rant

I'm kind of pissed at true/false.

At noon today tickets went on sale for the remaining movies that havne't been reserved by people with passes. This is my first beef. Pass holders can fill up the whole theater if they want. So if you can't afford a pass, or really don't want to pay a minimum of $50 because you just want to see one or two movies, that's really to bad. There is a likely chance you might be able to fill the seat of a pass holder who never showed up, but there's just as likely as a chance that you won't. I think T/S should reserve seats for non pass holders. That is what I think.

Also, selling tickets at Cherry Street Artisan is the worst idea I've ever heard. I can think of many other places that could be adequate boxes offices. For example, Big Ragtag would be a good one. Cramming 200 people + their friends that want them to buy them tickets + the Artisan cliental + the Artisan staff + T/F volunteers + a band = a group of loud, hot, squished, confused people. You can't find a place to sit here on a Wednesday night, so I'm not sure why they thought releasing tickets to a festival that seems to double every year for three consecutive years seems to be a good idea.

And in dealing with all of the above, I only got tickets to two movies. That means I am going to have to wait in more lines to try to get into the other movies. But, I mean, at least I got those two. I was number 56. I have a sad feeling that the person with number 234 is probably going to get zero tickets. I'm sorry that the T/F Film festival is turning out just to be a waste of time for some people.

I ate too many sweet things today

For some reason, my family has turned Valentine's Day into the next biggest holiday behind Christmas . This means a lot of mail, mainly in package form. This week, I received three boxes from family members. Aside from the usual candy and cookies, each box is very personalized. Based on the contents, I could tell you who sent it without looking at the return address.

Box one. Homemade caramels and cookies in Valentine's Day themed tins. Cutesy gel stickers to put on windows. Pink shirt from dance store. A random ladle. Card. Aunt.

Box Two. Homemade Valentine's pajama pants (unusual item). Conversation hearts and three Valentine's Day peeps. Easy Mac and Instant Oatmeal. White polo shirt from Sears. Card. Grandparents.

Box Three. Envelope marked "IMPORTANT" (contains article and information about getting $25 from credit card settlement). Homesewn apron and repaired favorite purse. Chocolates in heart-shaped box. $50 check. Card. Mom (and dad).

Love you family. Also, I received a very nice Radiohead ticket today.

A final decision

I have decided to dedicate the following to lent:

1. spend less mindless time on interent
2. drink one or less than one caffeinated beverage daily
3. participate in the 6-pack challenge

MoB

Our next (first?) assignment assignment for Capstone is to write Moment of Being. This assignment is to write about a specific memory. In writing this memory, it is supposed become a revelation of sorts. I get the impression that a childhood memory is preferred. This is what I remember from my childhood: tree house with trapeze (MK doesn't like my tree house, she cut me off when I tried to tell the class about it), a forever messy room that my mother never made me clean, homemade pizza in the bright orange kitchen, phone numbers scribbled all over the wall next to the phone, buckets everywhere every time it rained, parents with heat guns on scaffolding every time it was sunny, whizzing down the railing from landing to first floor, taking naps under a large oak desk, trekking through a dandelion infested lawn and living off of honeysuckles.

I'm not going to say my childhood was better than yours.

But I am going to say it was weirder than yours. No, there was not a tv. Don't be mistaken and think that's because my parents were strict. An ending anecdote to prove how. My parents told me that when I was a baby, our Polish housekeeper wrapped me up in blankets and put me on the front porch in the icy Chicago winter air. The housekeeper said it was good for me. Even though my parents didn't understand, for some reason, they didn't object.

I hate the rec center. I really, really, do.

Last night I decided to drone out the repetitiveness of running in circles on the too-small track by running on the treadmill. Okay. Lack of logic, but okay. So I believe the Rec flew in the crappiest DJ from Kiss FM (Chicago shout-out anyone?) to DJ what they deemed a "Mardi Gras" party. That means they hung a cheap flag behind a skinny guido, who stood behind a red Apple and pretended to mix shitty songs. This, I can handle, and this I can even be entertained by. But the volume was turned up to 5,000 dB, and that I could not handle. Yet I decided to deal and punish myself. And it was really, really miserable. What did I learn from this experience? I really, really hate the rec center.

I don't do anything, ever (and I like it)

For the most part, my weeks and weeks of winter break do not consist of meeting up with old friends or working obscene holiday hours at my holiday-only job. They go like this instead: wake up. eat some breakfast and munch on Christmas cookies. maybe go running, but I probably do not. then I eat some more Christmas cookies. organize the books on shelf in my room, and decide which ones I want to get rid of trade into the used bookstore, so I can get more books. kick back on the couch, and read a little bit, which will attract all sorts of animals who also live here, because who doesn't like to lie on the couch, but that means I will have to break up interactions between Libby the cat and Addie the dog, because Addie the dog likes Libby the cat, but Libby the cat is scared of Addie the dog and will start sneezing uncontrollably if the dog gets too close. By this time, I am hungry again so I will heat up some soup and chow down on Christmas cookies as the soup warms. Then I will putz around in my room a little bit more and throw out things I have for some reason saved much longer than necessary, like dried up markers or pay stubs from jobs I haven't had for three years. I will next eat some Christmas cookies and work on a puzzle for a bit, while listening to NPR Iowa caucus coverage. I may or may not eat dinner, probably not because I am full after all the Christmas cookies. Then I will read and go to bed.

Did you read all that? Why? Regardless, the point I wanted to make here is that I am not bored, and I am rather enjoying myself. I have seen some friends, I have been drunk once or twice, I'm not a total loser. But I just wanted to say that doing nothing is underrated, and I am here to bring it back.

e-mail from mom to the family. I believe family tells a lot about a person.

Let's plan our Christmas baking day for Dec. 24 - all day. If there are
requests for cookies, cakes, desserts, etc. that will require special
ingredients, such as nuts, candied cherries, dried apricots, jellies,
jams, brown sugar, powdered sugar, let me know by early next week. We
can try some new recipes if you want.

Dad can use this day to put tinsel on the tree and keep the Christmas
CDs going, as well as watch the oven timer and load the dishwasher. ; )
Addie, Rose, and Libby can help lick bowls. I'm not sure what Jake will
want to do, probably go in and out to check the weather.

Love,
Mom

a conversation between a local hipster clerk at thrift store and me as I was checking out:

me: can you judge someone's personality by the type of clothes they buy?
he: yes, to a certain extent. Would you like me to give you a reading?
me: yeah, sure.
(pause pause pause. silence, except for cash register ringing)
he: you have an eye for patterns and textures. You are aware of vintage and aren't stingy. You go to Mizzou and do relatively well in school. You have a fairly worthwhile major that will probably get you a reasonable job.
me: why do you say that I do well in school?
he: you have your priorities straight because you don't spend too much time choosing ridiculous clothes. You choose comfort over choosing something for the sake of its ridiculousness. But you still make an effort not to look like everyone else.


who knew a hipster knew so much?

good news for people who love good news

bad news: I stepped on the shirt of my interview outift when it fell off the hanger as I was walking
good news: I didn't end up doing the interview anyway, so she did not see that I was wearing a footprint

bad news: my dad cut off his finger
good news: the nice doctors and nurses sewed it back on

bad news: I'm receiving an imcomplete in one of my course
good news: I no longer need to study for the GRE, so can complete the course work during the time I would have been brushing up on my vocab and maths.

bad news: sometimes when I blow my nose, both ears pop, and I feel dizzy
good news: this is perhaps the least sick I have felt all semester

good news: this is going to be a great Christmas
good news: I have learned a great deal in the past months, and I do love to learn
good news: I am snowboarding for new years
good news: I get a new bed next week
good news: Mizzou is no. 1
bad news: I'm still not sure what I am going to do with my life

I wonder if

I am using facebook scrabble as a means to escape the more pressing and important things in my life. Probably.

I like libraries

There is no point to this post. I just have to sing my praise for libraries. Bored? Stop reading now.

I spent a lot of time growing up at the library. I can picture in my mind exactly where the Baby-sitters Club series was located at the Riverside Public Library. I remember where the romance paperbacks were, too: basement, in the back, black wire racks. I never read one, but the cover art of orgasming half-undressed Victorian-era characters may have perhaps been my first exposure to sex.

The bibliothèque in Lyon was a place where I could feel at home. Part-Dieu it was called. It was good to find a place to feel at home in a scary foreign country. It wasn't particularly welcoming. In fact the library was quite ugly. But the music section always had something good playing. I spent a lot of time flipping through the racks, trying to select which four albums I would take for that day, with maybe The Velvet Underground as my soundtrack.

The Lemont library sucks. I am not talking about it.

The Chicago library gave me Harry Potter. Spend $35 I don't have on Deathly Hallows? I think not. The main branch ordered 100 copies, no holds allowed. The morning the book was released, Amy and I went to the library and checked out one copy each. I remember she was incredibly bitchy on the way home because I got caught up talking to the reference librarian about the amazing things you can do with research these days.

