Electromagnetic radiation: ER

-Short wavelength
cosmic rays: Gamma
Radiation:
X-rays
UV light
Visible light
Infared
microwaves
radiowaves
-long wavelength

So as hard as IZE worked me for the first nine weeks, I ended up rearranging my schedule for slightly less work and a lot more lab, it was nothing compared to the aptly named hell week... Yes, some of us hippies do actually manage to work for our credits. However when the dust settled I had sixteen upper-division science credits and a kick ass evaluation.
Then as soon as I got the errands that had been urgently backing up for... a while... done I got a call from my sister telling me that she and my grandmother were in central oregon and would arrive in about 24 hours and a couple days earlier than expected for my brother's graduation. So I had lots of fun showing them around the school, eating cool dinners, and hanging out with my awesome grandmother; while also working. Then the rest of my family arrived, making a total of 9, who I got to show Evergreen and my new place and my lab notebook from IZE, and feed a wonderful graduation dinner. Then after another day of urgently backed up errands June Clean started.

June Clean is where housing at Evergreen does intensive annual cleaning after most residents checks out and everyone gets overtime... lots of overtime... I've now got the swing shift from 1h15pm to when its done, which can be 12h00am to whenever the fuck. I just got home at 1h00am after an 11 1/2 hour shift... This morning I had planed to go and get my passport renewed as it expired an hour and a half ago but didn't have the time this morning and haven't been able to go to the post office all quarter... It had been pretty near the top of my to do list for nearly three months but I simply have been unable to get to it... I guess I don't really have any reason to leave the country any time soon, but it would have been good to have and now Ill have to pay a lot more and wait a lot longer...

I also need the money from June Clean. I am taking Evergreen's GenChem course over the first half of the summer and going to DC and Pittsburgh for the second half making working over the summer like I had planned impossible, that is if I want to spend any time with Sarah while I have her. So without the summer job I had planned to accept, I found myself asking Mark, big evil scary man in charge of facilities who missed his calling as an NKVD agent, if he had space on one of the crews in the morning shift feeling very much like a paper tiger. This would of course make an 18 hour day, killer overtime.

My body feels like its ninety not nineteen, going back to work still sore from two months ago cant be good for you... Hell I've become increasingly careful about my feet and my hands because I know that if anything happens to them there will be no opportunity to heal.

So for winter quarter I had a two hour work day, if that, then a 22 hour work day for the last week to get it all done, then spring break. Then for IZE a 9.5 hour work day which turned into 11 hours (I haven't had a weekend in my week since fall, this is all 7 days a week) and now after a brief... and active... respite I'm back to working 11-12 hours days... no wonder adults often seem half dead.

On the bright side my laptop came, its a pretty cool $1200 laptop with only $350 worth of useless shit, Huzzah

Date:	2008-04-16 23:20
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative

I finally managed to get someone alive calling DCPS back about the Blackman/Jones award letter they sent me. Apparently since we won I get my award in the form of a computer that is above certain reasonably generous specs and below $1500. I've got a choice between a PC laptop or desktop or a Mac laptop or desktop. I'm going to go with the macbook. Best Buy Government and Education has apparently been put in charge and is being as generous with DCPS's money as they can. Which is good for me.

My Job is going great, I got up close and personal with a couple of toilets today. Somehow one or more of the users of one of the toilets managed to piss behind it in a way where to get a strait line from a crotch to the space would involve the same great amount of creativity and disregard for the sharp pokey toilet roll dispenser required to clean it... Apparently on my first day some freshmen boys in D dorm managed to clog a toilet the week before and didn't call anyone (figuring themselves in trouble or something?) however they did continue to piss in it causing a tremendous stench that was eventually reported by neighbors and responded to by one of my friends.
I have also been struck be a peculiar variety of cynicism that seems to get stronger with more experience with the job; I think it stems almost entirely from the inherent impermanence and unpleasantness of our work. I wonder if I, seeking the job out specifically for those qualities, will be more resistant to it than most. My more experienced coworkers coming to resent the residents of the campus makes intuitive sense to me as the job puts us in inherent opposition to everyone around us. The tempting illusion that our work would be so much easier, much less accomplishable, if only everyone would just go away. However as it stands the work is never done, there is always something to clean or clean more throughly and everything we do is undone often in front of our eyes.

