i'm gonna lose my head here

today's title comes from resurrection by the temper trap.

i'm not even going to bother apologising for being a bad blogger lately because, honestly, this has just been an incredibly busy semester. banana, i don't even know how you've managed with your nine thousand languages and activities. so, instead, this is just going to be a random post about things i've been liking since my last post.

beginning with:

salad! i'm a lot little bit in love with them. actually, i'm eating one right now (one of the sinfully unhealthy ones from wendy's) but i've been craving them in all shapes and sizes. like i had a buffalo wing caesar salad at salad creations last week and it was wonderful, and i made a little one two nights ago with dried cranberries and raisins and feta cheese as a midnight snack. who knew i could like green things? the momster is certainly mystified. 

dante! this is the second semester that i've had to read the divine comedy in an english class, and this time around it's actually in two separate classes. my brit lit and italian poetry/modernism class (the full course name is "T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the Italian Trecento" and was apparently going to be longer but academic services made my professor shorten it) are overlapping all over the place. we're reading a lot of the same works (okay, in reality, it's more like "we're reading a lot." full stop, the end, sorry but no sleep for Rachel until may) in each of them, but at different times, so occasionally walking into each class feels a bit like going through a time loop. nevertheless, dante and all the other medieval poets we're reading in my italian/modernism class are actually really interesting. although i am getting a bit sick of petrarchan sonnets. poor laura. also i think i have the first canto of inferno memorised.

doctor who. pretty much self-explanatory, actually. although i would like the record to show that i plan to do this to some door in my house one day, or maybe just my bedroom door this summer.

tying in with my last obsession, british television in general. downton abbey, merlin, skins, torchwood, north & south...they're all so wonderful. and, best of all, the shorter seasons makes the writers seem to step up the quality of the episodes a lot - there are way fewer filler episodes.

in keeping with my hall's obsession with merlin/pretty people in period clothing with accents, i introduce to you Arthur Bear. the hall-es and i built him at build a bear together and we're planning to mail him around to each other over the summer. he even has a little passport so you can all sign it! i'm pretty excited.

and this is Merlin Bear, which i got for myself since it lost in the hall-e vote over which bear to build (it was a tough decision to make! also, we got a lot of weird looks from the build a bear staff). michelle the hall-e made a bunny, but i don't have a picture of it.

the history channel, which on three separate viewings has told me that the biblical story of moses is evidence of an ancient alien encounter, of various rumors and theories that abraham lincoln was a vampire, and that humanity is suffering from "amnesia" which prevents us from being able to remember/understand that our ancient ancestors clearly had contact with aliens (because how else were they able to build the pyramids?). i'm beginning to worry about the channel.

cki! i got reelected for next year. we went to our district convention and won things, too, but most of you are adept facebook stalkers so you probably already know that. and i finished the club scrapbook. well, after i put every minion i could find to work, first.

and, of course, this:

if only i'd been alive in the eighties. also, how is it that everyone in that video is, like, a multimillionaire now? and a lot of them are pundits, even. oh, and the current liverpool coach is in it, too, see if you can spot him.

i'll just leave you with this:

i whip my hair back and forth

today's title comes from...seriously? do you really not know where today's title comes from? oh, fine:

the hall-es decided to start singing this randomly during today's oovoo session. now joanna the hall-e keeps singing it whenever we least expect it.

circle k had it's annual thanksgiving dinner today. it was fun. we spent a lot of time setting it up, but it was worth it for the turnout. apparently we got over sixty people (crammed into one very tiny dining room). britney and i went to go pick up the food from the caterer - bad idea. we're not exactly the largest (or muscliest) people. oh, and all the dishes were really hot and we kept forgetting to use the oven mitts when we were putting everything in the car. the drive itself was really fun. britney managed to reignite my billy idol love. i've had white wedding stuck in my head all day. but then came taking everything out of the car. we dropped a pie while attempting to open the door. half of it ended up on the floor and the other half was very smooshed but still in the box...so we did the right thing and sat down on the floor and at the other half. our impromptu munch fest was interrupted by the other board members coming to the door to see what was taking us so long. they thought we were hilarious. i still think that not letting an extremely tasty pie go to waste was a very sensible decision.

