Why, hello. Let me tell you what is up.

It's my birthday tomorrow and I have no plan besides having told my friends to meet me in Manhattan. I told twenty people altogether. I originally intended to have a picnic but now it's going to rain and I will feel terrible for making them all spend money to get there without having a place to go or a course of action. I would cancel what I said to them if I could, but I'm not going to have a chance to see anyone again until August.

Put that together with the fact that I'm already scared witless about turning twenty one and that I'll be getting on a really early train tomorrow to get tickets to Shakespeare in the Park (which will also probably get rained out), and you can perhaps understand why I could be in better spirits.

So I'm pretty much boned. I'm going to try to accept it with grace.

In other news, do you like this piece I posted? It's the first thing I've properly attempted to color in years. They're two characters from the Kushiel's Legacy books (Mavros is in black and Imriel is in blue). I love that series because everyone is described as so unutterably beautiful that no matter how hard you try to capture them you can always excuse yourself for not quite getting it right. To top it off, they're described as a pretty folk, so drawing males as bishonen would be pretty much welcome.

RIP netherworld.nu. You had a good run. Not really, but let's just pretend you did. I registered a new site, which will probably be completed sometime soon. It's aestival.net. If anybody who reads this wants hosting on there, leave a comment about it and I would be happy to discuss it with you. So far there is nothing up except for an online playlist that you can listen to by clicking here. I have bizarre tastes but maybe you will find something worthy of listening to. There is some kind of theme to that playlist, be it the cosmos, making babies, or robots, but I'm not necessarily one for laying it all out there to be understood. All I have to say is that the song selection is both thematic and incredibly indicative of albums that have come out in the last year that I have adored and listen to pretty regularly.

If you want something else to do, visit Fifty Two Stories. Free short stories are like free cupcakes, only without calories you don't need and just as sweet. For some reason I really liked this one, although I can't quite figure out why. Tiger, Tiger is also pretty good.

I changed my livejournal layout and added a new mood theme. It's going to be hilarious looking at old posts and seeing my mood described as "JARETH LOLZ" next to a picture of Audrey Tautou.

Oh, and, I suppose you have figured this out, but I returned from England and France. About a month ago, actually. I have come back from trips before and announced it on livejournal only to never post pictures or stories, but this time I am making a blog on aestival for my photos and intend on describing certain bizarre incidents in alarming detail, whether on there or in another post to come on here.

For this afternoon, I'm going to drive to Stony Brook with Sarah and see if I can do anything for the paper. MCAT studying goes okay. I'm trying to block out flagrant wank and focus on learning, but boy is it hard.

Yeaaaaaah~~~. I don't care that this could be my worst academic semester ever, I have had it up to my ears with stress. I feel like everything I've held dear in my academic and social life this semester has been thrown for a loop, beaten, broken, and bruised, and I am not going to take it any more. So I said no goodbyes and just took off last night for Dix Hills. Tonight I'm flying away and leaving the country. Sounds sort of rash, but sometimes you just need a clean break.

First stop: England with Gregory. We're gonna go visit Kavita in Oxford, go to London with her, then visit Laura and Sam in Sussex. After that, I go to France alone, starting with Lyon, then Grenoble, then Paris, visiting family all the way.

No Blackberry, no laptop, no obligations. I'm not sure if I deserve such a boon, but I am taking it and running.

I have a dreamwidth invite code. Two, in fact. Comment if you want one.

I have been trying, in agony, to write in this livejournal, but I have had the poorest luck imaginable. I have had this post open for the last five days. FIVE. Maybe what I meant to write will never be written. All I know is I have two finals on Tuesday, a flight to England on Wednesday, and severe drama regarding the MCAT to worry about right now (see below). Discussing Beerfest will probably not be very conducive to success should I attempt it. But I will say this, I drove home last Sunday with a smile, compared last year's emotional self-flagellation. Smiles are important, oh yes they are.

May I just mention that the leak of the new Tori Amos album has reached my ears (thank you annaybunny). It's the first album I've been able to sit & listen to all the way through since Scarlet's Walk. I'm not sure why this is so. It may be partially because I have this deep affection for Scarlet's Walk and had looked to her other albums, without much success, to give me that same feeling of beauty and yearning. But this is good. It makes me want to take a long walk alone and get lost. It will make for good travel music when I am in Europe, I think.

