Marina Lives

08:28 pm - Is it strange that I love school?

The first two days of school have been absolutely wonderful. All my teachers seem above average and the course material is exciting.

Yesterday was very busy. I left the house a little before noon for circuit weight training. The teacher is this wirey blond woman who graduated from the high school next door and is so excited to be teaching at Cascade's new gym. We didn't do any actual working out, just filled out forms and talked about grades were based on attendance and doing an easy workout once in a while was fine. I ended up deciding to switch to a Tuesday Thursday morning class so I could have all day Monday, Wednesday and Friday free for potential jobs.

Before my math class at 6 I sold last spring's books and bought this quarter's books, and managed to save $300, thanks to student book sales and a friend with an unused graphing calculator. I had time to run a couple errands as well, and check out the career center, which didn't have any interesting job listings but does have a fax machine, which could come in very handy.

Math class was okay, for two hours of review. I now remember how to multiply and divide exponents, anyway. I am looking forward to learning new stuff in that class. Learning how to turn long strings of numbers and symbols into a simple binomial or a graph is downright energizing.

This morning when I got up at 6:30 for circuit weight training I couldn't believe I'd signed up for a 7am class. But I forgave myself on the bike ride there when I saw the full moon setting over the west hills, and decided I'd keep going when I got there and realized I'd see the sun rise through the huge east and south facing windows. Also, I can grab a protein bar on the way out the door and bike home with time for breakfast before my next class.

Said next class is Language And The Layout Of Argument. Mostly we talked about the meanings of the words "philosophy", "critical", "thinking", and "reasonable". The teacher, Shirlee, definitely got my attention when she said that Socrates led directly to Star Trek. It'll be a fun argumentative class, and an incredibly easy A for sure. If one gets a higher grade on the final than one gets cumulatively for homework and the final, the final grade is the class grade. Which means that theoretically a student who turned in no homework and never came to class could get an A. It also means that when I do the homework, I'll be doing it to learn and not for a grade. Which is good.

In between classes I dropped off a resume at Mississippi Pizza, which is a rockin' cool pizza place about ten blocks west of my house, and bought new tires for my bike. I really, really needed new tires. Liz looked at the shredding on Sunday and the words "exploding" and "soon" came up, which worried me a little. But for $19 I have spiffy semi-new tires and not a care in the world! Hurrah for the Community Cycling Center.

Physics class was wonderful. I got a little worried when the professor passed out an assesment test and I had no idea what the differences between the various kinds of forces and energies were. But that's why I'm there, right? Somehow the class seems to be full of funny brilliant people who're there because they think conceptual physics is interesting, not because it's a prerequisite for anything. We talked a little about the scientific method and a lot about how nothing can be proven, only disproven, and how no one knows exactly how gravity works. I asked a good question: how are things like atoms scientific if they're not observable? (Apparently in the case of atoms the hypothesis came first, and then the observation of atoms effects.) I also learned that atoms are three orders of magnitude smaller than light waves.

The best part when when I stayed a half an hour after class to talk to a guy who's also in my earlier class about the play he's writing based on the book "The User Illusion", which is a very obscure and abstract book about physics, neuroscience, religion, and everything else. I can't believe that 1) I actually had a conversation with a fellow student, and 2) said fellow student has not only read "The User Illusion" but is writing a play based on it. Spiffy stuff.

Then I biked home, and Liz said, "Marina! Don't take your helmet off!" The manager of Mississippi Pizza had just called and said I should come in for an interview sometime between 4 and 6. So I got right back on my bike and had a very, very short interview, which I'm not sure is good or bad. Apparently they call back five or six people out of about twenty interviewees for "working interviews" and then hire one or two of those. We'll see, I suppose.

I do have an interview at an AT&T retail store tomorrow at 8am (to which I say yuck, as waking up at 6:30 three days in a row is baaad) and then I'll have the rest of the day to bike around downtown and apply various places. I will get a job by the end of October. I will I will I will.

08:24 pm - And the hunt is on!

I'd forgotten how much I dislike job hunting. So far this week I've given resumes to four restaurants, one spa who's looking for a receptionist, a credit union, and two retail stores. I'd really enjoy working at three of the restaurants, and I have an interview at an AT&T wireless store on Wednesday, so it's really not too discouraging, but... There's just something about handing resumes over and over to people who don't even look you in the eye, and walking out knowing you'd better apply to four more places because you probably won't even be interviewed that makes me really grumpy.

