Alakazaz!

2008-05-05T21:32:00.001-07:00

Look, I'm lame! . . . but I don't care. xD

2008-05-01T20:23:00.001-07:00

I have a midterm tomorrow so I can't do this now, but expect an examination of the artist Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun sometime soon.

2008-04-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get nostalgic for the earlier days of the internet, when everything was really just first setting off, at least from my point of view. Pages that were so new around the year 2000 are now shells of history floating around on the internet between fancy flash sites and .php and so many others. Don't get me wrong, I think the progress is great, especially since pages nowadays are generally easier on the eyes and clear to navigate. For example, back then, blogging would have been considerably more arduous, especially if I wanted to add special graphics to my page.

Still. I can't be the only who smiles when she remembers things like embedded midi, can I? And HTML before any of its extra add-ons? Even tiled backgrounds.

Ah well. I suppose you can't stay in the same place for ever. But it was glorious while it lasted, wasn't it? So much potential in our hands and we had no idea.

2008-04-08T20:35:00.001-07:00

Blah blah, something something, quack quack.

2008-03-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

donedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedone

with my second quarter at college!

2008-03-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

Since everyone is fascinated by my life, I figured I'd give y'all (um, by which I mean no one) an update on my life. Maybe if I become famous someone will dig this up and talk about it . . . nahhh.

So, let's see. Lately I've decided that sucking as much as I do at geography is shameful for me. It's really important to understanding what's going on in the world, and I have no excuses for not knowing it. Therefore, I've decided to study/improve at it. (Because I'm a dork, in case you didn't catch that.) And, though I'm not terribly surprised, so far I actually love it. I can name all fifty states + capitals, and could place them on a blank map (as long as I didn't actually have to tell you where the capital was, I haven't got that down yet). I can also name all the provinces of Canada. I think this is a pretty good start to understanding the geographical world around me. Next I'm gonna focus in a little on the separate states and get general ideas about them. Did you know Oklahoma has four mountain ranges within its borders? Well, now you do. Nearly pointless trivia FTW!!

Also, I've decided to learn to play the harmonica. So far, 's goin' okay. I'll keep my empty blog updated.

I guess I should probably stop avoiding getting up and eat.

P.S. Daylight Savings Time is so much suck.

2008-03-07T15:56:00.000-08:00

Gods above and below, printing stuff takes a lonnnnnng tiiiiiime. Stupid photo printers, they're like, "We're out of paper. All of us. At the same time. OH ALSO we need new ink. Nao. KTHX." So then everybody ha to wait for the poor lab monitor to fix everything AT ONCE. Now they're supposedly all fixed but geeze, I'm starving, and you're only allowed to eat at this one little table that's all the way over there.

SIGH.

Okay, I think that was enough whining.

FOR. NOW.
*dun dun duuun*

2008-03-04T12:26:00.000-08:00

"I'm watch you," indeed. My goodness, someone needs to make me go to sleep. Except I have historical linguistics next. DAMN.

2000 words attempted

2008-03-02T01:40:00.000-08:00

I've recently decided that if I want to be a writer, I've got to start working on my writing habits, so I'm trying to write somewhere from 1000-2000 words a day. Figure that should set me up to finish the novel I'm working on about three friends split up for college in at least a couple of months. (I realized that it's basically something I have to write as soon as possible, because as I get older, it's not really going to have the same feelings in it.)

Let me tell you, my . . . singular to zero blog reader(s), some things I think about writing. Writing---for me, anyway---is not something that always comes easily. Sure, you have those moments where everything's going beautifully. "Ah!" you think to yourself. "It's all coming together! I see now why they went to the City in the Clouds on the back of a crocodile! Oh, this is just lovely for my character development, their interactions here are wonderful! I'm so happy, I---crap. What happens now?"

