I have a job!

Not with the liquor license people. They were kind of weird. A job with the Central Indiana Community Foundation, who are nice people who give money to people and stuff. I don't really know what they do. I am designing a user manual for their new database program. Pretty exciting stuff.

And I think I'm all done with all my real classes. I just have review type things left. And I have a paper to write. I do need to do that. Other than that, I don't really have anything to do until my finals start on the tenth. Well, my linguistics final is on Friday. But that doesn't really count as a final, seeing as it doesn't require any sort of studying. Linguistics is a beautiful class. When I came in on Monday, for some reason, the professor told me I looked mad. He's told me that once before too. I don't know why I looked mad. I was not mad. But anyway, then we started class, and he needed an example sentence. So he started to write, "Darcey hit Paul" and then he stopped and said, "No, you wouldn't hit anybody, would you?" And so he erased that and wrote "Darcey knifed Paul." And that was what we talked about the whole class. To discuss the semantics of this sentence, we had to discuss who Darcey was. We eventually decided that Darcey was a stick figure drawn on the blackboard. Darcey was distinguishable from the stick figure on the board named Crystal because apparently the stick figure named Darcey has less hair, consisting of only one line rather than two.

Now I have to go to my marketing research class, but I don't have to do anything, just listen to other people present. Haha. My life is jolly.
- posted by Darcey @ 2:31 PM

 
Done!

My marketing research project is done! Ah, such glorious joy I have never known. I have deleted the forty-some emails I have received on the topic over the past two or three days. Despite all my complaining, though, my group was a good, fun group of people to spend the vast majority of the weekend with. I really don't know how we ended up so dysfunctional and having to meet so many times right at the end. I learned many valuable lessons, such as:
-Don't underestimate stoner frat boys. When it comes down to it, they can in fact wake up Sunday (as in for the first time all day) at 5pm, hungover, and crank out four semi-decent, halfway intelligible pages of paper in about an hour.
-Excel spreadsheets have an end. I've seen it. You can't just keep adding columns forever.
-The b-school computer lab will stay open until 2 in the morning, and people will still be there. Though I myself am not an all-nighter sort of person, for other people, this really can be a legitimate means of getting your work done.
-And, in all seriousness, once you get through all the marketing presentation tediousness, our project was actually real and important. It was for a youth center that one of the girl's families is opening in memory of her brother, who died in a rock climbing accident. And when a person starts off a presentation with "and then my little brother died", people listen to you and are quite supportive, and I spent so much time worrying about cross-tabulations and worrying whether I would have to write other people's parts of the paper if they were ever going to get done that I had forgotten that this was real and would have an effect on people hearing it for the first time.

And so now it is over, and I can move on to the presentation that's tomorrow! But it's for argumentation, not for the b-school, so it's not really the same sort of thing at all.

And I got an email about an interview for an internship. Somehow they got my address from the intern site I use without their posting a job or me applying for it, and they asked me if I wanted an interview. The company provides "liquor license management systems." And I looked them up on Mapquest and they are approximately 900 feet from where I worked last summer. And now I have to leave. Goodbye.
- posted by Darcey @ 5:46 PM

