Mara

Well, I certainly ended finals week with a bang. After having a hysterical freak-out last night over being unprepared for this morning's History of Southern Africa final, Otto and I set three alarms for 7 am and went to bed at like 4 am.

UNFORTUNATELY, some sleep-walking must have happened, because I was gently pushed awake by Otto saying, "Baby, get up, it's 10:36"......wat? So as soon as I was ungroggy enough to realize what he was saying, I threw on the nearest article of clothing near me (a summer dress *eyeroll*) and we both ran to the exam, which was already an hour and 40 minutes underway. I was like tearing up and hyperventilating, I hadn't brushed my hair. We run into the room and everyone looks up at us. We rush right to our T.A. and Otto starts to explain. (We were a good team that way. He did the talking, and my presence gave his story credibility.) Our professor comes over with this look on his face like, "Lawdy, Lawdy, what have we here?!"

They tell us that we can't have extra time, but we should start taking the exam now and see how well we can do. We had almost two hours.

We both finished. I think it was ok. We both felt relatively good about it, but god it was scary.

The test was such an adrenaline rush that afterwards, we were SMILING and HAPPY and EXCITED. It was the weirdest roller-coaster of emotion ever. And it SHOULD have been a nightmare. But the happy ending helped, I guess. The dining hall ladies laughed at me because I showed up at lunch wearing a summer dress and flip-flops. Not my fault! Well, kind of.

Phew, what a day. After that, I packed for our trip down the east coast, which has apparently turned into Blizzard Alley for the one particular day we want to leave. I'm excited to get to our destination and be warm. Hopefully we don't die an icy death en route.

Mara^out.

Ok, three exams down and two left to go: Early Modern England (tomorrow afternoon) and History of Southern Africa (Friday morning). This hasn't been quite as hellish as expected. Of course, I don't think I really killed Astro or French, but I don't think they should alter my grades for the classes.

I can't bring myself to study for this coming exam. I had a migraine until 10, and then it went away, but immediately I started the routine mini-breakdown. I can't keep feeling this way. I cry every night. I don't know if it's exam stress or social stress or what, but I hope it goes away soon. I feel ineffective and sick and alone. I'm not writing, I'm not studying, I haven't gone to a party since the very beginning of the semester, and I feel all of my college friends slipping away through impending graduation, study abroad, or just diffidence. I also feel like I've lost my ability to make friends, meet people, and not be awkward. Everything is a dead end. Nobody at home seems to understand this, I guess because it's not something I've ever had trouble with before, but it feels like it's an integral part of my personality now, and I don't like it.

This doesn't feel like something I can blame on birth control hormones. I really can't shake the notion that these feelings are way too legitimate and founded completely on reason.

I wish I could bury myself in a novel. It's been too long. Maybe I've just never spent this much time wholly in reality before.

I also wish I had kept the same inherent personality traits I had at the age of nine. Insecurity sucks. Inadequacy sucks. Three weeks away will probably do me a world of good, but I have to not fuck up these history exams before then. This will entail wildly grasping at concentration straws.

You can see how well it's working. Thanks, Livejournal.

A series of minor implosions, tonight. I seem to be sabotaging my studying. I can't concentrate, I'm not eating, I'm not taking in anything during review sessions. Thank god my grades are alright going into the finals or else this would be ten times worse.

I'm sick and tired of reading about the English Constitution. I feel bedraggled and frazzled. I feel like my synapses are like...doing a lame sputtering smoldering thing rather than firing.

Erk.

Ugh. So reading period is coming up, and I have a shit-ton of stuff to do. I have five exams and one paper due the week after next. I need to write the paper this weekend and make a study calendar for reading period. To complicate my schedule, I've been sick since last weekend. I've got a really painful sore throat. I just spent a long hour at University Health Services obtaining a prescription for a Z-pack that I can't even fill until tomorrow.

