If you could say anything for me it is that I am a dedicated fan to those I deem my favorites. Generally, I have realistic expectations of those I admire. For example, I believe that Tony Stewart will win another championship, and every week I know he can win. This would seem absurd if I were a crazy Sterling Marlin fan girl, but as a any good Tony Stewart fan knows, he’s probably the best race car driver of the modern era, he can win races in any kind of car, on any track. Realistic expectations.
Most people cannot understand my affinity with Greg Biffle. I find something incredibly endearing about him, he is a more soft-spoken than Tony Stewart, though I have seen Kevin Harvick try to kick his ass. He is actively involved in his charity foundation for pet well-being, which donates to no-kill animal shelters, and is a frequent bungee jumper (how cool is that?). Yet, some still insist on referring to him as a “bug eyed moron” while their precious Dale Jr. can do no wrong. Personally, I like Dale Jr. He seems like an okay person. Both Jr. and Biffle have had off seasons, Biffle’s was most certainly last year, while Jr’s was in 2005. Both are former Busch series champions, Jr in 1998 and 1999, Biffle in 2002. Biffle started racing in the NASCAR series a little later than Jr. While Jr. was winning his first Busch title, Biffle was wining Craftsman Truck Rookie of the Year honors. While Biffle was winning his Truck Championship in 2000, Jr. was fighting Matt Kenseth for Rookie of the Year honors in the Cup Series, Kenseth eventually winning.
Biffle has been racing full time in the Cup series since 2003. During which time he has had 11 wins to Jr’s 10 wins in the same period. Finished runner up to Tony Stewart for the Championship in 2005, Jr finished 3rd in the standings in 2003, his best finish in the standings thus far. Given the statistics it is actually harder to argue that one driver is really all that much better than the other. Biffle has a bit of an edge, but making attacks on his physical appearance does not actually make your driver better. Thus far, this season the Bif has bested Jr at Daytona, where both were caught up in unfortunate accidents. Biffle finished 25th Jr 32nd. This week I suspect Biffle will best Jr again, but for the sake of argument, I will keep track of it for a while and see. If Greg improves this season, the way I suspect he will beat Jr convincingly in the overall standings. As far as I am concerned, this is a realistic expectation.

While Kristel plans on eating more pirates, I definitely plan on giving up sleeping.

I often forget about this journal. My life is so hectic, and I am really not convinced that me giving trivial updates about my life does anyone any good, but I guess an update is overdue, as I believe my last post was in July and it was some trivial mem, so here is what I have been up to.

I have returned to Mount Holyoke where I am doing a crazy amount of work. It is pretty normal of Mount Holyoke students to be this kind of overachiever though, so I feel I am in good company. At the moment I am taking 20 credits, and 16 of them are at the 300 level. So I am pretty busy academically. Additionally, I am the treasurer of two students orgs, the president of one, and I’m sure I do other things that make sure I have no free time. ;)

Beyond that I am just trying to keep my sanity. I am back in Idaho for a few days because my mother is convinced that I am going to find something amazing that will make me want to move back here after I graduate. I am not so sure, but if I can find time to think for myself when it isn’t two am, perhaps I would figure something out.

Don't ever feel
That you're alone
I'll never let you down
I'll never leave you dry
Don't fall apart
Don't let it go
~Feeder “Feeling a Moment”

I feel this is my life motto right now. I seem to be dropping everything for friends in crisis, and I love my friends and want to be helpful, but sometimes I am just running on empty. I just need some time away from everyone and their problems. The trouble is right now seems to be a really rough time for many of my friends, and as they have been there for me in hard times, I owe it to them to be there for them. Sometime soon things have to start going well for them. I wish them all the happiness in the world, they just each have to get through their individual rough patches and life will be better. Right? Okay so maybe I am delusional, but I really want people to find their bliss, so I have to believe that suffering is temporary.

Anyway I will try to update more frequently. If anything I can give you that latest update on T's crisis... which I will likely tell you about.

So I just completed the worlds longest meme. Life is crazy. Feel free to drop me a line if you really want all of the details.

(Click here to post your own answers for this meme.)

✓ I miss somebody right now.	× I don't watch much TV these days.  (I watch far too much TV right now. During the school year though...)	✓ I own lots of books.  (I'm working on it)
× I wear glasses or contact lenses.  (not as much as I should)	× I love to play video games.	× I've tried marijuana.
✓ I've watched porn movies.  (Technically it was an academic endeavor)	× I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.	✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy.
✓ I curse sometimes.  (Who the hell doesn't? ;))	✓ I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.	× I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.

