sunshine and "A" mountain

this has been quite a weekend. last week was a bit stressful in terms of school stuff, so I was very happy to have a whole weekend and no homework hanging over my head. friday night I spent with a good friend and some good conversation and music (one of the nicest evenings I've had in a long time). saturday I went to IKEA with katie and angel to try and spend the wonderful birthday present from my friends (you guys are awesome). then we went to in-n-out for some yummy burgers.

today the sun was out and it was a beautiful day. katie, angel and I decided to hike up to the top of "A" mountain next to campus. afterwards, we had a nice lunch at gordon biersch and then they had to work on some homework. I stayed at home and watched the academy awards. I am so so happy that both of the screenplay awards went to the people and movies I thought that they should (charlie kauffman for "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" and alexander payne for "sideways", both excellent movies). and johnny depp looked hot (too bad he didn't win). so that was good.

so here is a smattering of pictures from our little adventure today.


"A" mountain, so named for the big letter on its side, in honor of Arizona State University. go sun devils!


some cool rocks


the view of the part of campus where my office is from the mountain


me and katie on the A


some other mountains in the distance


katie, angel, and me at the top, above downtown tempe

puerto rico!

guess what? I'm going to Puerto Rico for spring break in just a few weeks! how exciting is that? one of the other grad students is from there, so we are going to stay with him and his family and everything. it should be great. I really really need a vacation (right now) and will need one even more by the time it finally comes around. I can't wait!


picture me here in just a few weeks!

happy birthday to me!

so yesterday was my birthday. I am now officially old (24). le sigh. but, actually, it's not so bad. I had a really great time last night. I invited a bunch of people out to dinner to celebrate. we went to Rula Bula, this irish pub that has great food. I, of course, got the fish and chips (soo good). we also had lots of guinness, black and tans, and some irish car bombs as well (a shot of baileys dropped into some guinness). after dinner most of us headed over to another bar down the street where we had some more drinks and lots of fun. I hope you all had as much fun as I did. thanks for a great night!


the whole gang at dinner (rula bula, an irish pub on mill avenue). adam, brian, steve, keely, mike, alec, oscar, angel, katie, me, hwi, and tedman


starting the evening off right with a few irish car bombs


katie and me being silly (how else could we be?)


katie, angel, and me


adam, with some very good desert


over at the cue club (the bar we went to after dinner)


adam and me


angel and brian


me and brian

skiing pictures!

snow outside the cabin


the cabin, amid the snowfall


a bright, cold, sunny morning


the gang at bree's hideaway


the fun drive home


more snow


and more snow

it's groundhog day!

"what if there is no tomorrow? there wasn't one today." -Groundhog Day
yeah so I love that movie. it's so hilarious. and interesting. bing! but yeah, so Phil saw his shadow and we have some winter to deal with, which for me means more days of high 60s and sunshine. wow that sucks. hehe. just kidding.

so I haven't posted in a couple of weeks and here is the reason: school is back in session. ugh. yeah, I've been crazy busy. but I did have fun the two weekends in between so far.
the first weekend after school started, I and some other of the grad students went out to Queen Creek to do some hiking and rock climbing. it was very beautiful and a perfect day for being outside. we all had a good time.
last weekend, I, Adam, Katie, Angel, Oscar, Hwi, James, and Mike went skiing up at Sunrise in the White Mountains in eastern Arizona. it was so much fun! it was my first time skiing ever so I took a lesson, which worked out pretty well. I was able to go down the green slopes by the end of the day with no problem. it was definitely easier than snowboarding (where I was on my ass every five minutes - not so fun). they had a bit of a snowstorm the day we were up there, so it was totally freezing by the time we were ready to leave the slopes and head back to the cabin, but at least Angel was able to make his first snow angel! :) I have some pictures, maybe I'll put them up tomorrow.

