jobs and wonder and glee

So the micro lab TA job is out- I gave them a call and the class is monday and wednesday nights (and I'd be expected to be there, which unless someone has a rapid-o-clone handy, will be slightly difficult seeing as how I'm supposed to be in class.)

but I applied for a job at Border's Books, and also at a photography studio hiring photogs. The photog job is sort of a 'what the hell' sort of thing, but we'll see.

checked out the MBARI website today...and nearly had a heart attack, because Francisco Chavez is going to have a biological oceanography project seeking an intern.

gleep!

bio oceanography with the God of Oceanography! gleep!

gleep!

sooo...

I just did something really stupid.

I studied some for physics, took a break, and decided to check my email.

This somehow translated into me looking at pictures on the Øytun Folkehøgskole 01-02 facebook group, pictures of the 5-year reunion (that I missed) and now I´m bawling, homesick for turmat, turkos, and finnmark, and wanting to run away.

with still more physics left to do.

not. cool.

this day sucks.

I dealt with my first ever superbitch today.

word of entreaty: if you're really pissed off at yourself for waiting too long to order your holiday presents, don't take it out on the minions.

also, if you say "I understand that it's not your fault," and then continue to harangue me for the next fifteen minutes, you're not helping your case.

my Myspace account has been hacked. disregard anything you get from me that seems even the slightest bit sketchy. you should have already gotten a message from me about the hacking if you're a friend of mine on that site.

one final down...

one to go. and a lab to write, but oh well.

I totally remember my cousin Erik saying something on the order of "yeah, well, at least you only have to take your o-chem final once, and then you're done."...the last time I took an Ochem final.

joy. double the fun!

I hate ochem finals for this reason: you think you're safe. you're motoring on through, hydroborating and oxymercurating and nomenclaturing and beta-substituting your way along, cheerful (or at least slightly in denial)... and cheer a little when you realize you're on the last problem! whee!...so now all that stands between me and freedom is figuring out the structure of this beast? no problem!...ok, so, here's my molecular formula...and my IR...and my NMR...
...wait...
...uh...hm. man. it's been a long time since my last NMR. is that?...yeah, that's totally not an alcohol, and it's not an alkyne, and there's no double bonds...
peak size...that's....uh...is that a quartet or a multiplet?....or...hm, relative heights...

*this continues for about 15 minutes.*

Arg! what is it?! I've gotten a gazillion possiblilities, all just slightly into the uncomfortably almost-wrong-almost right realm of possibilities...whine whine whine think think think...
...wait...
crap. that's totally a ketone fingerprint.

*FACEPALM*scribble scribble scribble flee.

Yep.

Ochem inna bun. onna stick. Done until end of January.

it's the 17th. hooboy. who threw me through the timewarp without warning me?!

mitts done! I'm not fully satisfied but they're done! now must send immediately or I'll start ripping and then they won't be done and that's bad because it's december 17th.

ack. ackkitty ack ack.

work at ugh in the morning tomorrow, so no pictures of knitting for you tonight. tomorrow maybe. if physics doesn't eat my face again.

a brief pause...

for a brain-stumper.

check out this sentence, from my physics assignment:

If p is in pascals and V is in cubic meters, then W is in joules.

now. doesn't this seem like a setup for a syllogism? you know, if A is B and B is C, then A is C?
aren't they stating, essentially, if A is B and C is D, then E is F?

...buh?
and what do pascals and cubic meters have to do with joules?! ok, pascals, maybe.
still.

arg!

and all this could have been avoided by a simple restatement...oh, say..."consider that p is in pascals, V is in cubic meters, and w is in joules."

arg!

when.....

when all is bleak and ucky and the demons are winning the war in your head...

some very random things can make it better.

Exhibit A:) thai cilantro spicy wings + pad thai + vietnamese coffee + The Boy

Exhibit B:) This quote from zenkitty:

It was there because that was how Beowulf would have really felt. He wouldn’t have been polite or politically correct about it, and he wouldn’t have cared if he offended someone. (If someone offended HIM, he’d take a battleaxe to them. If you’re so offended, where’s your battleaxe? Oh, you haven’t got a battleaxe? Well, then Beowulf WINS.) (The Beowulf in my head is not a man of subtle arguments.)

From a comment on this blog from the man behind Schlock Mercenary. it's close to the bottom of the page. skip down to it, it's totally worth it. It totally reminded me of the angl0sax0red thing, and made me smile.

Exhibit C:) My fortune cookie, which told me "it's one of those low-key days that you'd rather spend just chilling" and taught me how to say very comfortable in chinese. (hun xue fu)

and lastly,

Exhibit D:) Vermonty Python. All hail Ben and Jerry's.

I knew there was a reason...

...for not wanting to get out of bed today.

snif. Syvilla needs hugs today.

snif2. Terry Pratchett had damn well better stay 'I aten't dead' for a long while. a long while. ya hear?

oh dear

Kates and I are at it again...we play scrabble online a fair amount, and it seems that most of the games are pretty typical, at least for the two of us word-freaks.

and then...
every so often...
...something in the random generator that gives us our 'letters' goes a bit haywire, and we get...
...naughty scrabble.

through no fault of our own, of course. we just go for the high scores, honest. I blame kates for this first one, though. she started with "hole" and as I fiddled with my letters, my highest score became...sodomy....and now she's complaining that it won't let her play 'labias' (because it's not an s-plural).

so far our word list is:
Hole
Sodomy
Mine
Noose
Lust
Voted

ok. back to picture sorting.

cross fingers; the ants are still gone...

Cue dramatic, heart-pounding-in-terror music...

...go.

cue voiceover.....

....go.

They Come.....
....From The Darkest Reaches of The Walls...
....Blending Chameleonlike into Your Room...
...For One Purpose...
...Total Domination.....

cue dissonant antifanfare...

...go.

The ants...have been battled.

serious ick factor. we'll see how long this round of poison goes.

Lab....pssssshh...

yeah yeah yeah, so I totally should be finishing my lab right now, but I have an excuse.

the Attack of the Ants part whatever-we're-on-now.

this time, they're coming in through the tiniest crack in the wall where countertop meets wall. how? no freakin' clue, because that wall is shared with the bathroom wall. not an outdoor wall.

but they are definitely coming in there. and there's about a billion ants who are now getting very very clean, because our reaction when The Boy opened the dishwasher was "...uh...EAT CASCADE!...see how they like that." or something very similar.

I'm not unloading it. nu-uh. ew.

but in further entomological fun....my grasshopper was finally posted on insectpod and you should totally go check it out.

ok, ok. I'll do the lab. jees.

and if you reaaaally want your head to hurt....

I just...I just...my brain...
so...
hurty...

Now, really, I've no idea why it is that I love that song. I mean the original, Sir Mix-a-lot version. probably something to do with careening around suburban streets in Alexis's jeep with Kendra and Katie on our way to track meets, and spending ridiculous amounts of time waiting for the 4x4 to finally be over so we could pile into the bus (it was rare that we could actually drive to a meet, but always memorable) and go home. or sitting, freezing, in early march minnesota weather at the Minnetonka High track waiting for the stupid cro-magnon lecherous man leading our half the track meet to finish finals and let us into the nice warm bus....where all the runners, the precious, delicate, fragile runners, had been waiting for the past hour. at least. oh, some of our good friends (mostly high jumpers and pole vaulters) stuck it out with us, but we knew where us poor throwers stood in line.



sorry. rant snuck up on me.

anyway. at least it's restarted my brain, although now I have images of the pirates cast from senior year singing baby got back stuck in my head.

I've reached a milestone.

no, it's not a real job, although I'm working on it.
no, it's not that I finally got up off my arse and have a steady workout schedule that is more than sporadic runs and hypothermic bike rides.

I have just created...well, am in the process of creating...my first ever on-my-own clean-out-the-refrigerator Marit Surprise.

it contains:
copious amounts of turkey, (which barely made a dent in the supply...)
chives
onion
sweet mayan onion, whatever that was
carrots
red curry powder
garlic and onion powder
sherry
rice wine vinegar
chicken stock
mae ploy sauce
soy sauce
green peppers

...and has been burbling away in the crockpot since 1400.

also, I'm glad The Boy wasn't in evidence when I was cooking, because I learned on the RCS that, for some things, mold or gooshy bits don't really matter. you just cut them off, pretend momentary amnesia, look at the non gooshy bits, and if you can't tell you just cut off gooshy bits, it's good to eat.

if that's just grossing you out, I have no apologies to you. remember the Dirt article?
of course you do. if you don't, well then clicky!

KNITTING:

• I've come down with Second Mitten Syndrome.

• Halfway...no...actually...1/3 of the way...through the hemming row of T4. oh. god. now I know why some knitbloggers refuse to knit hems. it's mind numbing, but god forbid you do anything else at the same time, cause you can't.