This appreciation for libraries brought to you after some time spent at Daniel Boone Regional Library. Books, CDs, DVDs… yummmm. No late fees? Yes. Lakota coffee in the library. Hold placed on entire series of Planet Earth. Hope it gets here before Thanksgiving. Oh Thanksgiving. Love, you man.

this happened last wednesday

The sun had just risen, and it was drizzling. I was riding my bike to meet Kelly for a run. A few of Columbia's homeless addicts were standing together in a parking lot, mesmerized by a rainbow. It seemed to be a very childish scence, because they were amazed by something so simple. A few minutes later, as we took the first few steps of our run, Kelly noticed the rainbow, too. It was a great rainbow, spanning across the whole sky. It was a good start to the run.

About 30 minutes later, it started raining, and I couldn't keep my glasses clean of rain quickly enough. A few minutes after that, it started pouring, and I was screwed.

I was thinking about starting a food blog,

for these reasons. I like to eat food. I like to make food. I hate spending money on food when I go out to eat. I always resort to the same recipes, and for some reason I feel that a blog about food would force me to be more creative in my cooking. I don't know why, because I don't know who would read it. But then again, I don't know who reads this one.

Anyways, it would be great! I could call it something spectacular like… Betsy's Kitschy Kitch. It would be all about my adventures in the kitchen. How more worthwhile could this project get? I don't believe there is an answer to that question.

Tonight's dinner proposed a problem, however. I burned my grilled cheese sammich and the soup I ate wasn't anything to tell mom about. I'm not even that good of a cook.

it's a new week!

AND the radiohead album comes out in two days. Also, I don't hate puppies. Check out this adorable puppy picture I took over the weekend:

This is what happens when I decide to work 30+ hours in one mon-fri span:

Stressed. There are not enough hours in the day to do the things I need to do: study, write, run, go to the grocery story, interview, eat, shower, sleep. Thus, there is no chance of time to do the things I want to do: laugh, have nice dreams, clean my room, read, send mail, journal, have friends.

I start to hate people who are not as stressed as I am. I hate my sister for going to Vegas. I hate my friends who go out on Thursday. I hate people eating burritos outside Chipotle. I hate puppies. Now I am filled not only with stress, but hate. Add little sleep and general grumpiness mood.

I feel gross. I haven't done any running except between class/work/interviews/class/work. I haven't taken a shower since… I forget. I am driving myself into coldsoredom.

I wake up after six hours of sleep this morning, all thanks to my redank schedule and I hate my life. I hate that I have to do two interviews back-to-back, I hate the journalism school and I even hate all the music on my "Greatest Songs in the World" itunes playlist. I hate happy people.

And what is the point of all of this? Basically, I need to never do this again. Is all the money I made this week worth it? Maybe later, but not now. Definitely not now. I cannot do this to myself. This will be a constant reminder of how to rank priorities. Certain things are more important than I originally thought. Like being happy. Like taking showers.

Yesterday:

As I exhaustedly collapsed onto bed last night, I thought about what a day of extremes it had been.

Before I left for work at preschool, I was in the worst of moods. Too much to do, too much work, too much school. Too many assignments, too litle time to do them all. And when am I going to have time to train for a marathon in all of this? I was stressed to the maximum.

Then, preschool. I completely forgot about everything. The kids are so simple and so real. We ate Jello for snack, and did you know four-year-olds eating Jello is adorable? When I finished school, I was worry free. Sure, I still had all that stuff to worry about, but meh… it's really not a big deal. I had 45 minutes to cram in some Foucault, and then I ran over to babysit the most adorable kids ever. I ran around like a crazy and almost melted when Jackson screamed "J'AI UN DRAGON!" (I am a dragon). I was happy happy happy.

Then, home to get some reading done and write a paper before sleep. I got distracted and did some writing for a different class because I felt like writing something. Suddenly, I started writing this really personal thing about my grandpa and became really upset and started to cry. I cried until the last word and gathered myself together to finish my homework so I could finally sleep.

And, like I said, I was exhausted once I finally got there. I feel like I felt too many things in one day. That's okay though. I am the toughest person I know. ha, that was a joke.

in case you didn't know me, I am a very judgemental

The other night, which may or may not have been last night because the whole week has had no specifics for me, some kids I know left Lakota to go watch the OC. I was all hunched over studying and thought to myself mean things about these people. Seriously guys. The OC? Why don't you go read some Kant or something of the sort and spend your time in a worthwhile fashion? Then I forgot about it and continued crafting complex-compound sentences.

Tonight, I spent a worthless hour watching The Office, and it was brilliant. And I hated myself for hating the OC-watchers. Because the non-depth of it completely took my mind of ELT I have been concerned about lately. I am now refreshed to read John Locke with a cheerful mind.

I seem to consistently attract creeps. That's all I'm saying.

Found

I was cleaning up my desktop and found this paragraph I transcribed from a This American Life episode. I can't remember which one it was. But it goes like this:

I think most of us are like that, like Phillip Dick or Ellery’s father. Most of us are toiling away at daily work that doesn’t seem as important to us as the ambitious dreams we have for ourselves. We’re convinced that we’re not living up to our potential, that there’s a better part of our ourselves that just hasn’t expressed itself yet. Until our daily lives are over and what’s left is that daily work. Whatever it is. Whatever we gave it.

Remember when?

Today is September 11, 2007. Did you remember? I feel sad mostly. I have a great deal of work to finish, but I'm not quite in the mood.

To quote a simple song titled Colours by Donovan "Freedom is a word I rarely use without thinking."

Today I biked beside a butterfly for about five seconds. It was the best five seconds of my day. I felt as though the butterfly and I were friends, running out a race we had bet against each other, the winner gets a lollipop. But there are probably two lollipops, so it didn't really matter who won anyway.

deux things:

1. I wonder why it is socially normal for boys to have short hair and girls to have long hair. What a strange world it would be if most boys had long hair and most girls had short.
2. I like when my room is a little messy. Maybe the heaps of clothes is a little over the top, but I do like a little disorder. That makes it feel like home.

tonight I am looking at POY Winner's Gallery while eating dinner. And I am listening to Sky Blue Sky, as a whole, one of Wilco's more somber albums I think. These pictures are sad.

I wonder why I don't have eloquent enough words to describe the feeling that makes me not want to finish my Garlic Herb Chicken with Egg Noodles. Haven't I been to three years of journalism school? I start eating the noodles one by one with my fingers, feeling this is somehow the right thing to do. I force myself to read the captions even though they hurt my little heart. Sometimes I wonder about the shallow and mean things I have done to people and wonder if I cannot feel feelings. But right now, I think this is not true.

I am a happy person. But there are things that make me sad.

For my Ginger Ale Friend (we know orange is better)

I am really glad I started running again. Even though getting back in shape is consistently one of the most painful things I put myself through, I forgive myself. There is something to this.

Now go listen to "It's All Gonna Break" by Broken Social Scene.

Changes. (you know. like the 2pac song. or the david bowie song. whatevs.)

So summer in the city is officially over as I am leaving in the a.m. to drive to Columbia, MO. Thus, I feel I should say something insightful about this next change in my life. But I have no insight here.

I can only think about the recurring memory of speeding north up I-55 towards the distant Sears' Tower, cranking some phat beats (most likely a mix cd a friend made me), and making air waves with my hand in the 70 mph wind. This is a good feeling, and a nice thing to remember.

And, that is all. Next post to come from the Show Me State. What does that even mean? Beats me, it's not my state. Represent, Land of Lincoln.

I have been very into reading memoirs lately. And I would be lying if I told you I don't know why. The reason I read these witty likely-enough stories of well known contemporary authors is because a) they are entertaining and b) they make me feel better about my sad excuse for a summer job. Steven King once shoved dirty sheets into a industrial strength washing machine to make money. David Sedaris carried boxes of books up and down flights of new york apartment stairs. Sarah Vowell was a temp for 13 months while crashing on her married friends' fold out couch. And look at where these people are now!

I don't intend to be a famous contemporary American author. All I'm saying is that these stories help drive home the fact that even though I hate my job, it pays well and I'm only 20. Also, I realize that living with my parents isn't too horrible 100% of 40% of the time.

I mean Augusten Burroughs, my god. Even if the whole book is lies, the life portrayed is raw and makes me appreciative. His mom encourages him to fake suicide so she can have some peace and quiet. My mom says "how many meatballs do you want?" I say four or five and ask her if she can fix the straps on my dress, I would like to wear it to Amanda's party on Friday. "Just run upstairs and grab stome straight pins," she says. "I only need a couple."

I went to hear a free Decemberists show the other night, one of the great things about the city of Chicago. It was okay, at best. I'm actually not that big of a fan. But free, you know?

I was more entertained by the find-stranger-in-crowd-and-make-up-a-story-about-him/her/them game. Joe found a man who had mistakenly navigated to becomeafratboy.com instead of becomeahipster.com, mine was a dude who had tried to suppress his hipster ways to earn the love of a sorority girl, and Amy's couple met on eharmony.com. This combined with Amy's talent to pick up guys no matter where she goes, (which resulted in a delicious treat of waffles and nutella pulled from their backpack), I do say it was a good evening. We also saw a man who looked like John Lennon, and certainly encouraged the image with his glasses and haircut.

