Lake Livingston

I just came back from Lake Livingston. My friend Beth's in-laws have a lake house that they let us use so we went up there yesterday morning and came back today. It was really good to get out of my apartment after being under house arrest for more than two weeks.

The lake from the back balcony of the house.

The lake from the front balcony of the house...

Kylene and Joy in her cute hat...

Kristin, Joy and Beth the Benefactor:) :)

Joy is chillin' on the dock... still in her cute hat...

Joy's first attempt to swing on the rope... She plops and makes a big splash!!!

This is how you are supposed to do it... Kristin in her California surfer pose...

It's thunder and lightning and Joy is very scared... She is experiencing her first tornado watch... Look at the sky... Ain't it dark and menacing?

Department of Communication Graduate Award Ceremony '08

Basically these are the people in my life now. They are my cohort at school and we are tight-- counting on each other to make it through to the finish line. These pictures were taken at the Graduate Award Ceremony held at the Graduate Director's home. The first thing that the admin staff told us during our orientation was, "If a professor asks you to go to their home, you go... even if you felt like dying." I was so tired after weeks of paper writing and exams and not enough sleep but as the staff said, "When they call, you go. No question asked!" I was dead on my feet that day.... although I look gorgeous as usual ;) .



From left to right: Kylene Baker, Moi, Laura Brown and Katy Head. Kylene is one of my best friends here.. She has me over to her place all the time and we just hang out and watch TV at her place. She doesn't want me to get cable because she said, "If you have cable, you won't come over to our place anymore because you can watch cable at home! No you are not allowed to get cable.." hahahah...

I call Laura "Lown" the abbreviation of her name Laura Brown. I came up with that because in the first weeks of school, she decided to call me "Nisie" and now she doesn't call me anything but that. And I think that she's the only one who calls me that and I think that Lown is catching up with a lot of people now... Yay me! Giving people names...





The cleverest and nicest and kindest and prettiest girl I've seen in my life. She just turned 21 and is in the graduate program with me. We call her "Skorn" Such a badass name for such a sweet girl. I just finished writing a paper literally an hour before these pictures were taken. Notice the shadows and the bags under the eyes. I've routinely woken up at 5AM and gone to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning. Summer is here and I'm SO going to sleep for a month. I'm not taking any summer classes this summer, well, at least not in Summer I (May), perhaps Summer II (July) if I get too bored:D.




A sweet sweet Texas girl with the real Texas accent:D. "Y'all are fixin' to go home now?"... In Texas-speak, at least in College Station, when you're going to do something, you are fixin' to do something. "I'm fixin' to write that Dorsey's dratted rhetoric paper tonite." Like that:) She promised me that she'd take me to Jewett, her hometown about an hour north of College Station so that I can ride her horse. She was the valedictorian in her undergrad class... Very, very smart!




My Bollywood moment... courtesy of my training at TESL. By the time we graduated, we TESLians KNOW how to pose for a picture. I don't wear make up nowadays... what you see is what you get and a lot of people back home commented how dark I've become. Well, yeah, of course I get dark because I'm out in the sun a lot. Walking to class for ten minutes, at least, one way. When I was in Malaysia, it was... walk twenty steps to the car from my apartment, drive over to school, walk another twenty steps to the office building, not seeing the sun until I leave home in the evening. My friends here kept saying that I look a lot lighter in Malaysia too, that they can't believe it's me in my Malaysian pictures.. so the consensus is: living in the US has darkened my skin. That's Texas sun for ya...

A Stalker's Anthem

I want you by Elvis Costello

Oh my baby baby I love you more than I can tell
I don't think I can live without you
And I know that I never will
Oh my baby baby I want you so it scares me to death
I can't say anymore than "I love you"
Everything else is a waste of breath

I want you
You've had your fun you don't get well no more
I want you
Your fingernails go dragging down the wall
Be careful darling you might fall
I want you
I woke up and one of us was crying
I want you
You said "Young man I do believe you're dying"
I want you
If you need a second opinion as you seem to do these days
I want you
You can look in my eyes and you can count the ways
I want you
Did you mean to tell me but seem to forget
I want you
Since when were you so generous and inarticulate
I want you
It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for
It's the way your shoulders shake and what they're shaking for
I want you
it's knowing that he knows you now after only guessing
It's the thought of him undressing you or you undressing
I want you
He tossed some tatty compliment your way
I want you
And you were fool enough to love it when he said
"I want you"
I want you
The truth can't hurt you it's just like the dark
It scares you witless
But in time you see things clear and stark
I want you
Go on and hurt me then we'll let it drop
I want you
I'm afraid I won't know where to stop
I want you
I'm not ashamed to say I cried for you
I want you
I want to know the things you did that we do too
I want you
I want to hear he pleases you more than I do
I want you
I might as well be useless for all it means to you
I want you
Did you call his name out as he held you down
I want you
Oh no my darling not with that clown
I want you
I want you
You've had your fun you don't get well no more
I want you
No-one who wants you could want you more
I want you
I want you
I want you
Every night when I go off to bed and when I wake up
I want you
I'm going to say it once again 'til I instill it
I know I'm going to feel this way until you kill it
I want you
I want you
I want you