Grumble grumble (is the sound of Laura's stomach)

I have been eating a lot healthier since I've been in college. My veggie-loving roommates have been a good influence on me. Before, I didn't even like lettuce, let alone things like tomatoes and mushrooms, but now I love most vegetables. And thanks to the World Hunger Farm I now know and love all sorts of veggies that I'd never heard of before--like swiss chard, liana beans, and kale.

All that to say that my stomach has gotten used to healthy foods. Today for lunch I went to Vitex with Rob and John and I got their famous "gut pack." My stomach is kind of mad it me for that now. It is not used such large quantities of barbecue sauce and fritos. I appreciated the Waco experience, but it's nothing something I will be eating everyday.

Vitex also has Dublin Dr. Pepper, which is amazing.

Performing at Common Grounds last night was really fun. Elise and I had good rapport on stage and charmed the audience with our banter and musical prowess. Be looking for our names on a marquee near you!

I have a headache :/ Maybe because too much Dublin DP and not enough water.

Open Mic

Tonight I and my roommate Elise will be performing at Common Ground's open mic night. She has a djembe and I have a guitar and tonight they will make sweet music together. Or sad music. Or angry music. Or funny music. Depending on the song. We are going to leave in like seven minutes.

The funny thing is that my voice is still not all the way back (see last post) so I'm all sexy and raspy (which reminds me of an episode of Friends. Anyone?).

It'll be good. I've done open mic there before (we get thirty whole minutes all to ourselves!) and it'll be nice to have someone else up there with me. Next time, Linh will hopefully join us, who plays piano.

Ok, gonna pack up.

Video!




I'm cold. And my lungs hurt. But here's another picture from Long Island. It's our shadows at the beach. I'm the one with my leg sticking out.

Questions? Comments? How ya feelin?

Long Island

Long Island was a good time. Lots of museums and driving and gravesites and art and autumn. For example.

(a detail of a painting by Lee Krasner)

(a mustache cup in the Whaling Museum of the town of Sag Harbor)

(and we got to dip our toes in the sand a.k.a. my only picture of the whole group)




Interesting things were learned and I'm glad I went. I was ready to come back though, because it wasn't exactly restful.

Now I have a paper due next week and one this week and I'm off running.

Hair Care Shmair Lair.

Ok, here are some hair cutting picks, most taken by Rachael [see last post for the story]:

Now for the hair . . .





Not a bad job, huh?

Hair Shmair.

Today is Canada's Thanksgiving, according to my Mom's blog. Good for them. Way to be, Canada.

My hair is now about three inches shorter, falling to about my chin or a little lower than my chin (depending on the humidity). I cut it yesterday afternoon, and by that I mean that I myself cut my hair in my bathroom with my scissors. It was very exciting and spontaneous. Ryan helped, and I have some pictures that I'll post later ( I'm in the library right now). I like it though. I'm pretty proud of myself. I saved about twenty dollars and had fun doing it. I was encouraged by both India Arie and Regina Spektor. India says, "I am not my hair, I am not this skin, I am not your expectations-no. I am not my hair. I am not this skin. I am the soul that lives within," and Regina tells me "Maybe you should cut your own hair, cause that can be so funny. It doesn't cost any money and it always grows back (hair grows even after you're dead . . ." Thanks ladies. And thanks Ryan.

And so it is Monday.
And so I didn't go to my first class and studied instead for a test tomorrow (and wrote in my blog).
And so I need to leave now to go to my Philosophy class.

And I leave Wednesday for Long Island.

Twiddling my thumbs . . .

I'm at work right now and I have nothing to do. It's a pretty frustrating situation. I'm here, I showed up, there's nothing on my desk to do, and my professor isn't around to tell me anything to do. The professor I TA for is probably at lunch and the only thing I can do now is wait around for him to come back to see if he has anything for me to do. Until then here I am, writing on my blog. Thankfully I work in a cubicle so no on can see me doing this. To everyone else in the Audio Visual Resource Center in which I work, I just sound like I'm working, typing away on the computer.

I also take attendance for another professor's class. Her TA is in class, so I took her attendance taking job. The class has almost 200 students, and I walk up and down the rows, marking on my paper who is absent. It is quite a fun place of power, walking with my clipboard. When I walk by students hide their cell phones on which they are sending text messages and click out of the window on their computer on which they are playing Solitaire or looking at pictures on Facebook. I couldn't care less what they are doing, but it's fun that they think that I do care

My Mom came and surprised me in Waco today. We sat on campus and chatted and are going to get dinner together this evening. That's a fun surprise.

I'm writing a paper on Thomas Moran. He is a 19th century American landscape painter. It is largely because of his sketches and watercolors of Yellowstone that the area was set aside as our first national park. Such as

I think that's pretty interesting.

Happy October

I know that's kind of belated, but I haven't written since it has been October. I feel a well wishing should be said
I haven't written much in my paper journal either, so don't feel too neglected. Instead I've been writing papers for class, journals for philosophy, notes for American Art. That sort of thing.
I've found that the first half of my week is usually pretty stressful and I frantically fly about, trying to accomplish everything. But by Wednesday, I either stop caring or I have less to do and then the rest of my week is pretty chill. That is how it has been pretty much every week.
It's so nice right now to write something I'm not going to be graded on. Not in a quantitative sense anyway. I'm sure you're still all grading and judging what I'm writing, deciding how and if you want to respond
My first round of tests is still not over. I have Contemporary Art and Philosophy and the Arts next week.

I'm wearing a ring today that I forgot I owned. It's a glass ring that I bought in Venice. Venice is famous for its glass products, and I chose a blue ring to remind me of the waters of Venice. There are also slight waves in the surface of the ring and gold flecks amidst the blue to signify waves.

Thar she is. The gold rings next to it are birthday gifts from Allison.
I should write blurbs for jewelry catalogs or something, huh?

Enough about rings; how are you?