Nature in its many forms

Well, it's only been an obnoxiously long time since I posted anything here. I'm sorry about that; I had probably 3/4 of a post ready, but by now, it's full of random stories that happened weeks ago, so it's a little out of date. Let me see if I can sum it up in one sentence:

It snowed a little bit after I procrastinated on an essay, and then I got a purple plaid cape(/poncho, I guess) when my grandparents came for Family Weekend, which was really fun, and then I played with clay, drew a comic of myself procrastinating on my essay, got an umbrella in the mail, and started learning to sing a song in Japanese.

Yeah, that was basically it. Just... not nearly that concise.

But now, we'll pick up with this weekend. On Saturday, I went to a performance of the local symphony as an assignment for Music 101 (pretty awesome assignment, huh?). The theater in this town is actually surprisingly pretty, considering the population and isolation. Small, but pretty. And the symphony was good, too. They had a guest soloist, a 15-year-old viola prodigy girl who's apparently toured abroad and earned a lot of respect for her playing. My friend from my class and I both thought she had a few iffy moments in the piece she played with the symphony (not that either of us is particularly knowledgeable about viola playing), but she came back afterwards and played a solo that she composed herself, and I thought it was really good. Overall, a fun evening.

Then the next morning, I got up early and headed north for a few hours on a trip with the Japanese Club to a Japanese Garden a little ways outside of Chicago. It's apparently one of the best Japanese Gardens in the US, and it was definitely super beautiful (I took almost 400 pictures while we were there). First, we got to watch a reenactment of a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony, which was cool, and then we ate a disappointingly-non-Japanese (and pricey) brunch at the garden's restaurant. However, we did get delicious Jasmine tea, and I got one of my friends to do me a favor and take this picture for me:

This is me drinking tea in a Japanese garden while wearing a plaid cape. OMGDUDELIFEISWIN. Behold your new Queen's Chair...

But no, seriously, it was a super fun trip. Here are a few of the pictures I took, so you can see how pretty it was:

Gorgeous, huh? We've been having really nice weather these past few days, which made it even better. And I can't tell you how happy I was to get off this campus and out of this town for a little while. Even if it meant driving past three hours of corn to get there (I guess we drove through some towns at the end, but really, I mean it...). Plus, three of my friends went, too, so we got to spend a day hanging out and enjoying the stunning scenery at the garden. A day well spent, in my opinion!

But now it's back to normal life for the week. I have my second FP essay due Friday (way to ruin the week, there), and either this week or next week (hopefully this week) I pre-register for Winter classes. Problem is, I have no idea what I'm going to take. I had a schedule sort of in mind, but then I realized that the three classes were all basically at the same time. What?! I think I can make two of the work, in theory, but I don't know what I'll take for my third class. Please, please, advisor, don't tell me to fill that slot with my math requirement class. I'm still hoping that if I ignore it for long enough, it'll go away.

The only other interesting thing I can think of to talk about is ladybugs. I'd always kind of liked ladybugs; at the very least, they seemed like about the least bothersome of all bugs back home. But over here, they've gone through some freaky population explosion over the past week or so, and then another huge burst in the past day. These things are everywhere. Swarms of them. Inside, outside, ladybugs. For some reason, I had it in my head that they were a Spring sort of bug, not an Autumn bug, but I'm telling you, the cold weather hit, and they started springing up from the ground like the armies of the undead. Is that normal around here? Because it's weirding me out just a little bit.

That was an unusually short update, but I can't think of anything else to say right now. Aside from my exciting weekend and the insect infestation, things are pretty much just plodding along here. I'll try and stay on the lookout for other exciting things so I can keep you better updated. Until next time!

Sick and decorating

It's been a while since I've gotten a chance to post a blog update. I kind of wish I could say, "Oh yeah, you didn't miss much," because that would mean I'd have less to type now, but unfortunately, it's been a busy week. Fortunately, though, my laziness means that I have to pick and choose the stories I tell, meaning that you don't have to listen to all the random little stories-of-the-day. We'll try and stick to the interesting stuff, k?

