EXPLODES

moby dick

Tue, 20 May 2008 00:41:23 GMT

http://www.jtbullitt.com/objects/070406-moby.html

Oh my goodness. Having hours of no work is amazing, but perhaps unhealthy... It all started with the google search 'moby dick t shirts'

SUN!!

Thu, 15 May 2008 23:42:56 GMT

Yay Sun!!!!!!! I feel I must declare myself a sun worshiper. It makes me so happy. As does the fact that when we have my education seminar outside the prof passes around spf 45 sunscreen :) I have hardly ever worn shorts since middle school--the are not terribly practical at the barn--and so I've lost the comfort level I once had in them. Therefore I wore shorts today because it was hot and sunny and they were comfy. :P I feel silly, but it is fun.

Time this term seems even more skewed than usual. It is already the end of seventh week! (There are ten weeks in a Carleton term, but tenth week only has classes through Wednesday as Thursday and Friday are reading days.) Saturday night is the Whoa! show--Whoa! being the hip-hop dance group on campus--and since in my senioritis insanity decided to join the CC Breakers (the breakdancing club) I am going to be performing with them as one of the opening acts for Whoa! This is really exciting, but making me rather nervous as I've hardly practiced with them and am not terribly good at getting the style/attitude quite right. It will be a lot of fun though. And hilarious.

crazy

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:02:04 GMT

I am in the Carleton Bubble. Life is crazy. I am trying to do too many things, as always.

But at the moment I am very happy about breaking club--which is breakdancing, but apparently people who know what they are talking about call it breaking. Anyway. I found out that we have a breaking club this term and tonight was my second practice with them because for some reason I got off the mailing list even though I was on it for about three days and the guy in charge didn't change anything.

Anyway, some of the stuff is hard and I don't do some stuff because it puts too much pressure on your wrists and I'm not going there. But today we did cartwheel-y things that were really fun and I could totally do on my first try, which was awesome. Yeah. And I've just about quite pretending that I'm going to try to talk myself out of performing with them. The guy in charge is just starting to get the choreography going, but I think I have to say one way or another by the next practice on Saturday. But I'll probably just tell him I want to do it in class tomorrow.

He is in my Moving Anatomy class, as is one of the other guys. I love that class so much. It is the most amazing thing ever.

Anyway, I'm distracted and talking on aim. Good night.

karate! and home!

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:59:53 GMT

Tuesday was the nerve-wracking karate test. But I passed!! And so did Ashely!! She she is now a color! Yay orange! And I made it over the last test before I go for black in the spring. I feel like this is cutting it just a touch close. Which is why I'm going to do a lot over break. I drove home today. It was a beautiful day, so a nice drive.

[the ad on the right as I'm writing this is kinda creeping me out...]

Anyway. I'm home and ready to embrace the home schedule and go to bed before midnight [shocked face].

I'm so happy to be somewhere it actually gets dark. And i

the dangers of the internet...

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:21:47 GMT

My physics prof keeps a blog and the link to it is in his emails. I happen to really like this prof, so I decided to read it. And I found myself in it. In a post entitled "Small big rewards" about two good things that happened on a Friday after a tiring week towards the beginning of term. The first was a student from his quantum class thanking him and the second was me showing up randomly in his office after class testing out my ideas about how Newton's Third Law (equal and opposite force pairs) works.

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 06:17:01 GMT

It is interesting how a single assignment and very short assessment can illuminate large patterns in life.

Today I gave a presentation about Troilus and Cressida in my Shakespeare class. Because I've had so much trouble focusing lately, I ended up being awake until 5AM trying to get my presentation to a point where it wasn't just me rambling on about a bunch of interesting, but unrelated things. I didn't quite succeed in that part. My 20 minutes was most assuredly closer to 30 and I didn't get close to putting in everything I had. There were just so many connections and so many things to look at... However, other than that, it was pretty awesome. Three out of the nine other students told me that it was good and while I was giving it I could see people being both interested and persuaded. So that was pretty awesome. Pierre's short assessment was it was interesting, insightful, and only short of perfect because I lacked the control over the material to keep it in my time frame. You just don't bring four hours of material to a twenty minute presentation.

