So I suck at posting

Internship applications and dissertation took over my life. You'll notice that I stopped procrastinating right before school started. School forced me to be responsible. Stupid school!

I don't really have anything to say except that I went to the Ghostland Observatory show last night and it was so ridiculously awesome I feel the need to tell everyone I know about them. No matter where you live you must see if they are coming there and go see their show if possible. You will not regret it. Satisfaction gina-teed. (wow that's awful)

You know the day is not going to go your way when...

1. You were woken up by your kitty every couple hours the night before.

2. One of the times you woke up you are fairly certain she learned how to open the door on her own and she scared the living shit out of you.

3. You open your trunk to find the milk you bought the night before.

4. You go back to the store to get milk after work at the exact moment that the sky opens up with a torrential downpour of biblical proportions.

5. You are forced to walk directly into a large stream of water on the way into the store because your only other option is to try and jump the stream in your exceedingly slippery (what were you thinking when you got dressed?) shoes. And in the would you rather of soak your shoe or get a TBI you always pick soak your shoe.

5. All your groceries get soaked in the walk back to the car and you almost snap your fingers in your umbrella.

6. You somehow hit your ass so hard getting back into the car that the last time you can remember it hurting that bad was when you were a little kid and you fell of your bike directly onto your ass bone (tail bone?). There will be a bruise.

7. You open your door and see dog shit.

Today was awesome!

"you're a tough COOKIE" - Marta Karoli

I am unabashedly addicted to the Olympic coverage. I can't get enough. In my normal life, I am not crazily patriotic but the Olympics come on and I am like actively rooting for other teams to fail. I kind of suck. Needless to say, I have come to familiarize myself with the announcers of the sports televised in prime time (diving, swimming, gymnastics). The diving chick is super annoying. She is definitely knowledgeable but sometimes needlessly throws things out like "short muscle twitch fiber" that make no sense to anyone. Bring it down a notch girl. Now, the swimming dudes are pretty great. I don't really have any beef with them. They are knowledgeable, pass on the knowledge, give good information about swimmers from other countries you wouldn't know, don't treat the viewers like idiots or assume the audience knows things they don't. They also had the best called race of the games so far, the spectacularly awesome men's 4 x 100 freestyle relay. I mean you can just tell they love swimming.

I do not feel this way about the gymnastic dudes.

First, the entire scoring system is all different than it used to be, and they keep talking about it, but they haven't really explained it on the broadcast, so that's annoying. But way, way, way worse than that is their constant need to jinx the fuck out of the gymnasts. It's like, "These gymnasts need absolute perfection in this next event and they are perfect and it will be glorious." And then two seconds later it's like, "Oh, and the team has fallen apart with 18 mandatory deductions. I guess I spoke too soon." I can't handle it. I spend the entire time knocking on wood. (yes, I'm that crazy) Finally, why did NBC hire Bela Karoli and then stick him with Bob Costas in the broadcast center? That guy needs to be calling the event! Isn't that the whole point of giving him a job?!? I don't get it.

roly poly

I just saw a roly poly in the library. (Or is it rolly polly?) I love rolly pollys. They are so weird like tiny little aliens. I love rolling them up and moving them around my palm like a real life version of monkey ball. Probably the only creepy crawly that is not actually creepy. But I ask you, weirdest animal ever? Or does a sea horse win? Or a slug? Or something else I haven't thought of?

shh don't tell dissertation

Do you think dissertation will recognize me if I go incognito?

gym thoughts

Yes, Tony, I recognize the inherent hilarity of me writing about the gym, but as I have started to go with regularity, there are some observations I thought I would share.

Yesterday was the first time I went at six pm. Usually I try to go in the morning because it isn't very busy and I like to get it out of the way. Now, before I continue, you have to understand that the gym, a 24 hour, while decent sized, is not that big, and it is in a parking lot with nothing else except for a small bakery. The parking lot looks like it should be for a stadium. It's gigantic. So, I always wondered what the deal was. Well, turns out, at 6, you might as well just go home and come back at like 8. The parking lot was completely full. Couldn't believe my eyes.

