Merry Christmas

Peace to all, and to all a good night :-)

Paper writing break

I've heard about four different versions of The Little Drummer Boy in the last two hours while sitting in Starbucks, and I've hated all of them. I especially don't understand the one in which a sultry female voice sang "I am a poor boy too." Sweetheart, you can't make the little drummer boy sexy. The one I'm listening to now features Indian themed background music. Bah humbug on all of you.

Also, there is a foot of snow outside, all soft and fresh and powdery. When I go home, it will be in the 50s at lowest. Sometimes I wish I could bring GA farther north with me.

Happy Pink Sunday (not related to breast cancer).

AWOL

Sorry for lack of posts. Finals, busy, blah blah excuses blah blah. You know the drill. The good news is:

• One final down (arguably the hardest) and two to go. Pretty much smooth sailing with plenty of time to prepare for both. One is a take-home essay, the other is a rote memorization Spanish exam, and I'm nothing if not a decent essay writer and Spanish parrot. That sounded slightly arrogant. These are my strengths, is what I'm trying to say.
• After camping out in the Gug from 7:30 AM to 1 PM (with very little sleep the night before and the first hour or so spent outside in freezing weather), Charlie Weis signed a football for me and (shush, don't tell, it's a surprise) for Mark, who is a Pats fan these days. The conversation between Weis and I went like this:
  
• Me: Merry Christmas, Coach!
• Charlie: Hey, how ya doing.
  
• Me: Well, I've been here for the last five hours.
• Charlie (who had been signing things since 7:30 AM and had planned on this process only taking an hour, resulting in him pushing back his schedule so that he would be working until at least 11PM)*: Pause, Raised eyebrows, long eye contact. Are you complaining to me?
  
• Me: (sputtering, laughing, blushing) No! No sir!
  
• Charlie: Because this is not the time to be complaining to me.
  
• Me: (still laughing and blushing) Well, it's a good memory, at least. (moving aside for Joey to approach)
• Joey: (the total resident suckup in this story) I've enjoyed it!
  
• Charlie: And you're the weird one, right?
• (much laughter all around. I was teased by the Coach!!!)
  
• *Really, Charlie, emailing the entire ND campus that you would be signing Christmas gifts for everyone who showed up, then expecting to be done in an hour, was a silly plan. Your signed footballs go for hundreds in the bookstore. I got 2 for under $40. Plus, they're personalized, and I got to talk to you. Never mind sleep and studying. This was far more important. Also, they gave us free donuts, hot chocolate, and even pizza while we were waiting.
  
• I finally watched Serenity. Oof and wow. Also, closure! Yay!
  
• I pretty much accomplished my Christmas shopping in one Amazon order. Be envious. It's weird to not need to go to a mall this year- I might for card shopping, just for the experience.
  
• I will be home in less than a week :-)
• ND is giving me a total of 77% of the price of my Europe trip next semester !!!!! Leaving me in charge of 23%, which is manageable and an appropriate level of sacrifice on my part. It's awesome to be able to pay parents back, for once.
  
• I was feeling sick earlier, but after tylenol and allergy meds, I feel muuuuch better.
  
• Huckabee's the GOP front runner? No way the "leader of the free world" will be named Huckabee. Ain't gonna happen. That's not so much good news as a random comment.
• I have a loooong list of things I want to bake when I get home, including ginger crinkles, cheese straws (I want to try a dash of red pepper this year), tunnel of fudge cake, and butterscotch squares. Sweet (pun intended).
  

Life is happy. The end.

Whirlwind trips, creepy bus passengers and humility too

Well, the wedding reception for my Marine cousin and his new wife was lovely. Birmingham was a welcome dose of Southern. And I think I talked more to my other cousin (the Marine's little brother) than I ever have in my life, which is seriously a good thing. I was so glad to be there and be supportive; family drama made things awkward at first, but then it was awesome and there was great family bonding time. There's nothing like a wedding to draw together a family. I don't think I've ever enjoyed just talking with my extended family so much as I did at this reception- and I wasn't even drunk ;-). It was beautiful and I'm so so so grateful I got to be there.

But the journey back- golly gee wiz*! To recap, attending this reception meant leaving on a 10:10 AM bus to Chicago, catching a 3:50 flight to Bham, attending reception, driving to the Atlanta airport early the next morning, taking a 11:50 flight to Chicago, and then catching a 1:15 bus out to school. The journey down went smoothly. But coming back involved 14 hours of travel because Illinois and Indiana decided to have a snow and ice storm. I am SO LUCKY that my flight made it into Chicago- when we landed, I literally could not see the ground coming until I felt the bump of hitting the runway and then lights along the runway were slightly visible through the thickly-falling snow. However, my plane didn't land in time for me to catch the bus back to Notre Dame, so I had to wait two or three hours for the next one. No big, but good God, there is no sadder place than O'Hare during the holidays when snow storms have caused universal flight cancellations. People were crying, yelling, pouting, and staring out into space in the bus terminal, where I occupied a plastic chair and waited for the bus. Long lines of angry people stood in direct contrast to the forced holiday cheer of the santa-hat-wearing help desk people, and exhausted little kids tugged at ornaments on the fake trees. By the time the bus showed up, I had never been so ready to be back at school.

