Hey Hey Hey....Goodbye

Many other things to post about, but of most importance is the fact that I MOVED AWAY FROM THE CHINESE TODAY!

Matt and Megan flaked out, so I hate both of them (kidding, I love Matty), so Dan and I drove up in the rain after a long night of boozing and an early morning. Lots of stuff to move, but I am 100% out of there and it feels amazing.

Best moment was when someone stopped by this afternoon and asked if I was there and Least English Speaking said "I don't think so, her stuff is all gone?". I love it.

Also, I love Dan for being spiteful enough to take the roll of toilet paper from the bathroom and be loud and funny about how awful the Chinese are, even though they were in the house. You go Glenn Coco! He was absolutely worth the $23 Pizza Hut breakfast/lunch/dinner we shared today at 2:40 pm.

Fear not everyone, I am sure there will be lots of stories about the new roomates, it may just involve more normal complaints and less mystery food.

Also

My dad just walked by and said, "Oh, so is that what your blog is called". FML.

Dad, you better not be reading this. I will burn your Christmas presents. Fo realz.♦

Oh what an exhausting weekend

Packed up my stuff for skiing, 2 weeks in CT, and all the stuff that won't fit in my new smaller bedroom and headed to VT.

Spent the first night buying everything imaginable to go skiing and just relaxing with the parents. Which was good, because I was exhausted (though the sun shines through at 7 am in the morning in the condo, so it wasn't a sleep-filled weekend).

Saturday morning, two of my friends came down from Dartmouth. One of my friends snowboards so we hit the slopes for the day while my other friend hung around the house, then we came back and went sledding, then hit the hot tubs, cooked dinner and ate with my parents, and then played Clue while slightly drunk. Fun day, but exhausting, especially since (a) HOLY FUCK IT'S COLD IN NEW ENGLAND OMG, (b) the snowboarding friend sort of sucked, so I had to go really slowly and keep checking on him and think about which trails to take that he could handle, and (c) the friend who stayed home was bored and needed to be played with after we had spent the day on the slopes.

Next morning, we all got up and my friend said her back hurt and asked that we call an ambulance. We ended up heading to a clinic, then I road along in an ambulance and we spent the day in the Emergency Room while she was hoped up on serious pain meds. Sort of amusing, but not really a relaxing day. Also, she isn't from America and has never been sick - so the concept of insurance cards, American healthcare, social security numbers, and IV's was all sort of new and strange.

We got home and my friend was fine and they headed back to Hanover, at which point my mom freaked out on me and my dad because of how messy the house was (we didn't get to clean up because we were at the hospital). I finally talked her down and we drank wine and watched many episodes of 30 Rock.

And then today. Had to wake up early and hit the slopes with the parents. Also unacceptably cold. Got back, had to pack the car and clean the condo top to bottom because my brother was having some mystery girl come up and we couldn't get the cleaners to come. So, we scrambled to do that, had to go get my boots fixed, then drove back to CT to find that the water pump in the basement was broken. Shoveled the driveway, cooked dinner, helped my dad fix the water pump.....and now I'm so tired.

So why catch up on the blog instead of sleep? I have no idea.

Also, I'm going to give Kirstin a shout-out because we finally got to catch up tonight, and I found out she actually reads this.

Anyway, the week is shaping up to be fun, lots of family and friends and food. Excited! Must get away from the gloom of Hanover.

Updates for the sake of updates

1. The can of meat product in the fridge has been half-consumed since I posted. Ewl.

2. New gross candidate - there is a dark purple/black solidified gelatin thing in the fridge that smells disgustingly sweet. I noticed that I could smell it in my water that lives in the Brita pitcher. Double ewl.

3. I keep seeing The Hispanic at the gym, which is fine. We have polite enough conversation. He sent me a totally random email last night asking "have you thought about reading Kierkegaard" and included a profound quote or two. So very strange.

Not too much other news. Hanover is completely empty b/c by this point all the undergraduates and graduate students are gone. I am planning to go skiing in VT this weekend with two Hanover friends and perhaps a Cheshire friend. And the parents. Lots of good family time coming up.

Alright, off to show my adviser my latest creation and be told how stupid it is.

1000+ views!

Also, I just noticed that the little counter says we are over 1,000 views. I know it's all from the same 6 people, but it's still exciting!

The Hispanic & The Asians

Update and Musings

I was at the gym Monday looking for an open machine, and someone pulls on my arm. It's The Hispanic! He said he just got my voicemail from Sunday morning today, and when I mentioned something about the service on Sunday he seemed genuinely surprised and had not realized I was there. I'm not sure I bought all that, I pretty much just nodded and said okay, well cool, maybe I'll see you there sometime and walked away. Cordial, but I'm just over his flaky/strange behaviors.

The Asians. It's actually been amazing because one left for break a week ago, one is never around, and the other does the least amount of cooking at our house. Awesome. I had my friend over Sunday night - my door was closed and so was my roomates, but you could hear them talking. My Romanian friend said "Is that really how they always talk? That strange high-pitched giggly sounding talk? That can't be real?" Ah, from the mouth of babes.

Also, I meant to snap a picture but I've been too lazy. New scariest food item in the fridge: it's a can of meat that sort of looks like spam but is grosser. The label is in Chinese, but the can was cut open around the middle and put back in the fridge. Basically, there is a tin can filled with meat oozing out of it in the fridge. I am so happy I won't be living there in a week.

I got stood up on a date to attend Church

Heh...silly right?

So The Hispanic had emailed me Friday about church on Sunday (call at 9:30 and we'll meet up). I stressed out all morning about waking up on time, got up and called him at 9:30, and it went right to voicemail I left him a message and decided to go to church anyway. I saw him come in about 5 minutes after me and sat in a row behind me. There is no way he didn't see me during communion. I thought about saying hi after, but decided maybe I should just see if he calls me back or comes over himself. He didn't come over and he didn't call me yesterday.

That being said, I think I was kind of glad to do the church thing alone. The Episcopalian blend of Protestant and Catholic religions was fascinating but sort of baffling to me, and I think maybe I was happier to experience them without having to comment or act like I knew what was going on. Funny n0te: I chose not to take part in communion, and the woman next to me acted like I was Satan. It was funny.

Also, this weekend was the Mad Men theme party and it was such a good time. Got to dress up super pretty, drink fabulous Manhattan's all night, and eat hilarious 50's-inspired food. Great night. I also met this guy who is a post-doc here at Dartmouth - he is 32, single, and has braces...it makes me feel better about my situation because it's like..shit..at least I don't have braces. We also got to dance and bond and have fun. There were a few annoying moments when Korean Brendan was getting too close to my liking, but he backed off quickly enough.

Finally, other news, in my attempt to make a new and better me I went to my first session of counseling today. It was a really positive experience, and I feel like I can make some good progress on the idea of why am I so reticent to spend time by myself. Should be good stuff, and the therapist was very funny (and I think found me entirely amusing).

Okay, that's all for now. Oh, one more note, I am currently searching for a stimulus set to use in my smoking study and thought I would send a plea for suggestions to the masses. I need a movie or tv show that involves a lot of smoking (a lot!), but doesn't involve too much (a) drinking during the smoking, (b) eating during smoking, or (c) talking about negative effects of smoking. Any ideas?

The Hispanic, Korean Brendan, Babysmoker & Mr. Big - all in one night!

OMG! I must stop leaving my house on Thursday nights as it hasn't been ending well.

In brief, last night we went to play Trivia at a bar in West Lebanon, and afterwards we decided to head back to the Canoe Club to hang out with one of the speakers who had come in for a talk earlier (note: I had a BLAST with the speaker from Harvard and I am looking forward to working on things with him in the future). This seems so simple right!

Trivia was great. Canoe Club was a messy mess. Let's just go through the night by person.

Korean Brendan - he had been calling and texting me since 5:30 to come to Canoe Club and hang out. I told him I was going to come after Trivia. Around 10 the texts start coming in "are you coming?", "why aren't you here yet :(". Ugh. We show up and he is hovering all around me for the night, but since I am having really fun conversations with a lot of people, he eventually starts sulking in the corner because I'm not paying him any attention. I try to pay my tab at the end and he's already paid for me. I try to walk home (it was nice out, I needed to think) and he is adamant about giving me a ride. I tell him "no, I really want to walk", and he says "oh you don't trust me to drive?". I say, "no, I really just want to walk home, but please drive safely" and he says "what do you care about me getting home safe"....and stomps away, like a baby. I get maybe 3 minutes into my walk and he's calling to make sure I'm okay. Ugh.

BabySmoker - actually, my interaction with him was fairly neutral. I was talking to one of his friends and he came back in from smoking, and we exchanged pleasantries, and it was fine. No smattering of emails this morning, so I think that's great.

The Hispanic - so The Hispanic comes in last night after I am well into drinking-town. I see him, we say hi, etc, and I pull him aside and I said something like "things seem really awkward after our last meeting and I want to know what's up". Don't worry, I said it far more adorably than that. We chatted for a bit but he denied things being awkward, said he was really tired that night, and at some point used the phrase "we're both adults", which I don't think can ever be a good sign. At the end, we chatted a bit about the "my cup is empty comment" and he is going to let me tag along with him to church on Sundays (this is actually something I would really like to do and I was not happy to loose my possible church buddy because of awkwardness). Overall, a strange interaction but fine.

