• When blogs I like don't have RSS feeds that let me read them in my email client, so I actually have to check to see if they've updated
• Captchas that use numbers. I do a lot of computing in the dark! I can't see where the numbers are! Spell words, because my fingers know how to find letters in the dark.
• Flash animations with a "skip intro" link built into the Flash. I don't have Flash at work. I haven't had any luck upgrading the plugin on Firefox to Flash 7. This means that there are a lot of HTML sites I can't enter because I can't view the animation with the link in it. Stop that!
• The nagging suspicion that there is a world-wide conspiracy among pants, desks and blankets to touch, rub against or hit the spot on my knee where I cut it shaving and ripped a few layers of skin off. It hurrrts!

Don't wanna wait 'til tomorrow
why put it off another day?
one by one, little problems
build up, and stand in our way. Oh

One step ahead, one step behind it
now you gotta run to get even
make future plans I'll dream about yesterday, hey!
come on turn, turn this thing around

- Right Now, Van Halen

I need to get my rear in gear and stop procrastinating. I am already doing better than I did last year. Occasionally I will start things several days before they are due. On the weekend I will catch myself wasting time and think 'You know, you could be doing work instead, and then you wouldn't have everything piled up on Monday night.' And sometimes when I think that, I will actually go and do the work rather than just thinking about it.

There are still, of course, significant chunks of time that just disappear because I'm hitting the "Get Mail" button over and over or checking to see if anyone's updated their blog when I know they haven't. But I think I'm getting better and am perhaps beginning on the right path.

mindless drivel recently blogged about the blather/chat session on Jeopardy! where Alex Trebek talks to contestants about interesting (or more frequently uninteresting) facts about themselves:

"It's easy to sit here and make fun of these people and say how boring their lives must be. But then I start to wonder, “What would it say on my card?" I mean, honestly, how many of our lives feature moments that are interesting when told in fifteen second summaries?"

Indeed. I often think that the reason I didn't make it on College Jeopardy was a) that I was still 18 Year Old Srah (timid and shy and scared was I, of things beyond my ken) and b) I couldn't come up with anything interesting to say for my personal facts.

What the hell? I had just been to France for a week as a school trip! Somehow I never find France an exciting or interesting thing to talk about. My dog had just bitten my friend on the nose! Well, that was an interesting fact about the dog, not me. I had sat in the hallway with my friends for weeks on end, working on a project wherein we made those hand-holding paper dolls and drew faces and clothes on each one so that we had one for every person on our hall! Yes, perhaps best not to admit that.

I think there are probably many interesting facts about me but the problem is that I live with me. Nothing I do is new or interesting to me because I've already lived it.

What's interesting about you, contestant?

All this fake-ass pre-Thanksgiving Christmasery is driving me nuts. It is harder and harder for me to resist decorating the blog for the holidays.

Your somewhat loyal fan,
srah

Oh my god, you suck. What the hell was that?

srah

I'm sorry I argued with you. You said the coat I was returning had been paid for with a check and I argued that it had been bought with a credit card and went on and on with my explanation when you knew the truth and could see the truth written on the receipt. I'm sorry I wasted our time because although I had reread the receipt a million times before returning the coat I somehow managed to miss that detail every time.

srah

P.S. Are you from Australia or something? You talk funny.

I just wanted to let you know that I hated you because you thought everything I said was just so great but you wouldn't actually listen to anything I was saying. Plus, you thought you were pretty cool because you were from New York City.

She Who Answered The Phone

OMFG.

srah

I really hate that song that starts "Uno... dos... tres... catorce!" Catorce means fourteen. Why did you jump from three to fourteen? Does it mean something, or were you just pretending to know how to speak Spanish? Please re-record the beginning of the song so that I can go back to ignoring and really not caring about your music instead of actively hating it.

srah

Do you remember that one time I fought a bear?

Good.

There is a remote possibility that this may not have happened. However, I've run it past a few people and at least three of them, when asked 'Remember that time I fought a bear?' could remember various intricate details of the bear story, so that I was able to reconstruct that it was Chris' pet polar bear that I met in the woods and that I cried and then stabbed the bastard. The bear, not Chris.

I simply can't believe that these people would lie to me or help me to concoct invented memories, so it must be true.

Go me!

That which I felt I could but dream of has finally come to be.

Can it be true? Have the Fates smiled on one so lowly as myself? Can such unequaled happiness really be my own? Here is food for joyous laughter, indeed!

Yes, folks, they have finally finished the construction on Bonisteel Avenue and the North Commuter bus is trundling all the way up instead of stopping at the end and making me walk.

Shut up, I was excited.

Thanks to my old chum Mr B------, I have been endowed with a moniker that evokes great poetical talent. Playing upon my last name and my fondness for a certain song that is popular on the radio, he has decided to start calling me Nitty. I am only too proud to be connected with the genius that brought us such beautiful verse as:

We're standin face to face, uh
I knew right where to take her
That private room called the bathroom
Uh oh, here comes the waiter

I am so amused that rappers are now sampling The Archies. What's next? Yummy Yummy Yummy I Got Love In My Tummy? Puppy Love? The future is so bright!

I walked into a bathroom stall today and dropped my purse. Unfortunately, the purse was open at the time and my cell phone fell out and slid under the dividing wall. I leaned down and was about to reach my hand under when I realized that the bathroom was fully occupied and that it would be extremely creepy for a hand to appear in your bathroom stall. It was probably almost as creepy to have a cell phone appear in your bathroom stall, but the mysterious stranger handed it back under to me very kindly.

I wish I had bothered to write this story in such a way that it would be entertaining to others. Stupid blogging!

Scrolling to the right!

I don't think I've been in a hospital for something like five years now. I don't know what "CODE BLUE" means, but it sure makes people in scrubs run around a lot. It's sort of like TV!

The hospital is sort of like the lamest summer camp ever. They have activities planned for you, but it's never Arts & Crafts or archery... instead it's kind of sucky things like "9-10 PM: Sitting up on the edge of the bed".

I was driving today and had to stop for a very stupid black-and-white cat who had decided to take up roost in the middle of my street. It occurred to me that while a black-and-white cat would have little camouflage in order to survive in the wild, his coloring makes him quite visible to drivers and protects him in an urban environment. This isn't very interesting, but I wanted an excuse to blog pictures of a cat that isn't even mine:

Chairman Meow, you are the safest cat of all!

I had a clever strategy this year.

I have learned, over the course of last year, that my CD-alarm clock will not wake me up. Usually it just gives me strange dreams influenced by whatever musical soundtrack happens to be in there and I continue sleeping until a Real Live Human Being comes in and informs me that it is after 7am and I might want to think about getting up soon.

So this year, I have set my clock with two different alarms - the CD that begins at 6:30 and then the radio that interrupts it at 7. I set the radio to the nauseatingly peppy morning show on WNIC, knowing that hearing their annoying banter would force me to get up in order to turn it off.

Ah, la naïvété.

My body, instead, has trained itself to sleep through both the CD and the annoying banter, to the point where I wake up sometime after the radio's been playing for a while and convince myself - in my dreamy haze - that I will just keep sleeping until the CD starts.

I really ought to give up and set several buzzing alarms.

Are there any Scion xB owners out there in my readership? The whole existence of Scion seems to have happened while I was out of the country, so I think I'm just not getting it. What is the attraction to driving a toaster?

Greg is sick and demands a post. As I live in awe of his blogging power, I am only too pleased to oblige, except that I don't have anything particularly post-worthy to say. So here are some bits and pieces that aren't long or interesting enough for their own posts, but may add up to something that will please an elderly invalid.

A bit more blogging to come tomorrow and probably loads more after the weekend!

What's new with you?

(last night, in the kitchen)
me: You know, if this quiche were really old, you could call it Quiche Richards.

It was funny because no one groaned, no one told me to shut up... they just stared at me and quickly began trying to forget it. Either that or they didn't get it. :(

I'd like to thank Mr B------'s mom for sending him this email forward* so that he might forward it on to me, which he hardly ever does, so that I might post an email forward in my blog, which I hardly ever do.

Why English Teachers Die Early
Actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

26. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

27. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

28. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

----------
* Oh, and for giving birth to him 24 years ago today.

My alarm clock is possessed.

I woke up at 3am last night because it started making high-pitched beeping noises. I've had this happen before when I snoozed it, but I didn't snooze it and it was set to the radio rather than the beeping setting. Not to mention that it was NOT set for 3am. So I turned it off, turned the alarm back on and tried to go back to sleep.

For about ten minutes, because it started beeping again. So I unplugged it, plugged it back in, reset the clock and the alarm and went back to sleep. And it started beeping again. So I unplugged it. And it beeped again. I checked to see if it was trying to run on a battery that was dying, but it had no battery! So I took it across the room, put it under a pile of sheets and towels and went back to sleep.

I woke up around 7 but was afraid that if I went back to sleep, I wouldn't wake up in time for work. So I plugged the darn thing back in. I think at that point, I made it to 8 with no problems, but I still have no idea what's wrong with it or if it will do the same thing again tonight.

I'm frightened...

My avatar looks strangely more sophisticated and grownupper than I do in real life. Perhaps I think highly of myself.

On the way to the wedding, we passed several signs advertising an Orange Car Wash. I thought that this was the worst, most selective fundraising drive ever until I learned that we were near Orange, Ohio.

I was going to blog about how I'm indecisive, but now I'm not sure if I want to or not.

If, hypothetically, I were to be driving 80mph on the way to, say, work or something, I bet that it would really piss me off if people hypothetically passed me in the right lane.

*DING DONG!*

srah answers the door. There is a woman holding a multi-pack of paper towels. "Hello!" she gaily greets me, "Are you the lady of the house?"

"Well... I'm the one at home..." I respond. I think I don't deal well with answering doors.

