The Misadventures of Curious Anna

2010-11-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

finally! something worth blogging about

2010-01-28T20:46:00.001-08:00

1/4 down

2010-01-13T09:37:00.000-08:00

25 years old today and i feel great! man i love birthdays. not every birthday is great, but this one feels really great cause #1 i've made it through 25 years without either dying or going to jail! and #2 i get to do whatever the heck i want for a whole day! this began with sausage for breakfast followed up by a scaldingly hot shower. yesssss.

anyways, it being 1/4 of the years of my life today, i thought i'd do a little trot down memory lane, noting down one big thing i've done every single year until right now. here goes!

1985 age 0: i was born! wooo!

1986 age 1: probably i learned to walk

1987 age 2: probably i learned to talk

1988 age 3: probably i finished up learning to talk...also started pre school with marilyn jones, whose name i still remember somehow

1989 age 4: all i remember from being 4 is food shopping with my mom and it was fun.

1990 age 5: kindergarten! learning to read in ms. nyman's class

1991 age 6: ms. shioji said i was 'conscientious' in front of the class. i ate it up.

1992 age 7: flipping a person off for the first time in my life (i still feel bad about this!)

1993 age 8: crying at home cause even though i was in a higher grade level of english and history, i could not wrap my head around long division

1994 age 9: meeting it up and hanging it out with danny and michelle, who im still friends with! oldest friends prize.

1995 age 10: lets all RIDE BIKES!!

1996 age 11: all i remember from this year is my parents divorce. drag of a memory.

1997 age 12: junior high begins! bring on the pimples, BO, and intense awkwardness. apart from that all i remember from this year is my dad dying. drag of a memory again.

1998 age 13: 9th grade was full of all kinds of embarrassing crushes for whose attention i did embarrassing things. dang i hated junior high!

1999 age 14: starting high school! and got my first boyfriend ryan kyle ;)

2000 age 15: hm i remember kisses at midnight on that special new years. also i went to france that year! that was a life changer.

2001 age 16: directed a play in high school, suffered under two very big crushes

2002 age 17: graduation! woo!

2003 age 18: started up at BYU, got heart promptly broken

2004 age 19: college roommate BFFs! village inn at 2 am, anybody? maybe we can dress like skanks when we go just for funsies...

2005 age 20: trip to london! freezing it up in the pueblo house, and working with kids for the first time! jackson you changed my life.

2006 age 21: i remember eating a lot of fruit roll ups and watching a lot of scrubs this year...

2007 age 22: graduated college! got married! went to thailand, laos, and china! what a year!

2008 age 23: started grad school, went to mexico! madness!

2009 age 24: finished grad school, went to korea! patterns emerging here...

2010 age 25: THE UNKNOWN!

:)
hope the next fifty years are twice as fun and half as awkward. so far: outloook good.

blogback!

2010-01-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

hello all! so i know i haven't been the best blogger lately. christmas was CRAZY who's with me? im ready to get back to the routine.

BUT i wanted to let the world know that one of my new projects this year is a fancy foods blog! complete with fun pictures and updates of what i'm eating and baking(what is it now? truffle butter or lavender sugar?). please to have a look! i plan on keeping this blog up, but that one will PROBABLY be more fun...

www.icyviolets.blogspot.com

i got the name from icing like frosting, and the violet cause i like flowers and i like violet flavored snacks. please drop in! it'll be fun.

it's a new year

2010-01-02T08:49:00.000-08:00

it's a new year.
resolutions? none. be a better person.
the old year? it was pretty big. makes me want to lay low for a while.
lay low and bake.

christmas list*

2009-12-01T17:02:00.000-08:00

sewing machine

vanilla beans

truffle oil, or anything related to truffles (the mushrooms not the chocolates!)

silicon baking mat (silpat!)

mortar and pestle

humidifier

gosh they are really all food related aren't they? except the humidifier.

EDIT: my mom had an old humidifier in the basement, so that is taken care of. so cross out humidifier and replace with: books/magazines about how to make crafts from garbage.

*note: i don't actually expect anyone who reads this blog to get me christmas gifts

market madness

2009-11-28T16:41:00.001-08:00

buying, selling, shouting vendors, crying kids, calling livestock, eating, bleeding, living, and dying. welcome to the market--what will you have?

technology!

2009-11-13T00:21:00.000-08:00

i am in a magical place. today was kind of a crappy day. we got booted out of our apartment for the last week here--our replacement arrived today, so we got the bum's rush. i was a little bitter for a while. i spent all day yesterday cleaning our place, which just made me sad cause it was kind of like my little cave. then i was so nervous last night about moving i almost didn't sleep at all. we got out of there this morning at about 8:30, and having nowhere to go, moved all our stuff into the school where we work. we spent the morning there, and i taught my classes today wearing the exact same thing i wore yesterday and no socks. yeah, i was a little frustrated.

but our boss came through, and now i am sitting in our new hotel room, and it is like a hotel room from the future. it's just a little "love hotel", which is basically where koreans go to do it (in korea it is socially acceptable to live at home until you get married, but then young couples need a place to get busy, thus the love hotel). but it isn't seedy as it sounds. it has fancy lights and a huge bathroom, and there is cactus juice in the fridge. also lots of free hair products (yes i am CERTAIN that's what they are...:))

anyways, the tv turns on when you touch it and now im going to take a shower. that is where i am at!

anna discovers rudimentary paint

2009-11-02T23:36:00.000-08:00

i have been sick for the past three days, and this is what i have been doing. the good news is that, as you can see, i am going places in my life

solitary travel

2009-11-02T00:34:00.001-08:00

so dear justin is so gifted in traveling, so directionally privileged, that when we go out i almost always let him do the leading. he knows what trains, buses, times, and places to go--the man can get you anywhere. it's wonderful. however this talent of his has led my own far less considerable talent for self-direction to atrophy. what bus? i 'unno. where'm i goin? ask that guy.

however, i have a lot more time on my hands than he does lately, so i've had to venture out on my own a little bit. so here are some photos of two of my solitary korea adventures.

this little dude lives outside the gate to Hwaseong Fortress, a neato old-timey medieval Korean style castle and gate in my town (my town? is it?). i THINK it's a guard dog (they used dogs for two things: guarding, and eating...more on this in the next photo blog), but it may also be a lion. hard to tell he's so weatherblown. a lot of the fortress has been rebuilt since the japanese trashed it early last century, but this little fella is original.

big looming gate to get in. a little intimidating, right?

these guys live on roofs of special buildings. i think they're also guardian figures, but i can't make out what they are. to quote my favorite clueless king, "i know not what that meaneth."

god bless korea. just look at these guys.

here's more old folks, playing some chinese checkers (or somethin') outside the fortress wall. that is a big ol' wall.

this is the front end of a little train that passed me by chock full of little kiddies, probably there on some history field trip or something. they all waved and shouted "hello!" a lot of kids here do that with foreigners. i personally love it. i wonder if the russians resent that everyone assumes they speak english? its hilarious the things kids shout. in mexico a little neighbor boy would always shout "one two three four five!" at us from inside his house when we would walk by.

this photo is from another trip i took by bus down to a little city called bundang, to meet my NBF, kate (that's 'new best friend' if anyone was wondering.) and this, my friends, was a beautiful little bakery.

traveling is confusing and tired-making.

gobbledigook palace

2009-10-26T02:55:00.000-07:00

this palace is actually called changdeokgung, but man i can't remember that! i had to go get the pamphlet so i could write it down just now.

nature vs. chaos

2009-10-22T04:25:00.000-07:00

thinky time again. dont worry, fun photo blog coming soon.

there is a debate in ecology, and im sure other disciplines as well, over whether the universe is governed by harmony or chaos. we have this old idea that if nature is just left alone, it will fall into a sort of balanced state, where creatures eat each other and reproduce in harmony (thanks rousseau). humans are sort of a wild card in this--perspectives differ on whether humans ONCE belonged in nature and lived in harmony, but have since lost that ability for one reason or another. or humans are simply regarded as a sort of fly in the ointment altogether, screwing up whatever we touch.

the other perspective is the idea of chaos. that nature and the universe have always been ruled by cataclysm and unpredictability--huge disasters have happened to the earth (and the rest of the universe) time and time again, and there is no reason to expect that they would stop.

the first perspective is nice because hey, it gives us hope. if only we could a) return to our lost eden (eden itself, the medieval period, the americas before white folks arrived, whatever) or b) establish the perfect society finally (via science, philosophy, religion, pish posh). whatever it is, perfection and harmony can exist and we can reach it, if we can only find the path! something to strive for.

the downsides of this of course are that every disaster engenders what, guilt and existential crisis? old timers thought every earthquake or famine was a punishment from god. new timers find pollution and massive extinction to be a moral issue as well (i tend to agree most of the time). however both believed that if ONLY humans could be better somehow, achieve that harmony/righteousness that is just floating out of reach, things would improve. but we haven't, we are rotten and awful and now we are suffering. why god, why? bring on the despair.

chaos theory (using that term VERY loosely) on the other hand absolves you of responsibility, which can be kind of nice. so what, people are causing the 6th great extinction? well, there were five others and guess what, nobody blames the ASTEROID. geez. and life went on. there is a kind of arrogance in trying to control everything, in assuming we can make life what we want it to be if only we try. of course the downsides to this are obvious, they're the same as the upsides. lack of responsibility? well, this burrito is delicious but it is filling. chuck.

i dont know of course. i am wondering if maybe the universe is chaotic but balanced within a much larger sense, eg yeah an asteroid can kill 4/5 of all the life on earth, but can't we accept destruction and death into our concept of balance? and can't we accept our individual responsibility to fix things without being overwhelmed by the possibility that it might not work? generally i think no, not us westerners. but it would probably be a good idea.

and done.

my true calling

2009-10-16T02:22:00.000-07:00

i finally found it!

