hey gluttony

2005-05-11 / 7:43 p.m.

Public service announcement: There is a reason�several, actually�for saying, �hold your applause to the end.� Claping for individual graduates as they are called to receive degrees is impolite. Shouting, cheering, and air horns for individual graduates should be punishable by a severe beating to the music of Michael Bolton. Seriously, folks�this is rude. No one deserves to have their name stepped on by the family of their alphabetical predecessor. Besides, it�s a ceremony (and a fairly calm and austere one at that) to honor the graduating class of 2005. If I catch you doing this at my commencement, I will be embarrassed for you, and might throw a water balloon at you after the ceremony.

It�s a good thing this is fuckit week, I think I kind of need it. Today was guiltily divine. I�ll be fat and poor and maybe have skin cancer when it�s over, but whatever. I woke up fairly late, and then drove to whole foods to buy goodies for a small thank-you for my advisor, Professor Awesome. We talked for about a half hour before another PoliSci prof started knocking on the door�apparently, she got the time of the departmental meeting wrong, and she was late. Anyway, it was a nice goodbye. I�ll miss her. Because, well, she�s awesome. As far as my paper goes, I don�t think she was super impressed with it, but she seemed to admire that I came to a moderately original conclusion and picked a ballsy (ovarieesy? Over-easy?) topic. 8:21 edit: She also told me that the registrar is a huge fan of the band cream, and went to London for some big concert. Those of you at TheCollege who know of our registrar should be laughing. After that, braved a bikini top and shorts and went to sun myself. This may be the one enclave from the real world where I�m somewhat comfortable doing that. I made a pretense of reading a book, but this quickly devolved into chatting with Michelle, and half sleeping. Came back in, and was overwhelmed about how relaxed I was, so I had to pack a little and go to the gym, just to keep myself grounded. Then I had dinner with the senior class on the patio of the student center. Nachos and beer in the setting sunshine�as my Argentine host mother would say, ��Era Divino! Di-vi-no!� Later, despite today�s caloric irresponsibility, I think I�ll accept Michelle�s invitation to go to Jakes.

Got my grades--they�re good, though I wanted an A in Latin American History and didn�t get it. Must have been that damned group presentation. : ( But goodness! Overall, today was so nice, it feels wrong somehow. I guess I should go pack more crap up.

come on, it's not like I've got homework to do!

2005-05-10 / 8:26 p.m.

Everyone should start calling Roger �Tickles the Pirate.� He really hates it. As Hydrous appears to be down, and therefore Roger�s website is down too, he has very little recourse for objection to this.

So, um, I�m kind of done with school, at least undergrad school at TheCollege. I finished my big bad senior seminar paper Sunday�bastard ended up at about 23 pages, and that was cut down a bit from the 24.5 it topped out at. But, and here�s the icing, Dr. Awesome (who is grading it) e-mailed me today, and mentioned that she liked it. SHE LIKES IT, MIKEY! SHE LIKES IT! This lack of school has left me feeling floaty and aimless. I tried to pack up my dorm a bit, but had little success�it looks like a bomb went off nearby. I think its time to try procrastination: I�ll pack Sunday (I�m moving Monday).

The fuckit attitude I�ve applied to packing has extended to pretty much every area of my life for this week, but that�s okay, its kind of a crazy time. I�m making a solemn vow to myself that starting next Monday, I�ll be back to my anal retentive self. I hope to start the new poverty diet Monday, shedding the unwanted pounds that come from the barrage of end-of-semester/graduation food TheCollege is so fond of giving us.

I got a summer job, but it�s not pretty folks. I was offered a job at a hotel, but unfortunately, they only paid 6$/hr. I had to turn it down in favor of, um, a telemarketing position. I know, I know. But listen, I don�t think it�ll be that bad. They only take inbound calls, so I won�t be interrupting anyone�s dinner. It pays better, and if I�m deemed worthy of taking calls in espanol, I�ll make even more per hour.

More about that later though, now, I�m off to meet Michelle. We�re going to see Sin City tonight. I�ll probably update a couple of times this week. I know you�re excited!

what next?

2005-05-05 / 9:39 p.m.

I really love my job here; it�s one of the things I�ll miss most about TheCollege. Tutoring is fun and interesting and gratifying and dynamic and wonderful�I love it, and I can�t imagine doing anything else to sustain my red wine habit, expensive conditioner preference, and penchant for sushi. Still, the really significant loss is going to be my co-workers, and the general environment. I genuinely really like every. Single. Person. I work with. Furthermore, we all get along really well. I mean, barring the possibility that everyone sits closed in the office and talks about how much I suck when I�m not around, they can all at least stand me. We work well as a group�and it was like this even when the members were a little different. Tonight was our last dinner, and aside from laughing so hard I got a stitch in my side, it was almost enough to make a girl feel sentimental�not quite though. I missed Andrea. Is it idealistic to try to keep in touch with co-workers? I hope not.

