When you lose all respect for a class AND your intellectual integrity, paper writing gets easier!

This principle is evidenced by the fact that I just ground out a two page paper in about forty-five minutes. There was a time when I could have done a five page paper in less time... but I digress... college has ruined my writing skills. However, the relative speed with which I finished this paper has left me with time to update my blog.

That's not to say that it was an entirely pleasant experience. For one thing, I had to sell my soul. For another, I had to focus through the din of squealing and stumbling in the hall. The latter problem led to a particularly barrier-crossing experience. I headed out to print my paper and ran into the cleaning lady, who speaks only Spanish; she pointed at the door of the girls' bathroom, over which was tied a shoe. Yes, a shoe. A sneaker, to be precise. She clucked and looked at it with a mixture of disapproval and amusement, and I rolled my eyes in a trademark Kat expression. We understood each other perfectly and I didn't even have to butcher her language. Isn't that nice?

I had my first babysitting job on Tuesday. The girl is only two and a half years old and her mother's been watching her all summer, so she was understandably displeased when she woke up and a strange babysitter she'd met only once had taken her mother's place. This led to a lot of crying and screaming "I WANT MY MOMMY!!!" that I attempted to take in stride... but I'm not a very sympathetic person, so it eventually devolved to me watching her in mild fascination until she stopped wailing. (Which she did... so all's well that ends well, right?) After her older brother got home it was much more fun; we roughhoused and I put him in a headlock. There's a reason why I prefer guy friends... even when they're nine.

Last night I had another babysitting job, but the kids were already asleep, so I basically watched the house, called my friends, and played with the animals for three hours -- and got paid $40 for it. "HUZZAH!" doesn't even begin to say it.

Soon I will be starting at the NARC (the north side version of the campus game & rec center), giving me a grand total of four jobs... oh yes... I will be raking in cash. If I get to babysit with any regularity I'll be raking in about $225 a week. Yes... that is me dancing on the grave of my unemployment...

Recent escapades of terror and DOOM!

Events transpired Friday night which can be seen exclusively at Ash's blog, in an entry entitled Georgetown Is Far Sketchier than Chinatown. Go read it... now. In it you will find such gems as "Heeey! What's under your skirt?!" and "Come home with me so I can rape you!!"

Needless to say, Kat and Ash did not go home with anyone. But on to other news...

When I went home a few weekends ago, I noticed that my laptop charger was having some minor problems - namely, it occasionally stopped charging. On further inspection, I found that the cable had been partially stripped, and I corrected the problem by twisting the cord. However, a few nights ago, while innocently watching DVD's on my laptop, I saw that the charger had COMPLETELY STOPPED WORKING. I took this about as well as can be expected... namely, banging around my room yelling "ASH, WHY ISN'T IT WORKING??" and messing with the wires. Finally I surrendered, used my remaining battery power to finish the DVD, and went to bed.

The next morning, I took both laptop and charger to Best Buy to buy a new one. I figured it couldn't be more than $20... right? Wrong. It would have cost $44 for a model that wasn't even guaranteed to fit my computer. Fortunately, it was covered by my warranty, and the guy told me to call an 800 number for the main office, which would send a replacement within three business days.

And I actually bought that.

After a grueling twenty minutes on the phone trying to pick the right option from the stupid touch-tone menu, I was informed that they would ship it within eight business days, which, for those of you who are slow at math, is close to two weeks.

I am typing this update from Ash's computer... and later tonight, I will be typing a paper on Ash's computer, and on Wednesday I will be typing another paper on Ash's computer... Ash's computer and I are going to become very intimate, in completely G-rated ways.

However, fear not: There is good news in this entry. In fact, it is the best news ever. Today I got to hang out with an old friend. Some of you may recognize his name... it is: Mr. Val.

SQUEE!

Val was one of my close friends "back in The Day," and therefore also one of the close friends whom I (in a particularly extended lapse of judgment) completely ignored during an old relationship. Don't ever do that, folks. Some of my friendships recovered, and I doubt some ever will. In fact, Val and I rarely talk -- maybe a total of five times in the last two years.

He lives in Manchester, MD, about an hour from Baltimore; I live in DC and am thus about the same time away. I made plans to come see him today. This morning I hopped the metro to Union Station, took a train to Baltimore, met up with Val at Penn Station, and had a lovely dinner with him at an Italian restaurant. This day more than made up for the valleys of the last week, which included the woes detailed in my previous entry, the laptop problem, a cancellation on a babysitting job, and not hearing back from a potential client I really, really wanted to hear from. I haven't seen Val since my junior year of high school and would be willing to suffer much more horrible things to see him again.

