The Daily Adventures of Mercat

I'm looking for some old posts of mine because I can't remember exactly when some things happened. This is what it's like getting old, apparently. (Fuuuuuuuck)

1) My oldest post tagged "religion" is about drum corps auditions (which I honestly didn't remember being for the 2007 season? but I guess so...) and "I think I'm through questioning faith". LOL OH WELL. Interesting to see how much my tone has changed in just a few years though, even my posts from 2008 can get kinda judgmental.

For that I apologize.

2) I have been working on a letter to my Mormon friend trying to explain my philosophical situation. I intended it to be just a letter... three hours later, it's 13 pages long and I'm not finished. Whoops. As a result and because I am the world's laziest chef, I am eating half a can of olives that are at least a week old and hopefully not spoiled by anything else in the fridge. BECAUSE THIS IS COLLEGE

By the way, Douche Flatmate has a now three-day dinner mess on the counter, it smells fucking awful. Unfortunately I now have to play the "confrontation and talk about it" game.

3) I forgot that LJ tags were a "new" thing only a few years ago. WHICH IS MAKING IT EVEN HARDER TO FIND MY OLD POSTS FROM HIGH SCHOOL NOOOOOOOOOOOO

4) I wish I journaled more but I'm also glad to see that I have so much written already. And that I've been LJing for how many years now? 7? 8? Jesus fuck. It seems like only a few years ago. I can, however, attribute much of my writing voice to journaling (in the form of blogging). Addressing an audience like you are friends, but like there is absolutely no one in the seats in the whole auditorium. Just an interesting note.

And now back to my search for personal journal entries from the pre-tagging days, so I can get back to this ages-long letter.

P.S. It's pretty obvious these days, I think, that I'm an atheist. So hopefully no one who is looking for a way to get me in trouble finds this. LUCKILY I think I've done an okay job of scrubbing this out of the main google search pages for me, and I need to go back and probably lock some old posts, and I probably should edit my friends list considering friends from 6 years ago can access my locked posts and absolutely zero of them post anymore (that certain group, I mean).

[EDIT] Holy shit I went and checked, it's so weird to see how little I posted the first couple of years. THERE IS SO MUCH INFORMATION I AM MISSING THAT I WANT TO KNOW. And that is why I journal. What was I thinking?! I don't know because I didn't write jack shit. And boy was my tone terrible, which, it's funny, I knew at the time, not that it was bad but that I hoped I could look back eventually and not hate myself and not want to hide or delete posts (which I'm not planning to, at least not for that reason), but geez, how things change. What's even worse? I know how much I changed from grade school to high school, and I don't really have a journal that covers that, either.

As the poster at my old hairdresser's used to say, "you've come a long way, kid."

I am a graduate (assuming I didn't fail my grad-level tech elective, that was awful). I have no idea what I'm doing except for this summer, lots of projects and trips and relaxation planned because this year was a bitch.

I miss UD already, although I do not miss engineering.

I can't recall if I posted already, but Friday was a crazy day. We did TOSRV backwards, sort of, so we rode Sunday's part (up from Portsmouth to C-bus) on Friday to be able to go to graduation Sunday. I got 2.5 hours of sleep because I turned in my last take-home exam at 2:30 am Friday, and I did the whole ride both days (on the tandem with dad), somehow. Anyway we got two flats Friday morning but when we were getting into Chillicothe we saw a kitten on the side of the road that had been hit. It was maybe eight weeks old and its right arm had been snapped in two and was hanging on by some skin, and it was trying to crawl away. It was so, so, so sad. We took an extra plastic bag we had and picked it up and tried to look up an animal hospital on my phone, but we couldn't get anything, and, of course, we were on our bikes anyway. So we rode into town with me holding the tiny kitten in the bag in my hands on the back of the tandem and we took it into the sheriff. He called the dog warden but the dog warden wouldn't take it. My mom and I were in the lobby with him and he just looked at us and said, "I don't know what to do." My mom and I, I'm sure, were thinking, "are you for real? You're THE LOCAL AUTHORITY, you are local and we are from out of town and you don't have any ideas?" So we asked if he knew anyone who would or could take it and he asked around and found a lady in the office who called a vet's office who said they would take it. I felt so bad for it but I had high hopes because he was barely bleeding and he would sit curled up in my hands (which I made sure were not putting stress on his broken arm, not that that stopped him from trying to use it) and look up energetically whenever something caught his attention. We named him Lieutenant Dan because he was obviously going to need an amputation and we talked about adopting him.

