Two FabTastic things happened today ---

(1) German no more! Goodbye German! I loathe thee! I will be quickly forgetting all that I have learned with the possible exception of words that sound like naughty things.

*pause while KT formats c:\KT"S Brain\German\stuff*

Click
Click
Click

Ahhhhh.....

In other news ---

(2) I got a tiara. I know that this doesn't mean anything to the rest of you, but I have wanted a tiara since I was, like, 2 - and I think that I might just wear it everywhere. Apparently it's copper base, plated in silver and bedecked with rhinestones. You will all see it tomorrow. In fact I am wearing it right now. I know - it's sad, but I feel pretty ---- oh so pretty....

enough.

Also, for anyone looking for cheap antique furniture, I know about this place that's going out of business and selling off shitloads of stuff.

Tomorrow will be spent hanging out in Evanston with the charming Kerri and her mother who is in from... er... wherever Kerri is from, and then getting dolled up for Stephanie's party (about which I am quite excited). Think 20's, folks.

Ok, I think that's it - As I commented on Jett's blog, I agree that the retreat thing is nasty, and I don't know if I have to go, but if I do - well - we'll all sneak in liqour and get drunk off our asses in an orchard (us kids from Wisconsin know how to make a real real big bonfire). We can toast - er - apples and make up stories about where else we could rather be, and maybe we can make up ghost stories about the U of C campus (as there are plenty of skeletons in closets and dead people in libraries to talk about).

Ah well.

Emerging from hibernation - the bear is hungry...

So I think that I'm done with German. Except for that pesky last class thing tomorrow I have everything finished up, printed out, and stapled. Oh man - that's one month of my life that I'm not going to miss. And the next few weeks are going to be spent attempting to catch up on all that stuff I have been putting off because of German. For example:

Orals
Website
Finding out what happened to my mail (it, like, stopped coming and that's freaking me out)
Finding out what happened to that paper I handed in in JUNE
Returning overdue library books
Sleeping
Partying
Paying my rent
Going to a wedding
and..

KICKING THE ASSES OF THOSE JACKOFFS WHO FUCKED UP MY CAR!

ah. I feel better. Here's how it went down. I had my oil changed about 5000 miles ago (read: for Katie, two months) at this place called the Car Care Clinic in Madison (PS: DON"T GO THERE). On Monday I drove up to visit Becky at Gurnee mills and thought - hell - I'm next to the second-largest mall in the US, maybe there's an oil change place around here.

So I find somewhere called Fast Lube. The name was appealing: "Fast" implying that I would not have to wait forever for an oil change whereas "Lube" implied that there would be some oil changing occurring. The subtle sexual connotations also swayed me in my choice between Jiffy and Fast Lube. In any case - upon arriving (cute technicians too) I was informed that some monkey had replaced the cap on my oil filter last time (i.e. at the Care Care Clinic) incorrectly, thus stripping the threads and ruining the plastic cap (for car people - it's a Saturn with a drop-in filter). So the pretty boys informed me that they could not, indeed, give me a fast lube - they filled up my wiper fluid and packed me off to the Saturn dealership (luckily) down the street with the words "It's a miracle that you haven't been leaking oil everywhere - you could have been stranded on the roadside somewhere" (for someone who drives back and forth between Chicago and Madison regularly at 3am, this was a rather chilling thought).

So the nice people at Saturn said "yep, it's broke" and charged me $31 for a new cap and very sweetly gave me a coupon so it was $17 for an oil change. With labor this ended up being a $65 oil change because some fuckhead can't work out the principle of the inclined plane. Now I'm a little pissed, I have the receipt in my glove compartment and a stripped ex-oil filter cap in my trunk and the number for a car service in Madison - Guess who's getting a call this week?

Other than that my evening was good - with Becky and I spending some quality time at Payless and the IHOP. Say what you will about fine cuisine, my friends, but there are few things that compare with a Belgian waffle -w- strawberries at 11pm. And their coffee ain't too bad either.

