Dad and I went for another walk today! These always seem to end up being blog-worthy events. XD Anyway, we went up a cliff - not up the cliff face, but up a nice gentle trail that brought us to the top anyway. It was fabulous. We sat down at the top, looking out over the entire city, and after a few minutes I said “It is lovely, but I wish the hawks were out today” and a hawk said “O HAI THAR” and flew like ten feet above my head. XD Such huge birds! So that was fabulous - I admired the trees, Dad admired the lichens, we both admired the view. And then on the way back down, Dad pointed out a neat bit of the cliff - he called it an inclusion, but I call it ANCIENT LAVA FLOW. You can see just over my head where the lava folded on itself. It’s all granite now, I think, but with mica and quartz veins running along the layers. Dad chipped off a little flake of quartz for me, which is AWESOME and will go into my altar-ish-thing. I also picked up a hunk of mica-rock that looks a great deal like a faceted gem (at least in my fabulous imagination). It was, in short, a very good walk. :D

Other than that, I’ve been a little sick (yesterday I ate something that did not agree with me, and I think my ovaries hurt) and angsty about stuff I can’t really control. There’s a lot going on in my life and I’m having trouble keeping up with it. I’ll be okay, it’ll just be rough for a while.

Today has been very rewarding. I didn’t get anything in particular done, but Dad and I went for a walk (I did a lot of talking about plants and species distribution and why volunteer plants are not necessarily a good thing) and then we made dinner (okay, I made dinner and then said DAAAAD CAN YOU MAKE THE CHICKEN BE DONE COOKING) and it was delicious: chicken breasts stuffed with fresh spinach and feta cheese, Hasselback potatoes, and blanched asparagus with dried cranberries and butter. I particularly liked the asparagus - Dad said it was the first time he’d ever actually liked cranberries, and I must say the slight bitterness of the asparagus was the perfect compliment to the tangy cranberries. They tasted insanely fresh and sweet together. The chicken was nice, but probably not something I’d make again - I am very weird about cooking chicken thoroughly, and having it in a small brick makes me nervous. The potatoes were okay - thinly sliced (but not all the way through) with slivers of garlic between slices and drizzled with olive oil. Enh. I might try smashing some garlic instead of slicing it if I make them again, since the sliced garlic is just too bitter for me. Also butter. Everything is better with butter. I’m far more afraid of the weird replacements people make than of butter.

I may be a little obsessed with food. I like food! Food is delicious! I can’t wait for the daylilies to bloom so I can stuff them with cheese and fry them up. :3

OH YEAH

THAT’S RIGHT

IT’S ME

3.61 CUMULATIVE GPA, BABY

Settling in. I haven’t had enough time yet to fall into the old patterns, and I’m trying not to at all. So. Here is my plan.

1. Clean my space. This includes my bedroom, the bathrooms, the kitchen, and the hallway outside my room that Anne has claimed.
2. Grow food. This means reclaiming the back and side yards and growing things indoors for now, since it’s late in the season and I have no idea when things get planted.
3. Remembering that the house is not my priority. I cannot assume that responsibility. It would drive me insane, very literally. Lisette, you do not want to be institutionalized. Do not try to fix the house. Even though pieces of it are falling off. Seriously. Not your problem.
4. Remembering that I am not the house mother. Yes, I can cook. Yes, I can clean. Yes, I am probably the most functional person here. That does not mean I can or should take charge of the household. I am a support role, but not a nag.
5. School comes first. Before everything. Without school, I am nothing and cannot become anything. School always, always comes first.

To-do list:
1. Talk to Dad about allowance and bills.
2. Make advising appointment?
3. Make grocery list
4. Clean fridge and pantry out
5. Clean room
6. Clean self
7. Cook
8. See Star Trek 2009

Since my last post, I have:
cried into my teddy bear
cried into my pillow
spent $11
gotten extremely addicted to coffee (again)
watched two movies
cried at a movie
written a paper on the ethics of cloning
read a book
did I mention the paper on cloning
seriously that paper was awful
oh yeah and I had an epic fail involving being a Support volunteer
I’m kinda not doing that anymore
this is how I write poems, by the way, just random
line breaks
(never said I was good at it)

What I am going to do this week:
study for Bio final
take Bio final
panic and pack the night before Bio final
cry into my teddy bear
go home
cry into my cat
detox
make appointments for advising and medical crap
watch NCIS
write
read
plant stuff
clean Bruce
become vegetarian (I’m kinda serious)

Last night:
Couldn’t sleep. Went to bed at 1am.
Fire alarm at 1:10am.
Started raining at 1:20am.
Kept outside until 2:15am.
Fire alarm at 3am.
Still raining.
Kept outside until 3:45am.
Slept until 8am.
Drank coffee until presentation at 12:30.
Did Tai Chi online quiz.
Submitted first support answer for Dreamwidth. Answer was approved and sent to user.
Figured out likely grades for semester. Am expecting 3.5 GPA.

The Future:
Sleep. A lot.
Kill 1) the kid that triggered first alarm via ganking the extinguisher for no reason and 2) the kid that thought pulling the second alarm would be fun. Use dull spoons and paperclips.
Write Morals paper on Just War Theory and revolutionaries.
Study/ace Bio final.
Clean. Pack. Move.
Make list of errors/fixes commonly being seen in Support for personal reference.
Write.
Read.
Return library book.
Find job and/or make stuff to sell.
Sleep. Did I mention sleep? Sweet, sweet sleep.

Highlights of the last few days:

OpenOffice is allying with a corrupt folder to destroy my computer, and neither problem will let me fix it.

I had a 20-page Bio paper and I have just finished it a day before the one-week deadline.

I just totally aced part 1 of my Tai Chi final, which was a performance.

I have decided that if I can’t find employment over the summer, I will volunteer as a support/customer service person for Dreamwidth. This serves as being 1) supportive of Dreamwidth, 2) a good experience for me in being both an authority and a public face of a company, and 3) good for the resume. Usually my moderator/authority style is more like [GM]Dave than anything else, but DW volunteering is moderated anyway so it’s not like I can screw it up. Badly. Too much. I even got a new account just for volunteering, since I doubt “swordage” is an appropriate name to put on my resume.

The school greenhouse is having a plant sale, so I uh. Bought two heritage tomato plants and a funky mint. I’m considering another tomato. Or maybe some bee balm. Or night-scented stock. Or a different mint. Or chard. Or… no that’s really it. Ahaha. But seriously, I am so thrilled to have these plants - it’s the very first step towards my dream garden, which will be self-sustaining organic permaculture companion-planted heritage and native stuff. That combination of words is more intimidating than the actual concept, I promise. (Yes, Dad. I’m going to take over the backyard if you don’t stop me. On the plus side, grocery shopping will get a lot easier for six months of the year.)

I think I will stop asking for actual presents on holidays. I want heritage seeds and catalogs. Yes. I am a creature of simple pleasures.

Saw a presentation by a guy who won a Nobel yesterday! It was AWESOME. I feel way more educated about atomic clocks now. :D Laser cooling! Liquid nitrogen! THINGS EXPLODING!

I also discovered that Wikipedia has a list of companion plants. YESSSS.

I think I’m down to counting my assignments on one hand. Huge badly-explained paper due Wednesday, two tests Thursday, another paper the following Monday, and one more test that Thursday. Oh yeah, and next Tuesday I do my Tai Chi performance. This is actually still a huge amount of work and I want to tear my hair out. THIS BIO PAPER IS THE WORK OF THE DEVIL.