Lazy bum

I have discovered that when left to myself... I pretty much turn into a bum. Without classes to get up for, I sleep in. With spare time, I watch TV online. I don't even leave my room or get dressed. It's pretty much a crazy way to live. Fortunately, reality doesn't suspend itself for long, and soon routines and deadlines will be making themselves known. For now, I'm content to remember what it's like to set your own rules. Kinda fun. I feel like a small child home for the summer. Except, you know, for the snow. Yeah.

I also, you know, wrote quite the research paper on the anti-abortion movement (as I so politically correctly called it in my paper). Dude, they should so put me in charge of National Right to Life. I would win the country over in a heartbeat. Basically, I argued that if pro-life groups a) joined together and b) shifted most of their funding towards addressing poverty, one of the root causes of abortion, then everyone would figure out that abortion isn't necessary after all. Justice, not abortion, frees women. BAM. I just saved lots of babies.

It's ok to dream, right?

In the lane, snow is glistening/ A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland

South Bend had a lovely white Thanksgiving, its first snow of the year. We should have four inches or so by tomorrow. Spending my first Thanksgiving away from home wasn't as lonely as I thought it would be, mostly because I spent the day fussing over a research paper that's 40% of my grade. Plus, I'll see my family next weekend when I trek down to Birmingham for my cousin's wedding reception. All is well. The poor-little-girl-we-miss-you phone calls from my family and extended family made me feel quite loved.

Back to paper writing. It never ends. I had forgotten how pretty the bare trees look, all edged in snow.

Political musings

I've decided that of the lunatics running for president, I would be the least unhappy if Kucinich or Gravel won. I like Kucinich best. Of course, someone that liberal is necessarily deeply pro-choice, which is regrettable, but I've come to the conclusion that for this election, at least, foreign policy, health care and environmental concerns need more immediate attention than Roe. Roe isn't being overturned any time soon; the only success the prolife movement can achieve right now is incremental legislation within the states. No matter how many prolife judges are appointed to the Supreme Court, public opinion is just not behind an abortion ban. Hearts and minds need to be won over first; even if we got a SC decision against abortion, as things are right now, the prochoicers would fight against it just as hard as we've been fighting Roe, and the battle would not be won. Time and persuasion- that's the ticket.

Anyway, Kucinich sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Plus, his slogan is "Strength through Peace." Pretty gutsy. Of course, he has no chance next to Hillary (or Obama or Edwards), so it's kind of a stupid idea to vote for him. Poor guy.

Update- Maybe not on the prochoice thing. According to this article:
"During his first three terms in Congress, Kucinich compiled a consistently pro-life voting record, earning a 95-percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee in 2000. "He absolutely believes in the sanctity of life and that life begins at conception," Kucinich's spokeswoman explained last year."
The prochoice business seems to be a recent development. I'm willing to be hopeful.

Footwear, you disgust me.

Foot fashion sunk to a new low today. My professor wore Heelys to class. For those who have fortunately not encountered them:Heelys (n.): obnoxious shoes with wheels built into the heels so that one can roll around in inline-skate fashion

I didn't even know they MADE adult-sized heelys; I had only seen them on little ones. He wore them primarily because his daughter bought them for him for his birthday, which I can appreciate. I bought my father black, red and gold striped (or were they blue and white checked?) suspenders in Germany, and I have yet to see the man put them to good use. Bad gift choice. But seriously: Heelys? Ew. Not only are they obnoxious and annoying, but apparently dangerous to your health. He complained that his left knee was quite bruised from falling repeatedly when trying to walk; the wheel on the heel often causes your foot to slip out from under you when you aren't rolling, just trying to walk. The pains dads go through for their daughters.

Also on my fashion don't list:
I already despised crocs in general, but fleece-lined crocs?! Are you serious?? I don't care how comfortable they theoretically are (and let me just say that after trying on pairs more than once to see what the big deal is, I'm not impressed), they're ugly.Finally, the bane of my existence: stilettos, 3 inch heels and up. I tried to wear cute strappy silver stilettos once, and let me just say, never again. The human foot is not designed to put so much weight on a pencil-sized point! It's just not feasible! The problem is that some women have trained themselves to endure the pain of walking on tippy-toes for an hour or more, and now all women feel compelled to follow. Fellow women (and cross-dressing men): Do not be so misled! Stilettos lead to heartbreak and broken ankles. End of story.