( it goes on... )

It is strange how I always believed that transferring to Mount Holyoke was not only the best thing for me, but something that would work out. I worked incredibly hard and did everything in my power to get to through everything, who know that mono was going to be the least of my worries in the grand scheme of graduating from Mount Holyoke.

Money is the bane of my existance. Unless I manage to put together some sort of miracle, I will not be back at Mount Holyoke in the fall because I just do not have to finances or parental support that they seem to think I do. I'm not saying that it is supposed to be easy, but it should be doable, and $12,000 is three counties over from doable. I couldn't even work all summer without spending a cent and be able to fix this. :(

I was watching Felicity with Bonnie tonight and realizing two episodes in that though she does so much that would embarrass me, that is because she reminds me so much of myself. I sometimes might wish that I would have found a boy to stalk to college, and when I get in my really honest moods, sure, I probably would have told him. I did not do this of course, I followed my best friend to college and then when she moved on to brighter pastures I found my own way. It may be a bit rocky and I may have absolutely no idea what I am doing with my life, but I think that is okay, because I went to Mount Holyoke for me, and whatever comes of that should be for the best because I did it by my own initiative.

The side effect of the whole I went to Mount Holyoke thing means that I am not going to have my RA fall for me, and I am likely going to be much more focused on school than boys. I never was one of those girls who built their lives around guys anyway, though sometimes it feels like this is the perfect recipe for ending up alone forever. I guess it could happen that way, but I have an inexplicable better outlook. I think things are going to work out, and I don't know why. Maybe I have to think in the positive realm or else I will not be able to funtion, or maybe the rest of my life has worked out, even this crazy move to MA, and that is why I think it will work out.

So for my friends going away for the summer to places beyond the reaches of internet, have a beautiful and amazing summer. I am going to try to do the same.

This year has been one of the best in recent memory, and perhaps the best of my life. This may lead you to question the quality of my life prior to this, but I would argue though I had a good life, certain things fell into place this year that made my life infinitely better. For the first time in my life I found a place where I belong and people who care about me and make me feel secure enough to be completely myself around them. These amazing friends are probably the best gift the gods have ever bestowed upon me. This is not to diminish the wonders of the friendships that have been created prior to this, they are each special in their own way, but these friendships I have made here are exactly what I needed when I needed it.
Many of these friends are leaving me shortly. Scattering across the Earth on new and wondrous adventures, but like my friend Stephanie said after she left, it is as though everyone is still with me even when we are thousands of miles apart, and Steph and I are thousands of miles apart right now, but unlike Steph, I am much more emotional about the parting, mostly because I do not know when we might all be together once more. There is very little certainty in life, and I find that hard to deal with. I am a bit of a control freak.
I sometimes regret not coming here sooner. One year with these amazing women simply does not feel like enough. I wish I had more time with them to get to know them better and solidify some of the most important friendships of my lifetime, but I cannot help but feel lucky for what time we had together, and hopefully one day we will all meet up again and create more breathtaking memories for me to savor. Until then, I have to learn how to bid my much-loved friends farewell. Part of me wants to be upset with the gods that the time has flown by so swiftly and that I spent so much of our time together with mono, unfortunately, I realize that the time we had was a girt. I only hope I learned all there was to learn, and gained from this experience all that I was meant to gain. I hop I touched their lives as well. So here’s to you my friends, may the journeys you now embark upon allow you to grow and experience the world in wonderful ways you never even dared dream were possible, and may we one day meet again and embrace our friendship as if it were today.

I should be doing homework, but I found these on goodbush's livejournal and decided that I too needed this.

Hi everyone,

I haven't written in here for a while, so I thought I would cross-post my Olympic Picks from my myspace blog. Later tonight I will post my comments on tonight's competition.

The XX Winter Olympic Games in Torino began tonight. Thus I will be starting a four part blog on my picks in the figure skating competition. I don’t really know enough about any other sport, but I can tell you that I imagine the flying tomato will meet expectations and Harry Potter may surprise the world once again. The Hermanator is my sentimental favorite, and Ohno doesn’t impress me nearly as much as he seems to impress others, but we will start tonight with my pairs picks, and feel free to disagree, this is the discipline I know the least about.
Pairs:
1. Tatyana Totmiyanina and Maxim Marinin- They won Europeans just a few weeks ago and had to withdraw from the nationals a few weeks before that because of her having gallbladder problems. If they can come back from that after two or three weeks, imagine what they can do after a month.
2. Shen Xue and Hongbo Zhua- He is recovering from Achilles surgery in November, they are incredible skaters, but are they up to the challenge?
3. Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang- Wow, that is all I have to say about these two. Just watch them and you will understand.