It took me kind of a long time to understand what Philip Pullman meant when he said, "There's no such thing as writer's block." I'm not entirely sure I agree with him, but definitely, after writing my first novel (that is still SO satisfying to say.), I get what he meant a lot more than I ever did before. Writing ain't easy, but eventually you've just got to force yourself past the difficult bits.

More often than not, writing is slogging through stuff you're unsure of rather than breezing through perfect scenes. Sometimes you know exactly what to do, but just like everyone else, writers do not produce life's work with a finger snap. (Shocking, I know.) And, though some people might scoff, it's bloody hard work, especially when you hit a wall.

Hitting a wall, as I define it: you either a) don't know what's coming next, b) don't feel like writing this boring part, or c) you just---want the book or story to be written, somehow, all the bits between where you are and the end filled in magically. (Sadly, no dice on that one.) "Writer's block" is a prolonged form of hitting a wall. For me, that's when I just sit at the wall after I hit it, staring bewilderedly at its mossy bricks and moaning about my terrible fate.

For Philip Pullman, there's no writer's block because he forces himself over the wall. He (as he admits freely) of course spends some time "whinging", but after a certain point he just sort of sighs and forces himself to write something. In the end, a lot of writing is about being able to force yourself over those walls. A lot of the time, that means letting yourself write utter crap just to get past it. (If that wasn't so hard, more people would do it.) And it's not something you can just learn to do perfectly. Sooner or later, you're going to hit another wall and have to whine and then push yourself over.

So, writing is like fighting. (Whoohoo similes!) Some days you battle the beast and emerge victorious, brandishing its head---and some days you tumble out of the cave with a dented helmet and a concussion.

Today I battled the beast and came out all right, actaully. I'd say maybe a few scrapes on my armor, and I've only got a few scales to show for my efforts, but hey, I forced myself past a couple hard bits, and that's something.

Um, I'm sure I had some eloquent conclusion to this, but astonishingly enough, my sparkling brilliance begins to diminish at 2AM, sooo, you'll be left without one. Dreadfully sorry, chaps and ladies.

Side note: it's funny when you go back and read over something you hated writing and discover it's not something you hate reading. This is what happened with me and Devon, a character in above-mentioned novel. His voice is hardest for me to get, because it's least like my own florid style, so at first I was like, "BLAARGH. Too plain, but must not embellish." Reading over, it's actually one of my favorit bits, which surprised no one as much as me. Go figure. Still, I'm not convinced he won't prove difficult later. I'm watch you, Dev.

HAY GUYZ

2008-02-18T23:22:00.001-08:00

THIS JUST IN: no one is allowed to use gradients in powerpoint presentations. EVER.

Educations!!

2008-02-04T11:11:00.001-08:00

Today I shall be educating you about the cardigan. (Some people might think this is a ridiculous subject for a blog post, but nobody reads this thing anyway, so I may do as I please. XD Plus if you stick around, there's something awesome at the end of this post.)

The cardigan is a type of knit sweater. It is distinguished from the traditional pullover sweater in that it buttons up the front, whereas pullovers are simply, well, pulled over the head. No buttons involved here, no suh. But what makes the cardigan interesting is that its namesake was a complete and total idiot.

Also known as James Brudenell, the 7th Lord Cardigan completely bollixed up almost everything he attempted to do, except bragging, apparently, which was one of his few skills. He was born in 1797 in England, and went into the military at age 22. In the 1800s, England had a "purchase by commissions" system, which means that any ol' chump could essentially buy a promotion if they had the money. That's exactly what Brudenell did---landing himself as commanding officer of older, more experienced men.

In a vain attempt to assert his authority over these men, he resorted to petty bullying. Oh, good job, Lord C., good job. He actually did such a bad job that he was dismissed from the army. However, in the tradition of the more reprehensible members of the aristocracy, he appealed personally to the king, who then granted him command of the 11th Hussars. Other exploits of his include having a guest arrested for "defying" him---i.e., not knowing about his conventions about dinner and ordering something that Lord Cardigan didn't want at his table---and getting into a duel with a former officer. He was let go by the slightest technicality on that one.

