Re: Paco (reply-all)

Reply-alls suck.  I get it now. I get all the lame office humor about conference calls and intra-office memos.  I may even enjoy Office Space more now. 

A few weeks ago, I became part of a weekly event called Subway Wednesdays.  An email would go out Wednesday morning asking who was planning on coming.  Once I replied, however, I became bombarded by reply-alls.  They all referred to an inside joke about a pinata from the office July 4th barbeque. 



At first the magnitude of the emails annoyed me, but it was actually pretty funny...

Me:  agh I keep getting email notices
        and they are reply-alls to a lunch invite today
        and they are all jokes about some girl named Liz marrying a pinata named Paco

Jenna:  you're making this up

Me:  and this last one:

"Hey Alex, how bout we throw Paco a bachelor party?! Nothing but the finest equine for our ol' buddy! "

Jenna:   hahaha the people you work with are awesome
 
Me:  except I know for a FACT they can not bring Paco to lunch today
        at least not all of him
        because his leg is in my cubicle

Jenna:  O_O

Me:  hollowed out and full of Reese's cups

Jenna:  that is grotesque, madam  

           and incredibly tasty
Me:     SPOILS OF WAR
 

Jenna:  hahaha
           speaking of severed limbs, DEXTER

things I think about in the airport...

I'd like to share a few examples of how my mind occupies itself when its plane is delayed for two hours. I scribbled down a few starts for things to eventually blog and apparently today is "eventually." Here they are.

I have a habit of, every once in a while, looking around and thinking "these are the people."

These are the people I will be trapped in this elevator with.
These are the people who will be left alive with me if everything in the world is destroyed except for this room. Everything  except for this specific bank of seats in the B gates at the LaGuardia airport.
These are the people who might (in a survival situation) look at me and think to themselves "could I eat a human being?" Or, you know, vice versa.
These are the people I will be stranded on a deserted island with (if somehow this plane from New York to Atlanta flies over a deserted island. Or an ocean for that matter).

These are the people.

please don't let me spend my last hours on a MARTA train

I will scan the faces of the people around me, trying to judge their character by the way that they talk or laugh or whether they move their stuff and offer the seat next to them. He's a good guy, I think. But will his kindness make him weak? These are the kind of things you need to know. 
(Additionally, which one of these people is most likely to stab me? The small Asian boy. Watching Power Rangers on his iTouch. Just trying to be a hero.)

So this is who I'm stuck with, I think. I already hate the way that woman cackles at her cell phone. That guy over there didn't even bring a book to an airport. He's clearly not the survival type. That muscly guy on his laptop could be useful... Maybe he's a g-man or an ex-cop. 
So as people around me stress about having to deplane and where Gretchen put her boarding pass ("is it in your bag? It's GOTTA be in your bag cuz it sure as HELL ain't in mine!") I am assembling my team. And deciding who to leave behind if we find an abandoned working vehicle in our now post-apocalyptic landscape. 
...I'm looking at you, cackling cell phone lady.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

mmmm light pollution

As my plane was flying over New York on the way back home, I looked down on the sparkling city below.  I had already been delayed 3 hours and thought I might sleep on the plane until I got distracted by the view outside my cabin window.

Then my sense of geography started to fail me.
If that's New York, and we're on the East Coast...it looks like we're going further East right into the ocean! Or maybe North to Canada??  

This worry (that the pilot had no idea where he was going and I was going to be stranded in Canada for the night) began to creep into my thoughts and disrupt my reading.

"Tobacco,  introduced to London the year after Shakespeare's birth,...  

Oh no what if the flight is actually going to Canada?

...was a luxury at first but soon gained such widespread popularity... 

I got in the right gate. Right? B8. Yeah. I got in the right gate. My ticket was scanned. It made that satisfying "ping" noise that means I am supposed to be on this plane.

...that by the end of the century there were no fewer than seven thousand tobacconists in the City....  

Dad would be so upset if he drove all the way to the airport at midnight and I'm actually in Canada.

...It was employed not only for pleasure but as a treatment for a broad range of complaints... 

no. they won't be upset. They'll be worried, won't they? I'll probably end up crying if I have to call home and say I accidentally ended up in Canada.

...including venereal disease,... 

but NO. I won't cry. I'm an adult. I'm a grown-ass woman. I just went to New York all by myself!

...migraine,...

I'll take care of everything. I can get myself a hotel or something, and email work to explain my absence and book a new flight and - yeah. I'll be fine. 

...and even bad breath." 

Shit, I have to read that whole passage again. Didn't take in a word of it.

(excerpts from Bill Bryson's Shakespeare: The World as Stage)

litter bug

Today I walked to my dad's office (from my office 6 blocks away) to pick up his car to drive home since he went out of town on business.

That is too much information.

