laceblade

Oh, I am done with finals and it feels so nice. I feel so happy right now! I even finished my last final an hour early, so I was able to eat dinner with Antoine, and drop him off at the bus station before he left.

After that, I drove out to Gretchen's house, which is out a ways, in the country-ish. There was some really heavy fog tonight, so dense that I could only see about 30 feet in front of my car. Of course, this meant that I missed my turn (in fact, I missed an entire cemetery that was supposed to be my landmark!) by about 8 miles, but eventually I found Gretchen's house. It's so pretty! I wish that it hadn't been foggy about, because it's surrounded by woods and hills. The inside of the house is beautiful, too! And of course, her room is full of good books. There was a bonfire outside, and hot cider on the stove, and Gretchen's cute dog. I haven't been by a bonfire in a long time, and of course, the company was good as well. As a bonus, I have more Angel to watch when I finish season 1, and the first volume of Brian K. Vaughan's "Y: The Last Man."

And now I am home, and smell pleasantly of bonfire, a smell I haven't smelled in quite some time.

For the interested, Rightstuf.com is having a relatively nice sale on various anime titles. If I don't receive the Fullmetal Alchemist package before Christmas (we open most of our presents on Christmas Eve), I might just buy it for myself. Maybe. At the moment, I'd rather have Princess Tutu and Black Lagoon. Must bide my time and open Christmas presents first!

Anyway, it's off to bed now, so that I can wake up and pack, clean, and leave. I'll be driving with my friend Angela, and hoping that the roads will not be icy. Everyone keeps saying that they will be, but it's 1am and it's still 35 degrees outside....it is supposed to rain tomorrow, but no snow until night, I don't think.

Also! Provided that the person in question lives on the same side of the highway as my parents, I intend to walk when visiting friends, when possible. I easily walk the mile between campus and the Capitol four times a week, not to mention all of the other walking on campus, between bus stops, and to stores. Why is it that once I reach the suburbs, I feel the need to drive everywhere, even if it's only blocks away? Exercise is good for me anyway. So, that's my resolution for break. Walk when possible, and no, I won't accept a ride from you, my high school friends.

1:20ishpm: I notice that today's Wikipedia article of the day is the Heian Palace. My first thought is, "Dude, it looks just like it did in the Otogi Zoshi anime!"

3:10pm: So, I complain to Steph about how I'm done with one final, and have apparently stopped caring about the rest. She advises me: "Well, enjoy the satiating defeat of one class, jackles. Feel its blood dripping from your mouth and watch its children cry tears of indomitable anguish." ADVICE ACCEPTED.

3:12pm: If anyone tries to convince me to go to law school ever again, I'm going to say, "Yeah, I lived with a 1L for one year. Not gonna happen." I remember "Senior Night" towards the end of our high school career. All of the seniors got together for dinner and an award ceremony with our parents. We voted to give each other stupid award like "Most Likely to Succeed" and "Best Writer" and whatever. So, it is announced that Chad won "Most Organized." Although we were sitting at the same table (I think? It's hard to remember these things), I start laughing, very hard and quite loudly. Most parents are clapping and saying, "Ohhhh, that Chad." My mother is saying, "STOP IT, JACQUELINE." Well, it was amusing to me because Chad? Is like, the least organized person I've ever met. Every time I went to his house so that we could leave for school together, from second grade through sophomore year of high school, he'd always be freaking out, looking for a shirt and his homework, and whatever else he needed to get through the day. Chad was a good student and "student leader," and all that other BS that students are supposed to be, but organized? SO LOL.

And this is why law school scares me. Because last night, Chad came upstairs to show me the outline that he would use on the 4-hour final exam this morning. This outline? Is organized. With tabs. The text IS COLOR-CODED. An entire semester's worth of cases and theories, crisply organized in a binder. I give him my Who the hell are you and what did you do with Chad? face, and he taps the open page, which happens to be a color-coded flow-chart with computer-generated arrows. "I made that!" he says. I quietly close the binder and hand it back to him, not sure what to say.

