The Daily Adventures of Mercat

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 was actually rather productive today, despite my alarm deciding not to go off on time. I started my grad school applications, which is a daunting task, particularly since I have no idea who I'm going to ask for recommendations. My boss I guess? I just don't have any particular comraderie with any of my professors. =/ By which I mean, I actively dislike a significant portion of my department, and the others I am apathetic towards. Anyway.

I also paid some bills, started the FE Exam application process, and tried to fix OneNote (still no luck--Windows' "help forms" are practically worthless considering in four days I've had one response that actually provided me with zero answers, only more confusion). Tomorrow I'm going to work on stuff for my portfolio, which is also intimidating since I'm not actually an art major, and I therefore don't have much to pull from. (Man, what if you were just an engineer with no arts background? What at all would you put in a portfolio?)

Dad and Laura went out to get a Christmas tree, which I didn't help put up at all, though I'm not terribly upset about that. At the moment I'm feeling more "busy" than "Christmasy", although turning on Christmas music won't get me riled up now about how it isn't even Thanksgiving.

I kind of do want to go out shopping, though. Every few weeks I feel the need for crass commercialization. I think it's kind of a "getting out of the house" thing combined with a "need to buy groceries" and "looking for visual stimulation/inspiration" type thing. The curse of being artistically inclined, sometimes, I swear.

Anyway, prompt time, before I go do something entertaining this evening.

My probably number one example for "any place I would like to visit one day" is the Angkor Wat in Cambodia. However, also on my list are visit Australia and all the National Parks, although "go everywhere" is pretty much the rest of my list, to be honest.

I'm thinking for next year, in order to keep up the "daily posting" but with something more substantial than a prompt, I might start doing Hardy Boys read-alongs. I haven't nearly read as many detective/spy/mystery novels since college/discovering the internet in high school/etc., and I kind of miss the genre as a whole. Plus, Hardy Boys books are really easy to page through. I think I can conquer one in about three hours total. Plus, it's been ages since I read the whole collection anyway, it'd be good to recall some of the plots.

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)

Well my mom's cousin is getting put in hospice. =/ I feel really bad because she's taking it really hard and her aunt already lost her husband and one sister.

Anyway, I've been really tired and apathetic lately, and I really hate it. I don't know why... I just have no drive to do anything (not even read all my blogrolls or watch TV), including practice for camp. WHICH I JUST FOUND OUT I HAVE TO HAVE ALL MY MUSIC MEMORIZED FOR. Lovely...

Here's the curious thing. I think I am a natural optimist, always have been. It balances well with being rather practical and everything, but I've actually started wondering how much it is perhaps brain chemical related. Can't remember if I talked about this before. Anyway, what started me thinking about this is that when I drink, I don't get any positive/relaxed feelings out of it, I just get sleepy. And then if I drink enough, a little unbalanced (physically, you know, inner ear and vision and muscle control) and a migraine. I think you may (or may not) get more out of me if you get me jacked up on Mountain Dew. Well, for one thing, it definitely cements in my mind that drunkenness is mental, particularly for all the folks that can hold their alcohol well, but I do have to wonder if perhaps I--chemically--have a higher propensity towards being happy. Because my mom even asked me, when I told her how I've felt today, if I was depressed (...were depressed? fuck this tense), and... I don't think so. At least not how I think of depression. When I think of depression I think of feeling like life is not worth living, and although I have felt all weekend like everything is pointless, I DO NOT (and never have, and have always thought I never will) want to die. That's always how I've been. Seriously, all those mortality tales you read in high school when they talk about how no one wants to live forever? I would. You could do everything! Learn everything! It would be awesome. ANYWAY.

Also, talked about some stuff in psychology about basic personality traits (O.C.E.A.N.) and discovered I am probably some level of neurotic (meaning, easily emotional). ADDITIONALLY, the way the prof talked about it, I probably am some mild to medium form of paranoid? Which is interesting, because now I want to know what level is normal (if any... my extent of knowledge of that consists of one of Slartibartfast's lines from the new Hitchhiker's movie, so, you know, nothing much).

AAAAAAANNYYYYWAAAAAYYY.

I did nothing this weekend. I beat Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings and did no homework and watched a bunch of movies, all because I had no drive to do anything and I completely forgot there were some things I should have done months ago and keep forgetting to do. THAT IS HAPPENING NEXT WEEK because I need to clear that off my schedule for fuck's sake. =/

( game spoilers if you care )

Mmmm... yeah. Gotta get to that homework. Fuckkkkkkkk.





Oh, P.S., beware in the future there will probably be a HUGE up-and-coming self-psychology post... You know, all the things that have been brewing in my head forever and I finally need to put down or something, hahahaha. Good times.

