A wonderful birthday, thanks everyone

Thanks so much, everyone, for the spectacular birthday wishes. Every nice message I got made me so happy.

Today actually ended up being a busy day, and so I haven't had a chance to run down to the post office yet to get the package you sent, Anne. Though you can't imagine how excited I am to go get it. I think I carried the parcel slip around with me for a solid hour before I finally put it in my bag. And also since it was a busy day (I just got in, and it's 11), I missed the sweet calls from Sam and Ben and Julie. Dad lucked out, though, and called during teh hour that I was here.

I know you work long hours, Sam, and are never home during the day, but since my room is a two minute walk from anywhere on campus, it's a weird day when I'm here so little. Especially since I only had one class today (brain and behavior was canceled, what a wonderful birthday present Dr. Henke gave me).

Nick submitted a play sort of spur-of-the moment to the One Act Play Festival, but I guess reality didn't set in that it was happening until Monday night, when he saw a poster for it up around campus. So over the last few days we've been figuring out everything for it, and tonight was the performance. Which meant that today was spent at the thrift store getting a shirt, at the dollar store getting styrofoam balls for bee antennae, eating, making the bee outfit with Sarah (we're amazing!), class, rehearsal, dinner, hour break, performance, and then the computer lab to work on a final lab exam for stats, which brings us up to now.

So, my friends. Considering that (and that I normally have a two hour nap in the afternoon), I am exhausted, and will write about the one act play later. Which is really more of a skit. BUT. I have a video. :)

Oh, and. Anne posted a picture of a very embarrassing time of my life, when I was obsessed with this baby troll and one of those little bird things, both of which I got at a flea market in Florida while visiting Mater and Pater. Yes, I was weird about it. I tucked them in at night and pretty much took them with me anywhere. Anyways, I was pretty amused to realize that I had in fact taken a photo of these two objects of my affection, and not only that, had the hard copy of that photo with me here in Antigonish. So feast your eyes on that.

All the posts I've been starting but not posting

From this weekend:

I have about five different things of chap stick, and they all decided to run out at once. That's bad luck.

"Don't disrespect the pizza parlor!" I've been watching The Sopranos pretty much nonstop. Right now I'm in Season 3.

From March 18th:

I just had an embarrassing moment of comedic helplessness. Today and yesterday it's been really windy. The kind of windy where you can lean back into it and it supports you, or if it's blowing from behind it scoots you quickly along. Anyways. I was trying to leave Nicholson through these glass doors. The wind was blowing against the door, so I had to put some effort in pushing it to get it a bit open, but as I was going through a huge gust came through, and pinned me in the door frame. Until it subsided, I couldn't push the door off of me enough to finish going through. All these really only lasted like 20 seconds, but it was pretty great.

I watched The Graduate last night.

There's a guy in the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix credits called Slightly Creepy Boy. Fantastic.

One of the reasons I enjoy having my hair short is that it makes my shadow twenty times more interesting.

Okay, really, there were a lot that I wrote but didn't post, but I guess I've been deleting them...

So, I'm switching over to a regular psych major from the honours. And I'm pretty happy about it. But because I already have so many psych credits though, if I do a regular major I have to take everything but psych in order to fill all these electives I all of a sudden I have now. So next year is looking really fun. I'll have a minor in studio art. :-P

I'm so over titles

This was a nice little moment of comedy in the middle of me writing the paper due today...

Stairs

This blog is starting to be updated as often as Ben's. Either Ben, actually. :)
I have a very annoying habit of counting stairs. If I stay in one place long enough, I start memorizing how many steps are where. Yesterday, as I was walking down from the Annex (where the psych department is), before I'd reached the bottom of the first flight I thought, "no doubt this'll be boring old 11." And it was; both the flights were 11 steps. I didn't have those memorized, so it made me surprised that I'd expect them to be eleven steps, and when I looked back on stair counting, I realized that in academic environments (or is it just public places?) there tend to be eleven steps in one flight, or two sets of eleven. But not all places are eleven steps. My favorite number of steps is fourteen. The Bexley house had fourteen steps, and the new house in Calais that Dad's building has fourteen also. I was very happy when I realized he'd picked 14. Now every time I climb them I get a little bit happy or satisfied instead of a little bit annoyed.