"So you're not the lady of the house?"

"I guess not."

"Okay. Thanks. Bye!"

Paper towels? WTF? Why does this seem like a dream I would have?

"There is nothing sexier than the sight of a well-dressed woman eating chicken fingers." - srah, to herself, while finishing her lunch in the car on the way home from work yesterday

You keep telling yourself that, girl! I think it should become an adage.

Today was really pretty crap. Luckily, I was too sleepy to recognize that fact at the time.

I had a take-home exam due at 5pm, but had to work at my internship from 1 to 5 and had to get to "Detroit" first. Which meant that my deadline was noon. Except really, my deadline had to be before noon, because I still had to get my hours to the secretary at my other job, eat something and get gas in the car.

So I had planned to work on the test through last night. If I got too tired to work, I would take a power nap and then get up and continue. I went to bed at 1:30am, set my cell phone alarm for 2, and set another alarm for 4am, because I knew that I wasn't going to get up after only half an hour, and 4am sounded like a good time to start my Thursday.

So my alarm went off at 2. I was sort of alert, but I knew that there was that second alarm, so I went back to sleep... and woke up at about 6:45. Apparently I had set the 4:00 alarm, but not turned it on. Luckily, I had enough notes that I was able to finish two more questions between 6:45 and 8:30, when I left to go to the 502 review session.

The session was only marginally useful, because information was swimming around in my brain and wriggling and refusing to be caught, but it did serve the purpose of making me panic and realize I know nothing about this class and I hadn't started studying for Friday's exam. So it made me realize that I should study, but that I had no time to do so before our study group at 6:02*. Grr.

After that, I was able to hit the SHEEPDIP and get trucking on problem #2, which I hadn't really even looked at before. Luckily it turned out to be easyish (although probably wrong and full of graphs that needed to be redrawn with a pencil). I finished and got all of my shiznit printed and handed in at... 11:45.

So I booked it - or "booked it" as fast as I could, being dressed up for work in my lovely belovèd new shoes that make me walk feminine-professionally and daintily and therefore at a speed of about .003 miles per hour everywhere I go - across campus, got my stuff, grabbed some Wendy's to eat in the car, and prayed that I had enough gas as I minced my way back to my car.

As I left the Union, I realized that I didn't have my trusty driving directions and I was going to have to do the trip on my own. I was already running late and was not looking forward to having to call the office and tell them that I was going to be late because I got lost.

Surprisingly enough, I made it and took the correct Telegraph Road exit this time - a mistake I'd made last week even with directions. Driving without directions made me feel like a grown-up - like I just travel this route all the time because I have important things to do at the other end.

I ran inside, worked and actually had a good time at it, then left at 5 for study group, remembering that the reason I was starving was that I hadn't managed to eat all of my Wendy's while trying to navigate to "Detroit." So I finished them and they were cold and horrible and delicious.

Traffic traffic traffic. Traffic traffic GO! GO! 60 miles an hour! GO-- Traffic. Traffic. SEVENTY-FIVE! SIXTY! FIFTY! Traffic.

I got to study group only about ten minutes late and was not even the last to arrive. We put off studying for a long time in favour of choosing pizza toppings, put it off some more in favour of eating pizza, and some of us never really did get much done, because we were mostly asleep.

I came home and thought about getting directly into bed, but made the mistake of getting on AIM and having about seven conversations, which took me almost until midnight. Now is the time to rest the "leetle grey cells" for the exam, which is almost more important than studying, anyway.

-----
* We are teh suck.

I had actually forgotten that I'd had a surprise 21st birthday party until I was paging through one of my photo albums last night. This is mostly because it wasn't a very big surprise.

I was an orientation leader for incoming international students my senior year at Albion. One of my orientees asked me earlier in the day what time the party was, not knowing that it was a surprise party.I told him I didn't know anything about a party and while it confused me at first, it planted the seeds of suspicion so I pretty much knew what I was I was walking into when I did.

It was a great party, but not an enormous surprise. How about you? Have you ever had/thrown a surprise party? Tell 's about it.

I like that whenever I've buried my cell phone under the piles of books and papers on my floor or left it in the pocket of a forgotten jacket, I can just give it a call to find out where it is.

I find myself wishing I could call everything in my life. My room is messy enough that my phone bills would be astronomical as I telephoned my keys, my day planner, my 502 coursepack and my spare change.

What the hell is the number for my tweezers?

As I was driving along today, I saw children playing catch in the street. I tut-tutted and slowed down as I approached them. The one who was actually in the street cleared off to one side as I got closer and threw the ball to a kid on the sidewalk. He missed it and the ball bounced out into the road.

Surely he isn't going to follow it, I thought. I remember all of the things I learned growing up, both from my parents and from school. You never just run out into the street after a ball. You always look both ways before you step out into the street.

And yet, as I slowed down further to see how things would play out, the kid did indeed follow his ball out into the street. Even though I was approaching slowly and had seen him there since I turned onto the street, I was still an oncoming car and potentially dangerous. His friends yelled at him and I frowned and shook my head as I drove by. I thought about stopping and reprimanding him, but what is one to say in these situations?

Perhaps we ought to let Darwinism run its course?

P.P.S. If the Crown Prince of Denmark insists on getting married to someone else, then dibs on him. Sure, he's 8th or 9th in line, so I won't be Queen of the Netherlands, but royal family is royal family. And daaaaaaaaaayum.

For the information of anyone who happened to be in the stairwell with me today:

When I loudly exclaimed, "OH MY GOD! DID THAT COME OUT OF MY *NOSE*?" I was talking about a strange whistling sound that I had made.

I, er, realize that the statement was a bit ambiguous and that it could have been interpreted as something else. But it wasn't. Because that would be horrible.

I am really not much of a Girl Sleuth. I am not Nancy Drew. I am not Nan or Flossie Bobbsey. I am not even Encyclopedia Brown, and most of his cases were solved not through any actual sleuthing, but through knowledge of trivia or logic.

If I were a Bobbsey Twin, I would have staked out my mailbox and watched for suspicious-looking characters putting things into it. If I were Nancy Drew, I might have dusted the spam messages for fingerprints. If I were any kind of semi-professional Girl Detective, I might at least have narrowed it down to a few suspects.

Instead, my detecting strategy consisted of going up to everyone I could think of and shouting, "Did you send me spam?!" It was not a very covert operation at all. I did this by process of elimination and avoided asking my last suspect for as long as possible so that if it turned out it wasn't him, I would not be floundering in confusion and uncertainty.

If I were a Girl Sleuth, this is how today's exchange would have played out.

Encyclopedia Srah spotted the suspect as he held the door for the class.

"HAVE YOU BEEN SPAMMING ME?!" she questioned him as she walked through. She then, very anticlimactically, had to wait for the rest of the class to enter before she could follow up her investigation or hear his answer.

"Hey!" she continued once she had him in the classroom investigation room, "Did you send me that spam? It was you, wasn't it?! ... wasn't it? It was, wasn't it?"

"What?" said Young Matthew, twirling his curly black moustache and looking wildly around the room, "I didn't send you three spam messages yesterday. I don't know what you're talking about."

The moral of the story is: It is always Matt. Don't even bother asking anyone else, because it is always Matt.

We were learning about throwing and catching exceptions in my Java class today and it got me thinking... what the heck kind of nerds were the first Java programmers?

Throw and catch? If they were any kind of real nerds, we would have been learning about throw and getHitOnTheHead. Or maybe parryWithAPlasticRenaissanceFestivalSword and runAWAAAAAAAAY!.

I know New Zealand and all, but where is the original Zealand?

If it were Zeeland, it would sound sort of Dutch.

Was it called New Zealand because people who went there had a New Zeal for life?

I got spam in my mailbox yesterday.

I am sure this is not exciting to you. "I get spam all of the time, srah," you say, belligerently, "You're going to have to be more interesting than that."

The subject of the email was "viagra... XXX... vicotin... 25-50%... xxx".

"Srah, seriously," you say, tapping your foot. "Why are you wasting my time? I get email just like that too. Don't go thinking you're anything special."

The difference is, I got spam in my mailbox. Not my email inbox, but my real live meatspace mailbox at school.

This is the coolest thing I've ever gotten in my mailbox. And I don't know who sent it to me. I remember having a conversation with someone about getting so much spam in our SI email inboxes that it was going to start spilling over into the mailboxes... but now I can't remember who it was.

So I keep asking people if they sent me spam. They look at me funny and I have to show it to them. The most common reaction is, "It wasn't me... but I wish it had been!"

Was it you?

This is the first time I have ever blogged on February 29. Huh. How about that?

I feel like this day should be celebrated in some way, but I can't think how. I suppose I ought to go watch Pirates of Penzance.

Mr Enlow invited me and so I've joined Orkut, another Friendster-esque system with the added advantage of loading a page in less than twelve hours. Let me know if you want an invitation!

I don't think this is funny, but it popped into my head and won't go away.

What kind of color codes do French chefs use on their web pages?

I went pants* shopping last night and one of the pairs I bought was on clearance for $7.77. I wouldn't normally buy red pants, but they were only $7.77. $7.77, I tell you! What a deal!

I know you don't freaking care, but neither have the other 75 friends, classmates, co-workers and strangers I have informed today. Everyone must know!

* Or "trousers" if you come from one of the keraaazy parts of the world where "pants" means underpants.

Ask me how my bus ride to school went this morning.

I've mostly spent this week getting annoyed and upset at things. Not the kind of lighthearted annoyance I can make into something silly and funny, or the kind of insane ranting that I can do when I'm better-rested. I'm tired and I'm tired of lots of things and I've been letting things get to me and I'm not happy about a lot of things.

I think I need a vacation. Or a hug. Or a weekend.

If you bring it, they will come.