The important part is that I walked 6 blocks, strolling over a bridge and past a few homeless men sleeping under some trees.  In doing so, I encountered the usual debris that you find on the side of the road: empty bottles and cans, plastic grocery bags, spoons, towels and articles of clothing that have been soaked by the rain and dried into misshapen slabs of shirt-brick.

I don't know or understand the mindset behind littering.  Is it really "Oh, I am done using this piece of garbage/spork/Haynes t-shirt, so I may as well drop it where I stand instead of finding an appropriate trash or recycling receptacle in which to deposit it."
Maybe it's "I bet I can make it into that trashcan from here! [pause] Oh well."
Or "AHHHH I am being chased by a vagrant/thug/angry mother bear! I must empty my arms of all this trash so that I can run away to safety unencumbered!"

One of my fears is littering that happens by accident.

Say you are in the middle of a six hour road trip.  You recently stopped for lunch, but haven't stopped at a gas station since, so Happy Meal bags litter the floor with their junk food brethren: empty pretzel bag and Ziploc baggies once filled with cereal.
Suddenly the mood strikes you, and you realize what a beautiful day it is and decide to roll down the window when ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE and your bags whip around in a junk food tornado, and just as you are cursing your bad food decisions and promising yourself that on your next trip you will bring PB&Js from home and maybe some carrot sticks or grapes if you have them and they're not too sour or some hummus if you can find those pita chips from the party two weeks ago, the tornado of trash finds it's exit out a tiny gap in the window you are rushing to close and zips out of site to fly haphazardly between several lanes of traffic.
The next thing you know you are getting pulled over by highway patrol and assigned a $5,000 fine in a state you would never even want to live in, let alone pay 5K to.

This is my night mare.

Top 5 Most Disconcerting Pieces of Highway Trash:

1. Scrubs - you know, doctor pajamas.  Why these would end up on the side of the road baffles me.  Best Case Scenario: a new father wears them in the Delivery Room and tears them off in a fit of joy at the birth of his son, opens the window, and tosses them out to drift to the street below.  Worst Case Scenario: sloppy murderer.
2. Gloves - not gardening gloves, which belong outside, but medical latex gloves. BCS: a volunteer doctor uses them while testing a homeless man for AIDS or the flu or something, and snaps them off and drops them to the ground, accustomed to the OR where dropping latex gloves is common practice.  WCS: sloppy murderer. (clearly clean enough to use gloves/scrubs, but not enough to think to burn them instead of flinging evidence around. Unless he/she wants to get caught...like it's a game. oh damn)
3. Trash bags - opaque black trash bags, in particular.  My mother implanted the horrifying thought that there might be a baby in that bag on the side of the highway.  A poor defenseless baby its parents didn't want. BCS: the trash bag tumbles out of the back of a pick-up truck as it gains speed. WCS: Abandoned baby.
4. Needles - maybe you've never encountered a syringe outside the doctor's office, but I have, and let me tell you it is not pleasant. BCS: drugs. WCS: drugs.
5. Underwear - somehow I always see t-shirts or underwear on the side of the road. This happens too often to be allowed.  BCS: a seven year old rushes to keep up with his mom as they walk to Centennial Olympic Park to play in the fountains. In his dash to catch up to her, his underwear falls out of the pile of dry clothes he is holding and lands, dejected, on the sidewalk. WCS: rape.

So, you just learned a lot about how my brain works! Yay!

...I'm sorry.

soup to nuts

Riding the train to an internship where I earn good money while being held responsible for projects that actually matter to the progress of the company may trick me into thinking I am an adult, but this is not so.

I was in a meeting the other day (doesn't that sound so grown up?) hearing a pitch from an interactive media company.  They presented their services and generally talked themselves up for any future business we might be able to give them. They promised to follow through with a project, and assured us they were more than capable to join a project at any point in its development. They would be able to work with us "from soup to nuts."

From soup. To nuts.

I wrote the phrase down on my paper, and because there wasn't much else to take notes on in this meeting, it stood out a bit on the page, attracting the attention of my fellow intern, who chuckled appreciatively.  He then started to doodle a soup bowl and a handful of peanuts with an arrow between them. I puzzled over where this phrase could have come from.  I know it meant from begininng to end or running the gamut or whatever, and behold, according to Wikipedia...

It is derived from the description of a full course dinner, in which courses progress from soup to a dessert of nuts.

 AHA! So now you know.

He then promised that they will monitor and investigate all steps of the project, saying "we do due diligence."

...unsurprisingly "doo doo diligence" inspired many suppressed giggles and acted as a gentle reminder that although I might dress for work and be able to vote and eat hummus and could potentially serve my country in the armed forces, I am not, in fact, an adult. 

FYI- "Soup to Nuts" is also the name of a 1928 comedy in the vane of Amelia Bedelia and the title of an episode of the acclaimed television series That's So Raven.

a drop in the family bucket

First of all, when did Neville get kinda hot? Things are changing so much!
Now to business.