However we just called and although he was doing okay earlier, he died in surgery Friday because of the massive trauma. The vet said he was probably either hit by a car or was hiding in an engine and was injured that way. :'C

Hopefully he had a calm, relaxed death and was feeling better with fluids and such (they gave him an IV and I'm assuming put him under for surgery). Most likely better than wandering on the side of the highway to die in pain or be eaten by a wild animal, but still sad. :C

On the lighter side of things, I thought it was a little funny that when we saw it both my mom and my first thoughts were "don't let it bite/scratch you, it might have rabies!" which was why I was looking for something to pick it up with. The reason being that a few years ago there was a story in a bunch of medical journals about a bunch of people who got rabies from a kitten that was being passed around at a softball tournament. =( And also my worries about bats, although bats apparently have rabies less commonly than thought. Not that that means you should treat them as if they don't, because if they do, and you get bitten or scratched or get fluids in your eye or a cut or something, you are basically screwed. If you think an animal with rabies has infected you, you can get a shot, but if you don't catch it until the onset of symptoms... Only one person has survived that. Ever. A 6-year-old girl with probably a lucky immune system and lucky circumstances.

But I digress... R.I.P. Lieutenant Dan, the cutest little pegleg kitten ever.

My final senior capstone civil engineering design presentation was yesterday. 3 hours, 43 people, some couple-hundred (at least 250) powerpoint slides, and a seven minute video. It went, for the most part, pretty well.

However, the night before, I started freaking out. Which, to me, did not make rational sense as I had presented my slides at least six different times this semester. I knew the information. But the fact that I spent the seven hours of "sleep" in that half-awake state where you are waiting for your alarm to go off so you don't miss it, waking up every hour to freak out for 30 seconds before turning over and begging for it to subside, and giving up on trying to get any real sleep 20 minutes before my alarm was set to go off... To me, that is solid evidence that my public speaking anxiety is far beyond your average public speaking anxiety.

You take public speaking classes and they say, "oh, everybody gets nervous," and yeah, I believe it. But does everyone get uncontrollable shakes of their knees, their hands, their voice? Get dry mouth? Okay, yes, some people do. But what about shutting down into Emergency Mode when it is your turn to speak? Here is what happens (slash, happened yesterday morning). I start panicking. My stomach starts jumping, I start trying to control my breathing, even three years of drum corps can't help. I sweat and shake (and try not to bounce my knees in high heels so I'm not making noise backstage). When it is my immediate turn, I go into survival mode. My adrenaline decides it wasn't pumping high enough before and jumps off the high dive. No matter what I'm thinking about--slowing my speech, making sure I hit every bullet point of information-- my brain immediately shuts down the ability to analyze questions and focuses only on Not Presenting Any Information Wrong. If, in that instant, someone got hit by a car, I am the person you want. I jump into action and call for doctors and call 911 and try to do what I can. But public speaking? No way. And yesterday's experience was enough to let me know, as everyone in my group told me "you'll do fine!"--yes, rationally, I know that. But this is an irrational fear, and as someone once explained panic attacks to me in a similar light (or that was my experience with the one that I ever had--a zombie under your chair is NOT rational), this irrationality tells me that it is maybe not a normal level of anxiety for such a situation.

The interesting part is, I have to wonder if it's Nature or Nurture. I don't know anyone who seems to have such profusely strong reactions to public speaking as I do, but of course I could be wrong and they could just be very good at hiding it. But in fourth grade I got called out for messing up a reading in church, and in our eighth grade play the guy playing the lead antagonist decided to not memorize his lines. Which was fine and hilarious since he could ad lib pretty well, except for the part where I can't and there was a scene with just me and him and he STARED OFF INTO SPACE FOR AT LEAST A FULL MINUTE.

So, yes. There's that.

But also, I am done with engineering! (Except for passing this last tech elective and getting my paper degree.) HURRAH, on to better and brighter things.

I do have to say, my conceptual design for our convenience store was FUCKING FABULOUS and the site/civil team that decided to tell us the wrong site data so we had to rotate the building and kind of destroy the view can go fuck itself. The facade, that glass elevator, ALL MINE, BITCHES <3

I'm actually liking this daily challenge thing. Some days I'm a little busy to catch it in time, but for the most part, I'm actually making daily posts. :D SUCCESSFUL POSTING IS SUCCESSFUL.

