"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." -A. Bartlett Giamatti

Oh, baseball, I know I haven't been good to you. When you started this year, I was all stressed out over the MCAT, and did not have the time to dedicate to TV. Then I had end of the semester stuff to deal with, and the time just kept slipping. I tried to keep up with you during the summer, but it wasn't easy. I'm not blaming you, baseball. I was too busy wallowing in my misery to pay much attention to you. Besides, I figured I'd neglected you for too long, things seemed all topsy-turvy. The Yankees...sucking? The Expos...good? I'd never be able to catch up. So I didn't try that hard, baseball. I was wrong. You were always there for me...Wednesday and Sunday nights, Saturday afternoons. I'd have you on in the background, but my focus was elsewhere. You deserved better. And now you're done for the year. I already miss you desperately. Hurry back, baseball. I'll do better next season, I promise.

I'm feeling much more coherent now. When the ball went into Foulke's glove, an exclamation of joy slipped out. But until he threw to first, part of me was STILL convinced that they'd blow it, lose, and lose the next three games. Because they're the Red Sox. Heartbreak comes with the territory. Came with the territory, I should say. I'm just going to type out a sentence and look at it for a while.

The Boston Red Sox just won the World Series.

The Curse of the Bambino is no more. The Goat Curse is next. 2005 Cubs...I can't wait 'til next year.

What?? Class in eight hours? A quiz in eight hours???

"A team has never forced a Game 7 after beinng down 3 games to none in a playoff series."
I was TIRED of hearing baseball announcers say that...over and over...every year. Now I'll never hear it again! Red Sox vs. Evil, Game 7, tomorrow night.

My heart is still racing from the game. My goodness. It's times like this when I wonder HOW people can say that baseball is boring. I tried to study during the game but I couldn't, and now I'm too excited. Great game. GREAT game. And how obnoxious are Yankee fans?? They had to bring cops in riot gear onto the field just because a couple of calls went in favor of the Red Sox. A couple of CORRECT calls, mind you.

aaaaahhhhhh, i'm bouncing off the walls. So much for Bio; so much for that essay. Now I remember why my lowest grades always seem to come in October.


Oh goodness. I'm already tired of hearing "The first team ever to force a Game 7...."

Awesome episode of the Amazing Race. But I realized that I'll miss whichever team gets eliminated from here on out. Even the ones I love to hate. Because...there's hate, but there's also love.

The Cubs lost today, unfortunately. Sammy hit a home run. Whoop dee freakin' doo. So he's like, 1 for his last 19. Home run, or uselessness, that's all Sammy knows. Go Sammy go. I'm not blaming him for the loss, I'm just not going to stop ranting about his slump.

Time to get ready for bed. I most definitely will not have time to post from work tomorrow.

The Red Sox traded Nomar to the Cubbies, in a four-team, bazillion player deal that I don't really understand. From what I can tell, we gave players to the Twins and Expos, who each gave players to Boston, who gave Nomar and a minor leaguer to us. Since 4pm, I've been randomly shouting "NOMAAAAAH!", much to the delight of all who know me. I think I'll use my next paycheck to get a Garciaparra jersey. NOMAAAAAAAH!

I've gotten into the habit of waking up early my first two Saturdays, and then sleeping late on actual Saturday. Got up at 11:30 today, just in time to watch This Week in Baseball. Fox teased me by showing a bit of the Cubs game (YAY), before switching to the end of the delayed Astros game(BOO). Then switching back to the Cubs (YAY), only to go back once the Astros' second game started (BOO).

Rather than sit on my butt watching baseball, I got some cleaning done. I probably should've stayed on my butt, because I had awful luck with the vacuum. The bag was so full, I could barely get it out to replace it. Dust got everywhere, including all over me. So I finally got the new bag in, the dust off of me, and got ready to clean! Only after about ten seconds of us, the vaccuum threw a breaker. Sigh. Eventually, I did get a clean carpet.

That Levi's commercial with "I put a spell on you" is seriously the scariest commercial I've ever seen.

To open this entry on a random note, I once stayed in a hotel in Colorado Springs that looked almost EXACTLY like the "Weapon of Choice" video. I think it was the Radisson. There was a lot of Christopher Walkenesque dancing on that trip.

Last night, I dreamt that some of my teeth had fallen out without my noticing. The dream actually ended when I woke up coughing, in an effort not to choke on a newly fallen-out tooth. In this dream, I also had a brand new puppy that I was trying to housetrain, with my husband Jim Carrey. We may not have actually been married, but we had the same bedroom. In my little idealistic world, that means marriage. So I guess on some deep dark level, I wish I was LaKedra Carrey. Pretty freakin' scary.

The night before last, I dreamt that Bigfoot was in our backyard. I wanted to call animal control. "It's an animal, right??!?!" was my reasoning. Mom wanted me to take a picture so we could sell it to a tabloid. Like a fool, I went to get my camera, and took a picture. I then attempted to classify Bigfoot, until I realized that I'm no longer in anthro.

Either my dreams are too realistic, or I'm too dream-gullible. I can tell myself that Anthro's over, but find nothing suspicious about the Bigfoot attempting to break into the den. And then have to convince myself that none of it was real once I wake up.

