33% of you prefer Dasani water.

hmm.

25% prefer Evian, 16% each for Deja Blu and Poland Spring. only 8% for Crystal Geyser.

I have to say, I drink store brand, because I buy bottled water at Costco and their brand is 35 bottles for like $6. there you go.

New poll....and you can tell by the ordering of choices where I live, can't you? how distressing...

microwaving in plastic can kill you

While talking with my mother yesterday I mentioned that I had microwaved my lunch (mashed potatoes, thanks to Karen!) in a plastic container. Mom proceeded to freak out and inform me that toxic chemicals migrate from the plastic into your food during microwaving. I was like (as any skeptical-not-that-much-older-than-teen-daughter would be...) "whatever."
So today I looked into it.
here is what I found out.

See for yourself.
you won't die, i promise. at least, not because of that.

In other news, I read today that the Lyric Opera of Chicago has had to make some changes to the schedule for 2003-2004 (for budget reasons--they want to maintain their beautifully balanced budget (now in its 15th year) through their 50th anniversary year). Instead of a wonderful, under-played Bizet opera, they are going to do....
...
...
...
...
...
(hold your breath)
...
...
...
(so you don't gasp and choke yourself)
...
...
...
...
Pirates of Penzance.

I know, I know...the Lyric!!! I'm shocked as well.
at least it will be good, even if it is a sellout.
oy.

I like small children.
particularly when i don't have to keep them.
:-)

I remember now why I don't have a tv.
because there is never anything on. At the house where I am staying, they have at&t broadband cable. hundreds of channels. is there anything on, ever? no. it was quite distressing, though, how i sat mindlessly watching for a couple of hours, thinking how there was nothing on and yet i was watching it. that, ladies and gentlemen, is why i do NOT have a television. because there's never anything on, but i'd watch it anyway. bad news.

anyway, that's all on that. i watched a bit of the macy's parade this morning, and was kind of sad i wasn't standing on broadway watching it myself. Then I saw the weather there--27 degrees! and was happy that I was sitting in a 70 degree house in a town where the outside temperature was high enough that I went out without a coat this morning (sweatshirt, yes, fleece, no...) to walk the dog. ha! take that, chicagoans! it's cold up there, and you've had snow, and you haven't seen the sun in ages...and here it's "cold" and it's in the upper 40's and it's sunny. yay! :-)

happy thanksgiving to all...remember why you are thankful (and not just because of all the stuff you have...because that makes this into yet another materialist holiday!) and remember those who are thankful with so much less....and eat some mashed potatoes. but leave some for me! yum yum yum....

Dogs.
I don't like them.
Housesitting.
I like it.
However, people who need housesitters generally have pets.
This holiday time, I am housesitting for a classmate.
She and her fam have a dog.
BUT: I love this dog. It is a husky, and I have never seen such a beautiful dog in my entire life. and so sweet!

no one is left at school: there are literally 6 upper campus (ie dorm) dwellers left. maybe 7--but the seventh is leaving soon. crazy!

I am trying to decide whether I should answer the phone here or not. I think probably not. I'm only here a couple of days, and no one has the number here so it clearly won't be for me...unless it was the people who live here, of course. hmm. the phone just rang and i ignored it. oh well!

harry potter--i am going to see it again right now. is that lame? crazy, probably. it is one LONG movie.

i think that's all for now. happy thanksgiving, everyone! I can't wait until some people come back to school...
lol.

ta

Bowling for Columbine. Very Good movie. I don't have anything to say about it right now because I'm still processing (I only just got back).
It's thanksgiving week, and down here everyone goes home for this holiday. Very odd, I think. There are only about 5 students left on campus for the holiday, and every few hours the numbers dwindle. We had 30-ish on campus this morning, and by tomorrow noon it will be 10...by thursday morning only the last 5. It's dead out there--everyone is gone, there's no class, the refectory is strangely quiet....

It's too much work to go all the way to my parent's house for thanksgiving. whatever.

I broke down and bought Cosmo, because mine was not forthcoming. Though technically, I didn't buy it. I asked a friend (who was going out to run errands anyway, supposedly) to pick it up for me. The funny part of the story is that the person asked was a guy...and I did in fact preface the request with "this is the biggest favor you'll ever be asked by a girl, and you can say no if you want..." It was very amusing. He had to buy beer to prove that he was manly while buying Cosmo--but it was so sweet of him to get it for me while I was in class! :-) thank you! you rock!

i guess that's all for now. I urge you all to see Bowling for Columbine if you get a chance. it's thoroughly thought-provoking.
I also suggest the James Bond movie. heheheheh!

