Saturday, March 31, 2012

but who is the blondest in the land

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    The only thing that can make the situation of waking up and having to go to class with about four and a half hours less sleep than one needs any worse than itself is discovering, as one is blearily fumbling about in the shower, that one has Kate Bush's song "Wuthering Heights" stuck in one's head. That is not even a song that one can sing along to, at least not if one is trying to match her in octave.Or if one doesn't want people checking on one because they heard noises and were concerned.

    In other news, I was playing volleyball for a couple hours today because that's something we do and friend Johnathan once mistook me for tall, athletic boy Ian, presumably because right now Ian and I have very similar wavy, unkempt, short blonde hair. This was quite amusing to some of the girls we were playing with. Honestly! I'm like a foot shorter than Ian. And kind of female.

Totally no resemblance. No resemblance anywhere for miles.

    In good news, I have no classes on Tuesday or Friday next week and no major assignments due for the remaining Wednesday and Thursday. That'll be nice.
    Now, as the drugs are not kicking in, I should go to bed.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

tomorrow there will be cupcakes

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Things I've been finding fascinating lately:

  • Eugenics and social Darwinism
  • The principles and conditions of holy war in the Old Testament
  • Clothing styles for professors, male and female

 

    Things I've learned to enjoy in this semester:

  • Watching basketball games (in person)
  • Watching soccer games (in person)
  • Sourdough bread (with warm potato soup) 
  • Orange pens

   

 Awesome phrases Dr. Mac has made up history classes this past week:

  • "proto-pan-Arab nationalism" (when he was teaching us about the creation of the Suez Canal)
  • "volk ethos" (he was so excited about this one, he even wrote it on the board, and when class was over I took a picture of it on the board with my phone and he was like "NICE")
    Now here is an extremely silly picture taken by friend Shelli of me swing-dancing with a swanky older dude at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Pasadena, just to add color.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

and these are only the major weirdnesses

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    So! I think I need to recap my week.

    Monday morning and afternoon, Gabby and I set out with her mother and sister to drive back to college with the close of spring break. We stopped along the way and spent an hour or two at a mall, eating and shopping for various unnecessary delights. I got back to campus in the late afternoon and, plugging in my previously turned-off phone, found a text from a college staff member sent to both Roommate Courtney and me, asking us if we were ok with hosting a campus visitor who would be arriving that evening and who was a friend of Courtney's.

    Then there was jell-o in fancy cups with whipped cream on top for dessert at dinner. That has never happened before.

    Then our visitor, Carissa, arrived in the evening when I still had quite a bit of homework to do and no idea when Courtney would be back.

    Then I called Courtney and found out she would be flying into the airport at 10pm, but that she had been unable to get a ride from the airport to campus. And she needed me to get her a ride at extremely short notice. That was definitely something of a struggle.

    Very weird move-in day.

    Tuesday I was back to classes, Professor Mine Enemy and Professor-Madame King Arthur had both gotten haircuts, there was a staff and faculty meeting in the morning which was Important and which left PME distracted in his teaching and P-MKA and Dr. Mac both a little preoccupied and dizzy and which no one would tell us about.

    Wednesday afternoon was lovely. I went hiking with a couple of friends.

    Visitor Carissa stayed with us from Monday night until Thursday morning. It's very unusual to have a visitor in the middle of the week; usually they stay a day or two on specifically set visit-weekends.

    Today, Friday, the people in charge finally told us all what the Important Meeting on Tuesday was about. First in an email early in the morning, so I heard it from someone as I was walking to my History class, and then our dean talked about it more at chapel and there are announcements all over websites and Facebook. It's a major change in the future of my college, we know almost nothing, and we won't know more until Monday morning. This is somewhat frustrating. The future is uncertain in several ways right now.

    The event was all everyone talked about all day. By the evening, after dinner, I was (I'll admit) getting a bit stressed out, so Upperclassman Laura and I were like "we should watch a movie" and somehow we ended up watching Mary Poppins, which neither of us had ever seen before. That was extremely therapeutic. Escapism is the most wonderful thing sometimes.

    Then it was like 10pm and I was like "I really don't feel up to schoolwork" but I didn't know what to do with myself so I was talking to fellow freshman Marissa and we ended up talking about musical instruments and we both could play instruments and then suddenly we were borrowing a violin from someone (even though I've barely played in the last four years) and Marissa was getting her guitar and sheet music out and we were playing Taylor Swift songs with me on violin and her singing and playing the guitar. I don't even listen to Taylor Swift.

    Oh my lands, what a weird day.