At least I'm getting a lot of excercise. I spent about four hours on my bike yesterday. When I got back on today my legs felt fine, but my butt hurt a lot. It's been beautiful weather for riding, too, all sunny and breezy. I'm enjoying it for all it's worth, cause I know I'll be back in long underwear within a couple months. I'm really looking forward to the leaves turning. I moved to this neighborhood right in the middle of yellow and red leaves, and that was the end of October... Everything's still really green.

I've got one more free weekend, and then school starts. I'm really excited about all my classes. I've been reviewing math, and not only is it exciting to find out I can still factor trinomials, but it's fun. I'm a little worried, because the class I'm taking this fall is supposed to be really fast paced, but I really enjoy the math I know. I'm also a little worried about the price of a TI-89 graphing calculator. But it'll all work out! And physics and the argument/philosophy class will just be fun. I can't wait til Monday.

08:26 pm - Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

I've been traveling a lot lately. All together, from August 12th until school starts on the 27th, I will have spent 14 days at home. I went to Waldron Island, Sacramento California for the HSC conference, Not Back to School Camp, Philadelphia, and currently I'm housesitting out in Boring, Oregon, where I will stay until Wednesday evening. I've really enjoyed all of it. Beautiful places, interesting people, inspirational thoughts, lots of time to stare out the window, lots of time to be productive and useful.

Not Back To School Camp was definitely a highlight. I was junior staff this year, and it felt like the perfect level to be at. I don't feel like a camper anymore, but I don't want to full responsibilities of staff. My job was basically to make myself useful in all the small ways, and it felt so very, very good. I haven't really had any good jobs lately, so it was wonderful to be in a situation where I knew what I could do and how to do it, and if I didn't there were people I loved and admired around to help me out.

Probably my favorite single thing about the week was doing wake up calls. Kathleen and Eli (the other junior staffers) and I got up at 8:15 every morning and went around to every cabin singing morning songs in three part harmony. It's a wonderful feeling to wake up a bunch of teenagers that early and not only have them not be grouchy, but have them applaud and thank you.

Philadelphia was nice, too. I got to see Zack, who's been there since the end of July. I also visited Juniata College, my first official college visit. Although it wasn't my first choice before I visited it and it isn't now, I enjoyed the visit a lot. The students were nice, the futon I slept on was comfy, and the classes I sat in on were fascinating. I think no matter where I end up I'm going to enjoy this college gig a lot.

Speaking of colleges, so far my top choices are Prescott in Arizona, Antioch in Ohio, and Pitzer in southern California. They're all under a thousand students, have narrative evaluations instead of grades, have you create your own major, and have a focus on saving the world. Other than that they seem to be very different places, though. I'm looking forward to visiting all three sometime in the next six months.

Arr, me hearties.

10:47 pm - Summer yawning

I just started an intensive class, only 6 weeks long and half online, called "Women in Art". Here's a quote from the textbook:

"Moreover, a desire to see the work of women exhibited, discussed, published, and preserved within existing discourses of high art often conflicted with a recognition of the need to critique and deconstruct those same discourses in order to expose ideological assumptions based in systems of domination and difference." Women, Art, and Society by Whitney Chadwick, 3rd edition, p. 11.

Translation: They couldn't decide whether they wanted to be approved by the system or get rid of it.

Only 100 more pages to read before Tuesday. I'm actually starting to enjoy it, though. Just call me a mad academic, but it's kinda fun to read something I can't just breeze through and skip every other sentence. Instead I have to read every sentence three times, but hey, you can't have everything. And then there's the online portion of the class... Everyone has to post a short essay and a response to someone else's essay every week. As usual in a community college class, my classmates come from a wide range of backgrounds

So yeah, after a couple weeks of absolutely nothing going on, life is starting to gear back up again. I've got this class, and Chris and Liz are getting back from Wisconsin in the next couple days, so there'll be more people in the house. Then visiting Charlie, and the California homeschooler conference, and NBTSC, and then it's September...

I'm not really sure what I'm doing in September. I have two weeks between getting home from NBTSC and when school starts, and my original plan from two or three months ago was to go to Wisconsin. But now it's seeming like the people in Wisconsin I was planning to visit will be relatively busy during that time. I was also thinking of flying out to Philadelphia and staying with Zack. But again, he'll be busy and working... And then there's the whole money issue. The most logical thing to do would be to stay here and get a job before school starts. So... I don't know what I'll end up doing. We'll see. I kinda like all my options, so it'll be good.

It was really windy today, and a large branch of the sort-of-apple tree in our backyard blew down. Josh gathered up all the apples that were scattered around the backyard, and I'm going to make applesauce tomorrow.

06:39 pm - Colleges!

