Lamenting the Sick and other odds and ends

This may be the only post you guys get from me for awhile. Awhile being at least until i get my desktop hooked up to IU's network...stupid Get Connected CDs and RITS not being open over the weekend...I know I know, everybody needs weekends off. fair enough. I have just realized how dependant I am on the Internet for my news, reviews and updates from friends. How much I am dependant on email to communicate far and wide, and hello ---who needs access to ELLA to fix their earlier website constructions...I Do! I Do!
So, guess why i'm complaining. My Sony Viao laptop - my gorgeous little baby - being one of 2 children I have - the second being Bessie, my fantastic 2004 Civic - is in computer hospital. or rather, being shipped today to the Best Buy corporate service center. God Speed Viao. May you return to my home in Iowa city in one piece, and working. SOOO very nervous letting them send her away AND send her back to me in Iowa in three weeks or so...but what can I do? I won't be in Bloomington past May 21st, (except for one weekend in july) so ack!
This means I'll probably have to borrow a laptop from the family reserve --or rather, mom's old one which was my old one before I got Viao. at least I am fortunate enough to have a laptop to begin with, and one to use for backup to boot. (haha, okay, insert joke about "re"boot here if you so desire.) So, perhaps my desktop will work for the next few days - until the 8th when i return to IC. I hope so!

Other odds and ends:
Fixing pathfinders/syllabus has been halted due to lack of internet.

Thanks to Jill for hosting a great condo-warming in Verona. I had a fantastic time, and was so happy I was only minimally allergic to her wonderful kitties. One of which, Rayden (raven?) I didn't ask for clarification on that one-whoops cuddled up with me at night. Oh yea, she's awesome. Kept my feet warm and everything. Made me miss my kitty Scotty, who went to kitty heaven (or purgatory, I'm not sure which) September of 2004.

I find that I am cold a lot lately. Goosebumps seem to be permanent additions to my arms and legs these past months. Since I lost about 10 lbs in February. I guess what they say about fat as insulation is really true. (Don't to worry folks. The weight has stayed off due to healthy eating habbits and little exercies ---can't get the muscle back which weighs more...that will be remedied soon...)

My computer desk/shelf/stereo have found themselves a new home. YAY. Really nice girl as well.

Happy Birthday to Rena! Your fruit tart and spinach artichoke dip await.

Oh, and on the AFI front- watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington last night (#29), and will be watching On the Waterfront (#8) with Traci tonight. Wells Media Services is kind to me.

That is all.

Deconstructing Da Vinci and other odds and ends

Okay okay, I know there is the "bandwagon" mentality about reading the Da Vinci Code.
So, if you haven't read it yet, embrace the hype and read it before the movie comes out on May 19th - a) because it's an entertaining read b) then you'll fully understand what's going on in the critical circles c)the book is likely to be ten times better than the movie --that is usually the case --though i shall reserve final judgment until after seeing the film.)
I also know there is a lot of negative talk about the book via the art historical field. (This is usually the case with a work of "fiction" that presents itself as "fact" with a tiny disclaimer.) This happened to a certain extent -at least at my own undergrad institution with books like Girl With the Pearl Earring etc. So, get on board folks. and if you want you can read Holy Blood, Holy Grail also and support those cats. Mostly because they just suffered defeat in their legal battle over copyright. You can read about that almost anywhere, and I'm too lazy to post links right now - but check out the NYT for articles about it.
allrighty, that's the post for today. I"m done w. school for two weeks,
and what have I done with my time? I validated my pathfinders from L524 and Hummanities to xhtml standards. (which took almost an hour each) I am going to revamp the pages also because they are sooo boring right now, and now that i know CSS, I can make them better from a design standpoint. I also started a website for my family - so that we can all share pictures and the latest news and new addresses...this will at least hopefully work for the younger "millenial" generation. And everyone else will at least know when addresses have been updated. I've written thank you notes for my scholarship (yay!) and a thank you note for grandma.

