Freedom

Today being the first Monday of our week-long Thanksgiving vacation (or, in more PC terms, "fall break"), I decided it would be the perfect chance to try riding my bike on campus with minimal panic attack possibilities. You see, my fears of cycling on campus are two-fold: I am not only afraid of being injured by a motor vehicle but also of pissing off people. I've always thought the latter was the stronger fear in me, and attributed this fear to whatever personality disorder I've decided I have for the week. Yet when I stepped out of my building hesitantly clutching my bike between my knees and taking as much time as possible adjusting my helmet straps, I saw a van, an SUV, and a truck go by on neighboring streets, and suddenly realized that my fear of being maimed or killed was probably actually stronger. Still, I had given myself a small task: ride to Altgeld Hall to mail my electricity payment, then ride to my building's management site to drop off my rent money, so I soldiered on, got on the road, and found the whole trip exhilarating! I tried my best to obey the rules of the road, though I occasionally went on the sidewalk in the more dangerous areas (e.g. bus stops), attempting to be mindful of pedestrians. There wasn't much traffic, as was to be expected, and I don't think I actually pissed off anyone. The most annoying parts of the trip were trying to remember my combination (I'd brought it with me, and kept opening it up, then putting it away and trying to remember it as I fiddled with the lock over and over.... High school really was a long time ago!) to my bike lock, having to stop for my reflector, which had fallen off on the way home, and holding open the various doors I have to traverse in order to get to my apartment (I keep my bike in my living room.).
Another nice thing about riding my bike on campus was that the quad was practically bare, and I didn't feel bad about riding on it for part of the way--When I was a freshman at U of I, there were signs up to warn you that bike riding was not allowed on the quad, but people rarely paid attention to them, and, to my knowledge, they're all gone.
I think part of the reason I wanted to take my bike out of my apartment was guilt; I'd had my parents bring my bike here earlier in the semester, and I didn't want their efforts to be for naught. But I also think that this was a major self-confidence booster, and the endorphins are nothing to sneeze at; although I wasn't riding for very long, I definitely got a high from being able to get on my bike and go, actually coming to a complete stop at stop signs (I hate when people don't do this), and feeling the wind rush against me as I pushed along the sides of the roads and tried to stay out of people's way.
Before setting off on my expedition, I was writing checks, and I suddenly realized that I'm not the helpless person I sometimes imagine myself to be. I can write checks correctly. I get myself to pay my bills on time, I just cleaned (parts of) my apartment and did several loads of laundry. Why do I sometimes feel like I'm incapable of doing simple chores, and only realize later that I can do them, and much more. I have a college degree and I'm shooting for another one. Why do I get this brain freeze that doesn't allow me to do basic math sometimes, or brings me into a dissociative state in which I don't know who or what I am, and believe that I can't do anything of substance? Writing the check, walking through my clean(er) apartment, going through my closet full of clothes that are actually hung on hangers properly and somewhat organized by garment type, and going to pay my bills, riding that bike, all gave me a sort of high and realization that I'm an adult and can do things for myself. I think part of the hesitance to accept my adulthood stems from the fact that I never had to do much for myself when I was growing up. My parents almost always picked me up from school, so I was never a latchkey kid. My only regular chore in the house was to set the table with my sister; I didn't have to make my bed, and rarely was asked to mow the lawn or shovel snow (although these requests came more and more frequently as I got older!). I can probably count the number of times that I had to wash dishes on one hand. Every once in a while I'd get to run the vacuum cleaner, which I always enjoyed. Although I appreciate that my parents did a lot for me as a kid (and I appreciate that they still let me stay with them when I'm on vacation, let me talk to them for hours on the phone, and help me out with money), I think part of me never thought I was capable of doing these things, and still sometimes believes that I can't do them, that I'm incapable of an adult life. This insecurity gets in the way of living my life fully, but I realize that, over the years, I've become more and more outgoing in doing things I want to do, and doing things for myself. Taking my bike out gave me this wonderful sense of being and freedom that I can't describe. I've never gone out on my bike without first telling a family member that I was leaving on my bike, and, yes, I have my helmet, and, yes, I have a key to the house. Yes, I'll be careful. No, I won't talk to strangers. I'm 23 and I'm finally feeling like an adult, and it's wonderful!

Please subpoena this post

November has proved to be an exciting month. I'll go somewhat chronologically.

I participated in my first skating exhibition, performing in the adult synchronized skating team Champaign on Ice. Things were a little rocky in our performance, but we pulled through and ended together with smiles on our faces. My parents and some friends (Mica, Chris and Jessica) came to see me, which was awesome! It was great to have their support and see their beautiful faces afterward!

One new thing I learned that I love about skating? The built-in velveteen panties in case someone accidentally sees up your short flippy skating dress:



The night before the skating exhibition, I decided not to go "crazy" (that is, not to drink vast quantities of liquor and stay out late dancing), and ended up going to the Neko Case concert with Jenelle and Tricia:


I look so much more photogenic in this picture than in all the GEO pictures that got taken at the protest:



Of course, I'm posing in this, I'm wearing more makeup than just foundation and chapstick, and it's not 7:45 am :) My narcissistic self thought that it would look as if I'd cared too much about my appearance if I'd worn too much makeup to the protest. Just how bad does that make me?

I tried taking pictures of Neko Case, but didn't want to use a flash, which was a good idea, because the pompous hipsters surrounding us were mad enough (although not very verbally; they just sort of snorted their noses in our general direction-sorry hipsters, you know I love you!!!) that we were taking pictures of each other with the flash at intermission. It was my first Canopy Club concert, as it was for Jenelle and Tricia, and we thought the venue was really cool. The inside is reminiscent of other buildings' interiors on Oregon, like Red Herring and Espresso Royale Café at Oregon and Goodwin.

Here is one attempt:

Unfortunately, the only picture that doesn't have trippy "moving" people in it due to my zooming in while in "Night" mode has a random head in it (presumably attached to a body).

I've also decided to participate in this year's National Novel Writing Month.