Sometimes I really wonder if I should have been a psychologist... =/

HOLY CRAP AN UPDATE.

Look, I know, I've been busy. I hate it. I am so, so tired of my classes. And sadly they will just continue on through next semester... Ugh.

I got a 50% on a test today, it was not pretty. There's a chance the lowest test grade will be dropped... I just don't fucking care anymore. I'm tired of spending three hours a night three times a week doing homework assignments for methods I will never, ever have to have memorized again, and in fact WILL BE RUNNING PROGRAMS FOR. Yes, it's important to understand what the program does, but the hours upon hours upon hours IS KILLING ME.

Anyway, the real reason I am here is rather an accident. Over on ontd_political someone reposted an article about racism in Glee from the mothership.

Here is the deal. In the past few months, I think almost every band kid/music major/drama club kid I know has become obsessed with this show. I saw the pilot episode, like... a year ago? Idk. I did not like it. One, it was not that clever. Two, it seemed like people just trying to make money off the sucesses of High School Musical, which is an embarassment in its own regard.

I could not articulate exactly why I didn't like it, except that it felt cheap and embarassing. Anyway, today, someone posted this:

"This show feels like nerd culture appropriation.

By which I mean, it feels like somebody who was NOT a nerd in high school tried to take Cliff's Notes on all the things that supposedly compromise the experience of "uncool kids," and then filtered them through the Mass-Media Screen of Marketability, so that they could sell this shit to the "popular people" while at the same time insisting that geeks should love this show because "it speaks to us."

Glee is to nerd culture what modern-day gangsta rap is to urban black culture - it's a bunch of oppressive outsiders to the culture trying to tell members of that culture what they themselves are supposedly like, via insultingly inaccurate and reductive stereotypes."

This. So much this. I feel like people are trying to take something I live every day (well, to an extent) and sell it back to me.

Bull-fucking-shit.

One, I refuse to let people sell me a lifestyle, period. Two, I refuse to let hollywood and the media dictate what things are. Three... it's not even clever. I haven't seen any more episodes but someone else pointed out that the writers have some odd sense of hipster-ironic humor... which is actually twice as painful. Twice as embarassing because they are trying to be ironic in their insults and stereotypes which just shows that hipsters fail to realize that most of the time they come off as insulting, not ironic. It's really, really difficult to imply irony well. Which is why hipster emos deserve to be slapped in the face as well.


...But emos are a story for another day.

Really not trying to belittle other minorities/scenes in that, but, let's face it, emos are lame as fuck.

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) =/

Yeah, so, don't send me to Second Time Around to look for things. I stumbled upon the Pink Panther Complete Cartoon set (we've been struggling to figure out how many dvds they put out for the 40th anniversary) AND THEN I found the complete movies set WITH Shag's art from the 40th anniversary, which they have since discontinued.

...So that put me back $90.

Plus then I found Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Stardust, a couple other dvds, and a Foreigner cd. And I nearly got Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb for ps2 but that would have put me back an additional $28, which seems rather excessive considering how long it's been out. And the fact that it was, in a previous life, a Hollywood rental disk, which by my guesses probably means it was treated pretty shittily.

Anyway, so overall, I spent $150 which was just kind of D8 soooo yeah. I don't need to spend anything for a while.


And then I got home and tried to use up my Sideshow gift card that came with my crystal skull figurine, but I didn't know you could only use it on certain items (all the expensive ones, of course...) sooo now I have a $25 "gift card" that is basically worthless to me, because all I want is the Indyfans dvd and maybe the decks of cards (which happens to total $22... that I can't use the card on). I mean, there are a couple of different more expensive things in the store I like, but I either don't really want them, don't need them, or they can't be paid for using the card. Uggghhh. (Although I've had the Dressing a Galaxy book on my wishlist forever, I really just can't justify $200-300 on a book.)



BUT I did get my room organized a bunch today, as well as the stuff from shool, so there's not much left to do with that.

Surveying starts tomorrow (ugh) which I'm hoping gets fucked up because of all the rain and we have to spend time doing nothing or having classes cancelled or something. I do not want to spend eight hours a day outside in the rain letting my boots fill up like lakes, thankyouverymuch.

SO HAPPY SUMMER TO ME D: That was my whole break, roughly speaking.

Although I did figure out one good thing today, I can open up some space on this computer if I put all my music & video files on an SD card (which, interestingly, the new specs allow for 2 TB) and since both my laptops and the mp3 player I'm looking at (Creative Zen X-Fi) all have SD slots, I could just keep my media files in one place (and back them up on my external drive) and that way I wouldn't have to worry about syncing my iPod or not having music on my netbook or anything. So, it will take a little bit of an investment, but it sounds like a plan.

