I'm in no mood to be 'inspired' but apparently my mood doesn't get a say.

So for whatever reason, in the last hour or so I've felt like sobbing, for NO reason. I've got nothing to cry about. I'm guessing it's a result of spiking my coffee and reading a history book about slavery.

For one, I actually like this book. It's called Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild and instead of focussing on the tortures of that idiotic institution (although he doesn't ignore them either) it's about how the heck it got abolished in the first place. He focusses each chapter on a specific person in the process so it's very easy to connect to and doesn't read much like a history book.

He also throws in fun facts like why Quakers say 'thee' and 'thou' instead of 'you' or the character behind the person who wrote 'Amazing Grace'. You should definitely read it if you have the chance.

So I know I haven't posted in awhile, it's been a busy week. I catsat for a couple who went to Ethiopia to adopt 2 children. Of course one of the cats decided to go missing about an hour before they came home and I still have no idea where she was hiding given that I tore that apartment up looking for her. She showed her face while I was telling them that she was possibly lost. As a result of this though, I got to meet the kids who were so cute and surprisingly happy. The three year old was so excited and wanted to explore everything and I got to teach her how to turn on the tv which I'm sure the parents loved it. Nevermind the fact that she was surrounded by people she could barely communicate with or she had been on a plane for the better part of a day just an hour before. I honestly was expecting her to be more cautious and withdrawn after all she's been through but I forgot that kids are so adaptable. Now she and her brother are in a loving family with a whole network of supporting friends (you should have seen the kids' room that got set up in less then a month) and even better, her parents seem like they are going to keep trying to incorporate their own culture in their lives instead of completely Americanize them.

The wanting to break down sobbing feeling has passed with this post though! yay! Writing things out only intensified these random feelings before so I wonder what's different. I guess I'll figure it out with time.

Valentines Day

So you'd expect this to be a bitter diatribe against the worlds cruelest hallmark holiday except that it's not. I got flowers this year so I'm happy (nevermind that they were from my dad). I'll be in a pretty good mood this week because I get to spend all my free time, and not so free time, hanging out with three clingy cats. Nothing cures the romantic blues more than feeling needed, even if it is just by animals.

I just bought Percy Jackson and Olympians: the Lightning Thief. Haven't read much of it yet but I'm excited. My managers keep asking me what I would read as kid and going through the list just makes me upset that I supposedly grew out of that stage. Buying it was probably a reaction to that.

So I thought I'd make a list and share of all the books I'm going to need to reread once I'm out of college and have nothing to do. (I was going to wait till I had my own kids by that's assuming way to much about my future). Sadly my mom made me give away most of my books when we moved senior year of high school so I supposed I'll finally have to get a library card.

So let's start with the series. These are the ones I've already read but since I'll be reliving my childhood with this mission any suggestions would be awesome.

Babysitters Club

Animorphs

Boxcar Children

Little House on the Prairie

Anne of Green Gables

Harry Potter

Briar Rose

To Kill a Mockingbird (I know, totally not a kids book, but it was the first chapter book I read by myself. Mom was reading it to me because I liked the movie and then got into one of her 2 hour long conversations with my aunt. Finally I had enough and took off with it myself).

All of Jane Austen's stuff

Shakespeare's plays (maybe I'l get through all of them)

Jane Eyre...(don't think I'll get through it, overloaded in high school, by I should at least try)

Gregory Macguire's stuff

and then I'll go from there. It's weird thinking that for once the majority of what I read won't be dictated to me. I'm not sure what to do with myself.

Anyway one of the cats is demanding attention so I've lost all point to this post.

P.S. the world is round again, my prof admitted she was wrong and I was right and that was the most awesome feeling EVER!.

PPS. too much PDA is gross people. you can be all snuggly at home and all but waiting in line in starbucks and making out is not the nicest way to multitask.

Another Productive Day at Work

Wow, it's been a whole week since I last posted, and I was on such a roll before. Expect less and less consistency from this point on.

So the real inspiration for the title of this blog, at least the puppies part, was one of my professors dogs whom he would bring to class and thus entertain me and keep me off facebook for at least a good 5 minutes. (Normally I'm a pretty awesome student, and by awesome I mean I take it all in, don't ask questions, and then forget it all after the final, but this class is basically the same as another one right before it and I get tired of taking the same notes twice.)

Obviously because I started a blog and needed her, my inspiration decided to ditch class for the last couple of weeks. But yesterday my prof. brought in his other dog who is WAY more entertaining. For one, she is far less self-involved and will basically stare at you in eager anticipation for a while if you make any sort of movement. She also keeps a running commentary of the prof's lecture going by falling asleep every 5 minutes, waking up suddenly and looking around guiltily, and during particularly excruciating parts she will do that thing dogs do to scratch their ears and nose which basically looks like a student having a mental breakdown. She fits in so well with us. She basically looks like this (I didn't take a picture of her I'm not that creepy, I just stalked the internets for awhile until I found one that looks like her) and I decided that I want an irish border collie when I grow up. I'm still in denial about my age and think that this will be years and years from now.

