More in-depth later, but, having survived the week (mostly due to comic relief in the form of a tuxedo-hunter; more on that later) I am in NYC, spending quality time with Mom who is here for work and eagerly anticipating seeing Aunt L and Cousin R, aka The Street tomorrow for *drumroll* Spring Awakening.
Tonight Mom and I are seeing The Homecoming. Yay!

Watching the Oscars last night was in every way wonderful. I stayed in e-mail contact with Dad, Uncle AwesomeComments and Mom (and through her Uncle Bubbles [or...Uncle Sticky, is it now?...nope, doesn't have the right ring to it] and company) throughout, trading back and forth tantalizing and eloquent snippets like:

"Penelope Cruz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Oh come on. You have man crushes. Ioan Gruffud anyone?"
"Skunked again for documentary. The [de Plume]s voted their political choice in No end in sight."
"Johnny Depp is looking good."
"Whoppee."
"Verdict: we don't like this song."
"GEORGE GEORGE GEORGE"

And, of course, upon seeing Diablo Cody, the all important:
"[Nom de Plume], your mother and Uncle B[ubbles] say don't get a tattoo."

The non-virtual conversation was on par. I'd say a group of about seven got together in our dorm's common room (aka the TV room) to watch. It was nice because it wasn't all people I ordinarily spend time with and we had a great time, although they ridiculed my preference of Babe the Gallant Pig over Braveheart.
Nonetheless, StoppardFan showed up just in time at the end to affirm with me for everyone else in the room that the clip of Daniel Day-Lewis they chose to show for his nomination was SO MUCH BETTER in context. In fact, it was the best scene: chilling and hilarious and sad. But out of context it just became him turning red in the face and yelling the same thing over and over. Short version of this: you need to go out and see There Will Be Blood. Right now.

I will get to work eventually today, I swear, but first you need to enjoy what is, in my opinion, one of the best headlines I've ever encountered:
Eurovision Song Contest feathers may be ruffled by Ireland's decision to be represented in May's cross-continental competition by a puppet bird.

You can be at the receiving end of such adorable and reassuring words too. http://www.barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com/ is perhaps the most awesome time waster I have ever encountered. Just keep clicking.

Just returned from the "We Published F. Scott" Launch Party for the winter issue. It was moderately fun. I went with Athena and StoppardFan from down the hall and met up with Fencing Twin #1 and her friends. Other than us, the party was populated with upperclassmen itching to go out to The Street and awkward underclassmen whose brains were about to explode as the presence of alcohol in the room. Athena, StoppardFan and I gave the bar a miss and instead chatted for a while before going for a walk and then coming back to do homework in the form of reading poetry (StoppardFan), Don Quixote (Athena), and Saint Augustine (me). In lieu of homework I chatted for a while with Roommate J and Russian Roommate, trading stories of strange TV. Mine included "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush" and the show that Ex-Ballerina saw when she was in London sophomore year with the naked men dancing.

This morning I took Roommate J pain au chocolat-ing with me, which was fun, especially since we got the only table in the place and gossiped while eating our two chocolate croissants. Each.
Then we came back and I read her my senior year "True War Story" assignment about my Princeton interview and she cracked up and I decided that maybe I should submit it somewhere, because it's pretty funny.
Although it gains a lot in the reading. What it really is, is "This American Life" material. Alas, Sarah Vowell I am not. Nor do I have time to become her (or David Sedaris) between revising my writing seminar paper and reading Saint Augustine for Freshman "I Am Awesome In Every Which Way" Seminar.

