Free Admission Day

The weekend before last I made my first, and so far only, call home, so my parents at least have had an update since me last post, but it wasn't until just now that I realized that the nagging feeling in the back of my head was me trying to remind myself that I promised that I would post more pictures.

I joined a gaggle of 12 people I mostly didn't know for a bus trip out into the suburbs. We went to the monastery and palace of San Lorenzo de el Escorial, which is conveniently located in the town of the same name, roughly an hour away from the city center. It was, for some unexpected and still unexplained reason, it was free admission day which was a very nice surprise and meant that I had enough cash handy to rent the audio guide. The library was, unfortunately, not included in the free ticket, and the basilica was closed when I went.

Photography is not allowed inside, but because I am a bad person, I snuck a few anyway. Because I'm the kind of nerd who thinks that looking at foundations and bits of archway to see what's holding the building up is the niftiest thing ever, 1.)I thought the architecture museum in the basement was the most interesting part of the visit and 2.)the things I want pictures of are never in the postcards. The fact that I got in for free only encouraged me because in the back of my mind I couldn't help but think, "what are you going to do, kick me out?"

The wikipedia article I linked does a good enough job of explaining the place, and I've added captions which should be sufficient explanation for the pictures. If some thing is unclear* leave a comment here and I'll try to explain. Leave comments anyway, they make me feel like someone cares about my vacation pictures. :P

After lunch, we loaded onto a different bus and went to the Valley of the Fallen. Franco built the place in the 50s as a memorial to the people who died in the Spanish Civil War (or at least, those people who were on his side). Out side there are a few terraces with great views of the Sierra Guadarrama** mountains, a huge pieta over the door, and a Giant Cement Cross that can be seen for miles***. The wikipedia article does again does a good enough job of describing the place, especially the controversy about it's construction.

It was free admission day there as well, and photos were also not allowed inside. I tried to sneak a few of the interior, but the lighting was so low that they didn't turn out and I had to be content with the post cards and a ton of exterior pictures. The postcards actually aren't that great, because they brought in extra lighting and fancy tripods so they have the statues centered in the frame and you can see all the detail, but that isn't what you experience when you actually visit the place. The interior of the basilica is in what I call the Catholic Fascist style (a combination of neo-classisim and futurism, see anything Mussolini had constructed as an example). The lights are so dim it's hard to see the ceiling, copies of 16th century tapestry depicting scenes from the Book of Revelation line the walls, and giant representations of the Our Lady guard each of the side altars. The neo-gothic carved wood quire is almost comforting when compared to the angels who stand at the four corners of the crossing and in the narthex. The feet of these statues are on pillars higher than my head, they each hold some sort of weapon bigger than I am, and the way they are back lit in the already dim light, it looks like they are ready to come to life at any minute and fight any devils that might present themselves. You, the observer, will be squashed into a grease spot on the floor if you get in their way.

Outside, it's a beautiful day with clean air, sunshine, and a good view of the landscape. My photos are in the same album as the ones from El Escorial, again with lots of captions, if you haven't already looked through them. The one thing I'm not sure that my pictures accomplished was showing just how large the place was, mostly because there's no way to fit it all into one picture without a wide angle lens and a helicopter.

Week-end Adventure #1, complete.
-Ella



*The captions, I mean. I know the pictures are fuzzy, but it they were the best I can do under the circumstances.
**redundancy alert! Sierra means mountains
***There is a similar sized cross in Effingham, Illinois (because it's the CROSSroads of America, get it?), but the one in Illinois doesn't have any crying angels, so it's hardly art, is it?

Postcards

Why is it that the things I like in museums are never the things that have been made into postcards? Or included in the museum guide book?

I went to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza today (the Prado's not-so little brother) and they did manage to get 4 Euros worth of postcards out of me, but they could have easily gotten triple that (or convinced me to buy the book) if they had postcards of the things I liked instead of the avaunt-guard crap that I didn't even see because that part of the museum was "closed for remodelations". My personal theory on art: nothing good* has been created since 1950, and everything after 1850 is highly suspect. Search your feelings. You know this is true.

-Later

*I define "good art" as something I would hang in the living room above the sofa.

Many the Hail?

The day before yesterday we had rain off and on during the afternoon. Then, at one in the morning we had hail. That's Ana, my house mom, holding a piece that she saved in the freezer. Freak storms aside, it's still hot and un-airconditioned here, only now it's uncomfortably humid as well.

This is the view out of my window looking to the left, towards Puerta del Sol, and this is looking to the right, towards the Opera House. Puerta del Sol is the center of Madrid containing city hall, "Kilometer Zero" (the marker from which all distances in Spain are measured), a statue of King Charles III, and a bear and a tree (which is the city's symbol).

In front of the Opera House is Plaza Oriente. King Philip IV is in the center of the square. The gardens around it have statues of other (dead) kings. The first night I was here we went down to the square for a free performance of songs from "Beauty and the Beast". We were in the back of the crowd, so we could hear, but not see. Instead we had a better view of the back of the square, which is defined by the back of the Royal Palace.

