'tis a strange day when ye talk like a pirate...

Me mateys, this be one strange day. I'm wearing an eye patch, I saw a weird snake like lizard, and its raining as I type. Perhaps some explanations are needed?
Today, I got home after work only to find a pirate set on my bed- complete with cutlass, knife, hook and eye patch! Tara snuck into my house and left it for me in honor of the (aforementioned)International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Awesome! I've been wearing the eye patch on and off throughout the day.
Later, Tara discovered a snake with legs outside of her house. It was the weirdest thing! It looked like a snake, moved like a snake, had a tongue like a snake... but it also had little lizard like feet. So we stared at it for a while and took pictures. Totally the normal and mature grad student reaction, right?
I tried to get some studying done at Borders after the snake-lizard extravaganza, but failed pretty miserably, so instead I drove home. And that's when I saw lightening and it started to rain. Mind you, it was 80 plus degrees today, with no cause for rain. So of course there would be thunder and lightening and rainfall! That makes sense.
I really don't know why these strange things continue to occur. Maybe its me?


Rocking the eye patch and my knife


weird reptile sighting in Claremont

Yarr!

Mateys, today be "International Talk Like a Pirate Day." So bust out yer cutlasses and eye-patches, grab some wenches and some grog, and enjoy the bleedin' day! Arr!
ps. check out the website, it be full of pirate fun! http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html

don't wanna work

Its Friday, I'm at work. Despite my purported liking of this job, I don't really feel like working (let's be honest, when do I ever?). I feel like crawling back into bed, and finishing the book I was reading (okay, so to be honest, it was a comic book- but really good! Its called Runaways, and is about these six teenagers who find out their parents are super villians... and I'm very near the end, but I had to stop reading to come to work, argh). So anyway, I'm sitting here at my desk, trying to search for missing articles of one of our co-directors (apparently, its frowned upon when library that he runs is missing his work)... which would be great if I could find any of his articles in the various databaes that I'm using, but, unfortunately, I think I suck at searching because I can't find these damn things. *Sigh* But some good things have happened since I got to work this morning. For instance, I got my bike lock removed from my bike, so now I can ride it home. Why is this noteworthy? Well, lets just say a few days ago some kids thought it would be fun to change the combo on my bike lock and lock it to my front wheel. Not cool. So today, I had to get the maintnance guys to cut open my bike lock. On the upside, my bike is free, and can now be ridden. On the downside, I am once again bike-lock-less.

don't wanna study

Okay, so I still have another 30 pages of Schiller to read tonight, but no real desire to do it, so instead I'm going to post the lyrics of a song I heard today. Its by The Dead Kennedys, called "At My Job." And while for once I actually don't have a crappy mindless job to complain about, I've had enough in the past (just read some of my previous posts) for this song to relevance. So here's to lame jobs and procrastination!

If your machine might slip a gear
Push this button to help it clear
Your time card says your name's Joe
But we'll call you 6-3-0
[Chorus]
I'm working at my job
I'm so happy
More boring by the day
But they pay me
All that time spent going to school
Just to end up following-rules
[Chorus]
Now it's time to take a break
Don't stray too far or you'll be late
Thank you for your service and a long career
Glad you gave us your best years

sad but true

Today Tina asked me to save her a place in the library. Because she knew that "on Sundays, the tables tend to fill up."

I didn't think it was possible; but we've actually reached new lows of nerdiness.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Raccoons... heroes with a ring tail?

