Sixty-Seventh Post — Miscellany

Having had a crazy drunken time in Edinburgh that included nearly falling asleep in a pub after having coffee with brandy and wishing I'd punched the guy that tried to kiss me in an insanely expensive nightclub and plotting to punch the guy that was dancing up on my roommate, I returned to the normal monotony of my HQ for the semester and promptly drank 4 red WKDs in about an hour before going out to a shitty nightclub where I ended up getting into a fight with some guy who kept smashing into me. The fight consisted of him slamming into me and me being too drunk and small to do much besides attempt to elbow him in the back and stomp futilely at his feet.
That's it, no more parties for me until at least the weekend.
I've also signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in an attempt to finish my most current storyline. I mostly need to fill in the blanks and actually set into word processor the plotline, with motivations and everything, and I'm hoping that this will provide the impetus necessary to do so.
If you want to see my profile, click here.
Now, a quick anecdote about loose leaf tea.
Since being in England, I haven't had much time for loose leaf tea. The only one using my tea stick and ball was the other american in the flat, who got loose leaf Earl Gray by accident. In case you don't know, I despise Earl Gray tea with a deep passion because it was the only caffeinated tea in the house after my wisdom teeth removal. Chewing on teabags while in excruciating pain while spitting blood into a bowl while starving to death because I had to be fasted for general anaesthesia and hydrocodone makes me vomit was not a fun experience. I never really liked the stuff before, but this really cemented my hatred.
There are some incredible sentences in this post. Sorry about that.
In any case, I decided that today was a good day to have some of my Organic White Peony tea. White tea doesn't taste like much, I'll admit, but my first sip was...
It was...
HOOOOO-LEEE SHIT!
It was so damn GOOD. I had forgotten how amazing loose leaf is. Tomorrow, I plan to have some rather more caffeinated green jasmine tea at breakfast. Excitement!

Looking back on it, this post is impressively scattered. I blame the small amount of vodka I had with dinner.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone — Sixty Sixth Post

What I remember from the first movie, which I watched when I was in fifth grade:
very vague, the scene with dumbledore, mcgonagal, and hagrid at the beginning.
The snake scene at the zoo
the letters bursting into the house
wand selection, vaguely. meeting quirrel, I think
running through the wall to platform 9 3/4
neville's toad? Draco malfoy in train, for sure. So, imagined that, actually.
Oh, sorting hat. I vaguely remember that, and that must be where I remembered malfoy.
unicorn blood- detention with hagrid, but strictly the unicorn blood part
Quirrell taking off turban, talking to Voldemort. V and Q crumbling or something

What really happens in the movie, plus my impressions thereof (in a stream-of-consciousness sort of style):
So, I definitely only remembered snatches of that first scene. Very, very vague snatches that I suspect were invented after reading the book. I also have no memory of the theme, which reminds me of the Hook theme.
I had forgotten how adorable daniel radcliffe was when he was 11. So cute!
Fairly certain that the snake was from brazil and said "thanks, amigo" and the amigo was omitted from the movie.
They skipped moving harry into the smallest bedroom...
Hagrid's entrance well done.
I did remember a bit of the wand-picking scene, with the papers flying.
Ah, the initial draco-harry-ron confrontation well played. well placed, too. draco is such a smarmy little bastard, with his hair all slicked.
wait, why is hermione first? what happened to alphabetical order? and the song! Gah!
hmm. should have been inside the head during sorting. hmmph. I guess I'm now a purist for the books.
I thought john cleese was peeves? hmm. nearly-headless nick isn't bad.
The fat lady isn't quite what I pictured, but she's not bad. nice and fat, I guess.
classic scene with orphan in moonlit window. Why is hedwig in his bedroom? dubs-tee-eff...
alan rickman is awesome. friggin' awesome. he plays hateful really, really well. really well. damn.
madame hooch is cool. I wish I could pull off that hair. hair envy... mine's long and floppy and looks stupid and floppy short.
aw, they're so cute little.
McGonagall's supposed to look pissed, but she keeps looking awesomely happy.
"no one's died in years!"
Oh, i did remember that james potter was a seeker. I vaguely remember the plaque.
oliver wood's actor is cute. cute accent.
hermione is insufferable. I like her later, but she's really insufferable. seamus is great for explosions.
poor hermione, when ron says that she's a nightmare in her hearing. It's a case of feel bad for but still don't like much, because she was an insufferable bitch of a kid. harry giving ron a dirty look for hurting hermione's feelings is great.
Oh, I might remember the troll. maybe.
"Coo." Go ron.
oh, alan rickman is good. he plays an absolutely hateful snape.
"let's open it," honestly. it's a cleverly disguised broomstick, derp.
harry looks so tiny...
"I, uh, don't really remember. I took a bludger to the head two minutes in. woke up in the hospital a week later." accent!
lee jordan has an oddly effeminate voice. I hope that improves. I mean, he's at most thirteen years old, but I distinctly recall my classmates having lowered voices by then.
come on, harry, look for the damn snitch. snitch, dammit!
I have the advantage of hindsight... snape ftw.
"I shouldn't have said that."
honestly, don't you two read?
alan rickman is so good. ftw.
quirrell/voldemort's demise is rather horrifying for an 11 y/o to witness.
they left out neville in the points at the end? oh, good. they didn't.
why does james have pattern baldness? I thought he was supposed to have the same hair as harry...
Over all, I approve of the movie for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The music is pretty (oh, God, how shallow. It's gorgeous, evocative, masterful...), and the actors were mostly well-chosen. McGonagall isn't quite how I pictured her, but the Maggie Smith is great and makes up for it.
And Alan Rickman is awesome.

