Lllangollen

If you guys still read this, and if you are interested in the DePaul Acappella choir.
We're the shit.

DePaul A Cappella on Llangollen TV

Last wish

I know the Make a Wish Foundation is for kids, but if I'm ever terminally ill and have one last wish, I seriously want to see SRK.

I will put this in my living will.

PS. I need someone to be a witness to sign my living will. Any volunteers?

schizo

I have the voice of a small Irish man yelling in my head, and I am terrified.

No, I'm not schizophrenic. The small Irish man is the Maestro for Grant Park Chorus. He uses terms like "crotchets" (quarter notes) "minims" (eighth notes) and "semidemihemiquavers." (actually, I'm not sure if that's a correct term) The tip of his index finger on his right hand is missing, and I have never met a man more intimidating than he. I literally have anxiety attacks before going to rehearsals. It doesn't help that I have finals and juries on top of everything else. Poor Dan. I barked at him for doing nothing, only because I was so stressed out, and I will feel like this until Monday.

Deep breath. Take a bath. (Advice from my voice teacher.) I can't wait 'til Mikey, the new kitty, gets here. We purposefully put off his arrival until this craziness settles down.

PS. I've been thinking about turning this blog around a little bit and limiting my posts to music based topics. That's pretty much what I do already because I'm living, breathing, and pissing music. Though, not as much as I could be. Any thoughts? Someday, when I'm rich maybe I'll get my own domain and have beautiful pictures of my masterful performances at the Met. HA!!!

a good one

my mom picked up for me this really old hymnal copyright 1917. originally, i asked her to look for something with shape notes in it. this hymnal has no shape notes, unfortunately, but it does have some treasures.

No. 312 "The Walls of Jericho" The chorus speaks for itself.

"Old whiskey's walls have got to go/Just like the walls of Jericho!/The rummies won't know where they're at;/Their walls must tumble down, down flat."

Or the next hymn, "A Thousand Years of Prohibition": "A thousand years of prohibition,/Lift up your eyes, behold the dawn!/The nations hope shall find fruition,/When from our land the curse has gone."

I find that this really puts a perspective to everything, especially after watching Jesus Camp. These Evangelicals have a real history of fucking shit up in this country, at least prohibition was repealed. They are gaining strength again, and I'm half considering dropping this music business and work to protect this nation's right to drink, have abortions, not go to church, think freely, be gay, and believe in EVOLUTION!!!

What pissed me off most about Jesus Camp was the lack of scriptures from the Evangelical party. They may as well have been making half that shit up. And the brainwash on those poor, poor kids. THEY'RE GOING DOWN!!!

silent night

all is quiet in the chicago residence. i think my roommates know that they inadvertently spoiled a very big evening for me.

my old voice teacher is in town, visiting from albuquerque. tonight, we were supposed to see a show of one of her old students in palatine, il. you may snicker at the fact that i was to see a community theatre production of pirates of penzance in palatine, but it was important to me. i haven't seen this very important woman in a year. now that she lives in new mexico, chances of me seeing her again soon are unlikey.

so how did this all come about? i won't name names, because it doesn't really matter. when the planning of going to palatine all came about, i had to do some creative thinking because i have church in the morning, and could not go back to the suburbs where the rest of the party was headed after the performance. so, at the beginning of this week, i asked roommate A to borrow their car for the night to get myself there and back, and i got the ok-go. last night, roommate B borrowed the car to go to a party, came back all in one piece. this morning, i was told that the car was dead because roommate B failed to turn off the headlights last night. roommate A jumped the car, but deemed it too unreliable for me to drive tonight.

"sorry di."

so, while they go out tonight and have fun. i am at home, sulking, wondering what i should do to my roommates for pay-back.

Myspace...

I had to! I created a MySpace page for DePaul A Cappella. But you can listen to selected tracks from our concert last March.

If you're into the whole MySpace craze, friend us, but most importantly, listen to the music and tell me what you think.

DePaul A Cappella

iGoogle?

My personalized google page is now iGoogle.

I'm not a fan. Everything has to have an "i" in front of it. And when it relates to non-iPod products, it's unnecessary.

What's wrong with Personalized Google Homepage?

GASP!!! Am I missing some giant merger between Mac and Google? Tell me no such thing has happened!

Address

To those who think Alex and I are coming home this weekend:

You are sadly mistaken. We are never coming home. It's not that we don't love you. But it's a lot more fun up here, and this is where we live now. Chicago is our home. Besides, you are all ending school now, and we still have four weeks to go. Whatever.

We're still not coming home.

And check out these pictures of me from The Beggar's Opera.





Check out those gams!!!