Class and my schedule in general is feeling more manageable as I get more used to it, its been a while since I've never had nothing to do.

So far I love Invertebrate Zoology and Evolution and there's plenty of microbiology to make the taxonomy slightly more interesting but holy shit do I have shit to do... Class is a good 45-60 hours of class, lab, studying and reading per week which so far has been cool I've been hanging out less and can't seem to ever have nothing to do. But Monday I start my job in custodial at 15 hours a week. Thus my schedule is a little insane...


Monday:
9-5______________________Job


Tuesday:
9 -11h30_________________Lecture
(or earlier for tides)

12pm-when its done_______Lab
(the official
schedule says
3pm but its more
like 5pm-7pm)

Wednesday:
9am-12pm_________________Seminar/Student lecture thing

1pm-7pm__________________Extra lab

Thursday:
9 -11h30_________________Lecture
(or earlier for tides)

12pm-when its done_______Lab
(the official
schedule says
3pm but its more
like 5pm-7pm)

Friday:
9-5______________________Job


Then I have the evenings and weekend to do the 4-8 hours of textbook reading for both Tuesday and Thursday (ie: 8-16 per week) and the 3-8 hours of reading that needs done every Wednesday.
Hell, I'm already a bit behind on the reading having gotten the Wednesday book this morning and needing to borrow the textbook of a friend I made in the class (which should be here Monday)

But enough of my bitching, I wanted work and structure and now by God I've got it... even if it is all at once...

But on the other hand, this morning I got a letter from my Mum with back mail for me with refund checks from the District of Columbia and Treasury, huzzah for $36, and something much more interesting. I got a letter with the heading:

PLEASE READ THIS-YOUR STUDENT HAS THE RIGHT TO A FREE COMPUTER!

and as it turns out I do, I am entitled to receive a compensatory award for the Special Education I didn't receive under DCPS as a plaintiff in someone else's lawsuit and they're offering a choice of four computers. A Laptop or Desktop PC, or a laptop or desktop Mac. The descriptions of the computers were written by someone who didn't know what they were doing and so they look pretty cool but may not be. I'm calling the five digit extension to Best Buy Government and Education's number to ask what exactly their offering me before I accept.

so this is where I get back to work ^^

I came across a wonderfully subversive article on our K-12 math curriculum that unfortunately has yet to be published but has been circulating around the mathematics community for a couple years. Its written by Paul Lockhart, a fellow who learned math on his own terms and managed to somehow educate himself rather than rely on the "training" available to him in school. He then dropped out of college in his Freshman year to devote himself to mathematics while supporting himself as an elementary school teacher and computer programmer. Eventually he started working with Ernst Strauss at UCLA, and the two published a few papers together. Strauss introduced him to Paul Erdos,and they somehow arranged it so that he became a graduate student there. He ended up getting a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1990, and went onto be a fellow at MSRI and an assistant professor at Brown. He also taught at UC Santa Cruz. He now teaches K-12 at St. Anne's, a progressive catholic school, while continuing his research.

http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

I also kind of like how he used Simplicio and Salviato, borrowed from Galileo's Dialogue Concerning Two Chief World Systems, polemics should do it more often.

Its been a while since I've posted and both very much and very little has happened.