Here's a camel I brought home from spring break. It was Jim's, and it was sitting on a shelf in his room and I was like "oh my gosh you have a camel it is so beautiful" and he was like "do you want it?" so now it's mine.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

the night that was surreal

    Dear Harriet Walter,

  • Oh my lands
  • so Gabby and Cameron and I were at Starbucks for two hours this evening
  • and I was reading Frankenstein
  • I swear I read at least a third of that book today
  • and we had coffee drinks
  • and I forgot to get mine decaf
  • and then we went home and I finished the last few pages of Frankenstein
  • and it was astoundingly depressing
  • really astonishingly
  • but it was also amazingly amazing
  • like actually
  • and then I finished it and was like "welp"
  • and tossed it against the wall and got up
  • and went at breathed at my reflection in the bathroom mirror
  • a lot
  • and then Gabby was like "we're watching Annie because you haven't seen it"
  • and I was like "k"
  • but in an existentially uprooted way
  • (because of Frankenstein)
  • and then we watched Annie
  • and then I put peanut butter on a flour tortilla and microwaved it and rolled it up and ate it and stared at the wall
  • and now Gabby's like "ice cream time"
  • and she's got the mugs out
  • oh my lands I have so many questions about the universe

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

brownies and freedom are delicious


    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Well!

    Midterms went all right, and we are now on spring break. Friend/fellow student Gabby and I stayed at Friend Jim's house in Long Beach with him and his family for the first four days, and now Gabby and I are with her family in the desert.

    Jim's house was nice and bright and open and clean, full of art and nice photos and nice decorations, in a nice neighborhood, with a beautiful secluded little backyard and a little shed thing which was garage on one side of the wall and Jim's bedroom on the other side. Gabby and I stayed in the guest bedroom and all of us were happy every day. Now that we're away from noisy Jim things are much quieter and I've gotten some good reading done. Today Gabby and her sister Cameron and I went out on rollerblades and then when we got home Gabby and I made brownies and they're baaaaking right now and I can smell them.

    Anyway, rather than a chronological account of the things I've been up to, here are some lists.

    Things I have eaten while I've been on break: 
  • Delicious stew
  • Delicious noodles
  • Proper cereal
  • Delicious canned pears
  • Delicious lasagna
  • Fresh apples
  • Delicious pancakes made from scratch 
  • Delicious chopped strawberries eaten with delicious French vanilla ice cream
  • Delicious fast food made delicious by the fact that it was eaten on break
  • Delicious mozzarella cheese that Jim was grating for the lasagna
  • Delicious chocolate chip cookies that Gabby and I made
  • Delicious steak and mashed potatoes and asparagus for Sunday dinner 
  • Delicious sushi
  • Delicious homemade enchiladas

    Things I have petted with two fingers lately:
  • Jellyfish
  • Baby sharks
  • Several kinds of anemone
  • Stingrays
  • Those large crab things that don't look like crabs, I forget their name
  • More baby sharks
      (We went to Long Beach Aquarium one day because Jim used to work there.) 

    Things I have petted with more than two fingers lately:
  • Jim's dog Cosette
  • cat Beethoven
  • cat Grayboy
  • cat Chloe 
  • cat Tippy
  • Jim's nameless bearded dragons
  • Gabby's dog Kaya
  • Gabby's cat Snickers
     Movies I have watched so far:
  • Roman Holiday
  • The Wizard of Oz
  • Jurassic Park 
  • Fiddler on the Roof  (we started at 10pm and it is a very long movie, by the end it was after 1 and I was half-asleep and Jim had to carry sleeping Gabby to bed because she was so totally out)
  • The Sword in the Stone (one of my favorites)
  • Ever After (Gabby's favorite)
    Number of beaches I have been to: Two or three, depending on how you argue the one next to the aquarium. There was no sand involved, but there was a park with a hill with a lighthouse on top of it and we sat on a bench next to the lighthouse and ate burgers and watched ships in the pier.

    Other experiences, ones more difficult to categorize, include Jim and Gabby and me walking to Trader Joe's several times for things like milk and ice cream, Gabby helping Jim feed his bearded dragon antibiotics every day, stargazing, the actual creation of the delicious cookies, Jim and Gabby having cartwheel and handstand competitions at the park next to the aquarium and at the beach, going to Jim's church, random Starbucks runs, visiting a reptile shop, Gabby skating around on Jim's dinky old skateboard, watching TV until we were glassy-eyed whenever we'd finish a movie, playing cards with Gabby and her family, watching cooking shows with Gabby, and the fact that Gabby and I are sleeping in a trailer in the backyard.

This is what it looks like when I pack for spring break.
Gabby helping Jim do a handstand.

    Overall it's been wonderful, and we've got three more days before we head back to school on Monday and classes start on Tuesday.

    Wait wait wait let's have a beachy sunset picture, I took so many beachy sunset pictures