Varia

There's a car alarm going off in the parking lot behind the main building. I think that's where it is. It's been going off for a good ten minutes now, I'd think. And then about five minutes ago another one started too. Just to be part of the cool kids, I guess. Man. I wish they'd stop. Caitlin just called NDSP (she can hear it from Cavanaugh too), and they said they're working on it. So hopefully they'll get it taken care of soon because it's so annoying.

I was going to say something else. What was it...I have no idea.

I spent kind of a lot of money at Target today. I got two pairs of sandals (they're in between nice and every day kind of sandals, although I did want to get some less nice ones, but they didn't have any there), so that was most of it really. And I got a sweater thingy to wear over my dress, but I'm not sure how it'll look with the dress so I may or may not be taking it back. We'll see. It's cute though. And then I got some more practical things like water, shampoo/conditioner, body wash, and...something else. Oh, and some cookies. All of a sudden I remembered these cookies that I love but hadn't had in a really long time. Chocolate covered graham crackers. So I went to see if they had any, and they did, so I got some of those. Despite the fact that I'm giving up sweets and such for the week starting tomorrow. But I can be strong. I had some tonight, so that's good.

YAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The alarms are off!!! Ah, sweet relief.

Update on my computer battery: Now seems like it's down to about an hour, fully charged. So that's not cool. I guess I should contact Dell, see if that's covered under the warranty (not sure if it is or not, if it's just considered normal wear and tear or whatever). But man, an hour is ridiculous. So I don't know. I don't want to buy a new battery, because they're kind of expensive. And that's just not cool.

This video makes me cry. It is just so...tear-jerky. I don't know how long that link'll work, but it's a dad who just got back from 7 months in Iraq and surprised his son by showing up at his school. Very sweet.

Even if I feel like a pathetic failure with everything else tonight, at least I got one thing done: I did my laundry. So, you know, that's good. It's nice to have clean clothes.

Back to the essay, I suppose.

Hm.

I started filling out some applications today. One each for Garden of the Gods, Seven Falls, and the zoo. I mean, I don't know what they pay or anything, but I also know I'm not going to be in a position to be picky this summer, so I might as well check it out, right? So we'll see. I'm just not sure when to put my start date. There's a chance I might do summer classes that are a lot more classes filled into a much shorter time, like a week or two. I apparently have to do some sort of letter of appeal or something if I do a summer class that's less than 4 weeks, though, so I still have to see if I can do that or not. But if I can, it'd be so much nicer. I mean, filling 6 weeks of class into one week isn't exactly my idea of a good time (nor is sitting in class 8 hours a day), but it'd be over with a lot more quickly. Arts and letters advisors haven't been very good with getting back to me, though. I sent one email around Monday or Tuesday to the lady I went to see a couple weeks ago, and when she still hadn't gotten back to me yesterday, I emailed another one of them. So hopefully he'll get back to me soon. My registration time (for UCCS) isn't until April 10, though, so I still have time. Although, it's kind of worrisome, because summer registration starts April 2. I'm a little concerned all the classes I want might get filled before I get to register. Nothing I can do about that though.

I also can't do anything about the fact that there are apparently quite a large number of rising seniors in Cavanaugh who are staying on campus next year. Bethany said that last year it was about 20 girls who were going to be seniors, and this year it's closer to 50. Which means I just have to hope that at least, oh I don't know, 10 or so of them are not getting singles. Man, that would really really suck if I don't get a single. I kind of hadn't even entertained that thought very much, not seriously anyway. I mean, last year Julie had a really bad room pick lottery number for the rising juniors, and she still got a single. Not the greatest one, but she got one. I'm not picky, either, I just want a single. Sigh. Well, again, nothing I can do about it right now. Except pray that there'll be just/at least one single left for me. (anyone can join me in that endeavor, too...)

I have to decide, and soon, between taking a class that I do really want to take (Latin), one that might be a bit of a break from the reading-intensive classes that will fill the rest of my schedule, and a class that I'm pretty ambivalent about, but which is taught by apparently a really great teacher. Man. Why is this so hard for me? I don't know. From what I've read about the teacher, I think that even if I take the other class he seems to offer (God, Philosophy and Politics instead of and Universities), it'll still be good. I think that's his spring class. So maybe here's what I'll do. Maybe I'll plan on taking Latin next semester instead of his class, but first I'll check to see for sure if he'll be teaching next Spring. If they know yet, at least. Hm. I don't know.

I need to write essays. Argh. If I can somehow manage to get both done this weekend, I will be exceedingly proud of myself. I should have had them done by now, but it's me, so...yeah. At least I've started both, which makes it very much easier to finish. Starting is the worst sometimes. That blank page that just makes you want to give up right then and there. Shudder.

Well, I'm off to do that, hopefully.

Dear South Bend weather:
I see that you're supposed to be fairly nice in the next few days, but then that niceness greatly decreases right around the time that I need it to be lovely weather (aka, next Thursday-Sunday). And if not lovely, then at least somewhat warm. Soooo...if you could work on that in the next few days, that'd be great. I mean, what's Easter weekend without sunny, warm weather? You know you want to be nice. You know it. You're just being stubborn. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone if you give in to the loveliness of spring. Honestly.

Thanks,
Susie

It's your duty!

I forgot to mention, but yesterday Dad told me I had gotten some mail while he and Mom were gone. One thing was a check (sweeeet), and another was...jury duty summons. I got picked to go to jury duty. Or, to go wait and maybe get picked actually to be on the jury for some case. Obviously I will be applying to postpone or get it cancelled or something, whatever it is I'm supposed to do, but it's weird. I think I had just been thinking about it recently, but I could be wrong. Either way, I think I had kind of ignored the fact that one of these days, eventually, I'd get one of those letters. So now it's officially happened. How exciting. I seriously don't want to do jury duty, though, ever. Yeah, yeah, it's my "civic duty" and whatnot, but man. I don't know how I'd handle it if I actually got picked to serve on the jury for a case. To be forced to make a decision based on whatever evidence I'm given and whatnot. I tend to be easily swayed either way, I think, like I'll hear one side and think, "Hm, they sounded very convincing, I think that their side is right." And then I'll hear the other side and think the same thing for them. And then I'm confused. So anyway. I especially don't know what I'd do if I had to serve on a jury for some high-profile case, or like a murder case or something. Ick.

Well, for now at least, I guess I dodged the bullet.

Summahtime

I really really want to go camping again. I love camping. I hope I get to go at least once, and hopefully more, this summer.

You know what else I want to do, which is quite a bit more unlikely, and even downright near impossible? I want to go to the beach. Horror of horrors, a part of me can't believe I'm saying that, but it's been a really long time since I've gone to the beach. I mean, I think I've technically been there within the last five years, but it was more along the lines of taking off your shoes and walking right at the water's edge than actually being at the beach. (I'm thinking of the summer after junior year when we drove back East, and went to...I believe it was Hampton beach, maybe? for one day, or just a few hours even, but it was kind of overcast that day and rather chilly.) I don't know. I keep getting whiffs of that beach smell, the salty air and whatnot, which is probably more in my head than anything. (I've also been getting campfire smell recently too, but that's slightly less odd because basically any fire brings those associations with it.) Anyway. Maybe I'll get to go to the beach again one of these years. Maybe next year I'll actually do something for spring break. Who knows.

I hate choosing.

Right now, the question is:

Should I take four theos and one history, and a one credit half semester "Know Your Catholic Faith" thing, or three theos, one history, and one Latin, plus the "Know Your Catholic Faith" thing? The first would give me 17 credits, including doing the one credit violin lessons again, the second, 18 credits (again, plus the violin lesson credit), which would slightly lesson the credits I'd need to take second semester. And then the other question is, should I take an American Revolution history class, a Medieval Russia history class, or an English or Irish history to the 1800s class? The profs for the first two don't have reviews, and the prof for the second two does, and they're pretty good, but those two classes are MWF classes, and if I don't take one of those I'll just have one class on Friday afternoons. So I'm leaning toward the first two despite the lack of teacher evals. But which one? I guess Medieval Russia would be newer material, as I've obviously learned about the American Revolution in some form at some time in my educational career. But I do still love that period of time. So...hm. I guess figuring that out isn't really important for a couple weeks yet. I just have to figure out if I want to do three theos or four. (Technically, I guess, it's four or five, counting that one credit course that I'm kind of just assuming I can get into.) I guess it might depend on whether or not I am even allowed to take that many theo classes. I sent an email to my theo advisor to see, but it was just a little while ago so I don't expect a reply any time soon. Hopefully this weekend though, as I go in on Monday to pick my theo classes.

I'll figure it out. I always do. Even if I take it to the wire.

Stressing out

--Schoolwork (neverending)

--Summer classes

--Job

--Senior year

--I suck.

There's my outline. Here's the essay.
Schoolwork: As you may know, I have a lot to do for next week. And then I have another paper due Wednesday after break, and that's just not cool, and luckily nothing major the following week (well, that I know of at least), but then the week after that I have that HUGE 15 page research paper due. Oh, and two days before that one I have another Trads paper due. (I'm so sick of those.) Then less than a week after the 15 pager, I have my FTT paper due, although I don't know how concrete that due date is. And then two days after that I'm supposed to have the last Feasts and Seasons take home due, but I don't know if that'll change too since he changed this current one. And then two days after that is another Middle Ages paper. That week is the last week of classes/study days. It's going to suck. Completely and totally. At least I get a couple of days to relax/study, kind of, not really, before my finals start on Wednesday. One each of the last three days, plus the last Trads paper due the Friday of finals. So I'll have to get that done before my real finals, because the last thing I want to have to do is study for a final with a paper looming over my head. (I know what you're all thinking: Susie, study for finals? Never!)

Sigh. It just seems like it's all too much. And here's the really stressful part: I don't even get the summer to recouperate. I have to do more work this summer. And it really sucks and is adding even more stress. And then I also am jumping ahead and thinking about next year, which will suck too, because I'll have to take so many re-frickin-diculous classes. And it won't be fun. I don't like this. I'm a horrible student, did you know that? I don't know how I've made it this far. I'm really really bad at being a student. It's starting to show this year, I think. I'm not doing as well on my papers (could that be, perhaps, because I'm waiting until 1am the night before they're do to write them? Nah). I mean, I'm still in the B range at the lowest on anything, but it's a bit of a new realm for me. I got a B- on the second trads paper, which we got back today. Lowest grade I think I've gotten on anything this semester. And really, it's not that terrible. I'm not going to die getting a B- on one thing. Heck, I won't even die getting a B- overall. I guess the thing is, I don't care that much, yet I feel like I should be doing better because I am just a single major, and it is just theology, so you'd think that I'd be trying more especially in my required theology classes. You'd think. It's not like I'm a double major, or a major-minor, and so I feel like a slacker already for that. But add to it the fact that I'm not even getting straight As, and I feel like the back of the crowd or something like that. But at the same time, I don't care so much as I have the perception that everyone else will care and think, "She only majored in one thing, and she couldn't even manage an A average in her major classes." And then I won't ever get a job and I'll be pathetic for the rest of my life. Ok maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but I'm just...I feel like I'm struggling a bit right now. It's pretty crappy, and I really wish I could get myself back on my feet. I need to start buckling down more. How long have I been saying that now? 10 years? This procrastination thing is pretty ridiculous in a big way. I heard someone talking on some radio station, perhaps over break or maybe Christmas break, and I think it was John Tesh. He has all these little medical facts, and like life facts and whatnot, and whenever this was, he was talking about how everyone says they're procrastinators, but in reality a small percentage of people actually have a problem with procrastination. Most people might just put things off once in awhile, for a little while, but for those who are like really bad about it, it starts to become detrimental and carry over into their whole lives with everything they do, etc. I kinda think I fall into the latter category. But I believe I'm getting off topic here. I just...I'm getting more and more frustrated with myself each and every day, and I wish I knew why I do things the way I do, as everything I do seems so counter-productive and I really hate it. I just have no idea why I do it.

Anyway, summer classes. I'm stressing about those because, not only do I have to worry about continued months of homework and such, I have to worry about being able to get into the classes I want, and making sure I'll still have time to work and such. I have a feeling that, because I do have to take classes this summer, it's going to limit greatly any options I might have had for a job, at least one that's not retail. I desperately do not want to do retail again. Not at all. I want to be paid a fair amount. That would be more than $7. Last night I got the idea to look at three places I think would be fun to work, which probably do fall into the retail genre, and probably don't pay very much either, so it probably wasn't very smart to look into it and start to think about how cool it might be. Those three places are the zoo, Garden of the Gods, and Seven Falls. None of their websites mention pay rates at all, but I can't imagine it'd be much more than $7/hr, although I have absolutely zero basis for that assertion. Plus, none of them are close to my house at all; in fact, all are pretty much on the opposite end of the city from me. And this of course means I'd be losing a lot of my earned wages on gas. And my loans are probably going to go up by I think Dad said somewhere around $8000 next year, thanks to Peter's insistence on foregoing college for, you know, saving the country or whatever, psh, and thus having a better-paying job this summer would certainly be helpful. Not to mention the fact that I'm going to have to pay for summer classes, too, and I really have no idea how much that is going to cost. It's like a double-edged sword. The going to classes thing, for which I need more money, will probably end up keeping me from getting a better-paying job, and will definitely keep me from getting a job with a lot of hours, so I'll have less money than I might have otherwise. So I'll have double-less when both of those factors are considered. So there, that was part of the summer classes/job stress.

I already touched on senior year a bit, but I'll discuss a little more now. I'm going to be taking a lot of classes, and I can only hope and pray that they will be interesting/good/not be too time-intensive. Or that I'll be ok with being a recluse next year, my senior year, my last year here, my last chance to spend with my college friends, my last chance to be a college student.

I desperately wish right now that last semester's classes had counted for something, anything, or that I had at least one class's worth of credit when I started freshman year. I think I'd be feeling significantly less stressed at the moment. Even though it's stupid to stress about all this stuff at once. But I can't help it. I'm not very good at living in the moment. Except when it comes to putting off homework. Which ends up kicking my butt.

Oh yeah. I also hate hate hate filling out applications. But it's kind of hard to get a job or do anything without filling them out. And I feel so limited sometimes with things that say I need recommendations, because I don't really think there's many people around who could give me a recommendation. I don't get to know my teachers that well. I want to, but I never have anything to say, and what am I going to do, go to office hours to say "Good lecture today; see ya later"? I'm not good at stuff like that.

I limit myself so much by what I think I'm not good at. If I think I'm not good at it, I don't try. And I know that it's a dumb thing to do, but that's who I am, and it sucks, and I'm too timid to change it.

All this adds up to: I suck.

Sometimes I desperately wish I could start all over, from freshman year. All the thing I would change or do differently. But I can't, and that's the way it is.

And there you go.

Y'know...

The thing about these question/paragraph answer things I have to do every. single. week is that...they seem like busywork. I'm not a fan of busywork. Know why I get that impression? Take last week. I'll admit, I barely read the stupid readings. To be honest, for the most part I didn't. Well, I read the shorter one, and then I read one (maybe 20 page) section (of the like at least 100 page reading, or so it seemed to me) of the other one. The next morning, or perhaps the night before, I forget, I formulated some sort of question I might be able to ask for each, and answer based on what I had highlighted. Oh, actually, I did that in the morning while eating between Latin and trads. That, as well as reading that one little section of the ridiculously long reading, and then going back to type up the question/answers. I typed them up in about 20 minutes, running on very little sleep, and thus they were basically incoherent. At least, seemed to me to be. I was pretty sure half of what I was saying for each had nothing to do with my original question. And thus I was prepared to get them back with the lowest grade yet on those (which would be anything below a plus, whatever that means). What'd I find at the top when I got it back Wednesday? (I'm sure you all see where this is going.) A plus and a "good." Granted, it's not a "splendid" or an "excellent" as I've gotten on some past ones, along with the plus, but still. And I'm not complaining that I apparently did well, I just don't see how it's possible. I guess I don't really feel like I earned it, and that's why this seems just like busywork that doesn't even matter. And that's why I have no. motivation. whatsoever to do it. Yet, it must be done, even though I have absolutely no idea how I'm supposed to formulate questions about this author when one of the readings is a weird story about some family's Christmas Eve, and I don't know what's going on.

This class can't be done soon enough, methinks. I guess it's the fact that I don't understand why I have to take it. I don't really think I'm learning much about Christian beliefs, other than those of the specific people we have to read every week. Most of whom I've never really heard of, and most of whom aren't Catholic. I know, it's important to understand all the different Christian beliefs and whatnot, but I just wish we had more Catholic stuff. This is a Catholic university, after all. This is why I'm holding out hope that the Trads I course will be more interesting, as it deals with up to the Reformation. Which would, obviously, mainly incorporate Catholic stuff. Plus, both the teachers who do Trads I have really good reviews on the teacher eval thing I look at. And I think I just decided which one I want to have next semester. The one I was leaning towards, partly because one of my friends highly recommends him, and partly because it's at a later time, and I think it'll be the only class I have on Friday. So while it'd be nice to have the whole Friday afternoon off, it'd also be nice to have Friday morning off too. And it's just a 50 minute class anyway. But this is rather off topic. The topic is...I'm sick of Trads. Argh.

And homework.

I'm sad that I don't even get a break from it all this summer. Of course, last semester I had four classes and barely ever did anything, but there was usually something hanging over my head, and despite the fact that I let it happen all the time, I hate that feeling.

Bleh. I wish it was the weekend now. Except I have lots to do this weekend, and don't want to do any of it. So I wish it was next weekend. But even next weekend I'll have a paper to think about that's due Wednesday after break, and that sucks too. It all sucks. I hate homework.

Me? Go running?

In the past week, I've gone running/walking three times. Might not really seem like a lot to some people, but I'm pretty proud of myself. Right now it's walk five minutes as a warm up or whatever, then run 60 seconds, walk 90 seconds, and keep doin sets of that for 20 minutes. The next step is the warmup, then run 90 seconds and walk 2 minutes. I guess Caitlin and I'll try that next. I know I can do it, but I don't want to. Running for 90 seconds consecutively? Ew.

I'm not sure if I did it while running today, but at dinner I noticed that my leg hurt, kind of on the side of my upper thigh, near my hip. I'm not sure what it is. Still kind of bothering me though. I don't like it.

Oh well. The price of beauty, I suppse. I better be beautiful when I get up to the 3 mile thing. (That's the goal of this routine: Work your way up to three miles.) Or at least have a little less extra padding on my hips. I may not be fat, but I could lose an inch or two there, I think. Hm.

Sure...

Lost tonight was, frankly, a disappointment. It was all about these two characters who showed up at the beginning of this season and have been here and there since then, but never major, and they pretend that they've been there the whole time. Well tonight was a mini version of their back story, and what they've been up to since the plane crashed, and then they died. But not really. But hopefully they'll stay "dead." It was just pointless. Oh well.

Know what's not a disappointment? Musicals. We talked about them in FTT today. We watched two of the dance sequences from Top Hat, and then the title dance scene from Singin in the Rain (which she hinted at during the beginning of class, because it was raining this morning, and she said it would fit with the clips she was going to show or something along those lines. One of the two from Top Hat that we saw happened during a rainy scene too, so I wasn't sure if she was just referring to that or what. But yeah. Man, I love musicals. And Singin in the Rain. And I want to see more Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies. I had never seen one before, just like I had never seen a John Wayne film. And now I want to watch more of both. Good stuff. See, musicals like the one we watched are movies that make me insanely happy while and after watching them. So, whereas after seeing a film like, oh I don't know, Miami Vice or Do the Right Thing, where I walked out feeling dirty and mad and depressed both because they suck and because they just seem to release those kinds of chemicals in the brain or something, I can walk out of seeing Top Hat and be very happy and jolly and optimistic, and probably quite endorphine-filled. And it's great stuff. Anyway.

Oh, so I might have meant to write this like a week ago, as that's when it happened, but sometime last week (I really don't remember when it was...oh yeah, I think it was Wednesday night, on my way back from Debartolo where I had a review session), I was walking across south quad towards Cavanaugh, and I heard someone whistling the main song tune from Rudy. It was kinda funny and cool. And nice. Anyway. Just thought I'd share.

I don't remember if I had something else to say. I haven't talked to my Mom, or either parent actually, since Sunday, I believe. Dad got home tonight from being in Boston, and Mom gets home sometime tomorrow night I guess. I'm just used to them being online a lot, and I don't like the fact that they haven't been. I guess I could call but we all know how I am with phones.

I decided I'm giving up all sweets next week, starting Sunday. Hopefully I can at least manage that.

Anyway. I should go do work. I have yet to get either of those two essays done, but at least I have the topic for the trads one, and hopefully I can still get maybe a page or more done tonight. But I do also want to get a good night's sleep tonight too, so yeah. Don't want to stay up as late as I've been doing. So I best go do that now.

Sick to my stomach

Two things have happened today to make me feel that oh-so-horrible, make it go away feeling that sometimes creeps up when rather revolting or just unpleasant things occur. The lesser of these two just happened about ten minutes ago. Here I was, sitting at my laptop for the first time all day, about to catch up on my email and go through my daily blog-check round up. Happily munching away at a Hershey Almond bar. Mmm. Little did I know, that chocolate bar was about to cause me a fair amount of pain and unpleasantness in my mouth, for as I took another bite and started to chew...my cheek got in the way. In a big way. And before I had time to react, my teeth had bit down -- hard -- on that poor in-the-way cheek. And it wasn't just a little nip that happens to everyone occasionally, it was a nice chunk and I could hear (or feel) my teeth puncturing the flesh. Gross, right? And then I had to sit here for five or so minutes with a tissue in my mouth so I didn't have to be subjected to tasting quite so much blood (horrible taste), until it seemed that it had done about all it would do. So now I just have this nice lump on the inside of my cheek that will, I am sure, be bit at least a couple more times before it goes away. That's the kicker. When you bite your cheek, it hurts, but it gets swollen so it's bound to happen again. It's not a one-time deal. Unfortunately. Anyway. So, if anyone wants to know a sure-fire way of losing your appetite, even for a delicious chocolate bar, just bite off half your cheek while eating it. It works.

Anyway, as painful as that was, it doesn't make me cringe nearly as much as even the thought of the other grossness of the day does. First, I have to give you all the setting. I woke up this morning, and it was raining. As I had expected it would be. So that was fine, I grabbed my umbrella and headed on my way, and it was all good (aside from the fact that it was also windy which caused my umbrella to turn inside out once on my way to Latin, and it threatened to do so again several times after that). Still raining between Latin and FTT. Once I got out of FTT, however, it had stopped, so I didn't have the umbrella out. Which actually has nothing to do with my story. Except perhaps had I been using my umbrella, my eyes would have been more focused on making sure I wasn't running into people since it limits my line of vision a bit. Anyway. The point is, I was walking back to Debartolo from the DPAC to go to Trads. And I noticed a few worms here and there on the sidewalk, which was interesting because I hadn't noticed many on my way to Latin or on my way to FTT. Perhaps I wasn't looking though. I did at that point, in any case. I always feel bad when I see worms on the sidewalk after it rains, almost to the point that I want to put them back in the grass, which probably wouldn't help them anyway, and I don't think I'd actually touch them even if it would help. However, I do try to avoid stepping on them, much as I avoid hitting squirrels and such as much as possible when I'm driving. So I was walking along (don't you like how long it's taking me to get to the point of this story?), and all of a sudden, there, right where I was about to drop my foot, was a worm. Dead or alive, I didn't want to step on it, but I couldn't really avoid it without looking like a complete idiot. So I tried to miss as much as possible, but I know I stepped on it. I could feel it squish beneath my shoe. And then the very next step, as I was still reeling from the disgusting feeling that had settled in the pit of my stomach, there was a worm that was definitely moving but I couldn't avoid it either. Or I didn't notice it in time to change my path even slightly. I didn't really feel the squish of that one, though, so maybe I didn't get it like I thought. Either way, I felt sick the rest of the way to Debartolo and even during some of that class. And then every time I've been outside today, I see worms all over, and that feeling refreshes itself. I mean, I'm sure I've stepped on my number of worms throughout my life, but not when I notice it. It's just gross, stepping on them. Ugh. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I killed something (I do that with bugs, and generally don't feel too badly about it, depending on the bug, but I think there's always a bit of guilt there, especially if I didn't want to and didn't mean to), or remembering the squish feeling of the poor little worm, or what, but...shudder. Plus everything's smelling a bit...fishy today, and I'm attributing it to all the worms, even though I don't think that's exactly logical. But can I be expected to be logical all the time?