It's been a movie-filled Friday night, just as it should be. On a whim I went to the movie theater to see In Bruges and was not disappointed. Of course, I think I enjoyed it quite a bit more than nearly everyone else in the audience (I was also the youngest by at least twenty years), expecting, as I did, high dark humor à la Lieutenant of Inishmore which Mom, Dad, and I saw on Broadway two summers ago and which was written by the same Irish playwright. This film, in my mind, completely redeems Colin Farrell.
Then I came back to the dorm to finally watch one of my Christmas presents (newly arrived via Barnes & Noble along with my straggling textbooks), Peter's Friends. My reaction to it was as follows:
Stephen Fry! Emma Thompson! Hugh Laurie! Kenneth Branagh! OTHER PEOPLE! PLOT! PLOT TWISTS!
Recommendations abound.

So I realize that I haven't really provided any professor anecdotes along the lines of last semester's summary, which went something like, "Oh my God oh my God he jumps around the lecture hall and he has a Nobel Prize oh my God." So I tried to make it s little more interesting (and scientific, in honor of my not taking a science class this semester, woo hoo) and have provided you with a handy-dandy list.

I have four very excellent professors, all of whom are, to some extent, kooky.
1) The Rome Lecture Guy- likes to run around the podium imitating evil Roman fathers; has small child who enjoys Roman toilet anecdotes.
1a) The Rome Preceptor- has incomprehensible Spanish accent; once heard him say "little porpoise" instead of "[something] populace"; wears Puma(TM) t-shirts; is totally bald, I believe by choice.
2) Nonviolence Writing Seminar Grad Student- has crazy frizzy hair and a hole in her lower lip where her piercing should be; refers to herself as "a bad Jew" because she dislikes pickles; is precise bordering on anal re: our essay format; loves protests; told us that DC is the best place to be arrested.
3) Creative Writing Professor- made classmate blush with tale of taxi driver flirtation; is a "devout atheist"; is very nice critic of our writing and cares about more than grammar and tense; chuckles merrily, like Santa.
4) High-School-Friend in Twenty Years- teaches freshman seminar called "Know Thyself": Literature and the Art of Self-Discovery; wears bow ties, sweater vests, checked shirts, and a navy blue velvet blazer; uses words like "mimesis"; is object of at least six so-called "academic crushes" in a class of seven; bends our brains into shapes we didn't know existed; is now my stock answer to the question, "What's so great about the humanities?"

So much to say, so much to say.
Well, let me start by saying I got very positive reviews for The Play's performance at Knox College two high school classmates went to see it and enjoyed it. One even brought her mother and stole posters and programs for me so that I can have concrete evidence that this wasn't just one enormous Goodbye Lenin-esque illusion.
I guess I do have concrete evidence of another sort though too. Upon googling The Play and Knox College (yes, yes, I google myself, shut up) I found a blog entry by one of the faculty members discussing it at length. This was awesome for multiple reasons. One reason was that he was impressed with the subject matter and that he liked most of the action, but mostly I was excited to find this because it was, for the most part, a positive review coming from someone who didn't know me, had never met me or seen me or anything, and therefore was under no obligation to say good things about it. He had some constructive critiquing of the pacing in the first few scenes, which I myself had noticed in its initial performance at Nebraska two summers ago, but for the most part he really liked it and even mentioned at one point wishing he had thought to write down one of my lines to quote later. (!!!!!!!!!)
Other good theater news: I'll be interning this summer at a pretty significant theater in Florida doing literary management and dramaturgy. Yay!

The Oscars are a week from tonight. Ladies and Gentlemen of the panel, your thoughts; your predictions, please?

Alan Bennett: "The best moments[...]are when you come across something--a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things--which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met[...] And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours."

Saint Augustine: "A member of the audience is not excited to offer help, but invited only to grieve. The greater his pain, the greater his approval of the actor in these representations. If the human calamities, whether in ancient histories or fictitious myths, are so presented that the theatergoer is not caused pain, he walks out of the theater disgusted and highly critical. But if he feels pain, he stays riveted in his seat enjoying himself."

Joan Aiken: "I liked the talking pig best."

I read this in the New York Times and had a visceral reaction.
This glorious piece of non-PBS television is my only response.

