Jibbles!!

Jibbles is Katie's (roomie) cat. He hangs out with us almost constantly upstairs, and we take naps together. He's very mischievous. The other day, he ate Tim's plant right off the windowsill. Hr crouches behind corners and pounces as soon as you walk by. Oftentimes, when I open my door in the morning, he's sitting right outside, staring up at me. Here are some pictures of Jibbles, as promised. Jibbles loves his Alpine box.

More Quick Thoughts

At the moment, I'm sitting in a warm computer lab drinking a Bolthouse juice (green goodness) for breakfast/lunch, I have an apple in my bag for later, and I'm feeling veeeerry content.

Oftentimes, when there's not a google searchbar on the computer I'm using, it doesn't occur to me that there could not be one, so I click on the Address tab, and type in there like I'm searching. And then feel very silly.

If I were Niki Sanders, I would *definitely* feel like I got short-changed on my power. Who wants a manipulative, evil, alter-ego who wants to kill your husband and who knows what else?

I've really been slacking off work-wise. I haven't been reading my textbooks at all since I've gotten back from winter break. This is really going to come back to haunt me when, at the end of this year, I have four textbooks to read in a week before finals.

This is really funny:
On October 2, 2006, Emerson Electric Company, an appliance market competitor of NBC's owner General Electric, filed suit in federal court against NBC. The suit was in regards to a scene that appeared in "Genesis," the pilot episode, which depicts Claire Bennet reaching into an active garbage disposal unit—labeled "In-Sink-Erator"—to retrieve a ring, and severely injuring her hand in the process. Emerson claims the scene "casts the disposer in an unsavory light, irreparably tarnishing the product" by suggesting serious injuries will result "in the event consumers were to accidentally insert their hand into one."

...because if you were to insert your hand into one it ..wouldn't...hurt? I've seen how my spoons have come out of there, and it's not pretty. Ben K's garbage disposal almost took care of a...what was it? An avocado pit? Something.

Did you know Canadians call garbage disposals garburators? Sooo funny.

I'm starting my first real knitting project. Wish me luck!! I'll take pictures when I'm done. :)

I've been getting a *lot* of hits from Decatur, Georgia on my blog. Anybody know someone likely from Georgia? Running on Safari browser...interesting. On a Mac. Have I scared off whoever this is? Sorry. :) I just wonder what brings people back once they've come here.

I'm going to have an entry with a lot of Jibbles pictures, so if you don't like cats, too bad.

Lots to Talk About

I'm going to guess that this title didn't hold as much promise for Jaime as "Computer Labs and Casual Sex" did. However, I have lots of very interesting (to me) things to write about.

The first:
On Friday night, there was an insane rainstorm (after days and days of snow). It actually felt like a hurricane with the winds. The house was creaking and groaning under the strain, and perfectly closed doors were forced open by this maelstrom. Upon looking up the exact definition of maelstrom, I realize that this isn't a whirlpool, but it does suggest the chaos and strength of it well, so I'm keeping it. So nit-picky vocabbers back off. Anyways. After a couple of hours of this crazy wind, the lights started dimming in and out. And in and out. Until, at ten, all the electricity went off. I expected it to come back on pretty soon again, while I waited in complete pitch black. But no. They didn't. Apparently Jessie had a flashlight, so we all (except Curtis, who was elsewhere) ended up in the kitchen. In the whole house, we only had Jessie's flashlight, I had one candle, and Katie had one candle. So what did we do? We all sat down to play cards. First, we played two games of SkipBo, which took a surprisingly long time, and then we played crazy eights. Due to using two decks of cards, the twos and queens of spades came out like nuts. Instead of playing down to one, we were all exhausted, so we stopped as soon as someone reached five. By that time, I think it was twelve thirty or something, and we called it a night. The power came back on at 3am. It was odd, though, how this crazy socializing happened as soon as all tv, internet, and xbox live were unavailable. I can see how communities could become soo tightly knit in these circumstances. I can also see why going to bed at nine or earlier was even more reasonable. With the flash on, it looks like a perfectly normal game of cards. When you take the flash off, you get to see how it actually looked.

The second:
Saturday night, I actually had a little bit of a social life. Tim and I went over to this girl Alison's place, and we played Settlers with her and her boyfriend, Craig. Craig, Alison, and Tim are all from Rothesay, NB, and went to high school together. First of all, it was nice hanging out with another couple. I'm not used to that, but I felt a lot more comfortable, and I wasn't worrying about making someone uncomfortable or feel left out. Second of all, I felt like I was forcing them to play Settlers, which I didn't want to do, but they seemed pretty up for it. Sure enough, though, they loved it. As soon as we were done with the first game, Craig wanted to play a second. We ended up staying til 12:30. Craig and Alison are the type of people who I'd like to be friends with. Not wired with hyperness, you can sit and talk with them, and you're not expected to get drunk off your face or anything. It's nice.

The third:
Today is Katie's birthday! She turned 20. I have noooo idea why, but her family has a tradition of putting butter on someone's nose on their birthday. Last year, Katie's Mom called me and told me how incredibly serious it was that I accomplished this. I had to go out and buy butter, since I'd had no need for it before. :-P But I did it. And this year, I remembered. She toootally thought I wouldn't. So, there was nose buttering madness, and Tim, Kale, Jessie, Virica, and I all took Katie out to Boston Pizza for a birthday dinner. My dyed hair's in there, if you can see. I'm a brunette! My next post will probably be on knitting, so brace yourself. Knitting and lots of pictures of Jibbles for Jaime. Jibbles is a very cute cat. Much cuter than the ceiling cat seen previously on here.

So, happy birthday, Katie!!!

Computer Labs and Casual Sex

So, I'm sitting ina computer lab in the living sciences building. I don't think anyone knows that this computer lab EXISTS. And even if they did, they wouldn't come. The computers are so old, that there's a collective roar in the room, and the monitors' screens are iiiiitty bitty, but the monitors themselves are HUGE. I like the old school keyboards though. They're fun to type on, and make really loud clicking sounds. That doesn't matter, though, 'cause I'm the only on in here. No one to bother. It's not like this is some tiny hole in the wall computer lab, either. There are 25 computers in here rotting, until campus technology service decides they want to have fun beating them up in a field with a baseball bat a la Office Space.

Yesterday was an unusual day for me blogging-wise. I had a lot to talk about, plus lots of breaks between classes. True, I could have been reading my textbooks...but what fun would that have been?

Besides, without all this free time, I wouldn't get to tell you guys all about the casual sex study by Clark and Hatfield in 1989. We're starting the Attraction and Liking chapter in social psychology, and one of the early topics brought up were gender differences between males and females in society, and an evolutionary versus social roles theory for these differences. Amidst this debate, there's a study to see gender differences in receptivity to offers of casual sex. I just find this funny. This study took place on different American college campuses. The questioners were either attractive males or females, depending on the sex of the randomly approached participant.

In the first condition, the attractive confederate approached a member of the opposite gender randomly, and asked this question, "I've noticed you around campus, and I think you're very attractive. Would you go out on a date with me tonight?"

Women: 55% agreed

Men: 50% agreed

In the second condition, same situation, but the question asked was, "I've noticed you around campus, and I think you're very attractive. Would you go back to my apartment with me tonight?"

Women: 6% agreed

Men: 69% agreed

In the third condition, same situation, but the question asked was, "I've noticed you around campus, and I think you're very attractive. Would you have sex with me tonight?"

Women: 0% agreed

Men: 75% agreed

Very interesting, and very funny.

Interesting Personal Discovery

A few days ago, I started getting nauseous in the morning. The first time, I thought I was going to puke, but it passed suddenly. The second time, I was walking in Nicholson Hall to my first class, and suddenly had to run to the bathroom, where I apologized as I puked into a huge trash can, since all the stalls were full.

