I know i'm kinda late on this front, but i just downloaded Josh Grobin from napster today, and omg, its wonderful. i'm currently trying to type a lab report to it and everytime i get a little overworked about the fact that my experiment sucked, josh makes it all better.

for halloween i wore this sailor dress that we found at a thrift store downtown and was supposidly sailormoon, although i looked more like a 5 year old. you can judge for yourself.

But Aiko, susan and susanna went pretty far out. Aiko was a zebra, susanna and Ewok (like from star wars, i'm sure i spelled it wrong) I MEAN AN EWOK!! that is so cool

We never quite decided what susan was... whatever it was, it was pretty interesting.

We went to a school run halloween party, but as expected it was fairly lame and we left. But we came back to our room and eat food, tryed to hypnotise each other and eventually watched Love Actually.

Today was a typical sunday, trying to get a bunch of work done and enjoy a supposid weekend day. As soon as i finish some of this paper i'll head to bed. i hope everyone's as excited as i am about the upcoming break (17 more school days, oh yay!) Another form of god is in school vacations. The next two weeks look pretty intense, so if i drop off from the face of the earth i'm sorry. i just have a bagillion things to do-but i'll be around anyway because i can't stand not knowing everything that's going on anyway... but i'll probably be slakish on my own post. Muchos lovos

Laurel

I heart U2

Sad news: BF field hockey lost to burr & burton today 2:1, my parents went to watch. grrrr... i wanted to go see the finals!!!! now i'll just be stuck here doing work all weekend.

OED class was dull as expected, but Company rehersal was ok. i definitly need to practice but i think because of the e-mail he knew i was nervous so didn't make any comments other than helpful ones not directed at me:).

oh, and i lied, i think there are now 18 school days till vacation (1 midterm, 1 full lab report, a french test and one more major paper for OED to go!) almost there... and then the really exciting thing is that after vacation i have like two weeks of school, finals and another break! ok, have to go study for a bio quiz, hope you all are being busy little bees. i'll try to make a few calls this weekend so if they're any good times to ring you let me know, other wise i'll have to send you an email b/c my card looses 50 cents each time i try to call but no one answers!! talk to yous soon.

Laurel

OED, and other things that make me fall asleep

18 school days till vacation!!!

i have my oed class tommarow morning, which means snooze time. (did i tell you two people fell asleep in class last week! that's like 15% of the class) the professor, i've come to realize, enjoys listening to himself talk way to much. hence, even though it's a "seminar" in which we should be having "conversations" it's more like we say five words and he takes whatever we said turns it into his own idea and talks about it for 20 minutes, even if he has to repeat himself ten times to fill the time. he also has really strange ideas sometimes. like last week he told us how a few "isolate murders" are "really great" for property values in the area because it takes us off the list of really safe places to live that all the people from new york apparently read, so they don't want to move here. it was strange enough the first time he said it but he decided to reiterate the fact that "a few murders here and there can be good". then tuesday he talked about how the word rape has been changed to sexual harrasment in most legal contexts. this was emphasized by the reminising of how when he was a kid "you raped somebody", and "what is this 'sexual harrasment', it has no emotion behind it!"

he's recruited Erin, of "erin's weird and wonderful word of the day" that we're required to recieve in our email every day, to come to middlebury next tuesday. i believe she's an editor for the oxford english dictionary, which if you're my proffesseur, is a really cool thing. I'm currently finishing my third book about the OED, and have to start the fourth... aggg. after awhile you start to know all these meaningless characters. it's like my little OED family: James Murry, Furnivall, Dr. Jowett and all the others.. i never wanted to know them, they're just the insane family that won't leave.

have to be headed to bed, i didn't get a nap today, although i did manage to fall asleep and drool on one of the couches in the Center for the Arts while trying to read "caught in the web of words", not one of my shining moments.

Nighty night

It's snowing!!

a flutter, a flake, a drip, a drop and then finnaly kerplop! lots of snow. many people very excited, some not as much- stopping by to blame me and my state for the obvious control over the weather which has inflicted the cold.

aiko, susanna and i went out and had a snowball fight and made a very pretty snowman, who died, but was resurected with a slightly smaller head. Some boys in our hall decided to commeserate the event by going streaking in hats and mittens.

it's goin got suck getting to class tommarow, but until then, yay, snow!

numma numma

Go BF!!!

my friend, (from maryland) just burst into my room to exclaim "you mean to tell me people live in this state!" she just got back from a lovely outdoor cross country run, and the poor thing was slightly damp (ok soaked) from the sleet that is falling outdoors. i comforted her with the idea that snow is much more fun than sleet, and that most vermonters i know don't attempt to run outside in this weather.

