Has anyone else seen any V from ABC? I just watched the pilot (and the fourth episode the other day with Mom and Madeline) and it seems fully steeped in heavy-handed political allegory. Anybody?

( I dreamed last night that I was an incarnation of the Buddha. )

It was really nice, and I kind of wanted to go back. I liked the glowing, and the levitating, and the being stupidly in dream-love - which feels a lot more like being electrocuted by a huge chunk of really high quality chocolate than real-life-love does. Real-life-love is like being in a nest made out of felt, and it's warm and cozy and safe and wonderful. Dream-love is a lot like dying via falling off a very high cliff, but more desperately romantic.

Also you know having incredible powers and being humanity's last chance at salvation. That was neat too.

I don't have a lot to update about - my week was boring but productive, and filled with schoolwork. This weekend I'll be doing a lot of cleaning at Mom's for Thanksgiving, which she's hosting. It'll be fun. :) I hope to make this on Wednesday evening for everybody.

I've been listening to The Knife obsessively. Silent Shout is probably etched into my ear drums by now.


Is it really still Friday? This week has taken ages to finish up.

TUESDAY:
. Milroy & Gordon ch4-5
. LING Research question
. Select 2nd Analytical Paper topic
. Start QS7 :: 3/5 questions done
. Start LING 433 Assignment 6
. Religious Freedom ch4
. Kuru ch5-7 +conclusion
. dishes

WEDNESDAY:
. Juergensmeyer 1995
. Krueger & Maleckova 2002
. Religious Freedom ch5
. Yang 2009 (secularism in China)
. Hinduism reading
. Finish QS7
. Start paper

THURSDAY:
. Finish paper
. Finish Assignment 6

FRIDAY:
. Turn in paper early!!!!


unnngggghhh the next three days are gonna' suck

TO DO LIST
. cuddle with my nice boyfriend all morning
. eat a bagel
. Shower
. put on Christmas music
. Johnstone 2000
. Giles and Ryan 1982
. LING 433 Assignment 5
. Wolfram 1998
. Belmont Report
. Religious freedom ch 3-4 three four
. Kuru ch2-4 +conclusion can be delayed
. Yang 2009 (secularism in China) can be delayed

Think about later in the week...
MONDAY:
. Hinduism reading
. RELIG: Kalyvas 2000
. RELIG: Piscatori 1994
. RELIG: Analytical paper

( also, can I get some fashion opinions? )

i have completed the gre

i am done

maybe now i can have fun again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aaargh. I guess never posting is better than spamposting, right? At least your flists aren't filled with a bajillion emo posts from me every day. Right? Right?

D:

My GRE is (*looks at clock*) technically tomorrow. I spent the evening learning 250 new words. I'll be reviewing all day tomorrow. And probably doing at least one practice test. I'm just not confident in my math skills. (You could even say I'm feeling diffident! LOL NEW VOCAB *shoots self*) At all. Everybody says DON'T WORRY IT DOESN'T TEST COLLEGE MATH, JUST REALLY BASIC PRE-ALGEBRA AND STUFF but guys omg I had to ask my fiance what an integer was last week. I AM NOT READY TO BE TESTED ON BASIC PRE-ALGEBRA. AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!





........... anyway.

(This is not assisted by pretty much everyone in my whole life insisting that I am the smartest person on the planet or something. Stop trying to make me feel better, it is actually only giving me an inferiority complex. D:)

I'm thinking about just not going to class tomorrow and spending all day cramming. It's one quiz section and Hinduism; nothing due, no teachers who know my name/can tell me apart from the other students. But our papers might be getting handed back in quiz section tomorrow, and the lecture on the Bhagavad-Gita is on the schedule for Hinduism. And I love the Bhagavad-Gita. (Of course, this could be a good reason why I CAN skip - since I know it so well, etc.) So I should go. And I shouldn't go. And I should go.

*kri*

But okay. I am actually doing better at the quantitative analysis practice tests than I think I am. I've consistently been getting about 70-75% on them, which is actually pretty dang good. And my verbal scores are pretty bloody high - 85-95%, usually, which is CRAZYPANTS for verbal scores. And if I can just get something higher than like.... I don't know, 1150 or something, I'll probably be fine. I mean jiminy christmas, the program I'm applying to doesn't even care how OLD my GRE scores as long as I can prove I took the test. It's just about the LEAST IMPORTANT PART of the application. (They actually said this in the information session) I should be panicking over my third recommendation letter, or stressing over my personal statement, or SOMETHING.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!



OKAY HELLO, NOT-CRAZY-GRACE SPEAKING NOW. THANKS. HOW ARE YOU? I AM FINE. JUST REALLY FUCKIN FINE. EXCEPT I PROBABLY CANNOT AFFORD TO DISNEYWORLD ON MY HONEYMOON AND I AM REALLY SAD ABOUT THAT. OH WELL.

