While I was waiting for this page to load, a commercial came on the TV with a priest asking for car donations. His name was Father Joe. He was jolly. It was funny.
This morning I got a decent amount of sleep before going for an abbreviated run (massive side cramp, brought on by my not exercising in earnest since Thanksgiving) and then I worked on the sitcom HarvardGirl and I are writing together via e-mail before driving down to the beach-side and using up the last of my Borders gift card on The Longest Journey.
Also, I broke down and checked my grades. And was pleasantly surprised. Celebration time!

Trip to the beach-side this morning, followed by a West Wing Bravo marathon. Could life get any better than this?

The first minute is pretty interesting, but the rest is downright hilarious:

OH! And I almost forgot the highlight of the trip so far.
Pre-stye, Uncle Bubbles took mom and I stalking (as was loudly proclaimed by Cousin D to the mother of a friend of his) and we successfully spotted Uncle Bubbles' quarry of choice EnviroActor, who was wearing hiking shorts and dropping his daughter off at school in all his knobby-kneed glory.
We also drove past a café where striking writers were grabbing a coffee and a chat. They were less personally recognizable, of course, but they were wearing glasses, or course, and scarves. Which, I flatter myself, I was wearing also, at the time.

For the first time in my flying alone career, I flew out of The Garden State on time, perhaps because a certain Midwestern airport hellhole was not involved. It was 20 degrees and I was wearing layers, so as to not keel over upon my arrival in California and stripped down once I got to the terminal, shoving excess coats into the outer pockets of my suitcase.
Of course, before any of this even took place I had to complete my English final. I had three hours to complete it and I had three hours between receiving it and the train I had to take to the airport. I made it, of course, but my last half hour was hectic and I very much expected arriving in California underwear-less, or without and toiletries, or missing my swimsuit. Au contraire, mon frère. I was so organized during finals that it carried over to my packing and my flight and my helping to calm Mom (who had been on standby four times while I was blissfully winging my way over the entire country; who knew it would take the same amount of time as a trip to England would ordinarily?) upon my arrival.
We had quite an experience with our car rental as well, but of the anecdotal variety, not the frustrating kind. We were using Rent-A-Wreck, but since we were arriving later than planned, we had to take a shuttle to a valet parking lot where a car was waiting for us to drive to the Rent-A-Wreck office and get our own car.
The initial car, the one we drove through the night following the cryptic directions given to us by the valet parking people, had a window that would not roll down, seats that had crumbled and an engine that made a popcorn noise whenever we went faster than thirty miles an hour.
The car we were given upon arrival was much, much better. I was added to the list of drivers so that I can drive out and visit Subcontinent on Thursday when she has the fewest classes.
So far, after settling in here with Mom in her I-Am-Awesome-And-Was-Given-This-Apartment-For-Two-Months-For-Being-Awesome Apartment which was preceded by visits to the Grand Ps and uncles and aunts and cousins of varying names and locations, we have seen Sweeney Todd (really good) and There Will Be Blood (excellent!) in theaters, and I have officially ended my coming of age by seeing Ferris Bueller's Day Off on TV.
But it's been raining. Which, needless to say, is not exactly what I packed for. So I've been drinking a lot of tea and actively not checking my grades online (waiting to do that until I'm back in The Armpit of the Nation).
Hall of the Revels will doubtless have more updates now that finals are over and I have recovered from a) them b) the same-country jet lag, which I used to mock people for c) the stye in my eye that randomly appeared a few days ago with lots of pain and swelling and is now starting to fade. I sort of looked like Igor for a while, which was my one consolation. In LA, one must look like someone from a movie.

Lest there be any doubt on the subject, here's Hall of the Revels' endorsement of Obama.
More later on Sunny Cal and the sty in my eye.