Ok sorry. Those were my two fun stories of the day. Good thing I shared, huh? Haha. Sorry.

Um...I forget...

I think I wanted to say something. But now I don't remember. Oh, well there was the fact that today at work, it was about 85 degrees. And I was working for 4 hours. And at one point, people came in with droplets on their clothes, signifying the fact that it was raining even if only for a few minutes, and I was forced to think about how lovely it must have felt outside. So that was pretty fun. (Actually, aside from that work was good today.)

Then there was the fact that I found out that next semester, there are going to be finals scheduled on the Saturday of finals week. Like, how it normally is is we have three days of class the last week of regular school, two study days, the weekend, then five full days of finals. (And I always have a final on the last day, Friday. Haven't missed a single Friday yet.) Next semester, we start late, first of all (August 28), which I guess pushes back the whole semester a week. Not sure what the reasoning there is, but that's the way it is. So then the last week of classes, we have class Monday and Tuesday (I think it's around like the 12th or something of December), then Wednesday and Thursday we get to study, then we have finals Friday and Saturday, a break Sunday (I would be pissed if we had finals Sunday; Saturday is bad enough), and finals Monday through Wednesday the 19th or so. So we don't even have a week off before Christmas. So that's kinda crappy. Oh well. Then second semester is pretty much like this one, we start around Jan 12 or 13, and get out May 8 or 9 (well, that's the last day of finals anyway), but our spring break is like a week earlier than this year for some reason. It's like March 1-9. So yeah. I don't know. It just seems weird and illogical to me, and I don't get why they're doing the first semester like that. Oh well.

I can't decide what classes to take next semester. Right now there are eight I want. There's US 1900-1945, Trads I, God Philosophy and Universities (the one with the recommended prof), A Faith to Die For, Old Testament, American Revolution, Theology of the Mass, and Medieval Russia. And then there's the one credit theo class, but I'm not really considering that in my calculations because it doesn't have much bearing on anything. Hm. I think that juniors and seniors are allowed to have one class per semester be on a pass/fail basis. You have to get approval for it, of course, but I might consider doing that and then taking like six classes next semester. Assuming the pass/fail one counts for credit. Garh. It really sucks having to take 5 and 6 classes senior year. Really sucks. I'm definitely not a fan. See, if I take more classes next semester, then second semester I can take Latin (four credits), and four potentially easy other classes, and maybe it won't be quite as bad. because I have a feeling second semester senior year I won't want to be doing that much work. I mean, there are classes out there that might not be the most thrilling, but they're fairly easy to do, with minimal work. I'm worried that, although I really want to take some of these classes and they sound really interesting, they'll end up being a fair amount of work, and might end up disappointing me (as classes that sound interesting are wont to do sometimes). I just don't know. Sigh. This is kinda sucky. Both that there are so many classes that seem interesting, and that I have to take so many. Lots of seniors get to take four classes both semesters, or at least one. If you're an idiot, as I was, you don't get that luxury. Or if you happen to have been in IB and get a tad screwed by people who give out credit for high school courses. (Seriously, I really hate the fact that I got NOTHING for IB. It's completely unfair, and I can't believe I'm still complaining about it three years later, but I didn't think it'd end up biting me in the butt as it turns out it has. Because even if I had just gotten credit for one or two of those tests, I wouldn't be in nearly the position I now find myself.)

Oh well.

I didn't get the trads essay done tonight as I had wanted. But at least I did get the stuff out and at least look at it. And I know for sure what one of the readings I'll be writing about is. Just have to figure out how to compare/contrast it to one of the others. There's three others I can do, but one I'm definitely not going to be doing, and another I'd rather not, but the third I'm just not sure if I'd have enough...hm. I'll have to look at it more closely.

One of my friends in my trads class today asked if I thought we'll have to do the readings/questions next week. We normally turn them in on Fridays, but there's no class next Friday, and we have a paper due Thursday (despite not having class on Thursday ever). So logically, you'd think my prof would nix the questions on the reading for next week. I have a feeling, though, that this won't be the case, and he'll still expect us to read and do the questions, only by Wednesday this time. (Wednesday, when I have a Latin quiz, a Middle Ages exam, and a Feasts and Seasons take home.) I can hope, though. I want to ask, but I'm afraid that asking will make him realize we don't have class on Friday, and will make him specifically remind everyone that we have to do it by Wednesday next week. Because otherwise everyone, including him, might just forget, and then when Friday rolls around and there's no class, everyone will be happy. I don't know. I just really hope he doesn't make us have to do them. That'd suck a lot. Sigh.

Well, I best get to bed -- I mean, I best get to working a bit more. I have a Latin quiz tomorrow, and somehow I always manage to overlook those as not being very important, but then I try studying and I realize I have a bit to study...hm...oh well, I'm still doing ok in that class, so I'm not terribly concerned. I am sad I won't be taking it next semester...and actually, I haven't yet decided on that for sure, but I do want to take MacIntyre, and I think his second semester class is God, Philosophy, and Politics, and that's kinda less interesting to me than God, Philosophy, and Universities. Of course, neither subject in and of itself seems terribly interesting, but I've just heard so many good things about him...I don't know. I'm a tad torn. I wish this weren't so hard for me. Ah, decisions, decisions.

Nerd? Me?

I really kinda want this shirt. It's so funny. Haha. Man. Good stuff.

The touch, the feel of spring

One of those days I have so much to say nothing's coming out. First things first I guess.

Today was, overall, an excellent day. Despite the fact that right now I'm a tad melancholy, but I'll go into that later. It was quite lovely out most of the day. The bad thing about this nice weather? That lovely invention that we all know and love as air conditioning. Yes, folks, I hate it. Everyone hopes for the newer, air-conditioned dorms when they get placed freshman year, but I was glad I was put into an older not up-to-date dorm sans that evil evil thing. I guess the idea behind it is a good one, but I personally think that all we need is a little bit of air conditioning right when you walk into a building (because we all know how good it feels, that first blast of cool air as you're coming in from the hot spring/summer day), and then nowhere else. Because, see, when air conditioning is readily available, you know what happens? You get classrooms, no, entire buildings that keep steady somewhere around 50-55 degrees. I was freezing today in my three Debartolo classrooms. Debart is the worst with that. In my last one, my teacher commented on it, and asked what the temp was, and the person next to the thermostat said it was about 52. 52 degrees, people. It's just not cool when you're dressed for the weather outside (got close to, if not at, 80 degrees today), and yet you freeze inside buildings as a result. I have to bring extra clothes to class with me just because I know I'll be cold. The whole point of warmer weather is to get rid of that outer layer, the jacket/coat. I have to deal with it all winter (when I wear it outside to stay warm), I don't want to have to deal with it all spring too (when I wear it inside to stay warm). It's just not cool. Or, it's too cool. Haha. I'm so funny. Of course, the flip to this is what I experienced in my Middle Ages class, which takes place in Nieuwland, in a room kind of in the middle of the building (thus no windows or air flow, really). It was an inferno in there today. Yet, that didn't bother me as much as the icy situation in Debartolo. Hm.

So, I found out some interesting things today. Firstly, my Trads essay is not due next Monday, as I suspected it wouldn't be. No, instead it's due next Thursday. Which makes complete and total sense, because, you know, we have that class on Thursdays and all. Psh. Oh well. Not too bad. But then, Wednesday, as in the day before that, I have a Latin quiz. Fine. And an exam in Middle Ages. Still managable. And then, as I discovered last night, the takehome essay in my Feasts and Seasons class is due that day too. So now things are slightly crappy. PLUS, next Tuesday night (in addition to having a review for Middle Ages, probably, although I don't know about that for sure yet) is the campus-wide Stations of the Cross. I went freshman year, and really liked it, and last year I didn't because I had like a paper or something due the next day. But at one point, the procession went past my window, and I was really upset with myself that I hadn't gone. So I want to make sure I go this year. Which means I really need to get those two essays especially done before next week. I can deal with the Latin quiz and studying for the Middle Ages exam around the stations thing, but adding a paper on top of that isn't going to work. And I'm not going to want to do any work on Wednesday night. So I have to get those essays done this week. Who thinks I can do it? (Yeah, I don't either.) One positive, though, is that...oh wait. Never mind. Darn this. I thought it meant that I wasn't going to have to worry about anything major over Easter break, but no, I have a Middle Ages paper due Wednesday after Easter. So there's really no positive about this situation. Well, the week after the week after Easter I don't have anything (right now), but I have that 15 pager due the week after that, so...yeah. Ugh. Good thing I did...nothing tonight, huh?

Let's see, what else was there. Oh, well, ok. So after classes and stuff today, Caitlin and I kept up with our running plan thing (we've gone twice now! Wow! haha), and yeah. Wasn't too bad, although it was pretty hot, and when I got back to my room afterwards, I was quite sweaty and my face was ridiculously red. Not pleasant. Ah well. It's nice to work out. Then I showered and got changed really quickly (which isn't fun because, thanks to the returned humidity, after showers a person tends to stay damp and hot for awhile, and I really hate that feeling. Even though I took a cold shower because I was so darn hot, it was still humid) and went to Mass, because it was the feast of the Annunciation today. There was a choir doing the Mass (women's lit choir), and two or three extra priests along with the presider (who is one that I like it when he says Mass), and three or so altar servers, and all that stuff. Good times. Then dinner. Then I went to the Top Hat movie screening, showed up a few minutes late, oh well. I really like that movie. And hence I was a tad reluctant to leave at 5 till 8 even though I watched it over break, but the idea of getting to hear Scott Hahn give a talk was too enticing to pass up. So I skeedaddled out of there and went over to Mendoza, luckily really close to the DPAC, for the first time ever. I had never been in there. It was thrilling. Ok that's a lie. But yeah.

The talk was really cool. Ok, I'll admit, I almost dozed off a few times, but that's partially because I tend to get drowsy around 8:30 for some reason sometimes, and it was even hotter in the auditorium in Mendoza than it had been in my classroom this afternoon. It was a bit ridiculous. But anyway, yeah. The talk was good. I have a feeling that my mind was trailing off for a few of the more deeper and theologically important parts of his talk, but I still really liked it. I mean, really liked it. Apparently he co-proffed a class (at Steubenville, where he teaches) with his wife last year or something about marriage, and how cool would that be? I like him. There's more I want to say about this, but...not here. Too bad for you.

After that got out, walking back to my dorm, I felt so...peaceful, I guess it was. I was mostly realizing how amazingly wonderful the air felt. It was probably around 70 degrees at that point, and just a slight breeze every once in awhile. At one point I was struck by the fact that it seemed I could barely feel the air. Kind of like when you stick your finger into a cup of water that's just the right temperature, you can't really feel it at all. I couldn't feel warmth, and I couldn't feel cool air either. It was like...nothing. Pretty cool, really. I decided to go to the Grotto, partially because I just didn't want to go inside yet. I hadn't been there in a really long time. I don't go there very often for some reason. But yeah. It was nice. It was just such a lovely night, weather-wise. I mean, it was one of those spring nights where anything seems possible. Everything seems right. It seems like nothing can go wrong. There's a smell of freshness in the air, and the sounds of birds that are still awake for whatever reason, and the feel of perfect-temperature air wrapping all around each person. One of those nights that I just become aware of more things around me. It's impossible not to. It's lovely.

Reluctantly, I headed back to my room, partially because I had managed to make myself a tad melancholy, like I said earlier. And then I came back here and was trying to order that dress I'm planning on getting, and of course decided "Well, I should look at what else they have, just in case" and that turned into me putting so many skirts into the shopping cart that it's now almost $200 including shipping. I haven't placed the order yet, and I won't, until I manage to delete all of those skirts and just get the dress. Hopefully I can manage to do that, or else I'll be dress-less come Easter. (And I will anyway if I don't do it soon.) And then I thought to check the classes for next semester, and spent awhile doing that, and it didn't improve my mood much. Here's where I am right now. There's a bunch of theo classes I want, and I could fill up my schedule with those alone. But do I want to do that? So I'm looking at a few others. I obviously wanted Latin, but they're only offering Latin II at one time next semester, and it starts 10 minutes before this theo class I really want gets out. (Latin starts at 12:50, theo ends at 1.) So that causes a bit of a dilemma. The theo class is a theo/philo class taught by the philo department chair, Alasdair Macintyre, who I've heard very very very good things about. Lots of people say that everyone should take him at least once before they graduate, and I really want to take him. I mean, I can probably take that class second semester next year, but I don't know for sure if it'll be offered. I think it's offered every semester, but yeah. So that's one thing. And then nothing else really sounds terribly interesting. I wrote down a few possiblities, namely "Celtic Heroic Literature," "Fiction Writing," and "Western Civ I." I don't know about the first, I'd like to take a writing class but I don't know that I want to take a fiction writing class (in the basic list of classes offered, not specifically in a semester or anything, there's a class that's like intro to creative non-fiction, which sounds right up my alley. Of course, it's not offered next semester. Or this semester. So maybe it's not real, and was just there for me to get my hopes up), and the Western Civ class doesn't interest me terribly, but I want to take a history class and that's one of the few I can take, and it's taught by my Middle Ages prof from this semester, who I do like. That's what's really annoying me right now. The history class thing. There are a number that sound wonderfully interesting (Medieval Ireland, Holocaust, Irish History to 1800, Medieval and Early Modern Russia, Hist of 20th Cent Eastern Europe, The American Revolution, US 1900-1945, and...that might be it). Ok, you know what? I just discovered that I'm an idiot, and I've never been happier about it. Each of the 300 level classes I was looking at have two things for the same class, and I've only been looking at the first one for each one. And those ones keep saying you have to be a history major. Know what the second one says? Open to anyone. They have it split up. I mean, it's the same class and everything, but for registration purposes, it's separated. And you know what that means? I can get in these classes! Well, theoretically. I am beyond ecstatic right now. There's about 15 spots for non-majors in all the classes, so it's not a guarantee that I'll get any one of them. But there's so many that sound interesting, I think it's a safe bet that I might get at least one of them. And none of the ones I really want seem to have times that interfere with theo classes I've already decided I want. I still need to figure out a few things, but I'm so much happier right now than ten minutes ago.

And thus, I should go to bed. It's late. I keep doing this. And I didn't do anything constructive/productive tonight. Well, arguably, as I do have to figure out my schedule, but still. And I still have to figure out about UCCS. And I should do that soon too I guess...ick.

Not now though.

Oh yeah. I discovered tonight that just because a CD is $1 at Walgreens, doesn't mean it's good. Or maybe, because a CD is $1 at Walgreens, means it isn't good. Haha. Oh well.

Ok. Now bedtime. Contemplating working out in the morning (just in the workout room). Will see. Planning on 10am wakeup time. Work at noon. Could easily fit in 30 minutes of exercise. Hm. Need to plan essays -- will do one one day this week, the other another day this week. Perhaps tomorrow night, trads essay, Wednesday night Feasts and Seasons. Like that idea. Mmhmm. Bed now.

I love my campus

I was walking back to my dorm just a little while ago, and I walked past the Basilica, which had just bonged the bell 10 times (as it had just turned 10pm). Right after that, a different bell started going, and it was playing the Alma Mater. How many churches have bells that ring out in the tune of Notre Dame Our Mother? Probably very few. One of the many reasons the Basilica is the best church ever. Haha. I'm a bit biased though, I'll admit.

Oh, and know those blisters I mentioned earlier today? Well, I can add two more to the list now. I wore my flip flops to dinner, and even though the walk to south isn't THAT far, I knew I'd get blisters. I always do, every summer, the first few times I wear whatever pair of sandals it is, and sometimes in a few different spots if I have more than one pair of sandals. I was a tad surprised, however, to find that after dinner, when I took them off, the blisters had actually started bleeding. So yeah. That's not too cool, but it's happened before. I wonder if I just have more blister-prone skin on the tops of my feet than other people. I don't know.

Easter is two weeks from now. Can you believe that? Two weeks! Of course, on the one hand I feel like such a schmuck because I've done horribly on my Lenten "sacrifice" thing this year. Normally I do food, give up something like soda or sweets, and that's managable. I have been attempting to drink soda less this year, and succeeding too for the most part, but that wasn't something I really committed to at the beginning of Lent. The thing I wanted to do this year, an addition instead of a subtraction, I've all but given up at this point. Because...I don't know why. Because I suck, that's why. And for that reason, I don't want Easter to get here. I want to have a few weeks back so I can get back on track with this whole thing. Sigh. But, I can't help but look forward to Holy Week. I love Holy Week here. Even if no one wants to go to Easter Vigil with me (I don't understand that, either -- it's such a gorgeous Mass! Yeah, a bit longer than a normal Mass, but it's not like you have to do any exercising or anything. You just sit there most of the time. And it's so pretty!), I can't wait. I'm used to going to Masses by myself. A byproduct of going to daily Mass.

And I think I decided on the dress I'm gonna get. Apparently my links to the Chadwick's website haven't been working, so no one knows what it looks like. (If you want to know, go to www.chadwicks.com, click on the "fashions" section, then dresses, then view all, then click the option to see all the dresses on one page, and then the dress I want is in the 5th row down, the one on the right. Elm Island Tiered dress. In pink.) But looking at it, now I'm not entirely sure. Firstly, it's empire waisted, which in my opinion can sometimes make people look pregnant. Depends on how the bottom half is fitted. And sometimes with that kind of style it might not fit me in the chestal region all that well. So I'm not sure. But there's no real way to know without trying it on, which requires buying it...Crap, now I'm second-guessing myself. I swear, I'm the worst person in the world for making decisions. I spent like an hour and a half tonight (it's now after midnight; I was going to go to bed early, get a good night's sleep for once since I don't have anything to do for tomorrow) looking through free patterns for wraps/shawls and such. I found a few that I like, I just wonder if I can finish it in less than two weeks and still manage to get other stuff done. Plus I don't even have yarn to make one, and I don't know that I'll get to the store before Wednesday. Although, one of the ones I found that looks like a good possibility is very very simple. There are a few I really like, but they're more complicated and would take more time. Sigh. Why is this so hard for me? The whole decision-making thing. I suck at it.

Uh...crap. I just noticed something. We got our take-home exam questions in my Feasts and Seasons class last week, and according to the syllabus I have they're not due until April 18. However, at the bottom of the paper it says due April 4. Which is next Wednesday. Which also happens to be the day I have my second Middle Ages exam. And I have another Trads paper (allegedly) due next Monday, but I think he's going to postpone that a bit. With my luck it'll be pushed to...April 4. But uh yeah. So...looks like maybe my easy week this week isn't so much now. I mean, I did want to get ahead this week, and I did manage today to read most of the reading we have for Middle Ages this week, but, uh, I suck at getting ahead. However, it's still early in the week. Maybe I can kick butt and actually be productive for once, and get the Feasts and Seasons take home done, and maybe even the Trads one, regardless of when either are actually due. I really don't know why I feel it's necessary to wait until the night before the due date to start a paper. Or, in some cases, 1am that night/morning. Or even later. Oh...I've never done that...last week...not at all...

Here's hoping.

Today was ridiculously nice though. After lunch, I changed into my capris (I only have one pair, perhaps I should look into getting a second one of these years) and went outside in front of Lewis, where it seemed the whole dorm was. Most people were on the grass though, pretty spread out (and apparently North Quad -- and it's probably safe to assume South as well -- was ridiculously crowded with people on blankets, playing football, throwing frisbees, etc), so I sat on a bench as I don't have a blanket on which to sit, and I'd rather not sit right on the grass. Soon, the warmth of the sun made me drowsy, not to mention causing my eyes to hurt a bit since I was attempting to read but it was quite bright and my eyes just wanted to close to the brightness, and instead of fighting it, I positioned myself semi-comfortably on the bench, my head resting on my arms, and dozed a bit. Not very restfully, but it was relaxing enough. And then I got myself up again after some amount of time, and was pretty successful in getting my reading at least some of the way done. It was nice though. Aside from the occasional conversation I was forced to listen to. Ah well. It's still really warm out there, and tomorrow's supposed to be 75. Mmmmm.

We played Trivial Pursuit on Friday night, which I think I mentioned. It's so weird. It's the 90s edition, so in all of our minds, it's recent. But then we'll get a question we have to answer from like '91, and in reality, that was 16 years ago. Even questions from like 97 or 98 or 99, we think of those as being just a few years ago, but they were 8, 9, 10 years ago. Titanic came out 10 years ago. Can you believe that? (I just read a blurb about how Kate Winslet and what's his face...Leonardo DiCaprio are reuniting for a movie, 10 years after that movie. And I was like, dang, that really was 10 years ago...how weird.) Sometimes looking back at time is just...weird. Bizarre. Unbelievable. Time's a crazy thing.

My computer's being a little slow and weird lately. I'm not sure what to do about it...I think I need to run a virusscan or something. Like, I think it does it scheduled every once in awhile, but I don't really know when...and I never remember to check when I have time to sit here and let it run...so...yeah. I think tomorrow sometime I'm going to run a security thing the OIT website has. If I don't have the latest version of McAfee (it pops up every time I restart my computer, so it's at least on there) it'll download it for me. So yeah. Hopefully everything's a-ok.

I have no idea why I'm still up. I should have gone to bed two hours ago, at least. I really meant to, too. Sigh. I annoy myself to no end sometimes.

As promised

Post about today's Mass. Nothing earth-shattering or ground-breaking or anything like that, but I was struck by something while sitting there this morning. First, there was the thought I have literally every week, that says to me "Why oh why didn't you get up earlier this morning?" (I managed to get a semi-good place to sit, despite walking in as they were singing the opening song, but only because I was alone.) And then the real thought. I believe it was during offertory or something like that, a point at which the choir sings a song in Latin. (They sing Latin during that, usually, and then during communion as well.) There's something about sitting in that gorgeous church, letting that wonderful music wash over me that connects me to people who have done that for hundreds of years. That's one of the wonderful things about Latin in Mass. It's so unchanging, and the chants are ones that have been sung for ages. And how cool is it to sit there being part of something that was going on all those years ago, with basically the same form? (Well...maybe not, because obviously it was pre-Vatican II, which did kind of change somethings. But I mean, essentially, kind of the same.) Those people didn't have to endure Hagen-Haas fluff. They got the real music, the rich fullness of it all. And I'm glad that, even if it only lasts a few minutes, I can experience that same thing, in one of the prettiest churches anywhere (in my opinion, anyway, and that's the only one I care about. haha).

