An Overdue Entry

Girl who talks on MSN at four in the morning with the BEEP sound turned way up high: You are evil.

Girl who bought a new LLBean backpack over winter break: I really question your taste.

I hate those really low ankle socks. I don’t know if there’s something weird about my heels or something, but they won’t actually stay up. I just end up walking with the sock on the front part of my foot and stepping on the back.

Well, in general I’ve been in a pretty weird mood for the last…oh, …well basically since I’ve gotten back to campus. I’ve been speaking much less than I normally do (which isn’t really that much to begin with), and it’s surprising how long you can go without someone noticing that you haven’t said a word. Really. Anyways, I think my verbal silence has been extending to my blog. I’ve started at least five entries, but none of them made it beyond my browser. So, sorry for the lack of posting.

I watched No Country For Old Men online, really surprisingly high quality. Good movie. Not for those who have issues with watching people killed. I won’t be giving anything away by saying that there’s a murder in the first three minutes of the movie, and I think that might have been my favorite part of the whole thing. It was intimate in the creepiest way possible. The whole movie, I felt like a spectator seeing things I wasn’t supposed to, intruding on other people’s business. And Tommy Lee Jones was surprising; other than Men In Black I hadn’t really seen him in anything…I think. Anyways, I’d give it a watch.

As you probably guessed given the lack of recent gross pictures, my eye thing got better. Thank the lord (I love irony). I stitched a sock (a very clean sock) together to make a warm compress with rice. It’s not too ugly, and it worked really well. When did I do this? I did it while I was watching OSU play LSU. And I don’t really have too much to say about that.

It’s funny how everyone misses out on some snippets of knowledge, and they are in complete ignorance of their mistake. And how this can last for so long. I have a very intelligent professor who continues to use phenomena when what she means is phenomenon. Just small little things like that. I think we continually embarrass ourselves throughout our life until our pile of things we were screwing up but didn’t know about until someone calls us on them pile is diminished to a very small stack. At which point we’re old, and people are too embarrassed for us to let us know about a word we’ve been mispronouncing our whole lives. My notable examples: awry, hearth, Yosemite, chasm, + many more. In fact, feel free to point them out in my blog. Unless you think it’s a typo. I let typos run pretty rampant in here.

At four in the morning I got to listen to a drunk girl insist that she could do a forward flip, four or five guys telling her not to do it, and one guy trying to restrain her from it. She wanted to do the flip in the middle of our narrow hallway, very much constructed out of hard concrete blocks. While drunk.

Another girl in my hall came back from winter break engaged. She’s a first year, and she won’t be coming back to university next year. It makes me sort of sad. I don’t know this info from talking to anyone, only from sitting in my room while a group of them stood right outside my door talking loudly about it. :-P (Did I already talk about this?)

Well, I think it’s time to go to bed at nine pm. Sweet. I’ll try and see if I can find Juno to watch online first, though.

Oh, one more thing. I saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s once when I was…quite young, don’t really remember how old. And I remember thinking, “That’s fine, but I don’t really get it.” I just watched it last week, though, and I really liked it. I’m glad that now I understand at least why it gets all the attention it does.

Gross Eye + Knitting Mishap

I'll start out talking about my knitting, since it's less gross, and I wouldn't want to deter people reading just because of the ickness. I was working on this hat for....someone...okay, it was Julie. And I knit it on circular needles at first. That was my first time on circulars, and it was a success. However, I needed to switch over to double pointed needles for the decreasing. This would also be my first time on double pointed needles. I waited until I got back to Antigonish and had my Stitch 'n Bitch books to look at. But she seems to assume that switching over to double pointed needles is pretty easy, 'cause there was only a written description, no illustrations. Anyways. I sat and read and thought about it and didn't begin until I thought I had a handle on it and wouldn't screw things up. Sure enough, I had knit one row, looked back, and saw that I had done exactly what everyone warns against with dpns (double pointed needles): I was knitting the hat inside out. Argh! Oh well, I needed a thicker yarn for the hat to look nice anyways. So I've ripped it apart. But here is a photo, just so you know how nice it was. You can really fly on circular needles, though, so it won't take too long to do again.

So, I woke up this morning, and to my horror, my eye was even bigger. I'm going to make a little rice baggy so I can really warm compress the life out of this eye. It's amazing how well the whole warm compress thing works. I sat with a tea bag on my eye for like twenty minutes this morning, and now it doesn't look that bad--just slightly red and poofy. What frightens me is when web sites say things like 25% of cases resolve themselves within two months. Two months??? Oh, and that they just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger over a few weeks. If this is how this looks on day two, what would I look like on week two? Can you see the horror in my eyes at the thought of this eye? Go ahead, call me shallow, but this is gross and I want it gone. Luckily, the thick frames of my glasses go right across my upper eyelids and my hair falls over that eye. Yay!!

Grossness + Weirdness

So, I woke up this morning, looked in the mirror (eventually), and went YEEP! Because my right eye was all red and poofy and droopy. I emailed Dad this photo, he emailed me a link to eye thingies, I looked at it and concluded (as he had) that it was a chalazion. Which makes me happy, 'cause that means it's no biggie. I'll just drink a lot of tea and sit around with teh tea bags on my eyes at least four times a day.
Well, I just tried my first teabag. It turns out that Cardamon Cinnamon burns like hell--should have seen that coming a mile away. Hopefully green tea will be more soothing. Oh, and I completely admit to photoshopping a zit out of that photo. I apologize to those fans of nitty gritty reality, but I just didn't want a huge close-up of a zit there.

Hmm...just pressing my eyelid to the hot rim of the cup seems to work well. Steam...

Using the end of your fork, because you don't have a knife and can't really be bothered to get one, because you have the end of a fork: Classic.

Please note the raspberry jam--delicious.

And no, I did not smooth that peanut butter neatly just because I was going to take a picture of it. I am tragically fastidious in my sandwich preparation. Eventually gets very annoying to anyone around me, I think. Though, hey, I have improved.

But I do so love slowly, evenly, and neatly spreading things. Peanut butter, mashed potatoes, mayonnaise, cream cheese, etc.

What I Learned Today

Never deviate from your usual peanut butter. Even if it looks just as branded and so you think it will be as sweetened and salted and as not natural (that natural peanut butter is gross, I'm sorry Jennie and everyone else), you will end up disappointed and with an entire jar of peanut butter that you don't reaaaally want to eat.

Raspberry jam is fantastic. Eat more of it.

A Day of Traveling

Well my friends, yesterday was rife with blogging material. What does that mean? It means a lot of crap happened. I think that's my first time using the word "rife" in text and not just speaking. Hurray!

Happy new years, btw.

So, first off. Plane to DC: delayed. But not insanely. Just enough to make my tight layover tighter, especially considering I had to take a shuttle. A note on the shuttles at IAD: They are amazing and weird. They remind me of the sandcrawlers (had to look that name up) on Tattooine. Everyone is probably completely used to these things, but I had difficulty not laughing with glee while I was on them. That's not true. I had difficulty not shouting at hte guy driving it to get going, or I was going to miss my flight. Anyways, shuttle....or sandcrawler?
So, I slipped into my gate just as they were announcing the final boarding call. Yay! But it turns out I needn't have worried, because we ended up sitting there for an hour while some glitch with the computer system that keeps track of the bags was worked out. At this point, I was getting kind of worried about missing my bus (but not that worried, 'cause there was another two or three hours after the 5:15). So we got in to Halifax, and I thought, "I can make this fine, just zip through customs and on we go." But no, I got randomly selected for the bag check where every tiny little thing is taken out of your bag in a haphazard manner (I had to not cry out as my knitting projects and all yarn were tossed carelessly to teh side with stitches falling off of needles everywhere and the yarn getting into a tangled mess).

