I just booked my tickets to Ecuador. I will be there for 84 days. As I understand it, I have an arrangement for housing but not for food. I think I have enough money to cover me. Oh well.

I hope that I can be useful for them. Eighty-four days is suddenly seeming like a whole lot. Oh well. Adventure time.

Mateo is graduating tomorrow. That means I have to get up at like seven, ew, and go down to Pennsylvania with the fam to watch, then we're having a big old party at his girlfriend's house. Woot!

But: that is going to be me in exactly one year from now, and its freaking my shit. I feel old.

Did you post this a little a while ago? I can't remember who first showed it to me. If you haven't seen, it might give you a giggle or a chuckle or whatever.

Why is there a democratic deficit in the Middle East and North Africa and what could be done about it, and what forms could democracy take in those countries?


Don't ask me.

Ask the 22 word paper that just devoured the last 12 hours of my life.

But I am done. Dooooooooone. No more finals, no more papers, no more reading-that-I-have-to-but-don't-want-to-do, no more ANYTHING.*




*except I totally have to proofread it before I submit it tomorrow. And I need to pack my room because I'm going home tomorrow.

But yeah.

Woop woop.

I have my final exam tomorrow in my class Arms and Global Security. This class has been the bane of my semester because it is, honestly, boring as shit. I'm staring blankly at the study guide she gave us. I don't really see how I can study. I either know this stuff, or if I don't, I won't know it by tomorrow morning at 11:00. I think I do know it, or at least enough of it. I'm getting a B in this class anyway, I'm pretty sure.

I should probably prioritize and start working on my research paper for Modern Middle East instead.

Oh, and I totally had my way with the MME test this morning. Rawr.

I am currently waiting for one Mario Brito to come back to our Skype conversation... slightly nervous...

( Meme )

Hurry Up Mr. Ecuador Man!

I am really looking forward to having my own apartment next year. I should probably learn/practice cooking some things. I won't be having a meal plan, and as much as Sarah is a mom, I'd like to pull my weight.

I have three exams, one presentation, and one ten page paper to write before I am DONE. I do NOT want to be studying for the test I have tomorrow; memorizing random stuff about art is not fun for me.

I'm going to the beach on the 17th. Hopefully Megan/SC girl will be joining. That would be nice.

I figured out something about myself. The only time when I freak out is when I think something is going to go one way for me, and it ends up doing a complete 180. I apparently can't handle that. Good to know.

I would like to learn to fly a helicopter. I would also like a tattoo.

I just finished two papers, including an eight pager in Spanish, so I'm rewarding myself with a meme.

Oh hai long time no post.

Erm. Less than two weeks of school left. What do we have? Three finals, one small presentation and four papers to write. Execute me now. After that it's (probably) dicking around for a month, going to Mateo's graduation, maybe going to the beach in South Carolina, hopefully seeing Megan, buying a plane ticket, and peacing out for the summer to Ecuador. I just need to know that I'm not going to have to spend all of the money that I really, really don't have on putting myself up there, especially since I'm perfectly content to work, doing whatever they ask, for free for three months.

In the meantime, I'm sure you'll all be glad to know that I maintain my consistency in being seriously attracted only to women who are either crazy, emotional disasters, or are carrying heavy baggage. :D

I also need to figure out what to do with my virgin. Don't want to throw her out. Don't really want to leave her at the "mercy" of Buildings and Grounds again.

Maybe I have a dark sense of humour, but...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7361414.stm

Pablo apparently is starting to share my sense of humour.

Which is why he sends me stuff like this, I guess. :D

I went for a walk last night with a somebody, and as she had just finished an stress inducing assignment for one of her classes, she wanted to walk off campus. It so happens that it was garbage night, so everybody's trash was out on the street waiting for this morning's pick up. They were also running around running the fire hydrants. That part's not really relevant, but I thought it was fun. Anyway, the second coolest thing that I saw was that somebody had these bright pink garbage bags. The first coolest thing was the three-foot plastic Virgin Mary with a slightly damaged hand that somebody had put out for collection. Even through my religious tribulations, I've always had a soft spot for th V.M., so what else could I do but rescue her from being crushed into the back of a big smelly truck? Wouldn't you do the same?