orchestra was canceled today b/c the director was sick, but this just means i have to be nervous until friday, and now we only have like 4 rehearsals before the show and i can't even play the music, great. i think i'll email him to warn him that i suck.. that might be nice. it would at least alleviate the fear that this would be a suprise. sounds good. yeah, i sent one, but i think he's going to think i'm deranged. owell!

meh

(i know i'm giving sorta a funny look, but it's the only picture of me where you can tell i have green eyes instead of red bunnicula ones!)

hello peoples. good times here, just got back after break and all. lots of work, but all of it enjoyable. tommarow i start rehersals for company and i'm a little freaked out because i don't think i'm good enough do play the music and i'm afraid he'll be like "oh, fuck, she can't actually play" and as there's only one trumpet for the musical that would be kinda a problem... so until then i'll be attempting to supress vomit. but if it goes well it would be really fun to do, so i'm crossing my fingers that either i suprise myself and don't suck, or that other people suck just as much.
we had a lovely fire drill today while i was trying to take a shower.

other than that not much news.. usual-classes going fine, done with mid terms, it's really cold, they'res actually snow on the ground a little south of here. i should go work on stuff

sending big warm hugs to all!!!

Laurel

At Home

to update from wednesday i had my comp sci mid term which i think is the easiest test since ms. weddings' physics class. then bio lecture which was actually interesting because we've stopped talking about all the microlevel doodads and started talking about what most people could consider genetics. most interesting topic was the homunculus, little man believed to reside in body fluids who would be passed to the now impregnated woman and grow into a woman, although this was only a side topic to illustrate the point of how far we've come in genetics i spent the rest of the class imagining a little hunched over man swiming about, quite odd.

french was the last class before break, and then i spent the rest of the day goofing off. we watched and sung along to mulan and i packed up my stuff to go home.

susan (awesome roomate) dropped me off at home on her way to massachusets. she was also driving a few other people including someone she was dropping off at smith so they could visit their sister (just threw that in for leah's interest). they all commented that my road looked very 'vermonty' even though it was 9 at night and you couldn't really see anything.

My mom's in toronto at a concert, but my dad's here and timmy might be coming home for the weekend so so far i'm just chilling. Tommarow i plan to go visit leah. depending on when i leave northampton i'll try to make it to some d&d and other than that i'm just mosying about my house doing tons of laundry.

being home is so weird, i feel like i should go to school. it's just not right to be sitting at home at the end of october without any of you around!! we're definitly all doing somethingover thanksgiving- i have wednesday through sunday off, so friday or saturday (or both!) would be good, let me know when is good for people and we can have a little partay over here, or whatever people want to do.

muchos lovos,
Laurel

Pictures from Midd

Here's the culprit- cake with '18' artistically spelled out with candles- Aiko blowing out her candles, creating smoke that went right up to the next picture

here's the alarm going off, if you look close you can see the little red lights lite up

Aiko eats frosting off exhibit A, birthday candles while we try to enjoy the cake in the hall with siren wailing

napster, fire and noodles

discovered a couple days ago that my school has a napster initiative = free napster. this is deadly. you have unlimited access to way to much music and i now spend all my free time searching for different music, discovering i like alanis morisette and savage garden and generally getting no work done while sidetracking with dolly parton jams. you should all check to see if your school has this, i guess alot do and i had no idea. because though it requires more discipline which i apparently lack, it is awesomness.

my alarm clock has decided to stop working, so the past two days i've had to wake up of my own accord, discovered my body clock is set to 7:35, which isn't too great b/c i have to be at class at 8, and i tend to take little naps before i actually get up, like today when i got up at 7:55 in order to sprint to OED class. today somebody's word was callipygous, which means nice butt- leading to similiar words including the word for hairy butt and large butt. was altogether quite amusing as our teacher insisted on making sure we understood the prefix and suffixes as well as the pronunciation- so you see studying the oxford english dictionary and lexicography can be quite amusing.

ooh.. i just remember i forgot to tell all of the events of this weekend. Aiko, a friend who i believe i introduced to leah when she visited, had a birthday on sunday, so i spent all week gathering required bits to make a cake (pan, bowl, eggs which i had to bike to town to find in torrential rains, etc) and then i and a friend (susanna) suprised her with lit candles and singing happy birthday at her door. she posed for a few pictures for susanna, i'll try to get some up here later, and then blew out the candles- right below the smoke detector- now of course, being freshmen we kinda forgot the whole 'not supposed to have candles in dorms thing' and set off the fire alarm with the smoke. this was at around 1:30 am sunday, but thankfully only the alarm in aiko's room went off, and though it was sorta loud and could be heard throughout the hall, everyone was out underage drinking so we didn't wake anyone up.