So, my plans for the next few months:
May 5th-8th(morning) ---Moving out of my apartment, and working at the FAL library
May 8th (afternoon)-10th--Iowa City (to see above all else the FRIENDS and FAMILY - duh!)
May 11th --driving back to B-twon for my weekend XML workshop.
May 12-15 (morning) B-town for XML workshop
May 15 (afternoon)- May 17th --Itineret (splg?) dweller hopefully camping out in a guest bedroom in Chicagoland. :)
May17th(afternoon) --driving back to B-town for Pearl/CGI workshop.
May 18th-22 (morning) Pearl/CGI workshop - B-town.
may 22 (afternoon) drive back to Iowa City.
may 22-may 26 - iowa city
may 26-may 31st -SAN FRAN to visit Steve and Victoria :):)
june 1st - Iowa City
june 18th - WICKED in CHICAGO with lis and erik - woo hoo!!!
july --b-town a certain weekend for festivities
august - graduation from SLIS
august 12th- beerfest in madison wisconsin.
and in the time in between looking for a job ---anybody wanna hire me?

Perhaps it's simply because the sun has started to shine more often over the rolling hills of Southern Indiana, or perhaps it's because it is almost the end of the semester, and I should be totally stressed, but I'm not. For some weird reason I've found a contentment that I haven't felt in a very long while. I feel really good about helping my friend's mom with her website (crossing International waters and language barriers to make it happen). I feel pretty excited about some possible prospects for me when I return to Iowa City as far as potential job ops. And I've been able to contribute to some really interesting "cutting edge" type research here at IU recently. Thanks to some classroom knowledge and practical application of such.
That is perhaps what I've been waiting for while here at SLIS. The melding of my theoretical school and the practical usefulness of what I've learned about. Hopefully things will pan out with this experiement.

On other fronts, if you look for me this weekend, you should look out of town, and if you look for me next weekend, you should do the same. I'm doing some roadtripping...and as long as I've got wireless access where I'm at, everything will still get done.

So yup, that's the update.

Social tagging - library style - librarything.com :) - this will be featured in an upcoming project ala Library Automation class. Experiment, play and tag away...

IT's the WEEKEND!!

Going to see Lifehouse in Milwaukee tomorrow night - very exciting. Also going to visit my Thai Cooking Whore (inside joke)for the weekend - very exciting. Homework for this - not so exciting. But some time this weekend, between a nice dinner, lifehouse, TCW, King Kong and a possible trip to the Woodfield Mall, the homework will get done. I also have Deception Point on audio disc to finish on the drive up tomorrow after work - so yay for audiobooks.

P.S. This post proves to my ability to add links. Even if I don't do it often ;)

The worst week in my life so far at SLIS this semester. I HATE when i let other people down!!!!! I must learn to just get over it I guess. pathfinder is done...it's done. that's what counts. I need to get my ass into school gear more though...going home to iowa this weekend...like the stream of consciencousness?...it's jaimes wedding...taking a Chi-town folk...will party much with friends at home...destress...
okay, im done with that. I"m totally over it, as trac would say.
grr. arrrggg. hope IA is worth it. I need to let out some of this tension, so anyone that reads this blog and is in IC this weekend, FAC will be happening ;) and the bars after that.

Coming to you Live...

Location: Reference Room - Wells library
Listening to: Lauryn Hill, Miseducation Of,
Why?: Testing out the wireless card, AND working on my philosophy resources guide for class Wednesday.

Props to my friends for joining the blogger bandwagon. I must also give props to Faraji for having a blog that actually keeps up with current events and isn't just a rambling mass like mine. Go you Scandalous sexy almost "21" year old.

This weekend was an entire blast. I have to say, after the blah week I had, Friday night was just what was needed. I did my first client interview for L570 at noon, and the woman is really nice and very energetic and fun, so I think this project is off on the correct foot. Then Traci and I worked on Dialog almost all afternoon (due to her cataloging class being cancelled) We also attended a very short ALA-SC meeting, where candy was involved. We headed back to my apartment and got ready for the shin-dig. Neither of us went last year, and we didn't know we were goin to this year until Suzanne mentioned it the other day, and i'm really glad we decided to go. it was a total blast. the food was good, the socializing was actually a lot of fun...normally I'm not too big on huge group affairs where I know only a couple people and feel like small talk is the order of the day, but this event came off surprisingly well. After the reception a group of us, a LARGE and massive group at that, went to the vid. (one of the local bars) Traci got to let her hair down a bit, so to speak, and we had a really good time. I played some crappy pool, but more, it was just about getting to know people in my program that I've always thought would be fun to get to know, but haven't had the chance. It was also fun to see the professors in another environment besides the classroom.

