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march dreaming

this morning i opened my eyes at around 10:15. i was just leaving a pleasant dream. i stretched, look around, and decided that it would be perfectly acceptable to doze for another 15 minutes, and i returned to dreaming, in a quasi-asleep, quasi-awake state. i knew time was passing, but i was in denial that it could be more than about 10:45.

then someone knocked on my door. i figured it was abhi (not abhinav, but abhinand) or priscilla or one of my other overachieving get up at 8 am for church friends. i looked at the clock and noticed to my disturbance that it was 11:45, and debated whether or not to answer the door. answering the door would be effectively admitting that it was nearly 12 o'clock in the day and i was still in bed. but, i answered it anyway, and it was abhi, and he'd probably been up since 7, and i sheepishly gave him the irish music cd i'd promised him, and retreated to my room to get dressed and join the land of the living.

*sigh* does anyone else sleep 'til ridiculously late hours on the weekend? it's so hard to get up when i don't have to. on the plus side, i actually have run two days in a row for the first time since midterms. yeah, baby.

4:14 p.m. - Mar. 09, 2003

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mariachi and sid-free zones

i am making a new friend at stanford, which is kind of exciting. my friend is indian-canadian (mostly canadian) and a whole lot of fun. we just had a lovely dinner at celia's listening to a mariachi band and talking about the usual subjects - boys, friends, and where the hell are we going with this whole ph.d. thing? we then spent a couple hours gossiping about everyone we mutually know in cromem and breakers. though i could have done without some of the information i got about albert and sid. like albert and strip clubs and sid and big butts (like the song). the fact is that probably at least half the guys i know have been to a strip club at least once and watch porn. if they tell me about this or act differently around me, why should if bother me? is it a problem if they make off-color jokes with other people but not with me? maybe it shouldn't be, but it bothers me for some reason, nonetheless. sometimes i think i'm openminded and with-it; other times i realize that in some aspects i'm quite prudish.

so we discussed the dateability of guys in cromem and concluded that they basically are not. but with one or two exceptions. well one of the exceptions came heading down the stairs and we thought he was someone else who's not way high on the the list and weren't very friendly and then called him by the wrong name! smooth move, right? oh yeah.

i have a five-minute message on my answering machine that is a conversation between a guy and a girl in some language i can't understand, with maybe some english intermixed. maybe korean or something. totally weird. i'm trying to figure if someone called me, got my machine and accidentally didn't shut off their phone (this happened to my friend maggie with quite unhappy results) or whether wires simply got crossed. it was just weird because i could hear their entire conversation.

song of the day:

scooter . weekend

10:32 p.m. - Mar. 08, 2003

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the foggy dew

john's weather-pixie cracks me up. we all know it's going to be rainy or cloudy and 40 - 50 degrees every day. the amazing thing is that it's cloudy and rainy throughout ireland and england - but limerick is probably proportionally cloudier and rainier as say the rest of ireland is from the east coast of the us.

ah, it's a pleasure to write this as i look out at the bright, sunshiney sky. i can sing 'bright, sunshiney day' every day. :)

i wonder where my study buddy is . . .

out of the two homeworks due today i basically didn't start 'til yesterday evening, i'm done all but one problem. i'm supposed to meet jake at breakers and no doubt he'll have done it and explain it to me. i feel kind of bad, because he seems to do a lot of that lately, while i definitely help him out proportionally less.

oh well, i probably make up for it with abhinav.

11:12 a.m. - Mar. 07, 2003

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procrastination payback time

oh! i'm so excited - i just bought a sofa for $35. :) yay! now, i just have to organize my room so i have a place to put it.

i'm also still way excited about yosemite. perhaps i've mentioned that already? however, the real cause for this bubbly diary entry is that i just finished #5 of my e209 homework, out of 6 problems, and the end is in sight. of course, i still have to finish 200a. *sigh*

12:48 a.m. - Mar. 07, 2003

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spring break

well, we've been planning our trip to yosemite and i have to say i am getting really excited. it reminds me of the planning stages of "the hiking trip" down dingle way. i guess we won't have any little hiker guys leading the way this time. it won't be the same without john and liz and tommy and rousing games of kablooey! anyway, i have learned my lesson and am less ambitious this time around.

so tentatively:

monday: arrive at yosemite valley. pitch camp. hike to vernal falls (1.5 mi). If feeling good, continue to Nevada Falls (3.4 mi). Return, eat and rest up for the next day.

tuesday: hike to snow creek falls via mirror lake. (3.7 mi) contintue to north dome, passing indian rock and the indian arch on the way. (9 mi) hike until tired and pitch camp.

wednesday: (continuing from tues.) hike to yosemite falls (14.0 mi total) continue on to el capitan if feeling ambitious. otherwise hike back to yosemite valley and the village.

drive down to wawona.

thursday: hike to chilnualna falls. (round trip 10 mi)

friday: undecided - mariposa grove? we'd need snowshoes . . .

i'm so excited! anyone who's been to yosemite and has tips to offer, please let me know.