we called public safety who sent over an officer, who at first seemed very distressed by our actions against the fire code. but she turned out to be very nice, and we gave her some cake, she took down our names and told us she wouldn't give us a citation if she didn't have too, but since she had to call other people to get them to shut off the alarm she might have to- that would just mean paying a $25 fine. But there were bonuses- everybody saw the fire alarm light blinking in the lobby which shows the room number and came to see who was smoking pot in their room, only to discover cake which we shared with all, and everyone wished aiko a happy birthday. We actually had good laughs and tried to abstain from laughing at the irony of it all while public safety was presant. also became very friendly with public safety person. susan (roommate) thinks it's pretty funny that everyone was out getting smashed while we attempted to throw a small innocent birthday party and got citations.

then yesterday someone burned Ramon noodles in the microwave and we had our first full dorm evacuation, though some people were watching a game on tv and decided to be hard core and continue watching it while the alarms were going off full blast, but they got fined, so don't try this.

interesting link, expecially liked the euphamism section: Wikipedia : Fuck
and of course along with that goes the Flash Video: usage of fuck

think of a title i could not

so homecoming was all it was expected to be, drunkeness, jubilee, etc. people were being total punks. today was actually pretty cool, with the short week and all i don't have much work for once and everyone seems in good spirits. their are even parties planned for tommarow night already. my roommate is giving me a ride home wednesday after dinner, should be exciting. i'm out of socks and down to 4 pairs of underwear, having decided last week that laundry could wait until i got home, so here's to interesting outfit choices for the last two days.

today we took an extended study break after lunch and decided to watch crappy tv, including some celebrity couple thing on vh1. my school, it turns out, has a napster initiative so i can download music for free (yipee) friend introduced us to what might be the stupidest song ever: dolly parton singing "me and andy", i'll have to let you guys listen to it sometime. since i had some extra time i decided to try to look into scheduling and what i wanted my major to be. i'm thinking psychology so i tried to plan it out, it appears impossible to actually take all the courses i need to in four years, so i guess i'm screwed. roommate and i stayed up till 12:30 just trying to figure out how not to have to take three science lab courses in a semester (eekk) . i'll write more later, but i should go to bed. sleep tight all, much love from midd

Laurel

Homecoming begins...

this weekend is homecoming, which apparently not only a lively sporting event, but also an occasion for everyone to get so smashed they don't care who they have liasons with and then pass out, go to the hospital and get their stomachs pumped. sounds like a blast. Williams is apparently our rival, so there are like a hundred sports games against williams and you can buy t-shirts with cows being roasted and such (apparently the williams mascot is a cow).

after wednesday work has come to a smashing halt, i just don't know where it all went. i mean i have a bunch of readings and some silly french but serioulsy don't feel as that's important, having all weekend to do it and vacation approaching. so yesterday i actually got to hang out with people on a school night!!! It was amazing. although techniqually thursdays are unofficial weekends here.

went into town this afternoon, found a really cool used bookshop. bought pride and prejudice with the A&E/bbc cover!!! so i totally have thee marc darcy staring back at me!!

thought to mull over: i think holidays are totally more special now that i'm in school. i mean i'm super looking forward to thanksgiving because i'll get to see everybody. usually it's just a dinner, but now it really feels like a 'gathering time'. anyways on that note we definitly all should do something over break, so just keep that in mind and when the time gets closer we'll talk more logistics (it's only a month away!)

what i'm reading: still havn't finished fahrenheit, but really want to read hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, and all the rest again along with pride and prejudice.. also bio text and "proffeseur and the madman" for OED class

what i'm watching: well last week i saw pirates of the caribean, which actually i really liked, even though i didn't remember liking it the first time i saw it, weird huh.

more pictures, just because they make me happy:

insanity

this weeks been crazy, leah came to vist sunday (hi leah!) and otherwise i've been doing tons of homework- 3 papers, a lab report, studying for french exam, etc, you get the point. that i had my concert on wednesday, which was really fun. my parents suprised me by coming to see it and giving me pretty flowers which are now residing in a nalgene bottle on my desk. I actually have very little homework tonight which seems really weird, but i have a couple lectures to go to and my bio lab starts in a few minutes so i have to run.

oh yesterday saw a french film for class called "l'auberge espagnol" i highly recommend it. it's 2003, so not old stuffy frenchish, but good- will post more info later

Later:
Here's a link to l'auberge expagnol http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283900/
Thanks to sam for the link to WOOL FM: here it is, i'll add it to my links on the site too so it'll always be availble! :http://www.wool.fm/listen.html remember mondays at 4:30ish-6! ok i have to run to dinner. hope all is well, i heard about the crazy flooding, and how channel 56 actually showed up with a crew, nifty. we have lots of drizzle up here, but no flooding.

