that was a jedi moment back there!

"christmas break is like rehab. i sleep 8 hours a night, i eat healthy, and like lindsay lohan, i am taken away from alcohol."

-bridget mcglone-

thanks for that one, bridget.

in any case, christmas break 2007 is well on its way, marked by a staggering amount of GRE studies (i now know several choice words for cantankerous), a nauseating amount of time spent at the country club (would you like more gin in your gimlet, sir?), some friend time out and about (and i now know why i go to miami ... fewer creepy hick townies) and naught much else. granted, it's been a fairly restful break, though not all circumstances are perfect. but are they ever?

i've also successfully accomplished what a consummate drug lord might want, which is get my parents completely hooked ...

... on LOST.

hats off to jj abrams for being an omniscient wizard with this show. i ordered the pilot from netflix just to see what all the fuss was about, and a week and a half later, i'm mostly done with season two. call me pathetic. but i call it media studies. now, at cocktail parties, instead of dazzling people with my extensive vocabulary and witticisms, i can impress them with pansophical knowledge of jack, kate, sawyer, and charlie. what is that strange black smoke? who are the others? and why, five minutes after shaving, does jack have a perpetual 5 o'clock shadow? the world may never know.

i'm out.


quote of the day: i saw a guy lying there with an ankle holster. so i took the gun. thought it might come in handy. and guess what? i just shot a bear!

fin, finito, finitus, finitamos, finitais, finitan

done.

compleo. compleō, compleāre, compleuī, compleitum.

i am completely finished with my last ever fall semester of college.

with the placement of my intermediate poetry workshop portfolio, safely tucked in the mailbox of bill howe, located in the english department's office in 356 bachelor, i ended my academic education for 2007. and it is the last time.

i'm not usually one for firsts and lasts, (ooh, this was the first piece of gum i chewed, this was the last movie ticket stub i have - enchanted, for those curious), but when it's significant landmarks of my life, well - that's a different story altogether. my first day of college, my last day in london, my first car. these are landmarks people use to define themselves.

i drove around campus after running in my portfolio, as i refused to walk to bachelor in the rain and dismal drizzle. it seemed like the right thing to do. i drove past western, past boyd, past peabody, past kumlar. i have a connection with each building. for boyd, it was an awful lit class. in peabody, numerous fiction readings. and kumlar - one of the most beautiful concerts i have ever sang in. next, i traveled down spring street - there was shriver, home to many a late lunches, midnight munches, and sunday brunches. shiedler, the building responsible for housing the class that forever lowered my gpa (geology of u.s. national parks) and culler, the engineering building where i curiously had three creative writing classes.

then it was past hughes, where i had a film lab last fall and tripped down the seminar room stairs many a time. and laws hall - which has been home to collegiate chorale and an irksome bother to all business majors. and upham - i could almost smell the mothballs and mildew. countless american lit classes, inklings meetings, laws, hall & associates meetings... every building on campus somehow housed a different memory.

i saw campus as an outsider for the first time in two years today. i saw myself in the prospective students wandering around with their parents. that was me nearly three years ago, dreaming of a fresh start at miami. where did the time go? as i drove past and saw king library encased in mist, i saw it as i saw it when i still went to grove city - impossibly large, imposing, austere. but at the same time, i know it isn't that bad.

i guess focusing on all that won't help matters, and i know i should be excited for things to come. but it's like being in a well-lit, familiar room, and stepping across the threshold into a dark room. it's the dark room of hughes. i can't see what's right in front of me. it's unknown, and scary, and i'm not sure i'm ready.

quote o' the day: "i know new york, i need new york, i know i need unique new york."

happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing i know.

"happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing i know."

so said ernest hemmingway.

and maybe he was on to something.

i went to steinkeller's and circle bar tonight with a friend -- cc -- and while the conversations might have been commonplace, we conversed at such a level that an outside listener would think us at least coherent, versus the table next to us, who were doing a rendition of "pour some sugarrrrr on me" (in the name of love) . words like "socioeconomic" were thrown in occasionally, along with "strata." my professors would be proud.

but then, a friend/acquaintance who i had traveled hundreds of miles with back to cleveland sophomore year came in (albeit, slightly toasted), and said, "you know, you're gorgeous and classy and everything, but you're not my type at all. you're just too smart for me."

um, you're not my type, either. but too smart?

seriously?

since when was it a bad thing to use big words, or reference cezanne in a casual conversation? since when are you judged by how much you can "tone down" your intelligence until it is culturally acceptable? i don't know, i guess i'm not smart enough to tell you.

graduation cannot come soon enough.

quote of the day: "beth, you know how to add more wiper fluid to your jeep, but you don't know how to open the bottle?"

true story.