Monday, November 16, 2009

College Killed My NaNo

Well, okay, it was a combination of a severe bout of a cold and the resulting exaustion that really killed my NaNo, but college did play its part. Suffice it to say that my would-be novel is now resting peacefully in the back of my conciousness, hopefully to be resurrected at a later date.

Sigh, and, a week and a half later, I'm still sick and my eyes still gunk up overnight . . . some residual side-effect of the pink eye that I alone (out of myself, Catey, and Alyssa O) seem to still have. Like I didn't have enough eye problems before! Oh well, I guess I just can't wear my contacts until I get my eyes properly checked out. It's not terrible, wearing my glasses, but it does make putting makeup on damn near impossible, what with me being blind as a bat and my only mirror firmly attached to the wall behind my rather large desk, preventing me from seeing what I'm doing. . . Oh well, sub-par makeup is better than permanant eye damage, right? Well that's poopy.

So, I guess I have four exams this week. . . I thought I only had two: Spanish and Teatre Appreciation, both on Tuesday. However, in reality, I have an additional two exams: Eastern Religions and Geology, both on Wednesday. So . . . I'm fucked, I guess. Well, not really. Those are all easy classes except for Spanish, and I have a good handle on them all except for Spanish and Geology (becasue I've missed like three geology classes due to sickness and other things). Also, this morning, while in Geology, getting ready to take a quiz, I spy my Eastern Religion syllabus, which is opened to the assignment page and lo and behold, our second reflection paper was due in less that two hours.

So, I took the quiz then skipped the rest of class, not entirely desirable since we would be reviewing for the upcoming exam, but whatever. I went back to my room and wrote an okay paper reflecting on the way Zen Buddhism is interpretted through modern popular culture. It sounds more scientific than it actually was, lol. My last paper was so much better, but whatever, I had had more than an hour and a half to write it. So I get to class, and we review for the exam, and he doesn't say anything about the papers, and I'm sitting there thinking "If he doesn't collect these I'm going to get so pissed!" But he did collect them, and about half the class didn't do them, which is understandable because he didn't remind us last time and really, who looks at the syllabus? Good thing I happened to glance at it. Perhaps someone is looking out for me? Or someone really wanted me to write a crappy paper about Zen in pop culture? Meh, probably not.

So now I am sitting in the lab on the third floor of the CCC killing time until Spanish, which will be yet another review class. Sigh. Boring, but necessary. Really, who gives a test that includes all of the preterite, the imperfect, the subjunctive, formal commands, and informal commands? Way too much to keep straight. (haha okay, the kid in front of me is playing some farm game on an Asian website and is petting cute little sheep! tee hee!)

Oh, and I just realized that I won't be able to say goodbye to Kory :( Sad. Well, I guess I'll say it here. Goodbye Kory! *hugs* Have fun in Twin Cities!

I think that's all I've got for now, toodles!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

At Work

So, right now I'm at work, I just made my Personal Quota Part 1 for the day (I do quotas in two parts now. . . yeah . . .) and there are only five or six people on this floor and no one is checking anything out and I have nothing to do! I fear lingering on the internet as I probably shouldn't be on here, but oh well, I'm bored.

So, last night my mom calls me and informs me that the weekend everyone is coming to Point (the 14th?) is when my parents, Jarid, and my Uncle Jeff and Aunt Lisa are going to celebrate Jarid's 21st birthday, which is on the 9th. This makes me sad, because I will miss out on the festivities. But oh well. Tis fine.

Oh, also, my mother said that one of the ladies from Chairs for Charity called and is going to mail me some copies of my poster for me to sign. Supposedly, people will be bidding for them at the auction! Yipes! I have a crappy signature though, so that's not cool. You need a long name (or at least, not a ridiculously short name like mine) to have a cool signature. Sigh. Oh well.

I think I'll do some microfiche now, as I can't seem to make myself write any more in my NaNo at the moment.

Toodles.

Edit: Oh, so I guess I just agreed to work an extra hour today from 4 till 5 to help somebody out. Why do I do these things? All I'm going to want to do then is take a nap! But I figured that Catey had choir anyway until 5:30 so whatever. Sigh. I really should be NaNoing! And I have a really hard psychology exam on Tuesday! AAAAAAAGH!

