Done!

with my art history paper! wooot :)
and it ended up being long enough, which is exciting because that's usually my problem.
sweet.
(yeahyeahyeah!)

(still have calc hw due today and psych exam wed...but still ^^)

off to the printer.







and also, my brother is actually absurd

translation:

Who does he look like, with three eyes?

dialogue between Shimon and my dad (Shimon starts):

-- Who does he resemble, with three eyes?
-- I don't know.
-- Find out.
-- Have you seen him?
-- No.
-- Maybe, he doesn't exist?
-- No, not at all.
-- Which means I can't remember.
-- Yes, but who does he resemble?

Basment Reality

Watched The Dajeeling Limited
Which is good if you are looking for a non-romantic comedy after a bad day or something.
Too many people think that Adrien Brody is attractive. Hippsterness/Bard kicking in.
him and his glasses.

and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Based off the comic (and it's made to be like a comic, kinda, which is cool).
Michael Cera playing the same character he always does.
and she makes me want to dye my hair. she so cool.



I tried to participate in a couple psych studies (I have to do two for psych class), and I got credit but my data won't be used because I'm not a native speaker. Which somehow I didn't know? which leaves me with no native language-I'm quite sure my reading speed in Russian is nowhere near fast enough to qualify.

And there was advising day/dinner with my adviser and other advisees, but I was so on edge that I couldn't eat. Because I don't like choosing classes and thinking ahead, and also it was just a really weird combination of people.

I missed Body Fest and the ISO culture show (International student organization) because im doing work. Three Miracles St Zenobius vs Primavera (Botticelli, the first one I saw at the Met. when I went to the city).
One of three grades I get for art history (midterm, research paper, final, BOOM). It's kinda funny doing research and then realizing that three of the books you are using are by the same author. oops.
So other than eating yummy food with Kat and Margaret and watching movies, the most exciting thing I've done is hang my laundry. Though I did go to an info thing on some projects in Nepal and Nicaragua (education/sustainability).
Nepali food that they made themselves (once again, invited by one of my Nepali floor mates, always a good idea to go)
good food + good company=good break from work.

(and yeah, there's Quidditch stuff in the basement. I haven't see the new Harry Potter, but then, I've only seen the first one, and that was a while ago).

Shower Refugees

"Hello Obreshkove and Wolff Residents!

I wanted to update you on the current hot water problems in your halls.....By tomorrow night, your hot water should be back to normal; I will keep you updated if there is a delay in the repairs...

Warm regards,
Ashley"

Angela talked to the Sierra (PC of Borne) so some of us showered there today. I washed my hair yesterday (but it was a hassle...soaking it in the sink, shampooing it, getting that ect...). You forget how nice hot water is until you don't have it anymore. It was funny being in another dorm.

a) The dorm is backwards from ours. (since the new toasters come in pairs, Wolff is the one that is connected to us and mirroring us). So it's really strange in there. Borne also has singles, unlike us (all doubles). And the bathrooms are a little dirtier.
b)I automatically went up to my floor to shower, and everybody else did the same. Habit, and since the place is essentially the same...
c) It was awkward being there since none of the residents knew. Eames's roommate went to the bathroom across from the one I was in as I was leaving and didn't notice that there was an intruder. Eames was typing on his computer and also didn't notice. I'm so stealthy.

(photo: family trip to Cozumel, Mexico this summer. Water. And.. we could be refugees that came by boat?)

The good of the bad.

High Fidelity with Will on Thursday, finally. took forever. my fault.

Friday:
Psych-we had a different teacher because ours was at some neuro conference. fancy. She showed us two vids (how to be happy and why are we happy). I fail, a little...

Then there was a belated celebration of lights (Devali) because of issues reserving Manor for it. It was interesting because there were people celebrating it from all over (Adrinne Jack and I were convinced to go by our dorm-mates from Nepal, Suyog and Abeshek). But one of the girls giving the presentation was from Sri Lanka, so her version of the holiday/how long it lasted/what was done/why it is celebrated was different. It covers three religions (Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism), so the variety is unsurprising, I guess? But I didn't know at all. Also-Indian food. mmm.
Hannah and Rosette went to an acoustic folk jam which they enjoyed.
(idk how I feel about folk)

Today I went to Montgomery Place with Will since it was warm. It always feels like it is the last day of warmth, since it should have stopped being warm by now, the sun sets so early. We found edible crab apples. The herb garden from last time is ripped up, which meant that the greenhouse behind it was noticeable, with all its weird cacti and flowering plants. Also got to go on the other side of the fence of another garden there. I thought that there was no gate to the garden, but part of the fence swings open and there was an apple orchard. There are so many rotting apples there, but we found a few edible ones,
What a waste.
It also explains why it smelled so strongly of apples last time.

almost done with the Inferno (read 18-33 today) which leaves one canto to go, but it isn't due next class. It doesn't say when it's due on the syllabus...the mystery of the missing canto. Looked at the course list for classes today too... No hot water today in the dorm or the adjoining one. Not pleasant to shower in. A lot of people skipped showering/went to another dorm.

and I want fruit that isn't mealy apples or strangely unappealing bananas from Klien. We had Hannah's last grapefruit today.

