girl_noir

Metaphors

Sat, 12 May 2007 07:33:35 GMT

'Cause it's a metaphor...

(02:10:33 AM) Indy: is there a time by which you wanted to be asleep?
(02:10:58 AM) phisrow: Depends on how tired I get. I'm feeling a trifle groggy now, so I may be able to make it.
(02:11:50 AM) Indy: but you only just woke up four hours ago...?
(02:12:27 AM) phisrow: I don't make the rules, I only live here.
(02:13:40 AM) Indy: wacky, man.
(02:13:48 AM) Indy: you gotta talk to your landlord.
(02:14:13 AM) Indy: or... y'know... coerce him into submission with chemical warfare.
(02:14:14 AM) phisrow: I think that this situation deserves a bug report.
(02:14:14 AM) Indy: whatever.
(02:14:21 AM) Indy: heh i think so too...
(02:14:33 AM) Indy: as my away message has said, i've been trying to file a bug report with god for days.
(02:14:46 AM) Indy: he pretty much keeps saying, i know, but there's not a whole lot i can do...
(02:15:00 AM) phisrow: What kind of vendor support is that?
(02:15:28 AM) Indy: well, i think my warranty is up.
(02:15:52 AM) Indy: my parents should've gone for the extended one.
(02:16:36 AM) phisrow: Is this the real reason that religions seem to care primarily about the unborn, the nine month initial warranty?
(02:16:57 AM) phisrow: With increasingly tenuous support for those who don't buy service agreements thereafter?
(02:17:29 AM) Indy: yep, i think that's pretty much it.
(02:17:48 AM) Indy: damn fine support during those first nine months, but after that, well, it's on your own heads. heh
(02:18:23 AM) phisrow: Frankly, that is a rather disappointing service contract.
(02:18:32 AM) Indy: you're tellin' me.
(02:18:41 AM) Indy: thankfully, it doesn't actually work that way.
(02:18:43 AM) phisrow: Time to switch vendors.
(02:18:46 AM) Indy: hahaha
(02:19:00 AM) Indy: if there were somebody to switch to, sure
(02:19:19 AM) Indy: but this one has pretty much cornered the market
(02:19:37 AM) Indy: i mean, i guess we could go for opensource...
(02:19:53 AM) phisrow: Well, I hear good things about the community of systems hackers putting together alternative systems.
(02:20:20 AM) phisrow: You have to be willing to do a fair bit of tweaking on your own; but the freedom and access to knowledge are quite attractive...
(02:20:55 AM) Indy: yeah, but the systems are still so buggy.
(02:21:15 AM) Indy: and it requires way more user competence than most people have.
(02:22:00 AM) phisrow: The current system is also highly unstable, which is pathetic given the age and resources of the vendor, and it tends to breed incompetent users.
(02:22:57 AM) Indy: what the vendor really needs to do is a product overhaul... the system is so piecemeal right now, with new features haphazardly tacked on to old software.
(02:24:08 AM) phisrow: Well, does he lack the resources, the will, or is it cheaper not to overhaul, given his monopoly position?
(02:24:25 AM) Indy: my guess is it's a function of cost.
(02:24:53 AM) Indy: that, or he's got a sick fascination with seeing how far his users can take his subpar product. heh
(02:25:01 AM) phisrow: This vendor has very deep pockets, an overhaul would cost less than the first implimentation.
(02:25:17 AM) phisrow: The latter option, though, is more plausible.
(02:25:31 AM) Indy: well, we're already on v2.0 - remember the last overhaul?
(02:25:35 AM) Indy: really early on?
(02:25:47 AM) phisrow: I'm told that patch day was a complete bitch.
(02:26:20 AM) phisrow: He could have tested before rollout; but who cares, they're only customers after all.
(02:26:29 AM) Indy: yeah man... i heard a bunch of the programmers just went out and got plastered afterward.
(02:26:34 AM) Indy: mm, true.
(02:27:30 AM) Indy: yeah, if he'd tested first, maybe we wouldn't be stuck having to patch things ourselves.
(02:27:39 AM) Indy: at this rate we might as well switch over to opensource.
(02:27:52 AM) Indy: we're practically doing it already, and with a much messier starting point.
(02:28:13 AM) phisrow: I would certainly approve.
(02:28:22 AM) Indy: you know what i approve of?
(02:28:31 AM) Indy: severely overextended metaphors.

The above is a conversation with my boyfriend, tech-snob and philosophizer John Parkinson. Note: does not reflect Megan's actual opinions about God. But is, in fact, hilarious.

Returns

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 13:00:41 GMT

Hey everyone

Done this a few times before. Not sure who's still reading. It's been a while.

Basically, I'm irritated at the angstiness that this blog developed, so we'll be working on that. :-) I'm far less angsty now that I am far less anxious. It's really rather impressive how much of a difference it is making to have some of that base-level, constant anxiety removed. I'm unused to feeling... happy about my life. Not in an abstract sense, but in a very concrete, visceral way.

Last night I went out with Ayn, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Jason. I knew it was an MC Lars concert; what I didn't know is that it was Nerdcore Night at the Abbey Pub (squee!). I saw

Former Fat Boys: a relative unknown, but pretty fun and funky. Their MC has attitude. And any song that includes a scientist/rapper dinosaur, with the lyrics "I'm a dinosaurus/Roar, roar!" is A-OK in my book.

Optimus Rhyme: I've been really eager to see this band. They're pretty famous on the nerdcore scene. Their rap is incredibly fast, and live, it's a bit difficult to understand, but I really like their style. The music has a quirky beat with unusual harmonies. And "Super Shiny Metal" is a great song.

MC Lars: Who we were there to see! All told, probably my favorite of the night, but I think this is the bias of familiarity. I sang all the words to his songs. He creates concept videos to go with each song, and many of them are pretty hilarious. I got to hear a lot of his older music as well, with which I was unfamiliar, and it's as good or better than The Graduate (his latest album). Also, this time around he performed Ahab, a personal favorite of mine (and apparently of much of the audience). He raps slower than the others, and is much clearer and easier to understand. He gets the audience involved in a much less contrived way than the other bands, and has a penchant for telling incredibly stupid (but of course nerdy and hilarious) jokes in between songs. (And over here we have [bandmate] on keys... Hey, I guess if I need to get into the van, I should just come to you, right, 'cuz you're on 'keys'? Hahahaha!) I had the pleasure of meeting Lars after his set. He's astoundingly sweet; gave me his email address, so that AO could send him our arrangement of Download This Song. In fact, I was really impressed by the friendliness of all the bands. They would wander around and have a drink with you, chat with you about anything, and really take the time to meet and appreciate their fans. It was a much more grassroots feeling, with little or no separation of the fans from the artists. Lars was genuinely kind, and seemed glad to talk to even the most awkward of his adherents.