I just did a phone conference "information session" with an admissions councilor from Prescott College. I was the only prospective student there, which made me pretty nervous at first, but it went really well. The admissions person, Amanda, was very talkative and extroverted and encouraged me to ask a lot of questions.

01:56 pm - Blueberries and thunderstorms

It's definitely summer here in Portland. It's been hot hot hot, easily 90 degrees in the sun. And of course, no one has a tan. It's so funny spending all day in the sun and not getting burnt like I would in California in this kind of heat. I did get a fun sunburn on my back a couple weeks ago, when I sat on the front steps for about three hours reading. Luckily, I really enjoy peeling sunburns. *grin*

Our garden is gorgeous. Zack's been taking really good care of it, weeding and watering and planting cucumbers and peppers. There's a few more sweet peas every day, and green tomatoes, and loads and loads of basil, oregano, and mint. We harvested the radishes already, and the carrots are almost big enough to eat. And the blackberry bush in the vacant lot down the street has ripe blackberries! Several weeks earlier than I was expecting. There's ripe berries, and more almost ripe berries, and more red ones and much more green ones, which is exactly the way I like it. I get instant gratification and the pleasure of knowing there'll be more tomorrow, and next week, and next month.

I've been a lot busier than I thought I would be. We had visitors for a full two weeks after Quo Vadis ended. On Saturday I went to the Oregon Country Fair, which was wonderful. It's a beautiful hippie-fest, complete with lots of dust and sunscreen and people wearing wings and body paint. I saw some good music and ate some good food and bought some pretty jewelry. This weekend, I'm housesitting for some friends way out in the sub-suburbs and taking care of their goats. Next weekend my parents are visiting, and we've got some fun plans to go hiking and stuff. I don't have anything planned for the weekend after that (yet) but right after that my summer college class, Women In Art, begins. There's only one meeting a week, but it's a three credit class, so I think there's going to be a lot of essays involved. Either the second or third week in August my housemates and I are planning on going up to Waldron Island in nothern Washington, which is certifiably one of the top five most beautiful places on earth. And then, on August 29th at 10am, I'm due in Eugene to begin my duties as a junior staffer at NBTSC. I'm so excited about that. I feel like I've been waiting for it for years. I just got the forms to fill out a couple days ago, and I'm all in a dither about what workshops I could teach. Moving out? Deaf culture? Relationships? I'll probably be busy enough once I'm there that'd I'd be fine not doing a workshop, but I'd love to do all I can.

I'm looking forward to school this fall, too. I'm registered for physics, math, and "The Language and Layout of Argument", and I'm thinking about taking a one credit PE class as well. Circuit training? Maybe weight training would be good for me.

Last night there was a thunderstorm. I biked to Zack's house pretty late at night amid spatters of rain and far-away lighting. I like summer here.

09:15 am - Woo but I've been busy.

I feel more relaxed and alert than I have in months. I got home from a week at Quo Vadis yesterday evening. I now have a good night's sleep and a hot shower behind me and life is just grand. There's a ton of people in the house. We actually were able to rent a schoolbus and driver to take us from our doorstep to the Quo Vadis meeting place in Eugene for less money per person than Greyhound, so we brought about a third of Quo Vadis there and took about half home. That's not quite as bad as it sounds, since there were only 34 people there, but it's still a lot! I'm really glad it's sunny so people can sleep in the backyard.

So much has happened since I last wrote. Finals were good. I got As in all my classes, which once again is rather surprising and a little annoying for ASL. I like the language, and I'm glad I know as much of it as I do, but I think I'm done with the ASL program and the teachers there for a while. So yeah, finals were good but stressful. I spent all my time, and I do mean all my time, studying for about a week, then came home and collapsed on Wednesday night.

Which would have been great, except that I called the job I had planned on as a summer job to find out my schedule, and discovered I'd been laid off. Yuck. Really bad timing on that one. So... I'm not really sure what I'm doing this summer. I have enough money saved to last me through September, but since that's when school starts I'd be able to work less then, so I kinda need to earn money this summer. I got a freelance editing job from my roommate's father, which is very interesting. I'd love to do more of that, but I'm not sure it'd pay rent. I'm looking around for the usual food service jobs, although I'm pretty unenthused by it, and also pretty sure it wouldn't work. Most food service places don't want to hire someone for just ten weeks. I'm thinking of registering at a temp agency, or maybe even doing canvassing for political or environmental causes. That'd probably be something I wouldn't want to do more than once, but most wacky idealist college students seem to do it at some point.

Moral of that paragraph: if you or anyone you know needs something edited, (anything from copyediting to informed advice) let me know!