also, as a side note, I have just recently switched browsers to Mozilla's Firefox which I must say is excellent (the best part - it imported all my bookmarks and stuff; and I can tab now. woo hoo!). those also already using this browser will notice that I have fixed this site's html so that it now looks as it did before in explorer. look, the sidebar is actually on the side now! ahhh, and everything is as it should be. fantastic.

three day weekend? nope, just the end of winter break

well, it's been a fun four weeks off. tomorrow I head back to school to try and learn some more. my last weekend of freedom went something like this:
friday: hung out with katie and adam. went to the mall and picked up my christmas present: a bose iPod sound dock. it is sooo beautiful and sound completely amazing. ahh, happiness. we also got some chipotle and then went searching for a tv and dvd player for katie to buy so she could live in the 21st century like everyone else.



saturday: slept in a tiny bit, then went to target with katie and bought stuff. later that night, we went to anderson's in scottsdale to do a bit of dancing, 80's style. we dressed up a bit, as you can see in the picture below (note my side ponytail. hehe). it was tons of fun and I'm sure we're going to go again soon, but next time we are going to bring along the whole gang whether they like it or not. :)


me and katie vogue-ing before going out 80s dancing

sunday: slept in a bit more and then went to IKEA with katie and finally bought the poang chair that I have wanted for like two years. yay exciting. then we did a bit of grocery shopping and watched the end of the golden globes and some bartending competition that was really cool. I am really glad that "sideways" won for best picture comedy even though I absolutely adore charlie kaufman and "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" and wish that it could have won as well. oh well. that's life.

monday: slept in a little bit. cleaned up the apartment some more. listened to music. went out to dinner with adam (to rula bula - this cool irish pub on mill avenue). and now I'm going to bed so I can wake up and pay attention in class tomorrow morning. ugh. when is spring break? ;)

a marathon, a movie, and a "new" bike

ahh, this week has been so nice. no classes, no homework, no guilty conscience about work I should be doing. it will all start again on tuesday, but for now I am happy. and I've been getting a lot done, which is quite surprising. the weekend was pretty busy because my mom and step-dad were here and I had to do stuff with them. they both ran the marathon on sunday morning (and my aunt and uncle ran the half-marathon) and I cheered them on for the last two miles (on my bike, but still). on saturday I sort of wished that I was running again, but after seeing them struggling along those last couple miles, I forgot all about that. hehe. I will stick with my 90 minute soccer game, thank you very much. I still don't see why anyone would want to run for 3 to 6 hours just to say they did that. but anyway, that's just me. we all had a pretty nice weekend I think, and it was definitely nice having them take me out to dinner.

monday I woke up at 9am again (I was still a bit jet lagged over the weekend) and started cleaning up my apartment. tuesday I did a whole lot of nothing (except some more cleaning). wednesday I went to school and met with the professor I'll be teaching for this semester. that was fun. wednesday night, adam and I went to see "a very long engagement", the new movie by director jean-pierre jeunet (the guy who directed "amelie" one of my top five movies of all time). the movie was pretty good, not as good as amelie, but still quite moving. it really shows the horrible parts of war (in this case, the great war, world war I (or as kurt vonnegut says 'the world's first unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide')). I didn't really think that they developed the main characters enough; so while you really really wanted audrey tautou's character to find her fiance, you didn't really understand why. but it was still a beautiful film.

today I got a lot of stuff done. I picked up my bike from the bike shop where it was getting a tune-up. and let me just say, it's like a whole new bike. i'm so happy and wondering why I didn't do this sooner. I was having problems with the chain and it's all completely fixed. so yay! and I also spent the afternoon attaching a rack on the back so now I can carry more groceries and books. yay for that as well. I also now have a light so I won't get a ticket when I ride home in the dark. today ended with soccer practice (we have two new guys on our team that are really good, so I'm excited about that). maybe tomorrow I'll make it over to the mall to get my ipod speakers. maybe.

