About half of the 20+ audience were faculty members from the English departement. The rest were us students from media classes, strongly encouraged for 2 weeks to go listen. I was happy to see Miss Forte attending - she was my favourite teacher last semester (Speech class, she gave me an A, hehe), and is a very animated, loud person. Whenever a student would whine that it seems harder to get things through today because everyone is less focused, she threw her fist in the air and yelled "REVOLUTION! REVOLUTION!"

She also confirmed to me that Toni Morrisson is indeed coming to Duke in April to have a reading. Unfortunately it is a part of a two day thing, where she occupies one day, and a bunch of lecturers the next, and the whole thing costs $20, so I don't know yet if I will be able to go, but heh. I'll do my best. After all, she is one of the major reasons I got the guts to get my ass over here and be an English major in the first place. *sigh* *gush* *admire*

Yesterday, I was a bit preoccupied with something that I won't present until the end of next week, and that's all I'm going to tell about that. By request from a reader who shall go nameless (even though there's no reason for it, but still), I am hereby devoting the rest of this entry to good old "What did/is Jennie doing?" ranting. yey. :)

Well. Yesterday turned out to be "talking on the phone" day. As I walked into the apartement, the phone started to ring, and I caught it just as the last ring came through. It was my dad, telling me that he had stabilized my bank account (i.e. paid my $250 debt), AND deposited $110 for my bills, right out of the blue. I can't begin to tell you how relieving that was to hear - my finances have been quite horrid lately, for various reasons. It's just nice to know I'll be able to pay bills, you know? (I'm sure Aziza agrees, hehhh, all the accounts are in her name, and she has had to bail me out more times than she should have, something I'll always regret. Luckily, one learn with time, and I seem to finally have things together now.)

We got the phonebill.. I'm down to around $70/month, which is extra ordinary, considering I just to land on $100-$120/month last semester. I think once this bill is paid, I'll make a copy of the page that lists my collect calls from various places in the US when I was on the road back home from Arizona.. it's a nice list of Dallas, Birmingham, etc.. quite exciting. Oh that reminds me, I MUST get my darn film developed; I'm always a lazy ass when it comes to that, and then I whine that I never have any memento's from trips, heh. I should get another disposable camera for this weekend but, argh, more about that further down in the entry.

We talked for about 20 minutes (which is a long, long time, since me and my father have very little to talk about), and he told me that he had dropped off soup and juice at my mothers. It seems she's come down with a bad flu, and while I feel sorry for it, I couldn't help but laugh when I called home the other day around midnight Swedish time, only to find my brother telling me she was sick and totally out of it. He proved it by waking her up, putting the phone next to her on the pillow, and letting us "talk".. I gave up when she fell asleep in the middle of a question I was asking her. "MOm? MOM? Dammit, wake up and put Jimmy back on!"

Then it was my turn to make a call. Now, if you know me, you know I have a severe problem with calling people - this goes for _anyone_ that isn't my family, and includes pizza places, friends like Jesse, etc. I called my rec.music.tori-amos friends Carla and Larry, and gave them directions for where to pick me up today (In 18 minutes, actually). Carla and I.. were like, a really bad, OR a really good combination, because we are both giggly people when we speak, so when we speak or are just in the same room, the other's giggles egg the first one on, and people are exposed to two giggling freaks snorting out things like "I love Joe Bob Briggs too!". On the phone, it's even crazier, for some reason. After 50 minutes, I had to hang up. Phone bill, y'know.

But no.. it kept itching in me to babble more, so I called Jesse. He went hiking in the mountains last week with a friend, and I thought I'd see how it went. Oh my. Quite a disastrous hike, it seems, filled of little sleep, long walks, not finding shelters, almost dying from hypothermia... Quite a long story. By the time I hung up, my ear was all warm from the phone being pressed to it for so long.

Still. 'Twas nice.

So, what's going on this weekend? Well. Remeber CarolinaCon last December, when I hung out for an entire weekend with a bunch of people from the tori amos news group rec.music.tori-amos? Well. We're having another con. This time entitled "Carlacon", in honor of aforementioned Carla, whose birthday it was two days ago. I'm being picked up in 11 minutes by her and Larry driving in from Virginia, and we're going back to Heather's place to gather with the others, eat pizza, watch horror movies (Carla's bringing Evil Dead II, and perhaps something else), talk massively, and HEAP! Tomorrow we'll wake up, frump around and wait for the evening, when we'll have a HUGE party, and HEAP more and hang out, and on breakfast well do as last time, be sad that we're leaving, and do some last minute HEAPing. Have no idea what heaping means? Well. Let's just say it includes a lot of people who like each other a whole lot snuggled up together talking and laughing on a small area, preferably a couch, possibly a floor. Example provided below. HAPPY HEAPING!!

From left: Rosser, Carla, Matt, Me, Jeni, Hyoun. Legs: Midnight Tree Bandit.

(Note how half the people are grinning innocently, and the other half laughing hysterically. Gee, I wonder why 8))