Slacking. Russians. Spooks.

So, today was Halloween. And the most festive thing I did was wear a bow tie. Whatever.

But, let me back to Halloween eve.

So, as I think I may have mentioned previously, I have homework overload syndrome this weekend. Which means as much time as is possible needs to be spent towar

ds the greater good of my schooling.

Well..this didn't happen.

See, yesterday, Friday, was the day I was going to begin pounding holes into my assignments. But, no. I decided to take the day off and do things I wanted, which proved quite useful.

These things included a 4 hour nap, handing out with respectable all night, playing music, and exchanging music tastes, which is something I have missed dearly from my high school days. It was grand. Lucie stayed the night in our dorm room, since her roomie is getting over H1N1. Thankfully, she is getting better. She's from Jordan, so can't really begoing home when she's sick :(. I would be so miserable. I'm just so so pleased to hear that she is feeling much nicer.

Ah. Let me tell you this gem of an experience. Lucie introduced a few of us late last night to this Russian opera-pop music guy, who has just downright spooky vocals that I am falling for. Pretty much, he's like an ultra soprano man. So, as he is belting out this obscurely high tone, the wind is howling and howling outside to nearly the same pitch. I don't know, but I was pretty entranced by all this. Perfect pre-Halloween appetizer.

Here it is.Have a listen.

The three of us girls stayed up until 4 Am, chatting away. So I'm a bit tired right now, since it should be 3:30 AM, but daylights savings just went away, so it's 2:30. Whoopeeee.

Rambleramble.

Yes. So, after a full day that focused on nothing but not school, today was school day. And, I woke up really really pumped about it. I still have a ton to work on, but I think progress was for sure made.

This is how it went down.

Woke up at 11.

Breakfasted.

Putsed around, and left for the student union across the river to study my many studies.

And on the way there, I tell you, I finally realized it was fall, and also Halloween. In a good way. It made me very glad as I walked across campus and over theMississippi in my favorite plaid vest, ski cap, and Carla-knitted mittens on,polishing a rare Gala apple from our dining hall in my mittens. (They tend to supply us with red delicious apples, which makes me distrust anyone who ever names a produce item 'delicious'. Bleh) But today, I got a Gala apple there for brunch, and a rare rare rare Granny Smith apple for dinner, which Lucie and I split later and ate with caramel. A perfect way to end October.

So, yes. I felt like the average college student today. It was wonderful. I have been so cooped up doing projects that I can't even understand what and where I am sometimes. But after putting on my backpack, sticking in my earbuds, shuffling through leaves on the sidewalk, buying Startbucks and laying all my curricular items out on a table, I became the stereotypical college student I always wanted to be when I was 12. It was veryempowering, I think.

I took academic refuge in the Cube, a glass box of a place near the river, with a Starbucks, bookstore, and huge windows. The sun slid it's way to the floor of the place for nearly and hour, until the low gray clouds swung by to really make it feel like Halloween. I could see the lovely Weisman Art Museum reflect the gloom from the sky, and become a piece of foreboding gloom itself. I love metal structures.

These are my two favorite building on campus.

Frederick Weisman Art Museum (aka The Fred)

McNamara Alumni Center (aka awesome)

Stunners.

Anyway, I chilled there for 4ish hours, studying away, watching squirrels dive into garbage cans, a kid fall asleep on his homework for over a half hour, and a wonderful city bus go by with a Minneapolis Institute of Arts ad on it, promoting the Louvre exhibit there. I AM SO DANG EXCITED for that. A picture of Vermeer's The Astromoner , which I am soooo pumped to see at the museum, whizzed past on Washington Ave. I wanted to pat Metro Transit on the head, I was so happy to see that painting. Ah.

Tonight consisted of more homework, and then watching the second half of Pocahontas on my floor. Watching movies with college students is like going into a discussion festival. Doing this requires me to hold back my laughter towards the general populous, because I find movie commentaries to be a riot. Ah ha.

After that was done, a game of LIFE started up, and so did the belting out of Christmas carols.

We were so done with Halloween, I guess.