This project consists of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, from 12:00:01 am on November 1st until November 30th. I started 10 days late, and I only have 10,845 words so far, but it's exciting to be able to write a work of fiction with such abandon; the reason that there is a word count goal is so that participants don't get bogged down in the details and don't worry about going over and editing everything. All you do is submit your 50,000+ words to be counted and verified between Nov. 25 and Nov. 30; quality doesn't matter, as the people who run NaNoWriMo do not read your novel, which is automatically deleted after your words are counted.

I usually have trouble writing fiction, but since I don't have to worry about having every detail be perfect, the words are flowing pretty well, and I'm constantly having ideas as to where the plot(s) could go. I don't know if I'll have time to finish, but trying to create something is rewarding in and of itself.

One thing I hate when I've been writing so much in word documents on my computer is that I try to Command + S everything: emails, notebooks, orders on line at Subway.... It's unsettling.

Last weekend was a busy, and sort of represents all the events of this month: I went to freestyle Saturday morning to practice my freestyle 1 material, then I got a ride from Liz, another grad student in the French department, to go to Willard Airport for a GEO negotiation in the afternoon, and we stayed there about 3.5-4 hours! The entire negotiation lasted about 6 hours, but the GEO and the administration weren't able to come to agreeable terms regarding language in the contract protecting tuition waivers for out of state and international students, so a strike was authorized! Then I went to dinner with Jessica, Sean and Dan to meet Chris and his mom, but left early to meet Mica for Le mariage de Figaro (the opera, not a discussion of our reading list!). Her neighbor played Cherubino and was awesome!

Sunday was kind of awash as I anticipated the strike, did some homework, and attended a Picket Captain meeting, while developing an ulcer and several panic attacks.

On Monday and Tuesday, I went on strike and protested at the FLB. It was a very unique experience, and I'll never look at any of the buildings on the quad, especially not FLB, where I spent most of my picketing hours, or Foellinger Hall, where the final rally took place at the end of the second and final day of the strike and we were told that an agreement had finally been made. I have tons of photos which I'm not going to put up here. The whole thing was surreal, and I met a lot of people from my building through the protest that I probably wouldn't have met otherwise. It was rewarding to fight for my union and to get what we wanted in the end. The ratification process is ongoing, and once everyone's voted, we'll find out if the strike is "officially" over (although we're all back in the classrooms).

One last news item:

I now am the proud owner of a new pair of ghetto-fabulous designer glasses:

Weird picture of me wearing them.... At least my face looks thin it it.... And... are those cheekbones?!! haha



I now declare this post over.

The paranoid delusions start early this season

Today, I woke up at approximately 4:44 a.m..  I remembered that I had not set any alarms and that I'd left my phone as well as my watch in the other room.  What I neglected to remember is that it is Saturday, and that I have no time-sensitive obligations over the weekend-that is to say that it was not, as I thought, Friday morning, and I had not slept in through a class I had to teach.  In a paranoid frenzy, I sprung from my bed and bounded head-first into the side of my bedroom door, which had been cracked open enough for me to believe, falsely, that I was about to head past the door and not into it.  I then hobbled (because my paranoid subconscious probably thought that the collision had caused some neurological damage in the part of my brain that controls what I'll call "leg motor skills") to the kitchen to check the time, grab my Hello Kitty ice pack and drag the former back to bed with me.  That pretty much set the tone for the day.

What I learned on the way home from my weekend vacation

From my mother:

1.  "a myriad of" is a redundant construction, as is "from whence".

From The Most Ghetto Rest Stop I Regularly Frequent outside of Chicago on my way back to Champaign:

2.  Inventive spelling, is not, in fact, always successful*:

*In the sense that the writer did not arrive at the proper spelling by guessing.  The writer is successful in carrying across his/her message.

Ah prescriptivism.

existential lunch break

     I just got home from proctoring an exam, and I'm already hungry for lunch (since I had breakfast at 7:30 am).  Bewildered as to what I should choose to snarf and cloudy-headed from having spent an hour and 40 minutes proctoring, studying, reading and generally not being a morning person, I googled, "What should I have for lunch".  

     Apparently many people suffer from the despair of luxury and choices, as this yielded 58,500,000 results (okay, 24,100 with quotes).  On page 2 of the results, I found a post from someone who had written, "I know it's only 10 am, but I'm already thinking about lunch.  What should I have today?"  

     While I love that I'm not alone in planning meals hours in advance, and especially that I'm not alone in planning them at that very hour, it's a little weird whenever I google something I'm thinking, to see that others have thought the same thing.  The lunch thing, okay, pretty common.  But it makes me wonder how many of my other thoughts are actually "original".  I thought I was weird and crazy when I had trouble believing that I exist, but, lo and behold, "existential depression" yields 13,200 results, "I feel as if I don't exist", 898, and, the more favorable, "I feel like I don't exist", 6,960.  I feel sometimes that I've come to some great revelation (at least to myself), and then I find somebody's already written it, already said it, already thought it out.  All I have left to do is buy the t-shirt.  When I was little, I was playing my violin and realized that if I moved my left hand closer to me, down the fingerboard, I could produce the same notes on a lower string as on a higher string.  When I gleefully demonstrated this to my parents, they said, "Yes!  Very good, that's 2nd/3rd/4th position!"

     This all really helps my existential depression, doesn't it?  Well, I keep on pushing anyway, and I feel quite lively at the moment, although the spaces under my eyes feel tired and it feels as if there is cotton inside my head.  Now what am I going to eat for lunch today...?

Horribly structured post of randomness

1.  I woke up with "Honey, Honey" by ABBA stuck in my head.  It's still stuck in my head.

2.  Why does it sometimes take so much effort for people to arse themselves to do things they enjoy?  Why do people who love music dread practicing (Okay, fair enough, sometimes it's totally frustrating and I hate the way I sound and want to break my violin, and there is a certain anxiety sometimes when it's been a while since my last practice session and the only person in the same hallway plays the same instrument....)?  Why can't I get myself to go to dance classes or the gym as regularly as I might enjoy?  I love reading and can even get into a studying groove once I get started... so why is it so hard to get started?

3.  I'm having breathing problems, but I think it's just from allergies/stress/a spring cold.  I think I scared the crap out of a cashier at Walgreens when I handed over my debit card, clutching my chest with a distressed look on my face yesterday.

