blogging from the starbucks on the ave. funny thing is, within the walls of starbucks, there are 3 available wireless networks, only one of which is starbucks' t-mobile proprietary pay network. so i'm sticking it to the man, and to everyone who thinks you should pay for wi-fi.

just got out of my first sociology section. everyone was really quiet. i hate sections like that, where no one ever says anything... maybe it'll get better as the quarter goes on. there's a girl in there who's a new orleans "displacee" (is that better than refugee?) and we talked for a few minutes about the hurricane and how it caused a diaspora... and the TA said "hundreds, thousands of people... maybe even tens of thousands." try again, blondie, it was hundreds OF thousands.

yeah, my TA in that class is this 5'9 perfectly groomed blonde princeton grad with a ginormous diamond on her left hand. how fucking typical.

bio lecture in an hour... i'll finish my coffee here and then get some teriyaki across the street. mmmm, teriyaki. and then it'll be time for class. whee!

the sounds of hell/school starts tomorrow

there's been the sound of someone playing a recorder very poorly floating through our apartment since i woke up at around 8. i'm guessing this is the doing of a third-grader, because i remember last time i was at my aunt and cousins' house, my little cousin zoe had a recorder and played it poorly. it's one of those things that you do in third grade. but why, for the love of god, has this horrid noise been going on for the last two hours??? it's pretty clear that the person playing the recorder knows no more than two notes, three if you count that god awful sound that a recorder makes if you just blow harder. if i were wearing pants, i might go investigate, and possibly throttle the little bastard. alas, i am pantless.

on another note, i think i'm really going to like this whole not-working thing. i didn't get out of bed until 9:30. my class schedule won't allow me to sleep in that late most days, but for one day it was really nice.

speaking of class schedules:

monday: bio 200 lecture, 12:30-1:20
tuesday: soc 212 lecture, 9:30-11:20, bio 200 lecture, 12:30-1:20, near e 210 lecture, 2:30-4:20, swim conditioning, 6:00-7:00
wednesday: bio 200 lab, 9:00-11:50, bio 200 lecture, 12:30-1:20
thursday: soc 212 lecture, 9:30-11:20, near e 210 lecture, 2:30-4:20, swim conditioning, 6:00-7:00
friday: soc 212 quiz, 10:30-11:20, bio 200 lecture, 12:30-11:20, near e 210 quiz, 2:30-3:20

soc 212 is "evolution and revolution: an introduction to comparative social change".
near e 210 is "introduction to islamic civilization".
bio 200 is intro biology. durrr

oops. changed my mind again.

sassy

avast, ye landlubbers. it be talk like a pirate day. ahoy, yarr, all that good stuff.

so thus begins my last full week of work. classes start next wednesday, the 28th, so i'm calling it quits after this week. well, i'll be coming in on mondays to help out with training and such for a few weeks, but it's not full-time so it doesn't really count.

today at work i laid out my 4 year plan - which turns out to only be a 2 year plan. it seems that i can get all the coursework i need into 7 quarters - so i'll take 10 units next summer, and a full-time load every other quarter - and graduate next winter or spring. well, get my undergrad degree then, as i fully intend to pursue More of the Same and then Pile it Higher and Deeper after i complete my B.S. degree.

edward is obnoxious; i have laundry; i think we're having tortelloni for dinner. not to be confused with tortellini. duh.

i am so punk rock.

i am trinity.

i have a dirty mirror.

fuzzy trees

been awhile. bad blogger.

had a good camping trip this weekend, one in which i got to cuddle with tessa and we saw lots of big trees. no one else would have noticed these big trees if i hadn't pointed them out, see, look there's a big tree. it's helpful to have a biology major along for these kinds of things.

better than big trees, however, were the fuzzy trees.

we went over to the olympic national park, up the elhwa river valley. it's not quite rainforest over there, but we were certainly in a forest, and it did rain a bit. just a bit, one night.

