Friday, December 22, 2006

all i want for christmas is

1. design/DIY/martha magazine subscriptions galore!



2. a grown-up version of my senior year of high school homecoming dress from j.crew



3. to snazz up my laptop from schtickers.com

4. the cutest stationery, letters, and calendars from elsewares.com



5. the design magazine from martha



6. a really good style magainze



7. fantastic wall art from raredevice.net



8. reprodepot fabrics and a how-to-sew-great-skirts book!





really, this is next year's christmas list. i already sent in my this year's list of 2 things in november, which included "socks" and one other thing that i cannot remember for the life of me. it's easy to search for good gifts (for yourself and others) when you are DONE WITH SCHOOL FOREVER. or at least, a few weeks.

yesterday was my last final and our adorable apartment gift exchange and smoothie party. it was a christmas- tropical style. sara gave us each a rock, dirty spoon, and used battery because she didn't have time to get "real" presents. we were all touched by the thought. my other presents were "the devil wears prada" DVD (which we watched immediately after our last finals to celebrate) and a stapler with multi-colored staples!!! (sort of an "inside joke")

right now i am off to meet the lovely erin and then i will beat MYST with scott and decorate our christmas cookies with mum/kate and hang out with the cousins. really, all i am worried about at this point is whether or not my family still has their MVP membership at hollywood.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

the greatest procastination

i am so obsessed with this american life and their FREE podcasts. today i spent the majority of the day sitting wrapped in blankets with hot chocolate listening to TAL episodes, browsing YouTube, and reading the most popular nytimes articles, mostly movie reviews. it felt so great to drop studying and simply get caught up on life, you know?

today i give myself an A on life.

sing me to sleep

tonight after a total of six finals, the whole apartment sat down to enjoy the three-hour long season finale of survivor (of course taped from sunday night)! all in all, it was pretty disappointing to see yul the cute korean boy win over ozzy the cute mexican boy. the thing is, yul continually spouted about this great minority representation and changing stereotypes, but uh, i'm pretty sure by the end of this 13th "racially segregated" season my previous stereotypes regarding asian/mexican/african-americans and white people/caucasians/whatever is PC nowadays were pretty much bolstered. oh reality television, what are we going to do with you?

lately i have barely had any time to think. these 3am moments of alert consciousness are a blessing.
the only song i've been listening to lately is "sleep" by the smiths. tonight i've been listening to it on repeat for about... let's see... 25 plays. it is just perfect anytime of the day and makes me think of everything "the perks of being a wallflower" style. speaking of winter break (not really), AHH YAY. but really, i can't wait to find/read the copy of "feast of love" by charles baxter that erin lent me because i overheard some girls talking about how it is so great today and remembered that i have her copy. i think? i will also finally conquer "catch-22" and finish "a curious incident in the nighttime dog" or something like that, oh you know, that one book that everyone always raves about that i've started about 20 different times but never read all the way through. i also just ordered " i, rigoberta menchu: an indian woman in guatemala" to read before guatemala. i should also make a winter break movie list soon... even inbetween the office season 1, LOST season 2, and 24 season 5 (now out on DVD), there will be movies.

okay, this song has gotten to me. at this point, i better allow my body to do what it wants- dive into my covers and sleep for 9 hours straight. good night.

Monday, December 18, 2006

to do list:

get 112% on tonight's final
outline religious studies notes
read new material + Bush speeches
finish 2-pt perspective day drawing and magazine image with colored pencil
start/finish 2-pt perspective night drawing
memorize art history images (title, artist, date) and terms
start/finish 2 art history essays

Friday, December 15, 2006

bed

i hate the lady on CNN that tries to sell you gold.
i love mannheim steamroller christmas music.

so even though it was forever ago, i am going to recap the last weekend because it was a pretty damn good time and also because i do not feel like going to sleep yet. ah, the freeing finals schedule has begun.

sara and i hit the road promptly at 2:45pm with her two cassette tapes (QUEEN and paul simon) and penguin goldfish snacks in hand
beautiful, record-breaking drive of 4:08 hours
arrival in ames a bit sleepy and ill
immediately greeted at the door by scott who presents me with a batch of FRESH out of the oven chocolate chip cookies and a sparkling clean house, what a guy
putzing and "oooing/aahing" over the visibility of his bedroom floor
saw "the holiday" (we both rated it an 8.5 out of 10)
sleep in so so late
shopping for scott
amazing thai restaurant
cocktail party
running outside
sleeping in dress
pillow talk
wake up & eat famous house BBC pancakes
watch LOST
travel back home with sara following a white molester van with the license plate WIGGLES and grumble about finals

i got a bit distracted toward the end...