The unsmiling girl who was taking care of this destruction actually managed to wedge open a bit of that ancient rolly suitcase, and lo and behold, what did I see but an old dart from the blowgun from Brazil from....what is that...twelve years ago? Oh how I loved that blowgun. I managed to keep inside my squeal of glee and not say, "Hey, that's a dart from my old blowgun from Brazil!!" To a casual glance it just looks like an old, gross, one-sided Q-Tip-->
Plus, it was wedged in teh weirdest place. Actually, if I had to try and get drugs across, I suppose that is where I would try and put them. She ought to have been more suspicious, perhaps.

Anyways, so while she was tearing my bags apart, the bus left. So I went and bought a ticket for teh 7:45 to Antigonish, but the guy forgot to give me the actual ticket, which I realized while I was eating perhaps the foulest burger ever imagined. So after amazingly not dying of food poisoning, I went back and hoped that he remembered me, since I didn't have a receipt or anything. He acknowledged it was his fault (yay!), and I proceeded to finish The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

Bus ride, couldn't sleep, nice bus though. So, 10:30pm and I was back on campus. It was quite cold and snowing heavily, so I was happy that I decided to wear my snow boots and that I knit that hat last night and then didn't give it to Julie that morning. I dragged my bags through the snow to my dorm...which was very locked. I went around to every sneaky door I could try, and everything was locked. So I left my bags outside teh door while I went on a hunt for a place to stay. I ended up outside Tim's house, and only one roomie was home, but he was fine with me staying. So I walked back up to campus, and dragged my bags back down to Tim's place (my hands are blistered from carrying them).

Everything has worked out fine since then, except that their wireless was kept secure, and I didn't want to bother Brock about the password, so I didn't have any internet until now. And now I am sitting in the students' union building feeding off campus wireless. And getting calories from a Pepsi which exploded when I opened it, making my hands and therefore my keyboard and touchpad three times as sticky as they were, Ben K. Now you can whine about how sticky and gross it is.

So, that was my day of traveling. I'm happy it's over. And I hope I can get into my dorm tonight.

Golden Compass spoilerness

So, the Golden Compass. I finally went and saw it. The best part of the movie was all the awesome knitted clothing, which I think everyone and their mother was staring at. I plan to make a Lyra hat. Have to find hte thickest wool known to man and then knit with three strands of it held together to get that thickness.

I almost feel like not even bothering to write about hte movie itself. I was so disappointed. I went in with really low expectations and left with those low expectations disappointed. I thought everything was way oversimplified, both the plot and the relationships between the characters. Not to mention the way they chronologically tweaked everything around made it pretty illogical/silly the way things played out.

Ben K would tell you that the book was just as overly simplistic and unoriginal in its ideas, but don't listen to him. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

I guess this doesn't actually spoil anything plotwise other than that the movie sucked. But that's probably not a huge surprise to anyone.


Well, I'll publish this despite not having actually said anything.

Time to board the plane! (I'm in the airport.)

Thank you Jesus!! (ahem, Ben)

I have a problem that I suspect many people may have. I see excellence in everyone else, but not in anything to do with me. Logically, I know this doesn't make very much sense, but at the same time it's impossible to escape that feeling of being impressed by others and by nothing I myself do.

After watching all the gift and stuff accumulation that goes on as a result of baby adoration, I've reached the conclusion that if I had a kid I'd give them a cardboard box to play with and nothing else. Totally unfair and untrue, I know. I bet a lot of people think some variant of this at some point. :-P

Unlike nearly every one of my brothers or sisters, I still have no allergies (as far as I know). What I do have, which I've just realized over the last four months, is that I have a sensitivity to some kind of metal. I am soooo cool now. I have a very cheap watch, and if I wear it for just a day or so, where it rests gets all bumpy and itchy and red. At first I thought I had poison ivy or something. But! This explains why for some types of earrings my piercing holes burst into red, hot, itchy flames. I love realizing what has actually been going on.

You know how there are some views of "humanity" as being kind of idealistic, where there is a Love for you, and people can really be good, and then there's another sort of opposite view where everyone is bad and thinks bad thoughts and mentally is never faithful even if they are by their actions? I guess it's just idealism versus cynicism, and I find myself flip flopping between the two sort of polarized views a lot. Because I want to think of people and love as that wonderful ideal, but then reason gets in teh way and I end up thinking like a cynic and that there is no Love and people will never be happy and will always be looking around at their options. How do people balance these views and end up at some sort of moderation that isn't miserable?

I saw The Golden Compass tonight. I'll talk about that later. :-P

Ben formatted my computer, and now it is so much healthier and zippier, it's fantastic. Ben is sort of like Jesus (heresy! I love it!). He wipes your hard drive clean of your slovenly computer habits, and gives you a fresh start.

Happy Birthday, Brad!!

Conveniently, there was already the title left over from last year, so I didn't even have to type the whole thing. Suhweet.

To the illustrious personage known as Bradford Daniel, my brother:

You are only 36 years old now! You spry young thing.

Many happy returns. :)

I bet you want to know what hte first favorite is. Haha, I bet you all know, actually.

Well, this Christmas has been....interesting so far. I had a pretty rare emotional breakdown for about a solid hour where I practically couldn't look at anyone and not cry from feeling so bad about not having presents for people. I didn't get all of my knitting done, and I'd really like it all to be done together and not just give some people a present and not other people, so anyone who was going to have a present knit for them, sorry. You'll be getting it in...a while. Meanwhile, maybe I should start collecting people's addresses so I can ship things.

So, yes, I will be knitting at a relaxed pace, and if it happens to be July when you get that winter knit hat in the mail, then too bad. Merry Christmas in July!!

Anne and I had a fun little party last night. We were expecting maybe twenty people tops to come, and instead somewhere in the range of...forty+ came. Tons of people we hadn't seen in years, and it was cool seeing how some people had changed and others had stayed the same.

This is really boring so far. Well, Anne and Brad have left. Which means that I will have blogging time once more. My glasses should be ready tomorrow (woot!) and ...I'm going to Cheesecake for dinner tonight with Andy.

I'm going to make a Christmas by Photos blog entry, but there will be nothing new that isn't already in my Facebook. In fact, captions might even be repeated. Sorry, chaps. I will actually be feeding Jennie's Facebook laziness.

I have a badass Ortlieb bag now! Suhweet. Not to mention the Perfect Sessions of Cowboy Bebop, cute pjs (Jennie and Anne), and my first proper baseball cap. Oh, and Ben and Julie got me the cool thermometer I asked for from thinkgeek.com where you put it up on your window and it tells you digitally the current temperature and highest and lowest temperature so far. Handy!! But it only goes to -13F.

I just coughed and sneezed at hte same time. that was insane. For those of you who know how I sneeze, that's just downright dangerous.

