KRE

I feel really bad because I turned in a part of my thesis that I know isn't very good and my professor is so nice and he said "I'm sure it's fine!" but I know it isn't and he will find it disappointing and I will cry and waaaaaaaaaaaah ;_______________;

I'm meeting with him again on Wednesday to go over it and I know he's going to basically say "rewrite it" so I think I will just start doing so now. :P

Spring
by Mario Petrucci

It is May Day. The children are eating painted eggs.
Look at the fine colours.
Pink and green for May Day.

The workers are marching.
The men look fine.
The sky is fine.
The grass magnificent.

This is May Day.
A child is crying.
Her cry is natural.
In her genes.

She cries even though the rain falls
pink and green on May Day.

The veteran pats her parted hair -
isn't that smell magnificent?

She cries. And his face is a mask
for May Day. May Day. May Day.


--

That's one of the poems I'm reading in a collection called Heavy Water, for a section of my thesis about Chernobyl in popular culture and social movements. I thought this section would be easiest, but it's actually proving to be the most difficult so far, and I have a big deadline tomorrow. This is going to be a loooong night.

Normally at Panera they label all of my orders "Kristen", despite me clearly saying "Kirsten", as in, "Kyeer-sten".

This one beats all other terrible botched attempts.

A quote from a conversation I had with a girl in my dorm:

"Tolstoy..I didn't know he was Russian! Does that mean Lord of the Rings was originally written in Russian?"

EDIT: I should give context for that quote. It came right after this:

"I have to go to Russian Literature in a few minutes"
"Oh, what do you read, fiction?"
"Yep"
"Any books I've heard of?"
"We just did War and Peace"
"That was Russian? Who wrote it?"
"It's by Tolstoy"

I had a membership with Northwest Airlines/KLM, but they've merged with Delta or something and most of my miles have vanished!

I have 9,532 miles according to my account on their website. That seemed awfully low, and when broken down, that only counts two London trips and my signup miles. That means I'm missing several London flights, as well as my flights to and from Russia. They're not being very helpful in recovering them, either. :(

Annoyingly, 10,000 miles would get me a discount on my next flight, but I am under 500 miles short!

EDIT: Also, they only allow you to change the name on your account over the phone. I very clearly said, "Lamb, L-A-M-B, like the baby sheep", they have documentation on my name change, and I still got a card with the last name LANB.

There's a sign in the women's bathroom at a coffee shop in town that reads:

PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OUT FEMININE PRODUCTS AND PLAY WITH THEM
THIS IS GETTING TO BE A REAL PROBLEM!

I don't even want to know what has happened to prompt that note.

I want ABC Family to explain to me why they had a "Countdown to the 25 Days of Christmas" all last month.

I don't have cable myself, but every time I've been to my dad's house, they've had THE COUNTDOWN TO THE 25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS!

Why is there a countdown to a countdown?

May as well start it on December 26!

I didn't go out at 4 am or anything, but I did go out at 12:30 to grab a pair of boots that were on sale, as it's starting to snow now and I desperately needed a pair. My stepmom also grabbed Fallout 3 for $20 for me, which was a wonderful surprise.

Successful shopping day, I would say!

LOCATION: My dad's house, in the kitchen.

SCENE: My sister Raelyn has finished babysitting some kids, and there is some play-doh on the counters. Raelyn and my brother Ethan are playing with some of it before putting it away. Raelyn is cutting up some chunks of brown play-doh.

Dad enters the kitchen.

DAD: What is all of that?
RAELYN: Oh, nothing. Fudge.
DAD: Ooh fudge, don't mind if I do, mwahahaha!

Dad puts chunk of play-doh in mouth.

DAD: AAUUUUGGHHHFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--

*cue laugh track*

I was telling Scott recently that even though I won't be here over the holidays, it would be nice to have a small Christmas tree in my dorm for the time that I am here, to make my room feel cozy and get me in the holiday spirit as the semester winds down.

Today, I received a surprise package in the mail. Behold!



He bought me my very own tree, plus lights! My room is about a billion times more cheerful. :D

Last night around 8:30 I got a weird desire to move all of my furniture around. Once the idea gets into my head to do such a thing, I can't relax until I do it. At 10 pm the rearrangement was complete. Previously, my bed had been lengthwise under a multi-panel window, which inconveniently also has the room's heater underneath it. This meant that my bed was always very hot, or extremely cold.

The new arrangement is kinda weird, but I actually like it. My bed is in a better spot, as is the tv, and now the sounds of garbage trucks outside aren't quite as ear destroying as before (though still quite bad).

I am so glad this week is a short one. It's not so good in the sense that I won't get as many work hours, but it is good in the sense I can have a breather.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to swing going to South Carolina this weekend, so have made plans to go down in a few weeks instead over a weekend. Now I just need to figure out what to do for the actual holiday!