First of all, I have been ill. Supposedly, according to the doctor at the health center, with bronchitis, but he said he couldn't be sure. Whatever this illness happened to be, though, he put me on antibiotics, which seem to be helping. Still, though, I'm coughing a lot, and I'm constantly a little tired. Hopefully it goes away soon. And since most people in my suite are sick with something, hopefully I won't just catch something else right away. That would be horrible. I would cry.

Naturally, coughing all the time and subsequently having a sore throat means I haven't been able to do much singing. So far, I've had two voice lessons, and I only sang a little at the first one, and that through a sore throat. When I went last week, right after I had talked to the health center, my teacher just let me go back and scheduled me a makeup lesson for this Friday. Hopefully I'll actually be ready to sing this Thursday. I couldn't tell you for sure yet. I have, however, been writing a few new songs, which I'll hopefully be well enough to work on better soon. I'm also still kind of hoping to find a band here, although I haven't figured out yet where to go to get one. I'll just have to keep my eyes open.

Here's some exciting news, though: My posters from China came today! And they are quite lovely. Haruhi and Shugo Chara... my wall is now complete. And I finally put my lanterns up today, too. Picture time:

I love my room. And I swear, my desk looks worse in the picture than it does in real life...

What next... Oh, I'll tell you about my shopping adventure. On Saturday, I finally decided that I was done with not having floss, fiber one pop-tarts, hanging hooks for my paper lanterns, and a whole list of other stuff, so I decided that it was shopping day. Unfortunately, I was the only one in the suite who needed to go shopping (or at least, who could at the moment--Laura was stuck here with laundry). So, I called myself a cab and set off. It was actually kind of fun. I think I now have everything I need in the room, at least for a while.

Out of the room, though... I'm going to need more warm clothes before long. The weather took another turn for the worse last night: The wind has appeared. It wasn't too cold today, but if this is any hint of what's to come, these t-shirts I've been wearing aren't going to serve me well much longer. And neither is this jacket. I don't like the cold. Illinois... why do you have to be like this... I'll never complain about the cold at home again...

I suppose I can just do one paragraph about clubs in general. I've gone to two clubs so far: Martial Arts Club and Japanese Club. I like them both. Laura was the one who first got me into the idea of Martial Arts Club, but she ended up disappointed after the first day (not structured enough for her). That was fun; we were expecting a sit-down-and-talk meeting where we would discuss what the club did last year and what it wanted to do this year, so we just wore our street clothes, but the guys running the club decided to jump right into a lesson. Front-kick, side-kick, roundhouse-kick drills are fuuuuun in skinny jeans, let me tell you... I went back to the second meeting, and I'm still debating whether to keep going - the downside is that without Laura, it seems like one other girl shows up each time, and then I'm still significantly the smallest, which makes some of the partner drills a little harder for me. Plus, most of the other people have some form of martial arts experience, and I've got one day of Kung-Fu for Writers at the Iowa Young Writers' Studio.

Never mind, I'll do clubs in two paragraphs, because I want to interject something quickly about IYWS: I found a girl in my FP class who went to IYWS 2009! She was apparently supposed to go in 2008, the year I went, in the session a few weeks before mine, which got cancelled because of the floods, so she ended up going this last year instead. I was pretty excited. Okay, back to clubs.

Conversely to Martial Arts Club, I was the one who convinced Laura to come with me to Japanese Club, and she only agreed to come because it was a sushi party, and she wanted sushi--even then, she felt guilty about coming because she was just going for the food. But it turned out that a) that was really all the meeting was about, anyway, and b) judging by how surprised the people running the club were at the number of attendees, Laura was not the only one. But it served the club well in at least one case, because the bribed Laura completely into loyalty, and she excitedly signed up for the e-mail list the next time we passed it in the hallway.

The club I was really excited for coming in was the Ballroom Dance Club (yes, I did just make a third paragraph for clubs--my fingers keep typing, and I can't stop them, you see), but I couldn't go to the meeting last week because I had just learned that morning that I had bronchitis. I found out yesterday at dinner, though, that a bunch of girls from my suite are in it, and they said it's really fun, so I think I'll go this week. I've always thought it would be fun to learn ballroom dancing. There's a chance that'll become my exercise club instead of martial arts club. Although ballroom dancing is less likely to help me fight back if I'm ever attacked by somebody...