How do you Rank????

Minus 1% for everything that you've done. Then repost and put your "-- % virgin" as the subject.

1.Smoked.

2.Drank alcohol.

3.Cried when someone died.

4.Been drunk.

5.Had sex.

6.Been to a concert.

7.Given a handjob/gotten a handjob.

8.Given a blowjob/gotten a blowjob.

9.Been verbally sexually harassed.

10.Verbally sexually harassed somebody.

11.Felt someone up and/or been felt up

12.Laughed so hard something came out of your nose.

13.Cheated on a boyfriend/girlfriend before.

14.Been cheated on by a boyfriend/girlfriend

15.Been to prom.

16.Cried at school.

17.Gotten lost in a WalMart or a department store.

18.Went streaking.

19.Given a lap dance.

20.Had someone of the opposite sex in your room.

21.Had someone of the opposite sex sleep over.

22.Slept over at someone of the opposite sex's house.

23.Kissed a strangerx

24.Hugged a stranger.

25.Went scuba diving.

26.Driven a car.

27.Gotten an xray.

28.Hit by a car.

29.Had a party.

30.Done drugs.

31.Played strip poker.

32.Got paid to strip for someone.

33.Ran away from home.

34.Broken a bone.

35.Eaten sushi.

36.Bought porn.

37.Watched porn.

38.Made porn.

39.Had a crush on someone of the same sex.

40.Been in love.

41.Frenched kissed.

42.Laughed so hard you cried.

43.Cried yourself to sleep.

44.Laughed yourself to sleep.

45.Stabbed yourself.

46.Shot a gun.

47.Trash talked someone and then acted like their best friend the next day.

48.Watched TV for 9 consecutive hours.

49.Been online for 9 consecutive hours.

50.Watched an animal die.

51.Watched a person die.

52.Kissed and/or messed around somewhere with at least 1 person present.

53.Pranked somebody

54.Put somebody in the hospital.

55.Snuck into someone's room and/or your own room after being out.

56.Kissed somebody of the same sex.

57.Dressed punk.

58.Dressed goth.

59.Dressed preppy.

60.Been to a motocross race.

61.Avoided somebody.

62.Been stalked.

63.Stalked someone.

64.Met a celebrity.

65.Played an instrument.

66.Ridden a horse.

67.Cut yourself.

68.Bungee jumped.

69.Ding dong ditched somebody.

70.Been to a wild party.

71.Got caught stealing something.

72.Kicked a guy in the balls.

73.Stolen a boyfriend/girlfriend from a friend.

74.Went out with your friend's crush.

75.Got arrested.

76.Been pregnant.

77.Babysat.

78.Been to another country.

79.Started your house on fire.

80.Had an encounter with a ghost.

81.Donated your hair to cancer patients.

82.Been asked out by someone that you never though you'd to be asked out by.

83.Cried over a member of the opposite sex.

84.Had a boyfriend/girlfriend for over 3 months.

85.Sat on your ass all day.

86.Ate a whole carton of ice cream all by yourself.

87.Had a job.

88.Gotten cut from a sports team.

89.Been called a whore.

90.Danced like a whore.

91.Been mistaken for a celebrity.

92.Been in a car accident.

93.Been told you have beautiful eyes.

94.Been told you have beautiful hair.

95.Raped somebody.

96.Danced in the rain.

97.Been rejected.

98.Walked out of a restaurant without paying.

99.Punched someone/slapped someone in the face.

100.Been raped.

So I had these grand plans to get so much work done today, and you know what? That's right, I am going to bed right now because my mono is mad at me, probably for going to New York yesterday, who knows. Wish me luck. I am running out of time.

I went to New York today on a school trip, and as fun as it was, spending a day in New York taught me that at this point in my life I am really not meant to live there. When I go to New York, it always feels as if the city pollution sticks to you, my throat gets scratchy and find myself needing to shower as soon as I leave. The city grime just will not go away.

On the other hand that city grime was all worth it because I had a fabulous day. I went to the Guggenheim, where, although I missed the big Russia! exhibit, I was still able to see the Soviet paintings which were a companion piece to the Russia exhibit. While archetectually appealing, I probably missed out on most of the appeal of this museum because it was being set up for the next exhibit. On the bright side, it was only four dollars to get in and it still had some great artwork by Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Degas. It was definitely worth my while to go.