Quo Vadis was wonderful and just what I needed. Vacations are awfully good ideas, especially vacations in the backwoods of Oregon which involve unschoolers and swimming holes. I'm inspired and ready to plan out the rest of my life.

So, the current plan is: do something this summer involving not getting too stressed, learning cool things, and making at least some money. In August, take a short summer class called "Women In Art". Junior staff at NBTSC in September. Try to justify a trip to Wisconsin. In the fall, take math, physics, and philosophy (and maybe poetry, but I'll probably be too busy) at the campus that's a 15 minutes away, not 45 minutes. Visit Prescott and Antioch colleges, and any other really cool ones. Make a transcript. In January and February, apply to colleges. Take more PCC classes in the winter and spring, and work on Quo Vadis too. Do something in the summer, hopefully involving money. Go to full-time college starting the fall of '05 and graduating sometime in '07. Spend at least a year traveling. Find lots of land that's not too close to or far from a city, build houses with unschoolers, settle down, garden, bake bread and have babies.

If you skipped the above paragraph, it basically sums up to "There's a ton of stuff I want to do in the next ten years, but I wish it would go faster."

05:57 pm - I get to vote! I'm a real adult now!

I saw Dennis Kucinich speak at PCC yesterday! I had no idea it was happening until people started setting up chairs and flags right outside the cafeteria while I was working. It was pretty spiffy. It was half speech and half question-and-answer thing, and it felt very informal because there were only about 75 people there. I even got to ask a question, about whether he thought rebuilding Iraq and rebuilding the US at the same time was really possible in the current economy. (He said yes.)

I've felt very steeped in politics lately. Today Oregon's presidential primary and Portland's mayoral primary ballots were due, so I've spent the last week or two discussing the various mayoral merits of the weekly independant newspaper's editor and Extremo the Clown. (You know you live in a liberal city when...) I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out what a county commissioner actually does, and avoiding the people handing out LaRouche brochures.

Classes are... almost over. I do still like my classes, but my goodness, it's spring! It's time to unschool already! There are so many things I want to do, so many books I want to check out of the library and spend the entire weekend reading.

Nick has moved out and Eli has moved in. Last night all five of us were in the kitchen at once, which was incredible! That never happens! We are a good group. I really love how we're all interested in such different things. It makes conversations much more interesting when everyone brings in something different. Unschoolers rock, yes we do.

09:34 am

Roses roses roses!

And a digital camera from the PCC library.

Life is gooooood.

11:43 am - And the living is easy...

I've got a little over an hour before I have to leave for work at Cold Stone. I'm a little grumpy about that, because I just got back half an hour ago from a mandatory meeting (which was actually pretty cool; I got a free movie ticket) and got home at 1am last night. I closed for the first time last night, and although the store closed at 11pm it took four of us an hour and a half to clean up. It's intense working there... There was a line out the door until 10pm. And the store is big. Big area behind the counter, big lobby, big back room. But it's fun. I mean, it's ice cream. And I'm starting to get to know my co-workers. Most of them seem to be high school students, which is a little odd. I've never really gotten along with people who spend their weekends feeling cool for drinking illegally. But most of them seem nice enough. And I have to say, I'm really enjoying singing the stupid songs. "I got ice cream on a cloudy day... When it's cold outside, I've got sorbet..."

So yeah, I'm a leeetle too busy. I'm working 15 hours a week in the cafeteria at PCC, and next week I'm working 16 hours at Cold Stone because prom is apparantly Saturday night so no one else can work. But I got my first paycheck from Cold Stone last night, and it's so very very nice to not feel broke. I could buy pizza for dinner! Or a CD! Or fancy-shmancy bike lights! Or organic jam! Oh the possibilities.

I've been biking a ton, too. Half an hour Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and an hour every day I work at Cold Stone. It's nice, especially in the wonderful weather we've been having lately. I've sure been working off my ice cream. *grin*

School's good, although I'm getting a little tired of it. Spring fever and all. Deaf Studies is fascinating, and touches on education, linguistics, cognitive science, minority history... plus the teacher is Deaf, so two women interpret for him, which is fascinating to watch. Sometimes I think I learn more ASL from them than from my ASL class.
ASL class is... hard. The teacher is wonderful, much nicer than my last teacher. She goes off on these random funny stories every once in a while, and thinks our textbook is boring, and gets mad when we don't ask about signs we don't understand. But... I guess learning languages is just not something I find easy. I want to do everything perfectly, even though I know many people who speak English as a second language quite imperfectly, and I really admire them.
And math class is easy. We're working through polynomials, and just started learning how to factor them. It's fun. The teacher's nice. I can't decide whether to take math 70 or 95 in the fall. 70 is basically a review, but everyone I've talked to says 95 is really fast and really hard. We'll see. I'll ask my current math teacher for advice.