Five randomly ordered things I will miss about living at and attending TheCollege: (first of a series)
• The Writing Center
• Having someone clean my bathroom for me
• The variety of things on the salad bar in the dining hall
• The PoliSci department, even though they seem to think a minus sign as a logical extension of the letter A
• Laying in the sun on the quad.

and�

Five randomly ordered things I will not miss
• �Man on the hall.�
• the low probability of the gym actually being open when it�s scheduled to be open.
• having the air conditioning on when it�s under 30 degrees outside.
• That girl�you know who I�m talking about. her.
• Having clumps of someone else's hair on the shower drain.

The end is growing near

2005-05-02 / 9:54 p.m.

Updates, while they probably won�t be totally absent, will most likely suck until next week�This is the week of trying to make a paper out of the mess I�ve been compiling for the last month and a half or so. This entry was written in bits and pieces over the past two days, and compiled in my pre-bedtime winding down. And if one of you snide bastards asks how I have the time to ramble incessantly about nothing in my journal when I purportedly have so much work, remember that I hardly ever watch television.

I just tried to use the Wal-Mart website to see the going price for a cheap microwave. When I typed in the URL (or URI as Kyle�s comment thingy insists upon), I got the strangest message. �The Wal-Mart site is temporarily closed,� it said, �Please check back at a later time, we are sorry for the inconvenience.� How ironic and strange that a store that is frequently open for 24 hours would have a website that is not.

Weekend was doubleplusfun�The Holy Alliance* teamed up with Michelle and MikeB for a really nice Saturday evening. We had a very enjoyable meal at Sushi Avenue, followed by seeing �The Hitchhiker�s Guide to the Galaxy.� Hitchhiker�s was good, not great. Cleverly made, though not quite as absurdist as I remember the book being�I plan on re-reading it this summer. As for Sushi Avenue, if you eat one thing this year, it should be crunchy eel roll. Along with salmon roll, shrimp tempura, something called Futumaki (which I could have done without) it was one of the tastiest meals of the year.

Michelle and I just found a bunch of people from our long lost past on Facebook. It�s pretty awesome. I just got in touch with some of my best friends from middle school, as well as an old friend of Michelle�s who Suzanne Brian and I befriended taking PE in summer school. See, Roger? Facebook isn�t all bad�Anyway, this reminded me of something Lee did awhile ago. In case anyone from a former life gets it in their heads to google themselves, I thought it would be fun to drop their names here. So here goes�.Margaret Meyer was one of an inseparable triad of second graders at St. Peters School along with Jessica Gold and me. Jessica and I found each other in 6th or 7th grade, but I haven�t heard anything from or about Margaret since I moved to Georgia. She was the kind of kid I imagine grew into an incredibly cool and successful adult. Also: Katie Murphy and Suzanne Noble, I�d love to know what you�re up to.

The end of the semester makes me feel both panicky over my 499 paper and like a rabid socialite. As far as the 499 paper, it takes on all new oomph being the last academic paper I�ll write here, furthermore, for the capstone of my major. So far, I don�t feel like it�s representative of my growth as a student; it might be a good example of why thorough prewriting is an advantageous strategy though. It�ll be okay, but I want it to be great. For better or worse though, it�s all over Monday. As far as the rabid socialite bit, it feels like there are a million billion social gatherings I�m invited to�many of them practically obligatory. Tonight was graduation dinner with a champagne toast with the young Atlanta alumni. Tomorrow, screening of senior video. Wednesday, senior play day and picnic. Thursday, writing center party at Ru Sans. Friday, Dinner and drinks at my flute instructors house. There�s also midnight exam breakfast and various sundry gatherings I�m probably forgetting. I�ve probably got time all things considered, but it seems to be a little much this spring, don�t you think? Not to mention that the last thing I need is more junk food. Uck. I�m hoping that living on my own and being poor will be the miracle diet I need.

Today, and Athens native I go to school with told me how shitty the job pool was for the n-sub-unskilled crowd. I applied for a handful of jobs through the magic of the internet, but I�m not going to get my hopes up.

This is that and that is all. You didn�t read more than a fifth of it, did you? No matter, very little was said unless you have the ancient codex needed to find the hidden message. Tomorrow, the pain begins. I�m hoping to have a really excellent draft by Thursday, take it to my advisor, Dr. Awesome and to the writing center on Friday. Wish me luck. DO IT.

*The Holy Alliance --Originally referring to the 1815 coalition of Russia, Austria and Prussia born of the religious zeal of Alexander I and the goal of preserving social order and Christian principles. Roger and I have adopted the name it to describe our relationship�let�s be serious, you know we�re that cool.