My body currently feels somewhat dead, while my mind feels quite dead. It's not a very good mix.

I just got back from choir rehearsal. It was long and involved a lot of standing and singing high notes. Whee. I'm very tired, so I'm going to crash now... Luckily I did my psych assignment this afternoon so I can crash.

Friday is going to be not fun. I leave the dorm around 10 am for astro class, then go to the gym, then go eat lunch, then kill an hour, then go to English class, then go to the English department picnic, then go warm up for choir, then perform for 2 and a half hours, then stumble back to ML sometime after 10:30 pm to collapse. Yipee.

So I've sort of figured out how I'm going to get to and from the Something Corporate concert on Sunday. At least I'm confident my friend and I won't be sleeping in the park or anything.

The Tuesday after that (May 4th), some people on my hall are probably going to go to the zoo. I'm used to the St. Louis Zoo, which is free, except for the special exhibits. The Philadelphia Zoo doesn't work that way -- admission is about $16 for adults. But they also have tiger cubs, so it's worth it.

I got my psych assignment -- the one that was due last week -- done this evening so I can turn it in tomorrow. Whee. Now I just have to do the reading and work for this week. And do the work for all my other classes, of course.

It's hard to believe that school is almost over... Only 4 more days of classes, then I finish up some papers and take some finals and I'm gone. It's kind of weird... But nice at the same time.

Some quizzes, since I haven't taken any for awhile...


Emo! You're very in touch with your emotions and
that's what I like about you! It's all about
the music for you... I have pity for your
tortured soul...you're just like me...


What genre of rock are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


Love. You Truly Desire Love. You long for someone
to hold you and take the pain away. You haven't
been in much relationships or you need to work
on how to handle them. You always seem lost in
a daydream about the person you care about
most.


What Do You Truly Desire? *PICS*
brought to you by Quizilla

Pictures don't seem to be working... Rar.

I had forgotten how absolutely fantastic Saves the Day's Stay What You Are album is. Well, not really forgotten, but I had been distracted by other good stuff, mostly indie rock. But god... This album is great. I don't think there's a single song on here that I don't like. And my firm belief that this is one of the best CDs I own, when contrasted with Pitchfork's rating of it as a 2.9 ("heard worse, but still pretty bad") probably explains why I'm only occasionally happy with their reviews. They have given good reviews to other groups I like (Ted Leo, Pretty Girls Make Graves, The Wrens, The Postal Service), but they've also given pretty horrid reviews to other CDs I love, like The Get Up Kids' Something to Write Home About, Hey Mercedes' Everynight Fireworks, and Jimmy Eat World's Clarity. I would say they just really don't like emo, but they did give Jets to Brazil's Orange Rhyming Dictionary, which I would consider at least somewhat emo, an 8.7, well in the range for "exceptional." Oh well.

Still working on my emo mix, and still have way too many songs. I guess that's just because I have a lot of emo and emo-ish music in general. At this point I could make a boxed set of emo mixes... Good grief.

I need to do work. I've started some research for my astro paper (which will be turned in on the later turn-in date, without the optional WA draft)... But I still need to figure out what I'm doing for my last Milton essay (yay for extensions). And I need to catch up with psych work, and then finals will attack and I need to be ready for those. Gah.

But after 3 more weeks, I get to go home, where I shall sleep and do things that aren't really work, like reading piles of books and such. Yay!

But that's 3 weeks away yet. So... Time to do some work.

I played poker last night and made a $7 profit. Yay! We had so many people playing that Rob had to go get his chips and start a second table... It was cool. The tables rejoined after enough people had dropped out, and I cashed out then. I kind of wanted to keep playing, but my mind was feeling kind of fuzzy, so I figured I should stop. I think it was a wise decision.

Today will consist mostly of me doing work, especially because I didn't do much yesterday. Rar. I will find time to go to the last ML softball game though -- to watch, not play. And then this next week I need to start thinking about finals. Whee.

