Attn: Readers

My mother would like you all to know that we are not, in fact, hill folk. Our Christmas decorations were put away a long time ago, during a month that was definitely not April, and any indication to the contrary was merely poetic license. So. Don't discuss us and snicker at your next family gathering.

That being said, I have nothing else to add except I think I bombed a chemistry quiz this afternoon (well, only one question, but it was worth about 45% of the quiz grade so yeah. Bombed.) and I registered! For classes! For my senior year!

Well, almost completely. I got into Renaissance art and architecture in Italy, a comp lit class about gnosticism, intro to Jewish history, the Arab/Israeli conflict, something called Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed but whatever I'd take something called Watching Me Make A Grocery List if Dr. Crain taught it, and, of course, my thesis. Which I keep forgetting about even though it's going to be significantly more work and more nausea-inducing than the rest of them and all I can say is be thankful you don't live with me! Because for those of you that do? Fall is going to be a bumpy couple of months.

I still need to manually add Jews in Wisconsin, because the stupid computer won't let you do more than 18 credits. Pssh. Whatever. So far there are exactly...no people enrolled. I don't think I should have too much trouble getting in.

So. Yes. That was my day. Fascinating, no?

It's a little blasphemous.

My family generally likes St. Joseph. I mean, my parents are pretty convinced that he's the only reason they got married, they only have live children because of St. Joseph's hospital, etc. But for some reason we have not only one, but TWO beheaded St. Joseph statues at our house right now. One met with an unfortunate accident while being taken out of the nativity scene (SHUT UP I know it's April but you know what? Until like last week we were under six feet of snow), and the other? Well, John came downstairs this morning, looked out the door and went, "Oh, my."

Poor St. Joseph. I mean, you were the earthly father of Christ, but it was hardly an easy gig. You put up with the whole virgin birth thing, try to teach the Son of Man to use a hammer, and then aren't even mentioned after the first few chapters of the canonical Gospels. I mean, as long as you're messing with the story, John, why don't you add something about Joe in there, huh?

And then we can't even keep your head on.


St. Joseph? I thought you might like to know that Mary is watching from the other side of the porch and feels very badly for you. And she wants you to know that she's glad you didn't divorce her quietly. She'll try to stop the alarmingly large hawks that come RIGHT UP TO OUR HOUSE from mistaking your head for a small furry creature and stealing it.

I am the grammar snob about whom your mother warned you.

Oh, internets. Did no one else have to diagram sentences for years on end? Or was that just me?

Oh. I think it was actually just me.

Okay.

Thanks, Mom.

Anyway, I'm reading this book written by this woman whose brilliant poetry professor husband left her for some other faculty member and her subsequent almost-mental-breakdown. Just because I want a fun read, you know.

No, really it's because she played Det. Stabler's wife on SVU and I FREAKING LOVE SVU.

Except this woman? Can. Not. Write. Like, for shit. The prose is awkward and she misuses contractions and it's just...bad. I make no claims about my ability to do anything remotely creative. I could not write a story. Academic paper? Sign me up. I will hit that baby out of the park. So I'm not judging her, I just feel like someone, ANYONE, any one of her friends should have attacked this manuscript with a red pen at like the very beginning of the process. Really. It's only polite.

Because if you are going to write a scathing tell-all of how your loser husband dumped you for a freaking poetry professor who looks like Winona Ryder? You had better make your your prepositions are in the right place. He is an English professor, after all.

(Oh, and there was a story about getting a job in academia that made me want to take up drinking a permanent hobby.)

See? THIS is why you never leave a Law and Order. Bad things happen.

Thoughts During an Extra Credit Chemistry Video

Ugh. It's 7:00. I don't want to be here. I'm missing HIMYM for this.

There is like no one else here. How big a dork am I for showing up?

15 points. I would do anything for 15 points. Perky little TA Sandra down there could say that her boyfriend was bugging her and needed somebody to take him out and I'd be like, "Do you provide the weapons?"

Ooh, video guy says "exquisite" like Alan Rickman. *swoon*

ACK! Video guy looks nothing like Alan Rickman.

15 points. Come on. Your GPA is so worth this.

And, okay, now there are...no, there can't be...you can't show that in an educational video...this isn't cable...okay, yep, there is definite nudity there. Oh, ick.

Meh. 15 points.

Come on, you're an actual female. It's not like you've never seen boobs before. Granted, these are large, saggy, native-type boobs, but the general thought is the...okay. No. This is just wrong.