squirell

was just introduced to this excellent flash video- enjoy: http://www.frashii.com/Weeee.swf

this one's even better: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end.php

and those of you on vacation, make sure you listen to divis's radio show on monday, i think it starts at 4:30 ish goes till around 6, if he still has it, on WOOL

for my OED class i'm signed up for all these "word-a-day" mailing lists- and i have discovered that myles has is Leptodactylous. meaning having fine, slender digits. it's supposed to be a compliment. so there's my compliment for the day. i havn't told you guys my harry pottor quote of the day in awhile and yesterday's was really good:

"Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty."
– Peeves

just got back from rubix cube thing which was pretty cool! did you know the national rubix cube champion is a graduate of middlebury. just think of what great things i have in store.

here are some pictures just for fun:

This one's currently my background (above).

Hippie myles!!

It's friday, the beautiful sun is gone, but it's still lovely out. Yesterday while "writing my french paper" someone introduced me to this really cool thing called google Earth: earth.google.com and i became slightly obsessed. i mean this thing is really cool. also have a million lectures to go to today. in 10 minutes i'm going to a bio lect. and this afternoon there's a lecture by, well here's the email:
Art and Politics under the Habsburgs 1450-1650
by
Archduke Dr. Géza von Habsburg
4:30 p.m., Friday, October 7, 2005
Johnson 304
Dr. von Habsburg is a renowned art historian and curator. He is also the grandson of King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony and great-great grandson of Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria. Born in Budapest in 1940 and fluent in seven languages, von Habsburg attended universities in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, before earning his doctorate in the history of art and archeology from the University of Fribourg in 1965. He has served as the Chairman of European Operations for the international auction house Christie, Manson, and Woods, and as Chairman and Principal Auctioneer for Habsburg International Auctioneers. An expert on Fabergé, he has curated five internationally acclaimed Fabergé exhibitions and has authored numerous books and articles. Dr. von Habsburg is also a frequent lecturer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on topics ranging from "The Habsburgs as Patrons of the Arts" to "Celebrated Habsburg Women" and other family lore.
Sponsored by the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs and Atwater Commons

so pretty much that's really cool, although i don't know how into faberge i am, but come on he's like related to Franz-Joseph! so me and some friends are going to check it out. and there's this thing by the guys who invented the robot that solves the rubix cube. so that should be awesome. hope you guys have fun at d+d, i'll add some pics to this blog later when i have time

much love!

listen here, Fyedka *two finger push*

Heart, don't fail me now
Courage, don't desert me
Don't turn back now that we're here
People always say
Life is full of choices
No one ever mentions fear
Or how the road can seem so long
Or how the world can seem so vast
Courage see me through
Heart i'm trusting you
On this journey...to the past

Ok, the end bit (the past) doesn't make anysense. but the rest is fairly relevant to current attitued. I am certainly at a precipice, i like that word, not of a cliff or anything (i'm not suicidal yet) but more of a brink of forecoming experience. I was sitting in my hall trying to study more bio, after already dedicatingover 5 hours to the subject today, and remarking with a passerby that it seems the only freetime we have is when we're distracted. so in that spirit i later had this song from anastasia pop into my head. i actually couldn't remember any of the lyrics so i was just humming it and appreciating the acoustics in the building. then i, on a longer train of distraction, looked them up online. I mean the lyrics in the light hearted bouncyness of russian princesses and little puppys playing with scarves (if you've ever seen it you'd understand).

on another note, i can't believe it's fall! there are actually leaves falling off trees and changing colors and such. i guess i really thought the world had stopped turning after high school because it really took me by suprise, even though it's october.

I feel like i've been at school forever! but kinda in a good way. weeks go by much faster now that i'm used to the routine. my orchestra concert is next wednesday!

More Russian references:

I have pictures!!!

Parents came up on sunday for family weekend so i used my dad's camera to get some pictures. i'll show them in a sec but first a wrap up of past 3 (or 4?) days. Friday- not much watched fight club in the common room, developed this stupid cold. Saturday woke up late and had to march over to proctor for barbaque lunch because it's parents weekend and they shut all the dining halls. was worth it though as i got to nick a few peace pops which are stashed in my mini-fridge. saturday night i got to deal for Casino Night over at Mccoulough (that's so not how you spell that). I did blackjack, am now pretty good. sunday, i had jazz band in the morning only to discover that i'm atrocious at reading music-but i think i'll stick with it anyway. also, as i said the parental units were here. ok enough blather here are the pictures







My room, looking over the foot of my bed














room again
i think my laptop is playing come what may










the collage of pictures over my desk










i'll post others later, have to actually get some work done i guess.