am i listening to christmas carols?

YES.

seasonal anachronism aside, i've been having ultra-crazy-stupidly busy times lately. allow me to provide a briefing.

• NYCTF position: secured. and possibly more work and i'd really like it to be. though i do have an ambassador colleague, so i'm not all on my own.
• italian class: freakin' tough! but, i did get a B on the last test (not what i'd like, but perfectionism can wait for when i'm rearing my children, right...?) the oral test that's coming up, though.. that should be a "treat."
  >american novel class: midterm = PWNT. i got a 100% on the midterm and a very complimentary comment on my essay.

  Amanda,

  You have good control over your prose, so I’d like to see you take more risks with your arguments. Dig a little deeper…on your longer paper I’d like to see you tackle a topic that requires arguments and not just observations. Really interrogate the texts, analyze the passages you choose to quote, and make an original contribution to scholarship. I am hoping you’ll write your longer paper with an eye toward the spring conference I mentioned.

  
  

  in-class exam: 10

  take-home essay: 10

  midterm: 20/20

(any formatting/font/color issues: blame the prof. also, share in my glory - that test was tough).

• 20th century poetry: currently putting off the last entry for my annotated bibliography (read: HATE exemplified). funny story - one of the article authors changed her name after publishing the article. i emailed her, after tracking down the new name, to make certain that it was actually her article.. otherwise, i just totally lied in my annotations.
• neuroses: relatively under control. i'd really like to see someone about my anxiety, which has been.. leveling out, but at a high level. but, i just don't have the time or resources. ::sigh::
• weekend plans: busy. TAPS all afternoon tomorrow and then to kiamesha's party. then back to load-in on saturday and some library time for listening to a freakin' cassette tape of one of my tutoring sessions. then, more load-in. maybe i can still finish pledging for thespians by the end of this semester? maybe.. ::crosses fingers::
• weather: it's hatefully cold up here. WHY!? i'm freezing. and i loathe it. i need to invest in these. want want want. i actually already have one pair (courtesy of gramma). they are heaven and i want more. i am a glutton for divinity.

in other news: good night! happy, belated, halloween (and all saints' day) (and 41 months for me and mr. matt). ^_^

busybusybusy!

today has been the busiest day of my whole life. oh - em - gee!
let's preface, first. matt decided, in all his awesome sweetness, to visit me tuesday into wednesday. he arrived around 1:30am wednesday morning and was gone in just over 12 hours. in the meantime, we made kissies and a big breakfast and made our ipods makeout. it was pretty good.
unfortunately, it meant that i bagged my lab yesterday (well, wednesday) morning and didn't get any homework done for the other two wednesday classes. amy's class - no big deal. english 458 is a challenging class, but our assignment deadlines are flexible and we were doing the same poet (actually, poem) for the second day. no new readings. my film class was another story. i forgot to do the project proposal - the 100 point assignment leading up to our gigando 500 point end-of-semester project. i've decided to do a film about queers on campus. it should be pretty sweet, but i only decided that.. late last night? i talked to the instructor and she gave me a deadline extension for the proposal. i spent all day today thinking about it (while ignoring class) and much of the previous night thinking of awesome shots to use. i'm pretty psyched. ^_^ you can check out the proposal on my dork-blog here.
today, i was incredibly productive. not only did i make up that lab and finish the proposal, but i also had a second phone interview for the NYCTF college ambassador position (refer to the same dork-blog for my application to that) and this site for more info about the program. it's a pretty awesome program and i hope that i can be their ambassador.. and not just for the dollars. mm, dollars. in any case, the basic premise of the program is that new york needs more public school teachers, so they've set up a teach-for-america style alternative-certification program that takes non-education majors and makes them worthwhile. with stipends. my job, should i get it, would be to hype it up at penn state and meet some recruitment goals. sounds pretty awesome and i look forward to promoting a program that i can really get behind.
aside from lab and the interview, i managed to attend an LAUC meeting for the first time, attended a Ralph Ellison symposium (which was fairly good, but a bit dull because it focused on biographical content more than literary work), and finally made my spring semester actual. i emailed sanford schwartz about adding his already-full hitchcock course and he said i could do it and i'm ridiculously, run-on excited. extra good news: the thursday class will be shared with graduate students.. the discussion should run extra awesome. huzzah!
i did some other exhausting stuff today, too. but, i don't feel like talking about it. i also, literally, collapsed upon arriving back in my room. i sprawled across the bed (i didn't say that i have lousy aim in collapsing) and drooled on the covers for half an hour before i could even move again. it was a very long day.

