Laughter is Optional

chirp chirp

2011-04-27T17:15:00.002-04:00

goodness. i don't think i've touched this thing in years. i'm going to try and get back into the blogging again. although life has changed a lot and there probably won't be many more sagas of nacho cheese any more. i can hear the groans of dismay... :)

so, for a quick catch up. this little indie graduated from college, temped for a while, finally found a job :) now works in insurance although from the product development side of life, met the cute guy in the next cube over, became really good friends, waited way to long to start dating, finally started dating, got quickly engaged, then got married, and now we've been married for over a year and half. i still work for the same company, although i recently switched products, went back to school (yay for the mba!), and just living life really.

to sum things up, this little indie is married, working full time, and going to grad school full time. needless to say life is busy. although i still think i need the hat and the whip. wouldn't that be fun :)

testing

2007-10-31T15:52:00.000-04:00

tap tap tap..........

testing....... testing.....

is anyone still out there?

Big News Soon!!

2006-08-09T21:11:00.000-04:00

After a long, busy summer, some big news will be updated soon!! Expect some new entries very soon!

long time no blog

2006-05-15T17:19:00.000-04:00

i know i'm dropping of the face of the world again. however until very recently my computer was hidden in boxes and was only unearthed a few days ago.

mostly i've been helping my mom out with her daycare and reading lots to pass the time. my wrist is still funky and hopefully after all the health insurance mess gets fixed i may even be able to see a doctor by the end of the week. then i can find out what i did to it two weeks ago when i fell off the couch. but i'm doing pretty good. i'm getting much better at doing things left handed and one handed. the wrist still hurts quite a bit, but i got a cool brace from the grocery store so that seems to help in the meantime.

the job hunt still doesn't look so good, but it's hard to do one handed. for now i'm trying to help out around the house and help get things ready for my brother's high school graduation in a week and a half. mom needs all the help she can get. after that event and after i see a doctor i'm going to try and find something to pay the bills while i search for something better. depending on the verdict from the doctor probably either a temp service or back to the world of home improvement.

on a cool note, my professor got my paper back to me and said with a few modifications and some further editing by her, it would be worthy of submission to an academic journal!! i'm excited. typing, using the computer mouse, and handwriting are extremely painful right now, but once things are better i guarentee i'll be getting that paper fixed up.

mom is calling for dinner so i should run. boy is it great to be eating homecooked meals again....

graduation

2006-05-06T19:06:00.000-04:00

graduation went really well. i hardly remember that much from it, but that's normal for important events. although the whole thing wasn't as bad as my high school graduation. better and fewer speeches, more streamlined parade of graduates, and it only took about 2.5 hours. the length of time isn't too bad considering there were 2 colleges graduating together and mine had over 1300 graduates and the other had over 300. however there were a few interesting things of note.

i was the first of my major to graduate from the new college that the department is now within.

thus the chair of the department and a professor from the department both nearly killed themselves running from the main dias to get down to where our advisor and a couple random professors stand to shake our hands.
it was kind of cool to be the very first in something like that. now i should see about getting it in the university archives

the college that my department is a member of is the largest within the university with the largest graduating class
the other college that graduated with us only had 300 graduates of them only 4 were male.
i graduated about 30 years after my dad. we do everything about 30 years apart.

i was born a couple months before his 30th birthday, i graduated from high school 30 years after he did, and now college as well

anyway, there are a bajillion boxes to unpack and store if my parents are ever to see the interior of their garage again

only one more final

2006-05-04T20:52:00.000-04:00

only one more final to go. it's actually kind of sad to think about. I only have one more final of my undergraduate career, one more night in the dorms, last move out. i've loved every minute i've been here and it seems so sad that i have to leave it.

tonight was my department's honors reception. it wasn't as much fun as last year mostly because not as many faulty showed up and it wasn't held in our building. last year it was held in our tiny conference room then we had the reception in the hallways. it was really neat because a lot of faculty showed up because we were all being loud outside their offices and everyone was talking together. admittedly the bar hidden in the library probably helped to relax everyone.

however, it was still need. i got to see our club advisor who has been sick for the last year. it was great to see her healthy and happy again. she even volunteered to write me a recommendation letter should i need one, and that she would be more than happy to help me with finding a grad school should i chose that path. my cool prof was there and she also said she'd write me a recommendation letter and that i should send my paper on to an academic journal and try and get published. that was really neat to hear, it definitely made all the work worth it.

now i'm off to study for my last final ever and to finish packing up my room. i'm hoping ot be all ready to load everything into my mom's van and hopefully take the carpet up with my brother so we can move my sister out relatively early. then it's off to the hotel and dinner with my grandparents. yikes i've got a busy day tomorrow.

wahoo!!!!

2006-05-02T21:02:00.000-04:00

yay!!!!!! i've finally finished the research paper!!!! i'm going to treat myself by going to bed somewhat early.

tomorrow should be a fun filled day of cleaning and packing up more stuff, taking over 80 books back to the library, cleaning the car (if it's not raining), and studying for my finals. taking back the books should be fun just because it scares parents and dorm staff when a tiny girl is lugging large stacks of book to the car and filling at least the entire passenger seat. needless to say the day should be interesting.

just two more finals, moving out, and graduation to go...

finals week

2006-05-02T10:13:00.000-04:00

it's finals week and it sucks. i thought i would be able to finish my last paper by last week thursday but sometimes things don't work out as planned. last week was very busy and nutty.

so, i'm on the fourth rough draft and hopefully i'll have it finished later today. my friend erika is coming over this afternoon to work on our italian final (yes we were told we could work in groups. then i'm going to force her to watch bride & prejudice because she is also a huge fan of jane austen and she has yet to see it. having her come over actually forced me to tidy up the place a bit which was necessary after all the packing over the weekend and my clutzy stunt sunday night.

i'm a horrible clutz. i've broken one finger for sure, and very probably one toe as well. i'm really a huge clutz. i broke the finger cutting a corner too close and hit the door jamb with my fist and broke my pinkie in like 3-4 places. i broke my toe tripping over a box when i moved into my dorm this year.

to add to my long run of clutzy stunts, i banged up my wrist sunday night when i fell off the couch. yeah you read that right, falling off the couch. i was standing on my couch getting my pjs down from my bed, it's about six feet up in the air. when i stepped down from the couch my ankle turned and i came crashing to the ground. i think i only bruised the bone, or sprained my wrist because it has yet to really swell and has not bruised. my hip blossomed into a sweet bruise though later that evening. now i'm wearing an ace bandage to help support the wrist as i type, write, and pack throughout the week.

i'll try to update as much as i can, but with finals, move out and graduation all within the week i may disappear for a few days.

still alive

2006-04-24T22:37:00.000-04:00

I swear I'm still alive. It's the second of the hell weeks with two major research papers due and tons of end of the year stuff. It's sad that I'm looking at finals week as a mini vacation. But damn it i deserve that mini vacation.

anyway i need to run and finish proof-reading paper number one and getting things ready for tomorrow. i get to go to a reception for graduates at the university president's house so that should be pretty neat.

eh, back to translating some old french before bed....wahoo

i survived!!

2006-04-20T18:00:00.000-04:00

i survived this week so far!!! yay!!!

today was the last of the presentations and my other group project is due tomorrow. i totally winged the presentation because i'm not completely finished with my research for the paper i'm to write for thursday. i just found a couple pictures and grabbed a couple notecards and winged the whole thing. hopefully it went well. as for the other group project, since i haven't heard from any of the three boys that i'm working with i'm assuming the draft i sent them was acceptable and i just have to print them off tomorrow.

all i have left to do for next week is write the paper mentioned above and fix all the corrections my prof gave me on my rough draft for my senior seminar class. i'm really happy about that paper. i got a 3.5 on the rough draft, one of the two in the class. my professor also mentioned in her comments that i should submit it to a particular academic journal and that even though i said i wasn't sure about grad school that i should definitely go soon. she also said i should use that paper as a writing example for said application.

gesh.. just when i thought i'm not doing grad school here's a prof saying go go, i'll help you with your application.. talk about conflicting emotions. it is nice though to have your abilities appreciated and recognized. it has definitely made me feel better about myself. especially after how unsuccessful my job search has seemed to be. i always joked about joining the military after college if i couldn't find a job. unfortunately due to a number of factors that isn't an option. maybe i'll just go back to working something like my summer jobs until i can build up enough funds to attempt to get into grad school. heck if i wait long enough, i might even get to come back here and do my grad work instead of going elsewhere.

anyway, i've got more homework to finish and some shoe packing before my mom stopped by this evening. packing the shoes alone might take some serious time :)

easter

2006-04-17T15:50:00.000-04:00

easter was pretty good. i didn't get back to school until 9 and my computer flipped out after doing the latest windows update and killed outlook express, but i'm doing great. my dad thinks he can fix the email issue so other than having to use the icky school web interface things are good.

the dear easter bunny left me a lovely bathroom set of a soap dish, toothbrush holder, and a soap dispenser/lotion holder. i'm not big on candy and it seems like a waste to spend the candy money on me when my siblings are more into it than me.

we spent the day at my aunt's house which was a blast. my mom's sister and my cousin are fantastic cooks, not that my mom isn't great. we had a lovely ham dinner and i stuffed myself silly. my cousin looks like she's dropped another 15-20 lbs since christmas and is starting too look as skinny as she did back when i was really little. my other cousin and his wife and kids were also there. his daughter is ten and hitting that preteen witch mode which was fun for all of us. his son was adorable. he's five and showed up wearing a white button down shirt, his suit jacket, a bright red bowtie with jean shorts and his spiderman shirt. he deemed it a special enough occasion that he had to wear the tie. everyone played a lot of games and i got a lot of homework done.

my first presentation was today and went as well as expected. hopefully we don't get in trouble for going over on the time, but we'll see.

this week is the first of two hell weeks so i'll check in when i get the chance.

happy easter weekend

2006-04-14T14:03:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter everyone!!