15 points. 15 points. 15 points.

I had better get summa cum laude for this, so help me God.

Video Guy: "Something prophetic about that mid-summer bonfire that I will attempt to conjure in the present." Oh, good. I was worried this would be a dull night.

15 points. 15 points. 15 points.

Video Guy: "Cold, calculating, cantankerous, prim, precise, puritanical..." Did you just learn alliteration, Jim.

Lavoisier perished in the French Revolution, like a good chunk of the entire nation.

Seriously. You have to stop saying "climax". It's freaking me out.

15 points.

And...now they're explaining atomic theory with those balls you use for lawn games.

You know, this would have been a hell of a lot more fun with Simon Schama.

I'm skipping Cuba tomorrow.

And because of that, it's going to be a good day.

Yes, I have a ton to do. Yes, I have five hundred dry Irish history pages to read because everybody bombed the last test and now Dr. Crain is convinced that we're not reading it. Yes, I have to kill two hours after art history and there will only be a wrap place open for an hour of it. Yes, I have to stay on campus until eight for a chem extra credit thing.

But it STILL will be a fantastic day.

Because NO CUBA.

Frick yeah.

Everyone will probably remain fully clothed.

It's been a really long week. I could have gotten together with Mary and Nick tonight, or I could have gone to the dinner dance.

Oh, the dinner dance. Last year was...well, it was amazing. But this year it's actually at church, which will significantly cut down on the drunken reveling. I'm guessing. Wait a minute. Yeah, maybe it won't. That parish likes to party. I saw people I've never seen before at Mass tonight in sequins and enough foundation to make a Boston Store makeup girl weep. They were looking for a great time.

Also, everything was like set up through the narthex and the school hallway and it's all congested and twisty and there's crap hanging from the ceilings and yeah, probably nobody will fall down and expose their...ahem...area to the general public.

(I still want to know what's going through your mind when you think, "Oh, I'm going to a church function. I know! I'M NOT GOING TO WEAR PANTIES!!!" Stupid whore.)

I freaking love drunk people.

But I don't think it would be the same, and like nobody else was going, so I'm doing the significantly more dorky but FUN way and studying Irish history notes and drinking sangria (Carlo Rossi- who I also discovered this morning provides the wine for St. Monica's. I knew I liked that place...). It's a good time.

Oh, I served confirmation this morning despite not actually being a server this morning and the fact that it wasn't actually at my parish. Whatever. It was fun. But their albs were significantly more like priest's albs and less like the loser server ones that we have and damn, I think I have figured out the real problem facing today's clergy. It's not celibacy or the sex abuse scandal- it's the fact that those albs are ridiculously unflattering.

Except maybe it's just if you're busty. Which shouldn't be a problem, I guess. Hmm. So maybe it's just a problem for post-pubescent female alter servers.

Fanfreakingtastic

Oh, internets. It is 7:26. And it is NOT a good day already. I was lazy this morning and didn't do anything I was supposed to, opting instead to sleep until the last possible minute. So I feel like schlub. Then I get out to car and realize that I don't have keys. No worries. The keys are probably inside.

Except wait.

The Empress may have taken them a week ago to go to work and not returned them (NOT being snarky to the Empress, I should have asked for them.)

Okay. We must have another set.

Oh. Right. With my dad. Who is in the other car (to which I am holding TWO sets of keys right now) en route to UWM.

This? Is not good.

So now I get to carpool down to my advising appointment, where I will undoubtedly be told to take summer school to finished the double major that I can't afford and I looked online this morning and Borders didn't even bother to deposit a check because do you know how much money I made in the last two weeks NOTHING THAT'S HOW MUCH but I love Borders and I keep hoping things are going to get better and I don't want to quit!!!

*headdesk*

Exciting times at Chez Morena

Me: What are you doing?

Colleen: Writing a note. On my hand.

Me: About what?

Colleen: Dixie cups.

Maybe my thesis will begin with, "So, have you seen that movie Keeping the Faith? With Edward Norton?"

It's official. As of this afternoon, I am over methods class. Any tender feelings I may have had because of my lovely secondary sources note have disappeared and I feel that failing out and becoming a full-time gelato chef or something would be preferable to finished this paper.

No, I didn't just write my entire analysis of the David Frost and Richard Nixon 28-hour interview based on a two-second portion of the Frost/Nixon movie trailer. Pssh. That would be irresponsible. I'm a serious academic here.

Except I totally did.

Who's an asset to any MA program now, Dr. Austin?

