i am a bear of very little Brain

Not much to report today. A rather lackluster day, all in all, with the exception of a wild and crazy but brief shopping trip with the roomie. We manage to get ourselves into absolutely the most ridiculous situations sometimes. How was I supposed to know that if you do the self-check-out at the grocery store, the sensors can tell if you remove a full bag of groceries and then gets mad at you for removing items from the loading area? How on earth was I supposed to know that? And then we get to the vehicle and Brit thinks she's lost her keys, and surprise! they're in the ignition. Seriously, we cannot live together any more after this year.
I have still not been able to stop listening to my Mae cd. It gets better every single time. I'm afraid that if I continue to listen to it nonstop, I will get sick of it, and that would stink because it's so amazingly good, which is why I'm willing to risk getting sick of it.
I'm pretty excited at the prospect of having the dorm room all to myself for the weekend. I love Brit and she is a very good roommate, but a few days of solitude are sounding really good right now. I had a fantastic spring break and I loved every minute of it, but I've been so caught up in so many things lately that there's just been no down time for myself, so that should be nice.
Still haven't gotten a hold of the resort yet. I really must attend to that.
"Attend to that"? What am I, some kind of pretentious English major nerd....oh wait. Yeah. That's right. I am. But "attend to that"? I think it's a sign that I've been reading far too much Shakespeare to be of any use to anyone. I'm so sick of "Othello," but next up is "The Tempest," which I just read last semester at might hurl at the mere thought of reading yet AGAIN. Yechh. I hate Prospero, I think he's a jerk. But anyway, I guess that doesn't really have much relevance to my actual life.
At least the weather was nice today. I wouldn't mind it warming up just a tad, but the sunshine has definitely done me good. I'm still feeling pretty apathetic about a lot of things, but it's harder to be melancholy when the sun is shining and tulips are growing. It makes being a cynic much harder.
On that note, I'm out for the night. I still have some research to do for my Shakespeare class and I ought to study for my physics quiz, so away I go.

phwooragh

Hmph. Well, here I am, 8:30 at the Oracle office and no John. Not that it's that big of a deal, but I assured him I'd be here by 8 so that we could talk about his letter to the editor issue and now he fails to show. Oh well, it's still all for the best because I can get some early layout done tonight and then I'll know how much space to beg people to fill anyway, so I guess it all makes sense.
I've been drifting through life lately, not really focusing on much of anything. I really need to snap out of that if I'm going to even come close to getting through my classes this semester with any kind of grace. Sad thing is, the only things I really seem to care about lately are the Oracle and my philosophy class. I did do really well on that midterm, so that's a little reassuring, and I've chosen a topic for my final presentation, but of course I had to go and choose a ridiculously complicated topic. I couldn't choose a certain type of sculpture to scrutinize or something, oh no, I had to go and decide to philosophically dissect the narrative in literature, using at least one traditional and one non-traditional narrative (like Balzac and Grass or something). Sigh. How do I get myself into these things?
I had a rather depressing realization today as well. I realized I don't have a best friend. I don't think I've had one in years and years, maybe even ever. The person I've always considered my best friend invariably has someone else for a best friend. What does that say about me? Might it perhaps be indicitave of my own inability to be a best friend, or is that just my own somewhat rotten luck that I just haven't happened to have one? Hmm. I wonder. It was a rather disconcerting realization nonetheless.
Everyone I know lately seems to be either getting married or at least hooking up with someone ELSE I know. Sheesh. Some people I didn't even know about until like today. oy. I'm out of the loop, I guess, or have been. I feel quite a few of my friends sort of starting to drift away a bit. It's funny, because whenever I'm home, people ask me how Mary is doing like I should know, and perhaps I should, but honestly, right now I have no idea how she really is. I don't feel like we've had a genuinely good talk for ages. And it's neither of our faults, really, I don't think, but it's happening and there it is and there you have it.
I should really be working on layout instead of this, so that Brit and I can go to the midnight show of Sin City tomorrow night, which I really want to do because it looks like a pretty cool movie. She's going to Chicago for a mini-break this weekend, so I'll also have the dorm room all to myself for a couple days, which should be nice. I want to do some major cleaning. I haven't even unpacked my suitcase from last week yet because I want to rearrange a ton of stuff in the room before I do. My closet and bureau space need some serious readjustment. Not like anyone needed to know that, but I figured I might as well share.
As much as I'm going to be working this summer, I'm actually getting sort of excited for it to arrive. Because the nice thing about summer jobs is that I don't have to take them home with me. I mean, yeah, I work 8 hours straight at the resort with not even so much as a lunch break, but then it's DONE. No homework, no papers, no projects, no planning- and who knows, maybe I'll even have a little bit of time for fun things as well. And since I'll have virtually no friends around until Manney gets back from Germany like in August, I should be able to get plenty of summer reading done. I should start making a list soon. I make a list every summer and I never get through the entire thing, but I'm hoping that this summer I'll manage.
Yeah. Well, this is getting really long again because I am pretty much just avoiding my two blank newspaper pages staring at me from behind this window, so I'm going to take care of that now.