MCAT WANK ALERT: I have to take this test by July 2nd. I only found out the latest I should take it is July 2nd this morning, because up until this point I just thought I had to take it by the ballpark month of July. All the dates are closed in the 100 mile radius for July 2nd. So I signed up for July 31st (the nearest date that didn't involve me driving to South Jersey, Connecticut, etc.) and intend to look out for drops opening up spots closer to me. But seriously, Stony Brook Med School, do you think it would have been wise to send me mail, be it electronic or postal, that delineates the protocol that's appropriate? To tell me officially instead of by word of mouth? To have some kind of relationship with me, even the most formal and methodical/contractual way? How was I supposed to know? Come to think of it I STILL have no idea what's involved in preparing for the med school application process other than sending things to you through AAMC.org. You would think that one of the colleges with the highest rate of pre-med undergraduates in the state/area would have some sort of mandatory pre-med advising, especially for people who are in their 8 year program! But in the last three years, if I wasn't vigilant about the classes I'm required to take, everything would have imploded.

I just want to read about biology & psychology and think about my vacation this week, please.

Tonight I double checked the Neuroscience track requirements for my Bio major (see last flocked post) and realized that I don't need 4 classes to finish my Bio major, I only need 3! So silly of me to think about doing the minor (as a comparison, my Psychology major only needs 2 more classes). I'll be twiddling my thumbs by this time next year, so I may as well finish it. It's not like I don't know what my career holds for me after undergrad (for new-ish friends, I'm in an 8 year med program).

So my tentative schedule for Fall '09 is:
BIO 335 - Animal Physiology Lab
BIO 314 - Cancer Bio
ARS 154 - Drawing (Intro? Something?? I'm taking it for lulz)
HON 401 - Global Issues in the 20th Century or something important-sounding

The last class has to be an english (EGL) class. I'm trying to pick between taking Myth & Magic in Literature (EGL 375) with cellowraith and a Shakespeare course with ruchirahni. The credits cap off at 17 until a few days before the Fall semester starts, so I'm gonna have to wait if I want to sign up for both. I'm thinking Myth & Magic though, because it's going to give me more incentive to show up for class on Thursdays, and I'm already familiar with Shakespeare so I may as well try something new. I already finagled it so that I'll have no class on Fridays (which, after 3 years of having just one annoying, agonizing, pre-med class to wake up for on Fridays, is something I believe I deserve, thankyouverymuch).

The reason I didn't realise I only have 3 classes left for the bio major rather than 4? I'd forgotten I'd taken BIO 358 last spring. What makes it worse: I am currently a TA for that class. BRILLIANT WORK, TIA.

PEEEEEPS

I have 4 chapters of Physics, 4 chapters of Psychology, an abstract to perfect and lecture slides to memorize. And yet here I am.

I want to announce to the world that Greg and I FINALLY bought our tickets to England (and I bought my return ticket from France; at some point I have to get all up on easyjet.com and get my in-between flight from Gatwick to Lyon). I would just like to say that Orbitz and CheapTickets.com were cheaper than both StudentUniverse.com and StaTravel.com (although the latter most was almost comparable, I will be fair). But if I hadn't checked I would have paid $140 more. The true Quest for Money begins now that I need spending cash. If you know anyone who would like art commissions done, or in fact have so much expendable income that they wish to give it to a wandering college student in Europe, please send them my way. As for MCATs, I'll take 'em in June or July. Studying in advance is only helping me.

In other absolutely random news, check out Paper Links. I meant to plug it before this point but I'm sure they won't miss the .2453 number of hits this link will get them.

Does anyone on my flist have a DSLR? I have been itching to buy a Canon Digital Rebel since this past summer. My flatmate has an XTi and she gets some damned gorgeous shots out of the thing. Canon is rumored to be releasing the 500D and will have a press release of some sort in a couple of days; this is exciting because by the time I have enough money to buy a DSLR the new 500D will presumably drop down the prices of the XTi and the XSi. Or I'll just throw caution to the wind and buy a 500D (it is going to have video capabilities! I wouldn't need my point and shoot any more!). But if anyone out there in livejournal land has anything good/bad to say about Canon, or in fact wants to tell me all about how I'm wrong and should be purchasing a Nikon instead, speak now!

And in another plug for the sake of plugging, I've been incredibly consistent in updating my sketch blog!

If you like using your eyes, or beauty, or goodness, or believing that the world is capable of wonderful things, I suggest you see Coraline. If anyone on my flist wants to see it again with me name your place and time.

I used to be the sort of person to wonder about how one goes about losing weight from stomach viruses. That was 5 pounds, 2 nights of agony, and several nonsolid meals ago and I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy.

That said, it's time for a meme! Courtesy of schnuggleme.
( meme it up meme it up MEME IT UP )

I have to take quizzes every other day for my physics class, and I logged in to Blackboard to see if tomorrow's assignment was up, and found this:

I know it was my crazy German professor who wrote that. I KNOW IT.

In the endearing grammar of my Bio 201 professor:
HOW COOK PHYSICS??