Baby of the Eighties

So...I did totally post something last night, but it appears that the internets ate it. Oh well. It wasn't very interesting. It was more academic angst, because I just realized that hey! I've kind of totally already completed the religious studies major! And I'm kind of totally going to graduate school for religious studies. So it kind of totally makes sense to, oh, I don't know, declare the religious studies major. That involves like way more weird classes and summer school and oh, hey, I never applied for financial aid for summer school because I don't take summer school and whatever, I just want a glass of wine.

The real post I was going to put up was about this absolutely amazing book I've been reading, Signs of the Times. I picked it up because it's subtitled "Understanding the Church Since Vatican II" and I'm planning on spending most of next year attempting to understand the Church since Vatican II- it seemed appropriate. It's less of a history than I would have liked, and more of a collection of theological studies by Fr. Richard Gilsdorf , who was actually from Green Bay.

In it, he describes himself as a "Vatican II liberal", which I found really interesting because I was talking with my advisor about how way too often, particularly in the United States, the whole Vatican II thing ends up being broken up into a whole liberal/conservative thing, and that's completely unfounded.

Like Fr. Gilsdorf points out, why do you need to be liberal or conservative? Why can't you be "as liberal as the pope and as conservative as the pope?" Why can't you just love the Church and want her to be the best she can be?

I really think that you can. All to often, the whole "dissenting" thing is just ridiculous. Those who dissent, such as Andrew Greeley (Gilsdorf calls him a heterodox, which makes me laugh. I've read Greeley, and my humble opinion? He's just mad he can't get laid.), don't really understand the theology behind the issue. If they did, they would see that there is always a reason, and it's usually a good reason, too. It's been five hundred years since we've had any "because I said so" theology. The Pope does have the highest position within the church. He is the highest servant of Christ. But precisely because he is the highest servant of Christ, he is the most humble, in Christ's own image.

Obviously, we've had crappy Popes. But I'm talking big picture.

And too often the whole Vatican II issue ends up being turned into a weird political thing. Like those who wanted the Church kept like she was before Vatican II are conservative (or orthodox) and those who like the changes are liberal and want to ordain women.

I was born in the late eighties. I've never heard Mass in Latin. I'm incredibly thankful for Vatican II. I thin it's amazing that a council was called to make the Church better and stronger. I really like Mass in the vernacular. I really like that there are lay ministers. I like that girls are alter servers now. I like Communion in hand (although Gilsdorf, writing in 1974, kind of freaks out about that). I have never been in a traditional confessional- I've always gone to a reconciliation room, and rarely did I use the screen. (Also as '70s-era Gildorf freaks out about- I don't think the advent of the the "reconciliation room" led to any increase in rampant illicit sex. Honestly. I've felt uncomfortable in confession before, but never like that. Really. Grow up.)

But I'm incredibly orthodox. I will tow the party line. I believe that sex is an expression of love within marriage and this is not supposed to keep us from having fun but rather to make marriage as an institution stronger. I think marriage is for life. If I were married, I wouldn't be using artificial birth control. It's not that I don't think about the teachings of the Church, but I generally agree with them.

So anyway, this was long. And it didn't really have a point, except that oversimplification is bad.

Oh, and apparently Milwaukee under Archbishop Cousins was a crazy hotbed of weirdness? Like polka masses and stuff? Would any of my mature readers like to comment on this, because again, I've never seen a chapel veil.

Oh, shut up. I worked on my papers a little bit too.

I had a day off today (Stop snickering. It's not my fault that there are no hours available at work.), and we didn't even go to Grandaps (I think the Goof-Off fumes were still making us all sick). So after I got home from Mass at like ten (Newbie goes FAST), I had nothing of consequence to do.

Thank God for cable. USA was running a marathon of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Ooh. Settled in to watch that for a few hours. Ate lunch. Watched a few more hours. Sadly, it went off at five. *tear* But lo! Bravo had an evening marathon of Criminal Intent! I could get my Major Case Squad uninterrupted, y'all. And then! That most sacred of events, the season premiere was on at eight.

So. Today I've watched like eight hours of CI. This is a little embarrassing. But I have formed a few opinions.

I want to be friends with Eames. She is amazing, and I love her.

Goren's mom is a whack job, but their scenes together make me want to cry.

I much prefer Goren/Eames to Chris Noth's storyline.

I ship Goren/Eames like WHOA. By two o'clock this afternoon I was throwing small pillows at the screen and yelling, "SERIOUSLY MAKE OUT ALREADY!"