Mr. Big - ugly messy yucky. He had called a bit earlier in the evening and we had talked civilly and played catch-up, which was awkward but nice. As soon as I had gotten off the phone with Korean Brendan on my walk home, Mr. Big called. This was probably about 1:30 am. This, obviously, turned into a crappy call. He was very mad, and I was just not in the place to deal with it. I think that is all I have to say about that for the time being.

Even with some ugly parts of the evening, I do feel like I am making some better friends and connections, and that was evident last night. One of the professors I was hoping to ask to be my secondary adviser had a great talk with me about the social life of Hanover/my adviser/the department, and I feel a lot more comfortable plopping down in her office when I need to chat. I also keep finding myself hanging out with the older crowd of the psych department, and I had worried that was looking sort of like that obnoxious girl who thinks she is cooler than she is. But, last night, they very drunkenly were like "OMG, we love! esp for the ridiculous open bluntness". So, I think that's a good thing.

Oh, on the note of bluntness, I can't tell if I should be keeping my celibacy vow more under-wraps. It keeps coming up in conversation, and maybe I should be more embarrassed about the whole thing, but I'm not? At some point last night, it was the topic of conversation of about 14 people at the bar, perhaps a bit more discretion? Is there any reason to be discrete about it?

Vow of Celibacy

I know.

To start, I write this blog for a variety of reasons. One, to keep my friends up-to-date on what I am doing. Two, to amuse my friends with ridiculous stories. Three, to sort out my own thoughts on the changes in my life. I debated not putting this up here, but it's something going on, so why keep secret a source of something that can be entirely amusing?

I have decided to actively attempt celibacy until my 26th birthday (so late March). I have really been thinking a lot about why I am in such a dark place, and I realized my preoccupation with getting laid has a lot to do with it. This makes sense, since every night I don't make progress with a guy or have sex I feel disappointed. I also realized that I have been approaching every interaction with a guy as basically (1) do I want to have sex with you and (2) do you want to have sex with me...and that just isn't right or normal or healthy. I guess it's like I was trying to push relationships with people that I wasn't even that interested in, instead of letting attraction happen organically.

I mean, really, I don't think that my pseudo-sexual addiction is any surprise to anyone reading this.

Having adopted this mentality on Sunday night, I can already say that it has made me feel a lot better. Last night I was hanging out with a couple guys, and I wasn't preoccupied with my normal thoughts of which of these guys might be interested in me. It was entirely liberating, and I left feeling happy just having had some social time. How freeing! Basically, I am going to spend the next few months making friends, getting my research going, and getting adjusted to Hanover, and then I can worry about finding a good guy.

I will say, I did build one loophole into my celibacy - I am allowed to sleep with anyone I have already slept with. That doesn't really help me up here (can you say Homecoming Indian), but ya know....it's always nice to think you have a loophole. Also, if we don't count that one guy, I haven't had sex in 3.5 months...so what's a few more?

...can't wait to see the emails that come from this post ;)

Are you having sex Middle-English Speaking?

Okay, for about a month I have listened to odd sounds coming from Middle-English Speaking's room (she is next to me) and I really can't tell if she is having sex with her hideous Asian boyfriend. I am so baffled that I might be at the point of asking. Hideous has a really deep voice but speaks very loudly...so I just hear these muffled baritone sounds coming from the room at all times. It all sort of sounds like panting, but it sounds equally like speaking. Sometimes it sounds like they are dropping stuff/banging stuff - but then I will hear "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch" coming loudly from her bedroom - and that doesn't seem right either? I am so incredibly confused, but I really wish they could die in a fire instead of slamming her bedroom door everytime he leaves at 1 am.

So excited to get out of here.

Oh also, there has been a plate in the fridge that has been growing for the past week, and I am not convinced it is food. It started as this horrible black plate filled with cooked-onion looking stuff, and each night it seems like more "stuff" has been added? Please note, it is not covered by plastic wrap or anything - it's just hanging out in the fridge collecting weird smells along with a mushy quality.

First Snow and Other Weekend Events

Saturday was the first snow of the year (of any significance) and it was amazingly pretty. Those big fluffy flakes that make everything look so wonderful. Even though my toe is still a mess, I had to get all geared up and take a walk in the snow around the pretty little lake by me. Wonderful. It's still pretty cold so I think this snow will stick around for a while.

Saturday night was the Ugly Sweater Party. I had a pretty amazing vest from KMart and it was a good time. Still got plenty of guff from Thursday night's disaster, but so be it - helps me learn lessons that much better. Only not awesome thing is that there is this guy I like (in the dept, I know, bad) and he shows absolutely no interest in me. Err...which is to say, no interest in me past being a friend. Part of me wants to just leak the information or confront him, but then I realized that asking a guy to like me who doesn't naturally might be even more pathetic than being lonely? I don't know, I will let the situation develop a bit more, just thoughts swirling around in my head.

Sunday was a fairly decent day as well. Got some necessary work done during the day and then went to our charity poker event that turned into watching football and being lazy (don't worry, we still raised money).

Oh, most amazing discovery ever. There is a show on the Fine Living Network called "Whatever, Martha", in which Martha Stewarts' daughter and her friend (and sometimes Martha) watch old episodes of her show and mock the shit out of Martha, each other, her guests, the kids on the show...everything. Leslie, this show has your name written all over it. Check out some clips here: http://www.tvsquad.com/2008/09/09/whatever-martha-looks-kind-of-mean-kind-of-hilarious-videos/.

The Tale of a Girl Named Shit Show

Wow. Just wow. Last night was a shit show. I would have written this up in the morning, but I was still drunk.

Last night was the Hanukkah Ball. I know that seems strange, but it's basically an awesome party with great music and an open bar, and a fun excuse to get all dressed up.

The party was super fun - I had such a good time dancing and drinking with the rest of the psych department people. It was also a hilarious mixing of all these men I have had strange interactions with.

Guy 1 - the event bartender. I walked up and he said "oh hi Sarah". I have no idea who he is. He claims we met at Canoe Club a bit ago? Sure?

Guy 2 - a bartender from the Canoe Club. It looks a lot like this other bartender I became friends with earlier this week, so I saw him and was like "oh hey new Facebook buddy, your girlfriend is super hot". Guy 2 smiled and sort of said something and then wandered away. I realized when he left that (a) he was not the other bartender and (b) I just made an ass out of myself. I went up later and explained it and we laughed about it.

Guy 3 (THE HISPANIC) - if there was any question about how he feels, last night answered it. We both saw each other, I had to go over and say hi. We said hello, exchanged the usual "how was your thanksgiving", and he walked away. What the fuck did I say to him that made him feel this way?

Guy 4 (THE PLAYA) - this is the med student who I liked but then went out to lunch with and realized not so much. Last night was the first time in my life I had to say to someone "please stop motorboating me". He would not leave me alone and was really creepy. My friend agreed that she never realized how creepy he was until last night.

So anyway, the part went until 11 and we kept drinking and dancing and having fun. And here is when it gets ugly.....

I have been feeling really sad all week. I think it was something like being home with the people who really care about me/understand me made me realize just how much I don't have that in Hanover. Also, I hadn't spoken to Mr. Big (I know, I know) in a while and was really feeling alone for the first time ever. I had said ahead of time how nervous I was about drinking because I didn't want those emotions to come out. Oh right, that's exactly what happened.

Someone started talking about break-ups and stuff and I started to cry. Now granted, I was not "that girl" who is hysterically crying and making a scene, but I was crying. And I cried for much of the remainder of the night.

I probably should have gone home after the party, but instead we went out to Canoe Club. More drinking, more The Playa, more crying. I am told that we also did shots. I don't remember that.

The walk home was ugly. I took my shoes off, couldn't walk in a straight line, and fell over...a lot. At one point I was lying on my back on the ground, crying, and debating if I could just not get up and sleep there. I also called Mr. Big. Crying, hysterical, drunken phone call with all the sad emotions I have been feeling. Ugh. At some point I got home and I recall throwing up and then having to clean that up.

I found out this morning that my friend had come by looking for an apartment (at like 2 am, she was trying to find a place to crash) and saw me trying to get my door open and we talked for a bit and I showed her where her friend lived. I have absolutely no memory of this happening.

But girls and boys, what would a story from me be without some sort of physical damage as well? I don't know when or how, but I took a giant chunk out of my toe. Giant. It hurts so bad. I also didn't clean it last night, and when I woke up this morning it had semi-sealed with all the dirt inside. Watch for future posts on my infected toe!

So to summarize, last night was a disaster but I still had a great time. The party was fun, and more bonding with my friends will hopefully help take away the sadness. I also am much better friends with a really cool girl that I wanted to get to know better, and people were really nice to me and trying to cheer me up when I was sad, so that's worth something.

Also, though today was such a terrible struggle, I think everyone found the stories amusing and there was definitely a nice shared bonding experience. And let's be real, we all know that I am going to be that crazy girl in the department - so why not at least revel in it and laugh the next day.

You and Me Could Have a Bad Romance

Some of you have asked, so I thought I would address The Hispanic follow-up here and also throw in a Lady Gaga lyric to satisfy that urge.