Law school is scary. Just.....WTF.

7:21pm: I'm pretty damn tired.

9:56am: Blahhhhh. So, last night I went to Antoine's because reading for class is better when cuddling on his couch. I received an unexpected Christmas gift from his roommate, The Hammer! The Hammer and his girlfriend are always cooking and baking delicious food, from which Antoine and I shamelessly mooch (well, I lie. I do feel a bit ashamed.). But, The Hammer gave me this really nice cookbook that he says is his favorite. It's very nice, with explanations of how and why things work the way they do, and recommendations for "the supermarket's best" version of mayonnaise, bacon, etc. I'm pretty excited about it, and I know that I could handle some of the things in it: like cookies, or eggs. When I get my own apartment, I expect to be cooking a lot more frequently. I wish I had time to do it now! Maybe over break, I can cook a few new things. I'm sure my mom and sister will go into cardiac arrest upon this discovery.

It even has suggestions on how to make the perfect batch of white rice, which is definitely something I'll be eating before I leave for break. Also, I have a couple of more eggs!

Anyway..I should be productive now. I want to finish (and start) my take-home Medieval Literature final, tidy my room, prepare for a meeting with the Career Advisor, and start studying for my English Lit final, all before two of my cousins come to town and meet me for dinner.

Oh yeah, there was sad news, too. It turns out that Antoine is going to be leaving for Milwaukee (from where he will fly out for Florida, where he's spending Christmas with family) right after my last final on Friday, so I probably won't be able to see him after Thursday, :(

Class is done, work is done, Anime Club is done. It's a weird point in the semester, where I feel ready to move on to the next thing, but I am held back by these exams that I must prepare for and take. While I do just fine at writing papers (although, as I learned this semester, not when I have to write them all in a row and have no preparation time), I am not good at taking tests. So finals week is always a battle of how much studying (and what kind) will be effective. Not to mention a battle of self-esteem.

But. Life has been good for the last couple of days. On Thursday evening, I went with Antoine and a bunch of guys to go see "Blade Runner" at a theater, for its new director's edition cut. Shockingly, the movie makes a lot more sense when a person is awake for the the whole thing.

Friday night, Antoine and I had a good dinner at Vientianne Palace with our friends Creighton and Carolyn, and then spent a good amount of time perusing Borders. I purchased a few Christmas presents, and drooled over things, like this gorgeous new edition of Gone With the Wind. Yes, it is one of my favorite books.

Holy crap, I am so excited for when finals are done. Immediately after my last final, I'll be saying goodbye to Antoine, who's leaving so that he can fly out to Florida the next morning (OMF, I could have spent Christmas in Florida with him and his family, but I decided to go home instead. I expect to regret this decision? We'll see!). After that, I'll go to Gretchen's for a holiday party....with a certain Hugo-award winning author and her Tor editor husband! Bwahahaha, I'm sorry, I just think that that's the coolest thing ever.

Plus, you know, being home and not working for 2 weeks, and then being in Madison but not having class for 2 weeks. At some point, I'll make a list of things I intend to watch (movies, anime, TV) while in GB, so that interested parties can vocalize their wishes.

I found this NY Times article hilarious. It gives sci-fi novel suggestions for all of the presidential candidates. Please note that it is hilarious even if you don't like sci-fi.

Anyway, I'm off to study for a while now. But I will keep this in mind. And it's true.

PSA
Before anyone else has a hernia, I should probably make it known that the Supposed Religious Zealot who left dickish comments in my blog that caused Ryan and I to spew fire is, in fact, Chad. As I'm sure you can surmise, Chad is extremely repentant for his actions, which were not meant to provoke a reaction in any way. He does not find the situation hilarious in any way.


An update on me
I handed in my genocide paper Friday morning before going to work about an hour and a half late. I feel like it's a terrible paper, but I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that standards are slightly lower in a Poli Sci class (as opposed to an English one). Still, if I was grading it, I'd definitely give myself a C. :/

Life got a lot better once I handed it in, though, life instantly improved.