MC Frontalot: The big name of the evening, and probably the biggest name in nerdcore. I wasn't expecting to like him, just from what I'd heard of his music (one song) but it was an unfair bias. He puts on an excellent live show - with the slight problem that his stage persona creates more of a separation from the audience, and the feeling is a bit less convivial than what I described above. He's still friendly and eager to meet his fans, but it feels somewhat more formal. Still, he's funny, engaging, and energetic on stage; his dance moves make pretty much anyone in the audience feel cool ;-). His music is interesting and varied; the beats are different in every song, each one has a different feel on a scale from "rock" to "electronica." The subjects are heavily nerdcore, which is unsurprising, as he defined the genre. He also raps incredibly quickly, but somewhat more clearly than Optimus Rhyme.

In summation, you should check out the music of these fine folks, and give them money, because they are awesome.

Recommended albums:

Optimus Rhyme: School the Indie Rockers
MC Frontalot: Nerdcore Rising
MC Lars: Radio Pet Fencing

For those of you that aren't familiar with nerdcore, it's an up-and-coming musical genre mostly self-produced by geeks with laptops. It resonates with the geek community in terms of subject matter, but also do-it-yourself nature. These guys are what we all wish we could be, and we're actually not that far away; we could make music with ProTools and iMovie too.

Circumstances

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 16:28:20 GMT

Happy 9-11, everybody. Or, y'know, not. As the actuality of the situation is.

Yesterday was a crappy day, followed by today starting out as a crappy day. Yesterday, I did nothing with myself except sit around, read webcomics, and talk to some people on line. Speaking of which, it seems like there's something wrong with Charles. I don't know what's going on, but he seems upset. Maybe his date went badly.

Right, so I also did some productive things yesterday; I went and bought myself a new hairbrush, and some soap and shampoo because I was running low. I also (gasp!) bought myself a new toothbrush. It seemed like about time... I'd had that old one for like a year or something. Then I tried to go to Mass at St. Thomas the Apostle, which is right down the street from me, but I guess they weren't having their 5:30 Mass yet. It stops happening during the summer, and I guess they haven't started it up again. I felt pretty bad, especially because I could've used Mass yesterday. I'm gonna be going to confession soon, because I feel like I should, but I'm COMPLETELY FREAKING TERRIFIED of going. I know I have to, and I know I will, but I'm so afraid of sitting down and actually saying some of these things to a priest. David's been helping me a lot, though, and it makes it easier. But yeah, yesterday ended in lots of rather nerve-shattering prayer. I was a little tweaked, and had trouble sleeping.

As for today, my alarm went off as usual, but I slept in late. Since Zach is coming in today around noon anyway, I figured I'd just stay here and wait for him, and then go into work. Rhonda didn't sound too pleased, but as Lisy says, I think she's just easily frazzled. She doesn't take kindly to unexpected changes; I think she barely clings to her cheerfulness at work, so long as everything runs smoothly.

Now, I think I'd like to talk about 9-11. Lately, I've been thinking about my own responses to it. I've realized that my personal response sort of got drowned in my anti-everyone-else's-response attitude. I always say that two or three days after 9-11 is when I lost every shred of patriotism I ever had. I guess that's not entirely true. I like this country, and I do like some of the things it stands for. But I dislike being lumped in with rabid patriots, screaming about bringing those Iraqi motherf***ers down and waving flags from every bodily orifice.

For a few days after the event, I had a very subdued display of patriotism going in the form of a waving flag animation on my laptop's background. But when I saw everyone else jumping on the bandwagon, I got sick of it and took it off, and shortly after that I stopped saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Generally speaking, I still don't salute the flag. I guess it's not fair of me to blame the country for the people in it. I just got angry when I saw everybody happy to have a "cause" to pull them together. I didn't like the artificial emotion and friendliness. And sure, those things can be as good as the genuine article, but let's face it. This country underwent a catastrophe. In a lot of ways it brought us together, in terms of caring for each other, and in the idea that we were scared and our conceptions of safety were threatened. The idea of our nation was deliberately attacked, and that's a foundation-cracking kind of thing. But we handled it abysmally. We pulled together not to look at the flaws in our policies, not to reexamine our values as a nation, and not to take better care of each other or work on becoming better people ourselves. We pulled together to get back at the bastards that did this. We pulled together to show people that we are formidable and won't tolerate being attacked. And that attitude is precisely what got us in this position in the first place.

I think that's why I'm disappointed and disillusioned with the whole 9-11 concept. It feels so artificial, the idea of this nation banding together. The execution of it was childish, and the fact that it didn't stick only goes to show how skin-deep it was. We didn't take this the way it should have been taken; we didn't make anything valuable out of it. We only made it worse by fighting back. Not to mention, the divisiveness it caused in our culture, between the hawks and the doves, if you will. People who wanted peace were branded as hippies, and people with "Support Our Troops" ribbons were branded as warmongering dimwits. The truth is, we all just want something to get riled up about. And with that attitude, nobody will take a serious look at what's happening.

After a lot of thought, I think my personal response to 9-11, the attack itself, is one of simple sadness. I'm sorry that these groups thought that the only way they could critique the American culture was through such destruction. I regret that perhaps, they might have been right, because as an American culture, we don't hear criticism well. Especially not when it's coming from people we see as the foreign equivalent of hicks - uneducated, rural, and whose opinions are worthless. I'm sorry that so many people were killed as bystanders to an issue that wasn't their fault. I'm sorry that we, as a nation, are too shallow to be able to examine with honesty our own character and motives. I'm sorry that such a great wrong was done to us.

I don't pretend to think that extremist religous groups or terrorist groups will begin to hear reason; I don't think we can even try to strike up peace with them, realistically. But I do think that brute force engenders an uncompromising response, and usually a radical one. That's how these terrorist groups began, and that's how our uber-patriotic groups began in response. Both are equally singleminded and stubborn. Perhaps if we stop the cycle by reevaluating our role as world policeman, and focusing more on negotiation and mutual respect, the stubborn and militant groups will diminish. It'd be a start.

Laughs

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 06:12:45 GMT

Hey, everybody. Life has been fairly boring since I last left you all.

Let's see... I've been working... same-old, same-old. Thursday night I hung out with a heavily inebriated Charles. Tonight, I went out to a comedy club with Pat. We had originally planned to go hear a Japanese/jazz group play at a little restaurant-club-thingy, but I could tell by the look on the hostess' face when I handed her my ID that we weren't going to be sitting down. (Not that I was trying to get in illegally. I just realized how that sounded. We actually just didn't know whether they would let people in but make sure they couldn't buy drinks or something. Most places do that.) So we drove around Wrigleyville a bit and then saw some improv comedy. It was a good time, and now I'm really really tired because I spent a hell of a lot of time at the gym today, burning off what probably amounted to more calories than I ate today, judging by the fact that I'm incredibly hungry after just having finished a plate of refried beans.