we hiked something like 6 miles on saturday, and boy was that a pain in the ass. we're going to have to get our stamina up before we can do that epic hike i keep talking about. i want to hike up the hoh river valley, all the way up to the glaciers at the base of mount olympus. one day, i want to climb mount olympus. it's only like 8000 feet.

this lake is going away soon. the dam holding it back was built in 1913 and frankly, it looks like it might be time for it to go away. the dam is all cracked and dilapidated-looking. we met an old couple at the lake overlook and they seemed pissed about the idea of taking down the dam. i say, we got a bit overzealous with our whole nature control back when the army corps of engineers was new and mother nature won't put up with our shit forever. so it's better to take down the dam in a controlled way than wait for it to go boom and send huge blocks of concrete down the valley at a hundred miles an hour.

tomorrow is haircut day. stay posted.

i've been pretty pensive recently. mostly because of hurricane katrina, i think. it's weird. i lived outside of NO in '92 - which if you know your hurricane history was the year andrew struck - and i remember it being a pretty wild ride, though it was only a TS when it hit louisiana, not the cat5 hurricane it had been thru florida. but still, having lived there for 2 and almost a half years during my childhood i know the lay of the land, i have many memories of that city and its amazing waterfront aquarium and the french quarter and the superdome and my dad's office off poydras. and now that is all under 15 feet of water and it just seems surreal.

the thing that makes me so mad is the revelation that the feds have red-lighted several projects to improve levees and shifted their focus away from hurricane preparedness. it's all a part of the integration of FEMA into the department of homeland security. and the shifting of all "available" funds to the iraq war. it's absolute, utter bullshit.

not a lot to write about recently, so i haven't. it's been a boring week. i had a fucking cold this week, it was lame. and i'm still hacking up wads of phlegm. earlier today a phlegmwad shot out of my mouth and landed on the couch. i'm sure you wanted to know that.

meh. still no update from school, except i got my transfer credits evaluated (but not for ger's) and i'm officially a resident it seems. not that there was much question about it, i live here.

bleh.

bombshell

wtf.

dept. of stupidity

man, i really hate bureaucratic crap. since i didn't get admitted the first time around, i was delayed by a month in signing up for my stupid summer orientation and registration day, and the next available one for my major is on september 7. that's 3 weeks before classes start. so basically, i can't count on getting the classes i want or need, since they're all already full. if i could register now, i could lurk on the registration page, waiting for someone to drop (or get dropped). but now, even if spots in either of the crucial classes i need open up, i still can't register. this really, really makes me mad. i'm probably going to end up taking a whole lot of bullshit fall quarter if i don't have incredible luck.

i just talked to my boss, too. they are really upset that i'm leaving, but they won't let me stay on in the same position part-time. which sucks. they offered me a part-time mailroom position, but to that i say FUCK NO. been there, done that, won't go near that again. hopefully the office of financial aid will come through saying i'm eligible for work-study soon, so i can pursue one of a few work-study jobs that look cool (most of them involve washing glassware and preparing specimens; one of them involves caring for zebrafish. i'm hoping to get that one). unfortunately, work-study jobs are generally 10-15 hours a week and pay about $10 an hour. which means i'd be bringing home somewhere in the neighborhood of $400-500 a month. which is entirely unacceptable unless i get additional financial aid offsetting my housing costs. bleh. so much rides on the anonymous decisions of faceless bureaucraps right now.

omgwtflol

kitty and kat watch fish.

christopher walken for president in 2008

the ballard beach at sunset on a friday is a happening place.

soybeans and boobies

the great thing about saturdays is that i don't have to get dressed until i want to. i just rolled out of bed (remarkably hungover; i didn't think i had THAT much to drink last night! oh well, it was all free (thanks ross/jason!) so i suppose it's all good) and am now eating tofutti for breakfast, wearing nothing but underwear. i love being a grown-up sometimes.