So said Kevin Costner, in that movie where his cheerleading squad steals all of the cheers from the high school across town and then has to compete on their own, but luckily his father walks out of the cornfield and brings his buddies from the afterlife with their blacklisted cheers from 1919.

So I should probably "bring it," if you will, and blog something.

It's been a little slow this week because I've been dealing with all of that math and a monster bake-off Thursday night, but now I have free time and a resolution to be more positive about that class... and I can't think of anything to say.

Any suggestions? Stories you'd like to hear?

Happy Chinese New Year!

'Tis indeed the Year of the Monkey, srah's Chinese astrological year. Very fitting, as there is no Year of the Pirate. There hasn't been a Year of the Monkey since I was 12 and too young to appreciate it. I assure you, I will be livin' it up, Monkey-style, being clever and energetic but accident-prone and immoral.

The Man wants to screw homosexuals out of a verb*.

Heterosexuals can "marry" or "get married". Now they're talking about offering homosexuals the possibility of "civil unions," so as not to cheapen the sacred vows of marriage. So what do they do? Do they get civil unionized? That sounds like they're miners or auto workers. Civilly united? That sounds like two people who can barely stand each other being sewn together (which is almost as good an image as terrible p0rn!). Sucks to be you, gay people. You are second-class citizens, so no verbs for you!

I had always assumed that marriage was a legal state, but all of the arguments I've heard seem to be about how homosexuality is against God and immoral and things like that. So apparently this is a religious issue instead.

So, in the interest of the separation of church and state, let's abolish the legal state of marriage altogether and have civil unions for everyone. Then, if your own specific religion condones your specific pairing, you can go on ahead and get married in that religion. And whether you're married or not, you'll have the same rights in the eyes of the law.

* Now there's a phrase you don't hear every day.

Number of friends I have who have recently had head injuries: two.

Anyone interested in increasing that number? Just step a little closer to me and this big stick I have behind my back.

My sister is cleaning out her room in preparation for the arrival of The Argentine and has stumbled across a jackpot of blackmail material.

It was 1993 and Rookie of the Year had just come out. I was thirteen, for god's sake!

Yes, okay, I liked Thomas Ian Nicholas a little bit.

Yes, okay, maybe a little more than a little bit.

I may, technically, have had, like, 18 million posters of him. I may, technically, have bought hundreds of thousands of teenybopper magazines during my middle school years and decorated my school binders with pictures of him.

Or I may not have! I guess you'll never know!

Phew! Good save! They'll never guess the truth!

Or are you just happy to see me?

Good ol' Alfreda has another musicals quiz...

So... this quiz was crap and you all hate me. I fully accept all shenanigans called on me, since I just threw the quiz together in, like, half an hour. Read on to see the answers...

Ursula's out of the ICU, but still in the hospital. And has blogged!

      n
<(|||)( )=:
      u

I have had the "bringing home a baby bumblebee" song in my head for two hours.

Like Lauren, I'm not sure how much information is appropriate for a blog, but I suppose some information is always better than misinformation and rumour...

The Urstodian was in this accident with her sister on Sunday afternoon and is unconscious in the Intensive Care Unit at the University of Wisconsin-Madison hospital. Lauren says, "They say she's going to get better, her dad said that she was showing signs of her spunky self."

Lauren's not sure yet if Ursula can have visitors, but we're organizing flowers or some kind of gift from her friends in Ann Arbor. I have contact information for her parents and friends back in Wisconsin so if you're a friend of hers, you can email me for it.

Update (19:55): Ursula's sister's being released from the hospital today, Ursula is conscious ("when she wants to be") and she can have visitors. No word yet on when she'll be moved out of the ICU or freed altogether.

The Michigan Quarter comes out in 23 days. It is very BORing.

In other fascinating news from the US Mint, 2004 will also bring us new commemorative Louisiana Purchase nickels. Apparently money is not appealing enough to Americans so we have to change it up every once in a while just to get people excited about it.

I am picturing the lifestyle over at the US Mint, and let's just say it involves a lot of rolling papers and truckfuls of Doritos. There may be a dealer walking around DC with a pocket full of Sacagaweas, if you know what I mean.

For New Year's Eve, I went to a party at Mr B------'s house. We had some drinketies and I watched the others play video games until it was determined that that was sort of BORing.

The party travelled upstairs and we watched Big Trouble in Little China, a true cinematic masterpiece wherein Kurt Russell seems to play John Wayne trapped in a kung fu movie, except that he never really does anything. His sidekick's fiancé (with "eyes like creamy jade") gets kidnapped, but he finally gets involved when his beloved truck gets stolen as well.

We watched the ball drop, drank faux-champagne ("sprankling wine", if you are me and can't speak English) then headed downstairs for more Karaoke Revolution, where I proceeded to... not win. Or maybe I did. We played several rounds and drank several drinks, so it's hard to tell now who won and who didn't, but I think we can all agree that the big winner was Admiral Ackbar.

Lookie there! That date says 2004! Hope this year will be a lovely one for all of you.

The Boyfriend has gone to Indiana and has left his stuffed bear, Gabriel, in my custody. So now I am the Urstodian!

Sigh. Only about three people who read this will find that funny.

The family's at a hockey game out of town. The boyfriend's left to visit family out of state. The friends are meeting up to exchange gifts tomorrow. Today... is Me Time. The first Me Time I've had in months. The Me Time that I've long dreamt of. The Me Time that represents all that is good about having a break. Time to sit around and do Absolutely Nothing. Or to do Important Projects. Time to...

I'm bored.

I hope that you enjoy this day with friends and family and don't read this until the 26th.

Oh by god. Whed was the last tibe I dusted by roob? I tink I hab udleashed sobe kide of ebil id tryig to do so.

Our society so often says, "You're not fat. It's much better to have a little meat on your bones than to be one of those disgusting skinny people."

Why are we allowed to make mean comments about skinny people? I know our society is implicitly disgusted by fat people, but why are they allowed to be explicitly disgusted by skinny ones? Some of us can't help it.

I felt I had to blog this because it came up in an AIM conversation with the Urstodian and she said I had a point. This is so rare, it had be preserved for posterity!

So, about time to get started on that Christmas shopping, I guess. Well, I'll have plenty of time to get everything done before-- WHAT? It's already December 21? Christmas is this Thursday? Who went and scheduled it on the 25th?! That's too early! I'm not ready!

Erm. You're all getting some lovely paper snowflakes that I'm going to go cut out right now.

Unless there isn't time, in which case you are getting a paper snowflake kit (a piece of white paper).

And to save on mailing, I have already put your kit in your house. Look in your printer. There it is! Happy holidays!

:)

New excuse for all of the idiocy in my life: three hours of sleep.

There are so eleven days in a week, because I only had three hours of sleep. Whatever I just said in our conversation was funny, because I only had three hours of sleep. I am holding this cell phone to my ear and listening to nothingness because I only had three hours of sleep.

You don't agree with my strategy? Let's take it outside. You'll try to hit me and I'll roll into a little ball on the ground and hide. *yawn* Yeah, hide, that's it. Hey, as long as I'm rolled in a ball on the ground, why don't I take a nap?

But hey, the paper's done.

I was somewhere in between dream and reality this morning as I tried to wake up. I had been dreaming about editing Mah 501 Group Mate's term paper when my alarm went off.

Wow, that's really impressive how he worked this music into his paper, I thought. How did he do that?

It's so appropriate for the paper, too. That's pretty interesting.

I should have done that. Why didn't I do that?

...

...Waiiiiiit, this is "He Ain't Heavy... He's My Brother. What does that have to do with 504?"

Hey, this isn't a 504 paper! I'm in bed!

Note to M501GM: He Ain't Heavy... He's My Brother does not really fit into your paper and you're not going to fool anyone into thinking it does, unless they have just woken up and are mighty confused.

You really have to have a certain sense of humour to hang around me. I'm just telling you right now. Don't say I didn't warn you. Without any further ado, I bring you this joke, nicked from Hurtling towards obscurity:

What's gray on the inside and clear on the outside?

I re-watched Love Actually today and considered watching The Two Towers extended version (although I don't have the time to commit to more than thinking about it) last night. I've decided that if I were a guy, I think that the kind of girls I would go for would be Natalie Portman, Keira Knightley, and Liv Tyler. They have that sort of clear, glowing complexion that I think makes women look particularly beautiful. They must drink a lot of water or be well-lit or something.

What do you find attractive in whichever sex you don't usually look at? Or for that matter, the one you do?

Update: Through long, hard deliberation, Justin and I have decided that my taste in men runs to the skinny and accented. Doesn't it seem like this is something I should have determined before?

Good morning! It is precisely Not Six Thirty In The Morning o'clock! Happy Thanksgiving to me!

What's that you say? I get to eat all day in addition to sleeping in?

Best. Holiday. Ever.

These are my Thanksgiving Day plans, which I am really excited about:

1) Don't wake up at 6:30am.
2) Do some other stuff.

There is an invisible eagle on my shoulder. His name is Falcor. Would you like to pet him? He likes attention.

What? You don't want to pet him? Don't worry; he won't bite. He's a nice birdie.

What? C'mon. Just pet him. You know you want to.

Oh yeah? Well maybe Falcor doesn't want you to pet him, anyway. Maybe he's too good for you. Hmph.

Yes he does! STROKE HIM! STROKE MY EAGLE!

In case anyone cares, potatoes and cheese are always a good combination, Sgt Gray did it with the wrench in the carriage house, Lock and I are totally sweet at Cranium, my karaoke masterpieces were Bizarre Love Triangle, Broken Wings and Son of a Preacher Man, and "real dolls cost money, and I'd just rather use the unlimited power of my imagination...cuz I ain't got no damn money."

