I wish I had an arc!

It's getting steadily colder as Fall rolls through the DC area and I'm coming to terms with Summer being over (finally). Ever since I discovered wellies I haven't minded the rain so much. I pull on my wellies, rock my trench, and top it off with the umbrella SDSU gave me for being smarter than the average bear.

This morning I walked out of my apt bldg with said armor and yet it wasn't enough. It wasn't close to enough! My umbrella kept flipping inside out due to the inane winds, while fixing slash preventing said umbrella debacle I got all kindsa water down my sleeves and collar, my jeans stayed dry under my wellies but got soaked everywhere else. Good thing I took the 15 minutes to straighten my hair this morning. Now I'm stuck with wavy frizzy nastiness.

But as uncomfortable as I the walk from home to metro, metro to bus, and bus to class turned out to be, it was actually kinda awesome b/c I did it with Adeline and we laughed until we cried! I stopped on the corner of 15th and Joyce b/c I couldn't breathe anymore. I was laughing that hard. If I'd been alone I would have just been flustered and drenched, but since Adeline was there I could see exactly what I looked like by looking at her! Poor thing was not as well prepared clothing-wise. Her umbrella flipped so many times that 3 prongs ripped loose of the fabric, rendering the bumbershoot useless. Her hair was wet when we left, so I was kinda shocked how much wetter it became. Her poor little khaki's were so wet they were a little see-through and she thinks they're gonna get all stretched out. She even had a tiny bit of mascara running. Oh Ade how I love having you for a roommate and laughing at freak deluges.
So sad I couldn't NOT take a picture. BUT we stopped to take this and still didn't miss our train! Thank heaven for small favors.

If Idle Hands Are the Devil's Workshop...

... Then I'm headed for sainthood!

I'm super crazy busy these days, which is why when my roommate Adeline requested that I blog about something she didn't already know about, it took me two weeks to do it (btw- this is it. ya know, in case you didn't get that). So Ade this is dedicated to YOU!

"Well," you might be asking yourself, "what could be so clever, funny, touching, or otherwise noteworthy that you'd take time from your super crazy busy day in order to let us all know via the interwebs?" Well, savvy reader, I did laundry today.

You might think that's no big deal ("NBD" for you whippersnappers out there), but you have to take into account that I'm super crazy busy (as previously mentioned. twice.) so
A) I don't want to waste my time with things like grocery shopping, showering (I do give in on that one for the sake of others, but it's a huge sacrifice and I don't mind saying I don't always shave my legs. so there!), OR doing laundry. it's be WEEKS.
B) It's been WEEKS, so there's a crap ton of the stuff and the laundry room is getting renovated TOMORROW and it will be shut down for 3 weeks and I'm trying to avoid lugging my crap ton of laundry to the bldg next door.

Get it?

Oh it gets better.

Because I'm so super crazy busy I could only justify laundry day if I multitasked it (even now I'm doing 12 things at once. Bet you didn't suspect that b/c I do it so successfully), so I took the book for my Caribbean Culture class and stuck it in my laundry basket so as to have something to read while I wait for the wash. This cuts down on the up/down elevators while still keeping me moderately busy (like I said, I prefer to undertake a higher level of multitasking). You can only imagine my excitement about actually getting a machine (apparently other people don't want to lug their crap ton of laundry to the other bldg so the ENTIRE bldg is doing laundry today) and i got not 1, but 2!!!! Next to each other!!!!

So I loaded up and walked away, content in my productivity... which seemed a little on the light side... because?

I FORGOT MY BOOK IN MY BAG! THE CONTENTS OF WHICH WAS ENTIRELY IN THE MACHINE!!!!!

I yelled out "HOLYOHMYGOSHNOOOOOO!", ran back to the machines, sifted through both, up to my elbows in soapy, dirty water and dirtier clothes, didn't find anything, ran up to my apt to make sure I really did take the book, and confirmed that yes, it was gone. (Deep breath) Went back to machines, opened the darks and found little pieces of white, super clean, paper all over the place.

Perfect.

Not my best laundry day, plus now I have no idea how I'm going to complete this assignment (did I mention the book is "La Carreta"? A play from Puerto Rico? As in, I can't run across the street to the bookstore and get a new one? Yeah, there'll be no Spanish reading today.

Which is why I had time to blog this.

Letters from JuliaJane

Here's the letters from the last week or so. I don't care if no one else reads them, but it's fun for me to see them all in one place and think about how my week went.