One of my classmates from Russian Language and Russian Literature has H1N1. My mind isn't blown, as she's been missing a lot of classes over the past week or two, so I knew she must have something quite bad. She just sent me an email asking for notes and stuff, as she's developed pneumonia as well. Poor girl. :/

I haven't been asked out on a date by anyone in quite a long time, and I assume that this has something to do with the fact that I have rings on my fingers now, and that I don't go out as much. I think since the wedding, I also have lost some of my social prowess because I had a very awkward interaction today.

LOCATION: Fortress Comics and Games
ACTORS: Two employees, one customer, me (wearing my R2-D2 shirt, probably the catalyst for the whole thing).
SCENARIO: I am browsing through comics and thinking of Christmas ideas. Guy who does not work there approaches me and begins chatting.

Him: I see you like Star Wars?
Me: Oh, yeah, I've recently rekindled my love for it.
Him: Have you been here before?
Me: No, but I have some coworkers who come here for 40K stuff, so I thought I would have a look.
Him: Where do you work?
Me: The IT help desk on campus, I do computer consulting.
Him: Oh, so you're a smart nerd!
Me: Hmm, I would like to imagine so, I guess.
Him: What are you doing tonight?

OK. So at that point, I was browsing through several Warren Ellis comics, and not entirely paying attention, and I missed the completely OBVIOUS implication in that statement and just carried on the conversation like so:

Me: Oh probably playing some xbox, I just got borderlands from a friend the other day.
Him: Oh a gamer too, how do you like borderlands?
Me: It's pretty fun, I enjoy it.
Him: So, are you hungry?

OH. I UNDERSTAND NOW.

Me: Oh, uhh..
Him: I'd like to take you out.

At this point, I glance up from what I was looking at and see the people who work there watching with somewhat horrified looks on their faces, probably afraid that a potential customer might be driven out due to being uncomfortable.

Me: I, uh, I'm sorry...
Him: You don't want to?
Me: I'm sorry, I'm married..

He then just sat there, and I became so uncomfortable with him just sitting by me not saying anything that I just left. If I was on my game I probably would have caught on right away and not let it carry on for so long, and by the end of the conversation I felt so bad and unsure about how to make it less awkward that I just left.

It's flattering to be approached and asked out, it's nice to have that happen and in general it does make me feel good even though I don't want to further it at all, but I was totally not expecting it or ready for it and ugh I feel guilty like maybe I was leading him on or something I DIDN'T MEAN TO. :(

The dining room in my dorm was inexplicably turned into a night club last night. I'm talking dance floor, people dressed up, a dj playing loud hip-hop, fancy lighting, strange hors d'oeuvres..

I just went down in my PJs because I wanted a late night snack. They had something very bizarre thing on which I require your opinion. On toothpicks, they had chunks of banana wrapped in bacon.

I actually tried one, it wasn't bad, but I still require an explanation. :|

I left my toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom about an hour ago on accident. I went back to retrieve it, and my toothpaste had already been stolen. Balls.

I should specify that this is important because I am allergic to most kinds of toothpaste and need to use special varieties and I have to go and find some now. So sad. :(

Today at work my task is to reinstall Windows XP in Hebrew on someone's machine. Good thing I could do an XP install blindfolded, because I can't read any of this!

I got a present in the mail today from Scott. It's a stuffed burgundy dog made from corduroy. It's very soft and adorable and I have named him Louis.

I'm pretty sure I need these to survive.



Everything on my Christmas wishlist is coming from etsy.

I was talking about children's shows with one of my coworkers this morning, and this is the conversation we had:

Him: I liked that one show about the people on the island, and there was a big yellow frogman or something.
Me: Oh yeah, I remember that...What was it...Gullah Gullah Island? Is that it?
Him: Yeah, that's the one! Binyah-Binyah!

While reminiscing, we looked it up on wikipedia and I learned that the name of the show refers to the ethnicity/heritage of the family on the show. I guess as a small kid, I obviously had never encountered the word "Gullah" outside of the context of the name of the show, and had no idea it was anything but a nonsensical phrase. Looking at it now, I definitely do know the word Gullah, but because I encountered it in a different way as a kid I never made the connection between the word Gullah as an ethnicity thing and as the name of a kid's show. Quite surreal to now figure it out!

I think it is time to rediscover this show. I wonder how many people are seeding Gullah Gullah Island in this world...

The (arguably*) French film Vodka Lemon is probably my top movie of the decade. I can never decide if it makes me want to laugh or cry or both. Depends on my mood really. It's brilliant, and if you don't want to take my word for it, it has extremely glowing reviews.




*According to wikipedia: "In spite of all the awards won by the film, the producers of the film did not succeed in qualifying the movie as a French one because the actors were not speaking enough French words in the dialogues. The French cinematic authorities counted out the words spoken in the film finding out that there were 41 French words lacking. The failure to qualify as a French movie pushed the producing company Dulciné Films to file for bankruptcy."