high and dry

All right, so my two roommates both left this morning to go home for a little while. For that matter, so did two of my good friends, and others have already left ... Clearly, it's the beginning of the between-summer-and-fall break. I've been left high and dry. And I have mixed feelings about it.

I will be working full-time all next week, since the girl who was working the afternoon shift at work quit this past week. Beginning Tuesday, I'll also be training the three newly-hired front desk workers. That should be fun.

I'll be all alone in the apartment this week, which will be nice in some ways. I can use a little alone time and the quiet atmosphere for some much-needed pondering. On the other hand, though, it makes life very ... well, quiet.

Did you know that John Hancock, before becoming a member of the Continental Congress, was a highly skilled smuggler? Yup. He took great pride in evading the British customs officers and helped to foster the all-important American spirit of insurrection. (I'm watching The History Channel right now, which is running a show called "Rumrunners, Moonshiners, and Bootleggers".)

Last night we went to the local YSA dance, which was really a lot of fun. We ended up getting there right at the beginning, before anybody else had really arrived. We spent about 30 minutes playing "volleyball" with beach balls (the dance had a luau/beach theme going on ...), and that was a blast! It reminded me a lot of the good days in Cinnamon Tree at BYU, when basically the whole ward would get together a big game of volleyball in the courtyard. I enjoyed that. I met several new people, including a girl who has just barely moved into our ward, and a couple of girls from one of the Dallas wards who were in the MTC together. And, most important of all -- I got to watch Erin shake her booty. Along with Michelle, which was really quite entertaining; those two look like twins when they're dancing. Oh yes, and I also found people to teach my classes during the two weeks when I'll be gone.

I just found out yesterday that the tentative Spring 2007 UNT class schedules are available online, so I've been trying to figure out what I am planning to take. I was excited to see that they are offering a class on Medieval English literature, which I will probably take. I expect I'll also take a class on American Lit. And maybe I can get started on getting permission for extra Special Problems courses and get going on metaphor, LDS literature, computer-based corpus linguistics, et cetera. For that matter, maybe I could take one or two of the computer classes and/or foreign language classes I've been looking into.

The last quote was from "Hello, Dolly!" Mr. Horace Vandergelder is really hilarious, and I've always liked Walter Matthau in that role. No points for you!!

Do you really wanna have fun, or are you just saying you wanna have fun?! (10 points)

odds-n-ends

So Margo and I helped take care of the dinner before the fireside on Sunday. We had a good time. Our friend Nikki is in charge of those dinners, and sometimes she's a bit shorthanded, so we offered to help out. We had spaghetti with meat sauce, salad, and chocolate chip cookies as dessert.

After that, we all trooped into the chapel to watch BYU-TV for a while. The part we watched was a talk about personal revelation. It was really very good, and he brought up a lot of important principles concerning revelation. Things that the people in our ward need to know and practice.

Also on Sunday, Erin had a really bad migraine and ended up staying home from church. Since the light hurt her eyes, she tacked up a blanket over the window in the living room. Sometime before we came home from church, she decided to move it and herself into the bedroom, since she didn't think it would have been nice to make us sit around in the dark in our own living room, talking quietly so that her head wouldn't hurt too much. When Margo and I got home, we found her sitting in there, in near-complete darkness, huddled over her computer and trying to finish the homework she had due that day. The three of us chatted (quietly) for a while, and then Erin said that she thought we should keep the blanket up indefinitely. I wasn't entirely keen on that, since the darkness it creates is almost depressing to me, but I agreed that we could try it for a week or so and see how it worked out. Well, this morning, when I got out of bed, I was really very cold. Well ... chilled. It's hard to be actually cold in Texas. But I started thinking that the blanket over the window might not be such a bad thing after all. It's probably helping us save money, for one thing.

Oh yeah, yesterday I talked to the office at my apartment complex to see if they have any efficiencies or one-bedrooms that I could move into in December. They don't know yet what's available in December, and won't until early November. But they informed me that I could sign up for a transfer, which are offered on a first-come first-served basis, and I have to pay a thirty-dollar application fee. And, on top of that, there's a two-hundred-dollar fee for transferring once the apartment is assigned to me. So I think I'll be checking out a few other complexes in the vicinity to see if I can find something cheaper -- which I'm pretty sure I can.

I only have one and a half weeks left at work. Good thing, too -- today somebody made me so angry with her presumptuous impretinence that I nearly blew my top. I won't go into detail ... but I will say that it is someone I rarely work with there, and I've never yet been so angry at work. Generally, I quite like my job there. Most of the people I work with are very nice, very cooperative. And they generally like me, because I'm also nice, conscientious, and I actually do the work I'm assigned. But it will be nice to get back to teaching.

We're watching a Bones re-run on TV tonight, and I'm really enjoying it. I haven't seen it for some time, and I'd forgotten how much I love this show. Booth is wonderful! In this particular episode, he's being very protective of Brennan, since someone shot at her earlier, and it makes me really jealous. And also very anxious for the inevitable moment when he finally just takes the plunge and kisses her. *pause* I really need to start watching my real TV-boyfriend, Josh, again. I haven't seen him for some time, and it's clearly having an adverse effect on me.

For dinner tonight we had some Italian chicken from the crock-pot. Luckily, Erin was in communication with Kimberly, since it turned out that we didn't have one of the ingredients. Kimberly graciously consented to provide it from her own stores, and in return we allowed her to eat with us. And Margo made no-bake cookies for dinner, at my insistence. Yumm!!

I've been having a super time with the 2007 IKEA catalog the last few days, dreaming about what I would get to furnish my own apartment. As their website says, it puts all kinds of ideas in your head.

The last quote was from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. And in case I neglected to mention it (which I'm pretty sure I did), the Shakespearean Festival was fabulous. Especially Brian Vaughn in Hamlet. Stupendous, even. Vaughn is, without a doubt, one of my favorite actors on the legitimate stage.

Ninety percent of the people in this world are fools, and the rest of us are in great danger of contamination. (13 points)

super geekin' out!

Gosh, I can't even explain how obsessed I've been this past week.

But I'll try.

I've been reading more and more of the Amelia Peabody books that Kimberly has lent us. She did give me due warning that they get pretty intense. This past week I found myself entangled in the midst of a four-book "story arc," as Kimberly calls them (I don't know where she gets that term, but it works; I always wonder whether it's something she picked up during her English degree, which would make sense, since I have not spent much time in the world of English academics). One night, I had been reading later than I should have, and as the clock neared and passed midnight, I decided I'd better stop soon -- I would finish this section I was on and then go to bed. But then something immensely important happened. So of course I had to keep reading. And then in the next section something even more important happened. And so on, for the next several sections. I'm not just talking mild importance, either -- I'm talking major revelations and conflicts and resolutions that turn into even bigger conflicts. So then it was close to 3 AM before I finally made myself put the book away and lie down to sleep.

But that's only the beginning. The truly alarming thing is that it was another two hours or so before I was actually able to sleep. I was so thoroughly concerned about what was going on, and so completely at a loss as to how it would all resolve itself in the end, that I couldn't manage to get my mind to stop whirling. Even when I managed to force it away from thinking about Amelia and her family, it then immediately turned to some similar problems, of an equally vexing and equally fictitious nature. The last time I looked at the clock, it was past 4 AM, and it took me quite a while after that to finally sleep. I had to force myself to stay in bed -- to not camp out on the couch that night and read myself to sleep. Finally, I drowsed off, but even then I dreamt about Amelia. The odd thing about it was that I didn't dream about it in movie style, where you see the things going on; rather, I dreamt about myself reading about the situation and its resolution.

The last time I remember being so distraught about a book was during my senior year of high school. (There have been plenty of other obsessions since then, notably a semester at Ricks College when I devoured the Anne of Green Gables books, but none of them had quite the same emotional impact on me.) At the time, I was reading George Eliot's Middlemarch, and my mom and I had gone to Utah for some reason or other (quite possibly My Brother The Chiropractor's graduation from BYU) and were staying with my aunt. I was sleeping on the couch, and as I was determined to finish that book if it killed me, I read for several hours before going to sleep. As I went, I kept getting more and more involved in one particular plot (the main one, concerning Dorothea Brooke Casaubon, her crusty and pedantic husband, and his nephew, Will Ladislaw). [Mild spoiler ahead, inviso-texted between the asterisks.] *** I started to think to myself, "If only that nasty Mr. Casaubon would die!! That would take care of everything!" And then, at the end of that very chapter, he did die!!! I felt like I had personally killed him. It was terrifying. And no, it didn't solve everything (as one might have expected), so of course I had to continue on for another chapter or two. *** The chapters I read that night are among my favorites in the book, largely because my emotions were so highly involved in the development of the plot.

I've also become more and more interested in the ancient culture of the Middle East. I've long been interested in the languages (and thereby also the cultures) of the ancient civilizations of that region, and with the Amelia books being set in Egypt book after book after book, it's hard to curb my desire to learn Middle Egyptian, anything written in cuneiform (Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian ...), and even Arabic (though it is, of course, a much more modern language than the others).