Another perpetual frustration is this stage manager thing. It's a really frustrating and thankless job, and I try to be on the ball and accommodating, but it's hard to not feel taken advantage of sometimes. Also, staring at the Google calendars of other Yalies is horrendously depressing. My Google calendar just has like...classes and sections...the occasional Master's Tea, but all of these people are in like five different plays, think tanks, entrepreneur societies, political clubs, chairing this and secretary-ing that, etc, etc. Meanwhile, I'm a fiction editor of the Penny Dreadful, and was surprised to find that our new edition had just been released without my ever having been notified or contacted about its existence at all. My lack of involvement is embarrassing, but it's not like I'm not trying. There's only so many times I can continue to throw myself at this wall of failure. I'm not talented enough for creative stuff here, and I'm not flexible enough to get myself worked up about something that isn't creative. It's really easy to get down about yourself here. I can't even write anymore. There's just a crushing sense of shame and inadequacy that dogs every expressive thing I've tried.

If I push all that aside, though, and assuming I don't fuck up the finals, I think I've actually done well academically this semester, but it's still hard to feel completely satisfied. These people all seem so confident, but everyone must feel SOME inadequacy here. I wish it weren't eroding me so much.

I went to a poetry slam a while ago to support my friend Cole, and I had a really good idea for a poem, but the thing is, I feel like I need to be in a really good mood in order to write it. It still hasn't been written. I've just been a Negative Nancy, I guess. Maybe I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. I'm surprised at how much I'm looking forward to Florida for Christmas. I think it will be really good for me. Yes. Christmas will cheer me up.

Mara^out.

Tonight, I went to stacks for the first time since I quit working there in August. I tried to get Kevin to pick the books up for me since he was heading in that direction, but he sassily refused. It was for the best. I went myself and liked it. I've decided I like SML better at night. The halls are quiet and the lack of natural sunlight isn't as conspicuous, and I can quietly fix any shelving errors I find without pressure.

I sat down in the DA section of the fifth floor and looked around for the book that my TA had recommended for my Early Modern England paper. I found it, and then unfocused my eyes and found that I was in the British history section, and it was like a religious experience. I wanted all the books on Lady Jane Grey, I wanted the book about Elizabeth & Leicester (All the Queen's Men, hey hey hey). I wanted to know everything anyone has ever learned about Walsingham.

I wanted to take them all home with me and lay them out on my bed and roll on them and inhale them and exhale them and hold their glossy covers to my cheek, but I contented myself with only five of them because I need to write this paper.

Which I should do now.

mara^out.

So I was looking up YouTube videos of the Queen of the Night aria from Die Zauberflöte and accidentally clicked on this:



I feel like I've been rickrolled.

Resolution: I must stop fainting in showers. They are bad places for fainting.

Alternatively, now that I have fainted in my freshman dorm's shower AND my sophomore dorm's shower, there is a very small part of me that wants to make a clean sweep of it.

But it is a very small part.

Missed class for the first time this semester today. Emailed my professors at 5 am, went back to sleep until 3:30 pm, when I absolutely had to go to astronomy section. So I didn't miss anything except British history, and what do I need to know except Cromwell? Nothing. There's nothing else.

I would like salty things: combos, cheetos, saltines, doritos. Combos, preferably. I would like a salt-lick for my birthday. I will attach it to the inside of my closet for clandestine sodium intake.

I wish I could lay in bed and cuddle and tell secrets, but Otto has taken up a notion and run wild with it. He's writing a letter to the Yale Daily News (YDN) about healthcare. He was inspired by events that he won't recount, presumably having to do with an idiot. In any case, my bed is now a work desk, and I've played all the tetris I can stomach for a night.

For class, I am reading a French story about a fat prostitute. I wish literature wasn't so predictable sometimes.

Also, speaking of that, Tiffany had drawn a nude portrait of Kevin on our suite whiteboard, that was full of penis and leg hair, so after Kevin erased it, I drew a nude portrait of him as a voluptuous dancing woman. I hope he likes it better. The whiteboard was a fantastic purchase.

Time for cuddles!!!

mara^out.

I'm so grumpy right now. Not for any reason other than lack of foodstuffs. I just found a Youtube video of the Muses from Hercules dancing to All the Single Ladies. I'm feeling a little bit better. Also ate a milano.

Having read everyone's blogs for the past month or so, there seems to have been an increase in dynamic happenings and quaint phrasings. I feel like I have nothing to offer on either account.

