Um, random info

So, did you know that duct tape is actually completely useless in repairing ducts? I was a little surprised upon learning this. I mean, why is it called duct tape if it's not actually used on ducts?

In case you're wondering where I'm getting such random information and why I'm pondering such thoughts, well I was listening to the podcast for this past weekend's "Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me" - have I mentioned how much I adore NPR? *smile*

Faux is in . . . and that goes for turkey too

As you may have noticed I've sort of disappeared again. It's the end of the quarter, enough said, right? But I couldn't miss out on sharing my Thanksgiving with all of you, because that is the spirit of the holiday is it not? I had intended to spend Turkey Day at home writing a paper, not because I'm a huge procrastinating nerd (is that contradictory?) but because I was scheduled to work at the yarn shop for 3 days of the holiday. So I really needed to get work done. Well, as usually happens in my life, there was a change of plans and I ended up hosting Thanksgiving for a few friends whose original Thanksgiving plans had fallen through.

We were going with a vegetarian menu for the evening including some 'raw food' (as in the raw food movement) dishes. Here's what we had:
Wheat berry salad
Wild rice salad
Roasted vegetables
Faux 'raw food' turkey
Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) soup
Hawaiian rolls
'Raw' sweet potato pie

Sound tasty? Definitely not your average Thanksgiving spread. It was delightful. I must admit that the faux turkey may not be my first choice for Thanksgiving dinner entree but it wasn't all bad. It was a combination of seeds, nuts, herbs, and celery blended together and then formed (very artistically I might add by dinner guests) into a turkey shape. The way it tasted reminded me of Mediterranean salads, except thrown into a blender. And I would probably have eaten even if it hadn't been the main dish for dinner but the idea of it being faux turkey sort of distracted from the whole eating experience.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving . . .

And now back to writing my paper because as you might have guessed this post was a little jaunt down that oh so tempting road of procrastination.

Bittersweet fruit for a bittersweet time

A brief moment of the Cranberries on the radio this afternoon made me desperately want to listen to them. So, now I'm finally at home sitting at my desk listening to Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? I know that I've said it time and again but there is a certain special quality to music. It can transport you through time and make you feel as though you're reliving moments of your life. The Cranberries take me back to being a teenager . . . all the bittersweet memories of teenage heartache and heartbreak. Somehow it's both exhilarating and heart-wrenching to recall those feelings. Oh, to be a teenager again . . . to have those cares and concerns. I suppose I can only say that though because I was a relatively happy adolescent. I know there are plenty people who were unhappy adolescents and would never wish to return to that time in their lives. It's a scarring time for all of us, though in vastly different ways.

Though I won't bore you with the memories associated with them, I'll tell you that my particular favorites on the disc include "Sunday", "Linger", and "How." They are attached to both immensely fun and happy memories and blisteringly painful ones.

Into the night

The other night I was waiting at the bus stop on campus regretting the fact that I had stayed so late since it's not fun to wait for the bus in the damp cold darkness. There was a sudden gust of wind and the leaves in the tree rustled so loudly that I looked up to see a burst of leaves in the wind backlit by the orange street lamp. Against the deep navy sky they looked like flakes of gold pirouetting through the air. It was so beautiful. And in that moment I couldn't remember why I didn't like the darkness and the night. We only fear the night because of the things that we humans have created and infused in it - violence, crime, heartbreak. Without those things the night is just another time of day, a time when the world feels smaller, cozier, and intimate.

The darkness brings the magic hour where illusions seem more real and time can't be trusted to tell the truth. I used to imagine the night as the softest embrace of the darkest velvet. In the darkness I can lie in the grass and listen to the tree frogs and crickets sing as the stars inch across the sky. In the darkness I can drive through the cornfields to watch the harvest moon creep along the horizon. In the darkness I can watch the snowflakes drift upwards in the air, glowing in the moonlight.

And since related things always seem to happen as if by chance at the same time, I came across this poem on the bus a day or so later. Another sentiment for the darkness and the night. In my heart of hearts I love the darkness and the night.