Notorious

Yet another one of those things that I find incredibly funny, but only because my boyfriend Dan is Chinese. I wouldn't have just heard about these guys if it weren't for him, and now, I can't stop listening to the catchy tune "Dim Sum Girl."

Their website is pretty cool. Check it out if you want to waste away your free time.

PS. For those of you who care, Dan and I celebrated our two-year about a month ago. Woo!

Beggar's Opera

Come see the show.

Friday, May 4 at 7:30 and Sunday, May 6 at 2:00 pm.

Pretty Polly say...

Singer...

I made my entire German class turn around and look at me today because I nearly did the Banshee screech. Actually, it was a loud GASP!!!

The nature of the conversation went as such:

Me: Shaun, do you have a pen? I only have a pencil and I don't like to write in pencil.

Shaun: Well, I only have this pen, and I normally only write in pencil because I'm a musician, and all musicians write in pencil.

Me: I don't.

Shaun: Like I said. All musicians write in pencil.

Me: Explosion!!! [Which was really just a very large gasp.] WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? I hate you. Shove your splintery clarinet up your ASS! FICH DICH, du Sheissekopf!!!

The most offensive thing you can call a singer is a singer, and strip them of their musician status. I can understand that we come off as really dumb sometimes, but we have so many other thoughts in our head than measure 31 there's an accent on the and of 3 plus a diminuendo. Ok...well, how about you memorize the text in French and remember that you have to pucker your lips on "vaincouer" and make it look like you really know what you're singing. Do you speak fluent German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Greek, Latin, Klingon, Tagalog, Swahili, and English?

Yeah, ok. That's what I thought. And don't be hatin' on us because we don't have to spend 6 hours in a practice room. That's your problem. Not. Mine. Thank. You!

MILF

I'll admit, I wore a relatively provocative dress today. I haven't worn it in ages. Fortunately, it still fit, too. That made me feel better about myself. I guess I haven't gotten that fat over the years. Anyway...I figured that I would catch some glances, but to my dismay, only older men seemed to notice. One man even said "Nice Legs" as I passed him. Granted, I have always caught the elders' eyes, it really should have been no surprise to me. But then I thought, do they think I'm a MILF? That's when I became disturbed. I know I look a little older than 20, but I don't look like I'm almost 30, do I? Do I look like I've had children? What is it that turns older men's heads rather than the younger ones? Junk in the trunk? Thick thighs? Child-birthing hips? It's my hair cut, isn't it? I have Posh Spice's (Mrs. Beckham) hair style these days. She's a MILF, technically...

Crap. What should I do?
PS. I love this picture of the Beckhams. They are totally sloshed, and I think there's nothing better in this shallow world than pictures of drunk celebrities. I even bought US weekly the other day because I just needed a fix. I blame Jessa for this problem of mine. She'll occasionally buy the trash mag, but she hasn't done it in a while, so I had to take matters into my own hands. Oh yeah, yesterday was Jessa's last day at Saks Fifth Ave. I never took advantage of her sweet discounts. Oh well. Even with her discounts I still probably wouldn't be able to afford those clothes. It's a thrift store life for me.

ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Something VERY bad happened in our apartment last night. Jessa's money was stolen. STOLEN!!! And to make matters worse, whoever took the money, didn't take it all. No, they had to rip a $100 bill in TWO!!! Who does that? I pray to god that it was the jack-ass kids that one of my friends brought over, and was not indeed one of my friends. But I guess I'll never really know, because the money was not returned, even though people were offering up their own money left and right. Clearly, they were too fucked up to realize that Jessa did not want their money, but just wanted her own back, and whoever took it would just be asked to just get the fuck out of our place.

Apparently, nobody is to be trusted in this world, so I am not having people over for a while.

Hidden Agenda

Remember when I said that I was going to lose weight because I wasn't in the Spring opera this year? Like in this post. Yeah, well, that changed as of Monday.

Basically, the lead female soprano dropped out (for relatively legitimate reasons) the director bumped up a deserving senior in the ensemble, and now I am filling in for her. The show is May 4 and 6. They've been working on this for a whole month now, and I get three weeks.

This is when I regret being known as a fast learner.

On another note, I dropped $60 on designer chocolate today, because I had the cash, and felt like doing something nice for my roommates and of course the beloved honorary fourth roommate, Evan. Vosges chocolate is truly orgasmic. Do not scold me until you yourself have tried the Exotic Caramel sampler box.

I highly recommend the top row right caramels and the middle row left caramels. Each of their names is far too long and senseless, and in no way describe how DELICIOUS!!! they are. Alex can vouch for me. I would say that Jessa can too, but we don't know where she is right now. Her new employers, the people who live DIRECTLY across the street from us, have offered her the ridiculously wonderful opportunity to become a full-time nanny for their two young children. She will be making more money working for them (I'm guessing on average 5 days a week) than a second or third year teacher's salary. PLUS!!!! Family vacations with them to places like... oh, I don't know. PARIS! I'm disgustingly jealous, but at the same time, very happy for her. She really deserves this.