Okay, I know its technically Thursday (or no pants wonderday, if you really want to be specific), but in my mind, this has Friday written all over it. It might have something to do with the fact that my week of classes end on Thursday, a fact which I am infinitely excited about as this has been quite possibly a week from hell. After the glory that was Saturday, things were bound to go downhill... and they did. Well, not so much downhill as busy with readings and writings, etc. Pretty much everyday since Sunday has been spent trying to catch up for the next day's class- so you can see why I'm so excited to not have class tomorrow. There's actually an opportunity for me to get on track, and even *gasp* get ahead! Of course, am I taking advantage of such a momentous opportunity? Of course not. If I was, would I be writing in this fantastic blog? And you all would be deprived, and probably cry, so really I'm doing this for you. I'm so generous like that :)
Anyway.
I don't actually have anything exciting to post, as my life has been consumed by reading, I haven't had too many exciting adventures. I did envision my life being ended by rabid raccoons though. The other night, as I walking home from the library (because like I said, I've been living the exciting life lately), I came across three huge raccoons! I wanted to take a picture, but they started lumbering towards me and suddenly I realized that I know very little about raccoons, except I imagined them to have sharp teeth, and then I got mental image of them running me down, knocking me to the ground with their massive weight (seriously- these were GIANT raccoons) and tearing me apart with their sharp teeth! So instead, I hurriedly walked home.

And that has been the most exciting thing to happen to me this week. Envisioning my own death by raccoons.


This was not the raccoon that I saw that night, this was a raccoon that was hanging out outside of my house a couple of nights earlier (Imagine it bigger with sharp teeth and a maniacal gleam in it's eyes!)

It started out simply enough...

Last night, all I really had planned for myself was some dinner with friends and a movie. It was supposed to be a quietly mellow night, as the night before had been the inaugural meeting of the Unofficial CGU Wine Club of which I somehow acquired the somewhat dubious title of "El Vino de Presidente" (I think we got our languages slightly mixed). Our friend Jesse was having a party at his house, and we had decided to make only the minorist of appearances. So after spending the day with "Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (a book I do not recommend, as I believe it adversely affects one's sanity, as you will shortly see) I went to Elaine's for some bbq. Dinner was excellent, and we were all in quite the food coma when we decided to head over to Jesse's. So to bolster ourselves, we acquired some caffeine in the form of coffee beverages. This, as you will see was the first of a long line of questionable decisions. The next being opening random doors and cupboards at Jesse's house- where there is an abundance of seriously random stuff. In one cupboard I found some elderly person's glasses, vitamins, wine glasses and a metal sign saying "DO NOT ENTER TEST IN PROGRESS." Of course I couldn'tÂ’t just let that go unnoticed. The next half an hour or so was spent taking pictures with said sign in various rooms throughout JesseÂ’s house, and cracking ourselves up immensely. After that (and some brownies), we all returned to respective homes, thinking the night couldn'’t get any better.
We were so wrong.

Not thirty minutes later did I get a call from Tara, and not ten minutes later was I over at her house creating a true masterpiece, entitled Aicha. Have you seen the Aicha video on the internet? It's truly spectacular- this random dude singing about a woman who moves like the breeze http://www.ameryonline.com/aicha/ (click on "Aicha Original Video"”). Tara's brother had made his own version, and in a haze of coffee laced insanity, we decided to one up him. And how did we. Lets just say, light sabers, sparkly blue shorts, stick horses and really bad dancing was involved (Oh, and the sign). It was AWESOME!
So that was my Saturday night. I never got to see any movie, but the one we made was totally worth missing any other entertainment adventure. It was also super fun to just hang out with my friends, and be completely silly- its a rare group of people who you can have good intellectual conversations with, who also find the humor in random signs and bad dancing.


Fun with the TEST IN PROGRESS sign






The aftereffects of the awesome Aicha adventure (don't you really want to see the video now?)

Aaaarrrggghhhh!

So my first week of classes are officially over. It's been a good week, but I kept feeling like something was missing. I thought it might have been some of my classes, as they keep getting cancelled (seriously! there was the Monday excitement, and then today, my professor got caught in traffic and the class ended up not happening... so out of five possible sessions, I had three. One would think I would be excited about this prospect, but I'm actually kind of bummed- either the heat is getting to me, or I've officially reached new levels of nerdom), but it was something else entirely. I didn't even realize what I missing until it happened.

A Pirate sighting.