So of course Mother's Day was a family adventure. Brothers and cousins full-on beating each other in the front yard, babies on the driveway, and 30 pounds of crawfish. We spent the day celebrating mothers and my cousin Laura's graduation with a crawfish boil.

Here are some soundbites from the day:

Dad (trying to share the art of crawfish boiling): You see, I am executing perfect technique: everything one-handed.
Because I need the other hand for.... what do I need the other hand for?
Me: Beer.
Dad: That's right. A beer. You are learning so fast!

My grandfather recently read a book about a grand prix racer told from the point of view of his dog. Yes, his dog. And the facts he shared with us sounded like the kinds of "did you knows" that he typically brings up at family functions.
Poppy: But really, dogs hate crows!  They like sparrows because they're close to God, but they hate crows. Hate 'em. 
(there were several more minutes of this, but I can not begin to commit to written word the intensity with which he conveyed this information. Like it was personally handed down to him by the Czar of Information and Facts.)


(My cousin Susan (24) left the conversation to smoke a cigarette as she talked to her aunt on the phone. After a few minutes or so, she comes back and sits down.)
Susan: :cough: 
Ryan: (pretending to cough) :cigarettes!:
Susan: Shut up! :cough: :cough:
Ryan: (pretending to cough) :two: :cigarettes!:
As you can imagine, this did not endear him to her and may have led to a bit of a tiff between two strong-willed argumentative family members. And it also may have begun the winding down that led us to finally pack up and leave. But who can tell? So many little things build up to get us to realize we can't spend any more time with each other. This was probably just one drop in the bucket.

Another fun family day with a fun fun family. My cousin Aidan spent a few hours stirring the crawfish and trying to make them bite his fingers. My brothers punched each other in the front yard. And we all spent hours in the sun, sweating, drinking and eating. Could not have been a better day.

Well. Maybe it could have.

I scream, you scream!

Yesterday was FREE CONE DAY at Ben and Jerry's.  Also know as "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," "The Happiest Day All Year," "Best Day Ever" or "Ice Cream Gorge-fest 2011."  I may have gone a bit overboard in my excitement this year.

I have partaken in Free Cone Day quite a few times in the past five years, but not until college did I realize that I had the ability, nay, the talent required to finagle more than one.

Freshman year I went after lunch and then returned (gasp!) after dinner. Two in one day. I felt guilty. I worried that the scooper would recognize me from earlier, but luckily she didn't say anything.

Last year, I was a bit more ambitious. I went early with a friend, ate my free cone outside the shop and immediately reentered the line, this time putting my hair up and pulling on my sweater.
They were fooled. I felt unstoppable. Like many other times in my life, I thought to myself: wow, I could totally be a spy. 
I walked back to campus, fresh from my double-ice-cream-invincibility high. As i passed a friend, I told them of the good news:

Me: It's Free Cone Day at Ben and Jerry's!

Friend: No way! Let's go!
Me:  Alright!
 This happened two more times, and I ended the day having consumed FIVE free ice cream cones.

When this year's FCD rolled around, I had one goal:

beat last year's total.

However, these are not the carefree days of freshman year or the relatively unburdened days of sophomore year. I have worse classes, more obligations and more work. This year, I knew I had to eat six cones, and I knew that I had to do it in two hours. My classes ended at 1:30, and I had to get to work at 4:30, which (with walking times accounted for) gave me between 2 and 4 to wait in line for and consume six free cones. 

And I DID IT.

I would like to thank Ben and Jerry's for creating this wonderful event, Michael and Shane for partaking in the first cone of the day, and Jake for sticking with me for two hours, helping me keep pace and giving me someone with whom to share the horrible experience of Jimmy Fallon's new ice cream flavor. 

Here were the flavors in the order I ate them (I did repeat once):

1. Phish Food- chocolate ice cream with fudge fish swimming in marshmallow and caramel swirls
2. Mango Mango sorbet- deliciousness, and a nice alternative to cleanse the palate
3. Chocolate chip Cookie Dough- classic
4. Late Night Snack- Jimmy Fallon's flavor- vanilla ice cream with a salty caramel swirl and chocolate covered potato chip clusters. Like biting into a chocolate covered salt-lick.
5. Mango mango (again)- I needed to recover from the salt-lick.
6. Americone Dream- ending the day with a favorite. Stephen Colbert's flavor- vanilla ice cream with a caramel swirl and chocolate covered waffle cone pieces.

Dizzy Teddy and Brah-ms

I think it's safe to say that the worst word pair you can hear in a classroom is "group project."

...followed closely by "gas leak" or "cumulative final."

My Happiness class (which is slowly becoming an ironic title) has a group project component. We have to make up our own research question about happiness and design a research study and...

I already don't want to do this. I hope this isn't a reflection on my interest level in the subject! It's probably just a representation of my horrible work ethic. For example, I have a research paper due next Wednesday and I was all gung-ho to start writing/accumulating research and instead I sat down to my computer and started blogging. Blerg.