What is it with men and skirts*? Do they want to see some leg, or are they fascinated because they don't wear skirts themselves? Skirt envy, perhaps?

What does my reader base have to say on the topic?

* For that matter, what is it with men in skirts?

After months of planning and stalling, srah finally gets around to going to buy a cell phone. Our scene takes place at the AT&T Wireless store at the mall.

(approaches counter)
AT&T Wireless Dude: Can I help you?
srah: Yes. I would like a cell phone.
(Rolls eyes, realizing that she is in a cell phone store. Continues.)
AT&T Wireless Dude: Alright, what are you looking for?
srah: I know exactly what I want because I tried to buy a phone on your website, but it's completely unusable so I couldn't.
(Dies a little on the inside, realizing how SI and User Interface Design are ruining her life. Continues.)
AT&T Wireless Dude: Unusable? The phone?
srah: No, the website. I couldn't buy what I wanted. It's horrible and useless. And the feedback form doesn't even work.
(Wants to stop self from talking because clearly this guy is not going to be able to do anything about the stupid corporate website, but has to keep forging on because the site sucks so hard... so bad... and wicked bad. Continues.)
srah: So I couldn't get the phone, so I've come to get it here. I want this one (points) and I want the $39.99 National plan for one year.
(Srah fills out a form with her information and boring negotiations are carried out in regards to specials they have going on, free Internet access for a month, etc.)
AT&T Wireless Dude: Well, I might not be able to get this activated today. Our system is down at the moment. Usually I could get you going in fifteen minutes, but it might be a while until they get our system fixed. So I'll call you when you can come and pick up the phone. (looks at "phone number" entry on form) Do you have this number here?
srah: Do I have... what?
AT&T Wireless Dude: This number here?
srah: That's my phone number, yes.
AT&T Wireless Dude: Do you have it on you?
srah: (blank look)
AT&T Wireless Dude: (sighs) Is this your cell phone number?
srah: (blank look) I don't have a cell phone. That's why I'm here.

He didn't seem to know how to deal with the fact that I didn't have a cell phone. Mr B------ points out that some people buy cell phones when they already have one, because they're transferring their service or for whatever other reason. My problem is that he seemed to assume that I already had one, when I think the default assumption should be that I don't.

For those of you who care (and thank you, there are quite a few of you), I'm feeling better after some thinking and a good night's sleep. I have a tendency to try to put others' interests before my own and to try to blame myself for things that aren't my fault in order to keep from hurting anybody.

Geez, when I put it that way, I almost sound nice. Must be lies.

I enjoy hating everyone on the campus bus with me. Somehow everyone on the bus ends up being a complete moron and is always having incredibly loud conversations, via cell phone or with their neighbor, about pointless, stupid things that are probably very important to them, but I don't care and I hate being trapped in a small space with them.

Recently while riding the bus, I sat in front of a guy and a girl who were having a conversation. The guy was your normal bus-trash, but the girl had interesting and funny things to say and was making fun of the stupid guy, although he didn't realize it. I liked her... and I hated her for it.

What was she doing, invading my hate-space with her normalcy? The bus ride is for me to appreciate my superiority over everyone else! Cool people only confuse me. People on the bus should always drive me crazy so that I can appreciate getting off the bus that much more. They shouldn't be smart, they shouldn't be snarky, they shouldn't--

"RING! RING! RING!" announced her cell phone.

Saved!

Sometimes I don't want to be the person that I am.

I'm so terribly confused.

Roro and Mr B------ came back to my house after the Matrix movie and we sat around for a while, sitting around, eating pizza and talking to my parents.

"Did I tell you I ran into (Best Friend from Elementary School) at work?" I asked my mom.

"Yes, you did," she explained. "What's she doing now?"

"I don't know. I guess she's going to travel somewhere sometime." We fell silent.

Quite unexpectedly, Mr B------ piped up. "BFfES? She just graduated in the spring and she left this week to travel around Europe."

We turned and stared at him for a while. What the hell was he talking about? He doesn't even know BFfES. Was he just trying to join in our conversation by making things up?

Apparently not. It turns out that he dated BFfES' best friend as an undergrad and has more up-to-date information about her than any of the rest of us. If I hadn't tried to repeat the story to my mom, he never would have realized that BFfES was the person I'd run into at work. This is such an insane mutant small-world situation.

"So, srah, what have you been doing with your valuable valuable free time these days?"

"Well, I've been playing a lot of Hunter: The Reckoning."

(person backs away)

"No, seriously! It is fun because I'm the Avenger, who is a big, slow, dumb guy with an axe, so I just swing my axe around in circles and kill eversomany zombies and-- hey! Where did you go?!"

"Are you going to the irregular clothing sale?" Captain Librarian* asked me on Wednesday, as though he expected me to know what he was talking about and be right on the bandwagon.

Frankly, I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted that when thinking of things that are irregular, he immediately thought of me.

* Sounds like a superhero. Was supposed to be a pirate. You try coming up with pseudonyms for all these people.

I think I may have just run into my best friend from elementary school here at work. We haven't been friends in over ten years and I haven't seen her in at least five. I didn't want to say anything because I would feel like a dope if it wasn't. Which it probably wasn't. I am probably seeing things. I could totally confirm it by sneaking a look at the form she filled out. But I would be somehow weirded out if it turned out it was her.

She is shorter than I would have expected.

Apparently, I am getting a reputation. Around my family, anyway. I hope it hasn't started spreading around school, because then I'll never have a moment's peace.

I have this reputation for, you know, doing it with all of the boys of my acquaintance.

In my defense, it was only with two boys! (This weekend, anyway). And I've done it with plenty of girls, too, you know. I'm not particular! And it wasn't that great, because once we kept getting interrupted by trick-or-treaters and the other time, my family was in the next room.

So I have all of these wonderful arguments and defenses, but it still sounds funny when my mom makes the somewhat suspicious-sounding comment to family friends at church: "She plays Battleship with all of the boys."

Dear protesters,

I am not going to take you seriously if you are carrying a sign saying "Addicted monkeys: your tax $$$ at work". I rode past you on the bus and had a good giggle, but I don't think the words "addicted monkeys" are furthering the cause.

R-Dogg* (this evening): See you tomorrow. Go help your mom make dinner!
Me: Thanks!

Mr B------ (last week): You do have really fine hair.
Me: Thanks.
Mr B------: Uh, I meant the texture rather than the quality.
Me: I completely understood that. I just say "thank you" to everything anyone says to me.

I do. I think it's a disease. I thank people for completely inappropriate things.

I thank them for walking through a door I have held for them. I thank them for listening to the directions I gave them to the Office of International Programs. I thank them for taking the money I gave them.

Thank you for letting me serve you, O Great Ones!

I suspect that in most of these cases, my brain automatically realizes that there should be a "thank you" in the situation and if they don't provide it, the ol' noggin thinks it's my turn.

* Because everyone's gotsta have a cool nickname in srah's blog.

The Earth says hello!

What is the sun doing, being up so early? I actually woke up when my alarm went off this morning, rather than my usual routine habit, which is being in a semi-asleep hypnotic trance for half an hour before my dad knocks on the door (my back-up alarm) and I have to drag myself out of bed. I, of course, still lay in bed for that half an hour, but it was somehow more enjoyable when I could actually consciously listen to The Neil on my CD alarm clock and appreciate my half an hour of warm, snuggly bedtime.

Are you in Indiana? Do you like art?

Shut up, you do too.

November 7-21, there will be an exhibition of installations by fifteen artists at the old Lafayette Theater on 6th and Main Streets in Lafayette, Indiana. I suggest that you go, because it's too far for me to go myself.

Why should you go?, you may ask. Well, among the artists featured will be the lovely and talented Miss Jillian Longheier, who knows where to get a good taco.

In Albion, anyway.

Shut up, just go.

Our evening activity to entertain our out-of-town visitor was a trip to a Pimps & Hos & Elvis & Scary Scary Unconvincing Transvestites With Beards party at a co-op on campus, to which we were invited by one of my SI classmates and one of Robin's enginerding ones. We were dressed as neither pimps nor hos, which was rather surprisingly disappointing to me.

Beer flowed in abundance, but Thomas ("Frenchie") was kind enough to hop along to the kitchen and get me a glass of water. They played Hey Ya! and I danced my little head off, I spoke French to the francophones, and I danced in a circle with my pepys from SI. Big loud dancy parties with strangers are not usually my style, but I had a pretty good time.

Cheryl's and my favorite part of the evening was when the guy who'd been wandering around the room, awkwardly nodding at everyone in it, finally approached us and sat down and talked to us. Apparently we bored him after a while, because he said, "Well, I'm going to be going home now" and got up and... went and sat across the room. Seriously. If you're going to lie to blow us off, at least leave the room.

Now I'm home and it's time to get into bed and curl up with a good rough draft.

This is srah's weekend (thus far and to come)

Friday:

The Neil has been identified. Or something. I think. I am somewhat confused. Whether or not the culprit was, in fact, the ever-amused, evasive young Matthew, I have declared that it was the ever-amused, evasive young Matthew so as to avoid losing my mind. So there you are.

I have started two separate conversations today with the question "Are you Neil Diamond?" This would be a perfectly understandable and normal question if the person were Neil Diamond, but neither of the people I've addressed happened to be. So I just sound insane.

The search continues... Who are you?

Update: Four. And still unsuccessful. I only have one suspect left.

Lack of sleep has put me in an odd irrational mood-swing where I am very mopey and down on myself. I have determined that I would like to be a more considerate and nicer person and am frustrated with myself for not being that way to start with.

So enough about me. How are you?

Sometimes, in the course of writing a paper, you just have to zone out and stare at the floor for five minutes.

Oh, wait, no. You don't have to. Apparently I just do it for fun.

Wakey wakey!