• the scarf is getting relegated to 'too much brain hurty' for now.
  

1,3,7-trimethylxanthine

oh, how we love thee.

(That's caffeine, in case your ferrous O-chem is oxidized.)

a snapshot from work today:

J: What's SM?
N: S&M?
J: No, like... 'John Smith, SM?'
D: Sir...Math...uh...
N: Super Man.
Me: Masters of Science.
N: No, that's MS.
Me: that's the american convention. SM is Scientiae Magister, or Master/Teacher of the Sciences.
J: ...how the hell do you know that?
Me: I minored in dead languages.

Thing I Have Learned Today:

• edamame is not food. (at least not when you prepare it thinking it's snow peas. even so...)

• people cannot follow simple, labelled, check-the-box order forms, but when it comes to needlessly confusingly complicated web interfaces, they're fine.

• if you call a small company to purchase gifts 18 business days before Christmas at 1045 am PST and get a machine, you need to a) take your happy pills before leaving your message or b) need stronger happy pills or c) maybe some industrial strength tranquilizers.*

*you know my favorite level of hate? the Mrs-White-From-Clue-Clip hate? picture that vocal tone, railing about the fact that it's business hours and they're talking to a machine. never mind the fact that there were 2 people available to answer the phone. ok, and that's not really something I learned, but it's something someone should learn. and I am very very glad that I didn't have to call them back.

• Like John Bellairs, Tamara Siler Jones's novels are now on the Not To Be Read Before Sleep list. in big font, all caps.
  

oh...dear.....god...

and at this unholy hour of the day....

it's raining....

I'm awake....

there's something wrong with waking up at 0630 so I can be at work by 0800 when it's 2.5 miles away...

and I just got this wonderful spam email from Filipe Reese, the subject of which was "acoustic acoustic fitful raven," which I think totally needs to be a song, the lyrics of which should be the body of the email:

true satanic toxicology tritium quackery electrocardiogram
cunning transmute weapon
stupendous ac satanic hast incalculable appropriable isomorph toxicology acoustic
acoustic appropriable comma whale fitful acoustic spyglass bypath
transmute isomorph satanic
incalculable bicker coast axe townsmen acoustic hast
comma cunning spyglass raven long isomorph true quota elkhart hast
food enthusiasm long engage appropriable townsmen vicarious litigate frieze vicarious
whale litigate hast ac indecent coast elkhart frieze

it's late, and I'm dead...

so this is a quick one.

check out the awesomeness that came in the mail today!


I am holding it in front of my face because you don't want to see the zombified me. and I'm distracting you with a thumbs up with the finished mitt! one down, one to go...here's hoping I've got enough yarn...

whee! *thud* zzzzzz...

ok, east bay, cut the crap...

this is my least favorite weather. I like cold. I do. but only if it snows. now it's like early november in MN, only eternal...

no leaves.

bright sunny days that tempt you out on your bike where you promptly freeze to death and stay cold all day once you're back grr.

no snow.

we haven't figured out how to turn on the heat yet.

think it's time?hmmmm...

yes, that's one of the steve zissou hats from WHOI.

and here...
is one of the mitts I'm making for a christmas present. think I'll finish? wish me luck!

ignore the paper. I hit thumb in the middle of lab and had to improvise.

the purple.red.blue blur is Phronima the Betta.

the brown smear at the top is Hermit the Trog (or La Grenouille). he's still hoping there's food somewhere up there.



and here...

my favoritistest sweatshirt ever. possibly. might tie with my concert band sweatshirt, but maybe not.

Øytun Folkehøgskole.

represent.

must...have....snow...

I want....

I'm like that creepy weird freud video we watched in high school...only not so much with the What are you DOING in the BASEMENT with YOUR SISTER?!?! bit.

le sigh

guess what made me inordinately happy the other day...

no, it wasn't the knitting, nor the fact that the Turtle Net Sweater survived its ordeal.

it was that, as I was playing a bit of Oblivion, I travelled to a town so I could fence some of my ill-gotten gains (whaaat? all the other quests are really hard.) and in this town, it was snowing. every so often the snow would make crunching sounds (although sometimes it made crunching sounds when I walked over cobblestones, but that's ok.)

and it made me really happy.

and then I felt silly, because snow in a computer game had made me happy.

but I was still happy.

right up until I got accused of murder and sent to jail. but, on the upside, once I was exonerated (read: escape, find real bad guy, real bad guy attacks you and then dies....or you load and repeat until he dies), I got his shiny chainmail.

and it was still snowing.

now if it would only snow in real life...curse you, balmy coastal ocean-driven weather patterns!

O the joy...O the rapture...

Yes, sadly, it's true...TNS was not through with me yet. (remember? the turtle net sweater? recycled sari yarn?)

evidently it's gotten frustrated with me ignoring the fact that I do actually need to find another skein of yarn and knit another 3 inches on the right sleeve and rip and reshape the neck (excuse me...rip? recycled sari yarn? oh no.) and has resorted to insidious means to regain my attention.

I decided awhile ago that some of its faults might actually be solved by blocking, then promptly got distracted by something else. probably something shiny.

Today I did laundry.

I threw in my jeans and nice pants and other things to be washed dark and cold.
then I glanced at my white camisole, bra, and dress shirt. I thought to myself "...hm, now I've washed everything in there already, several times in fact...throwing in my white camisole, bra, and dress shirt won't be a problem."
so I did so.
Then, I went back upstairs to get my quarters and for some reason unknown to me, grabbed the sari sweater, thinking to myself that I'd get it wet to block (and some tiny part of me was screaming 'in the washing machine?!? are ya nuts?!' to no avail) it.

it washed.

I went downstairs to toss the stuff in the dryer, and discovered a pink sleeve. "Pink?" I thought to myself..."what pink?"

at which point I went ....oh, shit. and then I thought naaaw, I took out the pair of socks mom made me for just that reason. (I'd forgotten about the sari sweater, of course)
but I pulled on the sleeve and it revealed my ex-white dress shirt, now a nice, even shade of baby pink.
I examined it carefully, confirmed that it was an even dye, and sighed. same thing with the ex-white camisole, now a nude pink, which is actually somewhat of an improvement. the bra did not dye evenly, but it was on its last legs anyway, so I'm not that concerned.
I pulled out a pair of pants, threw them in the dryer, and the next thing that I encountered was the sari sweater.

and then my brain went....oh, shit.

so the sweater is drying, blocked, in the bedroom. my ex-whites are waiting to be ironed.

I am, nonrepentantly*, starting on shooting mitts.

*so not a word, but I just don't care.

heh. if he only knew...

I'm sure The Boy has decided I'm hopelessly bizarre.

I mean bizarre going beyond the usual girl-bizarre or artfreak-bizarre or fibre-bizarre or...ok, so there's lots of ways I'm bizarre. shutup. back to why...

This time, it's because I name things. namely technology. What's a good name for your computer? Marit's computer. The Boy's computer. (a long line of epithets? ...I digress)

or Seshet? she's an egyptian goddess of writing, among other things. My last computer (The Beast) was named Thoth, who is also in the egyptian pantheon- law and writing and scribes. (sensing a theme?) with the death of The Beast, Thoth is now one of my flash drives. the other two are Sekhmet (war/sun goddess) and Set (death/foreigners). The USB hub I just got (spoilt, I was, by my 4-usb builtins on The Beast) has been dubbed Naunet (primordial ocean). Since Seshet (the mac, remember?) has recently been diagnosed as having DID (i.e. The Boy bought me Leopard and did arcane things to it such that I now have 2 computers; 1 mac, 1 windows- on the same laptop) I had to come up with names for the 'two' hard drives- thus Neith (war/hunting/loom/sea) and Ptah (stonecrafts) were bestowed upon them. My external hard drive is Maat (truth/writing/law, also spouse of Thoth, which made more sense when Thoth was a laptop and not a flash drive, but oh well) and my iPod (which is still not as awesome as my creative zen micro, by the way, despite all the shiny toys available to me now) is Nuht (night). the headset for my phone is Bastet (cat) because it works when it wants to, which isn't very often.

This makes absolutely no sense to The Boy. I don't really mind.

you might ask, why egyptian? I have no idea. I named my very first computer Thoth (so, I guess, strictly speaking, The Beast was Thoth II, although I may have named one of them Djehuty, which is an anglicization of the actual hieroglyphics used to spell out Thoth) and then just kind of went from there.

ok. off to flip the turkey. whoo, defrosting...ugh...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Warning: It's early. I'm whining. You may want to skip this entry.


Don't say I didn't warn you...

whyyyyy must The Boy take so long in the bathrooooooooom?????!!!
I even set my alarm so I'd be awake before him so I could go to the bathroom and grab my brush before he took it over....

