Lately it just seems like the world is coming to an end. With the hurricanes, crazy thunderstorms, and fires in California I just don't know what to think. And seriously, what is with this HOT weather. Anyway, I hope LA isn't too smokey although it seems like the fires are a ways north of you guys. And I hope the first week of school is going well for all!

Thundercats!

It is raining too hard for me to want to go to my section.

Tonight, I am going to find out my work schedule at the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, and if I am up to it, find out what I have to do to get on the radio. Wazow, bam, boom!

This is the birthday card I turned in as the first assignment of my Advocate design comp.

The past two days has been uncommonly hot in Santa Barbara...hotter than it was all summer. Perhaps the weather is a metaphor for my life, or perhaps it's punnishing the powers that be for starting classes now, rather than a month from now.

I'll be the first to admit i'm still on summer mode. I haven't been home one night this week and I haven't gone to sleep before 2. I have, however, been to all my classes, and I have written two articles. Think I can hold out?

The answer is no. I'm starting at the top and eliminating everything that takes time away from my studies, my journalism, and my beauty sleep. I'll start with work.

Champs

Padres = NL West Division Champions! They beat the Giants 9-1 tonight. Guess who got tickets to game 4 of the division playoffs before they're up for sale to the public? Damn right!

Playing Catch-up

I went onto out website and saw that there were like 5 new posts. So I thought that I should probably write something too because, you know, I don't want to be left out or anything. So I am living in my new apartment, which according to some of my friends is in the boonies, but I'm just across the street from Eric and Avalon, and they're so much cooler anyways. In case you're wondering, they're doing well and watching LOST dvds all the time. My apartment is crazy huge with a crazy huge balcony, and my new roommates are the nicest and most chill people ever. Our neighbors play music really loudly, like to the point where I can make out the words to the songs that they play. But that's cool because it doesn't really bother me, and it means that we get to be just as loud... party anyone? Basically for the past three days I've been running around trying to get back in touch with everyone I neglected to call over the summer to try and make up for the lack of communication. That's basically about it, but classes start over the next couple of days, so I'll be able to write about my awful (maybe great?) professors soon enough.

NL West

I just wanted you all to know that our San Diego Padres could win the NL West Pennant tonight if they beat the dirty SF Giants! For all of you who don't follow baseball, this is a very good thing and will send us into the playoffs. The Padres just have to win the game tonight or tomorrow or if they don't then they have to beat the Dodgers 2 games out of 3. They have an excellent chance! Playoff baseball here we come! Unfortunately this means the end of baseball season is quickly approaching and I will have to spend my nights some way other than watching baseball. Lord knows football doesn't even compare.

I'm going to the game tomorrow night so I'm secretly hoping the Pads lose tonight so I can see them clench! Of course, I wouldn't really be sad if they won. Anyway, I'll keep you guys updated on our team! Now back to real life and school.

Apparently Monday and Wednesday afternoons breed rambling, balding, slightly drunk professors who teach ephemeral, flighty, slightly uncommon subjects.

Professor Rhetoric stumbled into the room, dazedly saying, "It was summer like five minutes ago. Now i'm a teacher." He proceeded to tell us he doesn't know what rhetoric is. And finally he commended the Fourth Biggest Party School status UCSB has earned, promising we'd celebrate by getting drunk the last week of class...

Professor John Milton requires a final 6-12 page paper of "lucid prose" and assigned "too much reading to read" for the first week of class. He doesn't tolerate interpretive welfare and when asked a question about what the weekly commentaries he assigned entail, he said, "I don't know."

Off to class?

Jelly Bellies are fun!

So last night I got one hour of sleep and took a 6 hour nap today.
I'm thinking about not allowing annonymous comments anymore. I'd hate to cut off people who don't have blogger, but it's annoying to get annonymous comments! (even if most of us know who you are)

Today is David and Annie's 21st birthday. So happy birthday to you two!!! They're sooooo old. 21 is so exciting.

I really don't have anything to say. I told someone I'd call them tonight and then I didn't. I'm sorry for that. Today has been a little nuts. I still have some homework to do. My life is out of control lately.

What?

I just e-mailed Howard Zinn.

Cigarettes and Alcohol

Last night, I went to the comp meeting for Harvard's oldest publication, The Advocate, a literary magazine formerly edited and contributed to by the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot, and Norman Mailer, among many others.