I must apologize to Erik for essentially falling asleep while talkin to him online when I got home...ya know when you think you were just blinking, and then you realize it's two and half hours later? Oh ya, I know I'm just a rock star.

Saturday was spent with my nose in the books, and dishes, and laundry. Well not actually having my nose in the dishes...ewww, but you get the idea. I also have started investigating possible halloween costumes...

Sunday, well this is Sunday, and I'm doing homework in the reference room, then going to work in like ten minutes from now, then it's home to watch Family Guy and surprise...do more homework...

at least I got out on Friday night. That was fantastic, oh, and traci might say we "broke in" to Woodburn house after ten minutes of waiting outside...I prefer the term "snuck in" afterall, we future librarian types are not heathens, drinkers, or pool players, no sir-e.

Listening to: Streaming Itunes Music One
Mood: eh, whatever

So, this weekend was pretty fun, despite my hawks losing to ISU. Blah! Oh well, at least it doesn't count for the Big Ten Season, and really, I think we'd have played better if Tate was in the whole game. Friday I ran errands with Rena, and I was proud of myself. I cooked parmesan ranch chicken and steamed veggies and ate grapes. So very good and healthy of me right? Then I met Christa at Ashton and we went to see the Hitchcock double feature at IUB City lights. That was alot of fun. We say Strangers on a Train and Shadow of a Doubt. I have to say, that old school hitchcock, ala 1940's style, has a romantic quality about it, even though the sound was not synced well to the movement of the mouths. It slightly resembled badly dubed japanese movies. However, I was still entertained. Perhaps the most interesting portion of the evening was when Christa, who always gets very invovled in movies while she's watching them, shouted out "JERK" very loudly at one of the characters, who, in deed, was acting like a jerk. I just laughed a little though, because she's usually so amicable and peaceful, so to hear her get animated about anything, much less a movie, and to shout, in an auditorium where other people were present, was pretty funny. Yesterday I tackled my first assignment for Info in the Humanities...it did not go well. I did finish the rough draft by 3 am though. I had such a case of writer's block, it was quite horrible. This was not helped by the fact that some of the IC friends were watching pirates and hanging out together. At least they talked to me online for awhile, and the phone was passed around some. Still, I think that's the hardest part about being in grad school right now in another state. It's knowing they are doing something that's fun, when I'm not. Course I did have my fun moments for the weekend too, so I can't complain too much. I also stayed up way too late on thursday night, and did nothing productive, even though i'd had coffee in order to stay up and be productive, but, instead, I talked online, and then read Tuttle's latest play. I love that he still sends me the rough drafts. I hope he didn't find my comments to punchy, as I finished reading about 3 am, and then read Rule of 4 for another two hours. Went to bed at 5 am. I really need to get out of that habit and start paying attention to school and school reading. I have to revise my paper, I have to start these long term projects, and I have to really start my exercise and diet program to keep me sane before heading home for jaime's wedding in October. We hope to have a game night soon too. :) We've got a few slis kids that are board game players, so that will be exciting if it can happen. I also would still like to go into Chicago some weekend with Traci to visit Erik, so her around Chicago (she's not been downtown yet) and perhaps go clubbing with some Iowa friends who can make the drive over. I must send a bday shout out to the bride to be, Jaime will turn 25 tomorrow. ;) HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Tonight after family guy, i will go to starbucks and try to really concentrate and get some studying done. Then tomorrow morning, another week will start again. Hopefully things will go better at work, and my topic ideas will pan out for all of my projects.
that's the update folks. BTW, certain people need to send me an email. It is LONG overdue. No matter how busy you are at a new job, that is no excuse to not keep in touch and drop me a line and tell me about what the job entails, your life, and your thoughts. This means you Will!!! (and yes, I'm doing this in the blog, on the chance you still read it every once in awhile)
peace out