busy busy like a bee in summer

:: sigh :: Adam is right. I DON'T do much of anything. Not that he's exactly been Mr. Exemplary poster lately himself, but whatever. Tonight, I realize, I would pretty much rather be doing anything other than still struggling with my physics, so it's all good. I just get so incredibly frustrated with how incredibly stupid I am when it comes to that class. I genuinely have absolutely no talent for it. And I hate that. Usually, if there's a class I'm not much good in (Macroeconomics and Calculus come to mind), I just put in a little extra time and effort and I wind up being just fine, but such is not the case here.
In any case, at least I had a good spring break. Spending time in London with Krystle was wonderful. Dangit I miss that girl. She's one of the very few friends I have that I can talk to without worrying about her being at all judgmental. She lets me get away with being more annoying and stupid than I actually have any right to be and doesn't even seem to ever be bothered by it.
Jake Scott and I came up with a brilliant plan to run away from our troubles and go live at the big rock candy mountain, but our plan was foiled when we remembered that the aforementioned place is, after all, fictional. Sweet, I worked the word "aforementioned" into my post. Very nice. It's one of my favorite words and I have no idea why. Anyway, yeah, it's too bad I don't have anyplace to run away to. Gotta love that kid though, he always makes me laugh. Not an easy task sometimes these days, either.
Another shout-out happy birthday to Peter Lund. I feel like I'm pushing his birthday excessively, but I like my friends to have very happy birthdays, and so if you are Pete's friends and have yet to wish him a happy one, hop to it. You've only got a couple of hours to go before it's officially over.
Speaking of hopping, I dug into some of my Easter candy today and the hollow bunny my mom got me this year is truly disgusting. I was extremely disappointed; I usually have a top-notch bunny in the basket, but this year, something went terribly, horribly wrong, and it wound up tasting slightly of rubber. And although I LOVE my mother, I really with that just ONE year she could remember that it's the Cadbury Creme eggs that I love, not the Caramel ones. But she tries, she really does. She just forgets.
This Saturday when I had people over at my house, Adam, Pete, and Trevor kept a thread running throughout the evening of making up random things they have purportedly read/heard about Rammstein. Funny, funny, funny boys. All week some of the things they said have been jumping into my head and making me laugh at wildly inappropriate times, like today in my physics lab. I think Ben and Darren think I'm just a little bit crazy, but that's ok. They aren't far off the mark.
I also got the new CD today from a band called Mae, and it is amazing. I have literally not been able to stop listening to it for hours now. It's already a worthwhile investment; I will be getting tons of wear out of this one. Best record I've bought in ages. And it's a fully themed actual album. All the songs flow together beautifully, and they have a funny little prologue and epilogue, and special art for the booklet, and all kinds of good stuff. Brilliant.
Tomorrow Brit and I are doing a shopping run- hurray. She has a vehicle this week, and it's really nice having a roommate with a car. I'm loving it. Truthfully, it's a LandRover, I think she would kill me for calling it a car, but you get the idea.
I suppose I should suck it up soon and let the resort know that I will be back this summer. I really don't want to be at home but there's nothing else. I found out today that I was totally rejected for the internship that I applied for- I didn't even get an interview. Oh well. First time for everything, I suppose. It's the first job I've ever applied for and not gotten, much less not even gotten interviewed for, which has been nagging me all day but oh well. Nothing I can do about it. Now I just need to find another job, part-time, to fill up the rest of my days. I had better pray I don't get sick this summer, or with two jobs I will be in big trouble. Hopefully I'll at least be getting a raise at the resort, that would definitely soften the blow a bit. And I'll have no Shari this summer to help me pass the time, sadly. I loved working with Shari; she's one of the funniest ladies ever.
I think I use semicolons too much. In this fabulous book called "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" the author discusses how there are two types of writers - those who refuse to use semicolons and consider them a degenerate form of punctuation, and those who have to forcibly restrict themselves from using one in every sentence. I, I'm afraid, fall completely into the latter category. I love semicolons. They're such convenient little punctuation marks.
Wow. Could I BE any more nerdy of an English major? I find it hard to believe that I could.
But this post is getting quite long (ought to satisfy Adam) and I'm off to do devotions, finish physics, and get some sleep. I'm still worn out from my spring break, I think, even though that seems ridiculous. Cheers, all.

worst day ever...