Just weep on the inside, Di.

This is the killing time...

What a terrible, terrible tragedy in just a never-ending string of tragedies.
But there was another tragedy that I was just informed of on Saturday by a great documentary on PBS, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. Also see Wikipedia about it if you are unfamiliar with the tragedy, like I was.

Anyway, when I saw the film, I just thought, why was I never told about this? Why is it not taught in school or talked about on television more?

What scared me most about the documentary was that people of all races and ages, intelligent people, people who only wanted to make the world a better place, were manipulated and killed. I could easily have been one of those people then. Basically, I have no hope left, because no matter what, someone's always going to fuck it up. And I really believe we won't see the Chicago Olympics because the world may as well end on December 21, 2012. My choir director gave me shit for saying that because he's all about making the world better through music blah blah blah. (An ironic non-sequitur that I discovered in my research about the Jonestown Massacre: The leader to the cult Heavens Gate was a music major.)And I wish I could do that too, save the world with music, that is, but the Jonestown Massacre just ruined everything for me.

And don't you even think about giving me shit for the band Brian Jonestown Massacre. Chops, I mean YOU!

So, watch the film. Get educated. Get scared. And just pretend that everything will be ok, like I have decided to do.

Bye Matt...

Tuesday morning. Matt killed himself. Matt was 17. The exact age of my younger brother. I'm sorry Ashely. I can't fathom your loss and pain. I can only imagine the death of my own brother. Your brother is my brother, just like how the kids in the car accident were my brothers and sisters. I cried today for Matt. I sang these lyrics and burst into tears while my choir was recording the piece. "Stretched out. Stretched out underground. A boy..." Your brother. His funeral is tomorrow. Will he still wear a suit? I'm sorry. I remember your brother because you said he looked like Harry Potter. And he did. I'm sorry that's all I knew about him.

Someone asked me a question today, which is why I write about Matt.

"Is high school really that hard?"

I couldn't really answer. I kinda liked high school. I found good friends. And I thought, is that all that got me through school? I did graduate early, but I don't think my motives were because I hated school or my life. I did things like music and drama inside and outside school. I was tired of getting up so goddamn early in the morning. But I did go through some very dark hours. My friends, love 'em or hate 'em, were always there. They would at least listen to every stupid thing I ever told them. They're still that way. With out them, I would have been a very different person. I suppose I'm still here because of them. But doesn't everyone feel that way? "What would I ever do without you guys?" Does everyone find their belonging through friendship? I don't know. Without my friends and my activities, school would have been very hard. So, in a sense, I was very privileged. I had it easy, and I can't answer for any other.

As much as I would like answers from Matt, I won't try to pretend to understand him. But he's gone forever. I understand that, and that's why I cry. I hate the infinite. I cry because Ashley and family will no longer physically have Matt in their lives. Forever.

missing carl...

the georgian concert cd is in! now i just have to figure out how to put the thing online. any suggestions?
dr. p and carl
[and me in the very corner]

Neko. Case.

Although she is playing tonight, she also played last night, and i was there, right in front of the stage, snapping pictures of my #1 girl crush. yes...
here are just a few. more to come.

weight-loss

i'm gonna lose weight. i'm not in the spring opera, so every time those thugs are in rehearsal and i'm not, i'm gonna work out/run.
bathing suit season, here i come!!!

teacher

is it OK to "friend" my german teacher on facebook?
circle: YES or NO

animals

my girlfriends are all animals.

we're all on spring break, and i had them all over on friday for a fun night of booze, food, and other things.

before they all came over, i went to Devon Ave. and got us some indian yummies, including an old Shah Rukh Khan movie. one of the food items i purchased was a skate-board sized piece of kabul bread. i remember looking at it in the store thinking, wow, this is big. we will probably finish this thing by the end of the night. but at a quarter til 10 pm, all the juice and pop were gone, as was the GIANT loaf of kabul bread. and i know for a FACT!!! that one girl did the MAJORITY of the devouring of the giant kabul bread. i won't name any names...

then we started the bollywood film. mostly all the plots to a bollywood film are familiar, but this one, Diwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, reminded me ALOT of Rob Reiner's 1985 classic, The Sure Thing. And when I yelled this strange parallelism to my girlfriends (we were shouting at the film all night long, because that's how long it lasted, all night) they all gave me blank stares.