After deciding that another quarter of HHD would drive me insane with boredom and laziness I found the options for winter quarter to be slim to pathetic, particularly after I didn't get into Wisdom of the Sailor. So I went with my back up plan, a contract with five of my best friends who I also live with and who found themselves in the same boat. We found a gullible professor, built a curriculum, and dubbed it Individual vs Society. We planned to read one book, or text of equivalent difficulty, a week and write one small paper per week and four large synthesis papers over the quarter. To be fair I love our reasonably ambitious reading list,

Week 1- The Prince, Machiavelli
Week 2- Propaganda, Bernays
Week 3- On Self Reliance, Emerson/Selected essays of Ayn Rand
Week 4- First Half of Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant
Week 5- Second Half of Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant
Week 6- The Communist Manifesto, Marx/Engels
Week 7- Tao te Ching, Lao Tzu/Tao of Pooh
Week 8- When Society Becomes an Addict, Anne Wilson Schaef (Reading this now)
Week 9- Anatomy of Self, Takeo Doi

but the whole quarter has left me feeling listless and in need of structure. I feel like I haven't really been challenged as a student since I got my ass whooped and into gear in Food last year during Fall and Winter. At least in my last two classes I had some place to be in the morning even if it was just three times a week. By the time this class is over it will be a year of feeling babysitted as opposed to educated. Next Fall I am going into Molecule to Organism which will qualify me for upper division science credits and stop my belly aching thus I'm going to be spending spring and summer getting ready for it. None of the sixteen credit courses look terribly interesting so I'm thinking of taking a bunch of evening and weekend courses totaling sixteen or eighteen credits.

Also, I caught The Plague Tuesday morning and though I'm pretty sure the bug died almost immediately once my body reacted; I still felt like shit until this morning. Its been sweeping through R-dorm for the last week or two and I'm pretty sure its run its course and everyone who is going to get it has and everyone who has gotten it is surely no longer infectious. Which is good because,

On another, wonderful happy OMGZ!!!, note, Sarah will be here TOMORROW!!!!! Until next Sunday I will have a gigantic shit eating grin on my face that wont go away. It has been to long. We'll be cooking, climbing, gallivanting, snuggling, laughing, shopping, and plotting with each other all week. Its a good thing I live in the R-dorm equivalent of the fire corner.

It's going to be a wonderful week

Blasdel, Robert
Health and Human Development
Quarter and Academic Year: Fall 2007


DESCRIPTION:
Faculty: Nancy Cordell, Ph.D. and Carrie M. Margolin, Ph.D.

INSERT DESCRIPTION HERE


EVALUATION:
Written by: Nancy Cordell, Ph.D.
Bob was enrolled in the coordinated studies program Health and Human Development during Fall 2007. He did very good work throughout and deserves 15 credits for it.
The student, Bob Blasdel, contributed most of the information in this evaluation. It reflects the student's style, and to some degree, emphasis on topic coverage. The faculty read, edited, verified, and added information as necessary. Faculty assumes responsibility for the veracity of the document, based on evaluation criteria in the covenant and weekly class meetings with the student.
Bob enrolled in this program hoping to get a stronger foundation in developmental health and anthropology. He had some background but had never been given a solid introduction. Bob was organized and prepared for class turning in all of his assignments on time and in good order. He was able to refine his writing and research skills, winning an abstract writing contest working with another student. Bob participated fully in the writing requirements of the program. He produced commentary papers to each seminar text, and responses to his classmates’ postings. Bob engaged the material and seminar in a thoughtful and thought provoking way. He contributed meaningfully to our online seminar forum and brought his experience and good examples to class. In one of his seminar commentaries, Bob eloquently described how he felt particularly empowered by our book Schoolgirls and how the author was able to recognize problems inherent in his inner-city public school system that he had never before heard an adult even directly acknowledge as legitimate, much less empathize with. The major paper in the Fall was a comparison of research on a health-related topic of the student’s choosing from three different sources: Primary Sources, Secondary Sources, and Internet Sites. The goal of the paper was to evaluate the credibility and reliability of research. Bob writes very well, with good grammatical sentences, in an organized and clear manner. His analysis of the credibility of the sources was well done.
Bob did not buy one of our textbooks for financial reasons relying instead on two of his classmates. While he was able to read the required sections he was, on a few tests, not able to borrow the textbook for the open book exams and it showed in those scores. Bob has a good grasp of the concepts of child and adolescent development based on his exam scores. Bob participated in workshops that allowed handling of casts of fossil hominids and human skeletal material. These workshops gave him hands-on experience with these materials. He completed exams on human evolution, human osteology and forensic anthropology. He has a good grasp of the general course of human evolution and human osteology/forensic anthropology. Bob completed exams on basic genetics, prenatal development and birth, and the biological aspects of skin. He has a fair understanding of these areas of human biology.
Bob is ready to build on the knowledge that he gained in this class moving on to upper division classes. The Faculty wishes him well in his future academic endeavors.