Oct 16: dear paper- you're done. except for one transition and the conclusion you're done. so why can't you just figure out those last two things for yourself? why do you hate me and make me agonize over how to polish you? why paper? why are you so mean? sincerely- your apparent nemesis, juliajane

Oct 18: dear 1-armed guy playing tennis- u are my hero. I can't play tennis w 2 arms. that is all. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 18: dear black cat- I know this is a haunted tour of alexandria, but u peeking out at us from inside george washington's town house right after we heard about the cat bodies in the carlyle mansion is seriously creepy. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 19: dear world- my grandma is cuter than ur grandma. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 19: dear randoms in STM- you're lost & need help. fine. while friends are often amazed at my wealth of knowlege, you don't know me & you couldn't possibly look at my messy hair, t-shirt, sweats, & running shoes & think to yourself "i bet that girl gets the mail here" or "i bet that girl knows where so-&-so's office is" or... "i bet that girl knows if i should knock before opening this door". i don't. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 20: dear varsity athlete that just walked by- apparently u don't know that there's a seat in this window. that or ur just really confidant in ur dancing/ singing abilities. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 20: dear man on 30th- do u have to pick the poop off ur long haired lap dogs every single time they go twosies? why would u subject urself to that? shave their butts or something! sick nasty. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 20: dear world- I'm at ford's theater & just in case a famous actor shoots me dead in my box seat, I just want u to know it's been a lovely ride. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 21: dear super hot guy on my floor- why do I ONLY see you when I look gross? and not like a little gross. like dirty hair, ugly tshirt, just woke up kinda gross. sincerely juliajane. ps- I lurv you.

Oct 23: dear little girl in the pumpkin patch- ur adorable but it's probably a bad idea to ask a total stranger if she's seen ur mom anywhere. good thing ur dad is w u. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 24: dear giants- i do appreciate you winning. it's really making me feel nice that my team is going to the world series and that all those phillies fans are crying in their cheesesteaks. much love- juliajane

Oct 24: dear Sunday- you've treated me so well today. dinner with friends. hanging out with roommates, even that awkward dessert party was fun in a special kind of way. thanks for being lovely. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 25: dear weird man- i don't know why you walked into the auditorium where i'm having class. i don't know why you snapped a photo. i for sure don't know why you're mumbling to yourself about how many seats are in here. please don't talk to me. please leave soon. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 26: dear brain- class is over. switch to english please. actually, as long as I'm making requests, switch to patho please. much obliged- juliajane

The "Other" Law of Physics

Tonight I was going out with my roommate and another friend that lives in our bldg. We do this thing where Stefi comes down from the 17th floor and sticks her head out of the elevator on my floor and we all ride down together. Well it just so happened that tonight all 3 of us ladies were not exactly looking our best and the super beautiful man that lives on my floor also decided to get in the elevator.

Perfect.

Of course I turned this moment into a FB letter from JuliaJane:

dear super hot guy on my floor- why do I ONLY see you when I look gross? and not like a little gross. like dirty hair, ugly tshirt, just woke up kinda gross. sincerely juliajane. ps- I lurv you

I joked to the girls that this is some sick law of physics. The grosser I look, the more likely I am to see hotness. But seriously people. It's a law of physics and I'm blogging about it so that credit comes to me and no one runs away with my Nobel Prize. Peep this:

There is only so much hotness allowed in a space at any given time (there's a catch to this). If super hot guy on my floor (heretofore referred to as 9th floor hotness, or NFH) is looking especially dreamy, then it follows that I won't see him until I'm taking out the trash, in my pj's, a huge zit on my face, and my hair will be doing something insane which probably goes above and beyond even what those weird hair-show guys create. If the only person in the hall is some old man who's too blind to even know I'm there, then my hair will be perfect, my skin will give off a lovely dewy glow, I'll obviously have on my most flattering outfit, and I won't have been anywhere near the trash so I'll smell nice. Understand?

Now for the catch. The closer you are to home, the greater hold this law has over you. (It's like gravity. The closer you are to the sun, the stronger it's gravitational pull.) This is why people have romantic flings on vacation: You're far from home. You're hot, he's hot. It works.

