So, my father finally decided that I needed my own separate space in the fridgerator. Not because I’ve complained or moaned about it, but because i complain and moan every time he throws something of mine away because he’s going back on his diet… I cannot not have cream cheese… if I have one weakness it is for dairy goodness… and an english muffin and a serving of regular cream cheese is 210 calories, at least 100-200 calories lighter than a bagel with a good smear of cream cheese… its just enough goodness to get the taste, but not as heavy, which is good… but everytime he cleans out the fridge, the first thing to go is the brand new container of cream cheese i bought for my diet. So he says I need a shelf so that he won’t be tempted to eat my cream cheese if its on my shelf. right. just like he didn’t eat my 100 calorie snack packs of gold fish… basically in the kitchen I need to label everything, but with my brand new shelf, its easier to do! My biggest problem was to decide what goes up there! On sundays I scoop out individual servings of everything I need for the week (or just Mon/Tues for perishables) like individual cups of cream cheese and a ziplocked english muffin, so that I really don’t have to deal with accidentally leaving the package out, etc… its ultimate laziness at its greatest… But thats just a tiny portion of my shelf… So now i have room for my lunch every day (which is good) my mcdonalds hot mustard I swipe everytime i go there and the only mayo bottle in the house (it goes on my shelf so that my mother won’t eat it… yeah right)… all the veggies go in containers in the crisper, and my meats are either in the meat/cheese bins or the freezer… none of them are up on my shelf… in the end i think the greatest part of the shelf will be not having my mother’s leftovers up there… oh and how she collects leftovers… We found a container of white stuff that could have either been cauliflower or mashed potatoes, neither of which we could determine successfully…. months old sour krout and beef and chicken that had turned unnatural shades of grossness… There’s a greenbean casserole she got somewhere that already looks horrible, but she only opened it the other day…. I was severely tempted to toss it anyways, it was that bad looking… anyways, just a little ranting about my new fridgerator shelf! (It’ll go great with the two pantry shelves I have!)

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worn out from being so derned productive today! (and that’s nearly just about what I did to clean out the fridge!!)

What I am going deaf listening to::
City of Lovers ~ David Arnold & Nicholas Dodd ~ Casino Royale Soundtrack

What I am enriching my mind with::
Screwtape Letters

So, I have this book, the complete plays of Aristophanes, who is considered to be the father of Satire and the greatest of satirists in both the Greek world and contemporary times. Among the eleven plays is perhaps his most well recieved in his lifetime, The Acharnians which is a story about an honest agriculture-based assembly man Dicaeopolis, who sick and tired of the war between Athens and Sparta, and the lack of effort by the Athens assembly to strive for peace, organizes a separate peace with Sparta for just his family and his estate and creates his own free market place within his estate borders. He faces off with characters such as the dramatist playwright Euripides; Lamachus, a famous Athenian general; and the namesake Acharnians, the chorus of winemakers and vineyardmen who’s land and vines have been destroyed by the war and demand revenge upon Sparta. I enjoyed it immensely, though my version of the book is a new translation which sometimes I thought the change in words to a more American/British English version was unnecessary, such as “Goatland of Gobbleallia” which was the best translation for “Tragasia, which according to the translator “was not only a town in the Epirus (Between Greece and Macedoia, but a play upon the word Tragein, to eat, and tragos, a goat” As he had to reexplain it in the footnotes, perhaps it was just better to leave it in the footnotes and keep the original wording, since it was a coinage by Aristophanes rather than a specific town name. A few times I found words that were too contemporary to fit into a classical Greek comedy, but then again, I’ve always been more of a traditionalist. The footnotes do go a long way to explaining, and enhance the story greatly. All in all, not too bad.

For your enjoyment, I’ve also found a link to an english version of The Acharnians for you to peruse. My favorite part was the debate near the end between Dicaeopolis and Lamachus as Lamachus is preparing for war and Dicaeopolis is preparing for the greatest feast of his life, now that he has secured an individual peace with Sparta.