 
Adventures in Chinese Food

I was thinking about what I was going to do this weekend. I was thinking maybe I would go see Cabaret, but then it got cold and rainy, and I felt sorry for the people in Cabaret, because it had been so nice and pretty and hot just a few days ago. But I did not go see Cabaret. As a secondary plan, I thought maybe I would go to Bread Co. and Blockbuster. Though I don't really go there that often, this isn't much more of a walk than going to campus, so it really wouldn't have been that big of a deal, except that right at the moment I wanted to leave, it began pouring. So I did not do that either. Then fate intervened. A Chinese food delivery man rang my doorbell by mistake. Though this food eventually went to its rightful owner in some neighboring apartment, Emily and I decided the Chinese food looked good, and we decided to order some of our own. An hour later, there was no Chinese food for me and Emily, and Emily had to go away and leave hungry and Chinese food-less. And then I had to pee, but I didn't think I should go for fear that the delivery guy would arrive at just that moment and leave and run away with my food. An hour and a half later, I called the Chinese food place in search of my dinner. Of course, at precisely that moment, my phone began beeping that someone else was calling. I did not answer it, as I was waiting to hear about the fate of my dinner. After some discussion with her coworkers, the person on the phone reported that the delivery guy had just tried to call me and that no one had answered. So I hung up, thinking that meant that the delivery man was nearby. After a few minutes, I realized that wasn't the case, and so I called the delivery man. He said, and I quote, "awieoruodkljf Waterman askldjfisef?" And I said "What?" And he said "a;ksdfja;sdkf Waterman a;lksjdfiweu?" Supposing he was asking for directions, I said it was right off of Skinker, not knowing how to give further directions without knowing where he was coming from. And then he said "Askj; siofuwaeifj Skinker?" And this was repeated a few times before he said something about five minutes, and then we hung up. A few minutes later, about two hours after I had ordered, a flustered, wet young man with Chinese food arrived at my door. I had been contemplating whether or not I was expected to pay him at that point, or at least pay him full price, which was quite expensive to begin with and included a $3 delivery charge, but he seemed so upset that I just gave him the money to be done with it. And then I ate my Chinese food and stuck Emily's in the fridge. On another note, rice was included with my meal. The past few times I have ordered from this particular overpriced Chinese food delivery service, I have not received any rice. This makes me think that, while in the past they have delivered the food promptly, they have been screwing up in other ways. I keep meaning to find a different Chinese food place to order from, but then I never have a menu, and ordering without a menu just seems like too much work, much like walking to Bread Co in the rain or watching Cabaret in the cold.
- posted by Darcey @ 9:45 PM

 
Here is a blog entry that I wrote yesterday, and then the Internet died.

I have pretty(er) feet: the story of my weekend

Friday: I went to the Lutherans for dinner, and then pretty much right after that, I went to bed. I enjoyed this immensely, though it doesn't make for much of a story. Oh, but before that, in the afternoon, I started my CS lab and emailed my professor with a question. Normally, when I email her a question, I am so lost she can't even understand my question. But Friday, it turns out I had a sort of legitimate concern about a bug in the code she provided. My question got posted to the frequently asked questions page! I am famous.

Saturday: Rory and Ryan took me for a surprise pedicure. I never had one before. Now I have professionally polished toes. And Ryan has girly pink toes. Pedicures, however, do not help the fact that my toes are weird and small and misshapen. The little one is lopsided and leans over into the other toes, and this leaves a calloused bump where the little toe would be if it stood up straight. But that is far too much information about my feet. So, anyway, then we went back to Rory and Ryan's house and had a barbecue. Andrew and Emily were there too. They were there all along, but did not get mentioned before now because they did not get pedicures. But Andrew had a car, and Emily had vanilla vodka. And we had hamburgers. Hamburgers are good. (Semi-related tangent: For all the fried food available on this campus, there is a real shortage of hamburgers and access to brand name fast food. The Rat used to make hamburgers that were actually quite good, but nobody seemed to realize this, and then they took it away. Or maybe the rest of the Wash U community just does not have the healthy appreciation for highly unhealthy food that I have. But they do seem to like the chicken tenders...) So, anyway, then I wanted to thank Rory and Ryan, so I decided to decorate their back porch with tiny shards of glass. Then we watched Indiana Jones. Then Emily and I took the shuttle home, and I discovered that the shuttle now stops right outside my apartment. Who knew? Well, apparently, Emily did, but she probably actually uses the shuttle, because she lives farther away. (For clarity, this is Emily from ECM, not Emily my roommate, who obviously does not live farther away than me. I realize now that I do not know the first Emily's last name, which would make clarification of this point much simpler.) Before, I'd asked them to stop there, and they were always like "we can't stop that close to Skinker. boo hoo." And I didn't really care, but I did think it was a little silly, because there was a bus stop right there, and if the BUS could stop that close to Skinker, why couldn't the shuttle? But now the shuttle does, so all is well, and I probably still won't use it that much.

Sunday: I went to church. Then we looked at furniture in our apartment for next year, and I decided to buy a new bed. Then I went home and rediscovered the ceiling fan, which I had forgotten about over the winter. It is the sort of ceiling fan that would immediately come crashing to the ground if Trading Spaces showed up in my apartment. It also the sort of ceiling fan that might come crashing to the ground if someone upstairs walks above it too hard, or sneezes. However, the ceiling fan provides air, unlike the window, which will not open. Then I met with my marketing research group, who, once again, was amusing but entirely unproductive. I have considered in the past the possibility of getting a job in marketing research, and I had hoped this class would shed some light on my real interest in the subject, but so far I have only figured out that my professor is boring and ineffective and that this does not inspire motivation in me or my fellow students to think about marketing research in any light for any reason at all. I here and now officially wash my hands of the entire matter of the project and the class and its relevance to the rest of my life.