In the midst of all this, I'm becoming increasinly annoyed with my program here. I feel very much as though I am ready to just strike out on my own and do my own research. I'm having a hard time deciding what I ought to do next in all of this -- transfer somewhere else (like the U of Chicago) where I'd be doing less English and more Linguistics, get going on a dissertation by distance from Lancaster, or just stick it out here. Some of the projects I'm interested in will take much more time than I can give them in a semester, or even in a few semesters with coursework going on, and I'm not very interested in most of the classes I have to take. (Except, of course, for Old English and Historical Linguistics this fall!) If anyone has some helpful advice, or even not-so-helpful advice, I'd love to hear what you think.

In the meantime, here's one of my favorite quotes from this week -- On Sunday, the Bishop mentioned that he'd like to talk with me for a few minutes, but said he didn't have time that day. Then he asked, "Will you be in town this week?" "Yep, all week," I told him. To which he promptly replied, "I'm not." Hmmm. That might present a slight problem, then. :)

Words are grown so false, I am loath to prove reason with them. (20 points)

geekin' out

I've been re-reading The Scarlet Letter during the past week. I read most of it in high school for my junior English class, and I remembered really liking it, but I had forgotten most of it. So I thought I'd give it another shot and see what I think ten years later. So far I'm really loving it. There were plenty of things that just didn't hold the same meaning for me earlier. I'm anxious to read some commentary about it (my favorite site for that is SparkNotes) and see what insights they may have that I've missed. But I can't read anything yet, since I don't want to spoil the ending for myself.

WARNING: Spoiler ahead. I have "inviso-texted" the following paragraph, since it deals with an important plot spoiler. If you would like to read this paragraph, please use your cursor to highlight the text between the asterisks; otherwise, just move on, my friend.

***

I'm especially interested in the way that Hawthorne treats the character of Arthur Dimmesdale. I remembered from last time that he was Hester's partner in sin, so I didn't experience the shock of figuring that out as I read this time. But Hawthorne drops that information in with such subtle pervasiveness, I had to wonder when I would have realized it if I hadn't already known. There are several subtle clues along the way, and they grow stronger and stronger, until -- without ever saying anything quite explicit -- the conclusion becomes inescapable.

***

I'm also struck by the simplicity of the story. The plot involves so little -- so few characters, so few twists and turns -- but at the same time it is a deeply complex novel, dealing with deeply complex themes of the human experience.

Oh, and there's also the question of onomastics and reference, which I've been really interested in lately. There is so much characterization that an author can sneak in with this seemingly harmless technique, just by the choice of what to call his characters and what to have his characters call each other. I'd like to do a short paper about this sometime soon, probably using some short stories of James Thurber's. But I've found it very interesting in SL as well -- for example, Chillingworth is almost exclusively referred to as "old Roger Chillingworth". And the narrator so rarely refers to anyone by just their first name, except for Pearl.

We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing. (20 points)

Having received a number of complaints recently from my regular readers, I have decided that I'd best update my blog. So here's the low-down:

Still working at the Management Department as a receptionist. Still OK with that. Still ready to start teaching again in the fall.

Planning a trip to Cedar City at the end of July for the Shakespearen Festival. Way pumped about that!! What could be better than Shakespeare and Gilbert & Sullivan all at the same time?!

Planning a trip to NYC at the end of August with Katie. Also pumped about that! Immediately after NYC, going to Idaho for a few days. (I miss the old days, when I could so grab a book, hop on a train, and spend the weekend travelling with so little trouble ... Ah, so many things I miss about England!)

Geeking out these days about stylistics and LDS literature studies. I've been reading articles from the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies online and finding some interesting fodder for research. Also some good (OK, flimsy, but existent nonetheless) excuses for learning ancient languages like Egyptian and Akkadian. :)

Getting really excited for my Old English class this fall. It's one of the two classes I'm registered for that I know will be held (I'm always on the edge of my seat wondering about the linguistics classes -- they frequently get cancelled due to lack of interest, which is really frustrating, but more on that later). I keep getting all het up about the English language and how wonderful it is, and how we were writing all kinds of things in our own vernacular tongue -- including even sections of the Bible -- centuries before the other Western European countries started to do so. I tell you, there are excellent reasons why English is the language of the Restoration, and it was no accident that that's the language Joseph Smith spoke and the one he used to translate the Book of Mormon. Anyway ...

So I've been getting a bit frustrated with the Linguistics division down here. As I mentioned, there are not that many of us taking linguistics courses, and it's always a bit of a crap-shoot trying to figure out which ones are going to end up being cancelled. I've been looking into the idea of transferring to U of Chicago, but for one thing I'm really not so sure that would be able to get in there. For another, though, I got thinking the other day, along these lines: My faculty advisor here is Haj Ross, who is quite well known in linguistic circles, and he has a lot of clout with the department. His philosophy is that he is here merely to facilitate the student's research, and he is perfectly willing to help me out in any way necessary. I already know that he is willing (among other things) to help me get permission from the graduate chair to take extra courses in Special Problems (aka independent study). I might be able to work things out so that I could take most of the rest of my Linguistics coursework as independent study, which would allow me to highly personalize my degree to what I want. That is, I could do a course on metaphor, or one on LDS Literature Studies, or on corpus-based stylistics, or ... the list goes on. I could then use all of that as a springboard for my directed research and dissertation stuff. That might be the best thing I could possibly do for my particular interests. So, I'm also strongly considering staying here. Even though I hate the climate. Hey, if I were doing independent study, I could also conceivably leave a lot earlier and start getting settled someplace else. Someplace where it's not so hot all the time.

I am also considering doing a pass-through Master's degree in English Literature while I'm here. And I've even been considering the possibility of doing two dissertations, one at UNT and one by distance education at Lancaster Uni, and getting two PhD's. That would be interesting ... but it would also be A LOT of work, which I'm not sure I'm up for.

The last quote was from Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore. "... Britannia's sailors rule the waves! And shall we stoop to insult? No! NO!" *sigh* I'm so excited to see it at ShakeFest!

Arrows that continually glanced off from [his] breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart -- have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won. (81 points)

the latest news

I haven't been feeling at all well lately, for the past several weeks. So finally, last night, Erin and Margo managed to convince me that I really ought to go ahead and see someone at the Student Health Center to see if they can figure out what's wrong. They had already convinced me to get a medical exam, but I had figured that I would see My Brother The Chiropractor when I go home in July. But it's gotten to the point that I just decided I'd better see what they can say here. There was nothing that decisive, and we're getting some lab work done to see if that will help us to a more conclusive diagnosis. But ... it seems there's a good chance that it might be diabetes and/or other metabolism- and insulin-related problems. I'm not too happy about that, but I can't say that I would be too surprised, either. And, luckily, My Brother The Chiropractor has lots of great ideas for helping control diabetes without necessarily having to deal with the constant blood testing and insulin injections and such (depending, of course, on how severe the case is).

In the meantime, I'm still enjoying the graciously-lent Amelia Peabody books from Kimberly and generally feeling queasy, achy, and slightly feverish all the time. Oh yeah, and SUPER thirsty! And tired. Anyway... I'll be sure to keep the blog updated as I find out more.

Oh, and we finally got our internet router to start working again. We've had plenty of problems with our internet connections during the last week or two. Our ISP finally fixed the connection, but then the router wasn't working properly, so we could only access the internet from Erin's computer. That was all right, since there wasn't anything I particularly needed it for, and Erin has online classes she has to use the internet for. But today, finally, it's back working again. We don't even know why. It just decided it liked us again, I guess. Or that we'd suffered enough.

As many of you knew, the last quote was from "Kryptonite" by Three Doors Down.

Shall we submit? Are we but slaves? Love comes alike to high and low! (103 points, and an extra 20 if you can quote the next line)

stuff and junk

I've been really getting in to CSS code lately. I knew about CSS from my web design class that I took years ago at BYU, but I only ever used it for text presentation and didn't really get it very well. It's only been in the last week or so that I have started learning myself how to do layout with CSS. I've re-designed my website homepage and am working on my classes page, and I'm very excited about it all. I'll be sure and let you know right away when the new version goes live so that you can see what I've been up to. Also, I'm trying to find a new place to host my blog, where I can get more sophisticated with it. I need to talk to Paul about that.

I went to see the new Pixar movie "Cars" last Thursday, and LOVED it!! I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard, let alone at a movie. (Actually, come to think of it, I think the last time I laughed that hard was when Katie came to visit in April.) Erin and I were saying we felt like we had missed half of the movie, because you know that there's so much more going on in each scene than what are you are aware of at any given moment. I will definitely be seeing that again. I just can't emphasize enough how much I love Pixar.

Oh, and Kimberly got a new computer. *sigh!* It's a Mac. *sigh!* Don't get me wrong -- Ladislaw/Percy has been very good to me, and I'm still very happy with him. But he is getting older, and I'm starting to really need more memory than he has, and I'd love more resolution as well. And -- don't tell him this, but I really wanted a Mac in the first place. I won't be affording that for some time still, but for now Kimberly lets me come over and salivate over her new laptop, which hasn't been named yet. (Lest anyone worry, I want to assure you that I don't literally salivate over it -- not only would that be detrimental to the computer, it would also be just plain gross.)

Plans are shaping up for the Shakespearean Festival (lovingly referred to as ShakeFest2006) trip in late July. I'm also seriously considering a short trip to New York City with Katie at the end of August, before going back home to see my family for the annual weekend-before-the-weekend-before-Labor-Day event.