My room mates and I took the tour on Saturday, but photographs are only allowed on the outside. Inside, there is a over the top baroque/rococo interior. It's all carefully designed to show off the wealth of the inhabitants, but mostly it's just gaudy. On the far side of the palace is the Cathedral. It's new construction, only finished within the last century. The exterior is neo-classical, to match the palace, but he interior is neo-Gothic. At least, that's what I've been told. I haven't actually been able to get inside it yet as every time I've tried it has been closed for no apparent reason. We also took a short walk through the palace gardens, and they got some nice photos of the palace lawns and a peacock. I got nothing, because it was at that point that my camera batteries decided to die on me.

On Sunday we took a longer trip to Plaza Mayor* which has been the home to many things in Madrid's history: a market, bull fighting, carnivals, futbol fans, tourists, and the Inquisition. Now it houses a coin and stamp market on the weekends. Just down the street from Mayor is the beginning of el Rastro - Europe's largest flea market, held every Sunday. I brought my camera, but left if in my purse, because the market was just to crowded to justify the risk of taking it out.

Sunday afternoon, I split off from the group to go to the Museo del Prado, the largest and most important of Madrid's art museums. They don't allow photography inside either, but here's a statue of hometown favorite Goya from the park outside. I just made a quick tour. I need to go back sometime when my feet aren't hurting to enjoy it some.

Tuesday was a state holiday, so we had a day off from classes. Emma and Renee went to Toledo, Megan and I stayed home and did a whole lot of nothing. Also it rained and there was a hail storm during the night, see above.

Classes continue a pace. Spanish continues to go well, although two days in a row now I have been told that I'm pronouncing things like an Italian. Linguistics is coming along nicely as well, although there is a lot of homework. The professor has a contract to write a textbook on the subject, so we are the guinea pigs for her draft of the book, meaning that we have to do all of the little exercises that might otherwise be skipped.

This early in the semester, working in the writing lab means sitting quietly in the corner under the stairs and knitting.

In addition to going to Berlin for the GRE in November, I'm also going to go to Rome for a weekend in October. I may try to go to London this semester as well, but that all depends on how cheap of a flight I can find.

Til later,
Beth

P.S. click the link in the side bar to brows a few more of my

*5 minutes walking, if you walk slowly and stop frequently.

Home in Madrid

I am safely arrived in Madrid. This is my third day actually. From the air, Spain looks a lot like Texas, on the ground it looks more like Rome. The temperature is a bit more moderate than back home, even cool in the evenings, but there is always a little wind, and it is very dry.

The flight over was long and boring. The flight was pretty bumpy until we got past Greenland, so that alone was uncomfortable. I was in the second to the last row, in the very middle. On my right there was a large American. On my left there was a large Russian. Both of them went to sleep almost as soon as we were in the air. I was stuck in the middle, with no way to sit without touching both of them. The smaller I tried to make myself, the more they expanded to fill the available space, until I would get up, and pretend walk to the WC, thereby forcing one of them completely out of his seat, and allowing me to reclaim my space when I returned. In the row in front of me, there was a toddler, probably about one, so old enough to stand on the seat and yowl, but not old enough to be expected to use words when she was a.)tired, b.)hungry, and c.)having her ears hurt. In fact, given her age, she was very well behaved, and probably could have yelled louder if she had tried. As if that weren't enough, the couple across the aisle had two cats with them, and the kid's crying periodically set the cats to meowing. It was kind of entertaining to watch as the people around me, one at a time, over the course of the entire flight, put up their heads and asked, "Katzen?"*

By the time I finally landed in Frankfurt, I was so tiered that the layover and the flight to Madrid seemed uneventful. I got to the school with no problems, and was soon shuffled off to my host family. Ana and Juan have a large apartment on the 5th** floor of a building on the main street between the Opera house and Puerta del Sol, so it's literally in the middle of everything. There's a lot of street noise, which isn't _too_ bad at night, provided you are asleep before the garbage truck comes by at 1 a.m. Two of my room-mates use ear-plugs, but I'm to afraid that I'd sleep through my alarm clock to try it.

In addition to myself, there are 5 other girls here: 3 from Saint Louis University, two from Sufolk University. Ana and Juan are great people. She works from home, and is full of advice and energy. He is an architect and a real character. Every time he opens his mouth something funny comes out of it. His firm is in charge of the effort to make most of down town a pedestrian zone with lots of restaurants and upscale shopping, while the traffic continues in tunnels underneath the major plazas. This is the construction project currently going on around the neighborhood at all hours of the day and night.

Classes have started; that picture is me on the porch of one of the building with the English Department and the registrar in it. Right now I'm sitting in on a Spanish class which meets four days a week (Monday through Thursday). Yesterday the threat was that Dr. S would shoot us if we didn't speak in Spanish, today she was just charging a Euro***.