The Pirate of the history department is back and in classes, along with the other oddballs and eccentrics; life in Claremont is complete. And I couldn't be happier!

Class update

So I found my class. I got to my class. My friend Lawrence got to class. We sat in our class for while. Nobody showed up. So went and asked student support if perhaps the class had been cancelled... and apparently all the undergrad campuses don't start their classes until tomorrow. CGU meanwhile started today. Of course no one notified us poor grad students of this.
So the moral of the story is that I finally found my class, only to have it not be there. Would you have expected any less?

Oh, its the most wonderful time of the year!

Okay, so that song is really about Christmas, but for a nerd like me, it just might be Fall that ranks high in my mind. I don't know what it is, but I love the beginning of the school year- so much hope and anticipation, papers and presentations have yet to be assigned, I'm not buried under a endless pile of books to read, everything seems exciting and fresh. Of course, by the end of this week, I'm sure I'll be back to normal self- praying for it to end and counting down the days until winter break. But for now (i.e. this morning) I'm excited. And a little nervous- as I have class in an hour and absolutely no idea where said class might be. CGU finally got on the bandwagon with a webpage that one could log into and see all their class information, etc., so I thought I would be smart and check it out, and also find where my class is... which would be awesome if the webpage was up and running. But of course it isn't. Of course. But I'm still excited.

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round..

Okay, so that's a lie. I'm actually sitting here on my couch, looking at the clock, and wondering why I've already been up for over two hours. That's right- I woke up at seven this morning. Why? I only wish I knew. One of the great mysteries of life, I suppose.
So I was going to try and be all clever and have a neat segue into my next random topic, but I think I'm too tired to write one. Feel free to add your own. Ready? Go!

Let me say happy anniversary to myself. Apparently, its been a year since I started this life-altering, immensely important, mind-blowing blog, and nobody's life has been the same since. Well, okay, so that might be a bit of an embellishment- it was brought to my attention this past week that I have a slight problem with exagerrating (and also being generally spastic, but I'm not too concerned). But the point is, a year later and I'm still blogging strong... and I have to thank my unbelievably boring jobs for all the free time in front of the computer. Just think how many posts we all would have been deprived if I hasn't worked in these various offic settings over the past year. It almost makes the sometimes aggravation worth it. Um, wait. I think not. But at least I can say that something good (or at least entertaining) came out of the past year. Who knows where this one will lead?

questions

The "L" on my laptop is breaking. I don't think I ever noticed how many words have "l"s in them until this started happening. For instance- my name. I don't think Aexandra has the same resonance. I'm not quite certain what to do about this problem- is it possible to buy single letters (like on Wheel of Fortune)? If it were my desktop, I could buy a new keyboard, but I don't think that's possible for a laptop. Once again, my utter lack of technological skills are starting to show.
Random question- if the back door is open, is it still considered breaking an entering? Let's just say I had a friend, who had another friend, and their neighbors had moved out, and they wanted to see inside the house, and the back door was open... would that still be considered a crime? Technically, as there were no owners in residence (the house is currently on the market to be rented), it could be construed as a public place; and as a public place that was open, I think we, er, these people, were totally within their rights to enter said house.
Today is my father's birthday. (This has been the week of birthdays, with more to come). Being the good daughter that I am, I haven't gotten him a present yet. He and my mother are coming out to Claremont on Saturday for lunch, so I figure I have a little of time left to acquire something. And hopefully for inspiration to come, because he is one of the hardest people to shop for! He's the type that likes to go out and get things on his own- part of the joy is finding for him. Which makes it hard for one to shop for him. Any suggestions?
I guess I'll continue to cogitate (fun word!) on these questions as I sit here at work, pretending to be transfixed by the data entry before me- at least it'll give me something to think about.

Honoring an amazing woman.