Well, time for my second favorite part of the day. Showering!!

Regarding bathroom stalls. I understand why someone might pick the middle stall when there are only three. Some people might pick the first stall because it's the closest. Other people are sanity nuts and might think that they'll pick hte last stall, because most likely fewer people have used it, so it must be cleaner. And then there's the real sanitary nut who thinks that most people go in hte first stall, and other people go into the last stall in an attempt to be clean, which leaves the middle stall the least frequently used, and therefore the cleanest! So maybe this is why some people pick the middle stall. After going through this thought process, I have stopped being mad at people who pick the middle stall. I understand why you might be doing it. Peace, love, and happiness, brothers.

Seeing excellence in others and none whatsoever in yourself is a problem that plagues me and I suspect many other people. Maybe not many many, but definitely some. I know that I'm a worthwhile person and not stupid and such, but I still can't help looking at others and going, "Wow," and seeing nothing to say wow about in myself.

Got glasses yesterday!! Well, bought them. Ready in 3-5 days. I was surprised to see that my prescription actually hasn't gotten any worse.

Time to go downstairs and see if I can swing a trip to visit Sam in London. Sweet!!!

I will be taking photos, I promise. You just might not see them. So much knitting to do!

Christmas Quotes

Brad and Anne arrived today, and Ben and Jaime came over for dinner. So there was Ben K, Julie, Ben I, Jaime, Anne, Brad, Barry, and Ann, plus Moira and Evie.

Quotes flew from the walls.

Anne:

Oh my god, are you a conservative?

from out of the blue during a discussion of presidential candidates:
Did you guys hear about Britney Spears' little sister???

Jaime:
her helpful suggestion about why there were so many special needs things in Antigonish:
Maybe it's because they're inbred.

I have ovaries of steel, basically.

Me:
"...and I'm like Switzerland."

"I'm on a search for spirituality.... I am; it's just not going very well."

"You know your family's weird when you say, 'Do you see me?' and they think you're being existential."

Apology

In my defense, I did write in my last blog entry that I was taking the 7am bus to Dartmouth. I suppose I didn't, though, explain that I was spending two days in Halifax before flying out. I'll have a couple of fun photos from that in a bit. Or....maybe now. Actually, not now. I have to go peel potatoes for the sausage corn chowder we're having for dinner tonight.

Brad and Anne are arriving in one hour!

My hairspray exploded all over the inside of my bag. Luckily it was in a pocket with dirty laundry so not everything was hit.

Ella is very big, and Julie is very pregnant. Barry and Anne (Julie's parents) are here from Ireland. They arrived about four hours before me yesterday.

Oh yes, I'm in Ohio, btw. Just got in last night. So happy to be here and up in my old room, the attic.

Really have to go peel those potatoes.

Don't worry, Anne, I didn't emerge from my Canadian (or Halifaxian, really) adventure married.

Nick, Nolan, and I made an ice cream cake. This is us (really them) smashing up graham crackers and oatmeal cookies into tiny bits to make teh crust. It was delicious.

taking the 7am outta here

If I had Christmas presents but no Christmas tree, I would agree that the only logical move would be to throw out the presents. No tree, no presents.

I'm finished with my exams!!!! That last one didn't go very well. I mispredicted what one of the essays would be on, so I had nothing but BS to say for 25% of the exam. Whoops! Anyways, tonight Thérèse and I are getting girlie drinks and snacks and watching a movie like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation or something at her place.

Now that my exams are finished, I really need to start knitting like nuts. I have so much to do, and rushing when you're trying to teach yourself something new (such as a wrap and turn, simple I know, but I've never done it) could go veeeery badly. So I hope you guys are all excited for Christmas presents that you'll never use. Except for Jaime. Who may take hers out when she's feeling glum for a laugh.

So, I bought my bus ticket down to Halifax today. I felt so cool and badass walking up to the Information Desk and saying, "I'd like a one way ticket to Dartmouth, please." Getting to in person ask for a one way ticket to anywhere is just cool. "So I bought a one way ticket to Santa Fe, and she never saw me again." See? Cool.

I'm trying to figure out how I can fit all of my clothes as well as all of my yarn into my little suitcase. It's a three dimensional Tetris. Or that game Rush Hour. You can play this online! Cool.

Well, I am actually going to pack up my computer a day early. I'm taking the 7am bus out, and I'm spending tonight at Thérèse's, so it'd be nice to have one less thing to worry about doing in the morning. So, send me no urgent emails, write me no offline instant messages. 'Cause I won't be checking!

exploding pop, la vie en rose, and potential D&D

Today, my friends, was a sad sad day. You know those little annoying ads on the bottom of MSN Messenger? Well, some celebrity thing used a word that I didn't know. I was so horrified that it took thirty seconds and no more to be sitting at dictionary.com reading the definition. Lothario: a man who obsessively seduces and deceives women.

A pop exploded and ruined one of the only photos Anne and I have of our trip to Italy. Doc took it the day we arrived, as we paused on the trip to ....Sorrento? and we were both very sleep deprived and jet lagged and greasy. Anyways, I feel horrible about it, because it stripped the pigment right off. I had also printed off a photo of Julie, Ann, Barry, and me when we were taking a walk when Ella was just a puppy, and that got hit as well. I just happened to have scanned all of these, which I suppose is lucky, though also sad, because this quality sucks.


So, you know how I've always stopped just short of crossing over that line from being just a fan of the fantasy genre to full blown all-out fantasy nerd? Well, I may be about to cross that line. Theron, a friend from first year who I haven't really been hanging out with since then, messaged me the other day to tell me that he was starting up a D&D group, and wondered if I'd be interested in joining. Some of your jaws have dropped in horror, I know. Particularly Brad's. But for those of you whose jaws have not dropped in horror, I figure you just don't know what D&D is maybe? D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) is a role playing game (RPG) in which you create a character that exists within a world created by the Dungeon Master in which you battle monsters and thereby develop your character. D&D is considered sort of the original RPG, and for those of you who know things like World of Warcraft (among many others) those are MMORPGs (massive multiplayer online role-playing games). If I did do this, the only other level to which I could drop would be to start playing Magic, but don't worry I never will cause I don't want to spend all my money on those stupid cards (sorry to all of you Magic players out there).

However, I have to admit my true nature. I am a fantasy geek, and I would probably get a total and complete kick out of this, especially since the group seems like a really good group of guys. So, I'm just considering this. I haven't decided yet. Theron (who would be Dungeon Master) dropped off the Player's Handbook today to let me look over it and decide. Honestly, this would be a Mandy Adventure, because I think that teh only thing that's holding me back is my fear of looking stupid making some rookie move.

It's been snowing so constantly the last two weeks that, if this were rain, I'd be really depressed.

So I decided to not look at any of the reviews for The Golden Compass, despite my nearly overwhelming curiosity to see if it looked like it'd actually be good. And I succeeded. Until!!! I went to see La Vie en Rose at the Third Eye Film Festival that hosts cool movies throughout the year for those who are feeling culturally deprived in Antigonish, when after I mentioned The Golden Compass to my friend Sarah, she said that she heard a critic saying it was pretty crap. Nooooo!!

I still haven't looked, but now my expectations are in the toilet, and I'm so sad.

