k a - b e a r

i'm not dead.

2009-08-28T23:07:00.000-07:00

I tried to update twice before now, really, i did. Here's proof:

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f p s p i c 2 0 0 9 - seriously. can we come up with a more ridiculous acronym? probably not. but it is kind of keeping in the tradition of fps - ridiculous acronyms. i had a team earlier that mocked it, they had an acronym that was just like 9 letter that didn't spell anything strung together, like CCDPREONF or something. it was worse.
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I'm sorry I'm such a lame blogger. I will try to be better. Until then, i'll just give you lots of updates. 1) Heidi went to AK for the summer. In her stead, i had a roommate from craigslist for a while (a very nice vegan named Justin), and for the past 2 months the lovely Haley has graced me with her presence. She decided to move out of AK - a wise choice, i think - and having a place to stay in Seattle for the summer helped her decide where to go. Its been fun, although pretty stressful for her i think - what with moving and then trying to find a job, and now trying to find an apartment for October. 2)
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I saved both of those in drafts and never went back to finish them...........

SO LATELY ive been sick. I might even have had Swine Flu. But it was just like a cold, so i don't know. but i didn't go to work for two days, and instead sat around coughing and having sore eyelids and a strange stomach disposition.

- and i started kind of working for Angelo at his consulting tech company, but we're still just kind of testing it out.

- and i have not been watching hardly any movies. which is sad. Last night i watched Monsieur Ibraham, which was awesome and reinstilled my love of Omar Sharif because he's adorable at every age.

- i still have been dancing a lot, but not as much as before, which is sad.

- i'm writing fanfiction again, which is HARD but interesting and challenging and i kind of like it because of that, it feels like a good creative exercise for me or something.

- oh and GLEE. soooooo great.

- finished my first set of FPS packets for the year, which was fun. I'm also lead evaluator for the middle division this year, which is interesting. Mostly it means i just write an article for the newsletter after every topic on how students in my division seem to be doing. My first article went pretty well, but i think it was a bit loooooong (imagine that, me being verbose, gee)

- best thing of late: held the most kick-ass crazy pre-halloween dork party EVER. we read Macbeth entirely by candelight. the activities list:
::: dance party to No Kids / milling ::: MACBETH ::: dance party #1 - beat it ::: MACBETH ::: dance party #2 - "swing" dancing, the madison, spontanious improvisational dance line (a la grease) ::: predator cake ::: MACBETH (with: armor, gay siward, lady macbeth is gender confused, monica nelson voices, redneck & schwarzennegar murderers) ::: dance party ::: glow sticks ::: glow stick ring toss around beer bottle game ::: glow stick dance party in the dark ::: fitting into the bathroom ::: making glow stick shapes and animals and taking pictures ::: weird pictures on the couch ::: weird pictures with our heads ::: weird pictures of leg zippers ::: leg wrestling tournament ::: stick thing tournament ::: 17 again

- fell in love with an amazing gay makeup artist on youtube, spent too much money on makeup, did lots of fun crazy makeup stuff for real halloween.

- and then i got sick. thats been it. yay i updated! aren't you proud?

harry potter musical !!!!!

2009-06-24T22:36:00.000-07:00

this is sooooo amazing. its hysterical. seriously. draco and voldemort and the funniest things i've ever seen. so many awesome awesome pop cultural references. and many are pleasingly zefron centric which is hysterical.

2009-06-17T21:18:00.001-07:00

ELEVEN TIMES.
there is something wrong with me. but i don't care.

2009-06-11T19:13:00.000-07:00

oh man, macaroni and cheese is like 80 times better if you just let the butter and milk coagulate for a few minutes before you eat it...... sooooooooooooooooo good.

Another Long Post? Wicked Rad!

2009-05-16T01:20:00.000-07:00

There is something about sunshine... if i'm in a reasonably good mood, it affects me in one of two ways: either i want to go outside and bask in it like a normal person, or the subversive antisocial chunk of myself says "movies! go inside and watch movies! muahaha! no one will bother you because they'll all be outside!"

obviously the latter option won tonight. But that's okay, because tomorrow is the University District Street Fair - so i'm sure i'll spend plenty of time outside this weekend.

Some cooooooolio things coming up:

1) Reading Shakespeare! Heidi was reading Macbeth a while ago, and wanted to have a reading with friends - so Sunday people are coming over and we're either going to read Hamlet or The Taming of the Shrew. Should be fun. I spent a lot of tonight highlighting parts, which was peacefully monotonous.

2) SIFF Starts! Angelo is working for them a bit, and they're paying him in swag, and i'm his friend - so i totally get to reap the benefits (THANK YOU!) of lots of free SIFF films and gala premieres and press screenings and the like. The premiere is next thursday, and should be pretty awesome. I don't remember what it is called or what it is about, but Francis McDormand is in it, and i'm pretty sure that guarantee's it will be awesome.

3) dun dun, dun, dun dun. dun dun, dun, dun dun. TERMINATOR starts thursday night after SIFF. :) I'm so happy it looks good. For a while there there were only "teaser" trailers and they made it look like it would just be a shoot-em-up film, but the newer trailers look awesome and like there is actually a plot.

4) FPS International Conference! End of may! Free trip to Lansing, Michigan to see my mother and my best friend. How awesome is that. I heart FPS.

SO. Thats what's upcoming. But what's pastgoing, you ask? Well, i'll tell you (since i'm in such a jovial mood for 1.30am...).

-- went to a Casting Call for "confessions of a first-time opera-goer." Its some documentary-ish? film series the Seattle Opera/Rrrl Girls is making, sending someone to The Ring (Wagner) in August. They're going to have the person interview people in the opera, go back stage, talk to the music director, and talk about their experiences. It sounded cool, and like they were looking for someone kind of exactly like me - who is really getting into opera, but doesn't necessarily know much about it. They're going to put the top 4 contestants online so people can vote - so i'll be pleading for votes from people if i get picked.

-- on a related note: Last wednesday i went to see The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart) at the opera. It had started raining like crazy, and then i missed my bus and had to catch a taxi in order to get there before it started, but the $15 cab ride was totally worth it. It was the first really comedic opera that i had seen, and it was so freaking FUN. It has a mezzo-soprano in a male part, which i've decided is my favorite thing ever - those parts have been SO good both times i've seen operas with them. But the whole thing was just amazing. It was nice to finally recognize music in an opera (that song that Lizzie sings in Pride and Prejudice while she's at Pemberley? Yeah, thats totally in there. it was really amazing to hear it sung so well).

-- have seen 17 Again more times than I am willing to admit to any general audience. But Zac Efron is still hot, and the movie is still funny. I know i will see it more times before it's stint in theaters is over.
STILL HOT --->

-- Oh! Made another awesome theme cake. This time it was TV themed, after Dexter! For Amber, who helped introduce me to the show (Peter gave me the DVDs, but Amber watched them with me). ALSO a huge first - this was a completely vegan cake. It kind of felt like i was killing my soul to make a cake (especially the frosting) without butter, but it turned out really well, actually, and tasted yummy. It was kind of a chocolate spice cake.

- wrote my 2nd response paper for my SciFi class today. It was not good. It had some good things in it, and i liked writing it, i just really wish i had had another hour or so - because the conclusion was complete crap, and i didn't have time to go back and re-read it. bummmmmmer.

-- OH and i'm going to start using the phrase "wicked rad" as much as i can remember to. because its wicked rad.

-- and ahem, STAR TREK. seriously, the most fun film i've seen (especially on the big screen) in a really long time. It was really fun to go opening night too, as everyone was cheering and laughing and was just generally excited and emotional and REALLY IN TO IT. As was I.

-- New Coat! After 6 years in seattle, i finally decided to actually buy a raincoat!

OK. Phew. That was long. Now you know everything. What a load off.

energy begets energy?

2009-05-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

Long time no type!

Anyway, i'm pretty freakin' happy lately. For the past week or so i've just been peppy and dance-y and energetic all around. There are multiple causes, i think:

-- its finally warming up a bit in seattle which is nice. makes for an overall improved disposition in everybody.

-- I had a good movie weekend (6 movies last weekend) and that always boosts my spirits a bit.

-- my turning into a 13-year-old girl who is love with zac efron (seriously, how can you not be?) means i've been listening to musicals (of the high school variety - arguably bad, but still damn catchy!)

-- energy shots! like the 5-hr energy stuff? but not. other brands. its just a nice kick in the pants when i'm at work in the morning.

-- remember all those musical numbers i've been listening to? that means i've been dancing ALL THE TIME with my headphones on, often without self-conciousness (even at the office) as a result of the energy shots!

-- then i've also got my Improv Acting class on Mondays, which is super fun usually. I've decided i really do need to act or dance or something. because i'm insanely happy when i do.

OUTDOORS:
-- yesterday, heidi and i found an abandoned playground like 5 blocks from our house*. Its fabulously secluded (read: riley danced around with headphones on like an idiot in the middle of a field for an hour and a half) and it has a REALLY cool jungle gym thing with a slidey arm thing that i don't know how to describe.
*there was also a run-in with an amazing bulldog named Deuce during this outing. if i ever get a dog, i am so getting a bulldog. they are like running barrels of hilarity. seriously. so good.

-- today, we were going to go canoeing, but when we got there they weren't renting canoes as it was the first day of boat season and so it was too crowded. instead, we walked for a bit and found a tree to climb. we made it up. and then i tried to kick the tree's ass. but it kicked mine instead**:

THE KICKER:
The Egyptian Theater is showing Terminator (the first) tonight at midnight. Seriously. I've never seen it on the big screen. The universe loves me lately. And i love it back.

My life is really pleasantly full at the moment. My life is really pleasant at the moment. :) I feel like there are even more things i was going to talk about, but i've forgotten about them! Shame!
I hope everybody else out there is in a similarly good mood.

**Dude. i SO love having wounds. i like blood. i kind of bruised my hand under the cuts, so its like raised injuries... and yeah. they're just awesome. i feel like i've accomplished something when i have nature-fight injuries.

How Awesome is This? Seriously.

