“In August and everything after, I’m after everything.” ~counting crows

My family’s here! I can’t even tell you how happy I am. I won’t update for a while because we’ll be traveling, but when I get back I’ll add a nice, long entry.

I had the strangest dreams last night.
In one of them, I was at my first practice back at Richmond Synchro after being abroad. The girls tried to drown me; they held me underwater, but I eventually managed to break free and swim to the surface. Afterwards, they gave me a list of things they didn’t like about me as their excuse for trying to murder me. I think a lot of the things were real insecurities that I have about myself, but some of the things were just plain stupid, like, “Your hair is too dark.” ?!?!?! Anyway, it was weird.
In another dream, Rich’s mom took over our flat and cooked Christmas dinner. She used up all my vodka (I was mad at her for that) and made all these pitchers of this drink that were scattered around the flat; there were literally about 100 pitchers, positioned all over the place, mostly on the floor. How bizarre is that?
Any dream analysts out there?

"When everything gets lonely I can be my own best friend. I get a coffee and the paper; have my own conversations With the sidewalk and the pigeons and my window reflection." ~bright eyes


I haven't updated in a while. Last week was a busy one. It feels good to be finished with it, though. My music industry test was a little tricky but I think I did okay, and my English essay was…well, it was complete. I never know how to judge how well I’ll do on those things, and when I do have a feeling about it, I’m usually completely wrong. So we’ll see.

If you’re ever looking for a good movie to make fun of, watch The Mothman Prophesies. Rich and I watched it last night, and the only thing that made it bearable was the fact that we tore it apart as it was going on. It was actually fun. There are just so many inconsistencies and impossible events that make it completely laughable. I could list them all for you but I won’t. It suffices to say that it was poorly written, poorly made, and I can’t believe those actors would ever even consider being a part of such a piece of trash. Especially Laura Linney. She’s an absolutely amazing actress, she’s an Oscar nominee and a Tony nominee, and why she would take such an underdeveloped role as that character is beyond me. And her southern accent is atrocious. The worst attempt at a southern accent that I’ve ever heard. No, I take that back. She’s on par with Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain. In other words, pretty awful.

My family gets here on Friday and I cannot wait. We're going to a rugby game; the New Zealand national team is playing the South African national team. It's a big game, and I know it'll be fun. We'll be here in Dunedin for a few days and we'll explore the area, especially the penninsula (there's lots of penguins and seals, and an albatross colony). Then we'll go to Milford Sound (supposedly one of the most beautiful places in the world if not the most) and Queenstown. I'm really looking forward to that. We'll go skiing there, and that area is where lots of The Lord of the Rings was filmed, so we'll go on some hiking trails exploring that area. The valley where the big battle was filmed is there. I'm excited to see it. Perrine's coming with us to the rugby game and to Queenstown, and I think it'll be fun to have her with us. They'll be here for my brother's birthday (next Wednesday) and they leave on the morning of my birthday (next Sunday), so I'm glad I'll get to celebrate both of those days with them. We've both got 'milestone' birthdays; he's turning 18 and I'm turning 21. It's funny; he would be able to drink here on his birthday because the drinking age is 18. I'm pretty sure he won't, though. :-)

"Somethin' filled up my heart with nothin', someone told me not to cry. But now that I'm older my heart's colder and I can see that it's a lie." ~the arcade fire

The Arcade Fire is one of the names floating around as an opener for the 3d leg of the U2 tour. I would absolutely love that, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

I hate how all this work seems to sneak up on me and culminate in a crazy week of tests, papers, and projects. I've had no assignments for the past 6 weeks, and all of a sudden I have three due in one week. If I were better at staying on top of things and working ahead, it would be fine. But, like most college students, I'm a procrastinator. I turned in my education journal yesterday, and it was good to get that off my hands. For this week I still have to worry about a test on Thursday and a paper due on Friday.
Yesterday I went to talk to my English professor about the paper due on Friday. I talked to him for over an hour. I think that's the longest conversation I've had with anyone since I've been here. I've never felt completely comfortable going to any of my professors at Richmond; I usually come away from those meetings feeling stupid and even more confused than before. I don't know why this guy was so easy to talk to, but it really felt great to just be able to brainstorm and feed off of each other's ideas related to the poem I'm writing about. I still don't know how my essay will turn out, but I really needed that intellectual conversation. Strangely enough, he's American. It was nice to talk to another American. It made me feel at home.