Really what I need is to move to the nether-regions of Antarctica (yes, there are nether-regions), and then come VISIT my dear old apt building, at which point I would see NFH, and be so far from home that I'd be way beyond my best self and he'd be smitten, at which point he'd whip out his phone and change his FB status to a letter which would read more or less like this: "Dear hot Antarctica girl- if you could just marry me already that would be swell. Sincerely- NFH, the 3rd." (Why "the 3rd"? Because hotness is genetic and it makes him sound important.)

So that's it. The newest law of physics. The Hotness Quotient. You heard it here 1st folks.

Sincerely-
JuliaJane

Letters from JuliaJane

To whom it may concern-

Lately all my FB status updates have been in the form of short letters. I like letters. No one gets letters anymore. We should really bring that back, ya know? But I digress. At some point my friend Bridget Gibney told me I should make my letters into a blog. She doesn't know I already have a blog. Very few people do, since I don't really use it. Since Bridget only gives me really good advice I decided to do what she told me and enter my statusi (yes, that's plural of status. like foci is plural of fucus) in blogorific form. (that's blog+terrific, not blog+horrific, btw).

So here ya go. My statusi since I started writing letters:

Oct 9

dear cougs- thank you kindly for not losing to san diego state. i know they're doing better this year but it still would have felt like a great embarrassment given the history of the two teams should you have lost. i take back all the rude things i may or may not have said after you lost to the likes of utah state. sincerely- julia jane

Oct 11

dear lit reviews- i hate you. you are the devil. you ruin my life. i can't read the silly articles b/c they are so bloomin' boring, and therefor i can't fill out the four page (yes FOUR page) worksheet assigned to me. please just write yourself and leave me out of it entirely. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 12

dear midterms- i would like to cordially offer my thanks for not getting completely and totally out of hand. if you could just hold it down one more week i would be over the moon about it. sincerely- juliajane

dear self- choosing the killers as your pandora station was a really good move. TK, followed by cold play, franz ferdinand, and weezer has just been a delight and makes studying for this test that much more enjoyable. Thank you self for having awesome taste in music. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 13

dear self- are you sure a "glee cast" pandora station was a good idea? are you really going to be able to study while you're belting "Faithfully" in your mind? guess we're about to find out. sincerely- juliajane

dear girl from class- don't be sad that I shut.u.down. smarter folks than u have tried and failed. here's a tip tho: using the author's premise as an argument when I can then successfully argue that the premise is fallacious in nature is not gonna go well for u. hugs and kisses! julia jane

Oct 14

dear self- in five little hours you can have a nap. in fact, if you really want to you can sleep until friday, but then you have to spend the entire day writing an ethics paper. but ya know what? you're a champ and you deserve to sleep for upwards of 18 hours, so if that's what you want then do it. just get through... this last exam and then your time is your own. buck up champ. you can do it. sincerely- juliajane

Oct 15

dear self- all you have to do today is write a paper. just one measly little paper. only 5 pages. it's nothing really. come on. just write it. please? sincerely- juliajane

Oct 16

dear self- remember when you were picking out yogurt flavors and you were like "i had strong feelings regarding red velvet, but i can't remember what they were, so i'm gonna buy it anyway"? that was a bad move. if you can't remember loving something, but you DO remember you felt strongly about it, that probably means... it was sick nasty and you probably shouldn't buy it. sincerely- juliajane

... And yes, me finally putting this all in a blog is really a not-so-secret way of avoiding finishing my paper.

Sincerely JuliaJane

Oh What A Night

Tonight was a bit nuts. Nothing went as planned, and yet it turned out more or less OK... for me anyway.

Earlier this week I found a free futon on the ward list. The owner showed me a photo and it looked pretty good, so we made arrangements for me to pick it up tonight. Of course, I still don't have a car and my roommates and I contemplated strapping the thing to Sachi's car, but we didn't have any rope. I asked my home teacher if he had some (what are home teachers for if not to hook you up with some rope, right?) and he did not, but he DID have an SUV. Huzzah!

The plan was, futon at 8, then back in time to meet up with Kelly to go to Paige's birthday dinner in China Town. Lately I've heard several people say "when man makes plans, God laughs". Now I understand. Kaleb came and took me to the futon owner's home, we loaded up the mattress and when we went for the frame we realized it was probably too big for the SUV, but Kaleb took the back off and it seemed like a much better fit. Some other guy was there picking up free stuff and Kaleb enlisted him to help carry the frame down the stairs. Just as they're heading out the neighbor across the hall comes out asking who's truck was out front (gotta love the South. everything that's not a car is a truck). Kaleb says "it's mine" and dude says "well you're getting towed." So Kaleb goes running after the tow truck, catches up to it, and the guy just looks at him out the window like "sucks to be you buddy." FOR REALS?!