My only upset currently is that the X-Fi doesn't necessarily work with MediaMonkey, and there are no Rockbox setups for anything Creative has, and I absoltely refuse to use Windows Media Player. I hate that thing. So I just have to hope for a miracle with MediaMonkey. Hoo boy. (Except... that doesn't necessarily work with Linux? So I'll have to keep running XP.)

[EDIT] Oh, and I actually got mom to want to watch Family Guy (Blue Harvest, because of the Airplane! and Blues Brothers references). She didn't pay much attention, but I'm glad I have it on dvd now so I can just pull it out and laugh heartily.

It's also significantly funnier if you hear the opening titles in your head as Peter saying them, since in essence he is, and it actually makes a lot more sense.

...Somehow.

So the ghetto is amazingly quiet; there are only a few parties going on, with the requisite loud music, but nothing really rowdy. I guess that's because there is no study day before exams tomorrow, but still.

There was no one around the house tonight so I went over to Kim and Melissa's and they and Jon and Jerome and I all went to get ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. Now, I usually always get chocolate chip cookie dough when I go there (because it's the only place that it's any good) but I saw they had a brownie sundae and the brownie looked particularly delicious so I had to get it. I DID NOT KNOW THERE WERE SO MANY CHOICES IN GETTING A BROWNIE SUNDAE. Caramel or hot fudge?! What flavor of ice cream?! Whipped cream?! Nutes, sprinkles, oreos?! I mean really? I just went with straight up vanilla ice cream because I wasn't sure what else would go well and not over-choclify me (like New York Super Fudge Chunk would have), and then hot fudge, whipped cream, and nuts. Yum. Oh, and plus, Ben & Jerry's FINALLY takes Flyer Express. Yay!

So after that we came back and Kim and Jerome went to bed because Kim had to work the desk at midnight, so Melissa and Jon (and Moeller, who we met up with in the hallway) walked back over to my house with me just to sit on the swing, and I grabbed my uke and proceeded to further maul the tips of my fingers. =) But it was fun just sitting and singing, though the guys didn't really sing at all...

But I did get some practice in on the new song I learned today, Only the Good Die Young, and also The Lumberjack Song. Also managed to find Edelweiss and The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh) and then played the rest of the songs I know, Can't Help Falling in Love With You, Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain, Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World, F.U.N. (yes that's from Spongebob), I'm a Believer, and Margaritaville (which I forgot to play). BUT Only the Good Die Young is a ton fo fun to play, and I'm getting decent at guessing the right chords that need to be switched in the tabs I find, though most of the songs in my range use C/F/G/Am chords. Curiously enough.

ANYWAY so my fingers are raw and I had fun singing and then we had this random creeper come up to us and stare at us and then say he likes to go around on Friday nights telling kids about Jesus, and we said we were good and realized we probably just should have kept on the Bale Out remix we had playing earlier.

Aaaaaand tomorrow is Write Two Papers Day and then Go To A Disney-Themed Costume Party. It's a "go as your favorite Disney character" theme, but I do not trust a hundred drunken people with my fedora. SO, I'm going as a pirate because I haven't dressed up as one in a while (!!!!) and I really want to. Need to run to Foy's to get an appropriate hat, might go thrifting for some more scarves or whatnot if I have the time.

Oh man, so, I watched The Fall last night, and it's such a confusing movie sometimes. I've watched it twice and I'm still not completely sure what's going on all the time. Like... hurr, the Italian bombsmith gets shot in the foot because he's the leg stunt guy. But I couldn't figure out what was going on with Darwin and Wallace, especially toward the end when Darwin says he'll tell everyone that Wallace was the real genius, but then I looked at the imdb for the movie and it says that it was referencing the fact that a guy named Wallace actually came up with the theory of evolution, and Darwin sort of preached it with him, but then because of a screw-up/misunderstanding in the printing/book credits, Darwin gets all the credit for Origin of the Species.

SO. Absolutely splendid movie, particularly if you like what the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen should have been, or Baraka, or Lee Pace. Any of those things are a great reason to watch this movie.


...My fingers are really sore from playing. D:

OH MY GOD the weather today has been so nice. I was lamenting the fact that I was burning up around lunch, because I LOVE wearing jeans and my kneehighs, but then it was perfectly warm-and-cool this evening so it's okay.

Oh my god, and Judy retired today I will miss her so much. :C

Also, watching the fall, I had kind of a HURRRRR moment: they call them "movies" (as in moving pictures) like they called them talkies (as in movies with sound). It's like a whole new mind-bending mental concept/point-of-reference that I need to wrap my head around now. Er... I suppose "context" was the word I was looking for.

OH, OH, OHMYGOD, so that rickshaw kid, apparently he runs a rickshaw business in Chicago so he brought it from home and runs a little business here, too. We saw him drive these four guys down our street, looked like a good workout.