Sunday, February 21, 2010

Moments of Awesome

I've been feeling a little less than thrilled with life lately, so I've decided to compile a list of awesome things I've done over the past 23 years, 2 months, and 11 days.

Won $50 for a bulletin board
Played "abortion" on a triple word score
Spelled "antidisestablishmentarianism" aloud in under 5 seconds...when I was 8
Taught myself (and Laurel) to make French beaded flowers
Amassed a bigger vocabulary than Firefox, apparently, since it doesn't recognize "antidisestablishmentarianism"
Sang in French for an audience and a panel of judges...and got first place
Made a great "that's what she said" joke on Christmas
Named a set of stuffed animals Fall, Down, The, and Stairs
Wrote a book...when I was 15
Pissed off my entire 8th grade class by drawing eyeballs impaled on swords
Enjoyed "Crime and Punishment"
Made a Dante's "Inferno" scrapbook
Played the violin at Magic Kingdom
Went to Vegas for Easter
Spent 4th grade catapulting stuffed animals across the classroom
Sat through every Internet shock video I know of (without vomiting!)
Delivered a calm, calculated smackdown to the mouthbreathers at indystar.com over the "OMGZ THEY TOOKED TEH PRAYER OUTTA MY NOOSPAPER!" kerfuffle
Stood up for gay rights IN CHURCH when I was 14
Taught a PhD student the difference between reliability and validity
Painted a nativity scene on a sugar cookie
Was the only girl ever from my high school to make the Brain Game team (BG team is composed of the best varsity Quiz Bowlers, so...big deal)
Treated a severe burn with Orange Crush (not recommended)
Bought fluorescent pink shoelaces because, fuck, why not?
Busted my own lip while sleeping
Cited 4chan in at least two graduate-level classes
Ordered stuff online and had it addressed to Doomhammer Javelin
Asked my mom how people are made...when I was FOUR
Sang "Baby's First Christmas" to a kitten
Wrote the most disgusting paragraph ever written

Actually, I'm gonna go ahead and write that paragraph here, because it's awesome. Quit reading if you have just eaten, are currently eating, or plan to eat...well, ever again.

As he thrusted his snout into her weeping, crusty anus, the stench overpowered his senses and nearly made his tear ducts curdle. "Quick!" he shouted to the priest. "Fetch me a shovel and a dishcloth!" The command distracted Father Earl from the picking of his pus-filled scabs, and he waddled out of the port-o-john as fast as his little stumps would carry him.

Eh, it could be improved, but I'm gonna call it a success.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Music recommendations, or rather, commandments

"Your Hand in Mine" by Explosions in the Sky. DO IT NOW. I don't care how you listen to it--buy it, pirate it, find it on youtube, I don't give a shit. LISTEN TO IT. All 8+ minutes of it.

While you're at it, go ahead and acquire a copy of "Patients" by, uh...Patients? Radical Face? Ben Cooper? Dude, you confuse me with your five thousand pseudonyms, but you make up for it by knocking me flat with incredible music. Oh, and about my advice to acquire "Patients," good luck with that one. I can has widespread release plz? So I don't feel silly recommending it to everyone?

Oh, and what the hell, how about another one. The entire friggin' Dark Was The Night album, both discs. Pay special attention to the Decemberists, Stuart Murdoch, and Yeasayer.

And speaking of the Decemberists, go ahead and acquire Tarkio's "Omnibus." The first time I listened to it I was like "Holy shit, that guy is seriously trying to sound like Colin Meloy." Yeah, um, about that.

And good Lord, The Lonely Forest's "We Sing The Body Electric!" is worth a listen or two or a thousand. It's an easy contender for my list of favorite whole albums. Others on the list are, of course, "Chutes Too Narrow" by the Shins, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel (duh), "En Passant" by Jean-Jacques Goldman (what? you think a self-professed indie kid can't love an aging French prog-rocker?)...et cetera.

Isn't it awesome how I'm directly addressing my audience of exactly zero humans? My life is TOTALLY exciting.

Oh, and lest this entry sound totally pretentious (however unintentional), I'm gonna go on record saying that I've definitely been rockin' out to Lady Gaga this week. I'll be honest, I sort of want her bad romance a little bit. What can I say, I appreciate batshit crazy.

Obviously.

Also, I can't read pokerfaces either.

Deceivingly pretty

Snow, that is. I'm sitting inside a nice warm building (Wright, to be precise), watching more and more snow fall outside. Looking out at it, it's quite lovely. As soon as I step outside I'm going to be cursing and falling and freezing. I hope it's at least good building snow. I've been wanting to make snow sculptures.

My cell phone battery is dead. Bereft of life, gone to meet its maker. I mean, it'll charge fine and be usable, so it's not like it's completely fucked. And I just ordered a new one, so I'm not worried. I hate having that means of communication cut off, though, even if it's just for a couple hours.

I was wondering why my right index finger was stinging. Then I saw the gaping wound. Awesome. It's really special when I sustain alarming injuries without noticing.