“Stars, in your multitude, scarce to be counted, filling the darkness with order and light, you are the sentinels, silent and sure, keeping watch in the night, keeping watch in the night.” ~les miserables

I’m in a Les Miz mood. Want to hear something funny? I saw Ricky Martin in Les Miz, before he was famous. He was Marius. I discovered that while going through my Playbills awhile ago. I wish I remembered his performance. That was the first time I saw the show, though, which was when I was pretty young, so I can’t remember what I thought of him. And no one knew who he was then. I guess it's not so surprising; he seems like a sucker for tight pants.

All the boys are gone this weekend, so it’s just Perrine and I. Scott goes skiing every weekend (actually, every Wednesday through Sunday), so it’s not unusual that he’s gone. Rich and Matt went to Queenstown to go skiing this weekend; they invited me but I have too much work to do. I’m going skiing in two weeks, anyway. So it’s just the girls.

We went to Pizza Hut last night. Heh. I found that so strange, to be in a Pizza Hut halfway around the world. It seems like such an American institution. I would have preferred to eat at some local place, but they don’t have Pizza Hut in France and Perrine’s never been, so she wanted to go. It was actually a really good deal. We each paid about US$8 for all-you-can-eat from the salad bar, pizza bar, and dessert bar. I ate way too much. What I love here is that, when you’re in a restaurant/bar/etc., if the menu says something is, say, $10, that’s exactly how much you pay. No tax, no tip. It’s great.

I know I complain about how cold it is a lot, so I want to share this quote with you to prove that it’s not just me being a wimp. This is from the ‘Letter from the Editor’ in The Critic, the school’s weekly magazine. By the way, I’m sorry to say that it puts The Collegian to shame. Anyway, here’s the quote:
“Last year, a study found that the average temperature inside student flats was well below the level recommended by the World Health Organisation, was frequently colder than the outside temperature, and was often lower than 2 degrees – colder than the inside of your fridge.”

"And so she woke up, woke up from where she was lying still. Said, I gotta do something about where we're going. Step on a steam train, step out of the driving rain. Maybe run from the darkness in the night." ~u2

My mom sent me the Live 8 dvds that she recorded for me! It's, like, 12 hours of pure music because it's the version that they aired the week after the concert, with no commercials or commentators. I got through one disc and I still have to watch the other one. I'm in a U2 mood, so here's some Bono pictures for my U2 gals who may or may not have discovered this blog.
A crappy screen cap I took from Live 8:


And a return to that old, famous photo of Bono and Liam Gallagher:


There were some rumors about Oasis opening for U2 at MSG in the fall, but I don't think it'll happen. That would have been amazing. I'm still waiting to hear who we'll get as an opening act. Whoever it is, I'm willing to bet that they'll be better than Kings of Leon, who opened for them on the first leg of this tour. I didn't mind them, but I think U2 could have done a lot better. I would have liked them more if I could understand the lyrics. All the words except for the occasional expletive were utterly incomprehensible.

One bad thing about Dunedin is the wind. It's always windy here. In summer I can imagine that being nice, but in winter it's awful. It rained today, and wind and rain make a terrible combination. The wind has destroyed two of my umbrellas already, so now I've given up on using one at all. They don't do anything here anyway. Because of the wind, the rain comes at you from all angles. It slants in sideways, pours from up above, and even seems to rise up from the ground. You'll still be soaking wet even with an umbrella. And it was SO cold today that the rain felt like ice. I think it was about 40 degrees. I wish it would have snowed instead.