Today was my last class ever!
This is what I did:
-braided my hair
-drew my pinkie (it's so crooked)
-played Hopie's word game with star & moon, stem & rift, and love & rose
-listened to Bjork on my ipod
I didn't realize it was my last class until 15 minutes before class ended and the class is almost all freshman, so no one was really excited when it ended. The last day of class of my senior year at high school was so crazy! When we left the building, people were outside with water balloons and shaving cream...and seniors didn't have to take finals, so we were done. I have 3 papers and a final left :(
-nicole

I just got back from my last class at Wash U
This is what I did:
-Listened to Travis on my ipod
-Drew my pinkie (it's really bizarre, if you've never looked at it closely!)
-Played Hopie's word game with stem & tilt, love & star, and moon & star
-Braided my hair
I didn't realize it was my last class until 15 minutes before it was over. I think I'm the only senior in Solar System 101, so there wasn't any excitement at all... it wasn't like the last day of classes in high school when people stood outside the doors and threw water balloons and sprayed me with shaving cream. Oh, and also because seniors didn't have to take finals at my high school. I love that idea! I have three more papers and a final until I'm done (all due 10 days!). Tell me when you're going to WILD, because I'm going to bring a blanket and food probably, and beer if anybody wants it;)

I just got back from my last class at Wash U
This is what I did:
-Listened to Travis on my ipod
-Drew my pinkie (it's really bizarre, if you've never looked at it closely!)
-Played Hopie's word game with stem & tilt, love & star, and moon & star
-Braided my hair
I didn't realize it was my last class until 15 minutes before it was over. I think I'm the only senior in Solar System 101, so there wasn't any excitement. Now I only have three more papers and a final until I'm done. Tell me when you're going to WILD, because I'm going to bring a blanket and food probably, and beer if anyone wants it;)

This morning I was listening to the MJ radio network and the talk show host said that the insurgents in Iraq were obviously mentally unbalanced and should be erased, just like you erase something off a chalk board. He said that they are fighting against Democracy and that the US military should just kill them all so we can get on with the liberation. This is abstracification (yes, I learned something in Philosophy!) and it's the only way that humans can justify killing other humans. It scares me so much when people think that way.

The word of the day: procrastination...four hours and 9 minutes until my 8 page take home exam is due

-nicole

I'm going to be like Mike and write a blog with social commentary!
One thing that really bothers me is when people take advantage of the legal system in the United States for their own gain. I didn't like it when the woman sued McDonalds over hot coffee or when paparazzi sue movie stars for defending themselves. We are so lucky to have equality under the law, but it seems like some people are so obsessed with defending their right to have laws enforced that they create situations in which they purposely hurt themselves or make other people break them! Today my mom told me that a really sweet elderly couple from my church at home were arrested and are being sued for trespassing. They went down a dead-end street to see the work on a stone wall at the end, which is being built around a gigantic mansion that is being built downtown. When they tried to find a place to turn around, all of the other driveways, except the Mansion's, were blocked with wheelbarrows. So the old man did a three point turn and back a few feet into the driveway and suddenly a man drove up in a little golf-cart and blocked him from getting out. Then he yelled, "I'm calling the police!" and had them charged and booked for trespassing. And now his evil team of lawyers want to try them to the full extent of the law! My parents said that he has sued the town so many times already for random offenses and he probably set up the wheelbarrows so he could sue people!

-nicole

My schedule is working! I got so much done today and I didn't stress out at all. I can't believe WILD is this friday, though. I'm so excited for Live!! One summer during high school, all of my friends rented a house on Chappaquiddick for a week and we rode bicycles all over Martha's Vineyard and we listened to "Throwing Copper" on repeat the whole time! It always reminds me of summertime. I told my parents about the commencement speaker, Thomas Friedman, and my mom started screaming because I guess it's their favorite writer from the New Yorker. My dad said he's going to try to get his autograph. I honestly didn't know who he was.

Oh, and I had a random thought while I was studying philosophy...if the music that people call their favorite is always what's popular during their college years, does that mean that we'll be humming "hey ya" when we're sitting around the retirement home? Instead of polka dancing on Friday nights, will we get together to go to raves? And instead of bridge, will we play nertz, spit, or bs?
-nicole

I really want to say some stuff, so super-quick:

-Yay SALT elections- go nominees! You are all awesome!
-Thanks Banji and Katy!! Way to pastoral-caretake!
-Good luck with studying and exams!
love, nicole

More reasons why my starbucks is the best:

This morning I was ordering my coffee and I saw a man walk in who looked really familiar, so I assumed I had just seen him there before. But then I was standing next to him at the counter, waiting for our coffee, and it hit me-
It's Mark McGuire!