And it was also nice, today, to be able to wear a skirt and nice shoes and not feel stupid for doing so. Because today? Is lovely. Currently 74 and partially/mostly sunny. So this morning I wore my brown shoes (man I love those things), a brown short sleeved shirt, my pink flowered knee-length skirt (which I just brought back here from home, and am happy I did so), and I threw on my maroon suede jacket too because it wasn't quite 70 at 10am this morning. So yeah. I love dressing up for Mass. Love love love it. It's even better when I dress up and don't feel out of place (as, I'll admit, I slightly did when I was at the Life Teen Mass. Where people wear grungy jeans, T-shirts with all kinds of graphics and slogans and whatnot on them, and dress like they're going to the beach). And it's nice when I dress up and don't feel like I look horrible, as I didn't feel today. Even though I didn't wear nylons which meant the lower half of my paley pale legs were showing to all the world. Hopefully I didn't blind anyone... Oh, yeah. Those shoes? Despite the fact that I've worn them numerous times already, including at least once without nylons, and despite the fact that the extent of my walking in them today was to and from church (perhaps five minutes, round trip), I got some nice blisters on about four of my toes. Including one really nice one on one of my pinky toes. Not sure how that happened. Weird. Oh well. No worries. What's warmer weather without a few blisters on my feet?

No one cares, but...

I just got back from Mass (which was lovely, but maybe more on that later), and I was checking my usual daily-checked (usually more than once) sites, one of which is facebook. Well, one of my facebook friends (who used to be a real-life friend, actually my best friend for like a year, back before going to different high schools caused us to lose our connection, although I doubt it would have stayed anyway considering we're just about as different as two people can be on issues like religion, politics, and the like) recently joined a facebook group, and since now that stuff shows up on the home page (friends' recent activity), I was alerted to it. Anyway. Know what the group is? "Facebook should have other gender options: Official Petition." People are actually and seriously saying that facebook should give people the option of choosing a gender other than male or female, because there are people who don't fit into either category. Puh-leeze. "This group exists to protest the fact that facebook does not allow us to choose to identify with any sex other than male or female. Forcing members to identify as male, female, or nothing at all discriminates against all those who do not fit neatly into the categories of male or female; surely the creators of facebook ought to be enlightened enough to give up this archaic and hurtful heteronormativity." What??? I cannot believe people are serious about this. First of all, how many people would actually choose another option? And what would that option be, anyway? And secondly, it's a freaking networking site. It's not supposed to be a whole autobiography of each person on there. Ridiculous. I can't believe there are people out there who do stuff like this. I mean, not that these people are actually doing anything, and I'm sure they won't be noticed by anyone who matters, but seriously. Having other gender options on FACEBOOK? not exactly a big issue.

Oh, and even better, there's another group "petitioning" that along with the other gender options, people should be able to list that they're in a relationship with multiple people (currently you can only list one person), and they shouldn't be "force" to list the genders they're interested in as only men and/or women. You can list both, but apparently there needs to be another option in case you don't identify the gender of those in whom you're interested. Because, you know, we don't want to leave out anyone or make anyone feel marginalized ON FACEBOOK. We might as well throw "animals" as an "interested in" option, right? Or "children." Or "dead people." Can't leave out anyone.

There's also a group that claims it's "heterosexist" to place college students in rooms based on gender. Because it might make some gay people uncomfortable, or force transgendered people to choose a gender, or something like that. Doesn't really have to do with facebook, but it came up in the list of other groups that a number of the people in the second group I mentioned are also in. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if one of these days, someone sued a college for doing this, "forcing them" into a gender or to be placed in a room with the same gender or something, and actually winning. And then all public colleges will have to get rid of single-sex rooming, and I'll have to be glad that there are private colleges that will continue to adhere to single-sex rooming (and dorms, in a few cases). Unless someone gets to them too.

What a crazy place this world is becoming.

Saturday in the Park

I ran/walked today. Caitlin and I started that running program thing. I'm really optimistic about it. I mean, it sucks to run, but the interspersed walking and running thing makes it a lot more managable to begin with. And I like that. Hopefully we (or at least I) can keep up with it. I'd really like to get in shape. And running's apparently really good for getting the whole body in shape. And I'd really like to lose a bit of the fat I have on the sides of my hips. Very much so, in fact. So, here's hoping.

Tonight on our way back from dinner we saw two ducks chilling in a non-normal area. There's this huge puddle (I like to call it a lake) in the parking lot outside Cavanaugh, on the side right next to Washington Hall. It's been there for a few days, and tends to collect water quite well. Anyway, there were two ducks just sitting there today. Apparently they had been in a puddle elsewhere outside Lafortune earlier in the day, according to Bethany (assuming it was the same two, anyway), and yeah. I really wished I had my camera with me because it was a cool picture. Oh well. If I had a quarter for every time I wish I had my camera, man...

We lost in hockey tonight. 2-1. Didn't look good most of the game (well, we turned it on a few minutes into the second period, because we watched A League of Their Own first -- a good movie, but with an ending (to the flashback part, anyway) that I really don't like), so it wasn't like a huge surprise. Plus, I had written about it last night, which doomed us from the start I'm sure. haha. Ah well.

I'm still trying to find a good Easter dress. I mean, there's this brown and white one that I really like, and I might think about getting anyway, but I do want something that'll go with that earring/necklace set I have, and I'm not sure that it would. However, tonight I found this dress, which is a good possibility I think. I mean, I don't know how it'd look on me, or how it'd fit, but I like it. I might just get it. But I'm soooo indecisive. But Easter's only two weeks away (can you believe that?), so I gotta do it soon. And I don't know, if I got that I might have to get some sort of shawl or wrap to go over it. Since it is church and all. What do you think? Hm.

Oh yeah, something interesting came out today (or yesterday, or recently). The final trailer for Spiderman 3. Looks sooo good. Hopefully we'll go see the midnight showing or something when it comes out. That'd be the Thursday night of study days, so it shouldn't be much of a problem (ignoring the fact that I have an essay due at 5pm that Friday...but I also have one due that Wednesday and that Monday, so perhaps I'll be able to use a break by then. Ugh that week's gonna suck). Gooood stuff.

Well, I'm going to the 10am Mass, so I best get off to bed quickly. Nighty night.

Old addendum to earlier post

My mom left a comment that made me remember I was going to post this this past week. I learned a few days after last Sunday (with the getting the wrong readings, or so I thought) that for RCIA candidates, the readings can be from Cycle A. I don't really understand it, but at least it does redeem my church. I'm so mean to my poor church. Sigh. Sorry, everyone.

Awww

When I got back from breakfast/lunch today, my roommate had the TV on, and she was watching "Never Been Kissed." What a sweet movie. I'm a big fan. Of it. I'm not actually a fan. I am, however, a robot. Nevermind. I gotta say, though, that I don't know if I'd want my first kiss to be in front of a whole baseball stadium of people. Perhaps a bit awkward, that. But I've never tried it, so I don't know. haha.

Know what's weird to think about? What if Mom had never scheduled us for an appointment/tour of Notre Dame on our trip after junior year, "just because"? ND wasn't on my radar, but then afterward, well we all know how it ended. But what if we hadn't visited? Where would I be now? I mean, I wonder if I'd like football. Because it was at least 70% because of ND football that I now love football in general. (Although arena football is still weird to me.) I wonder if I'd...I don't know, be pursuing a degree in astrophysics (haha yeah right). I wonder if I'd be an athiest. Who knows. It's interesting.

Anyway. Looks like I might start that whole "Couch to 5k" running plan thing today. With Caitlin, who is also not up to the whole running all over campus and then some...twice thing with Bethany and Katherine. Fun stuff. haha. Maybe I'll be all sexy for summer. That'll be the day.

Friday night hijinks?

We played Trivial Pursuit: 90s Edition tonight. I sucked, as usual, but I did have one shining moment: I was on the movies/TV color, and got the year 1997, so before Bethany read the question, I said Titanic, just for fun. She looked at the question, and said "Oh my gosh!" (or no way or something incredulous like that), and it was something about "Director James Cameron called this movie his $190million something or other" or something. I don't even know. But yeah. So that was weird and funny.

Anyway.

Walking back to Lewis from Cavanaugh tonight, it was really nifty outside. It's kinda foggy, but a little oddly so, not like normal fog. I don't know how to describe it, or even how it seems different. It just does. But the Dome looked really cool, what with the spotlights shining on it and reflecting the cloud hovering over it and whatnot. It's cool. I'm a big fan of fog.

After dinner, I wanted to check and see the status of our hockey game (we're #1 in the nation, and tonight was the quarterfinals or something of the championship). Finally, after lots of looking around, I managed to find on an ND message board that we were tied, and there was 12 minutes left in the first overtime. So we decided to go over to Lafortune (the only place that was showing it, as it was some obscure channel no one has) to watch it. Well, it ended up going into a second overtime, and so we ended up just standing there in the main lounge in Lafortune for probably close to an hour. With lots of other people. Anyway, with around 5 minutes left to go in the second overtime, we finally scored. And the cool thing about college hockey? Even though overtime periods last 20 minutes, it's over as soon as someone scores. So we won! And now we're playing tomorrow in the semifinals, the frozen four, and it's exciting. I'm definitely not into hockey, but I was getting into it tonight. Hopfeully I'll get to watch tomorrow. I don't think they're showing it at Lafortune though, but it's not on any normal cable channels either. I think I saw they're showing it in...Stepan maybe? But who wants to go there? So we'll see. Anyway. They kept saying "ND, the number one team in the country," and I decided I'm definitely a fan of hearing that.

I'm also a big fan of going to sleep right now. Which is what I'm going to do. (Man, I must have slept weirdly this afternoon when I took that nap, because my neck on the left side is killing me. It's really tight, and painful to move very much. Hopefully that'll go away.)

Dah. Boe. Sna.

I found my pin last night. It was under my desk chair. So that's pretty cool.

I might look into trying this. Perhaps exactly what I need. Fairly easy, makes you work up to the 3 miles with a combination of walking and running (which is much easier than going running with friends who run fairly often, and thus can run for longer than a minute without getting so winded they have to stop...). I might be doing that soon. Who knows.

I am so tired. I felt like I was at least two steps behind all day, and I very much felt like I was barely holding my head above the water. If even. I mean, I was a little late to Latin, I was a little late to Trads (because I spent the 20 minutes beforehand in the computer lab trying to type anything so that I'd have two paragraphs to turn in, and I did, even though they're probably not even coherent), I was almost (but not really) late to my Middle Ages tutorial, and then I had my FTT exam which, depending on how stickler-y they are with the grading, I might not do horribly on. And now I don't know how I'm sitting up straight. I really should go take a nap.

Me?

Your Brain is Purple

Of all the brain types, yours is the most idealistic. You tend to think wild, amazing thoughts. Your dreams and fantasies are intense. Your thoughts are creative, inventive, and without boundaries. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking of fictional people and places - or a very different life for yourself.

What Color Is Your Brain?

I suppose this might be true.

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have low extroversion. You are quiet and reserved in most social situations. A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you. You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people. Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You're generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have low agreeableness. Your self interest comes first, and others come later, if at all. In general, you feel that people are not to be trusted. And you're skeptical that anyone else really feels differently. Neuroticism: You have medium neuroticism. You're generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic. Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy. Your life is pretty smooth, but there's a few emotional bumps you'd like to get rid of. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is medium. You are generally broad minded when it come to new things. But if something crosses a moral line, there's no way you'll approve of it. You are suspicious of anything too wacky, though you do still consider creativity a virtue.

The Five Factor Personality Test

This also is somewhat true. I'm not sure on the agreeableness or conscientiousness ones, but I guess there's at least a degree of truth in there...

Just one word

- Where is your cell phone?
Desk

- Your hair?
Brown

- Work?
Sucks

- Your father?
Awesome

- Your favorite thing?
Love

- Your dream last night?
Nonexistent

- Your favorite drink?
Wet

- Your dream car?
Reliable

- The room you're in?
Dorm

- Your fears?
Numerous

- what do you want to be in 10 years?
Married

- Who did you hang out with last night?
People

- What you're not good at?
Productivity

- Muffin?
Nah

- One of your wish list items?
Ring

- Where you grew up?
CSprings

- Last thing you did?
Latin

- What are you wearing?
Pajamas

- what aren't you wearing?
Jewelry

- Your pet?
Kissable

- Your computer?
Hot

- Your life?
Boring

- Your mood?
Annoyed

- Missing?
Pets

- What are you thinking about right now?
Essays

- Your car?
Satisfactory

- Your summer?
Eh

- Your favorite color?
Many

- when is the last time you laughed?
Tonight?

- Last time you cried?
Uh...

- School?
Sucks

Argh.

Have I mentioned that I dislike the stuff we have to do for my Trads class every. single. week? I haven't had my weekly "this stuff sucks" yet. I mean, seriously. We have two things to read for tomorrow. Which normally wouldn't be that bad, but one of them? Is about 80 pages. That might be a slight exaggeration, but not much. It's ridiculous. And they're so pointless. All I read them for is to have something stupid to say so I can write those dumb dumb question things. Argh. I just wish that we could have like maybe just ONE week that we don't have to do them. Just one would be fantabulous. All would be even better. Or maybe every other week or something. Because seriously, they're ridiculous. I hate them. And on top of that I feel like I wasted the whole night studying for my stupid FTT exam that I have tomorrow. I don't know that it was even worth spending the time on, because I think that as long as I have something to say on the questions tomorrow, I'll at least get some credit, and that's ok.

Is it Friday at 2pm yet? ugh.

Gratuitous picture post

Because I'm avoiding homework. As usual.

JPW gala thing

At Legends after the dinner.

Action shot because my dad thinks he's funny.

Again at Legends.

Aw...

She's just so fat.

She's just so cute.

Colt looks PISSED. And Kebbie looks funny. :-)

I don't know how she doesn't fall off when she does this.

Man I love her.
Look at all that fluffiness! And those cotton balls!

And of course, Pikes Peak, my lovely mountain.

Ain't it swell?

I am going to attempt to start incorporating the word "swell" into my vocabularly more often. And I don't mean swell as in "His kneecap popped and now it's beginning to swell." That's gross. (I had a friend who did something like this, actually, she did something to her knee and it just filled with gross fluids of some kind. Looked disgusting. And squishy.)

In other (sad) news, I've just discovered that finally, after more than two years, the heart-shaped pin I've had on my well-used (and quite abused, poor thing) bookbag, the one that had the little baby cradled in the hands, has disappeared today. I think I probably lost it in my Latin class today, but I didn't realize it until this afternoon. It's sad. I've often thought that it was going to fall off, so I often would push it against its back (which is inside the pocket on the front flap) to make sure it was on there well. But alas, today it's gone. Oh well. I had a Precious Feet pin on there freshman year too, but that one came off within a few months for some reason. So for awhile now it's just been the one. Maybe I'll get another one. My bag flap looks so...boring now.

Oh yeah, I also think that at some point I should get some ND-related earrings. Just because.

Things are looking up

So, I've had some good news today. Firstly, I'm excited about theo classes next semester. Of course, I'm sure I'll be doing lots of reading and lots of paper-writing, which sucks, but yeah. Hopefully they'll be worth it. And hopefully I'll still get to have the meeting at the time I scheduled, and they won't like check and see that I won't be at senior standing yet until after summer classes, and make me do a later time. That would suck. I doubt it'll happen though.

Secondly, looks like I've gotten things squared away, housing-wise. I have the interhall transfer form filled out, so now I just have to give it to Amy tomorrow. And then keep my fingers crossed that all the singles in Cavanaugh won't get taken by the time they get to me, at the end of the rising seniors. I don't really see that happening, as Cavanaugh has a number of singles and a lot of girls in my class got singles for this year, but you never know. Just gotta wait and see I guess. But so that's looking good, for now anyway.

Hopefully this stuff won't get turned around and end up sucking before the end of the school year, but yeah. We'll see.

I like how the labels on water bottles let you know that they contain 0%, 0g, 0mg of anything.
It's good to know. Because I was hoping that I could use water as my main protein source.

Oh yeah, so we watched a clip from Stagecoach today. Add that to the list of John Wayne/John Ford movies I want to see.

This weekend's going to be so nice. If only because it'll follow Friday, which promises to be tiring, and because I don't really have anything big next week. Which is nice, of course. It's probably the last week this semester I don't have an essay or an exam (or both). Know what's crazy? We have three full weeks left, two four day weeks, and one three day week. After this week, anyway. And then finals week.

But, between now and then, lots to do. Sigh.

Complicated woman

Maybe not. But I do strike myself as odd sometimes. Like those times I'll be walking somewhere and just get this insatiable urge to RUN. Yet, I hate running. Despise it. But still, lately I've been finding myself attempting to placate that beast by, yes, running. Now, I can't keep it up more than like a minute. Or, say, the distance from Lewis to Cavanaugh. Sometimes to Lafortune if I want to push it. And it's really not that far. But it's enough. But try to get me to exercise by running? I'll laugh in your face. I have no idea why this is. But it is.

Similarly, I typically hate commercials. But this one is so funny. "I really love you." "I know you really mean that." "You never hated me and you never will." "You are the most grateful little..." hahaha. Good stuff. No, great stuff. Occasionally there are commercials that make me willing to unmute the TV. haha. I'm a commercial-muter. I think it bothers my little brother. Too bad.

I'm starting to curse myself (but not really) for wishing for warmer weather. See, I'm a Colorado girl, used to Colorado warmth, and I forgot what it means when it gets warm here. What it means is humidity. Being from Colorado, it's pretty humid if it makes it up to like 30%. For example, right now here it's 55%. It's 17% in Colorado Springs. (And incidentally, it's 71 degrees, but it's only 66 back home. Interesting.) Susie no likey 55%. It's like walking into a sauna when I go outside. I haven't experienced that in a year, so I quite forgot about this thing called humidity. But I guess here it's a necessary evil if I don't want to be wearing my winter coat forever. And even though it's warmer here right now (despite the fact that this morning, the projected high was only around 60), the rest of the 10 day forecast in Colorado Springs definitely has here beat. Especially temp-wise. And the fact that many of the days here are cloudy and rainy, something you'd think I'd like, only makes me think it'll be even more humid than it might otherwise be. So that's not exactly cool. What's going on with me? How could I not be ecstatic over rainy weather? Ahhh!

Remember when I used to be all obsessed with getting As on everything? Well, I've gotten quite a few Bs this semester (the latest is an 86% on the first Middle Ages exam we had a few weeks ago), and I'm ok with it. I didn't do very well on our Latin quiz today (completely couldn't think of the Latin word for "suffering" -- but I knew it was feminine -- and I just couldn't make one of the Latin to English sentences make sense at all, even though I knew all the words, and I messed up the form of one word we had to change from singular to plural (or vice versa). It'll probably be my worst grade yet on a quiz. But I'm ok with that too. I just don't care enough to kill myself trying to get As. I won't graduate with honors, but I'll graduate. And that's what I really care about now. I got my "I'm one of the top of the class" thing in high school. I'm done with that.

Ok this is completely unrelated (although...all this stuff is pretty unrelated...), but today I signed up for an advising meeting with my theo advisor, where we tell them what classes we want and they put in the overrides so we can get them when we register. (I signed up under the "rising seniors" section, even though technically I'll still be a junior...but...I don't know. I guess if they yell at me for it, I'll just have to deal.) Anyway. I'm kind of excited about the prospect of getting some of these theo classes. I'm hoping to get good profs next semester. Like Macintyre, I've heard that he's one of those you should definitely take before you leave here. Let's see. I'll be taking the Old Testament class for sure, that's 8-9:15 TR (I'm assuming that's AM...). Then I have to take Christian Traditions I, and I'll either have it 10:40-11:30 MWF with Wawykow, or 1:55-2:45 MWF with Cunningham. Both have really good reviews at ndtoday.com, so I guess it'll come down to what other classes I want and what fits and stuff. Although Cunningham's reviews are all pretty stellar, so that's tempting. So those two are have to take classes. And then there's a number of other theos I want to take. There's "A Faith to Die For," "Theology of the Mass" (which I'm definitely going to try to get -- it's with one of the advisors, Fagerberg, and looks really good, and I haven't had him as a prof yet and I want to), "Philosophy and Theology of the Body," with a prof who doesn't have the best reviews, but I'd like to take a theo of the body class (but if I take that one I can't take the Cunningham Trads class because they're at the same time), and then there's the Macintyre class which is "God, Philosophy and Universities," and I'm going to take that if at all possible (meaning if there's room), and there's "US Catholic History and Ethics" which sounds right up my alley, and finally there's a one credit pass/fail class, it's a series called "Know your Catholic Faith" they have every year, next year's is about Mary. I want to take that just to add another credit. So yeah. I don't know. Would it be weird to take four theos and one Latin class? Or five theos, one being a 1 credit pass/fail thing? I don't know. I might look into taking an English course, a non-fiction creative writing one. Or maybe check out the history classes they're offering. Unfortunately they don't seem to have the times of any classes up yet, so I can't plan that out. I don't have the advising meeting until April 2, though, so I have a little bit of time yet to plan. But man, I don't know how I'm going to pick. There's so many good classes!

ok. Time to go do real stuff.

Some dresses

I rarely seem to buy clothes in the stores these days. That's what comes of being tall. Anyway, what does anyone think of this dress? I think I'd like it in the blue. Not really an Easter dress, but for other occasions perhaps. There is a possible Easter dress I may have found, but I don't think the page it's at will link correctly. The address doesn't seem to change from dress to dress. Anyway, it's pretty, it's brown with big white-ish flowers on it. And it's long. At least, I think it is. 52 inches. I'm not exactly sure where that'd fall on me, but I'm pretty much sure it'd be plenty long enough for what I want. I mean, I was looking for something with more pink, but I don't know. I'm not having much luck with that. And brown and pink go together. Hm. Well, I guess we'll see. We all know how much I suck at making decisions. And I've never bought a dress online before. Well, I've only ever bought a handful of dresses period, really. But yeah. I should figure it out soon, though. Only a few more weeks until Easter. Looks like about two and a half. Crazy.

Wishbone!

Did anyone else watch Wishbone as a kid? Ok, perhaps it was more...middle school and possibly freshman or sophomore year into high school...maybe...but man that show was awesome! Seriously. That's something I'd like to get on DVD sometime, maybe. Such a good show. I learned so much from it. haha. Oh, apparently it ran until 1998...which would be...6th grade I think. End of 6th. so I probably saw reruns too, because I'm pretty sure I remember watching it after 6th grade. anyway.

(Oh, and incidentally, does anyone remember Dinosaurs? That was an interesting show too. Pretty much the same as Family Matters, kind of, except with a baby, and obviously dinosaurs instead of people. And no Urkel.)

Frust-er-ating

So, I feel like I'm getting nowhere with the housing people. Every time I send an email, they say "Just a few more days, we'll let you know!" or something similar. I realize today that I probably have to fill out an interhall transfer form, which happens to be due Thursday afternoon. Requires signatures of my current rector and the rector of the dorm into which I hope to move. I asked housing if I needed to fill that out, they said it's probably a good idea. I don't really know what that means. I don't know what the heck they're doing and it's bugging me very much. I mean, what do they still have to figure out? Everyone should have accepted or declined by now. I just don't get what's going on. So now I have to go talk to Amy (Cavanaugh's rector) and see if she thinks there'll be space for me (why wouldn't there be? There are seniors who live in the dorm, after all, and plenty of juniors who'll be moving off campus), and then give the form to Lewis' rector. It's all just annoying. Sigh. I really really really hope I can get a single in Cavanaugh. It's too late now to decline the housing application, well, without having to pay the $250 fee that I'd have to pay if I changed my mind now. Know what I say to that? Boo. Booooooo. And not just Boo-urns.

