So last night I went to my little brother's high school graduation. When we got to the Cathedral, my mom for some reason highly encouraged me to go off and find Paul's family instead of just coming and sitting down with her. I was going to go with her, and then she walked off. So, ok. I found Paul quickly enough and we were chatting for a while (I got half my washington pictures back! E there's a nice one of you and I at the toga party.) Then I go to find my parents at the other end of the Cathedral, and as Paul has predicted, they have failed to save me a seat. Great. Wonderful of them, no?

So I ask them to make the people next to them slide down and we can all squeeze in, and reluctantly they do. (Um, hello? I'm your daughter? The one you drove here with?) There is a teenage girl at my end of the pew and she lets me in beside her and I apologize for making her squeeze; she says it is fine. But her mother then turns around from the pew in front of us and says, "Actually, she was saving a seat there for someone else." I say, "oh, no problem, we can all squeeze," as the girl says, "Mom! This is her family! Geez!" Her mom looks at her and says, "Well where do you expect Jimbob to sit? The FLOOR?!" And looks back at me, waiting for me to get up and leave. The girl is really nice about it but finally the mom is so exasperated that she puts out a big dramatic sigh and tells the girl to move to the pew in front of her and make sure to save enough seats this time. The girl says, "uh, why don't we all just move to that pew?" So they did and they all fit with room to spare and it was pretty hilarious cause this lady was going to have a fit about this and really she didn't need to at all.

The ceremony was pretty standard, speeches and whatnot; couldn't hear half of what was said due to our placement. My dad has the best manners in the world and as soon as the student speaker let out her first word he closed his eyes and settled down for a nap. Wow. Can't wait til I have to pay for him to come to my graduation.

Well ok. I'm off.

Does anyone actually read this anymore?

This makes me sad:

Man Objects to Communion for Gay Group

This Sunday a Catholic GLBT group (and their supporters) are going to church at the Cathedral, like they do every year, wearing rainbow sashes...a quiet demonstration. This guy here is planning on physically blocking them from receiving Communion. Physical altercations in the Cathedral! Jeez man, lay off. Even the archbishop said his plan is disrespectful and it is not up to him to decide who should be receiving Communion...and that he is not planning on preventing anyone who wants it from receiving it.

Anyway, what makes me especially sad about this is that this is my goodgood friend's dad. (I haven't seen the friend much in a while, but you guys remember Allie, who came and visited freshman year? B even you know here cause you worked with Natasha at the Cheese Factory.)

So I'm not sure what I should do, because I feel like I should go and support the group that is there, if I really mean what I talk about all the time. But that is scary, facing up to someone you know so well. And in the middle of a Cathedral! Yikes! Even though lots of bishops said I can't go to Communion anyways (especially now that I'm doing the devil's work (ie John Kerry)),....

So I don't know. Do you guys think I should go and look him in the eye and see if he turns away people he knows? Or do you think I should chicken out and not go? I haven't been to church in millions of years anyways...

(Erin you will appreciate part of the article though that says "It's not like they're breaking into a Unitarian church." Hahaha!)

Here is a cool new site that Paul found:

www.fundrace.org

You can enter in your address and see what your neighbors are giving to the presidential campaigns, since it's all public information...interesting........

(Gtown professors from the hood are all going democrat luckily!)

I got a job I got a job I got a job!!
I start on Monday!!
$300-550 a week! I'm going to Slovakia!!

It's not that exciting actually except I'm excited about it right now...I'm going to the be a field manager for the Minneapolis DNC fundraising campaign. I will most likely remain excited about this for half a day. But right now, I know that even though the work will be hard and I will probably get a lot of crap from republicans in the street, it will be a good experience to put on any resume and anyways I have been thinking the last couple months that I have never been involved in a campaign and I really ought to be if I want to get into the scene ya know? AND, at least I'm not just one of the lowly people...I'm one step above them. I get a team of them! (Which means more responsibilities for me, but also more $$).

I sent in my resume this morning and they called me back about 5 hours later. Whew! They actually offered me 2 better jobs but I turned them down; one because the hours were 12-10 instead of 9-5 and one because they wanted me to move to Nashville for the summer to help manage an office there. Uhhh...no. Would've been interesting though.

OK, so $300-500 a week isn't THAT much. But that'll be around $3000-5000 for the summer, and that's pretty good, especially compared to last summer. That means I can buy a plane ticket for the NEXT summer and finally see Zuzana's country!

OK, so Tuesday.
I skipped the afternoon program, which was shuttle buses out to the Mall and back. Why do I want to go to the Mall? I'm gonna be in DC for 2 more years. Ummm also I skipped the night thing I guess which was a bar night. Hmmm, I dont quite remember what I did on Tuesday I guess. However that night I went out to eat with Mary at Marjan's, yumyum I got okra masala...I lost my jean jacket that same day though, boo-hoo. I think Tuesday morning I went out to H&M with Erin and bought a new dress and some cool new earrings for very cheap. Yay! She got a graduation dress. Oh, and I met this Ghanaian purse-seller and we chatted for a while now I talk to him every time I pass (but NO paul, HE did not ask for my phone number, so he's a safe one to talk to).
So after I got back from Mary's, Rasha Erin Brighid and Sarah were going out to dinner in Dupont at Chipotle. But I had just eaten so I met up afterwards to go get bubble tea at Teaism (have you guys had bubble tea? These guys are obsessed but I think it's kinda just odd. I had mochi instead, this Japanese ...dessert...which pour sugar on top and carmelize shut with a flame-thrower...it's also interesting.) Then Brighid went home as she had a paper to write and E R S and I went to see the movie "Goodbye Lenin," which is very good and Bridget I think you should go see it and listen to the German as it was fun. R's girlfriend ended up being sitting two rows behind us the whole time unbeknownst to us, so that was amusing (as she was on a 'date' with a boy...). When we got home B was zoned out on the couch not having her paper done, so although I was no help and fell asleep at 2 the rest of them stayed up all night helping her finish.

On Wednesday the senior class went out to Smokey Glen Farm, "the Washington Area's Favorite Corporate Playground" (check it out at www.smokeyglenfarm.com). That was super-awesome. They had huge fields where you could play soccer, football, frisbee, whatever (some kid dislocated a shoulder doing so, oops!)...tetherball, minigolf, horseshoes, hayrides, line dancing, etc...(mostly I sat at a picnic table with my friends and had a great time allllll day). It was raining softly but we didnt notice sitting under a tree, and if you were walking around it was still fine cause it was so hot. (The farm claims it can host private parties of over 5000 people. Yikes!! We were about 1500 probably. Think of all of Macalester going, guys! Haha.)
So when we got there the first thing we saw was about 100 (literally) grills going, then guys taking ribs off the grills and hacking them up with cleavers. Yummmy...gets the juices going, huh? You could smell it, it was so good.
But the food wasn't ready yet. So everyone got their 21+ bracelets and they had plenty of beer and wine, and a soda building (literally, this shed that just all around it had soda fountains mounted on it, self-serve) and popcorn and cotton candy to tide us over for a while...then a bit later the food rush started. You went through the line and headed up to the chicken boy, who asked if you wanted white or dark meat, then ripped a chicken in half and handed the appropriate part to you...then you went to old ribs man who gave you handfuls and handfuls of ribs to weigh down your plate (seriously, i had pounds of meat to eat). Next was the bean cauldron (pretty good!) which had been bubbling away all afternoon. They also had rolls and salad potato salad and bean salad and chips and desserts and I can scarcely remember what else cause all I remember is this severe poundage of meat in front of me. Don't worry, I made it through...ok I left a little chicken and I felt guilty but I just couldn't expand my stomach any more at the moment. Everything was sooo delicious though. And then we sat around some more and some people fell asleep, and then they served us lots of ice cream (are you kidding? I wonder how many calories I had that day....beer and cotton candy and meat and ice cream....ughhh)...I didn't go on the hayride cause it was pretty lame, even though it did have an old cigar-smoking guy playing the banjo...but it was real short and behind a tractor, not behind a horse like it should be.

So we drove home later, got back around 7 pm, and then apparently my housemates had arranged to go out to dinner (which I didn't know about, so I was pretty surprised at 9 pm when I was asked if I was ready to go...) we went out to a huge dinner at Buca's. So two gigantic meals in one day. And since most of us weren't there for the ordering (just Maya and Rasha were), we didn't have input on things like "should we order 3 liters of wine for 6 people? Is that enough?" and "what about these meatballs that have about a pound of meat each...will that be enough for the 2 meat-eaters?" (Rasha wanted to order 4.) We had spaghetti and a very good pizza, as well. And lots of wine. After lots of beer and wine all day for me. I caught the end of the T-wolves game that night, so that was good, too.

Sarah and I went home afterwards, while everyone else went out for Ladies' Night at Chaos (a club). Then we went over to Ghalib's for a few hours until everyone was falling asleep (well, ok, he was freaking out about cleaning his apartment before his parents arrived the next day; Sarah and I were just eating his food and lazing on the couch).

And that is Wednesday. Next installment: Thursday and the luau!

OK, cool. That photo below was just a test; now Blogger lets you reallllly easily post photos on your blog for free. So the comics will come soon.

Yoga is much harder than you would think, I continue to learn. But this morning I tried to do more poses. Before now I have only mastered one, the one every single other pose it seems starts with. I tried the second one again, still pretty hard. But the third fourth and sixth ones (suggested order) were easier, so I will just keep practicing. And I am doing slightly better at the second one. If I get completely in the correct position I fall over, but if I allow myself to be slightly off I can maintain balance longer and I think that is probably just as important. But man! Did you know it can leave you sweaty and needing a rest?! Surprising huh.

Now I am going to tell more about my Washington trip, so 1401 can zone out now.

Washington was super-awesome!!
Every single day was very very fun. I am going to go through some of the events and things I did, only I am going to probably forget a lot, so I apologize if we did something really fun and I forgot.