...on second thought, those front kicks we were doing just seemed to me like violent développés, so maybe...dance can be used as a fighting technique...like the Queen's Waltz...hahahaha...*gazes up at Shugo Chara poster*

Yeah, that's it for the moment. If I forgot anything vitally important, I'll let you know when I remember.

Words, words...

I can't think of anything to write for my Talking Point for FP, so I'll do this instead. I like you guys more than that essay we're reading, anyway. Just let me go pick another Hello! Project song on YouTube and we'll get going.

I'm really on a J-pop kick right now. It all started with Buono!, and then I discovered the rest of Hello! Project (I'm sorry about all the exclamation points - please continue right through them; they love their punctuation marks); Morning Musume, Berryz Koubou, °C-ute... I've pretty much stuck with the big three so far, plus Buono!. It's all cute and fun and happy-making, and it's really easy to listen to while I do homework because I don't get distracted by the words if I can't understand them. My goal is to be able to understand them eventually, though.

But I highly doubt you checked my blog thinking, "Man, I really hope she goes off on a long spiel about Japanese pop music today." Therefore, let's talk about college instead. Or at least about life in general here, since it's the weekend, so there hasn't been all that much class stuff going on.

First and foremost, I've been feeling a little beat up these past few days. My voice is still shot (had I mentioned here yet that it's been kind of out all week? It hasn't been functioning quite properly starting, ironically, the day after I got my new guitar), and I've been coughing frequently and sneezing more than I would like. I haven't had a fever or anything, so I'm not crying flu, but I haven't been particularly energetic. Also, ever since last night, my side has been hurting. I have no idea why. My shoulder pain from a few days ago can be attributed to carrying that printer, but this side pain appeared after I had watched a movie. Man, that's some strenuous work, right there, movie watching. It's been driving me crazy today, but hopefully it'll go away by tomorrow. I'm just bummed that it stopped me from going back to the fitness center this weekend.

Instead, I wound up at the library today. Our library is pretty awesome - it looks kind of like a castle from the outside, and it feels kind of like a small Hogwarts inside. Except that when I walked into the room I studied in, I thought I caught the faint scent of a gerbil cage. Then again, I didn't notice it after a few minutes, and when I walked back into the main library, I thought I smelled French toast, so I'm not sure my sense of smell is entirely to be trusted.

While I was there, though, I spent a little over an hour working on my Katakana. We'll start learning Katakana in Japanese class soon, and judging by how quickly we went through the Hiragana, I'll be very happy to be a bit ahead. I finished going through all the symbols in the workbook I brought from home, and I wrote in my own little memory tricks under the diagrams. They're really handy little tricks that the rest of the class probably wouldn't understand (for example, "kYOn's desk is right in front of Haruhi's"; "HIroki may go sit in the corner"; "TOno carries his sword everywhere"; "RAn is very loud"; "YUu always drops his books"; "Tadase will RUle the world!" - I'm especially proud of my joint trick for KU and TA, which only my sister will get and I'll have to draw for her sometime). Then I abruptly remembered the vocab quiz tomorrow morning, but I found out that I already know all the words on the list (let me tell you, I know the word "denwa" - I don't have any strong feelings about telephones in general, but that happens to be one of my favorite words, thanks to "Kyon-kun, denwa").

What else... Well, I finished the second of my collage notebooks. This one's for Music:

I'm happy with the way it came out. What a combination: Charlotte Sometimes, Lenka, The Hush Sound, the cast of Le Roi Soleil, and Ikuto with his violin. Okay, so he's a little out of place, but I love the brightness the giant moon adds to the whole thing, so he got to stay. Also, I'm really on with this motif thing (the cherry blossoms and butterflies one the Japanese notebook, and now the stars on this one). They're such a pain to plan out and glue on, but they make it so much more fun!