[swoon]
i should probably mention that at this part of the movie, there are no similarities to The Sure Thing. Only the first hour and a half is a rip-off. From then on, it's like any other Bollywood film. she's gonna get married to a man she doesn't know, and SRK is going to save her.
i would also suggest watching this clip. awesome towel maneuvering skills.

so then I wrote to Raymi about it, and how we all love her and she would kick some serious ass if there was a clay-mation battle between her and tony pierce and bunny combined.

even though the girls ate all my food, they were pretty tidy, even if they didn't think so. and, no one took home the left-over liquor, so it's all for me, baby!!!

MoPo

So far spring break has consisted of going back to the burbs for various reasons, praying not to get the stomach flu, and watching the Maury Show.
Spring Break Rawks!!!

emetophobia

my boyfriend has the stomach flu maybe and i am FREAKING OUT!!! becacuse i am emetophobic.
they make it sound really extreme, but is it really? do i really need to confront my fear of vomiting? would anyone disagree with me that if i don't want to puke and have the ability to stop it, that it's a good thing? kinda?
i hope you get better, sweets!

Fuck St. Patrick's Day

Anyone who is wearing green today is either a suburbanite, frat boy, or ridiculously drunk girl.
It all started this morning...

I had to go home last night for an optometrist appointment this morning. I had to sign some form, and I asked what the date was. The receptionist replied after a pause:
"It's the seventeenth. St. Patrick's Day."
The way she said it, she may as well have added "Dumb-ass" at the end.

In Chicago, it's been St. Paddy's day for well over a week, and I had my fair share of all things Irish and this stupid gig the A Cappella choir had to do last Sunday. Ireland On Parade. It was going to be its own blog entry, but I didn't really have the time or energy to rant about it. It was a joke, to say the least.

Anyway, I took the train back up to Chicago this afternoon, and everyone who got on, even the cute little Indian lady with the video camera was wearing green or a shamrock. Ass-hole losers who I remember seeing in the halls of my high school were there, getting ready for their night on the town. There was a man sitting across from me, and even with my headphones on, I could not help but listen to his inane stories of getting drunk with buddies and getting kicked out of bars. I wanted to hand him an AA card.

The El ride back was worse. People were crammed on the Brown Line, and fumbling around trying to keep their balance because they aren't used to the El's jolting pick-up. Again, they were all wearing GREEN!

I almost lost it though when this creep guy (strangely not wearing any green, but did have some clear plastic shamrock Guinness thing) started inching closer to my seat and struck up a conversation about cameras to the people standing next to me. What he said made no sense, and then he tried to hand out some sheet of paper that promoted relations counseling. After living in the city for almost two years, I've learned now NOT to take flyers from strangers. I can't really describe why I was freaked out about him that made me want to scream. Maybe it was his glazed eyes and slack-jawed smile.
I know!!! He looked like a real life Stuart Smalley!
Yes. That's him alright...

I just don't get the holiday, that's all. I don't mean to shit on anyone's parade day. I don't think there's any Irish heritage in my family, and if there is, it's minuscule. I don't like to get wasted. I don't like March. I don't like mass crowds of people (except if it's Chinese New Year). I like green, but not if frat boys wear it. And there's just one more thing I want to say about St. Patrick's Day: White people look stupid in bright green anything. It's like St. Paddy's day is the day when you can not only get as drunk as you want, but also look as stupid.

Next year, I think I'll take a mini-vaca out of the city to avoid all this madness.

God

Last night I saw God, and this name was

Sparta!!!

I thought it was an excellent film.
I think ever since the LOTR trilogy came out, I've been a big fan of epic movies. Give me guts and glory. And 300 delivered.

Dan thought it was better than Sin City, but I would have to slightly disagree. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for that movie. Maybe because I read the comic book beforehand, but failed to do so with 3 Hundo, as Dan and I like to say.

After the movie, we got buffalo wings from Dominics, two kinds of cheese, crackers, ranch dressing (to go with the wings, of course), chocolate, wine, tofu 2 go, carrots, tomatoes, and had ourselves a FEAST!!! to celebrate our accomplishments. Dan got rave reviews on some of his photos, and I passed my petition to major and got a spot in the Grant Park Apprentice Choral.

Who's the Shit?
Di's the Shit!!!

AND it's Spring Break, minus three days because of the opera, but it's going to be a blast!!!

The Merry Widow

COME SEE THE SHOW!!!

@ THE MERLE RESKIN THEATRE IN DOWNTOWN CHICAGO
THIS FRIDAY, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY MATINEE!
READ THE REVIEW!!!

AND OF COURSE,

ME!!!
...in the chorus...

correction

correction:
I want this week to be over.

and i think the hooligans are hiding a meth lab in their apartment. they have sheets and coats covering up their windows.

maybe they're just trying to save on heat, or want some privacy, but having a meth lab, or a gigantic pot plant would be more likely, i think.