"If I go crazy, will you still call me Superman?" (40 points)

the only radio station you'll ever need

Erin just introduced me to this great website, www.pandora.com. It's an online radio-station maker, so to speak. You type in the name of an artist or song you like, and it searches their database to find music that's similar, and then creates a radio station playing that music. You can give it feedback about which songs you like or don't like -- even which ones you like, but you're sick of hearing them, so that the station won't play it again for a month. Pretty darn cool stuff. And they even have people like Rosemary Clooney in there, so it's a pretty safe bet that you can find something you like in all that. I can't wait to start using this at work -- I've been listening to some AccuRadio, but their volume is kind of sporadic, and it's hard to find a level that's quiet enough it doesn't distract others working around me, but loud enough that I can actually hear it.

back from memorial day

I had a great time during Memorial Day. I went out to Idaho and visited the fam, and it was wonderful. I got to see all eleven of my nieces and nephews (six and five, respectively). Baby Chloe is three weeks old now, and I had a super time holding her and playing with her. She is adorable, with bright eyes that make her look very aware when she has them open. Chloe's sister Alyce (three in August) is talking better than ever and likes to tell us her needs. She told me she loved me while we were coloring on the couch (we were coloring in coloring books, that is, while sitting on the couch ...), and she had a super time listening to me sing her the name game song with all the names we could think of (you know -- "Chloe, Chloe, bo-bloey, banana-fana fo-floey, me my mo-mloey"). Little Emma, Wendy's girl who will be two this December, is also talking more than ever, and she loves to read! I got her to recognize my name, although she wouldn't really say it -- close, though.

I didn't get to spend as much time with the older kids, mainly since they are able to take care of themselves and entertain one another quite well without me (or anyone, for that matter). Lena, who will be 17 in a few weeks, has a beautiful smile, which I hadn't quite noticed before. And Porter, who's 15 on Monday, is feeling pretty excited that he has gotten his braces off. He really wants an iPod for his birthday ... he's hoping that if enough people give him money as their birthday present, he might be able to manage it.

I forget how cold it is in Idaho. I enjoy the cold, I just forget how much colder it will be. And I also forget to factor in the wind. There's a lot of wind in Idaho Falls, which can make it very cold. Decorating graves was a very chilly affair this year.

This was the first time that we've had the whole family together for many years, so we got family pictures taken. They turned out very nice, most of them. Afterward, the photographer asked if anyone wanted to take individual family pictures, so after Laraine and Guy and Dana and Amber had finished, Kip and I had a few pictures taken. We figured since we're the only two single ones left, we're kind of our own little family together. :) We had lots of fun taking them, and most of them turned out great.

Oh! and Wendy and I are both getting obsessed with Clay Aiken again, after seeing him during the American Idol finale. He really does have an amazing voice, although listening to some of his songs from that season was not the greatest. I think he's improved a lot since then, and I wish that I heard more of him these days.

The last quote was from Strictly Ballroom, which I need to watch sometime soon. Kimberly let me borrow it, and it's been a long time since I've seen that movie.

I was on my way to be with you today -- I was almost there when the motor died. (52 points)

not much to say

I'm getting ready to go home (Idaho) for a week. Leaving tomorrow and coming back next Tuesday. I will start my new job the day after I get back, which I'm excited about. Today I have to run by the office to hand them over my hire packet, change a few students' grades (minor mistakes on my part), and then head to Curves for a work-out and a travel pass.

In the meantime, I'm trying to think of new books to read. I have Kimberly's Amelia Peabody books to keep me busy for most of the summer, but I would like to read a few others as well. It might be time to pull out the old "Books to Read" list that I started a few years ago, back in my MTC-working days.

The last two quotes were, indeed, from Dickens's Great Expectations, one of my all-time favorite books. (I've given Ellie full points and Kimberly half points, for recognizing the author.)

(with Austalian accent) "Well that was unexpected." (23 points)

P.S. Oops! I just realized that I accidentally got rid of the old scoreboard -- lost in cyberspace with no way to get it back, you know? So I've started it over again. Hey, it is summer after all, and that's always a good time to start new.

new boyfriend

When I was at BYU, right after my mission, I had a really cool roommate, Beth. Beth was cool enough that she could get away with all kinds of dorky things without seeming dorky at all. One of those things was her multiple "boyfriends." Beth had a basketball boyfriend, a movie boyfriend, a commercial boyfriend, and a TV boyfriend. Like I said, with her it didn't seem desperate or dorky, although with others it probably does. Like me, for instance.

When I was living with Beth I decided that my TV boyfriend was Jeff Corwin (from Animal Planet). I haven't seen much of Jeff lately, though, and the other night while watching The History Channel with Erin, I decided on a new TV boyfriend -- one who's much cooler, much more my style, and wasn't around back when I first met Jeff.

His name is Josh Bernstein.

Josh hosts the History Channel original show "Diggning for the Truth" (DFT). It's a documentary-style show, about mainly archaeological stuff, but with style. One of the best things about watching it, in my opinion, is Josh himself. Not just because he's so darn cute (although that ceratinly helps), but because he has this great personality. He is a very curious, very passionate person, and he's not afraid to get himself in the middle of the action.

One of my favorite episodes is about the Nasca lines in South America. His tour guide takes him out the coast to watch these fishermen at work, explaining that they still do the fishing in much the same way that the ancient Nasca would have, so this is supposed to give Josh some insight into the lifestyle of the ancient folks. So Josh and his guide are standing there watching these dudes walk out into the water with all their nets and other gear, and out of the blue, Josh pulls off his sandals and hat, hands them to his guide ("Hold these, would you?"), and runs out into the water with these dudes. They have no idea what he's doing, he has no idea what he's doing, but there he is, waist high in the ocean, pulling on these nets to bring in the fish. Later in the same episode, he walks through part of this long aqueduct from one access hole to another, talking all the while about the importance of this aqueduct to the ancient Nasca people.

Just today I learned that Josh is also the President and CEO of BOSS, Boulder Outdoor Survival School. It's this school in Boulder, Utah, that has been around since 1968, where they teach people how to survive in the outdoors without all the modern conveniences of camping supplies. How to make a fire witout matches, how to hunt your own game, how to keep yourself warm on a cold night, and so on.

*deep, drawn-out sigh*

My boyfriend is SO cool!!

In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong. (32 pts)

Same author and book as last time, but I'm waiting until we get a winner.

the post with no title

So I'm sitting around watching the final episode of "Will & Grace," just for kicks and giggles. And I thought I'd post something, just to let everyone know what I've been up to. I found a job for the summer, working as a receptionist at the Department of Management (in the College of Business Administration) on campus at UNT. It'll be from 8:00 to 12:30 every morning (Monday through Friday, that is), so it's about 22 hours a week, and it's early. Oh well. Sometimes you just have to deal with an 8 am day.

In other news ... well, there's really not much else, actually.

I have been cooking the last few days. Tried a few new recipes, mostly from Alton Brown, which have been fabulous. [roasted veggie spread] [pocket pies]

I've watched a ton of television during the past week. Becoming a Regis and Kelly junky. *sigh*

I am ready to start scrap-booking again, but I first have to get some more cardstock pages and print some of my digital photos. Hoping to start on that next week.

Next week I'll be flying home for Memorial Day, where I plan to spend a few days with my sister and then a few days at my parents' house.

Erin and I wanted to watch Just My Luck today, but Kimberly couldn't come, so we decided to put it off until we can all see it together.

New niece got born last week, May 9th. Her name is Chloe Elizabeth. Adorable, of course!

Been reading lots of books on Kimberly's recommendation. She got me interested in Amelia Peabody mysteries, and now I'm anxiously awaiting the box from her mom in which she sent the rest of the series from their house (apparently there are 16 in all).

In the mean-time, I'm re-reading the 6th Harry Potter book, since I've only read it once since it came out last summer.

Hoping to be able to go to the Utah Shakespearean Festival this year with Jen and Emily, in late July. They're doing some great plays, including Hamlet and -- wonder of wonders! -- HMS Pinafore!!

Longing for a cat. I really want a korat. *deep sigh* Can't hardly wait until I have an apartment and a job to allow for that.

I'm always quite amazed at how much I can say even when there's nothing to say.

The last quote was from Mary Poppins, although it's quite obscure, so I'm not surprised no one has known it (or least, apparently no one has).

We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was treasonable to doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise, while I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty. (96 points)

hail the conquering hero!

So this weekend I went to Lafayette (laff-ee-yet), Louisiana for a conference on Language and Literature, where gave a presentation about the research I did for my Master's thesis. I rented a car here in Denton and drove down (about 7 hours) on Friday, presented my paper on Saturday, and drove back again on Sunday. I was really nervous about it, but knew it was something I had to do to start getting used to presenting my research, start getting my name out there, and work my way around in the world of Academia. In the end, it was a really good experience for me, and I'm very glad I went.

The conference was quite a bit smaller than I had anticipated. I knew it wouldn't be that large, but there were only about 60 people there in all, I'd say. That meant that during my panel, only about 12 people were in the audience. I was very OK with that. I was the only person there to do a PowerPoint presentation at all, which surprised me. Most of the other students there were working on degrees in English, Rhetoric, or Folklore, and apparently these disciplines still just read their paper from the lectern. I, on the other hand, didn't even stand behind the lectern at all, and I used the computer for my notes, and didn't even have a fully-written paper with me. In fact, right before the panel started, I got super worried that I might not be able to get the computer to work and would have to just do the presentation from memory. I had written up an outline in a Word document as back-up ... but I had never printed one out to use, so that would have been a problem.

