Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Biking as usual

This afternoon was one of the lovelier Bellingham days. Much like Sunday, except I didn't have to work. The lovely factor goes up quite a bit when I'm able to enjoy it.
All sorts of fantastic things happened. Remember when I used to really, truly love car rides? Remember how just a few days ago I was really jonesing for a car? (Honestly, that's every day, but I try not to write about it too often.) Well that craving has been completely and utterly satisfied (for now). Seth and I sat together in the bed of Irene's truck while we hauled masses of bikes all over town. The sun shone, the wind whipped our hair, and we thoroughly enjoyed watching the scenery go by.
The biking bit itself was glorious, only a little bit of a letdown at the end. We took on several hills in different neighborhoods before deciding on heading out on Chuckanut. We made it out to Larrabee before Irene's smoker lungs gave out, so we sat on the grass and waited for our truck ride home. Ten miles, all told. Not as much as we should be doing to prep for Georgia, but excellent considering that weather and sickness has kept me off the roads off and on all Winter Quarter. If the weather plans on being pretty like this more often, that bike is going to have many, many more kilometers added to the odometer (115 right now - that's unfortunately only 66 miles - about one day's worth of BRAG.)
Um, actually I'm pretty tuckered out right now. Big plans for Spring Break include: biking, camping, drinking. In that order.

Friday, March 23, 2007

never gonna find another man like that

Who knows what the future will bring? Blog posts may drop off in the face of no-more-finals, seeing as how I no longer need to log my hours and hours of distractions from studying.
Then again, I might be putting up EVEN MORE items on here, seeing as I have roughly 240 hours before classes start again, and about 15 of those hours in scheduled work time. The plan to stay in Bellingham and work over break? Failed. Miserably. I will be looking for absolutely anything to do to pass the time.

Two people are fishing. Man refers to fish as "she".
Woman: How do you know it's a girl?
Man: Her mouth is open. Now shut up.

Ahahaha, thank you Whitey, Father Goose was really close to the funniest classic I've watched.
And on that note, take some time to think to yourself: What did I know first about Marilyn Monroe? That she was a singer or an actor? Then quiz your friends. Weird results. I even ran into someone who thought she started as a pinup girl.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

not hungry, not thirsty, not sleepy

So I've definitely been awake for the last hour and a half. This is a new one - isn't passing out drunk supposed to guarantee a full night's sleep? My last final is in 4.5 hours... Not sure what I'm going to do about this.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Deleting Bookmarks

http://lucysspleen.blogs.com/lucys_spleen/2006/10/vocabulary_assi.html

Ahh, I still laugh uproariously every time I read this.

http://www.wwoof.org/


Interesting, but not exactly useful.

http://imreallysad.com/554

http://www.ducttapefashion.com/games/battleship.htm

Oh God this devoured my life this summer.

AE=1/(1-MPC)(a+bYD)+I+G

In the "secret" computer lab under Miller, some poor finals-hassled college student with red-rimmed eyes looks up when I come in.

"Is it daylight outside?"