This is one of the problems I have with papers--I have a hard time narrowing down to a nice tight thesis and I also am really bad at editing my own papers...

- - - -

I had more ideas earlier, but now it is going on midnight and I don't remember. Tonight I went to both karate and latin dance club, which is why I didn't get home until after eleven and am only now finally going to bed at what will be about a quarter after twelve. Tomorrow is Friday and ninth week--no convo--so I don't have to be anywhere until noon. Craziness.

The trouble is that now I know I have twelve hours before anything has to happen. Though I am much happier as a morning person, I am not immune to the temptations of the night--especially when all the roommates who are home are asleep, or at least have the lights off. I am a little unwilling to have my "vacation" end. Though it is Friday and therefore there are fewer things I must deal with, I still need to use my time wisely. I think it will be much easier after taking tonight off though. I am no longer hyperventilating. This is exciting :P

Shakespeare

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:20:49 GMT

Life is crazy as turning Shakespeare into a tango is taking over my brain. I'm going to juxtapose Antony and Cleopatra to Troilus and Cressida. Both men become "effeminate" because they become overly concerned with the women, but their relationships (and the two women) are completely different. Cressida lives in a world where once something it won, it loses its value--so here story is about playing hard to get for as long as you can and then moving on to the next thing. Cleopatra's world is quite different. She is Antony's downfall because the more you have from her the more you want.

For the recitation yesterday, I memorized one of Cressida's soliloquies. I am amused because even though it is over, when I'm not paying attention, my brain starts practicing it:

Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice,
He offers in another's enterprise.
But more in Troilus thousandfold I see,
Than in the glass of Pander's praise may be.
Yet I hold off. Women are angels, wooing.
Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.
That she belov'd knows naught that knows not this,
Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is.
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore, this maxim out of love I teach:
Achievement is command, ungain'd beseech.
Then, though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

I picked it, partly because it was fun to do, but mostly because I think it really explains the way her world works as well as why she does what she does throughout the play.

But it is a beautiful morning and so I'm going to go for a walk with the bouncing beast.

I <3 Dancing!!

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 16:28:58 GMT

I am still giddy from Midwinter Ball last night. I got tipsy from twirling. Now I'm trying to focus on As You Like It, which is such a fun play and amazing and all that. But I keep wanting to dance. Especially when I read a cool part in the book that I'm using to help me write the paper. It is really awesome--people who have played different characters in different plays write about the way the production they were a part of worked and interpreted the characters. The essay I'm using to help me is by two women who played Rosalind and Celia in As You Like It. I am going to write about Celia, I think. Even as being giddy distracts me from my work, it makes it all that much more exciting, because Shakespeare is almost as awesome as dancing, in a different way.

So off I go, back to giddily giggling over my Shakespeare homework.

It has begun

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 19:17:41 GMT

So Thursday was the first day of classes and working and all that jazz. I work at the bookstore and we got these new fancy registers with touch-screens and a couple glitches. They are pretty cool though. My Tuesday/Thursday class is Shakespeare II, which is going to be AMAZING, but A LOT of work. We get to learn stuff like, printing and bookbinding as it was done in Shakespeare's time, which is way sweet. The only downside is that all of that will take place outside of class in addition to all our reading. This prof takes 300-level seriously. But he is an awesome lecturer and seems to be both hilarious and amazing, so it is all good. Yesterday I went to convo with Lauren (Jane Brody was the speaker), worked at the bookstore and then went to my class Revolutions in Physics (Physics without a lab). Again, the prof seems to be pretty sweet. I did the first bit of my homework for Monday this morning and the textbook actually doesn't seem too bad, so that is a nice bonus.

I had a mild cold starting on Wednesday, but it is mostly gone. Hopefully it will be totally gone by Monday. Anyway, I should stop procrastinating and get back to work, my lunch break has been over an hour now...

back at school

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:35:34 GMT

Hehe. OMG! Internet here is so fast!! haha. Yeah. I got back in the habit of having dial-up at home that this is crazy-exciting :P Everyone is here, so that is exciting. Well, all of my housemates, the dorms don't open until the first, so other people aren't here yet.