Here's an anecdote: During the first read-through for The History Boys, we were doing the French scene. The majority of the cast doesn't speak French, especially the boy who is The Headmaster. He has a line that goes, "Belgique? Pourquoi Belgique?" Which is pronounced "Bell-zheek? Pore-kwah Bell-zheek?" But the kid pronounces it, "Bell-geeky? Por-kay Bell-geeky?"

It was very funny, but that's about as exciting as the stories go. I have to finish a book on the English Constitution tonight. A lot of my life has been spent on Google Calendar recently. Or Tetris. Piles of lame. Heaps and heaps.

I wrote a poem the other day, the poem that wasn't a double dactyl since I graduated. I don't think I like it. The nature of the beast.

Getting older soon. What an awkward age I will be. Prime birthdays suck. Squares of primes, however, are another story entirely.

Tried Omegle last night with Otto. This "man" from "arizona" wanted to cyber with me, but I ended up having a very pleasant and wholesome chat with him instead. I have such a recurring problem with this. Otto laughed at me.

Thinking about making my hair be red. Quick succession of busy nothings.

mara^out.

Headaches all day everyday. Stupid menses. Stupid BC.

BC is what my mother calls birth control when we're in public places. She whispers it and looks furtive. It's endearing.

Anyway, today I went to a Master's Tea with James Franco, and wanted to lick him but restrained myself. Instead, I say cross-legged on the floor of the lecture hall and waited for someone else to ask a question about Milk. He made himself sound pretty nerdy. He said he didn't ever go out; he just stayed in and read, and when he realized that his lack of social life was a problem, instead of going out more in LA, he went back to school so he could be in a college environment again. I dunno, seemed like a quirky guy but cute and clever.

Today, I also wrote letters by hand. Two of them. I never write letters. I never receive letters. It felt good to write them. I will drop them in the mail tomorrow.

While I was writing the letters, though, my diary has been taking a hit. I'm gonna have to haul ass in order to finish it by New Year's. I can do it. I just might have to write a couple of five page entries. Not only is my diary taking a hit, but my book list is looking pretty grim. According to my list, I've only read 22 books since January. I normally average 50 a year. Looks like 2009 was a bad year for reading. My stats are dropping in every area.

It's seemed like a really short week. I can't believe it's Thursday already. Sunday, I was in Vernon because I felt really sick. Tuesday, I was in Vernon for election night, which turned out to be pretty disappointing. And then this weekend, I'll be going back. Ha ha. Quelle independence!

Ok, I'm going to abort this. I think I exhausted my willingness to write, today.

Mara^out.

Ok, I have to get this off of my chest. I just got back from my History of Southern Africa section, where we were discussing the documentary Amandla!, which is about the role of black South African freedom songs in the anti-apartheid struggle. We were supposed to come up with critical questions about the documentary to present to the class at section, so when section started, we went around the room and said our questions. One guy, who is actually from South Africa (and white), mentioned that these songs were still popular (played on the radio, etc) in South Africa to this day.

So this sparked the stupid question, "Do these songs take on racist connotations now?" Ok, I will grant you that the lyrics to some of these songs are pretty explicitly about taking down the white man. I was about to suggest that while they probably made white people uncomfortable (if they understood Zulu), these songs are more connected to insulting the oppressing race, rather than the white race, and seem like a drop in the bucket when compared to the institutionalized apartheid that the country only emerged from about fifteen years ago.

Whatever. My thoughts on that part aren't really important and certainly aren't fully formulated. BUT! Then, this guy raises his hand and says "I think the songs display hatred of the oppressor rather than racial hatred." Which is pretty similar to what I would've said, and I think is a reasonable point to make. BUT THEN! He says, "I think they're analogous to American southerners waving the Confederate flag." I'm dumbfounded. "They're not doing it to denigrate the black community, they're just doing it to show that they're proud of their heritage." Jaw is hanging open, motionless.

At this point the TA says, "So you're saying that the freedom songs are like the South African 'Sweet Home Alabama'?" He nods sagely, clearly pleased that his point has been understood. I sit there trying to formulate a rebuttal that is appropriate for a classroom setting, but before I can, the discussion has switched to another topic.

