How Do You Spend Your Web Time?

What are my most-used websites? I have these sites as icons right at the top on my web browser:
1. Digg, a news site where users try to vote stories to the front page.
2. CC's library webpage and help desk and PROWL
3. The Raw Story, NPR Politics on Twitter, Associated Press, and Al Jazeera English, for world news.
4. Facebook
5. ChaCha's KnowledgeBase, even though I haven't worked for them in a while.
6. Yahoo! mail
7. Youtube
8. Blogger
9. WordReference, romance language dictionary with excellent grammar forums.
10. Chinese-Tools.com and nciku, Chinese dictionaries.
11. thesaurus.reference.com
12. RhymeZone, rhyming dictionary.
13. RedBubble, a social site/art gallery for visual artists who write on the side.
14. RememberTheMilk, online to-do lists.
15. craigslist
16. 43 Things, for occasional motivation.
17. LyricWiki, so you can look up lyrics to songs without being bombarded by infectious ads.
18. Google Maps
19. a time calculator, comes in handy.
20. TinyUrl
21. spreeder, a speed-reading tool.
22. Athleticore, a workout log that CC runners use.
23. MyPyramid Tracker, nutrition log and analyzer which came in handy when I started eating vegetarian.
24. HowStuffWorks

I think Dad would like this costume

for Aaron.

Take Home Tests

Advantage/Disadvantage Analysis of Take Home Tests

Disadvantages
1. It's not like they're open book. You can take it anywhere, but the library ceiling doesn't have the answers.
2. Ticknor runs super hot. I prefer my room and my desk, but my room heater is broken and refuses to turn off.
3. No sense of inter-student competition, or, on the other hand, pre-test game-building hoots.
4. Classrooms don't have distractions the way my room has distractions.

Advantages
1. You can take the test in your underwear.
1.5 especially if your room heater is broken.
2. You can yell "DEFINITIONS PWNED!" after completing the definition section.
3. Six bathroom breaks.
4. I have a chocolate donut that I'm going to eat after I complete the hardest essay.
5. You can listen to music.
6. None of that Sniffly Girl. or Girl Who Chews TicTacs really loudly, I hated her so much. Also, the guy who usually sits in front of me has wild sideburns on the back of his neck and I stare at it because it's weird when we're in class.
7. Rock in my squeaky chair? Don't mind if I do.
8. White noise? I'ma turn my fan to HIGH!

One More Disadvantage
1. I was under the impression that no one was going to notice me running to the TV lounge and jumping on the couch in the seventh inning.

Doing much better

I'm over swine flu, and every day I've been dividing my frequency and severity of coughing in half, so I think today was the last day before it stops.
One good outcome - probably spending so much time in bed was good for my overtrained body. Now that the flu effects are fading away, I don't feel sore or painful all over. I am, however, very weak, and I can tell both from my baggy jeans (which used to be my tight jeans) and from my performance in modern class that I have lost a significant amount of strength and muscle mass. Starting over time . . . !

It is special flu

Today I managed to eat some solid foods. And by solid foods I mean soup. Ladies came by yesterday with a big box of food and like a million Gatorades.

I tell you, swine flu is not like regular flu. It is horrible. This fever is going on 3 days. I don't even know what day it is. Wednesday? I thought it was Thursday. Oh well.

So making the soup and blogging about it is all I have energy for today, bye bye.

Talking with Joel

Tonight, at dinner
Joel: "So you've been vegetarian for more than a year now. How do you get your iron?"
Me: "Salads. Huge salads that I get teased for."
Joel: "I'm sure you don't."

Later, at the salad bar
Joel: "You weren't joking. That is an enormous pile of lettuce and spinach."
Me: "I tell you Joel, I don't spend much time in the space between truth and hyperbole."
Joel: "I can see that. In any case, we're going to be here a while."
"Yes, well, leafy greens . . . . . . . . I'M A COW!" I announced.
However, Joel had walked around the corner and this announcement went straight into the face of the unfamiliar freshman boy standing next to me spearing croutons, who could only say, "Umm . . . sorry?"

It was almost better than the "clean tasting spoons" incident.

Dance updates

Hey homedogs.

Advanced choreography adjunct is cool. Yesterday we had to lead improv . . . mine was easy: "You're filaments and the wall is MAGNETS! You don't want to get stuck but you're GONNA LOSE!"

I came up with the dopest floor move that I want to use in the Bowed Piano ensemble piece next semester. Don't want to ruin the pleasure of actually seeing it, but I'll tell you it comes with very specific injury - it rubs a chunk of flesh off the wrist and therefore I can't do it too much.

I played for them this "soundscape" song I was thinking of using for a duet. It's 37 minutes long and I wanted to choreograph 3 minutes or so and randomize the starting point of the dance for every performance. They all said I should do a whole show, a continuous one, with it because I loved the whole thing so much. They were like: "Would you be up to it?" and I was like: "Yeah, actually."

But next semester.

I finally told Jeff I'm overtrained and he got kind of horrified. So now he expects me to back off a ton. I may be burned out but I still love dance deep down to the mitochondria. Taking it easy is not something I'm particularly good at. I kind of wish I had a guardian figure who would yell at me if I was doing too much or going too hard.

My problem is that on the good days, I have enough energy to get things done, so I'll schedule that rehearsal, catch up on choreographing and push myself, do those three hours of research, visit a friend I haven't seen in forever -- what used to be normal stuff. Then for the next two days I am 10 pounds of poop in a 5 pound bag, to paraphrase. Some days are okay, and some days, like today, are really hard. Just going to class and walking to the library are painfully exhausting. Not to mention taking the stairs. Thank god I live on the ground floor. I can't relax. If I allow myself to take a break I just curl up into the Ball of Hurt.

So parents - could we please pony up for a few massages? Besides hot bath/cold bath therapy, which have been helpful, massage is the best thing I can be doing. It's in my textbook and the Olympic training center says so (we went there on a field trip today and the trainers said so.)

In other news,
Chelsea got swine flu and was quarantined for 3 days. Apparently the whole XC team is going to get it now.

from my old choreography notebook

Possibly the only face I've ever drawn.