Hi everyone! I just wanted to inform you that I’ve moved to a different place because I wanted to join the Chicks on Lit webring and I couldn’t get it to work with WordPress.
Here’s my new address: http://chercafe.blogspot.com/
I’m still trying (in vain) to import all of these posts onto my new blog. They might not be transferrable, but I’ll keep on trying.
I apologize for not doing this sooner, but I honestly thought I had already done this. Haha.
It’s been so long since I’ve posted that I nearly forgot that I had a blog! I know you’ll forgive me though.
Let me think about what all has changed since I last wrote…I called a few apartments. Apparently there’s a big renters’ fair this week on campus, which I need to go to. I found one that I like, but it’s pretty far from campus and a bit expensive. It’s absolutely huge and totally worth the money, but I could find a place that is closer, smaller, and cheaper. My mom keeps nagging me about getting a Sunday paper to look at different apartments for rent. I’m simply too lazy to do that.
Spring Break went really well. I went out to dinner with my uncle and then went to a St. Patrick’s Day dance with my grandparents. The dance was at the Elk’s and it was a bit of a disappointment. Mainly because it’s so…trashy now. The people they have let in have totally ruined the mystique and the prestige of the lodge. I mean, when I was growing up, you dressed up to go out there. When my mom was a kid, you had to wear a jacket and tie to get into the dining room. But the numbers have fallen over the years, so they’ve had to lower the standards for admission. I know that probably sounds snobby, but oh well.
I didn’t get as much reading done over the break as I had hoped. I’ve come to the conclusion that reading is dangerous! When I read a book that mentions another book, I immediately want to read the other book. I broke my book buying ban today. I ordered a Judy Garland CD, Cruel Intentions, and then I had to buy something else to get the free shipping, so I got The Good Earth (which was mentioned in a book I recently read). But then I ended up getting a different, better Judy Garland collection that cost more and I found out that this one book (Provence A-Z) was on sale, so I bought it too.
I’m afraid that I need to cut this post short and look at my online banking to see what all money I’ve spent. I should probably start with January and go on from there, writing down the expenses and deposits. I’m really bad about remembering to do that. One of these days it’s going to get me into a lot of trouble.
I’ll try to write soon…
Tomorrow I’m going to call some apartments and find a single one. Why? Because I’m not putting myself through the torture of having a roommate next year. Although the imbicilic roommate makes for good fodder for my blog. Entertaining people with my stories that I publish every so often doesn’t compensate for the torture I go through many hours of every day to get you those stories. I’m sure you’ll live.
Spring break is coming up and I’m so excited! I’m going to my grandparents’ house next Monday. And then I’m coming back maybe on Thursday (so I don’t have to have my mom nag at me about going to her church with her on Wednesday). It’s not that I’m against church, I’m just against that church with those people. I don’t like them and they talk badly about me, so it’s fine.
My book-ban has been going well. Except spring is making go into a Hemingway and poetry mood. While I do own a lot of Hemingway, I don’t own much poetry. I’m hoping to borrow a collection from a friend before she goes to England for two weeks. I don’t know why spring brings on the Hemingway kick, but it does. I think it might be because there’s something earthy about spring and there’s something earthy about Hemingway. But I don’t know. Freud might have a good analysis. Or maybe not. I don’t even know which Hemingway I’d want to read. I own several. A Farewell to Arms, Across the River and into the Trees, Hemingway’s Complete Short Stories, Green Hills of Africa, To Have and Have Not, The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Anyone out there have an opinion?
I enrolled this morning for the summer and fall. I got into all of the classes I wanted to get into, which was really nice. We’ll just have to see if this semester doesn’t kill me first.
I did my yoga again this morning. It’s been a whole week. I’m proud that I’ve kept it up for that long. I almost didn’t want to this weekend because on Saturday we did inversions, which consisted of handstands and headstands and the like, and Sunday morning I was bloody tired so after I did my warm up, I thought it best to not do relaxation poses.
This morning at around 5:30 some cat just went ballistic outside my window. I was dreaming and I thought a baby was crying and then I woke up and realized it was a cat. But it was too dark outside to see anything. When I looked later, I saw no dead cats outside so I assume things worked out all right. But it was absolutely bizarre and I didn’t quite get back to sleep after that, which was unfortunate. I’m starting to feel the time change, but I’m determined to keep getting up at 6 and doing my yoga.
My life revolves around books so much. I plan out which books I must read before I can buy more books. I plan out which books I’m going to bring with me on Spring Break so that I am never caught without a book. I bring two books to campus with me–one to read before my first class starts and one to read in between classes and at lunch–each day. I have a book designated for bedtime reading. I’m not complaining because I love reading; I think it’s the greatest gift ever. But sometimes I’m a little saddened that I find events in my life reminding me of things I’ve read in books rather than the other way around. Anyone else feel like that?