The meeting was held in the upstairs room of 21 South Street, hardwood floor and dark wood moldings and bookshelves all the way around. Two long, wooden tables set up like the head tables at a ritual initiation: two martini glasses offered cigarettes, fat white candles burned down into themselves like shy people, mismatching wine glasses gathered in crowds around six bottles of red wine. Freshmen in Harvard gear kept uncomfortably to themselves and sophomores and underclassmen mingled with the board members that they knew, kids that were dressed in the same colors and tones, sulky, slouchy, cleanly shaved but growing out, black-framed glasses, tattooed backs, polo shirts and black tank tops, upstanding, dramatic, buzzed, reminiscent of all those people you know.

At Harvard, many publications and clubs involve a "comp," which, as I understand it, is short for "competition." It is part initiation, part training, part audition: every institution decides for itself how much of each part their own comp is. The six boards of the Advocate have comps of varying intensity: presentations, essays, submission and revenue solicitation, assignments. Some boards have two rounds of cuts.

I'm scared shitless. I need a glass of wine.

So we're using titles now?

I suddenly got really scared to go back to school. I had this nightmare a couple nights ago that most of the friends that I had made last year really hate me now. I'm not on the best terms with someone right now, and she's dating this guy who would obviously be on her side, and would convince all of his friends to do that same, and... man, I seriously thought I graduated from high school. Kind of funny how a lot of these people consider themselves really "liberal" and get angry when they hear of religious conservatives supporting something just because it's their party that came up with it. Irony's a great thing. But really, I should probably wait before I jump to conclusions...

...*jump*

Whoops, too late. I should be more careful.
In light of my new frustrations, I've put Blood Brothers back on my itunes, and I can't stop listening to their latest CD, Crimes. Let the crazed dancing around my room begin.

I went into Borders today for the first time since I started working at Barnes&Noble. Granted, I snuck in to use the bathroom, but that didn't stop me from looking around a bit. It's a nice store, i'll give it that, and the amendities of working there include proximity to campus, lax to no dress code, books and music, better parking, higher pay (I hear)... the list goes on. However, I do feel that their prices are slightly ridiculous, and their system of book organization is highly confusing and disorderly in comparison to B&N. I like the more sophisticated feel at B&N with the classical music, business casual, and intelligent, knowledgeable staff members (that's me). So in conclusion, I agree with what the someone that once told me B&N is for old people who are smart and love books while Borders is for the more hip generation of folks who dabble in books and music and make a lot of money at their cushy jeans and a t shirt-type jobs.

I'd consider working at Borders because i'm hip and down with convenience, but i'd buy a nice book over a CD any day, and if I have no choice but to go to a corporate book store when i'm old, i'll choose B&N.

Fall = Summer + 10

Classes don't start 'til tomorrow and already i'm filling in the hourly schedule in my day planner to make sure I can fit everything in. Fall is summer but worse. Add two more classes, another newspaper, more friends, Hillel, and various other commitments/activities and you get... me. Or what's left.

Presenting Dr. David H. Hubel

"The Faculty of Harvard University deserves my thanks for tolerating such a truculent colleague." -DHH

Rock on.

I got into the freshman seminar. I'm doing the happy dance.

Classes after 12 every day? Yes, please. Rock.

Perfect Weather

San Diego is having the most amazing weather ever right now. I'm listening to Something Corporate - The Formal Weather Pattern because it seemed appropriate. Piano solo! It's lightning and thundering like crazy. I love it, and I have so much homework to do, but I can't because the weather is AMAZING! Then it starts pouring for about 2 minutes and stops. I keep waiting for the power to go out because this is intense. I LOVE IT!!!!

It's funny, really. I'm so stubborn. I make up my mind that I don't like something and I convince myself that I really don't like it. Yet, when others form an opinion without giving something a chance I think they're so close-minded. After talking to Lindsey last night, I can easily see all my "flaws" and I know I shouldn't feel certain ways about stuff, but I think feeling those ways comes with being a girl. I can't change it!

*listening to Ashlee Simpson right now* (guilty pleasure)

I spent a perfect Saturday evening slightly buzzed at a random pool hall that used to be a movie theater in Pismo Beach.

Okay Juli, these are for you because you asked.

Haircuts%20of%20the%20Past%20and%20Present%20003.jpg
Haircuts%20of%20the%20Past%20and%20Present%20002.jpg

They're not very good, but I always feel awkward about taking pics of myself, like I feel really dorky doing it. So I just took two and this is what turned up.

Oh, and I get to see Thrice for free! UCLA has its benefits.

Like a pheonix ignition...

Ah... it's like going back in time...

Today I met Pavlo.

