Vacation

I'm declaring a moritorium on actual updates in which I say actual things until the new year, if only so that I will have something to say for 365 days. I'm doing lists today, and tomorrow I'll probably do an end-of-2007 one, but that's all.

So you will hear all about my Christmas and the past week starting on Tuesday. Meanwhile, if you would like pictures, they're already on Flickr.

So, I give you, the top 10 Most Played Songs on my iPod. Or, Wow, What a Dork:

10.) Alone, Celine Dion
9.) Somebody Told Me, The Killers
8.) In Her Eyes, Josh Groban
7.) Don't Give Up (You Are Loved), Josh Groban
6.) This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race, Fall Out Boy
5.) PM's Love Theme, Love Actually (impressive, given that I got it a week ago)
4.) All I Need, Within Temptation
3.) Bones, The Killers
2.) When You Were Young, The Killers
1.) Lacrymosa, Evanescence

No, seriously, I don't cry into my pillow and cut myself.

Favorite Movies of 2007: (I would like to reserve a spot for Juno, which I think I will love but haven't had the chance to see yet.)

10.) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix- Honestly, this movie could have been horrible and I wouldn't have noticed after "penetrate your mind". But I heard from people that it was good.

9.) Invasion-Please look past the fact that I saw it for Jeremy Northam and Daniel Craig and realize that it is a very good film. Which should be on DVD already and ISN'T FOR WEEKS GAH.

8.) National Treasure 2- I totally thought it was going to suck, but it didn't. Please just look past the glaring teensy issues like what the hell a gold pile in South Dakota would have helped the Confederacy.

7.) POTC: AWE- *tear* I can't...I just...*tear*

6.) The Good Shepherd- WHY DOES NO ONE ELSE LIKE THIS MOVIE!?!?! It's friggin awesome.

5.) Children of Men- Oh, so good. In that bleak, post-apocalyptic way. But Clive Owen- *squee*

4.) 3:10 to Yuma- Okay. This may have been another one I went to for the guys, and DAMN was it worth it. Given the fact that he's a raging crazy, I'm left to adore Russell Crowe in the movies, and this was quite a good character for him. Also? Christian Bale? Is still hot. In case you were wondering. And worth watching just for Luke Wilson's cameo which leaves you going, "Wait. Was that Luke Wilson?"

3.) Sweeney Todd- Pants aside, very good. Notsomuch with the singing, but still. I loved Mrs. Lovett's unabashed adoration of Johnny Depp. And after TWO people I was with leaned over and said, "That'd be you," I got a little offended.

2.) Elizabeth: The Golden Age- Oh, I love these movies even though they're all wrong. Barbossingham is also quite good.

1.) Waitress- I didn't even see it in theaters, but this was, by far, the best movie I've seen in a long time. It was moving and fun and made you think, just like movies should.

Best Books of 2007 (I'm sticking to ones released this year, although I've read and loved older ones.)

10.) Augustus, Anthony Everitt

9.) Sheer Abandon, Penny Vincenzi- Abandoned babies in airports? Sign me up. I don't mean to abandon a baby in an airport. Just to read about it.

8.) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling- All this time? Always.

7.) The Art Thief, Noah Charney- A mystery about a forger who may or may not be forging and already forged work. Oh yeah.

6.) Summer at Tiffany, Majorie Hart- Absolutely the sweetest book I've read in a long time. So adorable, made me really hope that I could have a summer that defined me like that.

5.) King, Kaiser, Tsar- You all know how I feel about dynastic families and their crazy.

4.) Supreme Conflict, Jan Greenburg- Gossipy tale about the recent Supreme Court developements. So yeah, I read it. And loved it. And it's amazing.

3.) Nefertiti, Michelle Moran- Maybe it was just because I read it while in the midst of an Egyptian civ class that was kind of taking up most of my brainpower, but I really, really loved this book. Except again, totally all not true.

1.) You'll notice I skipped 2. Or maybe you weren't paying attention. Either way, my favorite book this year is a toss-up between The Nine, by Jeffrey Toobin, and How to Talk to a Widower, by Jonathan Tropper. I adored both. I've done everything but steal them to get people to buy them. No one will listen to me, but at least I have an ally in my sister with the widower one. She's not so much into the judicial stuff.

I'm going to go attempt to swallow.

A brief moment of self-loathing.

A very good friend of mine is getting married tomorrow.

And I'm not.

And I'm a little bit pissed.

