Laura's post about puppies made me want to post pictures of our thus far undocumented puppy. Unfortunately, our gracious web hosts decided to not allow the posting of images. While they work on their end, I've "upgraded" our software, but haven't had time to fully re-customize the frontend. Results? So far no pictures, and the somewhat ugly look we've got right now. =(

Good thing I've got streaming puppies.

So various rejections from the powers that be here at fair Harvard have left me in limbo in terms of my plans for this summer and my senior year of college. I come seeking advice and punking out of making decisions entirely by myself.

First, the trouble of senior year: English major that I am, I applied to write a creative thesis, a play (writing plays is, by the way, one of those things I want to do with the rest of my life). No dice, says English department--lots of applicants, etc., etc. Having bummed and moped about this for a couple of days, I am now more or less recovered and pondering whether I should write a thesis at all. I could write a critical thesis (45 pages or so of literary analysis) or I could not write a thesis. Those be the options. By all accounts, writing a thesis sucks, takes a year, and dramatically limits what one can do with one's senior year. Still, quite the nifty accomplishment, something to be proud of, an excuse to dig around in dark recesses of libraries... Any suggestions from the post-collegiate crowd?

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Hey guys! So I finally remembered how to log on in admin mode and made a couple of changes. Natalia has changed her blog address so I updated that link. You should check it out, it's great!

And I'd like to introduce a new member to the Much Too Much bloggers' guild, Isaac. You may remember him from such films as "The Hunt" (2003). He also went to school with us. He's been writing some interesting thoughts and stories on Facebook but I'm trying to get him to share with a wider audience. We'll see what happens, my guilt trips are rarely ineffective!

Note: I tried to post this last week and it wouldn't load. FYI. Also, this comic is relevant.

I haven’t been writing because I don’t have an internet connection in my apartment and I haven’t been able to justify writing at work yet. A few more months.

No, that’s not it. I haven’t been writing because I don’t know where to start. Everything’s so different now and I can barely process internally, much less try to make sense of it in writing. But I have to start for three reasons. One: many of the impressions and conclusions I have now will fade as my surroundings and routine become familiar, and I’ll lose the outsider’s “objectivity”. Two: I am really suffering for lack of a creative outlet. My entire day is spent trying as hard as I can to repress most of myself. Such a thing is often necessary when trying to adapt to new surroundings, before you have a chance to assess their dangers and weaknesses, and your place inside of them. And though I try to make up for it by singing as loud as I can while making spaghetti in the evenings, I’m still experiencing side effects. Clenched hands, tight jaw, squinting, frequent urges to yell out expletive-laced rants on the Green Bay Packers. I have to find a way to deal.

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Oh man, it has been a while. I have been wanting to do this for a long time. “This” is blogging on the Terrace on a Friday night. Remember when the Friday night blog post was something you could count on? Well, I’d like to say I’ve been busy with like, a life, but the truth is I’ve really just had too many thoughts that I haven’t been able to put together coherently, as evidenced by my last post. However, I have wanted to write this one for months and I’m going to have to buckle down and do it before it’s too late and becomes irrelevant.

These past two years, so well-documented on this webpage, I’ve learned a lot. About myself, about others, about the world around me. I thought I’d share some of these revelations with you, as you have been so receptive to such things in the past. But mainly, I want to write them down lest I forget in the upcoming years that will most likely be spent inhaling the fumes of molten plastic.

What I Learned in Grad School by Julie:

• Plastic is facinating.
• Plastic is terrible.
• Sometimes plastic smells bad, especially if you light it on fire.
• Plastic is completely unpredictable.
• Time-temperature superposition does not work very well.
• Grades don’t matter (except when your advisor is teaching the class).
• Write it down.

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From toothpaste for dinner. You guys are doing a pretty good job of this right now, our server can rest easy.

Xiao, I don't know if you even read this anymore, but I figured I'd post my birthday wishes publically anyway. In honor of this momentous day, I give you some web comic links:

Happy

birthday

dear

Xiaowwww...

happy birthday to you!

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know I've been working a bit lately on updating the look and feel of the blog. I'm gonna leave the work I've done so far up so that you guys can give me some input.

Things that are definitely coming soon but I haven't done yet:

1) A new image for the top
2) Recent comments will be shown in some way, most likely as a list of a few "comment by x on post y" in one of the sidebars

Thing I definitely want to know what you guys think about a whole lot:

I'm not too in love with the current incarnation of what the day/time/author thing look like, so if you have any ideas of what you'd love it to look like, let me know.

I haven't looked at what the archives or the comments pages look like at all yet, but if you have suggestions, let's hear them.

Oh, and the archives problem (that it doesn't show the right months in the sidebar) it looks like requires an upgrade of the software, which I can't do right now because FTP to the server is down. When it's back up, that's also on tap.

So I got drunk tonight and I was all set to write a retrospective on my life since the JG post a while back, but then I got on IM with Stephen, which was much more enjoyable and healthy. I figured I'd put a few excerpts down in leiu of the longer, whinier post I could have written had I not had the free wireless in my apartment. But it's all I got, and it's better than 0:

(13:50:11) Julie: stephen.

(13:50:16) Stephen: hi!

(13:50:36) Stephen: i am very interested to know your position on my decemberists review

(13:50:38) Julie: I am watching the valentine's day Invader Zim episode.

(13:50:44) Stephen: ahhaha yes!

(13:50:50) Julie: Aw! I have not even alid eyes on it!

(13:50:55) Julie: laid.

(13:50:58) Julie: laid!

(13:51:47) Julie: But it may be too much for me tonight. Tonight is a night of retrospective, and The Decemberists might fuck with my head.

(13:52:15) Stephen: oh wow

(13:52:33) Julie: yeah.

(13:52:36) Stephen: but why

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Sigh. I’ve started and trashed the beginning of this post about six times. I just don’t know where to begin. All I want to do it record the events of my winter break. I start thinking about it and I have so much to say and I get lost. But if the Bears can make it to the NFC championship, I can write this shit down. Organization is going to be difficult, especially since I’ve been drinking for most of the past three days. Hm. Let’s try footnotes and maybe several installments. I’ll try not to get all DFW on you, but I can’t promise anything.

Deep breath. Ok. What do I have to cover? My first Christmas away from home, a road trip through rural Wisconsin, driving all over the greater Chicagoland area to visit an almost unreasonable number of family and friends, kicking off the new year in the Caribbean, my feelings on religion, communication, what I’m doing with my life, what I’ve learned this past year, and a biscotti recipe. No sweat. I hope I have enough beer for this.

This year was the first time I spent Christmas away from home. My mom’s family made the executive decision to celebrate Christmas at a more convenient date, December 30th. Whatev, it didn’t bother me. I got to spend the day in Madison with Bill, Rebecca, and Soon, eating quiche, roast chicken, and Real Deal Christmas pudding, drinking cider and wine and eggnog, and watching Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, which I highly recommend as it is very campy and involves a lot of maniacal laughter for no apparent reason.

Several days later, I loaded up the car with an absurd amount of cookies and headed back to Chicago. This was the beginning of a rather overly-ambitious road trip, not because of the distance traveled or the sights seen but because of sheer number of people I visited in ten days.

In fact, let me count right now the number of friends and family I had not seen in ages that I got a chance to give high fives to in person¹…

Family: 26
Friends: 29
New acquaintances: 15

I didn’t think I even knew that many people!

¹Figures are approximate.

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