So I realize that people may have differing opinions on this, but everyone should know that my baby cousin is the most adorable baby ever. Today was the first time I've got to spend significant time with her, more than an hour or so with lots of other people around, and she's just really learning to crawl and smiles at everything and is generally cute all over the place. Anne laughed at me because I have no idea what to do when holding a baby, but I just made faces and let her play with my hair and didn't drop her, and called it a win. Plus now almost everyone has a gift idea next to their name on my list, and food was delicious, and this holiday is awesome.

Last night I picked up my sister and her boyfriend from the bar they'd been at, and it's really nice that he clearly keeps trying to like, bond with me or something (or well, the two times we've had conversations), but it ends up going awkwardly. Like the time at a part of Anne's he tried to look through my movies and talk about them, but just kept going "Oh, I've... heard that's good. Haven't seen it though," and then naming others that I'd never seen. And then saw The Birdcage and told me about going to a drag club with his uncle. Or last night when started talking about how great and good looking Brad Pitt is, and telling me I was a great driver. Which is patently untrue, and when Anne pointed that out he said "Yeah, but look, she could have driven into the lake, and she didn't." It might help if we tried this when he hadn't been drinking.

And now Addams Family Values is on! Wooo Thanksgiving.

There is a cat sleeping on my feet :D Anne got a cat and she is most adorable. I like my cat because you know, she's my cat, but she's really loud and dumb and not very friendly. This one comes to sit and be petted and slept curled up on my bed last night! Also we don't have a window in our screen door currently, and when I left the real door open she leapt from the stairs out the empty space, it was highly impressive.

Today has been highly productive, in that I made peanut butter cups, brownies, and chocolate peppermint bark and went to Target but didn't do anything school related. Last night I set up the wireless because Anne had been putting it off, so now we can both be online at the same time again!

Since it is now Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving, Americans!

Yay for family visits! And also the getting taken out to lunch that they generally entail. Anyway, I got to see my grandmother which was nice, since she'll be down the Cape while I'm home for break. And she doesn't really like to drive out here by herself, so my aunt and uncle brought her! I gave them a faily tour of campus, and we went out to eat in Northampton, and it was an overall delightful time. Plus my uncle told me about how the BBC has some language lesson videos that are really good for brushing up on your French.

I spent two and a half hours on Saturday trying to find plans for the summer. Guess what is not a delightful time? Trying to find plans for the summer when you are too nervous to go more than a couple hours from home for such a long time. Committing to ten weeks of anything is terrifying, never mind ten weeks where I can't call someone to come visit for an afternoon.

Apparently half the Development office went to see New Moon this weekend, because most of the conversation this morning was about how cute Taylor Lautner is, and how he has muscles in places they hadn't even known were possible, and how he's seventeen! Not sixteen! So don't worry so much! It was fun. I may have to see if Anne will go with me this week.

Ugh just have to make it through squash tomorrow, and possibly other classes but I reeeeeaaaaalllly don't want to talk about radical feminism with that crowd so probably not, and then it's break! And Thanksgiving, the third best holiday of the year as far as I can currently remember.

So wow, The Emperor's Club is really not the light-hearted inspirational movie fortevivace and I set out to watch.

Unexpected things, in order of their happening:

- This delightful quote from Ted Kennedy's book in the school newspaper:
"You can have a serious life or a nonserious life, Teddy. I'll still love you whichever choice you make. But if you decide to have a nonserious life, I won't have much time for you."
JOE KENNEDY THIS IS WHY YOU ARE MY FAVORITE CRAZY FATHER.

- Seeing Neil Gaiman at the Amanda Palmer show last Friday! Just briefly, but he did walk directly by me, so that was kind of awesome. Also awesome was how Melissa totally missed them walking by and went "Wow, there's a lot of people all of a sudden!"

- A dog licking me on the face at work yesterday. Ew, but the dog was cute.

