today's title comes from the yelle song of the same name:
warning: i have absolutely no idea what's going on in this video, but i love the song anyway.
other things which i'm listening to:
it's taken me forever, but i finally have studio-quality mp3s of this and every other song they haven't released, which, as you may imagine, makes me pretty happy.
i got a new phone yesterday! it's just an update of my old phone, and also the same phone that both of my parents have (so telling them apart? basically impossible), but it's still somewhat exciting.
other than that, nothing too exciting has happened lately. i'm catching up on all the homework/reading i put off this week, so i spent all day reading maigret stories in french, medieval italian poetry (it's growing on me), and a ton of news articles on the wisconsin budget situation/unions. who knew spring break could be so boring?
oh, and this? this is awesome. go watch it. the end.
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.
today's title comes from the city by patrick wolf which is amazing and you should all listen to and, yes, that means you, too, s-la:
well, it finally happened. i am really, truly, disgustingly mucus-y sick on campus. it sucks. the hall-es have been plying me with fruit and vitamin c and cold medicine and things, so it's not too bad but i sound gross. like, beyond gross, actually. every time i blow my nose it sounds like i'm trying to do a killer whale mating call or something, which means classes this week are just going to be a barrel of laughs. at least not being at home means i can experiment with cough medicines, so the rest of me is okay, if a little tired and kind of incoherent my roommate told me i sound high but we've settled on a nice little cocktail of robutussin, dayquil, and sudafed along with the world's most wonderful cough drops ever (halls, but no one ever bothered to tell me they came in strawberry and not just that horrible medicinal cherry crap) so i think i'll be fine. or, at least, the momster will think i'm fine because she has no idea i'm sick and if she did she would come here and that would be bad.
...i just read that paragraph back. my roommate is right, even when i type i sound high. sorry guys.
the hall-es and i went on an adventure friday night, but it's a story that i want to be, like, grammatically correct so i'll wait until i'm no longer sick to write it up.
for similar reasons, i won't be recapping the oh-so-wonderful liverpool-chelsea game. well, not in words, anyway:
in conclusion, serhio ramo thanks you for your time:
today's title comes from the song of the same name by james vincent mcmorrow. it's one of those mellow, lush, bon iver-soundalikes and i'm in love with it, so listen to it right away:
other things i've been listening to lately include:
and this, which is one of the rare instances of me liking the remix of a song better than the (admittedly awesome original):
and, of course, a cover:
oh, and i finally changed my desktop background:
i'm volunteering at the blood drive later and i feel kind of incredibly sick right now (i know, i know, you're so surprised) so i'm just going to nap and put off the real post which is all about poetry and modernism and brit lit (my professor is insane. no, really. she makes the momster look normal) til tomorrow.
...since i last updated this blog. alternatively, today's title comes from fixin' to die as covered by g. love and the avett brothers, seen here:
nevertheless, it has been a long time since i posted. since the last time we've (virtually) seen each other, beatrice the ipod has been dropped seven times (and acquired one tiny dent which was in no way my fault). electronics live a hard life in my house. also, s-la and i saw tangled! it's adorable. and then the momster and husband number three took me to atlantic city, where i gambled (because i am eighteen! and can legally do so! i can't wait to get my first lottery ticket) and lost spectacularly the first night (grand total: -$185.00) but made it all back up after brunch, which looked like this:
that's right - i successfully gambled! i even made a profit ($4.05). it was thrilling. probably too thrilling, actually, as i have been informed that when one has lost all their money at a casino, the sensible thing to do does not in any way include glaring at a slot machine and playing until you've won your money back. i think that is crap advice delivered by people who never win, anyway, and certainly did not come out with a profit of four whole dollars and five cents, thank you very much.
and now i'm going to go do my homework. for real, this time.
today's title comes from chugjug by family of the year. check them out. no, really, do it. their digital downloads? 100% free, although you can donate if you want to. i actually think i'll ask the parentals to buy the cd for christmas just to support them, since they're pretty good.
anyway, today's post features a lot of mixtures. to begin with, i'm drinking my own improvised version of a peppermint mocha. it involves adding 15 white chocolate candy cane hershey kisses to half a large cup of bold blend coffee and adding a splash of plain creamer or heavy cream. it's wonderful. my nails are a mixture, too - one coat of here today, aragon tomorrow; one coat of cuckoo for this color; and one coat of bring on the bling. the result is a perfect forest green (for some reason i can't find this color on its own - it's always a green with a shimmer or a hint of blue or yellow. why do nail polish manufacturers hate forest green? right now it's my ideal nail polish color) overlaid with gold sparkles. i think it's kind of perfect for the start of the holiday season. my music is a mixture of my own purchases and s-la's, too. right now i'm listening to daylight by matt & kim, gleaned from her during our long overdue music day last week.