Also exciting

I'm a fan of quizzes today. This one is on political orientation.

WOO! I'm a communist anarchist! Not really; I'm just more anarchist than authoritarian and more communist than neoliberal.
The famous people closest to me on their graph are Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama. Not bad company, that.
No wonder Bush and I don't get along. We're sort of in opposite locations, huh?

Question: is it possible to be in the 4th quadrant, both anarchist and neoliberal? Doesn't being neoliberal require government regulation of some sort? I feel like I should know this, given the fact that I'm a polisci major.

Exciting

I'm an INFJ (Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging). According to wikipedia, this type is only 2% of the population. I feel special.
Yay for wasting time when I should be Getting Things Done.

Explain.

Someone explain this org to me: laptop.org

They distribute laptops to kids in third world countries. They say that their mission is "to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves." I've seen for commercials for their org multiple times on primetime TV, with a star from Heroes calling for donations, and their website is obviously expensive. This group is apparently quite rich, or at least they put a huge emphasis on media.

I just have one question: why, WHY should we focus on getting kids laptops when things like medical care and financial security are so much more important? Are we giving laptops to children while their mothers' HIV or TB goes untreated? While their family subsists on a minimum of food? Because in many places in the world, even if laptops aren't going to those places, these are the conditions. Laptops and education are important. But laptops are not necessary for education, and not necessary to live. I would be willing to bet that many of these kids will never leave their country of origin and will go into agriculture when they're older. Wouldn't money be put to better use assuring that they will receive fair prices for their products?

I don't understand.

Simply fantastic.

Football this weekend was everything I've been missing all year. To start out with, the drummers' circle (drum line performance) at midnight last night was the best all year. It was almost an hour long. I haven't seen so much school spirit all year. Everyone was aware that this was it, no more football until last year, and for the seniors, their last games as students. We got there early and I was on the edge of the inner circle (for the first time ever!) and able to see all of the excitement. I think we had all forgotten how it felt to be enthusiastic, to really care about our team and our school, and all of a sudden, when faced with the end of it all, we remembered. It was the most amazing thing. I haven't felt so happy about football since Michigan State last year.

Then today. Today! We won with all of our hearts. The seniors knew this was it, and they proved it. I adored how Weis put lots of seniors on the field towards the end, even the ones who hardly ever play. Zibby played quarterback for the first time ever, to the complete euphoria of the student section. I will miss him and Trevor Laws so, so much. When the game was over and the team came to our corner to sing the Alma Mater, proud doesn't even begin to describe what I felt. They earned this- their night, finally, with everyone recognizing their effort and applauding their spirit. What better way for the year to end.

Ouch... at least it's funny

The Onion, that lovely satirical news agency, added its two cents about ND's football program.

U.S. Military Wasting All Its Victories On Notre Dame

WASHINGTON, DC—As combined American forces celebrate two consecutive football wins against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish while simultaneously marking the loss of the 3,150th soldier to hostile action in Iraq, many are left wondering if the...

Dreams

In the course of filling out my study abroad application (turned in today, thanktheLord), I was asked to give thought to my future career plans. This is sort of a normal occurrence around here, even though I am not a card-carrying member of the resume-building, career fair-attending, briefcase-toting segment of the population.

Anyway, a catch phrase in the peace studies department is "scholar-practitioner." Mainly used to refer to the masters students, who spend their second year in the program abroad in an internship actually working to create peace, this term has come to describe exactly what I want from a job. I am coming to adore research this semester, more than I ever thought possible. But it's not enough for me to be an academic for the rest of my life; I have to have a direct service component to whatever I do. I discovered that this summer, and the current lack of service in my life is a deeply-felt void. And I want to be home with my kids for a good percentage of the time.

