Yesterday I drove up to Canada to pay Tristan a visit. He and his friend Karen and I went down to the beach, where we hung out watching seagulls drop mussels from the air to crack them open and sailers learning to sail from someone in a kayak. Then we dropped Karen on campus to do some errands while we went to the Vancouver Art Gallery and looked at gazillions of pictures. When we finished around 8:30, we were hungry, so we got some delectable and exorbitantly priced crepes.

I left around 9:30, knowing exactly which way I was supposed to go, and promptly wound up on Vancouver's back streets with only the faintest notion of where I was. Eventually I made it back to Bellingham, just in time to write a paper about DDT off the coast of CA. That's something fun to be thinking about at 4 am, lemme tell ya.

Well, a lot of people were complaining, so here are some representative before and after shots of my highlights. Sorry, no during! ;D

Ugh, my group members for environmental science set up a meeting for us at 8:30 tomorrow morning! Why, God, why? It's my day to sleep in!

I rescued 2 of the sunflowers from my Bio experiment (they were going to be thrown away) because Megan said she wanted a plant for our room. Tomorrow we're going to re-pot them. If they get too big, we'll have to plant them in the outback farm behind Fairhaven, but for now we have green life.

I am making a game involving building blocks for the Writing Center , so today during class I was sent on a mission to fetch squares of wood. I acquired said wood, then hauled it through Red Square feeling like Gretel because I kept dropping the wood scraps.

Who else hates Excel?

I have scrapes from blackberry bushes all over me even though I was wearing long pants and a long sleeved shirt. :(

The other day, I was sitting in the computer lab finishing up a paper, and the guy sitting behind me got up and used the phone in the lab to call campus mail. He asked about a package that the tracking number said had been delivered 2 days before but he hadn't gotten it. He suspected the problem was the name wasn't his--they asked whose it was, and he said 'Mr. Buttocks the 5th.' They didn't hear him, because he had to say it three or four times, and then had to spell it. "B-u-no, B-U like butter-t-t-yes, butt-o-c-k-s." Poor guy was mortified.

Last night, Megan convinced me to stay in and highlight my hair rather than go out and watch Baraka, as I intended. Well, it certainly is blonde now...I'm not used to it enough yet to say whether or not I like it.

Today, Coty and I went out to Lake Whatcom and rented a two-person kayak. We paddled around for a while, and it felt like we went a lot further than we did because the current was very strong against us on the way out. Fortunately we didn't go with the water on the way out, because it would have taken a loooong time to get back in!

When we got back, the Fairhaven Earth Day celebration was in full force, and we were surrounded by hippies. I scampered up to the room and put on a long skirt to blend with the natives, then we hung out and listened to some semi-decent reggae and sorted through piles of horrifying hippie garb.

I hauled myself out of bed at ten to eight, then walked over to Red Square to volunteer for Earth Day work parties. We drove over to a creek not far from campus, and spent the next 2 1/2 hours pulling holly and uprooting blackberry bushes. A lot of work! I came back and had lunch, then Megan said she was going to take a nap, and I decided that was a good idea. That was around 1:30 or 2, and it's 4:45 now...

Late this afternoon, after I had been hemming and hawing for 2 hours what I could do outside because I didn't feel like hiking anywhere or biking (I wanted to go swimming in the lake but no one would come), I wandered up onto the arboretum, found a nice sunny boulder to crash on, and took a 20 minute nap. Then the sun went behind the hill, and I got cold.

After dinner, I went over to campus, where this old Turkish dude was giving a talk on math and art, specifically related to the Mona Lisa (though he only talked about it 5 minutes). He focused on the golden ratio, and held my attention for a full 2 hours. Since I got back, I've been sketching bats and listening to Bruce.

Today I returned to a hike I did a few weeks ago, the Hemlock trail. The weather was warm enough that I wore shorts and a T-shirt.

This morning I had a phone interview with the woman from EcoQuest, and she officially accepted me, so I think I'll be headed to New Zealand come fall to go backpacking and do field studies of kiwi birds etc.

Aimee, Michelle, and Katie are all living together next year, so we went and peered at the exterior of some very nice buildings. Aimee said when I get back from New Zealand I can sleep under her bed with the dust-bunnies.

Megan just made me watch American History X, which was really good but sad enough that I'll probably wind up thinking about it and not be able to get to sleep.

I found out I've been screwed on my general ed classes--I thought I was done, but it turns out a class I took for humanities fulfills the multicultural requirement, so I don't need to be in the class I'm taking for that right now. It also sucks because the class I'm taking now is pretty hard and reading intensive. Couldn't they have figured this out 3 weeks ago, when I could still change my schedule?

It's very strange--these past couple days, I've been wearing my old glasses, and that prescription seems to be more in focus than my current prescription.

Does anyone else share my loathing of Adobe Acrobat reader? .PDF die!!!!!

Today Aimee and I went down to Mount Vernon to see the tulips. We went to the ultra-touristy "Tulip Town," and wandered through the rows of tulips. Man, there are a lot of varieties of tulips.