tomorrow should be a little easier. even though i have an italian vocab quiz for which i am *not* prepared, i should be able to just take things a little slower. and then go to the drag show. yayayayayay! anita and i are going to go in drag. break out the chest wraps, we're dressing up! also, tomorrow starts the national conference on peer tutoring in the writing center (or something to that effect). i'm moderating two panels on saturday after doing a practice GRE. wish me luck!

hope everyone's having a great semester thus far -- luck with midterms!

bentoooo!

i forgot to mention: i've been heartily enjoying cooking lately.
having my own kitchen has really brought out my desire to have a good time in it. now i make wonderful dinners (that i usually don't eat for some weird reason) and adorable lunches. the lunches, of course, are strongly aided in cuteness-factor by my two new bento boxes and by some ideas that i've picked up from cooking cute (a very helpful bento site) and other sites.
there's nothing not wonderful about cookie-cuttered sandwiches and precious little portions of rice, edamame and carrots. i even bought some delicious organic baby carrots and baby peppers at the farmers' market. yay: healthy for me and the environment! it's really fun to make my lunch, which would normally be a pretty bland affair of leftovers in an awkwardly large insulated lunchbox, into something cute and pleasant. i now take even the simplest things, like a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich, and make it cute by using mini cookie cutters (anita had some spring themed ones and i got some autumn themed ones at wal-mart for only $1.76 for a pack of six). the resulting sandwich maintains all the good parts and only leaves off the crusts, if i'm careful. any leftover pieces i just eat while i'm preparing the meal, so i don't waste anything.
the bento box also encourages me to eat healthier. it's so easy and cute to pack some fresh rice and edamame into the container that vacuum seals itself (the heat sucks the lid down), i do that more often than pack unhealthy, exhausting leftovers. or spending money buying lunch at the HUB or someplace downtown.
access to the farmers' market has also encouraged me to eat in an overall healthy way: i buy produce that's locally grown using, at least relatively, sustainable methods ... i basically just go and pick out what looks most appealing. i got a zucchini roughly the size of my calf -- we're making zucchini cake (a variation on carrot cake) with it, if we ever get around to it. otherwise, we'll probably just freeze some and make stir-fry and other things with it.
so, yeah, i'm settling in nicely to the whole "i have a place called home" thing. it's temporary, but it'll do for now. and then i'll have a real home.. based, hopefully, on love. and hopefully in l.a.

quick update

so, i've been out of the blogging habit for a while now. my sincerest.

not really in the mood for updating, but i feel bound to do so, so let me give a (very) brief summary of my weekend with matt.

he arrived late thursday and we snuggled and fell asleep after watching half of "children of men" which is interesting, but i'm willing to bet the book is better. it's got great cinematography (matt says it's very polish), but that's about all that it's got going for it. combining lousy dialogue with flat characters and mediocre acting doesn't create good cinema. *frown* we eventually finished the movie. good ending. pleasantly ambiguous.

friday came pleasantly enough. i only had two classes while matt hung out in panera playing with his compy and/or reading "free culture." i don't know how keen i am to read that -- seeing as i am certain it will only upset me. we left campus.
we returned to campus to feast at the corner room (yum!) and then to proceed to "synergy" the talent show sponsored by the thespians. the acts were all very good and it put us into a great mood to go see cirque du soleil on saturday. (!!!).
we retired, after the show, to the diner for some delicious stickies. (round one of ice cream for the weekend).

saturday we bagged the game (sorry, al!) and slept in and hung out with anita and returned my rainboots (too big!) to target. soon after, we headed off to see the most amazing human spectacle i've ever seen: cirque du soleil's saltimbanco. it was ... well, spectacular. the stunts were amazing, but the beauty was really what took me - they were meticulous in their work: even the shadows were breath-taking. there was a perfect mixture of fun/foolish clowning (all in good taste and pleasant, but not over the top), brilliant acrobatics, and sensuous/rhythmic pairs of acrobats. this is the kind of circus i can get behind - where i know there aren't unhappy elephants and lead-poisoned clowns behind my pleasure (clown make-up used to be made with a lead base).