The last few notes of the band which we were really too far away to see brought some light rain, and by the time Amy and I stepped off at her El stop, it was heavily storming. Do you remember that match when Hermione used the impervius spell on Harry's glasses? The weather was like that.

I chucked my shoes in my bag, and spent the rest of the walk home jumping in puddles and avoiding Amy with the umbrella. She found a way to make it more of a weapon against me than a safeguard from the rain. We slopped up her apartment, and agreed it felt more like a Friday night than a Tuesday one.

Am I accomplished?

Said a friend to me the other day on a cream cheese and salsa concoction of my mother's, "This dip is like a 20-year-old, it doesn't know what it wants to be." I found this to be rather insightful and true, because honestly, what 20-year-old knows shit about herself?

But at 21, different expectations are upon us. Around for two decades and one-tenth, have you accomplished something? Anything?

As I was thinking these thoughts, I decided right then and there that I would make a list of 21 things I have accomplished in my life. The list would be complete before this coming Saturday.

I came up with about seven things off the top of my head and immediately felt disgusted with myself. Why did I feel compelled to post a list of my own accomplishments for all to read? What was I trying to prove? Who was I trying to prove it to? And why did I deem 21 the magical number of what I was supposed to have accomplished, what just because I am quicking approaching the age of the same number?

These are the Things I Look Forward to At Work:

I. Making Active Employee Purple Folders
A. the satisfying eurphoria felt when pounding typewriter keys
B. Rolling my chair between cubicles
i. seeing if I can complete the journey in one roll
II. Lunch
A. Food
B. Not working
C. Reading Harry Potter
III. Brainstorming witty remarks to throw at the Andy-esque character

I also wrote a Haiku, titled "Ode to Old Blisters."

Highlight of my day:
Painlessly peeling dead skin
Below. Fresh, Smooth, Pink

As I was packing my lunch for my miserable, miserable job tomorrow, I started thinking about things that seemed really important when I was a kid.

This stroll down memory lane was initiated by a recent-running-out-of-paper-bags-event at my house. I had to substitute a plastic bag to contain tomorrow's lunch. I remembered when this sort of thing happened when I was 10 or so years old.

"MOM! WE'RE OUT OF PAPER BAGS" I would inform my mother.
"Just use a grocery bag."
"NO! I CAN'T!"

Mom did not get it. I absolutely could not show up to 5th grade the next day with my lunch in a plastic bag. All the kids would think my family was weird or something. Nor could I put my sandwich in a fold-over baggie, since everyone else had their pb&js in ziplock brand baggies. Nor could I use Roseart brand markers. Everyone else had crayola. They would think my family was poor or something.

I act as if these things were absolutes, but they were quite not for the following reasons: 1. my mother pinches pennies 2. she did not care about my grade school rep. And a result, I was sent to the first day of school with generic brand glue when everyone else had Elmer's, and 10 cent notebooks when everyone else wrote in 5 Star.

Did these things really matter? Was I oblivious to all the mean things the people inside the Spacemaker crowd said about the outsiders? Or did the Spacemaker kids even care? Did I just think they cared because I didn't have one?

Beside all of this, I think I turned out okay. Right?

This is what I can recollect from a conversation I overhead in the breakroom at work today.

nameless woman 1: oh you're getting a pop?
nameless woman 2: Yeah… You know, I really shouldn't.
nameless woman 1: Yeah, I don't drink pop anymore
nameless woman 2: oh?
nameless woman 1: yeah
nameless woman 2: what do you drink?
nameless woman 1: water. or coffee
nameless woman 2: I should stop drinking pop
nameless woman 1: I also really like raspberry iced tea

etc,
etc,
etc,…

I am taking my first paycheck straight to the store where they sell guillotines.

Today I did a bad thing.

I bitched out my mom because the dog ate a book that meant a lot to me. It was a gift.

What kind of dog eats a book?
What kind of person become hysterical over an eaten book?
What kind of person bitches at her mom for it?

I hate Lemont. On the flip side, I love Chicago.

I bought a new bike, that is not really new but is used. I love it! Tonight packed some sammies and biked with amy to the skate park, where we admired perfectly executed ollies.

Felt really content on the ride back, as night time had just fallen and on a Saturday, the beach and lake were deserted on one side, but Lake Shore Drive was all the bussle on the other. It wasn't quite raining, but little plips that felt and smelled good and stuck to my glasses.

Later drove home along the same road, a little melancholy at the sight of the ferris wheel because that signals to me exiting the city. But I know every word to "Let's Stay Together" and I'm not ashamed that you or the people driving beside me know it. My kitty is waiting for me at home and anything I worried about earlier today can wait until tomorrow.

once I get back in business to the city, I'm thinking by the end of this week, things will perk up. But as of now I am hanging out in my parent's house in the saceda ridden 'burbs, without a job or much purpose in life and it's not much fun. Also my parents are not much fun, although I do love them dearly. Here is a conversation I had with my mother yesterday

mom: what are your plans for today?
me: nothing. I have absolutely nothing to do.
mom: would you like to try my new pancake puff pan?!
me: yes.

And that, my friends, is what I did to occupy myself yesterday morning.

some things never change, but some things do

when I came home, I immediately had a new and unexpected best friend. Her name is Addie and she is a puppy. She decided that I am her favorite person in the world and follows me everywhere, sleeps in my room and eat my shoes. She always wants to hang out even if I don't want to hang out with her. She will just patiently wait until I am in the mood to hang out. Yestderay I left to go job hunting and my dad called me to tell me that Addie was upset that I hadn't said goodbye. It feels to have a loyal friend who loves me so much!

and home

here we are folks, after a 5 month sejour in France, back in business in lemont, illinois? how is it?

Today I drove over to Ben's house, sat in the sun playing Texas Hold 'Em, then watched some crappy JT movie, and stopped at Taco Bell on the way home while dangerously chatting on my cell phone. It feels like I just woke up from a dream, one that felt real as dreams always do, but upon waking you realize it was only a few hours and none of it really happened. It's exactly life as I knew it before I left. I don't really feel like talking about this anymore.

I have nothing insightful to say. It's weird and that is that.

ew

I just went to the kitchen to get a glass of water and when I revenired my room it smelled like I had been sweating du bellay all day. As it should, because I have.

There is not just one type of french,

All the credit goes to my chateau friend:

I was thinking you should say something bout the different levels of language you use when you're on exchange
like,
1: sweet slang to impress hos so they sleep with you
2: impressively subtle and intellectual banter you use when trying to convince french red tape pushers to cut a corner so you don't get deported due to a slight lack of paperwork
3: absolutely appalingly accented, barely comprensable ruses you pull on the po-po when they're trying to pop a cap in yo ass for being drunk on the streets or when you don't pay for your metro ticket
4: the french you look up in your dictionary when you're doing an assignment because there aint no way in hell you actually could have pulled that shit without a combination of wikipedia.fr, french speaking friends, and roget's extended edition french/english dictionary plus grammar guide

we will call this down, then up

I was so brutally depressed today when I found out one of my exams will be oral. I suck at french. I can't do this. I will be too nervous. My french is shit. I don't know enough. I will make too many mistakes. I can't.

I couldn't concentrate in class. All I could think about was how I have wasted my whole semester because I could not, absolutely could not do this exam. My only solution was to drop the class. I guess that wouldn't be so bad…

But then I found out we can do a final exposé for a different class and I felt a little bit better. Then I had some nice mail waiting for me when I got home. I felt bit more better. I thought to myself, 'a little hard work never hurt anyone.' I can do this. I can.

I am an expert on the following because I have witnessed it 3x in the past weekend

It's pretty sweet when the sky prepares to unleash hell and storm all over Lyon. First the normal stormy things happen, like clouds roll in, distant lightning and thunder. But then it starts getting really windy and all this pollen and other random little shit starts whirling all around. Everyone starts hurrying. Parents cover their babies' cute faces and good boyfriends let their girlfriends nuzzle their heads in their shoulders. Everyone starts sniffling and sneezing and wiping their eyes. If you have sunglasses you wear them. Hurry hurry hurry before it starts to pour! And if you get caught in the storm, the biggest raindrops you have ever seen will rain on you. Then you are wet and still trying to get all that crud out of your eyes and your throat and it is brilliant.

and now for some deep thoughts!

So I was thinking about friendship today. These are not revolutionary thoughts, but I just wanted to reflect a bit. I was thinking about this topic because these past several months have been all about creating new friendships and holding onto old ones.

I'm realizing that a really good friendship exists when both people know fully well of the other's flaws. Then you're like cool, well this person is still worth it. I mean yeah he's kind of a dick sometimes and yeah she can sometimes be really selfish but yeah, they're solid friends so I'm going to accept them for who they are and they will do the same for me. When you're in this whole making new friends process, it can be really sucky to suddenly realize someone's weaknesses. Damn. This person isn't as cool as I thought she was. But really, she is. You are just becoming better friends.

