It has been unseasonably cold in Santa Barbara. According to Accuweather, it's 40 right now, but the low tonight is supposed to be 31. We've just discovered the heat, and it's always on high. People are dressed in their warmest jackets and I broke out my scarves and hats and sweaters like i'm in Maryland.

I'm glad I didn't go somewhere where it gets really cold. This is enough for me.

Party!

These are the girls, aside from my roomies who I hang out with at the apartments. I thought it was a cute picture from the beginning of last Friday night.

Stephanie, Raquel, Rachel, me, and Carly

Aside from sleeping most of today I accomplished something. Look what I built!


I'm excited, I like some sort of organization.

There's nothing like savoring a giant milk chocolate Hershey's bar in the car with my family while we're crawling along in the traffic, pouring rain, coldness, fog, and wind that's been plaguing us for the past 100 miles. We're never sure what excitement the drive back from Las Vegas will hold, but it's always something.

I hope everyone had/is having a pleasant Thanksgiving weekend.

Now I have to write a paper.

Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you're all as full as I am right now :)

i hate pizza... especially that last slice that no one ate, that just kinda beckons to you... "eat me... you know you want too" but no, i cry, i'm too full you'll make me explode. doesn't matter, the pizza wins and gets eaten... hmmm... maybe that means it doesn't really win then, then again i don't a pizza slice ever wins. poor pizza...

...this is what happens when i dont' want to study for a spanish oral exam (which i still maintain sounds dirty).

A Constitutional Amendment

I love San Diego because:

Just before commercial break, the news anchor looks earnestly into my eyes and says with concern, "When we return, winter is bringing cold temperatures; a look at the records broken today and tips on turning on your heater."

So I just got home from Atlanta, GA a good 27 hours ago, and I must say, it is far chillier in San Diego. I saw the world of Coca-Cola, CNN studios, and the Ebenezer Baptist Church. And for lack of a segue, the Falconer, for the first time in recent history, did not place in the Best of Show category of the NSPA/JEA Convention. Snap? Bummer? Damn? The words aren't quite fit to print.

More when Storytime, Atlanta returns.

I just bought my first plane ticket, researched, ordered, and paid for by me and my credit card. I'm feeling more and more like a real person everyday.

Technological advances

I just got a new cell phone Saturday cuz mine needed to be retired and then the display screen on the outside cracked on Tuesday. Well anyway, my old phone was never able to receive text messages, apparenlty now I can because I woke up to a lovely text message from Ross telling me that UCSB beat SDSU in basketball Friday night. That's what I get for talking shit...

at least i have text messaging now!

over the summer, i found myself always carrying a book with me because for some reason i would be in situations in which i could occupy myself with some pleasure reading. you know, waiting for a call, someone you're meeting, coffee at starbucks (i like to avoid the awkward 5 minutes where i'm just standing, pretending to be fascinated by the sugar packets... they're just so many different kinds!). it got to the point where i would feel lost without a book in my bag, hence, when school started, i haven't felt right becasue i dont' ahve any books to read. well, no longer, for now i am borrowing my neighbor's copy of fast food nation, and i am way excited to really get into it. besides that, i want to have a list of recommended books, so that i dont' get that lost feeling again. so recommend people! the comments are right there! i really like books with a sense of humor, if you need direction to go in.

I have a bad habit that's developed over the past few weeks of this dragging quarter. I fall asleep. In high school I used to be proud of the fact that I never fell asleep in class. In college, well, I can contend with the best of them. And it's not just in class. It's in meetings, during movies, and at work while i'm staring at the computer. It's not like I overtly fall asleep all the time, that's reserved only for my 3:30 to 4:45 class on Mondays and Wednesdays. The rest of the time my eyes blink closed, my head bobs, I get that sleepy feeling, and I can't for the life of me stay alert. I blame it on triathlon practice at 7 a.m. every morning. I blame it on my roommate and going to bed late. I blame it on the Nexus. I blame it on my social life. But it's not like I can stop doing any of these things.

