eat them up, yum

one thing i still like about humboldt county is that most people are not really very stylish. they wear random clothing that doesn't match or seem to have any rhyme or reason. i really feel like i don't have to brush my hair or wear make-up or even matching socks. i could wear a completely nonsensical outfit and i don't think anyone would care one bit. people wear whatever they want. that's so rad. there is not one style that insists itself upon you. nothing to keep up with.

roly-poly fish heads

today, we ran around gathering all the ingredients to make thai green curry soup. yum. one of the ingredients is asian fish sauce. the first jar i found had a fish eyeball in it. ew. i got a less ominous looking bottle and scott got some kimchee. anyway, it probably would have been easier just to buy some of the soup at a restaurant, but i want to make it myself so i can be boastful.

marmalade skies

more

earworm

songs that get stuck in your head are called earworms. i am a grouch most of the time. i try not to be, but really, i am.

up the waterspout

i am not very good at video games, in general. i like games like centipede and ms pacman, puzzle games like aqua aqua, and spelling games. cuz i'm a nerd. today, we saw corpse bride. it was cute. nothing spectacular. i always enjoy danny elfman's composing, though.

perpetually misunderstood

i fell asleep in class again waking up when my pencil dropped; but, at least i got an A instead of a C on that last quiz because i got a 12/15. there was only one other person in class who did better than that. my life is really pretty boring. i might have to resort to writing lists of the things i eat each day. this morning scott made hot italian sausage and scrambled eggs, which i ate and enjoyed; but, i made sure to assert my opinion about how unorthodox hot italian sausage is for breakfast. (to me, anyway)

don't ask me about my business

so, i got a hundred percent on my last map quiz, but this week i have another one on all the mountains, islands, bodies of water, rivers and peninsulas in the mediterranean. it's kinda ridiculous, but it is an exhilarating feeling to take the test when you know the answers. today, we watched the godfather while i ate gobfather ice cream. al pacino was sooo young in 1972. it took me a while to really accept that it was him.

just what i needed

a time-waster just for you

stark-raving mad

riding the bus is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you'll see. the woman next to me held a metal serving spatula in one fist and a clear plastic salad spoon in the other. you could tell it was something unusual by the way she held them up in front of her and every so often clanged them together, perhaps warding off some unknown evil with the sound. she put them away once we'd crossed over the bridge. another woman got on the bus with a kitten on her shoulder. you see quite a few of those around here: people whose cat lives on their shoulders. it seems sort of magical somehow.

more mindless meanderings

i have too much schoolwork to do so i am rebelling by taking way longer than i should to do it. i keep taking lots of breaks to read other blogs. most blogs are kind of boring, and so is mine. probably the result of being cloistered in the stifling halls of academia.

quiz results

i aced the mediterranean quiz which was easier than i'd expected. the language quiz was okay, but two of the questions were from way out in left field. there were only nine questions and i missed two... that is a C. i spent hours and hours reading that freaking chapter and because i didn't know two obscure things that were in it, i get a C. it's like we're supposed to memorize the entire chapter! whatever. i know a lot of other people did about the same as i did, but the sad part is that some people probably got 100% which is why they are evil.

exciting news

today i have two quizzes. for one, i have to know all of the cities and countries in the mediterranean and their locations. for the other, i have to know all about the history of the semitic languages.

china doll

when i was a kid my friends and i used to tell this scary story about the china doll over and over again. seemed like we never tired of it. mostly it was about how this little girl got this doll and the doll would come to life at night and try to kill people. i don't remember the details, though. it seems like the story would change a lot.

vivid dreaming

lately i've been having really vivid, clear dreams in HDTV. lots of detail. there were these spiders last night in my dream that i was watching very closely. they had lots of webs all over the surface of this river and one of the spiders ate a lizard so fast it was in the blink of an eye. all that was left of the lizard was its entire skin-- in tact. i picked it up and pulled on the tail. the spider had cleaned it out very nicely.

whatever butters your toast

Your Birthdate: June 7

Born on the 7th day of month gives you a tendency to be something of a perfectionist and makes you more individualistic in many ways. Your mind is good at deep mental analysis and complicated reasoning. You are very psychic and sensitive, and you should usually follow your hunches. You may not take orders too well, so you may want to work alone or in a situation where you can be the boss. This birthday gives a tendency to be somewhat self-centered and a little stubborn.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

pot and kettle

yesterday, after the weighty lord of war, i wanted to see a chick flick so i saw just like heaven. it was fun. i enjoyed it. napoleon dynamite was in it and he was funny. mark ruffalo is sweet. today, i stayed in bed all day and read The Poisonwood Bible. i'm almost finished with it. it's really good, from my point of view. now, i will eat marinated tri-tip with pasta and zucchini. it's been a relaxing day.