Luce and I ducked out and left the others to play some LIFE, and we colored on paper on the wall in the lounge, were visited by a tipsy neighbor, and nearly fell asleep on the lounge floor and couch eating Milk Duds that tasted like Elmer's clue and construction paper. We were informed by a highly reliable source that daylights savings ends today, so I am pumped to get an extra hour of sleep.

Yet, it's 3 AM. And my body is screaming 4.

I think I'm ready to call it quits and render myself unconscious.

Happy No-Shave November.

Song of the Day: Forgotten by Gatekeeper (a perfect Halloween-esque tune)

Step back. Inhale. Exhale. Drink Tea. Repeat.

Oh my.

There's my day right there. Oh my.

Let me inform you of my Wednesday.

one word: slacker.

Ok, so I used to be the most professional of slackers all during high school. Mom thought I didn't manage my time well, but I did. I can manage to do a lot during the few hours before my homework is due. Yup. Skill set.

But, in college, that sneaky and laid-back persona needed to be thrown out the window. No more intense-on-rare-occasion person. That's all I ever am. Busybusybusybusybusybusy. Unbelievably.

So, I kinda moseyed about yesterday. I haven't had the change to sorta slack for a long time. Sure, I worked on my drafting dimensions that were due today, and I sat there for hours with my drafting board on my lap. But it was the computer beside me that did me in. I watched some movies while working, and listened to tunes, whatnot. But time just slips by, and you realize that not every moment was spent wisely.

Such is life. Decisions, mistakes, corrections.

So, I sat in there, dimensioning, skypeing, Fbing, whatever, from about 11 AM to 4:30. Then, I became intensely aware that I needed to go visit a building on the East Bank to write about during my design thinking midterm today. I knew I needed to go there sometime on Wednesday, but it dawned on me that I should get moving. I went on the McNamara website to see when it closes.

And I read 5PM.

Ohh, the panic. I had 20 minutes to get my person over to the other end of the East Bank, look around in a building, and take notes. Getting there in that time is nearly impossible. first, one must gather up stuff, lock up, get outside, run to the bus stop, catch a bus that rarely comes at that hour, get across the bridge and through most of the East Bank, hop off at the right stop, and book it inside.

Well, that's what I did. I panickly ran to the bridge, waiting nearly 10 minutes for a bus, and got off just as the bells sounded 5 PM. Hoping, hoping it wasn't true they closed then, I dashed inside, and saw on the door, that, in fact, the building closes at 8. Oi.

So, pretty much shaking, I eased my way inside the beautiful place, and sat down in a leather chair by a 7-foot fireplace, and watched the fancy staff set up for a banquet. This place is beautiful beyond architectural words, guys. McNamara is my favor place on campus. So, I guess, if I hadn't been able to get in there, I'd at least have been inside before to gawk at it, and would recall some stuffs.

Anyway, who cares. I did it.

I decided it might be relaxing to walk back to the West Bank. I eased myself out of that deep leather chair, put on my favorite mustard and charcoal-colored mittens, and began the trek down the Scholar's Walk.

The Scholar's Walk is a pretty neat place, for those of you who know nothing about the U. It's pretty much a long, long, long stretch of sidewalk, I think a couple thousand feet, that reaches from nearly one end of East Bank to another. Along it, there are memorials and tributes to great people from the U, and around the world. Different awards are named, like the Nobel and all that. Most awards are for science discoveries. Only one dude got a some weird things called a Wolf Award for geophysics, or something. Whatever that is.

Anyway, it was a nice, quieting way to end my long afternoon. Walking across the bridge over the Mississippi, I noticed two Chinese girls in front of me a ways. Nothing out of the ordinary, but all of a sudden, then walked sharply to the left. I was like...? Then, I saw, hanging from the roof of the indoor tunnel, there was a huge huge river spider, just chillin about 6 feet above the ground. Yuq. His legs were all splayed out, which made him a couple inches across. It was sick nasty.

Oh, the things you notice without earbuds in your ears.

All in all, yesterday was a weird, slackery, terribly nostalgic for no reason day that ended at 3 AM for me.

I'm tired an rambly, if you can't tell.

An now I have a nearly 20 page technical sketching assignment due in my studio class next Thursday, which will beat the living crud out of me.

MLIA.

I should go. Class in 15.

End.

Song of the Day: Letters From the Sky, by Civil Twilight