Now that I think about it, he could have been "Pavlov," which is a more familiar name, but I distinctly remember hearing "Pavlo." Pablo, with a V.

Pavlo and I went on a bookstores tour of Boston, which really meant a rare book shop near Dunkin' Donuts (I touched a book written by Galileo that was printed in... a very long time ago), the three-story Brattle Book Store which boasts a million books, and the book store of our tour guide Bob Marshall, an ex-Air Force pilot, current police inspector book collector who looked like a mole with his buzzed hair and wide, friendly nose of Ukrainian descent (his great-grandfather came from the Ukraine during the 1890s, and because he grandfather was to be a lawyer, they named him John Marshall, thus shaking off the 6 mile long name of his ancestors). Bob knew all of the policemen and city workers on the street; he stood up to the aggressive panhandlers, and he used lines like "Did you hurt yourself? You know, when you fell from heaven" on the girls who left the tour early. His heavy Boston accent prevented him from pronouncing words like "partnering" correctly, and he was about 5' 3". Altogether, an adorable man and a pleasant time.

Pavlo was born four days after Chernobyl, but the wind blew East, instead of West, (or West instead of East,) so he was spared. In the Ukrainian education system, students take 16-18 courses in a term, so it was a shock to go to an American style school in Switzerland in 10th grade, where he only took 6 or 7 courses, and more of a shock now to take only four. Pavlo wants to concentrate in Mechanical Engineering, and perhaps study abroad in Germany. He has pretty bad acne, glasses, and a sloping nose that seems to make sense when he tells you he likes to alpine ski. Blonde, tall, wears a belt high on his waist where it's meant to be--that's Pavlo, who told me, "Human beings are quite brittle."

A weekend at a beach house in Pismo with the newspaper staff.

I'll tell you about it on Sunday if i'm not indisposed.

Thank you, LeeAnn, for gracing us with your lovely, poetic tales of your new life in Boston. What's it like to be you?

Keep writing!

(do you have a new email address?)

It Came Down with the Rain

Today, I was sitting in a tea shop facing a dripping, thundering Massachusetts Avenue, the shower head of Boston was turning on and off and on again over people dripping with the sweat that comes with the humidity that lingers from 90 degree days, and I was drinking eight-treasure tea, and waiting for my Curious Monkey Wrap, and I had just finished my interview with Professor Hubel, who likes Bach, plays piano, is from Montreal, who doesn't think Boston's winter is cold, and spent a summer at the Salk Institute writing papers while wondering why he wasn't out on the beach instead, an interview to which I ran full speed down Quincy, through the Yard and up Prescott in five minutes from the Discussion with Faculty where the kids on my floor were discussing the idea of identity and change, to meet Hubel as he just began to open his door and welcome me in, an interview which supplemented my application for Professor Hubel's seminar on the Neurophysiology of Visual Perception, and I was staring out the window, The Wanderer in one hand and eight treasures in the other and such a daft smile on my face.

This is the best morning I've had in a long time.

So this might come off as completely pointless, but I have bangs now. I haven't had bangs since I grew them out along with my permed hair in 7th grade. I like them, it was time for a change. But my parents didn't even notice... maybe it wasn't that big of a change?

On a completely different note, I was talking to a friend of mine about guilty pleasures. It's led me to wanting to know everyone's guilty pleasures... so if you want to tell me yours, I might reveal mine to you. It'll be fun; it's kind of a cathartic experience. However, I feel it necessary to point out that I'm talking about music, I don't really want to know if whips and chains turn you on.

Haha, until I point out that I'm talking about music, that last paragraph sounds kind of dirty.

The editor of the newspaper where I intern took one look at me today and said, "You suddenly look grown up." I replied, "Well, i'm turning twenty in a couple months, that's pretty grown up." I shot a look at the managing editor, who's in her middle twenties, that said "I know i'm not grown up at all" and the office laughed.

This is a weird age, this middle-of-college, not a teenager, not married, not a full-fledged member of the workforce or the country age. I can vote but I can't drink or gamble, I pay bills but my parents still support me. I'm okay with that; and I can always pretend i'm more important than that list of nots.

While procrastinating my insanely insane amounts of work, I turned on the word verification thing for our posts so hopefully that will help. Sorry I've been slacking lately. School is just really intense this semester. I can barely keep up with all my work and sleep and a night of socializing per weekend along with posting on here! Excuses, excuses... but seriously, I don't know if I'm gonna make it through. I'm trying my bestest and seriously questioning my career as an accountant.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I have outgrown my fear of talking to people. People can be scary, and I still choke up every once and awhile, but I don't really dread it anymore. People are just people. I think four years and a summer of intense journalism has turned me into somewhat of a friendly person. Friendly? We'll see if that carries over bilingually. ¿Puedo ser elocuente en español también?