Then there's the old friends from the homeland. Strangely, I've stayed in better touch with some of them while I've been here than when I'm at school in Missouri. Maybe it's because we are so worried about loosing our friendship. But weirdly, I feel closer to some of them than I did at home. I also know we could have picked up where we left off as soon as I hit US soil. We'd still be friends. But then we would loose months of knowing about each other's lives. So I'm glad this is how it is.

yah, I'm content.

yeah…

Today we were watching a chinese soap opera in culture et mondialisation which I intended to find hysterical, but the intro displayed scenes from new york. I saw the world trade center, and seeing that really hurt, for some reason a lot more than any other time. I never understood it and didn't really try to. And just now virginia tech happened and my first instinct was to not read anything about it, not ask any questions because I didn't want to know. I just blocked it out. The metro ride home I started thinking about it, how immature of me it was of me try to make sense of these things by not thinking about them. What is wrong with feeling? Why do I hide from it?

i hate titles. hate. hate. hate.

As I am loving France more and more and am so sad to be leaving a month from now, I am missing what I've got waiting for me back home. I wouldn't rather be one place or the other. I want to be in both places. I'm getting more and more excited for this summer while becoming less and less excited about leaving. huh. does that make sense? I'm missing hoochfest too. Tears.

Plus 81

I went to the coolest venue last night and saw the coolest band and am generally stoked about life. Now I have to buy a ticket home and that will probably make me cry.

the stuff that memories are made of

Last night was quite possibly my most superbly favorite of those out on the town. It was an Adam reunion of sorts, minus 25% (we were so sad).

I feel that recounting all the stories would be boring as you were not there, so I will just give you a little hint of the greatness that was last night.

- whoever can dance with the most skankalicious girl wins. her bisexual boyfriends were down
- breaking it down the the crappiest american music ever
- french guy who pretended to be australian to try to get in girls pants
- body shots
- man i never spoke to once who randomly gave me his credit card to buy myself a drink so I picked the most expensive thing on the menu and bought one for myself and four of my friends
- sniffing girls' hair
- girl with poop in her pants
- biting it when I tried to put Ben on my back
- and of course how could it a night with the Adam crew if we didn't continue the never ending discussion on butt sex

i love my friends

love em. I want you to know. If you are my friend I love you. I really expected a lot of my friendships to slip right through the cracks and that on return to the states I would try to salvage what was leftover. But that's not necessaire because my friends are sooooo coooool.

high come down

dear five people I know who read my blog and the 38 I do not know:

I have been worried sick about you for the past two weeks. I have been adventuring all over europe and you had no idea. You really must know about all the things I have done. But I am not a dedicated enough blogger to post in the midst of traveling, and so I thought I would just fill you in when I got back.

One of my last days in Barcelona, a huge wave of homesickness smashed me hard. I was frustrated with my horrible map skills and my limited "hola. gracias." vocabulary. The unfamiliarness of it all was wearing me down. All I could think about was every good memory I have of my friends from Chicago and Columbia, I am missing the dumbest stupidest shit like bickering with John why he doesn't give blockbuster money and fine I will pay $4.99 for this movie. I wanted to go home.

Then last night, I am exhaustedly riding the escalator in a Marseille metro station, I am sick of living out of my backpack and I am tired and over the past 14 days I have slept in more beds than I have taken showers. I look above me and glance at the french advertisement above me and a few seconds later it registers that I completely comprehend everything the ad said. And heya I realize that I feel like I am home.

I will fill you in on my travels later because I am going to go bask in the glory that is france and maybe while I am reading "Qui Suive Peut" in the Parc, I will eavesdrop on the conversation next to me and bask in feeling like I belong.

oy

check out the grammatical errors in the post below Cha-CHinG!

guess what blog readers, im FREAKING OUT

so I was just sitting here at my computer spazing out about life in general, is spazing even a word? I thought I would take a moment to type up about it. here is why things are eeeeeeeeeek: I haven't eaten in a really long time, I think the last time I ate something semi-substantial was eight hours ago and that was some handfuls of popcorn. I don't have time to eat anything though because I haven't yet figured out how to get to florence next week and I need to do that before I leave for amsterdam in five hours. surprisingly, I really want to take a shower which I know you find hard to believe and so do I, but what is even more painful than the idea of me actually wanting to shower is the idea that I might not have time to. Also I need to pack for amsterdam, and stealthily take my clothes off the drying rack on the balcony without waking madame up and I need to make a frickin sandwich for the 82302804 hour train ride tomorrow, will I have time to do those things in the a.m.? Can I take a shower in the a.m.? How early do I have to wake up to do all of this? Am I even going to wake up? Am I going to forget my train tickets? is the beatrix potter team going to leave without me? Is my sister mad at me, because we only spoke for a few minutes today? I miss her so much my tummy hurts. Or does my tummy hurt because I am so hungry. She told me Gabbie is dying, she is the oldest dog. I think that is going to mess things up back home a lot. I am starting to cry now because I don't like to think about death, and I never got to say goodbye to Gabbie and when I was staying at home she wouldn't go upstairs and sleep with the rents she would sleep by my door to protect me. Why didn't I get to say goodbye to anyone? And all the while I am worrying if something dramatic has happened to me and I have become a different Betsy than I used to be or if I am the same Betsy I always was, but the Betsy I used to be was not the real Betsy? It's very complicated, you see, perhaps I am having identity issues? That is almost comical. I only have €1.24 credit left on my cell phone. These are the things I am worrying about right now. But don't worry friends. I'll be in Amsterdam in less than 24 hours. I will feel better!

sweet

So I was a tad bit gumpy pants today because I want my earings back. Actually that is not why i was grumpy. I wasn't really grumpy at all. But that's not the point. That's not the point at all. The point is, Charlie, that

when I got home I found I had received a card from Scott and the Catalyst Crew. How thoughtful. People back home actually remember me? I have this strange feeling that Scott bought the card and forced everyone to sign it, whether they wanted to or not, then took charge in the mailing of the card. So first and foremost I am going to thank him. Then, thank you to everyone who signed it. That is all.

just add this to the post below

So tonight I walked up to the sixth floor of my apartment building before I realized something was off. I live on the fourth.

One more check for my intelligence

As I was walking home tonight, I trying to brainstorm innovative ways to challenge my wittle brain. Then I stopped to look at some watches in a magasin window. These watches were appealing to me, so I leaned in to get a closer look. Then I banged my head really hard against the obviously there window. I need to find ways to boost my common sense.

when I worked at The Maneater, I hated writing headlines, and writing this reminds me of that

I was planning on getting a ton of work done today to justify… well I don't know what to justify, but yesterday it seemed like a good idea to get a lot of work done today. This is what I have done so far

1. drink 2 cups of tea
2. watch Les Amours, a french dating game show
3. listen to the Tegan and Sara album I got from the biblio
4. attempt to clean out the crud jammed in my nails from all the hardcore rock climbing I've been doing
5. write my aunt an email
6. update my myspace profile

maybe now I will take a nap

centième post about La Poste

Waiting in line at the post office isn't so bad if you have an ipod, a book or a whole pizza to eat. Otherwise, you must patiently wait for a very very very plusieurs minutes. Today I was waiting and dreading that I would very stuck with the mean lady. I remember her from last week because she thought I said €5 when I said I needed credit for my phone for €25.

I know I said the 20 because for some reason I get really nerveuse with my numbers and forget them on the spot. So I always practice in my head, especially if I am anticipating using them soon. It doesn't make any sense because I learned to count in French… um… 7 years ago? Anyways, she printed out the wrong thing and then got all in a huff. Since I had an accent I bet everyone assumed it was my fault, but it WASN'T. But it was fine, eventually I got my €25, really €30 because orange adds 5.

Like I already said, I didn't want this lady. I really didn't care if she remembered me or not, but didn't want to deal with her pissiness again. But of course she was the open agent when it was my turn. She was actually really pleasant. She must have been having a bad day last time. I'm glad we got to share a second moment together.

Now that I reflect on it, I would be pissy if I worked at a french post office too, because it is always really busy and they probably never get to go to the bathroom. Actually, that is not true because the Poste is closed more often than it is open, so they can go pee during those times.

the following would have been better if I believed in love

Totally I spent a considerable amount of time at Parc de Tête d'Or parce que the bibliothèque was closed. I thought it was only closed on sunday, but apparently lundi is a good day for the library workers to take off too. Anyway, at the park I walked, read and slept. I was feeling indecisive about music selection, so settled for the old "mix de morceaux" rag.

