Bit of Ivory

Okay, which one of you gave me your cold, huh?

I feel as though I’m moving through a fog. I can’t think, I can’t reason, I can barely stay awake.

This is so NOT what I need right now.

And getting a cold is not only annoying and inconvenient, it is also EXPENSIVE. Cold medicine that doesn’t work anyway. Kleenexes. Orange juice. GAH.

In other news, I made an apple pie last night for my co-workers. It’s not the prettiest one I’ve ever made, but it should taste good. *crosses fingers*

I hate traffic and construction. Luckily the construction is almost done, which should take away from the stress of my commute considerably.

I like beef jerky.

New Gilmore Girls tonight! Whoot!

How lucky am I to be able to read Return of the King for homework?

Yesterday Kate and I were discussing how Utah has a big fault line (the Wasatch Fault) and how everyone’s talking about how we could have a big earthquake any minute and yet there have been maybe 3 tiny earthquakes in our lifetimes, and Kate said she’d think it was really coincidental if we had an earthquake today. And then I listen to the noon news while driving to school, and there was an earthquake in California. O.o.

One of life’s simple pleasures is dipping Wendy’s fries in a Frosty. Yum.

I made scones last night. Not what everyone thinks of as scones, though– I made Utah Scones. Utah Scones are pieces of deep-fried bread dough slathered with either butter, honey, powdered sugar, or a combination of the above. I like mine with just honey, but everyone’s different. They’re very yummy. I remember being confused, though, the first time I heard scones referred to as sweet biscuit-type things with currants in them. Although those are yummy, too.

I have my first midterm of graduate school tomorrow. Is in my undergrad class though, so am not too worried. Should probably spend a bit of time studying, though.

I have all of one picture on my walls. Must remedy this situation.

I don’t care what anybody else thinks, I adore the book Kilmeny of the Orchard by L.M. Montgomery. Yes, Kilmeny is a Mary Sue, and Eric is a Gary Stu, and the plot is predictable and melodramatic. But it’s so gosh darn beautiful that I. Don’t. Care..

The mountains around BYU are absolutely beautiful this time of year. I’m going to bring my camera with me on Monday and take some pics, because all of you should be able to delight in autumn in Provo.

Ron is NOT going to have his prefect badge taken away from him in HBP in favor of Harry. First off, Ron hasn’t done anything wrong as a prefect, and in fact has been a pretty good one (other than his interaction with F&G, which is perfectly understandable). Second, the “enough responsibility to be getting on with” situation has not changed one iota. And I really, really wish everyone would stop saying that Harry should have been prefect instead of Ron. No, he shouldn’t have. Dumbledore considered Harry, and decided that his other obligations made it undesirable for Harry to be a prefect. And boy, was he right. Can you imagine CAPSLOCK!Harry with poor little first years? Hermione was quite bad enough. *shudders* Harry would have made an absolutely awful prefect. So Ron got the job, because Ron was the better candidate. DEAL.

I used an Orlando Bloom READ bookmark in Tolkien class today, and got admiring comments from all the girls sitting around me. I promised to bring some for them next class.

Umm. That’s all I can think of.

I’m supposed to be reading articles from Studies in English Literature for a journal assignment for my Intro to Grad Studies (aka we’re going to SCARE YOU SILLY) class, but I’m finding it difficult to get into the ideology of the heroic couplet at the moment, even if it is written by a professor at ‘s school. Why, oh why, does the latest edition have to be on Restoration and Eighteenth Century instead of something more fun? And there’s nothing juicy in this volume, either. The *other* volume that focuses on this time period had an article about political pornography in the 18th century. No such luck for me.

The weekend was good. Watched the heartbreaking BYU game Friday night. We lost by ONE POINT, because Matt Payne, our kicker who never, ever, misses and was having a wonderful game, missed a final field goal. Woe.

Is very sad when your football team is better than your record implies.

Oh, well. We’ll STOMP CSU next week.

(oh, and just as an aside– yes, USC’s football team is better than ours. Q.E.D. But dude, our cheerleaders ROX their cheerleaders SOX. Especially their male cheerleaders. What do they do, other than clap their hands and dance around with their megaphones? No stunts, no back flips, no holding girls in the air. Wimps. Who would even want to *be* a male USC cheerleader? My family decided that they must be the California girlie-men that Governor Ahnold was thinking of. Maybe the home squad is different than the traveling squad. But the traveling squad left much to be desired. :P)

Anyway, Friday was fun. Saturday was spent mostly watching I Love the 90’s and trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to make K8 stay off the knee that she injured in her soccer game. That evening we ordered pizza and watched Lilac’s adorable kids and watched movies. Oh, and any reports of us locking the kids on the deck in the cold are greatly exaggerated. We gave them a blanket!