Today's! My favorite subject to study... Man, I don't know. I love learning. I don't always love lectures, or homework, but I love the sense of accomplishment from understanding something, and the perspective you gain from it. I love love love reading. In case you couldn't tell from the fact that I probably spend a minimum of $50 every time I hit the bookstore... which is like once a month. And the fact that I spend sooooo much time online reading blogs. I LOVE INFORMATION. I think it's all one of the reasons I chose engineering--not just so I could get paid more for doing technical stuff (which I'm actually starting to think I might hate, as a job)-- but so I could have that background and understanding. Math and engineering and physics can be challenging, but once you understand it it's kind of amazing, the way you can see patterns. However, I'm not good at learning from proofs or methodologies; I sort of work from multiple examples, working my way through them to understand the subtle differences. This poses a problem wherein most engineering professors don't like to do tons upon tons of examples, I don't have the time to be in their office hours all day long, and the textbooks aren't much better (they usually just have one or two examples).

I like history, but I've found that challenging, too. I was fascinated by ancient history when I was really young-- Native American, Egyptian, Greek, Hawaiian (I remember checking lots of books on those topics out in gradeschool)--but I found learning American history out of a textbook difficult because our textbooks were written really poorly. This continued into high school where I already didn't have a great sense of world history, but I gleaned a little bit here and there except European History with the best history teacher I've ever had. He told events like stories, and would sort of reenact them with the help of his "time machine" (his closet), which often contained props like Napoleon's really cheap bendy plastic sword. He would often stop his storytelling at the MOST EXCITING PARTS, glance at his watch and tell us, "oh, looks like we're out of time!" There was one day, I believe, he was "out of time" with 20 or 30 minutes left in class. SO RIDICULOUS. But to this day I still remember the whole crazy story of Rasputin's death and the Russian royal family's deaths. And why everyone thought Rasputin really was a holy man (from either heaven or hell) by withstanding poison and being shot only to drown. (I think. He might have also survived drowning and then died of hypothermia or something...? Okay, wikipedia tells me he did die from drowning, but what I was forgetting was that he was beaten and secured before being thrown in the river, but then broke free of these bonds to then drown.) ANYWAY.

College history is a lot better, because we had a "World-War-II-In-One-Lecture-Using-Only-Battlefront-Maps-of-Europe" day, which gives just the kind of summary on the war that our crappy textbooks lacked that is kind of like a five-sentence-outline version of the politics of the time and let me start placing events within that timeline. Honestly, whoever wrote the textbooks we used in gradeschool and highschool needs to reevaluate their methods. The problem is, they told history like a bunch of individual stories, which makes it very difficult for someone with no overarching view to tie them together. There were basically no ways for me to string everything together into one timeline, at least, not well. BUT. Strangely, I got another good "summary" of globalization through Hawaiian and Pacific history, strangely enough--because it's essentially watching undiscovered lands mature into modern countries in less than two centuries. A century and a half, even. Not to mention, the Pacific was a significant part of WWII, which is a good education on the Japanese side of things rather than the standard Nazi/European focus.

I also like art, because it gives more relationships for history, and understanding the context of famous art pieces makes them a lot more meaningful. Although I now find Warhol annoying. I understand his intent but him, personally... he seemed kind of pretentious in his videos when we studied him. Like the forefather of Hipsters. (For srs.) Also, art history also makes you more prone to getting into discussions about the meaning and value of art (see: trivia night two weeks ago, haha!).

(For the record the argument was whether or not modern art is worthless. My position is that modern art is much more meaningful than other art because it is completely expressive at it is freed from the necessitation of replicating life exactly--that is, the invention of the camera and video, etc. allows for much more "creation" in art. The opposition was saying that this is pointless because you aren't simply looking at something, the art is in the emotion or the context, which isn't the art itself. SO. LET IT NOT BE SAID MY ART HISTORY MINOR WAS EVER COMPLETELY WORTHLESS.)