after the show, we had a lovely time picking up anita and trekking around downtown state college to find a reasonably priced dinner that would not take forever to wait for -- with hour waits at green bowl (which is not reasonably priced except on weekdays for lunch) and rotelli (which also has better deals for weekday lunches). we ended up "settling" for pitas at the pita pit. they were amazing! go, eat their food. pay them your monies. the pitas are gigantic (screw you, tiny pitas from the supermarket) and stuffed full of delicious things. fresh meat and/or veggies and tons of toppings to choose from make this a pretty healthy, but also hearty meal. with a reasonable price, too. about $5-6/person for being totally full at the end. good deal. then we took matt for his first experience of the creamery. we were very impressed with the sandusky blitz (banana ice cream and other goodies) and the pumpkin pie flavor. the palmer mousseum was also delisch, but i preferred the pie. later we had even more food, courtesy of anita: vegetable fried rice (delicious, easy and cheap!) and miso soup (equally easy and relatively cheap, but not so yummy -- our tofu was gross. nasoya = lose).
this morning, we got up pleasantly late and went over to the waffle shop on atherton for some absolutely fabulous breakfast. i had iowa corn pancakes.. i will never be able to look at a plain 'ol wheat pancake the same again. i am a changed person. the meals were delicious and as reasonable as the pita pit. go there. eat their food. but, bring cash 'cause they don't take credit or debit and their atm (suckers!) has a $2 fee/transaction. suck.

after gorging ourselves on breakfast food and kisses, matt finally left to go home around 1pm. i miss him already. 'cause i'm a wimp.
i have spent the rest of the day doing homework and doing meetings and boring stuff. this has been a simply wonderful meeting and i am so happy and full of lovey-doviness for matt because he made it all possible - he bought the tickets and paid for the delicious meals and just general helped me recover from remaining malaise of sickness and sympathized with my pulled foot muscle. he even put up with me talking about moving in with him next summer after i graduate. what a sweet, patient, tolerant baby! ::loveysnugglysappybullshit::

so, yeah. great weekend. and now it's october. yay! yay autumn and yay classes still not sucking too badly!

brief update

i've been very lazy about updating lately -- please accept my apologies.

plans have changed a lot since the last posting, some for fun, some for suck.
allow me to explain: instead of visiting doug and jaclyn, matt went to see his dad (a much needed and helpful to the healing process visit) in california while i stayed home and cleaned the bejeesus out of my room. it's still in progress, but coming along nicely. one of the major accomplishments for my room is convincing gramma that she won't miss them if i sell her enormous masses of barbies (that live in my room, of course). i posted them on craigslist and hope to get a reasonably good price for all of them. (buy them. pleeeasse!)

speaking of gramma: she's back in the hospital. she's.. not doing that great, i think. her body is starting to shut down from the relative inefficiency of dialysis (vs. actual kidney function). the remainder of her organs are starting to deteriorate. ::sigh:: i never want her to go, you know.. but i hate for her to be in pain. i feel about gramma similar to the way i felt about dad: that maybe it's better for her just to go quietly before the pain progresses anymore. obviously gramma's situation is slightly different, but.. the similarities are striking. i really don't want to have to deal with another death before this year is over. it's completely selfish of me, i know, but it's been such a hard year with gramma stephanie (dad's mother) dying in january and then dad going and so much stress about matt's dad being sick.

on a brighter note, matt and i spent a wonderful weekend in atlantic city. we gambled a bit (spent $5 and won $10) as well as hit the beach (sea isle city). i'm sure a picture post will come soon. ^_^ we had a great time hanging out with aunt tressa and her fiance, p.j., as well as my cool cousins gianna and connor. these cousins are the younger siblings of my cousin micheal who just recently left for coast guard basic training (see previous post for slightly more details). one of the big highlights of this trip, though, was p.j.'s mother who lives with aunt tressa. this lovely woman, judy, is a shopaholic. thing is, she never uses her purchases so, instead of just letting them sit there helping noone, judy gives away her purchases as loving gifts. i, of course, made out like a bandit when i showed an interest in knitting and handbags. i came away not only with some lovely hand lotions, but also with a very nice vera bradley bag filled to the brim with about a million of all the knitting needles i'll need for the rest of my life. DPN's from size 0 - 10 along with adjustable size circular needles as well as a whole set of straight needles should keep me well stocked for a very very long time. i am so impressed with her generosity and the value of the things she gave me. gifts she's made to someone she has known for only a few days ... easy equal around $200.