So I think Sunday night was the last time I posted...so we'll start with Monday morning.
Monday I go to find my dean to tell him to sign the form saying I can participate in Senior Week. My dean is a moron, by the way. (Not the super-nice smart one, obviously.) He looks at the form saying I will be graduating in spring 2005 (which I made up, and is obviously not going to happen, but he doesnt know that) instead of spring 2004. He looks at it and says, "Huh. What are you going to be doing next year, then?" HELLLOOOO!!! "I will be going to school here!" Duh! But I convince him to sign it finally, which is apparently a big deal to him, and I run away.

We had a special senior luncheon for the honors program I am in (for which I have never done anything but let Sarah write my papers for me freshman year when she was bored)...wow was this lunch good though. High-quality stuff there. I think I ate 3 plates-full of their yummy potato salad. Erin and Amelia and I stayed long after it was over to just eat more good stuff. I ended up sitting at the table with the directors of the program though, akward...especially when they found out I WASN'T actually graduating and going on to Oxford or something like everyone else was. Hehe oops. Now one is encouraging me to come in and have a personal meeting with him next fall. Great. Well, as long as they don't take the money away!!

Everyone had convocation in the afternoon, which I chose to skip, but I heard that the student speakers were alright, like the liberian kid who talked about walking across africa for 2 years with his family. I did not read his speech however. Convocation reception though I made sure to attend, and it was quite yummy. I was fed well that week. They didn't give plates though so if you were trying to eat the super-good guacamole you had to figure out a way to balance your chips on a napkin and it was a delicate process.

ANYWAYS. After that I ate dinner at Erin's apartment and we vegged out for a while, but then we decided to go to the toga party. Earlier in the day everyone had said they weren't going to wear togas, but apparently later everyone collectively changed their mind. So I want to wear a toga. Erin wore a sarong and I took the sheet off her bed and wrapped up in it...didn't do a very good job though, so I'm glad I also borrowed a pair of shorts at the last minute. I got a keychain picture with Jon Wrug and Earl and that was fun, and I had a great time at the party although I was for a while stuck talking to my freshman-year roommate while Erin ran to the bathroom...luckily I had been at the party for a while already so I didn't really notice. I got pictures with lots of people too and it was just good times. The advertising for the party pretended it was going to be a casino-style thing, but that was a bunch of lies. It was just lots of beer in the cafeteria with the lights on high "so people couldn't do things in corners" I was told. Haha!

I ended up wandering off from the party around 12:30 without Erin (had separated from her long ago) and picked up my stuff at her place (which was unlocked because her roommates, juniors, were supposed to move out weeks ago but instead just turned in their keys and wouldn't leave, but always left the door open). I went home and fell quite asleep but apparently she came to my house right after and stayed several hours. So that's too bad, if I had known then I wouldn't have gone to bed yet.

Next installment = tuesday, but I have to go make lunch with Brother Roy.

I forgot to say about my airplane trip:
Before I went to the airport on Saturday I made very certain to pack my knitting needles in my SUITCASE, not my carryon. Therefore I was surprised when they pulled my bag aside. The guard starts rummaging through it (also I was very surprised when I noticed that one of the guards operating the heavy-duty X-ray machine was quite pregnant. Bad news there.) Anyways they open my bag and start going through it, and then say, "We're looking for a big ol' scissors in here." "A scissors?" I say..."huh...I didn't know I had a scissors in there" (truthfully). But then we figure out that it is in the bag with the rest of my yarn. "oh, there they are," i say, "yeah, you can take those." He looks at me and laughs and says, "Yeahhhh...that was the general idea..." Then I commented on how I was so sure to take out the needles but I completely forgot about the scissors, and he laughs again and says, "nope, the needles would have been just fine."
("Yeah, go figure," humphs another guard passing by.)
What?! Needles are permitted?! Those are so much more dangerous than my dull round-tip (and SMALL, not "big ol'") scissors! Although I suppose you could do the same damage with a needle as you could with a pen etc...except maybe you could sharpen the needle more. I don't know. I wonder who makes up these risk analyses and how they do it. Interesting.

Today...I did not do much. Nice. I hung out with Erin and Sarah a lot. We ate Chinese food (and Paul, they both want to go to the Malaysian restaurant later this week). And we read Cosmo magazines out loud to each other (courtesy of Erin's roommates) and laughed at them. Now I am waiting for laundry to finish, then falling asleep cause tomorrow I've got lots of stuff!!

Oh, and Sarah found out that I can get into Senior Week after all, but I need my dean's signature, so I have to hunt him down. It turns out they finally decided to be nice, and since I entered with this class I get to celebrate with this class.

I think earlier today I accidentally walked into my neighbor's house (well that part was on purpose) but I walked into the living room right as I think his roommate was breaking up with his girlfriend....ooops....and akward...

goodnight

So I made it to DC!
First flight yesterday was slightly bumpy, but not too bad, which made it all the more funnier because the pilot kept apologizing profusely and telling us he was going to "fly higher...no, fly horizontal...no, we'll figure something out. You should hear all these pilots on air control complaining about this!!" Haha.
I got to Atlanta and had a few hours to kill so I went out in the city. I headed back to the Varsity, naturally, for some hot wings and an FO. Then I had a nice extended conversation with two homeless gentlemen sitting on some church steps on the way back to the MARTA. Had I seen them before I would have invited them to join me at the Varsity. They knew how to play me though, asked if I worked out because I looked like it! Hahaha. Man I'm a sucker.
Then back on the MARTA I asked one guy what time it was and I guess he took that as a come-on cause he tried to pick me up, even telling me where he lived. "I sure wish we could keep in touch," he kept saying. I'd just smile. Haha. See ya later, Tom. (? He spoke kinda softly so I'm just guessing at his name.)

Second flight was alright, I just read for a while and fell asleep (first flight I didn't even get to the reading part hehe)...the landing was a bit rough but not too bad, not like this guy on the Metro shuttle would have had you believe, he was talking about how he thought he was gonna die and terrified and all that....uhhhh dude, you ever been on a plane before? (Mmmm...those hot wings were good. I want more.)

So the flight got in 40 minutes early, about 9:15, so I got to go catch the metro in the rain and then go flag a taxi in the pouring rain (and they kept ignoring me!!) But then I made it home, and got to wake up Brighid and Sarah I think but that's ok. Brighid was very pleased with her funny owl-candy. Erin and Rasha showed up soon (since I had told everyone I wasn't getting in until after midnight, they were early). We ordered food from Quick Pita and it was yummy. Then Maya and Rasha decided they wanted to go see the 12:30 showing of Troy, so Erin and I went with them. Meaning I was up until about 4, but wide awake at 10:15 calling Mary to go to the gym. Good workout. (PS Paul you're glad we didn't go see it with Leah on Friday.)

So this morning I went running and I just came to Leavey to buy breakfast (have to hit up the Safeway later for this week but not yet)...I am sitting here trying to think of ways to finagle a Senior bracelet so I can go to the events...they've got a very tight hold on them though, it doesn't look like students are passing them out and you have to read this statement/pledge also gah. I just want to go to the damn BBQ!

So I think I will go eat my breakfast outside and go hom eot see if Erin is awake and if she and Bree want to go shopping. The end of my post.

I suppose lots of stuff has been happening but I don't really know what to write about here.
Yesterday I went out with Paul and bought the necessary yarn for Zuzana's wedding afghan: $100! Well I suppose that's how much I would have had to spend anyways. I hope I don't have to pay a lot for other wedding things though...Nika and I are going to have to throw the bridal shower and whatnot. Also my sister's wedding, she wants that next June too (I had to call her and tell her that NO WAY could she consider having it on the same day as Zuzana's, so she promised).

Liz came over last night and we hung out a bunch with James and Peter and Johanna (well mainly Johanna was hyped up on sugar for the second night in a row so she was running around squealing a whole bunch and making us eat cheetos which for some odd reason made your mouth turn green (uhhh...not sure i want those chemicals in me!!) It was good to see her, cause we havent hung out in a few weeks.

Today I need to pack for Washington (yay!) but I hate packing. I dont' know what to pack -- also got the Senior Week schedule again in the email and man, you guys are going to be busy!! I dont know if I'm gonna be able to get a bracelet. I IM'd tofer cause I think Somil is on Senior Class Committee? but he's sleeping probably. It's all cold here, so I'm not sure what to pack cause I know it's probably all hot out there.


Today I want to go to all-you-can-eat-lunch at this Chinese restaurant. That sounds good.

Monday we cleaned Paul's apartment, it smelled very good afterwards; Jessie picked a ton of lilacs and put them in every room. Then Roscoe moved in; he is staying on the couch until Jessie moves out tomorrow, and so his stuff is exploded all over the living room and dining room since he has nowhere else to put it. I guess the other new roommate is bringing his stuff this weekend too. Yikes! Glad I get to miss all that chaos (although I suppose I get to be present for yours, 1401!!) (Hey did you guys store my stuff? I reeeeally reeeeally hope that got in before the Corp closed! How much do I owe? Thanks.)

I am sleeping all the time now, too much medication...and eating a lot (depakote, sarah, familiar?). Then I get cranky cause I am tired, and then I am not a nice person to be around. Boo.

The other day Johanna opened up a Kool-Aid stand outside, in the evening...when it wasn't that warm out...but she hit up everyone on the road, she wasn't too shy. "Excuse me, would you like to buy some Kool-Aid? One piece of money, please!!" (Haha, that's right, you could give her a penny or a hundred-dollar bill, she wouldn't care!! I gave her a nickel (that she lent me, hehe), although I think most people gave her a quarter or two.) She went through two pitchers of Kool-Aid and made about 7 bucks!! That's my girl.

Well I suppose I will go shower now.

This afternoon my sister Deirdre and I made lunch together and were hanging out (ok, eating leftovers for lunch) when my mom came home. After a few minutes, my mom said, "So! Have you talked to Emily since yesterday?" We said no, but Deirdre had talked to Sheila and went on about that...a while later Emily came in the door and announced her engagement (complete with the ring she picked out over a year ago).

So she finally got the guy, she is very pleased. We should probably take her out to dinner or something. I will have to talk to the sisters. They haven't told her boyfriend's parents yet though, although her boyfriend, just as she would like, quietly announced his intentions to my dad on her birthday, over a week ago.