Oh, here's a funny story: Down in the mailroom, there are these little signs pinned up and in everyone's mailboxes saying that if you make things that you want to sell in the bookstore, you can do so. My natural instinct, of course, was, "Ooh, what artistic hobby should I start right now so I can sell stuff?" But I sadly decided that it was probably not a practical idea and went back to my room. Laura was there, and when I came in, she excitedly brought me over to show me something: That same piece of paper. Apparently, she had the same reaction. We joked about glueing together the packing peanuts from the box I had picked up and trying to sell them.

Speaking of that box, it brought Firefly to me, and I intend to show it to Laura as soon as we have time. I reminded her of that at breakfast yesterday, and Brett heard and got excited. Apparently, someone had lent Firefly and Serenity to him a while ago, but he hadn't bothered to watch them yet (so sad, ne?), so I said he should watch, too. And then as I was trying to explain to him why Serenity was good, but just couldn't possibly fill in all the holes Firefly left after its abrupt cancellation, Kylie joined in. And Blair knew Buffy, I think (so did Brett - he explained to Laura that Spike is the best character). So now I'm excited - hopefully we'll get a little Firefly party together next weekend and go watch a few episodes.

Also concerning mail, I'm expecting my last couple of packages this week. As soon as I get the last bits of decoration done in my room (the coming posters will play a part in that), I'll take a picture and show you. I've done pretty well at keeping it clean so far, so I'll have to make sure and at least keep it nice for the photo.

Ugh, I wanted to get to bed around now. I'm so tired, but I still have stuff I need to doooo... kind of... I can do it tomorrow, actually...

But let me finish up real quick. I only have a couple more stories I wanted to tell. First off, I didn't get to a store this weekend. Kelsey, the girl with a car who drove us to the store when we got my guitar, was gone all weekend visiting her mom in Chicago, so I didn't really have anyone to ask for a ride. Hopefully I can go sometime this week - I'd really rather not wait until the weekend to get my stuff. My list is growing.

Also, I did something absolutely horrible today: I went to brush a piece of eraser dust off of my Japanese notebook, and I got a spot of water on Tadase's head. At which I freaked out and got it off as quickly as I could. It's pretty much fixed. Catastrophe basically averted.

So yeah, not all that much of interest. I realize now that this entry was basically one really long string of references. I guess to some of you, it's mostly, as Hamlet put it, words. Words, words, WYYYOOOUURDS.

Yes, that was a reference, too. At least this time, it was to classic literature. Well, a move adaptation of classic literature. Gilderham Locklet. AP English 12 had its awesome moments.

...I really need to sleep now... g'night, everyone...

Everything, belated

I keep having things to tell you, but no time to do it! Hopefully I can remember everything. I'll go look at my last post to make sure I don't get confused and tell you the same story twice.

Oh, right. Now I remember where we are. Monday evening. I think all I did between that blog post and going to bed was to check my e-mail and see that the club messages were starting to come. One was a message from the Japanese Club about a meeting the following evening. The other was from Gaelic Fire, the Irish dance club. I had actually completely forgotten that I'd signed up for that one - I joined it a) because I was so surprised that we had one, b) because it made me think of Aryn and the time she tried to teach me an Irish dance, and c) I was going around joining most of the exercise-related clubs. Unfortunately, their first practice was scheduled for the exact same time as the Japanese Club meeting, and Japanese won that battle. So, with that decision made, I went to sleep.

Tuesday... Oh, right. I woke up the next morning with a mysterious pain in my shoulders. Like, I spent all day trying to massage away the extreme tension. That, and trying to figure out where the pain could possibly have come from. I hadn't done much with weights in the gym the day before, and what I had done didn't seem to involve my shoulders at all. And other than that, what had I done? It took me until the evening to figure it out: Can anyone say, "Carrying a printer box half your size across campus"? Gooooood.

Well, I had to get it back here somehow. ^^; Totally worth it.