4.  I bought an awesome hat last night, but I don't think it goes with any of the clothes in my "spring collection".

5.  I've decided that the best season of "Buffy" for dialogue is season 3.

I like this

Dreams

Or in the words of Bruce Lee:

 I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine.

"Ironically", I'm not coming up with any new/unique way of expressing this idea.  Oh well, I don't feel like it... and if you expect me to do it, you can suck it (just kidding).

Fuck that shit indeed.

Some thoughts

     As I stood stirring the batter to a double chocolate quick bread in my nearly luxury apartment (for it to be luxury, it would have to cost 50% more per month), a question came to my mind that has been bothering me for a while now: am I becoming or have I become too "epicurean"?  As one gets older, the opportunities (depending on situation, of course; I don't think this is true for homeless people, for example, but, then again, I wouldn't know.) become more and more for luxury and pleasure.  I've avoided the pain of getting my work done earlier (so I've put off the pain, really), the pain of re-evaluating my life and deciding whether I'm really taking the right path and instead have slipped into a near-comatose state, or an emotional cocoon, maybe.

       One of the professors at the departmental party of which I wrote earlier remarked that at least we, as first year graduate students, were not curled up in the fetal position, and that this was a good sign at this time of the second semester.  I felt temporarily relieved, but soon realized that I've been a mental fetal position for months now, and the end is nowhere near.  I have been avoiding the pain of dealing with my stress, but this tends to cause even more pain.  

     I wanted to put dried cherries in my quick bread, but had none.  I am in pain for not having them, but do not want to take the effort to get to a store to buy dried cherries, which would seem to be too much of a luxury in the first place (going to a store in order to buy a product that I really do not need).  This last thought is tangled up in a back-and-forth debate of what is pleasure and what is pain.  I don't even know which is which anymore.  If I've even briefly contemplated checking myself into some nice institution where I would get to draw pictures all day (in my mind, such places exist!).  When I think about it, though, I know I would get bored and restless in such a place, and that an "institution" really isn't the right place for me; we all have our ups and downs, and I am no exception.  I also have to deal with the fact that I am absolutely petrified of complete happiness.  Any threat of it makes me draw further into my cocoon, waiting it out until the threat is eliminated.

     In order to survive in sanity, we need both pleasure and pain.  Maybe staying in school is a pain sometimes, but it balances out all the happy moments I get teaching (most of the time), hanging out with friends, and drawing the occasional picture, dancing, doing music or ice skating.  If I were independently wealthy or in a sanitarium all day, I would go crazy.  I guess this really is sounding quite like epicureanism, but, of course, I can't say that I subscribe completely to that belief system (I want to be unique, remember?!).  I don't think that seeking out "simple pleasures" is the only thing guiding me, though, and I'd like to think that I have certain moral standards that lead me through my life choices.

     So here's to partial happiness, toward the end of a very long semester.

Three layers

     I made three-layer brownies for the departmental end-of-the-year party yesterday. They weren't fully set at the beginning of the party, which prompted the department head and host to ask me at least twice, "Now WHAT are these?"

The finished product, before settling

Three layers

Finally cut and settled, the leftovers are sitting in my kitchen.

     They are good, though, if I do say so myself, and, unfortunately for my waistline, the leftovers are currently sitting on top of my stove. At least I went to kickboxing yesterday, where Jessica, Leslie and I found regular instructor Lesa back in business and seemingly happy out about her return from vacation ("Now I know what a beginner feels like!" she lamented as she effortlessly demonstrated an ab exercise, anyway.).

     Today, I need to finish grading a test, an Internet activity, workbook pages and a second draft of a composition, all of which was turned in to me this last week. Although I only have eight students, I feel I have a bit of a right to complain, since I have to work on my own schoolwork and apparently my pedagogical efforts were fruitless in some cases.

     Take, for instance, that I spent several days explaining and going over the subjunctive, and made a special handout for my students that separated expressions that introduce the subjunctive and those that introduce the indicative, so that they would have all the expressions together (I even made headings detailing what kinds of expressions they were (e.g. expressions of emotion and impersonal expressions) and added a section on how to avoid the subjunctive, reiterated from the textbook, at the end of the handout) and so that they could use it as a study guide for these expressions. I also explicitly told them several times, "Remember, you have to memorize these expressions AND the endings/stems for the subjunctive!" They nodded dutifully as you do at a teacher whether you know what's going on or not, and I figured they would have the sense to take the tools I had given them and study for the exam.

     So why did I get sentences like this: "Je voudrais que proteger les droits civils", "ils veut que preservent l'environnement" and "Il est importante que soit un citoyens bons et recylcé"?

     What?

     Okay, I've picked some of the worst sentences to illustrate my point, and it is clear that these students don't understand things they should have learned in 101, or whatever they took as a beginning French course, and I really did get some other good sentences in the subjunctive (e.g. "Il faut que vous votiez pour moi. Il est essentiel que nous recyclions plus souvent que maintenant")throughout the course of the exam. It's just hard to read some sentences that are barely comprehensible in handwriting that is barely legible.

     I'm also trying to work on my various papers, chopping away at them little-by-little.

     Since my culture paper is intended to discuss the arguments between the ramistes (Rameau fans) and the lullystes (Lully fans) as to what is "French" (vs. Italian) and whether using the words "classique" vs. "baroque" is actually a "political usage" in comparing French to Italian music/styles (yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about.), I'm looking at an Italian text to see if the Italians have a different account of the story. So far, I've found unhelpful quotes such as, "Durante tutto il secolo XVIII l'estetica francese e l'estetica italiana non cessano di fronteggiarsi". Well, duh.

     Back to the grind, I guess.

False fluidity

Today is special because it marks the end of my 46-fl. oz. bottle of 100% cranberry juice....  Or so I thought.  After rinsing it out and throwing it into my recycling bin, I realized that I had been drinking 100% cherry juice all this time in my "home curing" of my frequent UTIs.  I'd thought it tasted a bit different than my normal cranberry beverages, although still tart.  Oh well, it still works.

I only have one thing to say

     I need to learn how to self-serve my own frozen yogurt without it looking as though it has been giving itself a little self-service of its own....  Hey-o!  Gross.

     Also here's a picture of be trying to look "British".  Is it working?

Give me something to blog about

Please!  Give me something to blooooog about!