Today, Aimee and I went to see Sin City, which was a lot bloodier than I expected, but entertaining nonetheless. We tried to go to dinner, but there was absolutely NOTHING worth eating tonight, not even appetizing-looking pizza, so we about-faced and hit up Haggen for some sushi, which we devoured while watching the extended edition of the Two Towers because I hadn't seen it extended. Now I'm brainstorming for a history essay, though I'm torn between continuing that and tackling some homework that's due Monday first. Strangely, I'm pretty tired for only 12:45 on a Saturday night.

I hiked to Teddy Bear Cove, where I found several dozen purple starfish, nearly had clams spurt water on me, and took a gazillion photos. Then I hiked back to the car and drove around, trying to go uppa high so I could take pictures of the clouds.

When I came back, I discovered to my shock that Megan had cleaned our room! (Probably because I stepped on her hair clip and broke it this morning.) She even took out the recycling, so I was feeling a little guilty, and decided to clean up my stuff. Then, gasp, I swept. No crumbs of dirt sticking to our feet anymore!

There's a woman in my history class who simply does not understand the concept of historians not judging people, but trying to understand and analyze it from the viewpoint of those people. She keeps wasting everyone's time with extended interjections about how she can't believe people would do such and such, how hypocritical they were, and how they could believe such and such. She's one of those people I wish had qualms about talking in class.

Oh wow. Today in my environmental studies class we were splitting up into groups, and I couldn't find my name on the list, so I went and talked to the teacher. He told me I wasn't on his list--effectively, I wasn't registered. I started freaking out a little bit, and after class he took me over to the environmental science office to see if they could help me. I sat around waiting for the gal to be finished with her appointment for 25 minutes (missing breakfast) and then talked to her. Thankfully, the foul-up was on their part--they had me listed under a different teacher, who wasn't teaching the class at all.

Today has been a day of small annoyances:

• when I was putting on my shoes today, my shoelace snapped
  
• I couldn't sleep last night, so I was really tired when I woke up this morning
  
• the person I had an appointment with was talking with someone else when I got there, and they ran overtime, so despite my short meeting, I still missed breakfast
  
• hoping I had missed an important phone call, I listened to the messages, but after skipping through about 40 calls from Megan's boyfriend, it turns out the woman didn't call me back
  
• it was lovely when I left for work at 7, but at some point in between, it started raining, and I didn't have my rainjacket, so my favorite jeans are soaking and my scarf is making our room smell like wet sheep
  

Yet, despite all that, it was not as bad a day as anticipated. However, I have yet to read voluminous amounts of Silent Spring and study for my biology test tomorrow.

It sounds very wet outside, and windy. I like being somewhere dry listening to the rain and the wind, or being in the wind but not the rain. One exception to enjoying listening to rain is the goddamn drip outside my window--if you're interested, I'll explain the horrific coincidences that add up to make the most annoying, legal water torture out there.

Yesterday I was pissed because I spent a long time doing homework when I felt like watching a movie. Tonight, I continued the trend, but then I watched a movie anyway because I wanted to.

Now, unfortunately, I cannot sleep and I'm supposed to be waking up in 4 hours. Plus, tomorrow is my extra busy day, and I have a meeting scheduled for during my breakfast. I predict Monday will suck.

On Thursday I had a doctor check up and I discovered I weigh a fair bit more than I thought I did. Now, I know that muscle weighs more than fat, but I don't work out, so...I decided to put into action Operation Get-in-Shape! In keeping with that, I went for a hike today, which turned out to be all uphill on the way in and all downhill coming out. Let's just say it didn't take much to acheive my optimal heart rate.

After a quick bite to eat, I went to the bio building and watered, inspected, and measured some boring looking plants. Plants and me don't get along. Did I say that before? Shrug.

Well, Megan has surprised me several times. I didn't think she'd go through with piercing her tongue. I didn't think she cared enough about the environment to wake up at 8:30 on a Saturday morning to help at Earth Day with me. And I didn't think she would like The Unicorns.

Dandelions, despite being weeds, really are quite dapper.

Mmm, just took a 2 hour nap--it felt awesome! Of course, I'll probably be hating life tonight.

Hmm, you know your nails were too long when you can't type after you trim them because their shortness feels foreign.

This quarter I'm trying to not come back to my room between classes, my reasoning being that I won't fall asleep if I'm at the library for fear of not waking up in time or looking nasty drooling everywhere. Oh, speaking of the library, I got off the wrong floor when I was walking down the stairs the other day, and I encountered a really cool room I had no idea the library had.

Last night I watched adventure movies from the "Radical Reels" tour, which got me amped up enough that I turned on some loud music and did a kickboxing workout by myself.

In biology, I wound up partnered with one of my hallmates from last year. Unrelated, I think bio lab's going to suck because we have to go in 2 hours extra each week to finish our labs and we have to keep some plants alive (which, for me, will be no small feat)--I unwittingly volunteered myself to come water our group's plant every Saturday and Sunday.

Last night I went to bed around 6 (daylight savings time, in my defense), so when I rolled out of bed at 12:30 and didn't have any clean underwear, I decided the karma wasn't flowing and went back to bed. Fortunately I wound up having clean bikini bottoms.

Last night I was Aimee's designated walker. She was entertaining until we got back to the dorms and then she was puking for the next hour.

Well, now that a week has passed, I think it's about time for some spring break photos.

My biology teacher sounds as much like Sean Connery as an Indian woman can.