Sixty Third Post — North Dakota

Have I ever talked about my internship?
Well, I had one my senior year of high school. There were a bunch of us at the national lab in the area, and we had to meet up for "enrichment sessions" that meant that we got paid to sit around and talk about our work with people who had no idea what we were talking about while thinking about the thing that we left in the plate reader, or oven, or other experimental medium.
They were a hoot.
A lot of times, the leader would be late or be called away, so we would end up talking about random things that had no relationship to our labs. Things like state capitols.
Out of 20 interns, all high school seniors, all smart enough to get teachers to write them the recommendation letters, most in several AP classes, at least two destined to speak at their graduations, not one knew North Dakota's capitol.
We showed our true colours as future engineers and surgeons by deciding that North Dakota therefore does not actually exist.
I adopted this as my pet conspiracy theory. National monuments, landmarks, forests? Mount Rushmore is in South Dakota. Little House on the Prairie's later books? Set in South Dakota.
Yup. North Dakota is actually not there. I have yet to work out why the government has perpetrated this lie, but I think it has to do with secret stuff on the Canadian border, like Area 51-status stuff. In fact, my uncle was stationed there with the Air Force. Uh huh. That's right. He's part of the cover-up.
Then the TA for my Karate class had been to North Dakota. Damn. However, the account of just one witness does not count.
Then I found this video (you don't have to watch it if you don't want to, just read the title and the description and maybe watch a few seconds or so of it to get the gist).
Goddamn it. That's two witnesses, one with video evidence.
Sigh. I guess I'm just not cut out to be a conspiracy theorist.
Unless... maybe they're all in on it...

Fifty Ninth Post

Hi, everybody.
You may or may not know about my past flirtation with the world of vlogging. It started in february, but then I ran out of time to edit videos and had to do school things.
I filmed myself rambling about "zen" tea that destroys me, but that one never went up.
I filmed my house, but that will never go up.
But yesterday, I filmed and edited a video thanking JK Rowling. It's not very good as far as videos go. I just have my built-in iSight camera and microphone with which to film, and, while adequate, they are not the best.
However, it's a start. I have a slightly romantic view of vlogging- I'll just make videos on my built-in camera and post them, crappy as they are, and people will watch them and like me! Then I'll have internet friends.
Unlikely.
I kind of want a video camera for when I go to england, but I doubt that will happen. Most likely I will just blog, post a lot of pictures on the study abroad blog, and make about one video the whole time I'm in another country.
ANYWAY. Back to the Harry Potter vlog post.
The idea of the original video (italktosnakes' "Want to say "thank you" to JK Rowling?" video) was for lifelong fans to thank JK Rowling for the impact she's had on their lives for the past fourteen years.
I talked a little bit about how Harry Potter has impacted the world in general: Ravelry.com has groups devoted to Harry Potter, there is a whole new genre of music that grew up from the internet, and someone has invented a sort of "ground quidditch".
Fact: Harry Potter had no impact in my life at all until five years ago when people started wondering why I had never read them (Answer: for the lulz gained from people's shocked reaction).
However, since I read the books in quick succession last summer, I've noticed depths to Harry Potter that I might have missed as a child. Harry is not just some kid who plays a mix of rugby, baseball, basketball, and bocce on broomsticks; he's not even a particularly lucky/talented kid who vanquishes ultimate evil. He embodies some of the good things that we like to think about ourselves, as a good protagonist should (at least in "children's" literature, as the series began). He's heroic, he's loyal to his friends, he's a natural leader. He also, however, embodies things that we like to ignore about ourselves. This is where we leave the realms of children's stories and get into the depths of human nature. His awareness of his wizarding prowess leads him to be reckless, foolhardy, and arrogant. Harry is a real person, in other words. He's a real teenager, unfortunately. He mopes, he whines, he takes out his anger on the wrong people. What makes him a protagonist, someone that people want to emulate, is the fact that he deals with the stupid human faults to which he is prone. In spite of his failings, he manages to get himself back on track and save the world.
Imagine if everyone could do that.

Fifty Eighth Post

You may recall that I wanted to read at least 20 new books this summer. If not, I refer you to this post, number 1 in The List (you'll know it when you see it).

1. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë. 

The Brontë sisters (Emily, Charlotte, and Anne – mostly Emily and Charlotte, and then, I think, mostly Emily) are engaged in a sort of contention with Jane Austen. I kind of understand this, as they were all contemporary female authors who wrote about ladies who ended up getting married. The thing is that Jane writes about a world that seems totally alien to the world of the Emily and Charlotte. Pride and Prejudice is widely regarded as one of everybody’s favourite books. It’s peaceful, with enough drama to stay interesting. Elizabeth Bennet is beset by enough troubles and has enough acknowledged flaws that she is believable and likeable, but she still gets a happy ending, as does pretty much everyone else with the possible exception of Lydia. On the other hand, Jane Eyre gets a happy ending, but Bertha Rochester really does not, and even Mr. Rochester has tragedy. Catherine Linton gets a happy ending (eventually, sort of), but Catherine (Earnshaw) Linton, Edgar Linton, Isabella Linton, Hindley Earnshaw, Young Linton, and Heathcliff do not. Virginia Woolfe (in A Room of One’s Own) points out that the writing styles, and the story styles, are completely different. Jane Austen wrote in fairly unbroken periods, all by herself, and Pride and Prejudice reflects this in its even narrative and graceful dialogues. Emily Brontë, at least, did not have this luxury. Wuthering Heights is full of angry characters, short bursts of dialogue, and choppy narrative. 

All this does not mean that I dislike the book in any way. I’m just pointing out that it’s different from Pride and Prejudice in some very fundamental ways, which makes straightforward comparison idiotic. In fact, I really enjoyed Wuthering Heights, which is one of my new favourites. It takes its place among Jane Eyre, The Story of Avis, and Crime and Punishment as a book that is steeped in raw, intense emotion and is full of questions to ask. 

X. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy. 

I’m having a hard time with Tess. So far, it’s well written, but perhaps too well. I internalize Tess's guilt, shame, fear, which is bad when things are rough at all. I will finish it this summer, but I’m not sure when.