And you want to see why? I finished my first notebook collage yesterday! As you'll probably be able to tell, it's my Japanese notebook. My logic is this: In Japanese 101, especially first term, it's perfectly acceptable to cover your notebook with pictures of anime characters. Enough of the people who take Japanese got into it because of anime that no one's really going to judge you for it. Maybe by the time you get to third term, and definitely by second year, you want your notebook to start showing a better depth of understanding - some cultural symbols or some of the kanji you've learned, for example. But if you're just starting out and it makes you obnoxiously excited to be able to flip your notebook closed and point to the character who said the new words and phrases you're learning, then by all means, go for it.

Plus, they're all so very pretty/cute/awesome. Observe:

Plus, I finally found a good use for some of the Hiragana stickers I bought before leaving home (they were so cute, I just had to). They add a nice little pop of glitter, as well as a good use for Itsuki's speech bubble. Itsuki and Nagihiko have each already had a minor peeling emergency, though, so I may have to find a better way to fix the pictures on, especially the ones on the bottom edge. I managed to disguise the cut-off top of Nagi's head, though...

But right, we were still on Tuesday. The only class I have on Tuesdays is the FP common experience, which is a meeting of all of the first-years to watch a film of to hear a lecture. This week we watched a German movie called The Lives of Others. Fabulous movie. It's about a Stasi officer in the GDR before the wall came down. It was all in German with English subtitles (luckily, I'm well-adjusted to subtitles). The idea is that we then incorporate the films into our discussions in class on Wednesday, which is cool. Especially if the movies keep being this good. We're watching Hotel Rwanda in a few weeks, which I hear is very good also, so I have high hopes.

After the movie, I went over to the fitness center again. I seriously love that place; it's like my new home-away-from-home-away-from-home. The times I've been there, at least, it hasn't been all that crowded, and it's nice and quiet for listening to music. Who'd have thunk that the gym would be my calming escape place? College is just full of surprises, I suppose.

Then I went back to the dorm, finished up my homework, and went to bed.

But something's missing, right?

When I signed out at the fitness center, writing "6:30" must have triggered something in my brain, because I suddenly remembered about the Japanese club meeting that was supposed to start at 6:00. Oops. Sumimasen, minna. Next time. I got the e-mail today about what they discussed at the meeting, and I saw posters for the welcome/sushi party, so I'll get there in time.

Now let's see, did anything interesting happen yesterday? Well, for those curious about what song I finally ended up turning in for Music 101 ('cause I'm sure you were all on the edges of your seats about that, there), I chose Imogen Heap's "The Walk". I do love that song, and it just seemed to work somehow. It could be in part because it's a ship song for the story I've been half-working on lately, but it's a good song nonetheless. Never mind the reasons, right? And on the subject of Music 101, have you ever listened to Medieval chant? It's pretty cool, actually. We just got to the part where they invented rhythm in class today.

I mean, like... that's kind of an odd way to put it, but it's kind of the truth at the same time...

Also, I had my first voice lesson today. I really don't know what I think yet; my teacher seems nice (actually, she used to live near UP - she's close friends with one of the music guys (I think) at PLU), which is cool, and it sounds like she knows things I can work on, and she told me she's had other students who've had vocal injuries before, so I guess that's all a good sign. It sounds like I'll be singing an Italian song first, though, and unfortunately, it sounds like there's no way out of the studio classes (basically, we have to sing for everyone else taking voice lessons from her - kill me now) or the concert, which sucks just a little. It also sounds like we will definitely be sticking to the classical music list, which is what I expected and not such a bad thing when you don't factor in the performing part. We'll have to see how it goes. I'm going to try and stay positive, but I'm a little skeptical.

I guess that might be about it. I learned that the convenience store in my building doesn't carry floss, although it does carry three kinds of deodorant, three kinds of fabric softener, and dish soap (which, admittedly, I also needed, and now have). I guess I need other stuff from a real store by this weekend, anyway. And it's already Thursday. I wish the stores were a bit closer. As it is, they're not quite within walking distance, so I need to find someone who has a car who can drive me somewhere.

It's getting a bit colder over here. Leaves falling, all that. I'm not ready for winter. I wouldn't mind a little bit more summer...

Precision

My printer came today! And so did my two new pairs of jeans, the fresh contacts that I'd left at home (I think I was technically supposed to change a few days ago, so that's a relief), and... whatever else was in that box. Useful little things. But also my printer!

