some blue painting
Mood:  down
Now Playing: some kind of background classical music
for all you people who didn't already know, i've been in connecticut for the long weekend, staying at my roommate tasha's house. lots of russian, lots of food, and finally some Actual Sleep.

'vibrating, tall, powerful, green and shiny'...what's up with that as a product advertisement? i honestly love V.I.P. i picked up a shirt, two shot glasses 'hi there, do you swallow?' and 'remember my name, you'll be screaming it later' respectively, and a gorgeous beautiful playboy pillow there today. tash and i were going to get penis lights, but we couldn't afford them. major sigh. i've vowed to return specifically to buy them in the future. there were definitely old dirty men in there, though, browsing through the gay porn section and edging into the bondage cage. highly amusing shit.

list of work for those who have no care: i have to finish reading thomas paine (that's about a hundred pages) and answer the questions on him. then i have to finish my zen essay on quality. then i have to finish my stats homework in a way that leaves me understanding what the hell i did to answer the questions correctly. then i have to catch up on last week's reading, which is locke, and answer those questions too. then i have zen chapters to read that i'm very very unstressed about. and...oh SHIT. shit shit. i have a huge fucking russian test that i was supposed to study for today...it's on wednesday. i guess i'll be studying for that from now until then. SHIT.

all right, then. tomorrow we get home, i unpack and decorate the place for halloween (because that's important), and do my laundry (unless people appreciate it when i smell unwashed). then i have four things to do: study for russian, finish off my stats questions, my zen essay and my paine reading/questions. those are all top priority...okay, deep breath, i've got it figured out.

and shit, gymming.

in other aspects of my life...my porn name is now slippery kitty. i love tasha's family. i've gained too much weight and must now proceed to dedicate my life to becoming an attractive person again. ...and i talked to danilka last night! i was telling him about nearly burning down the suites last friday night and he said 'when i come over to america, i'll protect you'...which made my dreams, for once, very peaceful last night.

feeling old these days, short and dumpy. i'm convincing myself that they're transitory feelings, though. i suppose i just need to start focusing on my schoolwork, judging by how quickly i'm falling behind.

i really despise people who take advantage of others' genuine pain in order to play up their troubles, not because they actually care but because it gives them a footing of power in a social group. makes a girl feel stupid and used, and for once i have enough self-respect to say 'to hell with that'. it definitely doesn't ease things presently, but hopefully it'll save me from future grief.

and oh, i forgot to turn my alarm off. i think that classical music's been blasting from our room for three days now. my neighbors must hate me.

I. Love. Political. Science.
...and the reason is clear. i got my grade back on an exam so difficult and stressful it's legendary for causing nosebleeds. i got an A-...and a twice-underlined comment of 'test excellent'. i could NOT POSSIBLY be more hyped.

i have to go dance in the hallway and scare all my neighbors.

and here i am once again
whoa, just had a surreal experience with the capslock key. yes, this is me once more, returning to the blog i deserted several months ago. i'm doing this because i have a chapter of locke to finish, which i'm stubbornly and very skillfully procrastinating. it took me an extra hour to do laundry this morning because my stupid towel wouldn't dry. it STILL isn't dry. i'm going to get out of my shower tonight and dry off with damp towel. that's the kind of weekend it's been.

let's see, major highlights. i'm in drew university in new jersey, i'm taking political ideologies, statistics, zen and the art of critical thinking (a mandatory freshman seminar course) and intermediate russian, along with a russian conversation class. i'm currently trying to apply for an internship with the secret service. in all honesty that isn't a likely possibility, with all my strange overseas experience that makes me suspect as a spy. sigh, right?

sounds tend to blend together in a dorm. right now, tasha has french music on, and 'i will survive' is being blasted from some near vicinity. i have no idea why i started writing about this.

it's been a month of upheavals and changes, and some severely messed up shit. i was watching an ER episode last night, and the topic of the episode has renewed an old nightmare...suffice to say, i haven't slept at all, and i'm still pretty low in the sick department. i still can't believe how powerful past experiences can sometimes be. some fears are difficult to put to sleep, i suppose.

after these past few weeks, i definitely think it's time for me to step back and figure out what the hell's been happening. it's a given that i'm always stressed about school and such, but these other things are pissing me off. life gets far too complicated.

right now i'm feeling pretty unimportant.