I know what you're all thinking, and the answer is no, so stop freaking out. The real cause is much more interesting. Multivitamins!! I told you I was trying to be healthy, right? In this process, I picked up a multivitamin. The day that I puked, I suspected that that might be the cause, even though it didn't make much sense. So I stopped taking it, and for the last two days I've been perfectly fine. No problems whatsoever. I researched it online, and it looks like a lot of people have problems with multivitamins and nausea. I only have a thing of yogurt for breakfast, and I guess a full stomach helps with that. So I took one tonight, after having four tacos (whoops), and so far no nausea.

I'm just so surprised. Multivitamins!

Piaget's Memory!

I don't know how many of you know this, but Piaget was crazy smart. He was a genius. At like fifteen or something, a museum offered him the job of head curator based on papers he published. When he wrote back and told them that he was very sorry, but he couldn't accept their offer because he was fifteen and doing something...fifteenish, the museum was really embarrassed.

Anyways! Piaget was a genius. His first thoughts on memory were that he thought that the smarter you were, the earlier your memories were. So it was just an intelligence thing. Evidence of this was that his first memory was when he was still in diapers, being pushed about in a pram by his nanny in Switzerland.

"I can still see, most clearly, the following scene. I was sitting in my pram, which my nurse was pushing in the Champs Elysees, when a man tried to kidnap me. I was held in by the strap fastened round me while my nurse bravely tried to stand between me and the thief. She received various scratches and I can still see vaguely those on her face. Then a crowd gathered, a policeman with a cloak and a white baton came up, and the man took to his heels. I can still see the whole scene, and can even place it near the tube station. [p. 188]"

He believed this memory until he was fifteen. The nanny, apparently, had been converted by the Salvation Army, and was writing to everyone to repent of her sins and apologize. She wrote Piaget's parents, and returned the gold watch that they'd given her in return for her brave defense of their son, because it turned out she'd made the whole thing up and inflicted the scratches on her face herself.

And that led to all this interesting research by Piaget on memories!! Tomorrow, I'll tell you a funny study about on men's and women's views on casual sex. At least, I think it's really funny. We're doing Attraction and Liking in Social Psychology right now.

In Response to Ben's Post (About Mine)

No, I have no brilliant or even non-brilliant insight about 3rd vs. 1st person in memories, though what you were implying definitely seemed logical.

I will now recap some of my first memories. And Ben, I wasn't that little when summer wars happen. I have a fairly chronological sense of many summer war memories (when you and Joey let Anne and me catch you, but we didn't have a prison 'cause we'd never actually managed it, and you told us to just put you in the Jones' garage, and you prooomised you'd stay, but we came back and you left?) among many others.

1. I have some extremely fabricated early memories. Let's start with the first. Me almost driving the van into the lake. I see myself crawling into the drivers seat, and Mom and Dad running out of the house with a look of terror on their face, and then crashing into the tree after I leaned the gear thing all the way into drive out of reverse. Must be totally false.

2. Also fabricated: My 1st birthday party, at the shack, sitting in that seat that clipped onto the oak table, with a blizzard outside, while Mom got me a bottle.

3. I think this is real. Mom let me pack my little pink plastic Barbie suitcase to move from the shack into the farmhouse. She was just letting me have fun, since she was actually taking care of everything, but it was great, and what I remember is walking down that sloping front lawn, holding that plastic Barbie suitcase, and feeling oh so important and grown-up. Age: I don't know, but I was walking.

4. Possible real memory: Talking to Uncle Dale while he was in the garage at his former house on Courtright. Was I even alive when they were living there? Considering I didn't know 'til I was 15 or so that Dale was on his 2nd wife, this is probably fake.

5. As Ben mentioned, the strength of the 1st person-ness of this memory makes me think it's real. In 1 and 2 it was pure third person. I was sitting in that old blue van in my car seat. It was parked outside a barn (or polebarn?) that had tall grass growing along the side. Everyone piled out to get stuff. I was the only one in a car seat, and I remember watching everyone get out, while I sat buckled in, wondering where everyone was.

I think #3 and #5 are my most legit. First memories are so weird the way they're so fuzzy, but you remember certain details so clearly.

I can only guess about my ages in these. Two or three? Who knows.

Impromptu Infomercial & a question

These times between classes, sitting on the computer, mucnhing on an apple and drinking ice cold water, not going outside where it is cold, are so perfect. Getting to browse everyone's blogs and enter foods into fitday.com while looking at fun graphs that pertain to me. By the way, if anyone ever wants to lose weight or find out how they're doing nutrition-wise, or just has free time and wants to have fun, I toootally recommend fitday.com. Every day you can enter what you eat, and it will tell give you a little pie graph with breakdowns of your food by carbohydrates, protein, fat, and alcohol. Then you can see how many grams of each of these things your getting, how many calories are coming from each thing, what percentage of your daily intake each is, and what your totally calorie count for the day is. And that's just the homepage. The rest of it is even more nutrition-tracking fun. If you want to lose weight, there's the weight page, where you can enter what weight you want to weigh by what day, and it tells you how many pounds you have to lose per week and how many days you have left, and shows how healthy your current weight is. On other pages you can check and see if you're getting all the vitamins etc. that you're supposed to need, enter the fitness activities that you do for hte day and see how many extra calories you've burned from that, ....basically, the fun graphs are just ENDLESS. And did I mention that it's free?

So, that was a fun infomercial.

Oftentimes, I'm trying to finish my apple before a class begins, so I'm standign out in the hallway, and more often than not, I find myself standing down into something gross. Yesterday it was one of those ash trays that stick out from the wall and have two decades of grime inside. The day before that, it was the trash can. Why do I do that? I would prefer not to be staring down at amazingly gross things while I eat...but I do. Maybe my subconscious is trying to self-handicap my eating process and thus make me skinnier. Tricky, subconscious. Veeeeerry tricky.

Do you guys ever get tired of taking notes? Every day in class, for four or so hours, I sit writing solid, and sometimes it feels like my brain is just turned off. Sometimes, I switch to print just to change the flow and give my hand a break. Anyone remember Brock's enormous writing bump on his middle finger? I'm starting to get that. Not really, mine's tiny. But still, it's there!

About a week or so ago, the door to Tim's room locked us out (stupid lock). All of our books were in there, as well as our shoes and coats, and class was coming up in half an hour. We couldn't get ahold of the landlord, so we went outside barefoot, stood on a chair, and tried to open teh windows. No doing. We tried to pick the lock. No doing. I gently tried breaking the door in. Shockingly, that option didn't work. We tip-toed back outside, and tried to force the window open. The storm window outside glass broke. Whoops. So we got the inside window open, and I shimmied inside. We got our books and shoes, and made it to class, yay! Now, however, the storm window is broken. The windows are ancient, but I don't know what to do about it. Should I try to replace the storm section of the window myself? Can you even buy storm windows like that, without the rest of the window coming with it? These things were tight. Now that the storm window's not there, cold air is just sweeping into Tim's room. We keep the door closed so that it won't suck the heat out of hte rest of the house. Should I just ignore it and give the landlord the damage deposit and let him deal with it? Should I get dad to come up, and say, "Daddy, what do I do? Help me." Either way, I'm not doing anything until some of this snow melts. So, I'd love all you homeowners' advice.

