Ah, Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, due to the nature of my schedule, I was unable to spend Valentine's Day proper with junegloomy , but I did get to spend the whole weekend with him. It was nice, and I shall now recount it.

I had work Friday, so I drove up afterwards and arrived sometime after 11. It was nice finally seeing him, and I shoved my gift down his throat with much protest from him (get your minds out of the gutter, assholes). I had put together a basket of sorts - I found a heart-shaped bowl and plate set (hooray Target), filled the bowl with Kisses, plus a thing of Hello Kitty stickers, a Frosted Cupcake 4oz candle from my wonderful employer, as well as some Valentine's themed Pocketbacs, and some Gertrude Hawk chocolate bars. He was thrilled with the chocolate...

Saturday I slept in, mainly because sleeping with Ricky is damn near impossible. One, it's a twin bed, and two, I fail at falling asleep. Even after taking a sleeping pill, I was up til probably 3am, waking up every half hour or so. I managed to pass out and sleep for a few hours after he got out of bed. Whoo. He gave me his present later - a cute, homemade, super-sentimental card, as well as chocolates-filled mailbox and gummy cupcakes on a stick. And, the best part, is the CD - a whole CD full of songs sung by him, including a little narrative of how we met. It was adorable.

Later, we went to my housemate's mother's house for a yummy spaghetti dinner and desserts. I missed homecooking so much... it was delicious. He then left to prepare for his show. I did forget to say that - the other point of me visiting, aside from Valentine's Day, was to see him perform in a show - How I Learned to Drive. Me, my housemate, her mom, Ricky's roommate, his girlfriend, and her friend all saw the show together later that night. It was an interesting show, with a strange and ambiguous plot of pedophilia and mild incest. Yes, I know it sounds odd beyond compare, but the show did make me think. Ricky did too, as he drilled me with plot and character development questions after the show.

Sunday, we again slept in, and Ricky did a matinee performance of the show. I didn't go, though he offered me a comp ticket. Instead, I continued my insidious plan to surprise him. I went food shopping, and crafted together a nice meal of panko-crusted baked chicken and rice. It was delicious, and I finally managed to surprise him - though he did have a feeling that I was up to something.

The drive home on Sunday night sucked, though. There apparently was a construction accident on 295, so I hit major traffic, and then had to get off the damn highway, along with three lanes of traffic, onto a little two-lane country road.  I drove for a bit on it, to the chagrin of my GPS (who is voiced by Daria), until jumping onto 676. In a desperate attempt to avoid the turnpike and the toll, I stayed on it and continued unknowingly to 95. I drove by center city Philly - it's gorgeous at night -  and then realized I had to pay the damn toll to cross the bridge.

All in all, a nice weekend. I enjoyed all of it. And I miss that fool already.

Feeling: Still blank

I hate zits. Especially the ones that erupt on chest, leaving me with pus and blood stains. I'm sure you were curious about that.

Let's talk about my classes, shall we? I feel the need to rant.

Gender and Children's Literature. While, yes, it sounds innocuous, it actuality it's a far cry from analyzing Babar and the thinly-veiled racism therein. Instead, we take an approach of reading literature aimed at young adults. This does mean that it tends to be more entertaining (aka, no picture books, hooray) but it does also mean that I am trapped -ijustlookedatmydoorandithinkiseeaspideronit- analyzing stories that may or may not actually have a subcontextual opinion on gender. My previous post was for that class - and yes, I did enjoy The Magic Circle, but the class after I wrote that, when we actually discussed the book, was laden with more postulated undercurrents than riptide-infested beaches. I admit, often literature does carry a meaning beyond the simply semantics of the words used, but sometimes - a puddle is just a puddle. You can't analyze a work that is shallow (and I don't mean shallow in a sense of poor quality, I just mean lack of deeper meaning) and try to coax a new depth out of it because you have the brainpower to do it. Sometimes, a word is just a word, and sentence is just a sentence, and a story is just a story. Plain fact.

Also, in that class, there is this girl that should be muzzled. I'm not the only one that thinks so - in fact, while walking after leaving said class, I bumped into some classmates who I rarely talk to. First words out of their mouths: "Ok, so what do you think of that girl?" I may sound like an ass, but no one really gives a shit that the author the professor just mentioned happens to be the same person who wrote an article for the paper you wrote. No one cares.