back in the states

so I made it back to the u.s. yesterday afternoon (or night, depending on what time zone my head was really in). I lucked out again on my flight and had the seat next to me empty. yay for that. I also watched a bunch of movies (alfie - good, before sunset - really good, napoleon dynamite - pretty funny).

so, the last two days in london went something like this:
Tuesday: started off at Tower of London which was really very cool and interesting. I saw the crown jewels (they had a 350 carat diamond!) and some old buildings (some where people were murdered even) and stuff like that. after that I headed over to the Natural Science Museum and the Science Museum which were both interesting in their own way. the Natural Sci Museum had this collection of 22 million different species all contained in little glass jars. it was both gross and cool at the same time (my favorite was the jelly fish). the Science Museum was a bit disappointing, but it's also very hard to please someone with a huge background in science anyway. they did have the actual Apollo 10 capsule, though, which was neat to look at. after that I went to Harrod's which completely blew my mind. it was the most amazing store I have ever been in. they had literally anything you could ever want. and it was all organized so nicely and everything. besides the usual clothes, accessories and such, they also had a full pet store, a sporting section that had a room dedicated to each sport (well, the important ones anyway, like soccer (football), rugby and cricket (which I still don't understand, nor care to), and others), a huge designer jewelry section, and most amazingly of all, they had these food halls that had literally any kind of food you could ever want or need. there was a full butcher section, and then next door, a sushi bar, and then a cheese bar, and then a krispy kreme, and then a chocolate room, and then a tea/coffee room. it was incredible. anyway, I bought some english tea and made my way out of the maze back outside. after Harrod's I headed to the British Library where they had a really cool display of old books and manuscripts and such. they had two of the three oldest greek translations of the bible, the original magna carta, the first folio of shakespeare's works, some of leonardo da vinci's notebook pages, an original copy of newton's principia, beethoven's 9th symphony in beethoven's handwriting, handel's messiah also written out, some of the beatle's handwritten lyrics (with certain words change and things like that. it was fascinating), plus lots of other things I can't remember right now. it was very cool. at that point I was exhausted and headed home.
Wednesday was my zone 2 adventure (zone 1 is central London in terms of the tube). I started out by going north a bit to Abbey Road to follow in the immortal footsteps of the legendary Beatles. I met some nice people from wisconsin there who helped take pictures. the bad thing about Abbey Road is that it's a pretty busy street, so you kind of have to play pickle with the traffic in order to get a good picture. we probably walked across the street upwards of 10 times. hehe. oh well. after that I headed southwest to Greenwich to see the old palace and the Royal Observatory. the observatory was really cool, because besides having some old telescopes and longitude measuring devices, it also had the prime meridian (the line that divides the east and west hemispheres). so, I have a picture of me standing in both hemispheres at the same time. it was cool. after that, I headed back to London and went up to Camden Town and the markets there. it was pretty neat, and also good that I didn't have any spending money (since my suitcase would have been too full). then I went over to Portobello Road markets in Notting Hill and walked around there for a while. later that night, we went to a play, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), where 3 people perform (sort-of) all 37 of Shakespeare's plays in just 97 minutes. it was hilarious.
Thursday morning I headed back over to Heathrow and got on my plane (which left on time, thank goodness). and now I'm back here. I'm going back to arizona tomorrow and then school starts back up on the 18th.
some of the 315 pictures I took during my trip will be posted sometime next week on either this site or my other one. I'll let you know.


and since I didn't put these up before, my new years resolutions:
1. eat healthier and exercise more (well, duh, isn't that on everyone's list?)
2. watch less tv and read more books (well, I haven't watched any tv yet and I bought 3 books yesterday, so I think I'm off to a good start)
3. study more
4. finish my websites (hopefully this will happen next week when I have nothing to do)
5. cook more often (and also, eat less fast food, if possible none)

london!