Listening to: Lifehouse - You and Me
Can I just tell everyone how much I LOVE music, and how much I LOVE music from my favorite bands, especially NEW music from my favorite bands? I am really saddened that I missed not only Guster TWICE this semester, as they came to both Purdue AND UI, *sigh* (and I heard the UI concert was fabulous from Misa, my former roomie who went at my urging, though she has Guster's first album and none of the newer stuff - that will be remedied as soon as I get back to IC of course) I also missed Storyhill whom I have come to rely on as my "mellow downtime" contemplative mood music - and yes, surprising to some of you, I DO have moments when I contemplate my life, the lives around me, and what it all means. They came to Chicago and they played in Cedar Rapids, which I found quite interesting. It makes me realize how many bands out there that I've discovered through friends over the years, and have come to throughly enjoy listening to, and have probably missed countless performances by them in the past simply because I hadn't been introduced to them yet. It was sad that Tuttle introduced me to Chamberlain too late to see them perform live, as they've broken up since then. At least these other bands, lifehouse, storyhill and guster are still together and going strong, and even more awesome that they have been coming to areas in my neck of the woods...however, I have not seen them live yet! This saddens me, and I renew my resolve to see these bands before I'm out of my twenties! Academics be damned next time, i will drive the two hrs to purdue to see Guster play. I should have done it this time.
Honestly, sometimes I let my academic success drive rule my life, I'm such an idiot to let that happen. Truly. If I learn the information, that is what is important, not the grade I get after the fact. And, as I found myself thinking the other day, when I look back on my time in grad school - what am I going to be able to say? Well, I have at least met quite a few interesting and great people that have become my fantastic support system here at IU. I have lived away from iowa for a time, and generally it has been a good year. But next year, I will go to the concerts.

Well, almost done with the semester - meaning still don't know my grades, but i'm done with everything, it's all turned in, and now i must wait for the grades. I hope everyone else has had a great end to their semester as well! and good luck with all your summer plans. I'll update at some point soon, but for now, i'm basking in the fact that i'm done by watching t.v. and being a bum for a few hours :)
lata

Some Random Odds and Evens

Well, this will be a short entry, but I do like to keep those of you out there informed, especially since it probably seems as if I've dropped off the face of the Earth. Rest assured my fine readers, I have not. Proving that the Earth is round is one thing, dropping off I"m sure is just as complicated. I am sorry to have been out of touch, but plan to be for the next 4 weeks or so anyways, as I am in the midst of writing THREE, yes, that's THREE graduate school papers...yelp! However, one of the papers is fairly intuitive, which means it will get done this weekend, another, more complicated, and the last and of course, most important is the MOST complicated and taxing on my brain capacity. But, I digress (of course) . this is all my life has consisted of, since getting back to B-town. So I miss the finer things. I am however, excited to sign my lease for my apartment for next year, to start my internship in Iowa city over the summer, to come back and visit the fine b-town friends still here, and orchestrate a number of weekend visits to other locales. I look forward to teaching myself vi. because i am a huge dork and as steve would say, I belong in the "pink ghetto" (or traditionally small group of women that find computer science programming languages interesting and fun) So next semester i will take information architecture for the web (a class i couldn't take this semester b.c of scheduling conflicts). I look forward to the family reunion at okoboji, and a 24th birthday sure to make me realize i have to grow up now and look for a real job soon - which i'm almost entirely ready for after this semester.
oh yes, I must mention, before I close this (ya, no seguway there) that my parents are awesome. They sent me a plant! yes, a truly live plant...haha, an azalia plant that is now sitting in my window, but i think it doesn't really like the sun allt hat much, as it looks more "awake" at night - and i was informed they are a night blooming plant. fun huh? it brightens up the room, and i think they knew I was stressed about things here, so wanted to make me feel a lill better about my chosen higher degree and that whole "where am i going, what am i doing with my life" discussion. so thanks folks!
okay, it's off to read about fund-raising in libraries and how that relates to their management for my 10 pager!
happy trails to all and good luck to those of you also finishing your semesters!