Next weekend, Ash, Adam and I are planning to attend a carnival in Baltimore, and Val will hopefully make it there for at least one of the two days. Huzzah! Nothing says fun like getting seedy hotels with your college friends! And trust me... it will be seedy. We're all poor. Um, well, I'm poor. That's kind of like all of us, right?

On that happy note, I leave you, to bang out a two-page paper for Theories of Democracy (aka an opportunity, or rather a necessity, for selling my soul).

Ever so much stress. How exciting!

My life is rapidly spinning out of control.

I placed into Spanish-352 and foolishly decided not to take it as a pass/fail. I'm now paying for that mistake. I used to be able to speak it well, after two years of high school Spanish, tutoring Hispanic children, and obsessively listening to Spanish music, but since my time in Berlin, my Spanish comes out German, and it confuses no one more than me - with the exception of my professor, who is really not fond of me. In addition to not participating often because, you know, I'm clueless, I've already slept through a class (Monday before last) and forgotten the homework due today, which I did during the class discussion. She handed it back with a note in Spanish that I can't actually read, but I'm pretty sure it says "Don't ever do homework during the discussion. Whore."

Justice is going about as well. I forgot to turn in a sheet of biographical information, due on September 12 (three classes ago). Yesterday I found out that he's docking us five points per class it's late... I won't hassle you with the math, but the bottom line is that the highest grade I can now make in his class, assuming I get a 100% on everything he assigns, is a 93. And I'm not going to get 100% on everything he assigns.

I'm seriously behind in US Foreign Policy. I have no idea how I did on my Macro paper, which might have been the worst pile of crap I've ever turned in, ever. The only class I'm not worried about is Theories of Democracy, and with my luck lately, I'll get a reason to worry today.

I have interviewed for several babysitting positions, but nothing's definite yet, and I'm afraid it's all going to fall through. I have a position at the NARC that's pretty much guaranteed, but it doesn't start until October 3 and doesn't pay enough to be a good source of income.

Finally, the food on campus is making me sick every time I eat it. My health problems aren't quite as bad as last year, probably because I'm now vegan, but they're still not fun. I feel sluggish and crappy all the time. Unfortunately, going out for dinner costs money, and groceries are expensive. More importantly, dinner is usually the only time my friends and I get together because we're all busy, and if I don't go to dinner with them I'll never see them. So I get to choose... should I suffer socially or physically?

Every time I get a chance to relax, I can't enjoy it because I know I'm blowing off something I should be working on, which hasn't stopped me from using The OC as a form of enlightened escapism... don't worry, I'm paying for it now. Oh, am I paying for it. I'm behind in all my classes and all I want to do is lie in bed or get off campus.

Oh. And I can't write at all. The last time I wrote anything significant on Guardian, I was in Berlin.

And Blogger ate this entry the first time I tried to update, and retyping it has not put me in a better mood. (Edit: Oh wait... it didn't eat my entry... it just didn't show up, so I retyped this for nothing. :D)

I am in need of something. I am not sure what that something is, but a long nap is starting to look like a candidate.

I think I'm fasting tomorrow - it's the only thing that helps my mood, to say nothing of my health.

Edit: I have officially removed comments because I can't stand these idiots who post.

Uh, did that actually just happen?

Do you ever have one of those moments when you realize that you're living the life you always wanted to lead, and everything is just incredibly perfect?

I had that revelation tonight, after getting dinner with Ash at Angelico's, walking all over Tenley and Friendship Heights, philosophizing at our church, and dancing in the fountain. Yes... dancing in the fountain... clothed.

Let me point out for those of you who don't go to AU that Ash and I look very similar, according to us and several other people who have asked us if we're sisters. We're also roommates. And we are, if the media is to believed, the poster children for the trashy frat boy fantasy.

The water was so soothing that it didn't even matter that it was a little too cool. It felt unbelievably cleansing even though it was DC water and, therefore, laden with chemicals that have been proven to cause mutations in lab rats.

A security guard came up and asked if we were, uh, okay... *insert staring here.* We explained, kind of haltingly -- because the awesomeness of fountain-dancing was so evident to us that we had trouble picturing what it would be like to, you know, not be us -- that we were college students... because that seemed to justify everything. Unwilling to leave without one last dance in the Fountain of Joy, I asked if it would be okay if we fountained (yet another verb for Katash!) one more time. He said, "Why yes! I would like to see!"