The Acharnians

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amused

What I am going deaf listening to::
The Shire Howard Shore~ The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring-The Complete Recordings

It seems that I am on a good beginning with my new year’s resolutions and goals. Out of twelve books to finish this year, I have just completed Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar with rather swiftness on my part. Rarely do I get the opportunity to finish a book in only two or three days. Most of the time it takes me at least two or three weeks to finish a novel of good size, let alone the ones I usually attempt, like Tolstoy’s War and Peace which only took me fifteen months…. I was rather intrigued throughout the story, having felt several of the emotions throughout Esther’s life, though without the more mortal side… the confusion about life, the wondering when a career path might show up, what I am to do with my intelligence and training that won’t leave me completely bored with my chosen profession. I can see why it has become a masterpiece in contemporary literature. Completely trivial to the story, I did have to dogear one particular page within the book, when Esther was talking to Cal, who was basically a blind date at the beach. He commented that his father was English and lived in a small town called Clacton-On-Sea. To most people, I’m sure they just continued on with the story, but the town Clacton-On-Sea actually has an importance to my life, and given how small the suburb sea-town of Colchester is, I find it fascinating to find it in print. In March of 2005 I visited a friend dear to my heart who happened to live in Clacton-On-Sea, and spent about a day and a half roaming the town, walking on the beachside, taking rather fabulous photos of the blooming daffodils on Easter Week, and loving every second I could spend with a friend I otherwise communicate with only online across the vast Atlantic Ocean. Anyways, thats my little aside… *sigh* Now the most difficult thing is to decide which book to continue on with… I just had picked up The Bell Jar merely last month, which is rather odd, because usually a book must remain on a shelf a couple years before I have the courage to pick it up and actually read this… its tenure on the shelf was almost non-existent… I guess it called to me… though now that I think about it, maybe another of Jane Austen’s books calls to me, either Northanger Abbey or Mansfield Park

On a completely different note, I finally went through my iTunes library and changed over all my movie scores from a genre of “Soundtrack” which also consists of musicals and random compiliations of songs within a movie to become its’s soundtrack to its own sub-genre of “Soundtrack-Score” and created a My Top Rated-Scores playlist which I have been immensely enjoying for several hours now, without any of the sometimes bad compositions that accompany good ones within a score, or in my sense, avoiding the more harsh industrial scores, preferring the light, gay scores of the romantic scenes within movies. *happehsigh*

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pensive… curious…

What I am going deaf listening to::
The Throne Room/End Title John WIlliams~ Star Wars: Episode 4-A New Hope

What I am enriching my mind with::
that really is a good question, isn’t it???

So, if you read my previous post, you know I’m working with AMUN here in DC for a special conference for international exchange students from the Commonwealth of Independent States (Former Soviet states like Kyrgistan, Kazahkstan, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, etc…). Our formal dinner was last night with the representatives and out of about thirty tables, I happened to be seated next to the only exchange student who goes to my alma mater!!!! Someone had actually heard of Winthrop, let alone goes there!! and to top it off, his mentor is the person who introduced me to Model UN (which is why i’m here this week!) Call me nuts, but this completely freakish coincidence cannot just be a coincidence… I was meant to meet this gentleman. It was such an awesome dinner because of that… I talked Winthrop and professors and a good part of my four years there… and to actually have someone who knows who i’m talking about is just sooo rare for me these days… it was wonderful!!! So, being still blown away by the whole situation last night, I called up my Model UN mentor and chatted with him a few minutes ago…. Model UN has had such a direct impact not only in my scholarly life, but also my social life, that to relate this kind of success is wonderful… but I had a bad connection on the phone though *sigh* but I’m literally estatic about meeting this guy!!!! and all through Model UN!!!! I’m currently compiling a list for him of things he has to during his time in Rock Hill, like have fried mushrooms and apples sticks from White Horse, and chatting Russian with Dr. P, my Russian history professor, and meeting Dr. Silverman (which I understand he hasn’t had the pleasure of meeting…) and so many other things… did I mention that I am completely blown away by all of this??? my head hurts from it all!

