Fun in Art History...

I have a test tomorrow in my Modern Art class that I've been studying for lately. When studying, my bella roommate from Italy and I went back over our lecture notes and got a kick out of the description for this one work of art by Marcel Duchamp. The work of art is The Large Glass (The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even). Duchamp also did Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, which I'm sure is recognizable, even if you don't know it. But the description that our teacher gave us for The Large Glass is just hilarious. Braegan and I cracked up when we were reviewing on Monday.

The Large Glass depicts an elaborate and unconsummated mating ritual between the bride in the upper half of the glass...and the uniformed bachelors in the lower half. Despite their efforts, the bachelors fail to project their "love gasoline" (the sperm gas or fluid constantly ground forth by the rollers of the chocolate machine) into the realm of the bride, so the the whole construction becomes a paradigm of pointless erotic activity.

This is, verbatim, what she said in class.

I'm sorry. "Love gasoline"?!? Are you kidding me?? We started laughing in Starbucks when we were reviewing on Monday. It's just one of those things.


Randomness for the day:
I had to scrape the ice off of my windshield this morning. It's not even Halloween and it's this cold?? I so don't like this. Maybe we'll get snow this year. That would be pretty cool.

You know you're up at Starbucks too much when the Midtown Village security guy recognizes you. "Oh, you were in here the other night, weren't you?" Yeah, I've only be there studying/writing a paper four nights this week....

I need to find a new place to study.

Countdown...

Has anyone watched CNN lately? They have a countdown on the bottom of the screen (at least on Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer) for when the first polls close. They have days, hours, minutes, and seconds on this countdown.

Really?? Let's start the countdown, down to the seconds, a week (excuse me - 6 days, 23 hours, 16 minutes, 30 seconds) before the polls close.

It just seems too early.

This debate...

Not gonna lie, I didn't pay one hundred percent attention to the debate. But here's the reactions between James and I throughout various parts of the debate through text messages.

J: "Not answering the question"
A: "Agreed."
A: "Okay why talk about Joe the plumber?"
J: "Meh. Didn't necessarily answer the question either"

J: "Oh god! Joe the plumber again"

A: "Role model?"
J: "Ha! Role model to women"
A: "Now that's bulls**t"
J: "If you ever end up like her i'm sending you to the crazy house"
J: "Croonyism!"
J: "Or is it with one o?"
A: "Haha!! Please send me to the crazyhouse then. And one O I think."

J: "Haha! Iraq is united. Hilarious!"
A: "Laugh riot."
J: "Haha"

A: "Yeah. He's not refuting why Obama said he didn't support the Columbian Free Trade Agreement. Why support it if they won't prosecute would be assassins?"

A: "Joe AGAIN?!?!?!"
J: "Looks like women get pissed when if mentions joe"
A: "Seriously."

A: "Thank you for mentioning the tax on health care!"

So here you go. It's not the same kinda reactions as last debate, but this is just as well.

I don't know. I kinda wish I had paid 100% attention, but Ash and I were watching this in the living room while I baked scones, so we went off on tangents at times.

I'm getting a little sick of the BA topic though. BO was 8 when BA did those acts. If people are going to say BO is 'palling around with terrorists' then why not say that about those students that BA (and other 60s activists) were professors to? I know BA is not the only radical activist from the 60s that is now a professor.



Oh yes. The answer to the question I asked earlier today. The Civil War is the only war America lost before the 20th century. Makes sense once you think about it though. America v. America...one of 'em has to lose.

"War is Hell"

My Age of Exploration and Conquest teacher asked us this question today. "Prior to the 20th century America had only lost one war. Which one was it?"

Do you know?

Have you ever noticed...

...how much you depend on one website?

What website do you depend on?

