nightmares

i've been having 'em. a couple nights ago, i dreamed that i was drafted and had to go to war. only i couldn't keep up with any of the other soldiers because i couldn't run fast enough, and i couldn't carry a gun because it was too heavy. so it was my job to kind of like hold onto a kite, and fly like a balloon, kicking the enemy soldiers who were also floating in the air. i just took the kite and tried to sail away.
last night, i woke up in the middle of the night because i swear to god, someone punched me in the face. i could almost feel it once i was awake. what the hell kind of a dream is that? not a good one, i say.

all in all, a successful presentation

a timelime of the hours leading up to and including my political violence presentation:

1 week before - spend every minute of my waking life reading
1 day before - spend so much time practicing my speech that i actually start to lose my voice
midnight, night before - get email from other presenter, "damn, these readings suck!"
8:45, monday morning- wake up
9:00- eat a delicious chocolate chip muffin
9:05 - almost puke up delicious muffin
10:00-11:00 - class at Hopkins
11:10 - I learn where the krieger computer lab is (who knew!?!)
11:30 - lunch at silk road with anthony. i consume the largest salad ever.
12:00 - heart palpitations begin
12:30 - shortness of breath, cold sweat
12:35 - encounter with gabe, the ex-bf.
him: hey! long time no see! what have you been up to! (does a great job appearing genuinely delighted)
me: steven david's political violence.
him: well, outside of class.
me: steven david's political violence.
him: are you feeling okay?
me: steven david's political violence.
him: wow, really great talking to you. i better go to "class". (runs away)
12:45 - decide to get to class early so i can meditate a little. 3/4 of the class is already there. do they just sit there all day? is it like some contest to see who can sit closest to steven david?
1:00 - time to start talking! i managed to look up from my paper around two, three times. and i even got in a breath or two in those five minutes!! a rousing success!
1:05 - after convincing everyone that ethnic partitioning is the solution to civil wars, all the indian kids got up and stood in a corner.

phew! what a day!

reading 'til my eyes are bleeding

look at my rhyme. okay, stop.
at the final count, i have taken a little over 21 pages of notes just for this week's political violence reading. this class has taken over my entire life. if all professors assigned this much work, i would never leave my apartment ever again. actually, i would never leave james's apartment ever again, because my computer has decided to not access the hopkins reserves. a big thank you to dell/windows.
i really love how steven david assigned one of his own articles, plus another article that references him. believe me, if i were a professor with published works, that's all anyone would read. but somehow, the comedy is lost when i've been reading for four or five straight hours, and this ain't harry potter, kids. and even when i stayed up all night with "half-blood prince", i was so tired of reading that i started to cry even before *WARNING, SPOILER ALERT* dumbledore dies. god, stupid james wants his stupid computer. i've only been on it for like, eight hours or so. fine, be that way.

political violence

this class is too stressful. you know that feeling you get right before you have to make a presentation? that's how i feel just sitting there. i'm all cold and sweaty, and kinda nauseous because everyone is so goddamn smart. i'm going to start studying my notes from two years ago from cip so i can casually drop names of wars and people... the things that other political science majors so unfairly seem to know. "omg, like, do you think hitler would have invaded poland if poland had had nuclear weapons?" who has heard of poland? or hitler, for that matter? finally, i say something about forced democracies not being as peaceful as true liberal democracies, and steven david is like, "well, what about japan?" clearly, mr. david doesn't understand that he'd be lucky if i could point to japan on a map. i'm just like, "LOL!! OMG I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT JAPAN!!" only not quite that articulately. for even more excitement, next week i get to present to the class why i think we can end civil wars by partitioning countries by ethnicity. PLAYA HATE!!!

the first full week of school

has been great. i've woken up at 11 on wed-today.

last night i had the best dream! i had been kidnapped by a cannibal, and i was forced to live with him inside a giant tree. he would pick people off the street, murder them, and bring them back home. there, he would dip them in a giant pot of oil, and then bake them in a huge oven. he kept trying to get me to eat a bite, and i was so grossed out because i didn't want to eat anyone, but it smelled kind of good because of the oil. (think that seinfeld episode where neuman wants to eat kramer). and also the cannibal worked at a fair, and he would always try to sneak little pieces of human into whatever food item he was selling. i remember thinking, "well, he only killed one guy this week, so that means there will be only one penis-sausage. phew!" omg, do you think that's at all freudian???

later on, when i stood up to go to class, i walked into james's bass, and i think it broke my knee. ow.

two posts=cool

new diet plan:
breakfast - nothing
lunch - coffee
dinner - beer

shoutout: james nicely brought all my old notebooks that i was saving to the dumpster. THANKS, JAMES!!!!!

a new level of apathy, procrastination

i just opened a beer and walked over to my desk, and then it exploded all over my hand. cool. OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE I STILL HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL!!!! it's a good thing i'm going to take some time off after this, because boy am i sick and tired of learning shit. why can't someone pay me to see how many beers i can drink until i'm dead, or something exciting like that? christ. even my class that i was motivated to take, political violence with steven david, is just waaaay too much work. it's like, an entire book of reading every night. and i have to re-learn how to read every semester, so it's not very much fun. it took me about two hours to read 20 pages last night of the leviathan. god imitates man in the art of what the fuck are you talking about????!!
today i dropped a class that had only three students, so i feel a little bad. but this teacher, god. she starts the class (music and culture) by saying that it's ethnocentric to analyze music by the standards of your culture, and that this is bad. and i raise my hand and say that to analyze anything, the basis of comparison is going to be from your own culture. this angers her so much, that she leaps out of her seat, and remains standing for the rest of class. then, we played a really fun game which she called, "music or not music". so she picks up her bag and drops it on the table and asks, "was that music?" um, no. so she says, "well, you only don't think it's music because that's your cultural response." "i'm pretty sure that no other culture considers dropping your bag on the table to be music." at this point, i swear, she almost started to cry.
music history I is so stupid and boring that i'll probably fail, just like all my classes in high school. my other hopkins class is nothing special. and gosh, that's it. i suppose i should be practicing right now, seeing as that's the reason that i'm not taking any classes. but my lip is killing me after those two hours of wind ensemble playing what i'll call, "the loudest piece ever". i'm going to see if i can take strings class. goddammit, i have too much time. maybe my quartet can rehearse every day. i would take another hopkins class, but i've taken almost all the poli sci courses, and the stupid MTW and ThF schedule vs. peabody's MWF and TTh makes it impossible. AAAHHH JUST LET ME BE DONE

"first day" of school

i love thursdays. because i have no class! well, as it turns out, i'm actually in wind ensemble this concert, so i will have one two-hour class at 3:30, starting next week and going for a month. i'm playing in every piece! how exciting? and there's also a recording session in which i will presumably play. i'm famous! now i have to get my books at hopkins and register at peabody. gosh, someone really should do my laundry.

tonight's the oc! I LOVE YOU SETH!!!

who doesn't love cleaning up puke?

answer: me.

"james, can you flip over onto your other side?"
"no."
"look, you need to flip over so that if you throw up, you'll do it in the trash can."
"okay." (pause)
"the first step to flipping over would be to flip over."
(flips onto his back)
"okay, you're almost there, just a little more..."
(pukes all over)
"um...that's okay too, don't worry about it."