So! What have I covered so far? Math, physics, engineering, history, art... Music? Music is my-life-outside-of-design. I could do it as a career if it were the right thing. I miss marching and I don't know what I'm going to do without anymore marching band... ever. Although I am taking tap next semester, so, currently, dance is my closest-approximation-replacement. And tap is percussive, so it's closer than, say, ballet, which I can't watch anymore BECAUSE THE DANCERS DON'T MOVE NECESSARILY WITH THE MUSIC /rant

Okay. Am I missing anything else? Oh! English (and languages). I love grammar, and spelling, although that is something my gradeschool also taught poorly that I picked up in high school better. One, because I was learning a new language as well, so there was a focus on grammar, and two, because we learned to diagram, which is also a focus on grammar, and it's basically all like one big puzzle. Now if only I could do better with strange verb conjugations! OH, SUBJUNCTIVE/PRETERITE/IMPERFECT/ETC TENSES. (I also miss learning languages.)

Uh... earth sciences? I guess that's what's left? Also fascinating. I love nature. I find psychology fascinating. Astronomy is SO COOL. It probably helps that my parents are doctors, so my sister and I got a lot of weird biology talk (and a lot of big words) and a pretty good grasp on some areas of science when we were young. BUT, my gradeschool had a completely awful science teacher for 6th/7th/8th grades (shared teacher), so that wasn't great either. Although our books were at least better, more diagrams, more straightforward, so I could at least self-educate to some degree. Now, another topic for another day, our lack of good science communication is evident in science fairs in gradeschool and highschool, because my version of "original experiments" were never quite on par with what they wanted. I still don't understand what they wanted. Because it wasn't a demonstration of a principle, but my ideas were more often too strange to be taken seriously, it seemed.

My science fair projects throughout the years: whether people could actually tell the difference between cola brands, whether kids carried too much in their backpacks, whether cat saliva prevented germ growth (e-coli or streptococcus? or both? can't remember], whether edible fauna (a.k.a. pansies) contains vitamin C, and whether fake or real wine corks do a better job of preventing germ spoiling of wine. I'm missing seventh grade's project... I don't recall at all, really. At any rate, these projects were all off the wall because everything else I had come up with would have "been done before" (meaning my teacher didn't really want me to do that specific project, although they never really gave much advice as to what exactly I could do to improve it) so my methods were always slightly bizarre, and my data was never quite clean enough, and other than the science geniuses who managed to do amazing things (these are the people who make it to international science fairs, I mean) A LOT OF PEOPLE BULLSHITTED THEIR DATA. And got better grades because of it, because their presentations were easier when they didn't have to answer difficult questions about their data's subtleties. So basically despite the fact that "the data you get doesn't have an effect on your final grade", meaning, let science do it's job and don't force a proof of your hypothesis, I generally got fucked over by being honest. Yes, I'm still bitter about this. WHY? Because ethics are important to me. Because human treachery starts early. Because I get punished for being honest. Because my generation clearly doesn't have a problem with cheating and lying to get themselves out of a challenge. FUCK IT ALL I'M SO GODDAMN BITTER ABOUT THIS SHIT.

Sorry to give this a turn for the sad for a moment, but I really don't tend to trust a lot of people my age, and this shit is why. (On the other side, I trust them more on the technical side than I trust myself because, unless I feel I can do something perfectly, I feel very unsure of myself and second-guess myself to no end.) Same kind of shit even happened on retreats! One of my many disillusionments with faith--all the people who act like their religiosity made them so much better than everyone else, when they couldn't even set aside their phones and cd players and everything else for our week of poverty. (To the point that there were prank calls and a string of tampons and pads let down from our room to the guys' quarters. Complete bullshit for a whole week.)

ANYWAY I LOVE LEARNING BUT DON'T TRUST PEOPLE MY AGE. They are not above buying their way out of things. =/

I kind of want to do an anonymous study of gradeschoolers and see how many bullshit their data now. Ugh.

(This is why I've started to think I don't really want kids--I look at adorable babies and toddlers and think, "some day you are going to be an asshole.")

I may or may not be a horrible person.

BUT I LOVE LEARNING :D

Oh, I guess, in terms of "favorite subject", specifically, I guess I could say marching. Because drum corps is my life, and I don't know what I'm going to do without being able to do it any more. (Teaching is definitely not the same and I don't necessarily have the desire to be a music teacher. Although I could do visual, but it's still not the same as competitive marching.)

I missed a few days worth of prompts, sorry. I've been looking at grad school stuff... I'm kind of intimidated :( I'm starting to think I should have done mechanical or computer science engineering or something like that, but five years ago I didn't have quite the same aspirations.