...well, ok. Not the worst day EVER. But it's right up there. Crap, crap, crappity crap crap crap. Of all the days for me to have to do an entire extra page of layout at the Oracle, this is the ONE DAY I would absolutely choose to NOT do that. I have a physics exam tomorrow, TOMORROW, for which I need to know about twenty formulas, of which I currently only know like five. I'm going to have to blow off my Shakespeare class tomorrow if I'm going to have any hope of being able to study enough to attempt to pass my physics exam, and I am not happy about that. Granted, the Shakespeare class isn't my favorite, but I absolutely hate and despise skipping classes for any reason. Heaven knows this school costs enough, I might as well put the money to good use and attend the classes that are being paid for. At least that's my take on the situation. The good news is I don't have to work today so if I get to the office and work like crazy, I just might be able to be finished there by 8 or 9 p.m., although I'm not going to count on it because it seems that lately, whatever CAN go wrong at the Oracle for me invariably does. Grrr. This semester is crummy. I feel like I'm a zombie going to classes and vaguely attempting the reading and I feel like I have accomplished basically nothing except for writing two papers and doing a junkload of reading. I'm not a happy girl. I have always loved my classes here and my professors but for whatever reason, this semester my heart is just not in it at all. I don't even get that excited about the prospect of studying abroad, which I was formerly absolutely pumped for. Tthis weekend, I have to bake scones for my "Crossing Borders" class as a food representative of the country I'm going to. England isn't known for its food, and there's a reason for that - most of it isn't very good. But I think scones are an okay choice so that's what I'm going to do at home this weekend. Fun times, no?

an odd day

So. Today has been interesting. For whatever strange reason, I was seized by the uncontrollable urge to dance around my dorm room tonight while my roommate was studying in the library. I hope no one saw through the window; we are, after all, on the first floor. Perish the thought!
It's been a weird day. I am still a little fed up and upset about things at the newspaper office but I am really trying my best not to be angry with anyone and to see the entire situation as an opportunity for the paper (and for myself) to expand and learn and grow. Which sounds incredibly corny and insincere, but that's truly how I am attempting to approach the situation. At this point, I don't see how else I could approach it that would do anyone any good whatsoever.
I'm lonely today. I hate to admit it, but I really do miss having a boyfriend. Not so much that I'm lonely for the particular boyfriend I had - those of you who know me well know about that - but I desperately miss having someone to call for no reason at all, no one to always hang out with and do nothing, to watch random movies with and to stay up until some unholy hour talking to about incredibly strange and bizarre things. I really, really miss that. And though this is not the most important part, to be honest, I totally miss kissing people. It's been months. MONTHS. A long, dry year so far, my friends. Haha. Wow, that sounds dumb even now to me. But I refuse to bait myself into deleting that, because it is what I was thinking. It's going to be a long, lonely summer, too. I'm 99% sure that I will be back at home this summer working two jobs (read: about 60 hours a week) to earn enough to study abroad and such. Fun times. I don't think anyone's going to be home to hang out with. Adam, will you be home this summer? Puh-leeeeease??? You are almost my only hope for intelligent company. Otherwise (and even if you are) I may need to beg mercy of Caitlin and Jake Scott in order to at least have some claim to friends this summer. Maybe something good will come of it that I am currently clouded in my judgement to see. I hope so.
On the slightly more cheerful side of life, I think I have found a place to live next spring. My friend Malin is planning to study abroad in the spring, so if that comes through, I can sublet her studio apartment and have it alllll to my onesie self for the entire spring semester. That would be wonderful. And it's a teeny bit expensive for me, but she really seems to want me to have it, so she is willing to pay a small portion of the rent each month to put it within my range. How sweet is that? I'm very excited at the prospect. I just want to see it but I'm pretty sure I'm going to want it. Score.

surviving the firestorm...