I bought some Apple Beer the other day. Kate finds it greatly amusing to call me a ‘lush’ when I drink a bottle ’cause it looks so much like I’m drinking real beer.

I cooked dinner for K8 and I last night: fried chicken tenders, garlic mashed potatoes, and fried zucchini. K8 didn’t eat the zuchinni. It’s, you know, green. And grows out of the ground. Therefore, impossible. I liked it, though.

Well, enough procrastinating. Back to heroic couplets and visual interpretations of “Paradise Lost” and the like.

So I went to our work party last night, which was held at the Olympic Skating Oval in West Valley. I had fun watching the professional speed skaters practice while the president droned on about challenges and goals. Watching Derek Parra was much more interesting. After dinner (Tex Mex fajitas) I went with most of my department members and learned how to curl. Yup, curling, with the stones and the brooms and all. It was pretty fun, although I totally stunk. I thought about trying the bungee thing, but by then I was feeling kinda queasy, and decided not to practice hurling in addition to the curling. So I watched Kate do it instead. She totally rocked– doing flips and all.

After the activities we had a raffle, and I broke tradition and actually won something: a Palm m100. Now, first of all, I already have a Palm which I don’t use. Second of all, mine’s an m500. m100’s are OLD, dude. WAY old. 2MB of memory. Wutevre. I traded it for Jenga, and I think I actually got the better end of the deal. One of my coworkers won a Nikon Coolpix 2000, though. Not too shabby there.

By the time we rode back to work, and I drove home, I was feeling pretty sick. Dizzy, stomach upset, etc. I laid down while I did my reading for class today, then laid down while we watched “Lost” which Kate had DVRed (will watch next week, is intriguing, plus it has Dom in it ), then went to bed, trying to keep my mind off my stomach, figuring that it was just the fast drive home that made me feel this way.

Woke up this morning (you were on my mind. . . oh. sorry), felt pretty good. Tired, but otherwise fine.

Then I got in the car to drive to work. Started feeling queasy again. Head started to hurt.

Now I’m sitting her at work feeling crummy. Must go to class, though. We’re getting details on our semester projects today, and I have an appointment with Dr. Walker after class.

Gah. At least I can crash after that.

I just had the most awesome idea for a Marxist essay about ideology and Harry Potter– analyzing the way in which the Black family failed to reproduce the pureblood ideology in Sirius Black, or the way in which Sirius refused the hail for him to accept the ideology of his family.

And I could extend it to Draco Malfoy, who by all intents and purposes is responding to the hail that Lucius has given him, and has adopted the Death Eater ideology.

And extend it even more, to Harry responding to the hail of the Sorting Hat in calling him a Gryffindor. . .

DUDE. THE SORTING HAT IS REPRODUCING THE IDEOLOGY OF EACH HOUSE BY HAILING ELEVEN YEAR OLDS. And then the House competition is continuing to reproduce the ideology by continually identifying each student with their House, and training them to value the thing that they were told they valued by being sorted in the first place. . .

*hubs hands evilly*

Homework: Lots. Must. Do. Reading.

Job: Boring. Must. Find. New. One.

Commute: Long and aggravating. See “Job” above.

Roomies: Very kewl, although I still feel like I’m getting into the groove. . .

Friends: Lots of hard times for and her daughter. Hugs and love and prayers to both of you.

Other: Am now modding at SQ. Luckily, have not had to thwap anyone yet. Not looking forward to when I do. But knowing I have the power to is intoxicating, my preciousss. My signed Orlando Bloom pic is sitting next to me on my desk. Is yummy. *drools* Have gotten coworker hooked on Bujold. Whoot! Have loaned HP: SS on tape (American version, alas– must correct) to uncle who looks down on me for being HP freax. Prediction: he’ll be hooked. JKR is KEWL. Want to make a Peeves icon now.

*hugs* to everyone who is dealing with Ivan the Terrible.

And I feel like I’m getting into the swing of things. I’ve kept up with my homework, made insightful comments in all my classes, all of my professors but one have demonstrated that they know me by name (of course, it helps that I knew two of them to begin with :P), and I’m starting to feel like I can do this. One of my Monday classes has been canceled because Dr. Muhlestein’s grandmother died, so I don’t have much homework this weekend, thank goodness. That means I can watch the BYU/Stanford game without nagging guilt about such-and-such assignment.

