Meet Calypso, Argent, and Madame Mirabelle:

Calypso and Argent are the red and silver platy fish, respectively, and Mme Mirabelle is the albino African clawed frog. She’s a baby now, but someday she’ll be about the size of a hand. In the above picture, she’s in the middle of a meal.

Yesterday, I did two things. First, I cleaned the fish tank, and then I added two snails that Tom bought me earlier that day. ( !) This all was brought about by the ridiculous amount of algae in the tank, due to it being in direct sunlight:

The first task, cleaning the tank, involves taking the fishies and the froggy out, so that they won’t get stressed out by the water change. So I netted the fish and put them in a bowl for a few minutes, and caught the frog and put her in a little cup with airholes for breathing. Changed the water, put the fish back in, and all was well, until I was about to put Madame Mirabelle back in the tank.

At which point she jumped out of my hand. And somehow landed in one of the slots in my radiator:

She was INSIDE the radiator. So I started freaking out, obviously. I was near tears, panicky, as anyone would be if their pet were trapped inside a radiator. Clearly a common problem.

I thought she was lost forever, but then Tom, with the brute strength of a hero, pulled the metal front off the radiator, and Mme was sitting there inside, looking pretty scared. So then she jumped out onto the floor, under my bed, then she started running around, got stuck for a second between two sneakers, and I caught her and got her back in the water.

She appears to be fine now, and has been pretty active, though she did spend an hour or so hiding under a plant when she first got back into the tank…

It was quite the adventure.

After that, I felt okay bringing the snails into the equation. When I was buying my snails, the shop owner said, jokingly of course:

“Just add a little ginger and soy sauce to these guys, and you’ve got a meal!”

So my snails are named Ginger and Soy Sauce, because one of them is golden and one of them is dark brown, so it ended up working pretty well.

Ginger and Soy Sauce are surprisingly entertaining. They move around pretty quickly, breaking barriers for stereotyped snails everywhere, and they have really cool mouths with tiny little tongues. Also Ginger climbed on Soy Sauce’s back/shell within minutes of their arrival in the tank:

Snail sex? A distinct possibility.

Below, a short video of The Menagerie in action:

A pretty view of Columbia is in the background.

I have been so busy!!!

I promise I will legitimately blog soon.

A preview of things to come:

1. Photos of my fish and frog!
2. Photos of drawings I’ve done!
3. Stories about my awesome karate class!
4. Funny stories TBA!

Basically I have been filling up every single minute of my life with something different.. But I’m really enjoying it!

Things I’ve recently taken on (in addition to Spec, duh) include:

1. becoming tech intern/web designer for an art gallery owner/art dealer
2. volunteering once a week at Housing Works Bookstore (so excited!! see below)
3. working out every day and actually making an effort to cook/grocery shop
4. caring for 4 fish and a frog

And yet I’ve had a really good 1.5 weeks of school, so far. (Or maybe because of..?)

Today I had my first drawing class, before I headed downtown to check out Housing Works and buy some new fishies. The assignment, during the 2.5-hour-long class, was to draw several drawing of the same still life on the same large sheet of paper. The first drawing would be for 1 minute, the second for 5, etc. until the last one was a full hour. For each drawing, we would take our sheet of paper and supplies and move clockwise to the next position in the circle of drawing tables around the still life.

It sounds really convoluted, but it wasn’t, and it was surprisingly fun–it’s been a loooong time since I did something artsy AND structured, and I mean that in a good way.

This was the product of my labors, today:

(Click for bigger, because it’s really hard to see when it’s small.) I actually (again, surprisingly!) ended up being really happy with my drawing(s). The shaded stuff is all still life from various perspectives, and flat in the background are the other students drawing.

After that, I went to Soho and was kinda blown away by the Housing Works Bookstore, at which I will have the pleasure of spending my Fridays from here on out. Seriously, though, what a gorgeous store…

Complete with pseudo-spiral staircases and lots and lots of hardwood stuff. I start on Friday, and I’m very psyched, needless to say.

Oh, and of course, I bought new fish!!

For my 5.5 gallon tank! I can’t really take good pictures right now because it’s dark, so it’s hard to see the new guys, but I got 2 platies (one red with black tail/fins, one bluish-silver) and a dalmation molly (white with black spots!). I also snagged a baby albino African clawed frog. It’ll grow to be about the size of a hand, but for now, it can chill with my fish (it’s fully aquatic), and be really cute and tiny.