Class number two of the semester is Second Language Acquisition. It's a hardcore class - it doesn't involve very much work, in that, I don't spend hours doing work outside of class - but the work that I do do is indeed involved. We spend most of the class talking about theories on how humans learn other languages, how we should teach them, and then we experiment with said theories as our professor teaches us Danish using one of said theories. All in all, it's an entertaining, yet draining class. Also, I can now speak a little Danish. Now I need to figure out how to write it.

As for my senior seminar (aka final work of my major), I'm doing a fun syntactic study of English, Spanish, and the constructed language Lojban, using an excerpt from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as the medium to explore. I haven't gotten too deep into it, but so far it's been fun... though learning Lojban is devilish.

Feeling: Blank

My (very short) comparison between the Grimm brothers' Hansel and Gretel and Donna Jo Napoli's The Magic Circle:

     The Magic Circle was a surprise to me - I would like to start off by saying that I was actually entertained by the story and I did enjoy it. The Magic Circle, being a new take on Hansel and Gretel, does have its differences from and similarities to the original tale. My favorite, and possible the key one, is the treatment of the witch. Napoli takes great care in making the reader realize that the witch (or according to The Magic Circle, Ugly One) is not an inherently evil being. She was tricked into her witch status, by a simple deviation from her normal choices of goodness. Relation number two of Napoli's tale to the original is the origin of Hansel and Gretel. The two have a strong semblance to the original siblings - deceased mother, cruel stepmother, coerced into the woods in hopes of abandonment, and shared desire for the cottage out of sheer hunger. Napoli develops their personalities more than the Grimm brothers, but that is to be expected from novel (albeit a short one) as opposed to the original short story. The final, and possibly most moving relation between the two stories, is the death of the witch/Ugly One. The Grimms’ version involves trickery on Gretel’s part that leads to the witch’s fiery demise.  Napoli treats the Ugly One’s death as a sacrifice - in order to save the children from the demons’ controlling appetite for human flesh, she burns herself.

     The Magic Circle’s different ending twists the fairytale in a different light, especially in terms of who ‘wins’ at the end. The original made it clear and simple - the children won, the witch perished, and all was well in the world of fantasy. But Napoli’s rendering of the Ugly One’s final flaming fatality brought a new interpretation of who won, and who lost. I see it in a few ways: the Ugly One succeeded in that she drove out her demons, albeit committing suicide in the process, and the children lost as they were once again motherless (recall how Gretel did scream “Mother!” as the Ugly One slinked deeper into the oven).  On the converse, both parties may have won, since the Ugly One, as previously stated, drove out her demons, and the children were saved from the aforementioned demonic craving for baby-meat.

Feeling: Busy

My oh my, it's been a while. Almost a year. Speaking of, happy 2011 to the no one who reads this.

What has happened? I moved into my house, one semester has flown by (straight A's, booyah) and Tuesday marks the beginning of my final semester here at TCNJ. Such sadness, that whole graduation thing is scary.

The big problem is now my plans for post-graduation. I planned to originally take a semester off, travel, and then begin grad school in the spring. Tiny problem - the linguistics department, unlike most at Rutgers, doesn't do mid-year enrollment. So essentially I'm screwed out of grad school until I can apply for autumn of 2012. Over a year from now.

This poses one extra conundrum - I, like many, have student loans. They are deferred until I graduate, and would continue to be deferred until I graduate from grad school. But since I now cannot do grad school until 2012, the loans would come due. I'm unsure if I can re-defer them (HESAA is terrible with customer service and answering questions), so I'm in a pickle of having to begin repayment when I won't have a full-time job. Oi.

The one option is to take some classes at my community college and transfer credits in from TCNJ, and mayhaps get certified to be something in a 2 year program (or, a one year program since I will be transferring stuff in from TCNJ). I'm thinking of being certified to be a paralegal, but that has limited application. Not sure what else I can do.

Anyway, unacademically, the boy and I have reached a year and a half together. Very exciting, considering it's my longest relationship yet, and I hope it continues to be my longest. It's wonderful.

Oh, I forgot. I also am employed at Bath and Body Works - happened in the fall, and I strangely love retail. It's a whole new set of wackjobs every day. Such entertainment, and occasionally aggravation they provide me.

Feeling: Enthralled

Ah, almost Easter.

Spent today sleeping. It was glorious. After more than a week dealing with an upper respiratory tract infection and not getting to sleep too much, it was beyond fantastic to sleep in.

I also got to survey some furniture for my new house. Got a TV, and I will most likely be acquiring a sleeper couch for my room. I love getting the big room. So awesome.

