At least my parents got their money's worth

Triple overtime = extra hour or so of gametime. Most cost-effective game all year :-)

I can't help but be happy for Navy. I can vaguely imagine the ecstasy of joy they must be in right now, and if we had to lose like that, I'm glad it was to a team and school I respect and admire. Way to go guys.

The worst part of the game was the booing by the student section (and probably other parts of the stadium too) of Coach Weis after the game. For at least this season, he's our coach, and I support him as much as I support the team. What do I know about football to argue his play calls? There are many legitimate criticisms to be made, I'm sure, but as a member of the student body, not a sports analyst, I refuse to boo anyone on my team. Whether or not he should be replaced is not my call to make, and I don't feel any better about our season by laying all the blame on him and casting him out for not doing a better job. I stand by my team, coaching staff included, and let the people who know best make the decisions. I don't think they care what my expert opinion is anyway.

A Day for Celebrating

My family is here. I just drank sparkling grape juice champagne with my boyfriend to celebrate our two year anniversary today. Life is good, and I am very tired.

Makeup Complaints Issues

(Possibly the most shallow post of my life lies ahead. Just a warning)

Makeup and I are not friends, and never have been. This is bad, because I have a theory that Notre Dame girls were taught from age 5 how to apply eyeliner. Maybe it's a legacy thing. Even girls who come to class in PJs or sweats make time for their morning makeup ritual. Now me, on the other hand- I consistently find myself in a cycle of experiment-- daily application-- disillusionment--- disgust. No matter how hard I try to break the cycle, I just can't seem to discover how to successfully integrate makeup into my life.

To start off with, I have a lot working against me. Pale skin + shadowed, recessed eyes = my eye makeup easily looks gothic. I wear mostly brown, not black mascara and eyeliner, but even the thinnest of eyeliner lines and the sparest of mascara coats cause problems. Also, I have so many lines under my eyes (it's a genetic thing- my mom gave me my eye shape) that inevitably eyeliner and mascara dust settles in the creases under my eyes, leaving me looking haggard and exhausted by an hour after application. When wearing eye makeup, I have to remember to frequently check these under-eye creases for makeup debris and wipe it off, although that also wipes off my concealer which must be reapplied, etc etc. I keep trying, though, because I love how most redheads make their eyes look gorgeous against their pretty pale faces.

Another major issue is patience. I am much more dedicated to sleep than looks. I will not sacrifice fifteen minutes of sleep for a morning cleansing face scrub/ multilayer makeup application. My makeup routine, when it exists, is quick eye makeup and tinted lip balm. I don't own foundation (why wear makeup that matches the color of your skin?) and my facial cleansers sit dusty and unused, even the one with "morning burst beads" that claim to wake you up as you lather. Essentially, my dedication level is low.

Final major complaint: I feel so much more tired when I wear eye makeup, because I can't rub my eyes. My eyes get all dry and all I want to do is close them for a long time. I rub my makeup off pretty quickly because staying awake in class trumps looks.

I've read online makeup guides. I've had my makeup done professionally (once... years ago), and I've watched friends who know what they're doing. I have a bulging makeup bag. And still, I find myself at war with makeup. It's a love-hate relationship, because it knows that I need it to look "nice" by social standards, and professors, etc appreciate it when you look nice. And of course I'd like to be able to handle makeup well. But I think that until I commit to making time for a makeup routine in the morning, it's not going to work. Maybe all of that cleansing and foundation and crap is necessary. And let's face it, I'm not THAT motivated. Sleep is so much more important. I will continue to be the frumpy-looking hoodie, jeans, and clogs girl, but I will have fifteen more minutes of sleep. I win.

Next time: my relationship with my hair, and why I am not just the makeupless girl, but also the pony-tail-sporting-non-long-silky-hair girl.
Just kidding. I won't put you through the torture of a post like this again for a while. :-)

New goal for November:
One (hopefully well-thought out) blog post a day.

This is part of my ongoing flip out less, love life more campaign. Shazaam.

In other news: my family is driving up to spend a whole weekend with me. *happily shifts weight from foot to foot while smiling extra big*

Also: a baby sheep is a sheepling. Awwww.

Lots of colons were harmed in the making of this blog entry. Not organs, punctuation marks.