They never made out. It makes me a little bit sad.

I also prefer the new captain, whose name I'm forgetting. If only because he played Satan in a play that My Favorite Jesuit (which is saying something, because the Jesuits tend to bug me) and Colbert Report Chaplain Fr. James Martin wrote about in one of his books.

If your stepmom/brother/father/cousin is being evasive? Incest. Always incest.

Same goes for your real mom.

Oh, how I love this show.

Suburbia

Okay. So people my age are supposed to be all anti-establishment, urban, up with youth.

I'm not.

I spent two hours at a Starbucks on Farwell and Brady yesterday while my mom was at lunch, and by the end I really, really wanted to get back to Grafton. Well, at least until I realized that Hot TA lived (or at least used to live) on Farwell, and I LOVED Hot TA so much...

This afternoon I went for a walk in Grandpa's neighborhood because there was nothing to do except yard work and I HATE yard work like, for real. And it was so pretty! There were trees and little streets and it was just pretty. I was made for the suburbs.

Except one thing. All men of Fox Point? Just because it's the first warm day since September doesn't mean that you can work outside without your shirt on. Trust me. No one wants to see that.

For reals?

Dude. This blog is officially 1000 posts old. I know, right? 1000 posts of my inane drivel. I applaud those of you who are still reading. Also, thanks for sharing my mitochondrial DNA.

I feel as though I should have something massive to talk about because 1000 posts! That's HUGE. But I don't really. Instead, I'm going to talk about Facebook.

My account was closed for maintenance for a few hours this afternoon, and I could not log in. This disturbed me greatly. What if someone needed to get in touch with me? What if someone had put up fun pictures? What if I needed to "like" something???

I began thinking of status updates and feeling frustratingly impotent when I couldn't put them up.

"Kathleen wonders why Facebook won't let her on."

"Kathleen hates Facebook."

"Kathleen should be writing her paper."

"Kathleen hates footnotes."

"Kathleen wonders if she even exists if her Facebook page is down..."

It was a dark moment of the soul, readers.

There was a time that I actually talked to people.

It was a while ago.

Thankfully, I was allowed to log in late this afternoon. Whew. That was close. I almost resorted to Twitter because MY GOD WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF NO ONE KNOWS WHAT I'M THINKING RIGHT THIS SECOND!?!?!?

All is well now. There are even picture from the Easter Vigil on now. There was boxed wine. It was good.

Very Important Scholarly Work.

Eamon de Valera: Michael? I need to talk to you for a minute.

Michael Collins: But my show is on!

Eamon de Valera: Michael. Now.

Michael Collins: Fine. What is it?

Eamon de Valera: I have a very big job for you. I'm going to be very busy for awhile, and I need you to go to London for me. You need to go to this address, and talk to these nice men, and you need to tell them to shove their Government of Ireland Act up their asses. Do you understand?

Michael Collins: I guess...

Eamon de Valera: Really? You go there. You listen. You come home. You absolutely do not sign anything. Do you understand me?

Michael Collins: Yep. No signing.

Eamon de Valera: What do you do if they give you a pen?

Michael Collins: No signing.

Eamon de Valera: What do you do if they tell you your pompadour is pretty?

Michael Collins: No signing.

Eamon de Valera: Okay. You can go. Take Arthur with you.

***

Winston Churchill: Michael! You look amazing! I love your hair!

Michael Collins: *blushes*

David Lloyd George: We need to talk about this whole Government of Ireland Act thing. You know, Britain has so many more...um...liquidated assets...and we will be able to help you with the...um...GNP...and the CDC...and the CSI...and we really just need you to sign this.

Michael Collins: That sounds like a good idea to me. Big words! I love big words! Do you have a pen?

Arthur Griffith: Um, Michael? Hey, Michael? Yeah, see, Eamon told us not to sign. He kind of scares me. Just a little bit.

Michael Collins: Oh, Arthur. Grow a pair. Give him a pen, too, boys.

***

Michael Collins: Eamon? We need to talk.

Eamon de Valera: I so should have just stayed in prison.

Isaac Mizrahi never got to Lenin.

Today in the Class of the Damned Cuban history we talked about this Newsweek article that discussed the possibility of closing Guantanamo Bay as a base, but reopening it (still as US territory) as a free-trade outpost, complete with a Wal-Mart.

One of the ever-concerned and totally-in-touch-with-reality bleeding hearts in the class raised their little liberal hand and asked if honestly? Would the Cuban people really want that that much? Why would they want the corruption of capitalism?