I then realized, for the five hundredth time, that I am a ditz. I'm serious. I don't just say stupid things intentionally and then play dumb... I actually am this oblivious.

So -- with him watching -- as well as another guy and his friend -- we fountained one last time. The other guy came up to us, fidgeting with something in his back pocket. I swear I thought he was going to pull out his wallet and offer us a few bucks to go do it again.

He asked us, sort of giggling, where we lived. Ash told him... her rationale was, "Oh, come on! It's AU! There are like ten thousand other people there!"

We walked home soaking wet.

Tonight was awesome.

I know I'm back in America because I just started missing Germany.

Amanda and I had dinner at Ben's Chili Bowl last night. The area reminded me of Berlin, or, more specifically, of the Oranienburger Tor area. On my last night there, I went there with two of my friends for drinks, and everything was closed except a Mexican restaurant that didn't actually post its hours... it posted its opening time, but instead of a closing time, it just had question marks, evincing a willingness to be there as long as we were.

I want to go back to Berlin for a semester, or maybe a year.

But back to DC. This particular area kept planting little plot ideas in my brain. I might take a night to write there; I certainly need it. I haven't gotten any serious writing done since Berlin (reason #1 to go back!). If you want to hang out in downtown DC in the middle of the night waiting for me to get inspiration, feel free to volunteer.

My friends at the GARC put in a good word for me, and it's looking like I'll have a job at the NARC (the north side version), which I'm pretty excited about. I also have an interview for a position at Public Safety paying $9.50 an hour for five hours of easy work a week, and -- most importantly -- I interviewed with a family in the AU Park who wants a sitter to entertain their kids for a few hours on Tuesday and Friday, paying $15 an hour. Squee!

I'm hoping to get at least two jobs, and three if I can handle it (fingers crossed). But in the meantime, I have a macro paper due tomorrow... and I should probably get started.

The little red hen has subjugated the Chinese.

My Macro professor, also responsible for such gems as, "Assume that I... have a button fetish... and will give you one dollar for every button you will rip off your clothing and sell me," has committed yet another unbelievable action... he read us the story of the Little Red Hen, who, armed with her sickle, taught the other animals the importance of working together. I'm pretty sure all this so-called hen taught him were the blood red ways of Communism.

You have to understand... I'm in college... and my professor just read me the touching story of a mother chicken. The last time I heard that story I hadn't mastered solid food.

On the topic of food, it has come to my attention -- by which I mean been shouted at me repeatedly by Ash -- that I owed my wit to cheese, and now that I'm vegan, I'm witless. I mean, not funny. No, witless is probably pretty right too.

However, my Macro prof is apparently eating a lot of cheese. He just contributed yet another jewel of wisdom which I will share with you verbatim.

"Assume that there is a small island, and that the only people on this island are Johnny Depp and Kate Moss. Now, this is a very nice island, and they can just pick whatever they need to eat, so they have time to produce the two things that they desire... acid and pot."

I love this class.

When everything's made to be broken / I just want you to know who I am

The "everything" referenced in the subject is my finances, and "who I am" is a broke college student struggling to survive.

I ordered my books on Half.com, not paticularly worried about editions because, come on, what's the difference? Haha. I now need different copies of three or four $40 books (which I, in my wisdom, got for $5-8 each) that I literally can't afford for my hardest class, Analysis of US Foreign Policy, about which I'd be more than a little worried even if I had my required reading.

Those posters about wrong editions vs. the school bookstore are finally starting to make sense. The last few times I saw them I shook my head in disdain, thinking, "Oh, how important can it be?" My friends... pray that experience is never your teacher. She is cruel and she plays favorites. And she makes you wear a cone hat. The cone hat of BOOKLESSNESS!

In an incredibly stupid move that will surprise no one, I slept through two of my classes today. YAY! First time all year! Rock on, Kat! But on the plus side, during these three hours, I had an awesome dream in which armed robbers were pillaging my neighborhood and I, in order to bring them down, was negotiating my way into a job as their driver, because I OWN THE ROADS. Then I woke up. Boo.