The last two days have been spent in the following manner

Tuesday: did half of my German, cleaned my bathroom and bedroom, ate sugar-free pudding
Today: did the other half of my German, cleaned my living room and kitchen, will eat sugar-free pudding.

Does anyone else not want to go to class tomorrow?

This weekend I will be incognito as I have a wedding to attend for which I have been searching for an outfit for weeks. It has to be, no kidding: not black, not red, not short, not too funky, not pink, not strappy, and not any dark color, and not yellow.

I went with green and am hoping for the best.

Urk.

So it's not broken - just a extra-nasty sprain with swelling and bruising and eerily fracture-like pain. The x-ray machines at the U of C hospital are extra fun. They're in this huge vault-like room with nothing but a bed in the middle and this monstrous white machine hanging over it. I had the distinct suspicion that something bad could happen at any moment. And aren't they, like, supposed to cover you with a lead gown or something? All I got was an "are you pregnant?" and "can you move your foot over?". Perhaps I'll turn up with an extra head next year. At the dentist they load you down with about 20 pounds of lead sheeting, but here I was just sitting on a bed while she x-rayed the hell out of my foot.

Other than that I have been in full German mode. Except for the merry jaunt yesterday with Jenny(ie?) whose computer needed a little help (and who made out like a BANDIT at the salvation army - obscene amounts of clothing for mere pennies, folks). I got a new shirt.

Oh, hey look - it's raining again. I've been studying German since 8 am. Babelfish is a godsend. I will speak only in short declarative sentences. I like coffee. It is my new friend. It is good with sugar and cream. I sleep now. Sleep good. Sleep conjugation free. Dream of non-German things.

And I sat there on the floor thinking "huh - this kinda hurts - should I get up?"

So my posts have been rather bi-polar lately, one day up - one day down. Clearly rapid-cycling. My life isn't actually like a ride on the Viper at Great America, but I only chat at you every few days - so you get the highlights.

So today was not the best. Actually - it was pretty damn good except for this teensy little thing --- I think I broke my ankle.

Other than that I went out for delicious food at Tiffin (see previous post), hung out with the ever-charming Kerri and Karin, and got a lot of work done on my German. But, you see, this was vaguely overshadowed by the fact that my ankle has slowly swollen to the size of an apricot (or maybe a kiwi – why do people measure inflammation in fruit? really? When you think about that it’s rather strange – I think that your hardcore citrus fruits and melons is when it starts to get serious. I can imagine myself having the thought (which I had this afternoon) “it looks about apricot right now, so it can probably wait ‘til morning, but if it gets to orange, I’m going in – cantaloupe means ER.” )

This probably isn't good - and so I'll have to (in lieu of trotting over to the Evanston ER at 11:00 pm) wander down to the SCC at the U of C and say something along the lines of "er... I think I broke myself". And then they can scold me about how I should have gone to the ER. But really, folks, I'm not the kind of person who likes to deal with this sort of thing, and it doesn't really hurt all that bad, and I can walk on it, so it's probably just a fracture and well - these aren't really good excuses. So I'm betting I won't get a lot of studying done tomorrow which is frankly the last thing that I need right now.

Because I have a test on Thursday. And I have to annotate my dictionary and catch up on those - oh - 10 or so chapters I didn't finish earlier.

surly girl. And I'm blaming all of this on German because really it was that evil classroom that was the cause of all this trouble (fell down the stairs - the noise my foot made probably should've tipped me off that this was a more-serious-than-usual-KT-accident).

Perhaps it's just a sprain. Although I think it would be a grade 3 even if it were which (as my med-student boyfriend reminds me) "Still needs medical attention".

Urk. I'm going to bed now because I have to get up really early if I want a parking spot anywhere NEAR the hospital and I really really don't want to have to walk there.

Upon rereading - this is one of my more bitter posts. Let me just say this for the day - you know those honey balls in the rice pudding that I was talking about earlier? I had those today and they were extra-special delicious. And Karin is always cool to hang out with (it's like getting an audience with the Pope, that girl is so busy - but obviously, way more entertaining) And Kerri has been very kind helping me out all day and offering to help in the future.
So in all - I guess it wasn't such a bad day after all - Tomorrow, however? It will be a bitch.

