I tried to go to bed early last night but apparently wasn't tired enough because just as I was drifting to sleep, it got so windy outside I couldn't sleep. I swear it was a freaking gale! I got many hours of 'rest' last night but not very much actual sleep. At one point I got up and played on the computer for an hour.

Last night a bunch of my housemates friends came over and we all hung out until midnight, when everyone had to go to bed because they were all on crew and were wiped. I made cookies.

This morning the neighbor's dog came and woke me up--Metta volunteered to walk him while the neighbors were away, and Anika brought him over to visit us all this morning.

Pictures from when Robin was here:


It was cold.

It's snowing right now.

I had a makeup class this afternoon for my law and religion class. The class is three hours long, but fortunately we have a break (during which I played frisbee today).

On Thursday evening I skipped jujitsu to go hear one of my favorite photographers, Bruce Barnbaum, talk at a local bookstore. He gave a slideshow as well that put me in the mood for photography, but then I had to go home and do biostat.

EDIT: Sorry, I thought that link worked without having to log in. Here is a Reuters article about the same thing.

It has begun. After more than an hour of fierce and emotional debate, [South Dakota's] senators rejected pleas to add exceptions for incest or rape or for the health of the pregnant woman and instead voted, 23 to 12, to outlaw all abortions, except those to save the woman's life.

Robin came up to visit me this weekend! We had many many adventures, and I will post photos from some of them tomorrow, but I'm too lazy to edit them right now.

On Saturday, when she got in, we stopped by Tennant Lake and discovered it was frozen! We had fun playing with the ice, and everyone thought we were major tourists. In the evening, we dragged Aimee up to Vancouver to see a laser show of Pink Floyd's The Wall. It was a little dated, but still cool, especially when they turned on a smoke machine and then you could see the beams of light cutting through the air all around the room.

Sunday, we wandered downtown to check out some stuff, then decided to take photos for one of Robin's assignments. Robin wanted to take a picture of some scary shouting homeless guys but then they saw us and came over and one made me listen to the Eurythmics on his CD player. Sketch! We got out of there as fast as we could.

We again headed for Vancouver on Monday, visiting the Art Gallery, a cool suspension bridge and forest walkway 100 feet in the canopy, and seeing an IMAX about Roving Mars.

Yesterday we did very little, aside from relaxing, then we dashed into school so I could turn in a paper for art history and we hit up jujitsu.

Today we spent a good hour and a half at an interactive art museum downtown called MindPort, playing with all the vaguely-sciency pieces. I unfortunately only paid for an hour's worth of parking and the meter maid caught me. Bummer. Then I dropped Robin at the airport and hung out with her for a while, until her boarding was half an hour late and we went and asked about it and it turned out her flight had been cancelled. Apparently she still hasn't landed yet, at 12:15 AM, and she originally was supposed to get in at 9:30.

I met my Huxley twin today--we're in the same major and taking all the same classes next quarter. Apparently there's a triplet too--my Bio 205 lab partner I disliked!

We went to Larabee State Park during biostat today to count the numbers of species in various tidepools. My teacher forgot to pick up the second van. Uhh, dude, did you really think 20 people would fit in one van? He made up for it, though, by giving us chocolate.

Saturday: went to Tennant Lake with Ryan, where we saw tons of beaver-fication and finally a beaver lodge (don't know the proper term). Looked at the Nooksack, where we hypothesized about how recently it had receded, and identified tracks on the sandbank.

Still Saturday: made Valentines with Aimee. She made me one with a swastica on it, so I retaliated with one of a tombstone with her name on it.

Sunday: went skiing with Coty, got a speeding ticket. I blame her red car.


Click for a bigger view, which Mt. Shuksan deserves.


Later the same day. It snowed in the morning then turned gorgeous.

Monday: busy doing don't remember what, but it seemed important at the time.

Tuesday: discovered magazines at Bellingham Library. Need to stop going so I don't find more interesting things to read than my schoolwork. Ran into a friend from art history who gave me a lift to school then later lent me a huge book about Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.

Still Tuesday: up till 4 studying biostat, then woke up at 8:30. Woke up shivering several times despite wearing fleece pants and a sweater to bed.

Today: biostat test that I was freaking out for the first half of then calmed down when I realized the teacher wasn't enforcing the hour time limit and I had time to redo the problem I used the wrong statistical test to do.

More Today: met with my not very helpful advisor, who fortunately has given me his signature that EcoQuest will count as my senior project so I can't be screwed over. He sarcastically said several times that I wowed him with my optimism (related to other things, not him screwing me over in the future).

Wow, I had no idea the Olympic Games were starting.

Last night Aimee and I watched the Vagina Monologues, which were actually funny and not half as scary as I anticipated.

Also, I think kaeldra.com is about due for a makeover. I've had this layout for a whole year!! Sacre bleu.

Today was the Huxley Internship Fair, so I kind of dressed up and updated my resume, then looked like an idiot because everyone else was wearing jeans and t-shirts and no one had resumes. I didn't even really want to talk to anyone there because I want to be in California this summer, but I talked briefly to a park ranger who I think thought I was an idiot because I kept standing there awkwardly but didn't really have any questions and hadn't even been to the park he was representing.

Then I went and took an art history midterm, which I had been stressing about for a long time but turned out to not be a big deal at all.

Here's a preview of the drawing I'm working on now.

I found a weevil in my dresser drawer today. I wasn't so much bothered by its presence as by the fact I knew it was in Family (maybe Order) Curculionidae.

Last night Aimee, Katie and I went to a highlighter rugby party. Everyone was already plastered when we got there, plus we only knew two people, so it wasn't very fun and we left after an hour to go play with Michelle's cat and Aimee's rabbit.

There are some cool wildlife pictures here.

I made myself a quesadilla for lunch but I accidentally put parsely on it instead of cilantro, so it tasted faintly Italian.

I dropped history yay!

Last night a storm was ragin! I had to bend into the wind to make it to the bus stop, and then the bus stop provided absolutely no shelter against the wind or the rain. Boo that.

I got especially beat up at yesterday's jujitsu. My biceps have these bright green and purple bruises all over them. We learned how to do the "Guillotine"--basically, choking someone really easily.

In Telfs, Austria, "wild men" wear suits of tree lichen during Schleicherlaufen, a festival that celebrates winter's end.