Anyway, group projects. Every group project is the same.  No matter how many members, it could be two, it could be ten, there will be ONE person whose schedule is days ahead of everyone else. This person makes the others feel lazy, but to appease this member, the others pump out whatever they were supposed to contribute according to the Proactive Person's schedule. How is that fair? It's not. But life isn't fair, as I was reminded constantly as a child.

There is also always AT LEAST one  incompetent slacker who has decided to ride on the coattails of the other group members, who are all really just towed behind the Proactive Person. Incompetent Slacker will finish his/her assignment at the last possible second and rarely be on time/show up to group meetings in the library.

During my last group project, I discovered that I was the slacker for the first time in the history of my education. I felt terrible to be bringing down my group, but then I discovered how liberating it was not having to carry the rest of the group as Ms. Proactive. And now I am spoiled and I don't want to be that person ever again. It's a vicious cycle. Actually, it's more like when you realize that the backpack you have been lugging around all day is 470 pounds and if you carry your books to class one at a time instead of being prepared for everything all the time, you are much more comfortable.
I mean I guess. I haven't taken my books to class since freshman year.

So in Happiness class, we are charged to make groups of four. I look at the three people in my immediate area.

1. Thom (see RLS: MetalSlayer) 
2. Thom's metal friend, who looks like a teddy bear that has been through the dryer one-too-many times. His hair sticks up, fluffy, and there is a slight dizzy look to him as he talks about the freaktacular MetalSlayer album out next month.
3. Brah-guy, named for his propensity to refer to people as "brah," which is slightly acceptable given our proximity to the beach. He has short red hair and clothes that look like he's been wearing them for years, not in a dirty way but in a loose and comfortable way. He's the kind of person who insists on wearing flip flops year-round.

 I really need to stop judging people.

Upon seeing my prospects for my group, I decided to talk to my professor after class and request a random assignment. But then, I thought, what if she assigns me to these dudes anyway? Decisions, decisions. I thought, for sure I will be Proactive Patty for this group. Damn.

As I sat lost in my own worry and ignoring the last few minutes of class, I write my contact info on the sheet of paper Brah-guy has handed me, and I hear Dazed Teddy addressing me from his seat directly behind me.

"Cookies. You want cookies? Cookies?"
Oh, man. This guy is high.
"I mean," he clarifies, "would you like some cookies? I work at a bakery and I took a bunch home today."

It turns out he works at Baked, one of my favorite bakeries in Charleston and just as I am about to say "sure! do you have any Monster cookies? They're my favorite," he says
"Do you want a Monster cookie? And I have chocolate chip. Take a few!"



Maybe this group thing will work out after all.

time is running out

I need to make a decision. About my future  my class schedule. By Monday. I need help.

I have two required classes left to take for Psychology. And two semesters. I'm not going to get into how guilty I feel that I didn't graduate early, but for now my only defense is that I have to write my Bachelor's Essay next year for the Honors College, which is like writing an Undergrad thesis. And it is gonna take a lot of research and a lot of time.
Anyway. Time is running out.

I have to take my psychology lab OR Cognitive Psychology next semester, but not both, because then I complete my major and lose my scholarship. At least that is what I have been told. 

Option 1: Take Cognitive next semester, and hope that the labs don't fill up in the Spring.
Option 2:  Take the Conditioning and Learning lab next semester.

Why Claire, you say, you don't like your Conditioning class now, and you probably don't want to work with a rat for four months next semester, why would you take this lab? Simple, I answer, because all the other labs have prerequisites and even though I feel like I have taken all the psych classes C of C offers, I have so far managed to not take any of the other three lab classes except C + L. Damn.

So I either take a lab that I will probably not like and get awful friendly with a five pound rodent next semester, or I run the risk of signing up in the Spring and somehow (despite priority registration) missing out on this quickly-filling class and not getting to graduate.

Help!

today

Things that happened today that made me HAPPY*:

1. chat with Sister Germana this afternoon at the Daughters of Saint Paul bookstore (aka "walk-in clinic for the soul")
2. bought new sunglasses for $1.50 (after accidentally sitting on my other pair)
3. conversing with academics about academics. 
4. chicken bowl for lunch with Corey at Mama Kim's
5. this beautiful Charleston weather
6. Mumford and Sons.
7. THIS WEBSITE. Thank you, Harrison.

*I'm using the folk definition of happiness: common happiness. Good feelings. Not to be confused with the Greek account of eudaimonia (virtue ethics) or any of  the anti-eudaimonist accounts.

OK. so about Valentine's day...

For some reason people were worried about me being lonely on Valentine's Day. Because I am currently unattached, this must mean that V-day means Single's Awareness Day (SAD) and upon the stroke of midnight incurs uncontrollable sobbing and self-deprecation.  Not so.