Monday, November 2, 2009

NaNo Time! A Quick Update!

Hey all! This is just a short little update/ disclaimer to tell everyone that I probably will not have much time this month, as it is National Novel Writing Month, for blogging. (As opposed, to Alyssa, who appears to be doing a NaNo log on her blog, I haven't seen it yet but I swear I will as soon as I've made my personal quota for the day!)

The only thing of interest lately in my life was this past weekend, where Kory, Catey, and I drove down to Madison to join up with Dana and Alyssa for some Halloween partying: Madison style. After a memorable Friday night (well, more memorable for me than for certain members of our party) we had a rather tame Halloween night due to dead parties and the cop infested Freakfest bringing the whole vibe down. Oh well, we stuck it to the man by sneaking Dana and Alyssa into out hotel room anyway. :P The photos are all up on Facebook; most of them hilarious! Though of course wall know what happens when you drink to much (coughCATEYcough)! Really though, it was a fun weekend, even with all the not-so-fun and slightly terrifying parts.

Oh! I wish I could see the pictures those Indian fellows took of us as we were waiting in the bus shelter to warm up. I'm so sad that I forgot his name :( Vashim? I don't know. Something with a V? Does anyone remember? Oh well, it doesn't matter anyway. Goodbye!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Kirby Rules!

So, last night was one of the highlights of my life . . . Okay not really but it was pretty amazing! So, as you may or may not know, sometimes Catey and I head over to Aaron's place to play the N64. Now, my favorite game we tend to play is Super Smash Bros. I would pretty much always be Kirby, Catey would be Link, and Aaron was usually Samus and we'd always have a fourth computer player and the game would usually go like this: First we take out the computer player, then Catey, then Aaron and I would dual to the death and he would always win with like three more lives left. (We play on stock mode; 10 stocks each.) Oh, and we always play the Sector Z stage. Well, last night things went a little bit differently.

First of all, Adam took Catey's place (we only have three controllers! but she watched :D) and picked Samus, so Aaron picked his second best, Mario. I picked Kirby as usual and I think the computer was DK for this round (maybe Captain Falcon? I don't know for sure.) So we start battling and I start out strong; I was actually in the lead for once! Then it all evened out as we decided to stop fighting eachother and team up on DK. Once the ape was finished, Aaron and Adam decided I was doing too well for my own good and began to team up on me. (I think we all had around three lives left at this point. ) But, try as they might, I still managed to kill Adam three times and Aaron twice while they only managed to kill me twice. Believe me, this part of the battle was epic! Two against one going all out with Slippy occasionally joining the fight, lol. Yet even with the double team I managed to dominate something fierce!

So, it was down to the wire. Me versus Aaron. Kirby versus Mario. One life left each. I was slightly ahead in the damage count and things were looking in favor of Aaron when suddenly, what should come to my aid but a Maximum Health Tomato? I quickly took advantage of the situation and went from around 146% damage down to 22% damage with Aaron still up in the hundreds. Then, after a few minutes, a mine falls from the sky and I pick it up and try to throw it at Aaron. However, I missed and instead it hit the ground behind him, just waiting to explode. With a quick B+up move (Kirby's little blue sword thing) I hit Mario and he goes flying backwards and land directly on top of the waiting mine. Victory was mine! After weeks of losing humiliatingly to Aaron I finally triumphed! I dominated! I ruled!

Okay so it wasn't as dramatic as all that but I was pretty excited! :P

Now, onto other things. Today I shall update you all on the happenings of that peuliar class called Eastern Religions. One of Those Girls (I dont' feel like typing it all out, lol) asked a grand total of 9 questions, 2 of which were absolutely WTF worthy (though the rest were random and not really pertaining to the subject we were talking about at the time.) These were:

"So, not to be inappropriate or anything, but with this whole Tantric tradition... [It's a Hindu and Buddhist religious practice involving disciplined sex that is meant to bring you in unity with God] You said there was a master that had to teach his disciples the practices so does that mean, like, there's some creepy old guy that watches you and instructs you while you ... do the dirty?"

Yes, she actually said 'do the dirty.'

The professor's response was basically, "Now, you're really generalizing and depreciating the whole point of tantra."

