AHHHH MATHERLAND!

It's good to be back!

!!!

From 1050 FM, Federal News Radio:

"Global warming is rewriting the record books in Nevada and across the country," said Jill Bunting, a spokesperson for U.S. PIRG.

"Unless our elected officials act now to curb global warming pollution, Nevada will see more severe heat waves that increase the risk for wildfires, drought, and heat-related illnesses," she said.

See also this article, this article, this article, and tons more! Even this messageboard!

Carbs is such a big deal.

Hello from the University of Maryland at College Park!

Here I am in my Mather lowrise-sized single in Leonardtown Community at UMD College Park. I got here this morning around 9am, which seems like an incredibly long time ago because I then promptly napped for a while. I'm alone in here right now but I believe this is a six-person suite of two singles and two doubles. I go into the lab tomorrow at 9:30 am, and it looks like the walk will be similar to that of Mather to the Yard, except more dangerous since Route 1 is a lot busier and wider than Mass Ave. I've met a couple of the other girls in the suite and they seem like nice people - I think they're doing linguistics lab stuff too, which is pretty neat (more people like me omg!). I need to go food/supplies shopping this afternoon, although the kitchen seems pretty stocked and I think everyone's willing to share. Oh, and thank god for central a/c because this place is hot and humid every day.

Last night was pretty interesting. Reuben picked me up from the airport around 6 and said we were going to a "leather and lace"-themed party that night. "Party" was a bit of a stretch, since it only turned out to be like 8 people, but it was still kinda fun/weird. We went to this guy's house ... it was pretty run down and seedy, but there were some foamy mats on the floor and a tv and a kitchen, so it was fine for the purposes. Reuben brought his hookah and there was also the obligatory alky-hol and also lots of cigarette smoking ... and we just sat around, mostly. Reuben and I crashed there and they had the a/c turned up SO HIGH and it was freaking freezing cold. I wore my black/white/pink plaid skirt with the black lace-ups since it was the skankiest thing I packed (my bad).

I just met two of the roomies - Jamila and Sally. I apparently really scared the crap out of Jamila when I moved in this morning because this room has been empty for 5 weeks and they weren't warned I was moving in. Whooooops.

Z and I recently have been having a bunch of weird and traumatic dreams involving A. His dreams are all realistic and somewhat dull, mine are all completely unrealistic and pretty bizarre. That's just our dream styles, I guess. I hope these particular dreams stop soon.

Love is ...

... patient, Love is kind, and is not jealous. It does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it is not provoked ... believes all things, hopes all things. Love never fails."

Yeah, right.

Love is like Red Bull, except the high is higher and the crashes are multiple, unpredictable, and earth-shattering. Love is what wins out when your brain and your heart are deadlocked, causing complete paralysis. Love is seeing someone imperfect turn into an angel in front of you, it's going giddy and euphoric just from being able to touch someone's cheek, it's feeling totally unworthy and bewildered and having the time of your life because of it. It's scary and overwhelming and wonderful - so wonderful that sometimes you don't even notice it's there - and I don't know why I thought it'd be any different or any less mind-bending this time around.

I don't want to sleep but I think I'm about to fall over. oi'agwoi 'erbnawr43

I love Raccoon Noises, but ...

I'm being unfaithful and posting more regularly to a different group blog. Oh the horror!

I'm also uploading my Australia pictures to Picasa (Google's online photo album client) and not facebook (gasp!). I provide links to the pictures on the aforementioned blog: http://www.hrcm.net/tourblog.

Check it out, guys! I'm having an amazing time!

"I'm international and you're orbiting my brain / I'm reduced to writing nothing all over napkins on a plane"

I don't want to set a precedent for dominating the summer blogging activities here, but this is ridiculous. We (Collegium) were supposed to leave Logan airport for LAX at 5pm, land at 8pm PST, then leave for Sydney, Australia around midnight PST. Instead, because of weather issues, we didn't take off at Logan until 10:40pm, arrived around 1:40am PST at LAX, found out that our connecting flight to Sydney had actually been delayed until 3am PST (yay!) but then discovered that we still couldn't take the flight. So here we are at the LAX Marriot, and it's 5:10am PST and I'm going to go to bed soon since it'll be easier to adjust to Australia time this way (14 hour difference) and also there's a pool here, which is fun. We're taking a 10pm flight tomorrow and will basically miss all of June 10th, which is sad because that's my birthday. Okay, I should let others use the internet connection.

Happy early birthday to meeeeeee

Z: "Are you blogging from my lair?"
me: "Yeah, is there something wrong with that?"
Z: "Only that it interferes with my Star Trek watching."

Dork.

We just had dinner at Mr. Sushi (for my birthday), and the food was excellent as usual while the service was unfortunately sub-par. I had strawberry mochi ice cream for dessert! I <3 mochi ice cream.

Today this guy came into the store and I instantly recognized him as my old art teacher from like 2nd-4th grade. He was kinda kooky (still is, I guess) and when I told him that the one thing I remembered from his classes was this time we drew ginseng roots and tried to make them look like people, his eyes got all big and he said, "That was the most important thing I ever taught!" He then expressed curiosity at the etymological roots (ha ha) of the word "ginseng" and I said I could look it up for him in Chinese since I'm a linguist and all that (or, as Z says, a "linguician," i.e. linguist + magician), and he got all excited again and gave me his business card with his email address. Also apparently he was Harvard class of '70. Never would've guessed, somehow.

Wad and Nougat! Where are you guys?!