all in all, i think mixtures are pretty good things, don't you?
i'm in a very christmassy sort of mood right now. we decorated the house today. well, the tree and stockings and in-house decorations are all up, anyway. we're putting the lights up tomorrow. i had some bad news yesterday, though - my annual christmas ornament purchase broke last year. apparently lulu knocked if off the tree and the momster thought she could replace it before i found out but forgot. everywhere i turn - secrets and lies. i was quite annoyed. i mean, look how pretty it was:
we went to the christmas light show in gaithersburg today. i love that place. it's so pretty. they added prism glasses this year. basically, they give you little paper glasses when you drive in and everything is extra shiny and bright and multiplied by like a thousand and if i were ever to try drugs, i think that's what the world would look like.
in other news, i jumped on the netflix bandwagon today. i was going through our dvd collection and realized that i spend way too much of my pocket money on movies. so far, netflix is amazing. why didn't anyone tell me that they have, like, every movie and tv show ever? it's wonderful. and they have an ipad app! it's like having a tiny, tiny tv with me wherever i go!
i'm now off to marathon torchwood and rewatch doctor who and drool over pictures of boots i'm too poor to ever own on the internet. woe is me, &c. &c.
today's title comes from blink-182 and my state of mind. more the latter than the former, but i wanted an excuse to post the song:
so i'm sitting in my basement, relishing the return of fox soccer channel to my life and waiting for today's yesterday's real madrid champion's league match replay to come on since the game was hilarious and i want to rewatch it. it doesn't come on for another hour and is scheduled to end at five, so it's going to be a long night. it's a good thing that college has pretty much cemented my nocturnal state.
you all probably know this, thanks to the wonders of facebook (or, you know, you were there with me), but i went to see harry potter again with jenibean and s-la. it was great. this might change with the final movie, but right now deathly hallows part one is my favorite of all the films - it stayed mostly true to the books, and the few changes are actually for the better. the score was kind of an iffy thing with me. i've loved the music in all of the films, and i stayed with that opinion for most of this one, too. there were a few places where i thought it went a little wrong (the trio's reunion scene and dobby's funeral both come to mind), but when it went right - wow. the ending could not have been better (musically, anyway - it still made me want part two, like, now).
surprisingly, harry potter is not the focus of this post. the title is.
it's funny (or horrible, depending on who you are and how you look at it), but i don't miss most of you/my high school friends very often. when i do miss people, it's usually someone i wasn't that close to. if anything, i miss inanimate objects more than i miss people. my bed and i? yeah, we've never been closer because i'm sleeping my life away and am insanely grateful to come home to a pillow-topped queen size bed which i can flop face down on and sleep for hours, maybe days. maybe it's because i'm so used to being separated from the munchkins - i haven't gone to school with bean in three years, and i've had a grand total of two classes with s-la ever - but when i do think of them, i usually just text or call or facebook or oovoo and move on with my day. so it came as kind of a surprise to realize today that i've actually really missed them. for one thing, it's good to be around someone who hates pants even more than i do. also, it was nice to realize that s-la and i are still fairly good at either saying the same thing or the same time or finishing each other's sentences (and, really, it was just good to be with someone who shares my appreciation of silly grocery store romance novels). i guess it's just good to know that some things don't change.
and now i'm going to go reread harry potter and the deathly hallows. why isn't part two out now?
today's title comes from academia by sia and is (for once) actually relevant to this post - being home means i've been bingeing on new music. it's wonderful. i'll put up reviews if anyone's curious.
this song really can't be called good, but the music video is so hilarious i had to post it.
i didn't do much today. worked out, walked the dogs, helped the momster with work, wandered around manassas and arlington today. the usual, basically. i found a panda hat at anthropologie, though! it's adorable, but way too expensive. thankfully, christmas is just around the corner so it is totally going on my wish list.
i've been making friends with my keyboard today. i can't explain it here, so don't ask me to, but i've been...afraid, i guess, of writing. not academic writing, or blogging (since this is so nonsensical and insubstantial it barely counts as writing anyway). just...the more i read (good books, this time around, and not twilight or the other crap booksellers market to kids nowadays), the more intimidated i get. there are so, so many wonderful writers out there, how could i ever compete?