But my trials were not over, dear reader. The world's creepiest man picked me to sit next to on the four hour bus trip. I was forced to physically pick up his hand by the wrist and put it on his own lap while he pretended to be innocently asleep on no less than three occasions, and no amount of polite shoulder-tapping, gentle shoves, or unhappy glares convinced the man that it would be wise to keep his hands to himself. During the ordeal, I was indignant, and it was only after three hours of riding next to him, after he got off the bus, that I was truly afraid, realizing how much worse it could have been. Especially since no one on the nearly silent, full bus assisted me at all as I kept asking the man (loudly, with no apparent response) to please not touch me. This is when I find myself hating self-absorbed big-city midwesterners (not that all or even most midwesterners are like this...). If the bus had been travelling in GA, every man sitting nearby would have kindly asked if that man was bothering me after my first vocal complaint, and they would have taken care of it. No one even met my eyes. Shudder. Enough of that. I made it home eventually, consumed a Reckers sandwich, and watched Love Actually, one of the best feel-good movies out there. I watch it once or twice every Christmas season.

I was planning on conquering the questions I posted about humility vs. confidence, but dudes, this post is way too long already. Next time.


* I googled both "golly gee wiz" and "golly gee whiz" to see which was the appropriate spelling, and both were listed on such reputable sites as Urban Dictionary, so I arbitrarily picked one.

Humility vs. Self confidence

Hi Blogger.

Someday I'm going to compose, edit, and publish a post well before midnight instead of rushing to get a post written because must! post! every! day!

I want to write a coherent post about this, probably tomorrow while sitting in an airport, so until then, consider this an abstract.

Tonight I ambushed enthusiastically greeted my almost-roommate-turned-Dominican-nun at the Center for Ethics and Culture's annual conference. She and a few other sisters came down from Michigan for tonight and tomorrow. It's incredible how much she has changed in the six months since I saw her last. She used to be loud, joyful, and exuberant, with many adorable expressions like "keep it real, yo." Now, she's just as joyful, but it's contained within a disciplined and obedient exterior. She speaks with a soft voice and with the utmost politeness. In short, she's a nun. It's like she's aged ten years and gained maturity and humility overnight. She's still her- but she's also so different.

This experience, while wonderful, got me thinking. I have been raised under the ideology that the best women- the women who should be idolized- are spectacular. They are famous, brilliant, and altogether amazing. They stand out. We are taught to fight anyone who tells you to obey (as an adult) or take a backseat to an authority figure. Young women (especially those in college) are encouraged to be the very best- screw what men expect of you. It's pretty much opposed to humility, because your entire life you're taught to be proud of the incredible person you are. So which is right? Is the ideal woman Marian, humble, obedient, subservient? Or is she proud, fabulous, and influential?

These questions were thrown in stark contrast by my meeting with Sr. Kristin, whose changed demeanor naturally made me cringe. Tonight I'll just leave you with the questions- I'll try to post my thoughts tomorrow (from Birmingham!).

Oh, shopping.

Tonight I ventured out to the mall with the purpose of buying lovely and practical brown dress shoes, seeing as how black shoes do not match brown pants, and I intend to wear brown pants to my cousin's wedding reception Friday night.

This shopping experience was a dream, dear reader! I swooped into Payless Shoes, found a gorgeous, cheap, and comfortable pair of pumps, purchased matching stockings at half off, and merrily strolled to Chickfila for dinner. Never has a shopping experience been so smooth and delightful!

Dinner having been consumed, I waited patiently for the bus to arrive to bear me back to my campus abode. Soon a bus appeared, and I climbed aboard gratefully. As the bus journeyed forth, however, it was discovered that the bus was not the number 7, but number 15, bearing us in the opposite direction of home. Alas! An hour of jolting, nauseating, painstaking bus riding commenced before our mistake could be amended and campus regained. I survived with shoes intact, but with humbled dignity.

It is late.

I'm writing a paper. It's about the wealth of the Church and whether it's managed properly. Like why we spend so much on lilies for Easter every year when people are still starving in the world. I don't really agree with this position- I personally think that the Church does a decent job of helping the poor, even if it could be more transparent about its assets- but I'm trying to create a topic worth discussing for a 75 minute class. I figure, people get offended by me implying the Church is greedy, then they talk for the whole class about it. Yeah, good plan.