Also in the fall, I'm going to take "Language and the Layout of Argument" with a teacher Tessa has been recommending for a good year or so. And I'm going to take a class at Portland State University too, probably "Languages of the World". PSU has an amazing variety of language classes... Turkish, Tagalog, Korean, Persian, Norwegian... I'll hopefully continue to work at Cold Stone, and they may be opening up a store right near PSU. And I'll make up a high school transcript, visit various colleges, and apply in January. Wow. I've spent a long time thinking about four-year colleges, since I was about 16. It seems weird that I'm finally ready to commit to it.

What else what else. I'm looking forward to this summer. I'll be working about 30 hours a week, which means I'll have much more time at home! And no homework! I want to read a lot, and go on recreational bike rides, and garden.

Oh yes! The garden! From my window I can see five fully bloomed roses. They're yellow and red and absolutely incredible. We've got two more bushes that are starting to bloom too, one dark dark red and one pale, and two more tiny bushes that aren't blooming yet. Roses are amazing things. And we've got two kinds of mint, and basil, and lettuce and onions and peas and soon we'll have carrots and tomatos.

Hurrah for summer.

10:17 pm

Spring break was wonderful and full of unschooleryness. I stayed at Robyn's in Corvallis for a couple days, and Ryland and I spent seven hours on what's usually a two hour drive, and went to the beach and ate clam chowder. Back at home, everything was wonderful and unschoolery. Tessa bought a unicycle and people tried to ride it. Sadly, the seatpost was too short for the neighbor kids. We climbed up on the roof a couple times. Wonderful view of downtown from up there. We just... did unschooler things. Played music, cooked food, talked about everything under the sun, ran around screaming... yeah, it was a wonderful spring break. I was really unhappy about going back to school on Monday.

But I think it's going to be a really good quarter! All my teachers are wonderful. I've got a new job at Cold Stone Creamery on Hawthorne, although I'll keep my job at the PCC cafeteria until this summer. I'm setting up a math club with Eireann, Tessa and Chris, because I keep getting excited about all the things I can do with algebra and not having anyone to talk to about it. My schedule is looking like it'll be three 14 hour days every week, and one six or eight hour day.

I just got an email today telling me I'm junior staff for Not Back to School Camp this summer! I'm so very stoked. So very very happy.

Tomorrow I'm flying to California for Passover and my grandparents' 50th anniversary. It's going to be wonderful. I'm borrowing Nick's DVD of "Spirited Away" to watch in the aiport, haha.

Anything else? Um... I'm tired? Yeah, that's it. Oh yeah, and I got all As last quarter, my first term ever of full time college. Go me. Even though I don't think I deserved at least one of them. Hm.

10:31 am - The last final is Over!!!

Things I have learned this quarter:

• Riding my bike without my hands is easier when they're at my sides and not hovering over the handlebars.
  
• "Privilege" is spelled like that, with an e and not an a.
  
• If I have a roommate who works in the writing center at the college, I should ask her who the good writing teachers are before registering for classes.
  
• It's easier to make PDF files with AppleWorks than Illustrator.
  
• I am gold to a GUI designer.
  
• Coffee is helpful for writing, but not for sign language.
  
• I want to live closer to my family.
  
• History is fascinating, especially the history of people who speak Spanish.
  
• I believe I can do anything if I work hard enough for it. A lot of people don't.
  
• I get crushes almost automatically on boys with curly blond hair.
  
• How to divide negative numbers, simplify algebraic equations, and phrase real life "word" problems as equations.
  
• I really like algebra.
  
• The hardest part of writing is writing about something interesting. The second hardest part is writing about it well. The easiest and least interesting part is writing what your instructor wants to see.
  

01:13 pm - Daffodils, snowdrops and violets

It's definitely, definitely spring. Yesterday was about 65 F and sunny, and today's not much cooler, although it is cloudy. Flowers and trees are budding all over the place. It's wonderful. Makes biking to school a lot more fun. *grin*

In a little less than an hour I'm presenting my final project for International Political Poetry class. I volunteered to do it a week early, and although it has been a bit tough getting it all together in time, I'm really glad I won't have one more project to do next week with the rest of my finals. I will still come to class, though, to watch other people's presentations. I've heard some pretty neat ideas... One girl is going to do a project about the Irish potato famine and make potatos for the class, and another is going to give everyone bookmarks with poems on them.