So, I made this crazy rice thing tonight. I boiled a bunch of vegetables in beef stock for a while, and then cooked rice with it. As is usually the case, I burned the outside edges of the rice, but apart from that, it was pretty tasty. I can't decide what it needs in it... probably hot sauce, actually. But everything needs hot sauce. Anyway, I made a huge amount of it, so now it's sitting in my fridge and I won't starve! Yay! I'm running... rather freakin' low on money, but I'll last until I get paid a week from now. From here on out, I don't have to pay rent anymore, because this is the last month I'm here. So that's a big chunk of my expenses that isn't going to be draining my account anymore. Still, I'm a little uncomfortable with the fact that I have less than $100 (usable) in my bank account. I've always got the Emergency Card, but I don't like using it. I really want to be able to take care of myself. Since I've gotten my job at the GSB, I haven't had to ask Mom and Dad for spending cash, and that feels pretty good. I'd like to keep it up if I can, and I know I can go a week on a little bit of cash and what I've got in my pantry. I'll be fine.

So, the fact that Matthias is gone sucks. I mean, I'm doing fine. Don't get me wrong. I see my friends, I do okay by myself, I keep myself entertained. But it's a strain on our relationship, as opposed to being a strain on me. We've just never had to get used to being this far away from each other for this long. We've been arguing some because he's not a very good conversationalist, and doesn't really respond to things I say. It's hard to discuss things with him, and I don't really feel like he's listening to me. I've never run into this problem before. Ordinarily, I'd say it's not really a big deal and I'd just try and forget about it, but a) I think it's building up on me because it happens so often, and it makes me feel like I don't have his attention and he doesn't care about me; and b) talking is all we've got right now, so if we're trying to have a relationship, talking skills are gonna be key. We're working on it, though, and I think things will turn out fine. It'll just take a little patience from both of us.

Tomorrow night I go over to Ted's to see his dad, who's in town, and eat... pot roast? Yes, I think that's what it was. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to it. Judging by Ted, his dad's probably a superb cook. His father sends Ted recipes all the time, and the chicken paprikash that you've all heard me talk about is his. So yeah, tasty food!

Tomorrow, I'll probably spend the day at the gym again, and then Sunday will be laundry and cleaning for when Zach gets back on Monday. I'll have to finagle my work schedule such that I can be home to let him in.

Aaaaand, I'm going to end abruptly now because I'm falling asleep. See you all later.

Dinners

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 04:45:01 GMT

Greetings, all. Today was a pretty good Labor Day - I slept in late for the first time in a long while. Even on the weekends now I tend to be out of bed by 9:00 or so. Lisy injured her ankle somehow, so I offered to go over later tonight and make her dinner, and hang out for a while. Ultimately, it evolved into making dinner for Chris, Margot, and Lisy, and watching a movie all together. The dinner turned out really well. I made what the cookbook calls "Bolognese beef pot," but which actually seems to be some kind of beef stew. It was incredibly tasty (if I do say so myself). Before that, we had this tomato salad that involved sugar and lemons and scallions and mint... it was surprisingly... well, flavorful. And for dessert, diced peaches with raspberry sorbet, almonds, and sparkling white wine over the top. I was pretty proud of myself all told. Huzzah for the super-healthy cookbook.

Speaking of super-healthy. My workout schedule has gotten really erratic, which is annoying. Mostly because I don't like to work out and fence both, although sometimes I'll go do weights after fencing. And when I'm not fencing, I forget to work out now. I tell you what, it's starting to kill my self-esteem. I've never had this much weight on me in my life, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get rid of it. I don't think I look bad, but I hate that some pairs of jeans that I used to be able to fit three fingers in sideways between my waist and the waistband now fit me really tightly. I've been working out and trying to eat healthier and it doesn't seem to be enough. If my dad can do it (he now weighs less than I do and does triathlons, from weighing what I'm guessing was about 200 pounds) then I surely can, but I'm just not seeing as much progress as I'd like. My mom has been really supportive and for that I'm immensely grateful. She's not being the stereotypical mom who tells you that you're fat. But I don't like the way I look, and it's really depressing after being as athletic as I was for so many years. Not to mention, I hate the way that this has taken over my life and my mind. It's becoming the only thing I think about, and I just don't want to have to worry about it anymore. Meaning, I want to see progress, dammit! Umm. Enough ranting about that, because I'm quite sure none of you care.

Yesterday Sebastian was in town, so I got to see him. We got tea and coffee from Cafe Istria down on 57th street. I was really stressed about seeing him, just because there are a lot of reasons still for things to be very awkward between us, but it went really well. I'd forgotten just how much I genuinely enjoy spending time with him. It's always disappointing to me that we'll never have the chance to be in the same place for a while, or to get to know each other as normal friends. It's hard to build on a relationship when the other person isn't really a part of your everyday life, at least not in an immediate or un-manufactured sense. But yeah, so, we hung out for a bit, and then went to Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, with a bunch of friends. For those of you that don't know it, it's a great show in Chicago. They do 30 random plays in an hour, with subjects/titles ranging from "White Noise" (all the white people in the group yell, while the one black guy covers his ears and looks annoyed) to a play by one of the girls in the group who was trying to get over the death of her dog. That one resonated with me a lot, although many of the people in the audience didn't seem to get why it was such a big deal to anyone that the dog had died. So, um, if you live in Chicago, go see it if you get the chance. But yeah, so it was a pretty good evening, and I got to hang out with everybody.

Despite the fact that my social life has been nice and happy and full, I miss Matthias. It's kind of hard when he's away, because our relationship has never really had to deal with much distance. We're used to being right near each other almost always, so whenever I need a hug or just feel somewhat lonely, he's there. He's really become a big part of my life. And I have to say, I'm always in favor of absences from one's significant other, no matter how long they will last, just because it tempers the relationship and shows you what you need to work on. It builds strength and trust and reminds you that you can exist as an independent person. But that doesn't mean I like it when it happens to me. :-) Ah, well, two and a half more weeks, is it? I'll see him soon.

Matthias and I are actually coming up on a year anniversary pretty soon, which will make it my third relationship to break a year. He's in good company; Patrick and I are still very close, and Will and I have pretty recently gotten to a point at which we can talk to each other and be comfortable as friends. I left the planning of it in Matthias' hands. His condition was this: that we switch off planning anniversaries. :-P You never know, right? Maybe this will be the first one to hit two. Anyway, he's planning a Black Label Society concert two days beforehand (ROCK!) and on the day of, a "romantic evening." Now, I'm not sure what that means, but I think he's gonna pull off something good. All this talk of anniversaries had me thinking about the one-years that I've had in the past, and I realized that I couldn't remember what Patrick and I had done for ours. Patrick, if you read this and would like to remind me, go right ahead; but somehow I doubt your memory will be much better than mine. :-P

Alright, this post has rambled long enough. I'm going to try and post more regularly, so they don't get this long. I've got more to say, too, which is sad. But I'm going to bed now, because I actually have to be at work tomorrow... bleh. Goodnight, all.