So the whole world is getting married except Bridget and I still get to have fun in our beach huts after graduation, which I am quite looking forward to.

Yesterday afternoon I had a nice day. First I made my dessert and then I dragged James along running. Only he can run faster than me so it wasn't that much fun cause he made fun of me. Also for how far we went, which was kinda sad because the reason he agreed to go is that we weren't going very far at all (I wanted lunch). Oh well. Erin you will be nicer I trust.
Anyways I came home and ate lunch and showered, and I cleaned my room (as Paul thinks I am constantly doing...I just mean straightening and putting things away mainly) and then I got to hop onto my bed all cozy and just read for a couple of hours and amazingly...NO ONE EVEN BOTHERED ME!!! That was great, cause usually you can't find a quiet spot in the house for more than 30 seconds. I was there nearly 2 hours. I am currently reading this book about zombies that Paul lent to me after he finished it. This guy goes down to Haiti to find out the ingredients in the potion they use to turn people into zombies. I'm about halfway through now. It is funny cause two of the ingredients they use in the potion, their names literally mean "Bull shit" and "Rotting corpse." Haha. Paul does not think that is funny. I called him especially to tell him that when I got to that part and he was not amused. Oh well.
Today we are cleaning his apartment hardcore. But first I am running and then he is coming over for breakfast (Summer is at a final now anyways).

One of my favorite books: Running in the Family

Last night we had this huge storm here in MN. It was pretty cool. Some lights are out in the city but I don't think much (although I haven't looked at the news yet). Probably more in the suburbs...tornadoes were touching down there. It was really really nice out all day, around 80 degrees, and then all of a sudden around 5:00 I was sitting in my room and the storm sirens go off...then at 5:30 it gets all dark and thundering and rain starts pounding down (and the sirens go off allll evening) and windy...it was pretty cool to watch. A few minutes later my sister arrives for dinner and she has to bring in all this stuff from her car, which is hilarious, because it has started hailing very large hail (ow!) (Hilarious because I didn't have to go outside, just watch her do it.)
For mothers day we had another family dinner, which for some reason my sisters think is the greatest gift ever, which leaves me wondering if they have selective memory loss of every other family gathering we have had in the history of our family. They are grueling affairs.
Also, I made a Brazilian dessert for the occasion, out of avocados (they use avocados there in sweet things, as it is a fruit, rarely in things like guacamole). I thought it was pretty good. Everyone else refused to try it except Sheila who took one spoonful and my mom who actually took a double helping. Emily couldn't cause she is lactose intolerant (has cream in it) and Deirdre pretended she was too full. Oh well. (The boys didnt pretend anything.)
I am typing this much because I am trying to remember the reason I came on here especial...something last night made me think "Oh! I need to blog that!"
Gar. I really need to just get on the computer when I think that.
Erin have you reached a decision about our plans? We can make a whole morning out of it (afternoon if preferred...)

So my mom tells me today that we may be getting kicked out of our house this summer. The university that we rent from has been planning to raze the neighborhood and build a new quad for quite a while, but it hasn't happened yet so it's always been an off-in-the-distance thing. The neighbors are protesting because they say it will bring their property values down, and yaddayaddayadda there are all these lawsuits and protests and whatnot. Anyways they finally plan to get started this summer if they win this one more lawsuit. So they may begin bulldozing August 15. Great. I think if we move we will probably just leave half our stuff here and let them bulldoze it away, cause there's no reason to pack up all this junk. However, we have no place to move to and stuff is quite expensive right now. So I don't know what my parents are planning.

I got an email from Rasha this morning (as did y'all out in Washington) about a qanun concert. What?! I don't even know how to pronounce that word! But, according to her, it is the "most beautiful instrument in the world." Naturally, I had to look it up.
-----------------------------------
Qanun (Table Zither)

The qanun is a descendent of the old Egyptian harp and has played an integral part in Arab music since the tenth century.

A kind of dulcimer, its Arabic name means 'rule' or 'law.' The qanun was introduced to Europe by the 12th Century, becoming known during the 14th to the 16th Century as a psaltery or zither.

The form of the qanun consists of a trapezoid-shaped flat board over which 81 strings are stretched in groups of three with 24 treble chords consisting of three chords to each note. The instrument is placed flat on the knees or table of the musician; the strings are plucked with the finger or with two plectra, one plectrum attached to the forefinger of each hand.

More than any other instrument in Arab music, the qanun is suitable for the display of virtuosity, the execution of rapid scales and improvised rapid melodic ornamentation (fioriture).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ah. Now I see.
Information and picture at:

http://www.salamatmusic.com/instruments/qanun.htm

Erin, you are correct in your assertion. New Hampshire, according to eliot, according to the website I forwarded you, is NOT the whitest state, percentage-wise. It's the 3rd. But 40 languages! Wow, that's a lot. To give you an idea of how many, here is the list of Harry Potter translations that I found...46 languages.

Afrikaans - Albanian - Arabic - Basque - Bulgarian - Catalan - Chinese - Croatian - Czech - Danish - Dutch - English - Estonian - Faroese - Finnish - French - Galician - German - German (Regional): Low Saxon - Greek - Hebrew - Hungarian - Icelandic - Indonesian - Italian - Japanese - Korean - Latin - Latvian - Lithuanian - Norwegian - Persian - Polish - Portuguese - Russian - Serbian - Slovak - Slovenian - Spanish - Swedish - Thai - Turkish - Ukrainian - Urdu - Vietnamese - Welsh

The Harry Potter in Portuguese costs $36.90 off this website. So I will take Paul's advice and go to the local B&N and ask them how much it would cost to special order, before the 3rd movie comes out.

Oh, and Bridget and I are practicing German. So if you want to get in our email loop, let me know!

I remembered my third story, now.
I was running yesterday and as I went up the street I notice this cement truck up ahead, either pulling out of or into a driveway (it was going back and forth, so it was hard to tell). When I got closer, it was definitely attempting to pull in. There was really nowhere for me to go, as it was blocking both the sidewalk and the street by this point. If it had stopped and let me through, I could have squeezed by on the sidewalk. Another construction guy who was guiding the truck was looking at me as I ran up, so I was hoping that he would let me through. Nope! Instead, as I got to the truck, he sneers at me, "You need to move faster." What?!
So then I was stuck waiting for the truck until it pulled far enough into the driveway that I could run in the street. I was not pleased.
Also I just went running this morning and got about a block before I decided against it. I am going to go rollerblading instead.

Hi everyone!
Now I am back from dogsitting so blogging can continue on a semi-regular basis. But I return chock-full of stories for you, so enjoy!

Oh, and about MY gas problem, Sarah...Paul eventually moved the stove forward and found the gas valve and shut it off to the stove, meaning that after one more night of coldness (so the remaining gas could dissipate) I was able to sleep cozily on the night it was predicted to snow (Saturday). Yay for Paul!! Plus that enabled me to get the 8 million tennis balls out from behind the stove that the dogs like to lodge there. Gross, but necessary, cause between that, losing them in the park, and digging pits in the yard and shoving them in there, we were running a shortage of tennis balls.

So, 3 stories for your enjoyment, if I can remember them all...

(1754 you have probably heard all these already, so you can tune out now)

Most traumatic story:
There is a dog park across from these dogs' house (well technically an elementary school, but when the kids're away, the dogs can play...hehe I'm so witty). Anyways I would take the dogs there every evening, as it was easier than walking them, plus it got more energy out so they wouldn't go as crazy when I took them home. I would bring tennis balls etc for them to play with/chew on. The other night when I brought the dog there it was running around the far end of the park and then lay down and was chewing on something...too far away to see what it was, but the dog wouldn't come when I called it so I went over to get it. I finally managed to get her near me and it looked like she was chewing on a piece of bark. Well, ok, but I wanted her to be running around, not lying down, so i told her to drop it. She wouldn't. I went over to her and the other lady in the park who I had been talking with all this while said, "Oh, it looks like a banana peel" (true, it WAS old and gross, but it could have been a banana peel.) So I take hold of the banana and start pulling it out of the dog's mouth. I have my hands firmly on it and am yanking and pulling. Finally it slips a little and guess what: How many banana peels do you know that have feet and a tail?
Yeah....great. The dog was chewing on some old dead rat that had been run over in the nearby alley. I have never felt so gross! I had my hands all over it for several minutes!! We went home immediately so I could boil them. GROSS!

Not-so-exciting story:
I was sitting waiting for the bus the other day and this jeep pulls up to the stoplight; it is blasting rap music. It's there for a while and I glance over at it ... the driver was around 50+ years old and he is tough-guy smoking a cigarette (if you don't know what I mean, too bad). Haha!! Um this sounds less funny when I write it down.

Bonus story:
(Cause i can't remember the real third story now)
Paul ran a track 5k the other night. It was fun to go to but it was soo cold, and I was not smart enough to bring warmer clothes, cause I thought it would be done an hour and a half earlier. I tried to take pictures of him running, but I was slow so I think I only got pictures of runners' asses. (Martins was one of them. When I told him I had been yelling "Boo Martins" the whole time, he said, "no, I heard you...I believe that was 'Booty, Martins!'" Haha.)

We were having a debate the other night (hey, I think every single one of these stories took place on the same night...) on what is the whitest state in the union. First Michelle and I said Wyoming, but then we thought, nah, there are probably a lot of reservations there. We are thinking, erin, perhaps NH or VT? Paul is finding out both per capita and percentage the most and least white states, and he's going to make us a map. Man it's handy to have a geographer around. You guys should try it sometime.

Oh, and he pointed out this studio to me the other day: There is this photography/framing place by his apartment, and on their sign it advertises "Wedding, Portraits, Commercial, Geopolitical Consultation." ....Geopolitical Consultation?! That is so random! And this is a permanent sign, too...

Hey guys are the tulips blooming outside our house? Or are they gone already. If they are still there will you take a picture for me, cause it is so pretty then!

Man I wish I knew what that third story was. That would be so exciting.

