i'll never tell

dudes. i'm so far ahead on my reading for genocide class ! and by "ahead" i mean i am exactly where i should be. i've gotten into the habit of procrastinating all week and then panicking and trying to read everything/write everything wednesday night or thursday at lunch, and right now i read a whole book and one chapter and just need to read an article and another chapter. i'm psyched to read the article because my professor wrote it and i think she's a genius.

i went on a really exciting shopping spree yesterday, in which i purchased mostly books for $0.01 on amazon and a pair of sensible shoes. books first !


mass rape, ed. andrea stiglmayer


rape warfare by beverly allen


gender & catastrophe, ed. rohit lentin


a problem from hell: america in the age of genocide by samantha power


eichmann in jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil by hannah arendt


regarding the pain of others by susan sontag

remember how like five months ago i read nothing but young adult novels? most of these are either for the paper i'm writing or have been recommended to me or cited in several other things i've read. this should be a super fun thanksgiving !

i also uh, got a pair of saddle shoes. my friend sarah got a pair of bass enfields in brown and i decided to give up and be a total herb. i hope they're comfortable and don't look weird on my big, impressive feet (i had to put "impressive" in there so it didn't sound like i was disparaging my feet- they're useful and i'm glad they're big, for balance !)



what else? yesterday i went to penn's library for the first REAL time- i've had to look at periodicals there before, and use computer stuff, but i've never really gone um, into the stacks. i actually started panicking a little bit because the library is so fucking big. the library is like.. a block long, and there's just shelf after shelf after shelf of books ! that seems like it would be a total paradise for a terminal bookworm but it was so empty and so big and i felt like a monster was going to start chasing me or a creepy person would appear and say "may i help you" and startle me (both equally scary to me).



that's just in one direction and it's just as long in the other direction and there's like 6 floors of that !!!!! scariest. also it was full of young rich teenagers which is scary for other reasons.

when i got home, we attempted to do ICC, but it didn't work out- some people were having problems zoning in (oh i just started talking about warcraft like it's a real thing and you guys care about it) and some people were grumpy, so we postponed it until thursday. i did some pvp with gavin, josh, and rachel, but i really suck at pvp and mostly just wanted to talk to them cause i like them. and get some poison on some jerks.


harridan

so today- work, writing essays, class. reading. i'm meeting a classmate about... something? at 2pm today. she said we should "get together" and she said it with such authority that i was like, "oh, okay" except i don't know why we would get together. we're both pretty far behind in our writing class, so i think we may have to team up to peer review each others' late work. i was just about to write out a rant about this class but i realized that i already posted that rant on monday. in the beginning of the semester, i couldn't understand my classmates' ire and lack of cooperativeness and now i'm just like, "GOD FUCK THIS CLASS I FUCKING HATE IT, GODDDD FUCK IT I HATE IT."

p.s. i hate it for real.
p.p.s. i HEARD TELL that we may only have to take one critical writing seminar now instead of 2 to graduate? the women in my class were talking about it but i was half-listening, because the class is sucking the life out of me and i can't even make myself listen to gossip.

i'd love to love you, lover

dudes ! dudes ! i seriously did zero work this weekend and i'm freaking out ! i don't know what's wrong with me ! usually i am a master procrastinator, which means i procrastinate but am able to get things done by a deadline, but i really dropped the ball. i think my big problem here is my writing assignment, because nothing on earth interests me less. to be fair, though, i'm behind on a genocide assignment too, and nothing interests me more.


the most interesting search result for "procrastination." poor guy.

on friday, i...? i'm not sure. i got a car to go to whole foods, but i didn't realize it was like 9:30 at night, so i ended up dropping my laundry off and wandering around cvs for awhile. i'd had 9 shots of espresso at that point so i was mentally insane, and i stopped at a light next to a giant mcrib billboard and was totally perplexed by it. now, i have eaten a mcrib before ! i know about mcribs ! i call those morningstar riblets 'mcribs'. furthermore, the billboard featured a giant picture of a mcrib. despite all of that information, i stared at it for the duration of a light and could not figure out what the sign said. i was like, "m.. crib? m.c. rib? m crib?" please note that i also know what mcdonalds is and am familiar with their naming convention.



on saturday, i cleaned my room a little (not totally) and went to the green line to study. this did not go well, but i had a wonderful time hanging out by myself listening to weird al. also, patchie came in and hung out with me and it was the first time i ever hung out with her FOR REAL, and she is fucking cool. she let me windbag her about genocide and we talked about what a dork god is. mouse met up with us after that and he and i went grocery shopping and came back to my house to watch the masque of mandragora. it was awesome to hang out and watch doctor who with him (and eat the thanksgiving food i bought for $1000000 from whole foods' hot bar !) because we haven't had time to hang out for real in weeks.