2. Guards! Guards! Terry Pratchett. 

I needed something light to counter the depression brought on by the combination of financial woes and Tess's issues, and the Pratchett picked up at the same time as Tess was perfect. It introduces (I believe) several of my favourite characters: Sam Vimes (drunk watchman), Sybil Ramkin (Swamp Dragon Breeder and also a Lady), Carrot Ironfoundersson (six-foot-tall dwarf and watchman), and Detritus (troll “bouncer” at a tavern who appears in later books as a watchman). I’m not sure when Lord Vetinari is installed as Patrician – I need to check in The Color of Magic for a mention of him. The book is dedicated to under appreciated guards everywhere, including mall cops.

3. Sourcery, Terry Pratchett. 

Guards! Guards! was over too quickly, so I read another Pratchett. This book is another one regarding Rhincewind (whose hat says “Wizzard”). This time he goes  toe-to-to with evil in the form of the eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son (which explains why wizards are now celibate). This book is very much before the books I picked up with, and there is a different set of wizards running the Unseen University. That took some getting used to, but Sourcery is a look, as per usual, at the darkness in one’s own soul. I don’t know why I like them so much.

4. This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

I want The Great Gatsby, but it’s far too expensive as a rule. As a result of This Side of Paradise being $1 to The Great Gatsby’s $12, I went with the cheaper and now have plans to hunt down more of his works. I was expecting stuffy, but Fitzgerald brought an unlikeable person through his rocky childhood, his irritating adolescence, and his frustrated college years and turned him into a sympathetic character that still has serious issues. He’s still frustrating and irritating and childish at times, but he’s a real person who’s had real experiences and who sacrifices and loves and hurts. The book is a serious book, meant to make one question pretty much everything.

5. Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett. 

This was unusually hard to read, for a Pratchett. I blame the feminist issues at the core of the book. After I took Women Writers (EL-126) for my American Diversity credit in the spring of my freshman year, I have a hard time seeing sexism without anger. Happily, Pratchett seems to share this point of view. Esk, his eight-year-old heroine, lashes out at a chauvinist culture that won’t allow her to be a wizard, even though a dying wizard passed his staff and power on to her infant self.  

6. The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett. 

Book no. 2 in the discworld series, holy cow. Definitely a sequel to The Color of Magic, purchased but as yet unread. This one explains how Rhincewind acquired the Luggage, which apparently belonged to Twoflower (I first met him in Interesting Times). I’m going to read this again after reading The Color of Magic in hopes of gaining a better understanding

7. The Food of the Gods, H.G. Wells. 

This is a sci-fi novel from well before my time. Then, 20 years in the future was before my grandparents had even met. It’s still an engaging read, although I was suspicious of book that was made into B horror flicks about giant bugs. Ergh. However, it was more about human nature than big bug bugs. Two thoroughly boring scientists discover a compound that will cause continuous growth through childhood and adolescence. England eventually decides that the “Children of the Food,” giants more than forty feet tall, are second-class citizens and forbid them from traveling the public roads. Being small and delicate comes into fashion. One young giant, a gentle, curious man, wanders into London in search of the answers that his village leaders refused to give him; a mob kills him. Two giant lovers are forbidden to see one another, but they flee to an encampment of giants, where the fate of the world is changed. Through it all, “normal” people are stubborn and closeminded, feeling threatened by anything different. I have plans to read more Wells.

8. The Sign of Four, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Also The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a few weeks later (see number 14 for details). 

I now have plans to read the rest of the Sherlock Holmes stories. I really enjoyed seeing where the 2009 movie drew on the books; I spotted a few direct quotes from both Holmes and Watson. The Sign of Four is an engaging story. I understand why the stories have survived and been adapted so many times. Holmes is unlikeable, arrogant, and brilliant. His redeeming factors are his assertions that class is no distinguisher of persons, his fierce desire to right all wrongs, and his care for his associates (generally, just Watson, but sometimes including his clients or their friends and relatives). He’s not the stiff man in a deer-stalker hat of bad detective jokes, but rather a rough-and-tumble boxer, chemist, geologist, and “self poisoner” (i.e. tobacco and cocaine addict. I was surprised, too). 

9. Cliges, Chrétien de Troyes. 

It was the only unread story in my Chrétien anthology from Arthurian Literature, so I read it. As expected, it was way better than the last two installments in the Vulgate Cycle, but more annoying than I remembered. Then remembered that my favourite was Silence, not a Chrétien at all. It was okay, but not awfully interesting. First in the story is how two beautiful people come together (yawn, I had forgotten how much the man has love personified), and second is how Cliges, their son, had his inheritance and true love stolen. He proceeds to steal back both, which would be exciting if his lady wasn’t so whiney. 

10. Dakhmeh, Naveed Noori. 

I am fascinated by iranian revolution (the recent 1980s muslim one that set the country back about 400 years as far as human, especially women's, rights are concerned), thanks to Reading Lolita in Tehran (Azar Nafisi's memoir). This is a novel from view of young man who returns to iran from US, tries to “help” the downtrodden rebellion, and is imprisoned, as opposed to the memoir view of professor who leaves. It’s hard read, thanks to the brutal voice of the narrators. Life was not nice. It was not fun. 

11. The Color of Magic, Terry Pratchett. 

The first of pratchett’s discworld series. Having recently read light fantastic, I was eager to read this one. a falling out with the cousins with whom we were staying on vacation prompted me to put down Pnin and pick up something that I knew would make jokes and end well. The Color of Magic is now a comfort book for me. It’s an odd quirck of human nature (or just Raeann nature) that the things that bring comfort during sickness and stress are associated with the comfort instead of the stress. My favourite movie: Dune, watched first when sick. My favourite hot drink: Alpine apple cider, first imbibed in great quantity when writing stressful papers with a headache. My favourite clothes: loose, comfortable clothes that I’ve probably worn while sick. Favourite childhood books: those read to me when I was sick. My new favourite book (replacing nothing, with the possible exception of Louis L’Amour; Terry Pratchett and Charlotte Brontë, Fyoder Dostoyevsky, and Tom Clancy can’t really be compared on the same scale): The Color of Magic, read when I was dealing with a real, honest-to-God family fall-out that led to us leaving twenty minutes later without any of our cold food. I saw my parents in a much more vulnerable state than ever before, and realised that it is indeed possible for people to dislike my family after real association with us. I won’t say that we were saints, but we didn’t deserve the opinion that my cousins formed of us.  

12. Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov. 

I was working on Pnin the day before that relationship went in the crapper. Happily, Pnin is a much lighter novel emotionally than Tess, or I would probably never read another Nabokov. I hope to read more Nabokov, because I want to gain some more context for how I view the book. I’ll probably reread it and form a new opinion when it’s not in the context of misery and confusion, and bookending The Color of Magic. The book is not about an issue, as most of my books are, but about a man. I had trouble following it for a while, at least until I figured out that it was never going to be about a central issue/concept/conflict. Actually, I really want to reread it when I have time to really think about the whole thing and the underlying message that I’m sure is there. (This was another reading inspired by Reading Lolita in Tehran. Lolita is a Nabokov that Nafisi teaches. I wanted Lolita, but Pnin was the only book I could afford.) I plan to make an attempt to compare Nabokov with Dostoyevsky, one of my favourites, and Tolstoy (not really a favourite). It’ll happen anyway, since they’re all Russian, but I’d like to do it consciously. Nabokov lived and wrote in a different era than did Dostoyevsky, and my analysis will reflect that.

13. Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett. 

Hooray hilarity! I definitely ditched King Lear for this one. Shakespeare puts me to sleep, as awesome as he is, especially when I’m stressed about anything. Most poetry does, actually. I am not a poetry person, although I do plan to finally finish King Lear (been working on him since… fall semester) and also work on The Canterbury Tales this summer. Anyway. Carpe Jugulum is pretty much about discovering that you’re strong enough to deal with just about anything. One character demonstrates this very literally, as her “alter ego” (floabw) is actually physically stronger than she is. Instinct, motherly and otherwise, takes a strong place in the book as well. The book is also, as per usual for Pratchetts, about not being an asshole. It sounds really trite when I put it this way, but the book is really awesome. Read it, losers.

14. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

See number 8, The Sign of Four, for a description. The collection from HarperCollins includes “A Scandal in Bohemia”, “The Red-headed League”, “A Case of Identity”, “The Boscombe Valley Mystery”, “The Five Orange Pips”, “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb”, “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”, “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet”, and “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”. As stated above, I am very fond of these stories and have plans to acquire the rest. As it is, I owe my parents a clean room for this one. 

Only six to go and it's only July!

Regarding the rest of my list: I have not worked much on German, I have a job and am planning a yard sale, I have not finished any of the projects that I mentioned, I have not gone swimming, I still don't have a bike (but I have gone on walks), I have not flagged down the ice cream truck, I have planted Something, I have not watched much TV at all, I haven't done much cooking, I haven't cleaned my room, I haven't been to a yard sale, I haven't run through any sprinklers at all (although I did get wet on my way back from my first night of work), and I haven't had time to work on being ambidextrous.

Fifty Seventh Post

Housekeeping: I have changed my display name. Otherwise, it goes all weird on my other blog.
That is all.

16 Things To Do This Summer

I'm deviating from my normal post-naming method because this post is mostly a list. It is still the Fifty Sixth Post, it's just going incognito.
While taking my daily stroll around my development, I was struck by the temptation to run through sprinklers. This is, I believe, a typical summer activity, but I couldn't let go of the idea. My list of things to do this summer began thus:
1. Run through someone else's sprinklers.
2. Get the paper route three blocks up if that stupid guy ever returns my calls.
3. Start the job at the concessions stand.
4. Go to San Francisco with my family.
5. Save $3,000 so that I have a shot at not bankrupting myself in England.
6. Tutor the (understandably) crabby 13-year-old for money, I hope.

This is hardly a practical list for other people. Most other people are not getting a job at a local baseball team's concessions stand, going to England in the fall, or going to San Francisco with my family.
Because I am going to be bored and lonely this summer, even when my jobs start up, I decided to google some lists of things to do in the summer, then make my own list.
Most of them are stupid, teenage-specific, regional, or for large groups. As I am not stupid, teenaged (turned 20 last September), in the regions specified, or a large group, I saw immediate flaws in my plan. However, I have sifted the chaff from the wheat (or, perhaps, collected the diamonds from the dog poop) and created this list for you single twenty-somethings just off college with all your friends far off and neither steady job nor car in a small-ish town. The list is designed by (and therefore for) a lonely introvert. Half the things are there to get me out of the house and around people so that my family and I don't hate one another and so that I have to take a bath sometime.

