"... and next week we'll talk about mountain porn."

Direct quote from Dr. Koch, a.k.a. the man.

Rachel slumbered in my abode last night. She helped me pick out an outfit for my interview on friday. Its was just like an old fashioned slumber party complete with dress up!


This is the outfit that Rach and Mack approved.



Instead of watching me take off my clothes, Rach got artistic with her eyeball.



...and played peek-a-boo with her grape juice.



Also, I'm a high fashion super model. No big deal.



I'm pretty excited for this whole process to be over with. Its too much stress for me.

After the fashion show, the three of us watched the documentary Darfur Now. It was pretty depressing. We totally exploited Africa taking their resources, especially their forests, leaving much of the continent in drought and desert. The lack of resources has led to absolutely heinous acts of violence and what do we do to help those people? Nothing. We're "bringing peace and democracy" to Iraq to "better their lives" and ignoring the atrocities that we helped to create in Darfur.... its not their fault they don't supply us with oil. Guuhhhhh-ROSSS.

PS 18 days to JOSIE!!!

Perfect.

I'm stealing this from the superforest blog. I don't care. Watch.

2000



2008

A jumble of thoughts

Hello world,
Josefin Fundin is coming to America. I couldn't be more pleased. I think she is coming at just the right time too. I am so excited and looking forward to seeing her that I can't even think about the end of the semester anymore. Josie = peace of mind :).

I have an interview at SU on Friday. I'm currently trying to come up with questions to ask because every interview inevitably ends with "so, do you have any questions for us?" and my inevitable answer is "uhhh wellllllll I can't think of any right now." Word on the street is, that response is frowned upon. So I am just going to blatantly walk in that place with a list of questions right in my hand. Who's prepared? I'm prepared. I'm also resting on the idea that actually going to the school and meeting and interacting with the faculty and seeing the counseling clinic, etc. will make me feel confident in a grad school related decision, one way or the other. I'm pretty much assuming that I'll get there and just become really excited about learning and becoming involved. But on the flip side, I could get there and be like what the heeeezyyy was I thinking?! Either way is fine by me!

After the interview, I'm obviously driving back to Oneonta for Halloween. I don't have a costume. I think I'll go as a college student. Creative, I know.

I haven't gotten my absentee ballot. I filled out the application weeks and weeks ago in the quad and they were supposed to send them all out. Mine still had not arrived. I'm fairly certain its too late and I'm pretty pissed about not being able to vote. Considering that New York has voted Democrat since the dawn of time, I'm not concerned about the outcome of the election based upon my vote. I still wanted to do it though. Bureaucracy sucks!

Also, I've been doing tons of reading about the environment because of my environmental ethics class. I was thinking about it last night and trying to figure out why people just do not care. I mean everyone talks about how we need to save the environment and fight global warming and everything else but how many people actually do anything about it. I mean, I try to do my part to lower my carbon footprint but I like to have a warm house and sometimes its easier to drive to rite aid instead of walking. I always try to remember to bring my reusable mug to campus, but sometimes I run out the door without it, and its not like I can go a day without coffee. I feel like such a hypocrite because I am actively pursuing knowledge about where the environment is headed and how fast its going there but I still don't do much to fix things. I think we're just all so incredibly desensitized to tragedy of any kind. From the violence in the news and on tv to movies about every single type of natural disaster possible, we just can't bring ourselves to take reality seriously. Its like its all this talk about how disastrous things will get if we continue on this path environmentally is just the beginning of a movie plot. And never fear because at the end of our 2 hour cinematic masterpiece, everything will be on the road to recovery. Unfortunately, real life doesn't happen to be so simple...

Powell, and Limbaugh, and Keybank, and Deferment (oh my!)

Colin Powell is backing Barach Obama for president. Yay Powell for standing up to your party and publicly supporting Obama. I think that says a LOT, not only about Obams but also about the Republican party. They're so fucked that even their most public and high ranking party members are turning their backs. Rush Limbaugh says Powell is backing Obama because both men are black. First of all, Rush Limbaugh is an ass clown with a narcotics problem who hates everyone who isn't a fat white man like himself. Second, and more importantly, considering his knowledge of government, I find it hard to believe that Powell would back an unqualified candidate based on his skin color.