On a better, though not happier note, I saw La Vie en Rose (released as La Môme in France), and wow. Firstly, I was very very depressed. Secondly, I normally don't mind lots of flash forwards and flash backs. I can handle it. But with this, her appearance (Édith Piaf's) kept changing so drastically for the better and for the worse that I couldn't really tell if the flash forwards were in chronological order, or if we were skipping around randomly in her later years. But! Marion Cotillard was really impressive playing Édith Piaf. I mean really. I watched clips of Édith Piaf performing afterwards, and her mannerisms were spot on. She really seemed to succeed in faithfully recreating a person. I'm terrible at explaining things. La Vie en Rose is about hte life of Édith Piaf, who was a famous French singer known for (among many many others) La Vie En Rose and Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.

I suppooose I should go study some Brain and Behavior before my exam tomorrow....

I can't wait to be back in Ohio. Soon!!

this took all of two minutes.

Feast your eyes, my friends, on this creeptasticness. You too could date this scary serial killer.

I just finished The Exorcist. Time to go watch Grizzly Man and study (but probably not) some Brain and Behavior.

Oh, and here is part of an entry that I wrote but never finished. The Unpublished Memoir:

It's a Saturday night (actually Sunday morning), and I'm lazing about my room. So that means I will write a blog entry! I have just wasted my evening (I mean spent very well) listening to NPR, sewing a button, and eating SmartPop, which is I am not kidding twenty times more delicious than regular microwave popcorn with all that greasy butter that clings to your mouth. YUCK!!!!

I was talking to Brad and reminded myself that I saw The Great Escape. I knew the generally idea, but I really didn't know anything about the ending. Based on the title, I thought it would be a pretty successful endeavor, since apparently the escape was great. But noooooooo, the whole movie is all lighthearted and happy happy happy happy happy then Bam! DEATH! What happened to the happiness? I don't know. But I'm happy that I've now seen Steve McQueen.

so...exhausted...I can't actually write a proper blog entry.

I would like ot point out that I actually like the whales. I just don't care enough to be proactive. And somehow signing a petition doesn't seem proactive to me.

Things are about to get interesting

because the internet on my computer (or in my building?) isn't working. Suckiness. Maaaajor suckiness. I woke up and saw that I had seven emails before the internet went kaput, but I couldn't check them! Anyways, I'm in the computer lab.

Whoa. Some guy behind me is on the computer, and I just heard that all too familiar voice say "You've got mail!" How long has it been since anyone's heard that? Besides watching the movie You've Got Mail, 'cause that just doesn't count. But really, all of a sudden I'm taken back to sitting in front of the computer at the farm, AOL open, watching it dial, listening carefully to the staticky clicks as it connects to see if it would be successful...weird.

Anyways, in ten minutes(ish) I'm going to go write my stats exam. In my defense, Anne, I did very well in regular stats. I hope your stats exam went well (I'm sure it did). But, back to the point. I didn't study for this at all, and I have reaaaaally screwed myself over. I hope I pass. I wonder if I will...maybe not. Yikes.

Oh, and in other Anne news. In my dream last night, Anne, I met you in a library and we were both so happy to see each other we got kind of loud. Some smartass on the other side of the rooom said really loudly, "Wouldn't it be nice if people were actually quiet in libraries?!" And you spun around, glared at him, and said, "Wouldn't it be nice if people who cared went to the specifically designated quiet sections??" And then he said something about showing common courtesy. Which made us both really mad, and in retaliation we toook out The Complete Works of Shakespeare, picked one of the most insulting lines (it turned out to be from a play that I'd never heard of, but appparently you'd studied it), underlined that section, and I doon't remember how, but we were going to somehow give the book to him. I was worried that he wouldn't get the insult.

Anyways, time to go horribly bomb this exam. Yesterday, when I ought to have been studying, I instead was in my underwear lying on top of my wool blanket going, "Wow, wool...." I did that for about four hours, watching the snow falling outside.

Oh, and today was a very Thomas Kinkade morning. A very beautiful sunrise, the houses all covered in snow, smoke rising from the chimneys, and fog burning off the water in the distance. Beautiful. Too bad Kinkade's a gross sell-out.

another thing I want

Dear Santa,

I want a dust buster. My dorm room gets little dust crud on the floor, and I don't like brooms. So it's gross. But word on the street is that little powerful dust busters can really be quite handy, and it seems ideal for the dorm room world. And maybe the small, one room apartment world. Who knows.

Merry Christmas,

Mandy (both naughty and nice--moderation in all things)

guess what day today is

So, I'm signing this petition for Jaime (not for the whales, of course), and in that comment section it was so hard to resist putting, "Didn't Star Trek teach you anything?" I'm going to get a lot of Greenpeace spam now, aren't I. Yes.

...wow, they just want you to keep signing petition after petition. I bet if I said yes to every one I could sit here all night, being linked to one after the other. I did it for you, Jaime. I did it for you.

So, I took someone's Christmas present out for a test run today...it went pretty well. And it was all my own design, no pattern. BHAHA!

I talked about Mirrormask already, right? I really liked it, because for the first time there was soemthing I could point to and say, "That's what my dreams look like. While I sleep. Most nights." Granted, there are normal and mundane nights sometimes. This has made me really want to watch it again.So, I haven't been posting very much. Which might seem odd, since classes have been out since...I had my last one last Thursday, and shouldn't that just free me up for tons of posting? I don't know how it happened, but mysteriously I feel almost frantically busy right now compared to my lackadaisical regular class schedule. Anyways, so I've been posting less. I feel downright bad about my lack of posting, actually.

Anne, you would really like my History and Theory of Psychology class, as well as their exams. I did all this studying for it so I could talk about the Sophists, Skeptics, Cynics, Epicureans, Stoics, Neoplatonists, Scholastics, and others, and why there were the shifts from one to another and such, but I get in and the first question is, "Socrates is thought to have said that 'the unexamined life is not worth living.' Discuss." Clearly, my studying helped me out here so much.

Happy release of Golden Compass day!! I hope it doesn't suck. I hate that its been hyped. I'm really tempted to look at the reviews, but I think I should resist. Ooooh, but I want to so badly.

Who wants the huge condom hat?

I hate when a person agrees with everything I say. "That is SO true! That is SO true!" It just tempts me to say more and more extreme things....

"Man, Bush is fabulous."
"That is SO true!"

I know I set out with the intention of closely following patterns for everyone's Christmas presents so that people would perhaps actually want to wear what I give them, but right now I'm starting out on a knitting adventure for someone's present. No pattern! No plan!! Only an idea. That would sound inspirational right there if you guys didn't know how my Forays into Unique Knitting almost always turn out. I can imagine that each of you is now wondering, with fear and trepidation, if this is your knitting present. But I won't tell you whose it is. Except that it's not Jaime's. Sorry, Jaime. You will not be getting the hat that looks like a flower shoved upside down on someone's head. Or, as a friend so kindly pointed out, a bright red HUUUGE condom.

Time for my 9am nap

The water from my tap fizzes. Jealous?

Why is the world so cold?!???? WHY?!! I love my room. It is a haven of overwhelmingly hot heatness in this land of freezing.

My paper is almost done. Hurrah!

The moment I'm permanently settled in a location, I'm going to get a cat. Hopefully one that looks totally grizzly and badass.

Give me your tales!!!!