I have not heard anything back from The Hispanic since our "cup is empty" meeting last week. That being said, we usually let a week or two pass between emails. Oh also, he is clearly scared/not interested/a freak...so I wouldn't be expecting another post re: The Hispanic in the near future. In fact, if you recall, I asked him to dinner a long ass time ago and he didn't really get back to me until he saw me all sexified out in my Halloween Costume.

The Housing Office Wants Me To Cry

I'm convinced. I emailed the housing people yesterday about how in the world I am going to arrange moving my stuff out before I have a place to move in. The housing people had some thoughts but were like - hey, there is another spot opening up on December 15th in a different (much better) building. Amazing! That would let me (a) not move into the smallest room in the world, (b) get all of my moving done at one time before I leave for break, and (c) get away from The Chinese in 2 weeks!

I emailed the three roomates and these are the two email responses I got from the girl who was moving out:

1) "I am the person who lives in appartment 24 B, and I don't want anyone to come and see my room while I am here. I told the housing people that I will be on academic leave for 1 term only and I will be back in the beginning of March. I did not know she will find someone to live in my room while I am on leave. But if it is like that I will pay for all the time I am not here, because I really don't want to lose this place. Appartment 8 A has a free room since September.

Sorry, but you cannot come here and look at my room."

2) "I was not aware the apartment was listed as vacant. I DO NOT want anyone other than my roommates living there for the month of December. Please do not show the unit. Is is not vacant."

Wow - a simple "no, I am only gone until March" would have sufficed. Fuck you housing people for not having a basic understanding of who is going where and for getting my hopes up just to be dashed all over again.

Turkey, Walmart, Naked Women and Lady Gaga

I debated if I should make one long Thanksgiving Break post or split it up into several, but I don't think it really makes a difference, so let's just go in chronological order.

Drove home on Tuesday and felt really lovely leaving The Chinese (though not without a group of 8 of them eating lunch remarking on just how much stuff I was bringing home). It was really strange to just get in a car and drive 3 hours and be home - no train schedule, no 3 oz or less on the plane, no 14 hour roadtrips that end with breaking into a train station at 3 in the morning in Delaware.

Wednesday was an INSANE shopping day (buying all the warm things I need for Hanover living, plus shopping for the first time in a few months since there is nowhere to buy any non-hunting related clothing in New Hampshire). I ended up going out to a house party with Megan that night and it was actually pleasant seeing all the old Cheshire people and playing catch-up. It's really neat where everyone has ended up, and it's always fun to see those people who are epic failing (trying to gain as much weight as you can when you started at 250 lbs of fat is not a life goal, but very amusing to watch). I also got to see Dan (Buzz) and I was so happy and almost started crying because I miss Dan and D.C. people so much. Oh, and my 28 year old brother was drunk calling and texting me every 3 minutes for the last 2 hours of the night to come pick him up. That was amusing.

THANKSGIVING! We broke slightly from the normal family traditions and instead of going to Costco and watching Lord of The Rings, we went to Walmart and watched Royal Tenenbaums and Bee Movie. My dad and I spent the day in the kitchen cooking and everything was delicious and fantastic.

Friday was the bestest day ever (yes, this is where the naked women come in). Got up, met with Matty in New Haven and had a great catch-up lunch, and then hoped Metro North and went into NYC to see Caitlin. Caitlin! I was soooo happy to see Caitlin. We stayed in her family's super-sweet upper-west side apartment overlooking Lincoln Center and it was super nice. We also broke out into Lady Gaga or Empire State of Mind every moment actual speech was not happening. We went to dinner at a cool little Mexican place and then, in the most perfectly appropriate move ever, we decided to head to the lower east side to the Slipper Room for a burlesque show.

Now in D.C., a burlesque show is basically very funny/vaudevillian and the girls get down into pasties and a thong and that's the evening. In NYC, the girls stripped down into nothing. Absolutely nothing. At first they were doing pasties and thongs, but then it was everything off. Crazy! Also, unlike the typical shows I have been at, there would be 2 performances and then one of the girls would come out and "go-go" dance for about 15 to 25 minutes (go-go meaning they awkwardly dance and get naked for a really long time and you feel compelled to treat them like strippers and give them money). It was a little awkward, but it did provide a lot of opportunity to go up and do silly things, which I was more than willing to do. Towards the later portion of the show, I was most clearly that girl cracking jokes in the audience (there was an obvious separation of the newbies in the audience and the people who are used to being around naked women) and I was called up on stage by the M.C., at which point he told me how great my tits are (true), and dared me to lick his sweaty semi-nude body - which I of course did and then made him give me a fucking kick-ass high five.

So yeah, we had an awesome time and then while wandering the streets we kept getting random compliments by every single person that walked by us, which was fabulous. Perhaps they could sense the post-naked-women energy? The rest of the night was also silly, and we found these two guys on the subway who (a) found the super-pissed off train announcer funny too (nobody else seemed to) and (b) also thought the bum playing Empire State of Mind on his pan-pipe was the greatest thing ever.

Saturday - Caitlin and I went to a great diner and then wandered around Lincoln Center and Central Park. We ended up sitting on these rocks in the sunshine overlooking a giant playground, and we amused ourselves for an hour watching the really cute kids, the kids throwing tantrums, and these adolescent kids who were doing parkour (look it up) and looking really cool or really stupid. Fun morning/afternoon, but the family had asked me to come home so we could do our family Costco trip, so it was time to leave. I was sad to leave NYC, but I think it made me realize that maybe I can handle Hanover as long as I can come to a real city and have a crazy night every couple of months. So that's progress right? I got back to CT, did the Costco thing, and then went on a random trip to Walmart with MaryKate (we didn't want to drink, were too poor for a movie, and think coffee sounded lame - so we walked around Walmart). We ended up buying Funny People (terrible terrible movie) and hanging out. Again, great to catch-up with people.

Sunday - I guess I could have just called this "Today". Slept late, gathered up all the stuff I had thrown about the house, and put snow tires on my car (that's right, I actually can change tires, bitches!). I am planning on having dinner here and then hitting the road at 8 to drive back to New Hampshire - I think that will let me avoid most of the traffic but get in early enough that it won't be crazy. Also, I am very much hoping that The Chinese will be asleep (or gone, forever....) so I don't have to deal with those stupid comments I will surely get when they see all the stuff I am bringing back (oh my goodness, why you have so much things?).

So yeah, long post and probably a little boring (it's hard to recap a lot of stuff at once without loosing much of the flavor), but that is what I've been up to. Hopefully this will allow all of you to avoid your Monday work for just that much longer.

My Cup is Empty?

Yes ladies and gentlemen, my cup is empty. Allow me to explain.

The Hispanic came over at 9 last night (funny sidenote: he got lost and ended up at the wrong place, and told me about this really bitchy girl who answered the door. Oh yes, he was talking to my future roomate). We pop open a bottle of Malbec, put on some latin music (seriously), I take my computer chair and he sits on my bed. We talk for hours - I keep telling him ridiculous stories about my life, he tells me all about places he has traveled, and somehow everything from STD's, past relationships, female anatomy, and hooking up in Hanover come up. We run out of wine, crack open some beers, I move to the bed, and we keep talking.

At some point we are talking about past relationships and I am talking about Mr. Big. The Hispanic does some math and realizes that we only broke up when I moved to Hanover (which, I guess, is sort of a fuzzy timeline even after that) and he makes the comment that "my cup is empty".

I'm sorry?

He explains that since I am just getting out of a relationship my cup is empty and I don't have any of my emotional self to give. I counter that, no, being in a bad relationship drains your cup and you actually get it back when you are excited to start something new and better.

We continue to talk but he seems a little distracted and starts putting his shoes on and making his way towards the door. There is no awkward hug/will he kiss me moment....he just leaves. Granted it was about 1:30 am, but there wasn't even a "boy it's late, I have to get up early tomorrow".

What the fuck just happened here?

Who comes over to someone's house that late, splits a bottle of wine, talks about the things we talked about, and then just leaves? Was he really turned away from having sex with me because I just got out of a relationship - having been totally fine with the story about my work as a pseudo-dominatrix? Was it something else that transpired that I missed?

......I've said it before and I'll say it again, the people here are freaks and I don't understand them.

A Promise to Myself

Tonight, I had to thrust my arm into a freezer filled with cow and chicken carcasses to get my pack of frozen peas to ice my ankle. I will NEVER do that again, nor will I ever be able to forget the feeling of raw frozen beef rubbing against my sensitive inner arm.

Shudder.

Weekend Update/ Date Preview

This weekend was super low-key but a pretty damn good time. Friday night I went to the men's hockey game and then watched Always Sunny, The League, and Elf with my officemate and his roomate. It was really nice, because I have been searching pretty hard to find people with the same warped sense of humor as myself, and I finally found them in these two guys. We even had that adorable moment when it was like - can we be friend cuz I think you are super neato!

Saturday I spent the day writing a paper and then had a lovely little dinner with KP and got to play catch-up/department gossip. Must have a touchstone person right? We then headed off to a housewarming party (I was designated driver, felt it was best to keep things light post-swine flu right?) that was also fairly relaxed but a good time. Solid evening, even though we got tricked into a 40 minute hike to go find someone whose car had broken down at the "house on the top off the hill with the giant unicorn". Yes, it was a giant unicorn..but not worth the hike.