happy 2005 everyone! I spent the new year's celebration in London, at a club near piccadilly circus. the fireworks near the houses of parliament (big ben) and the london eye were really amazing; maybe some of you saw them on tv later on.
well, I have been a good little tourist, doing lots of fun touristy things. after getting back from scotland on thursday night, friday we went to the houses of parliament and saw the famous clock tower holding big ben. we also went through westminster abbey. I saw sir isaac newton's tomb(?) and memorial and lots of other peoples as well. there was a poet's corner with lots of famous wordsmiths there as well. after that, we headed over to trafalgar square and went to the national gallery. I saw some nice pieces of art there.
saturday took me to the tower of london (although it was closed) and the tower bridge (which was very blue and also very pretty). then I wandered over to the tate modern museum (a modern art museum) which was really really great. I also walked by shakespeare's old globe theatre and then across the milenium bridge. after that I took the tube over to piccadilly circus and walked over to leicester square (where it started pouring down rain - but only for a little while - the stupid tourists all bought umbrellas, but I knew it would stop soon). then I walked back to piccadilly circus and walked down regent street to oxford circus. they have this really nice light display on that street which was great to look at.
sunday we got up early and went to buckingham palace to watch the changing of the guard. it was sooo crowded! and cold! the ceremony was pretty interesting, but I wasn't at the best vantage point. but oh well. after that, we walked over to hyde park which was very nice and also saw kensington palace before heading to notting hill to get some lunch (fish and chips...yum). then we took the tube over to the somerset house and watched people ice skating and falling on their asses (we were going to do it too, but it was all booked up for the day).
today (monday) I went to st. paul's cathedral to have a look around. I climbed up all 530 steps to the top of the dome (the third largest in the world) to get a magnificent view of the city. it was very tiring, but definitely worth it. after that, we took a ride on the London Eye which was also really cool. the weather turned out perfect so I got some really amazing pictures (speaking of which, I have already taken almost 300. hahaha).
the plan for the next two days: tower of london, abbey road, british library, harrod's, a play and greenwich. if I can fit in camden town markets I will do that as well, but I don't know if it will happen. because of the holidays, lots of things have been closed when I wanted to see them, so it made everything a bit more difficult to plan. anyway, I am a master of the underground tube now, so I'm sure I'll be able to manage it.
my favorite thing about london: most of the museums are free.

Edinburgh, Scotland

hey everyone! I just got back from Edinburgh, Scotland as part of my UK trip. here's what has happened so far: monday afternoon I left LA (my plane was delayed an hour because the plane before us was late due to bad head winds, luckily this meant that our flight would be an hour shorter) and arrived in London around noon on Tuesday. I met James at the airport, and we headed back to the apartment to drop off my stuff and then went right to the train station (King's Cross) to jump on a four and a half hour train ride up to Edinburgh, Scotland. I was really really exhausted from traveling so much, and had a bit of a stomach thing, so I didn't do too much the following day. But yesterday, I was feeling better and had a look around the city. Edinburgh is famous for this huge castle. it was really cool actually. I took lots of pictures and all that, so you can all see the wonderfulness later on. there were also lots of kilts and bagpipes all over the place which was pretty amusing and annoying, respectively. now, I am back in London and setting out to do some more exploring with James and Stewart. I'll update again soon! Happy New Year's Eve!

merry christmas!

well, another christmas has come and gone. and this one was one of the better ones I've had in recent memory. usually christmas is not such a fun day since I have to spend most of it traveling from one parent's house to the other and I usually end up having an argument with at least one of them over something stupid. however, this year there were no arguments and the drive wasn't so bad because it was a beautiful southern california morning and part of the drive was along the santa barbara coastline which was absolutely amazing. also, in addition to getting some nice clothes and shoes and cds, I also got the new bose sound dock for my ipod! how exciting is that? I can't wait to get back to arizona to try it out. it's going to be awesome. thanks santa!