rights vs. grace

2009-10-10T02:56:00.000-07:00

so i've been thinking a lot about just what the hell we're supposed to be doing here on this planet before we die. this is an important question--every few months or so i have this weird run-in with the knowledge that i'm going to die some time. me and the idea sort of circle, and box, and then it fades away and i go back to doing whatever i was doing. but facing death is also facing life, and the question "just what are you going to do" looms large.

so i have been thinking of what people have thought was important to do with your life. i especially like to think about the medieval period and the modern period. and in this context, the question "just what are you going to do with what you have" becomes modified into "just what do i have?"

in the modern period, life is governed by the idea of rights. every human being ostensibly has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. there are other rights in the american constitution: free speech, privacy, bear arms, etc. we have this idea that every human SHOULD have these things, DESERVES these things, and if they do not have these things, there is a real problem.

advantages to rights: spreading of wealth, democracy, the common man's opinon matters (or at least appears to matter). reduction in physical suffering, disease, starvation. rights for women and racial minorities is a big, important one. lots of good stuff.

disadvantages to rights: but is it workable? really? CAN everyone in the world live a long, healthy life, free speech, bear arms, enough food, decent housing, etc? the current envirionmental crisis seems to say 'no.' but this is the ideal of a rights-based system, a world where everyone has at least an equally good opportunity to obtain the things they need. but honestly, if everyone lived and consumed and polluted like americans (and all of this strictly within their rights), the world would probably explode tomorrow.

dont get me wrong. i dont want to rip on rights! im a lady, and i love voting. i love eating enough. i love the idea that this powerful dude can't stomp on all of these poor people just for fun (although actually that still happens pretty frequently...). but in the past year i've been thinking a lot about nature and conservation, and im doubting whether the democratic ideal is either possible or desirable, ultimately.

see because nature runs on sacrifice. things EAT other things. they have to. some things die so other things can live--there is no escaping it. i used to think plants had it figured out, cause they just eat good old sunlight, but no, they push and strangle each other out of the way to get to it. if humans are a part of nature (as indeed we are), why do we think we can escape this rule?

which brings me to the idea of grace. in medieval times, the idea was that everything, EVERYTHING people had was a gift. there are scriptures in the bible (a fairly important text to those folk) that dictate that god grants humans every single breath. this seems to imply that if god ceased to provide my next breath and i died choking, i would have nothing to really complain about, since i wasn't entitled to any of the others either. i should just be grateful for what i have received up to this moment.

advantages of this perspective: every moment probably seems like a miracle. there is no existential despair about suffering in the world, envy or covetousness (im sure people were envious, but just in a greedy way, not in a victimized, despairing "omg everyone has life liberty and happiness, why don't i?" way). and when suffering does come your way, it is probably easier to deal with cause hey, you had no reason to expect NOT to suffer.

disadvantages: complacency ('that guy's poor? well god made him poor so im not feedin him'). basically the big problem with this perspective is the acceptance of suffering to the degree that no one does anything about it, which was the big problem in the middle ages. (plagues? marauding kings? eh. god's will.)

i guess ill do the aristotle and take the middle road? i dont think people everywhere are entitled to every comfort, although i wish we were. as difficult as it is to accept, life runs on sacrifice. something had to suffer and die so that i could eat lunch and stay alive. maybe tomorrow i will suffer and die so that something else can eat me (this is all very lion king isn't it, only 'the circle of life' isn't so nice and fluffy). but on the other hand this knowledge doesn't excuse me from doing everything i can to help relieve suffering around me, and the suffering i can't relieve, i can at least respect--pray over my food, be grateful for my sweat-shop made t-shirt, try to think about the little kids that sewed it.

but even on the middle road the answer isn't easy. if i conclude that everything in life is a gift, and its not a crime for me to petition for more, but i still feel that i ought to do what i can to help others, what constitutes 'what i can'? mother teresa gave up EVERYTHING, man. EVERYTHING. to go relieve sick people in a foreign country for her WHOLE LIFE. hypothetically i could do that, although i really, really dont want to. or is it ok to kick back and enjoy the gifts of 'grace'? the food i can buy with my easy money, my comfy bed. jesus turned water into wine for the party at cana right? of course then he spent the next three years among the dregs of society, healing and blessing. just how much is required of me? why do i have the sickening feeling that the answer is "all of it"?

all done.

ps sorry all my heroes here are christians, buddha gave everything up too, and mohammed sure paid some prices to do what he thought was right. its not a christian thing, its a humans and god and nature thing.

for a while

2009-10-05T00:26:00.000-07:00

big stories, big stories.

the big news: justin and i are coming home early. we told our boss last monday that it was time for us to go home. we were motivated to do this because we thought i was pregnant. i've since found out that i'm not, but we will still be coming home.

since making this decision, i have come to appreciate korea more, somehow. maybe because im going to leave it sooner than i thought, but i think it's because im no longer trying to force myself to live here. it was pretty lonely trying to "live" in a place where you can't make more than rudimentary connections with others. the ex-pat community here is nice, and we have already made some friends that we will certainly miss. but i need a more contextual, nuanced life. i think the most significant thing that has occurred on this trip is that i have learned this about myself.

it was a nice, long weekend. it was a korean holiday, chuseok, so we had some days off work, and i think we spent them well. we spent one day in justin's old stomping grounds, bundang. it's a pretty fancy pants place, lots of starbucks and $90 discount shoe stands. i was impressed that korea's inner-city rivers are still clean enough to have cranes in them.

on friday we met up with a couple who we are almost POSITIVE are our anti-matter opposites. we were afraid to touch, lest we disappear forever. kate and sam, our new friends. they spent their honeymoon hitching peru, whereas we were in thailand. anyway, the four of us went hiking all over namhansamseong, the local sacred buddhist mountain, and it was very nice.

saturday we spent indoors, as it was the big holiday and everything, absolutely everything, was closed.

sunday we got out of town, and went to some buddhist temples up in the mountains. an old monk was singing an old song, and a lady shared some of her chuseok goodies with us. these consisted of a pine-flavored glutinous rice snack with beans in it, a kind of sweet rice drink (hopefully not fermented?), and a chestnut. My chestnut had a little maggot in it, but i managed to not flip out.

and then today we went to the ocean. the little ocean between korea and china. the tide was out, and there were lots of people out there gathering mussels and clams and who knows what. justin and i thought about getting some sea food, but we would have just ended up with a big plate of slimy something and not known what to do with it. so we enjoyed some cherry cokes on the wooden beach steps and then hopped on the bus back home.

so here i be, home again home again. another two months in korea, and a big ol' cliff of the unknown ahead.

alive and not dead

2009-09-25T02:22:00.001-07:00

hellooooo. im not doin nothin and that's why im not posting lately. justin and i went to the zoo last weekend and were all freakin out about the cool asian animals, like binturongs, but all the asians were over at the raccoon cage pointing and cooing. raccoons? seriously? get me my broom! i guess they are pretty cool looking if you haven't seen them your whole life/chased them out of your garbage, but man. that binturong was AWESOME.

uhhh i guess i am still homesick, but that is boring to blog about. boring blog! boring blog! just stop now!

nooo!

2009-09-14T00:20:00.000-07:00

today i was walking back to my apartment in cool autumn weather under an oppressive gray sky, inhaling pollution and watching the cranes building high rises when i had an epiphany. GLORIOUS KOREA. i think the place might be worming its way into my heart somehow. i still cant speak with the people, although i do get lots of friendly smiles and bows, especially from old folks. but i am starting to find a place in my heart for the green trees, the giant wasps, the flowers through concrete. im beginning to emigrate.

i once had a teacher who lived among and studied the maya in southern mexico and guatemala. being a little people with a difficult and obscure language, they were always surprised when whitey gringo spoke maya. the first thing they would always ask him upon hearing him speak was, 'what do you eat?' puzzled, he would answer that he ate what they ate: tortillas, enchiladas, etc. then they ask for how long, and he would reply, a year or so (or more as time went on). then they would smile and nod like they understood now. see because the maya believe that god is in the corn, their main staple (he's in everything else too, but the corn is a special gift) and their flesh, fed on corn, is literally god's flesh incarnate. SO when my teacher explained that he had been eating their corn for over nine months, they understood that, nourished by the flesh of their maya god and after a gestation of nine months, he had been reborn maya and thus could speak mayan.

anyway, the point of all of this is that maybe im becoming a little foetus korean. i have been here for a month now, so what, i dont have a heartbeat yet but i probably have little hooded eyes or something. the place is growing on me.

on another note, to do when i get back: learn to bake with things besides butter. i know i am harping on this, i am just so amazed at the options! in america we use butter or cream to thicken and flavor things. its delicious, no one should argue that, and far preferable to junky margarine and other fake fats. but its monotonous. the french are sort of more creative, they sometimes use eggs instead, which leads to delicious creamy custards. but asia is something else. the other day i had a donut filled with pumpkin and rolled in sesame seeds for sweetening! yes it was deep fried, so still not the healthiest, but these new flavors are amazing, and it was probably totally free of unnatural sugar. these squishy, gooby treats are so creative, and so effective at hitting the spot! of course i haven't converted completely, although i have expanded. i still look forward to baking macarons when i get home. macarons are the new cupcakes.

also i can now fit into pants i haven't fit into since i got married how about that. i still have a bit of a muffin top in them, but i can close the zip. woo! trouble is now they are out of style...oh well i will wear my flare leg rolled cuff khakis in triumph anyway!

so korea. having a good time now. we'll see if it lasts.

konglish of the week: "I don't like her because she follows strange hair rules." (written in student's essay...there are hair rules, aren't there?)

photo blog!