Suggested Credit Equivalencies (Total = 15 Quarter Credit Hours):
3 - Psychology: Child and Adolescent Development
3 - Human Evolution (subtracted one credit for missing human evolution paper)
3 - Human Biology without lab
3 - Anthropology
2 - Research on Health
1 - Personal Finance

Motherfucker is full of shit... He lost my e-mail and filled all of the slots before I brought it back to his attention and now he gets back to me; a week after my time ticket started. It is indeed to late to register for the very few classes that would interest me as the [i]waiting lists[/i] got full very quickly. There have been very slim pickings for lower division two quarters in a row.

I won't be needing foulies after all


Dear Bob: Thanks for the essay and for your interest in the program. I have had to limit the number of new students I am accepting into the program . Unfortunately I must decline your application for registration. I hope you find another program that will engage your interest and talent.
Regards and Best Wishes,

John Filmer


----- Original Message -----

From: RRobert Blasdel
To: Filmer
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 12:11 PM
Subject: I was recently in your office, Re:Registration

Professor Filmer,

I am sorry for the confusion, but this is the original text of my essay. Your class is by a wide margin my first choice for Winter quarter, and I am very excited at the prospect of joining it.

Sincerely,
Bob Blasdel

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Professor Filmer,

I got excited as soon as I saw in the online catalog that you had a sailing class Winter quarter having heard of you by reputation. Then the more I read of your program description the more it seemed to be a perfect fit for where I am now academically. For the last quarter I have been stuck in an all level course that has left me feeling unchallenged and restless. When I meet you at the academic fair you didn't seem like the kind of professor who would waste any time coddling or accepting any nonsense from me, and I value that.
I've been thinking that I want to become a history professor one day and I've realized that as busy as I've been taking interesting science classes, I haven't taken any history economics or poli/sci credits. I have always loved economics and seem to have the correct mathematical disposition for it but I have not yet taken a serious economics course. As an Ex-pat from the East Coast, Washington D.C. , I know next to nothing about local history but I have an intense desire to learn more as I am thinking of settling here at some point. I am also excited about the prospect of having so much time on Resolute to put what we learn in the class into practice. I finally learned to use sign, cosign and tangent several years late, despite the efforts of each of my subsequent math teachers, when I was simply asked to apply them to navigating across the Chesapeake Bay . I also learned a lot about myself in a way I can’t quite define on that trip, I gained confidence in my ability to lead and follow and a love for open water and what it fosters in people. My crew and I were able to run through a squall that hit our 28’ sailboat in the middle of the bay while on our way back. After we got to shore we looked at each other differently in a way I cant quite explain and I hope to share the kind of respect we gained for each other on that trip with my future classmates.

I don’t think I would be at much of a disadvantage starting out winter quarter. I have some background in economics, logic, thinking about thinking, and I do already know which side of the red square I don’t want my boat on. I am not afraid of hard work, long days, the cold or the rain. However, more importantly, I have a passion for History, developing my critical thinking and that certain wisdom sailors I've met tend to have.

