Fire: A Story, with Pictures

Where were you on the evening of November 14th, 2005? I know where I was--Wal-Mart. My roommate and I went and I bought, among other things, a small heater and peach popsicles. As we pulled into our underground parking we heard a lot of sirens. "Those sound awfully close," we said. Why? Because our apartment was on fire, that's why.

Here is our laundry room. Apparently our third roommate heard what sounded like boiling water and opened her door to find the laundry room on fire. She ran out and called 911 and the rest is history. You can see pretty clearly where it started, and the heater is on the other side, behind the door. We figure the heater set something on the trash can on fire, but the firefighter people never made up their minds. They really tried to blame on the battery-operated sweeper/mop thing that had no batteries in it though.

Anyway, they had to redo that whole room and put in a new heater and water heater and washer and drying etc. etc. Also, apparently our cable and doorbell ran through that room so we lost our cable and the doorbell stopped working.

Other fun things about this experience: they had to repaint the whole apartment so we spent a night stacking up all of our stuff in the middle of our rooms. Then the painters threw other stuff on top of it, which was cool (they also broke the light in the dining room and got paint all over).

No heat! That's fun, right? Luckily I had my brand new little heater. I sat in front of that thing every night and did my homework. It served me well. Oh, and we had no hot water for a while too. We were kind of gross for a spell, but sometimes we'd heat up water on the stove to wash our hair.

I could go on and on about the wonderful things about fires* but instead I will list them all in bullet fashion:

• No cable. I really missed coming home and flipping channels.
  
• Soot gets evvvvvvverywhere. I still found it places almost a year later when I moved.
  
• Smoke smells bad. Which made us smell bad. We were very dirty, smelly, cold people for about a month. Oh, and we couldn't do laundry so our clothes smelled too.
  

There were some good things too. Truth be told, I get a little nostalgic about that long, cold, dirty month. Partly because I get nostalgic about everything and partly because we got Goblet of Fire as a reward for our trials. It was a good reward. Also, we got our rent cut in half for that month. I bought Dear Frankie with my fire money.

Finally, I will give you one last factoid. Today I happened to be wearing the same sweater I was wearing that night. The cuffs got rather blackened from walking around and packing up my stuff for the night, and they are still a bit dingy. Can you tell? They are, even if you can't tell:
*Just for the record, I know our fire really wasn't that bad. We didn't lose anything more valuable than our random laundry room items like soap and spare lightbulbs. Plus, we didn't have pay for any of the fixing. So really...it wasn't that bad. Just saying...I know I'm a lucky duck.

My Taste: What is it?

I taste like Bread. I am a staple in almost everyone's diet. Friends like me are a complement to any other friends I get on with almost everyone, remaining mostly in the background, but providing substance when it would otherwise be lacking. What Flavour Are You?

The Words: I Don't Want to Read Them

I've been doing my reading for class this morning and here are the opening sentences of two of my articles:

"Bronzed skin over rippling muscles, the gleam of oil smoothed over strong bodies...got your attention? Well, it's time to continue wrestling with the search process. Back to the mats!"*

and

"The information needs and information-seeking behavior of social scientists have been the focus of inquiry within library and information science (LIS) research for decades. Folster reviewed the major studies that have been conducted in this area over the past three decades. She found that research methods had developed through several stages."**

I can't decide which is worse.

*"Inside a Searcher's Mind: the Seven Stages of an Online Search" by Barbara Quint
**Information Seeking in Academic Research: a Study of the Sociology Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison" by Yi Shen

2008: I Liked You

2008 is gone forever and there will never be another one, isn't that sad? I don't generally tend to be a fan of one year more than the other--they are all good for different reasons usually--but I did really enjoy 2008. 2007 was all right for the most part but 2008 had some really great things. Here a few of my favorite 2008 things/happening/stuffs (luckily 2008 included a new camera so I am not without a visual record of these lovely things):

• Adult Reader's Advisory. Still my favorite SLIS class...which maybe is not saying much, but it is my very very favorite!
  