So I'll be drinking, if anyone would like to join me.

Day 2, Winter Break '07: I am rudely awakened (again).

Oh, it was not amusing.

This time Germ broke his glasses. Which required actually two trips, one to the high school and one to the eye place to actually fix them so he could go back to labbing and study halling and spreading malaria or whatever the hell as settled in his chest that is causing him to continuously hack up a lung.

Tomorrow morning? The phone rings and the caller ID says GHS? I'm not picking up. I don't care if they're on freaking fire. I will meet you at the hospital at a more appropriate hour, like maybe after Will & Grace.

So I'm finally finished baking. Well, at least until Monday when I have to make desserts because, well, I don't know really, but I was told to. Including the Happy Birthday Baby Jesus Cake that OMG WE HAVE HAD EVERY YEAR SINCE BEFORE YOU WERE BORN!!! (according to my mother) although I don't remember EVER having a Happy Birthday Baby Jesus Cake.

Not that it's not a nice sentiment, but I certainly don't remember ever having one.



Regardless, this Christmas, Baby Jesus will be favored with a lovely pumpkin spice layer cake with cream cheese frosting courtesy of Some Book I Found In The Pantry.

That's beside the point. In the last forty-eight hours I have baked:

• Sparkle cookies
• Chocolate bon bons
• Spice cookies w/frosting
• fudge
• light ginger cookies w/frosting
• Mexican wedding cakes
• random spritz- only Christmas tress this year, because I got tired
• Fudgee Meltaway bars
• Festive Cheese Tarts- not so pretty, will warrent another attempt Monday
• Cinnamon 'n Sugar muffins
• pumpkin muffins
• Poppyseed bread that became lemon poppyseed bread becaue I think if you're going to go to the trouble of putting freaking poppyseeds in the damn thing, you'd better do lemon, too
• St. Lucia buns

I think that's it. But honestly, I'm exhausted, so I don't really know.

My favorite are the St. Lucia buns, though (Even though I'm incapable of making a simple s-shape and thus they turned out spastically. Oh, and I refused to spend $16.47 on saffron at the grocery store, so I went through online recipes until I found one that didn't call for it. Rock on, reasonably priced tumeric.). Because I'm pretty sure I did the whole St. Lucia thing one year.

See, Kirsten was my favorite American Girl, and she was all Swedish, so she was St. Lucia. And well that was just so freaking cool I had to be her too. So I had the dress and the head thing except without real candles and a battery pack strapped to my neck, but still. And I could just be totally hallucinated this part, but I think I actually did get up early one morning and give rolls to my parents. But I think that's wrong. Maybe I just thought about it.

So that was pretty cool. Except I was really pissed that my mom wouldn't let me use the real candles. Kirsten was hardcore, y'all. She had flames.

Day 1, Winter Break '07: I am rudely awakened, bake a metric assload of cookies, develop mysterious hives, and suffer through a phantom pregnancy.

Oh, freedom. It's awesome.

Not so awesome to be awakened at ten to eight when you've just fallen back asleep because your roommate/sister was bitterly loud getting dressed to be told that you need to go pick up roommate/sister from school, as she has an unclassified illness.

Yeah. I looked really pretty.

So now I have hives all over my face. And it's weirding me out, because I can't figure out what could have caused it. I haven't eaten anything in a couple of hours, I haven't taken anything other than Advil today, my makeup isn't different, and I certainly don't have anything to stress out about (well, except the hives).

(Oh, and I think I might be pregnant.)

(I don't really. But it feels like it. I'm freaking tired, massively late, and there are times (usually in the morning) when I am overcome by nausea. Like I almost left an exam because of it yesterday. And if you've been reading for any amount of time, you know I DON'T LEAVE EXAMS. See: March 1, 2007, when I break down crying on the phone with my TA.)

(But I'm not really worried about that.)

So I'm going to do some links and then go take some Benadryl.

Somewhere, a State Department employee is curled in the fetal position in a corner. I may be a Baby of the Eighties, but I know this isn't good.

And the Spears Saga goes downhill. Also- um, yeah, I'll bet.

Oooh, I smell a Supreme Court case...

Oh, sweet Benadryl.

Why I Need to Move Out

Scene: Kitchen. Early morning.

Colleen: Will you run downstairs and get me a bottle of water. I'd love you forever!

Me: Okay.

Colleen: Can I take your coffee mug to school? Please?