This is why I'm really in grad school

Hhhmm . . . after my earlier post I feel the need to reassure people that I really do enjoy academia. Mostly it's the little things I find highly entertaining. Such as the story about the Taisho Emperor (who was to be honest probably a couple cans short of a six pack in the brains department, proving that the Japanese royals could make them just as inbred as the Europeans) and the incident in which he went to a Diet session to deliver a proclamation. Instead of reading the proclamation he stood looking around for a couple of minutes and then proceeded to roll the proclamation up into a telescope and peered through it at the Diet members, no doubt accompanied by a "Why, helloooo there." Ah, gotta love the crazies.

Yes, the grass is always greener . . .

So, now that I'm overwhelmed with work I think longingly of the days when I actually had free time, when I could come home at the end of the day and not have homework to do or tests to study for. But I know that back then I thought longingly of being in school, doing research, and having witty debates in class . . . well I assume I did or I wouldn't be back in school now, would I? So, yes the grass is always greener . . . at some point someone is going to have to incorporate astro-turf into that sentiment.

Yes, so I'm back from the land of non-blogging. And as I've already mentioned I'm a little overwhelmed with work. I'm not entirely sure how that happened, one day I was pretty much on top of everything and then the next day everything had gone to pot. I'm decisively behind in 2 of my 3 classes. And on top of my classes I'm still working 3 jobs . . . don't ask how that happened. I know I swore that off after Spring Quarter but . . . well I'm a pushover and get suckered into things. Today is a perfect instance of my pushover-ness - as part of a class project I've been setting up an interview with a contact at the Japanese Consulate. Part of the assignment is to record the conversation so that my instructor can listen to it afterwards. Well, of course, the Consulate has a no recording policy so I can't record the interview but I only found this out yesterday. So, I'm asking both instructor and interviewee what can be done about this situation . . . apparently a whole lot of nothing! So, now I'm going to go do an interview that no longer counts as part of the assignment since it's not recorded all because I feel guilty about canceling the interview I set up. And all when I have precious little time to be doing any of these things . . . pooh.

On the up side, it's Wednesday which means the week is half over. And yesterday I saw the public library's bookmobile and that made me smile - still smile actually. I mean, it's a truncated school bus with giant cartoon animals painted on the outside, how can it not make you smile?

Computers = vegetables, yes?

I'm feeling particularly computer illiterate at the moment - I can't sign-on to my own wifi network . . . pooh. So, how am I blogging then? Yes, a very good question. Well, let's be honest, I'm jacking my neighbor's wifi. I don't even know which neighbor . . . I can't decide if that's better or worse. But really does it make me a bad person if I'm taking what they haven't bothered to password protect? I hardly think so . . . but maybe my saying/thinking that is proof in itself that I am a bad person. Fuzzy moral ground.

Anyway, at this moment I wish I were tech savvy enough to figure out my computer issues but unfortunately I don't even know how to properly verbalize my problem to do an on-line search. How is it that computers and the internet which are supposed to make you more knowledgeable (even if it is mostly about ridiculous and inane issues) only succeeds in making me feel like a big potato-head?

Why hello there . . .

Posts have been few and far between this summer and I apologize for that. I had every intention of being an avid blogger during the summer but . . . well, clearly that hasn't happened. Between the move, work, the lack of internet at my place, and kicking back in general I haven't been up to a whole lot. I have however turned into a knitting superstar. The lack of internet and television at my apartment means that I spend a lot of evenings reading or watching movies on my laptop and knitting. I've gotten through a pair of fingerless gloves, a hat, a skirt, a pair of socks, and I'm in the midst of a bag. All of that in the past 2 weeks, isn't that a little superstar-ish? I feel like I'm in training for the Knitting Olympics.

At the moment I'm in a coffee shop surfing the web but also doing some work on-line. It's a nice coffee shop and I enjoy being here but the music is so loud I feel like I can barely hear myself think. On one hand it does drown out the conversations of the people at tables nearby but I definitely couldn't listen to my own music if I wanted to . . . too much clashing and competing noise. Maybe I should bring earplugs instead of earphones next time. I must admit though that it is very fun to people watch.

In the foreground of my lovely view of Mt Rainier from the living room is a dying (or perhaps already dead) cedar tree. There are a pair of hummingbirds that like to zoom about the top of it. I suspect that they have a nest there but I can't see it. Every once in a while I'll catch a glimpse of them sitting on a branch before they start zooming about and it strikes me as odd. I mean obviously they should be able to perch there but whenever you see them hovering you don't see their legs so I start to think of them as being without legs. Poor things, I've mentally turned them into amputees. Anyway, that's my random though for the day.