To which my reply is...wait until they get a Target.

Target? Would change Leon frickin' Trotsky into a capitalist.

No, I didn't want to become a prostitute. But there is a beautiful gray brocade scarf that I can't afford and really want and if hooking at a truck stop would get it for me? I AM THERE. Even after fifty years of Grandpa Fidel and his no, really! You don't want meat! It's bad for you! This is much healthier! I'm fairly certain that Target and it's glorious reasonably priced and totally mix-and-matchable misses department? Would tempt the Cubans away from their superior socialist system.

Also. Scarves look fantastic on people with deeper skin tones.

Historians are academics that don't play well with others.

This morning I'm rushing around feeling inferior because, well, it's a school day, when I realize that I have a whole two minutes to spare. Well! I could read the paper. Yes, that is a good idea. After I claw through the ZOMG ARCHBISHOP DOLAN DON'T LEAVE NOES!!! articles and giggle a little bit because our priest shows up in the background of like every single picture of him and that makes me laugh for some reason, I come across a lovely article about yet another way UWM is interested in screwing their students over.

Because apparently it's not enough to cut staff, cut class offerings, raise tuition, crash the e-mail server (No one uses e-mail, right? I mean, hardly ever.), and have like two parking spaces. No, it gets better. See, if you manage to stick it out at this sucking black hole of death for the requisite number of years/suicide attempts to get a doctorate, you get to go to graduation to receive said PhD.

Then you have the privilege of renting the gown and hood for over $300, or buying it for almost $800. So if you'd like to keep this hood that for some people *cough*me*cough* means more than food, water, sex, or children, you have to buy it. For $800.

HATE THE WORLD.

And it's not even an attractive gown. Emily said it looked like a bumblebee, and yes, it totally does. A bumblebee that will be paying student loans until they die.

At least Marquette's is reasonable priced. I would not want to do that twice.

Meanwhile, my methods professor is the head of the graduate department in history and told us yesterday that this year the number of applicants had more than doubled, from about 35 to 70. Okay. Objectively, I'm usually pretty high up there in terms of academics when you put me in a group of 35. 70? NOTSOMUCH.

So now I probably won't even get the opportunity to purchase my ridiculous-looking and unbelievably expensive hood.

*headdesk*

So I'm the owner of Wedgewood china...

Very few things will make me laugh when I'm scraping someone else's old potato off of the pattern on a piece of china at 5:00 in the morning, but yeah, T-Money is one of them.

Oh, intenets. It has been a LONG day. I've got nothing.

Stein Optical hired a hot doctor (wedding ring...boo). I'm only going on Mondays from now on.

I've spent entirely too much money on Starbucks today, once helping Colleen study instead of studying for my own exam.

I cannot keep the politics of Middle Eastern oil straight. At all. Palestine? I'm good. WWII? Got it. Even the whole Turks and Armenians thing. 1.7 million massacred and they never apologized, bastards. But oil? I cannot remember the damn company names or the chronology or whatever, I can't afford a car, why do I care? If that is the big essay, I am seriously going to start to cry. It will not be pretty.

That is all.

These are the Cubs, right?

Why. Why at every family party must we watch baseball? It just makes me feel inferior. The few times I've actually gone to a game, I've been able to follow it. I felt ridiculously proud of myself, because I was able to keep the whole "run=point" thing straight in my head (CALL IT A POINT, DAMMIT), but on TV? Meh, notsomuch.

Maybe those are just the manhattans. I do so love a good manhattan.

Meanwhile, I'm going to fail art history tomorrow. Easter weekend? SUCKS as a time to study. Just letting you all know. It's up at 5 o'clock tomorrow again...

Shouldn't have worried.

So, it's been a year. And most of us are still alive. We had an Easter Vigil. We played hopscotch. And even if Colleen decided she was too old for the monkey bars, Mary and I still had a good time on them.

And Keelin even came! Keelin obviously needs to change parishes, because we are way more fun than Our Lady of Good Hope. At least I'm guessing. I don't really know. I've never hung out at their Easter Vigil.

So there was significantly less crying than last time, but there was significantly more boxed wine. While it may not be tradition that Daddy and John attend, this means that someone else gets to drive the car. New tradition!!!

Ookay. While tonight's party may have been shorter than others in the past (I'm looking at you, shoes-are-optional-after-midnight year), tomorrow is going to come really early. Happy Easter everybody!