of course, there are plenty of horrible writers out there, too. one only has to wander over to the shelf of romance novels in the grocery store to realize that. so i've decided that (as i have no current hope of publication), i'm going to write anyway. besides, all of you are being so creative right now that i feel guilty.
today's title comes from heart in your heartbreak by the pains of being pure at heart:
i have this love/hate relationship with anthropologie wherein i love their clothes and hate the prices. well, no more. now i'm just in love with the store and in denial of the prices. this is because i found the love of my life in perfectly fitted, lacy form. behold. it's just heaps and heaps of peach lace and i already tried it on with green tights and it is perfect. this is the dress i wanted before i even knew i wanted it.
while waiting for most of you to come home, i spent the day in arlington and at the reston town center helping the momster with real estate (look! i can actually do work! isn't it exciting?). we went to this amazing thai place at the town center, then ice skating. we picked up cupcakes at that cupcakery (i really, really love that word) after. all in all, a successful day.
the morning was horrible, though. my parents are going through this hippie/health nut phase where all they drink is orange juice, so right now the only liquids in my house are water, four different kinds of orange juice, and the contents of our bar. now, normally i'm sort of apathetic toward orange juice, but after three days of it...i hate it. i really, really hate orange juice. like, i was seriously considering showing up at breakfast this morning, pouring two shots of vodka into a glass, mixing in some orange juice and proceeding to drink until the momster cracked. thankfully, she saw reason without making me resort to emergency measures - we just got back from the grocery store. i am now the proud owner of two cases of coca cola. i didn't realize how much i loved grocery shopping until today, either. all the christmas foods are out! there are all sorts of special holiday candies that i never even knew about. like candy cane hershey kisses - how long have those been around? i stocked up while the momster wasn't looking - i'm making her a surprise batch of gingerbread men tonight. hope i don't burn the house down.
apparently my last post was my three hundredth. huh. well, it isn't like posts 100 and 200 were very memorable, either. looking at the two hundredth post makes me laugh, though, because there are still no spartans the video i'm about to post is a lot like the m.i.a. video in it. also, i just blogged about the xx's vcr. it's good to know that my tastes remain fairly constant. anyway, this is arcade fire's video for the suburbs. it's not as good as the one for we used to wait (which is, admittedly, pretty hard to top). i might be a little biased in thinking that, though - i like we used to wait as a song much better.
i didn't do much today. we went out for a bit and i played guitar hero, but that's about it. oh, and i finished reading little bee - it was really good. you should all read it, too (if only so i can have someone to talk to about it).
liverpool won today! 3-0 against west ham. it was a relief after that horrible game against stoke city.
the drunk spaniards agree.
i'm tired, so i'm going to go grab a snack (from my kitchen! where all the food is mine! because i'm home!) and read s-la's story.
today's title comes from o children by nick cave and the bad seeds as used to wonderful effect in harry potter and the deathly hallows part one.
other than posting that wonderful song, i'm refraining from posting anything about the movie until everyone has seen it. seeing as the urge to babble about it is almost uncontrollable, this is going to be a very short post. instead, watch this video that joanna the hall-e sent me. it is so much better than the original song:
i left campus last night. this morning husband number three and i accompanied the momster to the hospital to get an iron transfusion. it took six hours. six! all went well, though. the momster beat my tap tap score (annoying) and requested cookies, which lead husband number three to pick up gingerbread men. they're yummy. i still have one left. and then we went to see harry potter! again! (the first of many, many times over thanksgiving break, i hope)
leaving campus early had an unforeseen benefit, too. apparently i've missed a total of six fire drills since i left. this is wonderful.
today's title comes from brother lee by citizen cope:
today went well. my biology class was predictably boring. my english teacher emailed to tell me he lost his paper. the roomie had a meeting with him to talk about our upcoming paper (due after thanksgiving break - i hate final papers) and reminded him to look for it (my professor is a bit of a nut) and i just got an email that he found it. here's hoping i get extra credit for the "stress and trauma" i endured. just kidding. it won't happen, but a girl can dream, right?