Anyways, that's my semi-realization, which may be completely wrong. That public places tend to have stairs that come in 11 steps, and houses tend to have 14. Feel free to count the steps around you and say, "Excuse me, Mandy, but my house has thirteen steps, and my workplace comes in sets of twelve."

I hate small numbers of steps. The little threes and fives and twos. Obnoxious.

You know what I love? Places that all have the same number of steps except for one spot that's off. Bexley (Cassingham, middle school, and high school) was great for this. The entire place came in 11 steps. Eleven was everywhere. Except for that small, narrow stairway back where the old orchestra room was, where the only off number was in the whole building, and that had one bit that was 10. I always wondered if anyone else knew that.

Thank goodness for computers. I would never remember Daylight Saving Time if it weren't for my computer automatically adjusting for it.

M.C. Escher, by the way, is actually really cool. I only ever saw his trippy stuff, or little tesselation thingies, and while that was nice, I thought that in the end it was pretty boring and not anything I'd want around for the pleasure of looking at it. But I saw a book on Escher the other day, and was really surprised. He did tons of cool linoleum cuts in different styles. Don't you like Escher so much more now?

A week of movie watching gluttony

Atonement
Cloverfield
A Goofy Movie
Eastern Promises
Howl's Moving Castle
I Heart Huckabees
Lethal Weapon
Live Free or Die Hard
Love Actually
Terminator 2
Terminator 3
The Godfather
The Usual Suspects
There Will Be Blood
V for Vendetta
Beauty and the Beast
Cinderella
Casino Royale
Predator

Pavel...or Alessandro Nivola?

I'm so sad. I was looking up Alessandro Nivola, to say that he looks like an adult version of Pavel/Sam, when I saw that a movie Chess was being made. I got alllll excited, thinking that this was going to be like Hairspray and Mamma Mia! and they were just continuing down the line doing Chess. But no. It's about a record producer or something.

Anyways, I think Pavel toootally looks like Alessandro Nivola.

I've installed every codec known to man, and I can watch movies that I download onto my computer, but for some reason I can't play actual legitimate DVDs that I put in my computer. I used to be able to.... And when it started not playing DVDs, it used to tell me that the correct codecs weren't there, but now it tells me that it can't be played and I should try lowering my resolution and color quality. So I've gone down and lowered both to their absolute worst possible, until my computer looks like it's from 1995, but it still gives me that same "maybe you should try lowering your resolution and color settings" message. Grr. And it's not just on one DVD that it's doing this; I've tried several.

Yesterday I was a movie glutton. First I watched Beauty and the Beast, then Cinderella, then Love Actually, and then (because I had to find out what it was like, don't laugh too hard) A Goofy Movie. And A Goofy Movie was actually a lot better than I expected it to be. If I'd watched that when it came out (I would have been 9), I bet I would have thought it was really cool...maybe. I actually remember seeing that line in the preview with the guy with the Cheez Wiz (sp?) saying, "Hey man, it's the Leaning Tower of Cheeza," and thought, I will never see that movie. And yet, 13 years later, I did.

Today might be another day of movie gluttony. Somehow my meal plan has run out for the year, and so since I'm living on PB&J and Mr. Noodles (aka Ramen), I don't need to leave my room. So I just sit, watch movies, eat, and knit. My fingers are actually really sore from all the knitting I did while watching movies yesterday.

Oh, I saw Predator! I'd only seen Predator II before. And I have to say, I think that might be the most stereotypical action movie out there. If I had to show someone the action genre in one movie, it might be that one. Except there aren't any car chase scenes or anything.