I can't remember if I went to the mailroom two or three times today, waiting for the little yellow package slip to show up in my box. It finally did, and I took it up to the counter, elated that I'd FINALLY get to start the notebook collages that I've been collecting pictures for ever since I got here. Then they handed me a light little cardboard box from home that I knew contained the jeans/contacts/etc.

Very useful, but I can hardly print collage pictures out of pants. Just saying.

Since Dad told me over the weekend that according to the Internet, my printer had already been delivered, I gave the girl behind the counter a very sad look and told her that I really thought my printer was back there somewhere. She went and looked, and lo and behold, she came back with another box, this one with pictures of a printer all over it. 'Course, that box was half my size, and I had to lug it back to my room (up two different flights of stairs) with the other box balanced on top of it, but I made it, and I can now proudly say that the pictures for my notebook collages have been printed!

I can less-proudly say that in all the time I spent rearranging and resizing those pictures so they would nicely fill up two notebook covers (my FP notebook is just going to be flairs off Facebook), I somehow never accurately took into account the fact that the Word window on the computer is smaller than a piece of paper. Imagine my shock as the first thing that comes out of my new printer is an Itsuki Koizumi half the size of my head. ^^; I may have to reprint him... and all the other gigantic people I printed... but then again, maybe not. Maybe they'll work better this way. I'mma test them all out and see first before I go printing them "younger twin" siblings.

Anyway, here are the raw materials, in case you were curious:

I'll show you the actual collages when they're finished, but just for reference, the three notebooks are somewhat themed in terms of their pictures: The anime characters, with one exception, are for my Japanese notebook, the bands/singers/musical instruments are for my Music 101 notebook (including Ikuto with his violin, because that's musical - I wanted Nagato with her guitar and Utau singing with Black Diamond, too, but I couldn't find decent pictures), and as I said, the flairs are for my FP notebook (since it's all about conversations, and a lot of flairs - most if not all of the ones I picked out - are sharing an opinion as one would do in a conversation). I've cut out almost three pages so far, but that still leaves nine to go. I'm so looking forward to these, though...

Anyway, school related stuff. We got a ridiculously hard piece of homework in Music today: On Wednesday, we have to bring in a CD with our favorite song on it. She's going to listen to them, and then probably bring some out later in the term for us to analyze. I... I just... don't ever ask me to choose favorites! I don't knooooow! I guess "Patient Patient" by the Morning Benders is one of my favorites, but for me, at least, it kind of an acquired taste, and it's not overall a great snapshot of my musical style. The song I can't stop listening to right now is "My Boy" by Buono!, but I don't think I can seriously turn in an electro- J-pop song as my assignment in my classical music class - besides, I haven't had it long enough to constitute a "favorite song". I discovered recently that "Candy Pop" is like the world's greatest happy-pill, but half-English, half-Japanese bubblegum hip-hop? That's the weirdest yet. Nonono. Not happening.

It's more likely that I'll go with something off Imogean Heap's album Speak for Yourself. She's got a really cool style, and I've been listening to her a fair amount recently (not to mention that it seems like the artists I admire keep listing her as one of the artists they admire). Maybe "The Walk" or "Clear the Area" or "Loose Ends". Then I guess there's always old classics, like Bad Astronaut's "Minus", or other ones I got more recently, like Razorlight's "Golden Touch". Or, I could be totally different and awesome and give her a Kitaro song - "Shizuku" or "As the Wind Blows" or something. I do love Kitaro; he holds a very unique "favorite artist" spot for me, but he's definitely got one. And new-age might be easier to analyze along the lines of classical. But I mostly just listen to Kitaro when I'm writing or relaxing. Can I really count one of his as my favorite song?

*dies*

Oh well, I'll figure that out tomorrow. All I have class-wise tomorrow is that late-afternoon preceptorial thing, which is a movie tomorrow (I can't remember which one). I'll have plenty of time for homework (I didn't do quite as much as I should have today, I have to admit), and hopefully I'll get to the fitness center again. And, of course, I'll carefully, precisely cut and glue little pictures. And find a way to make them all fit, and figure out what to do with the top of Nagihiko's inconveniently-cut-off head.