So, after being regaled with Lord Cardigan's various mishaps, you shouldn't be surprised to hear that he was the commander of the Light Cavalry Brigade in the Crimean War.

Historians are uncertain as to what part, if any, he played in orchestrating the actual charge. Wikipedia tells us, "The extent to which Lord Cardigan was to blame is unproven, since he attacked only after expressing his doubts and receiving a direct order in front of the troops from his immediate superior Lord Lucan, Commander of the Cavalry Division. The order had been conveyed by Captain Louis Nolan, who died in the charge, and Cardigan blamed him for passing on the order incorrectly." What they are certain of is that he was not the upstanding commanding officer he should have been in this suicidal charge, which killed about 1 in 7 of his soldiers. Various accounts have him either running away during the battle or retreating before his men.

Moreover, his conduct after the infamous battle is appalling. He missed two battles, and although in the past he had always kept his troops well-equipped, as winter hit the remains of the Light Brigade, food, shelter, clothing, and horse fodder were all running low. Lord C. wrote letters about the deficiencies, and . . . that's it. He could easily have sent a few men to the coast for more supplies, but would not allow any men to leave because "the enemy might stage a surprise attack." As a consequence, many horses died, and the members of the Light Brigade underwent great hardship. Lord C. finally returned to England in 1854, claiming "bad health", though the war was still in motion, and would not end for another two years.

Unfortunately, due to widely held journalistic misconceptions, on his return, he was greatly lauded as the hero-commander of the Light Brigade, and enjoyed a great fan following for a while. (Here's where the sweater comes in---they were modeled, supposedly, after the type of jacket he wore during the war, and a great number were produced and bought.) Lord C. went along with the stories of him as a great commander, bragging about his part in the battle and telling great stories of his bravery. Luckily, when the real soldiers returned from the war, the public opinion about Cardigan changed, as more truthful accounts were made known. Typically, Lord C. just went on pretending he was the great and brave commander of the stories, and remained in command for 11 years, followed by a peaceful retirement.

Ugh. What a complete and total idiot. And to think he got to meet Queen Victoria for his supposedly brave leadership! Blech. Sometimes the public opinion disgusts me.

Oh, I feel I have to give credit to my source---most of this comes from here, though I googled a bit to ensure it wasn't one of those "WIKIPEDIA LIEZZZZ" moments.

Aaaand now, for the greatest thing in the world. SO FUNNY.

A moment of nostalgia . . .

2008-01-31T00:47:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else remember when you actually had to make HTML documents in Notepad? *sigh* Table tags, I miss you.

2008-01-25T22:30:00.001-08:00

Nngyeerrrr.

Notes on various relationships

2008-01-19T20:00:00.001-08:00

Bad boyfriends: girls, money and half-assed apologies do not a loving relationship make.

Great friends: the kind of people you can sit around with, reading "interesting facts", and be completely happy and entertained.

2008-01-16T23:57:00.000-08:00

Update on those gigantic four-hour breaks: I love the fact that I can use the darkroom now because I have a card.

I love the darkroom. I love the darkroom. I don't think I can say this enough---I love the darkroom.

I just can't really even put it into words, why it is that I love it so much. The first time we went in there it was so strange, because everybody was crowded into such a small place. But the actual process, and the creation of---well, it's just something else. Holding in your hands a photo that you put into the chemicals, something that you made entirely with your own two hands---I don't know, watching the image billow up into black and white is like seeing something real and whole transformed into something magical. Modern alchemy.

Of course, I don't know how to do any actual PHOTOGRAPHS yet. I can make photograms, which are created by arranging items on top of light sensitive photo paper, then exposing the paper to light for some amount of time. But I'm pretty much in love with the entire process, and I am dying to learn how to do pictures from negatives. I may be forced to teach myself, but god, the prospect of knowing is exciting.