Note: I tried to run a spell check on this blog entry, which I do not usually do, and so I failed. I accidentally kept clicking the replace button for words that I thought I was telling the spell check to ignore. I think I fixed them all, but if you notice any words that don't make much sense, it may be the spell check's fault. These are some examples of the replacements the spell check thought would be helpful:
-"Lutheranism" for "Lutherans"
-"pitcher" for "pedicure"
-"ROR" (??) for "Rory"
-"aimless" for "Emily's" ("Emily" is a fine word, until she wants to possess something)
-It does not have a suggestion for "Skinker"

- posted by Darcey @ 8:37 PM

 
Obsessive Compulsive Mental Breakdown

As I mentioned a few days ago, I am feeling stressed because I feel I have a lot of things I should be doing that I can't do at the moment. So instead I just keep going over and over in my head the list of things that I have to do and when I am going to do them, and really, the conclusion I keep coming to is that I'm not in that bad of shape, but I can't stop thinking that there is something I am forgetting. And of course, if I really wanted to get ahead, there are some things that I could be doing, but part of the problem is that, of course, I really don't want to be doing any of the things I need to do eventually. I just want them to be over and done with so I can think about other things. So I think what I need is something else to think about, something fun that I would like to think about. It's not fair that I have to suffer the side effects of other people's senioritis, without getting to enjoy any of the symptoms. (If that didn't make sense, what I mean is: The people that I am working with, while entirely useless for practical purposes, are, however, highly amusing and send spectacularly hilarious emails. And I want to be highly amused.) I was counting on having new television programs to amuse me, because I was told there would be new television programs, but this was a lie. Yesterday there was hockey. Hockey! Honestly. Today there was a Dateline Special. About the friggin' Apprentice! So I want to do something fun. Anyone reading this, in St. Louis at least, is going to come out with me this weekend, and we are going to eat, drink, and be merry. This is a command.

And finally, some notes to people who are, in all likelihood, not reading this:

To the owner of the phone number 314-371-0848:
My phone number is 583-3621. I am the only one who will answer it. The person you want to talk to will not answer this number, no matter how many times you call or what time of day it is.

To the girl yelling out of the car:
Thank you for serving as a messenger between me and the Son of God. While you're at it, tell him I'm touched that he cares, and that I love him too.

To my adviser:
You really should get together with the people at Parkview (mentioned a few days ago) and form some sort of study group to go over that whole counting to ten concept. It's a tricky one, I know, but if you work hard enough, I have confidence you'll figure it out eventually.

To my boyfriend:
I don't see why you won't return my calls. Just because I took you out of the sink and you're shrinking at a disproportionate rate so that your facial features have disappeared is no reason to be mad.

To Anthony:
Why are you here? You've only been gone a week. Rather than visiting Emily, perhaps you should consider a visit to the doctor. Though I don't have a medical license, I am fairly sure by that sound you keep making that you must have tuberculosis. It's not that I mind you being here, it's just that this implies unexpected change, and as the above title indicates, I am not in the mood for this. You see, when you are here, other people show up, and all of a sudden, there is social activity going on in my apartment and people utilizing space that I am accustomed to having to myself, and this is such a rare occasion that I don't know what to do with myself, and activities like making dinner and showering can just become awkward. No, I don't understand what I'm talking about either. I'll stop. I think maybe I'll paint my toenails. Just so you know, Anthony. And then maybe by the time I'm done, someone will have contacted me about what I'm supposed to do with the cases that are supposed to be done by tomorrow. And then all will be well.
- posted by Darcey @ 11:34 PM

 
I'm just going to rant for a moment until I feel better. For non-ranting, pleasant Easter blog entries, see below. I cannot do four things at once on Tuesday. I am trying to not procastinate, but when everything I have to do requires waiting on other people to do their work and they're procastinating, there's nothing I can do. I can try to email them and communicate my concerns, but if they refuse to read past the first line and respond only to that part, and even then don't make any sense, again, there is nothing I can do. Grading other people's spreadsheets is an incredibly painful process, and even more so when you try to do it with other people. So keep that in mind when you turn in what should be two pages of spreadsheet printed out over 20 pages and even then cut off the formulas, so that no matter how much page flipping back and forth I do, I can't figure out what you thought you were doing. You know what would be worse? Being a TA for a CS class. I can't imagine grading a lab for every person every week. I can't imagine the unreadable crap that people must turn in. That would be like a full time job. I grade two cases for the semester and I want to smack all the people in the class. I salute you, CS TAs. Thank God I'm not you. All right, I'm done.
- posted by Darcey @ 7:02 PM

