(warning: particularly old content) I don't ask for it to make sense 
12/31/01
We'll pretend that I wrote this before I went to my Aunt Nancy's place last night. I can't believe that I'm spending New Years with my two cousins. Ick. How they turned out so unmannerly I just cannot understand.
How ignomious, that my asthmatic tendencies should contrive to get triggered by so little as a hike up a pasture on a cold day. Dry air, bitter cold, and exertion don't seem to do me any favors. I was flattered that the dogs went out with me—they always have, of course, but considering how few people they let walk them up there that aren't Grandma and Grandpa, I take it as a signal honor on each occasion. Though how much of an honor getting overrun by three dogs who weigh more than me is, I'm not sure. That and coming in, taking off my shoes, and promptly walking over dog-trodden ice on the carpet. That's always a joy.
12/29/01
Well, it's starting to sink in that I let myself in for a long stay here by myself (my grandmother said that she wasn't sure I was quite sane to do it). Good thing I brought lots of books, and I'll certainly catch up on my sleep... but I'm going to be pretty b-o-r-e-d soon in here. The annoying thing is that I can't be bored in peace—if Grandma finds out, she'll pester me to no end about what I want to do, with the problem being that I don't know what I want to do in Colorado, really. I'd like to see my cousins and aunt and uncle briefly, but only briefly, as they tend to annoy me; I'd like to go shopping for books at B&N to use my gift card, but those are only a couple days of stuff to do. I'll get together with Stanford Mike sometime next week, which'll be fun... I really should go out hiking at least once. Ah well... I suppose I'll just end up resting, which is the best of what can be done on vacation, anyway.
12/28/01
In all fairness, I did try to write something yesterday, but the telnet/ssh programs I tried to get working on my grandparents' computer kinda, well, coughed and died. Yay for NiftyTelnet, though, and yay for the fact that they've finally replaced their old dinosaur (with a very pretty and quite-what-I-want G4). It's cold and there's snow on the ground here, but blue-skied and sunny. As long as it isn't actively snowing in Colorado, I quite enjoy the winters here. Now, there was something that I was going to say yesterday, but now all I can remember was some rumination on how certain British accents pronounce "a" like "er"—like Patrick Stewart's "Dater" for "Data" and the CNN newsgirl's "Indier" for "India." Weird Brits.
12/26/01
I went to see Ali with my father tonight; an interesting movie, particularly because I wasn't brushed up enough on my history to know the outcome of the final fight shown, but at a crawling 2:47, way too slowly paced. It was quite amazing to see the physical change in Will Smith—he looked more like Ali than himself. My round-eyed round-tummied cat is calling me to sleep; the nicest thing about being home is that I can't keep Niko from sleeping with me unless I lock her out.
12/25/01
(yawn) A good Christmas take, with the clear winner being Jim's set of knives to me. I've done very little today except to play with my brother and the DVDs I gave him—I call it skills that I managed to give him the first two that he was planning on buying for himself. The Phantom Menace DVD (set), just as rumored, proves to be most interesting; particularly the test sequences of the animations (heh). But I still don't like the movie much—the Trade Federation's dreadful accents, Jar Jar, Anakin and his mother's awful diction, the pointless pod race, midi-chlorians, Samuel L. Jackson's wooden ridiculousness... Even Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson and Amidala's costumes and the beautiful fight scenes just don't make it worth it. And when I say that Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson can't fix a movie for me, that's BAD. I mean, hell, even KRULL is better.
12/24/01
Ugh, I really must have been tired to write something that idiotic last night. "Drop-dead deadly?" C'mon, Jen, what were you thinking?
12/23/01
I saw The Fellowship of the Ring again last night. It's such a beautiful compression of that book, even if they cut up Gimli and Legolas' parts to nearly nothing. Samwise is just as I would have him be, tear-jerking and all when he won't let Frodo go into Mordor alone. Merry and Pippin are just as adorably moronic yet valiant as they should be (and oh, oh, that scene when they charge the oncoming orc army by themselves after Boromir is shot has made me sniffle both times now). Gandalf has the right sort of curmudgeonly presence, and the movie makers restrained from having his magic be all pyrotechnics, which would have been totally wrong... and Legolas is exactly as femmy yet drop-dead deadly as I craved.
12/22/01
Sigh. I don't wanna talk about anything; not that I'm a bad mood, really, I just feel wiped out.
12/19/01
You know you've got a good thing going when you come out of a theater, sit down in a car, and immediately start flailing your hands (in front of your boyfriend, no less) and screaming "OH MY FUCKING GOD, HE WAS SO BAD ASS!" I mean, Legolas is one of my favorite characters in the book, but DEAR GOD. I do believe I'm in love—it was the sticking the orc in the eye with the arrow by hand and then shooting it at another that did it. Mmmm mmm.