In other news, the idea of being a museum curator is sounding pretty damn attractive. DAMMIT. WHY CAN'T I LIKE THINGS THAT MAKE MONEY.

Ah well. Perhaps one of my books will become a bestseller and I can laugh in all the faces of, um, the people that mocked me. Which is a short list. So then I'll probably go laugh at Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, because they're hilar. Yeah that's right, I was too lazy, so I shortened it. Bite me! (Don't really. I've been quite clumsy the past couple of days and have quite a few paper cuts to show for it, so I'm in enough pain already.)

Also, damn, I think Andrea is getting me to watch American Idol. Ugh. It's a despicable show but some parts of it are just quite compelling.

2008-01-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

My dear blog, I've been neglecting you. I'm dreadfully sorry. My excuse is that I was taking December off to chiiiill after my intense novel-writing November. I still sort of can't believe that I actually did that. Whooo! One life goal accomplished! Now if only I can finish the damn trilogy, haha.

Let's see, I'm back at school now. It's funny, we settled in pretty quickly, but the homesickness will probably hit me at some point soon. Of course I miss everyone. I especially miss my parents, who are in West Drayton right now. *sigh* I miss London sooo, sooo much. I would love to be there RIGHT NOW.

Buuut Seattle's pretty cool, and I absolutely love my school. I seriously do. It's so beautiful up here, and I missed my libraries. I have got to go to one of them for longer than two minutes soon. I could hit up the library in my gigantic four-hour break tomorrow.

My schedule this quarter's pretty sweet, nice 'n' relaxed. The classes, on the other hand, might be sort of difficult. They're going to be a LOT a LOT a LOT of work. Photo and poetry in the same quarter---what was I thinking?! Well, I know what I was thinking. It's just, I'm a reluctant artist. It's very hard for me to show things to people, but that, in the end, IS why I took these classes: I love both the subjects, and I want to force myself to be more comfortable in putting myself out in the world. We'll see how it goes, eh?

Biggest news lately: I cleared up my closet and below my bed and they are both BEAUTIFUL. It's basically amazing. I still have to clear up my desk, but after that, my areas will be totally clean and wonderful. *happy sigh*

Okay, I should probably try and force myself to go to historical linguistix reading. Wish me luck.

2007-11-29T01:46:00.001-08:00

Um, hi.

I wrote a novel.

In one month.

Oh my god.

nov. 20th

2007-11-20T01:06:00.000-08:00

I've officially written more of this story than anything else in my entire life.

Forty thousand and two words, approx. 73 pages---any way you want to put it, this is more than I've EVER done before.

My closest nanowrimo attempt reached 40,000 words at something like 11PM on the 30th. It was nowhere near the end of the story---I'd barely even gotten to the beginning!---and there was no way I was going to finish it.

And now here I am, ten days from the end of the month and with only ten thousand words left to write, officially.

Of course, just like before, I'm nowhere NEAR the end. I guess old habits die hard. *grin* This also MIGHT have something to do with the fact that I JUST figured out that this story is actually a trilogy, and not one book. (Thanks a lot for giving me the heads up on that one, Siarl! I never expected the Fens to become such a huge part of the story!) This time, though, I really want to finish. And I'm just going to write through the years that will eventually be the second book in maybe five pages, and get to the important bits. I don't have enough time to properly finish it, but I'm going to finish it somehow.

That's going to be the hardest thing for me---I hate cutting things down, and there are so many character relationships I want to develop in that period. But you know what? I'm writing a novel in a month. This is a rough draft, and it's not going to be perfect---so I'm just going to make myself shut up and write at least a bare bones version of the ending. I can edit it later; I will edit it later. But dammit, I am going to finish this thing. This year I am going to do it.

And you know what? I'm completely and totally in love with my story. For once I am writing a story for myself first---and the writing is awful, truly terrible, and filled with dreadful cliches and I'm just itching to sit down with it properly and fix it, but---I'm crazy for this story and I can't wait to find out what happens. And in between all the gross bits there are some beautiful lines and characters that I love beyond reason.