...but somehow, between rolling over and turning off my alarm, he snuck in!

and went to the bathroom. leisurely.
and washed his hands. leisurely.
and shaved. extremely leisurely.
and showered. ridiculously leisurely.

and I really really really really have to pee! aaaaargggg...

and be walking to the bus in 20 minutes. aaarg...


aaaarg!

le sigh

if this were a just and fair world, the foggy chill outside my window would bear snow.

but it won't.

snif.

on the other hand, a block away there's a bunch of trees with fallen leaves and a little corridor into which the prevailing winds blow all of them...so when I walk back from my bus I can crunch through them gleefully.

so check this out:yep, that's The Beast. deconstructed into bits after it was declared deceased by Dr Boy.

a day after its failed resurrection, I got an email from Alienware saying they were starting a new credit program where I could send them my old laptop and they'd either give me store credit, credit towards a new equivalent laptop, or just a plain old check.

aaah, murphy.

got my ravelry account! now I just have to figure out how to use flickr...

christmas list:
fingerless mitts
shooting mitts
Scarf of Doom
Plot #1
Plot #2
...do I have a hope? how many days? hm...

cue maniacal laughter....go!

have you been blinded by a light off on the horizon? was it, perhaps, centered in northern california and minneapolis? if so...

it was the Light of Inspiration! *fanfare*

Lars has this cafe he's going to open some day. I'm spent.* but. Tonight...ah, tonight...

Tonight we added to it--- a late night pizza delivery service called...

...Deliverance.

and here are some of the pizzas.

Curry in a Hurry- curried chicken or tofu with raisins and other good stuff
Tapas Don't Preach- very varied, but- garlicky shrimp tapas on a crust with a pineapple tomato slaw/salsa
Land War in Asia- snow peas, krab or tofu, edamame, teriyaki sauce
Chili Chili Bang Bang- chipoltes, anchos, jalepenos, chorizo, mae ploy + tomato sauce with pepperjack and chipotle cheddar cheeses
The Curse of the Black Olive- calamari, black olives, (or other diverse seafoods)
One Ring to Rule Them All- pineapple, jalepeno, bell pepper rings
The Lyon, the Lych, and Latrobe- lyonnaise sauce, spicy peppers, and beer-battered meat bits
The Hummy- chickpeas, garlic, roasted tomatos, roasted peppers, mozzarella or feta or no cheese for those silly vegans.
The Italian Job- italian sausage, sage, basil, parmesan slabs, peppers, and olives
The Sweeney Todd- red sauce, bulgolgi, pineapple, and death (verbatim on the menu)
Hammondegga Nights- ham, canadian bacon, eggs, cheddar
Ridderne som Sier...Ost!- ridder cheese, jarlsburg, edam, optional gjeitost, and optional Jokka (that's reindeer spam)
Dreamgirls- essentially a supreme (ha. ha.)
The Luggage- ev.er.y.thing.
Clue- Mustard, White Videlia onions, Scarlet tomato sauce,
The Breakfast Club- spinach, eggs, ham, provolone, hollandaise sauce
When is the Winter of My Discontent?- not quite sure yet.

another exam....

and we all know what that means! yes, that's right...more professor quotes!

first, some from the archives...

"most buildings burn down because of metal reactions. it's fun!"
"if you drop it, it's a bomb. if you're a synthetic chemist, you're going to drop things once in a while. you get really good at catching things with your feet. y'sorta play hackysack for awhile and if you think you're going to miss, you run."
-Dr Chamberlain (organic chemistry...the first time) (oh, and hi, NSA guys!)

not quite so archival...

"it's sort of like the prayer wheel, you know, oooo, a sextant."
"things that you set down, go." (RE life onboard a ship)
"swing the arc. (rocks back and forth) swing the arc."
"calculate latitude from that Ho." (that's a measurement from the horizon, of course)
-Captain Chris

and finally, current...

"so a duck walks into a bar....the duck just wants cranberry juice, don't worry, we're not causing any harm to the duck."
"I was gonna use a bicycle, but then I thought....nah." (sketching a semi hitting a traffic cone)
"Ok. go back to me jumping out of an airplane and flailing around."
"All of you who are not here will get this wrong. half of you who are here will also get this wrong. so...this is me begging you...be on the right half."
"no one talks about foot/pounds for your yugo."
"Go to the door. (walks down hall to door, out of view, muffled by the walls) I push on the handle, door opens. push on the hinges...nothing."
(in response to a question jumping ahead) "yes, yes, you're all right, you're all fine, let me work at my own pace."
"...let's say F terry and F you...I did it again, didn't I?"
"torque you."
-Terry the physics prof, from whom I am taking an exam tomorrow. whee.

wish me luck. if I get enough, I might actually survive.

terrifying.

not unexpected, but still...sometimes you wish it were all propaganda.

for more terror, read through as much of the comments as you can stand. my personal favorite? the guy that commented that, essentially, why should he care because what does this have anything to do with common everyday americans?

now that's really terrifying. don't people read? have imaginations? interests - even self-interest- beyond tossing insults? And this is on both sides of the argument, not just on the behalf of the pansy mouthbreathing 60's retreads or the nazi cocksucking neocons. (AND both of those are direct quotes, by the way, which I why I suggested reading as many of the comments as you can stand, not all the comments. I got to page 14 or so before giving up. there's more than 2,000.) comments, that is, not pages.

and for further reading, or if you're sitting in your chair blinking and trying to process all the above, check this out.

the tundra is looking better than ever.

hooray for moms.

well, that's true any day, but it's especially true today, because my mom sent me...

nerd socks!
they're supposedly math geek socks based off the pythagorean theorem, but mom says they qualify as science geek socks, and since my family is basically one big science geek convention...

besides, the colorway is roasted chili. how awesome is that?

waaaay more awesome than the physics homework I'm slogging through.

The Boy is sick again. I'm getting a tad worried that he's allergic to the east bay.

yay federal holiday! no class today! woo! what do I get to do? classwork! booooo!

bah. maybe I'll finish before dark (that's in 4-ish hours...hm...) and can go a-biking. (that's like going a-viking, but with less pillaging and plundering and establishing a basic system of pseudo government-by-the-people and more me dodging cars and trying not to die. whee!)

aand...hey! swatch! ...hey! swatch2!










Swatch is black C-something wooley I forget the name of and a glittery black yarn I also forget the name of. labels are buried somewhere in the madness that is my desk. woo.
Swatch2 is the same aforementioned black C-something and a blackish shimmery soy/wool blend yarn.

yeah...don't look like much, do they? here's hoping for the magic of felting! going to chuck them in with my sheets when I wash them later today and see what happens...I have high hopes for the soy/wool stuff and I'm afraid the glittery stuff is going to play the "loops of death" as soon as I felt it. decided not to swatch the fuzzy combo yarn because my whole goal is subtlety. eyep.

wish me luck. for the physics or the felting, but I can tell you which I'd prefer...

you gotta love nice shiny rants.

apparently ovid died. sad day.

But! The Boy and I have halfway conquered the bedroom! whee!

and on to the subject heading...

I'm not an athiest, but this rant is awesome. whee!

o the joys of the internet...

Jayne hat baby!

Love parents who start their kids out right. Makes me want to knit a jayne hat. maybe I'll knit a jayne hat for some random person.

raining! hooray!

The Boy and I constructed kung pao chicken tonight. slow burn build to serious chili. egg nog preferred treatment.

had fun wandering around the internet looking at our native snakes and spiders. and the crazy uckiness that is spider bites. and the crazy psychosis that is "hey, I've got a big supperating wound on my hand; I'm going to lance and drain it myself with a turkey baster and rub it with essential oils and then post pictures of it as a brown recluse spider bite."
a) don't. self. medicate. at least not until after you've been to the ER.
b) brown recluse spiders = common in midwest. bites = not so common.
c) don't. self. medicate.

seriously.

yet another reason why I don't want to be a physician.

Marit SMASH!

I just spent the last hour and a half redoing my physics lab calculations. I had to redo them because the equation we used in lab was wrong.

turns out Burris was, once again, correct. ("both of these sentences are wrong. however, take heart, because there's always someone wrong-er.")

yep.

I get to redo aaaall those calculations...again. because my corrected equation...was wrong.

lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

it looks like sunny california has finally decided to join the rest of the party and start fall.

tried out an african dwarf frog in the big tank with aristarchus- aand it looks like aristarchus isn't a 'plays well with others' goldfish. froggy squished himself into lots of little crevices and goldfish tried to squish into them too- and now it looks like he's got a fuzzy growth on his gill covering that I'm hoping is injury related and not fungus or something like that.

Froggy is now sharing a tank with Phronima the Betta, who is supremely uninterested. the froggy seems pretty uninterested in anything except hiding between Princess Leia's legs.

