sarah's birthday next weekend.

Oh, I went and saw Waiting for Godot tonight. MAN I hate Beckett. And then went and flaunted my terrible pool skills at Dooley's.

Phase I

I am sewing something, and I'm actually getting paid for it. This is pretty eventful for me. However, it all needs to be finished by Wednesday at the latest, and there's quite a bit of work to be done. There are two different chunks of this project. Today, I completed phase I. Tomorrow, I'll be staying home from classes in an attempt to complete phase II. Go ahead, judge, but I care more about not disappointing the people who really want this to look lovely than I care about missing a day of notes.

So, here is my night.

Things started out pretty tame. There was some green tea.












There was some more green tea.












Quite a few mugs of green tea later (which always went cold), there was the satisfying moment of pulling out pins. I was pretty happy.








And now, I'm going to bed!







Other events of note: I found my first grey hair two days ago. I'm kind of confused about how that was possible, though, because it was grey all hte way through where I had dyed my hair, whenever it is that I last did it. Anyways, that's a pretty great moment for anyone. I hope I go totally silver/white. Or cool salt and peppery.

Yay new haircut

I'll be getting a much more interesting one before I graduate, though.

Spiffy new flickr badge -->

Inauguration fun

Flickr seems like it's dealing with some heavy traffic. Dare I say that everyone is uploading their inauguration photos, like me? Probably. Nevermind, I've decided my internet is the one sucking. Pictures are uploaded.

I don't like it when songs have skips built into them, so I can't tell if my computer is messing up or not.

Dirty, snowy slush is abundant. And there's this ONE spot on my walk to school, where being splashed seems to be an especially large risk. At least, I consider it higher than chance levels when I've been NAILED by the spray of a car twice on my way to class. Same spot. First time, it was that dirty slush, second time it was just water. I was very happy when I ran into a friend shortly afterward though, so I had someone to see me in my wet plight, and appreciate the amazing accuracy of the car.

Last night, I walked in the door, where Sarah pounced on me and said, "Fun project tonight, and we're doing it whether you like it or not!" To which I could only say, "Great!" Especially when I heard that our fun project was making inauguration t-shirts. Fantastic. So we cut and taped and sewed and sprayed. And Sarah, Stephanie, and I wore our t-shirts with pride today, and met at the pub to watch it all go down. And it was thoroughly documented. Complete documentation is at flickr. Here is a sampling of the fun.I'm once more single, and Sarah and Stephanie have been taking me out on the town. They're both social, and going out with them is making handling crowds easier for me. I've actually been having fun. Dare I say that I'm picking up the occasional social skill along the way? No. Heresy!

I'm pretty ready to finish with classes. I've never cared that much about my academics, but it's getting even more difficult to care lately.

To my family, regarding graduation

Sooo. My graduation's May 3. Convocation information can be found here. In light of Sam and Susie's wedding in the later half of the month, and my out of the way location, I totally understand if people can't come. But! If for some reason someone is interested in attending (I don't know if I feel like going to such a long, tedious thing), then let me know, so maybe I could make a dinner reservation and be sure we have beds aplenty.

And here is a glimpse of a cut-through that I take to make my walk to and from campus so much shorter. You can't really tell how perfectly carved otu the path is from people only walking where they have to, but it's cool.

And heeere, is an inspired creation so that we'll be able to tell how cool our house is. As you can see, we're almost always in a state of cool. Weak has only occurred once so far.