When they gave me my drink (tall no whip caramel frap) and said "Gosh, Nicole, you ALWAYS order the same thing," I turned bright red and he laughed at me! It was so embarrassing. P.S- He's really tall and handsome in real life. Maybe that's why I didn't recognize him. Or maybe it's my lack of baseball awareness.

Other starbucks celebrity sightings: Valerie Harper (Rhoda from the Mary Tyler Moore Show) and Dennis Miller.

It's Saturday night and I'm going to sleep at 8pm, because paper writing makes me sleepy. If anyone feels like they don't have enough work, I'll give you one of my papers to write! I don't mind at all:)
-nicole

I have a few questions:

Why are there fireworks tonight? Did I forget about a holiday?

Regarding fate- if I see my soul mate and he says hi and I say hi, then I give him $3.50 and he gives me my dvds and a receipt and I say thank you and leave, is that missing my destiny?

Should I be mad that I could hear my parents say to my brother- while he was talking on the phone with me- "John, say 'I have to go, bye!'"?

Is my car really even worth $600?

-nicole

The ECM theory is true! Okay, today I was walking in the pouring rain and there was a person on crutches and I just walked by...but then I thought "if that was me, what would someone else in ECM do?" And since everyone has been so incredibly nice, I went back and shared my umbrella. It wasn't that ECM made me feel guilty, but that now I'm always cognizant of how much people need help from each other and that you can't just assume that someone else will do it. On the other hand, I was too shy to go up to Professor Duncan in Starbucks and ask him why he hasn't finished my recommendation yet, since it was due last Wednesday- and that's definitely not helping anyone, since my whole family is holding their breath that I will get into University of Minnesota.
I'm going to get my car fixed (finally!) this afternoon...my dad seriously thinks that the wheels are going to pop off it I don't...but many ECMers assured me was impossible!:)

This week, all of my professors have pushed back the due dates of the final papers, and I was so excited until I wrote the dates out on my calendar:

May 4, 5, 6!

grr. It's almost funny, but not quite.
I'm already feeling worried, so I'm going to go for a run...endorphins are always a good thing, right?

Well, here are some things I realized today:
-If I pretend to be really happy, it makes me feel even happier.
-I have a trashy/celebrity magazine addiction and it's getting worse.
-People are starting to say that John Kerry might win.
-A can of pringles can replace a meal in a pinch.
-I'm the only person who can understand my brother's sense of humor...he said that since he can't afford to give me money for graduation, he'll make me some instead, because it's the thought that counts.
-Aidan B. is the cutest two-year-old in the world.
-My mom is more worried about my future than I am.
-Orange-spice iced tea at starbucks is the most disgusting drink ever!
-It's exactly a month until my parents, my brother, and my grandparents come to St. Louis!

nicole

I'm going to buy a cute little tent and just live in starbucks. John says in the morning, people will know I'm awake when they hear the "zip, zip, zip" and I step out of the door-flap. And customers will come in and ask the barristas about the tent when they order their coffee, and they'll say, "oh, that's nicole. she loved studying here so much that she just moved in! But she does bring us lots of Episcopalians, so we let her stay."

I'm going to be at starbucks all Sunday evening, if anyone wants to come visit me!

Packing is not as much fun when you're not going home right afterwards. So it turns out that I can procrastinate about this too. I think I'll go see a movie, then go to the planetarium. My brain is like mush right now, even though I haven't done any work since yesterday. This is so much worse than high school senioritis! I'm so sorry I was brusque with people who nicely offered to help me tomorrow morning...I changed my mind: if you are awake, please come over! This is too lonely by myself.

On the positive side, I finally met my upstairs neighbor. She's an old woman and she said, "I'm so happy we finally got to meet...where are you going?" And I said that I moving out in the morning, and we laughed about it. My grandpa also told me that apparently my cats love him and during the week that they've been cat-sitting, Benzene climbs on his lap every morning! Hmm...maybe that cat's finally lost his edge! We've been trying to get through to him for years:) Or maybe it's just because it's my grandpa.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Yesterday, at one of the craziest SALT meetings ever (and that says so much- umm, dance-offs with potential contributers to the capital campaign?), I realized that the people in ECM are so amazingly supportive and kind and that is why our community is such a great example of God's love. I'm not used to trusting people- because of so many things that happened in High School- so the feeling that I can depend on the community is so amazingly comforting! Everyone has been saying these things about ECM recently and it's so true! And the best thing about that support is that it motivates us to spread that love in our daily presence at Wash U and in the community.
I'm in such a sappy mood, so I'm going to watch Babe...when the farmer sings and dances I cry every time! That movie is maybe the silliest thing, but it's so sweet too. If you have an insatiable desire to put things in boxes, please come over to my apartment anytime today...oh, and I finally posted the notes from the Capital Campaign and SALT meeting- sorry that took so long!