Well, I can rest assured that my mother has not found my blog yet; this morning she was asking my dad what a blog was (she was reading an article in the paper)...then found the idea highly amusing. Phew! Safe!!

Alright, so I can't figure out what's wrong with this thing. But since the new posts show up all right I guess I'll just leave it at that and hope those other ones hurry their way into the archives.

I can't tell if I have a gas leak in the house i am dogsitting at. So I opened the windows, left the dogs there, and left. Hopefully all will be alive when I get back.

Paul where is your blog? If you tell me I will make a link! And it will be fun! Plus I am very disappointed with your membership here, you have not posted a single thing!

What the hell is going on with my blog??
No comments again, and now it's totally fucked up.
(I'll just blame it all on new member Paul.)

Anyone know how to fix this crazy-looking thing?

Paul, it also looks like (under "settings") that you can make the blog onto Mac's server. So you should like this probably. But I will research the other. (Sorry everyone else for these posts, I don't have my email open right now and I am laaaazy.)

Paul: Here is the Template HTML for the side links--

div id="Description">$BlogDescription$>

Ahh! Where'd my comments go?!

Paul had another race today, the Get in Gear 10k (season opener). It was chilly out again, but fun to go and watch. There were a million people running, with a couple of Kenyans of course taking the lead. (well actually the 2nd-place guy was not Kenyan, he was from some other country though.) They came in around 30 minutes. 30 minutes for a 10k! Wow. Paul did not do badly in my opinion but he was less pleased with it. But he is a little sick, also. So I think it was just fine.

Now we are going to go have lunch at friends', and then to Macalester's Springfest, and then I am going to go check in on the dogs I am dogsitting for the week, then to my last shift at work where I am going to eat a whooole bunch, hopefully I will have time, and back to the dogs for the night. I need to get more stuff over to the dogs' house though (presently I have nothing, of course), but I realized that I need to go grocery shopping and bring changes of clothing over, etc. Once I have my stuff over there it should be a pretty pleasant week...take the dogs out now and then, have a nice quiet place to get reading and whatnot done, and now that the buses are running I can pop back and forth to my parents' house or Macalester or Paul's house in a jiffy. And the dogs are very nice and friendly, and there is somewhat of a dog-park across the street in the evenings if I don't care to take them on a long walk, I can just take them over there and turn 'em loose.

So tonight I called the restaurant and I said "You know, I don't think this job is really working out for me. So I will be happy to work my Saturday shift, but I'm not going to be able to take any shifts after that." And you know what they said? "OK."
Haha!

Well that felt good. But I got really nervous about calling for nothing, I guess. Hehe.

I am quitting my job. For sure. I can't stand it any longer. So I am going to work tomorrow I think and Saturday and I am quitting. I was going to hold out until I found a new one, but too bad. It sucks bad and if nothing else I would gladly go back to the diner where I get better tips and at least I know what to expect there and they are nicer, more laid back and not getting up in arms over the stupidest little things that DON'T MATTER!!!!!
I saw a co-worker last night and told her that I was going to quit and she looked sooo jealous and congratulated me. I shouldn't be terrified of a phone call from them telling me to come in, or wanting to go out immediately afterwards to split a bottle of wine cause the job makes me so high-strung. That is bad news. The end, it is over.

Some local politics for Eliot (who once again tells me that my lack of politics in this blog is disappointing):

Background: Bus strike here lasting ~48 days. Our only form of mass transit. This makes it very difficult for those of us who cannot/do not drive to get around. People lost jobs, businesses lost money. It kinda sucked.

Original letter in today's Star Tribune ("newspaper of the Twin Cities"):
A waste of money
With the buses up and running again, it is clear we need to reevaluate the public funding of these buses.
Does it really serve the community as a whole to subsidize the limited ridership of the few who ride the buses? Wouldn't that money be better spent on repairing and expanding roads for all to use?
While it may have been painful for a small number of people, it became apparent that business went on as usual in the metropolitan area during the strike.
Jason Breyer, Brooklyn Park

My response:
Jason Breyer’s April 21st letter about the bus strike was hurtful and narrow-minded. Businesses did lose money, and people lost jobs. The only reason the effects were not felt more is because people scrambled to find temporary ways of getting to places they needed to be – not reliable, long-term or affordable transportation.
I fail to see how using mass transit money to instead repair and expand roads would be for the good of all. I am disabled, although you would not know it by looking at me. I cannot drive and most likely never will. There are many people like me in the Twin Cities – relying during the strike on favors from family and friends to get around, and losing our independence in doing so. Many in the Cities cannot afford cars, and take the bus instead. Road expansions would obviously not be for the good of “all” but for the good of the privileged. Isn’t this what our government is supposed to prevent?


I also meant to put in a sentence about what big asshole he was for not thinking that disable people are as important a part of society as he is, but I forgot. Oh well.

Bye!

Oh, I forgot. I am still working there partly cause I havent bothered to go find a new job and partly cause I am saving my tips for DC so we can do things like get dinner and such. Also I can visit my masseuse (haha, Paul tells me that I can't refer to Xavier that way when I've just gotten one massage, but oh well). Also E check your email.

Concussion-boy is fine; I just hope he doesn't get worse in the next couple days, that would suck for him.

Today is the little one's 4th birthday, but we had her party on Saturday. So she doesn't want anyone to mention birthdays to her today because she is afraid that will mean she's 5 and all grown-up and won't fit in any of the new clothes she got for her birthday. She's very intensely fearful of this. So instead it will be my 18-year-old brother John's 5th birthday. No presents for him though!

Last night I was going to go out for drinks with a friend, but ended up hanging out with the baby instead. It was thunderstorming, so it was wayyyy humid and hot and WINDY all day. We played outside for a long time in the afternoon and I explained the nitrogen cycle to her (involving digging up plants to look at their roots, talking about lightning and power lines and rainstorms and what thunder is). It was really fun, but I threw in as a side note to not go outside in a thunderstorm and do anything silly cause you would get hit by lightning. Then we went through all the characteristics of being a lightning-strike victim. She was fine with this, but then when the first drops of rain fell she completely freaked out. She cried and cried and i had to carry her inside so she wouldn't "get struck by lightning!" (at least she had the words right!) Eventually though Peter and I persuaded her to watch the storm with us (she pretended it was a movie, we brought treats and everything) and we laughed and clapped every time it lightning-ed or thundered, so she LOVED it and actually got bored with watching after an hour or so. Phew!
She loves hearing the scientific and medical explanations for things (she finally agreed to wear her bike helmet I gave her for her birthday when I explained that it would protect each lobe of her brain if she bumped her head) but I guess every once in a while I forget that I'm talking to a 3-year-old (4-year-old) and that she still might get scared of things. (Not scared of thunder cause I explained it was just a noise and hellO, noise isn't scary. Peter and I yelled and clapped to show her that.)

The buses began running again today and yay! I need to go down Grand to the yarn store and get some more or I'll never finish this blanket. Also I am going to call my work and tell them when I am working rather than the other way around, cause they still havent asked me when I am available to work, they just tell me when I am working and usually it is days that I really had different plans (not plans I can't cancel, but c'mon!) They are so unorganized maybe they will be grateful if I just call up and say "Hi, I am working Tuesday, Wednesday and a weekend evening or substitute that with TWR days. Thank you!"

So my little brother, wishing to follow in my footsteps, came home today with a concussion. His story's a little tougher, though; he got his head bashed into a brick wall by some other junior-high kid. Get well sooner than I did, Patrick!

So, I have the best friends in the world...

That's all, goodnight.

:-)

So I didn't really do much this weekend, as I had to work on Thursday-Friday-Saturday nights. It was really busy every night, which wasn't bad tip-wise, but that just makes it more tiring. And you have a better chance of having pissed-off customers, cause you can't pay 100% close and personal non-stop attention to each one. I got 'punished' on Saturday night cause I supposedly wasn't washing the tables well enough (a streak here, a smudge there....we were in a hurry to seat the overflow people!) So after we closed I had to go around and re-wash every single table. Boooo!! Plus, my boss watched me for the rest of the evening as I watched tables, then would come criticize how I did it. Wow, so I get an ultra-menial job and I get criticized for how I do it?! I have a feeling I'll do great in this world.

On Saturday morning Paul had an 8-mile race at Boom Island in Minneapolis. I went with him to watch, and his sister and mom showed up, so did Jude while Michelle was off doing her training run on the race course. It was pretty fun. Paul had a really good time (49:31, although I think it was faster cause I was watching them change over the clock from the 5k and they lost a few seconds on that), came in only 6th, so I was very proud of him.
Also after the race started and the runners disappeared for the next 45 minutes, I heard some people talkin' the portuguese, so I went over and started chatting with them. They're from Rio and gave me travel tips for when I go. Since they were Brazilian, they were very nice. It was fun. Also they were astonished that I spoke Portuguese. Hehe. (Full of surprises, I am.)

After the race Paul and I stuck around for the awards (oh by the way it was in the 20s and snowing this morning), which took about an hour or so to process. Then we went back to his place and Jude and Michelle came over, and Summer and Chester and Jessie were there, and we all ate French toast and strawberries and sausage and it was deemed good. Yummy.

Saturday afternoon I watch the Matrix 3 with Paul. Bridget I know you haven't seen these so I won't say anything except...eh. Bridget I recommend watching the first one only.

Sunday = Easter so I got home in time for the egg hunt; little kids are hilarious cause you can hide 6 dozen eggs (yep, that's my family! Paul got invited over to help dye eggs on Saturday night but he politely declined my mother's offer) in plain view and they won't find them! Haha, they're great. Then we ate scones and meats and eggs for breakfast/brunch, and everyone laid around being sick from too much candy for the next few hours...we had a big Easter dinner where everyone came over and people were all crabby cause they had too much candy...we had turkey & ham and all the things that go with that...afterwards I walked over to Paul's house where we ate Cornish game hens and all the stuff that goes with those, and tiramisu, and then Paul and I went to our respective homes cause that boy was falling asleep already. The end of my fascinating easter story. Johanna was hyped up on sugar and wanted to play, which meant jumping on my and beating me with a stuffed toy, giving me a bloody nose. What a sweetie.