 
A Boyfriend in the Sink, Petrified Sugar Cookies, and Giant Toddler Darcey

What do these things have in common? The answer is that they are all presents I have received this week. Note that I did not say birthday presents. This is because the sugar cookies were for Valentine's Day. There are two ways I can get packages here. One is for the packages to be small and be sent through the postal service to the apartment, so that the mailman can bring them in with the regular mail. The other is that, for larger packages or anything sent any way other than U.S. mail, to have them sent to Parkview with my phone number attached, and they will call me and I can pick them up from there. My grandma mailed the cookies to my apartment in February. I looked for them for days. What I did not know was that the packages addressed to the apartment that can't get inside are brought over to Parkview. The delivery people then trust Parkview to contact me. I know better. This requires looking up my phone number and dialing it, which requires reading and counting to ten, advanced skills that I am well aware the people at Parkview do not possess. Had I known the package might be there, I would have gone and asked for it myself. But I did not, and so it stayed there until I was contacted about another package that arrived last week. They assured me that they left a message about the cookies on February 11. Who they left this message with, we'll never know.

The other package that I was contacted about was from my mother. It was a picture of me about three years old, blown up poster size. So now there is a giant picture of myself, bigger than I am in real life now, hanging on my bedroom wall. There is nothing unusual about that, though; it's just a sign of healthy self-esteem. Really. Oh, and then there's the boyfriend in the sink. That was from Aunt Faith and Marcia. In 72 hours, he's supposed to grow three to four times his size. I don't know if he's going to quite make it that big, but he has grown. And today his body has really evened out with his arms again. I fear for his legs, however. I think one is going to stay longer than the other. But there are things more than important than looks, like how squishy he is. There's not a squishier guy around, and he's all mine.

So today is Easter. Happy Easter to everyone. Easter Brunch at LCM is a very yummy thing. And I got to take home green bean casserole and cheesy potato stuff and rolls for future yumminess. The weird thing about the brunch is that most actual LCM members aren't around. Easter is a special occasion. For people who usually go to church, they go out of their way to find a relative and do something special. So the people who show up are the people for who going to church at all is a special occasion. So for two years now I have eaten Easter brunch with a bunch of freshmen strangers who noticed yesterday that today was Easter and that there was a church on the corner. And of course the only way freshmen strangers can make conversation is to talk about things common to freshmen. So I listen to them tell each other what floor they live on, then where they're living next year, then whether they like their floor or are looking forward to a suite, then what their roommate is like, and then they ask each other what floor they live on again, because they've forgotten, and then they discuss people who they know on that floor, and that's pretty much the conversation. You don't realize your conversation is so predictable when you're having it, but when you listen to it later, it's weird to realize all the things that you don't think about anymore but that are so important to them. It makes it seem like a long time ago. Homework, though, that doesn't change. And it's after 3, and I haven't done any.
- posted by Darcey @ 3:27 PM

 
I can drive (in 7-10 business days, in Indianapolis, if I had a car)

I realize now, after typing the paragraph below, that this story is not terribly interesting. But I've already typed it, so I'm going to post it anyway. Read it if you wish.