christmas day also included watching two very important movies. the first was A Christmas Storywhich is one of the funniest christmas movies ever made. I watch it every year (thanks to tbs's 24 hour marathon) and it still cracks me up. "you'll shoot your eye out!" and all that. I ended the day watching one of my favorite movies of all time, It's a Wonderful Life. it always gets to me. it's such a great film. jimmy stewart is really amazing in it. "remember, no man is a failure who has friends".

so, to all my friends out there, I hope you have a merry christmas (or chrismahanakwanzaka as the case may be) and a wonderful new year.

christmas shopping

I think that I have set a new record for myself. I have been to the mall every single day this week since I arrived back home. I think this proves once and for all two things: 1) I procrastinate at everything, even christmas shopping and 2) there is nothing else to do in the san fernando valley but go to the mall. but at least I think that now I've gotten everything I need to get. now I just need to wrap everything. and, of course, I left the wrapping paper that I bought in arizona, so I have to use my mom's. oh well.

I have finally caught up on my sleep. yay! it only took a week. I will destroy it again when I leave for London on monday, but whatever. it was nice while it lasted. my plan to avoid jet lag: to sleep only 2 or 3 hours on the plane, stay up all the next day and go to bed at the correct time. it worked last time, so hopefully I can do it again.

the fantastic news of the week: they have announced the date for the next harry potter book! I am sooo excited. can't wait for July.

the other nice thing about winter break is that I have been able to catch up with some people that I haven't talked to or seen in a while. sunday I had lunch and went shopping with marla. she told me a whole bunch of stories from her adventures as a middle school teacher in south central l.a. (courtesy of teach for america). sooo crazy. big props to marla and the other teachers there. I also talked with mike ficken online for a while the other night (glad to hear he survived law school) and I am going to hang out with laura tonight and carolyn on sunday (hopefully).

LA woman

so I'm back in LA. I had a really interesting flight. I think that my pilot was new or something because it was one of the worst flown flights I have ever been on. and it wasn't turbulence (although we did have some of that in the middle of the flight). during take-off it was incredibly jerky and haphazard and during landing it was almost worse. he came in waayy too fast and we landed really hard and at the wrong angle. *sigh* what can you do? whatever, at least it was a short flight and we got in a little bit early (although my brother was not early to come pick me up, so I had to wait a while anyway). so, now I'm at home for a little over a week. today I slept in quite a bit, had some in-n-out burgers with my brother and just did a whole lot of nothing. it was nice.

to recap arizona since end of finals: wednesday I slept. then me, adam, katie, angel, oscar, and tedman went out to dinner at the macaroni grill. and all I can say are these two things: my dinner was amazingly good (they had this fabulous deal for a salad, the penne rustica, and half a piece of tiramisu for only $13. I mean, you can't pass that up) and that adam should not have long island iced teas when he hasn't eaten anything in a while. it was hilarious, a very memorable dinner for sure. that, and we had a new waitress and the guy training her was pretty funny too (it seemed like he was hitting on us, but who knows?). ah, so that was nice. after dinner, we had to take angel to the airport, and just outside my apartment complex, katie got into a tiny little accident unfortunately. the other car totally sped off, they were probably uninsured or something, so that put a bit of a damper on the evening. but we all got to the airport eventually and bid fareful to angel.
thursday morning katie and I managed to convince adam to drive us to ikea (since her car was sadly out of commission, making some kind of funny noise) so katie could get some christmas presents. after that, she left for the airport and I spent the rest of the day watching movies and taking a nap. friday I cleaned my apartment and packed for winter break.
and now I'm back here. tomorrow hopefully I'll get to hang out with marla for a bit and maybe do some shopping.