Today, my longest day, I made a campaign of staying awake. I woke up for practice, after talking myself out of it at 6:30 and then thinking better of it at 6:35. I didn't fall asleep while riding my bike. I made it through Spanish by munching on carrots. This is a feat because usually when I wake up for practice, I can't make it through Spanish. Yay for carrots. I made it through English, as I usually do, simply because it's interesting and important. My professor talks in such a way as to sound like he's building to a point that never actually comes. He lectures slowly and deliberately, pausing often, and I hang on his words thinking that the ends of his sentances are going to be more exciting then they actually turn out to be. I fell asleep in Art Studio discussion this afternoon. We were talking about reality and fiction and I couldn't help but slip into the fictional space of my delirious half-asleep dreams. I'm still there taking unintelligeable notes, even listening to the discussion that's taking place, it all makes sense when I'm doing it but none of it makes sense afterwards. My notes are creepy and scrawling, I don't remember writing them or what the words refer to. I did make it through English honors discussion, maybe because the professor was sitting next to me, maybe because I was looking foward the whole time to these two-and-a-half free hours I have before I go run out again.

I'm going to sleep a lot over Winter Break (yeah, right), so maybe when I come back next quarter i'll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from 6:30 in the morning to 12:00 at night, and 3:00 on weekends when I have fun and Monday nights when I work. Or maybe i'll just munch on carrots all the time and turn orange.

look what I can do/goodafternoon/consider this the unvirginizing event.

attn: this is my first post. First post? yes. first post. Hello friends! I am now devirginized to all the halfwhat love my little body can withhold.

attn: I enjoy this quote. You should too.
"Happy," I muttered, trying to pin the word down. But it is one of those words, like Love, that I have never quite understood. Most people who deal in words don't have much faith in them and I am no exception-especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they're scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest or a fool to use them with any confidence.
-Hunter S. Thompson.

attn: I am off today. I have been thrown off, tampered with, pushed out of my little basket. I blame it on the seasons.



attn: I hope I enjoy it here.

This week has sucked. I thought it was gonna be great, but it's almost over. Instead of bitching, I'm just going to mention one bad part, which is slightly funny, to me at least: I have bio lab once a week at 9 am. Today I had a quiz, and if you miss more than one class you get points deducted, plus we have to turn in something everyday. Well I woke up at 10:00 today. It's never a good start to your day when the first words out of your mouth are "OH SHIT!!!" as you run to the closet to put anything on. So I show up to class a good hour and 15 minutes late, much too late for the quiz. My TA finally notices me in the back of the classroom and finally after lecturing quickly about a bird vs frog he says "Juliann come here" in his Columbian accent (my name sounds cool). So he asked what happened and I said my alarm didn't go off. I'm guessing I turned it off in my sleep, but I didn't tell him. Anyway, he said, "okay, you can take the quiz after class. Work on the lab for now." No penalty or anything, luckily I'm a good student in that class and he loves me cuz everyone else sucks. But it was still a terrible way to start my day.

On a side note: I'm making a resolution to take more pictures and try to post them more. I'll start by taking a picture of me and the roomies and posting that cuz I feel that they should be included in my posts :)

Like little kids in a blackberry patch, my roomie and I munched on pomegranate seeds tonight while writing our papers. It was messy, it was tart and sweet, it was juicy and fun.

Peachy Keen

Tomorrow I'm off to kick it in the ATL. Wish me luck.

I really have nothing to say. Except i've been waiting here at the Nexus IDLY for the past two hours when i'd really rather be asleep. Oh story...be finished so i can read you and go home and SLEEP!

Hotness

Ross + me = hotness

Anon.

For future reference, I think people who are not signed into blogger should sign their name on their comments because I find it rather annoying to have all those anonymous comments. I wanna know who you are!

songs about me

songs with my name in them:
Jen Doesn't Like Me Anymore - Less Than Jake
Jenny - Stellastar*
Jenny was a Friend of Mine - The Killers
Jennifer - The Blood Brothers

however, none of these songs put my name in an especially positive light. the first one kinda just chants my name over and over again. the second one i believe is about me being a stalker, and the third one is about me getting killed by the speaker of the song. i'm not even too sure what the fourth song is about, but there's a line that goes "you don't need no doctor honey, you need a mortician baby... Jennifer." but now, there's finally an upbeat song about me!

Jen - Jimmy Eat World

cheer, because i did.

READ ME AND RESPOND: In a bout of four-day weekend boredom I opened up my summer Half What html design and decided to get it up and running. Unfortunately, my previous idea doesn't strike me as very exciting anymore, so i'm back to quasi-nothingness. Rather, I have a working design, I just need some decorations. I need a theme. A random theme. I want to put pictures of halves of things. But WHAT things? I was putting halves of our faces, but I don't have pictures of everyone's face. Actually, if Jen, Ross, and Debbie sent me a picture or two of their faces, that might work. Or I could use Fruit? Food? Words that start with "ha..."? I need a theme, guys, so get your brains working NOW.

i have a friend who calls people's genitals their "wee-wees." we found this out one day last year when we were in an elevator and she suddenly said "i wonder what color michael jackson's wee-wee is." it got me to wondering. she's pre-med. when she talks to her patients, is she going to tell them "sir, it seems that there is something wrong with your... wee-wee (insert giggle here). we'll have to do some tests." she also has a boyfriend. does she use the word wee-wee with him? "ooo, i want your... wee-wee."

sorry, just my random thought for the day.

