I somehow always manage to cram enough into my Mondays and Tuesdays to fill a sane person's week. Then I become burnt out, and use that as a justification to slack off the rest of the week. Then the cycle continues anew. But I can't complain about having an excuse to finally use the word "anew" in my blog. Woohoo!

I forgot last night that I was supposed to be on duty, then I forgot about a bonus assignment for one of my Econ classes. Fortunately I was able to guilt my friends into picking up food, and even more fortunately, I'm a nerd and promptly spent 2 hours on a 7.5 point bonus assignment. I'm at the library now, with a five-page research ordeal in front of me. I figured the earlier I made it here, the sooner I could begin procrastinating, and maybe I'd actually start the damn thing before dinner. I'm starting to hear from my friends that I looked tired and stressed out again - I'm wondering if 4 years of this constitutes a pattern. I realized today that I will graduate with 149 credits. Is that necessary? No, of course not. But somewhere in between AP classes, summer credits, and deciding that an Economics minor would be a good idea, those credits kinda snuck up on me.

One of my best friends has a new man in her life. She's supremely happy, and rightfully so - the guy seems more or less perfect for her. I've been watching too much Sex and the City again lately and I got to wondering - what's more realistic? The familiar high school/college model of a few dates then right on to the relationship or the more dinner-movie-fabulous club-sex-next! model on HBO? Is it just because there are less people over more area in Connecticut? If Carrie says that single women outnumber single men in Manhattan, how did the 4 of them have a (or several) new date every week? Is it more like that when you don't live in a University community? Or does everything really just happen on myspace? Do any of those girls really call livelinks at night?

Time to crank out this paper. Maybe if I use the phrase "crank out" it'll seem like less work and be easier to, well, crank out.

I had a small cappucino this morning and now my hands are shaking. This doesn't count as a victory for Casey, My Hall Director.

George Bush is teaching my Microeconomics class! See?

I've been semi-chastised for not posting since January 7th. You didn't miss a whole lot - just CA training, a general lightening of mood and organization of self, and a bag of Lay's Sour Cream and Onion chips. Everyone has their thing, that's mine.

Never shop when hungry! That's how I ended up with the chips, easy mac, and Kool Aid bursts (THEY STILL EXIST!!) - enough salt content to fulfil the daily sodium requirement of the state of Connecticut's population for a few years. You need a teaspoon a day, by the way. Sodium deficiency is very, very rare in the United States, or the western world in general.

I locked myself INTO my car the other day. That one I patted myself on the back for, because it's gotta be some kind of accomplishment. We had an ice storm the night before, and there was a layer of ice sealing my doors closed. I was able to yank open the hatchback no problem, and put in my laundry (I had been at Ryan's, land of free laundry and loving boyfriend). Then I tried to open the front door, but that was not gonna happen without some serious ice scraper persuasion. So I went in through the trunk to grab the ice scraper, and...closed the trunk door behind me. I started the car, cranked the heat, then tried to open one of the doors.....stuck. I tried another one - stuck. I threw all 120 pounds against the door - nothing. I braced myself and pushed with my legs - nothing. In disgust with my weakness I decided to climb back out through the trunk, and scrape from the outside. Turns out, and you'd think I'd have known this having been closely acquainted with the car for around 4 years, but there's no inside release for the trunk. So, let's think about this....I have the keys, I'm inside, but I can't get out. I'm effectively iced in. And way too embarrassed to try signaling a random stranger to open the trunk. I had my phone, but calling the fire department? Iced over in your own car? In the middle of the day? With renewed determination I pushed, and pushed, all in vain. I began to grow sad. Finally, I decided that I WOULD NOT be the girl the fire department had to come free, so I braced, and pushed harder than I hope I ever have to again, and the driver's side door swung open with force! And hit the car next to me.

It also crossed my mind to just drive to where I needed to go , and see if the heat had kicked in enough by then to get out, but one side of the car was covered in snow. Not an option. Today, after some thawing, each door was still partially open.

