Wasting time

The view from the window by my desk. No wonder I don't get as much work as I should.


Another reason why I don't get much work done... don't worry, mom, it's apple tobacco and we don't smoke very often.

The downlow

Here's the downlow: School's started up and it took me forever to figure out my schedule.

I've started my new job as coffee hour coordinator, aka, make coffee for after YDS's daily chapel service.

Tomorrow is the first community dinner and I've been planning that for the past week or so and just decided today that we should have smores.

I haven't gotten my loan refund yet so either a) my lending bank is playing a horrible joke on me, b) YDS is playing a horrible joke on me, c) I'm missing paperwork and the internet isn't telling me, or d) my loan refund got sucked into a black hole created by the particle accelerator in Geneva.

Nonetheless, it means I can't buy the majority of my books or buy groceries or new bike tires or utilities or go visit Tessa this weekend. My mom fronted me some cash, so I was able to buy books for this upcoming week, but I already burned through half of that buying 4 books.

I have two morning classes, one that meets twice a week at 8:30 and one that meets twice a week at 9:00. I've decided to become a morning person, if only out of necessity.

Due to my new job as coffee mistress of YDS, but mostly because of my coffee addicted roommate Jake, I drink 3-4 cups of coffee each day. I had virtually no caffine at all this summer.

I like my roommates immensely and am super psyched to be living in such a great community with a cool history. On the downside, I have to talk about my feelings on a regular basis.

My advisor makes me all tense and jumbly on the insides whenever I meet with her.

I need to do laundry.

In addition to being a morning person, I still think I can be a night person. This is failing miserably, leading me to a loss of sleep, which is why I took a 3 hour nap yesterday and was still able to fall asleep at a regular hour.

On that note, I'm out of here.

I hate NWA part 2

Here's the short of my trip back to Connecticut on Sunday: I arrived at the airport in Green Bay at 9:00 AM and left the Hartford airport at 11:20 pm.

Now the long: The plane had mechanical problems so in GB they kept pushing back the anticipated departure time by half hour increments. I went up once and switched my connecting flight (remember?) and then at 2:00, when it was clear I wouldn't be making that one either, went to change my flight time again. We were supposed to fly to Detroit at 10:00 and we ended up sitting there long enough that another flight to Detroit came and left, with us glaring angrily at all the leaving passengers. I ended up getting on a 3:00 flight to Minneapolis and catching a connecting flight out of there to Hartford and landed at 10:30. Since my flight path was all messed up, my bag wasn't on the plane with me, so I had to wait in line for the lost baggage lady, only to have her tell me that it was on the flight from Detroit that landed at 11:00. Fortunately, Josh hit road construction and was late in picking me up, so I was able to wait for my bag and have it right away. But what a gross day.

Now I'm arranging my room at the CHouse and unpacking everything... trying to figure out the best spots for all of my things. I've managed to arrange my desk and bed so they're both by windows. That's my favorite spots for both of them, so it worked out nicely. I'll post pictures once everything comes together... I still have boxes of stuff in my room plus downstairs on the first floor. I need to get a dresser from Becca upstairs and I bought a bookcase, although I'm thinking I'll probably need more space than what I have. Once I get my clothes and books put away, then I can start hanging stuff on the walls. Not too shabby, I have to say. It helps that I'm not doing anything with BTFO and can sit around doing this as opposed to giving sage advice to first-years.

I'm glad to be back, though. I was talking to one of the professors yesterday at the BTFO dinner and I was describing what I want to study, and she said, "Oh, contemporary iconography." I had never thought of that phrase before, but I really like it because it aptly describes the mixture of culture and Jesus images. Plus it sounds good for Ph.D applications...

Time to put books on shelves.

I hate NWA

Ugh, so I'm in the Green Bay airport waiting to get back on the airplane. Apparently there's a some mechanical problem and they're trying to fix it and think it'll take long enough that it's worth getting everyone off the plane. I'm super frustrated and probably unnecessarily so because it's not like I can do anything about it. They're working to reschedule connecting flights for people who have original flights leaving Detroit before 1:30, hoping we can still get there by then. My flight to Hartford leaves at 1:45, so I just miss the cut off and probably will be fucked over at some point by the airlines. I just want to get back to New Haven. Is that too much to ask? I suppose it's fate that I'm really anxious and excited to get back to school and the actual physical thing bringing me there is broken. I suppose it's not worth it yet to call Josh and let him know my plane is broken until I actually know when I'll arrive.

Ugh, this really blows. Is it took much to ask that I just make it home as scheduled without getting screwed on the way?

Update: It's now 12:30 and we're still waiting in the airport in Green Bay. I rescheduled to the next flight to Hartford, so now I'm getting there at 5:10 instead of 3:30. Not horrible, but still sucks. If they don't get the problem fixed soon, I might have to bump the time back again. In my mind, I'm like "come on... let's give it a shot. The mechanical problems can't be that bad, can they?" I suppose it's probably not the safest mindset, but then again, I'm not the one flying the plane. My toes are cold. This air conditioning will probably freeze me first before I can even leave Green Bay. I don't think I have a sweatshirt in my carry on luggage - it's mostly underwear and socks, I think. Boo. Maybe I'll put on different shoes, though.

Tessa apparently wants me to write more. Ok. Here it is.

I'm in Green Bay for the next week and then I'm getting back to New Haven. I'm excited to get back to school and unpack my belongings and stop living out of a suitcase. It was sad to leave the Twin Cities and my friends and Andrew, but I'm so itchy to get the semester started.

Irish Fest in Milwaukee was fun - I'll put pictures up (maybe) sometime. Irish Fair was fun - Flogging Molly was sweet and Summit Brewery's Oatmeal Stout is pretty awesome.

