Green = St Patty's Day AND spring

Spring has finally sprung in Oberlin, and I can say that with total conviction because I got my first mosquito bite of the season last night. I love being outside at night, and the mosquitoes love me being outside at night too.

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day, around 60 and sunny, very warm in the sun, fairly warm in the shade. All the remaining snow/ice deposits have melted, and it turns out that one of our extra garbage cans saved all that melt, and Kate dumped it out to make a small pond in our side yard. Maybe that's where the mosquitoes came from.

The lovely weather combined with National Drunk Day made for very small amounts of work, but large amounts of fun. After the normal day was over (classes, work, meetings, work), Kate and I spent a few minutes screaming and yelling over the giant bug that had set up shop on my window pane, and then sat on our porch for a while:
I used the last of the stripey fabric to cover the grossness of our couch, so the front of our house is quite matchy-matchy now.

After livin the good life on our porch, we went to the boys' house for a BBQ, and then I played like eight million games of Rummikub and never won once. It is an excellent game though. Then Abby found me and we watched High School Musical at my house, and then it was sleepy time. Lovely day!

Today is a warmer day than yesterday, but it is cloudy and supposedly will rain later. Tonight I have a "webinar" to attend — yes, that is what they call seminars online. I really do not like it. Other than that, I will be celebrating springtime by working on my honors project in my carrel! Yay! My advisor told me today that what I have so far is "swell", so I am counting that as an automatic win for today. I've started a new system (which I blatantly plagiarized from Matt) with which I keep track of my win/loss record. A day is a "win" if I get a lot of work done and/or feel awesome all day long (the awesome/not awesome feeling often being tied directly to how much work I do). I "lose" when I have a bad day and/or don't do what I set out to accomplish. Also there are "draws" for when I can't decide. So far my record is 4-1-2, which isn't too bad.

My carrel is also the new springtime hangout of a group of ladybugs. They mostly stay on/near the window, so it hasn't bothered me too much. Also I am interpreting them as a sign from GGM that he approves of my project, like the yellow butterflies that are always hanging around Mauricio Babilonia in the book. I am clearly only getting more insane as this project continues...

SENIOR BALL

Last night was the "Lucky Senior Ball". Lucky = green = St Patty's day AND environmental friendliness. Clever, no?

"Creative dress" somehow got interpreted this way. I don't know why Ben and Henry were matching.

A few glasses of wine and many chocolate coins into the evening...

This is maybe the only picture of Andrew and me that doesn't look goofy — only sleepy.

Yeah, this is more like the pictures I'm used to.

PARTY FOUL.

Anyway, it was a lovely evening of togetherness, greenery, and chicken, and we all donated 10 bucks to the senior gift. Doing good while having a good time.

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Today was one of those really weird Ohio spring days. In the sun, without the wind blowing, I felt sweaty in my spring coat. Without the sun, with the wind ripping unimpeded over the plains, I needed earmuffs and mittens. It. Was. Odd.

I had a weirdo epiphany today while working on my honors, and it is this: all classic and beloved children's books are magical realist texts. THINK ABOUT IT. The Hungry Caterpillar? If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? The Giving Tree? Maybe it's because they're all about talking animals/plants... Wait, no. Harold and the Purple Crayon — TOTALLY magical realism. This is blowing my mind.

I joined Twitter yesterday for no reason, and so did Kate and Abby. Just another stupid thing I have to keep updated.

Tonight is splitchers again, but I might not be able to go (for the second week in a row!) due to my workload. Stupid honors project keeping me from getting my drink on!?!

Speaking of getting one's drink on, Kate found this somehow last night:

It is, unfortunately, not a parody.

Marissa, Monica, and Chrissy were here last weekend, and on Sunday we went to Glengarry Glen Ross at Little Theater. It was AMAZING, but I have come to expect amazing from the senior/junior contingent of theater majors at Oberlin. Seriously, these guys will be famous someday.

Okay, back to work.

Arts and sciences

Today was our final day of Spanish Olympics, and it went great. I even got two new pieces of artwork that I have hung in my carrel:
One is an original color-by-numbers with not all the colors colored in yet. It has a key on the side, so I guess I'm meant to finish it myself. Also, I'm not really sure what a balloon is doing in a garden scene with flowers and butterflies, but who am I to judge. The other is a snail, which I think is quite realistic, except for the whole rainbow color scheme. The weird thing in the middle is something Abby drew me to hang in my study, but now it is here instead. It's a victory symbol that the Spaniards used to draw on the walls of the Salamanca university in bull's blood when they won... stuff. I suppose Abby meant for this to inspire me to greatness, but when I look at it, I mostly just think of the blood thing.

Speaking of blood, today was one of Ohio's cruel cruel jokes on unsuspecting freshmen: it was about 55 degrees. Bum bum BUUUUUM!!! I, of course, know that this weather will last about 19 seconds, but I heard someone else actually say the "S" word out loud! They obviously don't realize that you can't say that winter has ended until AT LEAST the third week of April.

I found this thing! You can make stuff with it! Here is what I made:

http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/532697/bloggy_blog

It is a picture that represents the top 100 words that I have typed in this blog, with more frequent words in larger type, etc. Isn't that cool?! All I had to do was type in the address of my blog and it did everything for me. TECHNOLOGY.

Just like about 68% of Oberlin's student body, I am now sick with a cold of some kind. I say "of some kind" because I have never before had a cold that caused me to sneeze approximately 17 times per class. It can't be (only) allergies, because I also have the slight fever and general malaise that usually accompanies all my illnesses, and added to the apocalyptic sneezing fits (which is how I am now referring to them) is a vague feeling that my brain is pulsing against the inside of my skull. Not like a headache beating in time with my heartbeat, but the slow pulse of impending doom. But otherwise I'm great?