[explode]

i can't take it anymore!!!
i'm supposed to be writing a paper for musicianship, but i can't concentrate to save my life! it's supposed to be a paper on the german lied. it's totally pointless because my prof is just going to look at it, give a few head nods, correct my vocab (because i can't remember proper musical terms to save my life), and give me an A- because our final is next week, and like all of us, i'm sure he's more concerned about that than these stupid papers that have been assigned to us for weeks now, and i have successfully put it off for this long and it's due tomorrow morning. ugh!

i've decided that if i ever become famous enough to have a stage name, i will call myself diana schmetterling.
what's wrong with schmetterling?
that's the punch line to a really nerdy linguist joke.

i just want this week to be over!!!

BGSU

So, we came, saw, and left BGSU today. Dare I say the trip was actually kind of fun. Definitely a good precursor when all of us go to Wales together.

All the pictures I took were on the bus ride back home, but really, before that we didn't do anything except watch The Fifth Element and Mulan on the bus.


Dr. P did some of his schooling in Miami, OH and really wanted to go to this restaurant Tony Pacos in Toledo. I would like to draw your attention the "plaques" on the walls.

These are hotdog buns (yes, they are real) signed by various celebrities.
This is Brent's M.O.A.D. wiener. On the menu, it said that this would be the biggest hot dog we've ever seen. I think they were right.

Yes! The crown jewel of signed hot dog buns! Billy's!!! I think Reagan and Carter were there too, but I didn't get the chance to look.
Dr. P with Carl behind him saying goodbye to us. Dr. P was trekking up to Ann Arbor with his family as we took the party bus back to Chicago.

It really was quite a fun trip. We sang songs on the bus ride back, and I truly enjoyed myself. Am I a choir nerd? Yeah, but at least I'm a cool choir nerd.

Dr. P told us that someone suggested we sing our Georgian music at the Cultural Center after our concert on Thursday. I hope we do. That would be so much fun, and it would probably get us a little bit of press, which would be awesome!

On one last note:


This drink was made for me. It's DELICIOUS!!! Yeah, they claim that it helps you lose weight and that's a load of shit. But it's fizzy green tea and it is entirely refreshing. And it only has 5 calories. As I said. It was made for me. Thank you Coke and Nestle. Never thought I would be saying that in my life time.

and we're back

i'm going to bowling green this weekend... i don't think i've ever been to Ohio. i've driven through it to go to Falls, PE...Strange, I'll probably never have to go to that place ever again...That's where the now dead great-grandma used to live.
Anyway... i'm going to BG because my a cappella group is going there for another choir convention. we get to sing more georgian songs.

our internet is back up and running. the people on the second floor know we're leeching off of them, but they don't care. so we still have free internet. YES!!!
the semester is starting to end, and everyone/everything is going crazy trying to wrap everything up in these last two weeks of school. shit. i'm screwed for finals, basically. so yeah, if you had plans to visit me because you're on spring break and i am not, the chances of actually seeing me are very slim.
yeah...

we had our all-things-georgian-choir-concert last night. it was so much fun. university singers sounded alright, but us DePaul A Cappella members rocked the house. i nearly started crying at the end of the night because this was our last time (sorta) singing this music. and carl (our resident "i-know-everything-about-georgain-folk-music") would be leaving us soon, and i just wanted to keep singing these beautiful songs and let the whole world know how great these tunes really are.
i can honestly say that it was an amazing concert. i will get the cd in the next few weeks and try to fashion a way so that you fellow readers can listen to what you missed out on.

This is my adorable (yes, adorable like a doll because she is soooo frickin tiny) friend Elly posing with Carl. Carl is wearing tradition Georgian folk singer apparel. I also happen to think he looks like Frankenstein...but that's another story.

p.s. if you have no idea what i'm talking about, then you clearly didn't read this post!!!

man down

this weekend the choir went to peoria and i saw miss jessi! whoot! it was fun. i felt bad that i couldn't stay any longer, and the majority of our conversation was written on the back of some of my sheet music. but it was still really fun.
updating this week may be non-existent. the people downstairs this time forgot to pay their Comcast bill, so we have no internet (because we steal their wireless).
so...yeah. i have a shit-load of work to get done this week, and i'm not helping myself by wasting my time looking at other people's blogs.
i also watched the Oscars last night when i should have been doing homework. do we see a pattern here? so tonight, i'm forbidding/punishing myself and not watching Heroes. this makes me sad...but it will be a super treat to watch after my MANIC day tomorrow. Get this: 10 am to 11 pm straight, if i go to all my classes. ugh! gross. i'm wondering if it's humanly possible for me to go this long. i'm not sure how i'll eat lunch/dinner. hrmmmm....

crap day

yesterday sucked because throughout all of the opera rehearsal, i just felt like the director was shoveling giant loads of horse shit into my mouth.

because of this, i did my normal anti-stress routine: walk to the lake.

if any of you have not seen lake michigan at this time of year, it's absolutely gorgeous. giant disks of ice float on the surface in the more shallow water. they look like crystal lily pads that breath with the waves. i was amazed, but it didn't make me feel much better.

this on the other hand does.