-I feel good about myself for posting grades for my students' assignments and participation grades per week on Compass, as well as providing a link to a map of the building where they will have their final written exam, a link to the conflict request form, and worksheets that they may have missed due to absences, all on Compass.

-I don't feel better about myself for eating 5 Snackwells cookies instead of 5 Double Stuf [sic] Oreos.  I bought one package of each at Walgreen's today.  I had been planning on avoiding purchasing Oreos all together, but as I had been thinking of them before having gone to Walgreen's, and they ended up being prominently displayed in the store when I got there, I decided it was fate and bought them anyway.

-I feel somewhat good about myself for adding some information to my powerpoint slides for my Tuesday presentation on anglicisms in French print advertising.

-I feel horrible about myself for not working AT ALL on this "study" I am supposed to be working on for the rest of this project.  It doesn't even seem like a "study" at all, and I have barely any motivation to get working on it.

-I am working on watching "Buffy" from start to finish, completely in order.  Today, I finished season 1.

Disturbia

     Nothing very exciting has happened in my life, recently.  However, I was plagued by horrible nightmares last night.  I do not remember much about them, only that while I was asleep it felt as though something evil were running my dreams and that I couldn't escape from them.  I remember that I was living in a house with other people my age, and my room was small and wooden, with a bed that resembled the coffin-like containers on "Dollhouse".  I know that the people in the house were really mean to me and verbally abused me and attacked me.  I remember running out to ice skate in order to get away from the house for a while, but, somehow, I couldn't get away from people that were hurting me.  I remember a torn up book as well, maybe a book I'd been trying to read....  I remember the pain being so bad that I could barely stand it.  There was some sort of memory issue in the dream; the other people couldn't remember who I was, or had chosen to shun me in such a way for a period of time.  I think I triumphed in the end, actively or passively, I don't remember how.  I think the whole nightmare was so horrible, that I've repressed some of it.  I know that we don't always (accurately) remember our dreams or nightmares, but I remember trying to wake up and tell myself in the nightmare that it was just a dream, that people weren't really hurting me, but not being able to convince myself that this was true.

     From what I've read about dreams, nightmares and anxiety, I think this was an anxiety dream.  My left arm kept feeling weird and every time I checked my pulse after having felt weirdness in my arm, it was racing.  Strangely, I wasn't having palpitations, because I wasn't aware of my heartbeat; I made myself aware of it.  I think I'd had way too much sugar and caffeine that day!

     I have had a lot of weird dreams that made me think that some (or THE) evil force was controlling my dreams or interfering with them.  I think they're too creepy to put on my blog, though!  Dreams can be fun if they're wacky and surrealistic, but I'm just left disturbed when I'm being attacked and feel completely out of control throughout the nightmare!

     Sorry this post is kind of boring.  Here are some funnier dreams I've had: When I was little, I had a dream that my mom had become a vampire, but this particular kind of vampire was actually a little yellow Sony Walkman (that's right, the tape deck, not the CD player....).  I remember that we were all trying to save her and bring her back into normal, human, mortal form,  I told my mom about it the next day, and, to this day, she has not forgiven me for it!  I also used to dream about Space Quest because I was always playing it on my Nokia, back in the day.  I've figured out Calculus problems in my sleep that I had not previously understood consciously.  I also had a dream last semester that someone asked me how I remembered the IPA symbol /Y/, and I replied, "Well, it looks just like the flux capacitor from Back to the Future".  I have also been, in various dreams, Buffy or a Power Ranger (when I was younger), and I've somehow participated in adventures with The Doctor from "Doctor Who".  I am beginning to realize that my dreams are kind of dorky....

I only date guys who drink snapple

     My only cooking pot stared up at me from the bottom of my sink, old cheese stubbornly clinging to its insides, resisting the relentless scrubbings of my sponge, one of the ones that's scratchy on one side, and soft on the other.  Suddenly, I realized that I had discovered steel wool sponges in a drawer I had forgotten about next to my under-the-sink cabinet.  I pulled one of the steel wool sponges from an S.O.S. box that boasted extraordinary spongey cleaning results when pitted against sticky, clingy bits of food.  It was round, and, strangely, blue, but I decided to use it anyway.  Wow!  A few swift scrapes of the steel wool, and the cheese came right off the pot.  I was amazed....  But... What was that?  Why was the water turning blue?  Had I been..... SABOTAGED?  

     Oh no, what will I do?  I panicked.  Is this some kind of special poison that will embed itself into my cookware and become activated every time it gets wet?  Will I never be able to use this pot again?

     I gathered my wits and checked the box.  It was very hard to find this specific detail, but it turns out that one of the amazing things about this sponge is that it contains actual soap.

     Although the blue liquid that pours out of the sponge upon adding water can be disconcerting, and it is only meant to be used once (Once I read this, I scrubbed nearly everything in my sink with the sponge), this is one badass cleaning weapon.

Just words....  Not a contender.

FML: A Very Lemon Weekend

     My sweet weekend soon turned sour at the bus terminal at about 12:45 am, waiting for the bus to go home when I realized that I no longer had my keys.  I had been having a fun Saturday night, drinking at Esquire with Jessica, Chris and Sean, as well as Dan B., who kept referring to me as "Liz Lemon".  Little did he know that his description would turn out to be so accurate.   

      Luckily I still had my phone and Sean, so we called the remaining friends at the bar to ask if my keys were still at the table or if anyone at the bar had found them.  No such luck.  I ended up staying on Sean's couch and throwing out my last pair of contact lenses (I knew I should have ordered more....  I will probably have to wear glasses for the rest of the semester.) because I can't sleep in them and he didn't have any contact solution, not being visually impaired as I am.  I had called the bus company, and the person I spoke to took down my information and told me that they'd call me if my keys had been found.  The next morning, I still hadn't received any call.  

     Now, let me inform you what "my keys" actually signifies: On one single orange Illinois lanyard that I'd gotten for free on Quad day, I have my student ID ($20 replacement fee for that), my fitness class pass (okay, I haven't been to a class this week, but I'd been planning on attending at least a few more class sessions), a rape whistle, complimentary of my sophomore year dorm, the key to my parents' house, the key to my dad's old Nissan (which has since been sold), my apartment keys, which include a door key, a fob, and a mailbox key (at least a $75 replacement fee) and all my FLB keys (outside key, office key, and my overhead compartment key).