While I was home, my dad formatted my hard drive and completely reinstalled my system to fix the multitudes of problems my dear old laptop was developing. Thus, while readjusting to AU after a particularly touching weekend, I have the added bonus of bringing my baby back up to speed. I forgot to back up my favorites, so if you know any cool sites, post some links... my list is kind of short.

Finally, for the AU crowd: As most of you already know, Jamba is no longer accepting meal blocks. Join the Facebook group to voice your disapproval.

Good night. I love you all (except, of course, the small handful I dislike :D).

We're back / And you tell me I am home

...Mainly because I am. Yes, folks, Ah'm haeir in tha gud oew'd South. And, God help my soul, it's good to be back.

The windows in my room are open and the sun is streaming in. It's golden and light and airy and cool and welcoming and strangely serene. I could bike down to the waterfront (it's not sketchy during the day because the potheads only come out at night) and look at the sun gleaming on the water and stroll down Main Street with nothing on my mind.

I am dreaming of white lilies and wild horses and fresh air.

I can only imagine how pretty it is in the old downtown area - there will be flowers and old shops and forgotten childhood blooming everywhere. I don't want to waste a moment - I will remember, and reflect, and regret, and lay all these thoughts away in the white gloss of a September afternoon.

This, my friends, is summer's last hurrah.


*Note: I disabled anonymous comments because of rampant comment advertising, so if you want to leave one, you need either OpenID (LJ supplies it) or a Blogspot account. Lo siento.

I think my Peter Pan complex just kicked into overdrive.

After choosing my subject, I searched "Peter Pan complex" on Google to find out exactly what it means. Here you go:

"avoids responsibilities, people tell them they are childish and need to grow up, would rather live in their head than the real world, wants success to just happen to them, focuses on fantasies more than reality, believes they deserve to have whatever they want, life lacks direction, never know what to do next, does dumb things frequently, inconsistent performance, lazy, slacker, does the minimum to get by, does things without thinking, does not feel they have any reason to accomplish anything, tend to ignore or put off problems, believes fun is the most important thing in life, most people think they are crazy, forgets scheduled appointments, more past than future, gets attention through negative behavior" (Global Advanced Trait Descriptions)

I'd like to think most of these traits don't apply to me, but I will continue to reference my Peter Pan complex because to me it will forever mean simply "a fear of growing up." Nyah.

I talked to my mom for about an hour and a half - bless you, Verizon, for IN-Calling. I had a list of my own petty problems, but talking to her put them in perspective... unfortunately, not in the good way.

Dick Potter was the husband of one of my grandmother's best friends who developed a severe case of Alzheimer's and didn't even know who his wife was half the time. In January his wife finally had to put him in a nursing home, and a few days ago he died - the nursing home didn't catch an infection in time and it killed him. His wife has been in this nursing home for a while now, too. I hate watching people's lives come to an end...

Also, I think my dad is just getting more depressed, and they're having financial problems, and Mom's worried about Dad... the list goes on. I no longer feel like my problems are important, because I can change them or at least control my reactions to them, but I'm really concerned about my parents' problems because I can't make them go away or even help Mom and Dad deal with them.

My minor list of worries no longer seems so overpowering, but this list has effectively replaced that one, so I'm even more worried than I originally was. This isn't a healthy way to look at life.

I would like to improve my mood, so I am now going to visit a friend and then work on some Spanish. Hasta luego.

Two AM and she calls me cause I'm still awake...

I've been listening to Anna Nalick's "Breathe (2 AM)" song often as of late. I don't like identifying with a song so strongly. If I feel like it describes me perfectly, it was probably written with such open-ended lyrics that 75% of its listeners feel the same way - a little like the horoscopes in the morning newspaper.

Nonetheless, if you look up these lyrics, you'll get an idea of how I'm feeling.

That's not to say that I'm feeling bad. On the contrary, I love being back. Carey's still staying with us, and the room is relaxed but fun. I have new sympathy for my old neighbors. Although I still think they were complete jerks, I can now understand what it's like to have a bunch of friends over and the music or TV turned up loud. I feel very settled and happy in here.

That said, I'm going home for the weekend to be there for a friend who needs me (making the opening lines of "Breathe" even more poignant). So... back to Elizabeth City for Kat, from Friday morning to Sunday night. I expect I'll have a good time, but even if I don't, this one isn't about me. I do feel horrible about missing a group of friends' birthday party and Carey's departure, but if I had to make the choice again I'd do the same thing.

More later. Tomorrow I (hopefully) find out if I got the job at the Dupont bookstore - wish me luck!