It's kinda late. I'm trying to decide if I should write that essay for Trads tonight, or turn it in on Friday like he has now given us the option to do. Told us in an email today. Or maybe yesterday. I forget. But either way. See, if I don't do it until Friday, I'll have to do that on top of studying for the FTT exam I have Friday, plus doing the reading for Middle Ages and the reading for Trads (which happens to be RIDICULOUSLY long this week. Hence, I'm only going to read enough to write two crappy question paragraph thingies on it. But it still take some time). And that's a lot of stuff to do in one night. But, since I do have so much to do that night, I'm obviously not going to be getting a whole lot of sleep anyway, so if I just throw this essay in there that night too, it'll just make me a little bit more tired on Friday. But if I do the essay tonight and then the rest for Friday, that'll be two days I'm extra sleepy (tomorrow and Friday). Eh. I guess I should just do it. If I ever managed to sit down and just write without letting myself get distracted, I could probably churn it out in like two hours. Although, I forgot, these are supposed to be 6 pages. That's a tad much. Although I guess my essays tend to be 6 pages even if they're only supposed to be 4. I'm good at writing lots of crap. Hm

I really should do it now. I guess I will. See how far I get.

Mom's at various trade shows for work this week and next, and Dad's joining her tomorrow for a week. Actually, I guess technically he's joining her Thursday, as he's flying to Boston tomorrow but will spend the day/night with an old friend of his, and then Mom'll be flying up there from Florida on Thursday. But I digress. It's weird not having Mom online at all. Some people might find it odd that a main method of communication with parentals be through AIM, but for me it is, so for Mom (and Dad too) to be not online for such a long period of time is slightly sad. I'm just not as much a phone person, but online I talk to people more. So yeah. Oh well. I'll survive.

Know what? I say theater weirdly. I didn't really know this until sometime in the last year or so. I say it like this: thee (like fee) - er - ter. Or, actually, - der, if I'm going to be phonetically correct. People like to point this out every time I say it. I'm ok with that. I do say it oddly. I'm not really sure why, either. It's not a regional thing, I don't think. Just a Susie thing.

Ok now I'm really gonna go work on the essay. I hate writing essays. I have so many left to do this semester, too. It sucks. Why oh why am I an arts and letters major?

Longings

I saw a young family when I was at work today. Three kids, including a baby.

Sigh.

I know, I know, I'm only 21, blah blah blah. How long can people say that though? "Oh, you're only 25. You still have years ahead of you for that." "Don't worry, you're only 31. You still have time." Will I find myself suddenly 40, never having realized the one dream I've always wanted?

Other people dream of being doctors, of having this career or that. And the thing is, they can do something to achieve those dreams. I'm not exactly in that position. There's not really a whole lot I can do. And it's frustrating.

All in God's time, I know. It's just hard to live that, even harder to think and accept that maybe God's time is years away.

3rd time's a charm

Hey, guess what? I finally made it out of Colorado and back to school. (Not to say that being in Colorado is bad, necessarily, but it kinda is when school's going on in Indiana...) Things went pretty well today, travel-wise. I mean, my flight out of DIA left about an hour later than it was supposed to, but we managed to get into Cincinnati only about half an hour later than originally scheduled. And as I had an hour and a half layover to begin with, a half hour wasn't going to bother me. Even the hour I was prepared to arrive late wouldn't have been terrible. I'm not sure what the delay was, but I think it had to do with other flights getting in late. They ended up changing our gate right around the time we were scheduled to take off, so then we didn't even board for another 15-20 minutes after that. But anyway, it all worked out ok. I got some reading for my film class done during that first flight, and I got some knitting done too. I was in the exit row too, so that was realllly nice. Yay for leg room. Then I sat in the Cincy airport for a little while. I don't like it that much. They just have a few big waiting areas, and then they call you for different flights at boarding time, and different flights go through different doors, through which you get to a long hallway with lots of gates, but the gates are just doorways to the outside area, and then you have to walk outside to get to the plane. Weird. So then the second flight was ok. Pretty short. Kinda cramped. I just knitted the whole time. I like to knit. I just started my third section of the 36 row pattern. I'm supposed to do 6 of the 36 rows. I might do 7. Anyway. Katherine was kind enough to pick me up from the airport, and I took her to Panera for dinner, and it was nice. (Although after we had gotten our food, I realized they have baked potato soup, so I wished I had gotten the thing where you can get half a sandwich and a cup of soup. Ah well.

So now I'm back. No classes tomorrow, luckily, but a paper to write for Wednesday, unluckily. And then a lovely FTT test on Friday. Along with TONS of reading for the same class for which I have to write the paper this week. It's irritating how much reading we have on top of essays and stuff. This week seems to be particularly bad with the reading amount in that class. Sigh. Oh well. And yeah, I know, I could have gotten more (or even some) done ove break. But that's the point of break, relaxing. And I needed it. Oh well. I'm already stressing about the whole rest of the semester (like the 15-20 pager I have due...at some point...I should probably look into getting started on that at some point...and then there's the last week of classes/study days, during which I have a paper due Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Not cool), so a little more this week won't kill me.

Oh yeah, and I wanted to mention -- I saw my first John Wayne film last night. It's the movie we were watching for FTT this week, but I got it from the library yesterday when I realized I probably wouldn't be getting back here in time (or, at least, I'd be getting back just in time to head down there, and I wasn't about to do that), and Dad and I watched it. It's called The Searchers. It's pretty good, I must say. I've become a John Wayne fan after one movie. Apparently it's one of his most lauded roles, and his personal favorite as well. Good stuff. Now I want to watch more of his movies. Like The Quiet Man. I just heard about that like yesterday. It's set in Ireland, so it's gotta be good, right? Hehe. Anyway. I may just become a big John Wayne fan. Or I may watch a few more movies and find myself indifferent to him in general. Who knows. Either way, I'm glad we've got at least a few weeks of good movies to watch in that class. (Next week is Top Hat, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, which I also watched over break because I want to go to that Scott Hahn talk.) I think we're back to crap in a couple weeks though, with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Ah well. Can't win 'em all.

Oh man. I'm kind of excited to sleep in my bed tonight. I mean, my bed at home is obviously nice, but my bed here is just a lot more comfy right now. I have my nice pillows here, and my nice Memere-made quilt thing, and I have a sheet, a blanket, my comfy comforter, and then the quilt on top. At home I have a semi-flat pillow, one sheet, and my comforter, which is pretty old. I have a heated mattress pad thing under my sheets, but the plug is hard to get to since it's behind my bed kind of, and I unplugged it when I left in January. That would have made things slightly nicer, I think. I wonder if one of these days I should get a new comforter. Probably not. Maybe when I move out. If that ever happens. Haha. But yeah, that comforter is kind of flattened out a little bit. Oh well.

I'm gonna go. Argh. No sleep for Susie tomorrow night. Maybe I can surprise myself. Let's hope so.

A few things

So we went to the 5:30 again tonight, partially since it was the only one left by the time we got back. It was ok, except for a few things. Firstly, apparently my church thinks it's Liturgical Year B, but it's actually C. And thus we got the wrong readings today. I don't know if it was just a fluke today, but the whole Mass was planned around the Gospel (the one we read was about the blind man that Jesus heals, so there was a lot of songs about being blind and seeing and the homily was about that too). I'm not sure how they managed to be in a wrong year, but it's a little annoying.

Secondly, during the homily my priest mentioned how Mass used to be before Vatican II, and how there are some people who are still "stuck" on that Mass, and basically won't "get with the times" so to speak. Now, I'm not like all gung-ho about the TLM, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with preferring it (especially preferring it to some of the Masses that abound nowadays...), and I was a little annoyed that my priest insinuated that those who still like the "old fashioned" Mass are wrong. I think he actually compared them to the Pharisees who refused to see the truth in Jesus or something like that. I don't know. I was a little bit turned off by that.

And then there was one more thing...Oh, it might have been the fact that during the Gospel, the girl in front of me kept turning to her grandmother and whispering various things to her. During the Gospel. It was weird. Not to mention distracting. People at that Mass sometimes seem more like they're there to talk to people afterwards than for the Mass itself. Eh whatever.

Apparently today Colorado Springs was warmer than Key West. Take that, Florida.

I'm surprised how little this whole flight craziness has affected me. I'm sure it'd be different if it were the other end of the trip, but even though I am still kind of kicking myself every once in awhile, I'm ok with the whole thing. I mean, it's made me want to take the train home this summer much more than before, but yeah. Oh how I'll love it when they invent a way to instantaneously travel from one place to another. If only I were able to Apparate.

Today's Woot is a 20 GB MP3 player -- iRiver brand. For $100. I'm kind of tempted to get it. But I have a hard time justifying spending that much money right now. (Or ever, but yeah.) I mean, a 20gb MP3 player for $100 is a really good deal. And apparently it's a pretty good one. But seeing as how I only have a bit over an hour left before the page changes to the next deal, I probably won't be getting it. Ah well. Maybe one day I'll finally join the ranks of the rest of the world and delve into the newest (not so much anymore) world of handheld music.

I'll admit, I'm an idiot.

Who wants to hear further proof of the fact that sometimes I make really dumb mistakes? (Who doesn't love to hear about other people being idiots, right?)

Remember how yesterday I posted that because of the delayed flight to Cincinatti that would cause me to miss my connecting flight to South Bend, I was instead getting a flight today from Denver to Chicago? And that I also had a voucher for the bus from Chicago to school? Well. Apparently there was some miscommunication or mishearing or some mishap in general, because when Dad and I showed up to DIA this morning to check in, we noticed that my flight wasn't on the list of departures. So we checked the ticket thingy the lady had given me yesterday. After perusing it a few minutes, Dad said, "Leaving from Colorado Springs." And I said, "Oh my gosh you're kidding." But no. It was flying out of Colorado Springs. And had we left right at that moment, we still probably would have only gotten to the Colorado Springs airport at about 11, if that, and my flight left at 11:15. So yeah, no good. So instead me and Dad stayed at the airport two hours, each on the phone (me with Delta, dad with United), and neither of us got anywhere (a guy finally, after about an hour at least, probably more, picked up on the Delta end and after Dad explained the situation, he put Dad on hold, and subsequently seemed to have dropped our call. Which sucked). We did this while standing in line at United to see if I could get on one of the numerous other Denver-Chicago flights they had. By the time we got up to the desk, the lady basically said they were full and there was nothing they could do to help us, and I had to go to the Delta counter. Which we probably should have just done in the first place. Anyway. We go over there, and unlike at United, there was no line at all. So we talk to the guy, and he manages to get me on a flight from DIA to South Bend tomorrow, through Cincinatti. So I'll get into South Bend at like 6 tomorrow evening. So that's kind of sucky, but I had already resigned myself to that possibility. It's not the end of the world.

I'm just so so mad at myself. I don't know if the lady yesterday did say Denver or if I just assumed Denver or if I just wanted to hear Denver, or what. And I don't know why I didn't notice that the ticket thing she gave me said Colorado Springs, despite the numerous times I looked at it. I guess I just had Denver in my mind so it just wasn't going to budge. This morning when I checked online to see if it was on schedule and whatnot, I noticed that it said it was leaving out of gate 12, and I thought that was odd because at DIA there's three terminals, so the gates are all A, B, or C and the number. However, Colorado Springs is small and only has one terminal, and thus doesn't need the letter designation, and so simply saying gate 12 makes perfect sense. I didn't put that together in my head though. I'm so annoyed with me right now. It's just sucky. I mean, it could be worse, and all it really means is that I'm missing a day of classes tomorrow, but still. I hate the fact that I didn't think to check that. I just don't like messing up, especially when it causes Dad to drive needlessly up to Denver today. I really do feel bad about that. It's just all annoying. Sigh. Oh well. What's done is done, and as Dad said, I'll never not check that again. I mean, normally I'm obsessive about making sure I know where things are coming from and going to, etc. I don't know why I didn't check it this time. Argh.

Oh well.

500!!!

This is a big moment. This is my 500th post on this blog. In about 7 months, I've written 500 posts. Of course, I don't have much to say for this milestone. I wish it were going to be a more interesting post, but it's not going to be.

I should be on my way to Cincinatti right now. However, I foolishly didn't think to check the status of my flight before leaving the house today, and when Dad dropped me off and I went in there to check in, I thought maybe something was off. The line wasn't too long, but it wasn't really moving, and the longer I stood there, the more I overheard things from those up at the counters like "There are no hotels available tonight in Cincinatti," the airline workers trying to make any sort of mixtures of flights possible to get people to their destinations, and just general conversations from people in line that made it seem like there was something not right. Eventually I find out my flight's delayed a couple hours. A little while later, I get up to the counter, where the lady tells me that my flight hasn't even left where it's coming from yet (I think it was coming from Cincinatti), and that it'd probably be 2.5-3 hours late leaving the Springs. As my layover in Cincinatti was only going to be 50 minutes, obviously I wasn't going to make that. So then she said, "We could just put you on that flight and you could stay overnight in Cincinatti, but there's no hotel availability because of the storms on the East coast," and as it turns out, I think the one flight to South Bend from there tomorrow was full anyway. So she was looking around for a few minutes, trying to find an airport close to South Bend that I could fly into. I guess everything's pretty full, and that storm on the east coast is wreaking havoc on airlines in general this weekend. Eventually she found one from Denver to Chicago tomorrow morning on United, and put me on that, and it was probably like the very last seat available (and now I'm just hoping that I won't get there tomorrow and find out I don't actually have a seat...). She also gave me a voucher for the bus from Chicago to South Bend, so that's nice. So yeah. Could be worse. Kinda surprised me. Normally I worry about stuff going wrong with flights, but I didn't really about today, and thus it was unexpected. But at least I didn't get all the way up to Denver and find this out, so it's really good the flight was out of Colorado Springs today. Of course, it did cause Dad to make his third round trip to that airport today (this morning, really early, to take Mom -- she's going to a trade show, actually two, for the next two weeks, first in Florida then in Boston -- and then to take me the first time at about 1, and then again to pick me up). At least we don't live all that far away from the airport. So that's good. So yeah. Interesting. I don't think it's possible for me to have a single trip without something going wrong with the flight on one end or the other. Oh, I guess probably when we went to Steve's wedding in September, I don't remember anything going wrong. But anyway. I'm a little annoyed simply because I don't like plans to change once I have them in my head, but not terribly so because I get another night here which is pretty nice, and at least I'll get to school tomorrow (hopefully, barring any other unforeseen events). So yeah. It does suck slightly that I have to fly United, as they are probably my least liked airline (yet I travel on them so often), but again, at least I'm getting back to school.

It would have been nice if I had been able to think of someone off the top of my head who lives in Cincinatti, who I might be able to get to pick me up once my original flight got in, and with whom I could then drive up to school tomorrow. But I can't think of any off the top of my head, and probably don't have their numbers anyway, and it'd be hard to coordinate that on such short notice. So oh well. 'Sall good.

Because I don't want this to be all about my (lack of) traveling today, I'm going to discuss something else, something far more interesting. I finally finished book 6 of the Harry Potter series last night. Which means, of course, that I have no more Harry Potter to read until the last one comes out in July. I don't know how people have lasted waiting since two summers ago for the next new story. I only have to wait 4 months, and it seems far too long. I mean, sure I can always go back and re-read the first six books again, but it's not the same. Man, I can't wait to see what happens. I'm a little confused as to why some people think that certain things are true (such as that Snape really is good), but I'm kind of new to this, so I'm sure they know things I don't. I can't wait to read the next one and hopefully get some answers to some questions (for example, why it was that Dumbledore trusted Snape so absolutely and totally. I'm sure there's some very good reason, and I want to know what it is). However, at the same time, I dread the thought of the next book being the absolute last. The thing about books, particularly series, is that you become invested in the characters. They become like friends. The more you read, the more you feel like you know them, and the more you want to follow more of their lives. And when the end of a series comes, as they inevitably do, there's some sadness there that you no longer can get a window into their lives. You can always continue to go back and re-read about their past events, but there will be no more new ones. So that's kind of sad. But I still can't wait for the next book. Oh man.

One more thing. I've been continuing with my knitting this week. I didn't give up on the pattern I was doing, and as I expected, it did eventually start to show what it actually is. I'm just too impatient. And I couldn't help but think about that in a religious way, how I'm always so impatient to see the path in front of me and where it's ultimately leading, but God insists on revealing only one step at a time, so that I have to wait to see the end result, even if at first it seems like it's just not working and that I must be doing something wrong. Hm. Patience is an important thing to have. And something I don't think I excel at very often...

Potpourri

I drove past one of the Protestant churches near my neighborhood on my way home today, I'm not sure what denomination it is, despite the fact that I've driven past it about 1,578,396 times. A year. Anyway, it has one of those signs out front that they change every week (like the one on the Simpsons), and there's usually some hokey message on it pertaining to the week's focus or sermon or something. I don't really know. But anyway, know what it said today? "Be an organ donor. Give your heart to Jesus." I guess it's a good message, but man, it made me laugh. It's just so...I don't even know. Corny. To each his own, I suppose.

Anyway. In other Susie news, sometimes I really dislike how tall I am. No, ok that's not true. I don't mind my height. I just wish that clothes shopping didn't make me feel like I'm the only girl who's taller than like 5'6. I'm trying to find a new Easter dress, and I'd like it to be below the knee, but not full-length. However, most dresses are either knee-length or just below, or full length. Or shorter, but I'm ignoring those. The thing is, though, the knee-length or just below dresses, on me, fall a good inch or two above my knees. And I happen to find my knees quite unattractive, hence why I want something that covers them. Or it might just be my legs in general. I just don't like skirts or dresses that are above the knee. But man. There are some really cute dresses that would be perfect. Except for the fact that I'm just too tall for them. I can't find a good length dress anywhere, and it's more than a little annoying. Sigh.

Oh yeah, so I read a news story yesterday that made me cringe. Some 17 year old girl lost her dog like a month ago; it just disappeared or something, and she put out fliers and all that. Two weeks or so later, there was a box for her with a note that said something along the lines of "You won, congratulations" on the top. Inside the box? Her missing dog's head. How sick do you have to be to do that? If that happened to me, I don't know how I'd deal with it. That is just completely terrible, horrible, disgusting. Ugh.

The whole family went up to just north of Castle Rock for dinner tonight, at a restaurant called La Dolce Vita, which is obviously an Italian restaurant. Very good, very nice atmosphere, very good service. However, man oh man is it expensive. Average price for an entree was probably around $20, if not more. One of those restaurants. I mean, yeah, it was really good. But I can't go to a place like that and not feel guitly. I was so tempted to get the grilled chicken caesar salad, just because it was the only thing I could get that was under $10. But my mom told me that would be stupid since I can get that pretty much anywhere. (And I'm sure she knew, at least to an extent, my reasoning for wanting to get that. The money thing. Or maybe she didn't. Who knows.) So I pushed aside my absolute hate for spending extravagently (or causing my father to do so), and got one of the regular entrees. And I even somehow allowed myself to get a $10 alcoholic drink (something with malibu rum, banana liqueur, and pineapple and orange flavoring in there too. Tropical something or other; I forget the exact name. Oh, I think it was Tropical Breeze), although Dad did have a hand in pushing me to get one. And I even got dessert too. As did everyone else. But yeah. I don't know how much it all cost, but I don't even want to think about how much it probably did. I just hate spending that much money (I mean, not that I did, but Dad did, and I hate him spending lots of money on stuff), especially on something as stupid as food. It was a good meal, definitely, but was my spinach ravioli really worth $18? I just can't justify it in my head. I had nothing to do with choosing the restaurant, so I can't really feel guilty about any of it, but still. Not cool. Ah well.

Driving home, the stretch between Castle Rock and Colorado Springs, I was thinking and wondering how long it'll be before all that lovely expanse of open land will be gone. How long until it's all built up, industrialized, commercialized. I hate the thought that one day it might be. I hope that it won't, at least not all of it, but I don't know how realistic that is. I love open land. I hate how it seems that people see it, and instead of thinking, ahhh space, they think "Oh good, more room to put another Walgreens/Home Depot/grocery store/restaurant/chunk of cookie cutter houses that are a whole two feet apart from each other." Sigh. I hate development.

The highest projected temperature in the next ten days, as of right now, is 58 degrees next Thursday or so. And it's supposed to be rainy that day too. How am I supposed to go from this week's lovely 60s/70s and sunny weather, back to that? I know, I know, Susie, the lover of cloudy cooler weather, longing for the warm sunny weather of Colorado. What can I say. Everyone has their limit I guess. I mean, it is almost spring. I like my weather to be fitting with the season it is currently. That's the thing. I don't like spring weather in winter (well, not in the heart of winter anyway; once you get to within a few weeks of the next season all bets are off), I don't like summer weather in fall, etc. I will say that the few times we get winter-ish weather in summer is usually pretty fun. But that never happens. (A couple summers ago, it was the first weekend in June and I was on a retreat in Breckenridge and it snowed. That was pretty cool.)

It sure has been nice being home this week. Even if I am feeling stressed already about stuff I have to get done for next week. Man. School would be so much nicer without homework. People with jobs don't have homework. (Ususally.) Homework sucks. That's all there is to it.

Well, guess I should go pack. Sadly not a direct flight tomorrow, but I don't have to drive to Denver (flying out of Colo Spgs), and I don't have to get the bus from Chicago (flying into South Bend), so time-wise it's probably about the same. And it's not like a ridiculously early flight either, actually doesn't leave until like 2:30. So yeah. Anyway. Guess that's it on the spring break posts. Exciting, hasn't it been?

(Oh, and it's just one more until 500 posts. Cool, no?)

Some thoughts

The weather has been lovely. 60s or 70s, sunny, all that wonderfully typical Colorado weather. I'm loving it. And today I reluctantly looked at the weather forecast for ND for next week, and...well, it doesn't look terrible, but nowhere near this nice. Lucky if we hit 50s anytime soon I think. Sigh. I know, I know, I asked for it. Oh well. It's gonna be spring, and even South Bend weather can't ignore that. Ah, I remember Easter break last year, and the following week and such, and everything was gorgeous and had just started fully blooming, and it was sunny, and just wonderful. So hopefully we'll get that again soon out there.

Can't believe spring break is almost over. Kinda feels like I haven't done anything I wanted to do, but I have relaxed a lot, so that's good. I had lofty ideas that I might get some work done on the theo essay I have due in a week, or studying for my FTT exam that'll take place next Friday. I should have known better. Oh well.

So, I sent and got back another email from Reslife (as they hadn't responded to my last one). I asked if they knew yet if I'd be able to get back into Cavanaugh, and if they didn't, when they might. The response? "Not yet, but soon." What the heck does that mean? Soon is such an unhelpful word. Perhaps I should have been more clear, and asked "Will you know before the time period for accepting or declining the housing application, or before the last day to switch an accept to a decline without being penalized?" Argh.

I just heard this news story, people in New York (I think) are trying to ban metal bats in little league baseball because they're more dangerous. Now, I really don't care much either way about this, but seriously. Are people spending their time on this? It's amazing the things people come up with. People never cease to amaze me.