Obviously, this means that the gym was ridiculously packed. There was not a single machine not in use. Gross. So while I was waiting to sneak in, grab a spot, and do some weights real quick so I could bounce, I noticed something interesting about the population of the gym at 6pm. I think this is the craigslist missed connection crowd. Just a ton of gym jocks and their girls. Now, don't get me wrong. The morning crowd has its own share of gym jocks and those guys are way more hardcore because they're the ones that must spend like every minute at the gym what with their 70 pound bicep curls. But this crowd was like the j-crew frat boy gym jocks. Needless to say, I am never going back to the gym at 6 ever ever again. In fact, when I told Mike about it last night I believe I used thirteen "never evers." Worst. Time. Ever.

Now, aside from the two sets of gym jocks and their associated girls, there are some other fun characters. My favorites are the oldish men who are really into their preplanned workouts. They are my kind of gym people because they tend to get in and get out with a minimum of foolishness, as I try to do as well. Then there are the ubiquitous 24 hour trainers, who are ALWAYS there, either training other people or being trained by their coworkers. Then there are the girls that work out in pairs. They are related to, but not quite the same as, the die hard class goers. Those people, mostly women, wait outside the group room for fifteen minutes to make sure they get a good spot in their class. Finally, there are the old women swimmers. There might be old men swimmers too, but I would never know it with the direct pool access from the locker rooms.

I almost forgot the slackers! I just recently left their ranks. But those are the kids you know never come because they walk around looking terribly confused and sort of half ass their way through everything. Those were the days.

library bathrooms are scary

Spending a lot of time in the library can can sometimes make your mind run away from you. I keep wondering why the library bathrooms always colder than the actual library even when the actual library is really, really cold. They are also preternaturally quiet and still. It doesn't matter how quiet the library proper is. The bathroom will always seem creepily silent in comparison.

Which is why, every time I use the bathroom here, I imagine that it would be a good setting for a murder mystery. I think I watched too much Clue when I was little.

You should watch this movie

A friend of mine mentioned the The Boondock Saints this weekend. I haven't seen the movie in a while but ever since he mentioned it I have been walking around saying, "THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT!" in my head.

So for my procrastination pleasure, I went and found a clip of that scene on the you tubes. Please enjoy. And if you have never seen this movie, just know that you will not be disappointed. Willem Dafoe is hilariously awesome.

For real?

Ebsco Host says it is:

Other Journal Title: American Journal of Insanity

I want a subscription!

with articles like these...

"Hippocampus and Amygdala Morphology in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder"
"A Pilot Study of Amygdala Volumes in Pediatric Generalized Anxiety Disorder"
and
"Single Dissociation Findings of ADHD deficits in Vigilance but not Anterior or Posterior Attention Systems"

You can't really be surprised that I am procrastinating so much. And yes, I did try to pick out the ones that sounded the most stab-your-eyes-out difficult to read. And yes, I realize that this is another example of procrastination.

hangover of sorts

I went and saw Batman this weekend. I thought it was good and the Joker was by far the best part. But, in NO WAY was it the top movie of all time, 156,000 IMDB idiots. I mean seriously, I really enjoyed it but it wasn't even better than Batman Begins so let's calm down shall we? I also realized while watching the movie that I have a small phobia of animated skeleton like figures. I seriously could not even watch the screen when Two-Face was on it cause so creepy.

Anyway, one of the 8 million trailers shown before the movie, was for Blindness, some movie where people start losing their eye sight. Well, I think it must have stuck with my subconscious because I totally had a dream last night where a narrator, similar to Stranger than Fiction, said "Little did she know, Gina was about to go blind." And then I don't remember what else happened, but I totally woke up with a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach that I couldn't shake. And that's what you call a dream hangover.

Freshman Tours

They were either freshman or tourists. But either way, they kept coming into my peaceful secluded map room today with tour guides. And one of the tour guides noted that it is "one of the premiere map rooms in the United States." Who knew I was procrastinating in the presence of such a treasured collection. I just like the chairs.

Procrastination Prize

noun: what you get when you are fucking around on Myspace instead of reading dissertation articles like you should be, and you find out that one of your favorite bands from college is coming to town in September, so you buy tickets

Yay Pinback!

WTF I-35

I didn't even mean to take your dumb ass to school. But since I did, what the fuck is the deal being all busy on a Sunday at 4? You suck. I hate you.