     After having watched the 3-hour French movie, Indochine, which is required for our French Around the World class, with Sean, I called MTD back to see if the bus driver had turned in my lost items.  The woman who answered told me that if no one from MTD had called me, nothing had been found, but that the bus driver might have dropped my keys off at the terminal office.  Which is closed on Sunday.

     Sean offered to let me stay another night at his apartment, which was very kind, but my day starts at 8am tomorrow, and I need to do lesson plans and homework, and I would worry about getting from his apartment to FLB by 8 in the morning.

     We drove down to the area around Esquire and searched a bit ourselves, but came up with nothing.  Finally we stopped by my apartment management company.  Which, it turns out, is closed on Sunday.

     I ended up having to call the emergency maintenance number ($75 fee if they don't consider your problem an "emergency") to get a maintenance person to come open my door for me ($75 fee).  Sean dropped me off at Espresso Royale to wait for the maintenance guy, where I ate lunch in the loft by myself, greasy hair, last night's makeup, pants covered in food and mud I had kicked up walking in puddles last night and inflicted by a hole I'd noticed last night.  As if my appearance and situation were not Lemonesque enough, a cute guy at the table adjacent to mine asked me a question about statistics (actually a rather simple one; he asked me what a 1:1 relationship was in the context he had been reading about....  It turns out (that is, it has been divulged by my eavesdropping of his conversation with a classmate that stopped by to talk to him) that he is an acting student.

     I haven't changed my locks yet.  By the way, in case you don't believe in astrology, here is my horoscope for today:

Here is your single's love horoscope for Sunday, April 19:

Some changes are in order when it comes to your household. Your dual nature seeks balance and harmony, but your living situation is anything but. Whether you live alone or in an animal house of sorts, keep it simple and stick to a plan. 

(Yes, I am patheticsville and get free single's love horoscopes emailed to me by astrology.com)

     Now I'm in my apartment, waiting for a stalker who has looked up my address by seeing my name on my ID card to come rape and pillage me.  Too bad he has my whistle.

KULTCHAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

     I'm having a pretty cultural weekend, as my weekends usually go.  The weather was gorgeous yesterday, and I spent the afternoon sitting on the quad doing some reading, listening to some not so cultural conversations of a young group of girls who kept singing off-key, gossiping about friends, and playing youtube videos on their iPhones.

     On my way home, I heard drums coming from the amphitheater of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and decided to attend some of the free concerts offered there for the second day of the Boneyard Arts Festival.  The local groups that were playing while I was there were the Mande Drumming Ensemble, the Didjeridu Ensemble, Balinese Small Ensembles, and the Adzudi Drum Club.  The music was very entrancing and although I don't normally listen to "world music", I was in the right mood for it, and it was exactly what I needed at that time.  

     Later that evening, I went to see "Observe and Protect" with Chris, Jessica, Sean and Dan B..  The movie was pretty good; I can see how one could be disturbed by it, although it is billed as a comedy.  I definitely recognize that it is scary to think that there are people in the world who think the way that some of the characters in the movie seemed to think, but I was detached enough from exposure to those kinds of mentalities at the time that I saw the film that it wasn't an uncomfortable experience for me.  I thought it was rather well-done and entertaining.  Thought-provoking, even ;)

     Of course, we went to Steak 'n Shake afterwards.  During dinner, Jessica revealed that she had been caught by ebay for "shilling"; her boyfriend had placed false bids on her items in order to make the price/demand higher, and they eventually got caught for it.  I had heard this story before, but she had not previously told me, to my recollection, that (1) she had to go to the ebay equivalent of online traffic school after her incident was reported (2) the particular items she had been selling were 3D puzzles, much to the delight of everyone at the table.

     Jessica and Sean ended up crying from laughter, and consoled one another and a tearful embrace:
     Chorus: What kind of 3D puzzles did you sell?

     Jessica: I had a lot of castles....  I didn't sell Cinderella's castle, though.

     Sean: Oh, you wanted to keep it?

     Jessica: No, no one wanted it.

     Sean *dies of laughter*

     Today I inadvertently went to the crafts fair in the Union, and ended up buying a cool shirt from a friendly and charismatic (chef charismatique?!) local t-shirt designer.

     On my way home, I saw this cool design (I think it's spray painted on the ground) on the Medical Sciences walkway:

 
     I've decided I want to spent a good portion of the rest of my life listening to George Harrison and watching "The Office", "Buffy" and "Doctor Who" on my laptop.

And that's what it's all about

I had a great Easter weekend!  I must begin with the shallow points:  

• I bought Clinique Happy Heart body wash for the first time and it smells soooo wonderful, and since it was Clinique Bonus Time at Macy's, I got a free bonus kit with my purchase which included a cosmetics bag, a "youth serum" (which I gave to my mom), mascara, lipstick, moisturizer I'd been thinking of buying anyway, and a blush stick.
  
• My mom bought me an actual sports bra (It had been years since I'd owned one, and I'd grown sick of yanking on the bra straps of my various pushups and other inappropriate for working out undergarments during fitness classes) and silky beautiful pantyhose (I'd been buying pairs at Walgreen's, and these are Donna Karen.  BIG difference.)
• My mom also gave me the pair of silver ballerinas she had to wear when she played on Oprah.  I could tell she loves them, but she said she wouldn't ever wear them for a normal occasion in public.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not above that at all!

     I got to see my sister this weekend, which was awesome because we don't see each other very often anymore and she's going to North Carolina for music camp (is that the right term?) this summer, which is awesome, but it means that we won't get to hang out much this year.

     I also got to see the rest of my family and friends of the family, and we had a really fun time eating at Lulu's in downtown Evanston saturday night and going to church and having Easter dinner at our house in Evanston.  I have more chocolate/Easter candy than I know what to do with.  Please help me eat this!  I also have a new iTunes card to spend.....

     I spent enough time with my Latin books for my family to think I'm studious.  Ha.

