So I'm currently in the library at FIU, using one of the perhaps 15 computers here (in stark contrast to the millions in Tech's Library West Commons), doing the usual -- checking email, reading other people's blogs, etc etc, when all of a sudden the guy next to me mutters under his breath, "Could you just shut up?"

I was taken aback.

At first I felt confused, Maybe I heard him wrong. "Excuse me, what?"

"Do you see anyone sitting next to you?"

Dumbfounded little ol' me naively turns around to see if there is, indeed, anyone sitting to my right. Nada. What had I been doing? I coughed a couple times because my throat is dry, but it wasn't a nagging, oh-my-gosh-you're-driving-me-nuts kind of cough, it was a simple two-three noise exhale of breath!

I experienced the kind of feeling I'd imagine you'd get if you were egged on, standing facing your unknown foe in the middle of a circle of your friends and the foe's friends. That terrified, petrified, Is he going to swing on me in the middle of this library cluster of 15 computers in the Government Documents section??

So I made sure to stare straight ahead, tap on the computer keys ever so gently, and not provoke this unnerving, clearly hot-headed seatmate of mine. Then I became mad at my timidity in the face of this bully's agression. I was NOT going to sit idly by, letting him frighten me into submission. No! I was going to cough with all my might and click-clack away as if I was hitting a grand slam tennis ball with my racket-like fingers! Rarrrrrrr!!! And now he just left.

Whew, it was getting close there.

This day has been filled with silent, frustrated agression -- this morning it took me TWO HOURS to drive to school! TWO!! HOURS!! It normally takes around 45min-1hr even in clogged and congested traffic. So we're mosying along (and when I say "mosey," I mean Dip put-putted at a sweet 2mph for about 100 yards or so every 5 minutes), slowly progressing down the 10 miles I still needed to pass to get to exit 25, when we finally slooooowlly pass through the toll booth, down another 1.5 miles or so, and I see the root of the cause (at least according to the reports on the radio): A rather large, nicely dressed women with kinky-curls bobbing joyously around her small-ish head, returning to her nice black lexus that had been bumped from behind by a large, not-so-nice, dingy white van. I found "You were the root of my angst?!?!" slip audibly out of my mouth as we inched by the "accident scene." I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt that maybe it had been worse, it was just all moved off to the side of the road by the time I got there (which was, granted, at least TWO HOURS after it happened). Anyway, no grudges, it's just silly traffic, I've moved on, but I was very sad to get to Health class late and find out that the lecture topic I had been missing out on was "Contraceptives and Birth Control: All you Need to Know."

Now that I've relieved myself of that mental strain, it's off to do some homework in this severly under-technologically supplied but well-stocked (with books and study spaces) library before physics class starts.

Hope it's been a good day, World! :)

The Anthropomorphization of My Life

My car is named Dip. I pat it gently to urge it to continue carrying me on my travels down dark asphalt roads contributing to the environmental damage all cars cause on the surrounding flora and fauna we have managed to edge further and further towards the ends of the earth in our conquest of all that is tangible. But I digress. (And a filly flits across my television screen, proudly beamed into my home by my local PBS station, causing me to stop and think Awww. I just want to squeeze it with love! as the Montana symphony performs for the men and women of the US military. It is Memorial Day weekend, afterall) The book I am reading, Life of Pi (Excellent, by the way. It's going to be discussed on NPR's "The Diane Rheem Show" on June 18; I can't wait), features a boy, Pi (short for Piscine, which means, as my recent dive into French has taught me, "pool") whose dad runs a zoo in the Indian town in which they live. Pi talks about how his dad forever taught him and his siblings that animals are not to be anthropomorphized, they are dangerous creatures, and animals above all else. Tigers are not cuddly, even though they look like they have the sofest fur that would feel wonderful against a cold, rough patch of cheek on a windy night. Rhinos will not sit idly by if you try to ride the docile-looking beasts. So this got me to thinking about my own life, and the vast amount of objects/livingcreatures/things that I create personalities and emotions for.

There's Dip, who I think that if I'm kind enough to her (a pronoun for a car?! what does a car think is "kind"? how can a car even think!?), she'll see me through and get me to everywhere I need to be. Then there's Sandi, my cute seal of a ten-year-old puppy, who must be plaing psychological mind games with me because she wants attention when she sits demandingly by the patio door waiting to be let out, and then when the door is opened she lays down in a heap. Don't even get me started on how I talk to my computer (don't do this to me harddrive, you can pull through, you can turn on, don't die on me!!) or the myriad of other electronic devices I own (Just submit the quiz, Mr. WebCT. You know you want to. I said please!! Don't let your servers be down. Come on!!), or how I thought to myself when I saw a quick moving stream of water flow at an odd angle down my passenger-side window, what a cute stream of water, with the green lights reflecting so brightly and regally off the molecules, shining with all of science's might and beauty. me=weirdo, I'm certain.

There's lots that's been on my mind lately, I've just been too tired to sign on (aye, dial up is such a pain in the tukus) by the time I get home to write it all down, so I've amassed a wealth of random post-it notes with scribblings meant to jog my mind when I finally sat down to blog. And boy does it feel good :)

First, how awesome is the invention of the freezer? I'd just like to send out a speciall woot woot to this amazing cabinet of cold. My grandma made me some brownies last week and froze the ones I didn't eat, and now when I go to her house (twice a week!) I can eat an almost-fresh chocolatey treat! I just marvel at its power of preservation (if only there was a way to do that to the Everglades...ok, nevermind that's a little ridiculous).