The recap catchup

Well, I am back in the swing of things here in indiana. Enjoying the nice 62 degree weather today, though it was rainy, at least it wasn't icy, like back in IC. I hope you've all stayed indoors or gotten home safely over there! The two classes I've had so far will be good I think, both with professors I had last semester, yay for them! I'm more nervous for the seminar in art librarianship which will be on Thursday - because I haven't taken the prereq and it's a class of only 9 people. I already have reading assignments and *gasp* had PRE-reading assignments too...publishing syllabi on the web has it's advantages for the profs, and disadvantages for the students I guess. It's hard to push my brain back into school mode though. I did get over to the SRSC today to work out a bit, which will be a good habit to get into. I'll recap the last few days in IC and here, in order to catch folks up, and close this quickly, because I've got massive reading to do for Thursday...
I spent Thurs night by hanging out a bit w. Jon, who CRUSHED me at NCAA Football on xbox. I thought it rather comical - for someone that usually learns what the buttons do by creating random schemes of pushing all at once or all in a row - that he handed me the MANUAL, I was thinking to myself, what kind of messed up game is this, and I quickly learned that I would do well to memorize that manual. So ya, I'll learn what all those buttons do, and then, Jon, you better look out, cause it'll be GO TIME! After some xbox adventures, we went and picked up Ashley, Kath, and Chai and went to the women's bball game. I LOVE watching basketball - I have a lead on Yogi's as the place to watch the Hawk Men this weekend (bummer that they are 0-2 in the big ten now). After the game, we went back to Jon's, where Chai and I played some Burnout Three, - my FAV xbox game (out of the 4 I've played). Then we headed to pick up folks and go to MugClub. It was quite fun for the most part. I think the people i was with know like every single person that lives in the town of iowa city, cause they were all running into people they knew. Besides my friends, I only ran into one other person that I know myself. It was good times though. Then i went home and crashed! I met with Rijn at 10 am to discuss the internship this summer - I'm hoping to keep myself super busy with working ALOT so as to make ALOT of money - which means, after internship meeting I went out to ACT to interview. I must fill out many other appl. as well, when I"m back in IC - if anybody knows someone looking for summer help...please pass along my name ;) ...Then I joined Misa and Ax for lunch at the hospital, which was fun, and i headed over to Hardin and visited with Hope (my old boss) She's so cool. Couldn't talk for long though - cause i met pete at house of aromas for coffee (or in my case, Orange tea) that was a great convo :) I was happy he wanted to go. I also met Jaime for dinner at the mall, and that was fun to. wedding plans seem to be coming along nicely. After that, Misa and I headed up to CR for the girls night! Sorry to my boys out there, I love you guys, - but sometimes, the gals just need a night to have some fun with their own kind :)....we had a total blast! It was a group of about 10 of us, including some of hte Mt. Mercy girls that i haven't seen in Ages! We went to a new place called "element".
My one funny story from the night, just proves that I will always remain the oblivious "blond". When Misa and I walked in, I was wearing a zip-up sweatshirt over my "goingout" tank top. For thoseo f you that don't know I have a set of "goingout" tanks, which, to various degrees are mostly designated as such because I can get them smoky and wash them easily. Well, as I paid to get in, the bouncer told me to unzip my sweatshirt top, - no worries, I thought, this is probably just to check for concealed weapons or something. Well, after, rezipping my sweatshirt back up, the bouncer informs me that I will need to check my sweatshirt. I was thinking, "huh? what? that makes no sense" and I think he saw the look on my face conveying my thoughts. He responded by saying the coat check was free. I nodded, paid and walked in. It was FREEZING in the bar, so there was NO WAY I was going to check my shirt! I asked Misa, who was wearing a zip-up fleace over her tanktop "Did he tell you to check that?" and she gave me this weird look. "No, why?" "Because he told me to check mine. Which is soo stupid, it's way to cold in here. jeesh" and misa gave me another look, that clearly conveyed I'd been the "oblivious blond" as usual...the bouncer was totally interested in seeing me wearing my tanktop all night, instead of my zip-up sweatshirt. In other words, he'd been trying to hit on me. *shakes head* In the end, it's more annoying than endearing for bouncers to hit on you when you walk into a bar, but, in my case, I guess I won't notice anyway.
The rest of the night went really well, lots of fun dancing, and the drive home was nice, because misa and I got to catch up. I left IC early on Sat morning, and drove back to B-town, which just a lill bit of snow and icky weather right outside Indianapolis, so no big. Settled back in, and did dinner and a movie with Traci...yay! She's such a good cook, and a regular martha stewart without the jail time. :) We watched Eternal Sunshine. Sunday I lounged around and got my textbooks and finished unloading. So that's it...it's back to the exciting life of a grad student. - I am looking forward to starting work on Friday though. Art Libraries RAWK!
hope you are all well!