     One friend of the family told my mom that I'm "too pretty to be a professor" and her daughter told me to my face that I'm "too young to be a professor".  I kindly reminded everyone that I'm not a professor, and just wait five or how many more years and see if they still think this is true, but thanks anyway.  Although I suppose that if I look like a 16-year-old now and the my rate of aging does not accelerate, I have a good chance of still looking youthful at 27....  Right?

     My mom broke out the scrapbooks of ancestors we have in our house, but I neglected to take pictures of any of their contents, and am really kicking myself because I need to do a presentation on my family's immigration history for Italian class on Tuesday!  I have no idea how I'm going to pull this off because now I have no visual aids unless I search the Internet for my family, and the only information I have on most of my family's immigration to the US consists of "family stories" because parts of my family came over here before it actually was the United States (i.e. they were British and came over in the 1600s, most likely for religious reasons.).

     Shout-out to those who ran the half-marathon at U of I!  Congratulations!

Product review Wednesday

     The things that have changed in my life recently can be told through a series of reviews concerning changes in products I have made.

Ocella

Ocella is the generic pill for yasmin, and it was prescribed to me by my dermatologist along with spironolactone, a potassium sparing diuretic (My acne is hormonal, so he said that these medications would be quite effective for my kind of acne).  Before beginning Ocella, I decided to look up this specific pill because I had never heard of it before and I was excited to learn all that I could about a medication that might actually relieve me of my flocks of zits.  Upon googling the drug, I found many distressing posts on various blogs (with acne bents as well as medical ones) explaining the horrible side effects some women had experienced upon beginning this pill.  Although my parents warned me not to get worked up about these posts, that could have been written by anyone, after having started the pill, I became more and more anxious every day.  The first week I was on it, I had such a severe panic attack that I had to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night.  In subsequent nights, I had panic attacks (nearly every night, in fact) but I was able to talk myself out of them, telling myself that my problems were probably psychosomatic and that I was just expecting to experience side effects from this pill.  Unfortunately, the heart palpitations and breathing problems became more and more frequent, happening almost every night and starting to occur during my classes during the day.  Even though I had had my potassium checked (Ocella paired with a potassium sparing diuretic such as spironolactone can increase your level of potassium) and found that it was high, but not too high, and even though I knew that I was in good health, I realized that even with my anxious, worrisome nature, this level of anxiety was not normal for me and it was affecting my life on way too many levels.  I stopped taking the medication and now I am much calmer, and haven't had a single panic attack since (This is my fifth day off Ocella and my fourth day off spironolactone.).  I read online that panic disorder can be linked to Ocella, and although I'm not sure how credible the sources I read are, I am highly tempted to claim that it was Ocella that was causing the problem (My dermatologist had me go off both pills, though, because we don't know for sure what could have been causing the side effects.)

I did notice a dramatic change for the better in my skin, acnewise, but the side effects were not worth clear skin.  I am still using the topical treatments that I'd already been using, so we'll see how it goes.

Maybelline

I love Maybelline products, and have been using their powder (sometimes I buy their mineral powder, others their shine proof powder or something of the like) for about a year now.  I've noticed that their plastic cases have a tendency to crack easily, though.  I have a set of their blush in a broken case, and the lid to my powder, which had been cracked for a couple weeks, finally broke in two.  I have had this happen before with Maybelline powders (not with the mineral kinds though, which seem to be in a sturdier case) and with the caps to their foundation sticks and it's always annoying, but I deal with it because I like to use their products.  I know plastic breaks, especially if it's thin and you occasionally carry it around with you, but I wish the company would come up with some more durable packaging.

Clinique

I loooove the Clinique Superfit liquid foundation I bought from Sephora.  The only complaint I have is the same one I see in some of the comments of the product on their website, posted by other extremely pale people, apparently, which is that even the lightest color is not really that light.  For me, it is not only a bit dark, but it is too yellow (a problem that I often have with makeup foundations).  I have pink undertones, but it seems that some makeup companies tend to make their lighter shades only in yellow undertones.  Although yellow is good for concealing purposes, and sometimes I wish I had yellow undertones, but I don't, and so I look a little weird in this color (My Italian teacher thought I had gone somewhere warm for spring break.  I didn't tell her that I had stayed in Illinois and simply switched to a foundation that was too dark for me!).  My Maybelline powder is a lighter shade, though (however still more yellow than pink), so it evens out well enough (I'm a powder AND liquid girl.)

That's about it.  I'm so ready for this semester to be over (but not ready to turn in my term papers!  Agh!)!

Big long post-spring break update

     I've been meaning to post a spring break recap, detailing all the fun one can have over spring break without leaving the midwest, but I've been "busy" (and lazy).  Today does not seem to be a particularly productive Saturday (although I went to kickboxing and cleaned my oven and my sink, so...  I feel somewhat of a sense of accomplishment.), so I give you the salute to the midwest (i.e. Illinois and Iowa, which are the only states besides Michigan that I really visit around here), followed by some pictures from last night's celebration of Mica and DB's birthdays:

     Unfortunately, my sister's and my vacation only overlapped by one weekend, but it was fun to visit Iowa City when we took her back the first Saturday of my spring break.

     Here is a picture of the family in front of Pagliai's Pizza, one of the best pizza palaces anywhere!  You can't see it in the photo, but there are people flipping the pizza dough in the window behind them.  My sister has her viola, because she takes it with her pretty much everywhere.

     I brought my Tigger backpack on the trip, much to the amazement of every child I encountered, who would inevitably follow me around like the Pied Piper (not my metaphor; we went to a new age store the next day where the shopkeeper complemented me on my bag, and I told him about the children, after which he made the reference to the dude with the pipe) or, in the case of this dinner, turn around in their booth and point out to their parents that Tigger was behind them every five minutes.

     On Tuesday I saw "The Watchmen" with Christine.  It was her third time seeing it, and my first.  It was kind of creepy, but really good; it held my attention for its full 2.7 hours.

     The next day I had good old American hot chocolate (at Starbucks) with Ravinia coworker Kate, where we had lively conversations catching up on our lives and gossiping about our coworkers, until the Starbucks employees started sweeping the floors and cleaning out the cash register, or whatever businesses with cash registers do at the end of the night.