9 hours of German in a day is too many...

So I'm back in Madison - funny how that works, isn't it? One day I'm here, the next I'm gone, I wander about the midwest like some kind of figure from a Stienbeck novel. So I'm in the med-school library learning just about as much German as I can before my brain collapses into a neutron star from density of information. Either that or I'll go insane - you know, whichever first.

Sadly, that is the only thing that I can say for this day. I have unfairly hoarded a computer in the library for 9 hours, using it as the internet connection for my poor abused laptop who doesn't want to notice the network cards I fed to it.

Computers. I can't wait until she stops being a bitch and decides to work correctly again - "I'm sorry OK?! I won't stick nail files in you ever again!"

whatever. Currently my blogging is a procrastination tool - as my butt is numb and I don't want to write up sentences for chapter after chapter of grammar. So let's talk about something fun - perhaps the fact that my sister is having a birthday next week (you rock, sissy poo!) Perhaps the fact that I am going to eat food that is so bad for me tonight that I may just DIE. Perhaps we can talk about how it really doesn't count as a class with no final exam if you just decide to have the exam A WEEK EARLY ( woah - drifting back to German again - focus, focus). We could talk about the fact that I got a dress (almost exactly the dress I wanted - blue silk) for my boyfriend's sister's wedding. Perhaps I could recount my exploits on the freeway last night - skillfully navigating through rush-hour traffic only to be blocked by a snarl of cars miles long. Or maybe, just maybe I could explain how I pulled my binder out of my backpack the other day and gave myself a black eye.

But then again - I'm just procrastinating - so I should go work. German ho!

On a secondary note.

German apathy is at an all time high. I'm not sure what it is, but my tolerance for working on it drops by 50 degrees every day - soon to be at the chilly 0 degrees Kelvin ( -273 degress C, -459 degrees F, or 55 degress K below where Oxygen MELTS). When it reaches that point, all German related activity will utterly cease - I will be unable to even vibrate my vocal chords to amuse others with the word "farten". I have to find some way to make this interesting. Perhaps an oreo-cookie-for-a-sentence-translated plan would work. Perhaps I can think of something less fattening. I think it's time to make a trip to Target for party favors. I can think of nothing that would get me through a translation of German like knowing that when I'm done I can blow bubbles from a tiny wand in a heart-shaped bottle in the Regenschtein.

It's like God bent down and kissed me on the forehead...

So I went to Devon today after Kerri's (several week long) project to get me to try Indian food.

I didn't want to go - I thought I hated curry - I thought it would be an unpleasant experience.

And then we went.

And lo! There was chicken curry! And Lo! There was spinach with cheese (sag paneer?) And lo! The very gods themselves made this incredible bread for us and chicken tandori? and kheer with golanb jamon (for those of you, like me, who have no idea what this means: it means delicious rice pudding in which these balls of bready slightly cheesy goodness soaked in honey are floating with raisins and almonds). This is clearly the food of the gods. The waiters (who, by the way, were excellent) stood in amazement as we put away enough food from the lunch buffet to make up for the $8 it cost us 20 times over. Yes, folks - $8. This is an impossibly cheap meal that is unbelievably good in a really really nice restaurant with a walnut paneled bar, red tablecloths with white paper, stem waterglasses and waiters in suits, called Tiffin. In fact, it was so delicious that as I gush about the goodness of the meal I'm starting to think that it was, in fact, a hallucination and that it couldn't have possibly been real.

Nope - here's the business card right here. Of course I'll never live this down, and will furthermore have to acquiesce when Kerri says (hey, let's try X food!). I think the next one on the list is Russian, or perhaps Swedish cuisine. I'll let you know how it turns out.

The gods are with me.

So I got back my computer - (sigh of financial relief). She has a busted floppy drive and an irritating habit of deciding to not charge, but other than that she is as good as... er... old. Aforementioned sticker will be attached, wireless networking card will be bought, and jump drive will be aquired.

