early voting

i voted today. it's funny to think about it, but this is only the second time that i've been able to vote for president. i was on the mish in 2004, so i missed that whole thing. still couldn't tell you what happened. except that bush won. anyway, i just went to the early voting station they had set up here on campus, which was nice and convenient. i didn't know what the hours of operation were, so i ventured over to the union just before 11am. on the way there i noticed the signs saying that they were open from 12-5. i decided to just go back to my office to wait until noon. and then i changed my mind. i had a book with me because i heard that the lines were long, so i figured i could wait at the union just as easily as in my office, so i just went and got in line an hour before the polling started. and boy am i glad i did. there were already about 5 people waiting in line on nice hard folding chairs. so i joined them and began reading all about islam and the secular state. it wouldn't be bad if the author weren't so darn repetitive. anyway. soon, my hour had passed and they started taking us in to vote. then, and only then, i looked back at the line. i had heard it was long, but wow, it was really really long. i looked all the way down the long hallway and couldn't see the end of the line because it wrapped around the corner and out into the cafeteria area. so it turned out that my initial decision to sit in the hallway on a hard, cold chair was a really good one. not only was i headed back to my office at 12:10, but i also got to spend my hour-long wait seated rather than standing. i feel all warm and fuzzy now that i've done my civic duty and put my two cents in on this one.

in other bigger, potentially more exciting news, today is halloween, and i promise to post some pics this weekend of the fun times i've had this week in my most fabulous costume. it just keeps getting better and better. two more parties tonight, so it'll be a good time, i tell ya what.

ode to my office

from time to time, as my readers may know, i like to write odes to things that i really like. like slurpees and tide to go pens. today is the ode to my office, in which i've been passing much time for the past couple of months.

This is the horizontal view of the office. or at least my half of it. it's not very wide. the opposite wall is just past the door jamb.

this is the vertical view. i like how i have books on the bookshelves now, even if i borrowed all of them from the library. but not for the photo shoot. i'm actually reading them. also seen here is my black wheeled office chair which is in serious need of some extra padding on the seat.

these are my office magnets. this is not all of them, but it's all that would fit in the picture. of course, i could have moved them to all fit in the shot, but that would have been too hard.

this here is the only decoration i have on the wall. it's a university directory from 1972. it was found last fall when huseyin's desk wouldn't open, so someone from the shop came and broke the lock off and then found a bunch of really old stuff in the very back of the desk. also found were some interoffice envelopes last used in 1964. not even kidding.

this is the view from our window. it's fabulous i know. our side of the building faces full west, so it gets a little toasty in the afternoons, even in the winter. this is the beginning of the panorama that i took for your benefit. this is looking northwest. on a less air-poluted day, you can kinda see downtown SLC between the two trees there.

a little less north west. if the trees weren't there, you could see the marriott library, which is the 23rd largest library in the US, just in case you care.

a little more south west-ish. if these trees weren't there, you could see the social and behavioral science building, which is the tallest building on campus. not taller than these trees, though.

this is mostly the roof, as you can see, and the view off the the south. if not for the trees, you could see the business building. i've often been tempted to crawl out onto the roof, but never have. i've heard that it's nice. there is always the question of actually being able to fit out the window. . . best not try it. too many questions if i have to call for help.

these are all the things that i like about my office. and i also like my new officemate Monica. she's from the czech republic, and has offered me a job painting houses with her and her husband next summer if i can't find a job and move away from utah. she has her masters, a partially finished mba, and is working on her phd. her husband has 2 master's degrees. between the three of us, we could very well be the most educated house painters ever. anyway. my office is nice because i can treat school like a job and feel all important because i have some private place down a very dim and narrow hallway where i can study and get important school stuff done. sometimes. regardless of my level of productivity on any given day, i love my office.

drunken pumpkins

a few weeks ago my mom sent me an email with the following picture, encouraging all to drink responsibly during the holidays. although if it had been more than just a forward it would have said something like, "see what happens when you drink. you shouldn't drink at all." now that's some good motherly advice.


anyway, i told julia about the email and decided that we should take it upon ourselves to recreate this lovely pumpkin scene. one lovely thursday night before the office came on, we had a little carving party in my dining room, which resulted in these lovely creations. they are faces only a mother could love, i'm sure.

jon came over and wouldn't carve pumpkins with us (jerk) but instead was the artistic direction for the evening. and rightfully so. he did a pretty good job and was kind enough to help fix our screw ups after telling us that we really shouldn't carve specific designs freehand.

so to show our appreciation, we arranged our new creations on his front porch, along with some root beer bottles since the real beer bottles i'd been hoarding since my roommate's last party somehow made their way out to the recycling bin before we could carve the pumpkins. anyhow, jon loved his new little friends, or so he said. it's always so hard to know with him.