Anyway ... to make a long story short ("too late!"), the presentation went very well. People seemed fairly interested, although there weren't any questions for me (or for anyone else -- there was very little time left). I got to talking with the guy who presented before me, and it turned out he was also Mormon, so we bonded on that level. We sat by each other for lunch, which was right afterward (Mom asked me later if he was single, cute, nice, etc ... oh, those moms!). Almost as soon as I got into the room where they fed us lunch, one of the professors came over to ask me some things about the computer program I had used for my research. While I was talking with him, one of the other professors came over and said he was hoping to sit by me and ask me some more questions about this research. And, in one of the afternoon sessions, someone told me that he had really enjoyed my PowerPoint presentation, that it had just the right amount of information to keep him interested and engaged, but not so much that it was overwhelming. So all in all, it went very well.

Dr. Rice, who talked to me during lunch, also reminded me of just what a unique position I'm in. He mentioned, first of all, what a small area stylistics is in the US, which in many ways is a huge advantage to me. He also got talking about the unusual combination of interests it takes to do corpus stylistics, since you have to have an interest in computers, analysis, and mathematical things, but also in literature, language, and art. And he also brought up the point that that is a very marketable combination of skills, since they are necessary for a lot of jobs in, for example, information mining and other software-related jobs. One of the many reasons why I think I need to do more with computer-y stuff.

OK ... Erin also wants me to talk about the time, a couple of weeks ago, when I was going home for Easter. After we got on the road (and Erin was gracious enough to drive me down to Dallas to the airport), I realized that I had no idea what gate I needed, or what flight number I was on, or even the airline. I had to call about 5 people before I got hold of our friend Matt, who looked up the info for me. I had taken my confirmation number, but I forgot to look at any of the other stuff. Oops. Lucky for me, I still made it.

The last quote was from Stan Freberg's "The United States of America."

Never confuse efficiency with a liver complaint. (82 points)

P.S.: As you can see, I have also changed my template. Time for a change. I am still working on getting my sidebar content staightened out, so you'll have to bear with me for a while.

the struggles of a teacher

Today one of the students in my afternoon class confessed that he didn't write the first two papers he turned in. He's been really busy, he said, and he just used some papers that his sister wrote. There are only three papers in our class, two response papers based on a piece of literature, and a final research paper, which we're working on right now. That means that all of the papers we've done so far, he's plagiarized. The official policy is that this requires me to fail him in the class. I went to see Dr. Raign, the director of the Freshman Writing program at the university, but she wasn't around. So I talked to Dr. Phillips instead, who is the assistant director. Dr. Philips said she would be willing to give a student the opportunity to re-write the original papers; she also recommended that I talk to Dr. Raign and predicted that she would say to just fail him. "Basically," she told me, "it's your choice what you want to do with him." I haven't spoken to Dr. Raign yet, but I'm having a really hard time deciding what to do with this. I don't like the idea of letting him escape the consequence for a very serious transgression. On the other hand, I do feel a certain responsibility to dispense mercy. "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure yet mete, it shall be meted to you again" (Matthew 7:2).

Teaching has certainly given me a lot more appreciation for Heavenly Father and the Savior and their immensely difficult jobs as judges.

On the brighter side of things, I am getting ready to give a presentation at a Graduate Student Conference on linguisitcs and literature in Louisiana this weekend. I'm pretter nervous and excited for it, and I'm feeling a bit stressed about getting the presentation ready. I'm a little worried about squeezing 60 pages' worth of research into 20 minutes. But it's definitely something I need to do if I want to have any kind of career in this field.

Also, Erin is going to make dinner for us tonight. Chicken parmesan and ratatouille. Mm-mmm!! I bought tons of frozen foods the last time I went to the store, and since then I've been sharing lots of it with Erin, as she's been super busy with her final paper for a class. So she offered to make dinner sometime during this week to make up for taking all my food. :) We're pretty excited ... especially since it's parmesan chicken, after all!

Rumble, rumble, rumble - mutiny, mutiny, mutiny. (12 points)

5 weeks = not a month

I have been avoiding talking very much about Jim on my blog, because I don't want you all to get sick of it. But I do have to let you know about something that happened recently.

A couple weeks ago, after some already frustrating occurrences, Jim came over. He came just for a walk around the block and to let me know, basically, that he wasn't sure about our relationship and wanted out. It's now been 5 weeks since things started spiralling. I count from the day he decided to go home and nap instead of coming over to my apartment after church ... I guess since that was the first day he made me cry.

Take my word, the mockingbird will sing the saddest song of all -- he knows things are wrong, and he's right. (22 points)

feeling good

So life has been quite happy today. Katie Bills is here to visit, and that always makes me happy. My British Lit professor actually liked one of my response papers and asked me to discuss it with the class. We had "homemade" Boboli pizzas for dinner. I got to chat with Christina, which was wonderful -- I don't get to talk to her a whole lot anymore, and the conversation was fabulous. We had apple-and-blackcurrant flavored squash (a British specialty) with dinner. General Conference was, of course, marvelous and inspiring, and I'm still feeling the effects of that. I found the courage to quote C. S. Lewis, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Book of Mormon in today's response paper (about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). We're having bruschetta later on. We got to have M&Ms and ice cream, which Erin bought for us. I got a letter outlining all the financial aid that has been approved for me for summer classes. I registered for my classes for summer and fall semesters, and I got into all the classes I want/need -- with the small exception of one, which claimed that I needed special departmental consent, and I'm getting that worked out with the department head. I found out that I have a federal Work Study grant for the summer, which means I should have little trouble getting a job on campus during the summer. I have NO (count 'em, NO!) evening classes in the fall (although both of my summer classes are evening, are they are l-o-o-ong). I'm sure there are plenty of other things to add to the list, but this is good enough to give you all an idea of how happy I am about life right now.

The last quote was from The Scarlet Pimpernel, the 1934 Leslie Howard version ... and I must say I'm rather disappointed that no one got it. *sigh* Oh well. Here's another from a fantabulous movie.

I think it's only fair that any further instructions or explanations be given on your bathroom time, not mine. (245 points, just because it's such a great movie, and if you know it, you deserve super points)

some frustrations

This morning there was a national news item about a man in California who found a purse full of jewelry and turned it in to the police. Apparently, he thought it was all costume jewelry, but it turned out to be real, and all together it was worth around one million dollars.

And I thought, "This is sad, when a person doing a simple act like trying to return a lost item to its owner makes the national news."

...

In other news, I got really angry with my students yesterday and all but yelled at them. For some time now, they've been annoying me by asking questions that are answered on the syllabus, or not having their readings done and claiming that they didn't know about it, or trying to get extra points out of me. Yesterday, though, I hit my limit pretty quickly. They turned in their first papers, and I noticed that several of them hadn't formatted them correctly, despite the clearly-laid out formatting guidelines in their syllabus, along with the threat of a 10-point deduction for not following said guidelines. So I mentioned that deduction (which, admittedly I shouldn't have done), and they all went crazy wanting to come get their papers and staple them, or re-format them and hand them in later that day, or ... And it didn't take long for me to start telling them, "Look, I'm sorry, I don't want to take points away from you, but that's the policy, and no you can't change your papers now that they're turned in, and I did tell you about the formatting before, at the beginning of the semester, and it's in your syllabus and I shouldn't have to tell you anyway, and guess what? -- life is tough, and it's time you get used to it!" I just felt sick and tired of taking so much responsibility for them and helping them out so much -- especially when they have a syllabus that has all this information on it to begin with.

Oh yes, and I got an email yesterday from one student, explaining why his paper is late (he is having a hard time juggling two jobs and school) and asking me to still let him turn it in and get a grade on it. A big part of me wants to just say no, it's not fair to all my other students, and you knew about this deadline from the beginning of the semester, so I absolutely will not take. (I also have a "no late work" policy, which is clearly printed on -- you guessed it -- the syllabus.) But part of me also wants to be merciful and take it for a reduced grade or something ... it's worth a total of 20% of his grade, which means the highest grade he could possibly get if I don't take it is 80%, and most likely he would end up with a C of some kind. *sigh* I might have to call Katie and see if she has any advice on this one.

...

The last quote was from The Thin Man, a movie I just love!

Plain? It's as ugly as a parson's widow! (62 points)

a new update

spring break

Spring Break was lots of fun. Only Erin and I went, and we left on Saturday morning. Erin was fun to drive with. She always chooses a ‘guy’ — someone who’s driving just a little faster than her, or about the same speed, so that if there are any cops or there’s anything troublesome ahead, her ‘guy’ gets the brunt of it, and she’s been warned already. I never did that before, but I rather enjoyed the experience. We had lots of good conversation, too, and Erin is one of my favorite people to talk to, so that was great.

We didn’t really do anything in Missouri, we just hung around, did a little bit of homework, and ate lots. Erin’s mom is a great cook, and she had wonderful food for us, and they also took us out to eat a couple of times. My favorite part of the trip was when we went to Sikeston, Missouri, and ate at Lambert’s Café, “the only home of throwed rolls.” It was a little like eating at Tucano’s in Provo (mmmmm, Tucano’s ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... OK, I’m done zoning off and salivating now) — Right. It’s kind of like Tucano’s, since there was tons of food, I was super stuffed afterward, and they came around giving you free food if you wanted it. They had fried potatoes, macaroni and tomatoes, and fried okra, among other things. (By the way, I tried fried okra for the first time this trip, and I really enjoyed it.) And one of the other things they had were some fabulous, fresh, hot rolls, which they threw at you. So if you wanted a roll, you’d just stick your hands up in the air, and they would throw one at you, even from all the way across the room. It was great fun.