Sunday, I did some work and then went off to play flag football with some psych people. It was a fantastically fun time even though I (a) was definitely the worst player out there and (b) painfully jacked up my ankle during the 3rd play and am currently limping around with a giant puffy ankle. Stupid me. Spent the rest of the evening watching football with the same crowd and then going home to do reading. Overall, it was a pretty decent weekend.

So what's that date preview I was jabbering about in my subject line? Well, I emailed The Hispanic Saturday was was like "hey, I'd love to see you before I head off for Thanksgiving". He emailed me back and asked if he could come by my place Monday night at 10:30 pm to split a bottle of wine with me. I am like 99% sure this is a booty call - late evening start time, hanging out in my bedroom, and drinking. I think I like this development, as I basically see The Hispanic fitting into my life as the fuck buddy (not sure I want to bring him around as a boyfriend, but would love to have someone to call on a Tuesday night and be like..my place, midnight, let's do this thing!).

Other than that, I am just excited to head home to see the family and such. Also, I am super pumped to head to NYC this coming weekend and meet up with Caitlin (and hopefully see Matty too!). It's been sort of a drama-filled couple of weeks with Mr. Big (I know, I know) and I finally pulled that cord. I am very happy to finally have made that choice, but it'll be nice to be surrounded by family and friends instead of The Chinese this week.

My Friend Boots

Yesterday was a bad day. After killing myself over data my adviser took one look and said..nope, crap, start again with a new experiment that might not even work. I know this is part of science, and I think it was also because I am still feeling pretty wiped from swine flu, but it just made for an ugly afternoon.

I got home and made myself an awesome meal because The Chinese were blissfully not cooking last night, and I went to take the garbage out and something small and black darted past me. I turned the corner and it was the most adorable little black cat with white paws. I said hello to the little kitty and went about my business because I assumed that everything hated me yesterday. But not Boots!

As I walked back to my house, Boots came up along besides me and rubbed against my leg and meowed and was generally adorable. I tried to go inside, but Boots kept looking at me and asking me to play. I had seen someone with a black cat a few houses down the day before, so I walked her around and she followed me just like a little puppy.

They didn't know anything about the cat, so I ended up sitting outside and stroking Boots while she drank milk and played with me.

I sent out an email and someone responded that Boots has a home down the street and just likes to wander, so I felt better about having to leave her outside while I did work. Either way, I heart my new friend boots. I also think this was the most intimate moment I have had in Hanover (including the sex). Yikes.

One More Vent

So, you may all recall the girl who I spent all that time in the hospital with and ran around for a couple of days trying to help in anyway that I could. Well she was gone all weekend, so I couldn't call in the favor this weekend, but she gchated me Sunday night and said "oh dear, you have swine flu. Can I get you anything tomorrow before or after school?" I told her yes I definitely did need some stuff and I would chat with her during the day if that worked? She said it would.

She wasn't online all all today and finally came on gchat (it's about 9 pm). She made no effort to ask me if I needed anything all day or now. Luckily, someone else sent me an email asking if I needed anything and brought me some supplies tonight, but the other girl is really the only one in this whole town who should have brought me stuff. What the fuck? Lesson learned I suppose.

I am also pegging her as the girl who is going to break up a relationship in the next few weeks (ironically with the girl who brought me the stuff tonight), so I am going to just name her The Problem for any future blog references. Know the people around you I suppose.........

Asia Rant

There is nothing like being quarantined to your house to make you really really hate the people you previously disliked greatly. Random Asia rant begins in 5...4...3...2.....1...

1. Dear Most English Speaking's boyfriend, I am actually happy that you occasionally come to visit from Yale because it means that sometimes Most English is gone. That being said, you are staying in a home occupied by 4 females, where the FUCK do you get off leaving the toilet seat up?!?! I have a utilitarian policy regarding toilet seat politics - based on people who pay rent in a domicile, the majority gender shall determine the standard position of the toilet seat. I assure you that in my years of living with 2 guys or 3 guys I never made a comment about the toilet seat. Also, you are a goddamn guest in this house, fucking get a clue and be respectful.

2. I would like to personally chisel the spine of whoever sent the Asians a "kitchen in a box" set. First, it's ridiculous that they consider the box it was shipped in on the floor in the kitchen as the longterm storage option. Second, I didn't know it was possible for everyone to take even longer to prepare food in the kitchen but this magic box has made it possible. Oh you are making cheesecake!?! Awesome. Well I just want to make soup so I guess it is fair that you occupy the kitchen from 3 pm until 9:30 pm. Oh btw, you made a pretty nice looking cake, don't put pineapple on top of it. Ever.

3. I know this is not original, but I am still just...so...scared and baffled by the bathroom situation. Most English Speaking, what do you do in there? You were in the bathroom for 2.5 hours last night. Your boyfriend wasn't in there (I checked), you weren't doing your laundry (I checked), and I think you might have taken a bath, but then why was the floor the usual amount of insane wetness? Also, did you shave a mustache in there? Where are these little gross hairs coming from around the sink?

Oh, and out of desperation I ventured into the other roomates bathroom and quickly decided it would be better to just pee in my bed then go inside. There are MOUNTAINS of long, disgusting black hair. It's like they push it all together in clumps and then just..leave it? Also, I pray to God that I never find out what you are doing to that toilet...it's...it's not natural....

4. The Kitchen Sink. I have certainly been known to leave a plate or a bowl in the sink for an hour or two while it soaks, but you cannot leave 2 industrial size woks in the sink for 2+ days. The woks are bigger than the sink, how on earth is anyone else supposed to use the sink? How are you using the sink? I hear you down there banging stuff and cooking?

5. Would it mean anything if I asked you to "be green"? It is in the 30's and 40's outside and you open the kitchen window to stop the fire alarm from going off (thanks by the way, I was napping because I have swine flu). You also have the fans going over the sink and all the lights on. Okay. Fine. Why do you then turn up the heat and then leave with the windows open, fans on, lights on? Do you know how much energy you are wasting by doing this all the time? Does it make you feel better to leave all the lights on at night? Do you think the window has a timer on it and you can't close it for a few hours once you break the seal and open it? It really really annoys me, and I can see why your fucking country is destroying our planet.

So now that I have expressed these thoughts, I would also like to apologize to all of you. I am really sorry that the shock of perpetually seeing the toilet seat up caused me to cough in the general direction of your toothbrushes. I am sorry that the extra time it took me to get through everything in the sink made it difficult for me to cover my mouth when I coughed around your food. And finally, I am sorry that me having to get up and close windows and turn off lights made me spread my germs all around the house.

I am sure all of you won't get sick because there is no justice in this world, but I really hope your "kitchen in a box" catches on fire when I move out in December.

P.S. Still stuck at home with the swine. Probably not contagious at this point, but I just don't loose coughs after that whole "whooping cough" thing, so I will probably not be back to work until Wed.

Swine Flu

I'll give everyone a moment to get over the incredible shock I am sure you are all experiencing, but yes, I have swine flu. This was NOT the weekend to get swine flu.

My plans for this weekend included 2 totally awesome parties on Friday and Sunday, spending all day and night on Saturday catching up on work, and jumping into my juggling act of activities on Monday ready to rock.

Instead, I've spent all weekend in bed trying to keep a fever down. I am so pissed off that I didn't get the freaking vaccine.

Oh, and I also infected 2 of my friend already, and god knows who they infected on Friday night. I can't wait to see the damage on Tuesday when I (hopefully) make it back into the world of the living.

Posting of some nature

What to say....

Asians make me crazy. Their new adorable little thing is to leave chairs all over the kitchen and living room. I refuse to move them. I hate them.

When I got home last night I saw that Middle English Speaking was in "mid-cook mode". This basically means that the kitchen is a mess, the sink is full, and every burner is being used, but there doesn't appear to be an end-time to cooking in the next hour. I come down with my little box of pasta and asked "are you going to be done cooking soon, in which case I can wait, or will you be cooking for a while?"

She looks at me, does the stupid head tilt that makes me want to punch her, and says "I am cooking." I say, "most fabulous", move her stuff off a burner, cook my pasta and clean my dishes in 15 minutes, and walk upstairs. 1.5 hours later she was still cooking.

What else, I have been running subjects like a crazy woman in the lab. I realized after 20 subjects worth of data I had programmed "reaction time" wrong, so there will be a bit of Excel data manipulation in the coming days. Also, I realized that nobody finds anything funny before 11 am in the morning (a crucial part of my study involves people finding a movie clip funny). Better to know now, but a little frustrating.

Boys - I emailed The Hispanic yesterday afternoon and he still hasn't responded. Strange. Also, Korean Brendan figured out that I am a captive audience while running subjects, so he has been in the lab constantly. Fabulous. I am almost feeling desperate enough for sex to maybe act on that, but no...no I must not. I'm really not that interested anyway.

Not interested and there are a few new guys on the horizon that I am interested in anyway. I haven't really received anything flirtatious back from them, so I am just going to work the friends angle for a while and see what develops, if anything.

Not too much else to tell - just trying to keep up on work (sort of doing that), keep making friends, and keep from getting sick. I've got another zombie movie night tomorrow, lab drinks Thursday, and then hopefully some fun weekend stuff will develop. Ohh, someone is having "Thanksgiving" on Sunday, so that should be fun.

I ran my first subject today!!!!