In other news, the ass clownery continues: keybank sucks at life. After three months and multiple phone calls, keybank finally told me that the reason i haven't gotten my refund check is that my mom never signed the promissory note. Funny story there, my mom also talked to keybank months ago, asking them to send a paper copy because the online system wouldn't work. When I explained calmly to them the flaws of their customer service and made suggestions for the future, I was blatantly ignored and hung up with as quickly as possible. Whatever happened to "the customer is always right??" Moral of the story: don't use keybank.

On a lighter note, today I recalled a joyful work: deferment - the act of delaying or postponing. Put into context, it means (assuming I am accepted) I could stay in Oneonta next semester, earn some money, enjoy the entirety of senior year, and then go to grad school! This lightbulb came on this morning and most likely lowered my blood pressure to a normal human range. yeeehaawwww.

to walk or not to walk

While walking from my car to my front door after work this evening, i took a moment to sit on my stoop and enjoy the smell of the cold fall evening (one of those strange smells that you enjoy despite the fact that you can only handle about 5 minutes of it before you freeze to death) and I realized how late in the year it is becoming. Halloween is quickly approaching. After Halloween comes November. Something I have to do in the early november (haha) is register for G*********. Then complete paralyzing panic took hold of me, causing me to loose my breath and my stomach to constrict into the uncomfortable realization that in less than two months, my undergraduate career will be over. I'm fine with the idea of classes being done. I'm handling well being patient to find out what the future holds. I CANNOT decide, however, whether I want to walk in December or May. I realize its just a simple ceremony, recognizing your achievements and yadda yadda. You g******* whether or not you walk, and when you choose to do it makes no difference, whatsoever. For me, this decision is huge. This decision will dictate to what extent I am moving on from this school. If I wait until May, I will indubitably be around for senior festivities at the end of the year because I'll be partaking in them. But I fear that I'll feel out of place and extra sad. If I go ahead and do it in December, all my friends can come and celebrations will be many and merry, but It will symbolically sever my tie to the rest of my senior year and make May a sad, awkward time for me. What to do, what to do? Any ideas?



PS: perhaps we all should have stayed freshmen....?

debbie downer

So I've been too lazy to write a blog for a while but here is what ive done the past few days:
Protest for gay rights, grant 312 reunion at the OST, freezing in my apartment because I refuse to turn on the heat, field trip to the field station followed by intelligent conversation on the bus ride home, wondering about SU, rocking out to oops i did it again complete with hairbrush microphone in cait's room, QT with hackford.

Now I'm finally watching mommy dearest the whole way through for the first time. I'll probably go throw away all my wire hangers when its over. Hopefully this week I'll be less of a Debbie Downer and have more exciting things to blog about!

PS: Thanks for the email, noonan!

Midterm Schmidterm

I'm having a problem. I cannot seem to convince myself that work is necessary anymore. I'm currently having some quality time with the third floor of the library where, if all else fails, I ALWAYS manage to get work/studying done. Apparently, that is no longer the case. I just considered taking a lap around the floor and realized that I am really in a bind. Also, I believe that facebook should have a feature where you tell it what hours you need to be doing work and it WILL NOT allow you to sign on during those hours.... just an idea. My problem really seems to be a case of the senioritis. All I really want right now is for Syracuse to give me a yay or nay so I can figure out my life. I have about 12 different and equally vague plans for what to do if I'm not accepted so all I have to do is choose one and then I can daydream away about how it will all work out. Somehow, writing a paper on inherent value and one one monism vs. pluralism just isn't as important to my brain.... Its funny how I spend years being NUTS about my work and getting everything done and yadda yadda and now I just couldn't really care less. I think I'm gunna go take that lap now....

I've never seen two girls... walk by an ice cream shop.

This weekend I visited Alysa. We were walking to get some lunch near her new house and an awkward man looks at us and says "I've never seen two girls....... walk past an ice cream shop before" We're still trying to figure out what he really wanted to say. Either way, it was good for more than a few laughs.

CNN just told me that they're thinking about making a gay high school in Chicago. It wouldn't be called a gay high school, obviously but it would be an option for kids who are harassed and bullied to the point where they don't feel safe in high school for their sexual orientation, or any other reasons. They talked about the statistics that gay students are more likely to miss classes and have lower GPAs. Also, apparently 39 states including NY don't have laws in place that protect students from harassment based on their sexual orientation (WHAT?!).