Furthermore

I just figured out what classes I still need to take to graduate with a double major in political science and peace studies and a minor in Catholic social tradition. Guess what- out of the 25 class slots I have left (5 semesters at 5 classes/semester), only 17 or 18 have to be filled by requirements, depending on if I take another summer service class like I did last summer. I could go abroad for a semester and not take anything in any of my fields of study, and still have two free classes to spare. HUGE happy face. I love AP credit- I bypassed all those pesky university requirements that way.

Fall Break

The university (wisely) allows its students a week off after midterms week. I think that they didn't do this in the past, and there were mass suicides from stress, so they figured a week off is necessary for students to regroup (read: sleep). I couldn't agree more. I elected to stay on campus for fall break instead of traveling home, which has turned out to be one of my more brilliant ideas. Let me count the ways:

• I share the campus with perhaps twelve other students. I seriously doubt that there is another living soul in my dorm right now.
• Food for the week cost $15. Much cheaper than plane tickets. Just so no one worries about me starving to death, campus eateries (but not dining halls) are still open for limited hours every day.
• I didn't set an alarm clock last night. That hasn't happened in at least a year. Do you have any idea how beautiful it is to wake up when your body wants to, instead of your schedule?
  
• In my day off today, I watched lots of TV online (how have I missed out on how awesome Heroes is?) and enjoyed the peace and quiet. I got a little bit of work done, but I decided to spend most of my time chilling out.
• The rest of the week I intend to Get Things Done, such as summer program apps, study abroad apps, a couple of papers, research, and a couple books.
• Joey called tonight from D.C., where he's traveling with a class on Religion and Politics. He had gotten up early and spent most of his day at the Holocaust Museum, and as we talked he was rushing to the Jefferson Memorial. I perhaps envied him the company of like-minded friends, but definitely not the schedule. Hanging out in my room all day in PJs was exactly what the doctor ordered. I rush around all day in ordinary life; break life should be relaxed.
• When my family called last night, I didn't have to cut the conversation short because of some paper deadline or event. I can't remember the last time that's happened either.

I say all of this realizing that this time next semester, spring break, I will be in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic with a class on the Holocaust, keeping even crazier hours than I do during school. I won't have a break next semester (but I will have one heck of a trip). Thusly, I'm living it up while I have the chance. Yes, I said thusly.

Mind Fog

Story of my morning:
Skip class A to finish insane paper for class B. Finish paper, travel to classroom building to print said paper. Arrive at class B 15 minutes early; wait in hallway for previous class to let out. Girl from class B rushes past into theoretically occupied classroom. Realize that class B starts at 11, not 11:30, making me 15 minutes late instead of 15 minutes early.

Moral of the story:
My paper's done. Midterms week is over. Normal life can resume.

Peace & Quiet

Open letter to academia

Honored faculty:

I came to college to learn. I take classes on things I want to learn about. Thus, I do not appreciate it when you make it physically impossible for me to learn. You assign readings and papers as if yours is the only class I'm enrolled in. What purpose can it possibly serve to snow me under with an enormous workload? It only makes me rush through each assignment, looking for what I'll need to know for a paper or a test. I forget what I read as quickly as I read it. The problem is not with me: the grand majority of my waking day is spent either in class or preparing for the following day's classes. I don't drink, so don't blame it on that, and I work nearly as hard on weekends as I do during the week. I can play your game; my 3.98 GPA attests to that. I make the grades, but don't fool yourselves that you're teaching me anything. What ticking clock are you running against? Why push so hard to get through so much? I would learn so much more if you gave me the time to think about what you're having me read. You say that if you were easier on your students then none of us would do the work. Well, as it is, none of us can do the work. I don't understand what you're trying to prove here. At this point in our lives, at this institution of higher learning, I don't understand how the argument I'm still getting for why things are the way they are is that the worst students need it to be this way. Hello, there are no bad students here. There might be slacking students, but intelligence is not lacking. Why not do something truly revolutionary and give us time to actually understand a piece, to discuss it and question its assumptions? Then we might remember something about it this time next year. I'm not learning; I'm walking miles on a treadmill and getting nowhere. My parents are not paying you 40k a year so that I can hate going to class.

Much love, Laura

Story of a Purdue Game

Fortunately for readers, this story does not capture the 6:15 wakeup call or the 7AM bus boarding. The bus trip isn't covered either, because the photographer was asleep. Nor did she document the incredibly rude Purdue fans she encountered before the game, because they are not worthy of space on her blog. That might have been slightly harsh. And she was too busy wolfing down her brat to provide photo evidence of that. Instead, we begin with the game, which took place in a even more out of the way part of Indiana than where her university lives.

Gooo Irish!