Diet Coke is fucking DELICIOUS.

I'm crocheting a blanket. Hooray for ambition! It's fun to see the progress.

Grarrrgh. Do not want snow.

I read some of my old journals last night. Scary shit. On the plus side, it made me realize how far I've come in the past decade or so. Hooray for not wanting to die anymore! Hooray for actually having friends!

Hooray for being inside, away from the freezing snow.

But I still want to make snow sculptures.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

The Torch Burns Bright...ly

Or the sun, rather. The sun is shining directly into my eyes and I am displeased. But I do like sunshine. Happy bright shiny funshine.

I'd like to take a moment to talk about perfectionism, mine. I am an INSANE perfectionist. I also like to do things by myself, probably because that way I can control the little tiny details. I am incredibly detail-oriented. That's probably why I do very tiny, precise artwork like beaded flowers and small sketches. Which, by the way, because I like to whore out my artwork:



And my God, if one of those beads looks slightly out of place, I will rewrap and restring until it's right. Occasionally you get a seed bead whose hole is off-center, so the glass sticks out strangely. Yeah, I am very careful to weed those out. In my beadwork, each millimeter is significant. Literally. I measure in millimeters. I've always measured in millimeters. When I was 11 years old and obsessed with doing detailed drawings of the Titanic, I would sit down every day with pencils, erasers, a metric ruler, a protractor, and a compass. Not even kidding. I wish I still had some of those drawings.

There's a group of guys here in Barnes Lounge playing Dungeons & Dragons and talking about how bad their spatial awareness is. My kind of people! I miss being a nerd and having nerdy friends. I've suppressed that part of me for a long, long time. I never really liked D&D, actually, but I'm a huge internet geek and I love history and science and anything that involves lots of information to memorize. I have Asperger's Disorder. I have a form of autism. I can't deny that. I like to memorize things and rock back and forth and follow a routine and obsess over details and flail when I'm excited...but then, on the other hand, I can't communicate when I'm upset and my senses get overwhelmed very easily and I freak out when my routine is disturbed and I have terrible coordination and I have to rely on scripts in social situations and if there isn't a script my mind is just blank...so yeah. It's a disability in some ways. I'm disabled in some ways. I hate that. I hate it, but such is life. I am my own advocate. I have remarkable coping skills.

WHY did I start writing all that?

On an entirely different note...

I'm going to see the Vagina Monologues tonight. Yay? I saw it a few years ago and was...underwhelmed. Weirded out, even. Like, come on, vaginas aren't that special. They're part of the female body. Wooo. I don't buy all the hippy-dippy feminist "women are magical goddesses" bullshit.

Honestly, when I hear the Vagina Monologues, I feel like a man in the audience.

Gender is stupid.

Not really. It just confuses me too much.

I seriously think I have too much testosterone.

I like precision and rules and doing things by myself just to prove that I can.

Making sense is for the weak

I've been tired all day. Physically, mentally, all around just drained. Wanting to curl up in bed and do nothing. So now that it's past 4am, I'm all WOO I LIEK BEIN AWAKEZ. This is stupid. I've even taken my sleepy-meds. It's just a mental thing, like there is still time in the day that I could use for one more blog post or one more facebook check or one more...I don't even know.

I facebook-chatted with my cousin Susan today. I haven't had a conversation with her since I was...I don't know, probably 11 or 12. I haven't seen her since then, at least, and this was our first chat session. It was cool to talk to her, although it was sort of like talking to a quasi-stranger with whom I have a lot of mutual acquaintances (all of whom are related to me). I'm going to see her this summer at her sister's wedding, though, so that'll be nice.

Damn, I need to do laundry.

Today I tried on a pair of old pj pants that I have had since forever. They were super cheap CVS pjs, ugly green flannel and not quite big enough for me even before I started gaining weight. But I tried them on, and they fit. Until I tried to move, at which point they tore like Kleenex. Awesome. I can't decide if I feel like the Hulk or one of those TLC freakshows. I'm gonna go with the Hulk, because that's more awesomer.

I've always liked the big dark freckle on my right middle finger. I guess it isn't a freckle. It's like a beauty mark, except...on my middle finger. That's right: fuck you, beauty.

Gonna force myself to go to bed now. Hope I don't have ridiculous dreams like the ones I had last night (and the past few nights too, actually). Last night in dreamland I paid for an iPod with oyster crackers. Fuck yeah.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Curse you, emotions!

I'm overjoyed. I just found the page to apply for a job I really, really want. Okay, here's the thing. I very much want to get re-hired as an RA. That's no secret. I have an insane passion for res life and I suspect that can be generalized to student affairs as a whole. I desperately want to stay in the wonderful world of RPS (absolutely no sarcasm) because I just love it so much. And another year at Ashton would be heavenly. However, the professional house manager position at McNutt(?) is really a great option for me. I wouldn't have to continue in library science, it would be the experience I need to make me a great HESA candidate in a year or so, it would be a quote-unquote Real Job, and I'd still get to stay at IU!