- Getting an A-/B+ on my terrible awful politics midterm! I seriously thought I was going to cry from shock and happiness for a minute, but that is just my academic issues showing through.


How is my life full of so much excitement? And now it is time to watch Farscape. I was planning to go watch Sir! No Sir! over at UMass, but then no one else could go and I had a headache which riding the bus would have just made worse. My library at home has it though, so perhaps over Thanksgiving? Since it is like, the one war-related topic I really love (like directly war-related, obviously most of history is war-related in one way or another).

Oh my goodness I hate Will Schuester so much >:( With his stupid smug rejecting Kurt and Mercedes out of hand for Defying Gravity, and his being an ass when Sue is training that girl to be a Cheerio.
Seriously, how is he supposed to be the good guy on the show? Seriously. Also way to totally ruin Artie/Tina before it could really get started, show. I feel like such a big announcement about Tina's character deserved a little more attention than that. But Kurt's dad is awesome! Why can I not stop watching shows, ever?

Instead of doing anything useful or sleeping, the past few days have largely been spent watching old episodes of Never Mind the Buzzcocks. The week before that was spent reading Gordon Korman books. This morning I was so off in squash, and was playing someone else who wasn't doing well, that my instructor came to sit by our court and laugh at us, which sounds awful saying it like that but wasn't actually. Someone in politics asked if the bombing of Dresden was Kristallnacht or the Blitz. Oh, life.

Oh oh but I did register for classes! And got into almost all of them! Even though my adviser made fun of one.
( Only one history clas, woah! )

Oh also I've been stalking Yuletide requests, even though I DO NOT SIGN UP for Yuletide, and am super psyched. This year I'll have the entire month of January to read things while bored in northern Maine, instead of giving up by the second week of J-term!

Today I went to talk to one of my professors, and she said that I can write my final paper on riot grrrl! In addition to the paper I'm writing on the development of the teenager for the other class I have with her, this should be a pretty fun finals period. Ignoring politics, which I think is best for everyone. Especially since it may not even be a necessary prereq for anything I am taking in the future what the hellllllll.

Now Melissa is going through ISIS and arranging a schedule for me for next semester, since I have failed at doing it and she doesn't want to do homework. Theoretically I am meant to be doing a paper proposal but my writing is broken so mostly I'm just saying incoherent things at her and telling her she's the best. Which she is! Melissa is my new favorite.


Oh goodness I am so terrible at this meme why did I start it?
Day one: a song
Day two: a picture
Day three: a book/ebook/fanfic
Day four: a site
Day five: a youtube clip
Day six: a quote
Day seven: whatever tickles your fancy

UGH probably no one wants to read any of the fic I have been reading, because it's been an inexplicable Bruno/Boots kick what? And either reading those books or school books, so. Um, here's a link to 1408, by Stephen King. Which is really scary so I'm not sure if I actually recommend it?

alsfhljds off to write the proposal now

Like it wasn't bad that apparently he hated tennis, Andre Agassi has turned my world upside down again.

Day one: a song
Day two: a picture
Day three: a book/ebook/fanfic
Day four: a site
Day five: a youtube clip
Day six: a quote
Day seven: whatever tickles your fancy

( my current desktop )

Anyway, hope everyone has a nice Halloween! I am heading over to fortevivace to watch the best Halloween movie ever, Lost Boys.

Oh no I forgot Heath was graduating this semester! Heeeeeaaath what will Beaver and Wade be without you? No Omega Chi gets through KT door without being pounded! ...by his fist. In the face. Also "If anyone's secretly gay and wants to declare their love for me, now would be the time." &Heath;

In non-Greek related things, I have finished midterms \o/ In celebration, here is a meme I am stealing from kallie_starmist because it is easy.

