Funny

My Victorian Lit professor has a skewed sense of humor. He asked the class if anyone could tape the History Channel's two-hour show on the French Revolution and I emailed him that I could.

He replies: "Ramona--bless you. no one else has offered yet and none of my 2 and one half friends has called me back. You're the one. You'll get a star next to your name. And thanks."

morning person

I have the oddest sleep patterns. I forget that other people sleep regularly, so I'm used to receiving strange reactions when people realize I've sent them an email at seven in the morning or a phone call at six. I was the student body president at my last school, so I would have to send emails or make phone calls to the dean of student life, which I would do when I woke up. One day she stopped me and asked if everything was okay. I didn't know what she meant until she pointed out that I had left her a voice mail at three that morning. I'm sure it appeared strange; maybe in some drug-induced frenzy I decided to ring the dean and ask her about the day's senate meeting. I can think of worse things...like this snow, or lack of snow. If it's going to be this cold, then I want to see something out of it. I looked out the window this morning and the only snow I found was on my car. I don't remember hating the cold when I was a child. I first moved to the states when I was six (and again when I was 18) and I loved the weather change. I loved seeing my breath and looking at the dragon-puff of white air leaving my mouth, something I couldn't do on the tropical island of Saipan. And now, when I'm in my car, waiting for the damn thing to warm up and seeing my breath doesn't evoke the same kind of pleasure....

Alice In Wonderland

Alice, having impulsively imbibed the entire bottle and grown into a giant within the White Rabbit's house. "There ought to be a book written about me, there ought! And when I grow up, I'll write one-but I'm grown up now," she added in a sorrowful tone: "at least there's no room to grow up any more here."

"But then," thought Alice, "shall I never get any older than I am now? That'll be a comfort, one way-never to be an old woman-but then-always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn't like that!"

I love Alice. She's young, impulsive, and fearless. And she's afraid of growing up, which makes me think of my twenty-second birthday coming up...

a five-year old's really delayed gratification

I sent my gifts to Saipan before I left for Arizona and they didn't get there until yesterday. It's my fault, really. I procrastinated. I bought my niece Brianna a smore-maker which works just like an easy-bake oven, using the magnificent power of a light bulb. According to my sister, she loves it and even exclaimed, "This is what I've wanted all my life!" That's right, in her five years on earth she's longed for this synthetic campfire-looking lamp. I'm sure she requested it back in the womb. I gave my sister a check which she doesn't want to accept. Apparently my money's no good since I'm a poor college student which is really nice of her since I would probably accept any money she gave me, without guilt or shame I might add. I convinced her to deposit it into her other daughter's (my god daughter) trust fund.

Have you seen delivertothecnmi.com? I remember living back home, the only delivery came from JC Penny or Amazon...

First day of school so far

There's a boy in my poetry class whom I have had in my short-story writing class and to my recall I found him extremely gross and vulgar. The class had its share of gifted writers and he was not one of them. He wore shirts with obscene phrases. His beard was unkempt and he just looked like he didn't wash below the waist. We critiqued his short-story which I thought was a complete rip-off of Clerks and I called it an examination of a suspended childhood. Harsh, but it was true - the same post-adolescent homosocial relationships with a convenience store backdrop. He was worse than the guy who wrote about some pseudo-sci-fi babble about a boy and a (pretend!) dragon. So when I saw him and his sweaty fedora, I cringed. Then when class began, my professor started us off with an exercise in writing concrete images out of abstract words. For the word "deception," Gross-Out Boy wrote, "A folded playing card in a tweed pocket." I thought it was very clever because of the other images it evokes - the charlatan with money hungry eyes walking with tricks tucked into his clothing. So maybe I was wrong to caste such a negative opinion but then again, it's only day one. He might wear that Pimpercrombie & Bitch shirt again.*

*That's a play on Ambercrombie & Fitch, if you don't know...

Fan an inner fire

I listened to a song today that I hadn't heard in a few years and I realized how much has changed since I heard it last. I was 19 and still new to Seattle. I didn't have a car and every place I went seemed raw and unfamiliar. I was so naive; I hadn't fallen in love, I mean really fallen in love. I had dark waist-length hair and a tendency to wear black clothing... I'm going to be 22 in a few weeks and as I've changed this city has too. Now I wear color, my hair is layered and my visa is almost paid in full... Strange what music can do...

My wallet hemorrhaged 182.00 for textbooks. There�s shrink wrap on a couple of them, meaning that if I tear it open and decide to return it later, they�ll be �used� and I won�t get all my money back. I�ve heard of shrink wrap horror stories where people have bought a new book, torn off the plastic and when they dropped the class, they were out money. The real crime is publisher's printing a new edition of a textbook so you can't sell the book back, despite the new textbook containing slight, insignificant changes. This is a load of bull, if you ask me.

Not ready, but am I ever?

School starts the day after tomorrow, but I have only three books ready for class and that's only because I already had them (Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Tale of Two Cities). I'll go get the rest tomorrow, but I'm dreading the long lines and the whole chaos of the University Bookstore.

I still have a whole list of things to do including finishing a project for work, loading my iPod with more songs (8,500 more to go), and more procrastinating!

But tonight is dinner with Mike's old college friend and his girlfriend, so I have no complaints.