i'm just saying.

i know i'm probably going to catch hell for saying this, but eh. here goes:

for years, i have hated hated hated starbucks. with a passion, and on a matter of principle.my reasons for not liking starbucks include that they're taking over the world, kinda like wal mart, which i similarly can't stand--also on a matter of priciple--and because they seem kinda blah in relation to interesting, local coffee places (which i generally love, also also on a matter of principle. shut up. my reasons don't need to make sense.)

also, i worked for caribou coffee when i lived in north carolina and my hatred of starbucks was further reinforced because they are caribou's number one competitor. guess who's number one? that's why we had to hate them. ok.

so. there's a starbucks down the street from me that i have started frequenting because, obviously, it's down the street from me. closer to my house, however, is a local coffee place that i started going to before i started going to starbucks. and i'm supposed to (in my mind) like the local place more because they're not corporate. they're not starbucks. and for awhile i did. but not anymore.

local place is dirty & sometimes they get my order wrong & they always charge me different prices for the same damn order. it's kind of like a game, guessing how much they're going to charge on a particular day. it varies depending on who's working. anyhow, the people at the local coffee place are generally nice and stuff, and not because they were told they have to be or they'll be fired. so i wanna like them more.

but starbucks! has a drive-thru! and they get my order right! and they're fucking fast! (did i mention the other place is super slow?) and their stores are clean! and--this is the best thing ever--when i go through the drive-thru and they're super quickly making my drink, and i've got my doggies in the car, they give the doggies dog biscuits! wheeee!

and every time they do that, and i leave the drive-thru, i hate myself because i don't have any reason to hate starbucks. i really like them.

also, and this is perhaps a very relevant point, in terms of caribou vs. starbucks, starbucks actually wins. i liked caribou's drip coffee better, but starbucks is nicer to their employees. i know this because starbucks employees make more than the $6 an hour i made while working my ass off at caribou. also also, my manager at caribou actually left to go work for starbucks, because they offered him way more money than caribou ever would. i should have known then that my loyalties were with the wrong corporate coffee chain.

really, i think its the drive-thru. these people hand me coffee and i don't have to get out of my car. and that's why i don't hate them anymore.

bleh.

i have been in such a bad mood today...usually i love fridays, but today was hideously blah. not a good way to start the weekend.

and i have nothing to say that doesn't sound super extra whiny (as opposed to my usual sorta whiny).

i'm going to a dinner party tonight, and i've got to study statistics all weekend. not looking forward to that.

:/

another great bumper sticker sighting.

no coffee, no workee.

innaneness.

i drank a bunch of coffee (ok, a cup) tonight in an attempt to be motivated to study for my test. that didn't happen. it's now midnight, i'm still awake, and i've cleaned about half the house. i guess studying can wait until tomorrow (today?).

i'm psychotic about having a clean kitchen. unfortunately, wanting a clean kitchen does not mean i have one. i'm only motivated to clean it first thing in the morning or late at night. so usually i hate that it's kinda messy. you would think that since i'm not the only person who lives here, maybe the other person who uses the kitchen would clean it, too. but no. he's more interested in leaving all the cabinet doors open, usually just to annoy me. i told him tonight that it's a good thing i love him or i'd really dislike him. (and that's not exactly true, but it's fun to say.)

speaking of other person who lives here, i feel really bad that i totally zone out sometimes when he's talking about work. like tonight, he started talking about wiki, and i didn't realize until about a minute into the conversation that i wasn't listening. then i started thinking about how i wasn't listening, and then i felt bad. i'm going to feel really bad when he reads this. i blame the short attention span, and the fact that i didn't get the chocolate cake i wanted.

the beagle dog, by the way, snores quite loudly. are dogs supposed to snore like that? dear god.

i'm done! it's gone! wheeee!

i finished my statement of purpose and mailed my grad school application this evening.

yay! no more pressure...i'll have to think of a new blog name.

thanks to everyone who helped me get my ass in gear and write!

el fin de semana.

you weird corporate people go to lunch a mere half hour after i get out of bed in the morning. what is up with that? who am i supposed to talk to while you're out eating your second meal of the day, and i'm still working on my first? hmph.

things from this weekend that were less fun than seeing kate and linda (the kate and linda lunch with french fries and presents and funness was very enjoyable):

*people definitely still park in my neighborhood despite the quaint "no event parking in neighborhood" signs. why do they bother with the signs? people just kicked them over and parked anyway.

