There was a pheasant in my backyard the other day. I have no idea where it came from, since most of the animals in the surrounding woods are of the drab, ordinary type (i.e.-opossums, deer, chipmunks, squirrels, crows). I know there are pheasants in the area, since my neighbor shot one once (and gave me the tail feathers...they're in a vase somewhere, now...) but I know there aren't any in the immediate area. I guess it just flew over from somewhere else...but why would it want to?
It was hiding in a corner of the backyard, under Mom's azalea bush. Just minding its own business, when my brother spotted it and decided to shoot it. He ran in for his gun, while my mother sat there cooing over how beautiful it was. Then my brother returned, decided that the bird was too pretty to shoot, and decided to feed it. So they both ran back into the house to find some sunflower seeds (this was when I learned of the bird outside...I'd been revising another damned English essay, but I gave up on that for the moment and went with them). Mom threw some seeds near the pheasant, but that only scared it, and it took off. It flew right over me, really low, too. They were right, it was a very pretty bird.
And that, sadly, was the high point of my week.
Yesterday was my last Freshamn Studies class, and Brenton (the TA) decided it would be fun to have the class meet at India Gardens. It would have been nice if he'd told us where India Gardens was...it ended up being at least a mile from my other classes. Of course, yesterday had to be the day the temperature dropped to twenty degrees and a sleet-storm kicked up. Oi. Wandering around Oakland in the sleet for a half hour, asking everybody I came across where the restaurant was...eventually somebody managed to tell me (I was twenty feet from the restaurant at the time). Brenton spent most of the time apologizing to the class, first for the weather, then for the fact that nobody in the class liked Indian food, and third for the fact that the food didn't come until 4, when most people had to leave. I did get a rose lassi, tho'. I need to learn how to make those...they're demmed tasty. *snerk* The rest of the class got mango lassis, and hated them. They were...oddly bitter. The rose was freakishly sweet, and it smelled nice. Yay rose.
After that, I had to find Thackerey Hall and schedule my classes for next semester. Wouldn't have been so bad in decent weather, but when it's uphill all the way from deep Oakland, so cold your hands go numb, and so wet and windy that you can't even keep the umbrella from turning inside out, it's a bit unpleasant. Took me fifteen minutes to get to the appropriate building. I was exhausted, wet, and completely numb. I found my counselor's office, and was told that she had to leave before I scheduled o_O She said she had sent me an email canceling the meeting, but my email didn't work. "It's a hotmail account, right?" No, it's an AOL account. So I froze my ass off and accomplished nothing because she got my address wrong. It wouldn't annoy me so much if I didn't know that she has gotten my address right before, that she confirmed the meeting through email, and that if she had just double-checked it, I could have saved an hour of my evening (searching for the building, looking for her office, then waiting for a ride home for break). Gah. People.
But now I have free time until Monday...tho' most of that will be spent babysitting cousins and studying for the Jazz History final I'm going to fail anyway. >_<
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