2009-03-31T18:57:00.000-07:00

i've been extra consumed lately

2009-02-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

with facebook and films. facebook dominates much of my time at work when work isn't so buys (like now). and i DO really like the 25 things thing. i just like reading them, like seeing what random shit people choose to put out there.

but back to the films. also as a sign of my lack of work at work, i started a spreadsheet almost a year ago where i tracked all the movies i watched (and where, if i go to a theater). my average for 2008 was 21.4 movies per month, with an all time high in october with 32 films. but something about january (maybe the weather? maybe my lack of reading ridiculous fanfiction on-line?) inspired me to break that record.

the 42 films i watched in january are as follows:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Misery
The Darjeeling Limited
Wristcutters: A Love Story
The Golden Compass
Monster-In-Law
All About My Mother
Lord of War
Across the Universe
Valkyrie
I.Q.
Hannibal Rising
Hitman
Don't Mess with the Zohan
Talladega Nights
Persuasion
History of Violence
Hancock
The Women
The Life & Death of Peter Sellers
Empire Records
Revolutionary Road
Superbad
The Notebook
Little Big Man
Wanted
Nancy Drew
Juno
Gandhi
Sleeper
The Dirty Dozen
Picture This
The Age of Innocence
Ordinary People
Sophie's Choice
I Love Me, I Love Me Not
Synecdoche, NY
Lars and the Real Girl
21
Reflections in a Golden Eye
Scanners
Dogville

there was actualy one more in there, between IQ and Hannibal Rising but i cannot for the life of me remember what it was. i do have qualifications for this list - i have to watch at least 90% of the film for it to count (coming in at the end of something on tv wont count, for instance), and i can't be doing anything too distracting while watching it (knitting, yes; cooking from the other room, no).

i am both ridiculously proud and mildly ashamed of this list. thats a LOT of time on a couch, i know. luckily i restarted yoga after Nancy Drew, i think... thats helping. And i do get a lot of knitting done, which is nice. and i'm finally putting my netflix subscription to good use. yes. many good things.

ka-bear

2009-01-29T11:49:00.001-08:00

i'm bad at scrabble

Go to Pogo to play 100s of Fun Games!Go to Pogo to play 100s of Fun Games!

some cakes and other arts

2009-01-20T17:51:00.001-08:00

The Barack Obama Cake. Made for election night, but pretty damn poignant for today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A christmas present for Jill, who loves green.
I've been knitting a lot, and have made quite a few hats and scarves and cowls,
but this is the only one i have pictures of, sorry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the beginning of my christmas card printing phase.
i should throw pictures of all of those up, as well.
(especially as the first batch was much tamer than later prints...)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

for those of you who didn't see it -
the TERMINATOR cake.
perhaps one of the greatest crowning achievements of my life thus far.
more pictures can be found on my flickr,
or my new kind-of website in the cake gallery.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the HIGHLANDER cake.
for the "beautiful, sexy, and hilarious" jill,
who left me all alone at work. :(

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a very special birthday cake for Max,
whose vast imagination turns even the mundane magical.

my favorite thing about being sick

2008-11-24T22:57:00.000-08:00

is that when i'm talking, even to myself, i dont make ANY sense.

i.e.

"normal alka-seltzer, go back in your boat!"

(not because i was referring to the alka-seltzer box as a boat, but because i think there was some banana boat sun tan lotion in the same drawer.)

yesssssss.

tim burton and i have the same taste in women.

2008-11-16T02:45:00.000-08:00

seriously. the famous ladies i would be gay for in a second.

tho i very much miss the slightly rounder version of christina ricci. but its hollywood, right? she probably wants jobs and such, so i get it.

also, who else could make being a chimpanzee hot?

this has been the product of too much late night linking around imdb.

real writing

2008-11-09T00:48:00.000-08:00

its been a long time since i've actually written anything here.
unfortunately, i don't have anything particularly meaningful to write at this moment, either - but its been so long i figured i'd better do it while i'm in the mood.

4-day weekend! i'm taking monday off as my personal holiday, becuase coming in that day at all seems lame, especially with veterans day being on tuesday. i need to grade about 5.5 fps packets tomorrow. that'll be fun. usually it really would be, but they're kind of atrocious this time, to the point of them being unusually difficult to grade. which makes them not fun.

work is good. still not particularly busy all the time, but learning some good new things. i now have 4 or 5 new reports that i'm in charge of on a weekly basis.

ooh! i'm also getting better at not spending so much money eating out at lunch. the key: soup. soup is cheap, and once i bought a bowl with a handle, it was easy to eat. and i like spaghettios. and potato soup. probably not all that healthy, but not bad, for me. especially if i bring a banana to go with it.

i cut up one of my credit cards! go me! i'm giving the other one to a friend to stick in her freezer, too. i feel the need to have one for emergencies or something, but it will be much better if its not in my own house.

i like music. i always like music, but i like music an extra lot the past week. i like a lot of people, but overall i definitely have two favorites. i like everything they do: Peter Gabriel and Lyle Lovett. in 5 years John Mayer might be on that list, but his discography isnt big enough to really impress me the way the other two do. I also started listening to Phil Collins a lot - i always like him, but only knew his songs from the radio, so hearing all of the albums has been great. And i get blown away once or twice an album to the point of going "wow! this is amazing! amazing like peter gabriel amazing!" and then i listen to peter gabriel.

anyway. thats probably sufficient writing for now. babble babble babble.

Last year i was asian and jensen ackles - now i'm sophie marceau! yeah! movin up in the world!

2008-11-04T14:32:00.001-08:00

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Family history - Ancestry search

awww, man.

2008-10-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

i'm glad i have the cake decorating skills i have.

jayne sent me a link to a blog that is about cake wrecks...

this one is my favorite. you have to read the comments about it to fully appreciate it, tho.... :)

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/09/adding-insult-to-injury.html

this is funny

2008-09-26T13:56:00.000-07:00

Your result for The Which Star Trek Species R U Test...

Borg

Homeworld: Unknown (their origin is somewhere in the Delta Quadrant)

The Borg - the scourge of the universe. Their very name strikes fear into the hearts of species everywhere. An aggressive, ruthless species, they are single-minded in their pursuit for efficiency. The Borg believe that organic species are weak and seek to improve themselves by incorporating technology to become cyborgs. The Borg have no sense of individuality, instead having a hive mentality. As a Borg, you seek knowledge and power - you're also prepared to do whatever it takes to get these. You have no patience for frivolous things - what is the point of doing something if it isn't useful? You also don't make friends easily. This is because you are convinced your way is the right way and you're aggressive enough to enforce your beliefs on everyone else - by force if necessary.

OTHER CATEGORIES

Like this test? Then don't forget to rate it!!

Want more? How about some shameless self-promotion? I've also written other tests - check them out! You know you want to...

The Trekkie Test

The Do *YOU* Remember The 90's Test

The Capitals of the World Test

The Australian Trivia Test

Take The Which Star Trek Species R U Test at HelloQuizzy

very very true

2008-09-26T11:30:00.001-07:00

Your result for The Quick & Painless ENNEAGRAM Test...

6 - the Questioner

you chose CY - your Enneagram type is SIX (aka "The Loyalist").

"I AM AFFECTIONATE AND SKEPTICAL"

Questioners are responsible, trustworthy, and value loyalty to family, friends, groups, and causes. Their personalities range broadly from reserved and timid to outspoken and confrontative.

How to Get Along with Me

Be direct and clear.
Listen to me carefully.
Don't judge me for my anxiety.
Work things through with me.
Reassure me that everything is OK between us.
Laugh and make jokes with me.
Gently push me toward new experiences.
Try not to overreact to my overreacting.

What I Like About Being a SIX

being committed and faithful to family and friends
being responsible and hardworking
being compassionate toward others
having intellect and wit
being a nonconformist
confronting danger bravely
being direct and assertive

What's Hard About Being a SIX

the constant push and pull involved in trying to make up my mind
procrastinating because of fear of failure; having little confidence in myself
fearing being abandoned or taken advantage of
exhausting myself by worrying and scanning for danger
wishing I had a rule book at work so I could do everything right
being too critical of myself when I haven't lived up to my expectations
SIXes as Children Often

are friendly, likable, and dependable, and/or sarcastic, bossy, and stubborn
are anxious and hypervigilant; anticipate danger
form a team of "us against them" with a best friend or parent
look to groups or authorities to protect them and/or question authority and rebel
are neglected or abused, come from unpredictable or alcoholic families, and/or take on the fearfulness of an overly anxious parent

SIXes as Parents

are often loving, nurturing, and have a strong sense of duty
are sometimes reluctant to give their children independence
worry more than most that their children will get hurt
sometimes have trouble saying no and setting boundaries
Renee Baron & Elizabeth Wagele

http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-quick-painless-enneagram-test
The Enneagram Made Easy
Discover the 9 Types of People
Harper SanFrancisco, 1994, 161 pages

i really like okcupids new quiz site. its much better.

2008-09-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

Your result for The 3 Variable Funny Test...

the Cutting Edge

(71% dark, 46% spontaneous, 37% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN | SPONTANEOUS | DARK

Your humor's mostly innocent and off-the-cuff, but somehow there's something slightly menacing about you. Part of your humor is making people a little uncomfortable, even if the things you say aren't themselves confrontational. You probably have a very dry delivery, or are seriously over-the-top.

Your type is the most likely to appreciate a good insult and/or broken bone and/or very very fat person dancing.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: David Letterman - John Belushi

The 3-Variable Funny Test!

- it rules -

Take The 3 Variable Funny Test at HelloQuizzy

yay

2008-09-25T14:42:00.001-07:00

Your result for The Commonly Confused Words Test...

English Genius

You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 87% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!

Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!

For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.

Take The Commonly Confused Words Test at HelloQuizzy

i want my books back, mom.

2008-08-09T23:08:00.001-07:00

because, really, those are the books i love. i never really got into adult books. and not even just because they are often lacking in pictures. because i super loved the littles and the boxcar children, and those weren't really illustrated. but the pictures did help.

this was only just prompted by watching "meet the robinsons" and really appreciating that i recognized everything as being from the book(s). and it really really made me miss my books. and i want them back. one day, i will pass them on to my kids, but until that day, i want to savor them. so thanks, mom, for always spending way too much at book fairs. and i curse middle school and the internet for pulling me away from books...

how i love thee, dinosaur bob, nimby, the funny thing, roald dahl, dr. desoto, elephant goes to a party, streganona, mufaro's beautiful daughters, madeleine l'engle, the story of poppyseed, and many more. you'll always hold a super special place in my heart. perhaps more special than is healthy. :)

tonight

2008-07-21T14:11:00.000-07:00

tonight, won't be like any night,
tonight there will be no morning star...

musicals! yay!

and i really think i'm going to go home and watch cinderella. and the breakfast club.

sighhhhh.

changing!