This is typically a really crappy decision because I will always get either songs I am embarassed to own, or iTrip stations, which are just loud obnoxious beeps. But today was more or less a good day, I skipped through a bunch but came out in the end with a pretty good playlist:

Today - Smashing Pumpkins
Come in Alone - My Bloody Valentine
Dinu Lipatti's Bones - The Mountain Goats
FM - Junior Boys
I Don't Love Anyone - Belle & Sebastian
Ann Don't Cry - Pavement
All of My Love - Led Zeppelin
Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed - Silver Jews
There There (The Boney King Of Nowhere) - Radiohead
Handshake Drugs - Wilco
Say It Ain't So - Weezer
Brand New Colony - Postal Service
Now That I Miss Her - Elefant

It was a good day and I so decided that maybe I would like to be proposed to in this park. However this is a problem because I don't like boys or dating them, so I may never be proposed to.

this is how i FEEL

Two simulatenous things happened that completely threw off whatever sense of normalcy I had left here.

One, my grandpa died. It was horrible. I cried a lot and felt hopeless. I still feel like I haven't been able to mourn properly and really understand how it is affecting my family because I wasn't there. And it was Grandpa that got me into French. When I was little, he gave me kid's books in France. He took me to France a couple of years ago. He was really proud of me that I was coming here and offered to pay for my rent so I could afford it. It hurts thinking about this. My brain can't comprehend that he's dead because I had no closure to it.

And then, at the same time I came across the realization that I have fallen in love with France. I don't know where it came from, but I just began realizing that I am really happy here. I wish I could stay longer. And this feels so strangely, because everyone back home is caught up in family things, and I am caught up in it too, to a certain extent. But the reality of it is that I am far away and don't explicitly have to deal with it.

That gives me time to live my study abroad life as nothing happened, and allows me to have a solid weekend that includes but is not limited to sick bouldering gym, getting wasted face and happily embarrassing myself, italian/spanish/english/german/french dinner night. Also funky french poetry/improv slam and buying tix to A'dam. Also really off-color chocolate chip cookies because I just threw in amounts of ingredients as I saw fit and it was possibly one of the worst batches of cookies I have ever made, but everyone raved about their deliciousness. Also my library card scheme. Also ditiching class to shop with a good friend. Also the mildly obnoxious petits-enfants in for the weekend, yet their little french voices are still adorable. All these things, they make me happy, they are why I love it here. But is it wrong to feel like so?

and I am joining all my thoughts to you…

After I hopped off the metro around 12ish tonight, I sauntered on over to the Rhône instead of heading straight home. I was listening to "Seven Swans," and it just seemed like the right thing to do. The view isn't even that great, there are much better places to catch the lights of the city at night. But I was working with what I had.

I was thinking about how today was a really good day. I was going through a string of having way more bad days than good ones. Especially last week, which totally sucked because of a bunch of shit that happened on the homefront. But Chamonix weekend was great, anticipating A-dam with quality people is great, my friends here are great, climbing tonight was great too. How long did it take me to thing all these things were great? Well I don't know.

But the idea of having to eventually go home hurts my little heart. Also, I miss my sister.

right now I am polishing off a jar of peanut butter

tonight i was all like IN YOUR FACE FRANCE because I went to see this dumb movie in french and understood every single word. Aside from the fact that the film was completely predictable and it was so obvious that noami watts was going to get preggers with the other dude's baby and one of the deux was going to die of cholera in the end, also that it was an american movie dubbed in french, what?, I was happy because the french stuck. But on a different note, I am so over people (such as guy ripping my ticket) speaking to me in English. It's insulting and I want them to slip on dog crap and die.

On not maquillage, etc.

today I got an email from my sister, and in it was a list of things that made her happy. One was that she made an effort to look nice for work 2 days in a row. It was very ironic, you see, because tonight I went to watch a football match and it was the first time I tried to look nice in… maybe weeks. I even put some bobby pins in my hair and stuff and used my eyelash curler. It was pretty riveting. I don't know why France has pushed me into looking like such an F'ing skeez all the time, but it has. I only wear polka dotted ribbons if I remember to — you know it's gotten bad.

la fam

I haven't really felt homesick since I've been here. If you have spent more than five minutes around my dad, you might understand why. And I still don't feel homesick, in that sense of the word, but it's funny to communicate with them and think "that is so _______." I didn't really expect them to change or anything, but you know. For example, the christmas tree isn't down yet. My mom has spent the last two months looking for the wand that goes with our really crappy angel, and cut off every branch invidually in the search. My sister is feeling restless and jokes about quitting her job to become a pastry chef. My dad has littered the dining room table with bee keeping supplies. I can picture exactly how my family is living back there, exactly how they have not changed one bit. I wonder if I will fit back into the routine when I get back?

today is a holiday

I don't really care about valentine's day. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have a bf who will buy you a delicious dinner on this special day. But I think we all know that free delicious dinners are available year-round, and he doesn't have to be your boyfriend to buy. I'm not super anti-VD, I just don't think about it much. That is why it's nice when other people think about it, and then surprise me. For example, I received some scrumptious cracker cuts last year, as well as an Elvis impersonator with a dozen roses, and a free ticket to a concert. They were just gifts from my friends and from my grandpa, but I felt special.

So I wasn't thinking so much about it again this year. Well that is a little bit of a lie, because I was thinking about the horrible article I read in Direct Soir last night. Their "saint-valentin" story reminded me of something I would read in RedEye. Puke. Well Direct Soir is pratically RedEye, but I don't like to think that such low caliber material exists outside of RedEye.

Anyway, where I am going with this is that I was pleasantly surprised tonight because I got a little package from the fam. My next sentence was going to be a deep though about what this holiday really means, but I don't feel like getting into that mode right now. So I'll just end here.

things that make me happy

1. my new library card
2. the cds I got with my new library card
3. not giving a flip what I look like ever
4. running to the convergence point of the rivers just as arcade fire kicks in
5. that i can still do an easy 7

like it:

AVC: You have a song called "Caring Is Creepy." Do you really think caring is creepy?

JM: When I came up with that idea for the title, I was talking about how in my circle of friends—this was my circle of friends, especially in Albuquerque—you drink and you hang out and you talk and you make jokes and you do all that stuff, but as soon as you start talking about anything real, something that actually moves you or anything like that, it's just fucking awkward. You know, there's a lot of ways to kill a party—talking about politics and that shit—but I'm talking about anything that's heartfelt. That used to grump me out, so "Caring Is Creepy" is where that came from. The song itself is about a love of mine at the time that went south—it's fitting in that way.

- the a.v. club

read the rest at http://www.avclub.com/content/node/58319

Comment on dit "crunchy" en français?

My jeans are crunchy. My towel is crunchy. This is what happens when you must air dry things. The jeans will be fine. But I am worried about the towel. I am so worried I haven't taken a shower yet. I will try to play the not-take-a-shower game for as long as possible. Or I will just stand in the salle de bains until my body is completely dry. Otherwise, I might rip some skin off. The not-take-a-shower game isn't as fun as the annoy-the-pissy-french-girls-by-bumping-into-them-as-many-times-as-possible game that I played last night. Have you ever been to a bar that plays the remixed punk-rock version of "Summer Nights?" That's right, from that musical made famous by John Travolta. I hadn't either… until last night.

I: "I have never heard music this bad."
C: "I have. The last time I came here."

I don't know if you knew this or not, but I am really stupid

Tonight I got lost. It should have taken me about 10 minutes to walk home and it took me one hour. This is probably the lowest point I have hit since I have been here… why am I so incredibly incompetant? I walked in a frickin circle. I finally had to crack down and ask people how to get to the river. It's just like what happened with the boots. I wanted to find my way myself, but it clearly was not going to happen. I am just that big of an idot.

But I got home safely, (eventually) so it's all good now. High points of the night were being attacked by a homeless man who kept screaming at me "ALCOOL" while his dog barked at me and as Ben unwrapped his arms from me. Then he secured his death grip on Ben's fleece and it took him about five minutes free himself. I tried to help, but I was laughing too hard to be useful. I also really enjoyed spending time with Shannon and the drunk people playing in the fountain when I finally finally reached the five minute point from home.

Hey surprise surprise I used to be a lameass and probably still am

Today I went back and read some old blog posts. I started it just about a year ago. Now I am wondering why I had any friends then. I would not have wanted to be friends with myself.

That semester was one of the best of all of college thus far, not yet counting France. When I wasn't running 67 miles a day, apparently I spent the whole time sniffling over michael douglass, who had fake dumped me several months before. Why did I type an overload of blog entries about feeling sorry for myself? I missed hanging out amongst the six all fall. Good memories are climbing to the top of the quad, dancing until arcade fire until I felt faint, and sitting on the shotty couch on the balcony that sheds on you. I really don't have many distinct memories, I was just always so happy. That night I threw up on Douglass' floor was great though. Then I woke up the next morning and ran 8 miles. Dudes and chicks of spring '06, I miss you.

Now I am going to buy some tickets to the Alps and go out and party hearty in France.

hm,

Today Anne Chantale asked me: why would you come to france to take courses in english?

seulement une chose

First impressions can be very deceiving. Let's just leave it at That.