husband number three offered me his old down-filled duvet for my dorm room since i get cold easily. the momster dropped it off today. it's wonderful and soft and very, very warm...and queen-sized. which means that my poor bed is completely dwarfed by it. i recruited the hall-es to help me put the (much cuter) new cover on it and the cover was so large that michelle the hall-e crawled inside it to the far end to pull the duvet in after her - it made the covering process a lot easier. also, apparently the inside of my duvet cover is just like being in a tent. at least now we know what to do if we ever get bored - duvet cover tent/pillow fort playtime!

we eventually figured out that i could just fold the duvet in half. so now my bed is extra fluffy! it's a good thing, too. my roommates and i sleep way too much - the hall agrees. someone's always sleeping in or coming back from an early class to nap or napping before going out or going to bed early. our lights are, like, never on. at least being a room of fellow hibernators means that everyone's always very courteous of each other's sleeping time. these things are important, okay? and, yes, i realize everyone in the entire world has already seen this. i don't care, watch anyway:

i found this on youtube. i'm kind of in love with this kid's covers. i can't help it - cover songs are like catnip to me.

!!!

why, yes, i do already have a post with this title. i don't care. why? because ophelia lives!

that's right - after spending three days constantly attempting to restore it, badgering my friends, roommates, and hall-es to help me, calling the parental units no less than three times in the middle of the night out of despair, and frantically googling every possible cause and solution for her affliction (i even tried doing this hideously complicated series of computer commands, only to be stopped by michelle the hall-e, who informed me that i had been using the wrong disk number and nearly wiped my computer of everything on it) ophelia seems to be working properly. she's syncing on itunes right now, which means i won't have any real confirmation until morning since it'll take all night for my music to copy onto it. i don't care. i'm just so excited. i was really starting to hate seeing that stupid little gray apple logo pop up on its home screen every time i tried to do anything with it.

and on that happy note, i really will go to bed. i'm actually resisting the urge to stay up all night until ophelia is done syncing. be proud of me. and wish me luck - hopefully this will be my last night of curling up to my phone so i can still hear music while i sleep.

Bonjour, bonne nuit, au revoir, salut

today's title comes from this song by stereo total. yes, it's french and about death. listen anyway - all of their music is ridiculously catchy and fun to sing along to and the only reason i didn't epically fail every french speaking exam i've ever taken.

today i went downtown with michelle and some of the other hall-es. we stopped by a dance store to pick up leg warmers and a tutu for my kitty costume. no, this was not planned. but halloween is supposed to be cold and they just looked so cute. besides, as it stood, my costume was one very tiny leotard, a tail, and cat ears and i don't really feel like subscribing to the regina george school of halloween costumes this year. while i was there, we chatted with the girl who works at the store and somehow or the other i found myself signing up for dance classes, starting next semester. i'm learning how to salsa! also, i'm taking ballet again for the first time in five years - wish me luck. i'm not even sure why. but...i'm in college. if i don't try new things (or retry old things) now, when will i, right?

on the way back, the school's alert system sent about a thousand text messages (read as: three) warning about a possible warning and telling us to take cover. the word immediately was spelled wrong. it took away a lot of the message's credibility. naturally thinking the whole thing was a joke, we took our sweet time strolling back to campus. michelle and i stopped to get frozen mochas. stella found a dollar on the sidewalk.

so, of course we return to our dorm to hear sirens and the pa system telling everyone to get inside the building in case of high winds.

we finally start panicking and run into the basement (which was horribly hot since it's where all the washers and dryers are) and stay there for a good ten minutes before we find out that the whole thing was a precaution and nothing was happening after all. because this is my life and nothing ever goes right.

in happier news, i've finally listened to taytay's new album...fifteen times. okay, that's not as excessive as it sounds. i usually listen to new albums that often just to get a feel for them. some songs need time to grow. other songs, like this one, will never, ever be okay:

yes, for some unknown reason this song was playing during bingo today. i feel unclean just from listening to it. why does this even exist?