2009-09-07T00:23:00.001-07:00

finally what you've all been waiting for...

justin eats donkas (sp), batter fried pork. they are SOOO GOOD!! always served with kim chi which makes it healthy right??

salmon roll with spawn, babies. i eat this every day. (i've only had it once but hey, man, i COULD eat it every day if i wanted.)

this is delicious?

almost POSITIVE they are not actually affiliated

cartoon jesus loves you

the two sides of suwon city: side 1!

the two sides of suwon city: side 2!

ksh it's like everybody here is korean or something. also everybody carries umbrellas in the sun. also there is a dominoes.

i work at benjamin academy! we all care right? right? benjamin!

I ATE THIS!!!!

i tire of this techno exertion. that is all for now. more to come.

I LOVE SPAWN!

2009-09-01T03:50:00.000-07:00

the stuff is addictive ok? now i know why rich people pay the big bucks to eat it out of small tins.

hit my first culture shock wall this week. i was walking home from work and some guy honked at me on the road, and suddenly i hated all koreans. not normal. but i guess the culture shock is normal.

the good news is i finally broke down and made cookie dough this weekend. i can't cook it, but hey who needs to cook it? but i learned more about why koreans are skinny. two tablespoons of chocolate chip cookie dough: 120 calories. 4 chewy, delicious glutinous rice sweets: 60 calories. i am by no means converting, but it is interesting. asians just dont understand how amazing butter is i guess, and their waist lines show it.

i start my first class tomorrow that will be officially my own. two little girls starting with early easy reading. wahoo!

spawn broth? anyone?

2009-08-25T03:21:00.000-07:00

man this is going to be a cheerful post, i swear it! a lot of funny and weird things have happened to me since my last post,and i have been very excited to blog about them. but i just finished work and for whatever reason im a little bit down tonight. im just not in the groove yet.

but here are some funny things.
1) i made two unexpected friends this week. the first was in a marketplace in seoul. there were a bunch of people there holding up signs that said "free hugs!" in three languages. so...i took them up on it and hugged my first korean. it was super sweet and cute! new friends new friends.
2) there is a weird fellowship of foreigners here. the other day i was walking down the street and some white guy was walking down the other side. we made eye contact, he smiled and nodded, and i did too. just because we were whiteys in korea. racist? maybe. pleasant? certainly.
3) did you know the word "blessed" is etymologically related to the word "bloodied" or "wounded"? that would have been useful to know.
4) i miss fresh food! it is farmer's market time back in utah, and i am craving me some peaches. they have peaches here but they are a different type, with crunchy, white flesh. sweet, but different. i totally screwed up the first batch i bought, i left them out on the counter to get soft, like peaches should. but they just stayed crunchy and then one day they were moldy. lesson learned.
there are ladies on the sidewalk selling peppers and long skinny eggplants, but i wouldn't know how to buy them if i tried. wave money in your face? point? should EGG PLANT really slowly?
5) that reminds me i know now why koreans are so skinny. like 70% of every meal is vegetables! and they aren't prepared with fat and oil, they are made with vinegar and pepper. even their big, fancy meals aren't all fried cheesy meats (god bless america...tear...), they have some meat but it's usually eaten with leaves and seaweed. and of course the ubiquitous kim chi, which has wormed its way into my good graces.

bah. maybe im justin tv withdrawals. i watched the first episode of HBO's True Blood and frankly loved it. it basically takes on all the feminist issues of twilight (which i AM intersted in for scholarly reasons! among others...) and then some, and they do it well. but it is pretty graphic and im nervous lately about the images i put before my eyes because apparently they fool your brain. good tv wah!!

envy and beauty

2009-08-20T03:41:00.001-07:00

pensive tonight. i am reading a book called "Gilead," by Marilynne Robinson, and I suggest it for everybody. it is moving me to tears already, and i am only about 37 pages in. it is about families. i know that sounds really cheesy, but you know how you love your family? it reaches right to that sincere feeling and brings it out. im not sure where the story will go but it is beautiful.

it is making me think about my grandpa, who is 8...3? i think? he has just about every old person's disease in the world, couple of cancers, early alzheimer's, that kind of thing. it is one of those things where he has so many diseases they all got stuck in the door so none of htem have really knocked him out yet. except my mom tells me by email that he has started chemo for his cancers, which brought on an infection, and now they have stopped chemo for that. so now he has cancers and an infection. thanks, doctors. anyway, it makes me very sad because he is a wonderful old man, patient and sweet. he buys all those 'best of opera' and 'best of classical music' collections off the tv, and whenever i go visit him beautiful music is always playing. i sang for him once and he was in tears, and spent the next half an hour advising me to go professional.

anyway, it's just making me thinky. everybody dies but i hope it isn't painful. and im glad i have a belief that families can reunite after they die. ill be happy to hug him when he is a young man again.

also i've been thinking about envy (aka covetousness...sorry to go all christian here but it's an interesting topic!). there is a blog i visit that pains me to no end, tranquiliteaparty.blogspot.com. not because it is bad or offensive in any way, but because the things she makes are so beautiful! it makes me almost sick with jealousy because i am not in a position to make them too. maybe this thwarted passion means i should really put more effort into being a professional chef, i've never felt so sick about not doing something before.

but i digress. im trying to just appreciate what i have you know? the envy is this weird, strangly, awful feeling that doesn't seem to be at all productive, least of all in getting me to my goals of beautiful baking. and her blog is wonderful, and i love and admire how she seems to live. buddhists advise against desire in any form, ideally we could let go of all of that. but i dont buy it because painful desire and joyful passion are two sides of the same coin, and i dont want to give up the passionate part (im sure buddhists would be more than happy to surrender that as well). but how do you desire something, something you REALLY want, without burning yourself up? especially if you can't have it immediately, little miss spends-a-year-in-korea? dont get me wrong the food here is great, but i can't MAKE it. my fingers already miss bread dough. we have a microwave and a stovetop...rice krispy treats anyone?

anyway, i dont have any answers or nothing. i am just feeling pensive, and it is in a good way. but in case anyone is bored with this, here are some hilarious korean things i've taken the time to write down:

*several christian churches here advertise with a goofy looking cartoon jesus. he is very cute and inviting, but slightly unsettling for someone used to seeing him bleeding on a cross or gazing meaningfully from a painting. maybe it's a healthier approach? ill be posting a photo asap.
*my korean kids pronounce zookeeper "jewkeeper"
*yesterday we were writing paragraphs about favorite countries, and one kid said "i like korea because KIM CHI!" and all the other kids raised their hands and agreed kim chi was the number one reason to love korea. it's not that they dont like korea. they just love kim chi that much.
*asians are always asking me to guess their age, which i think it is safe to say is every westerner's nightmare. I DON'T KNOW!! well, not all of them but at least one has, and since i've only talked to a couple of people, at least 50% of asians have asked me to guess their age, sending me into a panic.
*apparently my name means something dirty in korean...i haven't figured out what yet, but every time i introduce myself the kids dissolve into giggles

korea...ill never stop saying korea

2009-08-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

im here! it's 5 am sunday morning (saturday afternoon for all the rest of you suckers), and i am WIDE AWAKE. so here are some fun facts!

KOREA
good news:
justin is here! yay! and he is hairy and beardy just like i like him. he has been very sweet and supportive, buying lots of plants to make the place feel homey, and bringing me glasses of lychee juice when i ask.

fermented cabbage everywhere...it has already grown on me, although i think it makes me smell different

on that note actually ALL the food has been delicious. this blog might convert again soon to a food blog like the last time i was in asia. so far we have had kim bap, which is like sushi but with cooked fish (yay!), donkas, which are breaded things in sweet brown sauce, and seolsongtang (sp?) which is a LOT like pho but with rice instead of noodles. yum!

they also have a wide variety of interesting, almost western food here, like elderflower sorbet! mmm.

also justin says maybe we can get a hedgehog. wee!

bad news:
ugh i can't sleep through the nights! it is hot as crap here and humid and sticky, and you know when you're trying to sleep but it is just HOT and everywhere you turn it is still HOT and you can't sleep because it's so dang HOT?? add jet lag and a tension headache to that and it's like that. luckily, i can always sleep on the nice, cooling linoleum floor. good for the back too.

hm i dont think i will ever be as cute as these hello kitty faced korean girls. rats.

it. is. HOT! and a little smoggy. for a city it is pretty green, and i think i will be able to find a nice running route through the parks and hills. but it is still a city with lots of cars and smog. boo.

just plain weird stuff:

my toothpaste tastes like pine

and i can do this: 너ㅏㅁ오로어니ㅏㄴ머ㅏ낭ㄴwhenever i want to. what'd i just say? WHO KNOWS?

that is all for now!

blog blog blog

2009-08-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

hey there lonely blog! man it has been weeks. i haven't been writing mostly because i've been living in a state of anticip................

anyways, MY THESIS IS DONE!! i never thought i'd get here and i dont quite know how to feel but i think it is a good thing?

and tomorrow i go to korea. im sure this blog will see much more frequent updates then, and i hope to have lots of itneresting things to write about! i want to fully convert korean, try to learn the language, eat all the right food, etc. itll be fun right? right? rest assured this blog will be full of all my joy if it is and all my moanings and groanings if it's not.

tomorrow i will get on a plane and be on a plane for 20 hours! yaaaaaay!

if you like nietzsche then im pleased to meetcha

2009-07-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

frick, nietzsche is brilliant. if this makes anyone nervous, please remember that here nietzsche is lamenting, not celebrating the death of god at the hands of the prideful, although there are lots of other meanings included in this beautiful passage.