St. Augustine, pray for us.
St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us.
St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Grillbeasts

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 22:19:56 GMT

Alright, so, before I forget, I'm first going to finish the tales of my trip to New Jersey.

We went to sleep Friday night after Ozzfest completely exhausted. Satisfied, but exhausted. The next morning we slept in late and helped prepare for the barbecue later that day, that was being held so that everyone could meet me, but also as a sendoff to Matthias' cousin Phillip who was going off to college soon. I sat down at the breakfast table and was promptly offered food, so I ate cheerios per my usual style, without anything on them. When Matthias' family saw that I was eating my cereal dry, they then and there decided that Matthias and I must have been made for each other. I guess it's a weirder thing to do than I had thought.

Anyway, we had our breakfast and then we went over to Matthias' house (remember, we stayed with Ann?). We bummed around with Ted and Will and Matthias' dad for a bit, and then they left to head over to Ann's. We sat around the house for a little while, and then James - Matthias' best friend - stopped by to pick us up and take us out for a drive. So I got the quick tour of the neighborhood, and then it was back to Ann's for the barbecue.

I have to admit, I was a bit nervous, but mostly everybody was incredibly nice. Matthias' father's parents came by, which was frightening, as I'd been warned against his grandmother and told horror stories of her ferocious and nasty tendencies by just about everyone in the family. But she was quite nice to me (I think Matthias almost died of shock) and I frankly thought she was pretty funny. Her husband, Grandpa Joe, was awesome. He came running into the kitchen at one point, after he'd heard that I was an Egyptologist, and shouted, "Say something in hieroglyphics!" He sat outside with all the teenage kids and chatted with us. I met one of Matthias' other good friends, Virian. She was incredibly sweet and seemed to think that Matthias and I were the cutest couple ever. She, James, Matthias, Phillip and I all took a walk out to the park a little later, after we had eaten, to give us all a chance to chat and escape the adults for a while. When we got back, things were winding down, so we decided we'd head out for Italian ice and a walk along the boardwalk. The shore there is so beautiful. Unfortunately, all kinds of yuppie developments are springing up along the beach and taking over the old Victorian neighborhoods (and kicking a lot of Matthias' less well-off friends out of their homes), but when we got down to the old section, it was really nice. After mosying around for a bit, we went back to Matthias' house to play some Monopoly, and I got to hear him jam with his brother and Anton up in the studio. It was a lot of fun listening to them, and really makes me want to get better at bass pretty badly. The fourth member of the Long Branch Quintet, Katy, showed up also, and played some monopoly with us for a while.

Will and Ted decided a little later that they wanted to go set off some (illegal) fireworks that they had procured. Nobody apart from me had ever set off explosives before, so we all piled in cars with myself as "lead technician" and headed for an open field. Unfortunately, Jersey is incredibly densely populated, and truly open fields don't seem to exist. The best place we could find was behind a public school, where apparently fireworks get set off on a semi-regular basis. I was just there in functional capacity, so when everybody got in a fight over whether we should actually do this, I picked up the fireworks and walked back to the car. We returned home without having committed any crimes, but I did promise Ted and Will that if we ever went someplace a little more secluded, I'd help them.

The cap to this lovely evening was a drive around in James' car (during which Matthias promptly fell asleep). We went on the "scary roads tour" of Long Branch, which included three dimly lit, backwoods roads with gnarled trees, scary barns, and ghost stories attached. It was amazing amounts of fun, and deliciously scary. Perhaps best, though, that Matthias was asleep, as scary things are not his forte. ;-) James and I had a chance to chat, which was nice, as he would be taking me to Mass bright and early the next morning.

Due to slight tardiness by the one with the car, James and I were a little late to Mass, but we made it. After chatting about our mutual love of techno, and especially classical music remixes, on the way back, we accompanied Matthias and his family to Lutheran services. Let me tell you, my friends, it is VERY STRANGE INDEED to watch a woman consecrate the Eucharist. Lutheran tradition is very close to Catholic, and it was far more of a system shock than I expected to watch a woman filling the priestly role. Apart from that, I'm not really sure what I made of the service. It was different, that's for sure. A lot of things about being bound by/into sin that I wasn't really a fan of, but otherwise it was nice. Very Protestant music.

After that, it was lunch out at Chili's with the whole family, and then another driving tour with James. We made our way up a hill to Twin Lights, an amazing lighthouse and apparently a very old one. It's one of those places that's a typical stop for elementary school field trips, but the views from the top of the north tower were beautiful. I really enjoyed it there. And James knows so much of the history of the area that he made an excellent tour guide, not just for Twin Lights, but the whole trip.

After that, we meandered down to the beach for a bit, and found one of James' favorite secluded spots. It was nice, after a fairly intense weekend, to just sit for a while and listen to the waves. After a short time, we had to run back to Ann's, get our things packed, and head back to Chicago. But all in all, it was a great trip.

So there you have it. The story of my trip to the magical land of New Jersey. I mostly was writing it now to kill time until Christian's Grillbeast, which, for those of you uninitiated, is a meat-filled cookout followed by a bad sci-fi or horror movie. Tonight's feature is Godzilla versus King Kong, which will undoubtedly prove to be a classic. Reviews and more, here on MEGAN'S LIVEJOURNAL!

Travels

Sat, 19 Aug 2006 20:31:30 GMT

So... It's Saturday. Yay, lazy Saturday. I guess not much has happened since the last time I posted... Well, except that I went to see THE MOST AMAZING MOVIE EVER. For those of you that haven't seen Snakes on a Plane, do so. Now. Right now. Immediately. I'm not joking. Samuel L. Jackson is badassery incarnate. And any movie that features the line "I am getting tired of these motherf**king snakes on this motherf**king plane!" ::shoots stuff:: is aces in my book.