Therefore, here's my perfect job:
First of all, I want to work for an organization trying to better the world in ways I agree with. Also, I would love to research from home in the mornings most of the week, while a babysitter watches my little ones, leaving my afternoons and evenings free for mommy time. A couple of days a week would need to be spent in service in the community, perhaps with my kids in tow when they're older. Now that's what I call education. And I would be ok with needing to work in the office of whatever org I'm at once in a while for meetings and such. It doesn't even have to be an exclusively research job; I could deal with writing grant proposals and such (I just wrote my first one tonight! I'm proud of me). Mainly, I'm looking for flexibility and the crucial help the world factor.
Pre-kids, I want to be as involved as I can with the dirty, nitty-gritty stuff in running an organization. Grass roots, on the ground, in the streets, in the government social change. I want to live inside D.C. in what will probably be a tiny and overpriced apartment, soaking it all up and gaining experience. Then I can morph into this scholar-practitioner person later. Yeah. That's a plan.

Grumble.

You know what really bothers me? I just finished a 14-page report on external actors in Guatemala. When put together with the rest of my group's research, our report will easily top 70-80 pages, not counting our most likely ginormous annotated bibliography. It took SO MUCH WORK to consolidate so much research in one place, but no one will ever use it. Our professor will grade it, and that will be it. No one researching Guatemala will ever use this as a resource. Three similar reports are being produced by the rest of the class, and those will never be used either. We pulled all this together for one grade. I want it published! I want it online somewhere so that the world can USE it! But who would I send it to so that people could find it? It's too big and complicated for wikipedia, and not officially scholarly enough (we're just undergrads) for more prestigious sites.

Grumble grumble. I guess this is how people feel after writing theses. So much work... no real contribution to the academic community. It's like running on a treadmill or walking up the down escalator. You're not going anywhere so it's pretty much pointless, despite how hard you're working.

What it takes

I'm pretty picky when it comes to music, but for weird reasons. I adore hard rock (some would say metal) bands, alternative, pop, and world music bands alike as long as they meet the following rules:

1. Audible and intelligible lyrics (I get quite annoyed by songs that aren't articulate enough for me to hear the lyrics, forcing me to go look lyrics up online)
2. Lyrics that I relate to and/or are fantastic pieces of poetry that truly capture what they're trying to get across (examples: Once soundtrack, Aqualung's first CD, Relient K's MmHmm, Simon and Garfunkel)
   
3. No long solos. OAR and jam bands are not my style.
   
4. Sometimes catchiness and beat, but not necessarily. This is lower on the priority list than lyrics, but if a song has can't get it out of your head catchiness or an awesome beat I sometimes make an exception from the lyrics rules.
5. If I already love a band, and a song on their new CD has unintelligible lyrics, I will be disappointed, but still love the band. If, however, their once-poetic lyrics are now all cliches, I show no mercy. (i.e. the new Aqualung CD... a couple good songs but mostly eww)
6. Very little swearing. It's not that it offends me, it's just that it makes the song seem less like a work of art and more vulgar and ugly.

What makes music "good" for you?
Mychal will now respond with a six-page essay, and that will just be the abstract for his thesis someday.

We won for once!

In basketball. Tonight was the season opener, and since Joey talked me into purchasing season tickets with him, off we took ourselves to the game. They properly creamed Long Island University, aka "the Blackbirds." Fighting Irish so trumps blackbirds. Anyway, my attention is not hugely captivated by basketball, so I spent the time supplying helpful (or at least interesting) commentary to my patient boyfriend. For example:

"Those coaches' suits must be so sweaty by the end of the game with all of that arm-flailing and random squatting. You would think they would be so uncomfortable."
"You know the teenage son in Little Miss Sunshine? He so reminds me of that kid from high school!"
"That one kid on their team has really baggy shorts. It makes him look even shorter than he already is."
"Look at the band! I LOVE the band!" (accompanied by arm clutching and desperate pointing)

Poor Joey. Good times, though. And I got to wear my snazzy student section t-shirt. Some soda-like product found it fitting to soak my reclining bookbag and its contents while we watched the game; I'm not a fan, soda-like product. Not a fan. But such is life. I'll take cheering my heart out in a basketball game over homework any day.

Storytime

Nothing interesting happened today- slept in, slogged through unending assignments, gave up for the night. No one's interested in that, and I'm not interested in complaining about it. Thus: storytime.