Me: No! You lost the last one I gave you. Where is it?

Colleen: I don't know. Either in the car or someplace...

Me: I got that at the Smithsonian, you know.

Colleen: *looks in cabinet* Oh, no worries. It's right here. So can I take it?

Me: Fine.

Dad: We need to go!

Colleen: Wait! I need coffee!!!

Me: *gets coffee* Cream or suger? (inner barista, what can I say?)

Colleen: No. I need a pen!

Me: *gets pen*

Colleen: What would I do without you?

Me: Indeed.

And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Oh, dear Lord. My beloved, my lifeline, by ALL, Marcus Theaters is not showing Sweeney Todd.
*strangled sob*

I'm going to have to go to Mayfair to see it. I don't like being inconvenienced.

Well, I asked off this weekend and am sitting here in ugly clothes studying, and feeling very much in control of my future (well, at least in comparison with these idiots. Surely I am smarter than they are.), so I'm going to get back to that.

One pearl of widsom from here at chez Morena: If you ever run into a high school freshman who has been assigned the first five-paragraph essay of the year after having his/her confidence stomped on by an ill-advised lunchtime peer review session with the other idiots at the table (who are barely qualified to wipe themselves)? RUN. Get your keys, make up and appointment, break an appendage, I DON'T CARE JUST GET OUT.

Do not attempt to engage the freshman.

Do not attmept to help the freshman by giving him/her your old politial science book with helpful tidbits about how you can use Wikipedia to help without actually having it be an academic source.

Most certainly do not offer the freshman use of YOUR computer for "a quick google search".

Any and all of these behaviors will result in you wanting to hurl yourself headfirst through the plate glass patio door.

My God. I'm pretty sure doctoral dissertations have been undertaken with less emotional distress.

Title has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

Oh, dudes. I have, like, the BEST schedule ever.

And you know what? I deserve it. Because after the freakish hell I went through trying to get PAWS to work along with presumably every other student (which is stupid, I know, because they all had different times, but I SWEAR TO GOD THEY WERE ALL ON AT THREE O'CLOCK YESTERDAY OMG.)? The damn chancellor should pay me. And maybe throw in dinner. And drinks. I needed them. This is an abbreviated version.

Morena: *hums*Ladeeda, deedada....I'm going to register now. Okay, that is a complete fabrication. I was actually counting the minutes until three, and obsessively checking to see if my classes were open, and I may have collapsed in an emotionally exhausted heap on the couch the night before sobbing something about baroque vs. Asian art...but I digress.
PAWS: *snorts*
Morena: I'm typing in my password...
PAWS: *doesn't load* Try refreshing the page.
Morena: I'm refreshing. It's not working.
PAWS: I SAID REFRESH BITCH.
Morena: *scared* Oookay...still not.
PAWS: Try again.
Morena: Okay.
PAWS: *taunting laughter* Invalid session. You don't know what that means, do you?
Morena: No.
PAWS: It means you're not going to be a junior anytime soon.
Morena: *tear*

It went on like that. For a long time. Hence the drinks needed.

But I got everything, and, in a feat of engineering and physics that I'm pretty sure NASA would like to know about, I managed to fit eighteen credits of baroque art history, Asian-American history, history of women in Europe, history of Britain since 1688, American popular music (arts credit), and some random geo sci class (NS, can you tell how thrilled I am???) into FOUR DAYS, of which I will be home at 12:15 twice and 1:45 twice. That's right, bitches. I rock.

Well, okay, one's online. But still.

Also? Fridays off. Which I think means more to me than the birth of my first child will.

Of course, the gods were not content to let me be stress-free for longer than a moment. Literally minutes after I hung up with The Lovely Mary to discuss our good class fortune the phone rang, and it was a family friend I hadn't spoken to in probably ten years and didn't recognize ("Who is this?""Kathleen...""This is Amy.""Um...okay...") saying that she had just taken my grandfather to the emergency room.

Yes, the 91-year-old. That got the blood racing!

Turns out he's fine, just some minor intestinal things, but my parents spent the rest of the day at the ER, and I spent the rest of the day worrying. Well, and watching a little MTV. (Dude. The Hills? Crazy stupid.)

So you know how I'm a neurotic mess for most of the year?

Haha. What am I saying? Of course you do. I don't have a lot of blind, deaf, *and* dumb readers.

Well, that all stops at finals week. This is peculiar, as the need to do well and almost obsessive zeal for good grades would logically increase during exams. And it does, kind of. I stress about studying, and and being prepared, and all that.