1:11 p.m. - Mar. 06, 2003

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mardi gras

back and forth. it never ends. i think i need to grow a backbone.

in other news, the week started off with a bang when i realized there had been a 200a due last friday that i didn't due. thanks to my kind ta, i can turn it in late without being docked, but it was still not the greatest way to start the week.

we're learning about lqr in controls, which means we're up to 1970. only 34 years to go until we reach the present.

well, back to work

10:51 a.m. - Mar. 04, 2003

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safe in my own skin

lately i have been on a garbage kick. there is nothing like garbage when you're feeling angry (frustrated) etc. i remember being a slightly angst-ridden teenager driving along blasting 'queer' and 'only happy when it rains' on my radio on the way to and from cross country practice. frustrated by strict parents. crushing on josh dittrich. wondering where i was going.

now, how many years later? (six, or seven) i'm wondering where the hell i'm going again, getting frustrated by boys. and also being frustrated by school. this last frustration is a new addition. but i don't have the parent stress anymore, really, so i guess it's 12 of one or a dozen of the other.

tomorrow the mill begins again. it's week 9. or 8.5. anyway, the pace quickens as various professors try to finish everything they haven't covered and i try to learn everything i'm behind in. yup, this week will be tough. three homeworks. zero down. and i'm annoyed with my study partner. aghh!

11:11 p.m. - Mar. 02, 2003

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earth

Earth

What Element are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

""Which cocktail are you?""
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12:14 p.m. - Mar. 01, 2003

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hustling. what the hell?

well, all i have to say is that it's definitely fun to get drunk every once in a while. i attended a grad student - mostly engineers - party. we drank, we danced. a lot of guys asked me to swing dance with them - like 3 in 5 minutes - but i don't know how to swing, really, so i said no. but i booty-danced, and salsa-ed. a guy i know from aero-astro asked me if i knew how to hustle (what the hell is that?) and of course i didn't take him up on that offer! anyway, tomorrow scarlett and steph and i plan to crash the law student party. hopefully there should be more better-looking guys there.

i should also add that i saw the stanford symphonic orchestra last night, and they were totally amazing. they played bethoven's piano concerto in g major, something by stravinsky set to the psalms with the chorus, and some symphonic dances by beethoven with soloists on voice and piano. the first and the last pieces were SO beautiful. the quality of the musicians was also very high. i am totally hooked. i'm so glad priscilla talked me into going with her. the only bad part was that i noticed you basically couldn't hear the flute most of the time. i think flute is basically a solo instrument. it has its moments otherwise, but you have hours of not being heard for the moment or two of sound, and in orchestra music, the minutes you're heard could be some highly awkward exposed bit which is impossible to tune.

1:04 a.m. - Mar. 01, 2003

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finally a spark of happiness

i go from depression to happiness on a frequent basis. well, actually, i've been more on the depressed side for the past several weeks. first i was sick. then i had midterms. then a breakup. and then more homeworks and getting some not so hot grades back. finally, though, a couple things are starting to look up. i have an idea for a research project (required before starting a ph.d.) for a 290 next quarter. i'm almost done my homeworks for the week. i attended more classes than usual. i'm convinced my legs will heal if i just leave them alone. if my legs would heal i would be happy. heal, you ask? ever since christmas, i've been getting what i think are boils. i'm not sure what they are. but they hurt and they're ugly, and they're enough to put me in a permanent bad mood.

finally, i actually have some quasi-fun plans for the weekend. i still need to study like crazy and watch some lectures i missed, but it should be more fun than last weekend.

looking at that picture john posted reminded me of how much fun there is to be had in the great outdoors. i just need to get in my car and explore a little more.

12:46 a.m. - Feb. 28, 2003

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can you spell "skandhas"?

in a stroke of randomness, my hometown newspaper just called to interview me about . . . going to the national spelling bee when i was 12. i have to laugh. i definitely got more press for that one event than anything else i've accomplished in my life - and now, 11 years later, they're writing about it again. apparently they're doing an article on 30 years of regional spelling bee winners. this really makes me laugh.

4:56 p.m. - Feb. 25, 2003