I'm also taking a class on linguistics. There was some confusion over where the class would be held, as it is cross listed two or three ways, and each course number was assigned to a different room. Apparently who ever makes the schedule thought that Dr. M could be in two places at once, or would stand in the hall and shout towards both rooms.

Next month I will start a third class, about research methodologies, which is on the graduate schedule instead of the undergraduate.

I've got a job working in the writing lab, except I'm being payed with a tuition discount instead of money, because the student visa is different from a work visa, so they can't legally employ me otherwise. I'm waiting now for the finance office to get me billed correctly; the tuition is different in Madrid than in St. Louis, and I've been given a discount as a scholarship, in addition to what I'll receive from the writing lab. I've been assured that they know that they need to fix things, but since the graduate semester doesn't really start for another month, it probably won't be sorted until then. On the other hand, it's the natural state of affairs to be frustrated with the bursar, so I'm not two worried.

Later,
Ella

*Trans: "Cats?"
*or 6th, depending on how you want to count
***or a cup of coffee, offender's choice

This Space Intentionally Left Blank

Last week mom and I drove to Houston to apply for my Spanish visa (5.5 weeks until departure, but who's counting). We got a later start then we wanted because we had to go by the doctor's to get a note that says I don't have the plague*. I had left the form, which only required the doctor to check one box and sign it, on Monday, so naturally when I arrived on Wednesday morning it had not been checked or signed, and certainly not photocopied. Fortunately, because I was there right as they opened it didn't take long for the form to be completed and returned to me. Then we had to make stops at the grocery store, the gas station, McDonald's, and Wal-Mart**, in that order. So it was 9 before we really got on the road. Normally that would be a good departure for us, but the Spanish consulate is only open from 9 to 1.

Those would be great hours if I were working them, but as a customer they're terrible. For those of you playing at home, remember that the Consulate*** is in Houston, and I am coming from one of Dallas's northern suburbs, a good 4 and a half hours away. We made good time getting there, but we still didn't make it into Houston until 1:40.

It was about that time that it started to rain. This was the very edge of hurricane Dolly. It was not nice drizzly well behaved rain, nor was it what one would characterize as raining cats and dogs. It was just rain, and it lasted the entire time we were there.

Houston is the largest city in Texas and full of interesting and cultural things. But we had been to the Kimbell on Tuesday and were planing on going to the DMA on Thursday, so instead of seeing the sights, we went to the Galleria instead and spent the afternoon looking in designer windows.

The next morning we could not find a good cup of coffee. The stuff in the hotel was no better than hot water with a packet of non-dairy creamer (ick :P) and two packets of sugar (stale, I didn't even know that was possible). Then we went to Taco Cabana (so mom could get her breakfast burrito fix) and the coffee there was so over brewed I could have used it for motor oil. All the half and half and sugar in the world could not make that drinkable.

So we set out for the Consulate and maybe a Starbucks only to discover that the windshield wipers, which had been working perfectly the day before were making a squeaky noise. I have only a small tolerance for nasty little noises, but mom has no tolerance for them. So after two repetitions of this noise, mom rearranges our agenda to 1.)new wiper blades, 2.)coffee, and 3.)visa. The auto parts store told mom they didn't have blades for our car and that we'ed have to go to a Honda dealership if we wanted to replace them. Then the only Starbucks we could find was on the wrong side of the street and didn't have a drive through, so we didn't stop because it was still raining and mom didn't want to get out of the car again.

We went to the consulate. I told the lady at the desk that I was there to apply for a student visa and forked over the paperwork. I was allowed to pay in advance to have the visa FedEx-ed back to me, so at least I won't have to go back there to pick up my passport when they are done with it. I didn't even spend 15 minutes in the consulate.

All in all, it was a pretty painless trip except for the bit where I had to make a overnight trip to Houston, we never got the wipers fixed, I didn't get my morning coffee until after 11, and in rained the entire time we were there.

There's nothing to do now but sit and wait for the FedEx man.

-Yami

*the form really did say I don't have the plague, nor a host of other diseases as well
**to get a money order to pay the processing fee as the Spaniards wouldn't take a personal check
***where I must apply in person

Shameless Capitalism

It's been a pretty boring summer thus far here at casa del mi genitori*. So boring that the most interesting photo I could come up with is from last December. I use it anyway, because Abraham Lincoln makes most things better and I figure I can use the help.

I've been spinning my gears sending paperwork back and forth across the Atlantic in preparation for grad school in the fall. I leave for Madrid on the first of September and I really wish I could fast forward through the next month and a half so I can get started. Or, just travel to the first and switch places with my future self, except then she'd be stuck in an infinite loop of a really boring month and a half, and I wouldn't want to do that to her. Or me. Or whoever.

In the mean time, I'm bringing in gas money by doing housework for a few people from church, and searching for freelance writing work. I'm also supposed to be working on my novel and learning Spanish, but that's gotten about as far as my carrier as an artiest.

