Several months ago: I sit on a friend's bed, and fall to stroking an extraordinarily soft blanket she has on her bed.

Beanie: It's so soft. This blanket is made of bunnies!

Present: The blanket is still being called 'the Bunny Blanket.'

I feel good about myself in a small way.

HA!

I can go back to Europe and not lie about being a US citizen! Sweet!

The McCain concession speech, I must admit, was gracious and at times even sweet, but notice the faces of McCain's crowd- not a black face in the crowd, no matter how hard the cameras search.

It would be interesting to go back tomorrow morning and figure out what the people are yelling when McCain says Obama's name. But that would be petty, and I'm having a good night.

Palin: go back to the wilderness, you moose-shooting weirdo. Stay out of my government.

No classes today! But rain. I suppose on the cosmic scale it balances out.

In other news, I have completely fallen off the comic books wagon. I haven't read anything new since my random Spider-villlianitis kicked in and forced me to read the Brand New Day one-shot that details Hammerhead's origins. While I still prefer the look of the "Spectacular Spider-Man" cartoon version (low head, menacing growl, knuckledusters and expensive suits), the author clearly put some thought in to the characterization of the guy. It helps to lift him out of the huge pit of underdeveloped villains and into an actual character.

In the life of the Bean:
The application deadlines for Harvard Divinity are Jan 12, which means I have a little time, but I still should get myself started on this stuff pretty soon.
Oh, the stuff I need to get done, really.

I need a new travel mug and a new spine.

There is something about fall that seems to make me just a happier person. Summer is nice, I suppose, but it doesn't offer the same kind of opportunities for scarves and sweaters. These are indeed the things that make me the happiest in my closet, and the chance to take them out is always good.


I suppose I seem to have gotten back in my groove. I just need to get shit done, and then it's done and I don't have to worry about it anymore. The world begins to seem more manageable. This is going to last perhaps a week.

And, I have to get to the DMV before my birthday so that my license doesn't expire.

Things to do today, this weekend.

-Make a list of all your greek verbs
- make a list of all your greek verb tenses, learn them
-study for monday's greek quiz

-start researching ossuaries for Religion class.

-write project description for Stats.

I'm going to a concert today that my friend is playing in, which ought to be cool if only I can be told where it is today. Ah, well.

My Bones addiction has hit a hitch. Having finished the first season inside of a week, which is a personal best for me and an addictive series, I cannot get my hands on the second season. This means war. Or, possibly, just getting it through the interlibrary loan system at Swelles, if we have it.

The library actually impressed me with its awesomeness earlier this week. They have essentially an online suggestions box for books, ranging from stuff professors need to get for classes to stuff that you just want to read yourself. I submitted a request over the summer for George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, and then didn't hear from them for a month. But, after that, I got a personal email from a librarian, telling me how pleased she was to get a request for the recreational reading section, and to tell my friends about this system.

You heard me. Someone just offered me FREE BOOKS.

Now, I can't take them with me, but still. Free books, man.

This week was pretty relaxing overall- I had three classes canceled. Evil Wednesday, with a legitimate 6 hours of total class time, lost two classes, and became a fairly stress-free afternoon where I had no work. Nice life. Of course, I have to do a presentation for the next evil Wednesday, but that's just life being tricksy with me.

I am in seriously puppy withdrawal. Rather, I need to see a dog that loves me, and as luck would have it, one will be coming down to Wellesley to see me tomorrow. Hahahaha. Life is good.

I am becoming more and more infatuated with the idea of having a dog of my very own after graduation. I'm kind of leaning towards a grown rescued dog, possibly a pit bull, since they have a hard time getting out of shelters and are very sweet. But it will kind of depend on my living situation- I'd need a yard.

I had a little minor non-drama with getting my German major all set up.

There are essentially three classes that one simply *must* take to get the German major or minor. I am taking one as we speak, signed up for another for next semester, and I thought, a few months ago, that the third would also be offered next semester. This would have put me in the odd situation of making me take five classes again next semester, instead of the usual four, but I would have been able to deal with that, I think.

However, that third German class? Not actually being offered next semester. I didn't realize this until I was figuring out the classes I would have to take for next year, and I had a little unhappy moment in my brain. It was not a good feeling, to say the least.

The scenarios running through my head were roughly along the lines of offering to take a 250 (an independent study course) to make up for that last class. Or that I would eventually just give up on the German double major with Religion and accept a whole lot of German classes that would have to speak for themselves. Which I would think is fair, since there was another version of that class offered this semester which I could have taken had it not conflicted with my Religion seminar. But it would really suck overall, because I had planned on double-majoring in German and Religion from essentially my first year at Swelles. (I am one of the few people I know to enter and leave college with the same major in my head and on my diploma.)