Alex and I have been singing the song forever, but now that we know there's a video... well that just makes things SUPER!!!

The apartment has a mutual friend Evan. He has come over practically every evening this week to hang out and do stuff that we shouldn't do on week nights. Normally, when he comes over I am incapable of getting my work done. But this week, I was somewhat able to escape his powers of gay hilarity and get most of my stuff done.
You should be proud of me because I am proud of myself.

Evan is great though. I love him. I felt like I went to high school with him, but we certainly did not. He's from hoighty-toighty Park Ridge (all you speechers should be quite familiar with his high school Maine-South!) Tonight he read my Tarot cards. I love getting readings. I've only done it twice, but it's such fun, serious bull-shit. I have learned, though, to only ask questions that I already know the answer to, or ask something that's not of real importance. That way, you don't totes froke. Totally Freaking Out.

Totes Froke. I don't really like that term, but for some reason, I'm trying to incorporate it into my lexicon. My friend, Libet from Cincinnati whose sister is on "You're the One that I Want" American Idol-esque talent search television programming on NBC Sunday nights, says it often. Although I do not want to associate myself with anything that is distinctly Cinci, the expression intrigues me.

And to all you teenagers in the world who are angst-y at this moment, settle down. It gets much better, I promise. I think junior high and high school were created for the sole purpose to drive us crazy. When you get out of that mess, things get better. The world is still crazy, and maybe life makes you Totes Froke, but at least you can pick and choose the people you want to talk to and associate with. Maybe it doesn't make sense right now, but it will. E-mail me if you need hope. I'll give it willingly.

Remember: In order to be loved, one must be loving.

WAAAAR!!!!

I don't think I can adequately express my disgust for the three hooligans living on the first floor of my apartment.

They are three boys, all around my age, I believe. They smoke like chimneys, especially when they have their nasty-ass friends over. These said nasty-ass friends puked all over our front steps Sunday night. I didn't see the mess until Monday night, and by that time, it was frozen puke. Delicious! They also left a rickety ladder on our back porch. Yeah, OUR back porch. 20 feet above their own porch. But some people just have to go up on to the roof in the middle of the night, piss drunk, on the coldest night of the year and see the stars, then leave the ladder on our porch for FOUR days. I left them a little note expressing my feelings. They wrote back. It didn't say much. It didn't make me feel better about them. And the people on the second floor still called the cops on them last night after starting a party at 11:30 on a Wednesday.

I swear to God, these kids don't go to school anymore. A month ago, they had a party, starting at 1 in the a.m. on a MONDAY night. I must have been asleep or not in the apartment when this happened. That time, my own roommate called the cops.

Needless to say, the hooligans have got to go. And next time one of their friends pukes on our steps, I'll do what my dad suggested. "Clean up the vomit quietly with a rag and a bucket of warm water, and then when you're finished, throw the dirty water on their front window."

Will do, Pops!

P.S. LOST was not that satisfying last night. I swear to God, if I see one more Kate, Sawyer, Jack episode, I will flip out. How many times must I say it? This story line is not that interesting! There needs to be more Sayid, Locke, and ass-kicking. Everyone who watches the show agrees with me on this.

This is the maestro for the opera...except not. I happen to think the maestro looks and sounds like David Sedaris.

That's all I can say about him.

Now I'm watching LOST, and all I can say about that is it better kick ass, or I will be one dissatisfied customer. I'll start singing the praises of Heroes.

The one bad thing I can say about Heroes is that there's this black guy on the show, and he's a Haitian. Everyone on the show calls him "the Haitian." This would be totally cool with me, except that most people on the show who've seen him, only see him. He doesn't talk. That's his "thing." So, in the real world, they would just be calling him the creepy black dude that never says anything, but of course, that's politically incorrect.

Second time around

Crap! I am sick again! This time it's just a head cold, but I swear to God, if this cold bug were a real person I would kill it. Probably bludgeon it with a hammer. That sounds adequate.

In other news, my parents bought a Mac computer. Quite frankly, I'm slightly disappointed in their decision making. I'm a PC user, even though my computer is a piece of crap. Every time I download an episode of Heroes (yeah, I'm super hooked) off of iTunes, my computer freaks out when it's time to finalize the download.

Oh yeah, and it's really cold outside. Anyone notice?

