Nicole

I don’t know if this is more funny or sad… Continue Reading »

I will be really sad if Ed is canceled, even though we’ve all seen it coming. Good show tonight, even though I taped it… more on that in a minute.

Conversation of the day… from North campus…
Corporate job fair guy in suit: What kind of engineering are you?
Me: Um, I’m a Russian language major.
Suit: I’m sorry.

The day started out to not be good, waking up too early and cold, then falling asleep again, to wake up rather late. Chemistry went really badly, but somehow that’s making me more convinced that I shouldn’t drop it. The only reason I am doing it is a spiritual one, I feel like I can’t give it up. After torture by balancing reactions, Russian 348 was sooo boring, I think for the first time I almost fell asleep in a class.

But then, my dears, I boarded the big blue bus of burgeoning bliss and headed north.

I didn’t get lost at all today, which makes it a rarity right there. I found my way through the Media Union, didn’t quite find what I needed, but perusing stacks is how I’ve spent half my life, so any time I can do that I’m content. Then I wandered into some kind of recruiting fair, wherein I had the above convo. That’s actually not the first time that’s happened to me there. People from Ford’s design dept almost had me convinced last semester that I needed to quit the russkie nonsense and work for them.

I somehow found my way to McDonald’s and had GOOD COFFEE. Since when do they serve that? I drank it black, it was lovely. I returned to the sleazy dive that is Central campus and had a cheerful Russian 302 class. Alina somehow talked me into doing my big project on nuclear disarmament treaties, but who knows, it might be interesting. I am doing a powerpoint with cute pictures regardless. Maybe I can find one of Pres Bush with a gun in his hand.

Roads were not great tonight on the way to the concert, so I parked at the first structure on the way to Hill, the one downtown on Fifth St. I then had the most amazing walk to the auditorium. It was snowing, light, fluffy, crystalline snow, all the buildings were lit up, there were no cars… It was quite Dickensian. I really liked Ann Arbor right then. I was glad to be here and not somewhere else, and that’s a rare, if not completely unheard of, feeling.

The concert was great, despite anything the performers may think. Well, part of the adventure was getting in through the back without a ticket, by passing as a performer. I almost got myself directed onstage. I should have just done the Kramer thing and played along.

But seriously, there was something in the “collage” that probably everyone could enjoy, or at least have that “Hey, I recognize that! I know my music!” kinda pleasure, such as with Mozart’s Figaro overture or the omnipresent Debussy.

Ach, it’s taken almost an hour to write this (well, it wasn’t the only thing I’ve been doing), I should stop here.

And now at least one of my neighbors knows it.

There were only three people, counting me, left on the bus by the time it got to my stop. I figured the other two weren’t getting off, because I almost forgot to pull the string and we were headed right on by the driveway to my apt complex. It’s a fairly long driveway, and I was kind of, well, skipping down it, and singing (thankfully somewhat quietly) to myself, “Bet yer bottom dollar, you’ll lose the blues in Chicago, da-duh, Chicago.” I was pronouncing Chicago with a hard “ch” instead of “sh” for some reason. And there may have been some head/neck jiving happening as well. It wasn’t until I was headed in to my building that I realized I’d had an audience. But let us all not forget, this is Ann Arbor, I am by no means close to being the weirdest person around here.

Speaking of weird people, at bookstudy tonight… just kidding. I was going to say something about bookstudy, but now I’ve forgotten.

In Russian class each of us has one day of the week on which we have to do news presentations. I was trolling for articles (in English–shhhh don’t tell!) and came across this: Vodka Victor Dies

Ick, what a day. I’ll spare y’all the pertickalers. Suffice it to say, I would like to hold things together for everyone else, but I don’t think that’s possible. I’m sorry things are the way they are.

In other news, this woman at work won’t stop calling me Stacy. Maybe because my mom has got it goin’ on.

You
are Building a Mystery
You hide your true emotions and feelings for fear of rejection.
Unfortunately, your cold façade has isolated you from those who care
most about you.

Which
Sarah McLachlan Song Are You?
Created by Noor

I’m not much of a Sarah fan anymore, but I’ll always have a soft spot for her, because she was a big influence in the whole singer-songwriter-pianist phase that took up most of my teen years and kept me out of worse trouble.

I still have the sheet music to “I Will Remember You” and “Adia.” Random information.

As to the cold façade thing, it might be a little harsh, but then again I do have “iceprincessofprussia” as an email addy, so perhaps it’s not that far off base.

I was just thinking about those trippy years of bad songwriting, actually. I woke up the other day, and began singing a song, not realizing right away that it was mine. When I wrote it, I imagined Jakob Dylan’s voice singing it, so I guess somewhere I’ve convinced myself that the Wallflowers put out a crappy and strangely effeminate album soon after Bringing Down the Horse came out. And because I’m not a total tease, here is the ‘song’ in question

And a bored one at that.