Now, being that tomorrow is Easter, we dyed eggs. I enjoy doing that, not really sure why. However, the eggs do mean one thing: epper tomorrow. I did some research on epper, since it lacks an article on Wikipedia, spellcheckers think that it doesn't exist, and even Google provides me with results for 'pepper'. Epper is a German tradition, apparently stemming from the German word 'Opfern', meaning 'to sacrifice', in the way you would to a god. Not sure how that ties into egg knocking, but there you go.

Nonetheless, I've got a host of vibrant eggs to crack with and all sorts of yummy food to look forward to.

The abundance of bunnies, however, does make me miss Thumper a lot. Sigh.

The occasion also led to me doing some (more) research and adding some words to the Dod lexicon, since I lacked terms for Easter or Christmas. They are now 'Pasc' (from Hebrew via Greek [Pesach {פֶּסַח} > Paskha {Πάσχα}]) and 'Raosdest' (from Old Church Slavonic roždĭstvo [рождьство], meaning birth, birthday, Christmas, or labor [Cole was spoken in the area of Romania, so it received influence from Latin, Greek, and the Slavic languages and therefore its daughter languages, such as Dod, have such vestiges of the borrowings into Cole]).

I hope I stayed consistent with the parentheses use. Should be this: ([{}])

Bibliography:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1502709/easter_traditions_eppering_with_easter.html

OH GOD I'M CITING THINGS WHAT HAS COLLEGE DONE TO ME

Feeling: Dorky

I haven't posted in almost a gazillion years.

Life is rather routine, but I shall detail what I find important:

- Approaching the 10 month mark with my boyfriend, yeehaw
- Thumper, my baby, passed away
- My self-designed major (Spanish and linguistics) has been approved
- Got my grade for a class I supposedly had an incomplete in
- My 21st is also fast approaching
- I'm currently sick

I feel like I should have more to say, but... no. I'll attempt to post more, teehee.

Feeling: Bored

VoicePost 51K 0:14

(no transcription available)

Just me speaking for the sake of some linguistics. =]

Feeling: Dorky

Ah, how we all march in some way or another. Progression.

Today marks six months with junegloomy . I am ecstatic. It's been an amazing six months and I'm excited for what the next six have in store. It's been thoroughly amazing. Amazing experience with an amazing man.

The semester is winding down, classes are over, and I barely sleep anymore. Study, paper, study... other crap. Not to mention house hunting for next year. I'm rather excited about moving into a house. It's such a tantalizing prospect. One step closer to real adulthood, as scary as it may be.

Short entry today - I'm pooped and want a nap, we're seeing a house today and I want to be somewhat rested.

Six months! Ah!

Feeling: Ecstatic

Nothing better than beer bread and butter.

And my father's racist ramblings.

Ugh.

I hate to air grievances, but honestly, that crap he's spewing is over the top. It agitates me that every time he sees a commercial that involves more than one race, the 'white guy' is being shown as a 'moron'. Sigh.

Anyway, it's Thanksgiving, and though I bitch and moan tons, I, like many people, have a lot to be thankful for. I have a nice family (who piss me off constantly, but what can I do there), I have my friends, I go to a good school, my rabbit isn't dead (yet, I'll detail that in a bit), I have an amazing boyfriend, and plenty of other things.

Now, Thumper, my dear bunny baby, is getting old. She's six, and unfortunately now just kinda pees everywhere (as opposed to her former habit of only using her litterbox) and has sores on her feet. She still gives me plenty of love and always hops over to see me when she can, but she's just getting plain old. It's sad (and slightly enlightening) to see something age in front of you. I've watched my cousins age, but the oldest is only 8 - with Thumper, I've seen her go from baby to senescence. It's sad, but what can you do - things get old.

Anyway, I'm off to be social. I only crept away because dad was aggravating me. Have a good holiday.

Feeling: Aggravated

The semester is drawing to a close, and this means a few many things for me:

1) Finals
2) Papers
3) Proposals the finish
4) Christmas (and the associated evil of financing Christmas)
5) Financing next semester
6) Financing a car
7) Florida

I love how negative everything is until the last one - I do admit, I'm excited to spend Christmas and New Year's in Disney. Should be quite the experience. Nonetheless, the first six things (and there are other things as well that are too trivial to list) are going to drive me batshit crazy until I manage to get them all done. The bill for next semester has already been totaled, so there goes 67 hundred dollars that I don't have. The car issue isn't as severe, but if I can get a piece of shit, then I can at least get a job, and then hopefully have more money, and be able to afford Spain in the summer. Sigh.