And the weekend ends...

I found Buono! on iTunes! I'm totally loving "My Boy" (wouldn't have expected that sort of electro-rock from them when I first heard "Kokoro no Tamago" and "Honto no Jibun", but they seriously pull it off). And they have the full version of "Omakase Guardian", too. No more weird, short, Internet version for meeeee...

But enough about that. Stories of what I did today.

First, I slept in (shocker, eh?), and then I ate brunch. Actually, after sleeping in and before eating brunch, Laura's family came by to drop off some more of her stuff: Her laptop, a mirror, lots of random things that I don't remember because I was making Japanese flashcards at the time. They then went into town so Laura could pick up some stuff from the art store (have I mentioned yet that she's an incredible artist? She's taking Drawing this term, so I'm super excited to see her homework). I stayed here and started reading my Music 101 homework.

That meant reading 55 pages of the basics of music - that stuff I didn't know on the diagnostic test on Friday. The problem was that within those 55 pages, I did know a majority of what they said. Not to mention that they used a ton of metaphors and examples and unnecessary flowery phrases (I'm very sick of hearing about "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" now, although I find it kind of funny that the book talked about it so much the day after I watched that clip from Star Trek that Laura and Brett were talking about where they're camping and they sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"). Nonetheless, I had to go through the whole thing, reading carefully enough to find those few things that I don't know and picking out technical definitions that no one's ever fully explained to me (like how a "tune" is different from a "melody", and all those different words for "rhythm" that those not in-the-know use interchangeably, etc.). And now I have to come up with one or two more decent questions I had about the reading for class tomorrow. It was all awfully self-explanatory, aside from some of it being slightly unclear under all the prose, but that's more my fault than something I can legitimately ask in class.

I think I'm overthinking this. I think that's what I always do.

Anyway, also on the subject of music, my voice teacher e-mailed me the syllabus for voice lessons. I'm a little not pleased about them. For example, she expects us to do at least 30 or 45 minutes or practice every day, requires us to do extra stuff like attending studio classes (I'm not even sure what they are) and being in charge of getting all our music to our accompanists, and, worst of all, requires us to perform in a recital.

I don't want to perform in a recital. My voice is not cut out for art songs, and I've yet to find one that I love enough to put in the practice necessary to pull it off. I really, really don't want to get shoved onto a stage, a freshman and straight out of vocal rehab, and forced to sing some art song in German (that was one of the four languages on the list). The reason I'm taking lessons is so I can learn how to sing safely. I never said I wanted to be an art singer. I don't. I have a gut feeling that this is going to end badly. And I'm getting graded, too. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

Maybe it'll turn out better than it sounds like it's going to. We'll see. I'm a little freaked, though.

On a happier note, today was a day of firsts. I just got back from doing laundry for the first time. And I only had to call my mom three times! But you know what? I did two loads and handwashed a few things, and from what I can tell, they all came out un-damaged. That's a win, in my opinion. It took forever, though; at least I was able to work on homework some of that time.

And before that, I went to the fitness center for the first time, even though my "special trainer" hasn't arrived yet (hahahahahahaha...haha...ha...oh God, I'm losing it...). It's a really nice facility. Hopefully I'll be able to get there more often now; I'm getting settled in, so it seems like I will. I felt much better and healthier after exercising, and it's really not that far away from the dorm (I mean, it's 3/4 of the way across campus, but campus is small enough that it's a fairly quick walk). I may change my tune when winter hits, but as long as it stays warm like this, I'm not going to think too hard about winter.

Oh, right, the other depressing thing that happened today is that the elastic on my favorite purple hat broke for no clear reason. I just went to put it on, and it snapped. I need to find out where I can get another one like it pronto. I'll put that on my "Shopping List Mk. 2" (yes, Morgan, that's really what I titled it - Noodleman's rubbing off on me). What are the odds that Target or WalMart is going to have a hat like my purple one? Probably slim... oh, man, it's so depressing...