5:14 pm:

i'm about to go crazy from trying to sort out this ticketing mess. in chronological order: we get the schedule (with the wrong name) and all the emailing bombardment that entails, we realize it's not for the frequent flyer oneworld plan so we have to ask for another schedule, and when we get that we'll have to compare. the trip covers so many bloody miles that we can't afford to not credit them as frequent flyer miles, but if we do, we'll have to suffer five hundred layovers and connecting-flight hell. i HATE flying.

and i still have to book the two car rentals, the hotels, etc. at least my interviews are set up.

elizabeth comes home soon, so i have to turn the cats back over to her. this is unfortunate, if only because it's taken me a full year to earn the tolerance and even, i think, affection of morcega.

however, my reading has profited from my recent overindulgence of gymming. i've finished brink lindsey, although i think i should reread it again at some future point. damn good book. by the time i leave in a week, i'll have finished hazlitt, callahan and borges. i'm practically on a roll....i'm taking von mises with me, naturally (i'm DETERMINED to finish that massive tome before too long), and the economics book that john lent to me two years ago. (note to self: arrange lunch and return when in houston.)

okay, have to run, i'll finish this later tonight.

9:14 pm:

i'm so thrilled about finishing this entry EXACTLY four hours after starting it. however, now that i'm here, my loquacity has deserted me. i've more to write about, but i'm going to abandon my poor journal in favor of a hot mug of chocolate, which i'll drink while curled in dad's big green chair by the fire.

...and now you want to ask me 'how'?...
i'm addicted to skittles, especially the red, purple and yellow ones.

the essays are coming along decently, which is to say that they suck but i have something to work with now. do you know what's really funny? i just got my official SAT scores in the mail. i have the unopened envelope sitting in front of me. maybe i'll burn it.

sunny thanksgiving
i came home from the feast last night and finished off some important application forms, so it feels good to have those done. on the one hand, i've made nice progress, but on the other i'm increasingly concerned about my essays. they're the last big chunk of important work i have left to do, and after them it's all small, annoying details and polishing work.

there was way too much food at the feast, i have to say, and we brought home three bags of sunflower seeds (the ones the kids grew and harvested themselves). the night was really trying in some ways, but that was mainly because i wasn't feeling social.

now, must go get dressed and get started on my work for the day.

eat more turkey
siylk, you're such a brat. the pictures are great, but couldn't you at least have kept them inside the frame of the screen?? now it's all awkwardly framed. well, if i haven't fixed it before you get here, then that's the first thing i'll make you do when you walk in the door.

anyway...writing essays, gymming (i'm so sore now, after having taken such an extended gymming siesta) and sorting through endless forms is the name of the day for me. partly, i can't wait to be through with these applications just so that i can get back to a regular schedule. i mean, i'll have to reread from the beginning of 'human action' just to remember where i was when tests and applications dragged me into a vortex of stress.

thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night, seating 130 people (that's everyone from this community and then some). the next night, i have the great honor of babysitting again...let me summarize my feelings on that by saying that i just want it to be the weekend already.

russian classes are postponed YET AGAIN! grr!
well, i've been neglecting this site a bit lately, but i have just cause- that is, college applications. i should give due warning, though, that i'll be preoccupied with that same cause for a while to come yet. it's the same frustrating, shoot-me-now story as last year- despite my academic performance in australia and california (leader of the junior school, debate colours, literature colours, mistress of the orchestra, co-editor of the newspaper, golden state exam honors, honor roll, best speaker awards, etc), despite showing that i could match most american high school graduates from my SAT I score, and most recently that i'm not an illiterate numbskull from my SAT II scores (although i'm personally pissed off with my math score, more than i want to say right now), DESPITE home schooling myself for five years, living overseas and learning what it takes to be a good student and accomplished human being (and knowing that although i strive to be both, i fall short of the second far more than i should), not to mention my other pretty extracurriculars (teacher's aid at the orphanage in china, being published in the shenzhen daily newspaper, badminton and so on) and the fact that I AM ACTUALLY HUNGRY FOR AN EDUCATION...despite the fact that i KNOW what i am capable of, the plain fact of the matter is that i don't fit into the Bureaucracy's Idea of What a Student Should Look Like. i don't have teacher recommendations because i haven't had a teacher for five years. i don't have an official transcript dating beyond 1999 because i've schooled myself at home since then. i don't even have an official school year, because i usually spend a good three or four scattered months out of every year, if not more, traveling. and i don't have a high school counselor, i've never been a member of an official american high school sports team, and by doggies i never went to a prom either (although i doubt the last is required by admissions officers...or is it?).