More later. I still feel stagnant and unmotivated to write.

Totally unmotivated in everything

There's less than a month until I'm back in New Haven, and only two weeks that I'll be around here in the Twin Cities. As excited as I am about going back, I'll miss being here (although not the heat... screw 90+ humidity).

I'm reeeaaaalllllllllly ready to be done with my French class. It's just dragging on and I'm not interested in waking up at 7:30 every day anymore to go sit in a loud room to hear people talk in French. There's only a week left, so that's good. I feel if it were any more than that, I'd go crazy. It was pretty easy to pick up at first (maybe because a lot of it was repeat from high school), but now it's harder to learn everything so quickly. I feel if I had more time to digest the stuff, I'd be better at remembering it and all of that, but there's just so much that's similiar it's hard to distinguish and remember. I also feel like the instructor isn't as good at teaching the material as the one first session, so it's probably a combination of all those things. I'm ready to not have class for awhile, before the semester starts up again.

Last weekend when Mom and Erich were here, we had tons of fun. We rode our bikes all around Minneapolis and drank a ton. And saw fireworks! Exciting.

I'm feeling a little less than motivated, so we'll do this the quick and dirty way:
The Dark Knight: Awesome
Flogging Molly at Irish Fair: Awesome
Irish Fest in Milwaukee with Matt, Erich, Mom, Kari, Dawn(?): Awesome
Andrew's multiple birthday celebrations: Awesome
Baking cookies with Kari: Awesome
The cookies that didn't have enough flour: Not so awesome
Margaritas with the MOK kids, Watry and KG: Awesome
Next morning: Less than awesome

That is all.

Beer, birthdays and bittersweet memories

You know the game "Either Or"? It pretty much goes "Would you rather _____ or _____?" and then you have to choose one and whatever you choose says deep, meaningful things about your personality and life (maybe). Inevitably, someone asks, "Would you rather always be too hot or always be too cold?" I feel I always pick the opposite of whatever the climate is at the time because I'm fed up with the side effects of the cold/the summer. If it's summer, I say, "too cold!" but if it's winter, I say, "too hot!" But seriously. Being too hot blows massively and I'm not saying that just because it's been 85+ for several days/weeks now. Remind me of this in the winter when I'm going to say, "I'd much rather be too warm!" Although I do think I've said too cold before since when it's cold, at least you can put on layers. If you're hot and overheating, it's just hideous.

I first discovered the joy of a cold shower when I worked at Jesus camp in 2005. The best thing to do on my free Saturday afternoons was to take a cold shower, even if there were bugs everywhere. Since then, cold showers have been a staple of my summers, especially since I haven't lived anywhere with air conditioning for the past few years. Last summer when I worked at Jewish day camp, I'd come home from work, grab a beer and jump in the shower immediately. The best beer for drinking in the shower is Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy, a delicious mixture of wheat beer and lemonade. I'm in love with the Shandy and wish, wish, wish like hell someone in New Haven sold it. The only Leinie's I've found in New Haven has been Original and the Trix-cereal milk flavored Sunset Wheat. If you happen to be a New Haven bar owner reading this in search of adding a Leinie's line to your bar, avoid Sunset Wheat at all costs. Go for the Shandy and you will have my business for life.

Another beer I'm looking forward to at the end of the summer is Summit's Oatmeal Stout. They only brew it for the Minnesota Irish Fair. Drew, Amy and I had the lovely experience of touring the Summit Brewery in St. Paul so we were able to get a preview of the Stout before the fair, and let me tell you, I made plans right there and then to hit up the Irish fair. I'm not a huge fan of Summit - I've always thought their EPA tastes like soap - but the Oatmeal Stout won me over with its dark coloring, sweeter flavor and creamy head (I really just wanted to say creamy head).

When I'm in Milwaukee for the Irish Fest, I think it might be fun to go to the Sprecher Brewery. I've really liked the beer I've had at Irish Fest, and I've been a big fan of the bottled Hefe Weiss and Mai Bock. Plus there's free beer at brewery tours so... there's no reason not to go.

Today's the boyfriend's birthday so we had a delicious Birthday Breakfast at Bruegger's Bagels before I ran off to take my oral exam in French (a lot of b words at the beginning of that sentence). We went to see Ringo Starr and his All-Star Band last night, which was fun. Ringo Starr's an amazing dancer. Here's my video:



Tonight there's a secret birthday surprise and then Friday we're going to the hideous Maple Grove, aka suburban consumer hell, for dinner with his high school friends and then to see The Dark Knight. Saturday we're heading to Blarney's in Dinkytown for drinking in town. Huzzah for birthday plans!

I've been around Hamline and while it's the same place I lived for four years, it's not at the same time. This becomes more and more apparent as time goes on, people move away and things change. Not that it's necessarily bad, just different. I've had the unlucky pleasure of passing by my old, beloved apartment above the Mirror of Korea and seeing lights on in Natalie's old bedroom and my old bedroom. I always think to myself, "Who do they think they are, living in my room. I'll cut them. They had better be awesome enough to deserve to live there." And then I continue on my way, passing houses and buildings where people I know used to live. The whole Midway neighborhood sometimes feels like just a facade of a life I used to know; a place that looks the same, but at its core, isn't. It's sad passing by my old apartment and not going inside, but then at the same time, I'm going to a place that's different but good in it's own right. I don't think I'd want to go back to restart my senior year over again, but I feel nostalgic nonetheless.

I never really felt this way about high school places, but I was never one of those people who thought that high school was the best time of their life - quite the opposite.

Anyway, Andrew's bugging me to go to birthday dinner (can you tell that I just add "birthday" in front of everything that happens on one's birthday?). Later, friends! PS the temperature is sunny and 91 F.