sawblade and speak and spell

my advice for you guys today? don't grow up poor. if you already did grow up poor, go back in time and have not done that. especially if the people in your family have bad teeth and you don't have dental insurance. because you will end up 28 years old and missing three molars and about to lose another ! and also, you will have had so many root canals that you actually lost count of them.



i know that's shitty advice, because poor people are the ones least likely to time travel (cost prohibitive, can't miss work, etc.) but it may be my only option at this point.

hey. i'm in a bad mood.

history and german last night. we're getting ready for our finals, and my history final is worrying me. it's a word document we download and write in and upload again- it's open book, and available for 24 hours, but it's 24 hours in the middle of the work week. like... it's available at 6pm on wednesday, then i have my german class from 7-8:45 on wednesday night, then i guess i have to do it before bed? cause i work 8-5 the next day. i'm sort of bummed- between this and my german professor scheduling interviews during the work day friday i'm getting anxious about how school will work with my work schedule. blehhhh.


helpful infographic

i was actually going to take a day off next week to work on my final, but since i have to deal with my tooth today i don't think i'll be able to do that. ugh. at least brooke gets here thursday- brooke is one of my favorite people on planet earth and i cannot believeeeeee she's actually going to be here ! everyone, we have to do a good job of selling philly to her so she moves here. everyone be great ! independence hall, be historic ! ben franklin museum, be charming but janky ! liberty bell, stay cracked ! christina, be weird ! mouse, don't wear short shorts ! we have to make this perfect so brooke (and also julz- julz doesn't know me yet but i'm putting her in my poké ball too) moves here.



what else? no real plans this weekend, which is okay with me. tonight i'm probably going to work on my homework so i don't waste a whole day doing it tomorrow, and then saturday i'm probably going to work on my craft swap project. on sunday mouse and i are going to go do a thing but we don't know what yet !

to-do list for the weekend
- german essay
- misc. german homework
- history essay (i'm actually DONE with the reading for the week already !)
- supplemental history reading
- work on craft swap thing
- read m is for magic
- catch up on sleep

i guess most of that sounds pretty boring, but i promise that next week will be cooler.

p.s. fuck teeth.

philadelphia freedom

hey guys. hey guys !!!!! last night i had class and i was super exhausted and kind of unprepared so i felt stupid in both. in german, i just sort of babbled and guessed for over an hour, and in my history class, i blurted out that they don't let you sit in george washington's chair at independence hall and immediately realized no one else would want to or try to.



afterrrrr class christine came over and it was like, the best? she and i were both like... jumping up and down and flapping our hands and spazzing out when we saw each other. she's like... the funniest weirdest person? with the best facial expressions. and a high school freshman knowledge of like five different languages !!!! she also was a major cat creep and used the phrase, "whatever baby wants, baby gets" MORE THAN ONCE to pizza, and kept a little tuft of her hair.



oh my god it was the best. christina came home drunk, with harpoon crystal wheat (which is the best and tastes like lemons), and we spent our final hour together talking about cats and ukrainian people. after that, instead of working on my homework i watched an episode of fraggle rock with ken. hey, i didn't notice this until yesterday, but fraggle rock kind of sucks? they're always fucking singing ! ken thinks that's what the "rock" in fraggle rock refers to, whereas i take that to more literally mean the caves (made of rock) that they live in. also look at this weird fraggle from wikipedia:

Powerdriving Cecil, a friend of Red's. Has a peculiar habit of asking female fraggles if they want to be "powerdrived".

that is the weirdest and is making me think that maybe someone invented bogus fraggles for the wiki? anyway, the only aspect i was really into was how small the fraggles are compared to the gorgs



what else? oh, i submitted my application for school today. i have been sitting on it for awhile, but the deadline is august 1 and i finally just bit the bullet. i really hope i get accepted- i've been doing pretty well in my classes and despite hating homework, studying, giving up free time to class time... wait, where was i going with that? i guess i like it. i don't know. wish me luck !

tonight mouse and i are going to mike and jeanne's house to eat food and maybe watch a movie ! i'm really psyched because jeanne just moved in and her cat and mike's cat are friends, and i don't think i've ever seen jeanne living in a real grownup house (we lived together in two different hellholes though !). we were going to maybe make pizzas- a vegan one for mouse, and maybe this olive potato pizza that mike g. and i made once:



but i'm having a weird allergic reaction on my face and i don't want to eat food or have anyone look at me so maybe i'll just bring a popsicle and sulk. blehhh. tomorrow mouse and i are gonna watch movies, and sunday i may go to shakespeare in the park for free and watch a bunch of insufferable fucking nerds do a midsummer night's dream !