Additionally, I went to the Oriental Institute on Friday, which isn't usually the way of things, but they wanted me to start on my other job there - namely, standing at a copier for an hour and a half scanning handwritten notes to

oh, God, Matthias just walked in in a skintight shirt. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

Right. Scanning handwritten notes (for the Demotic Dictionary Project) to the network. It's about as exciting as watching paint dry. But hey, I'm getting to work closely with people who are tops in the field, so it has its advantages. I had a chat with Foy about how cool it is to be able to say I contributed to the project. He seemed to know the feeling. Foy helps Francois on the project, doing I'm not really sure what, but he's young and cute and very nice. So I don't mind getting to work with him. :-P

Anyway, I promised you guys I'd tell you about my trip to New Jersey. I left Houston on Thursday, August 3 for Chicago - we did it all by round trip to make life easier. So I flew back to Chicago, and sat around waiting... and waiting... for my flight to Jersey. Apparently there was bad weather in Newark, and flights were backed up. So my flight got delayed by an hour, and then by another half hour, but then ended up leaving earlier than expected. Luckily, I've managed to train myself to fall asleep immediately on planes, which is good because I'm impatient and get motion sick, so flying is not my favorite thing. So I crashed out on the flight, and awoke when the tires hit tarmac. The only problem arises when I hear the stewardess saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Baltimore..." WTF? Turns out we had circled Newark for over an hour, and had to touch down in Baltimore to refuel. That took about 45 minutes, and then we were back in the air and circling Newark for another 30 minutes. Finally, I landed, a good solid 4 hours late or something. Matthias' mom, his aunt Ann, and his littlest brother Willy were there to pick me up. On the way back, we called Ted (his middle brother), Anton (Ted's best friend and a member of the band), and Matthias' dad to come meet us at Chili's for dinner. We went by Ann's house to drop off my stuff - we stayed there because Matthias' house was having some water leaking problems, and it was really hot, and their house was huge and had minimal air conditioning - and then went by Matthias' house. His family's house is beautiful. It's really old, and enormous, with 3 stories and a studio on the third floor. It's also insanely cluttered, a fact about which his mother was apparently pretty disconcerted, but I think we all know I wasn't going to care.

I got the grand "I want to show you my room!" tour from Ted and Will, and crashed out on Ted's bed for a little while. Then Ann and Mrs. Jamison and I all went back to the airport to pick up Matthias, who wound up getting in around midnight. I fell asleep in the car on the way back, and as soon as we got to Ann's, Matthias and I went to bed.

We woke up good and early the next morning, so we'd be on time to OZZFEST! Oh, man, it was the sweetest thing ever. It was so cool to be surrounded by metalheads. We spent a good chunk of the day at second stage, and I got to see some really cool bands that I'd never heard before. We did a little moshing, although I couldn't really go in the pits because I had forgotten my boots and was wearing only flip flops. I was tempted to crowd surf, but never actually got around to it, and didn't want to get separated from Matthias, Ted, and Anton. At one point we were surrounded by 3 pits, which was a little scary. People are packed tight in there like sardines; it was gross at times when you found yourself smashed up against a huge white hairy guy without a shirt on. I gotta say, it was pretty sweet for me because I had three huge guys to defend me on all sides. The only unfortunate thing was that 2 of the bands at this Ozzfest, namely Atreyu and Avenged Sevenfold, really brought out the emo asshole crowd. They tend to be rude and obnoxious, and just get in the way because they think they're better than everyone else. Atreyu was on second stage, so I was in the pits when they were on. Because they sucked, or maybe just because they're the pop music equivalent in metal, everyone started moshing harder than ever when they came on. That was when I got kicked in the head by a crowdsurfer, and another one landed on me and injured something in my shoulder. After that, we took a break from the pits and wandered around.

There were a few cool exhibits there; a bunch of Dimebag Darrell memorial guitars decorated by members of other metal bands. Some of them were pretty cool. We had some lunch and did a little shopping; I bought a wooden ankh necklace. Then it was back to second stage - the only problem being that they kept turning the music up, and it was getting way too loud. I really wanted to listen to Black Label Society - that's Zakk Wylde's band, for you uninitiated, and he's the god of metal guitar playing - but I was incredibly sick and tired of being touched and shoved and having to listen to loud music, so we sat that one out.

By the time it got dark, main stage had kicked in. These were the headliners, and some of them were amazing. Dragonforce started it off - it was like Dream Theater on speed, which is like disco on crack. I wasn't really a fan, and it turned out that their front man was kind of a jerk. He could tell the audience wasn't a huge fan of the band, and started treating them badly. In truth, we were all just a little tired. Then came Lacuna Coil, an Italian metal band with a female front man, and they were pretty cool. Kind of haunting; a unique style. Hatebreed was next and they sucked. That's really all that needs to be said. I slept through them. After them was Avenged Sevenfold. They also sucked, but they took it to a whole new level; they covered Walk, by Pantera. If you don't know why that's a cardinal sin of metal, leave a comment and I'll explain it to your unenlightened soul. They had a pretty poor audience reaction as well. After them, though, was Disturbed. This was incredible for me, because they're one of two bands that turned me on to metal in the first place. Their front man is a really classy guy. They're one of the few groups that do melodic metal well. Even though by this point I could barely turn my head, due to my shoulder, I had to get up and headbang (causing myself further injury, of course). They were incredible. To describe it any further would be to cheapen the experience, as it were. Good Lord, I thought they were amazing.

After Disturbed was System of a Down. They had the audience rabid. Their set was incredibly fast-paced, with no breaks. They were a lot of fun, too, and prompted further shoulder damage. There was a drunk guy behind me who kept trying to get me to stand up and dance; normally I would have obliged him, but my shoulder was killing me. Finally, we got to see Ozzy, which was... a little sad. He came out and jumped around, and sang a half step off at all times, and forgot the words and names of his own songs... we only stayed for five of his songs, and then left, because by this point I was immobile. We all crashed as soon as we got home.

I'll update further concerning the rest of my trip at a later date, so that these posts won't get absurd. In the meantime, go listen to some metal music.

Churches

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 05:11:57 GMT

Well, I promised you stories.

These past couple of days have been very long; I've been working overtime, and apparently for no reason. I got very frustrated today when I realized that I'd been working overtime for the wrong project. But it's okay, because I got to go get comics today with Ted. Huzzah! I've started reading something new, that looks actually pretty intriguing... it's called Wasteland, and I think I like it. At least, it has made me want to buy the second.

Went to Mass on Tuesday; it was good, but I'm not a huge fan of Father Paul. Father Pat is a much better preacher. For some reason, his voice makes you want to listen. Also, I'm feeling more and more drawn to St. Thomas the Apostle, the community parish just down the street from me. I think maybe tomorrow morning I'll wake up a little early and see about their daily Mass. I can't afford to be late to work, which it would undoubtedly make me, but given a little time I could perhaps shuffle things around. Truth be told, I know nothing about the place, except that their statue of Mary has now been vandalized for the second time. I stopped to show it to Matthias as he was walking me home... There in the dark, with the lights bright on the white stone, I felt more than a little uneasy to be standing before a statue of the Blessed Mother without her head. I gave Matthias my rosary to keep with him on his way home.

I promised you explosions, didn't I? Well, it's like this...

It was a Monday afternoon, and I was tired. Work was wearing me out for some reason; I suppose I hadn't gotten over the residual laziness of the weekend. Or perhaps my work at the OI is not as interesting as the location might suggest. In any event, I got sick of things there, and decided to go home a little early. I didn't call anyone on my way home; where I would usually phone Ted or Matthias to see if either wanted to play some video games or watch a movie, I instead kept my phone in my pocket and decided I'd like an afternoon to myself. I was feeling a little brooding, because Matthias and I were having some difficulties - mostly arising from the fact that I had been under stress and was constantly snappish.