I signed the lease for a house for next year. Yay! It's a five bedroom place, really close to campus. There's a nice-sized kitchen, two full baths, and 60-gallon hot water heater. The rent's only 425 a month, and it includes everything, water, electricity, heat, high-speed internet, cable, phone, and there are internet, cable, and phone jacks in every single room. Suhweet. Plus, thermostats for every room and little ventilatey thingies. And the best part of all: It's only an eight month lease!! The landlord is this guy who cooks at the Moonlight Diner, one of two Chinese restaurants in town (not good, don't go there). His name is Simon, and he speaks with such a heavy Chinese accent that it took me a while to begin to decipher it. At first, I was sort of nervous and thought maybe this was his way of saying all these things about the lease and policies, and getting us to nod our heads like we knew what he was talking about, while he pulled the wool over our eyes and we agreed to outrageous things that would kill us later. After a couple of visits with him, though, I realized that he's a really, really nice guy. He tried really hard to make sure that we understood everything about the lease, and everything about the apartment. I'll be living with Katie, her boyfriend Chris, who is transferring from LeHigh University in Pennsylvania, Tim, and this guy we found to be the fifth. So, yay, happy news!

Cold!

Today, during the day, the temperature felt like -20 F. Just putting that out there. -20.2 degrees fahrenheit.

Memories (careful, psychology)

This post is for Ben K. Actually, and all the other siblings. Actually, it's for everyone, 'cause we've all experienced this, and no doubt pondered it. Ben K's just the one who always makes fun of me for things that pertain to memory.

In Developmental Psych today, we were learning about the phenomenon of infant amnesia. Okay, everybody, picture your earliest memory. Who knows if it's actually real or not. <--not an actual question. How old do you think you were? According to developmentalists, our first genuine memories typically occur between the ages of 3 and 4. Some people only have their first memories a little after the age of 7. Crazy, eh? And it's really rare to find someone who has a genuine memory at 1 or 2.

So today's class was about theories explaining *why* this occurs. There were all of these stupid theories that really didn't make any sense, then there was Freud, saying we were too sexual and repressed them to spare ourselves self-loathing, and then there was Piaget. Ahhh, Piaget. I love him and I hate him. We all at least recognize his name, right, and anyone with kids has probably read a parenting book or something which probably mentioned him at some point....anyway. He has these stages of development. There's the sensorimotor, then preoperational. In sensorimotor, there is no symbolic thought. You can't think about something when it's not there. So while you know your Mom, you think of Mom as the way you interact with her, and the way she smells, and the way she handles you. You don't think of this abstract idea of Mom in your head. So that's the way all thinking is at this time. And in the preoperational period, there is symoblic representation, so things like language and thinking about people who aren't there are possible, but thinking is also pretty illogical. Preoperational children use things like transductive reasoning instead of deductive or inductive. Most everyone's first memories are in these preoperational stage, but probably rather fragmented, and you can't be certain what came before what, so there's no strong sense of chronology, unlike memories after ten or so, when you can remember something, and know where it really fits in. Aaaanyways. Piaget thinks that the reason we can't remember things from our sensorimotor period is because we're trying to remember them using our symbolic thought that we use as adults, but memories from then weren't stored like that, they were stored with actions and sensations, and thus aren't directly accessible to us. And later on, in preoperational, our memories are spotty and fragmented because we both don't have a complete mastery symbolic representations such as language, but we also don't have reasoning that would have helped us, at that time, assemble them in some sort of chronological order. And *that* is why the closest you might be able to come to a emmory from your sensorimotor period is if a friend wears the same perfume as your Mom, and they keep reminding you of your Mom, and you don't know why. Stuff like that.

But! We're not into what really pertains to Ben K, yet. That was background. So, what about autobiographical memories? There are episodic memories (a specific event at a specific time) and generic event memories (like being given a bath, or a basic script for what happens at a birthday party or the zoo). Generally, we forget episodic events, unless something particularly exceptional or weird happens during it. So eating my apple at lunch today, I won't remember that specific memory. ButI take an apple with me every day, and years from now, I might look back and remember the generic event of me taking an apple and eating it during breaks between classes. For a little kid, if an episodic event happens like 5 times in three months, it will become a generic event. But most kids don't have these autobiographical memories, because they only have generic event memories, so how do they get autobiographical memories? It depends on their parents! Some parents are "elaborate parents" who when asking their kid about something, helps them out, and gives them all these details, and all these clues to remember what happened last month at grandpa's house. "Pragmatic parents," if their kid doesn't remember what happened, will probably just say, "Yes, you do, you remember. Come on, who did you see at Grandpa's last month?" They don't actually help the kid try to remember. But, through the elaborate parents providing such a detailed picture so often of what happened, the kid relives the exact same event again and again, turning an episodic memory into something autobiographical, which wouldn't normally occur for a child that age. However, maybe you've spotted a consequence of this. Things that are salient to little kids tend to be quite different than what's salient to an adult. What an adult thinks is totally cool and unusual is probably very different than what is to a kid. A kid might just be staring at the texture of the fur of a bunny they're holding, with the idea "soft" in their head, while their parent is like, "Cool, a rabbit." Later on, the kid will probably think of hte event more as something soft rather than remembering that they were holding a rabbit. But when the parent keeps recounting holding the rabbit, and what the rabbit was like, and what rabbits do, the parents' ideas of what is salient and what happened will gradually take replace what was salient to the kid, and eventually he'll think of the rabbit, rather than just the idea of soft or fluffy or whatever. So, I think it's really interesting to see how kids' memories can be changed like that.

Aaaand this idea of salience is what I'm getting to with Ben K. As an 8 or 9 year old (or any age, really), something in a particular situation could strike the kid as very salient. If that happens, what is salient will probably be linked to future memories in the kid's head. So, if something happens one or two Christmases that strike the kid a lot, every Christmas afterwards will probably be associated with that somewhat. So, if I have a particuarly striking memory of some events, don't blame me for not being able to dissociate it from past similar events, since I might want what was very salient to me at one time, but probably doesn't have any real founding in tradition, or being repeated more than two or three times. As an older sibling with many previous Christmas "scripts" in one's head, what stood out so much to me probably whizzed through your head, without making much of an impression. And maybe *that*'s! why I really want some things to be just so. Either that, or I just love to imagine certain things being important to me. :) You know, either or.

That was an awful lot of explanation about memory to make a very weak point at the end, so sorry. But I did think that was an awesome lecture. If you're really lucky, maybe I'll tell you the story about how Piaget realized that memories are our own creation. It's pretty fun. :)

Roomies!

Well, here you are. The list you've always been waiting for. The five people I live with.

Curtis--Curtis is a fourth year and is former president of my dorm, MacIsaac. I've never seen anyone able to drink so much beer, and yet act so uninebriated. He's in business, and seems to have mad people skills. He's sort of an invisible roommate. Spends a lot of time in his room, at class, and at work. I don't really know what he actually does for his job...but he's good with computers and laughs a lot. We didn't know Curtis before he lived with us, but he's turned out to be a cool guy. Oh, and O Brother Where Art Thou can occasionally be heard blasting from his room, which can only be a good thing. Curtis is from Moncton, New Brunswick, about three or so hours east of Antigonish.



Jessie--I met Jessie like the first day of school last year. She and Katie hit it off. She lived one floor below me, but had a dirty roomie and I don't think she liked the Mac style. Katie sort of links us together, I think, but we've had fun times at movies and hanging out. She's really close to her family, which I like. Also, she speaks Mi'kmaq, which is awesome. I wish I could speak Mi'kmaq. Jessie's from Cape Breton, but I'm not exactly certain what town.



Kale-- Kale's the other guy none of us knew going in this year. The property manager found a person to fill the sixth room without talking to us, and so we were pretty nervous, but he's totally laid back and makes beautiful smells in the kitchen when he cooks. Oh, and when he arrived, he brought tons of oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies, which can only create a good impression. Major bonus points for me, I know. He smokes a lot of weed, but is really courteous about everything that he does. He, Tim, and I are on the first floor, and as a result we all hang out together a lot. Well, he, Tim, and the XBox 360 hang out a lot. :-p Kale works in the kitchen at Boston Pizza. He works full time and still manages to go to classes. Kale's from the Halifax area.



