28 February 2010

pita bread

pita bread

Baking/grading/reading/writing. Pretty okay Sunday afternoon.

27 February 2010

HEART CAVE

heart cave

1 paper finished, 30ish assignments graded, 2 1/4 articles read. EXCITING STUFF YO. Here is a photo; it is a cafe somewhere in Big Basin State Forest. At least, I think that's where I took it; it was definitely somewhere in California.

25 February 2010

things that i like that are maybe not cool to like but maybe they are

In my continuing effort to fail out of grad school and amount to nothing, I've been listening to Songs I Used to Listen to All the Time Back When My iPod Still Worked* instead of finishing an already-late paper, and goddamn I love early [read: before Liz Phair] Liz Phair. See: Flower, Fuck and Run, Supernova. Also! Hot White Come.

*Caps?

23 February 2010

cat toys


cat toys, originally uploaded by marinatina.

Here are some adorable cat toys I made over winter break; someday, I will have time to make more adorable things. For now, it's all race/racism/(im)migration/citizenship/identity/modernity/cities/etc, all the time. Which is good, I guess.

22 February 2010

conversation with nathan

nathan: FTW? what's that?
me: for the win.
nathan: oh, like "and he shoots it in for the win!" [imagine him saying that in a sportscaster voice}
marina: [hysterical laughter]
nathan: lolz! [he actually said that, out loud.]

[also!
me: can i post this?
nathan: whatever. it's not like anyone reads this.]

not ready for this week

And now, everything makes me want to puke. I don't think it's the flu; I just feel awful. And it's snowing, and I didn't finish a paper that was due yesterday because of the feeling totally awful thing, and we have very little food in the house because grocery shopping is hard when you don't own a car, and the house is so dirty, and OMG EVERYTHING SUCKS.

Lame. No more complaining, look on the bright side, etc. Jason and Sarah were here over the weekend, which was pretty sweet. They continue to be two of my favorite people. We went to the Admirals game Friday, which was fun and also reinforced my desire to start playing hockey again. They might bring the kid next time, which would be super fun as he is adorable and also thinks I am awesome.

And okay, while I am kind of stupidly behind in every class at this point, I can totally catch up and even get ahead if I just work very hard this week, which is totally something I can do. And if I maybe stop feeling like garbage sometime soon, it'll be even easier.

16 February 2010

related!

We had two guest lecturers in class last night; both presented on libraries and access to knowledge (or, often, lack thereof) in Africa. I don't know how realistic this is w/r/t my impending doom student loans, but now I really want to go to Africa and help develop public libraries. Or Latin America. Or Appalachia or any number of other places in the US. Oh, the things I would do, if only I were independently wealthy. Seriously though, knowledge is power.

[Being sincere sort of makes me want to vomit. Probably that's something I should work on.]

so many blank pages in my passport

bloom

I kind of can't believe I ever went to Buenos Aires. I'm pretty happy with my life (for real!), but I do need to get myself back to a place where foreign travel is a real possibility. Of course, I will most likely be going to Laos next winter break, so that's something to look forward to.

13 February 2010

also:

I really kind of hate the way this blog looks. Not necessarily the template; I think it's Blogger itself that is ugly. Do not know what to do about that; switch to Tumblr maybe?

hmm

I reread a bunch of my recent posts, and holy shit this blog has gotten boring/lame. Sorry?

09 February 2010

snow day!

Sort of. Milwaukee is in the midst of what will apparently be 10-14" snowfall, and yet UWM has not canceled classes. Fortunately, I don't have any classes today, so I've declared my own personal snow day. I'm thinking I might bake something soon, mostly so my kitchen will warm up; we keep the thermostat at 58 degrees, which somehow seems even colder during a snowstorm.

07 February 2010

barcelona skirt

Also, I worked on a second Barcelona Skirt today. It took me forever to get the zipper installed & the skirt assembled, partially because I haven't sewn any garments for months and partially because the zipper instructions are bananas. I still need to add a lining, which will be interesting as I changed the seam allowance on the outer seams of the skirt to correct for a cutting mistake. I like how the first skirt turned out, and I think this one will be okay, but I think it's time to find a more structured A-line skirt pattern. I want something with waistband and darts. I really want to draft something myself, but probably I'm not actually at that point yet. I really need to find a class or a local expert, because I am tired of making things up as I go along.

[In the future, I will try to include pretty pictures in my sewing posts. If it helps, the skirt I'm working on is a cotton twill in a lovely shade of blue.]

bread bread bread

tortillas

At some point in the past few weeks, my neuroses seem to have disappeared. Wait, no, not true. They have gone from stabbing me in the back of the eye every 10 minutes to poking my brain with a sharp stick every few days. Because my neuroses are little people in my brain? I don't know. That seemed like a really good metaphor when I thought of it last night, right before falling asleep. Maybe that's the important part, 'right before falling asleep.'

Anyway. I don't know what it is, but I feel pretty okay about life right now. I hope you do too. The photo is some flour tortillas that I made; they're super delicious.