Day one: a song
Day two: a picture
Day three: a book/ebook/fanfic
Day four: a site
Day five: a youtube clip
Day six: a quote
Day seven: whatever tickles your fancy

SO a song! I have been listening to The Whole of the Moon by The Water Boys pretty constantly while writing midterms, because that is what I do while writing papers. UM I think it's pretty great, although part of that might be because it's got a Jellicoe Road connection and I spend a lot of it just going "Webb! Tate! Taylor! asldksf" in my head. Whatever.
here it is.

Oh my goodness, Cold Case has an episode about 1920s lesbians! Ignoring for the moment how embarrassingly much I love Cold Case, (I haven't seen most of it but there are a few episodes I just watch and cry at every so often, Forever Blue I am looking at you), it was really good and had bootleggers and jazz clubs! Someone should come love Cold Case with me :(

Well, today I got an email saying that I've got to write a four page paper to make up for a missed quiz (which, what? Four pages on Kinsey does not equal quiz!), had a terrible meeting with my adviser because I consistently fail to remember how to talk like a human being around him and he's sort of condescending, and showed up to a meeting only to discover no one was there and I may have missed it. So now I have two papers to write on topics I know little to nothing about (mostly my own fault, yes), one on something I do, and a hectic schedule this week aside from all that. Basically it is just all :((((( here in 311, so apologies to people who have to talk to me! Mostly this means fortevivace who will probably be harassed later to come do homework.

On the bright side, the missed meeting gives me more time than previously planned. More importantly, I got a package! From ladyjoust! Who, aside from having beautiful handwriting, has sent delightful looking books. Which can't be read for a while yet, but still made the day way brighter. ♥

Oh goodness, this has been a busy few days. Friday my mom came down to Worcester, and we all went over to Mike and Amy's for the fall open house they have. There were a million people but the food was delicious and that was a good time. Saturday morning we went to the art museum, because I need to write a paper on an exhibit and it's free admission Saturday mornings, and it's one less thing to think about this coming week. I really need to go back there sometime when there's less of a rush, and see more than the Pre-Columbian exhibit, because I haven't been since high school and it's so nice.

Anyway, then we drove back to South Hadley, and walked around the Mount Holyoke greenhouse for a while. THEN we went to see Whip It, and it was no longer playing. I had just checked times the day before, but clearly should have checked them that morning because it was incredibly disappointing. We ended up going to Target (I bought Lost Boys for Halloween viewing! The guy at checkout agrees it's an awesome movie.) and having an early dinner, then coming back and hanging around/doing homework until the a capella jam. Which was excellent! Although I don't know why they put the V8s and M&Cs first, because they're the two best ones. Then we watched Iron Man and went to bed.

Today we went for a lovely walk around upper lake, and then Anne came out for brunch. Apparently Nootan, who was away for the weekend and letting my mom use her bed, is staying away for the rest of the week because she has the flu. I have gone two years here without getting actually sick, it cannot happen this week.


Also, like I didn't love Jay Smooth enough already, he agrees with me on the use of 'begging the question'!

The first X-Men movie is on TV right now! I know that people think it's terrible but it may actually be my favorite of the three? But also it makes me think of watching it a bunch of times with my friends in middle school, and waiting for the brief shots of James Marsden without his glasses on /o\

Wednesday night I got a call from my sister saying that she was locked out and I'm the only one with a key, so her friend had to drive her out to get it. And since I was coming home the next night anyway, I went along so she wouldn't have to come back out. They laughed at me for feeling bad about skipping classes. But also it's always super weird to listen to her and her friends talk, because they all went to Burncoat and all they talk about are other people from Burncoat that they still see, and there's all these names that I vaguely remember once they mention them but haven't thought of in years, and I can't remember what most of them look like. Mostly it just makes me really glad I don't spend all of my time with people from high school!

Things I have done while being home: watched lots of television.
Things I have not done: Work on my essay even though next week is going to be killer enough without it :(

Ugh, why is it so hard to send simple emails?

