The Grand Return

So, after spending a week sitting quietly in the OIT building, my computer has made a miraculous return. With a new hard drive. Unfortunately, none of my old stuff is on it :( The guy at OIT said he'd try and save some of my pictures and papers, but there was nothing he could do about recovering the 2.1 days worth of songs I had on iTunes. I've been saving those songs for 4 years, and poof, they're gone. Tis very sad. I think after the OIT guy is done with my hard drive, I will have a ceremony in which we can all take turns bashing my hard drive, Office Space-style (as mentioned previously). Or watching me take all my anger out on my hard drive. Either way, it will be personally enjoyable to me, and I may provide cookies.

Surprise!

My computer decided to give me a Valentine's Day surprise by getting a virus (I think - anyway, the end result is that my computer doesn't work). Even robots are out to get me this day. When I turn on my computer, the Compaq start-up screen comes up along with the message "Hard drive detecs imminent failure". Now, "Imminent failure" is not a phrase you really want to see, ever. Let alone on your computer screen. I mean, it'd be pretty bad if it was on, say, a transcript, but I get the feeling this means my computer is on the verge of death. Which is true, because if it isn't fixed soon, I may have to take it out back and smash it, Office Space-style.

So for now, I am updating you via the Debartolo computer cluster, with all the other engineers who are doing projects at 11:40 on a Tuesday night, instead of getting $3 pitchers at Corby's (like I should be).

Sunday Sunday Sunday

After that bitter rant (sorry guys, it was supposed to be sarcastic, but the anger was just too much for me to handle), it's been a few days, and not much has happened, so I'm going to fill you all in on some things that have amused me and kept my sanity in the last week or so.

After all, when working on The Laramie Project, one needs many things that will keep them from, say, killing the director with a mechanical pencil to the eye.

1) This article is hilarious. OK, so it's not grad school for me, it's law school, but still, highly enjoyable and bitter in the funny way that I couldn't achieve.

2) The Keenan Revue last night. According to a non-ND eye, it looks like Keanu Reeves when displayed in away messages, but rest assured a night of sketch comedy by college guys is always a laugh. Especially when Nut had his Dear Diary skit. That man can carry an audience for a solid five minutes on his own.

3) The Onion... that mecca of sweet sweet fake news.

4) Starbucks... nuff said.

5) Arrested Development... whether in Season One DVD form, or new episodes, it guarantees a laugh.

6) And of course, this blog along with Philip's and Eliz's. I'm still learning about the whole Hello/Picasa picture posting thing, mainly because I'm too lazy to read the actual instructions and just try to figure it out myself. But the pictures are there, so enjoy.

And finally today is The Big Game, or rather, The Big Commercial Day with Some Football In Between. I'm going to be honest, pro football doesn't interest me that much, so I'm keeping my eye out for good beer commericals and wardrobe malfunctions.

My So-Called Life

I have been accused by my fellow blog-mate abroad, Philip, of not updating frequently enough. And to you I say, suck it.

Excuse me that I'm not taking fantastic little trips around the English countryside with my friends and getting stared at for wearing clothes that color-coordinate. As you very well know, there is much less to write about here in the confines of the Notre Dame bubble, and even less to write about South Bend.

But Lizett, I hear you saying, you were abroad yourself, why didn't you keep a blog there? Well, my friends, the answer is manyfold.

1. The Fund is not exactly the technological mecca of the world. The people who had been there before said, "You don't really need to bring a laptop. The computer lab has everything you need." Well, said computer lab had 15 computers for the 150 kids or so that went there, and used Windows95 as their operating system. Plus, I couldn't download pictures on them, since they weren't equipped with such fancy things as "UBS ports", so there wasn't much to post anyway.
2. Instead of spending my leisure time updating my friends back home (not that I don't enjoy that, I really do love it, it gives me some sort of vicarious thrill), we mostly spent our 3-hour lunch breaks eating and drinking sangria

So, if there's not much for me to say, I won't post. Until then, I'll come up with some sarcastic things to say. It's just harder without Philip or Ashley here pulling the sarcasm out of me.

