To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

Life Stuff:
Grrr, argh, knees. Obviously the exercises are going to have to be resumed every six months or so. Hopefully this will not last for the rest of my life.

My repainted dresser is done! It's preeeeetty. I'll get a picture up here once the varnish dries completely and I can close the drawers.

My job search, on the other hand, is not pretty. It is quite ugly at the moment, in fact. All I can seem to find in town are things like door-to-door sales, which...if I were interested in marketing, maybe, but I'm not, so no. I did apply for an editorial assistant job that I really want, and I have an application for a library and/or state archives peon job (they claim not to be hiring right now, but they keep resumes on file, so...) done and waiting to be turned in, but beyond that... *sigh* I did find a nifty site full of job listings for freelance writers and artists/graphic designers/photographers, but it seems intent on not letting me register so I can do something about it. Grrr, argh.

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Who Stuff:
So I listened to "...Ish," and found that Peri has possibly the most annoying voice in all of creation. Honestly, I think she does. It's squeaky and whiny and has a not-at-all-right American accent. I mean, I've heard worse ones, but owwwwwww. This hurts. It hurts my soul.

On the other hand, after listening to "Winter for the Adept," I think both Sarah Sutton's voice and her interpretation of the the character have improved tremendously in the past twenty years. Nyssa doesn't constantly sound sort of dazed and high.

I also watched the DVD of "Earthshock" with the commentary turned on. HEE! They're all so funny. Well, with the exception of poor Matthew Waterhouse, who didn't say much. Janet Fielding especially was cracking me up with her "self-elected fashion correspondant" stuff. And they all seemed to agree with my interpretation of the Tegan/Doctor reunion and ready-to-take-a-bullet-for-her scenes. "That's verging on hanky-panky in the TARDIS, isn't it?" Heh.

Something else they all said was really interesting: I hadn't noticed it before, but when it's pointed out, you can really see that every scene was blocked like the camera was the audience in a theatre. In big group shots, they're all standing exactly in the gaps left by other people, so you can see everyone. And they talk towards the camera, not towards other characters (actually, sort of halfway between the camera and the character standing beside them). I wonder if that's not one of the biggest reasons it looks so different from New Who, or anything much past its time, really.

asinpterodactyl, I think you will especially enjoy this given that you were also in my Linguistics class, but anyone who likes things such as Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue might very well enjoy a lovely book called Language Visible, by David Sacks. It's the history of each of the twenty-six letters in the English alphabet. It contains such information as why we have two versions of lowercase "a" and "g" (and also where the terms "uppercase" and "lowercase" come from), why we have "c" and "q" when just "k," "s," and "kw" could perform all of the same functions with less confusion (hint: blame the Etruscans, and then the Norman French), and all kinds of other fun facts.

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In other news, I put the finishing touches on glaze for my new dresser today. (My old one has enough room for a kindergartener to comfortably store stuff. To say I've outgrown it would be understating the case.) It has a white undercoat with a greyish-blue glaze over it which, when applied with a rag, makes an attractive "weathered" look. The glaze recommends that you wait a week, then put a protective finish on it, so we'll do that, then put some pretty porcelain knobs on it. I've wanted a piece of furniture like this for years, and now I finally have it. Woo!

It still hasn't quite sunk in that I am not a student anymore. I've been attached to some school or other since I was five years old. Ack.

( Commencement (with pictures!) )

Thanks to all of you who offered congratulations; I'll try to respond individually once I unpack enough to at least have a bed to sleep on, and possibly a floor to walk on. :)

I was right. Today does hurt. *pokes sore shoulders*

Today hurts more because Senior Week hates me. As I was walking down to the FRA for "graduation rehearsal" (aka a verbal description of events), I ended up falling on the sidewalk and cracking both my bum and my head. A security officer happened to be there, so of course it became a much bigger production than it needed to be, with bags of ice, an athletic trainer coming by and emulating Janet Fraser with a penlight I had to stare into and follow, etc. etc. Obviously, I need to do this kind of thing when other people are around. The previous two times I've fallen in the exact same way and injured myself in the same manner (on ice, those times) on campus, I got none of this. *g*

I swear, the back of my head must be made of iron.

Now, if I can just keep myself in one piece for graduation, that would be good...

So. Senior week. It's been raining steadily since last Thursday. That's...kind of it.