Dear Guy Standing Behind Me at Church Today:

Hi! It's me. The redhead in front of you who is trying not to turn around and glare at you. Yeah. Me.

See. I actually belong to, oh, we'll call it Parish A. So I know what you're talking about when you say that you went to Parish A two years ago for Good Friday, and did not enjoy the service. In fact, you thought it was a little weird. That you think it's a little weird that they've adapted certain aspects of it here. I was there. It was not weird. It was reverent. There's a difference. And, except for our baptismal font/jacuzzi, we're pretty damn reverent.

And I get that we're at Parish B. You have every right to expect exactly the same service you've had your entire 50/60 years (I'm trying not to look/glare at you, remember?), and are probably miffed that things changed a little bit because today's youth don't find the prospect of a life filled with incense and celibacy the most exciting thing ever. But here's the thing. Half of the people here? Are from Parish A. So SHHHHH.

Seriously. Have the decency to wait until you get to the car to tear things apart.

Honestly.

Not that I did that.

Totally not.

Love,
Kathleen

Tantum Ergo

I freaking love Latin. And incense. And kneeling. You sit me at a Holy Thursday Mass? I am thrilled.

Except I mispronounce everything. I learned classical Latin at a Lutheran school, so all my v's sound like w's and my mouth is incapable of forming a soft c sound. Grrr. Dr. Wilmeth ruined me for the triduum.

Now I really want to go back to Latin. I kind of miss it- I loved it so much and I actually didn't suck at it horribly (well, at least until participles.) I need to take either Latin or Greek (or Hebrew, but ha! We saw how Russian went.) for my theoretical theology degree, so maybe we'll do Latin. Yep. Definitely.

Maybe at a Catholic university they'll teach me to say the "v" sound.

This is why the IRA has any funding at all.

I tend to not side with the Catholic community in the whole Northern Ireland conflict thing. I don't really side with the unionists either, but I think both sides needed to just chill the frick out and things would have been okay a whole lot sooner. Nonetheless, after spending several weeks researching Bloody Sunday, I've definitely come down on behalf of the nationalists. I don't know how you can not. I mean, really. Are you going to decide to support the guy shooting at the priest giving last rights to the 17-year-old kid you just mortally wounded? I think not.

Anyway, I was watching the movie Bloody Sunday this morning, a "dramatization" of the "actual" events. Uh-huh. They were suggesting that the British army pre-planned the whole massacre.

I almost dropped my mascara brush (Yes, the only time I have to watch movies is while I get dressed in the morning. Primetime is all CBS, all the time.). Oh, hell no. Now, I will give you that the British screwed up royally in the planning of the military deployment here. The fact that 1 Para was there at all was the most dangerous move ever. And what the individual soldiers or whomever actually ordered them to start shooting (and here's the thing- we don't know if there ever was an order at all- there is no record of it in the transcripts) are despicable. But the British government did not decide going in that they were going to start murdering teenagers.

Oh, my brothers. Why do you have to be so inflammatory?

Cleverly masquerading as an adult.

Today I met with the guy I was hoping would be my thesis advisor to talk about possible topics and generally kill half an hour because yeah, I have nothing else to do like three tests next week and a term paper, no my schedule is totally open, thanks.

Anyway, we talked about topics and how this all would work and a little about John Paul II and yeah, then he starts talking about how I should probably finish the paper in March and hand it into the reading committee.

The what now?

Apparently, I need to pick two other faculty members to be on my committee and grade me. Two faculty members that can even be from another university.

(I'm 21. I work at a bookstore. Do you think I hang out with a lot of tenure-track people? Can I ask Dr. Crain? He likes me. Can I ask my mom? She has a doctorate. She likes me even more. Although she actually graded me harder when she was homeschooling me than Dr. Crain does now. Hmm. Maybe I'll stick with T-Money.)

Yeah...so then it occurs to me, do I have to defend this thing? But as soon as that sentence passes my lips I realize it sounds completely whiny. So I add, "Not that I would have a problem with that, I mean, it would be great experience! *big smile*" And he responds, "I'm not sure, but I think you will have to. But you seem like the kind of person who wouldn't have a problem with that."

Oh. Oh. Haha. You obviously don't know me very well, do you?

Three hours ago I literally had to lay my head down on my desk because I was worried about a paper grade. I have one outstanding grade currently and I'm really freaking out about it, and when I saw the professor in the hallway this afternoon it required more self-control that I'd like to admit to stop myself from throwing my sobbing self at him asking if he could like at least please just tell me it's an A. I don't need any more information than that. Blink once, I swear!