David, I am nerdier for having known you.

David and I carpooled to study group tonight, living on the same side of town as we do. As I drove him home, he tried to entice me to stop by his house and play some Magic, if you know what I mean.

Of course, by play some Magic, I mean play some Magic. Magic... The Gathering. Seriously. This is the boy who says that he's sort of a geek, but he doesn't "like, quote Monty Python or anything weird like that." David, you might as well do all of the geeky stuff in the middle, like quoting Monty Python or knowing the name of that stupid rat-character in Return of the Jedi*, because you are a practitioner of the Single Dorkiest Activity In The World**.

He has been begging and cajoling for a week, and it finally occurred to me to give in. Once I've tried it, he can't use the "just try it once" argument anymore, and I can say that I've done it and figure out what the heck this crap is.

So I did. And it was strange and very geeky. But I sort of got it after a while, despite my efforts to not understand and die as quickly as possible. As much as he believes otherwise, I don't see myself getting addicted any time soon, except perhaps as an insomnia remedy. But now I can say that I've tried it.

Now, as I converse with him on IM, he is still playing. This is not some one-time try-it-out-as-a-joke kind of thing. This is not some install-it-on-the-computer-to-make-srah-play-it thing.

Post-It®? *Yoink!*

I am frightened.

* It's Salacious Crumb. This question has been killing me all day and no one has been able to help.
** Well, one of. But I've got contacts in the other realm of Dorkdom as well...

For all those of you who are following the saga... the long, iron-fisted reign of the Puffy Coat is over. It has been vainquished by the new Brightly-Colored Coat which took over in a terribly bloody siege at TJ Maxx today*.

The Brightly-Colored Coat is not really like a lot of the other stuff I wear. It makes me feel a bit like I am screaming "HEY! LOOK AT ME! LOOK OVER HERE! I AM WEARING A BRIGHTLY-COLORED COAT, SO LOOK AT ME NOW!", but I am hoping that it will also use its powers of brightness to ward off Seasonal Affective Disorder when the horrible, depressing, will-to-live-losing, grey doldrums of winter arrive.

Eventually I will go and get a Nice Coat too, but we must make the Brightly-Colored Coat comfortable in its home first, or it will believe that we don't think it's nice and will take revenge in terrible, unspeakable ways - like refusing to unzip and trapping us within its fiendish embrace. Must appease this powerful new garment. Niiiiiiiiiiice coat.

* There was no blood, except imaginary coat-blood. And the Puffy Coat wasn't even along on the expedition, so I'm not sure how it would have attacked the other anyway. But my point is, there should be more bloody sieges at TJ Maxx. Don't you agree?

Robin and I got onto the subject of smoking in the car today. (Or rather, in the car, we got onto the subject of smoking). How does one do it? How did Bill Clinton smoke if he didn't inhale? Are you supposed to inhale or not? We thought maybe you weren't supposed to inhale and that this was the problem that new smokers made and the reason they coughed. But you have to inhale, don't you? Do you just suck the smoke into your mouth and spit it back out? Where's the satisfaction in that? Is the air hot when you inhale it? Does it heat up your lungs in the cold?

How is cigar smoking different from cigarette smoking? Having done neither, we had no idea. We thought through the process and decided that you must have to inhale cigarette smoke but not cigar smoke. But we're not quite sure how that works.

"I wonder if HowStuffWorks.com has an article about it*?" I wondered. Clearly I am way too into my Network Computing class, which obsessively trawls the site every week for information. This actually seemed like a really good idea to us, until we made the connection...

"I cannot believe what a bunch of losers we are. We're looking up "money laundering" in the dictionary!"
- Office Space

Engineer + Computer Person + foreign concept = sad.

* It doesn't directly - like instructions or something. Many articles on related topics, though, if you want to know what cigarette filters do.

As I was driving home yesterday and listening to a fascinating report on NPR about lead paint, it occurred to me... I have become an extremely boring person.

Become? laugh the masses, clutching their sides and rolling on the ground.

Masses, you are fired.

I did not go shopping for a coat because I was too lazy and cold to leave the house in the morning. Too cold... to buy a coat. This is the beginning of a vicious cycle. It's looking ugly, folks. And by ugly, I mean totally puffy.

Our 682 group is productive beyond our wildest dreams. Odd ducks, us. We are enormous slackers, but we got all that done and we still managed to watch the football game and play 3-player Tetris.

I should've broken up with the Pato earlier than I did, because ex-boyfriends are a valuable and underrated commodity with multi-purpose ears. A good time was had by all, or at least I hope so.

Tomorrow: back to work. Drat.

Inspired by a conversation with my mom:

Would you rather be married to someone with no money or no teeth?

(Things to consider: leeching or desperation, false teeth)

I think one of the most annoying things about me is probably that I am deliberately obtuse. And when I'm not being deliberately obtuse, I'm being accidentally obtuse.

What do you think is most annoying about me?

I have become, in the last week, one of those people who listens to NPR. I'm not quite to the point of the people who listen to NPR because commercial radio is beneath them (I can still listen to the oldies station despite their propensity for owls pukin' in my bed), but I have been trying it out off and on and becoming a bigger nerd than I already was. Tonight on the way home from an SI classmate's party*, I learned about Elijah Muhammad and the Indian Hug Guru**.

* Apparently SI and socializing are not mutually exclusive, a common misconception among... well, me, actually.
** These were separate stories, in case you wondered.

FROM: "Marilou Barcelo" <bluestellmw@msn.com>
DATE: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 04:24:24 GMT
SUBJECT: anglophobia

Endorsed by doctors world wide!
Lose up to 82% of your unwanted body fat and keep it off in just a few months!

Will anglophilia help me gain weight, then? I love you, Jez.

Do plants die of old age?

My mom points out that even people don't really die of old age - they die of various ailments in old age. So is it the same for plants? What's the life expectancy for most plants, as long as we don't kill them ourselves? Do geraniums just weaken and weaken until they pass away, or would they live forever as long as we treated them well?

I wouldn't know. I am the worst plant-mommy ever. They die on purpose, just to escape my tyrannical rule.

I can't blog. And I can't blog because I can't keep an idea in my head for more than 5 seconds. By the time I decide an idea is blogworthy, go to my MT application, and click 'New Entry', the thought is gone without a trace.

Gay marriage? President Bush? Cheese? Internships? The do-not-call list? These are all floating around in my head somewhere, but what was I going to say? Oh well, might as well make them all one post.

"Don't call me anymore!" George screamed into the phone. He turned to his husband, Dick. "The Brie Commission, calling again. I don't want to change national cheeses today, I didn't want to yesterday, and I won't tomorrow. I'm sick of these telemarketers badgering me. Can't we get the interns to answer these phones?"

And it sucks! Over the summer, the problem was nothing to say. Now I have plenty to say, but lack the time/energy/brainpower to do it.

I think I really need to sit down with my brain and have a talk, because we don't seem to be communicating at all today.

Is it Fall Break yet?

Wednesdays slay me.

Not in a funny way.

New picture, due to all the eye-clutching and screams of pain caused by the last one. In this one, my teeth just look funny.

Must do work and sleep.

I think I would like to be known for being plucky and resourceful. I don't know exactly what plucky means, but it seems to go well with resourceful.

Last night we found ourselves gathered around Ben's coffee table, opened up the Trivial Pursuit box... and discovered that there were no pieces or dice. Did we pack it up and head home? NO! We are resourceful! And also plucky! We played with the one trivial pursuit wheel that had managed to stay in the box and my Eiffel Tower keychain as markers and kept track of pie pieces on a separate piece of paper. Many suggestions were made for the lack of die (drawing A-6 playing cards - except there were no playing cards, drawing SET cards - except they only go up to three, creating a random number generator on the computer - except that would take a hundred years and the person who could do it was leaving, making our own die - except that would mean giving Robin scissors), but we finally threw papers marked 1-6 into a hat and drew numbers instead of rolling.

I would also like to point out that the previous entry was written at 12:19 AM, when we all came home, exhausted, and collapsed. We are such party animals.

Will nothing wake me up? So much Friday to go. So very much Friday to go...

That be all.

It is really friggin' creepy to stare silently at someone all the time just because of the country they come from.

Sorry.

I don't want to, but I can't think of anything to say.

As I walked past the pay phones in the Union today, a guy leaned out and asked me, "Do you have any spare change? Because I don't have any change and I need to make a really important phone call." I wasn't in a hurry, so I stopped, opened up my bag, and got out my change purse, mumbling, "I'm not sure I have any quarters, but I might have some dimes... looks like nickels, mostly..." Then he stopped me and informed me that it was actually all a psych experiment about giving.

I smiled all the way to the bus stop. I feel like I passed some kind of test.

Lots of people claim not to understand the other sex, or claim that they're a different species or that they come from another planet. Personally, I can kind of see where men are coming from in that aspect. I am going to set out to demystify human relations. Or maybe just human-srah relations. Keep in mind that I have never read one of those self-help books, so I may be saying exactly what they've already come up with. Or I may just be spouting crap.

In Social Systems & Collections on Friday, our lecture discussed cognition, habit and emotion as three factors governing any decision or experience of the world in varying proportions. It's drawn as a triangle. An experience that involves mostly habit is represented by a point near the habit corner. If it combines habit and emotion, it's between those two corners.

According to Dr Cohen, since WWII, the most store has been put into the cognitive experiences, ignoring habit and emotion. But cognition is the slowest reaction of the three. And I think that perhaps it's quite slow in me. It felt very good to finally realize what was going on in my brain.

I think that whether it exists or not, most women have been trained to believe in "woman's intuition" and that we should do what our first instinct tells us. I don't think this is always a bad idea but men, not having been raised to appreciate their emotions, don't understand where our decision-making process is coming from, if not from the cognitive part of our brain.