J'aprrends quelque chose nouveau chaque jour

I left Madame a note last night that said my train returning from Avignon would be returning late and I would be sleeping "avec un ami," ie with a friend.

Tonight she explained to me that the note I had left in fact said I was sleeping "with a friend" ie in the same bed with that friend, and that I really should have said that I was sleeping "chez un ami," at a friend's house. I'm silly. I knew that. I will never make the same mistake again! Tomorrow I meet some of her famille — hooray!

Un noveau copain

Today I met my new friend, a meeting which was set up through crazy Chantale at the relations internationals (tangent: Chantale really is crazy. I know this from observation and heresay. Said one of the students who was here last semester: Chantale hooks up with students. Said me: what exactly do you mean by hooks up? Said he: I mean Hooks Up). Anyway, the purpose is for me to practice French and him English. Seeing as he has already read Toni Morrison, George Orwell, and I forget whom else, his English is a little bit more advanced than my French. But I was telling him about how I have learned so much french grammar, that I'm great at conjugating verbs, but all that I've learned in French class hasn't proved me that useful in conversation. He has had the same experience in English classes. Then he talked about a contortonist, that he first must build flexibility in his muscles and strength in his bones, then can do amazing things with his body, but only because of that base of flexibility and strength. Perhaps, my friend said, it is the same way with learning another language, that it is important to learn the base of it and learn it well. This will prove useful when you begin to become a master of it.

I'm glad we are friends. I think he and I are going to a museum next week. Yesssssssssss.

aujourd'hui

Today Madame, Nina and I had a great laugh as Madame tried to explain to us the difference between c'est bien and c'est bon.

Ces Bottes

I found the boots. I tried them on. They were ugly. Also I had mixed feelings about buying them. Why is it so important that I have a pair of boots?

un moment un peu triste pour votre auteur,

Today, on our scavenger hunt, I saw a pair of boots in a store window that I wanted to buy. But as we were busy trampsing willy nilly all over the city and completing meaningful tasks like counting the number of stairs of la montée De Lange (563 …ish), I did not buy them. I wrote down the name of the store and some street names and planned to come back later. When I did come back, I couldn't find the store. I felt certain I was on track, and then lost my sense of direction (which certainly isn't difficult for me). I kept returning to a point where I was certain I knew my bearings were correct, then took different routes from there. I did this three or four times. After awhile, my mission became less and less focused on the boots. I don't even remember what they looked like and am not even sure if I wanted to buy them anyway. But I set out to get ces bottes, and I was going to find them no matter how long it took. All I really wanted to accomplish was to find this store so I could say to myself 'Yes! You are not foolish! You knew where it was the whole time! It doesn't matter that it took you two hours to get there, you Got There!' Then I could buy the stupid boots and every time I wore them and perhaps got a compliment because they are just that cool, I could say "Thanks, I walked around Lyon for hours for these boots."

I didn't found the store and probably would have continued my search on the other side of the Rhône had it not been for a number of factors (little sleep last night with no blanket and my coat as a pillow, up early for scav. hunt, hunger, had been walking for about 4 hours total for the day, and on and on). But I literally could not go any further. And frankly, it was time to give up. I had tried my hardest. This wasn't going to happen. It was more disheartening than I would have expected it to be — because my hardest was not good enough to find the boot store. Now, with the aide of the internet, I have located the store on a map (it is indeed on the other side of the Rhône, how idiotic of me) and I can find it quickly and easily. But I wish I had been able to find it the first time. I am a little very sad. I tried to accomplish something and failed miserably. But worse things could certainly happen. I'll get over it. I think I am already over it.

J'espere avoir ces six choses en France:

1, more Shoes!
2, unlimited supply of $$
3, Racky the Raccoon
4, retainer
5, fluent french speaking sillz
6, ma soeur

ils veulent trop d'argent de moi!

I am ashamed to be meandering up and down the isles of the French equivalent to Walmart. But I am poor, I have no options. I made a list of things I thought I needed, and immediately cut it down to necessities and do withouts when I got to Carrefour. For €60, I can live without a hair straightener. I will just get really good at braiding my hair. I made dramatic cuts on my already meager list. Not buying pencils. One pencil should last me the semester, and if not, maybe I can borrow one from someone and never give it back. How much food do I really need? I can survive on two meals a day. Do they sell trail mix here? Some things stayed on the list. Tampons, for example. However, if I only eat very little, then loose 20 lbs, my body will start malfunctioning and I won't need those either.

Ah yes, this is the life. It's either this or prostitution. I've tried the latter before, it's no good. Too many STDs.

TeRRor!

My excitement about leaving for France tomorrow has manifested itself into total and utter fear. What is there to say on this topic? Trecking to a county whose language I am horrible at speaking is scary. Don't know anyone there, etc. etc. Right right, I bleed the ideal of independence. Doesn't matter. At this precise moment, I'd take the opportunity of stomping on a boy's heart until the point where it's not even worth recycling over this icky icky feeling. At least that's something I have experience with.

Christmas is, Christmas is (on a keyboard that sticks)

Two years ago was the worst Christmas ever in the Mikel household. I will spare you the details. It was horrible. Since then, my family has collectively and undiscussedly decided it will never happen again. We go to extremes, like the whole 11-foot real christmas tree shebang, dropping tons of money on presents, cooking/baking marathons that result in an amount of food that could not possibly be eaten by 4 people, no matter how hungry we were. The coffee table heaped with books, DVDs, shirtboxes, etc, etc, empty tin that used to have homemade fudge but the dog ate it. The fire place lousy with ashes from the roaring fires that have been burning for days. The fridge packed with leftovers. The tree heavy with hundreds, hundreds of bulbs.

The holiday reeks of lavishness unnatural to the Mikel family.

That one Christmas was so awful, that it really makes one appreciate a good Christmas even more. So my dad gave me a kleenex box in the shape of a totem pole. Is that really all I have to complain about? Yup.

The holiday season has begun

I hate Christmas lists. This is not what Christmas is all about. No, no, no, no, no. This isn't a holiday for you to receive all the stuff you were too cheap to buy for yourself over the past few months. Maybe stuff you couldn't afford. But Christmas lists take all the joy out of the holiday, which comes from painstalking searching for the perfect gift for someone based on that person's personality, taste and relationship to yourself.

'Well,' you're saying to yourself, 'how is anyone going to know what to get me? My Christmas list prevents my parents from buying me worthless trinkets I didn't want in the first place.' Hm. Well I say, Suck It Up. Christmas isn't about you. Do you think I wanted/needed footy (sp?) pajamas or a Discovery Kids fish tank over the last couple of years. There is no question mark at the end of that sentence because the answer is clear. What you get doesn't matter - mmm duh it's what you give. And so don't be a lame ass this holiday season and put some thought into gift giving instead of foolishly resorting to people's Christmas lists. You will ruin Christmas that way, you know.

I like to write posts about how peeved I am about life. It gives the impression that I am never happy. Ha!

Ode to the Great Things in LIfe

One of my favorite things in this world is free food. Food is delicious. And it costs money. No one likes to spend money. So what could be better than something delicious that costs nothing? I think we all know the answer here. Nothing better exists.

This post is inspired by the box of bagels and cream cheese I discovered on top of the microwave at Lee Hills. I was going to make some popcorn. Instead, my hunger can be satisfied by this no-cost cream cheese smothered bagel, and I can save the popcorn and eat it later. In the long run, I don't have to buy as much popcorn - um, awesome.

Now some people think us women have it hard in this world, ever struggling to eliminate the glass ceiling and all. Psh. I enjoy being female because it entitles me to more free food than my male peers. Guy-buying-girl food is much more common than the opposite action. Now that I think of it, one of the downfalls of being single is the amount of money I have to spend on food. I am going to find myself a boyfriend right this minute.

:-(

Earlier today, I swear I complimented myself on how independent I had become. Yes, I most definitely was all set to pat myself on the back as soon as I had the chance. "Good job, Betsy. You are so awesome. You don't need anyone."

psh.

What does independent mean? It means you can do it all yourself. Well, I can do the following things alone: wash clothes, cook food, make bed, get dressed, these sorts of things. What I cannot do for myself is be my own support, on many different levels, when I completely screw up. Such an idiot sometimes, I am. Look, now I'm Yoda. My sense of humor is spectacular. Or should I say, ridiculous. I feel my posture slooping right now, physically, emotionally, mentally and whatever other allys there are too.

good mood for listening to Junior Boys

Like many of the Mikel clan, I often think too hard. Lately - actually that is a lie, I think about this all the time - I've been thinking about where I was a year ago, and how different I am now. A good friend (who's name may or may not start with an O in the friend world, but an A in the real world) tells me I have grown incredibly bitter. I don't want to admit it, but it's a little true. I think it's really just being more aware. I'm sad that O/A friend thinks I have progressed for the worse. But not so sad, but today I realized that I have also moved in a positive direction too.