i have the novelization of this story (because i suck), and i'd always pronounced it man-dra-GOR-uh but it turns out it's man-DRAG-or-uh ! fascinating ! basically a ball of energy and that dr. doom guy were going to prevent the renaissance from happening through fake doctor who science and some people got caught on fire and the doctor stole two horses. not too bad? i have specific interest in people getting all burnt up in a movie (especially if a charred skeleton is left behind !) so i was satisfied, but mouse was disappointed that the doctor didn't kick anyone in the nuts. after mouse went home i stayed up late and accidentally ended up watching a softcore hbo porno called "cougar school" which had serious script problems.

on sunday, christina invited me to get ethiopian breakfast with her and amber !!! i had to study, but i realized that i wouldn't have actually studied if i didn't go, so i went with them. amber is the best- she's so funny and cool and it's great to have other friends who understand anxiety junk. neither of them had ever been to abyssinia for breakfast/brunch before and they loved it as much as i do ! sigh. amber got the ye'inqulal tibias (which is scrambled eggs with cool spices and hot peppers and tomatoes and onions), and christina had her first bowl of foul <3<3<3<3<3 i also got dabo fitfit for all of us, which is just... french bread ripped up and soaked in a spicy tomato and onion sauce, which sounds super simple but is like one of the best things i've ever tasted.



we got coffee at the green line after that and had a wonderful time talking and sitting in the window seat. eric was working and he told me he saw me on ravelry, which is probably like... the least embarrassing time anyone has commented on my internet activity. i trieddddd to do some work when they left but i got caught in a weird youtube loop where i tried to find every instance of cookie monster wearing clothes (healthy food rap, various monsterpiece theaters, etc.). jesse and her friends also came by for a minute and entertained me, so i gave up and spent $40 at cvs buying like, lipsmackers and arm hair bleach.


i'm beggin' of you, please don't burn my arms

at hoooooome i tried again to do some reading, but i ended up talking to christina about the x-files, fucking with the cats, posting romantic stuff on facebook, and re-organizing my itunes. i did like one third of one assignment at some point (which took like 20 minutes, leading me to believe that i could've done all that work in 2 hours or so !).

sooooo today i have a bunch of work stuff to do, and i'm going to try for a miracle as far as getting school stuff done at lunch. i need to take a trip to the mouse-infested library (i mean that in a good way, because i have positive feelings about vermin) at some point today too because i need to bring shit to class. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i have so much to do !

p.s. i'm taking a mental health day tomorrow !

fall back to stone

one work thing that stresses me out a little- i have a coworker friend (like, we enjoy each others' company at work but are not friendly outside of work, as it should be) who, over the past 3 or 4 years that we've worked together, somehow got the idea that i'm into old movies/kitsch/pop culture. i have never had the heart to tell him i'm not, or that i don't quite get his references. i was born in 1982. unless carol channing was a ninja turtle, i don't know who that is. when you mention charles nelson reilly, i think you mean this guy:



yesterday i had class, which was slightly annoying- the conservative person who announced she was conservative apropos of nothing once again displayed that she doesn't actually know that conservative as a word has meanings outside of politics, and the departmental slides our professor had to show us seemed... confusing? like, i copied them down but i have no idea what they were really about.

after work, i went to green line to try to do some reading- i was doing okay for awhile, but some older dude with a giant stack of newspapers came in and started... tearing the newspapers up? and rustling the newspapers. i know a coffee shop isn't my office and i could just read at home, but i think the ultimate thing you can just do at home is tear up some newspapers. i ended up going home again. i read about 100 pages, and then i gave up- i know that kind of sucks, but i'm just really not into this book. we have to turn in ten response papers over 13 weeks, and we can skip any 3 weeks we want, and i think i'm going to skip this week. i think i have a decent understanding of what he was trying to say, and i read all the other material, but i just couldn't get through that book.



it's weird because i love tedious histories, and i didn't know much about the history of sudan before, but there was just something that wasn't clicking for me with his interpretation of sudan's history. i ended up reading a few other sources about the history of sudan instead to better understand the conflict because i couldn't get through his. i'm bummed though, i hate not being prepared for class and i especially hate not finishing a book.

i also need to work on not being so easily distracted. the following things were all more interesting to me than studying last night:

- a video about how to put on a female condom, which was linked from
- a video of some ice skater guy skating to "sex bomb", which i found through
- a discussion about how "slow hand" by the pointer sisters is a gross song to sing with your sisters.
- a text message conversation with mouse about our favorite jiu jitsu people, which turned into a conversation about joe rogan?
- the wikipedia for troll dolls (called GONKS in the uk)
- looking at nail polish on amazon
- trying to untangle a knot in my hair by hand



class tonight, and then... possibly trying to kill the lich king? our guild kind of petered out over the summer so most of us have never killed him, but there was talk of some of the wow dudes i actually like wanting to try it out tonight.



who knows, though? none of us really care and i don't think we have any tanks lined up. okay, back to work !

i want you to know what love is

blehhh ! i have so much school stuff to do ! blehhh !!!!