This, by the way, is exquisite. That girl's voice is absolutely amazing, and I really find it uncomparable to any other I've heard. Take a listen, it's also a beautiful song.

Work tomorrow. Thanksgiving the day after. And work the day after that.

I wish I didn't feel envy.

Feeling: Dorky

So I have a composition due tomorrow for my one Spanish class. I don't know the topic. It's fairly obvious that I haven't written it, and frankly I'm up shit's creek since I don't know what to write about, or else I'd pull it out of my ass in the next few hours.

Hate this.

So ready for this semester to be over. I have a vacation to look forward to. Nonetheless, I have a month to endure (almost exactly) and it is killing me. The recently acquired inability to sleep isn't helping either. Let's lay out today:

- Do interviews for class, which are due today
- Figure out the composition thing
- Have class
- Have another class
- Tiny breather in which I might shake children to feel better
- Class
- Smaller breather to plan the class I have to teach
- Class I teach

Then I'm free. Sort of. More like, then I'm free to go back to my room to write a paper due Tuesday because I procrastinated like a fool. And I have another paper due Wednesday at midnight, luckily it's all etymology and just an exposition of my ability to use an online dictionary. Also need to finish the independent study proposal. I've started it, hurrah, thanks to being in the library until 2am, but I frankly don't know what I am doing and am totally winging it.

I need to post a happy entry sometime, don't you think?

Next semester is scheduled, though I may end up changing a class. I've scheduled one Spanish class, more as a placeholder than anything else since I will be in Spain over the summer and will be taking a course there. Thanks to the self-designed major, I am pretty much done with Spanish classes, but I don't want to fall out of practice for a semester since I know language skills disappear fast if you don't use them - reasons I'm slightly scared of French next semester since it's been a fair few months since I've spoken it. I have been practicing though, yay for French-speaking Canadian friends.

The weekend was at least nice, thanks to the boyfriend visiting and alleviating some stress I had... I so thoroughly enjoyed the relaxation and lack of a schedule (though he had work to do, we still managed to be lazy and love it).

Feeling: Stressed

Life is currently less problematic.

Yes, I do have a good amount of work to get done for tomorrow, and scheduling for next semester is right around the corner. The entire process of scheduling is pendant on this major proposal going through. Whee. Nonetheless, I have a meeting with the department head on Tuesday (I think) and that should clear this crap up.

The sister's birthday is just around the corner, and she's almost 17, and I feel oooooooold. GA.

Well... time for work. And procrastination.

Ciaocito.

Feeling: Relieved

My oh my, two different professors (these are people with their doctorates, by the way) have told me to transfer from the school that I attend (and love) and go to another one because our linguistics program is so scant that it will impede my chances of getting into a good grad school.

Joy, mindfucks.

Anyway, I'm planning to go ahead with my constructed major and to graduate with it, and then hopefully I can take classes at this other school (and transfer in tons of classes from my current one) and get a second degree there. Then I would scoot myself off to some grad school for linguistics and got my doctorate (and revel in having 'Dr.' prefixed before my name) and be a professor and be happy with life.

Essentially, I won't have my 'dream life' until I'm somewhere in the area of 27 or 28. How saddening.

I'll survive. I always do.

Also, I did my hair differently than usual about half an hour ago. I look badass and love it.

Ciaocito.

Feeling: Confused

I hate being melancholy. I feel selfish, honestly. There is so much to be happy for and yet I manage to pick through the happy to get to the refuse bin that's holding it up. Nonetheless, I can't really shake it.

I played tour guide on Saturday, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would love to be an ambassador for my school - the main problem is that the majority of the ambassadors are dicks who I do not particularly enjoy being near. That sucks.

I'm writing my major proposal (literally, I'm taking a break from it right now), and skimming the classes that I should  be taking, I am excited and relieved knowing that I will enjoy almost all of them. There is one titled "Philosophy and Literature" that is scaring me, but I suppose there needs to be an evil or two in anything that is great.

I suppose I should return to that now.

Not that I want to. I hate writing.

Feeling: Distressed
Hearing: Walk of Life - Dire Straits

I am changing my major.

And building one.

Wheeeeee.

Currently Liz and I are being thoughtful about our respective boyfriends and listening to some Regina Spektor - a most wonderful afternoon.