When I first met Sue Sally Hale, I don't really remember too much about her- I was six and her goose was chasing me down her driveway. But as I grew older and began to spend more time with her I learned just what an amazing woman she was. She's probably most well known for her accomplishments in the realm of polo (the real kind; equestrian, not water). Prior to 1972, women were not allowed in the United States Polo Association. They could play at clubs and in pick up games, but they couldn't play in tournaments or be members. Sue Sally, however, had different ideas. She had grown up with polo players, and at the age of 9 decided that that was what she was going to do with her life. So for twenty years she hid her sexuality, and played as the very quiet, but talented SS Hale. At the same time, Sue Sally was fighting for the admission of women into the USPA, fighting fires (as the first female firefighter in Moneterey) and raising her children. Pretty much every woman in the polo community owes something to Sue Sally for her efforts on the behalf of female polo players (without her, we might still not be allowed in the USPA), myself included. But I think my debt goes a lot deeper than that. I was so very incredibly fortunate to have her my life- she was such an inspiration on so many levels. Sue Sally taught me that no obstacle thats worth it is insurmountable. Today would have been her 68th birthday, but she passed away two years ago. In my mind, she's my hero. I just wanted to share that.

I officially have senioritus

So remember senior year of high school, when AP tests were done, and all major projects were turned in, and there really wasn't much to do except think about leaving for college and "our last summer!"? That pretty much sums up how I'm feeling at work these days- well except for the leaving for college part (because I already went) and the summer expectations (because summer will be over after next week). But the not having anything to do- yes that fits me to a tee. Or is it T? I've always wondered. (I'm kind of tired and therefore loopy; more on that later) Its a weird phrase regardless. So basically, I have little to nothing to do here at work- the job that I've been doing for the past number of months has become obsolete (one of the IT guys developed a program so the computer does my job in a mere matter of minutes). But as next week is my last, its kind of silly to give me a new project, or teach me something new, as I'd only be doing it for a week. So mostly I've been doing odd jobs and messing around on the internet for the past week. I can't really say I've been complaining.
However, I would like to complain about something else-the gardeners that come to my house in the wee hours of the morning. Is it that wrong to want to sleep past 7:30? Every other Thursday they come with their lawnmowers and weed wackers and go to town right outside of my house. I know there are vastly more important things to complain about, and this sounds like the pettiest of complaints. But have you ever been woken up by a weed wacker going full speed? Its not pleasant, I assure you.

okay, so I finally found a use for a microwave

For the past couple of months, I haven't had a microwave in my house, and for the most part it really hasn't bothered me. I never really used a microwave growing up (although that might have had something to do with my hippie parents), and I haven't had any need for one lately either. That is, until tonight. I wanted to make some chocolate chip cookies and needed to melt some butter for said cookies. Normally, one would pop the butter into a microwave for a couple of seconds, and viola! melted butter. Not so the case in my house. I thought I would use the oven as it was heating, and actually tried to concoct a holder of some sort out some aluminum foil... for about thirty seconds before I called Tara and asked to come over and borrow her microwave for a bit (Tara literally lives around the corer from me, in the time it takes to melt butter in a microwave, I can be at her house). And, that my friends, is why Claremont is such a great place to live- most of my friends live seconds away. Which comes in handy, because you never know when you might need to borrow a microwave. :)

warning: liberal post ahead

"Bush demonstrates the brightness of an Iraqi future."

Okay, so I actually found this on another website, but thought it was pretty funny.
(can you tell I figured out how to post pictures and am now drunk with power?)