Josh made homemade chili today, and we ate it curled up on the couch with Daisy, who was snoring, while I quizzed both of us on GRE vocab. (Josh and me. Not Daisy.) I have a very smart boy who is very smart and knows a lot of words. Did you know that? Because I do. He is very smart. And makes marvelous chili.

I also ate what was probably my weight in various candies, the majority of which was probably tootsie-pops. Also cookies with chocolate in the middle. And I know a lot more words than I realized I did, and I know a lot more words now than I did this afternoon.

I'm stressed out enough that even the part of my brain which sits in the back of my head spitting out short story ideas has gone dormant. It usually goes into hyperdrive when I'm stressed, like some kind of built-in procrastination device, but it's been quiet for weeks.

Someday I will draw again. Someday I will write something that's not a research proposal. Someday I will read a book that isn't a textbook, or a study guide.

Today is not that day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.

FUCK YEAH, I'M BACK BABY

Okay, so generally still feeling burnt out, but I'm crossing shit off my To Do list and feeling good about it. :D I've been playing around with my wedding blog and I think it's actually been helping me sort things out. I'm remembering my goals again, for one - before I just had this big pile of shit I had to do or else Bad Things Will Happen, but I feel more like I'm working toward something I want now. :) Josh also picked up a beautiful beautiful hardcover copy of the Bhagavad-Gita for me and I adore him for it. Reading it is helping me a lot, I think.

All right, it's 3:30pm on Wednesday. I need to get my question sheet and my five-minute presentation done for tomorrow, get through as much of my religion & world politics reading as I can (looks like around 250 pages, eek, so I'll shoot for just ~125 pages today), do some dishes, and hit the books for the GRE.

I wish I had time to try NaNo this year. Oh well. There's always next year!

started a wedding blog: http://animmodestproposal.blogspot.com

dundundun

YEEEAAAAHHH finished my 307 midterm in 20 minutes flat! LET'S TALK ABOUT RELATIVISM, BITCHES.

ALSO:
In sfd_anon, someone leaves this comment:
"I really wish I could fastforward twenty years to see exactly how all the kids of the crazy crunchy LJ moms turned out.

I can see it now...all the ones who were breastfed until they were eight years old are incapable of having normal sexual relationships; the attachement parenting kids will be adults who can't even wipe their own asses without Mommy's help; the unschooling kids will be entitled cocks who can't keep a job because Mommy taught them that they are special little snowflakes who can do whatever they want and don't have to listen anyone but themselves.

It would be awesome."

My response:
"hi there, i'm a 23 year old product of long-term breastfeeding (until i was 3.5, woot woot - maybe it's why i love tits so much), attachment parenting, and unschooling

you could just ask me how i'm doing, you know"


I am extremely interested in seeing where this goes. :D (A recap, for the uninitiated: I'm finishing my BA with honors status, heading to grad school next year, engaged to a cool dude with whom I have a perfectly nice sexual relationship, and have never been fired from a job. WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW, ANON)

homework for monday is to review the research for one of the three variables we delineated in our last assignment.

there is no research for any of my variables.


fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Today receives an F for Failure To Satisfy from the Grace's Happiness Rating Board. This in and of itself is particularly annoying to me - the final straw - because I pride myself on my glass-half-full personality, my silver-lining capabilities, my look-on-the-bright-side-of-life methodology, and my gosh darned unflappability.

But ladies and gentlemen, I am flapped.

Last night I went to an information session for the UW's Masters in Library and Information Science program. It was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying, as I expected, with the added side effect of causing me to panic about my grades. (Which are fine.) The speakers basically told us: 1) the admissions process is holistic - get good recommendation letters and write a good personal statement and you're more than halfway there; 2) DO NOT PANIC ABOUT THE GRE; 3) if you are the type of person who does [INSERT LIST OF GRACE'S QUIRKS HERE] you are One Of Us and should apply; 4) DO NOT PANIC; 5) have a great night. So all in all I really shouldn't be panicking. (They told us not to a lot, so I should probably heed that advice.) But as I am a champion grade A worrier, I am panicking anyway because it's my One Skill and god knows I feel bad enough already without giving up my only marketable talent.

So I was going to study today. Don't get me wrong, I did actually get a lot done - but only half of what I had hoped to do, leaving the remaining half for either later tonight (bad) or tomorrow (worse). But I have a headache. The kind that two OTC painkillers can't get rid of and is generally impossible to work through, with the added benefit of griping at my someone's perfectly sweet wonderful fiance who has done absolutely nothing wrong except for look for the broom in the broom closet instead of right in front of him in the kitchen WHICH REMINDS ME

I BROKE MY FRENCH PRESS

The coffee was in it. The kettle was heating up on the stove. And then I knocked it off the counter with my elbow and it shattered, effectively trapping stocking-feeted me in my minuscule kitchen while I hollered impatiently for someone to bring me the broom goddamnit, I WANTED that coffee in a rather obnoxious fashion.