DONE!

i'm done! done! done! the semester is finally over. I thought this would never come. the last week has been absolutely horrendous, but somehow I survived. I am sooo looking forward to this break. I need it so badly. school is ridiculously stressful and it the semester was just getting crazier and crazier.

now I have a couple more days here in Arizona and then friday I fly out to los angeles for the week to do my christmas shopping and see my family. after christmas, I'm going to London for a week and a half (and hopefully Scotland for a couple days). then, I'll be back here to watch my mom run another marathon and then maybe San Diego for a few days before school starts again on january 18th. we'll see what happens. mostly, I'm just looking forward to sleeping in, reading some non-school books, and having some fun.

this is getting ridiculous

my professors are insane! there's no other explanation for it! I slept only two hours monday night and four hours tuesday night. I have another assignment due tomorrow (luckily not in the morning) and have to study all weekend for a midterm next tuesday. oh yes, you read that correctly, we have a midterm on the last day of class, with the final less than a week after that. hmm, interesting. argh! and yesterday, one of our professors made us come to an extra lecture, which he said would only be one hour but ended up being almost an hour and a half, making me almost late to my other class which I had to do a presentation in. our other professor has been consistently running about 15-20 minutes late after every class. soo annoying. it's like, it's not our fault you can't finish everything you were supposed to in the allotted time.

anyway, today is much better than yesterday since I actually slept last night and managed to do all of my laundry. yay for that.

in other news, ken jennings, the jeopardy god, finally lost on tuesday. and I couldn't watch it because I was at school being studious. argh. I have been trying to find the entire video clip online but I can only find the audio for final jeopardy (I love how the audience gasps. that's awesome). but anyway, it will be nice to see someone else winning on the show, even if he was amazing. it's also nice that a woman beat him. hehe. yay! and he will never forget h&r block again.

t minus two weeks till the end of the semester and the beginning of me regaining sanity.

happy thanksgiving!

happy thanksgiving everyone! I'm at home in los angeles for the rest of the week. I flew in very very early yesterday (my flight left at 6am pst - eww). yesterday, after taking a nap, I hung out with my mom for a bit and then just kind of did nothing the rest of the day. we went out to dinner and then watched west wing (supposedly my mom's favorite show which is weird because she slept through most of it and because she would probably never vote for president bartlett - but whatever. I would). I slept in a bit this morning, watched the end of the macy's thanksgiving parade and then got stuff ready to go to my aunt and uncle's house for the big dinner. almost everyone in the family was there which was nice, especially my little cousins whom I don't see very often and who are growing up so fast. my littlest cousin just started talking and walking. he's sooo cute! anyway, I spent most of the evening telling everyone how much school sucks and that I'm going to London after christmas and trying to avoid any conversations about politics (my family is predominantly republican and crazy). so it all went pretty well. I had lots and lots of food, didn't watch any football (yay) and had a pretty good time. now, full of turkey and triptophan, I am off for a long sleep, which I am very thankful for.

things I am thankful for: my friends and family and our health, really bad physics jokes, easy mac, my ipod, and rainy days when I'm stuck inside with a mug of hot chocolate.

another long week, but with a good ending

whoever thought of the semester system needs to be shot. I am exhausted. if I was still on quarters, I would be two weeks into my winter break by now. and it sucks even more because everyone else is used to this 15 week marathon. (but, me thinks that they wouldn't be able to handle winter and spring. muahaha). anyway, I can't wait for the thanksgiving holiday this week. tomorrow I will be up all night doing homework, but I will get to sleep on wednesday after my early morning flight to los angeles to my mom's house. then on thursday I can eat lots of food and sleep all day friday. and then maybe go shopping on saturday or something. then I can work on some more homework, sleep, do homework, and then come back here on monday evening. we'll see what really happens.

so, as for last week, I barely made it through. kept sleeping through my alarm in the morning (which hopefully I won't do tomorrow because I will still be awake) which is not so good. last sunday I was up until 9am and then the following night slept 12 hours, tuesday I slept 3 hours and then 12 on wednesday night. what a mess I am. I need a vacation.