Goals this week:
1) Get a schedule for REAL from the restaurant, or at least a solid one for this week.
2) Get an afghan pattern
3) Finish Albright book
4) Work a lot on blanket

PS- Today I ran twice as far as usual, yay!

OK, so my new job is kind of pissing me off.
They called me last Friday, shortly after I had turned in my application, and say they are interested in hiring me. They ask me if I can come in that weekend, and I say, sure, I can probably do that. Then they say, can you come in tonight? I say ummmm....(cause I think I was going over to Paul's shortly) I guess so..., thinking they just want to interview me more or something. They say, good, be here in half an hour.
Oh, turns out they want me to work.
Well, ok, I get trained in and work for a few hours, and then I am ready to go and the owner says, Well, see you tomorrow, same time! I say, huh? And it turns out I am working the shift on Saturday night too, although I already had plans. Well, ok, they want to see how I work alone (not shadowing someone). So I do it, cause I don't want to complain my first day on the job. Although I am disappointed to miss out on my Saturday night plans. Wasn't bad though cause I got lots of tips since pretty much the entire International Film Festival came and ate there.

So the night ends on Saturday and I am getting ready to leave, and the owner says, so, we'll see you on Monday night. Now I am thinking, alright, I said I was flexible, but I didn't mean I have no life!! So I tell him I can work that shift but what is my permanent schedule going to be, etc, and he says his wife is the one that handles all that.

Ok, so Monday evening I am about to start walking over to the restaurant at 5:30 (for my 6 pm shift) when I get a phone call. They don't actually want me to work anymore that night, they just want me to be "on call." Screw that. I went and finished my paper instead, un-contactable in the cartography lab at Macalester. The owner('s wife) told me that she is going to call me on Tuesday to tell me what time she wants me to come in to work. ("You want me to work tomorrow?") I say to myself that I'm going to give her until 5 (pretty generous on my part) and if she doesn't call me by then, I'm not going in. 5:35 rolls around, and guess who's on the phone. My sister actually answers it and pretends I'm not there, so I don't call them back until around 6:15, when I tell them that I can't get in for at least an hour, because of the bus strike and all. She goes back and forth with me for a little bit but finally says that it's alright for that night, but...then I tell her that she really needs to give me more advance notice cause I'm not going to be able to come in within barely any notice, since I have no reliable transportation without the buses.

So then tonight. I had to meet with the dogsitting people at 6:00 and of course, I got a phone call from the restaurant at 5:30. I tell them no, I can't come in, I have a "meeting." "When's your meeting?" "6." "Well, when will it be over?" "7" (I made that one up) "Well, can't you come in at 7?" I finally say I guess so, but I make sure I sound really reluctant. So finally he said he'd call one other person and see if they could come, and luckily they could. But then he says, "But you'll need to come in Thursday Friday and Saturday nights."

J-C!!!!!

I'd better be making good money this weekend. And they'd g-d better give me a permanent schedule soon. They say they are training 2 other people for this spot, why aren't they getting called in every night?!

I wouldn't mind so much if I had been working there a long time and felt comfortable saying no or knowing who else was available, but I just feel like I can't say anything cause I'm new. Also, when I said I was flexible I didn't mean it like "i'm so flexible I'll bend over backward so you can walk all over me!!"

therein ends my rant.
i just got a big sloppy random kiss from the baby, so i guess that makes things better.
bedtime.

Healthy, full-grown elephants have no natural enemies. Their hides are too thick for predators to bite through. At night they protect the young and infirm by circling around them.

Wow, this week has been really good. Since Friday, I have:
1) Gotten a job (restaurant)
2) Finished my last paper from Fall Semester
3) Gotten another job (house/dog-sitting)
4) Started the 2nd section of my blanket
5) Finished 2 books

Yay!

HILARIOUS new ad I just saw of President Bush's -- it says John Kerry wants to raise gasoline taxes, so people DRIVE LESS!! Then it shows people on bikes. And talks about how horrible this would be.

Well, if they frame a gasoline tax hike in THAT light...I can see what an awful idea this would be...? Hahaha. Man, with every ad I see I like Kerry more and more.

I'm free I'm free I'm free I'm free I'm FREE!!

No more school until August!! Or maybe June!!

man this feels good. i couldn't believe I was done so I was almost hesitant to send my paper in, but then i just did anyways!
yayyy!

Erin, I believe your story and yes the Wiggles are awfully odd, so I thought I'd check it out on google, the source of all truth. First I got the MSN Encarta dictionary, as follows:

slip·per·y dip (plural slip·per·y dips)
noun
Australia children’s slide: a long children’s slide in a playground or funfair

Then I found this REALLY weird australian website
dolly story
with this story about some dolls, and someone with obviously way too much time on their hands.

There's also some powerpoint about slipperydips which I can't open cause we dont have powerpoint installed on this computer...
slippery-dip powerpoint

Then, finally, there is some story about seeing ghost-children use a slippery dip, cached off of google.
haunted slippery-dip

Great stuff, that google.

I have taken to eating raisin bran for breakfast (every stay at the hospital gets me liking a new, unexpected food -- last time it was Cream of Wheat). This makes me feel old and constipated (of which I am neither, thank you very much!).

I only have 2 friendsters right now, but I got a new testimonial from a girl I went to high school with, and she said she liked my hair! Whoo-hoo!

Yesterday Johanna wanted to have a picnic in the backyard, but no one would picnic with her. And poor thing, she had already set it all out with a pink blanket and cookies and a banana and granola bars and ... i dunno some other stuff. She wanted to go get dessert from the convenience store up the block but no one would go with her and my mom wouldn't give her any money. So I found her in the corner crying, and she told me all about the picnic she had planned, so I took her to get some dessert for it. We put our jackets on (this girl wears shorts and a tank top in 45 degree weather, but I said if we were going up the block she needed a jacket) and headed out into the pouring rain. Of course we each brought striped umbrellas and opened them up. (By the way, 1754 knows this but the rest of you most likely do not: most people considered it to be quite sunny yesterday. Silly people.) We walked super-slowly up the block making sure to miss every single crack in the sidewalk and warning the folks we saw that they needed to go inside or get an umbrella because they were going to get soo wet! Don't they know it's raining?! Also we had some nice comments on the way back from people in cars who liked our umbrellas.

Last night I went to watch Gopher women's basketball (final four) at a bar with jude and ben and michelle and marye and their friend chuck (paul was working). It was very fun except there was this obnoxious girl cheering for connecticut (the other team) very loudly the whole time. ben and jude begain cheering against her every time she opened her mouth, but as soon as we were done with our food we switched rooms.

that's all i have to say for now.

So, uh, my little sister is a freak, and last night she was pretending to be a baby while my brother and I were eating pizza. She wanted some pizza, but whispered to me that babies don't have any teeth, so I was joking and said, oh I guess Peter will have to chew it up for you and take it out of his mouth to put in yours! She smiled and nodded. Considering that was a disgusting suggestion that I wasn't actually serious about, it's not surprising that soon I found myself biting off little pieces of pizza and taking them out of my mouth to put in hers. Awesome. Perfect disgusting way to spend an evening.

This evening I am going wedding-dress fitting. Z is SOOOOOO excited about it. I thought it would be alright, but apparently she wants to spend a real long time doing it and it's going to be cameras and lots of girls (I get uncomfortable around lots of girls) and just plain-out girly all day. So I don't know how I feel about that and I hope it's alright.

Today I am also going to go pick up a job application at a different restaurant. And I saw a flyer at Mac looking for a house & dog sitter, so I should call them. I forgot to do that last night. Even though dogs smell, I could probably put up with them for a couple days if it meant moola.

The rest of the weekend, I don't know what I am going to be doing. Big adventures, probably.

So I am reading a 2004 Congressional Budget Justification for aid to Pakistan, and I am really having some troubles with it. On one data sheet they will claim that their obligation for the year is only $55,000, but that's right after they've allotted millions to different sectors.
Plus, they set up a 5-year aid package (of $3 billion) in 2003, with $20 million per year already allotted out to the education sector, so I can't imagine why they are busy justifying what totals tens of millions in aid for 2004...if they wanted to give more aid to the education sector it is much more likely that they would fool around with the amounts for different areas within the $3 billion rather than add more aid to the table. So I don't know where they're coming from here. I've looked it over several times now and am baffled and I wish I hadn't looked at it cause now I don't know what to put in my paper.

So I just wanted to tell you all that so that everyone could barf and not just Sarah with me incessantly IMing her things like that.

Oh, and I forgot to say: (Erin and Paul probably already know this)

Australians call a playground slide a "slippery-dip"??
(I found that out cause I got to watch the Wiggles this morning with the sis while stretching out after my run.


Oh, and 1754: who was it who was on Friendster?

OK, main question of the day:
Why did the recovery of kidnapped UW student Audrey Seiler warrant a huge front-page photo and story and the killing, mutilating, burning etc of American civilians in Iraq only get a side column? The reason I first noticed that one was because I was reading the Audrey story and I thought the picture in the other column (of cheering faces, happened once I looked to be under the body of a hanging American) was related to her safe return...
OK, that was the Pioneer Press. The Star Tribune gave it second-story status (so middle of the page, you have to unfold the paper to see the photo -- I guess that could make it first-story if you saw the whole page at once), but the headline was in bigger print.

On to less important things...

I am extremely grateful that my ass don't hurt so bad no more...I didn't want to move yesterday after lifting so much on my gluts on Tuesday, but today I made myself go running. After 10 steps I wanted to stop cause OW!, but I kept going, and by the end I had stretched my ass out so much in the running that I felt much better. Pleasant story. Pleasant and true.

I have discovered that I have an odd need to pour my drinks into smaller containers...i.e. if I have a full Nalgene, I will never drink it. If I pour that Nalgene into 3 glasses, however, I can drink it in one sitting. Odd. So on days that I have glasses available I will drink like 90 oz. On days when I am just carrying the Nalgene around I will drink about 4.

