When self-expression fails, music wins. Period.

{ May 17, 2009 @ 9:52 pm } · { Music, Personal }
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I may lack what most people would call musical talent, but I do consider myself perfectly capable of being able to judge whether or not a song is “good” (by my standards, of course). And I am fully able to appreciate the fact that music can express what words cannot, and particular songs can capture a feeling and convey it in precisely the right way. My iTunes is cluttered with playlists that are often quite similar, varying by only a handful of songs, but that capture my mood for the day.

Today’s playlist:

  • Kevin Rudolf – I Song
  • Lovedrug – Spiders
  • The Tragically Hip – The Last Recluse
  • Kings of Leon – Use Somebody
  • Blue Foundation – Eyes on Fire
  • Gratitude – Last
  • Finger Eleven – One Thing
  • The Last Goodnight – This is the Sound
  • Sigur Rós – Hoppípolla
  • James Morrison – This Boy

I’ll leave off with some lyrics from Lovedrug’s Spiders, a favorite of mine for some time now.

Searching on the wire,
for a wire,
for a piece of mind,
like the spiders in the corners that are never there
To the one,
to the magic sun,
you’re not that bright now, but you will be someday,
soon,
and you will fall in love with the moonlight,

So come on, come on, and say so,
come on, come on and say so

If God was on the radio,
I know he’d say to thee:
Love is spiders on the edge,
and we’re hanging by a thread,
connected to the other end of this
twisted frequency I’ve spun,
But I don’t care,
I’d be happy,
If you’d share,
your web with me

So come on, come on, and say so,
come on, come on and say so

Why don’t you, why don’t you come on, come on and say so?

All in all, good music for a not so happy rainy day, don’t you agree?

Child Labor at the Age of Twenty

{ May 17, 2009 @ 12:56 am } · { Personal, Random }
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One of the things many people don’t tell you about parenting and children and such is that being someone’s son or daughter means that you’ve involuntarily entered into one of the last legal forms of slavery. Or at least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it goes.

Not that I’m being coerced into doing things for my parents, but rather I mean to say that out of the goodness of my heart (or something like it), I’ve been cornered into typing my father’s thesis that he’s writing for his Th.D. I’m also editing it, but that part is somewhat necessary, seeing as I’m the resident MLA “expert” in the family.

Which leads to my point of contention for the evening. I was editing the beginning part earlier this afternoon, writing explanatory comments in the margins to illustrate my thought processes and describe exactly what I didn’t understand. I was also questioning my father’s extensive use of block quotes.

After roughly an hour of arguing with him over his stylistic choices (which would never have passed at Duke), he yells out “Listen, I haven’t been to school in 30 years! Cut me some slack!” to which I reply, “If you want me to do this, you have to realize that you’re the one who paid for my nearly quarter of a million dollar education so I could learn to do this. Stop complaining.”

He quietly bit his tongue and tried to keep from smirking. I think that comment, while perhaps a tad harsh (but wonderfully sharp in the heat of the moment, given my usually atypical lack of skill in that area, if I do say so myself) reminded him that although he can expect certain things of his kids, much of what we do is also voluntary. And what isn’t is characterized by the fact that we are perfectly free to choose the quality and timing of it.

On Commencement & beyond

{ May 13, 2009 @ 10:08 pm } · { Personal }
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(Warning: This post will not be so eloquent as the title may suggest.)

So. I’m a college graduate now. Strange feeling. And I suppose that it’s something a bunch of people have been through, so they can relate, but it just feels so weird. The whole weekend was kind of an ordeal, I guess, because I had to pack and do everything for the ceremonies and somehow wrap my head around the fact that I will not be returning to the gothic wonderland in August.

I’d also like to apologize to anybody I may have yelled at this past weekend. I don’t pack well with people around because I like to think and arrange and make things logical, and since I’d had very little time to myself, I hadn’t had any emotional outlet so the slightest thing was setting me off.

I also seem to be perfecting my penmanship. Not only am I improving my freelance handwriting, but also writing thank you notes is a wonderful exercise in expressing much the same sentiment in dozens of different ways. But I truly am thankful that I even have a reason to write so many wonderful, generous people a note that can only begin to express my gratitude.

So, yay, graduation over. On to preparing for the big move, part 1.

oh.my.gosh.

{ April 28, 2009 @ 12:16 am } · { Personal }
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In approximately 12 hours I will begin my accounting final exam. In 15, I will be done with college. Minus that whole graduation thing.

I think I’ve got some strange vertigo thing going on as a result.

Last week, baking, and security clearance

{ April 20, 2009 @ 4:12 pm } · { Cooking & Baking, Personal, Random, work }
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Done with econ. Technically done with Japanese as well. Working on English, and hopefully will be done by Wednesday so that I can focus on accounting for the rest of the week until the exam. It’s a really really strange feeling to be finishing things up. 

Currently trying to figure out what to bake tomorrow. Zeta is having a bake sale on LDOC (because drunk individuals and baked goods are always a great combination) to raise money for our philanthropy, breast cancer education and awareness. It’s quite obviously one of my favorite events of the spring semester. Brownies are always a winner, but I was thinking some yummy cookies or bar cookies might be a good choice as well. Cute cupcakes might be another option…thoughts?

I also have to make my roommate a birthday cake on Thursday…like any person who’s a child at heart, she’s requested Funfetti. I hope they still sell the icing with the sprinkle ball thingies mixed in.

Got my security clearance packet today. Three weeks to get together everything I need to officially be able to do my job. Exciting stuff.