Well, in response to Adam's vehement demand that I update, I shall do so at once. What I'm going to do is give an account of why I haven't been updating much and why I have been so stressed lately. I've been very busy lately, what with attempting not to fail physics and all, but there's something else that's come up that has made life particularly difficult. Also, I must give some recognition to Adam, whose intriguing blog can be found at http://exittheory.blogspot.com

As many of you know, I am the Opinion editor for my campus newspaper; it's a job that I love and I work with a great group of people there as well. However. Back in December, before I had this job and I was still a lowly Associate editor, two students on campus submitted a letter to the editor regarding a professor on campus. I don't know what their intent was, precisely, in submitting the letter, but the result was that many people interpreted as a personal attack on the professor, challenging his competency and personal beliefs regarding diversity and race. We don't publish during J-term, so over the first couple of weeks of the spring semester, the aforementioned professor was working on a response piece to the two students of color, which was initally waaay to long to even think about printing. My editor-in-chief kept telling him it just had to be cut down and cut down until finally he got it to around 1400 words, and he said that was the best he could do. In light of his efforts, we decided to publish the letter as it was. The same week, because of the size of this letter, we had room to print only like one more letter and the one we printed was from a girl who basically seemed to think that diversity isn't nearly as much of an issue as many people make it.
In retrospect, it was probably not the wisest idea to print these two letters together in one issue, but believe me, if I had ANY notion of the fallout that would arise from this, I never, NEVER would have printed them. After the issue came out, we got a flurry of e-mails saying how unfair it was, how terrible it was that we allowed this professor extra space to defend himself, how the issue of the paper was obviously part of institutional racism, etc. Needless to say, as Opinion editor, a few choice words were also thrown my way, either directly to my face in passing or via e-mail. I know that it is important to not take these things personally, because I certainly had no intention whatsoever for this to get so out of control, but it has been hard not to be extremely stressed about not only my own reputation but of course that of the paper as well. People have been upset that we let the prof. respond at all, others because we allotted him more space than the usual 500 words, some because they felt the page/issue of the paper was anti-student of color, etc. etc.
There's been much more anger and hurt surrounding this issue than I had ever even dreamed of, and while I'm sorry that so many people interpret the situation in the ways that they have, I also cannot feel that I did anything wrong in printing what I did. The point of the Opinion section is to provide an open forum for people to express their viewpoints, and I refuse to engage in the practice of only printing what I personally agree with, because I really feel that compromises my journalistic integrity. Some people may scoff at the idea of a college girl feeling seriously concerned about journalistic integrity, but it's a position I take very seriously and I care very deeply about what is printed and what is said about myself and the paper. I spent a few days feeling incredibly stressed about the issue and practically ready to burst into tears at all times from the stress and lack of sleep I was getting because of this issue, but I am calming down and seeing the situation a little differently. Like I said, I really don't believe I did anything wrong.
Generally speaking, most of the opinions printed in the section are very liberal, and I truly feel that it's important not to silence voices on campus, even if (and perhaps precisely BECAUSE) others on campus may see the viewpoint as overly conservative, narrow, limited, or even just wrong. If those voices are silenced, how do we as a community begin to know what issues we need to work on? For all the lip service paid to diversity on this campus, letters like the one I printed (and people's issues with the professor), to me, demonstrate precisely how much work we have left to do, and isn't it important to see that? I am so frustrated with people who seem to believe that the letters printed are the ideas of the Oracle or of me personally, because that is just so incredibly absurd that I don't even know how to respond to it. How could I possibly print letters for AND against, for example, the Military Recruiter Ban initiative on campus and agree with them both? I CAN'T. Hence, it's impossible for the published viewpoints to be reflections of my own. It has just been such an incredibly stressful, crazy, mixed-up last couple of weeks. What I find particularly ironic about the situation is that when the first letter (from the two students was printed), I had NOTHING TO DO WITH it, so I am essentially just dealing with all of the fallout from a situation that I originally had no part in whatsoever. I think that pretty much covers it. That's been sort of the overwhelming issue here, anyway.

I finally passed a quiz in physics today, which is some small cause for celebration. Of course, the passing was with a D+, but I'm going to take whatever the heck I can get in that class. I don't get it. I wasn't that bad at physics in high school, but I just plain SUCK at it now. And it's algebra based, it's supposed to be easy. And I have never, ever in my life felt more stupid in a class. I hate it. I mean, I don't hate the class; lecture is kind of fun and I have a decent lab group, but I just hate feeling so stupid. Yechh. On that note, I go to finish my physics homework.