I am not terribly coherent. So I guess I'll stop now. Later!

a nod to my brother

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:25:27 GMT

Once again my brother says something that gets me thinking and so I mutter about it in my head for a while and then it shows up here.

I wonder sometimes about things that come back to 'know thyself.' It may be the way my brain works is particular, but it is so easy for me to get lost in trying to figure out who I am, or trying to understand myself that I end up over-analyzing everything and creating more problems. The parallel is that when I start over-analyzing things about my riding and questioning everything I end up falling off. I do the same thing in life. I get so caught up in myself while trying to find myself so I can find the purpose in my life, that I completely forget that I'm currently living my life. I look so closely at what I'm doing that I lose the connection between me and the horse I'm riding. So if the point of riding a horse is to Ride, perhaps the point of life is to Live. This is not to suggest that the unexamined life is the way to go, but what if the point isn't just one thing, it is the whole composite mess of paradoxies. There is an order to the things that are more or less important to living your life well, of course, but what if it isn't a rigid hierarchy. What if it works like jumping, you need to have enough horse in your hand so even if it all goes south fast, since you have the connection you have an idea of what is going on. What if you need to first have the connection between yourself and life before you can decide what is most important for you to take care of? Sometimes the most important thing will be for you to settle your mind and relax, sometimes it will be for you to open your eyes and look around at the environment you are charging through. So maybe instead of putting yourself first you put the connection and relationship with you and your life first?

Add on: So as I was going to sleep after writing this I realized that it was way less coherent than I thought when I wrote it and that I contradicted myself in a kind of big way. So I'm going to make the excuse that I was way tired and still am and therefore instead of clarifying it I'm just going to apologize for it and maybe after I've muttered about it in my head for a little longer I'll be able to clarify it better....?

falls over

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 03:01:23 GMT

So. Today. I don't even know what happened. I think I'm still in shock--mostly it is just the last thing that happened that knocked me over. But the whole day was good and just got better and better and now I'm sitting here sleepy but not quite ready to go to bed.

First things first--My mom and I took the cats to the vet. They got their shot and a general look-over. Perfect weight and health and all that. And the whole thing with Friday losing his hair, well, aparently a lot of cats get seasonal hairloss, so as long as the skin continues to be not irritated and the hair continues to grow back, the best thing to do is just let it do its thing. Also, his stress vomiting may be a very mild case of pancreitis or something like that, so we're going to try some different food to see if that helps. Jane was perfect, of course, because she is a princess like that.

Then after just a short time back at home, I went to meet Uncle Richard at Starbucks in Lake Geneva to talk about a story he's working on. It was fun, and I think I was helpful.

Straight from there I went to the barn a little ways out of town and had a jumping lesson. Hehe. Yay Jumping! I rode a school horse named Cameo who I worked with a lot when she was new to the barn a year and a half ago when I worked there for the summer.

And right after my lesson I talked to the owner and she hired me again :D So I get to work riding, tacking, and grooming horses Tuesday through Saturday from 2pm until we finish. Hahaha. I love the fact that Cindy is always willing to hire me :P Seriously, it would be pretty hard to find a more idea job for me, so I'm really lucky.

Then I drove home and ate a delicious focottia (sp?) bread that was just soooooo good and got me plotting about cooking :P The pizza crust I know how to make is actually a focottia bread recipie, so I'm already most of the way there....hehehehehe.

After feeding myself I went out to take over from my mom holding the horses for the farrier (the guy that takes care of their feet). Our farrier is awesome and loves to tell bad jokes. Very amusing, always.

Straight from that (after half falling asleep at the table while chattering with my mom) I went to the library to pick up a few books. Torture. Pure torture to go and wander in a library for fifteen minutes.

Came home, finished feeding the horses (my mom started since it was starting to get dark), more sitting half asleep at the table, munching on potato wedges, and figuring out how much I'll owe in loans at graduation...

