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sricasea
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Birthday: 3/14/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: historical and sociolinguistics, politics, funny things.
Expertise: hunter thompson related trivia and explication, making bogus sense out of legitimized pieces of literature, intermediate linguistics, intermediate attic greek. dang it, why did no one berate me for misspelling "peices"? would it have been such a blow to my feeble pride? probably.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Linguistics, Classics
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/8/2003
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| today is ... er ... wednesday? on MONDAY we took a bus across the bridge to ile de ré, where we went for a long stroll, steph and kathryn frolicking in the surf while i mirrored them from a sand-free environment not far off, doing sudoku and listening to moody music on my ipod. we found several jellyfish as we strolled, as well as some dead crabs and a creature - it looked sort of like a bunch of hermit crabs grown from the ends of orange seaweed tentacles - from outer space. the long walk eventually included a few vinyards and a really cute cafe with a dead fish over the door. on TUESDAY it rained and it rained and it rained, so we went shopping. i went looking for shoes to wear to an interview, found the perfect ones, and then discovered that they were nearly ninety euros. alas. and so it was a generally unsuccessful shopping trip. on WEDNESDAY (today) we wandered through a swamp, and we found a cemetary, and we hung out by the beach at les minimes, and ... it's kathryn's birthday soon, so we're taking her out to dinner. people put ceramic flowers on gravestones here. it's kinda freaky. our long walks today involved lots of simultaneous headbanging. it's been a glorious day. and TOMORROW we go home. | | |
| we've spent the last few minutes discussing what day it is. turns out it's sunday, or so says steph's computer clock. we thought for the longest time that it was friday, despite knowing that it was mother's day here in la rochelle (happy day, mom), and that nearly every shop was closed. the sunday-ness of the day explains SO MUCH. here is how we got to this point. on WEDNESDAY, we left edinburgh and took the megabus to london. this took approximately nine hours. then we took the london tube to another train station, from which we took another train to coulsdon (where kathryn's mum lives) and then a taxi to said kathryn's mum's house. we hung out a bit, watching pieces of desperate housewives and fretting over the impending worker's strike in france, which could potentially trap us in paris. we worried about having to camp out in the train station, and considered purchasing some sort of knife or pepper spray. eventually we determined that while it LOOKED like our train was still running, there was no way to know for sure (can't trust them striking cheese-eating surrender monkeys, someone said), so we all went to bed. we found a slug on the upstairs carpet. kathryn's cat thomas did not defend us from it, so i kept my door closed to prevent it from slithering up my nose and nesting in my brain. comfiest bed in the whole world. on THURSDAY, we walked to the train station, took the train to london, walked to another train station and then took another train to paris, by route of the CHUNNEL! awesome. we couldn't see much, but i'm pretty sure it was awesome. once in paris, we took the metro to another train station and from there took the final train to la rochelle. since the strike was on, some people had been displaced, but our train was still running. some of these displaced people had the nerve to steal our seats, but we showed 'em. we stood there awkwardly clutching our tickets saying in very halting french, "excusez-moi, mais ... [wave ticket] pardon, desolée ... er?" until one guy got up and made us feel guilty for showing up for our own train. taxi to the hostel. the hostel is AMAZING. neon lighthouses everywhere. EVERYWHERE. everything else is kind of a blur. we've seen an aquarium. we've gone for a long and painful and glorious bike ride. we've sat on the beach and read books. oh! and there's a carnival! i went on one of those pirate boats things that go upsidedown ... it went for nearly five minutes, and i was seriously in danger of losing the change out of my pocket. steph and kathryn went through the fun house, paying three euros to get groped by a demon. also, i've discovered that i can do an incredible imitation of that scream painting. ask me sometime, and i'll show you. in general, we are terrible tourists - but la rochelle, despite being very pretty, is kinda boring. there is an aquarium, and a maritime museum, and a museum of automated figures, and museum of perfume bottles. and a port. with boats. we designed this trip to be relaxing, and alas, it's a little too relaxing. ah well. more later. maybe. | | |
| i have to write my homer essay, and i think i've been doing it wrong, so i just need to write here for a bit, write for an audience that doesn't know what i'm supposed to be saying, write for long enough to collect my thoughts. there's so much to say about the iliad. so much. how do i squash it all into 2000 words? there ent enough beethoven and diet soda in the world to make that easy. i come home in a week. tomorrow i get older again. at 23, i am resigned to spinsterhood. kathryn thinks i should find a rich boy to marry so as to fund our chocolate/book shop, but i doubt the effectiveness of my feminine wiles. any boy who would fall for obvious seduction is clearly not worth having, and how else does one find a boy these days? my parents won't do it for me. christine and david say they're crap at matchmaking. i am destined to become a solitary old maid with dozens of cats.
bah. i am finally getting used to scotland, though the weather still hurts my feelings.
today a boy in my lexical semantics class had mental break-down, assigning persecutorial motives to the lecturer and then bursting into tears. well, i say tears, i mean that kind of weeping that's mostly uncomfortable heavy breathing. poor guy. if the class was in an american university, someone near to him (ie, me) would have patted him on the shoulder and asked if he was okay. instead, we all ignored him. the lecturer at one point asked him a direct, non-academic question, just to see how he was getting on - the guy didn't look up, just answered into his notebook. i don't think he's been sleeping very well - a few lectures ago, he kept muttering 'strasbourg' to himself under his breath. at first i thought he was doing it to weird us all out, but only a few of us could hear him, and he's not the type to stress over being the center of attention. in first year, he was the well-adjusted guy with all the friends, while i was the one dying of homesickness and the tendency to yell at people for saying they watched 'the o.c.'. oh-ho, how the tables have turned!
yes. because i'm so well-adjusted now.
ha! sarcasm is a wonderful vehicle for my well-adjustedness. even now, as i draw attention to it, you're all thinking, 'my, what a normal, right-thinking, sane person that girl is, with her faintly self-deprecating remarks and her show of sympathy for that poor boy. if only someone would find her a suitable boy to marry.'
yup. that's exactly what you're thinking. i can read your thoughts. moreover, since you haven't actually read this yet, or - er - only just have, but since i'm writing it before you're reading it (past, non-past, who needs tense, anyway?) i can PREDICT your thoughts. i am paranormal, omniscient, god-like! i am a well-adjusted goddess. feel free to cower before me.
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| i'm having a sentimental afternoon. my hands smell of magnolia, and i finally gave into the terrible dave matthews craving that's haunted me for months. don't laugh. i've held it off for years, and i just needed a little time with a long memory. remember? when we were younger, and ineffectual, and everything was potential?
barely five, now, and the world is dimming. damn february. i am so old now that i have a least favorite month.
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| it's all sorted now. kathryn and i are going to be book detectives who operate from an antiquarian bookshop, a la combination of 'black books' and 'ninth gate'. this will be the PERFECT JOB. it will involve scholarship, travel, language knowledge, books, detective-y stuff, and we'll probably have to take up smoking and drinking scotch. i can think of no job more awesome.
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