I was supposed to do an update on the books I’m reading. Lolita is the book I read before my first class of the day. Arthur Schlesinger’s Journals are what I read between classes and at lunch. And Edgar Sawtelle is my bedtime book. All three are amazing. Lolita is one that I’ve started and stopped several times since I’ve bought it. I’m hoping this time that I can finish it. The Journals are a really quick read, surprisingly. They span nearly 50 years of US history. It’s really interesting to read these entries and know how things are going to happen beforehand. It has a lot of similarities to reading a novel, but I know that it’s a real person that is telling the story, instead of a character, which is why it makes the big events that happen so much more compelling. And Edgar Sawtelle has been going along. I like the way it’s told. I just haven’t been so dutiful at reading this one for an hour each day as I’d like.
That’s enough for now.
One of these days, Alice, I’m going to write regularly for my blog. I won’t leave you waiting nearly two weeks before you get to read my melodious thoughts.
I’ve started doing yoga in the mornings by getting up an extra half hour early (because I couldn’t just cut out half an hour of my computer time). It wasn’t really hard to do at first, for some reason. But by today, that is day 5 of the morning yoga ritual, I had a really hard time getting out of bed. But I made myself do it because: a) that which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, b) I’m a masochist, c) eventually the yoga will melt inches from trouble spots and make me burn more calories by adding muscle and d) I was too tired to make such a big decision as ruining a fitness regimin that I can actually foresee myself sticking with. Except I don’t think I did the routine right today. It was back bends to open up our backs (because we always hunch over and it’s depressing [their words, not mine]) and it was supposed to take 10 minutes. I probably just messed up the breathing. But I don’t remember reading anything about needing to hold each pose for 5 breaths or whatever.
I really like how my yoga book works. There’s the Daily Warmup, which I do everyday as the title would suggest. Then there are different routines for each day of the week. At the very end, there are “recipes” where you can pick a routine for a purpose, like 30 minutes for losing weight. One of these days (there is it again) if I stick with the morning yoga, I will need to invest in a more advanced book. Hopefully it will be spiral bound like mine so that the pages won’t turn while I’m doing the downward dog or the boat pose.
Let’s see…looking over the archives, it appears that it’s been a while since I’ve complained about my roommate. So my mom met her when we went out to lunch. I won’t tell the whole story, but when we got in the car at the end, my mom told me she could see why I have so many issues with this girl. And then I extended my hand and officially welcomed her to Team Me. I don’t know if anyone can understand how good it felt to have my mom validate me like that after months of her telling me I was unreasonable, I was awful, I was the bad person for disliking this girl.
Now it appears that she’s not talking to me, which is more like a reward than a punishment, so I’m not complaining at all. I decided that I was too busy to wash her dishes as well as mine, so I stopped washing them and explained to her that I’m too busy and we’re both adults so we can clean up after ourselves in a reasonable amount of time (and I realized that I probably needed to spell out that “reasonable” means within a day) and when she moved in we agreed that doing the other person’s dishes would be a nice thing and not an expectation, which it evolved into being. She apologized for offending me. Then I had to explain that she hadn’t offended me and I was just letting her know that my intentions were not malicious I wasn’t trying to be mean and because she seemed like she was getting mad at me. So the next day, she sends me a text while I’m in class saying she’s procrastinating and is going to do my dishes unless that’s a problem. That wording, to me, suggests that if I don’t respond it’s not a problem, plus I sit at the front of the class and couldn’t text back. I get back to the house and she hasn’t washed my dishes, but she washed hers. But it’s only an annoyance because she overtly led me to believe she was going to wash them and then didn’t.
I’ll do a special update, tonight maybe, over the books I’m currently reading.
Has anyone tried the new Starbucks breakfast menu? Where you get the food and the drink for $3.95? I’d like to try one of the sandwiches with the coffee. So, let me know if you’ve tried it and give it a thumbs up or thumbs down, so that I can either try or not try accordingly.
I haven’t updated on my Walden in quite some time. I haven’t had the chance to do anything more to the room, but the computer did get moved out of there, so hopefully the other electronic equipment will go soon as well. My mom mentioned making the room a lounge area for me with a TV in it. I protested. She doesn’t know my plans, nor would she understand because I’m assuming she hasn’t read Walden (although, she does surprise me sometimes). But hopefully over spring break I can really weed through the stuff that’s in there and turn it into a reading room. It would be nice to have my bookcases in there and a comfy chair and maybe a small table/desk to either read at or use for writing.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but there are about a bajillion Beanie Babies in this room and I feel really guilty about wanting to put them all in storage or selling them (because we wouldn’t recoup the initial cost). Over the summer, I went through and kept my favorites out and put them on the Beanie Baby shelf my papa built for me…but there’s a huge box of ones that weren’t special enough to keep out. I really don’t know what to do with them. I don’t want them out because they’re kind of distracting and take away from the seriousness of the reading and thinking room, but I feel guilty for putting them in the attic. Anyone have any suggestions?