Sincerely Yours,

Bob Blasdel

I am going to be flying to Pittsburgh in about a week to spend a couple of days with Sarah before Greyhounding it to DC for the rest of Winter break. The last of the BS in my class will be over tonight, whether I like it or not, so right now I'm temporarily avoiding a mountain of work I would have found vaguely condescending and certainly remedial five years ago. Thus begins the Christmas season

I am aware that I am frustrating to shop for and this is my attempt to alleviate that frustration. I have given it some thought and there are indeed some things I could use and some things that I want.

Firstly, my greatest ambition this Christmas is to receive a hat hand knit by someone who loves me. It would need to be relatively large, in keeping with my head, be at least somewhat thick, and cover my ears. The more creativity put into it the better. Sarah and I have already arranged for me to knit her a hat, some leg warmers, and a belt; while she is knitting me a sweater and some gloves.

After this, I could certainly use a color printer. My constant trekking to the library and back has gotten old. It can't do color, isn't open 24 hours, and is generally at this time of year a long, cold, dark, wet walk away. There is certainly a warm place in my heart waiting waiting anyone who can banish the need to be anything but warm and dry on nights when I finish an assignment.

I have also been embarrassed, and had many embarrassed for me, at my lack of luggage suitable for airline travel. I have a duffel bag and my hiking backpack which function well as checked luggage however using a large sheet as carry on, while in my mind clever, remains only a temporary solution...

For any interested in enabling my addictions, if slowly fading, there is a game that caught my eye a while ago that I haven't felt quite bourgeois enough to buy. Medieval II Total War: Kingdoms Expansion Pack, I have loved the previous editions as artful and ground breaking, and this expansion allows for multiplayer.

I have also had a desire to own a pair of Hakama pants, and Dad you've got dibs if you still want it.

It has also occurred to me as odd over the last couple of months that I've spent my life in rooms with bare walls and this is something I've been slowly trying to change. Thus a cool painting, an interesting poster (particularly old communist propaganda, as I've begun building on my mothers old collection), or really anything light enough to tack to a wall that would remind me of you.

Also my mailing address is:

Robert Blasdel
TESC R-207
4217 Indian Pipe Loop NW, R-207
Olympia, WA 98505

I am very excited about what my summer seems to be shaping up as and that will be the subject of a later post, likely the next time I have something productive I don't want to do.

My grandparents sent out an e-mail letting everyone know how they are doing, they are awesome people by the way, and I realized I hadn't updated them in a while. So I wrote them an e-mail that I since realized was also good livejournal fodder.



Grandma Jan and Grandpa Fred,

It sounds like a lot of fun, it's struck me how long it's been since we've been able to hang out and also how long it has been since I've updated you on how I'm doing.

Last spring, my friends group and I decided to turn in a joint application to housing where all thirty of us requested the same dorm to conquer the whole thing such that we could all live together. The other big switch was that our Dorm "R Dorm" is classified as apartment style housing where we get a kitchen and are not required to get a meal plan and expected to mostly survive on our own. While most of us had no experience living independently, it has thankfully turned out for the best. For example, instead of spending 65 dollars per person a week on a meal plan my suite of four people is spending about 20 dollars per person per week and eating dramatically better. While my friends in the suite also have, what my mother would call, the disposition I have taken on the role of resident chef as we cook communally. We've been eating things like Yaki Udon with grilled chicken in Thai oyster sauce, Jarlsberg cheese and spinach quiche, and soon lemon mousse for desert. I've now gotten food timing and quantity down to... nearly... a science. I felt quite special when there was a good natured though divisive fight over me when some bureaucratic shuffling opened up the possibility of me moving into another suite.

I'm afraid that this quarter I am somewhat disappointed by my class, Health and Human Development, the problem with a multidisciplinary approach is that occasionally you have to cover the same material over and over again. I after five weeks I haven't managed to get into a subject that I haven't already covered in more depth and I don't have much hope looking at the syllabus. The class is also just generally a mess. It was a decent and popular course taught by three professors, a neurologist, a cognitive psychologist, and an anthropologist, however the neurologist had a midlife crisis last year forcing the two remaining professors to hack the class apart. They have also had to change the software that organizes the class to one they don't know how to use and for which they have no tech support leading to often schizophrenic leadership. Most of why I'm disappointed though is that I love both of the remaining professors and really want to take more classes from them, just ones less remedial and better organized. My plan is to do all of the work, stay engaged as best I can and get full credit, while catching up on my collections of Russian authors and classical fiction and the seminar books of my friends to keep me challenged.