2008-07-07T12:57:00.000-07:00

Before i get to more relevant things, lets all just reserve a moment for the splendor that is bite-sized frosted shredded wheats. they are saving my poor-ass from nutritional deficiencies of many sorts, though most notably of the fiber variety.

heidi is leaving me! for alaska! i might leave me for alaska, too, though - so i forgive her. it was weird - she was packing all weekend and it didn't really kick in that i'm not going to see her for a really long time. so she's going adventuring, and i'm staying in my cubicle to continue to manage inventory operations....

replacing heidi for a couple of months will be Polina, who is a Russian 19-year-old living in the US for a couple of months. She seems nice, and a bit young, but i think we'll get along okay. And truth be told, the possibility that she is less tidy than heidi is very very small.

i made the best buttercream frosting i've ever made last week. it was fabulous. it had orange in it, but not too much - and it was just the perfect consistency.

i don't really have much to say. so i'll go now.

awayRun

2008-06-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

i like it, although i think it could use a better name.
let me know if you come up with one.

2008-06-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

there is a guy at work, and today was the first time i went in his office. he always seems a bit unkempt - in that way that i want to tell him to go wash his hair. his office smelled kind of like i assume his hair would. but, it is obvious from the decor that he has small children, and so i feel a modicum of understanding towards his situation. then i noticed his arms. he has to be in his 30s at least, but he has arms that can only be described as "nubile." it was very odd.

FINGER POLL

2008-06-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

that maybe sounded bad.

https://catalysttools.washington.edu/quickpoll/vote/rileyk/3036

but take my poll anyway. its really not bad at all. and because i'm very curious about this.
i'm pretty sure i'm weird, but i don't know. i also need to find a way to add qualifiers like gender and left/right handedness...

and dad, i'm really curious about your answer, i think i know what you would pick, but maybe you'll completely surpise me.

and you'll have to explain to lisa what a trackpad is, i suppose. hopefully it wont be too painful. ;)

Il Faut Travailler

2008-05-16T19:33:00.000-07:00

my first ever film on film.
i'm pretty happy with it. :)

People who teach

2008-05-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

people who teach computer classes have infinite patience.
i am mightily impressed.

especially considering how i get when my mother asks me to show her how to do something on the computer.

i finally uploaded new pictures to flickr.

2008-05-01T01:02:00.000-07:00

of the apartment, bowling, and ducks that live outside of APL.
for those that wanted to know.

Heidi and I Cleaned Yesterday

2008-04-20T13:40:00.001-07:00

emotional.

2008-03-11T22:04:00.001-07:00

so, tonight i went to a dance class. and had a horrible time. it really made me feel worse than i've felt in months. it was a "drop-in" only class - and was supposed to be a kind of "fundamentals" hip-hop class. nothing about that speed of that class was "fundamental". And i'd say 90% of the class members were very OBVIOUSLY dancers - people who picked up on steps immediately. So i just ended up feeling humiliated and frustrated and STUPID for an hour and a half. feeling stupid is about the worst feeling in the world to me, one of the cons of being an over-achiever i suppose, but i just really don't take it well. and i felt like the (stupid-)fat-girl in class which is an image/idea that has kept me away from more gyms/classes/physical-activities than i can count. and i feel like i've finally really started to get over that, and to have it shoved back in my face in a definitive kind of way was really really just horrible. it made me angry at myself, angry at the studio for posting it in a way that was misleading, and angry at jayne as well (although i know she meant well and only wanted me to have a good time) for not realizing the class for being as advanced as it was. you should take into account difference between skill levels of the friend and the class before you invite someone. and perhaps the emotional tolerance for mistakes. i'm sure some people could have just laughed it off as an "experience," but i kind of think i'm obviously not one of those people. i'm too uptight.

so. that made me really emotional on the way home. really angry and hurt and just... yeah, emotional in generally negative ways.

but in a way i liked it, being really angry and feeling kind of justified about it. and assume that others do too. I tried to hold on to my anger the entire way home. I feel like we spend so much time trying to be mellow or agreeable in normal life than when we have a really genuinely strong emotion, we try and hold on to it as long as possible. I think it's less noticeable when you're happy - as it seems natural to continue to want to be happy. but to continue to want to be miserable seems a bit odd. i don't think its all that uncommon though. (maybe i'm wrong, and just a masochist at heart. entirely possible. your comments on this are appreciated. on whether you feel the same or not. not whether or not i'm a masochist.)

its kind of like life trying to imitate art (after it has imitated life). All of our media/visual arts/audial arts/literature etc. focuses on emotions and emotional responses, and then our lives are often so emotionally dull (perhaps only outwardly) that when a strong emotion (like those that inspire art) takes hold of us, we (i) try to hold on to it because it makes us feel more human? more normal? I'm not really sure. But i know that i like being (justifiably) emotional. A lot.

So that was kind of my first hypothesis on the way home. but now i think the art thing is kind of crap. maybe true, but if it is its just an extra reflection of our original desires. Arts wouldn't focus on things like that if they weren't innate to our beings, i don't think.

Its probably just a release of energy. There is probably some scientific reason for it all.
I hate science.
I like emotions better. I like art better.

good thing i work at a physics lab. hahaha.

this was long. i could go on, but i wont.
being emotional made me want to listen to peter gabriel.

Heidi is being a GiggleMuffin

2008-02-01T20:43:00.000-08:00

because of her "boyfriend." Thats only in quotes because she has such a hard time saying it that i couldn't imagine just writing it out plainly.

They made real soup earlier. I poured potato soup out of a can. and added cheese. it was good. and creamy.

work is overwhelming in some senses, mostly in the grander scheme of what they want me to do in the future. But i still like it, i just don't like having two bosses who have very different opinions about how to manage employees. (one is very 'big-picture' and the other is very task oriented. i'm okay with either, but trying to manage the two is a bit trying.)

And i finally broke my record! Sweeney Todd has trumped the Matrix (6 times) for most viewings in a theater with 7 times!!! (it will be 8 or more if i can convince other people to go see it). I really really love that movie. its so me i realized - very macabre and kind of goth-y, but at the same time a FucKinG MUSICAL. So FANTASTIC. and helena bonham carter is so pretty. and i want her costumes from the film.

aaaaaaaaaand.... i'm kind of cold. wearing a hat inside the house.

oh - kitcat is good. He's a normal spazzy young cat (been especially bite-y today...) but he is really sweet sometimes and kind of sounds like he's dying when he meows, which is as adorable as it is annoying. Otter Rosencrantz Kent is a pretty fantastic name, though. Cat names are so fun.

I feel like reading Heinlein.... and Hitchhiker's Guide. I'm in the mood for some science fiction, i guess.

ok. i guess i'm done with the random updates and comments for now.

Christmas in Georgia (highlight photos)

2008-01-03T22:49:00.000-08:00

my parents expressing their general attitudes towards life.

i love abby's pose, and i'm still amazed that i managed to get such a good picture of tucker.

abby fastening the bracelet my mom gave to jane. i like the old/young hands contrast.

my father and his brother battling on Wii Baseball, while my great aunt Virginia watches. They got a bit competitive. 'Twas funny.

my cousin Matt practicing child abuse on my first cousin Faith... or at least that was the blackmail purposes of this photo. They were great hams for the camera.
I really hope everyone reads the caption for this.
Face off!

my grandpa and his wife jane. they're great together.

my mommy says goodbye to her daddy. thought it was sweet.

these are just some of my favorite pics from the trip. i took a BUNCH.
(they're all on my flickr page - there should be a link in the right column)

Overall, christmas was good, better than i had expected.
:)

this was stupid fun.

2007-12-17T23:52:00.001-08:00

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1514155777

i hope all four are there.

is it narcissistic to make 4 elves of yourself?

W T F.

2007-12-15T11:20:00.000-08:00

the people upstairs are apparently OCfuckingD about vacuuming.
its like the "if i had a hammer" song, only with a fucking VACUUM.
in the morning in the evening all day long with a vacuum suck suck sucking above my head.
blahhhhhhhhhhhhhgr.

My LiP

2007-12-01T00:40:00.001-08:00

is split open in the corner from being chapped and me chewing on it.
i feel like i'm anywhere from 7 to 14 years old.
i had very chapped lips as a child.
mostly because i liked to pull them apart and make them split open and BLEED in front of all the other girls in my classes to watch them go "ohhh ... EWWWWWW oh . my . god . thatsdisgusting"

i thought it was hysterical.

its less funny now that i'm grown and i just kind of look like i got in a lame fight.

but i still kind of like it.

mmmm, blood.

you know who is awesome?

2007-11-18T01:15:00.000-08:00

effing DOLLY PARTON. i just love her.
i hate all country music in general, with the exceptions of Lyle Lovett, Dolly Parton, and maybe Chris Isaak. is he country? I don't know, but he's cool too. He just sounds like lounge music. But i've been listening to a LOT of chris isaak lately, and it makes me happy. As happy as Dolly Parton's laugh.

i have flashdance hair.

2007-11-14T19:31:00.000-08:00

(and a much rounder face than jennifer beals)

half of me loves it. (the hair.) half of me thinks its a bit much. with the bangs. wouldn't be bad 'cept for the bangs.

i want to sleep

2007-11-05T18:51:00.000-08:00

heidi dressed up for halloween. and i took some pictures of her. no pictures of me from halloween. i had my clockwork orange eyelashes on, though, and some cool fangs that kept falling off.

hopefully i will get to when i get back from alaska. luckily that monday is a day off! my first ever paid holiday! yay! and i'm am going to SLEEP IN. i havent actually had a real day off (no work, no guests to entertain, etc) since October 11. and i enjoy complaining about it. but my waiting is almost over.

i was on the moon. ... with steve!?!

joe came to visit. so did kaitlin. 'twas good.

I do this.

2007-10-07T20:06:00.000-07:00

"After Harry left, Draco went and locked the door to the lab. He sat in the chair farthest from the door. Then he stood, paced a bit, and went to a closet. He closed himself into the closet. It wasn't enough. He dug around, moving boxes from the back corner and piling them in front of the door. He wedged himself into the corner. He pulled a lab coat over his head.

Then he put his face in his hands, and cried."

not much anymore. but i used to. the finding the smallest darkest space thing. and it was odd to see it written. nice to know that other people do this. i always knew they did, but it was nice to have it confirmed in writing.

adjourd'hui

2007-09-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

quelqu'un me dit que j'ai les yeux jolies. c'est sympa d'entendre, toujours!

et.... j'ai passe' beaucoup de temps a' la travaille, mais je n'ai pas fait beaucoup. j'apprends UNIX pour travaille. C'est un peu difficile, mais je l'aime beaucoup parce que c'est bizarre! Comme "v" dit "verbose"! Personne ne me dit qu'UNIX est trop drole! Et j'ai parle' avec Jenn il y a une heure. Elle a beaucoup de faire. Elle et Alex voyageront a New Zealand dans novembre pour trois semaines. Un voyage bien, je suppose.