My mom and I discussed a major cleaning/cleansing of my room in the not too distant future…so probably summer vacation. I need to get rid of stuff. I keep a lot of things at my parents’ house when I’m away in college that never get used and I bring a lot of things with me to college (many of which don’t get used…hmmm) so it’s really crowded in my room and closet when I move home for the summer. I just need to put on my big girl panties and get over it. I’m tired of not really unpacking when I go home for the summer. Maybe I should get things cleaned out before I move home so that there won’t be total chaos for a couple of weeks.
OK…homework now…homework forever…peace, relaxation, and sanity afterward.
And I’m probably not going to answer you. You might ask why. And I’ll tell you why. It’s because I have better things to do, like driving or talking to people who don’t ask stupid questions, than answer.
But of course, life can’t be that simple. People whose stupid questions I ignore automatically assume that I’m not talking to them. Namely my roommate. Oh yes. You asked for it folks and now you’ve got it: more stupid roommate crap.
I sent my roommate a text when I’m almost back to the house asking her to make sure the door is unchained (so I can unload my stuff). She writes back that it’s already unchained and does that mean I’m coming back tonight? I ignore the text because I felt the stuff in parenthesis was a given for a person of moderate intelligence. (Although, I seriously considered saying, “No, I just want you to leave the door unchained all night.”) Why else would I ask her to unchain the door? Anyway, so I get back and unload my stuff and then I leave to hang out with friends. When I get back, there’s a note asking if I’m not talking to her again. So I text her back that if she’s referring to my not answering her text earlier, it was because I felt it was quite obvious that I would be coming back if I asked her to unchain the door.
Oy! She slays me! I cannot wait until I get to move away from this…nightmare.
I can’t believe I haven’t written in almost two weeks. I thought I was doing pretty well. Then again, I only wrote 3 days in a row, so it’s not that impressive. As usual, I dropped the ball on doing something I like because of school. I like some of my classes this semester. Actually, make that most of my classes this semester. But I don’t particularly enjoy my lit theory class. I love the professor, but that subject matter just doesn’t interest me one bit. I wouldn’t be taking the class if it wasn’t required for graduation, which is why most of the people in there are taking that class. Oh well, there’s only 9 more weeks left (excluding spring break) before finals week. That means, only 18 more sessions of that class.
On Tuesday, I officially added history as a second degree. And I declared French as my minor, which I didn’t know I needed to do, so it’s a good thing I checked. Still feeling really good about the decision. As usual when I get excited about something, I want to totally dump my English and focus on history. But I still need to do well in the two English classes I’m in now and the 3 I have to take next year. And it looks like that professor remembers that he said he’d do an independent study with me over the Transcendentalists, which makes me very happy.
I looked over my recent posts and I don’t guess I have much to update you all on. I am still feeling like I’m juggling and still pulling away from friends, but I think that’s OK. I’m working it and that’s what matters. Roommate still annoys me, but that’s something I’m just going to have to deal with for the next 10 weeks. Although, my mom did admit that she can see how my roommate gets on my nerves so often after meeting her, which made me feel oh-so validated. (I kept telling my mom that she just didn’t understand the situation because she’d never met the girl) I’m supposed to hang out with one of my friends tonight. She’s cooking dinner, which I’m looking forward to. Hopefully we’re both able to get some homework done (and hopefully a certain someone doesn’t try to join in [which sounds mean, but when the officers of the English club stayed later than anyone else at the party we had on Sunday, she awkwardly tried to join in and I was embarrassed when she'd open her mouth]).
I guess my biggest issue that I care about and can actually control right now is my books. I’m trying to decide which book to read right now and I have 8 that I want to read. Here’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to tell you what they are and you are going to leave a comment, voting for what I should read. I’ll like you more if you say, “I think you should read _________ because _________.” (However I won’t like you if you say I should read it because you never have and you want my opinion; that doesn’t help me, that helps you because if the book is awful, then I’m the one that’s wasted my time reading it, not you [though that doesn't mean you have to have read the book; you can say that you read a review and it sounds interesting]) I’ll provide a link for you in case you want to read any summaries or reviews. OK, so the books are:
All the President’s Men — I want to read this because it ties in with stuff we’ve been talking about in one of my classes. This book ties in with my reading challenge.
Lolita — I want to read this because I’ve started and stopped this book several times before, plus it’s short, which is good since I have classes and not a lot of time to read a behemoth book. This book ties in with my reading challenge.
Edgar Sawtelle — I want to read this because it’s a March book club read, although I can still read and comment on it later.
Sylvia Plath’s Journals — I want to read this because they’re so interesting and helpful for my own journaling and blogging because I start to think about me more. This book ties in with my reading challenge.
Arthur Schlesinger’s Journals — I want to read this because I just got it in and the back of the book piqued my interest.
The Fountainhead — I want to read this because it’s a great book, I read another book that talked about this one a lot and made me want to read it, and I love the characters. This book ties in with my reading challenge.
The Thorn Birds — I want to read this because it’s my mom’s favorite book and she bought me a copy and I’ve heard from several people that it’s really good and is an easy read. This book ties in with my reading challenge.
The Witch of Portobello — I want to read this because I just got it. And it’s short.
Now get voting. I’ll give you until Sunday the 22nd of February.