I don't remember what else I was going to say. So, I won't say anything else.

Oh yeah. I'm completely pathetic with this "set aside 15 minutes every day to pray" thing. It's kind of ridiculous, actually. You'd think I were avoiding God. Maybe I am.

Ahh! Too much!

There's too much going on lately for me to keep up with, too much I want to post about here but don't feel like sitting down and taking the time to go through it all.

But now I will. At least, in bits and pieces.

Ok first. Sean Hannity duked it out with a priest on his TV show the other night. The president of Human Life International. Apparently, the priest had written a column after Hannity made a big show of apologizing or whatever because he had inadvertently eaten two bites of a chicken sandwich or something the previous Friday, but then stopped when he realized. So this priest wrote a column saying basically that it didn't compute that Hannity would make such a big deal about eating meat on a Lenten Friday yet on his show, continually preach that birth control is an ok thing. To paraphrase a little. So Hannity invited the priest to talk to him on his show. Which, of course, means that Hannity ended up doing a lot of interrupting, saying the same thing over and over, and talking over the priest so that the priest's points couldn't be made. Basically, Hannity got angry that the priest told him he was preaching something that the Church directly teaches against (birth control), while touting it as ok to the general public. All the while trying to say that he's a faithful Catholic. He was angry that the priest said his faith (or at least belief) was shallow if he believed it is ok to practice (and promote) birth control, and that especially as a Catholic who is fairly high-profile and who puts his Catholicism out there, it is wrong for him to promote it shamelessly. Hannity had a few basic retorts to what the priest said. First, the ol' "judge not lest ye be judged" verse that those who are feeling attacked for doing something they know is wrong often pull out (all the while conveniently ignoring tons of other bible verses that might directly preach against whatever they're trying to sell). Then there was the "Well, there are bigger issues for you to worry about than birth control. What are you doing about the sex scandal? The Church is so corrupt" etc etc. And of course, the "Do you know who I am? Do you know that I was in the seminary? That I studied Latin? That I studied theology?" It was amazing just how worked up he was getting about this thing. I mean, not really worked up, just treating the priest like he treats every single person who is ever on his show who dares to go against what he says. (Because, you know, Sean Hannity is God.)

I did used to listen to Hannity. For like a summer, after I graduated high school. I was kind of into politics back then, and as it was getting heated due to the upcoming presidential race, I liked to keep up with things. Since then, I've definitely cooled on being that into politics. I mean, I like to know what's going on (although usually I kind of fail on that front), but I cannot stand all the backstabbing, lying, general hatred that goes on between people in politics. And Sean Hannity is kind of particularly bad. He is so argumentative, interrupts people all the time lest they perhaps make a valid statement that he might then have to address, and he's just so...I don't know. Stubborn, maybe? Just not my style. So I haven't listened to him in a long time. And while one thing like this doesn't make him a bad person, it definitely brings him down a notch more in my book. I mean, if you're going to do something that's completely and obviously against Catholic teaching, don't go around flaunting yourself as a faithful loyal Catholic. Just don't do it. Apparently yesterday on his radio show, he said something to the effect of "If the Catholic Church doesn't like it, fine, I'll call up [some high-up Protestant preacher whose name I cannot remember at the moment] and join his church." I don't understand why some people have such a hard time handling submitting totally and wholly to the Catholic faith if they profess to be Catholic. I mean, I do, because I've been around loads of people who would fall into this category, but...I don't know. (And I would like to point out here, before people start getting the idea that I somehow think of myself as a perfect Catholic, that I am anything but. I sin just like everyone else. There's a difference, though, between knowingly sinning and refusing to do anything about it, and knowingly sinning and repenting, going to Confession, etc. I trust that the Church, with 2000 years of experience and teaching coming directly from God and Jesus, knows a little bit more than I do about certain things, and thus, even though it may be hard at times to accept, I know I'm better off submitting than rebelling.)

Anyway.

Let's see, what else was there...Hm, oh, well there was something I wanted to write about some viewpoint letters that were in the Observer last week. I guess someone wrote in about...I don't really know, I must have missed the paper that day, but something lamenting pornography in guys' dorms on campus. Possibly referring at least in part to the numerous (and seemingly required) posters of girls wearing next to nothing found in guys' dorm rooms. Anyway, there were some responses to that letter on Friday, and they were ridiculous. There was the one that responded sarcastically, saying that just getting rid of pictures with naked or nearly naked girls wasn't enough to get rid of lust -- he said all pictures, then seeing women themselves can cause lust, and thus there should be a prohibition on allowing any female ever to enter into the line of sight of a male. (And then he said males shouldn't be in the line of sight of other males either, in case one is gay, and then took a jab at the fact that there's not an officially recognized group for gay people at ND.) Another guy took the opportunity to throw in some random thing about how if the Catholic Church really appreciated women's minds along with their bodies, women would be allowed to be priests. I don't know. It just strikes me how determined people are to keep going on doing what they are told is wrong, no matter what. And people seem to get especially defensive with things that are related to sex (ie, birth control, pornography, etc). People so desperately don't want to see that they're inherently evil things that lead primarily to, well, discontent and unhappiness. I was just amazed that guys took the time to write in letters to the editor to respond negatively to someone who had dared question -- or even outright condemn -- the use of pornography and pornographic images. People don't tend to like to think of pornography as that big of a deal. "Who's it hurting?" At the very least, pornography hurts the person who's viewing it; it distorts their images of sex, of women. It deteriorates marriages and relationships. Sure, maybe a poster of a girl sitting all seductively on a beach wearing a bathing suit you can barely see might not be that detrimental. But can't it also get imbedded in the mind of the person who looks at it day in and day out, so that he ends up comparing every woman he sees to that unattainable ideal? (And yeah, the same applies to girls too -- I'm not a fan of seeing posters of half-naked men in dorm rooms either. The only pictures of males I have on my wall are popes, and I'm pretty sure those pictures won't be causing a single person to lust.) I just don't get why those guys who wrote in responses felt the need basically to ridicule the original writer through their sarcastic-toned, grasping-at-straws letters. Well, I mean, I do get it, but I don't.

And then there's the stink being made by some about the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a marine general, saying that he believes homosexual acts to be immoral. (Of course, the headline of the article says that he believes homosexuality to be immoral, but his quotes say homosexual acts. Some people don't seem to notice that there's a difference.) And of course the gay and lesbian groups are demanding an apology for this, for comparing homosexual acts to adultery. Because no one is allowed to say anything negative about homosexual acts. I also just read a thing about how soon, religious schools in Britain may no longer be able to teach that Christian views on sexual morality are objectively true, that they must teach each different viewpoint equally so as not to offend anyone. In a religious school. And apparently a few weeks ago in Massachusetts a ruling passed that will force every student in public school to be taught acceptance and normalization of homosexuality. I just heard about this tonight, and was quite surprised, both that it seems real and that I hadn't heard about it at all before tonight. I mean, I can't believe something like that is required now. What's next? Forcing people to be taught the inherent goodness in incest? bestiality? having sex at age 9?

It's just weird. After hearing Hannity forcefully use the "judge not" thing several times during that exchange, as well as reading it recently in discussions on various topics (but I think primarily birth control, and possibly abortion as well), I'm kind of sick of hearing it. I mean, obviously it's something we should all follow. But like I said before, people seem to remember that one Bible verse conveniently when they don't want to address the real issue at hand. It's like they think it gives a carte blanche, that that one bible verse means people can do whatever they want, and God forbid anyone say anything negative about it. And don't you dare try to quote other bible verses in response. Even if someone's saying something that has nothing to do with judging a person, but is simply explaining a teaching or an idea. If the person who is having that idea explained to him feels threatened by that idea, he'll go into that defensive mode and spout out that verse once again. I mean, we must be tolerant, accepting, open-minded about everything above all. Except when it comes to teachings of the Catholic Church. Those are fair game. Seriously, it's hard for people to explain what the Catholic Church says to the secular world. There's such a stigma against anything that's attached to Catholicism, that makes denouncing it so much easier than accepting it or admitting it might be right. It's ridiculous. It's like, mention the Catholic Church and people think you're crazy for going along with those outdated, intolerant, restrictive rules. And yet those who will preach against the Church teachings won't hesitate to mention that judge not thing.

Oh yeah there's one more thing I've been thinking about lately. The deeply ingrained belief in this country at least that if you go to church, you receive communion. They're one in the same. No one seems to realize anymore that communion isn't our reward for going to Mass. It's not just another part of Mass that everyone does, like standing up here and sitting down there. Eucharist is supposed to be sacred, supposed to be special. It didn't used to be this mass (haha) rush for everyone to go up and receive, regardless of when was the last time they went to confession, or if they have a mortal sin not yet confessed, or any of that. People used to take it more seriously than they do now. (Granted, I'm asserting this as fact but obviously I wasn't alive at that time. Years ago.) Now, no one is really in a position to judge (there's that word again, that dirty word) who is in a proper state to receive Eucharist or not, although in some cases I guess it's allowable for a priest to deny communion to some people who are clearly and obviously acting in ways that fly in the face of what the Church teaches. But I don't know. I think a lot of people just don't realize that there are times when a person just shouldn't receive, or they don't realize that certain things render them to be not in a state to receive. It seems like there's a lot of things about Church teaching that a lot of Catholics don't seem to know. Or they know, and simply don't care, or don't think it applies to them, or think that the Church's rules are stupid anyway. I don't know. I've done it too. Sometimes I don't feel like I should receive Eucharist, like I need to go to confession first. But in part because it's so expected that everyone just go up, I do too because I don't want to draw more attention to myself. Something I should probably work on. (Or I can just try not to sin at all anymore. But that's a bit impossible for me, I think.) Anyway. I don't know. It's just...interesting. I don't know that the "everyone goes" thing is true in all countries. I think it's not. But it's definitely the case here. It's not an if you receive at Mass, it's a when you receive at Mass.

Oh, and how does anyone ever listen to Chris Rock? Pretty unrelated to anything I've said in this post, but I just heard him on a show, and man. Can't take very much of that.

Ok. I'm done now. What a stupid, boring post this was. Sorry about that.

Mmmhmm

I have a new favorite song. "Rockabye, Sweet Baby James." It's really good stuff. So soothing and lovely. Man. I love it. And even more so after I read a little thing about the story behind the song. (Granted, I don't know if it's exactly true or not, but whatever.) And on the new James Taylor CD I got, it's the second song, followed by another favorite, Fire and Rain. Anyway. It's a great song.

Frustration

I'm tempted to give up on this pattern. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, or if the pattern sucks, or if my yarn's just not right for it. But it's just not looking right. I'm 10 rows into the pattern stitch (after doing the first six rows of moss stitch), and it just doesn't look like anything. I mean, it looks like something, but it looks like someone's just knitting random stitches for 125 stitches per row. It doesn't look like a pattern. I keep going, though, hoping that maybe I'll get a few more rows into it and it'll start to come together and look like what it's supposed to. But at some point I might just have to give up, and maybe start over, or maybe abandon this one and find another. Which will be sad, because I do really like this pattern. Sigh. We'll see.

Yay!

Guess what was on my porch when I left the house today? That's right, an Amazon box! My CDs came today! I'm so thrilled. I suspected they might, since last night when I did the track my packages thing on my amazon account, it said that they were in Denver. So, since it doesn't take that long to get from Denver to here, I figured (and hoped) I'd get them today. And I did. And I'm thrilled. Although, the minivan I had to drive around today (complete with advertisement for the repair shop where my car is currently residing, hopefully only until the end of the day today) does not have a CD player. So, while I got the lovely experience of driving around town with my windows down, and being thrilled about it, I was not able to fufill the dream of doing that plus listening to my new CDs. Alas. Tomorrow's another day though.

Yay for new CDs!

Our modern version of slavery

I had read this parallel in other reviews of the movie Amazing Grace, but forgot about it until I was thinking about it this afternoon. People today look back on the history of slavery and think, "How could we ever have thought that, been ok with that?" (we, of course, being the collective we of humans.) So devaluing lives that are clearly human and exactly the same as everyone else. And yet, don't we still do that today? It's just moved to a different group of humans. A group that is utterly and completely defenseless. The unborn. Back when slavery was legal, those who were supportive of it refused to see blacks as people, when clearly they were. Today, when abortion is legal, those who support it often refuse to refer to the unborn as people. It's amazing, in a country where slavery was such a big issue, where it's still quite a sore spot for many, to say the least, that we can still single out a group of people and do the exact same thing to them. Will we, in fifty or a hundred or two hundred years, look back on this period of history and think, "How could they have ever thought that unborn children weren't actually children, weren't people?" I suppose for that to happen, there will have to be another William Wilberforce (or, to be closer to home, Abraham Lincoln I guess) to work tirelessly until abortion is finally made illegal. And there are those who are trying. Even though sometimes it seems quite hopeless. Evils can't go on forever, or so I have to believe. And abortion is truly an evil. What kind of people can we be if we can't even protect those without a voice, those that are the most innocent and helpless? It's times like this that I know I really have to do more for the prolife movement than I do (which, at this point, is basically nothing -- well, aside from prayer at least). I really should get involved in the prolife group at school again. Maybe go one day with some group that goes to abortion clinics to say the rosary. It's like that saying, all that evil needs to succeed is for good people to do nothing. Ok that might be a paraphrase, and I can't remember who it's attributed to, but we've all heard it. And it's true.

Did you know that the number is closing in on 50 million abortions since Roe vs. Wade? Granted, that's according to the National Right to Life Committee, but I don't think their numbers are going to be incredibly skewed. I mean, that's almost 50 million people that have been killed, in this country, in less than 35 years. It's horrid.

This movie was about abolishing slavery in Britain, yes, but it's also about changing the world, changing people to see right versus wrong, to stand up for what is right. Imagine what the world would be like if everyone had the conviction to do what they believed in as much as William Wilberforce did. Obviously we're not all called to be political or social activists like that, but that doesn't mean we have to be apathetic. Apathy is no good. Apathy leads to bad things. Not having strong convictions leads to political leaders that try to court both sides, and end up not standing for anything.

I guess I'll get off my soapbox now. It's just so baffling to me that people can denounce the horrors of slavery while turning a blind eye to the slaughter of millions that is still going on today, legally, right in front of us.

Tomorrow I'm going to the library. I have a book on hold at one, where there is also a copy of An American in Paris. (The movie.) So hopefully I'll get those. Then I would also like to go to the downtown library, as they have, as of right now anyway, copies of Top Hat (the movie we're watching for my FTT screening in a couple weeks, the night Scott Hahn is talking) and The Maltese Falcon. So as I'm planning on going to Katie's tomorrow (ahhh, chiropractic care again!), I'll just swing by there too. Hopefully sooner than later. I also have to go down to a temp agency by Mom's work, where I have to do some paperwork so I can work the like few hours I'll be working at Mom's this week. Anyway. That's my plan for tomorrow. After, of course, sleeping in. But hopefully not too long. I'll probably make sure I'm out of bed by noonish at the latest. Oh, and I want to take advantage of this ridiculously nice weather (I didn't even wear a jacket to church tonight!!! It's so GLORIOUS out!) and take Kebbie for a walk. I hope to take her at least a few days this week. It's so nice out. I'm loving it. I mean, it's supposed to "cool down" to mid to upper 50s by the end of the week. Even that's wonderful to this up north girl.

I just saw this really cute human interest news story. It's a walrus that has this really big attachment to his owner. Pretty much like its owner is his mother. Oh, actually I think the walrus is a girl. Anyway, it's really funny, and was really cute. Animals rock.

I went to the LifeTeen mass tonight with my family. First time I've been to that mass since probably early last summer. I gotta say, I really didn't miss it. I really really try to keep focused on what's important about the Mass, but it's so hard sometimes. The things that go on during that Mass serve only to distract me from praying, etc, and definitely do nothing to help keep me focused on Jesus or praying to him or anything like that. Quite the opposite. I'm sure that's at least in part because of me and because I'm at a place where the kinds of things I find there do distract me, but...they do, and I don't really know what I should do about that. So I don't do anything about it and avoid going to that Mass if at all possible. If it weren't for the fact that my family goes there, and the fact that I do have ties to it and whatnot, I wouldn't have any qualms about leaving and going to another church entirely when I'm home. Like St. Gabriel. I think they started up with the Latin language Mass again, I'm not sure. Or I could just move up to Denver, go to that oh-so-ritually rich Holy Ghost that I love, and work in the John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization. (I kind of just found out this place exists yesterday, but it's the Denver Archdiocesan headquarters and a seminary, and it is GORGEOUS. I fell in love with it just driving by it. And then I went in and it was lovely. Well, I only went in the library they have, as Mom was getting some books for her course, but it was great. They had this really pretty painting up on one of the walls that was Mary and Joseph getting married. At least, that's what I assume it is, because it was obviously two people getting married with a priest or someone there, and the man was putting a ring on the finger of the woman, who was glowing and wearing blue, hence my inferation that it's Mary. Yes I just made up that word. Anyway. I decided I should work there. I don't know what I'd do, but I'd even settle for being a door-watcher. A greeter, if you will. I'm not a fan of Denver, but I'm a fan of that place. And Holy Ghost.)

Yay! There's an Andre Rieu concert just starting on PBS! Great stuff.

My hip hurts. How annoying. How dare it, too. But hey, good news: Even with all the traveling and everything yesterday, with my ridiculously heavy bookbag (mostly heavy because of my laptop and stupidly huge power cord thingy for said laptop) and viomalin, neither my usual shoulder nor back pain flared up at all, that I remember. I guess my body had enough other things to be pained about thanks to my odd sleeping positions in which I'd doze off.

Notre Dame made the NCAA tournament, which is pretty exciting, even though I'm definitely not what one could call a basketball fan. But, I gotta stick with my school in all things, and therefore of course I'm going to be excited when we do well, and make it into tournaments and such, and I'll be equally sad when we suck. Anyway though, we play Winthrop. Whoever that is. I don't know the day or if it'll show here, but I think it's either Thursday or Friday, and at 2:35. Don't know what time zone either though. We shall see. I'd like to watch it if I can here.

Ok, I'm going to end this post because there's something else I'm itching to write about that I'd rather address in a separat post.

Can't deny they're good

Does anyone have the Beatles' Abbey Road album? I quite enjoy three of the songs (at least, actually more) that are on that album, as I recently discovered. (They were all three used in this Chris Bliss juggling routine, which I came across this past week, and which I enjoy watching rather a lot. I forget if I posted this on here or not. If I did, well, too bad, and watch it again because it's awesome. If not, watch it, because it's awesome.) So yeah. I bet probably someone has it. I may put it on my list of CDs to buy, so that next time I buy CDs (let's say...6 months from now?), maybe I'll get it. hehe.

Aw man

Ok, so I'm working on this new knitting project, right? I've got three rows down (go me!), but find myself slightly confused. It starts with this one pattern thing I'm supposed to do, four rows and then it says "repeat these four rows." But then it says "work Moss St 6 rows." So...obviously 6 is not 8, and 8 is divisible by four...Ok I think I'm overthinking this. It just has the "repeat these four rows" because later, once you start the pattern stitch, you have to do the moss stitch at the beginning and end of each row. So I think that's just there for reference for later. Ok. I think I'm good now. Yay. Man, I love knitting.

Go see it

Go see "Amazing Grace." It's a wonderful movie. Very very good. (And, as my mom aptly pointed out afterward, one with a good soundtrack. Well, really what she said was "Let me guess. You want to get the soundtrack." Which had been exactly what I was thinking as we were walking out of the theater. I guess I'm predictable.) May not have all the glitz and glamour and gore of the movie everyone else in the world seems to be watching this weekend (or, at least, a large chunk of the male population), but it sure is a movie that makes you think, in a good way, and doesn't leave you with gratuitous images of bloodied, mangled bodies. No, I shouldn't do that. Sorry. It's good enough on its own legs without me attacking a separate film which, I'll admit, I haven't seen (and hopefully never will see). It's just a good, good movie. I love good movies. Movies with a good message that lean simply on acting, writing, etc to get that message across. Doesn't need a whole lot else. But a good soundtrack certainly doesn't hurt either.

Oh, yeah, the acting? Wonderful. I was quite impressed pretty much with everyone. And I really liked Ioan Gruffudd, who played William Wilberforce (the main character). I just looked at his IMDB thing to see what else he's been in, and he was in Titanic -- a small role, but I remember him, he's the one who leads the boat that goes back to get people out of the water after the ship sinks (and says like "Keep checking them, keep looking!"). Good stuff. Anyway. I just really liked this movie. So...yeah. For whatever that's worth. I really like movies with British people. Americans are so...boring. haha. Anyway. Yeah. (EDIT): Oh, and the very last scene is pretty awesome. Let's just say it invovles a whole bagpipe and band thing playing Amazing Grace. So yeah. That's just great, too. Really quite great actually.

Exhaustion

My extreme sleep deprivation of the past week is causing me to do something I'd rather not do tomorrow. Know what that is? Go to the 5:30pm Mass tomorrow night. The LifeTeen mass. A Mass I don't particularly enjoy. But it's either that or go to the 9:30, and as it's almost midnight here, and as I'm probably still on South Bend time (which means it's almost two), and as I've barely gotten enough sleep the past four or five nights to make two good night's sleep, I'm just going to suck it up and go to the later, more annoying Mass. Ok I guess I shouldn't ever put annoying and Mass in the same sentence like that. Mass is Mass is Mass. But in my mind, there's just some ways Mass is meant to be done, and some ways that deviate a lot or a little from that, and the Holy Apostles Life Teen Mass is one of the latter.

But man, I'm so exhausted. I can barely type. I got yarn today and have been attempting to get my new project started, but my eyes are protesting in pain, and thus I don't think it's a good idea to continue right now. I need to go to sleep, and I need to sleep in as late as possible.

I should've been an archaeologist

3,000 year old town found.

This stuff is so fascinating. Very much so. Anyway. Just thought I'd let you all know, because you should agree, and that's all there is to it.

Weird, how much 3am today can feel like morning, when most days it's still nighttime in my mind...

One more

I watched Free Willy tonight. It was very very cheesy, but quite enjoyable. What can I say, I'm a big fan of stupid kiddie feel-good movies. And, I mean, come on, what's not to love about a whale?

It's so weird being here right now. There's very few people here, and it's weird just sitting here waiting for it to be time to go. Can't wait to get going. I hate the waiting part before I travel. And I hate traveling. But much less so once I get going. There's the first apprehension before getting on the bus, then once I get there and get a seat, I'm ok. Then there's the next apprehension of checking in, making sure bags aren't over the weight limit, making it through security, and getting to the gate on time. And then there's the apprehension of making sure there's a place over my seat to put whatever I have to put in the overhead. After that I'm ok. Possibly partially because I pass out for the better part of the flight. Actually I don't know if that's true. Normally I don't have a watch and thus have absolutely no way to tell how long we've been flying and stuff, so when I do doze, it sometimes makes the flight seem longer because I assume I was sleeping longer than I guess I really was. Hopefully tomorrow I'll read mostly instead of sleeping. I dislike sleeping on the plane; it's so uncomfortable, my neck doesn't appreciate it, and I never put my seat back because I feel bad for whoever's behind me. Stupid, but I can't help it. So I don't do it.

Anyway. I just want to be home.

I guess I'll try sleeping for a little while now...Here's hoping all goes without a hitch.