Habiter avec Heidi c'est bien, aussi. Mais elle est partie hier encore, apres elle n'a que reste' a' la maison deux nuits apres son grand voyage a bicyclette a' Montana. Alors je suis tout seule encore. Mais c'est bien - j'etudie l'UNIX plus! Et peut-etre ce soir je visiterai le cafe Indien pres de mon apartement.

tout en tout, ca va bien. et peut-etre pour la poste prochaine, j'ecrirai en anglais, oui? (avec moins des erreurs de grammaire!)

why oh why

2007-09-12T02:22:00.000-07:00

am i still awake?
GO TO BED, ME!

geez....

poi-son-alli-tee

2007-09-06T23:07:00.001-07:00

The Return of ME to... here.

2007-09-05T18:56:00.001-07:00

apparently i decided to just take the entire summer off from blogging. but now i'm BACK.

a brief synopsis of the summer: Went home to Soldotna, worked half-timey at Kaladi and did some temp work at the orthodontic office Lisa works in... mostly just had a lazy last summer at home, which was nice.

August 3rd we went up to Anchorage to see Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. They were un-fucking-believable. SO GOOD. (be forewarned, P&J, you will be dragged to see them if and when they come to seattle.) The only rivalry for best-concert-ever it has in my mind is that amazing Bobby McFerring and Savion Glover concert four years ago. nothing else even comes close.

From the concert, we went directly to the airport to hop on a plane to NYC. We stayed there for 3 nights, letting (ordering) Clyde to show us the city. Needless to say, we watched a lot of films. (The Ten, No End in Sight, Sicko & Rocket Science- Sicko being my favorite of the four, i think. the ten was a bit on the lame side, but it had some really funny shit in it, too.) We also went to the Whitney Museum, where Lisa got to enjoy her late-youth all over again in their Psychedelic Art show, and MoMA, which was very cool. But COLD. compared to outside, where it was very very HOT.

oh yeah, did i mention that? New York City is HOT. not in a pleasant, kind of way. in a hot MUGGY yicky i feel sticky kind of way.

we also ate great indian food, saw blonde redhead for free - very cool - and ate at yummy cafes and cream-puff shops. Subways are cool, but they still confuse me - i missed the simplicity of the Metro... but Subway cars are air-conditioned, and metro cars arent, so thats definitely one-up for the states.

We left clyde then to go up to Maine to spend four nights with Lisa's dad and his wife Jane in the cottage they stay on in the summer on Chebeague Island. Its a really nice island, and the weather there was much more .... my style. :) Unfortunately, i didn't get to see much of it as the first night we were there, i tried to emulate a twist move from Hairspray in the living room and re-sprained my left knee. So i holed up the next day in bed, and basically just limped around until it was time to leave. But i still enjoyed myself a lot, talking to my Grandpa and actually reading (three books in three days! granted they were very small.... but still! Heinlein and Asimov are cool!), and finally venturing down to the beach a bit. The day we left my step-uncle and his family took us sailing on their gorgeous 34-foot yacht... we watched the beginning of a sail-boat race, then just baked in the sun for a while before heading back to Portland. It was nice.

Our return trip was a bit crazy. We flew to NYC first, spent our 12 hour layover venturing back into the city to hang out some more with Clyde and his friend Tom. Then we got back on a plane, had a stop in DC for a couple of hours, then took another plane to Atlanta. We had a 4 hour layover there, so Lisa's sister Marilyn and all my cousins and my uncle came to have lunch with us in the airport. I haven't seen any of them in 7 years or so, so it was nice to see them all, and see how much different my cousins look now. Most frightening perhaps, though, was the fact that my youngest cousin Tucker who is 11 looks remarkably like Ben (now-ben, not 11-year-old-ben). Weirded me out a bit. But he's a cool kid - puts up with his 3 sisters well.
Then Lisa spent the entirety of our 7.5 hour flight back to Anchorage with my leg up on her lap (still elevating the knee for the sprain), she was mostly sleeping. I was watching the 3 movies they showed: Spider-man 3, Blades of Glory, and Fracture. One little more hop to Kenai and we were finally done. It was a long-ass trip, but a good one, as we did a lot of visiting between flights.

I think i'll leave a further update on what is actually going on now for a later date, as this post is already ridiculously long. But i have lots of fun news about Now, too - so that will go up tomorrow or the next day.

i heart kubrick music.

2007-06-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

here is the opening to my final paper for my independent study of music in Stanley Kubrick's films:

"Thank-You, Stanley Kubrick, for the Gorgeous Gorgeousity of your Film Scores.

When examining the musical scores of Stanley Kubrick’s films, one is struck by their poignancy, their power, and their overall elevation above other films generally released by Hollywood. I hesitate to give as my thesis “Kubrick’s film scores are amazing, and this is why,” but know that generally, that is my feeling towards the subject. There are a few flops in his body of work, Lolita (1962) being the most notable in its uncomplicated and conventional film score, but overall I would go so far as to say that Stanley has increased the musical education of the majority of his audience. His overall attention to quality, in that he uses acclaimed composers in their own right, or amazing performers adds to the overall interesting and compelling nature of his film scores. For this reason, his musical soundtracks leave longer lasting impressions on his viewers than almost any other films in existence (Jaws perhaps being the exception). Most importantly, though, what makes Kubrick’s musical accompaniment so exceptional is that, in most cases, its refusal to be simply a musical accompaniment. Within his films, music is so prominent and influential that it can practically be considered another character within the film, becoming an active participant in the telling of stories, ideas and themes. In many cases, his music can act as the emotional narrator to the intellectual questions that his works ask, making his films more accessible to a wide audience."

I'm pretty sure...

2007-05-24T01:00:00.001-07:00

that this is what i think of when i think of cats. THIS is the image i get of what a cat "should" look like. Especially color group III.

But gee, that might be slightly influenced by this young man who died too young:
(in fact, i think this biased is influenced by alaskan cats in general... Heidi's cat Leo also came to mind...)

hebbedur ah uh eeh

2007-05-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

i am SO inarticulate.

i just starting capturing my interview files to the computer, its the first time i've really watched any of my footage... and all i can say is that i'm really sorry for all the people i interviewed who had to try and decipher what it was i wanted them to talk about.

Hopefully i'll get better... that opinion was based on just the first interview tape. i can only hope.

Proof that FanFiction can be good:

2007-05-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

"He needed to concentrate on spying and not getting caught doing it, and besides, he was fairly certain (when he chose to admit it to himself during those strangely introspective hours between three am and four) that just under the surface crust of earthy sexual desire, hidden feelings about Potter were growing and spreading like ugly little potatoes. Love potatoes. They needed to be picked and mashed and not allowed to get any bigger or tastier just at the minute. He could plant more later, if he wanted to, but any further nurturing of this Potter thing and he’d have a flaming rampant potato epidemic to deal with. And that meant he should stay away and not risk fertilizing anything by accident."

that is by far one of my favorite metaphors ever.

(for those of you who didn't know, i like to read online fiction where harry potter and draco malfoy are in luuurve... its a strange habit, but one i am firmly committed to.)

I am an Asian Woman and Jensen Ackles

2007-05-14T02:50:00.000-07:00

Although, when i am not smiling i am considerably less-asian, and more manly. Manly like a CW Television Star. Yeah, I could have dated lana lang on smallville. Sorry. I'm just surprised that Jensen Ackles was someone i actually knew (he was a big part of smallville season 4). And i like that he was my #1 look alike.

also, I look absolutely nothing like Jensen Ackles. Nothing.

I am an Asian Woman.

2007-05-14T02:42:00.000-07:00

my childhood dreams have come true.

i have amazed myself

2007-05-11T23:03:00.000-07:00

Lettuce (!!! Jesus Christ!!! Like, more than 4 bites of it, too!!!)
Meaty hashy-stuff that was spicy but good
Sour Cream
Cheese (multiple kinds)
Beans
Tortilla Shell.

That has got the be the most diverse meal i've eaten in months.
Not to mention it was all on one plate.
With lettuce.
(i didn't eat the tomatoes.)

I'm not saying i'll get these myself, but i quite enjoyed eating it this once, if just for the layers of food that kept popping out of nowhere. I think it helped that i hadn't eaten since the afternoon. I'm not so good at eating while i'm working.

2007-05-11T22:48:00.001-07:00

and underneath the cheese is BEANS!!!
i totally did NOT know that! Seriously. This is the most surprising food i have ever eaten.

2007-05-11T22:41:00.001-07:00

And there is CHEESE at the bottom!
i just thought it was getting all gunky and i was kind of dreading eating it,
but its CHEESE!

i never knew

2007-05-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

you could use sour cream as salad dressing.

i like sour cream, but i never eat it because i usually only eat it on tortilla chips and not a lot of other people i know prefer plain sour cream to salsa or dip, and i dont eat enough chips to make buying them for myself worthwhile.

so, good to know. sour cream = salad dressing.

You will not believe me...

2007-05-11T22:35:00.000-07:00

but im eating a Taco Salad.

The janitor at work brought it to me, for no reason other than im here really late.
Hes really nice. and so i am eating a taco salad. I actually think ill be fine with everything but the tomatoes.

why is it so friggin cold in my room?

2007-05-04T20:20:00.000-07:00

This is actually a post i started about a week ago... i dont remember what else i was going to say... but you can read it anyway.

i'm wearing a sweatshirt and slippers and warm pajama pants and i'm freezing. and heidi's about to open the door to take out her bike and things are just going to go downhill from there...

i bought a dvd burner the other day... so i can make silly copies of my silly movies and send them to silly people. :) and also because i've been downloading movies (thank you zach) and want a hard copy of some of them.

and at work today, waiting for datasets to download, i started reading a book for my research paper on music in Stanley Kubrick films. i thought i should acquaint myself formally with film music theory a bit and so started reading The Art of Film Music and found myself quickly on page 70. This is not a normal occurance. I suppose thats what happens when you actually read something youre interested in... which hasnt happened for me for 6 years or so...

this is delightfully disgusting

2007-04-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

id like to say i wouldn't have run out in it and had a blast, but we all know i would have been running in sewage fluff in an instant - probably even if i knew it was sewage fluff. Fluff falling from the sky is magical, regardless of from whence it came.

Read the Story.

oh, and thanks to Call Me Ishmael for the initial post.

One more time

2007-03-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

tomorrow i begin my final quarter of University of Washington undergraduate schooling. i'm taking 3 film classes, and working at APL.