It was sort of nice for a bit Sunday afternoon, so I climbed the BFEC hill, finally. It was a bit less interesting than I thought it would be, although I'm glad I did it and can now check it off my list.

I have a few pictures from the three-hour walk Kate, Peter and I took yesterday, setting foot in every building on campus any one of us had yet to visit. That was fun, if wet. I had no idea Leonard had such nice lounges on the fourth floor.

I finally ordered food from Middle Ground (the cafe) today. It only took three years. Er, yes. (Well, two, technically, since I was 4,000 miles away all of last year. Whatever.) I went there much more often in freshman year when it was still the Red Door, I have to say. But the wrap I had was pretty good, and the salad had the most amazing sweet garlic dressing. Yum. I need to find a suitable replacement at Kroger sometime. Also, vegetables for the first time since Friday, yay! The senior week meals seem a bit lacking in the vegetable department. Ah, well. After lunch, I came home and packed a bit. Bah, packing.

Wow, that all sounds horribly boring. Uh, canoeing tomorrow! Whee! Well, if it's not raining. If it's pouring when I wake up, I reserve the right to roll over and go back to sleep. (I've been doing a lot of that this week. That and listening to DW audios. I finished Zagreus and listened to my favorite parts of Scherzo for the eleventy-first time yesterday, and got through The Creed of the Kromon and three of the four parts of The Natural History of Fear today. It's good for packing to.)

ETA: Grades are up, and I...made an A+ in Mongols. I have no idea how. The second essay of my final was an abomination. Whatever; I won't argue! I got an A+ in Choir, for obvious reasons, and A's in Fiction and Practice & Theory, which I pretty much expected. This year has been awesome, gradewise. My final average is 3.76, which means I graduate magna cum laude. Eeeexcellent.

I just realized this morning why RTD chose to have the Doctor play the particular song he does at the beginning of "Tooth and Claw."

It's good to be a lunatic...

I R idiot. Do I get an award? (In my defense, I didn't actually understand the lyrics when I watched the episode; I had to see it written out somewhere online before I realized what he was singing.)

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Ah, Summer Sendoff, the 48-hour party. It's interesting living South during Sendoff. On the one hand, broken beer bottles and having to take the long way to Peirce to avoid the Frisbee games. On the other hand, it does give me some genuine happiness to see everyone out in the quad enjoying the warm weather: cooking out, sunning themselves, beginning to drink themselves into a stupor even at 10 in the morning, and generally chilling out before the home stretch that is finals.

And even if it's in service of idiocy, you have to admire the ingenuity of some of the drinking games people can come up with. The rely race involving Frisbees going on outside one of the other apartment buildings is a fairly complex method of getting smashed, really.

Of course, I can smile benevolently upon all of this because Old Kenyon eats 75% of the noise from the quad, and what the building doesn't absorb, the downhill slope to my apartment does. Even the massive noise that'll be coming from the Sendoff stage tonight will probably be mostly caught by these things. If I could hear everything going on outside, I would be considerably less sanguine about this whole weekend.

Plus, cotton candy, ice cream sundaes, and watching/listening to Whitney in Potato Famine tonight, hopefully all that the same time. And all of it free! Well, okay, it's actually from the student activities fee they charge at the beginning of the year, but whatever. *shrug*

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Still kind of dying, but not as badly. I may actually get around to answering comments/e-mails today after I make the necessary revisions to my P&T paper.

It would be wrong to just read the half- or one-page prose "Argument" (aka "summary") Milton put at the beginning of each book of Paradise Lost and skip the actual poem bits. Despite how very tempting it is, it would be wrong, especially since I'm partway through Book 9 at this point anyway, and only have three and a half more to go.

But oh, God, it's tempting.

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Inspired by a post from asinpterodactyl, I picked up Mairelon the Magician and Magician's Ward, both by Patricia C. Wrede, from the library today when I was there on another futile search for newspaper articles relating to my P&T paper topic. I read the second of those books a few years ago, but never quite twigged that it was a sequel, or never bothered to get the first book, or something. Anyway, they're highly entertaining, particularly since I know the ending of the second book, and it's adorable.

I realized about fifty pages in that Mairelon and Kim could easily be the Doctor and Rose in an AU (or vice-versa, of course). The characters and relationship between them are remarkably similar. David Tennant is absolutely my mental version of Mairelon. Kim is less like Rose/Billie--she owes more to Eliza Doolittle than anything--but it still works. Hooray for cuteness!