And then my parents called me downstairs. I go down, expecting to just have them ask me a quick question.. However. That was not what happened. This is what has me still in shock. Everything else was just normal good amazing horse day stuff, what the jumping and the job and such. This, however...well. Totally caught me by surprise. I go down the stairs and in front of the fireplace are two chairs back to back with a saddle covered by a saddle pad on it. Confused and trying to figure out what is going on, I was rather slow to make it over there. And they wished me a happy birthday. It isn't December yet... The pad is just like my favorite pad the my mom got me for Christmas last year, but green instead of blue. So that is cool. I take it off and put in on the chair behind me. And see what the saddle cover says--Courbette. I completely freak out. Oh my god, you are not serious. I move the sturrip leather and put them on the chair on top of my saddle pad. I carefully take off the saddle cover. And oh my god, you were serious. My favorite saddle ever. One of my trainers had a really old used one that was too big for me, but it was awesome. And the only other saddles I've sat in that I liked almost as much were at least twice as much as this one. Even so, I still liked this one best. And it was sitting in our living room. OH MY GOD! Perfect saddle, perfect size, perfect pad to go with it. And I totally didn't expect it at all. I keep looking over at it to make sure it is still there, that I didn't just imagine it.

*goes to pet it some more*

:(

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:05:32 GMT

It turns out that my oldest brother isn't coming home for Christmas after all. Sad, I was looking forward to actually spending time with him--something that hasn't happened in ages. But he's doing cool stuff like going to the Carribian and Mexico and doing an intense immersion Spanish program, so it's ok.

thinking

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 23:28:16 GMT

My brother made an interesting post about what he believes the other day. One of the things I find amusing about the internet is how reading someones blog (or some other article or something) can lead me to thinking about something that is tenuously connected, but really kind of goes off into a different direction.

The connection this time is that probably the thing I believe in the most (I made a comment on his post to this affect) is the process of life. Change, growth, experience... It really is the process of things that means a lot to me. This may be part of why I love young adult fiction so much--the coming of age stories are all about the growth that comes out of new experiences. And fantasy is so often about quests and journeys...

It is also how I survive all the mistakes I make. I make the best decision that I can, trying to live in a way that I don't feel ashamed of myself and that I don't have regrets. Later, down the road I might change that decision. But even if it is a mistake and I have to change things so that they are no longer what they were--If I know that when I made the decision it was the best I could make, then I have no regrets. No matter how big the "What If"s get. What if I had not held onto Arizona so tightly and I got a fancier horse? That would have completely changed so many things with how my riding progressed. But I cannot regret what I have with him and the way my horse education has gone thus far.

It is actually really interesting to look and see how my horse education and high school education paralleled for a while. I have been to several different high schools and many different barns. I have not had the smooth track for learning in either case, so in some places there are odd holes and in others amusing redundancies (In terms of school: I never did learn my multiplication tables and have read To Kill a Mocking Bird three times. In terms of horses I have rarely jumped over 3' and never showed over 2'6" but I don't know how many years I spent learning how to get a horse to stretch long and low from at least three different trainers--and those were just the ones that were sucessful, there were at least three others who weren't). Being vaguely obsessed with education and learning, I spend so much time thinking about the best ways to teach things, and making clever lesson plans that smoothly transition from one point to the next, and yet very little of my own education has been structured so neatly. And I think part of my obsession with learning is from how many different experiences I've had while learning. Plus, learning is the process.