Very excited - I actually ran a subject today (well 2, and more to come)! Granted it is only doing behavioral piloting of the study materials I plan to use in the scanner, but I am still feeling pretty pumped.

Only downside, I am finding that some of the stuff I am using may not produce the desired results I am looking for. Back to the drawing board I guess.....

Finally had my "date" with The Hispanic

Quick Saturday recap first:

The bonfire was awesome and a totally good time. Not only was the company great, but it was the cutest house in the entire world and had this big swing tied to a tree (and a zipline that dumps you into the lake - must keep in mind for summertime). Also, I still find it so funny when I go for a party and the person has made like..artisan bread, home-made chili, chocolate rum cakes - all this really amazing food for a bonfire. It just seems so silly and grown-up. We ended up leaving the bonfire because things were getting a bit hostile among some of the guests, and we headed to Canoe Club where we hung out and played way too many rounds of Never Have I Ever with an audience of 50-something men and women. Nice.

Sunday:
I got all my materials prepared to run my first subjects on Monday, went for a long run with my friend Todd, did my reading for classes, and then went out for the make-up date with The Hispanic.

It was totally awesome! One of those great conversations where you are talking about 5 things at once because there is just so much to talk about and both parties are so interested in what the other has to say. Never an awkward pause, really funny and interesting. He walked me home (such a gentleman), we did a few laps around the house, and then there was that awkward goodnight pause - but I ended up only getting a hug. That's okay, there will be other times.

Pros: Hilarious, insanely smart (he's in a Phd/MD program!), well-traveled, great conversation, adorable accent
Cons: Why is he so damn short! I think he is actually shorter than me. I am only 5'5" when I wear normal shoes.....

Last Night Was So Fun!

Yesterday was a really fun evening, and so incredibly simple.

All of us Psych people were semi-dreading this 4 pm lecture we had to go to on statistical analysis of voxels (yeah, on a Friday), and there had been many deadlines all week for stuff, so we needed to unwind.

The talk was actually really engaging and interesting (though a little strange, the guy basically locked into me and kept referencing me during the talk and staring - a little awkward). After that about 14 of us went out for pitchers of beer and pizza, and then moved the party to someone's house. It was really awesome to keep bonding with the people in my department and to get to know the other years even better. Also, it was so nice to just relax, play some silly drinking games, drink crappy beer and do the fun stuff I used to do when I had friends in CT or DC.

....probably could have done a little less sharing during the Never Have I Ever round of Kings, but whatever, these people will get to know me sooner or later.

Tonight should be fun too, there is a birthday bonfire and hopefully the good weekend will continue.

Some strange points:
1) All 3 Chinese are cooking in the kitchen wearing matching pink flannel shirts. Giggle.

2) I got this email last night from one of the other first years. This is the kid who like, never ever hangs out socially with us, is totally in his own strange-ass world on everything he says, and generally is the kid most of us don't think will make it to the end and don't care enough about getting to know him to find out. (Before you say "Bitch!" - we have all tried really hard to engage him, help him flesh out his ideas, and join us in our reindeer games. He's not interested)

Here is the email:

I'm sending this email because I want to talk with you. This isn't spurned by anyone else and this isn't one of my pranks and I'm not in any way trying to belittle/condescend you. I want to know is there anything that you want to talk about or something that is not making you happy?

You have a trait that helps you rise above the usual timidness and internalized humility of most "Scientists"...you can speak your feelings of something exactly when you feel them no matter who is around you. While many people are still blinded by the aura of title and reputation of professors, you seem to blast right pass that in how you proceed. Don't change that. This is not what I'm worried about. That kind of honesty is a thing you should keep and I hope you shake every body who treats Science like a kingdom.

It does make me sad when (facetious or not) you say stuff like how bad of a student you are and how certain things (advisor related, Hanover related, student related) are holding you back in someway from the person that you want to be. I ask what makes you happy because maybe it is something that we could all do as comrades. If it is something research related, I say explore it more and don't be afraid to email or set phone meetings with people's whose paper you like. Well...I don't know what percentage is about the intellectual brussel sproats we have to eat for school and what part is about the Mayberry-ishness of the town...but I did want to send you an email just in case no one has out right asked you to talk and you have been wanting to say something. It doesn't have to be with me and I apologize if this seems like I'm prying. I just want the team to be happy.

A few thoughts:
1) I try to talk to him in person all the time and he doesn't engage. Why would I want to talk to him about this over email?

2) I make it no secret how difficult I am finding the challenges of new academic environment, housemates, Hanover, dating, etc. He only knows I am having trouble with these things because I talk about them to other people which he over-hears. Don't ask me if I need to talk about something which you only know about because I talk to people about it?

3) Is this his attempt to reach-out? I'm not interested. Try acting like a normal person.

I'm such a retard

I got out of class, went to the gym, took a shower, ate dinner and realized, oh shit, it's 8:30 and I have to meet The Hispanic at 9 at Molly's.

I get ready and race over there. Drink a beer for 25 minutes while I wait. He doesn't show up. I am upset.

I pace around outside, think about how much I hate Hanover, and head home.

I get home to see an email from him. "Hey, I waited at Murphy's for about 25 minutes but you didn't show. I'm sure you got busy. We'll have to do it another time."

WTF is wrong with me!?!? There are 3 bars in Hanover. How the fuck did I get the wrong one.

I sent him like 3 apology emails. I am such a bitch. I don't even like him that much and now I'm going to have to sleep with him.

In another retard news, I went ahead and posted my first psych experiment on the psychology bulletin (where freshman go b/c they have to sign up for a certain number of experiments to pass a class) because I figured no one would sign up so I would have time to FINISH the experiment. The first person is coming at 9 am on Monday. I only have 2 of the 4 experimental conditions done. .......sigh

NSF IS IN!!!

Very excited, I finally submitted the stupid NSF fellowship application and got my letter of recommendation requests sent in. I can't tell you how awesome it is to be done with that. No chance I'm going to get it, but an honorable mention will at least get me a nice $500 - so that would be well worth the effort.

Boy news:
As I suspected, my Friday night with Korean Brendan has dug me back into the pit. He sent me an email today saying "we need to have drinks and a conversation tonight". Yikes. A horror movie marathon ended up getting scheduled, so we did dinner and then headed over to that together. Oh, and when I asked him about the "drinks and conversation" thing he just said "what, it had been too long since I had seen you". This is not good.

P.S. Paranormal Activity is a fucking scary movie. I highly recommend you watch it, though doing so in a cabin in the woods is probably overkill. I don't recommend that.

Also, I have drink plans with The Hispanic for tomorrow night, so I will be sure to report back on that. I am...quasi-excited....not really....but we'll see, maybe there will be some chemistry?

Alright, I was basically writing while I waited for Middle-Speaking English to clean up the kitchen from her 11 pm dinner-party so I can refill my Brita and get some water. I know many of you have registered sadness about the lack of stories I will have once I leave, but I promise, I will find other funny stuff to write about.

Dedicated to all those who strive to help me loose my mind

I knew as soon as I wrote that post last night I would regret it. Came home tonight to a massive gathering of the Chinese. Massive. I was trying to get water and the doorbell rings. It rings, loudly, and you can see someone standing at the front door 5 feet away. Nobody notices anything! I said "Doorbell?"....they spent about 30 seconds rolling the word around amongst the group, so I finally put down the water and got the door. Random guy walks in, after watching for 45 seconds I still can't tell if they knew who he was or not. I went upstairs.

Oh also, I went back downstairs later to find that even though they refrigerate Honey Nut Cheerios they don't bother to keep eggs cold. ewl.

But accolades must also go to my adviser who is conspiring to make me loose my mind. On Friday (as I mentioned already) he basically cocks his head and says "why are you doing this experiment?" I spend the rest of my weekend debating scraping the entire project I have been working on for 3 weeks, mild panic is setting in, and I'm like fuck.

Today we are going over my research proposal for my NSF application in which I outline the EXACT PROJECT we talked about on Friday. He tells me this project is potentially very important and is exploring an area of self-regulation and depletion that has not previously been examined. WHAT?!?!?!?!? Am I missing something?

Anyway, plus side, I am so so very close to submitting NSF essays and finalized that above mentioned research project today and should be able to test it out and start running subjects soon. Progress!

I also attended the first Graduate Student Council meeting tonight and I am really looking forward to being on the board this year. If nothing else, it is a really good way to find out about cool stuff that is going on, and I think I will have plenty of support to run something like monthly trivia nights at a local bar.

My mom is like a bad puppy

I just think this is so entirely hilarious, I must post.

My dad threw out his back 2 weeks ago, so he has had to let my mom drive his BRAND NEW Prius while he drove the van. This Prius is maybe 2 months old. It is his baby. He loves this car more than he loves my brother (not me, but definitely my brother).

I call my mom this afternoon and when she picks up the phone I ask "did someone die?" She sounds really upset.

You can guess what happened - my mom crashed the Prius into the garage. Crashed meaning destroyed the car to the point where it is undriveable.

Now to be fair, my Dad should have known this would happen. Of the 9 cars that have gone through that garage, my mom has run 7 into the garage. Our garage is equipped with an array of lasers and hanging tennis balls just to try to keep her from doing this anymore (I know, silly scientists).