"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it (The Gay Science 108)?

seems unlikely

2009-07-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

is it just me or are jumping spiders ridiculously cute?

crazy

2009-07-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

man how is it that two people can see the whole world in an entirely different way? im a big newshound and this morning i was reading about the atheist/agnostic organization 'freedom from religion' that is working tirelessly to keep the phrase 'in god we trust' from being engraved on some monument in DC. then on the next page there is an article about that pastor from somewhere in the south who protests at military funerals with a sign that says 'god hates fags.' what is the deal?

obviously these groups are both fairly extreme (the pastor is worse i'd say but the atheists are at least misguided in my opinion and working from a similar state of mind). im aware that there are individuals in both camps of christians and atheists and all the wide variations in between that are moderate, compassionate people. but the extremism is the point: to the atheists, organized religion is the biggest threat the world has ever seen and christianity's hegemony over western culture is very dangerous and oppressive. to the christians the atheists perspective represents the encroaching 'moral decay' of society which is or will be very dangerous in turn. i think it's significant that both sides' positions are rooted in fear.

but how can this be? it even occurs on smaller levels. i read that in england they have modified sex education to include a discussion that covers that sex is fun and pleasurable. i would think people were probably already aware of that, but it comes from a concern that oppressive conservative thinking is making sex complicated and difficult for couples. of course on the other side English conservatives see this kind of discussion, this publicization of the intimacies of sex, as immoral and destructive of its purpose (which of course varies from sect to sect).

is the world coming to an end in a fiery pit of moral decay? is it getting better in a pluralistic, globalized society that can only progress? there are people who believe one or the other of these things so firmly they are willing to fight and beat down anything that would appear to threaten it.

im ready to rise above. who's with me? i have always been pretty liberal in my stances, and i think for voting and practical purposes i will probably remain that way. but i think i am ready to quit politics. i think people from both stances should have to live one year with people from the other side. they can keep their political orientation, as it were, a secret, if they want. it was probably interaction with my extremely conservative yet caring and sincere ward that first helped me notice this problem (instead of just wondering how so many people could be so hugely wrong). politics and taking stances aren't bad things, but can't we react with just a little more compassion for everybody involved? instead of feeling so threatened and angry, let's all do the mother teresa and help each other out, yeah?

me and justin have a video

2009-07-12T21:25:00.000-07:00

libby introduced me to this song and group. and now justin and i agree that this song was most likely written about us. sorry about being self-centered. please enjoy.

a week late

2009-07-09T09:09:00.001-07:00

USA! USA! USA!

anna is an ass

2009-07-08T14:23:00.000-07:00

last night at rehearsal some kid was complaining about being fat. i wanted to reassure him so i said, 'you're not fat, that guy is fat.' then he says 'that's my dad.'

frick!

alive

2009-07-01T08:40:00.001-07:00

sorry about no posts lately. i'm giving up on my seattle photo project. it takes a very long time to mail photos from my phone to my account (at least when im stuck in a basement computer lab, which i always am). rest assured, seattle was awesome. libby i miss you already.

i have not posted much because i dont have a lot going on. i am in the play Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Riverton Community Theatre, i think the show will actually be pretty cute. i am in all of four scenes so, you know. but the cast is really good and it's a fun show. but it's taking up ALL OF MY TIME. (note: our show does not star donny osmond)

oh also my teachers say my thesis is ready to defend! WOOOOT! i wont relax until it's over though.

there was a flower sale at the local nursery the other day and i bought and planted 50 zinnia plants. i may have gone overboard. but they're lovely.

my blog is better than libbys

2009-06-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

personal update: im good! justin is gone though and i think it is not good for me to be left alone for long periods of time. i get craaaaazy. the thesis is underway. the play is underway. work is ongoing.

here are more seattle pictures! DONT BE BORED OF MY BLOG!!

but i dont know what to do with those tossed salads and scrambled eggs...Mercy!

a view of the city from the back of a water taxi. they have water in seattle! and taxis that go on it!

anna loves penguin 4EVR

anna loves libby 4EVR

whoa, look at me. im frank gehry. Wooo, everyone is really impressed mr gehry (I LOVE YOU FRANK GEHRY).

a lovely flower arrangement in the asian museum. they guy was going to tell me to quit taking pictures, but at the last moment he shrugged and walked away. good job security guard!

anna loves cupcakes 4EVR (the flavors are lemon, lavender, two mt. rainier cherries, red velvet, and salted caramel).

hey libby stop posting my same pictures!! youUUU!

i am back!

2009-06-10T13:18:00.000-07:00

hello i am back! seattle was AWESOME. i will now proceed to post many many photos from it. sorry about all the photos. i promise most of them are funny/entertaining. im not one of those sunsets and leaves photographers. most of them will be framed around my search for a replacement justin, since justin has moved to korea for the next few months before i can join him in august. yes, the house is empty, yes at the end of the day i feel sad because im on my own.

nevertheless today's photos are from the horrifying experience that was CHINATOWN! man you'd think i'd get used to asia one of these days but nope. not yet.

honestly this wasn't technically in chinatown. this was a creepy sailor puppet that waggled back and forth and cackled if you put a quarter in it, which of course we did. nightmares. so i guess asia isn't the only crazy continent.

so androgynous! is it a man? a woman? an escaped dancer from an 80's production of cats? whatever he is he's big in japan!

mmm boba bubble gooby or whatever you call these things, the gobs at the bottom are yummy. i got the jackfruit flavor, which is something like extra sweet petroleum. mm.

just a dam decent lunch i tell you. banh mi and boba drink.

hungry?

me neither

to end the day in china town, we visited a fish shop. as pets? to eat? who knows? it was creepy and dark that is for sure.

seattle!

adventures in caramel

2009-05-27T12:41:00.001-07:00

so it's been a while since i've gone into the kitchen with a recipe in one hand, a bag of ingredients in the other, and NOT had it work out. im beginning to take these things for granted. so last weekend i had a near breakdown trying to make caramel. don't worry, i took pictures.
ps i neglected to take pictures of the actual caramel so...enjoy looking at the chocolates i also made, more successfully.

raw materials

why! isn't! it! working!

eat it all out. there you go.

and try again.

at least the chocolates worked

IT WORKED I DID IT! finished caramel not pictured. only joy pictured.

and the chocolates were good too.

so despite my complaints about filling my time with awesome things evidence of my improving quality of life can be found on my USB drive, where documents like "THEORYSUM34FREUDANDFRY" and "MODERNITYRES.#18" are being replaced with "DINNERPARTYPLANS" and "YOGAPOSE"

powdery mildew you little douche

2009-05-26T17:11:00.001-07:00

get off my roses! ahhhh!

woo!

2009-05-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

this ad campaign was banned in america because barbie sued and a man claimed his daughter was "traumatized" from seeing the poster. it was also banned in china for being offensive.

i LURRRRRVE IT! go bodyshop! even though i can't afford any of your products!

but at my back i always hear...

2009-05-23T22:21:00.000-07:00

time's winged chariot drawing near.

lately i have been having problems with time management. this should seem strange, because right now i have neither job nor classes. i am working on a thesis, but it doesn't take up as much time as either of the above two things. why am i not relaxed and meditative all the time? i have been filling my time with the following:

yoga
language learning
reading
running
other exercises
cleaning house
sewing things
baking
beauty rituals (homemade facials, pedicures, etc.)
films
camping
being in a play
church stuff
gardening
opera singing
friend time
and other stuff

well, all these things are frankly awesome, right? but i have been so. stressed. out. and i think im trying to do too much; every activity i do i am thinking of what i will do next, im never in the moment. and last night i figured out why: i'm afraid of death.

maybe that seems superficial, but honestly. i cant stand the thought of never being a great opera singer, never speaking portugese, never being in plays, never publishing a novel, never learning how to bake grandly, never raising my own food, never knitting my own sweaters, never....etc. i cant make up my mind what to do with my time because it necessarily means im NOT doing something else, which is unbearable because ultimately there will be a big, fat END. death. it just sits there, quietly, at the end, inevitable. big old nothing. silence, quiet as the grave, and final.

this raises the next question pertaining to time management: if our time is so unbearably limited, if we will never visit all the countries or bake all the cakes or watch all the movies, as wonderful as these things are, what SHOULD we do with our time? what is this short, limited, painful life for? what is the most important thing? is it for developing relationships with others? is it for learning how to communicate with God? is it for understanding and loving our bodies? is it for the development of talents? is it the search for objective universal truth? how can we bear not fully completing any of these tasks?

now im a religious person. i believe the soul lives on. i even believe eventually the body will live on. and justin says the most important thing in this life is probably charity, which loosely implies relationships with other people. this might even include god, since it says in the book "whatsoever thou doest unto the least of thy brethren thou doest unto me." so maybe the best way to god is through people. the mormon view of heaven is that people go on working after they die, reaching out to and helping other people, both living and dead. heaven is a state of perpetual service.

but service is almost too strong a pleasure for me; at least, for all the time. it's a mix of terror and pleasure, humility and humiliation. interaction with other people always compromises the self (or creates it; either way its painful). i need simpler things. are there bakeries in heaven? do i get to make cakes with the finest vanilla and most beautiful powdered cocoas (that make you skinnier)? do i get to become a ballroom dancer, a talent i never had in this life? or are these things selfish? maybe dance halls and bakeries go in a secondary heaven. can we do everything after death, or will we only ever want to be engaged in service? i cant imagine myself in that state. i guess that means i am in spiritual trouble.

today i tried to live life as if i wasn't going to die...lazily, pleasurably. doing good, certainly (i saved a baby robin...didn't eat it), but not agitated, not driven like usual. but that's not it either.

how do you deal with death? do you throw a buddhist fit, and decide that if you can't have everything, you don't want anything at all? do you pick a christian martyrdom, and give up all pleasures for painful, ascetic, service which if you do it right you die without ever tasting chocolate mousse? do you choose a modern view, and go for everything you want right now? do you seek balance? righteous extremes? pleasure?

we are all going to die. how about that. what are we doing, and what do we do?

weekly blog?

