Last night I was working on Olivine’s magic system at the kitchen table with a few candles lit. Lately I’ve gotten back into burning candles and am using up two large IKEA packs of tealights to do so. (I’ve also realized I have a serious problem with playing with hot wax. A pyro, who knew?) [...]

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I can’t tell you how glad I am to not be going out amongst the eager return-the-presents-we-don’t-want crowds. Eesh. We had my dad over both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, gave him the first season of Star Trek, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Jon gave me U2 by U2 and the new Dragonquest Heroes: Rocket Slime [...]

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Today Lenneth and I are going to tea, courtesy (in part) of my mother-in-law, who has already been to tea and recommends it. Apparently you wear feather boas and things. Nobody on God’s green earth has ever seen me in a feather boa. If I remember, I’ll bring a camera (and horrify the masses.)
Also, I’ve [...]

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It’s sad, but we now have only eight planets in the Solar System. Also sad but for different reasons, the IAU defines the English language — indeed, the entirety of international scientific language and terminology — as consisting only of words found in the Microsoft Word spellchecker. Thumbs up, guys, pluton is only a term [...]

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Yep, you read that right. Today is National Danielle’s-Getting-an-iBook Day. Celebrate. Tell your boss you should rightfully get the day off. Besides, it’s Thursday. [ahem] “This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” (If you don’t know what I’m quoting, SHAME ON YOU, go buy Hitchhiker’s Guide right now.)
This is actually [...]

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I just got out of our colloquium session for first-years, where each week a faculty member talks to us about his research. Today it was the paleo-biology guy. His specialty is boring clams. The kind that bore into things? Like coral? Ironic name, isn’t it? “Boring clams”? @_@
I thought I hated fossils before, but now [...]

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Erm… from my classes’ labs corrected yesterday:
“This mineral’s habitat….” (Mineral habit.)
“Reacts when acid is dropped.” (Regarding calcite, and don’t most things in life seem strange when you drop acid? ;)
“Rock fizzled.” (A common adjective in this class, used to describe calcite fizzing. It works….)

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