So instead I made popcorn (with real melted butter, in true rebellious fashion) and ate it angrily while searching LLBA in fucking vain for at least one single article that had anything to do with any of my three possible topics. (PS: There aren't any. Apparently.)

Then I read 30 pages of Religion & World Politics reading which is for the most part enjoyable but this 30 pages was 30 pages (out of a total of over 200, I might add - I am at page 103 and not quite halfway done) by Rodney Stark. Also known in this apartment as Mr I'm Going To Totally Miss The Point Of The Thing I'm Critiquing And Then Wax Lyrical About Something That Has Nothing To Do With The Price Of Cheese In Norway (Or ANYWHERE ELSE) While Simultaneously Exuding Smugness From Every Literary Pore Because I Am So Bloody Right.

Which is doubly annoying because I generally agree with him. It's like Keith Olbermann - ideological masturbation is great and all, but not when it's coming from such an ungodly self-important large-headed twit.

[[Typically. Unless that twit is me, in which case everyone loves me because I am great. For example: Josh continues to make me dinner despite my deplorable behavior over broken french presses, insistence on intentionally pooting on him while he attempts to sleep, and bad habit of sneaking my incredibly cold hands inside his underwear when he least expects it (READ: usually. He is an uncommonly trusting person, for which I love him).]]

So I am out of sorts. Headachey. Sans v.v. important cup of coffee. Panicked, but not panicked enough to get work done.

Generally flapped.

Will attempt to be human tomorrow. Today is a lost cause.

oo1. If you're on my friends list, I want to know thirty-five things about you. I don't care if we never talk or if we already know everything about each other; short and sweet is fine. And even if you aren't on my friend's list, feel free to fill it out as well!

oo2. Comment here with your answers (with the questions, please) and repost the questionnaire on your own journal.

( meme meme meme )

I want to make these raisin muffins today. Also: look at this cookbook.

It's that kind of day.

From the first chapter of God Is Dead: Secularization in the West by Steve Bruce:

"The spread of AIDS may be God's judgment on homosexuals, as some US fundamentalists argue[,] though it is not clear what God has against haemophiliacs and west African heterosexuals[.]"

YOU TELL 'EM, STEVE


In addition:
Old Navy brought back their cable-knit slipper boots. And I HAVE A PAIR. Wore them all day today, and goddd they are mucho comfty. Josh says I am goofy. I say I am comfterbuhls.

I have honey oat bread in the oven. I sort of, um, threw it together with little attention paid to the actual directions (as well as not actually enough flour). It smells great and comes out in ten minutes - here's hoping.

gosh, really

no one had any idea

Autumn quarter is my favrit. :>

Religion & World Politics is a course that is being taught, essentially, by my father. The prof wore a cowboy hat to lecture, told us not to ask any questions up close because he's scared of swine flu, and mentioned that his favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard 2. Also he's a comics nerd yaaaay.
Sat next to two extremely thin/shiny girls who talked about Gossip Girl throughout lecture and complained about having to walk to the Fisheries building for class. Felt slightly awkward, as I am fat and socially compromised, but then remembered that I am also badass and way cooler than anybody else ever in the world, maybe. Resolve to sit next to TA with cool bird tattoos next lecture - hopefully cool bird tattoos are contagious.

Sociolinguistics II is, again, taught by one of my three favorite professors ever, BETSEY - who is basically a 5'1" cutie-pants full of vim and vigor and with an entire wardrobe stocked by the costume designers of Mad Men (or at least it seems like it). New favorite from class: Edmond Edmont (try saying that with a French accent; I'll wait), a French sociolinguist from the early 1900s who traveled around on his bicycle collecting data for a Linguistic atlas of France. Um, CUTE. Bonus points: Georg Wenker, second most hilarious sociolinguist name ever, after Edmond Edmont.

Tomorrow is three hours straight of religion - one hour of Religion & World Politics lab and two of Hinduism (glee). Also: getting my mouth looked at reeeaaal close at 8:30am.

I got an engagement ring from that guy I'm getting married to last Saturday. (I proposed to him, but he/we wanted both of us to have rings. Because yay shiny physical symbols of commitment!) It is purty and I like it. Possible photo forthcoming, likely with humorous Wonder Twins reference.

I'm sort of gleeful today - actually sat down and opened another checking account for wedding money yesterday (and put $150 from savings into it), and am currently in the process of setting up PayPal so that my parents can put money into it when they want to. It feels like this is actually happening! WAT.

Got all four wisdom teeth removed this morning, wooo. Apparently it was one of the easiest, least complicated extractions my oral surgeon's ever done, so that's awesome. I am currently packed with gauze and floating on gentle wings of percocet.

what_a_crock is my new favorite thing ever and makes me want a crock pot SO BAD.