Lord of War

Lord of War is a good movie. there are good actors, good performances, a very interesting story and it is a movie that sort of sneaks up behind you and steals away any trace of idealism you may have had left lingering in that sleepwalking brain of yours. that's what it did to me, anyway.

it was cast perfectly. i liked all of the characters. it was hard to know with whom to identify-- i could identify with all of them even though they were mostly opposed to eachother. the movie ended up being much more impactful than i'd expected.

phantasmagorical

last night in my dreamworld i was at my grammie's old house with my uncle frank and as we were leaving my grandpa (who is long dead) said thank you to me for something and then after we'd walked further away he was mean and sarcastic and wasn't really thankful about whatever it was. then all hell broke loose, literally. this weird little girl was trying to eat my soul and i hurried into my uncle's car. we drove a couple of blocks to this hospital where everyone was a zombie. i had to crawl out of there to escape while zombies tried to get me. all the non-zombies had to band together and if a moth-zombie got stuck to one person's back, it would be on everyone's back and we had to bite them off and kill them. we found this paint that made all the walls tranparent so we could see who was coming to get us and we ran and ran for our lives.

hot media

so, scott's computer had a virus or something that erased all his files and programs and his photoshop was like borrowed or something. so, he downloaded a new trial version of photoshop and it is GOOD! much better than the old one. i recommend you give it a shot. it is sort of hard to figure out how to use it if you've never used it before, but if you are determined you can do it. don't let the complicated look of it intimidate you.

sleep aid

i put my head down on my desk in my language and culture class and i really really fell asleep because i woke up at the end of class and i had all these sleep marks on my skin. i hope i wasn't snoring. so then i went to the library and laid down on a sofa and tried to go back to sleep and i totally could not sleep at all! that's so strange. it's like i can't sleep when i should be able to and i can sleep really well when i should not. i need to record my teacher's lectures so they can help me go to sleep at night.

i'm famous

this is from the HSU Lumberjack. woohoo. i am not even sure if that is really what i think about needle exchange programs. i should have added: along with drug prevention programs. also,i look kinda dorky, but oh well.

lack of sleep

last night was the worst night's sleep i've had in months. the pillow i was using was more like some sort of sadistic torture device. i have to have a very soft pillow, or it really screws up my neck. this pillow was more like a huge brick. not really, but it was way too firm and lofty. also, the cat was taking a very noisy bath right in my ear for like two and a half hours and i must be allergic to the cat's saliva because i sneezed a bazillion times and could not breathe correctly. those are the mitigating factors. so, i'll probably have to take a five hour nap today. oh well.

blog is sleeping

this is my last semester as an undergraduate and i'm sort of freaking out as far as wanting to make sure that i don't slack off and fail all my classes which i know will not really happen, but i am still panicking about it. i have four weeks until i have to do a 20-30 minute presentation on translation issues in the UN and also a 10 page paper on the current conversation about cultural anthropology. i feel myself wanting to freeze and feeling overwhelmed. i feel like i should not be allowed to do anything other than study with every spare, waking moment. so that's what i've been up to. i have pictures on my camera but complications are making it impossible for me to upload them at this time.

pointless post

i think the best thing that an individual can do is to work on herself first. you can't help other people if you are incomplete or you need help yourself. you can't have peace on a global level if you have inner turmoil on the individual level. so inner work comes first. i don't claim to have any answers for anyone. i don't know that i have any kind of consistent answers for myself, even. i try to raise my consciousness by working in whatever ways i know how to improve my own mental and emotional condition. i think that is the best i can do for anyone, right now. as far as my being buddhist... i can't really claim to be buddhist except that it is my favorite philosophy. my practice is intermittent and unstable, just like pretty much the rest of my life. if i appear to lack compassion or common sense, even... please remember as i am working to remember to cast out the beam from thine own eye before you worry about the sliver in your neighbor's.

rub-a-dub square

this weekend i read The Godfather. to be honest with you, i've never watched the movie. i had no reason to. it just never appealed to me. and normally, i don't read novels much because they usually don't hold my interest. i love it when i find one that does. The Godfather held my interest. i could barely put it down. it invaded my dreams when i slept. it was a good novel. i wish that i could be like Vito Corleone as far as being able to keep my anger under control when i 'reason with' people. the only thing is, i need to find a way to do it that doesn't involve chopping off horse's heads and having people killed when they don't understand 'reason'. also, it made me think how much any form of government can be like a mafia in one way or another.

through the looking-glass

i was listening to npr and this guy paul jay was the guest. i didn't think i was going to find it interesting, but i really did. he is involved with independent world television and it sounds pretty cool. he talked about how the mainstream media directs the opinions of the mass audience but never spurs people to take action. a passive attitude is generally encouraged. he says we cannot afford to live a habitual life! we've got to wake up! you can't go back to normal life. also, have you read this? Empire Burlesque

come on!

i might have to put a hit out on my Geog. of the Mediterranean teacher. he seriously just loves to hear himself babble incoherently about his travels in the region and never ever ever does he talk about anything that he has assigned for reading or anything that is academic in any way. he drives me completely and utterly insane and i despise him. no, i do not have compassion for his arrogance. i resent it horribly because i am a horribly fraudulent buddhist in every possible way. i honestly feel like he is one of the worst teachers i have ever had in my entire life. i have learned nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing about the geography of the mediterranean. i have been sitting in the handicapped chair because the normal desks KILL my back and i have scoliosis, so it is legitimate. well, during lectures, he pretty much stands with his back to me the entire time. it's like i don't even exist to him. i know that i should go and talk to him, but by the time class is over i resent his voice so much that i don't think i could tolerate another moment of talking with him after that. also, during some discussion about venice, he and other people in the class were making jokes about new orleans which i thought were in very bad taste. it is really not a funny situation there in new orleans. but the mainstream media would have us think that it's no big deal... what a facade! they are trying to discourage us from caring about the situation there and trying to blame it on the victims. i think my teacher works for the mainstream media.