Just barely, pobrecito.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

This was supposed to take 5 minutes, tops

Spent the day doing fantastic distraction activities. Red Robin with Irene and Seth, then Twilight Princess at Seth's (yayy!). Rented The History of the World Part I but sadly, I got a bad case of the guilts and had to leave early. Which was totally pointless, because I haven't done anything except put away my laundry since.
The important information here is that if Irene moves away next year (which, mean as it is, I really hope she doesn't. I don't want to live alone!!)... If she moves away next year she'll sell me her truck. Personally, I've never seen myself as a truck girl. That was always Elaina's role. I drove the Buick! the Tank! The hulking machine of steel that could drive over tree stumps without hesitation (granted, I was high when it happened. Impressive, no?)
Buick reminiscing time begins: now! During the first summer of rowing, my crew buddy Michelle and I brought home some boys from an Alki Beach Party. The night went well, and the next morning found one still passed out in the back of my car while we went to practice. We came back from putting away the boats to find the boy's foot sticking out of the open door, trying to sleep despite the heat and the sun.
I used to take the Buick down to Elaina's once a month or so. The road trip itself was the best part. One time I attempted to pass a car, but misjudged the oncoming car and the Buick's ability to accelerate. Both cars swerved to the sides of the road, I gripped the steering wheel with wild eyes, and kept driving. At 16, I really put my life on the line.
Another time I snuck out to visit a friend in Tacoma. Come 3 am, we discovered that the Buick wouldn't start. So out came the tow truck, who kindly helped me stick the Buick in its usual parking spot out in front of the house. $150 and 2.5 hours later, I was home free. I stayed up that whole night and took the bus to school the next morning (after I "discovered" that the car wouldn't start.)
Another time the Buick broke down: when I drove up to Redmond to visit David and William. It died in an intersection, and the poor video gamers had to get out and push the car into the Jiffy Lube. The mechanics looked it over, said it was fixed, and not 3 minutes onto I-5 heading home, it died again.
More Buick stories, you say? Okay, Tuey's birthday, senior year. Picked up Cole from Shoreline, who proceeded to smoke pot the whole drive back. He even waved at the little babies in the minivans.
Incubus concert. Bob and I played in the fountain, then were too frozen to pay attention to the band. As soon as the last set was over, we booked it back to my car. Pulled the stolen picnic blanket out of the trunk, cranked up the heat, and sat quietly content in Seattle traffic while we slowly got feeling back.
The stolen picnic blanket, you ask? Well, Jon and I were having a terrible day. Actually, I think it was mostly just me. After sitting in the grass at Dumas Bay for a good hour, talking quietly and soaking in some late spring sunshine, we noticed that the people across the field had gone down to the beach. And left their blanket. Jon and I, both being the adventurous sort, and also in need of some excitement after a rather long-winded and depressing conversation, immediately knew what to do. We grabbed it and ran.
So where's the Buick now? Good question. July 3, 2005, Chanel and I drove up to Bellingham to visit Brent. We stayed up all night, doing usual wild young thing activities, and headed back to Fedtown around 9 am. (I had to work at 3, I believe.) Being all sorts of tired and cranky, I crawled into the backseat and let the girl drive. Unfortunately, the last automatic she'd driven was RJ's, and forgot that we had different settings. Yes, that's right. She took the Buick onto I-5 in Drive 2. After about 45 minutes, it gave up the ghost. We got it into a Rest Stop and proceeded to wait until my dad came to pick us up. Fortunately, the radio still worked, so we put on a CD and sprawled across the roof of the car. My dad arrived, called a tow company, and got us home in time for work that afternoon. The only souvenirs from that day are: a snapshot of the two of us sitting on the hood, and the Buick symbol on my keychain. Plus the heartbreaking reminder every time I pass that rest stop on the ride between Fedtown and Bellingham.
This post is disgustingly long, I apologize. The whole point in the first place was to talk about how I might be driving Irene's truck next year. I was eyeing the old pickup and had a genius thought. I could cart a dog around in the back of that thing.

Halvsies

Halfway through Finals Week.
Halfway through a box of Cadbury Eggs.
Half and half required in my daily Finals Week Americano.
Half decided to cut new bangs for myself.
Half convinced that bangs are the worst idea ever.
Halfway finished with the practice econ quiz.
Half paying attention to IM conversations.
1/2 through La Belle Et Le Bad Boy
1/2 done with laundry.
Half ready to drop everything and go on a bike ride.
1/2 sure the landlord thinks I'm an idiot for first locking myself in the laundry room, then locking myself out

Saturday, March 17, 2007

w00t w00t

Oh hell yeah. My mom did a little shopping around last night after I called her about Peru. She used up the last of her airline miles to buy me a first class ticket on Delta Airlines to Peru.

Okay, so I won't be in town for as many days before and after as I might have liked. No chance to really explore the streets of Lima.

But first class! And free! I thought I was going to be paying something like $900 just to get there. This is about as fantastic as it gets.

So I'm totally okay with the fact that she called me this morning and woke me up into a hangover.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Peru Peru Peru!

I'll be embarking on a Friday night St. Patty's Day Pre-funk Adventure pretty soon here, but I felt like sharing something with you all. If you can't figure it out from the blog title, you're dumb.

I'm going to Peru this summer!

