excuses, excuses

Sorry for the lack of postage lately, busy holiday season and all that good stuff.

And by "busy" of course I mean waking up at noon and lazing around the house playing Rock Band all day when I should be preparing for my epic-across-the-pond-adventure, but it kind of amounts to the same thing because I have nothing of interest to report.

Although I did see my best friend for the first time in ages today. Coffee was consumed and fun stories were told, including correspondences with indie rock stars, getting drunk at professor's luncheons, and watching Martin Heidegger get slapped in the face, just to name a few. We've also made tentative plans to meet up in Sweden in June. Maybe at Jens Lekman's house.

Just kidding.

Sort of.

Ta-ta for now, perhaps I'll have something more substantial to say later. But perhaps not. I'm unpredictable.

sarah's new year's resolutions

• Cut down on the procrastination. It's getting to be a serious problem.
• Run more often.
  
• Stretch more often.
  
• Don't be too slutty with the foreign boys next semester.
• Don't spend too much money next semester.
• Straighten hair less to reduce split ends.
• Learn to cook more than pasta.
• Gain five pounds.
• Go to at least one Arsenal match.

joyeux noël

Merry Christmas from Santa Kun!

...and just for the hell of it, Santa Cruz!

And purely for my own amusement, Cesc dressed up as a reindeer.

Now I'm off to bed. Hope you all have a fantastic present-filled day!

merry christmas eve!

My neighborhood has a tradition of putting up luminaries every Christmas Eve. Here are some pictures that I took of them this evening (sorry for the blurriness, I had to take the flash off for the lights to show).

This is the entrance to my street:

Some of the houses in the neighborhood:The path down to the pond (and if it were light out you'd be able to see the pond more clearly; it's the big dark thing in the middle):More of the lights by the pond:The path back up to the street:And my house:

finally, something good.

First off, let me say that hockey in high definition makes me very happy.

Big scary toothless Russians make me happy too.

Last Saturday the Capitals lost to Philadelphia 7-1 on the road. They went to the Wachovia Center looking for payback for last year's playoff series that I don't like to think about. And left with...well, something less than that. Let's go ahead and stick Saturday night's game on the list of games I'd like to forget too. Tonight they went to Madison Square Garden to face the Rangers, who are sitting in second place just ahead of the Caps in the Eastern Conference, and when they went down 4 goals by the beginning of the second period, I was all ready to write a depressing entry moaning about how much my sports teams are ruining the holidays.

Cue an Ovie goal. Then Fleischmann, Kozlov, and of course Ovechkin again. Each time we scored one more, my dad was all "oh, it's only one goal, they're still behind, they won't catch up." And then, at 4-4 it was "I don't believe it! These guys are amazing!" My dad clearly doesn't watch enough hockey to know that this type of game is the norm. He also kept trying to change the channel to watch the Illini/Mizzou game. He didn't seem to realize that watching your college basketball team win by 30 points is not nearly as exciting as watching your hockey team pull off a great come-from-behind victory in New York. But I digress.

Morrisonn got the winning shot a mere 59 seconds into OT, which kind of made me think why couldn't he have just done that a minute ago at the end of regular time? But better to let the other team get a point than not to get any yourself. We're still way ahead of Carolina in the Southeast Division, so I'm happy with the result.

What I'm not happy about is Mike Green being on the injured list again. Without him and Poti our defense is shaky, and without Alex Semin our offense kind of turns into a one-man show. Gah, I'm plagued with injury woes, every which way I turn!

[Also, sorry if I jinxed RVP with my injury comment earlier. If it makes you all feel better, I did knock on wood after I typed it. And if he shows up to training with like a broken toenail that will keep him out for the rest of the season or something, then you all have my permission to send me hate mail.]

r.i.p. cesc's knee...

...and Arsenal's season.
The unconfirmed report said Fàbregas would be ruled out for maybe 1-3 weeks. The scans say 3-4 months. I had a suspicion it would be longer when they started talking about knee ligaments, but I didn't want to admit it, even to myself. This sucks.

I swear, it's like an injury tag-team out there. Eduardo should be back playing in real matches soon, so naturally that means another player has to be out. And not just any player but our captain, our playmaker, what some would call our most important player. I'm honestly not sure what our team will look like without him. I will say that the second half of the Liverpool game was rather unorganized. I mean, we did well to hold on (especially with 10 men) and the remaining midfielders really stepped up and worked hard, but Diaby just doesn't have Fàbregas' natural vision or pinpoint passing ability.

Xabi Alonso is now officially on my hit list. I don't care that he went to apologize and see how Cesc was after the game. I don't care that he can score from behind the halfway line. I don't care that he looks good in a suit. Xabier, you are going down.

