The Rooster's Nest

 I thought I had left roommate issues behind in freshman year when I moved out of the room, but now there's this freshman...she thinks I make the sun shine, and she comes to me with everything. Well, she's having roommate issues, and while they might not be worse than those I had, she's not capable of handling them, and it's all she can talk about. I just spent an hour at dinner telling her that her "I can't" or "I fail" mentality won't help her, and it's a problem we all have-getting over that mentality of not being able to do something. Saying "I can" instead of "I can't". It's the psychological road block we all face in some way or another, and every time we find that we can overcome it if we try hard enough, but we always seem to forget our ability to overcome ourselves.

So here I am, trying to explain this to someone who has no self-confidence, no self-esteem and won't even touch a kitchen knife because she's sure she'll cut herself if she does so. I just wanted to help, help her to realize she COULD because we all CAN if we will it, but I think I was too intense for her because she didn't take it well. And now I'm worried about her and have to prepare for and take an English final, but I can't think, and I REALLY need to take that English final or else my schedule for the whole week is thrown off.

Okay. Number one. I'm bored. I've been sitting here doing next to nothing since Friday, and while it did give me a couple of days alone before the roommate returned, I'm ready to start and I still have another full day before classes start (thank you, very much, MLK Jr for being the bane of my Januaries since freshman year of high school, I despise not what you did, but your specific existence). I don't know how, but inactivity coupled with the same four walls and below freezing weather have made me even tired (but not sick of) reading. I want to be learning. Please, get me back into the classroom.

Number two. She's not been back two hours and I'm already ready to throw the roommate out, primarily because I asked her the prospects of this new semester and she didn't even try to have a positive outlook on it. Looking at considerably more, and harder, work than I had last semester (finally, to realize what it is to be a Bryn Mawr Woman by way of working your ass off and still not being good enough!!!!), I kind of assumed everyone would be facing the same thing. My roommate, however, informed me that she believes she's wasting her time and "went to the wrong school". Then get the hell out of here and clear the air of your pessimism. I don't want to hear it, and I can assure you when I have two labs due, three tests and a major research paper all due in one week and you're saying you've nothing to do when you have four decent classes, I can't vouch for holding my temper. The mere prospect make me want to toss her out the window. WIth her yellow trappings.

 

I'm done.

Okay, now I can return to the land of the living. Seriously, while being at home for a month (waaaayyyy tooooo long, by the way) was fun (while I was with KTPRKR or my new pans or the oven), am SO glad to be back (really, it's the difference between dead and alive, I think-not that being dead is bad, just...I like it better here). I don't really have anything to say, and, unlike the Wife, have no sex life to fill in with, so I'll leave it at that for a while until something interesting happens. Aside from that, I realized that only about two people read this, which is somewhat amusing.

Satan's not so bad as I thought he would be. I'm already two paragraphs in and we're having a good time. I'll give you a few more pictures to procrastinate with (me? I have two more loads of laundry and a shower to take, another paragraph or to to turn out and a geo chapter to read before I hit the hay...thank the Goddess dad sent me LOTR :)).

 





So I hope I've made you sufficiently jealous of me and my school...
Kisses!

 And I'm sleeping with him for the next week. That's all. Oh, and it's snowing, or, rather, was when I woke up from my nap and is no longer.

 

Wait, no, it's started again...

Because I'm pissed...tonight's my grandparent's fiftieth wedding aniversary and so they're trying to get a webcame up and running so I can say hi, but they're having network problems and so I'm wasting time waiting around in the middle of trying to WRITE MY ENGLISH FINAL...and I don't want to do it in the first place...I'll put us all in a Tuff Ring state of mind...



Well, at least they were brief about it, but I'll give a few more pictures to take the irritation off...





So, I won't bore you with the details of how it was created (even though I'm absolutely itching to, I mean, how could something with a name like "phreatomagmatic eruption" be dull?), but we had a lecture in the ocean here on waves, fetch, swell, sea and surf. I've never had a lecutre interrupted by the professor wanting to body surf before :) And there's a green sand beach. The only in the world, but you'd better get there soon because it'll be gone in about a thousand years...

So, here's my story, but first I'm going to say something more about my roommate. Well, you know the deoderant thing? We had to close the window this morning because it was frigid in our room, and almost immediately upon turning on the heater the room started to reek of her. This is going to be a long winter...and she's never had a banana split. In her life. Milkshake or banana split. She officially lives under a rock. Okay, that's all. Wait, no, so we had a heart to heart the other night when I told her about my concern that she had given me her sickness, which I then passed on to my darling Kathy, who lost her voice the week of Romeo and Juliet because of it. Even after unloading on her because of this, I still want to throw her out the window. 