Book/Movie Meme

Book/Movie Meme: Underline or put an asterisk next to all those books whose movies you have seen. Bold or highlight the ones you've read in a different color.

1. Heidi (Johanna Spyri) *
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) *
3 To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) *
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) *
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) *
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) *
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) *
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) *
9. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
10. Anne of Avonlea (L.M. Montgomery) *
11. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
12. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) *
13 Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
14. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) *
15. Chariots of Fire (Clarence E. MacArtney) *
16. 1984 (Orwell)
17. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) *
18. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
19. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
20. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
21. Quo Vadis (Sienkiewicz)
22. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Victor Hugo)*
23. The Robe (Douglas)
24. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
25. The Story of A Soul (St. Therese)

T-12 hours and counting...

At least, until my travel officially begins. 24 hours from now (well, really 20 hours from now) I'll be home. Or, in Denver anyway. Close enough. I better be home home 24 hours from now. So yeah, I get in at 10 am from Chicago. Pretty early, right? At that point, however, I will have been travling for 8 hours at that point. Crazy. And not altogether fun. But that's ok. At least it's 10am and not 10pm. I mean, unless it was 10 pm tonight. That'd be ok. (And let's keep those prayers going that I don't have any unfortunate happenings regarding my flights and stuff. Especially nothing like last spring break. Remember that? When I got to the airport to find they had cancelled my flight out of Midway, and had no more going out to anywhere near where I wanted to go that day, and I almost had to get a hotel in Chicago and get on a flight the next day, but then the lady finagled me a seat on a flight from Ohare to Boston, then Boston to Denver, causing me to get in on the right day, but about 7 hours later than I had originally planned...yeah that was fun.)

So know what's on my agenda for the rest of the day? I'm going to pack. I'm going to go eat dinner at some point before they close at 7. I'm going to watch Free Willy. Yes, Free Willy. I haven't seen it in YEARS and Bethany has it, and I saw it yesterday and asked her if I could borrow it. So. That'll be exciting. Then hopefully I'll sleep for a little while (although there's a part of me slightly concerned about going to sleep and then missing the bus and my flight and all that. So if I do go to sleep, and I don't see at this point how I can even force myself to stay awake, as in the last 78 hours, I've gotten a total of around -- don't look, Mom -- 11 hours of sleep. And about 8 of those 11 hours were in one night. Yeah. My body's slightly tired and mad at me. Which is also partially why I'm afeared I won't manage to get up when I need to in the morning, which is funny to say because when I'll need to get up is a time that has often been my bedtime...weird). If I do sleep, I'm definitely turning my radio alarm to the annoying beep sound, in addition to having my phone alarm on. Extra security that way that I won't sleep through either or both. Then it's off to the bus stop and the airport. I'm almost tempted just to walk the whole distance by myself, as I did it today (well, to the bookstore), and it wasn't bad. But a) it wasn't at 3:50 in the morning, b) it was fairly warm (it's up to 50 today!!!), c) it's sunny-ish out, and it's supposed to precipitate tonight into tomorrow morning here, and d) I wasn't lugging around a suitcase, in addition to my bookbag. So it'll probably just be better and less stressful for me to call security and get a ride. Much as I prefer not depending on other people for things, in some cases it's worth it.

More later, probably. Nothing else to do tonight, after all.

Music and other such nonsense

People keep telling me to go to pandora.com. Or, I keep hearing people say how awesome it is. I've gone, tried it out, and I'm just not that impressed. First, they seem not to have records of some people I enjoy listening to. The other night, I tried it again (after not having gone there for awhile), and put in James Taylor. I only listened for a few songs before I left or turned of my computer or something, but it seemed to be working out pretty well. Tonight, I went and listened to the James Taylor station again, and it was fine for maybe 6 or 8 or 10 songs, but then it just sort of...stopped. And I've tried going to a different station for one or two songs, then going back to that one, and it'll play one song, but then stop again. I don't understand it. It's stupid.

So is the fact that I have to go to four classes tomorrow. Four. Most people don't have any, or maybe have one or two. I swear, I always manage to get the teachers that refuse to cancel classes the day before break. And two of my classes tomorrow are tutorials, and small. How useful are they going to be when only five people show up? Argh. Plus I obviously don't want to do the work for them. Sigh. It's not fair. Seems like I'd have no negative consequences were I not to go tomorrow, like if I had made a flight for tomorrow afternoon or something. Yet, because I decided to choose the safe path and schedule a flight for Saturday, I have to sit through all of that. Oh well. The good news is, I probably will sleep tomorrow night. No one's going to be around, so all I'll have to do is pack and then I can go to sleep early and wake up at like 2 or 2:30 or something like that. I mean, I'm not going to get a lot of sleep, but I'll probably be able to get at least a few hours. So that's good at least. But man...whine...I really can't stand the thought of even attempting to do that reading. Really, in particular, doing those stupid stupid stupid questions for trads. Ugh. I know, I say it every week. But they seriously do suck. And seem so pointless.

I sent a semi-complaining email to Amazon today about how long it's taking them to ship my order. A few hours later, I got an email saying my order had shipped, and tonight I got one replying to my email that was basically just saying "blah blah it takes longer with free shipping blah blah." Pretty much what I expected them to say, and thus not very helpful. And now the estimated arrival date is the 13th-15th, with the email I got back from them saying the 15th. It better not take that long. That's just ridiculous. I'm really really annoyed about this whole thing. I was really looking forward to having some new music to listen to in my car, which is my favorite place to listen to music. Now, if it does take until the 15th, I might get a whole one day to do that. I'm annoyed. Argh. See, this is what I get for looking forward to specific things. Never fails to disappoint. Well, I guess I shouldn't say never, but still. Sigh.

I'm trying to decide if I should take my violin home with me or not. I think I'd like to so I can get some good practicing in, but do I want to travel with it once again? I don't know. I guess I'll see how I feel with regard to the other stuff I have. I need to remember to call tomorrow night sometime about getting someone from security to drive me to the bus stop. I want to call them tomorrow to make sure that they'll be available when I call Saturday morning, or something like that. I'd rather not just call at 3:30am and find out I have to walk. Not that it'd be the end of the world or anything. But man is that a long walk. Especially with suitcases and such. Actually, it's just as far as the DPAC, and I've walked to and from there a number of times this semester, so I have a sneaking suspicion it might not be as bad as it normally is. Except the addition of a suitcase does make it worse. Plus it'll be really early, and thus probably slightly chilly, and I'm determined not to bring my winter coat with me. I'm just going to layer with sweatshirts and such, things I'll actually have a good chance of wearing when I'm home. (The lowest it'll probably be when I'm there is mid-50s. Definitely not winter coat weather.)

I hope I can become less scatterbrained over break. I feel like I'm all over the place lately. I have a good idea why, and I'm going to try and work on that once I have a minute to breathe. And maybe sleep. And I know, it's all my fault too, I realize that. It still sucks though. Ok sorry.

Variety: the Spice of Life

I got tea tonight. Not exactly a red-letter event, sure, but I branched out. I always go for one of maybe four flavors. Might look at a couple more and consider them before going back to a staple I know I like, because what if I don't like the new one I pick? Tonight, however, I saw a new flavor I've never noticed before. Maybe it's always been there, but I rarely look in the area that it was tonight, so I don't know. But it looked good, so I decided to be daring and try it. Lately there haven't been too many negative consequences when I do things regarding tea, because most of it is rather new for me in that area, and I've found that I do like most tea flavors. But there's still that hesitation to move away from that which I know for sure is pleasing. I couldn't resist tonight. And as soon as I tore open the top of the bag, and hesitantly took a sniff of this new flavor, all I could do was smile. There in the middle of HuddleMart (well, technically it's as far away from the "middle" as you can get in there, but it's definitely not hidden), with no one I knew, I had this goofy smile on my face. I knew I had made a good choice.

Sometimes, much as I hate to deviate from my norm, change is good for me. Sometimes I have to do things a little differently, even just once, just to know that I can, and to know that the world won't go off-kilter simply because I took a left where I normally go straight, so that maybe today I have to take a different path, see different scenery, even just to know it exists. It's not good to be the same every day, exactly the same, never changing in the slightest, never growing at all. Sometimes, even if it's just the excitement of a new flavor of tea, we all have to try something different, before it's too late and we realize that we've lived our whole life seeing the exact same things every single day.

(And for those who are interested, it was some sort of peppermint green tea. Mint teas are good. There's something cleansing about them. I guess similar to vapo-rub. Or a cool crisp March night. Which I was also enjoying on my way back to the dorm tonight.)

Caution: Can't do math

So, I guess probably no one noticed this, but when I wrote in the previous post that I was going on 18 hours and counting without sleep, I was a bit off. It was more like 30 hours and counting. Yeah. When I realized I had done that well after I posted it, I found it highly amusing.

And yes. It's now 1am, and I'm still awake. What can I say, Lost is an addicting TV show, and my friends are watching the first season DVDs which I have never seen. Most of them anyway. Eh, I don't really care about sleep, apparently. Although...I really should get to bed soon. Hm. Because now it's about 39 hours. That's kind of a long time...ick. So, yeah, off to bed I go. At least I don't have to be anywhere until 11am tomorrow. I'm quite tempted to skip Latin all of a sudden. haha. Oh well.

Oh, and amazon says that my CDs are "shipping soon." What the hell? I ordered them four freaking days ago. I mean, the delivery date is still the same as it said originally, but why does it take so long for them to ship it in the first place? How annoying. I want those CDs. :-(


Man I'm so tired.

No way!!!

Hey, so here's a shocker. I'm EXHAUSTED today. All day. Going...18 hours and counting without sleep (aside from the quick dozes I may have gotten in some classes today, you know, those ones where you realize your eyes are probably closed even though you swear they weren't a second ago and you should probably make sure you're awake because you don't have any clue what the prof is saying) will do that to a person. Even if that person is me. I generally am able to function fairly well, if at a slightly slower pace in things like...walking, and...typing and...talking and...thinking. But getting no sleep will certainly mess with one's head. I'm surviving though, and that's the important thing. It's not like I've never done this before. Granted, I've probably never done it and then gone to four classes, then after a short lunch break another class and a particularly tiring violin lesson, but still. Je suis tres fatiguee. Oh well. At least I got the stuff done for today that I needed to get done. I'm really not sure how that Feasts and Seasons essay turned out. I hope it's at least semi-coherent. I'm pretty sure it is, but you never know. I had this awful feeling this morning when I was taking my shower that I'm going to completely bomb it. But then, after that class on my way to the dining hall, I realized that it was done and that the worst part of this week is over, regardless of how those essays turn out, and I was just so happy. It's not cool that it seems like it should be Friday and it's only Wednesday, but you know, these things happen.

I wish I had gotten my ticket home for Friday instead of Saturday. I mean, I'd miss some classes, but I think most of my teachers are going to be pretty understanding about people missing classes. Except maybe my trads teacher. Not sure. But in the rest of them, I think a lot of people will be gone anyway. And my Latin prof moved the quiz we were going to have Friday to the Wednesday after break. Oh well though. Friday night should be nice and relaxing, and it'll be nice to have a little extra time in which to pack. I don't have to stress about it as much.

We may or may not get Papa Johns tonight for dinner. I'm not sure. But it'd be pretty exciting if we do, as I've been craving it sooo badly for awhile now. I love Papa Johns.

Ok my fingers are not obeying my brain, or my brain's not obeying...me, or something's just not connecting, so I'm going to go...do...something else. If I can manage to get a thought of what I want to do to my brain, and then manage to make my brain actually do it...hehe. It's really not as bad as I'm making it sound, but I am quite tired. I read that if you go 17 or 19 hours or something without sleep, it's the equivalent to having a blood alcohol level of somewhere around .05? I don't know if that's true, because 19 hours doesn't seem like that long to go without sleep (although it might depend on when in the day those 19 hours fall). But I am feeling pretty loopy today. haha.

The musings of a procrastinator

Is it Saturday yet?

I sucky suck suck at getting myself to write papers. It's kind of funny, if you think about it, and if it's not late late the night before a paper is due...

Oh sigh. haha. I'm kinda pathetic.

Oh my gosh this week seems like it's been so long already, and it's only Tuesday. My brain isn't on Tuesday though. First, I've been having WEDNESDAY WEDNESDAY WEDNESDAY in my head for a few days now, because tomorrow's the day. The day with the stuff. It's bad. So realizing that today was only Tuesday was always a surprise, every time I remembered. I am so ready for this week to be over. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I can't believe how horrible at this I am. man.

It's interesting how less pressure a paper seems to have when you think of it as "up to 5 pages" instead of "5 or more pages." Because with "up to 5 pages," theoretically, you could have between 4 and 5, and that seems less daunting. Of course, even when you're told a paper should be around 4 pages, somehow you (you being me, obviously) still manage to write 6 pages, and have to cut a sentence or two to keep it from going on to a 7th.

Man I have some high expectations for spring break. I mean, there's so many movies I really want to watch. Homeward Bound (don't laugh, it's an awesome movie), Anne of Green Gables, ...ok I don't know what else, but anything and everything fun and light. And I want to sleep. oh, sleep. And read. I will get the 6th Harry Potter read next week. And I want to see my family. I like my family. And my nephew. He's so fun. Oh, and I guess I'll be working a couple hours for a couple days at my mom's work, helping out someone she works with. I'll get paid for it (and probably $9/hour too!), so that's nice. I mean, not really, but hey it's not like I have plans or friends to see (stupid Colorado schools, having spring break a week or two after us, or being during my break but letting my friends go on like mission trips to Mexico for the week, psh), so I might as well make a little bit of money, right?

oh yeah, I think that FTT paper is not so good. Sadly. But then, I don't really care. It's good enough, I think. I don't know. I guess it might look good when compared to the papers of some of the athletes in that class. (Some kid managed to get like a D or a D- or something like that on our test. I know this because he was sitting in the row in front of me last week, and was talking about it with his friends. I don't even know how that's possible.) Hopefully it's at least worthy of a B. Eh.

It snowed tonight. A bit. I think it still is, actually. And it's supposed to snow tomorrow. And I have turned into one of those people...those people who complain about the cold and the snow. Sigh. Oh well. I'm just going to be terribly excited for the lovely weather it looks like we'll be getting at home next week.

Oh my gosh. I just got the biggest craving for a BLT. Ohhhh man. I want one so badly! Too bad there's no good bacon here, usually. And besides, I'm really craving the kind I have at home, with turkey bacon (yum) on a hamburger bun. Sooooooo good. Mom -- take note. Make sure we have turkey bacon, and make sure that I remember to have it at some point next week. Man, now I'm really hungry. And for that. Geeeeez. I can smell it...wow. What a strong craving. How weird.

Ok so I just made the trek from Cavanaugh to Lewis (and as it's now after parietals, I had to do the long one -- out Lafortune doors, across the parking lot, around Cavanaugh, and in the main doors to Lewis instead of the side door), and it's definitely snowed at least one to two inches tonight. So...yeah. I do enjoy snow, I really do. But I also really like the thought of light jacket weather.

So there's a retreat that happens several times every year, the Notre Dame Encounter. I've wanted to go on one for awhile now, but the two they've had so far this semester either were too soon to the beginning for me even to think about going, or would have been the third weekend in a row that I had something going on all weekend (silent retreat, JPW, and that). The next (and last) one this semester is March 30-April 1, and I had been planning on signing up (which doesn't necessarily mean I'd get to go, depending on how many sign up and how many girls in my class specifically). But...April 1 is Palm Sunday. I happen to love the thing the Basilica does with its Palm Sunday Mass, and I don't want to miss it...so I don't know. Perhaps I'll sign up and see if I even get picked to go. If not, there's always next year.

My cuticles are always horrible the day I have a paper due. I generally tend to pick at them anyway, especially if I'm bored or in an uncomfortable situation, but nights like this when I need to be getting a paper done, it's especially bad. It's kind of like an OCD thing. Very annoying, and all I get out of it are nails that hurt the next day.

hahaha did you know that if you accidentally hit the caps lock when you're typing in Word, and then write a word that's supposed to be capitalized, but obviously with capslock the first letter is the only undercase, Word will correct it for you and turn off caps lock automatically. I find that strangely cool. But then, it's late, and I'm starting to have doubts as to whethere I'm actually going to get this paper done before I have to leave for my first class of the day. Oh, if only I could skip the classes I have before the one in which the paper is due...but he'll probably collect the homework in Latin, as he hasn't for awhile, and I really shouldn't miss FTT. Trads I could probably miss. Our papers aren't even based on class notes or anything anyway, so sometimes it seems pointless to go. But I still do. obviously.


Is it Saturday now?

Yours truly

Dear Amazon,
I placed an order two nights ago. I'm quite looking forward to this shipment. You still have yet to start the shipping process. Please get on that ASAP.

Sincerely,
Waiting Impatiently


Dear South Bend weather,
I realize we've been having quite a love affair the past few months, me and you. But it's never good for any relationship to stay stagnant, so...please, get some new material. Preferably some warmer weather. And perhaps a little less wind.

Love,
Still Yours (even when I might get sick of you sometimes)


Dear Feasts and Seasons take-home,
Please write yourself. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

Affectionately,
Lazy Susan


Dear Miami Vice,
You are a horrible movie and should be ashamed that you exist. Please self-destruct. That is all.

Not gonna miss you,
Fan of Good Movies


Dear Saturday afternoon,
Please be here tomorrow, if you can. I'm not sure I can stand being apart from you for a minute longer, and I'm also not sure I'll be able to stand it if we don't meet in Colorado Springs. So, if you could work on that, it'd be great.

Looking forward to seeing you,
Me

Walking to and from the DPAC tonight in temperatures around 20 or below, but feeling like the single digits, really really really made me want to be at home, where the temps are still projected to be in the 60s as of right now for at least the first few days I'm there. 60s. It's sooooo blissful to think about. The switch has changed in my head, so that I'm most definitely in spring mode. I've hit my limit with cold weather. I'm sick of wearing my winter coat. Even though it was cold today, and tonight, I didn't wear gloves. As a result my hands froze a bit, but I just didn't want to give in. So now I can officially be counted among those who will be relieved once warmer weather moves in for good. Bethany said something about how one of her friends is in Florida this week, and initially I said that no matter what, I really never have any desire to go to Florida. And then a second later, thinking about warm nights in tropical locations, it sounded so relaxing, so nice. Which is bizarre. So anyway. Bring on spring.

Know what's annoying? Knowing you're missing something, but knowing there's nothing you can do about it at the moment. Like, for example, a ring. For some odd reason lately, I've seriously been feeling like I should be wearing my class ring, and might even have a moment of panic when it's not on my hand. And I've never even worn it! And won't, for another two months. It's kinda annoying. Both that I won't have it for two more months and that I for some reason think I do have it, in some part of my brain. Oh well. May will get here soon enough. Probably sooner than I would like, because May means the end of the semester, the beginning of summer, and the imminent arrival of my last year here.

Scott Hahn is giving a talk in two weeks on "The Mystery of Marriage Unveiled." It's for this conference thingy, Vocations and the Universal Call to Holiness. I may want to go to a few of those talks. Definitely the Scott Hahn one, if only just to hear Scott Hahn. Unfortunately, it's on a Monday night, which of course is when I have those lovely film screenings that I absolutely adore. But I'm thinking I might just like rent the movie we're watching that week (Top Hat), and watch it separately. Because how often do I get to hear Scott Hahn give a talk? We'll see.

Know what? I haven't bought a movie soundtrack in quite awhile. Ok, I guess I haven't really bought any CDs in quite awhile. I don't have any of the Harry Potter soundtracks. I should get one (probably the first, or maybe the second -- one of the ones that John Williams did, as they're far superior to the later ones) sometime. And I'd like to get the first and second LOTR soundtracks. I have the third, and it's quite nice, but I want the other ones too. Of course, I won't be buying any more CDs for awhile. I just a purchase, that'll hold me over for at least a few months. Unless I suddenly come into a bunch of money. Like...winning the lottery. That I don't ever play. I should, one of these days, just to do it. I've never played the lottery. Not even when I turned 18 and could (you know, people do stuff when they turn that age just because they can. Like buying cigarettes, which I would never do. Or porn, which I also obviously would never do. I would buy a lottery ticket though, I just haven't. So I should sometime. Just to do it). Anyway. I'm quite excited for those CDs though. Did I mention? hehe. Apparently the estimated arrival date is next Tuesday or Wednesday. Oh well. Good enough I guess. Better than May 1. (Sigh. If I had gone to get it like as soon as I got back here, I'd almost have it already. But alas, I did not. It'll be quite nice to have it once I get it though. I'll appreciate it a lot more, I'm sure. Good stuff. Sorry, I'll stop mentioning it now...)

So we had to watch four avant-garde films in my FTT film screening thing tonight. They were all like 10-15 or so minutes, but she had little power point presentations between each to explain them and stuff. So we ended up getting out of there only 20 minutes or so early. Oh, plus we watched a sort of avant-garde Daffy Duck cartoon after the four movies. That one wasn't bad. But the others were like...what the heck is this? The first two were just really bizarre, just random pictures and stuff interchanging and turning into other things and just really weird. The second two were surreal films, so like they had at least sort of a general plot deal type thing, or at least weren't just random pictures over and over, but they were weird. Apparently they're supposed to be kind of like dreams, and I guess that's true. They didn't make any sense. And one of them had a scene of an eye being sliced open. Kinda gross. My prof is so weird though. After each of the first two, she would describe them with words like "riveting" and "gorgeous" and all these other things. And it was really hilarious after the first when someone clapped sarcastically when it ended (or maybe not sarcastically, but just out of happiness that it was over), and she was like "Oh, I'm so glad some of you really liked it!" I don't know. The music that was in two of them was good, at least. So that's something. Oh well.

So I keep hearing good reviews about the movie Amazing Grace that I mentioned a week or two ago. I think it's playing at Tinseltown and the Chapel Hills Mall movie theater back home, so I'm planning on seeing it over break. Not sure who'll go with me, but I'll find someone. I really want to see it though. I'm a big fan of movies that don't have lots of stuff in them that I don't like. haha. That's a stupid statement. Whatever. I want to see it. And the good thing is, it'll probably not be one of those movies that you can't use like coupons and such on, so hopefully I can manage to go for cheaper than $8. That's always nice. Man I'm so excited to go home and relax. It'll be nice. And I'll literally really not have much to do during the week, because people will be at work and such, and I won't have to. haha. Hopefully I can spend lots of time with sister and that oh-so-cute nephew of mine. I talked to him on the phone today. Well, he said "Hi Susie" and I said hi back, and according to Cathy he got excited, and I kept hearing him say "Hello" (or as close to it as he gets) in the background after that. He's so darn cute. I cannot believe that he's about to turn 2. His birthday is Friday. So weird. I haven't gotten him anything yet. Not sure what I will get him. Hm...oh well, I'll figure out something.