Miguel kicking a field goal successfully (something I couldn't do) 

Me and... Stork? 

Kelly, me, and Dixie at preparty 

Dancin' the night away

Aaaaaall right.

This Saturday was the new and improved (?) band dance, back in action at the College Football Hall of Fame in beautiful South Bend, Indiana. I went with Miguel, my fellow section leader and we went and saw Stop Kiss beforehand in what seems to be the Gay Season for ND theatre. Beginning with Angels in America (AIDS, the 80s and gay people) last semester, the year has progressed to Bent (Nazis and gay people) and Stop Kiss (hate crime and lesbians) and of course will culminate with The Laramie Project (hate crime and a gay guy in Wyoming). Afterwards, we went to the falto/tone pre-band dance staple, the Mariott Residence Inn for some pre-party action. Unfortunately, so did a rent-a-cop, which we mistook for a real cop until we realized that hey, no one was coming to the door and he in fact has about as much power over us as a homeless man on the street. OK, so he wasn't Liza Minelli, but a low-paid security officer. Poor guy.

Anyway, at the dance, there were lots of fun things to do downstairs, such as kick field goals, tackle the football dummies and thow a forward pass. It was overall a good night.
Sunday was back to reality/homework and today, well, it's Monday and I'm updating at 2:30 in the morning. What do you think?

Packages!

No matter how old I get, it is still always exciting to get packages from my mom. Today, I recieved one with the following contents:

• Two funky folders (probably on clearance at Target)
• A pair of blue fleece gloves with matching hat
• Mazapan from Toledo (yummm)
• A $10 Blockbuster gift card
• 3 LiveStrong bracelets
• a pair of purple fuzzy slippers
• What appears to be a lifetime supply of chamomile tea

Thanks, mom!

My family in Houston over Christmas - it's snowing! 

House Calls

After spending 18 hours at Heartland* Thursday night/Friday morning, I came back to my room to find my phone light blinking. It seems that Professor P. Walshe (no one seems to know what his first name is) had left me a personal message letting me know that our classroom has been changed to Brownson. Great. My Tuesday/Thursday morning walk (and by morning, I mean 12:15pm) just turned from an easy 8-minute walk to Debartolo to a long, I-don't-know-how-long-it-takes-to-walk-to-Brownson-since-I-don't-walk-there-on-a-regular-basis-or-ever walk. I saved it just to listen to his British (South African?) accent. What can I say, I'm a sucker for those accents.

In other news, time seems to be passing quickly which means my decision of what I'm doing next year is looming nearer. It doesn't help, though, that I don't hear from most law schools until April, and the same for the teaching programs I'm applying to. (Unless you're Booter, who seems to be certain that I will get into PLACE and be living in Los Angeles next year). Ah well, worst comes to worse, I'll be in Houston.

Happy Birthday to Katie J! We had a party in Erin's room and busted out the Cuarenta y Tres, which I grew oh so fond of in Spain. Seeing as the band dance is coming up on Saturday, we were reminiscing of dances of yore, and Dave getting locked in the basement of Dorm Marion, which turned into Martin Luther King in the keg. And Squeaks and I were the only ones that laughed. Oh dear, I'm getting old.

*PS - No, I was not at Heartland for 18 hours, but my away message made it seem as it were so. I actually went from Heartland to Castle Point, to lunch at La Esperanza, and back to Castle Point before I returned to see that people did in fact think I was at Heartland for Thursday night and the majority of Friday.

Let the games begin!

Last night, as a triumphant first Thursday of our last semester, the entire senior class and most of the junior class went to Legends and Heartland. After a looong stay at Heartland which produced some unexplainable bruises, somehow a large group of us got over to Jenna's apartment. It was last night I realized, my friends, that Jenna, Chris, Greg and I, however good friends we are, cannot be left alone in a room together. Here is a basic idea of what happened.

Everyone arrives. Jenna and Emily make mac & cheese.
Jenna and Greg start arguing about something. Chris joins in.
Everyone gets tired of listening to people's political discussions and leaves.
Chris, Jenna, Greg and I stay in the kitchen and argue until 6am.