I absolutely adore NPR and get to OD on it 4 days a week during my hour drive to and from school. Sweet, right? So on the Diane Rheem Show last week, Lois Lowry was interviewed (she's the author of The Giver and lots of other quality work) and she said something that made me go *huh* and think about how I see my childhood; she said that one of the reasons she writes such good young adult novels even though she's in her sixties is because she sees her childhood as if she's still in it, feeling the emotions as if they were happening to her just now; she doesn't see it as if she's watching a video and reminiscing about the good ol' days. Also, she said she's making the Giver into a trilogy; I don't know how I feel about that, since when the book ended so ambiguously I was left yearning for an answer, and in this yearning I was left to think about the consequences of what would have happened depending on how it might have ended, and while at the time I didn't like that the answer wasn't given to me smoothly and cleanly, as time passed, I really liked that I could make the story my own, interpret it in my own way, in such a way that would never be wrong; it built my creative muscles. Alas, at the same time I'm kind of excited to see where Ms. Lowry will decide to take it after all these years.

School. Wowsers. I have a physics teacher who's really good, but talks through his teeth, moving his lips but never quite getting the whole jaw into the action. And there's three guys (who I think are in high school) who sit in the front row every time, shout answers out trying to be louder than the other two, and worship pi (as in 3.14....). Worship as in, write on the board before the teacher gets there, "PI is King" and different graphs of functions with pi in them. Very, very strange. Very. It makes me greatful that Tech doesn't have those kind of people...I think our nerds are much cooler and normal than that. (or maybe the ones that are like that are just in their rooms playing Quake so much that you never see them. hum.) Anyway, health is a pretty exciting class (it's taught by the head of the FIU medical center, so it's pretty interesting and not just about sex drugs and rocknroll) and circuits is absolutely the most boring thing in the universe and that's all i have to say about that.

I'm getting tired, but I really want to write down this really strange dream I've been having for some time now. Every night it's relatively the same, with the basis of the dream centering on my fear of being "stolen"--killed, shot, taken from my bed out of my house into the great unknown, a giant roach flying into my face and eating me, raped. I wake up terrified, and don't fall asleep for hours (and only after idly watching sports center on ESPN to calm down - who could ever be scared, or stolen, when watching baseball stats? the intruder would be too bored and forget what he was there for. hehe). so i dont know what it means, if it mneans anything at all, if its supposed to...all i know is that i want a peaceful night's sleep without worrying about whether i will be alive the next morning. why am i so afraid?

My sprout left the country this morning, and for some reason, knowing that there's a national border (and one time zone) between us, makes me miss him more. Alas, hopefully I will get to go to the OLP concert in Julio and see him then.

Goodnight world, I'm tuckered out.

some "astute" observations of the day:

• My late grandma Laura looks a whole lot like Wilma Flinstone.


• I like being able to have a reaction to things that are tinted with religion that is dually motivated: one reaction from the perspective of a new believer and one from the skeptical viewpoint of disbelief and mockery.

woot woot. happy mother's day and all that jazz.

check out this excitement: i'm shopping for teva boat shoes right now...wuhoo! i don't want to cheat on my love for my birks, but my heart's big...there's room for more than one pair of superlyawesome shoes in my life right now. that doesn't make me a bad person, does it? haha.

(plus, i've started writing randomly on post-its again! ahhh, relief. i think my passion is slowly trickling back into my viens, with each full breath of salty air and soft step on alternating sandy and grassy walks.)

i need to get out of this skin,
the words that are floating within...

but not right now, cause i have to go walk mi perro.

fa la laaaa!! i love you, world.

Today was a great day, overall. It felt a little weird at points, especially when I was driving (I've driven more than 200 miles since yesterday morning. Crazy!!), weaving in and out of traffic and then thinking to myself of what that one preacher said at church a couple weeks ago, about putting yourself in the slow lane, chilling out, taking some time to just live, afterall, it's all about the trip, not getting to the destination, right? it feels amazing to be at home, eating good food, surrounded by my friend friends who make me happy happy happy, getting to work out, spending time at my grandma's, doing my homework the day and day after it's been assigned when it isn't due for a week because I have the time to...all of this is incredible. I thought this summer was going to moderately suck, but it's turning out to be great, and it hasn't even been a week. Although last summer was a life changing, confidence building, incredible incredible time, this one is just different. I don't feel discapilitated (or whatever that word should be) by my missing the sprout, it feels like healthy longing in which I really enjoy talking to him on the phone and don't mind not having the stress of trying to fit in seeing him and stuff (but that'll be nice again in the fall, I'm sure). I feel free and happy, like i'm doing what's truly making me happy (aaaa! I'm taking a sailing class once a week! how cool is that, yo??) Plus, FIU is soooo different from tech...the people interact, talk to each, the student center is huuuge, people play the piano in GC, there was a belly dancing display show the first day! crazy cool! the campus is beautiful just because of all the palm trees and blue skies; the physics class is interesting, in english, the prof is kind and has a heart, the profs seem to really care about you as a person instead of having the goal of breaking you down so they can build you into something spineless...i feel as though tech has made me expect to not do well in certain class, and because of my slight intellectual snobbery (i do go to tech on a full scholarship...how hard can fiu be? bring it on, please! ha!) i feel really confident here, and it's a strange feeling to have again after two years of feeling relatively stupid. i'm excited to be in class with two of my high school friends, good times good times...i'm just happy. prolly the pure-happiest i've been in a long long time. thanks ehem. :)