Over the past three days, I've spent a total of 14 hours on activities directly relating to the Kerry/Edwards campaign. I've committed to 9 hours on Election Day. So it should be clear that I'm pretty damn committed to regime change already.
Then, today, I stumbled across this. Apparently (and you should go read her full text) the writer of this blog had posted a rather uncomplimentary post about President Bush following one of the debates. A very ordinary, satirical, blowing-off-steam sort of post.
And then the Secret Service showed up at her door. It turns out some other LJer had reported her. She will have an FBI record for the rest of her life now. It's very likely she will be placed on the no-fly list. Sounds awfully reminiscent of 1984, the Nazis, or Communist East Germany. I know it sounds farfetched, but I think it's a legit, true story. Something about the author's tone tells me so.
With that said, I simply must urge all of you one more time to please vote on Election Day, and help us to remove this monster from office. The Patriot Act and other "counter-terrorism" measures have gone too far against us. We must act now or be stuck with continually worsening policies and continually retracting freedom.
This is your official warning that this very well may be the last post until after the election...things are picking up and I'm very busy with the campaign. Additionally, the gods of homework distribution have conspired to dump on me all at once. Grr. So here's your update in the meantime.
On Tuesday, I did laundry, and admittedly I was slow in getting down to take my first load out of the dryer and move my second load from the washer to the dryer. As many of you know, we share one washer and one dryer with the downstairs tenant, who we fondly refer to as "The Professor." You can probably see where this is going. When I got downstairs, the professor was there, putting his clothes into the washer. He had very considerately moved my dry clothes out of the dryer and piled them on top, and moved my wet clothes into the dryer on the same cycle I'd chosen before. Which means he handled my underwear. He handled my underwear! I cannot convey how much that wierds me out although I really think it shouldn't. I'm not usually touchy about stuff like that...but it's just wierd is all.
In other news, I'm signed up to work election day for the Kerry campaign. I'm going for training on Saturday night at 7. Yes, I realize that's Saturday night of Halloween weekend, but we all know I'm not that cool. I'm pretty excited about it, actually. I feel like Election Day can be some pivotal moment in my life. Actually, I'm sort of afraid it won't be, and it'll just be another sucky class project gone awry. We shall see.
I just fixed the links in my last post. Turns out named links aren't difficult, Blogger just rearranged the format/procedure for making them. The problem last time was I was trying to do it by typing out the html, and doing that makes it very easy to misplace a <.
In other news, Bush's hometown paper endorsed John Kerry for President, only to face threats of bodily harm and being run out of business. (Links via http://sisterstalk.tblog.com/.) Come on, people. This is an election. While it is easily the most important election of the past 25 years, it is still ONLY an election, and we're supposed to be a civilized nation. One of the truly distinctive characteristics of American government is that we have had 200+ years of regular, peaceful transfer of power. Right now we're behaving like a third-world dictatorship attempting a military coup, where it doesn't matter how we win, so long as we defeat the opposition. See also this Leonard Pitts article on the importance of the rules of the game, both in terms of the Constitution and election laws, but also the common rules of behavior we as a society have chosen to obey.
I overheard a classmate say to another as we left class one day, "The more political science classes I take, the less I want to be involved with politics. I mean, it's all so futile. We're never going to make a difference." I'm not quite so disheartened yet; I filled out my absentee ballot tonight and I'm going to volunteer at Kerry headquarters tomorrow. Even so, I understand what he meant. Honestly, I don't know if my vote will count. I don't know if my volunteer work will make a difference. I don't know if the extra time I spent researching the issues will matter once my vote is tossed in with everyone else's who haven't. And yet, I can't give up hope. Because if I do, then I may as well give up and move to Canada. We can do better than this. We owe it to ourselves to be better than this, to act like responsible citizens and not self-absorbed children. No offense intended to children.
I just got back from two solid hours of real, serious girl talk, and I can't express how enjoyable that was. I get a kick out of my camp buddies, and I love Chris, but I really needed a good dose of estrogen.
Plus, I am now delightfully full of tea and peach pie. I had 5 cups of tea, so I'll be peeing all night, but oh, it was worth it.
I just finished reading THE most hilarious rant EVER. I actually had to get up and close my door so I wouldn't wake up Kathleen two rooms away with my uncontrollable laughter.
To guys: it's about tampons, and you probably won't get the humor.
To girls: I guarantee you'll find it just as hilarious as I did.
(Thanks to http://mistressmatisse.blogspot.com for finding it.)
Hm. Blogger changed their hyperlink dialog box. Will attempt to do named links another time.
Right now Sarah and I are about to walk to QFC because she's craving a chef's salad and I think walking to the grocery store at midnight sounds like a lot of fun.
Yes, as you probably guessed from the time stamp and my track record, I ought to be writing a paper right now (and/or several hours ago.) Meh. This is more fun.
As seems to always be the case, I'm once again just ahead of the masses in getting in on the next cool thing:
(I'll be checking the seattleu account through December, because teachers still email me there, but over the next few weeks I'll be encouraging the rest of my peeps to start using the new account.)
Mmm...peeps. Too bad Easter's 6 months away.
UPDATE, October 20th, 11:37 pm: QFC has jack-o-lantern Peeps. But it's really not the same. It's gotta be the traditional chick--much better for biting the head off.