what's up guys? i haven't really done much the past couple of days besides go to class and do my homework. german is actually getting pretty hard because i cannot make my brain understand the difference between the cases. like, i know what to DO for each case, but i don't know how to tell if something is nominative/dative/accusative. i give up. history is okay, despite two weeks of group work where i got grouped with the same dude who is like... intent on denying the contribution of women to american history and talking about how our female professor is WRONG and the female writers are WRONG.


in the words of mary wollstonecraft, "fuck you, ballbag !"

i have german homework every night this week and next week, a big german essay to write, a german voice presentation (which is basically just reading the essay), a german interview with someone who isn't my professor, and a final exam. for history, i have to answer a discussion question TODAY, watch the lectures, do the reading, do one more timeline essay, do some more little online questions, and then do a final exam. i'm totally fucking swamped and i'm procrastinating like crazy !

last night while doing some reading, i actually got choked up because i hate andrew jackson so much, so today's (very brief, cause i have studying to do) lesson is about how andrew jackson is the fucking worst.



you may know him as the $20 bill guy, or maybe OLD HICKORY, but what you should really associate andrew jackson with is the indian removal act and the trail of tears (a genocidal relocation of native peoples so we could take their shit, in case you missed middle school history). during the war of 1812 he killed a shit ton of native americans, and during the first seminole war he went into spanish territory and killed a shit ton more of native americans (which is significant because it was totally illegal and fucked up). he then went on to basically be the forerunner of anti-intellectualism in the united states who fiercely defended the idea that his racist hunches were better and righter and more noble than fancy book learning. and um, here is a quote from his first state of the union address that is one of the grossest things i've ever read:

What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?

blehh. i fucking hate him ! why is he on money ! why do ATMs only give $20 bills ! here's what i'm using instead of $20s now:



um, on a lighter note, that beautiful dress i got fit perfectly and looked great on me and is my favorite thing ever



and it comes in several other beautiful colors that would look great on me:



but i'm not sure what to do about my most recent ethical quandry about target. like, most of us have pretended that target is better than walmart because they are like 20% less soulsucking, community-destroying, and unethical, plus they have cuter stuff. it's cool, i'm not perfect, this is an inconsistency on my part and i probably should do more than half-heartedly acknowledge it. recently, though, the store donated $150,000 to a political candidate who is homophobic and aggressively supports homophobic legislation, as well being affiliated with a band who supports the violent extermination of gay people (and um, see above for my feelings about violent exterminations of people).



here's the rub, though: target is one of two clothing stores that sell clothes in my size. there are a handful more that sell plus size clothing, but most are $30-$100 a piece, whereas most clothing at target (and the other store, old navy) is below $30. they also have reasonably cute clothing, an extreme rarity for plus size women, who very rarely get the opportunity to feel comfortable and attractive and cute in clothing, with target's clothing being slightly more well-made (presumably because their child workforce is more disciplined? i hate life). but, that brings me to another point- why is it important for me to look or dress cute? why do i care about that? i know why i SHOULDN'T, so why do i?

anyway, i don't know what i'm getting at here. if i look at this like cute dresses vs. being an ally for my fellow human beings, the choice is easy. if i bring in a bunch of other complicated stuff about being fat/plus size clothing/socialization/consumption, it seems slightly more complicated. i guess my conclusion for now is that you should throw red paint on me if i end up buying those dresses, but i'm going to try not to.

we both know how hard it is for both of us to try

dudes ! i have nothing to say, and only 30 minutes to say it !

yesterday i came home from work, fully intending to do some reading, and ended up dozing off until about five minutes before my german class. oooops. class was okay, except i got like... every answer wrong, which indicates that i should be paying more attention.



i just realized looking at that- i totally love dunces. maybe i'll be a dunce for halloween? my other idea was eye of sauron but i'm not that good with papier mache. but i but jeanne is !!! dunce of sauron.

after class i really truly intended to do my history reading and i ended up not doing it. a crappy behavior pattern of mine is that if there's something i need to do (homework, housework, errands), and i'm clearly not doing it, i also don't let myself do anything else. no reading, no watching tv, nothing. i basically like, laid on my bed like a log until it was time to go to sleep.



fyi, did you know that stasis apparently isn't just when aliens put you in a tube of goo? according to the google image search it's also some kind of disgusting skin condition where your skin rots off. anyway, i understand that this method of... being isn't really the way to be, so i'm going to make a commitment to doing my reading for school.

speaking of that, i have to try to find time to drop my high school diploma off as part of my stupid application. i was going to mail it since i have a busy few days but i suddenly got paranoid that it would get lost in the mail and then i'd be screwed since it takes 900 years for the florida board of ed. to send a new one.

i'm gonna have lunch with mouse today, possibly at magic carpet? possibly at the burrito truck? maybe i can convince him to walk over with me.


that looks super unappetizing, but it's vegetarian meatballs and rice from magic carpet and it's delicious

man, i told you guys i had nothing to say. i have to go help set up for a stupid meeeeeting now.