How-how can you compare those two things? How can you compare songs that commemorate a long and difficult struggle for basic civil liberties with a practice that commemorates a long and difficult struggle to maintain a high level of racist douchebaggery? Black South Africans were fighting for their rights to be treated as equals in their own country. American Southerners were fighting for their rights to continue enslaving and subjugating generations.

Additionally, I'm so sick and tired of people believing that excuse about why people wave the Confederate flag. We're proud of our heritage--bullshit. No one would even think of using that excuse for a swastika. You can't just decide to divorce a symbol from its symbolism and expect no one to react to the symbolism.

Ok, I'm effectively all talked out about this. But it was weird. And I have miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go before I sleep. And by miles, I mean pages. Of North and South.

Mara^out.

Ok. Midterms are over. Now I just have one problem set, a French test, and three papers until all my work for the month is done. Fantastic.

I'm kinda proud of myself, actually. I think, all-in-all, I've been holding myself together pretty well these past weeks considering the amount and concentration of my schoolwork. I had a few tears, but mostly, they were hidden well, quiet sobs in the library and Rachel never knew.

I've had a terrible urge to write recently, but I don't have any time. I want to write poetry, too, without having any good ideas. Sometimes I see an image very clearly, but its difficult for me to find a clear and non-hokey application for it in a poem.

Speaking of poems, I feel really good about sticking it in a small way to whatever administrative douchebags seemed to think that no one here knew anything from Macbeth but "Out damn spot!" Soliloquy taped up. Nobody cares, but I do. They try to be high-minded and just end up insulting everyone's intelligence.

Mmm, anyway, I've started watching The L Word. Again. I showed the pilot to Otto, and he seems to be down with watching more. I'm sure the frequent lesbian sex scenes help.

Speaking of Otto, I wish he were here now. He had work until five, and then we went to dinner, but he spent it talking to other people, and then I followed him and Mike down to the basement and watched them play pool, and then they went to their suite while I went to mine, and now I feel distinctly unhugged. I'm supposed to be writing my Early Modern England paper, which I'm actually kind of excited about. It's about the importance of acquiring, holding, and maintaining palaces during the beginning of the Tudor dynasty. Despite the clear allure of this topic, I think I need some physical contact to focus me.

Tomorrow night is Davenport Screw, which, for those of you who don't know, is a dance. I still haven't decided what dress to wear, but that's probably because I haven't spared any mental energy for this question. It seems kind of stupid to go when you're already dating someone. The point of Yale screws is to set your roommate/suitemate up with a date, but everyone in my suite has a boyfriend (or at least a boyfriend-type thing) except Wendy, who is completely and irrevocably averse to school dances. I guess it will be fun, though. Getting dressed up will be fun, if nothing else is.

I don't think I'm going to have any mental energy to expend on Halloween, either. I guess I'll just throw something shitty together. I haven't managed to track down a life-size iguana suit for Kevin to be Liz from Magic School Bus, so I guess that means I can't be Ms. Frizzle. The problem with almost every costume is that it's gonna be so COLD on Halloween.

Abrupt end.

Mara^out.

Oh my god. My astronomy book has the saddest digression ever.

"They are named for delta Cephei, an example of this type of star discovered in 1784 by John Goodricke, a deaf, mute, 19-year-old English amateur astronomer. He found that at its most brilliant, delta Cephei is 2.3 times as bright as at its dimmest. The cycle of brightness variations repeats every 5.4 days. (Sadly, Goodricke paid for his discoveries with his life; he caught pneumonia while making his nightly observations and died before his twenty-second birthday.) The surface temperatures and luminosities of the Cepheid variables place them in the upper middle of the H-R diagram." (-pg 514, Universe 8^th Ed.)

Do you look at your life, sir?

I thought everybody did.

I'm deaf...I'm mute...I'm an amateur astronomer...and I live in Sheffield.

I'm fucked.

No, really, though.

Mara^out.