anyway, as for tay tay:

it's a little easier to talk about what i didn't like: the story of us and innocent. the story of us just seemed silly and throw back-ish. basically, a little too much like her last album. actually, both of them did, except innocent doesn't even have the saving grace of being catchy and poppy and fun. it's just...bland. everything else is pretty awesome, though. romeo, juliet, and the scarlet letter are all spared a second appearance - thank god. better than revenge, long live, sparks fly, and never grow up are my favorites right now. never grow up is probably the only one that's going to end up being played consistently over the next few months, though. much as i thought speak now was an improvement over last year's crop of taylor-swift-earworms-on-the-radio, i've got way too much (better) new music to listen to. like the glee rocky horror soundtrack, have you watched it yet?

and since i finally worked out exactly what classes i want to take next semester (and french is definitely on the list...as is spanish, strangely enough, so expect lots of pleas for help if you speak it), i thought i'd close this off with something french - a poem, actually, and one of the few french ones i know.

Et peut-être que tout était écrit dans le livre
mais le livre s’est perdu

ou quelqu’un l’a jeté dans les ronces
sans le lire

n’importe ce qui fut écrit
demeure, même

obscur, un autre qui n’a pas vécu
tout cela

et sans connaître la langue du livre, comprendra
chaque mot

et quand il aura lu, quelque chose
de nous se lèvera

un souffle, une sorte de sourire entre les pierres. 

claude esteban 

it was hot and it was summer

today's title comes from better than revenge by taylor swift. underwhelmed as i was by her last album, i'm pretty in love with this one. it's pretty amazing - and she's actually doing all her own writing. i'd post it, but it isn't on youtube yet, so listen to this instead:

i forgot to mention this album in yesterday's music post, which is strange since it's all i've been listening to at night:

it's wonderful. like rock n' roll and radio and new york city's killing me are my favorites right now, but the whole thing is great. it's a little softer than gossip in the grain, but still good.

we read this in class today, and i really liked it. also, it's been a while since i posted any poetry:

Coming by evening through the wintry city

We said that art is out of love with life.

Here we approach a love that is not pity.

This antique discipline, tenderly severe,

Renews belief in love yet masters feeling,

Asking of us a grace in what we bear.

Form is the ultimate gift that love can offer -

The vital union of necessity

With all that we desire, all that we suffer.

A too-compassionate art is half an art.

Only such proud restraining purity

Restores the else-betrayed, too-human heart.

- Adrienne Rich 

i was too depressed to blog about it at the time, but on sunday i got one of the hall-es to give my bangs an emergency trim (since they were approaching IT LOOKS LIKE YOU DON'T HAVE EYES levels of growth) and michelle (the usual trimmer) was at home. sadly, the trim turned into a massacre. my poor hair has been maimed. it's a good two inches shorter than it's supposed to be. i've been assured that it'll grow back in two weeks or so, but until then...well, i wore a hat in 78 degree weather today. and i asked the momster to drop of all my scarves and her trench coat, so i've been swanning around wearing headscarves and sunglasses and her trench coat and doing my best imitation of a fifties film star, as outlined in the plan i proposed to s-la, meggo, and jeni on oovoo sunday night.

we're doing laundry now. or, we're waiting for our laundry to finish drying so we can get to the horrible task of folding it. one of the dryers broke, like, ten minutes into us using it - which is ridiculous since they're brand new bought-in-august-you-must-buy-the-super-expensive-high-efficiency-detergent-or-else machines. but while we were loading up the other dryers with our clothes we heard a bang and then a series of thumping noises coming from it. upon investigation, one of the curvy plastic things inside it broke off and was rattling around with our clothes, so we moved them into another dryer. i pulled the liverpool jersey out, though. i decided it was an omen against drying it. fernando torres in jersey form is now drying on a hanger in front of joanna's fan.

never mind, our clothes are apparently done. au revoir.