...I'm sorry. I couldn't resist.

so far he's also pretty uninterested in the froggy food I got him- hopefully he's just in the aaaaahwhat's thatwhat's that wheretheHELLamI stage and isn't going to be a picky eater, because I don't want to play bus tag again in downtown oakland. yeesh.

frog is (so far) named Hermit Leatherface or something like that. yes, The Boy named him. he was the one that wanted a froggy, and I think he's somewhat disappointed that Aristarchus didn't want a playmate. we'll try a ghost shrimp next, but he'll probably try to eat that too.

hey, frog has decided to come out from under the plant (and Leia). hi, frog.

(I've decided to name the froggy in my head, at least, La Grenouille. not because la grenouille means the frog but because I am unashamed in my love for NCIS. who doesn't want a frog named after an international arms dealer?)

Bettas are strange creatures. this is my first time owning one, because I really didn't care about them- and it's too depressing to walk past them in pet stores because they all look starved and suffocated and diseased and depressed in their little cubes, and you can't save them all because if you bought them all and stuck them in a tank they'd kill each other and buying 1.5-2 gallon tanks for them all would bankrupt you. and taking care of them all? yikes. plus then you've got the knowledge that the next day or next week, the pet store gets a new shipment.

anyway. not a big fan of tetras or other things that would do well in my little hex tank, and not a fan of leaving it sitting on my desk endlessly bubbling to itself, that left me with a betta.

yes, I could have kept it empty as a hospital tank...but...there's nothing else in Aristarchus's tank, and I think it's so small that it would be too stressful to really be a good hospital tank.

and besides- it's kind of entertaining to watch him swim around, minding his own business, then freak out because "MALE!!!! MINE MINE MINE MINE!" ...is actually his own reflection that he can see occasionally because of the refraction index of the hex tank. ok, it's really entertaining.

he's also picking at the substrate. I didn't think bettas were supposed to do that.

oh well. back to the physics. fluid dynamics YAY! ...not.

wanna bikkit!

...but instead I'll settle for
FISHY!

Meet Phronima.

yes, that's right, I named a betta after a parasitic hyperiid amphipod. shutup.

and yes, that is a little action figure of luke skywalker with his lightsaber in hoth getup. the white blurs off stage right are the leg and arm of a Leia action figure with a blaster in hoth getup. why do I have them in my betta tank? because my neptune figurine is a little too big, they were just sitting around randomly gathering dust, adn because it makes me smile to see the expressions on their little plastic faces. it's like they're going ...this is no ice planet...this is a...ohmygod what's that? aaaack! why can't I move? it's like I'm stuck in this strange, pseudo-dynamic position? nooooo!

...

I warned you that physics was driving me insane. if you didn't believe me, that's your own fault.

the suspense of the pattern swatch continues...

and what did we learn today, class?

1) don't forget; when you draw out the chart such that you are pleasèd, and you write out the stitches such that you mightst knit while BARTing, and you are working on straight needles and not in the round you must reverse every purl row, else you get modern art knitting.

(ok, technically I learned that yesterday. oh well.)

2) go ahead and experiment- yes, yes, a pumpkin pie crust made of panko, butter, and diverse spices is worth a shot...but please remember....put the pie on the tray, yes. now put the cookie sheet under the pie! NOW! because otherwise the three smoke detectors freak out and the house fills up with pseudo-smoke and The Boy makes worried noises and makes you go Marit Smash!

(guess I get to clean the oven tomorrow. woo, hoo.)

3) the second you're the only one left in the building, everyone and their mother will call, and your phone will start to freak out.

4) contrary to popular belief, when someone is on speakerphone, pushing the 'speakerphone' button will not then direct them to your headset, but instead hang up on them.

5) can I get a do over?

fie on greenpeace, fie.

I had planned on another fun ranty blog, but I just ran out of energy.

just remember: only trust greenpeace as far as you can throw them.

and remember one other thing: your happy, uber-organico, small farm cuddly wheat was genetically engineered. oh yes. that's right.

oh, yeah. and go play in the dirt.

things I've learned this week:

1) don't trust the microwave timer. it lies. the paj-ers was salvageable, though.

2) if the bottle the mixer comes in is really cool, they've spent more money on the bottle than the mixer. it will taste like orange kool-aid, and not at all like a 'monster mango' margarita.

3) it is possible, if you're a) inventive b) insane c) desperate enough, to make a passable semblance of whipped cream in a cocktail shaker.

4) knitting is a source of fascination to really really drunk people on BART.

5) berkeley pizza joints got nothin' on pizzaria uno. (although that should be obvious, and I tried to spell 'pizzaria' as 'pizzarea' and then frowned, trying to figure out why my presentation on caesarea maritima had popped suddenly into my head before going ....ah.)

6) 5.6 earthquakes in san jose really freak out the fishy. yes, that's right, I've finally lost my california earthquake virginity. hoorah. and I'm living on the Hayward fault. hoo...rah?

7) physics still sucks.

...

seppuku is looking better and better every minute.

hulk smash!

...would you like to hear the saga of the emeryville post office and the mysterious invisible package? well, technically 'parcel.'

of course you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway, because if I don't, my options are a) scream b) make the title of this entry not hyperbole, or c) some combination of the above.

here we go.

I check the mail on the 13th of october. there's a litte orange slip saying that the USPS, in all its glory, tried to deliver a parcel to The Boy but we weren't here so please call to arrange a redelivery.

I called. I arranged a redelivery. I sat, trapped at home, awaiting the bell or the phone telling me to let the post office man in.
the package never came.
no little orange notice was left.

I called again. I arranged a re-redelivery. I sat, trapped at home, awaiting the bell or the phone telling me to let the post office man in.
the package never came.
no little orange notice was left.

I call again. I play tag with the automated 'tell me what you want' speak-menu thing. I play tag a lot. I go through the redelivery menu. it tells me the package has been returned to sender. I don't believe it.

I call again. I play tag trying to speak to a real person. I play a lot of tag. I finally get to a point where I speak to a real person- because I am given the number for the emeryville post office. (I tried to get it earlier, but all 411 gives you is the national 1800 number. The post office tells me (at this point I'm trying really hard to not be obviously pissed off at the guy on the phone with me.) that they have the package and it'll be sent tomorrow.

I hope so. I really hope so.

if not...hulk smash!

um...

this weather is starting to make me twitchy. it's fall! Fall, you know, Autumn, when the leaves turn red and orange and fall down and make great piles to squish and crunch and throw at people and the weather turns cold and the air is crisp and nippy and you feel all snuggly.

Not in San Francisco.

firstly: most everything is still green. some of the maples have turned colors. most of the leaves that have fallen aren't pretty colors, they're just dead. the passiflora vine down the street from me is green, green, green and blooming strong. it's october 23. it's weird.

secondly: the temperature is more ADHD than minnesota in fall. hot-cold-hot but windy-colder no wind-hothothot-cold with vengeful wind-warm and beautiful-freezing-hot. Today it's hot, but luckily the breeze has started.

thirdly: it's october, and my basil and mint are going "WHEEEEEE!!!!" I'm going to have to make pesto soon, or else replant the basil before the mint goes terminator on the pot. in october.

it's just wrong.

have been inspired to start on the fingerless shooting mitts...but I can't find the yarn. hooray apartment living? it's...somewhere.
someone give me a kick in the pants on the following:
T4.
mitts.
going riding more than spastic random almost-weekly times.
unpacking. (what is this crazy stasis I've succumbed to? someone hit the undo button.)

remind me again why I'm doing this to myself?

because I just love physics, yes I do, just love how a 1 part problem and a 10 part problem are both worth 5 points. love it. love the fact that we have 20 problems with between 1 and 15 parts each due per homework assignment. love the fact that it's an algebra based class, but he uses calculus notation in class so I have no idea how to make the symbolic reasoning parts of the problems work because I was clearly high on kiln fumes and investment powder dust when the call went out to line up for your algebra skills.

and yes, I did procrastinate. we get a week and a day to do these problems so that if you don't understand something you can ask about it in class. (which basically means that if you're like me and you don't understand anything, you get it in class and then have 24 hours to do the homework)

but here's my reason for procrastinating. other than the fact that...it's me we're talking about.

merely opening the website makes me tense and irritable and frustrated. the levels of those go up exponentially related to the time I spend working on them, and they stay up for hours after. If I spent an hour a week working on it (ok, let's be reasonable. it'll take me 2.), then i'll be frustrated, tense, and annoyed (and the likelihood that I will become unhinged dramatically increased) for several hours after the two hours working on it. do I want to spend 5 hours of each day of each week like that? no. especially not since I'm sure that the more frustrated, tense, annoyed, and unhinged I get the more frustrating, annoying, confusing, and tiresome I get to those around me.

So I condense it into one day. usually it's not this bad. usually it's survivable. this time, I came very close to giving up on the 4 problems I had left. but hey, 14 % is better than 0 %. right?

ugh.

On the other hand...