so, an overall success, the trip to atlantic city was marked by a little tension, but a lot of fun (and great tans). we definitely hope to do it again in the near future. this weekend, though, holds all the fun and excitement of going to my grampa's wedding (what wedding gift do you give to two old people? all suggestions are incredibly welcome) and just generalized hanging out. also perhaps some very vanilla tiramisu kahlua cupcakes..? we'll see.
i miss everyone very much. ::hugs everyone:: please call! or write! facebook?

"ready, steady, go"

in the roughly two weeks since i last updated, a lot has been going on.
not only have matt and i passed the official three year mark, but we also celebrated my 20th birthday. yay!
we spent our anniversary with a quiet evening at home dining upon roughly the same meal we've shared for the past two anniversaries: homemade pasta sauce served over spaghetti and accompanied by a delicious salad and yummy bread. we had some awesome coffee over ice cream (a la "white") and exchanged gifts. he, very sweetly, gave me a beautiful pair of earrings (dangly and shiny and picture forthcoming if i'm properly reminded) and a copy of song of songs, everyone's favorite epic, biblical love poem. he's so sweet. i gave him a copy of "the fountain" which we later watched and loved as much as the first (and second) time(s).
the day after, we went over to the pauls' house for some wonderful partying complete with great food and even better times with friends (even making some new ones in the process). it was great to be able to see doug and jaclyn again and i can't wait until we go down to visit them this weekend. *squeal*
oh, man.. i had a great birthday. matt was very sweet and gave me a copy of "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" which i very much look forward to reading. anita, of course, came through with an amazing gift: a chicken! just what a wanted!! it's not the living, breathing, torture-worthy creature i was hoping for, but i think ceramic will do just fine. it will also be a great addition to our apartment kitchen.. maybe holding teabags? she also gave me a really pretty pillow with a matching throw -- excellent additions to the couch, i suppose. the presents were rounded off with a hand-me-down (pretty pink 4gb) ipod courtesy of my mother and fabulous headphones thanks to curtis. yay for sweatproof!
we had a great dinner at cheeburger cheeburger and spent the rest of the evening catching up on "house" and conversation. i'm glad my friends are so laid-back. it's nice to be able to just chill at someone's house and pet kitties while watching the tube.

right now, though, i'm at work. i'm only here for another 2 hours or so and i've only dealt with ..maybe 10 customers? it's pretty slow here, but that means that i get to make friends with blogger, digg, and many webcomics that i lurve.

in upcoming events:
-- dinner tonight with aunt penni?
-- visit doug and jaclyn this weekend(!)
-- grampa's wedding june 30th (!!)
-- and some other stuff in between.

this summer, though it's had its very rough moments (like matt's dad's hospital stay about which we're still praying), is getting off to a pretty good start. hope everyone else is enjoying.

i am not 5'3"

i finally got a real id card. not a driver's license, mind you, just an id, but now i can actually positively identify myself without looking like a creeper or a schmuck. ^_^ the card, lying little thing that it is, says that i am five three.. now, we all know that i am not that tall. or that matt is that short: it says he is five three, as well. *grin* i guess they just don't care that much. ::shrug::
also, i got back my grades from last semester (well, a little while ago, now). a's in all my english courses (yessss!) and a b in italian. i'm pretty disappointed about that b, but i know i'll be able to bring it up in the fall. it was a really hard semester and i'm still pretty displeased with the professor. in any case, though, i am pretty excited about upcoming semester. tons of fun/difficult english courses (three: one is peer editing, one is 20th c. american poetry, and the other is american modernist writing). these will all be pretty tough courses, i think, but i'm really looking forward to them. you can look at my schedule here.

once again, i'm making this update while at work. it's pretty dull since i haven't done enough training to actually handle money. seeing as this is a bank and money is all you can really do here.. well, there's nothing except dull regulations and uninteresting documentation for me to work with. blugh.

so, because i need to get more dull reading done, i'll leave off here. hope everyone had a great memorial day weekend!

p.s. our three year anniversary is this friday. congratulate us!
p.p.s. my birthday is next monday. bring me presents!