Today's rambling: Birds' Revenge
Written on Tuesday, Feb. 04, 2003 at 12:27 p.m.
while feeling a bit

Ah, so THERE'S another reason why I should have stuck to my values and not bought that down coat!

It had taken me quite a bit of deliberation to decide I wanted to buy the thing in the first place. My belief is that as long as the entire animal is used (or as much of it as possible), I'm not against killing it. Well, not really. There's still that little part of me that's like, "Noooooo!" But anyway, I'm FIRMLY against fur coats because those animals are trapped purely for the sake of their fur. If you were to hunt a deer, on the other hand, you could use the meat for food (obviously), use the hide for...well, I guess people don't make coats out of it, lol, but it can still be used. It's not like a small mink or something that has no value to humans other than its fur. So there's my thought system. And I'm sure that the birds whose feathers reside in this little yellow coat of mine were probably never eaten, but...I dunno. The coat was there, I liked it, and that was that. :P And it keeps me wonderfully toasty and warm, which NO coat up 'til now has been able to do.

So anyway, this morning I rolled out of bed at 4:30, dressed and got ready, and left for my radio show. I already knew it was insanely windy, but I saw raindrops on the windows so I brought an umbrella along. Well, it was like a mini hurricane out there this morning. I'm not even lying to you when I thought I was going to lift off the ground and fly like Mary Poppins; as I was going down a set of stairs, the wind rushed up under my umbrella and lifted my arm along with it. I envisioned, for a few brief moments, gliding over Clarion while tightly clutching my small black umbrella. Of course, that didn't happen.

What DID happen was that I got quite wet. My pants were wet, my hair was wet...and my down coat was wet. Now, I thought the outer layer was waterproof. I guess I was wrong. When I went to put my coat on later that morning, I got a whiff of something that was entirely unpleasant. At first, I thought maybe it had come from the table where I'd set my coat. But after a few moments I realized that I was dealing with the smell of wet feathers. I wanted to toss the coat to the ground and just abandon it there. The smell of wet birds is not a pleasant one. Heck, the smell of birds, period, is not exactly pleasant! It's kinda faded as the coat has dried, but I guess now I'm paranoid. Anyone have this happen before? Does the smell go away? :P

In other news, Tyrone cohosted with me this morning. He is a wonderfully nice guy, he really is, but he needs to work a LOT on DJing. I'm nowhere near the level of a good DJ, I know, but at least I speak loudly enough to be heard and I can enunciate things clearly enough to be understood. And I don't ramble. :P Tyrone, on the other hand, speaks very softly into the mic--so softly, in fact, that I had the thing turned up all the way and the little needle things were barely bouncing. I could hear him in my headphones, but I don't know how well anyone else could hear him. The worst part came when he was reading weather and--later--news, though. His first weather report of the morning was absolutely terrible! He stumbled and stuttered through it, and even though I'd already read it (and had an idea of what the forecast was supposed to say) I couldn't understand him at all! Then later, he said he wanted to read the news stories I'd printed out because the one was really amusing. I figured, what the heck. I was a leetle put out because I'd wanted to read one of them, but I've got 3 days without him that I can read all the stories I want. Therefore, I let him go for it.

Bad move. The first story--the one that I'd wanted to read--was INCREDIBLY unintelligible. He couldn't pronounce half the stuff (such as "Gaza Strip"), and he was just stuttering and mumbling...and it was really ugly. Before he even finished it, he was like, "Okay, that's enough of that one" and just quit reading it, which is really unprofessional. I know, I know, this is just a college station. But c'mon, would YOU want to listen to someone you couldn't understand? The other 4 stories were just as terrible, including the one that he'd wanted so badly to read! I'm actually rather proud of my news-reading voice. I don't have what it takes to be a DJ--that is, I'm not bubbly and cheerful enough, I don't think--but I really think I have the voice of a news reader. So I was definitely critical (in my thoughts, anyway), but the reality of it was, he WAS very bad. Even he said he was never reading the news again, hehe...