Friday night, my boss had a holiday party at his house, so I brought Antoine to come party with all my co-workers. Alcohol was consumed (but not by me - I am a responsible driver!), discussions were had, revelations made, etc. We also did a secret santa at work. I made an extensive list of cheap things I would appreciate, so as to make myself the easiest person-to-buy-for EVAR. I received some Burt's Bees chap stick and some nice, argyle socks from GAP. PWN.

I was hella tired, though, from being up so late Thursday working on my paper. On Saturday, I relaxed and watched some Buffy, and then went to Anime Club, and then hung out with Antoine. Sunday, we ordered Chinese food for lunch with Chad and watched the Packer game. Thus far, it's been class and work this week. I'm really glad that I took off of work next week for finals. I'll have time to study and square all of my shit away before the break begins.

Kristen gave me the coolest Christmas present ever. It's 5 DVDs worth of Ghost Stories, or rather, investigating awesome places like the Tower of London.

I really need to start buying presents. ;_;


Bitches.
Chad and I have been shoveling and plowing snow like none other. We were out last Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Apparently, it wasn't enough for the woman who knocked on our door yesterday and told Louise that she was going to call the city about the atrocious state of our sidewalks (which, I might add, were much better than many of our neighbors, and certainly better than the shit I have to walk on all over campus!). So, Chad and I spent over an hour outside again, mostly chipping at the ice left at the corner from the plow. I wanted to write smartass messages for this woman with ice, but was persuaded by Chad that this was not advisable. Of course, to bless our hard work, the sky opened up last night and continued throughout the day, so Chad plowed again, but luckily I was able to get home and help scrape and shovel, and get my car moved to the proper side of the street before the sun set.


Plans
Although I just want to watch more Angel (especially after watching an episode over dinner!), I will now read for class and watch "Sicko" for extra credit in my women's studies class. Hopefully, there are not sad stories in it, although I'm thinking there will be. My hormones have gotten the better of me today. I've already cried twice, for absurd reasons both times. I don't need to do it again!

Also, I am running out of Kleenex.

I think this is a sugar crash? Or just the result of not having got enough sleep all week long. I feel really guilty, because I could make this paper be awesome if I had more time. But having all the papers at once met there was no time, or at least, each paper got its own amount of time, but never enough of it. I think I might just shower and go to bed. I did succeed in making lots of notes on things that need to be said. Tomorrow will suck. I had wanted to skip my last class, but I just remembered that she's handing our papers back.....actually, I don't even care. SKIP. I never skip class. This semester has been so weird for me, doing lots of things I never, ever used to do before. I have another class that I have a habit of leaving early, because it's so useless that I can't stand it.

I just want this semester to be over with. And really, I just want school to be over with. Not that the thought of no longer being a student scares me shitless. Not at all.

Everyone keeps linking to this guy's version of Part of Your World, from the Little Mermaid, but I find his "A Whole New World" from Aladdin much more impressive. WTF, I wish I could sing.

Last night, I seemed to follow my typical pattern of falling asleep before doing much effective work on my paper. Which means falling asleep outside my covers, and I swear to God, it must be like, 60 degrees in my room at night. But, it turns out that I should have checked my email last night, because I woke up this morning to find this:

Rather than going on a case-by-case basis, we would like to offer the entire class a 24-hour extension. This means that you would have until this Friday at 1 pm to hand in your paper. You are welcome to hand in the paper at the normal due date, which is in this Thursday’s class. But should you need the extra time—to be used wisely!—you may hand in the papers to me on Friday at my office.

THERE IS A GOD.

Unfortunately, the topic I pick for my paper doesn't fit quite as neatly as I thought it would, but there is no time to change it. Hopefully, it will mean that I have to write a lot more in order to prove the point, filling up more pages. Anyway, I'm going to try to get it handed in tomorrow like I was supposed to because otherwise I'll go crazy, but having extra time in case it's not physically possible makes me feel better.

