yes we arrre, yes we arre

this was a long fucking weekend ! but guess what guys ! i actually got some work done. not as much as i should have, but it's a vast improvement over previous weeks.

on friday, i did some grocery shopping and read half of s.: a novel about the balkans by slavenka drakulic. it's not a long book, and i probably could've finished it, but i felt like i was having a fucking panic attack halfway through and i had to put it down.



okay, i understand that i'm writing a paper about genocide and rape and sexual violence, so this stuff isn't exactly avoidable, and i should steel myself for it. however, i don't necessarily see the merit of reading a super super in depth descriptive novel about how rape makes you feel. like, on the one hand, of course it's important to understand and appreciate the horror of what happens in these situations, but the book was pretty vague on facts and high on emotional response, and an unfortunately high number of women are already personally aware of these feelings. like, not comparing and weighting experiences against each other or anything (since systematic rape during war in camps set up for rape is obviously not the situation in which most women are assaulted), but i don't necessarily think that it's important to make undergrad students feel, experience, or relive rape and the trauma that follows rape in order to teach them about rapes that have occurred (especially since undergrad males across the country are doing such a great job of making sure college-age women are aware of them). at the very least, i think it was kind of irresponsible to assign the book without a disclaimer, as most of the other material we're reading is straight statistics or dry facts. i know it's a class about genocide, and that i'm going to have to read many, many, many horrific things, but i think rape is unique because it's so personally relatable and familiar to so many women, no matter the context it occurs in.*



it's sort of hard to switch to light-hearted stuff after this ! but i need to ! for my brain ! christina's friend chris stayed over that night, and in the morning we all met up with mouse (whose name, if you didn't know, is ALSO chris), and got ethiopian breakfast and got coffee at green line. jesse made me this beautiful mean latte:



and i got some reading done and eavesdropped on people ! on saturday night, mouse and i went up to his mom's so i could hang out with scottie the baby (his nephew). ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh god he is the cutest fucking baby ! daisy the dog (and rookie the dog) was also there, and she seemed... a little jealous of the attention the baby was getting.



we had a great time though. scottie just learned how to do that buhbuhbuhbuhbuhbuhbuh thing where you put your finger in front of your mouth and make your lips vibrate. also he just laughs randomly and it's really cool ! i also wore my hair down so he could pull it a little and he was psyched. after that, i came home and read more- i finished s., and i read part of the chapter about bosnia-herzegovina in our textbook.

sundayyyyy i went to trader joe's to get stuff for lunch (which i forgot to bring to work today !) and mostly chilled out with christina and the cats. christina cooked a bunch of delicious food and let me eat some of it, and i got sort of panicky about my writing class essays and only finished one. i really really need to get my shit together ASAP so i get an okay grade in this class. i just like... can't make myself care about it, and the instructions are all so muddled and weird. i think it speaks volumes that i'm getting As on every single paper in a 400 level history class but doing subpar work in a 100 level required writing class. i'm not trying to downplay my responsibility here, since i've been a pretty crappy student, but it's a pretty crappy program. even with a good instructor who's doing her best with the material she has to teach, it's incomprehensible. hateeee it.

um, what else? i got my eyebrows waxed on friday and they gave me a free nail polish because one time in the winter they were closing and couldn't do my eyebrows. they've already given me a free eyebrow wax, a discounted eyebrow wax, and a different nail polish for this same incident, but i'm not complaining. nail polish is my one stereotypically feminine vice- in middle and high school i painted my nails a different color every fucking day even though i didn't brush my hair and i wore old man's pants and t-shirts from the flea market. the color i got is um, lucerne-tainly look marvelous? which is like a gun metal with teeny glitter.



oh yeah. i possibly registered for spring classes? they aren't on my schedule now but christina thinks that they're off while they're working on registrations and crap. the classes i selected are:

Course title: Elementary German II
Course description: A continuation of GRMN 101. The student's expression and comprehension are expanded through the study of literature and social themes.

Course title: Creative Non-Fiction Writing: Perspectives in Race, Class, and Gender
Course description: A workshop course in the writing of expository prose. Assignments include informal as well as formal essays, covering such topics as autobiography, family history, review, interview, analysis of advertising and popular culture, travel, work, and satire.

imaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagine how fucking annoying that second class will be ! imagine ! i can't fucking wait. i think my plan is to see how the creative non-fiction classes are and then take a couple of them, because it will come in handy for history windbagging.

anyway, this was a pretty good weekend. my plan for this week is to get caught up with my writing class (like tonight, or tomorrow) and get more into my genocide research for my big paper. luckily these idiots are committed to helping me:



i swear this blog will get interesting again once school is over, and then become not-interesting again when school starts again.

* please note that i'm talking about teaching this material in a specific context- an american ivy league university, undergrad class, in 2010, with a specific student population. i know that there are many, many places and times in history where other factors of genocide besides rape would be familiar and palpable and real to people learning about them

east timor

i gotta make it quick cause i have a meeting soon ! hey !

yesterday i mostly slept. i meant to do reading for school but i didn't really get much done because i felt so crummy. i guess that's like... barely even interesting for me to write about, huh? anyway, later that night jeanne and i got dinner ! i didn't eat all day because i didn't feel well, but i got super super starving right before i had to go and i couldn't take it anymore, so i... ate like 10 pickled baby beets on an empty stomach !


please enjoy this genius covered in beet juice

so by the time i got to the restaurant, i had a pretty gross stomach ache ! which was a shame because i ate a big cream-based dinner (pappardelle in a cream sauce with sun-dried tomatoes, onions, shitake mushrooms, marsala wine, pecorino cheese). also, i decided recently that my new signature drink is scotch on the rocks, and i e-mailed my mom and consulted with my friend justin about how to order it in a bar, and was totally ready, but i got a shirley temple instead because my stomach was so upset. maybe next time.