August in Seattle

August in Seattle ushers in the season of blackberries. They can be found everywhere, lining roads and sidewalks. The Burke-Gilman Trail is lined with an especially prolific population of blackberry bushes. There is nothing more enjoyable than going for a leisurely stroll along the trail, stopping here and there for a snack of freshly picked berries. Equally enjoyable is watching other people stop to munch on berries. Everyone from serious cyclists, decked out in their spandex gear standing astride their bikes reaching for a cluster of berries, to businessmen in suits and ties out on their lunch break, gingerly leaning over the bushes to pick berries without getting their apparel stained or snagged by the bushes, can be seen along the trail.

For myself, August has brought a new apartment and soon a new roommate. The moving process was spread out over several days but now it is finally finished and I'm settled (more or less) in my new apartment, although not in my own room since someone is still living in it. To settle into my own room I'll have to wait a couple more weeks. Actually to do any unpacking at all I'll have to wait a couple more weeks. Until then I'm living out of luggage and boxes, which I should be used to by now with all the traveling I do but somehow it's different. When you only have one piece of luggage with a limited number of things in it you can resolve yourself to those items, but when you have all of your belongings in luggage with you and theoretically available to you it is intensely frustrating because really they're not available to you unless you know exactly where you've packed everything - which I don't. It takes me 20 minutes to find any one piece of clothing I'd like to wear and really that's not a very efficient way of getting dressed. I should really just content myself with what is most easily accessible but what's the point of having your entire wardrobe packed and within reach if you can't wear it?

On the upside my new apartment has a fantastic view of Mt Rainier from the living room, the balcony, and my bedroom - I'm thrilled!

Time comes in many forms

Why is it that when I have all the time in the world to blog I can't bring myself to do so? I think about posting but I never sit myself down to actually do it . . . strange.

So, what is new in life lately . . . knitting projects, moving to a new apartment, that's about it. Not too exciting. Actually I just celebrated my birthday over the weekend which was if not exciting at least pleasant. I went to a Japanese style bar called Wann with the girls from school for yummy drinks and tasty snacks that were nostalgic of Japan. I had a Cassis Orange, it's classified as an izakaya (a type of Japanese bar) classic beverage and although I've never had one at an izakaya before, just at normal bars, it is indeed a very typically Japanese girly drink and made me feel right at home. We ordered several of their appetizer items but my favorites were probably the tatsutaage, marinaded deep fried chicken, and the Brie cheese tempura with a raspberry soy sauce dipping sauce - oh so delicious! On a side note, the bartender was really cute. In the following days I also got taken to brunch - one of my favorite meals - and to dinner by various other friends. So, basically I had a weekend of eating and since I love all things food related that was quite alright by me.

I won't tell you how old I am after this birthday but in a conversation with my friend Rena I was told that I can now officially be said to be pushing 30. I don't think I like that, not that I have anything against being 30, but it's just that I still feel like I'm very much in my mid-20s. Age is really just a number though and I should pay it no heed.

Other things . . . I now have in my possession the final book in the Harry Potter series. I'm both excited and sad about it. I'm eager to read about the continuing adventures of Harry and his friends but it's sad knowing that this is the last book and that there will be no more after it. The same sadness has accompanied the last volume of other series too, such as the Anne of Green Gables books, The Chronicles of Narnia, the adventures of the Swallows and Amazons, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Obviously I can read the books again but I'll never have the same feeling as the first time I read them, that feeling of anticipation, of slowly pushing forward line by line into the yet unknown realm of fiction. I can't bring myself to start reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows just yet. It'll sit on my bedside table for a little while longer while I savor this feeling of ending and resolve myself to it.

And on that note of ending, a goodnight to you all.

Apologies

It's been so long since I posted. Have no fear, I survived my final exam week and completed my papers, although not in an entirely timely manner . . . So, what have I been doing the past 3 weeks if all my school work has been completed? Well, work at the yarn shop has been keeping me pretty busy . . . daydreaming of all the knitting projects that I now almost have time for. I was also on a short trip back to Michigan attending a family wedding. So pretty, so lovely. And now I'm back in Seattle, the days since my return have been so eventful. Yesterday I went to a Mariners game (such fun!) and today I went to a movie after work! Am I spoiling myself? Perhaps, but don't we all need to be a little spoiled every now and again?