For me, it's Google. I'm not going to be the typical college student and say 'Facebook', because for me, Google is where it's at. Let me explain. iGoogle is my home page. GMail is my main e-mail service (I even get my school e-mail forwarded there). Blogger - Google product. Picasa (my picture website) - another Google product. Google Reader is my RSS feeder to be able to keep up with various blogs and other websites. I even use Google Docs and Google Notebook. Google Calender is on my homepage. Oh and let's not even get me started on Google search! My search engine for everything. How many times do you think you've said "I/You/We should Google this or that"? I never noticed it until this summer in Italia when I didn't have a consistent internet connection. There would be a landmark/building/church that we'd have a question about the history of that wouldn't be in our guidebooks (and we had tons of 'em between us all) or in our textbooks and we'd want to Google info.

It's amazing once you think about it...

Happy Weekend

It's the first day of a four day weekend. So I didn't have an alarm this morning. It's a wonderful thing to not have an alarm on for a Thursday. It was the beginning of a good day.

Then, I made a trip to Barnes and Noble. :) Ah, my own little slice of heaven. I bought three books, all of a historical note. I bought Machiavelli's The Prince, a book about the Italian Renaissance, and a book about the Medici family. Italia. La dolce vita...I miss Firenze. But one of my teachers mentioned The Prince the other day and said that it was about King Ferdinand of Spain. On any tour of a Medici property in Firenze you were told that this book was about Lorenzo the Magnificent (a Medici). It peaked my interest that I have heard that the book was about two completely different people, so I bought it and am hoping to be able to read it sometime.

And I cleaned my bathroom today. It took forever, but darn, that bathtub looks fantastic. I'm proud of myself. :)

This weekend, I'm fish sitting for Ash. She put Spike out on the table in the living room along with his food for me to take care of him. I hardly get to see the guy since he's in her room all the time. He amuses me. I've turned the TV on twice today - both times to watch reruns of Daily Show and Colbert Report - rerun of both Wednesday night and Thursday night episodes. Both times, Spike has turned around from facing the back wall to facing the TV and has been watching the TV. I don't know if he does that in Ash's room, but it's amusing.

Reactions to the Debate...

**This post will make more sense if you watched the debate. You may still find comments appropriate without having watched the debate. Abbreviations are used instead of names. Who knows how many people have e-mail alerts for all of the names present in the debate.**

Tonight is the night of the town-hall style debate. The proclaimed "aggressive" debate (at least proclaimed by cnn.com). I'm not seeing it. If JMC can be 'aggressive' I'll be surprised...he never seems to show vocal emotion.

I'm watching the debate tonight, even though I mailed in my absentee ballot today. I know though, in my classes, the debate will be a hot topic. Or if not in my classes then among my friends. I'm thanking everything above though that in my HY318 class we have a test tomorrow so that Mr. Ultra-Conservative in the class can't give his reactions....

I've had some pretty 'aggressive' reactions to some of the comments by both Senators though. Honestly. Here are some of the snap reactions that I've had while watching the debate...

JMC should not be repeating what he has voted for and what BO has not voted for. That's great. You do your job in the Senate. What does it mean for your campaign?! What is your platform on the question.

JMC and BO both need to follow the rules they agreed to. If they can't follow debate rules, are they going to be able to follow their campaign platforms??

If JMC and/or BO had agreed to a 'Manhattan Project' view on nuclear power I would have flipped my lid. Just hearing that question I almost flipped out.

I was following the reactions to the debate on Twitter - one said that there should be a drinking game, and every time JMC says "my friends" take a drink. You would be drunk. Quickly. At the beginning of the debate I would of said if "cronyism" or "cronies" would've worked.

TB, though, is great repeating the rules to the Senators - "there are lights around the stage", "Let me remind you of the rules you agreed to..."

Let's not even get me started on my views on Iraq...oh lord have mercy.

Troops will come home with honor no matter what. Whether or not there is a victory. The fact that the troops have done something that not all will do..they deserve the honor that comes with the uniform. I may or may not agree with why the troops came to be in Afghanistan and Iraq, but all troops deserve honor and need to be supported.