Then the professor went on to this rather beautiful, romantic explanation of how tantric sex is the ultimate union and is practiced or years how it could be emotionally dangerous if used wrong and how we don't appreciate the real value of sex in the West etc. During which One of Those Girls was basically giggling like a schoolgirl. Sigh. Kids these days.

The other WTF question was something much simpler and, perhaps, much worse in a sense.

"Now, two main aspects of this type of Buddhism are Compassion and Impermanence. Now, can anybody tell me what these two have in common?" The professor asks the class as he's writing on the board.

One of Those Girls raises her hand, "Wait, what does impermanence mean?"

The Professor then goes on, "You tell me, what does impermanence mean in the contexts of Buddhism? How does it relate to compassion?"

One of Those Grils replies, "No, I meant, like, what does the word impermanence mean?"

We are in college people.

Surprisingly it wasn't me who then barked, "The opposite of permanence!" (It was some girl in the back.)

This explanation, simple and clear as it was, was not enough for One of Those Girls and the Professor had to actually define permanence . . . then impermanence. The entire time I'm sitting there thinking Good Grief! By the end of the class the professor must have been thinking the same thing since he gave a really snippy answer to one of her last questions (I can't remember what he said though so I shan't try to recount it.) and actually ignored her last question and said whatever it was she could ask him after class.

Well, that's it. I have to go to lunch now. Goodbye!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Ugh: Story of a Girl

So I won't bore you all with the details of my day (since Catey has already blogged about that) but I would like to tell you all a little story about what happened after I left May Roach last night.

So, at around ten I get a call from Gretchen. She had left her keys in our room and was wondering if I was coming back anytime soon. Not quite ready to leave yet, I told her to come over to Roach and pick up my key. The deed was done, and I told her, specifically, to stay in our room and that I would call her so she could let me in the dorm (since it was past eight, you see.)

Well, the time came for me to head back (around eleven; I had an exam the next day to study for yet) so I give Gretchen a call...and it goes straight to voicemail. I call again two more times to the same effect...thinking that maybe she had accidentally turned it off or something. I walk back to Smith Hall and call again. Still straight to voicemail.

I get angry.

So, I'm standing outside in the cold, waiting around the front door like a creeper for some other fellow Smithians to let me in since apparently Gretchen had turned off her phone. Eventually some people did come and I snuck in behind them. Then, I trudge up the stairs to forth floor and try my door, thinking that Gretchen was inside, working on her art project like she said she would be. She's not. It's locked. WTF? I check the bathroom...she had just had dance practice, maybe she was showering? Nope. Not a single person in the bathroom either.

I get pissed.

Seeing that Gretchen was nowhere to be found, I trudged back down the stairs to the front desk so that they could get me back in my room. It took them forever (at least 15 minutes, I kid you not) because they were all laughing and shooting rubber bands at eachother. The one girl who had the key and was walking with me up the stairs to my room was saying "Oh, we don't normally do that. So-and-so is just hyped up on coffee."

"I'm sure," was my cold reply. I was seriously shaking, I was so livid.

So the girl opens my door, and I get inside and see my freaking keys laying on my desk.

I get fucking nuts.

I call my mom, whom I know very well is asleep at this hour, and start on a half-hour tirade. How could she be so stupid? How could she expect me to get in the locked room if she left my keys inside? How did she even expect me to get into the building? Why did she have her phone off, when I specifically told her that I would call her? She's a fucking retard! This is fucking ridiculous! I can't fucking stand her! (I feel rather horrible about disgracing my poor mother's ears with such cussing; I haven't said 'fuck' this much in many months, I'm sure.) I just went on and on about how stupid she was for doing this and how inconsiderate she was all the time and how ditzy she is and how all her little friends always come over asking for her when I'm trying to play my DS or read fanfiction or do homework and how she has never once even offered that I could hang out with her and her friends (not that I'd want to anyway! but still!) and how she must think so little of me and blah blah blah I felt like CAPSLOCK!Harry!

So then she comes back while I'm still on the phone with my mom, though I had calmed down quite a bit by this time, and, as usual, she's chatting coquettishly with some guy or another. Seriously, this girl is such a tease, and the guys just fall for her. It's so ridiculously unfair. So once she's done chatting up this guy she comes in and I've got my angry face on and she must have *sensed* the danger because she looks like a deer in the headlights.