I guess there wasn't really any doubt whether it was going to work or not. Private programs like that take anyone who applies and is willing to pay the fee. But I just got the acceptance letter 45 minutes ago and went crazy looking up plane tickets and schedules. I can get to Lima for $715, round trip. Check it, that is $45 less than it was going to cost me to get to Georgia, had my parents not used their air miles. Make sense? Hell no. Crazy cool? Definitely.

So the next couple weeks or so, I'm going to be doing a giddy little Spanish dance in my head at all times. If I seem quiet or distracted, it's because I'm daydreaming about snow and alpacas and drinking beer and kayaking and finding the perfect piece of Andes Mountain Andesite for Ryan.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Cadbury Mini Eggs

Oh God I am terrible at this studying thing. Absolutely horrible. I don't think I've had a decent studying ability since last winter when I tried to kill myself over calculus, and even then I dropped out of one of my classes after a month.

Here is an example of what it's like when I try to read my textbook:

"In October, Tree Top's first month of operation, the company was able to sell every mailbox produced. By the end of October, they had made and sold 300 mailboxes" (Hmm, well that means they should step up production. There's a demand for new mailboxes in the area. But wait. What if they use up the market demand for new mailboxes? People don't just go out and buy a new mailbox every few months. They'd have to expand their market. Or find a way to get people to buy more than one. Ooh, they could go around a put firecrackers in mailboxes. Vandalism is fun. Like that one movie, what was it? Where the kids blew up a mailbox and killed a woman and her baby. Ohh, what was that movie? Then somehow they went back in time and the evil kid somehow became a hero by pushing the lady out of the way... Butterfly Effect, that was it! With Ashton Kutcher. But wait, that kid really was bad. Ashton Kutcher was supposed to be the hero. How did that other kid get the glory?) And so this thought process goes on for a few more lines, trying to figure out the plot of the movie, until I bring myself back to focus on the next page of the textbook (yeah, I was "reading" the whole time) to this: "In addition to the amount of direct material used, the price per measure of direct material will affect the total cost of direct material. The direct material price standard is the anticipated cost for each item of direct material used in the manufacture of a product."

About 20 minutes later I was napping. And I never want to hear the phrase "direct material" ever again.

I rode my bike 21 miles today! =D

I will be going to bed soon, I promise. But this whole Internet-while-lying-down thing is really, really unhealthy for my productivity.

http://www.defectiveyeti.com/ had a little contest, where folks revamped old sayings. Here are a few of my favorites:

Always a bridesmaid, never the bride --> I'm not the hero of this story. (Brent and I had another lengthy conversation while driving back from Federal Way. His way of coping with the realization that the world he grew up in as a child didn't actually revolve around him? "I just go about my day imagining I'm the hero.")
The coast is clear --> The porn is deleted
Come hell or high water --> Even if they send in Chinese tanks
He's yesterday's news --> He's a stamp-licker
Looking for a needle in a haystack --> Trying to find a clock in a casino
Nice guys finish last --> No one remembers Ivan the Wonderful (for Nick)

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Best Afternoon in Ages

After doing the one important task I had to do today, I settled onto my bed, determined to catch up on the accounting I've been ignoring these last two weeks. It would be nice if I could do the work and get started on studying for the final, but this laptop. It's possibly the greatest or worst idea my dad ever had. Everything is far more convenient (sitting at a desk in front of a computer is always so hard. It's lacking a certain horizontal angle that I require from everything I do.) There are also just enough bugs to keep me working at it, trying to fix things.

Speaking of which, anyone know why I wouldn't be able to access certain files on my external hard drive? Maybe it's just a Maxxtor issue that I should have expected when I bought the brand, but I'm hoping it's something I can fix. There are some very important mp3's that I can't put into iTunes or delete and re-download.

Basically, since 5, I've been sitting here playing on the laptop. I downloaded Amar Es Combatir by ManĂ¡... Adding spanish alterna-rock to this day just made me even less motivated to put the computer down. Then I found the Timbuk2 website, which I've been meaning to look up ever since I got my bicycle. Oh God. I want this so bad. I was going to use my paycheck to pay off my credit card debt, but I think it can wait. I was going to use the $500 refund to pad up my savings account, but maybe I can use that for the credit card debt instead. I was going to use next quarter's room and board for room and board, but maybe I'll put half in savings and live as a underfed, overworked, sleep-deprived, inattentive college student with a flashy bike, secondhand laptop, and stylish messenger bag.