Great weekend in New York with Dad. We went and visited the U.N., which was sort of a preview of the TV show the two of us plan on writing, which will be set there. On the Aaron Sorkin flop Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (more on him later) a playwright approaches the NBC stand-in with an idea for a drama set at the U.N. (tee hee, especially considering The West Wing) and is urged to give it to HBO instead. Dad and I decided to write it, although if Aaron Sorkin does it in the meantime, I won't be too hurt. :)
The non-UN parts of the weekend were also fun. Cool business-funded hotel? Check. Italian restaurant? Check. Weird conversations with businesspeople? Check. Amy's Bread? Check. The Farnsworth Invention matinée? HELL YES CHECK.
Okay, I agree for the most part with the New York Times' assessment of it. It was bombastic, sentimental, and cinematic. But guess what? Aaron Sorkin's writing is always that way and I love him. And it ended with a monologue, so Dad owes me something for winning that particular bet. :)
Return to Princeton and frazzled exam-taking people last night was a mixed blessing, because I'm leaving again tomorrow for intersession and seeing family and Subcontinent and must therefore spend all of today running around getting my ducks in a row for that, but I did manage to go see Juno with Mr. CA Chatterer. There, I ran into BioLabPartner and that Canadian guy in my French class and some of their friends. It still feels good to run into people I know; it really makes me feel like I'm making progress. What did I think of Juno? Two words. Allison Janey. Yes.
And then I came back and watched two episodes of The West Wing, because there's no such thing as too much of Aaron Sorkin or Allison Janey. Not at all.
Currently: the laundry.
Later: the packing.
Tomorrow: The English exam and the airplane to warmer climes.

I survived! And, I believe, I did my best, as my beloved Junior Year Japanese sister taught me to say.

In twenty four hours I will (in theory) be done with my biology exam.
In the meantime, I'm meeting this evening with my lab partner for a last break-for-the-finish study session in our lovely A Beautiful Mind- featured common room.
In other news:
RussianRoommate, Roommate J, HSClassmate, the Fencing Twins (1 & 2) and I gathered around the chapel area to watch "Dean's Date Theater" yesterday, which involves some people legitimately running to turn in their final papers before the 5 p.m. deadline and some people clutching fake reams of paper doing amusing things like: 1) Bumping into each other, pausing while staring into each other's eyes, and then dropping the papers and furiously making out. 2) Tackling each other, football style. The papers then necessarily blow away in the breeze. 3) Riding a unicycle up to the office to turn in the paper. (Although I think this one was also legit. He just happened to be riding a unicycle as well.)
Today's Schedule:
-Study
-Lunch
-Study
-Study with Lab Partner and perhaps dinner
-Study
-Nervous Breakdown
-Hurried Consultation of Dad's "10 Things to do in College" to make sure "nervous breakdown" wasn't number eleven.
-Study while watching The West Wing. Or possibly YouTube clips of Sesame Street.
-Give up on studying and go to sleep, at which point I will, doubtless, dream about studying. Oh well. It's better than Philadelphia.

In the words of Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot, "I was locked overnight in a pastry shop and there were goodies all around!"

The best part of yesterday's story? LAST NIGHT I HAD A DREAM ABOUT PHILADELPHIA.
Good Lord.
If only he had been a biology professor instead. Some of that may have actually been useful.

Nothing to do with anything. Just pretty.

While signing up voters during our 2-3 time slot, my tablemate and I were approached by a man apparently in his late fifties who started out by talking about the importance of voting, then somehow went on to the Kennedy administration, George Ball, and many other political names that I suppose I should have been taking notes on, but I was so impressed by the fact that he had gone on a ten-minute uninterrupted monologue.
Silly me, for being impressed so early.
Twenty minutes later, the quiet boy collecting voters with me and I had learned about the history of Penn, where he is a professor of something to do with foreign policy and which, he volunteered, has an excellent archeology museum (I decided not to name drop that I knew the UPenn power couple, because I felt that my lead to a thirty minute speech on the etymology of the phrase "power couple"), the history of Johns Hopkins (where he was an undergrad in the "late 60s"), the problems with the date of the Pennsylvania primary, and the fact that he voted for Al Gore in the general but not in the primary.
And then he gave us maps of Philadelphia and circled the train stations and bookstores.
At this point I think we were both wondering whether his next step would be to pitch camp, or to whip out a gun and force us to go to Penn with him and force feed us the history of the hoagie. In fact he did neither and instead looked at his watch and declared that he had to catch his train.
The telling doesn't even do it justice.
But now I have a nice map of Philly.

The Korean/French film festival was great. I converted two friends and two complete strangers to the cult of "A Very Long Engagement is One of My Favorite Films." This is what happened when the movie ended:

(dead silence)
Nom de Plume: (starts clapping tentatively) Yay! Well, that was it. Did you like it?
Collective Viewers: (dazed) Yeah.
Nom de Plume: (gets up; ejects DVD) It's really great.
Collective Viewers: Yeah...
Nom de Plume: ...
Collective Viewers: (snapping out of it) OH MY GOD THAT WAS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!!!!!
(exclaiming ensues)

It's one of those movies that requires a recovery period.