Tomorrow morning = first day of classes. My hall director thinks this whole coffee-free thing won't last, and I don't want to give him the satisfaction of being right, but tomorrow may weaken my resolve. You just watch though, I'll eventually get him to leave a comment here.

This is a test post - I needed to put something here so here's a picture from the Big E in 2004, Septemberish. 

So, I've had my head pretty much buried in Star Wars books for the past 3 days. Apparently when I wasn't looking, Del Ray published a trilogy taking place after the Yuuzhan Vong invasion (I actually got up to check on the spelling of that just now). I personally have no respect for any prequel novels after how shitty the movies turned out (I don't even feel an obligation to own Episode III, and if you know me and Star Wars, that's sort of a big deal), and if there were no more books after the Vong, then that's where I'd end it. Unless Timothy Zahn wrote any more of the novels, in which case I'd buy them, regardlesss of when they took place. But anyway, there's another trilogy (AND another Zahn book!), and I got the first one for Christmas, the second one on the way home from the New Year's party yesterday, and the third one today. Today I finished the second one and I'm more than halfway through the third. I read fast, especially when I'm in my dorkitude prime. If you're still reading at this point, i'm surprised. Here's my big gripe with the series: enough peril! There's always a new race trying to overthrow the galaxy, new warships, new characters, and tons of new injuries and impossible, fatal-for-anyone-else circumstances to throw the old characters in. What I need is less peril and more character development. I read them for the bits of the character development, and not for the adventure. I'm not sure how many I have, maybe thirty-ish, but the character development in all of them could probably fill fifteen pages. I want people to sit down and have conversations about nothing! Gossip! Kill some time! Sleep! Go to the bathroom once in awhile! And how about some love scenes? The internet is full of Star Wars fan fiction, and there's a reason for that - the fans want the characters, not the peril. The Empire and the Dark Side were evil enough for me, thanks. Each novel's villain represents a new depth of evil, something to make your blood run cold, pits in stomachs, shivers up the spine, got it. I get it! NOW TELL ME WHO JAINA ENDS UP WITH! AND GIVE ME DETAILS!

That's why I read romance novels. Anyway, here's the obligatory New Year's story. I was supposed to go Newport, RI with some friends, get drunk in a trendy club, stay overnight at some hotel with a mixed group of equally drunk friends, and that would be that. Ryan is unfortunately stuck at school for the week, because of the whole apartment CA thing. Plus he doesn't have a car, so he was pretty much stranded. I felt pretty weird about that, going off somewhere to spend a significant holiday with friends while my significant other sat by himself playing video games. But that was how it was gonna be, and I think we both had kinda accepted it.

New Year's Eve brought a snowstorm, and driving to Southington to pick up a friend was perilous. Not quite as much peril as a Star Wars novel, but compared to MY life, it was definitely one of the more perilous things that I've ever been involved in. We made it up to Manchester to meet the rest of our friends, which consisted of Ashton and Julie. Everyone else had (wisely) backed out because of the weather, with the exception of the two who had gone early and were already at the hotel. The four of us decided that the normally two-hour drive to Rhode Island was way more peril than we were willing to be involved in, especially given the late hour and fact that we wouldn't make it to any kind of party until almost midnight, and decided to make the half-hour drive to school instead. I was secretly happy because now Ryan and I would be together for New Year's. Surprise! I showed up first at his apartment with cheap champagne, with the other three only a couple minutes behind. From Ryan's we went to the Plan B party, which was given by one of Julie's high school friends and her roommates, most of whom were wearing pajamas. It was also practically across the quad from Ryan's, which meant no one had to drive anymore that night. Yay! We all crashed at Ryan's that night, or rather early that morning (close to 5 for me anyway), with Ashton literally crashing into the floor. The next morning, or rather afternoon, we scraped ourselves up and went to Friendly's. I made it back home yesterday around 7pm. I may actually put up some pictures that Kristina took, but I may not because those are the same pictures that have convinced me that I need to 1) get a new haircut and 2) hit the gym again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a bag of truffles and a Star Wars book to get back to.