[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!!!!