Oh dear . . .

I've really done it this time. Paper due tomorrow, nowhere near done . . . oh pooh. What to do, what to do. How did my procrastination get this bad? Not even that, I feel like my paper writing skills in general have decreased exponentially. It's as though that portion of my brain, the portion with paper writing knowledge stored away in it, took a terrible tumble and is now all bent out of shape past recognition. Will I pull an all-nighter? Ugh. I so don't want to but what else can I do . . .

I can't even stress eat because there isn't any food around. I've been so busy I haven't had time to go grocery shopping. This is my life? How pathetic and sad.

I'm still here

I'm just not posting because I am yet again caught in the midst of paper writing hell, well perhaps hell is an exaggeration . . . for now. It's finals week and I have a paper to write and after tomorrow evening will also have exams to grade. I've already done my usual share of procrastinating so now I'm buckling down to work . . . a rare occurrence I know *smile*

I'll be back soon with lots more time to post once classes are over with for the summer. And I promise I'll have lovely and enthralling things to say . . . probably not but at least more amusing than whining about paper writing, right?

For now let me leave you with this, after a week of gloriously warm and sunny days we've had a day or so of rain. Rain that was completely satisfactory in every way. There were big droplets of rain that I could hear hitting the bamboo leaves outside the window as I read and the thunder was rumbling in the distance. Perfection.

Anticipating summer

Today was just beautiful. Blue skies without a cloud to be seen and temps in the low 80s. The faint scent of flowers on the gentle breeze blowing across campus. Everyone is sitting out on the lush green grass of the quad reading or talking. On my way to class this morning I ran into the girls and we went for bubble tea (actually I was skipping out on the errands I was supposed to be running before class but whatever, I never just run into the girls on campus so it was a little treat). Then a grueling six hours of class later, I finally get outside again and it's still lovely. I love that days are so long in the summer. But the weather being so nice is going to make these last two weeks of school really hard, longing to be lazy in the sun while needing to get lots of work done. Oh how I long for summer break . . .

Hello Star Wars

So, just a random note to say that I keep seeing this kid walking around campus in full Stormtrooper get up. Actually I didn't know it was a kid necessarily except for the fact that I saw him without his head/helmet on today. The nice and yet bizarre thing about college campuses is that you can be wearing and doing just about anything and people won't give you a second glance. So, Stormtrooper around campus is seemingly totally normal. Of course, it's not really normal but that's besides the point. What I want to know is why anyone would decide to walk around in costume for no apparent reason? Especially in the weather we've been having lately, it's not very costume conducive. It was pouring rain the first couple times I saw him and today it was too warm to be comfortable in Stormtrooper gear . . . probably why he took off the helmet. I guess I should give him props for his dedication to costume wearing . . . a round of applause for the Stormtrooper?

Yes, it's only Tuesday

How is it still only Tuesday?! I feel like I'm coming off a week of Thursdays that never amount to a Friday! There is too much work and too little time . . . I'm drowning in work. Even as I type that though I am in fact procrastinating, oh pooh. I have an entire book to read before tomorrow morning and numerous other articles that need to be read but am I doing any of those things? Of course not. However in the past 5 hours since I got out of class, when I should have been reading, I got all of these things done:

1. Bought my ticket back to Michigan in June
2. Paid 2 bills
3. Made and ate dinner
4. Completed my remaining financial aid paperwork
5. Wrote 2 important e-mails to professors that I'd been putting off for the past week
6. And last but not least my Japanese homework (the most student-like activity and I almost forgot to put it on the list!)

And now it's time to go to bed.

To bed to bed said Sleepyhead,

Let's wait a while said Slow,

Put on the pan said Greedy Nan,

Let's sup before we go.

My grandmother used to say that to me at bedtime when I was a kid and so I say it to you now . . . to bed to bed . . .

Where will you be in 10 years?

Usually I'm quite unconcerned with age. I take it in stride that most people think that I'm several years (at times even a decade) younger than I actually am. Other peoples' age doesn't really seem an issue to me either as I have friends across the spectrum. But today I did a bit of wigging out over age, although I guess really it was more about the passage of time than age to be precise. It was a rather foolish and embarrassing freak out and in retrospect completely unnecessary but that's usually the point of wigging out, isn't it?