College has been different. Four years in the same place--something that hadn't happened since Grove Avenue Elementary School. It is harder for me to analyze. Probably because I've been so busy while I've been here that I haven't obsessed over understanding everything in the broader sense of how my education here has been structured. I've been very focused on smaller things. The way I write papers, the way I read books, how I understand things, the way I look at things, the way I interact with people... It is strange to try and look at my major/concentration as an order of study. It is strange that some of the time what I remember most about a class is a specific thing the prof said and the way they said it. Be it a positive or negative. But then there are other classes that I think about the content of them rather more frequently than I would imagine. An amusing example is the Non-Shakespearean, Elizabethan and Jacobiean Drama class. There are actually many references to revenge plays around, but until I took that class and saw that sort of drama as a genre, I never really noticed. Speaking of genre, I've been mildly obsessed with it since I read this book called The Aeththetics of Junk Fiction and the very end of the summer before coming back to Northfield. The main argument (as I remember it) is that "junk fiction," meaning genre fiction such as science fiction, romance, mysteries, westerns, etc. are so appeling and addicting, not because they are all the same, but because they all work within the same framework, asking the same sorts of questions, and answering differently, but more importantly, conversing with each other. So lets say you read your first science fiction book and it is really fun. You read a few more and they start to blend together and all feel the same, but you still really like the ideas they bring up, so you branch out and try to find more that are different than the ones you saw before. And before you know it, you are addicting, and when you come across the cliches of the genre they are familiar friends with individual quirks and they no longer really bother you. Obviously this doesn't work with everybody all the time with any genre, let alone all of them. But it seems to be a reasonable sort of theory explaining why so many people do become addicted to certain genres.

And I've really gotten rambling off on tangents tonight. I'm making spaghetti and looking forward to going to karate shortly. I just looked at the clock and it is good that I started the pasta when I did. Anyway. I think this is enough rambling for the night.

crazy life

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 23:29:09 GMT

So I work 8-5 Monday through Friday with one hour for lunch. It in convient having the same schedule all the time and the people are pretty much all good to work with, so that is cool. I'm contemplating getting a pin that says 'master of displays' that I can put on my shirt. Most of the projects I get to do are moving things from one place to another, mashing things together so more things fit into small spaces, and today I spent most of my time setting out Christmas lights and fluffing fake trees.

I handed in my comps (senior thesis) proposal Sunday night. I don't know when we are supposed to hear back from them whether or not they approve it or not. I hope they like it, I think it is cool. I'll probably ramdomly ramble about it later, assuming I am good about keeping this up. Which I haven't been. I'm really amused about something that I read somewhere about how people keep journals (or online blogs) so that they can complain about the fact that they don't write enough. yeah. I have to go to karate in about twenty minutes, so maybe instead of complaining I'll just write... :P

The other thing taking up my focus (now that my proposal is in I will spend more time on this than comps) is figuring out grad school stuff. I'm planning on going to grad school next year.

And now I remember why I haven't written...I'm so easily distracted....*goes off to do something else*

I'm writing 'cause none of my other friends have recently....

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:34:23 GMT

I should be cooking dinner. Cutting things for the stirfry and putting the water on for the rice. Instead I'm eating cookie dough and lamenting the fact that none of my three friends have posted anything the past few times I've looked. Or maybe I have four friends? Shocking how popular I am. *shift eyes* I think I was at work too long today. It is really funny though, 'cause the one high school guy is one of those people who say things in such a way that you feel like you have to respond some how, so I had an odd moment when I was like, I've worked with him, what, three times? and interacting with him as I imagine one interacts with a younger brother if one had such a thing? Yes. Defiently had a long day. The sentences are attempting to come out far more complicated and conveluded than they are supposed to. And the spelling isn't working so well either. ok. cooking. really.

life as a working girl

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:05:08 GMT

So I'm on my lunch break on my second day working at Arrow Ace Hardware on Water St. in Northfield, MN. Yay. I'm thinking that tomorrow I might try wearing a different pair of shoes. I'm noticing that I'm not used to standing from 8-5 (with an hour lunch break). I've already done all sorts of exciting things, like making keys, renting out a post hole digger, exchanging stuff, straightening aisles, taking down sale signs, washing windows, making popcorn, and lots of check-outs. So yeah. Lots of stuff to do and remember and all of that jazz. I've witnessed paint mixing, but have not yet done it myself. This afternoon Steve (the manager) says he'll get me doing inventory (it involves a terribly complicated laptop, making it a little too exciting for most of the employees older than me).

Other than that, karate is good, leaving me happily exhausted after every class. I'm watching a tv series Firefly with Susan and sometimes Maraia. Susan and Durin moved into the big room and so now they are/will be my literal roommates. The cats have run of the rest of the house. The slept with me on the couch last night. It sounds bad that I'm on the couch, but it is really actually terribly comfortable. Yay adjectives. *cough* Um. What else? I'm a little sleepy? That isn't terribly exciting.