This is the last week of classes.

Are you flabbergasted? 'Cause I am. Not to mention, mozilla didn't underline flabbergasted as a typo, though it did for mozilla, and it also does for google.

So the BBC is having this competition called The Next Big Thing 2007. Right now its pared down to 20 bands from around the world, and I'm listening to their respective songs on the BBC website for the competition. Some of it is really fun, and some of it is...crap. I'm going to guess that if this weren't the BBC, some of these songs wouldn't have made it through, because they have a very Brit-pop sort of bubblegum feel that makes me cringe.

A friend from high school is friends with one of the bands (King Tut) in this competition, I guess, so of course I got the event invitation on Facebook.

Okay, forget that Brit pop comment, because there's a really wide range of styles on here.

I have a hot date with my friend Jenny to go see a Bluejackets game and grab dinner in teh Arena District or Short North. So excited!!!!

In the next two days, I'm writing a paper for my abnormal psychology class. I'm writing about the large Somali presence in Columbus and how mental health care providers are trying to cope with the linguistic and cultural differences that are created when trying to do assessment. However, I need to make it clear how closely related this topic is to the Columbus area. So if any of you have had any any any any encounter or have a story relating to a Somali refugee in any way (really really doesn't matter if it's mental health related at ALL) in the even Ohio area, please tell me about it. Please. Please please.

Even if you think it doesn't apply, still tell me.

What happened?

Snow happened!!! And thank you, Ben and Julie, for those snow boots. Instead of walking straight to the computer lab, I trudged all over campus taking photos of pretty much every building. And now you get to suffer through them. Maybe I should start a Photos label...maybe I will, oooh....

Here they are, in no particular order since things got scrambled around when I was uploading them. Sorry to all of you who don't really care what my campus looks like.

the engineering building

St. Ninian's Cathedral
(you can see my dorm to the left)

side of the library

back of administrative buildings

back of Geology building
unremarkable, I know, but I love this spot

the old chapel, Somers place
Now dance classes and the odd performance are held here
(you can see the chapel in the back)

Geology building!
I have no idea what this is actually used for.

front of the admin. buildings

this is what I saw when I had stepped one foot outside my hall
in the courtyard of The Mount

chapel

one of those residences in Confusion Square
I never hang out here, so I don't keep track of which is which

meal hall!! (Morrison Hall/Moe's)

You won't believe what I did... :-/

In perhaps one of the boldest and most innovative moves in fashion history, I just now paired a long cable knit cardigan with my grumpy bear t-shirt. It's okay, I understand if you're intimidated. :-P

This cardigan doesn't have long sleeves, though. So it's pointless. Who designs these things? And who buys them? I do, apparently.

So, today I had my first counseling session. Yay! My lady was really nice. We talked about a lot of different stuff. My voice only quavered slightly (but totally noticeably). It's amazing how draining that is, though, and how difficult it is to talk and actually say what you think, and not just give a polite response. I was physically hot from the effort when I left. And I felt a little nervous and shaken afterwards; my hands were actually trembling.

I just read The Ent and the Entwife song and it is so sweet and sad. And I am such a dork. First cardigans with Grumpy Bear and now The Ent and the Entwife Song. Wow.

Well, I just compromised my morals and watched Becoming Jane. I criticized it for taking an author and trying to make a romance out of her life for her readers. Whatever the real story was, the movie was fun, and I enjoyed watching it. But honestly, I'm a total sucker for a love story, and I buy into them like nobody else. That main male character switched from being handsome to hideous and back to handsome again. I still can't decide which he is. I know, that matters soo much, doesn't it.

To justify my liking it, though, before I watched it I said to myself, "Mandy, don't expect anything. Suspend belief. It's just a story." However, as far as the dialogue went, I felt like they just took her novels and shoved words into everyone's mouth from them to try and make everyone go, "ooh, ooh, ooh!!!! That's from such and such!!!! And I know that that's from such and such!" Ugh. However, I did enjoy the excerpt that they chose for her to read at the end. Well chosen. I don't want to give the end away (as if I could) but it was the well known bit from Persuasion.

Just going with it on Joy Division/New Order

Okay, this is a new post in my musical education. Brad has assigned me Joy Division/New Order. I think that these posts are probably like Brad's baseball posts. I skim them (sorry, Brad!) but you can all feel free to not read these at all. No worries!!

The poor guy in the middle right of this photo looks so out of place. Where's his slide rule?

Listening to Joy Division, and my first thought as there were just instruments was--this is pretty okay. But then the singer came in, and I was basically repulsed. The song is Dead Souls.

This is very eighties. So, I know that Joy Division was sort of the original band, and then the lead singer (whose voice I hate) committed suicide, and they reformed as New Order. I think that's nice of them. Pretty respectful. I can't get past this guy's horrible voice.

The guitar on She's Lost Control reminds me of Red Hot Chili Peppers.

It's hard for me to keep listening when I think that there's an unheard Wait Wait Don't Tell Me podcast sitting in my iTunes...right there...within reach.... Every song that Joy Division has starts out okay until his voice comes in. I'm giving up on Joy Division. However, apparently they switched more to the dance scene as New Order. That, combined with the new singer, is giving me hope. He's not even in tune! It doesn't sound like the out of tuneness is on purpose....

So, Joy Division: is "post-punk." I swear, modern musicians are as terrible with naming styles as any periods in art or literature. I think saying that their songs were dark and melodic (as wikipedia says) covers it better. Though I actually don't think this is very melodic. :)

What a depressing song Isolation is. I like the instrumentation on Disorder. Disorder might be my favorite Joy Division song so far.

Okay, moving on to New Order:

Singer: Better.

I'm liking this. Hehe, soo synth-y. So many different beats everywhere! Aaaah!

I guess this would be labeled as "accessible."

Shell Shock is fun and quirky. Nevermind. It starts out fun and quirky and then gets boring. It doesn't have what it takes to last six minutes.

Okay, the song Blue Monday. This is what I've been looking forward to. Oh, this sounds really familiar...but unfamiliar. This might sound silly, but this sound really reminds me of The Faint, especially the vocals and synths in the background. You can definitely tell that the drummer got started on drum programming. I liked the older drumming better, though.

Straight off Love Vigilantes is my favorite of New Order. Fun guitar towards the end of it.

Summary: Thumbs down on Joy Division, thumbs mostly up for New Order.

That's it for this week's musical education of me!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I feel so productive when I wake up and the fox on my google homepage (teahouse) is still sleeping in. He's so productive alllllll day, with his fishing, and his orange-picking, and feeding the ducks, but I wake up before him. Hah!

This is my third laundry doing in a row with no sock incident. Every sock is accounted for.

Oh right, Happy Thanksgiving! Alas, I'm too cheap to make a Thanksgiving dinner.

Grandma Callahan made cookies and sent them to me in a little tin. Thanks, Grandma!! Carrying a parcel back to my room and trying to not look smug is veeeery difficult. She also sent some doubles of a few pictures of Mom growing up, which I scanned and uploaded to my Facebook album for Old, Scanned. Here's one of them for the non-Facebookers. I really shouldn't be enabling you, Jennie.
Tomorrow's my first appointment at the counseling centre. Wish me luck!

Well....I didn't bother posting this, went away, and now it's technically Friday, but I don't care, the Happy Thanksgiving can still apply.