I should have warned them about the fact that when it starts up a dialog box appears stating "Ok to format c:\?" . This apparently took the repair guys aback when they first encountered my Windows modifications. Actually, they were eerily impressed with the extent of my modifications - apparently you need some kind of manual to decode the names of items on my desktop. Isabella (my computer) threw a small temper tantrum at the dest of the NSIT counter, rebooting cyclicly, refusing to recognise RAM, and telling me to reinstall my OS until someone apparently delivered the compuer "pat on the head" of starting her up in safe mode, shutting down, and then starting it up again normally. Totally pointless thing to do, but it worked. I personally think that this was her way of paying me back for the fingernail file incident. So we're even.

In secondary (but no less exciting) news (is any of this exciting? why do you read this?) - I have completed the aluminum portion of my crown (complete with insane numbers of brass rivets tacked in on my Ikea-catalog-turned-workbench Saturday. This means that I am now to the fun part of rhinestone and / or crystal decoration and various chain/bead combinations. Clearly I will be at this for awhile.


Other than that? This weekend was a visit from the boyfriend (charming as usual) and frantic studying for the German quiz that I clearly failed this morning. Kudos to the people at Giordanos for their fantastic pizza, and extra special joyfulness to Anais who turned 5 today (I believe).

The party was yesterday, and it was as awesomely fun as a party full of 5 year olds can be. I was variously a horse, a orc-dog, a princess, and some kind of mermaid throughout the course of playing with Anais's delightful little friends, and fun was had by all. Do you remember those little plastic jugs of unholy blue pure-sugar drinks called "Hugs"? I remember these from when I was like, 6, and thought that noone made them anymore, but Salinda had tons of them. Also, there was candy - enough said.

This week is looking very German-full and thrift-enhanced.

My mood is at 87.2% and rising.

And I'd just like to say that German pronounciation is getting more and more entertaining every day.

And they like it!

So the conference lady likes it - suggested modifications and said my work is "extremely interesting" - they are making their final decisions in September.

So perhaps I'll be at a conference after all.

In any case - today - LAUNDRY. It could be put off no longer. I'm not sure if I can explain to you what it means for me to do laundry - you see, I have enough clothing to last me for, quite literally, at least 4 months. If I do intermittent loads of jeans, at least 6 months. This works out so that if I wanted to wash all of the laundry in my apartment at one time I would have to wash about 15 loads easy. So I put it off and put it off - reaching further and further back in my closet for those outfits that I never wear so that I don't have to suck it up and do the big kahuna. Well - today was the day.

I always envied those people who have like 15 shirts and 10 pairs of pants (maybe 15 pairs of underwear and socks). That sounds so nice. My closet is a conglomeration of stuff people have bought for me, clothing my sister no longer wanted, and occasional thrift store purchases of my own. Seriously - I think I've only bought 3% of what is in there. Clearly I have to go through it, but clearly I am also a lazy ass and don't want to. The only person I know with more clothes than this is Becky, before whom my closet bows in shame. She has literally HUNDEREDS of pairs of shoes. eeep.

You can see where this leaves me. I'm sure that none of you wanted to know this much about my laundry habits.

So I'll update you on the crown - I'm currently attempting to decide what color the beads should be - aurora borealis, blue aurora, silver aurora, just plain blue, or black with rhinestone center.

This is a tough decision, and unfortunately the aluminum is too weak for me to make them interchangeable.

Any votes?

Ok - so, a little paranoid - but very proud.

Ok, so I just sent out my first submission to a conferene (and, of course, I picked a big one) the 2005 NEMLA panel on "Sexual Horror in the Gothic."

So I'm a little paranoid, and yet very proud of myself for even submitting.

See, I have this paper that's really about the space of the grave in gothic fiction that totally goes into the hyper-sexualized female / sexual act with said woman as sealed away and disenfected in the space of the grave (yet acknowledge within this space of "safety" where it can be adequately disenfected). Only problem? That discussion is about 3 pages of the overall 25 page paper. So that will have to be fixed if they even think that this thing is worth talking about.

