Katie has some big-ass tittays.

hey all,

yes, I am alive. doing quite well in fact. but the internet isn't great here so I can't do much, like update. any questions or if you just want to get in touch, email me. if you need my address my brother has it. hope all is well back Stateside.

iPhone users are complete idiots.

Why Steve Jobs decided to give them discounts for buying early is beyond me. They had to know they were going to cut the price eventually. Yet, they decide to bitch and moan about how they spent more. No one forced them to stand in line for three days to buy a $600 phone. The fact that iPhone buyers couldn't wait a shocking two months for what stands for a glorified iPod/ Blackberry to have its cost reduced just further points to a lack of common sense on their parts. Seriously.

I know a lot of iPhone users didn't care, which shows that they at least have some common sense. But those who bitch and moan about it? Need to shut. the. hell. up.

Despite all my bitching and freaking out and everything else, I'm officially invited to serve in the Peace Corps!

I won't know specifically where until they send me my crap, but the way it works out, I'm pretty sure that I'll be in Central Asia from late September 07 till late December 09 (back a few days before Christmas). That depends on whether or not I survive training, end up staying there, etc. But from an optimistic perspective, I'll be there for quite a while, coming home once or twice a year (though home may or not still be in NY when I get back).

Holy crap, y'all. I'm going! This ridiculous process is done! (Other than getting somewhere between three and six teeth filled. I have poor oral hygiene.)

ok, i just saw my first harry potter-related thing (having never read the books or seen any of the movies) and holy cow. THAT is what people are so excited about? they killed the only character i found interesting. but hoo boy is daniel radcliffe hot, i felt so awkward about it because he's like 17, but he looks older. and is such a damn fox. christ.

uh... summer stuck at home blows. really, that's the entire update.

so i'm tired and irritated and in the midst of some seriously major stress and i log onto mindsay and see some bottomfeeder harassing my brother about a new feature. dear whoever it is: you're a tool. maybe if you, i don't know, had some semblance of critical thinking ability, you'd be able to suggest possible improvements rather than spam about how much you hate the feature. instead you choose the most annoyingly ineffective route possible, which is harassment with not an iota of intelligence behind it. so shut up. jesus h. there are people like this at mount holyoke and i honest to god sometimes wonder if their applications were fakes because they are so godawful dumb.

and now that I have agreed with my brother about something, I'm going to wait for the four horsemen of the apocalypse. cause I don't think that's ever happened before. by the by: expect a photo post after i graduate, which will feature my brother looking terrified while swamped by 3000 women dressed in white. hahahahahaha.

in other news. i am fucking grumpy with pretty much everyone. peace corps medical clearance shit is causing me so much stress because i need a nephrology referral and a bunch of other crap. and my eye doctor is booked through JULY. also lots of work. but i get to go to williams this weekend and see a bunch of fun people and maybe drink a ton of chacha. and here is what my finals sched looks like:
jefferson & america: 12-15 page paper, due May 14th by noon
ethics & public policy: 8 page paper, due May 14th by 4 PM
advanced studies in russian: ...nothing!
independent study (russian): supposedly due sometime soon? my advisor and i are crossing wires somewhere. i should probably email him again. anyways, 7-10 pages due by May 14th. probably.

so in reality my finals period isn't bad AT ALL. last semester finals involved like 60+ pages of writing. this semester it's like barely 30. that makes me happy. then i'm going to maine with my mom & a couple of my friends and relaxing/ doing nothing for a week.

and then i GRADUATE. from COLLEGE. on may 27th. with a dual Bachelor of Arts in Russian Literature & Culture and History. yeeeeah. so useless.

I can't really say much that hasn't already been said, just that it's terrible, and I sincerely hope this causes some people to rethink their stance on the ability of guns and weapons. As I said to a friend yesterday, no one's ever been assassinated with a knife. The 2nd Amendment is horribly outdated and from a completely different time. But this isn't really a time for politics, so I'll step off my soapbox.

Also, I have to say, being a college student yesterday was just the slightest bit strange. Given, I go to a college completely different from Virginia Tech (all girls, small, etc.), so I wasn't really identifying, but I have lots of friends who go to big state schools, and MHC is all of twenty minutes from the University of Massachusetts' main campus. Everyone keeps saying they're worried about copycat attacks; I'd like to think this is an irrational fear, but I remember that in high school, right after the Santee High School shooting, my school had three or four bomb threats (one of them quite serious- attendance was made optional for one day which had a very specific threat; another put the school in lockdown for an hour); I think most of them weren't serious, but it speaks to the viral fear that affects a lot of people, a kind of Stockholm syndrome for guns and violence.

In any event, I thought a quote from The West Wing was somewhat pertinent; there's a couple of episodes dealing with a pipe bomb attack at a college swim meet, and the President, while addressing a group of people, says:

"...They weren't born wanting to do this... There's evil in the world. There'll always be, and we can't do anything about that. But there's violence in our schools, too much mayhem in our culture and we can do something about that."