I arrived home to find the apartment empty, at which point I did what any red-blooded American nerd teen would do: I sat down at my computer. While browsing the Internet, I heard a pop, and felt my computer jump. Looking around behind the screen, I didn't see anything out of place; I assumed something had simply fallen over and I had felt the "thump" through the desk. A few minutes later, the sound and the sensation repeated themselves on the order of three or four times in rapid succession. As my battery hadn't been taking a charge for a while, I immediately assumed that it was a likely problem. I unplugged the computer in one swatting motion while at the same time flipping it over to access the battery. I put my fingers on the battery to pull it out, but a half-second into the process, I realized that my fingers were burning. I grabbed a t-shirt and used it as a potholder of sorts to remove the battery, which I then laid on my desk.

At this point, I called Dad to inform him that my laptop battery was now broken for real, and I needed a new one even more now than I had before. Wandering out of the room, I continued conversing with him about... well, whatever the hell it is he and I talk about. While I was in the kitchen - right next door to my bedroom - I heard a thump, and wandered back to investigate. From my position in the doorway, I could see the battery on the floor next to my desk, and assumed that it had simply fallen off. I was just turning to walk back to the kitchen when I heard an explosion.

The rest of the event, up until I smothered the flames, runs through my memory in flashes, as I was alternatively standing panicked and fighting the very active urge to run away. I saw red flames and a shower of red sparks erupt from the battery, which was sitting right in front of my desktop computer. The USB cables for my floppy drive and iPod were burning. Then the battery exploded again, at which point I ducked my head, and the next image I see is of the battery lodged against the doorframe, next to my foot. There are burning pieces of God-knows-what spread over my floor. Thick, vile-smelling, harsh black smoke is billowing up from the battery. I can't see my ceiling, and the flames are licking the wire racks that hold my tea and my comic books. I've been screaming with each explosion, but otherwise attempting to keep calm and listen to my father's advice; he's still on the phone. My next image is searching for (and not finding, although apparently we had one) a fire extinguisher; after hearing more explosions, I return to my room to see more burning pieces on my floor and more sparks. Next I'm grabbing my roommate's towels and wetting them in the shower; then I'm dropping them on the battery and watching smoke curl out from under the edges. I'm horrified that the water might react with the lithium, and for any number of reasons, refuse to touch the battery when my father tells me I should. At this point memory slows down to a little more of a real-time approach.

I lifted up a corner of the towel, and smoke curled out. I promptly dropped the towel and ran to the kitchen for my first breath of fresh air. On Dad's advice I picked up the mess of towels and battery and threw it in the bathtub. Despite it being a poor idea, I turned the shower on. After making sure I'm okay, Dad hung up the phone and I went out to the back balcony, when adrenaline kicks in. Despite the difficulties we'd been having, Matthias came straightaway, and took the towels and battery to the dumpster for me.

For the next few days, things were a mess. Every time I heard a thump or hiss my heart would pound. I arrived at my friend Ted's for dinner that night to discover that I was still up to my elbows in soot. I later discovered the same soot lining the inside of my nose, and later still discovered it carpeting every surface in my room. I had to wash everything and scrub everything. The smell was everywhere. When I finally got the floor cleaned up, I discovered deep burn marks. My white wire racks are now gray, as is the wall behind them. My bass amp is melted up one side where it caught fire. Any strange noise, especially an unexpected one made by a computer, still makes me jump, despite the fact that all of this happened a month ago (yes, well before the Dell recalls).

Still, it makes a damn fine story, and any of you out there that know me can tell that I just enjoyed the hell out of telling it. :-D

Coming up: Long Branch, New Jersey! I promise, it's a much happier, if less action-packed, story.

Returns

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 05:34:39 GMT

Greetings, all. I know some of you still read, and word usually gets around, so here I am again. Hey, at least I didn't let it sit for a year, right?

The summer has been good. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable with my roommates, as I don't know them all that terribly well, but other times, like tonight, they're a lot of fun to hang around with. Unless they're 'borrowing' my mattress. Thank you Harry.

Work has been fine. I get scolded for various things now and again, but I suppose that's just the way of it... there's always something more you can do. Honestly, I enjoy working at the OI a lot more than at the GSB, although I'm closer friends with the people at the GSB and enjoy the social atmosphere there much more.

As it is late, and I'm tired, I'm just throwing out this update for now. I'll be back later with the Tale of the Exploding Laptop Battery; Stories of Sugarland; A Short History of My Time in Long Branch, New Jersey, and of the People I There Encountered; and a new column I'm adding to our little paper, called Chronicles of an Interfaith Relationship, which will largely be me ranting and venting about the trials of dating somebody faithful - only in the wrong faith tradition. :-P Did you know there are very few support resources online for interfaith relationships? At least, none for couples not yet considering marriage. That I've found, anyway. I mean, really; it's not like the problems all suddenly arise because you decided you wanted to get married. Anyway, to bed with me... I have to be at work for a full day tomorrow. G'night, everybody!

Songs

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 22:33:27 GMT

Well, I'm certainly gonna bomb this concert tomorrow... I just hope Matthias doesn't get mad at me when I suck horribly. I'll spend all tomorrow morning practicing and we'll see if it gets me anywhere.

In other news, AO concert tonight at 7! Bartlett arts space! Please come! It's gonna be great. I think I talked about it yesterday.

I helped Zach move in today... that apartment is so amazing. I'm really excited to live there. My roommates are cool, laid-back people, the furniture is comfortable, my room is nice, there's a big back porch... everything I could want. I'm looking forward to having 'my own place,' sort of. I don't know, maybe I'll look at moving out my fourth year. I'd hate to leave the community, but at the same time, I could always be an associate member. Still, I hate the idea of not knowing the first years. I think I'll just stick it out for all four. I'll have my own place soon enough; I don't need to hurry the process, and I should enjoy dorm life while I've got it.

Anyway, off to practice some bass. The explanation for this, Jonathan, is that Matthias and I bought a bass together and I've been learning to play. I'm actually not too shabby at it. I've been playing since the new year or so, and I'm having loads of fun with it. I'm supposed to be playing in his final composition for his music class tomorrow, so there you go.

Quotes

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:32:45 GMT

(14:23:04) Charles: they're letting you kids get off too easy in my opinion
(14:26:13) UChicagoIndy45: what, in terms of linguistics?
(14:26:17) UChicagoIndy45: how so?
(14:26:32) UChicagoIndy45: did they have to walk to finals, uphill both ways, barefoot in the snow (in the middle of june) in your day?
(14:29:28) Charles: And they failed us when we got there just because they didnt like our face

Finals

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:16:34 GMT

Ha! Done with my Egyptian final. The parsing kind of sucked, as he picked out just about every element that I either a) didn't recognize or b) hadn't been able to translate. Such is life. Still, I managed to put down some kind of answer for everything, and the translation was so clear in my head that I think it went pretty damn near perfectly. So I'm feelin' pretty good about myself right now.