2009-05-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

hello world! well i failed to do anything interesting enough for a photo blog in the last week, so i guess i'll just stick with words this time.

news: justin and i are moving to korea! despite the three master's degrees between us, we failed to be found qualified for ANYTHING here in the states. luckily koreans have more sense (or at least canadians who run their own private schools there) so we will be moving there for a year. after that, who knows?

news: i am THIS CLOSE to having my thesis done. hallelujah say amen! i just got it past the teacher i was most worried about so, woo! im hoping to defend around june 26th...

news: i am in a play, where i will be playing dress up and singing songs with grownups on stage. im half excited, half embarrassed. ps if you're curious, im just ensemble in riverton community theatre's joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat. i was afraid ensemble is code for least talented...rehearsal last night proved it.

news: last night i think my cat and i had a mind meld. i fell asleep petting her, and i dreamed about killing and eating a robin. it was gross but oddly enjoyable in my dream...maybe she dreamed about finishing her thesis?

news: uhh hm. i guess that's it!

more photo blogs

2009-05-13T11:05:00.001-07:00

this past week justin and i decided to take a week off from thesis writing and visa getting and travel west, west young men. we ended up in old timey pseudo ghost town of Ophir, in the heart of the west side of the oquirrh mountains.

this is the town is.

small town politics. oh wait, that's big town politics too.

justin says 'git. off. my. land.'

why no woman actually wants to go back in time.

ophir walls.

pretty sure it's always quiet time in ophir.

yup. always quiet time in ophir.

OPHIR!

San Diego

2009-05-06T11:01:00.001-07:00

i went to san diego last weekend. i was going to try to make cute story pictures like in chicago, but it was just so pretty and relaxing i just took photos of flowers and kitties. enjoy!

i look like an angel here. i dig it.

con nopales

this is called a bottle brush flower for obvious reasons. its lovely!

san diego = heaven

apparently obsessive collecting of plants is a family thing

this was my uncle's fat manx cat, queen carla. if ice cream could come in kitty form, she would have been it.

oranges stolen off a tree. usufruct! usufruct!

a sea anemone in a tide pool

justin touching said anemone and probably peeing himself a little. i cant talk though, i couldn't touch it without screeching and jumping away.

I am crazy into photo blogs lately. probably cause im tired of thinking of words due to thesis writing.

she done it again

2009-04-29T13:34:00.001-07:00

aint even gonna tell you how much butter is in this thing

semi sweet chocolate chip dots

made with black cocoa

its a bit misleading me standing here. while i did eat as much chocolate as this photo implies, justin did all those dishes.

blast from the past

2009-04-19T19:29:00.001-07:00

i may or may have not just rented season one of ally mcbeal. ahh 1998 where have you gone?

dork fantasy #1

2009-04-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

when i die and go to heaven (you know...hopefully...) im going to have a big party and invite the following awesome women writers:

jane austen
all the brontes
virginia woolf (if she promises not to be a freaking drag)
helen thomas
beatrix potter
and you know, i think stephenie meyer gets in there too.

gosh what fun we would have.

come spring come!!

2009-04-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

there's holes in my shoes

helping people?

2009-04-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

ok so a few months ago i decided that i would legitimately like to be a good person. you know, the kind that reaches out to people they don't know who need help. the kind who actually does what they can instead of just talk about it. so here's three stories of the past few months of my mother theresa-ing:

taking home a kitty: kitty was not wanted, so i took kitty home. i still feel pretty good about this one, but the full story has not been told yet. in however many months, when justin and i move, will i be able to take kitty with us? will i leave kitty with my mom, who loves kitty but works all the time, where kitty will be lonely and sad? is kitty REALLY better off lonely and sad than running around like a wildcat doing all the toms she likes? only time will tell.

saving a kid from drowning: in a pool in chicago, i was about to get in, when (A STRANGER WHO WILL NOT BE NAMED) got in the pool and swamped a little kid who was clinging to the wall. he was probably like, four. i was gonna jump in and swim away, but i decided to watch for a minute. i still have some memories in my head like still shots from this: his hands slapping the water looking for the wall and missing it, his head just below the water, his mouth open for air but not quite getting above the surface. i dont know if i stood too long or not long enough (dont want to rescue a kid who is just swimming...how embarrassing), but i finally jumped in and pulled him out by the underarms. i stuck him up on the side of the pool, where he coughed for a minute, then ran for his parents. his brother (maybe 8?) came up to me and i said "you might want to check on your brother. he's having trouble." brother says "yeah, this is kind of a big kid pool."
did i save him or not? justin said he saw him too and thought he was fine. a few minutes later he was back in the water (with his dad this time thank heavens). maybe im just overbearing. but i guess this is a case where its much, MUCH better safe than sorry.

black lady and the subway: pretty high from my most legitimate and successful form of do-gooding (kid-saving), that night i was shot back down to pieces. justin and i were going to dinner when we ran into a lady who came up to us and said, "don't be scared, we're just black." caught a little off guard, i noticed she was crying. she apologized for her weird intro, and told us that the last people had called them (she was with her teenage son) niggers. she told us that they needed to get to a battered women's shelter and would we put them on the subway? i was totally for it until, BAM fear hit me in the gut. what if she was lying? people fake tears all the time. so instead of taking her to the subway, i just gave her what was in my pockets, which was not much. not enough for a fare. then we walked on. soooo: do good except when you're scared (and probably racist?), then throw each other to the dogs. pretty sure that's in the ten commandments somewhere.

mexican lady on campus: in mexico there are a lot of little old ladies (abuelitas?) they dress a certain way, old frumpy dresses, and wear their hair in long braids. i haven't seen one since coming back to the states, but yesterday i was on the top floor of my building reading mrs. dalloway when i hear a voice, "Hermana! Hermana! Hermanita!" i look up and there is this little abuelita by the elevator! shaking off my cognitive dissonance, i went up to her. she asked me if i speak spanish (un pocito), and then rattled off to me in spanish about needing help for something and a little someone on the lower floor and would i help her do something? hmm. forgetting the phrase "please speak more slowly" i pushed the button for the elevator. she got on, said something else, i stood there like an idiot, then she just said, "gracias, hermana," in a resigned way and went down. surely she could have figured out the button herself. i felt totally useless.

anyways here's the point: helping people = fun when it works out, but its weird and complicated and i mostly botch it. still, its a hard thing that feels like it's worth doing, unlike some other hard things in my life.

where i've been

2009-04-13T10:18:00.001-07:00

the scuzzier the train, the better the city you know.

helloooo Chicago!

Justin and I look/act like Chaplin orphans...

but justin doesn't drink coffee...WHAT NOW UNIVERSE??

we got kicked out of the NBC building. i thought we were gonna make it to the roof but then the big guys in suits closed in...

city cupcakes = all better now!

aww look at the...the cute...couple.

at the fancy pants hilton.

why is paris hilton so rich anyways?

ohhhhhh.

the scariest part about this sign in chinatown is whoever wrote it is NOT EVEN CHINESE! no cultural excuses for you, creep-o. (25 - 36? for a 56 yr old?? shivers all over man, shivers all over)

mm everything chinese is just so blobby.

aw chicago, you're just so much COOLER THAN THE REST OF US in your fluorescent vests and segways!

chicago. the end!

ps my presentation went really well, and i may have saved a kid's life in the swimming pool. all in all, a good five days.

PhD Results #6

2009-04-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

please imagine the sad charlie brown music playing.

dreams

2009-04-02T09:26:00.001-07:00

last night i dreamed that i went toe to toe in a fight with the queen spider mite who is trying to eat my daisies. there ARE no queen spider mites, but in the dream if i could defeat her i could defeat them all! she was actually fairly reasonable though, and once she realized that she wasn't supposed to eat my gerber daisy she was ashamed of herself.

it really is kind of disturbing how much my plants preoccupy me. i was given an impatiens to grow for my birthday in january. well, a week or two ago i knocked it off the shelf (taking down christmas lights...har har) and it spilled everywhere, so i panicked and re-planted it in the garden. only then it dumped two tons of snow on utah! one stem was totally fried and reduced to slimy green rubble, the other lost its leaves but stayed standing. through the intermittent snow showers of the past week i have tried to protect it with a flower pot, but now im worried its not getting any light!

bored yet? everyone i tell this story to's eyes glaze over (that grammar is fine)! but i think about it ALL THE TIME!!!

im learning to sew. im going to sew myself a new baking apron. this, to me, is very exciting.

also: two new hot spots in provo i can't recommend highly enough: Pennyroyal cafe. yesterday i had a brie and apple sandwich there whose substantial deliciousness was actually outstripped by the deliciousness of their SIDE SALAD, which had greens and brown sugar and some kind of apple streusel thing on top.
downside: loud cello band playing dissonant, modern music drowning out conversation. would have been ok if i was there on my own, but i was there with friends and we wanted to TALK. which is why we went to:

SPARK. conveniently across the street from pennyroyal, they serve virgin fancy drinks. i had a mango mojito and a lycheetini, along with some pannacotta and kiwi pearls (all this was under $10). now before all you people who drink real drinks start to laugh at provo pretensions, this place was seriously awesome/delicious. and i think you should all try it, except none of you live in provo.

stuff i stirred this weekend

2009-03-31T18:09:00.000-07:00

this past weekend was liquid weekend, so i made mangoes and sticky rice and tapioca pudding. i was going to make vanilla custard to go with, but i just made a second batch of tapioca instead.

MMMM I WISH I WAS EATING TAPIOCA RIGHT NOW! all warm and filling.

anyways, these aren't my real pictures. right, like i would think to put a picturesque stick next to something!i forgot to take a picture because they were both down the hatch straight out of the steel pot too quickly. but my stuff DID look a little something like these.

not pictured: terrible gooey sourdough i worked FOREVER on and totally underbaked/ruined. maybe it caught onto the whole liquid weekend thing and decided to jump on board. disappointing.

i want to bake and sell stuff!

im still waiting to hear from my last/favorite PhD program. all this waiting has given me time to regrow some hope. NOOO!! i can't get hurt again!

also: my gerber daisy, plump with five ready-to-bloom blossoms, has become infested with spider mites! what to do?

edit: pretty sure that picturesque stick is a vanilla bean

OMG SPRING!!

