We got a our lottery number today: 314. There are 11 groups of 5 ahead of us, and 8 New Dorm quints, which are 5 singles and a common room. (There’s also a group of 10 ahead of us…) So, we are right on the borderline. It’s possible that some of those groups could pass or fail to show or choose other housing, but probably we will end up with our choice of Grad Center suites (5 singles and a bathroom). I like Grad Center a lot, probably more than everyone else in my group. But having a common room would be really nice. For now I’m just going to assume Grad Center…at least I can make sure we aren’t facing into a wall.

In the next couple of days I have a ton of reading and a ton of writing. Two papers due next week and a quiz on Wednesday. Lots of reading. Not panicking yet; I feel like if I can keep working steadily and do everything in chunks it should be fine. And then I will have had a terrific productive streak like the ones I used to have to high school all the time. Before now I’ve always had so much free (read: bored and lonely) time that I always finish things way ahead of time.

My bangs are sort of getting my eyes. I think I need to cut them.

At lunch I somehow ended up at a table with Natalie, a midyear transfer from Carleton who went to my high school. Two of her midyear transfer friends were also there. One of them came from GWU! He lived in Mitchell two floors below me last year, and last semester in the West End three floors below Eric’s triple. We compared unsatisfactory experiences. He reminded me greatly of Mike’s friend at Amherst David (who, for those keeping track at home reminds us both a lot of Eric.

Anyway. Strange, small world.

Happy spring break to everyone who is off next week. I can’t believe we go to lottery on Monday (second to last group to pick, but we are on the first night so that’s pretty cool). I can’t believe our spring break is the week after next. Soon I will have spent as much time at Brown as I spent at GWU. Snap.

tags: brown, gwu

GWU Suit Prompts Questions Of Liability: School bars depressed student. Man, I’m glad I got out of there before they made me! Jesus Christ.

tags: gwu, news, webloggish

(Things I do now but did not do previously in college)
I almost always have lunch and dinner with friends.

I have a regular job that both helps occupy my time and gives a (small, but) steady income. I feel productive.

I have more than one close friend.

I make better use of the libraries as a place to study that isn’t my room.

I take photos again.

I’ve reinvigorated my interest in and enthusiasm about computers by exclusively booting Linux, and using (and often compiling myself – hooray!) open source software.

I’m knitting again, and learning new skills in the process.

I have a bike that I love and I go biking when I have time and it’s not too cold.

tags: brown, gwu, happy

The time card machine is broken again. This time it isn’t my fault. There is a sign taped to the machine that says “Out of order, Please write in your times.” The problem with this is that writing in our times includes writing in the hours and minutes that we have just spent working. As I discovered in my Astronomy lab last year, I am really, really bad at figuring out time duration. I could have made life a bit easier for myself and clocked in at 8:00 instead of writing down 7:58, but I’m just that anal about precision. Anyway. I’m going to have to leave a couple of minutes early so I have enough time (always time!) to figure out exactly how long I worked today.

Today I’m scanning pages from a Brown songbook circa 1891 instead of Lovecraft. The book is scanned in at 300 dpi which gives me less time in between scanning and cropping and saving. So instead of knitting I’ve taken up a tagging old entries of Toast, an project I started awhile ago (during the last summer, I think?) but gave up after a few weeks at school. This time instead of going from the present back in time, I’m starting with 2001 and working forward. Sometimes I can’t believe that I wrote and thought like that back then. On the other hand, sometimes I can’t believe I write this way now. I always feel strangely detached from entries as soon as I press the publish button.

tags: gwu, pensieve, story, work

Brittney’s house and basement, especially while cooking, playing video games or watching tv
mezzanine level of the SciLi
first and second floor of the Rock (not counting the stacks)
the fifth floor undergraduate study room at Gelman Library
List 120
most public bathrooms
Maya’s house
Eric’s room last year in Mitchell
under my duvet listening to C-SPAN
the couch in Katie’s mod during Jan term when her modmates weren’t there

tags: brown, clips, gwu, happy, home, work

Life is feeling very awkward in these last few days. Visiting GWU now without Mike is sort of uncomfortable. I was only really happy there in Mitchell, in my friendly hallway where everyone I knew lived. It felt completely separate from the rest of GWU, self-contained at the edge of campus. Now everyone lives in different dorms, although a lot of my old hallmates still live with or near each other. But I don’t have anywhere to go or stay for the night. I saw Sam and Lindsay and they said hi like I had never left. Sam asked me about Brown, apparently he did the high school summer program there for two years. I never knew. I knew more people last year, maybe, but I didn’t know them as well.

Yesterday when I first arrived downtown it was right in the middle of rush hour. I stood at the Farragut North for a few minutes, waiting for Eric to come meet me. I was totally overwhelmed, I forgot how busy that area got. (Of course I still clearly remember how the Golden Triangle is completely abandoned on the weekends.) Providence is very different from DC. The size, the asymmetric streets, the way it seems deserted yet friendly every time of the day, the buildings that actually scrape the sky and don’t just stop short at 12 stories, brick sidewalks, people with accents that aren’t completely nondescript.

I’m packing today, it feels good. When Eric wakes up we will hang out because he doesn’t have classes on Fridays. But instead of just walking down the hallway, I’ll have to catch a bus or get Ma to drop me off at the Metro, take the train downtown and then walk a bunch of blocks to the West End.

tags: gwu