I'm heading home for the weekend with a huge pile of homework and an even larger pile of dorm junk. i think i'm going to scare my dad in a couple minutes when he comes to pick me up, but well he can't complain... i cleaned up a bit...:)

anyway hope everyone has a fantastic holiday and i guarentee i'll have some blog-worthy events to tell you all about as we're headed to my aunt's house for the holiday and between my crazy cousins and second-cousins it should be interesting.

Happy Easter!!

my window

2006-04-13T20:27:00.000-04:00

so after the last couple weeks of nicer weather i've come to a conclusion regarding my window...it must be the official goal post of every ultimate frisbee game played on the front lawn of the dorm. the window has soo many plastic marks from where frisbees have hit it. after the window getting hit four times in twenty minutes this evening, i'm thinking i'm going to have to add talking to the hall manager to my list of things to do tomorrow.

not so normal

2006-04-13T18:13:00.000-04:00

i know i'm not so normal, i mean nothing new there really. however with all the work i've had to get done this last week i've found listening to music helps to keep me concentrated on the work i need to do and it helps block out a lot of the dorm noises. you'd think that this music was either classical or something fun and peppy. well it's fun and sort of peppy, but for some reason i get the most work done when i listen to my veggie tales sing-alongs cd o veggie, where art thou? i'm still confused as to why this works out the best, but for now i'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. productivity is my friend. anyway the peas are about ready to sing again and i've got a memo to write before i can catch up on this week's house while i pack.

nutty week

2006-04-13T09:18:00.000-04:00

this week has officially been a nuts. the last two nights i've been in meetings until late with tons of homework to keep me busy. of course with two group projects to get finished, two presentations next week, and another paper to write it's only natural that there is quite a lot of work to get done. but if i manage to keep somewhat to the schedules i've set myself to, i might just manage to get everything done relatively on time. speaking of schedules i've still got some work to do before class today and some stuff to find on my floor that i haven't seen in a good week.

however, the weather looks like it will be lovely today and i will be getting home before 9pm so the day is already looking up. i even get to pack up a ton of stuff to bring home this weekend so i'll finally have some space in my room again. i might even get to use my chair again... how cool would that be :)

strong stomach

2006-04-10T17:53:00.000-04:00

i'd say i've developed a strong stomach over the years. today i spent lunch and dinner reading a book of forensic pathology case studies complete with pictures from the actually cases. did i mention lunch was spaghetti and meatballs?

either i'm completely desensitized or i'm just strange...

gorgeous day

2006-04-10T15:20:00.000-04:00

today has been a gorgeous day. we even reached 60 degrees and had a brillantly sunny day. everyone is outside enjoying the weather and the shorts and flip-flops appear to be here to stay. the rest of the week is suppose to be very warm so that should be a nice change from the threat of snow flurries. although i personally have seen snow on the ground in may so even though it's warming up we never take it for granted.

well i've got some toes to paint, if i'm to break out my flip flops tomorrow...

the real were-rabbit

2006-04-09T22:02:00.000-04:00

after spending much of my spring break helping watch my mother's day care and viewing countless screenings of Wallace and Gromit's The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, i have now been further traumatized by a recent news article found via drudge.

the were-rabbit does exist.

now how creepy is that. and they tell us that movies aren't real....

intriguing

2006-04-09T19:43:00.000-04:00

Your Lucky Underwear Is Red

You're confident and bold, and your lucky red underwear will only make you more sure of yourself.
You have a great zest for life, and you tend to take on impossible goals - and succeed.

When it comes to love, it's hard for you to take the time to open up. You're too busy conquering the world.
So if you're looking for a little more romance, put on your red underpants. And see where their passion takes you!

What Color Is Your Lucky Underwear?

intriguing... perhaps i need to go shopping soon as i don't believe that color is well represented in my wardrobe.

found via ctg who celebrated her munuversary yesterday!

lovely rainy day

2006-04-07T14:07:00.000-04:00

it's pouring rain outside and sounds great as it hits the windows. the only downside is that it's a bit chilly, but all in all a perfect day to nap. unfortunately i haven't had time to nap, but i did get to sleep in a bit today and it was nice to have it so comfortably dark so late.

since braving the rain has left me a bit chilled, i am off to take a nice hot shower before it's time to get ready to go out for the evening. my club is going on a bar crawl all over town and i have to go pick up my sister in a couple hours so we can be somewhat on time for the start of the festivities. it should be a really fun night hanging out with all my friends and there have been some hints about possibly karaoking so that should definitely lend itself to some memorable pictures.

Happy Tartan Day

2006-04-06T16:11:00.000-04:00

For those of you not in the know, today is tartan day. Basically it's a big Scottish heritage day. for more information the ever cool Ith hosts the official blog festivities.

As for my scottish heritage, as near as we can figure my mother's side of the family immigrated from Scotland. we aren't too sure on the when or from where as her family is very appalachian and we're not even sure where her grandfather is buried let alone any sort of decent family records.

strange sightings

2006-04-06T15:53:00.000-04:00

you never know what you will find when walking around a college campus.. mine is no different.

this afternoon on my way back from class as i was passing our administration building i noticed that the funny statue of one of our former presidents was wearing a big gaudy fake gold necklace with a big pendant that was covering the top of his tie. i wonder who put it there and why...

then as i was passing our auditorium there were two big tour buses sitting in the front parking are with some strange trailers about the energy tour. i had absolutely no clue what was going on until i had walked past the loading docks and saw the huge trailer pulled up to the dock. i only realized that a band must be playing there because the only identifier on the trailer was a tiny car bumpersticker stuck to the back left bottom edge. i think it said "i love guster". course i then end up passing one of the weird message boards on campus to see a poster about how guster was coming. very bizarre day...

reminds me of a couple years ago when i was driving around campus with a couple friends and we got cut off by the counting crows tour bus. the driver had no clue where they were going and the lead singer with the weird hair was up at the front of the bus trying to figure out what to do. at the time we were a little annoyed to get cut off, but really considering the number of one way streets and parking lots that look like streets it's no wonder people get so lost all the time driving around here.

long week

2006-04-05T22:05:00.000-04:00

so this week has been way too long. i didn't get home yesterday until after ten because of meetings and well i went to the barrel twice. one of my classes doesn't meet anymore so we go to the barrel and have dinner and goof off. i lost the crossword race this week...darn.. have to practice more in my non-existant free time.

today i was a good student though. i got a bunch of homework done between the end of my classes for the day and dinner and then went to the library for three hours before a meeting. course i didn't get home until after 9:30 so not a whole lot better. however, i got through all the books i needed to read and organize to do one of my research papers. tomorrow's goal is to get through as many of the academic journal articles and the primary source as much as i can. that and go to bed really early to catch up on all the lost sleep before the weekend.

gah.. i'm getting soooo sick of school. i now just have to get some stuff organized for tomorrow before i can get to bed, fun.

the weekend

2006-04-02T22:35:00.000-04:00

the weekend went pretty well, must to the shock of all those participating. mostly the shock was over how, after we got through the initial fifteen minutes of tension, we had the first family gathering with my dad's parents without someone causing problems. actually made the whole experience rather weird, because it's been so long since anyone was remotely relaxed any time my grandparents came over. only downside to the whole weekend was that my mom did something pretty bad to her shoulder a week ago and so she couldn't lift anything so we all had to pitch in a lot and she was in considerable pain.

i received some great presents for my birthday including two non-stick pans from my siblings, four settings of a dish set, and 40 glasses from my parents. now if only i could get more time to apply for even more jobs so that i could one day use these in my own place...

i am proud of myself in that i even managed to get some homework done over the weekend so i didn't get too far behind on anything. but being the genius i am, i completely forgot the necessary book and notes for the paper that was due tonight at 6pm so i had to get back to school relatively early in order to get that finished.

now i've got to get some sleep before i fall over.

away

2006-03-31T14:54:00.000-05:00

i'm off for the weekend. heading back home for my bday celebration and some awkward moments with the family. should be a blast and potentially filled with blog-worthy moments. hopefully i'll catch up a bit on my sleep and possibly get through a couple books for my research projects.

have a great weekend!!

another year has gone by

2006-03-30T21:33:00.000-05:00

Here I’m singin’ happy birthday
Better think about the about the wish I make
This year gone by ain’t been a piece of cake
Everyday’s a revolution
Pull it together and it comes undone
Just one more candle and a trip around the sun

I’m just hangin’ on while this old world keeps spinning
And it’s good to know it’s out of my control
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from all this livin’
Is that it wouldn’t change a thing if I let go

No you never see it comin’
Always wind up wonderin’ where it went
Only time will tell if it was time well spent
It’s another revelation
Celebrating what I should have done
With these souvenirs of my trip around the sun

the official family celebration won't be until saturday, but that's what you get when you are in school. although on a funny note my parents called my room phone to wish me happy birthday exactly twelve hours apart when i coincidentally on my cell phone with the opposite parent. strangeness... anyway as usual i've still got some homework to finish before bed and there's that pesky test tomorrow...

today

2006-03-30T12:05:00.000-05:00

It's sunny and warm outside. It's a miracle. Okay well it's warm, but i'm still wearing normal shoes and jeans. I refuse to concede to everyone else's herd mentality and wear flip flops and shorts. It's not that warm yet. Especially since, as usually the weather people are already talking about the temps dropping back into the 30s and 40s with storms and possible snow for the weekend. Got to love the midwest.