the NR monster, as i like to call it

my entire school career has been one of negative reinforcement of my worst habit: procrastination. i have learned over the years that i can leave things til the last second, do them half as good as i could have, or otherwise submit subpar work and still get amazing grades at the end of the day. hate me if you will, but it's true. the NR-monster has struck again, which is why i'm bringing this up in the first place.

a few weeks ago, i had to turn in a book review for my one real class of the semester (middle eastern politics, in case you're wondering). i knew i had to read 2 books from the first day of class, but did i read the books in a nice leisurely fashion over the following 4 weeks like i should have? of course not! why would i? no, instead i left it until the last week before the book review was due, and in doing so, was only able to read one of the two books assigned. i read the short one. the one that i did not read was written by none other than my very own professor. he often refers to this book (in jest, partly) as "the holy word" and "the most important book, after the Qu'ran." yes, he takes this book very seriously. but i had heard rumors about this professor and how he does not actually read the work that he assigns his students to write. so with this in mind, i set forth on the saturday night before the review was due to write the book review, all the while nurturing the attitude, "why should i read his work if he won't read mine?" i know. i'm terrible. lucky for me, he wrote a very thorough introduction to the book and i was able to summarize the book in 2 pages and then make some serious arguments about the similarities and differences of the two books. what a wise man (haha).

so anyway, fast forward three weeks to this afternoon when he begins to pass back the work that we've handed in so far. there were two short summaries that he randomly assigned us for other stuff, both of which had a big plus sign at the top instead of a grade. can anyone explain to me what this means? no one in class knew either. is it like in kindergarten when you got a smiley face if you did really good? or it could be a crooked X. but what does THAT mean? X marks the spot? right on the mark? i don't know. anyway, that's just a side note. the real interesting thing to me was when i got my book review, it had an A-/A as the grade. he couldn't decide which it was, so he wrote both. it's a common malady among professors in my department. and while it wasn't the A+++++++++++++++ that i was hoping for (like ralphie) i'm back to square one. procrastination pays. and don't you forget it, kids.

the humor of my "job"

i know i'm technically unemployed, but i do have a lot of work to do being a TA. since it is fall break, i am of course up to my eyeballs in midterm exams to grade. and let me tell ya, i read some pretty funny things. here are some of my favorites:

• last semester in the international relations class, a guy wrote an entire argument about david hasselhoff was a good case for a non-zero-sum game (which is a conflict where both sides can win or lose stuff simultaneously) because he wants to date and there are lots of German women who would love to have him. he also brought in the international relations aspect by stating that david hasselhoff thinks his picture should be framed and hung at checkpoint charlie because he had more to do with the fall of the berlin wall (because of his very popular-in-germany-and-nowhere-else recording career) than any of the world leaders combined. that's actually mostly true. sad, i know. needless to say, the guy got full points. he actually really knew his stuff. and not just about david hasselhoff.
• the 1 paragraph rant about walmart coming to sugarhouse in the final for international relations. because walmart is the devil incarnate and is ruining the world with its cheap merchandise and skeezy business practices. apart from the rant, the guy did pretty good, so as i recall, he also got full points.
• now for the american government midterm, there are several questions that refer to lobbyists. this is just a general comment, but kids these days can spell to save their lives. i'm not kidding. here's my favorite spelling of lobbyist: lobbiest, which is in fact the superlative form of the word "lobb". here's an example of how it would be used in a sentence: the ball that he threw was the lobbiest of all of the balls on the playground. I'm not sure what that means, but you get the idea. (please feel free to share your very own definition of the word "lobbiest" in the comments section) it's also an example of how the utah accent is ruining the english language. i wrote that for julia's sake. and because it's partly true.

conflicted, torn, in denial, and kinda distraught

you know how sometimes there's something you really want to write about, but you never know who may be reading, so you can't write about it, just in case? i hate that.

speaking in abstracts doesn't work here. it's too obvious. besides, it might go something like this, "so say there's a girl named blarissa and another girl named bolivia. . ." 10 extra-cool points to anyone who knows what that's from. if enough people are curious, i might tell you later. especially if i'm the only one who knows. (come on, laura, i'm counting on you. i know you're reading.) anyway, i'm really glad i have good friends and roommates to whom i can vent. it's more one-on-one and risk-free when venting face to face instead of into cyberspace.

no more rhyming and i mean it!

good night.

a lesson learned

i know you are all dying to read the whole lobster story. and just to prove that i can to my bloggy teachers who showed me how to make a link to the story (thanks, you know who you are), here it is. i feel special.