We sat almost on the top row beneath the Jumbotron. Yay shade. I still managed to get sunburned. Weirdest coincidence ever: one of my roommates from last year was sitting in the row in front of us. Go figure.




















LOOK at our positive yardage. Oh man, I was so happy. If my Irish could just play a whole game like they played in the second half, we would be good to go. Bring it, Duke. Anyway, I loved the game. Forward motion, Irish fans; forward motion.

Post-game, we embarked on a mission to find tasty liquid for our parched throats. Usually for college students this refers to alcohol; for us it means Starbucks. We're so cool. Purdue's Student Union building is not. Fortunately for them, we still found our Starbucks.




















"You cannot see me, I am a ninja!"

This would be when we were waiting for the bus to move to take us back to ND. Joey was trying (and failing) to make a ninja mask out of his sweatshirt.






















Much better. We got back to school by 7PM- that's 12 hours of football awayness. Shweet. Upon getting back to my dorm, we refused to move another inch and elected to experience ordered-in restaurant food for the first time in our college careers. Due to our incredible luck, we ended up ordering the best Mexican food I've ever had this far north, and it gave southern places a run for their money too. We capped off the day with, what else, a football movie- We Are Marshall. Apparently Marshall is a college, not a high school. Who knew? (Answer: Everyone on the planet but me). Good times.

YAY

I would just like to share that for the first time this semester, I actually came out of a class feeling excited and like I had learned something. And- better yet- I felt like I would keep learning for the rest of the semester. I'm even excited about starting my research paper for said class!

Yessss. The love of learning has returned. You had me worried for a second there, buddy.

Story of a Sunday

3 AM: Bedtime.

10 AM: Wake up. Roll over and go back to sleep.

11 AM: Finally up and moving. Check email and create to-do list of homework for the week.

11:45 AM: Finish putzing around on the internet and straighten room.

Noon: Wakeup call to still-sleeping boyfriend, as requested. Foiled by lack of TMobile cell phone service on campus, especially in boyfriend's far-flung nearly off-campus residence hall. Give up after 5 tries; commence homework.

12:30 PM: Consumption of yogurt and cereal.

1 PM: Call from mother, et al. Discover that father's presentation to the entirety of church was awesome. Big smile.

1:30 PM: Put laundry in washer; return to homework.

2 PM: Put laundry in dryer; continue homework. Give in to the distraction of roommate watching FIFA world cup quarterfinals.

2:30 PM: Boyfriend calls around this time; promises to show up soon. Happiness that he has not been struck down by the plague, but was merely sleeping.

3 PM: Pull laundry out of dryer; fold; gather homework materials. Depart with boyfriend for that grungy site of studying and caffeine consumption, the student center.

3:15 PM: Begin agonizing over take home test for grad school class. Involves writing three "essays" in a total of 500 words. That's approximately 166.67 words per question. Great anxiety over proper wording; must be simple yet accurate.

6 PM: Dinner and a break from essay writing.

7 PM: Transfer study materials to a silent third floor classroom; continue agonizing essay writing.

9 PM: Bathroom break. Classroom containing laptop, cellphone, ID, keys, books, etc is locked upon return. Momentary extreme fear and desperate searching for building manager. Manager kindly unlocks door.

9:05 PM: Break to write a whiny, but hopefully somewhat humorous blog post.

I think I understand ritual suicide now

Don't say anything about the game. Just don't. When the highlight of my gameday experience is that the manager of the bar gave me a coke on the house, there are serious problems.

Joey and I are off to go get Chickfila at the local mall and cover up our pain with yummy food. I think it's a good strategy.

Oh college

Well, it turns out that it really is as crazy as I remember it being. I'd kinda forgotten (blocked the memory?) how it feels to work hard but always be behind. Like how I'm disregarding studying for my practice Spanish test right now. Of course, the night is young, the test is just a practice, and it's my only class tomorrow. But even if I were super crazy industrious and had studied all afternoon, there would still be thank you notes from my birthday to write, about seven letters that need writing, photos to print and send to far-off friends, and of course the mountainload of weekend homework to get started on. To all of this, I say: meh.