blehhh. to-do list for the weekend:
- finish history reading
- finish history timeline
- take german test
- do german voiceboards
- write german essay
- START HISTORY READING FOR NEXT WEEK
- try to watch the netflix i have
- go grocery shopping

p.s. a cursory google search reveals that "powerdriving cecil" can ONLY be found on wikipedia !!!!!!!

arbeiter der welt ! wereinigt euch !

buhhhh. tgif i guess. i'm anxious and bummed out and feel really overwhelmed. yesterday i came home from work for history class, which was okay- the class is online (as i mentioned) and by the fourth class meeting people still haven't gotten their shit together. peoples' microphones don't work, everyone is like, "CAN YOU HEAR ME?????" before they talk, one girl's microphone was basically in her sinus. it was an interesting class though, except for the part where we were discussing a chapter we read from a book (american slavery, american freedom by edmund morgan) and everyone got into a huge stupid debate about it. the debate was stupid because it was 1/2 people being like, "I DIDN'T LIKE IT" (who cares) and 1/2 people saying that it sounded like edmund morgan loves slavery? the book is a study of the contradictory nature of slavery and the commitment of virginia colonists to liberty and equality.



german class after that, where i had trouble paying attention. i have an essay to write this weekend, and tonight i have a one-on-one interview in german with my professor. i still have to CRAM for that at some point during the day today.

after my classes were over, i finished up some homework and read another YA book- this time wonder by rachel vail.



this is actually one of the worst books i've ever read. the protagonist/narrator, jessica, was popular in elementary school, but then her best friend went to camp with a bunch of other girls and they excluded her, and also she wore a dress to school that looked like a wonder bread bag and everyone called her 'wonder'. or something. the entire book is jessica being a spoiled, spiteful, miserable, angry brat. like seriously, she rages at everyone, calls people disgusting and ugly and fat, talks about how much life sucks and how much everything sucks, etc. despite the fact that her lifelong crush asks her out and the popular girls start trying to be her friend? there's zero analysis or lesson and no real plot or resolution. also, her mother is a shrink (and her dad owns a company that makes fat lady pantyhose? rachel vail's words), and she randomly has a little brother who obviously has tourette's syndrome, and i thought that a plot point in the book might be that he gets diagnosed with tourette's, but... no, he just throws stuff around and curses randomly and then disappears. terrible book ! not worth the 1 cent i paid for it.



after that, i gave up on studying and ken and i watched stuff from shark week on netflix. we were both hoping to see sharks biting a bunch of shit so we put on something called TOP 5 EATEN ALIVE, but it turned out to be 99% re-enactments of people getting attacked by sharks, with their sad amputations and scars. grim ! so we put on the episode of survivorman about sharks and that was much better. i'm going to interject and say that i want to marry every survival dude ever (also tied to my attraction to eagle scouts) and les stroud is awesome:


i know, he looks like such a stepdad

anyway, he did cool stuff like fed sharks from spears and got bitten by sharks (wearing chainmail) and fed sharks a bunch of hams and turkeys !!!!! that last part was so funny, sharks HATE hams and turkeys.



i actually thought this was weird until i just looked at that picture. i have the utmost respect for sharks, that picture makes me want to slam dunk a ham into its throat. swish !



i also drew this supplemental picture of a shark eating a ham. this shark is literally the only thing i can draw. as you can see, i can't even draw a ham. like 75% of the drawings i've ever done in my life are that shark. the other 25% is carebears and ladies in high heels.

tonight i'm going to a wilmington blue rocks (minor league baseball game) with mouse, nate, and anna. while i love baseball games, i'm going to have to bring my knitting because i don't know when else i'm going to finish this craft swap project. sorryyyyy blue rocks ! tomorrow i'm maybe going to trader joe's and probably hanging out with mouse, depending. sunday, homework ! ugh.

weekend to-do list
- ACE german interview
- finish german essay
- finish history essay
- start history reading for next week
- work on craft swap project
- clean my rooooooooom (my hamper fell over and i've just been dumping clothes into a corner)
- do some house cleaning

hold me to it, guys !

p.s. i'm slightly behind at work because i've been having trouble managing school/work/life ! stress !
p.p.s. hopefully i can fix that today

i've never felt like this before, i say that every hour

okay ! i'm going to start with my to-do list ! and i'm going to add a thing to it so it looks like i did more !