after dinner, we got frozen yogurt at scoop de ville, and then i had to take a cab home because i had to use the bathroom and we were in a weird bathroom desert (i usually know where every public bathroom is and the closest one, barnes and noble, was closed). i got home and hung out with the kitten and edited my essay and got to catch up with christina a little- i've barely seen her since she got back from new hampshire !

sooooo, the kitten. she does not understand the importance of the litterbox. like, she goes in the litter half the time, but the other half she either goes 1) NEAR the litter or 2) where ever. i'm going to have to figure out what to do to give her the encouragement she needs. i'm not home during the day, but when i am home i grab her and put her in the litterbox if i see her squatting to go to the bathroom. other than that, she's super weird and cute. i can entertain her for an hour by putting my hair in a ponytail and setting her on the back of the couch.



i wish that accurately conveyed her smallness. that's christina's flip flop, and christina has little tiny feet (little tiny adult sized feet !). her flip flops are like, a 5.5-6 in womens' sizes. so the kitten is REALLY SMALL.

i have to go because my coworker needs help with something that she made much more convoluted than it needed to be, and i also have a staff meeting. bleh.

oh by the way ! i meant to post this picture of mouse and his nephew because it's the greatest thing ever, so i'm posting it in honor of mouse's birthday. he's not excited about his birthday but i am because he is cool and my favorite.



lots of reading to do today. lots of work at work.

tell her it's over

buhhhh work is annoying. i came in ready to tackle both school work and work work for the day, only to find that i have to help label 900 t-shirts for some stupid thing. i spent all morning so far opening and lifting boxes and i inexplicably only have deodorant on one pit.

my weekend was good though ! on friday, i stayed in to try to get some work done. i had my german class interview and got a 45/50 ! i currently have an A- in the class, so i need to try harder to solidify my chances of getting an A. i really, really, truly don't think i got anything else done though. i did some knitting and watched goodbye lenin.



the movie is about a set of siblings (one being daniel bruhllllll) whose mother, a loyal socialist lady, has a heart attack and goes into a coma during the fall of the berlin wall. when she wakes up, she can't suffer any kind of shock (lest she have another heart attack), so her son persuades everyone to put on an elaborate farce where none of this happened. it was a pretty cute movie, but i can't imagine that it would be interesting if you don't know anything about german history? like a lot of the cuteness and jokes hinge upon events in history and stuff !

on saturdayyyyyy i went to the green line to theoretically work on my paper. i stopped at a garage sale on the way to buy myself this:



both jesse and eric were working, so unfortunately i didn't get much work done. i haven't really talked to eric in a few years so it was good to see him ! also jesse is the funniest most interesting person. she told me some good jokes (not fit for the internet) and showed me some cool maps of holes in the ground ! after awhile, though, i gave up and went to cvs and impulse bought a bunch of pens


two packs of these

they were buy one get one free !! between the hydra and the pens i spent $5, but i'm trying to be more critical of my consumption and not spend that $20-40/mo on stupid stuff ! i finally finsihed my paper at 5:20 (it's due at 6) and showered and got ready to go to shakespeare in clark park with mouse. but guys ! surprise guest ! benji was at mouse's for a jiu jitsu lesson and he came with us. i was super happy to hang out with him because he's the funniest handsomest, and also cause mouse wanted to watch the play and wouldn't let me talk to him but benji would.





oh yeah, the play was a midsummer night's dream, which is actually my least favorite shakespeare play. i also always forget that going to plays doesn't mean a bunch of stuffy british thespians and it usually means drama club people so i'm always a little disappointed (i'm coming around, but it's hard for me to take them seriously because drama club people were LITERALLY the only people lower on the totem pole than gifted nerds !). we sat in a bad place, anyway, and couldn't really hear or see the play. we were right behind a kid eating an entire block of cheese like a candy bar though, which was pretty cool.



benji went home after the play, and we met up with nate at my house and watched futurama. nate declined attending the play cause he remembered what plays are like, but i'm glad i got to see him.

on sunnnnday i slept super late and worked on work stuff and knitted a little bit. i tried to motivate myself to do my history reading but did a pretty awful job. i mostly managed to set up the DVR for shark week (since i'll be too busy with school to watch it) and eat a sandwich. when mouse got out of jiu jitsu, i went to his house because his sister and mom and SCOTTIE were there !!!! scottie is like, the cutest baby in the entire world and his feet are so fat and he made teeny little mouth farts at me.





also, did you guys know that baby spit up is really disgusting? i think baby spit up and drool are like, the deciding factors in me not having kids- unfortunately, this is also the same reason that i will miss out on many beautiful dogs:









(never mind that i also would never buy a dog from a mill or breeder so my chances of having a purebred dog ever are slim anyway !)

we also went to capo giro, where i found out that all of their sorbettis are vegan. i'm so bummed, because we've gone here a thousand times and mouse sadly drinks a decaf americano while we talk about how good the gelato and sorbetti is. i had nectarine and dark chocolate.



after that, i came home and finished my german homework (voice recordings about 'run lola run' !, online exercise, essay) and did some more work work and ended up going to bed before i did my history reading. on my agenda for today: history reading ! and maybe watching one of my history lectures after lunch.

what's up, guys? this is already week five of my six weeks of classes ! it went by super fast. i hope i can hold it together enough to do well in both.

p.s. i want a coffee milkshake more than anything on earth right now?
p.p.s. dogs dogs dogs dogs
p.p.p.s. brooke is coming to visit me aug 12 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
p.p.p.p.s. christina is home from maine !!!!