I just got my graduation/birthday present: a shiny new laptop to supplant the much-abused HAL**. I love my new machine, and the transition has been surprisingly easy, barring the fact that Vista is out to thwart my every plan, and I can't find the CD for Office.***

You might have noticed the advertising that has appeared in the sidebar. You might be gnashing your teeth and shaking your fist that yet another site has ads on it, but you shouldn't be. When people who aren't me click on the adds, AdSense gives me money. I like getting money without really having to do anything, so if all of you out there in reader-land will do me a favor and click on the ads, that would be much appreciated. (You don't even have to look at the pages. Just right click on the link and choose open in a new window. Wait for it to finish loading and then hit the Red X in the corner to make it go away forever. Unless you use a Mac. Then you have to do something else because you don't have a right mouse button and you probably call windows by some other name*. I'll let you figure it out on your own.)

If you like me enough to actually spend a little money, then you could also go to Deviant Art (link at left) and buy a print from me. They're cheap, I get a cut, and you have a crap gift to bring to your next White Elephant exchange, so we win all around.

Later,
Yami


*translation from my limited (and ungrammatical) Italian: my parents house
**HAL had an annoying tendency to freeze up and lock me out of important things, such as the pod bay doors.
***It's in the house somewhere, it just hasn't been used in a couple years and has been squirreled away in some really clever hidey-hole that I haven't remembered yet.
*like 'Apple Cores'?

Warning: Incoming Latin

Universitas Dallasensis
Omnibus has litteras visuris
Salutem in Domino
Praesentium Litterarum Vigore
E.A.S.
Confirmatur studiorum curriculum ad normam praedictae universitatis rite persolvisse praescriptaque pericula feliciter superasse. Quapropeter curatores universitatis, ex facultatis consulto, eidem academicum gradum,
BACCALAUREI IN ARTIBUS
cum omnibus iuribus, honoribus ac privlegiis huic gradui adnexis, conferentes, hoc diploma, publico universitatis sigilllo munitum, in collati gradus testimonium tradunt.
Datum Dallasii, Die XVIII Mensis Maii Anno Domini MMVIII.

For my non-Latin-speaking audience, all of that means that I am now a certified smart person. Now, diploma in hand, I am facing the fact that it would probably be a good idea for me to learn some Spanish before I head off to graduate school.

I take off for Saint Louis in August, and will be in Madrid at the beginning of October. Interesting things should start occurring around that time. In the meantime, I'm back at my parent's house, working odd jobs so I'll have enough money to fly there and back. This is, if anything, more boring than even regular school stuff, but I don't really have a choice about this.

I saw this flower (see above) growing in my parents driveway. That's what passes for an exciting time here in Flo-Mo.

Until Later,
Yami

One Week and Counting

I'm done with comps (passed all three rounds on the first go!), and it's the last week of class. Technically, all I have to do now in order to graduate is show up. Why am I so busy?

Mostly, I'm waxing the cat, and doing other assorted chores to avoid doing the last little bit of school-work that I need to get done. Like the term paper due on Saturday. I should probably start working on that. Instead, I've cleaned the kitchen twice in the last three days.

Crunch Time

Ask me how I'm doing tomorrow at about 5:00 pm, for then I shall be done with round one of comps.

-Beth

Spring in Texas

**Warning, if you don't like links or my landscape photography, this is not the post for you.***

Yes, it's spring is finally here. I can tell this because for the past few weeks it has been difficult to breath through my nose, the weather has gone bonkers*, and wild flowers are in bloom. I finally got some free time, and went on a little expedition to the various pathways around UD and took pictures.

As every true Texan knows, Texas is at all times more beautiful than any other state in the union, and she is at her most attractive in the Spring. Bluebonnets can be found singly, but they are more often seen in great sweeping masses of them on the side of the road. One of my personal favorite places to view them is at the 121/114 merger just north of the airport. The on ramp makes a 270 degree turn, during which the smart driver will follow the recommended speed of 30 mph, allowing one a nice chance to gaze at the flowers growing in the median. Unfortunately, there is really no safe way to photograph this. The Texas driver will slow down for bluebonnets, but not pedestrians. I settled for pictures of Northgate and the railroad bridge, which have the advantage of being 1.)within walking distance of campus, and 2.)not a highway. I've seen evening primrose, Indian blankets, and Indian paintbrushes out as well, but unfortunately there weren't any within easy walking distance from the hovel.**

Some other typically Texas things I snapped include a tornado siren and a sign warning of an underground oil pipeline.

I got a few more shots along the paths at the base of seminary hill and a lot of pictures of trees. Including several bizarre looking ones which don't know when to quit. I returned to the hovel by way of Madonna Pond, the Art Village, and the Rat, which is to say, the long way.

While I'm thinking about it and have the evidence at hand. I'd like to say that for a university that prides itself on a classical education, the art department produces a surprising lack of classical style art. It can be quite difficult for the lay person such as myself to tell the difference between things that have been placed around the art village and things that have been left there to die.