My laptop battery suddenly has a very short lifespan. Before this semester, I could usually get three hours out of it, give or take. Now I'm lucky if I get an hour and a half. I'm not sure why that is. Could it be because, until recently, I've only kept it hooked up to the powercord, so it hasn't had to rely on battery power at all? I don't really know how these things work. Do they eventually start to lose their ability to hold power for very long? It's kinda annoying. I mean, not terribly so, but you know, it'd be nicer to be able to rely on it staying charged for more than a couple hours. Oh well. So much for perhaps using my laptop for whatever when I'm traveling on Saturday. (I've pretty much literally never used my laptop when traveling by plane, so it's not like this would be a big deal for me.) Speaking of that, I'm kind of holding off reading Harry Potter much this week, because A) I really shouldn't be spending time doing that when I have so much else that's a better use of my time, and B) I want to have something to read on Saturday and over spring break. I'm a little more than 200 pages into the 6th book (that's out of...about 650) so it shouldn't take me long to finish when I have nothing else to do. (And I'm sure I won't get much read on Saturday, as if past experiences are any indication I'll spend most of the travel time sleeping. Bus ride to Chicago, plane ride, drive from Denver to CoSpgs. I always feel bad when I fall asleep on that last leg -- and I always do -- because that drive is pretty nice, at least until you hit like Monument, at which point most of the open areas start to disappear and are replaced by the ever-growing cities of Monument and Colorado Springs, which I hate. Oh, and I also feel bad because I'm not very good company for whoever came to pick me up. Especially considering we won't have seen each other for two months. Oh, scratch that, it'll be more like three weeks. hehe. Assuming a parental unit picks me up. And I don't know who else would.) I'm pretty excited about reading Harry over break. Except, then I won't have any more Harry Potter to read until the 7th comes out in July. Unless I reread the first 6 again. But it'd probably make more sense to read LOTR, as I've been attempting to do for the last year or so. Or to finish reading the Chronicles of Narnia series. Anyway. Yeah.

I got two papers back today. Trads and Middle Ages. Bs on both. At first I was a little disappointed, and then I realized I didn't care that much. To be honest, I don't put much effort into my classes, and so I'm ok with not getting As. Plus, I'll graduate just the same with straight Bs as if I had straight As. Sure, I won't have any fancy Latin on my diploma (which would be cool, but it's a little too late to be striving for that at this point), but I'll have my diploma, and that's what matters in the end. And seriously, people are too hung up on getting As. An A used to be reserved for the most exceptional students. Now it's like everyone gets an A, and if you don't there's clearly something wrong with you. That's just stupid. So I'm ok with my Bs. Now, I would most definitely not be ok with a C on something. And a B- would be iffy too. But B? Sure. Plus, it was the first paper in both classes. Who knows, maybe I'll improve. ha. Hey, anything's possible.

Part of the reason I'm getting so sick of wearing my winter coat is the fact that often, when I take it off, I feel like a chicken. It's a down coat, so while it's quite warm and plush, I must deal with the inevitable side effect of some of the feathers escaping and finding new homes on whatever shirt I'm wearing. And a lot of the time I have this slight paranoia that I'm going to have a huge feather sticking out the back of my shirt that I won't notice, and I'll go walking all around the dining hall with it there. Kind of stupid thing to worry about, but I don't like things to be out of order, and a feather on my shirt is definitely something that shouldn't be there.

I hate my blog entries lately. Hm.

I'm doing such a terrible job of trusting God. It's one thing to believe with the rational part of my brain that his will is the best thing, and that I just have to let go and trust that he'll take care of it all, but it's a whole other thing actually to live that belief and not get frustrated when things don't go the way I think they should. It's very hard. And I'm very frustrated. I really have no idea how to let it go and stop worrying about it. I don't know how. I hate this feeling. Especially when I consider the fact that putting things in God's hands doesn't necessarily mean stepping away and not doing anything, and so then I don't know what the heck I'm supposed to do. I'm just really frustrated right now. Both at myself and, surprisingly, at God. I don't tend to get frustrated at God because I just always blame myself for whatever is making me frustrated. But lately I've been realizing that there is a part of me that's frustrated with God. I don't really know what to do about it either, and that's frustrating too. I feel very much like I'm at an impasse, and I'm completely baffled as to what I can do about it to reconcile some of these issues. I mean, obviously, if God just gave me what I wanted I'd be hunky-dory, right? I don't think it quite works that way though. Unfortunately. I mean, sometimes kids get frustrated with their parents for not giving them something, or not letting them do something, but the much wiser parent doesn't give in just because their child is being a pouty, whiny, complaining person, because the parent knows what's better for the child. And I know that God knows so much better than I do what's better for me, and I'm glad that no matter how much pleading I might do, he's not going to give in and give me less than what's best for me. It's just so hard for me. I almost feel like I should pretend that I don't care, and then somehow maybe it'll trick myself or God or someone into thinking that I really don't, when I really still do. And that doesn't really work either, I don't think. I don't know. I'm just frustrated, and I have to figure out how to get past it, because it sucks. I hate being frustrated. Especially when I know it's something that's within me. I guess I just feel so stuck, and it seems impossible to change my mindset so that I can truly let it go. I really don't know how to do that. Any thoughts?

Gah I need to get this dumb essay done. As much as it'll suck having to do all that reading still after Wednesday, it'll be SO nice to be done with essays, for a little while at least. (I have another due Wednesday after break. But I'm trying not to think about that yet.) Essays on movies I didn't like to begin with --> me disliking the movie even more. And thus disliking the essay. It's just all a bad situation. oh well. I'm almost done. Then I can forget about this stupid movie. Until our next test probably. Ugh.

Is it Saturday yet?

I think I may spend my first two days back home sleeping. Here's what I have to do this week: Finish this paper for FTT (which is ridiculously annoying, because...well, it just is. I won't go into all of it, but it sucks). Write my takehome thing for Feasts and Seasons, which I think might suck. I think I know which of the two questions I want to answer, but I have no idea how I'm going to answer it, and it has to be five pages. Not really long, but long enough to be stress-inducing. (How on earth I'm going to write a 15-20 pager later this semester, I have no idea.) So that's what I'll be doing from now until Wednesday, getting those two things done. Hopefully I'll get the FTT paper done tonight. But it's slow going because it sucks. Argh. I'm frustrated. Ok. So then after I get those done, I still have to do the reading for my Trads class, which isn't particularly short unfortunately, and I have to do the reading for Middle Ages. No idea how long that one is. But I have to get that read by Friday because my TA's going to be focusing on discussion a lot more this week than he has the past weeks, so I have to be able to talk about it. Needless to say, I'm a tad stressed. (Oh, and of course there's always Latin too, and we're going to have another quiz Friday unless by some miracle he moves it to Monday or something. Wouldn't that be nice. Monday after spring break, I mean, of course.) And when I get stressed I just get frozen and can't get any of it done. Which is pretty much counter-intuitive, and just perpetuates the cycle even more. Just not a good situation. So I won't be getting any sleep Tuesday night, I won't be getting any sleep Thursday night, and I won't be getting any sleep Friday night. And that one's literally. The other two, I'm sure I can eke out at least two hours (and probably more than that Thursday, but still not much), but seeing as how I have to catch a 4:15 or whatever bus, and I'm going to have to pack after classes Friday and whatnot, I can't really see myself actually going to sleep. I might for an hour or two actually. Depending. We'll see. When I have to leave to travel early in the morning, I usually don't like sleeping because I guess I'm afraid I'll oversleep or whatever. And that would just suck.

I cannot wait until Spring Break. Oh my gosh. It's just hitting me now, really, how nice it'll be to be able to sleep in for a week, do nothing but watch movies and stuff, and just relax. And I finally (FINALLY!!!) managed to hit the "order" button on my amazon shopping cart, so I'll have some new eagerly anticipated CDs to listen to when I get home. I'm not sure when they'll get there, as the shipping takes 5-9 business days according to them (since it's the free shipping for spending at least $25), but hopefully it won't be too long after I get there. I'm pretty excited about my purchases. I feel slightly guilty, as I spent more than $25, but...man I'm so excited. Ok. I got the Celtic Woman CD, the Appalachian Journey CD, 25 Classical Favorites, 25 Romantic Favorites (both of those classical music, obviously, and they look to be some pretty good songs, and both were only $5 each so that's pretty cool), and...James Taylor Best of. Which I'm quite excited about at the moment. I'm so in love with his voice. Seriously, it's wonderful. I'm such a fan. hehe. Ok anyway. I really hope they get there sooner than later. I mean, theoretically I could get it like...Saturday. Monday's probably more realistic. Amazon is usually pretty prompt, though, I think. So we'll be optimistic and hope for Saturday or Monday.

Ok, hours later, I'm feeling slightly (emphasis there) better about the whole thing. I've got the majority of this stupid paper done, and have realized that I was probably including more than I needed to. See, I was thinking, when I saw "segment analysis" that I should include each and every camera shot, lighting arrangement, etc of the whole scene, and try to tie it in with my thesis. Really what I should be doing is taking the shots, lighting, sound, etc that help with my thesis and talking about those. So I've gone through and revamped a little bit and I think it'll turn out ok. But I'd like to get to bed soon so I'm going to finish it tomorrow. I sure better, at least. And I'm feeling a little better about the other paper, although I haven't started that one yet so I'm not sure why. I guess I realized that it's not as overwhelming as I was feeling earlier. So that's good. I did my Latin for tomorrow, of course, and he'll probably collect it since on Friday he said he had been planning on collecting it then but so many people were gone ("because of the weather" psh) so he didn't. Or maybe he had a different reason, I forget. But oh yeah, I forgot to mention, but apparently this last quiz he had a number of people get in the A range somewhere, and then no Bs, and then Cs, Ds, and Fs. (How you get an F on a Latin quiz is beyond me, but whatever.) So if you were in the latter group, he's going to start giving you extra homework that I guess deals with declining things and doing paradigms and whatnot, that you have to turn in. I didn't think I'd be in that group (and I wasn't, I got a 94 and a "well done!" even though 94's not what I would merit a "well done"), but I'm kind of tempted to ask him if I can do the extra stuff too. Just so I can make sure I really do know it. Sometimes I think I just know what I need to for each quiz and then it might fall out of my head. That was definitely the case with Spanish and French and stuff, but especially with Spanish, we only had 3 or 4 tests each semester, and maybe a few quizzes, so I wasn't having as much of a need to keep everything in my head like I have wit Latin and taking quizzes every two weeks or so. But anyway. I probably won't ask him if I can, because that'd be weird. And it would mean extra work. And although Latin is one class that I think I wouldn't mind doing extra work, I'd probably rather not do that.

Oh yeah, I also did the little one page write-up thingy for extra credit for my Middle Ages class. I have absolutely no idea what exactly we were supposed to write for this thing (the syllabus just says "Students may prepare one or two one-page papers describing something significant which they learned on one or both of these visits." There's going to be another of these extra credit opportunities later in the semester. So...yeah, I don't really know what that means. It says that as long as it's obvious we put effort into the assignment, we'll get as much credit as a short answer question on the test. I'm kind of just writing about what I found particularly interesting during the presentation we listened to. Oh well. Whatever.

So I looked at the reading for this week for Middle Ages and Trads. Middle Ages isn't bad, just like 26 pages in our course packet, and it looks at least mildly interesting. Trads, however, is about 80 pages, and interesting or not it's going to suck. Because that's just too much to read, especially when I have two papers to write this week before that. Oh well. I really just have to read enough to formulate two questions (have I mentioned how I hate to do that?) and answer them. And I'm really still not sure I even know that I'm doing that whole thing right. I mean, every week I get a "+" on the top of my paper. Along with a "good" or something along those lines. And he explained on Friday about them, how we can't get below an A- if we turn them all in. On that part of our grade anyway. But then I thought he said something that amounted to +s are a step below checks. Now, is that the way the succession goes? I had been under the impression that checks would be below plusses. I don't know. I may have misheard or misunderstood whatever it is he said. But I guess, really, it doesn't matter, because it's not like I'm going to change how I do it, because I don't really do it a certain way, so I don't even know how I could improve them. Oh well. Whatever. They suck. haha.

Man saturday can't get here soon enough. Although...well, nevermind.

Lately I've been thinking this summer's going to suck. And by lately, I mean, like...today. I don't know. It just seems like there's not going to be anything for me to do at home. I don't know how many of my friends will be around, if any, and probably the only job opportunities I'll have will be crappy retail positions, and then it'll be just me going to a crappy job, coming home and spending all the rest of my time with my parents. I mean, I love them, but...I don't know. Oh, and of course there'll be summer school to look forward to. Which I just remembered. And which limits my options. Damn. I had thought of this awhile back, but then forgot, but I should have applied to do summer study abroad. I just checked and it looks like all the application deadlines were March 1. As in like three days ago. So...yeah. That would have been interesting. I guess probably too expensive though. Oh, well, London doesn't have a deadline and accepts on a rolling basis. I don't really know what that means, because it seems like it'd be pretty popular...Eh I don't know. I guess that's not in the cards.

Sigh.

I should go to bed.

Amusing

When writing a paper for school on a subject I'm not particularly fond of, I'll take whatever amusement I can find. For example, yesterday when working on my Miami Vice paper, I looked up synonyms for the word "happen." One of the choice was "go down." As in, "here's what's going to go down." It really made me laugh, because if I were to put that in a paper for school, I don't think it'd be very much appreciated. Weird.

Hehe, I just thought of that episode of Friends where Joey writes a recommendation for Monica and Chandler for the adoption agency, and he uses the thesaurus on every word:

Monica: Alright, what was this sentence originally?

Joey: Oh, ‘They are warm, nice, people with big hearts’.

Chandler: And that became ‘they are humid prepossessing Homo Sapiens with full sized aortic pumps...?

Joey: Yeah, yeah and hey, I really mean it, dude.

Good stuff, good stuff.

Huh

It's funny how you can be almost 200 pages into a book, and still feel like you just barely started...I guess that's the beauty of Harry Potter books. (Only 139 days until the 7th book, if Bethany's AIM profile is updated and accurate. I'm pretty excited. But clearly nowhere near as excited as her. Haha. But if you're gonna get excited about something, that's a pretty acceptable thing to be excited about, I think.)

Bad Moon Rising

There's a lunar eclipse tonight. I really want to see it (particularly at sunset, when the moon will apparently be red), but unfortunately it's quite cloudy today and I doubt that'll clear up within the next hour. Sadly. Oh well. Looks like those aren't exactly rare. Or, well, at least there's another one this year. Maybe I'll have better luck that day.

So, I wrote out the word "laughter" today, and I could not get over how weirdly spelled that word is. I mean, would any logical person look at that word and think, "Ah yes, that should be pronounced lafter"? Well, aside from the fact that most who know English would because we all know what it is. But seriously. Why the heck is "gh" an "f" in so many words? And why is there a "u" there? Shouldn't that make it be more "lofter" than the way we pronounce it? English is so weird and screwy. Give me Latin any day.

Ok, so after I went to the Library I came back here where you would think I would do some more on my paper. But I can never be productive when I'm here. I don't know what it is. I just get so sucked into my computer. To the Internet, really. And I do anything and everything not to do homework. I don't even want to look at any webpages, but I do because I like to avoid doing what I have to. I suck. Not at everything, and not all the time, but right now, I do. And that's an objective truth, so deal with it.

I keep thinking about how I'm going to have to find another job this summer. I am SO SICK of having to apply a billion places every summer, fill out all those darn applications (I hate filling out applications. Despise it), and get stuck with something I hate. That doesn't pay very well. And now, it'll probably pay barely over minimum wage (because they raised minimum wage, remember). I'm dreading that thought. I may be in a major that's doing something I'm actually very interested in, with classes I enjoy, but those engineers sure do have it made when it comes to money/jobs/internships. Sigh. Anyone wanna give me money this summer? I don't want to think about summer already. But it's inevitable, and I wouldn't be surprised -- in fact I'd bank on it -- if my dad brings up the subject of me finding a job over break.

Psh, people are starting to criticize Pizza Hut's Book-It program because it "promotes bad eating habits" or something like that. Geez. It's just a freaking pizza. I know we did that when I was little, and neither me nor any of my siblings are ridiculously overweight or anything. There's nothing wrong with eating a personal pan pizza every once in awhile.

According to the current 10 day outlook for Colorado Springs, the weather should be in the 60s when I'm home. Did you hear that? 60s. That's like...tank top weather! How bizarre. 60s. Seems far too warm far too soon. I mean, it's attempting to be in the 40s here lately (not really ever making it, but we're optimistic), and might manage it within the next week. But 60s? I don't even have to bring home a winter coat! Heck, at that temperature, who needs a jacket at all? (Now, of course, within the next week the outlook for spring break will suddenly read: "Blizzard in Colorado Springs ALL WEEK LONG. Good going, Susie Oppelt. Why don't you just stay in South Bend where snow's the thing to have, instead of bringing it here to sunny Colorado." Actually, I don't think I'd mind that. It's not like it'd keep me from doing anything important, as long as it didn't keep me from getting there. One of these days I'll get some spring weather. Eventually.)

Last week my little brother (the one in the Army, keep up) IMed me somewhat randomly and asked if I wanted to climb Pikes Peak with him this summer. I tenatively said yes (although...you can't really say anything "tentatively" on IM, because it just doesn't work like that. Try it sometime. Doesn't come across the same as when you're talking verbally, does it?), so...maybe I'll finally do it this year. Of course, I'll probably end up killing myself in the process, unless I start a major workout regimen between now and summer. And let's face it, the chances of that happening are...well, about as good as the chances that I'll see the moon rising red in half an hour. (There's very little chance of that, by the way. In case you missed it.) (And as soon as I typed that, I immediately thought "Oh great, now somehow the snow's going to stop, the clouds will clear up, and I'll see the moon, and then I'll feel obligated to start working out." And I almost deleted that sentence. But then I didn't. Aren't you all lucky?)

I spent a bit of a ridiculous amount of time last night looking up dresses online. I very much want to get a shirtwaist dress, like this one, or this one, except the second one is probably a tad shorter than I like, but I don't know. However, I have no idea how this type of dress would look on me. Sadly. Then I came across this dress, but it's kinda plain. I started looking at dresses because I really want to get a new one for Easter, preferably one that's pink so I can wear this earring/necklace combo thing I got for Christmas. I kinda hate dress shopping, though, as it's hard to find something I like that's long enough.

Well, it's time for dinner soon. We're going out to eat because we feel like it. Good stuff. No idea what I'm doing tonight, the rest of the night. I suppose we shall see...

Time is Luck.

This is the title of the lovely scene I get to do my sequence analysis on for my FTT paper. Which is making me feel like I'm wasting my luck, apparently. I've just spent the last three hours watching, thinking, and writing about it. Let me tell you, that's not a good thing. I mean, at least it's not a scene with any curse words or anything in it. It's just stupid, like the whole movie. Ick. AND, we watched it twice in our tutorial not yesterday but last Friday, but apparently we didn't watch the whole thing that we're supposed to write about. He didn't show all of it to us. And that's just stupid. I wouldn't have even realized that, except I read through these questions that my prof gave us to help us along with the paper, and one of them mentions something about them walking along the beach, but all I had seen in my tutorial was the part that took place in a club. I sent my prof an email and she said, yes, we have to talk about the beach part too. So I went over to the library and watched the WHOLE thing again, pausing copiously, taking notes on anything I might be able to mention. Sucky. I was there like an hour, and the scene is only like 8 minutes long. And here's where my main problem is now: I've already written about two full pages. And then some. And I haven't finished even with the shorter part that I thought was all we had to do. And my prof wants us at least to mention something that each of the questions she gave us addresses, as they're all different aspects of cinematography and whatnot. But there's like 15 questions or something like that, and I don't know how I can adequately mention all of them while trying to keep the paper organized the way my TA told us to do it (sequentially, chronologically through the scene). AND, on top of that, she wants us to compare the scene to one of the first ones of the movie, where they're in another night club. Which doesn't make any sense at all to me, because they're two completely different things, serving two completely different purposes, and it seems like I'm just supposed to throw comparisons to that first one into the paper randomly ("The lighting here highlights ___, whereas the lighting in the scene at the beginning of the film when they're in another club evokes ___"). To me it serves no real purpose, aside from making more work for me. And aside from trying to make me fit all that crap into a four page paper. Four pages isn't that long. Especially if you're me. I don't know. It just seems like there are some unrealistic expectations for this paper. How am I supposed to explain different aspects of the cinematography, like the lighting in this part, the camerawork here, the use of music at that point, and then tie that into why the scene is important to the film as a whole, and then compare it to some other random scene, while making sure I have at least mentioned each of the things that the questions address, all in four teeny pages.

boo to this.

(However, aren't you so proud of me? This thing isn't due until Wednesday, and for all intents and purposes I do have over half of it written! I need to get it done sooner than later though because I have another paper due Wednesday as well. Unfortunately one that might take a little bit more work...But still. I figured out why it is I'm more productive at Lafortune than here. At least, with things that involve me using my computer anyway. It's because I feel like I shouldn't be surfing the internet when I'm around lots of people, because anyone can see my laptop at that point and I just hate having people watch me when I'm reading blogs or whatever. No idea why, really. Maybe it makes me feel like a slacker. Or...I don't know. I mean, it's not like I'm doing anything that'd be potentially embarrassing, like looking at porn or anything like that. But yeah. Whatever it is, I stay on task much better because of it. And that's how I got two full pages done in an hour. Before I realized I should go watch the whole scene. Over the course of another hour. Ick.)

Old, but still funny

One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out a short distance, and reads her book.

Along comes a Game Warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?" "Reading a book," she replies, (thinking, Isn't that obvious?").

"You're in a Restricted Fishing Area," he informs her.

"I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing, I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up." "If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman.

"But I haven't even touched you, " says the game warden.

"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment."

"Have a nice day ma'am," and he left.

MORAL:
Never argue with a woman who reads. It's likely she can also think.

Friday night

The weather today really can't decide what it wants to do. It goes from being all clear to blizzarding within minutes. And then back to clear again. And the snowflakes, while being those huge ones we get a lot, aren't fluffy like I'm expecting and like I'm used to. They're very wet. It's weird. But still cool. Funny that I talked about the impending spring yesterday, and today it's back to winter weather. Although not quite because, aside from the wind, it's really not that cold. Really. Nothing like a month ago, that's for sure. Anyway. At least it's pretty. I'm ok with it. I'd rather have colder weather than hot weather any day, anyway. So yeah.

After class today (and after sitting through all four, 5 hours worth of being away from my room, etc, with a rather annoying headache and nothing medicinal with which to feel better) I took excedrin, then took a nap. I tried reading the rest of the chapter I'm currently reading of Harry Potter, but only read a few pages before I was like, "Hm I think I'd rather just sleep, enjoyable though this book is," and so I put it down and fell asleep. I got a good two hour long nap in, too, and when I woke up when Katherine called to tell me it was dinner time, I felt very refreshed and headache free. It was lovely. Much better than waking up from a nap feeling worse than when you went to sleep. And as I'm sure I've said before, there's almost nothing as nice as the feeling you get when you realize a headache that's been plaguing you most of the day is totally gone. It's a great feeling. I highly recommend it. Even though it requires being in pain first...hm.

Know what I was thinking about at some point today, and I have no idea why? I was wondering, how did songs go from like the classical, 20 minute long per song, or operatic, etc kind of thing, to what we have now, the 3 or 4 minute long directed song. I guess there has always existed the type of song that tells a story (Beowulf, The Song of Roland, etc--two things we've read so far in my Middle Ages class--were supposed to be heard through song, not read). But I don't know. It's interesting. I guess it's not really as interesting as I thought it was earlier, whenever it was that I was thinking about it. Oh well. That's ok.

Speaking of classical music, I found this whole set of "25 ___ Songs" that are CDs of different types of classical music, and they're all like $5. It's pretty cool. I think I might get one of those, if ever I finally do manage to buy those CDs I want to get at amazon. (No, I have not yet done that. I can't decide on the third CD. If I get the Celtic Woman CD, the Appalachian Journey CD, and one of the $5 classical ones, it puts the total at just over $25--which is the lowest limit for free shipping. So that's pretty cool. I might just do that.)