Katie--Katie was my assigned roommate in the MacIsaac residence double rooms. Talk about the residence office not screwing up. We both like Radiohead and are unashamed Harry Potter fans. It would bot be a lie to say that our room last year kicked ass. I get the impression that Katie's normally much more outgoing socially than I've seen her at university, but we both had a pretty quiet lifestyle in MacIsaac with a few exceptions. The door to our room wouldn't stand open, so as a result we didn't meet people on our floor very easily the way other people did. She's super clean, which is nice, and I'd try and be as clean as possible. Having Katie as a roomie definitely made it easier. She has a long distance boyfriend, Chris, in Pennsylvania. Oh, and her birthday is January 21st. Cool, eh? Oh, and she's from Massachusetts, but is like 3/4 or a half Canadian. Oh, Katie is the owner of the oft-mentioned cat, Jibbles.

Tim-- Tim's from Rothesay, New Brunswick, and his house is conveniently five minutes off the highway I have to take to get home, and only an hour and a half from Calais. You've all met Tim, though, so there's not much to say. He's doing biology, plays a lot of Halo, has three older brothers, plays piano and saxophone, and also plays a lot of Starcraft. Has a much better work ethic than I do.





Well, my laptop's battery is almost out. It's snowing like nuts outside. And those are all my roommates! I apologize for the mugshot-type photos I took.

Short Thoughts

So, I've been counting calories (no surprise there) and eating healthfully (what?!). Yeah. I spent like an hour at the grocery store a little more than a week ago picking out nice food. Instead of having a lot of crappy, low-calorie food, I have a little bit of really nice high-calorie food. I also splurged and got multi-vitamins. They're HUGE. And green. Like, lime green. Instead of cardboard-like icky bread, I have molasses brown bread from the bakery that come in nice, big slices. Yay! And...dinners of just a salad. Radical.

I have a target weight with a target date to achieve it. If I do achieve it, I'll put a picture up here just to celebrate it. For motivation, I have a picture of a Victoria's Secret model as my desktop. That may seem shallow, but motivation is very important to me. I always start out overzealous and then burn out.

Oh, I dyed my hair this weekend. When I'm motivated enough to get up from my seat, I'll take a picture to show you guys. It's a somewhat outrageously dark shade of brown.

Every morning when I'm sitting at my desk checking email, Jibbles (cat) sits on my lap, sticks his little paws into my desk drawers, and fishes around for things. He drags out my little sewing kits and then goes back and fishes around some more. It's very cute. Another cute feature of cats that I never observed before is the way they wash their faces with the paws. It must suck being covered in hair like that.

So, Gears of War. I'm impressed. I don't have HD or anything, but the graphics and fluid motion of the characters and ways to fight are just really impressive. Why is everyone so large, though? Each character has legs the size of tree trunks. Oh, and I love the crouch run. Zoom!

Really Quickly

I've got class really soon, but just thought I'd throw something up here, since it's been awhile.

I had an at-home, impromptu tetra-fecta this weekend. It was sad, really. Something's Gotta Give was on tv, I was waiting for it to come on, a movie (I can't even remember what) was on beforehand, I watched that, but then 10 Things I Hate About You was on as filler, so I watched that, then Something's Gotta Give, which I enjoyed more this time around then I did the first time I saw it, and then The Truman Show. I didn't even want to watch The Truman Show, but I let it get like half an hour in, and by then I just wanted to see the end of the movie, 'cause I'd already invested. How sad.

My latest plan volunteer-wise is maybe the Philippines or somewhere Central America. Fly down to Santa Fe for Anne's graduation, drive to LA with Brad, fly from there to volunteer location (wherever that may end up being) a few days later after proper socialization and showing of town has occured, then fly back from volunteer location to who knows where--maybe Ohio to visit. How much fun would that be.

I wrote a piece of tooootal BS for my art scholarship submission essay of "what art means to me." How is a person supposed to answer that question?? It's like saying, "Please, we would like to evaluate how good you are at BSing." Apparently the essay doesn't matter at all, though, and it's all based on your entry pieces, so I suppose it's okay that my "essay" really blows. And isn't in essay form. And uses sentence fragments--artistically. :-P

Well, time for developmental. I'm skipping French lab today, 'cause I really can't stand the thought of it right now. This'll be the first class I skipped this year. With the exception of Thanksgiving.

I have so much to blog about, so you won't have to wait too long for an update. Developmental Psychology time!!

In Jaime's words: Gripery

As you all know, I'm a very intolerant, unreasonable, mean person. I have intolerant thoughts all day. And today, as I was sitting in a lobby waiting for Tim to get out of his botany lab, I wrote some intolerant thoughts down, just so I would remember them and be able to write them down here. Now, there you see effort in order to perpetuate my intolerance. I am lazy in all the wrong ways.

Actually, these aren't all annoyances. Some of these are just observations.

Sam's mentioned in his blog (CommonPlaces, to your right) that people who write blogs might be, "a little bit keen on themselves." And just in case there was any question about this, I thought I'd clarify: I am in fact a very self-centered person, and this blog feeds my egotistical, selfish thoughts. Actually, that is something I worry about. I notice that the word "I" or any "me"-related word seems to pop up in every sentence I use. So I try and eliminate this egocentric world I'm in...and I can't. In the end, I've resigned myself. I think that almost everyone is this way. It's been shown that people remember anything better if they relate it back to themselves. It's called the self-reference effect. So I wonder, does anyone else have this nagging sense of self-centeredness? It makes me feel very...uncaring or something. There I go again: me me me. :-P

You know, even when the weather here is cold, it's really not that cold, but it FEELS that cold. So you may see on the weather report, 8 celsius or something, but do not be deceived. That is not as warm as it may sound. The actual university is on a bit of a hill here, and the wind tends to whip like nuts, especially the way it funnels between buildings, building up force. There's actually one point on the top of about...61 steps, where the wind is (to me) notoriously bad. I have to hold on to the railing to keep it from tossing me down the steps. It's especially bad when it's just snowed, and everyone goes up and down them, packing it into smooth ice that's very rounded: ideal slippage. Anyways. It was a seemingly cold day today, and I was bundled up. However, I walked outside at one point today--and it was perfect. It felt balmy. And I realized that it was because the wind wasn't tearing around, ripping the warmth from me. I'm certain that Ben and Julie have a very excellent sense of the ripping cold wind, from being at St. Andrews. Whew! Now that was an icy wind. Granted, Anne and I didn't have jackets...(smart packing).

You know what really bugs me? When people who are perfectly healthy and strong use the handicap button on the powered doors. Why do they do that?? Why don't they just push it open? It's not like there's something in their hands. Just give a little push. I especially hate it when I'm sitting in the lobby of the building that the lazy door pushers are leaving, and the doors stay open, both of them, forever after they leave. It's not so bad when someone enters/leaves without pressing the button, 'cause generally the outside door is closed before they fully open the inside door, or vice versa. But when they push that handicap button, and both doors open at once, and they stand there like that for so long, the wind zips into the building, and sucks out all of that nice, heated air, and it takes at least five minutes for me to heat up properly again. At which point some lazy person comes along and pushes the handicap door button. I think it's funny that I'm complaining about other people being lazy. Ha.

You know what else really bugs me? Handicap doors. I know that some people actually need them, but for a selfish person like me, that doesn't stop it from bothering me. I never use the handicap door buttons (see above paragraph), but if I want to go through one of those doors, they resist being pushed open. I actually have to push much harder with a handicap door than a regular door. The regular doors swing so nicely and easily. And before you go excusing the healthy handicap door button pushers: There are several non-handicap doors for every handicap door we have. And before you tell me: Well why don't you just do through the non-handicap door? Let me say, I try. But it's hard to identify which doors are the handicap ones, and which aren't. Sometimes I try and go through the non-handicap ones, but it's tricked me, and it's the power door! Aaaaaagh. Ohhh, the trials I suffer.