So I, as calmly as I can, explain what happened, to which she replies, "Why didn't you call me?"
And I said, "Because you're phone was off!"
"No it wasn't!" Seriously, she looked like a lost, confused fawn.
"I called you five times, and it went straight to voicemail!"

Here she got out her phone and, lo and behold, it was actually on!

She was like, "Well, I was texting for a while so maybe that was it...."

Damn, fucking technology!

So then I apologized a bit and she apologized more and said that she would have stayed in the room but she had to go get her charcoals from Monica's room in Thompson and blah blah blah I'm so sorry blah blah blah. I'm still angry at this point and she still had yet to even start her latest art project and it was already midnight so I asked her, as politely as I could muster, if she would mind using a study room since I had and exam in the morning and needed to be up rather early. (Lol, though this morning she was up before me....whatever....I'm still tired as hell and I don't survive on energy drinks like she does.) She said sure, as if it were no big deal, yet her tone indicated that she didn't really want to, but too bad. She hadn't even started this rather massive charcoal perspective drawing and I knew it would take her hours; hours during which I wanted to sleep with the light off, for once.

So this morning, we didn't really talk, but then again we never do. It's weird. I don't think she's mad at me and I'm not really mad at her. She annoys the hell out of me and I'm sure I annoy her too, but we've managed to coexist so far without incident (besides the aforementioned one, obviuosly.) We're good with every aspect of sharing a room besides the fact that she locks herself out (at least biweekly!) and that she tends to stay up till three doing art. I know that I like to go to bed rather early, but trust me, I am much more pleasant that way. I get so fucking crabby when I don't sleep that it's scary, lol. So for my own sanity I'd like my sleeping patterns to be taken into consideration. I mean, when I get up earlier than her, I am always painfully careful to not wake her up. Gretchen? Nope. She just does whatever, including talking to people at the door and on the phone. Sigh. I know she isn't malicious, just ditzy and inconsiderate. Hopefully we'll work on all this though. I'm capable of compromise if she is.

Well anyway. /enddrama/endrant/endbutthurt/

P.S. I should mention that no matter how annoyed I get and how much I complain to Catey and Aaron, I don't hate Gretchen by any means. There are far worse roommates out there and I know it. I'm just extremely introverted so I need my recharge space, and when that is denied I get saucy, lol.

Ok /endrant/ for real this time. Next time, expect pictures! :D

Monday, October 5, 2009

WTF Question of the Day: Wanna Hug?

So I'm in Eastern Religions class, and we are discussing the Hindu preacher/saint/guru/whatever-term-you-want-to-use Amma, a woman who gives darsham by hugging people. Now, our professor has spent several months living in Amma's ashram in India, and thus has been hugged by this blessed lady many times. Thus, a (disturbing) conversation occurred that went something like this:

Random Classmate: So you've been hugged how many times?

Professor: By Amma? I'm not sure. She's hugged me quite a few times. It's like a blessing of redemption.

One of Those Two Girls Who Always Ask Stupid Questions, Waste Our Class Times, and Act Like They are Smarter than the Professor: So, does that mean that I could recieve her blessing by hugging you?

Professor: ...

Me:...

The Whole Class: ...

Professor: Um, no.


And there you have it. Things are getting just a little creepy these days.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

That Autumn Itch

October! The last month before November and the absolute madness that is NaNoWriMo! My fingers are itching to type! My mind is racing with possiblities! My characters are chattering excitedly in my head about finally being able to manifest themselves! My inner masochist is grinning with delight at the thought of writting 50,000 words this November on top of the usual college load! I'm scared stiff and it feels wonderful! lol

Speaking of being scared, October also means Halloween! This Halloween, we are contemplating a trip down to Madison for the infamous State Street romp; the pinnacle of college debouchary! I hope we end up going, because that would be so much fun, and I haven't dressed up for Halloween in ages! This year, I think I'd either do a zombie version of Marie Antoinette, a flapper, a turn of the century circus performer, or a fairy. Oh, the possibilites!

Well, that's pretty much all that's new with me. I'm home in Manty for the weekend and I have a couple of major exams coming up that I should be studying for...yikes! Oh well, I'm sure it'll be alright if I put a little effor into it. If being the operative word there, lol.

Well, toodles!