I used much-needed time to help get rid of 4 inches of snow that fell last evening, but it looks like there are another 3 inches out there right now. Also, WTF, I have to work today, so how the hell am I supposed to get there without my shoes and pants looking like hell? Maybe I'll have to change on arrival. This is crap. I don't have time to plan things like this!

The last 15 hours or so have been exhausting. Anime Club was nice enough. Lovely Complex had some really good episodes, we played Apples to Apples, and Black Lagoon was ridiculously good (and disturbing). People in the Alt.Room watched some Fullmetal Alchemist, and had a pile of games as well.

After that, I went to a couple of bars with my co-workers, to celebrate a friend's birthday. I was pretty tired the whole time, having gotten up early and just watched four hours' worth of anime. Large bars that are packed are creepy. I don't like them. I looked like hell, and I'm not just being all, "I will say that I looked like crap so that you can reassure me of how beautiful I am!" I was dressed for the walk home, so I had a long-sleeved shirt and a hooded sweatshirt on, carrying a bulky coat, and a backpack. My hair was frizzed out, so I had it pulled into a low ponytail, which can make me look pretty masculine. Whatever. Still, when I'm sitting down with a beer and happen to catch the glance of any guy I don't know, I'm met with creepy-as-fuck up-and-down eye movement and a slow smile. How do these guys score with girls? They're not interesting or flirty. It seems like they'll bang anything that moves, which is about the least-attractive thing ever. I understand we all have sex drives, but good God.

After scoring a free beer from a friend, I hung around for a while, and then bundled up and set out for home. The bus schedule really sucks on the weekends. The only buses that run after 11pm are the campus ones, and they are irregular. I didn't want to stand around just hoping, so I walked. It's 2 miles from where I started to my house, and all of the sidewalks and streets were just piles of snow with a layer of wet ice on top. Every time I put weight on a foot, the foot slid about 4 inches, making it really tiring. I talked to Antoine on my phone for the first half of the walk, and then when I got by his house, he came outside and carried my backpack and held my hand for the whole rest of the way to my house. Antoine is the nicest boyfriend ever! I like him! Everyone should appreciate him.

At least I felt better than some of the people we saw outside.... The female half of a drunk couple on the other side of the road fell down on the sidewalk curb, and started hitting her boyfriend when he tried to help her out, and they threw snow at each other. The scariest person I came across was a girl bundled in a coat, scarf, and wearing a backpack, lying on her side in a parking lot just kind of flailing, yelling, "HEATHER!" The bottom kind of dropped out of my stomach as I was like, WTF, should I call the cops or just try to help her up? Then, a girl in a sweatsuit came running across the footbridge that spans Campus Drive and consoled the fallen girl, helping her stand up, and draping her arm across her back so that she could walk. College students are so WTF. Also, alcoholics. I wouldn't be surprised at all if at least 50% of us were seriously alcoholics.

This morning, the snow had turned to a heavy slush. Louise, her boyfriend, and I used shovels and a snow plow to clear the sidewalk and the driveway of the mess. My car had been on the street, and was surrounded by snow. By gunning it forward and backwards a few times, I almost got it free, but then it got pretty hopelessly stuck between piles of sludge. Lots of rubber was burnt trying to get it free, and we were prepared to shovel it out somehow, when a man and his daughter in a truck came by, and offered to use a rope to pull us free. People are so nice! Now my car is on the other side of the street, looking much more car-like, and less like a trapped animal.

I guess it's time to take a shower to warm up and make myself much less disgusting, eat something good for lunch, and use yesterday's library-work to write this damn paper. I'm not worried about this one (although it and tomorrow's stupid discussion presentation will take me all day), but the genocide paper I have due on Thursday is supposed to be 8-10 pages, and that is scary. I'm going to be comparing the Trail of Tears to Armenia, but I have yet to acquire....any sources, whatsoever. ;_;

It's so hard to work when I have Buffy and Angel lying around, along with so much manga. And such a messy room. Seriously, I can barely stand being in here, :(

Knowing what your triggers are doesn't do much if you are powerless to avoid them.