My question for BO: Do we know for sure that bin Laden is in the hills of Pakistan??

Let's not give a history lesson throughout the entire debate gentlemen. Answer the questions as how they apply to your campaigns. I love history. Obviously as it is my major. I don't want to hear history being used to skirt around the answer though.

I'm sorry, every time I hear 'General Petraeus' I think of The Daily Show: "General Betray-us". I don't know when they did that segment, but I hear that each time I hear the General's name.

I don't know near enough about foreign politics - especially in Russia. I need to learn more about Putin and what he did...

Yes or No question. Why give a long response to that? I didn't know that yes or no required a minute speaking. And JMC needs to use his mic. That's what it's there for.

What's wrong with negotiation, JMC? If we can get out of something without diverting troops to another country, another war, why would you not want to do that? I understand that no one should want a second Holocaust to take place, but does that necessarily mean that we fore-go negotiations and go straight to troops? Good for you, BO, saying that we should never take military options off the table and use all of the tools available to us to prevent possible terrorist actions in Iran.

Point for BO: talk with our friends and talk with our enemies.

"What don't you know, and how will you learn it?" Great viewer question.

"What I don't know is what the unexpected will be." - JMC. Good quote. Me like. May not like anything else, but I do like that quote.

Can you tell from my comments who I voted for?

Check the Facts. (Another CNN website)

I'm still here.

Lot's of things have been going on lately.

Classes have taken over all of my time, or so it seems. I'm taking 15 hours and all of my classes are upper level (300/400). I bought 22 (or was it 23?) books for my classes this semester. And by the end of the semester will have read front to back in all but 2 of them. Which is good, because one of those is an anthology I have to have for one of my Art History classes and it's 1,258 pages. One of my classes is a writing class too, so I've been slowly working on my final paper for that class. If the teacher would ever give us our paper proposals back I'd be doing more work on it. As it is, I don't know if my proposed subject will be approved.

Good news though - I applied for graduation on Wednesday! After this semester, I will be finished with my major and minor and will only need 6 more hours to have the required 120 hours to graduate. It's pretty awesome! :) It's amazing that I'll be graduating on time, within four years, given how my first two years went here. It's wonderful how it all works out.

Other good news - how 'bout dem Bama boys?! I wish I was going to the game today, but I've been sick this past week, and then I woke up today with a killer migraine. The migraine has gone away some, it's just sitting at the back of my head right now like a low-level headache, but I don't think it'd be a good idea to go sit outside in Bryant-Denny for four to five hours (you gotta get there when gates open to get good seats) with no shade feeling like this. It's wonderful that we're playing this well though. It's a completely different team than the one we had last season. I hope we continue it, and that the boys don't let it all get to their heads. ROLL TIDE!! #2 in the nation! Hopefully, we stay up there. It would be amazing to be in the National Championship game my senior year. At this point though, I just want us to beat LSU, Tennessee, and Auburn my senior year. We haven't beaten Auburn at all in the past three years, I don't want that to continue. Let's hope for a Big-12 upset (especially next week at the Red River Shootout - it won't be against Baylor judging by the game play so far) and not an SEC one for us.

I got my absentee ballot in the mail yesterday. Which is an interesting thing all in itself. When I filled out the application I checked to send it to my out-of-county address. They sent it to the house in Paris. Mom sent it to me so that I could actually vote. They sent my application to Tuscaloosa, my Tuscaloosa address was on the application three times, and they still sent the ballot to Paris. They also did the same thing to my roommate, so her mom is having to forward it to her too. But I was looking at everything they sent, and there is an approved list of write-in candidates who have met the Texas Electoral Code to be able to be written-in on the ballot. I thought it was interesting that they had to be approved to be written-in. And the Railroad Commissioner? Deals with the oil and gas industry. I looked it up last night because I had no idea and neither did Mom.

Time to curl back up in bed, enjoy some football on TV, and work on homework/test reviews.

GO BAMA! ROLL TIDE!