Below are the 7 most recent journal entries recorded in freeflame's LiveJournal:

Wednesday, August 16th, 2006
10:43 pm	Today Today I read about the new proposal for the planet distinctions which was super cool, was attacked by a red tailed hawk after I decided it was far too tired for me to need my leather gloves, and brought home 7 new beautiful, inspirational goldfish to the apartment that I keep saying I won't get attached to until they make it 4 days, but I keep coming in and out of my room grinning like a kid. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 17th, 2006
6:45 pm	Learning Bengali So my roommate's family is Bengali. The bulk of her cousins are biligual but prefer to speak Bengali, a couple of the really adorable little aunties speak zero English and converse with me through eyes and smiles. At Thanksgiving the family would switch back and forth, after enough jokes were told in Benglali, one the cousins elbowed me and said "You really need to learn what we're saying, this shit's funny." So. Here I am. Learning Bengali. It's a really beautiful language, closely related to Sanskrit which I've always loved. I've decorated the apartment with Bengali nouns written phonetically on colorful paper. I listen to my language cds and laugh at the incredibly useful dialog. I can say TONS of things about mangos now. I did learn "I slipped and fell" which odds are, I'll make use of. I taught myself "I brought fish" - Ami anlam mach! I'm debating whether or not to learn my letters. Overall it would really help me with fluency, but it's challenging, and while I like challenges, I'm busy and I don't know if anyone reading remembers when I learned Hebrew...? It did not go well. I have bad handwritting and a lack of attention to detail. Bengali, from what I've seen so far, looks harder for me to write. The letters are really elegant though, and I bet if I could practice them my regular handwritting would improve. My roommate does not write script and has expressed interest in us learning together. I'm struggling with this whole misappropriation of culture thing. Sometimes I feel guilty for getting too interested in a culture that is not my own. Like how I dance with Judiasm from all the time, but never really feel 100% comfortable in temple. I talked about this openly with my roommate, the whole "Is this too Single White Female for you?" stream of thought. She is overjoyed and flattered that I am interested. Which is good. She's getting really into teaching me and wants to leave up my embarrasing little nouns for when her ENTIRE family decends on our home tomorrow because she thinks it will make them smile. I think it will make me mildly embarrassed, which is frankly tough to do. :) But if it makes mashi smile, then I am all for it. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 11th, 2006
10:04 am	Movie: Ice Age 2 I believe I saw a glyptodon in the preview that just played. That made my day. Who wants to come to New York to watch it with me? Afterwards, we can go to the Natural History Museum where they have not one, but four glyptodon species on display! Yay! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
9:04 pm	My Valentine After going to four pet stores, I have picked out the cutest and smartest apple snail I could find. His name is Martian. He's got moxy. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 6th, 2005
7:47 pm	Campy is good, right? 1. Am doing okay enough and glad I am here, but am not exactly brimming with joy. 2. Called a man I'm in love with to leave a voicemail I knew he would not get. 3. He answered his phone. 4. Caught off guard, but had a nice enough conversation, really great to hear his voice and catch up. He's doing fantastic and I am proud of him. 5. Man I'm In Love With announces he and the woman he is seeing may be getting serious. - Fine. Typical for he and I as we don't really want to be together and other relationships are bound to occur. 6. MIILW mentions how his only concern about being more commited to his girlfriend is the lack of possibility to be with me. - Not so fine. Great to feel, not something I need to know. I tell him such. He apologizes. 7. After getting off the phone, my mother calls. Asks how things are. "Great, great, MIILW is getting more serious about his woman, frickin' great." 8. Loving mother replies "MYILW is in a committed relationship? Good for him!" 9. I brood and inform my mother I am hanging up. 10. Today - fresh clean day. Feeling better than usual and went on a quest to buy clothes for an event later in the week. In a smidge of retail therapy over last night's phone calls, I buy a gorgeous flowy black dress and shoes that have rhinestone dragonflies on them. I also shell out 40 cents and invest in new goldfish friends for Gus. 11. Have decided I have no idea whether my new shoes are incredibly tacky or really cute but also decided I like them either way and am wearing them to a moderately formal event regardless. Am curious what others think. They are so close to hideous that I really like them. They look similar to the following: http://www.zappos.com/n/p?dp=4682637 12. Feel much better about MIILW and my mother's way of supporting me. At the very least I have a really hot dress and Gus has new friends. :) (And yes, my mommy reads this journal, and no, I did not pay 60$ for my shoes.) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 15th, 2005
8:52 pm	Death of a snail I am saddened to report that sometime last night my apple snail - Octopus - died. This morning I thought s/he was probably no longer with us and this evening I came home to an empty shell. And two very fat goldfish. This presents new realizations. 1.) The reason I left Octopus this morning was because I was worried I had prematurely assumed the death of my last apple snail - Glow (named by a 3 yr old Californian). The fact that my goldfish wasted no time in eating Octopus confirms a.) my fish are groady and b.) they would have eaten Glow should s/he been dead... ergo I did, in fact, kill my last snail by throwing it in the freezer. (I know, I'm a bad person, feelin' some guilt, please don't beat me up over it.) And speaking of dead animals in the freezer... you see... while I am in fact, quite weepy about my mollusk's death, the goldfish did a *spectacular* job cleaning out the shell. Which means I have an almost all clean, easy to preserve apple snail shell AND its operculum! Zoologist and educator before romantic - story of my life. Realization 2: While my new roommate and I get along smashingly and she is generally very laid back... we haven't talked about things like keeping dead animal parts in one's bedroom. So I will have to hide it while I prepare it to take into work. Realization 3: I'm not sure I have *ever* lived somewhere where it is unacceptable to have dead animal parts at least in one's freezer, if not in one's room. I feel very thoughtful about which situation is stranger to me. I am still upset over Octopus's death. And furthermore that my fish are swimming at the top of the tank wanting me to feed them more as if I don't know that they are full of my former pet snail. But I am playing Cat Stevens as a sort of non-spiritual farewell and I will show the shelled parts to countless school children who can learn from the death of my snail. So in that way, my Octopus will live on. Octopus was a good snail, who had very pretty mouth parts, and will be missed. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 21st, 2005
12:55 pm	procrastination makes you do the darndest things... i am in new york city. all i have to do is finish 2 crummy cover letters, email them and my revised resume to people who i just know secretly long to employ me, find some clothes and then i get to go have fun. the city beckons me - so much too see, so much trouble i could enjoy getting into... i can't believe how deep procrastination lies in my soul and that i have spend the first part of my "vacation" pacing in ilana's apartment, checking email and posting on lj instead of actually getting off my ass and writing the letters. this will be my final act of sloth for the day... when next i talk to anyone, i will have submitted applications and be basking in accomplishment. you just wait and see. hope everyone is well. (1 Comment |Comment on this)