I would also like to say that this swing, found out back of the raw materials lab*** looks like it came from the set of a horror movie.

These signs are from the outside of the science building. I think the one on the left is a little redundant.

This limestone altar is one of many on campus which are all that remain of a lost dwarven civilization that existed in Texas after the giants, but before the humans.


See you next time, when I promise to talk about my comprehensive exams, and cutting up fetal pigs,
Yami

*i.e. Alternating between 87 degree days, and golf ball sized hail.
**OK, there are several that are within a distance I am capable of walking, but all of them are across highways and even I am not crazy enough to try that.
***which I didn't know existed before I saw it today. I was disappointed to discover that these raw materials seem to consist mostly of bricks.

Adventures in Biology

As many of you know, it's my senior year of college and I'm finally taking the introduction to biology course that all undergraduates at UD are required to take. I put it off this long because in general biology is squishy and gross, and I was kind of hoping that there would be a change to the course bulletin so I wouldn't have to take it. Alas, that was not to be, and the registrar held a gun to my head and made me sign up for the class.

The past two weeks the laboratory portion of the class has been a non-starter. Last week the lab about fruit fly genetics* didn't happen because mites decimated the school's fruit fly herd. The lab assistant and Dr. D spent an hour explaining in detail why we weren't doing the lab, and what we would have done if we had done the lab. That's an hour of my life that I will never be able to get back. It's unknown at this point whether or not we will have to make that lab up at a latter date.

This week we were supposed to be determining our blood type, a process which takes about a minute. You put three dots of your blood on a slide each, and mix each dot with a different chemical. You wait a second, and the way the blood reacts to the chemicals indicates your blood type. This is an easy enough process, except that due to all the typing** I do, the skin on my finger tips is really thick, and I wasn't able to draw blood with the little lancets the lab has. I got tired of cutting up my fingertip for no reason, so I typed my lab partner's blood instead. For the record, Anita is AB+***

One can only wonder what sort of pitiful excuse for science we will preform next week.

-Yami


*No one's been able to tell me why I'm supposed to care about whether or not short wings are a recessive or dominant trait.
**Not to mention knitting, crocheting, and sewing that involves me regularly jamming sharp pointy things into my fingertips
***my other lab partner, Taylor, is O-, which means that his blood reacted to the lovely chemicals in exactly the opposite way hers did, and he's also the universal donor

The 7th Inning Stretch

I'm right smack dab in the middle of everything here in the hovel, so it's time to take a break and stretch before my muscles cramp permanently into a somehow-still-sitting-improperly-despite-using-an-ergonomic-chair position.

My application to Oxford was completed last month, so I'm waiting to hear back from them. I'm working on applications to King's College London, Saint Louis University, and Columbia. All three of those are in the rounding up recommendations and transcripts stage, which means that all I have to do in order to complete those applications is nag other people.

The first round of tests and papers has been passed, and passed well, so I can stop worrying about that for a little bit.

Pearl Dust is taking a ridiculously long time to type up. I wrote a lot more than I remembered I had, and there's far more to be done in revisions. Outlining for 9 Revolutions -- my next big project -- has hit a snag because a couple of the characters are not talking to me at the moment. In the meantime, I have an idea for a short story that I want to get to work on while I still think its a good idea, so it's not as if I'm without a writing project.

In the sticks and string front, the maroon scarf of fuzzy DOOM! is finally complete. I have three more projects started which I can see from where I'm sitting: four if you count the one for which I need to buy more yarn.

I really want a cup of coffee, but I can't have it because I gave up caffeine for Lent. I'm ready for Easter to get here, I don't remember the headache lasting this long in previous years.

-Beth

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Dinner

Experience has shown me that whenever I ask a person to give me directions, I always get where I'm going without problems, but when I consult a map, a computer, a guidebook, or, God forbid, a computerized map in a guidebook, I always get lost. 9 times out of 10, this is because the map bears little to no resemblance to the actual place. I thought I was done with aimless wandering when I returned from Europe, under the mistaken assumption that I know my way around town pretty well. This is, alas, not so.

A couple days ago Aerisith and I decided that we wanted a pizza, and not just any pizza, because we were not going to pay more than $5.00+tax for one, which was not coincidently all the spending money we had between the two of us. The only way to get 1 large pizza for $5.00+tax* is to go to Little Ceaser's, a chain which has only recently moved into our neck of the woods. We knew of one up in L-ville, but not wanting to drive 15 miles one way for a $5 pizza, I used the locate a store feature on the company's website to find one closer to home.

We looked at the address, compared it to a couple of maps, and concluded that we knew where it was and could get there easily. How wrong we were. A couple minutes of driving later, we arrived at the spot indicated by the Internet and discovered that it was actually the parking lot of the Police Station. Next door were the Fire Station, City Hall, and the Public Library. If there was a pizza place there, it was evidently hiding up in a tree or something, were we missed it because it was after dark. We went further down the block, and while other assorted fast food places did materialize out of the gloom, none of them had cheap pizza.