Ok, so it's weird to me that Nick at Nite now features TV shows such as Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Growing Pains, and Full House. Granted, it's been YEARS since I had any exposure to Nick at Nite, and even then it was limited, but it used to be things like I Love Lucy, or The Patty Duke Show, or old shows like that. I mean, even back in the 90s those shows were at least thirty years old. The shows they have now are like 20 years old, at most. It's so weird. Do they not show the really old ones at all anymore? How sad. Although, I do enjoy those 80s shows (even if I can't quite claim nostalgic feelings toward some of them as the 80s aren't exactly a hotbed of memories for me. But Full House I do remember, and Fresh Prince (although I think I mostly saw those on reruns). Man, I want to watch Family Matters. That was some good TV.

Seriously. Tea? AMAZING. Why on earth has it taken me so long to realize this? Is it just the tea we have here that so draws me, and that's why when I have it at home it's nowhere near as good or exciting or delectible? Or have my tastebuds changed in the last two months? I just don't know. But man, this tea is unbelievable. Seriously. Of course, the only two flavors they've had the last few days have been Earl Grey (Gray?) and Celtic Breakfast. I've been going with the Earl Gray and it's good, to my surprise. I should try the Celtic Breakfast. I had it at the beginning of the semester and wasn't terribly impressed, but then I don't think I had this love of tea at that point, so I should probably give it another try. But more preferably they'll get in more boxes of the Northwest Blackberry (seems like they haven't had that for awhile), or the Mango Ceylon (which they did have a few days ago I think), or the Chai Spice Black Tea stuff, which they've had fairly recently. mmmmmmmmm good stuff.

Recently I became aware of a book that I definitely might want to look into getting. It's Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality. From excerpts I've read, it looks really really good.

I don't even know.

Logical /= Correct

(That's supposed to be a "not equal" thingy. There's no equal sign with a slash through it on my keyboard. And my life is poorer for it.)

This morning, when groggily preparing for the day, I both looked outside and checked the weather online to decide what to wear, from shirt down to shoes. It apparently snowed last night, and quite a few inches, but things looked pretty plowed and cleared for the most part, and it seemed that it was going to be sunny as well, so instead of going with boots, I opted for my regular tennis shoes. But it was supposed to be only around 30, with some strong wind, so I went for warmer on top. Kind of. Anyway. As soon as I started walking to class, I realized I had made a few mistakes in judgment. First of all, things were not plowed, and were not cleared. Except, apparently, right in front of my dorm, hence why I figured everything was. I mean, a lot of the sidewalks were, at least somewhat, clear. Kind of. But they were also quite slippery, particularly those that had received at least a cursory plowing. More snow equals more traction. So I had to walk carefully, or walk along the side as much as possible where there was more snow. Secondly, I sort of wished I had gone with a scarf. But it wasn't too bad at that point. Went to Latin, got out, it was kind of sunny-ish looking. Still quite slippery, but it's just something we get used to. Went to the dining hall, ate, etc, got out, and it was almost blizzarding. The walk from South to Debartolo made me really wish I had my scarf. And definitely the boots. I was surprised at how much it had managed to snow while I was eating, despite the fact that I could have sworn it looked like it was getting brighter out (of course, that was just my view using the windows up high on the walls of south that don't really show much). So yeah. Weird. But anyway. Moral of the story, I should have worn the boots, even though I figured it'd only get better as the day went on. Not quite what happened. I just didn't want to deal with the lacing up and then unlacing later. I'm kinda lazy. Especially early in the morning, when I wake up tired and with quite a nice headache. Like I was hungover, without having taken in a drop of alcohol. Ok, I've never been hungover, so I guess I can't really say that as I have no idea what it feels like. Whatever.

Purging my thoughts

I'm really trying to get my homework done in a timely fashion tonight, but seeing as how it's already almost midnight and I'm not exactly close to done, whether that will happen is questionable. But, I find myself here once again, feeling an overwhelming need to empty my brain as I sometimes do. So here's Susie's random thoughts that have built up today. And yes, it'll be very jumpy from subject to subject. Just the way I like it.

I am very excited to go to Katies when I'm home. For awhile now, I've noticed that around my left hip/lower back area, I often feel like it needs to pop, but it's hard to get it to. But it feels very good when I do manage it. My back probably misses chiropractic care more than I realize, and when I remember that I can go when I'm home (just over a week now, how crazy!), I get pretty happy. As for that other back thing that's been plaguing me this semester, it has definitely dropped off both in frequency and in intensity for the most part. Occasionally I'll get some intense minutes, but nothing like that first weekend I really noticed it. So that's good. I'll probably just live with it from here on out, if it doesn't go away completely, because it's definitely not bothering me enough or often enough to merit going to the doctor to get it checked out.

Speaking of things to do when I'm home: I just read tonight that at St. Mary's Cathedral in the Springs, every Wednesday during Lent they're offering 25 minutes of sacred music before the 12:10pm Mass. I may have to go check that out the Wednesday I'm home. If I don't forget. Which is pretty likely. But if I do remember, I doubt it'll be the case that there'll be something else to do that day, since I really have nothing to do when I'm home. None of my friends will be on spring break, and those that are won't be in town (psh, Cathy, going to Mexico to...help people and stuff...what is she thinking?). So yeah. We'll see.

I've been thinking lately how almost bizarre it is that a place that holds such special meaning to me, and has been so important to me and my life, is a place that my parents have visited only a handful of times, and which none of my siblings have even stepped foot. Oh, I guess Peter was with us when we came that first time after junior year. But yeah. It's so weird to me sometimes. And who knows if they'll ever come? I mean, theoretically they'll probably come for graduation, but considering Peter's in the Army, who knows where he'll be at that point, and considering Cathy has her own family now, who knows if she'll be able to come, and who knows what Tom will be doing in a year and a half. It's just interesting. I mean, a lot of people here grew up coming here occasionally, had relatives who came, have siblings who attended or are attending or will attend. I have none of that. I hope my siblings get to come at least once, at least for graduation (although, I'm of the opinion that they should also experience the awesomeness that is a Notre Dame home football game, but whatever). But yeah. Sometimes I'll be doing something random, like eating in the dining hall I know so well, or sitting in a classroom in Debartolo looking out onto the scenery that's so familiar to me, and I realize that none of it is in any way familiar to my family. My parents probably have at least a semi-good idea about where different buildings are situated and whatnot, at least the more major ones, but yeah. It's just weird. Anyway. I'm done now.

I went to confession this afternoon, as I said I was going to try to do. It was, of course, awesome. It's just so amazing when you think about what it is, and what happens when you go. So many people I know say that they hate confession. That idea is so foreign to me. Well, I guess not exactly foreign, as not too long ago I used to dread going--but I still went, usually once a year at least, most years. It is a scary thing, admitting to someone all your faults, your deepest regrets, etc. But...it's so great, too, to feel that elation afterwards, to feel the forgiveness of God, and the peace that comes only from that. And I've discovered that confession is so much nicer when doing it old-school, with the kneeler and the screen instead of what I grew up with, the two chairs facing each other. I've only done the kneeler thing a few times, and I still feel slightly cowardly when I do it, because it does take away a lot of the fear for me (and I guess I associate that feeling of "Oh man he can see me, he knows who I am, etc" with confession in general). But then I realize that it doesn't matter in the slightest. I mean, even when doing the chair thing, priests seem generally to keep their eyes closed anyway. And it's not like they're going to remember me. Although, I never liked going to a priest I knew because I did think he'd remember me and everything I confessed. But anyway, I'm a big fan of the screen, the more anonymous way. Even though I do feel slightly bad saying that. But anyway. It's good stuff either way. Because, in the end, the priest really doesn't matter--at that moment, he's just the person through whom God is speaking to me, so really it's just me and God with a representative of the universal Church to make it...valid, or whatever you want to call it. And it's good stuff.

After doing that, I stayed in the Basilica and prayed for the 15 or 20 minutes that were left before Mass started. It was nice. I love being in there. It's so gorgeous. Have I mentioned? haha. And then Mass was pretty good. The homily was particularly good today. Although at the moment I'm blanking on what it was...something about Lent, and using it to grow closer to God, and not giving up on growing closer to God even if we haven't been very good with Lenten commitments thus far...something like that. Anyway, it was good. Oh yeah! The priest started with a quote from St Augustine (who, incidentally, has quite a few great quotes, including "God loves each of us as if there were only one of us"), which happens to be one of my favorite quotes of him and pretty much of any religious quote, and that is "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee"--obviously talking about God. It has a lot of personal meaning for me, which I won't really go into right now, but I just had to smile when the priest said it. Then he tied it into the Esther reading, the first reading, about how she turned wholly to God, knowing she could do nothing without him, etc. And so the priest tied that into how we have to realize how weak we are without God, and how we can't really expect to be strong in anything without him, etc. Yeah. It was good. That and going to confession made me just really excited for Lent. Well, for Holy Week really. Arguably my favorite week of the year. Such rich liturgy, and you gotta love all those great Masses and such. At least, I do. Especially when I actually am able to comprehend, at least in some incomplete way, just what God did for us, that we celebrate and remember and live during Holy Week. It's unbelievable, really. Hm.

So, I looked up what time my flight next Saturday is and such, and it leaves Ohare at like 8:15. Which means I have to take the bus that leaves here at 4:15 in the morning. haha. How fun. Hopefully getting there at 6:35 will be enough time. Should be, barring some sort of catastrophy between now and then I guess. Usually early morning isn't too crowded. And, good news, I get into Denver at like 10am. That's pretty great, because then I have like all of Saturday mostly. Good stuff.

Can you believe it's March already? Where's the time going? So weird. Only two and a half months left of school. That, my friends, is crazy ridiculous. In the extreme. Ohhhh man. I have to find a job. Ew.

The weather today was interesting. Misty a lot of the day, some drizzle, apparently some rain at some points, but not while I was outside at all. But towards the afternoon it started getting foggy. It was really kind of bizarre. Walking to the Basilica at like 4:50, I could barely see the cross at the top of it because of the fog. And then after Mass and later walking to the dining hall, it was just weird. But very cool. I quite enjoy fog, especially at weird times like the afternoon. I mean, fog at night or in the morning is kind of normal. So yeah. Good stuff. But it's definitely starting to feel like spring, and it's pretty nice that it is. Today was almost warm. Aside from the wind at least. But yeah. I'm pretty excited for spring. Including spring showers. I'm a fan of those.

I just thought of something I didn't mention in confession today. Lately, I've been coveting Katherine's class ring. Ok I guess not technically, since my understanding of that (as a sin, at least), is to have a desire to take something from another person because I want it for me, and that's not exactly the case here. I just really really can't wait to have mine. And I've lately been seeing more silver class rings, and am very glad I didn't get one of those. I just like the gold and blue so much better than the silver and blue. Maybe it's the blue of that particular stone (the ND blue stone most people get), but I'm just glad I got the gold. I just wish I didn't have to wait another two months (TWO months!!!) for it. Sigh. This is why I've been coveting Katherine's. (And for the record, I'd probably do the same with Caitlin's too, as her is virtually identical to Katherine's, but hers is still currently out being resized or whatever. And she's getting annoyed because it's gotten to the latest date they told her it would take, and she still hasn't heard from them, and she wants hers just as badly as I want mine.)

So, know how I spent lots of time trying to memorize all that Latin stuff last night? Well, I unfortunately forgot to study vocab for this latest chapter. I still think I did ok on the quiz, but there's at least one word I'm pretty sure I didn't do right. It was an English to Latin translation, and I couldn't think of the word in Latin. I mean, I kind of know it, but I don't think I did the ending right. Oh well. I think I did well enough at least.

(Everyone's going to roll their eyes at this, but lately I've been more and more annoyed--not really annoyed, just aware I guess--of people using "good" when they should say "well," and saying something along the lines of "bad" when they should say "badly." I sometimes often want to point it out and correct them, but I don't want to be "that person," even though, let's face it, I am. Sigh. I'm such a grammar snob.)

Ok, I think I may have emptied my thoughts for now. Guess I should get back to that stupid Trads reading. I'm really thinking I made a bad decision choosing the teacher I did over the other one. I was going to do the other one, partly because it's a woman and I have like no woman teachers ever (ok, I have one this semester, I usually have at least one), and partly because she seemed to have better reviews, but I think part of the reason I didn't go with her is because something I read about how she's not Catholic or something, and yeah. I kind of wanted to go with a Catholic teacher. Call me close-minded. (I really wish I had a priest as a prof this semester. I had two first semester soph year, and that was awesome, as were they both. Second semester...oh yeah, I had one, and he was great too. John Dunne. Very well-respected guy, and been teaching here over 50 years now. I liked him.) Well, turns out that seems to be a moot point as neither is my prof. So now instead of having the easier teacher, I got the harder one. I was talking to someone today who has her, and she said that they have to answer a question in a paragraph every week on the reading, but--get this--they don't have to come up with it themselves! AND they don't have to do two. AND the other prof is an easier grader. Sigh. I just really really really really really REALLY hate having to come up with and answer my own questions. Sometimes this class just feels like a waste. And this week, the reading is Pascal's Pensees, which I'm sure none of you have ever read (if you've even heard of it). Well, they're very jumbled, half of it isn't even complete sentences, and I'm supposed to read through this thing and manage to think up two questions that I can then answer with the reading. It's so pointless. I'm dreading having to do this next paper because I didn't particularly like any of the readings we had to do for this section. Ugh. Well, if I can help it I'm not even going to think about that paper until St. Patricks Day. Which happens to be the day I get back here after spring break, and hopefully I'll get a good chunk of that paper written over that weekend when most people aren't back yet. But we all know that won't really happen. Man I suck. haha.

Ok, well much as I hate it, I have to do it, so off I go once again.

Oh card services

Who wants to hear my fun adventure for this Thursday night?

If you didn't raise your hand, you're free to leave.

For the rest of you, you're in for a treat. haha. Not really...

So, I had committed myself to doing laundry tonight. It's been needing to be done for awhile now (although I still have a couple days before I run out of underwear, which is my general indicator of DEFINITELY needing to do laundry. Perhaps this makes me a dirty person. I'm not sure, and I don't really care), and I was going to do it today after Latin and didn't, then I was going to do it after work and didn't, and I just wanted to get it done. So. I went down to the basement to see if it was crowded. There were three washing machines open, the same number of loads I had to do. (I had sorted my laundry this morning after Latin, so that part was already done.) I ran back up to the second floor, grabbed my basket and detergent, and walked back down to the basement (slightly worried I'd miss a step and fall forwards down the stairs; that's kind of a fear of mine sometimes, falling face-forward down a flight of stairs. I almost did it a couple weeks ago or a month ago or something. My foot caught on the bottoms of the lounge pants I was wearing, which happen to be HUGE--the bottoms, that is--but I managed to catch myself. It was a bit nerve-wracking thouhg). Put the three loads in the three machines, went to swipe my card so I'd pay with Domer Dollars (not only is it convenient and doesn't require keeping change around, it's also 25 cents cheaper per load when you use them!), and the card swiper thingy said it was offline. And I started to panic. I had very little cash, and could only hope that I had enough at least to pay for the washing machines, and then I could go to the ATM in Lafortune and get some cash there. I had already put in the detergent and stuff, and didn't want to lose three loads' worth of it, otherwise I would have just taken out my clothes and done it later.


So I ran back upstairs, not wanting someone to come trying to do laundry and finding mine seemingly not in use, although I figured if someone saw that, they'd notice my clothes were still dry and thus I was probably not done with the washers yet. But anyway. Found I had only 3 dollar bills, and a dollar in quarters, and fifty cents in other change. I needed $4.50. I didn't know if the washers took anything but quarters, so I went downstairs with what I had, hopeful. Unfortunately it is just quarters, so I put in the money for two of the machines, ran back upstairs, and asked my roommate to borrow a dollar. Luckily she's actually got some cash, so she had a dollar for me. So I took care of that, then I had to go over to Lafun, I took out $30 (just because), and since I didn't want $10 in quarters (we have a machine in the laundry room that gives out quarters and I guess dollar coins for paper money), I bought a tea (65 cents, I'm so addicted, and don't even feel bad about it) so I could get some change. And then the Girl Scout cookies were back, so I bought a box. I'm weak. Oh well. Anyway. So by the time I got back here, it was almost time to go back down and put the stuff in the dryer. Which I did. But all of them were full, however three were done and their owners had not yet come to claim the clothes. I hate doing it, but I took the clothes out of two of them and put them on top of the respective dryers. I mean, the clothes weren't even hot anymore. It really bothers me that people just leave their clothes in machines forever. I'm really diligent when I do my laundry, and I have to make sure that I have enough free time so that I can get my clothes promptly. I don't want other people to take them out for me, and I don't want to keep other people from having the machines they need. I don't know why some people leave their clothes in there forever. Anyway though. So yeah. That was my fun adventure tonight. I'm still waiting for my clothes to finish drying, and I can only hope that they'll be dry after one cycle because, well I guess I have enough to do another run if I have to, but I don't want to spend more money. It seems to be a bit of a crapshoot, though, whether my clothes'll be dry after one cycle or not. The dryers here are not very impressive, methinks. Or maybe I just notice it more when I have to pay for each cycle, unlike at home where I can dry to my heart's content.

Hm.

It'll be nice to have clean laundry, at least. Very nice. But I am slightly annoyed that I had to pay an extra $1.50 this time, and all of it out of my own pocket (all $6.50), because the card swiper thing was offline. Oh well. It's just $1.50.


Edit: So, when I went down to retrieve my laundry from the dryer, I noticed two things. First, the people whose clothes I had removed from the two dryers I used still had not come to pick up said clothes. They were still just chilling there on top of each dryer, sad and forlorn-like. What the heck? Weird people. Get your laundry! I went down there with less than two minutes to go on each machine I was using. I was ready for it. I'm awesome. Haha. Ok anyway. Second thing I noticed, the card swiper was back online again. Argh. That's a little bit irritating. Or a lot irritating. Oh well. It's life. Stuff happens.

Cleaning out the system

I haven't been altogether very good at keeping my Lenten commitment thus far. I mean, I'm keeping the spirit of it pretty well I think, just not the specifics. And it is good, I am noticing a difference, but at the same time I kind of feel like there's a lot of muck in my way at the moment. And it's keeping me from making real headway. And I know very much that I should go to confession, because I really think it'll help. I've been meaning to go for awhile now, and I really have to, but I don't. For whatever reason, I don't. I really want to. I think it'd help with a lot of things, and help me re-center. So I need to do that. If only I could make myself...It really is kind of a scary thing sometimes, if I overthink it. I dread going so much more than I dread being in there and actually doing it. And I feel infinitely better afterwards, to the extent that it makes all that dreading seem like the most ridiculous thing in the world. Maybe today, this afternoon, I'll go. They start offering it at 4:45 I believe. I haven't made it to Mass at all this week either, so that'd probably be really nice to do, go to confession then to Mass. Sounds quite lovely, actually.

Brain freeze

I just spent an insane amount of time studying. For Latin. Latin! Why, you might ask? Well, we have a quiz tomorrow. One of many, but tomorrow's has a new element: Principle parts. Past quizzes haven't required these (other than maybe knowing the infinitive), but we're going to start being quizzed on all of them now, even though we still technically don't know what the other two parts are. I mean, I know what the third is because of last semester, but in this intro class I'm in, we haven't learned it yet. Anyway. (Every verb, or most any, have four principle parts: the present active singular first person form, the infinitive, then the...subjunctive? and the...past participle. So like, for the verb to come, it's venio, venire, veni, ventum. And of course, don't forget to pronounce those Vs like Ws!) So I have been trying to drill them all into my brain all night, basically by rote repetition. I've been going through all 10 chapters so far, writing down the first principle part for each verb we've learned, and then from there doing the other three (or sometimes two or one, depending on the verbs. Some don't have four). Over and over. And as a result I now have a bit of a headache, so I think it's time to stop. I think I know enough to manage another A on the quiz, and that's good enough for me. See, last semester when I took Latin, I didn't really drill those into my head very well, mostly because my prof last time didn't make it much of a priority. Which kind of didn't help once we got to the past tense, as you derive it from the third principle part. I think. I don't know, it was in like the last chapter or two we did last semester, and all that stuff's pretty much a blur for me right now. But anyway. That, and I had to make sure I knew how to decline all the forms for "this/these" and "that/those", as I never did learn that very well last time either. I'm really trying this semester to work harder at Latin, as I really do want to learn it well. And it's a language I'm really getting, so much easier than Spanish or French. Man, I can't believe how little French I know despite taking it four years. I can't believe how little I knew right after I graduated. I was definitely no good at it. Probably partially because I didn't try very hard, I don't think. (I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I occasionally would use translation sites to "help" me with little paragraphs and such I had to write, and thus I tended to lean more on those than on actually knowing the language, and as a result, I sucked at it. Oh, the tangled webs we weave...Ok maybe that's not really applicable here. Whatever.) But as I'm taking Latin purely for fun (and boy is it ever, seriously), I'm really trying hard. So...good stuff.

One result of this studying, however, is that I didn't get done tonight reading I had wanted to get done, or at least mostly done. Stuff I have to do for Friday. And thus I probably won't be going out tomorrow night. Which is probably better anyway, as I probably wouldn't have a great time. I just wanted to try it, but maybe I will another week. Man I can't wait until spring break though. It's not like I've been incredibly stressed with stuff, but it's been enough to keep me from being able to relax much, and it'll be nice not to have to worry about things. Especially as I have two essays due next week (and both on the same day--Wednesday). Our FTT paper was going to be due Monday (after having been moved from this Friday), but seemingly randomly my prof moved it to Wednesday. And my feasts and seasons take home is due Wednesday too. The first is only a 4 pager, definitely not bad, and I really should still pretend it's due Monday and thus get it done this weekend. Otherwise Tuesday night will be beyond horrible. The Feasts and seasons thing is just one essay, up to 5 pages. I'm not sure how it'll be. Hopefully not bad, but I'm not sure. I just have to figure out how to answer the question. We have two from which to choose. So we'll see. And then today he mentioned something about how we should maybe start thinking about paper topics. We have a 10 pager due sometime later in the semester, in April I think, but 10 pages is slightly a lot, and it's a research paper. I think we have to research a feast day of someone or something like that. Oh. Nevermind. It's a 15-20 pager. Ick. That's...that's slightly a horse of a different color. Daaaang. 15 pages...hm. Anyway, it's on something like Feasts of Our Lord, Feasts of Mary, Other Feasts of Saints, or Other (All Souls, Guardian Angels, etc). So yeah. Any ideas? Ick, apparently we have to present the major points of the paper to the class, "at which time an outline of your presentation, a bibliography, and other necessary materials should be distributed to the class." This doesn't sound fun...How'd I miss this at the beginning of the semester? Man. And we have slightly a lot of reading for this class too. Sigh. Oh well. I'll survive somehow. I'm thinking I need to start spending more time somewhere like the library. And, you know...get stuff done. Yeah.

I guess I should go to bed now, as I don't want to be a zombie tomorrow, and it's kinda late. And stuff. And my head's achy from all the tenseness caused by studying and such. Reading wouldn't help much right now, I don't think, and that's all the homework I have, ever. Sigh.