12/18/01
It'd been a little while since I was the instigator of a group hang-out event. I'd forgotten that it was as fun as it is; Ghostbusters and pizza with Patrick, Max, and Brandon was just what I needed tonight.
12/17/01
Civ III and its Admin privledge reqs can suck my butt.
12/16/01
Some Christmas shopping done, some ice cream eaten, and bang! That's about the extent of my day! Oh, and there's a hyperactive puppy snuffling at my leg. Yep. That's me, the productivity queen. Excuse me while I delay starting my paper for a while longer in favor of eating some more ice cream.
12/15/01
It may be weak to admit it, but I really do enjoy the movie Bring It On. I'll concede that much of the attraction lies in scrumptalicious Jesse Bradford, but that's not EVERYTHING. Just, um, most of it. Man. There's nothing quite like driving across 520 at night in a gusty rain, huddled in a vehicle just the perfect size to catch the wind (shudder).
Sigh. There must be a four-year undergraduate warranty on lab goggles; four years to the month after I bought them, my poor pair of goggles has finally disappeared. They survived months at my parents' house... they survived a summer hanging in the server room (only slightly melted)... they survived four years of various lab classes. But they couldn't survive being lent to my fellow TA Rob. I'm done I'm done I'm done... well, except for that thought-and-a-half paper due on Monday. But whateva. I've got me a nice little house with a nice little dog and a nice little computer and a nice little bunch o' loot to chill at for a while. I so win.
12/13/01
The big day come and gone... and I still have to get up at 7:30 tomorrow. Damnit.
12/12/01
I will switch over tomorrow, I promise. Considering I'm at the point now where further studying is not sinking in at all, I think it's time to hike myself to bed and pray for myself for the morrow. This whole accidently scheduling the GRE on the day of my Japanese ling final cockup is truly a cosmic flip-off.
12/11/01
I'd be a lot happier about having my internet connection back (at the week and a couple days mark) if I were at a point to enjoy it, or to remember what all it is that I wanted to upload. Instead I'm just hoping that I pause enough in my speech to have it top five minutes tomorrow. I'm just hoping that I don't get lost on the way to take the GRE day after tomorrow. I'm just hoping that I don't have an aneurism while clicking the answers that decide my next few years. I'm just hoping that there isn't a traffic jam between me and the UW campus when I'm racing back to take the Japanese Ling final. I'm just hoping that I can study enough tomorrow for that one that I won't make a fool out of myself in my favorite teacher's husband's class. If all of that can meander its way through the channels of fate and not throw me rudely into the rapids, THEN I'll enjoy my cable modem.
12/10/01
Yeah. I'm starting to stress now.
12/09/01
Video games are an addiction, no doubt about it. Or at least Civ III is—despite all best intentions to the contrary, I can't seem to stop myself from playing when I mean to. It just keeps calling to me with that siren song, "just one more turn... just until that X is built..." Bother.
12/08/01
There are few things as depressing as watching Gwen Stephani dance for someone mildly obssessed with their weight. I feel as I've gotten nothing good out of my Saturday—I've graded papers, studied for the GRE, and caught up on reading for Japan 440. I didn't even really sleep in this morning.
12/07/01
I can't do math in my head. Blah.
12/06/01
Sigh. With a chapter test tomorrow and a speech to give next week in Japanese, with two sets of papers to grade by Tuesday, with a final in Japanese linguistics and a summary assignment due next week, with the GRE to think about... what did I do tonight? Oh, I will give myself that I started on those gradings this evening at office hours and at the Roma, but when I got home? I flopped in front of a TV, made a bare potato-chopping contribution to dinner, watched ER, and played Civ III for an hour or two. Oh yeah. I've got my priorities straight, I do. Sigh.
12/05/01
Yes, yes, the whole not having cable still (DAMN AT&T AND THEIR ROUTERS) is definitely putting a cramp in my style. Thankfully, due to school stress, I haven't really had anything interesting burning to be written down. Mostly I've concerned myself for the last day or so with being horrified at what Michael Jackson has done to his nose (I saw his new music video yesterday) and being amused at something I heard in a commercial for a Disney show : "I will try to be sensitive to the fact that you're dumber than me." Stressing about my final and the GRE next week (on the same day, WOE). I'm fine on the verbal section, but my math skillz aren't really even deserving of the moniker "skills." I swear, I could add 2 + 3 and get 13; I'm just that talented. Throw me a scurrilous, fetid knave or a grandiloquent churl, and I'm fine. Ask me to find the area of an inscribed triangle, and I'm crying to Mommy.
12/03/01
I still have none of that Internet loving at my home. I am very sad.
12/02/01
Number 2 last night. I really just don't see the overweening attraction that being drunk seems to have for people. It's just kind of... there.
12/01/01
Sigh. Jen and Brandon's cable modem : another @home casualty. Oh, the humanity.