I'm trying really hard not to be aggravated, but for some reason it's not working. Then she went on to tell me what bugs her about me. I leave the door unlocked when I run down the hall to go to the bathroom, or am doing homework/chilling in the common room that's right down the hall (and am in and out of the room every fifteen minutes or so). I don't close the door completely behind me when I go to the bathroom and she's in the room (I crack it because it tends to slam, and it's just easier). And I don't ask her before I bring friends over and chat in the room (has she ever asked us to leave because she's doing homework? No. She wants me to ask her if I can bring friends over. She won't do any of the work and ask us to go to the common room because "I don't want to cause a commotion in front of your friends"). Okay, I'm getting angry just thinking about all of this, so I'm going to ove onto my story...

Okay, I have to share this one, too, right now because it's too unbelievable. 
We have an omelet bar in the dining hall for brekafast where you can cook your own eggs. Last week I decided to make myself an egg sunny-side down (easy-over for those of you who've never heard that term, or just "fried egg", though why they call it that, I don't know because it's not fried). So I make my egg in the awful pans they provide and return to the table where my roommate is eating-I have officially stopped eating with her, by the way. Can't stand it-I was trying to be nice, but no longer will that be on my agenda. ANyway, I start carving the white from around the yolk so I can eat all of that in one bite and not lose any yolk, but because of the patchy job (due to the atrocious pans), I pierce the center. Yolk bleeds out onto my plate, and my roommate makes a little noise. I look up and she has this look of absolute horror  on her face:

I'm sorry, this is all uncharacteristically mean and low of me, but I'm so sick and tired of being nice (and I think I've already paid karmically for this just by suffering)...I'll write more later and I hope you'll forgive my baseness as the story of my roommate continues...

I can say it confidently, oh, yes, I can. So roommate has been sick for about a week now. She started having problems last week this time and I immediately told her to go to the Health Center and get something to a)make her feel better and 2)make her not contagious. She promptly informed me that a)she does not swallow pills and b)she does not take drugs for colds. Well, okay, her decision and I was ticked, but there was nothing I could do about it. The cold progressed and by Thursday she was in pretty bad condition. I entreated her again to go to the Health Center "If not for you, for me, because I DON"T WANT TO GET IT". Yes, I said exactly that, and that emphatically, too. For all the good it did me. But I was once again informed that she does not swallow pills and she does not take drugs for colds. She was hardly on a functional level and I wanted to kill her. It couldn't have been better that I got away for the weekend to my Great Aunt and Uncle's house because yesterday I've never wanted to throw someone out of the fourth floor window so badly. 
I came back from my homey weekend abroad from campus and found Sam sprawled on her bed. Let me explain. Sam does not take naps. They prevent her from sleeping at night (sucks to be her-I spend my Saturdays in the sack, quite frankly).So I immediately asked how she was. She sounded like Hell, quite frankly. And then the story unfolded...

Was really fun from the standpoint I haven't danced with anyone but Bryn Mawr ladies since I left home. And, oh man, it made me miss my people  a lot, a lot, a lot. And I get home in the doldrum season between final trimester and the beginning of January classes, which means I won't get to dance much I don't think. They also fed us, which was lovely. Homebaked gingersnaps and fresh fruit and cheese and crackers...oh, I was all over the cheese and crackers (Wife, I thought of you and our luminescing cheese), and ginersnaps (hmmm, Whole Foods gingersnap cookies as big as my hand...). Unfortunately, however, there were 1)no guys our age and 2)no attractive guys at all, but I can definitely let that slide I had so much fun. And dancing with any guy whatsoever is preferable to being the male all the time. I swear, I'm permanently gender-confused.
On more notes because I realize I haven't been on in a while...I think I'm going to be spending at least a meal, if not a signficant portion, of next weekend with Auntie Sis and Uncle Walter. The aunt was a little unclear about how much time I'll be there, but either way, it'll be wonderful to catch up with them since last spring (they are of the most welcoming, interesting and friendly sort), and they have a dog, Xena. They adopted her, or, actually, just kind of accidentally ended up with her, on one of their trips to Santa Fe. She's part coyote, and I'm in total dog withdrawal (animal withdrawal, that is), so I can't wait to go play with her.
Also, I had been really sad about not being home over Thanksgiving. The campus clears out pretty well over weekends, and even moreso over breaks, but since we only have Thursday and Friday, it's not long enough to go home. Still the campus is going to be a veritable graveyard, which I wasn't looking forward to. Then Kathy offered to take me home with her!!! I kind of feel like a little lost puppy being picked up under one arm and hauled lovingly around. Yay for going home with friends! And then, after Thanksgiving...THREE WEEKS OF CLASS!!!!!!
And now I need to go to brunch...

 So last night after a visit to the writing center, I decided my entire paper needed to be re-written because it was so horridly bad. So I stayed up nad pretty much re-wrote the entire thing. It involved a lot of tea and Pride and Prejudice. And now I'm going to breakfast...