friday was nice because I went to rubio's for dinner with adam and angel and then went to trader joe's which I hadn't been to since I left san diego. adam and angel were excited about it as well, so I think I'll be able to hitch a ride with them again to get more groceries from there. after that, adam and I went to see "finding neverland" starring johnny depp which was really good (and not just because johnny depp is amazing). so that was nice. after that, katie persuaded me to go to this spanish restaurant to go salsa dancing with her and alec and angel. we had lots of sangria and had lots of fun. we definitely want to go back sometime for some yummy tapas for dinner (when we actually have money).

saturday I spent the afternoon with my aunt who lives in phoenix and we took a trip to ikea (she hadn't been yet). so that was lots of fun. it was much more relaxed than the time I went last week (but not much less crowded). I ended up buying the dining room table that I was looking at last time (and cute red cushions for my chairs and a matching oven mitt. hehe). so that was fun. after that, katie and I went grocery shopping and I decided to have a couple people over for dinner to christen the new dining table. I made a nice pasta dinner, complete with caesar salad, garlic bread, and some red wine. katie also made brownies which capped off a lovely evening. I showed everyone how the magic table could double its size by folding and twisting the table top, which definitely impressed everyone. yay for ikea.



the dining table's inaugural dinner! alec, katie, angel, and adam were in attendance


another view of the lovely dinner I made (and another view of the magic table)

"it's getting better all the time"

what week it has been. I think today things are finally looking up again. I had a not-so-great weekend (except for a few isolated nice incidents). friday night was nice because alec had a bunch of the grad students over to his aunt's house and she made us a real dinner. it was really good. ever since a week and a half ago (around halloween) I have been having lots of trouble sleeping. I think I have some kind of insomnia or something. it's not good, whatever it is. I can only sleep about 4 hours a night, and even that is difficult to get all at once. I don't know what the problem is. even when I'm tired (like on sunday after my soccer game) it is difficult to fall asleep. anyway, so the weekend was pretty much spent trying to figure out how to be not tired any more, which meant a lot of reading and watching tv (and working on my research project of course). the soccer game on sunday went alright. we tired 0-0 which was a bit disappointing for me. our forwards are not working hard enough and just can't score. it's frustrating since I play defense and don't have much of a say about how many goals we score (just about how many the other team scores). anyway, I still couldn't sleep and therefore slept through my alarm on monday. luckily, because of veteran's day today, all of my sections to teach were cancelled this week, so I didn't miss anything (although I wouldn't have missed that, but whatever). monday night I still couldn't sleep to save my life. I think I got about 3 hours in between 4 and 7 am. tuesday night was almost worse. I was exhausted when I got and fell asleep at 9pm, which is basically unheard of in my world. unfortunately, when I woke up and looked at the clock, it was only 1am. I found stuff to do for a few more hours until I was sort of tired again and got a bit more sleep around 5am. I think I managed almost 8 hours that night, although it wasn't all at once. things started looking a bit better on wednesday because that was the day of the grand opening of the new ikea store here in tempe. I absolutely love ikea and was very excited about having one close by again. so, me and jen and angel went over there around 2pm and battled through the crowds (and the parking mess). it was pretty crowded, but not too horrible. unfortunately, jen and I had class at 4:40 so we kind of had to rush it in order to get back to school in time. we didn't really get to fully take in the wonderfulness of ikea, but at least we could say that we were there on opening day (and we got free ikea key chains that are also a measuring tape. hehe). after class, I came home and wasn't quite tired enough to sleep. so I watched some tv and then katie called and wanted to rent a movie. so, me, katie and angel rented eurotrip and watched it over at her house (after doing a small bit of impromptu grocery shopping). when I got home after that, I crashed on my bed and got a full seven hours of sleep. yay! I was so excited when I woke up this morning. well, that and the fact that katie wanted to go to ikea, so headed back there around noon. because we didn't have classes today and because our mechanics homework assignment got pushed back to monday, we had the whole day free to enjoy. so, we ended up spending about 4 and a half hours at ikea. the parking was absolutely horrendous. and it was even more crowded than yesterday. but we still managed to get a lot of good stuff (and big wish lists of what to get next time) and had lots of swedish meatballs. oh yum. today I finished the day off with soccer practice and some mint chocolate ice cream. things are definitely looking better. (oh, that and I am seriously considering going to london for a week after the semester ends. what do you think?)