As usual i'm running late for lunch with my sister and there are hoards of young high schoolers with the families taking tours of campus choking up the sidewalk. hehehe should be fun to try and plow through them...

youngins

2006-03-29T17:02:00.000-05:00

it is that time of year again and the high school students are running amok on campus for their college visits. i've seen more lost parents in the last couple days than in the previous month. the weirdest thing is that these kids look sooo young. i know that i don't look anywhere close to my age and thus usually get mistaken for a high school student, but it just seems weird to see these high school students and realize how young they are. the boys in particular look very young. as it is i can still tell who is a freshmen on campus, especially the guys.

the dorm has also been invaded by lots of tours. the kids all look so scared, the moms are trying to absorb everything at once and catch all the important details, and the dads just look uncomfortable. i got a lot of stares from a family waiting to go up in the elevator this afternoon when i walked by with my overloaded laundry basket. strange people, you think they would have seen people with laundry before. darn shame with graduating i won't be able to help with the move in team, can't scare them with my bouncing energy at 7am. shucks....

no more class

2006-03-28T20:25:00.000-05:00

after turning down going to the bar three times last week, i felt that it was more than time that i get away from the endless research and homework. since my evening class is now cancelled for the rest of the semester in order to give us more time to write our big research papers, my class has decided that we should use the time to our advantage and go to the bar. well most of my class. all the cool people that are willing to socialize. we all had a blast. we are such geeks that two people decided to race each other with the day's suduku and then we had a crossword competition. as a team member for the crossword competition we ended in a draw and have to have a rematch next week. i'm not sure if it is sad that we were having academic competitions in the bar or whether it just says something about how relaxed it is there.

bibliography

2006-03-27T07:57:00.000-05:00

i finally finished typing out the bibliography around 11 last night. i have 68 entries in primary sources alone. talk about a lot of typing. i even managed to find a couple academic journal articles that sort of fit along with my paper topic. on the upside this means i now have one of three bibliographies finished. now i just have to get going on the pesky project due tomorrow and meet with one of my groups on a group project. hopefully we'll finally meet the fifth member and decide on a feasible topic.

off to the library i must run as i'm running late for class as per usual, but hey at least it's sunny out and we might even reach 50 degrees today.

strange

2006-03-26T12:29:00.000-05:00

so this may sound weird, but i was lying on the floor trying to think and pondering the ceiling when i realized that my carpet kind of smells like wet dog. i vacuum regularly and am a very clean person, excusing the mess of books and notes littering my floor, so i have no idea how this has occurred. i wonder if i lysol it if the smell will go away?

can you tell i'm procrastinating?

exciting weekend

2006-03-26T10:22:00.000-05:00

okay so the title is meant in a very sarcastic tone. i've been doing homework all weekend. i spent all day yesterday getting my research projects organized and today i've got to write my weekly crappy paper, write a bibliography, and do more research. oh and i cleaned the bathroom. how's that for an exciting weekend? i'm definitely living up the college lifestyle by going to bed on the weekend by 9pm. oh how sad things have become....

on a happier note i've caught on my sleep a bit. i think i got almost ten hours both friday and saturday night. i'm still tired, but that's what you get for chaining yourself to your computer not moving for the weekend. it is nice though, to be able to do homework with a clear head and not having stress induced panic attacks because your too over tired. although it is sunday and this will likely change in a day or two.

now back to homework...

more snow

2006-03-24T09:08:00.000-05:00

it's snowing...again. not that i should be surprised by this. i've seen snow in late april and a couple of years ago it was snowing the first week of may. the calendar may say that it is spring, but around here we don't believe it until at least june. while it may be snowing today and forcasted to snow all weekend, the crazy weather people are saying that next week should be all nice and warm, possibly as warm as in the 50s. got to love how fast the weather can change in the midwest.

now i've got a room to clean, some books to shift around, and a fridge that has indeterminable food products that need to be identified. plus there is that pesky chore of clearing the car of snow if i want to run errands later. thank heavens i left the snow brushes in the back seat.

busy busy busy

2006-03-23T16:40:00.000-05:00

i know i'm a horrible blogger. i'm sporatic about posting. although right now i have a perfectly valid reason as to why i'm posting so little. no i'm not living up the college lifestyle, i'm in the middle of three major research papers and projects that are all due with presentations within two weeks in april. i'm currently living with over 80 books from the library and lord only knows how many of my own. if i put them all on my bookshelf i would collapse the darn thing. i'm getting to the point where i can't wait to graduate just so these papers will be over. gah...yet another weekend of extensive researching.

on a cool note today there was a book sale on campus where a bunch of professors were getting rid of books from their offices and i managed to pick up some really neat stuff. a translated and edited copy of dante's divine comedy, a collection of the works of lord byron, a book on medieval europe, another on british history, two on french history of which one is in french, a book of french romantic prose again in french, and the most hilarious of all a harlequin romance novel in italian. quite the cool haul. i haven't read much in french in quite a few years and i figure the italian one will help me work on learning italian better and will look funny when i read it in class. :) i know i'm a dork when this is the coolest thing of my day.

mail

2006-03-22T17:55:00.000-05:00

i got the weirdest combination of mail today. okay so it was two days worth, but still. i got a recruitment thingy from the marine corps about officer candidate school and a fancy invitation from the university president to a graduation reception at the president's house. i'm not sure if i'm going to go to the reception but i have a couple weeks to decide and i was joking with my dad that i should send in for the free pen on the marine corps thing. i figure if i do that then they'll probably either call or try and come talk to me and that would be amusing from my perspective. i'm way too small and too blind for them to really want me, but it would be funny to see their reactions upon meeting me to see how they handled the rest of the spiel.

Beannachtam na Feile Padraig!

2006-03-17T14:08:00.000-05:00

it's st paddy's day or feile padraig if you really want to get technical. no, i'm not really wearing green today, or at least not currently. i'm not really that irish, more scottish, and more scandinavian at that.

besides it's only in the last two hundred years that people wore green to celebrate the day. previously the color was red, but then the darn english decided to change their military uniforms to red so thus the irish switched from red to green. oh, yes... i am a font of useless knowledge!!

anyway, i am probably going out with a group of friends and my younger sister as a girls night out. i definitely will not be drinking green beer. if god had intended beer to be green it would be that way. hopefully i'll be able to listen to some good irish music and i'll even try not to dance to it. we shall see. my parents are going to an informal concert of different local musicians which should be pretty neat to hear about.

if i'm going out tonight, i definitely need to get some work done. beannachtam na feile padraig everyone!!

meat

2006-03-15T17:49:00.000-05:00

yay!! finally a holiday i can get on board with, International Eat an Animal for PETA Day!! unfortunately due to still dealing with stitches and a painful jaw bone, the only meat i ate was some scrambled eggs with breakfast and the chicken salad sandwich with lunch. but i promise i more than make up for this every other day of the year when i can eat normally. yummmy... meat...

thanks to caltechgirl for the head's up.

little web quiz

2006-03-13T22:15:00.000-05:00

found via Lintefiniel Musing

You Are Emerald Green

Deep and mysterious, it often seems like no one truly gets you.
Inside, you are very emotional and moody - though you don't let it show.
People usually have a strong reaction to you... profound love or deep hate.
But you can even get those who hate you to come around. There's something naturally harmonious about you.

What Color Green Are You?

hmm... possibly...

life in the dorms

2006-03-13T19:04:00.000-05:00

so i live on the first floor of my door and i happen to live beneath two boys. i've never met them, but from what i hear above me, they lead very interesting lives. everyday from about 2 till 4 one of them practices on his drumset, a drum pad, and the windsill. (i was in band enough years to tell the difference) one or both of the boys lead very active social lives. i mean very active social lives. as in i've been putting my contacts in at 6am in the middle of the week and i'm afraid that one wall of the bathroom is going to shake so much it will collapse.

on the average night around this time, i'm working on homework and usually watching endless reruns of law and order or whatever looks interesting. in an attempt to catch up on some blogs i've missed over the break, i've been quietly reading at my computer. at first i thought my suitemate was watching tv, but then i remembered she's not home tonight. no, it's one of the guys upstairs practicing vocal warm-ups. his pitch isn't too bad actually. it's just strange to hear filtering through the ceiling. perhaps one day i'll learn who these boys are and see what they really are majoring in. (i live in the natural science residential college dorm so it's mostly filled with nat sci majors and a few die hards who started out in the college and just won't leave. like me :) ) anyway, i have to day it's probably the best of all the noises i've heard from up above me. i sure like it a TON better than the incessant drumming.

weather

2006-03-13T15:51:00.000-05:00

as the standard cliche says "if you don't like the weather right now, wait five minutes and it will change" well that has been holding very true for the last couple of days. we've been experiencing a big warming spell, but of course that will soon change. today has been a lovely balmy high 60s degree day with great huge gusts of wind so far topping 50+mph. after being blown from one side of the sidewalk to the other, i've avoided as many paths as possible flanking the river to keep from being blown in. it's almost happened before when a wind gust caught me on a hill path next to the river, one minute i'm on the sidewalk next minute i'm pushed down the hill towards the river.

anyway, it's starting to cool down and we're suppose to have snow later tonight. more snow on tuesday and thursday. got to love late winter in the midwest :)

i'm back.... kind of

2006-03-12T15:46:00.000-05:00

i'm back at school finally. although i won't be posting much over the coming days. I have a paper due tomorrow morning at 8am that i haven't written yet and i'm still exhausted from the break.