I think I've been inspired to find a niche in higher academia somewhere either teaching, research, or both and perhaps write a book or two. If I go into the hard sciences I think I would end up in genetics, perhaps learn Chinese and join some of the exciting research with rice and soy in China that is sure to pick up by the time I get out of school. Or if I go into a softer science I think it would likely be psychology, safely on the experimental not clinical side, and teach and do research. Though if its pure academics I would have a lot of fun as a college level history teacher communicating as best I can the joy in history. As one can imagine I drive my academic advisor a bit crazy.

Since I'm not planning on staying in my class next quarter I see four options for my next class. The first is End of Prosperity taught by Alan Nasser which I've been warned by my friends would be an adventure in academic masochism. He is notorious for the dramatic personality shift he made the day he got our equivalent to tenure. Not being on time or use of the word "like" in an academic discussion leads to the automatic reduction of one credit in his class. Yet he is habitually late, often not even showing up, and his own language is none to crystal. He is also widely acknowledged, even by his friends, as a compulsive bully and pain to be around. However his classes attract the best of Evergreen by weeding out those who are not able to handle him. The reading list looks gigantic and amazing and the papers, which I'm sure I won't mind editing and being edited by my peers, are large, numerous and sure to have interesting subjects. The second option is a poly/sci course with a more sane and emotionally stable professor but one where I can expect personal pronouns to be used in seminar. I third wildcard option is that a friend whom I trust has a beautiful list of books he has been meaning to read and wants to design a class around them using the contract system and would be happy to let me join. The fourth option is to take Wisdom of the Sailor which for winter quarter would be discussing the maritime aspect of global economics while giving us a day's worth of sailing time once a week on some beautiful new boats. Understanding that winter in the Pacific Northwest is cold and wet and that we are unlikely to have more than one sunny sail day; I'm a bit apprehensive but I haven't quite lost a certain adolescent machismo that I'm sure will get me through it fine. It wouldn’t be as academically rigorous as I’ve been itching to do again but knowing the professor it would be enriching in a deeper sense.
Are you guys coming to Fred’s graduation this spring? I’d love to show off my house and friends and hang out with you.
Your Grandson,
Bob

I also really miss my Sarah

Damn Butter'd popcorn
How I loathe thy lubrication
of my digestion

Date:	2007-06-27 00:51
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	ecstatic

I leave them every night
The cars splashing in potholes
Out in the moonlight

Date:	2007-06-27 00:47
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	calm

Though the night is damp
The firefae ventures out and
Slowly lights his lamp

O what Joy to be
Alive in the Morning with
The Sun in the East

For my mommy

Arise then Christian women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Date:	2007-03-28 21:43
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	groggy
Music:	stupidly placed pipes clanging

It has been a while since have really written anything comprehensive, too long really, because my my life has changed rather radically over the last 11 weeks... where to begin... It suddenly occurred to me 5 weeks ago that I had lost quite a few of the things I would have said made me a rich man if you had asked me just 6 weeks prior

My bicycle, I've ridden that heavy tough tank of a bike at least 3,000 miles over the last four years. It represented freedom to me, It gave me both mental and physical exercise and made me quite a bit tougher. When I was on the road I was one with my black 20lb 7-speed Milano Bianchi with internal gearing and nothing could hurt me unless I lost focus, got reckless, or got negligent in my care of the bike, well... I never did the former anyway... with this bike I took on hurricanes and won. I loved it as an extension of my Self and it got stolen because I neglected to lock it up over winter break