In other news, having work Monday-Wednesday is great. It's like I get two extra Saturdays, and then real Saturday as a bonus.

One and two-thirds innings before Mark Prior leaves the game hurt. The man must be made of freaking tissue paper. I can't believe this. This freaking sucks. The Cubbies need to win every game because the damn Cardinals are NOT cooperating. We need Prior! Although I did hear on ESPN that Randy Johnson could possibly end up a Cub. I weep (with joy!) just at the possibility. Seriously, I just teared up as I typed it.

Root, root, root for the Cubbies....

Did I mention it's the worst day of the baseball season? We have the All-Star break, without any All-Star festivities. That means no baseball at all. So I'm watching dogs jump into water. The professional dogs-jumping-into-water competition.

In happier news, I found myself a copy of "Private Conversation!" I can sing along now, unlike at work.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy.

Holy crap.

Eighteen-pitch at-bat. THIRTEEN consecutive fouls. Top the whole thing off with a TWO RUN HOMER. WOWS-A-MUNDO! I'm not rooting for the Dodgers by any means, but Alex Cora is like, my hero now.

Best at-bat I've ever seen.

I'm watching the Cubs game on TV. Yay!

Met with Dr. Kindt this morning. He said he's going to send me a bunch of background information about the projects I could work on. Yay!

Alex brought me half of a HUUUUUGE homemade bagel she made over the weekend. It wasn't the best bagel I've ever had, but I liked it because I really really like bread. Yay!

Dr. R-K gave us all a 2-day extension on any lab report. I'm going to use it for the one that would be due today. Yay!

Um, that's all. Go Cubs!

Today is technically opening day of the 2004 baseball season. The game between the Yankees and the Devil Rays, played in Japan, started at 5am Eastern time. I completely forgot about it...not that I would've stayed up to watch it anyway. I say 'stayed up' instead of 'woken up' because I didn't over come the Peeps + Coke until around 2:30.

So the Devil Rays won, and I'm sure, somewhere, some D-Rays fanatic is going to walk around all day going "The Devil Rays have the best record in baseball!" I know this, because when the Cubs beat the Mets to open the season in Tokyo, I did the same thing.

When Prior and Wood pitched back to back, the Cubs never lost both games, during the entire season. Until now. But it's okay.

This entry is mostly for those of you who know what it is to be a baseball fan (Tara, Kimmy) Everybody else will probably not even get why I'm not unhappy right now.

So the Cubs won't be in the World Series. It was awesome that the Cubs were in the postseason, period. I got to see the Cubbies play in front of red ivy. I not only got to see them win a postseason game, I got to see them win a postseason series. It was a pretty good run, if I may say so. And now that it's over I have one less thing distracting me from my schoolwork.

From a 95-loss season to being 5 outs away from the World Series. I call that one hell of a turnaround. If Dusty comes back, the aces come back, and we get some fresh new faces...it'll be great. My only complaint isn't about Steve. It's that the Cubs aren't going to get an early draft pick. But I guess that's survivable *g*.

I can't wait 'til next year.

I know it's just a game. If one more person tells me it's just a game I will scream. I GET THAT IT IS A GAME. But it's a game I feel strongly about, and a team I feel strongly about, and just let me and the thousands of others vent our frustration without hearing that it's just a game. I'm a freaking Cubs fan. If I thought it was more than just a game I would have flung myself from a window seasons ago. Geez.

Come up with something else to say.

Glad I never planned to name a son of mine Steve.

Read about him here.

Dear Guy,

I do not know your name, guy, but you know who you are. Black sweatshirt over a green turtleneck, doofy-looking glasses, with headphones. And a Cubs cap. Sitting in the stands on the thid base line at Wrigley right now, as I type. Leave the game now, and go into the witness protection program. There are many many Cubs fans right now who would like nothing more than to rip your arms out so that you may never reach for any fly balls, ever again.

You probably don't understand this. After all, you were stupid enough to reach OVER MOISES ALOU'S GLOVE to try and catch that ball. If you were truly a Cubs fan, and you saw a Cub trying to make an out, and you had one single working brain cell in your head, you would get the hell out of the way! And you weren't even smart enough to bring a glove to the game, nor were you good enough to actually catch it. This is why Alou is paid to catch balls, and you pay to sit and watch. To sit, BE STILL, and watch.

And now the commentators are making excuses for you, talking about how you have to go to work tomorrow, and to your wife and kids, and blah blah it's not your fault cry me a river. Normally I'd be a bit understanding, but right now I'm hoping they're wrong. You should have no job, and you should not spawn, so that your stupidity may not be passed on to plague future generations.

I hate you, guy. I hate you.

Cubs 4, Braves 2. Need I say more? I'm soooo hyper right now! Kerry Wood is my hero. There were a few moments when I was pretty worried, but they pulled it out! Yay Cubs.

I have definitely listened to this Tinker's Punishment song way too many times. I had it on repeat for the entire game! Yay obsessive tendencies.