circle k is hosting servicefest tomorrow, which is basically a giant dance with lots of mini service projects you can do if you want to raise money for a bunch of local charities. it's going to be awesome it better be, we've been planning this thing for months. we painted the rock and chalked most of campus and hung up a bunch of flyers for it today. i was kind of sad that i was giving up on dinner with the hall-es and the rest of my usual group of friends (it's expanding! i hadn't realized just how much it had expanded until it came time to organize the secret santa. getting everyone in one place is turning into a bit of a chore. we tried to do secret santa distribution by proxy over the weekend, but that just turned into a mess, so now we're doing it during dinner tomorrow) but i'm a club officer and it would've been irresponsible of me to skip out on publicity stuff even if it was just the fun things that loads of people came to help out with and not the actual work (flyers and banners and yelling at the lady at the copy center for like fifteen minutes because she screwed up our order).
that's right - i actually did the responsible thing. be proud, everyone. and i was rewarded for it! while we were painting the rock, two of the other officers came back from the end of campus near my dorm and told me that the fire alarm had gone off while they were there. i was feeling pretty smug for getting out of a fire drill. i ran into a hall-e on the way back to my dorm after we were done painting just in time to hear the fire alarm go off again. apparently the alarm the other cki officers heard hadn't been a drill - it had been fourth floor setting a microwave on fire again, which inspired the RAs to have a fire drill tonight. needless to say, the hall-e and i turned right around and went to bingo night instead. it was fun. and we got to skip an hour (an hour! eep!) of standing in the cold outside our dorm. and, yes, we might have amused ourselves by texting the trapped hall-es/reminding them to tell us when the drill ended. what? you can't expect me to complete my moral development all in one day, can you?
after we got back, we had another skins watching party. we got through three episodes today! i'm so proud. i really love that show. i can't wait until the movie comes out.
oh, and international friendly day was horrible. germany and sweden tied (not too bad, since it was at least interesting to see how the players who were new to the national team played) and spain got flattened by portugal, 4-0 (again, not bad - it's good news for germany during the euros and world cup, and cristiano ronaldo's reactions were funny to watch). it was the england-france game that was terrible. final score? england 1-2 france. and steven gerrard got injured - when fabio capello promised liverpool to take him off after and hour and didn't. why do they even play friendlies? there's no point. save the damn liverpool captain for his club, k?
at least we got this picture out of it
yes, i'm still mad. and i have a stats test tomorrow, so i'm going to sleep now. at least i get to go home tomorrow night. oh, and there's harry potter to look forward to!
today's title comes from i and love and you by the avett brothers:
other music i've been listening to:
i succeeded in one of my (mini) life goals today! i have more skins converts - specifically, the roomies, one of the neighbors, and stella the hall-e. while we were waiting outside joanna the hall-e's room for her to get ready so we could go to brunch, we noticed that her neighbors (and, like, half our hall) was watching skins...and that got the other hall-es wanting to watch it. so i let the roomie borrow my computer to watch while i was in the shower and came back to find a full on watching party in my room. i had to join in, of course. we made our way through two episodes before calling it a night. i'm so happy right now, i feel like effy in this gif:
i haven't had an occasion to post skins gifs in so long, you can just have another one:
and a harry potter one, too! it's coming out in just one day! i'm so excited! i can't stop using exclamation points!
i'm cuddled up to my electric blanket again. this thing is wonderful. it almost makes up for the weather today. my dorm is at the bottom of a hill - which means i have to climb up three billion forty five (more or less) steps to go anywhere on campus and a giant puddle always forms right outside the door whenever it rains. the rain boots were an invaluable asset, even if they do sort of clash with my umbrella (it's black and covered with white polka dots). there's no point to being stylish (or coordinated) in the rain, right? right.
my group and i presented our organ trafficking presentation today. we actually found a lot of really interesting information when we were researching for it. there were one or two funny things, too. like this. who could resist a trustworthy site like kidneykidney.com? don't you just love the 20% off deal in the top right corner, too? this was pretty crazy, too. who knew charlie the unicorn was real?
i'm pretty tired now, so i'm going to sleep now. s-la don't forget the games later today! i'm so excited that they're on espn3. i can't wait to watch in high definition.
nothing much happened today. i worked on my organ trafficking presentation with some friends. oh, and then i rewatched persepolis with the hall-es. it's still good. i mostly just napped today. i had my 9 a.m. lab today, so i basically just rolled out of bed (it was so hard - the new duvet is like sleeping on a cloud) and wandered to class in my pajamas. we went on a mini field trip in bio today. we went around campus collecting samples of dirt from different habitats and testing for organisms. the things we were looking for were invariably gross. the lab partner and i were hoping not to find anything, so of course a spider fell out of our bags as soon as we got back to the lab. it was horrifying. thankfully, class let out early today. i had a nice long brunch and then napped from noon until four. it was wonderful. sleep really is a girl's best friend.