UGH I got so angry in gender studies today. Usually the discussions are just a party of "my issues, let me show you them," but today there was actually good stuff going on. And then someone raised her hand and said that while obviously there's a glass ceiling, she didn't think women were treated any differently in the workplace. AND THEN someone said she thought we were really starting to hate on men, and men have gender expectations to live up to as well, and we should really think about what we're saying. lskdajlsfjdk RAGE. Could you possibly miss the point any more? No one was insulting men, people were making really good points about how AS A WHOLE, SYSTEMICALLY, men are trained to see women as less than themselves. At no point did anyone get insulting, it was very fact-based, and when she brought that out I couldn't say anything because just what the actual fuck? No, we did not need to tone it down, no we don't really need to remember individuals who act differently because they are outliers when we are discussing the fucking system. UGH.

Then came politics, and one day I'm just going to walk out of the class and throw myself off the roof of the library.

But in nice news, squash was really fun today, and Wil Wheaton's Big Bang Theory episode last night was highly entertaining. Also I watched Greek over lunch today, and while I miss the days when Rusty wasn't a giant vortex of suck and Calvin didn't have an awful boyfriend (go back to Heath!), it was also good times. ♥Ashleigh♥ and ♥Kappa Taus♥

Yesterday I went to King Richard's Faire for the first time! :D I've wanted to go for so long and never gotten the chance, but it was so cool. the_wanlorn very awesomely picked me up, drove us out there, and then I sort of forced her to make all of the decisions about what to look at. But there were musicians and other performers and so many beautiful costumes and lots of strange but awesome ones, and tigers! And it was all in among the trees which I hadn't realized, and muddy and slightly cold which is perfect walking-around-in-boots weather. And the actual rain held off until we were about ready to leave anyway. A++ day, would do again. Particularly since I'd still like to see jousting! But omg pretty dresses and giant cats drinking milk from bottles :D


How did it get to be 5 already?? asdjkl Today was supposed to be a day of Working On Shit, not a day of napping and reading Due South fic. Also firefox, please stop freezing up. I am trying to watch Rihanna be gorgeous here.

It's Vegas Night here! So of course I am sitting in my room writing a paper on advertisements in the 1920s. Which I am kind of failing at, but this is okay because I maybe have topics for two final papers and an independent study, and some sources for one of those papers, and if I can get another page of this it can be called for the night. And we are ignoring the politics midterm about which I know nothing until Monday!

There has been no snow here today as promised, though. I don't love snow massive amounts and I totally get sick of it by partway through the winter (although complaining about snow is as much one of the great winter things as enjoying snow), but I was really hoping for some flurries to walk through.

OH GOODNESS people are apparently coming to my room to pregame?

What I did with my fall break:

-Make ( this )

-Watch large amounts of The West Wing.

-Play squash with fortevivace

-Sleep a lot.

What I did not do with my fall break:

-Figure out the bus schedule and get over to see Whip It.

-Clean the room. Nevermind, I just did.

-Most of my homework. Although I did look at my calendar and discover the next few weeks are going to suck, assignment-wise? /o\

So apparently Stephen Gately has died, which is quite sad. But also led to watching Boyzone videos on youtube and oh my goodness could you be creepyfacing any harder all over the Key to My Life video, Stephen Gately? The entire thing is pretty hilarious, if you can get past his TERRIFYING ~seductive~ looks.

Oh, Brothers & Sisters, of course you start the first few minutes of the season off with a car accident. YOU NEVER LET ME DOWN. Between that, Kitty's illness, and Scotty and Kevin's surrogacy drama, it looks like another glorious season. Although I'm not sure anything beats that time Tommy escaped to Mexico to live on a commune.

Northern Maine! A delightful place. Well, sort of. I had an awesome time with everyone up there, even if it was absolutely exhausting. And I had forgotten to tell my roommate I wasn't coming back Sunday like she was, and didn't have cell reception so didn't get the text she sent asking. So apparently if I hadn't got back by yesterday, she was going to tell our SA that she was worried I'd gone missing or something. Whoops!

( Here are some pictures of Maine )