Riding the bus is awesome, except when it isn't

I would love to say that I was riding the bus because I am super green and carbon footprint aware and all that. If I lived closer to campus it would definitely be a more typical occurrence. But with no desire to spend two hours getting to campus, the car is basically the only option at this point. Sadly, said car decided to overheat yesterday in 100 degree heat, so I was forced to throw on the heater full blast, open the windows, and hope not to die in a car baking fiasco. I got home looking like I took a shower in my dress. Sexy! I took my car in this morning and they couldn't really find anything wrong with it. They filled the coolant and told me to see how it goes.

I decided to be productive during my break from the car, so I took the bus up to school from the mechanic, which is a super convenient bus ride. I love a lot of things about the bus. I love the air conditioning, the ability to pretend you're in a movie of your life while you listen to music on your ipod as if it is the soundtrack of said movie, and the awesome people watching. Now, sometimes this people watching can backfire, as when you see an older, likely homeless, gentleman pick his nose, look at the booger, contemplate his action, and then eat it. (true story)

Mostly though, it's not so bad. Except. For the smell. Why does getting on the bus automatically equal olfactory bulb rape? It is always like a perfect storm of foul smelling shit, sometimes literally, on the bus. And then I am reduced to mouth breathing. Sitting on the bus on the way to campus, I was first assaulted by a man's hair tonic, which he applied liberally while sitting about five inches from my nose. Dear god it was awful. I don't even know what hair tonic is but that is the best description for the liquidy, medicine smelling shit he put on his head. Shortly thereafter it was a symphony of body odor that basically didn't let up til I got off the bus, practically with chapped lips from all the mouth breathing.

Before I finish, I would also just like to point out that my blog output has increased tremendously in the past month, and yes, it is entirely because I don't want to work on dissertation. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my non-labor.

Oops

File this under things I am doing instead of working on dissertation when I am in the library. . .

I have just spent the last hour making a new ipod playlist with a Sufjan Steven's esque title:

Songs I will soon, or am already in the process of, or have already played out

Next up:

Please don't judge me by this playlist, I have no will when it comes to itunes purchases

Sweet songs that I feel like a goober for putting a playlist, but shut up, I'm a girl

That should hold me til I am supposed to go home.

Neuro Report Drinking Game

I am sitting here thinking about how to make writing this report more fun. I think I have to create a drinking game. Sadly, I can't actually drink and write the report because (1) that would be a really alcoholic-esque thing to do (2) slightly unprofessional? and (3) I would die. Let me demonstrate:

If I were to drink every time any of the following are written in the report

1. "parents report"
2. "parents note"
3. "ADHD"
4. "also administered"
5. "also completed"

I would have already had 8 drinks and I haven't even gotten to the test results section of the report yet, which means number 4 and number 5 haven't even been called up to the bat yet.

Anyway, I think I will just tally these for every report just to see how high the tally can go. I am totally curious. So, I guess it will be a game of sorts.

Oh my god I need to stop procrastinating! And you wonder why I haven't done any work on my dissertation yet!

Boss of the Sauce

So when I was home for Tony's wedding, Chris, my Lauren's boyfriend, was telling us about the "Boss of the Sauce" competition in San Francisco. Apparently, a bunch of chefs competed to see who had the best tomato based sauce. Taking inspiration from the event, he suggested that we should have a Boss of the Sauce competition with our extended family and friends. We all like to think we cook sauce the best, so it's kind of the perfect opportunity for someone to pull down bragging rights for real.

Now, the problem is that most of us have the same recipes which makes it a little difficult to be Boss. I decided that to truly compete and win, I would need to make up my own sauce. I cook a lot but I've never tried to Top Chef a meal. I like directions! But I didn't want to win on a recipe either from our family or from a cookbook. Since everyone else has beef on lock down, and Chris was bragging about some rabbit shiz, I decided on lamb.

I ended up finding ground lamb, and sauteed it with onions, carrots and celery. I added a little red wine and then the tomatoes. But the true inspiration came with the Porcini mushrooms. That's right, little dehydrated pieces of gold.

Verdict?
Super yummy, but not quite Boss enough yet.

What to change?
I'm thinking next time, I will get some pieces of lamb instead. I'll brown them and then essentially stew them in the tomato sauce. Then when it's time for eating, I'll shred them up. I think it will put the sauce over the top.