I got to see Enchanted last night with Roommate J. It was so, so much better than it had any right to be and I was laughing fairly hard for about two hours straight.

I have survived! I have survived both my audition tour (which went maaaarvelously and if I don't get in then it's not my fault) and the first draft of my writing seminar paper, previously the bane of my existence.
The best part about the tour was the piece of candy the Asian woman gave me at the end. It said "peanut candy" and it had a smiling dragon on it. I ate it, and it tasted pretty good.
Also on the tour I called myself a "font of knowledge." Luckily I think it came across as funny rather than obnoxious.

Darwin urges you to have a...
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Highlights of my day included trying to decode what my Rome preceptor actually said. What I heard was "a little porpoise." In reality I think it had something to do with "populace." Maybe.
Additionally, I got two anonymous e-mails (through a Princeton Valentine's Day service) saying that someone had a crush on me. Initial investigations have proved inconclusive, although I strongly suspect it was a tongue-in-cheek Athena from down the hall or one of my roommates or, heaven forbid Mr. CA Chatterer in earnest who, although a lovely person, is not quite what I would hope for.

Also, it was snowing before (three inches-ish) and now it's not.
And my freshman seminar professor (who wears a bow tie and a dark blue velvety blazer) used the phrase, "Getting it on."
This, my friends, is what we call a slow news day.

I just finished my seduction monologue which, I fear, may be so subtle that even the narrator doesn't know what's going on. Other than that I love it. I went with humor and I think it worked.
On a humor note, now that I have a Mac I can find this funny.
;)

I'm set to give my audition tour this coming Saturday, so any last-minute lore (the more appropriate for tours made up of helicopter parents the better) you want to throw at me would be appreciated. :)

Things I Have Realized in the Past 24 Hours
1) Persepolis is very good. Farewell My Concubine is very good. They both contain revolutions. They both contain musical numbers. They make for one very strange double feature.
2) It's freezing.
3) It was snowing before (see 2).
4) Today was not a good day to go on a mock-tour with Roommate J (see 2 & 3).
5) I still love tea.
6) I need to do my Writing Seminar homework in nicely spaced out chunks, or I will drown in a sea of nonviolent rhetoric and ego-less pontification at the hands of one Gandhi, one MLK, and one Henry David Thoreau.
7) My foot is gradually getting better. (Or perhaps I just think that. Mom got me paranoid with her tales of ankle twinges leading to year-later knee surgery.)
8) Running into people I recognize (or even know!) on campus will never get old.

Besides these minor revelations, I am greatly looking forward to the fact that I have a one page dramatic monologue due in Creative Writing on Wednesday in which someone is subtly seducing someone else. Cha-ching!

I knew writers look like writers!

Apparently the foot is nothing much. I just need to take ibuprofen and go back if it gets any worse. I can still exercise, if it's the bike or an elliptical machine, so after my stint with Health Services (which resembles nothing so much as Canadian health care) I headed to the gym for stretching and a good shower.
At the moment, outside my window, eating clubs are raucously inducting new members. It's sweet, in a bellowing-at-the-top-of-your-lungs way.
Tonight I'm going to see the freshman one acts with a whole crowd of friends, including I'm-Not-From-Canada-Girl, who I had tea with this morning after not having seen each other for several months, which was sad, considering she was my closest friend during CA, probably.
The rest of the weekend involves reading, Persepolis, reading, writing, free sushi, reading, writing, reading. Wish me luck (and a happy leg)!

Taking my second tour, Cornell West strolled by. Oh yeah.