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geeky happeh

What I am going deaf listening to::
speeches about UNESCO and education in disaster areas

So, I’m finally off of work till saturday!! I left work today, although I normally don’t work on wednesdays so that I can help AMUN run a conference for the US state department here in Washington DC. While I didn’t have to travel too far (just from the southside of Baltimore to north-central DC/Chevy Chase in rush hour) its still a trip, and hence a vacation from work… and I am thankful for that!!! I worked an extra day last week to cover some of the hours I’m missing, that and if I hadn’t come in on my wednesday off last week and worked about 50 hours that week total, we would have been left with two tellers total that wednesday, the wednesday after christmas of all days…. even with me it was a crazy mess the past week and a half, and now I don’t have to do anything dealing with counting money for two whole days or dealing with people who can’t just put their damned address on the deposit form (is it really that hard to put it all on there???? just do it people… it really makes your deposit much safer!) anyways… sigh…. i’m up much past my bedtime… and I didn’t do too great a job of packing… I didn’t bring tennis shoes… I packed half my shower stuff actually from my shower, hence way too much… *sigh*

On a completely different note, I love ralph lauren cable knit sweaters!!! I have four of them in pink, lime green, beige, and lavender… Anyways, I’ve worn the pink one to work about three times since I bought it about two weeks ago, and literally every other customer comments how wonderful it looks on me, how the color matches my skin tone, etc… It drives my next-station neighbor Laura crazy when she hears it over and over again, but I love hearing it…. I love complements, especially on an item i saw and instantly fell in love with it… because everyone else has fallen in love with it too… and its pink… I’m going through a pink phase right now… Ive got loads of pink stuff going on right now… i’m actually decked out in all pink from head to fluffy slippershoe… its sad… but oh so happy…

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*yawn*

So, sitting here at the computer, I have wanted actually to put down my resolutions and goals for 2007 for a couple of days now. Updating this blog is one of those resolutions. Now, there is a difference between resolutions and goals. Resolutions, in my mind, cannot not be done… they will be done or else my guilt will reign wrath upon me and I will be miserable if I read this on December 31, 2007. Goals on the other hand are a little more flexible. If I don’t get to them, that’s okay. I won’t feel as guilty. But I’ll still feel guilty. Somehow I think my avatar is making fun of me…. *pout*

So here are my resolutions for 2007:
Money: I will save a minimum of $5000 of this upcoming year’s salary. (Thats 200 bucks a paycheck)
Money: I will keep all my credit cards paid off (doin it so far, just gotta keep it up!)
Health: I will lose 30 lbs in one year.
Health: I will maintain my diet 4 days a week
Health: I will go to the gym 2 days a week
Health: I will drink more water
Educational: I will read 12 11 books this year, at least one a month (one down-Jan 7, 2007)
House: I will keep my living quarters livable

And my goals for 2007, some of which might enhance my resolutions:
Money: I want to save $10,000 of this upcoming year’s salary (thats 400 bucks a paycheck)
Health: I want to lose 60 lbs in one year.
Health: I want to maintain my diet 6 days a week, and not be too horribly bad on the seventh…
Health: I want to go to the gym 4 days a week
Health: I want to drink 64 oz water every day.
Educational: I want to read 24 23 books this year, two a month, and one of those of historical importance, whether fiction or non-fiction.
Misc: I will completely organize my iTunes Library with album artwork and lyrics.
House: I will keep my living quarters clean and I’ll make my bed.
Online: Update my blog more frequently
Love life: Maybe I’ll get a boyfriend!

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what did I just set myself up against??

What I am going deaf listening to::
Stars~Switchfoot: Nothing is Sound