How can it not be a great class when your first paper title is, without any stretching of the topic whatsoever, "Temptation in Space?"

In other words, I'm comparing Perelandra and High Wizardry.

So, there you are, kids. If you ever need to tell your Spanish-speaking friends, "This is the most difficult shower I've (n)ever taken," think back to this moment.

Tonight has been an evening for feeling silly.
Despite having used the oven twice before (and forgetting a knob last time), I forgot to set it to bake, and to set the timer, and to set the temperature. So I waited 15 minutes wondering why the oven wasn't getting hot . . .

And then I tried to take a shower. Aside from needing to wash my hair, I have a sore throat and a runny nose, and thought that hot water would feel nice.
First problem: I couldn't light the hot water heater. Well, actually, I managed the water heater just fine; I even noticed that the one knob on the gas line was turned and turned that. I just couldn't light the butane lighter to get the flame lit. The last one was running out of juice, so Pepi clearly got around to getting a new one, and I couldn't get it to light. I can light camping stoves. I can light Coleman lanterns in the dark. I can manage those nasty paper matches. I can light fires with one match - with no matches if there are still a few coals left. I can light fires in the woods when it's been raining for three days and everything is soaked. But I'm a wooden matches kind of gal. I don't like butane lighters. This is why. And the fact that the metal piece gets hot and will give you a nastier burn than the actual fire, and you're liable to forget that it's hot until it burns you.
So I knocked on Ana's door when she was practicing and she lit the water heater for me.
And all was well, right?
Of course not. The water was coming out of the faucet rather than the shower head, which it's never done before, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to switch it (turns out the little pull-up piece is in the same place as the ones at home, only it's disguised as a holder for the portable shower head). Ana to the rescue again.
And all was well?
Well, I started my shower. And when I went to rinse the soap out of my hair, I discovered that the water had gone cold. Looking through the little window, it looked like the heater had gone out. So I called Ana (who was luckily puttering around the kitchen) and stood there wet and shivering while she tried to re-light the heater - and discovered that the tank of butane was empty. So I stood there wet and shivering while she changed it and re-lit the heater.
Era la ducha más dificil que nunca he tomado.

This whole weekend has been vaguely bleh. In addition to being sick, I read the death-crumpets book (La virgen de los sicarios, The Virgin of the Hitment), which was both depressing and disturbing. And I can't even say that I didn't like the book, because it wasn't the book's fault. What I didn't like was knowing that the situation that the book describes still exists in Colombia; the drug trafficking and the casual disregard for human life and relationships, the world where someone will kill you for your nice sneakers that will probably get them killed sometime next week, and, what is perhaps the worst bit, a world where many people don't believe things can be different.
And while I knew about many of the problems in Colombia, there's a difference between knowing and reading a novel where you're immersed in that world.
I would say, "oh good, I've finished it," but I still need to watch the movie before class on Wednesday, and then we'll be discussing it for three classes.
And writing for the past two-three days has been like pulling teeth (okay, not quite that painful, actually. But slow and draggy and hard), although that finally got better today and perhaps now that Things Are Happening it will continue being better.

And homework (aside from death-crumpets) was major-time Not Happening; but the paper is short and isn't due until Tuesday evening.

I did get work done on my books on Friday, though. And people are coming over for paella tomorrow, which should be fun.

Since I clearly don't have enough things to occupy me . . .

Comment on this post.
I will give you a letter.
Think of 5 fictional characters whose names begin with that letter and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

1. Ernest - From The Importance of Being Ernest, by Oscar Wilde. I'm talking about the guy who pretends that his name is Ernest, and falls in love with a girl who falls in love with this guy named Ernest, for whom it is very important to marry a guy named Ernest . . . and winds up discovering that his name actually is Ernest. It's an enjoyable and quite ridiculous play. I think that my high school put it on my sophomore year, and despite excellent intentions I didn't actually get around to seeing it.

2. Doctor Einstein, from Arsenic and Old Lace. Come to think of it, this may be an assumed name as well - the police certainly think so - but maybe not. This is certainly not the Einstein. I would find Dr. Einstein to be a quite likeable character if it weren't for the fact that he broke Johnny Brewster out of prison. Otherwise he seems weak-willed and a bit low on morals but fairly benign if left to his own devices. But the fact that he engineered a prison escape when his boss - who, to all appearances, is a lone agent and so wouldn't have cohorts to do anything to Dr E if he just turned and left - despite the fact that they don't get on at all is pretty dubious.

3. Evvy, from Tamora Pierce's Emlan universe. I liked Evvy a lot better before Melting Stones came out. I don't know how much this has to do with Evvy's tendency to whine, and how much to do with the fact that I found the actress's voice kind of annoying. Mind you, the actress was probably more annoying because the character was whining. I really do hope that Tamora Pierce goes back to third person again, though.

4. Ella, of Ella Enchanted. I loved that book when I was a kid. I still enjoy it, but not with the same fervor, alas.

5. Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. I have iTunes on Shuffle and "Loathing" came up. I like the music to the show Wicked a good deal. I tried reading the book when Violaclaire was into it and could not get into it at all.

