one more miracle

I am visiting my college for the weekend, to say goodbye to my dear friends before jetting across the pond.

Tonight was incredible. Rob, Atilla, Kathan, Thomas, Jackie and I (all of Oxfam) went to dinner at a pizza place, then to Friendly's for dessert. Then we spent four hours on Hartman Green in the center of campus. We smoked hookah for a few hours (mint, mm mm) then somehow began giving each other back massages, which turned into a line of massages. Then there was content sprawling on the grass, followed by a game where we lay in a circle, each person with their head on someone's stomach, and everyone said "ha" and. It degenerated into a giggle fest, of course. We got a passerby to take pictures, which are hilarious and adorable and vaguely debauched. Throughout our whole evening, students were passing constantly - some complimented our gorgeous hookah (from Turkey, courtesy of the wonderful Atilla) and most stared in bemused fascination at these people who weren't getting drunk, yet having the time of their lives. It was pretty much magical.

Then we came to Thomas's apartment (aka my apartment from this summer) and had pancakes.

For the record, Atilla gives the best massages in the whole fucking world.

I am so content right now.

Guess what I did last night? I beat the mayor of Lancaster, PA at poker! It was incredibly surreal. Oxfam held a Charity Game Night Gala to raise money, and we asked the mayor to come! His secretary said "he would try," so I was like, pffft... yeah right. And then he was THERE. I wish there had been a better turn out to the event to be a bit more impressive, but he was very gracious and nice and thanked us for caring about people. And gave a donation. And the event itself raised $800!! All that goes to a local organization that helps the homeless in Lancaster. So all in all it was quite a success, and we're very pleased. Yay Oxfam!

I bought the season 2 Stargate Atlantis official companion because I am totally a whore for this show :D It's a fun read, with comments from all the cast and producers and whatnots about each episode and character and suchforth. The most disappointing thing I came across, however, was this: Joe Flanigan was originally planning on writing what he calls a "McKay and Sheppard story," but because the idea was too similar to two SG-1 episodes, they went an entirely different direction and what we got was... Epiphany. You know, the one with the meditating space-bimbo and John in a beard chewing on hay and, oh yeah, MALP-on-a-stick! Booo. I do however find it fun that this episode led indirectly to my most favoritest McShep moment of the whole season - because John had the experience with the meditating crazy Ascended wannabes, Elizabeth assigned him to help Rodney meditate, which led to the scene in John's quarters at the end of Tao of Rodney, which, yaknow, ♥♥&hearts. So there is a silver lining! *laughs*

On a general note, I feel really disconnected from fandom right now. My extent of livejournal interaction is scrolling through my flist to get the gist, because I don't have time for any more. I have approximately 40 tabs of Supernatural fic open, and have neither the time nor the inclination to read any of them. I do read at least a SGA fic or two every day. I feel obscurely guilty about that :-/ This damned SPN hiatus needs to be over, now! But I really do miss you guys and miss being really involved... I just can't fix it right now. I'm sorry and I love you all, I really do. And to all my friends going through tough times - my heart is with you, and I wish you the very very best. *hugs everyone*

I have returned! (From the East Coast Summit on Hunger and Homelessness in Boston, if you missed that)

It is almost midnight, I have class in 8 hours, I have lots of work that needs doing, but I also have cramps (GOOD TIMING, BODY) and I'm plowing my way through three days worth of my "short version" flist (which still has like 25 people on it, WHY ARE YOU ALL SO AWESOME?) so basically, not being productive right now.

The trip was a lot of fun. The conference went really well, and the place we stayed was really quite nice - much better than last year. It was less... exuberant and epic than last year, but at the same time much more manageable, and I don't feel like I'm DEAD. Which is a good thing, because, orgo in 8 hours.

The one weird thing about the weekend was I kept getting randomly dizzy. I was exhausted already on Friday (because a week of class KILLS me this semester) and then got 5 hours sleep Friday night and went to the conference Saturday morning, and at the conference I noticed the world was going kinda topsy turvy every now and then. It kept getting worse, so we asked one of the conference volunteers if I could sleep somewhere, and they brought me to a lounge with couches and I took a 2 hour nap, so I was mostly better after that. But not for a while, actually - I still felt dizzy for a little while after I woke up. It was bizarre, because I've never reacted to sleep deprivation like that before. I had more of the dizziness earlier today. I'm wondering if I'm coming down with something, because I've had less sleep than that before and not reacted like that. Anyone have any ideas?

I'll do a mini recap later, but like I said, flisting right now, and then sleep. It's good to be home! *hugs everyone*

I enjoyed the Veronica Mars premiere well enough. Some great lines/moments, some good character stuff. However, it did not feel important in any way - I was not shocked or amazed or anything. It kinda just felt like more of the same. Perhaps the Supernatural premiere thoroughly spoiled me? Yes, I think that is it :P

I'm goin over to Andrea's in a few minutes to watch the Lost premiere - I'm givin it one last chance! I actually hope I don't like it because God knows I don't need another show, and I could really use having my Wednesday nights free! :P

On the other hand, NEW SUPERNATURAL TOMORROW! And BSG PREMIERE FRIDAY YAAAAAAAY!

Today was a strangely isolated day - I didn't get to see any of my friends! *woe* I had two classes, two hours of work, then another class in which I had to make a presentation. No one was free to have lunch OR dinner with me. I ended up picking up Quizno's for Fei and going to hang out with her for dinner.

Much more importantly, I did get to see a very cool presentation by the chairwoman of a program called MADRE, and a woman from the Umoja Uaso Women's Group. You can go here to read about it. Madre is an organization that fights for women's rights all over the world, setting up programs to educate women and to protect them from abuse and violence. Umoja is a unique village in Kenya where a group of women have set up a community together to protect themselves from abusive husbands. The original women were raped by British soldiers in the 80s, and rejected from their homes because they brought shame by being the victims of rape. So they bonded together and have now set up this amazing place where they are learning about women's rights (thanks to Madre) and spreading the word around their tribe. They take in and shelter any women who need protection. It was very moving to listen to the woman speak. I would recommend looking around Madre's website, it's a very good organization.