• Sundry foods: Haagen-Dazs Fleur de Sel, Gatorade Rain lime flavor, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (aka BCE), Inn-n-Out burgers, gummi coke bottles and probably some other stuff.
  
• Travels: Chicago, Washington, Utah (twice)
  
• Summer in Bloomington. Just in general.
  
• D'CALC! The best librarian apartment that ever existed.

I also did a number of new things, and they were all fun and exciting so I'm putting them in their own special section of specialness:

• Disneyland! Oh how do I love thee... In some ways I'm jealous that I never went as a kid, but I also wouldn't trade my maiden voyage for anything. I'm still hoping they'll have a librarian job at the Beast's Library in May...
• Las Vegas. OK, so I never actually got out of the car, but I saw the city from the ground and that is the closest I have ever been. Maybe next time I go down that way I can stop for the loo at Caesar's Palace.
  
• IKEA. What was my favorite part? Probably seeing those wooden drawing figures available in a variety of bright hues.
  
• I got to introduce the Boyfriend to my parents which was...not a big deal at all as it turns out.
  

Other runnerups (runners up?) for interesting events: turning down a co-worker (sorry, Nemesis), dying my hair red, nightswimming with a frog, the museum in Ohio, a crazy awesome first half of season 4 of Battlestar Galactica and some other stuff I can't remember. Anyway, 2009 is looking full of nice things as well. Since I like lists, let's look at a list of things I'm looking forward to, in rough chronological order:

• Spring.
  
• Spring Break! (Disclaimer: ! is not an accurate indicator of the level of excitement.)
• Graduation foreverty ever from school
• Moving to Utah, where I never planned to live again
• Disneyland! Again!
• Getting a job? Maybe? Making real money? So I can start paying those loans back.
• Spring Break! (Disclaimer: Multiple listings do not accurately indicate level of excitement.)

So until one of those things happens, I will try in vain to enjoy winter and salivate over pictures of Disneyland. What, illustrious readers, are some things you look forward to in 2009?

Who Needs Food?

Ah, school is here again. Just four little classes stand between me and permanent academic freedom. Unfortunately raging cases of senioritis and pining also stand between me and that freedom, but hopefully I can coax a few more good grades out of myself. In the meantime, I will be living on a diet of these two things:

Roommates: I am sorry.

Christmas: I like it

Well, Christmas has come and gone once again. And even though my Dad still says it will be here again just like *snap of the fingers* that, I don't know that I agree with him anymore now than I did as a 10 year old. At any rate, it has come and gone and was one of my favorite recent Christmases. (I'm trying to remember Christmas of 2007 and...I'm blank.)

I don't really like listing and comparing Christmas presents...it usually makes me feel like I had some kind of inadequate Christmas and then I'm irritated with myself for feeling that my Christmas was inadequate when really it was (adequate, that is). But since I haven't blogged for a while and I did get a few things I'm particularly pleased with, I'm going to show y'all a few things I got for Christmas. Do not feel inadequate.



Jeeves! I am so very impressed that my Mom went to all the trouble of ordering this over the Internet. Have I mentioned this show before? It is so funny and British. (Why do they use the American flag image for the box? It's British!)






New Snow Patrol! I like them more all the time. (Though shame on them for putting in the F-word.) This one wasn't exactly a surprise since I personally put it into Santa's cart...and then put it into my own stocking. Ah well, it doesn't take any pleasure out of the listening.





The Office! Who doesn't love it? I only have Season 2 (which I maintain is the best), and much as I love it, I'm looking forward to watching this season again. A lot of the episodes I've only seen once or twice and that can really affect my Office trivia score on Facebook. So it's entertaining and useful!





Overall it was a great Christmas. Tasty foods, fun times, a sparkly Christmas tree and sleeping in. So even if one of you got plane tickets to Tokyo or a lifetime supply of McDonald's breakfast burritos, I will not feel inadequate! Oh, and did I mention my favorite present that came the day after Christmas? Let me illustrate:
Don't worry, we like each other (4 rillz). Oh wait, should I illustrate that too? Okay.