And the Super Bowl...or Ueber Schuesell...Yeah, I don't care about that really. I was going to watch it with the kids on the second floor, but they're jack-asses and didn't pay their gas bill for 6 months, so the gas company finally turned their heat off, and they can't get it turned back on until Wednesday. There's no way I'm going to freeze my ass off there for a few hours, even if they do have cable and a bigger TV than we do. To me, heat is more important, which is the very reason why we never got cable.

XXX

Oh my god. Probably the most funny thing happened!

Picture this:

Me, Jessa, and three teenage gays on our furry couch. We're watching the first season of Queer as Folk on DVD, and some lesbians at a party come on screen. One lesbian is married with baby, the other is single, wild, and saying that she is "PC." That of course means "Performs Cunnilingus."

Jessa and I look at each other, and there's a silence from the couch crowd. Then one of the gays say, "Wait. What? What does PC mean?"

Me and Jessa:"Performs...You know..."

Gays: "No. What? Performs what?"

Me and J:"...Cunnilingus..."

Gays: "What's that?"

Me and J: "Oh my god. You don't know what that is!?!?!?"

Gay 1: "Something about vagina?"

Me and J: "Oh god. This is weird."

Jessa: "Well you know what Fellatio is, right?"

Gay 2: "Yeah..."

[silence]

Gay 3: "Oh! So it's, eating out? Right?"

This only proves that gay boys, no matter how old, are still just boys, and don't know EVERYTHING yet. Not that they need to know about that kind of thing, exactly... Well, it's still funny to me...

Poll time!!!

Some of you may shake your head, thinking how bad you want to be in my position. But I have a serious dilemma on my hands.

Here's the deal. So, you all know I'm going to Wales. Really really exciting. But now, I'm also seriously considering not going home right away. Maybe heading to Germany for a week...Just like Sarah, I'm having some huge wanderlust issues. And since I'm taking German this year, I thought about trying it out.

I think I have the money to go, but I'm afraid that if I do this, I'll kill all my savings (unless my grandparents suddenly die and leave all their money to ME!!!) probably. But I'm really trying to save the majority of my church money.

Bah!!! I want to travel so bad right now. The bug has hit me HARD!!! So I need some rational people to either tell me to wait on Germany, or totally go for it while I still can.

Oh yeah, and it's a little scary, and I will probably never take advantage of this site, but it's pretty cool. Couchsurfing.com

Pissy

My internet is being super slow, I'm hungry, I have a quick recording session with my A Cappella choir that I don't want to go to, I have homework to do, and to top it all off, the sermon at mass this morning was PRO-Life.

Ugh...

So I would just like to say in my most pissiest voice possible:
I hate frequent YouTube vloggers because all they do is make fun of the stupid shit on the internet like "Dick in a Box" and when I want to watch or show someone "Dick in a Box" all I can find is your shitty-ass remake of it.

IT WAS FUNNY THE FIRST TIME! I DON'T NEED TO SEE YOU DO IT TOO. THANK-YOU!!!

For all you wondering

For all you wondering if Middlesex is a good read: Yes it is! I highly recommend it, although I'm not finished with it yet.

I only read it because Dan kept reading bits and pieces out loud. The part about the crocus got me hooked. Jeffrey Eugenides first book, The Virgin Suicides, didn't impress me all that much. It was good, but it wasn't THAT good. You know what I mean? Mainly, it just pissed me off that it's never explained why any of the girls killed themselves. Maybe that was the point, but whatever. I like things spelled out for me. Plain and simple.

But Middlesex is much different. This has history to it. Fascinating history. And it seems like he's done his research well. The book's history spans for three generations, and a lot historically happens. It's so cool. Even if Jeff does look like a stuck up ass in his pictures.

So read it. Love it. Get back to me.

P.S. I would like to address the mysterious person who wrote "prunes" on our apartment grocery list. I want to know who you are so that I can thank you for the hysterical joke, and also ask you if you were the person who left a tiny, glittery pumpkin on our table for Thanksgiving.

P.P.S. My dear readers, none of this is a joke. Some unknown person really did write prunes our grocery list and left a glittery pumpkin. Weird shit always happens to us!

Last night

Last night I had these plans of cleaning up the apartment and then leisurely reading my new book, Middlesex, and going to sleep early.

I did everything except go to bed early. Turns out I couldn't fall asleep till 4 am, and then at 8 woke up to get ready and go sing at church. Bitch! I hate not being able to sleep.

Anyway, while I was cleaning, I came up with this list of questions to ask my apartment if it could talk. Here's the list, and the answers.

Apartment, why does Martin (the landlord) hate us?
Because you're good tenants. If you were bad ones, he'd have leverage to raise the rent on you at the end of your lease.

Doesn't he have that leverage already simply because of where we live?
...Yes. Ok, Martin is just a douche bag because he has to be one. Didn't you listen to This American Life this week?