I swear my archives disappear every other day. so annoying! ugh.

monday morning sing-along
monday, monday....i don't know the other words to this song....(if you do, continue singing)

Thula, thula ulalele (thula ulalele)

...

God of grace, and God of glory, on thy people pour thy power...

(it must be time for me to go to chapel now...)

Bond. good movie. it was a little long, and very action packed, and had some bad blue-screen moments, and the "double" entendre was less double than usual, but it was very worth the $6 spent on it. i was amused, i saw it with friends, which made it even more amusing. Overall it was actually quite good. I recommend it.

I went to a birthday party for our organist today, and it was good fun. I actually had a good time hanging out with crazy church music types. hehehehehehe! :-) And to top off the evening with Bond and some of the boyz was good fun. now, though, i've watched three movies in two days (HP yesterday, Trains Planes and Automobiles last night (which was very funny--i was definitely amused, which is the goal of a saturday evening really), and Bond today) so my back is sore. sadly.

I hope my Cosmo arrives tomorrow. I need that magazine before the holidays! :-)

I'm going to bed now. I have to be up in just over 6 hours. ugh. goodnight.

Harry Potter was quite good, but there were some noticeable changes from the book. Now, granted, I re-read the book this morning before going to the movie this afternoon, but still. It's rather important that Harry turn up at the Malfoy's in the floo powder incident, and that Riddle see the phoenix healing Harry's wound...but anyway, it was good fun. Afterwards we ate ice cream and chatted.
My evening was thoroughly enjoyable (perhaps one of the best parts of the day...), spent with Matt watching a movie in his room and chatting about everything and nothing. it was good fun, nice to relax, etc.

I realized today that Hebrew must be crowding English out of my brain. I couldn't come up with really normal words in mid-sentence, at least three or four times in the last two days. that's not good, not good at all. I learned all that GRE vocab for a reason! (oh wait, that was to take the gre...never mind then...) in any case, it's frustrating not to have the words you want at the moment you want them. oy.

i think i will not be in church tomorrow. i should really clean my room. ugh. tomorrow night is both a birthday party AND i'm going to the new Bond movie! woohoo! :-) Bond...James Bond...
yay!

the hebrew quiz today wasn't bad--it was almost all from the homework. big thanks to chris who did the homework with me! :-)
the ASO tonight was quite good--but with some issues that I can hardly believe other people didn't notice. i'm sure they did, and probably had conversations in cars very similar to ours.
i can't even recreate it for you, but basically it was about the soloist/conductor being together (or not...), the violin section, the tuning in some sections--each piece was carefully reviewed, movement by movement.

It was almost like I was back in musician-land, debriefing after a concert i'd just played.

i'm glad i don't do that anymore.

I love the assistant principal clarinet player. he's a good Eb player, and a Very Good principal player. There was only one thing that occasionally annoyed me about his playing, compared to his principal chair colleague, who does something new every time i hear her.

all in all, the concert was quite good. the people sitting behind us annoyed the crap out of all of us, but other than that...

i am going to see harry potter tomorrow after lunch. i must go now to finish re-reading the book. i'm halfway through.
goodbye!

yay for friday.

today is the last hebrew quiz. ever. only one vocab quiz, one "extra credit" project, and the final. and then it's over--until exegesis begins in february.

tonight i am going to the ASO...they are doing the Tchaikovsky DMajor violin concerto, Prokofieff fifth symphony, and a contemporary piece called "Blitz" by a very young composer. it premiered in fall of 1999 when the composer was 23 years old. i am currently 22 years old. hmm. however, i am reserving judgment on the piece until i hear it (though from reading the program notes about it on the web, it sounds shady...), so you may hear from me later tonight saying how fabulous he is even so young, or how he needs to spend some more time on his next work. lol.

my cosmo has still not arrived. this is very distressing to me. if it doesn't come today (which doesn't look promising, frankly), i am going to buy one. of course, that will result in the magazine immediately arriving monday morning. oy.

i am going to go memorize Isaiah 40.1-11 for Scripture Reading now. today is the last scripture reading class. the semester is nearly over! After Thanksgiving we only have one week of class, then finals! wow. so fast, yet so long.
anyway...ta.

It is three years ago today that Hillary went missing (and was most likely killed today as well...though she was found 14 days later). Nancy and Charlie and Charlie..I'm thinking of you.
peace.

Ok...so last week's hebrew quiz was less successful than i would have liked. however, it was (excessively) generously graded....but i still need to be better this week. to that end, i am doing homework prior to thursday night this week.
however, i am also supposed to be reading some Very Long thing for Reformed...and i do mean Very Long. I am at the library reading, actually, because i have re-learned something about myself:

I cannot do homework at home.