In my hot chocolate. After Lantern Night. It was beautiful-we were all wearing black bat robes, lined up in the dark cloisters with the juniors and seniors singing to us and then we got our lanterns!!!!!!! But...Amanda is going back to Toronto tomorrow :( I hate leaving friends I've only just met but abslutely love. If I can give you an indication of how she is, she's a lot like Leslie, 'cept for a bit different. 

Was wicked. I was in the SGA kitchen for six hours helping to cook dinner (which included four different kinds of pie and fudge and cookies, tofu stir fries, appetizers, green bean stew...the list goes on and on), and then we ate and did a ritual. It was incredible. Not to mention the former Circle head is in town for Samhain and Carrie's birthday, and she's just awesome. By the way, Wife, you would have been proud of me on Friday night-I stayed out at a party until 0200. 

So now that things have kind of calmed down on this drizzly Friday afternoon (it has been dizzling for the past three days straight, yes, that includes the 0500 crew mornings when it has rained the entire one and a half hours we are rowing-I generally come back soaked to the bone, but because of early class can't shower or change until late-ish). Anyhow, today was last day of fall season with our regatta on Sunday, which is good because I can start waking up at 0630 instead. I still have a shitload of homework, sadly, and am stressed as hell about my geo test on Monday morning. By the way, did I mention that I'm really excited about being a geo major, but that I've heard a few horror stories about the bio faculty. I don't know if the double will fly (I'll decide at the end of next semester). Minor at least because that's, well, kind of necessary to be an ecologist, but geo definitely. Catherine, my lab prof, has worked extensively in glaciology, and I'm totally fascinated. There are fields out there I don't even know about!!!!

Anyway, I'll post Hawaii pictures as soon as I can figure out how, and I'll try to add explanations so you know what is going and what you're looking at...

Was fucking awesome!!!!!!!  That's all. 

No, actually we did everything geology from volcanology to glaciology (yes, glaciers in Hawaii). And we even had a bit of spare time to snorkel in the reefs! And I've determined there's very little more amusing than a group of drunk professors and students...except for maybe a lecture held in the ocean, which therefore has to be interrupted so the prof can body-surf. In other words, it was probably one of the most awesome things I've ever done...okay, the most awesome. I love my major :) More on this later, but I have a shitload of homework.

SIX FUCKING HOURS IN PLENARY! Just because we couldn't meet quorum. My entire Sunday gone, woosh, just like that.

Actually, no, row (sorry, bad joke). Yes, row. Crew started up on Monday and I wasn't kidding when I don't know the day or time since (the only thing I go by is what class and when I have first). Crew involves waking up obscenely early:0445 or 50, and, while it is so worth it to be out on the river and learning to row, DAMN that's early. This is what it does to me, for instance...last night I set my cell to be my alarm clock (yes, I did record The Logical Song, and it is my wake-up alarm). Well, suddenly I hear it go off and, as I've been totally sacked out, I fly out of bed, throw on my shirt and sweatshirt (because that early the only thing you really can do is sleep in your clothes-my boobs haven't been freed since Sunday), pants, grab my backpack,hat, sunglasses, essentially everything I will need until eleven and fly out of the room, trying not to wake up the roomie. I head down the hall to the bathroom to put my contacts in and lo and behold, the light in the common room is on, so I squint in and find Laryssa working on her laptop. "You're still awake?" I ask, totally convinced it's 0450, and she responds, "What time is it?" I peer at my watch and am still so groggy I can't translate what my eyes are seeing, 0051. "It's midnight-wait, are you up for crew?" Yes, indeed. My cell phone had beeped that I had a message and I had taken it for my alarm and one-fucking-o'clock in the morning. But, as opposed to being totally pissed, I was ecstatic (you see, this is what crew does to you)-I got to sleep for a full four hours more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was the Geology BBQ. Yes, today has cheered me up a good deal from this morning when I was nearly sobbing. I got over that pretty quickly after sending coach an email, and then Sam and I went to lunch. At lunch I saw Beth (who is one of those people you just kind of meet around-I really like her) who...but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll start with last night. So I thought I'd be really awkward at this BBQ. Not only was I convinced I'd be the only freshman, but the whole thing was off campus as "Penn-y Brenn" this quad of condos where a lot of the geo staff live. But the fun hasn't stopped...And I received a care package from home with my new ghillies...XD

 Did I mention I hate the essay excerpt this essay has to be based on? I find it particularly difficult to stomach because of its flippant use of "magic" and a recurring desire to liken "magic" to "technology"...does it even need magic at all...I want to throw up. Seriously.

So yesterday was about the greatest day in the world. First, I got an email saying I'm going to Hawaii with the geology department in...let me check my watch again....ONE MONTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I went to crew tryouts and I'm starting next week!!!!! Okay, so I will be missing Ren Fest, but, come on, it's Hawaii, and what's more, Hawaii with a group of geologists. This couldn't get any more exciting!!!!