I also have these protein bars that are supposed to be chocolate mint flavored. I checked the ingredients, and there is chocolate, but no mint. It reminds me now of the carob-mint soy ice cream which had no mint either.

All I can say is that I've got the theme song to "Law & Order: SVU" stuck in my head along with a picture of that guy who wears the glasses that change to sunglasses, so they're always slightly tinted....anyways it's real annoying but I bet anyone who watches L&O:SVU after Scrubs on a Tuesday night knows what I'm talkin' 'bout!!!

Sarah, to make you even more jealous, a coupon for a free Jamba Juice just came in the mail. Hehe.

Speaking of Bridget, she forced me to become her friendster last night. I am scared of friendster, I have heard a great deal of weird things about it.

I would like everyone to click on the link to Bridget's website and read her story about the bat in her room, cause it is hi-fucking-LARIOUS!!

Way to go, crabby-B! hahaha. I'm glad you're over in EC so you can't bitch-slap me.

I just went to the gym (30-degree runs are ok for Pauly, not for me) to lift weights. It reminded me of how long it's been since I was there last, cause I am sore-o and having troubles moving. So I guess that means I need to go more often or never again.

There was this dude there while I was there, and he was really funny. All he worked on was his pecs (and a teensy bit on the lat machine, you know, to even things out. But he lifted a wussy amount of weight on that machine). Normally I don't pay attention to what other people are doing. But this guy kept doing a ton on the pec fly then doing a few crunches then right back to the fly. Then when he was walking around he'd just look odd. Like, he was extremely thin (lean?) in his stomach area but he had HUGE pecs. What's the deal? Is he training for a sport that you need huge pecs for? What would that be? Anyways, gross, if he wasn't training for something special.

I went to Whole Foods tonight and got bananas and strawberries, with which I shall make a smoothie tomorrow for breakfast. (I meant to make one after dinner tonight but I'm real full.) Bananas, strawberries, I've got some tart cherries which will put a kick in it, yogurt, maybe some ice....sounds like a good-o thing to me. I wanted to get more berries but as it's obviously way out of season they were a tad out of my price range. Strawberries were on sale and bananas were way cheap. In a couple months we shall have to make a smoothie raid on the farmer's market, that will be yummmmy.

Books I have been reading since I've been home:

Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (Gabriela, Cravo e Canela)
The Brazilians
Bonobos: the Forgotten Ape
Chimpanzee Politics
Unto Others (re: altruism)
Inside Terrorism
The Da Vinci Code
Beast in the Garden (cougar attacks!)
Angels and Demons
A Contemporary Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment of the Epilepsy Patient (or something like that)


Sarah, that altruism book that Sven suggested is wayyyyyy boring (Unto Others). I have quit it for now, I will perhaps take it up again later, but not for quite a while. (I am hoping that just the first chapter is boring but it's such a long chapter.)

My new favorite compound: glycosylphosphatidylinositol

Yesterday I made for lunch one of those packets of noodle soup -- BUT imagine how I jazzed it up! OK, now that you're done imagining all the fun and fantastic things I could have done, I will tell you- I cooked it and added an egg, chopped-up green onions, and pepper, paprika, and best of all *curry powder*!! Then I took some italian bread that we got left over from the Breadsmith (pre-dumpster, yay!) and toasted it with butter, onions, tomato, mozzarella, and spices. Totally yummy dude.

Alright, I already requested this of sarah on her IM but she is asleep and thus I put this out to other hoyaz as well. Active minds has leftover T-shirts from the 2-mile last weekend that they are selling (well, practically giving) to AM members -- only problem is I need to tell them a place to drop mine off and have someone to hand them $2 for me. So if there are any volunteers...

Erin, I totally encourage you to go to that fairytale dinner on (Thursday?) It sounds cool and yummy! They are having schnnitzel, spaetzle, and apfelstrudel. I am going to tell Thrasher to go as well. Plus, you didn't get the fellowship opportunity from the German Dept. I imagine -- can you brush up your deutsch real quick? They have this fellowship (more like an internship) to the German Parliament starting spring 2005, and they pay you room, board, & stipend. Toll! Man the german department sends out cool opportunities. Sometimes I really think I should have kept up better with my german, cause there are a whole bunch of things like this.

So Paul is getting mysterious secret emails from Sarah, for some unknown reason...(I saw the heading of one in his inbox as he checked his email last night and when i asked him about it he began laughing and closed the window quickly). I confronted Sarah about this and she confessed to a passionate long-distance love affair, stemming from when she met Paul last spring break.

Well, she did offer to trade Landon for Paul. So I guess that's that. She sounded pretty determined to stick with the Pablo.

Oh! I forgot to mention last Sunday that I went to the Human Race, an 8k that Paul and Michelle were both running in. It was fun and they both did good.

This week I made donauwellen. Did I already post about that? It is a german dessert: first vanilla cake, then chocolate cake swirled in, then cherries, then extra-sweet vanilla pudding, then fudge. It's a trip. Yummy. Except I forgot to put vanilla in the cake part and the pudding part was too runny, but oh well.

Today I cleaned out my closet even more, getting rid of lots of old clothes. I tried to be merciless, cause usually when I do this sort of thing I start thinking "well, I guess it's not SO bad and it ALMOST fits and I COULD wear it." When I started getting that way this time I stopped cleaning the closet. I saved some stuff I didn't like so much for work clothes though, casual office jobs. I need to get more work skirts.

Right now I am applying for a job as a semi-waitress at a cafe (you only bring the food to them, you don't go get their order)...it is a bit more upscale than the diner, and not graveyard shifts. It is about halfway between my parents' house and Paul's apartment, which is a perfect little walk from either. Just for a few hours a week, I just need to make as much as I spend (which isn't much, but it adds up week after week after week). So hopefully something will pan out there. I am nervous about starting a new job. I hate starting new jobs. Also on the application they asked if I had any physical limitations, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. So I left it blank.

GAHHH Brazilians!

At Paul's unrelenting harrassment, I finally emailed them this afternoon to say "so...who got those grants?" (We were supposed to know by today.) I got a quick reply back from the brazilian studies coordinator, who said "Oh those. We don't know yet. Maybe next week."

I don't know whether I should just laugh at this or sigh at them or say GAHHHHH!!

next post: outfront rally, yay!

A big congratulations to Rasha for getting into YALE MEDICAL SCHOOL!!! Yay for our smart housemate!!!!!!!! (Can she unpack and sleep in her bed for a night now?)

S -- haha, "so obviously I was having a meeting with Dean Murphy"...yep, totally obvious...? Way to sneak into graduation though. And I'm glad you're doing the FSE this spring, cause then we can study together next year and I will of course totally take it with you Spring 2005. Goody. (Hey those don't expire, right? Like if you take it and then don't apply for like 5 years, they won't make you take it again, will they?)

E- I went to the grocery store today and searched for Powerade powder (50c cheaper than gatorade powder, btw), and all they had was Mountain Blast and Fruit Punch mix. But they WERE having a sale on their 32-oz jugs, so I got a bunch of those, lots of different flavors but of course our J.I. I went to the grocery store only in search of Sauerkirschen fuer die Donauwellen, which I KNOW are sold at normal stores, but not at this one. So instead I came home with a bag full of other stuff. Of course.

Haven't heard from the Brazilian studies program yet about the grant (I am supposed to hear by tomorrow, which I hoped meant today, but in Brazilian probably means a couple weeks from now). If anyone sees any flyers or anything congratulating someone else for the grant, please let me know!!

Alright, so this gross article was in the newspaper yesterday:

anti-gay rally article

On Monday there was a rally at our state capitol by people wanting the legislature to pass a MN consitutional amendment saying marriage is between a man and a woman, no one else. What's the point, Minnesota? You've already got an amendment saying no gay marriage. What, you just want to confirm your hatred? J-C.

I had wanted to attend that rally (as an anti-rallyer, so that I could laugh at people when they told me I was going to hell) on Monday but was unable to, since I don't drive and the bus system is on strike and then I ended up going to the doctor anyways, so I was disappointed. I couldn't exactly get my mother, someone who would have been rallying on the side of the anti-gays, to drive me down to the capitol. I will have to fix up my bike for tomorrow's rally in SUPPORT of marriage. (The capitol is only a few miles away, right down the road.)

Anyways, besides the fact that all of Minnesota's politicians and apparently thousands of its concerned citizens are pissing me off with their hatred, I DID think the picture on the article was appropriate and amusing. It shows a sophomore at St. Agnes high school (Minneapolis) holding a "NO SODOMITE MARRIAGE" sign, and it rather made me chuckle. St. Agnes WOULD be there, I bet they called the day off school so their students could all go protest. St. Agnes is bordering on pre-Vatican II, still does Latin 'high' masses, their students learn Latin, etc...they are just plain weird and this like little catholic cult school...one of my best friends from high school went there and I haven't seen her since January 3 2003, when we got in a fight over whether or not I would be marching in the pro-life parade in DC later that month. (She was pissed cause I said no and told her that she oughtn't to be either.)

Ahhhh, Aggies.

I'm cleaning out my closet...trying to get rid of tons of stuff so I'm not as connected to my parents' space. Also it will help when they get kicked out of this house so that the house can get torn down, my stuff will already be sorted and packed up neatly.

Anyways, I find interesting stuff as I'm going. Some of it immediately goes in the trash (what the hell is THIS doing around 6 years later??!) and some I approach only with a vacuum hose in hand (man this closet was GROSS!), but today I found some very interesting things.

Most importantly, among the bad poetry from AP English class and the old calculus assignments (I understood this at one point?!) was...

AN ABUNDANCE OF ADVENTURES!!!!!!! Bridget, can you believe it?! I found one notebook with several pages and I thought that was amazing enough. But then I found my math notebook, which has an entire pocket full of adventures!!!! I didn't read them over, but the one I did read was a good one ('Friends 'til the bitter end,' the one where you get stuck inside the bubble and get all sticky...)