Mean Girls: is a fantastic movie. Fun to watch, amazingly quotable, aptly quotable on an everyday basis, and hilarious. Also, it's probably a good icon for women in comedy. I don't know much about the comedy forefront but I do know that it's considered a job where men flourish and women fail. And the guys I always get to watch this movie agree that it is not a chick flick like they expected, but a fantastic (and wonderfully quotable) comedy. So. We should all just stab Caesar!

I have a sister. She and I get on much better now that we don't see eachother much, but we do tend to snip at eachother if we're both home for a few days in eachother's company. We're strangely opposites, and I think the way we have turned out isn't exactly how I would have predicted it ten years ago. Then I would have said that she would turn out to be the sorority-sister arts major, and here I am in an engineering sorority and not wanting to engineer a damn thing (well, sort of). And she used to talk about starting a fashion company, and now she's pre-med. And I'm a nerd who loves to read, but she is probably smarter than me. Or she's just really good and guessing and BSing, which is both accurate and enough. I am a little too honest and a little too paranoid to be a good BSer. Which is a shame, really, because being an introvert in a world of extroverts is exhausting.

Buuuuut enough about that.

My favorite junk food... is probably Mountain Dew. I try to treat it like a dessert; one, because it has a lot of empty calories, two, because too much caffiene headaches gives me mini-migraine-mock-caffiene-withdrawal headaches and they suck balls.

BACK TO APPLYING TO GRAD SCHOOLS =/

(and waiting for it to be Thanksgiving so I can get excited about Christmas except I listened to the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy cover of Mr. Heatmiser today and I DON'T CARE)

Thought I'd check in... Haven't been around much lately because I'm trying to polish off my to-do list before the busy weekends kick in. So far, pretty much so good.

As for school, hydraulics is kicking my ass. I really hate Dr. Chase (he was my advisor freshman year-- rather jerkish, didn't actually listen to me) and our first homework assignment took me four hours, with help, and I know I did most of it wrong. So, uh... awesome.

I was taking a grad-level course in composites but it got cancelled because of a lot of miscommunication within the department. Kind of pisses me off because now I have to find a replacement class and there weren't any other electives that sounded interesting, but at the same time composites sounded rather dreadful so I'm glad I don't have to take it.

As for life my brain has been on word vomit for days but I've really had very little to say. I was withholding getting on LJ till I had stuff done (like the ambigrams sent! forgive me) but trying to keep my brain faucet shut off was killing me. So... you know, if you have interesting discussion material or anything, let me know. Particularly brainy-type stuff. I mean, how brains work, interesting human patterns, that sort of thing.

It's driving me craaaazzzzyyyyy

My only solace is that the Donk is making plans to get together around Christmas :D I can't wait to see everybody again! And it's amazing how close everybody wants to stay. I mean, SW was a big family like Troop but I didn't have such a close group like I do now. Which is awesome. Especially since we're planning to head out to New Orleans and I've never been there! Woo

(I can check out the levees and laugh at everyone for deciding to live there... I'm a terrible person, I know)

Aaaaand now I'm off to go look for recent articles on Indy FIVE or something. (Seriously, that is some of the best news I've come back to all summer!) Something to keep my mind occupied since my body is about to shut the fuck down after not getting enough sleep recently (or something) =/

Today turned from a Sucky Final day into a Nostalgia Day. Which, as always, is both awesome and terrible.

First of all, I found out I really don't give much of a shit about X-men. I just like action movies. (And it doesn't hurt to have Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber in it, does it?) Also, I was in a room full of nerds. Not nerds in the good way, either... Like, awkward high school boys. The ratio of guys to girls in that room was way too high. Also, I'm glad Domer doesn't mind being a douche and cracking jokes because that movie was PRETTY FUCKING CHEESY. But in a good way! I just couldn't stop from laughing, sorry. At one point I asked him what Zero's power is (since he... shoots guns fast? And since Domer seemd to actually know shit about X-men) and he was just like "He's just Matt Ehrhart" which made me laugh my ass off.

Best part of the movie (also Best Audience Reaction): the subtitles "Springfield, Ohio" shows at the bottom of the screen. Crowd erupts into cheers. (That was pretty much the only reaction except for a few laughs like the elevator scene. BOO, I need audiences that laugh more. No wonder I sound like a psycho.)