I'm a writer, and for god's sake, nothing I ever do will be perfect---but this imperfection right here feels perfect enough to me, right now, and I'm really happy.

And wasn't THAT a cheesy line. :)

Edit: lolol the first time I typed this I wrote "nothing I ever do will be prefect". Ahaha irony.

NaNoWriMo!

2007-11-06T19:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's that time again!

What time, Zaz? I hear you chant. (Okay, bear with me here, I'm having a good day.)

It's time to try and write a 50,000 word novel in one month again!

Oh yes, I am crazy. My first year of college and WHAT am I doing? Trying to write a novel, during November, which inevitably ends up being the busiest month of my year. Guess what I've got next week? A MIDTERM! YAYYY!

But I love November, I honestly do. It's exciting, somehow. It feels like a month of new beginnings, a time to try things. If I fail, at least I've gone for something, you know? At least I'm not just sitting out my life doing absolutely nothing.

And, for once, I'm ahead of schedule! I want to be cautious about this, but it feels so good to be actually where I wanted to be at this point. 11943 words! I just wanted to be at ten thousand today, and I'm almost at twelve, even though I'm violating the technical rules by working on something I've "started", if 189 words counts as a start. But I'm (obviously) not counting those words towards my final count, and as the reason stated for that rule is "we don't want you starting anything where you're too attached to the characters", I don't really see it as violating it at its heart, since I started without feeling too much attachment to the characters, and they've already changed a bunch of times. Plus, the ideas attached to those 189 words were just things I loved too much not to try. It's something I'm really just writing for myself, and it's making me happy.

Of course, there will be BAD days. This I know; I've learned by now that writing is not something that just happens smoothly and easily (even if it may feel like that right now). There will inevitably be that one day where I break down and go, "all right, that's it, this novel sucks and I am a terrible writer." But this time, instead of trying afterwards to pick it up with brilliance again, I'm going to try and just write some CRAP and get beyond that point and finish.

We'll see what happens, and you, faithful readers of this blog---by which I mean maybe 1.5 people---will get to hear all about it!

So right now I'm just feeling good about it. My character's shifting a bit and I'm having tense problems and it's WAY too wordy, but wonderful things are happening on a very, very small scale. And I have high hopes for finishing this one. Bet you this---it's not even cockiness, but this satisfaction---will come back to bite me in the ass soon enough, but now? I feel good.

2007-10-31T16:51:00.000-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I miss home with all the crazy decorations, today. And Halloween with all my friends.

Just a few random tidbits from today . . .

-Apparently, I yelled out something like "lantern" in my sleep last night. I . . . have no idea where this came from. I do not remember any dreams about lanterns. I didn't think the word lanterns once yesterday. And yet, I work my roommate Elizabeth up this morning at 5 when I yelled "LANTERN!" in my sleep. My mind is obviously a strange, strange place.

-GAH Linguistics midterm. Okay, 88% is a decent score. I guess. Maybe it's the Lowell syndrome in me, but I wanted to do better. ALSO, in grade-point scale, 88% is a 3.3. WTF? 3-point-bloody-three? I miss three questions and I get a three-point-bloody three? GAHHHHH. On the other hand I feel sort of bad for being pissed off about this because Elizabeth got an unfair grade on her essay for sociology because of the curve. (Three-hundred people in her class got between 2.3 and 2.7 because of this stupid curve, which she was above.) But stilllll . . . *whine*

-Even though I was kind of pissed off about this, something made me smile hugely as I was walking to Linguistics lecture (which I came so so close to skipping because I am tired). There were a couple of people waving signs and yelling about Jesus and how God demands that I repent in Red Square this afternoon. While I seriously don't have anything against smart religious people, I do have something against stupid people that yell and tell me someone is DEMANDING I do something I don't agree with, with the implication that my soul is damned to eternal hellfire if I don't, etc. etc. Nevertheless, I wasn't really annoyed so much as "oh, it's the yelling people again; I'm just going to walk over here, not bother them, and tune them out."

