Fun times

I made it through finals week...finally. It was one of those horrible semesters where I had an actual exam in almost every class. Bleh. But I managed to get through them without going crazy, mostly because they were nicely spaced. I'm still waiting for grades to come out but I feel like I did alright, in most of the classes anyway.
So where does that leave me for the next month? It's turning into quite a busy winter for me. I'm flying to St. Louis tomorrow afternoon. After enjoying a wonderful evening of Chris' hospitality (which we all know is awesome), I'm stealing his car and driving to Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau. SEMO is home to the Center for Faulkner Studies, which houses one of the best Faulkner archives in the country. They have a couple of items that I am interested in looking at, as they relate to my honors thesis. After spending all day in a sort of nerd euphoria, I'll head to Carbondale to hang with the Leonards (it's only an hour to Carbondale as opposed to the two hours it would take to get back to St. Louis). After that I'll loop back around to St. Louis and spend Thursday hanging out, doing something fun like going to the museum (which is free in St. Louis and quite good). Maybe a sandwich on The Hill (little Italy).
I'll be back in Dallas on Friday. Saturday I have tickets to see my hero, Terri Hendrix, at some little place up near Denton. (I'm sooooo very excited about this - my last chance to see her for quite a while). Then it's another week of getting by in Dallas, with most of my friends gone for the holidays.
On Thursday (the 13th), I'm going to head down to Austin for a long weekend. Uncle Todd and I are contemplating a whirlwind trip to Denver (now that there's nonstop service there from Austin), to see cousin Susan and maybe get some snowboarding in. Then once again it's back to Dallas to deal with more stuff.
Christmas. Bleh. We all know how that is. I wish I could just skip over it. Except for maybe the annual Christmas Eve mission to the Armadillo Xmas Bazaar with Uncle T to see the Texana Dames play and get some cds at Cheapos. I missed that last year because of the jerks in Russia, but not this year.
The most exciting thing about my break from school comes right after Christmas. Molly and I decided that sitting around in our respective hometowns for the week after Christmas (which happens to be her 21st birthday) would be just too boring. So we bought a couple of bus tickets. We're leaving on the Greyhound from Houston on the 27th, will arrive in McAllen (deep south Texas) later that day, and hop another bus which will take us across the border and all the way to Guanajuato. Woohoo! Some friends are meeting us in McAllen and traveling with us from there. More importantly, these friends speak Spanish (all I can do is order drinks and ask how much something costs). We found a great hostel for a great price. We're going to live it up in one of our favorite towns. Maybe even see some of our local friends. I'm so excited I can't sit still.
Unfortunately, I still have to pack and get up really early in the morning. So adieu for now.

White THANKSGIVING?!

That's right. There was a bit of winter weather in the area this year for Turkey Day. A friend of mine up in Portland said they were watching the Dallas/NY game and just assumed it was being played in NY. Nope. That really was snow falling. Or at least what amounts to snow in these parts anyway.
I had a pretty good Thanksgiving, chillin out at Aunt Marty and Uncle Bill's farm. Lots of turkey, lots of pie, a couple of beers and a bloody mary. What more could you ask for, really. Sigh. Thus ends my last Thanksgiving at home for a few years.

New hobbies

The impending arrival of finals week means it's time to find new ways in which to distract myself from all the work that needs to get done. What new hobbies have I taken up this year? Well, there was the mandolin I bought a couple of months ago. That's going well. My fingers no longer hurt when I'm done playing. Thanks to Erica and Stephen I have two new ways in which to occupy my time this year. After a semester on the St. Andrew's fencing team, Erica decided that UTD needed one too. Practiced started about a month ago and tonight was our first session with weapons. COOL! And yes, it is as fun as it sounds, and a tough workout. I'm glad I still have my sexy marching band legs.
What better way to cool off after a bout than to pick up a few tennis balls and start juggling? Stephen is the one I can thank for this latest addition to my list of skills. Of course, I can just barely do the basic three-ball juggling right now, but eventually Erica and I are gonna have the six-ball toss down. Yep. Right after we ace these finals....

Hannah's first solo turkey

Okay, we're discounting the 2.5 kg "fillet of turkey" that I cooked for Thanksgiving dinner in Irkutsk. This was a real, 17 POUND turkey that I volunteered to cook for the McDermott Social Committee's Pre-Thanksgiving Potluck. Remind me not to volunteer for such endeavors in the future. (As tasty as it was, I burnt the shit out of my hand).

Nickel Creek's performance this evening at the Dallas House of Blues was beyond words. One moment in particular caused such elation for this little nerd right here, that I had what might best be described as a "nerdgasm" (noun meaning "the result of the excitement of one's nerdy or geeky tendencies" or "the peak of nerdy pleasure"). During the encore, I was finally able to hear Nickel Creek play "Eveline" in concert. Not only was this exciting for the fact that they NEVER play it and that I actually understand what story it refers too (if you haven't read Joyce's The Dubliners, you need to), but the introduction included the utterance of the following words from the mouth of Chris Thile -
"Less Southpark - More James Joyce."
All I can say is wow. And I'm pretty sure that went right over the heads of 90% of the people in the room.
And on that note,
Adios.

Capitalist Pigs

I don't hate Tom Thumb - I loathe Tom Thumb. Purveyor of fine foods my arse. Not only is their selection far inferior to that of Central Market, they are shockingly overpriced. But as it is the only store I can ride my bike to I often find myself having to shop there. Oh how I miss the good old days of HEB and Albertson's. Now, in order to get food at a reasonable price I have to drive several miles.
Example - Tom Thumb's current price for avocados (a staple of my diet) is 2 for $3 or $1.59 each. Excuse me?! Even at Central Market, upscale grocer that it is, they are only $.79 each. And if I drive down to Fiesta, everyone's favorite Mexican store, they are 2 for $1. And they're higher quality avocados than the ones at Tom Thumb. Throw in all the cool veggies and spices that you can't get at Tom Thumb (not to mentioned the pickled pig lips) and I wonder why I'm still shopping in Richardson, or living in this country for that matter.
Thus ends the pissed off rantings of a poor college student in search of reasonably priced high quality produce.

New website and pictures from Carbondale

I got bored the other night whilst cleaning off my hard drive and ended up completely redoing my website. It was REALLY time for an update.
Therefore, without further ado ... http://web.mac.com/hannahefrank
Also, I posted pictures from Carbondale on the website instead of on flickr. Check them out here - http://homepage.mac.com/hannahefrank/carbondale/