Once upon a time, Laura was a little tot. She traveled on a big plane with her parents to see her aunt, uncle, and cousins out west. They went to the mountains, and it was the first time little Laura had seen Big Snow. She was so bundled up that she could scarcely move, but when she found a snowball sitting on the ground, it was necessary to throw it at her mother. It hit above her right eye- perfect shot! However, the snowball was actually made of ice, a concept foreign to little Laura, and she was banned from throwing any more "snowballs," for fear of giving an unsuspecting cousin a concussion. Poor mommy. The end.

Seemed appropriate with snow just around the corner here in Indiana. Right now we're still in the miserable cold dampness phase, just above freezing, but snow is coming soon. I can feel it.

Comfort blanket

Painful defeats seem to sap my energy. I've spent the last couple of hours cuddling with my down-filled satin-lined blanket and laptop. I watched another episode of Heroes- which I've decided is mediocre, but I don't have anything better to watch. Also, I drooled over this jacket, on sale at oldnavy.com right now-


I adore it, which means I'll probably end up buying it, after the requisite amount of time has passed so that I know I actually love it. Same process as trying it on in a store, leaving to eat lunch, and coming back to buy it, except more cozy and with shipping costs.

Tonight I also discovered a recording of the band's halftime show on NBC.com, much to my excitement. Our student section seats are in the corner of the field, so it's hard to tell what the band formations are from such a diagonal angle. Today they played OK Go's "Here It Goes Again" made famous by youtube (go watch the video if you haven't seen it, it's amazing). The band formed stick figures running on treadmills! How cool is that? Then they played Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting", created Chinese characters and spelled out Kung Fu. They also broke wooden boards :-). I love our band so so much. They are pretty much the most amazing thing ever. No offense to Georgia Tech's band ;-)

I meant to do homework tonight. Then I was lazy. Oops.

As a side note, the whole begging for comments paragraph recently was meant to be in jest. My ego is not suffering for lack of comment love. Heaven knows how much I suck at commenting on blogs, even though I faithfully read them. Don't worry, my biological and non-biological mothers who read this, all is well. Silly gooses.

Athens, here I come

Now that I've moved from indecision to passion about the whole study abroad thing, there are SO MANY hurdles to jump through. I have asked for (and received) two professor recommendations, approval from the Arts and Letters department and the Political Science department, and a rector recommendation. All I have left in that regard is a peace studies appointment next week so I can log their approval too. This is all in addition to my application, which is sorta done but needs to be tweaked. My essay needs a lot of work. After so much effort, I had better get accepted, because now I'm excited. Darn it. I really want to go.

Good grief, I have so much writing to get done this weekend. Let's count:

1. Study abroad app essay
2. Grant proposal draft for funding so I can go to Germany, etc next semester
3. I need to FINALLY finish my Guatemala paper. The problem with thorough outlines is I entirely lose patience when it comes to writing the paper. Ick.
4. Outline of Veritatis Splendor (the encyclical)
   
5. Take home essay test for my nonviolence class

That was depressing. Um, yay for weekends...

Methinks earthworms have more interesting lives

Quote of the night: "You're so evil." (Joey)

This was in response to my convoluted plot to bypass college, which involved suing his chemistry book publishers for gender discrimination and making millions, thus making it irrelevant whether I passed chemistry or not.

Yeah. It's a slow night. I'm studying for a Spanish test on the subjunctive case, which, trust me, is wildly entertaining.

However, I did get paid for my research job today, in the form of a personal check from the professor in question. Sketchy much? At least I don't have to pay taxes now. Another piece of good news- the presentation for my hugelyginormous semester-long group project on the peace process in Guatemala was today, and it went well. Best moment:
Professor- "Who was the UN negotiator?"
Me, quickly- "Jean Arnault."
Professor- "That was intended to be a tricky question."
I like being a goody two shoes. By the way, can someone please explain the etymology of that phrase? I have no idea what it means. Thanks.

Joey just performed the N'Sync "Bye Bye Bye" dance. I think we spend too much time studying.