Also I FINALLLLLLY found the CDs from our germany trip...I have been looking for those for 4 years now!! I am listening to the mix right now, and then Fanti Vier will be up soon. I am SOOOO happy cause that lazy-ass Barry has never gotten around to burning me another copy (now he is fittingly being a lazy-ass in Australia and sending emails bragging about how warm it is there. Pfffft.) I think I will go find my Donauwellen recipe that my german family gave me, cause those sound good to make, don't they?

Oh, B, also I found the CDH chronicle from our senior year, and they had a few pages where they cut out all the seniors' photos and did a collage, and I didn't see my face, but I saw yours, hahaha!! You look completely shit-faced. It's awesome. That's something I can't throw out. I guess I will probably have to scan it onto this blog so that everyone knows what the other author looks like.

Erin I looked online and powerade DOES come in the powdered form, but i can't tell whether or not jagged ice is available. The search shall continue.

So I have tested 3 different versions of gatorade, and here are my thoughts:

1) Straight-up pre-made Powerade (Jagged Ice, of course, E)

This was the easiest, naturally, and the sweetest, plus you can't get past the Jagged Ice flavor. It's good if you're in a hurry or something, but the most expensive one of the 3. But still I'd probably have to say that for now I like it the best. (If I get used to the other kinds though I may change my mind.)

2) Gatorade powder (Lemon-lime)

This was fine, although it kinda fizzed weird when I shook it up. It reminded me of the liquid lemon jello my mom used to make me drink when I was little and had the stomach flu. But it was convenient, if I just mix it straight into my nalgene, and not bad-tasting. Paul thought I put too much powder in (I followed the directions) but I thought if anything it was a tad weak.

3) Homemade gatorade (questionable flavor. I think it was supposed to be strawberry-orange.)

This you use a kool-aid packet (since it was the "mystery flavor" I don't know what it was, Peter and I guess strawberry) and sugar and salt and water and orange juice. It's alright, I guess, but I think it's kinda weak. Cheap though. I think that if I make it again I will tinker with some of the ingredients...like a little more OJ or something, cause right now it tastes kind of watered down. Even though it;s the right proportions for making 2 quarts of kool-aid, plus some salt and some orange juice. I think the color probably throws me off (although it looks pukey inside my blue nalgene).

So there ya go. About what you'd expect, price-wise, I guess. They're all passable, and better than the sugar-salt-water I made the other night at Paul's. That was just flat-out icky.

OK fine, since it looks like my loyal fan base is still checking in anyways even though I suck at posting, here we go:

I spent 9 days total in the hospital. The first couple days were alright, I had to meet with a psychologist (routine for the VEEG)...this was probably the best part of the stay because he said he agreed with the old psychologist in the other hospital (who was then 'overruled' by the epileptologist, as if he knew more about psychology than the psychologist)...anyways he agreed with the other psychologist and said that I am NOT having psychological seizures, anxiety attacks, etc. Yay!! Finally they believe me!!!

They spent the next couple days taking me quickly off meds and waiting for big seizures to show up. Since all I was having were visual seizures, and those are too small to show up on the EEG (as are many simple partial seizures), they needed something bigger. So on Friday night, I was not allowed to sleep. I got to sleep ~6 hours on Saturday night and the same on Sunday night, and then on Monday they took my sleep away again. So from about 7:30 on Friday morning to 12:30 on Tuesday night I got about 12 hours of sleep. Whoopee. They also wanted me to get working on my final term paper, so that they could 'REALLY re-create the stress of school,' but I didn't have everything there that I needed. And I didn't really want to anyways. But I humored them by at least reading some of my portuguese book that I brought, which was hard enough. And I knitted a lot and read the Da Vinci Code...an ok book, super-hyped, I had some issues with it but I won't get into them now.

Anyways, during ALLL of this (and even CAFFEINE they made me drink on Monday night!) I had guess how many big bad seizures: NONE!!!! (are you KIDDING me?!)

I was so completely frustrated. Also I called Bridget on Friday night when I wasn't asleep (after I woke Sarah up at her grandma's) and she was at a bar and her drunk roommate answered and hung up on me twice. It made me sad. :(

So the doctor was probably frustrated too, cause they couldn't do anything to treat me if I wasn't producing...The weekend doctor came in and discussed surgery options with me (which currently don't exist because I wasn't giving any clues as to where in my brain the seizures are coming from) and other meds, one of which the 'real' doctor refused to consider cause it apparently has extremely rare but extremely fatal side effects. I discussed gridding with the weekend doc (where they shave your head, slice open your skull and put electrodes directly on your brain) and he said they COULD now but it would mean they'd have to grid my whole brain instead of just a section and that would be a bunch of unpleasantness, so can I please have a seizure now so we can narrow it down?

Eventually they said, well, we'll keep you as long as we can but there are more patients coming in and we need your bed. So you'll have to go home on Thursday. So I went home on Wednesday. And they put me on a new medicine (like I mentioned in the last post) on Tuesday night and it makes my feet and ankles and legs swell up huge and hard to walk (since I can't bend my ankles thus) and that's just awesome.

My EEG techs were interesting-- one came in my room and said, "hmmm, you look familiar." I looked up and said, "no way! Did you work at {this other hospital}??" Turns out my favorite EEG tech from the other hospital migrated to the other side of the river. Awesome. She even remembered how my friends (including Thrasher) decorated my hospital room, and Johanna coming to visit. Then it turns out that another tech goes to Macalester currently (a junior) and another one just graduated from Mac (this was found out because I had 2 friends over playing cards and he walks into the room and they all say "What are you doing here?!" Haha.) So it's a small world and I spend too much time in hospitals, is the moral of this paragraph.

But I liked this hospital a lot better, because they had carpet on the floors and the rooms were more like hotel rooms than hospitally, and the nurses and everyone treated you a lot more like a person. Also it was cool because there were several people around my age (if around my age encompasses everything from 19-32 and maybe throw in a couple people in their 40s who were cool) and we hung out all the time in the lounge -- felt kinda like a dorm!! Haha. In a weird sort of way, like, if in this dorm you are constantly on video camera and you cheer for other people when they have a seizure in front of you, then when they wake up you laugh at them. But 2 people always helped me stay up at night, one even stayed up til after 5 with me on Monday night, when I was really having trouble. (Friday night, surprisingly, even through Saturday night when I was allowed to go to sleep, I didn't have much trouble at all.)

OK, this is too long, no one's gonna read it, but it makes up for lots of missing days.

Short post cause Johanna and I are going on a walk in a minute (easing back into the workout routine)...
Back from the hospital yesterday afternoon,
frustrating stay (but good people there, I liked this one MUCH better than the old one!)
new medicine that makes my feet ankles and lower legs swell up like a hobbit. yippee! (which is why i'm walking not running today).

There will be a substantial lack of blogging in the coming days (yeah, I know there has been a lack in recent days as well) as in 6 minutes I leave for the hospital, but not that y'all will notice cause those of you who aren't on spring break now are going on spring break next week. See how I schedule my blog absences so considerately?
Ciao, m-fs.

Also, if anyone wanted to know, Paralympic Wheelchair Basketball qualifying tryouts are TOMORROW AND SUNDAY!! Go Jen!! She's already there I assume but if you see her on campus next week congratulate her (as I'm assuming she's gonna get in).

The Minneapolis/St. Paul city bus drivers (and other workers I suppose) went on strike (for health care benefits, erin -- the guv wanted to take away retiree benefits and make health insurance cost like $136 more a month, and other shit like that.) They had been talking about it for a while, and apologized a lot to riders, and they were even nice enough to wait until after caucus night, they started their strike on Thursday.
Their last strike was about 10 years ago, and lasted about a month. The workers said this time around the union said to expect a couple of months, and no new talks with the Metro Council are even scheduled yet.

Uhhh, that sucks. I take the bus lots of places. (50c bus rides for the disabled! Wheee!) Sometimes I get rather dependent on it, like in the summer I took it to work and back in downtown Minneapolis. Now it is sometimes more a convenience thing, like taking it to Macalester, cause that's just a mile and yeah I can walk that, but for example it just snowed a bunch last night (shaddUP hoyas!) and...that's cold. In the summer at least you can bike or walk more easily. Plus, as y'all probably know, gas prices are rising and rising. So I can't depend on getting rides from people as much. And...overall this just ain't very cool.

Caucussing sucked ASS, by the way.

Paul's precinct was good, mine was a horrid waste of time.
Read the whole tale if you want, or skip it, that's all this post is:

You are supposed to get there around 6:30 to sign in and technically if you want to vote for President you are supposed to have signed in by 7 pm. People were still just wandering in at 7:45, at which point we'd often have to go back over everything. We ran out of ballots immediately, because although in some precincts only a handful of people showed up, over 100 came to mine. So we were just using scraps of paper.
(That wasn't even the annoying part.)

Now, I fully expected the caucus to be disorganized -- I hear that's part of the fun, plus it's local politics, meaning it's not run by politicians, just people, but uhhhh this was not disorganized. This was chaos due to incompetence.
For starters, unfortunately we had to be placed in the high-school cafeteria where 2 other precincts were as well. It's great that so many people showed up, but a ton showed up for the other precincts too, meaning we were mishmashed together and talking over one another and confused about who was in which and couldn't hear a thing etc etc. The precinct chair didn't know what the hell she was doing and although we got the Presidential vote done relatively quick for all the disorder (Hey Edwards! Smooth move, dropping out just as people are voting for you, ya FUCKER!)

Then we have to do things like elect delegates to the next level (Paul's a delegate for his precinct), and basically they just passed a sign-up sheet around until 34 slots were filled. Then this bitchy lady snatched it and was like "No one else sign up! You CAN, but that means we're going to have to VOTE on EVERYONE here and we'll be here forEVER." Yeah, that's letting the people practice their right to politics. Pfft. So the rest of the people who wanted to do it had to just sign up as alternates and hope that others drop out.