I'm back, bitches: part 2

Yes that's right; not a week back in Claremont and I left again. But it was only for a night, and I actually got back last night. I came back just in time to celebrate Jesse's birthday with a visit Foxy's, a pool hall in Montclair where I learned that I still have no skills at pool. But it was a good, albeit late night. Today was spent on many random adventures, starting with the great fruit hunt in my backyard. Everytime I go back there I find another fruit bearing tree. Which would be awesome if I knew what fruits these trees were bearing. My friend Tara and I went out on a fact finding mission and decided that one tree was bearing yellow plums and the other unripe persimmons. I also learned that one should not lick the inside of an unripe persimmon as not only does it taste nasty, it also sort of makes your tongue numb for a bit. Oh, and apparently the skin is slightly poisonous, or so I read. After that, I smashed some plates- not because I have rage, but because I was doing a mosaic project. But regardless it was fun to break them, despite what the neighbors must have been thinking.
Tonight was my friend Melissa's going away party (I'm not sure what's going on, but a good number of my friends have been leaving for the Midwest, is there something I don't know?), so Tara and got her some awesome going away presents, like giant highlighters and a pink boa. I also bought for myself some new flip flops (as I managed to leave my other ones at home, sigh) and a Darth Vader folder, which is beyond awesome. Yeah, we were a little silly. No surprise there though.


My persimmons did not look like this.


I think this man might have licked the unripe persimmon.


My totally awesome Darth Vader folder.



Oh, and here I am in an elevator.

The books are overtaking this house

So its about 9:40 on Saturday morning, and I'm finding myself at my parents house, sitting at their computer, having my patience tried with the impossibly slow dial up modem. I've already been up for a couple of hours-between the dogs barking, the horses neighing, my mother's loudly dulcet (okay, so not the right word, but a fun one nonetheless) tones on the phone, and the neighbor's constructing; sleeping in never even had a chance. I got home late last night, after a day in LA, where I tried my hand at Jeopardy (and sadly did not pass the test, but I definitly plan to in the future, so close!), and had dinner with some old friends. It was a really good night; excellent food-possibly even yummy in my tummy-and great friends. Sad too though, as the reason for our get together was a goodbye dinner for Vanessa who is about to embark on MFA program at Indiana University (yay Vanessa!). But we made the most of the evening, entertaing ourselves over dinner and afterwards. Such topics were undertaken as the six degrees of my ass ("bringing people together") and why its a good thing theres only one me in the world (can you imagine the insanity if there were more? Bizarro!). Despite how this sounds, the conversations actually ranged in topics, and not all were Alcentric. Its kind of scary that my friends from high school would be considered old by present standards. But its true; Michele and I have known each other since, well, thats a good question, and one we've never been able to answer. But sometime in early highschool we think. I have been hearing about Vanessa since the first grade (being a year older than me, most of our classmates were convinced we were sisters and told us about their beliefs at every oppotunity), but would consider her a friend also since highschool. Anyway, not the point. Well, to be perfectly honest I'm not sure what my point is, mostly that I have very little to do while I wait to have lunch with my family in that lovely town of Oxnard. This morning, as I had some hours to kill, I discovered my cache (another fun word) of music videos from when I was young. I distinctly remember watching and rocking out to these videos; such as The Fine Young Cannibals and New Kids on the Block (okay, so my music tastes when I was young left somethings to be desired, I like to think I've imporved on them since then). I also discovered about 80 books that I wanted to steal. The best part about going home is finding new books scattered throughout my parents house. They are literally everywhere- walls and walls are covered, various surfaces, piles on the the floor. My parents are voracious readers-a fact that makes me jealous. I think I read a lot, but I have nothing on them. Someday when I live in my fabulous house (that I'll go home to from my wonderful job-which has nothing to do with data entry- and meet my devotedly caring husband, etc etc) I am going to fill it with books. And it will be awesome. But for now, I'll just be waiting for lunch.