I could have lost myself
in rough blue waters in your eyes,
and I miss you still
~ Josh Radin "Winter"

It seems like death has been everywhere lately in my somber fall life. I'm sitting here typing with freezing fingers, wondering if the winter's going to be any warmer, wondering if the season could get any sadder. This week i'm picking up the pieces of my life...I dropped everything last week and sped home to be with my family. Now that i'm back it feels like none of it ever happened. But it has, there's a void and tears to prove it. Three years later and i'm down to one grandparent. This isn't getting any easier.

in loving memory of Robert Miller

the most beautiful poem about love

Sonnet XVII: Love

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

- Pablo Neruda

--------------------------------------------------
Another bit of high school nostalgia: yesterday was the homecoming dance. The theme was "In the Jungle" and it was held at the World-Famous San Diego Zoo--as you might imagine, people showed up in leopard print, zebra print, army fatigues, or, well, nothing. Wiggling through a crowd meant sliding through sweat upon bodies upon sweat upon bodies--you know, considering the lights and the heat and the lack of clothing, you'd think it was a rather erotic affair. But alas, it is still very unappealing to feel someone else's armpit sweat rubbing off on your back.

Oh, who am I kidding? That's a great metaphor for the high school experience. High schoolers getting it on is great. Viva la revolucion. Or something.

So in summary, it was a hot, sweaty, tasty (there were chocolate fondue fountains. FOUNTAINS!) affair and as I left, I saw some freshmen girls standing outside the dancing tent (..yeah) in jeans and sweatshirts I realized...

this is my senior year. boo . ya .


(Oh, and that is the most beautiful poem about love.)

Bush became president (dont' even THINK about debating whether or not this is good in the comments or i will personally come and kick your ass, no one cares about your point of view, especially not me), my chem lab midterm sucked, and caused me to be 10 mintues late to my spanish midterm that i had right after, causing me to miss the entire audio section, my fucking inconsiderate horny roommate sexiled me at the very last minute so i couldn't get my stuff out (plus she hooked up with a friend of ours, this is going to get really messy), someone was really impatient and took my laundry out of the washer and dryer and put it on some coutner somewhere when i came down less than 5 minutes after it was done (i caught her doing it, and she just looked me and dropped my stuff on the floor...bitch), and i don't understand physics at all to the point that i need to go home tommorrow and look at some stuff from harvie's class.

i had a bad week, big deal.

oh yeah, and i know i'm being whiny, and i know my post was all one sentence... i don't care. you don't like it, go fuck yourself.

I think I'll go out and Embarass myself

Lindsey's post is much better than mine.

I get far too involved with the poetry we read in English. I sit in Mrs. Swovelin's room dissecting until the words are in a inky, ridiculous mess on the page--I dig and try to g. d. in the u. t.*. I'm convinced now that everything has some sort of universal truth underneath whatever devices it's wrapped in.

Anyhow, in the vein of having high school academia telling life stories, it's very disquieting to study American government in a year like this. I feel like government is too big an idea to wrap my little head around, but then, many of the campaigns I see/saw and the political sentiments I hear/heard seemed very petty indeed.

I don't really know anything about politics, but I'm working on it. It all just seems so much more fascinating in theory.

On a non-theoretical level--the first ever 28-page, 3-section, Friday edition of the Torrey Pines High School Falconer comes out tomorrow. Color A1 & A12, B1-B4, C1 & C12. Vol. 31, Issue 3: the biggest thing since broadsheet.

Oh, and I'm going to read Vanity Fair for my seminar novel. Should I regret the choice?



*Swovelinese for "go deeper in the universal truth"

The highlight of my Halloween weekend...

My friend was like, "I want to take a picture of KISS," and my boyfriend (the one behind me with the red lipstick and the star) was like, "C'mon Lindsey, get in it too." So four guys wearing really tight pants, whigs, tall boots, and scary makeup gathered around me for the picture. I was standing there in the middle feeling short and vulnerable, thinking, "How the hell did I get here?"