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A New Quest


Donna June! Wherefore hast thou forsaken me?

I’m currently obsessed with the idea of owning an accordion. I’ve been staking out eBay for two days. (And doing work in between checking the auctions.) I found this one awesome accordion for fifty dollars, and was going to bid on it today. But someone opted for the “buy me now” choice, and so the accordion of my dreams was lost to me forever. sigh. She was so beautiful. Blue and silvery-white, nice ornamentation… so what if the seller had no idea how they work, or if it was tuned properly, etc. There was no manufacturer’s signature or insignia, only a name plate that said “Donna June.”

Perhaps it is risky buying a musical instrument on eBay… the accordion crowd is small (relatively) but fierce. While there are sellers that don’t know much about accordions, most of the buyers, however, are quite informed, and I’m trusting the judgement of the other bidders. If they bid on an accordion that I am watching, then I know it can’t be completely worthless. However, most accordion enthusiasts know how to get repairs done, and tend to also like having accordions around even if they’re inoperable. So, perhaps my trust is misplaced.

I’m going to check out a few antique stores around here to see if I can get my hands on one there. I’d rather hear it myself than buy one blindly from the internet. I don’t know… there’s this other one (an Orpheus, I believe) that has some history to it, and the woman selling it has gone into great detail about the instrument, even though she’s never played it. She’s owned it for years, but never got around to playing it. It’s really neat looking: pink and grey flowery details with little colored gems all over it. Hmmm, perhaps it can measure up to Donna June… we’ll see.

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I rule!


I just looked at the Honors Convocation website, and I’m getting an award from the Philosophy Dept. and a certificate for high GPA! Yay, me!

Replies: 1 Comment… hooray!

Congrats!!!!!!!

Posted by Kristen @ 05/03/2003 12:57 AM EST

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I’m such a snob!

I think the stress is really starting to get to me. I’m not usually a rude person… critical, yes, and a bit severe at times, but I try my hardest to avoid rudeness. It certainly doesn’t do anybody any good, that’s for sure, but today in theatre class someone asked a dumb question, and I just, well, blurted out the answer in a very smug “you really should have known that” sort of manner. I felt awful, and yet thought the whole thing was rather amusing, really. Ok, so she didn’t know that the Obie awards are named as such due to their concern with “Off Broadway” shows, e.g. O.B. =Obie. All right, that’s fine. I’m sure lots of people don’t know that, and I didn’t have to be rude, but it just slipped out. And that room has crazy amplification. The whole room was quiet except for my outburst. Ah, well… I’ll try harder next time to keep my stress inside and not take it out on innocent classmates.

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my karma ran over your dogma

[edit to add: the “karma” thing was a script in the old Grey Matter blog that allowed you to vote for positive and negative karma in the posts. It was weird, and in the end was the errant script that forced me to stop using GM, because it almost crashed the server.]

What’s up with the wacky karma votes, anyway? I don’t understand the logic behind giving some posts positive and others negative votes. Ah, well. Chacun son gout, n’est pas? (If I could remember the ASCII code for the circomflex, or however you spell it, for the u in gout, I’d have put it in there.) Comments, I understand… but the votes… not so much. I don’t understand this whole blogging business anyway, so I don’t know why I’m dwelling on this one teeny-weeny point about it.

Ok, moving on…

I’m completely freaking out about the move. Well, not so much the move in itself, but rather the move combined with everything else that has to be done. The last day of classes is the 14th. That’s in 13 days. Yikes. This weekend is going to be totally disgusting. I’ll be up to my nose in homework. I just hope Jesse can handle doing everything by himself… since I have a feeling I’m going to be totally worthless due to the school stress. Well, maybe not totally worthless, but darned near close to it. We’ll see.