*the beagle dog has thought of a new tactic for getting us up in the morning. perhaps he realized that howling wasn't working like it used to, so instead he's doing the one thing that requires us to get out of bed: vomiting on our bedroom floor.

he only does that on weekends. i'm seeing a pattern. i think this is payback for not walking him at 7 a.m. every.single.day.

*a friend of mine has a spiffy new scale that allows you to weigh yourself and check your body fat percentage. so i used it over the weekend. and according to the scale, i am obese. well, actually, according to the chart that came along with the scale, my body fat percentage is in the upper range of healthy. according to body fat percentage charts i found online, i am obese. these scales are not known for being all that accurate. but still. then there's the whole issue of BMI, which is different and causes further confusion, becuase my BMI is fine. the scale is evil and wants me to eat ice cream. that must be it, because that's what i ended up doing.

also, it took me two and a half hours to type this. and i wonder why it's taking me so long to write my statement of purpose.

which, btw, i will be done with tomorrow. or else.

this isn't so bad.

i realize this is old, but i came across it and posted it here to see if it would work...it sort of did. i mean, it took me a few minutes to get the html right (copying and pasting didn't work like it should have). i'm not sure if i'm doing something wrong with html on blogger, but it generally seems more difficult than it should be. i haven't had this many problems on other sites.

and john kerry? also has a horse face. but his is more attractive than jlc's. wait, he kinda looks like her. only better. probably because he's not (thank god) busting moves in a leotard.


Which Presidential Candidate Are You?
Rung from Rum and Monkey's very own liberty bell.

the statement of purpose is now making me whiny.

this morning has been slightly disappointing because:

1. i woke up
2. the beagle dog was howling
3. i remembered that there's a large, scary hurricane headed at me--ok, so my mom pointed out that the hurricane does not have a personal vendetta against sarah, but close enough...
4. then i found out that the rumors about voodoo fest being rescheduled to austin were false, and that it will instead be in memphis. memphis does more closely resemble new orleans than austin does, but still. i won't get to see trent! in zilker park! with tens of thousands of other people!

bah.

but my statement of purpose is closer to being done--one more question to answer, and then the editing begins--and the english guru person says it's good. that makes me happy.

there are no stupid questions...

during my statistics class today we discussed quantitative vs. qualitative data, and after a thorough explanation of the difference between the two, this girl in the front row raised her hand and asked, "so if we're talking about numbers, it's...qualitative?"

oy, don't people know what quantitative means? quantity? amount? numbers?

class was otherwise uneventful, though i was amazed by my brain's ability to continue processing information well enough for me to take notes, long after i was sure my brain had shut down. i've always wondered how people do that.

i wish i had more interesting things to say. i do not.

my brain, it is not functioning very well. it is very tired and not even coffee can perk it up these days. too much writing + too much thinking + not enough sleep. yeah, that.

i saw part of the movie perfect with john travolta today, and he was kinda hot (back in 1985). however, jamie lee curtis still freaks me out. especially in this movie. she was an aerobics instructor, and she was in a leotard (ew) and doing all these suggestive moves that were just icky. i dont think she was attractive even when she was young, and i don't understand why so many people (ok, guys) think so. her long horse-like face is unnatural.

alright. i think i've filled my meanness quota for the day. now back to my statement of purpose--i blame it for making me say mean things.

the most intelligent britney spears quote so far.