Yep. Totally wouldn't have a problem defending a thesis TWO YEARS before I had planned on it.

Meanwhile, the blog posts a year from now should be fantastic. So, you know, stay tuned for that.

And if you know anyone with a worthless Ph.D. who wants to read my thoughts on Vatican II and smile encouragingly at me after I crawl out of the fetal position in the corner, tell them to friend me on Facebook.

I still want an iPhone.

I had bad luck with alarm clocks. They tended to not actually alarm. This is a bad thing. I don't think I've ever actually missed anything, mostly because I'm pretty sure during my teenage years I didn't have anything to get up for (oh, wait, except that 7:00 AM Latin class with the Lutheran seminarians. Yeah. Great time for a 17-year-old Catholic girl. I was made to feel inferior and way more interesting than any of them at the same time!), but I dislike waking up in a panic because you know you should have been up an hour ago.

So when I got an iPod a few years ago, I got an iHome alarm clock base. It was lovely. It had the cute little docking station, because only plebeians recharge their iPods on the computer, pssh. It had a graduated alarm, the first beeping just lightly rustling you from slumber before getting really obnoxious later. And I could awake to any song I so programmed. (Never mind that I've only done this twice in the three years I've had it because it turns out that it's a hell of a lot easier to sleep through Josh Groban than incessant wailing ala a fire alarm.) It even has a little daylight savings time switch, so I don't even have to burden my pointer finger spinning the dial an hour forward or back.

(It also cost enough that it by rights should wake me with coffee and a muffin and maybe Johnny Depp telling me how much he likes watching me sleep...whatever, it was a gift.)

One teensy weensy little baby problem. After an hour of hitting the snooze button, the alarm just resets.

Now, I know what you're thinking. What the hell are you doing hitting the snooze button for an hour? Okay. A normal person might not do that. But I'm hardly normal. (Stop laughing.) I have a ton of stuff to theoretically do in the morning, and so I am supposed to get up at 4:30 during the week. This allows me to do laundry, clean the house, unload the dishwasher, do Pilates, and maybe even comb my hair before leaving with the Artist Formerly Known as the Boy at 7:10 7:00 (there was some issue with clarification this morning.) I know, right? Exciting.

Anyhoodles, this works about half the time usually. The other two days I end up cracking my eyes open at 4:30 and deciding hell, I'm single. Why shouldn't I be fat too? The frick would convince me to get on a treadmill at this hour? So I hit the snooze until a more appropriate hour like 5:30, which would still give me time to get the laundry in (it waits for no one.)

Except Apple decided that if I didn't want to get up at 4:30, apparently I don't want to get up at all. Now, I don't know about you, but if I've been hitting the snooze button for an hour? I really, really need to be awake. Like, maybe the alarm clock could get up and maybe throw something heavy at my head or something. The whole point of the snooze button is that you can hit it while you're still kind of asleep, and certainly not counting the number of times it has buzzed.

You dropped the ball on this one, Steves Jobs and Wozniak.

But I still really want an iPhone.

Because you obviously need more Facebook status updates.

I'm sending my credit card bill to my parents.

I was dumped at Wal-Mart this afternoon while my dad when grocery shopping. Right here, you can see this will be a problem. Dad is not good with the budgeting time. I would be lucky if I got home in enough time to get to school tomorrow morning. But no! He assured us that he would go quickly, and we would probably still be looking for jeans when he got back.

(YES I buy my jeans at Wal-Mart. Whatever. I'm poor and they're cute. My stylist to whom I'm paying good money to make me feel inferior told me they were cute.)

Ostensibly I was supposed to be helping the Empress find jeans. She left the store with no jeans. I left the store with jeans, a sweater, lipgloss, hair clips, a headband, pretty, comfy mary janes, South Beach snack bars, and a hair straightener.

The sweater was $10. And I refuse to pay anything over $10 for anything white because I am a klutz with bionic sweat. White doesn't last long in my world. (This is why I want a black wedding dress.)

(Well, that and the fact that I look like a whale in pictures and this is the one day of my life I will want pictures.)

(Too bad I'm one of the approximately three women remaining in the US who can legitimately wear a white dress.)

Daddy still wasn't done when we were finished in clothes. So we wandered to cosmetics. I tried to convince the Empress that she would look good in some imperial lipstick. She suggested that because she looked like a slob most of the time, everyone would know that she was wearing it. Then I realized that they stocked my shade of lipgloss! The shade that usually Walgreens only has because no one else stocks the entire range of Maybelline Super Lustrous Lipgloss. N00bs.