Anyway, I was on the phone and heard my Dad walk in and say "Holy Shit". He sent me a picture of his attempt to make driveable with duct tape. I think it's funny, so I am posting.

I explained to him that my Mom is like a bad puppy. She is just so cute but so very destructive. But what are you going to do, you can't yell at a bad puppy?

I know...long time no post. Let's make is a SUPER post!

I didn't post anything last week because (a) there wasn't much going on and (b) all free time was spent trying to come up with a Halloween costume. Also, I think it was a weird week of emotions - excited that stuff was coming along academically, but sad that this was the first Halloween I didn't really have plans/friends for. So updates:

School:
Things are going pretty well. I'm getting more into the schedule of grad school, and my NSF essays are basically done and just waiting for some final feedback. I actually really like how they turned out and don't feel like a total failure. Also, I am starting to enjoy all the lectures we get to go to, and the fact that almost every week I could do coffee or lunch with some really important and smart person from another school. In fact, I dare say that I now understand about 40% of what is said during these talks, way up for the original 10% (I can even throw around some neural substrates of my own now and not sound totally ridiculous). That being said, my adviser and I have this terrible weekly appointment at 3 pm on Fridays, and it either goes really well or really shitty. Last week it went shitty. After putting in a lot of work on my first behavioral experiment he was like "um, why are you doing this?" .....I didn't exactly have a good answer, especially not at 3 pm on a Friday. Not so good.

Also, a group of us were hanging around after a colloquium talk on Friday (with an insanely important NIH psychology legend- seriously, a big deal) and one of the professors (who is single, ugly, and not well liked) remarked after a bit that everyone here seems to have some NIH connection. I said "yeah, even I did some contract work for them last year". His response "Oh, did you mop the floors?" (SMIRK). Let's just say I put him in his place. I doubt he will speak to me for the rest of my time here. Ha!

The Chinese Situation:
Oh the Chinese. After the escalation in hostilities I tried one more time to make an immediate room change. 22A subletter was actually cool for once and totally agreed to let me move my stuff into her place, but then evil housing put the stop to that. Oh well, I'm okay with December - it's not so far right?

Luckily, they have been pretty busy and aren't having massive chinese parties (watch, I say that and one breaks out downstairs) anymore. That being said, they ALWAYS have their boyfriend over, and why the fuck do they talk so loudly? and leave their doors open? It's just confusing. Oh, and the cooking is still gross, but I think the ant incident scared them into being slightly cleaner. That being said, I just noticed that a giant box of pots and pans arrived which can only lead to more cooking. I am scared.

Oh also, at the big Halloween party on Friday, one of my roomates went in the following outfit: sneakers, jeans, a giant pink robe, a disgusting horse-looking tale of hair attached to the back, and a tiara. What?!?!?! Hilarious. It is so satisfying when my friends get a glimpse into my nightmare.

Boys/Social:
I have gradually found people to do social stuff with me, like trips to West Lebanon for dinner. It's still pretty infrequent, but I'm slowly making grounds.

*Friday Night*
So Friday was the giant Med School/Grad Student Halloween party. Why it was on Friday and located 30 minutes away requiring buses, I have no idea. Anyway, the party was at a ski lodge and was actually a really good time. I got to see a lot of the people I had only met in passing, bond a bit more with the psych people, and finally found a place to dance! I missed dancing!

What was your costume you might ask? I had gone to Walmart with The Vegetarian and we found these canvas tote bags with pictures of Rolling Stones magazine covers on the front. We each bought one (I did Justin Timberlake, she did Sean Penn), cut the bottom out, and made them into halter tops. Not surprisingly, I paired this with an insanely short skirt and heels and everyone thought it was a great costume. Nice.

The school sponsored party let out around 11:30, and we had somehow missed the last bus back, so my friends and I got a ride back from Psych Virgin. I would like to pause now to introduce a name change. While discussing with my mother, we decided that a much more appropriate name for Psych Virgin is Korean Brendan (Brendan being my first boyfriend). So it is written, so it shall be done. Anyway, we got a ride back and ended up at India Queen (oh India Queen). Partied there until it closed, went to the only place open to get food and waited about 1 hour to get pizza, and then went back to my place and ate. Oh, funny, my psych friend decided to tell me that she absolutely hated me when she first met me. She can't remember why anymore, and she LOVES me now! Thanks? So overall, the night was fun, I met a lot of cool guys (which I will detail below), but I undid my week of trying to distance myself from Korean Brendan. Oh well.

Alright, let's do a little guy naming & review ceremony for ya'll.

1) The Republican - I met this guy at the Halloween party and we met up again at India Queen. He is in the Business School. He told me that he voted for Bush two times and I slapped him, hard, across his face. He was shocked. He still asked me for my number. He saw me out running on Saturday and pulled me over to talk. I looked disgusting (mile 4!), he still wanted to get together. I told him that if he still wanted to see me after I slapped him and he saw me running, I was game. We have been gchatting a bit, and I imagine we'll get drinks later this week. Pros: He has a lot of money and is pretty damn funny. Cons: He is a fucking Republican! and he is short.

2) The Hispanic - After never really getting back to me about hanging out he saw me on Friday night (it must be the heels), we talked a bit, and he emailed me to get drinks this week. I told him sure, we'll see if he gets back to me. He is also short.

3) The Playa - This is one of the guys I met last weekend during the massive keg and hotdog debacle in the laundry room. He is actually really really cool and is a med student. We reconnected on Friday night, but he had all this ex-girlfriend drama going on and a ton of girls fawning all over him. Usually I would say fuck it, but we exchanged a little kiss on the steps and it was nice. He texted me at 1 am on Saturday night (I didn't respond), and then asked me to get lunch on Sunday. We grabbed lunch, it was fine, but I'm not sure I feel more than a friendship with him. Pros: He is funny, he is black (need to check that off my bingo card), he is normal. Cons: He is a little to drama-centric and he is short. Why are they all so fucking short!

Saturday Night:
I had a blind date. That's right, I actually met with someone I met on match.com, and we met on Halloween Saturday. He had been feeling sick for the week and it was pouring rain which meant everyone was wet and humid. Not the best for a date. He actually turned out to be very cute but terribly awkward. He could barely keep eye contact with me during dinner, and kept talking about really strange first date topics (his drug addict brother got 20 minutes but his current job was a 30 second soundbite). We did a super-awkward goodbye, and I headed home to either go to bed or call some of these random guys from Friday night. On the way I ran into The Vegetarian, and she convinced me to go to a Physics party. The party was.....I mean, it was a Physics party....but it was fine and I got to meet a few new people. I ended up leaving that pretty early and making it to bed by 12:30. Normally I would feel very sad that this was my Halloween night, but I decided early on to treat this like a normal Saturday. Also, I am trying not to have a weekend like last, and I think some moderation is maybe a good thing.

Sunday:
Like I said, I did lunch with The Playa. I also got another run in, did some laundry, and got some homework done.

So the takehome for the week/weekend - sometimes I am really happy here, and sometimes I feel very lonely. I think that is pretty normal for moving to a new area, so I am trying to be okay with this. That being said, I am really looking forward to getting home for Thanksgiving, seeing some DC people in CT and NY, and being that much closer to winter break.

Oh right, and I am the worst grad student ever

I get home from the blind date gone nothing feeling terrible and I receive an email reminding me that I have to present at the Graduate Roundtable tomorrow morning. Ugh. Luckily I did my slides last week so I just need to review them. Right? Oh no wait, 25% of my slides didn't save. Oh and I have no idea how to hook my mac up to the projector tomorrow. I am a terrible grad student.

I also realized that I needed to have my NSF essays turned into my adviser Monday morning so he can review them. Now I had finished a draft of them last week, but KP had done the most incredible job editing them and they needed a shit-ton of work.

I work pretty hard for the rest of the night, get to bed around midnight and (of course) can't fall asleep or stay asleep. I think my body is trying to get back at me for the hot dogs still.

So yeah, Monday was a struggle but I think I may be back on track academically. I did more revisions to the NSF essays this morning before turning them in. The presentation went really well and I think I managed to answer questions pretty well, even though I was so tired I literally would forget the beginning of the question by the time the person had finished asking. I also managed to get some work done for the study I plan to start running soon, but it was really difficult to manually randomize 288 pictures that only differ slightly from each other.

The boy situation, however, is still a big question mark for me. After this weekend I really feel like curling up and just waiting to meet someone the normal way or dealing with being alone. That being said, The Ladies Man asked me to do dinner with him this week and since he is friends with some of my friends, I felt like I probably shouldn't say no. He is moving to D.C. in a month anyway, so whatever.

Sigh, and the Possible Virgin. I avoided him last week and was not terribly communicative with him when he did track him down, but he definitely hasn't taken the hint. He emailed me all day about random stuff, and then basically showed up at my doorstep to take me to dinner. He is such a nice guy, and an incredible resource (he has TA'd for the stats class for the past 2 years, I NEED that connection) but I don't know how to make things clear to him. He is trying to meet up with some girl for a blind date in Boston, and I think I have made it clear that I am seeking out other men (though not in great details), so I hope we can just drift into friendship.

Alright, with blog being updated I think I am going to spend the rest of the evening trying to think of a Halloween costume. Halloween is huge here and it's strange to have to come up with a non-group costume for the first time in a decade. Suggestions are welcome!