don't forget - it's international football soccer time, starting tomorrow: usa v. south africa (2 p.m.), germany vs. sweden (2:30), and spain vs. portugal (3:55). celebrate with me by watching this (alternately wonderful and horrifying) ad for spain's new jersey:
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.
liverpool lost. that's all i'm going to say about that. these past two years have been a pretty depressing time to be a supporter. i have high hopes that the new owners will do the right thing come january transfer window time, though.
i have a confession to make:
you know that iranian film class that i always complain about? well, i kind of like it now. the films are getting better as we move into the modern era, and even the ones i initially didn't like are actually pretty good. i don't know how to explain it properly. it's like...the more i learned about iran and its culture and the revolution combined with my film analysis skills getting better to make me actually appreciate the movies we've been watching. a lot of them are about kids during the revolution or after it. it's kind of surprising how easy it is to connect with child-driven plot lines, especially when a lot of them were based off of the director's real life experiences. it made me start to wonder what happened to them after the movies were over. oh, and we watched persepolis on friday. we have it at home, but i bought my own copy today. i didn't like it the first time i watched it, but now i'm a little in love with it. the same thing happened to me with pan's labyrinth. it's so strange - this is like my year of multiculturalism, or something. i'm a little crazy for spanish and iranian history right now. they're so complicated and divided and just...i should probably stop before i start writing an essay.
this craziness is starting to transfer into other things, though. like, from becoming interested in just iranian films, i've started liking foreign films in general. i hate writing that. it feels pretentious. but some of them are really good! and subtitles aren't actually that bad.
i raked leaves with circle k today. we had to get up at a horribly early hour to do it. the hall-es and i actually woke up late and ended up texting the other members for half an hour for directions to the house they were at and walking half a mile in the opposite direction because we are geniuses. it was fun, though. this one woman told us all not to quit school because we would never make it as professional leaf rakers, but i think she was just jealous. her leaf blower ate joanna's headphones, too, so we made a return trip to target so she could get new ones. while there, we saw these crimes against nature:
doesn't he look cold? also, don't you just love the dog's face in the background? it's totally judging that guy.
poor, poor anne frank and ray bradbury do not deserve to be shelved right next to that crap. and sold for less money.
the following are not crimes against humanity. they're just funny:
why, yes, that is her entire wardrobe (more or less) drying on her bed.
the roomie attempted to dry two loads of laundry in one dryer. as a result, nothing got dry. and since this is a weekend, the second she left the laundry room all of the dryers were taken. so she decided to dry everything in our room, with hilarious results.
i discovered the existence of cookies and cream hershey kisses today! i probably shouldn't have, actually. i can't stop eating them.
today's title comes from jordin sparks' battlefield, as seen in this:
joanna the hall-e posted it on my wall on facebook. i think it's hilarious. ophelia the ipod is still dead. i'm still working on papers. life seems quite dismal at the moment. also, i have jane austen postcards. they're very limited in number, though, so i'm still trying to figure out who to send them to. currently, i'm leaning toward sarah-with-an-umlaut, since she was able to respond to the hall-es and i texting her harry potter pickup lines with a few of her own, and that kind of dedication deserves a reward. we'll see, though.
also, the real madrid copa del rey game was hilarious. see for yourself why:
today's title comes from the crystal castles cover of not in love. it's awesome:
it is cold outside, though. i picked up some mittens and a hat today with the momster. oh and, fuzzy patterned slippers from target. sometimes i think accessories are the best part of winter.
i can't wait until christmas. i'm not one of those people who thinks that you should wait until after thanksgiving to start ye olde christmas countdown. i basically spend the entire year in a state of (barely) suppressed anticipation for the holiday season. i'm sure i've annoyed most of you by singing christmas carols in the middle of the summer. i can't help it - i'm just naturally hardwired to enjoy all things christmassy.
i found out today that i'm not the only person who does this. one of my friends (and her roommate) has already stockpiled her christmas candy for the season. i went over today and was greeted by two whole drawers full of candy canes and chocolate santas. it was pretty amazing. they've got holiday lights and a mini christmas tree and everything up. it got me excited. maybe i'll decorate my dorm room after all, even if we are only on campus for ten days of december. it never hurts to be festive. although i don't think i'll be stringing christmas lights up. i'm pretty sure that's a fire hazard.
i met with my group to watch a movie for our presentation on organ trafficking. we watched this:
it was actually good. the organ trafficking turned out to be a subplot, but the whole movie was really interesting. the dvd kept skipping, though. we put some toothpaste on it, but it was still pretty messed up. stupid netflix.