Well, it's 1:49 on a Thursday and I am done with my week. That's right. No Friday classes for me. Ever. (Or at least ever again this year).
What I have accomplished today
->Found my Rome precept
->Tried to understand the heavy accent (to those of you who get this reference, he actually mentioned, "Venus! Goddess of Love!") of my preceptor and succeeded, I think
->Made an appointment for my foot to be checked out at Health Services tomorrow, because it's been hurting ever since just before I went walking on the beach in California (very important, since I vowed to exercise more for Lent and Lent can't start until they tell me what I can do)
->Checked my e-mail twelve million times to see if the person organizing perspective tour guides has a training session scheduled for today.
The negative impression of the Princeton tours my parents (especially) and I formed were not too far off. They're perfectly nice people, but the woman in charge is so disorganized. Which is strange, because the process of becoming a tour guide is fairly complicated. We have to go on two observation tours (I went on one yesterday and will go on another one today if the training tour doesn't happen) and one, you guessed it, training tour before we take our "confirmation tour," which is basically an audition. It's a high-pressure audition, though, as it consists of leading a real tour while a current tour guide watches you. Apparently not that many are chosen from year to year, so I'm not too optimistic, but it's been a nice (if somewhat disorganized) experience so far.

This needs no explanation.

Just survived my first phone interview (for a summer theater internship). The man behind the receiver had an NPR voice and sounded about as congested as my Freshman seminar teacher did this afternoon (very).
Still, I think it went well, and he said he may have the literary department call me back later. Huzzah!
Meanwhile, The Orgy Class (which is what RussianRoommate and Roommate J are calling SoccerRoommate and my Rome class) was awesome, and the three hours of freshman seminar breezed by. Several of my classmates now have cerebral crushes on our professor. They are not alone.

EVERYONE WHO CAN VOTE TODAY SHOULD GO DO IT RIGHT NOW.
For Obama.
Or whoever.
But, really, vote.

What I learned watching House tonight:
"The health department frowns on topless oncology."
Well, that's good then.

Correction: apparently it was Mom who stuck the blue-haired wonder into my suitcase. I should have known it was a job for a professional.

Since a couple of you have indicated that you want to know, here are the classes I'm taking this semester:
A Freshman Seminar called "Know Thyself": Literature and the Art of Self-Discovery (we get to read The History Boys! My life is complete.)
A Writing Seminar entitled Nonviolence in Theory and Practice
Classics 214, The Other Side of Rome
Creative Writing with Edmund White

So far I've only had the writing seminar, and it was great. It's taught by an enthusiastic grad student who's very clear and easy to follow and not daunting at all, which is just what you need when taking a writing seminar, which for the most part are universally reviled. Except for the one I didn't get into. *sigh*

Here I am, waiting until it's time to walk over to my first class of the second semester and smelling the odor emanating from Blueberry, the little 80s-vintage doll that was stuffed into my suitcase at the last moment by Dad, accomplice of Subcontinent and Mother of Subcontinent.
The doll has been finding its way between our houses for the last six or so years. Sometimes it can't be found, and my bad dusting habits are outed. Still, I could have sworn it was nowhere in my house, despite being told repeatedly that it was, when all of a sudden I was pulling it out of my shoe, wrapped in a plastic bag.
I smelled her before I saw her. Blueberry once, I have no doubt, smelled of chemical blueberries, now that odor has mingled with one of aging plastic and one of old toys repeatedly thrust into dark corners of houses to be discovered months later.
Right now she's sitting between Baby Bunny and Waddles and staring at me, accusatory, from across a sea of toiletries.
I can't wait to go to class. She's watching me.

Yesterday I braved the wilds of the freeway and visited Subcontinent in her now native habitat. I got there surprisingly quickly, for someone who had never really driven in this particular flavor before and she gave me a tour of the best parts of campus and her super sweet room, which has a sock monkey in it, so all is right with the world.
We had lunch at So Fresh [So Clean] and desert at this great frozen yogurt place that had a dutch chocolate yogurt that tasted like a frozen melted easter bunny.
After more excitement I grabbed In 'n' Out Burger and started driving back.
Ah yes.
The drive out took one hour and the drive back took two.
However I had my burger and ate it while traffic was at a standstill and didn't make any wrong turns or miss any exits so things went as well as they could have, in my opinion.
And now:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DAD!