I'm excited for classes to start, in the way that i'm usually excited for classes to start, but not much more than that. i guess i'm sad that this is kind of the end, but it still doesn't seem to be affecting me much.

Haley and her friend from Colorado, Katie, came to visit this past week. I hung out with them when i wasn't working and when they weren't drinking themselves into a stupor. it was really fun, but not particularly relaxing (which is why i've done absolutely nothing yesterday and today, and have enjoyed it immensely). We went shopping on tuesday and haley and i both spent lots of money. (your present was put to good use, lisa - i have 2 new lovely dresses from that trip.) Its nice to go shopping with someone who is as bad as it as you. and by "bad," i mean that she spends as much as me and gets the same ridiculous high from it, as opposed to Katie who lamented most of the day over spending $40 on one bra at VS. I know shopping is a weakness, and thats why i just dont let myself do it save a couple times a year. And i'd rather do it with friends. So, overall it was a good day. :)

And then a couple nights later we saw 300 and ate at an indian restaurant. both of those are firsts, at least in america. i really liked 300 - definitely a big screener - and its ability to suck me in. Though i do feel sorry for the boys who will suffer from women re-evaluating what they want in a man to include spartan manliness... Then when we ate indian food, i had the Butter Chicken (what a surprise, right?) extra mild. Which was a good thing - since by the end it was still a bit too hot for my liking. I am just not a fan of spicy-hot food. I like warm food, cooked food, spiced food, but i just don't see the appeal of having food create a burning sensation in your mouth. Its a masochistic tendency of humans that i just havent latched on to, and probably never will.

Oh, and haley got a tattoo (2, actually) that i drew around a pre-existing tattoo she had on her foot. Very flattering to me, and i hope that she continues to like it - especially once its been touched up like she wants. Bye now.

Ummm... life plan?

2007-03-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

Occasionally i see some ad for a disney film or disney land or disney world or anything disney in general, and i get all weepy. ok, so like at least 50% of the time. and then i think back to when my goal in life was to play in the disney recording orchestra. i still think that would be utterly amazing. but just working for disney would be amazing in any respect i think, no matter if their shit has gone down-hill fast in the last decade (excluding most pixar linked things). Disney still just makes me unbelievably happy. I think working in one of the parks would be really fun. but those parks are all in southern areas of the county where i dont even like to visit on vacation unless its january... BUT, then i thought, HEY! EURODISNEY! i actually really liked Eurodisney. So maybe i'll think about that. They definitely need people who can speak english... and i could work on my french... that would be very cool. But maybe it wouldn't be so cool if i just walked around crying all the time because i was so overcome with happy fuzzy emotions. hopefully it would pass. anyway, i'm keeping it mind. :)

i heart teachers

2007-03-06T19:47:00.000-08:00

i had the most fantastic teacher day, ever.

my wildland/amenities management class this morning i had a presentation - it was supposed to be on thursday but last thursday the teacher asked if i could switch because someone else had a scheduling conflict. so he thanked me before class for doing that. and even though i ran everyone over class time (i was the last presenter) he said i had a really good presentation (though its possible that he was just placating me after seeing my nerve-wracked presentation. i didn't feel nervous beforehand, i just got a little rambly and couldn't find the words... so i think i may have sounded awkward - but it was obvious that i had a lot of information to impart as well.) so that was good.

Then i hung out in the computer lab for a while and read some articles - then on my way to the Hitchcock class, i was walking along and i hear this "hey! how are you?" from Brian McDonald. He was one of the teachers of my Storyboard for Animation class last summer, and the one who told me that i seemed like an actor. I liked him a lot and i liked his approach to films from a more story-based viewpoint, but i wasn't sure if he would remember me so it was cool to have him stop me on campus and ask how i was. We talked for a bit and he reiterated that i should take an acting class or something because he thought i'd be good at it. and that he'd cast me. (i'm not sure if he actually would, but it was an awfully nice thing to say.) Then the rest of the computer animation kids walked up and told me they liked my voice over last year on our story reel. so all that was even more good than the presentation thing.

after my hitchcock class, i stayed to ask Tweedie (the prof) about the Bejiing Film Program - and so we chatted about that and then we were kind of talking about stuff in class and i told him it was so weird that i'm going to graduate next quarter and i don't have a Tweedie class! (i've had him consistently for a year now.) He told me i should audit his 1960-present film class again, jokingly, but in a way that made me feel like he enjoyed having me in class. Hes my favorite film teacher, so it was cool.

He also advised me about writing to Willis Konick asap for my independent study course next quarter, because his class is so full already. So i spent my next break before class composing an email about how i wanted to write about music in kubricks films, half expecting that he'd say he just had too many people in the class or something, and then i got a reply just a couple of minutes ago, that said: "I'd be delighted to work with you on the subject of music in Kubrick's films. A fascinating subject indeed... you can attend the class any time you want to, and I think it might be interesting for you to view the major Kubrick films, and you might want to hear what I'm going to say about them." So Yay! Independent study that i'm actually interested in and from somebody who sounds like they know what they're talking about (hes email said more to make me believe this was already a subject he had explored a bit).

So yay! Yay for teachers! I miss being a teacher's pet. I look up to my teachers a lot, and to have them recognize me as being a good student or whatever just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

Ce Neveu Monde ??

2007-03-01T14:48:00.000-08:00

i love C-Neuf radio (la connection pop-rock de Paris)...

but at the moment i'm listening to Aladdin's "A Whole New World" in french. Its a bit disconcerting, somehow. I like my disney in english, apparently.

THURSDAY is the day

2007-03-01T14:24:00.000-08:00

that i post most consistently. i didn't plan it, but now that i've noticed the trend i think i'll try and stick to it.

So i have something exciting to write about. But i'm not going to. Yet. Its not finished yet. I'll write about it next week.

We only have 1.2 weeks of school left! and finals! but they don't count! then i'm just un quartier away from finishing school completely! god. thats so weird. i know jayne is kind of weirded out by not knowing whats going to happen next year, and i would be, except... i kind of got freaked out by it 4 years in advance. i worried about finishing college as i was finishing highschool. now that its here, i'm not really worried or bothered i guess. comes from having low expectations, i think. i mean, i just don't really care too greatly about where i end up. My ambitions career-wise are spectacularily low or un-focused or something - comes from really enjoying meaningless office-clerk type tasks. I know that i can get a job and be really pretty happy with it, even if its not film related. not that i wouldn't love to do something film-related, but i'm more interested in learning more about production, etc. before immersing myself full-time into film - lest it bore me or lose its appeal or something. i don't really think it would - but i suppose it could. Living in seattle has already bored me a bit on independent film.

Ok. Going off to watch a depressing holocaust film now. (its Pianist day in my roman polankski class.)

chomp chomp lyposuction ?

2007-02-22T15:51:00.000-08:00

lately ive been noticing teeth. i like my teeth pretty well, they're really pretty straight, just one little bottom front tooth is noticeably twisted, but even then, not that bad. BUT - jesus christ, everyone now has PERFECT teeth. So even that small little twist makes me feel self conscious. And i just have to wonder what our kids will be like, as all kids now already have perfect teeth thanks to the very customary procedure of parents taking their kids to the orthodontist to have them medically make their mouths more beautiful. Well, scratch that, not all kids. Kids with money have perfect teeth. I can see this as being another thing that separates people who are really poor in america - i would feel so outcasted now with bad teeth, i cant even imagine what it will be like in 20 years. And it just seems like such an accepted and expected thing to go and have your teeth changed so they are all pretty and lined up perfectly that i can see more and more people turning to lyposuction/cosmetic surgeries because they've grown up thinking that medical "fixing" of your appearance is what is expected. it doesn't seem like a good thing for us in the long run. and my own mother is perpetuating the problem. geez, lisa. So. i'm going to be proud of my little crooked tooth. or try to be. and hope that my kids have naturally straight teeth so i dont have to get them orthodontically influenced into thinking that their appearance is merely a matter of medical finesse.

senioritis has come again?

2007-02-15T19:58:00.001-08:00

i haven't updated in forever. but i have pledged to update at least every time my father does. which is perhaps lame and not the best plan i have ever come up with - but i'm writing, so at least its working at the moment.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETER. um, again. it was peter's bday last night, so i went to go be social with him at his petite fete. it was fun, i had a good time - everyone liked the cake i made, and i got to play some ddr and piano, and had a good chat with peter waiting for the bus. (there was absolutely NO ONE else on that bus. that doublebus bus... all empty for me... was a bit strange.)

going to classes has been difficult. i like 2/3 of my classes, i'm just having a hard time working up the _____________ to go to them. even though i don't really have anything better to do, a big part of me is just kind of like "classes? ...... meh, maybe not." So i'm trying to get over that.

And speaking of film classes - i may have to rethink my position on my favorite director. I like bertolucci a LOT, but he may be getting bumped down the list by Mind-Fuck-Polanski. I've liked all of his films so far, even the ones that dont make my brains dribble out of my ears- but those ones are the best. I havent had a movie affect/effect me in a long while, and then we watched REPULSION. and today i got to see The Tenant (or Le Locataire if you're in france). both made me have dribbly brains.

anyway. thats kind of what has been going on lately. everyone in the house seems to be listening to Paul Simon's Graceland lately - and i've finally downloaded a copy of it to my computer and am listening to it currently. i'm not sure how i escaped the paul simon (and garfunkel) revolution - apparently it never happened in our house. we jump straight from the allman brothers and the doors to peter gabriel and alison krauss...

and in a final and very sad note, jupiter is still missing. i can only hope that he was taken in by someone who is very nice to him. i miss him, where ever he is.

s a l u t a t i o n s

2007-01-11T18:54:00.000-08:00

i apologize for not updating sooner. internet things have been erratic, but are now fixed. i still don't have any photos on my computer - but hopefully will soon.

lately... i moved back to seattle and settled into my room. i like my room mucho mucho, its nice and comfy with an amazing light set up in the closet that makes me smile everytime i have to get dressed. i do have pictures of that now... i'll try and get them up later.

and... i have decent classes. i like the roman polanski class the best, for more reasons than one- but it is / he is (roman) really interesting. and its easy. thats always nice. the hitchcock class is good, but i keep falling asleep in class for reasons i can't really figure out-and it might not count for credit, which would be a load of crap, but i still have enough time to get in the classes i need before i graduate. and the wildland public management class is pretty interesting, but i'm not sure how much i really like it. it also has the most reading, which makes it last on my list.

Diet Coke has changed their bottlecaps - and while i like the new design, they seem to slip from my fingers easier and i have a difficult time putting them back on.

ok. hope everybody had a good holiday time. i did.

