theyellowhobbit

I managed a B in Machinist's class. He e-mailed us all an apology for taking so long with the grades. So this is my lowest grade yet at Div School, which is good. I don't mind Bs. Especially since I have the As and A- from this semester. Hopefully I'll get my Ritual, Gender, and Space grade soon, and then I'll know my GPA.

I'm finished with the German exam!

Now I just need to find a summer job...

I'm reading the Questionable Content archives right now, and this one made me smile.

( Yay QC! )

Though why someone would need a *pair* of D12s is beyond me. He should have gotten her a set with a d4, d6, d8, d10, d percentile, d12, and d20.

So I've been working on my 7-10 page paper, which I got an extension on until Sunday morning, and I ran into the following problem:

My thesis doesn't work.

As in it's wrong and the archaeological evidence proves that it's wrong. And it's not the kind of thesis where I could just argue the opposite. I need to reformulate it and everything now.

At least I recognized this instead of trying to make the evidence work where it doesn't.

Right now I'm in the middle of researching my 7-10 page paper (which I hopefully will make lots of progress on tonight, since HRSFA is going to the Arnold Arboretum tomorrow and I'd like to join them, and I also want to go swing dancing tomorrow night). I've been looking through JSTOR, and happened to find an article by Eric Meyers, one of the archaeologists who has done a lot on ritual bathing and stuff. Actually, I found a few of his articles. So I downloaded one of them.

This article is 457 pages long. It's actually a book or something. Yet I was able to download it in its entirety. It takes up a lot of space, 75,739kb. (I just looked it up in HOLLIS. Harvard has an actual copy of it in Dumbarton Oaks, the library in DC. I think I like my internet copy better. And why does Harvard have a library in Washington, DC?)

Also, a lot of my sources on Jewish women in the middle ages talk about how women spun. How could I not take out my spindle and spin my shiny golden bamboo fiber? I should be spinning something more practical, but I was working with the gold bamboo because it was a prop for the LARP, and I figured it would be something a princess would spin, were a princess to spin fiber in the first place. And forget the part about bamboo not being processed and spun like that at that time. Just look at the shininess.

I have to clue what the yarn will be used for, other than showing it off to everyone in my awesomeness.

In other news, LARP points are redeemable for a space in a future LARP as an NPC. A shiny part at that, though if I do it, it means no Shabbat dinner at Vericon. But I think it's worth that sacrifice. (LARPs- interfering with Rachel's spirituality since 2008).

The 20 page paper (17.5 pages) is done. I feel like the first part was good, but my ending was a little iffy, and I couldn't prove my point at the end so I admitted that part of my argument was unarguable, and there was a good reason for it, and here's what I can say about it. And I mentioned that I was not a halachic authority. Etc.

I also did my laundry. So many quarters were sacrificed in this endeavor. But now I have clean clothes, and can wear something shiny tonight.

Also, I have to miss Friday night dinner, and that makes me a bit sad. However, hopefully I won't die of starvation. I think the reception for us all after the Noteables concert will have food. Though maybe I should bring something to campus to eat during gaming.

I also need to learn my aliyah.

And shower.

Wheee!

There was a ball last night. It was amazing.

Noteworthy things:

-Apparently my Chinese Dress of Awesome comes with a +20 charisma bonus. Pretty much every single person I talked to at the ball complimented me on it. I might have had the nicest dress there. It wasn't intentional. I didn't realize it would be such a hit. (When I bought it I didn't realize truly how amazing it was...) It just happened to win. And my hair was French braided. And dsKC brought me a corsage-like flower thing which didn't have a safety pin, but had a clip-thing, so since the dress didn't have a neckline (and there was too much going on in the dress anyways) I put the flowers in my French braided hair. There are no pictures, at least that I took or posed in, but just imagine the same Chinese dress as before (look through the old entries for pictures) only now lined with gold fabric instead of having high slits, and imagine me with French braids. And flowers.

-The dress still won even today, when I went to my German exam (wearing a different, less foppish fancy outfit since when I was home last night I spilled cranberry juice on the dress and now it needs to be dry cleaned, though I would have dry cleaned it anyways) one of the people in the Registrar's office who had been at the ball last night (though I hadn't seen her, but there were lots of people) also complimented me on my dress.

-I taught dsKC how to dance. This was the blind leading the blind. But somehow it worked, and then he asked if I minded if he danced one song with another girl (who is in one of my classes) and I didn't mind, but then I needed to teach her how to dance as well, and apparently that also worked (even though I have like no clue how to lead). And there were spins as well. They even managed to work. Now I really, really have to make time to take social dance classes or something, because I had such a great time.

-A free glass of champagne is not a good idea on an empty stomach. However, I survived, and after 2 glasses of water I was fine.

-After the ball, dsKC and I stopped by the end of D&D, so I could give out the dice bags I had made the party (KO had them since I had given him his already, and would have given them out had I not been able to make it). They were in plot appropriate colors. And then I got some items (in game) without having to do anything, since my character was necessary for them not dying. And I got flowers in the game, too. Just like in real life.

I'm still a bit in disbelief. I'm really not used to the whole asking people to dances and then having them say yes, and then being able to dance, and actually being pretty, and getting a billion compliments on my dress, etc. But I like this turn of events. Now I just need more balls to go to.

So the rules for the LARP were sent out to us on Thursday. I just finished reading them, and I am now very excited. It seems like it is going to be a lot of fun.

Of course, I still need a costume. Maybe SK can go with me some time this week.

Monday is the Myld Hunt, a HRSFA tradition in which we dress up in foppish Victorian clothing and "hunt" a "fox," defeat it in a battle of great cunning, and eat the transubstantiated fox, which now seems to be a feast of normal food.¹

The Myld Hunt starts at 1.

My German qualifying exam starts at 2. We are given an hour, which should be fine especially since I'm taking it on the computer so I can easily type definitions of words and then copy and paste everything to put it in English word order. Technically, I get time and a half, but I'm probably not going to use it, since I feel like I don't actually need or deserve it and it would give me an unfair advantage. In most exams I finish early, if anything. I took time and a half for the Machinist exam of doom, but that's because it was particularly doomful.

Anyways, the hunt will probably still be socializing until 6PM. Maybe not that late, but definitely up through 3/3:30PM

So my options:

1) Skip the beginning of the Myld Hunt, (perhaps even study German!) and come after the German exam. Change at the party.
1a)Skip the beginning of the Myld Hunt, (perhaps even study German!) and come after the German exam having changed in Div Hall.
2) Go to the beginning of the hunt in normal clothes, and leave at the necessary time for the exam, go back after the exam, change at the party.
2a) Go to the beginning of the hunt in normal clothes, and leave at the necessary time for the exam, go back after the exam having changed in Div Hall.
3)Go to the beginning of the hunt in foppish Victorian outfit (which is not Victorian, but rather my Chinese dress of awesome, which I will incidentally be wearing the day before...) and take the exam in said outfit, and then go back to the party.

I'm thinking 2 sounds most reasonable, but 3 is looking rather shiny. Thoughts?
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I'm still writing the paper. I am also sick. Tea is nice, though.

I realize that I've been overly ambitious. This is evidenced by the fact that I have a preamble. A preamble! It's nearly a double spaced page by itself.

( Preamble, as it currently stands )


¹No actual foxes are hurt in the running of this hunt.

My 5-7 page D&D paper is back down to 10 pages. It was at 12 earlier. I'm not nearly finished. Luckily, I have all of tomorrow.

Also, can anyone help me think of a witty title?