Then I noticed that, standing a few feet away from them, there were an equal number of people dressed as pirates, not yelling and calmly holding signs with the Flying Spaghetti Monster on them and passing out pamphlets.

SO awesome. I just have one thing to say: Ramen, my brothers and sisters, Ramen. And also thank you for making me grin so widely.

-I am having a craving for ridiculous turn-of-the-century children's literature. I could not tell you why this is, but I finished Little Lord Fauntleroy last night and now I just want more of the same. I'm such a weirdo.

-I haven't been sleeping well lately.

-It's almost NOVEMBER!!! and I'm excited. Why? Why, nanowrimo.org, my friends . . .

-All I want to do today is write. So I think I shall do that now, instead of doing math homework like a smart person.

2007-10-26T13:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll admit it. I bought more books. But how can I help it? The bookstore is three blocks away. Three. Also, if I go to the bookstore, I can stop by the gyro place on the way back. The delicious gyro place which makes practically the most delicious gyros ever.

I'm sorry, even a saint couldn't resist.

St. Thomas of Aquinas is backing me up on this one.

2007-10-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

My dear blog, I've been neglecting you. In my defense, I was sick and had a midterm in math on Thursday, but I shall vow to attempt to write in you more often. Looking it over, there wasn't that much to say about the Spice Girls, so I'll skip them for now.

I studied a lot for my math midterm, and I don't feel like I got anything wrong, which, I'm sure, is completely untrue. I'm sure I screwed up something. We get them back tomorrow and ahhh I'm going crazy with the desire to know how I did for sure.

Speaking of midterms, I've got another one in linguistics on Monday. Yeeuch. At the moment linguistics is being sort of interesting, but I'm eager to get past learning the mechanics that you have to know, and onto the really interesting stuff. I might not hit that until the upper levels though. I guess we'll see. In any case the midterm will probably not be ridiculously hard, so I'm not extremely worried about that.

Finnish makes me remember that I miss Japanese. I've got to see about taking that next quarter. I miss the cadences spread over my tongue like dyed silk, the precise words spilling out from my mouth. It's funny how much a language can get in your blood. Sometimes all I want to do is rattle things off in Japanese like I used to, though I'm already starting to lose bits of it. I don't want to let that happen, so I'm definitely going to try and take it next quarter. We'll see what happens.

Let's see, what else . . . today I was tired (I'm just at the edge of recovering from my sickness) so I took a nap in between math and linguistics lecture, which was nice. I was feeling a little eh afterwards, but I took my camera with me on a whim, and went shooting after linguistics lecture. My god, I love photography. Writing soothes that part of me that can't stop devouring words, and photography calms the part of me that loves shapes and colors, and can't stop staring at trees. Ashley, one of my figmates, makes fun of me good-naturedly for how much I say, "Look at that, it's beautiful!" I can't help it though; things catch my eye and I want to share them. Photography, I think, is one way of doing that. (Ms. Canepa and Ms. Mitchell would burn me at the stake for saying "I think", but this is my blog so I can do whatever I want. Mwahaha.)

Umm there was one more thing . . . oh yes. A cute boy with a skateboard told me he liked my jacket (the purple velvet blazer from Camden), and that if it didn't "suit me so well", he'd probably try to buy it off me.

Eee. I'll never see him again, but it still made me smile uncontrollably.

2007-10-07T02:57:00.000-07:00

I went to see a midnight showing of Spice World tonight with my roommate Elizabeth and two girls from the fifth floor. It was awesome. Were there hilarious drunk frat people on the bus, you ask? Were there people dressed up at the theatre? Was there a guy drumming on the sidewalk in the rain at 1.30 in the morning? Yes, yes, and yes. All this and more in tomorrow's post---I'm hella tired, and going to sleep now.