My parisien family

2006-11-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

Meet Brigitte and Rica, my host mom and the Japanese student who lives with us.
I'll put up more pictures as soon as i can. :)

France 2 (not the french television station, just my second post...)

2006-10-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

(a joke no one will get but me.) (all the TV stations here are FR1, FR2, FR3, FR4... etc.)

anyway. france is fun still. i still feel bad because i have to pictures to post cuz i cant connect my camera (hint hint, zach?). but life has been pretty great.

i guess a lot of people in our class dont have the best families to live with, or like they don't feed them very well or dont really take time to talk to them. whereas our lady is absolutely insane. in a good way. she's like 51 or 52.... and she dances and sings all the time (like marilyn monroe most frequently, "i love be love by you.... la la ... i love be love by you... la la... boo boo bee doo!) and she has shown us her entire collection of lingerie, which was.... interesting. She admonishes me for wearing too much black... and she has this insanely raspy voice because shes smokes like a chimney a lot of the time. Her two sons come by sometimes, Gyom and Jerome, they're pretty fun. and then her husband Richard is around monday-wednesday nights. Then he leaves for the country for the weekend. but he cooks when he's home. And she leaves for the country saturday afternoon so were on our own (me, morgan, and the japanese girl Rika who we love, shes hysterical) every weekend, which is actually really nice because then we can have a little break from just the stress of living with people who you are trying subconciously to impress or something. But Brigitte is super nice and we have these really long 4 course meals every night where she talks a lot. its been really good for my comprehension of french. my spoken french is definitely getting better too, but not as good as my listening because brigitte does more talking than listening. :) and next friday night we're all going out dancing with her friends for her birthday, which should be a blast. i don't think i can feel silly or embarresed if brigitte is dancing next to me. so. thats all pretty awesome. and i really like moran a lot as a friend/roommate. i get along with people pretty well when i live with them.

um.... nutella crepes are insanely addicting.

it is impossible to be in paris and not be affected stylistically. i feel bad because i've spent more money on clothes than i meant to, but i finally feel like i fit in and i don't need to buy anything else to complete my new "ensembles." and i bought more outfits in colors, so brigitte will be happy. anyway. i apoligize to my parents for spending more money than i should have, but i think i don't need to buy anymore clothes now, so thats good. thats a craving thats been fulfilled. alors, bien.

and i'm planning on going to rome the first weekend in november and hanging out with becky a bit. i think i'll end up flying there, and then taking the train back, which is kind of the best of both worlds, yeah? yeah.

ok. this is long and my internet time is running out. i'll try and write more often, even though i have no pictures. and if you would like to recieve a postcard from me, and i havent sent one yet or havent told you i'm sending you one yet, send me an email (rileyk@u.washington.edu) with your address and i'll try and get one to you:).

OK. i love you all and hope you're having fun, too.

OUI OUI, PARIS!

2006-09-30T01:28:00.000-07:00

bonjour tous! i'm about finished with my solitary stint in the city of lights. i wanted to have a picture to post, but my camera is not playing nice with my computer, so that will have to wait. this isn't going to be a very long post, either - i'll write more later for those of you who care to read.

Paris is.... cool chic impressive old overwhelming stressful beautiful friendly complex. i do totally know now that if there is only one other person in the room you are walking into, you have to say "bonjour." its polite. and then you say "bonjour" or "au revoir" again when you leave. which is nice. and the city is very very safe, there are little to no homeless people or beggers, so i never feel afraid or creeped out. actually, the part of town where my hotel is probably the worst area i've been in so far.

and i dont think the city smells. yes, occassionaly if you go past a dog park then it stinks to high heaven. but as a whole, its an impressively clean city.

ok. i will hopefully post something much longer and more illustrated within the next couple of days. salut.

hhhhhaaaaaaaaaalaska!

2006-08-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

yay for being home. and in kaladi using wifi. yay for working and making art and hot chocolate made with enough chocolate. tis good. and watching shit loads of movies. and 'the office' - the original british version, which is, yes, clyde and jessica, very very good. and not even too uncomfortable for me to stand. anyway. jessica- i think i lost your email again. maybe i will send you a text message and ask you it and the address of your blog. yes. sometime soon here i will do that. so. i dont really have anything exciting to report. i've just kind of been hanging out at home and doing art/watching movies.... relaxing. which has been really really nice. and i start work today. which will be cool, too. i'm not working too much, so that should be nice. and if i actually sell everything in my show (which is unlikely), i could make like $500. wouldn't that be awesome. yes. yes it would.

ok. not much to say else. but man its been a long time since i read a story :(. will have to do that today :) . ooohk. (<--- the everlasting remenant of my strange friendship with bobby utrup. i tend to write "ohk" instead of "ok.") (at least online.)

bluaaaaaahhhh

2006-08-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

apparently thats how i feel right now.

so.... lately:

-jenn came to visit, we (JHR) went to a little awesome italian restraunt monday night and had a really long relaxing dinner, like 3.5 hours or something. but it was way cool. and then yesterday we.... went shopping downtown a little and bought my cat a new carrier for his trip home. she left for LA this morning.
- i've skipped more french than i care to think about. Mostly just from other constraints on my time and stuff, like today i worked in the coffee stand instead of going to french... but it was the day after a test, so i figured it was ok. (i've "figured" all my absences are "ok" but i still feel bad in a cumulative sort of sense.) But apparently i did really well on my oral presentation, because i got a 98/100. i got a 95 on the first one, so yay for improvement.
- i alternate between feeling okay and not stressed out and feeling crazy because i have SO much to do before i can go home in TEN DAYS. FUCK. now is a stressed time.
- i'm in a jazz history class with only 8 people, and 2 teachers. its really fun. but i wish i had more time to invest in it and the reading/listening, etc. but we (RJy) to Tulas sunday night and heard a jazz band (i had to write a paper on a concert), which was fun.
- and Don, my ex-trombone teacher and current jazz teacher, is moving to denmark in 2 weeks- which means he'll totally be there and doing concerts while i'm in Paris. So we're gonna meet up or something, which is cool.
- i finally got my living assignment for paris ! yay! i'm going to live in this building:

which is here:

So thats all very exciting. And i'm going to be living with a family, i haven't called them yet. And another girl who's a freshman who likes to snowboard, etc... but she's been in paris all summer with another program... so i'm not sure what to think about all that yet.

aaaaaaand. tonight is project runway! yay! and i've frozen some koolaid for myself, so i'm so looking forward to that. yay for frozen super kool-aid!

bye everyone. i'll write again when i get back to alaska and have time to think.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

2006-07-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

my hands are ice cubes

2006-06-28T18:07:00.000-07:00

not something i thought i;'d be saying anytime saoon,as were having a heat wave here. but i've been sitting in the server room at APL for like 1 1/2 hours now. and they have to keep it cool to keep the big servers cool. and i'm dressed for summer. so any studpi like that typos are mst likely from me nt wante=ing to go back and fix things uz that would mean movig my ahands more and that ckind of hurts at the moment.

but other than that things are going well. classes are good. i'm catching up resX preetty well. and thats good. and did i mention there's a hear t wave here ? and that sucks ass. had to buy new fans, and that was good. hhhhh... what else.
i get to go home early today! cuz kiko got sick so my lit class was cancelled. so i just have a little more to do here then i'm going home. to read. and eat food. i like food. i have a hard time eating anything other than bagels in my schedule. but i'm making an effort to cook things. just hard, cuz i usually dont get home till 8 or after.
ok.
done here.
going out fo the cold room.

ahhrrrg

2006-06-23T16:51:00.000-07:00

ok. already falling behind in classes. well. only one class. and not that far behind. but HAVE TO catch up this weekend. cuz my schedule is kinda crazy. but i REALLY REALLY REALLY like my classes. i'd forgot how fun and dazing it is to listen to kiko talk and realize that i could never talk like that, especially considering i can barely follow what he is saying. and my other class is on Stories!!! YAY stories!!! and storyboards, but i'm kind of thinking that that is not going to be as hard as they are making it out to be.... i dunno. working in a group will probably be harder than the actual making of the project. ok. i think library time is over. not having internet is doing me good. and i finally got a decent night's sleep last night, which was good. and i apologize for my last entry, which was 1)untrue as i look back over the life of this blog, people do comment at least sometimes and 2)very very hypocritical because i almost never comment on other people's blogs. so. sorry for that. cuz i probably wont be doing any commenting in the next 4 weeks. ok. i think i've said everything i wanted to say. now to hole up in my apartment, eat pizza, and read like the wind about what exactly the definition of a nation is.

(violence out. take that peter.)

no love

2006-06-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

for my blog, apparently.

nobody leaves me comments anymore. and i've been trying to be good and update more often. actually, the other day i had a giant entry all filled out to post and then my computer froze. which sucked. but i wasn't going to rewrite the entire thing. too bad for y'all, who are apparently n'y'all, as from you comments, there are none of you.

but. i'm back in seattle, after a not-very-relaxing break in alaska. it was really really nice to be home, but i definitely could have used another week there where i didn't have to do anything, instead of the one week i did have where i felt like i had too much shit to do. not really all that much, but more than i wanted to do on my one week of vacation.

and now i have new classes starting tomorrow. which i'm am getting re-excited about. yay for little classes. hopefully they'll be cool.

and also a pro/con of the summer is that i have no internet hookup in my apartment anymore. which is sad for my internet surfing, but probably a really good thing in the long run as maybe i'll be more done when i'm not constantly in from of the computer. and i can still check my email almost everyday- cuz i go to work and work on UW super-fast internet everyday. so i think it'll be good.

oh. and while i was on break, i got to see Jenn and Haley and Ben. but who did i see the most often? (besides my parents and the staff of Kaladi Brothers) thats right, Josh Northcutt. which was odd. but the Tim Sturm Band played at the Kenai river festival both days, so i saw him then, and then he was working at subway when i went in on thursday and friday, and saturday night i drove past him and waved as he was in the Kaladi Brother's parking lot. It would have been kind of fun to see them at Kaladis- see what they're like in a smaller venue. i think their original songs are all pretty good.

and Saturday night Haley and Lisa and I all went to the Crossing to eat and watch Ben play piano. the food was TaStY. i like steak. i really like new york strip steaks. i get them a lot. and that restaraunt was nice - good to have a decent nice restaraunt in soldotna again. And ben played well. good job, ben. Although, i think i've heard you play all but one of those songs before... but i'm sure if i played there i'd do the same thing.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand.... there's probably more i should say but this is getting long and i need to go buy toilet paper and ramen noodles.