But! Instead, in a very brief meeting with my hastily selected German major advisor, I was told that I could use one of my extra classes from the Uni Vienna to fill that spot for the missing class. Which means, I can get my major ohne Probleme, and I actually have to take fewer classes for it than I originally thought I would have to. Well, rather, one of the extra classes that I took just for the hell of it in Vienna actually ended up not being wasted as just a class that fulfills my graduation requirements, but also will count towards my major.

Leben ist gut. Was mehr könnte ich sagen?

Essentially, in my last semester of college, I will probably only be taking one class that is actually being counted towards either of my majors, the German seminar. The rest are looking like Latin, Greek, and possibly another class in the Classics department on Greek and Roman Religion, which I may or may not attempt to count towards my Religion major. It certainly looks really cool overall, but I cannot place my hopes too much on it, because it might conflict with that last critical German class that needs to get done.

My Greek professor is actually a nice person, but seems rather deeply awkward. The whole class had kind of a hard class today (SO MANY VERB FORMS >_< ), but she made a point of telling us that we (all four of us) were actually a very quick class and that we should not have problems. Then we brainstormed about how we can figure out how to learn all the stupid verb forms- see, however much I whine about Swelles, they still do awesome things like this in class. I cannot stress how much I had missed that while I was abroad.

Latin seems to be going apace. I need to review more, this is clear, but I'm doing fine. Augustus rocks my socks.

I find myself singing as I wander around the halls, and doing dance steps. I joke with strangers about how the cafeterias run out of coffee. (Me. Joking about lack of coffee!)

I like my classes, I like my job, I like all the people on my floor- I am honestly really happy with this, and I think that's more because of the work and the high stress level that I am used to at this place. You do the work, things work out.

In other news, an acquaintance of mine from my first year came up to me last weekend and told me how flattered she was that I had hit on her about three years ago- this was before she was really out/even all that sure she was into girls, and apparently she got a real kick out of me flirting with her at a dance (in my own incredibly awkward way.)

The words "incredibly hot" were used.

*hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss*

Oh, just ignore that sound- it's only my ego inflating. :D

Yo, people

So, the first week of classes went fine, and some issues have been addressed

1. My greek professor- not actually as evil as previously thought. Just seems to get bored teaching the basics, now that we are starting to read sentences, we should be okay.

2. My hall is a happy happy place to be. The Austrian exchange student is named Romana Klinger, and she is snarky and wonderful and about 23. We went out on Friday night with a small herd of the other language tutors, drank a beer, and basically futzed about for a while. They are all slightly overwhelmed by Wellesley, and think the amount of work is ridiculous. Romana is impressed by my German, and despairs of actually teaching people German in Wellesley- she is a poli-sci major herself, and her German grammar is about as good as my English grammar.

3. I finally have a white board! Life is good.

4. I did not go to church last week because I had left my phone in the room when my mom called. This was probably for the best...

5. I had my very first day of working in the conservation lab of the library, and it was relaxing and fun. I made custom-fit cardboard boxes to protect delicate older books- I will work there tomorrow as well. It was very soothing and bright and repetitive.

6. There is no number 6.

7. My German class is remarkably easy when compared to the literature classes I took at the University of Vienna. We are currently reading something about "The Life of the Swedish Countess of G***", which is full of people being swept away by their emotions and dramatically vvirtuous acts. .

8. I have had only one religion seminar so far. The professor seems nice (slightly overly friendly, but nice) , but I was without coffee at the time and therefore my brain was dead, and my judgement impaired. Her voice, however, ranges from "Tolerable" to "Nails on Chalkboard" in pitch. I weep for my grades.

9. My Latin professor is uniformly delightful, and deserves cookies. We talked about the organization of roman Triumphs today, and the sheer size of the damned things was driven home by the fact that Pompei Magnus once carted wagons full of cash that he had won in his wars down the streets Rome: the amount was larger than the entire tax income of the Roman state for a year.

10. There was a little drama for me today before lunch, when it was discovered that a book reserved for my religion seminar was lost. I had read part of it on Friday, but there is a paper due on it this week, so I needed it. Fortunately, tho the bookstore was out, another student had a spare copy that I bought from her at the bookstore price.

I am holding off on learning Greek grammar tonight... though I must do it, and am already behind. I feel like this is not going to be a fun course, but hopefully, I will slog on through it.

So, for those of you out there in the flist who speak Greek, any easy-reader style books to help motivate my little buns?

(There is a part of me that deeply enjoys the look on peoples' faces when I say I am taking Latin, Greek, and German. Little do they know, German is so far the easiest by far.)