This Valentine's Day (or as Harrison put it "Clearance Chocolates Eve") was amazing! I enjoyed many of the same things couples do on this loveliest of love days:

1. Valentines- dinosaurs and chocolates and a hand-drawn one on my door that said "let's stick together" with a little happy-faced glue bottle
2. Expressions of love from loved ones- my parents sent me a package full of my fiddle music!
3. Serenades- I had a song written about me by the lovely Katelyn Carter and got to hear some new Brother stuff from Shane (:fan girl squee:)
4. Pink things!- clothes and shoes and cupcakes!
5. Treating myself for no reason other than it being the 14th of February- I enjoyed a very delicious and free coffee from Starbucks and a Chocolate Strawberry cupcake from Cupcake. 
6. Dinner with loved ones- even if it was at Liberty cafeteria...

The day was near perfect. However, I did get a rather annoying text message. This is how I read it (witnesses will assure you it was not much different):

Hey Claire! It's that guy you are friendly acquaintances with from church who hasn't talked to you since I started dating that girl that you don't talk to anymore! So anyway, I invited a real good friend of mine (read: lonely fellow-Navy-man) to my intimate Valentine's dinner with me and that girl who hasn't talked to you since freshman year. I was hoping you could drop whatever you're doing this evening to come out with us and make him feel like he isn't a third wheel (which he totally is). Let's face it, you are probably just watching sappy chick flicks and shopping for cats on the internet, because that's what single girls do, right? So come out with us tonight (it's 6:35, so that gives you enough time to put on deodorant at least) instead of sobbing into your ice cream! I'm totally paying for everything. See how nice I am? ;) K bye.  

Several problems with this:

1. no, I don't want to double date with a friendly acquaintance, a stranger, and a girl with a grudge against me.
2. it's 6:35. I already had dinner.
3. I could have romantic dinner plans of my own!
4. Just because I'm single doesn't mean I will take every desperate stranger you throw at me! Show me a picture first. And does he like Muse?
5. why did you invite that guy to your V-day dinner? To get him a date. And your girlfriend is in a sorority full of single girls, so I am pretty sure I was far down on a list of possibilities. It was 6:35. Now I am many-times insulted.

Luckily, I got this about an hour after he sent it, so I had a more legitimate excuse than "ummm...no." But seriously. Like I had nothing better to do!

bet your bottom dollar

Today is beautiful and sunny!
Too warm for a winter coat, but too cold for short sleeves or bare legs... it still has some improving to do, but it will be hot and humid soon enough.

I decided to go for a walk to get out of my room and allow myself to do something on Saturday besides taking advantage of the faster internet connection while the rest of the campus sleeps off their hangovers.

So I went outside. I called my grandmother, went window shopping, and talked to my friend Kala on the phone for...well, for a long time. While I was walking down Queen street, I watched my feet as I walked, anxious not to scuff up my leather boots (which are sadly, coming apart a bit) and to avoid tripping on the sidewalk and looking like a tourist. I was stepping over a jutting root when I saw it: a small, plastic, gold and clear card. It was unmistakeable. This was a Starbucks giftcard.

I stooped to pick it up, thinking that it was probably there on purpose; that someone had discarded it after discovering there was only .47 left. But I pocketed it anyway, conscious of the people walking behind me who probably thought "Oh, look at that poor girl scraping up street change. Throw some nickles at her, Winston." And I continued talking to Kala and walking down the street.

Later, I took it to a Starbucks (of course there are 4 within walking distance) and discovered that this beat-up piece of plastic is actually worth: ............................(drumroll, please)...............................

 Twenty two dollars and thirty-six cents. 

Huzzah! Good find of the year! It's even better than finding a $20 on the ground! $2.36 better!

However, after I purchased my grande iced coffee with cream and sugar, I began to feel sad for the person that lost it. I imagine two scenarios:

1. Mr. Blank is nervous but excited about his afternoon rendezvous with Ms. Whatserface. They have been flirting back and forth for a while now, but he has only recently scraped up enough nerve to ask her to coffee. Today is the day. As he exits the parking garage, he quickly checks his pockets: wallet, keys, gift card. All there. He checks the time on his watch and realizes he is cutting it a bit close. Imagine if she were waiting there, thinking he was standing her up! He shoves the wallet, keys and gift card back into his jacket pocket, hastily neglecting to replace the crucial gift card in his overstuffed wallet. As he turns to walk down the street, he absent-mindedly bumps into a large man taking pictures with a comically large camera. He is so distracted by the size of the lens, he doesn't notice the gift card tumble out of his pocket and land, face down, on the dirty Charleston sidewalk.
2. Mr. Man is waiting, irritated, leaned against the wall of the restaurant on Queen street. She's late. Again. On purpose. Probably with another guy, or with one of her annoying friends. He spits angrily on the sidewalk. Women. His iPhone is dead, again, so he opens his wallet and starts discarding things he has no use for: that jerk's business card, that movie ticket stub, the "Frequent Eaters" card from that deli that closed, an old Starbucks gift card. It probably has zero dollars on it, and even if it doesn't, she's the only one who likes coffee. As he finds each item, he flicks them agitatedly into the street. Business card. Flick. Ticket stub. Flick. Gift card. Flick. Stomp. Stomp, stomp. Kick. He stands still for a moment, then decides something. He turns and heads towards Subway. Screw her. 