The only thing I'm worried about is that Matthias' final composition is on Sunday, and he wants me to play bass. I haven't been able to practice, because I've been so busy, so I need to put in a lot of time on it today and tomorrow to get it up to speed. I don't want to let him down, but really, I think the performance is more for show anyway. He has already turned in his sheet music. Plus, if I screw it up, I can always fake it and just play the roots of the chords.

So I'm nice and free until next Thursday when I have a final and a paper due. But it's kind of nice to have everything coming in chunks like that, so that I have time to deal with them in between. The hardest part is over, too, which is a really good feeling.

All of you, by the way, who are here in Chicago with me, should come to the Aristocratic Octopus concert on Saturday night at 7. It's gonna be amazing, and we're taking requests.

Tonight is par-tay night with my friend John, whom I haven't seen in weeks. He's an epeeist, and reminds me rather startlingly of David, despite his good relationship with computers. Looks like we'll be making the circuit, from dinner to his place to maybe a later dinner instead to a) Doc b) UTheater c) Fencing party d) My place for video games or perhaps any combination including c. It'll be a fun night.

Books

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 19:16:38 GMT

So many books...

Anyway, I'm finally done with that hellatious research paper. It's ten and a half pages long, and looks pretty and sounds good. I ended up having to cut my topic short; to talk about everything I would've wanted to talk about, I would have had to make the paper a good fifteen or twenty pages.

Tomorrow I get to face the Middle Egyptian final, which I'm not overly worried about. This is mostly the case because there is not really anything I can do at this point. If I don't do well, I don't do well. I can't change that now; that's the work of a quarter. I should be fine. I didn't finish the midterm and didn't even do the parsing on it; didn't have time. Still got a B-. So I'm not worried.

The Aristocratic Octopus (my a cappella group, for those of you not up on these sorts of things) has finally put out a CD! I just listened to the final cuts of it yesterday, and it sounds awesome. Matthias sound-teched it, and did a really great job. If you want a copy, let me know and I'll get ahold of one for you. You may have to pay me $5, but I think you can stomach that.

So, I'm still worried about this whole friend business... but you know, I figure it will probably work itself out one way or another and I should just stop worrying about it. At the same time, it makes me really reluctant to talk to the one friend I was having trouble with; I withdraw when I feel like people aren't happy with me. I'd like to call him and make sure things are okay, but that would make me feel worse about the whole situation, so I'll just hold off until he comes to me for whatever reason, and we'll just see where things stand. On the other hand, the fact that I'm not doing anything about this means that it's building up in my head as this intensely emotional thing which is far too overblown for what it is. Which, I suppose, is why I'm trying to forget about it. That way, it can't get worse, even if it doesn't get better. ::sigh::

Lastly, I've got a poem to post here. I was at Matthias' jazz concert (which, by the way, was incredible - our jazz x-tet here is awesome) and I was sort of spacing out to the extended suite. I was looking out the window of the 4th floor room we were in and I noticed a building off in the distance with one single light on. It really caught me, especially with the music going, so I decided to write about it. I don't think this poem is quite as refined as I'd like it to be, but it's still good, in my opinion.

What I Got out of That Jazz Concert, May 25 2006

There's a light on in a building far away
Only one lightbulb out of the thousands
Sucking on the wires that net under this city
Like blood vessels, or nerves
Or the roots of something vast and seething.
And I wonder where he is in all this
What beaten path is his every day
Or hers, maybe
And what does she come home to at night?
A pair of kids boisterously young
Or maybe
Nothing
But an open window and a waft of jazz
Carried on the wind
Out the window of the hall where I'm sitting
Like my thoughts carry
Out the window of the brain where I'm hiding
Through the cotton-soft lukewarm blackness
Of a muggy streetlit night.
The light may reach me
But the space between is impassable
Whoever sits in that room
Looks out that window
Feeling my thoughts without knowing they do
And wondering where that stray bit of sax came from
Will never cross the gap that's more than space.
And neither will I, and suddenly
It's just another window
And suddenly
The space between turns into
That noise section from a modern jazz piece
Pounding on my brain
And the universe skips a beat.
Then the melody starts again and I'm lost
Left somewhere behind, one foot, one thought
Still out the window
"Hey," he says. "There's a light on in that building over there."
"See?"

[EDIT] The line breaks aren't right in this... Every new line starts with a capital letter. Damn LJ and its narrow... um... ness...

Postscripts

Wed, 31 May 2006 13:50:58 GMT

By the way - that quiz I mentioned yesterday? Went a lot better than I expected it to. Also, my Music paper isn't due until next Thursday, and I've already got two pages done on the research paper for Archaeology. So, progress. Say a prayer for me if you get the chance. Also, remind me to do that for myself, because in a state like this, I frequently forget that I have time.

Fractures

Wed, 31 May 2006 12:59:57 GMT

Okay, so all you people out there in advice-land, I know you're just aching to throw your two cents in. What do I do? I and my friend and his girlfriend are all in this nasty spat - not really fighting anymore, just... being tense and stressful. And my other friend is caught in the middle of all this, because he's good friends with every one of us. And now he's just downright frustrated and sick to death of the situation.

That's not the problem, though. I've talked with him and told him that we'll do our best to resolve it, and keep it off his plate; it's not his problem to deal with. What I'm worried about now is how crappy I feel. Ordinarily, I'd sit down with the person I was having issues with and talk them out. I feel like something is hanging between me and my friend (the one NOT involved in the spat) and impeding our relationship; I want to do more to make sure he's not upset and hurting over this, and I don't want to feel like there's still a sore spot in our friendship. However, he's stereotypically male in that he's very blunt and straightforward (and thus can be a bit caustic) but also is reluctant or unwilling to discuss vague emotional matters like these. I think he feels like there's very little that can be done about them. Still, this is weighing on me. How can I let him know how I'm feeling and/or get this weight off my chest, while not being melodramatic or making mountains out of molehills? Additionally, how can I get him to take me seriously and listen, rather than just feeling uncomfortable?

Thanks guys.

Resuscitations

Tue, 30 May 2006 14:27:50 GMT

Alright, I decided I'm going to start posting again... let's see who notices.

I've been feeling pretty craptacular... I'm sick today, so I'm not going in to work, and I'm going to have to force myself to get up and go take my quiz in Linguistics. Today and tomorrow are the last two days of class, but I have two work-intensive papers due Thursday. Why is it that whenever I'm in this sort of situation, the potentially delicate issues in my life always like to explode? My situation with a good friend of mine and his girlfriend went downhill last night. Charles said it seemed like things were going well, but the pressure of it got to be too much for me. This, in turn, seems to have caused problems for everyone involved. Which is usually the way of things... I don't know. I don't really have time to deal with all of this right now, because I've got too much work to do. Of course, that means that when I'm finally done with my work, all of this stuff will come back to bite me in the ass. Ah, well. Such is the way of life... as soon as you dodge all the punches, it's got a henchman waiting around the corner with a baseball bat.