I'm a CA! I just got the email yesterday... I'm really happy. I now have the power to influence my own group of freshman. Bwahahaha! Not sure who my partner is yet, but it will most likely be John, since we requested to work with each other.

I saw Mystic River last night... The acting was good, but I had mixed emotions about the movie as a whole. But it was worth seeing.

I'm very hungry... Must eat brunch.

Just got done playing my first game of Wink. It was fun, but rather violent. My elbow is sort of bleeding, and I've got some painful rugburn on the tops of my feet. But I'm feeling invigorated, which is good... It means I can attack Milton again. Paradise Regained, here I come.

So the housing lottery is over now. Thank god. That was way too stressful and not at all fun. When my number was called, it seemed Dana was still open. I was happy. I got to the Dana table to sign up. And then I was told it was closed. And I hung my head and sighed and walked over to the ML table and took Rob's room.

On the plus side, I know some people who are going to be in the basement, and they're cool, so we'll make hall life if it kills us.

We have specs right now. Well, right now they're off doing their own thing, but they'll come back sooner or later. One of them reminds me so much of Claudia that it's really kind of freaky. Similar height, hair color (or at least hair color when I first met Clauds), sort of a similar style, a fedora... It's really odd. She seems cool, though, as do the other 2 girls. So that's nice. Not sure how showers and such will work out tomorrow, though. That'll be interesting.

Time to work, or at least think about working.

Just finished my astro homework. It really shouldn't have taken me this long. But it did, since I got a late start and let myself be distracted.

We're thinking maybe Dana now. I'd be okay with that. I had crossed it off the list due to the scary halls (they zig and zag, yay for riot-proof hallways) and also because I wasn't sure if I should be in the same dorm as Matt. But I can deal with the hallways, and we do fine in the same dorm now... And it's a happy medium between our other options. Of course, this may all fall apart when we get to the lottery and realize that the 3 Dana doubles have just been snatched up. That would suck, and it's not that unlikely. So there is still a chance that we'll end up in Rob's room. It really just all depends. But at least it will be over soon.

So despite my best efforts, my choices have basically come to this: Willets or ML. There is going to be a waiting list -- I have no doubt about that. My number will save me from that fate, but it won't help me get a better room. So. It's looking very much like ML basement, in Rob's room. Whee.

Must do astro homework and stop allowing myself to be distracted.

Looking at swimsuits right now. I know none of mine are going to fit, since I've had a small growth spurt over the past year. However, I'm not really sure if I should bother... I hardly ever go swimming. I feel like I should go more, though...

Ride the Tide starts on Wednesday night. We'll have three specs (prospective students) in our room. Yay for not having any floor space... Not sure what the heck we'll do with them for the first few hours -- we have the housing lottery to deal with and then chorus. I guess they'll just have to tag along or something. Or we'll have to hand them off to someone. I'm sure we'll figure it out.

I have a new toy: a MP3 player. It makes me happy. It will make me even happier after I get my iTunes files converted over and put on it... But as it is, Nell (who I bought it from) had some music on it that I've been enjoying -- Death Cab for Cutie that I hadn't heard, some The Decemberists, some Ani, and plenty of classical. Yay for new toys!

I dyed my hair last night. Actually, Rob dyed it for me. He did a good job, too. The color looks more brown than red, I think, but I still like it. Yay for having auburn hair and not light brown or dirty blonde or whatever my hair was doing before.

I need to go work on psych now. Excitement.

I feel kind of crappy at the moment. What I thought could be my saving grace has disappeared and left me with what I had before, and while it's not the worst thing, it's also not the greatest. *sigh* If you asked me how I would have felt about this situation at the beginning of the year, I would have said it would have been fine, great even. But ever since fall break, it's been changing, and now I'm neutral toward the whole thing. And ever now and again other factors get tossed in that make me less than neutral, and that makes me more desperate to find something better. And ever attempt I've made so far has failed. And that just makes it worse, somehow. To know that I almost had it figured out, and then lost it. Only a few more days to worry about it now... On Wednesday it will all be settled. Whee.