2009-03-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

quack quack quack (translated): Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate...

dogwood is SO BEAUTIFUL! someone should write a poem about it...hey someone did...

sometimes i fall asleep on the floor in public.

my KITTY!! she just got fixed and is a little grumpy, walking gingerly around the house. I hate to do that to a sister, but at least now she can go outside and will stop rubbing her poor little bum on everyone's feet.

spring spring spring spring!

i think my boots have trudged through their last january. :( farewell, odd, warm boots.

i ate one a violet just the other day. i highly recommend it! they smell so good and taste good too. just pick up, inspect for bugs, and masticate. they're amazing! come on the french do it, so why dont you?

spring spring spring spring!

Some stuff I baked

2009-03-24T08:14:00.000-07:00

Carrot cake and challah bread. I left the eggs out of my challah, so it's a bit crumblier than it should be, but tastes quite nice. Same for the carrot cake - the frosting is maple butter!

PhD Results #6

2009-03-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

Well, so I'm PRETTY SURE Michigan State has rejected me...all their acceptees were notified in January, and all their rejectees in March, and I have heard nothing. So two weeks ago I e-mailed them and asked about my application and I never heard a word. Hmm. Maybe they are playing some kind of invisible game with me?

Anyway, it's probably fair to say they aren't falling all over themselves to accept me sooo..I'm just going to count on that as a rejection.

One more to hear (get rejected) from. It's one of my favorites (Rutgers), but I'm not holding out much hope. In fact at this point I have been psychologically preparing myself to do something else so much I might actually be disappointed, or at least seriously discombobulated, if they did let me in.

New plans:
Plan A: Open a wildly successful bakery
Plan B: Become a best-selling novelist
Plan C: Become a world-famous opera singer (this is my fall back).

Eh? Eh?

My Bakery

2009-03-21T17:01:00.000-07:00

so im not getting into schools. and im thinking of other options. and lately i am thinking pretty hard about starting up a little bakery. fun, right? risky of course but fun. so ive been doing a lot of brainstorming, which is probably the most fun part in a venture like this.

mostly im stumped for titles, so today justin and i spent the afternoon brainstorming. the conversation....degenerated with time, but here's the results:

Anna's Place

The Bonbonnerie

The Sugared Violet

The Icy Violet

Icy Violet's

Fanny's

Xochi's

The Golden Croissant

The Mediocre Pastry

The Vanilla Violet

The Buttered Pecan

Tim Robbins' Place

The Truculent Ostrich

The Chocolate Frost **itch

The Sensuous Pumpernickel

A Melifluous Afternoon

The Violent Bear

McDonald's

Daisy's

The Doughmonger

Shy Violet's

The Flatulent Cat

Yeastie's

ahh yes

2009-03-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

heres for some old fun!

10 things i hate:
not having enough TIME
acting like a jerk and realizing ive been a jerk
sun in my eyes
paying money for things
criticism
losing at games
people taking advantage of other people
how you can't have everything
HUMMERS HUMMERS HUMMERS
sexists/racists

10 things i love:
little serendipitous things like calling the lost and found and they have something you lost (something you liked but didn't really need but really liked) that you thought was gone for good
plants
knitting/sewing
baking
babies
cats (MY cat)
birds
sometimes swearing
movie stars
(secretly) BO i think it smells good. shut up, weirdos.

heidegger

2009-03-17T12:10:00.001-07:00

My teacher says this:

"I inauthentically make something my own—I appropriate it—when I can use it, when it becomes a tool, an everyday object. When I have the concept of the authentic, however, I realize that none of these things are really mine. They are the common stock of ordinary discourse and relation. But I can make them my own by explicitly taking them up as part of my projects. That does not mean that I own them. It means that I take responsibility for taking them up in the things that I do, as part of my being-in-the-world."

oo, responsibility. aww, heidegger i still love you.

PhD Result #5

2009-03-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

University of Oregon said: REJECTED. at least they said it nicely. but look: i may not go to PhD school, but i grew a daisy in my house in january so there.

and now for something completely different

2009-03-15T11:50:00.001-07:00

time to take a break from depressing PhD results. last night in an effort toward self-cheer, i had Anna's Annual Cupcake Extravaganza!!!!!!

Four kinds of cupcakes, three of each (1/4 of each recipe). The cupcakes were: Rocky Road, Frou Frou Strawberry, Lemon Curd Meringues, and Toffee Tumbles.

The atmosphere began festively enough with me baking and justin watching baseball, but took a turn toward the bizarre as it got later. justin went to bed and my mom shared a radio program with me featuring interviews with woman time-travelers (thanks coast to coast AM). later even that ended and it was just me, feverishly stirring up vanilla custard while my cat-in-heat yowled into the night.

i wasn't finished until one or so. but it was worth it.

PhD Result #4

2009-03-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

aight. heard from university of nevada: reno today. REJECTED. and what a frank letter it was. man i thought i had a chance with those guys.

i started this whole "post your PhD results" thing cause I was expecting to get into one and looking forward to the day that i triumphantly posted my acceptance that would make all those rejections look silly. but...i've only got two more schools to hear from and it's not. looking. good.

im getting a little megalomaniacal too...oh YEAH?? ill write my dissertation ANYWAY and when it changes the world won't they feel STUPID!??? AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! just like rachel carson.

PhD Result #3

2009-03-11T16:13:00.000-07:00

City University of New York says: rejected.

dam. im starting to get a little sensitive about this. i wasn't extremely excited about doing art history anyway, the method is so strict, but it seemed like a pretty summary rejection.

oh well. i'm pretty sure i will feel fine about this later, but im starting to feel like a reject indeed. this calls for some not eating (not eating is the new eating) and other comforting rituals.

Shantih

2009-03-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

This poem (part of TS Eliot's Wasteland) is about modernity. It makes my muscles weak.

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thoguht death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: "Stetson!
You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
You! hypocrite lecteur! - mon semblable - mon frere!"

anna and justin go to mexico

2009-03-06T14:48:00.000-08:00

ah, i pay so much attention in class.

who do you want to be?

2009-03-06T13:39:00.001-08:00

so i have a question to put to vote. you all may remember my diet post from a week or so ago. i have been on a fairly strict diet, first in my life, since then and have lost some weight, which is really nice.

HOWEVER here's the thing. i love to cook. really. and bake. i always have. and one of my long term goals (pre-diet) has been to learn to make delicious, hand dipped chocolates (you know, like apricot truffles, nipples of venus, mendiants, etc.). i recently checked out a library book on the subject full of french chocolate recipes, and it's killing me not being able to make them. its an artistic desire as much as a gluttonous one. i love making food come together into something beautiful and delicious.

the truth is, i cannot eat/make french chocolates and be skinny. i cant. i might stand a chance if i had an actual chocolate shop or something where i could sell the loot, but i dont. so is a life without french chocolate really worth living? there are chubby people out there, even fat people, who seem to be living ok lives, happily enough. justin promises he'll stay with me even if im a lardo (right baby?) so is that better than being skinny and always hungry in pursuit of some nebulous ideal of perfection? should i just quit baking?

PhD Result #2

2009-03-04T14:07:00.000-08:00

Northwestern (performance studies) sayyys:
rejected.

boo, northwestern. boo on you and your snobby program. the good news is i made it a few days longer than those other rejected slobs (you can see when people were notified on gradcafe.com). i made it to January 28TH!! they only made it to January 26th. haaaaah.

next up: Michigan State (any day now)

levanon, boker tov

2009-03-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

i highly recommend Waltz with Bashir. Be ready to cry. Its deep, it's sad, and it features a fairly dreamy animated main character.

some lyrics

2009-03-03T09:29:00.000-08:00

im not usually much of a lyrics poster, not for a few years anyways. but i have this song stuck in my head and its making me feel nostalgic. i am SO RESTLESS lately.

it's called "Sunken Waltz" by Calexico. Highly recommended.

Washed my face in the rivers of Empires. Made my bed from a cardboard crate, down in the city of quartz.
No news, no new regrets. Tossed a Susan B. over my shoulder, and prayed it would rain and rain, and submerge the whole western states.
Call it a last fair deal, with an American seal and corporate handshake.

Take the story of carpenter Mike. Packed his tools and his keys and left, and headed out as far as he could, past the cities and gated neighborhoods. And he slept neath the stars, wrote down what he dreamt. And he built a machine for no one to see. And took flight at first light in the morning.

oh my good lawd

2009-03-02T14:44:00.000-08:00

i am eating some tiramisu and oh my gosh. it is like the best thing i have ever had. i seriously fell down on the floor after my first bite. i think if you really wanted to get americans to rise up in revolution, ban cake.

also i remember once being on a date with my churchiest high school friend (who i incidentally also LURRRRVED) and suggesting we get tiramisu for dessert. "oh is that the coffee and liquor flavored one?" me: oh, right. nuts)

anyways look i got a bag! its from WWI and might have a blood stain on it? pretty sure its not just grape juice. it was for carrying grenades and ammo. now its for cell phones and keys.

PhD Result #1

2009-02-24T14:07:00.000-08:00

Got my first letter back from one of my PhD schools. NYU has put me on the waiting list for their MA program.

meh.

I guess it's not that great, as I already have a Master's degree, to get rejected for a PhD and recommended toward another Master's.

On the other hand, feels pretty cool to have NYU consider me for anything at all, soooo. Here we are.

Next expecting: Northwestern, sometime in the next two weeks.

high school fantasies revisted

2009-02-23T12:05:00.000-08:00

oh my gosh WHY AM I NOT A MOVIE STAR?????

ok. back to real life.

two books, one point

2009-02-19T07:53:00.000-08:00

I just finished two books which merit comparison and discussion. They seem to make the same point but from different perspectives and with different conclusions. One is called "The Spell of the Sensuous," by David Abram, an ecologist and philosopher at Stony Brook in New York. He discusses the modern separation of the mind from the body and the mental pain of living in a world that has been reduced to include only human desires and voices. He is a professor now, but he spent several years in Bali training as a local Shaman and, therefore, has a lot of experience with living a non-modern lifestyle.