2007-10-02T18:07:00.001-07:00

Arrgarrargarrargarrarga bleh bleh bleh. <-- New hit single in Qwerty, I hear. But also how my last few days have been going. This morning I got a visit from my Aunt Flo, so I guess it's not surprising. Ugh. In some ways it's nice to have an excuse to blame the ehness on, but some small peevish part of me wants to shout, "No! I'm in a bad mood because things suck, not because it's that time of the month!" Sigh.

To be fair, not everything sucks, but my math homework does. It takes forever, because I'm trying to get it done ASAP so it's not hanging over my head. Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've done math, so it takes me a while to remember things like the distance formula exist. Or the quadratic formula. It took six tries on one problem before I realized I was getting it wrong because I was squaring improperly. Good job, Zaz.

Also, my TA for math sucks. I feel bad for feeling that way, because he's one of those nervous teachers that want to please you badly, but for whatever reason, can't. He's a tall, rail-thin Chinese man who wears glasses and has that perpetual apprehensive hunch that nervous teachers often get. He has a thick accent, which by itself doesn't mean anything---for example, my Linguistics TA has a thick accent and is incredibly intelligent, passionate about her subject, and (most importantly) eloquent. Coupled with hesitance and a tendency to stop for too-long periods of time to check if we're following him, it's not so great. Basically we went over one part of a semi-complex problem in 40 minutes. I had about three others I had questions on, which it would have been nice to go over. Oh well. Hopefully as the quarter goes on he'll get more confident, because I'm sure he knows his subject well, and he seems very nice, albeit shy. I'm rooting for him to get better! (But I'm too cynical to think he actually will. Sigh.)

I just noticed my Finnish textbook has seagulls on it . . . what? Are seagulls like . . . the national bird of Finland, or that just random? Okay, I just checked wikipedia, and no, Finland and seagulls are not their national bird. There IS, however, a Finnish band called "Damn Seagulls".

Oh, Finland. Your vowels vex me, but you're stealing my heart.

2007-09-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am, trying once again to chronicle my life on teh intarwebs. Hopefully this time I'll be more successful than I was with my livejournal, which basically functioned as a place to whine. This will be . . . er, well, a place to whine, but also a place to write about my life as a college freshman. (Which sounds like a dumb after-school drama. Stupid after-school specials, stealing all my great original phrases for their silly little shows!)

SO! Today the thing I am thinking about the most is how I need to find a different way in which to sit at this desk. It has one of those pull-out second layers, where you can write or do other random stuff. Personally, I've been using it to a) do my precal hw while IMing and b) rest my elbows on as I type at la computadora. But I have recently discovered this is a bad idea, because I think I'm getting bruises on my elbows. Yep, that's right. You think they're called bruises when they're on your elbows? I don't know---in any case, they hurt. Mission of the day: fix this by changing position! (Bruised elbows hurt surprisingly much.)

Other thoughts on today: dammit, I'm being antisocial again. I kind of want to go out and sit in the lounge or something, but ack . . . no. I'm sure everyone thinks I'm a troglodyte for this, especially my roommate's sort-of-not-really-yet-boyfriend-from-across-the-hall, because every time he comes in here, I'm just sitting at my desk, in the same place. He's sure to pass on the word about that creepy curly-haired girl in room 415 who never leaves. Blagh.

Maybe I can muster the social energy to go into the lounge later. *sigh* I miss having friends to do stuff with. This is the part of freshman years I hate: you always have to start right from the beginning. This is, in some ways, a blessing, but also can be really difficult. At the moment it's being really difficult. I just don't feel like doing anything. Maybe I'm just tired.

Oh well, at least I'm going to force myself to go outside today to get my book that is now at Suzzallo's pickup desk. I'll get to see if I want to learn stenography forrealz! I'm excited to see the book! Also, it's grey and rainy outside, which makes me happyyy. Yay rain!