I have mixed feelings about this idea. On the one hand, high school kids can be about as ruthless as they come and if you don't feel safe or comfortable in school, you're not going to be in your prime to learn and succeed. But, at the same time, people need to learn to deal with not being liked or understood. Its not like high school is the only place where these students are going to be harassed or discriminated against so putting them in a special school in their own little world that shields them from mean people will only postpone the inevitable. Also, this sends the message to the students left in the regular school that you don't need to learn to be tolerant of people who are different, you can just ship them off to somewhere where you don't need to see them or think about them.

I personally think that instead of creating a new school, they should educate everyone on being tolerant and make them aware of gay issues. In my high school, there was never any discussion of that nature. But of course, talking in high school about actual issues won't be happening any time soon because parents don't want their kids subjected to anything that might actually make them decent, well informed human beings....

Playboy's Hugh Hefner, girlfriend call it quits.

I've just been perusing CNN.com as I do everyday in an attempt to stay informed. I was reading about the continuing drop in the stock market and some tidbits about the presidential nominees. Then I looked at the popular news section, where it shows the top ten most read articles of the day and number one was "Playboy's Hugh Hefner, girlfriend call it quits". Thats right, the most read story on CNN today is about Hefner's breakup with a girlfriend. The man has had more girlfriends than anyone else on the planet, which obviously leads to the most breakups of all time. Add that to the fact that we currently have some incredibly important issues occurring in this country as we speak, and explain to me WHY people care about Hugh Hefner's breakup??

It's no wonder this country is so screwed up. We idolize a man who has made plastic women and complete extravagance the meaning of his life, and many of us don't even bother to vote for the next person to run our country. We watch Britney Spears' mother on TV talk about whether she regrets letting her daughter pose in her bra on the cover of Rolling Stone at age 17 instead of helping our own children with their homework. People should probably start caring more about their own lives right in front of them than the lives of bored, rich celebrities who have nothing better to do with their lives than create shenanigans that will get them on the "news".

Annndddd I'm done.

Rome (NY)

Today I am at home. I was not nearly as freezing waking up today as I was yesterday. My parents are NOT too cheap to turn on the heat which I am really enjoying. I'm sitting on my couch, next to my baby Duncan. My parents are at work and it is SO quiet. I don't think I've ever heard this place so quiet. Duncan slept in my bed with me last night. Apparently, he was VERY excited to have me home. He started out on the edge of the bed and in the middle of the night he got up and snuggled himself right up next to my face. I put my arm next to him and he put his chin on my hand and went back to sleep. It was love, I'm sure. I think today I'm going to read the diving bell and the butterfly (FINALLY) and make dinner for my mom. She hates cooking and made me dinner for years so I figure now that I know my way around a kitchen, I'll make dinner for her. Maybe some oatmeal raisin cookies too.... those are her favorite!!

I've been in this phase lately (that I believe may be permanent) where I just want to know everything about everything. Different philosophies and political movements, the economy, wars, mythology, historical figures.... the list goes on. Every time I learn a bit about something, I discover twelve other things I want to know about. Its getting overwhelming, but I like it. I've learned about existentialism a few times in different classes but its always been really difficult for me to wrap my head around. I was reading about it online yesterday and the worlds always just become sort of jumbles to me. Then I remembered the movie I <3 Huckabees. I've tried to watch it a few times before but never made my way to the end. So last night was the night. I watched the whole thing and loved it. It gave me a much better grasp on the whole concept of existentialism and was entertaining at the same time. Sooooo one interesting topic down, 78trillion to go!

C-c-c-cold!!

My room is freezing. It makes me never want to leave my cocoon bed! I foresee this becoming more and more of a problem as the months go on.... Although, eventually we are just going to have to man (or woman) up and start paying heating bills.... I'm just not ready quite yet!!

I'm becoming very antsy about hearing from SU. Obviously, I'm not getting a letter for several more weeks but an: Oh, hii We've gotten all the necessary parts of your application and we're leisurely reading and thinking about them.... would be nice!