We gave it up and went to the one on Main Street in L-ville, because we knew where it was.

In other news, classes are proceeding well, the first German paper, the first German test, the first paper about Camus, and the first long lab write-up have all been turned in, leaving me with little to do this weekend. The maroon scarf of fuzzy doom now officially stretches from the floor to my shoulders, and I am currently accepting bets on whether or not it will be taller than I am when I finish it. The yarn is approximately 3/16ths of an inch thick, and remaining ball is roughly 3 inches in diameter. I estimate that I would need 36 more rows to make it over my head.

I think I may have finally finished this draft of Pearl Dust, so that's one project at least that is all over but the typing. Of course, I finally thought of a way to get rid of that first part, which I never really liked, but doing so will require a lot of restructuring of the rest of it, so I have my work cut out for me in the revision.

I also got a quick ego boost in the form of this:

How grammatically correct are you? (Revised with answer key)

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

Congratulations! If your mission in life is not already to preserve the English tongue, it should be. You can smell a grammatical inaccuracy from fifty yards. Your speech is revered by the underlings, though some may blaspheme and call you a snob. They're just jealous. Go out there and change the world.
Take this quiz!









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That's it for now,

Yami




*short of you know, making it ourselves

The Maroon Scarf of Fuzzy DOOM!

As many of you are doubtless aware, I must either do something with my hands or fall asleep. I do not handle sitting still and doing nothing very well.* The end result is that I usually have multiple knit/crochet/embroidery/quilt/doodle/novel projects going at once.

One such project, pictured here, is the Maroon Scarf of Fuzzy DOOM! It started with the discovery of not one, not two, but three skeins of maroon chenille yarn in the stash of truly random yarn which appeared, seemingly by spontaneous generation, in one corner of the office closet, right in front of the fusebox. Eager for a fast and simple project, I cast on and declared it my Sitting-in-front-of-the- computer-reading-the-10-page-pdfs-that-my-professors-are-so-fond-of project. The picture shows the scarf after one skein was used, but before I added the second. As you can see, when I cast on I dramatically underestimated just how big 31 stitches with a thick yarn and size 13 needles really are. For those of you playing at home, the answer is as wide as a large pizza box, and a bit longer. As I type this, I am half-way through the second skein, and the Maroon Scarf of Fuzzy DOOM reaches from the floor to mid-thigh. If this thing does not eat me when I finish it, it will at least be warm, which is good, as all the schools which have caught my eye seem to be in the Frozen North.

This morning I got an uncomfortable brush with the Uncomfortably Chilly South, as I emerged from my den woke up early so I could participate in one of the more beloved Groundhog's Day** Traditions: Mimosas on the Mall. Estimates on the actual temperature outside vary according to who's computer you want to listen to, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 32 Degrees when I joined Nick and Treco for the drive across the street to campus.***

I should include a bit of information about Nick's car at this point. It is a little Toyota, which is amusing because both of the guys are over 6 feet tall. Needless to say, there is no leg room in the back seat, on account of both the driver and passenger side chairs being pushed all the way back. So anyone in the back seat (i.e. me) must sort of stretch their legs over all three seats in the back to be kind of comfortable, in much the same way that I must shoehorn potential passengers into the back of my Civic. We drive to the parking lot closest to the science building only to discover that all the parking places are, alas, all taken, except for one guy who was parked in two spaces.

Against both Treco's protestations and mine, that he will probably loose one or both wing mirrors if he tries it, Nick was able to squeeze his narrow little car between the offending van and the SUV to its left, blocking the offender's driver side door almost completely. The three of us however, still had enough space to get out**** of our vehicle, and Nick was actually entirely within the lines of his newly claimed space. Satisfied that a suitably obnoxious counter-maneuver had been executed, we continued to the Mall, where the traditional Groundhog Day Mimosas were waiting for us.

Now we did not spend a lot of time waiting for the Groundhog***** to emerge from the tower and tell us if we will have another 6 weeks of psudo-winter, because soon after we satisfied the CSO guy at the drinks table that we were over 21, and therefore allowed champaign in our orange juice, it was announced that the breakfast buffet was open.+ No alcohol being allowed inside, the mimosas were consumed rather quickly before heading in to the nice warm building to get food that I was only eating because it was free, and beggars can't be choosers.

If I don't kill my loud, party going neighbors*, I'll post again soon.

-Yami




*Because I tend to zone out, and fifteen minutes later I have no idea what line of the poem the rest of the class is examining, or even if I'm looking at the right poem.

**The most beloved holiday in UD's calender, for reasons that are not entirely clear to anyone, but we have been celebrating for several decades, so it's a tradition and we can't change it now, now can we?

***Of course we drove. It was cold out and, as seniors, we are nothing if not lazy.

****Although the door I used was actually the hatchback: it was just easier that way.

*****Dr. O in a Groundhog Suit.

+I do not like ending a sentence with a preposition like that, but it has already gone on long enough, and I do not feel like reformulating the whole sentence just to avoid that construction, especially since I think that 'open' is being used as an adjective, not a preposition, in this sentence. Debate?