The List of 16 Regionally Unspecific Things To Do By Yourself During Any Summer For 20-Somethings
1. Read x books. "x" will take on any number assigned to it, so set your own value for x. For me, x=20 new books. You lot might get a list from me sometime. First up: Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy), Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë), and Guards! Guards! (Terry Pratchett). Do mix "classic literature" with more recent, light-hearted selections. It keeps things fun. You should also consider re-reading some old favourites to ease the mental strain of reading new books that you may or may not like. Try to turn in old books that you don't like anymore at a second-hand book store for store credit, or just use the library. Personally, I like to have books that I've read on my own shelf. It looks more impressive. Also, second hand books give your books that well-read look, are fairly cheap, and sometimes have cool old covers. My only problem is that I like all the paperbacks that I have and the main source of my book-trading doesn't take hardcovers.
2. Learn a new language. I plan to continue with German, hopefully aided by my friend who will be interning over there.
3. Do Something to earn money. Yard sale (recruit your mom or other more experienced female and offer her a percentage), lemonade stand (recruit a small friend or relative and offer it some free lemonade, or maybe a percentage if they get pushy), car wash (may require too much recruiting for a single, friendless person. Call upon siblings if you must.), paper route... (Except for the paper route, all are good for social interaction.)
4. Finish a project. I have a scarf and three bags that are in the works as we speak that have not been touched since... September. And another scarf that I started last week. Oh, and that half-done crochet owl...
5. Go swimming. Cliché, I know, but with no pool membership, no friends in the US with a pool, and no local pool anywhere near me, I still plan on being fully submerged at least one time this summer. This counts for at least a week of social interaction due to the traumatizing effect of being in a swim suit in public and in a pool or body of water that probably includes shrieking children.
6. Go to a farmer's market. Another cliché one, but they are the source of many delights. Fresh vegetables in larger quantities and variety than I can grow at home? Yes, please. Also, helping local farmers is apparently a big deal. (Also, social interaction! Good for up to three days, depending on how violent the other shoppers are.)
7. Ride a bike Somewhere. If you, like me, are currently... in the market for a bike, as it were, then find a cheap old one. That's my plan, anyway. It is my intention to ride a bike to work at the concession stand because I feel lame driving the car that I might not have three minutes, but I don't like walking alone at night. If you are too broke to get a bike, steal your brother's for the afternoon. If he actually uses his bike, or doesn't have one, then walk, scooter, or (maybe) rollerblade. Get yourself to an ice cream place (it's okay if that is McDonald's. I won't judge, and ice cream is ice cream.) or the 7 Eleven (a good 10-minute drive into a sketchy area of town for me) for a Slurpee (®/©/™/whatever). Only rollerblade Somewhere if you want to bring a bag of shoes, or if you have a decent walk-up espresso place nearby (Dutch Bros. springs to mind, or one of those cool local affairs). This also gets you social interaction, hopefully only enough for one day. McDonald's might push it to two and a half.
8. Overuse parenthetical phrases. (Done!)
9. Flag down the ice cream truck instead of just swearing at it for interrupting your nap. It won't make the music go away faster, but you'll at least get overpriced ice cream for your trouble.
10. Plant Something. I'm working on several bonsai, but those aren't the most instantly gratifying plants ever. Getting to a store for seeds or plant supplies will suffice for at least one day of social interaction, while the following time spent with a plant will help calm your nerves after that traumatizing event.
11. Watch the back episodes of your favourite TV show. I have no hopes of finishing even the new series of Doctor Who this summer, and I can't seem to find the old series on DVD. Let me know if you have any hints on where I can find the complete original series for cheaper than it ought to be.
12. Make a gourmet version of something normal. Lemonade, ice tea, pizza, tomato and cheese sandwich, ice cream, whatever. If you don't have something snobby in your mom's cookbooks, try google. For instance, I made fancy kebab-y things today instead of having... something else, like the three-day-old chili that's slowly going bad in the fridge. This fancy cooking thing generally requires going to the grocery store, which is enough social interaction for at least two days. Alternatively, if you are exceptionally clever, willing to plan ahead, and able to accept defeat, you can go to the farmer's market and get fresh (no really, fresh) ingredients for your fancy-schmancy meal. Drawback: sometimes, that one thing that you need is not there. Deal with it and get everything else, plus some strawberries.
13. Clean my room. This one is personal. I also need to clean the garage, a task at which I failed last summer. This has the added benefit of temporarily stopping my mom nagging me to clean my room and contribute to the household. In mom's defence, she doesn't nag that much unless I'm really pissy for some reason. It's possible that I'm perceiving nagging where there is none.
14. Go yard sale-ing. If nothing else, this can give you a sense of relief about all the crap that's not at your house. It can also serve as your weekly dose of social interaction. I know I swear off people for at least three days after a yard sale, depending on how early I got there.
15. Run through someone else's sprinklers. I guess I just really like the idea of an adult doing that by him- or herself.
16. Become ambidextrous. If you're right-handed (like me), learn to write with (or just use) your left hand. If you're a lefty, you're probably not too bad at a few things with your right. This is useful mainly in the area of crime-committing. Using the opposite hand can throw the cops off your scent. I suppose you could also use this skill to impress your friends, write on the back of spiral notebook or binder pages,  and have some insurance for when you break your dominant arm doing something stupid.

Fifty Fifth Post

Just to let you all know, Google is now creeping on you and using my blog to do it! That's right, I gave into the man (and my empty wallet) and signed up for Adsense. Don't click things because you like me, click them because they look genuinely interesting (because I can get in trouble otherwise). 

Hopefully the ads are cool and you like them, because it would be freaking awesome if this was an actual money-making venture for me. 

By the by, since my last post I have been hired by a place that starts up in June, contacted by a guy for tutoring his grade 8 daughter in maths, and applied to about a dozen other places. I've also had my housing issues at University of Sunderland mostly resolved (see these posts on my study abroad blog for the whole story there), and my visa issues are starting to look less insurmountable. None of my plants have died, and I'm going to an old friend's wedding on Sunday. Life is actually looking up right now. 