So...last night I had this awful, awful dream. A mixture of people I know and people I don't were at a British boarding school for some reason doing normal LOL-School-Dream things. And things started to get weird, and for some reason we all had to evacuate, so everyone went up the steep hill in front of the school. I was one of the last people to leave the building, and as I was leaving, I saw someone dousing everything with gasoline because they were going to blow up the building. So I go up the hill to warn everyone not to go back into the building, but no one seems to hear me. I look around for Otto, but I can't find him, until I see him running back down the hill towards the building. I yell after him to tell him not to, but either he can't hear me or he doesn't care, because he says "I'll be right back" and runs in. Seconds later the building explodes. Then the administration takes us into another building to talk to us about what happened, but they pull me and two other kids into a side room. It turned out that the people in the room were people who had family members or close friends who had died or been seriously injured. I saw the guy who had taken us into the room had a paper with three big red X's on them, and one of them said, "Matthias Otto" underneath the X. I started freaking out. "Is he alive? Can I see him?" And the guy didn't even look up. "No, he's dead." And then I couldn't handle it--I woke up. And when I woke up Otto wasn't next to me because he had gone to monkey lab. I felt miserable and couldn't go back to sleep.

So this effectively woke me up an hour too early and cast a bizarre gloom on the day. I dunno, I guess I've been feeling kind of uneasy lately. Just in general. Tiffany and Rhys had a fight that left its shadow on me and Otto. Emilia left, which was unfortunate for me. I've been getting increasingly crampy and weepy, probably au cause de my birth control, which I'm going to change at the end of this month. My skin just crawls, sometimes. I don't know. Things have just felt weightier.

In slightly more cheerful news, my astronomy professor is terrificly bombastic. Today, he went around asking people to volunteer a piece of jewelry. "I'm talking gold or silver." Finally, this girl offered her silver bracelet and and Professor Kenney started making all sorts of small talk about it. "Oh, this is nice. Who gave it to you?" That sort of thing. And then he asked, "Do you know where it comes from?" She shrugged, and then he said "BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE IT CAME FROM A SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION!!!" It was fantastic.

Also, to. I printed out a blank calendar page for October and mapped out all of the big stuff (midterms, papers, problem sets, etc) and it turns out that I have five papers, two big tests, and three midterms, and all of the midterms take place within two days. Erk. I have to be on top of my shit this month. We'll see how it goes. Thanksgiving is going to be a very welcome break.

Mara^out.

Oh hey. Guess what?!

I'm going to be the stage manager for a production of The History Boys! I'm really excited about it, actually. I just had lunch with the director today, and she seems to be really pleasant and have a lot of thoughtful ideas. Also, it sounds like I'm not just going to be a tech lackey. She's involving me in the auditions and the general creative process of the show. I think the show's going to go up the weekend before my birthday. I already sent an email out to reserve audition spaces for next weekend, and I'm going to start reading over the script tonight. I feel so fucking productive!

Actually, I feel sick. I think I might have a sinus infection. My sinuses have been killing me for the past day and a half, and there's been fluid completely stuffing my ear for a good bit longer than that. At least it doesn't appear to be swine flu. This seems like only a minor consolation when my forehead is throbbing, but whatever. Perhaps I'll go to DUH after Africa section. Have myself seen. *pauses. calls student medicine.* Got an appointment. Bam. I'm getting better at talking to official people on the phone.

Hmm, I don't have too much homework to do for the rest of the week. Just some reading for my two British history classes tomorrow and some light French for Friday. I have to finish out today first, though. I still have Galaxies and the Universe to go to at 2:30 and then History of Southern Africa section at 4. Le grand ugh. I'd rather just take a nap...

Mara^out.

Ok, this is atrocious. It's been over two months since I last posted. Not alright.

Let's see. What's been going on?

Well, for starters, I'm all moved in to Davenport, my residential colleges. (At the risk of being pedantic, I'll just indulge in a quick explanatory note here: Yale has twelve residential colleges which function almost like the houses of Hogwarts, but aren't perfectly analogous. Each residential college houses all of its students except for the freshmen, in all cases but two, has its own dining hall, gym, laundry, auditorium, courtyard, dean, etc...) My suite is still clean and pretty, like Octavian's whore. It's on the first floor, looks out into the Georgian courtyard, is right on top of the trash and laundry facilities in the basement (which is terribly convenient) and the pottery studio (which would be convenient if I wasn't an utter fail at all things clay-related), and is a thirty-second sprint away from Davenport's only hammock. I have a single in my suite, which consists of everyone who was in my suite last year, plus Amelie and minus Betsey.