The other book is called "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin. He is a biologist and paleontologist at the University of Chicago. His book discusses more scientifically the specific evolution of the human body from aquatic origins. It's fascinating. My hand has the same structure as a fin. I wouldn't be able to do push-ups (I can barely do push-ups anyway actually) if it hadn't been for a little critter that developed specific joints in his forearms millennia ago.

Anyway, Shubin concludes his book with the idea that we have evolved to live a life very different from the one we have created for ourselves. We are not living it; hence hemmerrhoids, obesity, other fat diseases, and all the major health problems that plague us. The human arse was not MADE to sit in a soft seat for a long time. Eyes were not made to watch computer screens for eight hours a day (THESIS COMMITTEE!!). it's bad for bones, guts, brains, skin, and just about everything else.

The essential point of Abram's book is roughly the same thing, only he suggests that our souls may also have evolved along these same lines and be facing these same kinds of problems and lacks. Language evolved along with bird-song; it's no coincidence that people no longer speak with the sophistication of earlier centuries. Language always changes, but the modern vocabulary has dropped and dropped and dropped to a fraction of what it used to be.

Their final conclusions are, however, interesting. Dr. Shubin seems to blame the evolution of our human bodies for these problems, calling it the "curse" or "burden" of the past. He seems to fall along typical scientific body-bad mind-good lines (if only our bodies were large flubbery masses so I could sit in comfort at my computer all day!). Dr. Abram suggests it is the structure of modern culture, not our bodies that are the curse, and here I tend to agree.

So let me ask you all a hypothetical. The questions are not realistic, but they are a summation of the two positions, so don't pick apart the questions, just choose one. To take the two positions to their logical extreme: would it be better if half the population of the world had to be die, including some of your family and maybe yourself, but everyone left would lead wonderful, lovely, healthy lives (this is more or less the romantic position)? Or is it better if everybody out there lives, nobody starves anymore, but everyone's lives were dull, unhealthy, and mediocre (the modern position)?

Curious to hear thoughts. Highly recommend both books.

and the old man looks at my mole

2009-02-18T17:34:00.001-08:00

who's a hypochondriac?? me!!! it looks asymmetrical though, right? ill go visit the men in white on tuesday.

hearts

2009-02-18T08:01:00.000-08:00

you know what was fun? valentine's day. we ate at the blue plate diner (mm!), bought a fancy cheese made with TRUFFLE OIL, and then got chocolates from the artisan little people downtown. woo! yes yes i know it all involves food, but isn't that...the greatest gift of all?

basically justin took me to all the pretentious yuppie places that i LOVE that he can't stand. aw. and paid for it all. if thats not love, what is?

bahahaha

2009-02-12T13:11:00.001-08:00

ack someone drew a one piece on the bikini girl on the tampon dispenser in the ladies room! i love BYU!!!

kate beaton drew it, i didn't

2009-02-10T16:34:00.000-08:00

kitty pictures it is!

2009-02-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

here she is!

nothing like the hobo life

2009-02-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

stabbing folks with my hobo knife...

just got back from my three days a week in provo. man i am a HOBO! i get there on the bus early in the morning on tuesdays and leave late in the evening on thursdays. i have certain on campus places to nap, certain locations on with microwaves. i know from where i can steal plastic forks and napkins, which bathrooms i can brush my teeth in and which have room to change my clothes.

i spend my nights either at my friend hannah's, crashed on the couch, or i walk a mile to grandma's where i crash, fully clothed with coat and scarf and hat to keep out the cold, on a mattress in the middle of the front room (provided the five boys who live there aren't up watching a movie), not caring about the spiders and mice. i walk everywhere. i carry my food and clothes with me. sometimes my professors bring me food. i go days without showering (i used to shower at grandma's but someone took my towel and now i can't find it). yesterday i taught my students with frizzy hair, mismatched clothes, and only wearing one dangly earring...i probably looked insane.

its not so bad though...i have a feeling this is going to be one of those life periods i look back on and say "aw wasn't that fun?" even though its pretty cold and greasy now. and it makes coming home just that much nicer.

but now i am home. and guess what? the kitty crawled into my mom's heart on little cat paws and she asked me to not give it away to the nice hippy man. poor hippy man. oh well there are plenty of other kitties out there who need homes. so now she's delightedly tearing up and down the hall, jumping at shadows, and staying indefinitely. yay!

a whole slew of politcally incorrect things

2009-02-04T16:10:00.001-08:00

so im writing a paper on the problems of modernity. that term includes things like over-industrialization and environmental degradation, but the assumptions that feed those problems are the same assumptions that feed issues like women's rights and that people on the street shouldn't starve.

so anyway, i was reading up on eugenics, which was the science of racial purification. based on Darwin's discussion of evolution, scientists decided it would be really cool if we could breed out all the bad qualities in the human race and become a better, more moral, more productive race in the process. this line of thought, of course, led to the holocaust (among other things) and all SORTS of human rights atrocities. after all, what qualities do we breed out? dark skin (CLEARLY a problem!)? "feeble-mindedness"? promiscuity? all these things were targeted at one time or another, including in the US who embraced and funded eugenics programs at many of its universities.

what i was really shocked to read about was THIS (no wonder my grampa's a racist):

"In the USA, eugenics was taught in college and high school classrooms. Supporters included Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood of America to urge the legalization of contraception for the lower classes. In its time eugenics was touted by some as scientific and progressive, the natural application of knowledge about breeding to the arena of human life. Before the realization of death camps in World War II, the idea that eugenics would lead to genocide was not taken seriously by the average American, though Sanger's books and letters clearly outlined these ultimate social-engineering goals to include selective contraception, forced sterilization, and even forced euthanasia on "the feeble minded" or "ignorant". If the government was not about to force such measures on women, Sanger believed it was her duty to provide these options to the 'lesser' of society in an effort to stay off their cycle of breeding ignorance."

really makes me think twice about my whole stance on abortion and women's rights. what if lots of free contraception is not actually the way to free poor people from the burden of children, but to free rich people from having to think about them, and maybe in a few generations from worrying about them at all??

we moderns think we can fix everything with science but hoo boy. sometimes those assumptions just lead straight to auschwitz. and then what do you do in a society that makes no provision for morality beyond what can be scientifically proven?

waaahahhh kitty kitty kitty

2009-02-03T09:00:00.001-08:00

well, i think i've found a home for the kitty (ive had a couple of false starts though so who knows?). its great, a place in sugar house with some guy.

and now i am PANICKING!! kitty kitty kitty! i like her and i want to keep her.:( she follows me around from room to room like a little shadow, meows at me. she might be preggo...is he ready to DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF THAT??

is it sexist that i dont want to give her to a man?

i could keep her...what if i get into grad school? i could take her with me then. it wouldnt be any more traumatic moving her then with us than moving her now with strangers.

ok. stop it. the kitty goes. wwaaaahhhh.

update: the guy seems very nice. i googled him and he seems like some kind of liberal hippy; not the kind to be making cat pies or cat skin coats at all. in the last note he told me to give the cat a hug for him. surely a good sign?

need advice

2009-01-29T10:09:00.001-08:00

another post for the day.

so there is this cat that i have met. she is cute. she is not wanted in her home (the person who brought her home split and left the burden of her care on those who didn't sign up for it...not her fault, but she's not particularly wanted there). it's starting to look like the Humane Society for her.

i live in my mother's basement. she has agreed to let me bring the cat home to stay on the condition that it would be MY cat and not HER cat. this is generous of her. but it makes things complicated because i dont know where i will be in six months. moving stresses a cat, and staying in one place stresses justin!

so what do i do? do i leave her at the house and let events run their course, where she'll probably end up at the pound? do i take her home and hope that someone will want her within the next six months (seems like if they don't want her now they might not ever, and i might just end up having to take her to the pound anyway)? do i take her home and try to keep her, moving her around the country and possibly around the world with us?

need advice!

robin day

2009-01-29T08:59:00.000-08:00

every january or sometimes early february i start to notice robins. i dont know why, maybe for courtin' purposes, they gather in all the trees and start to sing. its a really pretty sound, and their bright red breasts against the grey trees and grey skies really make one...whats that word? cheerful? its so nice when everything isn't so grey/thesis colored!

dreamy dancing

2009-01-27T18:09:00.000-08:00

so im doing a unit on dance in my humanities 101 class, and i was inspired to take a moment to chronicle the dreamy male dancers throughout the decades.

low point?

2009-01-25T20:17:00.000-08:00

i got butter on the mouse again

mind the gap

2009-01-24T20:30:00.001-08:00

some pick me ups for a lonely saturday night:

"In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote of the "gap-toothed wife of Bath." As early as this time period, the gap between the front teeth, especially in women, had been associated with lustful characteristics. Thus, the implication in describing "the gap-toothed wife of Bath" is that she is a middle-aged woman with insatiable lust. This has no scientific basis, but it has been a popular assumption in folklore since the Middle Ages."

oo, risque.

"In France, they are called "dents du bonheur" ("lucky teeth")."

great!

Notable people with gap teeth:

Condoleezza Rice, United States Secretary of State
oo, conservative

Elton John, English pop/rock singer and musician
oo flamboyant!

Elijah Wood, American actor
take the ring to mordor!

Ronaldo, Brazilian footballer
arriba!

Madonna, American singer
whats sexier than madonna?

David Letterman, American TV comedian
it was real butafuoco fiber...

Jemaine Clement, musician/comedian
woooo!