Finally, did anyone watch the Chuck finale monday? Okay, so, not to spoil much or anything, at one point Ted Roark says "Imagine that, that terrible pun will be the last words you ever hear." WHICH COULD NOT HAVE PREDICTED THE ENDING TO THIS MOVIE ANY BETTER. I'm serious.

Really? You picked a lame line as your "dramatic ending"? This is an action movie, and not a great one at that. (Okay, well, it's great. It's just also cheesy.) And it's part of a huge series. And you couldn't show some dramatic character return or show up or have someone's ass get handed to them with a punny finish line? Instead you just... tried to be serious in a punny manner? idgi.


...Anyway... So the concert was tonight, and I realized I haven't been there in a damn long time. That is, the auditorium. I miss it a lot... =/ I miss Miss Shoup a lot, too, and all her craziness and taste in music. Anyway, so we kinda played like shit, but that's okay. I hung out with Stephen and Phil and Travis some, which is always good, and OH MY GOD THE KINDERGARTENERS WERE DRESSED UP LIKE FLAPPERS AND DID "FIVE FOOT TWO". Talk about coincidences. I did the whole dance backstage from memory :D My mom joked that I should have gone out there on stage as an "alumni performer". It's hard to believe it's been sooooo long, and yet that song and that dance have stuck with me better than almost anything else I ever performed at St. B's. Miss Shoup even remembers doing it last time =)

Which was kind of when the sad, nostalgic, oh-my-god-shit-is-ending feeling started to set in for the night. I'm officially a senior, even though I get a victory lap and grad school, that's still a HUGE jump in perspecive, feels like. Graduation time is always that way for me. Well, that and move-out every year. =S

It's weird though; at the same time I just hang out with the guys (earlier Travis/Stephen/Phil, later Domer/MattE) I feel both completely secure in myself (uh, as a person I guess) and yet I miss them and shit like Carroll so much. And I know I'm going to miss UD people over the summer, and I dunno, I just keep missing and missing and missing and I... don't know. Anyway, that's enough emo from me.

So at the concert, apparently the not-immediately-connected crowd did not know Edgar and Rachel might be dating, except for Stephen who supposedly had seen them making out after rock mass one time. (I believe him, but I don't exactly trust him, either.) But then Phil (or... MattE? or Travis?) told me that their sister (all of whom I am much more likely to trust) said they saw them holding hands down at the Greene. SOOOOO that kinda seals that deal for me, I'll be over here puking kthx

Also, Dad found out, but what happened was that we were all being overreactionary and hyperbolic (face it, when are we not) and Phil managed to tell him that they were getting married, which they are not, it's just my favorite reaction to say (with a disgusted look) "I don't want to go to their wedding" (which I think Stephen or Phil made a hilarious joke about "speak now or forever hold your peace" but I can't remember what it was, lol). ANYWAY, so then Dad asked me if I'd heard, and just to check it wasn't being bullshitted around (which always happens, and SURPRISE! it did) asked him exactly what he heard, which was that they were getting married, so I made sure to clear that up.

But still... Now that Dad and Mom know, it's kind of weird. Because all I can do is tell them I'm sufficiently creeped out by it, it's not like I can just go up and be like WELL I'M GLAD YOU LIKE TO HANG OUT WITH HIM BUT I KIND OF HATE HIS GUTS, you know? Although I did realize if push comes to shove I cna tell them he really is kind of a creeper. In that awkward-guy way. BECAUSE HE IIIIISSSSS D:

Bleh, anyway. The main point of may day was this: Wolverine was awesome but cheesy, I miss doing the Charleston, and I love hanging out with the Carroll guys. =)

And now I'm really tired. =/ Gotta movie out tomorrow, oh what fun


I'm trying not to think about summer Surveying and how much I'm going to want to kill myself taking that class. Instead I'm hoping for lots of downtime I can use to get in shape and Tuesday Trivia Nights and taking my little to see Star Trek and hopefully having some awesome weekends. bleeehhhhhhhhn

[EDIT] Almost forgot ( don't wanna spoil it for you, but )

I kind of painted myself into a corner in terms of scheduling. Except it was also sort of an accident...

So the company that designed COSI, JPI design, disappeared from the web a while ago. Maybe a year or so. Finally a few months ago I was googling some more and they showed up as a new company, this time in Dublin, OH, rather than California. I was excited because, hey, that meant I could live on campus and do a co-op, right?