Fifty Third Post

As we approach finals week, I find myself less and less inclined to do homework. Rather, I have taken to watching Doctor Who, both the old and new series somewhat simultaneously.
The old series is kind of hilarious. It's got intriguing plotlines and terrible costumes, effects, and fight choreographers. I'm in 1964, and it's in black and white. William Hartnell is the first Doctor, and in this season, he and his 15-year-old granddaughter Susan (I have yet to figure that one out) are trying to return two british schoolteachers, Ian and Barbara, back to London, 1964. Unfortunately, the Tardis is rather broken. Instead of returning them, it drifts aimlessly through space-time, dropping them in unfortunate places about the universe. I'm almost done with the first season, though, and I have high hopes for their safe return.
The villains are... Well, they're more to be pitied than mocked, since they have such terrible costumes. The Daleks, of which I know only through nerd culture references, are introduced early on, although I doubt that they are intended to be a far-reaching series villain. At one point, the group runs across a race of rubber suit-wearing villains with odd headdresses, and that same story arc also features a brain with eyes that lives in a jar. The villains grow more sophisticated as the series continues, and in the second-to-last story arc (I cheated and looked at the descriptions for the next couple episodes to see when the story arc ended), the villains are actually humans trying to kill off an alien race.
I mentioned that I'm also watching the new series, which is only four or five... maybe six seasons along now, as opposed to the 20-odd seasons that the original series boasts. It picks up where the original series left off, featuring the ninth Doctor (played by Christopher Eccleston). He's nothing like the first, which is to be expected. It did throw me off, however, when I watched an episode with an energetic middle-aged action-hero man who saves London from an invasion of animated plastic with the help of a 19-year-old London girl (Rose Tyler, a long-running companion, according to the infographics that keep popping up in my RSS feed) before watching an episode with two suspicious teachers and a cranky old man living in a telephone box in a junkyard (and nothing much else happened).
It was less than promising. However, even in the 20th century, they didn't make 20-odd seasons of a TV show if there was no interest. With any luck, the series would get better. Plus, I keep hearing about a guy with a scarf... the fourth Doctor, I think. I want to make a similar scarf, but I'm not going to until I've seen at least three episodes with him wearing the scarf. Imagine the awkward, nerd-cred destroying conversation with a true believer:
True Believer (TB): "...I like your scarf."
Me: "Thanks."
TB: "Make it yourself?"
Me: "Uh, yeah. It's my Doctor Who scarf."
TB: (excited and suspicious, and justifiably so) "You've seen the original series?"
Me: "Well, some of it..."
TB: "Have you seen the episode with the fourth Doctor when he... (describes episode)?"
Me: "Erm, no. I'm still in the first Doctor's seasons."
TB: "..." (hopes crushed)
Me: (forever labeled as poser)

So yeah, I'm going to wait, no matter how much I want that incredibly long, incredibly stripey nerd culture icon.
I do feel, however, that I have seen enough episodes to qualify for a Tardis mug, found on thinkgeek.com (what a wonderful site!).
Here's some photoshopped fun from the wedding in England (or is it photoshopped? Hmm?).

Also, I realised how crotchety I'm getting when I reread the bit about "even in the 20th century". I'm not sure if that makes me elitist against the 20th century or what, because it really wasn't that long ago. Besides, I spent a pretty solid half of my life in the 1990s. Of course, I watched things like Zoom, Other PBSkids Shows, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Barney, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, The Price is Right, MacGyver, Hercules, and Xena: Warrior Princess. I may have also caught a couple episodes of a show with Superman in it, since I have odd memories of phone booths and underwear right before a meeting to which the guy with glasses was late. I was under the impression for a few weeks that when one wanted to dress business casual, superhero costumes were in order. I was also convinced that any trouble I found myself in could be solved by having MacGyver around. Hercules or Xena would also be suitable alternatives.
In retrospect, I'm really not sure why my parents let me watch these shows. Anyway, I now pick my own shows, half of which are for the shirtless men that inhabit the strange world of TV land. It's not like I get any attractive men without shirts at college, and a girl has her needs.
That sounded weird, so it's time for bed. Goodnight, world.

Fifty Third Post

I have been accepted to through a study abroad program to Sunderland University in England!
Read about that at a dedicated blog that I set up so that my family and friends won't stumble upon this blog that may or may not malign them from time to time. I named it "Raeann's Study Abroad Adventure" because that's what it's about.
And... Yep.
It is midterms. You might get an interesting post over spring break. If you want one tonight, it'll have to be about Arthurian literature; if you want one tomorrow, it'll be in German.
Actually, that might happen.
However. I've been typing on this crappy keyboard that puts the b on the wrong side of the little ergonomic hump thing and has a two-thumb spacebar that clunks horrinly if I use just one thumn.
I don't care enough to fix it when my Bs come out as Ns any more.
Deal with it.

Fifty Second Post

Mostly, I just want to say that I have a bone to pick with The Little Mermaid.
Shells are impractical and sound painful.
That is all.

Okay, I lied. It's not all, although I am done talking about The Little Mermaid.
I have exciting news for you all!
That's actually a lie. I have exciting news for me, and I'm pretty much it. And I guess one other person is pretty psyched as well. I have a roommate for next year! (My future roommie is the other psyched person, and I know this because she is the one that did the asking. Otherwise I'd have my doubts because I have no self-esteem when it comes to my friends.)
A mutual friend of ours described the arrangement succinctly — "Raeann and Megan: terrifying men everywhere in 2012."
I think it has a nice ring to it.


UPDATE TWO YEARS LATER: Megan and I ended up not rooming together because I studied abroad and it would have been a nightmare, so she got a single after evaluating all other possible options and the hell that is our housing system on campus and I moved into a friend who studied abroad in the spring's room.

Fifty First Post

That's right, it's another post!
All in one day!
This one is about Fridays.
At my school, don't know about others, we have this thing were people assign a fashion function (gah! alliteration...) to days of the week.
Examples include Wacky Hat Wednesdays, Fancy Fridays, Flannel Fridays...
It is Friday. I am wearing a skirt.
It really looks as though I am participating in Fancy Friday.
In fact, I am not.
You recall how I switched sleep cycles? After wearing flannel pyjama pants all night/day, I decided that I didn't feel like wearing pants.
Logical conclusion -- skirt.
Because I don't like looking like I'm in middle school, I wore a nice blouse with my skirt.
Upon reaching my last class, someone commented that they were doing Flannel Friday instead of Fancy Friday.
I realised that I looked pretty fancy.
Except I wasn't being fancy, I was... not wearing pants.
F*** Pants Friday.
There. I'm not being fancy, I'm f***ing pants.