This morning I went to the Church of My Mother's Youth (hint: not its real name) where the homily was actually quite good (quite a step up from my last attempt, when the priest popped in a video) except for the fact that the priest, who had a heavy New Jersey accent pronounced genome (as in, "the wonders of the human genome") guh-gnome. I almost lost it several times, à la Uncle Bubbles and "You duped me, Lord, you duped me."
This afternoon I'm taking an hour shift registering people to vote in the New Jersey primary. Should be fun.
Then I'm studying for bio. Not so fun.

My French paper is turned in, my bicycle tires are pumped, and I am ready for a fun evening with Friend S and Roommate J at Friend S's dorm room where we will watch A Very Long Engagement and some Korean comedy, the name of which escapes me.
I managed to get down to the tow path on my bike this afternoon for the first time since before Thanksgiving. Three hours of studying for bio underground and I needed to do something outdoors, so I tied a plastic bag from Target over my wet (it rained pretty hard yesterday) bike seat and set off.
When I returned an hour later, it was with little red Target targets on the seat of my pants. They are in the washing machine as we speak. We shall see.

I got the soundtrack to Paris, Je T'aime for Christmas and I've been listening to it for approximately 24 hours (don't worry, I did sleep; these are not consecutive hours) now, while writing my French paper, which is now (minus editing) DONE! At the moment the song that was playing during the party scene in the Maggie Gyllenhaal drug snippet is playing. The main refrain goes, "The smoke in my eyes/ An elephant is looking at me." In French, of course. Still, it is quite an odd thing to be listening to when one is writing about Tristan & Iseult.

I'm 2/3 of the way through this French paper and I think I will survive. It's a good feeling, buoyed by the fact that I used part of my iTunes gift card from Christmas to buy quite a few songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas and a couple from the Atonement soundtrack (the ones where a typewriter is used as a musical instrument).
Last night I realized the virtues of mindless entertainment when I tried to read The Lovely Bones to unwind. That didn't really work. Then I tried to watch Six Feet Under. Not so much either.
Tonight I think I'll stick with Bridget Jones' Diary or The Lady Vanishes. Or Tintin.
Although I gotta hand it to Six Feet Under, that scene in the fifth season with the school play, "A Celebration of Biodiversity," seriously cracked me up.

Poor Obama, poor Robbie and Cecilia, poor me, for having to write this French paper.
Atonement was excellent. I cried, of course, but not as hard as I did when I first read it, at approximately the age the younger sister (the novelist/playwright) is when she ruins everything.
Wish me luck on my first push into French courtly love, the mistresses and favorites of the Renaissance, and the relations between men and women in Candide. (We were supposed to pick three elements, one from each period we studied, that were at least loosely related and "spoke to our modernity.")

I'm a day into Reading Period and I think I will survive. Working every waking hour is intense, so luckily diversions are in the offing. Today I'm having lunch with Downstairs Chatterer to discuss our mutually dreaded French paper (in a moment of insanity I took the most interesting of the four options, which is also the hardest and most daunting) and then studying biology all afternoon until dinner, which will be followed by seeing Atonement with HSClassmate in the evening.
Winter Break was great. We spent January 1st-3rd with the Ex-Neighbors in Iowa seeing candidates speak (Obama, Edwards, Richardson, and the now defunct Dodd) and going to their caucus. Obama blew me away. He is an amazing orator with great things to say, and I read an article yesterday about his speech writer, who is a quite young guy, and learned that, essentially, Obama writes the speech, the speechwriter rearranges and polishes it, hands it back, Obama polishes that draft and then gives the speech. Edwards left me cold. I was following him until he essentially said that he refused to even sit down with corporations and talk things through. Not so great. Richardson was fine; Dad liked him for Vice President, but I'm not sure.
I did manage to see three movies in theaters while I was home: Charlie Wilson's War, which was excellent, The Golden Compass, which I liked more than I thought I would--it was actually pretty good, although not as dark as the book--and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which was completely unrelenting and miserable to watch, although well written, well acted and well directed. In the words of Dad, it was essentially a film about evil, and nothing else.
Plans for the Knox college production of The Play are still on target. I e-mailed the director and she said that my check (!) is in the mail, or will be soon, and although the theater department is underfunded and can't fly me out, someone might be taping it. Huzzah!
Yesterday I played a rollicking round of homemade Apples to Apples (we write down tons of nouns, and then make up our own adjectives on the spot) with 3/4 roommates after dinner. I miss home, but on some level it's nice to be back. There's even something soothing about my creaky bed, and the sound the toilets make just as they're about to flush.