My Mid-Debate Thoughts

Yes! Two mentions of Latvia!

Things aren't going as well as I hoped for Obama...I hadn't really expected that we would talk so much about cutting spending after both candidates pretty much agreed they would support a $700 billion financial crisis bill...if cutting spending actually matters to voters then McCain will benefit from that based on his debate showing...

Olympic Thoughts

I was watching the Women's 400m Freestyle qualifiers today with my Dad and I turned to him and jokingly said, "I can't watch this race, there aren't any Americans swimming...I don't know who to root for..." He stopped, looked at me, and rolled his eyes as he does so often when I say something stupid...

My favorite story so far this Olympics has to be the Latvian Men's Beach Volleyball team that played David to the U.S. team's Goliath. Sure, I like it when Americans win, but I love it when the underdog beats us too...

Timezones

Aaaaaahhhhhh....final exams are over....I leave for spring break tomorrow...and all is right with the world...I am sorry to everyone that has sent emails recently. I will be working through them this week.

I am visiting my family this week in Wisconsin which is two hours ahead of Seattle in the time zone department...My fiance is in Latvia which is normally 10 hours ahead of Seattle time...America just had day light savings time last week [roughly a month earlier than we normally do] but Latvia doesn't do their "spring forward" until mid-April...so whenever we try to coordinate a phone call while I am in Wisconsin, we sound like this:

Coming Home

After 4 1/2 months in Latvia on a Fulbright scholarship, my fiance is coming home tomorrow for a two-week visit...

So you will excuse me if my posting takes a nose dive...I should send this post to my grad school professors to I think...

Pulp -- My Legendary Girlfriend
I don't know as much about Pulp as I wish I did, but I think you can only find this song on the My Legendary Girlfriend single.

Check It Off The List

Back during my undergrad career, I had a bunch of different positions in the Student Senate over the years there and I occupied a number of the cubicles in the Senate offices...One day, I was helping my then-girlfriend (now fiance) clean out some old papers and belongings of a student who had quite her position with the Senate and just left her stuff there...it was mainly old photocopies of meeting agendas and other paper miscellaneous paperwork...but when we dug deeper stumbled upon a "My Life Goals" written by the student in question...as disturbing as finding something so personal so casually abandoned, it was a howling funny read...included as one of the items, I kid you not, was "marry a guy with a lot of money." Who writes that? Well, I guess I know who...but rhetorically, who writes that?

I think of that now as my fiance is heading to Latvia for 10 months as a Fulbright scholar and she mentions that she is fulfilling two of her life's goals at once...to live in Europe and to learn to speak Latvian fluently...

What are my life goals?...and am I meeting any of them? Thinking about it, yes I am...recently, because of this blog I have been contacted by some musicians/artists about reviewing their music...I've always wanted to do this and I am excited to do it...I received a CD by one groups over the weekend and I will get something out shortly after I have time to digest the music...anyway, check that off the list.

No Browsing!

Is it a person's right to check out materials from a library or is it enough that the library is open and you can come in and look at things? The Michigan Supreme Court says it's good enough to just look...

This reminds me of a story Laura told me about the Latvian library system...here is how it works there...you go to the card catalog and find your source, then you go to a main desk and tell a person what book you want and they get it for you...the main book shelves are not open to the public and there is no browsing...five decades of communist rule can mess things up...