Boss of the Sauce rating:
Jan/Ryan

(Yes, I realize they are both incompetent - but this sauce was no Michael and not yet a David Wallace)

Procrastination

You know you really don't want to work on something (dissertation) when you take the time to do something else that you have been putting off doing for 4 years. I'm looking at you hours log!

David Archuleta looks like...

1. a puppy
2. an elf
3. a muppet
4. a four year old child
5. like Chris Kattan should play him in an SNL skit

Darwin Award

Some of the people that park at the garages at school are seriously dumb. I drive up to the entrance yesterday and one side has a really long line and the other side is open. A car pulls in right before me and then another car pulls in behind me. The girl in front of me pushes the button for a ticket and none comes out. Instead of pressing the button for the office, she gets out of her car, goes to the other lane, and pulls a ticket, opening the gate for the other entrance! Then she goes back to her car and presses the button again, like "Let me in gate. I have a ticket now from the other lane. Can't you tell?"

Of course, this does not work.

So, she comes to my car (!) and tells me that it won't give her a ticket and won't open the gate and what should she do. I tell her to push the button for the office. Well, the dude comes down pretty much says that she can't get through that way and comes to direct traffic so the rest of us can get over to the other entrance.

And at this point, is when she finally goes back to the other lane to give the car that is first in line the ticket she pulled. Because they have been sitting there the whole time unable to go because the arm is up but they don't have a ticket. Cause she still had it.

Brilliant.

Don't ever change Real World

"Talk her out of it. Cause this guy's name is JoJo and the girls that knew him called him HoHo."

I'm onto you regents...

The construction on the museum offices for the Blanton has officially become a joke. It started to become one as the new conference center was born unto the earth fully formed while the lowly museum offices remained a sad testament of inefficiency despite being started at least a year earlier.

It has made it's final march to ridiculousness in the past few weeks. I drove by and noticed that all the street-facing sides of the building were now dressed in their Sunday best, looking presentable for the whole of Austin to see. I thought to myself that I must have been in a daze, when I walked by it earlier while on campus, to not have seen the miraculous changes. But oh no. As I walked to class two days later, I was confronted by the same hot mess that I have walked by for months on end. That's right people of Austin, those street facing facades are just that. There to mask the sad truth about the museum offices. My dreams of close coffee and museum food remain unlikely to be realized before I bust out of this joint.

OK, this is getting ridiculous

Is Kristy Lee Cook secretly a cockroach? Is she the only thing that will survive a nuclear holocaust? Cause seriously. gah.

Charlie O'Connell Plus SciFi Channel = Ridiculous

When I turned on my TV the other day, I saw a face that looked familiar. It took me a few minutes before I recognized good ol' Charlie O' Connell. Yes, the O'Connell brother that is not married to a supermodel but is from the Bachelor. (Season: Most Idiotic Bachelor Ever) I could hardly believe my eyes, as it appeared as though he had an actual acting role. Well thankfully, Mr. Tivo quickly solved the mystery of his employment.

Sci Fi Channel's orignial movie masterpiece: Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep.

Keep it up Charlie!

A Quick Thought About Lost

Why did Michael look so surprised to see the padlocked container? He had a key for it! So he already must have known to be expecting something with a padlock.

That is all.

An Entertaining SXSW Game

So standing in the Jo's/San Jose parking lot, my friend and I decided to create a perfect SXSW game. Pick out a person or group and try and decide: locals or SXSW attendees?

Since there is really no way to tell for sure if you are correct, you just kind of go with group consensus. In playing, we picked out some blatant signs of out of town-ness.

Here are my favorite signs that you are not from Austin:
1. You are wearing a giant purple fuzzy hat in 80 degree humidity. Go back to LA and eat a burrito for me.
2. You are a man with a full face of make-up.
3. You are wearing a "Bad Ass Cinema" shirt that has obviously never been washed. And your friend is in the exact same shirt. On the same day.
4. You have an ironic mustache. This is sometimes seen on the locals, but the preponderance was staggering over the past week.
5. You are wearing cowboy boots in 80 degree humidity.
6. You are a man wearing high healed low top dress shoes. So hip!

And my favorite sign that you are not from Austin:

You have an all access badge.

See you next year!