Wish me luck!

So, again, not the best day.

And in this case, it was almost all my fault.

You see, I began the day under the impression that German would be entertaining - but it was rather frustrating and not at all helpful (although I have learned the important fact that every rule in German has about 15 exceptions)

Then I lost my favorite pair of sunglasses. Should anyone want to aid me in my search - I seem to remember having them in the Regenstein, and not having them when I returned to my car, thus, I deduce that they must be in the Schtein (Yes, Watson!) They're probably on the 2nd floor or on the first floor by one of the computers. Black frames, pinky/purple rhinestones, pale purple lenses. I'll buy you lunch if you find them for me.

After that, or during that, or whatever, I did one of the most stupid things that I have ever done. I shorted out the (motherboard? floppy drive?) of my laptop, causing it to utterly fry and thus not even turn on. This is beyond my power to correct (as it is a laptop, and thus not easily accessable). Thus I had to trot it over to the NSIT people and explain to them that I fried this mother by sticking a nail file into the floppy drive while it was running in an effort to free a trapped diskette. Stupid? Oh yes. Do I feel dumb? Oh yes. Is the $35 just to figure out what the heck I fried going to teach me my lesson? Maybe. If my laptop survives the ordeal, it will have a brand new sticker on the top that states "Do not insert metal objects into computer, Really". The computer itself it nearing that point, however, when at its ancient 6 years old I should probably replace it. But the little bastard was free, and I don't really want to drop the cash on a new one right now. Thus the plan is to wait until the NSIT people call me back and let me know how much it will cost to fix before I decide to junk it, or fix it.

Or maybe, just maybe... if I fried the motherboard I can have them upgrade it with a better processor and a kickass video card. It's a pipe dream, I know - but hell - it's worth a shot.

I think that I'm taking this rather well (no screaming whatsoever), but on the up side I dindn't lose any major information, and all I'm losing in functionality is the ability to play my DVD's for awhile. In all, not so bad. If I were writing papers this would, obviously, be another story.

So now that I've rambled on about this for awhile, I'm going to go look around online for new systems that I can't afford.

Chat Later,
KT

ich bin, du bist, er ist, wir sind, ihr seid, sie sind, Sie sind

ich war, du warst, er war, wir waren, ihr wart, sie waren, Sie waren
ich habe, du hast, er hat, wir haben, ihr habt, sie haben, Sie haben
ich hatte, du hattest, er hatte, wir hatten, ihr hattet, sie hatten, Sie hatten
ich werde, du wirst, er wird, wir werden, ihr werdet, sie werden, Sie werden
ich wurde, du wurdest, er wurde, wir wurden, ihr wurdet, sie wurden, Sie wurden

repeat.

mmmmm.... the sweet song of German conjugation rings in my head. Quiz tomorrow. The question is - will I be ready? The answer: maybe.

I've never been that good at languages. I'm always amazed by people with the facility for them, and my skills at brute memorization are less than perfect. So I stagger along like a one-legged duck, looking for my little pond of comprehension. Interestingly, German is somehow much more entertaining to learn than French - probably because the 8th grader in me appreciates words like "farten" and "wart" (which causes me, inexplicably, to snicker in class). Somehow I can sit through 3 hour lectures about the object-as-fetish focusing on the dildo as an example of lowbrow objects without raising an eyebrow, but I start to giggle every time my German prof says farten.

I would extemporize on the reasons for this disparity, but really - I'm too lazy. The summer is slowly melting my brain like a sugar cube under a stream of cold water. I can feel all of the frustrations and interest and enthusiasm melting away - leaving behind nothing but a sense of faint sweet work-related memory, a cool calm, and the faint longing for ice-cream. On Monday I will have to lock myself in the Regenschtein for the afternoon and attempt to rebuild these molecular bonds (or at least catch up on my German homework). Oh yeah, and that website and those orals too--- I almost forgot about those... yeah, I'll do that too.