Last night was a blast. Kate, Kristin and I (although I admit it was Kristin who did most of the work, since I was working until 6:15) threw a How to Host a Murder party. My character, a swotty Oxford grad named Anne T. Ickwitee came under suspicion early because of an overwhelming desire to get the recognition she deserved in the male-dominated field of archeology, which lead to faking a logbook entry and stealing an important fossil. It was certainly her intention to kill the leader of the expedition, Mr. Art E. Faxe, but Mr. Faxe’s daughter got to him first, thus saving my character from being a murderer. So. Much. Fun.

In sad news, it appears that all broadband internet alternatives for our area are unavailable. Qwest DSL, Comcast cable modem, Earthlink DSL, everything we could think of has been checked, and they all say “sorry.” Bah. Am still piggy-backing on someone else’s connection, but I feel incredibly guilty about doing so, so I’ll only do it infrequently. Must. Get. Broadband. *cries*

Sometime in the last couple of weeks I passed my third anniversary in the fandom. I lurked for a few months before that, but my first posts came in the weeks before Sept. 11. I can’t verify the exact dates any more, because the boards at the Harry Potter Movie site aka the Harry Potter Connection aka Harry James Potter aka The Super Secret Harry Potter Forum have been deleted, but I remember posting for the first time just before the attacks on September 11 threw us all into a panic over our friends living in New York. So my fandom anniversary has always been bittersweet.

My thoughts and prayers are with the victim’s families today.

Learning all about Marxism has turned me into a disgruntled proletariat, bent on reducing the amount of surplus value available to my employers in my particular case to the bare minimum.

In other words, I’m bored and feel like goofing off.

And I’m here for another 3 and a half hours. Gah.

fter much aggravation and delays, including rusty bed supports and trips in ambulances to the hospital (my dad is experiencing tightness in his chest– heart and kidney problems have been eliminated, but it took all Saturday and part of Sunday morning to confirm that, and they haven’t figured out what *is* wrong yet), I am now happily installed in my small but comfortable (and bright and cheery!) bedroom at ‘s townhouse. We’re working on an ultra-cool name for our pad. Suggestions are welcome.

There’s lots to do still, but I’ve got all the essentials– HP and Jane Austen, clothes, shampoo, and Ginny. I forgot a pillow (silly me) but Kate’s lending me one. I’ll take a pic of my room once I get more permanently moved in. Must put up my Orlando Bloom “Read” poster. And stuff like that.

Kate only has dialup (a circumstance we will be working to correct in the VERY near future), but when I started Ginny up to show Kate something, her network card was still in, and it detected someone else’s wireless network. So I’m currently stealing someone else’s bandwidth. Am bad.

Oh, well.

Life has been crazy busy, trying to get moved in, starting school, doing homework, stressing out, etc. Life is good, though. Really, it is.

Especially ’cause BYU beat Notre Dame on Saturday night. A game which I attended. *does happy BYU football season starting dance*

Ken Jennings (who works in the building next to mine and lives not far from my house– he’s in my Stake, for all you Mormons out there) continued his winning streak on Jeopardy tonight. He got a new suit. Heh.

Must go to bed. Will be more thorough later. :

*hugs Ginny tight*

She is pretty and shiny and we had to pay $106 for her, but she’s HERE and she’s MINE and I am NEVER LETTING HER GO AGAIN.

And she doesn’t squeak like crazy when I open the lid!!!

I had a Best Buy gift card from Nicole for my birthday, so I brought it with me and spent it so I never have to darken the door of that store again. I bought Ginny a coming-home present: a mini wireless optical mouse and 10-key pad. Now I can use Ginny as my primary machine and put off rebuilding Harry for a bit. That will probably happen next semester, though. After I pay my tuition and figure out how much money I’ve got.

Grad school is– well– hard. I nearly had a nervous breakdown in the office of the literature librarian yesterday because one of my classes was cancelled (without giving us any notice, mind) and I couldn’t find anything else that would work with my schedule. I finally decided to try to add the undergrad equivalent of the class that was cancelled. It’ll mean having to find 4 hours in which to work elsewhere in the week, and doing extra work on top of the grad work (if I can convince the teacher to add me), but it’s the best solution I can think of. The professor taught the Jane Austen class I took my final semester of my undergrad, so he knows me. Here’s hoping he’ll add me. Or I could take bowling. *thinks* Naw.

I did get some nice news, though. According the graduate handbook, I can expect about a $1000 tuition credit for the first four semesters of my graduate program. It’s an incentive to finish on time, I guess, which I don’t really need, but which I certainly won’t decline. I’ll be paying less than undergraduate tuition! Score!

Well, as much as I love Ginny (and I do!!!), I must do homework. I’ve got a couple of things to read for critical theory, and I’m going to read all the assignments for the classes I’ve already missed plus the assignment for tomorrow for this class I want to add (the syllabus is posted online). That will impress Dr. Mason, eh?

*hugs Ginny again*