And seeing as I am never serious for this long... I was officially nominated to the Peace Corps last week, for a program teaching English and environmental education in Central Asia. My first thought was "hooray," my second was "I wonder if I should bring a two-year stock of shampoo/toilet paper?" I'm not definitely in yet, but my chances are a lot higher than they were a couple weeks ago when I was simply an applicant.

Also, this weather sucks. It's been raining forever and it'll rain for at least another two days. Gross.

And I still have horrible senioritis. None of my work is interesting to me. It's pretty bad, but everyone seems to feel the same. And of course I have a lot of work for the rest of the week, but people are coming this weekend, so maybe I'll feel more motivated then...? Doubtful.

When did Shatner become a professional shill?

this week has been a week of me being a total failure. i'm getting everything done, but i have NO motivation whatsoever. even my independent study, which is the nicest part of my academic workload this semester, has become a little bit annoying. which has nothing to do with the subject matter, my advisor, or my abilities- i just have no motivation to do anything. freaking senioritis.

i went home this past weekend to hang out with the fam for easter weekend. it was pretty nice, dad made a nice dinner and we had polish easter at my aunt's. this may sound weird but i fucking love eastern european food. archil, the guy who led my trip in georgia, said the two worst things in the world are British food and Belgian women but Russian food came close. i disagree because i mostly love Russian food, with the exception of the mystery meat and the one time there was glass in our pizza. my brother was home for some internety-worky things (two things i fail at understanding) so i saw him as well. watched little miss sunshine again, which is a pretty good movie though i think probably pretty overrated. though steve carrell is, as usual, awesome.

ugh. school. martyna and i are going to see rjd2 with her cousin pawel (known him since sophomore year- an INSANE kid) and a bunch of his friends on sunday. there's a bunch of sweet music coming through the valley in the next month- rjd2 at pearl street, spoon at pearl street, and ben folds & talib kweli (and ok go but i don't care about them) at umass' spring concert (our spring concert sucks- hellogoodbye, feh). also having a russian party at susanna pavlovna's house on saturday and going out for sushi with alicia, val and a friend of alicia's on friday (i think). and then lee and amanda are coming to visit the next weekend, so freaking excited. i still have to figure out where to take them to eat though. probably thai gardens in noho. then the weekend after that- georgia reunion at williams. omg so excited. i have chacha and it is going to disappear. sweet.

oh, and yeah, peace corps stuff going on but i'm going to try and not talk about it until i know stuff is for sure. but it would be awesome.

ugh, really wish the people next door would stop smoking pot on the porch. the wind blows it directly into my room and then my room stinks of pot smoke and then i get irritated. grr.

ok. time to stop being a snot and complaining. five more weeks of school.

my peace corps interview is Thursday.

my rough draft (read: two pages of BS) of my independent study is due monday.

i have an ethics paper due next tuesday.

my final draft of my independent is due april 30th.

i have a 12-15 page original research paper due for Jefferson on like the fourteenth of May or something. i forget when senior stuff is due.

i have no idea what my Russian final is.

i probably have more stuff to write for Ethics.

basically, that's all that's between me and graduation on may 27th. the fam should be coming a couple days before and i guess i'll do all the grad hullabaloo, like laurel parade/ baccalaureate/ etc. oh, and commencement. haha.

and other than that... now I need sleep. and maybe some matzoh with jam when i wake up.

ann coulter is a complete waste of space. the end.

so... senioritis has actually kicked in. i've been under the impression that i've had senioritis ever since i left kindergarten at a prissy montessori school, but it always gets worse when it's actually "senior year." my senior year of high school, i skipped at least one class a day and left campus a lot and drank on the weekends (though not that badly, truthfully). now that i'm officially a second semester senior who needs 0 credits left to graduate (i just need to finish my majors), i'm really suffering from senioritis. doing my russian hw is such a chore, even though i really enjoy that class and love my professor.

but other than a pretty intense case of that, all is well here. this past weekend i went to my school's drag ball, which is always an insane time. this year i was sydney bristow (from the show alias- i was obsessed with it for a while). costume is <a href="http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/2987147200063422951EiTYtD"><img src="http://inlinethumb07.webshots.com/646/2987147200063422951S200x200Q85.jpg" alt="here"></a>. it was pretty grand. blair (my friend's boyfriend) snuck in my flask, or at least, attempted to. the rent-a-cops stopped him and said "there better not be any alcohol in that flask," and blair whipped it out and chugged it, and upon finishing, said "not anymore." there were 6 OUNCES of vodka in that thing. needless to say, I was impressed. lots of dancing was had, as well as much liquor. it was grand. sunday i baked biscuits and watched tv. i was hungover from not really drinking that much- i think it was just fatigue, really.

in any event, i'm still pretty freaked about actually getting a JOB. i sent in my peace corps application, but seeing as they accept only like 5-10% of their applicants, i don't have high expectations. so i'm looking around, and hopefully will find something that is perfectly suited to me. though, really- no high expectations.

also- britney done gone crazy. kinda hilarious.