You know what's crazy? The weather in Antigonish. It seems like every area seems to say that the weather is unpredictable for that region. In Maine, I never really noticed that the weather changed that much, despite the fact that there were many touristy t-shirts making jokes about it. In Antigonish, though, that actually seems to be quite true. I've been standing beneath a rain cloud with sun everywhere else around me. Today, it was cloudy and snowing on one side of a building, sunny and snowing on another, and cloudy and raining on the other. That was weird. Perhaps this is a common quote for any area that thinks it's known for it's unpredictable weather, but my French professor said it while we were talking about the spring-like weather yesterday (today, btw, there are two in. of snow on the ground). She said there was a saying that went, "If you're in Nova Scotia and don't like the weather, just wait a minute." I thought that was funny. :-[

Today, French class was odd and fun. It felt like a high school French class. We worked for ten minutes in pairs on two exercises, and then went up to the board to write our answers. I reaaally like that. It's very low stress. I get a chance to think calmly in my head. Normally, the professors just walk around and randomly pick students to perform exercises in front of the class. That is just TOO stressful to me. I get scared, and my thoughts run in all different directions. Before you know it, I'm conjugating etre wrong. That still happened a little bit today, but that half an hour or so of low stress work felt fabulous.

Well, that's about all the griping for today. And I know, I need to work on being more tolerant. :-P

Well, that's a surprise

So, it turns out that my art professor has submitted me to compete for an art scholarship...random. However, they're judging based on work done outside of class, of which I have...very little. So I only have until Monday to do a number of sketches and an essay saying, "What art means to me." The scholarship's not for very much, but still, it'd be nice. So, that was my nice surprise.

Best frozen dinner I've ever had: a butter chicken type thing with rice. I know, frozen dinner, yada yada yada, but it wasn't bad! And it was unbrand. You know what would be awesome to have? A Trader Joe's nearby. I don't go to the grocery store often enough to keep lots of fresh stuff around, so it would be awesome to have their variety of frozen foods around. I've only seen them in the store, but they look so good, and aren't the typical grocery style.

OSU

I'm just not even going to talk about it.

Ramble a little...or ramble a lot

I met my new French professor today. For the first time, I'm being taught in class by a Francophone (my lab prof is also a native French speaker) and it's very intimidating. Her name, amusingly, is Dr. Mendez. Thankfully, she speaks very clearly and slowly in French. My lab professor, Mr.? Dr.? Maillet speaks reaaaally quietly and mumbles. I spend the entire time struggling to discern what he's saying. Have I bragged about my French lab, yet? In addition to overall small class sizes, I have a French lab once a week. There are five people in it, total. We sit around for the first half of classes, in a discussion led by Dr/Mr Maillet. Basically, I spend the entire time blushing with my inadequate French.

My developmental psychology professor, Dr. Bigelow, is a low talker. I sit in the second row, about five feet away from her, and if anyone so much as shuffles a paper, what she's saying is lost. Today, someone half-shouted from the back, "Could you please speak a little louder?" She laughed, and made a small effort to speak more loudly, but in no less than thirty seconds, was back to her extremely quiet volume.

Professors at my university are awesome. I don't know if everyone has this experience or not, but every one of my classes is taught by a professor. A TA teaching a class doesn't exist here. The professors learn students' names, and almost every professor is heard to say something like this, "Stop by my office whenever you want. I'm almost always there. My door's always open. If you're having problems, I'll help you out. If my office hours don't work for you, call me, and we'll arrange a time to meet. I care about you doing well, I think you do too, and I'll help you." I love that.

Random weather: It seems like everyone's been having an unseasonably warm winter. We were too, and today I walked to school wearing my winter coat, feeling silly for even wearing it. It was a beautiful, sunny day! When I got out of French (one hour later) it was snowing. A lot. Those big, clump flakes that wouldn't have even stuck, except that they were so BIG. By the time I got out of developmental psychology, there were three inches of snow on the ground. One hour later, walking home from French lab, it was raining. It poured rain for the next three hours. Many thanks to Ben and Julie for getting me those Grr Boots. They came through when I was wading through the lake that the grocery store parking was converted into.

Home Sweet Home

I'm back in Antigonish! The 'Nish. Some might say this is a bad thing, but I like Antigonish. It's small, the pace is slow, and there's a Subway. As I'm sure everyone knows, Dad got me a digital camera to replace my old one that I lost. Yay Dad! Now, however, I'm able to show you all my beautiful home. Get ready for picture bonanzas. As soon as I run into Jessie, I'll take her picture, and then there will be a roommate post, so everyone can get to know the awesome people I live with. With whom I live. Whatever.

Here is 12 Xavier Drive, the house I've been living in with five other people for the last...(pauses to count on fingers..Sep..Oct..Nov..Dec..) four months. You can't see it in this picture, but there are three nice little trees in my front yard, and we have a small backyard that we never use. But we should. But we don't.


Here we have the living room. You can all admire the very well coordinated furniture we have, and amazing decorations. Other than that futon, they're all really comfy, and most importantly: free. The futon was left in the house from last year's students. Periodically, as I or someone else is sitting on it, it suddenly falls apart. Like it seriously just goes...fwoosh! The bolts wiggle out and the frame goes kerplunk. I'm loving the onomatopoeias today, eh? Yeah, I had to look that spelling up. We trash-picked that armchair, and Kale (roomie) brought everything else.





The kitchen doesn't look like much, but it does its job. It can get kind of cramped when people's dinnertimes overlap, but what kitchen doesn't. Every day I'm grateful for those two full-sized fridges.






Here's my room. I swear, it seemed really clean. I can excuse myself because I took this just after I'd arrived, and the room was in the mayhem of unpacking. Excuses, excuses, excuses. A view of both sides of the room.




So, there you go. I have pictures of Tim's room and my bathroom. If anyone cares about seeing them, let me know.

The gang's all here

We've made it!! Each of my six siblings (+ Jaime, every bit a sister) now has a blog. Btw, Anne, am I remembering correctly that you were talking about changing the name of your blog?? Please don't! I love the name The Divine Comedy. It's so...so...I don't know. But I really really like it. <--Profound.

So, I saw Rainbow Six: Vegas today. Good game. I like the way when you hide behind a wall, you don't just crouch, you sit with your back to it while the bullets whizz by to your sides and over your head. I also like the way you can aim while you're crouching, then flip around in a second and shoot the other guy bang on. I hear that if I like this, apparently Gears of War kicks ass even more.

World's latest review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. There's not much to say. I'm both extremely depressed, but also happy. Danny DeVito looks *much* better when not spherical. I spent the entire movie going, "Is that really Danny DeVito? Nahh, ...but it has to be!" Turns out Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito's are friends from when they were little kids. Their parents ran a business together. Fun. Anyways, this movie broke my heart, and now I understand why Jack Nicholson has respect as an actor. Wow.

Go Troy Smith!!

Congratulations to Buckeye Troy Smith, for winning the Heisman Trophy!! I had no idea that the whole thing had come and gone already. This happened December ninth??? Where was I? Must have had my head in the sand somewhere...oh yeah, exams. :-P Anyways, Go Troy! Plus, that name just kicks ass. I wish I could pull off the name Troy. "Hi, I'm Troy." "You're kidding me."

Man, look at that NECK.