I think everyone involved felt horrible. The neighbor for not seeing it soon enough, the futon owner for not warning us not to park there, her friend b/c it was just a yucky situation, and me (perhaps most of all me) b/c if it wasn't for me Kaleb and his SUV never woulda been there at all. Sad face, right?

Luckily Kaleb's girlfriend lives around the corner. She picked him up and took him to the tow lot while I stood guard over the half of the frame that we'd brought downstairs. I told Kaleb I'd pay for it, but he insisted on paying half. Even so my mind was racing trying to guess how much this was going to cost. Have I mentioned I'm really poor right now? Like for reals super poor. My last paycheck came about 13 months ago. Poor. When he gets back he tells me that it was $150 and while that's a lot of money I knew it coulda been SO much worse. So we load up the frame and he waits in the car while I go upstairs for his tools and the last piece of the frame. The girl that gave me her futon for free then insisted on chipping in to pay for the tow! I couldn't believe it! She just handed me money! I didn't even look at it. It could have been $3 and I would have been so grateful to her. But it wasn't $3. It was three $20. This chick not only gave me her futon for free, but she then gave me $60! I'm still kinda in shock.

Kaleb and I squeezed all that stuff into his SUV and then ourselves into the seats (pushed WAY forward) and the back wouldn't close and we passed a cop and we thought for sure we were gonna get a ticket. But we didn't. We got it all back to my apt and put back together and then I handed him a check for my half of the remaining tow money... and you know what? He decided he didn't want it! Seriously. What is going on in the universe tonight!? He said we'll just count the $60 as my part and I can make dinner and call it even. I am the luckiest and most blessed person in the entire world tonight. It might not seem like a huge deal to anyone else, but I was kinda freaked out about how to wring that money out of my budget and then it was all just magically taken care of and then some.

So this is my magical futon. It will forever remind me to be generous and kind... and of that night I got a guy's car towed.

Hoya Says

I haven't blogged since February. Obviously it's not so absolutely oblogitory. Whoops.

Well I think I'm gonna dedicate this space to what I call "Hoya Says" which is just a few of the funny things i hear people say on campus. These are the 1st two that come to mind, but you'd be shocked by how silly these kids are.

Today. St Mary's Hall. 3rd floor ladies' room. Some underclassman chick: "OK. love you. Talk to you later. Glad you're not pregnant." Hoya says WHAT?!

Last week. In line at Subway at GU food court. Preppy boy in pink/white seersucker shorts and boat shoes. "Yeah my uncles went here too. I can't remember if our family is the 3rd or 4th most represented family in the history of Georgetown." Can Hoya say Moneybags McGee?

A Little Frolic is Good for the Soul

I find it infinitely difficult to take any moment too seriously. Mostly I take every opportunity to be a goof. Case in point:

Mother Nature is Testing Me

As luck would have it, Mother Nature seems to hate my guts. That old broad knows how much I HATE snow, and yet wherever I go, freakishly severe winters follow me.

What's that about?! Take Exhibit A:
The winter of 06-07 was the coldest winter Provo, UT had seen in 15 or 20 years. That was also the 1st winter I lived anywhere with regular snowfall. The above photo is actually the following winter, which was also abnormally cold, but since I don't venture out in such weather it's hard to find photographic evidence of the 1st winter I spent in UT. You get the idea though.

Exhibit B here is the FALL - that's right people, the F-A-L-L FALL - of 09 in Denver, CO. I lived there for 6 weeks, between the end of September and the beginning of November. It snowed 4 times I think, including this rather obnoxious storm that kept us inside from Tuesday night through Friday afternoon. Yes that's a pumpkin on my brother's porch. We were worried for a minute that Halloween would be canceled due to SNOW!!!

Now Exhibit C: I reside in Arlington, VA, just across the river from Washington DC. DC is a lovely city known for its temperate winters. It gets cold, but it doesn't dump snow for days on end. It snows here so little that things shut down in a big way with just a few inches on the ground. I thought I'd bypassed their major storm for the year by arriving just after it concluded. Not so. Instead Mother Nature decided that one city-stopping storm wasn't enough and sent another one our way. The snow started on Friday morning and fell heavily until Saturday night...
It fell SO heavily in fact that these dump trucks filled up, dumped elsewhere, then came back for another load at a constant pace from the time the snow started. If you looked outside though, it's as if they were never there at all.