Deal with it. (if the .gif is broken for you)

Fiftieth Post

Halfway to 100!
I totally wish that I had something cool to put up. Instead, I will just reveal to you that I managed to shift my sleep cycle by 12 hours.
That's right, I made myself nocturnal.
How, you ask?
(Note: I will be using military time for the most part to keep these times in order without using AM and PM all the time. 13:00 = 1 PM, 20:00 = 8 PM, 08:00 = 8 AM)
While recovering from illness, I took a nap at 13:00 on a Thursday afternoon, intending to only sleep for a few hours.
I woke up at 17:00 and fell right back asleep after a glance at the clock.
Then I woke up at 20:00. Having achieved seven hours of sleep, I was feeling pretty good. I mean, I don't really get the whole "falling asleep before midnight" thing, so I usually end up getting six hours of sleep and swearing that I'll go to sleep earlier the next night, then playing on the internet and losing track of time and repeating the cycle all over again.
Every day this happens.
So my body is pretty cool with six hours of sleep and generally considers seven hours to be a treat.
I decided that I would just stay up all night and go to my 08:00 class as if it happened at 20:00. After all, I have a night class two days a week, and I get through those just fine...
What I didn't consider was that I would have to actually go to class and function at my usual late night hours. Those are the hours at which I eat junk food and play on the internet and lose any and all vestiges of coherent thought.
I discussed Mass Spectrometry and identified two molecules using Mass Spec, Infrared Spectroscopy, Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, and Carbon Nuclear Magnetic Resonance at my body's 20:00.
I took a quiz and discussed the German educational system at my body's 21:00.
I discussed rhetorical strategies and made plans for a community-improving project at my body's 22:30.
And I ate lunch with lots of random people at my body's midnight.
Unfortunately, this nocturnal thing can't work. First: Tuesdays.
Tuesdays are my hell days every other week. I have an 08:00 lit class, then a noon lab that lasts until about 14:30 (officially). On every other Tuesday, I have a two-hour live lab for German class that lasts until 16:30. The problem: Organic lab never gets out early, which would be required for me to get to live lab on time. No, Organic gets out closer to fifteen minutes late on a weekly basis.
I'll be twenty five minutes late to every freaking live lab, and I am not happy.
Anyway, being nocturnal would mean being awake and functioning until my body's 04:45 every other Tuesday, and being able to do complex labs wherein one has to multitask like a madwoman (yes, even the men have to multitask like madwomen, which elicited a few groans of terror from the pre-meds) just to finish on time over multiple weeks with multiple labs going at once and all this at my body's midnight?
No.
Even if it weren't for Hell Tuesdays, my roommate would hate me if I was nocturnal.
I would make it impossible for her to be doing awake things as is natural for an awake person to do in the middle of the afternoon. She would be unable to bring friends over in the afternoons, when no one has class. There is nowhere to go on campus at night, so I would be leaving my light on all night all the time. The poor girl can't sleep well with the light on, and she was really restless last night.
No, being nocturnal would not be in my best interests.
So now I have to fix this thing.
My efforts to return to a diurnal sleeping cycle so far include staying awake far past my natural bedtime. As of this post, I've been awake for 17.4 hours. I'll have to make it at least 22 if I want to get enough sleep to get up early on Saturday so that I can be on a normal schedule for Monday, when I have a German test.
Moral of the story, kids, is don't be nocturnal if you're sharing a room.

Forty Ninth Post

Ninth. Nineth. Ugh. Ninth is right, but it looks like it should sound like "nihnth" instead of "nienth" (or "neinth", if you're German, and if you are... please let me know, because that would make my life).

I had an adventure, unfortunately proving that my life is not all that boring.

After a stressful eight days, my body decided that it couldn't function without one particular object, and my brain decided that that was a good idea. It, too, refused to function properly without this object.
The object? A viscoelastic liquid commonly known as "Silly Putty" (probably trademarked, registered, or under copyright protection of some sort by Crayola, also trademarked, registered, or copyrighted). For some reason, my fingers decided that they needed something with particular amounts of give and resistance. My brain interpreted this as my impression of ThinkGeek's Smart Mass Thinking Putty. Unfortunately, I needed it right then. The thinking putty is at least three days away, probably more like five, and almost $10. I don't really have $10 to give to Timmy (the ThinkGeek monkey), so I moved on to Silly Putty. Silly Putty, at least in my memories, is no more than $3. Similarly, it is probably at WalMart.
I can get to WalMart. I have a friend with a car.
So I texted her, hoping that it would in fact be at WalMart. She readily agreed to participate when I said "Would you mind a silly putty-finding adventure?"
Since both of us are rather strapped for cash, it promised to be a boring adventure. But once we got to WalMart, we discovered that finding what one wants in the toy section is difficult.
We tried the "Novelty Toy" aisle, which has some creepy "lifelike" creatures. I kind of think of them as "deathlike", since how many live snakes squish creepily under your hands, as if they have no bones at all? Same for spiders, which don't have bones, but do have structure to their bodies. But Silly Putty isn't a novelty toy.
We tried the PlayDough aisle, which was likewise unproductive.
It's not a car, or an educational toy. No, it's not on an aisle at all!
Silly Putty can be found at my particular WalMart on the first aisle of the toy section, sort of, the second long row back, on a stand all to itself. It is $2.
Having found the Silly Putty, so essential to my thought process, I tried to pick a colour. Each package had two eggs, one original and one "bright".
The Original putty comes in red eggs. Unfortunately, it's not red. So I had no way to tell whether or not the "bright" putty was the same colour as its egg. I wanted... not yellow, not orange, and certainly not pink putty... I wanted blue putty. But did the blue egg contain blue putty?
I didn't know!
!!!
Imagine the stress on my poor brain. First, I have an insanely stressful week. My brain finally accepts that I can relax, but my body refuses to obey it. Then, my body decides that it can't function without Silly Putty, and my brain accepts this. But then! Then I find my holy grail, and I just can't pick the proper one.
My friend and I stood there in the aisle, which was fairly deserted, trying to peer into the slightly-cracked eggs. I'm sure we looked ridiculous. I was frantic, she was confused by my desperation, and both of us were sticking our fingernails into little plastic eggs.
Finally, it was confirmed that the blue eggs do indeed contain blue putty.
I was ready to take off, but my friend decided that she had had a stressful week and deserved chocolate. She's more broke than I, but she does have a pre-paid Visa affair that her mother can't trace. It had $9.
We went to the chocolate aisle, which, happily, lay next to the sock location. She hunted for cheap chocolate, and found... Mars Bars.
Neither of us had ever eaten Mars Bars, but we have both seen this video by Charlie McDonell.