2006-06-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

I will survive (Jesus Version)

i like people spoofing jesus.
thats just all kinds of good fun. yay!

ahh, seatac

2006-06-09T17:46:00.000-07:00

i feel comfortable in airports. i know how things work. and there are signs everywhere telling you where to go and where to eat and where to take a shit. its nice. and people are continually things. all these things i like. what i do not like is the retarded water-fountains that sound like a bubbling brook or something. i want to shoot them. but i will refrain.

so. finals actually went ok. i wasn't as stressed out as i thought i would be, mostly because i forgot that i'm a terrible studier. i just don't do it. or i do it super efficiently, in like half the time that i planned for. so i did much more lazing about than i expected to.

and last night i went and saw Miiii(h)... which was ok. not the best movie i've ever seen, but certainly full of action. and tom cruise is just a giant bobble head man. whenever anyone asked him a question he didn't want to answer, he'd just bobble his head around, looking strained, instead of answering the question. then people would let him off the hook.

and lately i've been listening to C9 radio out of paris. La Connextion Pop Rock! its fun. i can't really understand what the people say yet, but i catch snippets of it. and they play slightly different pop stuff than you hear here, and the occasional song in french thats cool. everything is cooler in french.

ok. i think i'll take advantage of super-fast airport wifi in some other way now. bye!

AHHHRRREEEHHH?

2006-06-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

and that sound probably corresponds to this face:

which is how i feel about finals week.
i had to make myself a schedule just so i could keep track of all the shit i have to do. at strange times. finals, and work, and SIFF volunteering, and making sure things get to where theyre supposed to be, and making sure that there is cat food here while i'm gone... stuff like that. and today, and only today, i have to write my final paper for film class. that definitely should not have been put off until today, but i knew the instant he said "but, really, you can turn it in on monday and i wont take any points off" that this is when it would be written.

and today is jaynes birthday! happy birthday jayne! i made her a cake! i didn't get her a present, and i feel bad, but i did make cake and try to invite her friends over to eat it tonight. so hopefully that goes well and not too long, so i can continue to write my paper.

and work is really stressful at the moment just because i've been working on this one thing that is REALLY STUPID for the past two weeks, and i just can't get it right becuase of silly little mistakes, or because people didn't properly enough explain what they needed. and i feel like my boss' opinion of me is going down. which sucks. i know he just thinks of me as a complete ditz. which sucks. cuz i'm not, not really. not in work and school stuff. ughghg.

ok. going to work on my paper now. hope everyone else is feeling less stressed than me.

DAMMIT.

2006-05-16T23:20:00.000-07:00

why does you being angry at me, 2000 miles away, still make me cry?
i feel so stupid.

L'elephant

2006-05-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

apparently i have shocked the shit out of everyone i know by getting a tattoo. wasn't exactly what i was going for, but i guess its an unexpected bonus.

Satisfaction

2006-05-07T21:41:00.000-07:00

not from doing lots of homework, no.
but i did clean the entire apartment yesterday, and it looks lovely.

no. the main source of my satisfaction at the moment is from pulling out my eyebrow hairs. not with tweezers, thats painful. just with the pads of my fingers... to remove the "loose" ones, so to speak. i do it with my eyelashes too from time to time, but that is more difficult and yields less rewards. so, eyebrow culling is where its at! yeah!

How (and why) To Become A MAC User .... In Just 3 Days!

2006-05-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

its late

2006-05-02T02:14:00.000-07:00

I love movies.
and Jeremy Irons.
and Bulworth.
and Al Swearingen on Deadwood.
and Bob Hoskins.
and Audrey Hepburn.
and Stephen Colbert.
And the fact that 1/2 the country doesn't get that he is making fun of them.
and diet coke.
and Annette Benning.
and gay people.
and Q-Tips. My god i love q-tips.
and my cat.
and my bed.
ah, yes. bed. thats where i should go.

Lots of Stress, Lots of Fun, not much Sleep

2006-04-30T23:53:00.000-07:00

(yes, haley. i will update.)

So. Last weekend i went on a big shopping spree. I didn't really mean to, it started out with me wanting to go check out the new Kaladi Brothers on capitol hill (E. Pike & Belmont), and pick up something for Haley's birthday. And while i was down there i was planning to go to the Hot Topic to see if they had any lovely little dresses.

Which they did. (see my flickr for pictures.) But then I realized i really did need a strapless bra that works- cuz i have lots of cute little dresses that would be worn more often if i had a more dependable bra with which to wear them. So after a Saturday on Capital hill where i bought stuff for Haley and myself, i decided to hunt for a new bra on sunday. at northgate. the mall.

bad idea. But i did actually find a strapless bra that works. Its amazing. i love it.

Anyway, so i ended up buying lots of things i probably didn't need, like JEANS! (omigod!) and a shirt and makeup, and a couple of things that i mostly needed, like running shoes and a tripod and a haircut.

Wait, what's that you say, Riley? Running shoes? You?

Why yes. Running Shoes. Meant for Running. Which I now Do. on tuesdays and thursdays and one of the weekend days. for 2 miles. i'm quite impressed with myself, if you cant tell. And my legs work again, now that i've gone 3 times. I go with Jayne down the Burke Gilman trail. We do not go very fast, but it definitely gets my blood going, which is good.

And i got my hair cut. By a gay guy! Yay! Gay hairstylist! Who turns out to be from the same town as my great-grandmother. He was cool. And he cut my hair awesome! Really well and thorough, which i don't always get because they don't realized how much hair i have and so sometimes hairstylists don't schedule enough time for me and then having to rush through it. But he didn't. I was his last client, so he had lots of time. It looked really awesome. And i like it still cuz its shorter in the front, and i like that length a lot. anyway.

And then this weekend was the 24 hour film festival!!! yay!!! making movies is fun!!!

Theme: "A Life Changing Event"
Prop: a seattle mariner's fanny pack
Line: "Now that the queen is dead, i feel like i can play with free will and abandonment."

And for those of you who haven't seen it yet, i'll just tell you the title:
"How (and Why) to Become a MAC User ... in just 3 days"

Heidi made AWESOME music for it. clarinet and accordian awesomeness. And jayne was my starlet once more. Zach giggled his way through it, but did good, and helped out immensely when it came to actually transferring the file back to the correct format. I'm so happy with it. It was way fun. But i only got like 2 hours of sleep.

So today, then, after turning in our film, i had an energy drink (courtesy of Jayne), and we continued on our way to see TOMMY. which was SO COOL. COOLEST SETS EVER. all mirrors and flashy lights and scaffolding, etc. i love musicals. seeing it really made me want to go see if i can get involved in theater here, at least doing behind the scenes stuff- cuz that would be SO fun. i miss the stage atmosphere.

THEN, we visited our new house again. with lots of people in tow - all candidates for the '5th roommate' position. our new house is so cool. and the girl who lived there said it probably would be fine for me to move in my stuff before i leave, so i can actually go home when my flight is, and not have to wait 2 weeks to go back to alaska.

I kind of had a crazy flip-floppy Super-Tired then Super- Hyper and Silly day. But it was fun. I got all silly and retarded and had fun.

Enfin, j'ai retourne chez moi, and i cleaned up my room and the apartment, which had been left a disaster area from all the filming and general hectic-ness of the last couple of days.

Its been a long weekend, but very fun.

Laxidasical. I'm lookin it up.

2006-04-06T23:10:00.000-07:00

because that is obviously not the right spelling.

Lackadaisical.
not spelled how it sounds. and also one of the strangest looking word's i have ever seen.

also, for those curious, its french translation is:
languisant, apathetique.
the only dictionary i keep handy is my F>E dictionary.

and it happened again. I went into the Solstice Cafe, encouraged because i was v. happy with my drink last time, only to get the same half-assed hot chocolate as i usually get. I hate Seattle.
my ordering went something like this:

me: "hi, yeah, i'll take a 16 oz hot chocolate. Extra hot and with extra chocolate."
coffee girl: "ok"
me: "i mean, really, LOTS of chocolate."
coffee girl: (chuckles) "Yeah, we can do that"
me: (nodding my head and raising my eyebrows in a skeptical manner)
coffee girl: "really."

So, i was feeling encouraged. Only to discover that she made my hot chocolate at a very normal temperature (~140 degrees, if that) (i like mine at about 180), and i couldn't taste the chocolate at all. that BITCH. is it really that hard to add chocolate? am i not making my point clear enough? And why don't i just take it back and ask for more chocolate, you ask? Well, 1) because i'm me and i don't like confrontation of any kind, especially in a place where i already feel intimidated because it seems like such an uber-cool college cafe and there are ALWAYS about 3 or 4 of the other baristas standing around, and 2) i've been a barista, and you usually feel really bad when somebody brings you back a drink, so i don't like doing it. Especially in a place where i already feel intimidated. So i take my crappy HC and brood and hold a grudge instead. Much more my style.

I am a crabby grumbly git. I don't like many people. As jayne reminded me the other day. And maybe i should feel bad about that and if i relaxed my standards or something i would have more friends. But i just don't really want to spend time with people if i don't enjoy their company. I dunno. Its hard for me to feel bad about, though I suppose i should.

this was cool, for an internet test

2006-03-31T20:38:00.000-08:00

i thought so, at least. i'm glad that my results matched with what i thought. (*cough*JOE*cough*.) And i liked the GRADIATED color picture things.
so, thank you zach.

http://www.okcupid.com/politics

You are a
Social Liberal
(75% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(15% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Unnatural Love

2006-03-23T22:33:00.000-08:00

... is what i have for roller coasters. The first ride we went on, i was freaked out throughout the first drop, then i basically proceeded to grin for the rest of the day. Even though i would get about 15 seconds of adrenaline/fear before every ride, that dissapated rather quickly. it was a great day. jenn and i went on every roller coaster that was open except for Superman and Deja Vu, cuz i don't like the dropping for the sake of dropping shit. but it was awesome. and we got the world's best slushies, seriously, so good- i went back and bought another one. totally worth the 5 bucks i paid for it. they had good sandwiches, too, according to jennifer. annnnnd... we failed at firing water cannons at anyone, i got a little sun, and a characature by the strangest man alive. not really, but he was pretty strange. and he made my face look *long,* which no one has ever done before. anyway, it was good fun. and we didn't even get lost on the freeways. and then we were so tired and not hungry when we got back that we decided not to go out to dinner. i do still feel kind of sticky. oh, and we got temporary air-brush-on tatoos. they're cool. jenn got a flower design, and i got a string of elephants. very cool. we tried to get the same kind of tattoos at Concert on the Lawn this summer, but the people kept leaving, so it was nice to finally do that. Oh, and i'm sleeping on a deflated air mattress. They lost the cap. We tried duct-taping it closed, but it was completely deflated by morning, which i was kind of expecting.

ohk. another entry sometime soon on the joys of 38 hour long train rides down the pacific coast.