I stayed until Thursday, and that morning I left and drove home. In fact, I got a tad lost on the way home. It was sunset, and I was driving west, so I missed the sign that indicated I was supposed to turn left to stay on Highway 380 going west, and thus ended up on Highway 69 going north. Before long, I figured out that I was on the wrong road, and I stopped at the next town and bought a map. The whole thing only took about 45 extra minutes, and I got home in one piece. And I had a fabulous time driving my rented Ford Escape. Happiness.

like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife ...

Since the beginning of the semester, I have never yet had my British Lit professor commend me for anything I’ve written. On occasion, when something catches his eye that one of us has written about in our response papers, he’ll mention it in class and either ask us to tell the class about it, or if we don’t want to, he’ll tell them. But he’d never said anything about my stuff. Most of the time that doesn’t bother me, since I usually write a bunch of crap for that class, but every now and then I’d really spend time on it and give it some real effort, and I still got nothing.

The last day before class, which was also the last day that I posted here, I was agonizing over writing a response paper for “The Watsons” by Jane Austen. I finally forced myself to write something, which started out “I’ve had a really hard time appreciating ‘The Watsons’ ...” And then I finished it up by writing about what a difference it makes in how you read when you’re internally motivated to read something versus when you are forced to read it for, say, a graduate class. The whole paper really said nothing at all about “The Watsons” itself, but I managed to squeeze out two pages of it.

And ironically enough, Scott (my professor) asked me to talk about it in class. He said he was surprised to hear me talking about this, since he feels like he doesn’t really force people to read. I think he may have missed much of my point. He told us to read as though we’re reading for fun — meaning that we don’t have to try to analyze while we’re reading, or try to find significance in things, or whatever else. And he did mention that he’s had several students over the years write about how they hated something so much that they didn’t even finish reading (which I’ve done more than once, though I haven’t written about it). But my point was that I wouldn’t even be reading half of this stuff on my own, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m in this class and he’s assigned it to us.

monday, monday ...

Yesterday wasn’t such a great day. It was rather productive, so that was good. But other than that, it was pretty frustrating. My iPod, which I just sent in about two weeks ago to get a new battery, no longer works. I’m not sure that it’s still under warranty, so I don’t know if I can get it fixed again. And then, my internet is on the fritz. I’m worried that it may be a problem with my Ethernet card ... *sigh* That means that I can’t rely on being able to check my email, or Google things, or IMDb them, or FTP stuff for my website, or chat with Jim, or ... the list goes on. I tell you, you don’t realize just how much you rely on these things until they’re gone. It kind of reminds me of the time when I was so excited to get sheets after I first got to Lancaster.

the quotes

The last quote was from Toy Story. Gosh! I just got looking at that post again and realized just how long it’s been since I last posted. That seems like ages ago.

"I read where you were shot four times in the tabloids."

"It's not true -- they never came near my tabloids."

(83 points)

procrastinating ... again

I should be writing a response paper to "The Watsons" today, and boy am I having trouble with that. I suppose I could write something about Zofloya instead ... except that I haven't even begun reading it yet.

I'm really excited for Spring Break, which is next week. It looks like Erin and I will leave Saturday, and we're going to visit her family in Missouri. I've been looking forward to it for at least three months, so it's nice that it's finally so close. I'm not too picky on what we actually do there -- it's just the thought of being somewhere else, and not having to go to classes every day that makes me so happy.

I really, really, really don't want to go to my class today. That's largely because I don't have a response paper yet, and little hope of having a well-written one by the time I get to class. I'm trying to really force myself to go, though, since I have already missed more days in that class than I should have. And because it's good for me to be doing things I don't want to do.

The last quote was from Key Largo, a great movie with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, and Edward G. Robinson. Classic. I expect most of you will know today's quote, but I have to add that Jim is not allowed to score points on this one, since we were discussing it last night.

Farewell, my friends, I go to a better place! (13 points)

aaaah!

This week is the second week for visual texts in the English classes I'm teaching, and we're supposed to watch a film and analyze it. I've been debating with myself since October about what films to show, and I still haven't decided!! We start watching these films tomorrow, and I still don't know what to do about them. Good golly! I've been strongly considering The Third Man and The Princess Bride for some time, but I just can't quite bring myself to a point.

In other news ... well, there's really nothing else to say. Nothing that interesting has gone on lately. Except that I did take a 4-hour nap on Saturday. We had an early temple trip that morning, and by the time I got home, I just couldn't function anymore. So I took a nap and didn't get up until 4 hours later. It reminded me of the time right after my mission when I frequently wound up taking naps that lasted anywhere from 4 to 8 hours. (Yes, I said naps.) I was just so physically exhausted from the mission, I couldn't control the desire to sleep whenever possible.

The last quote was, indeed, from "Love Changes Everything," a song by Andew Lloyd-Weber. And the other one in that post was from Alannis Morissette's "Head Over Feet."

One Rocco more or less isn't worth dying for! (181 points -- it's rather obscure)

4 weeks = 1 month

I have been avoiding talking very much about Jim on my blog, because I don't want you all to get sick of it. But I do have to tell about something he did today.

About 5:20, there was a knock on the door, which I recognized as Jim's. He came just to bring me some beautiful pink tulips in commemoration of our 1-month anniversary. We count from the day he asked me out ... I guess since that was the first day he made me outrageously happy.

Anyway, I just had to share how wonderful my Jim is. I really, really like him. And he treats me great. "Like I'm a princess," in fact. (17 points for that one)
Yesterday's quote was from School of Rock.

Love makes fools of everyone -- all the rules we make are broken. (22 points)

barefoot

So today I wore my flip-flops to class. They're rather flimsy, and I've had them for most of a year ... they're not in the best of condition anymore. We went outside for class, and right after I sat down, I realized that my left flip-flop had completely come apart. Which meant that when I walked home, I was going to have only one shoe, and I decided to just walk home barefoot. Hey, as long as one foot's gonna be dirty and hurting, why not both of them, right? So I walked home barefoot. It was nice. Really!

I think it's important to walk barefoot every now and then. For me, it's a reminder that life is not always about constraints or protecting yourself. That sometimes, life should be about being vulnerable. That it's good for the soul to remember the care-free days of childhood, running around the yard barefoot and running through sprinklers with all your clothes on.

Who knew that walking barefoot could do so much for a person?

procrastinating

I should be writing a response to Lady Susan right now, but I'm having a hard time finding anything interesting to write about it ... I haven't had so much trouble with a response paper yet this semester. I just don't seem to be able to think too well. So I thought I'd post to my blog quickly.

Last night we had the missionaries over for dinner. It was good. We had pork chops and creamed potatoes with green beans (which Erin made ... yummy!). We have a brand new elder here now -- he just arrived last week sometime. He seems pretty nice.

Oh, and the weather has turned really warm. The last few weeks it was rainy and cold every day, but it's now warmed up again. And I mean warm. It's currenty 78°, and it's supposed to get up 87° before the end of the day. It's only March, mind you. Oy! The one thing I most dislike about Texas is the heat. This also means I'm going to have to give up wearing my cute new pajamas with the sheep on them.

Well, I guess I'll get going now ... I only have another 30 minutes to finish my paper, if I'm going to have time to actually get ready for the day before leaving for class.

The last quote was from "The Great Muppet Caper" and the one before was "Muppet Treasure Island." Sorry, Elizabeth -- close, but no cigar.

It will test your head, and your mind, and your brain. (41 points)

adventurous sabbath

Last night, there was supposed to be a YSA fireside in Plano (north of Dallas). So Margo, Hector, Jim, and I tried to go down there for it. "Tried" is an operative word in that sentence. And really, the whole thing could probably be put down as my fault. Here's what happened.

After church, Jim asked me if I would get directions for the meetinghouse in Plano, since he's the ward clerk and therefore had to stay after church. He usually gets done by around 6:00 pm, but we needed to leave here around 6:30 to make sure we had enough time to find the place. So I readily agreed to find the directions. I asked around a little after church, and no one was entirely sure where the fireside would be, but someone thought it was probably at the Roundrock chapel. That sounded all right to me, and from what I could tell from the bulletin board at the church, there seemed to be only two chapels in Plano. When we came home, I got online and found the address for the Roundrock chapel, along with the driving directions (thanks, GoogleMaps!). I also found that the Roundrock chapel is the stake center, so that seemed likely to be where the fireside would be held. Just to be on the safe side, I thought I'd get the directions from Roundrock to the other chapel, in case we got there and found that wasn't the right place.

Jim and Hector (who is also a clerk in our ward) came over about 6:00, and we decided that Margo would drive. We set out, with directions in our hands and hope in our hearts. :) But fate seemed to be against us. First, there was a whole debacle with the tollway ... but that's for another day. In any case, we got off at the correct exit in Plano and followed our directions until all we had left was to turn onto Roundrock Trail and find the chapel. But we couldn't find Roundrock. After several miles, we decided to stop at a gas station and ask for directions. The man at the counter didn't know where Roundrock Trail was, but he did have some maps that we were able to use to figure out where we'd gone wrong.