Iowa, oh, Iowa

Well, I have been back in Iowa now for a few days. I realize even though B-town isn't that much further "south" it had been alot warmer...at least 15degrees, which was MUCH warmer compared to the 15-20 degree range in IA right now. I have complained about this to the Iowa friends, and they all agree, it's freakin cold here, and we all want to boycott cold weather! However, it has not snowed yet, so I guess that's a plus.
Most of my friends here are still in the midst of their finals week, I feel sorta bad to steal them away from their studies to hang out with me, and I serve as this great distraction. At least most of them welcome a break from the insanity that is studying for finals - ah I remember it soo well - thank goodness none for me this time around - next sem will probably kick my ass enough to make up for it though.
I have already been in touch with a few of the Indiana friends, and will hopefully get out some christmas cards before the end of the week. I have extreme empathy for one in particular as she's just gotten some really frustrating news related to a class. I wish I could help her out more, but hopefully something good will come out of it. She is very bright, a sweetheart, and a super gal, so it always sucks when disappointing things like this happy to the people who least deserve it. Karma be damned on that!
I drove back on Sat morn, after having stayed up way too late friday night, but for a good reason, Tanya and I went to tutto benne, which was lots of fun, I had grilled artichokes, yummy, and some wine. Then we went out and played pool and Art joined us. I turned down a shot from a guy that offered, and told him to give it to the graduating girl instead. It was pretty funny. After a few rounds of pool we just sat and discussed alot of different things, which was lots of fun for me, because I got to know Art a lill better, and Tanya was able to get sufficently wasted as planned. We went back to Art's place for awhile for afterhours which was also fun. Then I got three hrs of sleep and packed, and drove back to IA. I was glad Trac and I got Starbucks b.f I went for dinner, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been able to hang out so late, or stay awake on the drive home either.
I did fall asleep pretty quickly after getting back into town here. ate dinner w. the folks, watched a movie and then slept...missing a few invites to hangout. Last night we went out to the bars for awhile, I drove so didn't drink, but I had fun hanging out with the friends there...though I would have liked to have danced more, because I didn't work out yesterday at all. I have been trying to be better about doing at least 30 minutes a day in the hopes to get more muscle tone, which means I"ve also been lifting, and hah, a lill sore from that! If you haven't seen the movie SAVED, I highly recommend, as long as you can take a good look at the crazy religious zealouts out there, and take it all with a grain of salt, as they say, especially good if you are like me, and enjoy the sort of sadistic dark humor comedies. okies, well I will end this now, because I am off to join pete at house of aromas for a cheesecake latte and some catching up! hope you've all been able to stay somewhat WARM out there!

Home for the holiday and quite happy ;) I've gotten some of the assignments done and turned in on time for the classes. my mom is doing okay after her car accident - a dog hit the passenger side door. I've had a blast hanging out with my ole pals from the IC Crew :) I miss having nights when all I have to do is call one of the friends and soon I've got five people to share the time with and watch movies or whatever. such fun. tonight we watched harry potter which I bought this afternoon. last night we watched elf and I finally got to plan San Andreas and Halo II. was really fun! NOw I just have to kick my butt to get my pathfinder done or started tomorrow during the day, and then going out for wing night at brothers possibly, or at least, hanging out and drinking a bit with the boys and gals perhaps. should be fun! and the Indy folks have already emailed and text'd and called and such, so I feel like I've got a nice home away from home started too! hooray! such great folks. Happy thanksgiving everyone!