*I.e. Everyone in the apartment complex except for me, or at least that's what it seems like some days.

The Demon

I was going to post a big long catch-up post to let everyone know what I've been up to since I last wrote* but I have something far more important to discuss than little old ladies trying to pick up Grandpa and my Great Uncle's funeral.

There is a demon in the wall between the Hovel and the hovel next door.

We thought that Something Had Been Done About It because our neighbors complained to the apartment complex and we hadn't heard from the Thing in a while, but it made noise just a moment ago. The current theory is that it is some sort of bird which has gotten trapped in the wall, as the alternatives are just to horrible to contemplate. Given how long it has been in there, we posit that it might be an undead bird, risen from the grave to kill us all, so we have the baseball bat handy Just In Case.

Then Aerisith and I started debating the differences between the terms 'undead' and 'living dead'. As ever, your comments on the subject are welcome, dear reader.

-Yami


*Here's the short version: I quit my job, I made two back-to-back trips to the frozen north, I applied to grad school, I played a lot of WoW, I read for fun, I didn't burn down the kitchen, and now I'm back in school for my last semester.

Let the Record Show That I Was Innocent

I had a pretty good Sunday. I worked for a little bit, went to the English Tea with my mom, and went to the office Christmas Party. Then I came home and found that cardboard had already been put up in the place of the broken window, the blood had been cleaned up off the concrete, and Jenny and Debby were cleaning up the office.

Sensing that I had missed something important, I asked my roommates what was going on. The story, as best as I have been able to reconstruct it, is this:

Lynné and Andrea came to the apartment, and Lynné promptly locked her keys in the car. No problem, she's got an extra car key in the apartment, and the engine isn't running, she just needs to get inside. I'm at work, and forgot my cell phone, so she calls Jenny. Jenny was at her parent's putting up Christmas decorations, but she agrees to come down and let Lynné in from the cold.

While waiting for Jenny to arrive, Lynné decides that she would like to drink the soda that she has stashed in her purse. Being the graceful creature that she is, she managed to loose her balance while doing so, and put out a hand to steady herself. She was justifiably surprised when, instead of supporting her weight, her hand went straight through the window.

Now that we know she's going to be OK, we can laugh at the conversation Andrea had with the 911 operator while Lynné was busy applying pressure to her wrist. It went something like this:
"My friend just cut her wrist on a piece of glass."
*pause for operator's next question*
"Yes, it was an accident."

So, an ambulance arrives on the scene, and the paramedics put a super-heavy duty bandage on Lynné's arm. She declines to take the (expensive) ride to the hospital, and calls her parents, so they can take her to the ER instead. It is at this point, after the departure of the ambulance, when Andrea and Lynné are waiting for her parents in one of our downstairs neighbor's apartments, that Jenny and Patrick arrive.

They find a broken window, a pool of blood, and no Lynné. One quick phone call explains what's been going on, and that there is no need to call the police. So they came down to wait for the parents as well. Lynné parents came and took her to the hospital, where she got 8 stitches. While Jenny and Patrick set about cleaning up the mess.

So by the time I got home that evening, Lynné was back from the hospital, curled up on the sofa with many blankets, the glass was swept up, cardboard duct taped into the window frame, the blood cleaned up, and Jenny and Debby (at some point she was swapped for Patrick) were tidying up the office. I helped clean more, and we called it a night.

On Monday, I reported the broken window to the office (Lynné had strict orders not to do anything, and Jenny was at work) and they sent a man out to see about it. He did not have an extra window just sitting around in the back of his trunk, but he did put up some super-wide insulating tape to keep the air out. It still wasn't as good as a new window, but it made an appreciable difference in reducing the draft coming in around the edges of the cardboard. I asked if he could do anything about our heater (which wasn't working, just like our AC hadn't been working very well before that). He conceded that it wasn't working, and sent the guy who worked on heaters around about 15 minutes later. After about half an hour of mucking about with some sort of duct work that I refuse to learn anything about, he got the heater working, which made me very happy indeed.

We finally got the new window Wednesday morning, with very little fanfare.


Other than that, Jenny caught a cold which caused her to miss work for a couple of days, so that was bad as well. I assume that she's back to normal, because instead of sleeping on the couch all the time, she's back to never being here. I've been helping Lynné put hydrogen peroxide on her stitches every day when we change the band aide. It's not difficult, but she can't do it herself because she's only got one arm that works right. Also, it looks pretty gross, although it's better than it was Sunday night.

Classes are finally done (my last one was today), exams start on Saturday, which is the only night this week when I'm not closing.

I'm tired. It's been a long week, and it's still not quite done.

Le Sigh

We have reached that time of year when I start thinking "Why do I need this degree anyway? You can't do anything with a BA in German." That's followed by speculation about how far I could get if I filled up my car with gas and just started driving.