I like the second scenario better because I feel less guilty about taking it from someone who is such a d-bag.

squeeeek

It is 47 degrees outside.

OK, so this week is hell week.I can;t wait for it to be over so that I can start taking finals! Never thought I would say that. I have spent the past several nights in the library until late o'clock (I finally took advantage of the library being open 24/7- which means after 2- last night. I am both very proud and very tired.) and I have learned a few things:

when it is the same level of pitch darkness outside from 5PM to 5AM, it is difficult to fully comprehend how late it is, but there are a few ways to tell it is way too late to be up studying (if I were up late doing fun things, it would never be "too late." puh. I'm a disco night owl.):

• no one is out on the street when I come back from the library. It kinda feels like a zombie movie: nearly everyone is gone, hidden away somewhere, and the people on the streets are dangerous and have a glazed look in their eyes (these are just the student smokers sitting outside the library). 
• the night watchman is at the desk instead of a student. They are nice guys, usually. But come on, there is a reason they work at night.
• I am ravenously hungry but too lazy to do anything about it. I need more snacks.
• I might microwave an empty cup. Or forget my keys again. These are both signs that tell me it's finals week. 

On the bright side, I feel much more capable as a writer! After finishing a 7 page paper for Spanish IN SPANISH, everything I write in English comes much easier. It's like a faucet has been opened and all my words just come flowing out. Yesterday it was more like trying to get that last bit off shampoo to come out of the bottle. It feels wasteful to throw the bottle away with that last half inch in there but it just will NOT come out without serious acrobatics that should not be done on a wet slippery surface or some seriously funny noises echoing around the bathroom.

Anyway. Finals next week. Looking like a cake walk compared to this.
Cue lightening bolt.

the NESP wasp

I am freaking out. Just a bit.

Tomorrow is D-Day. It should be happy and exciting, because I really only have two classes standing between me and Thanksgiving, but actually- OH WAIT there is another HUGE thing standing in the way, and that is this damned scholarship.

I have a meeting with my adviser for the NESP (Nastily Exhausting Scholarship Process) tomorrow at 12:30, right before I am allowed to leave for break. It's like seeing a lovely cake on the kitchen table and running toward it in excitement only to find a gigantic deadly wasp sitting in front of it, so that you are so freaked out about the wasp and how to maneuver yourself around it that you forget the cake is even there until the wasp decides to fly away by itself. Tomorrow is kinda like that.

I have a few more essays to write and I have convinced myself that everything I can get on paper (or a word document) is progress. Except it's NOT. Everything I have written is bullshit and that wasp is going to tear me down until all I am is a small weeping child.

Maybe I should have used pie as an example. It's more appropriate for the season.

you didn't have a name before, so now it's gonna be Poopface McAwfultiming

I need an update, and what better timing than the morning I am supposed to be at the middle school doing my independent study.

Why am I not there, you ask?

Well, because some stupid alarm clock had his time changed this weekend and has been finicky ever since. I checked my alarm before I went to sleep, like I always do. It was set for 7:30 so I would have plenty of time to get dressed and mentally prepared for talking to kids about popularity vs true friendship.

Somehow I always wake up before my alarm. This is nice because I look over at my clock, often with a mild sense of panic expecting to find that I have overslept (usually unfounded), and go back to sleep for 14 or 47 minutes. So this morning, when I woke up at 8:34, I assumed the same thing was happening. I blearily looked around the room, peeked my head over the covers and calmly checked the time, ready to plop my head back on my pillow and return to peaceful sleep.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. I overslept. I overslept on middle school day. I made my professor wait in the parking lot of my dorm for who knows how long!

Quickly, I checked my phone to see if she had called me, expecting to see "7 missed calls- check log?"  But I didn't. There was nothing. I got on my email and found her phone number, called her, and spent the next few minutes on the phone with her pacing around my living room- just like they do in the movies. I didn't think that was something people actually did, but I did it this morning. And because she is a great person, she told me it wasn't a big deal and she had called the school and told them there was a miscommunication and that I was probably sick.

Well, I certainly feel sick now.

Anyway. What's done is done and there is nothing I can do now. Even though I still feel crummy about it.