     Kate later convinced me to come into work on that Friday for a "Rising Stars" concert, during which we stuffed envelopes for returning workers and tried to decide who was really worthy of coming back ;)

     On Thursday, I was a "teacher's helper" for my mom, and played violin with her violin, cello and bass students.  It was pretty fun, and according to my mom, the kids were calmer than usual since I was there.

     On Saturday, some high school friends and I met Karthik at Gameworks in Schaumburg.  Gameworks is essentially a Chuck 'E' Cheese for grown-ups.  At the beginning of our Gameworks experience, we played arcade games such as Road Rage, Blow Up The Death Star ("Star Wars"), and Shoot Zombies With A Plastic Gun and Get Really Angry When The Zombies Slash Your Face (I don't remember the actual titles in any of these games.)  I was getting progressively more and more angry because these games did not distribute any tickets at the end and I had SEEN prizes on the main level of the complex.  We took a break for dinner, during which we had pretty good food and I cooled off by eating and talking out my anger.  In the middle of our dinner break, I had to go to the bathroom, and on my way there, I found what I now refer to as the "money games" (the ones that dispense tickets), which I later played for almost the entire duration of our time there after dinner)Then, some college friends stopped by (Karthik had told them we were going, and apparently they were inspired) and seemed kind of frightened of my crazy-eyed talk of my plans to get to the money games after we'd finished dinner.  It was a good time, though, and I ended up winning some prizes with my tickets!  I'm planning on going back sometime.

Goodbye, Gameworks!  Now let's take these pictures quickly because it's cold and raining!

Mica, Chris and Jessica at Esquire to celebrate Mica's and DB's birthdays:

Sean and friend:

Anna and Julie:

Rebecca and Dan:

DB (right) and friend:

Dan eating chips out of a bag without his hands....  Unfortunately the waxpaper from his empty french fry basket is obstructing the view:

     After dancing at C-street for two hours, I took my shoes off at the bus terminal.  Chris decided to put them on and show us his catwalk skills (which are way too impressive for any of these pictures to give them justice.)

"When you're fed up shedding too many tears...

... and your memories seem like just so many souvenirs, I will come to you to ease the pain."

-Paul McCartney

     I miss Paris.  

     I really have never wanted to miss Paris, as much as I've enjoyed my times there, but it's really hit me how much I long to be back there.  Yes, I said "long".  I long for my spartan-esque dusty bedroom in my friendly foyer.

      I miss the de-stressing catharsis sessions at the local McDo (where the patrons actually look as trendy as the ones in the commercials we see for McDonald's in the US and where they constantly play the Top 40 instead of obscure 60s tunes.).  I miss having a gigantic grocery store across the street, even though its delivery trucks would wake me up at 6am every morning.  

     I miss taking easy and convenient public transportation, mousse sold in little cups right next to the yogurt, little old ladies who would randomly initiate pleasant conversations on the street and even the creepos who wanted me to stop and bavarder with them.  I miss eating a croque aux 2 fromages.  Yes, they have vegetarian croques and they're amazing, and I want one now  (ooh I just found some recipes online!)!

     I miss browsing in any of the Gilbert stores, walking all over the place, buying cheap teenybopper clothes at Jennyfer, walking past history and fantastic architecture.  I miss going to the free contemporary art museum...

... and chilling on the Pompidou plaza. 

     Oh yeah, and easy access to the musée du Louvre was also cool.  

     Yup, it's spring again.

Lights out frustration

It's the middle of the day and in the mid-sixties, so no, a power outage does not seem completely dire at the moment.  However, I'm a bit frustrated.  I was skating at the Ice Arena at approximately 3:25pm today when the whole rink went black.  Some back-up lights soon came on, but the skate guards soon ushered us off the ice, anyway.  Thinking that this blackout was probably going to last longer than 35 minutes, when Public Skate would have ended, I packed up my bag and hauled ass (not without effort, since the wind kept blowing me gallywest (actually east) part of the way) to Walgreens, only to find that although they must have backup lights, their cash registers were off-line.  I continued down Green Street, trash swirling low around me, past all the stores with no lights on, and ended up in the Union bathroom, in which there was no light, and no one around me was speaking English (I felt like my aunt in the CSO lockeroom).

     I was pretty apathetic to the inconveniences that I'd come across since, as I said, it is a nice day and it's still during daylight hours.  But then I realized, I'm on my LAST glass of Diet Coke, and the vending machines probably don't work, nor do any stores' cash registers.  I thought, well, so what, I'm out of Diet Coke, I can always make coffee.  ENHHH.  No coffee.  That would require a coffee MACHINE powered by electricity.  But WAIT, I have some leftover coffee in the refrigerator.  Wrong again.  I can't reheat it without my microwave or my stove, both of which are electric.  It's got milk in it, which is going to go bad and make it nasty and rancid by the time I want to drink it.

     Still, I'm really having trouble getting angry.  I know everything is going to be all right, and although I may lose some groceries which I'd been trying to stock up in the name of being economical, but it's no big deal, right?

Semi-drunken life ramble

     As I lie in my dark bedroom listening to my "///////Stressless" playlist being overpowered by the noises blasting music of unidentifiable genre alternating with possibly awkward bathtub sex taking place next door to me, I ponder the fact that I am wiped at 11pm on a Saturday.  Is it because of the extra-jumpy kickboxing session I had this morning?  Possibly the overwhelming and looming stress that's been hovering above me like a dark purple cloud of doom that continues to push forward along with me?  Is it the fact that I had 3 margheritas this evening and I generally get happy after half a cerveza?  I think I'm just getting old.  Every time I look in the mirror, I'm shocked at how old I've gotten and how much it shows.  I get "pooped" (yes, I said, "pooped"!) so much earlier than used to when I was younger.  I even checked on next week's homework (gasp!) out of a hybrid mix of a feeling of responsibility and boredom.