I renewed my driver's license. If I haven't already explained this to you, this process began over Spring Break. You see, the driver's license is set up to expire on your 21st birthday. So when I was home I thought "Gee, I won't be home then, I should probably get it renewed now." I was slightly concerned that renewing it then would mean I would be stuck with a driver's license that said "UNDER 21" for another four years, but I decided having my only identification be out of state and expired would be worse. So I decided to go to the BMV. There is one not too far away in the little town of Fortville. There are never any lines there because it is in the middle of nowhere. The problem is, to get there, you have to drive off the edge of the known world into the cornfields, a direction that in general I have no reason to go. So I made my dad take me, because getting lost in cornfields scares me. He also did this with my brother a few months ago. When they got there, it was closed for several weeks for "inventory." We still don't know what inventory the BMV possesses that requires several weeks of non-stop inspection. But it was supposed to be open again when we got there. It was not. This time, it was closed indefinitely. So we had to go to the one located back in the city, which is insane and crowded and confusing. Not knowing whether or not I was allowed in the "express renewal" line, I waited in the information line. Upon reaching the front of the line, I was told that I should indeed have gotten in the express line, but once I asked about being under 21, I was told that if I renewed the license now, I would have to retake the written test, because drivers who are 20 years and 335 days old are not as trustworthy as 21 year olds. After explaining that I would not be in town then, I was told I could renew my license online. How could this be? Didn't they need to take my picture and give me a card and check me out and stuff? But it turns out that with the new driver's licenses, the photo is digital and kept on a computer. So I was able to renew my driver's license from the b-school computer lab 10 minutes ago. It had to be done today, because any earlier and I needed to retake the test and any later and I would be charged a late fee. They will mail it to the address on the license in 7-10 days. They warned me approximately 60 times that the Post Office would not forward this mail, so once it reaches there, it will have to be illicitly forwarded by my parents. They also warned me that it was too close to the expiration date to be renewing online and not in person, and that I won't be able to drive until the new license arrives, but I don't think that should be a problem, and anyway, it was the only thing they would let me do in the first place. The driver's license renewal process is clearly not designed for minors who live out of state. Go figure.


- posted by Darcey @ 4:43 PM

 
St. Louis Lesson #1

I have been going to school in St. Louis for two and half years now. Yet real grown up people from St. Louis are surprised by my utter lack of knowledge about anything outside of the Wash U campus. So I have decided it is my duty to learn more about this fascinating city and its traditions, geography, people, current events, etc. My first educational endeavor was to check out the Post Dispatch's website. Allow me to share today's hard-hitting, front page headline: Is Microwave Popcorn Safe to Eat? I share this link with you not in hope that you will actually read it, but just to verify that it is real.

There is one part of this strange culture that I think I have finally figured out: So tonight when I go to bed, I move the clock forward an hour, right? So if I wanted to get 8 hours of sleep and wake up at 9, I should go to bed at 12? That's really soon. They're stealing my time. St. Louis wants to take away my time and my microwave popcorn. I don't like St. Louis anymore. Forget this. Good night.
- posted by Darcey @ 11:01 PM

 
The Holy Week of the 21 Years of Darcey

My birthday is Wednesday, which I believe to be cause for the world to celebrate. But other people seem to think some guy rising from the dead deserves all the attention next week. And there's these other people who are all excited apparently because they got passed over, which really doesn't seem like a good thing at all. These people really need to get their priorities straight. They need to follow the example of my English professor. She knows what's really important. Me. That's why she decided we don't need to write a paper on my birthday. In fact, we don't need to write a paper at all! She is awesome. And she has a very adorable tiny little puppy. My finance professor seems to get it too. The presentation that I thought would be a pain is actually a total joke. An hour's work for something like 10% of my grade. Additionally, I would like to announce that it is National Sleep Awareness Week, a cause which I try to wholeheartedly support, preferably for about 10 hours every day. All my wildest birthday wishes are coming true.

Though my week is now much less horrible (though it is by no means unhorrible), no matter how much free time I may have to celebrate, in all seriousness, it is in fact Easter. Going out drinking seems wrong somehow. Perhaps I can purchase some alcohol without consuming it. The purchasing part is really the only part that is meaningfully prevented by law, anyway. Yes, I should go to the grocery store and purchase alcohol next weekend. And lots of other things, because next week will be time for my April grocery trip. If I really wanted to get crazy in my birthday hopes, next on my list would be a ride to the store in an automobile. But I already have received so much, it would be selfish to hope for such an outlandish thing.

In fact, I actually went to the grocery store in an automobile today. The problem is the automobile returned to LCM and not my apartment, so it was not much good for transporting food to me. I was being an "adminstrative assistant" by going with John to buy lunch meat from the store to "cook" for Free Food Friday, because no one else was signed up. Yesterday, I adminstratively assisted by cleaning downstairs. It is funny that these things that I need to do for myself, but never get around to actually doing, I am doing for LCM, who needs them much less. Nobody showed up for dinner. A few people were going to Kansas City for some regional LCM thing, and everyone who was not going to Kansas City was... not going to LCM. But Michael came, and Lindsay came, and then she left, and Nate, who lived on my floor freshman year and never comes to LCM, showed up, and it was sad that he picked tonight to come. Nate tried to get Michael and me to play foozball against him, but he actually knew how to play and aim and block, so there was really no point. But we played Uno.
- posted by Darcey @ 9:59 PM