my laundry is depressing me

I need to do laundry. No, really. I haven't done a load in over two weeks- since before I went up north. Not because I'm a slob (and before you get disturbed, the only good thing about the months I spent at the retail job whose name shall not be mentioned was an excessive increase in undergarments, so I'm still wearing clean things). I want to do my laundry. My clothing selections are getting fewer and fewer with each passing day. Yesterday I busted out my skirt from a halloween costume a few years back (I was pregnant cheerleader one year, so not only is this skirt totally not my style, but its also two sizes too large- so as to accomodate for my bastard underage love child). Thats how bad its getting. Why am I not doing said laundry, you might be wondering? Its been so damn hot here, and I've been trying to conserve energy, etc., so I haven't wanted to use the washing machine til later at night, when its (slightly) cooler. Everynight, I have these great aspirations to be productive, and then every night, my plans fall through. Last night, for example, I walked down to the local bomb shelter (otherwise known as the Claremont Public Library- I swear, this thing was built in the 1950s and looks like it could withstand a nuclear blast), and then was going to go home and and be productive with the cleaning of my house. Did that happen? No, of course not. I ended up wandering the streets of Claremont with Tara and then watching Cast Away. Which was a thoroughly depressing movie. I realized that if I was ever in Tom Hanks' position, I would totaly have died. My survival skills are completely lacking- it would not have been pretty. I also probably would have gone completely insane (because, who are we kidding, most of the time, I'm already half way there). Needless to say, Tara and I were utterly depressed by the end of the night. And I still didn't do any laundry! Perhaps tonight? Only time will tell.

I'm back, bitches

Yes, the truth can't be denied any longer- I'm back in Claremont and my vacation is over. While I'm definitely sad to have my vacation over (and what a vacation it was, more on that later I'm sure), its nice to be home. I know it probably sounds cheesy, but I really feel like Claremont is my home (for the next year, at least). My friends all live within a couple of blocks from me- its a real community, and one which I feel really lucky to be a part of.
Okay, enough sappiness; I think I'm still somewhat tired from the drive down/the past week. My vacation was full of unexpected things, and most of my plans went awry, but it was still a really really good week. Technically in my mind my vacation started on Thursday (because that was my last day of teaching, and while I went to my office job on Friday, we all know that that doesn't count for numerous reasons, the most prominent being the fact that this blog is so well stocked with posts). That night I saw Flogging Molly at the Orange County fair, which was such a good show! I also learned that supposedly this is the year of the Avocado- who knew? The weekend was spent exploring Mount Baldy's many critters and learning that trees can apparently "grow like a bat out of hell." The next few days were spent in the lovely town of Livermore, where I think I saw every site to see. Okay, so I only saw three things, but that pretty much was all of Livermore. What did I see, you wonder? Only the oldest burning lightbulb (since 1901, not kidding) and the totem pole, which at one point was the cause for a curse on the town. Don't believe me? Check out "Livermore: the Movie" for the complete story. I know, because I was forced to watch it not once, but twice- thanks Sean. Oh, and I got to spend an hour drifting out on Lake del Valle, when the boat we were on died unexpectedly. No matter what anyone says, I had nothing to do with it, nothing. One moment, I'm sitting there, the motor merrily going along. The next- silence. After spending some time, unsuccessfully trying to get it restarted and mooring ourselves on the shore, we had to be towed back. Another wonderful Livermore experience. After that pinnacle, I knew nothing else the city had could compare to the wonderful sites I had seen, so I left for the wonderful sights and sounds of Sacramento. Of which there were many, believe me. I acquired an awesome arrowhead from the State Indian Museum and I finally got to visit Sutter's Fort (hence the picture of me with the old west rifle on myspace). Lots of random adventures were had by all. I also got to see some of my good college friends, and almost eat it (ie: fall down) in multiple locations. I got to pull a "wait, you're not my friends" moment, and also learned the difference between men's and women's breasts. Oh, and somehow I acquired a salt and pepper shaker set (which now resides in my car, so if anyone ever needs to add some spices to their food, feel free to check out the hyundai). Sadly, my trip up north ended on Saturday, when I drove back down the ever-lovin' Interstate 5. Of course that was not before I got to wake up and help Paige and Norman move out of their house. Nothing gets me going for a six hour drive down the 5 like moving heavy furniture.
All in all, it was a totally great vacation, chock full of randomness and good memories. It was really nice to see friends up north, I always forget just how weird I can really be until I hang out with them. And now I'm back in Claremont, trying (and probably failing) to tamp down on the weirdness, and generally enjoying my last few weeks of freedom before classes begin. But I'm not going to think about that just yet.