I'm going home today since I have no classes tomorrow. It will be my first time ever at my parent's house with no siblings living at home. I feel like its gonna be a kind of NatGeo sort of thing: Ohhhh look, this is what the adults of the species do in their natural habitat when left aloneee. In reality, the only difference will be that my sister won't be holed up in her room and I won't have the occasional wait for the bathroom. In my mind its still a big deal though!!

PS: Debate tonight- another exhilarating round of idiocy in action!!

Lunchies

Soooooo Mackey and I planned a lovely lunch date for today. We were going to go up to table rock and have a picnic and look at the fall colors and frankly, it was going to be lovely. BUT I got ditched. So I went to the Latte Lounge all by myself like a big girl and found Sierra there. We sat and chatted and it was nice. She asked me how the semester was going and I told her it was weird because I'm getting ready to graduate and everything. She asked me if I was ready for all that and I said no. But then I thought about it and I'm thinking maybe I am. I'm not ready to leave my friends, but I'll never be ready to leave my friends. I've done a lot of growing and learning in this little town and I think I've just about grown out of it. I think that once you've gotten what you needed from a place, its time to go. And I have gotten so much from Oneonta. This moment of clarity will by no means imply that I won't be freaking out like crazy as the semester goes on but its nice to appreciate the moments when I really feel like I'm doing the right thing.

Sierra also told me about a book called BitchFest which is just a collection of feminist articles from Bitch magazine. I'm ordering it and I'll give it a read.

Friendlys

Work was pretty humorous today. A guy left me his number on a receipt.... because that is obviously the most successful/classy way to pick up a laaaaaaady. Another man told me a joke: whats the difference between a garbage bag and a brunette?? A garbage bag gets taken out at least once a week. Hahaha FINALLY a joke that is not making fun of blondes!! Despite the fact that I got a few laughs, friendlys still sucks. Thats all, folks!

Its Sunday. I miss Sundays when all I did was lie around, drink coffee, and maybe do a bit of homework. Now Sundays mean spending far too many hours at Friendlys. No fun! In the mean time before work, I'm working on my environmental ethics midterm. 3 essays and 5 short answers. Also no fun! Buutttt its one of the few difficult assignments I've had in my three-plus college years so far, so I guess I can't complain too much. Also, I have to go to the small. I just don't have enough long sleeve shirts and I can already tell that this will be a problem in the coming months. Hopefully I can find something at the small.

Last night the Barefoot Janitors recorded. I gave up at 2am and they were still going strong. I got some fun studio pics though!!

Morning

Today I woke up to the sun coming through my window. Apparently, its one of those very rare fall days where the sun actually comes out to play. Awesome!

Last night I nighthosted. That turned out to be much more excitement than anyone expected. Those freshmen sure are silly! I can't honestly say that we weren't dumb as freshmen. Sometimes I wish I could go back to that a little. All we worried about was passing out classes and having a good time. Now its all about grad school and jobs and projects and bills. Its incredible how much responsibility three short years can add on to your life. Josie got up at 9am her time to skype before I finished nighthosting. She is NUTS with the waking up to skype and I love it. Even Kevin stayed up till 4 to hang out with me :) I love my friends!

TONIGHT the barefoot Janitors are recording! Yayyyy!!! I'm going to watch and take pictures and be in the Behind the Music video that Rach is making. I'm very excited about it!

Alysa got me started watching My So-Called Life. Its fabulously 90s and really makes me wish the grunge look would come back so no one would pretend to care how they look anymore..... just an idea!!

Yayy Blog

Josie has made me a fabulous blog. I have NO patience for designing things and that is why Jos rocks my world.

Today was a very lame day. Last night Meg Cleary and I split a (BIG) bottle of wine over the vice presidential debate and then went to the bar. It was a fabulous night that led to an UNfabulous day. I felt like complete shit until 7:00 tonight. Gross. It appears I will survive.

Yesterday I gave myself a project. It was the "take fall in oneonta pictures for Josie" project. So here they are.





Rachel told me I looked like a soccer mom. Dave looked like a soccer dad. We took a soccer parents picture.














































The trees are changing!!





















AND Mills sush!!

Josefin Fundin

(I love Josie for making me this blog :):):):):))