Carbon Copy

Marxism

Yesterday I went underground to the undergrad library to check out a book called Marxism and Literature. When I took off my backpack to pull out my student ID, I found a pale ladybug crawling along the zipper. I tried to get it to crawl onto my finger instead, but I think I scared it because it opened up its wings and flew up to the flourescent light above the reserve desk. I'm going to look for it next time. I hope it's there all winter.

Kinship

I'm writing the worst paper ever right now. At least, I'm trying to (kind of). It's on kinship and I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I have absolutely no interest in writing this paper other than to get it done. Yes, it would be nice if it were 2.5 pages from now. The problem is, I have to come up with some words that go together comprehensibly in order to fill those pages. It's 3:15 am.

Rainy Sunday

I've been cornered in my room reading Huck Finn all day. There's one tall lamp in there casting shadows and then both windows were open. All I could hear was the rain pouring and a single lonesome cricket. Needless to say I was on the brink of both happiness and lonesomeness all day.

I wish someone would contrive a fancy way of digging me out of my prison.

The Funniest Stuff on TV

What people don't realize is that the funniest stuff on tv isn't at night. It's during the day, specifically at 1 pm eastern. Wanna know what it is? It's Passions, my favorite soap opera. Oh yeah, I'll watch Days and sometimes it's good for a chuckle (although right now I'm really feeling sorry for Sami - I hope things work out for her). But for head thrown back laughter, you have to watch Passions.

Today, Noah was put in jail by the sinister Alistair Crane for loving (on a beach) his granddaughter Fancy. It wasn't enough to send him to jail, but he also arranged a cellmate for him. This guy, Thumper, was wearing muscle shirt and pleated pants and kept snorting. Noah tried to placate him by offering the pillow and the only cot in the cell, and for a minute there you think Thumper will be happy with the pillow because he goes and picks it up. However, we learn it's only to be used as a weapon (huh?). Thumper pounces toward Noah, who leaps agiley out of the way. Thumper gives it another try. Once again, Noah escapes by jumping onto the bed. Unfortunately, Thumper runs into the cell bars and falls down, out cold. Noah is out on bail before Thumper gets another chance.

Seriously, people just don't appreciate soap operas for their comedic value. Not to mention they teach me a lot about life. Like how not to live it.

A Walk to School

I walk to school each day. Sometimes I like to take a different route, but lately I've been taking this same one because there are couple things I like to see along the way. I start off going through the fence in my backyard and entering this alley. Right now it looks pretty nice. In the morning, it's often populated by cats, squirrels, and butterflies. At night, it's kind of dark and there are lots of rocks you could stumble on.

Here's me with my headphones walking to school. Lately I've been listening to Tilly and the Wall while I walk to school. But I also often have it on random so who knows what will come up. (I also always have my finger on the track forward button just in case.)

I live right next to this grill. Sometimes when I'm walking home in the afternoon, it smells like hamburgers and it makes me hungry. Usually, there aren't too many people there.

I noticed this sign for a free cat a while ago. Some of the phone numbers have been torn off, so I hope there's someone out there (not me) willing to give this cat a good home.

There are lots of trees here. I like it. It was drizzling a little this morning while I walked to school, so things seemed greener than usual. I like this little turn in the road because when I go around it, I see this:

For some reason, looking up at the sky through these branches makes me smile in the morning. And then I walk past St. Andrew's and see the sun brightening the stained glass on the other side of the building.

At this point, I realized that I should never walk in these shoes without socks. They really hurt my feet. I even have a little cut now on the top of my foot. I had to ride the bus home because of it.

As I get closer to campus, the walk isn't as pleasant. The houses are full of undergrads and the paint is peeling. There's often garbage around, like this blue cup. (It's blurry cuz I took the picture while I was walking.)

The last obstacle before reaching the haven of Purdue is crossing Northwestern. I happened to catch it at a good time this morning, but sometimes you wait to walk across four lanes of traffic for a long time. You have to be assertive.