Besides the general complaining about classes = too much work, I have two major issues thus far this semester. I can't talk about the first one because various ND people read this and feelings might get hurt. But issue #2 is that I spend literally all of my time engaged in theoretical debates about abstract things. If I'm not in class "learning," I'm reading or writing so that I can further "learn." Or else working for a campus group in support of more abstract principles, or working for spending money so that I have the freedom to support the campus groups. I just spend my summer learning way more than I could ever learn in a classroom while at the same time knowing I was making a difference. It is almost unbearably frustrating to sit in lectures (/read books/write papers, etc) about things like how to make peace and how to love God when I could be out there ACTUALLY DOING IT, and probably learning a lot more. Part of it is selfish- I miss the feeling of being sure I was doing something positive. But it's also that I feel like I was unjustly placed in remedial algebra; this pace is just too slow for me. I know I can learn much more necessary, powerful lessons while working towards actual justice.

At this point, my mother is wondering why she's paying 47k a year for me to complain about the education I'm getting. It's just that learning theory is nothing like learning by doing. C'mon Mom- you learned more in a week of rounds in med school than you did in a year of textbook learning.

There are ways of coping. I'm planning on making time very soon for community service in South Bend. I'm reorganizing my priorities about campus groups and probably backing off on my involvement in a few. I'm involved in several groups that entail huge beginning of the year commitments from me, and I've been swamped handling that. My mom casually offered to fly me back to where I spent my summer for fall break; I'm thinking about it. If nothing else, this is a lesson in patience and growing where I'm planted. Not all of us can pull a Kristin and follow our passions (referring to my going-to-be roomie for this year who dropped out of school and is now a Dominican sister in Michigan).

In other news, Joey and I are going to the Purdue game. We have tickets and the student union is sponsoring a bus. We wanted to go to Michigan, but they ran out of tickets as we waited. It's ok, though, we have a plan. Last year we went to Michigan State and this year we're going to Purdue. That means if we go to USC next year and Michigan our senior year, we'll hit one of our four major rivals each year. I guess we're leaving out Boston College, but I don't feel the competitive urge to annihilate their team like I do for the four others. We're going to pretend that it's ok for peace studies majors to feel that way.

Also, having a starbucks on campus is very very bad. I broke my addiction this summer because no starbucks was in walking distance, but I have dramatically relapsed. It's bad.

Finally, for Linda- I've loved the 3 episodes of West Wing that I've had time to watch. I wish they had subtitles though! It takes so much attention to keep up with the episode.

Tada! The newest member of the Knights of Columbus. Congrats kiddo.

In Support

Win or lose, I love my Irish.

Soon, maybe not this season, but soon, the team that is struggling so much right now is going to be brilliant, and no one will doubt us. But until then, I'm not leaving any games early or switching the channel in the third quarter, and I will still scream myself hoarse at every game. Bring it, Irish.

Long Overdue

Cool stuff I got for my birthday that I was totally not expecting:
A surprise dinner party, for a total of 14 super cool people, at my house, orchestrated by my parents
TWO kinds of cake for said party
A letter from my best friend growing up, who hasn't talked to me in five years
A letter from one of my favorite teachers, who I also haven't heard from in five years
TWO purses that I like- and anyone who knows me knows it's very dangerous to try to guess what purse I will like. I'm picky. Now I have FOUR PURSES! What the crap? Soon I will have to change purses daily.
One of those nifty moleskine notebooks from Borders- I've always wanted one, and never bought it for myself.
The West Wing, Season 7- also my parents. I'd never seen WW before, but it's intriguing.
Sidewalk chalk, play dough, and a puzzle from one of my favorite ND people
My favoritest Romero quote ever as the Daily Quiet eMoment that I get emailed every day ("We can not do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that...") [Sorry if that quote's off, I'm going from memory]
And lots more stuff. But these were the super-awesome things I want to remember.


In other news, I'm back at ND, second day of classes, somewhat in over my head, but coping. I'm thinking deep breaths and happy thoughts. (Saying deep breaths to myself is more calming than actually taking deep breaths. It's weird).

My little brother, part two

Mom: Have you gotten any calls from any well-wishers today?

Me: No, no phone calls.

Mom: Oh.

Mark: Go get your cell phone!

(a minute later, my cell phone buzzes)

Mark (over home phone): Hi Laurie, happy birthday!


That kind of cuteness is going to be very dangerous for some nice little girl someday.

My little brother, ladies and gentlemen

Me: (to the cat, who had just bitten my ankle) Yeow, Jasmine, that hurt!

Mark: She doesn't care. All she cares about is a steady food supply. (pause) She's like the Native Americans.

Me: ??! (yes, I made that exact noise.)

New edition of Murphy's Law

Whenever you set aside a day for getting several things accomplished, inevitably nothing will get done.


Harrumph.