Vanessa Paradis, French singer/actress
yeah yeah johnny depp!

gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy gappy

CHANGE HAS COME TO AMERICA

2009-01-22T09:37:00.000-08:00

OBAMA CLOSES GITMO!!! hahaha suck it critics who said he wouldnt be different than anyone else or follow through on his promises!!! yay long live american values! freedom, democracy, due process, all that stuff!!

also:

OBAMA BANS TORTURE ("ENHANCED INTERROGATION PROCEDURES")

aw were not a country of monsters anymore!

l

2009-01-21T12:13:00.001-08:00

girl love

2009-01-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

ps I LOVE MICHELLE OBAMA SO MUCH!!!!! smart and sophisticated and lovely i just....mm. drool.

obama!

2009-01-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

happy day after obama day! im so excited for the country. so nice to have such a classy, sophisticated person in charge for once. its interesting though how deeply some people disagree, and for what reasons. i am sure there are people out there with legitimate enough philosophical differences on politics to disagree with his stance, but today i had a funny, interesting conversation:

friendly old lady in cafeteria: do you like obama?
me: yes! im very excited about the inauguration.
FOLIC: silence.
me: do you like him?
FOLIC: i can't listen to him.
me: why?
FOLIC: silence.
me: you dont like...his voice? what he has to say?
FOLIC: it's his delivery.
me: silence (wondering if its his....black....delivery? hard to say otherwise since most other judges consider him a wonderful orator, even those who disagree with his stance)

she really was a nice old lady. its just weird to see how much people are sometimes effected by their upbringing. exaple earlier in the election my grampa would talk about how much smarter mccain seemed than obama. which led me to a) doubt whether he had actually heard the two of them speak or b) listening through his pre-1960s ears and hearing black voice = dumb?

so maybe its not fair of me to accuse all old people of racism behind their reasons for not liking obama. but you know, i still think it may well be one reason, either consciously or subconsciously. my grampa is a really, incredibly nice man. but hes a product of his time. its ok (or at least forgivable), so am i (my mom says maybe i woudlnt be a liberal if she hadnt had me watch sesame street as a kid).

anyways, just got done getting the crits for another paper. cried in the bathroom, as per usual. ive gotta get this massive ego of mine under control before grad school implodes (THEYRE WRONG THOUGH!!! IM A GENIUS!!! THE WORLD IS UNFAIR TO MY GENIUSNESS!!!).

courtesy of libby

2009-01-13T11:13:00.000-08:00

its my birthday! to celebrate libby sent me a bunch of amazing pictures. i am posting some that i think people who read this blog will appreciate.

why persons with large breasts cannot be friends with persons with small breasts

2009-01-12T11:50:00.000-08:00

yes, this post is about breasts.

the problem with people with small breasts is that they always, always think bigger breasts are good. they don't understand the cumbersome nature of large knockers, the extra attention they get you (not the good kind of attention), or the way they make you feel huge no matter what size your waist is.

so today i went to lunch with an old friend, one who has long been whip thin but has recently put on a bit of meat. nothing serious, just a bit. but she was talking about her breasts getting bigger and as she is a bit older than me, got to discussing her 17 yr old niece who is a small pants size but has big breasts. then she starts talking about how this niece and i have both been victims of the cow hormones they put in food now that make your breasts so freakishly big.

it doesn't occur to her that this whole cow association is not a pleasant thing to say to someone.

she then goes on to describe how her breasts, though larger, fit her body better than mine. or her words were that they dont make her look so "booby." now she never would have said this if "booby" weren't a compliment in her thin book. but yet...somehow all i hear is how freakishly big my breasts must be to make me so "booby".

the funny thing is she is a careful, sensitive person who, whenever we talk about our bodies, is always pleasantly supportive and complimentary. she never would have said these things if to her, large breasts weren't a virtue.

but now i feel like a cow.

rocking and humming to myself

2009-01-06T08:36:00.000-08:00

ah its good to be back. after a mild case of school related PTSD that drove me away from all computers for the entirety of the christmas break, i am back on campus in the same old computer lab where i do all my blogging. o and my work too.

what i meant to write about over the break was my NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS!! (i love these)

1. the usual (weight related, health related, blah blah blah)
2. don't drive anymore. i got a beautiful bike for christmas (Suzy Q i call her) and the idea is to figure out a way, between the bike and public transportation, to not take my car anymore. i have exceptions like for weather or emergencies, but ideally i will quit contributing to the yearly inversions i whine so much about.

i dont know if this one is going to work out well, frankly. its january and the roads are pretty unbikable, so far this resolution has translated into staying home. and one cheat where i made JUSTIN drive me somewhere....which doesn't count for some reason.

3. write in a journal. yup. this would be a good idea.

all right 2009! BRING IT OOONNNN!!!

checkin in

2008-12-27T14:57:00.000-08:00

chrsmas

2008-12-16T10:15:00.000-08:00

thanks for all the smart vibes folks! i think its working? guess we'll see only time will tell. im living more or less out of my car this week, although between gramma's and hannah's i have found places to sleep and even sometimes to shower. its nice cause its winter and leaving the week's food in the car is pretty much as good as leaving it in the fridge!

im doing this because i need to finish my papers and don't have gas to drive back and forth everyday or time to do two hour bus commute (four hours there and back). its not so bad though, i watch the news at night, get up at eight go back to the lab and work. its probably something like a real job.

two more days of finals and papers and then.....christmas! i will drown my sorrows in two weeks of parties, snow and sugar.

does anyone else feel like january is looking particularly ominous this year?

feels like swimming (or drowning?)

2008-12-12T11:22:00.001-08:00

why am i not in oaxaca?

ok quick breath from my papers (one of which was totally shredded by a teacher and requires total re-write, the other turns out has already been written into a fine book so i need to re-write that one too with a new idea)...

and back in. (ps sorry about all the whining...ill be done in a week)

baby goes up, baby goes down

2008-12-05T17:42:00.000-08:00

well its the end of crazy week number one. two weeks to go. today was my reading exam, the culmination of three months and 21 books (they were supposed to be spread out over two years but hey, you know, professors are busy). six essays, five hours, and a water bottle.

i had a lot of plans for tonight, but im pretty sure im just gonna take some aspirin and crash. hamster can change her own cage?

please hold...our operator will be with you in a moment.

2008-12-01T10:05:00.001-08:00

this week is the beginning of finals month (more or less) for this semester. i will probably not have much time to blog. so in lieu of my usual witty thoughts, i leave you all this:

if any of you wonder what im up to for the next little while, it will most assuredly be thinking about how goats are the answer and how school is a DRAG.

baby

2008-11-24T14:04:00.001-08:00

justin in a nutshell (can you guess which vote he is?)

aw my misanthropic baby!

i want a goat

2008-11-21T11:31:00.001-08:00

whuh-oh!

2008-11-18T11:30:00.000-08:00

im onna go to this hotel and talk to professors. gee it sure is fancy. wonder if ill fall off my $2 DI heels as i head up to the stage? or just puke all over everybody? and justin probably wont be able to go with me cause the department wont pay for him!

this hotel sure is purdy though.

ok im way excited but i gotta stop wiggin out about this. its eight months away! thats plenty of time to...to put stuff together. right? and get comfortable talking in front of huge crowds while mirrors and chandeliers sparkle at you?

agg i am overcome by the fancy!!

ah crap (yes!)!

2008-11-17T11:35:00.000-08:00

i got a paper proposal accepted to go to chicago in spring and stand in front of a bunch of college professors and talk about stuff! yaaaay!!! my program will pay for it! yaaaay! this is the first time ive had someone pay me for someting on the basis of pure merit rather than because they were my mom (thanks mom!) or because i worked for them.

ok so YAY!

but im scared because i just read over my proposal again and it is INCREDIBLY ambitious. I basically said, ill tell you all the meaning of life if you all lean in real close. sooo....piss it.

still...yaaay!!

the way of the world

2008-11-14T17:36:00.000-08:00

im rippin on this guy in a paper im writing that smacks down the Enlightenment, but i had to take a minute to feel sorry for him after reading his little blurb on wikipedia (if you read nothing else read the last line):

from wikipedia: The marquis de Condorcet was a French philosopher, mathematician, and early political scientist who devised the concept of a Condorcet method. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he advocated a liberal economy, free and equal public education, constitutionalism, and equal rights for women and people of all races. His ideas and writings were said to embody the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment and rationalism, and remain influential to this day. He died a mysterious death in prison after a period of being a fugitive from French Revolutionary authorities.

what? why is it always the idealists who die horrible deaths?

how anna got her groove back

2008-11-14T10:38:00.000-08:00

ahh man i have been in a MALAISE!! since that phd revelation ive been wandering around in a serious funk. i mean, i really want to get a phd (i know that now), but its more just suddenly having absolutely no idea what you're going to be doing in six months, when one of the possibilities really starts to look like the gutter/playing guitar on the street for money (pretty cool actually).

but anyways, ive got some of my mojo back. partially weather induced (yay sun! boo rain!) and partially encouraging teachers saying helpful things. so i will now be applying to the following school.

Rutgers - Comparative Literature (New Jersey)
Michigan State - English
Reno - English (ew Nevada! but they pretty much founded eco-criticism)
Oregon State - English (Libby Libby Libby Libby Libby)
George Mason University - Cultural Studies
Northwestern - Performance Studies
NYU - Performance Studies
UCSD - Art History

yeah man! i am all the crap over the place! its gonna cost maybe a fortune to apply to all those schools but if i could just get into one id be a happy gal.

and dont worry im going to have babies either way ;)

grafitis

2008-11-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

i love the orange behind her, it gives the picture so much tension in contrast with her peaceful face. she is like a breath of cool air in hell.

poor sad corn girl. i love the image of the old aztec temple behind her and the looming god. nobody respects the corn anymore (see last post).

these are from mexico; grafiti is a lot more common and a lot more artistic there. there was a whole wall full of grafiti on the walk to work in our town, and these were my two favorite panels.