Our bldg has one of these mini riding-snow-mover-thingies to keep our walks reasonable (notice I didn't say "clear"). Hooray for the grounds crew! I'm so sorry they were out in that!

I decided that since this storm is such a big deal, and since it has me confined to a 2-stop radius on the Metro (they've closed service to any stations that operate above ground) I should go out and document it... and run around like a child. The above is the end of my dive into a snowbank, and the below is Lori starting hers (although she totally weenied out and kinda gingerly placed herself in the drift. WEAK!).

We explored our neighborhood and found a few establishments actually opened their doors to the public! Good thing too. Several of the bldgs in our neighborhood were without power yesterday. Our foyer was starting to look like a refugee camp. In our ramblings I saw this trashcan that looks a lot like a frosted cupcake.


So the weather can beat me down and keep me locked up in my neighborhood, but I can make the most of that. Cheers to snow days. May we have NO MORE this year.

Just a little DC update

I've been out here nearly a month. I've already had all kinds of adventures. What can I say? I'm a doer, and an adventure seeker.

Here are a few highlights:

I went to Philadelphia with 2 of my roommates. Of course our 1st stop was for cheese steaks. YUM!


We went and saw the Liberty Bell. If you've ever been in my cottage or one of the houses I lived in during my SD days you may have seen the American Shield I have which is a photo of 30.000 soldiers. This is done by the same guy the same year (1918 I think). They change the tons by making them take off their hats or turning them around. Pretty amazing.


I only got to stay in Phily for 4 hours b/c I organized a party for my cohort and I kinda had to go to said party. This is the after-party. Basically we went to Georgetown (the town, not our school) and we wandered around M St. and we found an entire driveway full of kegs, which naturally we thought was hilarious and photo worthy.


Heeeeeeyyyy. Gaysha and Fallacia. Andrew had the loveliest dinner party. So fun!



... And we spent much of the night entirely devoted to Karaoke! Oh gosh. It was pretty amazing. Scott knew EVERY word to the Beyoncé song. I think my chick card was in question b/c I was struggling.


In case you were wondering, the Pentagon is between my apt and the freeway. We have to drive along side it to get home. Hence "Pentagon City" being the name of our Metro stop and our particular portion of Arlington.


This is in homage to the time Claire broke her chair and almost fell out of it. It's also in homage to the silliness Claire and I took part in when we had a "study day" at her house last weekend. Oh the silliness. "FALL!" "YEA!!!!!!" Poor little Sasha didn't know what hit her (hint: it was the ice.)

A Quick Update from our Nation's Cappy

I HAVE ARRIVED! I've been poking around Georgetown and my own neighborhood in Arlington and this is a VERY small selection of highlights. I don't even think it's fair to call them highlights since there haven't been any lowlights yet. Not even the SERIOUSLY cold weather can make me love this place less.

This is the gorgeous mall that is the only thing between me and my beloved Metro.

This is the tube of death, more commonly known as the escalator entering Pentagon City's Metro. It's so scary! Do you see that vertical rectangle? That's an elevator shaft! Now consider the difference in angles as I go down the escalator. I get VERTIGO each time I ride it. And that's why my Metro is the best Metro of all! Who needs theme parks? I have public transportation.

I met up with a friend from my program and we decided to walk into G'town instead of taking the GUTS (Georgetown Univ. Transit System). This is the frozen river with downtown in the background. Pretty much everywhere I walked I took photos b/c it's all so beautiful and new to me. I'm the hugest nerd!




1st stop! HAHA! This is for Adriana, my partner in crime when it comes to little cups of yumminess. That's one red velvet with some amazing cream cheese frosting, and one lemon berry (lemon cake with raspberry frosting) - I DIE!

There's no other word for Georgetown other than "charming". Really. That's what it is. Lots of these houses have little plaques that say when they were built and what used to be in them, like the yellow tavern and inn, which is not actually yellow, and not actually pictured.

What a lovely sunset. I wish I could have captured the way the sun was reflecting off the bldgs across the way from mine the other night. Marvelous. Sunsets here are so pretty. Something about the cold and the bareness of the trees.

Can you tell I'm smitten?