See, in Paris it was fun and insightful. At 3am after Heartland, it's just annoying. I'm sure Emily loves us right now and thinks we're really insightful... uhhh...

Beginning of the end

Today was the last first day of class I'll have in undergrad... yes a very small distinction, but a landmark nonetheless. I've struck the scheduling goldmine this semester. Tuesday and Thursday begins at 12:30 with my last senior seminar - Religion and Politics of South Africa. This is going to be waaay different than DPK's Religion and Constitution class. Instead of assigned readings and thorough discussions, we have a list of readings that we should use in our 10 page paper due at spring break. And he's basically going to lecture for a month, then let us off into the wild to write our own research paper after that. Walshe is an extremely intelligent man, plus the British accent is awesome! I mean, the title for our first paper is, and I quote:
"Religion and Politics in South Africa: A Comparative Study of Afrikaner Nationalism and the Anti-Apartheid Liberation Movement"
Don't worry, it's not as complicated as it sounds... oh wait, yes it is. Especially since I know zero about South Africa and I guess Walshe assumes we know some basic fundamentals about it, such as the capital or what language they speak. Yeah, no clue. I'm ignorant.

After that, there was the first day of Acting: Process. After about fifteen minutes with no one showing up, the class elected me to go find Jay, since apparantly I'm the only one he knows. He gave an impromptu speech for about 15 minutes on acting in general, throwing in humor and curse words in the appropriate places to get a laugh out of us. Turns out our good man Anton Juan is supposedly on his way into the country and should be in class in Thursday. Ha. Ha ha. Let's hope so. He's arriving one day before auditions for our play. Maybe on the day of auditions. Christ, I hope this isn't a sign of how Laramie Project is going to be all the way through.

And for today's Arrested Development quote of the day:
Buster: We're having unlimited juice? Man, this party is gonna be off the hook!
[later, after drinking two buckets of corn syrup aka "juice"]
Buster: I love JUICE!!

New Year, New You!

If there's one slogan I've seen in the many, many hours of TV I've been watching it's "New Year, New You!" As if, "Oh, the calendar has changed? Well, time for a complete lifestyle overhaul!" I know every year the gym, diet, beauty companies etc. use this slogan to try and get people who are so desperate to make themselves over in the new year to buy their overly priced and completely useless products. But for some reason, perhaps because I'm watching a lot more TV over this break, perhaps because there are that many more products out there, the rush for a new you seems bigger this year than ever. For example, 24-Hour Fitness has a commercial where they discuss how our cells regenerate and some die, so, on a cellular level, we are actually reinventing ourselves, so why can't we do it at the gym? My body is constantly reinventing itself! I want to be a punk rocker now! What's that you say, my cells have regenerated again? OK, now I'm a cowboy! Hmm, not quite the same thing, I don't think.

In other news, today is the Orange Bowl. Wait, scratch that. The FedEx Orange Bowl. Pardon me. Needless to say, there's been a lot of buzz about this game, some thinking that other teams deserved to go, some just wanting to blow it all up so neither team can win (I'm thinking of Texan Domers... ahem), but I guess we'll just have to see whether Matt Leinart really deserved that Heisman tonight.

Holiday Hooplah

Last night was the 3rd annual McGlinn Holiday Hooplah. Except this year, we had it at Castle Point. It was a smash overall! A ton of people came, we went through nearly $300 worth of booze and then we all, well, attempted to go to State. The line at State was ridiculous, so Kim and our group went to Boat Club, and expected everyone else to go... somehow Jenna and the other girls got into State. No worries, though, Boat Club was about as fun as Boat Club can be... seeing everyone you know while drinking out of pitchers of beer. Delicious...

Anyway, it was a good time until the cops showed up. Way to bust Boat Club, guys. Except this time, I think the vast majority of the patrons were over 21. So basically it was just annoying to wait to be let out by the cops after they check my student ID, my driver's license, and checked my info in the ND directory and asked me my home number. Somehow that seems really shady to me. It's one thing to bust a bar, and another to blatantly bust ND students. God, I hate Boat Club.