extremely loud and incredibly close is just as good on a reread. if you haven't already, go read it. it's wonderful. jonathan safran foer's prose is something i want to curl up in. the way he uses multimedia in the book is really cool, too. it's got drawings and lists and ends with a flipbook. what's not to love?
for some reason, my chaucer class started talking about walt whitman today. it inspired me to hunt down a copy of song of myself at the library. i'm rereading it slowly, since i have homework and papers and other books to read, but here's one of my new favorite bits from the beginning:
These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing. This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is, This the common air that bathes the globe.
i should probably go to sleep now. i'm starting to think that studying for finals is going to turn out more stressful than the finals themselves. we'll see, i guess.
today's title comes from the song of the same name by cold war kids.
this week's itunes free music downloads were a mixed bag. i'm a big fan of the spanish song of the week
but they're also offering what looks like a free copy of blue suede shoes. beware, though. beware. it's this horrible, remixed thing. who would remix elvis?
sometimes i feel like two different people. hermit rachel and college rachel don't even seem to belong to the same species, let alone the same person. that's how bad it is - i'm referring to myself in the third person. how obnoxious is that?
i can't explain it properly, but i feel like i should try since this blog really has come to replace my diary lately. well, this blog and my ical. everything seems to be in there. see?
back to me being whiny and self indulgent...
i don't like change. at all. and it keeps coming home to me that who we are now isn't who we've been (isn't who we'll be). all of the plans i had for myself are slowly unraveling and being replaced by new ones. the new plans aren't necessarily bad. but...they're different. i actually considered becoming a pre-med major. me! to be fair, biology and stats are actually my highest grades right now (who would've thought that'd happen?) and i was being unfairly influenced by one-too-many "save the children!" documentaries in my global issues class.
still. it's change. changes everywhere. leaves and classes and people. oh, people. oldest and dearest friends of mine, why must you keep changing on me? some of you have been throwing me for a loop lately. i think i might be doing the same thing to some of you.
where i see myself in ten years is changing, too. i never realized this before, but (soccer ogling aside), i'm a little terrified of actual relationships. blame the momster and husband number one (and their various, numbered spouses) for that, i guess. i don't know. the thought of getting married before i'm, like, forty is vaguely horrifying to me. i want...the world, i guess. to see everything and do everything and date a couple dozen people just in case (who knows - the multiple marriage thing could be genetic) and just...be. i want to die knowing i've experienced life.
i want to die with the ability to stop going on quasi-philosophical rants in the middle of the night.
i feel so unsettled, mentally. if i was home right now, this would be the time i did something reckless. started one of those mini-adventures that usually leads to one (or all) of you commenting with some variation of "oh, rachel" or "not again" or "you crazy bitch". which...fair enough, i suppose. the hall-es here seem dedicated to keeping me in line, though, since i've already been told to wrap this up and go to bed, to finish my paper tomorrow (but not put it off later than that), and to stop eating fun dip at 1:45 in the morning. i can't help it. i like it when my tongue is blue.
also, i lied. i totally lied. i know exactly what brought this post on. someone i was friends with in elementary school got engaged. engaged. and pregnant, which - go figure. but but but. we used to share wonderballs and those weird little cookies that you dunked in frosting at recess. how is this even possible? i might be panicking slightly. also, how does one even go about responding to that wedding invitation? is there a polite way to say "no, thank you, i prefer not to freak myself out any further watching you and your idiot groom who's even uglier than he was back in the day get hitched next weekend"? i didn't think so.
i'm done being crazed and rambly for the night. the momster is coming for our weekly mother-daughter bonding session tomorrow, so i'll probably rant to her, too. and isn't it strange how i actually look forward to that now? i used to hate it. now it's like one of the only normal things left in my life. also, starbucks better name a drink after me by the time i graduate. i swear, there are days where i think my family keeps them in business. well, the northern virginia and frederick ones, at least.
random story of the day: in my chaucer class (filled almost entirely with english majors as it's a 395), neither my professor nor any of my classmates could remember what galileo was famous for. one person suggested that it was for discovering that the earth was round. another said he did "something wonky" with gravity (tangentially, isn't wonky a fun word? i think i'll start using it). at long last, one of the lone science people (bio major, to be specific) finally set everyone straight. this is the same class full of people who got into an in-depth discussion on robespierre, dante, and ezra pound. oh, english majors. i love you all.