Math class is feeling pretty easy. There's a test on graphing tomorrow, an optional review session which I think I won't go to on Monday, and the cumulative final next Wednesday. I'll definitely do some review, but I'm really feeling very confident. It's a nice feeling.

Especially since ASL is a bit worrying. I've got a written final on Monday and an expressive final on Wednesday, and both are going to be pretty intense. That's what I'm going to be spending my weekend on, for sure. I did notice yesterday that I can fingerspell a lot better than I used to, which is nice. I will be glad not to have this teacher anymore. Native speakers are so much better in an imersion program...

And after my writing final Thursday morning, Ryland and I are going on a road trip! Woohoo! I can't wait. I'm really ready for this quarter to be over, and driving around southern Oregon sounds like exactly the ticket. I intend to go to the beach at least once.

I've got my class schedule for next quarter: sign language, Deaf culture, and math. Depending on my work schedule, I may or may not take a poetry class with a really cool teacher, too. I'll also be working on Quo Vadis a lot, as the volunteer coordinator and general brainstormer. I'm looking forward to that a lot. Quo Vadis is going to be so exciting this year.

Meh, must go. Hopefully I'll be able to think again after finals week... Four more essays and four more tests.

05:15 pm

All comments on this journal are now screened. So if you comment, you'll be able to see it and I'll be able to see it, but no one else will unless I say so.

Oh the power.

03:30 pm

Yesterday was a very politically intense day.

In International Political Poetry class, a Jew Against the Occupation came in and talked about the history of Israel. Mostly about the last 130 years, but a little from a couple thousand years back. *grin* That was... well, it's a very intense and personal subject. Nothing I hadn't heard before, but really, really hard to listen to and figure out what I agreed with and what I didn't. And really, I am involved. I am responsible. Israel is my cultural homeland, whether or not I have any intention of moving there, so I am at least a little responsible.

That evening, I was home messing around on the computer when Tessa got a phone call and started saying "Oh my god. Oh my god!" It seems that the Oregon law regarding marriages is that to be married you have to be a 17 year old or older male or a 17 year old or older female, but it says nothing about one only marrying the other. So Multnomah county (that's Portland, for those who aren't familiar with Oregon geography) announced they would be giving marriage licenses to same-sex couples starting at 10am today! I was, and am, absolutely blown away over the moon. San Francisco is one thing. It's always been a gay mecca. But Portland...? The city I live in? Wow. It's incredible!

Then I had a long conversation with Tessa about whether marriage should be a political statement or only a statement of love and commitment. I suppose marriage already isn't a statement of love or commitment for a lot of people (Brittany Spears, people who want US citizenship, etc) but the idea of a friend, someone I'm close to, getting married as a political statement... I dunno. I just really don't like the idea. Of course, I did tell Tessa that would never get in the way of being really happy for her if she did get married, no matter what the reason, and throwing flowers and crying and all that good stuff.

Today, after work, I caught the shuttle from Sylvania campus to Southeast with Tessa, and got off ten blocks from the county commissioner's office. There was a line around the block of people waiting to get marriage licenses. People were smiling and hugging and cheering and glowing with happiness. There were four or five people holding signs with various anti-gay quotes from the bible, and about twenty people with rainbow flags and signs about God being about love not hate, and various coffee shops handing out coffee and doughnuts, and people with rice and confetti cheering every couple who came out. People drove down the street and honked and waved rainbow flags out their windows. Only one person made a rude gesture. It was amazing. More than ever before, I felt like I was watching history. It was just incredible... I can't believe this is happening right here in my city in my life! Wow!

I only stayed an hour, then came back here to school and did homework. Now I've got math class in ten minutes. Things are gearing up for finals... Gulp.

04:01 pm - It's all busy. It's all good.

I am sitting in the outdoor plaza at Portland Community College and the sun is so bright I can hardly see my laptop screen. There are lots of puffy white clouds in the sky, and for once there's no sign of rain at all. There's no wind at all. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous day. I can't wait to get home and dig around in the garden bed.

Midterms are over! Yay! That was one of the stressier weeks of my life. Not as stressy as moving last fall was, but definitely stressy. This semester is the first time I've ever taken a full load of college classes, and I could definitely tell the difference. But I did really well on everything, and got almost all of it in on time, too. *grin* I ended up quitting my job at the Rose Garden arena, too. They had scheduled me to work twice as much midterms week as they had in the previous month total, and during the weekend my family was visiting. So I said no way Jose and wrote them a very polite letter telling them I wasn't showing up. The end. Yay. So life is feeling beautifully unstressful this week.