I get distracted. i clean, i play on the internet, i do other things, i talk on the phone, i read, i re-organize, i do nothing, i take naps, etc. In Chicago i used to go to restaurants, bars, bookstores, church, etc, to do homework--because i knew I didn't get work done at home. here, though, can't do that. nothing is close by, the public transportation is terrible, i don't have a car, and there aren't really many of those things around anyway. so i am trying, for the first time in my life, to study at the library. in undergrad i only went INSIDE the library about 10 times in four years, and 7 of those times were to make tapes for listening exams. the other three...umm..twice for my historical jesus research and once for my thesis research. of course, i return books in the bookdrop in the hallway (because that was on my way to class! LOL). so here i am trying to learn to study in the library. the thing is, it's very quiet, and i can't study in the part of the library where people can talk because i know those people. i need a degree of noise, but i need it to be coming from people i don't know and conversations i don't have even the slightest interest in. that's why restaurants, starbucks, bookstores, bars, etc are good places. but i'm trying--because i won't get any studying done at all if i don't learn to study here i don't think. i've been trying to do homework at home for the last 10 weeks, but i've realized that my time-management skills aren't so good. oy. too many naps. so there you go: me, at the library. I've spent more time in the library in the last two days than the first 10 weeks of school combined. heheheheh!

anyway, i'm done now. i should be reading about the sin of human pride. for 40 more pages. ugh.
ta.

Time spent "reading" for Reformed Theology: several hours.
Pages read: 12.
Percentage of "reading" time spent sleeping: 78.4

goodnight.

I love Oakhurst Church. it is such a great place.

ooh! very exciting news over at anna's. a new look! i'm impressed. nice work, anna and meg! :-)

Drop Dead Gorgeous: funny movie. heheheheh.

in case anyone is interested (or not, whatever) i updated my wishlist. yes, this was a shameless plug. I want a lot of books, ok?!? I like books. a lot. :-)

i'm going to bed now. and, believe it or not, i'm going to church tomorrow! woohoo! that puts me at several weeks in a row. i'm doing much better than in the beginning of the semester. much better.

goodnight.

wow.

yeah, so apparently walt disney was a scam. heheeh!

Last night's ASO concert was very good. They did a new piece commissioned for them called "Cityscapes", which is about Atlanta. They did the 4th of Rachmaninoff's piano concerti. They did the Pines of Rome (the reason I went to the concert). It was a good concert, and I was again impressed with the level of playing in the ensemble. I was disappointed in the clarinet solo in Pines because I thought the woman was tired and had some difficulty making it all work (at least at first)--but granted that is a HARD solo to play. HARD. So anyway, it was a good performance.
The audience, on the other hand. They need to learn to be a good deal more discerning and a good deal less southern. They gave a standing ovation for every piece! This is completely unnecessary. One should only stand when really thoroughly moved by the excessively magnificent quality of a performance. Otherwise, the standing ovation means nothing. The woman seated next to me was of a similar mind and we had a discussion about that.
Now, as for the offstage brass ensemble...they, of course, come onstage for the last few minutes of the Pines...one of the trumpet players was SO cute. wow. he didn't have a ring on...........which the woman next to me pointed out could simply mean that it was hard to play the trumpet with the ring on (whatever). hehehe! I didn't meet him or anything--the point is simply that he was cute. and they were very good. I love the Pines of Rome.
So anyway, that's all I have to say for now, I think. I have things to do this weekend that I need to get a move on. :-) ta.

today's favorite person, number 1
the woman at united airlines who was so helpful to me when i needed to change a ticket today and missed the free-change window by three minutes. she called around, worked hard, and hooked me up with a change to my flight for no charge. i love her! i told her she was my favorite person, she asked what she was getting for christmas! I told her anything she wanted, and i'd be more than happy to send a card! woohoo! that was great. i thought for sure i would have to pay $100, or cry, or both. but no! yay!

today's favorite person, number 2 (a VERY close second)
Christopher. he taught me hebrew today, which was excellent. it was humbling to me to literally have no idea what was going on, and very uplifting to know at least most of it when we left the library! yay! i hope he got something out of all that, because I know i did. Thank you! :-) you rock!

that's all for now. I need to be in bed. ta.

yeah, so hebrew is harder this week than usual. i don't like that at all. and i'm tired and want to take a nap until tomorrow. is that so bad? i have much OT reading to do, sadly, so no napping right now!

something bizarre has happened to my cursor, and now it has a little "flag" type thing on the top. it is very weird. I thought it would go away if i turned off my puter, but it didn't. well, when the puter was off obviously the cursor was gone too. but now that the puter is back on, the little flaggy-type-thingy is still there. i don't think i like it very much.

tonight's dinner doesn't sound very good. in fact, it sounds gross. i may need to go out. hehehe. the only thing about being here is that it's ice cream sundae bar night. mmmm.... maybe i stay for ice cream then go out for dinner. heheh!

why hasn't my new Cosmo come in the mail yet?