On that note, next quarter is looking good. I got all the classes I wanted, I might be working some more hours at the pool (January/February's hours were insane, but 10 hours a week leaves me with too much free time), and the bike riding will get kicked up a notch with the warming weather and approaching BRAG. It doesn't look like I'll have much down time, which is actually what I'm aiming for. Too much downtime leads to worrying about boys, and I'd like to take a quarter off from that. Grow up a little, maybe, and learn to relax in my own skin.

Which reminds me of one last thing. Reading the Fountainhead is making me feel guilty about not having a stronger personality. I find myself wondering, what should I be doing that would accurately reflect the kind of one-minded selfishness that Ayn Rand says would save the world? And then I realize that Ayn Rand would be terribly angry with me for trying to do a kind of work that she would be proud of, since the whole point is to NOT work for someone else's approval. And so, I've reached the depth of my being. It appears that the thing I really want to do in life, against everyone else's opinions, is to loaf around, wasting time.

Tomorrow I'm go swimming between classes.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Stomach Cramps

There are times when it is extremely necessary to cram into a car and go driving for coffee. These times include, but are not limited to: 1 am procrastination breaks, when an excuse to not return home is needed, Monday afternoons, when it is snowing, before class (some sort of breakfast food is usually included at this time), after class, and any time a location selling coffee is open.

Today's excuses were: Monday afternoon, unvisited coffee shop, and a desire to play catch-up with friends.

Also, my stomach is all cramped up because I made nachos for lunch. These nachos included white rice (which I started cooking before deciding to go with nachos instead) and 4 month old salsa. Not the best meal ever.

7:00 Update

Happiness is driving your roommate's truck to Fred Meyer for eclaires, but instead seeing the most beautiful Bellingham sunset ever. It's laying on your stomach, listening to The Velvet Underground CD your brother bought for you when you were seventeen, smelling the spicy jumbalaya feast being cooked downstairs.

11:00 Update

It's also being stuffed full of jumbalaya and Fat Tire, recovering from a three hour attempt to make Irene look good in front of the boy she invited.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Happy Birthday!

To Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 100 Years of Solitude is still the most beautiful book ever written. I'd read it again in honor of his birthday, except Tobias still hasn't given it back. I probably won't see it again until summer, if at all. Anyway, I have a sparked interest in Chronicles of a Death Foretold, but if I can't finish The General in his Labyrinth, I really shouldn't start a second Marquez book.

Plans for Georgia are complete. Irene's dad has an excellent sense of humor that comes through even in his emailed itinerary lists. I forwarded the email to my mom so she'd know what we'd be up to down south, and she called me up laughing on the phone shortly after. My mother is a very serious woman. She doesn't make phone calls to laugh about something. Congrats, Mr. Willis. This is looking to be an excellent summer.

Umm, my professor is being oddly amusing today. Usually he drives me to such great lengths of boredom that I read straight through the lecture, beginning to end. Today I borrowed a laptop to keep me amused, but he's doing a well enough job himself. He had a huge spreadsheet with the very last example being at $0.02. "Why did I have to go all the way to the thirtieth person? Well, I figured I let him throw in his two cents' worth." Pause. Stunned silence from the class. Later, "Now you see why Math 102 or whatever was a prerequisite for this class. You all know about slopes or else you wouldn't even be here." In a lower tone of voice, mostly talking to himself. "If I had my way you wouldn't even be at Western." ....Okay, I guess that second example wasn't that funny. But coming from this guy? It's pure comic genius compared to his usual lecture style.

Now he made a "the buck stops here" joke. About money. Arrrgh.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Wanted: Gamecube and Twilight Princess

Tuey came over tonight and I made her dinner. We sat on my grimy couches and caught up on the last two years in four hours. I love that girl. I'm going to make her be my best friend again.

Also, completed the Writing Skills Assessment portion of the UW Business Application. I'm two personal statements away from having all my shit together and done.

Well, at least as far as UW goes. Then there's still the BRAG registration form to mail and the Social Well Being application.