This whole time, people have been filling out resolution forms that we are supposed to vote on whether or not we want to pass on to the next level or not "Resolved: The Death Penalty sucks." (MN's governor suggested reinstating the death penalty in response to a crime that the Supreme Court has already said would be unconstitutional to receive the death penalty for...we've got a Smartie McSmart over here.) "This caucus resolves that the DFL party supports the removal of blahblahblahblahblah" Some were on local issues (bus strike), some were on international (universal disarmament) etc. But that's the point of a caucus, besides going in and taking 30 seconds to vote for President, getting your issues out there. And yeah, one resolution doesn't matter. But when they get compiled, and get to the next level and get compiled, etc, a picture emerges of what's on voters' minds, and I think it's kind of interesting, and I wanted to hear the resolutions, then you get to discuss and debate and modify and vote on them.

But were we able to? Of course not. CAUSE WARD FOUR PRECINCT SEVEN SUCKS! The chair grabbed the stack of resolutions (there were about 30) and said "I don't think we have time for these. We'll be here for at least another hour if we have to go through all these." Someone voiced a complaint about that, and she said "Do you see how many I have in my hand here? We can't do all these." Then the bitchy lady got back up and bitched around about how she didn't want to do all that. Well, uhhh, people, you can all leave. No one is tying you down and reading resolutions to you. But the precinct finally took a vote on whether or not to just pass 'em all on to the next level. (By the way, we spent 25 minutes debating whether or not to do that. In which we could have done a bunch of resolutions.) A bunch of us said NAY very loudly, but ... not enough.

Then it turns out that they're not going to adjourn the caucus until the tellers are done counting the Presidential vote anyway, which means forever. (Again, no one was keeping anyone there though.) And there's more dumb little business stuff to take care of. So we had plenty of time to go through the resolutions. Someone ended up skimming through all of them and then presenting a summary to us, but we didn't get to discuss them or vote, and some of the summaries were things like "This person wants the visa policy changed." Ummm, what do they want changed about it? Did I just resolve to not issue any more visas? I want to know what's being done in my name! Another lady wanted lots of censorship laws. Oh, excuse me, "not censorship, just protecting the children." But we totally would have had time to do the resolutions.

I ended up leaving the caucus about 8 cause it sucked and there was nothing else to do (and I didn't really care about finding out who my precinct voted for), and waited by Paul's car cause I figured he'd be out soon. He wasn't, and I didn't see anyone from my caucus for about an hour either. Sooo...

I hate caucussing. Next time I'm going to be a voiceful bitch who makes damn certain that if I'm there to caucus, we caucus. And if anyone doesn't want to, they can damn well leave if they want, but if I already wasted my evening, at least give me something to do, punk.

OK, well, one last post about the caucuses (before I probably post tomorrow about how I was bored or something):
Here's the post I promised Eliot about the email he sent me last week urging me to vote for Edwards. I haven't made up my mind yet. Cause caucuses are alright cause you can go and vote on issues to bring up, which I will most certainly do. Here's Eliot's email:

"...In the meantime, i think you really should take a close look at edwards and kerry, and when you do, you will probably find you like kerry slightly more. BUT, that can be thrown out the window, because he's not that electable. I dont understand why the media has pronounced him- to quote the NYTimes- "mr electable". I find this absurd, as he is only slightly better at appealing to the center than Dean. I continue to find it amazing that when people backed away from Dean in the final days before Iowa, they fell back on Kerry-- the choice they had abandoned a year ago. Mark my words: had wes clark been in iowa, we would have a very different race today.

Anyway, I feel edwards is much more electable (and you can post this in your blog, if you feel the need) on a number of counts
-He certainly is more likable and charismatic than kerry, and I would say more likable than Bush. His JFK good looks and his friendly-Clinton manner of speaking are very appealing to silly undecideds. In 2000, we witnessed the power of "likability" as a factor in voters' minds.

-Bush and the right will have far less ammo on him (I consider this to be very very important), as he just hasn't been around much. He hasn't made many votes, isnt' hypocrtical when he assails Nafta (kerry voted for nafta), and takes positions which really speak to the prosperity of the lower and middle classes. What are they gonna do? call him a dirty lawyer (yes).

Granted, he's inexperienced, but that didn't stop bush last time around. But i do admit it's a liability.

Overall, i think Kerry comes off as too stiff, too liberal, too out-of-touch, too northeastern, and too beatable. Both he and edwards are fighters, and both have very similar values at heart. kerry just appears more vulnerable to attacks-- attacks which the Right wing mount every day

those are my thoughts- vote edwards, i will (I like kerry as my senator!)

Eliot"

I think I am finding Edwards kind of annoying. And Kerry a bit tiring. And they are both just alike. My grandpa is not going to the caucuses tonight (I invited him) because he thinks it will just end up with Kerry winning and Edwards running as VP anyway, so he doesn't want to bother, he will go out in November.
Does Edwards look old enough to be trusted with this office? I dunno. People want someone who looks experienced. Yeah, people say he's got the charm (I've never actually seen him speak).

I was looking over their campaign websites at their health plans, and Kerry seems to focus mainly on people below the poverty line, while Edwards says he will mandate insurance coverage of children under 25 (ie if I drop out of school I will still be on my parents' insurance until I am 25, not 18). Edwards says he will go for reimportation of American drugs, which I am not such a big fan of. Erin, we already discussed that one. They have a lot of the same talking points -- subtle differences which I don't think will matter in the end cause platforms are always a lot bigger than what actually happens. Kerry was pushing for greater employment coverage though, and I'm sitting here thinking, ok, well, I'm unemployed, I'm not technically under the poverty line even if I got a job and moved out on my own cause my parents still claim me as a dependent, but I'll get kicked off insurance soon, and I can't afford to buy my own. Who's gonna help me out? If I can't maintain a steady job (or only get one where it's the under-the-table pay as I worked this summer at ), then I'm not getting any benefits. GGGGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH is all I have to say. I want single-payer healthcare!!! I want it now!!!
Rant over.

Well, cross #2 off that list, and also you can go ahead and cross #8 off my list of things to do today. (#8 was, if you have forgotten, "Find a bloody chicken fetus inside one of the eggs I am using to make a quiche with.") Oh wait, #8 WASN'T on the list!! Cause I didn't want to do it today!
Barf.

Goals for today:
1) Reread and edit up paper
2) Make spinach-sausage quiche with the baby for breakfast (well, lunch by the time she gets up).
3) Clean out more closet
4) Make list of things needed for hospital
5) Drink lots of water (3 glasses already and it's only 8:30 am! I'm doing well Paul!! But I have to pee so bad!!!!)
6) Caucus night! (pick a candidate)
7) Figure out blanket yarn and how to get a-started (changing colors/knots).

Last night I stayed up later than intended, because Peter and James have been talking about this show that I "HAVE" to watch for weeks now. I was on my way to bed when they pulled me in to watch it, and then I got stuck watching the show after it too (hey, it was Inu Yasha, what can I say?)

The first show was Witch Hunter Robin (I have really gotten on this anime kick recently, odd...) and uhhhh, it was weird. It was like Law & Order, anime-style where they hunt 'witches'. (As Peter says, "there are a lot of witches running around Japan. Were you unaware?" ("Yeah Mary, haven't you ever been there?" pipes in James.)) Or some weird x-files show, I guess. But they're all dark and brooding and serious and for some reason don't look Japanese, but they track down witches with newly-awakened powers, and one guy had a super-awesome mullet. This last one featured a serial-killer witch, but I don't know if all of the witches are killers or not, cause my brothers said some of them have pretty pathetic powers.

Then it was Inu Yasha. Now, are they basing all these demon-spirits on anything, or do they just make them up show by show? It was about this 5-year-old who died in a fire and was now an evil spirit and about to get thrown into hell. Uhh, nice guys. KIDS WATCH THAT SHOW!!!

So yes I am up now, I guess I will go shower and start making lunch.

Hmm, sorry, haven't posted in a bit. Although I've had lots to say.

Today I mostly finished my 2nd of 3 papers for my incomplete class. Meaning I put a lot of words down on paper and typed it all up, although I declined to write a conclusion until I polish up the paper. I think I got to the point with this paper where I just wrote a whole bunch and I'm not sure if I said anything or really answered the question. So I think I need to go back and read the whole thing. I don't think I will get a good grade on this one. Isn't that kind of frustrating, when you get to the point where you're just thinking, ya know, I KNOW I didn't do well, but...I'm not gonna re-write an entire paper (since I already started over when I was at about 3 pages). BY THE WAY BLOND GIRL SITTING NEXT TO ME, THIS BLOG POST IS NOT THAT INTERESTING, PLEASE STOP READING OVER MY SHOULDER, THANK YOU.

Caucuses are tomorrow, and no I still have not given it more thought. S I have been thinking about you actually and would order you some rice pudding and gladware-sticky-things were I in town. Or MAKE you some rice pudding, haHA!

Paul and I made rice pudding on Friday. Here's how you do it:
Get a really big pot and a flat metal thing for scraping and stirring (there's actually some weird Indian utensil that his mom had, so...) Put in rice and a whole bunch of whole milk, and then boil that. then simmer it for about an hour while you stir and scrape basically the whole time. don't let it stick to the sides or bottom. then put in some sweetened condensed milk and spices and cook some more. Then let it cool and thicken for a long time while you taste-test it a lot. Then eat a whole bunch of it. And forget to put it away that night and leave it out but dont worry there's tons of sugar and fat in it so it's ok the next morning if you have to eat a big bowl for breakfast (darnit!) If anyone wants the more detailed instructions, too bad I'm lazy. You'll have to wait til next fall when you can watch the pro at work.

Sarah, would this work? Paul and i thought I should just go spend that year with the aunties in malaysia after all. Then I would really get to know the culture, and I would learn SOME language, either punjabi or malay or something, and probably snippets of others (chinese, hindi etc) and then the 'state dept' would definitely want me?? At least I would know how to cook good food. "Full Punjabi dinner." Yummmmy.

I'm sleepy and I think I will go walk in the rain to Paul's apartment and take a nap until he gets back from his internship. I thought finishing this paper would take longer, but since I did a crappy job on it, it didn't. But I'm not sure what to do with it, so...maybe in a little bit I will read it over again. (Man if I actually were at school I'd just hand it in but now I feel guilty cause the professor's like "no, take your time! do a good job! just take your time..." so now he expects GOOD work. Pfffft.)