Why the wigging out? Well, next year is my 10 year high school reunion. In preparation for this reunion people have started to get in touch and such over the internet. This morning I had a particularly dense onslaught of internet contact with former classmates and it sort of pushed me over the edge. I've stayed in touch with an array of friends from that time but there are people that I haven't heard from or seen in quite a while. And the pictures that I see now of them and the things that they have to say about their current lives is both uplifting and bizarre.

I realize that I've progressed down a rather different path in life compared to many of them but I hadn't expected their current lives to be so alien from my own. Some are married, and some have kids, neither of which is surprising at our age but they've all aged. That really doesn't clarify anything does it? I guess what I mean to say is that they look grown up, in a way that I don't think I am. Plus there is a certain quality to memories from that adolescent time in life, as though they will always remain unchanged and in technicolor and therefore so will the people in those memories.

So many times I'm surprised by life and I guess this is no exception. When I was in high school I don't think I considered very seriously where I would be in 10 years and perhaps that is why it catches me so off guard to find that life has progressed. Although had I imagined it that would not have necessarily made me more prepared, would it? Food for thought . . .

It's all gone

Yes, it's all gone. I've chopped off my hair. The stylist at the chair next to mine came back half way through the cut looked at the hair on the floor, then at the hair still on my head, and said, "I missed the massacre!" I would prefer to call it a liberation but to each their own. It was 9 inches from my neck hairline (we measured to see if it was long enough to donate but I was an inch shy) and it all got cut off. My head feels light and airy, and free! I haven't had my hair this short, above my chin, in nearly two years and I must admit that I'm enjoying it (well at least the 2 hours since I've gotten it cut). It'll definitely be interesting to see the reactions I'll get tomorrow at work and on Monday at school. People had noticed the difference between me wearing my long hair up (a habit to get it out of the way) and down, and kept asking if I'd gotten it cut etc. What will they say when I actually get it cut, and significantly too . . .

In other news, guilty yarn purchases . . . Weaving Works was having their annual 4 day Mother's Day Sale. I had to stop in and look around. I ended up getting some yarn to knit Anna a birthday hat and some lovely Colinette Tagliatelli merino tape to knit myself a scarf (I knit one for a friend and it was so lovely I couldn't resist!). Only 3 skeins though, I was quite proud of myself. Tomorrow I'll be working at the Mother's Day Sale at Acorn Street. I've heard that it gets a little crazy but I'm looking forward to seeing all the pretty yarn on sale . . . must exert maximum amount of self restraint and not buy tons and tons of yarn.

Bunnies make me happy

I should be studying for an exam, therefore I am procrastinating and posting . . .
Just a little something that made me laugh. I was using a Japanese to English translation website a while back and when I entered the address for a certain website to be translated, I ended up on a screen with this image:


I burst out laughing, it was so unexpected and so silly. I tried to get back to the same page again but apparently I could only mis-type the web address once. But now that I've found it again, I'd like to share it with all of you because as we all know sharing is caring.

I'm sick therefore you failed your exam, not really though . . .

Being sick is the worst. I don't know what I had but I was not a happy camper yesterday. It started in the wee morning hours and lasted all day . . . and a little today too. Completely tense muscles, body temperature alternating between freezing and feverish, and all the while a pounding headache, it made for a very miserable ol' me. But the worst of it was that even when I was passed out from exhaustion I was sick in my dream too! In my dream I was an assassin and I was on a mission with my assassin buddies but because I was sick and couldn't keep up they kept on dragging me here and there and then sticking me in prickly bushes when I needed to be hidden. So unfortunate . . . and so painful. I don't know how we were assassins because really we didn't seem to have a target and were just running around a giant wilderness where other people seemed to be having a pleasant barbecue but that's dreaming for ya.

Now that I'm feeling better though, it's back to the daily grind. I have to catch up on all the work I missed while I slept yesterday. This entails grading papers . . . massive amounts of papers. Grading makes me feel like an over educated elitist . . . or maybe the kids in the class really are just painfully simple. If you're in the class I apologize, I'm sure if you have the sense to find this blog and realize who I am you're not in the portion of the class that did abysmally on the exam. But what can I say when about a third of the class didn't even answer the essay question that was posed and the other third couldn't support their argument with a shred of evidence from lecture . . . so sad, but perhaps my expectations are just too high. Or maybe being sick is making me crotchety and hence a crotchety grader.