Lectures

Last Thursday Margaret, Hannah and I went to a lecture by Deborah Tennen. Sadly, she said she had considered going to Bard, but when her parents brought her to visit, the first person they saw was some guy walking around with a bottle of wine, and her parents were like, no no no no no. Oh Bard. -.o;
This was the first time she had been here since that fateful day.
Her lecture was frustratingly SO much better than the symposium lectures that all freshman have to go to. It makes sense, I suppose, for her to be a good speaker; she was talking about linguistics and communication. However, why do all our other speakers suck? Also, I totally found out about the lecture only because my calc professor helped organize it (granted, there were bright yellow posters up, but there are so many posters up...and lots of them inform of things that are of little interest). I was so energized by the end of the lecture, because it was so good. The topic was interesting, and she was also able to well balance factual information with antidotes. It was interesting that, while her research was clearly directly related to psychology, she is not at all a psychologist, and made really no claims to analyze the 'why' behind the 'what'.

The last symposium lecture we had to go to was done by some renown Dante person who works at Columbia, but she was so unprepared and disorganized, and not a good speaker and gah. She had a good idea behind what she was saying, but it took a while for her to squeeze it out in some comprehensible manner, and, since she was reading an essay she had already written, she sometimes had to stop and translate what she had just read into language that was actually aimed at our (1st year of college) audience, and also she kept saying things in Latin, most of us don't know any Latin...

I'm going to keep looking out for optional lectures. I know there is also a series of Science ones, (this is part of a Women in Science lecture series)

Sick and...

sick, made bread, pumpkin loaf and pasta with Cat and Margaret (and Sam) and then watched V for Vendetta at Weis since it was the 5th of November, dorm food night yesterday (vegetarian chili and twice baked potatoes), Hannah was super nice and fed me grapefruit and boiled me water for tea, we were all up last night when the time changed from 2am to 1am, going to make pumpkin pancakes today with Margaret and Cat, sick, need to drink more tea with honey and trying to make sure I don't get people sick.

Then it was, Now it is...

Metro North->subway->walk->Met->walk->Imperial Theater (Billy Eliot)->taxi->Hotel Riverside Studios->(food/back to hotel)->subway->PennStation- Amtrack->Rhinecliff-> Angela's Car (thank you!)->dorm (essay writing)->Smog->dorm (hot chocolate)

This weekend I went to NYC.
Metropolitan Museum of Art for my art history class (a lot of will power went into not getting distracted by all the other art that was there).
I walked to see Billy Eliot with my Moscow relatives (Mother's brother and his family). I didn't see them before the show, unfortunately. And unsurprisingly, everybody was too jet-lagged for conversation, and after the show I was tired as well. But at least I saw them :)
The show was good, though it has about 500 endings. I liked the kid who played Billy,
first off: okay, kids clearly are practicing like crazy at such a young age...so I looked him up.
http://www.playbill.com/features/article/140414-Understanding-Broadway-The-Replacement
http://www.broadway.com/shows/billy-elliot/buzz/153133/billy-elliots-jacob-clemente-on-living-his-dream-role-at-13/
Also, he comes from a mining family, so really, he is Billy.
2nd: gah...I'm 18 and haven't done anything. -.-

I stayed the night in a sufficiently sketchy hotel. I had to go through three doors to get to the elevator (the type that you had to open the door to get into it, but the actual elevator part didn't stop so...stairs) and the tiling was all misaligned. My room was about half the size of my dorm room, and it had a sink in it. There was a bathroom to either side of me, the drain was crooked and the paint was pealing off of the wooden toilet seat.
It was great. In the morning I went desperately scrounging for food, since I didn't eat much at all on Saturday (to the extent that I dreamt about food) and then realized that my key had the wrong address on it, but was saved by my uncle who had the correct address.
But the lady at the front desk was nice and gave me clear instructions as to how to get to Penn Station, though of course I took the subway in the wrong direction the first time around, I always do that. I love how the subway is like human tetris, and I helped a lady carry a baby carriage with her kid in it down the stairs to get to the actual Amtrack/everything else station, bought my ticket, and talked to Yulka until my train started boarding.
Angela Hannah and Rosette picked me up from the station, though I had originally planned to walk (but that would have taken like...two and a half hours. Plus my backpack, plus tiredness, plus work plus it gets dark early).

Margaret, her friend Jen and I went to Smog, because the surrealist training circus (Bard Club) was going to perform, but we didn't find them. We came too early so we waited at Stargon for a bit, shivering and admiring the stars.
Then we went back and at first the music was just loud, we stood outside until the bands were switching, so we went inside to warm up. Outside and inside the garage was the usual mixture of drunk people and smoke, with characters like Edward Spoon hands and The Girl with Blue Hair who wanted people to buy their way to her keg in the woods, Batman and Robin and neon. Straight girls making out and smoke coming out from the garage door when it got opened. Titus Andronicus started playing (much better than whatever was going on before) and the crowd got energized, cramming in tight and random couples making out (straight girls and people that don't know each-other), Josh playing an elaborate joke by pretending that he didn't know Margaret or anything about her, girls contemplating 'taking it slow' on drinking when they already stank of alcohol, some girl sensually touching my arm and people bumping into each other and the...moshpity part of the garage growing larger. The singer hung upside down from the metal poles on the ceiling (rafters? sorta.) for the last song and then we left.

Hot chocolate made from dark chocolate and milk and powder, to warm up our feet from the numb state that they were at.

Just came back from playing piano at Blum. I'm glad Hannah asked me to go. Dinner soon?