I'm ready for exams to by done. Does anyone have a time machine handy?

A Word of Advice

If anyone every proposes building any kind of professional sports stadium within ten miles of your home, or if the only road to said stadium will pass within ten miles of your home, gather up everyone you know, get down to the polls, and vote that sucker down. Trust me on this. You will not regret it.

So, Thursday I was very nearly late to work because of the Cowboys game.* In order to more easily regulate the flow of traffic into the stadium, the Irving police department likes to do things like block off any road that does not lead to the stadium, such as all those by my apartment. Three hours before the game starts. During rush hour. While I'm trying to get to work.

Basically, once they've set up the traffic patterns for the game, the only highways I can get to from my apartment are west bound 183 and west bound 114. That is all well and good, except the highway that takes me to work is northeast of my apartment. There is a back way to work, which I had to take, which takes me ten miles out of my way down roads with a speed limit of 35 miles per hour.

My parents live just off the only road connecting their town to I-35W, where Texas Motor Speedway is. Anytime there's a race (a couple three times a year), we can't leave the house along that road. It's stop and go traffic all the way to the county line. Grr.

In conclusion, professional sporting arenas should be in the same place as federal prisons and hippy communes: not in my backyard.


-Yami



*First of all, what is an NFL game doing on a Thursday that's not Thanksgiving: does someone want to explain that to me?

Blarg

Blarg, I say, blarg. That's pretty much all I've had to say for the last, oh, two weeks.

More accurately, I've been saying "meh." I've dragged myself to class and to work, waiting to hear back from my doctor (who took Thanksgiving off because it was a National Holiday, or some such flimsy excuse), and people, seeing that I am as pale as a repeated victim of a vampire attack, keep asking me how I'm doing. So my answer has been "meh" because anything else would require way too much effort.

Moral of this story: blood is very important, do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

I finally have a diagnosis (anemia, Dr. Mom figured that one out, why did I need to see an MD again?) and the appropriate drugs (go go gadget iron supplement), so life is slightly improved here at the hovel.

The bug-killer guys have been dispatched by the apartment and will be here tomorrow to eradicate our pests with many chemicals which I probably would not want in my apartment if I had any say so in the matter.

I had my follow up meeting with the Registrar today. They conceded that my major does exist, and that I might have a degree. I am on track to graduate, and I do not need to do anything weird, such as take an inter-term class. Life is good, and I am now officially a degree candidate for a Baccalaureate of Arts in German and Comparative Literary Traditions with a Concentration in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. I am pretty sure that come May, no one else will have a degree that sounds anywhere near as impressive as mine. Heck, it even goes onto the second typed line. You should see it hand written: that's when it really gets imposing.

Now that I'm assured of my degree, I may get on with other important things, such as grad school applications. None of which I completed before Thanksgiving (as per my original plan) because there was no point in applying to a master's program if I wasn't going to have my bachelor's degree.

On the NaNo front, I am afraid that this year I am going to have to throw in the towel. I don't like quitting, and I really like winning, but this year it is just not to be. I am going to let my brain reset for a few days as I do school work (see below) and then finish Pearl Dust before I pick this year's project up again. I'm at a little past the 30k mark with 9 Revolutions, but the past week and a half or so I've been so sick I couldn't write. I couldn't do anything else for that matter.

I passed out at work last Friday, and went home early, which was an adventure in its own right. I ended up paying more for the pair of shoes I bought that day than I got paid that entire week. I may try to return them, if I can find the receipt.

Now that I'm feeling better, I find that tons of work has crept up on my while I was curled up in a ball on the sofa, waiting for the vampire to come finish me off. I have tests in French and Linguistics tomorrow, for which I am totally unprepared. I have not read a word of Kant, but since I'm doing quite well otherwise in Philosophy, I may sacrifice a level of my grade there in order to prepare properly for everything else. I have a paper due for History on the 4th, which is next Tuesday, for which I have done not one whit of research. Also on the 4th, I have a test in German Grammar, another thing for which I am not yet prepared, but I must do well on it in order to get any grade higher than a C for the class. [The vampire also apparently took my ability to remember the past participle of any irregular German verb, even the easy ones like haben and kommen.] If that weren't enough, I also have a review of an article for Linguistics due the week after that. There I have at least made the step of choosing my topic, but that's as far as I've gone. I'm pretty sure there is supposed to be additional work for Philosophy in there somewhere as well, but if Dr. R has forgotten, I am sure not going to remind him. If I live through all of that, then there are still final exams to contend with, and I'm done on the 19th.

Then I'll be able to rest my brain, but not the rest of me, because I work retail and we are officially in the busy season.

So, until noon on the 19th, St. Joseph of Cupertino, pray for me.

Fun with Technology

I finally got around to downloading the latest version of Firefox. For those of you, who like me, are kind of late adapters, I recomend that you go ahead and download it. It has in-line spell checking. You have no idea how happy that makes me.

Also, I've passed the 20k mark for NaNo.

-Yami