And now that I'm done eating I guess I'll just hang out with animals for twenty minutes until I need to be back at work...yay long lunches.

short

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:05:49 GMT

So work stuff is getting there. They got all the paper stuff done and all of my information passed. So I start tomorrow and work the rest of the week from 8-5 with a one hour lunch break. So hopefully it will be pleanty of time to come home and eat something. As long as I don't try to cook much. Yeah. So that is exciting. I will have something to do and a reason to get off my couch in the morning. :D

Mostl I've been being lazy and doing lots of reading for my comps. So I don't have much in the way of interesting stories to tell. *shrug*

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:07:08 GMT

It is so odd to be here, at school, but not in classes. I don't even have a campus mailbox, since I'm not officially here. I had an interview at Mondays, the coffee shop, that I think went fine yesterday. But they are behind in their training schedule so I wouldn't start until next month... Tomorrow at 3:30 I have an interview at Ace Hardware. Also, tomorrow, the new tackshop on Division opens. I figure they won't be hiring, but I can ask. I can also ask if they know of any other horse-related things. Maybe if the have a bulletin board I can post something? *sigh*

On a less stressful note, I think I decided my comps topic--comparing Synge's plays to Yeats's, focusing on the teams of life and death and religion/spirituality and see if there are links I can make between their personal beliefs and their work. So I have to go to the library this afternoon to get a few books out and make sure this is what I want to do and that it will work. Cool.

I think we devised a way for Durin to roam Susan's room and the living room while the cats have full access to the rest of the house without having to jump two baby gates through his area. It may need more tweaking, but it has worked out basically alright this morning. Friday is currently happily sacked out on the back of the green comfy sofa and Durin is wandering around, trying to find ways to get into trouble, aware the cat is there and leaving him alone. So this is very good progress. The first few times they meet they were growling at each other...

I guess that is mostly it for now...

hugs!

home sweet home

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 20:47:07 GMT

Yay being home!

And thanks for telling me what "posh" means. And I don't think they have clotted cream in Ireland...I just put on jam, except once when I put butter and then jam onto my scone. Just jam is awesome, especially black current....yummy....

So I'm home and happy :D I've been riding my horses everyday. Zona likes his walks, but the bugs are really bad and just walking they are horrendous. Yesterday Rose was AMAZING and Mama had a really great ride on her too. Today Bea was...a bit of a nervous wreck. She is rather herd-bound and Rose did not deem in necessary to stay in the paddock while Bea was working and so Bea was a mess worrying about the others being out on the grass and her being stuck in the arena with me.

I'm afraid that from mosquitos' perspectives I have become a rampaging murderer. This bothers me a little, because I don't want to be a murderer. But they are the little bugs I used to not even dare call by name and would have nightmares about. I still cannot stand them and really don't want anyone to get West Nile...so I deal with things.

Tomorrow Susan and Julia are arriving! We're going to paint my room and ride horses and giggle a lot. Probably go and see the movie Becoming Jane even though it is slightly rediculous--it is about a tiny reference Jane Austen made about a certain man and the movie makes it a highly dramatic love story. That is all I know at the moment. But as we are all slightly obsessed with Jane Austen, I figure we have to go see it.

I guess that is it for now.

HUGS!

Dublin!

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 20:58:45 GMT

Hi!

So this place has wireless internet in the "lunch room" where they do not approve of feet on the furniture. Papa and I got ..."yelled" at for having our feet up last night. Oops. Anyway. Today we went to Powerscourt and Glendalough (I think that is the right spelling...). It was pretty :D Then we got yummy Chinese food for dinner. Now we are just sitting, I'm typing, Papa is next to me, and Erich is on the other couch reading. Tomorrow we are going to just wonder around the city a bit more, see St. Patricks and the Guiness Storehouse and other stuff before I have my tooth finished (finally for the last time, theoretically) and then we drive out to Shannon. yay!

