life's little thrills

so, i'm studying for the GRE. ugh. it's amazing ...ly tedious. i'm amazingly stupid. sure, i do okay, but so far i'm doing worse and worse. i did awesome on the diagnostic test that was supposed to tell me where my weaknesses are. apparently my weakness is in studying - i lost the element of surprise, and now i'm not good at the tests.

in other news, my roommate Emily picked up a certificate for a free month of Netflix. This could be bad - very bad. we got our first 3 movies, and watched them all within 3 days. that's at least a 200% increase over my previous month's movie watching. plus i went to the movies (!) and saw 3:10 to Yuma, which is good if you like dirty, strong men shooting at each other and riding horses over beautiful landscape. the worst part of the whole movie was when one man shot the bag of gunpowder hanging on another guy's horse and man and horse blew up (is that what would happen in reality?) it was incredibly gross.

in still other news, happy fall. it sure is happy here. the weather could not be more perfect. and i may have a new friend - there's a new girl at work, also a fresh college grad, who sits in my office and lives in Evanston. i can't tell if she likes me or not, or if i like her or not. i haven't had much time to chat. i'm going to have a dinner party next weekend, with my other friends from work, and i'm going to invite her. maybe this week i'll get her digits. i should have done this week, and showed her around town this weekend. i did tell her about the farmer's market, and where i do my grocery shopping.

anyhow. i guess i should keep doing practice tests. maybe i'll break through the wall soon, and start doing well again.

the horrors of modern technology

whoops. i just got bitten in the behind by the lure of the cell phone. $250 extra dollars in talking in one month. ouch ouch ouch. well, live and learn, as they say. I am learning a lot lately.
i guess i will have to take a vow of silence.

check it out.

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/programs/professional/
especially the Ecosystems Science and Conservation concentration.
Feedback? Thoughts? Opinions?

hey mom, the mexican restaurant 2 blocks from my house is doing a "like water for chocolate" menu this week.
maybe if i'm feeling wealthy this weekend i'll go check it out.

i want to see if the quail with rose petals makes me catch on fire.

my Friday night

so, on Friday i went to a concert - http://www.amyshoemaker.com/ is the website for Amy, who plays bozouki at the session twice a week. she's John Williams' wife, and she has her own band, the Shoemakers. i went to hear them at a club in Skokie, the next town west of Evanston, with my friend James. He is Noe's best friend in town. we had a great time, and the music was awesome. it was a very eclectic set list, with many of Amy's own songs mixed in with Johnny Cash and the Ramones and many other great artists. she was so thrilled to see us there, too. i don't think she'd believed me when i told her i was going, and James she just knows as the guy at the bar who always buys her (usually unwanted/unneeded) shots (she's a lightweight).

so anyway. that's the story. then i got James a book out of the library, and he lent me Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, just as education and adding to my list of classics. On Saturday night, i passed out in a chair at about 9:30, reading. a wild weekend, to be sure.

today, i went to Celtic Fest down at Millennium Park. it was sweet. the weather was awesome, and i hung out in the Harp Tent, the Celtic Voices tent (for storytelling and singing), watched some manly men in kilts throw heavy things around, listened to some pipe bands (and got very nostalgic), and ended up listening to a band called GiveWay, which consists of 4 sisters from Edinborough, Scotland, playing pretty traditional music in a pretty rock way - their drummer plays a full kit, one of them plays keyboard, one plays accordion, and one trades off between fiddle and acoustic guitar. they are awesome musicians, and their accents are awesome.
consequently, i was quite late for the session at Nevins - and, to my delight, much missed. i was the only bodhran player to show up!
now i'm back at home, and ready for bed - with the sun setting at 7, i get tired much earlier.

puppies!!

I will post pictures as soon as I get them from roommate Emily.
I finally got to meet Noe's puppies, now 8? weeks old? they are adorable. too cute for words. endless wiggling, until suddenly they yawn and then pass out.
if i had consistent puppy in my life, i think i'd be much happier. i told him he can leave the puppies with me anytime.
the cats aren't wild about them, but they're okay. they get over it and forget to be scared. and at this point the puppies are still too shy to accost the kitties.

hilarious moment of the evening: apparently he honestly wants me to call him Snake.

oh man

i just realized something.
what i used to say (jokingly) about Vijay still holds true for my current situation.
i like my coffee like i like my men -
strong and dark.
only this one's stronger and darker.
and busier. this might as well be a long-distance relationship for all i see him.

but anyway. now I'm reading another Barbara Kingsolver book - this time, not a novel, but a book of essays. It's called Small Wonders, and it's a book of essays she wrote in response to September 11, 2001, so a timely read, i suppose.
so far, it's mixed, horribly depressing and uplifting.