I'm glad to have friends who, when I say to them "The physics must die." say in response "Must die must die the physics must die / for the sake of the nation, this physics must die, must die, this physics must die."

bonus tibi quod nomen carmen* possum es.

bonus points to you who can name that tune.

*carmenis? ...really shouldn't try freehand latin translations after 7 hours of physics.

well....here's a little story for you.

See Marit.
See Marit's laptop.*
See Marit's laptop run. Run, laptop, run.
What a good laptop.

(fast forward to summer, 2006)

See Valhall.**
See Marit's laptop in Valhall.
See Marit open her laptop in Valhall. Open, laptop, open.
What a cracked screen!

(fast forward to summer, 2007, after losing the laptop for 2 months for repair)

See Valhall.******
See Marit's laptop in Valhall.
See Marit's laptop play dead. Play dead, laptop, play dead!
What a clever******* laptop.

(fast forward to fall 2007)

See The Boy.
See The Boy with Marit's laptop.
See The Boy performing surgery on the laptop. Code, laptop, code!********
What an efficient autopsy.

*this is The Beast, in all its beefy schwarzenagger-ness.***
**See also the evil**** gremlins in Valhall.
***ugh, just remembered/realized that I'm now a constituent of the guvernator. siiigh.
****possibly not evil, just misunderstood. although they never came forward, which is more irritating, possibly, than the act itself.*****
*****I know. too much terry pratchett.
******possibly mimes brønn. I don't actually remember which it was.
*******clever in that it'll work again...after a full lobotomy. yeesh.
********not code as in make a program that might do something, but code as in bring the nurses running while the doctor's name blares over the PA system.

So there you have it. The Beast is dead. autopsied. cannibalized for parts. pictures later.

this is what happens when your motherboard stops....doing whatever a motherboard is supposed to do. Probably died because of the screen's dying, and it just took a while to die. Considering that I didn't use my laptop much from when I got it back to when it refused to function (moving and not wanting to lug it to boston and being on a boat kinda cuts in on your computer time), that's not that much of a stretch.

O you who sat on my laptop and shattered the screen, you owe me a guinness. no- lots of Guinnesses.

And now it's far past my bedtime and I didn't even get to address my irritation at the institution that is Apple and iTunes.

2 boxes down...

sooo...

yesterday I watched an NCIS episode where this serial killer was finally caught (because he was stuffed in a furnace exhaust thingie) only he wasn't the serial killer, his lovely schoolteacher wife was.

her name was Karen Burris, and when they popped her name up on the screen I about died laughing, because it immediately brought to mind none other than my dear professor Simon Burris.

in honor of that (and him) I give thee...
Burris quotes from greek and latin. mostly from latin, because I can't find my greek notebooks.

• "Didja have a good weekend? I didn't, and I'm going to take it out on you."
• "I'm ruthlessly efficient that way."
• "cheating is cheating; it's foul, it's disgusting, it's dirty."
• "I guess I'll ask for volunteers before I go to the Cards O' Death."
• "both of these sentences are wrong: however, there's hope, because there's always someone wrong-er."
• "'he always gives my sons and daughters roses'...he sounds confused."
• "I'd like to have two groups working on each sentence; that way, you'll be in competition and someone will get hurt."
• "Ladies and Gentlemen, it's all about shame. Public humiliation.:
• "well, I don't know about YOUR colon. Someone claim this colon."
• *coughing fit followed by heroic pose* "We go on! ...I don't know why you're laughing."
• "Preach it, brother!"
• "I've got a cold...if I should sneeze and mucous should drench your papers...just open your umbrella."
• "I forgot to take my drugs this morning."
• "Y'can't tell me it's like that! I mean- where does it say 'the classics professor gives roses to the pretty girl?'"
• "Culture good! Grammar better. Much, much better!"
• "have you ever tried to make love to a tree?"
• "Actually, I'm in a Led Zeppelin mood. I've got a strong urge to grow long hair and rip off my shirt and jump up on the table. but I won't do that. I signed a contract when I took this job that I wouldn't do that anymore."

man, I loved those classes.

sigh. now I get...the joy of physics.

I have an iguana on my laptop.

concert last night was a. ma. zing.
luckily, the unidentified person sitting somewhere behind and to the right of me decided to open their crinkly candy excruciatingly slowly during the chopin piano concerto before intermission, because if they'd pulled that during the saint-saens I would be blogging from a jail cell. although no true jury of my peers would have convicted me.
clearly they didn't read the guide that the san francisco symphony so kindly provides you as you purchase your tickets- it includes what to wear and when to clap.

I had a most amusing picture pop into my head (probably because I recently watched Lord of the Rings with The Boy) but I had this image of Gandalf conducting a symphony and turning around to face the audience when they start clapping between movements to shout "You...shall not...CLAP!" and bringing his baton down dramatically.

but that's just my brain.

lookit- iguana!

that's a marine iguana. they eat fuzzy green marine seaweedy-algae goop that grows on rocks in intertidal zones, and there's nothing weirder than seeing a whole mob of these battleworn mini-godzillas munching away on electric green goop in a tide pool. something about it makes your brain go .....mmnope.

and then you turn around and see....

....the beachmaster.

he's huge. huge as in "no sir, mr beachmaster, I'm not in any way shape or form trying to mess around with your harem. nope. not me."

also, huge as in "c'mon, mr beachmaster- just smoosh the kid. really. we won't mind. it'll be his fault- he's the one poking at the young seals and trying to get closer to them and running at them and being loud and annoying and we're in the galapagos- is it too much to ask for a visual demonstration of natural selection? mr beachmaster? please?"

but that's a story for another day. back to the physics lab.

ripped out my last 3 inches of scarf. any ideas on a slightly shiny feltable wool?

soooo....

happy Cephalopod Awareness Day!

beware the kraken!

         PINTEL
                         You're pullin' too fast.

                                     RAGETTI
                         You're pulling too slow. We don't want
                       the Kraken to catch us.

                                     PINTEL
                         I'm savin' me strength for when it comes.
                       And I don't think it's Krack-en, anyways.
                       I always heard it said Kray-kin.

                       
                                     RAGETTI
                         What, with a long A?

                                     PINTEL
                         Aye.

                                     RAGETTI
                         No-no-no-no-no-no-no. Krock-en's how
                       it's pronounced in the original Scandinavian,
                       and Krack-en's closer to that.

                                     PINTEL
                         Well we ain't original Scandinavians,
                       are we? Kray-ken!

                                     RAGETTI
                         It's a mythological creature, I can
                       calls it what I wants.

youtube disappointed me. I was hoping for a video clip of the above, but no. you'll just have to check it out yourself.

roughly a year ago...

I was in BC with my parents hoping desperately for an open mechanic so we could see just how badly we'd destroyed our undercarriage pulling out of the starbucks on our way home to tacoma, so that the next day I could fly out to Boston.

...strangely enough, I think today I'm feeling about the same.

Happy Thanksgiving, filiis canadiensis!

I'm not sure about that declension. oh well. live with it.

it's exam time...

and you know what that means...

you finally get to hear all the silly little comments that my organic chemistry prof has said and I have enjoyed enough to write down in my notebook.

woo!

first off, an observation: my chem prof clearly never stopped playing with tinkertoys. he also is in love with the word "wow" and chemistry in general.

"Spectroscopy is just awesome! ...it's good stuff."

"if you drink old wine, or bad wine, you get a headache because the alcohol has oxidized to acetaldehyde already. so...dring good wine, and you'll be fine."

"what is that thing...in the window region..." (that's to the tune of 'how much is that doggie in the window,' by the way)

"uh huh. wow, yeah, see? see the strain? yeah...wow." (playing with tinkertoy again- this happens every class, most recently with a bicycloheptane and with ethane stereoisomers)

"oh...shit." (after writing on the whiteboard with a permanent marker.) "uh..."
"you can take it off with vodka." "or nail polish remover." "or armorall windshield wipes." says the class.
"Ah, yes, but why those?" (blinks from classroom) "Ethanol! solver of the world's woes!" (big grin.) by this point he'd found the whiteboard cleaner and paper towels tucked under the podium.

I know. he's no burris.

glee!

so Aristarchus has been moved to his happy new tank.

I get to figure out a better way of siphoning sand, since I'm not used to it, but oh well. he seems to like it.

he digs peas, I've discovered. I think he has shark genes well hidden in his genetic makeup, because he tore the one I gave him apart in milliseconds.

a week from now I get to go to the san francisco symphony, which is performing the saint saens organ symphony. glee!

fishy!

I've decided that Aristarchus is totally an appropriate name. he's super curious, and no less inquisitive than the (sadly) late Herodatus. (curse you, malfunctioning vacation feeders! at least he gets to sleep with the bamboofish.)

granted, goldfish are supposed to have the proverbial 3 second memory, which could explain why he investigates every nook and cranny all the time, but even herodatus and ovid would dart away and hide behind a plant when I'd put my face close to the tank to get a better look at them. (the advantages to being ridiculously myopic- built in macro lens.)

