And the Guilt...

So after I posted that last entry, the following prayer fell out of an old book of mine:

Lord, Please, Watch My Tongue

Lord, put a watch upon my lips,
Put a guard on what I say:
For Lord I want to live for you
And bless someone today.
For every idle word I speak
When in gossip I take part,
Reveals the kind of man inside,
Hidden deep within my heart.
There's power in my lips today
To heal a heart or break it;
May my tongue with
every word it speaks,
Please the One who made it.

So I felt like an asshole.

This prayer is probably something to keep in mind over the holiday weekend. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
:)

My roommate

I just need to express that I have been home for 3+ hours and my roommate has been on the phone continually- constant chatter has been coming from her room. Either she's crazy and having a very animated conversation with herself, or (like she has been all quarter) she's on the phone. Seriously, she gets on the phone as early as 6:30 in the morning and she's on it pretty much the whole day. I bet you I will go to bed hearing her and even wake up at 1 am and still hear her on the phone.
It's been like living by myself, but some other person won't dry or put away her dishes and aids in filling up the trashcans, but never EVER takes empties them, and is constantly talking in Spanish in the background.

I know Casey and Amanda may be thinking that karma has paid me back for all the times I didn't take out the trash. At least I didn't pile it up, double its fill, on a regular basis, post garbage taking out discussions. Roar. I hate garbage.

At least she's not hostile, I guess. Or a klepto or abusive.

There are days...

There are days when I realize I live in perpetual vacation. After my DA 60 lecture I went swimming at the Rec Center. The weather was clear, sunny, and about 75 degrees. Undergrads were sunning themselves in lounge chairs around the pool. The mountains were visible in the distance, the breeze was salty and warm, and I was swimming in crystal clear water.
Sometimes graduate school isn't all that bad.

Why I Love to Cook

On Friday night I made dinner for some friends and realized how much I really like cooking for people. Especially after a long week of classes and teaching, it just feels really good to work with my hands and free my mind cooking. I have even started baking more recently. There is something about taking disparate ingredients and mixing them together to get a completely different product. Also seeing or tasting the effect of a small amount of spice. You wouldn't think a few sprinkings of nutmeg in chocolate chip cookies would do much, but it really changes how they taste.
This Friday I added on to my list of 5 things I can cook well- twice baked potatoes. I baked the potatoes and then scooped them out and mixed with with ranch dip (made from a dry mix and lowfat plain yogurt) and rebaked them. I even managed to keep the shells (the skins) looking good.
So that's my domestic manifesto. On a completely unrelated (or perhaps distantly related) note, I discovered something worse than trying on swimsuits- trying on wetsuits. I am renting one for next week because I am taking a kayaking class. Getting in and out of the wetsuit was a work out in itself. Maybe because of all the cooking and baking I have been doing. :)

Bubble gum Salad and other Midterm Oddities

Because I am in the process of writing a paper, I am going to stick to a simpler format of lists for this post.

Why this week has been Awesome (both saracastically and honestly- you be the judge)

1. Filled with social anxiety at a Graduate Student Association Meeting, I filled my plate with free salad. After one bite, I realized to my great horror that it tasted like bubble gum. Afraid to be caught throwing out food (these California graduate students are ruthless when it comes to any kind of waste), I somehow choked down what turned out to be more disgusting than the exploded sushi roll incident.

2. My professor chose not to follow his own answer key when correcting 20 of my students' midterm exams.

3. I saw Madeline Albright last night.

4. I saw Madeline Albright in the coolest theatre I have ever been in.

5. I voted today.

6. I played a 20 minute game of 'where the hell is my bike' (which is a common UCSB game) last night after a excrutiatingly boring lecture that went about 30 minutes long and I couldn't understand a single sentence. I was able to pick up on certain phrase, but that was it.

7. It's really hot here this week, like mid 80s. My nose is sunburnt.

8. It's almost 11:00 and I don't know what I am teaching tomorrow.

9. I don't know how much sleep I am going to get tonight. Or tomorrow night. And I really like sleep. It's become one of my favorite parts of the day. I get up and can't wait to go to bed.

10. We had a presentation today in one of my classes on a played called The Coffeehouse and in the middle, the presenter had an actor come in as one of the characters, Ridolpho, and hand out chocolate biscotti and coffee.