     Aging scares me, as it always has.  I worry that I won't "be" anyone when I'm older, that I'll just have a boring job and no one will know who I am.  I worry that I am missing some calling that's been trying to buzz me for years, except I'm in the underground part of the "L" and I don't have US Cellular.  I see comfortable middle-aged people sipping on their beers and seeming content with their lives.  These people are not famous.  They have greying hair, are overeducated, and have anonymous professions with which they are satisfied.  I don't understand this.  I've tried to think that way, or at least to imitate that way of thinking.  I've tried to believe that I can be content being anonymous, having a "normal" life, getting married and having 2.5 children and barbecuing Boca burgers every 4th of July.  Maybe I'd grown up for a while, but I can't fool myself into contentedness anymore.  Yes, I am happy in my life, and I feel so blessed to have been given all these opportunities and to have all these wonderful people in my life.  But I cannot just accept existence at "face value".  I can't ignore all the questions I have about life and whether I have a predestined journey.  I can't accept my situation in apathy.  But that's just what I've been doing.  I stay away from controversial topics and am often too lazy to work on the things that interest me (I haven't been in a practice room since last semester, for example).  I've been floating through my classes without caring about grades very much and barely freaking out (at least on a conscious level) about the massive quantities of work I have.  I've shut down, and I don't know how to restart.  I don't even know if I should restart; sometimes I think I'm happier when I just let go of everything.  But when I start thinking about what I should really be doing, whether I am just tricking myself into thinking that I am happy with my current situation, I realize that I am truly not trying my best.  I lie around thinking about doing things without actually doing them.  Sometimes I'd rather take a nap than do anything else in the world.  I want to "find myself" but it seems so hard!  When I look back on the way I used to be, the girl who dressed up every day for whom singing was her whole life, who drew pictures and mimicked British accents, who looked disdainfully upon drinking, who dreamed of being famous is virtually gone.  I fell into French because I was too shy to try out for music school and I happened to do well in French classes.  I took an introductory linguistics course and fell in love with the subject.  Now I can't imagine having majored in anything other than French, but I don't know why.  I wonder if I am really the same person I used to be, because I just don't recognize myself anymore.  I feel like a more "worldly" person, a wiser person, but the girl I used to be seems like a distant shadow.  I don't want to be her anymore, but I fear that I'm leading a fake existence sometimes.  

     So my project henceforth (actually the project I've been working on since about the age of 9) is to figure out who I truly am.  Maybe it is "the journey that counts", and perhaps I'll figure that out along the way.  I just hope I have the courage to follow my dreams instead of clinging to a path that just might be "easy" for me.  However, that is the question.  Are we to follow the path that is easiest, and the most comfortable for us?  Would that not be following "fate", if such a thing exists?  Or are we supposed to follow crazy dreams that are uncertain and may not lead to prosperity?  Maybe personality plays a part.  Maybe my timidity is what has caused me to follow this path, which is perhaps indeed the path of my fate.  But maybe I am supposed to overcome my timidity and challenge myself (waaay more than I am now!).  I suppose I should figure out what I really "want" in life, as a first step, and, unfortunately, this is going to take some effort.

Good things sometimes come in stay-fresh packages

     Delicious things, even!  As you may know, I've been trying to cook more lately, which includes introducing more variety to my meals.  I figure I'll document my progress, in case one day I actually learn how to make more complicated, creative dishes.

     Last night I made homemade pizza, which turned out to be great (I'm so modest, haha), to my surprise, since it was probably the most easy/lazy pizza to make:

(Meijer 7-inch crust, Bertolli's five cheese sauce into which I mixed a little pesto, Kraft finely shredded mozzarella cheese, tomato and onion)

     I also made confetti Angel food cake (from a box) and topped it with vanilla frozen yogurt and chocolate syrup for dessert:

     Unfortunately, I ran out of plastic wrap and my refrigerator smells like onion, so the cake is getting a bit dry :(

Life forces

     I had my skating class last night, which was fun, except for the fact that I was incredibly off balance throughout the entire lesson and kept tripping over myself and forgetting I was on ice skates.  At the end our instructors taught us the "lunge", which isn't actually on our level's test, but still fun.  Unfortunately, although I can do a lunge, I cannot come up out of it without falling.  Fortunately, though, since you are much closer to the ground doing a lunge than you would be doing many other skating maneuvers, the fall is not that bad.

     My skates are getting a bit scuffed, which saddened me at first, but then I decided that scuffs will only prove my dedication:

(it's kind of hard to see, but there are a couple scuffs toward the front of the boot near the sole)

     Jessica graciously drove me to Meijer this afternoon, where I bought lots and lots of food, including ingredients for a sandwich I had bought and devoured from Espresso Royal and that I had hoped to replicate.  I gave it a try tonight, and since I really liked how colorful my dinner looked, I decided to take a picture:

(Unfortunately, I don't have a food setting on my camera.  Sandwich: Ciabatta bread, sliced tomatoes and onion, goat cheese and pesto (I didn't find any at the store, so I made the poor woman's pesto: pre-grated parmesan cheese and olive oil))

Of course, my beverage of choice played an integral part in my dinner:

     Since I am a hypochondriac, I had my potassium checked because the two medications I am taking can increase potassium when taken together.  It turns out that my potassium is high, but still within the "normal" range (their range for "normal" is 3.5-4.9; my level is 4.7... whatever that means.)

     Tonight, I'm going to watch a movie about an Israeli soldier (?).  I hope to know more about the plot after having watched the movie!

Graduate students are the worst*

Today, I sort of flooded my bathroom.  My disgust of my trash can had hit an all-time high when not only did I realize that it smelled like old rotten cheese and Thai food, but I also discovered bits of crud at the bottom that clung on for dear life even when I hoisted the can over upside down above the dumpster outside my building.  I attempted to scrub it out myself, but the smell remained unbearable, so I propped the trash can in my bathtub, squirted some of my chocolate strawberry shower gel into the can, and let the bath water run.  Propping up the can on the ledge, thus creating a straight path from faucet into can was brilliant, as was adding the chocolatey strawberry scent, for my trash can now smells delicious (ew?).  However, I have a tendency to start a task like this, leave the room, go on the Internet, and forget about said task for just a little too long.  This is why I sometimes end up with burnt baked goods, gray soggy noodles (oh yes, they turn GRAY if you let them boil too long.) and flooded bathrooms.  After wasting 30% of the world's resources in terms of paper towels and napkins, my bathroom is now relatively dry, and actually a lot cleaner!

I ate coconut straight out of the bag today.  I'm not sure if that can be considered "stress eating" or just "weird".

Okay, I just remembered I started boiling a pot of water about 15 minutes ago, and probably should put some spaghetti in it.

*30 Rock