Went into Philly yesterday, which was fun. Bought two CDs -- new Get Up Kids and The Von Bondies. Both are good so far. Went out to dinner, which was quite yummy. Gave my mom her birthday present, which she liked. Played poker with my brothers and some people in the dorm. We took my brothers' money. I'm finally up for the year again... I was down $10.35 last week, and I'm now up 15 cents. Yeah, it's not much, but it's an improvement.

The weather is great... Maybe almost too warm, but beautiful regardless.

Time for brunch.

It's almost 3 am. I just finished up my psych paper. Whee. That was fun. I'm not very happy with it, but at least I have something. Since my brain shut down ages ago, that's saying quite a bit. In fact, I don't know if my brain ever started working today. Well, it did function long enough for me to concoct a new housing scheme (the latest plan involves a quad in Wharton) and chat with Nell (whose MP3 player I have every intention of buying), but then it lapsed back into a not very productive semi-functional state. Which meant I didn't get much work done this afternoon (read: got no work done this afternoon), so I got to do it all after dinner and chorus. Starting a paper at 11 pm the night before it's due is not a good idea, and it's generally not something I would do. But I did it this time. And tomorrow I get to start a lab write-up the day before it's due, as well as do my Milton reading the day before it's due, perhaps finishing it right before class. Whee! And then next week I have another lab, an astro paper, picking my room, regular assignments, and perhaps the beginnings of an English essay. Such fun...

Oh. The playlist for my radio show on Tuesday night, the last one of the semester: (No WSRN playlist songs, since it was a special show.)

Jump Little Children: Too High
Rusted Root: Send Me on My Way
Jack Johnson: Flake
Eels: Dog-Faced Boy
Gorillaz: 19-2000
Radiohead: 2+2=5
Beta Band: B+A
Guster: Two Points for Honesty
Dispatch: Bats in the Belfry
Jeff Buckley: Last Goodbye
Save Ferris: One More Try
Dave Matthews Band: One Sweet World
The Postal Service: Such Great Heights
Cat Stevens: Moonshadow
Ben Harper: I Shall Not Walk Alone

In general the songs were longer and I talked more than usual. That's why there are probably fewer songs than usual. Anyway, it was a good show, I think.

Alright. officially 3 am now. Bed calls.

I'm making an emo mix CD, and I'm having some difficulty with it... Namely because I'd really like to put the entirety of Save the Day's Stay What You Are on it, but if I do that it's not exactly a mix, now is it? Had the same problem, but to a lesser degree, with Dashboard Confessional and Jets to Brazil. Will have a similar issue with Something Corporate and Pinkerton, no doubt. Gah. Too many good songs.

So the blocks were posted today. We didn't get the Lodge. *is sad* But after seeing the party that was occurring in the courtyard on Sunday, I'm not as sad as I thought I'd be. Plus, I got my lottery number today... 881. Rising sophmores have numbers between 800 and 1170, so I did fairly well, which means I should get a pretty good room. We'll see what happens.

An odd coincidence to note... I'm reading Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa for my abnormal psych class. It's talking about Sir William Gull at the moment, who was one of the first people to focus on anorexia in the modern sense (i.e. unrelated to religious fasting, fasting as a stunt, etc), and he apparently came up with the term "anorexia nervosa." And as I was reading along, I also learned that he helped treat Prince Edward for typhoid fever, and afterwards Queen Victoria began to rely on him and he was the physician for the royal family. And then something hit me: this is the guy from From Hell! I just looked it up and confirmed it. Sir William Gull, who is the culprit in the movie/graphic novel, which follows the "royal scandal" theory of the murders. Weird. So the guy who may or may not have been Jack the Ripper (or at least may have been involved in it) presented the diagnosis of anorexia nervosa to the world.