Okay, now I'm off to cry into my morning coffee. And maybe go jump off a cliff.


P.S. My brother says that they should make the players drink more milk. "Isn't that supposed to strengthen bones and ligaments and all that?" I'm starting to think he might be right. I'm also surprised Robin van Persie has held on this long.

the yanks: an educational post

I'm not really what you'd call a very patriotic person. I've always been fascinated by other cultures, and often been embarrassed by America and the way we are perceived and portrayed abroad. I also know many American soccer fans choose other national teams to support (*cough*Stephanie!*cough*), often based on their heritage, but just as often based solely on players they like. Which is perfectly fine; Iker knows I'm guilty of this too (um, Spain anyone?). Despite this, I can't help but love my Americans first and foremost.

Even though America is considered this big pushy superpower, the US soccer team remains a massive underdog. I feel like the boys work so hard at a sport that has no hope of gaining the type of popularity that American football or basketball has in the States, and they therefore deserve my respect and support. If I don't cheer for them, who will? I also love the fact that there are so many different cultures represented by the guys on the team. America, to use a cliche, is known as a "melting pot", and the USMNT is certainly no less. Kljestan, Torres, Ching, Mastroeni, Bocanegra, Feilhaber...there are so many different players from so many different backgrounds, and they all add up to create a very cool team dynamic.

Anyways, enough of my rambling. I'm pretty sure most of my readers don't know much (if anything) about the US Men's National Team, so I have decided to educate you all. I'm not going to go through the whole player pool because that would take forever, but here are some of my current faves.

In alphabetical order, we have...

Name: Josmer "Jozy" Altidore
Position: Striker
Club: Villareal CF, Spain
Fun Fact: First American to score in La Liga (Giuseppe Rossi, the Italian traitor, does not count.)

Name: DaMarcus Beasley
Position: Left Winger
Club: Rangers FC, Scotland
Fun Fact: Highest-scoring American in the Champions League. (Is he the only American who's scored in the Champions League?)

Name: Carlos Bocanegra
Position: Central Defender
Club: Stade Rennais CF, France
Fun Fact: Current US captain

Name: Michael Bradley
Position: Midfielder
Club: Borussia Mönchengladbach, Germany
Fun Fact: His father is the current US National team coach

Name: Steve Cherundolo (R)
Position: Right Back
Club: Hannover 96, Germany
Fun Fact: Serves as one of the deputy captains at Hannover

Name: Brian Ching (L)
Position: Striker
Club: Houston Dynamo, USA
Fun Fact: People call him the Flyin' Hawaiian

Name: Jimmy Conrad
Position: Central Defender
Club: Kansas City Wizards, USA
Fun Fact: Moonlights as a columnist for Soccernet

Name: Bobby Convey
Position: Left Winger
Club: Reading FC, England
Fun Fact: He is partially blind in his left eye. Also likes to strip on the pitch after he has helped his team to promotion.

Name: Kenny Cooper
Position: Striker
Club: FC Dallas, USA
Fun Fact: Played for the Manchester United reserves until they dropped him a few years ago. Which is fine by me, I wouldn't want him there anyways.

Name: Clint Dempsey
Position: Attacking Midfielder, Winger, sometimes Striker
Club: Fulham FC, England
Fun Fact: Likes to rap (just like B-to-the-A-to-the-B-E-L). Goes by the alias "Deuce".

Name: Benny Feilhaber
Position: Midfielder
Club: Aarhus Gymnastikforening, Denmark
Fun Fact: Of Austrian-Jewish descent, but was born in Brazil

Name: Stuart Holden (L); Brad Guzan (R)
Position: Midfielder; Goalkeeper
Club: Houston Dynamo, USA; Aston Villa, England
Fun Fact: They like to wear compression pants on long airplane flights

Name: Sacha Kljestan
Position: Midfielder, Winger
Club: Chivas USA
Fun Fact: His dad played football in the former Yugoslavia

Name: Pablo Mastroeni
Position: Defensive Midfielder
Club: Colorado Rapids, USA
Fun Fact: Described as "Italian Argentine American". That's quite a mouthful.

Name: Robbie Rogers
Position: Winger, Striker
Club: Columbus Crew, USA
Fun Fact: He looks like he could be a character on the OC. Aptly enough, he's from Huntington Beach.

Name: Jonathan Spector
Position: Defender
Club: West Ham United, England
Fun Fact: Also played for Manchester United for a while. Again, glad he's not there anymore.