Oh, final note, for those of you who are my Facebook friend, I tagged some photos yesterday with me, KP, and some other first years - so check it out!

Did I just get stood up?

Ah Sunday morning. My parents were up in VT and wanted to stop by to drop off some things, so they came by at 10 am.

I was barely able to put on clothes I was shaking so bad and felt so incredibly awful. The parents, of course, thought this was hilarious and totally appropriate after my day of beer and hot dogs. We puttered around Hanover and I tried to have a salad and smoothie to start apologizing to my body.

They left at noon, my blind date was set up for 1:00 pm.

If I had this guys number, or thought he would check his email, I would have canceled immediately. I looked disgusting, I felt disgusting, and I was sort of an emotional wreck and wanting to run away from any sort of male attention. But of course, I had no way to contact him so I headed out to the bar to meet him.

I am sure I have ranted about this before, but NOTHING IN THIS FUCKING PODUNK TOWN IS FUCKING LABELED. Streets are not labeled. Streets often terminate in a giant circle with no discernible indication of direction. Places are rarely numbered.

I was supposed to be there at 1:00 and I didn't walk into the bar until 1:25. Totally my bad, and y'all know how insane I am about being on time. The bar is basically empty but there is one man sitting alone at the bar drinking a beer who sort of looks like the person from match.com. I walk up and say "Hi, are you Jeff?". He looks at me and says "No, I am Bob............but I could be Jeff."

The female bartender immediately asks if I am on a blind date, I tell her I am, but she doesn't think she has seen any other single guys in the bar. Did I get stood up????? Eventually she recalls that some guy did get a drink, sit at a table by the window, and left after about 20 minutes.

I asked her what he looked like, she said he was so ugly that she didn't bother glancing at him for more than a second. Nice.

Bob tries for about 10 minutes to hit on me (oh Bob, you are well intentioned but please don't make this worse) at which point I decide he either stood me up or I was too late. I got home and sent an email explaining what happened, but I never heard anything back. For the best?

Saturday gets its own post

I woke up at noon and felt like absolute shit, but I remembered that my housing complex was hosting a Homecoming tailgate party in the laundry room/common space, and there would be free food. But wait, as I am getting dressed I noticed that Homecoming Indian had left his watch here. Great. I sent him a text to come pick it up.

I get out of bed, it is still POURING rain, I scamper over to the party and have some water, Coke, and hot dogs. They also had a full keg of Killians Irish Red, but oh god, still so hungover. I get to meet some cool people and eventually my friend comes by and we decide to watch Project Runway in my room because it is too gross to do anything else or go anywhere.

After that she decides to go home and I want to crash and watch movies, but wait, why not go back to the laundry room and grab some more food? I enter the laundry room at 1:00 pm, there are some cool kids I had met earlier eating the free food and drinking the practically untouched keg. I grabbed my dvds from the house, grabbed a beer...........at 10:00 pm we realized how pathetic, drunk, filled with terrible hot dogs, and exhausted we all were. Seriously, 9 hours solid of beer, hot dogs, and movies. Well no wait, I took 1 break to grab the watch and hand it back to Homecoming Indian.

They were all heading to a party off campus, but I didn't really feel like having to find a ride home if I wanted to leave, and there was a neato sounding disco party at midnight at one of the social houses (social houses are fraternities that do not call themselves fraternities). One of the kids who I will name The Ladies Man was heading to his friends house a few blocks away and then going to the disco party, so we teamed up. Yikes.

The Ladies Man was actually a decent guy but he was (a) very short, (b) dressed WAY too nice, (c) was way too into the fact that he was a "business man" (but I guess you need that if you live in Hanover and don't go to Dartmouth), and most importantly (d) he persistently and terribly did a Ladies Man impression the entire evening.

Our first stop was this amazing house that his friend lived in. His friend was the 5th of 11 kids in this family and they had a truly amazing place. We also got to have a few beers and smoke a little pot. After that we trudged back across campus to the Disco Party but WAIT, apparently at social houses you can only drink before the doors open to the public for the party. So we get there and all the alcohol was taken away, and you need a little booze to enjoy a disco party. We headed over to Canoe Club instead.

At Canoe Club, The Ladies Man started trying to make his romantic intentions slightly more well known by making his Ladies Man impression even more prevalent. At one point I had it and basically said "that is the worse impression I have ever heard of the lamest movie ever made. You must stop and you must stop now." He did not. During much of the evening I had also been getting texts from Homecoming Indian generously offering to hit up "Round 2" with me. As luck would have it, Homecoming Indian was also at Canoe Club and kept brushing by me and rubbing my back trying to get me interested. I was not. This is about the time that Possible Virgin (the guy in psych, see earlier posts) tried to get me to make plans to meet with him tomorrow.

Too many interested parties, absolutely no interest in any of them. At this point I gave up and decided to head home. The Ladies Man also said he wanted to head home which was conveniently in my direction, and the goodbye where he pulled out his very worst impression while uncomfortably grabbing the small of my back was ugly. I had stupidly given him my number earlier in the evening, so after I rejected him (nicely, mind you, but come on, stupid impression) he started sending out texts after what happened. I basically got home and had emails from BabySmoker, had to tell Possible Virgin no for tomorrow, had a barrage of texts from Homecoming Indian, and was also getting these awful texts from The Ladies Man.

I laid down to go to bed and that is when my stomach decided that a diet of only hot dogs and beer was not acceptable. I spent the entire night clutching my stomach.

See next post for Sunday!

How do I even begin to talk about the shit show that was this weekend?

Retelling the story of my weekend has typically been about a 25 to 30 minute conversation, so I am going go try my best to retell, because it is one hell of a hot mess.

Friday Night:

This weekend was Homecoming weekend which meant lots of free food, free beer, and a really awesome bonfire. A big group of us started off by grabbing free burritos around 5:30 and then we picked up a ton of beer and went back to the psych building to drink in one of the classrooms. Flash forward to 8:15, we are all pretty nicely drunk, and we head out for this amazing bonfire. As soon as we get outside it starts raining, so just imagine this giant group of people, everyone is drinking/hammered, this enormous fire is going in the middle, and all the freshman are running around this bonfire in Speedos. Oh, and me and my friend are also doing laps because we are drunk and it looks fun.

After the bonfire there is this free concert held at the student center with free beer for everyone over 21. We of course hit this up, are destroying the keg, and are basically rocking out and having a blast. The band finishes up so we decide to hit up the Canoe Club (the usual bar) where Irish Car Bombs are getting passed around and drinks are heavily flowing. I end up meeting this girl who is so drunk that she comes to believe I am psychic (Drunk Girl: I am from Winchester VA, Me: Oh cool, I am from DC so I love Winchester, Drunk Girl: OMG, how did you know I am from Winchester!??!?!? Buy this girl a drink). So she starts buying me drinks, and then some random guy tells the bartender to put all my previous drinks on his tab. Well okay then.

So Drunk Girl and her boyfriend and I head over to India Queen (oh India Queen) where things get ugly. I ran into BabySmoker and decided it was ridiculous that we see each other every weekend and don't say anything. I went up and said something like "hey, I see you every weekend, you're a nice guy, there is no reason we can't be friends". I have received about 5 emails from him so far. He is still entirely afraid of punctuation, and is still trying to convince me that I am the man for him.

Now enters the part of the story where I end my dryspell. I meet this rather attractive guy (he is Indian and only in town for the weekend - let's call him Homecoming Indian). We end up in a back corridor on the 2nd floor of the bar hoooking up when some guy walks by with his kid and is pissed. Dude, it's 1 am and you are at a bar? So we move to the 3rd floor, guy walks by again, we decide to take it outside because hooking up behind a dumpster in the pouring rain is always a great idea.

Homecoming Indian ends up coming home with me despite the fact that on the walk to my place he keeps telling me how small his penis is (even though I had already touched it?). Either way, we had some mediocre sex but then it was fantastic because we had already discussed the fact that he didn't want to stay and I wouldn't let him. Wonderful. As soon as he left I instantly missed Mr. Big (yup, that's what I am calling him on this blog, deal) and spent the next hour crying in a drunken, tired, hungry, sad, sexually frustrated mess.

See next post for Saturday's misguided adventures.

Recent Developments

A little lunchtime blog update for all of you following along at home.

China Syndrome: I sent an semi-apology email to the two roomates who got yelled at and emailed, but things are still hostile on the homefront. I also called 22A Subletter again and asked her about me moving into her room in 22A, and then moving to the room that is opening up on Dec 24th. She said she was amenable to the idea and wanted me to just check with the housing people to see if it was okay. I went this morning but the woman is out until Monday. Oh well, just another setback. Keeping fingers crossed for Monday.

Match.com: How exciting, I have a date on Sunday! The guy seems pretty awesome so after a few emails we decided to watch football and drink beer at a local bar in West Lebanon. I'm excited! I will be very careful as well, so don't y'all worry about me.

Weekend Plans: It's Homecoming weekend here, so there should be some pretty cool stuff going on in addition to completing my week of free meals (seriously, you can eat dinner on someone else's dime every single night here. I am loving this). The big exciting thing is the GIANT bonfire they light on the campus green - I will be posting pictures, this thing looks epic.

Work: Ah yes, the reason I am actually here. I finally finished the drafts of these 3 awful NSF essays so now they are in the peer/adviser reviewing stages. From what I can tell, a minimum of 15 people should review your paper before you send it off - so I still have my work cut out for me.