After that I was starting to get hungry, and while I had no problem walking from our 53rd St and Broadway dropoff to the Guggenheim, which I believe is on 89th Street, I really did not want to do all that walking again (which is probably good because I was exhausted by five... damn mono), so I took the subway to Greenwich Villiage. I intended to find the Vasilka restaraunt first and then the Ukranian Museum, but things never seem to work out exactly as planned, so I put off lunch for a while and went to the museum first. While the museum isn't nearly the size of the Guggenheim (though it was pretty close to the size of the part I got to see), it had a lot going on. There was a fascinating exhibit on how goddess worship, which was very important in the pre-Christian age, had been incorporated into the Christian practices. Ukranian religious ceremonies are filled with goddess and tree of life imagery. Many of there ceremonies at Easter and at Christmas incorporate ritual practices intended to speed winter by and bring an early Spring. In the upstairs exhibit they had videos and pictures of the winter ceremony to this effect performed at Christmas. And in the basement was more Ukranian Easter Eggs than I have seen in my life. Apparently there were part of some exhibit from 1981 that was never taken down. In a room outside the lobby they had a video and photographs of the Orange Revolution. I am not positive who took the pictures, but the video was the work of an election fraud watch worker from New York City who's parents had immigrated to New York about 50 years prior. If I would not have been so hungry, I would have spent more time there, but alas, I had not eaten a meal all day.

So now I was off the Vasilka, which I had found online last night when I was figuring out what I wanted to do. I was trying to keep my costs on this trip minimal, so I wanted to go somewhere where I coiuld get a meal for under $15 and with the tip, that is exactly what my bill came out to. It was amazing though, I had soup, salad, a cabbage meat roll, beat salad, and pirogies. I love Ukranian food, though the beet salad (which I didn't even know I liked beets before I tried) was far too spicy to finish. After lunch I went back to Times Square where I found a Starbucks and did homework for the rest of the evening. Not exactly what would be seen as a typical visit to New York, but I enjoyed it.

It is a sad day for West Wing fans. Our favorite VP candidate, actor John Spencer died today at 58. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2005-12-17T030155Z_01_SPI700029_RTRUKOC_0_US-SPENCER.xml&archived=False RIP Mr. Spencer.

( Quiz Time )

So for those of you who care, I am still very sick. I am going to a specialist Monday. Today was fun. We had a huge snow storm that I woke up to this morning. It was pretty, but not so fun to trek across campus in. I got what I needed to get done today done, met with some great friends. Watched a pretty awesome though weird R. Kelly video, some West Wing with the lovely women of the College Democrats, but now my body is rebelling and saying SLEEP NOW!!!And since I have been ignoring my body for somewhere near 4 hours now, I must go to sleep.

I really wish I knew what I was doing. I am so sick and I am not getting better. Having been so sick though, I have had a lot of time to think. Before I was sick I was incredibly happy here at Mount Holyoke, and too busy to realize that I spend an insane amount of time alone and have very few friends. Additionally the one thing I came to Mount Holyoke to study I cannot major in. I find this to be completely disheartening, and while I like English, I really do not think I want to major in it. I have no idea what I want to do now. Everything I have been waiting so long to do and become has become impossible and I just do not know what I am going to do know. I really would like to get better, but I am concerned that taking time off in order to get better I am going to have to leave Mount Holyoke, but leaving Mount Holyoke I would have to find a way to take Russian at home or else I would never do it again. I just don't know what to do. :(

I really want to go to tea time tonight, but I am so tired and so sick... I am just not sure it is a good idea. I am trying so hard today to return to some semblance of normality. I wanted so badly to get all the reading and writing done for children's literature tomorrow. I knew it was unlikely, but finishing 2 out of three would be really nice at this point I have finished my first one, Weetzie Bat, I think I enjoyed it. It did not seem all that well written to begin with, but it was paced so well, I hardly noticed. I am also going to try and finish Annie on My Mind before class tomorrow. I find it unlikely that I am going to be able to get through much of anything else, and I really doubt I am going to be able to hold out for all three classes tomorrow. I don't even know that I am going to be able to get through one class. I am so tired of being sick and alone. I feel like people, though they have been very nice to me, think I have the plague. The nurse told me as long as I do not share drinks or food with people, they should be al right.

The girls are the only ones who do not treat me as if I am going to make them ill. Even my roommate has started acting as if I am going to make her sick. Honestly, if I haven't managed to get her sick by now, it is very unlikely that I am going to make her ill. She claims that if that happens she will be leaving. I would feel terribly bad if I made her sick, but we just do not do anything that would lead to her catching mono. Anyhow I am terribly lonely right now, which is I guess how most sick people get. I prefer the old days when I would "catch pertussis" and then I would have to wait a week for the results. I hated that, but I hate this more. I am 3000 miles from home, pretty much depressingly alone, and because I am unable to go to class I never see people. Loneliness abounds from this illness. :(