[my apartment door opens]
Tomasz: Is anyone there? Who's there?
Budassi [walking out]: No, only Tia.
Tomasz: Oh.
[door closes shut]

Lists (I typed "Losts" instead. Twice.) tend to help my sanity, so here goes.

1. I started a sketchblog. As God as my witness I will never go hung--er, I promise to keep it updated. I already unloaded a lot of stuff onto there. This sketchbook I'm using now is amazing - not only is it the first one in a few years (like FIVE YEARS) that I may actually end up finishing, and manages to be the perfect size to fit into my bags, but it's got a spiral binding that, by the Power of Grayskull!, hasn't fallen apart on me yet. The only caveat is that it's a b!tch and a half to lay flat in my scanner. But that's a problem with anything that's not a thin sheet of paper when put into the scanner, so whatever. I'm pretty sure this is it, but in all honesty, I obtained it in my usual sneaky-take-extra-art-supplies-from-dad manner, so I could be wrong.

2. UNASHAMED #1: I spent tonight watching episodes of Sailor Moon and reading my old Sailor Moon manga. It is in Japanese. I literally bought volumes 1-8 as a child to look at the pictures and just surmise what was happening. When I was 9, I had no idea Chibi Moon was her daughter until some woman in a comic book shop in California told me after I saw a poster of Dark Lady (Wicked Lady? whatever she became) and asked about it. I must say, watching it in Japanese made me appreciate Mercury and Jupiter a hell of a lot more. Despite this, Sailor V and Neptune are still the shizzle, yo.

3. UNASHAMED #2: I have discovered the wonderful world of Disney Songs in Other Languages. It started with "I'll Make a Man Out Of You" in Spanish, and it spiraled out of control and to depths I didn't think imaginable. They even have multi-language videos, where the song switches from Spanish to Arabic to Finnish to Portuguese and BEYOND in a matter of a verse. The transitions are flawless. Somewhere along the way, I found a hidden caché of songs in French and downloaded them all to store safely on my iTunes. It's a wonderful thing, to compare lyrics and appreciate them more. This leads me to...

4. UNASHAMED #3: In one of the perhaps three instances I left my house this past month for something other than library visits, doctor or dentist appointments, I went out with friends to a karaoke place in Flushing (aka K-town aka Korea-on-Long Island). There, I slapped that microphone a new one and garnered a score of 100 (!) on the Christina Aguigghelareaea (can you tell I don't know how to spell it? can you?) version of "Reflection". Hear me roar, internets! ROARAGE. For future reference, "Let's Dance" is probably the most unwise choice of Bowie songs imaginable for a karaoke selection. "Under Pressure" was, however, oodles of awesome. Oh, and I will never, ever let Tomasz sing, hum, or utter the lyrics of Nirvana's "Rape Me" again, for fear that he will scare and or alarm normal members of society.

5. Andrew Bird's new album, "Noble Beast" is absolutely stunning. It's my favorite album of his I've heard, and I pretty much eat up anything I hear of his. It really feels like a complete album rather than an amalgam of songs (which his early work tended to give me the impression of doing); compared to the album before this it flows better from start to finish - almost as if what he was attempting to do in Armchair Apocrypha, in terms of finding the perfect balance between lyricism and melody, he did in this album to a more sophisticated degree. It's almost breathtaking in its beauty because it's music that only he can write, only he can deliver. It's just damn near impossible to cover a song of his, or write with his degree of whimsy and cleverness, much less recite it with his cadence.

Uh, it's 3 am. I think that's it.

Andrew Wyeth died in his sleep last night.

I spent the better part of three years in art class doing nothing but staring at this painting of his:
( cut cause it's big and too wide for flists everywhere )

Shame.

"Then the Lady Amalthea smiled at him for the first time since she had come to stay in King Haggard's castle. It was a small smile, like a new moon, a slender blend of brightness on the edge of the unseen, but Prince Lír leaned toward it to be warm. He would have cupped his hands around her smile and breathed it brighter, if he had dared."

-The Last Unicorn; Peter S. Beagle

Today is December 29, the first official day in my 2009 Moleskine weekly planner! Die, 2008, die! I have been waiting for this moment since August when I bought it! Exclamation points and dorkish celebration!


*Why yes, I know I could have theoretically been putting events in to my planner from since whenever. But you are making the foolish assumption that I have such things as long term plans.

I have a mammalian physiology final in less than twelve hours and at this point I'm not sure what more I could squeeze into one side of my brain without it falling out the other side and hitting the ground with a soft plop.