I got the wisdom tooth bit out last thursday so i'm still all swollen and i've got a big bruise still on my jaw. it's still pretty sore and is making eating a little bit of a challenge. needless to say, the next few days will continue to be interesting.

after a doozy of a break i almost need a vacation to rest from the vacation, but back to the daily grind i shall go... i'll try and update some in the week about the crazy stuff that happened over break and anything blog worthy that may appear. now where did i leave that darn ice pack....

spring break

2006-03-07T22:52:00.000-05:00

I'm currently on spring break so posts will be few and far between. Partly because I'm busy with two papers and a possible minor surgery and because my own access to internet is either my younger brother's computer or the seriously old laptop currently kept in my parents room. So old, in fact, that it can't run firefox and it froze on me when i tried to have four ie windows running at one time. trust me i'd rather be blogging... on a happier note i've finished one of the papers. now i only have to deal with writing the paper that my entire class reads, the threat of possible surgery, and my brother and sister's birthday tomorrow. (no they aren't twins, just born three years apart and that is a story for another day)

turns out when i got my wisdom teeth removed way back when i was sixteen they ddin't really remove everything, in fact they left about half a tooth. it's been bothering me and now i have to go in and prove it to the oral surgeon to convince him that he really is required to remove all the wisdom teeth that he was paid to remove. the only bonus to me is if they use the knock out drugs to remove it and therefore i get a couple days of sleep. i could really use the sleep.

hope everyone is doing well, i won't be able to read any blogs and will have to rely on whatever interests my father enough to tell me. with everything on my plate it should be an interesting week :)

Mardi Gras!!

2006-02-28T20:12:00.000-05:00

Laissez le bonne temps roulez!!

Yeah, I totally spent my Mardi Gras in meetings and classes all day carrying around a 40lb backpack. Needless to say my back and legs hate me, I'm tired, and even though I did go to the bar with friends after class I did not have a single drink because I have a midterm in about twelve hours. I didn't even have a paczki (pronounced poonch-key). Not that I'm polish, but who doesn't like a big huge donut? I think the cafe went through 3 trays of them in the twenty minutes I was in there for breakfast today. Anyway, I hope everyone had a great day. I'm off to read a couple hundred pages of political sciences papers before bed....::gag::...

relaxing

2006-02-26T15:38:00.000-05:00

What better way to relax for the afternoon than by watching my favorite movie Pride and Prejudice :) My little sister and I went and saw the recent remake Friday night, but we both still agree the A&E version is still the best. Seriously what better way to study for midterms than to diligently watch Colin Firth as the sexy Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy :)

G & T

2006-02-26T12:22:00.000-05:00

No not gin and tonics, but gifted and talented. I ran across Dr Helen's post last night regarding gifted and talented programs and after reading all the comments I want to put my two cents in on the subject.

I was a child of the local gifted and talented program "Image". Unlike many of the programs described in the comments, the local version was only a one or two half day a week program merging kids from the district. Instead of covering basic classroom subjects we had different unit exercises each year. I'm not sure exactly what were the requirements that led to my ending up in the program. I only remember taking two different tests. One in second grade with all sorts of questions ranging all over spectrum and one in third grade where you were given pages of circles and kidney beans and told to draw things with them and give them titles. Only my parents really know how I ended up in the program.

Our local version essentially took all the kids from the district of one grade level who fit the requirements and put them together with one poor instructor to create havoc. Each year we would go through different units and then towards the last half of the year we would be told to pick a subject to write our big paper on. I know it had some special name, but for the life of me I can't remember. I think in fourth grade we did a unit on the presidential election ( I think that was the 1992 election between Bush and Clinton), a big unit on sharks (even got to disect a tiger shark) and then the paper. I don't remember if we had another unit. Fifth grade we did a big unit on basic physics principles, 'think tank', and the paper again. I have no idea what we did in sixth grade. I'd have to ask a few of my friends to see if they remembered. The whole point of these units, from my perspective, was to have us learn all about a subject in every possible way we could. By building things, reading about them, writing papers, presentations, etc.

Our big papers at the end of the year were probably the one thing that I learned the most from. We had to write huge research papers with a clearly defined thesis and a proper chicago style bibliography and citations. Quite an undertaking for a ten year old, but I learned how to properly research and utilize a library, how to write a paper, how to write a thesis, how to write citations, ways to proofread, and how to deal with presentations. It was a great experience for me. I met many of my good friends through the program. When we moved on to junior high we all felt that much more comfortable because we knew people from other schools than just our elementary schools, and were able to adjust to the transition better.

The local G&T program did not really extend beyond the elementary school level. I think that a lot depended on where you were scholastically that determined your placement in the 'advanced' classes. I managed to get on the advanced track for math in junior high. I also was part of an experimental team teaching idea in seventh grade. Basically all the kids from three homerooms had classes together in particular those subjects taught by our homeroom teachers. Because of this I was placed into a science class filled with the kids, whom I still consider to this day, the brighest kids of my graduating class. Of which a lot of these kids were in the G&T program with me.

My own feelings regarding my experiences with the local education system are mixed at best. I never really felt comfortable in school until 2nd or 3rd grade. I felt really out of place in kindergarten because so many of the kids knew each other from living near one another and from preschool. My family moved into the district the year i would have gone to preschool, but for some reason I just never went. I was tested to see if I could place into kindergarden classes and passed that with flying colors so i guess there was no reason to worry about it. Looking back it is funny to remember how things worked. Our reading classes in first grade were set up so that after we read the first stupid little book we were divided based on how well we were doing so that the most able students were separated from the slower ones. I wonder if they still do that or if they make everyone lag behind with the slow ones?

Anyway, in elementary school the G & T was my saving grace. There I could relax and goof off, get in trouble and be me. I never felt comfortable doing that in my regular classes. The teachers had enough on their hands to have bored student causing trouble. By my sixth grade year I had come up with a solution to my problem. When i got bored in class, I'd pull out a book and start reading. In fact, my sixth grade class was so bad, Ithink everything I learned that year was self taught. My teacher was new to the district and for some reason they put every trouble maker in my grade in one classroom and then a lot of the G & T kids. Maybe they thought we'd help them learn better or something. Thankfully by that time we had our G & T class two mornings a week so that helped us out quite a bit. Our teacher was so incompetant that she'd give us the entire afternoon to catch up on the morning's work. We'd go out in the hall, work together, get everything done in thirty minutes, then leave our books out and start playing. we drove every teacher down that hall nuts. We didn't see any reason to go back into the classroom just to sit there and stare at the walls when we could do whatever we wanted for a couple hours and still accomplish whatever we were suppose to do. Sometimes we'd make up new games, or work on our projects for our G & T class, read, write, and talk about all sorts of stuff.

I also used to bother my teacher by going to the library a couple times a day. Our librarian was a real witch and wouldn't let us check out more than one or two books at a time. I think one time i went three times in one day. Really confused the teacher that day. She asked me if i had asked her before to go to the libary, of course i said yes, but that i had finished my book so i needed another one. I failed to mention that it was the third book of the day. In fact that year my parents decided to take the family to Florida for two weeks. During that time i did all the homework given to me by my teacher, in fact i think i did even more than she required becasue she didn't specify what i was to cover and because my parents decided to add to the list; and when i went back to school I was two weeks ahead of my classmates. How sad is that...

I could go on and on about my experiences with education, but since I have a paper due in five hours I really need to get working on it. I haven't even gotten to all the fun of junior high and high school and the fun time I had in remedial science :) I'll get to that another day. Sorry this was such a long post.

Gills or Lungs?

