penn

Something that makes me happy

Sitting on my bed late at night with my laptop, a pair of headphones, and some good music. There's something zen-like about fading into my own personal little world.

I like this spot I've created for myself. I'm starting to feel more at peace here. I really like having my own space. I have to share the house with others, but my room is completely my domain.

Little Bits

* I am going to a Detroit/Twins game at the end of June with a friend of mine. I'm super excited! It's a grad school event, and we managed to make it through the lottery to get tickets. For $35, they are driving us to Detroit, getting the seats, providing the food, etc. Yeah, it's a touch expensive, but I am happy to pay it in order to avoid dealing with all the hassles of transportation and logistics.

* Just had an excellent meeting with my advisor. My summer plans are going full steam ahead despite a few hiccups, and he is helping me find the organisms I need for my research. I'm going to be spending the next two days on the reserve working on the pond survey our lab does; I'm learning about different insects and the pond ecology via the survey. On Thursday and Friday, I should be heading to Saline (about 15 minutes south) to find some bullfrog tadpoles so that I can set up experiments over the weekend. I'm really keen to get started on all this. As long as my experiments run more-or-less according to plan, I should be done with the field portion by the end of July. If I finish the field portion up by then, I will be going home (as long as tickets aren't too insanely expensive).

* My little plants are growing quite nicely. I need to get some more pots in order to transplant the seedlings to give them more space. I've got some seedlings planted in the yards, but I think I'll put the rest in pots so that I can move my flowers in August.

* I've been keeping active almost every day of the week. In the past week, I have either run, gone swing dancing, spent tons of time mucking around in ponds, or played frisbee every day but one. I like this new active lifestyle.

A question

What did people do before the internet?

In chatting with a friend tonight (appropriately, on the internet), we mused about the big time wasters in our life. The internet and TV are way up there. In fact, they're my only big time wasters. I don't read as much as I'd like these days (and don't really consider it a time waster most of the time, tho reading Harry Potter instead of studying is probably not the best idea). So, mostly, I surf the 'net, watch TV, or occasionally play a video game to pass time.

Before the internet and TV were accessible, how did people spend their time? If you didn't want to work on homework or do the chores, what did you do? Or were people magically more productive back in the day? I imagine I'd be a lot more productive if I wasn't such an internet junky.

Tigers game

I went to a Tiger's game yesterday with some friends. Great fun was had. Fabulously, the Tigers won 15-7 versus the Mets, so there was lots of fun offense to watch. There were even several triples in the game!

I've put some pictures below the cut.

Thoughts on sleeping

I've been housesitting for my friend for the past week, so I've been thinking a lot about sleeping. Specifically, I haven't gotten much sleep at my friend's house. There's a myriad of reasons, so I am sleeping at my house tonight to see if I am better rested in the morning.

First, my friend has a kitten. He's about 6 or 8 months old, but he's quite needy. At night, he likes to keep me awake in bed, and he wakes me up around 6 each morning. Not being a morning person, I typically end up locking him out of the bedroom so I can get another hour or two of sleep. However, even that doesn't work well, since he meows and paws at the door.

Another thought is the pillow/bed situation. I've never given a whole lot of thought to pillows. Growing up, I just slept with whatever we had, and we never really had big, poofy pillows. In the year before I came to Michigan, my mom finally got some really nice pillows, and I ended up with one in my room. I was so spoiled. I ended up buying two nice pillows at Target once I moved here, and I enjoy every minute of their soft, puffy goodness. I suppose I could just take one of my pillows to my friend's house, but I keep forgetting every time I come home.

With the bed, there's a few things. First, they (my friend and her husband) have either a double or a queen bed (not quite sure which). I've got a nice little twin bed. Second, their bed is out in the middle of the room, and my bed is pushed against a wall. I've got this thing about sleeping against walls; I just don't sleep well unless I have something solid on one side of me (the wall here, or the sideboard of my bed at my parents' house). So, I find their bed a little disconcerting. It feels really huge, and it's awkward to sleep all by myself in such a huge bed. I've discovered that I really enjoy my little twin bed for sleeping by myself. Also, it's the wall thing. I don't know how, but I will somehow convince my future potential husband that the bed must remain against the wall. I'll even volunteer to crawl in from the end. I just can't hack the open space.

I'm glad to sleep in my own bed tonight. I'll go back to my friend's place tomorrow evening for my second week of housesitting, and she'll be back next Saturday. On the bright side of housesitting, I do enjoy having the place all to myself. Certainly better than dealing with housemates.

Knocked Up

the movie, that is. Last night, I went to see Knocked Up with a friend. While I was expecting humor, I was not expecting the high level of hilarity that was contained in this movie.

The premise of the movie is that a career woman who is celebrating a promotion goes out and ends up hooking up with a no-job, pot smoking, kinda chubby loser dude named Ben. In a bit of miscommunication, they end up not using a condom. The next day, they part ways; Allison realizes she has made a horrible mistake, and Ben goes back to his pot smoking ways. Eight weeks later, she is pregnant. She decides to keep it, they decide to try a relationship, and we get to watch the aftermath.

Particularly funny and interesting bits in the movie:

-> Ben has an entourage of stoner friends. Instead of all just sitting around and smoking pot every second, they also have personalities that emerge in the movie. You actually feel that the supporting characters are real people too.

-> they actually discuss the possibility of abortion. Allison's mom says "you can just take care of it, you know." Ben's friends hotly debate abortion, with one friend saying "no, no, of course not!" and another friend talking about the "you know, the a thing. I can't mention it; he'll get upset. But it starts with "a" and rhymes with "schmbortion." You could go to the schmbortion clinic and get a schmbortion."

-> The movie is continuously funny without relying on lots of cultural in-jokes.

In conclusion, I heartily enjoyed this flick. I wonder if it will become iconic in our generation like Harry and Sally is. I'm actually curious what will be those enduring romantic comedies from this period of time. Was Harry and Sally just "a really funny movie" when it started out? Could people tell it was a classic from the get go? I wonder. I definitely think Knocked Up has the potential to become a classic of romantic comedy.

Can you spot the error?

This article from today's Seattle Times really pains me, and not just because I won't save money next time I go to Canada:

Canada vacations get pricier as "loonie" nears par with U.S. dollar

By CHARMAINE NORONHA
The Associated Press

TORONTO — The Canadian dollar breached 94 cents for the first time in 30 years today, and analysts believe it may be worth as much as the struggling U.S. dollar by year end.

Known as the loonie because of the loon pictured on the $1 coin, the Canadian dollar traded at $94.18 cents in early afternoon trading — the highest it has been since July 1977. It hit an all-time low of $61.79 in January 2002.

The surging Canadian dollar makes it more expensive for Americans to vacation in Canada, but freer-spending Canadians are shopping more for everything from cars to clothes and electronics, including in the U.S. Their purchases boosted retail sales in Canada by 1.9 percent in March, a Statistics Canada report showed. Travel by Canadians in the U.S. and internationally has also risen.

The latest surge comes after CIBC World Markets economists predicted the Canadian dollar will be worth as much as the U.S. dollar by the end of the year. That last happened in November 1976.