Thoughts on a closing semester

{ April 20, 2009 @ 12:43 am } · { Personal, Random }
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So it’s 1:30 in the morning and I’m sitting here blogging. Because despite the fact that I was insanely exhausted about 30 minutes ago, I couldn’t fall asleep because I was doing prep work for tomorrow’s Japanese discussion (on discrimination) and econ presentation (results: Duke undergrads are uniformly stupid when it comes to condoms). Fortunately tomorrow is the last day of econ, and perhaps the last day of Japanese as well (long story). English will be over on either Wednesday or Friday, depending upon which day I turn my portfolio in. And accounting will be done on the 28th. Weird.

Latest successful phrase from English poem drafts for my portfolio: patent peep-toe kitten heels ballet-/type flats and espadrilles. The rest of the poem is going slowly but well. Also wrote a love poem to a vacuum cleaner (the exercise- one of Kim Addonizio’s- was to fall in love with the first thing you saw after looking up from the article. Of course, I happened upon the vacuum cleaner). It might be my absolute favorite.

I spent all day yesterday in Panera and Barnes and Noble doing work for these poems and the other components of my portfolio. As usual, I got the You Pick Two;  the potato soup was fabulous and just what I needed to get the creative juices flowing. But I should have known better than to go to a bookstore. I always buy books when I go. Always. Yesterday I walked out with four. But usually, I end up buying only classics (I have a thing for Jane Austen’s stuff…though nothing I bought yesterday was by her, despite BN’s little display). So the winners this time around were F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned and This Side of Paradise), Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina) and William Makepeace Thackeray (Vanity Fair). I started the latter of these already and must say I’m enjoying it immensely. But then again, I’ve always really liked 19th Century literature for some reason.

And now I’m going to sleep and try to wake up in time for class in the morning. Only three more days till I can focus on accounting only.

Random thoughts…

{ April 3, 2009 @ 9:19 pm } · { Music, Personal, Random }
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Chopped off most of the hair today on a whim. It’s actually shorter than it was during the end of my stay in Japan. Odd, but I like it.

On my list of frustrations this week:

  • Target’s refusal to carry the Cadbury dark chocolate mini eggs. It’s Easter, and they don’t have them. I’m upset.
  • Forgetting that my calculator takes AAAs instead of AAs. Now I have a surplus of batteries.
  • Not having clear expectations of class assignments. Especially when your entire grade is based on it.
  • Missing the first 40 minutes of Gossip Girl because I forgot what day it was.

But to compensate for those things, a few things have managed to keep me smiling. First, Amazon has some really fabulous free Indie samplers (the Sub Pop one is particularly good so far). And I managed to buy the just-released Flo Rida album there for $3.99. I keep going around singing “it’s all about roots.” Otherwise, enjoying success with my healthy eating kick, minus the remainder of the Easter candy that I did buy to fill up little boxes for my roommates and friends. But that’s all gone now, so nothing to worry about…

I need to work on addressing announcements, considering I have two and a half weeks of class left. Then another week of exams, another of home, then the whole graduation thing. Time goes by much too quickly.

More Improv Cooking

{ February 28, 2009 @ 5:52 pm } · { Cooking & Baking, Random }
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What do you do when you haven’t gone grocery shopping in three weeks but you’re starving for an easy & quick dinner without having to order take-out? Why, use what you do have on hand, of course!

So, saddened by the fact that my favorite Chinese take-out place is closed on Saturdays, but craving something like orange chicken, I got inspired. I grilled a couple chicken breasts (because I always cook to have leftovers for the next day ;) ) and put on a pot of rice. And then the magic happened. In a separate pot, I took a jar of apricot preserves, some honey dijon vinaigrette, chili powder, garlic powder, onion salt, pepper, ginger and some lemon juice and allowed everything to reduce together over medium-low heat for a few minutes. I added the chicken to that and then tossed everything over the rice.

Essentially, I made myself a more sophisticated version of the American Chinese classic.  And it’s actually not that bad for you- you get fruit (because you’re using unsweetened preserves), lean protein, and some grains. And it was quite yummy, if I do say so myself.

June 22…

{ February 25, 2009 @ 11:32 am } · { Personal, Random, work }
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…is my official start date for my job! It’s such a relief to know what I’ll be doing after graduation.

Other cool things from this week so far:

  • Winning a free printer (or rather, free clearance item of my choosing- I chose a printer) from the Duke Store’s Mardi Gras celebration
  • Buying my cap & gown (actually that’s kind of terrifying, not gonna lie)

Not so cool things from this week so far:

  • Writing an essay on why suppliers of sustainable construction materials (the kind they use on those fancy HGTV “green living” type shows) have an oligopoly on the market…in Japanese (the word for oligopoly is 売手寡占, if you wanted to know)
  • People who can’t eat without smacking. Worst. Pet. Peeve. Ever. And these people are everywhere. I can’t eat in public anymore without being extremely annoyed.

More to come.

Things that get me thinking creatively

{ February 23, 2009 @ 10:23 pm } · { Music, Personal, Random }
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Currently: browsing Sephora, chocolate chip pie (homemade- very easy ;) ) and Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals album (particularly the last 41 seconds of “What It’s All About” where he takes portions of the Jackson 5’s “ABC”)

Otherwise: the smell of cinnamon, brightly colored pens, Brooke Nuñez Fetissoff, playing Mah Jongg (when it doesn’t actually thwart my work efforts, that is), fun music (particularly 90s pop because nearly anything can be more creative than that but it puts me in a good mood), and fun fonts (i’m a diehard fan of Jayne from FG)

Things that get me motivated to do any kind of work? the fact that spring break is just around the corner.

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