I’ve been toying with the idea of delaying my enrollment in the “City in Fragments” class until next spring. My schedule is over-full. Reading 100+ pages a day is difficult to pull off after 5 hours of classes, especially on those days when I also put in 5 hours at the Cloisters. However, as I mentioned before, all the 5 classes complement each other very well. I think I’m going to get it out of the way now, finish up my media studies distribution requirements. It will be nice to have senior year clear for elective courses. I’ve been meaning to take some political science and sociology classes, not to mention econ and history. I’m excited about all my classes this semester, but there’s a difference between taking electives and taking major requirements. Even when they’re fun, media studies classes are not FOR fun. Should be an insignificant factor, but for some reason it matters to me.

The weather has been bizarre. What little snow was on the ground melted in a flash rainstorm. It hung around in the form of a steamy fog for a whole day, pretty and bizarre.

I need to get these summer internship applications out ASAP, but the Media Cloisters website still doesn’t have a static IP address or a domain name. I would just make a redirect page on this website, but I am a loathe to send out an imperfect version of my resume. We have our first staff meeting tomorrow, so maybe somebody other than myself can talk to Ken about fixing it. He responds better (reasonably so) to issues with popular support. Not only is the Plone site unaddressed, the old Cloisters site is totally broken so I’ve got nothing. As far as the web is concerned, we don’t exist…a rather embarrassing state of affairs to call myself Consultant to.

I’ve been using Entourage for so long, all my emails and calendar stuff are embedded in it, but I kind of want to make the switch to iCal and Mail. Maybe I should start with my class schedules and see how it goes… No other big news here. Or else I forgot.

Fire alarm went off around 4am last night. I was not amused. Apparently somebody stole a lot of paper shreds from the Retreat and was playing in them and the dust set the alarms off. Bizarre right?

So my schedule seems quite full and rather exciting. It goes something like:

Mon / Weds 10:30am - Urban Econ
Tues / Thurs 12pm - Tourist - Theorist - Terrorist
Tues / Thurs 1:30pm - Computer Science
Tues / Thurs 3:10pm - Media Theory
Fri 3:15pm - New York as a Social Laboratory

The classes all complement each other nicely. I’m especially interested to see how the Tourist-Theorist-Terrorist course, which investigates the overlap between these three ways of understanding the “other”, specifically regarding perspectives on Islam, will inform the discussion on New York as a social space. Professor Kumar briefly mentioned the idea that terrorism has replaced literature as a social force that defines our awareness of the spaces we inhabit and the ways we think to interact with people, and this is definitely true of New York. Urban economics will obviously work well with the New York class as well.

I made it to the gym at 9am this morning! If I can keep that up I should have a good semester. My classes will all be challenging and I’m taking an overload again (I know, I just can’t help it there are too many good classes out there), but I am the most worried about physical activity. All of the dance classes being offered conflict with things in my schedule and I just HAVE to keep moving.

There are a ton of things going on on campus this weekend. Alex and I are having a birthday party tomorrow but I’m afraid nobody will come because there are so many other gatherings. There’s going to be another “rave” in the Shiva on Saturday (not a real rave, no worries, it’s in our campus theater), but I’m a little less excited to go to this one. The last one seemed like a nice little thing with all my friends but this one has more publicity.

I already have homework assignments, which is hard to believe. Not due until Tuesday, but still! Everything is happening and I only have two semesters after this one!!!!

Our original plan was to drive back to Vassar tomorrow, but that’s falling through for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is that Erin’s car was towed (not her fault, long story) and we won’t get it back until tomorrow afternoon. For another, she wants to spend more time with her family, which I totally empathize with. I wish I were still in Oregon with mine. So as it stands I’m hiding in her basement, waiting for my ride to actually depart, which will probably be a long wait (like days?). I’ve been living out of a suitcase for two weeks now and I definitely didn’t pack for it. I had extra clothes in my second suitcase, but guess what?! It’s in Erin’s car! I can’t handle unpacking and repacking for the fifth time in a row, so I’m just going to rough it. I mean, even if I did laundry I know I’d end up leaving half my socks here in Ohio.

I’m not trying to complain, I know I’ll get to sleep in my own bed eventually. I was feeling bad about not accomplishing even half of my Winter Break goals until I realized that I’ve spent zero weekends at home since Christmas. That’s how much suitcase living I’ve been doing. I just want to be able to brush my teeth without rummaging through eighteen zippered pockets. Rawr! I need one of those hugs from Alex where he picks me up and spins me around. I want to see Seth smile and I really want to discover where all the returned JYA’ers (”Junior Year Abroad”) are living. Must purchase this semester’s books and stock my room and relax. Must relax. Seriously, if I don’t (because I probably won’t) make it back tomorrow, please save those hugs for me. I could use them.

So if Colin Garvey, Brendan Berg, and Mom independently criticize this pathetic attempt at blog-management, it must be time to update.

I’m laying on my bed at the Hampton Inn at PDX while Erin showers in preparation for my third 21st birthday dinner. On the day of the actual event Erin, Brendan, and I consumed an expensive and delicious dinner at Boulevard in San Francisco. Last night Irene treated to me to Moose’s in North Beach of the same city. Now my parents and sister are meeting us in Portland and we’re all dining at Clark Lewis as a farewell fare before Erin and I fly to Ohio early tomorrow.

Honestly, I would have blogged more this break, but I didn’t want to type anything whiny, and the post-Christmas disaster lent itself rather well to a negative tone. Mom, Kari, Andrew, and I made a trek to California during which:

a) we destroyed Tom’s truck’s engine
b) we experienced the true quality of Sacramento’s Quality Inn
c) the Ducks lost
d) we temporarily lost our rental car
e) we had a harrowing apartment-moving experience
f) our mini-caravan had to caulk-and-float through Nor Cal flooding
g) we made it home at 11:38pm on New Year’s Eve

So I haven’t been negligent, per se, I’ve just been waiting for some more pleasant news to report. Then we went to Sun River to ski, then we went to San Francisco. Skiing was fun, but people were way more rude than I’ve ever experienced at Mount Bachelor before. The immense rudeness combined with freezing fog proved to be fun-skiing-prohibitive, so we spent some extra time in the hot tub and watching Veronica Mars. San Francisco was (I would say) quite successful–mostly because we ate amazing food and met up with friends. Brendan showed us some awesome views of the city from across the bay and Irene reminded me why she is one of my favorite people of all time. She is impossibly kind and fun.

So now I’m 21! I keep wanting to order drinks with meals even though I have little interest in drinking them. I’m sure the novelty will wear off sooner or later. Hoping to plan some sort of social gathering when we’re back at Vassar, perhaps a joint Anna/Alex birthday celebration? I have a nice new cocktail dress I can wear. Any suggestions for party locations would be appreciated…hopefully I’ll be back on campus this Saturday evening, so hopefully I’ll find people to squeeze hugs out of.