Of course, I didn't have really anything to do with her, so I figured I would go with the old college standby of putting shit on a roof. For those of you who go to school here, it's the awning at the quad entrance to Malicky. For those who don't, it's a jutting out ledge thingy, the top of which is maybe about ten feet off the ground. Through a rather difficult and painful climbing procedure (of which I am rather proud) I managed to situate myself up on the ledge, where my companion (after the mild conniption that she had at my acrobatics) passed up my "statue."

Ms. Mary looked quite good sitting on the corner up there, if I do say so myself. It was actually pretty aesthetically pleasing, you couldn't even tell that she was ugly chipping plastic from the ground. Unfortunately, I got a text message in my first class this morning from a friend "they just took it down! Virgin. No!"

Apparently when it comes to removing plastic virgins on roofs, Buildings and grounds is pretty efficient. My favourite part is that they used a crane thingy with an extending platform to get it down (a ladder would have sufficed...). Then they chucked her in a dumpster. How barbaric. I rescued her shortly thereafter, and she's standing in my room at the moment. In addition to her missing hand, her head is now significantly bashed in, but by some miracle (...) her face is still quite intact.

She might go back up tonight. I don't know if B&G works on weekends... Though I doubt she'll survive another fall into the dumpster. We'll see.

If anybody is going to/by Malicky tomorrow (today?) throw a look up at the entrance awning.

Which is fun, since I don't actually like it black.

Best facebook wall post I have ever received:

p.s.
I think I may have gone out with a furry at one point...
but there was no yiffing, I swear



*snicker*

I swear to God, if I have to explain to one more person why Sam isn't talking to me, I'll freak out. Seems only fair that he can explain to some of our many, many mutual friends why he's being a child. Whatever. Maybe I'll just write up a summary and distribute it en masse. The whole thing is very juvenile and is pissing me off.

Good news on the Ecuador front: My dad's friend Mauricio put me in direct contact with Mario Brito, the guy in charge of FEDETA in Ecuador, and I've exchanged a couple of emails with him, as well as spoken with Mauricio on Skype. It looks like I'll be heading down there sometime around the end of May. In mid May I'm probably going to South Carolina with Mateo. He said that Megan can come, and I think she's going to. Of course, if we find a significantly cheaper ticket to Ecuador that interferes with that, then that will preclude the beach trip.

I need to get the details sorted out quickly so I can buy a ticket. I told them that I don't need to be paid, I'm happy to volunteer, but if they could provide me with a bed and some food for the summer, that would be pretty groovy. I don't know exactly what I would be doing, but Mauricio today told me that one of the things they might put me to would be translating some of their literature and website stuff into English, which I can totally do. (Just don't ask me to translate back into Spanish. Then we'd run into problems.)

At any rate, they sound super welcoming, and this Brito fellow told me not to worry about not having any expertise in the sort of the thing that they do, "Siempre hay algo para hacer." There is always something to do. I'm stoked.

I'm about done with school though. Fuuuuck this shit. I've been bored with it all semester, I think, and now, three weeks out, I'm just ready to be done with classes and getting on with other stuff. (With the exception of my Modern Middle East class, which is AWESOME.) We did have really nice weather all week, spent lots of time reading/napping in the sun, but now it's like 45 degrees F with intermittent rain. Boo.

Right now I'm in Berea with shitty weather. In under two months I should be here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quito,_Ecuador Baller.

I'm listening to a song on Pandora by los Enanitos Verdes, something about "Tu Carcel" (your jail cell), but some of the melody and guitar licks sounds exactly like a Kinks song that I can't place.

I also suspect that I am being hit upon via facebook by a rather ambiguous young lad who goes here. It's pretty funny. His Spanish is not-so-great.

I have a question for the resident Scottish fashion style expert: are capris on men ever ok?

My visceral reaction is an emphatic "no." I've only actually seen the phenomenon on two people, on of them an classmate of mine this morning, and it really wasn't pleasant.

It just seems to me the sort of thing that should never see the light of day. At any rate, I'm not about to go decking myself in them: I hate my legs; I avoid shorts.

I'm well aware that Kieth Olbermann has been more or less pleasuring himself over Obama for quite a while, but even ignoring his and the professor's commentary, how the hell is this sort of thing even remotely acceptable?

I do find it kind of funny the parallels that they then proceed to draw between the two part-black people in question.

Not only does it burn calories, but it saves the rain forest. Good enough for me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7335925.stm

It's approximately impossible to mend a friendship when only one of the parties wants to.