I've been slacking

It honestly never occurred to me that the (as in tea) spells "the" until about one minute ago, when I accidentally wrote the instead of tea, but had no accents, and was like, "Whoa! The!"

I turned on the international keyboard setting, and I can use all the accents in other programs on here now, like AIM or whatever, but I can't use them in here. Does anyone know why? Have you guys run into this stumbling block?

Do you guys know these lists of questions that people fill out about themselves on Facebook? They're just endless, and people keep filling them out and keep posting them.

Examples:

A - AVAILABLE : not for the last....2 years. haha

B- BEST FRIEND: Jenny and Becky. I love you guys!!!

C - CRUSH : Todd

D - DAY?: Today....is Friday

And so on...

Have you ever...
1. Fallen for your neighbor? couldn't help it.
2. Made out with just a friend? uh...

And...

1. How old will you be in five years? 25
2. Who did you spend at least two hours with today? Peter, Gabe, Mike
3. How tall are you? 5'8ish

But these things go on for 100 questions.

You know what I hate??????? UGGS

They're ugly, and inevitably there's a salt line that forms about one to two inches up so you look like you're a used pH-strip without the benefit of the pretty colors.

Why does life seem to be more fun when you're criticizing things? I had a dream last night that I had a lovely chat with Dr. Henke (my Brain and Behavior professor) and he asked me if I'd be interested in going out with his son on a date. :-P

Time for my 8am Brain and Behavior class....

Mozilla add-ons!!!!!

I just watched:

Howl's Moving Castle. And I loved it! What a great movie. And the voice acting in the English version included Christian Bale, Billy Crystal, Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall, Blythe Danner, and Emily Mortimer. Cool. It was such a fun world, with such a good story.

And then, for some reason, I thought, "I'll watch The Swan Princess. Sure it looks like crap, but I'm pretty easy to please, right? Give me a song and a dance and I'm happy." Wrong. Hahahaha, I can't believe I actually watched this to the end. Almost every moment was just (blatantly) recycled from another Disney movie, but I enjoyed that they poked fun at themselves a bit. It was as if they knew they were crap. My favorite part was the turtle and the arrogant frog. I now want to get a turtle and name him Speed. Arrogant frog: "Whenever I have to do something in a hurry, I always bring a turtle."

Peekvid kind of sucks right now. It's soooooo slow, or just won't show the movie at all, or the movie is mislabeled. I thought I was about to watch...what was it...something I was kind of looking forward to....Jet Li's Fearless! When what should it actually be but The Rise of the Silver Surfer. Did I already blog about this?

The OSU Michigan game!!! I ran (actually ran) over to Nick and Chris's place, buckeye necklace flying (I like how that implies that I wasn't very slow) out behind me, because I was about twenty minutes late for the game. I have to say, I was pretty worried at the start. Watching football games all by ones lonesome is not very much fun. Moaning in ecstasy and agony were not half as much fun as they would have been with someone else there.

I suppose I should mention that I was at Chris and Nick's since I don't have a tv, and mooch off of others when there's something I want to watch.

Everyone come and visit me! Flights from LAX in February are $377, and flights from CMH are $365!!! Then it's just a two hour bus ride up from Halifax ($60 round trip) and you're here!!! And there's a lovely spot on my floor just waiting for you. Or, you know, there are lots of cute B&Bs as well, they're just a little less free.

Come visit me!

I want to go see a Blue Jackets hockey game while I'm in town. Who wants to come with me? :) It would be so much fun to go to the game and then have dinner afterwards at Buca di Bepo or something.

I downloaded a theme as an add-on to Mozilla, and I really like it. Here it is: (You'll probably have to click to really see it. )
Are there other cool add-ons that I should know about?

Big Star

This is the first part of my Modern Musical Education, as directed by Brad. He is going to give me one band a week to research and listen to, with a few key songs pointed out to be sure I don't miss them, and then I'm going to write up a short (very short) post about it.

I told him not to get his hopes up.

So! This week is the band Big Star.

Facts:
-Formed in 1971
-Chris Bell and Alex Chilton co-wrote most of their music
-The band disbanded and reformed a lot
-Weren't much of a sensation while they were around and writing
-Popularity grew afterwards
-Apparently bridged 1960s guitar-pop and alternative rock in the 1980s
-I don't really know what guitar-pop means
-I especially don't know what "power pop" means, which is I guess what Big Star plays

What I think:
I like their music. It doesn't really knock me off my feet, but it's definitely worth listening to. I really like Thirteen and Back of a Car. There's something about Watch the Sunrise that feels a little too kitschy for me to like it.

quickly

I had a nightmare last night that I laid my cello on its side, and the bridge fell off, the tongue detached from the bottom of the cello, and all of my pegs snapped off, leaving their tips still inside their respective holes. My cello was just lying there, looking nothing like a cello now, stripped of everything but the fingerboard.

And then a friend told me my breath smelled bad (in the dream).

Lest We Forget. N'Oublions Pas. It just doesn't have quite hte same ring to it in French. Couldn't they say it in a more interesting way, beyond the basic "n'oublions pas" that I would write in 8th grade French?

Everyone's been updating! It's so nice!

A new independent adventure

I had a dream that an entire church and its pastor were all coke addicts. In the vestry before the sermon everyone was doing lines, and their noses had little daubs of white powder on them, and everyone was so happy and being so sweet with one another, and I just wanted to scream "What?!!!" at them. But they looked so happy. I gave the pastor a dirty look, though.

The fox on my google homepage is so productive. I mean, true, I wake up before him, but I go back to sleep while he's picking his oranges.

I'm really in the mood for some classic Performance Fleece commercials from Old Navy. I'm feeling the holiday spirit. Everyone's already eating candy canes, stocking the seasonal section with Christmas-y things, and I heard a carol playing in a store almost three weeks ago. Big, soft, clumpy snowflakes are falling softly outside, and walking around bundled (not quite bundled, it's flimsy) in a scarf makes it hard to keep my mind thinking Thanksgiving-y thoughts and not Christmas-y thoughts.

I've started writing down what I need to knit for each person, and I'm beginning to feel mildly panicky about it. What I should feel panicky about is the lab that's due tomorrow...I should get on that.

So! Everyone (Anne) stand up and give me a big round of applause and a hearty slap on the back. Today I, me, yes, Mandy, went and made an appointment at the school's counseling centre. My anxiety was high; I tried to look calm. I was tempted to run out the door as soon as I was inside the waiting area. But I did it. Now I just have to not quit after the first session.

And now you know...the REST of the story

Tonight was the first snowfall. Of course, my horrible inaccurate weather thing for my google homepage didn't tell me that it was going to snow out, so I didn't dress for it. So on my walk back, I felt like the skin was being torn from my face by the icy cold wind as it was lashed by the freezing rain (the snow had actually stopped at this point). I really shouldn't start complaining about the weather this early, because I'm certain I'm going to have a lot more complaining to do as the year continues. And I don't want to burn out my audience early.

So! It occurs to me there's something omitted from this blog that some people may care about knowing. Actually, it didn't so much occur to me as it was completely pointed out to me by Jacqueline, a violinist from the chamber ensemble I'm in.