Party tonight.

I'm excited.

Feeling: Excited

Getting references for the job. Just fyi,

Anyway, today I wish I had the power to control weather. Why is this? Wake up obscenely early one day and do your hair to just have it devastated by rain and tell me how you feel. Sad how it irks me that much that my hair was ruined by rain.

I also currently feel like an enormous fatass for eating that Stoufer's macaroni and cheese. Yes, it was orgasmic. Yes, it was approximately 600 calories. Was it worth it? Beyond me.

However, I am happy to finally be spending a weekend at school. And, there's a party tonight. Oh how I love some good jubilations.

Feeling: Full
Hearing: Unusual You - Britney Spears

Once again, I am home (after spending four nights home and about thirteen hours at school today) because I have the joy and thrill of working tomorrow.

Not that I'm bitching and moaning or anything.

The deal is that I desperately need a car - to the point that I probably would kill a hooker with a narwhal if I needed to. Not sure how that would work, but you get the picture of my desperation. Now, I've done the math and I should have about thirteen hundred bucks in the bank come December. That should be a nice down payment - we'll see how that goes when the real car hunting begins.

For now I've just been browsing and cursing at websites for their supposedly great vehicles that my bestie later debunks as a fake dealership. Glad she did so, it's however still frustrating.

Back to the work thing - tomorrow I will be trapped for twelve hours at work to squeeze every last penny I can out of that place for my vehicular problems. Speaking of those, did I mention I got in an accident? Spun out into a guardrail. Now that was a blast.

My biggest problem with work is not the actual idea of it, but instead the time it's taking from me. Wednesday is my usual catch-up and get work done day. Obviously I'm losing that, plus I spend two nights at home every week without fail. Not that being home bothers me (ok, lie, I prefer living at school so much more), but I like to just get comfy and enjoy living/staying somewhere without having to pack up weekly to head home.

Today also happens to be three months of relationship with the boy, I must gleefully admit. It's nice to have a good relationship for once.

ALSO - I found a job offer for conlanging. Yes, really. What am I smoking. I'm totally going for it, and am in the process of collecting references and the like so I can present myself as something more than a kid in the middle of getting his degrees. Still, it's an intriguing opportunity, considering linguistics jobs aren't all too common, and conlanging really isn't too big either (I can only think of two such conlangs used for something; Klingon for Startrek and the Atlantian language for the Disney movie Atlantis). Wish me luck.

Feeling: Miffed

I'm rather agitated about not sleeping.

It seems that whenever I come home (and this has been for the past two years), I lose the sleep schedule I had at school and fall into a state of insomnia and aggravation.

And considering I have the boy coming over tomorrow and I have work to do (two Spanish articles, one linguistics chapter, and a bunch of notes to take between the two classes), it's rather frustrating since I now know that on Monday morning, upon my arrival on campus, I will be working like a fool to get done what I need to for the classes I have. Yes, they would be Spanish (well, one of two Spanishes) and linguistics.

I would jump for joy, but my mattress isn't that quiet.

I would also just like to mention a regret - I wish I had stayed an artsy person, or at least partially one. All my creativity has flowed into linguistics, where it really doesn't do too much aside from fester in my brain and cause the creation of yet another language that will be spoken by no one other than the nations of imaginary people in my head.

I did just learn, however, that insomnious is apparently a word. My spellchecker doesn't think so, but the Random House Dictionary says so. I'll put my bets on that.

Feeling: Aggravated

Aight aight, this is the first of (hopefully) many entrees about my quasi-boring life. Let's get going, I got some crap to go on about.

My boyfriend rocks, and I shall detail this more when stuff happens that I can remember clearly (since my memory sucks butt). You can also check his lj (and read his much better-preserved memories) at junegloomy .

Last night I was driving home from his house and was on the parkway - and it was wet out. Drizzling. Wet road. I slow down to get off the parkway, and fishtail as I was getting on the offramp, dangerously close to smashing the front end of the passenger side into a guardrail. I managed to right the car, but overcompensated... and spun out, smashing the front driver side into the guardrail. Inga (the car) is now missing a headlight and some of the bumper has no paint... and there's a tiny tiny hole in it, too.

Today was the fantasy football draft, which drags me back from school thanks to copious amounts of food. Unhealthy, delicious food. I watched Deep Impact and ate a lot.

Family Guy now, talk to you all later.

Feeling: Awake