I've been eating better so far this year. I have salads with almost every meal, and normally at least grab a drink at breakfast before class. I'm not losing weight like I did last year, but at least I've managed (so far) to stave off the cloying sniffles of everyone around me. As far as activities go, I'm still fiction editor for the Penny Dreadful. Over the summer, I toyed with submitting a story myself, but then I actually reread the fiction that I had on hand and decided against it. I built up and threw myself against the usual wall of theater failure. Out of three auditions, I didn't even get callbacks for two, and the third neatly avoided the question of casting because the director appears to have emotionally imploded. I think I might have a stage manager position with a Sudler fund play, but I don't want to say much yet because it's definitely not for sure, and I don't want to talk about and then feel silly when it doesn't happen.

Another thing that I'm a little reluctant to talk about is that I've started writing again. I guess for now I'll just say that it's personal non-fiction and about a topic I wouldn't have really seen myself writing about for a long time, if at all. I'm trying to resist the temptation to show it to everyone. I have an awful compulsion to show my writing to everyone out of some pathetic need for validation, but it backfires because it's never any good and I don't give myself time to assess that before I embarrass myself in front of others. Otto, on the other hand, has the exact opposite problem. He won't show his work to anyone, even and especially me, even when I beg. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised the other day when he let me read a paper he wrote for class.

As far as Otto goes, we're fine. We're going on eight or nine months, depending on who you ask and from when you count. I'm going to try and persuade him to come home with me over Thanksgiving, but he's...kind of reluctant about this sort of thing. I expect to have to use all of my feminine wiles.

As far as classes go, I'm taking Advanced French Practice I, The History of Southern Africa, Early Modern England, Nineteenth Century Britain, and Galaxies and the Universe (which I'm taking to satisfy my "Quantitative Reasoning" requirements). Tonight, I have to write a short French paper and complete an online reading quiz for Galaxies and the Universe, so I guess I should probably get cracking.

Anyway, I'll try, in the future, to keep up with my Livejournal better. I feel like a real dead-beat in the LJ community--reaping all the benefits of having other people's posts to read without sowing any distracting seeds myself. Mea culpa.

Mara^out.

Oh hey. Hey there. Hey, Livejournal. Sorry I haven't been posting much. We've reached a pretty steady status quo here, though. I work at the library from ten to five every weekday. Then, I go home and usually someone's there waiting, hopefully Kevin or Otto. And then we all putz around the house, cook, watch tv, etc, until dinner.

For the fourth of July, we all went to Misquamicut Beach. I got the worst sunburn I've had since I was nine, but the day was a whole lot of fun. We made giant sand sculptures.



Now, we're all back on campus, but so are a bunch of dumb-ass high schoolers who are in the Have for a stupid summer program at Yale. They're soooo rude, and everyone hates their guts.

Tomorrow, I'm going grocery shopping! and Thursday night at midnight, Kevin and I are probably gonna go see Brüno! Exciting weekend topped off with Warped Tour on Sunday (hopefully).

mara^out.

Happy Memorial Day. Idk what y'all are up to today, but my parents and I drove up to Springfield, Mass. We went to Forest State Park (which is pretty damn cool) and then this German restaurant for lunch/dinner. It was very German indeed. Nothing but meat and potatoes.

I'm having a crisis of books. I'm reading Twelfth Night right now nominally, but actually at night I'm going through my old FoxTrot anthologies. And what I should be reading is Half-Blood Prince since the movie's coming out so soon. (Yay!) I need to read something that I haven't read before that can completely engross me. I need something to get me revved up about reading again.

I talked to Leigha recently. It felt good to reconnect after such a potentially crippling length of time and collection of events, but conversation was natural and fun. I hope it can continue in the same vein.

Let's see...this weekend...I spent Friday night in New Haven at the Sig Ep house with Otto. I sped home on Saturday so I could go to the Extravadance contra at Greenfield. It was pretty fun, despite the terrible contra snob. Erm, what did I do yesterday? Oh yeah, Adam and Alex came over for dinner, and we talked about dicks with my parents all night. Strange.