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“Twenty years ago…”

(this is taken from some livejournal people who are on Kristen’s friends list)

TWENTY YEARS AGO: I was five and a half years old. I think I was attending Kindergarten in Mr. Mantis’ class (whom we affectionately called Mr. Mayonaise, or Mr. Mustard when we were feeling exceptionally goofy). I remember my favorite activity: snack time! Vanilla Wafers and apple juice was my favorite snack combination.

TEN YEARS AGO: I was fifteen and a half years old and just finishing up the tenth grade. I had also started marching band that year: hooray for color guard! My favorite teacher was Ms. Withers, and that year I learned the definition of “expectoration.” My favorite snack was a ham sandwich with potato chips and mustard.

FIVE YEARS AGO: I was twenty and a half years old and at the end of the spring semester of my first year here in Massachusetts. It sucked alot. I met some awesome people, like Jesse and Kristen for example (as well as many, many others) but personally, I was completely lost and failing out of school. Hooray for friends and family and professors for helping to pull me through! My favorite snack was fried spam with a baked potato and squeeze cheeze… that is until the end of that summer when I had decided to become vegan. Big switch, eh?

THREE YEARS AGO: I was twenty three and a half. Jesse was swiftly approaching graduation, while I was still in the thick of my (multi-layerd) undergrad career. By this time I had decided on studying Art History, and was getting on the Chancellor’s List for the second year in a row! My favorite snack was raw carrots and “Goddess” dressing (by Annie’), tied with my mini chocolate cuppicakes.

ONE YEAR AGO: I was twenty four and a half, and FINALLY graduating from UMD with a BA in Art History. I won an award in the department for being way awesome, and discovered just how much I love going to art museums and talking about the art while it’s right in front of you. I was also beginning the mega-preparations for the wedding. My favorite snack was home made bread with “stinky-breath” dip (garlic and herbs in olive oil).

YESTERDAY: I was twenty five and a half years old, and hurriedly finishing up a paper that I thought was due, as well as going to classes and such. My favorite snack was soy yogurt with “Tropical Source” brand chocolate chips.

TOMORROW: I will still be twenty five and a half years old, and will be hurriedly finishing up all sorts of school work, as well as beginning the countdown to the last day of classes (the 14th). In three weeks I will have finished all the requirements for the BA in Philosophy as well as a minor in French. And I’m getting another award for being way awesome. Hooray for me! My favorite snack will probalby be brownies. yum.

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crunch time

I can’t believe how quickly the semester has flown by. It seemed to be dragging in February, but March and April whizzed away so fast I hardly had time to blink. And now I’ve only got two weeks until the end of the semester, and then a week of final exams, and then a week of vacation, and then a few days before we have to be out of the apartment. WHAT??? That’s insane. Oh, and one of my professors just posted our assignments for the rest of the semester… three new ones. Craziness, I tell you! This is the class that took forever to get started, and now we’re rushing to finish. Argh! And I am still behind in this class. It’s absolutely nuts. And I was hoping to take this weekend to begin packing things up, but I’m going to have to spend more time than I had wanted to on homework. I’m not really behind in any of my other classes. It’s just this stupid online course. The university is trying to look really spiffy by having these online courses: “Yes! We love technology! See? Look at our online courses!” Well, whoop-dee-shit… I just love it. I don’t even feel like getting into the details becuase it makes me so frustrated.

Ah, well… only a few more weeks. I can take it. I always freak out at the end of the semester, why should this one be any different? I have to make a schedule of my assignments so I can time their completion properly. I don’t want to freak out while I’m actually doing the work, so I’ll have to have a game plan. I’m going to be so glad when this is over. I’m waiting to go to grad school until January. I just need some time off. My brain is so tired. I can’t wait until I can spend weekends doing things I want to do, rather than writing papers.

Ahhhh, “will night never come?”

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Moving Time Again? Woo Hoo!

Looks like we’ll be moving next month (well, by the end of the month, anyway). Mike T. offered to rent us The Barn! Woo hoo! The current tennant is moving out this month and we’re going to take his place. We’ll be renting the place, but it’s an entire house with a yard and a (potential) garden and everything. It’s got much more room than the apartment, certainly more outdoor room. I’m so excited! I’ve already been planning in my head certain parts, like colors and such. We get to pretty much do what we want with the place (within reason, of course), not like where we are now. Finally, we get to have a say in what our walls look like.