But I don't really care anymore.

Like I got an answer sheet for the final I took this morning, and I'm already too over the class in general to match up the answers and see how I did. Eh. I'll just wait until they're up on D2L. It'll be a couple of days, tops.

(I know, right? It's like aliens.)

Also, I already know that another 4.0 is practically out of the question thanks to Dr. Moyer Evil and his Physiological Psychology of Doom Mwahahaha.

This could explain why I have art history and Egyptian civ on Friday, and I'm writing an entry instead of caring.



Okay, this has already been entirely too long, so I'm going to go. With a few links.

Dude. I'd watch. But I'd probably be the only one.

LITTLE MORE THAN ONE WEEK LEFT!!! And boy, and I excited!!!!! :D

Boston Legal news. Teehee. I like the part about the Star Trek universe imploding.

Ugh. Some people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. They're just too stupid.

Things I Learned Today

1.) One can, in fact, grow tired of gingerbread lattes.

2.) Your pride dissipates incredibly quickly after sliding to class a couple of days because it's snowing. And then you buy ugly boots to wear, and are actually happy about it. Oh, youth. Where have you gone?

3.) Flashcards for a 1960s final? Can be ignored.

4.) Printers are evil.

5.) Printers that finally work are amazing.

6.) Larry, the HP Printer Help Guy (who is not a native English speaker, but whatever) wants to get in my mom's pants. wants to give my mom a hug. There. Are you happy now, Mom???

7.) This thought disturbs me.

8.) Cheese curds from Culvers are like little deep fried pieces of God.

9.) Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals are *way* easier to memorize than a bunch of Greek reliefs that all look the same.

10.) I want cheesecake. This is not a new revelation. But it is still important.

Screw Maslow. And all of his little humanist-theory friends.

They suck and I hate them.

*sniff*

Massive amounts of end-of-the-semester work, y'all. So much I had to stay home today to finish it all. Well, really I stayed home to squire my mom to the doctor, but apparently she has become self-actualized (See? I know this shit!) and in a mind-numbingly selfless move of mothering decided that my sister's coffee date with friends was more important than an appointment with someone who may conceivably be able to help her deal with the boneheaded-doctor who probably failed bedside manner like, LAST SEMESTER because HE'S SO FREAKING YOUNG's idea that hey, a brain scan might be good just to rule out cancer in there!!!

This to the woman who is arguably more upset every time I take I-43 than when she thinks about the war in Iraq.

But yes. Colleen will be caffeinated.

(And this is not a dig at Colleen, who would have undoubtedly given up the coffee if her mother had offered, which she didn't, because she's too damn good.)

My kids are going to hate me.

Also? I don't get to go out to lunch. *pout*

I didn't realize these little projects would talk all day, though. I started going, "Oh, you need to finish the term cards for 1960s. That's not bad. God bless Wikipedia." Then it was, "Oh, and the psych paper. That really needs to be written. And the other psych quiz. Must take that. But you can't take that until you haul the computer upstairs to print the notes. But it's no sense printing until you have the paper written, because then you can print them all at the same time. And case studies! Don't forget those. Need to be typed, too. Oh shit, you also need an updated Egypt project. By tomorrow. And the dryer just beeped."

And now I want a drink. But first I have to put up the Christmas village.

Of course this would have taken signficantly less time if I hadn't have gotten into a SuperPoke war on Facebook with Derrick. But I'm choosing to ignore that.

AHHH!!! Christ, People. com should warn people before they do that!!!

I smell a Boston Legal!!!

Speaking of which, I need to go watch last night's episode.

All jurisprudence, all the time.

I sold two copies of The Nine today, which felt like personal vindication because I've been pimping the hell out of it since October and IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME!!! Sheesh. I even did a freaking staff pick and put it on the front table with all the new books.


Also got into a mental argument with some idiot political science major who said judicial activism and judicial review were the same thing.

Which they're not.


Decidedly not.


Judicial activism is legislating from the bench. It's bad.


Judicial review is the ability to of the Supreme Court to decide if a law or act of another branch of government (usually Congress, because we heart the executive branch!!!) is unconstitutional. It's good.


Definitely not the same.


But due to my amazing customer service, I kept my mouth shut. Until she left, and then I unloaded my opinion on anyone who would listen.

I'm supposed to be studying. So I'm going to go pretend to do that.