Thursday, December 14, 2006

awake is the new sleep

right now i am eating my dinner. for the past few days, this has pretty much been the norm. i need to put an end to this vicious cycle of work all day and forget dinner > exhaustion (usually the good kind) and collapsing into bed > too starving to sleep > make delicious dinner meal at approximately 1 o'clock in the morning > fall asleep an hour later as happy as a clam > sleep in past alarm the next morning > arrive late to exams > repeat.

i have another cold. i don't know how i do it but i do. instead of making me all sniffly and deaf, today it made my sense of smell hypersensitive. all day i was paranoid that my fingers smelled terribly of newspaper ink and i was peeved/got a home-y feeling when anyone smelled the least bit like onions.

this is a lame recollection of a few very exciting days because... i have no excuse. i am pooped. come curl up and listen to "porcelain" with me.

Thursday, December 7, 2006

listening to vienna teng

i just learned that my sketching & rendering professor is the official consultant of william mcdonough, who is basically the inventor of green design! wow, that man is a genius! referring to both men, but specifically, my professor who makes us homemade dumplings, constantly states his philosophy of "crisis is opportunity" and who will take us to china with him! once again, wow.

okay, it's 10 o'clock and i am so ready for bed. the last few days i was so busy being super-productive that i forgot my robotic powers would soon end in me crashing (tonight) with dehydration headaches and worsened asthma. what sounds good? a big glass of water, my new XL sweatshirt, the contacts out, and putzing around my room, digging up old letters. oh yes.

most people are "so glad" about this semester ending. while i agree that i'd love to get the heck out of the finals period, i am disappointed to leave especially my small classes, the ones with the 15 or so people that i've actually gotten to know pretty well. the idea of new semesters with a whole new set of people to meet or ignore makes me question the ebb and flow of relationships over a lifetime, even though i know in the back of my mind that it's always worth it.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

ten degrees!

things are going swimmingly lately. i wish i had the personality to say "swimmingly" aloud in sentences, but alas, i will always be a thumbs-up girls. i don't know how in the world i acquired such a dorky habit.

a few notably great things within the past couple days:
1. got the job! oh, so happy.
i have not been accepted for a job since hollywood and now i feel "oh-so-worthy" of corporate america (or this time, a kick-ass GUTS counseling position) once again.
2. made plans to meet erin in paris at an authentic panera! the best idea, ever.
3.
finally being able to call my apartment a real home... like when you're looking for something obscure like a giant paperclip and you tell yourself "i know we have one somewhere" and when you can't find one, yelling to everyone else to look for this one giant paperclip that "i know we have." that is pretty much home to me.
4. mooooooovies and gingerbread cookies and collapsing into bed every single night

so i've seen lots of movies lately, but most notably, last night i saw "jesus camp" after much aniticipation, waiting, and hassle because of the huge unexpected crowds that turned up to see it.
immediately after seeing the previews sometime ago, i was intrigued. last night after seeing it, i ranted vehemently to scott (poor boy) for too long and too sporodically, so now i'm going to attempt to think in actual sentences. on one hand, this film made me sick to my stomach and literally cringe with its footage of extreme Evangelical (at least in the film) close-mindedness. it made me more terrified than ever to think that this one powerful (and rapidly growing) group of people make it their goal to someday run the government and abolish the separation of church and state and who knows what the hell else. like a good documentary, this film made me sincerely evaluate my current beliefs but did not do so in a very classy way. so, on the other hand, after seeing this in a theater full of liberals i'd classify this film as a comedy, a hilarious comedy. honestly, it was difficult not to laugh and scoff at everything while spurred on by the crowds and seeing the ridiculous extremes that the film depicted. i mean, these specific Evangelical pastors admit and practice taking advantage of masses of innocent, "most impressionable" kids by indoctrinating (i believe brainwash is an approriate term) them with these radical ideas that they know nothing about.

to play devil's advocate, the filmmakers sucked and were unfair, to say the least. the main problem is that the filmmakers (who are not Evangelical) explicitly state their honest and objective intent when you'd have to be blind and deaf and dumb not to notice the mockery made of Evangelicals and extremist religions in general.
it's just ironic... the narrow-minded filmmakers mocking the Christians for being narrow-minded. the film is full of subtle ironies and misrepresentations, which makes me lose respect for it rather than support it. in summary, it's cut and dry- a non-Evangelical's viewpoint of Evangelical Christianity.

Sunday, December 3, 2006

saint teresa

tonight my mother called me with some great great news. apparently, my family is kidnapping me for spring break and TAKING ME TO PARIS WITH THEM! i am excited beyond belief to drink wine in front of the effiel tower, dress like a snob, visit the famous basement monet exhibit, munch on gourmet brie and baguettes, and pretend to be the great amelie.

WOW, sometimes life is too exciting. soon i will start preparing our tacos for taco night + amazing race (only 4 teams left!) and then i will start researching all things parisian.