We finally found Roundrock Trail and the chapel ... but there was no one there. In fact, there was some kind of construction going on, at least in the parking lot, if nowhere else. So we figured it must be at the other chapel. Good thing we wrote down those directions, right? We followed the directions with no trouble, until -- once again -- all we had left was to find a street called Legacy and then find the chapel. But we couldn't find Legacy (does this sound at all familiar?). We did eventually find the chapel, and there were at least a few cars out in the parking lot, so we got out and went inside. It didn't take us long, though, to figure out that this wasn't actually the chapel. We think it may have been a Korean church -- we're not sure. We got back in the car and continued down the street ... and finally found the chapel. For real, this time. There were some cars out in the parking lot, and there was a group of three young adults standing outside, which seemed to us like a good sign. So we went inside.

There were people there in the building, and we thought we were in the clear. We were about half an hour late, but hey! at least we'd made it, right? Wrong. About the time we got to the chapel (where you'd expect the fireside to be held), some folks sitting in the foyer asked if we were looking for something, and could they help us? We explained that we were looking for the fireside, and they all looked a bit blank. Apparently we weren't in the right chapel, after all. One of them finally found an events calendar that actually said which chapel the fireside was being held in, and they gave us directions to get there. Margo prudently asked them, though, how long it would take us to get there, and they estimated about 20 minutes. By the time we got there, the fireside would be over.

So we went back home instead. And ate cookies that Hector had brought us. And life was good.

At least we can say that we made a darn good effort to get to the YSA activity, next time the bishop asks.

"Look, Daddy, a bear!"

"No, honey, that's a frog. Bears wear hats."

(21 points)

I'm a bit disappointed that no one seems to know the last quote, but if you get this one, it might help. In other words, the last quote is still open for point-getting. I also have to add that Erin is barred from guessing on today's quote, since I just quoted it to her the other day, but she can still get points for the last one.

celebrating the pathetic

Yesterday I spent a good couple of hours (on a break from my homework ...) playing Noah's Ark. I did the free-fall style, and I got further than I've ever gotten before. I just had to share that accomplishment with you all, since I know you care deeply.

LEVEL: 102
ANIMALS SAVED: 4,956
COMBOS: 359
BIGGEST COMBO: x12
TOTAL POINTS: 1,535,130
RANK: Super Beastmaster

The last quote was, indeed, from "A Close Shave," a classic short film starring Wallace and Gromit.

Beware running with scissors or any other pointy object. It's all good fun, until someone loses an eye. (17 points)

what's been going on

I know I haven't posted for quite some time, so I thought I'd take a minute or two today. The last few weeks have been really eventful, and really great, mainly due to the fact that I have started seeing this guy from my ward, Jim, who I really like (no, I mean really a lot!). He's absolutely amazing, and I'm constantly shocked that he would be at all interested in me, but miracles never cease, and he is. I would tell you about all the great things he does, but they would just sound silly and mushy to most of you, not being able to hear about them in person. Suffice it to say that he's wonderful, he really likes me, and I really like him, too.

We went to the Mozart concert last week that I talked about in my last post, and it was wonderful! Honestly, how can you go wrong with Mozart, the Dallas Opera orchestra, and UNT and SMU singers?

I'm trying to think if there's anything else I should tell you all about, but that's pretty much it. I spend a lot of time with Jim these days, and that means that I don't spend a lot of time with my homework anymore, or with anything else. Nevertheless, my classes are going all right, though they would be much better if I were putting in more time and energy with them. I have a lot of reading to do, and I'm way behind. Mondays are the worst day of the week for me these days, because I have a really long day, which is not at all conducive to seeing Jim. So that means that I do a lot of sitting around starting blankly at walls with a silly grin on my face, or just staring blankly at pages of stuff I'm supposed to be reading, without getting anything done. Today, though, I'm really determined to get productive things done. In about half an hour here, I'm going to go to Curves and do my work-out, reading on the bus, and then I'm actually going to go to both my classes today! It should be a good day.

Margo also can't think of anything else I should talk about, so I guess that means I'm done.

Elizabeth was right with the last quote, from a song called "You're Just in Love".

Not even Wensleydale? (32 points)

concerts

I am just loving the fact that this year is the 250th anniversary of my favorite composer's birth. (That would be Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Theophilus Mozart, in case you weren't sure.) It means that there are all kinds of great Mozart evens going on all year. Some of them are here at UNT, and I'm so excited for them.

Next week there's a concert at the university that's actually called "Celebrating Mozart". They will have opera students from UNT and SMU working together to perform some of the most popular pieces from Mozart's operas. Later in the semester, the UNT opera is going to be Cosi fan tutte, which I've never heard or seen, so I'm excited about that one, too. And there are a couple of other events going on that sound really great. I just hope I can find people to go with me to all of these -- my roommates don't have much time, and some of the events also cost a pretty penny (even for UNT students). I'll have to ask around a bit and see what I can work out.

For that matter, there's another concert next week that I'm really interested in. It's the UNT symphony orchestra, and they'll be performing some pieces by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and some other Russian composers.

Going to concerts like this always remeinds me of the time I went to see the Utah Symphony in concert at Abravanell Hall in Salt Lake. They were performing a Mahler symphony, and even though Mahler is one of my least favorite composers, I really enjoyed the concert. That was largely because Keith Lockhart was conducting. Mr. Lockhart currently conducts the Boston Pops orchestra, and in his "spare time" he comes to Utah to work with the Utah Symphony. He is an amazing conductor, and just plain fun to watch -- he was so in to what he was doing, jumping up and down on his little stand, and all. *sigh* Good times.

And speaking of concerts, guess what I'm doing on March 17th? That's right, friends, I'm going to Fort Worth to see Michael Buble in concert! I'm so excited! I have never been to this kind of concert before, and I think this will be a really fun one. I do love Michael. I'll have to listen to him more now, just to make sure I know all the songs. :)

The last quote was from ... well, actually I'm going to leave it open for a little while longer. I'm pretty sure Erin knows it (but she hasn't posted yet), and I'm still interested to see if Paul really found the right one. But in the meantime, here's another one for you.

I keep tossing in my sleep at night, and what's more I've lost my appetite. (23 points)

just peachy

I just got reading through my second-to-last post, and realized how awful it sounded. I want to reassure everyone that I'm actually quite happy still (I generally am, you know). Even though I'm not thrilled with some things right now, I'm still perfectly happy to be where I am. I love my roommates to death, I have wonderful friends in the ward, and I'm generally in quite good health. So, all in all, things are good.

The last couple of quotes were from Pride and Prejudice and The Big Store, respectively. I have to give Elizabeth credit for getting The Big Store so quickly. I knew she was a big Marx Brothers fan and all, but I didn't think she'd manage it that quickly.

I'm a concientious objecter.

A what?

You know, a coward.

(68 points)

the toilet incident

I admit it, the toilet incident was my fault. It's just best to get that out of the way now. It makes the whole story that's about to follow much easier to tell.

Sunday night we had some people over for dinner, among them our home teacher Jim. When everyone had left, around 10:00, Margo and I went to find Erin. She had disappeared an hour or two earlier, when the phone rang, and we assumed it was this guy she’s interested in, who lives in Colorado. Wanting to satisfy our curiosity, we found her sitting on the floor of our walk-in closet, talking on the phone. When we asked who it was, she told us it was her sister, and that they were having a serious conversation. Knowing as we did that Erin and her sister have plenty of material for serious conversations these days, we respectfully left her there on the floor of the closet and cleaned up the kitchen and dining room.

After a half hour of cleaning, which was punctuated by a brief but loud argument between Erin and her sister from our bedroom, I decided it was definitely time for bed. So I went into our room, where I found that Erin had come out of the closet and was still talking on the phone. Realizing now that everyone had left for the night, she moved out into the living room to continue her conversation. In the meantime, I changed into my pajamas and started my bed-time routine. A few minutes later, I ran at full speed into the living room, pausing just long enough to yell at Erin, “Help! How do you stop an overflowing toilet?!” I then proceeded to find as many towels and rags as I could to at least sop up some of the water, while Erin followed, laughing, into our bedroom. There she also helped to find some more towels, while I awkwardly positioned myself in our Cracker-Jack-box of a bathroom in such a way that I could hold up the auto leveling assembly in the toilet’s tank to stop the flow of water, whilst and at the same time attempting to hold up the cuff of my pajama bottoms so they wouldn’t get wet.

By this time, Margo had come in as well, and she suggested that we try calling one of the guys who’d just left our apartment — surely one of them would know how to take care of this problem, right? So, I called Jim, our home teacher, worrying that he wouldn’t even be home yet, as he has a good drive from our house to his. But he was home, and he explained to me where the emergency shut off valve was, and Margo managed to get it turned off. So, now there was no longer any water flowing out of the toilet onto our floor. Jim offered to come over and help us unclog the toilet, since we didn’t have a plunger (and, in fact, have still to buy one). I thanked him profusely, hung up the phone, and turned to the business of getting all the water soaked up from the floor.

While Margo and I did what we could with the rags, I realized that the conversation Erin was having on the phone didn’t actually sound her sister was on the other end. “Are you actually talking to Eric?” I asked.

“Yes,” she responded.

“You’ve been talking to him this whole time?”

“Yeah.”

“And you told us you were talking to Christine? You lied to us?”

“Well,” she explained, “I didn’t realize everyone had left already, and I didn’t want you to go back and tell them I was talking to Eric and make fun of me.”

“So, you just said it was Christine so that we wouldn’t tell anyone it was Eric?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t believe you’d do that!” I exclaimed with indignation.

“Oh come on,” Erin laughed, “ you guys should know me better than that.”

“Right,” Margo contended, “and you actually thought that we would go back there and make fun of you with everyone? You should know us better than that!”

Erin, who was feeling particularly amused that night, laughed at Margo’s quick come-back and continued to find more towels for us.

“So what’s going on then?” she asked. She had, understandably, missed most of my conversation with Jim, being caught up in her own conversation with Eric.

I explained that Jim was going to come try to unclog the toilet for us, adding just how embarrassing I found the whole situation. I didn’t like having to rely on anyone else to fix our toilet, and for reasons of my own, I found it particularly galling to have to confide in Jim for that help. Erin offered to claim that the whole thing was her fault, if it would make me feel any better. I answered her only with a laugh, thinking she probably wasn’t serious, and also feeling unable to lie so blatantly to Jim.

Eventually, Jim arrived, with two plungers in tow. By this time, we had sopped up all the water from the bathroom, wrung out all the cloths into the bathtub, started a load of laundry, and thoroughly rubbed down the tub and the bathroom floor with a Clorox disinfectant cloth. When Jim arrived, then, Erin and I were both in the living room, and Margo had gone to bed already. He started to make for the guest bathroom, but we quickly disabused him and led him into our bedroom to the smaller (“Master”) bathroom. I stood just outside the door (I would defy anyone to get two people and two plungers into that bathroom, ever, with enough room left over for a sneeze) and watched while he went to work. As Erin wandered back into the living room, I tried to think of something to say to Jim, and came out with the first thing that came to mind: “So ... have you plunged many toilets in your life?”

I could hear Erin in the other room, guffawing at my masterful conversational skills. Jim stopped what he was doing, turned to look at me squarely, and replied, “No, not many. How about you?”

Feeling about as idiotic as I ever have in my entire life, I made some mild answer to this and kept up as a good a flow of mundane conversation as possible while Jim continued to plunge away. However, as both of the plungers he’d brought were too small for our toilet, he didn’t make much headway after getting the water to drain out of the bowl. Eventually, he had to give it up, recommending that we put in a work order the next morning. I again thanked him profusely, offered a grocery bag for his now wet plungers, and saw him to the door.

As soon as he had left, I found Erin, who was still sitting on the couch talking to Eric, and explained to her the epiphany I had about half-way through Jim’s attempt at clearing our toilet.

“So, the toilet is not in Margo’s bathroom — clearly, you’ve been on the phone for hours ... Jim is a smart guy, whose fault is he going to think it is?”

After a few more hearty rounds of laughter, assurances from Eric that this is a situation where it is perfectly acceptable to call your home teacher, and some anecdotes about toilets in general, I managed to get myself in bed, though it was a full three hours later than I had planned. In the morning, I called the office to put in a work order, and they were able to come by before the end of the day to fix things. Ah, the joys of a flushing toilet.

a whole month

It doesn't seem like it has been that long, but really it has. One whole month since the last time I posted on my blog here. A lot of little, uninteresting things have happened during that month, but nothing worth talking about on here. Oh, except that I'm now 27. According to my friend Katie, that means I'm now old.

I'm not at all happy about school this semester. I just don't feel like being here. Last year when this happened, I had a better social life to make up for my lack of scholastic enthusiasm. I hope something as good comes along today.

Tonight I've been feeling really annoyed. I'm tired as it is, and then when I went to Curves (which took great effort, as I really didn't want to go), the bus was a half hour late, and for reasons I don't want to take the time to explain right now, that meant that I couldn't actually go to Curves. So I wasted an entire hour of my life. Very frustrating. It made me want to eat something sweet to compensate for my anger (I'm very much an emotional eater), but I'm on a diet right now, so I had to try some low-carb brownies. I haven't actually tasted them yet, so we'll see how that goes.

Well, I have absolutely nothing else to say about anything (or at least not something that anyone cares to hear about), so I'll go ahead and go.

The last quote was from The Rocketeer.

I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours. (3 points, I expect most of you to know it)

And to make up for that easy quote, here's another.

I'm afraid after we're married a while, a beautiful young girl will come along and you'll forget all about me.

Don't be silly! I'll write you twice a week. (73 points, with half points for Margo, since she watched the movie with me recently, though I don't think she'll get this right away)

squeaky clean music

I'm really frustrated, because I spent a good, long time updating my blog earlier, but before I could get it published, Firefox malfunctioned and had to close down.

This morning I finished the two-day task of cleaning out my music files. I had collected about 15 gigs of music, and since I only have about 25G on my hard drive, I figured it was time to get rid of some of it. It's now down to about 11G. The task is not complete yet, since I still plan burn some music onto CDs (stuff like Christmas music that I don't listen to a lot but still want), but it sure feels good to have that much of it done.

I've been feeling really awful the last few days, with a terrbile cold. At least I think it's a cold, but it's quite different from my usual cold. Yesterday I even had my home teachers come over to give me a blessing. I felt silly getting a blessing for a cold, but it has seemed to help -- I feel a lot better today.

Right now I'm watching Going My Way with Bing Crosby on TCM. Bing is the star of the month, but I've seen very little on TCM with him in it. Tonight, though, they're showing three of his classic films, including Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary's. It's making me pine for some >Road movies.

The last quote was from The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Acting is acting like you're not acting! (28 points)

graduating in England

Dad and I had a good time in England. Once we actually got there. We both were delayed getting to Chicago, where we were supposed to meet up for the same flight to Manchester. We had to stay over in Chicago for a night to take thse same flight one day later, but that turned out to be fine. We got really well acquainted with the international terminal of the O'Hare airport, that's all.

We got to Lancaster on Saturday. Riding the train from Manchester, I kept feeling like I was coming home again. Everything was just so familiar and comfortable.

On Sunday we went to church at the Lancaster ward, where I got to give the opening prayer in sacrament meeting and lead the closing hymn in Relief Society. I also got lots of hugs and got to introduce Dad to many of the ward. Vic and Sue Kureczko had invited Denise and Diana to dinner for that afternoon, and they asked us to come along as well. That made me very happy, because I really love spending time with Vic and Sue, and I also wanted Dad to get to know them a little, since they were such an important part of my life in Lancaster.

Monday was my graduation day. We spent about an hour in the morning doing a little shopping downtown, where I managed to find really good presents for Margo, Erin, and Kimberly. I was so excited about them! I could hardly wait for them to open their presents. :) But I still had about 48 hours before that, so ... Instead I showered and got pretty for graduation, and then Dad and I headed up to campus around noon. I got my robes and got dressed, and we went back to the Linguistics Department for our reception. (It was here that I fatally heard the song "Happy Christmas" by John Lennon. More about that later.) We got to speak to Jonathan and Elena, as well as Marj and a lot of the students who were there with me on the same course. I got pictures with them as well, some of which I've posted below.



me with Jonathan Culpeper (who supervised my dissertation)


me in Alexandra Park at Lancaster University

The graduation ceremony started at 3:00, so I had to be in my place by 2:00. Unfortunately, they didn't have the information that I would be attending, so I had to get them to squeeze me in to the line somewhere. I ended up with all the LLM graduands (as they're called in England), so I didn't have anyone near me that I knew. The girl next to me was really nice, though, so that made things better. (Oh, LLM is a Master's law degree, by the way.)

The ceremony itself was quite ... ceremonious. We had a knight and a princess present. Princess Alexandra, is a cousin to Queen Elizabeth, and she's nearly the same age as the Queen. She helped Lancaster University get its charter back in 1964 and served as Chancellor to the university from 1964 to 2004. At the end of the calendar year 2004 she retired from this (largely ceremonial) position, and Sir Christian Bonington took her place. Sir Christian is, I just learned, a famous mountaineer, and as Chancellor, he is the one all the graduands get to shake hands with when crossing the stage. I couldn't even tell, personally, which one was Princess Alexandra until after we had all walked, and she stood to receive an honorary doctorate in Music. There was a lot of standing up and sitting down, and there were trumpet fanfares when the academic procession entered and left the hall ... very ceremonious, as I said. Oh, and we also sang the first verse of the British national anthem right before the academic procession left the Great Hall. (I did sing along, in case anyone was wondering.)

That night, I went to sleep around 9:30, being very tired. I only slept a few hours, though, and woke up again just after midnight. I laid there for a while, found that I had John Lennon's "Happy Christmas" in my head, and eventually got up to sit in the bathroom and read a Georgette Heyer book I had bought on Saturday. After an hour or so of this, I got back in bed, closed my eyes and tried to think of nothing. Instead, I found I still had "Happy Christmas" running constantly through my mind. Try as I might to get it out, it just stuck like glue. After a few more hours, I got up and went back into the bathroom to read again. Eventually Dad got up -- apparently he was worried about me, sitting in the bathroom so long, and that woke him. He let me turn the light on again, so I got back in bed and read for a few more hours. Around 5:45, I finally fell asleep again. Unfortunately, we were planning to get up at 6:00 that morning to catch the train to the airport. Dad woke me around 6:40, and I happily still managed to get everything together all right.