wtf?

wow. so I guess the first thing to say is that I'm really depressed. although I guess I would say I'm not surprised or shocked by the outcome of the presidential election today, I really didn't think it would happen. I suppose that I overestimated the intelligence of the american people, but it's still not good whatever the reason. last night I was up until about 12:30, glued to cnn, hoping against hope that things would turn towards kerry. but of course, it got close, but just didn't make it. what surprised me, though, was how much bush won the popular vote by. actually, I guess I should scare, that's what scared me. because this means that his presidency and the last four years and all his mistakes and blunders and bad judgement have been validated. the world can no longer assume that it was just a fluke and we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into four years ago. but now we know and there's no excuse. if the world hated us before, I can only see it getting worse.

and not only did we re-elect the moron, but 11 states passed initiatives to ban same-sex marriage, many denying same-sex couples even a civil union. this depresses me too. some of them were passed with a huge majority. how is it possible that so many people are prejudiced and arrogant and homophobic? it just makes me sad. everyone should be allowed to have the same rights, no matter who they happen to spend their life with.

here's an interesting editorial that a friend sent to me: http://66.161.86.126/notes_from_editor.asp?id=8049

the other thing that I am really pissed about is what happened to me when I went to vote yesterday. I had to wait about an hour or so to vote, which wasn't so bad. I was expecting a wait, so that wasn't a big deal. however, when I got up to the table, my name was not on their list of registered voters. I registered to vote here in arizona well before the deadline. I have my receipt and everything, which I showed them. but, regardless, my name wasn't on the list, so I had to fill out a provisional ballot (which isn't such a huge deal or whatever because my vote doesn't really matter in arizona too much anyway). anyway, I was upset. and here's why: I registered on campus from some guy that had a table set up and had been registering people for a couple weeks or so. two of my friends also registered at the same time. neither of them put down a party preference when they registered. I did (as a democrat). both of them received their voter registration cards and sample ballots last week, about when we were expecting them. when they looked at them, they had been registered as republicans. I never received mine at all. although there is no conclusive evidence, it is extremely strange and suspicious. I'm sure I'm not the only one that this happened to, either.

our nation is definitely polarized. it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. and I don't know how to repair the damage. but I do know that there is no way that bush will be able to do it.

but yay for obama. I have a sliver of hope left.

insomnia

so it's 3am and I can't sleep. I don't know why. but it's really annoying. I only got about 4.5 hours of sleep last night due to me being up until 4am working on homework. sigh, isn't grad school wonderful? so, I was sure that tonight I would be super tired and be able to fall asleep at a normal hour (say, midnight). however, I am not tired and therefore cannot sleep. I tried watching tv since there was a west wing marathon on, but unforunately the episodes that were on at the time were the re-election ones so I started thinking more about election day (today now) and all that and so that didn't make me tired, just nervous. although I don't think that is the reason for me not being able to sleep. it might have something to do with james, but I doubt that as well, even though I miss him a lot, I have a better idea of when I will be seeing him again, so that is helpful (even if it is a few weeks later than we originally thought). it's not school stuff, since I don't have anything due this week (some kind of miracle occured. I think it has something to do with hell freezing over after the red sox won the world series). so, I really have no idea why I can't sleep and the fact that I don't know why is making me more unable to sleep I believe. le sigh. ok, maybe I'll try reading. that might help.

and for goodness sakes, don't forget to vote today! (and with your brain, preferably)

oh, and days 10 and 11 are posted on my travelogue (link to the left)