I am the cat, I am the phone, I am an animal.

2005-09-04 / 11:25 a.m.

Every day I look at the news, and the stuff about Katrina gets more disquieting. I'm still surprised at how poorly we're handling this. In my head, I guess I always assume that things like natural disaster recovery is (relatively) like a cake walk for us compared to some other governments in the world. We're so stable, so organized, we've got such a huge economy, so many resources. Blah blah blah. Meanwhile, chaos is breaking loose and we can't even seem to get these people sufficient food. I don't even know where to place the brunt of the blame anymore. I do know that I'm pissed off at the fact that so much of our resources and so many of our people are being employed in Iraq. I also see that there are some good reasons to think about going for the more public management side of my degree.

Rehnquist is a goner. This development doesn't seem that interesting yet, as A) He's been teetering on the brink for awhile now, and I don't think anyone thought he'd hold out until 2008. B) His replacement probably won't be any worse than he is. I don't know, I'll probably change my tune when nominations start popping up in the news.

Friday, Roger and I had a picnic at the Botanical gardens, and I made what might have been the best chicken salad ever. Fresh dill was what really pushed it from good to stellar. Stellar, I say. Roger's brother and sister�Joe and Janet respectively�came to town Saturday. We went to Comer Joja and rented canoes. Roger had to be my canoe buddy, because he and Joe would be unfairly stronger than Janet and I, and no other Kach!nske wanted me in their boat. I should have been in Janet's canoe anyway, Roger yelled at me too much�things like "I said port!" and "break!". I think he just felt insecure because I was the superior boatswoman.

Okay, I'm out of words now. I'm going to go drink coffee and play videogames in my pajamas, because it's Sunday morning, and I can do that. I'm a grad student, I'm allowed to. I might just have some graham crackers too. I <3 living alone.

the force will be with you, always.

2005-08-28 / 2:14 p.m.

Holy crap. Summer is almost over. Soon the pool will close, and it will rain until it's cold out. Looking forward to fall, I am not.

More than a full week into classes and things are going pretty well. Having Friday's off is totally sweet and awesome. In the future, I hope to get lots done on Fridays, but since this is the beginning of the semester and all, I just had something a lot like a three day weekend. I met some cool people in my program at our little reception Friday�including international relations people, polisci people, and PA's. A startling number were married. The only guy I knew by name from the orientation turned out to be married, and I was embarrassed that my surprise was so visible. I hung out with the young married clique for a good part of the evening, actually. They seemed to be high quality people. The only thing not sailing a smooth course is my work as a research assistant. My professor boss seems really disappointed that he didn't get an assistant more interested/knowledgeable about his field of research, and my first assignment is so vague and broad, I might as well be researching "things that are good" or "the similarities and differences among animals with legs."

Netflix = awesome. Roger and I watched Bambi the other night�I had forgotten that it barely had a plot. In think that in 1942, the animators and producers over at Disney were just so tickled that they could make such pretty moving, color pictures that they didn't really need a plot�Just some songs to go along with the prettiness. (Bambi was prettier than I remembered). What's Bambi the prince of, anyway? You'd think the animal kingdom, or at least the animals residing in Bambi's forest would pick a more powerful, more intimidating, or cleverer animal to lead them, right? Except, when you think about it, the only animals that Bambi seemed to be prince of were other deer, birds, and rodents. Hail Bambi! Prince of cute animals�uh...with eyelashes!

Roger bought me a light saber, now all I need is a jedi name, and I'm set to go. When I get off my butt and go visit HVB, I'm going to try to get through airport security with it.

That's that. It's laundry time, as I've worn all my jeans to the point that they're all stretched out in the waist and fall down, making me look like a frumpy sk8ter boi from 1994. Chau.