"My mom said giving birth was the most excruciating thing she's ever gone through in her life. So if a caesarian doesn't happen, I'll be like, 'Epidural, please.' "

right on.

procrastination & crying. and a llama.

mostly fun ways to procrastinate:

1. visiting the snakefarm in san marcos. main attractions: huge ass pythons, very sweet looking baby monkey primate things, and a petting zoo with a llama. llama needed a bath but was nice anyway. i had my picture taken with it.

then i felt oh so dirty. this was not the llama's fault. personally, i blame the snakes and the abundance of dirt.

2. giving myself a pedicure.

3. washing dishes. by hand.

4. garden ridge pottery, HEB, and half-price books. wheee! candles! potpourri! food! books!

5. nordic track. my legs are starting to look quite nice. they're totally distracting me, they look so good. yes, i really am distracted by my own legs, and no, i'm normally not this, um, into myself.

6. making a tasty dinner that i didn't realize was incredibly unhealthy until i started adding up calories and grams of fat (2000 and about 100, respectively, but i really had no idea) per way-larger-than-normal serving size, and then taking alvin's plate out of his hands mid-bite because i was worried i was killing him. because 36 grams of trans fat=badness and then death. (it was a pot pie. i will never make one again. i know you--and you know who you are--don't like pot pie. now, thanks to mrs. smith and her pie crusts, neither do i.)

upsetting, albeit relevant, ways to procrastinate:

read various websites about how to write a statement of purpose that include the following advice:

Writing your admissions essays or Statement of Purpose (SoP) is a long and intensive process - ten to twelve drafts over a two-month period are fairly common...

whaaaa? two months? 12 drafts? are these people on crack?! i have about three days until i have to mail the stupid thing, and i've only written three pages once! and they're only sort of good pages!

in yay! for me, not so great for the rest of you news:

signs have been placed all through the zilker neighborhood stating that there is no ACL parking in the neighborhood, but that there is a shuttle that runs from (i assume parking at) an area downtown on 14th and, i think, trinity. i don't know if this is the first year they've explicity stated that parking here is not allowed; i hear that last year parking here was horrendous, so if this is not a new policy then that means it's not at all well enforced.

and the one person i know in the neighborhood who would be able to tell me whether this is a new policy decided to go on vacation for the next two weeks, partially in an attempt to avoid the ACL fest parking problem.

now, WWJD?

I saw the best bumper sticker yesterday while stuck in traffic. It said:
Jesus would slap the shit out of you.

I love that.

it's a good thing.

ok, i really am writing, and it's not crap this time. send good vibes my way!

must get back to writing now...

i am easily amused, but not by The Smell.

the most fun thing ever: whenever the doggies start to annoy me, all i have to do is say the word bath, and they stop whatever they're doing, look panicked, and run outside. it's so much fun! sometimes i just say it because i can can can. just to see that scared look. you would think they would catch on to the fact that 99% of the time i say that word, i don't follow through, but no! it works every time. wheee!

i thought that a change of scenery for statement of purpose writing purposes would be good, so i went to a coffee shop last night to try to write. alvin and i ended up at the one place i said about a dozen times that i didn't want to go (funny how that happens). i did not want to go there because:

1. it's the hipster place where i now feel old and boring. i used to feel young and somewhat cool, but not so much anymore.
2. alvin's ex-girlfriend is always there. i think she lives there, or aspires to.
3. it's packed, noisy, with uncomfortable seats (mostly outside where it's hot) and bad lighting.
4. there are roaches
5. the coffee is mediocre.

we got there and sat outside, with the bad lighting, in the heat (though there was no sign of roaches or the ex, thank god), and this group of kids sat behind us. one of them was six inches behind my head, on a bar stool, so i felt kinda trapped. and the very worst part was that one of them smelled like the evilest of all of my evil ex-boyfriends. i won't get too descriptive about this smell, but it was mostly the smell of lots of cheap cologne covering up worse-than-cheap-cologne smells. just bathe, dude.