But later on, when it gets big, it’ll want to eat the fish, so I’ll have to separate it out, like Tobias. So many of my pets are killing machines.

Why has it been so long since I last posted? Because I have been moving into my new dorm and starting school, of course! Last week, I spent most of my time packing, and last weekend I finally crammed (somehow) all my stuff into Tom’s tiny car, drove up to New York, and moved into my suite.

I’m living with Jacob, one of my best friends, and we’re in a two bedroom suite with a kitchen and a bathroom. Our rooms are spacious, we have great views of the West Side, and we’re in a good location, but the suite is in such a state of disrepair it’s ridiculous. Here’s the maintenance request that we just sent to the housing department:

1. our drawer in the kitchen is detached/broken
2. our pilot light on our oven does not work
3. the blinds in both rooms of the suite do not close/operate
4. the light in our front hall does not turn off
5. the beds in both rooms are loud and uncomfortable, actually they are just mattresses on planks of wood, and we would please like to have them replaced with actual wood beds.
6. the faucet in the kitchen sprays water when on
7. our toilet-paper roll holder is lacking proper parts
8. a drawer in the B room is off its runner

We’ve been lighting our stove with matches. It’s extremely old school. Hopefully they’ll fix things for us soon.

Otherwise, Tobias the fish now has a beautiful new home and seems to be worlds happier than he was just last week:

And in the world of school…

I’m officially a senior! Only one year left. I’ve now been to every class (except for Karate, my PE), and I’m going to cautiously say they all seem good so far. Here they are:

1. European History from the Renaissance to the French Revolution

   Okay, I’m not going to lie: This is an intro history lecture that I’m taking to fulfill a requirement for my major. I anticipate a boring-but-harmless class.

2. Theories of the Universe from Babylon to the Big Bang

   This actually counts as a science requirement! Freaking awesome. I’m excited about this one. The class includes stargazing and we got a big chart of constellations on the first day.

3. Family, Marriage, and Sexuality in Pre-Modern Europe

   Also taking this for a requirement, but it’s a history seminar that seems like it’s going to be super interesting. Should hearken back to the women’s history class I took back in senior year of high school…

4. Global Genre and East Asian Film

   This is my fourth East Asian film class, and it’s with the same prof as my Martial Arts Film class from last semester. Should be sufficiently awesome.

5. Basic Drawing

   We didn’t really do anything on the first day, but the projects on the syllabus look like they’re going to be fun and more interesting than the usual drawing intro course. Also, thankfully, I think it’s directed at people who already know how to draw… (I’ve probably taken like 109384039824 drawing classes in my life already.)

One last thing, before I take off, and promise to post more frequently in the upcoming days/weeks: I’ve started selling lots of my clothes (in super good or new condition) on eBay. You guys (girls, that is) should take a look at my stuff because some of it is really cute. And it’s for a good cause! (That is: making me less poor) Here is my page with everything I’m selling:

BUY MY CLOTHES!

Two days ago, I went to Petco to get a bigger tank for my betta fishy, Tobias (Tom and I inherited him from our roommate in Buffalo, Britney!). Right now, he lives in a coffee pot, but as you can see, it’s kind of a tight squeeze:

So I decided to get Tobias a bigger, more comfortable home, and maybe some friends. But after talking to some peeps at the store (a couple of whom seemed really knowledgeable) I decided not to risk putting Tobias with other fish because male bettas are pretty vicious. Instead, I got a 5.5 gallon tank and a bunch of supplies, so that I can start a mini-but-still-super-legit actual aquarium!

It’s going to be kinda high maintenance: I’m gonna have to start the nitrogen cycle, grow some plants, and make sure the aquarium’s occupants have enough space and get along. But I love a project, so I’m really excited about it, even if it’ll be kinda challening.

As for which fish I’m going to have, I think I’m going to go with a couple colorful platies because they’re small, cute, peaceful, etc, and probably an African dwarf frog too, because they’re adorable, low maintenance, and get along with calm fish.

I’m also going to have to figure out what kinds of plants I want to grow, because I’ll have to put them in first….

Oh and don’t worry–I haven’t forgotten about little Tobias! I’m going to get him a bigger home and maybe a ghost shrimp to keep him company and help keep the tank clean. According to the internetz, ghost shrimps are cool because they’re transparent and you can see food go through them!

And here’s an awesome sign for the road…

I took this while in standstill traffic near my house today on the way back from visiting Tom in New York ( ). It struck me as ridiculous because… what’s with the question mark?