This was the big meet-the-grandparents weekend. First, I met my Grandma's new (as of late spring) gentleman friend. (No, I will not under any circumstances refer to my Grandma's "boyfriend". Once you pass a certain age, that word is just too silly.) The next day, Chris drove over and met that same Grandma of mine for the first time (he met the other set in August). We had a late lunch with her and my parents, talked for a while about weddings and all those frills, then drove on to his parents' house. I got to meet his grandparents who were visiting from California. As it turns out, I'd met this grandmother once before, and I'd simply assumed it was a different one this time around. I was really nervous about meeting them, particularly since this grandfather is convinced we're much too young to get married, but Chris's mom greeted us at the door with Strawberry Daiquiris, which helped to relax me.
Saturday night we went out to dinner at Black Angus to celebrate Chris's mom's birthday. We were supposed to go out to a Greek restaurant for lamb and Greek dancing, but we found out later it wasn't traditional Greek dancing, it was international disco. Not so cool. But Black Angus was good food, and it made two meals.
The weekend was supposed to be about the grandparents, but the really cool part of the weekend for me was realizing how much I like Chris's parents. It's a good thing that I do, since they'll be my in-laws soon, and I'm really happy about that.
On a much less sappy note, Chris and I went to see Team America: World Police, the new movie by the guys who made South Park. It's a movie acted entirely by marionettes about the War on Terror. As you may have heard, it very nearly got an NC-17 rating due to a scene of oral sex...between puppets without genitals. When you see it, you'll be amazed at what they were allowed to leave in. As you might expect, the movie makes fun of nearly everyone involved in this particular controversy, from Kim Jong Il to liberal Hollywood actors to Hans Blix, and new characters representing the US force against terrorism. It is probably the raunchiest movie I've seen since Jackass, and contains more swear words than I've heard in a movie since South Park. I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that I loved it. The last time I laughed so hard, so long, and so guiltily was at the first screening of PW: The Musical. (Don't ask.) My favorite bits: when two puppets get it on, and when Kim Jong Il's panthers are released. Also, listen for an awesome and hilarious soundtrack. I originally had the best song lines here, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for you. Just go see it. It's worth the $9, and I don't say that about many movies anymore.
My professor sent this out to us last night so we could better prepare for tomorrow's exam. I think it's about the funniest note I've ever gotten from a prof.
1) You will earn points for every relevant idea that you include in your answers. There is NO DEDUCTION for wrong guesses. Guess all you like. Wild guesses add humor to my task of grading,
2) On exams, there is NO GRADE for quality of writing. This is NOT AN ESSAY. Use fragmented sentences, abbreviations. That's okay. Don't fret about writing style; simply dump useful information on the page. If I can understand your meaning, that's all that matters.
And it was on the page exactly like that--no introduction, no good-luck sendoff, just the facts, ma'am, with a bit of colorful flourish.
It makes me feel a little better about the exam I'm taking in 20 minutes.
Last quarter, I took a class in expressive writing, by which the instructor meant personal essays. I despised and feared the class to a nearly unhealthy degree. I was excited for it but was so timid, so afraid the class was full of people superior to me, that I was utterly paralyzed by it. My writing was suddenly no longer of unimpeachable quality, which was both what I was after and what I never wanted to deal with. I wasn't comfortable, and I took to skipping classes to avoid having to submit my work to scrutiny.
To clarify, the students in the class were great and were always kind with my writing to the degree that was possible. And I do think my revision skills improved, to the degree that I'm willing to take my writing and dissect it coldly. But I hated going. I never got over the anxiety and the fear.
I've been trying to figure out how to process that experience, how to square that awful experience with whatever it is that keeps me blogging. I need to write, and I need to share, but I like the flexibility of blogging. I can be as formal or as informal as I want. I can write in whatever manner strikes me at the moment. I can revise a story if I like, or I can simply let words rush out of me in the truthful space before examination. And with blogging, I feel as if I'm giving something back to the community which gives me such personal inspiration. I feel I need to put something out, so that maybe one day I can be someone's role model or the bright spot in someone's day.
Mostly, though, I like the freedom to change my mind. Sure, I can go back and edit a post, but even better, I can just add a new one. I don't need to cover over the past to show a new side of me. I like that. So maybe someday I'll write some better-connected, more well-thought-out "Why I Blog" post, but even then this one can stand. I don't have to replace the early me with newer versions, unlike the real world.
I keep waiting to post until I have something jaw-droppingly brilliant to say or something intriguing to remark on. No luck so far in that category, so life goes on. Today's post shall be divided into two sections: one usual one consisting of the brief update on my comings and goings, and another part in which I shall pose questions that have come to me this past week.
School goes on very much as it always does. My classes are good, my teachers are good, and I am always at least slightly behind on the reading, but I feel confident I'll do well on exams anyway. I spent the weekend at Chris's apartment in Ellensburg. He played at the football game, I did a bunch of homework, but mostly we had a very laid-back weekend together, which was really nice.
Now on to the puzzling questions:
Why does the Jesuit residence building smell like relish? Twice last week I walked by it smelling the distinct aroma of sweet pickles.
One particular section of sidewalk on campus has buckled from the growth of a tree root underneath it. The landscaping staff keeps putting in new concrete to bridge the growing space between the broken sections, and in the most recent new addition, someone wrote in the wet cement with their finger, "BIRD LIVES". What can this possibly mean? Who is Bird, and why was his life in question? Perhaps BIRD is an underground organization, hiding from the FBI?
And because everything must always come in threes, why does Blogger keep changing the formatting on the poem in my last post? Is regular size, left-aligned type too hard to come by these days?