So, Friday I played in a Dylan tribute festival thing, accompanying a singer along with a clarinet and a violin. Between rehearsing that evening and fifteen minutes before we were supposed to play, all four of my pegs spun out, leaving me with strings as loose as cooked noodles. A nice guitar repairman guy helped me get them to stick (it normally takes me a day or two of sitting around cursing filing chalk dust onto the pegs to do it myself). But when I afterwards went to lower my A string a bit with the fine tuner (and I swear I was making it flat, not sharp) the bottom of the string flew completely out. I thought it had broken, and I definitely thought that since it was now really close to when we were going to play that I wasn't going to be able to get it in tune. But I did, and everything went pretty smoothly. Of course, we were the most un-Dylan-like group there, and stuck out like sore thumbs. But it went pretty well, especially considering the chaos with my strings right beforehand.

Well, today's the last day of reading week. Classes tomorrow. :(

various little things

For Jaime: evidence that I indeed put the hair dye in my hair :)

I watched I Heart Huckabees today, and liked it more than I did my first time seeing it. My favorite line: "We're not in infinity, we're in the suburbs." Not to mention the whole "how am I not myself" scene.

I always thought people must be so inconsiderate to not flush the toilet. But they must just be those really paranoid people who really don't want to touch anything. Automatic flushing must work out well for these people. Sorry for talking about toilets/bathrooms more, Anne.

Rock band: Awesome. Let's all congregate at Brad's. I like the drums the best, actually. You guys can all call whatever else you want.

For those of you who don't waste as much time online as I do, Facebook says that Ben has a new multi-touch Macbook Pro. I'm really surprised that you haven't blogged about this yet, Ben. Btw, have you been trying to call me? Want me to try calling you? Or just go ahead and keep trying. Eventually I'll be in my room. If it were important, I figured you'd send me an email to make sure I called you back or something.

I saw There Will Be Blood, and I was pretty disappointed. I'd heard really good things about it from everyone.

Okay, I wrote this entry last night at like three in the morning, but now I've woken up and I see that my door was standing open all night and I didn't realize it. It's not like I lock it anyways, but still...mildly freaky.

Sad: the title of Brad's entry, "2008 Carling Cup Winners," I at first thought was curling cup winners, and that he'd been watching the curling this weekend. Granted, I only thought this for a split second before reason took over.

I fail at blonde

as you can see

Guess what day today is

Today is hair dyeing day! And I'm going where I've never gone before: BLONDE. I know, I've never in my life wanted to be blonde, but like six months ago or something I got the itch to switch things up a bit beyond normal. But it was fall at the time, and honestly, who wants to be blonde during the winter, so I've waited, and now spring is here, and it's time. Photos to come soon.

I'll be watching Terminator 2 while it sets.

Meanwhile, look at what I finally sat down and learned. Double pointed needles! I can make cool things like socks now.


And Halifax was lovely.

Reading week

Just so no one calls and wonders where I am, I'll be in Halifax til Tuesday night. Hurray for reading week!!!

My education is pretty delayed

Have you guiys seen these tootsie roll style Werther;s Originals? Weird. My Brain and Behavior professor, Dr. Henke, describes pretty much every structure of the brain as looking like a tootsie roll. Doesn't matter what the structure is, or what view we have of it, it still apparently looks like a tootsie roll. I almost agreed with him once, and could have compromised and called it a Ho Ho.

So, Brad assigned me to listen to The Clash to further my musical education, and for what turns out to be a very good reason. A lot of The Clash I didn't know that I knew, the most major example of that being Should I Stay Or Should I Go. I mean there was stuff that I did know was The Clash: London Calling, Rock the Casbah, ...I Fought The Law and Brand New Cadillac were also a surprise.

Why does everyone and their mother seem to think that The Clash did Come On Eileen? Seriously, google "The Clash" and come on eileen, and you'll see it.

Anyways, I like The Clash. Who doesn't. I don't feel very compelled to sit around listening to them, though, other than Rock the Casbah. And about halfway through London Calling I get sick of it. What I did have explained by reading up on The Clash is that they played a ton of different styles, which I guess accounts for their incredibly different sounding songs.

And that, my friends, is what I thought after listening to The Clash.