2006-02-24T14:29:00.000-05:00

It has been a difficult week. I haven't been posting because unfortunately the meds that my doctor put me on didn't completely kill whatever bug I caught. Last Saturday, my lungs decided that they really didn't want to deal with adding oxygen to my blood and I ended up spending a good four days becoming very good friends with my emergency inhaler. Only had one trip to the Emergency Room in there. My mom got a little freaked out and came down Saturday and spent the night to keep an eye on me, then Wednesday my dad came down and took me to the ER to get my lungs checked out. After a mess of x-rays it turns out my lungs are clear, but opinionated, and I was given more meds. They seem to be doing the trick. I'm not coughing as much and I even made it through a whole 24 hours without the emergency inhaler. Things are looking up for the weekend :) Maybe i'll finally catch up on some real sleep (I don't count sleeping sitting up as quality sleep) and start studying for midterms. I've got to start researching for two term papers, study for a midterm, and write at least one paper all for next week. I can't wait for spring break.

freaking freezing

2006-02-18T08:56:00.000-05:00

holy cow!!! it's currently -4 degrees outside this morning with a windchill of -20. how's that for a bit chilly?

crazy weather

2006-02-17T10:09:00.000-05:00

we have been having extremely crazy weather of late. yesterday morning i awoke to at least 2-3 inches of new snow only to realize it was raining outdoors. it was freezing rain from the morning to the early afternoon when it switched over to normal downpours. then about an hour after dinner we were under a tornado watch with lightening and thunder. but yet again this morning i awoke to still more snow on the ground with single digit temperatures. how's that for nutso weather. geesh... i can't wait to see what the next couple of days entail. perhaps we'll reach 70 degrees then have a blizzard :)

lack of posting

2006-02-16T11:55:00.000-05:00

usually my lack of posting is due to being immensely busy with school work, however that is not the only fact for my current reason. i seem to have picked up a lovely bug that is a great combination of a sinus infection, strep throat, and an earache. thankfully my great doctor and my awesome parents were able to get me some meds so hopefully i'll be feeling a little more like myself by the weekend. just in time to write two papers, research two more, read a book, and study for an exam i have tomorrow. yahoo.. thankfully i got the meds in time before the infection pushed any further into my lungs so hopefully this means no pneumonia or bronchitus.

the doctor put me on a new med which is kind of amusing to take. within 20 mins of taking it, it makes you really really dizzy. thus you are suppose to take it right before you getting into bed. needless to say i'm currently sleeping on my couch because it is far safer to climb off the couch dizzy than my bed six feet in the air. the amusing aspect of taking the medicine includes not only the dizzy feeling, but some blurred vision and disorientation. actually it's sort of like being a little drunk. then again i don't think i've ever been this disorientated after a couple drinks. anyway it should make for an intersting weekend. :)

not super original

2006-02-14T21:52:00.000-05:00

You Are Skiing

Graceful, athletic, and gusty - you're willing to put it all on the line.
You're willing to take big risks for big rewards.

What Winter Sport Are You?

not really an original response, but hey i really enjoy it. absolutely adore the sport. i think the only injury that stopped me from skiing was breaking my tail bone, but then i still tried one full run before the jolting convincing me to spend some time in the lodge. heck i've had some awesome falls in my day.

just last year when i was skiing with my two best guy friends, i got annoyed with them waiting forever to go down one run and yelled at them to get their wussies butts moving and catch up. apparently from what they told me later all they saw was a little red blur attacking the hill then a huge cloud of snow about 2/3s down. they did come to my rescue but had to spray snow all over me. they were really sweet though and helped me find the ski i had lost and the poles i had ditched. we were all laughing pretty hard by the bottom especially after i classified the fall as fell so hard that i blew my bra straps off. don't think they had heard that one before. i have to admit though that it's really difficult to fix said bra straps when one is all bundled up. still a really cool fall. i think i caught an edge as i was landing after catching some air and down i went with a few somersults backwards down and across the hill. i'm ever so talented :)

happy valentine's day

2006-02-14T08:49:00.000-05:00

happy valentine's day to all!!

for those of us who are single,
my favorite drinking toast:

Here's to being single...
Drinking doubles...
And seeing triple

for those of you who aren't single,
here's some amusing advice from today's campus paper:

DO: Surprise you significant others (or potential significant others) by standing outside their door/window holding a stereo playing their favorite song. Even if they don't get the John cusack reference from "Say Anthing", they'll appreciate that you went through the trouble to dig up double-D batteries, an old boom box and CDs rather than reaching for an iPod.

DON'T: Do this if the person doesn't know you. Stalkers don't get kudos fro performing romantic acts-plus they are just plain creepy. Plus, then people start to wonder, "How did you figure out what my favorite song is?"

hope everyone has a great day :)

wussies

2006-02-13T10:30:00.000-05:00

it is amusing to see the northeast closed down by such a little snow storm. admittedly 27 inches of snow can be a bit of a problem, but it happened over a weekend. still plenty of businesses, schools, and governmental operations are closted down. i've seen storms that big and i still went to school the next day. heck a couple years ago we had rain all day and then it turned to snow. we ended up with about 2 inches of pure ice then about 2 feet of snow. still had classes the next day, but the buses had trouble running. it's amazing what a difference there is between regions of the united states in how they handle weather.

weekend

2006-02-13T10:08:00.000-05:00

the weekend went pretty well. my parent decided to take a weekend away and my little brother was sort of forced to come stay with me. it actually went pretty well. my little sister came over and spent saturday night so my room was rather crowded with the impromptu slumber party. we had a lot of fun and just generally relaxed.

the most amusing thing was spending so much time with my litte brother. usually when we are all at home he goes to his bedroom and hides for hours at a time. i think i spent the more time with him this weekend than i have spent with him in a good couple years. course i can't wait till he decides to speak in more than one syllable. currently he mostly just grunts or makes caveman noises which is not helpful if you are trying to figure out where to go, what to do, if he needs anything, etc. but i guess i'll have to wait a couple more years before he breaks out of this phase. although i am his sibling so that probably has the most to do with it. eh, we shall see.

this week is going to be pretty bad. two papers due at the beginning of next week, an exam at the end of this week, and i think i'm getting sick on top of it all. i've had a scratchy throat and a sinus headache much of the weekend and i'm running a bit of a temperature.. hopefully it's only a cold that i can cure with some rest and lots of fluids... should make for an interesting week.

too many chores

2006-02-09T17:44:00.000-05:00

so far today i've done 5 loads of laundry, cleaned the bathroom floor (a monumental task in it's own right), and ironed a ton of clothes. i only have to clean the rest of the bathroom and then clean my room. which i will be putting off until tomorrow. tonight is the first night in quite a few where i'm home before 10pm and i plan to enjoy this by going to bed really freaking early. hopefully that way i'll get a ton of sleep and be able to get a ton of stuff done tomorrow morning so that things will be ready when my little brother comes up to visit later that night.

the only large task i have left to finish tonight is to decide whether to submit a paper to my department's academic journal. i've been encouraged by at least one professor and a few of my friends, but part of the dilemma is that a) i'd have to walk to the north end of campus tomorrow morning in order to submit it and b)i'm nervous about whether the paper is even good enough.

eh, well hope everyone has a great night and i shall hopefully be enjoying some extra sleep :)

kiddie tv

2006-02-08T16:24:00.000-05:00

so, even though i'm technically an adult for some strange reason i've some how gotten hooked on a tv show for kids. little kids...aka preschoolers. the problem is that it is soo cute. it's a show all about an irish pig. jacker's! the adventures of piggley winks basically is a show where a grandpa pig tells moral stories to his grandpiggies through tales of his childhood in ireland. so basically everyone has cute irish accents. piggley has two friends; a cow named ferrny, and a duck named dannan. mel brooks even does the voice of a sheep. i think i fell off the couch the first time i realized who was doing the voice. he's a very strange sheep and he even walks only on his back hooves unless he's annoyed then he stomps around on all four.

anyway, i'd recommend checking it out. i've found it on my local pbs and on the local cbc. great for anyone of any age.

global warming??

2006-02-07T15:21:00.000-05:00

just a short note in the five minutes i have between classes:

so after all the scientists are screaming that the earth is getting too warm and the ozone layer is going to die.. there's a scientist out there that is of the opinion that we will actually be heading into a little ice age soon and thus the earth will be cooling. how's that for intruiging?

24 round up

2006-02-07T09:15:00.000-05:00

so i've been a bit busy and haven't posted anything regarding last week's 24. so here's some great posts from last week and this weeks 24.

as always sarahk does a fantastic job with her comments regarding each week's episode. here's 12:00-1:00 and 1:00-2:00. as always there are spoliers contained in the links.. so if you haven't been watching well just don't click. it's just not possible for me to live-blog a 24 episode. i'm waaay to busy screaming at my tv and making phone calls to friends trying to guess the next plot idea. anyway enjoy the links, sarahk does an awesome job!!

european reaction

2006-02-06T11:18:00.000-05:00

great article by victor davis hanson regarding europe's reaction to recent events by islamic radicals. now if only the us would get on the band wagon and stop all the pc bullsh*t. unfortunately it seems that many americans feel that hiding their heads in the sand and pretending that things that happen overseas will never affect them. currently all the horrible things are happening across the atlantic from us, but that won't last forever. violence by these groups will be brought to our shores. the real question isn't if, but when it will happen. i think it will happen a lot sooner than anyone suspects.....

fantastic article

2006-02-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

i found this fantastic article today via The Queen of All Evil. it is definitely worth the read. the article is entitled Marx, Communism, Totalitarianism; Muhammed, Islam, Terrorism.

it sums up a lot of what i've been thinking regarding islamic fundamentalism. all i can say in reply to it is AMEN!!

cold day

2006-02-06T10:33:00.000-05:00

this morning was absolutely gorgeous. there were so few people outside as i was walking to my first class. the sun was slowly rising, the wind was blowing, and the snow was absolutely perfect. i was nice and toasty all bundled up in my warm winter gear including my favorite long underwear. i think the windchill was around 7 this morning. not bad really. the sun is now out so everyone is pretty happy. the snow doesn't bother people as much if we have sun, and it's been a really long time since we've had much sun.

with all the lovely weather, today should be a great day :)

yay!!