Okay, I've stalled here long enough. Back to homework, and then to bed. I've got about half a page left to write for FP and that last question or two for Music. What can I ask? "What is the meaning behind the words of 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat'?"...

Trade-Offs

Last night/this morning marked the very first Post Suite 1 midnight pancake-fest.

I don't know whose idea it was; I just know that yesterday afternoon, someone mentioned to me that they were planning to go down to the kitchen in the basement around midnight to make pancakes. I got on board (and brought Laura along with me), and somewhere around 12:30 am, the seven of us who were still awake went down to the basement, armed with a frying pan, a box of pancake mix, and the mix-ins that the initiating girls found in their rooms. Laura's boyfriend, Brett, ended up coming down to join us, too - I don't think I've mentioned him here yet. Since they lived nearby, they both ended up coming here. He's basically become an honorary member of our suite; I don't know the whole story, but it sounds like he got a bad roommate, so he doesn't seem to like to hang out around his room, and he does like to hang out with Laura. Besides, as someone put it last night, he just fits in like one of the girls. He's a nice guy, and a pretty hard-core Trekkie. I'm getting pretty used to having him around most of the time I'm with Laura and we're out of the suite.

Anyway, we were all downstairs making pancakes. The mix-ins that we had included cinnamon, chocolate (sometimes melted and sometimes in bar form), toffee peanuts (crushed up), apples, pears, sugar, and mint. It was pretty much ridiculously fun. I think we all ate way too many pancakes (and not particularly healthy pancakes, at that), but they were actually surprisingly good, considering the random ingredients. Like, I would make them again. We at the table (Katie and Kiley were the main ones cooking) were even talking about making it and event/club (and laughing about how Knox seemed like the kind of place where we'd seriously be able to do that).

Somewhere around 1:00 (I'm guessing), a girl walked by, and we offered her a pancake. She ended up eating two and sticking around for a while. It was pretty amazing. I don't think I got to bed until 2:30, but it was worth it. Crazy fun.

Of course, that meant I wasn't getting up very early this morning. Still, it was a productive day: I bought my FP books, I did my weekend reading for FP, I did some studying for Monday's Japanese quiz, I (along with Kelsey, who's in the class with me) e-mailed my Music 101 teacher to ask what we should do about the fact that the books we bought from the school bookstore didn't come with the DVD we're supposed to watch as a part of our homework, I found out when my voice lessons are, and I went to the music store with Laura and Kelsey.

And guess what I did there! I got my guitar! Isn't it gorgeous?

It's much fancier than the guitar I have at home. To begin with, it's an acoustic-electric, so it can be plugged into an amp (the singer-songwriter who sang in the lobby the other day had one, too, and it seemed like a useful thing). Plus, it's got a built-in tuner, which is especially helpful now that I don't have a keyboard in my room to use for tuning. And then, it just generally seems to be nicer. Which, of course, means pricier, although I managed to haggle the price down a bit. It's kind of depressing being in charge of my own money, sometimes... But it was really, really bothering me not to have a guitar, and this one's fabulous enough to be my new main one.

Also, it sounds like my printer arrived today (according to the Internet), but the mailroom doesn't open until Monday. I guess I won't be able to do my notebook collages until then (I only have FP Common Experience on Tuesday, though, so that'll be during a two-day homework stretch, which isn't too bad). I'm still waiting on several other boxes/tubes/etc. that should be in the mail, too. You will certainly be updated when they arrive. Lucky you. It's actually kind of fun to have mail to keep looking forward to...

I probably should get back to my homework. I'll go talk to myself in Japanese for a bit, and then maybe start on my paper-thing for FP. So far, the workload's not too terrible. I had to read 46 pages (which equates to about half the book) of Conversation by Theodore Zeldin, which is sort of like the centerpiece of FP (which, I think I already mentioned, is being taught around the theme "Conversations in a World of Strangers"), but it's turning out to be pretty interesting. We have four more books after this, and this one's by far the shortest, but I'll get through it.

Tomorrow I should probably do a load of laundry, and I'll try and make it over to the gym to work out. I'll tell you how all that goes.