I guess I haven't written about Dingle. Dingle is SOOOOO pretty! And there are lots of rocks to climb on. I posted the pictures on facebook just now of a select few I took there. We rode ponies up the hillside and it was fun. There were two guides so one of them took me up cantering on a little side path. That was exciting. I don't know what my horses name was, but I put his picture up. The other horse I rode was at the Dartfield Equestrian Center and Museum. That place was pretty fun, but the highlight, was, of course, running around a field going over cross-country fences on a rather nice chestnut mare. Her name was Claire. :D But she didn't want to be caught, and ended up wondering into the sand arena where I caught her and so the girl leading our ride decided to call her Posh for the day. I don't really know why. But she was pretty fancy, so it works, I guess. She had a nice long stride, so that was cool. And I totally went on a longer horse tangent than I ment to...*cough*

We also did the self-guided drive along the Dingle Pennisula, that was where we found lots of paths and rocks to climb around on. Today we went not only to the Powerscourt house and gardens, where I'd been before, but also to the waterfall, which we didn't have time to do as a group. The waterfall was really, really pretty and there were lots of fun rocks to climb around on. This reminds me that I should put the pictures from today on my computer so I can add some more to facebook....hmmmm....

I'm not sure what I'm missing....the bed here is the most comfortable I've had in ages....I'm excited about sleeping here again, though the pillow was slightly subpar, the bed made up for it. Um....I'm also obsessed with scones now. Especially when they have blackcurrent jam on them. This amuses me. The sign that said "table for childrens ears" that we saw today amused me as well. Unfortunatly it originally said "Suitable for children 8-14 years" which meant I could not climb on the really awesome looking playground aquiptment. Erich didn't seem to believe me when I said I haven't really changed that much since I was fourteen.

Ok. I don't know what else to write. *makes indecicive faces*
I'll go grab my camera to do more picture stuff.

hugs!!

yay ireland internet

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 08:27:36 GMT

So now we are traveling around, currently in Limerick about to have breakfast and then drive on down to Dingle. The last few places we've been haven't had free internet, which is kinda lame. But even more lame is the fact that after an entire summer of keeping track of it, I somehow manged to lose my cell phone. yeah. sigh.

I'm excited about talked to julia on aim :D hehe. yay people!! I'm also excited about having people come to my house before going to school. And horses and mom and home and stuff.

I'm hungry and we're getting breakfast.
hugs

galway, take two

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 22:06:02 GMT

HI!!!!!!!

So I'm in Galway again. Rather nicer this time because A.) I'm in a very nice hotel/B&B with my dad and Erich and B.) my face is not in the process of exploding. So. Life is good. And I have my computer back...I'm embarressingly fond of it. Hehe.

But I'm distracted by my papa and figuring out what is going on and what we are doing. Yay being tourist-y again. The end of the program was all about finishing up my work and trying to just rest and recover from all of our traveling. I finished my final paper about a week early and Erich came last Thursday and we've been low-key tourists up in Northern Ireland, until today when we spent the day traveling to get to Galway to meet my dad. We saw the Giant's Causeway and this awesome rope bridge and castle ruins....I should get more pictures up since I have a computer now :P Yay pictures on facebook... Anyway.

I'll write more later I'm sure. I doubt I'll be able to really catch up at this point, but if I keep it going this fall...we'll see.

hugs!

Belfast

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 23:05:20 GMT

Well. We've been in Belfast for a week now. And internet is silly, the library's internet is restricted for research only and I feel imposing if I stay on Liza's too long. But tonight she is upstairs hanging out with people and I am continuing to have a quiet night after a quiet day.

Our dorms here are ok, a little bit stained and depressing. Well, for me at least. A few people had really gross rooms that smelled all smoky and actually moved into different rooms they were so bad.