Aristarchus swims right up and mugs for me. probably has something to do with nonbinocular vision- he looks at me with his left eye, then his right, then sometimes he'll wash rinse repeat, other times he'll flounce away and go try to eat the plant. it's plastic. that doesn't seem to matter.

he got a spinach treat today, but he only ate half of it. maybe next time I'll cut it smaller.

duty (hah)- I mean knitting- calls.

fun fact:

the current temperature here in emeryland/oakville is 14 degrees Celsius.

in Alta, it's 11 degrees Celsius.

that's Alta, Norway.

...?

not that I'm complaining, but the fishy might be none too happy.

to combat the current mood:

meet Aristarchus.


yes, I know it's a bit of a ridiculous name for such a little fish. but he's a black moor, which is a variety of the telescope-eyed fancy goldfish, and aristarchus was the first greek astronomer to develop the theory of heliocentrism, so it makes sense. and besides that, maybe he'll give me good physics karma based on his namesake, what?


shut up. he's pretty.

sigh...snif...

friends, relatives, and relatives of friends:

stay healthy.

no more cancer. no more chemo. no more dying.

someone invent a make-everything-better ray.

under attack. no. seriously.

it's tempting to wonder where Murphy (as in murphy's law) gets his bodyguards, and how expensive they would be to bribe...

...but then I've been rereading a series of books by Walter Jon Williams sold under the anthology title of Ten Points for Style which involves lots of thievery and bribery and all sorts of fun stuff.

give praise to Triple-A for the power of the happy little membership card! The Boy and I avoided a 120 dollar fee for rescuing our keys from the ignition as we waited outside the Target with a full cart of goodies.

look! plant!
(the plant isn't included in the goodies from le target boutique, incidentally, I'm just excited that I finally have green in my apartment again. and it's actually three plants, not one, and I confused the poor home depot woman to no end:
PHDW: finding everything you need?
Me: (balancing pot and three little plants and coffee mug) yep! actually, no- what's the smallest bag of potting soil that you sell?
PHDW: that one- (pointing to a small bag, but small bag of potting soil + small apartment = large bag of taking-up-space-soil)
Me: oh. Do you sell it by the pound or anything out of the garden center?
PHDW: er, no. But the small bag isn't really very- I mean, it will get used up very quickly, even in a small garden.
Me: MmM,* I've got a really small apartment, and all I want to do is plant these three (gesture with coffee cup at plants) in this pot (jiggle pot with elbow) so I was hoping there might be some other way. that's ok.
PHDW: oh. (strange look at choice of plants and pot.) you could try a greenhouse.
Me: where would-
PHDW: there's (insert name here, I've forgotten), they're nice-
Me: I just moved here, I've no idea where anything is, really.
PHDW: oh. (frowns.) well, it's over there (points) up by berkeley. or just drive up San Pablo, they're scattered all along it.
Me: thanks!
PHDW: you're welcome. hope you enjoy oakland! (disappears rapidly into plumbing section.)

*that's MmM, the norwegian tritonal utterance used for 'yes, I'm listening' 'oh, really?' 'hell yes,' 'what?' and more.

also, after this, one of the guys in the home depot shirt-but-not-apron (which I think means they're sort of the minions of the ones with the aprons and the big smiles and the wish to help you do whatever you needed to do that brought you to the home depot in the first place) saw me wandering the garden center (looking for mint and basil and another pot, thinking that I could get them and then get the bag and not feel bad because then I could make fresh tea and pesto and use up the bag of soil at the same time, but alas, no cookie) and said:
"Down the aisle by the trees there's a bag of soil that got ripped and isn't sellable, you could plant them and then check out in the garden center to pay for the plants and pot."
at which point he went back to watering the hanging plants.

so I did. and now I have plant! yay!
(just imagine how bad it's going to be when I finally make it down to the fish store and get a fish.)

aaand....look! T4!
I know. far cry from tank top, isn't it? sadly, my goal of getting it done this summer failed utterly.

one more row, then I get to fold and pick up the edge, which is going to be depressing because it will effectively halve the length I've knitted.

knitting 350+ stitches on ittle needles is...annoyingly slow.

all my really old UFOs are like that, though. three shawls. sad.

and look!
band weaving that I'm actually mildly ashamed at posting, because it's really awkward, but I keep trying to remind myself that it's my first time since, um, almost ever. (not that it does any good in getting past the art OCD inherited from my mother, but oh well.)

two picking patterns; started the chevrons before deciding no, thanks, I'd like to keep my sanity and went on to less finicky pursuits.

yes, I'm hiding most of the ick in my hand. shutup.

and I might be getting a job offer! woo! The Boy mentioned to one of his clients that his fiancee was looking for a job in the bay area, and today they asked him for my contact information for something temporary or part time and unspecified, but still! glee!

oh, yeah. the subject heading. attack, yes...by the ants. here's what not to do, upon finding a few ants in the bedroom, idly wandering around the floor.

Oh, look, ants. grrr. back already, eh? well, I'm wise to you...and since there's no food in here...instead of squishing and sweeping and spraying blindly, I'm going to wait...yes, wait...until you form trails so that I can unleash the power of the industrial chemicals upon you! muahahaa!

don't do that, because this is what the ant scouts do:

Scout battalion one reporting to hive mother! the big pink thing has taken the bait! UNLEASH THE HORDES!

and you return to this:

ants. everywhere. ev. 'ry. where. all over the floor. crawling up the walls. along the baseboard. but still...not in any discernible entry or exit point. seriously. ugh.

and half an hour in which to deal with them before I have to go get on my bus to go to my favoritist class in the whole wide wonderful world...

...not.

physics...

so...we've already established the depths of my hatred of physics.

there's just one problem. I love my physics lab prof. he's hilarious. here's an example (before I go back to the stupid physics stupid online stupid homework stupidity.

this is from an e-mail regarding some questions we're supposed to answer for our next lab report.


"for those of you who are still underage and, therefore, not yet acquainted to alcoholic beverages:

question 5) Stoli vodka is made of 40% vol. alcohol and the rest is water. I thought everybody knew."

giggle.

heeheehee.

sooo....

I can see it now...

a Hollywood exec, delving further into the depths of remake-and-redo-and-revision, scans the news. Bingo! flunkies are scrambled to listen to the pitch, which goes something like this:

I got it! ok. so. bond is dead- we don`t need bond. but bourne`s taken over that genre, we don`t want to get into that, but we gotta make a spy movie so...here`s the scene- super spy politico-thriller BUT and here`s the thing- we do it in Russia with russians, call it- I don`t know what to call it, you figure that out, just get me Vin Diesel or the Rock. kay? and somebody write me up a viral ad campaign about spoofing brokeback mountain, yah?

...and then the flunkies quietly slink away, muttering about senility (hah, tried to write salinity, woops)

ANYway.

I have an idea for what to do with the other end of my scarf! yay! ...I`m going to go insane, but oh well.

yeesh. there`s two guys reshingling a roof behind my building- it`s ridiculously windy today, and I don`t envy them their perch.

I made myself giddy earlier today by finding this song by the Forsvarets Stabsmusikkorps (the Staff Band of the Norwegian Armed Forces) called Concertino for Euphonium and Band (Bloody Euphonium).

I love it. hooray euph!

aaaand... your random act of internet for the day....if you have a slightly warped sense of humor, or are sleep deprived and are mainlining caffeine. or if you`ve ever been through a Hell Week as a techie.

clicky!

I. hate. physics.

no, really. I swear. (a lot, unfortunately- physics seems to bring that out in me.)

not a cuddly oh-I-dislike-my-homework-and-commute-to-it but an honest hatred.

carol kane as mrs white hatred.



yes. that badly.

and you can add to that list any and ALL online homework/teaching/coursework programs. Blackboard, this means you. KATIE-that-used-to-be-MOODLE too, and Luther's wife would be rolling in her grave to be associated with it. MasteringPhysics...grr.

trying to figure out physics problems is bad enough. trying to figure out physics problems when any little hiccup in the internet can disconnect you and make you restart, or a glitch in refresh rates can load the page twice (and thus, if you've input the incorrect answer, dock you twice), or refuse to show you parts of problems OR the hints which we are supposed to use even when they're not helpful AT. ALL. grr.

give me paper! give me pen!(cil!) give me ANYTHING but the computer's baleful glowy screen glaring impersonally at me. give me old school or give me death.

sigh

on the other hand, I had bulgolgi and jap che and bubble tea today.

and I went to go see Parry Hotter and the Phoder of the Oenix today. mmm, Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman. I've never read the books (I lie, ok, fine, I read the first two, I try to forget), but I'll defend Snape all day for two reasons: 1) it's stupid narrative to have him be truly evil and 2) alan rickman.