The sanity of my Father, he is an awesome guy, the kindest and most lovable squishy furry genius Totoro you'll ever find and not as lucid as he once was. Whatever it is that makes me absorb information so quickly, solve puzzles so easily and understand systems so effectively I got it from him. If I'm smart he's a genius, if absent minded. In a very real sense I am an extension of him, and more so than most fathers and sons. I guess somehow I always figured that if he is sane and functional I must be too. But as he losses sanity and functionality and requires me to care for him as opposed to the other way around I've had to stand on my own in that respect

My parents marriage, my father has been losing his lucidity and my mother her patience for a long while now and the whole house of cards fell apart as soon as my sister left the house and the nest was empty. I have a feeling their marriage never actually worked all that well and they just didn't know any better until they had three kids, oops.

My Home, I have known no other but we can no longer afford our ranch house in the sky. When my brother was born my parents took three bedrooms worth of two apartments and knocked down the walls between them. However now it is needed to pay for my fathers retirement to the Solomon's Islands. Thankfully Dupont Circle has become trendy and property prices have risen tenfold since they bought the place.

My dog, since none of us really has the capacity to take care of her she has been given to some neighbors who love her. When I say that she is a powerfully cute dog I do not mean that lightly, she wields unconditional love like a weapon and I have never met anyone more effective. There has never been one moment where I was so sad that she cant make me smile, where my mind was so full she could not simply empty it. I'll miss her

My stuff, everything I've invested energy into has to either be thrown out or carried with me, as neither of my parents have room

and my girlfriend. In what was particularly then a rather brutal fashion.

But somehow I knew that if I held together everything would work out for the best, whether I liked it or not.

Haruka_yamamura and I are if anything quite a bit closer and are likely to be just as inseparable over this summer as we were the last

my mother is now in a healthier place in her life and my father soon will be.

my dog is having a glorious time chasing geese on a farm on the eastern shore

my stuff and my space mean less to me

And I have grown, having been pushed into the deep end I have let go of some heavy shit and found that I can swim. It hasn't been easy, if anything its been brutal, and the crises are by no means over yet but I've handled them with a grace I didn't know I had and I am grateful.

I woke up at 7h45 this morning and went to my computer to get ready to register, at Evergreen when there are more students who want in a a class than there are spots available the first to register gets in and there is a lottery to decide when you can register, at 8h00 my earliest appointed time. But the power had gone out over the night and all the stuff I had ready to cut and paste into the forms was unsaved... so I scrambled and was ready, epically, the moment the clock went from 7h59 to 8h00. I got in to So You Want to be a Psychologist, no waiting list no nothing! my stress is melting away, and now I've just got a weekend between me and Pittsburgh.

though I hope a little bit of that stress sticks around at least for the rest of today so I can put together the last of my portfolio... then I dance

If I ever get a Wii I will use it just like this
(Sarah you will particularly get a kick out of it)^^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_drrgyeA5U&eurl=

This one link justifies all of the idiotic youtube links I've clicked on since it started

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OldToIF5ZGs

To be honest I've only ever laughed at Randy Newman and you might be inclined to as well if you stop at the begining, but hell this man can sing

If you havent heard my parents have split up and so things has been a bit more stressful and confusing than it usually is... Its a good thing for them, they were never really all that compatible to begin with but now that kids are out of the house it makes sence for them to carve out some more space for them selves. I am now more or less independant developmentally but it does suck having ones biggest center of empotional support now suddenly requiring it.

In all of this I have appreciated all the support I've gotten from my friends and paticularly from Sarah. This spring break Im flying to pittsburg for a few days to be with Sarah while getting some much needed energy before bussing to DC and helping out my dad. When I get to DC Im going to have to seperate everything I own into what I no longer need and what little will fit into my dads new place while repainting replastering sorting my dads stuff and all the things that have to be done before the family home can be sold.

Im looking forward to being in Pittsburg soon, Im really gratefull to have that to look forward too