I really like walking to campus each day. On some of my other routes, I find a blue house with red painted shutters, a doll on the porch (of an undergrad house - it's kinda creepy), designs in the cement, porches, barbeques, construction workers, a dog that barks, lots of butterflies and moths, and trees that hang so low over the sidewalk, I have to limbo under them. Oh, and joggers passing me by.

bowling

As aforementioned, after shopping in Indy, we met up with some people for bowling. Now I have to confess that I'm horrible at bowling. I still remember the first time I entered a bowling alley. I was fourteen and it was at BYU. I thought it was so awesome that they had a bowling alley on campus. I scored 25 points. Yep. 25. Another time when I went bowling, I was so bad that the strangers at the lane next to us started givine me tips. They didn't help. My general high score is somewhere around 65, but one time I almost got up to 90. I still like going bowling, though. And I took some pictures from our night at the alley.

Here are some action shots:

And people hanging out:

And then as the night progressed, the bowling alley turned cosmic!

I know you're wondering how I did. Well, I am pleased to report that I did quite well (for me). We played three games, and I scored 95, 93, and 106. I even got a couple/three strikes. Here's the proof:

I have to admit something. We played with the bumpers down. But honestly, I got the strikes on my own. No bumpers required.

Indy

On Saturday, I went to Indy with friends. Ostensibly, we went to go shopping, but since I hadn't any money, I just looked around. We started off at the ritzy mall, Circle Centre where the new H&M is located. Here's a picture of the mall (cuz it was kinda cool inside, although I felt really conspicuous taking the photo):

We were hungry, so we ate at Johnny Rockets where the waitresses have to dance to R-E-S-P-E-C-T and they give your nickels for your own personalized juke box on the table AND they put your ketchup in a smiley face.

After perusing through way too many stacks of clothing (it made me feel so consumerish and following the crowdish looking at all these embroidered and individualized clothes that everyone seems to be wearing these days), we walked around outside for a little while to see this fountain and the capitol building.

Here are some photos from that eye-catching fountain:

(I don't know why fountains constantly follow the idea of having water come from the mouth of some type of animal, be it frog, dolphin, man, or buffalo. It just doesn't seem refreshing.)

And we were cheesy and did this pose:

And now the five-domed capitol, but I didn't get all the domes.

On closer inspection, we found this strange statue out front. I don't know if it's saying that hoosiers are dunces, but I'm curious.

And one more of the building with an extra dome or two:

Oh yeah, and Erica and Cristen disembodied:

Downtown Indy uses state names as street names. For instance, Circle Center was on Maryland St. And Cristen got a picture of Ohio St. (and even Cleveland - her home town.) Erica ran out of film before she could take a picture of New York St., so this one is for her.

It took us a while to find Utah St. and when we did, I have to say I was sorely disappointed. It was this dark, rundown alley full of used needles.

Ok, ok. There was no Utah St. Nope, not even an alley. We even checked the atlas at Borders. Utah's always getting discriminated against. I was offended.

Something cool about being here, though, is the highway signs to exotic places like Frankfort or Memphis or Dayton. Here's one where I can choose to go to either Columbus, Oh or Chicago.

After shopping at Trader Joe's (a unique grocery store), we headed home to Lafayette and ate buffalo wings. Then we went bowling. I was going to put those photos on tonight, too, but it's almost time for the season premier of Arrested Development, so I gotta go. I'll post them later.

(none)

I've been missing Austria like crazy lately. I guess it's because it's been about a year since I first went there. I've noticed an attempt to try and recreate it. For instance, I bought muenster cheese at the store, along with an English cucumber. I've been eating cheese and cucumber and pepper sandwiches, which is what I ate a lot of in Innsbruck. The other day I was driving along US 52, and I saw the same logo as the Hoefer, a grocery store in Austria, so I pulled in to check it out. This store was called Aldi, but it was the same. They even had carts where you have to stick the quarter in to unchain it. I took particular delight in this. I wandered around looking for some imported food items, but didn't see anything familiar. And then when I went to Indy yesterday with some friends, we shopped at H&M. I kept expecting the sales associates to speak in German. I remember shopping there in Innsbruck and I was so proud of myself when I went to try some clothes on and told the associate that I had fünf. I was really blending in. They probably couldn't tell at all that I was American.