Name: Jose Torres
Position: Midfielder
Club: Pachuca, Mexico
Fun Fact: He chose to play for the US National team even though he could have played for Mexico. Way to go, kid.

free at last

Do you see the light at the end of the tunnel? I do!

I'm done with all of my work and my exams and my studying and my papers! I am now looking at seventeen days of blissful freedom, with nothing to do except give Christmas presents, get Christmas presents, bake cookies, and pack my life up into two small(ish) suitcases to take overseas.

Which will be a chore in itself, but it's not a stressful one. Well, not that stressful. Although I still have to figure out how they expect me to live on three (seriously?) pairs of shoes for six months...

just like the terminator...

Today marks a very special occasion. Arsenal reserves are playing Portsmouth, and everyone's favorite Crozilian is back in the lineup!

Welcome back, Eduardo. We've missed you.

avoid confusion

I was confusing myself with my "football" blog entry tag, because I used it for both American football and soccer/football. So I've fixed the problem; American football is now "our football", while soccer/football is "your football".

These tags were, of course, inspired by this old SportsCenter commercial:


The end.

be a gooner, be a giver

Clichy in a pink wig = total awesomeness? Also, I wonder if I can get Dudu to do my English homework...

this week in things that annoy the crap out of me...

People who insist on blasting their heavy metal music AND DRUMMING ALONG WITH IT in the middle of the night when I'm trying to go to sleep because I have to get up at 6 am the next day for my stupid philosophy final exam!!!!

I hate people. People suck.

I'm tired and incoherent and want to go to bed.

random stuff that puts a smile on my face

pharewell phantom planet

The news that the guys of Phantom Planet have decided to go on indefinite hiatus is not all that surprising to me. And actually, it's not all that upsetting either. You know the saying: all good things come to an end...and this good thing had a nice long 15 year lifespan. They brought into the world four fantastic studio albums and two b-side collections, plus various singles, covers, (allegedly) amazing live shows, and overall general happiness. The only thing I'm really sad about is that I never got to see them in concert.

At 4 am this morning my subconscious was doing everything in its power to stop me from writing my paper. Consequently, I had an urge to reacquaint myself with some videos from Phantom Planet's old blog. They are and always will remain one of my favorite bands, and this is due as much to their personalities as their music. Hopefully these videos will give you a clue as to why. Nerdy rockstars FTW.

(BTW, I had a really difficult time picking out my favorite videos. You guys should really just go to their youtube page, because there are so many weird and hilarious things there.)

Opening bit to their live DVD:


Halo with a headset


Sam and Darren drunk in Missouri


Alex plays and talks about Zelda


Alex makes a fort


Darren does blind sonar impression


And finally, Phantom Planet World Tour 2004


Thanks to Alex, Darren, Sam, and Jeff (and Jacques and Jason too!) for making my teenage years a little brighter.

to do this week:

• Start Romantic Lit paper
• Finish Romantic Lit paper (Due: Tuesday 9^th)
• Psychology Extra Credit (Due: Wednesday 10^th)
• Study for Philosophy final (Friday 12^th)
• Write Romantic Lit final (Due: Monday 15^th)
• Study for American Lit final (Monday 15^th)
• Study for World Politics final (Tuesday 16^th)
• Revise/finish American Lit Interaction Journal (Due: Wednesday 17^th)
• Complete American Lit free writing folder (Due: Wednesday 17^th)
• Clean room
• Stuff everything I own into my car
• Drive home

(To do after the semester is over: Eat, sleep)

florida, here we come...again

Once again, we beat BC to be crowned ACC Champs! Two years in a row, baby. We're going back to the Orange Bowl, and this time we're gonna win it.

the good, the bad, and the ugly

Arsenal were finally looking like their old selves again today, at least for most of the game. I've heard all the criticism: so many opportunities and woeful finishing, trying to walk the ball into the back of the net, looking for the "perfect" goal, etc. etc., but I will take this Arsenal over the Arsenal of late any day. The last 15 minutes or so were really nervy, what with Eboue giving the ball away every time he touched it and our back line looking typically porous and panicky, but for a good chunk of the match we were dominating possession and passing like the good old days.

Of course, we're still not quite up to the level of...um, our reserve team--the babies beat Wigan 3-0 in the Carling Cup, all we could pull off today was 1-0--but we're getting there. Slowly but surely.

The good: Adebayor's 16th minute goal; Captain Cesc's third win in a row.

The bad: Palacios' tackle on Nasri, resulting in an Eboue substitution in the 32nd.

The ugly: Eboue's subsequent performance. Also, the boos he got when he was subbed. It really makes me sad when the fans boo their own players, no matter how poorly they may have played.