I'm kind of over the whole yelling at dbags anonymously thing. I mean I'll be back to it in like a week but I need to feel productive and concentrating on someone else's stupidity isn't really cutting it, at least not when I'm up this early in the morning.

So welcome to my first post about art! I enjoy b s ing about art because even if I don't like the piece I can at least find something to say about it. We'll start with my fav piece right now which I like because it almost exactly expresses my opinion towards the stress of exam week. It may be no Britney Spears with an umbrella but it works for me.

Melancholia I Albrecht Durer (supposed to be an umlaut over the u but I'm tired)

So the first thing I like about this piece is that its so jam packed with symbolism. I had decided once upon a New Year's ago to spend every day of that year analyzing something about this piece. Obviously I only got two days in. Mostly because I couldn't find a way to organize it. Do I go top to bottom, bottom to top, left to right, right to left, thematically, most interesting to least? I spent two days trying to figure out the best way to go about it, making lists of all the objects and their positions and what not before I realized that all of the sudden that I looked exactly like Melancholia.... tired, haggard, and frustrated as heck. I mean what the heck is she supposed to do with a bolder that's a little too cubed but not cubed enough that's perched precariously over a half starved puppy? Do we really expect her to solve the magic square posted above her head? Will the symbolism of the bell and the symbolism of the wights make a cohesive interpretation out of the piece that will suddenly make it more meaningful to me than it was when I was already feeling way too connected to the dominating figure. Durer, that tricky artist, was luring me into a trap but at least I can feel like he got sucked into it too. I mean dear old Melancholia is in the process of drawing something on her lap which is obviously causing her more than enough trouble. If there was ever a clearer representation of the author (which there are but I'm feeling hyperbolic today) then...yeah I don't know how to finish that sentence. way to go me.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share with you, pictorially, the place I'm at right now in my life. Take a long look and just try to absorb the mess that it is.

Guess what? GW didn't actually chop down the Cherry Tree

kk... I should be studying, but since I'm learning the same thing in both of my classes I feel like I've got most of this.

So this is dedicated to all my amazing fellow students. You know them. You've got the one who raises their hand in class and starts their question with "So what you're saying is..."and then fills in with what that the professor just said verbatim or shows that they weren't listening at all to the professors intro by pointing out a contradiction that had already been discussed at length. You've got the idiot who feels the need to ask his/her/its neighbor what's going on right in the middle of lecture when they didn't feel the need to show up to class on time and at least have the decency to look rushed when they finally sauntered in. You've got the one who doesn't do the reading and instead of flying under the radar like they should, they waste everyone else's time by asking questions that are answered in the first paragraph. Yup this one is dedicated to you.

And yes, I've been the idiot to do these things on multiple occasions - except for that second one, I always have the decency to look rushed. I'm not saying you're a dbag for life, I'm just saying that in that moment, most of the class hates you. The rustling papers and the sighs are all accompanied by eye rolls and mutters of idiot. While it may be true that there is no such thing as a stupid question there is such a thing as stupid timing and as a 21 year old you should be able to figure it out by now.

So here's the situation that spurred this blog.

I realized today that at least 10 people, including the professor, in my 15 person seminar of 4th year history students still thought that Columbus' was the first one that realized that the world was round.

nononononononononononononononononononono NO.

And yes, I should have been more emphatic when in class, I was just recovering from the shock. I thought it was a trick. Which is why I didn't argue as vehemently as I should and that's driving me crazy. And I don't mean to imply that everyone who thinks that is stupid because they're not. Society perpetuates this myth whenever they f*ing can. But everyone in this seminar has had at least 3 years of college history classes and this is where we were supposed to get it drummed into our little heads that not everything we're told in kindergarten is true. The Columbus one is the classic example that I've had used in at least 2 of my classes but probably more like 4. So sorry to burst your bubble guys. The Greeks tried to calculate the size of the globe and got remarkably close. In the Metamorphoses, Ovid says that whichever god it was that decided to create order out of chaos divided the elements and then basically squished everything into a ball. And while I'm sure that there is some idiot in the greek and roman worlds who thought the world was flat, it's not completely crazy to argue that an orb in artwork could be representative of the earth. And I almost feel bad for this rant because I'm sure people went home and went "oh snap did I really argue against that" but since I held back in class I feel that I deserve a rant on a blog none of them will ever read.

P.S. I got to hang out with two awesome puppies and a delightfully bitchy cat this weekend which makes up for the fact that I didn't see any today.