Coincidence of hte day

I know this will seem very boring to everyone, but I'm really excited right now. I continued browsing through real estate today, this time in the Saint John area (where Tim lives). I came across this house and fell completely in love. Check it out, and be certain to click for more pictures on the right hand side. This is only $300,000 USD!! So I showed Dad, I showed Wayne, and then I showed Tim. At which point he said, "Oh, I know the people who live there. The Mildenburgers." At which point I said, "You mean Mrs. Mildenburger, who helped out with Andrew and Amanda's wedding???" (She's German and very very awesome and nice.) And he said, "Yes!" He wanted to confirm that it was their house, though, so he looked at the person to contact, and said, "Whoa, the woman selling this property lives just down the street from me." So, I think it's fate that we buy this house. Let's all chip in!

So, that's my crazy coincidence. :-P

Cabinets!...sort of.

Here are the 4'x8'4" "cabinets" Dad and I made last night. This is one almost but not quite complete island. To the left, outside the photo, are others just stacked on top of one another.

I won't be able to tile tonight, 'cause we need to order them. So, that means I'll be coming back here for spring break, and doing lots of tiling! Yay! So tonight, we'll work on the rest of hte cabinets instead.

Just to clarify, I will in fact be tiling the kitchen countertops. It seemed like a decent, cheap way of improving the overall feel and look of them, and to help make them seem more legitimate.

The Christmas decorations are almost all down, and I am a demon of cleanliness!

Anne, you left your brown Mossimo shirt behind, and Brad, you left your navy blue Gap button down behind. As you can see, I may or may not be wearing both of those in that photo.

Productivity? What?

Yeah, this is a shocker. Today I was a slave driver, and Dad and I got a lot done on the kitchen "cabinets." To make them seem more legit, I suggested tiling the counters of them. Dad got pretty excited about the idea, though, so now I've been studying tiling from his book, making a list of what we have and what we need. Hopefully, before I leave for New Brunswick, there will be at least one tiled countertop! Not gonna lie, I'm really excited. I hope we can find everything we need tomorrow. However, before I get started on the tiling, I'm supposed to have all the sheets, blankets, and decorations put away in an organized manner. :( So, maybe I'll wake up at a decent hour tomorrow and try to get that taken care of.

Additional shocking announcement: The house is really warm right now, and my cheeks are all flushed from the heat. Amazing. For those of you who are not aware, my Dad's house is in its very early stages of construction. Some walls aren't insulated, so the cold Maine air just falls down into the house, making a common house temperature 52.

By the way, congratulations to you brave warriors of Christmas vacation here. As Brad said, the water did eventually start running clear again. I spent today bleaching the stains off of the bathtub, toilet, and sink. Ladybugs are still crawling everywhere, but hey, I think they're pretty cute. Ohhh, fun new discovery: the fruit flies were coming from the CORN STOVE. Dad hypothesizes that the warmth allowed them to hatch while they were sitting inside. It broke today, Dad scooped out almost all the corn to get to the parts he needed to fix, and while he was showing me how it worked, I noticed that hte corn looked like it was...moving. Yes, moving. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was actually just hundreds of little bugs crawling around among the corn. Whew, for a second there I thought the corn was moving. Wait...BUGS!!!! I pointed it out to Dad, and we were both amazed, though I was mostly just grossed out and alarmed. Once I saw that our bug killer stuff was nonflammable, I proceeded to spray the living daylights out of them. Undoubtedly, I am now inhaling horrible chemicals, but hey, it's worth it.

I took the geography test that everyone was bugging me about. Didn't do too well, scored a 119/150. :-[ So, now you know. I suck at knowing the states. They all sort of blur together once they're past the Mississippi. I read Anne's book BabyCatcher, by Peggy Vincent. It presents a really good view of modern midwifery, I think. So, everybody read it. There was an interesting line in the back that reminded me of Ann Niblock. Under the section Appendix I: Pearls of Wisdom, she says, "The mother of the laboring woman suffers most." I remember sitting with her in the waiting room for hours and hours, while she tried to not look worried, and while I tried to give her things to occupy her mind with, and how when Ben K text messaged from the delivery room that everything was okay, and the baby had arrived, and it was a girl, she just cried, and hugged me, and cried some more. What a great time, but I certainly felt terrible for how worried Ann was.

I have been sucked into looking at real estate in Maine, and I'm having a ball. Right now I've got my on this little baby. Really nice interior, and $140,000. Too bad I have no idea where Winterport is.

Well, now that I've binged on real estate, and it's midnight, I'm going to bed. Wish me luck with my tiling adventure!!

Happy Birthday, Brad!!

No, this post isn't a day late...

Happy birthday to my biggest brother, Bradford Daniel! I'll follow his format for these birthday wishes.

Brad's the "cool one" in a family full of nerds. He showed me Jackie Chan in his early days, the X-Files, and music beyond Andrew Lloyd Webber. Brad was a mysterious brother who was sometimes there, and when he was, affection was something that could be detected in the small things that he did. As I got to know him, the brother that was so mysterious transformed into a brother who was generous and very caring.

So here's to my quiet brother out in LA. Happy birthday!!!!!

Mountains of Beef and a movie

It's hard to say what you've done in a day when you've done nothing. It's also hard to sleep in when all the rooms are as exposed as they are in this house. Almost as soon as one person wakes up, a chain reaction occurs, with the last person clinging stubbornly to their sleep. By the time I let go of my sleep today, it was only 8:30. Eight thirty!!!!

With all the people in the house, though, by the time I got my bath, it was one in the afternoon. :) Btw, something has happened with the well, so that water seems to be coming out....dirty. It keeps getting worse. Today, it was so dirty that I couldn't see my feet in the bottom of the tub. Yuck! Hopefully that will...fix itself...magically.

Dad was so determined to have a dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs. So tonight, in the cold dark, he went out to the grill with his little headlamp and coat on, and grilled them. We ended up with so many burgers, it was a mountain. As you see, above, the mountain of burgers.

We took the usual family Christmas photo, which was a funny event. Children running everywhere, camera timers going off at unexpected moments.

We watched Steve Martin's movie, Shopgirl. Plenty of people told me that it was "weird," and they didn't like it. However, I loved it!! Most of the movie was an awkward, embarassing story about one woman and two men. At the end, though, things took a sudden turn and became surprisingly happy and optimistic. It had a useful story about relationships and miscommunications, and what makes a relationship happy. So, I recommend it, but now I've created unreasonable expectations. Ohhhh well.

Christmas: Part II

So far, Christmas break has been spent starting (but not finishing) movies, working endlessly on jigsaw puzzles, eating food, and watching Heroes at night with Ben and Jaime. All in all, that is a fabulous time. Some people might be bored with this, day in and day out, but not I. Oh no. This is lazy heaven.


Last night was Anne's 22nd birthday. Happy birthday!! Here is Evie giving Anne a hug after she opened her birthday presents.

I'm going to be ridiculous, and share what I got for Christmas. I got a blue sweaters with strawberries on it, an orange and grey shirt, beautiful handmade yarn from Taos, the complete anthology of Jane Austen's works (new!!!!), StitchnBitch, thermal underwear (score!), scented socks O_o, cute little flats (shoes), a selection of This American Life recordings (NPR), and a Canon Powershot 600. Suhweet.

Now, time for a nap. Four hours of sleep + egg nog and kahlua makes me sleepy.

Merry Christmas!!!

Drama Queen

I had a drama queen moment today. Being extremely tired + a comment led to me standing with my hands in the sink, full-out crying; what a sorry sight. A hug and nice words from Anne made me feel all better, but it was ridiculous, me standing there crying irrationally. It was....bizarre.

Dave, the carpenter who built Dad's new house, stopped by and gave Dad a wreath and screwbits. I thought that was so sweet and thoughtful. Nice guy.