2006-02-05T20:09:00.000-05:00

yay!! it's finally cold outside!!! after horrible winter of lukewarm temperatures it's finally cold again!!

i just checked my weatherbug and it says it is 22 degrees outside with an 11 degree windchill. i'm soo happy!! i can't stand it when the weather cannot make up its mind between winter and spring. thankfully we are now back to winter. loads of snow on the ground and suitably cold and windy temperatures make me one happy girl :)

my real bed

2006-02-05T17:40:00.000-05:00

i have finally made my real bed. the goal for tonight is to actually start sleeping up there again. should be an interesting night. just have to remember to not get to close to the left side the of the bed because it would be a six foot drop to the hard floor and that would suck.

after almost a month of being back at school i have finally made my bed. go me!

avoidance

2006-02-05T15:56:00.000-05:00

it's been a long week. i've spent the last couple of days just trying to catch back up on sleep and attempt to get some homework done for the next week. i still need to thoroughly clean the room and make my real bed up before tomorrow, but we'll see how far i get. my goal is to at least get the bed made so i can start sleeping up there again tonight. i'll probably leave the cleaning till later in the week because it will just get messy again.

my little brother is coming up next weekend to stay since my parents have decided to take a little weekend get-away. it's about time they did. there was some talk of it over the summer, but i don't think they felt comfortable about leaving the three of us kids alone in the house for a couple of days. i swear i've only filled the kitchen with smoke once and that was probably a good six years ago. anyway, they've decided to go away for the weekend and hang out with my aunt and uncle. it should be a lot of fun for them. they really deserve a break. plus it should be interesting to have my brother to stay for the weekend. my little sister, who also goes to the same college i'm at, will probably come over and spend at least one night. needless to say cleaning the room is an absolute necessity.

other than that we got a ton of snow last night. rained all day then turn to sleet then to snow. it kept things rather quiet the last couple of nights or at least the drunks stayed indoors. i shall be spending the rest of my evening relaxing on the couch watching movies and avoiding the super bowl. i never really have watched the game before and i don't intend to start now. i really don't see the point in it. i can think of a million other things i would rather be doing that watching the super bowl.

current confusion

2006-02-01T10:42:00.000-05:00

my latest current confusion relates to all the coverage of the abc reporter who was injured by an IED. why is this all over the newspapers, the news,etc? for the last couple of days we've all had to read or hear about how he was med-evaced to germany and then on to the united states with continual coverage about how he and the cameraman are doing and what might be the side effects of being injured, and on and on and on. give me a freaking break. do we ever hear about the soldiers, both us and iraqi, who are killed and injured daily? we never hear about the live saving efforts performed on their behalf. we never hear about how they will be affected by these injuries, how their families feel, about them. but because some stupid reporter was trying to "get the real story about iraq" the american public is forced to deal with a ridiculous amount of coverage regarding his health. good freaking grief.

sleepwalker

2006-02-01T10:14:00.000-05:00

so i've started sleepwalking again. this is not good news. i woke up this morning at around 2:30ish standing in the middle of my room with a glass of water in my hand with my glasses on. not cool. epecially since in order to have the glass of water i had opened a new gallon jug of water. needless to say this is a little bit scary and i was happy to notice that my door was still locked and the bathroom door still chained. this had better not become a regular occurance. i'm afraid of where i might wander off to...

factoid of the day

2006-02-01T10:09:00.000-05:00

interesting little factoid for the day:

taco bell nacho cheese sauce when spilled on carpet and left alone for a number of days will turn into something with the texture of hardened epoxy and the color of nasty peanut butter.

no this test was not performed on my own carpet, but the carpet in my dorm hallway. some drunk kid who may live on the floor spilled it saturday night and has not been cleaned up by matinance so i've been observing the spill to see what happens to the sauce in it's fermenting process.

mondays

2006-01-30T09:57:00.000-05:00

got to love it when your first class of the day is at 8:30 in the morning and you have to sit through the end of a movie about a girl becoming a suicide bomber. happily the chick chooses to not kill herself, but gesh... it really kills ones mood for the morning. or maybe it's just me. who knows. admittedly last week when we watched the beginning of the movie, everyone left the classroom really quietly and rather depressively. so i'm not the only one who felt a little weird about the timing of the movie.

the weekend was mostly relaxing, but for some reason i still feel tired. at some point, i'm eventually going to get around to making my bed. i've been sleeping on the couch (which pulls out into a full twin bed) since i moved back to school this semester and just haven't gotten around to making my bed. although the darn thing is over six feet in the air so that may have a bit to do with why i haven't gotten around to making it. plus with everything else going on in my life and the fact that most nights i come home and either eat dinner then go to bed or just go straight to bed, sleeping on the couch is seriously convient. but my brother is coming to visit in about two weeks so i should really get the bed made and wash all the couch blankets.

in other news, i finally got the proofs back from my senior yearbook pictures. the school goes through some strange studio that comes to campus to take the pictures and then they mail them to you. well after much hasseling and phone calls, my parents finally got the proofs saturday. from what i saw of the scans my dad made, they turned out pretty decent. a couple have rather goofy grins and in one my nose is all scrunched up for some weird reason. the studio also likes to take a picture of the student in cap and gown, which is a tad surreal to look at. i mean, i know i'm graduating in a couple months, but pictures like that seem to make it that much more of a certainty. the pictures also make my hair look really red and made my eyes look kind of green in a couple of them. i have blue eyes naturally and well my hair color is still up for debate. i've never dyed it, but no one can ever make up their mind what color it really is. i inherited by father's hair color and well..he says it's more dark blond, my mom says it's brown with blond and red highlights, and well i refer to myself as a brunette just to simplify matters. plus they don't like to put more than one word on your drivers license.

anyway, i've got a busy week ahead filled with meetings, a career fair, and lord only knows what else. will indie survive the week?? tune in next time, for further adventures...

writing my butt off

2006-01-26T17:08:00.000-05:00

i've succeeded in writing four papers this week. it's been ridiculous. of the four, three were for my class with the retired professor. for some reason he seems to enjoy having to grade lots of undergraduate papers as part of his retirement. i think he's a little bit nutty myself, but i'm just a student who would rather get out of excessive busy work when possible. however, i did write and turn in early the paper due on sunday so that's one less thing i have to do this weekend. i might even be able to go goof off with my little sister and read something that isn't a textbook for one of my classes. had to narrow the definition there because i tend to read a lot of nonfiction, of which some could be used as textbooks. i know i'm a strange kid. i think i only have 30-40 books from the library living me with me currently. although i'm not real sure on that one, i haven't counted lately.

oh my goodness...

2006-01-26T15:58:00.000-05:00

oh my goodness...

i got linked by Ith. holy cow... i'm so honored...

as for an explanation of my unofficial major: well when it came time to create a real resume and apply for jobs, my dad (The Thomas) and i were trying to come up with a way to describe the variety of classes and majors i've been apart of and an unofficial major of indiana jones really fits the bill.

i almost bought the hat and whip the last time i went to disney world, but my mom was worried about taking the whip back on the plane and scaring the baggage security people. although that was before 9/11 so heaven only knows how they would have responded to it. hmmm can't say i would be adverse to receiving them as graduation gifts though.. hint hint to family members...

more 24

2006-01-24T23:01:00.000-05:00

wow this last week's episode was absolutely nuts. i'm totally calling this season. i called wingnut and assassin last week and told them that i thought it was going to be georgian terrorists and they had found sarin gas. oh i was sooo right. yay me!!

sarahk's got the round up for this week's cool quotes and commentary.

rhetorical questions

2006-01-24T17:22:00.000-05:00

is it wrong to do the happy dance when you find out that the last guy you dated now has a new girlfriend? is this wrong psychologically or just strange?

because i totally did a huge happy dance when i found it out this morning. i'm happy partly because now he definitely isn't moping about me ending the relationship, and because he is happy. we used to be extremely good friends and then tried to date over the summer. a lot of the things we could tolerate in each other as friends didn't carry over very well in a relationship. plus he was smoking more and more and i refuse to ever be in a serious relationship with anyone who smokes. gag. anyway, i'm very happy for him and wish him the best. i really hope this works out well for him, he deserves a good girl.

24 premiere party

2006-01-16T22:38:00.000-05:00

my friend wingnut had a premiere party last night to celebrate this season's premiere of 24. we all had a ton of fun. i ended up driving up with a girl who lives up at school in the same building which was an interesting experience. wingnut had had a big crush on her his last year at school, but nothing really came of it. well i got to spend an entire car ride up to wingnut's house with her pumping me for information about him and trying to find out my position in our group of friends. she's known me for over a year and she still doesn't seem to realize how i fit into the group. just because the group is made up of a bunch of guys, me, and then their wives and girlfriends, does not mean that i'm some sort of weird obstacle in her attempts to get at my friend. good grief.

anyway, the party was a blast. got to watch 4 or 5 episodes from last season to build up the suspense before the premiere. also got to see two of my friends and their wives, since they have all graduated and now have real jobs, who i haven't seen in quite a while. kind of funny to realize how many of my friends are now married or in committed relationships and i'm still the lone single, but it's cool. i like my current relationship status. i also got to meet the new girl in wingnut's life. she's really great. she even brought cookies over. good cookies too.

the 24 premiere was sweet!! sarahk says it best with her post here and we all totally got annoyed by this, but we survived. it was a great premiere. four hours of fantastic television. only downside to the whole thing was my stupid ra decided to have a floor meeting tonight at 8pm when 24 started. what idiot schedules a meeting during somethign as important as this.

eh, well now i've got to try and pay the ticket i got for leaving my car at a meter overnight. stupid city ordinances. just cause a gal doesn't want to walk from a dark, scary parking lot late at night she doesn't deserve a ticket. heck the weekend before classes started some girl got kidnapped by a sex offender and thankfully the police pulled over the car and she was able to indicate to him that she wasn't in the car by choice and everything ended well. needless to say, i'd much rather get parking tickets in this case.

friday the thirteenth

2006-01-13T22:27:00.000-05:00

so why is friday the thirteenth so unlucky?

well my favorite explanation concerns the knights templar:

"During the Middle Ages, the superstition against Friday the 13th grew. On Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrests of Jaques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templars and sixty of his senior knights in Paris. Thousands of others were arrested elsewhere in the country. After employing torture techniques to compel the Templars to "confess" to wrongdoing, most were eventually executed and sympathizers of the Templars condemned Friday the 13th as an evil day."