In other news:

• my second meeting about the scholarship went much better. I was prepared, in control, confident, and ready for criticism and/or deeply probing questions I didn't know the answer to.
• I started watching Dexter. This is a problem.
• I am participating in an academic competition day for Psychology tomorrow. In Lander, SC. Which is 3ish hours away, which means I will be in front of the main psych building at 6 AM. I don't even want to think about having to set my alarm to a time that starts with 5. Unless its a nap alarm- but even then I would set it to right before 6 just so I could wake up to eat dinner.
• I chaperoned for the Jr High Rally trip on Saturday. Four total hours on a bus, 30 kids, and a 20 degree drop in temperature. But I did get a recommendation letter out of it. And was also mistaken for an eighth grader...
• I am AWESOME and I need to remember that.

fat bullies can't climb trees

Last night I set to work, whittling down my (hourly) growing to-do list, deciding to tackle my power point presentation for the middle school on Monday. This semester I'm conducting an independent study with one of my professors, and we have chosen to design a counseling program for grades 5-8 at a local Catholic school.

My first presentation was going to be about bullies- how to recognize when someone is being bullied, how to tell if you're being bullied, how to tell if you are a bully, yada yada yada.  So I got to work, researching and finding appropriate pictures for the slides...but then my mind wandered off.

I started a new power point.  I went to ehow.com and looked up "how to survive a bear attack" and switched "bear" with "bully." Then I spent an embarrassing amount of time adding pictures and swapping "grizzly" with "fat bully" and "black bear" with "mean bully."

I could say that working on something tedious got my creative juices flowing and eventually I'll pop out something genius. Like when I made myself write anything, anything, to start my college admissions essay and ended up writing about Mr. Bean. And then sending it to all my schools because it was actually an awesome essay.

But really all I've done is waste time, and my To Do list is glaring at me, judgmental and disappointed.

If you want to see the powerpoint, just email me and I'll send it to you.

the shiny guy always worries

My neighbor across the hall is a very nice girl. I just learned that she is a psych major and so far enjoying her first year in college. That's about as much as I know about her. Oh, and the fact that she has THE CUTEST FOUR YR OLD BROTHER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.

"Oh no! A vampire!!" -Tristan

His name is Tristan, he has Spider-man Velcro shoes and a pretty cool umbrella: "not just any umbrella...it's a Spongebob one! It's yellow and everything!" And because my roommate and I are basically 10 years old when it comes to our interests (Star Wars, Harry Potter and superheroes), and Marca has decorated our bookshelf and TV stand with dozens of action figures, he seems to really enjoy visiting us.

On move-in weekend, while his parents were unpacking and his sister was organizing, he jet-packed over to our room and started play time.

Of course it didn't start so easy. He didn't just storm into our room demanding toys; he's too polite for that. He just leaned on our doorway for a few minutes, talking to Marca, Jenna and me about our rain boots. I could tell he was going stir crazy with the move-in effort and I wanted to offer him the chance to play with Boba Fett and Hagrid, but everything I said to him came out wrong: "Hey, do you want a cookie?" "We have toys!" and Jenna even asked "Where do you live?"

Some things you just can't say to a 4 yr old without sounding like a molester in an ice cream van.

After move-in day I thought surely I won't see him again until move-out. And I was sad. But today he came to visit his sister. And who's room did he come to first? The FUN room.

The best thing about these play dates is that he has no idea who any of the characters are that he is playing with. When he first saw Darth Vader (who protects our television), he swooped him down onto Remus Lupin and said "Oh no! A vampire!" I later found out from his mother that he has never seen or heard of Star Wars. Which seems like neglect, if you ask me.

47

This is my forty-seventh post.

That might not mean a lot to you. To me, it is pretty important. Not because of some blogging milestone or amazement at my number of posts thusfar. More like a special relationship with that number.

47.

If you watch Alias with me, you will probably understand this. For those of you who don't, watch this:



This post also beats my record for number of posts in a month, so yay me!

let the right one in

I was recently invited to watch a movie with a friend from high school. It was last night, to be exact. I think that's pretty recent. Instead of some dumb cheerleader movie (Fired Up) we watched Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In, or as he referred to it: "Swedish Twilight." Indeed, the movie centered around a vampire "love story," though in a thoroughly different fashion. Eli, a "twelve" year-old vampire girl moves in next door to a nearly albino child named Oskar accompanied by her "friend" (a 47 year old man who sedates strangers, hangs them upside down from a tree or a lockerroom shelf, and drains their blood into a Tupperware container which, let's face it, probably came from Ikea).

Of course, as the common name would suggest, they have a puppy love romance. As vampire lore (and especially Twilight) goes, she warns him to stay away from her. He confesses he likes her after she climbs through his window and into bed with him (naked...those Swedes) and asks her to go steady. Earlier she asks if he would still like her if she weren't a girl. he says yes, which is good, because she's not. And not in the not-a-girl-but-a-creature-of-the-night type of way, but in the castrated-boy-bitten-by-vampire way. This nugget is displayed in a scene in which she changes into his mothers dress (hers is covered in blood of course) and he peeks through the door and sees a lack of "stuff" in the downstairs region. I did not understand this. I was pretty appalled at the movie at this point and was in shock that they even showed a downstairs region, so I had to read this online.