the only redeeming part about hanging out there was that i got a latte & a very tasty cinnamon roll. i did not write anything (except notes to alvin about the people behind and above me). we were amused and dismayed, and then we realized we didn't want to deal with that, so we left. it was kind of a sad moment, but i was so happy to get away from The Smell that i didn't care.

i've still got six pages to write. this is totally sucking. must finish by my self-imposed deadline of this saturday (else i'll never finish).

feel guilty. feel very, very guilty.

i think if i post enough updates, sooner or later kate and linda will feel guilty about not updating their blogs, and they'll post something (nice & full of content) before they're completely crushed by the collective weight of their guilt.

with that said:

*alvin keeps winning at monopoly when we play. why? how? i don't know. there apparently is some strategy that he knows that i do not. my strategy includes buying properties, placing houses on them, upgrading to hotels, then having alvin NOT land on them, me landing on his hotel'ed properties, losing all my money, mortgaging everything, getting some money back, losing it again, giving up, and finally losing everything and pouting.

also, alvin is not allowed to be banker. last week we played and he perhaps accidentally gave himself an extra $500 bill (he admitted later), but he wasn't sure.

*i need to nordic track my way to winning the calorie competition by making some progress today. i need to burn at least a couple of hundred calories...in the next hour or so. health wise, at least, any progress i made yesterday was completely negated by my french fries and dove chocolate binge. so tasty, yet i was so sorry for it afterwards.

*will have all of my letters of recommendation from people in the next few days. i need some serious motivation to get my statement of purpose written. i haven't touched it since last week. or the week before? when was that? bleh. what is my purpose? someone give me a purpose (relating to social work) and i'll write about that.

ouch.

my aching stomach is keeping me from sleeping. apparently the greasy fries i had for dinner, though tasty, were not such a good idea.

healthy competition?

alvin suggested we go to the mall this afternoon. i'm not sure what that is about--usually he avoids the mall, and most stores--but i decided not to ask. so we're going to the mall this afternoon. it has been raining all day, and the mall is generally pretty dry, so maybe that has something to do with it.

alvin also came up with an idea to have a competition to see who could burn more calories per week on our nordic track cross trainer thingie. this is good if only because he needs to exercise more. i'm not sure if this is a healthy competition or not. i burned 194 calories today, and he had burned 104, and then while i was in the shower he got back on the cross trainer and racked up another 192 calories. cheater.

i do have a distinct advantage over him since i have access to it during the day on weekdays and he does not. however, knowing him, he'll spend hours on it on the weekend and end up winning. i'm going to try not to let that happen.

we haven't yet come up with a prize for whoever burns the most calories. i'm not sure what i would want, anyway. a healthier husband would be nice, and i'm not just saying that because it sounds all sweet and like i care. i mean, i do care. andiwanthimtolookhot though i'm not supposed to say that. not that he's not; he's quite attractive. hotter is what i mean. ok, i'm done being superficial.

i am concerned about his health, though. we both need to be healthier, but there's only so much i can do to motivate him to eat better and exercise more. that's why i'm particularly excited about this competition. it's win-win, really.

oy, my arm hurts from playing too much speed.

bored of my head.

not much to post about today; i'm really just tired of seeing my own face staring back at me on my blog, and if this entry is long enough then it should make the sarah face go away.

i think i will have to use a list to make this happen. what about...things sarah wants:

1. this

2. less depressing news stories, like the one here.

3. more shoes. pretty shoes.

4. oh yeah. that knit hat wig thing that's linked from kate's blog. please?