Um, I Still Exist

watching: LOTR -Fellowship Network Premier on WB
Hey Everybody, I haven't quite dropped off the face of the Earth. I had a weekend full of interesting events :) Including the "not so official weekend" start on Thursday night with drinks and karaoke at Bear's and dancing and drinks at Axis with Tanya and some of her friends. Had a BLAST...then of course, got home at 4 am, still feeling the buzz, and chatted online until the sun came up. Fabulous. Course, I had to shower to get rid of the smoke smell...slept for about half an hour, then went to my 9:30 class - leaving the dorm at 9:20 - and arriving just in time. Class was a blur, by nature of my distracted personality at that point, but I still took very good notes (surprisingly). Then I spent the next massive amount of hours in the library doing research for a collection development project. Came home and slept for god knows how long, until waking up on Sat and doing the SAME thing, more collection development project ALL day. Heh, the relief and break came when Traci and I joined one of her friends for Indian food. I'd never had it before and it was really really good. Not too spicy(heh, we had the recommendations of the native to help for that) and quite tasty. We also went to Nick's for a bit to converse. Her friend really likes brain teasers and was trying out a few on us. I was close to both of the right answers in my logical thinking process, but not quite there. Course, my first instinct, as always, is to problem solve by going outside the parameters of the given situation. i.e. in the case where you have a light bulb upstairs, and three light switches, and you want to know how many times you would have to go upstairs to determine which lightswitch turns on the bulb - I first decided, i wouldn't have to go up at all. I'd make one of my friends do it as a favor :) hhaha, can't let it be said that I don't think outside the box right? - the answer in reality, is 1 time. which was my inital guess, though I couldn't totally back up why....turns out, lightbulbs get hot, if lit...which I knew, so I was trying to guess how many times you'd go up to know that the bulb was hot...if you go up after you've flipped the second switch on and off, then you know...because you can feel the bulb...if the bulb is hot, it's the second, if it's warm, it was the first, and if neither, then it's the third switch...so the initial choice of ONE time is correct...but ya, was kinda a fun lill test of analytical thinking skills. Other than that, I haven't done much else besides homework all weekend, and won't do much else for the rest of the week either. I'm getting excited to go home again over thanksgiving and see all the IC crew, and my parentals. I do miss them. It was nice that my mom actually called me the other night, complaining that she wanted to hear the sound of my voice, rather than just doing the AIM chatting that we have been doing mostly so far...they are somewhat tech savy...I'm very proud of that fact ;) but was nice to know they wanted to hear from me. Anyways, back to the studies now

Get out and vote folks! Let's change this country in the best way we know how. By using our constitutional rights! Today I worked on my 524 adn 528 collection development projects. I don't mind spending time in the reference stacks of main when I actually accomplish things. Good thing I brought the lappy, that helped quite a bit on saving the effort of writing everything down. So yes, this is a short entry, cause there is more that needs to be done. Kerry 2004!

Listening to: Ben Harper - Strawberry Fields (Beatles Cover), Hepburn - I Quit, Hoobostank - Running Away,

No idea what to write about today. Guess the muse has amusingly decided to vacate my head. Yesterday was a pretty chill and rainy day, we spent it at the library doing homework. I came back here, watched part of a musical, then helped Christa find her Halloween costume (quite fun) But, alas, a normal ordinary type of day. Actually I appreciate the normal ordinary days too, because, it makes me realize how special a day of just chilling and relaxing can be. This morning was great. Tanya had the idea that we should try the Runcible Spoon, because she'd never been, and I'm a newbie to IU anyway, so it presents a good excuse to get good food at some local places and soak up some local atmosphere. It's a fun little place. A converted house, was very crowded, populated with interesting folks to people watch. It's also full of fun bookshelves with many mismatched volumes of various old binding varieties. Including "Peter the Great" next to a book on gardening. Such fun. A real treat for the visualist like me. We had to wait almost 45 minutes for our food, but I did get to catch up with Tanya. I haven't seen much of her this past week because of her midterms, and she's also been feeling under the weather lately. The food was great. I've been craving some good french toast for some time now, since I live off of cereal almost everyday for breakfast, it was well deserved and needed! It was the perfect way to start the day. I think Tanya and I will venture to a place on Thursday night to try our hand (or rather lend our voices) at karoake. What fun that will be! ;) And perhaps will go see BatBoy the musical on Friday night, and then Sat, we'll carve pumpkins and get out the costumes and attend a party ;) SO, I just have to keep my head in the game for the rest of this week and get all of my school stuff done...

Listening to: MP3 Oldies List (which means great tunes from the 50's, 60's, 70's)

All registered for my classes for next semester. Yay. I'm a big dork, I'm excited for them. Well, mostly...maybe not so much for cataloging, but it's something I need to learn, and it's required, so here we go!