A couple of you asked why I don't talk about Tim in my blog, and thought maybe we'd broken up. Well, no, we didn't break up when I stopped talking about him in here. I didn't want to be one of those people who can only talk about their significant other. You know the type. It's kind of funny, actually, that I managed to find things to write about without really mentioning him very often, because we spent really almost every waking moment together, except for classes (and we took French together). So! That is why I started omitting Tim. Maybe I wanted to remind myself that I had my own life.

However, for those of you who didn't know, Tim and I did break up....in September, lol. Jacqueline said she'd been reading through my archives (Hi, Jacqueline!) and mentioned how there was nothing in here about that, and she wouldn't have known by reading the blog that anything had happened.

I'd actually say that as far as break-ups go, this is the kind that people should wish for. We both knew, and we both agreed that at that point we were de facto friends. Things were pretty awkward before the break-up, but afterwards the tension was gone, we watched some youtube clips, and we have class together, so we see each other often, and can hang out and talk. It's really good, actually. Tim has a new girlfriend, who is very nice and cute.

So thaaat is that.

Sneezing while brushing your teeth: Bad news.

I'm posting this at least a day and a half after writing it.

Neckwarmer

"I'm sorry that you're psychotic, but just, make an effort."

Okay, here's my neckwarmer. Stockinette stitch has a tendency to roll up at the edges, so I think I'd change this by doing a little bit of 2x2 ribbing at the top and bottom to help. Neckwarmer!
I haven't seen my friendly spider in a while. However, I haven't slept since I last saw him, so no worries there. So maybe he's taking a spider sleep or....fell into a slippery crevice that not even a spider can scale. Which is somehow in my room.

Bed.

Knitting Booty

Come on, people, either mute your computer or select the option to not have the sound every time you get an IM on MSN. I am SICK of hearing every single IM that my neighbors get. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Augh, I get it, okay, people are writing you on MSN and you're cool. Now shut that sound off.

There is a little black spider who has been scuttling around the walls and ceiling of my room for the last three days. I feel kind of bad for him, because he really covers a lot of ground, and he can't be getting anything to eat. Soon he will starve. Maybe I should bring some insects in for him to catch. I must resist naming him. Every time I see him, I'm happy, because I know he hasn't crawled down my throat in my sleep.

I just got back from a field trip to the dollar store (aka land of dreams), and went on a knitting supply shopping spree. The range of things I can (hypothetically) knit now has increased like tenfold. I hope you guys are all excited for hideous hats for your Christmas presents. I'm completely serious, btw. I have patterns picked out and everything.

Anyways, here's my booty: Gauge (obviously), caps for the ends of my needles (so I don't lose my stitches off the ends), stitch counter (coooooool), stitch markers, double pointed needles (size 8), and circular needles (size 8). Sweet!

I bought some buttons for a neckwarmer I made. It doesn't suck that much. Photo later.

prepositions

For those of you who don't Facebook stalk family members, here's a lovely picture of Anne with Grushenka:There are two kinds of people in life: Those who care about ending sentences with prepositions, and those who don't. Okay, nevermind. There are three. Those who care about ending sentences with prepositions, those who don't care, and those who aren't aware that you shouldn't end sentences with prepositions. However. I feel like I need to be less of a stick in the mud, suck it up, and deal with the prepositions. Sometimes I do, to avoid all the "to which" and "to whoms" that are otherwise necessary. But when phrases like "What's up" are standard, in the end I have to grit my teeth and bear it. I like to think that the "up" in what's up has taken on an entirely different, non-preposition meaning.

Hmm, I actually did a little reading up on ending sentences with prepositions, and it's not the hard and fast rule I thought it was. Whew! Now I can rest easy.

Bedtime!

So many quotes

so feel free to skip on ahead. You'll notice, also, that I added a "Quotes" label. So I now have Art Studio, Quotes, and Christmas List. Considering how much I used to make fun of labels, I certainly am using them a lot....

Dr. Henke, Brain and Behavior

Henke: So what are you guys up to these days?
Student A: Drinking.
Henke: Drinking? There's got to be more to it than that.
Student B: ...What are you up to?
Henke: As kids say, I asked you first.

I think I mentioned...you ought to read the book.

We're going to be talking mostly about rat sex.

Henke: Why are you slow, Miss Fateau?
Miss Fateau: I don't know, Pete.

And that's the story of the rat sex.

Dr. Edwards, History and Theory of Psychology

They needn't have been a serial killer. Someone who beats people to death with Cheerios...yeah...I don't know.

We run into existential roadblocks like miserable parents, professors who hinder you...stop you from reaching your "full flowering."

...self-actalua....self-actalau...self-realization.

"I realize now that I have sexual feelings for my boa constrictor"...or you just had half a jar of gherkins before you went to bed. I mean, there are dreams, and then there are dreams.

example of why horoscopes are generally quite upbeat:
Sagittarius: Today, you're going to act like the complete shit that you've always been. And you're dog is going to puke on your nice carpet.

If Diogenes were around today, you could bet he would have been leading some cult of wombats out in the woods.

Dogs will eat anything and sleep anywhere...sounds a bit like students, doesn't it?

everything from here on out is from one class today

Double vision again...gotta stop those lunchtime whiskeys.

It was dwelling in this realm of pure form, or pure spirit, or pure rubbish...whatever.

They're always shoving spears in unpleasant places for the sake of honor.

You step on some guy's foot in the street, he slaps you with his glove, and it's pistols at dawn.

Virtue, standing firm, walking tall...whatever sort of Clint Eastwoody stuff you'd like to chuck in there.

God is sending you locusts...or whatever the hell he's doing this year.

It's sort of icky. I forget how to say that in Greek. Icktheus[sic]....something to do with fish....

You make a little clearing in the forest of your mind, sort of as a landing pad for God's UFO. You guys think I make this stuff up on the spot, but really I was 15 hours last night on google.

I'm really outdoing myself today. I wish I'd brought my tape recorder. He said, modestly.

At the top of the podium, God, number one, in the blue trunks.

Souls...kind of like God's traveling salesmen.

Bathroom Stalls and Ben

Congratulations, Ben!!! That was a pretty close race. One vote separating you and McClelland. And John Brennan won mayor. Well, you now have a very cool block in Bexley.

1 USD= 1.087 CAD

I think anyone develops affection for a particular stall if they visit the same public restroom often enough. (I just went in search of my post on bathroom stalls, and why no one should pick the middle one, so I could link it, but I can't find it. Did I just imagine writing that?) Anyways. In the bathroom I use on my end of the floor in res, my favorite stall is, hypocritically, the middle one. However, there's almost never even one other person in that bathroom, so I don't think it really matters. Anyways!

In keeping with what many residences do in their bathrooms, I came in one day and saw that on the inside of the stalls was goign to be info on Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll. So since my favorite stall is the middle, I of course got the drugs info while sitting on that seat of seats. It was the usual info on what drugs are, classifications, side effects, withdrawal symptoms, and resources. But! I was reading through the section on withdrawal, and one of the symptoms listed was: Yawning. Maybe some people have a phobia of showing their teeth or something, but I just couldn't get over this. Yawning.

I branched out one day (oooh) and used the first stall. I expected to find info on different STDs (or should I be correct and say STIs...nah.) and their symptoms and treatment. But much to my amusement, there were instead twenty sex tips listed. This, I thought, is a pretty great change from STDs.