My goal for this post is to not complain about anything. Mind you, this is very hard, because I like to be sarcastic and it's very hard to not be whiny at the same time. Let's see how I do.

I think I'd like to be famous for a year, just to see what that kind of a life it's like. Go to a couple of Diddy's parties, maybe date an actor or a rock star to get that out of my system. Then I would stop and go back into obscurity and normal life before I become addicted to diets and plastic surgery. I don't know how I would achieve this though. I seriously doubt that there's a market out there for a science nerd who happens to listen to a lot of music and watch a lot of trashy TV. Who would watch "My So-Called Theory of Special Relativity?" Or listen to an album titled "Songs from a Particle Acclerator?" No one; therefore, the most attainable method is to find a genie's lamp and make that one of my wishes, the second wish being to have my life go back to normal (just in case you wanted to know, the third wish would be for more wishes... because I'm a cheat like that). Now that I have a plan, all I have to is wait.

Welcome to...

Is there a book called Dorm Life Sucks? As of the past... day, I wouldn't be able to write such a book, but maybe I should wait it out a bit before premature euphoria over the layout of my dorm. Common room, a spacious double, a spacious single, a good-sized single, and a painfully, inhumanely small double. Guess which I'm in?



(Back against the wall, closets to the right, bottom bunk mine!)

The two single rooms are going to the resident basketball star (6' 6" from Pennsylvania and fun) and the resident volleyball star (5' 11" from Kansas City and beautiful in the Courtney Hall sort of way). The good news is that next semester we agreed that the two squished in the double will trade for the singles.

Nothing more for now but that the shower spills to the bathroom floor and I take an ID picture that's going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

While I was making Barnes and Noble look beautiful after closing tonight, I came across an unfamiliar book that caught my eye: Dating Sucks. I have long found this statement to be true, and was excited to find some interesting advice/opinions on the subject. Feeling pretty good, I made my way from Self Help to Pregrancy and Childbirth and came across another book: Pregnancy Sucks.

Does it get any better? Or does life just suck?

A girl messaged me on facebook the other day. A freshman who is going to be living in the same room as I did last year. She sounded really enthusiastic about getting to UCLA ASAP, the message contained a lot of exclamation marks and her greeting and closing contained multiple syllables. "Hiiiiiiiiiieeeee Jen!!! I'm living in your old room next year!!! I can't wait to start up at school!! I hope to see you on campus!!! Byeeeeeeee!!!!!!" She proceeded to request me as a friend on facebook. It made me remember how restless I felt right before I left for school; I couldn't wait to shed myself from these people I called my friends and meet the people I was really meant to be friends with. Now don't think me heartless, I know most of my friends were thinking the exact same thing. And yet here I am, still in touch with most of my close friends from high school, still holding them closest to my heart, perhaps even closer than before. I thought that in going to college I was going to magically become a newer, better person with a completely new life, just like this girl seems to be thinking. I've realized that college is not this magical light at the end of the high school tunnel, but another stage of development; a stage which, like eveything else that involves change, is gradual. Also, perhaps more importantly, I've learned to make new friends, but keep the old still, cause it's the ones that stick around that are the most valuable.

Anyways, do I add this girl or not? It's like this choice between feeling weird and feeling mean.

P.S. Are we getting spam comments? Or are these actually real people?

The warm fuzzy feeling that I get from staying home alone on a Saturday night in order to rest and take care of business only lasts so long...it's 10:30, there's a rager going on outside, and I have run out of business to take care of.

In light of my crazy week, however, I think it's necessary to take this time for myself and feel like a loser.

One of the prosecutor's closing arguements was the quote, "That's really gonna hurt tomorrow." And when he wrote it on the board to impress its impact on the jury he had really bad handwriting, spelled tomorrow wrong, and only put one "n" in "gonna."

I'm going to regret this tomorrow. TAKE THAT, Mr. Lawyer.

(staying up late, that is)

I served on a jury this week. One of twelve in that little box you see in the movies, laughing and listening and dozing according to the lawyers' plans. I learned two things from the experience (if not a few more): 1) The American justice system is a completely unique and amazing concept. 2) I never want to go to court.

Well it's back to life tomorrow. No more 8:30 to 4:30 days with an hour and a half lunch for me. It's to the mini golf course tomorrow at nine, and who knows from there?