21 Grams doesn't seem to be showing tonight. Grr. I really wanted to see it, too.

Block info is posted on Monday afternoon. Gah. That's so far away...

Listening to The Beauty Pill... The Unsustainable Lifestyle is quickly becoming my current favorite album. It's good stuff, mellow at times, but with this sort of tension to it all the same. I don't know...

I feel like I'm not thinking straight at the moment. I feel very detached from myself, like my mind has removed myself from my body, and now they're both just kind of sitting there, like "Now what?"... I need to do work; I really, really need to do work. But it's easier to sit at the computer and keep checking my email even though I'm not actually expecting any messages, even though I need to write emails to other people.

I feel very blah. I lost another $5 playing poker last night. That means for the entire year I'm down about $10... It's really not that much, when you put it into the context of money spent for entertainment and such, but I don't like losing. And I've just kept on losing in poker for the past month or so. I think I'll stop playing for awhile. Next time people play, maybe I'll just watch. Be like the girls in a casino (or at least girls in movie casinos) that hang out by the guys, flirting and such. Or not.

I think I always write like this after I read Portia's blog. Even though I only met the girl once, and don't really know her at all, and don't really know who or what she's writing about, I still visit her blog every now and then just because of the way she writes. Clauds writes like that too, sometimes... It's just so amazing, so beautiful. Like music and poetry in the form of prose, losing the rhyme and rythm but still keeping the spirit of it all.

I just finished translating more Bach for chorus. Well, it's actually copying a translation into the music book, but it's work nonetheless. Just work that doesn't require me to actually know German.

To do this weekend: Catch up on astro and psych reading, do a self-portrait for art, email my advisor about classes for next semester, deal with my SCCS account (ha, I've been saying I'll do that ever since winter break!), avoid stressing about getting a Lodge.

21 Grams is showing on campus this weekend... I think I'll go see it tonight.

I have formulated a backup plan in case we don't get the Lodge and have pretty sad numbers: ML basement. To be more specific, Rob's current room. As much as I'd kind of like to be on campus next year, I do like ML, and wouldn't be too upset about living here again. And rooms in the basement are really not in high demand, so it would be pretty easy to get. Also, it's a nice room. Big windows, big room, big closets. Okay, so there's no hall life in the basement. But there's also no hall life in Danawell, and I don't think I want the hall life of Willets (though I do want the Willets cat)... Wharton and Worth are impossible to get into, Parrish is single-sex, which I don't want... Same with Whittier... Mertz is unavailable... PPR is off campus, and if I'm going to be off campus, I'd rather be in ML... Same for Strath Haven... And New Dorm will probably be hard to get into, since it's well, new. And I don't even know where Woolman is.

I guess for me, if we don't get the Lodge, next best would maybe New Dorm (but if I'm a CA, and it's not ready in time, what do I do then?), and then probably a tie between Danawell and somewhere in ML. But it's not just my decision, I do have a roommate. So... Marci, any thoughts on the situation?

I'm going to attempt to answer my questions for psych without finishing my reading. I feel bad, but I still have about 60 pages to go, it's already 10:45 pm, and I'm tired. Gah. And tomorrow night I get to study for astro and read two more books of Paradise Lost. And then comes the blessed weekend. But the weekend means that I should really catch up on astro reading, as well as finally finish up those damn cover letters and actually send them out so there's a chance I could maybe, maybe get an internship.

And all I want to do now is sit and do nothing at all. Maybe read a bit, but probably not. I'd like to talk with someone, just have a nice chat, but not really have to think about it much, just feel and respond. I want to sink into my bed and not get up for hours, days, forever. I want to sit in a warm bath until the water goes cold, then empty it out and refill it and do it again. I want to have a cat in my lap, warm and purring. I want my headache to fade away and have the world fade away with it as I close my eyes and sleep.

