ai yai yai

it's gonna be a long week

i worked hard today but to not much avail. after doing some stuff around the house, i ran a couple errands and then picked up ben from campus on my way home... we each worked on our own homework for several hours before i was ready to give up in frustration and he was ready for a break... then ihop for dinner (hadn't done *that* in forever, and then to the mall... since the first ihop we meant to go to had mysteriously been demolished since the last time we were there, we ended up taking longer to get TO dinner than intended, and thus ended up seeing a movie an hour later than intended... with 45 minutes to kill, we spent the time wandering around barnes and noble for fun... i found a fantastic mother's day gift... it's a large book for my mom to write her stories of her own growing up and about our family growing up... she gave a similar book to her mother several years ago but grandma never got to write too much of it before her stroke; nonetheless knowing she bought such a book for her mom, i know she'll appreciate the sentiment and i think she'll enjoy filling it out.

speaking of g-ma -- aunt priscilla called.. the doctor officially says g-ma's intestines are officially infection free, and they could take her off the antibiotics for that; however in the healing process she's somehow contracted pneumonia... not serious enough to take her to the hospital, but enough that she's on a different regimen of antibiotics for a bit... aunt pris said that g-ma was pretty upbeat and cheery today when she visited so that's good.

anyhow, post-bookstore, ben and i saw "a lot like love" -- new ashton kutcher, amanda peet movie that's kinda "when harry met sally"-esque. it was cute and we both enjoyed it even if it's not like "best movie i ever saw" material. so that was a quality way to end a not the most profitable ever kind of day.

on the way home, we talked a lot about ben's qual... well mostly ben talked about it and i responded periodically. he failed in february so he has one more shot. while one of his qual committee members is dr. greenfield (the prof who taught me, colleen, leigh, and eric all analysis all last fall to help us pass our writtens, just because he's that nice and helpful) and he's being really helpful, two of ben's four other members aren't the most helpful, and he's worried that they'll tell him to go ahead and get it over with again and then still not pass him... one of these people is his advisor... commented ben "i never said i had a GOOD advisor, i just said i had one"... i guess i'm super fortunate to have dr. z.

anyhow, ben's hoping to re-take in june, and it's basically do or die... if you don't pass the 2nd time, then you're out of here, which for ben is back to california (where ALL his family is) to get a "real job". i really really really want to see ben pass; not just for the "ben's one of my best friends around here" reason, but even more i've seen all the TONS of hours he's put into studying for this thing, and i want to see it pay off tangibly for him... only time will tell i guess.

in other news, both ben and scott have been chatting lately that they think it would be a fantastic idea for the two of them to get me to go out clubbing with them some night. anyone who knows me well knows my general policy of "lara doesn't dance", but eric's claim that i was dancing when it wasn't my turn while we were playing pool (and had one of my CDs on) earlier in the week gave them hope"... yes i occasionally move my feet to songs i like when in a good mood, but i don't classify it as dancing and generally don't do that in the presence of others who can see me, so i still argue that i don't dance :-P... ben commented that if it weren't for the fact that he knows i could work myself into a panic attack on the way to a club if i were really being dragged against my will, he'd MAKE me do it; but knowing there's a chance of extreme duress on my part he's just going to pick on me until he convinces me it's a good idea :-P boys...

at any rate, even if they suggest preposterous ideas from time to time, yay for friends... :-P

i should be asleep... night y'all.