All Or Nothing

A Silence Is

A silence is
Made more quiet when
A hold
Is placed to halt
A wall
Is built to deter
A mountain rises
It cuts off the path
It cuts off visibility
And I cannot move it.

Cali Forni Huh?

Goodbye, and good luck to all of you. I'll be sure to let you know how California fares, and on a final, closing note to my Tech tyrade, (I think they topped themselves):

They dropped me, AGAIN, for no reason, AGAIN, from my classes on Wednesday.

AND

They sold me a book, from the Texas Tech Extended Studies Bookstore, that has chapters 5-11 missing. Yes indeed, the page numbers go 81, 82, 83, 236, 237.....Wow. The ridiculousness of that, I feel, cannot be outdone. And with that, I will leave you.

Winner Winner

Jeff T wins. He was the first to correctly guess the riddle. I feel that he might be a genius in our midst, a diamond in the rough, if you will.

Also, for any of you who were wondering what happened with the Red Baron pizza ordeal, Amy and I did, indeed, eat the entire pizza, and nothing bad happened to either of us. At least not yet.

And last but not least, there are about a million Radiohead tickets circulating out there for their show at the Hollywood Bowl tomorrow night. And I'm going to be in California. Tempting, is it not?

Riddle me this:

Riddle me this:

An enemy took my life, deprived me
of my physical strength; then he moistened me,
he dipped me in water; took me out again,
and set me in the sun where I rapidly lost
all of the hairs that I had. Then the knife's hard edge
cut into me, ground away with cinders;
fingers folded me, and the bird's joy
went over me with useful drops, made tracks repeatedly. Over the brown rim it swallowed more tree-dye, a measure of the liquid, again it stepped on me,
leaving its black tracks. Then a man covered me,
with boards, stretched skin over me,
adorned me with gold; therefore I am decorated
with the smith's artistic works, enveloped in filigree.
Now the ornaments and the red dye
and these glorious attributes celebrate widely
the Protector of the people, the punishment of the foolish no less.
If the children of men would use me,
they will be the safer and the more victorious,
their hearts will be bolder, their thoughts gladder,
their minds wiser; they will have more friends,
dear and near, true and virtuous,
good and faithful, who will gladly increase
their honour and happiness, and with kindness they
will envelop them with joy, and clasp them fast
in the embrace of love. Ask what I am called,
that is of use to men; my name is famous,
useful to men, and itself holy.


If you think you know the answer, email me and give me your guess ([email protected]). No guessing in the comments! That will just ruin the fun for everyone - well, for everyone who actually reads to the end of the riddle. And everyone who actually likes riddles :) Anyhow, that's basically everyone. So don't ruin it for them! I will, however, allow and encourage all sorts of friendly banter about who will be able to guess the riddle, and I will announce the winner, the loser, and all interesting guesses in between. So stay tuned....

And there will be a prize.

Product In Question

I feel that as a consumer, every time I go to the store to buy a product, I am entering into an unspoken contractual agreement with the producer of said product. Inherent in this agreement is the understanding that the product I receive will be worthy of the money I spent. Otherwise, the producer has the obligation to either replace the product, or return my money.

Now that the specifics are out of the way, I would like to state that I do not, in any way, feel that Wal Mart kept its end of that agreement today. Perhaps I am being too hard on Wal Mart, and the blame, instead, should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the Red Baron. The product in question is one Red Baron hamburger pizza, purchased in good faith by myself and my roomate, at Wal Mart, this very evening. The problem at hand is that the pizza looks as if someone very large has taken a big bite out of the crust. And, as if the fact that some breed of giant, or someone with Elephantiasis of the jaw, has been gnawing on our pizza is not disturbing in and of itself, there is also a relatively large, blackish-brownish area in the crust where it looks suspiciously as if some sort of large bug accidentally made its way into the pizza dough.

Now you tell me: Did we get our money's worth? Was this unspoken contract upheld on both sides? Should we have thrown the pizza out, eaten it, or sent it to a lab to be tested for sick and gross things? Because I'll tell you - the results of what we actually did are still pending.

TT F-U

Well, let's hear it for TTU! Yea for the Arts and Sciences advising offices! Yea for Student Business Services! On Wednesday, as I RANDOMLY (key word here is RANDOMLY) went in to see my advisor and ask her a simple question, she cheerfully informed me that they had "Changed your graduation date to May! Isn't that great?", to which I replied "#%*$*@&??!!??!?". It took an hour of going over my transcript and every other relevant piece of information from birth until now to convice her that I was, in fact, enrolled in the correct amount of classes in order to graduate THIS DECEMBER. OF 2003. NOT MAY. Nice of them to inform me of this change, anyhow.

Thursday (yes, today), Texas Tech's esteemed Student Business Services sent me a lovely email stating that I had been effectively dropped from all of my classes due to lack of payment. To which, again, I replied with a resounding "#%*$*@&??!!??!?". After a long telephone conversation and a trip to the SBS office, we (collectively) discovered that not only had I paid all my tuition in full well before the semester had even begun, but also that Tech had overcharged me for some library fee and they actually owed me $57.23. So, I got dropped from all my classes because Tech owed me money. What a system they've got going here!