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I got more of my hair chopped off yesterday than I'd really planned. It's at least as short, possibly shorter, than it was when I came back from Thanksgiving sophomore year. It's not a bad haircut--it's very spring-like--but is a bit irritating in that the sides won't stay tucked behind my ears very well. It'll be about a month before they grow the quarter-inch or so necessary for that to work. Until then, I suppose I should invest in barettes. Hmph.

I managed to floor the lady who cut my hair when I told her I was about to graduate from college. She'd thought I was fifteen, sixteen at the most, and on break from high school. Oil of Olay really ought to hire me for their ad campaigns.

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I got purple shoes today. Well, grey and purple, but whatever. Yay purple! Also a skirt that's plum, rust, and gold, which I love, but cannot find a top to go with. But I'd been eyeing it every time I went into Kohl's for the better part of a year, and it was $7, so... Maybe tomorrow I can find something at another store.

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Hey, here's an icon that fits pretty much all the topics of this post in various ways... (Ask me why and you'll get a long reply on the glory that is Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series. C'mon, you know you wanna.)

Squee! TWoP is doing Doctor Who recaps when it starts airing on Sci-Fi in two weeks! Score! *dances around*

I'm home now, BTW. My flight was delayed last night by more than an hour, but when the ticket says you reach your destination five minutes after you leave, I suppose I can't complain. *is eternally amused by the conjunction of time zones and air travel* I even got most of PL Book VI read on the plane, which means I only have three pages to read today, in addition to catching myself up on Persuasion so I can, theoretically, finish it this week. (I swear, if there is one comps book I don't finish, that one's gonna be it. DIE, JANE AUSTEN, DIE.)

Ice skating today was...interesting. I nearly killed a couple little kids who fell down in front of me. I couldn't stop in time, so instead of skating into them, I was nice enough to fall down backwards instead. I better get some karma points out of that, man.

Then Meg caused me to fall down twice more by spinning me around and around unexpectedly. Ow. I was already feeling the whole afternoon in my butt and thighs by dinner; I can't imagine what tomorrow will be like. Painful, I'm sure. Ballroom tomorrow night will be interesting. In less humiliating news, I did figure out how to do one of those split-second turns where you're facing forward one minute and then are backwards the next. Not at speed, mind you, but even stationary is good, I suppose. :)

Fiesta food was, as always, wonderful. Mmmm, Fiesta.

Fandango was actually a lot classier than I thought it was going to be. (Fandango is an annual event wherein seniors and professors get together and party. The main attraction is generally the free booze.) Everyone was all dressed up, they had these amazing strawberries dipped in milk and white chocolate to look like little tuxedos, not to mention other food, and one of the professors is in a jazz band, and they were playing (loudly) some pretty decent swing and hustle stuff. Peter, you should've stayed longer! Meg and I danced a fair bit, and I bopped around by myself for a while. There weren't very many professors there, though; the only ones I knew who I ran into were Doc and my Fiction professor. Most of the English department seemed to be boycotting for some reason. Alas. I wanted to ask Matz to dance. *g*

I ended up playing a vicious round of air hockey with Meg in the game room next door (I lost 14-22, I believe; today is not my day for ice-related activities, apparently) before coming back to the flat. While I was walking back, I passed by one of the Kokes (I think) doing a countertenor rendition of "Loch Lomond" on Middle Path, which seemed the perfect end to things.

Ah, Kenyon. I will miss you.

You know it's dry when you get shocked on a lamp and you actually burn yourself. I have a little brown burn mark on the tip of my right index finger, and it's still tingling and achy more than an hour later. Gah. I'm hiding away in my room with my humidifier turned on full blast now, thank you...

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I realized I never commented on Sci-Fi Friday. I think that's because fourteenlines did a fantastic post on the BSG ep that is way more interesting than any of my reactions could be. I'll just say that I thought the way they handled That Issue was brilliant, and connecting it to What Baltar Does was absolutely fabulous.

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I'm getting ridiculously excited about the upcoming "Idiot's Lantern" ep of DW. Apparently there will be Jive done onscreen. If it's done right--and, this being done in England it may very well be, unlike the Swing done to...I don't know what meter it was, but it wasn't the right one...on Cupid--that will be glorious.

When does S2 start again? Sometime next month? *hopes*

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Back to beating my ballroom story into submission. It's either much better than I think it is or much, much worse. I have a sinking suspicion that it is very much the latter. :(