From here.

good luck

2006-01-13T22:25:00.000-05:00

just want to send out a huge good luck to my friend wingnut, who is going on his first date in six and a half years. after a five year relationship and a bit of dry spell, he's now back on the dating scene.

UPDATE: (1/14) apparently the date went really really well according to wingnut. in fact, he said that he thinks she might be the one. looks like i might have yet another married male friend :)

rain

2006-01-13T22:21:00.000-05:00

i love the rain, although not when i'm running all over town with idiots who don't have their headlights on when it's downpouring outside and rather dark. grr.. but it was nice to get out and enjoy the weather. get some great fresh air. just wish i had had time to take a nap.

UPDATE: so now it's snowing outside. in fact it's already covering the ground and blowing in big fluffy wet flakes. should be interesting when i wake up in the morning.

last semester

2006-01-12T19:13:00.000-05:00

wow it is so weird writing that. it's strange to think about how this is my last semester at school. after being in school for so many years of my life it is weird to think about it finally being done. that i finally have to enter the big adult world and leave what has become so familar.

enough melancholy thoughts, on to the school dirt:

this semester should be interesting. it's going to be a lot of work, but that's good for me. keeps me from getting into too much trouble. although a bit part of what would get me into trouble have either graduated or moved away so that alone is a major factor. my professors are all quite the characters. i have one professor who is determined to be the coolest guy and everyone's best friend (i'm thinking he's going through a mid-life crisis), one professor who thinks that everyone is eight years old and incapable of understanding the material and proceeds to talk about one word per ten seconds (it's getting to be a long class), one professor who is so ditzy that i'm not even sure if she knows where she is, one professor who is the classic little old prof lady who loves cats (can we say huge cat earrings on the first day of class), and the last one is so strange that he gets his own sentence. my poli sci prof is so strange. he can't say anything without saying 'right' after it. he can't even say a whole sentence without saying it. i think he said 'right' at least four times in one sentence alone. all his statements have the intonation of a question and then he follows them with 'right' in either a further questioning tone, or in a very firm affirmation of his statement. needless to say the class gets annoying fast.

well i've got homework i need to get done before the weekend so that i can get some time to relax. plus my friend wingnut, who graduated last spring, is having a party sunday night for the 24 premiere. yay!! only 2 more days till 24!!! can we say incentive to get stuff done :)

grrrr....

2006-01-12T19:12:00.000-05:00

i need to stop writing posts here... i just lost a very awesome post and i'll never get it back ... stupid internet

i'm back

2006-01-08T22:29:00.001-05:00

i'm back!!! an update will follow as soon as the week's events allow... let's just say my break was a bit of doozie...

merry christmas

2005-12-25T22:19:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!!

christmas eve

2005-12-24T11:44:00.000-05:00

christmas eve is my absolute favorite holiday. i know i'm strange. lots of people like christmas or halloween, but yeah i like christmas eve. i think it's the whole anticipation of the holiday part that i like so much. anticipating all the fun of christmas day, the giving of gifts, the eating of lots of food, the sneaking away from doing the dishes. all fun things. :P then there is the anticipation of the birth of christ. now seriously what could be better.

i love the traditions my family has for christmas eve. a huge dinner of ham and then lots of pies. my mom is the queen of desserts. this year we are only have five pies and cookies and cheesecake. one year she did five or six pies along with cookies, and then made cream puffs for christmas day because my uncle didn't believe that she really made them as big as softballs. that was an interesting year. anyway so after dinner then we all goof around a bit till it's time to leave for church. we usually go to the church that i grew up in. it's a gorgeous church, built in the late 1890s. personally i'm not fond of the current pastors but that's for a lot of different reasons.

but christmas eve service is i think for me the most religious of the year. easter is pretty special too, but i think it's all the hope that the world felt about the saviour being born and how wonderful things would be from then on.

i would write more but if i don't go i'll miss my spot in the shower line up.

merry christmas everyone!!

update

2005-12-23T16:36:00.000-05:00

well here's an update on what's been going on the last couple of days in my life. wednesday i got these little tubes stuck in my tear ducts to hopefully open them up more so that my eyes won't be so darn dry. thursday i chopped a ton of my hair off so now it's all short and feels strange to me. then i got an allergy shot and the stupid nurse managed to hit the muscle and now i've got a cool bump on my arm. it's been freaking my mom out since she saw it. i'm relaxed about it since it's happened before. allergy shots are suppose to be given just under the skin and i'm so tiny with very little body fat that occasionally a muscle gets hit. unpleasant but kind of cool looking. i think the last time this happened i was at school and it looked like i had a ping pong ball shoved under my arm. of course i ended up running around showing it off to all my guy friends because i thought it looked super cool. they did too, although we did have a minor scuffle relating to whether they could touch the lump or not.

other than that it's been busy at the house. a lot of the necessary cleaning has been done and mom has baked the pie shells for three pies and baked two full pies. dad is currently cooking the extra turkey breast and i'm sure there will be more cleaning before bed tonight. all in all if it would only snow some more it should be an interesting christmas.

i can hear mom calling about helping some more so i must run and hide :)

home

2005-12-19T19:44:00.000-05:00

i'm enjoying being home quite a lot. i think my sister and i were completely over the moon tonight at dinner because mom made meatloaf. my mom is a phenominal cook and after months of horrible cafe food it was like heaven. i've also spent quite a considerable amount of time sleeping. yay!! i think i slept a total of probably 13 or 14 hours yesterday alone. that's including two naps before my aunt, uncle, and cousin showed up for dinner. we all had a blast and in traditional style played a new game, apples to apples. this is a tremendously funny game and it was so hilarious to play.

today has been filled up by one intentional doctor's appointment and one unintended. my dentist has switched offices and now resides off in the middle of nowhere. my sister and i got there to find to no receptionist so we figured they were busy and bunked down on the new crazy furniture. (the whole place is decorated like a cabin in the woods. ie stick furniture and pine trees) well eventually they call my sister back and i'm doozing on the chair because well what else am i going to do? the dumb receptionists and hygenists were so clueless that they didn't really check the waiting room or call my name and got all freaked out that i hadn't come, but my sister was there and called my mom to find out where i was. when they finally took a real peek into the area, low and behold what do they discover? me. yeah lame. after my cleaning and a bizarre experience with digital x-rays. (one size fits all is totally wrong) i find out that when i got my wisdom teeth taken out at 16 that they left a root in there adn my dentist freaks out and says i need to go see my surgical dentist again and check it out. so after a couple quick calls to my mom and a trip to the grocery store, off my sister and i trudge to another dentist office. only for me to be told by the doctor who only saw me to check that my stitches had dissolved, that they must have left a tiny bit of root in there and it has 'grown' since. my parents and i are still mulling what we should do about it, whether to just leave it and wait till it causes problems or get it out while i'm still under my parent's insurance.

needless to say this could shape up to be a very interesting break.

hallelujah!!

2005-12-16T20:32:00.000-05:00

yay!! all my finals are done!!!

i'm now home after a dicey drive back from school. got to love lots of blowing snow and ice covered highways. but classes are finished, the last papers and exams turned in. it is sooo nice to finally be home. i can't wait to sleep in my own bed, for as many hours as i wish without being woken up by loud screaming drunks. plus i get to eat all my mom's wonderful cooking. yay!! if i'm lucky i'll even gain a couple pounds. i'm quite skinny so this isn't a big problem for me. i'll probably wear it all off skiing knowing my luck.

i'm happy to be done with finals and to be home. now i only have to worry about getting my grades back. i'm off to go get some serious amount of sleep :)

the finger

2005-12-13T00:12:00.000-05:00

so it's finals week and it's nuts. i'm already exhausted and it's monday. i've still got two more finals and a paper to go before i'm finished. as per usual i've come down with a sinus infection, but thankfully i have meds up here with me so hopefully everything will be better with that soon. i can't seem to ever get through finals week without getting sick. although i will say that at least i don't have mono, that happened two years ago and it was not pleasant at all.

i had my first final well i guess yesterday now that it's officially tuesday. but it was well before dawn. i have another one of those again today too which should make for an interesting night. it is rather interesting to walk around campus that early in the morning. the sun was just starting to lighten the sky and campus was so quiet. almost no cars speeding around the traffic circles. hardly anyone was awake and for quite awhile i was walking all alone to my final.

i hate to speculate on how well i did, but since my professor is an extremely bias nutter i wore my Nuke the Moon shirt as my final stand against the prof's idiocy. although i must admit that the shirt wasn't really visible because i had a really heavy sweatshirt over it because it was like -2 when i left for the final. kinda had to keep my skinny body warm.

well to sleep i must go, before i get up in a couple hours....

congratulations

2005-12-10T13:44:00.000-05:00

congratulations to sarahk and frankj on their wedding today.

fire alarm

2005-12-09T08:49:00.000-05:00

i'm usually a very heavy sleep so naturally when i moved off to college my parents were concerned that i might sleep through a fire alarm in the middle of the night. well this morning that theory was proven hopelessly wrong.