i know that i'm a risk for any university to take. for all they know, i've been sipping from an umbrella-decorated coconut shell filled with tequila, triple sec and lime for the past few years. i may not have as strong a footing in science or math that some university applicants might, but my SAT scores show that i'm not that far behind, if at all, besides which....well, i'd work twice as hard to make up any disparity, and then some, than any university applicant who's blase about their record. all they do is slam the door, over and over, in my face and i'm about ready to take out a whacking big bush knife for the purpose of hacking down said door. but beyond all the bullshit, i know that i'm what they're looking for. it comes down to this: i am a good, ambitious, eager student with a history to prove that, and a small unquenchable part of me still wants to believe that i can make my voice heard in this world.

dealing with my family and friends, people who know me and know what i want in life, is just impossible because they have no idea what these universities are asking for, and that (because of my extremely unusual history, which even given all of this, i still wouldn't trade for all the world) i can't provide the official niceties that admissions bureaucracies thrive on. those niceties COUNT. they're what ensure that an application actually gets perused, not tossed in the trash at first glance. i feel trapped in the middle of that stress, and then i turn around and nobody believes that things could be so difficult. they blow it off, with a 'pish-tosh, life's never been hard for you' (i'd like them to live overseas for five years, utterly alone, and repeat that while looking me in the eye). like dad, last year, who was so certain that i'd be accepted into the university of chicago that he almost refused to let me apply anywhere else, and then he agreed, grudgingly, to two (one of which DID toss my application in the trash on account of a bureaucratic issue (my high school (WHAT high school?) hadn't sent them copies of my transcripts...do i need to say anything else on the stupidity of bureaucracies?)).

anyway, i don't know what to do. i'm going to try handling these applications, and get those in ASAP. after that, i may need to 1) take a third SAT II and 2) do some university interviews. the second is pretty much set in stone (at this point, i need everything that might sway admissions officers in my favor), and i don't know about the first yet, or the order in which the two will happen. the only break i've had is that there's a small chance i might be able to take the third SAT II, if i decide to do so, here in atyrau instead of having to take three connecting flights to london again. the only thing i really want to concentrate on at the moment is wading through this endless paperwork.

book update: i've finished off bastiat, and started up brink lindsey's 'against the dead hand'. it's been really interesting so far, and although i disagree with a couple of his fundamentals, he seems to drive in the same direction that i do. i haven't really reached the meat of his arguments yet, though, so i don't want to say much except that he's made me rethink the intellectual roles of america and germany during the industrial revolution.

on an utter side note, seeing those naturally beautiful women with their long, skinny legs and perfect figures makes me want to kick them in the metaphorical nuts. (i'm always extremely depressed in that regard when i don't get my dose of gymming. sigh.)

i'm home again, and tomorrow i have to start work on college apps. jen emailed me today with a bunch of information for the site, so i spent the afternoon setting up the basics for her page. i'll have to flesh out the details with her later, when i have a better idea what kind of design she wants to follow.

so it's back to the routine for me. i stopped reading a week or so before we left, since i was studying so much and generally too stressed to focus even on bastiat's clever analogies. so here's my current reading list: human action, the foundation of morality, economic sophisms and a borges collection of fiction before bed. that's pretty much it, at any rate.

i've just been told off for having peanut butter and crackers upstairs. time for me to shower and dump said peanut butter over my head.

a tribe called quest
i've just started reading bastiat's 'economic sophisms', and i can really see where the foundation of several of hazlitt's ideas comes from. it's quite exciting, reading the original book that influenced hazlitt himself- besides which, bastiat is plain fun to read. he has this way of reducing complex problems to very simple explanations, and he's extremely witty.

i finished tuchman, just yesterday, and now i'm extremely eager to learn more about the first world war beyond the month of august and all that led up to the marne. i've found a couple of fantastic websites, and i'm slowly making my way through them. i wish there were more hours in a day.

in other news, schwarzy has, apparently, won the californian election. i couldn't be happier about that, although, judging from bustamante's concession speech, i kind of wonder whether he got the memo.