I'm not sure what the purpose of the website bookcrossing.com is. When I receive a book from Bookmooch that has a Bookcrossing sticker in it, I feel bad, because I have no intention of "releasing the book back into the wild." If I didn't want to keep it, I would have used the library.


WHY WILL I ALREADY HAVE GRADUATED IN MAY?!?!

Come to the Croatia Study Abroad Information Session to be held this Thursday, November, 29 from 4:00-5:00 pm in 340 Ingraham.

This four-week (May 26-June 20, 2008) University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty-led international seminar titled Vampires on the Border explores the origins of European "€œvampire plagues"€ which emerged in the areas of intense cultural contact between different civilizations during the 17th and 18th centuries. The course is conducted in Istria, one of the "border zones" which is today located in Croatia, a meeting place of Slavic, Romance and Germanic cultural traditions. Students will be based in Rovinj, a beautiful museum-city on the shores of the Adriatic sea, taking classes in the Italian cultural center located in the 17th century villa.

WANT. ;_;


I keep feeling like I'm losing time. For the last three nights, I'm tooling around, gearing up to get homework done, until suddenly it's 1:00am. WTF. I need to get enough sleep, but I also need to like.....do things? Whatever, I'm going to bed and will hope I have enough time in the morning.

This weekend will be hilarious. I have social happenings occurring tomorrow night, Friday night, and all day Saturday. Annnnnd a paper due Monday and another one due Thursday (neither of which I've started yet). I would feel worse about not spending every waking hour on school if my mental health wasn't affected so much by lack of social interaction. You do what you've gotta do, right?

I'm feeling quite cynical tonight. It's annoying. Makes it hard to get shit done. My room is a mess, and I don't care. Some bastard egged my car yesterday, so I got to enjoy that at 10pm when I went out for gas. Also, my paper is still terrible, but it's complete enough that I'll be able to tidy it up and print it in the morning. Too bad my thesis sucks. At least it's done. I should have taken tomorrow off from work so that I could actually have time to clean, pack, and tie up loose ends before going home. :/ Hopefully I'll at least get some homework done at work tomorrow.

~Complete shift in mood is due to having written the rest of this entry hours ago~

Holy crap, it's almost time for Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving Day will be pretty lol. Antoine (a native of Flint, MI) has told me that he intends to cheer for the Detroit Lions. My family lives in Green Bay. Antoine thinks that this will be hilarious. I think that Antoine really doesn't understand what he's doing. I hope my boyfriend will survive this holiday!

Manga inspires scholarship
I'm now working on volume 2 of the Cantarella manga, and I am so in love! The main character is Cesare Borgia, the subject of Machiavelli's "The Prince." In fact, Machiavelli is a character in the manga! So awesome! So far, I am a fan of Cesare and his sister, Lucrezia. Today, I stopped at Memorial Library and picked up 3 books on the two of them. Not that I'll have any time to read them, but....I'll probably do it anyway, forgoing homework.

Clamp School Detectives, vol. 1-3 (no spoilers)
But today is not the day to blog about Cantarella! Instead, I will blog about the 3-volume manga series, "Clamp School Detectives," by (you guessed it!) CLAMP. Nokoru, Souh, and Akira are elementary school kids at Clamp School, a virtual self-sufficient city of itself. Students at the school range from kindergarten all the way through graduate school. Our heroes make up the Student Board for the elementary school. Each student board has complete control over its students, trumping the PTA, teachers, and the headmaster. What kind of boys does it take to have so much responsibility? Well, I'm glad you asked! Take Nokoru - he is only in fifth grade, but he is so intelligent that he has already been scouted by NASA! Not only that, but he is so attractive that girls at every age level are in love with him and his two cohorts. Not only THAT, but he is filthy rich.