Barnes and Noble called today and they told me that they don't need me any more. So I'm unemployed, along with 6.1% of the rest of this state. Not sure if I should be happy or sad. Mostly I am excited because I can revert to my classic stance of reading books rather than selling them. The only downside I can think of is that now I have no source of income for the next month, and I was planning on being really nice to myself and rewarding myself for utterly slaving away this entire semester by buying a new camera. Thankfully, during employee appreciation at the beginning of the month, I acted fast got a righteous 40% off my MCAT review books. APPRECIATE THAT, BARNES AND NOBLE.

Being let go is probably the best thing that's happened to me in the entirety of 2008; I suppose it's my gift from Barnes and Noble: lots of time. It's probably the greatest, cheapest gift of all, and the one I need the most.

I lost this book. This devastates me. My books are the only thing in this world that I keep track of with precision and dedication and now I have lost one. It was a gift from Alex and after we hit a rough patch and are now friendly again it's even more frustrating and awful to have misplaced it.

I went through my color-coded book shelf, the unspeakable pile of papers and notes that lurks beneath my bed, my closet with the five foot tall pile of high school prep books and awful trinkets and VHS tapes, and I even had enough courage to go into the WC. The Wine Cellar. It's not filled with wine, but hundreds of the probably thousands of books we have breeding in the basement. If you find a book in there, you should probably hold on to it, because it will just sink into the sea with its bound bretheren once you put it back where you thought you found it. Anyway, yes, I went there, but it was too scary and big and I didn't even have my glasses on so I quickly scuttled back upstairs.

Now I'm sitting here and I have to learn about 100 slides of renal physiology.

THE KIDNEYS ARE SERIOUS BUSINESS.

My name, which I found on a keychain in Australia, is Tia. Although I am relatively awesome, I never update this journal and I wish I would. I like cheese, and eating foodz. I drink tea for the sake of drinking tea. I make everyone around me smile without even trying. I would make them smile more if they could see me on their friends page. I drink eco-friendly water bottles and I always recycle. I hang my necklaces onto my desk and it looks really pretty. Some of my jewelery is really fragile and I own a fluffy thing in the shape of a hamburger. I celebrate Christmas and enjoy giving meaningful gifts to people, but that's only one of the ways I make people smile without even trying. I'm going to the Cheesecake Factory on Friday which is an opportunity to eat cheese. I am retro. I have a big fluffy comforter in my room, and it's snuggly, just like me. I like to eat healthy. But I also like to eat unhealthy. I like to watch movies and I am multi-talented. I can pretty much do everything you throw at me. Yes, I know that Tia means aunt in Spanish. No, that doesn't amuse me. It isn't the first time I've heard it, either. I think I might enjoy sock puppets if I had them, but I don't, so I shall never know, unless someone makes me sock puppets. I also like dancing weird 80s dances.

The past 72+ hours have been filled with so much sugar, caffeine, reading, cortisol, adrenaline, insanity, heartbeats, screaming, disappointment and confusion, pride, voting, hugging, fondling, blood, winning, passing, failing, pissing, writing, planning, craving, crafting and calculating.

But right now it's mostly draining. And I fear when I retire to bed, I will sleep like the dead sleep; silent still, lost to delta waves and rapid eye movements forevermore.


I was caught in the rain today. Usually when that happens, I decide that I will write a livejournal entry about it. In what other way can one fuel the most famous internet angst machine? No angst in this entry, though.

Walking back tonight with soaked, deliberate steps during the rain (sans umbrella, of course) felt very different than gliding along the exact same path with Cory last night when we were screaming "Obama!" at anything that moved. Last night was grace and hope and dreams, today was reality that had to be faced and fixed and realized.

I walked in to the E commons merely intending to give Emma back her wallet and dry off. With blurred vision, as soon as I stepped in and took my glasses off a boy asked me if I wanted to donate blood.

Yes, yes I want to donate blood. I answered immediately, purposefully. As if I had known they were there. As if they knew that after hours and days of madness sucking away at my sanity I wanted nothing more than to just sit down and literally give a little bit of myself away. My dears, understand that after getting rejected from volunteering to donate blood last Spring, I slaved away for months, eating meat (and broccoli) for the sole purpose of upping my hemoglobin count. I was ready for this business. I answered the survey questions so hastily the nurse had to correct me three times ("You checked male for this box -- I'm going to need you to check this box that says you're a female,"). The nurse asked, like others before her, whether my blood pressure was really that low. Yes, it really is that low. She literally asked me to feign anger so it could rise to a passable, human number, and I apologized for being a succubus. They stuck a needle in me and I watched with curious eyes as skin was punctured and liquid drifted forth. I filled up the bag in around 7 minutes. I am a bloody maverick.

I forgot that blood is warm. I felt really foolish for that.

Best. Guy. Fawkes. Day. Ever.
( saving this screencap for posterity, also since I probably won't get my hands on a first edition new york times )