And, as some sort of twisted final consolation, as I was leaving the SBS office to go over to the registrar and get reinstated into my classes, the lady called after me "Hey, don't worry about it, this same thing happened to some of the people in the Architecture major as well!". OH! Well! Why didn't you say so before?? Now that I know architecture majors have to deal with this ridiculous hassle as well, I feel much better about the whole thing. In fact, let's make a habit of dropping random students out of all their classes for no apparent reason. Let's make it a bi-monthly thing. Argh....

sick, sick, sick, sick.....

sick, sick, sick, sick.....

The Villa

First and foremost, I would like to thank all of you very kindly for giving me all sorts of insight and thoughtful answers to my recent question....They are all greatly appreciated. Especially I appreciate people who comment, re-read what they wrote, and then comment again on how awesome they are :) Now there's a direct assault against false modesty! And I'm all for it.


Secondly, I would like to inform you all that today I went to Taco Villa. Now this might sound pretty innocent, or perhaps you think I'm going to rehash the problems of the spelling-challenged clerks, but let me assure you that neither of these presumptions would be true. Instead, this is what happened:

I ordered my food, and no drink, but when I got up to the paying window, I decided that I would really enjoy an iced tea. So, me being the problem-solver that I am, I ordered one. Well, everything was going just fine on my drive from the window to the exit of the parking lot, but after that things got pretty iffy.

My first mistake was trying to turn left onto 19th at 6:00, which obviously wasn't going to work. My next mistake was getting annoyed and making a sudden right out of the parking lot, at which point my much-anticipated iced tea promptly spilled all over my lap, all over my seat, and even mangaged to totally fill up both of my cup holders with ice and tea. Iced tea is one of those aptly named drinks.

Well, as I am scrambling, trying to shift into second gear and turn the cup right side up and not run into anyone or anything and avoid sudden frostbite from ice all over me, I notice that handily enough, there is a cop right behind me. And, I can see that he is getting a little too concerned for his own good about what sort of driver I might be. So, I have to pretend that I'm not freezing, pretend that tea is not dripping into the inner-workings of my gear shifter and parking brake, and pretend like the tea is not STILL spilling all over my leg. And foot.

Mercifully, I get to turn right and get away from the cop before he does anything. Well, not so mercifully for my foot, which the cup of tea had by then fallen on, but mercifully for my driving record. Unless my foot wants to get a job and pay for the tickets I acrue for saving it from the tea, then it can just suffer down there, that's what I say. And that's what I told it, too.

Well, I decided that since I had such a narrow and triumphant escape from the cop, that I had better celebrate by eating one of my tacos. While still driving. Yes, my brilliance even astounds me sometimes. So, the eating-a-taco-while-driving plan worked out very poorly. I got hot sauce all over my t-shirt. Which, of course, was white.

Once I got home, got my car somewhat cleaned out, and got the stains out of my shirt, I sat down to eat my other taco in peace. I even made sure that I got a real plate and everything, so that I wouldn't drip anything on myself. But alas, the Villa outsmarted me again, once and for all, because just as I was counting myself the victor, I opened a little package of hot sauce, and it maliciously sprayed itself all over my just-scrubbed, still-wet shirt. Stupid Taco Villa.

Logic...huh.

Do you ever get the feeling that everything would be so much simpler if you could only just control/ignore all of your feelings and behave totally and completely rationally all the time? What are your takes on the whole feelings vs. logic controversy? I know you can't just always go with your feelings, but then it seems that you can't always just ignore them, either. How much credence can you give to what you feel is right? And I'm not talking black and white scriptural issues, either. I know what to do then :)

Recent times people have mistaken me for a high schooler

Recent times people have mistaken me for a high schooler:

1. Corsicana, TX, at a gas station -

Gas Lady: "Oh, sweetie, did you just graduate with all your friends?

Me: trying to be tactful "Uhh...well....not really....umm."

Gas Lady: "Oh, well don't worry about it, college will be right around the corner before you know it! Don't try and grow up too fast!"

Me: "Yeah, that's what I hear."

2. Movie Theater -

Ticket Lady: "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to see your ID."

Me: "I don't have it with me, I think it's in the car....I'm actually 22"

Ticket Lady: rolling her eyes "Yeah, honey, you and all the kids behind you" (referring to a group of Abercrombie-clad 16 year olds.

3. The daycare I work at, while I was
carrying a 6 month old baby down the hall:

Random Mother: "Awww, what a sweet baby girl.....she's beautiful! Not to be nosy, but you couldn't have been more than 16 when you had her!"

Me: "Uhhh.....well...actually she's not mine. And I'm actually about to grad..ua... ok, see you." (the lady had subsequently lost interest in the conversation and was walking away)

4. Starbucks Coffee -

Weird Coffee Guy: shamelessly flirting and retorting to my comment that the caramel there is the best thing in the whole world "Well, once you're older, you might find one or two things you like better than the caramel"

Me: "How old do I have to get before it won't be the best thing anymore?"

Weird and now Gross Coffee Guy: wink wink "Maybe once you're in college"

Me: Ick.

5. Texas Tech Extended Studies -

Office Lady: "Can I help you?"

Me: "I need to get registered for a correspondence course"

Office Lady: "Oh, the high school classes register at this other office"

Me: "Ugh! I'm NOT in high school! I'm actually about to graduate! IN DECEMBER! I'M NEARLY 23! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??!!??"