The announcers likened Fàbregas to an American football player during one play where he stood at the half line and launched the ball down the field to a wonderfully positioned van Persie, which I thought was funny because they used to call Guardiola the "quarterback" for the same reason. Well not the van Persie part, but you know what I mean. I bet Cesc would be happy about the comparison.

Speaking of American football, I've got to go. ACC Championship game on now. Virginia Tech against Boston College.

Let's go Hokies.

when will this ridiculousness end?

Sheesh, how many different ways is it possible to be frustrated by a baseball team?

Because it's off-season in baseball world, I haven't really been checking up on Cubbies news like I should, and so I missed this all-important piece of tragic info from a few weeks ago:

WE GOT RID OF KERRY WOOD.

*sobs*

The way that the club handled it was really strange, as well. They basically told him that he deserved a better deal than they could give him, and he should "do what's best for himself and his family". While of course you have Wood saying that he would certainly have taken a one or two year deal for less money than he could have gotten somewhere else, as long as he could stay a Chicago Cub.

WTF, Hendry?

I'm not taking anything away from Carlos Marmol, because I think he's a great pitcher and will be able to step into Wood's closing role well, but to me Kerry has sort of epitomized the Cubs for as long as he's been a part of the team. Yes, there were many injuries, some of them extremely strange (i.e. slipping while getting out of his hot tub), but both his attitude and work ethic have always been exemplary. Unlike Mark Prior, he was able to recover from his chronic injuries and transition (relatively) smoothly from a starter to a closer. And clearly, he loves the club and wanted to stay.

I hope he goes on to continue to do great things, even as his career starts to draw to a close, and I do hope that he at least can be part of a World Series-winning team, because the Cubbies sure aren't going to win it.

He's always been one of my favorite players, so this is just a very sad thing for me. Not going to stop me wearing my 34 Cubbies jersey though.

seriously, i love wintertime. in case you hadn't noticed.

Now that Thanksgiving’s over, we can fully throw ourselves into the winter holiday season! I’m not religious, but I am an avid fan of consumerism so naturally this means that I love Christmas. So I am going to suggest a few things to get everyone into the holiday mood:

First off, a hot drink. The Peppermint Mochas from Starbucks taste like Christmas. I get them whenever it snows. But I can't drink them if it's not snowing, because somehow it just doesn't feel right.

Next, a little music to set the mood:

SeeqPod - Playable Search

Nat King Cole's Christmas CD is a staple in my house in December.

Can't forget the Christmas cookies!
These aren't the gingerbread cookies we always have come holiday time, but I didn't have a picture of those so this will have to do. I don't make them; it's actually my sister's best friend's mom's special recipe. I think it's Finnish. But those are the only gingerbread cookies I can eat now. No others can measure up. But my sister and I make sugar cookies and snowball cookies and sometimes chocolate graham cracker bark. Again, I don't have pictures but I might take some over break.

And of course, no Christmas season is complete without a little Bing:

White Christmas is one of my favorite holiday movies. (And the other is Die Hard, so if you're looking for a more traditional holiday feel, you might wanna go for this one.)

So yeah, that's my little post to get all of you Scrooges/Grinches more excited. It's Christmas! Be happy!

london calling to the faraway towns

Only a month away now!

For those of you not in the know, on this day next month I will be on a flight to Lahndan Town, and I will not return until they kick me out of the country. (Okay, that part's not true; I'm coming back in June.) See, I've been practising my accent (and spelling) too! I'm so ready to go. They won't even notice I'm a furriner.

/super excited

...

/understatement of the year

maybe i just shouldn't eavesdrop

It's strange how different opinions can sometimes be. Today I overheard two girls in my American Literature class bitching about my Romantic Literature professor, who they have for Creative Writing. They were going on and on about how horrible a teacher he was, and how unnecessarily harsh he was on their papers, and how what he wrote was all subjective anyways.

Funny thing is, he's my favorite professor this semester. I think he's a fantastic teacher, and yeah he's a tough grader, but he certainly knows what he's talking about. Maybe I'm biased because I've gotten several very good grades in his class so he likes me, or they're biased because they've gotten bad grades, but it's still strange to me. I also love the subject matter which could make a difference; maybe I wouldn't like him as much if I took his Creative Writing class.

I have my second paper for that class due Tuesday: a comparison/contrast between William Blake's A Little Boy Lost and Percy Shelley's The Mask of Anarchy. I haven't gotten very far on it. I haven't even fleshed out my thesis yet. But even if I get a horrible grade on my paper, I honestly don't think that would make me like Dr. Welch less because of it.