We've just watched The Muppet Christmas Carol, and I am now in the ultimate Christmas spirit. Everyone should watch this movie and sing along. What great music. And so I give you THE song about Christmas spirit.

It Feels Like Christmas

It's in the singing of a street corner choir
It's going home and getting warm by the fire
It's true
Wherever you find love
It feels like Christmas
A cup of kindness that we share with another
A sweet reunion with a friend or a brother
In all the places you find love
It feels like Christmas
It is the season of the heart
A special time of caring
The ways of love made clear
It is the season of the sprit
The message if we hear it
Is make it last all year
It's in the giving of a gift to another
A pair of mittens that were made by your mother
It's all the ways that we show love
That feel like Christmas
A part of childhood we'll always remember
It is the summer of the soul in December
Yes, when you do your best for love
It feels like Christmas
It is the season of the heart
A special time of caring
The ways of love made clear
It is the season of the sprit
The message if we hear it
Is make it last all year
It's in the singing of a street corner choir
It's going home and getting warm by the fire
It's true, wherever you find love
It feels like Christmas

Christmas: Part I

You know how discouraging it is when you write something, and you like it, and then you lose the whole thing, and rewriting it again the same way just seems impossible, and it's not as good, and you're just so sad? That just happened. So, here's my horrible, re-written not as good version. What a good excuse for mediocrity.

Every holiday season, the Merry Christmas versus Happy Holiday debate comes up, and I've never given an opinion in that all-consuming, life and death argument. I used to think that it was because I was either too lazy or didn't think that either side really had it right. Then I realized the the reason I never give an opinion is because to strangers, I never say Merry Christmas. I never say Happy Holiday. I just say, "Have a nice day!" I suppose that if I saw a stranger on Christmas Day, I might say Merry Christmas. But when was the last time I saw a stranger on Christmas Day? I actually can't remember ever seeing a stranger on Christmas Day. Is that weird? I can't remember ever leaving the house on Christmas. Actually, does midnight church count? I've done that a couple of times. But really, I'm with family or members of church, on Christmas Day, so I say, "Merry Christmas." And that's the end of the story for Mandy.

On Tuesday, Anne and I converged on Dad's house. Despite the fact that it's vacation, I actually feel like we've spent the majority of our time productively. My back hurts. Ben, Jaime, Moira, and Evie arrived today at 4:45 am. Being the wonderful, caring sister and aunt that I am, I waited up until they were actually here. The next morning, I got up at 8:30. No big deal, right? Well I've been getting twelve hours of sleep a night, minimum, and to go from that to the 2.5/3 hrs I got last night was pretty harsh. So, I am....wilting. We started a puzzle today, and I periodically fall into a daze, staring into space. I am languishing.

Ooh, last night, Dad, Anne, and I went to see Charlotte's Web. May I just say, it was amusing sitting in the theater, the only discernible group that didn't have at least one child with it. Charlotte's Web: Thumbs up. Well done. And what a bizarrely packed cast. Listen to this: Julia Roberts, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Oprah Winfrey, Cedric the Entertainer, Kathy Bates, Reba McEntire, Robert Redford, Thomas Haden Church, Andre Benjamin, Sam Shepard, and Dakota Fanning. That is ridiculous. Anyways, it had funny parts, and I laughed really loudly by myself in the theater, and at one point, the little boy sitting in front of me turned around and gave me a dirty look! Excuse me? I may have a loud, spontaneous laugh, but two seconds ago you were sitting there going, "It's a rat! It's raining! It's funny, 'cause he's a rat!!" Riiiight, and who should be given the dirty look here? I think that laughing is appropriate moviegoing behavior. I would like to point out that this was not a prolonged laugh or anything. I laughed, and it was done. Maybe I frightened him. I could see that. I am a pretty scary person. Rawr.

Today we polyurethaned the bathroom doors, so now we'll be able to put doorknobs on and properly close them. Luxury!! We also put up the tree and decorated, and it looks really nice. A Christmas tree looks so cute all decorated with presents underneath it. And it was nice unpacking all the ornaments and feeling very at home and normal. Still waiting for a couple of presents to arrive, but other than that, all my packing is done.

I have a busted taste bud on the very tip of my tongue, and it hurts so much. :(

I'm totally finished!

I'm done! Now, its time to clean the house, and perhaps go see (dare I?) Eragon. It has horrifyingly bad reviews, but what else would you expect? Something...good? Pfft.

An independent Mandy adventure of note: Those apartments that I've been drooling over just across the street from campus and haven't been able to find any information on, well they finally posted a number, and I actually called them! Compared to other apartments in town, the rent's outrageous, but the location really can't get any better. Irritatingly, though, I'll only be able to sign the lease in April, which leaves me uncertain of getting a place, which leaves me...uncertain. And I hate uncertainty.

Just to give you an idea of how close this is. For those of you who visited Anne in her apartment off campus at St. John's in Annapolis, this place is even *closer* to my classes than that. Haha, yeah, that's right. Preeetty close.

Jaime cut her hair, so I feel like we're short hair buddies, though hers is shorter than mine. We should make friendship bracelets!!! Omigosh! :-P

Yes, Jibbles *is* adorable. That one cat's cuteness is only enhances because his head is sticking down out of the ceiling. He'd be a lot less cute if I told you that the caption on the picture that I cropped out was, "Ceiling cat is watching you masturbate." Not quite the cute little guy anymore, now is he? :) On the topic of cats and ceiling cats, I have to present this link. Some of them are pretty weak, but some of them are really cool. Notably, I love the RAM cat, kitten in his food, trashcat, emo kitten, karate kitten, spy dog, shower cat, psycho cat, and moon cat. Go all the way through. Take a peek. It'll only eat up a couple valuable minutes of your life that you'll never get back.

Pictures of Jibbles to come once I steal a digital camera from Dad this Christmas break.

Jibbles' adventure

So my roommate Katie has this cat named Jibbles. She got him when he was six or eight weeks old, and we've had fun with him as he's grown up. Like any cat, he loves getting into funny spaces. Today, Katie, Kale, Jessie, Tim, and I went out to Boston Pizza for dinner. When we came back--no Jibbles. Couldn't find him. He wasn't in any of the rooms. I was so afraid that I'd accidentally let him outside before we went out, since I was the last person through the door. We found him, though. Where was he? He was in the ceiling. Where one of the water pipes goes up, it doesn't fit precisely, and there are those ceiling tiles in the basement like in schools. He climbed up the PVC piping, squeezed up into the ceiling, and made one of the ceiling tiles fall out. We found him peering down at us over the edge. After a five minute struggle of him clinging to the ceiling tile and wires, we got him down, all dusty and smelly.

This picture is like Jibbles' predicament, only without a ceiling tile, and less cute. Jibbles is very cute.

So that was the cat adventure of today.

Obama 2008?

Just out of curiosity, why is everyone and their mother talking about Barack Obama running for presidency in 2008? I obviously don't know anything about politics, but still. Why this guy? He's said over and over again that he's not going to run, but everyone's saying he will, and as Jaime demonstrated, already having some good fun with it.

Does he have the morals of a saint or something? 'Cause that would actually be cool, having someone you could feel proud of as a president. Like that's ever going to happen. So please, educate me. Why does the whole country want to have Obama's babies?

Nieces and Nephews

Well, Jennie did a post about her kids affecting her life, and Ben K did a post about Ella. So, I'll just mention the fact that I have seven nieces and nephews, and considering that I'm only twenty, that's insane. Five girls, two boys, and soon to be another boy, right? Pavel. Pavel is a kickass name. I've heard some people be surprised at three nieces and nephews, and when I hear that, I just think, "Pft! I have seven."