2.45 am, Sunday Night

2006-03-13T02:46:00.000-08:00

woohoo! done with my last paper of the quarter! it actually turned out much better than i'd hoped, even if it is a bit self-negating or something. oh well. i'm happy its done. now i just have a theory final on thursday, and i'll be ALL DONE. wow, wouldnt that be nice? yes. yes it would be.

thin mints are, always and forever, the best girl scout cookie

2006-03-05T22:52:00.000-08:00

they really are. so tasty. specially with milk.

this weekend has been semi-productive. did some french homework, which was good, but really have done much else school-wise. but i did finally make plans/reservations to go see jennifer during spring break. yay for six flags! and because its uber-expensive to fly there, i'm only flying one way.... i'm taking the train on the way down! cheap! and fun! i like trains! so what if it'll take me like 35 hours to get there! if anyone knows how to sit on their ass for that long, its me! i actually am really excited about it. i do like trains a lot.

and my mother had her show down in homer, and that went well, so i'm happy for her. her stuff is really neat, even if its not very commercial. and full of strange references to monty python, etc.

and i did laundry today! yay for laundry! clean clothes are good!

An ultra-caffeinated weekend

2006-02-28T17:12:00.000-08:00

So... i don't ever remember how it started, tho i'm sure it had something to do with the ridiculously long fanfiction story that i'm in the middle of, but my sleeping schedule got severely fucked up. Severely. (and occasionally I think to myself, gee, my father and mother and uncle read this. maybe i shouldn't cuss. but, my parents know i cuss. So, uncle guy, sorry to burst any bubbles you may have retained about me, but i cuss often and have decided not to censor myself in this.) So i stayed up thursday? night kinda late, i guess? but i know that Friday "night" i didn't go to bed until 7.30 am. then i got up at noon, took a shower, and went back to bed. when i re-awoke at 6, i knew i had fucked myself over and would have to do something drastic to get my sleeping schedule back on track.

So, i ordered a pizza, and went out and bought 7 16oz energy drinks (of the redbull-esq variety), chocolate syrup, and a bag of cheetos. It is now 5.20pm Tuesday, and the last of my energy drinks has finally been drunk. I even have a few cheetos left. And I skipped my french class this morning. And came late to my film history class, because i was still writing my conclusion and printing it out as 3.30 rolled around. But now my paper is turned in, and my french homework is done.

I'm really glad there are only 2 weeks left of classes. I don't think i could manage any more, considering i'm obviously already burnt out. I've just reached that pivital moment in the quarter where I just don't care anymore. I try and rally my efforts, but my attempts so far have been futile. I will still try though. The last vestiges of my sickness are slipping away, so maybe it'll be easier to focus and not be so apathetic.

fun fun fun fun SICK!

2006-02-21T15:30:00.000-08:00

like duck duck goose but lamer.

so i had a really good time this weekend. I went to pullman to visit haley for the long weekend. Went to my first "club" ever. Was gay night. they had a drag show that was kind of lame, but still entertaining. That was fun, some questionable guys dancing with us, but Haley pulled us away and we continued to dance on our own. i like dancing. (i especially loved that they played all these club songs and rap/hip-hop kind of stuff that i could kind of dance to, and everybody else seemed to know... and then something like 'footloose' would come on and i'd go insane. haley and i also jitterbugged to 'jitterbug' which was way fun in a 'wow, those girls are dorks' kinda way. :) )

and then..... we had breakfast at a cool restaraunt, and moved haley's stuff from her old house to her new apartment, then went to Moscow, ID for some shopping at the mall. i find it amusing that i live in seattle but i'd rather go shopping in moscow. but i bought 2 shirts that i really like, and perfume (which i'd never bought before) and some super-cool yummy-smelling face wash. thennnnn.... we ate pasta (which i fucked up... pretty sad considering it came out of a box) and manna from heaven (chicken kiev). Stayed up watching 2 Ellen Degeneres comedy specials and Napoleon Dynamite (which i liked way better than i thought i would). Next day, took Sydney (Haley's dog) on her longest walk ever touring the campus, which is pretty. (But has WAY too many gyms/athletic centers. i don't understand it.) We went to coffee with Christa Martin, who i haven't seen since highschool, and then to dinner at a cool restarant, and finally watched Brokeback Moutain. Haley hadn't seen it, but it was time #2 for me. Have to be caught up with my mother. :) Monday we had lunch with Clayton and Ryan MOEN, which was kindof another crazy blast from the past. He really hasn't changed much, which is cool.

So. Tres fun. And then i got home and unpacked and stuff, while noticing my nose was getting stuffier and stuffier, and my thoat had really started to hurt on the plane. Needless to say i woke up today unable to breathe and with a killer headache. Took lots of pills. I can breathe now, but my head is still pounding and gets insanely bad whenever I stand up or try to move around. So, no school for me today. The is the first day all quarter i've missed ALL my classes. usually i feel better enough by midday to go to my film classes, but I just feel sore all over still and can't bring myself to go be miserable outside of my own home. So i'm finishing up some homework and grading FPS packets and spending some much needed time with my lovely cat, who i missed while i was away. I hope everybody else is feeling better than me.

happy valentines day

2006-02-14T17:42:00.000-08:00

i'm back to being my usual procrastinating self. paper due friday... and then next tuesday need to have an intro for the next paper. i've got a krap-ass intro to the first one, but thats it. but, i'm making peter a cake for his birthday. thats good. and i've gotten 5 of my fps packets done, so i'm not useless.

i'm officially going to paris in the fall, or, i was accepted at least. so yay for that, even though it kind of scares me.

oh, and i apologize for not sending valentines cards this year. just totally spaced it, so nobody gets one. sorry. i do love you, though. :)

my cat loves Q-tips, too

2006-02-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

Jayne made a funny little commic of my cat here. I hope that link works. He does seem obsessed with licking nylon straps.

Last night Heidi accompanied me (thank you heidi) to midnight tango at trabant. I'm glad she came or I wouldn't have gone, since no one else wanted to go. Speaking of Shayna, we need to get her over here to say hello sometime. And she asked me about candy poker. I would like some candy poker please. J? P? H? Anyway. Tango was fun. Not as fun as the first time we went, but still really fun. I like following. Its neat how you can like psychically know where the other person is going to step. only its not really psychic.

Also have lots of homework coming up. Didn't get as much finished this weekend as i wanted, but i wasn't completely worthless. Still have to finish (write most of) a paper for Film Theory, and get most of my paper written for History since I'll be gone next weekend. And then, on top of those and daily french homework, i now have 12 FPS packets that need to be graded by the 24th. So, fun times ahead, i guess.

Oh, and i started my strange job on friday. I'm working in APL for a guy who's working for the neurobiology department. Apparently they're trying to come up with a way to measure the pressure inside your brain without having to drill into it. Which if they succeed, will be really awesome and a big breakthrough and stuff. So thats cool. But i don't really do anything with that. I run errands. Take boxes to the medical center, scan documents, and find things to buy and fill out purchase orders. super exciting. but, it means now that i'll work 11.5 hours a week instead of 6- which will double my paycheck. and that, i am totally cool with. actually, i'm fine with all of it. because i get to listen to headphones while i work, and thats awesome. anything that doesn't have any customer service is AWESOME. but god, i could sure go for a danish donut right now. thank you, cheesily-named bakery extrordinaire!

Sa-mmmm-ich

2006-02-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

i think i may actually get some stuff done this weekend. i feel unusually motivated. maybe because i'm going to see haley next weekend, so i need to get things done so i wont be stressing over anything while i'm there. what a smart girl i am. thinkin' ahead, yeah. aaaaaand...

oh. i'm going to make a sandwich. probably multiple sandwiches over the course of the next week. and not PB&J sandwiches, either. real sandwiches. i discovered that i like sandwiches if its just meat and cheese and mayo. and i can do that. nobody can make me add lettice in my own home! down with lettuce and tomato! up with meat! (that was odd.) anyway. i bought all the stuff, and now i'm excited for sandwich making. and i like saying 'sammich' instead of sandwich because of how your lips have to come together to make the mm sound.

i have 30 pairs of underwear. that means that technically, i only have to do laundry every 4 weeks. how awesome is that? but in reality, i only wear about 23 of them, so i have to do laundry more like every 3 1/2 weeks. but still- how awesome is that? i hate laundry. but perhaps thats because i do it so scarcely that when i do it it takes me 4 hours. hmmm.

this post has not been filled with insightful things. but neither has my life lately, so thats ok.

just finished my snapple crack and pop

2006-02-09T10:56:00.000-08:00

I guess this won't be too long, as I need to leave for class in a few minutes. Still need to add a sentence or two to my first paper of the quarter. But then its all finito. Its not bad. Or good.

And my ipod needs its battery fixed. Which just makes me uber-sad, because I have absolutely no other mobile music device. I have another little mp3 player somewhere, but i cannot find it for the life of me. walking around without music is much less fun than walking with music. If you know the wherabouts of my little bitty green music machine, you should let me know.

Et, je pense que ma prof de francais aime moi plus maitentant que la commence de classe, qui est bien. Elle corrige les examens bon. J'ai recu un 92 pour mon examen derniere. C'est bien.

Ok. And with that meager warm up, off I go to french class. A bientot.

homework stuff

2006-02-08T02:20:00.000-08:00

i pretty much lucked out this quarter and didn't get much homework in my classes. French has some daily stuff, but the film classes have a combined total of 5 papers and 2 tests. not too bad. but i hadn't had to write any of those papers or take any of those tests until now, the 6th week of classes, and i'm remember what a pain in the ass it is to write papers and take tests. Must get back into the habit as I pretty much have to do it every week from now on.

Have spent all night writing my first essay, and while it is not fantastic, it isn't as horrible as i usually feel my essays are during the writing process. Unfortunately, now i'm debating whether i should stay up even later (its 2.20 now) to finish a first draft, or just do it all tomorrow night, along with my cram studying for my one and only midterm. decisions, decisions. probably actually depends more on the caffeine buzz than anything. (had to restock the Diet Coke supply to prepare for the first paper writing of the quarter.) Yay for caffeine.

I had a bunch of links, and other template settings for this site, but they aren't showing up... my computer/webernet skills are lacking when it comes to figuring out html codes.

Goodbye Xanga

2006-02-06T23:49:00.000-08:00

I liked xanga, really i did. but i never wrote in it consistently. so maybe this will be better.