Hey, this weekend was beautiful! Want to know more? Read on!

Friday we walked down to the Meridian to buy tickets to the Matrix that night. After we had the tickets in our hands and were getting ready to leave, a random man came up to the four of us there and gave us the best "give me money" proposition I've heard yet. For our attention (and hopefully our money), he would do a trick. He was very much alcoholed (at least the smell lingered) but was able to pull off a back flip off a wall and then add in another back flip for good measure. And they were quality back flips. I can't do that sober. So very worth a donation to his booze/food/whatever fund. I was kind of creeped out at first by his proposed deal, but when I thought about it, it made perfect sense. Why the hell not?

Oh yes, the Matrix. I have to say the action was beautiful, but the overdone parts of the script made Jenny and me laugh at all the wrong moments:

Neo: "You can't die"
Trinity: "Yes, I can."

We weren't serious about the movie going into it, and that just didn't help. I'm so sorry to all the people we pissed off. Whoever you are, please don't be too rageful about that.

Saturday morning I got up hella early with Saralita and spent the day in Redmond at a Habitat for Humanity build site. I got to spend the day with some people I love and I worked with an awesome girl from the UW majoring in architecture. We made a floor together. No, really. They gave us a small room and together we cleaned it, cut out the underlay for the floor, glued and nailed it down, and started laying down the tile on top. And by "cut out the underlay" I mean we measured the various sizes of underlay we would need, went down to the sawhorses and grabbed a piece of the material, and used a circular saw and a jigsaw to bend it to our will. All by ourselves. Is that not awesome?! I can circular saw the hell out of anything now.

Partway through the day I started thinking about what else I could be doing, and realized how much I love Habitat. Instead of sitting in my room studying/sitting in a coffee shop studying/pissing away my time I was covered in sawdust with lots of power tools and a board to cut. I couldn't have been happier. So here's to building things. Why pay someone else to do it when you've got two hands and a brain?

And last but not least, Sunday came around and made the weekend perfect. I woke up, took a shower, ate some spaghetti, and joined Saralita for a bike ride to Alki. This was ambitious, as I hadn't ridden my bike for at least a month prior. Poor thing - it's been kept in the dark storage locker for so long.

We got on 12th and headed down to Jackson, which we followed to the water. During this time we were not allowed by law to terrorize the pedestrians on the sidewalks, so were required to ride in traffic...with the cars. And trucks. And big big buses. Freaky! But we got to use the cool hand signals, so I'm not complaining.

At the water we took the Alaskan Way Viaduct down to Spokane Way and followed this half-hidden trail onto the lower West Seattle Bridge, which has these 3" gaps in it at strategic positions of its curvature. I might have lain down in the middle of the trail and looked through the gap at the water below. And I might have sent something down to splash in the water. Why grow up?

We got to the start of the beach before we realized we had to turn around and get back to Campion for nothing but the best brunch ever. Mmm. We made it back 5 minutes early and after taking the fastest showers you've heard of, rushed upstairs to find the 12th floor lounge packed with people.

I should mention the reason for this brunch's awesome nature: someone got it into their head that since both the Spanish/French floor and the Chinese/Japanese floor have excellent brunches, a Spanish/French/Chinese/Japanese brunch would be the best of both worlds. And it was. I've never eaten such great free food. There were random casseroles, quiches, sushi, curry, potstickers, three-milk cake, apple torte, lychees, grilled chicken kabobs, both savory and sweet crepes, and so many things I couldn't identify. It was delicious. I love my floor.

This morning I got back from a lovely barrage of generally-directed-at-the-entire-class harsh criticism from my phys prof, Dr. Morgan (Jack Sparrow crossed with a flamboyant gay man) and called my team leader, Malinda, for the Christmas trip to Ghana. I haven't sent off for my visa yet, nor have I gotten any of the immunizations I need. Oh right, and I should be fundraising, too. But after talking with her I feel right on track, and all my stress over that has disappeared.

I took care of my advising appointment today, too, and the big picture seems so clear right now. I had a great discussion with my advisor about where all this crap is going and what each class is really like. I may even be able to pull off a French minor if I play things right. And go to Nicaragua for my undergrad research project. Granted, that's a pipe dream and a bit of a ways off, but the head of the chem dept is working to certify some coffee growers as organic down there, and speaking Spanish is kind of a good in to go with her one of these years. It's going to stay in the back of my head for the year and I'll see where it leads.

I meant to do loads of homework this evening, but with that not accomplished I still don't feel too guilty. Ro, Saralita, Jenny and I had a great impromptu dinner of baguette, brie, and a dessert of creme brulee ice cream with nutella. Damn. We won't be doing that again for a year, at least. But we do have a pint of Bailey's Irish Cream ice cream in the freezer...hmm...

I got some non-homework work out of the way, and tomorrow will be about looking for an apartment (we've all got bikes, so it should be pretty speedy) and getting some food from the I-District. And making my todo list a bit shorter...right, the first thing on that list is sleep, so I'll leave you with a wish for sweet dreams and a productive/relaxing day. Noche!