I've been watching CSI: Miami, and I think that in real life, David Caruso would be horrible at comforting anyone, considering what a bad job he does on the show. "You hang in there. Hang in there." He's the stiffest supposedly caring person I've ever seen. He does, however, get bonus points for always being polite. I love anyone who says 'please' and 'thank you.' You may wonder why I'm watching the show at all. But I have no idea.

One more exam to go! It's French, and I'm not overly concerned. Maybe I should be.

Man of the Year

So, the movie Man of the Year came to the Antigonish theatre...eventually. Most of the stuff that comes I don't want to see at all. So of course I went to see it. Honestly, it wasn't what I expected. It looked like pure lighthearted Robin Williams political-poking fun. Then there was the whole conspiracy thing that was almost the entire movie. The movie was...okay. It had its funny moments, but I have nothing witty or insightful to say about it. Oh, I can say that I normally strongly dislike Laura Linney, but this was the first time that she was actually tolerable.

The best feature about the supposedly uncorrupted comedian as President was the honesty he had. Could you imagine if all politicians were that honest? I think that a country like the US wouldn't be able to survive with honestly like that. Maybe Canada could, but the US has too many dirty little secrets dirty ways of functioning. I think that if everyone knew everything, that the old Right of the People to alter or abolish it[the government], and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness would come into play. I've always thought that seemed like a really cool concept in the Declaration of Independence. Doesn't seem like the modern government would see things that way, though. Anyways, I know absolutely nothing about modern politics or government, so I'll stop pretending as if I do. :-P

I'm currently experiencing knitting frustration with circular needles and the idea of double pointed needles. Turns out that my circular needles aren't small enough. I guess that means another trip to the sad craft section of....WalMart.

Revelations

No, nothing Biblical. Prepare yourself for some extreme superciality, though.

First, I have discovered the amazing awesomness of bobby pins. These things are just awesome. They work so well.

Second, I found a beautiful set of eyeshadows. This is the first time ever that I've bought some shades, tried them on, and been really impressed. Two thumbs up for the set of "Mocha" colors by Maybelline. Shortly after opening the set of eyeshadows, in a moment of klutziness very unsurprising to anyone, I dropped the little eyeshadow brush straight down the drain of the sink I was standing over. It is now sitting at the bottom of the "U" bend in my drain, barely visible by the little indentation it makes in the water. Despite hte impossibility of recovery, I still tried to stick a fork down there and get it out. When I almost dropped the fork in the drain, I gave up.

Everyone knows I have fairly awkward and embarassing scars on my chest. Well, today I finally dropped thirty dollars on little silicone scar sheets in an attempt to reduce their noticeableness. If anyone is curious, I'm actually much better about picking anything. Much. So this scar removal thing's supposed to go on for twelve weeks at least. And yes, I'm accepting bets on how long I do this before I get bored and stop.

Brr

Every time I've been outside so far, I've been bundled to up like that Christmas Story boy. I generally sweat. I just took a short walk from the biological sciences building to the SUB without putting my hat or mittens on (it's a two minute walk!) and now I just can't...stop...*shivering.*

So, Developmental exam= finished. Finished poorly. Many of the multiple choice I was like...it could be a OR b...I have four d's in a row??? What?! I have four d's in a row TWICE?! What is wrong with the world? I also had very few a's. That concerned me. "A" isn't supposed to be that uncommon of an answer. It should be like one "a" to every three "d"s. Does this bother anyone else on their scantrons as much as it's always bothered me? Beginning from about fourth grade on, I've examined every scantron as I go through it with much paranoia. Is that an "a b d c d c b a????" Patterns are everywhere, and they make me very suspicious. If I were ever a professor, I would mess with the students' minds. One exam, I'd have all E....except for one D scattered somewhere. Or I'd keep my ratio of answers messed up. Or, I'd have it so that if they answered correctly, it spelled something or drew something out. And this is why I should never be allowed to be a teacher of any kind. Ever.

In a couple of hours I have my Research Methods and Statistics for Psychology, but it's not enough time to be worth walking all the home, all the way back to campus, and then home again. I'm far too lazy for that.

Did you guys know that the singing candlestick in Beauty and the Beast, Lumiere, is none other than Law and Order's Jerry Orbach? I've never seen Law and Order before, but I've seen lots of advertisements for the show, enough to make me very surprised when I found out that it was that guy from the Law and Order ads. He's just *so* energetic, with such a strong, young-sounding voice.

Did you know, though, that he started out on the stage in musicals, and was the first ever Billy Flynn in Chicago? Now *that* is cool. Ooh, he was also in Annie Get Your Gun and Guys and Dolls (Sky Masterson, very nice).

I should really get studying...

SNOW!!!!

But first, a bad idea: A bad idea is deciding to go out running at midnight when it's freezing. It tends to result in going around a block and only running at all to get back to the house as soon as possible. My skin was all red and hard, gross.

So, what started happening yesterday? It started snowing! Big, wonderful clumps. We had a light dusting the day before yesterday, but that didn't really count. It started snowing yesterday afternoon, and went all night, and it's still going. I'd say we've had at least six inches so far. To celebrate the snow, Tim, Katie, and I took a walk (about 15 min) to Subway to enjoy walking in the snow. One of my favorite things in the world is when everything is covered in snow, and walking down a quiet street, when the snow is falling, and the only thing you can hear is the snow crunching under your boots. That's what it was like last night, and with all the snowball throwing, it was great. I bundled up so much out of my excitement to be going out in the snow that I was sweating bullets outside. I had on my longjohns, a turtleneck, my winter jacket, crazy effective mittens, boots, and my little hat from Austria. It was such overkill.

It's rare that I feel comfortable talking to someone outside of my family, but I really enjoyed sitting in Subway with Tim and Katie, feeling very relaxed, and having an easy converstion.

During the "Baum baum bah!" of Sweet Caroline, I tend to throw my hands up in the air with each beat.

It is *so* easy to procrastinate, really, it's absurd. I have two exams tomorrow. I slacked off on reading the textbooks, 'cause I've had paper after paper after paper, so now I have to read one entire small textbook for tomorrow, and half of one full size textbook. I'll have more time for my later exams, but boy do I ever need to get a move on.

Shockingly, I have all my Christmas shopping done. I just need to get Dad's permission to use his credit card to actually buy them, since I'm out here in no man's land. I have to say, though, no man's land is pretty fun.

Okay, studying. :(

One second thought...this too.

Last minute Christmas gift addition:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs. I need to recognize those years that I spent faithfully watching this show. Make fun of me if you like, but I love it!

Seasons 1-7: Only $170!!

Freakout!!!

Okay, I'm going insane. During my nutty reading phase, where I think almost everyone will agree that I was reading a *bit* too much, I came across what are now my favorite books. Philip Pullman created an awesome world of parallel universes, creative creatures (a rare thing in fantasy these days), and a truly gripping story. There's a lot about the church in it. It's sort of like, if the DaVinci Code weren't full of itself trying to seem legitimate and call Clue-y, and was good, and about kids, it would be like the Golden Compass. Oh yeah, the DaVinci Code would also have to have lovable characters. Anyways.

Here's the freakout.

They're making a movie out of it!!!!!! AHH!!!!!! I've read these books soooo many times. Odd thing: Daniel Craig (Bond) is Lord Asriel and Eva Green (Daniel Craig's Bond girl) is the witch Serafina Pekkala. Odd that Bond costars are both in this. I think Eva Green will be an awesome Serafina. Anyways, I just can't believe this. I hope that they do an awesome job with it, and I cannot WAIT to see it. It comes out sometime in 2007, and is in filming right now. I have to say, Daniel Craig couldn't have picked a more perfect roll to follow-up his premier as Bond than the dangerous and powerful Lord Asriel. YES!!!!

Seriously, I nearly had a heartattack of excitement when I saw this. Happiness....euphoria...ugh, I'm tired, let's go to bed.