*grin* of course there's a happy medium. i'm kind of living it, in that my days are filled with sweat, blood, sunburn, and muscle aches, and my nights are filled with reading Salman Rushdie, journaling/introspection, writing friends and family, and learning Hindi. also, there's the book The Foundations of Buddhism that i'm reading and getting ready to write a paper on. (that was decidedly unwelcome in my plan for a "happy medium" summer. but who knows, maybe i'll be dying to write it by the end of this book.)
i think a lot of my appreciation for this summer stems from the fact that i've felt so deprived of  visibly and directly producing--producing things i truly and unquestionably value--and so worn down with the same old thing (nonfiction reading and papers) all the time that i want a little less than medium now, to make up for the past few years. i feel like this summer (and in the coming fall) i'm living my life instead of just planning or weighing decisions. coming to college made me feel alive. and now, getting away for a while is making me feel alive all over again... and ready to jump right on in again, come January.

Emily, isn't there some happy medium bewteen spending all day sweating/bleeding and spending all day philosophizing?

I've spent more time reading social, personality and existential psychological articles and experiments than I thought was humanly possible and let me tell you, my head is literally swimming in it.  This is of course made worse by the fact that besides my advisor I have no one to talk with about it because it could jepordize the validity of my study.  I interchange between about 6 books ranging from The Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology, The Transparent Self, The Denial of Death, Review for the Psych GRE, Review for the Basic GRE, as well as about 40 journal articles and frequent trips to the SMC library. 

I've never had so much fun losing my mind.  

Something will come of this, though I can only see a faint outline at this point everyday I watch it take shape.

ok, well, this post was orginally conceived simply to shame Adam, but after the sum total of today's events, there will now be more. first the shame, though:
Adam! Where the damnhellassthieves are my sandals???? I called and requested them ages ago! Do you know how anxiously i've been watching the mail every day? It's been a long time since i've seen them! I miss them! At first, i was blaming the PO, but... now it's been too long for their absence to be the fault of the PO. So, fair warning: If they're not here soon, i will send Christina (right, Christina?) to take the shoes you wear every day, and see how you like it. This is serious. There will be hostages.
Ok, so next. Here is my day:
Got up. Started a letter to Carrie. Went to milk, minus Dickie, who usually helps. Did extra chores. Unloaded the truck. Did more chores. Put the eggs away. Emailed Pete.  Had breakfast. Went outside and weeded in 85-degree heat and what i guarantee you was 95% humidity. And sunny. And lots of deerflies, regular flies, and mosquitoes. For four and a half hours. Then we had lunch. Then, we went out and did more weeding--say another two hours. We're talking you can feel the sweat dripping down all sorts of unwelcome places, here. We're talking soaked through. Then, we got a drink. Then, we planted squash. Then i picked some raspberries! Then, we went down for milking again. But, before we could start on that, we discovered that we have a fourth hen who has chicks! 7 of them! All very sweet, fuzzy, and cute! But we realized that they were too little to be chasing Mamma Hen around, so they needed to be caught and put in a cage. So we did this. In the process, i managed to catch two of the babies and knock my head against the roof of the henhouse. Soon, i noticed blood dripping from my forehead. Lots of it. (Mind you, i knocked it in the same spot yesterday.) So, i hold my head so it's not dripping on my shirt, carry the babies down to Mom, and put water and a towel on my head. Held pressure for a while, helped Mamma and babies into the new home, and then we started milking. Lots of flies there, too. Driving the cows nuts. This makes them kick, and liable to knock the buckets over. And man, after you've spent 20 or 30 minutes milking, you don't want the damn milked spilled all over the place. So, we milked in the hotter-than-outside, ovenlike barn, dodging their swinging tails and stomping feet, sweat pouring down our faces all the while, and making my cut (which had stopped bleeding, otherwise i wouldn't have milked) sting like anything. Finished without incident, thank gods. Went up to the house, put hydrogen peroxide on my forehead.......
(and now comes the reason for this whole story:)
and then i ran down to my trailer, my home, my castle, and took the BEST damn freezing-ass cold, invigorating shower that i have EVER had, in my entire life :D This is SO much better than sitting around all day doing philosophy. Tada!!

The rule around here is that nothing works.  At least it seems that way.  maybe someday one of my projects will work.  the program I have been creating all summer was just scrapped because it was too slow for the computer to deal with.  so now we are using C++ and I have no idea how to use it so schulz is doing most of the work.  we can only edit it in his office upstairs and only test it on the computer in his lab in the basement so all day I am walking up and down the stairs.  fUn!  I'm tired of being hot all the time and Tired of being frustrated all the time.  I need a break.  The weekend never seems to come soon enough. 
 
In other news, carrie is coming to visit on friday and she's staying in my apartament.
 
Also this, Clarence the guy who fixes everything in SMC brought some sweet corn into work today and Schulz, Nafari and I got some.  MMMmmm corn.   

Drew you will do fine.  we all know it, You should know it.  Don't worry, just work hard like you always do and everything will turn out great.  Hey guess what, I sound like you drew!  oh man too much general positive advice, I think my head is going to explode.  *KABLAMMO*

       ewww

What great friends I have that give me such votes of confidence. Thank you one and all for your kind words. Alas, my dear Emily the LSAT is not about substantive law at all. In fact, they make it a point to mention that every chance they get. By they I mean the bueracrats who organize the damn thing. It's more like the ACT with some questions thrown in like...If Sam and Charles are arguing and they say blah blah blah...what makes Sam's argument stronger or weaker. I'm taking the sucker again in October and I'm applying everywhere possible with the score I have. My parents are behind me one hundred percent so that's good. You guys are great and I'll never forget your great friendships ever

We've never been able to check student information from off campus.  But you can still look at the classes being offered and such from the registrar's main page.  Just not your EDR and things like that.
 
In other news, I have two weeks left in Barcelona!  I got some participants for my survey, so now I at least have a little data.  Still working on a couple places, though.  And goodness, I haven't even started to think about the GREs, which I suppose I should schedule myself to take at some point soon.  Drew, don't worry too much about the LSATs ... you're plenty intelligent to be able to kick ass in interviews and such.  I know that law schools are competitive and rely a lot on test scores, but the kind of person that they are bringing in to the school should still matter to them.  In any case, all this talk of exams and research and future decisions is making me sad--time to go visit a lovely museum and eat good Spanish/Catalan food!  :)

you can only access your edr from on campus. I found that out earlier this summer.

hehehehehe, Pete's right on, Drew :) actually i'm kinda surprised that you didn't do better, what with all the cases you can rattle off the top of your head at the drop of a hat... what gives?
is anyone else having trouble accessing the registrar's student information? i can't do diddly-squat and haven't been able to for weeks. can't we use it during the summer? what if i want to check out classes?
went to Boston this weekend to meet Tabby, with whom i'll be flying with to London on 1 September. Tabby's great! we mostly walked all over the place- Boston Common and along the Charles River, and Boston is great, too! wow, it's beautiful! plus tasty food. we talked about the difference between Massachusettians and Michiganders, the stereotypes...
people in the northeast seem to think that midwesterners are all very friendly and polite. Mass drivers break and bend all kinds of rules and are generally chaotic, but they will always stop for pedestrians (unlike in New Jersey, Tabs says) and give others lots of room to break/bend rules. seems to be a working system. Mass people are addicted to Dunkin Donuts, and they have NO grid road systems, so i never know which way i'm going. and Tabby says i pronounce "Indiana" funny. i didnt' hear it. also there was a lot of "wow, i can't belive we're going to be in India soon!" so i had a nice trip. to conclude like Christina: The End.