I think math is my favorite class. I adore my teacher. She gives us tricky logic problems which are easy once you just figure out how to write them down. I love that kind of thing. We just starting graphing linear equations, so I get to spend the next couple weeks playing connect the dots! What could possibly be bad? Also, I'm very proud of myself for getting 100% on the last two tests, especially since I only got about 70% on the first test. Go me and my mad math skillz!

Writing class is okay. I like writing essays, and need the practice, but the class really drives it home that I'm at a community college and not a four year private liberal arts college. We talk a lot about how to analyze everything from scholarly essays to beer ads to the Simpsons, but not about how to analyze writing. It's writing practice, and that's good, but something better would be nice too. About a third of the class don't speak English as their first language, and another third know the structure of an essay up and down but don't know how to care about it. So, as usual when I'm slightly bored with something, I got a little crazy on my last essay. It was about beer advertisements, and the last sentence sums the essay up nicely: "We look to the godlike images above our freeways for an example, and find only empty pixels and a hangover." I used the word "betrayal" a lot and talked about the downfall of American society. It was fun. It's not what I would consider a serious essay, or my best writing, but that's not what the class is asking for. I did it right, and I had a little fun with it. It's all good.

I just came out of poetry class. I'm learning at least as much about history as poetry in that class. I want to learn more Spanish so I can read Pablo Neruda. I want to learn all about the history of Latin America through it's poetry. I want to learn about William Blake and 19th century England. We were supposed to talk about other political art forms besides poetry this week, and bring in CDs, but Tom, the teacher, wrote "What is poetry?" up on the whiteboard and we spent the whole class arguing about that. It was wonderful. That's one reason I want to take more art classes, so that I can argue with people about what art is. Wonderful stuff.

And sign language. Next month I'm going to an orientation for the sign language interpretation program, and I'll be applying this spring. On Saturday I'm hopefully going to go to a Deaf coffee night and see how much I can handle when it comes to communicating with native speakers.

I'm looking for summer jobs. I want to work pretty close to full time in July and August so I won't have to work as much if I get into the interpretation program. It's an intense program... 15 to 18 units a quarter. I definitely don't want to be working with that kind of courseload. So I'm going to apply for a job as a counselor with the Parks and Recreation summer programs, and I'll keep looking around for office-type jobs too.

11:41 pm - A year and a day in Portland

I really seriously love my life. I was afraid that today would be bad, I'd be exhausted, grumpy, slow and wouldn't enjoy anything. This weekend was great, but not very relaxing. I worked Friday and Saturday nights and spent all day Saturday and half of Sunday at Zack's, eating truffles and pretending to do homework. I spent the other half of Sunday actually doing homework, and I even made dinner. (Very, very yummy mashed potatoes. The secret? Yogurt.) I realized I wasn't doing too well in my math and sign language classes (I'd gotten about 80% on tests in both, which is just barely a B if they're not grading on a curve) so I studied my butt off and feel much better about it today. Anyway, I was worried I hadn't got enough relaxation before my big 14 hour day, especially since I stayed up a little too late last night sitting around the kitchen with my roommates listening to a CD Nick had of P. D. Q. Bach and laughing til my stomach hurt.

But today was just fabulous! Work in the PCC cafe and cafeteria was exciting because a bagel caught on fire, and five different people I knew showed up and bought things and said hi. I love Portland Community College, I really do. Three of my four teachers are Great, and the other one isn't too bad... one person I talked to characterized him as "very laid-back" which pretty much says it. The other students are great. I've talked to far more single mothers with full-time jobs and a full courseload than high school students who're just there because they don't have anything else to do. Almost everyone I've talked to is really serious about being there because they want to learn and study and do other things at the same time. It really is a community college, and I really really love that.

Math class is starting to be really fun, now that I've got the hang of fractions, negative numbers, and division. Algebra makes sense to me, unlike dividing negative fractions, and word problems amuse me. I like the teacher a lot. She's very gentle about teaching math, and she really loves it.
ASL is getting more and more fun too. The teacher is tough. About half the class has dropped out, some to the class below ours and some just completely out. The people who are there are at a slightly higher level (or just didn't drop before the deadline and don't want a Withdraw on their transcript) and we're all starting to be able to really have conversations. We played a game tonight that I was very good at. That Friedland sense of competition comes in handy sometimes... Whodathunk that late night Thanksgiving games would get me better grades in college. *grin*
Tomorrow is writing class, with the "very laid-back" teacher. There's a couple other students whose papers are well worth hearing, though. I'm liking it more and more too, and reading my textbook of essays for fun.
Then I spend two hours looking through the Gary Snyder and Nikki Giovanni books I got from the library tonight, finding a poem on which to write a four page midterm paper for my International Political Poetry class. That class is just as cool as it originally sounded. Not much more to say about that.
Then a rehearsal for the Vagina Monologues. Fourth to last rehearsal too, which is scary since I've only been to two total. But I think it's going to be really good...