There are too many interesting/gory things about this movie to disclose in this post. If you're looking for a movie with lots of snow, bloody hermaphrodite kiss scenes, Swedish bullies, switchblades, alcoholism, acid-drenched faces, and Rubik's cubes, I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend it for anyone not necessarily looking for any of those things. As horror movies go, I was sincerely creeped out by this movie. As I said after it finished, it was not pee-in-your-pants scary, but definitely made you nervous to go to sleep. Luckily, Eli is a fairly gentle vampire shemale, so I rarely felt threatened that she would pounce out of my closet at my slender neck, as I usually am.

On the box some newspaper or off-beat magazine claimed it was the "best. vampire movie. ever." Maybe not. But I would say "most. Swedish. vampire movie. ever" and that's from the heart.

summer lovin' (and some hating too)

Most people from the south look fondly on summer memories of their childhood. They recall muggy nights with dusty fans slowly churning the thick wet air and the “symphony” of cicadas and crickets drifting in through the charmingly broken screen of their bedroom window. Some reminisce about playing in the sprinkler or slurping watermelon at a block party. All these are picturesque summer events fondly treasured by those who experienced them and remarked upon whenever the conversation should turn to childhood memories or the upcoming summer season. However, these people seem to always forget some key parts of summer living, like the sound of your own feet melting to hot asphalt or the way a sweat drop meanders down your spine to the waistband of your shorts.

Summer has always been my favorite season, and I believe it is simply because I forget the parts of summer that make me want to scream, live naked, or scratch myself to the point of drawing blood. Every year during the summer, I go nearly crazy. Every year I sit on my bed, sick of the same posters on my walls and disgusted at how my bare skin sticks to the sheets. I revisit times where I have claimed summer as my favorite season and shake my head sadly. What was I thinking? Sure, I love the beach and my birthday and not having to (or being able to) wear itchy wool sweaters. Yet even as I doubt myself and the answer I put on that internet personality quiz deciding which Jonas brother I should marry, I still feel a connectedness to summer that goes beyond my current discomfort. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a Beach Boys song playing and a flashy Margaritaville sign hung up on a cranial wall. Because, you see, summer is a season that sticks with you (quite often literally, especially if you have leather seats).

Perhaps it is the memories that keep me in a summer state of mind. Positive memories from a young age have a way of preserving an attached emotional state, the same way the ice cream truck still gets your attention. For me, every summer is like returning to your favorite restaurant as a kid and discovering rats in the kitchen and a bug in your salad. Maybe it hadn’t always been that way. Maybe time had slowly faded the paint job and rats had only recently moved in. Either way, you feel betrayed by your memories and sad to be away from such simple, happy times. But you never lose those feelings. You still remember your tenth birthday party and various family dinners. And so it is with summer. I can never forget the times that made me love it, but as of now, I’m sweating at my keyboard and wishing my houseful of brothers didn’t necessitate a full set of clothes.

This may sound depressing or hateful towards this season but it assuredly is not. I simply remark upon these feelings because I find it truly odd how startled I am at this revelation year after year and how it always seems new to me. I find it odd that somewhere between September 22 and June 21 I forget the heat and the trouble sleeping and the feel of sunburn. I forget about flipping the pillow and standing in front of the refrigerator and the incurable laziness. I forget about upper lip sweat and milk jug condensation and mosquitoes (how could I ever forget? But I do). I forget the fact that I am terrified of my ceiling fan. Petrified. I frequently picture the entire apparatus wobbling out of control and soaring through the air to slice open my neck or abdomen or even remove a limb or two. Mostly, I forget the noise. So much noise. At night, insects are the “music makers,” endlessly rubbing legs or clicking abdomens. Many writers equate this noise to song, often regarding it as symphonic. It’s not. It is cacophony.
Human forgetfulness is this season’s saving grace. Perhaps this is true of all seasons. Winter may seem majestic until snow melts in your boots or Jack Frost nips at your nose a little too hard. Spring and autumn have their moments as well, and logically they make sense as someone’s favorite season. Spring brings life and vibrant dewy wild flowers, while autumn throws colors like Jackson Pollock. They don’t boast sunburn or heat exhaustion or poison ivy (a gorgeously itchy plant that rears its head for the summer months). Yet for some reason I cannot switch teams. I am not a winter girl or a spring chick or an autumn babe. I love summer.

As much as I complain about the nasty bits, I truly love these three months. All it takes is a little reminiscing and I pine for summer by October 1st. I remember water balloon fights and the smell of sunscreen. I remember the Fourth of July, summer blockbusters, the cool blast of air conditioning, the healing power of cherry slurpies, beach chairs, sand castles, reading piles of books, unsightly goggle marks, salty hair, and the steady rhythm of flip flops. Memories, both good and annoying, keep summer in my heart. And it’s going to stay there no matter how awful it is now. Maybe this year I’ll write a post-it to myself that says: remember to hate summer. You got 47 mosquito bites.