Sometimes I do something and I don't understand why I'm doing it - I just understand that it's what something in my brain is telling me to do. Later I come up with a rationalization from the cognitive part of my brain, but this can sometimes be hours or days later.

For all I know, this could just be me. Maybe this isn't a problem between men and women. Maybe this is the problem between me and all of humanity. But even assuming that this makes some sense, if men haven't been raised to trust their first, emotional reactions over their cognitive ones, I'm not sure if they can relate to women in this way or understand what I'm talking about here. I guess I'd just ask that people be aware of different ways of dealing with different experiences.

Please give me your feedback. I would like to know if I am a genius or a quack or if I should just sit down and behave myself.

Why are we having a holiday weekend?

Why do they schedule holidays when you don't need them? I haven't even started classes yet. I don't need time off yet. When I do need time off, there won't be a holiday in sight. It's always bothered me that we get an extra hour of sleep coming off Daylight Savings Time and lose one going onto it. I don't need that sleep in the fall. I need it in the spring when the end is near and there are papers and things to be done.

Please rearrange the calendar for my convenience, O Ye Who Are In Charge. I will give you ten Imaginary Dollars.

"So, tomorrow's a special day," my grandma says on the phone.

It is?, I wonder, What's tomorrow?

Oh yeah.

I hate it when I find myself standing beside the bed and remember how I used to be afraid, when I was small*, of scary hands reaching out from under the bed and grabbing my feet.

I hate it when I think about how silly and ridiculous this was... then start thinking about the hands and have to immediately jump into bed.

* "Laugh it up, fuzzball."

I keep losing everything close to me.

Boy, that sounds like the beginning of a really depressing blog-post. But this is not that kind of blog, folks! Let's start again.

I keep losing all of my crap.

That sounds more like me - and more familiar, too. My archives are lined with stories of me losing things - tales that I would quite annoyingly link to if I could find them in the mess that is my MT archives. Sometimes I find the lost objects again, but mostly I don't. In a conversation with Jez this morning, we* decided to blame it on a gnome infestation, because I refuse to take responsibility and can't imagine that one person could manage to lose the quantity of possessions that I manage to lose. Among the things I've recently found discovered that I've lost:

Guess whose 23rd birthday is one week from today? Yes, that's right, it's

Macaulay Culkin's.

Oh, and mine.

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The focus at this point seems to be on figuring out who's responsible for the blackouts. I know that they need to find the source of the problem in order to fix it, but the way they present it sounds like blame and finger-pointing. It's a shame it had to happen, but the blackout was insignificant compared to what we thought it was going to be. I don't feel the need to make anyone pay for my inconvenience. I'm just glad they got things back up as quickly as they did.

If I never hear my high school French teacher say the words "genital warts" again for as long as I live, it will be too soon.

In the middle of an imaginary conversation I was just having, I exclaimed (still in my head, thankfully), "So what? I have a crush on the Hamburglar from McDonald's!"

Oh, okay. Um... just for the record, I don't. My brain is out of control. Is this something I should be concerned about?

I forgot to sleep in this morning. Isn't that the worst? I was already in the shower by the time I realized what I'd done, and if you know my hair, you know that I couldn't go back to bed after my shower and still look presentable when I got up. So here I am, making long, pointless posts about The Neil and surfing the Internet, just killing time until the afternoon rolls around.

Do tell me about yourself, visitor.

With Cheryl's going-away party over, The Gang needed a new project. So our latest endeavour is finding royalty to marry. It's a very difficult process, because you have to find people who fit several criteria: being reasonably close to our own age, not frightening to look at, and high enough on the line of succession that we won't have so many people to kill off that it will look suspicious.

As queens, we will bring new blood and good-old American gumption to the royal houses of Europe. We will do good works. We will arrange matches between our children. We will hook people we know up with peerages and cushy government jobs. We will rule with iron fists and crush our foes!

And will there be monkey-butlers? You bet there will!

We had a surprise going-away party yesterday for Cheryl, who is off to Kent State in the fall. I am a horrible secret-keeper and kept wanting to blurt it out, so it's really best that we had it as early as we did. As it was, I had trouble not blurting out what her presents were as I handed them to her.

As I recall, I don't think I've ever been involved in a surprise party. Maybe I'm not invited. Maybe my reputation precedes me.

Whenever I hear the name Keira Knightley, I think instead of Keisha Knight Pulliam.

I had Chicken Fried Rice and Hot & Sour Soup for lunch today. My fortune cookie told me:

Your present plans are going to succeed.

That would be great... if I had present plans. I ought to have plans to buy Robin a birthday present, I guess.

In other news... <-- hey, look over there! I am winking at you! I think I'm kind of scary again. It's gotten mighty boring around here since Katie left. Sigh...

When we went to New York and met Robin's cousin, he thought it was weird and/or impressive that Cheryl, Robin and I had been friends since elementary school. Robin and I have been friends since we literally ran into each other at the kindergarten picnic, and Cheryl's mom and mine would go for walks together when they were pregnant with us. To me, it seems perfectly normal. We're friends since childhood. Don't other people keep in touch with old friends? If I didn't have old friends, who would I hang out with when I went home during vacations?

What if life was like King Ralph and the entire British royal family was wiped out in a freak electrocution accident and I had to step in and become Queen of England? Yeah, you wouldn't talk so big now, would ya? Huh? To the Queen of England? Not so high and mighty now?

Being realistic, I think they'd just throw out the monarchy altogether if that happened, and that anyway, it would be difficult for enough people to die for me to be next in line. But I like to dream. Hmm hmmm hmmm diddly dum. I can't heeeear you.

I'm sorry, but I really can't take seriously anything called monkeypox. Especially if it comes from crazed diseased prairie dogs. You can't make this stuff up.

Remember my country, The Empire of Srahnce? Here's the latest (the country has changed quite a bit in its month of existence):

The Empire of Srahnce is a very large, safe nation, remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape. Its compassionate population of 163 million enjoy extensive civil freedoms, particularly in social issues, while business tends to be more regulated.

The large government devotes most of its attentions to Education, with areas such as Defence and Commerce receiving almost no funds by comparison. The average income tax rate is 26%, but much higher for the wealthy. A small but healthy private sector is led by the Basket Weaving industry, followed by Uranium Mining and Gambling.

Same-sex marriages are increasingly common, genetic researchers have been expelled, the nation is completely gun-free, and all tarrifs have been abolished. Crime is relatively low. Srahnce's national animal is the llama and its currency is the donut.

Most normal people with sort of scrubby-looking, leaky shoes would get rid of them, rather than thinking to themselves, These are really great shoes! You can't get rid of shoes like this! I just can't wear them when it rains!

Then again, I'm not most people, and I'm certainly not normal.

Unfortunately, I find myself back in Michigan surrounded by people who are relatively normal and who would probably insist that I débarrass myself of them if they knew I was wearing leaky shoes. Relatively normal, or at least pretending to be so. I wouldn't hang out with anyone who was completely normal. That wouldn't be any fun.

So anyway, these are great shoes despite their leakiness, and you will have to pry them off my cold, dead feet to get me to take them off.

Dude. Why do we keep pets?

It occurred to me this morning that most people would squish a spider if they found it in their house, or at least put it outside. But lots of people keep animals on purpose, feeding them and medicating them and all. If you really think about it, it seems ridiculous that we try to keep some animals out of the house, considering them pests and keep others in, considering them members of the family. I was so annoyed by this that I spent all morning trying to squish Howie.

For a moment, I thought I had forgotten how to spell Alzheimer's. Then I realized I had never really known for sure. Is it better to be ignorant than senile? I'm not so sure.

I am going to admit here that for years I used to confuse Saki with Steve Biko. I have no idea what made me connect them in my mind, but there you are. Hearing about the old salt mines under Detroit always makes me think of toothpaste, and I can't explain that one either.

What strange connections/confusions do you have?

After our evening ride we returned to the apartment, looked at Fanny and Antoine's wedding photos, and watched an English-subtitled-in-Dutch National Geographic report on Mount Everest. Christianna and I have agreed that not only do we have absolutely no desire to climb Mount Everest, but we never want to leave our homes again.

Just in case you, like me, have a mental block for a good half hour because you can only remember eight of the nine planets in our solar system, I present them to you (in Order As I Remember It):

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune (the elusive ninth one), Uranus, Pluto.

Or, if you prefer:

Mercure, Vénus, Terre, Mars, Jupiter, Saturne, Neptune, Uranus, Pluton.

Because here at srah blah blah, we are multi-lingual like that, even if we aren't terribly branchée on the scientific. Boo-yeah.

Sometimes I think that headphones should be forced to carry a tag that says, "WARNING: Use of headphones may lead to over-emphatic lip-synching or singing out loud in TGVs. Use with caution." I think that would be much safer for all involved.

That's the sun reflecting off my recently-exposed winter-white legs. Just like last year at this time.

Renata and I have been conducting a survey for the past few days and I would like to invite you, dear readers, to take part. There are two questions.

1) Is the best flavor of tea "Renata's Ass"? Yes or yes?
2) Spanish sucks.

Thank you for participating. Your answers will be ignored.

Oh, the insanity. This is what happens when Renata and I are hopped up on chocolate chip cookies and Franglais.

What is the best thing to do?

If you could spend all of your time doing one thing, what would it be?

I got into this discussion with Stefan at the resto gastro. He claimed that eating was the best thing to do, whereas I argued that sleeping was better. To my way of thinking, eating is too much work to be really fun. You have to sit up, cut the food, and chew it. If you pick sleeping, you get to stay horizontal, be warm and comfy, dream, and there's no work to do.

There are many other options to choose... what's your favorite?