Also, I have my weekly meeting with my adviser today, and I am hoping to nail down the final issues with my first study. I won't be doing it in the fMRI (yet), but it will be nice to have some data to play around with.

Another Nasty Email? Sure

So I came home tonight and the brand new sponge that I have placed all the way across the room with my dishes is gone. It looks like it is probably the one sitting in the sink in a pile of dirty standing water.

I walk upstairs and yell at the 2 roomates, they both have no idea what I am talking about it said it was like that when they got there...maybe...they don't know....*smile*.

Okay, so I slam my door for effect, and fire off an entirely unpleasant email to all 3 roomates basically saying "wtf, don't ever touch any of my dishes or any of the sponges in my drying rack again or I will stab you with a fork".

Will it take this time? Who knows...

Also, meeting with the Dean went well and I don't think he realized the full extent of unhappy people currently living in North Park. I will be meeting with him later in the spring to talk about this with the housing people. See that, I'm trying to change the system!

OOOO...speaking of, I am now officially one of the two department representatives for the Graduate Student Council. My basic platform is to spend less money on academic events that no one attends, and to spend more resources and planning on trivia nights and graduate student only nights at the local bars (4 bars starting in two weeks! 4!). Also, I get free dinner one night a month at the meetings. Sold.

Match.com update. It's really funny when you browse someone and literally vomit in your mouth a little, and then they email you a few hours later. I have sent out a few emails to potential cuties, but haven't heard back from most of them. There was one guy who isn't a member (so you can't see emails people send you) but I managed to read through his code and email his yahoo account. He emailed me back but I haven't heard a response yet. Fingers crossed though!

Okay, time to do some work. I feel super accomplished having finished some of the basic elements I need to run my first study, and I am really hoping that by my Friday meeting with advisor I can be ready to get started.

Ants & STELLAAAA!!!

Let's just go ahead and make this a terrible , two-part, roomate-centric post.

Part 1:

I get up this morning and go downstairs and find the entire kitchen covered in water. The counters, the floor, everything. Okay...off to work then.

I come home many hours later and find the kitchen crawling with ants. Yes, ants. Dozens and dozens of ants. This is disgusting. I see that the awful piles of clean/dirty dishes have been taken care off (good start). I put on running shoes and run away as fast and as far as I can go.

When I get back, I see that the ants are still running about, but somehow has gone ahead and started the rice cooker that lives on the floor.

Take a shower, someone has finally put ant traps around the kitchen. There are still ants, but there are less ants.

At this point I notice that somehow all of the remaining sponges I have been keeping with my clean dishes have migrated to the yellow chicken-part holder of death. Okay. I'm done.

I fire off an email to the roomates basically being like "WTF DID YOU DO TO THE KITCHEN!" I also confronted Least-Speaking English in the kitchen and was like, why do all my sponges end up there. Stop doing that. Never do that again.

She smiled. No email response back from roomates. I foresee another angry sponge-related email brewing.

UPDATE: Just confronted Most English Speaking about the sponges and it went hilariously. After some time explaining please never put my sponges there, she tried to hand me the old sponges and I said "oh no, you can just go ahead and throw those out". She tried to smile politely, I think it threw her off. Now I get to be the one who smiles.

Part 2:

Since I moved in, there has been some creepy as Asian kid who comes around the apartments around me and just YELLS at the top of his lungs for someone to come out. He does this 3 or 4 times a week, and just like, appears in the area, yells for a while, and then walks away. Since all the buildings are fairly close I was like..whatever.

I assume Tourette's.

No, turns out this is my roomates friend (boyfriend, perhaps, actually) and he has been calling her all these evenings. No phone call, can't ring the doorbell or knock. Nope. He yells the Chinese equivalent of STELLA!

P.S. Ended up signing up for Match.com for a month, and it is completely paying off in hilariousness. Seriously, I don't care if I don't get a date out of this, it's so funny.

Boys Boys Boys

1) Okay, so the situation with the possible Virgin is getting a little....muddy. My goal this week is to create distance and continue to encourage him to seek out other women, but tonight we both went out with a small group and it got a little ugly when I tried to leave. He looked so upset, and so confused when I tried to leave with the rest of the group.

Buddy, I know that we have been spending almost every night together hanging out and drinking, but I told you I needed to stop spending so much time at the bar, stop boozing so much, and go home and eat a healthy meal and do work. It actually gets a little weird when you are holding onto my arm and pleading that I stay.

I know I made this mess, and I am sorry, and I am going to try to handle this in the least awkward fashion possible.

2) I have not let recent strangeness with Craigslist stop me from trying to use that resource, but I have gotten a little smarter and have made a new gmail email to use. Waiting for some responses.

3) I am trying to plan a Stoplight party using the Graduate Student Council resources to pay for booze and rent a place for the party. I think that will be really fun, and it seems like a good way to meet casual dates that are not in my department.

4) Somehow I found myself completing the free profile on match.com tonight and actually finding some interesting people on there? I also saw several people I already know, which is a scary reminder of how freaking small Hanover is. I got an email response back from a guy I sent something too, but I need to subscribe to view it. I tried going back into my profile and posting my gmail information to see if that will work, we shall see if that gets flagged.

Somehow it feels like subscribing would be paying $30 to have sex, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Will see if other emails pile up, and how bullet points 1-3 develop before I make that decision.

I am a hamster on a wheel

*Nerd Alert: This post contains nerdy information*

So, almost all biorhythm studies are conducted using hamsters. Hamsters are the ideal subjects because they run on a hamster wheel in regular, stereotyped time intervals. If you take away all external cues from a hamster, it will eventually fall into it's natural cycle.

I am now that hamster. All of the external cues of class schedules and/or work schedules from the past 25 years have disappeared from my life, and I find that all that training has basically gone to shit. I force myself to wake up no later than 9:30 or 10, but I will easily sleep until 11 am whenever. I spend most of my day waking up, and then around 9 pm I get motivated to write papers, send out emails, go workout, and get my shit together. I force myself to go to bed by 1 am, but I am usually up until 2 or 2:30. Strangely enough, I guess now that I am in grad school this might actually not be a problem? I basically have 4 meetings/class sessions I need to attend each week, and those all occur no earlier than noon. There are lunches and colloquiums to attend, but whatever, those are all afternoon. I guess we shall see if this keeps up or if I get a little busier.

Other news - Housing

Talked to the housing office and it is finalized that I will take over the lease of the girl in 22A. She moves out on December 24th, so I guess the 66 day countdown begins. To be fair, I will be gone for several of those weeks, and I hope to move most of my stuff into the empty room in 22A during the weeks before Christmas so I can maybe come back from Christmas break and not see the residents of 18A again.

Oh by the way The Chinese - it really fucks with my mind when the marinades you use on your meat make them looked cook, and then you leave them out on the kitchen table all evening. Oh, cooked chicken she thinks.....nope. ewl.

A Very Creepy Story

I debated at length about whether or not to post this story on here since the person I am posting about reads this blog. I am still not sure this is a good move, but hopefully they understand that this probably came off very differently than they intended? ....and that was bad.

You may all recall reading about J-far, the Craigslist guy who was coming into town this past weekend and wanted to meet up. We had left it at him sending me an email this past Wednesday to make plans and set stuff up. In large part due to the housing situation, but also because I was just not feeling it once it came around, I never responded to the emails he sent Wednesday and Friday.

On Saturday I got a random nonsensical text from a friend, but I figured it was probably a mistake. I then got a text from the same person (I shall dub him Friend-far for continuity) on Sunday afternoon asking "Why did you never email J-far back?".

What? How does he know him?

After several text messages with Friend-far, it becomes clear that my friend was actually pretending to be J-far. So my mind immediately creates the following scenario:

My friend (who is living with his girlfriend of...6 years?) had a meeting up in Hanover this weekend, decided to get a little extra play, and thought it was so hilarious when he saw my response to his Craigslist post that he decided to go along with the gag and then it would all be a hilarious joke when we met up.

Not so, it turns out.

Friend-far knew my passion for Craigslist and planted a post for Dartmouth with the specific intent of getting me to respond for the one weekend his girlfriend was out of town. I think is is amazing that I actually responded, but once that was done he kept up the illusion and was planning on driving up to meet with me? and have sex? without his girlfriend?

A few things that come to my mind when I think about this story:

(1) I feel violated. I know this seems strange, but I would have felt so much better if my friend had just called me and been like "I want to cheat on my girlfriend and come have sex with you." I don't think anyone likes being the naive subject on an elaborate scheme, and I really feel like...yikes....how long have you been planning this? Why me? Why after all these years? I am not flattered, I am sort of upset. Especially since I am in such an emotionally fragile place with men these days.

(2) I think the picture of the person Friend-far used is really interesting, because I wonder what thoughts went through his head (he must be attractive to her but also believable). Who was the guy he sent the picture of?

(3) Please don't come to me to cheat on your girlfriend of many years for the first time. Lord knows I have been down that path, but I am not trying to be that person. Especially since I feel there has always sort of been this hostile past with his girlfriend, I...I can't even imagine if she ever found out.

Overall, I really don't know what to say to this person. I hope we can still be friends, but please don't try to pull this stuff on me in the future.