5. a lush, green grassy yard. right now it is sort of...dead. i never cared about what my lawn looked like until it became my responsibility to take care of it. it is a sign of my total failure as a naturey yard person. in not unrelated news, i cannot keep plants alive either.

ok, mission accomplished. sorry that this was the most boring post ever.

ps--kate, now it's your turn. post a kate picture on your page.

here ya go.

it's a year and a half old, but it's one of about four pictures (ever) that i'm wearing makeup in, so it's not so bad:

there are things crawling on me.

exterminator dude just left. he got rid of insect types 1-4 and the spiders. i was very dismayed to hear that we had brown recluse spiders in the crawl space under the house. supposedly they are now gone, but still. they were in my dream last night! they were trying to bite!

aside from being venomous, they're super freaky looking:

woe! and spiders.

kate. you're supposed to post more than once a week! you can't be all gung ho about blogging, talk me into starting one, and then not update yours. nuh uh.

ok, the exterminator dude is coming to the house today to kill a variety of insects (five completely separate types of insects, actually) (which i'm not going to name here, lest you people think my house is one big insect factory) (it is not; we just haven't had the house sprayed since we bought it in april).

are spiders insects? hmmm...arachnids...ok, four types of insects and one non-insect. anyhow, last night i had dreams about huge spiders crawling around and trying to bite me. one was a tarantula that was as big as my head. i also dreamed i was at my job that i quit about a month ago. the funny thing about this dream is that it incorporated a bunch of things i don't like:

*spiders
*my last job
*sweeping. the floor at the old job was full of leaves and i had to sweep (my dogs track in leaves all the time and i have to sweep daily, which sucks)
*high school
*a baby. this is the second time this week i've had a baby dream! it was awful! well, last dream i was in labor for the better part of a day, and the kid was not coming out. this time, the tarantula was headed towards the baby to bite it.
*filing stacks of papers from 1988 (yes, a component of my last job)

i have no idea what this means. my brain is totally cheating me out of warm fuzzy dreams.

i just realized i can have a title. shut up.

i stopped and got an iced mocha on my way home from class today, and i was reminded of how much i miss doing things by myself. the whole marriage (or living together) thing kinda means i often do things with alvin...which is nice, but i didn't realize until my mocha stop that it's quite nice to do things on my own, too. i haven't in awhile (for several reasons), and i miss it. i also like not having to justify why i'm spending nearly $5 on a mocha, or having to share it with someone else.

i hate sharing, by the way. it's totally overrated.

new developments

*it is 9 am, and i have already fed, bathed, clothed, and caffeinated myself *and* walked my dogs. wheee!

*have figured out beagle dog's problem. how to say this nicely? he is not so smart. i thought it was a fluke (and highly amusing) the other day when he ran full-force into the closed doggie door. what self respecting dog would do such a thing? but he's done it two more times since then. also, when i take him on walks, he tends to walk with his nose to the ground and he gets stuck between parked cars and the curb. because the rest of us walk around the cars, but he goes straight. not so smart. and i haven't yet figured out a way to annoy him, which is just wrong. with the other doggie, i blow into his ears and it drives him nuts. it's kinda fun. beagle dog is so laid back that i poke and prod and even mock and it has no effect. bah.

*went back to target last night (with alvin) and exchanged my new bag for a larger one. then we spent half an hour in the board game section and ended up buying a new? special? overpriced edition of monopoly. we played and he bankrupted me in under two hours. that is so unacceptable.

*wrote two!! pages of my statement of purpose yesterday. unfortunately, as kate would say (generally speaking; not about me), it's total crap. but at least it's a start.

things i cannot do: a continuation of yesterday's list

write succinctly
pay bills on time
exercise regularly
resist eating chocolate (mmmm...i want some chocolate)

things i don't like to do:

shower (i like being clean but don't like the process)
procure food (i would make a bad scavenger)
get my hair cut
talk to the person who cuts my hair (why are they always so talkative? i like the quiet ones.)

so i just got a haircut and it's like i didn't get a haircut at all. ok, maybe she chopped off some spilt ends? i dunno. can't tell.