Sufjan Comes to Illinois

Ok, before we get started, let's set the atmosphere a little.

The 50 States - live.

Last night, my friend and I drove through the rain-drenched cornfields of Indiana to visit the bustling college town of Champaign-Urbana Illinois. And when I say rain-drenched, I mean it. I think the whole of Lake Michigan was taken up into the clouds and then showered onto us. Other than the rain, it would've been a really nice drive. There were little hills in the road that make your stomach drop and a few nice cemeteries and some barns and silos and such. We got there in time to eat at a little Thai place on the opposite side of the Canopy Club. I liked the way it looked with the shadows and the umbrellas, so I secretly snapped a photo.

And then we got at the end of a very, very long line. You know, for as many people as say "who?" when I mention going to see Sufjan, there are still quite a lot of people that don't need to ask. We were supposed to meet up with some friends there, but with the throng of people, I didn't see them.

So I went to see Sufjan in Salt Lake before I left. In fact, it was my last concert there, and now it was my first concert here. There's something about the cyclical aspect of that that I like, esp. as yesterday was also my one month anniversary of being in Indiana. (I know, I keep track of stuff like that. It's kind of weird, but whatever.) I loved seeing Sufjan in SLC, but it was so (and I mean so) hot. It was a little distracting and even though the cheerleaders put on a good show, you could tell they were exhausted. I was excited to see them in cooler conditions, not to mention in Illinois, home town of the album.

There were some tables and chairs about half way back in the club with reserved for signs on them. We eyed them for a while and when the show started and McBride and Co. never showed up, we took their spots. So... not only was it cooler, but we had perfect seats, although a little too far away to get some good pictures. Speaking of pictures, I tried to take a couple. They didn't turn out so well, but here they are anyway.

Those last one shows some of the cheers that went on throughout the night. Alas, I did not get a photo of the human pyramid. I love Sufjan. They even played an encore this time. We almost got them to come back out again, but they didn't.

We drove back late at night, feeling our stomachs drop along the road and turning the brights on around the curves, but the heavy mist just reflected the light back at me. I was afraid of running into animals. But there were no accidents.

A Few More Pix

Here are just a few more pictures from around the little town here. This one was taken from a bridge that needs just a little TLC. It's this pedestrian bridge across the Wabash River that connects West Lafayette with Lafayette proper. I went there one nice twilight when I didn't feel like going home. There were people around, but it felt spooky. That's because of all the millions of cobwebs over every inch of the railing and lamp posts, such as in this next photo:

Can't see them very clearly? Let's go in for a closer look.

I had thought about hanging out on the bridge some more because I had really good cell phone reception. I thought it might be the perfect place to place a few phone calls. However, I kept feeling all creepy crawly and there were parts where I didn't even want to open my mouth because the gnats were so thick. Yeah, I wasn't fond. Here's one last picture, though, because I like the orbs of light receding into the distance.

And then this is just a random picture that I took on campus the other day and I had to post it.

This is one of the fifty odd frat houses that neighbor the campus. They all tend to have pillars and brick (except for one that looks very much like a castle with machicolated towers), but this one! This one is right across from the Union Building and the Under(ground)graduate Library. There's always a posse of boys with no shirts who are generally swimming, tossing some bean bags, tossing back a few, playing some frisbee -- all to some pumped up 80s music. At the time this picture was taken, we were all rocking out to A-ha's "Take On Me," but we've also heard the likes of Journey. Who wouldn't want to join a fraternity?

headache

I've been blowing into my mouth organ so much I have a headache. I still don't quite understand how I'm supposed to play a recognizable tune from it. I've tried Jingle Bells, but I can never quite get it. I get the da da da part ok, but the da da da da da part is not working out. Mostly, I just make it sigh in harmony. A big release. I've also been working on my dynamics. Sometimes I push out all my air to make it really bellow (thus headache), and other times I barely whisper. Sometimes I make it laugh with me. Tis a hearty and joyous sound. I love my new friend.

Please let me go gently

I have this fear that the leaves won't change this fall. They will abruptly go from green to brown and then fall, leaving the branches bare. Why this bothers me so much I don't know. I guess I just want the transition. I want to gently let go of summer.