Yay, new home!

Before we start packing up, I’m going to take some pictures of our place now, because I’m not sure if we have very many pictures of it. Especially the studio and the stuff I have on the ceiling and walls right now. (We had to cover up that awful wallpaper.) When we start moving in to the new place, I’ll be sure to take tons of photos. I bought a small scrapbook for documenting the new place. It’s going to be so hectic, but worth it, I think.

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Sunday Brunch and Afteroon Books

Sunday was a crazy-busy day. Jesse and I had brunch at Mikey and Reed’s apartment (deee-lish!) where there were gathered many of our friends. It was so nice to see everyone and share that awesome meal. Yum! I love eating with lots of people. Few things make me happier than meals with lots of people. The conversation was awesome, and the gathering so nice… we should do that more often!

After brunch, Jesse and I headed home to prepare for the scrapbook party. We rushed to finish cleaning a bit and then prepare the food before the guests arrived. Natalie and Denise were first to arrive because Natalie was the one giving the demo. Then MO arrived. And that was it. At 2:15 I began to be concerned since none of my friends are usually more than fifteen minutes late for an event, and certainly not all of them at the same time. I was expecting seven other people at the party beside Jesse and myself, and only three of those seven showed up. I sent out an email a few days ago (Thursday, I think), but MO didn’t get it, so I’m assuming it got lost in email limbo or something. The server has been up and down for the last several days (the server is switching around lots of stuff) so it probably got eaten. Ah, well. It was fun with just the few of us there. We made fun pages and MO is now a Creative Memories convert! whee! I didn’t have any photos for my page that I made today, since I want to put in photos of this spring… but spring finally just arrived today, so the photos are slightly delayed. I’ll be having three parties by the end of the year, so I’ll get some free gifties! yay! I’ve got to plan them out. I think the first will be in July, the second in September, and the third in early December. At least that’s my plan as of today… but we’ll see. This scrapbooking stuff is so much fun; I think Ruthy would really get a kick out of it, as would Erika, I think. I’ll have to bring my books down with me to Maryland when I visit at the end of next month.

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Molly’s Delicious

I’d love to post my review (and synopsis) of this play, but it seems I can’t import this one. WP is being weird.

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Hell on Earth, a night of Sartre

Well, the plays last night were pretty good. The first, The Respectufl Prostitute, I had never seen and was pretty messed up. It took place in the South (US) in the 1930’s, so you can imagine the nastiness of the race relations– which just happened to be the leit motif. [content removed] The set was quite simple and worked just fine. Alex was great as the black man. Oh, no… no typecasting there. (hee hee) Alex is great all ’round, anyway, even when he’s not type-cast. The second, No Exit, was also quite good. Except they didn’t do the ending right. They used the English ending rather than the French ending, which was disappointing. The ending is supposed to show the beginning all over again, and hence, hell. Hell is not just “other people.” It is that, surely, but also the concept of hell is ‘living’ that stuff over and over again in a cycle of which you are only vaguely aware. So a looming sense of déja vu (and I can’t find the code for the accent over the a, oh well) is constantly present… either that or you have full awareness of the repetition and can’t do anything to stop it. There are many interpretations for the repetition at the end of the play, but none of them were addressed in this showing because they chose not to show that ending in the first place. Ah well. The acting was pretty good… the young woman who played Estelle was especially good for her part. The other two “absentees” were decent, so no complaining here (shock!). They all really played their roles quite well. All in all, a good night out, and I didn’t feel like I wasted my three dollerinis.

PS- found out on Sunday that the director didn’t know about the original ending, and would have done that one had he known. I thought it sounded like something he’d like to try, and wondered why he didn’t… and now I know why.

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