House

Since the demise of Star Trek, House is the only TV show I will watch live every week. I get way too fed up with commercials with other shows, and I just catch them later online. But I can't imagine postponing watching a new episode of House. I must see it as soon as possible! Which means watching it on TV like everyone else.

But this show is worth it. Witty banter, ethical dilemmas for Joey and I to debate later, even the occasional CIA intervention or love triangle. Oh yeah, and awesome abnormal medicine. I love how I'm able to predict what's going to happen once in a while- I feel like I have actual medical knowledge. I don't. But I do generally recognize the signs of a stroke now. That could be useful. This is how I justify how I spend the nine oclock hour on Tuesday nights.

Plus, there's a great site that analyzes the medical truth behind the show- http://www.politedissent.com/house_pd.html . Joey used to read it out loud to me before my bad listening skills made him think I didn't care. But it's really quite interesting when I'm not in the middle of something (namely, reading other people's blogs). Good times.

Still- there's no replacing Star Trek. Television's zenith passed with the finale of Star Trek: Voyager.

Notes

I thought that writing a post a day would, you know, give people plenty of opportunities to comment. But I haven't gotten a single comment since I started this NaBloPoMo thing. Maybe the blog community is boycotting my bad and uninteresting writing? Sucks for you. I'm going to write anyway, so there. :-P

Today's weather says here comes winter. Gray and windy and occasionally sprinkling cold rain. Groan. Time to break out the outerwear from their rubbermaid containers by my bed. I think my cotton summer skirts and lovely sandals need to be retired for the year. On a happier note: the Starbucks I'm sitting in right now is decorated for Christmas, and my heart is full of joyful excitement. I'm not usually a huge Christmas person, but I'm feeling the spirit this year. We'll see if that lasts until a week after Thanksgiving, by which point I am usually tired of pop-ified Christmas carols and the color red.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I'm not going home this year. Gasp! This has caused consternation back home, but we only get Thursday and Friday off, so I would have to skip Wednesday classes to make it home in time, plus my parents are working a fair amount. I'm going to stay here and write papers so that the NEXT weekend, I can fly down to Birmingham and go to my cousin's wedding reception. He's getting married on a cruise over Thanksgiving, which is out of the question for my family, but we're going to his reception. He's the first of my cousins to get married. Scary. He's a Marine and is on leave from Iraq for this whole wedding deal, so I figure that he deserves my presence. If he's going to fly out from Iraq, I'll fly out from Indiana. Should be an interesting occasion family-drama-wise; I might finally get to meet my godfather's new wife. Sweet.

And now, I must return to working on a paper on Guatemala. Specifically, foreign involvement in the Guatemalan peace process. Dude, the UN totally rocked the negotiations. Human rights mission before there's even a formal ceasefire? Risky but so brilliant. And thank God for Norway. Seriously, what would world peace do without Norway? I shudder to think of it.

I'm such a peace nerd.

Dynamite

It's been a whopper of a week. Think of those huge groupers with the massive bodies and really ugly faces- that's been this week. Well, actually, not at all. Bad analogy. While this week was at times quite ugly, I think I learned a lot too.

I don't really want to go into details, but I guess I have to say something about what's going on after Joey said, "With everything that's happened, you post about makeup?" It's hard to know how to write about the not-so-happy times, because while I know my friends and family back home want to hear about the events of my life, good and bad, I also don't want to whine or worry everyone.

Just get it out, already. This week our (as in mine and Joey's) two year anniversary almost didn't happen. TWICE. You would think that after two years together we would see such landmines coming, or even prevent their existence, but I guess (relatively speaking) we're still new to this. Two years isn't that long in the grand scheme of things. It takes a lot to shake us- in fact, I don't think we've ever come so close to calling it quits, not even in the midst of figuring out how to manage a relationship in college during freshman year. Suddenly a cornerstone of your relationship can be wiped away with one blast of dynamite and then you find yourself back at square one. It doesn't have to mean that it's the end- but lots of work is in store if you keep going. We decided to keep going, and we'll rebuild. Right now we're just relieved that despite everything, we're still together. I adore this boy and he's pretty smitten with me, so I'm pretty sure you haven't seen the last of us yet.