also, she argued with me about the efficacy of the new smoking ban here. it went into effect last thursday and, while i haven't yet gone out to see if i can actually breathe while at a bar, i look forward to doing so. i told her that, and she said she went out last weekend, but people were still lighting up and it was cool that no one was enforcing the new anti-smoking laws. and she said there's really no way to tell people who have been smoking in establishments for so long that they suddenly can't smoke there anymore. wtf? that made me angry, and it's untrue. of course, it's not a good idea to argue with a scissor-wielding person. so i only argued a little bit, and then i shut up.

but then i went to target, and it was nice because alvin was not there to act like i was torturing him by making him go to target. i bought a new bag, for my books and notebooks...argh! i just realized that one of my notebooks totally isn't going to fit in my new bag. :(

i'll have to go back and get a bigger bag.

procrastination + progress + more procrastination

am working on my grad school statement of purpose today. am very proud of myself for finally getting started, and for finding that i have a lot to say and that most of it is true and even makes sense!

yay!

things that are just plain wrong.

7 things i plan to do.

7 things I plan to do before I die:
see switzerland
have a pet llama
live on the west coast
learn to walk in high heels
be a writer (full-time, for money...even just a little bit of money)
conquer my fear of flying
do something worthwhile that i'm really proud of (i don't know what this will be yet).


7 things I can do:
write (linda and i have something in common!)
make excellent coffee
drive stick shift
by overly critical, even though i don't mean to be
be nice, sometimes even when i don't wanna be
make jewelry
take really good care of people (courtesy of kate, who admitted earlier today that she sometimes lies).

7 things I cannot do:
tell a lie with a straight face
be unaffected by other people's emotions
withstand heat, hunger or lack of sleep for very long
not compulsively check my email
cook
make decisions (quickly)
think of seven things i cannot do, even though i know they exist.

7 things that attract me to the same or opposite sex:
intellect
dark hair
pretty eyes
a good sense of humor
well-sculpted hands
pretty boys
pretty girls.

7 things that I say most often:
argh (not exactly a word, but still.)
but still
all good
eh
this is hard
i need some coffee
why?

7 celebrity crushes:
trent reznor (this one is waning since he shaved his head & got all tan and beefy)
johnny depp
vincent d'onofrio
christopher meloni (those last two because i watch too much law & order)

if i think of anyone else, i'll add them.

check out the ditty bops. they opened for tori amos and they're lots of fun. they also opened for the dresden dolls, who opened for nine inch nails on the last part of their tour. coincidence? hmmmm.

i'm still trying to figure out how to get the beagle dog not to bark every morning at 7. it used to be that he barked in the middle of the night. then, over the three day weekend, he decided that 7 a.m. would be a better barking time. i didn't get to sleep in past 7 this weekend, which is so frustrating. i've tried ignoring him (he continues to bark), letting him outside (more barking & then i have to bring him back inside), and telling him to be quiet (he quits barking for about 10 seconds and then starts again). this is making me unhappy and very, very tired and annoyed with myself because i don't know how to make it stop.

the tori concert.

happy birthday, kate!

remember: you're older than you've ever been and now you're even older...

last night alvin and i went to see tori amos play at the backyard (a big outdoor venue outside of town), and the concert was pretty impressive. i'm not a huge tori amos fan...not like dina and brenda, who were sitting behind us ("oh my god! oh my god! i can't believe i'm here!") (and i don't actually know dina and brenda, but they were sitting behind us. i'm just sayin')...i like tori less than that, and there were times i was slightly bored during the performance, but mostly it was good.

i was very impressed that tori can play the piano with one hand, the organ with the other, and sing at the same time. she also has amazing vocal abilities (which i like) and a penchant for slurring words and dragging them out into multisyllabic sounds that don't even remotely resemble the original word (i don't like that so much because i have no idea what she's saying). it's sort of fascinating, but usually i just want her to hurry up already and get the damn word out. but her hair is still pretty, and she sang "mad world" which i love love love.

