Gov't Money, An awesome weekend, and other stuff

So, I am now living on the support of the government. Yaaaaaaaaay. It turns out that applying for Food Support is actually quite easy if you have all of the proper documentation ripping and raring to go. Well, not ripping, but raring I think is still appropriate. Anyway, I went in, took my number, was immediately called up to a window where I filled out a blue form and handed in my previously complete CFAP (the form that gets you all the support you could ever need), then sat and waited for about 2 hours. I doodled a bit, drew up some new lists for teh geekedness, and was eventually called into Door 18.
Very few people get to go through Door 18, especially on their first try. Behind it are a bunch of people with computers, and you sit in a very short chair, one so short that you can barely see over the cubicle wall at the person processing your paperwork. It was a rather humbling experience, as the only way I could interact at all was to reach over this high ledge, like a kid handing reports over a kitchen table. If that was their intention, then bravo I say.
There I sat, handed over my documents, convinced them that I was in fact an Americorps member, and waited while the computer threw a hissy fit over my non-existant existant income (it's confusing, I know, but Americorps income does not count as income! Well, for the non-taxing gov't, anyway). Got my new form, headed down three flights of stairs, waited in another line in a surprisingly airport terminal-esque space, and got my EBT card (it's actually quite pretty and innocuous; bunch of fall colored trees, blue sky, looks like a credit card).

But the upside of that is now I can actually eat food without wondering how much it costs! Yay! And speaking of eating food, last weekend was pretty awesome. So one of Rachel's fellow AP people had a dinner party at her house courtesy of her host parents. It was in Edina, so we knew it would be a pretty good spread, but we were completely unprepared for the amazingness that was to happen. The couple were very friendly, and even had their own home brewed beer! (steam ale with an infusion of gooseberries- very crisp, excellent blend of hops that was not overpowering but definitely present, and a slight malt taste. The gooseberries added an interesting level of tartness to the beer, but in a very good way.) So there was a huge, amazingly delicious spread, plenty of wine and beer, and afterwards we had a poetry reading. This was actually probably the second best part (after the beer, of course), as we got to hear a lot of serious, funny, and homebrewed compositions that were uniformly interesting. I decided to be a bit ironic; you can find my submission here, once again by the inestimable Mark Twain.

On Saturday it was actually warm out, so after a good day at work (students at both classes!), Rachel and I went for a walk around the lakes, then headed out to see Waltz with Bashir. I really, really liked the movie on about every level. The narrative to the documentary was compelling, the subject matter interesting, and the medium it was told in was incredibly brilliant. It is also a very heavy movie, and can be disturbing, hilarious, and cause dumb struck silence in the span of 15 minutes. Rachel had some reservations about the film, though, particularly the fact that it only told one side of the story. This is true- the film is from the perspective of Israeli troops and no one else, which to some extent dehumanizes the Palestinians and the Lebanese. But still, any movie that causes the audience to be silent almost the entire way through the credits deserves a gold star in my book. I recommend it, but be prepared for a serious and kind of trippy movie.

Other things going on:
- won a game of Warhammer last night! My theory of flying tanks+lasers+undead, nigh indestructible giants=win was proven to be true, at least against Marines. Further tests will have to be conducted.
- I see faeries and their nefarious work everywhere
- studying for the GRE has begun once again
- I have mastered the art of scratch pizza making, and am now moving on to shepherd's pie

Until next time...

"If the bubble reputation can be obtained only at the cannon's mouth, I am willing to go there for it, provided the cannon is empty. If it is loaded my immortal and inflexible purpose is to get over the fence and go home. My invariable practice in war has been to bring out of every fight two-thirds more men than when I went in. This seems to me Napoleonic in its grandeur."
- "Mark Twain as a Presidential Candidate," New York Evening Post, 6/9/1879