Oh yeah. Ok, well why is our apartment perpetually messy?
In buildings this old, dirt grows.

Do we have ghosts?
Probably. But I'm really not an expert on the manner. If you're talking about the footsteps that you here while you're taking a shower, that's the previous tenant who never gave his keys back. He likes to visit his old haunts.

Is that supposed to be funny?
Yeah, it was. Guess it didn't work.

You are so retarded, apartment. Will you just please stop shifting around? I'm so tired of the slanted walls and ceiling and floors. Nothing about you is level. That's so not cool. I'll live in you for as long as I can, but once I'm gone, I'm gone forever. Aufwiedersen Baby!
That's what they all say.

God, apartment, you're just as douchey as Martin. I don't think I want to talk to you anymore.

Dr. P

As some of you may know, my choir director last year went to Georgia last year, on a Fulbright.

This quarter, we are singing mostly Georgian folk music, which is super great because we get to sing as loud as we want.
But mainly my point of the story is that Dr. P normally gives us bites of wisdom about Georgian culture, and how cool and quirky the people are.
Today, we learned about Georgian dance. Dr. P tried very hard to demonstrate both traditional male and female dance. Personally, I thought he did a fine job, especially after spending 5 seconds on YouTube and saw this video!!!



Dr. P described these dances to the T!!! Including the creepy ladies with long dresses and wavy arms. Oh yeah, and men, don't forget to chuck your daggers by your side.

Goddamn Dr. P is so cool!!!

Resolutions...

Dan and I made a New Year's resolution that we weren't going to eat out this month...I haven't been doing so well at it. So far, I've been to two restaurants, and the student center a couple of times...At first I wasn't counting student center food as "going out," but considering I've only eaten shit when I was there, I think it does now.

I haven't done much work this week, which is bad, because I have a lot of practicing to do. This whole singing thing is becoming a drag. Since I didn't practice tonight or Monday, I'll at least clean up my room right after I'm done typing this blog entry, and then practice in the morning, like I should do every day. Yeah.

As a side note, I would just like to add that I love it when people reference NPR. It is the one, true radio station. Anyone who listens to NPR is smart. I am one of these people. I am smart because I listen to NPR.

Not that you care

I did some tidying with my template. Thought about changing it, but as much as I wish I was, I'm just not talented in that area. Besides, all the templates on blogskins.com are far too...original for me to pass off as my own.

I took away some band sites, and I added a few. I also added some of the websites that I've been frequenting. I'm in a German groove, if you can't tell.

PS. I have a new German teacher this quarter and he is a CUTIE!!! This could be a difficult class to get through with him around all the time. But who knows, maybe he'll be a complete jack-ass and I'll hate his guts. He did do the typical DePaul professor line, "I got my PH.d at Northwestern University...blah blah blah." But he lived and studied in Berlin for five years, and his voice just sounds so warm and friendly. He could definitely be a day-time TV star.

Wish I had this weekend off, but I don't. DePaul Acappella Choir has me working my but off tomorrow, and Sunday is church day. [General Grumbling]

Speaking of DAC...did I mention that we're going to Wales this summer? I am so excited! We're competing in some international chorus competition/festival. It's going to eat a big portion of my savings, but oh will it be fun. I seriously think I'm going to have a hard time coming back to the States.

There will be much more posting about Wales. I have a feeling that from now on, the choir is just going to sleep, eat, and breath for the competition. Wales. Wales. Wales. We will win at Wales...

Just Kiddin...

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

I went to the hospital today. Took an ambulance and everything.

This morning, I thought I was having an asthma attack because my throat got all tight and I felt like I couldn't breath. The paramedics thought I was having an allergic reaction or a panic attack, but I wasn't. Although, I suppose I could have been since I didn't really want to go back to school...But that's not why I couldn't breath, I swear! Anyway, my lungs were fine and so was my blood-oxygen level saturation...thing.

I learned a new term today. When someone is "tacky," it doesn't just mean that they're wearing a bad shirt, it means their heart is beating fast. So when they took my pulse, I was tacky. Cool huh?

Anyway, it wasn't an asthma attack. I just have a throat infection. Got my antibiotics plus steroids. And I am A-OK. So stop worrying about me, please.

Oh yeah, and my doctors name was Dr. Frederic Fishman. I thought it was funny.

So, now I really have to go back to school. Yuck!

Liebe auf den ersten Blick

I have a new love in my life. His name is Ubel Knubel.

Watch him, and you'll love him too.

Update

Christmas was fun.

New Year's was hilarious.

I gave my boyfriend whatever viral infection I had that left me with no voice for five days, and now I have it back again.

Watch out for this stuff. It is killer!

Oh yeah, I start school tomorrow, too. BOO!!!!