Today I had a "hm" moment when I realized that something about me has really changed. Last year I had a bit of a freak out over something that happened in the newsroom, because people weren't taking something seriously as I was. A strikingly similar something happened today in The Paper's newsroom, and people reacted the same way. I, on the other hand, didn't. Details, details, not important here, but I may have learned something. It's okay to laugh in the face of something really serious, because oftentimes, that's the only way to stay sane.

Oh man, I am so deep. I can't very over it. I wish I could find some Junior Boys lyrics in less than 20 seconds so that I could post them here. But I've got other deep things to think about.

Go here and tell all your friends!

Okay so maybe more than one person reads my blog? Maybe? There's no way to tell, what is most important that you go to this website:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yMZYY2V6zeg

This is the Missouri School of Journalism for you. This is a commercial my good friend Joe made for Chipotle. If he wins, he gets $10,000! And the J-school gets $10,000! We need to get a ton of people to watch the commercial, so get all your friends to watch it too. And then get your friends' friends. Chain reaction Oh My God.

if you can't remember the link to tell you friends, just tell them to go to youtube and search chipotle and foil.

ps this public computer lab is creeping me out, the girl next to me is making farting/squirting noises with her mouth and talking to herself. Mmm ... gotta go.

On the other side

Working a Gatorade stop @ the Chicago marathon was third behind the following things:
1. running the chicago marathon (done)
2. running the chicago marathon with Amy (will do?)

Anyways,

I will admit, it gets boring once the runners turn to walkers and handing out gatorade to the walkers is just as thrilling as… well, no analogy needed – as thrilling as it sounds to hand a cup to someone who is walking.

The real excitement is with the fast ones. There is strategy:
- You need to hold the cup from the top, between thumb and pointer finger. This way the runner can grab the cup in natural cup grabbing motion. This also means if it is very cold, your fingers will turn numb, and if you are wearing gloves, your fingers will get soaked — and ultimately turn numb. Might as well forget about the gloves.
- You must concentrate on each handoff. If you're not on your game, gatorade will end up everywhere, ground, hair, clothes and that is not the point of the task. The point is as little spillage as possible.
- The way to make this happen is to follow your hand with the pace of the runner, until you are quite positive that he or she is really holding it. Then you need to release in a perfect upward motion, not left or right because that will lead to spilling. This is very complicated when you are moving your hand leftwards, then must simultaneously release upwards. And you absolutely must release. It is very easy to hold on for too long — you're not sure if they're ready to hold the cup themselves. But you have no time to ask them if they're ready to hold alone. They are running a marathon for christ's sake! That is why you must have talent, you must have skill, you must have a sixth sense. You absolutely must know the proper time to release. And that is if you even get that far.

Now tips for marathoners:
- a thank you is always appreciated, and will get you personal encouragement
- if you are running on the left side, don't grab with your right hand, and vice versa. Seriously people, WTF? That just complicates the whole process way more than is necessarry.
- If you are aiming for a particular cup, signal to the cup holder that you are coming for her cup. This is a good idea for several reasons. 1. she knows not to give it away to anyone else 2. she can physically and mentally prepare herself for the extremly faced paced and extremely complex process of handing off a cup of gatorade that is about to happen.

Enough digressing on passing out Gatorade. You're reading this and are embarassed to know me. Oh yeah?!?! Well I'm embarassed that you know me too.

great word found in another article

kvetching

Hey now, here it is!

Some people know the Halloween season has arrived because of aisles and aisles full of bags of trick-or-treat candy and skimpy costumes. Others know because they also know it is almost Oct. 31. I can now breathe a sigh of relief because now I know it is almost Halloween, I have finally received my Halloween care package from my aunt. I will let the contents speak for themselves:

1. Wooden witch decorative-like thing that your grandmother may find interest in
2. Four-piece spooky shapes cookie cutter set
3. Two-pack Halloween potholders
4. Tellcherry Black Peppercorns Grinder
5. Jack-o-latern ornament/candle holder (?)
6. Two plastic smiley faced serving spoons
7. Halloween themed Runts®: ghosts, pumpkins, bats and… bananas?
8. Homemade spider ornament, made of bells and beads
9. Gardenia body lotion
10. Sudoku 50 Puzzles, Volume 1
11. "Halloween Night" bucket
12. I Can Bake Vanilla-Sugar PUMPKINS!, pumpkin shaped ornament included
13. 3-Flexible Cutting Mats (FDA approved)
14. Two dish towels with witch, cat and spider stitching
15. Reese's miniatures
16. Pumpkin nonstick flexible spatula

Lame, lame and LAME

"Ridiculously" is a horrible adjective. Everyone uses it and it doesn't even make sense. What the F does that even mean? Do you mean extremely? Do you mean unusually? Do you mean remarkably?

Things do not always have to be sensical, but I ask this question: whatever happened to originality? Riduclously is number one on my least original list. If I hear one more clone girl tell her bf about someone she knows who is "ridiculously skinny" or see another "ridiculously happy" facebook status update I might papercut my ears. It's not clever. It's not creative. It's not descriptive. It was in Zoolander. Now, it's just overused.

Please people of my generation, expand your vocabulary. Instead of ridiculously skinny, with unecessary emphasis on the ridiculously, can you just say what you mean? She's scrawny. Emanciated even. So skinny that you wonder if her soul has deteriorated along with her body. I don't know. Just not ridiculously.

I am so fed up with this word that I don't want to talk about it anymore.

And another

Nincompoop

good words I read in an article today

despondant
flummoxed
ginormous
magnate
impetus
willy-nilly

Welcome Fall! Time for apple cider, carving pumpkins, blustery weather, red and orange and yellow leaves!

how to recognize a witch:
1. a REAL WITCH is certain to be wearing gloves when you first meet her. even in the summer. because she doesnt have finger nails. instead of finger nails, she has thin curvey claws, like a cat.

2. the second thing to remember is that a REAL WITCH is always bald. bald as a boiled egg. a REAL WITCH always wears a wig to hide her baldness. she wears a first class wig. and it is almost impossible to to tell a really first class wig from ordinary hair unless you give it a pull to see if it comes off.

3. look for the nose holes. witches have slightly larger nose holes than ordinary people. the rim of each nose hole is pink and curvey, like the rim of a seashell. a REAL WITCH has the most amazing sense of smell. she can actually smell out a child who is standing on the other side of the street on a pitch black night. and the cleaner you are, the more smelly you are to a witch, an absolutely clean child gives off the most ghastly scent to a witch. the point is this. when you havent washed for a week and your skin is all covered over with dirt, the quite obviously the stink waves cannot come oozing out nearly as strongly.

4. look carefully at the eyes. because the eyes of a REAL WITCH are different than yours and mine. look in the middle of each eye where there is normally a little black dot. if she is a witch, the black dot will keep changing color, and you will see fire and you will see ice dancing right in the very center of the colored dot. it will send shivers running all over your skin.

5. witches never have toes. the feet have square ends with no toes on them at all. it gives them a problem with their shoes. all ladies like to wear small rather pointed shoes, but a witch, whose feet are very wide and square at the ends, has the most awful job squeezing her feet into those horrible pointed shoes.

6. their spit is blue as a bilberry. they even use it to write with. they use those old fasioned pens that have nibs and they simply lick the nibs.

so there you are. thats about all i can tell you. none of it is very helpful. you can still never be absolutely sure whether a woman is a witch just by looking at her. but if she is wearing the gloves, if she has the large nose holes, the queer eyes and the hair that looks like it might be a wig, and if she has a blueish tinge on her teeth and walks with a slight limp - if she has all those things, then you run like mad.

- Roald Dahl

If there's cheese around, you know it's a good place

So after my race on Sunday, I was reminded of why long races are so amazing. And that is all the free food you receive. It started with the bag you get beforehand, which had a coupon for a free meal @ Chipotle. My mom doesn't eat there so I yoinked hers too, so now that is six free Chipotle tacos if I'm in Columbia, eight if in Chicago.

Then post race, the general rule, well maybe not, but at least the rule I live by, is grab as much as you can get your hands on. Sometimes they even give you a bag for it all. This was not the case in this instance, or else I would have taken more. I was able to cradle in my arms the following:

1 bottle of gatorade
2 bottles of water
2 cliff bars
5 fruit snacks
1 bagel
1 box of raisins
3 packages of organic string cheese
1 banana

And the funny thing I wasn't even hungry.

An unexpected surprise (just as surprises often are)

My sister's landlady totally cracks me up. When I returned to the apartment from work today, she mentioned that she had been inside to fix something, and meanwhile had straightened things up a bit. This is what she was referring to:

1. drag unused AC unit into hall
2. assemble dirty clothes strewn on bathroom floor into neat little pile
3. wash dishes
4. add additional furnishings to the apartment: microwave stand and rug by kitchen sink
5. take out garbage (from both kitchen and bathroom)
6. line up all shoes into line
7. push my haphazard pile of duffel bag and its contents into corner of room
6. sweep floor, possibly mop as well

For some reason, I do not feel that Joe and Linda will be as on hand when it comes time to clean the VIP Lounge. I guess I will find some way to deal.