Think I'll head over to the freezer to spend some quality time with my friends Peanut Butter and Ripple

Ok - so I'm not liking the German.

And I'm having a really really hard time separating it from the half-understood French that floats randomly through the hallways of my mind like a restless spirit of the Class That Once Was. Thus - conjugation of verbs is giving me a headache and I now know more about Bertholt Brecht than I ever wanted to know. Seriously - I give less than half a shit.

But that is today and today was a study day - so it is totally understandable that I would be pissy after 6 hours of translation (ahhh procrastination).

Thus, in an effort to further procrastinate and make myself happy, I will relate to you the daring exploits of my weekend, punctuated by random declarative statements like: cops on horses are cool.

I found this out when I was attempting to drive down lakeshore last night to pick up Becky for dinner. There were thousands of people milling about on the lakefront, walking in front of my car, sitting on the grass, talking, being stupid, and generally waiting around for the 20 min colored combustion of chemicals that tops off the lame-ass-night-of-Christmas-tree-light-festooned-watercraft. Yay. But the cops on horses were really cool. They had the Mountie hats and everything. I can't imagine having a horse well trained enough to trot through traffic on Lakeshore without getting flustered, so in my estimation, clearly this displays an incredible amount of mastery in the riding department coupled with some kickass horse-training. I would really like to see a horse / car chase down Lakeshore. That would be cool.

In any case. I dropped Kerri off in the loop while I was there (we spent the afternoon in Evanston - more on this later) and picked up Becky for the ride to Chinatown. Her cousin lives in the south loop area on the 15th floor of an awesome highrise apartment. Suddenly, standing in front of the huge picture windows overlooking the lake / downtown / south loop area I realized that Chicago is quite a pretty city. So this is how the other-half lives. It makes you think that getting that business degree might not have been such a bad idea after all.... they have a suede couch – a SUEDE couch. Maybe I can rent out their closet for next year.

In any case, Becky and I trotted over to the Dim Sum and Dumpling house under the Pheonix, and it was delicious (Jett & Kerri & Molly & Becky we have to check this place out again - you can just order whatever you want instead of waiting for the carts - oh delicious - and, I think, cheaper). In any case - deliciousness was sure to follow and indeed it did.

My afternoon that day was spent with Kerri, who convinced me to try this little Greek place off of Chicago in Evanston. I simply can't blame her for the events that followed, and as I have all too many times dragged her into a freaky little thrift store covered with a fine covering of urk, I have to say that this was just unlucky on her part (as it usually is on mine).

So we go in and the food is ok, and we're thinking about how ok the food is and then the manager's daughter wanders up. Boy oh boy is she a bitch. I mean a surly, cussing, unpleasant, bossy, arrogant little pisser that I really wanted to smack. It was seriously distracting from our meal. She had sweat pants with “Ambercrombie” written across the ass. She was wearing way too much makeup. She constantly harassed the men working the grill. This girl went so far as to make me apprehensive through my entire meal - all while pretending (with a surly half-smirk) to be nice to the customers. I’m seriously thinking of writing a letter. Our waitress even went so far as to apologize for this girl’s behavior. Damn. Learn some manners, girl!

So lunch lacked a certain charm, but hanging out in all of the cool stores on Central had a calming effect and soon we were laughing again - most notably at the orphaned kittens in the garden store that are really really making me want to adopt a pet right now.

they were gray with pink noses.

Really cute

did I mention cute?

The rest of the weekend was spent doing other random things of the same variety - essentially keeping me out of my apartment for most of the time. I have suddenly become some kind of exotic social butterfly (totally new experience for me), as well as super-involved in the department (also strange). This combined with my current project of a crown made entirely from aluminum and brass tubing and binding a bunch of business cards together has conspired to make my days both eventful and really odd. Last night after I dropped off Becky, I watched Daredevil and Tomb Raider while sawing tiny wings out of metal. From Greek to paper to Dim Sum to metal wings to Superheroes all in one day - that's strange, folks - really strange.