We caught our train just fine, but it kept getting delayed on our way to Manchester. It seemed to barely crawl along most of the time, and I was getting pretty annoyed with them. Finally, they decided to terminate the service at Manchester Piccadilly, so we had to get out there and wait for the next train. That meant that we got to the airport around 9:15 instead of 8:45, and my plane was scheduled to leave at 10:00. Even after arriving there, we still had to go find the terminal, which took another 15 minutes. When I finally got to the American Airlines counter, the man asked me where I was going, and I said Boston. He looked at me and said, "You're joking?" Nope, I sure wasn't! He took me over to another lady, explained that I was going to Boston. She looked at him, looked at me, and asked, "You're joking?" When I managed to convince that I was not trying to play a very terrible prank on them, they got me a boarding pass and asked one of the security guys to take me down to the gate express. (Naturally, my bag was subjected to a random search on the way there.) We got to the gate before they had finished boarding, so it wasn't too awful. My flight was rather uneventful (except that the girl next to me got up to use the bathroom twice), and things were quite nice when I got to Boston. I hadn't checked any baggage, so I got through passport control and customs very quickly and had plenty of time left to get to my gate, have some lunch, and even finish grading my students' papers.

My roommates picked me up in Dallas, and we stopped off and had some dinner on the way home. It turns out that Erin and our friends Matt and Kimberly were going to see King Kong at the midnight show, and they had one ticket left. After a long struggle with myself, I decided to go with them. We enjoyed it immensely. It was very intense, and I found myself squirming in my seat a lot. I really love Jack Black, though, and he was wonderful in this role. The special effects were fantastic, too. All in all, we had a good time.

The last quote was from Dickens's "A Christmas Carol."

"I have a plan."
"Oh, you have a plan. You, who are practically incapable of any thought entering your head that is not - trivial."
(13 points)

nothing particular

Well, here I am. I really wanted to post today mostly so that I could inform my acquaintance that I have a new desktop/wallpaper picture. It has a picture of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby from one of the "Road to" films (I'm not sure which one). I found it on this great website called reeljewels.com. Great stuff.

Bing Crosby is this month's star on TCM, and we enjoyed that thoroughly last night. We watched the end of a film called Going Hollywood, then Pennies from Heaven was on. "Pennies from Heaven" is one of my favorite songs, and it was fun to see and hear it in its world premiere context. After that, they had two of the "Road to" shows (Singapore and Zanzibar, the first two), and then they played three Bob Hope movies to fill up the wee hours of the night. I really wanted to watch Bob, but I knew I was too tired to stay up for long, so I decided to sleep in the living room with the TV on all night. That way, I reasoned, if I woke up during the night, I would have some Bob Hope to watch. I didn't wake up at all, and I woke this morning with a terrible headache. (Now that I think about it, we probably could have recorded the movies, but I didn't think of that at the time. It was late.)

I'm getting excited to go to England in two days. :) I need to spend the rest of the day here trying to finish up some of my work so that I'll be ready to leave then. I have lots of writing to do for the Teaching Composition class I had at the beginning of the semester -- we have to turn in a Writer's Notebook, but it is due at the end of the semester instead of in the middle, when the class actually ended. So now I have to finish up all that work. I also have to work on a set of phonology problems, and continue reading about syntax for my online Linguistics class (which I really wish I hadn't taken).

Somehow, this all reminded me that I wanted to tell Elizabeth in particular about our cool friend Andrew. Andrew is in our singles ward down here, and he's a Thurber. His last name is Thurber. Right after I first met him, I asked if he might be related to James Thurber, and to my surprise he said he was. Just the other day I was talking to his dad about it too, and he says they're related to James on two different lines. In fact, Myron (Andrew's dad) has all kinds of genealogy and family history information about the Thurbers, which has never been published. Having read some Thurber and seen a few pictures, I can see the resemblance in both Myron and Andrew -- both their looks and their humor remind me of James.

Well, I suppose I'd better get along now. The last quote was from The Spanish Prisoner, a movie I really enjoy. It's by David Mamet, who also did The Winslow Boy (thanks, Emily!). The full quote is actually, "It just shows to go ya, you never know who anybody is."

This next quote is from one of my all-time favorite works. I just ran across it again the other day, and I have a new appreciation for it now, having been to St. Paul's Churchyard, which is undoubtedly one of the most "breezy" spots on the face of the planet.

If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind. (32 points)

home again

I had a super time in Kansas and Oklahoma City this week. I feel very much like part of Margo's family now -- they were all wonderful! I'm really happy for Warren and Rachael, too, and I'm sure they'll be very happy together. Rachael has such a fun sense of humor, and she and Warren are really fun together.

On Thursday we went over to Margo's Aunt Shelly's house, and there I realized that I had lived with Margo's cousin Kristie for a semseter at BYU. It was the one semester before I left for my mission. It was an odd coincidence, but I spent Thanksgiving in part with one of my roommates from six years ago. It was fun to see Kristie again, and it made me remember all kinds of fun things that happened that semester.

Friday we drove down to Oklahoma City, and the next morning Warren and Rachael got married. (Warren is Margo's older brother.) Margo's grandfather is currently serving as first counselor in the presidency at the Oklahoma City temple, and they have a condo right across the street from the temple. We had a little luncheon there for the family and a few friends who had come for the sealing. President and Sister Hill (Margo's grandparents) had invited the other members of the temple presidency to come over in the afternoon whenever they had time, to have some lunch. When the president and his wife came over, there were very few of us left. Sister Hill convinced Margo to play the piano for us, and at one point when everyone else was out of the room, a slightly uncomfortable silence fell, and I decided I'd best make some conversation. So I asked President Gillespie how things were over there. I really meant just over there by the window, where he and Sister Gillespie were eating. But he assumed I meant over there at the temple, so he started in to a long discussion of how this was one of the best assignments they'd had. He said they really enjoyed it because they could work together in this calling, where in all of their other callings, they hadn't really been able to. In the middle of this conversation, I began to realize that President Gillespie is also Elder Gillespie -- Elder H. Aldridge Gillespie of the Quorum of Seventy. I thought it was kind of funny, because it made me think how differently I would have behaved if I had realized that right away, but at the same time there was nothing at all wrong with the way I did behave. I was just much more relaxed and informal with them than I would otherwise have been. And President Gillespie seemed to really enjoy Margo's playing. A lot.

That night we slept at Margo's grandparents' condo. They put out an air mattress for us, and we put on a movie and lay in bed watching it. It was a great movie, Maytime, with Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald. I really liked it a lot! I wish that I could find it sometime so that all my friends can watch it. Until then, I guess I'll have to be content with the knowledge that Margo has seen it and can share all the little jokes with me.

The last quote was, indeed, Bob Hope. Congrats to Elizabeth, who gets 53 points (10 off for not knowing the exact source).

It just shows to go ya. (28 points -- another of those things that I always wish others were familiar with so I could share the joke, so if you know it, be sure and tell me and we'll be much closer friends!)

recent activities and Thanksgiving plans

All right, I know it's been close to forever since I posted, so I decided it's about time.

This morning I took Erin to the airport. She let me drive Sweetie (her new Scion) down to DFW and back. What an adventure! I've always enjoyed driving, and it's been a long time since I have, so that was nice. Plus, there were a couple of incidents that could have been much more serious than they were, so I was grateful to get home in one piece. I said a little prayer of thanksgiving. :)

Right now I'm watching Matlock on TV. Mysteries always make me happy, so that means I'm feeling pretty happy. Besides that, I'm having a great time procrastinating some of my more pressing schoolwork. I have at least three minor to major projects that I need to work on during Thanksgiving break, and I keep telling myself that I ought to be working on them now, but I just don't have the oomph to do it. I have to get them all done by Dec. 6, though, so that I don't have to worry about them once I'm ready to leave for England on Dec. 8.

For Thanksgiving, I'm going up to Kansas with Margo. I'm looking forward to meeting her family, and I also get to see two (count 'em, two!) new states. I've never been to Kansas before, and on Friday we're going to Oklahoma as well, where Margo's brother is getting married. Should make for a fun rest of the week. I'm a little sad that we'll have to miss our ward on Sunday, but beggars can't be choosers and all that. Plus, I'm actually looking forward to spending a Sunday in a family ward and seeing some new faces and all.

Speaking of church, I had a tithing settlement interview on Sunday, and the bishop did something I've always hated and dreaded. After talking about my tithing and making sure my records are correct, he asked me (and I quote): "Have you met any young men?" I really wasn't sure what to say to that. Sure, I've met plenty of guys here, but did he really expect me to tell him who I'm crushing on? What would he have if I had given him somebody's name? What makes it worse, I specifically asked Margo, and she says he didn't ask her about it. Does this mean that he's specifically concerned about me? that he knows of someone who's interested? I'm probably making a bigger deal about this than I need to, but I just can't help wondering.

Well, I suppose I'll get going now. I don't have anything else mildly interesting to say, and you're probably all bored to tears already anyway.

The last quote was from Clue, a movie that I just love! Tim Curry has always cracked me up, and he's especially wonderful in that one.

I'll have to kiss this girl because she's got just the kind of lips I love: one on top and one on bottom. (63 points, since this is a rather obscure one)