I guess I'm moving in to the AE Pi house on the 28th (Annie's birthday) and I'm starting work on June 1st. Hopefully, it will all go smoothly. Hopefully, everyone will cohabitate well.

Mara^out.

Hey guys. Hmm, just got out of a shower. I've been taking a lot of showers recently. Next final is on Friday--Renaissance Italy. It's gonna be a bitch. Tomorrow, I have to plan out an essay on whether there actually was a Renaissance during the Renaissance or not. I just need to not fuck it up, because I should be going into that with a healthy A. Then, I have a linguistics final on Monday. And then I'm out of here.

Packing up and leaving seems like a kind of daunting prospect. I just have so much stuff here. It seems just as daunting as the idea of packing up my room at home and moving to college was. Tomorrow I have to buy some boxes and also try and sell back my theater textbooks from last semester and that stupid Jules et Jim DVD. And I also need to start packing. And I also need to do a lot of studying for my history final...which is at fucking 9 am.

I'm kinda excited to be in Vernon, though. I want to contra dance as much as possible. Really. I miss it a lot. I'm willing to do some driving to achieve this. I'm excited to be near a mall. I'm excited to live in a place with a bathtub. These are all good things.

On a different note, I've been watching The L Word to religion still. I'm on the fifth season already, and I've only been watching since Spring Break. I realized that SurfTheChannel.com, which is how I've been watching The L Word, has all three seasons of The Tudors up, too, so I think I'm gonna hit that up when I'm done with this series.

Alright, Otto might be here? We'll see. Peace.

Mara^out.

So I just got back from my last French class (potentially, but probably not, my last French class ever) and tomorrow I have my oral exam. I think this is the first French class that I've actively liked a lot. I mean, I guess I liked my junior year French class with Mrs Neumaier, but Dr. Burton is such a good professor.

Anyway, I have a busy day. First, I have to wake Otto up soon so we can go eat lunch. Then, I have to meet with my sophomore advisor and have him sign my "LOLZ IM YOUR ADVISOR" form. Then I'll turn that in at the dean's office, and then I'm going to a screening of The Silence of the Lambs followed by a Q and A with Jodie Foster. How cool is that?

Additionally, I've been watching the L Word again. The plot just keeps coming!

Oh yeah, Spring Fling was yesterday. To be completely honest, it was fun, but not fantastic. The Decemberists were here. They were good, but I don't really know them SUPER well. I sang along with the songs I knew. And then I heard a little bit of Girl Talk, but honestly that's kind of a stupid band to have play at your Spring Fling, because really he's a glorified DJ. I just skipped out entirely on N.E.R.D. But I had fun. It was nice and sunny and loud.

Hmm, the summer swiftly approacheth. If anyone was curious, I'll probably leave Yale on the 12th and then move into the New Haven house one of the last days of May. God, I have a lot to do before the 12th. Ok. Signing off.

Mara^out.

Hey, I'm in my last Intro to Linguistics lecture ever right now. We're talking about accents, dropping [r]'s and such.

I had such a bad migraine last night. I couldn't sleep until late, I threw up all my migraine medicine, it was terrible. I think I kinda scared Otto a bit. He kept asking if I need to go to DUH (university health services). So did Angela, but there's not much they can do for a migraine at a hospital that doesn't like to dispense pain medication, so I just stayed in bed.

Anyway, today I had a makeup French presentation that I think went better than I thought it would. I also have a job interview in about an hour, right after this lecture. It's for a summer job in the library, and I really hope I get it. It's my best lead for summer work in New Haven. They're making me bring tax forms and official documents and proof that I can work in the US, so hopefully that's a good sign. I'd like to think they wouldn't make me go through the hassle for something that wasn't going to work out.

I have my first exam tomorrow. It's for Porn in the Morn. I feel unprepared. I need to study a lot tonight. My TA is holding office hours in Starbucks. Heh. I also need to talk to the dean today and get a dean's excuse for class yesterday. Ugh.

Additionally, I'm a terrible Harry Potter fan. Apparently, a new trailer for HBP came out about a week ago and I had no idea! I haven't been going to Mugglenet nearly enough. I need to halt this growing up process and pay more attention to my previous obsessions.

Ok, I guess I should go and pay attention to my professor.

Mara^out.