Hopefully he doesn't mind me putting this up. I feel that he can get over it, since I bought his album on iTunes.
We got the Mars Bars to split, giggling about "magic Mars Bars", although neither of us had cash. I promised to make it up to her in either cash or some tangible thing that she wanted. On our way out of the aisle, she noticed some dark chocolate mint Milky Ways.
I bought them for her. We have a barter system.
Then it was off to the sock aisle! I won't tell you about that. It was boring if you're not me. Five-minute story later, we exited the sock aisle in possession of blue, grey, and white stripey socks and, notably, no fuzzy socks.
Checkout was another adventure. As per usual, only six or seven of the thirty registers were open, so we stood in line for about ten minutes before one opened up. While waiting, we tested Halle Barry's new perfume line. Most of them were decent, but the last one, down on the bottom, the only one not able to be picked up, was very... citrus-y. Of course, that was the one I made my friend spray on her arm because I refused to test it on myself.
I actually think that "cloyingly sweet" might be a better description that simply "citrus-y". It was as if some sugar monster had devoured the limonene from every citrus fruit in the world and then vomited it up (with sugar instead of bile) into a perfume bottle.
I apologised for her having it all over her arm, but didn't offer to split the stench. Perhaps it's for fruitflies.
And that's how I ended up with my Silly Putty and an addiction to Mars Bars.

Forty Eighth Post

Gah, it's an "eighth" post again... That is probably one of the words that weirds me out the most, and I'm in organic chemistry, german, and a class that covers welsh literature.

Anyway.

Hi. The post name is going to change, but it's still me. "Raeann is Not a Nihilist" is the same person as "Bored College Student".

No, I'm not schizophrenic.

I'm not a nihilist, either.

All I did was switch email accounts to make the most dignified of my emails -- also the one attached to my youtube account -- the email for my main web browser (chrome, in case you want to emulate me).

Cheers, my fine reader friends. Cheers.

P.S., my youtube name is "raeannisnotanihilist" and I have one video up at this point. I may link them in and make this kind of an interchangeable thing, blog and vlog.

Come say hi! www.youtube.com/raeannisnotanihilist

Forty Seventh Post

Hello, everybody.
I've just survived what I hope is the most stressful week of this school year. It's mostly my fault that it was so stressful, but that's never before stopped me from complaining about it.
So there's this thing called "ISEP" (International Student Exchange Program) of which my university is a member. Students from member universities can apply to study at member universities in other countries. The students who are accepted to these other universities pay tuition to their home university as if they were there, taking classes and living in a dorm, but they are actually in another country living in the dorms of their host university and taking their classes for free. Sort of.
It's ridiculously cool. Since my dream has always been to travel to Europe, I leapt at the chance to study abroad. One of my favourite high school teachers (a recent alum of my university) talked up the study abroad programme and mentioned that college was the best time to travel. You're young, ISEP makes most of the arrangements, and you have the time for it.
My plans for study abroad evolved as I solidified my plans for these four important (and expensive) years of my life. I started off planning to go on a study tour, which I found in the course handbook (a wealth of excitement, planning, and crushed dreams when you realise that that awesome medaeval studies minor is 26 credits, which doesn't really work with your 120-odd credit biochemistry major if you plan to graduate in four). It was offered every three years in the fall, so my only chance for the British Isles Study Tour was the fall of my junior year. I immediately began to plan my life around that eventuality.
However, I still needed to think about my major. The study tour is strictly humanities and theology. I need a biochemistry class to take some interesting upper-division biology courses, and they're offered the spring of my junior year only. So I had a meeting with Sue, the international coordinator, at the suggestion of my advisor.
I got some vague ideas of schools and classes over the summer between my freshman and sophomore year. But since the application for fall 2011 wasn't open, I kind of forgot.
Meetings started up again between myself and Sue, mostly consisting of me being vague and her being frustrated by my lack of planning. I'm... plan-challenged, if you hadn't noticed by the general lack of organisation in my posts. I'm also terrified of dreams coming true.
Finally, I remembered that the deadline was coming up. 15 January, which translated to 18 January, being that the 15th was a weekend and that Monday was a holiday for us. I went in and had my pre-application talk with Sue on Tuesday 11 January. I discovered that I had exactly one week to get the following items in order:
A "participant profile"
A personal statement essay on why I want to study abroad
A list of requested host universities
A course request list, preferably with course numbers, for each host site requested
An explanation of how attending each host site will fulfill my study abroad goals (academically, personally, geographically)
Recommendations from two university-level professors (a form and a letter on official letterhead)
A copy of my passport
So.
My passport is expired and has been for almost a year. It will cost me $135 to get a new one because I was a minor when I got the first one.
Half my professors are off campus since it's jan term and not all of them are teaching. This makes it hard to find good recommenders.
It is really, really hard to find course numbers on a university website.
However! I prevailed, got my professors to fill out references, researched schools, looked up classes, had friends edit my essay, and filled out the participant profile. It turned out that my passport being expired is okay, so long as I get my hands on a new one before I go, if I'm accepted.
Now I'm trying to convince my body that it's okay for it to relax and not be stressed out.

Forty Sixth Post

So, I tried to do a vlog thing. It didn't work because the microphone that is part of my computer doesn't seem to work. I don't know why, and I'm too tired to figure it out.
Why did I try to make a vlog thing? Because I had been awake for 24 hours exactly when I was musing about how great minds don't think alike whilst sitting in the bathroom.
Now, my trash contains 25 minutes and 11 seconds of me moving my mouth and hands without sound, plus a 40-second sound test thing.
It makes me sad. I'll need to play with the settings when I'm awake so that I can talk at the screen of my computer when I'm tired.

In other news, I'm dying some of my hair purple today. We'll see how it goes, since I have dark brown hair and the package just informed me that I should lighten my hair. Why they couldn't have told me that while I was still shopping online for all the things I'd need, I don't know.
So here's hoping that I don't dye my face and shoulders purple in my quest for awesome rewards for good grades.