Then we wandered to hair stuff. Clip that held thick hair? In the cart arms (we forgot a cart). Pretty filigree headband for only two dollars? Arms.

Food was right across the aisle, and Colleen wanted to comparison shop the South Beach meal bars. They didn't have her kind, but I will be noshing on a lovely 120-calorie mocha bar tomorrow.

Still hadn't called.

We couldn't believe we hadn't looked at shoes yet, so we mosied on over there. And lo! They had adorable little almost flat mary janes that would be so cute for when I just don't feel like the four-inch heels.

Still no call.

I had a flash of brilliance! I have spent months and tons of money trying to find a hair straightener as good as Colleen's. The day she moved into the dorm and took it away from me was a dark, sad day. But they no longer stock it at Target (my white trash store of choice). Why not check here?

You saw this one coming, didn't you?

They had it! So obviously, need. Duh.

It's a damn good thing he called then, because I might have gotten new bedding.

Inappropriate

Johnny Depp voices a character on Spongebob Squarepants.

Please excuse me as I attempt to quell only the second-most inappropriate reaction I've had to a children's series.

My fourth son will be named "Widgery".

After James Chichester-Clark, Charles Pomeroy Stone, and Pliny Fisk.

They will be beaten so hard.

Oh, internets. I have spent the last three days immersed in tribunal reports, and criticisms of tribunal reports and eyewitness reports and grainy bootleg video footage of Bloody Sunday and I think it's starting to affect my brain. This morning I was reading a theory that someone proposed that there were actually two groups shooting- the 1 Para group that everybody knows, but also a military presence at Derry's Walls. There was never any mention of the second shooters (haha, conspiracy!) in the official tribunal or any other contemporary literature, but there is actually considerable agreement in some of the eyewitness statements, and the fact that three men were killed right next to each other, all with 45 degree downward trajectories makes it kind of attractive.

I got really excited and then I realized that I seriously needed to chill out and spent an hour watching grainy bootleg footage of Eleventh Hour instead.

After I wipe the drool off my keyboard, I need to get started on the fifty-page 1o-point font 1997 analysis of the original tribunal report. Thank you, Tony Blair. Without you commissioning this lovely report I would have nothing to do this Friday night! Thank God the current commission (oh yes, there's even one going on now) has gotten a teensy bit behind and won't release their report until 2010 at the earliest.

Just in time for thesis research!

A fantastaic night of television.

I mean, no, there's not Office becasue we really need five straight hours of ER retrospective. However, Eleventh Hour is finally back, if only for a week (*tear* I want the DVDs. Now, please.), and God knows I'd watch that guy read a phone book. (Which is actually sometimes better than the storylines sometimes!)

And Rory Gilmore is playing an intern on ER.

Oh, this is good.

CSI: Londonderry

Oh, internets. I spent today reading the report of the Bloody Sunday inquiry tribunal. The inquiry tribunal appointed by the British government. The same British government that signed the paychecks of the guys who opened fire on a bunch of teenagers who were running away.

I wouldn't call myself a nationalist. I tend to be nauseatingly middle-of-the-road and my whole conflict resolution theory (for any conflict, really) is sit down and shut the hell up I will show you real problems.

However. I read the report. Granted, it's only about 50 pages, but it took me a while because I had to stop occasionally a retch. I've watched all the BBC footage that the government has released. I read eyewitness reports compiled shortly after the event. And I must say that it seems pretty clear to me. None of the victims were shooting. No guns were found. No bombs were found. Some had gunpowder on their arms or around their wounds, but that would be pretty easily explained by BEING SHOT AT. And most of them were shot in the back, usually in a crouched position. Everyone agrees. Not a single civilian there (unionist or nationalist) said that they saw ANYONE with a gun.

Huh.

The conclusion of the report reads, "there is no reason to believe that the soldiers opened fire first". Really? Really? What, exactly, were all these teenage boys shooting at you with, huh? Because no guns were found on them. And there's videotape. Videotape with crowds running away and people screaming at the soldiers to stop shooting. Yet, it's all the Catholics' fault?

Of course it is. My God.

However, at one point the guy writing the report was talking about how there was no way to tell which bullet came from which rifle, and I totally thought, "CSI could do it. If Grissom had been Derry in 1972, this would have all worked out much better and maybe the IRA wouldn't have gained sympathy power."

Yep. Conflict resolution. Totally my thing.