As long as I remember, my life has been divided into easy, manageable sections: nursery school, kindergarten, first grade... and on and on to freshman year, sophomore year, junior year/year in Grenoble, senior year, year in Vichy. I still have two years to go, but then what will I do? How will I be able to adjust to an existence with no set beginning or end?

I have blogged before about my church's Christmas pageant when I was growing up, and how chunks of dialogue remain locked away in my brain. One of them just popped out a minute ago.

At the end of the Encounter with the Three Wise Guys, they lay their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh before Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger. The narrator then says, "Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart."

Whatever that means. Wouldn't it be so much better if it was, "Mary pawned all these things, but kept them in her heart."

I was watching a very interesting progam tonight about the war in Iraq. It was a debate between a group of New Yorkers an da group of Jordanians, and they would switch back and forth between NYC and Amman.

I was getting ready for bed and using the TV as background noise when I heard the voice of Wallace Shawn, the actor perhaps best known as Vizzini in The Princess Bride. I wondered what he was doing on the panel and turned to look at the screen. Geez, I thought to myself, Wallace has really let himself go. He looks terrible. Then the identification popped up and it turned out it was Ed Koch, fomer mayor of NYC. It was uncanny. If, for some reason, they want to make a movie about Ed Koch, all Wallace needs is a bit of makeup.

All weekend, we left a big collection of shoes outside the apartment door, so as not to dirty the carpet. And every time we did it, it made me think of Rob. I told this story to Angel, and it convinced her to move hers to the mat inside the door.

Somehow, I think the correct "good luck" expression for a theatrical director (as opposed to actor) is probably not "Break someone else's leg." Pourtant, it sounded good at the time.

I went to bed last night, then when my alarm went off, I was surprised to hear that the gay couple next door (oh yeah, I have new neighbors. Yay.) was still arguing.

Did they keep it up all night?, I wondered. I also wondered why my alarm was beeping because I'd thought I'd a) turned it off, and b) set it to play the radio when it was turned on. I wondered all this, then it stopped, so I rolled over.

Wait a minute, I thought, It's not supposed to just turn off like that. Have the batteries died?

At which point I woke up a little more and realized it was not my alarm, but the phone ringing. I had only been asleep for half an hour.

I called the Pato back and learned that he arrived safely and I had panicked for naught. Good.

I suppose I will have to be leaving the cybercafé soon. Not sure if I will be back before Christmas, although I'm sure I'll be online from time to time over break. If I am not back before the 25th, Joyeux Noël and Bonne Année to everyone out there in cyberland. If I am... I take it back, you jerks.

As I set off for work today at 9am, I had a presentiment that I was going to get a package today. Sure enough, my old friends at Extand passed by at 9:05 am so I'll probably be able to get my package Friday at the earliest.

Jennifer: "I'm going to go finish my dinner."
Srah: "Yeah, I'd better get back to eating myself."

Does that only sound strange to me?

Am I an awful person? Is it okay not to be completely sad about the death of another human being I didn't even know... even to be a little glad because death stopped him from doing something he was doing very badly? If something else could have stopped him, that would have been better, but I'm glad that's all over.

I am cryptic like Roommate.

Uh, yeah. Never mind.

Just in case you were wondering, Magnet was the first town in France with electricity. I know this because my train passed a sign announcing it. I wonder if that generates a lot of tourism.

I finally got up the nerve to call Antoine today and to speak to him in French, as I only did one hour a week at Albion, during la table française. I am way too proud of myself, considering it took me a couple of weeks to do it. I'm going for a visit in mid-November.

The nicest thing about our conversation was to learn that I'm not the only one who goes around chasing people from my significant other's native country, talking to them despite having nothing to say, in a vain effort to convince them that there is some kind of bond between me and my significant other's native country.

Did that paragraph make any sense? Tant pis, I understood it and that's all I care about.

We had a brief respite from the cold, but I think winter is coming now. Poop.

"J'ai froid aux jambes," said the dumb girl who wore a skirt today.

It is 11:30.

I can't sleep, so I got up and wandered around in circles (small ones - this is a studio after all) and finally decided to eat a clementine. Now my mind is wandering to questions like Do Christian Scientists wear corrective lenses?

Go to sleep, srah.

Welcome to any students of le Lycée Valéry Larbaud who may be visiting. If you are here, please leave a message in the guestbook!

When I was in Chile, Alex's mom asked me if I collected anything. I couldn't come up with anything at the time, but now I have: I collect socks.

I don't do it on purpose. I just love to buy socks with fun and interesting designs on them. Sock-choosing was one of the more difficult elements of the packing process because I love them all. And the wide array of socks I was choosing from was... atrocious, really. I have way too many socks!

Who is the only dumbass who could go on a four-day trip to Virginia and forget pyjama pants, hairbrush, lotion, toothbrush/paste, deodorant, etc. at home? That would be me, ladies and gentlemen.

Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a real-life Joey Tribbiani... only dumber. AAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Yes, this post is deliberately vague. I had to vent. Bye now.

If anyone is interested, I saw in the Free Press that Tamara Bedricky is going to be at Arts, Beats, and Eats. Looking at the online schedule, I see that Wally Pleasant will be there, too. Not that I am interested in either of them, but isn't it my duty to keep you people informed?

I was at Meijers yesterday and a mother was yelling at her kid. Apparently, the kid was called Simeon, but my first thought when she called him was that she was calling him a simian. Simeon is a good name on paper, but I don't think I would like to be mistaken for a monkey.

I went to Borders yesterday and they had an enormous display of 2003 calendars. I could see academic calendars now, but if I bought a 2003 calendar in August 2002, I would lose it by 2003. Maybe that's their fiendish plan.

Wait, when did I start wearing skirts all the time? What a weird summer.

What if life is one big game of The Sims? At least that would explain why I'm always eating cake off people's lawns and walking into my neighbors' houses to pee in their kitchen.

I hear rumours that someone has a birthday coming up.

Now that I look at the title, that could be an obituary for the poor departed Timmy from "Passions". But I am not a regular viewer, so it's not.

Instead, this post is about my eyebrows.

My eyebrows are very bushy and scraggly. I look so much better when they're neat. But I am so lazy and averse to pain, that I always put off plucking them for months at a time. It hurts and it takes forever. Yesterday, Robin waxed my eyebrows. It hurt, but I don't think it hurt any more than plucking, and it was over a lot more quickly. I recommend it!

I have convinced myself that the new custodian's name is Grace, even though there is really no similarity or mental connection at all between that and her real name, which is Erin. Argh.

I also can never remember the name of someone here at work who I worked in the same room as for an extended period of time, who I talk to quite often and who I like.

I think this all comes as a result of the previously-mentioned Cyndi-information permanently implanted in my brain. DELETE DELETE DELETE!

Why is it that I can remember the phone number, birthday, middle name, and name that she would have been called if her father had had his say of a girl I haven't even been able to stand since about 1992... but every time I call my roommate, I have to look her number up in the phone book? Why is there no 'delete' function in my brain, allowing me to expunge worthless information that I'd really rather not remember?

Well, I'm back. There's trip-blogging to be finished, but more importantly, there are bags to be unpacked and a room to be cleaned before La Soeurette arrives tomorrow at 4pm. So if you'll pardon me, I will do that, then blog about the trip once I've finished. Then, when I've finished that, I can finish typing up the rest of the trip (plenty of silly observations, but no adventures on the way home... too bad for you), then I can go back and fix mistakes I made, then when I get pictures back on Thursday, perhaps I shall scan them and add them in, then... why am I sharing this with you, anyway? Do you need to know my life story? Do you? Of course you do.

Is there a polite way to tell people they need to work on their conversational skills?

Happy belated birthday to two of my favorite people: Roommate and Dively.

Sorry I missed it, folks!

It's so cooooooold in our room. So very cooooooold. I don't want to take a shower for fear of freezing when I come back to the room with wet hair. I will curl up in a blanket and do something productive. Or bring the blanket over here and blog. Cold fingers. Am now blogging in gloves. I type wsurprisingloy weololl Oopws spoke too wsoonl.

I have a gift card to The Gap. I wish I had cash. Having a gift card is so stressful. I've had it since Christmas and haven't spent it yet but Rebeca mentioned The Gap today and that reminded me. So I browsed a bit and stressed myself out where I shouldn't be stressed out. I could spend the entire thing on a pair of jeans, or I could get several shirts. But I already have shirts up the wazoo. I have no pants because shirts are so much cheaper, so I buy piles and piles of shirts and no pants. And no bras either, but you don't want to hear about bra-shopping so I'll spare you.

So this is my dilemma. It seems so ridiculous to spend almost $50 on one pair of pants. Maybe I should ignore the pants altogether and go for the bag or the blazer. But I neeeeeeeeeeed pants, and I don't neeeeeeeeed a bag or a blazer. But I don't want to spend $50 on one pair of pants! Maybe I should save it until they have some cheap pants I like. If that day ever comes.

I wish it was an Old Navy card instead, because I could buy eleven pairs of pants for $9.99. Or something like that.

I'm the worst shopper ever.

Help me! Advice!

I had nothing to do before Break and now it's all dumping on me. I have nothing to say because all I can think about is how I have so much to do and I'm not doing it. Yargh.

Sorry about the glut of posts. I'm off to have some toast and tea now.

That's right, it's Digital Camera Day One. Soon the blog will be filled with pointless pictures of things like Squirrels and What I Had For Dinner.

Run away while it's still safe, children.

Grandma sent me home from Grandpa's birthday dinner with a care package that included 5-layer bars, deviled eggs, and veggies. Yay Grandma. Deviled eggs: miam miam.

Jen Dively told me about rose bush maintenance and said I didn't need to water it as much as I have been doing. But it looks so thirsty! I watered it anyway. I hope I'm not drowning it.