Complete Failure

Well, seeing the frequency that Eliz and Philip have updated their blogs, I guess I am a complete failure. Just like I knew I would, I started this then immediately abandoned it. So what's happened since I last posted?

1) ND went 6-5 for the season, fired our coach and is currently up shit creek without a paddle. Seems like people can't wait to tell the media they aren't interested in coaching for us.
2) I assistant stage managed Angels in America (huzzah) and am currently stage managing Julius Caesar for directing finals.
3) The women's soccer team won the national championship. At least one of our teams can win.
4) I've (nearly) survived my last fall semester, applied to 4 law schools so far, and am still searching for jobs, if available. Head coach for ND, anyone?

So, that's basically it. Also, while changing the ink cartridge on my printer today, I got teal ink all over my hands.

America's Pastime

You might say that I am not that big of a sports fan. I would say I'm a medium to average follower of all major sports, excluding squash. Fuckin' squash. Anyway, I know the teams and the major players for most of said teams in the big sports, and if there's one sport that I would have to name as a "favorite", I would probably say it was baseball. After all, my lifetime of athleticism began with an extended stint in little league baseball, where I played left field. That's right, left field! In little league, that's one step up from the worst position, which as we all know, is right field.

So, I have some experience playing baseball in an organized setting, and am familiar with the most common rules. The other day I was watching a baseball game with my family, and my dad makes some comment about the third base coach. Now, when I was in little league, we had first and third base coaches because we didn't know what the hell we were doing out there. We had no real hand-eye coordination, no depth perception, and no way to tell if we would actually make it to second base, so we had to have a guy standing there telling us to KEEP GOING or to STAY ON FIRST. I thought to myself, surely you must be joking, father. These players make at minimum, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Even the guy who sits on the bench all season makes more money than I'm hoping to in the near future. These guys must know by now whether they can run or if they should stay. But apparantly, I was wrong, my friends. These people who are being paid millions of dollars to hit a ball and run around a diamond cannot even decide for themselves whether it's safe to run to second base or to run home. They still need someone's dad in way-too-short baseball shorts to stand there at first and third base and yell at them to RUN HOME.

Baseball's never been the same since the strike.

Decision 2004

So there's a lot of press going on about the election. Rightly so, it's a very important part of our lives, and this election will surely affect the US and the world tremendously. But I think too much importance has been placed on the candidates.

Let's take a look at what really matters - our first ladies.

First off, Laura Bush. OK, we've had four years with her in the White House. What has she proven? That she's a smart, level-headed and easy-going woman. Just because she's less outspoken than previous first ladies *cough* Hilary *cough* doesn't mean she's submissive or too modest. I mean, she's a freakin' librarian, who doesn't like them? Except for my crazy librarian in first grade who had the freaky long fingernails. She was an exception. Anyway, Laura Bush shows that she's got what it takes to be a great First Lady.

Now, let's look at Theresa Heinz Kerry. This woman has proven to be an erratic, hypocrytical nut job. She says that reporters were putting words in her mouth when they were quoting back to her what she said. She calls for civility in politics and then tells reporters to shove it. And she grabs the microphone away from her husband while he's making speeches. Is this the kind of woman you want representing your country? She can't even decide on how to pronounce her first name or decide on a last name, but you want her to be giving advice on what to do in the forum of international politics?!

It's your choice, folks. Decision 2004.

Blog, Livejournal, what?

OK, so I have a livejournal account. I've been on friendster. I'm signing up for stuff I don't even know about anymore. I must be, or else I wouldn't be getting e-mails every day of how I can refinance my home that I don't own. So now I'm here. Can I keep this up? Who knows.

So I guess this will mostly be to log my travails through senior year. And trying to get into grad school and prolong my entry into the real world as much as possible. As of tonight, I'm hoping to do a Masters in Public Policy with a joint law degree. Ha. We'll see. I can see the gods laughing at me as I type this.

And yes, I enjoy using blasphemy in order to describe my life :-)