[Random side note: People always ask why I'm not an English major, and sometimes I have a hard time coming up with an answer. Is it weird that I'm actually looking forward to writing this paper? Blake is one of my favorite poets in general, and The Mask of Anarchy is probably my favorite poem at the moment. Maybe I'm just odd, and that's the reason I'm the only one that likes my teacher.]

my happy music: blog challenge seven

This blog challenge was really difficult for me--not because I don't have music that cheers me up, but rather because I have far too much of it. When trying to gain inspiration for this post, I went through my iTunes and made a playlist of all of the songs I could think of that fit the description. I ended up with 45 or so songs. This is because I am music obsessed, and my specific taste in music is largely based on how happy it makes me. Of course, many of my favorite bands aren't exactly the cheeriest (i.e. Radiohead) but they still make me happy because the music is so good, and listening to good music in general makes me happy.

But this isn't about my favorite bands, it's about the (many) songs that cheer me up. So here goes (and again, sorry for the length).

1. American Pie - Don McLean. Simply a classic.
2. Undone (The Sweater Song) - Weezer. This song is just really funny to me. Plus it reminds me of my awesome ninth grade PE class, because they used to play it in the weight room all the time.
3. Chihuahua - DJ Bobo. This one is more of an inside joke. It's a camp thing (as in summer camp, not the English slang word); we have a dance to go with it and everything.
4. Go Cubs Go - Steve Goodman. They play this song after every Cubs home win, so naturally it makes me smile.
5. We Can Work It Out - The Beatles. Possibly my favorite song of theirs.
6. Catch My Disease - Ben Lee
7. Let It Go - The Clarks
8. MK Ultra - Exit Clov
9. In The Morning - The Coral
10. A-Punk - Vampire Weekend. I'm not a massive Vampire Weekend fan, but I heard this in Au Bon Pain this morning when I was getting coffee, and it put a smile on my face.
11. Decent Days and Nights - The Futureheads
12. Digital - Joy Division
13. Don't Ask Me - OK Go
14. Lola - The Kinks
15. Apply Some Pressure - Maximo Park
16. Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
17. Do The Panic - Phantom Planet. Brings me back to sunny summer vacations out of high school.
18. This Charming Man - The Smiths
19. She Bangs The Drums - The Stone Roses
20. Chelsea Dagger - The Fratellis. Two years ago on New Years Eve in the Waterloo tube station in London, I saw a group of about 20 guys (clearly inebriated) dancing around and singing this song, and it made me laugh because it struck me as so quintessentially British. Well, the funniest part of the whole sitch was all the tourists on the other side of the station taking pictures of the drunk guys, but still. The song makes me happy.

So clearly I have a type when it comes to music. Yes, there's a whole lot of Britpoppy stuff, but that's not really surprising; I'm a big fan of British music because it's so upbeat and catchy, and it makes me dance around my room like a lunatic.

the boys are back in town!

Well, kind of. We didn't look infallible today (I mean clearly, with an OG you can't really be perfect) but with van Persie's two second half goals we came away from Stamford Bridge with three points! Not many teams can say that. Not many teams can beat Chelsea and Man United but lose to Stoke and Fulham either...all I can say is, whatever is going on with us at the moment, we sure are one of a kind!

And, not that I'm keeping track or anything, but Capitan Fabulous is now 2/2. Two games played, two games won. That's a 100% success rate, dontcha know.

happy belated turkey day!

And so I return from the North; older, wiser, and a good 20 pounds fatter. Okay, so that part may not be true--my aunt claims that I actually lost weight, though I'm pretty sure that's not true either--but I did eat an exorbitant amount of food. Such as it should be on Thanksgiving, the happiest of food-filled holidays.

It was actually a rather small crowd this year; I think we only had about 20-25 people, so we set up three tables instead of the usual four.I should have spent the week off working on my English essays, but in fact I ended up reading the books in the Twilight series--four books in three days, so I can affirm that they are every bit as addictive as everyone says they are. When we got to Connecticut I had every intention of taking a nice long nap (after a three-hours-of-sleep night and a seven hour car ride, I certainly could have used it) but I couldn't fall asleep. Then I saw Twilight sitting on the side table so I decided I might as well see what the fuss is all about. They're quite entertaining; no Shakespeare or Joyce or Fitzgerald, of course, but they never claimed to be--they're very good for what they are.

Anyways, enough about my forays into the teenage world of vampires and werewolves and star-crossed lovers. Here's a picture of my Thanksgiving plate before dinner:
And after dinner:
I think I was the only one at my table who cleaned their plate. I'm such a pig. We also had lots of pies:Mmm, delicious.