Today I made a tiewatch

Remember how the cheap metal of my watch was making my wrist get all red and bumpy and itchy? Well, I'm too cheap to afford anything other than cheap metal watches right now, so I thought I'd go a different route. I saw the idea for a tiewatch at Neves, and thought...man, a cheap watch face, a tie from a thrift store, and I'm golden.The nice thing is, this is a perfect fit. I used snaps, which technically I think is cheating. It took me a while to find a watch face that I thought would work, but once I found that, it only took a few hours to make.

That tie is (or was) awesome.

nothing much here

Ben I and Jaime are probably shaking their heads resignedly that it took some of us so long to realize the awesomeness of Obama. And while we're blogging about it they're just like, "Man, we told you this a year ago!" Thanks for not pointing out how long it took me to see it. :) Yay Obama for taking Maine.

I blew the LID off of all Independent Mandy Adventures past, present, and almost (almost) certainly future. However, I don't have time to write about it all right now, since I was supposed to start studying for my midterm ages and ages ago and didn't. And now will probably only invest twenty minutes into it before going to bed. Anyways! More on my independent adventure later.

For now, feast your eyes on my D&D art (more on that later as well):
And I like the path that is beaten across St. Ninian's parking lot through the snow. That's my dorm straight ahead.

Guess what

After getting into a conversation and not being able to define where I stand in the political spectrum, I took a quiz on political philosophy (linked by the friend who I couldn't describe myself to politically), and discovered something that I really did not know.

I am a "hard-core liberal."

I included the graph they provided me with so you could see in what context the term "liberal" was being used. Maybe I'm the only one who gets confused about terms based on context.

I find this really funny, though. Haha, I'm a hardcore liberal!!!!

What is this strange feeling? Optimism?

Okay, now that Ben's talked about it openly, that's sort of opened the door for me. I've also been watching the Yes, We Can video over and over. I actually got goosebumps watching it. And I have this weird, completely genuine feeling of hope. Normally, I don't care who the politician is, I just don't really trust what they say or how they seem. It just all feels like rhetoric that doesn't mean anything, like there's nothing behind their words.

But...man, I'm feeling downright inspired. I can't really get across how odd it feels to be hopeful about politics in this weird, sort of idealistic way. Having felt this way, the title of his book The Audacity of Hope makes so much more sense. Hoping like this really does feel audacious.

If you're youtubing him, as everyone seems to be (Jaime), I hope you watch his little dance on Ellen.

Okay, I know what this feeling is. It's believing in something. I know that sounds so cheesy, and I almost feel guilty being this idealistic about something, but this feels amazing!

Ben much more succinctly said that he was hoping and believing. Even though he said it in his blog entry, I still identified that that's what I as feeling only as I was writing this. Odd.

This is Therese as we sat watching Super Tuesday together. She was taking notes on what was going down. She won't be happy that I posted this picture.

And in case someone has managed to ignore this video so far, and didn't go to Ben's blog, here it is:

Super Tuesday!

I'm slowly stitching Ohio's state flag onto my new Ortlieb bag. Some of you may cringe and say, outraged, "But it was waterproof!!" Well, I'm stitching it on a spot where waterproofness doesn't really matter too much. Anyways, I wanted to show a little roots pride without being obnoxiously American, so I thought this was a nice way of doing it.

So, we all knew that Ohio was the only state flag that wasn't rectangular, but did you also know that it is one of only two flags in the world (according to wikipedia) that aren't rectangular?? I'm as shocked as you are. And the other flag is Nepal.

Funny:

"It's not cool, original, or breaking out of the mold at all; it just makes it look like they're stupid to form a sentence."

That was from a movie entry. Someone commented on it, and so I went back and was reading through it, and was really amused when I saw that. Maybe I should consider reading what I write before I post it.

Super Tuesday! No good thoughts here. Except I'm feeling pretty unapathetic right now. Go Obama!

to procrastinate, write a blog entry

Anne, you stay in Bennington and I'll move to Montreal, and then we can visit each other, yay!

For family vacation-nessI'm free in May and pooossibly the end of August. Who knows what I'm doing this summer. You guys should hear about some cute job and then tell me about it, and whoever hears about the cutest job, I'll come live with them this summer while I work. Yay again! It's a fun game.