Unfortunately, it's past 3am, and I'd rather be coherent and not freaking out when I apply for my dream job, thx.

When I found the webpage I literally cried with joy.

And the great thing is, even if I don't get it, I think I still have a shot at another year as an RA. I'm fighting with everything I have right now.

With the passion of a thousand flaming nuns, if you will.

And oh, I WILL.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Also



This is basically my life.

Blogging my way through class

5:45pm. Uh, I guess we'll start class? Proceed to confuse everybody in room. Well done.

6pm. Oh, notes time? Oh. Research methods. Not that I've had methods at least three times before. I took an entire methods class. I mean, that was in undergrad, but let's be honest: I worked harder in undergrad than I do now. And I worked harder in high school than I did in undergrad. Yet my GPA still keeps going up (knock on wood).

When I'm being challenged enough, I'm a notorious overachiever. When I'm not being challenged enough, I'm a notorious underachiever. Either way, I suppose I'm notorious. I like this arrangement.

6:20pm. Quick! What's the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning? I'm proud to say that my instructor now knows. You're welcome.

I give up. This is depressing. Let's talk about happy things!

My awkward moment of the week happened at the center desk on Monday. No, really, it's a happy thing...because much laughter was involved. Apparently the bathroom door at the desk doesn't lock. I discovered this when I inadvertently flashed whoever walked in on me--I don't know who it was and I'd rather not find out, although I know it was someone in Emery's MBA study group. Hooray. So I laughed it off, yelled "FAIL" at whoever it was, and pretended not to be horrified. Cue Emery coming to the desk and saying "What is it with you and inappropriately flashing people tonight?"

Okay, first of all, I accidentally flashed him/her. Second, I never ACTUALLY flashed Ashton, like I'd offered to do. Hey. He wanted to see boobs, and I have some to offer. Also, since I'm sure Emery was equating Monday's events with my other awkward center-desk bathroom experience in which I inspected a diseased penis, I would like to remind the general population that I was not the inappropriate flasher in that case.

Whatever. I make bad decisions.

THIS is basically the best idea ever. Whoever you are, frog-men, I salute you.

CLASS IS OVER EARLY YAYAYAYAYYYY

Quack

I received a Valentine package today from the fantastic Kim. I just about died of cuteness! Obviously, the best part was the little rubber ducky. It's just over an inch tall, bright pink with red hearts, and makes me smile. She also sent me candy, cute socks, etc. I has a happiness. Yet another reason to adore BNaBBT. :)

S520 tonight. Information Seeking and Use. I haven't done the readings, which is actually to my advantage, because it will prevent me from gouging my own eyeballs out when my instructor spends the entire 2.5 hours rehashing the readings. Actually, it's more like he'll spend 2 hours rehashing and half an hour going "um, uh, um, er, I guess I don't understand this part..." Note to self: if I ever find myself trying to teach something, it would be wise to make sure I understand it first. That way I won't have to clean up the blood after my students commit mass suicide with their gel pens and crochet hooks.

Word of the day: Skewer. Verb. ['skju.wr]. To impale, stab, or likewise maim with a long pointy stick. She thrusted a knitting needle in his general direction and with a loud SQUISH, expertly skewered his spleen.

Small staff meeting tonight. Preceded by RA powwow. Ah, I love Wednesdays. For realses.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Hello, Internets.

I've never come up with a non-awkward way to start a blog, so I'm gonna go with the tried-and-true awkward introduction. As you may already know (or at least will quickly learn), awkwardness is my preferred way of life anyway, so this should go well.

So hi, I'm Laura Beth. Most people just call me Laura, because Beth is just my middle name. I kind of like the whole damn thing, though, so at least on the internets I'm going to include all!nine!letters!

I'll probably use this blog for a variety of things. Random musings, definitely. Posting photos of my art projects, almost assuredly. Journaling therapy, hopefully not but...probably. I prefer to not dictate a format.

Right now I'm hanging out in the lounge with 4 residents, all of whom are talking about how tired and overworked they are. Meanwhile, I'm avoiding homework and playing with my new netbook. A few months ago, I had a dream in which I had a netbook. It was a weird dream and the netbook was only incidental, but still. I woke up from the dream thinking "what the hell would I use a netbook for?" As it turns out, my netbook has the same amount of RAM as my laptop and a much bigger hard drive. Upgraaaaaade!

Things I love:
My pretty netbook
My best friend Kate (as an elaboration, I love how when I tell her just how much I love her, she insists on one-up-ing me until we have to call a truce)
Ashton...the staff, the residents, the buildings, everything
Diet Coke
My teddy bear
Music!!
Little tiny beads strung together to form 3D flowers
Owls

et cetera.

I'll write more when I have something interesting(ish) to say.

In the meantime...
























Thank you, sir, and I appreciate your input.