O frabjous day!!!

My father drove me down to Eugene first thing Friday morning. Shortly after he left, I realized I had left my wireless card back home at my parents' house. My parents mailed it back to me first thing Saturday morning, but, uh, there was no mail on sunday, Monday or Tuesday. Thus, I have been completely without internet access since then, and haven't checked my email or anything since Thursday night.

I do love having the house to myself, and I've been looking forward to my week of peace before the roommates get back, but ... Man. All of my plans very much had internet involved in them! I did not expect to feel so completely cut off from the world. Especially since speshope, whom I usually force to entertain me and drive me around places, had prior plans this week and was across the state this week. So it was just me and the cat all alone in the empty cold house!

Still, the internet is back now, thank lord! And I did manage to get quite a bit done. Oh, vacations: even when one has no choice, you can still be relaxing.

Here is what I have been doing since Friday:

1. Sleeping! Sooooooo much sleep. I start classes again on Monday, you know; who knows when I will get another chance like this! Sleep + me = OTP.

2. Reading! Books finished since I got home: 1776 by David McCullough; Artists in Crime and False Scent by Ngaio Marsh; The Lion's Daughter by Loretta Chase; Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman; Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer; The Secret Swan by Shana Abe; and part of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

3. Cooking! I made my first batch of homemade pizza dough this weekend, and it was so easy I am a little ashamed. Yeast, I will be afraid of you no more, what with my trusty food processor to knead for me! Also cooked was some very yummy potato salad -- yukon gold potatoes, chopped and boiled; bulk Italian sausage meat cooked and crumbled; some fried onions; mayonnaise mixed with a healthy spoonful of pesto and a dab of sour cream. It got better the longer it set. Ooh, and last night I made white bean soup using the ham bone left over from Christmas dinner last week. Which was ... okay, but also apparently ALL THE SOUP IN THE WORLD.

4. Doing crossword puzzles! Sadly, the number of ones I have started and abandoned is much, much, much larger than the number I have actually finished. Stupid brain.

5. Practicing Russian! Only a little bit, because I am lame and unfocused, but some is better than nothing.

6. Playing in Photoshop! Only a little bit for this, too, but last night I made this wallpaper, which I am very pleased with.

7. Listening to music! At the same time as many of the previous activities, in fact.

8. Cuddling the kitty! I do not pretend to have had a choice about this matter. The kitty is very social, and he misses having people around, so I have to do extra duty to keep him loved.

9. Doing laundry! So there -- I am responsible sometimes! Also other chores such as organizing all my stuff, cleaning my room, doing dishes, etc.

Note that "watching dvds!" is not on this list, alas. My computer has decided it has reached the age where it becomes cranky and slow for no reason, and has decided to no longer acknowledge the cd-rom/dvd drive's existence. I shall have to get this fixed soon enough.

dream; movie; school

Last night: I had a fannish dream, for the first time in a really long time. It was strangely ordinary, actually. All I remember is Abby and McGee from NCIS were standing around talking about the guy Abby was dating, and how she didn't think it was going to work out with him, because he was way more serious and into monogamy than she was, or something? And McGee was all "ah, yes," and apparently that was part of the reason they stopped being together too? I don't know. It was very quotidian.

Last Friday: speshope and I went out to see One Night With the King at the $1.50 movie theater in Springfield. This was the random biblical movie about Esther. People who acted in this movie include two famous movie stars from the 60s and 70s (Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif); two guys I know best for their recent roles in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (John Noble and John Rhys-Davies); and Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica. Peter O'Toole was in the movie from perhaps three minutes and one line of dialogue, and got his name listed first, well above the title.

Spes's and my verdict: That was a terrible, terrible movie. IT WAS SO BAD, YOU GUYS. It was amazing, actually, watching it and trying to figure out all the ways it could have been slightly less crappy. Like if the main actors were just a little bit better -- or the dialogue wasn't completely cliched -- or if there was any sort of explanation for the random fantasy hallucination elements -- or even if the editor had worked a little bit harder at making the scenes make any kind of sense or follow each other in any way.

Gaius Baltar was pretty awesome, though, simply because he was so incredibly over the top. That's the secret to getting through this: hamming it up as much as you can. You can't out cheese the direction, so why not go for it?

I was trying very, very hard not to burst into laughter at inappropriate times during the film. I did not succeed. There were plenty of other people in the audience with us -- families and stuff! -- so I felt like I should try to keep my scorn and amusement to myself, but sometimes one can only fight so much.

Next week: I start classes again on Monday. I am not sure how I feel about this yet!