Also, I've taken a lot of naps this week. By this week I mean today and yesterday. Naps to begin with are unusual for me, but long naps (an hour or more) are even rarer. And I'm still tired while trying to write this paper, which incidentally is due tomorrow morning.

I'm considering skipping my first class and sleeping in, with time for a nice long shower. It's nice to dream.

It's time for Christmas break. Oh wait, we have finals first. Argh.

the power of positive

An amazing thing happened today. In my grad school class, my professor handed back our term papers at the beginning of the class. I was totally unprepared for this, since I just turned this paper in last Friday, and most of our papers topped 20 pages. That's a lot for one weekend. But there it was, graded, commented on, and ready for me. I've been pretty worried about this paper; I hated writing it, and I knew it could have been better. I've been coming up with things I should have researched more all weekend. It's 40 percent of my grade. He's a historically harsh grader, and I've got stiff competition as the youngest one in the class. Criticism was scrawled on every page. I couldn't take it any more and flipped from page 5 to page 14, where he had written my grade before the endnotes and works cited. A. He loved it.

This experience proves my theory that I am more motivated by praise than anything else. I was on my game in this class today. Seriously, spot on. I asked the best questions and made the best points. Even the grad students had nothing on me. It was glorious. Call me smart and I will be, just to prove I've earned the praise.

Which means... maybe I was all along.

Appropriately stuck in my head

But look around, leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground...

Wow

Heard at my all-female dorm mass tonight:

"There might be future presidents in this room tonight. If Hillary can do it, you can too!"

The homilist was a Haitian priest, so I'm going to hope he didn't know the cultural implications of that statement beyond the fact that a woman is running for president, but did you ever think you'd hear a priest support Hillary during a [Notre Dame] Mass?

Coffee etiquette

Even though I'm thoroughly addicted to Starbucks, I tend to pride myself on not being *too* bitchy about my coffee preferences. My favorite drink is an iced grande light ice caramel macchiato- not that complicated. The "light ice" part is the only special request. They make these things a million times a day, and I love how Starbucks drinks have the same awesome quality in every store.

Once in a while, though, someone messes up, and it's crappy. I'm not experienced enough to know what's not right, but when my drink tastes bad (not just different or unusual, but bad) I'm not a fan. Those drinks are freaking expensive, and when I get one I've generally been looking forward to it for quite a while. It's often a little pleasure that I promise myself all day, as a reward or incentive. So when it's no good- it's like discovering that the sleeves of your favorite long sleeve tshirt don't cover your wrists any more.

But then comes the great dilemma: do you go back and ask them to remake it?

Sometimes I decide that this drink just absolutely sucks, I can't drink it without feeling sick, I need a new one. Keep in mind, this is a generally rare phenomenon. I approach the barista counter timidly, and ask for my drink to be remade apologetically. Nearly always, especially if it isn't a student worker but one of the adult managers, I get a glare and curt response. They remake my drink, all right, but with deep dislike and disapproval. They've even guilt-tripped me into leaving an over-generous tip at times, to make up for having impugned their coffee-making skills.

Such experiences make me pretty afraid of baristawrath. How should bad coffee situations be handled? I paid for something, and I expect to receive what I paid for. You would send back food at a restaurant if it was underdone or burnt. Politeness doesn't work. Waiting for them not to be busy doesn't work.

I wish that Moose and Kaituer Coffeehouse were here.

Ironic

I can't sleep. Google tells me that the dictionary.com word of the day is:

Somniferous: causing or inducing sleep

Haha, it's so obscure that my spell checker says it's not a word. Just like how my text messaging word-guesser thing on my phone couldn't understand what I was trying to type during the game today when I was saying things like "bullshit." Lovely little innocent cell phone.

Yeah Irish...

Good job guys, way to go out well, even if you did nearly break the neck of their quarterback. I've tried all day, without any luck, to find a video online of Zibby's interception/almost touchdown. That was the most freaking amazing play all season- he ran nearly the whole field, lateralling it back and forth and generally being ostentatiously amazing. I will miss him sooo much. Trevor Laws was awesome too, sticking with it even after getting hurt. I don't want to know how much pain he was in, because it takes a lot to stop him, and the trainers ran out twice. What a guy. And Clausen looked pretty good too- it's awesome how he's learning. He's gonna rock next year. Anyway, here are my guys... I'm so glad they had a chance to end their last years this way.
Also, I totally agree with this guy. In addition to the best play ever, this game also featured the worse call ever. Those refs owe us another touchdown. In no playback, from whatever angle, did it even remotely look like that wasn't a touchdown. I'm glad it didn't matter in the end. but sucks for David Grimes. I would have given it to you, buddy.

EDIT- my mom is awesome. Tada, the best play ever:
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?&brand=null&videoId=3126109&n8pe6c=2

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.