from what i can gather from rumors and the local police blotter some moron set a laundry cart on fire in the basement laundry room. either way i hope that person gets in some serious trouble and is evicted if they live in the dorm. because it is sooo not cool to be woken up not long after you've fallen asleep. sadly my first thought was that the fire alarm was misfunctioning and that it wasn't a problem. but then my wits came back to me and i quickly bundled myself up in as many clothes as i could quickly throw on and grabbed my coat, hat, mittens, and my purse and ran for the doors. the lobby had a horrible odor reminicent of a combination of burning electrical and that smell when you put a cd in a microwave for too long. (yes i have done that last one and then my idiot roommate thought that she could clear the air with fabreeze, it's not intended to work that way)

anyway eventually they let the students go into the other half of the building since we were in the middle of a typical midwestern blizzard. i finally made it back to my room about 45 minutes after i had run out the door. thankfully the sweet firemen were going around letting us know that it was safe and we could go back to our rooms since the hall staff were being stupid morons. at around quarter to four they finally were able to turn off the fire alarm and i was able to fall back to sleep. needless to say i'm now really blerry eyed and even more exhausted than i was last night when i finally decided to go to bed.

i only hope that they have caught the complete idiot that set the fire. actually the prevailing opinion outside last night was that if the person who set the fire was identified we'd all mob together and attack. i felt it would be totally justified. i can't stand stupid people.

today

2005-12-08T14:53:00.000-05:00

this morning when i woke up the thermostat said it was -2 degrees outside. now how sweet is that. i love cold weather. must be the northern european heritage coming through, but i love snow. admittedly fall is my favorite season, but winter is pretty neat as long as there is snow. i hate that yucky transition weather when everything is brown and dirty.

today's been okay so far. i ended up getting to my first class a tad late, but the prof was still playing with overheads and hadn't actually started class. the rest of the afternoon hasn't been bad either. one class was a really super short review, mostly here's the format for the final now please leave, and the other class was cancelled since the professor was sick. although i'm concerned since my prof is a cute little old man with a funny accent and being old and sick is never great, it's not like missing the class will cause many problems. we were only going to review the last half of the textbook, which he wrote, so we should be fine. it all works out well for me since i'm suppose to email another prof three pages of a term paper at some point this week and i haven't had much of a chance to work on it. although i wonder what the actual week deadline entails since she is in beijing this week and i wonder if she is taking into account the time difference. eh, we shall see.

i best get going on that paper so that i can try and get some sleep tonight.

December 7th

2005-12-07T08:56:00.000-05:00

At 7:55 am on December 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."
~President FD Roosevelt

Please pause to remember those who lost their lives fighting that day, those killed in the line of duty during war, and those currently fighting to protect out freedoms.

picture of me

2005-12-05T11:10:00.000-05:00

for those of you wanting to know what i look like, here's a picture of me from last winter when i went skiing with a bunch of friends. it's a fun picture cause i'm all bundled up in my ski gear, which i adore. i figured it was appropriate today, because it's so freaking cold and snowy today, here in the midwest.

More Snow!!

2005-12-04T00:07:00.000-05:00

yay!! it's snowing tons outside right now... it's a veritable winter wonderland :) now will i be saying this in the morning i have to go did my car out of the snow? that bit is questionable. needless to say i may break out my big cool boots if they don't plow or salt tonight, which considering i haven't even heard a police car go by in quite a few hours (this being highly unusual) the idea of clear roads tomorrow won't be happening... good thing i pack my little car with sand.

i'll try and update about the last couple weeks when i get a change.. it's been rather busy and finals are only a week away making life that much more interesting.

last couple days

2005-11-19T21:20:00.000-05:00

have you ever felt completely rejuvenated by hearing just the right mix of songs? i had this happen to me thursday night when i was at a local coffee shop meeting with some friends and a prof from my department. the coffee shop was playing this great mix of songs from the grosse point blank soundtrack and flogging molly. it was such a weird, but great mix. totally made me feel so much better after such a freaking long day. i had gotten up rather early so i could leave from home to get back to school before class started only to deal with all the lovely snow that had fallen overnight and that morning. of course it was thursday one of my super long days only to be followed by a meeting and then i ended up hanging with some friends for a bit.

but yeah the music. it was such a great mix. or at least i thought so. i have weird music tastes. i'm very electic with my musical preferences. i'll listen to all sorts of things, but i tend to listen to whatever pleases me rather than based on popularity. so i rarely listen to whatever is the lastest greatest. i'm not a music snob. not one of those people who only listen to bands that are unknown so that they look cool. no i just happened to be someone who bucks the trend by liking stuff years later. i'm strange :P

my eyes are all cool now.. or at least are on their way of heading that way. turns out it was my old condition acting up again so more eye drops and a new solution for my contacts. hopefully this will combat the problem cause the last thing i need before finals is anything wrong with my eyes. i'm blind enough thank you very much, i can't see my own toes even if they are covered in bright red polish without glasses or contacts. i don't need them to be any worse.

it's snowing!!!

2005-11-16T11:30:00.000-05:00

it's snowing!!! first snow of the year. i doubt it will stick much more the weather peeps are now predicting up to 3 inches today. should make for an interesting day tomorrow :)

maybe the snow will finally convice the last few die hard's to stop wearing flip flops outside. i'm a midwesterner born and bred and can withstand some pretty cold weather(ie skiing in 30 below temps), but even i know when it's time to start wearing socks and shoes.

blog issues

2005-11-15T18:17:00.000-05:00

for all those that apparently are reading my blog, i'm working on the read more problem. for some reason read more insists on posting itself on every single post, whether i put the corresponding java in or not. although a few of the read more's actually do link to more of the post. hopefully i'll be getting that fixed soonish and then get that silly read more changed to something cooler.

rainy days

2005-11-15T18:10:00.000-05:00

today's been a gorgeous rainy day. i love rainy days, they are such great nap days. however, tuesdays are one of my busiest days of the week so no nap for me, but it's still great to be out and enjoy the weather. almost all the leaves have now fallen between the heavy rain and the horrid wind all weekend.

the weather is finally getting cold so that's a welcome change. i'm sick of the warm fall we had, so the idea of possible snow tomorrow is really exciting. actually the crazy weather people are talking that we might have a white thanksgiving too, which although that's always cool to have i hate driving home from school in that kind of weather.

well i have a meeting to go to still this evening and then back to work on my huge papers because i have to run home tomorrow for a doctors appointment. got to love having a problem with your eyes, especially during the busiest time of the semester. i'm thinking it's just eye strain and the fact that my eyes hardly produce any tears, but the blurry vision and focusing problems are getting sort of ridiculous.

school is soo trying to kill me.....

veteran's day

2005-11-11T23:55:00.000-05:00

since vetern's day should always honor those who have served and those currently serving in our armed services, i dedicate this poem to them today. i've always loved it and since it was written during world war I it is rather fitting.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

here's the back story to the poem because it's so cool and everyone should read it at least once.
McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

I would like to say thank you soo much to all those who have served and who are currently serving in the US armed forces. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the freedoms that we all enjoy daily.

holidays

2005-11-08T17:26:00.000-05:00

well it's officially the holiday season. today on my way home from classes i noticed that all of the dorms have their christmas lights up :) soon when they start turning them on at dusk i will be able to santa's sleigh on top of the dorm across the street. ahhhh... holidays in college

All Soul's Night Quiz

2005-10-31T22:36:00.000-05:00

well since i've got so much going on right now to really write a more intelligent post i'll just stick to an awesome meme..

Ith's All Soul's Night Quiz

What's the first Halloween costume you remember wearing? the first one i definitely remember wearing was a pumpkin which would have put me at probably 2, i was a dragon before this but i really don't remember it

What was your favourite treat in your goodie bag? three musketeer bars definitely

What's your best Halloween memory? most amusing had to be when my dad ended up scrubbing at my poor cheek for a good hour to get rid of the silly temporary tattoo i had put there earlier in the day because dad wouldn't let me go to school the next day with the thing still on

What's your worst? hmm... the horrible first date perhaps?

Have you ever bobbed for apples? i'm small i avoid this like the plague

Have you ever been to a grownup Halloween party?(costumes, dancing, drinks/dinner -- that sort of thing.) do college parties count? then yes, but it was rather lame. i spent more time watching the street than interacting with the party

If you were going to such a party, and money was no object, what would your ideal costume be? something cool and period... scottish noblewoman, elizabethan woman, etc

Ever been to sea, Billy? Oops, wrong quiz! confused...

Ever had a paranormal experience? If yes, tell us all about it. well my dorm is haunted.. there's the ghost in the elevator, the ghost on the sixth floor, and i'm pretty sure there's one in the room although i've yet to actually see him, but he's more touchy feely than i'd like

What's your favourite scary movie? um.. well modern scary movies suck. but young frankenstein, nostferatu, and rocky horror picture show rocks!!

Have you ever played a Halloween "trick" on anyone? nope

Did you you carve a pumpkin this year? you must have missed the busy bit above and the living in a dorm part..

Do you think we had more fun at Halloween then kids do today? well i was a rather sheltered child...

What candy are you giving out tonight? well since we had trick-or-treaters last thursday..nothing

Will you be in costume? not this year

Decorated at all? a pumpkin, three gourds, a couple candles, and a for a brief couple hours a frankenstein cutout on the door

Test

2005-10-31T20:08:00.000-05:00

testing... testing...