oh, and for the record: tofutti is a perfectly acceptable ice cream substitute. the texture's a little different - smoother, harder - but it's so creamy and yummy and delicious, and it doesn't give me lactose issues. hooray.

incidentally, i've been boosting my soy/tofu intake, because soy products contain phytoestrogens and are supposed to make your boobs bigger. i'm only on day 5 or 6 of this experiment and i can definitely see results. i should market my diet.

that's right, motherfuckers

if anyone was wondering how to get into the university of washington, here's my advice: when you petition your rejection, tell the admissions people that they are killing small children by not admitting you to the u. it works, really. though i suppose it's less of a stretch for someone who wants to study developmental biology and genetics than it would be for, say, an english major... but details.

suddenly i'm actually proud of myself for getting into college. this was never supposed to be hard. gah.

i will post this on craigslist so god help me

kitten for sale. $5.

ok, not much of a kitten, he's about a year old, black, real purty kitty. not too bright, but he loves to play. went fucking psycho tonight and catapulted (ha ha) himself around the house, peeing on the furniture. yes peeing. maybe spraying. whatever it was it was yellow and smelled of cat. i thought at first that it might be an earthquake - shit was rattling, then it turned into thumps, and crashes, and scrapes, and mrrrrroooowwws, until he must have pissed himself dry. he's been real docile ever since, all cuddly, out of breath... but i'm not fooled. my cat has never been more afraid to approach the litterbox, or the couch, or the bedroom. he has her petrified. poor baby.

so if anyone wants a kitty, let us know. you must be a good home, and have plenty of room for him to romp around. another young male cat would be ideal, but no females.

lilies

i promise, more has been going on than just wallowing in self-pity over my rejection letter. i have a date with an admissions counselor on monday to discuss my application (and, with any luck, bamboozle them into letting me in). and if that fails, then i'll just have to wait until winter, because if i apply to the actual major i want, and write an essay about why i want to do it, and show them my bio 180 grade, there's no way they will turn me down. i'll be like rudy.

edward is hot and annoying in this weather. i'm also out of sake, so i might have to go to the market to retrieve some. i feel like fresh fruit too... perhaps blueberries. mmmmmm.

i've kind of taken over jared's sims game. our sims had a baby who is now a kid. is it weird that the sims brings out my maternal instinct and i very fleetingly find myself wishing i had one? don't worry, i'm not going to have one. not until i've got at least two academic degrees. that's my plan, at least. i almost put the phrase "at least" in those last two sentences a total of four times. i cut it down to two. go me. but whatevs.

speaking of silly little word-shortenings, i got an evite to a fashion industry event that repeatedly refers to "models, photogs and designers." i can hear the girl that sent me the evite saying it, too... "so did you get a photog for this? it was supposed to be tfp..." haha. oh well, i'll probably go, since it's free food and a chance to get boozed up on a thursday night. i need to make some comp cards before then. ergh.

speaking of models, i ran into anna (say it with a long A, not a short one) from the neodandi show on the bus. didn't get to talk to her much since she got on the stop before i got off, but it was cool to see her... odd that we always run into each other. actually, i suppose not, because we live like 7 blocks apart in a neighborhood that is very outdoor friendly. she's pretty cool.

speaking of on the bus, i sat across from an anorexic girl on the way home today. i couldn't stop staring. fortunately she was oblivious, absorbed in her book and her very slowly nibbled baby carrots. this was my inner monologue. "oh god, look at her wrists! holy crap she's hairy. i shouldn't be staring. oh, poor girl. man, watch the self-restraint as she nibbles those carrots. man, i'm lucky i'm not genetically predisposed to anorexia, since there have definitely been times that i've cultivated unhealthy eating habits. wow, her skin looks terrible. look at those calves. i bet she's a runner, too. wow, it sucks to be her." i'm going to hell.

if there were any such thing as hell. ha. instead, i'm going to the market after fresh fruits and sake. mmmmmmm.