I haven't gone into the third stall yet, but I'm saving it for a surprise. Having a rough day? Find out what's in the "Rock & Roll" stall!

So all the pegs on my cello have slipped out of tune as a result of the severe weather changes (ahem...and leaving my window open during the storm :-[ ), and this more than anything else is really stressing me out. I don't think there's anything more embarrassing and shameful than not being able to get your own pegs to stay in. However, this has been a problem my entire time playing cello, and it's resulted in a sort of fear of my pegs. I never use them unless I absolutely have to; I depend almost entirely on my fine tuners.

Ohhh, my Cello Shame.

Good luck, Ben!

It appears that Feist is performing at the Wexner Center on November 18th, just in case someone in the area who cares didn't know.

So, yeah, there's a History of Rock and Roll class...maybe it's only open to music students. Time to check teh academic calendar. Aww, there's a History of Popular Music in the music department. Too bad, though, I totally would have taken that.

A bitter orange: Is there anything worse?

I finally hooked my speakers up to my computer. I've been using my laptop speakers, and I thought that maybe that's all I wanted to get by anyways. After all, I have people living on almost every side of me; so I shouldn't be playing anything too loudly as it is.

Then I ran across a song that was really quiet, and I couldn't really hear it, and I thought, "Oh okay, I'll hook my speakers up so I can listen." So I started playing my music with my speakers, and ah, the difference. So nice. I'd almost forgotten about all the little parts that I couldn't hear on my laptop speakers.

There are several large tubs of topping thingies next to the toasters in meal hall. There's a tub of butter, cream cheese, something, and then some very bright orange plastic looking "cheese" spread. It didn't occur to me that it was supposed to be cheese until I heard two people beside me call it that. But also. There is the raspberry/strawberry (depending on the day) jam. This tub is very similar to the venus fly trap, but instead of flies it traps knives. I went to use some a couple of days ago, and tried to grab the knife leaning against the edge inside, but one entire side was covered in the jam, all sticky. So I got a new knife, and when I actually dipped it in, realized that there wasn't a section of the tub to stick the knife in where I didn't hit a knife submerged, visible only as a dark shadow just below the surface, very like the dead with their little lights in the swamp in Return of the King...or in the cave in Book 6 of Harry Potter. Anyways!! Lots of knives! I thought the knife-attraction properties of the jam was amusing.

Today is laundry day. Julie should be happy to know that I'm washing my sheets. :)

Happy Voting Day, Ben!!! Ben's running for city council. Let's all think positive thoughts (winwinwinwin).

Who watches TV anyways

I was listening to Mushaboom, and in the first few seconds thought, "Wow, this really sounds a lot like The Postal Service..." I thought that for a while, and started thinking "Aaah, this is Postal Service, I swear!!" until I went and looked at the track title and saw Mushaboom (Postal Service Remix). So sometimes I'm not going insane, it isn't just me, it turns out to be a remix.

In Brain and Behavior we've been discussing sleep (from a neurological perspective) and talking about theories behind dreaming. The more I hear people's theories behind dreaming, the more I think that these neurologists/neuropsychologists must have really tame, uninteresting dreams. If they spent a night in my head dreaming, I think they'd throw all their theories out and say, "Nevermind, we really have no clue."

Don't try to knit and read at the same time. I was trying to do a buttonhole, and did the binding off correctly, but in the next row I was supposed to cast on one stitch, and instead knitted straight past it. Now I have no buttonhole.

I'm a natural born brain surgeon!! Heh, kind of. Today in our brain and behavior lab, we were supposed to do a mid-sagittal cut (do I sound cool?) down our sheep's brain. I wielded the scalpel while Darcy pulled the two hemispheres apart, and Therese supervised from above, and the cut came out beautifully.

I'm listening to my...fifth Feist song, and I'm sort of bored. So far I think I mostly like The Reminder, and not so much Let It Die.

A good Cheap Christmas Present For Mandy would be a mix (of one or multiple) CDs with good music that you think I probably don't know and should. The Musical Education of Mandy. For instance, I find that there are just huge gaps in my musical knowledge...big ones that I'm ashamed to admit. Led Zeppelin? Pink Floyd? The Who? AC/DC? The Police? I don't know if these are things that are worth knowing, but I'd imagine they are. Anyways, I just feel like I have no foundation for current music. I go from Classical, to Oldies, straight to Coldplay/Radiohead/etc. So then people start talking about influences, and saying names of bands that I've heard of, and I just look silly, sittign there with nothing to contribute. I should take History of Rock and Roll!!

Apparently I have managed to miss every iPod commercial involving Feist.

Mandy's Art Studio: IX

Has anyone else here yet noticed that I accidentally labeled two art posts the same number, so even though I'm saying this one is nine, it's actually ten? It's really bugging me, but I don't want to go back and relabel or anything. So tooooo bad.

I painted a banana. This is odd, to me, because this actually looks ten times better in person than in this photograph. I was all proud of my banana, until I looked at the photograph and realized that it looks like crap. So, just know, that it looks a lot better in person. :-P

stupid stupid stupid!

Great. Fabulous. Just so me.

I guess some hurricane was passing by today, and I knew about it, but I forgot. So I headed out....ten hours ago, without a care in my mind. One surprise birthday party and night of being a ninja later, and I walk back to my res in the really quite impressive wind, and open my door to....my room with my window standing wiiiiiiiiide open.

I have a habit of using my windowsill as a bookshelf, since my bed's right there, the windowsill's so big and tempting, and I tend to read in bed. Thus. My Junior Seminar reading material, my lexicon for history and theory of psych, my lab manual for dissecting my sheep brain, and all of my printer paper are soaked. Oh, and my guide to SPSS. But who cares about SPSS. Aw, and my poster of The Singing Butler is down and potentially all wet and soggy.

Tragedy!

Not quite a tragedy, though, is the new version of my pointy hat. The Not So Pointy Hat, as I like to call it.
Who else is soooo sick of seeing the bright red color of that yarn on this blog, 'cause I know I am. No more red!!

In other news, today is (or was, it's 2:43 am right now, happy daylight saving time, btw) Stephanie Babcock's birthday. Happy birthday, Stephanie! Sarah wanted to throw her a surprise birthday party, so I came over before ninjaness to help prepare. Now. Backstory. I have always always always wanted to write letters with icing. Always. But I never have. Okay, that's not much in the way of backstory. Preeetty simple, really.

Anyways. I arrive at Sarah and Steph's, and what should I find waiting there but...cupcakes!! ("and what should they be serving but...celery root!" hehehehe, oh man. Where are you to laugh with me, Anne?) Anyways. So, one of my deepest, darkest desires has now been fulfilled. This, you ask, is one of my deepest, darkest desires? Would you really believe that for a second? :) Now, admire my handiwork.

Oh! Coincidence! So we're all hanging out, waiting for Meg and Steph to come back so we can surprise Steph, and some music is on. It's kinda cool, and I ask Sarah who this is. "Feist," she says. I found that pretty coincidental, since the first time I heard of Feist was on Jaime's blog today. I looked at the picture of that album cover, Jaime, and said to myself, "I don't like Feist, because look at that hairstyle." Soooooooo logical.

Anyways, crap, water damage!!!!!! How could I be so forgetful??