You know your work ethic is bad when the little tiger on your google homepage is sitting doing his work in the afternoon, and makes you feel guilty that you're not doing your work too. I have a paper due Monday that I really haven't started. And I'm feeling really screwed. And that is why I'm writing this blog entry. Obviously I haven't procrastinated enough.

Happiness.

catch-up

Well, I'm slightly out of money. So in order to feed my morning coffee and cinnamon crispie addiction, today I picked the change up off of my floor and paid for it in dimes.

Yesterday was a day when I kind of felt like I was losing my mind. Does everyone have these days? It's easier for them to happen when I'm alone. Generally, as soon someone else comes by and starts talking to me, I get snapped out of it.

There were a combination of factors that caused my day of insanity. A couple of weeks ago I read Hills Like White Elephants, and I've been reading A Farewell to Arms in small doses. This is my first exposure to Hemingway, and I can kind of see now why Hemingway is the big deal that he is. I suppose that kind of thing is just personal taste, though. Anyways. I noticed that after reading I was getting kind of down. So I shortened to only reading a chapter a time in a sitting, to not get too sucked in. But yesterday, I kept reading, and got amazingly depressed. It wasn't even like there was something specific in the book. Who knows, maybe it wasn't the book. But I had that thing where it felt like my mind was falling apart in pieces, and I was just holding it with my hands wondering if this is what people feel like as their insanity slips away. To make matters worse, since my computer was dead, I went to teh computer lab to get on the internet, but computer labs are not a place to be happy. Sure, the Macs are a happy, clean, white. But when you're depressed it ends up coming across as a sterile, cold, unfeeling room full of white filled with scary unfeeling white computers all in their neat rows. And that's when I put my head in my hands and tried not to cry.

However! Therese hid A Farewell to Arms, and the sun came out today, and everything has been lovely. Haha, I don't know how the clinically depressed manage it, because that is AWFUL. I can't imagine day in and day out being like that. Sorry for the detailed description which was probably none too fun to read.

To make up for it, I present a happy song...which I know everyone knows...but it's been today's happy song.

My computer died a couple of days ago. It took a surprisignly long time to find a Windows XP CD, but Darcy totally came through in the end. I even fixed it all by my lonesome, for which I am very proud. Even though I think that all I had to do really was stick the CD in. :-P Still, though, give me whatever credit you can.

It is amazing how hard it is to get by without a computer. But I made it allllmost three whole days.

In other news:

I signed a lease! Yay!!!! Next year I will be living in this fine castle of a home on Orchard Terrace. It's about half the distance that Xavier Dr (where I lived last year) was from school, which is good, but it's not too close to campus either. I'll be living with the amazing Miss Sarah Furey, as well as her friend (and hopefully soon to be my friend) Stella, who is currently in Halifax but is coming to StFX next year.

A night of substance abuse

University seems to be people sitting around trying to sound smart to other people, when they actually know very little. I'm getting really sick of it.

In a somewhat similar vein, I'm also a little proud of myself. Bear with me here, this is going to sound cheesy. In the last...while (year? half a year?) I've really felt like I'm being myself. Granted, to some extent I have no idea who I am. But whoever this Me is, I feel like I've been doing a good job running with it. I think maybe I haven't been hanging around too much with people who I have to smile at while they say things that I think are atrocities, so I feel like I'm selling out less. Though I suppose you could say that I'm selling out by not sitting around with those people and voicing my contradictory opinions.

Everyone has been talking about Heath Ledger.

I can't decide on a name for my D&D character. I'm a human monk, did I say? I'm so cool.

I had a dream last night where I was running from the cops for smoking weed, and hid in the museum of natural history (which for some reason was more like the Smithsonian) pretending to work there. All teh workers helped conceal me, and let me sleep there, and kept giving me flasks of vodka. It was a very substance abuse-y dream.

short.

crap. I woke up and my left eye has started hurting exactly the way my right eye did before it poofed up into hideousness.

So, Heath Ledger is dead. That feels odd....