Even though I'm happy to have a cohost that I get along with, I kinda wish I had one with better speaking skills. More exuberance would help, too, since that would kind of make me more enthusiastic as well. I try being like other morning show hosts that I've heard--well, not exact mimicking, but just trying to adopt some of the general patterns they have--but it just doesn't work. Oh well, it's great experience, anyway... :P

It dropped from 45 degrees around 6 this morning to 37 by the time I left at 8. And on the way back from History, it was every bit as windy but it was snowing. This really strange snow, too! It almost looked like little white pellets, but it didn't hurt as it fell. Unless it blew into your eyes, but then again anything will hurt if it gets in your eyes. ;) This stuff was just weird. Oh yay, Frank decided to IM me...

History class is really getting interesting now. Today we finished the Jamestown story and got into the whole bit with tobacco and blah blah...and then we were just really getting into William Penn when the class ended. She was talking about how he'd had the city of Philadelphia (which actually DOES mean "The City of Brotherly Love", she emphasized)...and I just felt this huge swell of pride! Strange, since I typically look down upon that city. But instead of looking at the entire city as it's become now (y'know, basically one big dirty slum), I was thinking of the prettier sections, the part that Geoff and I drove through--I still remember staring up in awe at the statue of William Penn, hehe...I was thinking about how it must have looked while it was being built, too. I kinda wish I could go back in time and see this whole place before it was really built up. Wouldn't that be neat? Well, it would be to me anyway...

After History, Amanda and I went to eat 'breakfast' (though by that time, they'd already put out lunch stuff). We were sitting there talking, and we got to the subject of our body shapes. This was the first time that I didn't get irritated at her for complaining about how she looked, because instead of just saying that she was fat she actually said, "I like this this and this, but right around the middle...that's just got to go." So it wasn't completely negative that time. Anyway, I told her that I was jealous of her figure (because I am), and she gave me this look like, "You're crazy!" Laughing, I said, "I'm completely serious! So the next time you say you're fat, think of that little pudgy girl up in Givan who wishes she looked like you!" Amanda just looked at me for a few moments, and then she did her little "I'm going to cry!" face (but she didn't actually cry, hehe). A couple brief moments of silence after that, and then she was like, "I wish I had your complexion! You've got the cutest face!"

Now, I can't figure out if she was just saying that, or if she really meant it. :P I'm not saying she's the sort of person that would do that, but she has got the most ADORABLE face! And her complexion is absolutely perfect, so unless she's really that down on herself...At any rate, it was just an amusing sort of breakfast. I never get to spend time with just her, so those brief moments are really nice. If only I could hang out with just her and Kevin more often! But it seems like wherever one is, the others are inevitably around, too. Ah well, I guess that's what makes the 'alone times' that much nicer! :P

Guess I should go read some pages in my French book so that I'm prepared for class. :P We got our take-home quiz things back yesterday (well, the 3 or 4 of us that handed it in early), and I got a perfect score. The thing that makes me a little suspicious, however, is the fact that I forgot an accent over one of the e's. This professor is ANAL about that kind of stuff because she emphasizes that without the accent, the word can change into something totally different...or just not mean anything at all. So from the impression I've gotten from her, I would think that that missed accent would be enough for her to take off a point. Yet she didn't...and I'm wondering if it's because of what John told Miranda and me awhile ago: "If you let her know--or even pretend--that you really have an interest in French, you're almost guaranteed an A." I think she definitely knows that Miranda and I are interested, because we put more effort into things than the other students. But I don't want special treatment. I want her to know that I'm dedicated, I'd love it if she thought I was an exceptional student (not that I think she does, hehe)...but I don't want her to treat me differently because of that. It would be nice, yes, if she treated me less harshly than the others, because she honestly intimidates me. But how will I learn if she lets things slide? Anyway, I might just be blowing that all out of proportion. We'll wait and see how things go, because I'm notorious for making silly mistakes like that. Thank goodness English words don't have accents--and those that do aren't technically English words anyway! ;)

So I'm going to read now, and pray to the weather deities that this wretched wind and snow ceases by the time I have to go to French. I don't want to sail away the minute I exit the building...