I actually made the bus today, so I got home in time to get to service, but on State St there was a little wreck just past Stimson St, and I had visions of a crumpled Rodrigo with a very distraught me getting frostbite, and then getting hit by the bus, while waiting for the police to write their report and for the towtruck to come. Yes, it is a lethal combination to have a wild imagination and a healthy level of paranoia.

So we’re staying home today, and I might actually get my chem homework done. If I don’t go (stir) crazy. I was really hoping the video I bought on half.com would arrive today, but it didn’t. I want to go shopping, almost all of our winter sweaters are $12 or $14 dollars and I haven’t had time to shop at work lately. Because I so need more sweaters. (<–sarcasm)

I want to explore, or go someplace new, or see something I haven’t before or haven’t lately. But instead it’s me and my conversions and derivations. Ick.

In the words of my girl Aimee Mann, “Sa-aaaave me…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Study: The Flood story in this week’s reading is one of my favorite things to research, check out, among other things, the color insert pages in the Insight book, and this from the Reasoning book, p 181 (on Halloween):

The book The Worship of the Dead points to this origin: “The mythologies of all the ancient nations are interwoven with the events of the Deluge . . . The force of this argument is illustrated by the fact of the observance of a great festival of the dead in commemoration of the event, not only by nations more or less in communication with each other, but by others widely separated, both by the ocean and by centuries of time. This festival is, moreover, held by all on or about the very day on which, according to the Mosaic account, the Deluge took place, viz., the seventeenth day of the second month—the month nearly corresponding with our November.” (London, 1904, Colonel J. Garnier, p. 4) Thus these celebrations actually began with an honoring of people whom God had destroyed because of their badness in Noah’s day.—Gen. 6:5-7; 7:11.

So humans are not the only ones who like anniversaries–the demons mark them too.

Music: Don’t ask me why, but I have “Friends in Low Places” in my head… ick!

but until then, just an observation:

I have been singing two songs today, kind of unconsciously alternating between them: “Almost Paradise” from the Footloose soundtrack, and “Never Say Goodbye” by Bon Jovi, and I have concluded they are the same song. I’m downloading them right now to confirm.

What a lousy name I have (though there should be two more E’s, right?)

Pholph’s Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 21. What is your score? Get it here.

What should I change it to?

I was just checking to make sure I had my homework assignment right–this is the “translation” of the Russian text:
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I think school should end when it does in early December and not resume until mid-February. Let’s skip the cold and dark in between.

I am not ready for break to be over yet. I laid in bed awake for an hour and a half this morning, instead of doing the things I had planned to.

So first impressions of the new semester. I think I will soon despise the Frieze building. I had only been there once before (unless you count stopping in to the vending machines in the lobby), and the prof’s office I saw did not prepare me for how the next floor up looks like an overgrown high school hallway, a sort of big, dark, nightmarish one that goes on forever and the bare lightbulbs kinda sting your eyes. People laugh at the MLB, but at least it is stuck in the 70s, not earlier. I can live with antebellum.

Andreas Schonle seems pretty cool, though I am wondering why I am yet again surrounding myself with embryonic freshmen. At least these ones like Russian lit though.

I may have a problem though–I can’t seem to stop picking up Schonle’s accent. I have had problems with this in the past, with various foreign people. I think I do it subconsciously because I want to communicate better with them, but it is usually interpreted as making fun of them.

Maybe with the German accent it is the Teutonic blood coming out of me, something awakening in my DNA that says, “Quit this Russkie posing, your family tree is full of Eicholds and Hohensteins and Drewnoskes. Talk like Govanah Schwartzeneggah.” Yes, I know he is Austrian, and I am Prussian, but close enough.

Shakespeare should be interesting… Macklin Smith seems pretty cool, even though he seems nervous while lecturing, which makes me nervous in turn. I have to try not to look around in lecture though. It kind of looks like a sideshow in there, if I may say so. I was thinking “Send in the bearded lady” when I saw her sitting down the aisle from me. That’s not nice, I may be prone to facial hair myself someday, but I vow, here and now, to do something about it. Waxing, bleaching, electrolysis, heck, I’ll even use a Gillette on my lip. Whatever it takes.

Okay, weird stream of consciousness there.

I was glad to be back in the LRC, it’s emptier than before for some reason. I was able to get “my” table and everything.

302 may or may not kill me. Alina started off this way last time too, trying to scare us with all the big ambitious stuff ahead, and it wore off. But she was teaching three Russian language classes, so maybe that, and not us, wore her down. We may or may not have to deliver on all this.

Last time she assigned a historical final project. This time she wants it to be contemporary politics :S Any suggestions?