Nokoru's fangirls: Can we take a picture of you?!
Random Girl: I want to put it in my locker!
Random Girl 2: I want to frame mine for my bedroom wall!
Random Girl 3: Me, too!
Random Girl 4: And Me!
Nokoru (surrounded by shojo bubbles and flower petals): Of course. *poses*
Random Girl 3: I'm so happy! I'll treasure this forever, Nokoru-sama!
Nokoru: I'm happy to be of service.
Random Girl 4: Who'd have thought a third grader could be such a gentleman?

Who'd have thought, indeed. Yes, welcome to shojo manga. In addition to their student government duties, the three boys form a detective agency, given that Nokoru has the ability to locate any "damsel in distress" in a two-kilometer radius. Together, the boys work to solve the mysteries that crop up, while also managing to get their student government paperwork finished (and, of course, give lectures in university classes, because hey, did I mention they were smart yet?!). The series is fluffy fun, and amusing because of how ridiculous it is. In the last volume, two of the boys get a little bit more characterization, but even that is so absurd that it's still funny. Somehow, a 26-episode anime series was made out of this. It might be nice for kids, but I think it'd be pretty boring. I might check it out some day, just to see what the voice actors are like. I look forward to seeing the boys in other CLAMP series, and discovering how they grow up.

I don't think very many exciting things happened today, aside from the fact that I registered for classes at work.

I don't understand why this university thinks it's cool to schedule every class that's not lower than the 300-level on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I suspect it's because the professors are frickin' lazy, and only want to teach two days a week. Bastards. BECAUSE MY TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS WILL SUUUUUCK. Tuesday will be three power lectures, followed by a 2.5-hour seminar that begins at 3:45 - the same time my last power lecture ends. I think it's stupid to start a class at 3:45pm, as it's an established ending time for 99% of classes that begin at 2:30pm, so my prof had better like it.

Anyway, here's what I think I'm taking.

Taking for sure to fulfill requirements:
The American Short Story: This course surveys the growth and development of short fiction as a genre from the early 19th century to the present day. Our interests will be formal (What counts as a short story? What are the distinctive narrative tactics we associate with shorter narratives? How do short stories persuade, inform, delight, appall, etc.?) historical (Under what conditions were certain short fictions produced? What events or circumstances do they represent? How do short stories imagine historical events?), and philosophical (What sorts of truths do short narratives convey? Do short fictions provide models for cognition?). We'll draw from the literary tradition of the United States primarily, but will also look briefly at the broader American and European cultural context in which the short story develops. Authors might include Poe (!), Hawthorne (!), Maupassant, Melville (!), Twain (!), James, Jewett (!), Fitzgerald (!), Hemmingway (!), Faulkner (!), O'Connor, Borges (!), and others.

Literature and Disability: In this class we will study the representation of physical and mental disabilities in fiction, poetry, drama, and film. We will consider how disability has functioned metaphorically, strategically, and politically in a diverse range of texts, including Shakespeare's Richard III, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Hulme's The Bone People, Brooks' A Street in Bronzeville, and American Sign Language poetry/performances. We will examine the intersection and intertwinement of disability with race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender, and will use feminist and post-colonial theories of disability to contextualize the works we study.

Global Cultures Capstone Seminar:
For to get my Global Cultures certificate, yo. I don't really know what we do. I'm assuming some kind of bigass research paper? Whatever.

I need 3 more credits to be a full-time student, so I must pick one of these:
British History Since 1688
Political Science: Conflict Resolution (Will focus on stuff that drags on forever, and why. Specific case studies include WWI, the Cold War, dissolution of Yugloslavia, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict)

WTF AM I THINKING:
Ballroom dancing. Because Nina is doing it! Except that the class filled up between when I signed up and like, 3 hours ago and she'll probably be on a wait-list. Also because Antoine said he has taken it before, although he assures me he has forgotten everything.
"When would I ever need ballroom dancing?!"
"For all the times when you want to ballroom dance with me!"
*instant reaction is indignant rage.....but slowly become melty inside*


Really, all that signing up for next semester's classes has done for me has made me scared the Impending Doom of Graduation. I need to get my shit together.

Current Music: Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley