My Journal

For some reason, I have this one blues riff going through my head over and over again. Just thought you needed to know.

21:20 I thought of a few lyrics for the music... or rather, I had this one line going through my head... "My baby done left me, Lord I don't feel too good," and had just had that going through my head over and over until finally I finshed the phrase. Here's what I thought of, and I thought it was kind of cute/amusing.

My baby done left me And Lord I don't feel too good.
My baby done left me And Lord I don't feel too good.
I guess I never should have eaten All of that Chinese food.

All these people come in wanting to talk to Katja. Makes it tough to write. Or do anything, for that matter. One person, Tarik or something like that (I can't pronounce it quite properly, let alone spell it), with whom I had exchanged a few words about baseball with the day before, came in and somehow stayed for half an hour (or so it seemed). Not that I minded overly much- I was doing Nothing Special, and it was kind of interesting. Plus he happened to have a two-Rupee coin on him, so I now have Indian money as well, which I am oh-so-pleased about. Happiness! Liz from across the hall and down a door also came in looking for her and asked if I wanted to watch Notting Hill with her, but I declined that offer. I should fold my laundry now, but I might go down to the lobby and try and write letters, although I'm really going down there hoping for a distraction.

I have Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique on right now, and it's at "Un Bal," which makes me think of trying to waltz with Ranko to it in Berlin, which makes me want to waltz at midnight again, and it makes me want to write Ranko again. And Naoko and Mariko and even Saki. I ought to write Saki. And I need to write the Bialeks and send them the pic of me at graduation. But I'm confused right now so maybe I'll go study math. That always makes sense.

17:45 I finally got the computer working in my room! My mom and dad sent me this whole bag of stuff that I had asked for via someone at my mom's work who was coming to Appleton for October-except-it's-in-September-but-we're-to-drunk-to-care Fest. Among other things, there was a 25' long Ethernet cable, so I plugged that in and got everything all set up, but then it told me my Network connection was screwy. I thought it might have been because we had an Ethernet network set up at home, and it needed to be reset to the Lawrence University network. So I took it downstairs to the Computer Services guys, who took one look at it and said, "Oh, your computer has the same network name as someone else. What do you want your computer to be called from now on?" Turns out that what dad had been calling it, DavidT, was in use. (Not all that uncommon, I suppose, esp. if David was already taken by the time David Thompson or someone came along.) So I had them rename my computer GoldElf (continuing the theme here) and then they restarted it, tried to connect and it was all in working order and everything. Quite nice. Then I brought it back upstairs and plugged everything back in, turned it on, logged into AIM and MSN messenger and left for dinner. Yay happiness!!!

25:50 I just witnessed a moment in Plantz Hall Rodeo Ball history- Eli was on the ball, perfectly balanced, for half an hour. Up until then the best time had been 3:28, and no one else had stayed on for much over 2:30, at least not in the timed trials. It was intense. (Sunday) K, the full day's (somewhat condensed) rundown:

Got up at 9 and thought about going to breakfast, but rejected that idea as senseless. I reset my alarm for 9:45 and went back to sleep until 10. Turned the alarm off, then took a really quick shower, moaned and groaned about having to get up so early on a Saturday, and went off with Katie to the small house that Joyce lived in. We found Joyce and Grace in the kitchen, and after filling up my water bottle we got into Joyce's car so she could drive us to Memorial Park, wherever that was. I had thought it was a part of the athletic complex right across the river from the rest of campus, but we didn't cross the river at all, and we seemed to be driving for a lot longer than it would take to get there. Later I found out that we were several blocks north of campus at a park I had once seen on a map and thought of as being almost outside Appleton. Near an arboretum. Nice park, actuall, and no trees in the way like the place where we had been playing during the week. We played until about 1 pm, and then everyone else went somewhere for lunch (the Paradise Cafe or something, it was nearby) and Grace and I were driven back as we didn't feel like joining them/had other things to do, such as Latin homework.

I got back to my room at about 1:30 and thought about folding my laundry, but didn't bother to. I just stuffed it back in the sack in order to clear off my bed, put all the books Mom had sent on my shelf and made some tea. Ann came over at 2, and we sat down with our Latin stuff and had tea and chocolate and cookies and went over our notes. Mostly Ann needed a few things explained that I had understood either because I had picked up on them from French class or from the very little bit of Latin I had done over the summer. Once Ann understood most everythning, we started on the worksheet and got maybe two problems done before we got sidetracked and started talking about myriad things. Two hours later, we finished the sheet and Ann left.

Got up this morning at 9 and thought about going to breakfast. Katja wasn't there, and I thought about knocking on Erin and Andrea's doors to see if they would go, but then I changed my mind and just lay in bed for half an hour. At 9:30 I finally made myself get up, mostly becuase that's when I needed to get up in order be dressed and get to class on time.

I made it to class at just about 9:50, and Joy started by having us discuss in groups the article we should have read for that day. Apparently I'm already behind in the reading, but I'm calling this my "three-day grace period" (save for Freshman Studies). We'll see how that works out in reality. We discussed that for maybe ten minutes, both in the little groups and then as a class, and then spent the rest of the period discussing the results of the survey we had taken at the end of the last class. (In case anyone cares, I'm tied for the second-highest ACT score in that class of 40 people. Yay me.) We learned about different ways of displaying data- different charts and graphs and skewing and ways of discussing a chart's shape and the significance and the mode and things like that. That was about all we did.

After math I went over to my Freshman Studies class, a whole five hundred feet and five floors away. We started the discussion with the professor asking us how we thought Marx and Engels would have reacted to their work being regarded as a story (as the lecturer had regarded it on Wednesday). Some people were of the opinion that, since Marx was writing to reach the masses, he would have been fine with them regarding it however they pleased as long as they read it. I was of the opinion that Marx would have been outraged, as he considered himself a "social scientist" and thought that what he was doing was not at all fictitious, but rather based in historical fact. Furthermore, he was not writing for the great unwashed masses, he was writing for his fellow Communists and educated people, to inform them that communism was not a mere "spectre, haunting Europe" but rather a viable political force that they should be aware and wary of. (Gosh, I should put that in my paper.) The discussion wound itsway around the topic for a while, and eventually ended up as a question of wether the Proletariat third-world countries would rise up/were rising up against the Bourgois first-world countries. Comforting thoughts to leave with.

26:40 Our class was one of the last sections to be let out, but I managed to catch up with Sadie, Jill and some other people on their way to Lucinda's. Halfway there we met Birch, Rose and some others coming from that direction to tell us that Lucinda's was closed today. So we walked toward Downer, but the line there extended out the door and onto the sidewalk outside, and at noon it was still not that nice out, so a bunch of us decided it was better to wait than to wait in line that long. Then someone had the bright idea to go to the Union grill, even though we would have to actually pay for it. Rose had to go back to the dorm, as did I, so the two of us went there and met up with Birch, Becca, Jennifer and two other people I had just met. Perhaps we should just have gone to Downer, since we had to wait a fairly long time for the food anyway. But it was good. I had a bowl of crab bisque and a tukey melt, which was pretty good but not all that great.

We finished at about ten after one, which gave me just enough time to run back to my dorm and pick up my Latin stuff, then get to Main Hall at just about 1:30. Well, a few minutes beforehand, perhaps. We spent the first ten minutes going over the assignment, and one girl was just having problems with it, or else just needed a whole lot of clarifying questions. Oh, well. Some people just have problems with that sort of thing, and it doesn't exactly make sense all the time, except that it makes perfect sense when you think about it, becuase it's so regular. Anyway...

After the homework had been explained to everyone's satisfaction, Professor McNiell started explaining the tense part of verbs to us. It had two parts- time and aspect. Time was pretty straightforward- past, present and future. Aspect was less so- there's simple, continuous and completed. They have to do with wether or not an action is going on or not at a certain time. It was pretty complicated, but eventually it will make sense. I hope. That's pretty much what we did all day, but it was fun. And during the course of the class Professor McNiell revealed that he enjoyed the music of They Might Be Giants, which makes him that much cooler. After class, he told me that Professor Lanouette had called him with the results of my oral and written German test from the day before- I had sucessfully tested out of the language requirement at Lawrence. I was so pleased. Then Ann Miller and I left.

Immediately after we left Main Hall we went to the library and copied the next assignment and answer key, and then I walked Ann to her dorm. I stayed for almost an hour in her room, talking with her about various subjects from her roommate to her little brother to Garrison Keillor. Around 3:30 I felt the need to leave, as I really did have a whole lot of laundry that needed doing. So I begged my leave of her and went back to Plantz.

When I got there, I made myself some tea and had a few squares of chocolate, then went and put my darks in the washing machine. While I was waiting for them to wash I came up to the computer lab and read through my e-mails (I was so pleased, I had 6 real e-mails! Though I admit, I had sent out two the day before, to four people). When I had read through all of those I began typing up the day's events, as I knew I would be out for most of the evening and had no idea when I would be getting back.

My laundry was done at 5:15, and since I was supposed to meet some people in the lobby at 5:30 so we could go out to a restaurant for three peoples' birthdays, I just put the wet laundry in the bag and told myself I would put it in the dryer later. I ran up to my room, dropped off my laundry and changed, then ran back down to the lobby.

There were maybe 15 people waiting to go to dinner, and more in the sitting-area playing Rodeo Ball. We stood around watching them play Rodeo Ball and waiting for any latecomers, then finally left around 5:45 or 6:00. We walked maybe 6 blocks down College Avenue, past all the old cars that were on display (and there were a lot, including several Jaguars). When we got to the restaurant, we placed a request for a table for 10. They said it would be about half an hour. Since it was too warm in there, Rose, Sadie, Jay and Jackie (a friend of Sadie's who's here for the weekend) stood outside talking for a while. During the course of conversation, Rose informed me that Carleton had accepted more people than they were prepared for (hoping, of course, that some would decline, and fewer did than anticipated) so they had something like 60 people more than they normally would have, which made it unlikely that they would be accepting any transfer students the next year. But I can still try if I feel the need, and of course there's always MIT. Or the U if I feel the need to become and engineer.

At about 7 pm, they finally had a table ready for us. We all sat down and the waiter took our orders, and when he took mine I explained that we had three birthdays, and would they bring out three slices of cake at the end for them (and asked if they had any candles). The waiter said he would try to oblige us. The food came eventually, and was fairly good. Only one person out of all of us finished everything, and most of the rest of us opted for doggie bags to spare us from the atrocities of Downer, for one meal at least. Then the waiter came out with three covered trays, and lifted the lids to reveal three slices of cake with candles in them (the lids were so that the smoke alarms wouldn't go off or something). He sang in Italian and then English, but complained that he had been singing by himself. So he sang one more time and made us all join in, and then Sadie, Meredith and Kat blew out their candles. Of course, they were all three fairly full by this time, so they passed around their cakes for all to try. It was really pretty good. But even the hungriest of them (who, by that time, was not all that hungry) could not finish, so the waited came back and boxed everything up for us. We paid, then exited.

Outside the restaurant we broke into two groups- one group went straight back to Lawrence, and the other- consisting of Jay, Sadie, her friend, myself and one other boy who had driven in from Green Bay- a friend of Sadie's- went off in search of said boy's car. we wandered around for almost half an hour before we finally found it, but it was a warm night and we didn't mind all that much.

We eventually found the car, as I said, and then went back to LU. It was about 9 when I arrived, and I went up to my room to find neither Katja, Erin nor Andrea there. So I grabbed my laundry and went downstairs to do it. I saw Grace in the lower lounge watching a movie, and thought I might join her, but got sidetracked in the lobby by Al, Katie and Sadie talking. It was a pretty weird conversation, which I won't repeat. Suffice it to say that it was amusing, sort of. Just as I was getting ready to leave them and go watch the movie with Grace, she came upstairs as the movie was over. :( So I went to the computer lab and logged on AIM. I had also intended to update this, but I saw Mollie online and wondered at that, so I asked her what she was doing. She had been sitting in her room for some time, doing Nothing Special. So I asked her to come to the coffeehouse with me. She agreed, and I told her I had to switch loads and then would be right up there.

I got up to Mollie's room and found her surfing the net. I related to her the weird conversation I had been having with Al and Katie in the lobby, and she retaliated with an "interesting" Al story of her own. This led to the interesting Cene story which I had heard, and somehow we got onto the subject of Katja and her weird dormitory habits, as can be seen in yesterday's entry. Eventually, though, we did leave and went to the coffeehouse.

When we got there I saw no one I knew, which was disappointing because I had overheard some people discussing going there earlier. Of course, this was before I had gone up to Mollie's room, and we had spent a considerable amount of time there. So there was no one I knew there, and almost no couches or comfy chairs free. We got our drinks (I had Fufu Berry Jones Soda®; Mollie had chai tea. We sat on a chair and footstool and talked about random things for a while, and somehow the group on the couch next to us included us in their conversation, which was about Minnesotan accents (one girl in that group was from MN, the rest were from Illinois) and the Minnesotan came over and asked where exactly we were from. When we told her we were from Stillwater, she asked if we knew Luke Weissman. We both did, and the three of us spent the next few minutes discussing how odd he was. About the time that conversation was dying off, her friends got up to leave, so she said good-bye and it was back to Mollie and me. Which was fine; we now had something new to talk about- Minnesotan accents- and I had another way of making Mollie laugh. Which she is good at- it's one of the things I like about her. Somewhere in there we spotted Andy York's roommate, which reminded me that I hadn't seen him in a while, so I asked Mollie if she wanted to go up and say hi. She had no better ideas, so we finished our respective drinks and left.

We arrived to find Andy mildly drunk (not an unusual state to find Lawrentians in on a Friday night, I am led to believe, or unusual in that they are not totally drunk yet). We stood in the hallway talking to him for a while, and eventually agreed that there was no place to go, so we would just borrow a movie and watch it in Andy's room. Which turned out to be a room near Andy's, so Mollie suggested that we move to her room as it at least had a couch we could sit on while we watched television. So we did, and spent the next two hours (from twelve to two) watching Pulp Fiction. When the movie was over, we bade Andy goodnight, I got my laundry and went in search of Katja (as it was 2 am and she was not in our room). I found her in the basement playing pool with some other Germans, so I told her I was going to bed and walked up to the lobby. I intended only to read the funny message that Al had left on the board, but I got sidetracked and ended up in the computer lab typing this. It is now 3:20 am and I think I shall go upstairs, take a shower, brush my teeth and go to bed, as I have a 10:45 Ultimate practice tomorrow. That is, unless I get sidetracked.

I got up this morning at 9:23, while my alarm had been set for 9:15. So as you see already, it took me a while to wake up. Then I spent another ten minutes or so debating wether I wanted to go to breakfast or not. Finally I decided that I should, but if no one else was going I might just skip it. So I asked Katja if she wanted to go, but she mumbled something incoherently and pulled the covers over her head. Quite rightly, I took that as a no.

I half-stumbled across the hall and knocked on Erin and Andrea's door to see if they would join me. Andrea was out, but Erin said she'd come with. I got dressed and made a quick stop in the bathroom, and as I came out we saw Andrea coming up the stairs, back from her ungodly-hour-of-8-o'clock class, so we waited while she dropped her backpack off in her room, and then the three of us went to the dining hall.

I took a mini-turnover, a jelly donut and two cocktail weenie-sized sausages from the service-line-whatever-thing, and then got a small bowl of Lucky Charms (dry) from the bins in the seating area. After we had set our trays down, I took Andrea over to the Belgian waffle press (which I had cleverly learned to use on Tuesday by reading the instruction card) and we made our own Belgian waffles, which was fun. Then I sat back down and ate my turnover and sausage links while I waited for the waffle to cook. When it was done I got up and took it out of the press, then covered it in applesauce (I have found that it tastes better than with syrup) and ate it. Yum!

When I had eaten as much of my waffle as I could, I started in on the cereal. But first I went through and took out all the blue moons and arranged them in a row on my tray. No one asked me about them, though. I was sad, because I had a really cute comment to use, too. :( Ah, well. I just ate my cereal. Then I took a bite of the donut, but I just wasn't in a donuty mood anymore, and besides it was filled with what seemed like real jelly and not that sugary pureed glaze that I'm used to and in fact prefer in my donuts. So I set that aside, finished my apple juice and left.

When I got back I found Katja awake and listening to music. I went and took a shower because I felt I really really needed to (and it felt so good to get clean!), and when I got back to my room I found Katja sitting on her bed not wearing a top. I mean nothing. She tends to do this a lot, it seems, and teases me because I avert my eyes when she does. It's not like I yell, "OH MY GOD" and quickly clamp both hands over my eyes or gasp loudly and leave immediately, slamming the door as I do, or run out sobbing "You've scarred me for life!" I just... don't look. For some reason, though, she seems to think this is odd behavior, though both Erin and Andrea agree with me in that what she is doing is weird. Ah, well. She also asked me to lotion her back (once she put a bra on). That, too, is what I would call slightly odd.

Anyway, I got dressed with a minimum of exposed nakedness, unlike some people, and then went into the corridor to see if anyone else was going to the convocation. Sadie (fellow frisbee freshman), Meredith and Kat were all going, so I sat with them toward the back of the chapel. We watched the processional, which was interesting enough, I suppose, but it lacked the bubble-blowing that Carleton would have had. Its absence was noted. Once everyone had sat down, the oldest faculty member (some History professor), the President and the man who was giving the opening remarks got on stage. The man (whose official capacity I am not sure of) gave the opening remarks, which were mildly witty in an I'm-trying-to-make-this-as-not-boring-as-possible way. Then the President got up and began by taking a minute to remember those lost on Sept. 11th. Now, don't get me wrong, I like to think I'm not all that callous, but I do feel very removed from those events, and I've had just about enough of hearing about it. So after his second sentence or so, I fell asleep. I was having sort of half-dreams, so I don't know if I was deeply enough asleep for REM sleep, or if I wasn't quite asleep enough and the waking world was creating images in my drifting brain. But I woke up when everyone started clapping, so I shall never really know. Anyway, I clapped as well, and then we all sang the "Sesqucentennial Song" which was a badly-worded version of Holst's "Jupiter" from The Planets. Or rather, it was not badly worded but the words fit the melody badly. After we sang the faculty recessed and we all left.

I went to lunch with Kat, Sadie, Meredith and Adriana, who had been sitting in the row ahead of us. None of it seemed very good, or else I just didn't have a very good appetite. I just remember that I didn't finish anything except for the Ceasar salad, which was okay but not great. At least it wasn't bad, though, unlike some of the other stuff. I had a little bitty ice cream cone for dessert with a lot of Reses Pieces, then left for my appointment with the German professor.

I got there just about on time, which I was pleased about, and did fine on the oral part, which I wasn't so worried about. You can fudge the endings orally and it's harder to notice. On the written part, though... I was told to describe something, for which I wrote about my cat, and I don't know if I put in enough descriptive words or if I got the endings right. Then I was to write about something in the past tense, so I wrote about how, during my seminar in Berlin, I had ended up at a chamber music concert instead of Verdi's Requiem. That I was even less sure of, as I'm not that good with the past tense. But I wrote it and turned it in and I'll know how I did in a few days.

When I finally got out of there, I went to the Registrar's office to drop off my schedule change sheet (no changes) and then Andrea and I went up to my room. We talked about her paper (and Katja's odd dressing habits) for a while, and then I did the crossword puzzle while she edited her paper. And we ate a third of my bag of Cheetos®- or rather, I ate most of it. Andrea had a handful. Well, after those salty, cheesy Cheetos®, I needed something to drink, so I had a juice box. I had been debating wether or not to go to Frisbee practice since about three, and had been leaning towards not going, because I had just been feeling kind of lethargic and telling myself that I had been going for the past three days and I could let myself have a day off, but by four I was feeling pretty perky and realized with some small measure of dread that I actually felt like going. So I went.

I arrived on Main Hall Green (where we've been having practice) about 15 minutes after the "start" of practice, and was immediately asked to join the game. Ugh. Running before warming up in any way (and walking from my dorm to there did NOT count in any way at all) and on a stomach full of junk food and cold juice is not my idea of a fun fun time. So I got out as soon as I could and started practicing my throws. They were still sort of shaky and had a tendency to tilt, which at distances led to them turning completely on their side and rolling the last leg, which wasn't too good. But they got better, especially after someone told me (again) that I should just be snapping a forehand off my middle finger, which actually does make it fly really level. So that got a lot better, and I did a little work on my backhand, which is still sort of shaky but all right, I suppose. And of course I got lots of practice running around and turning suddenly and trying to shake a blocker off. I even had a chance to throw twice (which I messed up on, and feel badly about, but not overly so) and blocked a few passes, which made me feel good.

After practice I was all sweaty and tired, but I decided to go to dinner first. During dinner, someone mentioned that real practice would begin next week, with tossing drills, sprints and the whole nine yards. Imagine my delight. But I'll get used to it- I hope.

After dinner I went upstairs and immediately took a nice warm shower. When I got back to my room I found myself warm, tired and full, so of course I curled up on my bed and went to sleep, after asking Katja to please wake me up at 10. At some point I got under the covers. Katja dutifully woke me at ten, and I almost didn't get up, but some combination of things made me get up, most likely largely due to the fact that I knew a computer was calling to me and I never have to think when I'm using one, it just sort of comes naturally. And it helps me sort through the day's events, which helps me sleep. Or think. Or something. But now I'm done typing and still ought to read some things for class tomorrow, but I have a few days' grace where I don't really need to do anything. So while everyone else is getting ahead, I'm getting sorted out (or just having fun, take your pick), but I'll have time to do all that later. This time, at least.

23:30 Someone just came in and offered everyone free donuts. Well, they were the remains from some function or other, but still, free donuts... Now I needs must go and brush my teeth and go to bed again, as I have a class at ten to ten.

So much for the idea of sleep. When I got back up to my room I made a little "Happy Birthday" sign for Sadie, then read for a bit. I put the book away at about 2, but I still didn't get to sleep for close to an hour after that. Grrrr.

Got up at 9:20, and didn't have enough time to run over and have breakfast, but I had too much time to just get up and go to class early. So I grabbed a granola bar and a juice box, and on my way out I grabbed a paper, thinking I would do the crossword puzzle before class started.

Good thing I left early.

I got to the assigned room (on the 4th floor of the really far away building) only to find that it had moved to the basement of a different building. Good thing nothing is really far away here. So I got to the room, and the teacher came in and passed out the syllabus, and talked about statistics, and then passed out an article on statistics. So that was that.

I had my granola bar on the way to the Freshman Studies lecture, which was by a dry history professor who had a nice lecture written, it was just that his delivery sucked. It was even amusing at points, but again, it was the delivery that tripped hiim up. Anyway, I took copius notes and maybe even got something out of it, and wss how I do on the paper next Friday.

After the lecture I went to lunch with some people from 2nd and 3rd floor Plantz hall. It was a pretty good lunch. Then I ran back to my room, dropped off my math and FS stuff and went to Latin.

Latin was fun/interesting, Prof. McNiell seems like a fun guy, tries to make a few jokes. Not Dr. Shaw quality teaching, but certainly high-level. Then I went to my room, talked with Andrea for half an hour, went to the off-campus programs informational meeting, then Frisbee practice, dinner and after dinner spent a really long time in front of the dining hall talking with someone I knew as well as anyone else here, someone whose name I knew, and someone I knew not at all. Then we went back to our dorms to put warmer clothes on, and I surfed the net for half an hour or so and called Allen. At 9:30 the same people I had been talking with and I went to the Lawrence International meeting (different from the other meeting). When that was over, I high-tailed it back to Plantz for the hall meeting, after which Andrea, Katja, Divica, Addy and myself went wandering around campus. Andrea and I got invited into one girl, Jenny's room in Ormsby and stayed for maybe 15 minutes talking to her. Odd how these things happen. By the time we left it was 11 and I wanted to go to bed (oops, it's almost 1 now) so we went back. Then we wandered around Plantz for a few short minutes and then I went to the computer lab to type this.

Got off the computer at 1 and went straight to bed.

Fun again today. Woke up at 9:45, got dressed and high-tailed it to the dining hall. Sat with three Asian girls and two Jamaican guys and talked about how horrible Freshman Studies and the papers are, as well as having the guys (sophomores both) give us some advice about the papers. When I got back to my room, I went back to bed.

Katja came in at some point and tried to wake me up (twice, in fact) but I resisted and told her I didn't need to get up. So I didn't, the first two times. The third time she said, "Dude, it's 12:45. Get up NOW!" So I did. More because it was 12:45 than because she made me. So I got up and went to lunch, where (since I had had kind of a big breakfast) I only had potato salad and 2 slices of watermelon. Then I went to my advisor's office, dropped off my schedule (no changes) for him to sign, and continued on to the LU Box Office to get tickets for the Bobby McFerrin concert.

I miss Jenny. I should call her again.

19:06 Just got back from dinner- I ate with the Frisbee team. Funness. We had practice from 4:30-6:15 or so. 'Twas great fun. We started out just passing some disks (jargon for frisbee) in a circle, which I was not too good at- either passing or catching. But it wasn't totally awful.... Eventually more people came and around 5 we started a game of Ultimate. I never did too much, but at least I got a lot of excercise running around. Then, on one of the rounds(?) when I was sitting out, I got another person (who was infinitely better than me) to toss with me for a little bit, and he gave me some catching and tossing pointers. It really helped, I think, and soon after I went back in I actually made a pass that someone caught and we scored a point and I was so happy. =) After we had played a few games (three, really, each to 5 points) we went back to our dorms, dropped stuff off and/or changed and went to dinner. Nothing spectacular- Mexican, but not too bad. Better than the other option, which was turkey and looked icky. Now I type this and then am off to a Freshman Forum stupid thingy. Ah, well. WSS what comes.

Ah, yes. Quick note on between now and then. Went to my advisor, said it all checked out, advised that I just test out of German, and then said I might want to do 2 terms Latin, just because it would make more sense. I can't pull it off this year because my math is sequencial (sp?) and that's what conflicts with Latin Term 2. So that's a no go, I just left my schedule as it is. I will, perhaps, want to change my 4-year plan so I triple-major (sort of) with Math/Econ interdisciplinary, and then International Studies self-designed. But WSS. After I left there, I went to the bookstore and got the books for Prob & Stats as well as Latin. Now I needs must find them online and see if I can get them cheaper.

Ah, yes... Sunday. It's Thursday night now and I have no idea what I did then. Wait, let me think.... There was lunch somewhere... and a meeting or two. A theater performance at 7 about drinking, drugs and date rape. And a "luau" at 9, which was kind of dumb. I went with Katja and Andrea, and they seemed to be having more fun than I. But then, I never have professed to like that sort of thing.

I woke up at 12:30 and decided it was finally time to get up. So I got dressed, brushed my hair and knocked on the door across the hall to ask if they wanted to go to lunch. Andrea was in (and had 2 people over), Erin was at her bassoon audition. Andrea said she'd have lunch as soon as one of the girls, Danielle, was done using her computer so she could lock the door. The other girl left. So Andrea and I went into the hall and waited and waited... Danielle got off at just about one, and when we got over to the dining hall, we found it closed. Yesterday it had closed at 1:30, and many people had also told us that it would be open that late today, but 'twas closed early. So the three of us walked to a small grocery store a few blocks away where they got chips and I got some fresh cheese- gruyere and munster. We snacked on the way back (it's about 3-4 blocks from my dorm) and I discovered that gruyere tastes kind of like parmesan except not rock-hard. It's not exactly crumbly, but sort of, and while it might taste good in things, 'tis not all that good on its own. I've had munster often before, though, and I know it's yummy.

When we reached Plantz I went to my room to put the rest of the cheese in the fridge, and the other two just sort of followed me in. Then we ended up sitting around and they talked about these "fine Jamaican men" they had met (and kept talking and kept talking. Mollie came in after half an hour or so, and half an hour or so later I managed to drop enough mostly-subtle hints combined with the fact that Danielle wanted a nap, so everyone left. I had something a little more substantial than cheese for "lunch" (at 3:30), and then went to a computer lab in one of the dorms (since I can't get my computer hooked up to the internet yet), after which I might end up reading The Communist Manifesto, if I know what's good for me.

Apparently I called Jenny today, though I say she lies. Though she may speak true, for I recall no roommate here when I did call... I shall concede the point and declare that I did call her on this day.

Kejai called today, I get to see her before I leave! Yay! But I might not get to see my grandfather, sob. Ah well. Leaving in 2/3 days depending on how you count, but I doubt it will be the momentus occasion the departures of all my friends were. Probably becaue there's no one left here to say goodbye to, really. Sigh. Needs must go pick Anja up and run to Target for some dry goods college supplies. 18:35 K, I feel I've forgotten a lot of the dry goods supplies I think I'll need. Ah, well, life goes on. I think I shall remove the bubbles from my JavaScript test page- they're beginning to annoy me. 20:20 Packing doesn't suck so much as being made to pack.

Haven't done anything much of interest today. My father is making me sort stuff as to pack/bring with, store and keep. Boringness. But it must be done. So I think that is what I shall be up to today.

22:08 That is what I was up to today. How boring. Now I need to go through and compile lists and edit them and such so I can send them out by Tuesday evening.

By the time we arrived, my parents were almost ready to leave for the annual neighborhood party, so I had about 5 minutes in which to check my e-mail etc. Then we all went over to the neighbors' where I got to make small talk for an hour, and then I left to go see The Musketeer. Not the best 3 Musketeers movie I've seen as far as plot or sticking to the story goes, but it probably had the best stunts. The bit on the ladder that you might have seen in commercials? The entire scene is far cooler.

When the moive was over I came back home and, finding my family still at the party, walked back over there. I stayed for about half an hour and wound up taking home not just the one Rice Krispie bar my sister had requested, but an entire plate of desserts that another neighbor insisted I take. Yum.

Spent the evening looking at (more) various RenFest stuff and talking with Amanda. This is becoming a bit of an obsession, I think. Uh-oh...

He was, of course, delighted to see me. (Isn't everyone?) He had the TV on to the news, which was talking about the disaster, but he turned it off when I came in. We sat down at the kitchen table (which, in case you didn't know, is always piled about 6" high with various books, magazines, newspapers and a few other things and made small talk for a little bit. The topic turned to my leaving for school and he began to dig through the pile on the table. Soon he produced the latest issue of US News and World Reports, which happened to be the issue with the guide to colleges that it puts out every year. Lawrence was tied for 48th (of ~350)and seemed to have many charachteristics of a 48th-place anything- ranked 40th in x category, 60th in y, that sort of thing. What surprised me, though, was that it was ranked 11th in Alumni giving. Then again, if it's based on percentages, it would make more sense since only 400 or so graduate from Lawrence every year, so one person donating 100,000 there would make more of an impact on that number than one giving a million at say, the U of M. Who knows.

Somehow, somewhere in there the topic turned to Grandpa David telling me the story of how he joined the Army Air Corps, which later became the Army Air Force, and around 1948 it became simply the Air Force. He originally wanted to join the Navy, but the navy training center was full, so he ended up in the Air Corps instread.

He also told me a humourous story about this one Jew in a barracks full of Italian Catholics, one Goldstein by name, who kept getting reffered to as "Christ Killer" ("Hey, Mazto Christo- get over here!"). Now, my grandfather, a North Dakota Norwegian Lutheran, had no problem with Jews (in fact had never seen one before, thought this Goldstein was a nice enough guy) or with Italians. So one day he took three of his Italian buddies aside and asked them, "Why do you keep calling him that?" They explained that it was the Jews who had Christ killed, to which he quite logically replied, "No they didn't. I believe it was actually your people, the Romans, who did that." The Italian guys didn't really like that much at all and tried to insist that it was the Jews who betrayed him, etc, so my grandfather told them, "There's a little white buiding with a cross on the top out there (indicating the army compound), and I'm sure the chaplain would be able to clear this up for us with no probblem." The next day- "Hey Goldie- get over here!" Grandfathers have the best stories.

So as you can guess, my ten-minute stop lasted rather longer than I had anticipated. I stayed so long, in fact, that my father (who had been holding dinner for me) called and asked if I was still there, or if they should go ahead and eat without me. I told them to go ahead. The second time he called was at close to nine, telling me to pick up my sister. The 10-minute stay had grown into almost 100 minutes. So much for time management.

20:38 Leaving soon to go see Rat Race wiht Peter and Anja, having nothing better to do on a Friday night because all my friends have abandoned me. Perhaps next Friday I shall go hang out with Yiling and Kelly and see what's brewing up at the U. But for now, I'm off to the movies!

Spent most of today reading ElfLife, if anyone cares.

22:42 Argh. I just get use to the last keyboard (which we had for all of three months) and suddenly there's a NEW one, with a NEW configuration that I have to get used to. Still a QWERTY keyboard, it's not as drastic as if we had gotten a DVORAK, but all the function keys are in weird spaces. Grr. Ah, well, I shall adapt. Only 2 more weeks (exactly) till I go off to college! Yay happiness (boredom here with everyone gone/busy- I miss you guys!) At this time then I should be in Plantz Hall doing "dorm-organized activities"- whatever that may mean.

After the drama meeting was over Anja mentioned that she was hungry. I told her we could either have early dinner (5:30) or late dinner (8:30) with a snack now. She opted for the late dinner and we went and got some potato salad for her to munch on while we drove to Barnes and Noble, where there was supposed to be a German conversation group. We got there half an hour early, so Anja started in on her math homework while I looked around a little. Only a little, sadly enough, because Anja had said she had some comprehension problems and wanted me to help with the translation. So after a brief survey of my favorite section, I went back to try and help her. Shortly thereafter, however, we were told to either move or put the homework away and join in by a somewhat fussy B&N employee.

For the first few minutes there was only us and an older couple with their adult children. I suppose we hada pleasant enough conversation, but I ended up talking to the older gentleman, who reminded me rather strongly of the man in charge of my mid-year seminar in Berlin, except that he caught me on using the informal second person pronoun, which some Germans can be incredibly uptight about. I had always tried to be aware of what I was saying but knew that I continually had problems with it, and all the Germans I had met usually let it slide because I was a foreigner and meant no disrespect. This guy, though...!

Fortunately for me, he was soon distracted by a question from his wife, and another older gentleman (this one American) started up a conversation with me. His "Ach, so," was rather accented, I noted, but his vocabulary was impeccable, and I think I overheard him telling someone else that he had lived in Germany for several years, which would explain it. We chatted for a bit, but when a question from someone else took his attention, I moved over to where Anja was talking with what seemed the only other relatively young person there.

She was deep in conversation with Ursa (who had been an exchange student to Austria 11 years ago) and when I came over to her, holding her backpack (which I had been holding on to at the other end of the table), she looked up at me, all dissapointed, and asked if we had to go. Tee hee! It was only 6:30, and though I thought it had been dragging ON (though it did start at ten to instead of on the hour), I wasn't ready to leave quite yet. I sat down and the three of us talked for a while, until (to my surprise) Sven and Imke, two students with YFU (as well as a Japanese girl who came along for the ride) showed up. They joined us and the discussion turned to school and their host families, as well as what they thought of American life so far. The next hour seemed to go twice as fast as the previous, and we even stayed half an hour later, after all the adult types had left.

Since Anja had only had the potato salad since noon, and I a few bites of that, we both felt it was time for dinner, had at a nearby fast food restaurant. We didn't get back home until 9:30, and Anja still had math homework she needed to do, and still needed me to help her. That's how I spent the rest of my evening. (Until I could get onto the computer, of course).

21:54 I really need to start getting good grades in college. I also need to learn a lot more. 3 classes per sem isn't enough. And I need to get some haxxerz up at LU. The only problem is, I don't think LU's the kind of school that has kids that want to do hacks. Which is sad, and which is why I should have gone to Carleton. But we shall try our damnedest.

22:47 Heard "One Week" on a TV commercial, which reminded me that some people (Moonies) refer to it as "The Sailor Moon Song" because of the one-line reference in there. So I went and looked up the lyrics, and there it was!

22:23 Finished tranferring last month's journal to its new page.

I went to the State Fair today! Unfortunately, I never got an e-mail back from Laura, the person coordinating things, so I had no idea when or where to meet. That meant that I had to wake up at 8 and again at 9 to try and call her, as I didn't get an answer at 8. I did manage to reach her at 9 am, though, and she told me we were meeting at 10, 10:30 and where. So I got in the car soon thereafter and drove down there. I was a few minutes late and just saw a group walking up the street a few blocks ahead of where we were supposed to meet. Taking a chance, I drove up to them and ascertained that they were indeed who I was looking for. I asked them to wait while I tried to park, but after 5 minutes of circling the area, I gave up and returned. Someone had the idea that we just drive there, so we all piled in (strangely enough, there were seatbelts for all!) and drove around the fairgrounds looking for a space to park in. The fairground lots (which have free parking for carpoolers) were all full, so we ended up parking at the U of M lot for a not-too-high price.

Once inside the fairgrounds, we decided to head to the Education building to get free school supplies. On the way we stopped at the Monopoly game and watched that for a while, and we also went in the U of M building and got thermal color-changing pencils. Then we somehow ended up at the Ag building and waited there for someone else who was supposed to meet us at noon.

After we found him, we all headed up to the education building and got our free pencils/highlighters/what-have-you, and then walked back down to the Monopoly game to try and join in. Turns out, though, that we would have had to have waited half an hour, and there were better things we could be doing. So we left and went to the FFA barn and the DNR fishpond, and then onto the Midway. Oh yes, we also got free bags of Caribou Coffee from the MPR booth because we asked.

Soon we were on our way to the Midway. Some people went on rides while the rest of us (nonadventurous) waited. Then all the girls (all four of us) went on another ride, which oddly enough made me feel less ill and tired.

When we left the Midway, we went on a round trip skyride, and I felt stupid because I had left all the extra coupons my sister had given me for the skyride at home. I ended up sitting with a boy who plays baseball and went to SPA with Kenny Hu and knows Jenny from elementary school. The ride itself seemed shorter than I remember it, but that might have to do with the dearth of stops while we were suspended high above the fairgrounds, which I remember as happening often when I used to go on it.

After we all disembarked, Laura declared that she was worn out and wanted to go home. The others wanted to stay, but as I was almost as tired, having gotten up uncommonly early that day, as well as having been on my feet at the RenFest all yesterday, I offered to drive her home. On the way home, she mentioned that she worked at Sweet Martha's Cookie Jar and had tons of leftover cookies at home, so when I dropped her off she was kind enough to give me a bag full.

Since Laura lived off University Avenue, about 5 minutes away from my grandmother's, I drove down there to say hi to her. We spent half an hour or so talking (mostly about college) and then she gave me the presesnts she had gotten for me and my siblings in the Maritime Provinces, where she had recently been on vacation. Mine had a drawing of a cow and said "Y'a pas d'vaches sacree icitte. Les vos sacrifier!" Cute, isn't it? She also got me a calandar for my room. Then I went home and the cookies were gone in 5 minutes.

Read the Elf's Dreambook Sign the Elf's Dreambook

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? E-mail me!