But I can't.

I turned in the blocking applications this morning. So know I get to wait around anxiously until Monday or so, hoping we get a Lodge. It won't be the end of the world if we don't, but I'd be disappointed. *crosses fingers, hopes*

Time for a nap now...

Extra long radio show...

*Franz Ferdinand: Cheating on You
*Dios:The Starting Five
Pretty Girls Make Graves: Chemical, Chemical
The New Pornographers: The Laws Have Changed
Hey Mercedes: The Frowning of a Lifetime
The Weakerthans: The Reasons
*The Walkmen: The Rat
*The Turn-Ons: Won’t Come Home
Blur: Beetlebum
*Elbow: Buttons and Zips
*My Bloody Valentine: Only Shallow
Sleater-Kinney: The End of You
Lennon: Trying to Make Me
*The Beauty Pill: Terrible Things
Fiona Apple: Limp
*East River Pipe: Where Does All the Money Go?
*Blonde Redhead: Elephant Woman
AFI: Girl’s Not Grey
Poe: Terrible Thought
Challenger: Input the Output
Joydrop: Sometimes Wanna Die
Sneaker Pimps: Low Place Like Home
Nine Inch Nails: Head Like a Hole
*Enon: Murder Sounds
*The Envy Corps: Keys to Good Living
Radiohead: National Anthem
Dictionaraoke: Tired of Sex
Weezer: Tired of Sex
Cursive: Some Red Handed Slight of Hand
Schatzi: The Spider Smells Disaster
*Need New Body: Opofest

Only one more radio show left this semester... It makes me sad.

Woohoo! The final draft of my Milton essay, all seven lovely pages of it, is now done and printed out. This makes me happy. And I'm made even happier by the fact that there's no psych class tomorrow (er, later today...), so I get to sleep in a bit. Niftiness.

Speaking of sleep...

Today has been interesting thus far, mostly because I managed to throw up three times in about seven minutes. Twice walking from the gym to the fieldhouse, and then once in the locker room. Whee. I don't know why it happened... I feel fine, except for my cold. I guess all the phlegm that had settled in my chest decided to tickle my gag reflex or something. Anyway. It wasn't pleasant.

Now that I've grossed you out, how about some good news? This Tuesday my radio show will be two hours long! The guy who has the show before mine has dinner plans, so he won't be able to stay for the second half of his show... So my show will be from 7 to 9 pm this week. Check it out.

I just played with Legos for about 2 hours... I built a pretty yellow house and some other stuff. Yay for regressing back to childhood! Whee!

Avoiding doing actual work. I don't feel like reading any more astro, and I really don't feel like working on either of my papers. Blah. So I'll work on cover letters for possible internships instead, which I need to do anyway.

I finally checked something out of McCabe. Granted, it was not a book. Heaven forbid I check a book out of the library. No, I checked out The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys on DVD, and I'll probably watch it tonight. I saw Big Fish last night on campus, which was pretty good, though I felt like the ending came kind of suddenly. Nonetheless, good.

Alright. Cover letters.

Two Weezer-related items...

One, the guy who is remixing Jay-Z with Weezer, yielding Jay-Zeezer, recently finished mixing "Dirt of Your Shoulder" with "Surf Wax America"... While the other songs he's done have been so-so (the guy isn't an actually DJ, unlike DJ Dangermouse, who did the Grey Album, so that's not a big surprise), but this one is actually pretty good.

Two, while scanning the news at Weezer.com, I learned that Dictionaraoke.org, "The Singing Dictionary" has a version of "Tired of Sex"... It's rather interesting, and hard to describe. It's basically electronic (I assume from online dictionaries prounouncing the words) voices spliced together to the song... The poor dictionary guy can't hold out those long notes, though. It's sad... The wailing "Ah"s are just not the same. Nonetheless (or maybe because of that), it is quite entertaining.

I need to go be productive. I really, really need to go be productive.