Class is fine, I actually really enjoyed a few of the last readings we've had and I'm obsessing over my final project. Mostly as something to do and keep my mind occupied while I wait for the days to pass until Erich gets here...*is sooooo excited about him visiting* His being here will make time fly. And then my papa is coming... So all I have to do is not be completely homesick for the next few days and then once people come I won't know where the time went and will find myself home and preparing for roommates to come and visit me! I finished all of my homework for the rest of the program (meaning the rest of this week because the last week is just final project presentations) excepting only the above mentioned final project. I have the vast majority of it done. Tomorrow I'm going to finish the draft and then Monday after class I'm going to type it up on a library computer and print it out. Then I will be completely done with academic work for the summer, all I'll have to do is go to class and talk for a few minutes when it is my turn. I don't really want to use powerpoint because I think a lot of people will and I don't think I really need one. So yeah, maybe I'll change my mind, but I doubt it.

It is midnight. I'm tired. And I'm afraid I have a bit of a one-track mind tonight...Erich is currently driving home with his dad...so I can't come up with many interesting things to say...

Well, Ok. So one. We took a tour of the murals. The murals here are like, the main tourist attraction now with the peace process going on and the Troubles, a thing of the not-so-distant past. I got pictures. I think all of us with functioning cameras did. But they are a bit frightening to me. So many larger than life masked gunmans. So much violence. I'm afraid most of my sense of the city so far is pain. Liza is doing much better than me, reveling in the sense of hope with the end of all this violence and the sharing of power in the governement and the rebuilding of the damaged buildings...

We also went to a public meeting called West Belfast Talks Back. Four people in politics were invited into West Belfast (meaning Falls Road area, meaning mostly working class Catholic nationalists) and then people came and asked them questions. According to the program director guy here, it was pretty tame. But there was a short shouting match towards the end. And so many of the questions were about what is being done in terms of public inquiries into the police violence against the catholic community and the connections between the police and paramilitary loyalists. So much pain.

On a lighter note, the main buildings of Queens Univsity that we get to walk past on the way to our classroom are absolutely amazingly beautiful. And I'm still getting used to how different the stone used to build churches here is so different from the other parts of the island.

I really haven't been out and about the city too much, other than class and group trips. This has been my quiet week, being productive and trying not to be too homesick. Next week I'll get out a bunch and explore the city with Erich. That is going to be a lot of fun :D (I told you I have a one-track mind tonight).

OK. I'm tired and tired of being on the computer because it isn't my computer and it isn't in my room. I'm so demanding sometimes. *rolls eyes at self*

Anyway. Night. HUGS.

Sligo!

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 13:45:59 GMT

The public library allows you 55 minutes of free internet a day. Yay! Sligo is nice. We went to a GORGEOUS waterfall as part of a tour on Sunday. Sooooo pretty. I should be able to put the pictures on soon, if not this week then next for sure. There is a USB port that is open on this computer, so if I remember to bring my camera next time we come here and we get computer time again, then I will put pics up on facebook.

So. We are in Sligo for the first week of Yeats' Summer School. Which is cool. We heard a really awesome lecture this morning and I actually want to see if I can find some of her books. She was just an awesome critic. I actually got something really good out of it, which was really exciting. The seminar that I'm in is about Yeats' short fiction. That should be cool, so far I think I like the prof, so that is cool. It is funny though 'cause there are quite a few people on our trip who really aren't Yeats' fans. So there is a big contingient of people in the summer school who are just here 'cause we're supposed to be, which is a little silly. Most everyone else who is here seems to be pretty hard core fan or a scholar.

Where we're staying is pretty nice. We each get our own bedroom (well, there are three doubles, I think) and then six of us share the kitchen and lounge (with a tv) and there are two bathrooms upstairs for the four singles and one downstairs for the double. Only one of our bathrooms upstairs has hot water. But that's ok, we all seem to shower at different times. The weather has been nice, a lot of sun and so far no rain. For two days straight! Though it will probably rain later...it looks like it will at least.

Ok. time is running out 'cause I've been doing messages and emails and now I'm going to see if any of the barns around here have websites. Connie wants to go riding again and of course since I'm the horse girl I'm the one who is to find the place to go and get the group together to do it. The only reason I'm snarky (to use Sherry's word) is because I really want to ride my horses, or at least do some arena work, and that isn't going to happen here.

Anyway. HUGS!!!!

*EXPLODES*