- straighten up bedroom
- read my history chapters and take notes
- view the online portal for my history class and do the set-up for my german class
- tune up/grease/clean bike
- straighten up the kitchen and livingroom
- go back to trader joe's for some frozen crap
- catsit hoolie !
- brush my own cat and clip her toenails

after work i had my online meeting with my german professor where he showed me how to work adobeconnect and stuff. we actually use that for (i apologize for using this word) webinars at work so i was kind of familiar with it. he seems like a very nice dude and the class should be fun ! i also signed into the online portal for my history class. the professor introduces herself there and i'm less intimidated and nervous now because she seems like a nice history nerd !



we had to write introductions for ourselves on the site and we are instructed in the syllabus not to use humor or sarcasm in our online postings, so i was kind of at a loss. i figured i'd focus on my excitement about history and how grateful i am for the opportunity to go back to school for free, and i basically ended up writing this wooden dorky thing? the jumpoff questions were about where we were this summer, what made us sign up, etc.

Hello! My name is Roxann **** (I prefer Roxy, but Roxann is okay too). I will be in Philadelphia this summer, working at ***** and attending this class and a German language class through Penn LPS. While that may not sound exciting to many, I am really looking forward to returning to school after a hiatus of nearly 10 years, and am thankful that Penn's generous tuition reimbursement for employees is affording me an opportunity I would not have otherwise.

I too have been interested in history since childhood, and am particularly interested in war and warfare. I've spent most of my life reading history books and more recently listening to history podcasts (Hardcore History podcast by Dan Carlin is one of my favorites), and it finally clicked for me that studying history in an academic setting was an option for me, and an exciting opportunity for me. I'm eager to learn and to turn my favorite hobby into a real area of study, as well as to learn from our texts, the instructor, and my classmates.

think that doesn't sound too bad? well, i edited it and took out some of the dorkier words ! cause i was too embarrassed to even show you guys.

after that, i straightened up my room and ate dinner (a hoagie !) and then settled in to not do my history homework or anything. i played left 4 dead 2 with my friend ken for awhile- we were on the last campaign and it was pretty exciting. i regret our choice to switch to easy at the end because i think it was TOO easy, but the end of the campaign is navigating a fucked up bridge full of zombies to get to a helicopter.



the bridge part was a lot of fun ! ken was a good leader and didn't do my least favorite video game thing (freaking out and repeating a word or command over and over again- RUN RUN RUN RUN RUNR UNR UURN RUNR UNR RUN) so i didn't get stressed out or anything. unfortunately this means we're done with the game, unless we want to go back and do stuff on different difficulty levels. there is an achivement where i can get a gnome though? and a depeche mode shirt?



after that, we watched the lost world (not the jurassic park sequel, the silent movie based on the doyle novel). i was taken in by the dvd cover and put it on my queue right away, and wasn't disappointed.



first of all, silent movies are great for watching on xbox live because you can talk all you want and you don't really miss anything ! second, there's a part where they see an allosaurus and are like, "ahhh, the allosaurus, pest of the dinosaurs" which cracked us up, but then the allosaurus is such a factual pest throughout the movie ! he literally just runs around taking bites out of every dinosaur. not even eating them, just killing them and maybe taking a bite. at one point he jumps up and bites a pterodactyl out of the sky !!! and then he just spits it on the ground and steps on it.



the basic plot of the movie is that a crazy old scientist (dr. challenger !) thinks dinosaurs are alive in brazil based on a diary he found, and then he goes with an expedition team (including a young journalist whose girlfriend won't marry him because he isn't adventurous). some other shit happens and they see dinosaurs and are terrorized by an ape man- the ape man looks vaguely like an olde timey racist stereotype, which made me uncomfortable until i saw the member of the expedition team who is straight up a white dude in blackface. ugh ! ken said he was going to tell people i watched a movie with blackface characters, but i think it would be even more controversial if i was rumored to watch a movie that featured womanface.

blehh. i'm gonna go do some work. jeanne and mike b. are coming over tonight and i'm really excited (by the way, if i ever talk about 'mike' it's usually my friend mike g. if i talk about a mike in conjunction with JEANNE, it's mike b.. also if i mention drawing, weird al, or madballs, it's mike b.) because mike has never been to my house or met my cat.



i only have a few more days to complete my to-do list so wish me luck.