I was on hold at United Airlines for a long time today, but it was worth it. i missed the cut-off for free itinerary changes by less than 5 minutes...so the woman was super nice and worked out a way that i could change a flight and not get charged. it took some time (my whole nap time actually) but was totally worth it. woohoo!

i'm going to go see if anyone else wants to bail on dinner. catch y'all later....

it all happened in the fall of 1999....almost now, three years ago.

here's the story.

here's a short article about a portion of the sentencing that happened only last week.

ok. Dead Man Walking. this is a distressing movie, on so many fronts.

so, we'll start here: i do NOT agree with the death penalty. i don't think that killing people to prove that killing is wrong is a productive way to teach a lesson. hello, teaching by example? I also think that life in prison, locked away from other people forever, is a FAR greater punishment than death.

the movie was good, it was engaging, it was serious, it was worrying, it was all these things. it also reminded me of when my friend Hillary was abducted and murdered a couple of years ago. it was a very hard time, and i cannot even imagine what her parents felt. however, they were the ones who did NOT want the death penalty, in spite of the fact that the man had multiple offenses and was escaped (or paroled or something) when it all happened. however, he has been sentenced to death. he has also been sentenced to 72 years for without parole for the kidnapping and car theft. when i read that part i was very happy, but i'm sad that the death penalty has not yet been avoided. well, as happy as one can be given the fact that a friend, colleague, sister of a friend/babysitting charge, daughter of good friends had been missing for over two weeks before being found dead in a field. i found an article about the sentencing a few weeks ago. if i can find it again i'll post the link here.

in the meantime, i have much homework to do and some avoidance of sleep to engage in. i cannot even imagine the brutality depicted in the murders shown in that movie, or the stress of watching an execution. several of us literally covered our eyes when the needle was put in. ugh. so yeah, i'm avoiding bed for now because i don't want to see that again. and besides, i have homework to do.

i recommend the movie--it is certainly food for thought.

i think i should clarify the statement below. I missed one word, not i didn't get any words. sorry.

I couldn't remember one word on my hebrew vocab quiz. today was my first non-perfect grade on a vocab quiz this semester. ah, well, i guess total depravity has to kick in sometime.....

instead of studying tonight i am watching the movie Dead Man Walking on the big screen in the auditorium. this is very exciting, as i am studied out for right now. woohoo!

speaking of that, i should go...it starts in just a few minutes. ta.

tomorrow. or later tonight. i promise.

i'm back.

much much much later than expected, but i'm back.

more on that later. for now, good night.

I am leaving in 2.5 hours. I'll see y'all when I get back. :-) Have a fab weekend!

peace...

ok. the Old Testament paper is done. Not good, but done.
My laundry is done.
I haven't done any Hebrew homework for several days. oy.
I have not read anything for Reformed Theology tomorrow.
I am flying out of here tomorrow afternoon.
Tomorrow night I will be in Chicago. yay!

I guess technically it's today. But not really, because I haven't been to bed and woken up again.

BUT: fyi, i may not be posting again for a few days. we'll see how it goes. at the latest, Monday. at the earliest, tomorrow.

good night.

heheheheheh.

so i'm supposed to be writing a paper on Micah right now. Am I?

that would be a no.

what am I doing, you might (rightfully) ask.

that would be: nothing. I am wasting time on the internet. sound familiar?

by the way: would you people who "hate" my blog please leave comments or sign the guestbook or something? I mean, honestly. it's like you're just voting me down to vote yourselves up, and that's shady. whatever happened to criticism, especially constructive? do you expect anyone to have a blog you like if you don't tell them what you don't like? And really, do you think it hurts my feelings that you don't like reading about my life? if it did, bloghop wouldn't be on my page because my ego wouldn't be able to take it. so just tell me what you don't like. I'll read it, then decide whether or not to ignore it. :-)

i'm going to start reading for this paper now. class in 1.5 hours. (not the one where the paper is due, thankfully!)

I hate when my archives disappear.

Mendelssohn's Elijah at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert tonight was fantastic! woohoo! It was completely amazing. I loved it. :-) i went at literally the last minute...a friend came in and said "we have an extra ticket and we're leaving in ten minutes, do you want to come?" and I went. It was fabulous. Wow. yay!
I don't want to do anything now, just bask in the glow of a wonderful musical experience...yeah.

yeah, so i crammed the hebrew into my head in time for the quiz. woohoo!

i currently hate boys. just fyi. hopefully that won't last. ta.