And The Boy was very gracious in putting up with my physics theatrics that mostly involved muttering, growling, shouting, or pleading (or weeping) at the computer.

here's a fun "america makes my brain hurt" moment for you- so I got bubble tea today, and they gave me a little cardboard sleeve thing so I wouldn't freeze my hand off, and the sleeve has an ad for maidenform lingerie with two shirtless sultry-looking models on it, gazing out onto the world with too much eyeliner and airbrushed cleavage. which begs the question...if sex is bad horrible and corrupting and oh dear god protect the airwaves...why do I have softcore porn on my bubble tea?

that *fzzzt* sound was yet another of my brain cells short-circuiting.

I get serious knitting time on saturdays. I leave at 1120 for a 1300 class, and then get home around 1800 after class gets out at 1615. hoo. ray.

gonna leave early for Ochem tomorrow so I can get coffee (mmcoffee) and then go wander through the happy little king's englishy bookstore. I am going to booby trap my wallet to tazer me if I reach for it, however.

a quickie

I hate labs that are engineered to fail. hate. in 30 minutes I need to go catch my bus(ses) to get to class on time (yes, I know, I leave at 1110 to get to a 1300 class. shut. up.) I have a lab report that I think is crap but I can't do anything about it because the experiment was crap and the directions as to what he wanted in the lab report were also crap. crap, crap, crap.

blarg.

however, this might entertain you. here's a picture of my data sheet, post organization. now...what does that color pattern remind you of?


DR WHO....it never really goes away...




...and neither does physics.



and in the words of bill van cleave-
minion! make me a sammich!

life imitating discworld...

so apparently writing BOIL ME AN EGG, ALBERT yesterday conjured up a whole series of discworld-aktige ting.

first, Anoia, Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers, paid me a visit. stupid spatula.
then, I had a wonderful glimpse at the wonder (hah) that is the postal system here in emery-land (or oak-ville, if you like that better)
and then... none other than Foul Ole Ron got on my bus home from physics.

no, really. I jest not. He was muttering when he got on bus, muttering for the ten minutes he was on the bus, and muttering when he got off the bus. I say muttering, but it was more like serious conversation at high decibels. muttering with projection? I kept waiting for a "buggrit. buggrem. millenium hand and shrimp." The Smell was there, too, all the way until I got off at my stop several blocks down.

AND anniken had just called me! it was a total terry pratchett day.

I just got the urge to knit something disc-y. and I need to talk to syvilla about yarn for my inaugural yay-I-moved-to-san-francisco knitting project, which is either going to be a laptop case for my shiny new laptop or a scarf or...an...or.

but eyah. on to the physics lab report! ...er...

someone turn off murphy′s law, already...

so I got distracted when Freya called me (yay!) and walked slower than normal and missed my first bus- no big deal, since I was just headed to coffee and wifi at barnes and noble and there was another one in 15 minutes- but I get on the bus and get to the barnes and noble no trouble.

well, except for the fact that my zipper killed itself and I have to unpick the end to refeed it. oh well.

oh, and except for the fact that barnes and noble is apparantly playing opera today...not so conducive to concentrating well on the physics homework. good thing it´s not due until sunday.

halfway done with the solar scarf- yeah, that one, that I started little over a year ago...I´ve placed my halfway marker and have started on the home stretch! the long home stretch, but that´s ok. and once I figure my public transit routes out fully, I can break out the hard stuff- yes, T4. da da daaaa. maybe a goal of getting a tank top done by the end of this year will be fulfilled since it´ll be the wrong season to wear it.

although I am a california girl now, so...maybe I will wear it.

and then...it´s time...for...Tubey.

yeah, right.

...BOIL ME AN EGG, ALBERT.

sorry, I just feel like Susan because my hair is going crazy on me today and because I am boiling eggs. mmm, eggs.

off to the barnes and noble for some coffee and homework time, then to physics. whoo.

and then- tomorrow- (cue suspenseful music...go) I AM GOING to put together one of the dressers. I will. yes.

aaaand I should go walk to my bus.

your what hurts?

aah, åsta. I think of you every time I bike past my street, because on the corner is a motorcycle-shop-tattoo-parlor-sandwich-espresso-cafe thing. yes, I am in san fraaaancisco. I have yet to visit, but soon...soon.

it...

...so, yeah, I got distracted by searching for moleskines online. I think they stopped making my big happy pretty lined ones...boo.

I have no idea how the boy takes so long in the shower. seriously. I take less time, and I shave my legs and wash my crazy psycho hair.

physics tomorrow. woo.

wooooooof.

no, that's not a sign that I've finally gotten a dog. that's an explosive outrush of air. so here's why I haven't been heard from since early august...

finished camp. international day insanity as planned. pack up skogfjorden. oh, yeah. before packing up camp, don't sleep because you're sitting up with åsta burning and writing on the dvds to give to the villagers. at all. except for a little impromptu nap.

drive down to mpls with elsebet and pia. go eat with lars and some random german, pam, james, robbie, dave, ebet, pia, and jens.

get stuck in traffic and miss plane. actually, I could have made it, but the mental midget struck again and sent me running flat out for my...seat number. 26 C, and my gate was supposed to be 10 F, which if you have ever been in the MSP airport, you'll be wincing in sympathy.

go sleep at ebet's house, wake up eeeaaaarrrrlly and go to MSP to fly to Seatac. the plane is slightly delayed, but not by much. I get to SEA, go for lunch with Gretchen and Jesse, then back to my plane to SFO.

visit the boy briefly, then fly back home on thursday afternoon. but no, murphy is not yet done with marit. oh, no. my plane is supposed to leave SFO for SEA at 1309. at 1309 they say we'll have more information for you at 1350. at 1350 they say more information at 1415. at 1415 more info at 1500. at 1500 more info at 1550. at 1550 more info at 1630. at 1630 more info at 1715. at this point I'm in line asking if there's any way this plane is ever going to leave, and failing that, what airline will you put me on so that I can actually get to seattle sometime today? ack. as I'm standing in line, we hear this: more information at 1800. I bail, get on a united flight, go out, recheck in, get sent through extra screening (yay, shiny glass boxes with airpuffs...) finally get to SEA at 0200 or something ridiculous like that. (oh, and my original flight finally left SFO at 2034. damn.) the next morning, actually later that morning, we fly out of SEA for houston, have a big layover, then to guayaquil ecuador, then sleep for another maybe four hours before getting shuttled around and stuck on the plane for santa cruz, the galapagos.

more on the galapagos and marit-as-cruise-photographer later.

on the 25th we leave the galapagos, spend a really long time in transit, and arrive in tacoma on the 26th. what day does my first class start? august 27th. oh. joy.

so I fly down to SF, go to class, go pass out in my apartment, have a few days of chill time due to the vagaries of the cost of air travel, then fly back to tacoma on wednesday.

sleep thursday.

friday IKEA run and stuck in traffic (curse you, I-5 on labour day weekend!) and dinner party with Tony and Bert (not gert, oops)

saturday bumbershoot festival with ebet and midge and pack van

sunday pack van and monday, tuesday, wednesday drive to SF.

high winds + 21 foot cargo van stuffed to gills = not fun. semis of the world, I salute you. little pinkish corollas, I salute you too, but with a different finger.

thursday 3 hours of physics and then wandering lost at berkeley at night. not. fun.

friday....more IKEA. finally have desk! and flour, and other essential foodstuffs. and joining the dark side.

yes, it's true. I now have a macbook. hauling the beast was survivable as long as it wasn't dead weight...and now it's actually dead weight. matt thinks it can be resurrected, but with a full lobotomy. notsogood.

and now it's saturday, and in 45 minutes I have to go to my physics lab. ugh.

I feel like a pinball.

the worst part about today...

...is that it is still. not. over.

add being a part of the gullfisken evening program to the list of things I am never allowed to do again. it'll be ranked just below Dr Who.

whoa...not fri, and updating...?

crazy!

still researching what laptop is the best choice for me right now...my old dear beastie is fixable, but the fix required is akin to a lobotomy...

sad day.

so now I'm looking at either a tablet PC or a (gasp, cue darth vader march) macbook. tsk, tsk, I know. but the littleness is appealing.

need to figure out what's up with schools! anyone know anything about berkeley and non degree seeking students?

au.

my head hurts.

my chest, however, feels much better.

I can't believe I'm still awake...actually, no, I can believe that I'm still awake. what I can't believe is that I'm supposed to have isbjørnklubben tomorrow morning. uck.

somebody build me a time machine so that the me from five years from now can come to me tonight and tell me what I should do and why it's going to be awesome that I should do that. whatever it is.

peer gynt is not not not not not the play to try to explain-perform-stage when overtired and stressed. although very entertaining things come from it, such as "knappe 'dude'n" and "filosofiske freakout."

dizzy. bleiah.

baked today in strenggruppe. whee! havrebomber er på gang! but now I'm really dizzy and not sure why. might be heat from oven and tired and the overly disgustingly crappy day I had yesterday.



went to a research seminar earlier today, going to do some research later today, am pretty excited.



sleep soon. hopefully. although I need to do some research for computers.



and knit. goal = finish tank top by end of summer.