So there is a coffee commercial out right now, for Foldgers, that includes my theme song. I can't believe how awesome it was to hear the EVERLY BROTHERS live in concert with Simon and Garfunkel this summer. I still can't get over how stoaked I was, I felt like they were singing directly to me, even though that Qwest Center was probably sold out. I love how I went to a concert with my parents. How many people get to say that their parents have good taste in music and that you agree with those tastes? I had a really great exposure at an early age to the music of my parents' generation, though they tell me they were on the "tame" side, weren't protesting, didn't do woodstock, etc. They listened to folks like Peter, Paul and Mary and the Carpenters. All great stuff if you ask me. I remember many roadtrips to Okoboji, before Steve and I were old enough to drive up by ourselves, in which I would get to listen to the Beatles and numerous other one-hit wonders, and also the music from their childhoods, like early Motown, and stuff like "Leader of the Pack".
Nowadays, when I roadtrip my music tastes are so entirely vast it's hard to pinpoint WHAT I listen to, but I know what I like. Now that I've got the Ipod, and itunes, I can roll out with just about anything and mix it up constantly. Last night I was doing homework to the RANDOM setting, it was great fun. Going from stuff like Dave Mathews to Ice Cube to Sugar Shack to Ave Maria to Pour Some Sugar On Me. Granted, I have my lists too, if I'm feeling like a particular kind a music, say "jazz" then I can turn to Etta and Sinatra. Or power females I've got Alanis and Janis and Liz to keep me company. But sometimes it's fun to just mesh it all together. Especially when some things really fit one after the other. Anyways, you are probably asking what the point of this random mussing is...well there ISN"T really one in particular. So hah!

I'm excited for the opera tonight!

Tom Forsythe and Me

Listening to - Leroy - New World - Ten Things I Hate About You Soundtrack
Watching - Home Improvement with the sound 0ff - very counterintuitive I know...

So, the thursday trend of sleeping in continues. I didn't get up until 11:30 today. woo hoo. I was a VERY good girl though. *Remember When I Told ya'll I had that HALO?* hehe. I got all of my reading done for tomorrow morning's class, even caught up on the reading for it last week (which I'd skipped). I got all the immunization things taken care of, so I can register. I worked on the 524 lab. I squared away the contact information for my internship for the summer. I went running, did abs, AND even lifted a bit. I also finally finished putting up some new decorations around the room (no halloween ones yet, I'll put something on my door soon though) but, I bought that whacky sticky tacky stuff this weekend (because I have NO masking tape around here), so my walls won't seem so bare. There's a hilarious artist that I discovered in Art News a few weeks back when Traci and I were high on caffeine and doing our 401 at B&N. He was being sued by Mattel for his "representations of Barbie dolls." Well, having taken Art, Law and Ethics last sem at Iowa and finding copyright law fascinating, my curiosity was piqued. I "googled" for his website (and man, do I LOVE google).
http://creativefreedomdefense.org/index2.htm is Tom Forsythe's homepage...read and look and laugh and enjoy.
How this pertains to me: well, I've put up a few thumbnail images above the computer. I'm particularly fond of "fondue a la Barbie" and "Oster Dive" as well as "Missionary Barbie". As the disclaimer says, "it's derivative work" so it's freedom of expression. I often think, if I wasn't going to be a librarian, a professional writer, professonial photographer, or museum professional, I'd add lawyer to the mix and defend artists. :)
Now I am going to be a further good girl and work on some other assignments, because tomorrow night I'm going to the opera with Christa - yay! I'll get to hear people that actually know how to sing! and it's Tchaikovsky, and IU so should be fabulous! So exciting!

Listening to: Otis Redding - Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, Etta James - At Last, Wallflowers - One Headlight,

I thank God for the miracles of modern medicine sometimes. I'm lucky that usually after taking a simple little pill, and crashing with the lights off, perhaps sometimes with a cool compress, I can be revived a meer four hours later and feel refreshed, with no lingering migraine. (this does not always work, but tonight, hooray that it did) So, I was compelled to come back to the blog and write a few more lines...
The level of productivity after my nap has been quite astonishing, given my latent tendencies towards watching t.v., listening to music, reading for fun, playing 5 chord guitar concerts for myself, and generally just saying "but, gee, I don't wanna" (to borrow a line from Will) about doing all this reading. It's piling up...there's a larger project looming on the horizon that I haven't really done much with yet...and I'm going to register for classes amidst this feeling that I'm totally forgetting all the stuff I really need to get done tomorrow. Why do I make myself lists when I promptly manage to loose those? I think the hand is the greatest tool most of us have at our disposal, and tonight, I've written everything I need to do tomorrow, in blue ink across my hand ;) that way I won't forget. It works alot better than a string for me, because I'd probably forget what the string stood for...and a string can't really stand for that many things at once anyways. I have an assignment notebook, I use it to write down assignments. I just don't really USE it, it's in the room somewhere...probably under the pile of textbooks in the papa-sahn. My system works. So long as I remember not to scrub really hard when I wash my hand in the morning, or the ink doesn't dry fast enough, and I wind up with my daily list across my forehead.