Well, doing scheduling for next fall, it turns out, no. If I had known sooner I could have co-oped this semester, but it turns out that pretty much all the civil classes I have left, they are only offered the semesters they are listed on the flowchart, rather than every semester. And I can't co-op in the summer, so now I need to figure out a new route. Try to co-op/intern in the summers when I am home from grad school? Except that grad school is usually something where you work during the day and take grad classes, or at least that seems to be the norm around here.

Plus, if I really do go for this design/Disney thing, it's rather decided, or at least it feels like it. Little room for sustainable design and architecture and stuff... I dunno. I am stuck.

I need someone to explain grad school to me :(

And if I went to grad school in Hawaii, neither of those internships would be available as work-and-classes sitch... Dammit. I need to figure this out.

Fuck this class, seriously. It's conceptually one of the easiest classes I've ever had to take here (hurr geometry hurr) yet it takes SO MUCH FUCKING TIME out of my life that guess what. Today I had a three problem test, fucked up the first one but had no time to fix it, didn't even finish the second problem and didn't get to the third one! This is complete bullshit that I am going to fail or get a C in the class just because we only have three tests. I made a stupid error on the first one that cost me a ton of points (my brain read the word wrong--there's really no helping that in matters of prevention) and now I didn't even fucking finish.

I don't know what to do, this is bullshit. I emailed my prof but who knows what he'll do, if anything.

The material is not hard! It's not like I'm struggling to understand it or anything. It's just a lot of hand-work.


FUCK MY LIFE, fucking seriously. This week sucks balls.

No school today. This is... amazing. I still have a lot to work on, but I least get a tiny break. It especially helps because last night I was freaking out because I couldn't get to any computer to finish my homework; I'd spent four hours in the lab and came home for dinner. Candice's computer died too (just last night), and Sarah was sick and already asleep and Brittany was using hers. So. I kind of had a meltdown about homework last night. (Just because it was one more thing on the pile, you know?)

Yeah, so. I've been in the lab for about three hours now, but that's okay, I'm getting things done and it's quiet. It's a bit odd in the sense that I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the building currently... But I like it that way.

It's very bright outside with all the snow, and I definitely was kind of blinded when I walked inside. BUT this is the kind of snow to have, I'm telling you. A foot or so of it, very kickable, and still pretty warm outside, enough that it would be very nice to be outside. Now if only I didn't have so much to do, correct? Yes.

BUT, a bunch of linkspam that has piled up a bit with my computer woes. (Ah, poo. I am no longer the only one in here. Someone else just walked in.)

The immortal jellyfish... Quite cool, really. I'm not very afraid of them being our next overlords because I'm pretty sure it's going to be some octopodian thing and I will ~freak the fuck out~

An adorable Barney and Robin background. I am very sad I don't have my laptop right now because it would most definitely be the desktop...

The Henchman's Helper? I'm not exactly sure what's going on here but I am intrigued.

"Milky Way over Mauna Kea" which should be more accurately titled "Milky Way over Haleakala". Haleakala is the volcano in the foreground. (Still active, though it hasn't erupted in such a long time they thought it was dead. Or is dormant the right word? I think dormant means it's active but not currently erupting...) Anyway, you can see Mauna Kea (part of the Big Island) poking through in the backgroud. It's cool to think I've been at this view, roughly... Damn I miss Hawaii. Holy crap though, look at all that light pollution... That makes me so sad, really.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I would say that this would be the only way I'd read the book, but I suspect that as much as I dislike it, it's noewhere near as bad as Wuthering Heights. So. I will only say that you just have to be aware of where zombies are coming at you from... (Now there's a lovely ending-a-sentence-with-a-preposition, as dislegal as it is.)

Green grafitti. Very cool stuff.

Business currently hiring; I would work for Google...

Well, you have to face it, regardless: the Mayans were very skilled with figuring out their calendar. And regardless of the outcome, I will be having a party. By the way, anyone know when the LHC is supposed to come back on?

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. I want to go there. Mechanics such as these mystify me... Sorry for that unintentional alliteration. (Worse than punning, methinks...)

Ah, so, back to work for me... And back to that tiki blog I found. Good stuff, that.


By the way, is anyone else excited for the Pink Panther movie, or am I the only one? (Tee-eye-double-guh-er.)