Antoine's brother and best friend are coming next Sunday. Alex is afraid that I will meet up with Frenchmen and abandon him. Poor little jealous paranoid Patito. I talk big and friendly, but I'm sure I will go into my usual Stranger Mode and get shy and hide behind Antoine when they come.

I am listening to Michael Penn. I haven't in about two years.

As Mr Enlow pointed out, in this entry "favorite of the people left one" should be "won". He has gracefully pardoned this due to the late hour. I will be smacking myself in the forehead with a board all day as penance ("Pie Jesu domine, dona eis requiem" *thunk*) and then sleeping in the van while everyone around me plays delightful delightful MadLibs.

I was a little disappointed - I saw that I had blah blahs and was hoping it was angry sorority girls. :)

I feel cumulatively sleepy from the whole week. I have my oral evaluation in Spanish today. Yergh.

My grey argyle socks are soft. And argyle. And while we're at it, they are grey. I wish they were clean, because I would like to wear them right now. Instead, I am wearing Eiffel Tower socks, which are fun but not quite as satisfying.

Other comfort clothing I own include my hooded Michigan sweatshirt, any pair of pyjama pants (mouse-over pyjama please, IE users) and any pair of interesting socks - especially argyle. I like wearing my boots not for comfort but because I feel tall and maybe even a little sexy.

What's your favorite article (or pair of articles) of clothing?

I would like a stuffed Satchel. It would be soft and velvety and have a hot-water-bottle in the belly. Maybe it would just be easier to get a Shar-pei.

Roommate is asleep with a book on her face, trying to learn by osmosis. I wish I had a digital camera.

Alexandra thinks I hate her. Why do people I hate think I like them and people I like think I hate them? She thinks I'm upset and jealous because she's friends with El Patito. I don't know what to say to that. I made her kiss me hello at Baldwin. I don't think it's the solution to the problem.

For once! I slept until my alarm. I want more sleep.

Our blinds are falling down, one by one. Pretty soon we'll have to start charging the neighbors for the show.

The Case Of The Missing Chai remains unsolved. I wouldn't want it so bad if it were a matter of going to the coffeehouse and getting some, but I have my own and I know it's around here somewhere.

JDay's dog has diarrhea. She felt she had to inflict this information on me, so I'm going to inflict it on you. Take that.

I was dead tired when I started my nap, and told my Roommate not to worry about waking me up for anything. I went to sleep, then I woke up and looked at the clock. It said 5:58. I thought 'Well, only a little while till waking-up time. This wasn't such a bad night's sleep'. Then I looked at our microwave, which is on a 24-hour clock. it said 17:58. I was very confused, until I realized it was only 5:58pm and I had only had about 3 hours of sleep. I don't know what the point of this story is.

I'm a little jittery again.

I'm tired. I'm weary. I'm going to buy milk and then I'm going to come home and stop functioning altogether. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Ahhh. I gave it another try and it went right down. TAKE THAT, Nyquil.

Why isn't there more chewable medicine for people like me?

They Might Be Giants have a song about someone driving after taking Nyquil. They had to call it AKA Driver rather than Nyquil Driver in order to avoid lawsuits.

Tomorrow I go back to classes. I am looking forward to tomorrow... it's just all the days after that that aren't quite as exciting.

I think that something I need to work on in 2002 is keeping a balance in my life. While I've been quite attentive to the Boyfriend, blogging, my international friends, and apparently to my studies, a lot of my pre-France life seems to have been neglected. I would like to make a resolution to make more time for my old friends from Albion and from the JHAC. They deserve it.

2001 was an excellent year. A million amazing and wonderful things happened to me and it was, for the most part, smooth and relaxing.

I hope that 2002 will be just as good, but I know it will be a year of changes as I leave college, try to live independently for the first time ever, and try to figure out what I want to do with my life. Eek.

It's a palindrome year. That's pretty interesting.

Robin says it's a tradition to wear new yellow underwear on New Year's Eve for good luck. So she bought me some while she was out shopping today. How sweet! Are you all set with your yellow underwear?

Have a safe and happy New Year celebration if you haven't yet.

Okay, so it's the last-blog-of-the-session so I have to come up with something fun for all of you Thundering Hordes of Readers who have been sent here by Blogger (why hasn't that been fixed yet? I'm not complaining, but I'm surprised...).

So... um. Alfie and I just spent hours deciding who we would kill. Have a crack at it.

I am listening to Texas' "Guitar Song". Mmmmmm. Texas sampling from Gainsbourg - does it get any better than that? If you don't know Serge Gainsbourg, you ought to.

Leave us a blah blah, will you, duckies, and tell us something interesting. What are you doing for the New Year? Are you making resolutions? What's your favorite flavour of ice cream? Do you like John Hannah? Where are you from? Do you just want to say hi and leave your website URL in the blah blahs?

<-- I made that ad in MS Paint. Yeah, I have mad technical skills. Don't laugh.

I've spent the last two days trying to convince my dad and Alex that it's better to be a girl than a boy because girls have a much more interesting selection of socks available to them. I don't think they're convinced.

Not that I am planning anything like that. Don't be frightened, Roommate. Or Alex, for that matter.

If Boyfriend and I ever got married, I would be Sarah Rivera. Ack.

Robert Bullen blows.

(I just made the announcement for the sake of saying that... but you might as well go to Roommate's concert while you're at it.)

I heard a commercial on the radio where a choir of men are singing about how they like Arbor Mist brand wine better than monster trucks. Maybe I'm being a snob, but I don't think I want to drink the kind of wine that appeals to monster truck fans. Eek.

I went out to Starbucks (evil evil tasty Starbucks) with Roommate and we kept talking about terrorism, snorting cocaine and U-M football players masturbating - and hoping that the people around us weren't listening too closely to what we were saying. We went out for a quick drink and ended up coming home something like 2.5 hours later. Wow! It's weird how we can sit across the room from each other and say nothing other than "Hey monkey ass" but then when we go out for coffee, we lose track of time talking. Roommate is a swell chum.

Eric, Albion's God of MP3s, has offered me a lovely afternoon of playing with penguins. Someday, I shall take a shower.

<-- This is a pudú. They live in Chile and are tiny little deer-like creatures. I haven't had a picture in a while, so I thought I would share it for your viewing enjoyment and so that you might learn about foreign fauna.

I got an email from Wil Wheaton. Don't be jealous now.

Why would someone search on "insolite greeting card"? Well, I'm number one!

Yahoo! search: "ripping friends stinky butt": srah blah blah is hit #41.

Somehow appropriate? *giggle*

Roommate says I was giggling incessantly in my sleep last night. I can't fathom a guess why.

If you search Yahoo! for "ghostbusters II greeting", srah blah blah is the 63rd hit. How odd.

I told myself I was going to get two things done over Thanksgiving Break:

(1) Finally get around to doing my off-campus program evaluation before I forget I went on an off-campus program...
(2) Write a letter to Sophie (the last time I wrote her was, I think, in September)

Have I done either? No. Have I even started? No. And I still have piles of laundry to do. Shame on me. Maybe I can get some of this done this afternoon, before the party this evening at Alex's.

GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!

That's both an exclamation and a command. Happy Thanksgiving!

I forgot to watch the meteor shower, darnit. A meteor shower like that only comes around every 30 years or so.

Why do men have nipples, anyway? What's the point?

I've been taking my showers at an average of about 4pm every day this week. My roommate says I'm a stinky dirty whore. I feel gross, but notice I'm not in the shower - I'm blogging blogging blogging. Yeah. Is this one of those sad sad cases where you get so wrapped up in the Internet you don't carry out your normal daily life?

Women in Art is so exciting this week. Today we only have to come for Michelle's presentation and our paper for Friday was cancelled. It should always be like this.

Spent a big chunk of the afternoon trying to prevent Alex from taking a nap because I am a pest and he wanted to force me to sleep when I wasn't sleepy. There is no escape from the Planet of the Ape.

Then we went to dinner and ate with Eva, Christianna, Antoine, Fanny, and Mariana. We created our superhero team, the Tutorial League.

Then I created French House Dinner publicity crap with Christianna, Antoine, and Duane. Hee hee, fun times.

Went to watch, with Alex and Jillian, the rest of Uprising, which didn't make any more sense than the previous part. We missed the last half hour because we were outside looking for the Northern Lights. ("Aurora Borealis. Contained entirely within your kitchen.")

We came back to Alex's and danced for a while, then we had an Under-5'2" Wrestling Match and Alex beat us up. Very unfair. I think I'm out of shape.

We walked Jillian home, then Alex continued the Ongoing Saga of The History of Middle Earth to prepare me for the Lord of the Rings movie, until I started falling asleep.

Not a very exciting day, actually.

Mystery solved! The banana bread was from Mommy via the Reimann express. I know you were all on the edge of your seat about that one.

Yeah, thanks, Room. I know I was complaining that it was dry in you, but that's no reason to leak all the rain into the room, especially on my computer cords. That was uncalled for.

The existence of more clothes in my closet than on my floor lies only in the fact that I have an ass-excessive amount of material possessions. I need to open up a can of whup-heinie on this place and get it tidied to the max.

Someone sent me a package of candy and yummy bread in the mail. But it's anonymous. It's probably full of anthrax, but I'm gonna eat it anyway. I bet it's from Dively, because who else is going to make me bread?

I did! I slept until I woke up, and then I slept some more! 2:40 to 5:55! I need to do some homework eventually. But hump day is over.

Roommate is a big baby. She's been throwing tantrums all day. First she was dropping things on the ground, picking them up and putting them back in her mouth, then jumping up and down when we made fun of her for it. Then she threw a tantrum so I would wait for her when I was leaving I-House. What a baby.

There, I wrote about you, Roommate. Aren't you glad? Where's my link? ;)

Hi Roommate.