I'm gonna go crawl back in bed with my linguistics book, pretend my head doesn't feel like it's splitting in half, and CRAM LIKE A MOTHERF***ER.

Memes

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 01:09:08 GMT

I thought this was funny...

girl_noir's LJ stalker is starvemarv!

starvemarv is stalking you because they have nothing better to do with their time. They are also stalking you in real life. Look out!

LJ Stalker Finder
From Go-Quiz.com

Words

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 18:34:01 GMT

Wow. Um... it's been a while.

So yeah.

Fall quarter = TEH AWESOME. I've had a great year so far. The details will come out in later posts, but for now I'm just posting to let everyone know that I'm still, in fact, alive. And since people are still complaining that I don't talk to them enough.

So. Stuff. Um. Linguistics has been boring as all hell, but the languages have been amazing. I took my first two finals this morning, and I have a third this afternoon, and then Linguistics on Thursday. I have a job now, at the business school, which pays me ridiculous amounts to hang out with cool people, including Ben. Friends have been... interesting, to say the least; there have been some issues, but all in all people are still putting up with me, why I'm not sure. Lisy, Margot and Ben have been particularly put-upon and have been very patient with me. Oh yeah, and there's a Matthias now. He's awesome, he's a jazz and metal musician, and one of the nicest guys ever. He plays fifty bajillion instruments and can swing dance (that's right, I know you're all jealous). Ummmmm... being a second year is fun! I get to teach the happy little first-years all about life, the universe, and everything. I like knowing stuff.

Uh. So that's my quarter in a nutshell... I'll fill it in more as I go. I promise I'll start posting again. :-) Love you all!

Emotions

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 04:20:43 GMT

Yeah, so I hate writing posts like that last one. They're kind of silly, but I guess I had to get it out of my system.

Things are looking up in the schoolwork department. I'm done with a lot of my catching up, so I'm feeling a lot better about that stuff. Much less frantic, and therefore less angsty, which is a good thing. Climbing back on top of my mountain o' stuff. It's a good feeling. I had tea and watched my French film to write my mini-essay on. The film was incredibly strange... pretty entertaining, though, I gotta say. And I managed to pick out a lot of the stuff that was going on without the help of the subtitles. So now, I just have two days' worth of French and Egyptian homework, three days' worth of Egyptian reading, and four days' worth of Linguistics reading to catch up on. Shouldn't be too bad, especially considering that the Linguistics is not the most urgent stuff in the world. Anyway, I'm gonna get to that, so I'll maybe get more than four hours' sleep tonight.

Pennies

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:22:45 GMT

Ah, madness. ::bangs head on desk::

Updates

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 13:53:44 GMT

So... right. School. I promise I exist, really. I'm just doing a lot more than classes - for example: fencing, the Shady Dealer, Aristocratic Octopus, and two discussion sections for said classes, not to mention homework and seeing tons of people who now no longer go to my school and therefore don't keep ridiculous hours anymore like I do. Oh, the insanity. Not to mention, there are a few people around the dorm who like to make life a living hell for Margot. They did something similar to me, but to a far lesser extent. I'm angry about this, and I'm trying to figure out some way to fight it. I'll probably set up a meeting with Robin and Jeremy. I'm not sure what it will do, but at least it's a shot. I won't let my home get corrupted, not if I have anything to say about it.

Colors

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 06:21:15 GMT

I took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Desires a tranquil, peaceful state of harmony offe..."

Click here to read the rest of the results.

Times

Sun, 25 Sep 2005 08:22:51 GMT

Schedule for this quarter, for reference purposes:

Monday:
8:30-9:20: Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs
9:30-10:20: Arabic
10:30-11:20: French

Tuesday:
9:00-10:20: Arabic
1:30-2:50: Linguistics

Repeat.

Just got back not too long ago from dinner/hanging out with Charles and Ben. It was really great to see Ben again; it had been a while. And Pat, Duff, Alex and Chris are wonderful for helping me carry things up the stairs. And Jim and Lisy and Margot are just wonderful because I love them and missed them. And so are a lot of other people who I don't really have the time or the space to mention because I'm falling asleep and need to go crawl in bed (which is riiiiight next to me, actually, because my room is teeny. but i don't mind.) G'night all.

Questions

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 09:22:30 GMT

Ah, quizzes. The (temporary) cure for boredom. This first one was surprisingly accurate, as I'm sure many of you will notice.

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to good manners and elegance.

In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored.

You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was insecure and in constant need of reassurance.

Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage something you've always wanted... though you haven't really thought about it.

In this moment, you think of love as something you don't need. You just feel like flirting around and playing right now.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

You Are an Indie Rocker!

You are in it for the love of the music...
And you couldn't care less about being signed by a big label.
You're all about loving and supporting music - not commercial success.
You may not have the fame and glory, but you have complete control of your career.

What Kind of Rocker Are You?

How You Life Your Life

You seem to be straight forward, but you keep a lot inside.
You're laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think.
You prefer a variety of friends and tend to change friends quickly.
You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable.

How Do You Live Your Life?

Yeah, so, not much else to do at four-thirty in the morning. Um... enjoy.

Prompts

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 19:02:47 GMT

I haven't updated recently because I'm working on this big thing that I'm going to post in my next real update. But first, this was too good to pass up, and also, I'm obliged to do it now. I pulled this off of Clint's LJ. I'll give you the prompts, and then I'll give you his responses to me.

1) Reply with your name and I'll respond with something random about you.
2) I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3) I'll pick a flavor/color of jello to wrestle with you in. (Maybe.)
4) I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5) I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6) I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7) I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8) If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal. You MUST. It is written. (I know there are a lot of readers of my journal out there that don't have ones of their own. That's cool. But if you do have one and don't post it, I WILL FIND OUT. Don't make me kill you.)

So, I commented to Clint and he replied with these for me:
1) You'd probably like my roomie... he's a bit like Will, but seems to have a sense of responsibility... he seems quite deep too... Agnostic Philosopher...
2) "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies
3) Green? I dunno... wrestling you in jello has never been on my to-do list...
4) I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5) Meeting you at lunch... you didn't seem nerdy back then...
6) Hummingbird
7) What on earth possessed you to date Will???
8) DO IT...

I thought Hummingbird was intriguing. I don't have that much energy. Also, he only put "One Week" because Ana and I blast it every time we're in the car together, and I know all the words, which he thinks is sick. :-P And #7 I just find funny.

So yeah, go ahead, y'all, comment. And I'll do the same. Because Clint will murder me if I don't.

And just because I haven't done one in a while:
St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.
St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
St. Joan of Arc, pray for us.