Today I had a meeting with my advisor, and I actually feel much better about my project. AND, bonus: I am excited to do some work on it. So I'm going to go do that now.

Carrels and carols

So when I went to the library to obtain Ben's carrel, it had ALREADY been taken. It wasn't even open season yet on those carrels! (Honors students get first pick. But that is the only perk I have now that I have no study.) But, it all turned out okay, because I got the same spot on the second floor, which is actually better for me — all the literature I need is on the second floor, as are all the other little comfy places I frequent, AND the cubicles are green instead of red, which will be more calming.


This picture makes it seem very dark, and the window seems very narrow, but it's not. It was difficult to position my computer correctly to get a nice view out the window.


But this is how much natural light hits my little cubicle. It's cozy, I like it, and I'll be there often. For some reason it seems more inviting than my study did.

Right now, SITES is taking up a lot of my time, because of all the organization (and the TONS of emails) I have to do. Hopefully this week will see more time spent on my honors project.

Also, I got into both the excos I wanted, Henry's "Freethinkers" atheism exco (we'll be watching Religulous) and the OSteel exco! Our first practice is tomorrow, and I am excited.

This weekend, we went to Hales Late-nighter, which involved a bunch of bands, free bowling, and free sandwiches. Andrew's rock band played their first gig, and it was pretty good — normal people liked the rocking out parts, and the hippies loved the trippy parts and did their little hippie dances to it. It was funny to see the hippies try to transition from trippy dancing to rocking out. The band is known as Triceratops, which in everyone's opinion is a stupid name, and not as good as their previous aliases — The Right to Arm Bears, Toast Love (later just The Toast), and Show and Tell. I still prefer the names that I came up with, The Royal We (alternatively, The Royal Wee) and Mr. Pudding. For some reason, no one likes those names.

Since this week is an interim-type week for SITES, I decided we're going to have fun this week and do Spanish Olympics. I'm not sure yet what kinds of activities that will include, but it will definitely involve some sweet prizes at the end of the week. Off to work on that.

Spring 2009: THE FINAL SEMESTER

... I think that should be the name of a bad slasher flick.

Anyway, today marks the official start of my last semester, and I feel a little bit insane because it's only 2 pm but I feel like my day should already be over because I've been up so long. On a normal winter term day I would just be waking up.

I am taking two classes this semester, in addition to my honors project, teaching, being a grade level coordinator for SITES, and taking a couple excos (maybe ice hockey again, hopefully OSteel, and very possibly Henry's atheism and agnosticism class). My two classes are both on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but unfortunately they start at 9 am. I have never had a 3 credit class (or any class?) that meets for very nearly 4 hours per week. I'm taking Language in the USA (9-10:50) and Educational Psychology (11-12:15). This means that right now I am both very tired and can't seem to justify a nap. I'm also pretty excited to do some homework.

Sadly, later today I will be handing over the key to my scholar study. Goodbye, old friend. It was fun. Ben, who now has his own lovely study, is bequeathing me his carrell on the third floor, one in a quiet corner, with no other carrell behind it (this is crucial for me, as one of my craziest and biggest pet peeves is having someone read over my shoulder as I write). It also has pretty much the nicest view you can have that isn't from a study. Anyway, I'm very sad to see my study go, but a carrell might actually be better for my work ethic.

Yesterday I was offered the position of a SITES grade level coordinator (for first grade), and I took it! It's a little more work, but I think it will be fun to do the parent newsletters, and now I can really work on getting OSteel to perform for our kids at the end of the year. I also like sending out mass emails. For some reason.

And here's another nice picture — from Kate's camera — from our dinner party:
I wish I had some pictures from Superbowl night, because we went to the 'Sco and the big crowd of people there got a little crazy over the game. It was pretty evenly split between Steelers fans and Cardinals fans, and there were plenty of opportunities for both sides to scream and yell, so it got raucous.

I ALSO wish I had some pictures from Mooney's play (as in, he wrote it AND directed it) called Porcelain. It was about mannequins at an abandoned 50s-style testing site in the desert who come to life after (American) terrorists set off a nuclear bomb nearby. The 50s-style is important because the mannequins learn how to... be alive... from watching Leave it to Beaver and stuff. And THEN one of the terrorist ladies stumbles in and chaos ensues. It was one of the crazier things I have seen in a long time. The way the two mannequin actors moved as if they were moving plastic was insane and literally haunted my nightmares.

Today at lunch, people got to talking about the pitfalls of postmodernism, Foucault and the Panopticon, the inequality inherent in the linguistics of gender, and the destructive and constructive aspects of feminism (no, really), and one of our friends who had been away last semester just sighed and said, "I'm back!" I guess that is what I will miss about Oberlin.

WT4: final days

On Friday, to celebrate the end of our last winter term, Kate and I hosted a fancy shmancy dinner party.

WE ATE:
- hors d'oeuvres of fancy crackers and spinach dip
- fancy salad?
- lemon chicken and pasta
- chocolate fudge cake with ice cream

It was all delicious and mostly went off without a hitch, except for the part before anyone got there when Kate put wax paper in the oven on broil and our first floor filled with smoke and the fire alarms went off. It sounds worse than it actually was.

Here are some pictures from that night:


The latecomers.


Somehow all six of us crowded around our tiny dining room table.


CATCHPHRASE is a fancy game.


Then everyone very fancily passed out by about 10 pm.