Earlier, I was walking around in Danielle's room when there was this massive popping sound. It was definitely my knee. I'm not entirely sure that was a good thing, but it doesn't hurt anymore. Yay popping knee.

I have a choice to make now.
Do I review physics for the exam tomorrow?
Do I sleep so I can be rested for the exam tomorrow?
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
Yay Eliot.

Whoa. I'm very very VERY happybouncy. I think I'll just stay up and enjoy the feeling of...the Cubs...winners of a postseason game. Yay.

I saw my first commercial for the next season of '24' yesterday. Unlike Casey, I have been avoiding any and all spoilers/information about the season. So the commercial comes on, and I'm watching it, and all of a sudden President Palmer is there! I literally screamed out loud. My roommate already thinks I'm crazy, so it's all good. But...Palmer??!!! If he's not dead, then I cried and got sick at the end of last season for absolutely no reason. What was the point? Siiigh.

And today is the day of Game 1. At chapter, there was a very vocal disagreement between the Cubs fans and the Braves fans. It got ugly. And! When I first joined the quiz bowl team I said I'd miss practice for 3 reasons: studying, "24", and "postseason Cubs games." And lookit, I'm gonna miss practice. Whee.

I've decided not to go to aerobics in 7 hours because I have an exam on Wednesday that neeeeeds to be studied for. Why have I not studied? What is wrong with me??!!

The Cubs are NL Central Champions! Let the world rejoice!

I decided that I'd be interested in baseball today, after ignoring the sport all season. Found some surprises in the standings. Cubs with a chance to win their division?? When did this happen? A weak division of course...I love that the division leaders wouldn't even be leading the wild card race if they were in any other division. And Detroit being 41.5 games back in their division..winning percentage of .257. Can we say ouch? There should be a mercy rule that would allow them to just, like, stop playing.

My day has been filled with more than just baseball, of course. For some reason I woke up at 9! And I did physics for a couple of hours. Physics homework is stupid and I hate it. Too many estimation problems. I don't WANT to estimate.

Then I got dressed and ready for the day. Considered going to DUCbrunch, but decided against it, and ate raisins. One of those 1oz. snack boxes of raisins supplied my breakfast for three days! After this huge extremely filling breakfast, I worked on chemistry. I had to do a couple of problems over, because I used the wrong gas constant (L atm/K mol instead of J/K mol), which meant the units in my answers didn't match up and everything was wrong. And then I was confused about another problem because a typo in the book made the entire problem crazy.

Then I remembered that I signed up to go to the pizza info session for APhiO rush. So I went. Only three rushees were there, but they all seemed pretty interested in pledging. So, quality beats quantity! Unfortunately, the pizza delivery person brought the pizza to Agnes Scott College instead of Emory. It wasn't very amusing to our Rush chair, but it is pretty funny. How do you mix up Agnes Scott and Emory? We decided it must be the three-syllable thing. Ag-nes Scott. Em-or-y. Very confusing. All was not lost, since we had cookies! Very yummy cookies. Enthusiastic rushees and good cookies. Whee!

During the cookie fun, the topic of making friends came up. One of the rushees said she'd been having trouble meeting people and making friends, because she's a non-drinker and the only thing to do is drink. She looked sad. And I wanted to hug her and tell her that everything will be okay. I know some people have trouble making friends, though. I've always been thankful for the fact that, though I don't really like people, I make friends quite easily when I choose to. Because I know not everyone can do that.

I decided not to go to Physics mentoring, because my tummy hurts and I feel icky. Plus...I didn't want to go anyway. There should be two divisions of mentoring. One group for people who see the problem and have no clue which equations to use and how to solve it. And one for those who know what needs to be done, but can't see how things go together. Like, I can get the information from a word problem, but I can't visualize how the bits go together to find the solution. Physics takes a type of creativity I just don't have. Sigh.

Could my tummy be hurting because my it contains only raisins and cookies? Perhaps.

Time to do more work. Studying physics and reading poli sci. Whee.

Today I went to a church service that lasted over 4 hours, where they picked up 7 collections!! My parents and I left after about 3 hours and 4 collections, though. The church didn't have air conditioning either...not a pleasant experience. Every group that sang picked up a collection- except Mt. Olive and Hopeful's choirs. Mom says that they used to have services like that in the old days...obviously, that church is still in the old days. Picture it: right across from the levee, middle of nowhere...no, it's NOT Mt. Olive...my church at least has a town with a store and houses and stuff not too far from it. Back to the scene: Sugar cane fields everywhere...tiny church, no air, no musician...I felt like I was in the old days, allright.

Auntee Jolene had her baby last night!! WHEEEEEE! Yazmyn Simone Natt, weighing in at 7 pounds 13oz. Which just happened to be MY birth weight. We're birth weight twins! I don't know when the christening is going to be...school starts soon...maybe I'll just have to miss school or something. I dunno.

Cool moment of the day (aside from going to church, of course...and finding out about the baby..and driving...come to think of it, it was just a plain old moment) was getting to see Nomar's first at-bat of the season. Talk about an ovation!! It gave me chill bumps, and I'm not even that big of a BoSox fan.