the crowd was nice, too, and decidedly less belligerent than the angry people at the nine inch nails concert i saw a few months ago. nin people wanted to hurt me for accidentally stepping on their shoes. tori people were crying during her songs and completely understanding about accidental shoe-stepping.

the only downfall, i guess, was when i dropped my debit card into the toilet. it was hanging out in my back pocket when i went to the bathroom. i was all kinds of excited about the real, clean bathrooms and no lines and that there was toilet paper. and then my debit card fell out of my pocket and into the toilet, after i went and before i flushed. i seriously considered just trying to flush it but i didn't think it would go down. so i fished it out and wrapped it in many layers of toilet paper before putting it back into my pocket. this amused me, too. it was absurd (and disgusting, yes).

sarah wants kate to be happy.

happy kate things:

*birthday cake
*ta
*stalking
*thunderstorms
*birthday presents
*bob
*stalking

smile, dammit.

the blind leading the blind?

yesterday was bizarre. twenty minutes into my first class, the fire alarm went off. relevant information: there are about 25 people in the class, and three (female) students are blind to some extent...one of them can see ok, and the other two not at all (one has a guide dog and the other has a walking stick/cane).

so. my class is on the third floor. everyone in class was being nice and let the blind students leave class first. normally, i would expect some pushing, but there was none. if there had actually been a fire (and at that point, we didn't know that the problem was a system malfunction and not a fire), we would have all been incinerated beacuse we all got stuck going down the staris behind the blind girls. actually, the girl who could sorta see was leading the girl with the dog. slooooowly. i was really amused by that. i know it sounds bad, but i allow myself to be amused by these things. otherwise, i would have freaked out that i wasn't escaping fast enough for my liking.

i eventually made it outside (yay! i escaped the potential fire and instead get to stand out in the boiling heat!) and then, while standing there all alone and so sad, this weird guy comes up to me. and he says: i don't know if you care, but you're standing next to a dead squirrel.

i looked down and there indeed was a dead squirrel by my shoe. and it was flattened. i don't know where its insides went (i'm still wondering). its tail was still kinda fluffy though. it wasn't bothering me so much...it was more like a taxidermied squirrel, perfectly squished and preserved, but without the stuffing inside...anyhow, i moved away because weird dude was very concerned that i was standing near it. i would just like to say that he had unexplainable man boobs, too.

half an hour later we got to return to class...and when we sat down, the fire alarm went off again. so we left and it stopped. and we went back into class, and it started again. after that happened half a dozen or so more times, the prof cancelled class and we all got to leave early.

that is mostly the end of my story. so: the end.

also, i am finished taking the GRE forever as of today. i made a better score than last time and didn't want to cry halfway through the test. that is a good thing. i'm very relieved.

also also, my doggie didn't howl last night and i got an entire seven hours of uninterrupted sleep. wheee!

the GRE is tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn (or 8:30, whichever). the last time i took it i had horrible, awful, no good very bad cramps that morning. that did not help. i'm afraid that tomorrow i'm going to be v. tired because of my doggies. ok, just the one, really. the beagle likes to howl during the night and it's becoming a bit disruptive. i don't think i've had a good night's sleep since we got him a couple of weeks ago. i'm trying to figure out how to get him to sleep through the night. on average, i'm having to get up about twice a night, every night, to try to make him stop barking (which is often futile). note to self: remember this if i ever think about having kids. i can imagine just putting a pillow over my head and going back to sleep. i'm nice like that.

other than that: i'm taking the bus to class today. that solves the parking problem and helps save some money...gas hit $3.00 a gallon here yesterday, and i'm trying to talk alvin into selling/trading in one of our cars to get a hybrid. he's not going for it just yet, probably because i want to trade in his car. only because my car is newer, and prettier, and more fuel effecient...and it belongs to moi...