Hmm...I think that the cd of the day will by the new O.C. mix. And no one make fun of me! It's so good, especially the Dandy Warhols!

I wish I had stayed in OMGWAIGTDWML because sometimes I feel like I should have been something completely different, like a personal shopper. You may ask, why would Nicole want to be a personal shopper instead of a bilingual elementary school teacher? Well, for one, I would get to pick out clothes all day and as most people know, I have a really strange ability to spot a designer brand and know what it is immediately! It's kind of rainmain-ish, but for fashion. Anyway, I would also get to spends lots of money, but it wouldn't actually be mine- bonus! And finally, I would get to comment on people's fashion sense without seeming super critical.
Something that has really been bothering me is when qualitative subjects, like education and Spanish, are made quantitative. My entire Second Language Acquistion class is reading studies about certain types of speech, which are done scientifically with experiments. I had to do a presenation today about all the different types of idioms and how someone processes them mentally before understanding the difference between the literal and figurative meanings. If that's not just a big waste of time, I don't know what is:) I guess it's kind of important for teaching a language, but if it's so important, then why didn't they teach me that here? I don't know any Spanish idioms, except the ones I learned at Oxford. I actually just blew off my Columbia oral interview (almost accidentally) because I know that I won't have any idea what to say and will stumble over everything and give up. I didn't really want to go there. It's not sour grapes either! It would have been so lonely, at least at first, in New York City and I would have probably had to rent a room in someone's linen closet or in the drawer under their oven. My parents are not going to pay for anything else once I graduate- I'm kind of scared since they pay for practically everything now.

Lesson of the day: A decomposable idiom is one where the words correspond directly with the figurative meaning. For example: pop the question. A nondecomposable idiom is one where the words correspond to the literal, but not figurative meaning. For example: shoot the breeze.

The music of the night is the love theme from Cinema Paradiso, because it's such a beautiful movie score.

*Stressed-out*
I say that I'm stressed-out so much that people must get really annoyed, but I just realized that being stressed-out would actually be being past the point of stress, like I suppose if you've felt stressed for so long that you're just out of stress. And so it's finally true! I'm out of stress, which is why I haven't worked on my papers which are due in three weeks and have an urge to go see what's new at the Galleria instead of preparing for my Freud presentation. I am so jealous of Hopie and Laurie! Do you guys feel the need to write another paper at Wash U? I can share!
My only promise is that I won't stop working on group projects...but maybe everything else is just too much for me to deal with right now.

And another thing that makes me sad is that my family is on their first vacation without me, to Myrtle Beach. As Freud says, the more love you receive as a child, the more you need to internalize your aggression as an adult. So my parents are messing up my last semester at college by giving me too many hugs.

p.s. Can someone please im me the way to add a reply section to a blog? I tried one of them and nothing changed.

This week has been crazy!
I promised myself that I was going to go into my study daze (which involves living at starbucks) but it's not working at all...instead I've been spending time with ECMers more than ever and it's been so much fun! I've seen the Kinmans twice this week too: once to drive Mike to the car shop- which included demonstrating for Schroedter that I can't see at all without my glasses- and once on the way to the cathedral. So I've decided that maybe I will resist the study daze this year, because it IS my last semester of college, I've worked very hard for four years, and what's more important in the long run, my grades or my sanity?:)
The other thing has been way too obnoxious to talk about, but hopefully it will be over this weekend and I can focus on friends, thurteen, wild, and...um, writing papers!

Anyway, these are the things I've learned this week:
-Always check to see if your keys are in your purse before locking the car door. If they're not there, the first place to check is the ignition (especially if the car is still running).
-Never be afraid to bother people about things if there are major life-altering deadlines involved (like the application deadline for the only graduate school that you- and your entire extended family- want you to attend, for example)
-How many episcopalians does it take to throw away all the trash in the Rockwell house basement? Four, apparently, with help from a very big car and two South 40 dumpsters!