The Worst Song in the World

What is the big fuss over that stupid Imogen Heap song? Hide and Seek? If you haven't heard it, don't listen. It is so horrible that it hurts my ears. I mean even Kanye doesn't do that to me. He just irritates. But this song makes me shudder. I was really excited about yoinking the Last Kiss soundtrack because there are some stellar artists on it. Fiona Apple, Rufus Wainwright, Snow Patrol, Aimee Mann, Coldplay etc. etc. But now we have Imogen Heapp too. WTF seriously why does this lame song live? I thought I had escaped it after moving out of the dorms - weirdo neighbors would play it really loudly while they were getting ready to go out and party (which even it did not make my ears bleed, I cannot fathom how this would be a getting ready song. It's like about death or something, I am pretty sure) - but alas, no, it is now haunting me. I don't even want to discuss this anymore, it is making me angry.

no title captures it all

After such a hardcore weekend, I feel as though I owe it to the 3, possibly 4 people who read my blog to give them a nice hardcore post of what it was all about. But um… I don't feel like it.

If I were to do such a thing, I would discuss, aside from the three consecutive days of nonstop music, my super fly day @ the lolla lounge, face planting onto an L platform, Wayne Coyne in a bubble, a spectacle of swimming in the Buckingham Fountain, drunk girl whose boyfriend didn't love her, hipster spotting game, etc. etc. But that would take too much time to both type and also to read, and I know that no one has the attention span to take that all in.

So instead, I will mention a brief conversation that took place directly behind drunk girl whose boyfriend didn't love her, while my sister and I were tiredly inhaling the rambunctious tunes of Red Hot Chilli Peppers. She asked me if I was happy to go back to school or if I was sad to leave. At the beginning of the summer, I was telling myself it was only a few months before I was able to go back, ie the answer to that question would have been very obvious. But after those few months spent in a great place with great people, said answer, not so much obvious anymore.

sleepy

So I am pretty much exhausted right now and am a little delirious. But I knew, I knew that YOU, person who reads my blog, really so badly wanted to read a post from me. And that is because you were wondering how Pitchfork was, right? Exactly. Well it was rockin'. And even though I wasn't quite hipster enough and chose to wore the old tank top skirt flip flop combo as opposed to thrift store purchased or home sewn dress giant belt neon leggings funky jewelry bandana tattoos and pyscho gelled hair combo, I could still enjoy the music and fun times as much as the rest of them.

I also may try and get into the underground electronic scene with Devin. That's because the tent was the where it was at. It was sweaty and loud and dancing and I was definitely in the mood for all of the above today. But I also thoroughly enjoyed seeing Ted Leo bleed and 'Hounds of Love' last night. And a million other things. I need to recover and get mentally and physically prepared for next weekend, which will be… well I will just leave things here.

Ways to get boys to not like me

1. constantly have spinach in teeth
2. abstain from brushing teeth
3. also from wearing deoderant
4. also from washing hair
5. not wear glasses or contacts so that I am always squinting
6. wear oversized tshirts
7. eat a lot of ice cream. don't exercise
8. find poison ivy and roll in it
9. crack really unfunny jokes constantly

That's all I can think of. But those will probably work.

Yep yep yep

So my sister played a funny joke on me today, I think. I told her I would go grocery shopping for dinner tonight since she will be at dance class. She said the Jewel was close, I could walk. She lied. It was at least 6 miles. Right, I'm exaggerating, but it was so freaking far. I kept going thinking "well it can't be that much farther…" But it WAS. I am pretty sure it was about a mile and a half there. But Betsy, WTF, you run marathons!!!! Okay shut up. Today was the hottest day I can remember in a long while. I also left my sunglasses in my car. I also eeked out 6 miles running this morning and nearly collapsed of dehydration. I also walked to the L in the morning, to work from the L, to urban outfitters at lunch and back, to the L from work. Total: not exaggerating this time, probably about 10 miles. Okay, okay honestly I am not even that tired. This all wasn't that bad. I just wanted to complain so that the .432 people who read my blog can feel sorry for me. You should, I almost got a blister on my foot.

The longest day of the year

"Why candles?" objected Daisy frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day of the year." She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it."

When the longest day of the year approaches, I always think about this passage from The Great Gatsby and think to myself 'I will not forget. It will come and I will remember it and say to myself "today is the longest day of the year." ' Yet I always forget. I did this year, just as I have ever year since I read this book in high school.

I really like these few lines from The Great Gatsby because they give Daisy a little substance. Readers often interpret her as flitty and ignorant and clueless. Sometimes she is those things, but so is everyone. Sometimes Daisy is also very intelligent. Everyone forgets the longest day of the year. Just because Daisy forgets, that doesn't make her any different than anyone else.

I have not read the book for a few years and so can't say much more about the subject. But I still think about it every year, at least once a year, when the longest day of the year approaches and then passes without me having remembered to remember it.

Everything And Its You In Whose Right Army Place?

Just inside Auditorium Theater, just past all the hopeless hopefuls agitating outside hoping to get in, I start getting really excited. I was excited before, but now I am really really excited. Everyone is milling about, quite calm looking and so I follow their cue. But there is this smokey-ness just adds to the surrealness. Yet, there isn't actually any smoke, it's just the lighting. Even better because I am pretty sure cigarette smoke would have subconsciouslly ruined a teeny bit of the experience for me.

There's time for us to wander too, so we check out the overpriced merch, get a little lost trying to find our seats but get there shortly after the light flicker and are seated before the start.

Come on, come on you think you drive me crazy? The song is so big, the lights are big, the words are big, the music is big and it's all trapped so that it travels from the stage to every person without escaping into the night sky, like at an outdoor concert. The whole concert will stay here in this tiny theater, just for a couple of thousand exclusive ears that don't have to share with thousands and thousands and maybe more thousands more, or for the parking lot or fields all around. And a good song to start too, because it starts with Thom Yorke's almost alone voice and is soon the whole band, and it makes you think yes this is Radiohead but no I can't believe I am here.

The new songs are distinctly theirs, honestly which songs really aren't, but also bring meaning to the word new. Danceable? A good one was the song that started out with Thom playing on the piano and maybe Jonny Greenwood or Ed O'Brien on something, them not fitting together in what they are playing, a little bit uncomfortable to hear, but I think "well that's the point." And it is, at first, but gradually I catch their beats synching and eventually they match beautifully. It's worth the uncomfort because when everything comes together, I appreciate how good it sounds.

The crowd is good, and that is important because it is one thing that makes a concert more than just a band replaying their tracks from an album. It's Exit Music (For a Film), and everyone for the most part is quiet, which adds to the effect because everyone is standing, unmoving and silent and I can see the crowd's silhouette very clearly in the single light that is shining on Thom Yorke and his voice and his guitar. But at The National Anthem, it's completely different, everyone's free to act how they feel at that one part, you know the part. Of course it's louder and more dramatic and much much much better live, also when every single person around you appreciates the louderness and plus dramaticness and liveness of it as well. Also when Thom is dancing on stage. He isn't predetermined like Chris Martin, who I think pratices his arm twirls in the mirror before Coldplay shows? Organic dancing by the spastic frontman can best be appreciated live.

It's over, it's almost over, one encore and then two and I can't believe my luck when things wind down to an end with the same song they closed with last time I saw them in concert, Everything In Its Right Place. Which I guess I'm not that lucky because this song fits great for a closer. Because it starts, they play in the amazing way that Radiohead plays, and Thom loops it on his whatever it's called machine and it's coming to and end so he stands close to the crowd and before he walks off alone, he waves goodbye. Each band member has his own exit and one by one we wave goodbye and cheer, goodbye Jonny, goodbye Phil. Goodbye Colin, goodbye Ed. Goodbye Radiohead, you were great. Everyone's off the and the mixer is still mixing and we're still all standing and thinking how every penny was worth it. Ever and ever and ever and. . . we want you to stay longer and play more for us, but we'll take this because it was pretty damn good.

interns. a guide.

"Interns, we love you. We've come to depend on you. We want you to be happy with us. Seriously, be honest: Does this shirt make us look fat? Because we have to be honest with each other if we're going to make this relationship work. Also, we should let you know our wants and needs. Yes, diapering is one of them, but we can talk about that later. . . "

simplying is fun

Whilst I was packing boxes and boxes of somewhat useless possessions, it came to my mind that I own way too many things. And then when I helped Doug pack a little, who only has basically clothes and books, I thought to myself, I really do not need to live the way I've been living.

My family facilitates the collection of objects. Then there is a bid hubbub when we could not pack everything into the car for our trip home from Columbia. It's your fault parents. You made me like this.

So now that I am home and crammed into my bedroom, I have decided to get rid of at least 95% of all these things that are suffocating me.

It goes like this,

save: Radiohead ticket from Alpine Valley
trash: ticket from Miss Saigon

save: kickass cd Maciej made me
trash: weird cd my dad made me

save: workbook from costa rica
trash: workook from lifeguarding

slow process, but it's guaranteed to work.