Basically, everything's really good. There's a lot of it, but I can't think of when I was last this steadily happy for this long, especially being this busy.

On the home front, we've only got six people in the house, and Liz will be visiting her family for a couple weeks later this month. Nick keeps making cookies and buying ice cream. Chris reads hilarious books about algebra and writes interesting college admissions essays. Tessa and Dawn are continually cute around each other. Zack buys me truffles. Life is just good!

I should really be asleep now, though.

01:09 pm - Busy busy busy!

My second week of school just ended. What was supposed to be the first week of school got cancelled because the entire city of Portland was covered in several inches of ice! It was really exciting for the first day or two, then really boring because I couldn't get out of the house and nothing was open to go to anyway, and then everyone was like, "Oh, I guess we can use shovels and snow plows, huh" and life got back to normal. There are still piles of dirty snow and ice in random corners, but the sidewalks and streets are clear. It's been very, very cold. Yesterday felt like about 20 degrees. Not fun biking weather. But today it started drizzling and feels more like 40 degrees. Much better.

I'm taking a full load this quarter, and it's definitely keeping me busy! I'm finding that I actually need to study for sign language class and math class, rather than being able to get all the homework done in half an hour and without much thought. My writing class is okay... pretty basic, but not bad. The International Political Poetry class is just as fabulous as I hoped it would be. The teacher is obviously at least as excited as the students to be there. We're reading some wonderful exciting stuff. Each of the students has to bring in one poem and read it to the class. I did mine yesterday. I picked "Lunch in Nablus City Park" by Naomi Shihab Nye with the help of jwitchbaby. It was pretty fun... I really like that poem, and a couple of the other students came up to me afterwards and said they did too.

We've had a lot of visitors this month, too. Jessica from New York and Dawn from Canada have been here all month. Victor, Jamie and Erin from Davis CA came up for a week. Kat was here for a couple days, and Robyn and Josh visited, but I missed them because I was in Colorado! Chris, Liz, Ryland and I drove to Colorado to surprise Carrie for her birthday. It took us twenty-four hours to get there, we stayed Saturday and Sunday, and drove back on Monday in twenty-three hours. It was really intense, but really really fun. I can't think of better people to roadtrip with.

But life's starting to settle into a routine. Nick will be back from his winter break on Monday, and Jessica and Dawn will leave in the next couple weeks. I'm spending a solid forty hours a week at school. Life is good, and there's lots to do and think about and look forward to.

01:24 am

I am safe, I am under a roof, I am warm, and all my friends are too.

01:44 pm - First day of school

Winter break was great. Lots of lazing around, reading good books... I visited Robyn in Corvallis and got to ride horses! Bareback! And clean stalls all by myself! That was fabulous. I visited Zack and his family in Philadelphia for a week, which was also fabulous. I like meeting adult unschoolers. I caught The Cold that's been going around this season, and am not looking forward to the rest of the reputed three weeks of it. I feel so very much better than I did Thursday and Friday, but I've still got a cough.

While I was gone, it snowed! Twice! Well, three times if you count that it was snowing as I got off the airplane. And it's snowing again today! It was just plain cold yesterday and today, too. Easily below freezing, and really dry. Until it started snowing, anyway. Snow is still wonderful and exciting, but the thrill of biking through it has started to wear off. Maybe if I buy boots, better gloves and a scarf it'll be better.

I got up at 6:30 today to be here, PCC Sylvania, at 8. I could have gotten up a little later, I think. I'm scheduled to work here 8 to 11 Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Then I have five hours to eat lunch and do homework, which I think will work out very well cause I don't have time to do homework at home. Then math class, and sign language class. Tomorrow I have a writing class at 9am, and the international political poetry class at 2, which I'm really looking forward to. This quarter is looking really good.

Nick is out of town until the beginning of February, when Reed starts back up, but we've got eight guests to make up for it. I don't think they'll all be here at one time, but still... Jessica from New York and Dawn from Edmonton, Canada are already here. Victor, Jamie and Erin from Davis, CA arrive tomorrow afternoon. Robyn's coming up next weekend, and possibly Kat as well. Chris gets home on the 11th, dragging Ryland in tow. Oh, the wonderful wonderful people!

I need to go eat some fooooood.