Hah.

strange. it doesn't want to let me give it a title. iiinteresting. oh well.

what I was going to put as my title was..."free again...kind of."

it appears that the only time I get a chance to update this happy little blog is when I have a free day, as my free time on normal days is spent in several ways:
1) running around getting ready for next activity.
2) sleep. glorious sleep.
3) talking to the bestemt entall. that's the singular definite, otherwise known as the boy in camp code. aaah, grammar...always a solution to every problem.
4) buried nose in book in effort to retain english-speaking capabilities.
5) zoning out in valhall- it doesn't actually count as sleep.
6) midnight viking kitchen raids. don't knock it til you've tried it. ååååheeeeiii....

so, anyway. my cabin is now up to 5 people- our resident crazy norwegian-finn has arrived. Saw randi the other day, which made my saturday suddenly so much better than it had been looking.

looking forward to our evening program tomorrow. and our day program. am almost to the knitting-together-of-the-hem row.

your what hurts?

the turnover rate for cute little coffee shops is sadly high- first we lost Cyber Bugs coffee/internet shop...and now Moos-a-Brew has become Cantabria Coffee Co, which is just not kitschy-cute enough.

I miss Pie in the Sky.

well, no...I miss Eric's baking. thaaaat's why I miss Pie in the Sky.

I have started on the tunic-tank top thing (T4). slightly terrified- I've now knit my 8 rows and my purl-hem-turning-row and now get to start on the T4 itself....eep. it's been too hot to knit on anything else- although I finished my Jayne Hat (for me, this time!) and wore it a few days ago, to the confusion of the small children and the amusement of my fellow counselors- so the giant shawl of doom is still in its baggie.

I'm living with three other counselors who are working all summer, which means we get to live in a cabin to ourselves and get to be 'aunts' to a different cabin. I'm an 'aunt' to the credit girls, which is pretty entertaining. today we're going to have a Stavanger Hunt (if you mispronounce Stavanger, which is a city in southern norway as well as the name of our cabin, you get something that sounds like scavanger) ending up back at the cabin for a brief film. Then us 'aunties' are going to have our own cabin evening together. muahaha. popcorn and apples to apples.

It's my free day today, so I got to sleep in late and have no responsibilities whatsoever- except for making sure my responsibilities are covered by other people. so far so good, although the post office has hidden itself from me so Kim will have to deal with not having actual 90 cent stamps.

I miss the boy.

I hope my dad is remembering to feed the fish. he's got 14 day feeders, so there's not much that can go wrong.

My computer has a cold. That, or it seriously hates me and is possessed by anti-me spirits. it decides to freeze and die, and then it won't turn on repeatedly until it decides to turn on and load windows fully. I'm starting to consider considering (how's that for decisiveness?) looking for a new laptop. something tiny. and functional. and tiny. Adam's little flippy tablet thing, for example, although that's definitely more money than I'd want to spend...

mom's random text message is still bothering me. it involves my birthday present and an injunction to not purchase anything major online...what does it mean?! bah.

I have a 5 dollar coupon to borders/waldenbooks and I can't use it because it expires on the 30th and the closest thing I've got is a b. Dalton, which is barnes and noble- although I do have a gift card to them, which is happy. if I can find it.

mmmmm.....

felt somewhat like a machine, finishing so many projects- Dr Who, my Saami shawl, a Jayne hat of my very own (okay, okay, so I need one more tassellet- it's done), a little cell phone carrier in the shape of a jayne hat, and the recycled silk sweater.

oh, the recycled silk sweater, which shall henceforth be known as...the Turtle Net Sweater.

why? you might ask...well, here's how it is:
Turtle Net: 100 meters of 3in square mesh gillnet. hellishly difficult to repair. unending.
Recycled Silk Sweater: many meters of yarn turned into a sweater of triangular mesh. hellishly difficult to repair/seam/rip/etc. seemingly unending.
plus, one half magically has a different colorbase than the sleeves and the other half. one is clearly warm-predominant, while everything else is cool-predominant. sigh.

therefore, recycled silk sweater = Turtle Net Sweater. evil. shudder.

but oh well. two more days with the boy and then it's off to camp. eyep. the madness shall ensue again.

and check this out!

Telemark PrOn!


man, I want to be skiing right now.

ook. or perhaps that should be eek.

today I discovered something that is both highly entertaining and somewhat...disturbing.
you, yes, you yourself can now own your own personal Librarian. That's librarian in the Terry Pratchett sense- your own soft, cuddly little mechanical/electronic orangutang to feed bananas to.

finished the David Weber/John Ringo series consisting of March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars, and We Few. quite entertaining, and now I have to reread them all because as I'm reading along in We Few I come across this phrase: "...Dark 'Lord' of the Sixth" in reference to an admiral of the Sixth Fleet. I chuckled to myself and went, "ok, kind of cheesy, but no way would I have been able to resist, were I writing this book. "
then someone on the other side of the fight curses "Dark Helmut" (the aformentioned dark lord of the sixth, who gets dubbed that at least 3 times that I remember).
and a tac team quotes the wizard of oz (I'm melting, I'm melting! and follow the yellow brick road).
and there's an alien flying a fighter designated Red Six.
and someone says "I'm from the IBI. I'm here to help you," which immediately dropped Mark Hamill's face into my brain saying "I'm luke skywalker, I'm here to rescue you!" (even though that's a mite thin).
and someone has a quote from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, ('fell deeds await! now for wrath, now for ruin, and a red dawn!') referenced as coming from 'an ancient human history.
and then, not 50 pages from the end of the book...a defense captain for the good guys sings these words: "fifteen thousand tears I've cried. . .Screaming deceiving and bleeding for you.." and I about died. Evanescence in spaaaace! I love it.

I loved all of it. I had a brief thought that maybe it was too much, but no- no way. it didn't distract from the world, or from the experience created by the authors. and who is to say that, 1500 years in the future when the navy is a space navy and we've met aliens and colonized other worlds that people still aren't reading Tolkein, or consider him to be history, or listening to evanescence or watching star wars? okay, maybe not. still. it was enough to make me want to be all fan-girly and write an email to the authors (David Weber and John Ringo, if you've forgotten, and you should go buy their books) and say "soo...how much fun did you have writing this book?" and "how do I get to even the first step up to where you are now?"

I could dream. someday I hope that someone will read something of mine and laugh just as hard, escape just as easily into a different place. and not sue the pants off of me, which would be nice.

and sound the trumpets, the choirs of angels, the rock'n'roll bands of the devils, the scraggly euphonium ranks bullying those silly french horns out of the way-
I not only finished Dr Who and gave it to Lars and gave y'all a picture as proof...
I finished the Saami shawl! wheehooo! yaaaaaaay.
and I finished a sleeve and a seam on my weird recycled sari sweater thing. I am never, ever, ever knitting something requiring seaming in recycled sari yarn. ew. slubby shreddy evil deathness.

wowzers.

amazing what you find when you're trapped at home with the air conditioning man. apparently there's a big (well, comparatively) scandal involved with the creator of this site, which I didn't (still don't) know much about except in relation to references in other webcomics, and an artist connected with david and goliath, creators of the somewhat cute, somewhat...okay...mostly stupid kitschy tshirts/keychains etc found in places like target, spencer's, that sort of thing.

I was getting somewhat frustrated because there were lots of sites saying the equivalent of "boo todd yay pp" and no representation of todd's/david and goliath's side- which is still true, but the evidence of this website is sort of scary. granted, several of the examples are a stretch and could be considered parody or coincidence (or at least, if I were the creator of the original I'd shrug and move on), but the majority are...a little scary.

aah, the wonderful world of plagiarism.

although the forum of one of the sites made my day just by this phrase: "I knew it. I knew if you put Thomas Kincaid and Hot Topic too close together, there'd be cross-pollenation." said by Relatively Bear.

but HEY! check it out!
drumroll, please...you call that a drumroll? seriously? sigh...

yes! Dr Who is done! done done done, done, fin, finished, ferdig, never ever ever again. no. you can see mine and the second one I did for lars- he's got it doubled around his neck so it doesn't show the full length. the stewardesses on the plane to minneapolis were giving me very strange looks. one lady walking back from the bathroom stopped and commented thusly-
lady: oh, what lovely colors! are you making a sweater? that's gorgeous!
me: thanks. no, it's not a sweater, it's a-
lady: oo, an afghan?
me: no, it's a scarf- if you're familiar with the Dr Who TV show, that's where it's from.
lady: (blank look)