( No spoilers, but cut in case you don't care )

In terms of what's going on, estelwen and I had a fun Philadelphia Day yesterday, even if it was a bit walking-heavy (why is museuming more tiring than hiking up and down mountains?). I could have brought the car, but then there's parking to consider, and traffic, and bleh, and quite possibly there would still have been just as much walking.

I need to remember to make sure that the computer is connected to the internet when I try to post this. Mom's internet is broken and does not look like it'll be fixed soon (AT&T India was unhelpful, and when mom threatened to switch internet service providers, the guy told her to go ahead. She's sure that there's someone in that company who cares about her custom, but she doesn't know how to get to them.), so we're borrowing the neighbors' unsecured wireless network (we did ask - eventually), which is sometimes fine but sometimes patchy.

I'm going to go to tea today with my dad's house neighbor Dee. That will be fun.

It's probably time to take the purple bag out. When I retrieved it from dad's house, I discovered that it had acquired clothing moths. Luckily it's already felted, so I had no compunctions about dumping it in hot water for a while.

I've actually been doing work for a lot of this week, so I haven't been posting as frequently as I have be wont to. But it's VERY quiet today, so I bring you:

I got up at 6:15 this morning, and Em and I went swimming. It was very nice. I like being up early, provided that I've gotten enough sleep (which I had). I haven't gone swimming in ages, and it was lovely to be in the water again. I must say, however, that this lack of practice showed. The person I am now, this person who starts getting tired after a few laps, is a far cry from the girl I used to be, that girl who spent all summer in the water. But I intend to go again, and perhaps that will improve. And hey, I already knew that I wasn't that girl anymore, and I think that a lot of personal growth is worth a little less facility in the water.

However, it does leave me with the feeling that I washed my face and hair in chlorine, despite the chlorine shampoo (does chlorine shampoo expire? If it can, mine probably has). And if I make a habit of this, I need to invest in a pair of goggles. I'm not sure if it's growing up or the difference between an indoor pool and an outdoor one, but the chlorine was bad enough that I didn't want to open my eyes underwater, and I dislike not being able to see. And my eyelids feel funny. Itchy. I think they would be happier with goggles, too.

And now, a book! ( Thoughts on Gail Carson Levine's _Ever_ (few to no spoilers) )

Those of you who have been reading your Smith e-mail this past week will be aware that there was supposed to have been a power outage at 5:00 this morning, with power back on at 5:30 and lots of other stuff (like internet) down throughout the day as we update to co-gen.* My alarm clock has a battery so that it doesn't reset in instances like this, and I didn't notice anything unusual this morning. Turns out, the word on the street** is that whoever was supposed to turn the power off at 5:00 this morning didn't show, and so the whole thing has been called off. And while I'm glad that there aren't going to be freaking out people on my shift this morning, there will still be freaking out people at some point in the future, and since we did all the anticipating for today, it would've been nice to just go through with it and get it over with.
Ah, its/status says that it was canceled due to a family emergency.

It is officially summer. I took my first cold shower this morning and it was marvelous.

It's been quiet today, aside from the lady who wanted to print something and couldn't because the pay-for-print computer was having problems. Either she the computer was asleep and she turned it off instead of waking it up or someone turned it off over the weekend in preparation for the power outage. Either way it won't reconnect to the Pharos server, and the lady was not happy about it. I have to say that I'm really puzzled by these people who come down to print and say that they're in the middle of class and just ran down to print something. I mean, printing doesn't take that long if everything works, but it's still longer than I'd want to step out of class for. Of course I must admit that on at least one occasion I've cut my printing pretty close too, but I managed to be in class with my paper by the time class started.

I finished The Arm of the Starfish yesterday. ( Cut for maundering about books and religion. )
Next on my reading list: A Ring of Endless Light and And Only to Deceive.

Pharos is working again. Whoot.

Em and I went canoeing yesterday, but turned back almost immediately because it was thundering ominously.

I think that's all for now.




*I would like to state that while I entirely approve of co-gen, I fully expected today to be hellish because people often don't check their e-mail/don't think ahead and then bad things happen and they freak out at the nearest person who looks to be vaguely in control of anything: probably me, since I have a shiny nametag and sit at a special desk.

**And by, "word on the street," I mean, "as I was told this morning by the chatty library lady who gives me my keys every morning and whose name I don't know and should probably ask sometime."

I had a fantastically complicated dream last night, but had forgotten the entire thing within two minutes of waking up.

Thoughts on Shadow in the North, cut for those who don't care and for spoilerness, both for itself and perhaps A House Like a Lotus:

( blah )

Once again, it is a beautiful, gorgeous day. Too bad that I'm stuck inside; it's on days like today that I would like to be able to transport the entire computer lab out onto one of the lawns.

In other news, I lost my surge protector the night before last. Mildly annoying, but given that Miss Eliza was plugged into it at the time, I think that the loss of a $17(?) surge protector is worth having her safe. It's possible that my surge protector was just overly sensitive, since Emily and Gwen's surge protector is fine. Then again, neither of their computers was plugged into it.

I moved (again) today. But it's done, and I'm all unpacked, if not organized, and tomorrow will be free for the Doing of Things, or maybe just sitting around reading - one or the other. I'm way to tired to talk coherently about moving, even if I wanted to, or about church today, which I had some thoughts of doing, so I think that I'm just going to write down my summer reading list.

( Really just for my own notes, but you're welcome to read it )